Should skillsets even exist?

[Swiyss]

Currently skill trees only have 15 points for you to spend and all of those are acquired by simply playing the game for 150 days, which is not very intuitive. I think adding more ways to unlock points, more skills and points, changing the structure so you can only choose 1 side or another, making those sides more direct and impactful, adding more veins of possibilities and making so unlocking them doesn't permanently removes the progression of the feature itself by making it per-world would greatly benefit the way you play dst.

Every person is different and everyone wants certain goals. Making so you can choose those goals early on gives the player a sense of control over the system, that encourages them to keep playing and is also satisfying. The relaxed, lights out, survival and endless options only change the game settings, it's an illusion. Skill trees could be added to the main menu at character customization (also please add the scrap book to the main menu Klei).

A way they can achieve this is by selecting which way you wanna play the game. The fighter (combat oriented side), the explorer, the assassin (killing of small creatures as oppose to bosses/high damage at once but lower damage slowly), the gatherer (faster picking time (why only woodie???), chance for full resources when hammering), the farmer (WHY ONLY WORMWOOD? I mean he SHOULD be the best at it, but not the only one viable right?), the underground menace (cave intelligence), the sail master (easy ocean objects administration), the friendly trader (pig and merm interactions, pig king rewards, antlion interaction, pacifying of the ruins, bunnymen interactions (why the heck only wolfgang can have this?).

We like all characters, but we're not playing all of them at once, make playing them unique yes, but not necessary. Most of the players are solo anyways.

[Swiyss]

11 hours ago, Swiyss said:

Currently skill trees only have 15 points for you to spend and all of those are acquired by simply playing the game for 150 days, which is not very intuitive. I think adding more ways to unlock points, more skills and points, changing the structure so you can only choose 1 side or another, making those sides more direct and impactful, adding more veins of possibilities and making so unlocking them doesn't permanently removes the progression of the feature itself by making it per-world would greatly benefit the way you play dst.

Every person is different and everyone wants certain goals. Making so you can choose those goals early on gives the player a sense of control over the system, that encourages them to keep playing and is also satisfying. The relaxed, lights out, survival and endless options only change the game settings, it's an illusion. Skill trees could be added to the main menu at character customization (also please add the scrap book to the main menu Klei).

A way they can achieve this is by selecting which way you wanna play the game. The fighter (combat oriented side), the explorer, the assassin (killing of small creatures as oppose to bosses/high damage at once but lower damage slowly), the gatherer (faster picking time (why only woodie???), chance for full resources when hammering), the farmer (WHY ONLY WORMWOOD? I mean he SHOULD be the best at it, but not the only one viable right?), the underground menace (cave intelligence), the sail master (easy ocean objects administration), the friendly trader (pig and merm interactions, pig king rewards, antlion interaction, pacifying of the ruins, bunnymen interactions (why the heck only wolfgang can have this?).

We like all characters, but we're not playing all of them at once, make playing them unique yes, but not necessary. Most of the players are solo anyways.

Edit : small correction, wolfgang is indeed the one that has the whistle, but he can't have merm interactions unless he's using a disguise. What I meant was the ability to interact better with certain friendly creatures, like an animal caretaker (potential beefalo skillset/points)(you could later choose which type of beefalo you want).

[Theukon-dos]

Skill trees are fundamentally flawed in that the vast majority of characters are already fully fleshed out mechanically. There are certainly some characters who have the room to expand. Woodie and Willow definitly benefited, and Winona likely will too. But because Klei has already committed to giving *everyone* a skill tree then the vast majority of them will either be low impact, extremely bland, give already strong characters a large boost, or some combination of the three.

 

 

Wolfgang's skill tree is a great example here. It is, by every metric, extremely bland. The majority of his perks are simple numbers changes with no tangible benefits on how he plays. And the gym branches of the tree completely fail at fixing the actual issues with the gym, thus making them completely worthless to pick up, which in turn means that his skill tree has next to no meaningful choices. Which, you know. Is the whole point of a skill tree.

 

Despite this though, it's still a MASSIVE boost in power for him. His alignment perks give him a 30% damage boost on top of his already massive 2x damage to many of the most important enemies and bosses in the game. (which probably stack multiplicatively like every other damage modifiers in the game, making it 2.6x total). Shadows, Fuelweaver, Crab King, ect. And Despite Planar being introduced to keep characters like Wolfgang "in check", his skill tree gives him 90% of his damage back with planar. Making the divide between him and other characters even larger than before.

