CremeLover Posted March 7, 2025 Share Posted March 7, 2025 Hello! Welcome to "Wendy skill tree is bad, threat nº356, unleashed from the beta forums edition!" Hope you enjoy your stay! Jokes aside, is well known Wendy has had a controversial skilltree, and probably was the mayor reason as to why the last update was delayed (to the great benefit of Walter players), discussions regarding Wendy have driven pages and pages of fights between the community, many threads were locked, JoeW probably lost some sleep over it... you name it. And still to this day, people argue over Wendy's strenghts and weaknesses as if it was still in the beta, so the endless debate still lives on. The reason I'm making this threat is to point out what I believe are the mayor flaws in Wendy's skill tree as well as her base kit in the off-chance that Klei does decides to retouch the character skilltrees in a distant future, clear up some possible misunderstandings and explain my viewpoint, as well as and to give a point of reference as to why I view these things as flaws plus provide some small suggestions to illustrate a way solve them with minimal change to how the skill executes. Before we start, my mayor gripe with Wendy, and what I will mostly be focusing on here is the resource acquisition and usability of Wendy as a whole, and while there are other problems with her kit like the Wreath and the Perennial Altar, these items share more egregious flaws, and there's less confusion as to what their problem is. So, without further ado... The problem with mourning glory Spoiler Mourning Glory is the main staple resource for Wendy, and it has a particular and unique gathering process. Said process consist of interacting with a small ghost at a grave, and afterwards doing a minigame/sidequest, where you lead said ghost to a bunch of scattered toys, and the ghost proceeds to rewards you with Mourning Glory afterwards both per toy and after completing the entire minigame. This quest is not difficult, and Wendy is far from an outlier when it comes to gathering resources to make their particular crafts, sometimes these are generic resources, like monster meat or thulecite, sometimes they are resources unique to the character, like souls, embers, or the static gizmos from Winona's Founder's Keepers, so what is the issue with Wendy having to grind to adquire her particular resource as well? There's a particular quirk that makes Wendy's minigame flawed and disliked by many long time Wendy players over the other unique resources, and it is that this minigame does not interact with the sandbox mechanics of the game in any significant way. Yeah, you might do the minigame once, twice, or even twenty times, and don't think of it as a bad or a very cumbersome addition, but do it 100 times, 200 times, and 500 times, and you will come to realize how repetitive and tedious this minigame is. Unlike other character resources, or regular resources, you can only approach the gathering of this Mourning Glory by doing a minigame disconnected from regular gameplay that does not allow for innovation or player expression, and you must play the minigame pretty often to make her consumables. Something else that exacerbates the problem is that Mourning Glory only has 1 single source of acquisition. There are very few items in the game with only one source of acquisition (Walrus Tusk,Volt Goat Horn, Brightshade Husk, Dark Tatters, Icker Jar, and many boss items), with many of the new ones being likely to get another new source soon~ish. I do believe tying a basic resource to a fixed and invariable minigame in a sandbox game, and giving no alternatives was the wrong desition, one I had hopes it would've been touched upon once her skilltree came out. You could argue that other characters, such as Wortox and Willow, only have 1 source as well, mobs dying, and mobs dying while on fire, but, ANY mob dying allows a much larger degree of player expression and way to approach the resource gathering than a fixed minigame with no variation. During the beta, there were many people asking for a passive way to generate Mourning Glory, a different and more active way to generate mourning glory, and a way to trade existing resources for mourning glory, with no results, and that leads us to... How does the skill tree improve mourning glory gathering process? Simply put, it does not. Not the process itself at least. By allocating 3 skills into the pipspook line, you get more resources each time you do the minigame, and thus, you have to do it less. The process is actually slightly longer, since you have more toys to collect by unlocking the second skill in the skilltree. But that's not every mourning glory saving skill, by allocating 4 skill points into the potion line, you have a 40% chance to duplicate the potions and save mourning glory, allowing for more time before having to refill by playing the pipspook minigame again. And lastly, by allocating 2 more points into the grave line skill, you get the ability to relocate graves closer to your base, so you don't have to go very far away looking for ghost NPCs, or base near a graveyard, to get your supply of Mourning Glory, you can just relocate/make new ones at home. Not only this skill selection is not fixing the problem of a minigame disconnected from the sandbox mechanics of the game, but it actually makes it even less likely another source of Mourning Glory would ever be added, as doing so would devalue the already existing skills to farm/save mourning glory, making it more difficult to justify adding some variety to Wendy's resource farming ordeals. Keeping Abigail alive Spoiler Abigail has a particular characteristic amongst all other followers, in that she's not disposable. All other unique and non unique followers either rely on sheer numbers, or is very easily healed and/or replaced (Bernie) after it dies. To compensate for this, Abigail has the higher decree of control from the player side out of all the followers in the game, as well as boasting the highest individual strenght that no other follower can replicate singlehandedly. She also possess an ability that boost other people in the form of the vex, that increases the damage of everyone else's attacking the same target and making her great for teamwork fights (which is what you should be doing and what combat as Wendy revolves around). One of the biggest gripes of many Wendy players was on the challenge of keeping Abigail alive through the hardest fights, and many were wishing for an increase in survivability from her skilltree. Klei decided to implement this by making use of the sisturn, a structure whose purpose has always been to bring Abigail back from being death, and closer to the world of the living. By putting 4 lunar petals into the sisturn, Abigail gets the player tag, and gains 50% damage reduction from most bosses. And to add some visuals to go along with this, Abigail briefly takes on a human shape while she has the player tag enabled. This however comes with a downside, one of the best ways to keep Abigail alive, that is, the spectral cure-all potion, is nerfed by half, the same amount of damage reduction the player mostly gives to Abigail (against bosses). This is again, another strange design desition, where after getting a tier 3 skill that requires upkeep, you get a net zero in survivability when Abigail is out. It is easily circunvented by calling her back to the flower, or quick shooting her with an ice staff to desummon her and heal her, but it is a weird desition this was the way to go about improving Abigail's survivability, as using this skill is actively detrimental (except for the visual treat) in Wendy's day to day non-boss related gameplay. Is not very effective overall, but you can acquire and farm the petals easy in mass through many means, and you have ways of storing them, so in terms of resource supplying and maintaining, is a harmless skill, useful if you decide not to play with potions, and is not a very grindy and obnoxious skill to use. Overall, I have two issues with this implementation of the player tag: 1) The sisturn is a global check with a downside. If there were more than 1 Wendy in the world with the skill selected, and one wanted the damage reduction against bosses and the other doesn't, . If a skill has a downside it should at least be individualized, if it is going to be global don't give it any downsides, like Wurt's merm king global buff. 2) This one shares similarities with the Lunar affinity, in that an ability that's situational requires a global change that cannot be undone on the fly, but requires you go back to whichever sisturn you (or other Wendy) activated with lunar petals and take those away. No other skilltree works like this, most skilltrees either soften the downsides of your character, improve their strenghts, or add new abilities and expand their kit, but situational skills with downsides where you can't easily walk it back are exclusive to Wendy. Only other character with skilltree downsides is Wortox, though his are not individual skills, but inclinations based off of your actual skills with less situational upsides. The solution I have is simple, add an individual toggle mechanic on top of filling the sisturn. This small change could solve both issue 1 and issue 2 Shadow Affinity Spoiler The most quoted issue with this skill line is the need to gather a large amount of small critters to activate the Shadow Affinity. Wendy requires to craft 1-2 bugnets to catch enough bugs to last for an entire fight, and either revive them with mourning glory acquired by playing the pipspook minigame, or go gather more bugs if you want to activate the skill again. As per Klei's statement, it was designed this way as a throwback to the old mechanic where you had to murder a creature in your inventory to summon Abigail (though you could also summon her by killing something nearby, no need to use your inventory) While getting the bugs is not difficult (unless is winter), it is also not very engaging, specially if is something you are expected to do often, and it ends up becoming something of a tedious chore. It adds nothing to her gameplay as a whole, and in the end it only works as a stopgap so you don't have shadow abigail activated all of the time, by making it expensive/annoying enough that you woudln't go out of your way to use it on a day to day basis, and save it for when you're going to face a more beefier foe. It adds a new ability, but detracts fluidity from her gameplay and makes it so you will avoid using your shadow affinity skill unless you really have to, as you really don't want to be catching perishable bugs 24/7, nor keeping them alive in your inventory. What I believe a simple solution to remove a significant amount of the tedium without changing the current cost of activating the Shadow affinity would be to transfer the functionality of activating Shadow Abigail from the act of murder to an item, a sort of totem that would be charged by murdering things in your inventory (the ideal scenario would be if mobs died while affected by Abigail's vex also worked to charge it, similarly to how Willow gets ember by killing things that are on fire, but I believe by suggesting that I would most likely be crossed out as an entitled Wendy player that wants the game to play itself and ruin the whole discussion). For a visual representation of how it could work, it could have different colors and effects regarding of how much charge left, similar to a heat stone but for "murder fuel" instead of temperature, to indicate the current charge, as well as wether is active or not. Here's my badly drawn concept of said item (a shadow rose. flower themed and charlie themed) This way the mechanics of current Shadow Abigail can be kept in place, as well as giving more QoL, allowing you to save stored charge by ending it earlier, as well as charge it overtime