Please lower Courier Skill requirement to two Scouting skills

[Dingle]

12 minutes ago, cybers2001 said:

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.

He can grab every capstone, outside of competing affinities (as long as you skip slingshot bands, a very easy drop). That was my original point.

[Theukon-dos]

2 hours ago, cybers2001 said:

Elaborate.

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?

1. While it may not be something like teleportation, being able to deliver items right to your home base without going there yourself; and doing so in a matter of seconds; is quite possibly the strongest inventory management ability in the game. If you look back at every time you had to decide what to drop on the ground to pick up something more important, or had to make several trips back and fourth to deliver all your items, then corrior Woby can let you avoid nearly all of that.

 

2.That is an entirely different problem with Winona's skill tree. A filler skill isn't simply a "useless" skill. It's a boring skill. A safe skill. Ones that only exist to make the skill tree large enough to call a tree in the first place.

Just look at the second shelf. Three incremental perks to boost your catapults firing speed. Three incremental perks to increase your catapult's AOE damage. Three incremental perks to increase the fuel efficiency of your generators. Targeted Strike is fine sense that atleast gives Winona something new, but then what's even the point of barrage? Click a button to make your already strong catapults even stronger for a short period?

That's not to say that number increases or incremental perks are outright a bad thing. But when they make up half your skill tree; and when half of that half are both dedicated to the same thing; it definitly raises an eyebrow.

Just compare that to Walter's tree. There are absolutly perks on there that I wouldn't care to get myself. But I sure as hell couldn't call those skills "boring" despite that. Pioneer's Panache makes his pioneer hat a good summer/spring equipable and further reduces the sanity loss while wearing it; making it a good choice for players who like Walter's easy sanity management. Campfire Enthusiast lets you haul around a portable light and heat source while also boosting your ability to restore sanity with campfire stories; IE Wilson's torch throw but even better and not costing half your skill points to unlock. Ammo Hoarder is great for people who want to go all-in on the slingshot and carry around tons of different ammo types. Even the simplest skill on his skill tree; Twine Twirler; goes right for the throat and gives you a flat 1/3thrd cost reduction on rope right from the word go.

Imagine if instead of all those immediately useful perks, Walter had to spend several points just to get the same end result. If his skill tree was built like Winona's, then it would instead look like "increases sanity protection of the pinetree pioneer hat to 60%/70%/80%", or "increases Woby's speed by 10%/20%/40%"

Yeah, those skills would still be useful. They are straight buffs after all. But that doesn't change the fact that they'd be by-the-books numbers buffs instead of anything that expands what Walter does or gives him new routes to explore instead.

 

And then there's also the first shelf of Winona's skill tree, where three out of the five perks available are just simple quality of life bonuses. Portable buildings, faster gizmo charging, and no idle power drain on machines. These perks aren't boring per se (well quick charge is). But they're still safe, they're also just minor convenience things that are good enough to notice when they're missing. and they're still small enough that they didn't need to be part of the skill tree in the first place.

 

In fact, we know that they didn't need to be part of a skill tree, because Walter ALSO got several quality of life changes, and said changes got added to his base kit instead of needing a perk to unlock. His ammo crafting rate was doubled. Woby got her command wheel that lets Walter make her stay or shrink her back down without needing any perks to do so. And Woby got a hunger bar that lets you know how close she is to transforming back without having to eyeball how fast she is. If you had to unlock these with insight, then sure. They'd still be useful. But it would make his skill tree feel a lot worse and would be very lame.

 

Despite be being down on skill trees from the start, I was actually excited to see what Walter and Winona would end up with simply because they're two characters who I think actually needed the buffs. Walter's skill tree has shaped up to be everything I could have hoped for and more. It fixes all the issues he had pre-skill tree, has a great balance of combat and utility related perks, and such great variety that there's genuine opportunity cost when picking your perks and the ability to actually change how he plays with them. But Winona's is just a trepid, uninteresting pile of number boosts that only exist to pretend that you care about anything other than her alignment perks. And boy howdy don't get me started on those two travesties.

 

You wanna know what non-filler perks I'd have wanted to see for Winona? Well to bad, because I'm telling you anyway.

A perk that extends her work ethic (faster crafting) to other work types like chopping and mining.

