Notes on Wendy's Skill Tree - 646898 12/12/2024

[Jason]

Wendy Change Notes

The small changes:

• Since Butterfly Nets are not that hard to farm for Wendy, 4 Mourning Glory for a butterfly was steep, so it was reduced to 2.
• Shadow Abigail gets her rift era buff by having her extra damage become Planar.
• After some math and discussion, Gestalt Abigail's damage was increased some. She sits in between a bare Abigail and a Shadow infused Abigail now.
• The Lunar elixir also gained some damage to compete with the potential of the Shadow Elixir.

There has been a lot of discussion about the elixir use on players, how to make them better. There are 7 not including the alignment ones. Getting 7 great abilities for one skill is a lot. We do not think they all need to be equally impactful in terms of balance. At the moment the two combat elixirs are very dubiously useful and intentionally so. There are niche uses out there for them, but we agree they are in the D tier level. We would like to change them to something useful outside of combat, but again, they should be C or B tier at most to maintain balance. And they should also fit the theme of the elixir used, which is the real hard part. We're still working on figuring that part out.

The two healing elixirs when used on a player have had their durations changed. Revenant Restoration had been designed to be just a bit better than a healing salve (similar ingredients). When combined with the double elixir duration it was gaining too much.  It's been brought down to match the healing salve, but with the elixir durations skill, it still makes it great. Also the Spectral Cure-All's duration increased to account for the other elixir's reduction and its own cost.

The bigger changes:
Since the total skill count had increased, we felt the tree could condense some. Let the players Insight go a little further. We merged two sets of skills together. Grave Beautification and Grave Relocation merged, turning it into a 2 skill line. Teams Spirit III (the boo) and Team Spirit IV (the haunt) were merged into one skill that provided both actions.

But then we decided to make another big change. The level 3 and 4 Sistern skills were changed into a single one that lets you put Lune Tree Blossoms into it granting Abigail "player" status in the eyes of boss damage. This has several positive effects. It kind of gives Abigail double health (same as before) but only vs bosses, which is where the real need was. Also,  it is health that can be healed on site, unlike the previous buff. Again, this only affects boss fights and not against regular mobs. And it also offers Wendy a quest she can go on to gather said Lune Tree Blossoms. This has no art or fx for it yet, but these will come. This change brings the total skills down quite a bit, but with the same number of abilities. We've decided to let it be that way for now. 

Wendy's Skill Tree display was meant to reference a Ouija Board, something she would have used back in the real world to try and talk to Abigail. We have updated this art to make this reference a bit clearer.

Some things not changed:
As some players have observed, Gestalt Abigail has a 1 second rest after her attack. Some people have reported this and or compared it to a bug, which is a reasonable observation due to lack of more presentation and because she was unable to receive commands during this moment. The lack of commands WAS a bug, though the rest was indeed intentional. It does not interfere with her attack rate, and if whatever creature is being attacked has its agro managed, the rest state is not a problem. It purpose is to push the difference between the two modes of Abigail by making Gestalt Abby more vulnerable to groups. The "no commands" issue has been fixed. And in the future the state will receive some kind of animation to mark it better.

Also, there are no changes to the functionality of the commands. We're still deciding what we can a should not change there.

Where we are: 
We knew that earlier drafts of her tree needed changes, that's why we have a beta. Good design is iterative. We still have some presentation updates coming, but currently I feel the tree is in pretty good shape.

• She has good QOL with gathering Mourning Glory which fuels her elixers. 
• She has new things to offer a team with elixirs and a sanity buff.
• Abigail has several options to help her in combat from the Sisturn skill, the new elixirs, both Alignment versions of Abigail and the commands.
• She has the option to do something not possible before, craft graves and build a community of ghosts which also have some defense and farming potential. Not really followers but they will assist.
• And she's got something that is just for fun, the Vengeful Ghost.

What's coming:
Anyone who has perused the beta forum in the last few weeks has seen there is a lot of controversy over Wendy's skill tree. There's defiantly been a gap in what we have provided with what a good size of people expected. We've used feedback on the forum to guide our changes to the tree and as I said above, mechanically, I do stand behind the changes and think she's in a good place. But there has been a common issue that we have not yet addressed. That is a missing or deviated aesthetic of Wendy. Would Wendy crawl out of a grave? Some feel it's out of her character. Would Wendy dig up a grave? Again, some feel it's out of character. Some don't like the way Gestalt Abigail or Shadow Abigail look among other aesthetic opinions. Alone, all of these things are very Don't Stave. But being that they come from Wendy's skill tree, they are not expressing Wendy as much as they can. So we will be spending some time to change things like this to highlight more of Wendy's specific character. 

