Walter skill tree impressions and feedback (number five will shock you (im lying))

[Catuna_]

I admittedly was underwhelmed with the initial skill tree, but then a hotfix was released while I was asleep and I'd really like to commend Klei for the near-instant hotfix not just for the Walter tuning but also the bug fixes and the other changes to the other characters
I now really like the way this skilltree is going! It's got the right idea, and it executes it fairy well, but I've got a fair bit of critiques as well as feedback in the forms of sinister and very evil and intimidating bullet points

• While Walter's new ammo additions are generally very enjoyable, I think that there's a level of samey-ness that these ammo suffer from: Walter's new honey and icker rounds (although the latter is incomplete) are oddly similar to Slow-down rounds which are in his basekit. While I do think that the idea of ammos that better service newer players is quite good, I think that they need to be made more unique as to not eventually become insight sinks or pointless filler in Walter's skill tree. This point brings me to stinger rounds, which in my opinion, need a buff or a complete rework. Not only are they outclassed by moonglass rounds yet take a separate skill; 25.5 damage and 17 AoE is just rather poor with Walter's poor/mediocre firing speed depending on the upgrades (I'm not accounting for the void sling because this is clearly an early game ammo), something like rounds that stick onto enemies and damage them as they move would be quite cool! They could retain the aoe, aswell. Walter's dreadstone bullets require a cost-lier material, yet will deal less damage than cursed (on average) and gunpowder, I understand that they deal planar damage, but by that point they should be tied to his shadow affinity and buffed than have a unique skill. All of this also applies to Shockscrap rounds, which are rather expensive yet only deal 8 more damage per round than Gunpowder which is easier to mass produce. I think Walter could lean in more to more unique utility, like an AoE fear! Maybe his older rounds could be revisited? Or just less identical role rounds.
• Walter's affinities are exclusively post-rift content, and benefits nothing pre-rifts from being aligned. That stinks. I think Walter could get perks unrelated to his slingshot instead, or newer ammos that are pre-rifts! Something like nightmare fuel rounds that summons shadow traps like Maxwell's! Moonmoth wing rounds that strike enemies several times while flying... or something of the sort.
• Walter's slingshot upgrades are very cool! And while I'd love to see more, I don't think that this is necessary, however I'd like if the sticky handle could be revised in some way as it is currently just way too gimmicky. Maybe a mid-game firing speed upgrade could be sweet instead?
• Woby's training is such a sweet idea, and I love the fact that the basic perks are condensed as this makes anyone who'd rather upgrade the slingshot fully not miss out! However... As of current, swapping will reset all of Walter's progress which is quite unfortunate. Big Woby's upgrades, as much as I hate to beat this dead horse (poor horse), are not enough to warrant using her over a beefalo while taking a similar amount of time to max out... 13 speed is faster than a glossamer beefalo's 12.4 yes but at the same time beefalo block the full damage, meaning that they block the full sanity penalty rather than Woby's halved penalty with max upgrades and do not buck you off from taking damage unlike Woby's 33 max damage before she bucks you off (speaking of which, 2000 damage is an absurd ask just to max this out...). I'd like to see Woby perhaps become even faster! Or maybe she could be prompted to become faster when Walter's attacked to protect him, more upgrades that distinguish her from a beefalo. Also, as I believe this isnt currently the case, Walter's training should gradually increase the rewards that you get out of them rather than them being static, I didn't notice any speed boosts while training agility at least.
• Small Woby's upgrades are rather passive and I'd really like it if her picking up mechanic was more intuitive and more player-involved, like telling her to pick up items rather than her just doing it automatically. I love gambler Woby, though.
• Please make Woby's training station portable! It'd be so pleasant if you could move it around early game without having to make new ones as the recipe is quite costly on logs.

[Gashzer]

Does Walter keep woby training between worlds or do you need to start from 0% each and every time?

