Willow skill tree is an example of a "bad" skill tree

[Swiyss]

I think with the potential that Klei have plus seeing wormwood and woodie skill trees (even though they aren't perfect) I feel like klei could've done something waay more cohesive, cooler, unique, balanced, task oriented and all around complete.

Using combustion or fireball, then standing still with lunar flares (or moving and missing 50% of the skill) and then constantly having to reapply the fire buff is a very bad gameplay design I think. I'm so sad by the fact that she could've been way better, I guess we'll need a fourth wave of reworks after the potential third if they continue like this.

[BezKa]

All skill trees are examples of bad skill trees.

Or rather, of a "mechanic" shoved into a game it doesn't belong in.

[Swiyss]

11 minutes ago, BezKa said:

All skill trees are examples of bad skill trees.

Or rather, of a "mechanic" shoved into a game it doesn't belong in.

The skill tree mechanic is actually really good.

Imagine a system that rewards long-time players while also encouraging new players to dive in their character specifics.

Sure the idea is fine..... Until you use it to call it rework number 3. That's the main issue I think. Imagine playing Willow without skill trees, the character is night and day. That disparity is what makes the skill trees bad. Also the system, unlocking by surviving 150 is very boring and unintuitive, they should add things to do inside the world to unlock certain perks and tied other per-world. Why can I have all 15 insight points forever after unlocking it once? It doesn't even make sense.

[Yuuko]

I think we'd want to start by clearly stating what we think makes a skill tree good vs bad.

The first quality I'd list to define a good skill tree is one where each skill has some justification.  Skills with no use are a waste.  Part of the justification may be serving as a prerequisite skill to bump the cost of a more favorable skill, since not all skills are worth the same.  I don't think taxing a point to reach something good is a problem - but what I don't like to see are top end skills that are duds.  IF we're going to call something a capstone skill it should live up to its name.

Along with that I feel choice needs to be a priority.  There should not be a clear, definitive build path.  There needs to be some room for flexibility for player preference that doesn't destroy the character for wavering from "the build."

The last thing I'd put up is that it makes the character unique.  They should be doing something that highlights who they are in a way no other character can.

For Willow I'd say her lighter tree is pretty good.  The top tier skills in each path have a reason to be used, and there are reasons you might pick and choose between them.  They let her do things in a unique Willow way - with fire.

The Bernie tree is a dud though.  There are 2 skills that are worth taking, hot headed and burning bernie.  The rest are all pretty forgettable.  They are simple stat boosts, they do very little to effect your game play.  Burning Bernie overlaps too hard with Wendy, and not in a good way.  Abigail runs circles around Burning Bernie.  They are both pretty ineffective against bosses, and against swarms Burning Bernie gets trashed compared to Abi.  Its a knock off skill AND an expensive one at that...  You only need 3 points in Bernie skills to basically get what the whole tree is worth...

Alignment for Willow is pretty unique - she actually gets skills!  Real ones!  Not just minor % damage boosts.  I wish more alignment skills were like this instead of boring stat mods.  Unfortunately this is where some core things beyond the skill trees break it down...  She can only get 40 embers in a stack and these spells cost 5 embers each.  Theses are VERY expensive skills for how much inventory they require.  Both skills suffer from aiming issues - Lunar aiming where you're walking, and locked to only 8 directions makes it very ineffective and awkward to use - Shadow fire is completely random and some bolts may not actually hit a target even if there is only 1 target on the screen...  Then we get cool downs on top of this.  Its really a slap in the face compared to Maxwell who gets 20 casts from his book + 40 nm fuel for another !!200!! casts in 1 stack of inventory that overlaps as a material for weapons, armor, magi, etc and no cool downs even on his universal trap that can keep every single boss in the game on lock down while he AFK kills it with summons... and he doesn't even have his skill tree yet.  The lunar flame has some niche uses and the shadow flame is kinda a "might as well" but I'd say they both fail to provide any meaningful impact on Willow's game play.  Then the Bernie one is just kinda a laugh.  Its great IF you like the skin, and the skins are great BUT mechanically its weak.  Sure it helps him tank bosses more, but bosses aren't going to focus Bernie much.  Weaker damage from smaller mobs won't care about the planar typing as much either.

