The reason why I think shadow affinity is a bit underwhelming + skill tree talk and feedback.

[Swiyss]

I've been playing a lot lately in this new update and I can safely say that Wormwood and Woodie (you'll see why I'll regret this later) are the best characters in the game for me in a long-term world.

Wormwoods lunar affinity is brilliant* and perfect for him. Everything about having more damage with the vines, rooting enemies in place, infinite light with bulbous lightbugs and carrats is perfect (saladmanders are still very underwhelming). Aside from his kit already being god-tier.

Woodie have so much tanking and spanking, is an early game god, exploration and gathering (his late game is great but not fantastic. Good but not bad). But his lunar and shadow affinities makes me wanna choose lunar all the time. For me, the charlie buff on him is pretty much useless and neglectable.

And then we have the rest. They are all in a weird place for me..

New willow is unnecessarily complicated for a slight advantage only; which is actually great in my opinion since it makes you benefit more from playing well (skill issue). Her skill tree resembles Maxwell's rework and that's a big problem for me. If we get to Maxwell's skill tree before fixing these problems, then everyone will just choose lunar and call it a day. And her affinity skills are another case where shadow sucks and lunar is great.

Now wolfgang, wigfrid and wilson all have simple damage buffs from their affinities. That for me is one problem to be fixed.

The reason I bring that up is because there is 0 incentive for playing with shadows. We have lunar spider, hounds and pengulls (rarely see them); greater gestalts and grazer (no reason to/can't hit them); misshapen bird, moonlight crow, carrat, lunar wobster and saladmander (no reason to deal more damage against it); brightshades and 5 giants , being the celestial champ, crab king and the 3 mutated ones, which are the only good reason to pick shadow for the damage plus, since you're constantly fighting them, but only in The Late Game.

My biggest issue with the game right now is the fact that choosing to side with the cryptic founder will benefit you so much in the early game (terrorbeaks and crawling horrors, the shadow pieces, ruins damaged robots, nightmare werepig) while ALSO granting you an advantage in the late game. While choosing charlie will most definetely be useless in the early game, but benefit you more in the late game, where most lunar bosses are.

We have an unbalanced gameplay progression that needs to be adressed. The addition of the lunar island, all pearl tasks, fighting crab king and all that stuff is boring for most people, why don't you fix this issue by making it easier to complete the tasks if you side with charlie and she gives you her knowledge to survive and thrive against lunar folks? The other way around also should be looked at. Why can't we make finding fuelweaver (assuming you're not void walking), clearing the runes and moving the marble pieces easier if we side with Wagstaff and he gives us knowledge too?

Now how would that be? We need to either add more unforgiving* lunar monsters in the early game (won't happen and will not fix pearl, crab king, shadow pieces and ancient guardian issue [that it takes too long to reach late game state]) like people are asking for? I see some pissed people complaining "Why are all that cool stuff locked behind rifts?", yet another issue that would be fixed. Assuming we choose my biased second idea, my suggestions are (take these with a grain of salt as they are very adaptable, focus more in the idea of the things presented here rather than the design names or choices themselves):

