My two main problems with skill trees and how I'd fix them

[Tortoise Guy]

  Although the decision to give more characters skill trees has divided the community, most people seem to agree that if done correctly, this feature has great potential! The latest beta has been a good example of how skill trees can positively impact the game, especially in Woodie's case. Still, in my opinion there are 2 fundamental problems with skill trees, those being:

Problem 1: The way you acquire insight
  Currently, the only way to acquire insight points is by simply surviving a certain number of days. While this initially seems to be a good mechanic given that DST is a survival game, it mostly fails at doing the thing it aspires to do: encourage new players to experiment with the game. 
  While the addition of affinities does help with sparking new players' curiosity, the fact that the only way to obtain insight points is by surviving scares off new players from actually trying to accomplish interesting, but dangerous things by rewarding them for simply surviving instead of engaging with other features of the game such as defeating bosses or exploring. Not only that, but the way the system works also disadvantages more experienced players as, by the time they actually unlock the all skills they want, chances are they would have already accomplished most of the things they set out to do.
   How I'd fix it: First of all, I'd like to acknowledge that I am not a game designer and that Klei could probably come up with something better than me, heck, if any of y'all have better ideas, feel free to reply with them, that's always helpful.
  So anyway, the way I'd fix it is by keeping the survival-based acquiring of insight points, but also adding a sort of "quest based system" (in heavy quotations). What I mean by this is that, while a player could get their next insight point by simply surviving, they could obtain that point early by doing a task (the tasks I'm about to list are only examples, I'm sure others can come up with some better ones):
  -Prototype your first item at an alchemy engine
  -Defeat a raid boss
  -Craft your first item at an ancient pseudoscience station
  -Craft your first item at a lunar altar
  -Trade with the Queen of the Moon Quay for the first time
  -etc
  Something incredibly important is that the specifics of the quests should remain hidden to the player, that way they'd have to discover them on their own by simply experimenting with the game. However, the game should hint at the fact that there are way to speed up insight point collection, perhaps have a loading screen tip along the lines of "The more feats you accomplish while surviving in The Constant, the quicker you will gain insight for your characters".
  This would not only help new players by encouraging them to explore the world on their own and take on different challenges, but would also let experienced players obtain insight points by actually doing interesting things instead of simply waiting around.
   Also, yes I know similar ideas have been suggested before, but I wanted to give my own two cents on the matter.


   Problem 2: The celestial portal: 
  I admit that this problem is definitely not as significant as the first one, still, I think it merits mentioning. The celestial portal has been a more or less controversial addition ever since it's been added due to how easily it lets you switch characters. While I do think it is a good compromise for character switching, due to the two methods from DS not really translating well to the multiplayer environment of DST, the main issue with it is it's incredibly cheap price, as purple gems are incredibly easy to acquire in mass after the first in-game year.
  The portal becomes even more of a balancing issue when taking into account skill trees, as it eliminates the strategic decision to save insight points for the late game. For example, Wolfgang has gained skills that buff his planar damage, which are quite useful once the rifts are activated, but a complete waste of points before that. In theory, this would have players making a choice: "Do I spend my points on skills now and have less late-game viability, or do I keep them unspent so I can get higher planar damage later?". However, due to the celestial portal allowing you to change your skills around for the incredibly low price of one moon rock and one purple gem, that choice is completely invalidated, as it allows you to simply change your spent skills around once the rifts are activated.
  How I'd fix it: I feel like the solution is quite obvious, simply increase the price of accessing the celestial portal, the question is: What will the new price be? 
   My idea is to change the price from one moon rock and one purple gem, to two moon rock and one iredescent gem. This would work both gameplay-wise and thematically. Not only does the iredescent gem have a more significant connection to lunar magic than purple ones, but it would also make character switching a significantly more costly endeavor, while still being relatively accessible. This would also be an indirect buff to Wilson due to his ability to transmute iredescent gems.
  If anyone has a different idea for the potential cost of character switching, feel free to, again, leave a reply down below, more ideas are always welcome!

  In conclusion, the skill tree's biggest issues in my opinion are quite easily solvable with a few balance tweaks here and there to insight points and the celestial portal. So yeah.

[Xenomorph4053]

My opinion is that each character should get points in a different way:

For Wilson, simply surviving could be fine since he's supposed to be the beginner character

For Woodie, give him a skill point for each new tree type he cuts down, (there's 22 non event trees in DST)

For Wolfgang, give him a skill point for each new boss he kills

For Wormwood, give him a skill point for each of the 14 mega crops in the game, plus 1 more for growing all 14 on a server.

