Why skill tree balancing feels so volatile (to me)

[Mysterious box]

2 hours ago, Theukon-dos said:

Ok so I admit that I may have somewhat overestimated the popularity of Wurt. I guess these forums just have a disproportionate amount of extremely vocal fish fans.

 

That said, have you considered that if someone doesn't want to deal with Wurt's slower gameplay loop. They could just play someone else? I mean that's the whole point of having a colorful cast of characters, isn't it? That you can just pick whoever strikes your fancy? Why do skill trees need to attract people who don't care for the character in the first place?

Atleast the people who like Wurt actually praise the things she does. Her town/army building mechanics. her wetness resistance, her fish pet mechanic giving her a unique resilience against temperature shifts thanks to sunfish and Ice Bream. Pre-skill tree Walter had his fans. But the way they talk about him gives the impression that Walter was so bad at what he was trying to do that he ended up attracting a completely different demographic. You know it's bad when the best/most common response to people talking about how bad the slingshot's damage was is "Just don't use it.". Not like it's his defining character trait that informed his entire design or anything.

Don't get me wrong, Walter's skill tree could use a couple touch ups. Woby could definitely be thrown a bone, and it's definitely odd how Walter now has like- what? 3 rounds all dedicated to slowing his opponent down? 4? But other than that? I don't want anything else. Again, Walter already has a strong core kit that just needed to be stronger. And his skill tree accomplishes that with flying colors. Just about anything else would just be bloat.

Thing is I actually like Wurt been playing her since release and I also think you're overvaluing how much of the grind her skill tree really cut down as her progression is still the slowest of the cast by quite a long shot. You still need to build the houses, build the king, as well as various other things adding quality of life skills didn't suddenly remove that aspect of her character it simply made her more accessible.

Let's really talk about what her skill tree did it gave her merms tools that allowed merms to chop trees faster, dig up stumps, and till farm plots but the tool needs to be replaced lowering the overall merms needed for working tasks but in exchange offering a additional resource sink for the faster labor. It gave her merm guards cheap armor which cut down the damage they take but only while the helmet has durability and you need to replace it this means you need less overall merms to fight but now you have a constant resource sink if you go into combat often. Merm guards get a dodge move that raises their survivability a bit more as well as a combo attack that does a bit more damage than normal at a set chance. She also gets a structure that reduces the cooldown between merm spawns and allows you to call a large group of merms to join you at once. All these changes were geared towards quality of life and don't suddenly remove her slower gameplay loop it just makes it more manageable and rewarding. When people say Wurt's skill tree makes her op I feel like they solely look at the shadow resurrection skill which while it is powerful is also largely unnecessary and I say this as someone who prefers the lunar skill.

2 hours ago, Theukon-dos said:

Pre-skill tree Walter had his fans. But the way they talk about him gives the impression that Walter was so bad at what he was trying to do that he ended up attracting a completely different demographic. You know it's bad when the best/most common response to people talking about how bad the slingshot's damage was is "Just don't use it.". Not like it's his defining character trait that informed his entire design or anything.

Don't get me wrong, Walter's skill tree could use a couple touch ups. Woby could definitely be thrown a bone, and it's definitely odd how Walter now has like- what? 3 rounds all dedicated to slowing his opponent down? 4? But other than that? I don't want anything else. Again, Walter already has a strong core kit that just needed to be stronger. And his skill tree accomplishes that with flying colors. Just about anything else would just be bloat.

I mean yeah he did attract a different demographic due to how unfortunately the slingshot was designed to this day there are people who believe his slingshot wasn't intended to be a weapon despite all the pre skill tree ammo types it was to the point people believed that his perks were all over the place because people felt that "obviously if his perks and downsides tied into the slingshot it wouldn't be such a bad weapon" so it created the mindset that clearly he was just trying to do too many different things at once. In  other words his slingshot was overbalanced to the point that people began finding their own meanings in his perks for better and worse which shaped how people feel he should be designed. Though I don't think this is purely a bad thing in the long run as it just means different people can enjoy him in different ways.

That aside there's various things that can be picked apart about the current build for him in terms of touch ups Walter's scrap shock, gunpowder, brightshade, and pure brillance rounds could use more incentive to use though the former two could be somewhat fixed by bundling some of the new ammo types.

As for Woby 3 of the 5 skills she has tries to compete with a beefalo directly and fail in some way which is even worse when you consider the only one of the 3 that succeeds somewhat requires you to use 3 of your 4 Woby points on it to do so in addition to another skill point to unlock that tier. On the other hand the remaining 2 requires you to keep Woby small which can be out of your control in a group as other players can make Woby big or even just interact with her to disrupt her abilities.

