What are skill trees actually trying to do?

[Theukon-dos]

Yes yes, another "Skill trees bad" post. Get it all out of your system. But I'm being quite genuine when I ask what skill trees are trying to do. Because the more I think about it, the less I can figure it out. 

 

Are they here to add more variety to the game? 

We already have variety though. It's called "Playing a different character". And while expanding on existing characters certainly saves the art department a few weeks, I have to question how many skill trees can be designed in the amount of effort it takes too just make a new character. I mean surely there are some scrapped characters that they could drag back up like they did with Wortox. 

Of course, "Lots of characters" and "Lots of variance in characters" can co-exist. Mobas have been doing it for at least a decade at this point. But the problem there is that these things are generally decided on beforehand, and the ability to upgrade perks is what brings characters up to where they should be, rather than starting where they should be and getting even stronger. Basically, imagine if every character in DST was pre-skill tree Woodie, and then Skill trees would make a lot more sense to introduce. 

Also, "Adding variety" Implies that the skill tree's branches are both varied enough to change a character in significant ways, but also balanced enough that there's no clear answer. This is certainly possible, see Woodie, but I don't think it's possible to do consistantly. After all, a common complaint regardless of people's stances on the concepts is that Wormwood's skill tree is fairly boring overall with a few exceptions here and there. 

And then we have Wolfgang's skill tree. Not only is his skill tree quite boring all throughout, with 90% of the skills just being "Bigger number" skills. But he also has a lot of "dead perks" as I'm dubbing them, or perks that help much less than the conteporaries. Specifically, every perk related to the Mighty Gym is useless simply because the nature of Mightiness as a mechanic makes the gym itself useless. And with six perks dedicated to the gym, and seven less insight then Wolfgang has perks, this means that every Wolfgang player is going to have effectively the same loadout, with the only reach differences being shadow or lunar alignment (Which both do the exact same thing anyways just against different targets) or scraping the top off of either the harvesting branch, the training branch, or the throwing branch. There is no variety there, it's just buffs for a character that doesn't need buffs. 

 

Are they to make the game easier for new players to learn?

I suppose it does do that, in the sense that it lets them brute force their way past a certain point. But at the same time, does it really? Yes it makes them innately stronger and more likely to succeed, but it doesn't actually teach them how to play the game. Being able too turn into weremoose and decimate everything in their path might make fights a bit less intimidating, but it doesn't teach them how to find food, deal with seasons, or... anything they really need to know.

In fact, in some instances I could see the perk tree actively working against new players. Wilson's torch tree is a good example of this and has been brought up sense the refresh. Darkness is actually a threat for new players, so in theory a set of perks that help with darkness is a good idea, right? But the problem is that the torch perks don't actually make the torch a good light source, it only brings it closer to better, more practical light sources. So a new players, seeing how "good" the torch is now that they've invested in it, they're not going to feel the need to look for even better light sources and thus get a deeper understanding of the game. 

And this is more a personal gripe, but I question why making the game easier to learn has to inherently mean making the game easier on all levels of play. Recipe cards and crock pot boons are a good way to teach new players about cooking and how to do so, but they're not going to mean much to experienced players who can go 3 years with their hands tied behind their back. 

Here's a free idea for you Klei, cut all enemy damage in half and cut all armor protection in half aswell. It would mean that combat in the game has less dependency on armor, so new players who haven't figured armor out yet have a larger margin of error to learn fighting in the game. But it also means that the damage enemies do to players with armor equiped stays the same, thus the difficulty for experienced players remains largely untouched. There would obviously need to be a few more changes to make this work, armor would effectively have 4x the durability, and Wigfrid's innate DR and Warly's garlic spice would be 2x as effective. But otherwise the only thing I can see this changing for expert-tier play is making boss fights with nothing but a magiluminessence, a celestial crown, and a dream into a much more viable strategy. Which frankly I think would only be a good thing.

 

Are they to buff weaker characters?

Definitely possible, given that Woodie's absolutely been the winner of this update. But at the same time, that doesn't require skill trees to happen. After all, we just got done with over 3 years of character refreshes and only 1 skill tree. And ofcourse during the Wickerbottom refresh Wortox got some new toys, namely the ability to teleport anywhere on the map with only a few souls. So if Klei themselves as proved that "Mini-refreshes" are both possible and practical, then I don't see how skill trees aid them in any way.

 

Are they to make characters better at using with Planar Damage?

