Please lower Courier Skill requirement to two Scouting skills

[JazzyGames]

7 minutes ago, _mylilsunshine_ said:

I do believe that the late-game stage you're basing your point on generally does not apply to all players. some wouldn't even reach the mid-game, let alone bee queen, staying perpetually in an early-game/survival stage.

If anything the scouting skills are currently constructed to benefit players in the early game since you are making better use of the skills required to unlock courier anyway. I'm not presuming to argue my case from a beginner perspective, that doesn't mean we can't have a system that can work for both type of players. Lowering the requirement for courier will not adversely affect beginner players in any way.

[Chewabacca]

1 hour ago, JazzyGames said:

I agree that the scouting skills are not entirely obsolete in the late-game, I am just much less likely to actually make use of them because there are other, more powerful options at that point. Being able to dry monster meat on the go is great but being able to dry a stack of monster meat at base and craft 40 woby snacks at a time is preferable to me later on.

Point being I don't personally find as much late-game use in the scouting skills as I do with the courier skill so it feels bad having to invest in three of them. It's not a huge deal but I would love to see the skilltree be slightly more flexible.

How I see it is: the Woby treats are so good that they’re basically a must-pick, and you also seem to see that as a valuable skill. If you’re picking those, then you should also pick either cheaper rope or portable drying, which, even if you think every other skill in the scouting branch is useless, brings the number of “dud” scouting skills you’re picking to unlock courier Woby down to 1. Also, if you're setting up a base with 40 drying racks, the rope skill brings the cost down from 360 grass to 240, so in that sense it becomes more useful the more you build.

[Walrusst]

Having 3 racks with you might not be big when you are at home and have 12 racks already, but it does mean while you are at sea/deep in the caves you always have at least three.

Sure, you make more when you are at home. Yes. But if you go on a 6 day expedition you aren't using those 12 racks most of the time, meanwhile woby, woby is always putting out more jerky/kelp when you are out at sea/in the ruins.

The butterfly bandage is also a 10 sanity item, which enables you to have a non-perishable means of restoring your sanity after using the dark arts. Walter can get a lot of mileage out of this if you are clever. (Or it can be a panic escape from the shadows if you make a mistake while wearing a backpack.)

[Chewabacca]

Just now, Walrusst said:

Having 3 racks with you might not be big when you are at home and have 12 racks already, but it does mean while you are at sea/deep in the caves you always have at least three.

Sure, you make more when you are at home. Yes. But if you go on a 6 day expedition you aren't using those 12 racks most of the time, meanwhile woby, woby is always putting out more jerky/kelp when you are out at sea/in the ruins.

The butterfly bandage is also a 10 sanity item now, which enables you to have a non-perishable means of restoring your sanity after using the dark arts. Walter can get a lot of mileage out of this if you are clever. 

Wait, I hadn't considered how the sanity boon could link up to magic. That makes it even better for a melee Walter because of the Dark Sword.

[Crimson Hollow]

5 minutes ago, JazzyGames said:

If anything the scouting skills are currently constructed to benefit players in the early game since you are making better use of the skills required to unlock courier anyway. I'm not presuming to argue my case from a beginner perspective, that doesn't mean we can't have a system that can work for both type of players. Lowering the requirement for courier will not adversely affect beginner players in any way.

I believe in a multiplayer server, these skills will not become obsolete even after reaching late game.

While woby snacks and portable drying rack is practically essential for the flexibility they provide, field medic can be extremely handy if theres a wormwood, warly or woodie in the team. Portable campfire is great on a boat, in the caves or just anywhere when your team needs to cook something on a campfire, rope making is neat since you can stockpile on it and save a ton of resources for whatever use the team can find.... Seems like pinetree panache is the only one made obsolete oops

[Mysterious box]

By the way for added context on the hat's worth pre rift

• It's 35% rain protection combined with the pretty parasol's 50% means even off spawn rain is a non issue for a spring start as you'll have 85% rain protection. 
• It's 120 overheating protection which makes it the only overheating protection hat with over 100 protection that doesn't come from a boss like the eyebrella or with a built in downside like the cube or melon
• It's 75% sanity damage reduction means you'll take half the sanity damage that your hp takes making you more or less like a regular character since you'll have take at least 17 hits from ancient guardian while wearing a log suit to go insane assuming you healed your hp in-between this period since you'd run out of hp long before that.

