"A conflict of interests" within Wormwood's skill tree, did Klei overlook this?

[HowlVoid]

Tl;Dr below

After my most recent poll I can safely say I am not the only Wormwood player who avoids the plant crafting branch.

And there is a number of players who only use Wormwood to access said branch and then swap out of the character.

Its easy to not care about the state of a character when you can pick-and-swap a character and never look back. That is not to say it's not a valid way of playing the game, after all this is a situation klei themselves created.

Today I want to talk about the possibility of a "conflict of interests" in the skill tree. And how Wormwood is the character most impacted by it.

TL;DR

The crafting branch exists in only two states:

1. You either craft all the plants you need.

Or

2. The branch does nothing.

Why is this important? Because affinity skills rewards committing to associated skills in order to access them. 

Incase of Wormwood, you need 5 skills of the corresponding side.

(Colors indicate the skills associated with unlocking corresponding affinity skills)

(Green is for crafting)

And Wormwood, is the ONLY character in the game with an ENTIRE branch that entices pick-and-swapping. Leaving you only the same 5 skills to access the left side affinity skills for some Wormwood players. 

(why enticing? Because every character, including wormwood, can make full use of the branch without having to commit to it)

End of TL;DR

Crafting in other branches is either isolated, or incase of Wigfrid, have associated skills meant to improve the craft. (Wilson's skill tree not include as I think that deserves more attention than Wormwood).

Woodie

Wurt

Wolfgang

Wigfrid

(I'm not saying theres nothing wrong with these trees. I'm only pointing out their structure.)

For those of us who participated in the poll and chose to ignore the planting crafting branch, we only have one choice when it comes to commitment and unlocking corresponding affinity skills.

But maybe that's our fault for not caring enough about megabasing or aesthetics (the most popular uses on my poll).

Now here's something funny regarding the right side affinity skills (they require post rift materials).

Klei is aware there's a considerable number of players that have not accessed post rifts content. At least enough to warrant special attention to Wendy.

"A lot of players do not yet experience rift level content."

So even if people manage to defeat CC (through help), theres probably a considerable number of players who have just never activated the rifts.

This isnt a dig at Wendy and most certainly not a dig at Jason. It was my only official source of "proof" why Wormwood being able to access both affinity skills simultaneously is not enough reason to dismiss the lack of focus on the left side of Wormwood's skill tree.

And while yes, those players could access berry bush crafting to diversify their experience. I just don't see a lot of these players collecting 80 berries, 30 rot, and 100 health for a meager 10 bushes just before winter (the immediate next season).

and even experienced players may want access to those affinity skills (and not the lunar guardian ones) for an early game build.

Solution:

There is but one very clear solution that would appease everyone. While I know some of us would like some skills to be replaced, merged or swapped around, it just might not be feasible. Klei takes a while to get things done. At the very least, I would like to keep this solution contained to what this post is about (and the reason I have made different posts for different outliers in his tree. Each one could be handled separately from the others.)

My solution is thus: 

Do to Wormwood the same as other skill trees. 

Remove the required "orientation" of what skills correspond to what side. In its place increase the number of skills needed to unlock the affinity skills from 5 to 10 (seed sleuth not included so technically 11).

You would not gain any skill affinity advantage that wasn't previously possible with the current skill tree. But could instead do something like:

This isnt actually something new, the blooming branch used to unlock the left side affinity skills.

Final thoughts:

In a perfect world klei would have never added such a large amount of crafting to a single character. Not in its current superfluous implementation with two identical skills and one forgettable. Alternatively, if it had been base kit or better yet as part of a structure from the start; people would have enjoyed it just the same and no one would have questioned it.

Edit: Here's my poll 

 

[GenomeSquirrel]

Conflicts of interests does not makes sense, it’s not as if Charlie wants us making watermelons and Wagstaff want blue mushes, there really only is your self interest in the context of this game.

 

Other than picking and swapping, I don’t understand what your problem or solution is, even the tl dr doesn’t seem problematic.

[Pig Princess]

I agree with your assessment of plant crafting branch. If there is so much berry bushes/reeds/whatever that I can get dozens of corresponding plants when it still matters for something other than megabase aesthetics, those skills are going to be dead weight as I won't craft more plants as world has enough of them already; if there is not enough of plants to pick their products for crafting more plants, I either won't be able to craft more, or by the time I'm going to break even in terms of investment-profit I won't use this food/material source. By the way, it could be useful to put a link to that poll in this post so people who missed it won't need to search it to vote as well (in case that topic looses it's place on the first page).

