Future most interesting skilltree? (POLL)

[Frashaw27]

23 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

I'm surprised Wendy isn't in contention as she has by far the most dated kit out of all survivors.

Because her kit is extremely simple, but it works. It has it's strengths, but also it's weaknesses like being generally kinda bad against tankier mobs that deal a lot of upfront damage like fuelweaver who can chew through Abigail. It may be dated by the character herself if very solid with all the newfound control over abigail. She's a prime example of "complex doesn't mean good". I may be one of the few new Wolfgang defenders, but Wendy is the far better example of a simple character as while there a bit of depth you can do with certain bosses like the shadow bishop, mostly it's more simple then breathing.

[WenericMember]

4 minutes ago, Frashaw27 said:

Because her kit is extremely simple, but it works. It has it's strengths, but also it's weaknesses like being generally kinda bad against tankier mobs that deal a lot of upfront damage like fuelweaver who can chew through Abigail. It may be dated by the character herself if very solid with all the newfound control over abigail. She's a prime example of "complex doesn't mean good". I may be one of the few new Wolfgang defenders, but Wendy is the far better example of a simple character as while there a bit of depth you can do with certain bosses like the shadow bishop, mostly it's more simple then breathing.

I get that, but I still think she's much more likely to get significant new mechanics than Wickerbottom.

Personally, I hope they don't touch Abigail too much, but giver Wendy more unique gameplay out of combat.

[chincer]

wortox is basically an open book with blank spaces they can fill, we seen what they can do with a unique resource like willows embers, wortox can go countless ways with his souls beside "wortox can teleport further" and "wortox soul heal and repelish more hunger" he desperately need unique crafts

Wanda is already such a satisfying and powerful character, i just hope it isnt wolfgang treatment of "give her planar damage" and call it a day, she can do way more than be a glass cannon version of wolfgang

walter...his kit is a mess and probably need a lot of work for the skill tree to get up to speed, he is interesting just extremely weak compare to what other survivors offer

[Gashzer]

14 hours ago, chincer said:

walter...his kit is a mess and probably need a lot of work for the skill tree to get up to speed, he is interesting just extremely weak compare to what other survivors offer

Nah this means you are not adapting your playstyle to his kit, his kit just revolves around changing your playstyle from using head armour and backpack to using woby inventory and body armour + pinecone hat. Then everything makes sense. If you use head armour with Walter it's akin to using an ornery beefalo for combat as a wolfgang player... you can do it and it can work but you are playing the character wrong.

Walter loses health and sanity from damage, camper heals health and sanity and is portable. 

Sanity gain from trees, camper fire stories and faster cooking over campfires reinforces his nomadic playstyle, faster cooking synergises with cooked cactus flesh which is awesome to heal his sanity during combat.

Slingshot provides utility in hunting butterflies, gobblers and koalafants for meat to dry or for dealing with unique mobs like regular/big tentacles or mush gnomes.

As long as you wear pinecone hat and body armour, Walter is actually better in melee combat verses high insanity drain bosses and will lose less sanity over the course of the fight if you are not facetanking every hit. So anyone saying he's a range character is wrong and his skilltree shouldn't focus completely on his slingshot.

60% speed bonus in the form of big woby that negates piggyback speed penalty is ridiculously good. He's a better version of WX for more skilled players that can kite well to negate his downside.

[Echsrick]

6 hours ago, chincer said:

he desperately need unique crafts

does he now? im playing wortox alot and never asked myself "oh boy i wish wortox can build a special something for a special himself" like what would he even do?

[Mysterious box]

21 hours ago, WenericMember said:

I get that, but I still think she's much more likely to get significant new mechanics than Wickerbottom.

Personally, I hope they don't touch Abigail too much, but giver Wendy more unique gameplay out of combat.

Personally I imagine she'd be on the Wolfgang/Wigfrid side of the spectrum.

