Skills without the trees

[BezKa]

Let's be honest here- you don't care about the skill trees. You only care about the skills, and this is where we agree, the skills themselves are pretty cool.  

What we don't agree on, is that afking and then having free powers is good game design. And since people somehow refuse to imagine all the different ways this whole "more power for lategame" could have been handled, I sat down with my friends for a bit and we came up with some stuff, just to stir your imagination.  

None of this is balanced. We tried at least a bit to decide what should be locked behind lategame and what should be available from the start, but we did not sit by our desks for 8 hours and plan this out. The point was to make you rethink if clicking an icon on a panel is the most fun and engaging way to receive a new toy to play with.

Without further ado, here's some ideas for Woodie's skills, with the stupid skill tree removed. Not all of them, but some.  

Longer curse duration: to expand your curse duration, Woodie can grab some lunar glass and a were idol of his choice, stand by the pottery wheel and make a little figure representing the wereform out of glass. This can be limited by the world to only one form (the other figure will shatter if you make a new one) or if you think that's nerfing it then all 3 can exist in the world. + Hey, new statues!

Don't be hungry after transforming back: just pop your were idol in the crockpot with 3 pieces of meat. Make sure it's not monster meat though. Beefy totem, yum.

General wereform upgrades like speed or health: those are always active if there's a moonstorm on your map, or an active max level rift.

Beaver tail slap: can be used only when your were meter is above a certain percentage. Refill your were meter by eating logs and living logs.

Moose power: insert a gem into your totem to give yourself the ability related to it: red for revival, blue for freezing enemies that hit you, yellow for light, green for making structures you bump into not take damage from charging etc etc

Goose flight power: is available if you have feathers in your inventory. The more variety, the less were meter flying consumes.

Woodworking (the helmet and cane) are early game skills and should be just part of Woodie's kit, or not included at all.

(This one is a bit out there but I wanted to give some shadow related skills too) Give a dark tatter to Lucy so she can wear it as a cape. She now drains sanity in exchange for the new types of damage or something like that. Has durability, so remember to give her a new one every now and then.

Feel free to make your own suggestions. DST is a game with endless potential and it's super lame when it's wasted on skill trees.

[Trevindo]

13 minutes ago, BezKa said:

Let's be honest here- you don't care about the skill trees. You only care about the skills, and this is where we agree, the skills themselves are pretty cool.  

You really didn't understand anything, did you?

The reason for skill trees is that on multiplayer servers, players can play the same character as others in different ways, according to their play styles. Wormwood players can opt for the tree to be resource generators for the base as they go into combat. Woodie can choose whether he wants to prioritize combat, gathering or exploration, the tree provides advantages that benefit different strategies that a simple character improvement would not bring. So yes, many here enjoyed the skill tree upgrade.

[Kelloggs Dogfry]

I’ve been tossing the idea around in my head, and I definitely think I agree that a skill tree that just requires waiting for a certain amount of time once is incredibly bland. I don’t think I’m a huge fan of the skills either, particularly ones that remove things they took effort to make like removing the gym minigame, but I think they have potential to be cool. If they even want to straight up use a tree, that’s fine, but I definitely think they should integrate it in a way where there are hints on how to unlock the abilities and you perform actions in the world to get them. Still forcing you to pick and choose between different ones and locking you out of others. I think that most (especially alignment perks) should be reset per world, but maybe that’s a hot take. (Also flesh out the actual alignment part more please)

[MadMatt]

A lot of this seems tedious to implement and play with. Sometimes simplicity is king and the skill trees allow a way to implement non-base mechanics in an intuitive and non-intrusive way. Also what Trevindo said having variety among duplicate characters is pretty awesome.

[Master_NiX]

11 minutes ago, MadMatt said:

A lot of this seems tedious to implement and play with. Sometimes simplicity is king and the skill trees allow a way to implement non-base mechanics in an intuitive and non-intrusive way. Also what Trevindo said having variety among duplicate characters is pretty awesome.

I mean, The only Variety seems to be linked to Moon and Shadows in most cases.
I do have to admit, that Normal Wolfgang being the GYM Trainer is an interesting concept. I feel like not many people are gonna use it compared to Wigfrid's Singing, but hey, that's a start.

[BezKa]

31 minutes ago, Trevindo said:

can play the same character as others in different ways, according to their play styles.

You already can do that though... It's sandbox. You can rush anything you want, pick any gear you prefer. That is like, one of the most basic concepts of Don't Starve. You play how you want to, and you never needed skill trees before.

36 minutes ago, MadMatt said:

A lot of this seems tedious to implement and play with.