So all in all I'd say her skill is like half and half.  There is some good in the lighter tree, and some niche uses of her alignment spells tempered with an atrocious Bernie tree and while its great that she got real alignment skills they feel like they are still in the prototype phase - lacking real identity for how they should be used.  Her tree is over hyped and over nerfed.

Her tree is also exclusively focused on combat...  This probably wouldn't have mattered except now every single combat character got non-combat perks ON TOP of their combat kit, meaning Willow is currently the only pure combat character - and yet is probably the weakest of them all...

[BezKa]

22 minutes ago, Swiyss said:

The skill tree mechanic is actually really good.

For other games, maybe. WX had one since their rework and it worked well for them, because it was done well, fit their character, and was exclusive to them.

For every other character skill trees are a horrid addition to the game. It's pretty frustrating seeing everyone on the forums declare "I love skill trees but..." And describe. Everything that is wrong with skill trees in general. Even now, after barely getting what, 6 of them, people are comparing and asking for buffs for the ones added earlier than the latest ones xD

What you are describing right now is not really a problem with skills or characters. The direct source of your frustrations is the skill tree itself.

Sorry, this turned into a bit of a vent. And you are right- unlocking skills the way they are now is bad.

[Swiyss]

6 minutes ago, BezKa said:

For other games, maybe. WX had one since their rework and it worked well for them, because it was done well, fit their character, and was exclusive to them.

For every other character skill trees are a horrid addition to the game. It's pretty frustrating seeing everyone on the forums declare "I love skill trees but..." And describe. Everything that is wrong with skill trees in general. Even now, after barely getting what, 6 of them, people are comparing and asking for buffs for the ones added earlier than the latest ones xD

What you are describing right now is not really a problem with skills or characters. The direct source of your frustrations is the skill tree itself.

Sorry, this turned into a bit of a vent. And you are right- unlocking skills the way they are now is bad.

I think honestly, that making these characters have uniqueness tied only to them is very frustrating, I don't want the best of both characters don't get me wrong, I just want skill trees being cohesive for everyone.

They should've added the system for everyone, not specifically for each character, now willow has a big band-aid on her.

If they are really like they said they are, and that they come back and change decisions for the best of the game, then they should stop right here and change the system.

Clearly it could be improved, but at this point, there are too many core issues with it I think. And I also think that we'll get a lot of disappointed people when their character receive a skill tree. They need to change the skill tree system AND make 

1 a BASE skill tree for EVERYONE (tied to days played)

2 a second skill tree per character

3 a third skillset for allignments with more options to it.

They should include some things from woodie and wormwood in the base one, also for wolfgang (like damage).

[Reecitz]

5 minutes ago, BezKa said:

For other games, maybe. WX had one since their rework and it worked well for them, because it was done well, fit their character, and was exclusive to them.

For every other character skill trees are a horrid addition to the game. It's pretty frustrating seeing everyone on the forums declare "I love skill trees but..." And describe. Everything that is wrong with skill trees in general. Even now, after barely getting what, 6 of them, people are comparing and asking for buffs for the ones added earlier than the latest ones xD

What you are describing right now is not really a problem with skills or characters. The direct source of your frustrations is the skill tree itself.

Sorry, this turned into a bit of a vent. And you are right- unlocking skills the way they are now is bad.

I also feel that, with how the skillsets currently function (wait in-game days to collect all the points and defeat each end-game boss once, then have access to everything from now on), they would've been better off being changes to the base character; people would still complain that it's another wave of refreshes, but at least people wouldn't also argue that they are being disguised as something different. 

[Swiyss]

13 minutes ago, Yuuko said:

IF we're going to call something a capstone skill it should live up to its name

Yeah, burning bearnie is not that big of a deal to cost 8 skills

[Reecitz]

2 minutes ago, Swiyss said:

I think honestly, that making these characters have uniqueness tied only to them is very frustrating, I don't want the best of both characters don't get me wrong, I just want skill trees being cohesive for everyone.

They should've added the system for everyone, not specifically for each character, now willow has a big band-aid on her.

If they are really like they said they are, and that they come back and change decisions for the best of the game, then they should stop right here and change the system.

Clearly it could be improved, but at this point, there are too many core issues with it I think. And I also think that we'll get a lot of disappointed people when their character receive a skill tree. They need to change the skill tree system AND make 

1 a BASE skill tree for EVERYONE (tied to days played)

2 a second skill tree per character

3 a third skillset for allignments with more options to it.