The office will be going on Winter Break soon, and some of us spend our vacation days around this time as well. So most of these changes will not be made in December and are part of the reason the update is being held back until January. 

For everyone who has taken time to give their thoughts, opinions and suggestions, thank you.  We're looking forward to the January update and we'll see you then!

[Derbab]

There will always be someone complaining about Wendy's tree, but I feel Klei has done a really good job on it! I have faith it'll continue to improve, and there's a lot of great changes already, so I feel she's far more interesting as a character

[WenericMember]

Really appreciate the changes. Skills being merged is great qol (though it would be nice to see a new tier 3 skill in the headstone line, the idea has lots of potential)

The changes to the flower crown, shadow Abby,  and blessed sisturn lines are great, and I'm looking forward to seeing the Team Spirit and shield potion changes. 

Hopefully the perennial altar gets a bit of love too, but I absolutely think her trees in a good spot roght now. Happy Holidays, and cant wait till next year.

[-Variant]

19 minutes ago, Jason said:

Would Wendy crawl out of a grave? Some feel it's out of her character. Would Wendy dig up a grave? Again, some feel it's out of character. Some don't like the way Gestalt Abigail or Shadow Abigail look among other aesthetic opinions.

Please, please, please, please lean closer to the Wanda animation treatment.

I'd much, much, much rather the skills be kept as-is and instead Wendy gets exclusive animations to feel more in character.
Like, for example, Wanda is more skilled with her portals. When she uses them, she lands on her feet. Everyone else falls over.

If the current grave revival animation where kept for most other characters, but Wendy's were changed to her sighing and looking disappointed or something, I feel that'd be a fun, fitting way to tackle it.

I love the grave skills as someone who wasn't super interested in her earlier, they caught my eye and made me want to play her more. I'd be a bit sad if they were taken out.

[Xplan]

21 minutes ago, Jason said:

And they should also fit the theme of the elixir used, which is the real hard part. We're still working on figuring that part out.

It's really difficult to find the balance. But without Wraith Wreath, Spectral Cure-All is useful as always and Vigor Mortis, Nightshade Nostrum, Revenant Restorative have their place. Wraith Wreath is the only chance that can make Unyielding Draught and Distilled Vengeance useful. I wish Klei could reconsider these two elixirs use on Players. 

But your utmost task is to enjoy your holiday after all these hard works!

[kroban]

19 minutes ago, Deactive41year said:

me and my 35 user block list would agree

Only 35!? You are being pretty charitable

[1007954611]

Enjoy the holiday

[Peasant]

I think now it's very satisfying, appreciate your hard work.

Enjoy the holiday and merry Chrismas!

[Wendigail]

13 minutes ago, Xplan said:

make Unyielding Draught and Distilled Vengeance useful

Yes, yes, I think these two potions can have great potential on players. Although it currently worse than a football helmet as a headgear.

[Lardee]

50 minutes ago, Jason said:

At the moment the two combat elixirs are very dubiously useful and intentionally so. There are niche uses out there for them, but we agree they are in the D tier level. We would like to change them to something useful outside of combat, but again, they should be C or B tier at most to maintain balance. And they should also fit the theme of the elixir used, which is the real hard part. We're still working on figuring that part out.

The problem is that Unyielding Draught is D tier at best and Distilled Vengeance is F tier. In the vast majority of situations, revenant restorative is a direct upgrade to Unyielding Draught as it offers similar survivability in battle with the added benefit of letting Abigail heal up outside of battle or when she's unsummoned.

There is literally no situation when Distilled Vengeance is worth it. A mere 20 damage per attack hitting Abigail's shield against a single target contingent on Abigail taking a hit is a non-factor. Against weak enemies, Abigail kills them all fast enough already. Against stronger enemies, Abigail can survive 4-8 hits, which means you're spending 3 mourning glories and a living log for 160 damage. 