slowly by just keeping a bugnet in your inventory as you do your chores, and not be forced to catch a large number of critters each time, allowing you to fill it as you see fit, and giving much needed flexibility to a very stiff design Lunar Affinity Spoiler Gestalt Abigail was designed with a restrictive mutation condition, it was done this way so it was a big commitment to go for Gestalt Abigail, as you couldln't easily swap back to her regular more classic AoE mob grinder. I do not understand why Klei decided that Lunar Abigail should be a sidegrade to her base kit, instead of an upgrade like Shadow, and decide a tradeoff of utility and versatility in exchange for ease of use was the right way to go in regards to one of Wendy's endgame skill, but debating the design purpose is not the focus of this post. The biggest complain is that, for a day to day non-boss related gameplay, Gabigail is inferior to regular Abigail in almost every way, and swapping between them both is very restrictive and definitely not something that can be done very often, making you choose between her all purpose AoE combat form, or the single target oriented Gestalt form. I am going to throw a suggestion in hopes that it can at least transmit the intention of what I'm going for. In game Wendy uses a Moon Dial to swap between Gestalt and regular Abigail based off of the moon phases; there is, however, a way to infuse an existing item with Lunar energy in game already, that you should be familiar with if you have unlocked the Lunar affinity, and both is criminally underused, and a bit more in theme than using the Moon Dial: My suggestion would be to change the transformation structure Abigail uses from the Moon Dial to the Moon Stone, and having to do the sidequest without Abigail and protect the flower while she's being infused with Lunar Energy to turn her into a Gestalt. But how would you turn Gestalt Abigail back to her regular form if you were to use this structure? Here you would use an item to "siphon the lunar energy" from Abigail like Wagstaff did on the moon to make Abigail go back to normal, and you can then liberate the energy to make Abigail return to her Gestalt form. For example: This method still makes use of the moon to access as originally intended, dying with the lunar energy would make it go away, and it would allow you to store the lunar energy multiple times in different copies of the same item as "backups" in case you were to make an error or mess up during a fight, and it would allow to transform Abigail into her normal form during moonstorms. I believe something like this would add some very needed versality and QoL into the most restrictive affinity skill in the game. And... since this is a Wendy skilltree thread, and people arguing over the same topics over and over again is a common trope, I would like to preemptively address some of the most common rebuttals in the vain hopes the thread does not become a warzone where everyone repeat the same dialogue that has been plaguing these forums since the beta. Spoiler Wendy is really strong and one of the most popular characters, so is fine if her skilltree is less impactful than the rest This is correct! The ideal situation is having most characters be at roughly the same spot in terms of power and versatility, while also doing so in their unique style, it makes perfect sense that characters that were less impressive before get a more impactful skilltree, to bring them up to the current "tier" of more used and more popular characters. Wendy was always one of the strongest characters, one of the easiest to use, and still remains the (non-planar) AoE queen in the game. However, what I percieve Wendy really lacks in her skilltree compared to other characters and what I'm advicating for here, is not power, but versatility and flexibility. While powerful, she has one of the most restrictive skilltrees in the game, two of the mayor perks have very significant downsides (player tag, Gestalt Abigail) without the ability to turn them off easily, or require tedious grind before being able to use them (Shadow Abigail); if giving other character's skilltrees enough power to rival more popular characters... I ask, is it not fair to ask very rigid and strict characters for more usability and QoL? Other characters also need to grind for resources, why should Wendy be different? All other characters have multiple ways to approach their resource gathering, or a way to take advantage of the game's sandbox mechanics to create and optimize your own way to adquire said resources (which creates an issue in the case of wortox and willow, where the optimal way to get their resource is to do c_announce(c_countprefabs("wasphive")) right after you spawn, and reroll the world until you get a decent number, but that's a different topic). For Mourning Glory the gathering process feels like a minigame tacked onto Don't Starve gameplay, the minigame does not interact with the sandbox or any of the game's existing mechanics, and the only thing that really improves it is running speed. As for the shadow affinity sacrifice, there really isn't a way to mass catch a stack of bugs (fastest method is again, the same as wortox and willow, plus using two bugnets), or store them for later use once you have catched them (icker preserve doesn't take living things, and you cannot bundle bugs as they leave your inventory once you unbundle them), making the optimal way to use her skill to catch the bugs, every, single, time, before you're going to make use of Shadow Abigail, unless you want to use extra inventory slots on honey to keep the stack of bees alive for whenever you need them. What I would want for Wendy's resources and gathering are the same things people do for grass, rocks, flint, souls, embers, silk, and many other resources: the ability to approach the process in a different way each time, and the ability to use my own creativity and the game's sandbox mechanics to simplify and streamline its acquisition, not be forced to play a fixed minigame that is still the same 5 years later. She's less tedious and grindy than before, her skilltree made her much fluid and fun to play Her skilltree didn't really solve the issue of Mourning Glory being disconnected from the game's sandbox mechanics, just increased the amount you acquire per minigame, as well as introduce other skills that require a similar resource grind to use, which are not as bad and disconnected as her Mourning Glory minigame, but still tedious nonetheless. Overall, the amount of tedious tasks has increased, so I find it hard to see how she's "less grindy", unless you were to go for Gestalt Abigail and never turn it off. Wendy players just want Abigail to be immortal and have her kill nightmare creatures for her You could argue it would make sense to give Gestalt Abigail the ability to fight against shadows, as we know gestalts can target shadows, since they do so on the lunar grotto, but that's besides the point of this post. All I'm really trying to portray is that certain parts of her character, mostly on her skill tree side, make use of a very contrived method to access, substracting how fun and smooth it feels to play her, and add tedium and repetitiveness that do nothing to improve her day to day gameplay. Truth is, I like having a minion I can control, and tackle a combat situation by simultanously controlling two characters, or a character that plays as two. This has always been one of my favourite fantasies and and gameplay styles in videogames, I would hate if this was taken away from me by making Abigail immortal. Wendy already has had more changes and more effort from the developers than any other skilltree, she doesn't need anymore Wendy changes felt more sporadic and a "spur of the moment" desition. A large amount of developer time was dedicated to change the grave relocation, the resurrection from her meat effigy, adding an Abigail animation to sisturn III, mostly aesthetical changes, and the overall balance and design of the skilltree feels more "make it as you go" than a cohesive tree, creating a more patchwork-like design, making it feel disjointed and less cohesive with itself than it could've been. I'm not trying to devalue the strenghts of her skilltree, Wendy has in raw numbers one of the most powerful trees in the game (Shadow Abigail can still solo inkblight trio without much difficulty), and even before the skilltree she's one of the strongest and most popular characters in the game, and while certain parts of the skilltree could do with some re-do (having to spend 10 skills to optimize management for 1 resource is a bit wild), what I'm advicating for is to iron out some of the good parts so making use of her perks feels more fluid and more fun, and hopefully increase the amount of ways in which she can approach her chores and increase player input and expression. And at the end of the end of the day, what I believe the main reason for most of the complains you see in the forums coming from Wendy players is an emotional one. I'm not speaking for anybody here, this is my educated guess, and is something I'm also guilty of. Many of the best skilltrees expand your kit in fun and creatives ways, and when you see characters that gleefully spam their new abilities, like Willow's lunar flames, Woby's teleports/dash, Winona's planar catapults, Wurt shadow merms, etc... and in the case of Wendy, the Shadow affinity is expensive enough that you would not use it on your day to day gameplay, the lunar affinity is enough of a sidegrade that it might be worse for day to day play, the player tag works in a weird way that is just benefitial sometimes, and detrimental others, the wreath is neat, but overshadowed by a large amount of headgear and cannot be hotswapped, then the rest... but you also want to use your new abilities often without having to go through long and repetitive tasks for each of them separately every single time you want to make use of it, or balance it with the downside it comes with. -------------------- Thanks for reading, apologies if I came as uneducated, entitled, or someone who wants the game to play itself, but my honest goal is to try to explain why I, and I percieve some others in a similar position would agree to a certain extent, are disastified with the skilltree, and hopefully contribute to make the forum a better and more civilized place by clearing a possible misunderstanding, or portraying at least some of the frustations in a clear and concise way for everyone to understand. I am most definitely not covering every issue, not by a long shot, and I'm not angrily shaking my fist demanding a complete re-do of the work Klei has already done, but I believe making this is at least a first step in the right direction. Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/164712-the-main-problem-with-wendy-and-her-skill-tree/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
DVGMedia Posted March 7, 2025 Share Posted March 7, 2025 Really good points! I've always said that the skill tree is good and can the same exact things that exist currently but the approach that klei took wasn't really the best. This skill tree can be so much better with the same skills if they changed how activating her skills worked. I like the totem idea for shadow because it ties into the gameplay I do for Wendy. And I don't think anyone would complain. Since Abby passively farms mobs anyway in default base gameplay. Being able to toggle her affinities would make them do much better. Also just one thing about like the picnic casket and wreath both having locking animations while they are open. They should not have this locking crafting animation while open and act more like a chest Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/164712-the-main-problem-with-wendy-and-her-skill-tree/#findComment-1805062 Share on other sites More sharing options...