 

At the end of the day, Don't Starve is a game with over a decade of work and updates behind it, and that has left no room for skill trees to integrate seamlessly into the player experience.

[grm9]

6 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

Planar being introduced to keep characters like Wolfgang "in check"

making his damage multiplier not work was odd from the start because that was his most impactful perk, that would've made him worthless instead if there wouldn't have been the planar perks

[Theukon-dos]

6 minutes ago, grm9 said:

making his damage multiplier not work was odd from the start because that was his most impactful perk, that would've made him worthless instead if there wouldn't have been the planar perks

Planar mechanics are genuinely auch a flawed premise on every conceivable level that it's kind of hilarious. I'd go into more detail. But I don't have the time and this is not the place for doing so.

[GenomeSquirrel]

I like accidental benefits instead a more direct uniform one, like WXs chorus box may be intended for sanity, but it's also a good farming tool, Willows fireball may be intended for light, but said light can also be used for crops (i could be wrong on assuming it's a star clone, didn't get around to practicing this)

[_zwb]

Skill trees are just filler updates.

[Yuuko]

I'll jump in for the sake of discussion - I'm on lunch break and got nothing better to do lol - but I doubt Klei will change course.  They've started it, and will undoubtedly finish it, for better or worse.  I've made my peace with that.

I think skill trees were a horrible idea, like a piece of sugary candy to taste good but provide no nutrients and possibly spoil the flavor of actual healthy food.

My main issues with skill systems as a whole come from 2 perspectives.

1) DST is a flat progression game.  Some games like CotL have skill trees where you unlock new perks as you play, others like Terraria do a NG+ of the world to make things "hard mode" where you get bigger numbers and more abilities both for you and the bosses to ramp everything up.  DST was neither of these.  It was a flat progression game where the characters and the world were what they were for every player.  The experience wasn't shaped by "level up for x power and beat boss for y power to out scale z boss" it was shaped by "learn about x resource and practice y strategy to overcome z obstacle."  Dark swords were the strongest weapon, but were actually very vanilla - and so were all of the other weapons really, b/c the whole point was YOU played better.  Whatever you could do with dark swords you could do with spears, it would just take longer.

Skill trees break that flat progression.  Now a new player is potentially handicapped by being locked out of abilities that may be core to the experience of the character they pick.  This sours the experience of a flat progression game b/c what one person can do another person cannot without unlocking the tree.

2) Skill trees are not a fix for power disparity.  At a point in the refreshes things shifted and characters got more powerful.  Some are extremely OP now compared to the low powered characters that used to inhabit the constant in days of yore.  Unfortunately this caught on MID refresh cycle so many characters did receive a refresh but sat in the low power field while others were packed with perks.  Skill trees are basically acting as a second pass through the characters BUT not all characters needed a second pass.  A character like Wormwood or Willow is going to need a BIG overhaul to their kit, while a character like Woodie is going to need a lot of little tweaks, yet a character like Max or Wanda is in need of nothing...  This means some skill trees need to be essentially worthless, or include nerfs, or are just going to spike character power disparity even further.  Like what do you ADD to Max??

Nah.  They should have simply revisited a few characters who needed the touch ups and given them the refresh they needed to fit in with the rest of the cast and been done with it in a year or so rather than embarking on another 3 year epic that just circles around to buffing Maxwell again...

3) Planar is still the worst thing they've ever done.  This is only tangentially related to skill trees, but I still firmly believe that planar damage mechanic is the worst thing Klei has done to DST ever.  It has homogenized character builds, reduced item choice, and basically opened up room for the most bland stat mod skill trees to exist.  When it was released it was lauded as their way of normalizing the cast so that power disparity wasn't such a great factor going into the "real end game" stuff AND that they could release new weapons that were better in some cases but didn't power creep the game.  NOPE - that is not the case.  Wolfgang's skill tree shows us the extremely bland shell game they played with power.  He still deals a lot more damage than everyone else even in a planar world so there was no power balancing done.  More then that all of the planar weapons are strictly more powerful then their non-planar counter parts with and without character perks.

This system is an absolute DUD.  We got planar - and still got power disparity and power creep.

I feel both the planar and the skill trees are reactionary developments made by Klei to try and turn DST into something its not - possibly influenced by the cross over events with Terraria and CotL which showed Klei that DST was maybe just not doing numbers like these other games...  but tbh I think it was better DST was its own game and had a smaller player base capturing that no-progression niche* rather than warp the game with these RPG mechanics.  Both the planar / NG+ attempt and the skill trees feel extremely tacked on, out of place, and disruptive to the core game experience that's been the identity of DS/T until now.