Finally as far as new skills go while a lot of what has been suggested is just bloat there's also various skill ideas that could be added to fix some of his more lacking aspect not directly related to Woby or the slingshot. For example upgrades to his pinetree pioneer hat currently there's little reason to use it but he could get skills to craft versions to give seasonal protections or something anything to give more incentive to actually use it.

Edit: I do want to add however despite Walter's overbalancing leading to people seeking Walter out for reasons different from 

[Deadsweet]

4 hours ago, Guille6785 said:

ngl reading this post makes me feel like I've been transported back to 2021, I thought in 2025 these sorts of discussions about character strength were pretty much extinct

I'll never be able to see eye to eye with anyone when this topic gets brought up because “strong” by what metric? Character strength is completely subjective because different people value different things

I'm not even really disagreeing you, I just think you're mistaking the forest for the trees by identifying that a problem might exist but not really pinpointing what it is correctly, I don't think the problem is Klei misidentifying what characters are ““““strong”””” (by whatever imaginary metric you think defines that term) but the complete opposite, Klei shouldn't make imaginary balance a focus at all when designing skill trees, they should focus on making each character feel fun and uniquely rewarding in meaningful ways and, if done correctly, a general feeling of a balanced roster should be the natural result of that

(and I guess this has been stated enough, as seen above, that it should go without saying, but Klei trying to identify what characters are “strong” and basing reworks off of that is what resulted in the garbage wolfgang rework where Klei attempted to nerf a character that was arguably in desperate need of buffs; you simply cannot expect the larger playerbase nor the developers to make accurate judgments about this sort of stuff)

Admittedly, I'm confused about your suggestion that Klei shouldn't worry about an "imaginary balance" because it's clear that you value the final roster feeling balanced, while claiming that Klei shouldn't worry about it in the first place. The way I'm interpreting it is that you believe that focusing on a character's "fun/depth" (as in, "feel[ing] fun and uniquely rewarding in meaningful ways") rather than their "strength" will naturally lead to a balanced roster. Assuming I interpreted you correctly, I disagree that "depth" necessarily leads to balance—you can have a "fun/deep" character that is completely unbalanced. I'll borrow an example from another game: Slay the Spire. Slay the Spire is a single-player deckbuilding roguelike with four characters to choose from, with the last character added being the Watcher. I think most people eventually come to find that Watcher is fun in the right hands, but she's still "unbalanced" compared to the rest of the roster. There's a great video by gaytransmulldrifter that actually praises the Watcher for being so much fun to play while acknowledging just how powerful she is. This isn't some "Oh, people just think she's just unbalanced, but compared to the rest she performs fine," or "Well, she may perform better, but she feels balanced," either. During the making of that video, the win streak for the Watcher was double that of every other character—compare a 38 win streak to a 19 win streak (sorry Defect). Even when I'm playing her at a casual level, I still feel like I'm playing a stronger character compared to someone else.

Now, I'm going to quit putting "balance", "strength", and "depth/fun" in quotation marks because despite being subjective to each player, and despite being arbitrary metrics, they still matter. In the context of Slay the Spire, I think most players (including me) look past it because the rest of the cast is fun and rewarding to play. However, it might rub other players the wrong way that one character is clearly better than the others. How fun or deep a character is doesn't really have much bearing on how balanced they are, nor on how balanced they feel. I do think you're somewhat correct when you note that focusing on strength to the detriment of everything else isn't a great way of balancing things, but that would require a huge shift in the game's progression. Like it or not, combat is how you progress the game. When people refer to strength, they not only mean how good they are at combat, but how easy it is for you to progress through the game's content. If how we progress through the game's content changes to something less combat-oriented, perhaps depth will lead to a balanced roster.

The majority of players fall somewhere in the middle between wanting to play a strong character and a fun/deep one. I want to play a character that is both fun/deep to play and feels on par with the others (just like you!). You might disagree with the importance placed on having a character be balanced, but plenty of other players want that, and their opinions shouldn't be disregarded.

[Guille6785]

31 minutes ago, Deadsweet said:

it's clear that you value the final roster feeling balanced

I don't, actually, but way too many people do for some reason

[Deadsweet]

31 minutes ago, Guille6785 said:

I don't, actually, but way too many people do for some reason

1 hour ago, Deadsweet said:

You might disagree with the importance placed on having a character be balanced, but plenty of other players want that, and their opinions shouldn't be disregarded.