7 hours ago, chincer said:

walter...his kit is a mess and probably need a lot of work for the skill tree to get up to speed, he is interesting just extremely weak compare to what other survivors offer

People keep saying this but never go into detail like if kiel just gave him some number tweaks what specifically would be wrong with him?

To be clear he offers portable tents which is a mobile full heal that just requires food, a cheap mount that makes him faster at getting around than any other survivor that isn't using a beefalo without making the sacrifices that Wx makes for fully committing to speed, and he has additional storage with a lack of sanity drain outside of combat.

5 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Then everything makes sense. If you use head armour with Walter it's akin to using an ornery beefalo for combat as a wolfgang player... you can do it and it can work but you are playing the character wrong.

I mean not really if you don't get hit too much and/or use sanity food using head armor is still a fine option.

5 hours ago, Gashzer said:

Slingshot provides utility in hunting butterflies, gobblers and koalafants for meat to dry or for dealing with unique mobs like regular/big tentacles or mush gnomes.

Honestly even as utility the slingshot just isn't good enough as is it definitely needs a big buff in damage output, ammo storage per slot, craft amount, and utility which hopefully the skill tree will provide.

 

5 hours ago, Gashzer said:

So saying anyone saying he's a range character is wrong and his skilltree shouldn't focus completely on his slingshot.

I mean it's the main draw of his character and his design kind of encourages it I feel like it's wrong to say he's not a ranged character outside of the damage output being terrible for the most part his slingshot should be the main focus specifically because it's currently his most useless and poorly designed aspect.

[WenericMember]

35 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

Personally I imagine she'd be on the Wolfgang/Wigfrid side of the spectrum.

Wigfrid and Wolfgang are on pretty much opposite ends of the spectrum???

Wolfgang Only got stat buffs. Literally only like 3 of his perks couldn't be accomplished by tweaking a few stat values.

Wigfrid got:

• A new cooldown system for stingers
• 2 new battle songs (alignment & res)
• Battle storage canister
• 3 New combat items, each with their own unique set of mechanics
• A completely new area of perks with her beefalo tree

They're completely different.

I think the amount of new stuff each skill tree gave would roughly go:

Willow (Ember System) >

Wormwood (Luanr Summons, bunch of QOL) >>

Wurt (QOL & new a fair few new mechanics)  = Winona (Alignment Perks are unique, and some nice QOL) = Wigfrid (Bunch of new unique offensive tools) >

Woodie (Were tree is mostly stat buffs tbh) >>>>>

Wilson (Transmutation takes up way too much insight) >>>

Wolfgang. (Literally Just Stat buffs)

So I'd divide them into 3 main "tiers" - pseudo reworks (Wormwood & Willow), major QOL (Wurt-> Woodie), and stat buffs (Wilson & Wolfgang)

Of the remainder, I think Wickerbottom, Wanda, Maxwell and WX-78 would end up somewhere between Wilson  and Woodie, Warly, Wes, Webber and Walter getting something akin to Wurt's/Wigfrids, while Wortox and Wendy have the greatest chance of getting a bunch of new mechanics.

[Mysterious box]

8 hours ago, WenericMember said:

Wigfrid and Wolfgang are on pretty much opposite ends of the spectrum???

Wolfgang Only got stat buffs. Literally only like 3 of his perks couldn't be accomplished by tweaking a few stat values.

Wigfrid got:

• A new cooldown system for stingers
• 2 new battle songs (alignment & res)
• Battle storage canister
• 3 New combat items, each with their own unique set of mechanics
• A completely new area of perks with her beefalo tree

They're more similar than they first appear.