*No progression games are a smaller niche.  More people like skill trees, levels, and in general prefer out scaling obstacles rather than improving player skills to overcome them in spite of flat progression.  It is sad how few companies dare to occupy this niche.  Sure the number of players who are after a no-progression game are smaller, but they are absolutely thirsty for content too.

[Mike23Ua]

Since my one of my favorite games of all time just so happens to be the original Borderlands, I’ll chime in on this thread, skill tree progression gives players powerful choices as to HOW they want their characters to play as.

I feel like when it comes to DST that dare I say this, characters don’t really have enough skills to choose from to make a largely significant difference here.

Does that mean Klei should give them even more skills? Hahaha, absolutely not!

But I can certainly see the appeal behind skill trees, and more importantly- They will guide & teach a New DST player what all their character can actually do.

So IMO: Skill Trees aren’t bad, I just hate that they take up so much development time when so many other areas of the game need MAJOR work.

When traveling through the extremely empty ocean until you reach a point of interest is so boring you quite literally fall asleep, then you know this is a boring part of the game that should be more engaging.

And in my opinion, Skill Trees took all the focus away from things like that.

[lenship2]

imo most skills should be crafts requiring items that you have to go out of your way to get

[Szczuku]

Skill trees are just part of the "make dst more mainstream. DEAR GOD WE WANT THAT MONEY" thingy that Klei has going on. By the time skilltrees are finished, scrapbook will also be expanded upon (in a boring way, most likely) and I bet there will be a new thing added to help new players

"Don't starve doesn't hold your hand" and "You feel powerless in don't starve" will simply no longer apply to this game. It is... compromising.

[HowlVoid]

2 hours ago, _zwb said:

Skill trees are just filler updates.

Strongly disagree. As a Wormwood player that finally gets to see some of his kit shine like everyone else's... I couldn't disagree more.

[Well-met]

there is literally no reason to change the system until they fix console cheats

[_zwb]

1 hour ago, HowlVoid said:

Strongly disagree. As a Wormwood player that finally gets to see some of his kit shine like everyone else's... I couldn't disagree more.

Even if some characters' gameplay is so bad that they needs another rework, that could just be done for them, instead of giving every character a buff. No, Wolfgang, Maxwell and Wanda doesn't need anything more powerful, I'd say they could use some nerf even. Skill trees for those who doesn't need massive buffs ARE fillers, they could've made changes to characters that are lacking or too powerful little by little each update, just like how Wortox got new abilities in Wickerbottom refresh.

On the topic of Wormwood skill tree, his skills are useless, even after countless forums posts on skill tree ideas, Klei still can't make his skills impactful or "game changing". Like what others said, it made the gap between characters even bigger, Wolfgang and Woodie are way more powerful than rest of the skill tree characters.

[EATZYOWAFFLEZ]

Skill trees at this point seem to only exist as a way to patch up fundamental problems with DST and the latest updates. I would say these fundemental problems are planar damage, character balancing/power creep, and character specific perks becoming obsolete within the new content.

Now, trying to fix these problems is a great thing, and I'm glad Klei is at least trying. However, I think this is the worst way to do it. It has fixed some problems, such as the general lack of (interesting/helpful) features that wormwood and willow had, but others have been left in the dust or made worse.

I would love skilltrees if they were unique skills added on top of a bunch of well balanced characters and mechanics, but unfortunately that's not what happened/is happening.

[grm9]

18 minutes ago, _zwb said:

Wolfgang and Woodie are way more powerful than rest of the skill tree characters

wolfgang is only useful for killing bosses early and woodie still kind of sucks since he's only better than wolfgang for killing bosses extremely early which you won't realistically do when playing normally because there's no reason to do that because you'll get a ham bat sooner or later to have more dps as wolfgang if you want to kill a boss early and beaver and goose are still worthless

21 minutes ago, _zwb said:

On the topic of Wormwood skill tree, his skills are useless

bramble husk and bloom perks are always useful and you can use moon shrooms against BQ

[Dr.Webber]

I feel like after ironing out some flaws the main part should just be added on to the character’s base kit and the skill trees should just be a bunch of alignment skills

[_zwb]

15 minutes ago, grm9 said:

bramble husk and bloom perks are always useful and you can use moon shrooms against BQ

你觉得是就是吧。

If you think so, then it is, I can't be bothered to argue with you.

