Perhaps A Guideline To Skill Tree Brainstorms In The forum

[goatt]

I've seen lots of skill tree posts popping up recently. But I think most of them didn't seem to understand how to create skill trees specifically for DST. While I applaud their creativity and effort, I think, for the sake of productivity and value out of your precious time and brain power and emotional investment, I want to set up an unofficial guideline about how to create DST skill trees based on my understanding.

 

In summary,

1 It should incorporate planar damage and/or defense

2 It should address the pain point of a specific character

3 It should not be overpowered

4 small but nice features will be well received by developers, I'm guessing.

Why?

For #1, skill trees are the primary tool to make up the damage dampened by planar system. It's an opportunity to lift up several damage powerhouse to the level that they used to be. Namely, Wolfgang to old 2x darksword damage without sides' buff, Wanda to similar level, characters who can't equip planar weapons needs to buff in alternative ways (such as Weremoose, maybe Walter, Bernie, etc).

For #2, pain point is different of downsides. Downsides are interesting aspects of a character that make the game play unique and fun. Pain points are gaming experience issues, such as Woodie's transformation during moon storms. Focusing on removing a characters' downside will sometimes take away their unique characteristics, which is different from pain points. Addressing the pain points are one of the major goals of skill trees for DST.

For #3, it requires a little bit of math. So far, characters who have default damage still have default damage after getting planar damage. Characters with modifiers still have the same level of modified damage after planar damage. That means, weremoose against planar creatures' damage has similar damage aginst non-planar creature, both of which is around 85 per hit including third punch. Wolfgang's damage against planar and non-planar are both around 2 x dark sword. I think this is a game convention you should consider when it involves number.

For #4, I want to remind people that skill trees' rework is not for changing characters' dynamic drastically, but to do goals mentioned in 1, 2 and 3 above, plus to attract new players by making the game a little easier and giving out a little hints via skill trees. For example, Wormwood's Bee Kind is small, but nice, and giving hints about bees, and sensible to the character, so it's a good addition. Another example, Woodie's wooden cane, small, nice, but trivia once you get the gist of the game or enter winter. Another example is wormwoods berry bush crafts, which is more costly than re-locating regular bushes in regular games, but only beneficial in mega base, therefore, it's nice and small for the survival aspects of the game, but good for megabase building if you are willing to pay for the high cost. The bottom-line is, don't hurt the general survival aspects of the game too much, and don't change a characters' uniqueness too much (In the case of wormwood, it's the lack of health and healing while health is the currency for her trades). Skill trees have different goals from character reworks after all.

Small and nice. But how small and how nice are subjective to each person.

 

Actually, a lot of the stuff I said is also subjective. I don't have a precise measurement, so go crazy. Have fun with skill trees.

(Reminder: my opinions are not perfect based on my limited understanding. Criticisms are welcome)

[Copyafriend]

My only thing to add is:

dont JUST make something that exists better, these are suggestions for perk ideas, try to be creative. If you think abigail could deal a little more damage make it a skill if you want, but try to stick to more creative applications.

try to give the character a new use related to their preexisting niche, a good example i saw was the walter tree i saw suggested that said walter could taxi around other players. Thats giving him a new use within the “go fast” niche he is already in.

try not to copy/paste from another survivor. Giving what is effectively bearnie to wortox is lazy, if you say non hostile (but not allied) krampii can show up if you do x y and z, that could be interesting. (Wortox isnt a summoner tho)

basically try to examine what a survivor does, and try to give them perks accordingly. Wendy is a summoner with one strong summon, maybe when her summon dies, it follows her around pipspook style providing light.

maybe webber gets a command whistle that orders his spiders to attack

maybe wurt could make guards hostile to non player mobs, providing a functional guard force to protect her “town”

maybe winona could become useful?

the possibilities are endless

[Mike23Ua]

I want Wendy’s entire skill tree to focus on something other than Abigail’s damage numbers.

If Wolfgang can get new content in the form of coaching whistle & AoE Barbells, Wendy can get new stuffs too..

Im just uncertain of what those new stuffs should be..

[ButterStuffed]

Should add "Is fun"

Balance means nothing if it isn't fun.

[Evelo]

Imo. I think it would be best to let Klei cook up the skills then have us critique them.

[Creatorofswamps]

1 hour ago, Evelo said:

Imo. I think it would be best to let Klei cook up the skills then have us critique them.

It seems that they themselves will not be able to do anything good based on your words (now it sounds like this : D) they should receive feedback, not criticism. These are different things, my friend

[Mortalbane]

I absolutely disagree with this "guideline". Why? Because this is exactly what Klei do themselves. They can do it without us.

