Predictions for the next beta?

[Dextops]

1 minute ago, Cheggf said:

That is literally the point of planar damage. That's not Wolfgang being underpowered, that's Klei flip-flopping on what they want. They intentionally added a mechanic to nerf Wolfgang, then undid it with a skill tree. That isn't proving that he needed a skill tree, they could have just undone the nerf to him in the first place.

I thought planar damage was mainly for providing a reason to ever use planar weapons, but either way what exactly is the problem either way the result was the same.

 

2 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

There are almost 20 characters in the game, not everyone can be a massive favorite.

That was a hyperbole, it’s just that Winona is very forgettable, and lacks an actual play style. Minor changes aren’t going to fix this in a good way.

 

3 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

lol what are you marss or something

Who?

 

3 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

It's unfitting and goes against what the game is. I'd ask what you'd think if they added cars & guns so you can do drivebys on the spiders, but I feel like you'd like that.

This makes no sense. Xp system existed in dst and I don’t get how it doesn’t fit. Guns and cars don’t work because it doesn’t fit in the gameplay and time period. But with skill trees it’s something added in a massive variety of game genres. I find it hard to argue this argument because to me it’s not really an argument it’s a very very very subjective/broad idea.

 

5 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

you are asking why getting very few updates that actually do something if you aren't currently playing as a single specific character is a bad thing

Yes. Especially when the updates did affect the world because the skill trees also had massive qols to go along with it so it is both character changes and much needed changes to previous updates.

[Cheggf]

Just now, Dextops said:

Who?

Marss

[Theukon-dos]

25 minutes ago, Dextops said:

Wolfgang, a character who’s entire thing is big damage was directly nerfed due to planar damage.

Sounds to me like the problem there is planar damage, and how despite being "to adress power creep", it still impacts every single source of damage in the game, even if it was balanced or even underpowered. 

25 minutes ago, Dextops said:

I disagree with this. Speaking with @Bearger Enjoyer a while back about this wortox is still very much in a rough spot. He doesn’t compete with a backtrek watch at all other than early game accessibility, but once that is over there is little reason to play him, this also comes with the fact that Wanda has other things as well. A skill tree would definitely help wortox differentiate from Wanda and have continued reason to play him after that early game stage. I’d argue a skill tree would’ve achieved this much much better and I think the example you gave shows how small changes sometimes aren’t enough (especially looking at wurt when her mini rework were mostly just things that shouldn’t have been a problem in the first place)

Even if Wortox still isn't "meta", it still shows that there just doesn't need to be skill trees in order to buff characters. Wortox was still buffed, and was still siginifcantly better than he was before the buffs. If he or any other character needs more, then they can just be given more.

And again, Wanda is getting a skill tree too. How is Wortox's skill tree supposed to get him closer to Wanda in power level when Wanda Herself will be increasing in power level. 

[Antynomity]

3 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

snip

Umm actually Wanda is fine because she requires 'skill' of right clicking an infinite heal clock so it's fine if she's a demigod by the game's standards, oh right she's also a "Glass Cannon".

[Theukon-dos]

3 minutes ago, Antynomity said:

Umm actually Wanda is fine because she requires 'skill' of right clicking an infinite heal clock so it's fine if she's a demigod by the game's standards, oh right she's also a "Glass Cannon".

If I had a nickel for every time Klei made a character who's main downside was being "Squishy", but also had a significantly lower penalty for wearing the highest-protection armor in the game, then I'd have 2 nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.

[Dextops]

5 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

Even if Wortox still isn't "meta", it still shows that there just doesn't need to be skill trees in order to buff characters. Wortox was still buffed, and was still siginifcantly better than he was before the buffs. If he or any other character needs more, then they can just be given more.

My point was that a skill tree would’ve much more for wortox than minor changes. Instead of just being garbage he suffers from lack of reason to play him past a certain point. Minor changes aren’t able to completely revolutionize a character. Skill trees have lots of benefits over things like that. In minor changes or reworks in general Klei can only add much less perks than skill trees because there isn’t that limiter on them. This also allows for variety between characters which I see as a major plus. Your last quote with “if he or any other character needs more then they can just be given more” what exactly is the problem of that being in the form of a skill tree?