[Mike23Ua]

13 minutes ago, Habakkuk said:

The skills are not the problem, the skill tree is the problem. I don't like this RPG stuff in DST, it  changes too much the game. 

Uhh actually.. not really? The initial unlocking of skill trees & point allocating feels like RPG progression, Yes. BUT once you have your skills fully invested into- they just feel more like a natural part of the characters “Kit”

Example: Treeguard Idols & Walking Cane crafting for Woodie is no different from the Itchy Totem Idols he got during his rework.

Willows skill tree is more of giving her what her Rework SHOULD had been, through skill investment, the lighter is now Magical, it consumes blazing infernos, it just makes sense.

I think people are “Unfairly” hating on the skill trees, because they hate how much more powerful the cast of characters are getting, while the rest of the constant (before wild rifts) just stays weak.

Willow being completely fire immune and having a Combustion skill is cool and all… but- Fire Hounds should probably had been Immune to it.

[Paxtonnnn]

I miss when 'uncompromising' was just a fun way to describe a difficult game and not something people on these forums can't go 5 minutes without saying as if their life depended on it because they can't comprehend the idea of anything ever getting buffed.

I think skill trees were the wrong way to go but sometimes this site is just embarrassing

[Frashaw27]

To throw my hat in the ring, skill tree are part of the reason why I feel motivated to play anymore. Before skill trees started getting to everyone, I ran into the problem of all the world feeling samey. While that could've been because I usually used Maxwell, because I had the most fun playing as him before pre and post rework, most of the worlds just feel kinda the same. Sure, I could do something like rush the ruins, but what would that do besides push my boredom onto a season that isn't as veristile to do stuff in (summer) so I started to find it hard to find a reason to play after the same grind of starting up a world and doing the same motions over and over again. Skill trees massively changed the game for me as it felt like I was actually working towards something tangible, something of some worth rather then just going back to square one. I'm one of the few who actually likes the current implementation of insight as it allowed me to keep having something to work towards even 2 years in. Granted, I know this approach is not everyone's cup of tea, but I, specifically, like it. Skill trees helped me find a reason to play again after doing everything so many times.

That being said... they aren't perfect. Like with everything, there is things that can be improved, managed differently, ect. Like I feel as if the lunar plants could replace the growables branch in the Wormwood skill tree, and give way for an actual shadow alignment instead of having him alignment locked at the offset. I also think that character necessities, like Woodie's Lunar Immunity should not be apart of the skill tree but rather apart of the character themselves (in this case a way to manage full moon transformations so that events like the moonstorm aren't hellish). Skill trees should be things that help the gameplay of the indiviual feel a bit more distinct and smooth, not a solution to character flaws. Like Wolfgang's Speed Boost when normal is not needed but it is nice to have, Boosting Walter's Pellet damage without base changes is needed because the current ones are doo doo unless your really good at convoluted strats to make it useful. In my opinion, the skill tree updates should also have base character updates to smooth things out instead of just using skill trees to cover them up like a painting over a hole in the wall. Also, while I do like the insight system, a majority of people don't, so I'll offer my compromise. The current system would still be in effect, except it would cap off after 7 points, meaning you'll get all the points after a year of playing them, both for some standardization and some visible progress even if you don't participate in the next portion. The next 7 points would be done by doing character exclusive tasks. An example of Woodies would be:

1. Chop down 100 trees with Lucy
2. Craft all the wood based structures in the Science Machine + Alchemy Engine tiers of crafting
3. Summon a full 4 tree guards and kill them all within 4 minutes
4. Chop down a totally normal tree as the Werebeaver
5. Beat the Moose/Goose as the Moose
6. Escape from a sinking boat as the Goose
7. Have a transformation that was about to run out be restored back to full by the full moon

Are these perfect, no. Infact they may not even be all that interesting, but they fit the example I'm going for, objectives related to the character. Instead of something generic, like having it tied to bosses killed, it is instead tied to the character themselves and their gameplay. Whatever these points would transfer between worlds or not is up to personal interpretation is up to the individual, but I feel having this compromise would alleviate some of the complaints of the current system taking too long. The final point would be gotten when you killed either alignment boss, as to facilitate actually pushing the player to get them and choosing an alignment perk specifically as they would have the point free from the task instead of planning before hand.

In short, I like skill trees, but they do need some work. 

