[Poll] On Walter's Current Skilltree, Premortem, v7

[WenericMember]

8 minutes ago, Chewabacca said:

The speed is the thing I'd hate losing the most, though. I think it'd be fine as long as Walter couldn't turn 19 Woby hunger points into 56 nonperishable ones with that one skill. Just make it a 1 jerky:1 treat thing. That gives it enough cost to not be completely broken.

I just don't think base movement speed should be exclusive to characters. It doesn't create/incentivize exciting new gameplay, it's just locking convenience to one character.

Maybe the thread about buffing the regular drying rack to compete with Walters has the right idea though.

8 minutes ago, mima_ said:

if this version of walter released back then as DLC character  i dont mind paying XD  (they said walter was meant to be DLC char)
 

DLC characters shouldn't be broken, they should have more unique/in depth mechanics than other survivors.

[mima_]

23 minutes ago, WenericMember said:

DLC characters shouldn't be broken

not sure if get into broken category tho, he is strong with woby now, but its justified on how walter playstyle.
for me movement speed isnt really tilt the scale into broken category. there many ways for all character to get speed boost. so its isnt that special.
wanda and wortox having real cheap travel, doent as well. wanda and wortox have skill to avoid attack by blinking to last spot and wortox jump seems a bit broken but its depend on ping/how well connection, so i dont bother much. 
but having companion that can kill bosses while u idle is broken, just like wurt, the only broken character that made it so far. thats why i dont like how wurt gameplay but hell i think people let it happen cus She is the village chief themed character that have whole skill behind her village building craftmanship.

[Steorra]

4 hours ago, WenericMember said:

I think the only actual nerf to the potential of the tree I'd want is to have is to make Woby's max speed equal a rider beefalo instead of exceed it (Locking max ground travel speed behind a character sucks, looking at you WX).

i personally would like to see other nerf to Walter's skill accessibility (I pretty love Chewabacca's idea about the drying rack) or combat power (especially the slowing effect and the dash thing), but I would say no to make Woby become worse or equal than beefalo again.

 Woby deserve something better than beefalo for as her own upside.

  

4 hours ago, Chewabacca said:

Walter could need to actually craft the portable drying racks instead of them just appearing on Woby when the skill is selected.

This is pretty good, this is not serve for balance or something other but this would makes the lore and the gameplay seems more "logical". I love this.

[WenericMember]

3 minutes ago, Steorra said:

i personally would like to see other nerf to Walter's skill accessibility or combat power (especially the slowing effect and the dash thing), but I would say no to make Woby become worse or equal than beefalo again.

 Woby deserve something better than beefalo for as her own upside.

Woby can do a whole lot more than beefalo now - the dodge for example, along with all the other utility woby brings.

You're also still matching the fastes beefalo day 1.

Speed is hardly the only upside.

[Steorra]

Just now, WenericMember said:

Woby can do a whole lot more than beefalo now - the dodge for example, along with all the other utility woby brings.

You're also still matching the fastes beefalo day 1.

Speed is hardly the only upside.

I prefer to nerf her dodge dashing ability than her maximum speed tbh... the Wonkey way should have a higher speed than beefalo as I think. ( if the Wonkey running has not activated then I agree Woby's normal speed should not be faster than beefalo)

[cyjs]

He's going to be the funniest character

[Theukon-dos]

18 hours ago, WenericMember said:

Probably a hot take but I do think Walter's tree is currently a bit much?

Walter's always been a Jack of All trades, but right now he's a bit overtuned.

He has some of the best mobility in the game for exploration, strong and unique combat, now has improved resource gathering, combat utility and that's not even mentioning his non-combat perks.

In addition, he has good accessibility all things considered, with earlygame and late game options for all his slingshot perks and Woby being available from the start.

There's nothing explicitly broken, just a bit too much of everything.

 

As someone who's usually pretty stingy about this sort of thing, I honestly think it's fine for the most part.

Walter was already far and away the worst* character in the game before his skill tree. So he definitely has the design budget for such a powerful tree.