 

8 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

And again, Wanda is getting a skill tree too. How is Wortox's skill tree supposed to get him closer to Wanda in power level when Wanda Herself will be increasing in power level. 

It doesn’t have to get them close to Wanda’s level, it just has to make it so wortox has longer lasting relevancy than he currently has as I said earlier. Wortoxs changes were good but it’s still an example of how small changes can’t achieve everything. Comparing wortoxs changes and woodies changes side by side show this clearly, at least in my opinion. 

6 minutes ago, Antynomity said:

Umm actually Wanda is fine because she requires 'skill' of right clicking an infinite heal clock so it's fine if she's a demigod by the game's standards, oh right she's also a "Glass Cannon".

It’s crazy cause even without that her glass cannon thing is still an entire sham, when you can tank a bunch of hits with armor (even if it’s less than others) you aren’t really a glass cannon now are you?

[Antynomity]

3 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

If I had a nickel for every time Klei made a character who's main downside was being "Squishy", but also had a significantly lower penalty for wearing the highest-protection armor in the game, then I'd have 2 nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.

It's funny how both of them are shadow themed as well, because F the moon and the ocean!

[Mike23Ua]

I’m hoping the next update is actually something mostly no one saw coming, like uhm I don’t know.. maybe Gorge/Forge added as actual game modes the player can host or something so Klei isn’t occurring costs for running them, but I finally get to enjoy modes I never got to play…

Yeah That.

I sincerely hope it won’t be the next batch of skill trees yet.

[Theukon-dos]

37 minutes ago, Dextops said:

My point was that a skill tree would’ve much more for wortox than minor changes. Instead of just being garbage he suffers from lack of reason to play him past a certain point. Minor changes aren’t able to completely revolutionize a character. Skill trees have lots of benefits over things like that. In minor changes or reworks in general Klei can only add much less perks than skill trees because there isn’t that limiter on them. This also allows for variety between characters which I see as a major plus. Your last quote with “if he or any other character needs more then they can just be given more” what exactly is the problem of that being in the form of a skill tree?

It doesn’t have to get them close to Wanda’s level, it just has to make it so wortox has longer lasting relevancy than he currently has as I said earlier. Wortoxs changes were good but it’s still an example of how small changes can’t achieve everything. Comparing wortoxs changes and woodies changes side by side show this clearly, at least in my opinion. 

There shouldn't be skill trees because again, they go against what don't starve wanted to be.

 

Also, you've not explained why these new perks SHOULD be in the form of skill trees. If Wortox's biggest problem is that he doesn't scale into end-game, then how come that scaling has to be something the Wortox player invests in if it's apparently so integral to the character?

 

Also, I question how much varity skill trees actually introduce. Because many characters are already pretty strong without them, skills trees by necessity can't be that strong. If you look at other games with character customization, they tend to have characters be fairly weak by default with the power coming from how you build them. In Paladins for example, one Grohk player may invest into their totems and own survivablity to be a powerful point support. While another Grohk player (Me) will invest completely in speed and damage boosts to become an absolute menace in the enemy's backline. They're both the same character, but they play fundementally differently because of how they where built. But Woodie will always play like Woodie no matter how you build your skill tree becuase he was designed to play like woodie.

 

Skill trees introducing variety is also dependent on all branches of a skill tree being equally viable. And given the current skill trees, I'd argue they aren't. If all the branches of a skill tree aren't equal, or at least comparable, then players will naturally gravitate towards the "best" branches, thus have little variety between builds.