You want to make a "perfect skill tree", which Klei can just copy and paste into the game?
Unless you are a part of the Klei team, that won't happen.
Follow such "guidelines", and you will get boring trees and fixes.

The whole point of suggestions about characters imo is to try to bring up things that Klei themselves didn't consider (or didn't tell us that they were thinking about it too), to show some new and unexpected angles.
And what the devs will take from your ideas, if anything at all, it's always up to them to decide.
Go wild with ideas, and you will keep the game moving forward and evolving.

And don't let other people tell you how to think and what to create.

 

6 hours ago, Creatorofswamps said:

It seems that they themselves will not be able to do anything good based on your words (now it sounds like this : D) they should receive feedback, not criticism. These are different things, my friend

I'm sure he meant it in a good way.
Though things like Wilson's skill tree, Fly trap, and some other stuff deserve only criticism =) Constructive, of course. But those are my words, not his.

[Creatorofswamps]

26 minutes ago, Mortalbane said:

I'm sure he meant it in a good way.
Though things like Wilson's skill tree, Fly trap, and some other stuff deserve only criticism =) Constructive, of course. But those are my words, not his.

Good words

[ShadowDuelist]

4 hours ago, Evelo said:

Imo. I think it would be best to let Klei cook up the skills then have us critique them.

True, but maybe the suggestions gives them a general idea of what’s wrong in first place with the character that they are unaware of.

Perhaps the best is to let them figure the solution while we give them a general idea of what we feel is not okay with a character in a highly specific point, and a detailed reasoning behind it (not just “because I don’t like it” kinda thing)

Still despite the ups and downs I think the community did pretty much that fairly well with Wormwood, everyone pretty much agreed that some new perks were useless (like the lord of the fruit fly one) others underwhelming, and others made no sense, while there were currently existing things wormwood had that needed improvement.

[Captain_Rage]

As long as the skillsets follow the theme of the characters without turning everything generic I won't complain. "Fun" plus "not overpowered" are very good pointers. Not every character has to have access to minions and some strange iteration of fire resistance. >_>

[Evelo]

10 hours ago, Creatorofswamps said:

It seems that they themselves will not be able to do anything good based on your words (now it sounds like this : D) they should receive feedback, not criticism. These are different things, my friend

Critique is not criticism.

Critique (Verb) evaluate (a theory or practice) in a detailed and analytical way. (This is how I used it).

Criticism (Noun) the analysis and judgment of the merits and faults of a literary or artistic work. or the expression of disapproval of someone or something based on perceived faults or mistakes.

Feedback (Noun) information about reactions to a product, a person's performance of a task, etc. which is used as a basis for improvement.

(definitions taken from Google)

Hope you see the difference.

[Mysterious box]

7 hours ago, Captain_Rage said:

Not every character has to have access to minions and some strange iteration of fire resistance.

So your saying your against ballon animal minions? 

[Creatorofswamps]

1 hour ago, Evelo said:

Critique is not criticism.

Critique (Verb) evaluate (a theory or practice) in a detailed and analytical way. (This is how I used it).

Criticism (Noun) the analysis and judgment of the merits and faults of a literary or artistic work. or the expression of disapproval of someone or something based on perceived faults or mistakes.

Feedback (Noun) information about reactions to a product, a person's performance of a task, etc. which is used as a basis for improvement.

(definitions taken from Google)

Hope you see the difference.

For me, as a person who communicates with you through a translator, it is difficult to understand. For me,《 Criticism is : is a direct or indirect indication of the shortcomings or mistakes of another person. Criticizing, we give a subjective assessment of someone else's work, actions, personality, life. Criticism can be constructive or destructive. In other words, useful and useless. Constructive criticism does not harm a person and does not affect his self-esteem.》

[Evelo]

1 hour ago, Creatorofswamps said:

For me, as a person who communicates with you through a translator, it is difficult to understand. For me,《 Criticism is : is a direct or indirect indication of the shortcomings or mistakes of another person. Criticizing, we give a subjective assessment of someone else's work, actions, personality, life. Criticism can be constructive or destructive. In other words, useful and useless. Constructive criticism does not harm a person and does not affect his self-esteem.》

Ah, no worries. Yea I am not giving criticism since I don't see any shortcomings. I hope we critique, looking at what each thing does by analyzing how this new "thing" interacts with other parts of the game. This is to come up with a generalized metric or feel for each "thing" Klei released or any piece of work or idea really.

13 hours ago, Creatorofswamps said:

It seems that they themselves will not be able to do anything good based on your words (now it sounds like this : D)

Just trying to explain how I don't agree with this statement because it did some emotional damage to me. So hopefully that difference is explained better? Maybe, hopefully? I'm sure a lot is lost in translation in which case, apologies and I will drop the subject.