What can Klei do to make more people want to play Wes?

[Walrusst]

3 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Like one of the reasons I DONT pick Wes when playing Multiplayer is because by doing that, I am intentionally setting everyone else I’m currently playing with back.

More like you buff the team with your blessed speed baloons then go find the sea resources with the sweet insurance of your balooony life jackets.

Your perks are unironically sort of ok if you just rush risky objectives that encourage you to walk quickly and do quick, non timed actions like shoveling things, and the whole team getting 30% more exploring done early on is a speed boost.

Sure you are a swap character once you farm mactusk and are swimming in bannanas and stone fruit, but there is a coherent wes gameplan that is only eclipsed by superior canadian engineering.

[reddocc]

Wes Would be funny as a noob babysitter, but I can only think of non serious perks for his skill tree, like a cheaper recipe for garlands using balloons, reviving a teammate with a telltale heart penalizes you but not your ally. In my opinion only Wes should have been the only character with a specific revival option that works with other players instead of the recent additions of Wortox's and Wendy's redundant revivals.

honestly if Wes was more fragile(takes more dmg) with the upside of he's lighter(faster movement speed).

This however steps in Wes's nature of being a challenge character with such a strong upside as movement speed(later irrelevant with beefalo gameplay).

A nice skill would be to have the ability to draw aggro of something at distance without having to hit it first.

[shaurun]

19 hours ago, Walrusst said:

Ok instead of working 25% slower for 25% less durability loss, what if it was like 33% less durability loss. So its still "Worse" in that doing everything takes more time, but also you get rewarded for wes's caution and weakness.

Slow working is the worst part of Wes. Everything else is pretty fun. I would never trader durability for slow work. When you've played 1000+ hours, resource grind feels the most boring. And Wes used to be played by expierenced players, so do they expect such player won't be able to farm wood fast enough to not be able to create or sustain fire?

[gaymime]

 

15 hours ago, Dr. Safety said:

I know that he's supposed to be a challenge character who is just bad, but does anyone actually play him for that reason anymore? Genuinely asking because it's hard to tell since very few people play him. I only ever see people play him because they like his design/personality, or because "hehe playing as the funny mime" until the novelty wears off and they leave 3 days after they joined.

I'd like to see him become useful, even if he still has harsh (yet frankly boring) downsides.

i dont play him because he is more challenging than others but i do avoid playing others because when i play them the game stops "talking" to me. instead of having to figure out stuff i am just offered nothing but a hambat and an expectation that i can turn off my brain and just win by making sure my number is bigger than the other guy's. it flattens the game out really badly for me and while the character perks help a tiny bit by making it at least a little bit novel it does lessen the immersion when i don't need to do anything outside of hitting the button until i get the thing i want when i am accustomed to minion management, weather calculations, avoidance strategies and alternative routes to get the thing outside of hitting+perogies

 

2 hours ago, shaurun said:

Slow working is the worst part of Wes. Everything else is pretty fun. I would never trader durability for slow work. When you've played 1000+ hours, resource grind feels the most boring. And Wes used to be played by expierenced players, so do they expect such player won't be able to farm wood fast enough to not be able to create or sustain fire?

hi, i am not sure if i "count" as an experienced wes player but outside of the first few days in a world and when i am trying to get pigs started up i dont really -chop- trees and once that first fall rolls around i dont really mine boulders either: i am wondering if there is an expectation that (aside from woodie mains for obvious reasons) once a player gets to a certain level of familiarity with the game they would find more optimised ways of interacting with it? not just as wes but in general and if you are playing as wes there is some expectation that you've already gotten past the beginning stages of the game and have confidence in your skills

[shaurun]

3 hours ago, gaymime said:

Hi, i am not sure if i "count" as an experienced wes player but outside of the first few days in a world and when i am trying to get pigs started up i dont really -chop- trees and once that first fall rolls around i dont really mine boulders either: i am wondering if there is an expectation that (aside from woodie mains for obvious reasons) once a player gets to a certain level of familiarity with the game they would find more optimised ways of interacting with it? not just as wes but in general and if you are playing as wes there is some expectation that you've already gotten past the beginning stages of the game and have confidence in your skills

Hi) That's true, if you don't forse the game, it will open other opportunities. But mostly we love brute force, e.g. I want to use normal boat, not a grass one, or want to build a cave bridge, and want to keep all natural houses safe. So yep we suffer because we don't listen to what the character say. Thank you for this lesson, it reminded me the thing I forgot.

[AliceShiki]

On 3/8/2025 at 5:29 PM, Mike23Ua said:

Again… the only way that would actually work, is if Wes’s points automatically unlocked themselves, otherwise: Most people will not invest points into making the character intentionally worse to play.

