Extremely disappointed

[shaurun]

On 11/30/2023 at 11:38 PM, BezKa said:

Skill trees are really bad and detrimental to the game, and people accepting them with open arms is just sad to watch.

But why? I love skill trees as:

• playing with different skills could provide different expierence. Woodie as example: while people use Moose tree you could use Goose on PVP  to run away, or grow your army of treeguards and play as a human  w/o turning inro wereform and using wooden loot. Same for Wigfrid, we can go beefalo route or equipment route, or team songs route. 
• skilltree could mirror your playstyle. Low on slots? Grow beard. Often need light? Use torch branch!
• you feel unique on servers with sme character present if you hace different branches.

[Antynomity]

57 minutes ago, shaurun said:

But why? I love skill trees as:

• playing with different skills could provide different expierence. Woodie as example: while people use Moose tree you could use Goose on PVP  to run away, or grow your army of treeguards and play as a human  w/o turning inro wereform and using wooden loot. Same for Wigfrid, we can go beefalo route or equipment route, or team songs route. 
• skilltree could mirror your playstyle. Low on slots? Grow beard. Often need light? Use torch branch!
• you feel unique on servers with sme character present if you hace different branches.

The torch thing is a very bad example that is by far the worst designed branch of any skilltree in the game, 0 team utility, 0 true benefit to you and you're expected to spend 7 points to max that out.

[BezKa]

52 minutes ago, shaurun said:

But why? I love skill trees as:

• playing with different skills could provide different expierence. Woodie as example: while people use Moose tree you could use Goose on PVP  to run away, or grow your army of treeguards and play as a human  w/o turning inro wereform and using wooden loot. Same for Wigfrid, we can go beefalo route or equipment route, or team songs route.

You could have always done that. Why do you need to buff your character to do that now? If Klei wanted to buff characters and give them choices they should just add those tools to be available straight up. Skill trees are a literal waste of time.

54 minutes ago, shaurun said:

skilltree could mirror your playstyle. Low on slots? Grow beard. Often need light? Use torch branch!

You know what else mirrors my playstyle? My playstyle. If I need more slots, I'll make a piggyback. if I need light, I'll make a lantern. Everyone has been doing this forever, and now suddenly they need skill trees for it?

56 minutes ago, shaurun said:

you feel unique on servers with sme character present if you hace different branches.

I'm already the specialest person that exists, in DST or real life. But seriously, I don't see a problem with this either, other people will play differently with the same characters just because they're different from you. And I don't understand why you would need to feel different from the other Willow on the server.

[Gashzer]

1 minute ago, Antynomity said:

The torch thing is a very bad example that is by far the worst designed branch of any skilltree in the game, 0 team utility, 0 true benefit to you and you're expected to spend 7 points to max that out.

My counter-arguement for this is a torch is the most important tool for new players. New players that start as wilson have no downsides and can upgrade a tool they are going to be relying heavily on for a while.

Also its a nice QoL for experienced players (especially console players with long shard loading times i know this from my own experience on switch) that dont want to run down to the caves for lightbulbs. 

Wilson skilltree is really good cause none of his skills change gameplay fundamentals too much. Which is fitting for the default character and for new players that have enough on their plate learning the game, dont need to get caught up in all the upside/downsides of other characters.

[Antynomity]

Just now, Gashzer said:

My counter-arguement for this is a torch is the most important tool for new players. New players that start as wilson have no downsides and can upgrade a tool they are going to be relying heavily on for a while.

Also its a nice QoL for experienced players (especially console players with long shard loading times i know this from my own experience on switch) that dont want to run down to the caves for lightbulbs. 

Wilson skilltree is really good cause none of his skills change gameplay fundamentals too much. Which is fitting for the default character and for new players that have enough on their plate learning the game, dont need to get caught up in all the upside/downsides of other characters.

Yeah balance the game around new players only, I've seen this thousands of times.

[Gashzer]

3 minutes ago, Antynomity said:

Yeah balance the game around new players only, I've seen this thousands of times.

For wilson this makes sense. And his skills have Qol for experienced players too. Being able to rush archives at any time by simply killing dfly is pretty dam good. His beard insulation stacks really well with a beefalo hat so winter feels like autumn 2.0. 

Wilsons skill tree is gettin a bad rep. It suits the characters vibe and thats a win in my book.

[_zwb]

12 hours ago, Swiyss said:

No, because they would get you OUT of your comfort zone. You can't be prepared from the unexpected

they would keep on going at you

What happens next when I'm experienced enough that those new challenges become easy? Or they'll never become easy(which is impossible unless those challenges are not designed to be beaten)?