Wolfgang's skill tree is the most illustrative here. A large portion of his tree is dedicated to the mighty gym. But the gym is largely considered useless for very valid reasons; those being that it's stationary and anything that needs mightyness also generates it; And none of the gym perks fix these problems, so there's no reason to invest in these perks. And because there's no reason to invest in these perks, Wolfgang is only really short 1 perk point to get everything he cares about. So the player's only reach choice is if they want to move slightly faster, deal 5 more damage with planar weapons, or deal a bit more damage with thrown dumbells. None of these perks are enough to alter how a character plays in any significant way. So it only boils down to how which one you think will be slightly more useful than the others. 

 

Even Woodie; the absolute winner in the skill tree department; still has this issue. The two later woodcarver perks loose almost all their relevance past the early game. Weremoose is still fairly niche, and it's perks don't really get it out of that niche. And because combat is generally considered more useful than farming, most players are going to lean towards Weremoose mastery over Werebeaver mastery. 

It's significantly more variety than Wolfgang, I'll admit. But there are still several branches that are explicitly more valuable than the others. That's not a skill tree, that's a skill stick.

[Antynomity]

3 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

snip

I wonder why that's the case... maybe because the characters weren't made with skill trees in mind? Like, if we want a good skill tree system like you said we need actual variety and balance between builds, instead of 'yeah lemme go for the optimal build because half of the skills are useless anyways'.

If we had to even put some base kit stuff into skill trees, adding a lot more perks and more limitations, maybe even downsides here and there the system would be much better at creating variety between character builds, but as it is right now it's just a very uninspired way of adding more power to already existing characters, or even worse making more and more characters JOATs (Jack of all trades) just because.

[Cheggf]

30 minutes ago, Antynomity said:

I wonder why that's the case... maybe because the characters weren't made with skill trees in mind? Like, if we want a good skill tree system like you said we need actual variety and balance between builds, instead of 'yeah lemme go for the optimal build because half of the skills are useless anyways'.

If we had to even put some base kit stuff into skill trees, adding a lot more perks and more limitations, maybe even downsides here and there the system would be much better at creating variety between character builds, but as it is right now it's just a very uninspired way of adding more power to already existing characters, or even worse making more and more characters JOATs (Jack of all trades) just because.

Skill trees wouldn't be so bad if the characters were designed around them in the first place (instead of base kit + rework + maybe they got other things in QoL updates + skill tree on top of all of that), there was a mix of upgrades & upgrades with drawbacks (instead of just upgrades, with many being bland "Number bigger" upgrades), the choices made you actually play the characters differently, and the trees were earned on a per-world basis in a way that actually makes sense instead of just going AFK for 22 hours to permanently unlock a huge power spike from the second you pick that character in all future games. 

[Antynomity]

2 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Skill trees wouldn't be so bad if the characters were designed around them in the first place (instead of base kit + rework + maybe they got other things in QoL updates + skill tree on top of all of that), there was a mix of upgrades & upgrades with drawbacks (instead of just upgrades, with many being bland "Number bigger" upgrades), the choices made you actually play the characters differently, and the trees were earned on a per-world basis in a way that actually makes sense instead of just going AFK for 22 hours to permanently unlock a huge power spike from the second you pick that character in all future games. 

Skills staying between worlds would be fine as long as the trees actually tried to create different builds with completely different playstyles with characters, but of course they don't, also yeah, it's funny how it's literally "base kit + rework + maybe they got other things in QoL updates + skill tree on top of all of that", it's getting ridiculous.

and I bet it won't be the end, because "waaa X character is still not good" so we get rework 2.0 right after skill trees are done, despite them being 'tired' of doing character updates

[Cheggf]

4 minutes ago, Antynomity said:

Skills staying between worlds would be fine as long as the trees actually tried to create different builds with completely different playstyles with characters, but of course they don't, also yeah, it's funny how it's literally "base kit + rework + maybe they got other things in QoL updates + skill tree on top of all of that", it's getting ridiculous.

and I bet it won't be the end, because "waaa X character is still not good" so we get rework 2.0 right after skill trees are done, despite them being 'tired' of doing character updates

Yeah actually on second thought the skill trees persisting through worlds would be fine if the characters were actually made with the trees in mind. I wrote that thinking with how the game is right now how it's just slapped on top of everything else. But they should still be earned in a way that makes sense instead of just going AFK for a really long time. Did you know that it's literally going to be over 400 hours to unlock the skill trees of every character if they don't change the unlock method?