 

Second, Woby kinda "needs" to be cracked to really work. Even ignoring how tons of characters have gotten new mobility options with their skill trees; particularly cross-map teleportation; her main competition is with Beefalo. And pre-skill tree, not only where said beefalo faster than Woby, their ability to meat-shield most damage for their rider meant that they could almost completely negate Walter's downside of "looses sanity when hurt". So not only could you ignore insanity auras, you could also take hits without loosing sanity by fighting with an ornary beefalo. Now there is a debate on whether beefalo should be able to synergize with specific characters that much in the first place; Wendy is a similar situation, but unlike Walter she was actually good enough for the beefalo synergy to actually do something; But regardless, Woby being able to out-class Beefalo in atleast one aspect was definitly needed.

 

And third, the fact that Walter's skill tree is so good means that unlike a lot of them, there's some genuine opportunity cost at play when picking what perks you get. There are no filler perks and no simple QoL perks to be seen in his skill tree. Each and every one has some genuine value it offers the player, even the "weaker" perks like cheaper rope can have some serious value. So while Walter's skill tree can buff him to be good at anything, he can't have the full skill tree to make him good at everything. You can have a powerful slingshot and a speedy Woby, but then you're sacrificing the incredibly useful scouting perks. You can take all the scout perks, but then you're choosing between Woby being a travel beast or the slingshot being a ranged demon. Or you can take a mix of everything, but then nothing will excel in the same way it would if you committed completely.

 

All this in conjunction means that Walter's in a really good spot right now IMO. The only real issues IMO are Woby Snacks being too cheap and the butterfly bandages restoring 45 HP due to the perk also boosting the effect of healing items.

 

 

*Worst character discounting Wes, who was actively designed to be a bad character. (Yet was somehow still played more than Walter.)

[Hollow soul 3]

22 hours ago, Soul7k said:

I have to ask, because I am not entirely sure. Is averaging around 10 butterflies a day normal or bad when I am going for glossamer. I am trying to gauge the pricing of 3 for one bandage vs honey poultice which is the same healing. one per bandage is obviously insane, but I am nor sure what the norm is when it comes to farming butterflies, because where I am at it is 3 per day.

It kind of scales with how many players are on the server because of the way butterflies spawn. You can get a bunch fast by having 6 players circle around one flower

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, Theukon-dos said:

*Worst character discounting Wes, who was actively designed to be a bad character. (Yet was somehow still played more than Walter.)

A bit off topic but I think the main reason for this is that for all the downsides Wes has his downsides only make his gameplay loop a slightly harder Wilson while Walter's downsides have always meaningfully affected how the player approaches the game and while that's definitely appealing to some (myself included) that's a level of stress a lot of players aren't willing to deal with Warly more or less suffers from a somewhat similar problem though his is less stressing and more tedious.

[Soul7k]

8 minutes ago, Hollow soul 3 said:

It kind of scales with how many players are on the server because of the way butterflies spawn. You can get a bunch fast by having 6 players circle around one flower

i see

[Guille6785]

On 2/9/2025 at 11:42 AM, Theukon-dos said:

Walter was already far and away the worst* character in the game before his skill tree.

*Worst character discounting Wes, who was actively designed to be a bad character. (Yet was somehow still played more than Walter.)

Not arguing with the rest of your post but this is just overhating pre-skill tree Walter, he had a more coherent vision than many other characters and brought some very unique perks to the table if you were an experienced player; while character strength is very subjective I honestly considered him the strongest character in the game time-efficiency wise for a skilled player before year of the beefalo released (and he was still fine after that)

[Theukon-dos]

1 hour ago, Guille6785 said:

Not arguing with the rest of your post but this is just overhating pre-skill tree Walter, he had a more coherent vision than many other characters and brought some very unique perks to the table if you were an experienced player; while character strength is very subjective I honestly considered him the strongest character in the game time-efficiency wise for a skilled player before year of the beefalo released (and he was still fine after that)

According to Klei, pre-skill tree Walter has a lower play rate than Wes. And I assume thwy have the server statistics to back that up. And as mentioned, Wes is a joke character who was actively designed to be bad. Obviously play rate doesn't directly equal a character's strength or quality; I would atleast assume that Wes is only higher from people playing him for the memes, I think it is pretty indicative that there was something fundamentally wrong with his kit.

 

While Walter absolutely did a lotnof unique things, the simple fact is that everything he had was so comedically undertuned that it hardly mattered. 

