wendy My personal opinion on the upcoming skill tree update.

[Blue Tangerine]

  Hello everyone, I am a player from China, and I would like to express my personal opinion on the upcoming skill tree updates for Wendy, Walter, and Wortox, and the controversy they have generated.

  First of all, I would like to talk about my impressions of these three skill trees. I am very satisfied with Wortox's skill tree, which is very creative and fits Wortox's character setting very well. Walter's skill tree has both advantages and disadvantages in my opinion. On the one hand, more types of ammos will lead to more interesting gameplay, and at the same time, the part about Woby in the skill tree also makes up for Walter's shortcomings to a certain extent; on the other hand, there are no changes to the Pinetree Pioneer Hat in the skill tree, which I think is a pity given that it has many beautiful skins. However, I think the changes to the Pinetree Pioneer Hat do not have to be added to the skill tree, and can also be adjusted in the accompanying small updates or QOL updates.

  However, Wendy's skill tree is completely different from the above two. Frankly speaking, this is the most terrible skill tree I have ever seen. However, rather than simply expressing dissatisfaction, I would like to talk about "why Wendy's skill tree is so bad". Before Wilson's skill tree was updated, Wendy had a very significant advantage, namely Abigail's aoe damage, which helped many new players. However, with the update of the skill trees, almost all characters with skill trees have gained aoe damage (except Wilson, by the way, I also hope that his skill tree will be strengthened), which makes Wendy's perks no longer unique. In the late period of the game after rifts were opened, the high aoe damage of various bosses makes Abigail particularly vulnerable, which makes Wendy weak during this period. But unfortunately, Wendy's skill tree did not change this situation. Her skills are really useless. The petal conversion skill, whether in the first version or the current version, is very unreasonable, because neither petals nor dark petals are very scarce resources. The skills of the elixir part are also very confusing. The original 8 minutes is long enough and there is no need to extend it again. What Abigil needs is the ability to possesses multiple elixir effects at the same time, as well as more new elixir to produce more new gameplay and experience.

  In addition, although the current changes to Floral Shroud are gradually reasonable, I am still dissatisfied with two points. The first point is its slowing effect, which is not reasonable and not beneficial to the battle; the second point is that I think Floral Shroud should have durability instead of freshness

  The changes to Sisturn are very passive, because as a building, it is not as portable as Winona's generator, which greatly limits its applicability.

  As for Shadow/Lunar Affinity, I think their effects should be reversed.Lunar Abigail has a long attack interval, so the vulnerability effect must be longer to take effect. The effect duration of Shadow Abigail's damage enhancement by murdering innocent creatures should be calculated in days, because it is unrealistic to do this frequently in the middle of the battle. I think Shadow Abigail should focus more on increasing the multiplier of the vulnerability effect, so that Lunar and Shadow Affinity have their own advantages and are easier for players to choose. I also completely agree with other players' suggestions about Lunar Abigail being able to attack Shadow creatures.

  In addition, I hope to defend the so-called "Chinese attacks".
First of all, Chinese players are a huge group. We are not an "unknown group of only 500 people". However, due to the large number, unfriendly and radical voices will inevitably appear. I do not intend to deny this, nor do I think it is reasonable to blame all Chinese players for this. As a Chinese proverb says, "There will be all kinds of birds if the forest is large enough".

  However, despite of personal quality factors, these "attacks" are also partly the responsibility of Klei officials and designer Jason. At the beginning of 2024, Klei released the DST 2024 roadmap in the Chinese community (WeChat public account, with tens of thousands of followers), which promised that "there will be no less updated content or lower quality".Unfortunately, they seem to have failed to do this. A few months ago, in the "Depth of duplicity" version update, Great Depths Worm was added to the game. It can destroy buildings on a large scale, which undoubtedly poses a great threat to players who like to build bases in caves. However, when designer Jason was asked about the Great Depths Worm, he seemed indifferent. The solution he gave was "turn it off", and he said "If players build a super-large base in the cave, they should consider the threat of Great Depths Worm in advance", but this is ridiculous and unreasonable, many players' bases were built [BEFORE this update].Excuse me Jason, how could players predict that such a devastating boss will be added to the game BEFORE the update? If the only solution to Great Depths Worm is "turn it off", what is the point of designing it? Great Depths Worm is spawned randomly, which means it is almost impossible to prevent.

