Allignment (The mechanic) sucks and Klei needs to decide what the path forward is.

[Theukon-dos]

Something you mentioned in passing that I think should really get more focus is how weird the gating diechtomy is between lunar and shadow alignment perks.

Several character's planar perks rely on material gating to get access what they unlock. Not a problem in and of itself, but the materials used to do this are Pure Horror and Pure Brilliance. That makes sense conceptually, these items are obviously direct counterparts to one another. But Pure Horror is a fairly early-game material. Only requiring you to kill the Nightmare Werepig to get access to. But Pure Brilliance is entirely post-rift unless you have a Wilson on your team. But even then you atleast need to start the Moonstorms for Wilson to craft it.

It's again, a really weird difference in gating for sets of perks that are all nearly identical mechanically. Wigfrid can get the Dark Lament early on but not the Enlightened Lulliby. Wurt can craft the Dreaded Mudslinger early on, but not the Enlightened Mudslinger. And not only can Winona use her shadow strikes much earlier than her Enlightened Strikes, but Shadow Seeker 2 lets her find Pure Terror without having to kill Nightmare Werepig.

It's baffling how Klei hasn't introduced any way to get Pure Brilliance Pre-Moonstorm, yet Pure Terror just spouts out the Wazoo.

 

As for the alignment perks themselves, ehhh.

Gonna be honest, before Klei ruined everything introduced skill trees, Alignment perks were something I was genuinely excited for. Like @Toros said earlier, I was expecting them to function more like B-Side characters from The Binding of Issac. Deep-Rooted changes to how a character works, though still keeping the general theme consistant. And where not choosing a side was just as much of a choice as either shadow or lunar. And even with skill trees, I think that would be a much, much more interesting way to go about doing alignment perks instead of what we have know, which ranges from simple numbers changes to the exact same perk but with different color pallets. Just some examples of what those could look like

 

Wolfgang:

Shadow-alignment gets rid of Wolfgang's mightiness meter entirely and makes his form changes based on sanity. High sanity = Mighty, Low sanity = Wimpy. Dumbells give a temporary buff that let Wolfgang stay in his regular form while insane and are empowered when thrown, while the Mighty Gym gives a temporary buff that can let Wolfgang stay mighty even while insane.

Lunar-Alignment replaces Mighty Wolfgang with Were-Wolfgang. This form deals less damage (1.5x instead of 2x), but has a higher chop/mine multiplier, can swipe with his mighty claws to pick items in an AOE, both off plants and off the ground, and will start running on all fours after moving continuously like Wilbur. His mightiness meter also maxes out on a full moon automatically.

 

Wigfrid:

Lunar-Alignment increases the max amount of songs you can have active to four and increases the rate at which you build inspiration. But songs no longer buff centered on Wigfrid, instead they summon a statue on the player's cursor that applies their buff in an AOE around them. You can also have 2 statues of the same buff placed at once, and both will effect any allied players or mobs inside of them.

Shadow-Alignment reduces Wigfrid's damage and resistance down to 10/10% each, but they now scale based on how insane Wigfrid is upto 40/40% each. Being insane also gives Wigfrid a chance to spawn Shadow Tentacles with every attack.

 

Wormwood:

Ok so this guy is kinda weird sense he's locked to lunar-alignment, and already has some natural affinity for the moon. As such, each side of Wormwood's skill tree would have 2 alignment perks. One that introduces the alignment's perks, and another that amplifies those perks further but introduces the alignment's downsides.

Lunar Guardian 1: Empowers all lunar or plant-based equipment. The existing effects of Lunar Guardian apply, Log Suits have 90% Damage Reduction instead of 80 and will restore durability in sunlight, Grass suits have 75% Damage Reduction and cause a cloud of pollen to be emmited on hit, causing smaller enemies to be stunned for a few seconds. Brightshade Staffs have a 25% chance to summon a vine with every hit, The Celestial Crown no longer drains sanity to summon mini-gestalts; but still requires Wormwood's sanity to be high enough to activate it; and the Glass Cutter will spawn crystal shards from the ground with every hit (Think the Shattered Spider's attacks)

Lunar Guardian 2: Fertilizers can no longer heal Wormwood. Manure will cause Wormwood to grow a binding of briars and deal more damage. While compost will cause Wormwood to grow a thick layer of bark that will protect him from a couple hits, but needs to regrow every time it's broken.

 

Lunar Cultivator 1: Wormwood can infect and moontate certain monsters he kills and turn them into allies. Moontated Monsters usually have some new perk or ability. Examples of infected monsters could include spiders, hounds, pigs; merms; and bunnymen; or Volt Goats.

