Wilson's Skill Tree is not enough

[HeatAndRun]

More and more characters are getting their own special skill trees nowadays. Every skill trees are interesting and unique enough... Except the Wilson's skill tree. Why?

Back in the day, when he first got his skill tree, everybody thought it was meant to be his rework at the same time. But now every other characters gonna get their own skill trees, thus technically Wilson didn't get his own rework. This could be acceptable if Wilson's skill tree was strong and unique enough, but unfortunately that's not the case. 

Wilson has three sections in his skill tree : Torch, Beard, and Transmute. Torch trees are easily replaced by literally every other light sources in the game. And the most interesting utility the beard tree can offer is 3 inventory slots for food. The insulation of beard is only meaningful at the very limited time of the year. Both skill trees don't offer much utility, while each trees requires up to 7 skill points. There are little reasons to play as Wilson instead of other characters, if you'll choose both beard / torch trees. Personally it feels like this trees are mere placeholder, and divided unnecessarily too much.

Inevitably the players will choose transmute trees which is the main reason to play as Wilson. I don't think the transmute skills are bad, but the problem is that Wilson has nothing interesting more than the transmute skills as a character. His transmute can help exchanging certain resources into other types of resources, but there are many alternative ways to obtain those specific resources Wilson can transmute. Wilson does not offer something exclusive to him; something that other characters can't do. Especially, the major problem of Wilson's skill tree is lack of Exclusive crafting recipes and Combat skills.

Exclusive crafting recipes - Almost every other characters who got their skill trees also got some unique crafting recipes that is exclusive to each characters.

• Woodie : Woodcrafts that can help teammates in the early game.
• Wolfgang : A whistle and new types of dumbbells.
• Wormwood : New summons, moon shroom, ipecaca syrup and brambleshade armor.
• Wigfrid : Several new combat equipments and songs.
• Willow : Ember and its spells(technically it's not her crafting recipe though).
• Winona : New goggles, WINBOT and teleportation tools.
• Wurt : Armory and tool shed, mudslingers.

Wilson is the only character who does not have completely new character-exclusive crafts in his skill tree.

Combat skills - Every single characters got AoE related skills in their skill trees. All of them got a direct and indirect buff to their combat abilities. However, the most combat-related stuff Wilson got is just 10% more damage to opposite aligned creatures. Other than that, none of his 26 skills have any type of relationship with combat ability.

In conclusion, Wilson's status is a "Swap Character" at best for now. He can transmute stuffs, but he does not have any ability to gather those exact resources more efficiently than other characters, similar to the case of "Warly-Wormwood" or "Wickerbottom-Maxwell" relationships. I remember the devs said that their main goal is "No more swap characters", when they nerfed Winona's catapults. And I heartily agree with the point. I would very much like to see some changes to Wilson's skill tree in the future.

[Edible Coal]

he should get a backpack skill, he wears it like all the time in trailers and posters, and backpack is the best body slot item 

[Anis5240]

21 minutes ago, Edible Coal said:

he wears it like all the time in trailers and posters

(Not.)

[Superwolfkid]

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transmute trees which is the main reason to play as Wilson. I don't think the transmute skills are bad, but the problem is that Wilson has nothing interesting more than the transmute skills as a character. His transmute can help exchanging certain resources into other types of resources, but there are many alternative ways to obtain those specific resources Wilson can transmute. Wilson does not offer something exclusive to him; something that other characters can't do. Especially, the major problem of Wilson's skill tree is lack of Exclusive crafting recipes and Combat skills.

Wilson is the only character who does not have completely new character-exclusive crafts in his skill tree.

Wilson's status is a "Swap Character" at best for now. He can transmute stuffs, but he does not have any ability to gather those exact resources more efficiently than other characters, similar to the case of "Warly-Wormwood" or "Wickerbottom-Maxwell" relationships. I remember the devs said that their main goal is "No more swap characters", when they nerfed Winona's catapults. And I heartily agree with the point. I would very much like to see some changes to Wilson's skill tree in the future.