[Catuna_]

1 minute ago, Gashzer said:

Does Walter keep woby training between worlds or do you need to start from 0% each and every time?

the former

[Mysterious box]

Personally though it may be a bit of a hot take I feel like the way the skill trees were handled were as follows:

Walter had a bunch of skills that would have been part of a skill tree so the focus became slingshot and Wony only.

Wendy already had a strong perk but very few filler skills so they focused on filler mainly with some buffs to abigial.

Wortox lacked things to do so they gave him a huge amount of skills

[Jakepeng99]

46 minutes ago, Catuna_ said:

Walter's affinities are exclusively post-rift content, and benefits nothing pre-rifts from being aligned. That stinks.

One of the main reasons im not much a fan of riffs, mainly how they are handled with skilltrees.

 

Things like ickers and mimics i would find way cooler to be pre riff. I actually got scared from ickers.

[Gashzer]

Woby training skills are pretty decent once maxed it seems. They just need that last wee buff to be worth it to hold on to woby into the late game.

Agility is perfect maxed out. Edit: can pick up items at regular speed while mounted on big woby

If Bravery maxed also provided a passive lets say 60% protection and 10 planar defence it would be worth it.This would make it that while riding woby and wearing armour. Damage gets split between armour and wobys infinite armour saving on your armour durability.

Support maxed gave Walter a passive 6.6 sanity gain per minute it would be good.

Fetch and dig need reworked to be interactive.

[DiogoW]

4 hours ago, Catuna_ said:

As of current, swapping will reset all of Walter's progress which is quite unfortunate

This shouldn't be the case. It should only disable them, not reset the progress. Are you playing with any mods by chance?

Appreciate the feedback. Keep it coming

Walter skill tree has indeed many undeveloped aspects.
We needed to get something ready for beta, and now we have some more time to work on it.

[Catuna_]

32 minutes ago, DiogoW said:

This shouldn't be the case. It should only disable them, not reset the progress. Are you playing with any mods by chance?

I was using Don't starve alone but I figured that it wouldn't have an impact, I've leveled up Woby's agility to maximum and her picking up perks to halfway but those upgrades are gone

33 minutes ago, DiogoW said:

Appreciate the feedback. Keep it coming

Walter skill tree has indeed many undeveloped aspects.
We needed to get something ready for beta, and now we have some more time to work on it.

You guys are doing amazing!! I'm so looking forward to the finished product

[Mr Giggio]

6 hours ago, Catuna_ said:

I think that there's a level of samey-ness that these ammo suffer from

They stack effects. That means its not a issue, we actually amaking the effect stronger. 

 

6 hours ago, Catuna_ said:

This point brings me to stinger rounds, which in my opinion, need a buff or a complete rework. Not only are they outclassed by moonglass rounds yet take a separate skill;

one u can do day 1 the other u can do it properly after killing CC.

 

6 hours ago, Catuna_ said:

Walter's affinities are exclusively post-rift content, and benefits nothing pre-rifts from being aligned. That stinks.

not every character has to benefit from those in the get go honestly I even do think that its cool to have the points around for every run but alignments we should be able to unlock it after killing it in the run u at the moment

[grm9]

5 minutes ago, Mr Giggio said:

one u can do day 1 the other u can do it properly after killing CC

lunar grotto and island exist on day 1 too, stinger ammo deals 17 damage through AoE so you'd need to stand still and shoot for around 5 seconds for killing a spider with it's AoE and web sling shot upgrade      

[Mysterious box]

52 minutes ago, Mr Giggio said:

not every character has to benefit from those in the get go honestly I even do think that its cool to have the points around for every run but alignments we should be able to unlock it after killing it in the run u at the moment

Honestly I'm conflicted I do agree Walter is looking to be the character with the most post rift content in his tree unless we somehow get access at some point to a few pre rift content alternative. We already have his final slingshot fire speed upgrade, final capacity upgrade, husk rounds, icky rounds, brilliant rounds, and horror rounds that's potentially 6 skills worth of late game upgrades assuming they don't condense those ones.