[Trips]

53 minutes ago, Antynomity said:

Yeah balance the game around new players only, I've seen this thousands of times.

Like how not every feature in the game is designed for new players (I can bet most players haven't beaten Misery Toadstool), not every feature has to be designed to appease established players. Are you gonna complain about seed drop rate being increased in the early days of the world? Because I think that's a feature quite literally made to help prevent new players from starving in the first few nights. There are subtler ways of easing new players into the game, I'm sure you haven't really parsed those exist due to how subtle it is.

[shaurun]

59 minutes ago, BezKa said:

You could have always done that. Why do you need to buff your character to do that now? If Klei wanted to buff characters and give them choices they should just add those tools to be available straight up. Skill trees are a literal waste of time.

You know what else mirrors my playstyle? My playstyle. If I need more slots, I'll make a piggyback. if I need light, I'll make a lantern. Everyone has been doing this forever, and now suddenly they need skill trees for it?

I'm already the specialest person that exists, in DST or real life. But seriously, I don't see a problem with this either, other people will play differently with the same characters just because they're different from you. And I don't understand why you would need to feel different from the other Willow on the server.

Fair points. 

Okay let's say it simply provides some options to choose and some new features to investigate/feel cooler.

Honestly when it was released for the 1st time I thought it would be Wilson specific only and was really happy for his update. Now yeah I agree this makes some characters OP and Wilson is not unique at that anymore. But it's still fun. Just survicing with a character some number of days gives you a point which makes it feel you achieved some progress. I agree that w/o skill trees you can feel same by beating your own challenges (e.g. how fast you can rush ruins challenge). But skill trees doesn't intersect with your own challeges and you can completely ignore them.

[Trips]

2 hours ago, shaurun said:

But why? I love skill trees as:

• playing with different skills could provide different expierence. Woodie as example: while people use Moose tree you could use Goose on PVP  to run away, or grow your army of treeguards and play as a human  w/o turning inro wereform and using wooden loot. Same for Wigfrid, we can go beefalo route or equipment route, or team songs route. 
• skilltree could mirror your playstyle. Low on slots? Grow beard. Often need light? Use torch branch!
• you feel unique on servers with sme character present if you hace different branches.

Absolutely agree. Skill trees aren't problematic in of itself. It's how they're implemented into a game and if the skills clash with the character themselves or seems unfitting. (Like the Wigfrid Beefalo skill) 

It's much better to scrutinize individual skills or a set of skills if they seem unfitting or poorly designed than just throwing out the feature wholesale and assuming anything with the word skill in it must be devoid of interesting, nuanced design to add into a game..

 

 

1 hour ago, BezKa said:

 Skill trees are a literal waste of time.

God forbid people actually enjoy the feeling of progression skill trees add..

[Swiyss]

2 hours ago, shaurun said:

But why? I love skill trees as:

• playing with different skills could provide different expierence. Woodie as example: while people use Moose tree you could use Goose on PVP  to run away, or grow your army of treeguards and play as a human  w/o turning inro wereform and using wooden loot. Same for Wigfrid, we can go beefalo route or equipment route, or team songs route. 
• skilltree could mirror your playstyle. Low on slots? Grow beard. Often need light? Use torch branch!
• you feel unique on servers with sme character present if you hace different branches.

Yes! Skill trees not only gives us more freedom of customization aesthetically, but also gameplay changes. Now you have to see beforehand if you wanna focus on killing shadows and their playstyle advantages and disadvantages, same as lunar.

For me is a step in the right direction

44 minutes ago, _zwb said:

What happens next when I'm experienced enough that those new challenges become easy? Or they'll never become easy(which is impossible unless those challenges are not designed to be beaten)?

When you're fighting bee queen and frogs start to rain, hounds come to kill you and most of your preparation expired, now you start freezing and have to abandon the fight altogether. I think those are things that are easy to beat individually, but the situations that they're in are not always perfect, and that's the beauty of don't starve together.

[Trips]

1 minute ago, shaurun said:

Fair points. 

Not really? Most players would make a lantern regardless, and I can't think of many situations where you wouldn't tradeoff -10% speed for the extra 4 slots.. if you're about to fight a boss, you're gonna drop it nearby and equip a magi regardless. It's like saying players can choose their playstyle by either eating or not eating food. I mean, technically? But if you don't eat any food, you will literally die. 

[Swiyss]

11 minutes ago, Trips said:

Like how not every feature in the game is designed for new players (I can bet most players haven't beaten Misery Toadstool), not every feature has to be designed to appease established players. Are you gonna complain about seed drop rate being increased in the early days of the world? Because I think that's a feature quite literally made to help prevent new players from starving in the first few nights. There are subtler ways of easing new players into the game, I'm sure you haven't really parsed those exist due to how subtle it is.

