Character growth/progression. how IMPORTANT it will be for future skilltrees

[GamePlayer42]

Throughout the rollout of DST's character skill trees, I’ve noticed a recurring element in some of the more well received updates. Something I’d like to call character growth. By this, I mean how certain skills unlock later in a character’s progression, enhancing their playstyle in meaningful ways and encouraging engagement with the game's evolving challenges.

A great example of this is Walter’s post rift ammo, which significantly impacts his damage output and overall combat capabilities. Similarly, Wigfrid’s charged Elding Spear subtly guides players toward the Lunar side of progression, integrating character growth with in-game exploration.

However, characters that lack this kind of progression often feel stagnant, making their gameplay less dynamic compared to others. Woodie is a prime example of this issue. His core abilities remain almost entirely the same from Day 1 until the post rift stage, with no real sense of evolving power or adaptability. His transformations, while useful, don’t change or develop in a way that reflects progression - He essentially stays at the same power level at the start of the game as he is at the end. A potential fix could involve adding skill tree upgrades that modify or enhance his transformations based on in-game milestones. Such as unique transformations with pure horror/brilliance, offering similar effects to walters rounds as a random example (doesn't actually have to be like that). This would give Woodie a stronger sense of growth while allowing players to feel more rewarded for surviving longer.

For future skill trees, this could look like having special pure horror/brilliance books for wicker, or different circuits using various diffrent resources from the progression of  the questlines. For this to work this there would also have to be a way for players to get a bit of pure brilliance pre rifts, something like an optional boss along the way.

Skills that integrate with the game’s progression make survival feel more rewarding, and by expanding this design philosophy to all characters, DST could ensure that every character feels fun and engaging from early-game to post rift content.

[Well-met]

you can fix this by binding insight to each world instead of binding it to your game, resetting back to 0 for everyone on day 1.

[GamePlayer42]

3 minutes ago, Well-met said:

you can fix this by binding insight to each world instead of binding it to your game, resetting back to 0 for everyone on day 1.

it works and i wouldnt mind it at all, the issue is how likely the devs are to really add it especially at this point and especially considering how certain characters are very weak without their skills such as willow and debatably woodie

[Valase]

21 minutes ago, Well-met said:

you can fix this by binding insight to each world instead of binding it to your game, resetting back to 0 for everyone on day 1.

But by doing so, some "late" skills would just become useless. Requiring another round of mini updates to make them worth the time.

[GrapeVruit]

43 minutes ago, Valase said:

But by doing so, some "late" skills would just become useless. Requiring another round of mini updates to make them worth the time.

God, I love Klei but I swear they're digging themselves a hole with these updates and the only way to fill it is with more updates. I feel they'll never finish touching these characters. If they end up doing re-refreshes after all this is done, I don't know what I'll do with myself.

[Cheggf]

This has been a common complaint of the skill trees since their inception. The rewards offered by skill trees could instead be introduced organically to the game like all previous content was, with it either being basekit or earned over time. Ideally I think Woodie should just get upgrades through progression instead of an RPG HUD element, but that RPG HUD element is here to stay so his should just be brought up to the standard of Walter's.

Condense the three levels of Quick Picker into a single, condense the three levels of transformation duration into a single, condense the first two levels of treeguard slayer or whatever it's called into a single, and add some new skills like "Woodie can now craft better transformations using the energy of whatever who cares this is a rift level upgrade". Do similar things for all other characters with boring redundant skills that are boring and redundant. 

[GenomeSquirrel]

What you see as stagnant, I see as being enabled by a higher variety and quality of choices

To say a day 1 Woody is as powerful as a day 100 Woody belies that these are unique forms of combat other characters can't use, and that they take practice to use well.

To delay this actual growth through practice, but putting a repetitive chore beforehand sounds much closer to regression than growth.

[GamePlayer42]

14 hours ago, GenomeSquirrel said:

What you see as stagnant, I see as being enabled by a higher variety and quality of choices

To say a day 1 Woody is as powerful as a day 100 Woody belies that these are unique forms of combat other characters can't use, and that they take practice to use well.

To delay this actual growth through practice, but putting a repetitive chore beforehand sounds much closer to regression than growth.

Skill at playing the character carries over between worlds, I don't understand your point

[YouKnowWho142]

17 hours ago, GamePlayer42 said:

it works and i wouldnt mind it at all, the issue is how likely the devs are to really add it especially at this point and especially considering how certain characters are very weak without their skills such as willow and debatably woodie

My issue with this is that there are skills that are very much intended only to be used in the early game. It's a lot harder to get use out of the wooden walking cane for Woodie when 1) it has to be the first thing you unlock to get value in time and 2) The need for a early game walking cane loses a lot of value when you only get access to it after a week.

