Klei keeps good/bad skill trees ratio at 50/50

[Mortalbane]

1 hour ago, Kwaik said:

Wolfgangs skilltree isn't fun or interesting, but it is good 

Isn't fun or interesting = isn't good

1 hour ago, AliceShiki said:

It's clearly meant to be the starting experience. Do you really think people don't go, "I dunno what character to pick, so I'll just pick the first one"?

No, i don't think so. That is not how me or any of the people i know pick characters in a new game.
Tracer has her face all over Overwatch, for example, but i didn't pick her right away back in my days.
Reading your post, i come to a conclusion that you have weird logic, you don't notice that you contradict yourself. So i doubt any further explanation will make you understand why people don't like Wilson's skill tree.
I'm just glad you like that tree. but i don't, and let's leave it at that.

[CuteC]

7 hours ago, chirsg said:

Do either of you not like the spear?

Just because it has 1 good thing it doesn't mean the skill tree is good, it completely missed Wigfrid's role in being a char that supports her team with buffs and gear, the only fun thing I get out of the tree is a spear which is only good when upgraded and I can't even share it.

[Lovens]

Hard disagree on Wigfrid's skill tree, I think it's great. I played her a lot after it came out and I've been enjoying her so much! I didn't like the idea of her having beefalo perks on paper but oh boy rider is a great pairing with her now that I tried it! The taming process is a breeze with longer buck timer, beefalo tames faster when I do it as her. Starting it early autumn is helpful for exploring and ruins rushing. I also like that I can consistently have a song already going when I arrive to a boss fight, and I get to keep inspiration from draining when going between fights.

Wigfrid's new spear and commander's helmet are amazing. A lot of people think commander's helm is weak/underwhelming compared to dreadstone. But if you want a good durable swapout for head slot alongside CC crown, then commander's helm works better than dreadstone because you don't get the sanity drain from repairing it. It saves you so much resources on armor compared to making battle helmets. It's insanely easy to recharge commander's helm paired with the elding spear on bees, frogs, spiders, baby tentacles, nightmares etc. It's great for fighting both Werepigs, Sharkboi and mutant Bearger, allowing you to play slightly more aggressively (I usually pair it with mag or bone armor, depending on the situation. Sure you can kite knockback attacks, but staying in for the damage in phases where you would usually back off and tanking a bit can also be fun. An insulation buff is a nice touch in winter - good for doing something around while waiting for your thermal to reheat, or to save you from instant freezing on a grass boat if your thermal went white before you reached the shore. 

The fully charged elding spear is the absolute GOAT weapon and has earned a top place in my heart even though I mained Wanda a lot and thought nothing can beat her alarming clock. The dash attack is incredibly satisfying. The durability is not an issue so you basically get an infinite weapon that doesn't even need to be fueled (Wanda has to go out of her way to get nm fuel late game if you wear CC crown most of the time). Elding spear's AoE is super useful for bosses with minions (mainly BQ and FW but good for moslings, Vargs and Dfly as well), for fighting groups of enemies (spiders, frogs, splumonkeys, bees, moslings, hounds) and works so well with CC crown. Every time you land a hit by charging through a group of enemies, a gestalt will be released, and it counts as a new hit, helping you to boost sanity/health, regenerate your gear, or build up inspiration before the fight. The speed bonus on the spear frees an extra slot because you don't need a walking cane anymore and helps kite in boss fights better. On top of everything, you can use the spear to dash through the small void gaps in the caves, over small gaps between land on the surface, through obelisks in the Atrium (that's huge! Atrium navigation now is a cakewalk as Wigfrid) and thorough the walls (can be helpful in the archives, for example). Do I even need to mention electric damage on top of all that? Wigfrid is a beast with it in spring. I've been doing all boss runs recently and if you prioritise doing CC first to get the CC crown and upgrade the spear early, then she absolutely shreds through everything in a wet world. I did a run today and by the first summer started, the only bosses left to beat for Wigfrid are Sharkboi, Scrappy Werepig and Bearger - regular and mutated. 