  Later, the live broadcast clip was uploaded to Bilibili, and Jason's attitude caused widespread indignation and condemnation in the Chinese community, which is one of the reasons why Wendy's update caused such a big controversy.

  Of course, I am not saying that the designers or players in the forum are all bad people. I can see many friendly comments and believe that although some users, such as Arubaro, have discrimination and prejudice against Chinese players, most players are friendly and we can be friends.
  In fact, I have been hesitating whether to choose to speak out at this time to support the major changes in Wendy's skill tree, because I had some accidents last Saturday and am recovering from surgery. I am not a main Wendy, I am a main Wanda and main Wormwood, but today, I mustered up the courage to post in this forum, not only because Wanda,who is similar to Wendy has lost her perks due to the Planar entity mechanism, but also because I hope to be worthy of my conscience. I must do something for my people. This is my responsibility.

  I will always remember that the greatest joy DST gave me was not only how long I played in the game, but also the friends I met because of it. When I was doing my graduation project in college, I ran into a strange schoolmate. We met on the overpass and passed each other. At that time, he was introducing Woody's beast forms to his friend. He said "moose, beaver and duck". I immediately corrected him and said it was "goose" instead of "duck". Then we chatted happily all the way (although his dormitory was far away from mine). Til this day, I still don't know his name, but recalling this memory makes me as happy as when we first met.
I want to say to Jason, before you add new mechanisms to Beta Branch, could you think about whether these changes are practical? Or perhaps go to Steam Workshop to see players and modders' ideas? I also want to say to Klei, although there are few Chinese players on the Klei Forum, it does not mean that we do not exist. It's just that the difference in language and habits makes us not often post here. I hope you pay attention to the opinions of the Chinese community and Chinese players. It is far from enough to just post a "communication post" on Bilibili every month. We don't know if you are really listening to our opinions. My suggestion is to reply to the comments under the post, even if you use Google Translate to translate what you want to say into Chinese.That will at least show you are really there interacting with us and hearing us. 
  That’s all I want to say, thank you all.❤️

 

[Blue Tangerine]

4 minutes ago, SSneaky said:

(Looks at Wilson's tree, and entire lack of kit in general)

Eh wendy's tree isn't all that bad.

I think Wilson needs to add more "personal items", but I haven't figured out what they should be yet.

[Mike23Ua]

It’s a beta, Klei spends a few weeks or months tweaking and even experimenting with features during a Beta.. remember the Beta versions of Wolfgang and Wendy’s Reworks? Beta Wolfgang lost Mightiness anytime he took a hit, Beta Wendy needed to be limping around at 3 hp to get full damage from Abigail.

Both of these were changed to something else by the time me (an Xbox player..) got to enjoy them.

And as long as Klei does not RUSH the Current Beta out to public branch as a live update, they have plenty of time to test experimental features, tweak, refine.. and come up with better new creative stuff as much as they need to.

And do remember that the only Deadline to get this content out to players is BEFORE they do the next “Year of the” Lunar New Year event & announce the next Roadmap.

And I have seen them wait till like the end of freaking February before to release the new Roadmap and Year of event…

So before ANYONE Gets upset and blows a complete gasket or whatever… they have 3 months more or less to experiment with the “Beta” before going to live.

So with that said: Klei please do your thing and take your time coming up with something AMAZING for each of the 3 characters who’s skill trees aren’t quite being so well received right now.  

[WenericMember]

8 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

It’s a beta, Klei spends a few weeks or months tweaking and even experimenting with features during a Beta.. remember the Beta versions of Wolfgang and Wendy’s Reworks? Beta Wolfgang lost Mightiness anytime he took a hit, Beta Wendy needed to be limping around at 3 hp to get full damage from Abigail.

Both of these were changed to something else by the time me (an Xbox player..) got to enjoy them.

And as long as Klei does not RUSH the Current Beta out to public branch as a live update, they have plenty of time to test experimental features, tweak, refine.. and come up with better new creative stuff as much as they need to.

And do remember that the only Deadline to get this content out to players is BEFORE they do the next “Year of the” Lunar New Year event & announce the next Roadmap.

