On Walter's Skill Tree.

[Theukon-dos]

Alright look, I've given skill trees a lot of heat over the last few months for a whole variety of reasons. And don't doubt that I won't keep doing it for many more. But despite that, I'm not so prideful as to not admit that of all the problems I have with skill trees, Walter suffers from none of them.

 

He was already considered a weak character before the character refreshes got out of hand, so him getting a power boost was both warrented and desired. His skill tree is laser-focused on fixing the the problems that Walter had as a character, which means it doesn't have any of the bloat that tends to plague the other skill trees. And despite that laser focus on his shortcomings, it manages to not go completely overboard in doing so. The Slingshot's DPS is still below average, but no longer so low that using it is a fool's errand. Ammo is no longer so expensive that any given boss fight will take a greek temple's worth of marble to get through. And though Woby is still out-classed by a Beefalo in the long term, the gap is no longer so comedically large that she's not really worth bothering with.

 

It could still use some tweaks, and I know those tweaks are on the way. But even if the skill tree in it's current itteration went live exactly how it is now, it would in no doubt be my favorite skill tree of them all, and not just because the bar is so low a flatfish would have trouble squeezing under it.

However, this is still a beta. And there are some tweaks that can be made. I won't say anything about the Ammo types or Woby sense Klei already has plans for those and want to see what they do first. But there are still a couple things I think are worth adding.

 

First, the Slingshotsmith branch could use a few tweaks. Everyone and their mother has said how the Scrappy Frame is far to late game to be really practical. The charged shot is nice and 2x damage does hit a good handful of damage thresholds, but it doesn't a ton of them, and the elastispacized ammo slot is... neat on paper. But I don't think it makes a ton of sense due to how how you can instantly drop all the rounds in it by fat-fingering right click on a different type of round. The changes to making magic round effects more potent also conflicts with that effect, sense said rounds are far more expensive than average (IE, you won't have as many of them), and are something that you would generally want to swap to and from instead of being the only round you use. Something that, again, tends to make a huge mess if the slingshot has 20 stacks of marbles in it when you do the swap.

I would remove the post-CC materials and Elastispacer component from this modification to make it more worth using. Something like scrap, some doodads, and a bit of moonglass would be much more reasonable while still requiring the player to find one of the lunar biomes to make it. This is also more of a me thing, but it would be nice if there where a couple of side-grades for the other moddable parts instead of the linear progression they have now. The sticky handle is a modification that exists, but the use cases are extremely slim as many have pointed out. But an alternative rubber band modification could also be good fun. Perhaps one that doesn't extend range, but lets your rounds pierce a single enemy could be fun. Or something to that effect.

 

Second, while the Slingshot is definitly the part of Walter that should have gotten the most focus, I do admit that it is rather weird how it's the focus on 90% of his skill tree. You've got half a dozen nodes dedicated to Woby training, and then everything else is either changing the slingshot or changing his ammo in some way. I know I praised his skill tree for being laser-focused earlier, but it can still stand to be a bit more varied without becoming bloated in any way.

 

I imagine Woby's skill tree will get a bit larger whenever her changes come, so that will help. Though I think the best way to expand other than that is through the alignment perks. That's not to say the alignment perks shouldn't unlock more ammo for him, but they could give him some other effects; either merged into the same affinity node or split into secondary nodes similarly to Wolfgang or Willow's skill trees.

As for those effects, I do have a couple ideas that would be welcome but not overblown.

For shadow affinity, I would make it extend Walter's indifference to sanity effects to magic and ancient items, such as Dark swords and armor, the One Man Band, or the various amulets you can wear.

This would be a very simple effect, and have some downsides as it means no passive sanity gain from a select few items. But it would also be very powerful, letting you ignore the penalties that many different items normally invoke when in use.

And for Lunar Affinity, I would make this path turn Big Woby into Were-Woby. This would give her a visual change, obviously. And possibly some other buff, but I can't really say what without knowing the changes that she's getting. However, the main point of this change is that Walter would also be able to craft Lunar Dog Treats that can transform Woby directly.

She can still be fed monster meat with the alignment to transform, but if you give Woby a lunar treat, then she will stay transformed until you either feed her another one or manage to get her to despawn with the usual shenanigans. This means far less monster meat consumed in the long term. And the treat's effect would also; ideally atleast; lock Woby into max speed, So you wouldn't slow down as she got hungrier or have to try and judge when you should be feeding her.

Once again, not a particularly groundbreaking effect or ability. But one that I can only imagine would be appreciated by all the dog lovers who favor Walter's pet dog over his Slingshot.

 

 

Once again, I am extremely happy with the state of Walter's Skill Tree and don't think it needs a ton of changes. Hopefully the upcoming changes to it won't do a complete U-Turn, but until we know what's coming, that's all I have to say.

 

Wait no that's a lie, one more thing. How come Walter's affinities contribute to the 4 ammo perks needed to unlock the better crafting ratios, but Willow's aligned Bernie perks don't contribute to unlocking Burning Bernie? People have been asking for that change sense Willow's skill tree came out, so why do it now for Walter, but not retroactively to Willow herself? Klei must be playing favorites or something.

