Skill Spotlight 1: Rhymes with Play Dev Tidbits on Future Content

[bloopah]

Seems like @sudoku is sleeping, so I'm stepping in to give a sequel to his previous Tidbit Thread:

(If I missed something, please give a time stamp and I will add it)

• More Planar gear in the future
• The three content updates mentioned in the roadmap won't be the only updates to the Rifts
  • Next year there will be more updates to it
• Skill trees will be used to assist new players as well as address issues older players have with certain characters
• Dreadstone Pillars that regenerate themselves
  • It will cost 40 Dreadstone
• There may be adjustments to the Void / Brightshade Repair Kits depending on the gear they will add
• Some characters might have Shadow-only perks like Wormwood does with two Lunar branches
• Future Lunar Thralls won't drop Brightshade Husks
• New ways of acquiring Insight points may be added
• Wes' skill tree will be "interesting"

As always, thanks to the developers for the stream, and I look forward to next update's stream.

[HeatAndRun]

OoOoh, patience is a virtue...

[lenship2]

12 minutes ago, bloopah said:

New ways of acquiring Insight points may be added

oop

[Mysterious box]

2 hours ago, bloopah said:

Dreadstone Pillars that regenerate themselves

• It will cost 40 Dreadstone

 

End game mechanics not related to combat. 

[Captain_Rage]

2 hours ago, bloopah said:

New ways of acquiring Insight points may be added

5 $ = 1 Insight.

Spoiler

JK, LOL

 

[Mysterious box]

9 minutes ago, Captain_Rage said:

5 $ = 1 Insight.

  Reveal hidden contents

JK, LOL

 

Also this shall reset between worlds.

[Szczuku]

2 hours ago, bloopah said:

The three content updates mentioned in the roadmap won't be the only updates to the Rifts

• Next year there will be more updates to it

I sure do hope that the mythical 3rd rift update will fix them destroying natural environments and Brightshades preventing you from decorating with plants (unless you exploit the code behind them, ofc).

Cuz I don't exactly fancy having to wait till 2024 (plus the chinese event) for the rift endgame to maybe be fleshed out

[Mysterious box]

1 minute ago, Szczuku said:

I sure do hope that the mythical 3rd rift update will fix them destroying natural environments and Brightshades preventing you from decorating with plants (unless you exploit the code behind them, ofc).

Cuz I don't exactly fancy having to wait till 2024 (plus the chinese event) for the rift endgame to maybe be fleshed out

At this point I'm beginning to think fleshing it out is just going to be placing new mobs around the map and a boss somewhere. I was kind of hoping the end game would try to shake up the survival loop but so far I'm not confident that's ever coming.

[bloopah]

54 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

End game mechanics not related to combat. 

Do remember that obtaining 40 Dreadstone is currently very time-consuming, considering the only two sources are from Nightmare Werepig and the Dreadstone Outcrop.

[_zwb]

4 minutes ago, bloopah said:

Do remember that obtaining 40 Dreadstone is currently very time-consuming, considering the only two sources are from Nightmare Werepig and the Dreadstone Outcrop.

You can craft it as Wilson with pure horror

[Mysterious box]

8 minutes ago, bloopah said:

Do remember that obtaining 40 Dreadstone is currently very time-consuming, considering the only two sources are from Nightmare Werepig and the Dreadstone Outcrop.

There's plenty of ways to speed up the process but that's kinda besides the point the end game mechanics we have feel like slight annoyances rather than actual threats and that's a bummer in my opinion I even find myself debating whether acid rain is actually easier than normal rain.

[Waitdire]

11 minutes ago, bloopah said:

Do consider that obtaining 40 Dreadstone is currently very time-consuming, considering the only two sources are from Nightmare Werepig and the Dreadstone Outcrop.

There is also a dupe with a green staff/amulet and dread armor.

[dois raios]

4 hours ago, bloopah said:

There may be adjustments to the Void / Brightshade Repair Kits depending on the gear they will add

Did they tell what type of adjustments?

4 hours ago, bloopah said:

New ways of acquiring Insight points may be added

Will the points still save between worlds after acquiring it?

I couldnt watch the stream ;-;

[-Variant]

I couldn't preform any clips for the stream itself since it seems they were disabled at the time, so I went and manually copied down and paraphrased their quotes into a semi-Q&A format consisting of the questions asked directly on Stream and the devs replies!

I'll quote the mentioned topics and put a spoiler containing the Devs replies there.
Do note, as usual, things are always subject to change. This doesn't reflect the entire teams visions, either! 

On 7/28/2023 at 11:57 AM, bloopah said:

-More Planar gear in the future

-Future Lunar Thralls won't drop Brightshade Husks

-The three content updates mentioned in the roadmap won't be the only updates to the Rifts;
Next year there will be more updates to it

Spoiler

Quote

16:05-18:04 New Brightshade content and statements about the update line.

Q: Will there be more Planar Gear? I have too many materials.

A: Yes, the economy will make more sense as we go.
It's hard for us to add something that consumes a ton of material whilst staying balanced for people just getting into the content. There will be more gear, it won't suddenly eat up all your amassed materials.
Something we want to let people know; those 3 content updates are not the *only* content updates for the Arc. There will be a lot more.

Quote

Q: Will there be more Lunar thralls? Will they drop brightshade husks?
A: I can safely say that future Lunar Thralls will not drop brightshade husks.
Brightshades will drop Brightshade materials, other thralls will drop their own respective materials used for different armor sets. The plant theme is specific to Brightshades, though not all new thralls will have their own sets. But yes, we are designing the next batch right now!