[Mike23Ua]

The problem with skill trees & reworks is that they ONLY effect the character your playing as, for example Woodie, Wormwood & Wolfgang’s update would only be enjoyed by Woodie, Wormwood & Wolfgang players..

But game content updates effect every playable character and gives them all something new to enjoy/interact with.

The Cult of the Lamb update really shouldn’t have been so “Bite-Sized” while the main focus is on specific character skill trees.

Yes it’s of course cool to have your favorite characters get their turn for tweaks/new stuff… BUT!!!!

It would’ve been so much cooler if a fully upgraded Lamb Idol could’ve been given a sacrificial toy or whatever and THEN similar to the Moon Staff event, you could summon like a cute little defense tower mini-game to fend off mobs from CoTL

INSTEAD, Klei opt’d to do a small crossover while continuing with Skill Tree update electric boogaloo 2.

Make me eat my own words Klei… show me that making the crossover “Bite-Sized” meant getting a bigger better update for the game.

[Dextops]

35 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

There shouldn't be skill trees because again, they go against what don't starve wanted to be.

 

And what exactly is that? That’s such a vague idea and doesn’t even seem like a real argument.

 

35 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

Also, you've not explained why these new perks SHOULD be in the form of skill trees. If Wortox's biggest problem is that he doesn't scale into end-game, then how come that scaling has to be something the Wortox player invests in if it's apparently so integral to the character?

I did (at least I think I did in this thread at least) but they allow for more perks in general to be added, and give customization. And also why shouldn’t it be something wortox players invest in? Instead of them being added flatly they come with benefits I mentioned earlier and more and the end result is the same if not better. If wortox were to get things added flatly Klei could not add as many perks as they could if it was a skill tree instead so there is much more potential in a skill tree than there is in just straight changes.

 

39 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

Also, I question how much varity skill trees actually introduce. Because many characters are already pretty strong without them, skills trees by necessity can't be that strong. If you look at other games with character customization, they tend to have characters be fairly weak by default with the power coming from how you build them. In Paladins for example, one Grohk player may invest into their totems and own survivablity to be a powerful point support. While another Grohk player (Me) will invest completely in speed and damage boosts to become an absolute menace in the enemy's backline. They're both the same character, but they play fundementally differently because of how they where built. But Woodie will always play like Woodie no matter how you build your skill tree becuase he was designed to play like woodie.

 

A woodie will be played differently depending on the scenario. Like for me depending if I’m playing solo or playing with a team I can either have a full moose mastery or no points into moose because in a team high dps is much less valuable than it is in solo . Though they may not fundamentally be different the perks you choose will be more suited to things you do more often, fitting more with how you want to play.

 

42 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

Skill trees introducing variety is also dependent on all branches of a skill tree being equally viable. And given the current skill trees, I'd argue they aren't. If all the branches of a skill tree aren't equal, or at least comparable, then players will naturally gravitate towards the "best" branches, thus have little variety between builds

Idk I’ve seen variety in skill trees with wormwood and woodie, just in another thread about which mastery you choose someone said they choose none and instead invest in other things and then shared their skill tree and it looked significantly more different than how I’d build my tree. Also even though moose might be a better mastery I see myself having more fun messing with beaver mastery if I just wanna play around and have fun. It might not be the best option but it’s the fun option for me and I think something like that is important, if there was an objectively best path for a skill tree but it was super boring I most likely wouldn’t gravitate towards that. 