Then come up with better ways! That's the beauty, you probably can find a way to implement them better, better than my ideas, better than with skill trees. If any of the forumers can, so can the devs.

 

[Baark0]

Really annoying how people are saying you should just use console commands to skip the whole insight point, it's like complaining the bosses are too easy when you enabled super god mode, like yeah no ****, you're using cheats the game wasn't designed around.

[BezKa]

1 minute ago, Baark0 said:

Really annoying how people are saying you should just use console commands to skip the whole insight point, it's like complaining the bosses are too easy when you enabled super god mode, like yeah no ****, you're using cheats the game wasn't designed around.

no one's said anything about using cheats. I got my points for Wilson fair and square, by sitting by a firepit and doing nothing most of the time. Big achievement to get rewarded for, wow.

 

[flamboyant wolf]

6 minutes ago, BezKa said:

no one's said anything about using cheats. I got my points for Wilson fair and square, by sitting by a firepit and doing nothing most of the time. Big achievement to get rewarded for, wow.

 

so... how exactly is it the game's fault that you chose to do nothing?

could've easily just... play the game. 

[BezKa]

4 minutes ago, skile said:

so... how exactly is it the game's fault that you chose to do nothing?

could've easily just... play the game. 

I played the game plenty. I just didn't have to actually play to get rewarded with skill points, which makes them basically free.

[HowlVoid]

I think the skill trees add a little bit of variety in who you come across. A touch of personality.

Though I will agree the way to get points is tedious. 

Maybe they can add objectives for each character, chop 30 trees as woody +1skill point, grow 10 crops as wormwood +1 skill point, etc. Then you're playing the game but with some goals in mind and it would probably be faster too than a very long arbitrary period of time.

[flamboyant wolf]

7 minutes ago, BezKa said:

I played the game plenty. I just didn't have to actually play to get rewarded with skill points, which makes them basically free.

mhm, I guess that is a fair point. Certainly wouldn't hurt if the way to aquire points was more involved. 

[Dextops]

6 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

grow 10 crops as wormwood +1 skill point,

Sending wormwood back to the farms

[HowlVoid]

1 minute ago, Dextops said:

Sending wormwood back to the farms

I have become what I hate.

I was looking at it from a developer perspective and completely forgor.

[BezKa]

1 hour ago, HowlVoid said:

A touch of personality.

You never needed skill trees to do that before. Why is it necessary now?

[HowlVoid]

Just now, BezKa said:

You never needed skill trees to do that before. Why is it necessary now?

No one really talks in pubs... At least I can see what someone is more inclined towards by seeing what skills they choose. 

I'm excited to see in all the different manor of ways people play this game!

[BezKa]

Just now, HowlVoid said:

 

I'm excited to see in all the different manor of ways people play this game!

Isn't that what choosing a character was for? I'm sorry but I literally don't understand. Nothing ever stopped you from being a farmer Wendy. Or to rush bosses as Woodie. Or using items that work better with your playstyle.

I wrote down all these ideas, with the intention of showing that gaining certain abilities can be more interesting than a skill tree, but not all of them must be allowed at once if that's what devs are trying to do. It could be possible to make the skills acquirable in-game which will block your access to other skills. But, wouldn't it be more logical to make the price for getting new abilities fun and time consuming enough to essentially make you choose what path you will go?

I think those should work like early game does. You can go to the ruins, to get useful gear. You can focus on making your base safe and self sustainable. You can go to the ocean and rush the CC task line. If you do some of it, by simple fact that time is linear, you can't do the other. But as you get later in game, and you gain more free time (eyebrella protects you from heat and rain, so you don't have to spend time regulating your temperature or picking up your tools) which means you can do more. I think characters should work the same- where you have to choose which way to go this time, and by virtue of choice some things become unavailable. You can change your mind in the middle too. And then, as you get more time, you can use more. Some characters already work this way. Wigfrid can choose which songs to seek out if any. Wormwood can prioritize dark sword manufacturing so he will focus on getting healing/revival items. As he gets more time, he'll get the infinity bloom going because he can afford to. The entirety of WX's character is about picking their abilities, and they never needed a skill tree to do it.

I think this makes player personality shine way more than locking them out of content or enabling them to ignore certain mechanics for free. I think this makes DST a more fun, more beautiful game.

[Cheggf]

3 hours ago, Trevindo said:

The reason for skill trees is that on multiplayer servers, players can play the same character as others in different ways, according to their play styles.

You can do this without skill trees. You inherently do it automatically by just playing them differently. 