On 7/28/2023 at 11:57 AM, bloopah said:

• Skill trees will be used to assist new players as well as address issues older players have with certain characters

Spoiler

Quote

Q: We thought you guys were tired of Character refreshes. What changed?
A: As I was saying, we want to address things for advanced late game players, but we also want to put in things to help new players coming to the game. Stuff to help them ease into the game. At the same time we can use these trees to help balance out the existing characters. We don't intend to change how characters work too much.

Quote

23:00-25:15 Powercreep direct mentions.

Q: Are you aware of the current powercreep, such as characters starting out more powerful as early as day 1?
A: We said earlier, that is the intention for letting newer players get to later content.
And for people at the end who feel this is just powercreep, this is where the Rift updates come in. All this new content will be harder, the new stuff isn't all that hard just yet, but this is just the intro to it. All the upcoming content will be harder in the Rift progression and we have a lot of content planned to go with this.

On 7/28/2023 at 11:57 AM, bloopah said:

• There may be adjustments to the Void / Brightshade Repair Kits depending on the gear they will add

Spoiler

Quote

33:00-34:50 Repair kit changes/concepts.

It's possible with how we handle the next content we might reevaluate how much the repair kits repair. There may be some adjustments, right now we think with what we've got 100% repair is fine.

Note, there was no specific question asked that prompted this one.
They stated they're considering making the repair kits only repair what's missing. So a 90% tool to 100% would only cost 10% of the repair kit. This might not go through as the statement didn't seem confident.

The majority of the remaining content that was talked about was about the Dreadstone pillars (Coming next week.) and the scrapbook being given new tool tips to help guide players with what items do.

EDIT; I've added time stamps to the notable phrases. I'll update any I had missed later.

[Masked Koopa]

The most efficient way to dupe dreadstone will be crafting walls using the construction amulet and having a boss bust them down for 10 dreadstone per green gem, or 4 green gems for 1 pillar. A stack of green gems will net you 10 pillars. That seems fair to me, but I know some people will think that is too steep.

[Captain_Rage]

34 minutes ago, dois raios said:

Did they tell what type of adjustments?

They mentioned the amount of durability restored. Currently one kit repairs an item fully.

[Ohan]

We’re supposed to get ways to upgrade brightshade and void gear down the line right? I remember reading something like that

with the new change theres literally 0 reason to ever wear brightshade armor besides fashion 

at least the void armor has the negative sanity aura negation. 
 

this entire rift stuff seems like its gonna take so much work still.. so strange that they threw the skill trees in middle of this arc 

 

[Mysterious box]

2 minutes ago, Ohan said:

We’re supposed to get ways to upgrade brightshade and void gear down the line right? I remember reading something like that

with the new change theres literally 0 reason to ever wear brightshade armor besides fashion 

at least the void armor has the negative sanity aura negation. 
 

this entire rift stuff seems like its gonna take so much work still.. so strange that they threw the skill trees in middle of this arc 

 

Ironically it's the reverse for Walter and Wormwood.

[Ohan]

49 minutes ago, -Variant said:

At the same time we can use these trees to help balance out the existing characters. We don't intend to change how characters work too much.

Headache inducing statement.

I hate these endless character updates that keep missing the mark anyway for certain survivors. 

Ww’s tree was an abject failure if the aim was to balance him out compared to the likes of max wanda woodie wolf wick etc 

how can u hope to balance out the weaker survivors without changing how they work? Id argue woodies tree changed how he works by a lot. 

[Mysterious box]

44 minutes ago, Ohan said:

Headache inducing statement. I hate these endless character updates that keep missing the mark anyway for certain survivors. 

Ww’s tree was an abject failure if the aim was to balance him out compared to the likes of max wanda woodie wolf wick etc 

Honestly Maxwell will always be dst's biggest balance Houdini to me 

44 minutes ago, Ohan said:

how can u hope to balance out the weaker survivors without changing how they work? Id argue woodies tree changed how he works by a lot. 

I mean did it? His gameplay is largely unchanged aside from getting new craftables. He became more effective at what he does but how you play him hasn't really changed. Don't take this as anti Wormwood propaganda but Wormwood's playstyle is the one that changed the most from my playtime with both. I can't really comment on Wolfgang since he's not really someone I play.

[Dragonboooorn]

7 hours ago, bloopah said:

Wes' skill tree will be "interesting"

I doubt that there will  ever be worser perks then Wilsons

[bloopah]

4 hours ago, dois raios said:

Did they tell what type of adjustments?

If the future gear calls for it they will reduce the percentage it repairs, as it's currently 100%.

4 hours ago, dois raios said:

Will the points still save between worlds after acquiring it?

Probably, as they do right now. They didn't talk about temporary points.

4 hours ago, dois raios said:

I couldnt watch the stream ;-;

You can still watch it on Twitch when you go to "Videos" on their Twitch channel. Or you can find stream uploads on YouTube.

[Captain_Rage]

4 hours ago, -Variant said:

and the scrapbook being given new tool tips to help guide players with what items do.

Look at this sneaky thing:

Must have been added recently (?).

[-Variant]

2 minutes ago, Captain_Rage said:

Must have been added recently (?).

Yes, this was added in the same update scrapbooks were! It fills out a random scrapbook slot to my knowledge.

[bloopah]

8 minutes ago, Captain_Rage said:

Look at this sneaky thing:

Must have been added recently (?).

Oooh, another source for Papyrus at the Cartographer's Desk.