As to the rest of the skill tree, there are some other great things that improve your gameplay as well, but even without them the spear, helm and beefalo are enough. Nonetheless, some built in planar defense is great. Song canister is super convenient and saves a lot of inventory space. I mainly use 4 songs for a solo game but I do others in multiplayer. The revive song is pretty good for boss fights. Affinity songs I haven't used much since by the time I get their materials, most bosses are dead already. I've been using lunar affinity as it helps in a CC rush run a lot (more damage on nightmares, FW and AG, less damage taken from CC and lunar mutant bosses). The only thing I can't comment on is the shield since I never played with it but I have seen people who enjoy playing with it and think it's pretty fun for a change of playstyle. 

[Valase]

Not to sound rude, but I can't believe that you are being serious

[readkey]

8 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

I'll never understand the hate for Wilson's skill tree tbh.

The starting character gets torch perks to help newbies out because they dunno how to make lanterns... Sounds good to me.

Then he gets a bunch of transmutation perks that can help you access resources you need more at will. A simple and straight-forward way of helping newbies out.

Then there is the beard stuff that helps newbies survive Winter more easily and also gives extra backpack slots, which tend to be very necessary for newer players (and even more experienced players can probably appreciate those too).

... And then there is the usual alignment stuff.

It just feels like a perfect newbie skill tree to me? Nothing is particularly incredible, but all of it can make a new player experience easier, and a handful of things can also be useful for experienced players too (like basically every gem-related transmutation). It seems perfect for what it's set out to do? Wilson doesn't need to be a good character for experienced players in the first place. It just needs to be as simple as possible to let new players learn the game without needing to worry about character gimmicks.

Agree. I tried Wilson once he got his and found that not only newbies benefit a lot from the trees, even veterans benefit from it for being so easy to manage every stat of his without much grinding. 
 

The skill I like most is actually the Beard slots and the Meat morsel transmutation, which allows Wilson to mass produce and carry Bacon and Eggs and Pierogis with ease. These two give great hunger and health, and have some of the longest spoilage time to the point I don’t even bother with Bundling Warp. When I play solo I can just skip Bee Queen and do something else. 
 

His beard insulation is not necessary, but if you do invest into it, you can even throw away your thermal stone in winter. This also allows him to long travel into the ruins and the sea in Winter without much management, and have a lot more flexible time management since other characters usually avoid going those places in Winter.

If anything, I would only improve the torch tree so that he does not need to invest 7 points to grasp the full power of it. I do think he can have a smaller torch tree and then one more small tree for some cool stuff. Other than that I think Wilson’s tree is fine. 

[Szczuku]

9 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

I'll never understand the hate for Wilson's skill tree tbh.

The starting character gets torch perks to help newbies out because they dunno how to make lanterns... Sounds good to me.

What the heck is the point of Wilson being the 'starting/blank state' character if almost all characters are unlocked from the start and the newbies are most likely going to pick the cool-looking ones like Webber, Wx or Wigfrid

[Mortalbane]

I consider a skill tree bad if it does not provide more that one viable build.
______________

Wigfrid's new items are cool and provide some needed upgrades for the poor DS combat system, but i don't agree that separate items were needed for that, instead of just upgrading a battle spear with one goat horn, for example. Her basic helmet and spear were thrown out of the window, but they were kinda her thing before the skill tree.
Or would you perhaps give up the elding spear for the song buffs, with the current tree?
And if you do introduce new items, and old ones are mainly used by your allies, it clearly indicates that you are the commander. But this idea was not explored.
Fighting with only a shield, no weapon, and using that puny unarmed attack animation? Or switching between a weapon and a shield in combat? No, thanks, that's not how i imagine a viking warrior.
Song meter skills didn't have to be tied to a beefalo. In theory i like the rider cavalry Wigfrid, but in reality you can't be considered cavalry if you fight better without your mount. Not to mention the other problems beefalo has, which should be fixed before adding it to anyone's skill tree.

Hunting is a big mechanic, and if any character should have perks related to it, it should have been Wigfrid.

Wigfrid didn't need lifesteal to begin with, she needed combat abilities. But at that time Klei didn't even think about improving the combat system. So instead of fixing the character and expanding with a skill tree, the tree is used as a fix.
Wigfrid's tree reminds me of Wilson's. It is not necessarily bad in a vacuum, but when you start thinking how much more it could be, you realize that it is mostly bad.
______________

Also, with the skill trees being a straight buff to the character, i really wonder how would Maxwell's skill tree look. He is my favorite character, cuz he is the most interesting, fun, versatile, and also stylish. But he doesn't need a buff even remotely. I'm afraid he will get a boring Wolfgang tree or a useless Wurt tree, cuz those characters don't need buffs too.
They need versatility in skill trees, exploring some other roles or paths, but in this department Klei obviously struggles. So far not a single successful step away from the character's initial design and purpose.