Here's a video I made on all the potions that explains more:

 

[ApoIIo]

55 minutes ago, Jason said:

There has been a lot of discussion about the elixir use on players, how to make them better. There are 7 not including the alignment ones. Getting 7 great abilities for one skill is a lot. We do not think they all need to be equally impactful in terms of balance. At the moment the two combat elixirs are very dubiously useful and intentionally so. There are niche uses out there for them, but we agree they are in the D tier level. We would like to change them to something useful outside of combat, but again, they should be C or B tier at most to maintain balance. And they should also fit the theme of the elixir used, which is the real hard part. We're still working on figuring that part out.

Is this the first time we've ever seen the devs letter-rate something among their team? I'd be curious to see where they land practically anything in the game.

[Cassielu]

Yay, we're finally start on the right track

[Ridepod]

Awesome changes, feels like my insignificant voice was heard.

I know people have been suggesting to extend the revival crafts but I think it should really extend for lunar moths!

  

They're basically butterflies, no art or description change needed! And I think it would mesh well with the new Blessed Sisturn III, after Wendy reaches lunar she can easily bring back dead moon moths and plant and chop the trees near her sisturn for blossoms and replant it

 

Edit: I have some mild issues like shadow Wendy stepping on pre-skill tree Wortox's toes gameplay-wise with carrying a stack of animals into battle, but I'd be content if this went live. Additionally I think the last graves skill should include a way to produce skeletons ... anything so you don't have to die to produce more. And escape being pretty mid

[YuRinshue]

Thank you for letting us know that the production team is willing to work hard to satisfy everyone. I believe that every player has a positive and appreciative view of the understanding and efforts he can see.

 

Test suits should indeed be born for feedback, but more people hope that what they see will not require full feedback. You know, what needs full feedback is uncomfortable for both designers and players. Therefore, I hope that the production team can work harder and strive for the future test suits to get a good response from both sides.

 

Many existing notices of changes are pleasing to the players with positive feedback, and at the same time, many parts still have potential for development.

 

Therefore, we sincerely hope that the production team can still pay attention to and respond positively in the positive feedback afterwards.

 

Of course, all this is another story for the time being, at least after everyone enjoys the holiday they deserve.

 

In a word, I wish everyone, whether the producer or the player, who keeps working hard for the game we all love, can have a comfortable and happy holiday.

  Thank you for your efforts  ; ） ＜3

 

感谢您让我们了解到，制作团队愿意朝着让每个人都满意的方向努力。对于看得到的理解与努力，我相信每个玩家绝对都是抱有积极与赞美的看法的。

 

测试服的确应该为反馈而生，只是更多人希望他们看见的内容不至于必须需要全盘反馈，要知道，无论是对于设计者还是玩家，需要全盘反馈的内容都是让人难受的。所以为此，希望制作团队能再加把劲，争取让以后的测试服让双方的期望都得到良好的回应。

 

现有的很多改动的通知，都是让积极反馈的玩家们感到讨喜的，同时，也有很多部分仍然还有开发的潜力。

所以，我们诚挚的希望在之后的积极反馈中，制作团队仍然能积极的关注和回应。

 

当然，这些暂时都是后话了，最起码在大家享受完应得的假期之后。

总而言之，许愿每一名为我们都共同热爱的游戏而不断努力人，无论是制作者还是玩家，都能有一个舒心愉快的假期。                    

        感谢你们的付出    ;） ＜3

[Yifei_]

1 hour ago, Jason said:

She has the option to do something not possible before, craft graves and build a community of ghosts which also have some defense and farming potential.

Can ghosts help players farm or take care of crops?

[Lee lol]

7 minutes ago, Yifei_ said:

Can ghosts help players farm or take care of crops?

No, i think "farming potential" means making a factory or sth, like you can farm dark petals and ghost to defense dogs

[Dingle]

4 minutes ago, Lee lol said:

No, i think "farming potential" means making a factory or sth, like you can farm dark petals and ghost to defense dogs

Werepig autokill farms, so on

[CM624]

2 hours ago, Deactive41year said:

me and my 35 user block list would agree

You are in the same category as them

[Pig Princess]

3 hours ago, Jason said:

We've used feedback on the forum to guide our changes to the tree and as I said above, mechanically, I do stand behind the changes and think she's in a good place

But why does elixir from shadow alignment provide % buff rather than some fixed planar damage? Wasn't the whole purpose of planar gear to decrease efficiency of stacking damage multipliers and provide alternative set of problems and solutions where damage is additive? 