Again, definitely possible. But as I said in my last topic on the matter, The existence of skill trees + Constant buffs to post-rift equipment make the planar mechanic largely pointless. Pre-rift content is made easier by them, characters are no longer held back by planar damage, and post-rift equipment is just worth using regardless of the planar damage or defense. 

 

That's everything I was able to think up. Maybe there's something I'm missing. Or maybe the answer is just as simple as "The devs thought it would be neat". If you agree with me, then feel free to add this to your list of "reasons why I don't like the recent updates". And if you don't agree, then... I dunno, just put the word "Geoduck" somewhere in your comment so I know that you read what I had to say before writing a reply. 

[-Variant]

Trying to grow into a forest, I think. Something, something, character ecosystem.

[Theukon-dos]

31 minutes ago, -Variant said:

Trying to grow into a forest, I think. Something, something, character ecosystem.

What does that even mean?

[cropo]

Perhaps editing skill trees in the future, if needed, is far easier than changing an entire characters files and kit for certain things. I don't know coding, but in terms of possible long term investment, expansions to skill trees(if that ever happens) for lategame content, additional shadow/lunar affinity skills when certain bosses are beaten(the precedent is already set with CC and AF).

 

So the ''point'' of skill trees may be an investment, and only coincidentally serves as a general improvement to lacking characters in its current state.  While you could currently bundle up a lot of these features into the characters base kits, what about future growth of the characters? Seems like a skill tree is the most obvious choice if I'm right, with guided feedback on what you're actually getting when you do certain things. 

 

Lets say they add ''Mega lunar guy'' as a boss, and beating him unlocks a new tab in lunar alignment. You can read what the skill does, preview it, see the bosses name so you know it's a goal you should strive for in the future, and earn the skill.  Without the skill trees, lets say ''Mega lunar guy'' gives you a perk in the same vein as forbidden knowledge does with recipies. You'd have to look it up or hopefully figure it out on your own what your character gets from it, it just doesn't seem as intuitive.

 

 

So I would say it's a swiss-army-knife of all of the above, and an investment into the future.

 

Additionally, picking your own ''build'' and perks with a limiting factor to it gives more attachment and investment into a character for me at least. People say the torch skill for Wilson sucks, I absolutely love being able to pull out a lantern and throw it on the ground with a right click instead of shift-click dropping it. It's helped me a lot, especially when I'm deep into the ruins for longer than expected and my lightbulbs are expiring. Although I gave up a lot of transmute perks to get that and the beard storage.  I know characters like Wormwood have lacklustre skills so building wouldn't be as diverse, but done right no two characters would be entirely the same and that's pretty cool to me and that's something you can't get without skill trees. It would lesson the scenarios of ''What, you're playing Wolfgang?!? I WANTED TO BE WOLFGANG -kick-.'' because they could add different benefits and buffs to the team.

[goblinball]

52 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

I suppose it does do that, in the sense that it lets them brute force their way past a certain point. But at the same time, does it really? Yes it makes them innately stronger and more likely to succeed, but it doesn't actually teach them how to play the game. Being able too turn into weremoose and decimate everything in their path might make fights a bit less intimidating, but it doesn't teach them how to find food, deal with seasons, or... anything they really need to know.

Since it makes new players stronger and less likely to die it means they have more ability to explore and discover and learn the world and game mechanics; it’s a bit hard to learn when everything is so difficult and you’re dying constantly. Also helps visualize new player’s progress and give them just a little bit of progression to help motivate them to continue playing; even if they’re dying a lot the skill tree serves as a reminder that they’re making progress and slowly getting better.

also it helps encourage new players to actually use their character’s abilities. One thing I’ve noticed in pub servers is that new players rarely actually use their character-exclusive abilities. The skill tree can nudge new players into actually learning how to use their character, since when they upgrade one of their skills they might go “hm I just upgraded this ability this character has, maybe I should go try it out”.

[Dextops]

1 minute ago, goblinball said:

also it helps encourage new players to actually use their character’s abilities

Another thing is just more incentive in general. I find myself not really noticing differences between a vast majority of characters in the grand scheme of things because if I want to play well it’s just better to neglect most of them as well as a lot of them just not being too useful. Skill trees could (and are remedying) this for me.

[CCCR33]

Adjusting props and abilities for outdated versions of characters

And let each character choose different styles of gameplay in the form of a skill tree

[goatt]

Because I'm unsatisfied with this update, I was searching for why.

So I found this in Roadmap 2023:

Quote

And what about the newer players?
Something that we have seen time and time again is that some newer players have a hard time understanding what they should be doing, or where they should be going and may become frustrated or miss a lot of content if they don’t know what else is out there for them. With this in mind, we are going to work toward making it a bit easier to understand what should be happening in the game without necessarily making the game easier. 