The slingshot didn't just have pitiful DPS, it was also incredibly expensive to use, costing a whole 10 marble/thulecite fragments and nightmare fuel to deal the same total damage as a *spear.* Woby may have been better pre-YOTB, but that doesn't change the fact that her big form was nearly instantly outclassed the moment the beefalo bell got added. And his sanity mechanics where really only a net positive if you could avoid damage completely.

Pre-skilltree Walter was effectively just Wilson with better* sanity management and a free Chester. Strength may be subjective, but there's still a limit to how far that can go. And I can certainly understand why someone would appreciate that simplicity, but it was obstencibly not what Walter was trying to do or be.

 

Has Don't Starve ever had another character who's main perks where so actively detrimental that the best advice people could give; even those who actively liked the character; was "Just don't use them?" Even looking back at pre-skill tree  Willow or Woodie, their big perks like Bernie and Werebeaver where no showstoppers, but if you where playing the character anyways, they still had their use. They weren't things to actively avoid. 

[Copyafriend]

On 2/8/2025 at 5:51 PM, Chewabacca said:

The speed is the thing I'd hate losing the most, though. I think it'd be fine as long as Walter couldn't turn 19 Woby hunger points into 56 nonperishable ones with that one skill. Just make it a 1 jerky:1 treat thing. That gives it enough cost to not be completely broken.

I think the treat becomes nearly useless if it doesnt at least have a chance at providing double.

 

The truth is that 1 to 1 would just mean people no longer use it. Even just cooked monster meat lasts 10 days, and monster meat is absurdly available.

It requiring the meat be dried instead of cooked is already a big enough cost to justify doubling the number of biscuits.

It costs a whole perk point, never spoiling is nice, but cooked monster meat lasts long enough to where spoilage was never a problem before, just mildly inconvenient.

[Chewabacca]

Just now, Copyafriend said:

I think the treat becomes nearly useless if it doesnt at least have a chance at providing double.

 

The truth is that 1 to 1 would just mean people no longer use it. Even just cooked monster meat lasts 10 days, and monster meat is absurdly available.

It requiring the meat be dried instead of cooked is already a big enough cost to justify doubling the number of biscuits.

It costs a whole perk point, never spoiling is nice, but cooked monster meat lasts long enough to where spoilage was never a problem before, just mildly inconvenient.

Even stale monster meat gives less hunger, and that's only 5 days if it's cooked. And even if it was 1:1, you'd still get 9 more hunger points from the conversion. I would definitely still use it.

[Copyafriend]

7 minutes ago, Chewabacca said:

Even stale monster meat gives less hunger, and that's only 5 days if it's cooked. And even if it was 1:1, you'd still get 9 more hunger points from the conversion. I would definitely still use it.

9 hunger points is not worth a perk point to most players though. 

Earlygame (read noobs) players will want to dry small and big meats for sanity and additional healing. Most monster meat they get are getting fed to woby immediately.

Not spoiling at all is convenient, but its an early-game convenience. Bundling wraps, and the polar bearger both completely solve spoiling. You can wrap stacks of cooked monster meat and then unwrap it for 10 or so meat at a time to completely solve spoilage for the low cost of 1 rope every 5 days.

And if thats too inconvenient lategame, the polar bearger bin can hold monster lasagna (which takes 10 days to spoil so 5 days to stale) fresh for 100 days.

There's definitely an argument to be had, but if we're arguing about how worthwhile it is to use the dog treat, post suggested nerf, its probably not worth nerfing.

 

The truth is that monster meat is incredibly incredibly abundant. I wouldnt take the recipe if it ONLY duped the monster meat, just the same as i wouldnt take it if it ONLY solved spoilage. Neither function on its own is worth a perk point compared to more ammo or slingshot customization options. 

If you would take the perk, thats perfectly fine, but i think its worth noting that "solving spoilage" on its own is not a great reward for having to dry the monster meat AND taking the perk

[Muuou]

Great, the skill tree is quite interesting and not too strong. Each skill point introduces a distinct mechanical change rather than requiring three points to take effect. A competent skill tree design.

[Damlet.]

Interesting results. Additionally, I'm curious to know, were the skill trees of Willow, Wurt, and Walter designed by the same developer? They are so nice and enjoyable.