[Walrusst]

15 minutes ago, Chewabacca said:

Wait, I hadn't considered how the sanity boon could link up to magic. That makes it even better for a melee Walter because of the Dark Sword.

The scouting branch is a love letter to the people who wanted to spam dark swords with ice/slow rounds with how many of the perks lead directly into sustaining that and making it so he can make kiting mistakes like everyone else. The only oddball is his portable campfire, but he can still use that as the worlds cheapest sanity resource to do magic because it buffs storytelling.

• You can use the pinehat with armor to you know, skip most sanity losses to enable the use of a lot of magic in melee builds in the first place. Its still the most dubious because of how many excellent alternatives you probably want to consider, but its still there.
• The rack, butterfly bandages, and portable campfire are all sanity resources. (With one of them even supporting thermal stone cheese.)
• Rope discount makes body armor cheaper.
• Woby treats are the exception, but you can still use it with mining woby to shorten your gathering windows.

Plus like, firestaff on walters at least decent because of how he can farm certain explosives on the cheap. So that is another magic item he gets super mileage out of if you get an enemy in a stun state. Sure. Its sanity cost is positively nothing for walter, but its still a excellent tool whose costs he can easily offset.

[Maxil20]

I do personally agree with either the cost being lowered to 2 skills to be more in line with other unlock requirements, or some of the perks (notably the hat) to be stronger to be worthwhile lategame. I do personally disagree that most of the skills are not useful lategame, however.

-Woby Snacks is a pretty main staple, nothing much to say about what others have said.

-Twine Twirler is simple, but it’s effect is going to be noticable throughout an entire playthrough. As you put in your Hamlet Oinc Guide, you’ll always need rope for crafting, and DST didn’t change that. Saving grass here and there seems fairly small, but will eventually result in potentially thousands of grass saved, along with a considerable amount of time saved via crafting the rope.

-Field Medic is still pretty dang good, especially with the other healing options. I personally don’t think jellybeans can outclass them or are better than jellybeans, it’s just a different way to recover health. While jellybeans do recover more, they also recover it considerably slower. It takes 2 minutes to recover 122 HP, while Walter with 3 honey poultices can recover 135 HP in less than two seconds. While it will take up an inventory slot later on as you can’t put honey poultices in the bin, he also has one of the least struggles with inventory management thanks to Woby, especially if you take the courier skill and shove items you don’t need into base.

-Portable campfire is probably the “least” useful lategame skill that is takable, but I still think it would compliment a build nicely provided you are going an insulation route in winter. I see it similar to the chilled amulet where when you start freezer, you plop it, wait ~20 seconds, and then take the campfire with you. It’s especially relevant since big Woby gives a significant amount of insulation already (150, more than 135 from Wilson’s Beard!), so it’s totally possible to run a build with just a beefalo hat/Woby/portable fire and benefit a considerable amount.

I will also say you don’t inherently need all the slingshot/ammo skills to have a good time (Opposed to the Woby skills anyway, you really want the affinities for the latter). Walter can get by pretty fine without the bands, since unless you are post rift, all the bands do is increase range, which isn’t as important with frames since the charge shot of those is better than the max range of the bands. Even the post rift band just conserves ammo, which you don’t really need unless you are utilizing dreadstone rounds (and vise versa if you are post rift and don’t take ammo smith in exchange for the band).

I do think overall it is a tough choice, but I think it is handled pretty decent. Really, the only issue I have is that some skills do fall off so you usually pick 3 of the 4 options post rift (with a very big exaggeration on “4”), compared to all 6. I hope if they don’t decide to lower it, the rack/pinetree hat skills remain valid options after that point to make the section of the tree more flexible.

[Mysterious box]

5 minutes ago, Crimson Hollow said:

Portable campfire is great on a boat

Honestly this is just great everywhere since it remembers it's fuel level it allows you to cook on the go or warm yourself up quickly if you decide to rely entirely on Woby for your winter insulation. It also combos much better with his campfire stories than normal campfires as he can now just throw it down next to trees when he's looking to recover sanity for an extra 6 per min.

