The Wilson skill tree treatment is in line with how the original DS characters were made

[abrocator]

According to OrangE Don’t Starve et al, the original DS cast didn’t have much to them. Only a few upsides. But then an update came that added tings like books for Wickerbottom, Abigail, and nothing for Wilson. Apparently Wilson was only supposed to have a minor upside. The “default”.

In that light the Wilson refresh wasn’t really a refresh but instead an introduction of the skill tree.

The game started out with Wilson and then other characters were added. And now—in kind of the Characters 2.0 phase—we start with Wilson With Skill Tree and then we are getting skill trees for the rest of the cast.

[Cassielu]

Not exactly, in the DS, you have to play Wilson before you can gain exp to unlock other characters, which gives him a special status.

For new players, a relatively simple character is helpful even necessary for them to understand the game world. On the contrary, you can clearly see those characters with more complex and special abilities require the higher exp level

This does not exist in DST.

[Blinker]

Adding onto this, the way you unlock skill points is also evocative of how you originally unlocked characters in DS, by surviving a certain number of days. That's why I don't really understand the criticism of the current method of leveling up character skill lines, with people saying that it just encourages people to AFK or cheat, since its the exact same mechanic that DS had. Play the game, explore and have fun, and the game will reward you for it by giving you more options and choices.

And you also don't need to die or reset the world to get the skill points, so bonus!

[Tortoise Guy]

5 hours ago, Blinker said:

Adding onto this, the way you unlock skill points is also evocative of how you originally unlocked characters in DS, by surviving a certain number of days. That's why I don't really understand the criticism of the current method of leveling up character skill lines, with people saying that it just encourages people to AFK or cheat, since its the exact same mechanic that DS had. Play the game, explore and have fun, and the game will reward you for it by giving you more options and choices.

And you also don't need to die or reset the world to get the skill points, so bonus!

 Personally, I wouldn't say this mechanic was good in DS either, but the circumstances of these two features are different.
 First of all, characters in DS were something you unlocked between worlds, while skill trees can also be progressed on the same world.
 And second, there weren't really that many alternatives for the DS system. Sure, you could unlock some characters by doing some quests like bringing an item to an npc or bringing an item to an npc or... bringing an item to an npc. Oh, or beating adventure mode in Maxwell's case! But yeah, basically, in a game about survival, there wasn't really any other logical way of unlocking new things other than surviving. Still, DST is about so much more than survival, the game has a much more complex progression system than DS, and therefore there are a lot more creative ways of unlocking skills than just surviving, like beating raid bosses or progressing the story.
     TL;DR: DS' system was just not that good in the first place, while DST has many possible alternatives

[DegenerateFurry]

5 hours ago, Blinker said:

Adding onto this, the way you unlock skill points is also evocative of how you originally unlocked characters in DS, by surviving a certain number of days. That's why I don't really understand the criticism of the current method of leveling up character skill lines, with people saying that it just encourages people to AFK or cheat, since its the exact same mechanic that DS had. Play the game, explore and have fun, and the game will reward you for it by giving you more options and choices.

And you also don't need to die or reset the world to get the skill points, so bonus!

I think there's a big difference to consider here: to unlock every single character in the original Don't Starve and all of its DLCs, you need a maximum of 160 days survived (21 real hours). You need the same amount per character to max your Insight points. So, to unlock all Insight points for every character, you'd need 2880 days survived total, which is 384 hours of real-life playtime or 16 IRL days of non-stop survival.

[Hornete]

9 hours ago, Blinker said:

That's why I don't really understand the criticism of the current method of leveling up character skill lines

I actually didn't like the original system either! Long-term player who really enjoyed a lot of original design philosophies. Did I like the original XP system? Nope!

I share some of the same criticisms with that system as I do with the skill tree: simply unlocking things through mere existence is kind of boring!

I think the most fun I had in DS in terms of characters was when I had to go out of the way to actually unlock them. Webber, Wilbur, Wilba, Woodlegs, all insanely fun, and something that I at least hope to get out of the skill trees in DST. Some of the requirements like having to kill Fuelweaver and/or CC is a good first step, let's keep going in that direction!

As others said, the skill trees are a lot more grindy.

This is a bit off-topic and not related to my points directly, but you reminded me that one of the original developers actually had their own criticism for the original XP system, just some neat trivia .

[Tortoise Guy]

On 7/24/2023 at 5:04 AM, Hornete said:

I actually didn't like the original system either! Long-term player who really enjoyed a lot of original design philosophies. Did I like the original XP system? Nope!

I share some of the same criticisms with that system as I do with the skill tree: simply unlocking things through mere existence is kind of boring!

I think the most fun I had in DS in terms of characters was when I had to go out of the way to actually unlock them. Webber, Wilbur, Wilba, Woodlegs, all insanely fun, and something that I at least hope to get out of the skill trees in DST. Some of the requirements like having to kill Fuelweaver and/or CC is a good first step, let's keep going in that direction!

As others said, the skill trees are a lot more grindy.

This is a bit off-topic and not related to my points directly, but you reminded me that one of the original developers actually had their own criticism for the original XP system, just some neat trivia .

[EthanTheMime]

On 7/23/2023 at 7:04 PM, Hornete said:

This is a bit off-topic and not related to my points directly, but you reminded me that one of the original developers actually had their own criticism for the original XP system, just some neat trivia .

Amazing!