It would also provide more strategies for equipment. Right now ornery beefalo + war saddle + shadow elixir are clear "meta", but would it be so bad if instead of buffing this option even more one was incentivised to tame beefalo of other tendencies (default) and go for nightmare saddle + shadow elixir (planar version)? 

It also feels weird for skill tree that is supposed to help with planar mobs to do the thing planar stuff was supposed to counter, i. e. increase damage modifier even further in an attempt to brute-force damage back to the previous level. 

[HellHeater]

3 hours ago, Jason said:

Wendy Change Notes

The small changes:

• Since Butterfly Nets are not that hard to farm for Wendy, 4 Mourning Glory for a butterfly was steep, so it was reduced to 2.
• Shadow Abigail gets her rift era buff by having her extra damage become Planar.
• After some math and discussion, Gestalt Abigail's damage was increased some. She sits in between a bare Abigail and a Shadow infused Abigail now.
• The Lunar elixir also gained some damage to compete with the potential of the Shadow Elixir.

There has been a lot of discussion about the elixir use on players, how to make them better. There are 7 not including the alignment ones. Getting 7 great abilities for one skill is a lot. We do not think they all need to be equally impactful in terms of balance. At the moment the two combat elixirs are very dubiously useful and intentionally so. There are niche uses out there for them, but we agree they are in the D tier level. We would like to change them to something useful outside of combat, but again, they should be C or B tier at most to maintain balance. And they should also fit the theme of the elixir used, which is the real hard part. We're still working on figuring that part out.

The two healing elixirs when used on a player have had their durations changed. Revenant Restoration had been designed to be just a bit better than a healing salve (similar ingredients). When combined with the double elixir duration it was gaining too much.  It's been brought down to match the healing salve, but with the elixir durations skill, it still makes it great. Also the Spectral Cure-All's duration increased to account for the other elixir's reduction and its own cost.

The bigger changes:
Since the total skill count had increased, we felt the tree could condense some. Let the players Insight go a little further. We merged two sets of skills together. Grave Beautification and Grave Relocation merged, turning it into a 2 skill line. Teams Spirit III (the boo) and Team Spirit IV (the haunt) were merged into one skill that provided both actions.

But then we decided to make another big change. The level 3 and 4 Sistern skills were changed into a single one that lets you put Lune Tree Blossoms into it granting Abigail "player" status in the eyes of boss damage. This has several positive effects. It kind of gives Abigail double health (same as before) but only vs bosses, which is where the real need was. Also,  it is health that can be healed on site, unlike the previous buff. Again, this only affects boss fights and not against regular mobs. And it also offers Wendy a quest she can go on to gather said Lune Tree Blossoms. This has no art or fx for it yet, but these will come. This change brings the total skills down quite a bit, but with the same number of abilities. We've decided to let it be that way for now. 

Wendy's Skill Tree display was meant to reference a Ouija Board, something she would have used back in the real world to try and talk to Abigail. We have updated this art to make this reference a bit clearer.

Some things not changed:
As some players have observed, Gestalt Abigail has a 1 second rest after her attack. Some people have reported this and or compared it to a bug, which is a reasonable observation due to lack of more presentation and because she was unable to receive commands during this moment. The lack of commands WAS a bug, though the rest was indeed intentional. It does not interfere with her attack rate, and if whatever creature is being attacked has its agro managed, the rest state is not a problem. It purpose is to push the difference between the two modes of Abigail by making Gestalt Abby more vulnerable to groups. The "no commands" issue has been fixed. And in the future the state will receive some kind of animation to mark it better.

Also, there are no changes to the functionality of the commands. We're still deciding what we can a should not change there.

Where we are: 
We knew that earlier drafts of her tree needed changes, that's why we have a beta. Good design is iterative. We still have some presentation updates coming, but currently I feel the tree is in pretty good shape.

• She has good QOL with gathering Mourning Glory which fuels her elixers. 
• She has new things to offer a team with elixirs and a sanity buff.
• Abigail has several options to help her in combat from the Sisturn skill, the new elixirs, both Alignment versions of Abigail and the commands.
• She has the option to do something not possible before, craft graves and build a community of ghosts which also have some defense and farming potential. Not really followers but they will assist.
• And she's got something that is just for fun, the Vengeful Ghost.