[IAmAFurrz]

i feel a lot of people just cant discuss anything without someone making extremely dumb "arguments", after that happens my brain tends to melt and i am again reminded that anyone who wants to stay sane should not be on this forum

[Grove]

1 hour ago, IAmAFurrz said:

i feel a lot of people just cant discuss anything without someone making extremely dumb "arguments", after that happens my brain tends to melt and i am again reminded that anyone who wants to stay sane should not be on this forum

Regret actually caring about this update. Should have not come here

[IAmAFurrz]

9 hours ago, Debruh said:

Regret actually caring about this update. Should have not come here

yea, i care so much for wendy cuz her gameplay is so awesome. just wish the playerbase of hers aren't mostly.... toxic and awful to discuss ANYTHING with, genuinely hate forums purely bc of them (aside from the beginning where walter's "fun gameplay" defenders were so happy to jump on me for having an opinion based on lardee, when i made comments with points mentioned before lardee made it. people are awful here)

[YouKnowWho142]

14 hours ago, Guille6785 said:

I don't, actually, but way too many people do for some reason

I don't think a lot of players enjoy characters who are good at everything and have no weaknesses. I personally think games are most fun when the odds are not in my favor, and i personally lose interest in games where things get too easy. I have played Wurt several times, for instance, but always get bored around day 30 since it only takes a few merm guards to completely invalidate most bosses (just because it's expensive doesn't mean it's not overwhelming strong, and most of the resources for huts are basically free anyways)

Just because a game is co-op doesn't mean it's okay to never balance, and people being nasty about off-meta skill trees or characters is a direct consequence. I think that opinion should be respected because power fantasies are not really the purpose of the "uncompromising" survival game anyways

[Guille6785]

3 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

I don't think a lot of players enjoy characters who are good at everything and have no weaknesses. I personally think games are most fun when the odds are not in my favor, and i personally lose interest in games where things get too easy. I have played Wurt several times, for instance, but always get bored around day 30 since it only takes a few merm guards to completely invalidate most bosses (just because it's expensive doesn't mean it's not overwhelming strong, and most of the resources for huts are basically free anyways)

Just because a game is co-op doesn't mean it's okay to never balance, and people being nasty about off-meta skill trees or characters is a direct consequence. I think that opinion should be respected because power fantasies are not really the purpose of the "uncompromising" survival game anyways

I was referring to balance in the sense of all characters being comparable by an imaginary metric of power, not about whether the game is easy or not 

[YouKnowWho142]

1 minute ago, Guille6785 said:

I was referring to balance in the sense of all characters being comparable by an imaginary metric of power, not about whether the game is easy or not 

if its an imaginary metric then that's more agreeable, you can't really compare most of the characters

I think there's some truth to an invisible metric nonetheless but ultimately characters are obviously designed to be stronger than others on purpose, it's more about just controlling it i guess

[Larael]

On 2/4/2025 at 5:45 PM, wizrad said:

I don't know how others feel about this but I think the reason we get so grumpy about skill trees and so heated in their feedback is that they are largely self-contained in their respective updates. Let me elaborate.

For the most part, as of now I can't think of any- skill trees do not get balance updates except within their own beta updates. Once a skill tree is live in the main branch, it is usually not touched upon again. I see this as a potential weakness of the update model, since not all of the player base accesses or gives feedback on beta releases, and the game also changes after the trees are released, potentially making specific skills worse or better. I would encourage klei to not be pressured to release the complete, never-to-be-changed-again versions of these trees, or any update really. Anything should have the potential to be readdressed, and that doesn't mean in a rework necessarily.

One of the best instances of this idea succeeding was in the wickerbottom rework. I think it was then that wortox gained the ability to soul hop anywhere on the map, and from what I can tell the community really enjoyed the change. In addition, it didn't come with an entire wortox rework, it simply existed alongside a different update.

I really hope this happens because I think it'd be pretty good for not just the game, but the community (and forum toxicity lol).