_Give all players early access to a new craft in the pseudoscience stations or level 2 magic tab called Shadow Blazon, it costs 1 nightmare fuel and 1 butterfly. Applying the Blazon in your character will physically show it in some way or another, and people would know if you're with the shadows without having to click on you and scan your skill tree profile (please remove or change this feature, I can't stand the giant UI in my face while accidentally clicking on someone while walking in the base or simply examining them to show gratitude. This thing also overwhelms new players). The survivor with a Blazon will be able to get 3 free missions from the pearl be already completed. She should say something about the Blazon itself and be more forgiving from the get go. The Blazon will also affect how you play the game overall since it can change interactions with shadow align creatures, making them respect you a little more, explaining why you take less damage from them. The damage plus on lunar creatures would be explained by the Blazon's help. It could have a rose in it like most IRL Blazons already do, explaining Charlie's influence. The Blazon could also help in the celestial champion fight, making so when the third phase arrives, a strong nightmare hand tries to lock him in place for 4k damage duration (until he has 10k hp), making him immovable, then at 10k health he spawns a guaranteed laser on you, dealing 20 planar damage and burning the Blazon forever, giving you Horror Ashes, a sticky portion of black dust. Horror Ashes can be cooked with 3 filler (100% priority) to make Spooky Foie-gras, that once fed to a dust moth would make her sneeze and give us a blueprint for Vision. Vision would be an item similar to archive stuff, but with a powerful white glow, a round shaped device with the gem in the center surrounded by white light on it's radius. It would cost 3 thulecite and 1 iridescent gem. Applying Collected Miasma (alternatively it would cost pure horror, althought I also got another recipe idea for Collected Miasma) to Vision will turn it into Dark Vision. Collected Miasma can be acquired by holding the thurible next to Miasma, changing the thurible to a Miasma Filled Thurible. Crafting the item would give you back the original thurible unfilled. Holding Vision in the dark protects you against charlie attacks (hand-held item) but doesn't glow enough to see. Dark Vision can be applied to the Bone Helm. A Bone Helm with a Dark Vision would give you, well, dark true vision so you can see in the dark. Alternatively it would not show shadow creatures as long as you're wearing the helm. Alternatively it would remove the sanity filter. Alternatively it would just make charlie not attack you. If a survivor enters the constant with a lunar rift open and tries to apply the Blazon it will stay inactive and useless, only showing the shadow alignment. Then in a full moon (the one that comes after the celestial champion was defeated) it burns and gives Horror Ashes to the player. The collected miasma could also be used for making Toxic Bomb, similarly to the Brightshade bomb, dealing some planar damage but in a much bigger area, something that looks like those red balls that shadelings drop on death. It could also not even be a Blazon, but an oldschool trinket from the 20's that charlie changed or affected. Or something that resembles the Thulecite medallion in a way, also affected by Charlie. Maybe it could be found in a specific grave in the graveyard mini-biome, or even a new place available for shadow align players. Although I don't know how I would feel if all of this was locked behind one skill tree perk, so I think they should rethink the current Insight system for this year and make it so even if their character doesn't have a skill tree yet, they can still choose to side with Charlie or Wagstaff in a different way. Maybe give players a first interaction with them in the early game. Like how one could talk with charlie in the first night of the game. Or one could travel to a new place located next to the Moon Quay Island, where they can contact Wagstaff and align with them. Or maybe he can show up somewhere if you do something next to the spawn idk.

_The same could be done for lunar aligned survivors. Wagstaff could gives us knowledge to craft the W.I.L.E.E (Water.Induced.Labyrinthine.Exquisite.Earrings) crafted in the lunar altar or level 2 science tab with water collected from the vitreoasis in an Empty Bottle, 2 gold nuggets and a moon rock. The earrings would ring in our ears, guiding us to find the ruins and locating things in the game via quotes or white waves around the survivor's head (similar to the little ghosts quests from Wendy. Only similar though). It could give you hints* in the archive puzzle via quotes, fossil recognition in some rocks via examination or added fossil drop rate. Even help you in the fuelweaver fight by resonating a sound once, stunning him for some seconds, like the new bosses. Then he would wake up from the sound, break your earrings and continue the fight. That would make so people won't use it twice or abuse the item for easy grinding. Also, if a survivor enters a world where there are cave rifts open, and crafts an earring, it would shatter once applied and damage the player; then a quote hinting about the shadow Eye influence would pop up. When they break, they could drop Shattered Pieces, that could be returned to Wagstaff once Celestial Champion is down (optional), he would then give you a blueprint for a translation module called W.O.S.T.T.E.R (Water.On.Spores.Translates.Them.Effectively.Right) that can be carfted with all 3 mushroom spores + an enlightment shard. The W.O.S.T.T.E.R can be put in the crown's spore slot and it makes the wearer hear the crown's quotes, similarly to the reaper's quotes. The crown would give you a quote every half a day and on equipping it. Equipping W.O.S.T.T.E.R would make the crown shine at a much lower threshold of 50% instead of 85%, but it would still need the 85% for gestalts to attack. Or maybe it would now take 1.6 sanity per gestalt spawn. Alternatively it could make the crown glow forever because you sided with Wagstaff, same how siding with Charlie would make you see with Dark Vision. 

I find it weird that we have to lock such an essential late game thing (infinite light) under only one certain boss while bone helm exists and it's not that great.

Right now, almost every character I played was an automatic Lunar Affinity because of Shadow Affinity being underwhelming.