CremeLover Posted March 7, 2025 Author Share Posted March 7, 2025 17 minutes ago, DVGMedia said: Also just one thing about like the picnic casket and wreath both having locking animations while they are open. They should not have this locking crafting animation while open and act more like a chest I don't think you can open the Wreath, but the crafting animation is the same for all containers of this type, Wortox's Soul Jar, Walter's Ammo Pouch and Polar Bearger Bin are some examples that come to mind, I don't think they want you to be able to move while using portable inventory containers, might be a technical issue as to how the game handles inventories inside inventories, but cannot say for sure. Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/164712-the-main-problem-with-wendy-and-her-skill-tree/#findComment-1805066 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xu XiuHong Posted March 7, 2025 Share Posted March 7, 2025 Will klei read these threads about wendy? Or we gaslight ourselves? the idea is really good. Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/164712-the-main-problem-with-wendy-and-her-skill-tree/#findComment-1805068 Share on other sites More sharing options...
CremeLover Posted March 7, 2025 Author Share Posted March 7, 2025 1 minute ago, Xu XiuHong said: Will klei read these threads about wendy? Or we gaslight ourselves? Klei definitely reads these threads, if only to make sure we're following the forum guidelines. They do respond very very ocassionally, and most of their responses are related to technical topics, but I can confirm that Klei will at least read what is posted, at least partially. Regardless, they should be moving onto the next content update soon, so even if they read them and agree, don't expect large changes by the next week or before the end of the month. Maybe by the end of the year when the current content arc has finished they take some time to revisit old content and we see some more significant changes. Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/164712-the-main-problem-with-wendy-and-her-skill-tree/#findComment-1805070 Share on other sites More sharing options...
avilmask Posted March 7, 2025 Share Posted March 7, 2025 I'm 350 days in solo world with new Wendy and I thought about stuff that you've underlined. Like pipspook and gravestone lines. I've tried gravestone line and respected out of it as soon as I've build the gate. it has little purpose after you grown out of meat farms. And pipspook doesn't appear to be very useful until the finisher. In fact they're so whatever I thought they could be all the same perk. All pip stuff in one perk (better early game), grave stuff in one perk linked second after pips (prep for middle to late stage, you make graveyards close to megabase). And finisher could be a new building, like mourning altar or something, where friendly bigspooks could leave mourning glory when their decorations fall off. That way you still need to grind and tend to graves, farming flowers for decorations (can you use lunar petals? I never checked), while have a small benefit of having one evil flower once in a while, and have passive gain of mourning glory in a special container built at the base called mourning altar (working like a chest for mourning glory). If glory going straight to the altar is too much that's ok, scrap the new building. Just make a "final" stage when decorations fall off, letting to manually harvest mourning glory off of gravestones. Might as well also give free decorations on the grave when you finish a pipspook quest. About survivability I'm not really sure. Biggest problem is how clanky access to Abigail controls is. I remember an ancient mod that I liked that would let you tell Abi to stay close or far away by just clicking a button as a part of gui under health stats. If you wouldn't need to whistle into Abi's flower for everything and show mad skills on how you can do three clicks as fast as possible to give your next command it would be a huge improvement. But I'm so used to Abi being a hazard alike too an elephant in a glassware store that I'm not sure that human kind is ready for that kind of power. Oh, I'm in so much agreement about ability to buffer dark power and turning it on demand. I don't even think that you should require an item for that. We already have a perk. Let flower itself gather dark energy when you murder, and give a new option to release dark power. If you want to you could as well keep fueling it while power is still active. Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/164712-the-main-problem-with-wendy-and-her-skill-tree/#findComment-1805080 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pig Princess Posted March 7, 2025 Share Posted March 7, 2025 It was interesting to read your analysis and while I don't agree with some of the proposed solutions to particular problems, your argumentation is reasonable and convincing, it made me like your ideas. And you pinpointed problems in very clear and laconic way, thing I myself am struggling with (always go into too much detail, often out of desire to add defence preemptively). Nevertheless, I think it's worth mentioning those few cases where I would do some skills in a bit different way and why, as well as elaborating on few other points. Pipspooks and crafts from mouring glory. Spoiler I'm glad somebody said it (in the original post, at least) that no matter how much mouring glories pipspooks give they remain boring and disconnected. Moreover, if I don't use mouring glory crafts, all pipspook skills actually do is to make me interact with little spirits less, and I end up ignoring them when I see them. Not very in-character, if you ask me, and not something I expected as a progression of character that is on good terms with spirits. If I use mouring glory crafts, they create mouring glory demand that far exceeds what was before skill tree, so ironically I end up experiencing this quests's grindy nature even more (it was actually during beta when I learned for the first time how grindy it can be, and I used elixirs for bosses just fine before skill tree). So instead of fixing actual problem, Klei decided to just add numerical value, and then didn't know what to do with surplus of mouring glory and struggled to decide that problem instead. And then they added mouring glory crown, and struggled to balance it instead, and we have redundant perennial altar and butterfly resurrection that is only there because of shadow affinity... It just screams "balance headache spiral". All they needed to do is to integrate pipspooks into the world and maybe add other ways to generate mouring glory through player involvment with the game, as a skills or baseline. We have spirits and character who can help them to rest in piece. As far as I can tell in many cultures it's common theme that spirits can be summoned depending on their nature, often tied to their death, and they can be pacified and helped by fullfilling some unfinished business, which often also was related to their death. Why can't we have pipspooks that died in fire, who can be summoned by burning thing on the grave, and helped by organizing freeze show or performing some water interactions like jumping off boat (or watching how Wurt does it) or using bootleg getaway? Why can't we have spirits that died from freezing who would love to watch forest fires (Willow would adore them and they would adore her lunar flame show-off) and different periodic fire setups? Why can't we have "traveller" pipspooks that would be interested to see beefalos, deers or koalephants and interactions with them that player can perform, like giving extra reward if player shaves/brushes/saddles beefalos, shows them baby beefalos, or makes deers drop their horns, or sees koalephants of different colors together? Why can't there be spirits that died in battle and seek revenge by... watching mobs fight each other and the more - the better, or watch player kill any giant (double points for zombie bosses)? And why can't we have more than 1 pipspook following Wendy? Why can't we find/summon spirits that give better reward in far away places like labyrinth or islands or during partucular world events like full/new moon? I wish all that effort dedicated to aesthetic improvements was put there instead. Crafts for mouring glory are so artificial thematically and mechanically. Yet I'm sort of forced to pick them because aside from team spirit there is nothing more that is mechanically interesting (maybe graves, but very situational), and I don't want to pick elixir branch past the casket and sisturn branch at all (useless to me). If I don't pick this branch, I don't need