[Swiyss]

6 hours ago, Yuuko said:

I'll jump in for the sake of discussion - I'm on lunch break and got nothing better to do lol - but I doubt Klei will change course.  They've started it, and will undoubtedly finish it, for better or worse.  I've made my peace with that.

I think skill trees were a horrible idea, like a piece of sugary candy to taste good but provide no nutrients and possibly spoil the flavor of actual healthy food.

My main issues with skill systems as a whole come from 2 perspectives.

1) DST is a flat progression game.  Some games like CotL have skill trees where you unlock new perks as you play, others like Terraria do a NG+ of the world to make things "hard mode" where you get bigger numbers and more abilities both for you and the bosses to ramp everything up.  DST was neither of these.  It was a flat progression game where the characters and the world were what they were for every player.  The experience wasn't shaped by "level up for x power and beat boss for y power to out scale z boss" it was shaped by "learn about x resource and practice y strategy to overcome z obstacle."  Dark swords were the strongest weapon, but were actually very vanilla - and so were all of the other weapons really, b/c the whole point was YOU played better.  Whatever you could do with dark swords you could do with spears, it would just take longer.

Skill trees break that flat progression.  Now a new player is potentially handicapped by being locked out of abilities that may be core to the experience of the character they pick.  This sours the experience of a flat progression game b/c what one person can do another person cannot without unlocking the tree.

2) Skill trees are not a fix for power disparity.  At a point in the refreshes things shifted and characters got more powerful.  Some are extremely OP now compared to the low powered characters that used to inhabit the constant in days of yore.  Unfortunately this caught on MID refresh cycle so many characters did receive a refresh but sat in the low power field while others were packed with perks.  Skill trees are basically acting as a second pass through the characters BUT not all characters needed a second pass.  A character like Wormwood or Willow is going to need a BIG overhaul to their kit, while a character like Woodie is going to need a lot of little tweaks, yet a character like Max or Wanda is in need of nothing...  This means some skill trees need to be essentially worthless, or include nerfs, or are just going to spike character power disparity even further.  Like what do you ADD to Max??

Nah.  They should have simply revisited a few characters who needed the touch ups and given them the refresh they needed to fit in with the rest of the cast and been done with it in a year or so rather than embarking on another 3 year epic that just circles around to buffing Maxwell again...

3) Planar is still the worst thing they've ever done.  This is only tangentially related to skill trees, but I still firmly believe that planar damage mechanic is the worst thing Klei has done to DST ever.  It has homogenized character builds, reduced item choice, and basically opened up room for the most bland stat mod skill trees to exist.  When it was released it was lauded as their way of normalizing the cast so that power disparity wasn't such a great factor going into the "real end game" stuff AND that they could release new weapons that were better in some cases but didn't power creep the game.  NOPE - that is not the case.  Wolfgang's skill tree shows us the extremely bland shell game they played with power.  He still deals a lot more damage than everyone else even in a planar world so there was no power balancing done.  More then that all of the planar weapons are strictly more powerful then their non-planar counter parts with and without character perks.

This system is an absolute DUD.  We got planar - and still got power disparity and power creep.

I feel both the planar and the skill trees are reactionary developments made by Klei to try and turn DST into something its not - possibly influenced by the cross over events with Terraria and CotL which showed Klei that DST was maybe just not doing numbers like these other games...  but tbh I think it was better DST was its own game and had a smaller player base capturing that no-progression niche* rather than warp the game with these RPG mechanics.  Both the planar / NG+ attempt and the skill trees feel extremely tacked on, out of place, and disruptive to the core game experience that's been the identity of DS/T until now.

*No progression games are a smaller niche.  More people like skill trees, levels, and in general prefer out scaling obstacles rather than improving player skills to overcome them in spite of flat progression.  It is sad how few companies dare to occupy this niche.  Sure the number of players who are after a no-progression game are smaller, but they are absolutely thirsty for content too.

For some reason I read everything with a voice of someone speaking and chewing on food simultaneously lol. I can't read normally now because you were eating while typing this.

[HowlVoid]

4 hours ago, _zwb said:

On the topic of Wormwood skill tree, his skills are useless, even after countless forums posts on skill tree ideas, Klei still can't make his skills impactful or "game changing". Like what others said, it made the gap between characters even bigger, Wolfgang and Woodie are way more powerful than rest of the skill tree characters.

Have you played wormwood with the bramble husk skill? 

If you think all his skills are useless then you haven't really played him.

[Swiyss]

Okay so basically everyone that commented here said one thing in common.