Much love y'all <3

hey, idk if you are comparing the balance system with other games (it seems that to me, maybe i'm wrong and all good) let me put an example:

In a game like Diablo there's a balance system that works only in that game due to a factor "meta". Every season of diablo cames with adjustments to the game making some characters better or worse during the season (tree months). This doesn't mean that the (6-7 classes) are unplayable is more like 4 classes are really good and the others not, you could struggle to face the game objetives playing not meta characters and builds or stick to the meta. 
This systems seems fine but is not really applicable to DST. Establishing a meta in dst has no impact at all, cus doing something like:
for two months wolfgang and wilson will be better, wolfgang doing x3 dmg and wilson being abble to tp around the map (just said this as an example). Is an inttent of the devs to forcing the player base to use certain characters, but this responds to an end; the game end and dst has no thing suchs as game end.
You could play for hours farming or gathering resources or killing all the bosses and that's fine cus in dst you make your own game end. Being so establishing a meta is not that usefull.
Also the idea of small changes like the wortox one seems fine but for me that responds to a character specific need not an skill tree ability need.

[Lardee]

44 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

I don't think a lot of players enjoy characters who are good at everything and have no weaknesses. I personally think games are most fun when the odds are not in my favor, and i personally lose interest in games where things get too easy. I have played Wurt several times, for instance, but always get bored around day 30 since it only takes a few merm guards to completely invalidate most bosses (just because it's expensive doesn't mean it's not overwhelming strong, and most of the resources for huts are basically free anyways)

Just because a game is co-op doesn't mean it's okay to never balance, and people being nasty about off-meta skill trees or characters is a direct consequence. I think that opinion should be respected because power fantasies are not really the purpose of the "uncompromising" survival game anyways

The reason you get bored of Wurt isn't that she's good at everything and has no weaknesses.  There are many other fun characters that fit that description.

The reason you get bored of Wurt is that her kit incentivizes you to play the game in a very unengaging way.  Had Klei made the strength of Wurt's merm army just as theoretically powerful, but contingent on your ability to control them and actually interact with the elements of the various bosses you face, you'd still be having fun playing Wurt.  

You're not having fun because her merms are so durable that the amount of engagement required for success amounts to little more than a single left click.

Designing a good character in a non-competitive sandbox-survival game like DST isn't about "balance." It's all about incentivizing the player to approach the game in both a unique and engaging way.

[YouKnowWho142]

13 minutes ago, Lardee said:

The reason you get bored of Wurt isn't that she's good at everything and has no weaknesses.  There are many other fun characters that fit that description.

The reason you get bored of Wurt is that her kit incentivizes you to play the game in a very unengaging way.  Had Klei made the strength of Wurt's merm army just as theoretically powerful, but contingent on your ability to control them and actually interact with the elements of the various bosses you face, you'd still be having fun playing Wurt.  

Designing a good character in a non-competitive sandbox-survival game like DST isn't about "balance." It's all about incentivizing the player to approach the game in both a unique and engaging way.

That's a completely fair take. There is obviously a limit to the matter of balance (in a more extreme example, ive seen more than one modded character that can kill mobs just by being in their vicinity), but Wurt really feels bad considering that she has no need to participate in combat since especially after her skill tree her merms just do not die. It's a problem that I never had with Webber since spiders are intentionally weak, but even a single merm guard can do a lot of damage. I play the amphibian branch to nerf myself a bit

But again, characters that are objectively just overpowered (Maxwell and you can argue Wanda ig) are some of the most fun and interesting characters, and that comes down to playstyle. I really don't know how to fix Wurt in that way to be honest without being intentionally restrictive

That isnt to say I don't think balance is important, but i definitely agree that it doesn't need to be so fine tuned like it is in other games

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, Lardee said:

Had Klei made the strength of Wurt's merm army just as theoretically powerful, but contingent on your ability to control them and actually interact with the elements of the various bosses you face, you'd still be having fun playing Wurt.  

I feel like the main reason they didn't go this route for better or worse is that this would probably require a complete overhaul of the character, bosses, and how bosses interact with followers which I'd definitely be down for as I feel like a lot of people feel how the game handles followers is outdated with brute force tactic mostly being used as bandaids.

[Lardee]

1 hour ago, Mysterious box said:

I feel like the main reason they didn't go this route for better or worse is that this would probably require a complete overhaul of the character, bosses, and how bosses interact with followers which I'd definitely be down for as I feel like a lot of people feel how the game handles followers is outdated with brute force tactic mostly being used as bandaids.

They were able to do it with Webber though.

 

[Mysterious box]

36 minutes ago, Lardee said:

They were able to do it with Webber though.

 

Webber was handled better than Wurt but he still brute forces via spider nurses to an extent as well even if some bosses have counters. Wurt could definitely take Webber's follower tools and become a better follower character but I think it'd be better if followers were redesigned to be more dependant on the player but also not to a tedious extent I don't think it's impossible but it'd probably take a lot of dev time to the level of the farming update.

