Opinions on Skill trees

[Kwaik]

3 hours ago, Yuuko said:

To be fair - Willow didn't have much to give "small buffs" to.  She was Wilson with a torch that was usually good until it ran out, and same with Bernie.  Their uses were pretty niche.  They had to do something bigger for her.  Now with the new skills I'd say she's almost where Wendy is, and still pretty far behind Maxwell.

Willow feels REALLY good early game, potentially the best in the game (again early game) if you build Bernie and then really drops off. 

 

 

[Szczuku]

No offence to the devs, obviously, but man; imagine what the game could've been like if Klei knew what they were doing, instead of blindly trying out various "keep players engaged" tactics

[SSneaky]

IMO they're fine, but they got be be larger with more perks/Opportunity cost.

[-Variant]

Honestly I'm considering going over them in my own post soon. I can't stand them currently. So much potential I feel is... wasted.

They're so skewed!! So directionless! Wilson gets to turn rock A into rock B for his fancy skill and Willow gets some absurd planar abilities day 1?? What?
There's so many things I'd have done differently I don't know where to begin. It's starting to feel bloated, and I hate saying that when it comes to new things.

[Szczuku]

2 minutes ago, -Variant said:

It's starting to feel bloated

And we're only 1/3 of the way baby!

[Jakepeng99]

3 hours ago, Szczuku said:

No offence to the devs, obviously, but man; imagine what the game could've been like if Klei knew what they were doing, instead of blindly trying out various "keep players engaged" tactics

The skilltrees take too long to unlock for that to work anyway. It feels grindy to do it for every character..

 

27 minutes ago, -Variant said:

Honestly I'm considering going over them in my own post soon. I can't stand them currently. So much potential I feel is... wasted.

They're so skewed!! So directionless! Wilson gets to turn rock A into rock B for his fancy skill and Willow gets some absurd planar abilities day 1?? What?
There's so many things I'd have done differently I don't know where to begin. It's starting to feel bloated, and I hate saying that when it comes to new things.

I think the design of the skill trees are kind of mind boggling in some aspects for alot of characters aswell. Wolfgang's planar damage skills should be base kit- having a skill essential to post riff be useless pre riff is unfun when selecting skills. Same applies with some other skills to a smaller extent, like Wormwood bramble armour. There should be a way to change skills without the portal.

[SSneaky]

1 hour ago, Jakepeng99 said:

The skilltrees take too long to unlock for that to work anyway. It feels grindy to do it for every character..

Haha Instantly Unlock Mod Goes BRRRRRRR.

[Ryusuta]

Wilson's was good, fun, and distinctive. All of the following ones were either boring, poorly balanced or both, in my opinion. skill trees should 100% have stayed a Wilson-only thing.

[lenship2]

skill trees are supposed to be buffs but it feels so convoluted and unnecessary, they could've gone with alignment-themed updates that gave abilities corresponding to alignments, and included small character tweaks within these updates

however, they aren't too bad, but they're very intrusive and seeing most people cheat them in is disappointing

 

if klei's insistent on keeping skill trees then i believe they should make most of the skills craftable items, like what they did with wormwood/wigfrid; this would add progression and value to skills, and ultimately make them more unique

[SapoLover]

The execution could have been better or much better in some cases. I like the simpler ones like Wilson's and Wigfrid's that add a nice plus to an already solid-established character. I'd like them to try avoid the crazy stuff.

[Evelo]

I dislike that Skillsets (official name not skill tree) are in the game. But since they are likely here to stay then make them good but not overpowered. Willow and Wigfrid added too much in my opinion. Unique crafts I feel should stay out of skillsets and only be minor boons. Very minor boons. I think Wormwood (naturally cause I fought so hard to get it changed plus my main) is pretty good. I think the Bramble Husk bonus is too strong though however I do like how it encourages the use of the bramble husk over other armor pieces. It also has anti-synergy with the right side lunar perks requiring a full set of Brightshade Gear.

I like Woodie's transformation perks (despite me hating the transformations in general) and how they are just slight buffs. Wolfgang's is the most boring and I like that a lot about him. It is there, it is passive, and it isn't flashy. Design wise I think Wolfgang's is the best because it just enhances his current tool kit without adding really anything else.

If I could make a wish it would be the complete removal of all current and future skillsets (along with a Wilson re-refresh) in favor of tweaking the more neglected base characters like Willow, Winona, and Walter.

[gamehun20]

1 hour ago, Evelo said:

Wolfgang's is the best because it just enhances his current tool kit without adding really anything else.

Didn't Wolfgang get a bunch of crafts tho

[Evelo]

20 minutes ago, gamehun20 said:

Didn't Wolfgang get a bunch of crafts tho

Did he? I only remember the planar damage requiring a ton of points.

[gamehun20]

34 minutes ago, Evelo said:

Did he? I only remember the planar damage requiring a ton of points.

A few dumbbells yeah and the whistle 

[Antynomity]

15 hours ago, Szczuku said:

And we're only 1/3 of the way baby!

Prepare for trouble!

And make it Dou...triple!

[Jakepeng99]

10 hours ago, lenship2 said:

they could've gone with alignment-themed updates that gave abilities corresponding to alignments, and included small character tweaks within these updates

I thought the ssme.

[Yuuko]

2 hours ago, Evelo said:

If I could make a wish it would be the complete removal of all current and future skillsets (along with a Wilson re-refresh) in favor of tweaking the more neglected base characters like Willow, Winona, and Walter.