And for me that's the biggest issue. How do you implement a system that 1 does not mix with the game style 2 is supposed to be rewarding but not cost that much hard work and 3 has to take in consideration all survivors and different players with different views of the game, even if some of them do not need changes.

For me it's simple. As a long time wormwood and woodie player that played before the skillsets were added, I got happy, super happy, because :

wormwood is great at combat and gathering now, as opposed to only being looked as the farming character.

You might say this is wrong, and that we should have a fighter character, a farming character and a strong character in all lanes. But I disagree, take warly, maxwell and wx78 for example, they can do most things in the game and are customizable. Their spikes are great and progression feels nice. As a maxwell player, once you get that level 4 shadow gear, you're set. As wx78, searching for a rook or scanning a healing spider is key for having op stats. As warly, grinding until you can get all of your spices is awesome and when achieved gives a sense of reward.

Those things however are not in every single character. We still have winona for example, she is similar to warly and can be used until not needed and switched. In my opinion this is a bad design. But how do we fix warly and winona with skill trees? First we need to identify the problem :

There is no reason to specifically play winona except for catapults and fixing tape. And those things are not unique to her since other survivors can also use it.

The reasons to play warly are much more like disadvantages than rewards, and the reward part can be added to every single character, just like winona.

At first these might sound like a problem for warly and winona players, but it's a good thing for everyone else. So.. the problem lies on giving players a reason to pick warly or winona.

Well, I'll start. Warly is a cook. Cooking gives you power, and that power relies on food and spices. But what is another thing that warly has that no one have? The ability to cook, so without him, wolfgang can't hit those insane damage spikes. Well you might say he's a support character, then if he supports other survivors and ALREADY can gather well, do more damage and farm better, then let him shine as a PILLAR character. The idea goes like that :

Warly found a way to break down nutrients from foods, and can now offer a "balanced diet book" for everyone. Once read, survivors will know how food works and benefit with a bonus when eating food. That solidify him as a helper. After that, we need to identify which areas of the solo gameplay could receive improvements. Those are :

1 Combat; killing bosses and fighting enemies on the go.

2 Gathering; collecting resources and moving them, crafting etc..

3 Farming; getting specific giant crops and special vegetables to unlock food efficiency.

4 Progression; tasks that need to be done to advance in the game such as exploring the world (movespeed), moving statues, sailing etc..

So.. basically warly already have combat, gathering, farming. He lacks progress in the sense that he does not have movespeed bonus. He also lacks sailing skills as he's the same as wilson on boat and on moving statues.

So if we're going to apply any more changes to him for example, we need to focus on this area. But, if we make it so everyone can benefit from a coffee ground made by him for ex. Wormwood, wolfgang and wx78 unique movespeed bonuses are just going to stack, so the power creep rises while warly stays forgotten. So, why don't we make so only him can ground coffee because all characters wouldn't like coffee for example. Then why not make it so coffee helps him with sailling and moving statues. Honestly, why don't we find a way for warly to break down micronutrients on certain vegetables, but only he can eat it because other survivors find it nasty or weird for ex. Now we made warly good on a group, good solo, good on all 4 main areas of the game on top of his affinity giving him bonus perks against a certain group.

If we try to do the same with winona, we have to take something in consideration first. She is boring to play I think. Being hungry by crafting is a great mechanic since you can just eat. But.. what if she can craft most items with a discount? Say she found a way to craft them easier. Still it would also make an impact on others, making her also a support character.

After solidifying this idea, we can expect her to shine or her own. Well, she's a hard worker. Why not make her find ways to build a permanent mechanic upgrade to her body, making it so she's kinda of a cyborg. She can run faster with mechanical legs, similar to wx78. As a wagstaff apprentice, we can assume she knows what she is doing. Fixing all of those areas of gameplay while making it unique to her is great.

For wormwood, his blooming last longer and spike faster (that part of the skill tree SHOULD be ONLY rewarding the player IF the player does something PER WORLD that changes the course of his gameplay. Eg killing bee queen). I think thats a great design. He basically have a way to fight better before and after rifts. He also is greatly enhanced by this. He can already farm well and move around the map quick.

in a theoretical perfect world, I think every character has a thing they are the best at, with some all-in-one exceptions. I'll list them here :

Wilson should be the best at managing resources, he should be a multiplier. He should be basic, but also be the best at managing grass, twigs, rocks, wood and etc. If he had the ability to play more with transmutation, this would make sense for him and he would shine a bit brighter on late game.