[mkemal23]

14 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

And yes, gem transmutations are not for new players. They're the things for experienced players in Wilson's skill tree.

There is nothing "experienced" about clicking a button to skip an entire event.

14 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

It's clearly meant to be the starting experience. Do you really think people don't go, "I dunno what character to pick, so I'll just pick the first one"?

This logic does not work on DST. In DS, sure. You had Wilson as the first character, then was Willow who had a lighter for light, and bernie for sanity management. But in DST this was never the case. There was no "Starting character", no "Light-Sanity Managment" character. The game didn't tell you much, which makes sense because it's Don't starve.

14 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

If you want a good level of new player retention, you definitely want a character (or a few characters) that are easier to get into than others.

You don't have to sacrifice an entire character to make them "easier to get into". Wilson's beard storage skills are really easy to get into and fun. Transmute gem skill's are also easy to get into but there is no fun. Again, There is nothing fun about clicking a button to skip an entire event.

14 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

The first character in your character list in particular should be as new-player focused as possible, even if it means this character will have no meaningful appeal for experienced players.

Yeah it's forbbiden to touch first character but it's fine to give second character a pocket flamethrower.

Wolfgang is the third character and he has the most complex mechanic (Planar) in his skill tree. 

But i'm sure it will be fine. In the end everyone immediately picks Wilson when they see him. Because he's that handsome. lol.

[Mortalbane]

I wanted to say that the whole skill tree system is broken and flawed on so many levels. I don't see the point of making a new thread, cuz they won't rework it any time soon, but i also can't stay silent, since we are talking about skill trees.

1. A lot of skills are designed as "do this a little bit better" and "do this much better". This looks like an effort to create a sense of progression, but it would only be viable if skill points were reset to zero between games. But they are not reset, so this feeling of progression you will at best have once per character.

2. Is this planar stuff late game or not? Why some characters have their skills immediately available, while others need to indeed kill FW or CC to get to them?

3. Are you saying that all the future content will be tied to FW, CC, and moon vs shadow? Current trees don't look like they have room for expansion.

4. Skill trees are mostly used as a fix for characters, instead of giving them different viable builds with different roles/playstyles.

5. How are new players supposed to unlock their affinities? Playing on public servers, you will see end-game bosses next to never. Being in a solo world and killing all bosses could take an eternity for a new player, especially if they don't like going to google or youtube.
What i mean is - if affinities are for late game, probably they should not be accessed before that. They should improve the things character already has, not add the things that make character worth playing to begin with.

Not the full list, but enough to show my point.
I've said all that the first time i saw skill trees and affinities, and all this time later nothing has changed.
Maybe, if Klei would spend a bit more time thinking ahead, they would not need so many reworks, re-reworks and QoLs all over the place.

[Mysterious box]

13 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

t's the first character in the list, and it's the most barebones one, and it's also the character that shows up first when you look at the game's steam page, videos and etc.

It's clearly meant to be the starting experience. Do you really think people don't go, "I dunno what character to pick, so I'll just pick the first one"?

And yes, gem transmutations are not for new players. They're the things for experienced players in Wilson's skill tree.

As for the Wendy comparison, that's different. If a player asks for advice on what character to pick when starting, they'll often be suggested to play with Wendy, but that's not something they'll intuitively get to... But yes, Wendy is also a good tool for newbies, as the newbie won't have to worry too much about combat while playing Wendy.

From my experience new players tend to pick Webber and then end up on Wendy eventually there are some new players who pick Wilson but it seems pretty rare. Even when I was new I never picked Wilson usually people tend to pick a character that seems interesting first for me that just so happened to be Willow for better or worse.

 

13 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

Yes, I did say some parts of the skill tree were aimed at experienced players, like the gem transmutations and the alignment stuff. I don't get why you and Mortalbane brought that up as a "gotcha" when I already stated that in my previous post.

Honestly I'd argue gem transmutations are still aimed at casual players as they'd likely have issues stockpiling specific gems while veteran players know how to get their hands on gems making the transmutation note quite as useful.