A perk that lets her spend extra hunger to refine resources in bulk, with a second tier that gives this recipe a discount (IE 20 logs -> 5/6 boards, 30 rocks -> 10/15 cut stone, 30 grass -> 10/15 rope, ect.)

New alternative turrets instead of just making Catapults stronger, such as a water hose that puts out fires and makes enemies take extra electrical damage.

New generalist buildings meant to stick around base, such as a pressure cooker that can queue recipes or an upgraded lightning rod that can store it's charge and distribute it to nearby machines.

The ability to build power poles that can extend the range of a generator, but combusts if to much charge is pulled at once.

A loudspeaker that can play record disks across the entire map. Designed specifically to torture Maxwell.

[cybers2001]

To be fair, I did also hope for more diverse structures for Winona. I wanted power poles that connect like the year of the depthworm lamp posts to extend her power range, and different utility structures she can sprawl across the base.  
  
Though even with shiny new stuff, she still would’ve been a swap character I would use just to build with occasionally. The portability and target strike perks alone were enough to turn her into my new main, though, which I did not expect to happen during the beta, lol. It completely changes her style. I feel like a siege tank creeping up on mobs with catapults, and there’s plenty of room for skill expression and an insanely high dps ceiling. She’s basically the strongest character now.

Walter has a lot of nice perks, but it all still funnels into really two things: ranged cavalry style combat and mobility. And a lot of his perks *are* stat perks that lend to those two functions. Woby’s main tree is just extra speed. Two of the slingshot perks are for range and attack speed. Really the only slingshot upgrade that doesn’t feel like just a stat adjustment is the thulecite frame.

[Grove]

19 hours ago, Dingle said:

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?

Honestly, that's my problem with skill trees. Instead of all characters getting balanced before getting their trees. Balance just got in the tree. Leading to this weird thing where only bad characters get interesting stuff. While stronger characters, or just average ones, don't. With the exception of Wendy, due to the outrage. But still, it's annoying.

[Dyzrespect]

So my issue with this is that if you want all of Walter's capstones (you do), your skill tree WILL look like this, and regardless of what you actually want, nothing will change except the Customizer section. All other sections you MUST choose a certain amount of skills whether you want them or not, but you will never be able to take (let's be real, Advanced Bands) one of the slingshot customization options late game.

The only other option is crafting ammo then swapping your traits back using the Celestial portal, which is super lame, or just forgoing Woby's enhanced dash, which sucks considering you're taking 2-3 scouting skills you don't even want. None of these are satisfying sacrifices, and all it does is add tedium to swapping your skill tree around when you want to use a certain skill.

[Dingle]

9 minutes ago, Dyzrespect said:

So my issue with this is that if you want all of Walter's capstones (you do), your skill tree WILL look like this, and regardless of what you actually want, nothing will change except the Customizer section. All other sections you MUST choose a certain amount of skills whether you want them or not, but you will never be able to take (let's be real, Advanced Bands) one of the slingshot customization options late game.

The only other option is crafting ammo then swapping your traits back using the Celestial portal, which is super lame, or just forgoing Woby's enhanced dash, which sucks considering you're taking 2-3 scouting skills you don't even want. None of these are satisfying sacrifices, and all it does is add tedium to swapping your skill tree around when you want to use a certain skill.

Yeah, every Walter player that knows what they're doing will have a nearly identical skill tree. The only differences between players may be the scouting perks.

Maybe the second woby minor perk on the left can vary, but the top left woby perk is too good to ever change.

[Crimson Hollow]

16 minutes ago, Dyzrespect said:

ammo then swapping your traits back using the Celestial portal

Can you actually do this? I thought you cant fire ammos without their corresponding skill

[Dyzrespect]

2 minutes ago, Crimson Hollow said:

Can you actually do this? I thought you cant fire ammos without their corresponding skill

I meant just swapping the Ammo Efficiency capstone on and off, to save the 1 point. So crafting all of your ammo in one go then swapping traits, then swapping again when you need to craft more ammo.

[Crimson Hollow]

Just now, Dyzrespect said:

I meant just swapping the Ammo Efficiency capstone on and off, to save the 1 point. So crafting all of your ammo in one go then swapping traits, then swapping again when you need to craft more ammo.

Ah now that makes sense. then yes, its grindy and rather boring

[Theukon-dos]

5 hours ago, cybers2001 said:

To be fair, I did also hope for more diverse structures for Winona. I wanted power poles that connect like the year of the depthworm lamp posts to extend her power range, and different utility structures she can sprawl across the base.  
  