I think the way skills trees work currently is (mostly) fine, but I personally think that, if they ever change how skill trees work, is to make it so you need to achieve certain accomplishments to unlock skills in a world. This was an idea I saw with Wigfrid that I liked a lot that I wish was expanded upon. For example, with Woodie, his early game skills can be available from the start, but maybe to develop masteries and improvements into his wereforms he needs to spend a certain amount of time in those forms. If you want the treeguard idol, you need to kill a certain number of treeguards. That sort of idea would be moreso the best of both worlds, letting the early game skills get value while adding natural progression and incentivization towards character actions.

Affinities for all characters would probably need some change, though, since some are usable early game and others only post rift (unless it's shadow apparently). Maybe skills only usable post rift should require the respective bosses to kill but pre-rift alignment skills require finding lunar island/ruins? Just an idea

[AliceShiki]

Well, I hate the fact Wigfrid requires you to engage with late-game content to get access to a non-affinity skill, so I'm very glad that characters like Woodie don't do that.

I would much rather have all characters' skill tree be completely independent of late-game content outside of the affinity skills. It just makes things way more comfortable and lets you use unique perks of your characters when you want for the content you want.

It just makes no sense to me to have non-affinity skills connected to late-game content, and it makes stuff like the Eldling Spear essentially become an Affinity Skill in disguise. It's just annoying, really.

Especially when you're playing with newbie friends who aren't going to engage in late-game content at all because they can't even kill a Treeguard on their own, which essentially locks you out of the Eldling Spear for the whole run. It's just not fun.

[GenomeSquirrel]

1 hour ago, GamePlayer42 said:

Skill at playing the character carries over between worlds, I don't understand your point

This post is about growth and development, I’m arguing what you call growth is actually the opposite, losing dozens of options to uphold a delusion of gaining them over time. Growth is knowing what to do with the goose, not one hour has passed, time for the goosing to begin. Time is scarce, barring availability bars practice.

[readkey]

10 hours ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

My issue with this is that there are skills that are very much intended only to be used in the early game. It's a lot harder to get use out of the wooden walking cane for Woodie when 1) it has to be the first thing you unlock to get value in time and 2) The need for a early game walking cane loses a lot of value when you only get access to it after a week.

I picked the wooden cane when I played with others, since it is very common that in the first winter you cannot obtain enough tusk for everyone. 
 

I don’t mind there are some skills for early game as long as they are worth taking to ease the resource shortage in the first few years. Not to mention some skills are there to help new players.
 

What I do agree with other comments is most “level 1, 2 and 3” feels underwhelming that you are almost forced to use all 3 skill points to get a worthwhile effect. The only one currently I find it is acceptable to only reach level 2 is Wolfgang’s critical hit on chores because of the diminishing effect of chances. 

[loopuleasa]

I actually would've prefer if your cc/fuelweaver skills were locked behind the CURRENT WORLD boss status, not if you have defeated the boss in any world

[GamePlayer42]

On 3/4/2025 at 6:05 PM, YouKnowWho142 said:

My issue with this is that there are skills that are very much intended only to be used in the early game. It's a lot harder to get use out of the wooden walking cane for Woodie when 1) it has to be the first thing you unlock to get value in time and 2) The need for a early game walking cane loses a lot of value when you only get access to it after a week.

I think the way skills trees work currently is (mostly) fine, but I personally think that, if they ever change how skill trees work, is to make it so you need to achieve certain accomplishments to unlock skills in a world. This was an idea I saw with Wigfrid that I liked a lot that I wish was expanded upon. For example, with Woodie, his early game skills can be available from the start, but maybe to develop masteries and improvements into his wereforms he needs to spend a certain amount of time in those forms. If you want the treeguard idol, you need to kill a certain number of treeguards. That sort of idea would be moreso the best of both worlds, letting the early game skills get value while adding natural progression and incentivization towards character actions.

Affinities for all characters would probably need some change, though, since some are usable early game and others only post rift (unless it's shadow apparently). Maybe skills only usable post rift should require the respective bosses to kill but pre-rift alignment skills require finding lunar island/ruins? Just an idea

I agree with this, having certain skills beyond affinities be locked behind engaging with ingame content is a great way to implement them. regarding your first point. i feel as if perhaps to circumvent this, only a certain amount of skill points can be carried over to each world, maybe 3-5, and then the rest requires the player to obtain them through natural play. 

9 hours ago, loopuleasa said:

I actually would've prefer if your cc/fuelweaver skills were locked behind the CURRENT WORLD boss status, not if you have defeated the boss in any world

i can understand this to a degree, but again, its certain affinity skills that are more effective and find more use cases in the early to midgame than post rifts.