My Suggestions for Wurt's Skill Tree

[Stresslvls99]

These are ideas I had for what I 'd want Wurt's skill tree to have, leaning into her being a civilization builder and utilizing all her existing perks and enhancing them. I also think this could give an actual incentive to catch ocean fish.

Guard Merms

• increase range you can befriend merms.
• increase merms loyalty timer. (maybe from 2 days to 4)

Merm King

• Maybe increase the number of guards he can summon from 4 to 6.
• The size and biome of ocean fish should give you better drops i.e. more gold and an increase chance of 1 tentacles spot. (50% for one tentacle spot and 20% for 2 spots)
• Special and seasonal fish gives you most gold and a guaranteed tentacle spots. (25% chance for 2 spots)

Wurt

• As tentacles spots becomes more available you can use them for more crafting recipes.
• Wurt could make a spear (2 spots, a tentacle spike and maybe a hounds tooth) that deals 53 damage and a helmet (2 spots and a maybe silk idk) that absorbs 60% damage.
• These are really for the merm guards as they would get a special buff on the weapon and armor (spear deals 75 damage and helmet absorbs 85% damage)
• .Wurt could also use the spots to upgrade normal merms houses.
• Wurt should also get higher sanity dependent of the level of fish she catches.

Normal Merms

• Wurt could upgrade merm houses into 2 new variants: farmer merms and fisher merms.
• Both farmer and fisher merms don't need to be befriended and will immediately get to work once they have their materials. They also cannot fight.
• Farmer merm house (2 spots and a gardener hat to upgrade) will turn a normal merm into farmer who will automatically tend to planted crops while also simultaneously watering them a little and supplying very small nutrients because idk their fish bodies are wet and produce mucus.
• They also do this offscreen, unloaded.
• They would be active at dusk and night but will return to their homes and stay there during the day.
• They could even harvest vegetables and put it in their storage which would keep it fresh for unlimited time until Wurt buys it from them using trinkets she gets from the king.
• They stop collecting after they fill their inventory (btw, I assuming 6 by 6 tills on a 2 by 2 tile farm plot)
• Fisher merm houses (2 spots and a sea fishing rod to upgrade) will turn a normal merm into a fisher merm which can be tasked with collecting ocean fish within a large range outside their homes.
• They could use boats and ocean trawlers, avoiding hazards like rocks or salt formations.
• They function similarly to farmers in that they can function autonomously off screen and are only active at dusk and night and won't trade in the morning. Furthermore, like farmers, when their inventory is full they come home and store it and fish remain fresh until you buy them.

These ideas could be improved like how does the trading with fish/farm merms work but overall I think these are things Wurt's skill tree should have.

EDIT: Thinking about it more, the helmet and spear skill could be gotten rid of. Also I just learned from a beard video that merm king already gives you more gold depending on ocean fish.

Also for affinities because I completely frogot about them. Keeping in line with Wurt making structures instead of gadgets maybe you could make an altar instead out of marble and idk to make sacrifices to in order to turn merms in the area (ice flingomatic range) into their lunar/shadow forms. I was influenced by Dagon and the deep ones from Lovecraft for this since the merms are already some kind of mutant worshiping a deity (assuming the gorge is cannon (I need to know what happened to Billy and Mumsy)) and now they worship either an eldritch alien god of cosmic proportions (Them) or an ancient demonic force from the depths of darkness (the shadows) either way the the function for the merms could could remain the same. I love how the moon merm guards look and I find them more practical the the shadow ones.

EDIT #2: I know it may not get implemented but it is still fun to think about and it was bugging me because I was thinking more about the  mechanics on how the "mermchants" work.

So I figured that they could replace the mosquito skills as mermchant1, 2 and 3. The first skill unlocks both farmerms and fisher merms.

The prices for the items vary depending how much gold it would give you if you traded it to pig king, but it can be stacked (e.g. 1 trinket of value 5=5 trinkets of value 1). The more uncommon the item the more expensive it gets.

The farmerm will plant and only sell random crops that are in season (out of season crops are more expensive), they do the bare minimum of watering, tending and supplying nutrients to ensure they get back a crop and 2 seeds. No giant crops. You can also trade them one crop for another (say you have too many tomatoes). Moreover, you can make personal requests for crops when you buy seeds or aforementioned crop trading (in season is cheap, out of season is expensive).

The fisher merm cannot use ocean trawlers and can only catch and sell small ocean fish being very common to less common medium fish to rare heavy ocean fish, can only catch the regular ones (special, like spittlefish, or seasonal). Once again, the heavier the more expensive.

The second skill allows you to discount the items at a reasonable price (I struggled to come up with what items you could give to them).