pipspook one and end up with extra points - it's either putting all 5 or 0 between both branches. And I still dislike how it feels like I'm robbing Abigail of her snacks as Wendy with Mouring Glory II and turn Wendy the Bereaved into Wendy the Drunkard where she uses elixirs herself more than Abigail uses them. It's just... why does it exist like that? Another moggles that blow every other light source out of the water while not bringing something mechanically interesting themselves (including other potions effects) with built-in anti-QoL of loosing effect upon swapping helmet... Why? It feels like Klei just decided to add anything to just plug the hole after floral shroud and justified their reluctancy to refine design by "Wendy is already a strong character". It feels cheap and dismissive. Spoiler Here is my unreasonable Wendy player sample suggestion #12345 Imagine if Mouring Glory II had the same recipe and ability to drink elixirs, but they would all have entirely different effects and enhanced interaction with Abigail. Vigor mortis - instant casting of team spirit commands Revenant restorative/Spectral cure-all - while Wendy and Abigail cross their paths during the fight at high speed ("attack at" from Abigail at the very least), area of spiritual energy is created and next time enemy passes through it Abigail leeches health from it (spectral creates multiple areas). Nightshade nostrum - same as healing elixirs, but burst damage or short period of night damage for Abigail (like 10 seconds?) Shields - Wendy can activate shields with cooldown similar to team spirit commands so long as Abigail is in the area It's just an example, but game doesn't need duplicate moggles, poor man football helmet (and worse one), almost-Wolfgang copy-paste and drinkable healing salve/telltale heart. It's so redundant. Floral shroud could be kept, but they could make it so health is only transferred from Wendy to Abigail when it's positive. Would be interesting synergy with shadow maul, maybe even with bat bat, and I would have excuse to cook more healing and sanity food and those that give more stats per item. Not ideal, I know, but better than meat effigy reskin and butterfly resurrection. Also I could technically feed Abigail banana pop along with Wendy and winter's feast food which is cute. Shadow Sisterhood III. Spoiler In the early beta I wrote that I like activation condition. Well, after playing for a while I realised that there really is no decision making of what mobs to kill and when, all because it's always stack of butterflies or bees which are mechanically the same, and always for a boss (it's not worth it for shorter fights). It's not worth it as substitute for nightshade nostrum either because so long as fight is longer than 8 seconds it's cheaper to spend elixir than resurrect 2+ bugs with mouring glory. If fight is shorter than 8 seconds, it's better to just help Abigail instead of wasting time on murder animation and bothering with catching critters in the first place. There would be a decidion making aspect if rabbits, spiders, birds, fish, moles were worth more seconds. It would go well with OP suggestion of shadow totem as well. But my main disagreement lies in the statement that fixing activation condition would fix the problem. It would be good on it's own, but without damage scaling shadow Abigail would remain mechanically dull, it would be basically "always slap a buff" button, and past that nothing to play around, unlike night-day damage (player already has nightshade nostrum aside from planning and summoning moonstorms, so player has means to play around this damage dynamic). Yes, some people wrote that they like uniform damage, but I disagree with something mediocre with no strategy involved being better than something more powerful best case scenario that demands engaging with mechanic. Shadow sisterhood II. Spoiler My complain before nefr was that elixir was clearly designed for post-rift, but was only effective pre-rift and inconsequential post-rift. It was not worth to use it for rift enemies even with abundant pure horror post rift, since 10 damage per hit was that inconsequential at a point where player has shadow reaper/maul. I said that Wendy didn't really need huge pre-rift buff for non-planar mobs, and that skill tree was supposed to update character to post-rift gameplay, and meant that dynamic should be swapped where elixir designed for post-rift becomes relevant there instead of creating even more of a damage fall from pre-rift to post-rift enemies. What did Klei do? Just nerfed pre-rift usage, so now this elixir is irrelevant at all stages of the game and I would rather not even bother with that to not waste mouring glory of all things and not do boring minigame (even if buffed). I feel stupid for technically supporting it. What a waste of feedback. I wanted SS II to perform more adequately it's function, i.e. update character to post-rift and ideally to give Wendy something more to play around, not break it even more. Tuning planar damage to 15-20 per hit or double planar damage of the weapon would absolutely fix it, and if elixir needed to require dark tatters, dreadstone or multiple icker bottles instead of pure horror - so be it, but I understand it's never happening because apparently Wendy would break the game then (she won't for the same reason transition from Wilson to Wolfgang is more impactful than from Wilson under spiced volt goat jelly to Wolfgang under spiced volt goat jelly). Lunar Sisterhood III. Spoiler I generally disagree with aloof design and low maintainance-low reward design, but it's not what I want to focus on in this post. I get it, interesting Gestalt Abigail is thing for the modders to do one day, but moon dial thing totally could be improved. I actually thematically like the idea of moon dial more than idea of capturing moon power with wagstaff devices/moonstone because it feels more fitting for Abigail to magically update herself to lunar clocks. It's silly yet in-universe logic much like Wanda undoes her aging by tinkering ageless watch. It feels like Abigail is in tune with moon, which really fits being lunar-aligned. I think it would be fitting if player could lock moon dial in particular state regardless of lunar phase though by letting regular or gestalt Abigail mutate it just like it mutates her and tune clocks instead (including caves; command could require mouring glory and night to be executed). It would be as if Abigail was shard of moon magic power and could share it back with moon dial, and bring moon power (even if only in the form of moon dial) to the place moon was never able to influence before (caves) because Wendy is moon ally now. It's not like anyone uses moon dial to check moon phases, and full moon moon dial looks so cool, I would go out of my way to be able to look at it even though I'm not a megabaser. I just find it weird that people (me included) asked for a fix to permanent moonstorms utility situation (widespread strategy) and caves overall, but instead got flexibility in the wrong place. I mean... more flexibility is welcomed, but it didn't solve the problem at all. Ghastly experience. Spoiler Has no reason to exist. I would rather have this elixir be something like damage reduction if it absolutely needs to exist and ghastly experience functionality being either removed at all, or tied to sisturn. If forget me lots in sisturn were the flowers that gave this buff and were consumed upon "death" of Abigail, and she was unsummoned instead or survived at 1 hp, that would be fine with me (so basically life giving amulet from DS for Abigail). And I absolutely agree on sisturns being global buff with downside being... Not very well-thought. Grave interactions. Spoiler So why exactly can Wendy decorate grave with flowers but can't restore grave to undug state by burying life giving amulet or trinket? Are bigspooks fine with grave being open and do they only care about fresh flowers? This grave could remeber buried item and only give back this item if player decides to dug it again if balance is somehow a concern. Why exactly is Wendy willing to give proper burial to skeletons and doesn't care about giving headstone to the graves without one? It feels so off when player relocates graves and has to take some but not the others, and they are left to meteor showers and Ancient Guardian to open them. It's such a simple small things, pretty much easthetics only. I don't understand why Klei decided to leave grave interactions like that. Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/164712-the-main-problem-with-wendy-and-her-skill-tree/#findComment-1805104 Share on other sites More sharing options...