[Lardee]

1 minute ago, Mysterious box said:

Webber was handled better than Wurt but he still brute forces via spider nurses to an extent as well even if some bosses have counters.

To my knowledge, there are only five bosses that you can just brute force as Webber: AG, NMWP, Moose/Goose, Scrappy and Frostjaw. 

I think that's fine since all of the strong (raid and post-rift) bosses have counters, some of which are so bad I'd recommend just fighting them as Wilson.

 

1 minute ago, Mysterious box said:

Wurt could definitely take Webber's follower tools and become a better follower character but I think it'd be better if followers were redesigned to be more dependant on the player but also not to a tedious extent I don't think it's impossible but it'd probably take a lot of dev time to the level of the farming update.

Maybe it would be better, but if we're just focused on fixing Wurt, I don't think it'd be that difficult. Less merm survivability, more controls (like Webber/Wendy) and perhaps give Wurt different merms with different strengths/weaknesses so the choice for every situation isn't just warrior merms.

[flamboyant wolf]

9 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

Webber was handled better than Wurt but he still brute forces via spider nurses to an extent as well even if some bosses have counters. Wurt could definitely take Webber's follower tools and become a better follower character but I think it'd be better if followers were redesigned to be more dependant on the player but also not to a tedious extent I don't think it's impossible but it'd probably take a lot of dev time to the level of the farming update.

I still wish Wurt's merms just focused on utility instead of fighting ngl.

[Mysterious box]

2 minutes ago, Lardee said:

Maybe it would be better, but if we're just focused on fixing Wurt, I don't think it'd be that difficult. Less merm survivability, more controls (like Webber/Wendy) and perhaps give Wurt different merms with different strengths/weaknesses so the choice for every situation isn't just warrior merms.

I feel like you'd need more tweaks than just that spiders having lowered survivability works again because spider nurses can lower the burden of of caring for your spiders. There would also need to be a scale back in Wurt's resource investments to compensate.

 

7 minutes ago, flamboyant wolf said:

I still wish Wurt's merms just focused on utility instead of fighting ngl.

They do have a lot of utility though they mine, chop, dig, and till which are most of the game's work actions.

[Lardee]

11 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

I feel like you'd need more tweaks than just that spiders having lowered survivability works again because spider nurses can lower the burden of of caring for your spiders. There would also need to be a scale back in Wurt's resource investments to compensate.

IIRC merms have natural health regeneration and, unlike spider variants, Wurt can go back to base and just friend them after they respawn instead of having to make switcherdoodles or go spelunking. Plus, unlike spiders, they kite instead of grouping up, making them less vulnerable to AoE and getting hit.

I think resource investment would also be fine as is since, if you control them well enough, your merms are going to be just as effective as they were before.

But now that I think about it, Webber does have one big advantage in that all of his followers are permanently friended. So I would probably change it so that Wurt fighting alongside her merms increases their loyalty timer.

[Mysterious box]

12 minutes ago, Lardee said:

IIRC merms have natural health regeneration and, unlike spider variants, Wurt can go back to base and just friend them after they respawn instead of having to make switcherdoodles or go spelunking. Plus, unlike spiders, they kite instead of grouping up, making them less vulnerable to AoE and getting hit.

I think resource investment would also be fine as is since, if you control them well enough, your merms are going to be just as effective as they were before.

Their hp regen is very low it's mean for them to regen hp over multiple days outside of combat and merm auto kiting wouldn't be enough either.

Merms respawn but your underestimating how much more convenient Webber is with the speed of his recruitment and 1 time recruitment cost if you left the construction and upkeep costs the same for Wurt while nerfing merms survivability she'd be in a terrible spot as why wouldn't you just play Webber instead? There's also inherent downsides of merms like not coming out in winter or being movable between shards. It feels like your focusing purely on how engaged the player is and not how the process would actually work.

[Lardee]

12 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

Their hp regen is very low it's mean for them to regen hp over multiple days outside of combat and merm auto kiting wouldn't be enough either.

They could increase their regen outside of combat. The point was that there's no need to introduce a new element to get them back to full.

 

12 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

Merms respawn but your underestimating how much more convenient Webber is with the speed of his recruitment and 1 time recruitment cost if you left the construction and upkeep costs the same for Wurt while nerfing merms survivability she'd be in a terrible spot as why wouldn't you just play Webber instead?

