There really should not be this inconsistency between skill trees

[HowlVoid]

2 minutes ago, Walrusst said:

I would love to  fuse the two berry skills because its dreadful that only one or the other is useful on any one world.

Yes, that's one thing that just makes "sense". I do hope they would also get rid of the mandatory skill investment no one else has. As well as freeing up the requirements for the leftmost affinity skills. 

To me these are just objective changes that fix a current structure that goes against the grain.

[Evelo]

1 hour ago, HowlVoid said:

I absolutely dreaded wormwood being one of the first and I personally feel like my fears were on the money.

Well I still feel Wormwood, and well everyone's skill sets are overpowered and simplify the game to the point of minimal challenge.

[YouKnowWho142]

2 hours ago, Evelo said:

Well I still feel Wormwood, and well everyone's skill sets are overpowered and simplify the game to the point of minimal challenge.

I like what a lot of the skill trees do for singleplayer, and I think both making the bosses slightly easier in singleplayer through skill trees and just having more abilities to work with does make singleplayer a lot more fun to me. That’s completely okay and has helped reinvigorate my interest in solo dst, but when you play with others the power scaling gets so intense with all the new abilities that the game instantly trivializes

[Maxil20]

55 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

but when you play with others the power scaling gets so intense with all the new abilities that the game instantly trivializes

To be fair, that isn’t exactly surprising. DST doesn’t exactly have a history of withstanding the efforts of a coordinated multiplayer group very well, especially since multiple players inevitably lead to accomplishing feats several times faster than a solo player can dream of.

[YouKnowWho142]

10 minutes ago, Maxil20 said:

To be fair, that isn’t exactly surprising. DST doesn’t exactly have a history of withstanding the efforts of a coordinated multiplayer group very well, especially since multiple players inevitably lead to accomplishing feats several times faster than a solo player can dream of.

Absolutely, though it’s never been so pronounced. I did fuelweaver with friends as a Winona, Maxwell, Wendy, and Wolfgang, and I’m pretty sure that fight ended in around a minute 

[FillerText]

4 hours ago, Evelo said:

Well I still feel Wormwood, and well everyone's skill sets are overpowered and simplify the game to the point of minimal challenge.

I think it is a shame for some characters, because I found them to be more interesting. But I also think survivors like Wormwood were very unfun in their original state. He felt awful to play in his own dlc, due to being constantly struck by random lighting, and losing a 3rd of his health pool with no counterplay. Every hit might as well have applied a max health penalty, given that you need to grind oincs for half an hour just to recover a marginal amount of hp, after being forced to buy 6 coffee beans/mushrooms that were useless to him for a single healing salve. It's not as challenging as it is tedious, and time consuming. The overtuned damage numbers on traps, randomly losing a chunk of health, and having incredibly minor upsides made getting around his downsides a complete chore(instead of redefining his gameplay), and incredibly unsatisfying to play. As he offered entry level perks Wicker probably did better anyway. I however, do wish they decided to expand on Maxwell's playstyle from the singleplayer game. Current Maxwell has no real opportunity costs to most of his perks that he once had, and his massive power comes so easily, that it just felt like I activated some form of godmode. Which is why I don't play him much. Singleplayer Maxwell felt a little bit more creative to play, even if I only played him for a little bit. Although I can understand why they made him easier to play. He pretty much was a post-game character, that made all the "boring" aspects of the game pass by much faster at the cost of something you have proven to be able to masterfully manage anyway. That concept just doesn't quite click, when you can pick him as your first character on a fresh install.

[kroban]

I agree partially. It is true that skill trees got inconsistent along the way. The best example of this is looking at this last batch and comparing it with Wilson, Woodie, Wormwood and Wolfgang skill trees. I can understand that this has to do with the fact that Klei is learning how to make skill trees along the way, this system is something "new" for them. But yeah, they should (and probably will) revisit some skill trees at some point, things like Woodie's quick pick and treeguard branch, Wormwood's bush perks, Wolfgang's and Wilson's skill trees for the most part, Willow's lighter branch and locks, etc, feel a bit unfair and got "old" quick compared to the newer skill trees.