5 minutes ago, Crimson Hollow said:

field medic can be extremely handy if theres a wormwood, warly or woodie in the team.

Due to this also applying to spider glans and flutter strips healing sanity this can technically completely replace the drying racks skill in terms of using it for jerky.

[Catuna_]

3 hours ago, z3rox12 said:

i was having this problem, Walter skills are way too usefull and it hurt to pick. Right now you can just reset your skills after upgrading the slingshot.

walter has never been able to do this in the beta

[Crimson Hollow]

1 minute ago, Mysterious box said:

Honestly this is just great everywhere since it remembers it's fuel level it allows you to cook on the go or warm yourself up quickly if you decide to rely entirely on Woby for your winter insulation.

Due to this also applying to spider glans and flutter strips healing sanity this can technically completely replace the drying racks skill in terms of using it for jerky.

it basically keeps you from going insane. Still great for woby snack making tho, especially when you spend the entire summer in caves and monster meat cant really hold that long

Also yes for the portable campfire, low resource cost and takes very little space. Would be nice if we can attach an "endothermic" compartment on it but it may be a bit too much

[Mysterious box]

3 hours ago, z3rox12 said:

i was having this problem, Walter skills are way too usefull and it hurt to pick. Right now you can just reset your skills after upgrading the slingshot.

As catuna said you can't use any of the slingshot skills if you don't have the skill not even the ammo storage interestingly you can't even use the portable campfire without the skill. Also if you try to use Walter's upgraded slingshot without the skills he'll just fail to fire it.

[Civecilim]

3 hours ago, JazzyGames said:

Every other category with a locked skill requires at most two other skills to be learned

I think the "learn 2 ammo skills to unlock" is an old artifact from when each ammo skill unlocked only 1 type of ammo instead of 2. It should probably be changed to say "learn 1 ammo skill" because that is now the actual requirement.

Edit: Nevermind! I misunderstood what is considered an "ammo skill." Things seem to be correct as written.

[Chewabacca]

13 minutes ago, Maxil20 said:

I will also say you don’t inherently need all the slingshot/ammo skills to have a good time (Opposed to the Woby skills anyway, you really want the affinities for the latter). Walter can get by pretty fine without the bands, since unless you are post rift, all the bands do is increase range, which isn’t as important with frames since the charge shot of those is better than the max range of the bands. Even the post rift band just conserves ammo, which you don’t really need unless you are utilizing dreadstone rounds (and vise versa if you are post rift and don’t take ammo smith in exchange for the band).

Adding to this: personally, my biggest problem with the slingshot has always been how slow it is and the ammo economy. The pig skin band that comes with the customizer has been fine enough for range, so really the insight cost to make it a decent weapon is 2 points in the customizer branch + 3 points in the ammo branch so you can have ammo smith = 5/15 points. Do the bands, frames, ammo pouch, and other ammo types add value? Sure, but if you just want the slingshot to be decent enough to use, they're not strictly necessary. No matter what, marble and cursed rounds are both part of the base kit, and those two will get you through a long way.

[Dingle]

32 minutes ago, Maxil20 said:

I do personally agree with either the cost being lowered to 2 skills to be more in line with other unlock requirements, or some of the perks (notably the hat) to be stronger to be worthwhile lategame. I do personally disagree that most of the skills are not useful lategame, however.

-Woby Snacks is a pretty main staple, nothing much to say about what others have said.

-Twine Twirler is simple, but it’s effect is going to be noticable throughout an entire playthrough. As you put in your Hamlet Oinc Guide, you’ll always need rope for crafting, and DST didn’t change that. Saving grass here and there seems fairly small, but will eventually result in potentially thousands of grass saved, along with a considerable amount of time saved via crafting the rope.

-Field Medic is still pretty dang good, especially with the other healing options. I personally don’t think jellybeans can outclass them or are better than jellybeans, it’s just a different way to recover health. While jellybeans do recover more, they also recover it considerably slower. It takes 2 minutes to recover 122 HP, while Walter with 3 honey poultices can recover 135 HP in less than two seconds. While it will take up an inventory slot later on as you can’t put honey poultices in the bin, he also has one of the least struggles with inventory management thanks to Woby, especially if you take the courier skill and shove items you don’t need into base.