CremeLover Posted March 8, 2025 Author Share Posted March 8, 2025 34 minutes ago, Pig Princess said: It was interesting to read your analysis and while I don't agree with some of the proposed solutions to particular problems, your argumentation is reasonable and convincing, it made me like your ideas. And you pinpointed problems in very clear and laconic way, thing I myself am struggling with (always go into too much detail, often out of desire to add defence preemptively). Nevertheless, I think it's worth mentioning those few cases where I would do some skills in a bit different way and why, as well as elaborating on few other points. Thanks a lot! I tend to summarize what I'm thinking of in the most concise way possible, which often makes it so I end up not saying enough, and I have to reread the text and think if what I wrote actually got across what I was trying to say, or I simplified too much and left half the explanation behind at some point during the write up. The ideas I wrote in the OP were not ideas to fix the existent problems across the skilltree, but more like "how can we fix the biggest issue within the skilltree (which IMHO is accessibility) with the least amount of changes possible to the final product", which is why I gave no suggestions regarding the Wreath and the altar, since their issue is not accessibility, and I think everyone can already see what the issues with those items are. I just though the better approach was to address one issue at a time, instead of having another thread with 30 different suggestions and ideas regarding her skilltree. 2 hours ago, Pig Princess said: Shadow Sisterhood III. Reveal hidden contents In the early beta I wrote that I like activation condition. Well, after playing for a while I realised that there really is no decision making of what mobs to kill and when, all because it's always stack of butterflies or bees which are mechanically the same, and always for a boss (it's not worth it for shorter fights). It's not worth it as substitute for nightshade nostrum either because so long as fight is longer than 8 seconds it's cheaper to spend elixir than resurrect 2+ bugs with mouring glory. If fight is shorter than 8 seconds, it's better to just help Abigail instead of wasting time on murder animation and bothering with catching critters in the first place. There would be a decidion making aspect if rabbits, spiders, birds, fish, moles were worth more seconds. It would go well with OP suggestion of shadow totem as well. But my main disagreement lies in the statement that fixing activation condition would fix the problem. It would be good on it's own, but without damage scaling shadow Abigail would remain mechanically dull, it would be basically "always slap a buff" button, and past that nothing to play around, unlike night-day damage (player already has nightshade nostrum aside from planning and summoning moonstorms, so player has means to play around this damage dynamic). Yes, some people wrote that they like uniform damage, but I disagree with something mediocre with no strategy involved being better than something more powerful best case scenario that demands engaging with mechanic. Shadow sisterhood II. Reveal hidden contents My complain before nefr was that elixir was clearly designed for post-rift, but was only effective pre-rift and inconsequential post-rift. It was not worth to use it for rift enemies even with abundant pure horror post rift, since 10 damage per hit was that inconsequential at a point where player has shadow reaper/maul. I said that Wendy didn't really need huge pre-rift buff for non-planar mobs, and that skill tree was supposed to update character to post-rift gameplay, and meant that dynamic should be swapped where elixir designed for post-rift becomes relevant there instead of creating even more of a damage fall from pre-rift to post-rift enemies. What did Klei do? Just nerfed pre-rift usage, so now this elixir is irrelevant at all stages of the game and I would rather not even bother with that to not waste mouring glory of all things and not do boring minigame (even if buffed). I feel stupid for technically supporting it. What a waste of feedback. I wanted SS II to perform more adequately it's function, i.e. update character to post-rift and ideally to give Wendy something more to play around, not break it even more. Tuning planar damage to 15-20 per hit or double planar damage of the weapon would absolutely fix it, and if elixir needed to require dark tatters, dreadstone or multiple icker bottles instead of pure horror - so be it, but I understand it's never happening because apparently Wendy would break the game then (she won't for the same reason transition from Wilson to Wolfgang is more impactful than from Wilson under spiced volt goat jelly to Wolfgang under spiced volt goat jelly). I also do prefer the old Shadow Sisterhood III where damage scaled alongside your normal damage, but what I most wanted to see is her accessibility problems solved more than anything else, which is by far my biggest gripe with it. While I do hope they revert the fixed damage for the scaling one, there's already an entire thread that's active at the moment dedicated towards it, no point in spamming more about it in a different thread. Regarding the elixir, I was also in favor of the change of adding some extra planar damage to it, but I was under the impression that they would shave the physical damage and add some planar damage to compensate. I was not expecting to see all physical damage removed. But then again, the final result is actually more interesting that it may appear. For comparison, the other sources of "deal extra planar damage per hit" the game allows to the player to use such as Wolfgang's personal +25 planar damage, or Walter's Pure Brilliance rounds, activate under the condition that the hit in question also has planar damage, making it so it doesn't work with regular weapons. Shadow Elixir has no such condition. Be it your fists, other mobs, weather pain's proyectile, or thulecite club's tentacles, it adds +10 planar damage per hit no matter what. It might seem underwhelming for now since we don't really have any good multihit singletarget weapon, but we're one patch away from Klei adding such weapon, and then later having to issue a fix because of how broken it actually ends up being with this elixir. 3 hours ago, Pig Princess said: Lunar Sisterhood III. Reveal hidden contents I generally disagree with aloof design and low maintainance-low reward design, but it's not what I want to focus on in this post. I get it, interesting Gestalt Abigail is thing for the modders to do one day, but moon dial thing totally could be improved. I actually thematically like the idea of moon dial more than idea of capturing moon power with wagstaff devices/moonstone because it feels more fitting for Abigail to magically update herself to lunar clocks. It's silly yet in-universe logic much like Wanda undoes her aging by tinkering ageless watch. It feels like Abigail is in tune with moon, which really fits being lunar-aligned. I think it would be fitting if player could lock moon dial in particular state regardless of lunar phase though by letting regular or gestalt Abigail mutate it just like it mutates her and tune clocks instead (including caves; command could require mouring glory and night to be executed). It would be as if Abigail was shard of moon magic power and could share it back with moon dial, and bring moon power (even if only in the form of moon dial) to the place moon was never able to influence before (caves) because Wendy is moon ally now. It's not like anyone uses moon dial to check moon phases, and full moon moon dial looks so cool, I would go out of my way to be able to look at it even though I'm not a megabaser. I just find it weird that people (me included) asked for a fix to permanent moonstorms utility situation (widespread strategy) and caves overall, but instead got flexibility in the wrong place. I mean... more flexibility is welcomed, but it didn't solve the problem at all. I'm also not the biggest fan of the uninteractive "plays by itself" gameplay that Lunar Abi brings, but I like that Klei restituted the attack at command for Lunar Abigail, I think is a step in the right direction adding more interactivity and options to your gameplay, instead of taking away from it. For the actual design of Lunar Abigail, I would've liked if she had gained some utility, maybe in the form of support or something else, instead of "Normal Abi but for bosses", however, my goal here was not to make a long list of changes of what I think her skilltree should be, or how to change all the problems I perceive with it as if we were still in beta, and changing Gestalt Abigail would require a more significant overhaul than the small suggestions I wanted to give in this thread. If we are talking about lore and thematics, I'm actually of the opinion that Wendy shouldn't have gotten a Lunar affinity, because her powers, just like Maxwell's, are entirely tied to shadow magic. Abigail's soul was bound to a flower by shadow magic, which is likely why Wendy's examination quote for the Enlightened Crown references that is harder to see Abigail while wearing it, as she distances herself from Shadow magic, and gets closer to the opposite, that is Lunar magic, but I'm guessing getting wanted to keep a shadow only skill tree exclusive to Maxwell. And I gotta say, I myself I'm more inclined to the idea of siphoning the lunar energy through an item from Abigail because of the portability it brings. I like being able to swap to a more nomadic playstyle from time to time, and swap combat stances as the situation demands, so I would personally like to avoid having signficant gameplay altering mechanics that affect the day to day gameplay of your character tied up to interacting with unmovable structures. 