On the other hand, I think there will always be some skill trees that feel more "solid" than others. We all know how the "meta" was before skill trees, some characters were doing pretty good before skill trees, while others struggled A LOT. Which is why, without any refresh beforehand, the struggling characters will always get more value from their skill trees, like it was the case with Willow and Walter.

Like, yes, Walter skill tree, compared to Wendy's and Wortox, looks more "solid" for many people. But come on. He was added on a nerfed state from the start (and some things with fair reason, like slingshot being "the only spammable ranged weapon" at that point). Stayed that way for years. Was also considered a "perk soup", a "mediocre character with no utility" that was also treated as "worse than Wes". He even had LESS playerbase than Wes (according to Klei devs themselves), and Wes is a meme hardcore character.

Considering all this, it was pretty obvious that he was going to get a skill tree with no "repetitive branches", each perk adding solid value on his playstyle, and improving his entire basekit. He basically got a rework on top of his skill tree at the same time. Does it look unfair compared to other skill trees? Yeah I guess, but we will probably see more cases of this and, imo, with fair reason. Like honestly, for example, should Maxwell "the cage king" get a skill tree with as much value as Warly and Webber, a swap character you only use 3 days for spices and the character that gets outmatched by a spider hat?

[Anis5240]

3 minutes ago, kroban said:

spider hat

spider hat only lasts like 2 minutes and it's cringe ass.

[somethin]

4 hours ago, FillerText said:

He felt awful to play in his own dlc, due to being constantly struck by random lighting, and losing a 3rd of his health pool with no counterplay. Every hit might as well have applied a max health penalty, given that you need to grind oincs for half an hour just to recover a marginal amount of hp, after being forced to buy 6 coffee beans/mushrooms that were useless to him for a single healing salve.

Psst... this may not be  dst relate but... use the wishing well. 1 gold nugget and you get a full heal + poison cure...

[Creatorofswamps]

On 2/28/2025 at 7:01 AM, kroban said:

I agree partially. It is true that skill trees got inconsistent along the way. The best example of this is looking at this last batch and comparing it with Wilson, Woodie, Wormwood and Wolfgang skill trees. I can understand that this has to do with the fact that Klei is learning how to make skill trees along the way, this system is something "new" for them. But yeah, they should (and probably will) revisit some skill trees at some point, things like Woodie's quick pick and treeguard branch, Wormwood's bush perks, Wolfgang's and Wilson's skill trees for the most part, Willow's lighter branch and locks, etc, feel a bit unfair and got "old" quick compared to the newer skill trees.

On the other hand, I think there will always be some skill trees that feel more "solid" than others. We all know how the "meta" was before skill trees, some characters were doing pretty good before skill trees, while others struggled A LOT. Which is why, without any refresh beforehand, the struggling characters will always get more value from their skill trees, like it was the case with Willow and Walter.

Like, yes, Walter skill tree, compared to Wendy's and Wortox, looks more "solid" for many people. But come on. He was added on a nerfed state from the start (and some things with fair reason, like slingshot being "the only spammable ranged weapon" at that point). Stayed that way for years. Was also considered a "perk soup", a "mediocre character with no utility" that was also treated as "worse than Wes". He even had LESS playerbase than Wes (according to Klei devs themselves), and Wes is a meme hardcore character.

Considering all this, it was pretty obvious that he was going to get a skill tree with no "repetitive branches", each perk adding solid value on his playstyle, and improving his entire basekit. He basically got a rework on top of his skill tree at the same time. Does it look unfair compared to other skill trees? Yeah I guess, but we will probably see more cases of this and, imo, with fair reason. Like honestly, for example, should Maxwell "the cage king" get a skill tree with as much value as Warly and Webber, a swap character you only use 3 days for spices and the character that gets outmatched by a spider hat?

There are a lot of good thoughts here