Wolfgang got:

• Fire dumbell which does a aoe fire explosion
• Ice dumbell that does aoe freeze
• Thermal dumbell that keeps him warm or cool while working as a dumbell
• dumbell damage boost
• A speed boost when normal
• Whistle that powers up followers (his beefalo adjacent skill)
• Auto Workout skill
• crit mastery
• max mightiness cap increase
• alignment damage boost 

Wigfrid got:

• Helmet stat buffs with bonus effects
• Spear stat buffs with bonus effect
• Shield that can block attacks
• Beefalo passive buffs
• Song storage
• revival song
• Alignment songs
• Song cooldowns

While some additional effects are added on to some most of what Wigfrid got were stat tweaks as well. For example the beefalo tree is just stat tweaks for the beefalo, the song cooldowns is just a tweak in cost, the helmet and the spear tweaks is just a matter of stat buffs outside of the knockback resistance and charge. The alignment song is also just a stat buff. This is the reason I say they're the same sure Wigfrid's skill tree looks more flashy but it's more so they disguised it better.

8 hours ago, WenericMember said:

Wurt (QOL & new a fair few new mechanics)  = Winona (Alignment Perks are unique, and some nice QOL) = Wigfrid (Bunch of new unique offensive tools) >

Wurt interestingly falls into a similar category as Wigfrid and Wolfgang as most of her tree is just stat buffs just disguised even better than Wigfrid's realistically the only new things added to Wurt that aren't just stat boosts are:

• Merms being able to dig and till farm plots
• Wurt being able to recover hp when wet
• Merms leaving combat when their hp is low
• Merms being able to be called to the kelp dish
• The mudslingers of both alignments

8 hours ago, WenericMember said:

Of the remainder, I think Wickerbottom, Wanda, Maxwell and WX-78 would end up somewhere between Wilson  and Woodie, Warly, Wes, Webber and Walter getting something akin to Wurt's/Wigfrids, while Wortox and Wendy have the greatest chance of getting a bunch of new mechanics.

Assuming the devs stick to what they have planned for the skill trees the rest are expected to be more tame with Maxwell and Wanda likely being closer to Wolfgang and Wigfrid's skill tree. While the rest will likely ending up closer to Woodie's skill tree as if we're sticking to what was said skill trees like Wormwood's and Willow's are off the table for the remaining survivors.

[WenericMember]

24 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

They're more similar than they first appear.

Wolfgang got:

• Fire dumbell which does a aoe fire explosion
• Ice dumbell that does aoe freeze
• Thermal dumbell that keeps him warm or cool while working as a dumbell
• dumbell damage boost
• A speed boost when normal
• Whistle that powers up followers (his beefalo adjacent skill)
• Auto Workout skill
• crit mastery
• max mightiness cap increase
• alignment damage boost 

Wigfrid got:

• Helmet stat buffs with bonus effects
• Spear stat buffs with bonus effect
• Shield that can block attacks
• Beefalo passive buffs
• Song storage
• revival song
• Alignment songs
• Song cooldowns

While some additional effects are added on to some most of what Wigfrid got were stat tweaks as well. For example the beefalo tree is just stat tweaks for the beefalo, the song cooldowns is just a tweak in cost, the helmet and the spear tweaks is just a matter of stat buffs outside of the knockback resistance and charge. The alignment song is also just a stat buff. This is the reason I say they're the same sure Wigfrid's skill tree looks more flashy but it's more so they disguised it better.

Wurt interestingly falls into a similar category as Wigfrid and Wolfgang as most of her tree is just stat buffs just disguised even better than Wigfrid's realistically the only new things added to Wurt that aren't just stat boosts are:

• Merms being able to dig and till farm plots
• Wurt being able to recover hp when wet
• Merms leaving combat when their hp is low
• Merms being able to be called to the kelp dish
• The mudslingers of both alignments

 

I think the thing your misunderstanding is  the proportions. Yes "some" of Wigfrid's skills were stat tweaks, but it's like 4  in comparison to Wolfgang's 21 (Crits are in effect just a stat buff, as there would be little practical difference if he was just more effective with performing physical tasks). The thermal dumbell is literally just efficiency, as there's nothing stopping you from having a thermal stone while working out either...

So removing the "stat" skills from your list, which are the uninteresting parts I'm talking about, Wolfgang is left with

• Fire dumbell which does a aoe fire explosion
• Ice dumbell that does aoe freeze
• Whistle that powers up followers (his beefalo adjacent skill)
• Auto Workout skill

So... A fire and Ice AOE, teammate support and his minigame plays itself.