 

45 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

Wolfgang's skill tree is the most illustrative here. A large portion of his tree is dedicated to the mighty gym. But the gym is largely considered useless for very valid reasons; those being that it's stationary and anything that needs mightyness also generates it; And none of the gym perks fix these problems, so there's no reason to invest in these perks. And because there's no reason to invest in these perks, Wolfgang is only really short 1 perk point to get everything he cares about. So the player's only reach choice is if they want to move slightly faster, deal 5 more damage with planar weapons, or deal a bit more damage with thrown dumbells. None of these perks are enough to alter how a character plays in any significant way. So it only boils down to how which one you think will be slightly more useful than the others. 

I agree Wolfgang’s tree does leave a sour taste in my mouth but I feel like it’s cause Klei has no idea how to add things to him without people going crazy. In my opinion Wolfgang was balanced both pre and post rework, but for some reason people think high dps is all there is to this game and I think that sentiment I see with a lot of the community had a hand with how Wolfgang was dealt with. (Wolfgang is basically the symbol for op at this point)

 

47 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

The two later woodcarver perks loose almost all their relevance past the early game

I don’t think some perks losing relevance later on isn’t a big problem because it makes you change your skill tree throughout the game. It’s nice to have skills that are good early game but fall off and vice Versa. The skill tree changes as you enter later into the  game and I don’t see the problem with that. This type of thing happens with me with wormwood where I try to get the monkey tail crafts quickly just so I can get them down and later switch it out for something more relevant at that point.

 

49 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

And because combat is generally considered more useful than farming,

For me farming is a lot more important than combat because it’s a larger bulk of the game, but people who disagree will gravitate more towards weremoose which makes sense because they place more importance on combat while I place more importance on resource gathering.  That just shows how a difference in ideas will lead to a different outcome with your skill tree.

 

54 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

It's significantly more variety than Wolfgang, I'll admit. But there are still several branches that are explicitly more valuable than the others. That's not a skill tree, that's a skill stick.

Idk the only really useless tree in woodies skill tree that I’d never invest in is the weregoose tree because I believe in beefalo supremacy, but all other trees I see myself investing in some type of scenario.

[Dr.Webber]

On 8/27/2023 at 2:59 PM, Dextops said:

Not what you want to happen but what is your best guess on what might be added in the next beta. Thankfully my insider information has told me that wurt will be getting the best skill tree ever in the next beta but other than that what else do you see being added?

I don’t have any idea what will be added but do you have any inside information on Webber 

[GenomeSquirrel]

5 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

 

But game content updates affect every playable character and gives them all something new to enjoy/interact with.

This doesn’t feel true qualitatively.

like now I can stand stationary next to oasis again to get a fire pit skin …

and is this better or worse than spawning bosses on randoms.

I still have faith in reworks to add something new and interesting

[Dextops]

11 minutes ago, Dr.Webber said:

I don’t have any idea what will be added but do you have any inside information on Webber 

He’s being removed permanently 

[Dr.Webber]

2 minutes ago, Dextops said:

He’s being removed permanently 

Ha ha very funny I thought the original post was a joke but had to check 

[ApoIIo]

14 hours ago, Cheggf said:

It's unfitting and goes against what the game is. I'd ask what you'd think if they added cars & guns so you can do drivebys on the spiders, but I feel like you'd like that.

The original DS has an exp system. DS/T has always had rpg elements, the skill tree isn't particularly obnoxious.

[gamehun20]

1 minute ago, Bearger Enjoyer said:

The original DS has an exp system. DS/T has always had rpg elements, the skill tree isn't particularly obnoxious.

Atleast the skill tree doesn't require a grind for levels

[ApoIIo]

14 hours ago, Dextops said:

I disagree with this. Speaking with @Bearger Enjoyer a while back about this wortox is still very much in a rough spot. He doesn’t compete with a backtrek watch at all other than early game accessibility, but once that is over there is little reason to play him, this also comes with the fact that Wanda has other things as well. A skill tree would definitely help wortox differentiate from Wanda and have continued reason to play him after that early game stage. I’d argue a skill tree would’ve achieved this much much better and I think the example you gave shows how small changes sometimes aren’t enough (especially looking at wurt when her mini rework were mostly just things that shouldn’t have been a problem in the first place)

I confirm this, by the way. Wortox only has something unique early on, then he's diet wanda who has to constantly scrape souls to do the thing she does for free, then bypasses her only drawback by swapping watches for free. I have not played him for months because the excitment of doing pearl early was like the only cool thing he had. Now I just reskin Maxwell into Wortox via mods such as almighty wardrobe and delude myself into thinking Wortox is good.
The map hop update didn't give him much of a lategame, it just gave him his first actual perk ever. Except that can fall off as soon as first winter anyway.