 

13 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

I doubt people will start feeling like Wurt's skill tree is interesting and meaningful if they don't like playing with followers, for example. No matter what is there in the skill tree.

There's actually a surprising amount of Wurt players who actually don't use merms mostly because they like the character but don't want to put in all the work required to make proper use of them.

14 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

Wilson just so happens to be focused at new players, so the skill tree is good, interesting and meaningful for new players, even if most things there are bad for experienced players, and they don't look very interesting or meaningful for experienced players either. That's not a problem with the skill tree, it just points to you not being its target audience.

I feel like that's still a design failure and kinda highlights the biggest flaw of the current direction of skill trees. A skill tree is supposed to open up new ways to experience a character not be a turtorial or have a single optimal build. Wilson's skill tree is bad because his skills have a expiration date on their usefulness there shouldn't be a skill that focuses solely on the player's first few hours of play and that alone. If they felt it was necessary for a beginner it should have become a standard improvement to torches across the board.

I mean even in the hypothetical scenario where someone who plays dst for the first time decides to pick Wilson they still have to wait to gain enough insight to even learn these skills and only by playing Wilson specifically there's no telling if they will actually stick to the character long enough to even get to try these lackluster skills after seeing what the other characters can do and how much easier it is to survive as them that's just horrible design if the intention was for him to be a beginner character and a big letdown to those who want to feel rewarded to commiting to him long term.

[AliceShiki]

9 hours ago, Szczuku said:

What the heck is the point of Wilson being the 'starting/blank state' character if almost all characters are unlocked from the start and the newbies are most likely going to pick the cool-looking ones like Webber, Wx or Wigfrid

He's the first character on the list, and the one that appears up front in stuff like the Steam Store Page, the game's intro screen and the like. The devs clearly try to push new players towards Wilson.

5 hours ago, mkemal23 said:

There is nothing "experienced" about clicking a button to skip an entire event.

Experienced players are the only ones who will make any use of the gem transmutation, because new players will have far too gems to make any use of this skill.

It's not that you need experience to click a button. You need experience to get a reasonable amount of gems to make the skill useful.

5 hours ago, mkemal23 said:

This logic does not work on DST. In DS, sure. You had Wilson as the first character, then was Willow who had a lighter for light, and bernie for sanity management. But in DST this was never the case. There was no "Starting character", no "Light-Sanity Managment" character. The game didn't tell you much, which makes sense because it's Don't starve.

5 hours ago, mkemal23 said:

You don't have to sacrifice an entire character to make them "easier to get into". Wilson's beard storage skills are really easy to get into and fun. Transmute gem skill's are also easy to get into but there is no fun. Again, There is nothing fun about clicking a button to skip an entire event.

If you want to have good new player retention, you do need a tutorial character. Wilson is that character. You not being forced to pick Wilson at first doesn't change the fact he is the first in the list and is the one with most visibility for new players due to being in the front of the steam page, in the game's home screen and the like.

5 hours ago, mkemal23 said:

Yeah it's forbbiden to touch first character but it's fine to give second character a pocket flamethrower.

Wolfgang is the third character and he has the most complex mechanic (Planar) in his skill tree.

Yes, you're correct. The 2nd+ characters can be more complex. Because by then the new player will probably have already played with Wilson to some extent, and so they can be introduced to character gimmicks.

Sure, not everyone will start with Wilson, but the game pushes you towards starting with Wilson regardless.

4 hours ago, Mortalbane said:

5. How are new players supposed to unlock their affinities? Playing on public servers, you will see end-game bosses next to never. Being in a solo world and killing all bosses could take an eternity for a new player, especially if they don't like going to google or youtube.

I don't have any statistics on that (since I think only Klei has access to those numbers), but I think a good chunk of this game's players play with friends. I mean... It is kind of the whole point of Don't Starve Together. To play with friends and stuff.

You'll probably still need to google how to do all the questlines for the endgame bosses, but it's a lot more reasonable to expect people to get to that point eventually when playing with friends than by doing it in pubs or solo.

That said, the affinities are usually only one skill of the entire skill tree, so it's not a big deal if the new player doesn't have access to it IMO... Except on cases like Wigfrid's skill tree that have 5 or so skills directly tied to the affinity stuff. Then it's kinda annoying.