Removing Wigfrid's "stat" skills gives:

• Shield that can block attacks
• An AOE dash attack on the elding spear
• Immunity to stuns in the upgraded Helmet
• Beefalo passive buffs (While the faster taming and longing riding are stats, the Beefalo armour & Out of combat inspiration are not)
• Song storage
• revival song
• Alignment songs
• Song cooldowns

Wolfgang's list is more than cut in half, while Wigfrid's remains roughly equal in length once "stat" skills are removed.

While BALANCE wise they may be more equal, in therms of new mechanics, Wigfrid quite easily beats out Wolfgang.

And yes, while many of Wurt's abilities are effectively just stat boosts, they're given a lot more Flair to them, which does Wonders for them. 

Besides, you're also missing

• A new wetness Armour mechanic, that converts wetness into temporary HP
• Shadow Merms & Lunar Merms, which have unique mechanics in infinite loyalty and a post death revive, also wrapped incredibly cool aesthetics
• The king's quests giving a dodge mechanic, also wrapped in it's own cute aesthetics
• Mosquito Neutrality craft
• Merm healing item & Mosquito bombs

So Wurt has a lot more going for her than you give her credit for.

Again, the topic isn't necessarily balance, but interest, so Aesthetic's does play a large part, and Wolfgang gets none of that really.

[Mysterious box]

14 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Immunity to stuns in the upgraded Helmet

This is knockback that most enemies don't even have it's not like Woodie's stun resistance on his 3rd strike.

15 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Beefalo passive buffs (While the faster taming and longing riding are stats, the Beefalo armour & Out of combat inspiration are not)

The armor is just a stat gain

16 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Alignment songs

This too is pure stat buffs

 

16 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Song cooldowns

This is quite literally a stat tweak and a bad one at that

24 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

The thermal dumbell is literally just efficiency, as there's nothing stopping you from having a thermal stone while working out either...

This applies to the Beefalo inspiration gain while riding as well.

if we're truly disqualifying stat skills it would go like this

Wolfgang

• Fire dumbell
• Ice dumbell
• Thermal dumbell
• Auto workout

Wigfrid

• Spear charge
• Block
• Knockback resist
• Revival song
• Song Storage
• Riding inspiration

29 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

• A new wetness Armour mechanic, that converts wetness into temporary HP
• Shadow Merms & Lunar Merms, which have unique mechanics in infinite loyalty and a post death revive, also wrapped incredibly cool aesthetics
• The king's quests giving a dodge mechanic, also wrapped in it's own cute aesthetics

Because these are mostly just stat tweaks.

30 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

• Mosquito Neutrality craft
• Merm healing item & Mosquito bombs

These I thought I added but looking back it seems I forgot.

31 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

Again, the topic isn't necessarily balance, but interest, so Aesthetic's does play a large part, and Wolfgang gets none of that really.

I wasn't talking from a balance perspective aside from when I mentioned what the devs said that being said I feel like both Wolfgang and Wigfrid's skill trees seem bland aesthetics wise at least when compared to Woodie, Willow, and Wormwood's

41 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

And yes, while many of Wurt's abilities are effectively just stat boosts, they're given a lot more Flair to them, which does Wonders for them. 

I do agree here which is why I said this:

1 hour ago, Mysterious box said:

Wurt interestingly falls into a similar category as Wigfrid and Wolfgang as most of her tree is just stat buffs just disguised even better than Wigfrid's

 

When you break them down their surprisingly similar even on their out of nowhere skill. For example Wolfgang got the whistle, Wigfrid got the beefalo, and Wurt got mosquitos.

[WenericMember]

4 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

This is knockback that most enemies don't even have it's not like Woodie's stun resistance on his 3rd strike.