51 minutes ago, Pig Princess said: Pipspooks and crafts from mouring glory. Reveal hidden contents I'm glad somebody said it (in the original post, at least) that no matter how much mouring glories pipspooks give they remain boring and disconnected. Moreover, if I don't use mouring glory crafts, all pipspook skills actually do is to make me interact with little spirits less, and I end up ignoring them when I see them. Not very in-character, if you ask me, and not something I expected as a progression of character that is on good terms with spirits. If I use mouring glory crafts, they create mouring glory demand that far exceeds what was before skill tree, so ironically I end up experiencing this quests's grindy nature even more (it was actually during beta when I learned for the first time how grindy it can be, and I used elixirs for bosses just fine before skill tree). So instead of fixing actual problem, Klei decided to just add numerical value, and then didn't know what to do with surplus of mouring glory and struggled to decide that problem instead. And then they added mouring glory crown, and struggled to balance it instead, and we have redundant perennial altar and butterfly resurrection that is only there because of shadow affinity... It just screams "balance headache spiral". All they needed to do is to integrate pipspooks into the world and maybe add other ways to generate mouring glory through player involvment with the game, as a skills or baseline. We have spirits and character who can help them to rest in piece. As far as I can tell in many cultures it's common theme that spirits can be summoned depending on their nature, often tied to their death, and they can be pacified and helped by fullfilling some unfinished business, which often also was related to their death. Why can't we have pipspooks that died in fire, who can be summoned by burning thing on the grave, and helped by organizing freeze show or performing some water interactions like jumping off boat (or watching how Wurt does it) or using bootleg getaway? Why can't we have spirits that died from freezing who would love to watch forest fires (Willow would adore them and they would adore her lunar flame show-off) and different periodic fire setups? Why can't we have "traveller" pipspooks that would be interested to see beefalos, deers or koalephants and interactions with them that player can perform, like giving extra reward if player shaves/brushes/saddles beefalos, shows them baby beefalos, or makes deers drop their horns, or sees koalephants of different colors together? Why can't there be spirits that died in battle and seek revenge by... watching mobs fight each other and the more - the better, or watch player kill any giant (double points for zombie bosses)? And why can't we have more than 1 pipspook following Wendy? Why can't we find/summon spirits that give better reward in far away places like labyrinth or islands or during partucular world events like full/new moon? I wish all that effort dedicated to aesthetic improvements was put there instead. Crafts for mouring glory are so artificial thematically and mechanically. Yet I'm sort of forced to pick them because aside from team spirit there is nothing more that is mechanically interesting (maybe graves, but very situational), and I don't want to pick elixir branch past the casket and sisturn branch at all (useless to me). If I don't pick this branch, I don't need pipspook one and end up with extra points - it's either putting all 5 or 0 between both branches. And I still dislike how it feels like I'm robbing Abigail of her snacks as Wendy with Mouring Glory II and turn Wendy the Bereaved into Wendy the Drunkard where she uses elixirs herself more than Abigail uses them. It's just... why does it exist like that? Another moggles that blow every other light source out of the water while not bringing something mechanically interesting themselves (including other potions effects) with built-in anti-QoL of loosing effect upon swapping helmet... Why? It feels like Klei just decided to add anything to just plug the hole after floral shroud and justified their reluctancy to refine design by "Wendy is already a strong character". It feels cheap and dismissive. Reveal hidden contents Here is my unreasonable Wendy player sample suggestion #12345 Imagine if Mouring Glory II had the same recipe and ability to drink elixirs, but they would all have entirely different effects and enhanced interaction with Abigail. Vigor mortis - instant casting of team spirit commands Revenant restorative/Spectral cure-all - while Wendy and Abigail cross their paths during the fight at high speed ("attack at" from Abigail at the very least), area of spiritual energy is created and next time enemy passes through it Abigail leeches health from it (spectral creates multiple areas). Nightshade nostrum - same as healing elixirs, but burst damage or short period of night damage for Abigail (like 10 seconds?) Shields - Wendy can activate shields with cooldown similar to team spirit commands so long as Abigail is in the area It's just an example, but game doesn't need duplicate moggles, poor man football helmet (and worse one), almost-Wolfgang copy-paste and drinkable healing salve/telltale heart. It's so redundant. Floral shroud could be kept, but they could make it so health is only transferred from Wendy to Abigail when it's positive. Would be interesting synergy with shadow maul, maybe even with bat bat, and I would have excuse to cook more healing and sanity food and those that give more stats per item. Not ideal, I know, but better than meat effigy reskin and butterfly resurrection. Also I could technically feed Abigail banana pop along with Wendy and winter's feast food which is cute. Spoiler Regarding Mourning Glory, I also gave no suggestions of how to fix it, since to fix it in an elegant way it would require a much more significant change that a few fixes can accomplish. While the pipspook interactions you describe might sound fun, I feel like it would just be more minigames tacked onto the mourning glory acquisition, and I have 2 problems with this approach: 1) It does not solve the problem that it will eventually become repetitive, as these would be just more tasks with little variation in their execution added to Wendy's gameplay loop, and they would become stale eventually. 2) If the content added is substancial enough, all is doing is gating new content behind a character. Wendy is the only one that can do the pipspook sidequest, and therefore, content made for pipspooks is content that no other character gets to experience. All other survivors have their crafts using the game's resources and the game's systems, and by using their perks and resources it allows them to play the same game in different ways, which is what makes them interesting and adds more variety to the gameplay on replay sessions. Flooding the Wendy gameplay with even more exclusive minigames is not going to fix her issues in the long term, and all is going to achieve is locking content behind Wendy and Wendy alone, which is something I'm completely against. I want a method that allows the player to innovate upon the process, not tacking more minigames to it. So in the end, I believe is a lose-lose if you decide to add more actual content to the pipspook interaction. As for how you would add new mourning glory sources, it is a bit tricky, ghosts in particular are creatures of The Constant that haven't received much focus ever since they were released, from neither lore nor content perspective. Ghost NPCs emerge from the graves sometimes when you dig them up, and during a full moon, and that's kind of all there was regarding ghost up until the Wendy rework, where they added Pipspooks. And now we find ourselves in the same situation 5 years later, where content that is thematically relevant to ghost was not even touched upon ever since the Wendy rework, so there's not much ground to build upon. Wendy's ghost affinity I feel is a similar situation to the one Wormwood's plant affinity was in when he was first added, and arguably still is. In this game there just isn't that many plant-related mobs to go around, unlike the jungle from hamlet that it was infested with them, so one of his more thematic upsides drasticaly decreased in relevancy, and is still not as strong as it was in hamlet due to lack of thematic content to interact with. So yes, if in the future Klei decided to expand the ghost content in the game, add new sources of mourning glory and other ghost related resources and crafts, Wendy could shine in there. It would've been ideal if said content was released earlier than her skilltree, and there was something you could build upon with her, similar to how the scrap and tech came right before the Winona skilltree update, and Klei integrated that content into her skilltree. I'm a bit frustated, but now that the beta is over and we're moving onto the next piece of content, I don't think Klei can spare the resources required to make a more interesting way for acquiring mourning glory, less they want to crunch even more for the rest of the year considering they have already delayed the schedule quite a bit. Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/164712-the-main-problem-with-wendy-and-her-skill-tree/#findComment-1805150 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popian Posted March 8, 2025 Share Posted March 8, 2025 9 hours ago, CremeLover said: doing a minigame disconnected from regular gameplay that does not allow for innovation or player expression Have you tried basing around graves to find the toys "passively"? Abandoning Pipspooks that want to go too out of the way? Looking for land that controls where the toys will appear? There's also putting graves on boats, which can skip to the reward if they're far enough away from land. 9 hours ago, CremeLover said: The process is actually slightly longer, since you have more toys to collect by unlocking the second skill in the skilltree. This is making it sound like you are only breaking even, when you will net more from the 4th toy on from the doubled gains. In my experience of doing the quest on land, what takes more time is finding the next Pipspook and starting the first toy. Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/164712-the-main-problem-with-wendy-and-her-skill-tree/#findComment-1805162 Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverSpoon Posted March 8, 2025 Share Posted March 8, 2025 12 hours ago, CremeLover said: The problem with mourning glory Yeeeah... this really really really needs refix. The Pipspook skill is effectively a bunch of "Increases Mourning glory yield by ~%" Wolfgangy skills. As I said in another thread, One of the big problems with the current Wendy's skill tree is that Wendy's Mourning Glory-related skills act as a painkiller for the player against the Pipspook Quest Grind, so "Not taking Mourning Glory-related skills = How much the player can endure the pain of Grind = taking the skills is a prerequisite, and if you don't take them, it's not fun, painful." This is not a healthy skill tree, and skill trees should give variety to play styles and be fun to choose insight. I think it would have been better if Mourning Glory-related skills were not just for buff the Pipspook quest, but also for "increasing the ways to obtain Mourning Glory" and "allowing you to automatically farm Mourning Glory." And also, Walter's "99.9% completed" skill tree has made Walter's "Problem" of "Round production" much easier. On the contrary, Walter's base ability have been buff so that he can produce 10 -> 20 bullets with one material without any skills. Back in the day, Walter had to spend 4+2 skill points to get Grind relief he has now, then Walter had similar problem that Mourning Glories has for Wendy.(Still, Walter is better off than Wendy, since the skill he needs to spend to get ammo skills is increase ammo variety. Imagine how bad it would be to have Walter's skill tree with loads of things like "increase ammo production by 10%") . Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/164712-the-main-problem-with-wendy-and-her-skill-tree/#findComment-1805168 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tranoze Posted March 8, 2025 Share Posted March 8, 2025 12 hours ago, CremeLover said: The reason I'm making this threat is to point out what I believe are the mayor flaws So which one of those you posted is the main problem? I know she has problems but without pointing out which one is main, i cant know. I read the title visit this thread expect to know the main problem... Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/164712-the-main-problem-with-wendy-and-her-skill-tree/#findComment-1805170 Share on other sites More sharing options...