Willow should be an alternative for combat. She should really shine at fighting alone, and she should benefit from setting things on fire. I think she could be an example of "the longer you fight, the more damage you do". Bearnie should be an assistant to her damage while she fights, and also greatly improve her abilities when fought together. Bearnie should also be able to shine, while willow is his assistant, she should greatly improve his damage if she chooses to. So basically willow leads while bearnie assists vs bearnie leads while willow assists. That way she can have 2 styles of gameplay, area of effect killing lots of creatures vs soloing bosses focusing on 1 creature. That way, she could greatly improve her combat from regular to impactful. As opposed to the "support" kinda category of survivors, she's a loner, because fire damages them, but she prioritizes fire over people. That for me is her identity, that's willow. And we could definitely add some gathering choices and/or fire aid in specific situations. I think a smaller star caller is great, I think a bigger lighter range should be 1 level only, but with the highest range, I think cooking faster helps a lot, I think the firepit and campfire bonus is great too. All of those things add up. She should also be weaker in winter (as she is) and while wet/close to water, but stronger in the sun and summer/close to fire and heat. That is to make her feel cohesive to her identity. She should not be the best at anything but using fire. Dragonfly armor should be a necessary for her and also a big buff. She could draw or enhance power from it to aid her melee combat. Her skills should only aid her combat, not be a separate thing that you can do. Spamming damage on cd while attacking is really not well integrated. The dfly armor should regen on her too. She should be able to learn with fire hounds to unlock some skills. That should be obvious. There is so much missed also. Like she should greatly improve the star caller or have another use for red gems. So.. Willow lets the fire takeover, or bearnie rules. That's willow for me.

Wolfgang SHOULD be the best at dealing damage. He was always like that, period, since he first came out until this day, he is the one doing the most amount of damage in the game. Not maxwell, not wanda. He should have a regular skillset, just damage. His skillset was incredible, and I think that he is also the best at speedrunning the game. He should be the leader I think, everyone likes to be protected by someone with biggers arms and a way bigger heart. He can move statues quicker (progression), fight better (combat) and has movespeed on his base kit. He can also support others and although I think it should be focused more on gathering/farming, the idea is there. He is not only about himself but others too. I just think his support role could be greatly improved. Also, the gym feels really unintuitive, like most things in willow's skillset.

Wickerbottom is not the best at a big thing is specific, but rather great on various places. For me, playing wicker alone is already a huge step up, and playing with friends brings an even bigger advantage. She is also a very good support (was for wx78), and I think that she should remain good at almost everything. For her skillset, I think klei should really just not add much power but rather focus on specific character interaction and leveling up the books with either shadow or lunar magic. I think her skillset should be divided from the beginning, so that the first thing you have to ask yourself is if you want wagstaff altered books or charlie altered books.

Woodie in a sense is perfect. I have no complains, he can assist but is also great on his own like most characters should be.

Wes should be the hardest and most annoying troll character.

Wigfrid should be a great melee combat character. I think she should be the best at riding beefalos. For me she is the tanker. The one that bosses are gonna choose to harm. She should be the focus on fights, but if well prepared, she should thrive. The beefalo thing is her theme. I think she should naturally tame a beefalo quicker and easier, around day 12 if done consistently. Then, everyone that wants a beefalo gets to have them quicker too if wigfrid is in the world, but not as quick as her. She should influence beefalos battle spirit. She should be the leader of the beefalos, and everyone should get bonus damage and protections if fighting alongside her on a beefalo. She should choose between being an animal tamer or a solo monster, and I think they should've implemented interactions with volt goats, no eyed deers and grass gators. She should be able to mount on one and fight on the ocean with everyone. Wigfrid is a great support with beefalos or a great fighter if solo. If they are going with the beefalo thing, just make it complete. Go all out and gives us a reason to mount them, it should be an alternative, that when fought together grants gigantic buffs, the more beefalos the better. That's her skillset for me.

I think webber is the coolest character in the game. His rework was kinda nice, but very suspicious in the sense that I love playing him but it still feels like.. Why? I can do better elsewhere. Well in my opinion he shouldn't be a support neither a helper, he should be like willow, an alternative melee spider leader combat character. He should teleport between spider nests from deep spiders in the caves like a wormhole, but only if he explored it prior and offered goodies to the spiders. He should be a cave menace. He should make spiders stronger when in a group, in a way that they can feel invincible together. Man how I love playing webber. He should have a stronger grip, he should have venom damage overtime if multiple spiders are attacking, he should ask spiders to move him quicker or move things quicker for him, he should fly over water with sea striders. He has so much potential, from fighting to placing strategic travel points in the caves. He could sense the ruins and the labyrinth maybe. His skillset should be spider friendly or spider antagonist. Using the powers of spiders to reign over them or playing alonside them and being on with them. Those 2 choices solidify his identity for me. As for lunar or shadow, I think klei could focus on caves vs surface. Give him night vision already, c'mon.