If anyone is interested, below are my experience and elaboration on why I'm dissatisfied with this branch. I actually have more so say, but it's about why some skills should be swapped/merged, which is offtopic.

Spoiler

I even tried this branch with Heap of Foods mod, where berries are much more important because of new dishes that require them (like cheesecake). So even if berries themselves remain interesting food source through the game (which can't be said about vanilla unless player is in the very beginning of their learning), skills are just not working. I also tried "nothing" world where I disabled (some content with console commands) everything that could be destroyed by players, so it was postapocalyptic world (public server simulation if it was closed instead of being reset and I could join it to restore it). And turns out that by the time I'm able to craft my first berry bush from berries from tumbleweeds, I'm going to restore majority of other content (at least Bee Queen and probably even ruins with Fuelweaver).

I dislike how left branch forces me to pick useless skills even if I pick mushroom branch for first 4. Syrup of ipecaca is useless to me - I don't replant a lot early game (and why would anyone replant more than 40 berry bushes/grass tufts?), and even if I wanted to, I would rather pick 2 stacks of lightbulbs that can be easily gathered in muddy biome that I'm going to visit anyway, and convert it to manure through werepig. Petals, ferns, berries and even butterfly wings can be converted in place of lightbulbs as well. On top of it if one tames beefalo, cow itself produces enough completely free manure to fertilise everything in early game. And I have been using mod to disable manure production of fully domesticated beefalos for years now, so as a person who looses this production chain after 20-22 days I can confidently say it's enough manure for everything. Salping crafting was talked about earlier; it was actually useful in that postapocalyptic world, but I had to go so out of my way for it to be QoL more that being actually helpful for game progress, and even then I would rather this skill to include grass gekkos/tufts and spiky bushes as crafts.

In addition or as alternative to your proposal I think seed sleuth should count to both branches, since it's mandatory to pick. Soul decoy II from Wortox beta skill tree is definition of filler in terms of function; this skill is definition of how forced it is (it's barely iseful if at all) - one have to pick it to access any other skills from skill tree. So it might as well at least count to both affinity branches.

[viblym]

I do agree with the notion that having crafts locked to a skill tree is a bit silly and I'm not a big fan of skill tree locked items, they just want you to build up into having those perks instead of being able to select them right off the bat. I will say that there has to be some acceptance for the structure of skill trees and how they're organized to put an emphasis from choosing, you can't have it all, and you especially can't have all of the GOOD perks, but I think this would be a  harmless change, and I'd agree with the requirement of 10 perks out of his whole tree to unlock both affinities if changes to plantcrafts itself are not feasible.

Pointing out that Megabasers/Decorators were the largest amount of poll responders out of 56 votes is a bit silly to me, I don't think it holds any value in the grand scheme of the utility of the branch. The branch could have more utility and be less one-and-done, but skill tree builds have options for a reason, not everyone is going to play the same way or find the same value in some perks. The usage of "our fault" in your statement is also implying that megabasers/decorators are the "other", despite having the largest response in the poll by 17 users, out of 30 users that utilize the branch, and only 16 other responses actively avoiding the branch. If you are to be speaking for yourself in the poll, you would be the minority in the scale of the poll results. Again, disliking it is fine, but it feels like by singling out megabasers / decorators you're trying to insist that the branch is frivolous. Knowing the % of users that engage with a branch provides insight to the utility of the skills and how they're being handled, but I don't think it contributes to the conversation you're trying to have. I still agree with your proposed changes, I just think it's important to point out to not leave statements like this in your critiques.

(Also the poll results that state "I'm not interested in playing this character" are inconsistent so we've got some FAKERS in the results!)

I would also like to suggest changing Lunar Cultivator to not be successive, the way the tree is setup makes it look like you'd be able to access Lunar Cultivator III from Lunar Cultivator I. If I were to pick any of them without needing a previous perk I'd like it more. That or just making the small visual change to make Lunar Cultivator III connect to II instead of I.
 

[Cheggf]

I wish his skill tree looked like this. Most of the perks are fun but some of them are split up too much and I don't like how Wormwood basically has 14 insight instead of 15 since he uniquely has a single mandatory perk.