... Have you never heard of challenge runs or something?

I dunno what to tell you. Some people do intentionally gimp themselves when playing games they're too used to, it's part of the fun. They enjoy the game and want to get more out of it, but the game became too easy to them due to having too much experience with the game by that point, so they intentionally gimp themselves to have more fun.

People who don't want a challenging experience won't even bother with Wes in the first place, so this point is moot. People who play Wes want the more challenging experience, so the devs giving the players more options to make their own lives harder makes complete sense for Wes specifically.

On 3/8/2025 at 5:29 PM, Mike23Ua said:

And another thing to point out: Wes was allowed to be 150% useless in Solo DS, but in DST this is a multiplayer game and every character rather they’re a “glass canon” or a “challenge character” need to be pulling their weight so they don’t feel completely useless.

Well, yes, that's why good players are the ones who pick Wes, usually. They compensate for bringing a bad character by just being good at the game.

And plenty of people play solo too anyways. And Wes being worse than other characters isn't a problem in playing solo.

On 3/8/2025 at 9:04 PM, DegenerateFurry said:

Wes skill tree idea: all the perks in every branch are negative except the final perk in each branch, which buffs one thing about Wes's kit. For instance, there could be a branch that lowers his max HP and hunger by 25, makes his max item stack size decrease by 10 for all stackable items, and the final perk makes his Speedy Balloon last longer, have a 10% increase to its speed boost, and allows you to jump over gaps while holding it - because all of those downsides at least have the benefit of making Wes lighter. 

This is a pretty cool idea though!

[Creatorofswamps]

Guys, guys, what if, well, in theory, Wes will have only 2 skill points, one of which will turn survival into a complete hell, he will be attacked by absolutely all mobs capable of attack (even turkeys lol), in the summer he will be set on fire like a plant, and so on (while giving a few advantages, for example: inflatable boat) and the second skill will make him an absolutely neutral character, giving him 150 hp, 150 hunger and 200 sanity, while removing all the cons and all the pros (you can not turn on 2 skills at the same time. they can also be tied to the moon and shadow)

*There was also a thought for additional absurd conditions for opening skills, for example, for the neutral skill you will need to defeat all the giants and for the terrible skill you will need to kill the Resting Horror, or for example, a butterfly (The Butterfly Effect lol).But I think this is too much (or not)

[Cheggf]

1 hour ago, Creatorofswamps said:

Guys, guys, what if, well, in theory, Wes will have only 2 skill points, one of which will turn survival into a complete hell, he will be attacked by absolutely all mobs capable of attack (even turkeys lol), in the summer he will be set on fire like a plant, and so on (while giving a few advantages, for example: inflatable boat) and the second skill will make him an absolutely neutral character, giving him 150 hp, 150 hunger and 200 sanity, while removing all the cons and all the pros (you can not turn on 2 skills at the same time. they can also be tied to the moon and shadow)

*There was also a thought for additional absurd conditions for opening skills, for example, for the neutral skill you will need to defeat all the giants and for the terrible skill you will need to kill the Resting Horror, or for example, a butterfly (The Butterfly Effect lol).But I think this is too much (or not)

There shouldn't be skills to make characters turn into reskins, they should always be themselves. If anything Klei should un-patch the head exploit so I can go back to freaking people out as the bearded Wickerbottom.

[Creatorofswamps]

34 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

There shouldn't be skills to make characters turn into reskins, they should always be themselves. If anything Klei should un-patch the head exploit so I can go back to freaking people out as the bearded Wickerbottom.

This is all suggested for the most part just for fun, but many people need a standard character (Wilson is no longer a standard character given his skill tree.) and many do not play Wes because it is no longer a challenge character, but an "ordinary character just longer", so I suggested this "skill tree" because someone will be able to get a neutral character (y He's still going to have 1 minus. He doesn't dare talk to plants, no one dares to make him talk lol). Or he can take on the role of a more complex character when almost all the inhabitants of the constant are angry at Wes . In any case, don't take it too seriously

[WilsonHiggs]

2 hours ago, Creatorofswamps said:

even turkeys lol), in the summer he will be set on fire like a plant

Oh i like this downside. He and wormwood should have it

16 minutes ago, Creatorofswamps said:

and many do not play Wes because it is no longer a challenge character, but an "ordinary character just longer",

Then the skill tree should make him a challenge character instead of any other non sense like making him wilson...