-Portable campfire is probably the “least” useful lategame skill that is takable, but I still think it would compliment a build nicely provided you are going an insulation route in winter. I see it similar to the chilled amulet where when you start freezer, you plop it, wait ~20 seconds, and then take the campfire with you. It’s especially relevant since big Woby gives a significant amount of insulation already (150, more than 135 from Wilson’s Beard!), so it’s totally possible to run a build with just a beefalo hat/Woby/portable fire and benefit a considerable amount.

I will also say you don’t inherently need all the slingshot/ammo skills to have a good time (Opposed to the Woby skills anyway, you really want the affinities for the latter). Walter can get by pretty fine without the bands, since unless you are post rift, all the bands do is increase range, which isn’t as important with frames since the charge shot of those is better than the max range of the bands. Even the post rift band just conserves ammo, which you don’t really need unless you are utilizing dreadstone rounds (and vise versa if you are post rift and don’t take ammo smith in exchange for the band).

I do think overall it is a tough choice, but I think it is handled pretty decent. Really, the only issue I have is that some skills do fall off so you usually pick 3 of the 4 options post rift (with a very big exaggeration on “4”), compared to all 6. I hope if they don’t decide to lower it, the rack/pinetree hat skills remain valid options after that point to make the section of the tree more flexible.

The no brainer currently is to skip bands, yes.

Also, this topic in its entirety is kind of odd, in the context of other characters.

Here's another thing most characters get: Nearly useless filler skills.

Walter seems to have a perfect skill tree in terms of avoiding true filler. Does any other character get this?

[cybers2001]

2 hours ago, Chewabacca said:

Pretty much all of the skills in the scouting branch are solidly useful ones and will stay that way through the game, with the exception of Pioneer's Panache (assuming you're not doing melee or that you have endgame-level headgear). Jellybeans don't make the flutter strip and the bonus 50% healing obsolete, the strip is still easier to mass produce and the bonus is really nice in general. The point of the portable drying rack isn't that you get 3 free drying racks, it's that you don't have to sit at base to make the jerky. At no point does cheaper rope get less useful. Having a portable campfire just lets you save on a ton of resources forever and, like the drying rack, means you aren't as tied to a base. I don't get why it's such a huge deal that Walter has to invest 4 points in the scouting branch for the courier skill.

Counterpoint: Being able to drop off items at another location is more of a QoL than a gamebreaking skill that merits being buried so far down the tree.

24 minutes ago, Dingle said:

Walter seems to have a perfect skill tree in terms of avoiding true filler. Does any other character get this?

Winona

[Dingle]

10 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

Winona

She has a shelf structure with locks, to wear you down on points before you get to the (literal and metaphorical) top shelf.

But I think you're right, she has nothing nearly-worthless you can't avoid, off top of head, except for maybe that bottom shelf (depending on taste) and a chunk of that middle shelf (that you can avoid off top of head).

[cybers2001]

1 hour ago, Dingle said:

She has a shelf structure with locks, to wear you down on points before you get to the (literal and metaphorical) top shelf.

But I think you're right, she has nothing nearly-worthless you can't avoid, off top of head, except for maybe that bottom shelf (depending on taste) and a chunk of that middle shelf (that you can avoid off top of head).

Exactly. The shelf does prevent you from going straight to the highest tier skills, but there isn't really anything preventing you from getting all the skills you want, aside from forced restrictions between affinities. There's probably only one lower-shelf skill that I'm somewhat lukewarm about, and it's the increased spotlight radius.

[Dingle]

2 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

Exactly. The shelf does prevent you from going straight to the highest tier skills, but there isn't really anything preventing you from getting all the skills you want, aside from forced restrictions between affinities. There's probably only one lower-shelf skill that I'm somewhat lukewarm about, and it's the increased spotlight radius.

Off top of head, I think the shelves take enough points away where you're pretty low on insight points by the top shelf.