They made the scrapbook, indications in the map, and we already have character quotes, that's more then enough imo.

1 hour ago, BezKa said:

You could have always done that. Why do you need to buff your character to do that now? If Klei wanted to buff characters and give them choices they should just add those tools to be available straight up. Skill trees are a literal waste of time.

You know what else mirrors my playstyle? My playstyle. If I need more slots, I'll make a piggyback. if I need light, I'll make a lantern. Everyone has been doing this forever, and now suddenly they need skill trees for it?

I'm already the specialest person that exists, in DST or real life. But seriously, I don't see a problem with this either, other people will play differently with the same characters just because they're different from you. And I don't understand why you would need to feel different from the other Willow on the server.

That's the whole problem, imo the game shouldn't be fundamentally disrupted with skill trees that are available day 1.

The problem is not that skill trees are a bad idea, it's that it's being used for the wrong purpose.

[shaurun]

1 minute ago, Trips said:

Not really? Most players would make a lantern regardless, and I can't think of many situations where you wouldn't tradeoff -10% speed for the extra 4 slots.. if you're about to fight a boss, you're gonna drop it nearby and equip a magi regardless. It's like saying players can choose their playstyle by either eating or not eating food. I mean, technically? But if you don't eat any food, you will literally die. 

Well I don't want to argue about food, but technically you can have a lot glomer goop or other healing items and try to survive lol but you're right I doubt you can do it for long.

 

As for lanterns and piggyback... I find torch better than lantern outside caves. Especially with Wilson. Maybe I'm strange but honestly lightbulbs expire fast and going to caves all the time is time consuming so I prefer torch. And I don't want to catch fireflies because I'm afraid they won't restore.

Piggyback could be used if you're moving somewhere or you ride a beefalo constantly. Speed is cool but I wear backpack all the time and only wear magiluminacense during boss fights.

[BezKa]

11 minutes ago, shaurun said:

you can completely ignore them.

I'd say I can't, with the insight popping up and everything (bless the mod, for real), and also as I mentioned before some important content is getting locked behind them. I waited for years to get juicy berry bushes on my 5500 days old map, and they're locked behind Wormwood's skill tree. I don't want to use it, but I'll be forced to (I haven't so far. I just put it off as long as I can because arghh..). It's not that big of a deal, I know, but it still makes the "just don't use it" argument (which is almost never valid. The existence of certain items and mechanics influences the entire game, even for players that choose not to use them) just a bit less sensible.

[Swiyss]

1 minute ago, shaurun said:

Well I don't want to argue about food, but technically you can have a lot glomer goop or other healing items and try to survive lol but you're right I doubt you can do it for long.

 

As for lanterns and piggyback... I find torch better than lantern outside caves. Especially with Wilson. Maybe I'm strange but honestly lightbulbs expire fast and going to caves all the time is time consuming so I prefer torch. And I don't want to catch fireflies because I'm afraid they won't restore.

Piggyback could be used if you're moving somewhere or you ride a beefalo constantly. Speed is cool but I wear backpack all the time and only wear magiluminacense during boss fights.

If you're not either picking a character that has no downsides wearing the piggyback or one that increases mvspeed naturally,  or even using a beefalo to negate the loss, then you're definitely missing out on not crafting them. They're super op as wormwood, as you get 20% mvspeed all the time by managing your blooming. Same as wx

Heck, anyone can mount a beefalo for that 60% speed at all time with very little cost of having to fall off of him from time to time which is not THAT annoying

Beefalos need a nerf in that regard, they need to have linear mvspeed % bonuses.

[BezKa]

15 minutes ago, Trips said:

God forbid people actually enjoy the feeling of progression skill trees add..

...there is no progression. You stay alive for however many minutes, you get a point. Real progression works like upgrading from science machine to alchemy engine, not running around and the game saying "such a good job!!! Have a treat!"

[_zwb]

15 minutes ago, Swiyss said:

When you're fighting bee queen and frogs start to rain, hounds come to kill you and most of your preparation expired, now you start freezing and have to abandon the fight altogether. I think those are things that are easy to beat individually, but the situations that they're in are not always perfect, and that's the beauty of don't starve together.

You're not even answering my question: what happens after you have beaten the new challenges?

[Trips]

You could also make multiple lanterns so that you don't have to make as many trips into the caves to refuel them compared to your one lantern. Fireflies do replenish over time, so I'm not sure where that worry comes from. 

The piggyback point was more valid, but it's still a rather minor downside regardless. 