Lunar Cultivator 2: Wormwood gains a 25% damage penalty and is considered a monster. But the maximum amount of infected minions he has increases, he can infect larger monsters, and he can empower his friends with Brightshade after rifts are open. New monsters he can infect include Beefalo, Vargs, and Tallbirds.

 

Woodie:

Shadow-Alignment keeps shadows from attacking him while insane, and also lets him call upon his wereforms directly from his Psyche. He can now "craft" new-moon totems for 20 sanity that transform him directly into the associated wereform when made.

Lunar-Alignment lets Woodie craft Full-Moon Totems using lunar materials that give Woodie's transformations new abilities. Full-Moon Weremoose can instantly destroy trees and rocks by crashing into them, Full-Moon Beaver has a built in lazy forager effect, and Full-Moon Goose can drag heavy objects behind him at full speed.

 

 

Not sure what to do with Wurt, Winona, or Wilson though. But I think y'all get the point of how I think these things should work.

[Cassielu]

23 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

It's baffling how Klei hasn't introduced any way to get Pure Brilliance Pre-Moonstorm, yet Pure Terror just spouts out the Wazoo.

It makes sense in lore, even an interesting detail: The ancients used the Gateway to tear space apart for Shadow side, so we can find the Pure Horror left in the world. But for Lunar side, Wagstaff was the first person who tear space apart, and no one got to Pure Brilliance before that.

I like it. But the gameplay is really terrible. Especially when Pure Brilliance is even locked behind of the Celestial Portal, what's the point of choosing these skills if they can only work after you can change skilltree at liberty?

Maybe this was a mistake from the start.

[grm9]

15 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

Shadow-alignment gets rid of Wolfgang's mightiness meter entirely and makes his form changes based on sanity

that seems like simply a nerf

16 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

Shadow-Alignment reduces Wigfrid's damage and resistance down to 10/10% each, but they now scale based on how insane Wigfrid is upto 40/40% each

that's really weird considering that her sanity increases on hit

17 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

Pure Horror is a fairly early-game material. Only requiring you to kill the Nightmare Werepig to get access to. But Pure Brilliance is entirely post-rift unless you have a Wilson on your team

because shadow alignment seems to be for early game and lunar seems to be for late game in most cases

[YouKnowWho]

I don’t see what the problem is with having access to planar damage in the early game. It’s not like there’s any significant combat advantage beyond the odd slurtle.

As for perk inconsistency: characters don’t exactly start on an even playing field. Wigfrid and Wolfgang really don’t need any mind-boggling abilities when their basekit already puts them miles ahead of everyone in combat. 

[Sir Noel]

2 hours ago, grm9 said:

because shadow alignment seems to be for early game and lunar seems to be for late game in most cases

Imo this just doesn't make much sense nowadays and I hope they try to balance it out soon. Shadow side lacks so much content in late game because of this, compared to lunar. And stuff like Wolfgang's shadow guard skills are way worse than the lunar strategists since there's way more shadow stuff early/mid game.

[HowlVoid]

13 hours ago, CuteC said:

I love the skill trees' MASSIVE escalation between updates.
Wilson: you can craft 2 materials you cannot really do much with them right now lol have fun.

Woodie: have a solution to some minor annoyances, you can only choose one and the better option is lunar.

Wigfrid: if you get like 20 people fighting you can deal the extra damage of 1 entire person wow this sure is great.

Wurt: EMBRACE THE POWER OF UNKNOWN GODS AND DEMOLISH ANYTHING IN YOUR PATH WITH AN ARMY OF MERMS CORRUPTED WITH POWERS BEYOND YOUR COMPREHENSION.
I really hope they do not leave out the previous chars, I hate being Wigfrid and just choosing dealing a bit more damage to shadows because they're the obvious choice since they spawn anywhere.

Yeah what is going on with perks becoming more complex?

Wanda: Opens a rift in time and space, where she has to complete a level of subway surfers. If she completes it she gets +10 planar damage and a 5% chance to Dodge damage.

Either Klei needs to keep it in their pants or make all the characters complex.

[loopuleasa]

Alignment and hardmode endgame is not yet a finished product.

The alignment choice is not relevant so far. But let's be patient.

[Evelo]

I agree that alignment skills are very varied in power levels. But I think a lot of the proposed suggestions are not the way forward. Then again I feel skills need to be minor bonuses (see Winona's middle line skills, the left side is perfect imo) not something that radically changes the gameplay (like Willow).

But mostly agreeing with @loopuleasa patience is best.

[arubaro]

Maybe will be related to the daywalker quest.  Klei said that quest will have different paths depending on what we decide