3 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

From my experience new players tend to pick Webber and then end up on Wendy eventually there are some new players who pick Wilson but it seems pretty rare. Even when I was new I never picked Wilson usually people tend to pick a character that seems interesting first for me that just so happened to be Willow for better or worse.

I'm not saying all new players pick Wilson. I'm just saying the game pushes you towards Wilson by putting him first and via placing him very visible in the promotional material of the game.

At the end of the day, all of us only have anecdotal evidence on that, so unless Klei comes out and gives us the statistics of what characters are most played by people with 10h or less recorded on DST, we can only work with our personal experiences and on what looks intuitive based on how they designed the game.

3 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

Honestly I'd argue gem transmutations are still aimed at casual players as they'd likely have issues stockpiling specific gems while veteran players know how to get their hands on gems making the transmutation note quite as useful.

I don't necessarily disagree, but I'd say those casual players would still have enough experience to at least know how to get a reasonable amount of gems (by cheesing Dragonfly or whatever), because new players will basically only have a gem or two from the occasional blue/red hound.

3 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

There's actually a surprising amount of Wurt players who actually don't use merms mostly because they like the character but don't want to put in all the work required to make proper use of them.

That's a fair point. I can kinda see myself using some modded characters and completely ignore all the absolutely overpowered mechanics that some of the modded characters have, simply because I think the character is cute and I want to play with them.

I'm not gonna be surprised if people feel kinda similar to that when dealing with Wurt.

3 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

I mean even in the hypothetical scenario where someone who plays dst for the first time decides to pick Wilson they still have to wait to gain enough insight to even learn these skills and only by playing Wilson specifically there's no telling if they will actually stick to the character long enough to even get to try these lackluster skills after seeing what the other characters can do and how much easier it is to survive as them that's just horrible design if the intention was for him to be a beginner character and a big letdown to those who want to feel rewarded to commiting to him long term.

I mean... You get your first skill after surviving like... 3 days or so?

If you gave up on playing Wilson before surviving even 3 days, you most likely dropped the game in its entirety because it didn't really spark joy in you.

Otherwise, the player will be able to experience a decent amount of Wilson's skills in their first play session... I mean, even getting to your first winter already unlocks 5 skills IIRC. That's plenty to let you play around with the skill tree.

3 hours ago, Mysterious box said:

I feel like that's still a design failure and kinda highlights the biggest flaw of the current direction of skill trees. A skill tree is supposed to open up new ways to experience a character not be a turtorial or have a single optimal build. Wilson's skill tree is bad because his skills have a expiration date on their usefulness there shouldn't be a skill that focuses solely on the player's first few hours of play and that alone. If they felt it was necessary for a beginner it should have become a standard improvement to torches across the board.

As for this point... I think it mostly depends on what you define as "first few hours of play"?

Like... Assuming a complete blind playthrough of the game... I'd imagine the first death would come at the first Hound Wave, which would probably lead to a world reset.

Second death would probably be to hunger in Winter. And third one probably to Deerclops destroying your base. Both of those would probably lead to world reset as well.

By the time you're able to reach Spring is when Wilson's usefulness to a new player starts to seriously become underwhelming... If we assume the player was using Wilson until they reached Spring for the first time though, then I don't think it's that unlikely they already have 10-20h or so of playtime... That's already plenty in my view, and means Wilson already did his job to let the player have an easier time adapting to those early game situations.

I don't think it's a problem if Wilson isn't ever picked again after this point, since he already did his job of helping the new player get used to the game and help them survive their first autumn and winter.

And well, he also has the role of letting people experience a more vanilla experience, I guess. Which also has its own charm. Sometimes you just want to experience the game as is without any character gimmicks... Or well, at least I do.

[Mortalbane]

2 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

If you want to have good new player retention, you do need a tutorial character. Wilson is that character. You not being forced to pick Wilson at first doesn't change the fact he is the first in the list and is the one with most visibility for new players due to being in the front of the steam page, in the game's home screen and the like.

Oh my.. Who told you all that? You'd better stop repeating this in public to not embarrass yourself.
I guess i better stop commenting or even reading your posts, because i try to be respectful towards other opinions, but you make it very, very hard for me.

Well, unless i ever see game stats that show the majority of new players picking Wilson as the first character, and because he is first in the list. If i ever see that, i'll publicly admit that i was wrong and my whole life is a lie.

But even then it would not make Wilson a tutorial character for DST, and would not justify his awful skill tree.