[Jakepeng99]

21 hours ago, Antynomity said:

Umm actually Wanda is fine because she requires 'skill' of right clicking an infinite heal clock so it's fine if she's a demigod by the game's standards, oh right she's also a "Glass Cannon".

She should take more damage the older she is maybe (Along with increasing age cap to compensate)

I would say Wanda is the tankiest character in the game since she has infinite heals, and damage can often mean nothing, it is often a good thing until you are about to die. She can't face tank, but she is at the very least a damage sponge.

[cropo]

I think people are seriously giving Wandas heal too much credit. It has a cooldown, stops if you take damage, she has a constant HP drain, and you need to be at a pretty wealthy state to have a lot of them on top of the other things she needs. At that point, you already have everything you want in the game....so who cares? Not to mention each watch takes up inventory slots, which can be a big deal in a lot of situations. 

 

She can make an extensive teleporting network, but I would argue she doesn't have any need for a large portion of the content she can explore because she doesn't need healing foods, and is glued to a single weapon for the remainder of her playthrough. I feel it's less rewarding to amass resources with her because there's no need to use a lot of the items.

 

Wortox's souls have more general uses than Wanda's backtrek, being able to ''bank'' an item that can be used for the entire spectrum of game interaction is nice. It can heal, heal the team, restore hunger, I-frame in combat, and traverse the land. It does a little bit of everything, why is it being compared to Wanda's strictly combat-oriented watch? 

 

What more does Wortox need?  If your argument is essentially ''Well once you've gotten billions of Thulecite and explored a large portion of the game and set up a teleport network and are only really playing on overtime at that point there's no reason to play Wortox when you can just play Wanda!" then I don't really agree.

 

 

Regarding Woldgang's skill tree, Klei themselves pretty much admitted it was just adding some flair and fixing planar damage issues. I don't think they even intended for planar damage to ''nerf'' combat characters, why would they give less incentive to play as a combat character and bring him down closer to non-combat characters? They likely had skill-trees planned before they even thought of planar damage. The only thing Planar Damage seems intended to do is to differentiate ''post-game'' content from everything that comes before.

 

 

Reworks vs Skill trees, I prefer skill trees due to them being more minor and less work. They can easily be revisited in the future, and a lot of things can be added to them. A re-fresh of the character entailed a huge focus on a single character each update, including an animated short. With this first skill tree update, 3 whole characters received updated abilities and playstyles. This is literally proof that they can effectively rework characters in far less time than a dedicated refresh. It is just a better system, in my opinion. A lot of survival games employ skill trees or at the very least light-leveling.  Conan Exiles has a perk system, stat allocation system. Seven Days to Die has a skill tree, leveling system, and class system. Valheim has individual skill levels for nearly everything you can do in the game from running, to jumping. Project Zomboid has a class system, Skill system that adds various perks when certain levels are reached. If you consider CoTL a survival game, that has one as well. State of Decay has it. Even Sons of the Forest added a minor XP system to it, It's really not that unusual for survival games to add personal progression.

 

People are comparing the skill trees to time away from content the same way they do with refreshes, but if it can be done in 1/3 of the time it took for the refreshes, it's far less of a big deal. 

[Cheggf]

8 hours ago, Bearger Enjoyer said:

The original DS has an exp system. DS/T has always had rpg elements, the skill tree isn't particularly obnoxious.

No it didn't lol. That system you're erroneously referring to as an "RPG exp system" (a more accurate description would be "resource sink") was also quickly removed, because it sucked.