Future most interesting skilltree? (POLL)

[marshyds]

Not really about OPness, moreso about thematic intrigue, because a character being op and having a dull skilltree isint really reasonable when just nerfing them is a possibility.

Which character has flexible enough existing mechanics and personality for a future skilltree?

Imo for example wolfgang was bound to be a bit boring due to the fact that his gameplay revolves around making a stat number bigger.

For the most interesting, i think Wortox definitely has the most personality for one, with his souls and trickster nature n such.

[Kwaik]

The ones with the most unique mechanics clearly getting all the votes

 

Which to me says that characters with the most vanilla plahstyles definitely need the most love to make them fun to play (not even talking about balance here) 

 

Winona was a fair attempt at this (remotes, specialized fuel, glasses etc) 

I don't think people are incredibly hisppy with Winonas skill tree for other reasons, but as far as making it interesting and evolving her plahstyles it succeeded (balance and QoL are different stories) 

[Ohan]

Im super curious to see what they do for Wickerbottom’s affinity skills. 

she has multiple quotes expressing her strong distaste for shadow magic so im wondering if she’ll be exclusively lunar too. 
 

Her refresh already had a lunar emphasis with the inclusion of the Lunar Grimoire. Shes more interested in/ open to lunar stuff compared to shadow and she’s clearly more than capable of exploring and developing this interest into new skills on her own without having to rely on wagstaff. 

So im really looking forward to see what they have planned for her lunar affinity in particular. Something to induce enlightenment on command for example would thematically be perfect. I was really negatively surprised to see they gave this to wurt. 

And besides her affinities she has her whole library of books to make interesting skills for (that cant just be stolen by max) because a lot of them could use improvements like The End is Nigh. 

I also hope they dont forget how much Wickerbottom too struggles within the planar system. She is a minion summoner after all and they have lost a ton of effectiveness vs the new planar aoe enemies. 
 

——

i think her refresh was really interesting so hopefully her skill tree will be too.

 

[Mysterious box]

Honestly I'm kind of shocked Wickerbottom got the most votes for most interesting potential as I'm kind of hard pressed imagining what they could do to make her skill tree really interesting compared to the other remaining characters.

13 minutes ago, Ohan said:

Something to induce enlightenment on command for example would thematically be perfect. I was really negatively surprised to see they gave this to wurt. 

I think they might not do this for balance reasons like I know balance is more or less out the window but giving her the ability to induce enlightenment on herself on command would break even the illusion of a balance in her spell casting,

[marshyds]

25 minutes ago, Ohan said:

Im super curious to see what they do for Wickerbottom’s affinity skills. 

To make her abilities more seperated from maxwell, some of her books could get secondary abilities only she could use, perhaps?

Maybe two books directly crafted from fuelweaver and celestial champion loot.

[Ohan]

50 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

I think they might not do this for balance reasons like I know balance is more or less out the window but giving her the ability to induce enlightenment on herself on command would break even the illusion of a balance in her spell casting,

it would not change much to be honest. While not giving her anything related to enlightenment would just be a huge missed opportunity after her animated short showing her becoming “enlightened”, containing knowledge so vast that it has a negative impact on her mental state. 

all strats where extremely long book reading beyond 0 sanity, which arent that many, would benefit from an “enlightenment button” can already be done on lunar island.

They could also find a way to implement it so its more interesting/balanced and not just a repeat of Woodie’s affinities in terms of negating downsides. 

——

Enlightenment in general could definitely use new additions to make it more interesting / fleshed out / potentially threatening. 
 

50 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

illusion of a balance in her spell casting,

The cost of using wicker’s powers is higher than the vast majority of the survivors, especially post skill trees. I think only warly, wormwood and maybe wurt are comparable (all pre-late game) 

 

[abrocator]

Walter because I don’t understand what the point of him is. In turn a skill tree that made him good would be super interesting.

Warly is another character that I don’t understand the point of… because as soon as someone uses him for his obvious intended purpose people start to scream. But the forums have converged on the same three or five ideas for his skilltree. So I wouldn’t be suprised if the devs just implement those. In turn he’s not interesting at the moment.