And I have seen them wait till like the end of freaking February before to release the new Roadmap and Year of event…

So before ANYONE Gets upset and blows a complete gasket or whatever… they have 3 months more or less to experiment with the “Beta” before going to live.

So with that said: Klei please do your thing and take your time coming up with something AMAZING for each of the 3 characters who’s skill trees aren’t quite being so well received right now.  

How long after the start of Beta/Full release did Wendy's mechanics get rework?

I imagine the hard limit for the end of Beta is the Friday before X-mas (because of Holidays), which would be the 22nd or so. The beta ongoing for 3 months would be quite literally unheard of afaik.

Though I imagine if they can't get Wendy's skill tree in a state people are happy with, they'll update it again early next year, like scappy scavengers did for Willow & Wigfrid.

[Mike23Ua]

1 hour ago, Fitzee said:

Have you not seen how antsy people are with the current state of Wendy when only a few days of nothing has passed?

I can't even imagine what an entire winter break would be like. 

Except… that’s EXACTLY what they did with the Controversial Wolfgang Rework when they removed his speed boost and the forums uprooted into CHAOS (worse then what’s currently going on with Wendy) They INTENTIONALLY (and very cleverly) scheduled his controversial changes over the Winter Holiday and then went Radio Silent to all the complaints from Wolfgang mains & also people who became former Wolfgang mains afterwards.. the Forums went unmoderated Until they returned from Holiday having secretly scouted through all the posts, compiled a list of the coolest wishes for perks for him and then returned after Holiday with (mostly satisfactory?) changes.

They can do the same with the Wortox, Walter & Wendy Beta if need be.

[WenericMember]

10 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Except… that’s EXACTLY what they did with the Controversial Wolfgang Rework when they removed his speed boost and the forums uprooted into CHAOS (worse then what’s currently going on with Wendy) They INTENTIONALLY (and very cleverly) scheduled his controversial changes over the Winter Holiday and then went Radio Silent to all the complaints from Wolfgang mains & also people who became former Wolfgang mains afterwards.. the Forums went unmoderated Until they returned from Holiday having secretly scouted through all the posts, compiled a list of the coolest wishes for perks for him and then returned after Holiday with (mostly satisfactory?) changes.

They can do the same with the Wortox, Walter & Wendy Beta if need be.

TBF that was 3+ years ago iirc.

I don't think many people remembered, and they may not decide to do it again, but we'll see.

[loopuleasa]

Ok, I found a well articulated post

I must read this to understand "The Wendy Effect"

I have read your post, thanks for writing that and being sincere

[Blue Tangerine]

11 minutes ago, loopuleasa said:

Ok, I found a well articulated post

I must read this to understand "The Wendy Effect"

I have read your post, thanks for writing that and being sincere

Thank you,too,dear loopuleasa. It's a relief for me to see someone willing to listen to our opinions. I am grateful. 

[loopuleasa]

Just now, Blue Tangerine said:

Thank you,too,dear loopuleasa. It's a relief for me to see someone willing to listen to our opinions. I am grateful. 

here, this is for you

I have documented my current understanding on this phenomena

feel free to share your thoughts in this thread too in hopes of discovering the truth together

 

[purelove]

[HeatAndRun]

Surprisingly I find myself agreeing on most of the points here. Reasonable and well-organized post for me!

[renamoe]

Hi Blue Tangerine,

Thank you for sharing such a thoughtful and detailed post. As a Wendy main, all of your points really resonate with me, and I appreciate how well you've organized your observations.

Your story about meeting a friend through the game is incredibly touching and highlights the meaningful connections Don't Starve Together can foster.

Thank you again for your dedication and for organizing the timeline from the roadmap.

I'm truly inspired by your courage to speak out, especially while recovering from surgery. Wishing you a speedy recovery! 早日康复。

萍水相逢，尽是他乡之客。

You know, in today's fast-paced world, people often don't have the patience to read through long posts—but I read yours in full, and I couldn't stop. It was so well-written, thoughtful, and heartfelt that it truly moved me.

Your passion for fairness, fun, and enthusiasm for the game shines through every word. Thank you for taking the time to share your insights, and for standing up for the community even while recovering from surgery. That takes real courage. Please take great care of yourself and focus on getting better.

Wishing you a speedy recovery!