Skillsets and the Celestial Portal: A Request for Change

[Evelo]

Note: I will be using "Skillset" and "Refresh" because that is the language Klei uses for these specific parts of character design. Many people will use "Skill tree" in place of "Skillset" or "Rework" in place of "Refresh", hope this note will help with confusion. mostly for me because my brain is bad, sorry.

I know this year is busy with other things but I hope this gets looked at by Klei at some point in the future. Specifically Player unique crafts that are less intrinsically tied to a character and more so beneficial for people who frequently swap characters with the Celestial Portal. Those being: Wilson's Alchemy and Wormwood's Plant Crafting. I am refraining from topics such as Wickerbottom's Books, Winona's Catapults, or even more niche skillset traits like Woodie's Hardhat. Rather I am focusing on large investment for major payoff with skill set choices that partially encourages users to take then later change off of the skill sets because of the heavy insight point investment.

 

So let's start with the progenitor of this and Wilson's "refresh" also known as the introduction for Skillsets. Something that was interesting and cautiously welcomed by many people, who were under the guise this was going to be a Wilson unique bonus. However since Woodie, Wormwood, and Wolfgang got it as well it is likely to be expected everyone in the cast will receive a skillset. With Wilson's skillset we got his unique and powerful Alchemy Transmutation crafts. At first it seems to not be too powerful but it can be quickly noticed by certain players ways to completely abuse this new found talent of Wilson's into a massive collection of valueable resources that are difficult to mass in bulk and would be welcome by any player. Hence why some players might feel encouraged to swap off of their selected character just to make use of these transmutations. Some specifically stand out to me as being egregious in the power it brings.

Gold to Nitre. Turn 2 Monster Meat into Eggs at your captured bird, Turn in those Eggs for 2 Gold at your Pig King, and turn those 2 Gold nuggets into a hunk of Nitre. Nitre, being very valuable for numerous things but mostly being used in recipes for Wormwood, Winona, Webber, and Gunpowder. In fact because of this Transmutation Gunpowder can only require 3 monster meat to craft and a burnt tree. Incredible power for those who wish to use Gunpowder. Nitre is super useful for Winona if players do not wish to craft a Gemerator. Instead they can turn food into Nitre if they amass enough food to last a very long time. Speaking of Gemerator those resources could be turned into Orange, Yellow, or Green gems via Wilson's Transmutation. An incredible perk for people who are eager for cheap crafting with the Construction Amulet or making use of the Deconstruction Amulet for materials. Granted you could instead kill Dragonfly, however those can be further funneled. To me at least it all seems to harbor that little whisper in the back of your head egging you to craft and utilize the Celestial Portal just for a bit to make use of Wilson's crafts.

 

In July Woodie, Wolfgang, and Wormwood got their skillsets added to the game. Many people, myself included, were vocal about the initial skillset given to our favorite plant friend, Wormwood specifically. While it was changed, and let me tell you Klei, thank you again, it still has some concerning elements. Well mostly that Bottom Left Branch. Focused entirely around crafting Plant Friends. To be honest I love the concept I just think the execution is not stellar. Lureplant Bulbs are the most welcome of this because they are impactful in a noticeable way that they are neutral to Wormwood and can assist him in combat. Nothing to sneeze at. Unless you have allergies. The other one is a good perk I will say and they all are in some sense. Wilson's Transmutations are good just like my point there. These perks seem to encourage people into utilizing the Celestial Portal for the niche crafting aspects of a certain character.

So the other good perk I mentioned, Monkey Tails. Extremely useful to a Wormwood (and Wickerbottom) because of Honey Poultice. A powerful healing tool for someone who's heart cannot be mended by mere food alone. Given they are found by locating the Moon Quay Island I fear this may be "too" powerful? They do require Bananas so at the very least it requires a trip to the Underground Ruins entrance so it seems acceptable in terms of power given the recipe. The other recipes in that tree however seem less desirable. Sapling Crafting, Berry Bush, and Juicy Berry Bush. Now I will already mention the Juicy Berry Bush is a nice craft. Especially for Wormwood who can make use of the rot that likely is to come with the rapid decay of Juicy Berries. Saplings and regular Berry Bushes however seem out of place. More so given they are quite easily found around the world en masse. If you got a Twiggy Tree and Juicy Berry Bush world a quick trip to the Caves and you will see plenty of them regardless. Unless I am wrong (and I totally could be given the bubble nature of the forums), the players who make use of Berry Bushes tend to be Mega Basers for Decoration. I know of no one who uses Sapling Crafting, I am certain someone is.