To that end we will be working on additions to the compendium and other elements of the game that will provide more information about what is happening, as well as progress indicators that help players see themselves grow through what they have learned in the game. 

Some of you may have noticed that some elements of the Wilson Refresh are a part of this effort as well. Wilson now acts as a sort of guide through the progression of the game, without directly telling the player what to do, his new skill tree can guide a player toward long term goals as they explore the world. He’s still rather vanilla, he just has some sprinkles now. Nothing too intimidating to a new player.

I interpreted this message another way, as in traditional DST way. But apparently, now the game will be catering more towards new players, to provide an intuitive implicit guide (more explicit than before) by adding stuffs that I think are similar to other popular games to bring some familiarity, besides the in-game wikipedias. That's my current interpretation.

That's why they are changing the game in the ways I didn't understand and don't really like. Namely, character re-rework. I'm guessing this new rework is to design skill trees to guide new players or something?

In other words, skill tree rework is not for meaningfully improving the existing game system (because we have many untied ends), but for making the game looks more attractive and easier to dive into.

Anyways, I'm guessing character re-rework is inevitable because of the new goal and (carry-over) skill trees are to stay. I'm guessing it's good for the business.

[Dragonboooorn]

Ill laugh my ass off to the moon if they actually will make Wes better than Wilson.

(Wilson is boring and dead character comparing to entire roaster)

[Duck986]

45 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

What does that even mean?

you know how people say "you cant turn a skill forest into a character ecosystem without planting a few skill trees"? that's what they meant.

[Psychic Chicken]

34 minutes ago, Dragonboooorn said:

Ill laugh my ass off to the moon if they actually will make Wes better than Wilson.

(Wilson is boring and dead character comparing to entire roaster)

I really hope they make Wes' skill tree downsides only.

[Popian]

They are good for getting clickbait titles.

[Theukon-dos]

1 hour ago, goblinball said:

Since it makes new players stronger and less likely to die it means they have more ability to explore and discover and learn the world and game mechanics; it’s a bit hard to learn when everything is so difficult and you’re dying constantly. Also helps visualize new player’s progress and give them just a little bit of progression to help motivate them to continue playing; even if they’re dying a lot the skill tree serves as a reminder that they’re making progress and slowly getting better.

also it helps encourage new players to actually use their character’s abilities. One thing I’ve noticed in pub servers is that new players rarely actually use their character-exclusive abilities. The skill tree can nudge new players into actually learning how to use their character, since when they upgrade one of their skills they might go “hm I just upgraded this ability this character has, maybe I should go try it out”.

Yes, but as I said, there are ways to do that without just making the characters stronger, like they already did with the recipe cards and to a lesser extent the new crafting system. They could also try the other idea I had that I can be quite confident in saying you didn't read.

 

Also, I question if making the game easier for new players is all that necessary, atleast to this extent. I'm not against it mind you, but DST isn't some kickstarter-funded baby of an infant company. It's the sequel to a decade-old franchise with 30k average players daily. They've made it big in the indie sphere, so clearly there's a market for having absolutely no tutorial. Hell, both of us got into and fell in love with the game despite it's harshness for new players. So why should that change now?

1 hour ago, Dextops said:

Another thing is just more incentive in general. I find myself not really noticing differences between a vast majority of characters in the grand scheme of things because if I want to play well it’s just better to neglect most of them as well as a lot of them just not being too useful. Skill trees could (and are remedying) this for me.

But we don't need skill trees to do that. As I said we just finished a three year spree of skill tree-free refreshes, and Wortox got a mini-refresh with the Wicker update that again, didn't include a skill tree. I'm also not sure how all the characters can feel "samey" but I digress. 

1 hour ago, goatt said:

Because I'm unsatisfied with this update, I was searching for why.

So I found this in Roadmap 2023:

I interpreted this message another way, as in traditional DST way. But apparently, now the game will be catering more towards new players, to provide an intuitive implicit guide (more explicit than before) by adding stuffs that I think are similar to other popular games to bring some familiarity, besides the in-game wikipedias. That's my current interpretation.

That's why they are changing the game in the ways I didn't understand and don't really like. Namely, character re-rework. I'm guessing this new rework is to design skill trees to guide new players or something?

In other words, skill tree rework is not for meaningfully improving the existing game system (because we have many untied ends), but for making the game looks more attractive and easier to dive into.