Though even with shiny new stuff, she still would’ve been a swap character I would use just to build with occasionally. The portability and target strike perks alone were enough to turn her into my new main, though, which I did not expect to happen during the beta, lol. It completely changes her style. I feel like a siege tank creeping up on mobs with catapults, and there’s plenty of room for skill expression and an insanely high dps ceiling. She’s basically the strongest character now.

Walter has a lot of nice perks, but it all still funnels into really two things: ranged cavalry style combat and mobility. And a lot of his perks *are* stat perks that lend to those two functions. Woby’s main tree is just extra speed. Two of the slingshot perks are for range and attack speed. Really the only slingshot upgrade that doesn’t feel like just a stat adjustment is the thulecite frame.

Woby's sprint ability doesn't just boost her speed, it lets her run at max speed regardless of how full she is. Her dash gives her a unique dodge ability, making it easier for the two of them to avoid damage. And her alignment perks add new function to her dash, with shadow-woby being able to teleport like a Lazy Deserter and Lunar Woby being able to use it to instantly start sprinting at a higher speed. And then of course you have the other four Woby perks, of which, only one is a direct numbers increase. All the others give her new abilities and functionality, such as picking up items, finding more foragables, or helping Walter chop and mine.

As for the Slingshot, while the main function of the band and handle upgrades may be to boost the slingshot's stats. They still require Walter to go out into the world to find the materials needed to make the upgrades instead of being flat stat boosts he can get from the word go. And the second tier of them does unlock some more advanced parts, such as the void handle that gives the slingshot a ramping fire rate while wearing the void cowl. Or the Mimic Band that occasionally shoots an extra round for free.

This is also ignoring the other side of the slingshot coin which is the ammo branch. The only flat numbers increase on that part is Ammo Smith letting you craft ammo cheaper and faster, though I'm not sure that really counts for our example here.

 

And again, I'm not opposed to skills that just increase numbers. There is a place for them and "big number go brrrr" will almost always be a buff. The main problem is that Winona's skill tree focuses almost entirely on numbers until you get to the top shelf. I should also point out the biggest difference between Walter's and Winona's stat-boosting perks, which is that Woby and his slingshot actually needed the number buffs. Woby was completely outclassed by a Beefalo due to it being faster and making an effective meat shield. While the Slingshot was so comedically ineffective that the best advice Walter mains could give is "just don't use it". Meanwhile, Winona's Catapults where already the best part of her kit. Swap character status aside, people where already playing Winona just to use her catapults. That's not to say they shouldn't have gotten anything from her skill tree, being able to target with them is a great ability, as are the two alignment strikes. But there's no reason that they needed anything beyond that, much less flat stat boosts to their speed and/or area of effect. Catapults have been one of the strongest structures in the game sense they where introduced thanks to the ability to build dozens of them and turn most bosses into a fine red mist. That wouldn't have changed if the six catapult-boosting perks on shelf two did anything else instead.

 

 

As for the claim that that Walter's skill tree "funnels into two things"- Well for one that's just explicitly not true. Nothing in the Scouting branch of Walter's skill tree directly contributes to either ranged combat or mobility. And only about 2/3rds of the Woby branch is dedicated to mobility. The other third is; as said earlier; about giving Woby more utility like picking up items or harvesting resources.

 

And second, even if you do want to argue that it funnels into just ranged combat and Mobility, that's still a MASSIVE improvement over not just Winona's skill tree, but every other skill tree in the game. With Walter, every branch is so specialized that you can easily ignore any part of his kit to a respectable degree. If you have alignment unlocked, then you can spend all but one perk point while completely ignoring either Slingshot buffs or Woby buffs. If you want to go fully into ranged combat, then you can max out the slingshot, grab the buffed healing and better hat perk, and then spend your last few points as you see fit. But if you don't care about fighting, you can max out your Woby perks to make her a speed demon that helps you with chores. Grab perks like rack and roll, twine twirler, or campfire enthusiast, or Woby here; Woby there. And then just grab some basic upgrades for your sling just in case. Or you can pick and choose from all the catagories to get whatever mix of combat and utility perks you want. It's a huge berth of options that are what skill trees are supposed to do in the first place.

 

Everyone else though? They don't have those sorts of options.