 

So am I saying these should be removed? No of course not. I feel instead of restricting them to one character, allow all characters to reap the benefit of these. At least some of them, to possibly discourage the use of Celestial Portal Swapping, specifically for one or two traits in a character's full skillset. So I will simply recommend the consideration of changing specific skills in favor of new alternative skills while giving those skills up to a Crafting Station specific to those recipes. An Alchemy Station, well that's already taken so a Transmustation (patent pending) For many (not all want to preserve something) of Wilson's Transmutation skill. Let Wilson keep Shadow, Lunar, and the Luminous Shard transmutations while the rest move to the Transmutation. (patent pending).

Have Wormwood keep Monkeytail and Lureplant Bulb but move the others and add some more to the Bushel Sprout (patent pending) a station designed for plant based crafts including but not limited to: Saplings, Berry Bushes, Juicy Berry Bushes, Grass Tufts, Clay Pots for your Trees, Pine Cones, Birchnuts, Spiky Bushes, Ferns, "Plant", maybe even Kelp?'

 

This way people who select Wilson or Wormwood are likelier to feel good about their choice in the skillset and refrain for swapping it out because the rest of the skillsets they took to reach that point have more use since the the choices would be different. This may not even address it entirely. However I made this post to hopefully go over issues I (and maybe others?) have with certain skillset choices and why. I tried to avoid giving suggestions (I am just proud of my two patent pending names) because players are notoriously bad at giving solutions but excellent at identifying problems, or so I am told.

That is all. Have a good day. Take care. Don't Starve.

[Gashzer]

Hmm i can see were you are coming from but having some of these universally useful craftables locked behind different characters will make us switch to that character forcing us to try them out.

Alot of people in DST (myself included) get used to playing their one "main" character for the majority of their playtime. We all like who we like.

I think the celestial portal is a great concept that we should embrace more instead of trying to shun. Even if you play wilson and use the torch/beard skills more than alchemy which i personally do, later on in your playthrough with him you can simply use the celestial portal to reperk at any time so i never felt guilty for not perking into full alchemy at the start.

I would understand ur point more if using the celestial portal was expensive to build and use but moon rocks are plenty now that we have the archives and lunar island. Ruins is full of purple gem bishops. Hence it isnt even costly switching out skills for your character.

Only change i would make is to give wormwood a grass tuft craft but the concept of him being the only character to have plant crafts is fine by me.

 

[Evelo]

9 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

I think the celestial portal is a great concept that we should embrace more instead of trying to shun. Even if you play wilson and use the torch/beard skills more than alchemy which i personally do, later on in your playthrough with him you can simply use the celestial portal to reperk at any time so i never felt guilty for not perking into full alchemy at the start.

That's kind of my point. Why have a limited number of insight points to use when you can swap them out whenever you want? I think discouraging or limiting the ability to change will encourage more thoughtful and impactful choice in what skills you take. Just my opinion at least. We can like different things, totally fine. Just my gripe with the system thus far.

[JustAFlower]

Mmmmmh... a BIG fully developed skillset to share with every character in every way is very satisfying for me...

[Gashzer]

10 minutes ago, Evelo said:

That's kind of my point. Why have a limited number of insight points to use when you can swap them out whenever you want? I think discouraging or limiting the ability to change will encourage more thoughtful and impactful choice in what skills you take. Just my opinion at least. We can like different things, totally fine. Just my gripe with the system thus far.

I mean for us experienced players that can rush the celestial portal its easy to swap them out. But for less experienced or newer players, rushing everything you need to change characters will be much harder/more time consuming. So for these players the limited number of insight points do have an impact. 