The armor is just a stat gain

This too is pure stat buffs

 

This is quite literally a stat tweak and a bad one at that

This applies to the Beefalo inspiration gain while riding as well.

if we're truly disqualifying stat skills it would go like this

Wolfgang

• Fire dumbell
• Ice dumbell
• Thermal dumbell
• Auto workout

Wigfrid

• Spear charge
• Block
• Knockback resist
• Revival song
• Song Storage
• Riding inspiration

Because these are mostly just stat tweaks.

These I thought I added but looking back it seems I forgot.

I wasn't talking from a balance perspective aside from when I mentioned what the devs said that being said I feel like both Wolfgang and Wigfrid's skill trees seem bland aesthetics wise at least when compared to Woodie, Willow, and Wormwood's

I'll give you alignment songs, but there is literally no other way in the game to give beefalo armour, while there are other ways to get boosted damage, greater efficiency, etc. Replacing a mechanic is also the exact opposite of a stat tweak, regardless of balance.

Also, the riding inspiration IS useful, as it allows you to go into battle with  songs activated, rather than having to do so in fight. It makes the songs go from completely useless in smaller fights to being a pretty handy tool, unlike the thermal dumbell.

So in the end Wigfrid has double the amount of unique skills to Wolfgang - and I'd argue 2/4 of Wolfgang's skills have pretty much 0 gameplay impact (Workout & Thermal).

If you think there's no difference between "Wolfgang gets more Mighty Meter" and "Wurt gets the ability to use Wetness as additional HP" then your definition of unique mechanic is weird. One is an unconditional stat buff. The other transforms an existing mechanic from one to be avoided/ignored into one that should be embraced. You don't change the way you play the game as a result of Wolfgangs planar damage buffs, or working Crits, or Auto Workout. In theory, Wurt's  wetness armour does change how you play the game, though admittedly might be hindered by game balance.

Also, can you provide a source for what the devs said? You're vague in that regard and I haven't seen it mentioned elsewhere.

[Mysterious box]

2 hours ago, WenericMember said:

I'll give you alignment songs, but there is literally no other way in the game to give beefalo armour, while there are other ways to get boosted damage, greater efficiency, etc. Replacing a mechanic is also the exact opposite of a stat tweak, regardless of balance.

Also, the riding inspiration IS useful, as it allows you to go into battle with  songs activated, rather than having to do so in fight. It makes the songs go from completely useless in smaller fights to being a pretty handy tool, unlike the thermal dumbell.

If we're arguing purely only usefulness then Wolfgang's critical hit, and alignment damage come back into the fray as they're both very powerful and the critical hit mastery is very unique. The thermal dumbell saves you an entire inventory slot if your not using your dumbell for combat purposes which is the same as the song canister which is also very useful if you play that way on the flipside riding inspiration only really matters to people who will use a beefalo and care about using the songs as often as possible in smaller battles.

 

2 hours ago, WenericMember said:

So in the end Wigfrid has double the amount of unique skills to Wolfgang - and I'd argue 2/4 of Wolfgang's skills have pretty much 0 gameplay impact (Workout & Thermal).

this isn't really true if our goal is to consider unique skills with impact on gameplay

Wolfgang

• Fire dumbell
• Ice dumbell
• Thermal dumbell
• Wolfgang's whistle
• working crit
• auto workolut

Wigfrid

• Spear charge
• Block
• Knockback resist
• Revival song
• Song canister
• Riding inspiration

In this scenario if the thermal dumbell doesn't count then the battle caniester doesn't really count since it's just a storage item there's nothing unique about it aside from the fact it can only store songs. As for the auto workout I don't understand how skipping the interaction with a timing minigame "has no impact on gameplay" while song storage does when most of her sounds aren't even worth using.

2 hours ago, WenericMember said:

If you think there's no difference between "Wolfgang gets more Mighty Meter" and "Wurt gets the ability to use Wetness as additional HP" then your definition of unique mechanic is weird. One is an unconditional stat buff. The other transforms an existing mechanic from one to be avoided/ignored into one that should be embraced. You don't change the way you play the game as a result of Wolfgangs planar damage buffs, or working Crits, or Auto Workout. In theory, Wurt's  wetness armour does change how you play the game, though admittedly might be hindered by game balance.