If only for brevity - definitely.  I am not looking forward to the power creep as the skill trees reach Maxwell and Wanda - who are still OP compared to ppl who have trees except in post-planar.  Wanda could at least go the way of Wolfgang with a very boring tree of repeated ticks of planar damage to her watch.. but fr the whole planar nonsense and another cycle of refreshes could have ALL been avoided if Klei just grabbed the few characters who needed help and hit them a second time.

I'm guessing its a conflict of interest to rework existing mechanics - they aren't an exciting announcement to launch skins to.  I'm sure us forumites would flip out our wallets even if there were no news, but they're trying to spam social media and catch new players so eh :\  Mostly I cry for the power creep that is only gotten worse this cycle.

[Pomato]

16 hours ago, Szczuku said:

And we're only 1/3 of the way baby!

Don't forget the rework of the skill trees too! 

[Lvb]

-Woodie and Willows are skill trees that genuinely make me want to play these characters and excited to start a new run with them.

-Wormwood and Wigfrids give you a few new fun toys but I find myself still not playing them.

-Wolfgang and Wilson's had no effect on me playing them.

My bigger criticism is that they lack variation for the most part. Look at any game with skill trees and the whole point is for you to have many "builds". The trees need to be deeper so all builds dont end up as "90% the same skills with 1 or 2 personal preferences".

If most people use 90% of the same build, why have it as a skill tree and not just a character rework?

TL:DR These skills trees feel more like progression rather than actual choices.

Edit: I agree with the criticism that the planar damage and lunar spells feel very power creepy Day 1. They should be locked per world until you get to those stages, not just a permanent upgrade for all future runs after you use the console to cheat bosses.

And on that note, why have any of the skills be permanent unlocks rather than per-world progression? This game already lacks player investment in servers. Maybe speed up the unlock speed so all are unlocked by 40 days or so, then players might play more than 1 session on the same server to get to the fun unlocks!

[Starlogy]

1 hour ago, Lvb said:

And on that note, why have any of the skills be permanent unlocks rather than per-world progression? This game already lacks player investment in servers. Maybe speed up the unlock speed so all are unlocked by 40 days or so, then players might play more than 1 session on the same server to get to the fun unlocks!

This was always the weird thing about skill trees to me. On paper they're cool, but them being account-bound and taking FOREVER (2 whole ingame years) just to finish one character (unless you just cheat), it makes the system just feel off. I'd much rather they be world-bound, and take 2-3 seasons worth of time to unlock everything. This way the player is not only encouraged to play an entire year, but playthrough the next year to play around with all their cool new skills.

[grm9]

2 hours ago, Lvb said:

Maybe speed up the unlock speed so all are unlocked by 40 days or so, then players might play more than 1 session on the same server to get to the fun unlocks!

that would suck because many perks are only useful during early game (wigfrid battle helm durability, wigfrid's shield, wormwood's light bugs, the entirety of woodie's skill tree etc.) and it sucks when there's no way to get something other than wait, so you could kill FW in first winter and not get those perks, or sit at base and do nothing for 40 days and get those perks 

2 hours ago, Lvb said:

I agree with the criticism that the planar damage and lunar spells feel very power creepy Day 1

it has less dps than dark sword against one target and is hardly better than abigail against multiple targets or worse if you consider that abigail costs nothing and lunar fire costs embers, you get abigail day 1 too and you can get dark swords day 1 or play as wolfgang to get higher damage than willow with a dark sword before dusk by using ham bat 

[Yuuko]

7 hours ago, Lvb said:

Edit: I agree with the criticism that the planar damage and lunar spells feel very power creepy Day 1. They should be locked per world until you get to those stages, not just a permanent upgrade for all future runs after you use the console to cheat bosses.

And on that note, why have any of the skills be permanent unlocks rather than per-world progression? This game already lacks player investment in servers. Maybe speed up the unlock speed so all are unlocked by 40 days or so, then players might play more than 1 session on the same server to get to the fun unlocks!

I don't think they should be locked per world - but I think it would be better if they were more like Willow, giving you real extra abilities rather than some small percentage passive.  Passive abilities are rarely interesting and for Wig I completely pass on hers b/c its so negligible.

I think what Klei needs to do is not just tack on a skill tree but actually just do a whole character refresh again, including nerfing them to make their skill tree meaningful.  For Wolfgang the tree is pretty bland b/c its all passives and he's already strong without it.  For Willow its a bit more interesting b/c she is picking very different effects for her character to have access to.  When Max gets his skill tree its really going to make Willow's look both better and worse - better b/c all of her skills are there giving you real choices in how you play - and worse b/c Max is going to have all of his OP kit AND a skill tree on top of it...

[Falkenpelz]

I'm honestly just ignoring them mainly because they feel like they don't entirely belong in the game. I'm still conflicted on whether they feel like cheating to me or not. Willow being able to just magically remove fires seems pretty overkill, what is the importance of fire management with flingos, waterbombs and lureplants, if I can just poof it?

[grm9]

17 minutes ago, Falkenpelz said:

what is the importance of fire management with flingos, waterbombs and lureplants, if I can just poof it?

you can use watering cans as anyone   

[Sanitar]

The skill tree was created to replace the "reworks". Marketers, rather than game designers, are more likely to be behind the emergence of the skill tree.