CremeLover Posted March 8, 2025 Author Share Posted March 8, 2025 14 hours ago, Popian said: Have you tried basing around graves to find the toys "passively"? Abandoning Pipspooks that want to go too out of the way? Looking for land that controls where the toys will appear? There's also putting graves on boats, which can skip to the reward if they're far enough away from land. I have replanted a few graves to my base, and the surroundings is mostly safe and flat. I did not however, tried to plant a few graves in the ocean, then do a trip to quick farm a ton of mourning glory really quick. Not sure is what I want out of Wendy's gameplay, but that would definitely help making the minigame more skippable, though still not the gameplay that directly interacts with core game features I would like to have, nonetheless, thanks for the tip! 14 hours ago, Popian said: This is making it sound like you are only breaking even, when you will net more from the 4th toy on from the doubled gains. In my experience of doing the quest on land, what takes more time is finding the next Pipspook and starting the first toy. Oh, that was not my intention at all, I was trying to say that the minigame takes a bit longer, and in exchange you get more rewards so you have to do it less, trying to emphasize that the minigame is just as repetitive and slightly longer, despite the increase in rewards. I can give you the numbers of how the skilltree alters the minigame and the rewards for it to clarify what the skilltree does: Before skilltree: -When you activate the pipspook minigame, you get a chance between 3, 4 or 5 toys spawning. -Each toy gives 1 mourning glory, with the final one giving 4, so you have a final chance of getting 7-9 mourning glory After skilltree (all 3 points): -When you activate the pipspook minigame, you get a chance between 3, 4 or 5 toys spawning and then you add 3 extra toys guaranteed on top. -You get double mourning glory for each toy, so 2 each and 8 at the end, so you're getting at minimun 18 mourning glory (6 toys) medium 20 mourning glory (7 toys) and maximun 22 (8 toys) if I understood the function correctly. Plenty enough to make a few potions or resurrect a stack of butterflies with one minigame. As long as you can get the graves relocated to your base with enough distance, you should be able to amass a large amount of pipspooks by not interacting with them and just by playing the game until they are filled with ghosts and are ready for harvest, but their random spawn early game can be a bit of a headache if you want to get your potion juice going very early into your run. 13 hours ago, SilverSpoon said: Yeeeah... this really really really needs refix. The Pipspook skill is effectively a bunch of "Increases Mourning glory yield by ~%" Wolfgangy skills. As I said in another thread, One of the big problems with the current Wendy's skill tree is that Wendy's Mourning Glory-related skills act as a painkiller for the player against the Pipspook Quest Grind, so "Not taking Mourning Glory-related skills = How much the player can endure the pain of Grind = taking the skills is a prerequisite, and if you don't take them, it's not fun, painful." This is not a healthy skill tree, and skill trees should give variety to play styles and be fun to choose insight. I think it would have been better if Mourning Glory-related skills were not just for buff the Pipspook quest, but also for "increasing the ways to obtain Mourning Glory" and "allowing you to automatically farm Mourning Glory." I wouldn't exactly describe it as painful, but it does get really tedious in the long run. And to be honest, I really agree with this post when it comes to overall skilltree design across all characters. In the case of Wendy, other than the Team Spirit skills and the affinities, I don't think there are "must have" skills in the tree, whereas with Walter, mostly everything is something you can get good value out of. Wendy does have arbitrary mandatory skills that are required in order to pick the skills you might want too, but is nowhere near as egregrious as Wormwood, Wigfrid and even Wortox, but on the other hand instead, after choosing what I want I have a good chunk of points leftover, and I have to decide what would be the most useful, because might as well spend the points, not because I think the skills are a must have. 13 hours ago, SilverSpoon said: And also, Walter's "99.9% completed" skill tree has made Walter's "Problem" of "Round production" much easier. On the contrary, Walter's base ability have been buff so that he can produce 10 -> 20 bullets with one material without any skills. Back in the day, Walter had to spend 4+2 skill points to get Grind relief he has now, then Walter had similar problem that Mourning Glories has for Wendy.(Still, Walter is better off than Wendy, since the skill he needs to spend to get ammo skills is increase ammo variety. Imagine how bad it would be to have Walter's skill tree with loads of things like "increase ammo production by 10%") Walter got one of the better skilltrees, almost free of filler and have a ton of good perks to choose from. But it is also true Walter was very lackluster before his skilltree, and it makes sense he got significant gameplay defining perks on it, so I'm really happy he got the buffs he badly needed. The problem between resource grinding is a bit different, since even the most boring and tedious resources to farm with Walter, like marble and gunpowder, have multiple ways of acquisition. Though just waiting for marble trees to fully grow for their pitiful marble yield or waiting in the caves for earthquakes to maybe get one or two pieces of them is not exactly thrilling gameplay, Walter has at least many ammo alternatives to choose from. I wonder if marble armor is the reason why marble drops are so scarce. 12 hours ago, Tranoze said: So which one of those you posted is the main problem? I know she has problems but without pointing out which one is main, i cant know. I read the title visit this thread expect to know the main problem... Ah, sorry if I wasn't clear enough with the tittle, is about the main problem of Wendy AND also the main problem of her skilltree, but both are separate. The main problem of core Wendy is the repetitiveness of the process for her unique resource acquisition, and the main problem with her skilltree is its accessibility. Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/164712-the-main-problem-with-wendy-and-her-skill-tree/#findComment-1805310 Share on other sites More sharing options...
WilsonHiggs Posted March 8, 2025 Share Posted March 8, 2025 The only problem i have with her skill tree is that there are many perks to either reduce the cost of crafting elixirs or to get more mourning glory, that reviving butterflies is useless for a moon build and how artificial and unintuitive for random players feels having a perk to give abi the player tag Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/164712-the-main-problem-with-wendy-and-her-skill-tree/#findComment-1805312 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pig Princess Posted March 8, 2025 Share Posted March 8, 2025 17 hours ago, CremeLover said: The ideas I wrote in the OP were not ideas to fix the existent problems across the skilltree, but more like "how can we fix the biggest issue within the skilltree (which IMHO is accessibility) with the least amount of changes possible to the final product" 17 hours ago, CremeLover said: Regarding Mourning Glory, I also gave no suggestions of how to fix it, since to fix it in an elegant way it would require a much more significant change that a few fixes can accomplish. While the pipspook interactions you describe might sound fun, I feel like it would just be more minigames tacked onto the mourning glory acquisition, I just thought that thread named "the main problem with Wendy in her skill tree" would fit to put my thoughts here, especially pipspook part. It's not my intention to derail it into "Wendy needs skill tree rework from scratch" though. I just want to comment on your perception on more pipspook games being mini-games and thus inheriting the same problems as current one. I actually disagree of my proposal being mini-games. Fire/ignition, freezing, sailing/watering/extinguishing/mob aggro/mob-specific interactions are all existing mechanics, everyone can experience them, so no content is gated behind specific character. And tying pipspooks to them would be actual way of player/skill expression and something player can do regularly for it's own value, like killing for souls/embers, but better, and integrate pipspook into normal gameplay as a result. Many of mentioned mechanics allow multiple ways to use them as well, i.e. there is variety of setups you can do. Spoiler For fire you can just ignite tree, or could make an oven, or use fire for crowd control in the fight, ignite with fire staff for stun or show exploding lavae to pipspooks (kill Dragonfly). Ovens can be of different layout and for different mobs (pigs, tallbirds, bosses, technically you can freeze thermal stone with them if you want). Depending on characteristics of the mob oven needs different layout (mob hp, aggro pattern, collision, spawn mechanic are all relevant things that create differences) And it's something player already can do for it's own purpose and just bring pipspooks with them. For freezing you could just freeze with ice staff, use flingomatic normally, use flingomatic as AoE freezing and express your planning skill, you can use Deerclops and ice hounds for AoE freeze. Flingomatic can freeze in attempt to extinguish fire, water withered plants, and there are really clever ways to make it throw snowballs a lot. All of this is something player can encounter/use regularly in their gameplay, and I listed quite a few things to choose from. Water interaction involves sailing or extingushing things one way or the other (water balloons, watering cans, etc.). Don't you use bootleg getaway to farm treasure chests? You migh as well take those 5 pipspooks with you. You could take advantage of other character using their abilities or using other items that fit the theme (like boat and water balloons in case Wurt and extinguishing with lighter/fire spells in case Willow). Beefalo taming, acquiring antlers for Klaus, charging volt goats, watching mobs kill each other and killing bosses all exist regardless of pipspooks. People make zoos with koalephants, slurpers, "pet" debth worms, saladmanders, etc. I would totally use ovens, sailing, boss fights, gather some mobs into zoo for easier access, and thus would interact with things I never interacted before or in a way I didn't interact/didn't interact in a long time. My old farm setups would be relevant again, I would pay more attention to various things happening in the world. My point is that it's actual integration of existing mechanics, and it could allow for skill and knowledge expression. Wendy would be incentivised to learn more mechanics and rewarded for better game understanding even outside of direct combat. It's also just an example, many mechanics could be integrated this way, and what's beautiful about this approach is that it won't make it easier for Wendy to deal with those mechanics, but would reward her nevertheless in lore-fitting way. I'm not sure about ghost ineractions with players. DST is survival thematically and about killing giants mechanically, it's not a witcher or something, ghosts naturally form very small part of it, and I just don't see how expanding on ghost interactions for everyone could align with direction of DST developement. But maybe Klei could integrate something in a fitting way one day, just not for the sake of Wendy, but as something interesting on it's own. 47 minutes ago, CremeLover said: Before skilltree: -When you activate the pipspook minigame, you get a chance between 3, 4 or 5 toys spawning. -Each toy gives 1 mourning glory, with the final one giving 4, so you have a final chance of getting 7-9 mourning glory After skilltree (all 3 points): -When you activate the pipspook minigame, you get a chance between 3, 4 or 5 toys spawning and then you add 3 extra toys guaranteed on top. -You get double mourning glory for each toy, so 2 each and 8 at the end, so you're getting at minimun 18 mourning glory (6 toys) medium 20 mourning glory (7 toys) and maximun 22 (8 toys) if I understood the function correctly. Plenty enough to make a few potions or resurrect a stack of butterflies with one minigame. Just technical remark. Before skill tree it was either 3 or 4 toys and it was always 6 or 7 mouring glory (either you had enough only for Bee Queen, or you had spare for Ancient Guardian). I'm not sure what is in the code, but even if it was intended to have more toys or rewards, it was always 1 mouring glory for each toy and 4 for last. After skill tree it was always 18 or 20 for me. I never have been able to get 22 mouring glories from pipspook, yet I got a few rare items in my runs related to mouring glory consumption, such as krampus sacks (just to give you the idea of how frequently I used this resource). Link to comment https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/164712-the-main-problem-with-wendy-and-her-skill-tree/#findComment-1805316 Share on other sites More sharing options...