[Swiyss]

Just now, BezKa said:

...there is no progression. You stay alive for however many minutes, you get a point. Real progression works like upgrading from science machine to alchemy engine, not running around and the game saying "such a good job!!! Have a treat!"

What is your actual problem with the skill tree? What would you say are the main points that interfere your gameplay in a negative way, give me 3 or more.

[demon3000]

There is a big difference between Wilson's skills and the other characters. Wilson's skills tree did not provide much of an advantage; at most they made survival easier. But the skills of other characters now radically change the gameplay or completely eliminate the disadvantages. This is not bad for an RPG, but it is bad for survival, because now there is no need for careful play and minute-by-minute planning. Strong skills should give strong debuffs.

[Trips]

Just now, BezKa said:

...there is no progression. You stay alive for however many minutes, you get a point. Real progression works like upgrading from science machine to alchemy engine, not running around and the game saying "such a good job!!! Have a treat!"

I don't really care that much about the way insight is gained, but the incremental increase in power is rather nice. That and I think I like the customization aspect of skill trees more regardless, but Klei probably could rework some skills to make the choices less obvious (some choices being more autopicks than others)

[BezKa]

1 minute ago, Swiyss said:

What is your actual problem with the skill tree? What would you say are the main points that interfere your gameplay in a negative way, give me 3 or more.

On 11/30/2023 at 11:17 PM, BezKa said:

 

- Skill trees are a lazy and uncreative way to lock content. Compare how you unlock an insight point to buy yourself a blueprint essentially, to how you get blueprints in the archives. Which one feels more like you achieved something and your character evolved?

- Skill trees do not help new players learn the game, at least not nearly as much as simply playing already does. They're a crutch, and looking at Wigfrid's tree which is basically "stat bonus" and "unlock thing" idk if they are even meant to- which makes them clutter, and therefore even harder to learn the game. A paradox in a way, or I'm just stupid.

- Small and insignificant, they make you stop walking when inspecting a player and cover over half your screen. Get out of the way, I'm trying to use weather pain not look at my friends' poor choices!

- They're just another wave of reworks. We'll never reach any sort of balance in the game at this point.

- "Personalizing your gameplay" was already a thing. It was called choosing your character. And playing your way.

- Some of the skills are just straight up too powerful to have in the early game. If Klei wanted some sort of New Game+, original Don't Starve already had the perfect solution.

- Locking universally needed content behind characters is bad, and locking it behind individual skills is even worse. 

- Something about a giant screen where you assign stats to your character is just so impossibly Not DS like, it takes me out every time, I hate looking at it, I hate using it.

- Getting the skills is too easy, and at the same time bothersome enough people just use commands a lot of the time. I unlocked Wilson's insight the "proper" way and half the time I was just sitting by a fire (because beta testing, not keeping the world) and got rewarded for it. I love cookie clicker and sitting idly by when number go up, but in a game like DST?...

 

 

[Swiyss]

1 minute ago, _zwb said:

You're not even answering my question: what happens after you have beaten the new challenges?

They become tasks, and the better you are at getting over them, the better they feel.

Like having to clean my house all the time, at first I was very slow at it, now I know where everything is and how everything works around here, so that now I can feel way way way better, by doing the exact same "inconvenience" but faster and smarter.

4 minutes ago, Trips said:

You could also make multiple lanterns so that you don't have to make as many trips into the caves to refuel them compared to your one lantern. Fireflies do replenish over time, so I'm not sure where that worry comes from. 

The piggyback point was more valid, but it's still a rather minor downside regardless. 

You can bundle 160 lightbulbs.

2 minutes ago, demon3000 said:

There is a big difference between Wilson's skills and the other characters. Wilson's skills tree did not provide much of an advantage; at most they made survival easier. But the skills of other characters now radically change the gameplay or completely eliminate the disadvantages. This is not bad for an RPG, but it is bad for survival, because now there is no need for careful play and minute-by-minute planning. Strong skills should give strong debuffs.

There you go. Right at the eye.

[BezKa]

Just now, Trips said:

I don't really care that much about the way insight is gained, but the incremental increase in power is rather nice. That and I think I like the customization aspect of skill trees more regardless, but Klei probably could rework some skills to make the choices less obvious (some choices being more autopicks than others)

See, I just don't understand. The game has ALWAYS worked like this. You could choose the direction you play in the entire time. If you want to focus on magic you find bunnies, spiders etc. If you want to """personalize""" your gameplay, you can pick Wickerbottom to make this process faster. And you actually are doing things in the game to achieve it, not clicking a button after waiting for X minutes. All the things people are praising about skill trees are already in the game. So why do we need skill trees?

I'm starting to think people just don't want to admit it's only about the buffs.