Now, I got another thing to say about the problem that we currently have with Moon Quay. The biggest problem is that the unnatural portal lore still wasn't finished, and the Island is a place you go once, grab the blueprints and never comes back. If you need bananas, you can get them in the caves, and if you need cut reeds, you can get them in the marsh biome. Having to be potentially raided by pirates to get the blueprints is not worth unless you're megabasing. I think that a lot of people also think that the island overall is underwhelming and can be improved in some way or another.

My first idea is to give Wonkey a skill tree. Because he can understand powder monkeys, lock an interaction with someone on him, so people have to be wonkey to activate something specific, like a boss fight. Then give wonkey some fighting traits and gathering ones to incentivise people actually staying with him. Wonkey could have an easier time managing boats and fighting sea creatures. He could also be friends with sharkboi and don't need to fight with him to trade. They can fix so many ocean problems just by making a Wonkey skill tree and putting those solutions there. Also, he should have atleas 200 hunger, his health and sanity are way too low to consider playing him. I think people would start to actually like him because of his movespeed.

My second idea is to make the powder monkey queen an entrance to fight another boss. Maybe she gives you an item like pearl. Maybe a gestalt finds her island and infects her. Or maybe wagstaff comes back to grab something he needs after the rifts were open and finds the unnatural portal open and decides to fix it. After helping him, and succeeding this time, he says "I think I have an idea for these specimens here" "But I'm afraid I lost my notes somewhere". Then after giving his notes back he says "Oh well, you proved to be very helpful this time". Then he asks you to turn into wonkey and he does some experiments on you idk. 

What are you guys thoughts on our current skill tree? If you have any suggestions on how it could be improved I'd love to hear it and discuss it. If you think the problems I showed here are not problems then tell me why.

 

[landromat]

i prefer shadow woodie. great to deal with ruins and long boss fights

[Swiyss]

I doubt they will actually change the way the insight system affinities work. But I definetely see these things here as issues:

Few incentive to unlock perks by actually doing things in-game.

Shadow affinity being worst then lunar 

Old resources and items becoming more skippable each time the game is updated

Locking too many things inside characters specific skill trees (we need more things like Maxwell being able to use wickerbottom's books and survivors using winona's catapults)

Lack of love for casual player that take the game slowly and use different things and ways to approach the game.

To little ways to express creativity. I 100% guarantee you that if you could paint every single item in the game we would see multiple pink bases in people streams in twitch.

[Kwaik]

The shadow affinities biggest issue tends to be most of the lunar content tends to be very late game, and lunar has little to no role in the caves as well. 

 

That said we don't know what the 2024 big plans are 

If new biomes and or content, includes a chunk of not late game content, and has an emphasis on lunar, well this helps resolve some of the issues you highlighted. 

While everything you said is completely true, the reality is most of the skill trees are not done and we do not know what this year's major plans are 

[cropo]

4 minutes ago, Kwaik said:

The shadow affinities biggest issue tends to be most of the lunar content tends to be very late game, and lunar has little to no role in the caves as well. 

 

That said we don't know what the 2024 big plans are 

If new biomes and or content, includes a chunk of not late game content, and has an emphasis on lunar, well this helps resolve some of the issues you highlighted. 

While everything you said is completely true, the reality is most of the skill trees are not done and we do not know what this year's major plans are 

I think Klei said they intend for caves to be the hotspot for shadow content while the surface will be the hotspot for lunar content for future enemies and bosses and stuff.

[arubaro]

2 hours ago, Swiyss said:

Wormwoods lunar affinity is brilliant* and perfect for him. Everything about having more damage with the vines, rooting enemies in place, infinite light with bulbous lightbugs and carrats is perfect (saladmanders are still very underwhelming). Aside from his kit already being god-tier.

Agree, thematically and fun-creative-wise he has by far the best affinity perks. Not like wigfrid having a boring, unispired couple of songs that simply gives stat buffs...

2 hours ago, Swiyss said:

For me, the charlie buff on him is pretty much useless and neglectable

For me is precisely the opposite. Why i want to be inmune to a short period of time curse every 21 days when i can fight safely, chop and mine without distractions and a safer transition to human form.