[Echsrick]

i just wonder how wx skill tree is even goin to work, i mean his rework allready feels like a skill tree in a way

[marshyds]

18 minutes ago, Echsrick said:

just wonder how wx skill tree is even goin to work, i mean his rework allready feels like a skill tree in a way

I think they'd just buff existing circuits and add some new ones? they're already a walking build-a-bear basically.

its the mentallity i used for my own idea for their skilltree:

 

32 minutes ago, abrocator said:

Warly is another character that I don’t understand the point of… because as soon as someone uses him for his obvious intended purpose people start to scream. But the forums have converged on the same three or five ideas for his skilltree. So I wouldn’t be suprised if the devs just implement those. In turn he’s not interesting at the moment

Being about food is hard when most foods are just for stats and rarely have special effects...

I imagine he could have a low durability butcher knife that makes mobs drop double of any organic item (even tusks) if the hit was fatal.

Or foods that permanently change his playstyle with upsides and downsides unless he eats some other life changing food or something to snap back to reality.

Or spices having unique effects on HIM specifically.

[abrocator]

17 minutes ago, marshyds said:

Or foods that permanently change his playstyle with upsides and downsides unless he eats some other life changing food or something to snap back to reality.

That seems anti-synergenic with Picky Eater.

38 minutes ago, Echsrick said:

i just wonder how wx skill tree is even goin to work, i mean his rework allready feels like a skill tree in a way

Uncompromising Mode (UM) has a more interesting WX rework.

WX circuit rework seems pretty boring. It’s mostly about speed and turning things off (turn off winter, turn off summer, turn off having to eat for a week). UM WX seems much more tactical… at least from a VOD I watched.

[mkemal23]

You would think that someone would at least missclick and pick him lol.

Anyways, Maxwell Wickerbottom and Warly's skilltree will definitely be really interesting. They are not only really strong, but they also have insane potential. Here's some of my suggestions:

• For Warly, I would like to see him get more stats from his special dishes. And some improvements to his backpack would be nice.
• For Wickerbottom I would like to see a book bag that lets you use her books like Maxwell spells.
• Finally for Maxwell, I would like to see small planar boost to duelists via planar armor. It could be one of the two alignements for him.

[marshyds]

2 minutes ago, abrocator said:

That seems anti-synergenic with Picky Eater

by "snap back to reality" i meant a specific food item that does that, instead of any food.

[GimplyGoose]

I'm not sure how it could be worked into a skill, but maybe Warly could periodically get 'cravings' that if fulfilled would produce a beneficial effect. The cravings could be for generic attributes of a dish and not specific dishes. For example, Warly could be craving 'something sweet' which dishes like honey ham, taffy, or ice cream could satisfy. Other cravings could include 'seafood', 'meaty', 'vegetabley', or even 'monstrous'.

I'm not sure what beneficial effect would work best for this kind of system. I think it would be kinda lame if the benefit was purely statistical (food gives +x hunger/health/sanity) and Warly has other foods for specific buffs. It could reward him with a 'chef's inspiration' character-specific resource that allows him to cook up some extra special recipes maybe?

[Evelo]

There is no "None" option.

[Mysterious box]

10 hours ago, Ohan said:

They could also find a way to implement it so its more interesting/balanced and not just a repeat of Woodie’s affinities in terms of negating downsides. 

main issue being this would be the likely outcome just more or less removing the sanity cost like I agree you could just go to lunar island to do this but it's already balanced by being more inconvenient than it seems unless your basing on the lunar island and it would just make her interaction with the bone helm much less special.

10 hours ago, abrocator said:

Walter because I don’t understand what the point of him is. In turn a skill tree that made him good would be super interesting.

Warly is another character that I don’t understand the point of… because as soon as someone uses him for his obvious intended purpose people start to scream. But the forums have converged on the same three or five ideas for his skilltree. So I wouldn’t be suprised if the devs just implement those. In turn he’s not interesting at the moment.

I don't think any character has a point so I'm not really sure what this is meant to mean. As far as Walter goes though realistically he'd be fine if they just gave him stat buffs and increased ammo carry capacity.