[HowlVoid]

22 hours ago, GenomeSquirrel said:

Conflicts of interests does not makes sense, it’s not as if Charlie wants us making watermelons and Wagstaff want blue mushes, there really only is your self interest in the context of this game.

I understand your confusion, it may be a matter of perspective. Lore has nothing to do with it.

22 hours ago, GenomeSquirrel said:

 

Other than picking and swapping, I don’t understand what your problem or solution is, even the tl dr doesn’t seem problematic.

From a gameplay perspective the branch has a life span. Even if you somehow managed to fill every inch of your world in berry bushes the skill is finite. How finite will vary from person to person, for me, it's as soon as I spawn.

Thats my perspective and I understand if you disagree.

What i want from my skills is for them to keep working for me throughout my experience. 

To put it bluntly, its dead weight.

If my (and I'm speaking about myself here) only options are dead weight or something else then I will gravitate to that something else every time. Every. Single. Time.

The point of this post isn't to compete who is more right about how useful the crafting branch is. I've arranged the pieces of every skill tree (with crafting) in a way that conveys a pattern. A pattern that's broken when we get to Wormwood's skill tree. The discussion is about pointing out that difference and wether something can be done to repair that pattern, which affects me and others like me. Also doing so without touching the experience of others and how they like to play the game and how they enjoy this branch.

Its a win-win situation. No one loses.

Edit: The conflic of interests may seem confusing if you don't share my perspective. Though I hope this shines a light so that you may understand me better. 

1. The affinity skills want me to stay committed to a branch.

2. A crafting branch feels like the opposite of commitment.

That's where the conflict of compatability in dicision, action and interests lie.

[Cheggf]

1 hour ago, HowlVoid said:

I've arranged the pieces of every skill tree (with crafting) in a way that conveys a pattern. A pattern that's broken when we get to Wormwood's skill tree.

Also I don't think those other character crafts are really comparable to Wormwood's either. Wolfgang spends 1 point to get a bunch of dumbbells that he'll personally be using the entire game. Wigfrid spends 3 points to get a bunch of different equipment that she'll personally be using the entire game. Woodie spends 3 points to get some things that are mostly useful early on, but they're extremely helpful early on (and one of them he'll use the entire game).

Wormwood spends freaking 5 points to get what is essentially a few cosmetic items that you can start thinking about making after you already have so many resources and have done so much that you're just bored and thinking about making huge plant-themed decorations. He isn't using them early on, and even when he does make them later it's not like they're particularly helpful, especially for the cost of 5 points. None of them are even things that he uses like fun new weapons & equipment that the other people make, he literally just duplicates already existing plants that don't benefit him very much if at all.

[HowlVoid]

I took a bit of inspiration from your skill tree Cheggf, where I tweaked it a little more.

Basically moved "farm hand" to be a part of the now "farming branch".

Moved the skills that's basically just an animation boost. (I wonder if I look at other skill trees will I find a skill only dedicated to a faster animation?) In its place a living logs crafting skill.

Two points dedicated to increasing the tending range is really niche to me given wormwood can move and has a speed boost while blooming. You'd need a VERY large veggie garden to make use of it.

The living log skill doesn't even have to be strong. Even just a 5% chance getting a second living logs would do. 

By no means is this perfect, everyone has their own version of what is perfect but at least it's more cohesive than what we have.

Spoiler

Also for the very last skill Wormwood could get the ability to use the hoe as a shadow reaver but only on food. And maybe even only on free planted seeds to give them a slight edge over the condensed large veggies in farm plots.

Since if anyone is going to invest into the farm hand skill and fill a biome in seeds they'll need a faster way to harvest it all. Wormwood's everywhere would also be able to use their carrats in the way only post rifts wormwood can.

 

[Cheggf]

48 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

I took a bit of inspiration from your skill tree Cheggf, where I tweaked it a little more.

Basically moved "farm hand" to be a part of the now "farming branch".

Moved the skills that's basically just an animation boost. (I wonder if I look at other skill trees will I find a skill only dedicated to a faster animation?) In its place a living logs crafting skill.

Two points dedicated to increasing the tending range is really niche to me given wormwood can move and has a speed boost while blooming. You'd need a VERY large veggie garden to make use of it.