Anyways, I'm guessing character re-rework is inevitable because of the new goal and (carry-over) skill trees are to stay. I'm guessing it's good for the business.

Darn.

1 hour ago, Duck986 said:

you know how people say "you cant turn a skill forest into a character ecosystem without planting a few skill trees"? that's what they meant.

No, no I don't know how people say that. What does that even mean???

50 minutes ago, Psychic Chicken said:

I really hope they make Wes' skill tree downsides only.

Wes' skill tree won't actually do anything. It'll just be vague non-informative perks like "increase box strength by 35%" or "Balloons are now 8% more flexible".

[Dextops]

4 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

But we don't need skill trees to do that. As I said we just finished a three year spree of skill tree-free refreshes, and Wortox got a mini-refresh with the Wicker update that again, didn't include a skill tree. I'm also not sure how all the characters can feel "samey" but I digress. 

No one’s upsides or downsides really change how I play the game they just make it faster or slower depending on my character choice. No matter what character I’m playing I’m going to set up either honey pig farms or both. I’m going to rush ruins because after so long it’s still the best thing in the game. Unless I force myself to play differently character choice doesn’t really matter. Skill trees give me actual variety and choices 

[Theukon-dos]

1 minute ago, Dextops said:

No one’s upsides or downsides really change how I play the game they just make it faster or slower depending on my character choice. No matter what character I’m playing I’m going to set up either honey pig farms or both. I’m going to rush ruins because after so long it’s still the best thing in the game. Unless I force myself to play differently character choice doesn’t really matter. Skill trees give me actual variety and choices 

Imma keep it reach chief, If you're so set in your ways, I don't think suddenly dealing 2x damage with a dumbell toss/whatever the equivalent skill for your main is will be changing all that much for you.

[Mysterious box]

2 hours ago, Dragonboooorn said:

Ill laugh my ass off to the moon if they actually will make Wes better than Wilson.

(Wilson is boring and dead character comparing to entire roaster)

Personally after his refresh I already thought Wes was fun to play. I do agree Wilson is kinda boring even compared to Wolfgang hopefully he gets a second pass.

[Fufuji]

A patch for CK, to make us beat it easily. There's never too much CK cheese. 

[Arcwell]

2 hours ago, Theukon-dos said:

Yes yes, another "Skill trees bad" post. Get it all out of your system. But I'm being quite genuine when I ask what skill trees are trying to do. Because the more I think about it, the less I can figure it out. 

 

Are they here to add more variety to the game? 

We already have variety though. It's called "Playing a different character". And while expanding on existing characters certainly saves the art department a few weeks, I have to question how many skill trees can be designed in the amount of effort it takes too just make a new character. I mean surely there are some scrapped characters that they could drag back up like they did with Wortox. 

Of course, "Lots of characters" and "Lots of variance in characters" can co-exist. Mobas have been doing it for at least a decade at this point. But the problem there is that these things are generally decided on beforehand, and the ability to upgrade perks is what brings characters up to where they should be, rather than starting where they should be and getting even stronger. Basically, imagine if every character in DST was pre-skill tree Woodie, and then Skill trees would make a lot more sense to introduce. 

Also, "Adding variety" Implies that the skill tree's branches are both varied enough to change a character in significant ways, but also balanced enough that there's no clear answer. This is certainly possible, see Woodie, but I don't think it's possible to do consistantly. After all, a common complaint regardless of people's stances on the concepts is that Wormwood's skill tree is fairly boring overall with a few exceptions here and there. 

And then we have Wolfgang's skill tree. Not only is his skill tree quite boring all throughout, with 90% of the skills just being "Bigger number" skills. But he also has a lot of "dead perks" as I'm dubbing them, or perks that help much less than the conteporaries. Specifically, every perk related to the Mighty Gym is useless simply because the nature of Mightiness as a mechanic makes the gym itself useless. And with six perks dedicated to the gym, and seven less insight then Wolfgang has perks, this means that every Wolfgang player is going to have effectively the same loadout, with the only reach differences being shadow or lunar alignment (Which both do the exact same thing anyways just against different targets) or scraping the top off of either the harvesting branch, the training branch, or the throwing branch. There is no variety there, it's just buffs for a character that doesn't need buffs. 

 

Are they to make the game easier for new players to learn?

I suppose it does do that, in the sense that it lets them brute force their way past a certain point. But at the same time, does it really? Yes it makes them innately stronger and more likely to succeed, but it doesn't actually teach them how to play the game. Being able too turn into weremoose and decimate everything in their path might make fights a bit less intimidating, but it doesn't teach them how to find food, deal with seasons, or... anything they really need to know.