Huh? You wouldn't play Webber instead for the same reason people already choose to play Wurt instead of Webber: you like Wurt's character/aesthetics and gameplay. No one picks characters based on power levels unless you're a new player struggling to survive or you're trying to compete in a speedrun/tournament.  Wurt's relationship to Webber would be no different than it is now: Webber has a faster start but lower maximum while Wurt has a slower start but higher maximum. But that's irrelevant because again, people don't choose who to play based on power levels.

 

12 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

There's also inherent downsides of merms like not coming out in winter or being movable between shards. It feels like your focusing purely on how engaged the player is and not how the process would actually work.

Yeah and there are downsides to Webber like having to go spelunking for his spiders and hitting his army's critical mass much faster than Wurt. Plus, IIRC, you can just light the merm's house on fire to get them out at Winter. 

I'm focusing on incentives to play the game in a unique and engaging way. I'm a lot less focused on how Webber competes with Wurt because I don't think people choose to play X character over Y because of power level.

[Mysterious box]

28 minutes ago, Lardee said:

They could increase their regen outside of combat. The point was that there's no need to introduce a new element to get them back to full.

 

Huh? You wouldn't play Webber instead for the same reason people already choose to play Wurt instead of Webber: you like Wurt's character/aesthetics and gameplay. No one picks characters based on power levels unless you're a new player struggling to survive or you're trying to compete in a speedrun/tournament.  Wurt's relationship to Webber would be no different than it is now: Webber has a faster start but lower maximum while Wurt has a slower start but higher maximum. But that's irrelevant because again, people don't choose who to play based on power levels.

 

Yeah and there are downsides to Webber like having to go spelunking for his spiders and hitting his army's critical mass much faster than Wurt. Plus, IIRC, you can just light the merm's house on fire to get them out at Winter. 

I'm focusing on incentives to play the game in a unique and engaging way. I'm a lot less focused on how Webber competes with Wurt because I don't think people choose to play X character over Y because of power level.

My issue isn't a whose power level is better thing it's a your solution is lazy because it doesn't acknowledge the design differences of the characters and how that affects gameplay. You can't see merm hp so regen isn't going to go as far as having a dedicated healer without a lot of balance tweaking.

The investment that goes into merms can take hours for players and even after that investment they still have to pay the merm king to actually keep access to their merm guards and keep paying their merms to keep their loyalty you saying not to scale that back while weakening merms effectiveness would just straight up make the gameplay experience worse.

Also I play both characters the time spent gathering and maintaining Webber's army is small compared to Wurts that's one of the key differences in their gameplay you can spend less time working towards your abilities as Webber but more skill goes into combat currently they offer a different experience in that way giving Wurt more incentive to engage on combat is something that needs to happen but lazily pasting Webber's perks and calling it a day is not a solution.

Also i thought I'd add the main reason I was saying it would take a lot of work is that the changes need to consider the differences between the characters as well as make their follower combat more distinct if the end goal is to just make them the same without any consideration then I'd rather just keep things as is as at that point Webber already fills that niche.

[Radicaljoe]

My main difference I've noticed between Webber and Wurt for their army is the amount of control. Wurt kinda goes for quick kills with a wildly unwieldable army that don't stop until they or the enemy dies. Webber's whistle offers so much in terms of army control. I fought dfly and lost maybe 10 spiders because the whistle prevented them from walking into the lava ponds repeatedly, unlike wurt where I watch the idiots cook themselves for 2 minutes until dfly comes back.

However, I think getting food for webber's minions is more annoying than wurt, veggies grow literally everywhere and the merms are respectful enough to usually not eat too many of them if they are on the floor. Spiders on the other hand, need meat. Meat, that they will eat if they help collect it (like kill a koalaphant) and cannot be as easily farmed (I know that tamed spiders have a slightly longer timer before they eat the meat but like, 9 meat items fall to the ground you are NOT getting all of that before the swarm gets to it) . Also wurt gets help with trees, rocks, farming, and fighting. Webber only gets fighting, and maybe free healing from some nurses, but that's it
 

(smaller note that's not a fault of Webber's design or anything, but spiders are poorly optimized and lag servers like hell, merms can be bad too, but that's usually a lot more merms than a Wurt will ever need especially post skilltree)

 

Hopefully for Webber's tree they optimize spiders, make the cookies cheaper/ made in 3's, and maybe have spiders befriendable another way or make them not eat the meat from the things they kill.

[Grove]

6 minutes ago, Radicaljoe said:

Hopefully for Webber's tree they optimize spiders, make the cookies cheaper/ made in 3's, and maybe have spiders befriendable another way or make them not eat the meat from the things they kill

80% sure that they will also make him able to eat his cookies. We got alchemist Wendy, then big back Webber