And I personally like the dynamic of a "early" game skillset (wilson with full torch tree and beard skills for example) and a "late" game skillset for the same character.

Wormwood as well, the boosted blooming skills are argubly useless when you are day 200 with unlimited super fertilizers but for the first 0-100 days of a world while you explore and get established the blooming skills are fantastic for reaping the benefits of blooming with less need to priortize fertilizer production over other things like ruins rushing.

[Antynomity]

Awesome post.

[Jakepeng99]

3 hours ago, Gashzer said:

but for the first 0-100 days of a world while you explore and get established the blooming skills are fantastic for reaping the benefits of blooming with less need to priortize fertilizer production over other things like ruins rushing.

Eh once you get kelp and 3 bottles you have all the fertaliser you will ever need.

[Gashzer]

22 minutes ago, Jakepeng99 said:

Eh once you get kelp and 3 bottles you have all the fertaliser you will ever need.

If trying to maintain stage 3 one full bottle only makes bloomyness last 2.5days. If only using it to reenter stage 3, one use will make you reenter stage 3 after a small amount of time, this time will decrease with the bloom skills and with the final skill reentering stage 3 will make bloominess last 4.5 days after that.

Its much more time efficient to just juggle between stages 2-3 rather than needing to make 10x more super fertilizer... atleast in the early game. After you have a load of bottles and kelp relocated to base you can respec off these bloomy perks comfortably.

[Rhovious Aran]

I don't mean to sound negative, but I absolutely despise the fact that you can swap characters at the portal. 

Single Player DS, was always way more interesting to me in that regard, because every run felt unique depending on what character you picked. (Sure you can still switch characters there, but it's not nearly as common)

I mean it's nice that the characters are so much more interesting now that they used to be. But I also think giving them all these amazing things that only they can do severely takes away from us ever getting interesting loot from the bosses. People complain about the Planar Armor, and how it's not interesting etc. 

Well look at Wickerbottoms books, at Maxwells hat or ability to imprison enemies, the catapults, Wilsons Alchemy, Wormwoods ability to create plants. 

All of these things would have been amazing late game loot for a boss. 

Do I personally enjoy what all the different characters can bring to the table? Absolutely. Will I ever swap characters in order to get them, no matter how much I would love to have these things? No I absolutely I won't because I hate the swapping so much, and I want to stick to my character.

t takes me out of the illusion, out of the fantasy to switch characters. My Wanda has been conquering this world, fought all the bosses, built a megabase. Why would she suddenly cease to exist just for a stranger Warly to enter a World that he has never been to, just to build a kitchen made of red crockpots to cook some volt goat jelly, bundle it up, then step back into a portal like a mindless drone that is being mindcontrolled by the imperio curse without knowing or understanding why he does these things. It's just so weird to me.

The system how it is "forces" you to try the other characters that way? I straight out refuse, and maybe I am just a bitter old hag haha, but for me it just makes the game less interesting. I never get to enjoy the aspects about the game that other players do, who constantly swap and it makes me sad. But I dislike the system that we have so much that it's just not an option for me. 

I rather stop playing the game, cause I am bored for a lack of content, which I still could be playing if there were more interesting items available. But well, everything interesting seemingly gets locked behind unique characters. A real shame imo

[arubaro]

just make skill trees something you gain throw world progression rather than just playing. That doesnt teach new players anything since they can gain insight by dying non stop and never losing it and neither is interesting for those who engage with the game since is a one time thing

it also brings balance problems because, once you unlock the insight, even the CC and FW paths, you have them forever so klei is limited on how strong perks can be and you can know start a world with woodie having day 1 cane plus shadow inmunity while on wereforms....

celestial portal is a great addition, when you play a world for so long you might want to change character to make the gameplay fresh again or to build a specific character's item to decorate. Not everybody abuse that and even if they do, a tiny portion, they already beat survival.