What's coming:
Anyone who has perused the beta forum in the last few weeks has seen there is a lot of controversy over Wendy's skill tree. There's defiantly been a gap in what we have provided with what a good size of people expected. We've used feedback on the forum to guide our changes to the tree and as I said above, mechanically, I do stand behind the changes and think she's in a good place. But there has been a common issue that we have not yet addressed. That is a missing or deviated aesthetic of Wendy. Would Wendy crawl out of a grave? Some feel it's out of her character. Would Wendy dig up a grave? Again, some feel it's out of character. Some don't like the way Gestalt Abigail or Shadow Abigail look among other aesthetic opinions. Alone, all of these things are very Don't Stave. But being that they come from Wendy's skill tree, they are not expressing Wendy as much as they can. So we will be spending some time to change things like this to highlight more of Wendy's specific character. 

The office will be going on Winter Break soon, and some of us spend our vacation days around this time as well. So most of these changes will not be made in December and are part of the reason the update is being held back until January. 

For everyone who has taken time to give their thoughts, opinions and suggestions, thank you.  We're looking forward to the January update and we'll see you then!

My favorite game: rod.

[Pig Princess]

3 hours ago, Jason said:

At the moment the two combat elixirs are very dubiously useful and intentionally so.

Sorry if I'm becoming annoying, but may I suggest to make 2 shield elixirs not useless to Abigail? No need to make them compatible with other elixirs, no need to change what they do, just make it so that Wendy can triggesr Abigail's shield when she attacks Abigail instead of unsummoning, and buff shield duration to 2 seconds so it's enough to block both hits of Celestial Champion in 3rd phase or both melee hits of Crystal Deerclops. 

I assume that planar weapons unsummon Abigail now on hit, but I can't test it right now since I'm away from my PC until workday ends. If planar weapons still trigger shield rather than unsummon Abigail, than all that is needed is buff to shield duration and tweak to distilled vengeance so it reflects noticeble damage in case of bosses - which would justify increased cost from regular shield elixir and opportunity cost of not using easier to operate with elixirs - and it would bring those elixirs in a good spot while not making combat a free win. 

[Mike23Ua]

3 hours ago, -Variant said:

Please, please, please, please lean closer to the Wanda animation treatment.

I'd much, much, much rather the skills be kept as-is and instead Wendy gets exclusive animations to feel more in character.
Like, for example, Wanda is more skilled with her portals. When she uses them, she lands on her feet. Everyone else falls over.

If the current grave revival animation where kept for most other characters, but Wendy's were changed to her sighing and looking disappointed or something, I feel that'd be a fun, fitting way to tackle it.

I love the grave skills as someone who wasn't super interested in her earlier, they caught my eye and made me want to play her more. I'd be a bit sad if they were taken out.

I think it’s got something to do with Chinese people being offended or insulted by it or something to that effect, and if that was the case: Klei needs to look into treating DST more like it was Fortnite.

As in: People can disable the animations and skins that they don’t want to see that they feel are offensive to them.

But since I don’t know the full details, I’m just going to hope Klei doesn’t completely scrap the animations altogether because some people felt it unfitting.

[Evelo]

4 hours ago, Jason said:

Sistern skills were changed into a single one that lets you put Lune Tree Blossoms into it

Really happy to see this implemented. I felt quite smart when I came up with this idea. I don't know if yall had this in mind since the start or if forum posts helped with that. Would also like to see something for the Dark Petal variant. Either way it is pretty cool, hope it was taken from my idea, but I am not you guys :P Thanks for the updates. I personally was fine with Wendy's first iteration, I think the skill tree is a little too trim now but that's just me. I like bloated skill trees since they force more deliberate choice. To each their own.

Have a good break, love you Klei Entertainment, au revoir!

[Sacco]

It now seems the skill tree is pretty much finished honestly.

I don"t know what's still possible to be power creep honestly.

That's just my opinion tho...

[Coski25]

I think Wendy’s skill tree is in a really good state right now thanks for all the changes from the first iteration, my only suggestions would be an animation when Wendy mutates Abigail from the moon dial, and Wraith’s Wreath not losing durability for Wendy but it still looses durability for other survivors.