[lggy]

I ain't reading allat

[Tortoise Guy]

1: insight is boring to get, let characters get insight by doing hidden tasks like beating bosses, crafting their first item at a pseudoscience station, etc
2: increase the cost of the lunar idol to 2 moonstone and 1 iredescent gem to make changing your skills around more costly

[gamehun20]

1 hour ago, Tortoise Guy said:

2: increase the cost of the lunar idol to 2 moonstone and 1 iredescent gem to make changing your skills around more costly

That is just way too much just because you want to stop people from changing skills. What if people just want to switch characters because they don't enjoy their current one? then they have to do the whole moon stone event and then deconstruct the staff which would be a pain to do if they got wes as a starter because they clicked random character. There should be a timer on switching characters instead or just the reset of skill trees.

[Mysterious box]

2 minutes ago, gamehun20 said:

That is just way too much just because you want to stop people from changing skills. What if people just want to switch characters because they don't enjoy their current one? then they have to do the whole moon stone event and then deconstruct the staff which would be a pain to do if they got wes as a starter because they clicked random character. There should be a timer on switching characters instead or just the reset of skill trees.

honestly nothing short of removing it is going to make the skill trees feel like a commitment so I agree there's no point in upping the cost characters with crafts will simply be used as they always have.

People will swap to Woodie and craft a bunch of tree guard idols, swap to wormwood and craft all his plant crafts and then move back to the character or build of theirs they want that doesn't waste points on crafts. I also imagine Woodie players will swap between moose and beaver's final perk depending whether they're fighting or gathering.

[SullyD]

2 hours ago, Tortoise Guy said:

The celestial portal has been a more or less controversial addition ever since it's been added due to how easily it lets you switch characters.

Ok I stopped reading here, it's amazing how every time someone sees a problem in changing characters. Each one plays the way they want, the mechanics of switching is healthy for the game, if you do not like it, do not switch characters in your world, simple. Stop crying, for the love of God.

[Tortoise Guy]

49 minutes ago, gamehun20 said:

That is just way too much just because you want to stop people from changing skills. What if people just want to switch characters because they don't enjoy their current one? then they have to do the whole moon stone event and then deconstruct the staff which would be a pain to do if they got wes as a starter because they clicked random character. There should be a timer on switching characters instead or just the reset of skill trees.

  I partially agree. I feel like, unless you're relatively new at the game, you'll usually make worlds specifically to play them as a certain character, so there's not much point in switching in said worlds. And if you are new, you won't find out about character switching for a while, so it really doesn't impact the people who simply didn't know any better when picking characters. However, as I said, it's really not as big a problem as the insight collection so I don't think it's truly necessary to change the cost. I do like the idea of a timer on switching characters and resetting the character's insight, this it's probably a better solution than what I came up with lol, but as I said, I'm open to ideas.

TL;DR: I don't think my solution would be a problem too often, but I also consider your proposition to be overall better

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, gamehun20 said:

just the reset of skill trees

This would be the best solution to avoid people abusing the skill trees but while I don't really use the portal even I would probably hate a change like this.

[Tortoise Guy]

4 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

This would be the best solution to avoid people abusing the skill trees but while I don't really use the portal even I would probably hate a change like this.

  Tbh if you're at the point where you're building the portal to switch your skills around, you can pretty easily get them a second time

[Mysterious box]

Just now, Tortoise Guy said:

  Tbh if you're at the point where you're building the portal to switch your skills around, you can pretty easily get them a second time

I'm saying this under the assumption that all insight was removed on character swap and it was still timer based.

[twitchgabo]

2 hours ago, Xenomorph4053 said:

My opinion is that each character should get points in a different way:

For Wilson, simply surviving could be fine since he's supposed to be the beginner character

For Woodie, give him a skill point for each new tree type he cuts down, (there's 22 non event trees in DST)

For Wolfgang, give him a skill point for each new boss he kills

For Wormwood, give him a skill point for each of the 14 mega crops in the game, plus 1 more for growing all 14 on a server.

It would be so fun if each character have a "hidden" quest. I'd love that.

[HowlVoid]

3 hours ago, Xenomorph4053 said:

 

For Wormwood, give him a skill point for each of the 14 mega crops in the game, plus 1 more for growing all 14 on a server.

Not mega crops, that's not as easy as cutting down 22 different trees. Why you do this to me.

Let him interact with some of the plant life, there's mushgnomes, lureplants, carrats, noodlemanneds, etc.

Farming shouldn't be 100% of the focus.