I think you can't get the teleporter, lunar catapults, and shadow catapults, for example. There's no locks preventing you from getting both, but I think no one does because then you couldn't afford an affinity?

I'd have to check this out in game. In any case, separate issues anyway. As far as I know, you can't get every non-locked capstone as Winona plus full affinity. You can as Walter*.

*Except for the slingshot band upgrade (lol).

 

[Theukon-dos]

46 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

Counterpoint: Being able to drop off items at another location is more of a QoL than a gamebreaking skill that merits being buried so far down the tree.

Winona

1. No, it's pretty strong.

2. Winona's skill tree is 90% filler. Don't try to pretend that it isn't.

[cybers2001]

18 minutes ago, Dingle said:

Off top of head, I think the shelves take enough points away where you're pretty low on insight points by the top shelf.

I think you can't get the teleporter, lunar catapults, and shadow catapults, for example. There's no locks preventing you from getting both, but I think no one does because then you couldn't afford an affinity?

I'd have to check this out in game. In any case, separate issues anyway. As far as I know, you can't get every non-locked capstone as Winona plus full affinity. You can as Walter*.

*Except for the slingshot band upgrade (lol).

 

You absolutely can get lunar and shadow catapults at the same time. It even gets you a special type of projectile that is a hybrid of the two.

You are hardlocked from getting both shadow seeker 2 and founder's keepers 2, though, by design, so you can't have telebrella and wormhole teleports at the same time.

15 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

1. No, it's pretty strong.

Elaborate.

15 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

2. Winona's skill tree is 90% filler. Don't try to pretend that it isn't.

90% of it is catapult skills. I guess if you don't use catapults at all then maybe you can say it's filler, but then why play Winona?

[Dingle]

Just now, cybers2001 said:

You absolutely can get lunar and shadow catapults at the same time. It even gets you a special type of projectile that is a hybrid of the two.

You are hardlocked from getting both shadow seeker 2 and founder's keepers 2, though, by design, so you can't have telebrella and wormhole teleports at the same time.

I know this, but can you actually get both catapults, plus founder's keepers 2? Cant check right now

Off top of head, I think you lose out on something really important.

[cybers2001]

41 minutes ago, Dingle said:

I know this, but can you actually get both catapults, plus founder's keepers 2? Cant check right now

Off top of head, I think you lose out on something really important.

3 from first shelf, 6 from second shelf, which leaves you with 6 points.

To get shadow strike, you need pure horror gen + nightmare gen, so 3 points.

To get lunar strike, you need brilliance + enlightened, so 3 points.

So yes, you cannot have both founders 2 and both catapults.

But this isn't about having every perk, this is about filler perks, and if you're aiming for max catapult unlock, then surely you wouldn't consider the lower shelf perks as filler.

[Dingle]

29 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

3 from first shelf, 6 from second shelf, which leaves you with 6 points.

To get shadow strike, you need pure horror gen + nightmare gen, so 3 points.

To get lunar strike, you need brilliance + enlightened, so 3 points.

So yes, you cannot have both founders 2 and both catapults.

But this isn't about having every perk, this is about filler perks, and if you're aiming for max catapult unlock, then surely you wouldn't consider the lower shelf perks as filler.

It's about both, you kind of changed the subject lol.

Walter has both a lack of filler perks, AND he can grab every powerful capstone in his skill tree at once.

[cybers2001]

34 minutes ago, Dingle said:

It's about both, you kind of changed the subject lol.

Walter has both a lack of filler perks, AND he can grab every powerful capstone in his skill tree at once.

Trying not to get off-topic too much, but the reason I disagree here is because all of her perks do have a use-case that also lets you almost completely avoid any filler. The shadow side is great for early game, with seeker 2 for mobility and founders 1 for free doodads and scrap, and then you can transition to lunar side for the enlightened strike and founders 2 post rift. The shadow strike in itself is a unique skill that offers some form of crowd control, but there's no real use case for that with the current meta, so currently I'd put that and the quick charge perk as her two most (only?) useless skills.

Likewise, Walter also has skills that seasoned players will almost never touch, like the portable campfire or utility rounds, and he can't grab every capstone as he cannot have both shadow and lunar rounds.