I couldn't have said it better myself as a die hard Wilson main, I think my main problem with the Transmute tab and the Character refresh in general, is that despite how many options there are in the tab, In the many playthroughs I've had playing as a skill tree Wilson I often ended up never using them, because I Found that finding and collecting the resources out in the world feel so much more fun and investing than crafting them with the Transmutation tab, (besides from REALLY specific scenarios like the Nitre to gold for "Super" early science machine rush and Morsel to meat, for Food Spoilage refreshing, and maybe the Torch skill tree for Island adventures but that obviously doesn't count since it's not the vanilla dst experience)

for how each refresh gives each survivor a more compact playstyle and tools to use for their survival, the Wilson skilltree feels like there's very few interactions with the world and it makes Wilson rather boring to use and lack any unique playstyles for both beginning and experienced players to experiment with, I doubt that Klei will ever go back to Wilson's skill tree or re-rework the refresh since We've seem to not have any new changes since it came out since March 16th last year, but I only just ask for more tools for a Wilson to interact and experiment with more gameplay mechanics for Wilson to slightly affect things in his favor, maybe through making chemistry potions with various effects/ changes to allies or affecting the world, or even just making it simple with giving Wilson something unique I obviously don't want Wilson to change from being the all around character but just anything to add more uniqueness, You wouldn't even have to get rid or replace the Transmute tree either, one person on another forums page had an interesting idea of making the transmute tab it's own crafting station for Wilson that way the alchemy tab doesn't just fill 10 slots in skill points:

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@mkemal23   

"-Rather than adding transmutations to Wilson as a default perk, I would rather want them to have their own crafting station.

-After that, the empty space in his skill tree could be filled with more unique skills about him."

What ever it is I just beg they do something, cause I feel like these Wilson skill tree complaints are just going to keep filling the forums, probably guessing another peak by the time Wes gets his refresh or something.

[Evelo]

Honestly, Wilson's skill were insanely over powered when first launched. But that was because there was nothing to compare them to. Now they are mediocre. Really need to (I think at least) remove skill sets and bake the important stuff into characters baseline kits. (ie, Willow's fire spells, Wigfrid's weapons and the music holder, Wormwood's Sleepshroom Cloud and Lunar Mushroom planting, Woodie's crafts and moose combo punch, wolfgang's scaling planar damage, Wurt's Merm structures, Winona's remote controller).

But hey that's just my opinion and what I think would be best suited for the health of the game.

[mkemal23]

The root of the problem is transmutations.

They are powerfull, sure. But they feel unpolished, cheaty, and have no real gameplay value.

This problem becomes an even bigger issue when you realise how useless and situational the torch tree is. Torch tree being useless forces players to pick transmutation skills.

So in the end, you literally become a portable crafting station that has a gameplay loop of clicking a single button. And thats not fun, especially considering how other characters are being treated.

Wilson's beard storage shows us klei can do a skill that makes Wilson feel both unique and not powerfull at the same time .They just have to stop being so paranoid to change Wilson.

[paodocevoante1]

1 hour ago, mkemal23 said:

The root of the problem is transmutations.

They are powerfull, sure. But they feel unpolished, cheaty, and have no real gameplay value.

This problem becomes an even bigger issue when you realise how useless and situational the torch tree is. Torch tree being useless forces players to pick transmutation skills.

So in the end, you litrally become a portable crafting station that has a gameplay loop of clicking a single button. And thats not fun, especially considering how other characters are being treated.

Wilson's beard storage shows us klei can do a skill that makes Wilson feel both unique and not powerfull at the same time .They just have to stop being so paranoid to change Wilson.

It's fun for me 

[dst_lover]

1 hour ago, paodocevoante1 said:

It's fun for me 

Me too I actually played a world with my friends yesterday and we all picked Wilson and it was really a fun time with them but I actually don’t play him in my solo world because I love to play wickerbottom more then Wilson but he is actually fun to play because he give you reason to fight in creative ways