If want to farm moonstorms i can simply turn to monkey or use the portal to have the moon affinity until o finish farming moon materials. I don't need constant full moon with how confortable is to have light with cc crown

Moon immunity is nearly pointless and the way klei implemented it is really boring and vague. The crown should give inmunity to full moons so there is player interaction and choices

 

Edit. Oh, as others already said, you dont deal with full moon in the caves so is even more pointless. I wish klei stop releasing skill trees and improve the ones they already launched because there are a lot of changes needed...

[MadMatt]

The biggest problem with affinities is that they tend to just be the same effects but polar-opposite to each other. This inherently creates a bias towards Lunar since they're the same effects but one has better early application than the other, and that's it. Woodie is basically the only character with two affinities that have entirely different main effects, and this creates a lot more discourse and interesting personal player choice on which one you choose. Some people think Shadow is the best always, some people think Lunar is the best always (Shadow ftw btw).

This is infinitely more interesting than characters like Wolfgang, Wigfrid, and Willow where you either always wanna take just lunar or go shadow only if you're rushing CC. I think it's a missed opportunity to differentiate the affinities more for all the skill trees and replicate the interesting divide between Woodie players when choosing affinity skills. Although the skills not being well balanced is a prevailing issue for skill trees in general, it stings a lot more when the cool unique pick-a-side aspect of them just boils down to picking Lunar unless you're rushing CC.

[Ohan]

Lunar willow is waaaay overrated. 

the shadow spell is so much more fun to use and spices up boss fights so much while lunar fire mostly shines in small mob farming which in many cases can also be covered by the combustion skill. 

[splorange]

Thematically I always prefer the shadow side compared to lunar, things like the shadow reaper, shadow Ashley, and the Ink Blights are all amazing and are really appealing to me. Because of my preference to the shadow theme, I usually aim for my skill trees to be shadow aligned, but unfortunately I feel like the affinities aren't quite balanced and I am usually pressured to go lunar affinities. Here is why I feel this way:

Biggest problem in the current handful of character affinities are the skills that are the same skill except opposite depending on alignment (Do x increased damage towards Lunar Aligned, do x increased damage towards Shadow Aligned). Because of the design of the frequency of aligned mobs, going lunar aligned will almost always be preferred because shadow aligned mobs are significantly more frequent and a large portion of lunar aligned mobs are either untargetable or die in one hit anyways. I don't exactly mind that this is the case for 1-2 characters, but hopefully now that Wolfgang and Wigfrid are out of the way we won't see this anymore.

Willow's alignments are really cool and is what I was hoping for when I was thinking of lunar and shadow affinities, having very significant and special perks that show off your alignment is amazing. I am sad that people weren't vocal enough about the state of shadow flame, it has so much less damage and utility compared to lunar flame. I understand that truly balancing the two skills is really hard because perception of the usefulness of an ability varies so much between players, but I wish the two were at least comparable.

At the current state of the skill tree alignments I feel like lunar alignment is definitely ahead compared to shadow in terms of balance, Every character and especially combat characters greatly benefit from the shadow damage bonus, Willow's lunar flame is significantly better, Wormwood can only be lunar aligned. Woodie is the only character in which I genuinely feel like it comes down to preference, however it is almost necessarily to pick lunar if you prefer to keep moonstorms on.

We are still kinda early in skill tree development as a whole, I do have faith that Klei can develop the rest in a way that makes both sides feel equal.

[Kevinnator]

I get your critique but I sort of see it is as both choosing between 2 perks and when you have it easier. Shadow affinity only really affects lategame and post rift while lunar is the most useful early and mid-game. Plus the 10% more damage isn't gonna make a huge difference on shadow creatures, it mostly benefits long fights which are usually the case with lunar bosses.

While both shadow and lunar get rift content, I feel like lunar rifts are gonna be a threat you face the most as everyone bases on the surface.

[grm9]

7 minutes ago, Kevinnator said:

Plus the 10% more damage isn't gonna make a huge difference on shadow creature

you can kill crawling horrors in 5 hits with lunar perk if you deal more than 54.5 without the perk and you can kill terrorbeaks in 7 hits if you deal more than 51.9 damage without the perk

[BalkanCockroach]

1 hour ago, Kevinnator said:

While both shadow and lunar get rift content, I feel like lunar rifts are gonna be a threat you face the most as everyone bases on the surface.