As for Warly as much as I wouldn't like it I think they should probably just give up on his food memory and lean harder into giving special effects via new spices obtainable outside of farms.

[WenericMember]

My top 3 would be Walter, Wes and Wendy for 3 separate reasons.

Wes has the obvious contrast between a skill tree designed to increase character's power levels, while being the intentionally weak character. So they have options - make him stronger, turn the concept on its head and make him weaker, or even lean further into his role as unlucky by making perks that make his life harder while everyone else's easier.

Walter, as the current weakest character IMO, already has a diverse kit with a bunch of different perks to improve, and I'd really like to play a reworked version of him.

Wendy is the most blank slate character left, in addition to being the survivor I enjoy playing most. She's in the same vein of Willow where there's a lot of room for creativity and new mechanics in how they handle her perks.

The other survivors are alright, but are balanced and diverse enough that their tree's aren't personally exciting.

[cropo]

After seeing Wurt's skill tree I can't wait for a Webber one. I want super mega-mutant shadow and lunar spiders, riding spider queens, tiny spider minions like in the Forge, letting him take the aspects of unique spiders (Like being able to become a spider warrior and get a lunge attack).

Not all of this at once mind you, but it would be exciting to have choices through all of them.

 

But the answer really depends on what Klei's full thoughts are on Skill Trees. If Skill Trees are just mainly to give them a catch-up to power creep of other characters, then none of them will be interesting because they're just going to get some buffs here and there. 

If Klei's idea for skill trees is to give characters various branching choices with how they play the character, then Webber's is the one I'm looking forward to. It's just that their skill tree choices on current characters are all over the place and don't have a unified goal. Wilson's barely does anything because they want to keep him basic, Willow gets an entire playstyle defining skill tree that actually makes use of her fire quirks, Wormwood's skill tree has literally everything from Swap-character stuff, boring stat increases, unique attacks that only he can do. Wurt tries to have multiple playstyles with hers but has an obvious "right" choice in the tree. It's just all over the place to tell what Klei wants in the skill trees.

So I hope Webber's will give him really cool stuff, but am not holding my breath for it.

[WenericMember]

The only comment other comment I have is PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE don't reduce survivor's alignment perks to "Survivor's combat mechanic gets alignement." It killed so much of my interest in the Wigfrid & Wolfgang skill trees. Wurt's is saved by the fact that Lunar/Shadow merms have interesting aesthetics, but PLEASE for Wendy/Webber//Walter give them a mechanically interesting skill aswell like Winona and Willow.

[Mysterious box]

39 minutes ago, cropo said:

riding spider queens

Honestly this is probably the only one I don't see happening for Webber since it wouldn't really make sense lore wise with Webber being a basic spider in the eyes of his kin not a ruler.

 

42 minutes ago, cropo said:

I want super mega-mutant shadow and lunar spiders

Honestly I'm kind of curious how they'll handle this considering shattered spider is the spider equivalent of the lunar mutant merm part of me things they might lean harder into making Webber himself affected by the alignment change rather than his spiders as there would be some conflict there. I imagine they might lean harder into his spider side in general honestly.

 

45 minutes ago, cropo said:

After seeing Wurt's skill tree I can't wait for a Webber one. I want super mega-mutant shadow and lunar spiders, riding spider queens, tiny spider minions like in the Forge, letting him take the aspects of unique spiders (Like being able to become a spider warrior and get a lunge attack).

Not all of this at once mind you, but it would be exciting to have choices through all of them.

 

But the answer really depends on what Klei's full thoughts are on Skill Trees. If Skill Trees are just mainly to give them a catch-up to power creep of other characters, then none of them will be interesting because they're just going to get some buffs here and there. 

If Klei's idea for skill trees is to give characters various branching choices with how they play the character, then Webber's is the one I'm looking forward to. It's just that their skill tree choices on current characters are all over the place and don't have a unified goal. Wilson's barely does anything because they want to keep him basic, Willow gets an entire playstyle defining skill tree that actually makes use of her fire quirks, Wormwood's skill tree has literally everything from Swap-character stuff, boring stat increases, unique attacks that only he can do. Wurt tries to have multiple playstyles with hers but has an obvious "right" choice in the tree. It's just all over the place to tell what Klei wants in the skill trees.