CremeLover Posted March 8, 2025 Author Share Posted March 8, 2025 3 hours ago, Pig Princess said: I just thought that thread named "the main problem with Wendy in her skill tree" would fit to put my thoughts here, especially pipspook part. It's not my intention to derail it into "Wendy needs skill tree rework from scratch" though. Oh, absolutely, I'm not the forum police, and you're more than welcome to share your ideas. I was just commenting as to why I refrained from expanding further than one particular side of her skilltree. 3 hours ago, Pig Princess said: I just want to comment on your perception on more pipspook games being mini-games and thus inheriting the same problems as current one. I actually disagree of my proposal being mini-games. Fire/ignition, freezing, sailing/watering/extinguishing/mob aggro/mob-specific interactions are all existing mechanics, everyone can experience them, so no content is gated behind specific character. And tying pipspooks to them would be actual way of player/skill expression and something player can do regularly for it's own value, like killing for souls/embers, but better, and integrate pipspook into normal gameplay as a result. Many of mentioned mechanics allow multiple ways to use them as well, i.e. there is variety of setups you can do. Reveal hidden contents For fire you can just ignite tree, or could make an oven, or use fire for crowd control in the fight, ignite with fire staff for stun or show exploding lavae to pipspooks (kill Dragonfly). Ovens can be of different layout and for different mobs (pigs, tallbirds, bosses, technically you can freeze thermal stone with them if you want). Depending on characteristics of the mob oven needs different layout (mob hp, aggro pattern, collision, spawn mechanic are all relevant things that create differences) And it's something player already can do for it's own purpose and just bring pipspooks with them. For freezing you could just freeze with ice staff, use flingomatic normally, use flingomatic as AoE freezing and express your planning skill, you can use Deerclops and ice hounds for AoE freeze. Flingomatic can freeze in attempt to extinguish fire, water withered plants, and there are really clever ways to make it throw snowballs a lot. All of this is something player can encounter/use regularly in their gameplay, and I listed quite a few things to choose from. Water interaction involves sailing or extingushing things one way or the other (water balloons, watering cans, etc.). Don't you use bootleg getaway to farm treasure chests? You migh as well take those 5 pipspooks with you. You could take advantage of other character using their abilities or using other items that fit the theme (like boat and water balloons in case Wurt and extinguishing with lighter/fire spells in case Willow). Beefalo taming, acquiring antlers for Klaus, charging volt goats, watching mobs kill each other and killing bosses all exist regardless of pipspooks. People make zoos with koalephants, slurpers, "pet" debth worms, saladmanders, etc. I would totally use ovens, sailing, boss fights, gather some mobs into zoo for easier access, and thus would interact with things I never interacted before or in a way I didn't interact/didn't interact in a long time. My old farm setups would be relevant again, I would pay more attention to various things happening in the world. My point is that it's actual integration of existing mechanics, and it could allow for skill and knowledge expression. Wendy would be incentivised to learn more mechanics and rewarded for better game understanding even outside of direct combat. It's also just an example, many mechanics could be integrated this way, and what's beautiful about this approach is that it won't make it easier for Wendy to deal with those mechanics, but would reward her nevertheless in lore-fitting way. I'm not sure about ghost ineractions with players. DST is survival thematically and about killing giants mechanically, it's not a witcher or something, ghosts naturally form very small part of it, and I just don't see how expanding on ghost interactions for everyone could falign with direction of DST developement. But maybe Klei could integrate something in a fitting way one day, just not for the sake of Wendy, but as something interesting on it's own. My apologies, I was under the impression that your suggestions was more along the lines of "ghost likes you to burn things, go burn some random tree, WOOOOHHH, YEAH! Here's some ghost flowers for ya", or "go to the ocean and catch some fish!", but getting a ghost to follow you and reward you for other activities might be an interesting approach now that I think about it, as the ghost don't really have a timer on them and they will follow you regardless of almost everything. They do have a negative sanity aura for non wendy players tho. It is a cool idea and has the potential to create some interesting synergies and possibilities. Will need to ruminate a bit over the concept before I can fully grasp it, but it would definitely be a step in the right direction. Pipspooks don't really need to be tied only to the toy sidequest, and with a decent implementation it would solve pretty much everything I have issues with with base Wendy (except the shield potions being kinda meh). And when I said interactions, I just mean more content regarding ghosts, like, going back to the wormwood example, Klei could add a new plant, like they did with the Sea Weed in the ocean, and add some new crafts for the rest of the survivors, or when they expanded the shroom content to add Moon Shroom, which was later used by wormwood in his skilltree, or when they added Lunar spiders in the moon island or the Sea Spiders from Watterlogged, is both new content and content a character has a special interaction with. Expanding the amount of ghost-themed content is something that could be done in the future, since it hasn't been touched since a long time ago, so there's plenty of design space there if Klei were to ever decide to do something there. I doubt is within their current content plan, as we are more into Wagstaff/Lunar/Shadow/Charlie theme updates, but who knows really. They kinda did stablished that gestalts are lunar mutated ghost maybe(?). 3 hours ago, Pig Princess said: Just technical remark. Before skill tree it was either 3 or 4 toys and it was always 6 or 7 mouring glory (either you had enough only for Bee Queen, or you had spare for Ancient Guardian). I'm not sure what is in the code, but even if it was intended to have more toys or rewards, it was always 1 mouring glory for each toy and 4 for last. You are correct, the function was using the following piece of code to select a number between min and max: local toy_count = GetRandomMinMax(TUNING.GHOST_HUNT.TOY_COUNT.MIN, TUNING.GHOST_HUNT.TOY_COUNT.MAX) And after double checking how GetRandomMinMax(min, max) is defined, the function is doing return min + math.random()*(max - min), which returns a decimal number between 3 and 5, which means numbers it gives when it selects a random number between 3 and 5 are sort of like: 4.085925879692 3.0287518222533 3.9503241874062 4.8247861664532 And then loops using this number as a stopgap to add each toy, so despite the TUNINGS.LUA saying that TUNING.GHOST_HUNT.TOY_COUNT.MAX is 5, is probably never actually reaches that number, since the loop stops as soon as it gets to 5 as math.random() can never generate a 1. So you are correct, it just oscillates between 3 and 4, it never spawns the 5th toy. 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