Winona? Hope you like catapults, becuase that's about all you're going to get. No perks that boost or interact with her better crafting ability or trusty tape and a whole two perks dedicated to buffing her spotlight. Just that, buffs to her generators, and whatever you get with her alignment perks.

Wigfrid? Her only "utility" perks are Noble Mount 1 and 2. Everything else is just unga-bunga damage go brr. You can't spec into a support-oriented role because there are a whopping 4 perks that buff her songs or unlock new ones. Two of which are her alignment perks and are objectively awful. You can hardly spec into a defense-focused character because the only perks that do that are better battle helm durability, the commander's helm and it's buffs, the battle rond which is both weapon and armor, and Mystic Resilience. And you can hardly spec into a damage-focused build for the same reasons. Except trying this is even worse sense the first two spear enhancements buff your inspiration instead and there's no damage equivelent of Mystic Resiliance.

 

Wormwood? His branches are so generalist that I'm not even sure what you could try to spec into. Like- Mushroom specialist I guess?

 

Wolfgang? Honestly the one skill tree that has more filler than Winona's. But funny enough, everything related to the mighty gym is so bad that he effectively only has 16 perks to spend his 15 skill points on.

 

And the pattern continues for everyone else who has a skill tree so far. Barring Willow maybe sense her skill tree is divided entirely between her lighter and Bernie. But the only two Bernie perks that aren't just number changes are Hot Headed and Burning Bernie. So whatever.

 

The point is, Walter's skill tree has a ton of variety in it, and said skill tree spreads through everything he does and can do in one way or another. And all the skills are so good by themselves that having to sacrifice something else. While Winona's skill tree only exists to get you to her alignment perks. And it does that by padding it out with simple and/or uninteresting perks and focusing on the one thing she was already good at while ignoring her other capabilities. Outright entirely in the case of her tape and crafting bonuses.

 

If portability and catapult targeting is enough to make her your main, then more power to you. But that doesn't change the fact that she could be so much more.

 

 

[BrixGoBrrr]

On 2/14/2025 at 2:02 PM, Crimson Hollow said:

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

I so so want to be able to flip the portable campfire upside down for it to generate an endothermic flame 

[4Rory]

I will comment, just because I don't think its been said- for early/new players who haven't beaten Shadow Weaver, Walter has an abundance of points- if I had a critique from that aspect its that the ammo capstones require a second unlock set which just doesn't have the same value. A good neutral rebalance would be to buff the other two ammo skills just saying. It could be bias from melee combat and being too reliant on a backpack, but I do feel like Pioneer's Panache could be buffed a little- everyone seems to agree that Woby Snacks are a given, and 2 of 3 between Woby Rack, Twine Twirler, and Field Medic, but its really hard to justify the other two, so unless you're willing to neglect Woby or the Slingshot (also hard to justify) they barely exist as options. Even without Shadow/Lunar Affinity I never touch them because every other skill takes priority.

Regarding Woby Here, Woby There, I agree with commenters saying that there is a divide between Woby as a mount vs Woby/Walter as support, and in that vein I kinda would like to see all of the Woby Dash abilities down a single tree starting with Pep Pup and then no skill point restriction down that branch. All of the other Woby Skills feel much more in line with the Scouting Branch and it would free up at least one point to either have all the Slingshot Perks, or choice of another Scouting/Woby resource gathering perk.

[zvxaxvz]

I agree with the initial post in this thread. Not only does three skills take away from other, more useful perks, but it's inconsistent with the other 'unlocked' perks which each require two. I think it would be fair to drop the cost to two, as we would still have to take two scout perks.

[_mylilsunshine_]

1 minute ago, zvxaxvz said:

I agree with the initial post in this thread. Not only does three skills take away from other, more useful perks, but it's inconsistent with the other 'unlocked' perks which each require two. I think it would be fair to drop the cost to two, as we would still have to take two scout perks.

i mean, i can't speak on the other point, but i think there's no consistency with unlocking perk. for ammo smith, you have to take 2/5 prerequisite perk, for dashing 2/4, for courier, it's 3/6. i think the scaling of points required versus total perks in the tree is consistent. the more perks there are, the more points you need to spend to unlock.

maybe that logic doesn't make sense, you can argue that. but yeah again i just don't think there's a consistency with unlocking perk as you suggested.