Aesthetic Improvements For Other Survivors

[Whiza]

Now, I don't think Wendy's aesthetic improvements alone are what caused the beta to be extended; in fact, they're conjoined with mechanical tweaks as well, along with a large portion of Walter's skilltree as a whole and maybe a bit of Wortox tweaks. However, the whole situation has got me thinking: if they're willing to redesign the aesthetics of Wendy's abilities to refine her character, would they be willing to do the same for other survivors?

The most prominent example I want to bring up is Willow. Some people are unhappy with how her skilltree was handled, though this has nothing to do with mechanical balance or how certain aspects of her skilltree, maybe even the ember system, should be baseline. No, it has to do with how her skilltree portrays her as an full-blown fire mage, when prior to the skilltree, something supernatural was certainly hinted at, but she was otherwise ordinary for the most part. Some would have rather had her use her own lighter, or other items akin to it, for her abilities, like matches, molotovs, etc., even having shadow/lunar variants or using shadow/lunar materials for her affinity skills.

Willow's skilltree, as well as Wigfrid's, were created during the old update schedule right before the holidays, so they were certainly rushed, and the concept of "aesthetic improvements" wasn't even a thing back then. But maybe, just maybe, Klei could reconsider returning to these characters for a touch-up.

And if the current interpretation of Willow's skilltree is in line with her character, then fair enough, though there hasn't really been anything provided lore-wise to justify it so it wouldn't have come across as too jarring; I don't even know if having the ember system be baseline would solve the issue. 

[viblym]

Her supernatural fire abilities were not hinted at, in previous iterations of DS and DST Willow had the ability to spontaneously cause fires at her whim, even without a lighter. I don't understand how so much feedback is insistent that such things are out of character for her, it's not like it was an issue giving her Bernie in DST when she didn't have him in DS, after all her thing is fire, why should she have a magical bear? These complaints are from a very minuscule crowd and I think more concern should've been poured into Wigfrid's skill tree as a whole, as it isn't very good

[gaymime]

....who was upset with willow's skilltree???? i only saw people being upset about willow after a bunch of wendy fans got super weird and started throw semi-nonsensical nonstarter complaints at every character that wasn't wendy to make them look less hyper-focused on only wendy. please find me some evidence that some people were upset they made her a fire mage back when her skilltree was put out? because from my memory people were neutral-to-positive on her and the only complaints were the usual "please no skilltrees" which pop up every time one happens

 

also like viblym said she has always has pyrokinesis and weird stats related to fire. the skilltree just organized it into a character type(fire mage) instead of a general manifestation

 

 

that being said though i am all in for more aesthetic touch-ups. that is fun<3

[Crestwave]

19 minutes ago, gaymime said:

....who was upset with willow's skilltree???? i only saw people being upset about willow after a bunch of wendy fans got super weird and started throw semi-nonsensical nonstarter complaints at every character that wasn't wendy to make them look less hyper-focused on only wendy. please find me some evidence that some people were upset they made her a fire mage back when her skilltree was put out? because from my memory people were neutral-to-positive on her and the only complaints were the usual "please no skilltrees" which pop up every time one happens

 

also like viblym said she has always has pyrokinesis and weird stats related to fire. the skilltree just organized it into a character type(fire mage) instead of a general manifestation

 

 

that being said though i am all in for more aesthetic touch-ups. that is fun<3

Most of the Willow mains I know were not particularly happy with her skill tree, including myself; @-Variant was the most vocal one from what I recall. Here's a thread containing exactly what you're looking for:

The fact is that there just weren't that much Willow mains so the complaints did not have anywhere near the impact as the mass protests for Wormwood and Wendy. And most who did not main her absolutely loved the tree due to the flashy fire skills. 
 

But hey, they did add stoke fire recently at least.

[gaymime]

On 12/31/2024 at 2:21 AM, Crestwave said:

Most of the Willow mains I know were not particularly happy with her skill tree, including myself; @-Variant was the most vocal one from what I recall. Here's a thread containing exactly what you're looking for:

The fact is that there just weren't that much Willow mains so the complaints did not have anywhere near the impact as the mass protests for Wormwood and Wendy. And most who did not main her absolutely loved the tree due to the flashy fire skills. 
 

But hey, they did add stoke fire recently at least.

wow, ok threads were a lot more mild and reasonable than i remember and i remember them being a lot more mild and reasonable x''D no wonder i couldn't think of any complaints. all the suggestions are simple, make sense and aside from the lore stuff would be manageable(unfortunately the one guy was right, "fire witch" reads easily and without explanation while "weird fire lover who is normal but also two unexplained fire things and a magic teddy bear" really does not

in truth what i "loved" was there was less people auto-kicking willows from servers enough to make a noticeable difference which is great for her character because kicks are a death-sentance for a character in a game where pubs/group games are an essential facet of play for a notable number of the playerbase

for sure though it seems the consensus is about thematic flavouring more than technical complaints outside of control-burn.

do you know if anything ever come of wanting the targetable area of burning expanded on?