The farmerm would accepts figs from the waterlogged biome, and the fishermerm would accept seasonal fish. Pretty simple but effective. (Note: they can be discounted only once).

The third skill, influenced by the merm king quests and how minecraft villager traders can level up, would see you give them an item that would greatly improve their abilities.

The farmerm could be given a premier gardeneer hat which would now allow the farmerm to plant crop combinations, taking into family and nutrient cycle (e.g. classic potato and tomato). It will still be random crops chosen based on if their in/out of season and you can still make personal requests. This would mean you can now automate giant crops.

The fisher merm could be given a heavy weighted fishing lure which would increase its chances of catching medium to heavy fish (maybe now it could use trawlers, idk) and a small percent chance, maybe 10 or less, to sell you special or seasonal fish. These would still be expensive even with the discount.

So yeah these are my ideas. I tried to make sure they were feasible because I really wanted more civilization stuff but there could be some more kinks that need working out. What do you think?

EDIT #3: I forgot to mention these because I'm forgetful but I thought about 2 additional skills.

First skill would allow Wurt to give other players or mobs or objects  loyal guard merm protection. You right click on say Wilson and the merms will begin following him and attack anything that attacks him, similar to what they would do with Wurt. You can befriend them to keep them loyal but only the merms that Wurt gave to you, you can dismiss them like her, or she can take them away by dismissing them or by using the second skill

This second skill would allow Wurt to craft a conch war horn made from a shell bell and a fresh water fish. It acts like Wurt's own webby whistle and would give her more controll over her merms, letting her de-aggro them. IIt would call all merms in a large area to her side (you still have to feed them food to befriend them) and it also lets you call merms back to your side after you gave them to the other players. It could also act as a way to tend to crops in mass like a beefalo horn or pan flute. I t would have 100 uses and does not call wild merms if there is no king in the world.

Once again, I know these skills won't be added since the skill tree is next week (can't wait), but it's a fun thought.

[FTLAK]

Great ideas, Some smilar to mine! SO EXCITED 3 weeks!!! 

Old but great minds think alike!!! 

[Spirit Glow]

great ideas. I like the idea of upgrading normal merm houses too since I honestly don't ever build normal merm houses after the first.

[Stresslvls99]

21 hours ago, FTLAK said:

Great ideas, Some smilar to mine! SO EXCITED 3 weeks!!! 

Old but great minds think alike!!! 

Thank you! I was watching a lot of wurt guides when I was learning her and your video was one of those that inspired me. I had another idea and its based off of the wet speed boost you had, rather an expansion; what if Wurt had unique interactions with the seasons? She's normal in Autumn, she slows down in Winter, she gets buffed in Spring and she dries up in Summer.

[Stresslvls99]

Webber focuses a lot on strategy with your spiders; I saw someone describe him as pikmin which is accurate. Where as for Wurt I really wanted to focus on her aspect of building up merm civilization, not just the guards you use as meat shields but an actual society with jobs and such. The farmers provide food for the king and soldiers, the fishers provide a way to obtain better items from the king to help proliferate the kingdom, the king provides items to trade to the fisher & farmers for their items and the guards protect anything around the area. Everything ties in together. I used minecraft villagers as reference when coming up with this idea. I've been saying this a lot but Wurt unique trait is that she's a kingdom builder and I think Klei should make the skill tree revolve entirely around that. While running faster on marsh or seeing tentacles or not drowning are all neat perks, they are not the reason why anyone plays her.

[Stresslvls99]

I want to expanding on the idea of the seasons affecting Wurt and her merm's performances in further detail, using what Klei said about the mosquitoes and Creatorfoswamps idea for mosquito farms for reference.

Klei mentioned giving Wurt more amphibious related traits so I thought since amphibians are heavily dependant on their environment, why not make that a game mechanic that is wholly unique to Wurt?

• Autumn would be normal with no upsides or downsides.
• Winter would cause them to go into a hibernation state, their attack speed, movement speed, respawn and regeneration are slowed and they become groggy when freezing. Digestion would also be slowed meaning the king doesn't need as much food.
• Spring is the opposite of winter for them with the exception of the digestion, that's back to normal. They get an increase in their movement, attack, regen and respawn speed. There's really no downside to Spring since it is their elemental season.
• Summer, however, is a different story. While Spring make you extremely powerful, Summer knocks you off of that throne and into dehydrated mud. Not only do you have to worry about overheating but "drying out", i.e. Damage dealt from Wurt and merms is reduced and damage taken is increased. King also loses hunger faster. This is where the mosquito farm idea comes in as you could make a lot of water balloons to throw on yourself to allow you to retain your normal abilities.

BTW, you can only upgrade craftmerm houses and guard merms when you have a king up. Also, I'd rather they get rid of the mosquitoes and swamp skills entirely.