A possibly less controversial idea for a future beta

[Mysterious box]

Since we're going 3 characters at a time we have the potiental to avoid the issues having serveral character reworks over multiple years caused which is balancing the beginning with the end.

I feel Webber, Wurt, and Maxwell should get their skill trees at the same time I know people say this isn't a competitive game but these characters are often compared a lot so I feel the best way to handle them as the main follower cast is to design them side by side so they each have their own niches and no one feels like they're stepping on the other.

[Copyafriend]

I think thats a bit dangerous in a way.

it would lead to a lot of people pointing fingers and calling things unfair because the trees are inevitably going to be balanced differently. 
 

i think spacing them out will help people not compare them so directly. Though i agree that klei should try to keep each “follower” character in mind when designing the other ones, i think that it’s also necessary that they be designed differently.

[Mike23Ua]

Hear me out on this.. but a skill tree for Wendy where she can befriend Angry ghosts as followers which the more ghosts following her boost Abigail’s power.  

[Dr.Webber]

By the way what do you think Is the connection between woodie ,wormwood ,and Wolfgang that made them desire to give them there skill tree at the same time

also here’s my ideas on what to do with Webber 

but I feel like I should add something to lean more in to the whole being a monster thing what do you think I should add

maybe partial night vision  sense spiders walk around at night 

or maybe to the ability to sleep during the day because spiders sleep during the day

please give me your ideas 

[NNOUS]

39 minutes ago, Dr.Webber said:

please give me your ideas

ideas:
webber new abilitys tree:

- webber can climb up on tree to zoom out the camara even more and grant map visions. (cuz he is a child AND a spider) he can climb up tree to avoid hound attack (they wont lost hound's aggro but pig man might chop the tree to let him fall)

 

- webber can study other spider to learn they ability:

learning form dweller/warrior spider to learn jumping (1 tile? frogwebber coming real? jump to sea will make him drown) but cost hunger to do so

learning form spitter to can spit out sticky silk up on a mobs. cause it move slower by 50% (no damage) and cost hunger to do so

learning form cave spider can make webber to mitigate 1 attack form any mob. (only 1 time per day) (thicken shell)

learning form nurse spider to cause they heal mechanic become more effective. (+25%)?

learning form sea strider can make webber to ignore body collision form other spider ( no more creep blocking while have a spider army)

and basic webber reworks: BE FRIENDED SPIDER WILL FOLLOW TRAVEL THO CAVE/SURFACE klei give me it rightnow (jk

 

my philosophy about the skill tree is that the entire skill tree should letting some character do extra things as perks. It's shouldn't be able to patch their downside, as it is supposed to be embedded inside the character. 

[Mysterious box]

6 hours ago, Copyafriend said:

I think thats a bit dangerous in a way.

it would lead to a lot of people pointing fingers and calling things unfair because the trees are inevitably going to be balanced differently. 

I'd be fine with that if them being compared directly was avoidable but I don't think it's realistically possible with characters so similar in their niche. My goal is not to avoid it but to make sure people don't make suggestions to hold back whoever comes first and avoid the last one to be touched becoming the far superior option. While they all have different backrounds there's a limit to what you can do with followers and I'm sure their followers will be touched in some way even if it mainly focuses on personal skills.

[Yuuko]

I hope they focus on designing the trees in a way that allows them to basically drop in a balance patch on a character quicker and easier.  Make these levers they can tweak as they go.  One of the main problems of the initial run through of refreshes was that the early ones barely touched the characters, while the last ones were really swinging for the fences.

I think that is the real problem of them doing the follower characters spread out.  They'll take the lessons learned from the first one and apply it to the second, and lessons from that to the third making the last one really great but never coming back to touch up the initial passes...

[Dr.Webber]

1 hour ago, NNOUS said:

learning form sea strider can make webber to ignore body collision form other spider ( no more creep blocking while have a spider army)

What does this mean 

[Creatorofswamps]

2 hours ago, Dr.Webber said:

maybe partial night vision  sense spiders walk around at night 

No

[Dr.Webber]

Just now, Creatorofswamps said:

No

Why

[NNOUS]

5 minutes ago, Dr.Webber said:

What does this mean 

Body blocking refers to one character impeding the movement of another in the game, essentially acting like a wall that cannot be ran through until the character moves or dies. its happen very offen when u have a gaint spider army. or sometime as wurt u are stucked with many merms.

[D_Good_Fellow]

50 minutes ago, Shosuko said:

I think that is the real problem of them doing the follower characters spread out.  They'll take the lessons learned from the first one and apply it to the second, and lessons from that to the third making the last one really great but never coming back to touch up the initial passes...

Arguably we're already seeing this with the "Wilson has been made redundant" arguments. It's only the second round of skill trees and people already feel like the first one has been left behind; and it does look like if Wilson remains untouched he will almost certainly be the weakest non-Wes survivor once the skill trees have been finished. I don't personally see that as a big deal (that's more or less where Wilson stood initially), but it does demonstrate the inherent obsolescence of buffing these characters one at a time. Three-at-a-time will definitely help with that, but like you said Klei will still have learned some tricks by the last skill tree that they wished they had applied to the first.

[Dr.Webber]

4 minutes ago, NNOUS said:

Body blocking refers to one character impeding the movement of another in the game, essentially acting like a wall that cannot be ran through until the character moves or dies. its happen very offen when u have a gaint spider army. or sometime as wurt u are stucked with many merms.