[-Variant]

Ahaha, I saw the title and I instantly knew there were eyes on me.

I want to put it on record that as time as passed a lot of my gripes with the skill tree have dialed down a fair bit.
Gameplay wise she feels fine, I think. Maybe.

Namely, they finally fixed one of my absolute worst gripes with the tree just a month or two ago. That being the fact that you're locked out of spreading fires if you dare go for the leftmost lighter perks. They introduced the 'stoking' mechanic which fixes a lot of my gripes with controlled burning.

On the aesthetic side... yeah, even with playing with her tree for as long as its been out I still find myself preferring a more grounded look. 
The worst offender being Lunar Blast. Because yes, it's fun as hell, but I still find the Biden Blast looking overtly flashy. (I think it coming from her lighter would've been cool. :'})

Also, MAN I wish there was a perk to set yourself on fire for thorns damage. I would've loved that.

[Whiza]

1 minute ago, -Variant said:

Also, MAN I wish there was a perk to set yourself on fire for thorns damage. I would've loved that.

Ever since I saw that suggestion of yours, I've been in love with it! ♡v♡ To this day, I still believe Burning Frenzy could be replaced with it.

If you don't mind recalling everything about it, I'm going to make a post based on it and bump it every now and then, unless you'd like to make the post yourself so I can bump it for you. OvOd

If all else fails, I hope someone makes a mod for your suggestion; as a Willow main myself, I respect you as the ULTIMATE main! ☆v☆

[RozeMeteor]

Willow my beloved. dude i was sooo sad about what they did with her, last week i droped Ashley skin and decided give her a go again without using the easy win fire side of the skilltree, turns out Bernie is so much better and versatile than before, i'm having fun again in the game after a good while. That said i desliked the fire mage theme, fire was meant to be one of the most creative mechanics out of there and instead she just can spread it on mass, cast mini suns and even cast a flametower from hands, i would have liked a lot more if it was more subtle like using the lighter flame and blow on it to actually use a way smaller version of the flametower, on the other hand the option to spread fires was a nice touch since she just aplify what was alredy there diferent of casting it from thin air like a rpg mage, embers are wasted potential and even stole something that could be of wortox at the time, no interaction with fire staves at all and the worse, the flame tree completly overshadow Bernie which was her core mechanic before, people probably will disagree but i will dare say Bernie is by far the best summon of the game, i think if we have got more skills like burning bernie but actually good ones or something like Variant sugested, Willow could have been a fantastic character thematically speaking.

[Mike23Ua]

There’s probably some heavy yet to be revealed lore around “Willow” not only did she help Maxwell capture everyone..

But she’s also been being chased by shadow creatures since a child in the Orphanage home.

She also manages to casually walk out of a closed closet door after it Explodes into flames and walk out the burning building unharmed.

All of that screams “Fire Mage”

Not- Pyro Chick who chugs alcohol and spit it on her lighter to make flamethrowers.

[lowercase skye]

On 12/30/2024 at 5:56 AM, Whiza said:

prior to the skilltree, something supernatural was certainly hinted at, but she was otherwise ordinary for the most part.

She's immune to fire, can create it out of thin air when scared, and even as a child she was able to create a massive spontaneous explosion of fire in a closed closet and walk out of that entirely unharmed. Her funko pop skin was a fiery witch's hat, and she had been drawn as a witch flying on a broomstick for the Halloween mod challenge way back in 2013. Willow being able to magically make fires is sooo intertwined into her character, and the skill tree was a very natural escalation of it.

[viblym]

On 12/30/2024 at 9:21 PM, Crestwave said:

Most of the Willow mains I know were not particularly happy with her skill tree, including myself; @-Variant was the most vocal one from what I recall. Here's a thread containing exactly what you're looking for:

The fact is that there just weren't that much Willow mains so the complaints did not have anywhere near the impact as the mass protests for Wormwood and Wendy. And most who did not main her absolutely loved the tree due to the flashy fire skills. 
 

But hey, they did add stoke fire recently at least.

I've played Willow a lot and I used to main her, especially post REFRESH I continued to frequently play Willow for three years before changing mains. I don' t think it's fair to make anyone into a paragon of their respective community. Variant especially is going to have a lot of strong opinions of Willow because  her investment in Willow is strong. I respect Variants opinions, but I disagree with the notion that her spellcasting is out of character.

On 12/31/2024 at 5:50 PM, -Variant said:

Ahaha, I saw the title and I instantly knew there were eyes on me.

I want to put it on record that as time as passed a lot of my gripes with the skill tree have dialed down a fair bit.
Gameplay wise she feels fine, I think. Maybe.