They should include some things from woodie and wormwood in the base one, also for wolfgang (like damage).

I personally believe some of Willow's lighter skills (particularly burn duration and damage, as well as maybe lighter radius) could be base-kit for her.

[Swiyss]

16 minutes ago, Yuuko said:

I think we'd want to start by clearly stating what we think makes a skill tree good vs bad.

The first quality I'd list to define a good skill tree is one where each skill has some justification.  Skills with no use are a waste.  Part of the justification may be serving as a prerequisite skill to bump the cost of a more favorable skill, since not all skills are worth the same.  I don't think taxing a point to reach something good is a problem - but what I don't like to see are top end skills that are duds.  IF we're going to call something a capstone skill it should live up to its name.

Along with that I feel choice needs to be a priority.  There should not be a clear, definitive build path.  There needs to be some room for flexibility for player preference that doesn't destroy the character for wavering from "the build."

The last thing I'd put up is that it makes the character unique.  They should be doing something that highlights who they are in a way no other character can.

For Willow I'd say her lighter tree is pretty good.  The top tier skills in each path have a reason to be used, and there are reasons you might pick and choose between them.  They let her do things in a unique Willow way - with fire.

The Bernie tree is a dud though.  There are 2 skills that are worth taking, hot headed and burning bernie.  The rest are all pretty forgettable.  They are simple stat boosts, they do very little to effect your game play.  Burning Bernie overlaps too hard with Wendy, and not in a good way.  Abigail runs circles around Burning Bernie.  They are both pretty ineffective against bosses, and against swarms Burning Bernie gets trashed compared to Abi.  Its a knock off skill AND an expensive one at that...  You only need 3 points in Bernie skills to basically get what the whole tree is worth...

Alignment for Willow is pretty unique - she actually gets skills!  Real ones!  Not just minor % damage boosts.  I wish more alignment skills were like this instead of boring stat mods.  Unfortunately this is where some core things beyond the skill trees break it down...  She can only get 40 embers in a stack and these spells cost 5 embers each.  Theses are VERY expensive skills for how much inventory they require.  Both skills suffer from aiming issues - Lunar aiming where you're walking, and locked to only 8 directions makes it very ineffective and awkward to use - Shadow fire is completely random and some bolts may not actually hit a target even if there is only 1 target on the screen...  Then we get cool downs on top of this.  Its really a slap in the face compared to Maxwell who gets 20 casts from his book + 40 nm fuel for another !!200!! casts in 1 stack of inventory that overlaps as a material for weapons, armor, magi, etc and no cool downs even on his universal trap that can keep every single boss in the game on lock down while he AFK kills it with summons... and he doesn't even have his skill tree yet.  The lunar flame has some niche uses and the shadow flame is kinda a "might as well" but I'd say they both fail to provide any meaningful impact on Willow's game play.  Then the Bernie one is just kinda a laugh.  Its great IF you like the skin, and the skins are great BUT mechanically its weak.  Sure it helps him tank bosses more, but bosses aren't going to focus Bernie much.  Weaker damage from smaller mobs won't care about the planar typing as much either.

So all in all I'd say her skill is like half and half.  There is some good in the lighter tree, and some niche uses of her alignment spells tempered with an atrocious Bernie tree and while its great that she got real alignment skills they feel like they are still in the prototype phase - lacking real identity for how they should be used.  Her tree is over hyped and over nerfed.

Her tree is also exclusively focused on combat...  This probably wouldn't have mattered except now every single combat character got non-combat perks ON TOP of their combat kit, meaning Willow is currently the only pure combat character - and yet is probably the weakest of them all...

Yeah.. my biggest concern when willow skill tree came out was not that lunar flare was op, but that it was completely out of shape for day 1, even if you killed cc. it was so UN-willow-y and UN-dontstarve-y at the beginning.

18 minutes ago, Yuuko said:

 

They can't simply make a skill tree on a non combat character and simply choose to make it like that. What if I am a willow player that plays relaxed mode. How the heck am I gonna manage a hundred more things while fighting for a little % increase efficiency?