Wormwood is great where he is, almost perfect. Just wish he had to take more steps before benefitting from certain skills.

Wendy, oh wendy. She is my top 3 characters. Why? Cause you don't need to care about anything, your sister is there for you. That for me is the definition of a great lore implemented in-game. Once in pain, now she rests on her sisters back. Almost a great tragedy too. She should be fight or flight. Imagine you're in the constant with your dead sister as a ghost, with this depressed almost weirdly hopeless feel to everything. The only person that could bring you joy almost hurts to touch. Now, in game she is an early game monster. Spiders, hounds and frog waves could all happen at once. Bee queen and crab king are easier with her and fuelweaver as well. She for me is the definition of surviving indefinitely. She should be the best at overcoming every single issue she encounters. Progression shouldn't be buffed, nor gathering or the relationship with other survivors too, she already have some of that. I think sticking to combat is their best option. Her potions are great, but not necessary. I think atleast 5 skills should be situational lore-wise (She could set a protection barrier to aid on the moon caller staff event, just a simple circle) and 10 skills focused on combat (like maybe abigail could have a "skill" that "roots" enemies or "stun" them in place, almost like a sleep paralysis from a ghost. Maybe a horror scream that put enemies in awe). She could be able to choose between a bigger area of damage for lots of enemies or a single enemy bound that keep them in place. Or even a protection side of skills to aid her allies against too many monsters, that kinda noobie stuff.

Wx78 is the same as woodie, wicker and maxwell I think. Just another survivor that survives well, that's it. He has already a lot going on, so maybe just things focused on combat should work. He shouldn't move marbles quicker nor sail better or gather quicker. I think he can have lots of cool stuff, I have a whole skillset suggestions post written in the Suggestions tab so I won't talk much here. He just should be great at lots of separate things like wormwood. And combat should be the focus. We also need atleast a warbis interaction, that's the minimum.

Maxwell. Yeah, I don't care, I really don't. About nothing, anything. Klei, just do it. Yes, do it. Just buff THE FU* out of him. I freaking love this guy. He is the perfect antagonist to the series. For me, 2 shadow sides, one focused on both fighting and letting the shadows do the work, but with extra book management and another side where he joins the fight and let the shadows aid him, all with planar damage ofc. Alternatively he should choose between altering the nature of the soldiers themselves, making them stronger the more time passes, scalling to a point where getting there almost feels like the enemy has no room to escape. Duelists attack faster and faster while the clock ticks and shadows start to consume the enemies energy, making them drop fuel when hit with a small %.

I prefer to not opinate on other characters since I don't have that much experience with them (except wurt, which should be something close to webber, but for frogs and merms).

If we're talking about how skillsets could be implemented, there is a lot of speculation. But certain things are a must in my opinion. Every character needs some sort of motivation to play. If I wake up wanting to obliterate bosses I'll play wolfgang or wigfrid. If maybe I want a nice solo experience, I can pick the 5 non-human characters like wormwood, wurt, webber, wortox and wx78. If I want the best experience on a beefalo and with great skill involved I'll play maxwell. If winona and warly have almost no incentive to play, than I'll get bored quickly. But all of this is just my opinion, not a rule. You guys can disagree with me and that's fine. I'll still focus on next updates. I'm honestly hyped for next skillsets, I just don't wanna see the same mistakes repeatedly.

 

[Swiyss]

In the case of skillsets, let's take in consideration that the skill trees ended and now we got future plans for updates. Are any changes in the game goint to be present on skillsets? Are we changing them or adding stuff? Is klei going to add more space in the skillsets? How many years will it take to do that for every character though. 

My concerns are on optimizing the game's updates. We should look into the future, 3, 4 or 5 years from now. What's the bigger picture? What's the big plan?

If the plan is distant and they want to play around while they slowly walk towards this goal, we should atleast get some more lore development and qol fixes. Thankfully that's already the case.

So for skillsets, if we actually want to rewars the player for playing the game, lock some skills behind actually playing around quests and objectives. Kill crab king to unlock, find pearl to unlock etc..