[GodIess]

Just give the characters their specialization.
Woody gets points by cutting down trees and planting cones, rare trees will give more points.
Wormwood will receive points by tending to beds and other plants.
Wilson gets points just by surviving
Wickerbottom gets points by reading books
Wolfgang earns points by playing sports
Wigfrid gets points by killing mobs
Winona crafting items
Wes blowing up balls and making different objects out of them
Webber for taming spiders, new spiders will give more points
Wortox for collecting souls and healing the team
Warta gets points for creating mermes and various interactions with them
Wendy for helping the little ghosts, using potions and killing targets with her sister.
Wanda for resurrecting players, creating portals, and various shadow weapons
Maxwell for summoning his clones and if they do something he gets points. Kill someone 10 points cut down a tree 1 point and so on
Willow gets points for starting fires, working with shadows, and putting out fires
Walter telling stories and using a slingshot, expensive projectiles give more points

[Valase]

3 hours ago, Tortoise Guy said:

-Prototype your first item at an alchemy engine
-Craft your first item at an ancient pseudoscience station
-Craft your first item at a lunar altar

I really like the Idea of crafting items on different research stations, but even if you count every (non festive) one, you'd get around ~14 points of insight (Actually, I believe that now there are enough stations).

We could also go the terraria route by getting one or two points by examining itens.

But by bosses it's something more different as people do play the game a really different paces. (The non seasonal bosses that I defeat on the first year are Eye, minotaur and maybe Twins while some people defeat all of them).

[abrocator]

The problem with this is that doing things should be intrinsically rewarding. Meaning here that you should be motivated to get boss drops so that you can kill another boss (lol) or things like that. Getting Insight for killing, say, Toadstool, goes against that.

And if no one is motivated to kill for example Crab King then they should improve the loot.

I think Insight/Experience is the wrong idea for this game anyway. But I think day count is better since it’s just simpler.

[goatt]

Has anyone played achievement and level system mod?

[Tortoise Guy]

3 hours ago, Valase said:

I really like the Idea of crafting items on different research stations, but even if you count every (non festive) one, you'd get around ~14 points of insight (Actually, I believe that now there are enough stations).

We could also go the terraria route by getting one or two points by examining itens.

But by bosses it's something more different as people do play the game a really different paces. (The non seasonal bosses that I defeat on the first year are Eye, minotaur and maybe Twins while some people defeat all of them).

Oh, I don't think each station should get onw, just the three I mentioned, as they all basically act as milestones: the alchemy engine for starting your base, the pseudoscience station for finding the ruins and the altar for finding the lunar island. Having one for each station would be too much, ad you said

[Valase]

4 minutes ago, Tortoise Guy said:

Oh, I don't think each station should get onw, just the three I mentioned, as they all basically act as milestones: the alchemy engine for starting your base, the pseudoscience station for finding the ruins and the altar for finding the lunar island. Having one for each station would be too much, ad you said

But the others research stations also are quite some milestones.

Maybe it should not be tied to the research station itself, but to the knowledge required to make said Item (so making any item from that tier works even if you got that from a random blueprint), that way the points can be "per world" and balanced around it (Wilson can keep the points between worlds as his perk) as it also rewards exploring.

for example some broken altars are not guarded, but the completed ruins altar always have two bishops and a lot of nightmare lights, so when you craft an amulet, you'd get a point for discovering a broken altar, and when you craft the armor, you get another for "conquering" a full altar. And yes, you can repair the broken ones, but it requires even more thullecite which usually means that you explored the ruins even more.

So you would be able to get:

-6 points from the surface (basic knowledge, science, alchemy, magic 1, magic 2, boating);

-3 points from the ocean (Pearl, lunar altar, that thing that makes fish lures);

-3 from the caves (broken altar, full altar, one of the archives blueprint);

-2 from after the guardians fight (lunar furnace, shadow table);

So there is only one left, maybe one of the characters specific items?

 

[gamehun20]

7 hours ago, Valase said:

requires even more thullecite which usually means that you explored the ruins even more

Or just stole it from the archive

[LavenderLillie]

15 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

Not mega crops, that's not as easy as cutting down 22 different trees. Why you do this to me.

Let him interact with some of the plant life, there's mushgnomes, lureplants, carrats, noodlemanneds, etc.

Farming shouldn't be 100% of the focus.

I mean, I think it would be interesting for giant crops to be an option, but to have different options in addition to giant crops.
Maybe growing a new type of mushroom in a mushroom planter gives Insight, or transplanting a new resource (berries [regular and juicy], stone fruit, the two sapling types, bananas, monkeytails, etc.), or even something like holding a Friendly Fruit Fly Fruit.
I agree farming shouldn't be required to be the whole focus, but I would find it cool if you had the choice to just farm.

[Valase]

7 hours ago, gamehun20 said:

Or just stole it from the archive

Which also means that you explored