I wanna see some sweet sweet ancients shadow content. Like, imagine dead, shadow worshipping cultist that cast spells at you with fuel. They are bug people so their exoskeletons have been animated with the fuel to bring em back. Maybe like a hidden branch in the ruins?

 

[Kevinnator]

14 hours ago, BalkanCockroach said:

I wanna see some sweet sweet ancients shadow content. Like, imagine dead, shadow worshipping cultist that cast spells at you with fuel. They are bug people so their exoskeletons have been animated with the fuel to bring em back. Maybe like a hidden branch in the ruins?

I'm all in for some good shadow rift content. Compared to the first rift update for the lunar side, shadow rifts got the better introduction. Now I hope the 2nd update for shadow rifts is as nice or better than the 2nd lunar rift update.

[skile]

On 1/10/2024 at 1:59 PM, landromat said:

i prefer shadow woodie. great to deal with ruins and long boss fights

Same. Lunar perk gives a nice dmg boost for a bunch of bosses, but its main effect only really helps me at a very specific stage of the game I won't be on for long (though if the server likes to keep the storms on, I might consider the lunar side). Shadow perk meanwhile is a nice QoL for day to day form usage, and a convinient tool for ruins, plus it helps with early Daywalker. 

[arubaro]

4 hours ago, Kevinnator said:

I'm all in for some good shadow rift content. Compared to the first rift update for the lunar side, shadow rifts got the better introduction. Now I hope the 2nd update for shadow rifts is as nice or better than the 2nd lunar rift update.

Agree in the artistic department but mechanically the ink trio suck, the fight is cool but is optional...

[landromat]

On 1/10/2024 at 9:52 PM, BalkanCockroach said:

I wanna see some sweet sweet ancients shadow content. Like, imagine dead, shadow worshipping cultist that cast spells at you with fuel. They are bug people so their exoskeletons have been animated with the fuel to bring em back. Maybe like a hidden branch in the ruins?

 

Doesn't remind you anything?

[BalkanCockroach]

39 minutes ago, landromat said:

Doesn't remind you anything?

Doesn't look reanimated or like a cultist to me. I wanna see their exoskeleton reanimated like a fuelweaver situation.

[Well-met]

one of the main problem since RoT is how negligible gestalts are. This has never changed in 5 years.

[landromat]

1 hour ago, BalkanCockroach said:

Doesn't look reanimated or like a cultist to me. I wanna see their exoskeleton reanimated like a fuelweaver situation.

that's literally dead bugmen corrupted souls. I don't think we'll see something like fuelweaver, because it was something created and controlled by them (to protect gates i guess) then shadow cataclysm turned everyone into shadows so there is very little sense to make reanimated bugmen corpses or cultists. only torch queen stayed alive after that. Reanimating is more lunar thing. Shadow corrupts souls

[BalkanCockroach]

43 minutes ago, landromat said:

 Reanimating is more lunar thing. Shadow corrupts souls

yeah, i wonder what we'll get for host of terrors.

[grm9]

8 hours ago, landromat said:

I don't think we'll see something like fuelweaver, because it was something created and controlled by them

if you mean the eye from the gateway, it probably wanted FW to die to give power to the gate and activate it, FW is against the eye appearing in the world again

8 hours ago, landromat said:

only torch queen stayed alive after that

pretty sure it was the cane bug if you mean the last mural from the puzzles   

[landromat]

yeah, looks like shadow dude stayed alive in the end.

also FW looks like cane dude creation in attempt  to control shadow gates

[arubaro]

11 hours ago, Well-met said:

one of the main problem since RoT is how negligible gestalts are. This has never changed in 5 years.

No, it was made worst by adding CC crown and a head slot armor which one of his 37362 perks is ignoring the only mechanic behind enlightened 

[Swiyss]

On 1/10/2024 at 9:09 AM, Kwaik said:

The shadow affinities biggest issue tends to be most of the lunar content tends to be very late game, and lunar has little to no role in the caves as well. 

 

That said we don't know what the 2024 big plans are 

If new biomes and or content, includes a chunk of not late game content, and has an emphasis on lunar, well this helps resolve some of the issues you highlighted. 

While everything you said is completely true, the reality is most of the skill trees are not done and we do not know what this year's major plans are 

Yep. That's the biggest reason I think we need to take a second look in the early game. Specially regarding affinities being a big part of this new arc.