In fact, in some instances I could see the perk tree actively working against new players. Wilson's torch tree is a good example of this and has been brought up sense the refresh. Darkness is actually a threat for new players, so in theory a set of perks that help with darkness is a good idea, right? But the problem is that the torch perks don't actually make the torch a good light source, it only brings it closer to better, more practical light sources. So a new players, seeing how "good" the torch is now that they've invested in it, they're not going to feel the need to look for even better light sources and thus get a deeper understanding of the game. 

And this is more a personal gripe, but I question why making the game easier to learn has to inherently mean making the game easier on all levels of play. Recipe cards and crock pot boons are a good way to teach new players about cooking and how to do so, but they're not going to mean much to experienced players who can go 3 years with their hands tied behind their back. 

Here's a free idea for you Klei, cut all enemy damage in half and cut all armor protection in half aswell. It would mean that combat in the game has less dependency on armor, so new players who haven't figured armor out yet have a larger margin of error to learn fighting in the game. But it also means that the damage enemies do to players with armor equiped stays the same, thus the difficulty for experienced players remains largely untouched. There would obviously need to be a few more changes to make this work, armor would effectively have 4x the durability, and Wigfrid's innate DR and Warly's garlic spice would be 2x as effective. But otherwise the only thing I can see this changing for expert-tier play is making boss fights with nothing but a magiluminessence, a celestial crown, and a dream into a much more viable strategy. Which frankly I think would only be a good thing.

 

Are they to buff weaker characters?

Definitely possible, given that Woodie's absolutely been the winner of this update. But at the same time, that doesn't require skill trees to happen. After all, we just got done with over 3 years of character refreshes and only 1 skill tree. And ofcourse during the Wickerbottom refresh Wortox got some new toys, namely the ability to teleport anywhere on the map with only a few souls. So if Klei themselves as proved that "Mini-refreshes" are both possible and practical, then I don't see how skill trees aid them in any way.

 

Are they to make characters better at using with Planar Damage?

Again, definitely possible. But as I said in my last topic on the matter, The existence of skill trees + Constant buffs to post-rift equipment make the planar mechanic largely pointless. Pre-rift content is made easier by them, characters are no longer held back by planar damage, and post-rift equipment is just worth using regardless of the planar damage or defense. 

 

That's everything I was able to think up. Maybe there's something I'm missing. Or maybe the answer is just as simple as "The devs thought it would be neat". If you agree with me, then feel free to add this to your list of "reasons why I don't like the recent updates". And if you don't agree, then... I dunno, just put the word "Geoduck" somewhere in your comment so I know that you read what I had to say before writing a reply. 

Geoduck

Just because we have multiple characters and the devs have the option to make new ones doesn't mean skill trees don't add variety too.
Just because skill trees don't directly teach new players how to play the game doesn't mean they don't steer them in the direction of new mechanics (i.e. FW/CC/planar damage)
Just because refreshes and mini-refreshes buff weak characters doesn't mean that skill trees don't as well.
Just because players are incentivized to get post-rift gear doesn't mean players aren't incentivized to use that gear against planar entities in particular.

Alternatives are fine, but the initial answer isn't wrong just because an alternative exists.

I do agree though that Wolfgang's skill tree has little to no variety, but that's more a problem of his tree in particular as opposed to skill trees as a whole.
Wilson's torch skills are fine as a learning tool. Learning the game is very different from learning how to play the game optimally.

[Dextops]

12 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

Imma keep it reach chief, If you're so set in your ways, I don't think suddenly dealing 2x damage with a dumbell toss/whatever the equivalent skill for your main is will be changing all that much for you.

Wolfgang’s was definitely meh but something like wormwood which adds some new combat perks which I’ll definitely be trying out as well as it incentivizing me to try a different weapon will be nice, and woodie basically going from my least favorite character in the entire game because you were always way better off not using their forms to now probably being one of my favorites and a character I will definitely be checking out now that his perks are useful instead of a hinderance. (Also with coaching whistle and speed boost will definitely give me some incentive to stay in normal form)

[W0l0l0]

I guess it could be a replacement to the old character unlock system in Don't Starve. When you died you got progress which didn't exist in Don't Starve Together until now. Maybe it simply serves as a way to encourage character commitments and keep people invested with rewards before they discover the deeper world that they're playing in.

Whether or not thats what they're going for, or if it's a good way of going about it, isn't for me know. I personally can't usually be arsed with skill trees but I guess I'll have to do them.