I feel like that’s more of a game play problem what if instead the striders teach Webber how to be more Buoyant on water you know give the same thing wurt has or at least or at least decrease the toll of falling into the water

2 hours ago, NNOUS said:

webber can climb up on tree to zoom out the camara even more and grant map visions. (cuz he is a child AND a spider) he can climb up tree to avoid hound attack (they wont lost hound's aggro but pig man might chop the tree to let him fall)

 

Being able to climb trees doesn’t seem fitting with the game but the connection with him being a spider  and a child was beautiful do you have any   alternatives  

2 hours ago, NNOUS said:

ideas:
webber new abilitys tree:

- webber can climb up on tree to zoom out the camara even more and grant map visions. (cuz he is a child AND a spider) he can climb up tree to avoid hound attack (they wont lost hound's aggro but pig man might chop the tree to let him fall)

 

- webber can study other spider to learn they ability:

learning form dweller/warrior spider to learn jumping (1 tile? frogwebber coming real? jump to sea will make him drown) but cost hunger to do so

learning form spitter to can spit out sticky silk up on a mobs. cause it move slower by 50% (no damage) and cost hunger to do so

learning form cave spider can make webber to mitigate 1 attack form any mob. (only 1 time per day) (thicken shell)

learning form nurse spider to cause they heal mechanic become more effective. (+25%)?

learning form sea strider can make webber to ignore body collision form other spider ( no more creep blocking while have a spider army)

and basic webber reworks: BE FRIENDED SPIDER WILL FOLLOW TRAVEL THO CAVE/SURFACE klei give me it rightnow (jk

 

my philosophy about the skill tree is that the entire skill tree should letting some character do extra things as perks. It's shouldn't be able to patch their downside, as it is supposed to be embedded inside the character. 

What if he learns from normal spiders how to  bite like a spider where he every once in a while he will bite inside of punching or if he doesn’t learn anything from normal spiders have it be an unrelated ability 

[n.apollyon]

3 hours ago, Dr.Webber said:

what do you think Is the connection between woodie ,wormwood ,and Wolfgang

Woodie had lots of complaints because of full moon transformations, especially since Wicker can easily summon the moon, so putting him on priority was obvious.

Wormwood on complaints about his lack of lunar interaction since he is the first canon lunar character.

Wolfgang probably to address the complaints on not scaling well with the new gears especially since his main role is to deal damage. Wanda has similar level of complaints too but I'll get as to why Wolfgang first in a bit. 

 

Aside from those three starting with "Wo-" and being the male gender, they also seem to be more lunar aligned:

Woodie because of his transformations and the mutations in the constant are caused by Alter.

Wormwood is literally a mutated plant given sentience.

Wolfgang is afraid of the dark and his nightmares. Sure its the shadows and the deal with Maxwell which gave him his strength and mightiness but it doesn't change the fact that he is still afraid of them. By embracing the lunar power he might feel like having the power conquer those fears, although not knowing that more eldritch abominations will come from siding with Alter.

 

Why Wolfgang first than Wanda? The rifts arc started with the lunar side and as I enumerated, Wolfgang is likely to side with the moon. The next set will definitely be more on shadow aligned characters. You could argue the Wanda is like Wolfgang story wise, their power comes from shadows and they're fighting against them. But Wanda is more inclined with the shadows side, even calling nightmare fuel as a necessary evil. She uses shadow crafts to have control over time and it's the only thing that allows her to stay alive. Her skill tree would definitely be more watches. She could have a skill tree thats purely shadow aligned like how Wormwood is exclusively lunar. 

[Dr.Webber]

13 minutes ago, n.apollyon said:

Woodie had lots of complaints because of full moon transformations, especially since Wicker can easily summon the moon, so putting him on priority was obvious.

Wormwood on complaints about his lack of lunar interaction since he is the first canon lunar character.

Wolfgang probably to address the complaints on not scaling well with the new gears especially since his main role is to deal damage. Wanda has similar level of complaints too but I'll get as to why Wolfgang first in a bit. 

 

Aside from those three starting with "Wo-" and being the male gender, they also seem to be more lunar aligned:

Woodie because of his transformations and the mutations in the constant are caused by Alter.

Wormwood is literally a mutated plant given sentience.

Wolfgang is afraid of the dark and his nightmares. Sure its the shadows and the deal with Maxwell which gave him his strength and mightiness but it doesn't change the fact that he is still afraid of them. By embracing the lunar power he might feel like having the power conquer those fears, although not knowing that more eldritch abominations will come from siding with Alter.

 

Why Wolfgang first than Wanda? The rifts arc started with the lunar side and as I enumerated, Wolfgang is likely to side with the moon. The next set will definitely be more on shadow aligned characters. You could argue the Wanda is like Wolfgang story wise, their power comes from shadows and they're fighting against them. But Wanda is more inclined with the shadows side, even calling nightmare fuel as a necessary evil. She uses shadow crafts to have control over time and it's the only thing that allows her to stay alive. Her skill tree would definitely be more watches. She could have a skill tree thats purely shadow aligned like how Wormwood is exclusively lunar. 

Thanks

yeah they’ll probably do Maxwell, Wanda, Winona next 

[n.apollyon]

20 minutes ago, Dr.Webber said:

Maxwell, Wanda, Winona

Hmm Willow would definitely be on the next batch since she is more shadow inclined and Bernie needs some fixes since he can't be used on lunar/enlightened areas.

I think its too soon for Maxwell to be getting another "rework" again but he's had a lot of secret exchanges with Charlie on the animations so who knows what they are planning.

Maybe Walter, he's received a lot of complaints too and he is on the cover with Willow looking into the shadow rifts.

My guess for the next trio would be Willow, Walter, Wanda

[Copyafriend]

I think people are thinking too hard about why these characters are grouped together.

they likely just chose characters that they already had a good idea of how to take them. 

its possible that they will group together thematically appropriate survivors, but more likely its going to be effectively random as they go with the ones they have the best ideas for and work towards the ones they need to think about more

[Oyrx]

I hope webber can get webbed turf