5 minutes ago, Reecitz said:

I personally believe some of Willow's lighter skills (particularly burn duration and damage, as well as maybe lighter radius) could be base-kit for her.

Exactly

 

[GenomeSquirrel]

I still don't understand what you like about the woody and wormwood skill trees vs dislike about the willow ones

adding things you might have liked may be constructive

 

[Swiyss]

23 minutes ago, Yuuko said:

I think we'd want to start by clearly stating what we think makes a skill tree good vs bad.

I still think that even with the good things about her skill tree being highlighted here, it still makes her a "bad" character, and it's not even her fault. Play without skill trees and I think she's already way more complete than with skill trees. Sure I agree the bearnie side is a bit awful, but that's not the only problem. The biggest one is that she's a no one without a skill tree. The skill tree is a band aid. The ember stacking is bad design. The lighter management alongside the 3 in-game constant spells makes for an unintuitive design. What if:

Pressing the skill ACTIVATED the 10% damage buff and slowly drained lighter durability.

Remove lunar and shadow cooldown and fix their AI pathing issues by making Lunar chase the mouse and shadow throw 5 at the front, not 5 around her.

Make embers be collected by simply walking by them (remove lighter collection) and use the lighter to store embers (200 same as maxwell).

Done, better. For bearnie tho is another story, they need to be more creative with his skills.

3 minutes ago, GenomeSquirrel said:

I still don't understand what you like about the woody and wormwood skill trees vs dislike about the willow ones

adding things you might have liked may be constructive

 

Honestly, picking things faster, a walking cane day 1 and better fighting, exploring and gathering is already a 2x improvement over regular woodie in my book. Every thing from controlling treeguards spawn and better managing of shadows while fighting are all either boss drops (fuelweaver) or unique mechanics not found in any other char (treeguard spawn).

For wormwood, simply having the vine and thorn interaction with brightshade helmet and armor is already a win for me, but the also got pefect dps increase early game with husks. Good preparations of fights with traps. Brother, he emphasizes, he doubles it. I don't know how to explain. Playing it makes the game better, easier, but in a cool and "somewhat" rewarding system.

Look, I like willow, but no matter how unique she looks or feel to play right now, please remove emotional attachment to criticism.

She definitely could be better, and we'll only see the best side of her if we allow ourselves to be open minded. I think she could've been treated way better.

Also I would want a reason why Klei didn't add skill trees for everyone first, and then pinpointed on their uniqueness based on each character. Why go through 3 YEARS of development again only for people to dislike it even. Look at wigfrid, if I was a wigfrid main I would be crying in my room every day man. That beefalo side is a tragedy.

[GenomeSquirrel]

I'll admit I'm somewhat baffled by the thorns branch, I generally just want to spend my time building or gathering materials, and most things that I'd need DPS for don't drop resources  I care about

[Swiyss]

4 minutes ago, GenomeSquirrel said:

I'll admit I'm somewhat baffled by the thorns branch, I generally just want to spend my time building or gathering materials, and most things that I'd need DPS for don't drop resources  I care about

Yeah like, imagine if every character got a faster picking animation after unlocking x crafts with said material per world. Jesus man, that's a free bonus, why not? And it woul incentivize players that like farming too, imagine choosing to be a pumpking specialist, haha why not? Cookies crafted gives more health, pumpking lanterns are same as regular lanterns but can store cookies, man, idk, things like this is what makes the game fun. We need this.

[Evelo]

3 hours ago, BezKa said:

All skill trees are examples of bad skill trees.

Or rather, of a "mechanic" shoved into a game it doesn't belong in.

I agree but yknow. Many things in our world were introduced and it is too late to go back even though it would be beneficial to everyone. (Personal Plastics, Apple's existence, Social Media, etc.)
Skillsets not skill trees are likely part of this. Best to make it as enjoyable as possible since it won't be removed (probably).

[Ryusuta]

I maintain that Wilson should have been the only character with a skilltree.

[loopuleasa]

Willow skill tree is great

[BezKa]

3 hours ago, Evelo said:

Best to make it as enjoyable as possible since it won't be removed (probably).

My stupid little brain is still holding out hope, but with how people react to mindless buffs skill trees introduce with joy and requests for even more buffs, I have 0 expectation. Technically it's never too late for Klei to cancel all this nonsense, but realistically speaking, yeah, there's no chance.