19 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

No one really talks in pubs... At least I can see what someone is more inclined towards by seeing what skills they choose. 

Yeah you can't gather any information about them at all from the character they choose. The real information is the minute differences in the skill trees that they pick. The skill trees which are entirely unnoticeable without you inspecting them.

19 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

I'm excited to see in all the different manor of ways people play this game!

Clicking on a skill tree is not a way of playing the game. Playing the game is playing the game. You always have and always will be able to watch other people play by watching them play. I don't know why you're even pretending like seeing the few small differences in people's skill trees is going to be this huge psychological evaluation on them with monumental discoveries. 

[HowlVoid]

40 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

 

Clicking on a skill tree is not a way of playing the game. Playing the game is playing the game. You always have and always will be able to watch other people play by watching them play.

Different ways in which people will be looking to optimize their skill trees with their playstyles. It's actually not that deep.

40 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

I don't know why you're even pretending like seeing the few small differences in people's skill trees is going to be this huge psychological evaluation on them with monumental discoveries. 

Bruh, it was a single sentence (you're quoting). 

43 minutes ago, BezKa said:

 

It's actually not that deep, I will just be having fun seeing what skills people pick that's all.

[YouKnowWho]

it seems to me you think the way players gain inspiration is more the problem than the skill tree system itself. I personally think having to learn all these complicated things would feel very intimidating to new players

[BezKa]

1 minute ago, YouKnowWho said:

it seems to me you think the way you gain inspiration is what is actually the problem. having to learn all these complicated things would feel very intimidating to new players

I'll be direct with you. I do not care. This is not supposed to be for new players. Characters already have skills and abilities that are easy to access and free by the virtue of being character traits. New players should learn those first, instead of being swarmed by a skill tree full of information they won't understand at first anyway. If some more complicated stuff is hidden or unlocked through CC, doesn't that actually make learning the game easier by lessening the information load?

I am getting honestly dizzy. Because the argument changes from "it's late game it's supposed to be overpowered" to "think about the --children-- new players" on a whim.

[Trevindo]

 

Within a game of character choices, it is common to have the characteristics that make up the designer and the mechanics that reflect these designers. For example Wormwood is a plant of lunar origin (designers), which has certain advantages around the creation of crops (mechanics). You can take a character and do something that wasn't intended to be their core mechanic, but that doesn't just depend on will, we play a multiplayer survival game where favorable mechanics are selected from those that are not. Being able to build "exclusive" advantages to our style of play is something very fun to have, it's no wonder that some games, not just MMOs, LOL is an example that adds rune pages, Project Zomboid which is a realistic survival game as well use...

1 hour ago, BezKa said:

I'll be direct with you. I do not care. This is not supposed to be for new players.

The point here is simple, you said it yourself, you don't care about new players and you make a point of occupying our time with this discussion and its drama that obviously will go nowhere. You just don't understand that it's unlikely that Klei will go back on this, revisions of mechanics are possible, but what you are wanting is that they delete the contents of more than a month of work, completely ignoring the opinion that most people of the forum(≈75%) were in favor of this update, as the forum is made up of older players. I'm done with all this drama and this will probably be the last time I comment on this thread.

[BezKa]

6 minutes ago, Trevindo said:

You just don't understand that it's unlikely that Klei will go back on this

No. I understand this perfectly, and it makes me want to do things to myself. That's why I'm fighting tooth and nail for as long as I can, for the slightest sliver of hope that I can somehow keep something I love from getting murdered. Even though I know it's pointless. But I will not forgive myself if I don't do my darn best while I still can.

 

And I do care about new players. I want them to have the brutal, unforgiving experience this game was created for. No handholding, no guides beyond simple hints.

Klei don't want that anymore though, and I tried to accept it but it's getting hard when content for old players suffers because new players need to be babied.

[Dragonboooorn]

27 minutes ago, BezKa said:

And I do care about new players. I want them to have the brutal, unforgiving experience this game was created for. No handholding, no guides beyond simple hints.

Mate, youre on a wrong forum

I hate how DST went from hard uncompromising game it was to whatever the heck it is now (I honestly no idea what this game is now, but its not a good survival game for sure)

All you can do is accept that this game is about casual mega basing and everything comes with it, and dont lisen to  sugar coated Kleis promises － They  hit for popularity, casual players and what not. Making game more about survival isnt in their plans

[BezKa]

4 minutes ago, Dragonboooorn said:

Making game more about survival isnt in their plans

I know that. But I thought they wouldn't break what they already have. I was able to accept things at the level they were at before Wilson's rework, but ever since that happened everything has been just snowballing right off the cliff. I just want my game back.