The living log skill doesn't even have to be strong. Even just a 5% chance getting a second living logs would do. 

By no means is this perfect, everyone has their own version of what is perfect but at least it's more cohesive than what we have.

  Hide contents

Also for the very last skill Wormwood could get the ability to use the hoe as a shadow reaver but only on food. And maybe even only on free planted seeds to give them a slight edge over the condensed large veggies in farm plots.

Since if anyone is going to invest into the farm hand skill and fill a biome in seeds they'll need a faster way to harvest it all. Wormwood's everywhere would also be able to use their carrats in the way only post rifts wormwood can.

 

Honestly when I made that image I didn't even consider the top right branch because I completely forgot what they all did lol. I just always pick them because they're on the way to the bramble husk attack. I just combined the craft perks into a single slot, moved seed sleuth, got rid of 1 of the 3 "bloom better" perks since there being 3 is kind of silly, and got rid of 1 of the 3 now empty perks on the bottom left side to make it symmetrical with the bottom right side to make it more aesthetically appealing and make is a little more realistic since they'd only need to make 2 new perks instead of 3 new perks.

The living log skill being before the bramble husk would be great since it'd help you make more bramble husks. Even if it only was just a small chance like 5% that would be pretty helpful and much more thematic with the items coming after it. 

[Evelo]

On 2/22/2025 at 5:23 PM, Cheggf said:

I wish his skill tree looked like this. Most of the perks are fun but some of them are split up too much and I don't like how Wormwood basically has 14 insight instead of 15 since he uniquely has a single mandatory perk.

Hey, so before it was separated to have 2 starting points, one to access left side and one to access right side. I personally with the help of others fought really really hard to merge those two starting points into one starting point. While it isn't perfect, it is significantly better than the initial iteration of the skill tree we have today. It is something I am very thankful for that Klei listened to those passionate about Wormwood and gave reasons for change. While it was my proposed solution, it was more of stating an issue. So yes I would be happy with a change, I am more than happy that it is one single point than two.

(secondly numerous characters have a "you need to pick a mandatory perk", with Winona, and... um. Ok only Winona.) Turns out it is truly only Wormy boy. But the idea is that it is a seed that grows into a plant. So it's cute. I don't mind it too much given how op the skill tree makes Wormybuddy.

[HowlVoid]

1 hour ago, Evelo said:

Hey, so before it was separated to have 2 starting points, one to access left side and one to access right side. I personally with the help of others fought really really hard to merge those two starting points into one starting point. While it isn't perfect, it is significantly better than the initial iteration of the skill tree we have today. It is something I am very thankful for that Klei listened to those passionate about Wormwood and gave reasons for change. While it was my proposed solution, it was more of stating an issue. So yes I would be happy with a change, I am more than happy that it is one single point than two.

(secondly numerous characters have a "you need to pick a mandatory perk", with Winona, and... um. Ok only Winona.)

I don't think you're actually forced to take it as Winona. You can fill out 15 skills without unlocking it. I haven't played her so im not 100% sure but.

it looks like you can forgo portability and the strike skills for the rapid fire skills?

[Evelo]

2 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

it looks like you can forgo portability and the strike skills for the rapid fire skills?

The image shown shows you took portability. Which is my point initially that there is a starting point and a required start. much like Wormwood's Seed Sleuth.

Just tested, seems I am wrong.

[HowlVoid]

1 hour ago, Evelo said:

The image shown shows you took portability. Which is my point initially that there is a starting point and a required start. much like Wormwood's Seed Sleuth.

Just tested, seems I am wrong.

Yeah sorry I'm at work and I took that image from Google. 

I could only tell from the wiki that you only need 3 and 6 skills to advance through the shelves. I didn't choose a very good picture lol.

[Cheggf]

Also Wormwood's summer insulation perk is kind of annoying too. It's pretty good in summer, but summer is only 21% of the year (at the veeery end), and once you account for the days where you can't overheat it's like 18%, and once you account for the time where you aren't currently losing temperature (caves, base, boat, thermal stone, etc) it'd probably be like 10-15%.

All Wormwood's skill does is give heat protection. Walter has a similar skill that gives his hat +100% heat protection, but also it gives +100% sanity protection and +75% wetness protection. His summer related perk isn't only for summer, it always helps.