 

[Catuna_]

24 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

I would remove the post-CC materials and Elastispacer component from this modification to make it more worth using. Something like scrap, some doodads, and a bit of moonglass would be much more reasonable while still requiring the player to find one of the lunar biomes to make it.

I believe that the point of the item is to have an appeal over the howlitzer, and I think it does this well. I think safety measures could be added to prevent crashing your game from accidentally right clicking an ammo, like needing to right click the ammo itself to unload it
I really like this item! And I'd really hate for it to be changed when it's just very convenient to not have to carry around ammo ever again. Perhaps just buff its charged damage a bit and add new frame upgrades? Thulecite being the only pre-rift upgrade from bone frame is understandably confusing

On the topic of the slingshot, I really dislike that there's perks that eventually become obsolete just because you unlock the objective upgrade. This is about stinger rounds, I think that those two perks should be condensed and that stinger rounds get buffed a bit...

30 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

For shadow affinity, I would make it extend Walter's indifference to sanity effects to magic and ancient items, such as Dark swords and armor, the One Man Band, or the various amulets you can wear.

This is just a fun fact and not an actual thing I'm trying to argue, Walter already doesn't suffer sanity drain from the One Man Band

I think Walter's skill tree is going spectacularly, but I do wish that there were a couple perks dedicated to Walter himself offering him badges for things like foraging and boating for example. Single isolated perks that just add a little QoL would be nice... Overall I'm quite happy with the direction it's taking, though

[_mylilsunshine_]

36 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

Wait no that's a lie, one more thing. How come Walter's affinities contribute to the 4 ammo perks needed to unlock the better crafting ratios, but Willow's aligned Bernie perks don't contribute to unlocking Burning Bernie? People have been asking for that change sense Willow's skill tree came out, so why do it now for Walter, but not retroactively to Willow herself? Klei must be playing favorites or something.

In the 1st build, he needed at least 5 ammo perks allocated to unlock projectile pro perks (may or may not have counted the affinity ammos). That was insane. The change to 4 (affinity ammo counts) was desperately needed. So I don't think Walter is a favorite child or anything, I might even say that he got the short end of the update stick, especially when he's wedged between Wendy and Wortox's skill tree, both stealing a looooot of attention. Walter's base kit and perks were also completely disregarded, or laser-focused, as you put it.

[Mysterious box]

23 minutes ago, Catuna_ said:

I believe that the point of the item is to have an appeal over the howlitzer, and I think it does this well. I think safety measures could be added to prevent crashing your game from accidentally right clicking an ammo, like needing to right click the ammo itself to unload it
I really like this item! And I'd really hate for it to be changed when it's just very convenient to not have to carry around ammo ever again. Perhaps just buff its charged damage a bit and add new frame upgrades? Thulecite being the only pre-rift upgrade from bone frame is understandably confusing

On the topic of the slingshot, I really dislike that there's perks that eventually become obsolete just because you unlock the objective upgrade. This is about stinger rounds, I think that those two perks should be condensed and that stinger rounds get buffed a bit...

I know I've already said this before but I really think that the charge shot and ammo upgrade should simply be split into 2 different different parts and then have them give the slingshot 1 more augmentation slot.

For example the new idea would be you can now choose between infinite ammo or 2 slots for one argument and for the other you could choose between a special shot and a charged shot with the latter also being added to the early game.

[Theukon-dos]

1 hour ago, _mylilsunshine_ said:

In the 1st build, he needed at least 5 ammo perks allocated to unlock projectile pro perks (may or may not have counted the affinity ammos). That was insane. The change to 4 (affinity ammo counts) was desperately needed.

Yeah, I see why that would be a bit much. But Willow needs far more than even that to unlock Burning Bernie. And again, the affinity perks don't count there. 

1 hour ago, _mylilsunshine_ said:

 

So I don't think Walter is a favorite child or anything, I might even say that he got the short end of the update stick, especially when he's wedged between Wendy and Wortox's skill tree, both stealing a looooot of attention. Walter's base kit and perks were also completely disregarded, or laser-focused, as you put it.

What? no. That's the exact opposite of what I was saying. Walter's skill tree focuses entire on his base kit. A bit to much on the Slingshot, sure. But Walter has a lot of extremely minor flavor perks, and I am exceedingly greatful that Klei didn't try to give him anything based on those. Would you want a whole branch of the skill tree dedicated to perks like "Get an extra pine cone when chopping trees" or "Campfire stories restore sanity 20% faster"? Because there are a lot of perks like that in other skill trees. The only thing Walter has that I think feels unrepresented in his skill tree is his unique interactions with the sanity mechanic. And maaaaybe a perk or two dedicated to the Pinetree pioneer hat.  Sure, being stuck between Wendy and Wortox means not as many people are talking about him. But honestly I just don't think there is much to talk about. His skill tree does what he needs it to do, and all the issues with it have either already been adressed like the excessive amount of nodes or how many ammo perks where needed. Or Klei's already confirmed they've got changes coming up in the next few days. Walter's skill tree is just really solid all around. 

[_mylilsunshine_]

Honestly, you provide some of the more strange and refreshing perspectives on Walter. I like the way you think, magic man. Personally, I'm holding my breath for the finished build.