I am of opinion though that precisely because these are what they are they will never be good enough. No matter what is done they will always have something lacking, one of the options will always be worse/better than others, since that is what those are built on- prioritize and calculate biggest profit. Other games can get away with it, DST though not so much. Any attempt to make them "better: or damage control is impossible necessarily due to the nature of skill trees. Trying to make it "better" will probably just mean even more buffs and a complete goodbye to balance

[grm9]

42 minutes ago, BezKa said:

people react to mindless buffs skill trees introduce with joy and requests for even more buffs

you can always play without spending points on skill trees if you want

[BezKa]

2 minutes ago, grm9 said:

you can always play without spending points on skill trees if you want

I already do. But these changes impact the entire game, so it's still in my interest to call it out

[Valase]

8 hours ago, BezKa said:

All skill trees are examples of bad skill trees.

Or rather, of a "mechanic" shoved into a game it doesn't belong in.

Sure grandma, let's get you to bed.

7 hours ago, Swiyss said:

For wormwood, simply having the vine and thorn interaction with brightshade helmet and armor is already a win for me, but the also got pefect dps increase early game with husks. Good preparations of fights with traps. Brother, he emphasizes, he doubles it. I don't know how to explain. Playing it makes the game better, easier, but in a cool and "somewhat" rewarding system.

I think that the bramble armor skill point (forgot what the name was), is a great way to incentivise different playstyles, as Wormwood (the character that can't heal quickly) best fighting style was basically tanking so he could try to use one of his crafts. Now he is rewarded for fighting and kiting. I think that they tried to do something similar to Wigfrid and the Beefs points, but I had not tested it out to check the viability of any strat.

[Swiyss]

4 hours ago, Evelo said:

I agree but yknow. Many things in our world were introduced and it is too late to go back even though it would be beneficial to everyone. (Personal Plastics, Apple's existence, Social Media, etc.)
Skillsets not skill trees are likely part of this. Best to make it as enjoyable as possible since it won't be removed (probably).

Yeah I kinda don't think it should be removed, but rather rethinked. I agree we should totally accept some things and I'm fine with that, but the skillsets could still get looked at again maybe. I did a cool concept for her skillset that didn't changed much and still I don't think they had time to look at that because of the updates so that's fine. Still they should rework the lighter I think.

[Swiyss]

1 hour ago, Valase said:

I think that the bramble armor skill point (forgot what the name was), is a great way to incentivise different playstyles, as Wormwood (the character that can't heal quickly) best fighting style was basically tanking so he could try to use one of his crafts. Now he is rewarded for fighting and kiting. I think that they tried to do something similar to Wigfrid and the Beefs points, but I had not tested it out to check the viability of any strat

Man, wormwood skillset is amazing. I think that if every update had a month or more to boil down things on what's possible and what's not, then we would greatly improve the way the game is played for everyone. We need to look at not only wormwood players, but everyone.

Unironically Woodie is a better character than most at the moment and he was bad for quite some time. The example is there.

I think the biggest problem with willow is that she should be somewhat behind maxwell and above wendy currently (since both don't have a skillset yet). However maxwell is very resource intensive when it comes to nightmare fuel and also hard to manage. Willow's cooldowns were a temporary solution, but it should be adressed as soon as possible.

I don't want everyone shifting character JUST because the skillset made them overpowered but also don't want people losing hope over their character because of a weirdly implemented skillset (wilson).

We may need a better 'idea' of her. There is no shame changing one thing or another now, sure it might feel like we're still in beta, and it might slow down somethings, but we still have time. We actually have all the time in the world, we just need a clearer vision so we know what's coming or not.

[-Variant]

I still have some major gripes with Willow's skill tree. I sort of put my ideas to rest.

I'm still intending to make a post once Klei starts picking up and working on updates again, there's still a handful of things I think she'd very much benefit from.
I'm just a bit disappointed in it, still. 

[Reecitz]

3 hours ago, -Variant said:

I still have some major gripes with Willow's skill tree. I sort of put my ideas to rest.

I'm still intending to make a post once Klei starts picking up and working on updates again, there's still a handful of things I think she'd very much benefit from.
I'm just a bit disappointed in it, still. 

I do hope Klei gives you a proper listen when the time comes; you are one of the only sensible minds on the forums.