So I hope Webber's will give him really cool stuff, but am not holding my breath for it.

Overall Webber's skill tree will likely be handled somewhat similar to Wurt's as it seems the only ones getting ones like Willow, Woodie, and Winona are the characters in need of a gameplay overhaul with the rest mainly being focused around stat bumps like Wurt, Wolfgang, and Wigfrid. Going by this assumption I imagine Warly, Wickerbottom, and possibly Wortox will probably be the ones to get more major changes while the rest will likely get more minor ones.

 

[cropo]

Yeah I agree with that, but I at least hope they can introduce a system where Webber can eat his own switcherdoodles to temporarily gain the attacks of other spiders. Mutating himself into other spiders just sounds really cool.

[RustedSkye]

Maxwells may be interesting. I can see as a final tier he is immune to charlie. 
Perhaps as his shadow/lunar skill

[marshyds]

On 8/16/2024 at 8:53 PM, RustedSkye said:

Maxwells may be interesting. I can see as a final tier he is immune to charlie. 
Perhaps as his shadow/lunar skill

Im pretty sure he'll have purely shadow affinities, due to his alliance with charlie.

Immunity to charlie actually isint that impressive, as even with that ability you cant do much at night without light.

[WenericMember]

I don't get the thought process that Maxwell will have anywhere close to the best skill tree. He was quite literally the most recent character to be reworked, and thus is almost certainly the closest to Klei's vision for the character. It's not unreasonably to assume he might end up with a skill tree closer to Wolfgangs than anyone else's, and his skill tree will almost certainly be comparatively low impact. 

The main curiosity I have is if WX-78 and Wendy will have fixed alignments. They're not in AS deep as Maxwell & Wormwood, but WX has incredibly strong ties to Wagstaff, while Alter's power seems to suppress whatever keeping Abigail around, while Charlie seems to care for Wendy & Abigail to an unknown extent. They'll PROBABLY get both paths as options, but it would be cool if there was something unique, like having Wendy not need to beat AF for shadow alignment, while WX doesn't need to beat CC for lunar alignment, like WInona. 

[arubaro]

On 8/12/2024 at 6:19 PM, Ohan said:

Im super curious to see what they do for Wickerbottom’s affinity skills. 

she has multiple quotes expressing her strong distaste for shadow magic so im wondering if she’ll be exclusively lunar too. 
 

Her refresh already had a lunar emphasis with the inclusion of the Lunar Grimoire. Shes more interested in/ open to lunar stuff compared to shadow and she’s clearly more than capable of exploring and developing this interest into new skills on her own without having to rely on wagstaff. 

So im really looking forward to see what they have planned for her lunar affinity in particular. Something to induce enlightenment on command for example would thematically be perfect. I was really negatively surprised to see they gave this to wurt. 

And besides her affinities she has her whole library of books to make interesting skills for (that cant just be stolen by max) because a lot of them could use improvements like The End is Nigh. 

I also hope they dont forget how much Wickerbottom too struggles within the planar system. She is a minion summoner after all and they have lost a ton of effectiveness vs the new planar aoe enemies. 
 

——

i think her refresh was really interesting so hopefully her skill tree will be too.

 

Dont forget she seems to be part of a cult that uses alter as their symbolism 

[WenericMember]

On 8/13/2024 at 2:10 PM, Mysterious box said:

Overall Webber's skill tree will likely be handled somewhat similar to Wurt's as it seems the only ones getting ones like Willow, Woodie, and Winona are the characters in need of a gameplay overhaul with the rest mainly being focused around stat bumps like Wurt, Wolfgang, and Wigfrid. Going by this assumption I imagine Warly, Wickerbottom, and possibly Wortox will probably be the ones to get more major changes while the rest will likely get more minor ones.

I'm surprised Wendy isn't in contention as she has by far the most dated kit out of all survivors. Wickerbottom, on the other hand, only really has the issue of Maxwell also being able to read her books.