Namely, they finally fixed one of my absolute worst gripes with the tree just a month or two ago. That being the fact that you're locked out of spreading fires if you dare go for the leftmost lighter perks. They introduced the 'stoking' mechanic which fixes a lot of my gripes with controlled burning.

On the aesthetic side... yeah, even with playing with her tree for as long as its been out I still find myself preferring a more grounded look. 
The worst offender being Lunar Blast. Because yes, it's fun as hell, but I still find the Biden Blast looking overtly flashy. (I think it coming from her lighter would've been cool. :'})

Also, MAN I wish there was a perk to set yourself on fire for thorns damage. I would've loved that.

When stoking fires was added I knew a few people who mentioned you'd likely be overjoyed by the change and I'm glad to see that's true.

[Debruh]

18 hours ago, Whiza said:

Ever since I saw that suggestion of yours, I've been in love with it! ♡v♡ To this day, I still believe Burning Frenzy could be replaced with it.

If you don't mind recalling everything about it, I'm going to make a post based on it and bump it every now and then, unless you'd like to make the post yourself so I can bump it for you. OvOd

If all else fails, I hope someone makes a mod for your suggestion; as a Willow main myself, I respect you as the ULTIMATE main! ☆v☆

Berning frenzy is pretty cool.

And I feel like that would be too similar to Wormwood's bramble husk.. and well, Bernie.

[Whiza]

2 hours ago, Debruh said:

Berning frenzy is pretty cool.

And I feel like that would be too similar to Wormwood's bramble husk.. and well, Bernie.

A mod then, doesn’t change anything about what I said. -_-

[Crestwave]

After some reflection, I realized I actually like the concept of Willow being a fire witch, but the way it's implemented is weirdly illogical and senseless.

Lunar flames seem to be similar to endothermic fires. Yet, they don't provide any light at all (???) despite being incredibly bright. It instantly supercools enemies in PvP, but does not offer any ambient cooling nor does it freeze thermal stones.

It defies all survival logic and is basically an MMORPG ability. Especially when you consider the fact that basically every other character uses lunar stuff as a catalyst for their lunar abilities, while Willow just spawns and starts blasting it out of her palm. She feels like a mage, not a witch.

Embers are super weird as well. When I first read about her spells, I thought items would burn down to embers before turning into ash. Or that she would be able to consume active fires in order to channel them into a spell. But instead we get alt Wortox souls to cast a reskinned dwarf star. How do mobs drop both embers and souls, anyway?

Why didn't they use the opportunity to give her synergy with the fire staff, star caller and other items? Running around with magical staves would have been pretty witchy and fitting. Doing it now would just be for aesthetics because you would just be using her magic hands anyway.

Imagine if casting a star caller consumed nearby fires to reduce the durability cost by 1% each. You could then make five fires (arranged in a pentagram formation if you wanna be extra dramatic, heh) to summon a star for "free". This is probably a pretty flawed mechanic but it's something interesting at least.

[Evelo]

On 12/30/2024 at 8:02 PM, gaymime said:

....who was upset with willow's skilltree????

Allow me to introduce myself. (although it is because of the mechanics not the aesthetics.)

[Anis5240]

2 hours ago, Evelo said:

On 12/31/2024 at 10:02 AM, gaymime said:

....who was upset with willow's skilltree????

Allow me to introduce myself. (although it is because of the mechanics not the aesthetics.)

Seconded. I very much dislike how Klei was willing to combine both light radius and durability onto her lighter, yet they let Wilson suffer with 3 tiers for EACH perk then end it off with a boring torch toss.

[gaymime]

1 hour ago, Anis5240 said:

Seconded. I very much dislike how Klei was willing to combine both light radius and durability onto her lighter, yet they let Wilson suffer with 3 tiers for EACH perk then end it off with a boring torch toss.

please stay on topic when quoting. this conversation is not about wilson. thanks.

[Anis5240]

20 minutes ago, gaymime said:

please stay on topic when quoting. this conversation is not about wilson. thanks.

What are you on to. So Wilson doesn't count as "other survivors", huh?

[WenericMember]

53 minutes ago, Anis5240 said:

What are you on to. So Wilson doesn't count as "other survivors", huh?

Aesthetic Improvements For Other Survivors

[gaymime]

1 hour ago, Anis5240 said:

What are you on to. So Wilson doesn't count as "other survivors", huh?

he doesnt count as willow which is what me an' evelo were talking about. you can talk about wilson in the -thread- but don't hijack a conversation about an unrelated character just so you can ping two people who are not interested in talking about wilson. just say what you want to say as a regular comment and don't derail others. you are an adult, i am positive you are capable of this

 

also weneric is 100% right, this is about aesthetics so your comment is not only about an unrelated character but does not even contain the topic of the thread