Is it? Regardless of how you try to represent it what Wurt's skill does is give you 50 hp that doesn't apply to all sources of damage while Wolfgang's ability gives you 50 extra mightiness and regardless how much you embrace wetness outside of when it's raining it's hard for her to keep it up without constant management. Like it sounds complex in theory but in practice it's just like Wx equipping a hp circuit that's constantly degrading. I'm willing to consider it unique but going by that things like Wolfgang's crit mastery then has to fall under that catageory as well since it does infact impact the gameplay alot and is something noone else has

At the end of the day you got to be clear on what the criteria is flashiness? Wigfrid probably as the only thing flashy for Wolfgang would be the fire dumbell.

Usefulness Wolfgang takes this as his skills are more impactful I'd say.

Uniqueness debatable if we're talking purely on uniqueness Wolfgang's fire and ice dumbell interaction is very unique and Wigfrid's charge and block are very unique.

 

2 hours ago, WenericMember said:

Also, can you provide a source for what the devs said? You're vague in that regard and I haven't seen it mentioned elsewhere.

I believe it was brought up in one of the Wurt streams.

They said something along the lines of them having finished the characters who needed the biggest changes so the upcoming ones won't be as big with the changes.

Which makes sense as the remaining cast isn't in dire need of big reworks

[chincer]

19 hours ago, Echsrick said:

does he now? im playing wortox alot and never asked myself "oh boy i wish wortox can build a special something for a special himself" like what would he even do?

it is a matter of principle for me, every character have an item or two or a structure even that they leave in the world and you can tell "X was here" beside wilson who could make a prismatic gem but that doesnt mean wilson had to be there

if you see catapults or a gym you know winona or wolfgang was at one point in the world, maybe there are circuits around that used to belong to WX, but wortox could vanish and you have no evidence he was there.

as for what he could get? many things, a soul lantern that drains sanity when hold? a special weapon that he can use but drain souls of what he kills? a crystalized soul that can be use to revive someone like a life giving amulet? he is a character focus around simple straight forward utility for the team in the shape of healing and not needing food to survive if you can get the souls

[Echsrick]

1 hour ago, chincer said:

it is a matter of principle for me, every character have an item or two or a structure even that they leave in the world and you can tell "X was here" beside wilson who could make a prismatic gem but that doesnt mean wilson had to be there

if you see catapults or a gym you know winona or wolfgang was at one point in the world, maybe there are circuits around that used to belong to WX, but wortox could vanish and you have no evidence he was there.

as for what he could get? many things, a soul lantern that drains sanity when hold? a special weapon that he can use but drain souls of what he kills? a crystalized soul that can be use to revive someone like a life giving amulet? he is a character focus around simple straight forward utility for the team in the shape of healing and not needing food to survive if you can get the souls

maybe wotox dont need to leave a mark? maybe he dont like to leave one

soul lantern that makes you lose sanity? i dont know about why thats usefull, wortox allready loses enought sanity by just eating souls...or you know, standing right or inside the darkness for free droping down sanity
why would you want to lose souls if you attack things? what would i gain from it then just a spear?
then why not just use a telltale heart or just an amulet instead?
you need to explain to me what these things will do and why i sould not just do the alternative

wortox realy is not just about healing, sure its fine but the more people get healed the less the heal is in general, the real thing is being able to teleport to a place if someone is in need on the other side of the map, someone needs reeds? wortox can easy just get there and back easy, end of walrus hunt? just teleport back to base and share the spoils if any spare tusk and hats happen
and food is only halfed, you still can make a meatystew and its good for wortox, its only 2 big meats 1 monster meat and a berry or something wich if you walk around everywhere you sould get that easy, pigs allready attack you so no harm of using a spear on them