And i don't see the problem with people using a character just for 1 perk, isnt something i enjoy but neither i mind, it just opens gameplay possibilities. Klei instead should make every character interesting like how warly's downside makes him really fun

Noobs can't access celestial portal 

at most i can see people changing to warly to quick cook volt goat jelly to make bosses easier... but they shouldnt ruin a good mechanic because klei added an unbalanced food that they should have nerfed back in the day 

[Valase]

8 hours ago, Gashzer said:

I think the celestial portal is a great concept that we should embrace more instead of trying to shun. Even if you play wilson and use the torch/beard skills more than alchemy which i personally do, later on in your playthrough with him you can simply use the celestial portal to reperk at any time so i never felt guilty for not perking into full alchemy at the start.

There is nothing worse than going into the portal to reperk, only to come out and realizing that you only swapped skins.

[Maxil20]

8 hours ago, Rhovious Aran said:

Single Player DS, was always way more interesting to me in that regard, because every run felt unique depending on what character you picked. (Sure you can still switch characters there, but it's not nearly as common)

Swapping characters in DS is arguably slightly more difficult then it is in DST. If you have merged worlds, you can easily assemble a teleportato and swap your character. ROG is the easiest for this by a longshot, but SW/HAM are not that much farther off. It takes ~15-20 minutes to assemble the teleportato if you know what to look for.

The reason why character swapping isn’t done at much in DS is because you don’t have much of a reason to swap your character. The only characters I see good in a lategame context to swap to is Wicker for books, Wagstaff for thumpers/telebrellas, Woodlegs for treasures, and WX for the extreme benefits of existing. Most other characters have 1-2 perks that uniquely make up their kit but don’t offer serious groundbreaking changes otherwise. DST, by comparison, practically has half the cast offer unique perks that make you want to play them later on in a world (which is a good thing, in my opinion!)

 

[Antynomity]

8 hours ago, Rhovious Aran said:

snip

I can relate to the majority of the things you've said.

[GimplyGoose]

I've got to say that I disagree that the celestial portal is a problem and that 'swap' skill sets are a problem. The celestial portal is optional to engage with or not.

Regardless of how you personally feel about swapping characters, being able to change your character is a popular mechanic. You lose nothing from not engaging, but others who want to switch their character get more out of the game by being able to swap characters.

I have two questions for you:

Are you dissatisfied with the ability to swap characters at all or does the process to swap seem too inexpensive?

Would you be satisfied with the state of the celestial portal if the ability to create it could be disabled in the world generation settings?

[Evelo]

5 hours ago, GimplyGoose said:

I have two questions for you:

Are you dissatisfied with the ability to swap characters at all or does the process to swap seem too inexpensive?

Would you be satisfied with the state of the celestial portal if the ability to create it could be disabled in the world generation settings?

Too inexpensive given the power. Imo. (I also hate the ability to swap characters. I didn't even know you could in DS solo. It seems like it requires DLC which DST has none of just a one time purchase which definitely affects the validity of the ability in my eyes. I won't however prevent people from swapping characters, unless it is my world. Your world your choice after all.)
If I could disable the Florid Postern or the Celestial Portal in my Worlds (and caves), I would. I am okay with spawning in 1 spot or randomly given Wilderness Mode. It aggravates me that Wilderness still has the Florid Postern in the world at all.

5 hours ago, GimplyGoose said:

'swap' skill sets are a problem.

I agree with this. Trying to focus on the skills themselves rather than character bonuses like Wicker, Winona, or Warly even though it is nigh impossible to remove them from the subject of "swapping".

[HowlVoid]

Rumor has it, that if you use the celestial portal and say wormwood 3 times in a bathroom mirror at midnight, you'll find all your cabinets and fridge filled to the brim with manure.

[Evelo]

1 hour ago, HowlVoid said:

Rumor has it, that if you use the celestial portal and say wormwood 3 times in a bathroom mirror at midnight, you'll find all your cabinets and fridge filled to the brim with manure.

Testing this right now.

[arubaro]

5 hours ago, Evelo said:

Too inexpensive given the power. Imo. (I also hate the ability to swap characters. I didn't even know you could in DS solo. It seems like it requires DLC which DST has none of just a one time purchase which definitely affects the validity of the ability in my eyes. I won't however prevent people from swapping characters, unless it is my world. Your world your choice after all.)

you can swap if you beat adventure mode so you dont need any dlc but will take more time