[Creatorofswamps]

28 minutes ago, WilsonHiggs said:

Then the skill tree should make him a challenge character instead of any other non sense

In any case, the skill tree is more or less a choice. I suggest using it this way: you get a few new crafting balls, but at the same time the whole costanta hates you (neutral mobs get mad at you, and peaceful ones run away from you). Or by choosing the other side, you will lose both the pros and cons, turning into something neutral. In any case, my idea may be presented in other words, but I hope you get the gist of it. (again, English is not my first language, so I apologize for any unexpected moments in my texts)

28 minutes ago, WilsonHiggs said:

any other non sense like making him wilson...

That doesn't make him Wilson, Wilson has a beard, Alchemy, and torches. it makes him a standard character (without a voice)

[Creatorofswamps]

3 hours ago, Creatorofswamps said:

Guys, guys, what if, well, in theory, Wes will have only 2 skill points

Anyway 

I suggested this mostly for fun, maybe I'll suggest a more complete skill tree in which you can invest 15 skill points. But to summarize, I think that the aggression of the entire constant in relation to Wes is something that could really be added. I would pay to see how the Turkeys attacked Wes XD. An inflatable boat made of balls that will burst from any impact, but at the same time it is faster, it is useful and funny (you must have good control of the boat so that it does not burst from impact) . Also, the idea of making him neutral is an idea that can be discussed, but honestly, people who don't want to challenge but want to play Wes could do it with pleasure for that (and people who need a neutral character)

[gaymime]

....i get the very strong impression that most of the people in the thread are just wanting to do some socially-acceptable trolling through the medium of speculation. if the wendy & wilson players are anything to go on people want better, faster, stronger characters that negate the more grindy bits of the game. they want their character to be in the upper tier and they dont want skilltree options that are not inherently a positive for gameplay. you wont get any of these things if your suggestion is to make wes dig you a hole because nerfing him to the ground is not good enough for you.

 

in truth i dont want a wes skilltree. i am stressed that the team will either make playing him so hard to do he cannot be in good consciousness be picked under any circumstance OR he is shored up enough to compete with the others and the thing that makes him feel different enough to justifying playing the game in a more creative manner is gone leaving for a duller flatter experience. i know which is better and i have a good idea which klei would pick BUT i am still scared that the tiny little niche in the corner for the small handful of wes players is going to get dynamited because people who havent played wes in forever or never played him at all want to do the funny meme thing and someone on staff might be swayed by it enough to make it so.

 

 

[Creatorofswamps]

48 minutes ago, gaymime said:

....i get the very strong impression that most of the people in the thread are just wanting to do some socially-acceptable trolling through the medium of speculation. if the wendy & wilson players are anything to go on people want better, faster, stronger characters that negate the more grindy bits of the game. they want their character to be in the upper tier and they dont want skilltree options that are not inherently a positive for gameplay. you wont get any of these things if your suggestion is to make wes dig you a hole because nerfing him to the ground is not good enough for you.

 

in truth i dont want a wes skilltree. i am stressed that the team will either make playing him so hard to do he cannot be in good consciousness be picked under any circumstance OR he is shored up enough to compete with the others and the thing that makes him feel different enough to justifying playing the game in a more creative manner is gone leaving for a duller flatter experience. i know which is better and i have a good idea which klei would pick BUT i am still scared that the tiny little niche in the corner for the small handful of wes players is going to get dynamited because people who havent played wes in forever or never played him at all want to do the funny meme thing and someone on staff might be swayed by it enough to make it so.

I can assume that sooner or later Wes's skill tree will be used (it would be strange if everyone has it and he doesn't).. Then I have a question for you, what do you think the skill tree should be, at least approximately? As for the jokes in his skill tree and other things, this attitude has been cemented since Fresh Fruit Crepes became his favorite dish. (But probably earlier)

[Cheggf]

5 hours ago, Creatorofswamps said:

I can assume that sooner or later Wes's skill tree will be used (it would be strange if everyone has it and he doesn't).. Then I have a question for you, what do you think the skill tree should be, at least approximately? As for the jokes in his skill tree and other things, this attitude has been cemented since Fresh Fruit Crepes became his favorite dish. (But probably earlier)

I think his skill tree should be negative things that can be used positively. For example, enemies target Wes from further away and focus on him, refusing to attack anything else as long as they're able to attempt attacks on Wes. This would be useful to manipulating aggro of things without them suddenly changing targets to other players or mobs, useful for keeping worse players or followers safer since enemies wouldn't be trying to hit them as long as you're actively fighting them, and maybe even useful for pulling things from further. It would also be dangerous since enemies would aggro from further and refuse to drop aggro on you unless they're unable to attempt attacks for long enough.

Maybe even let neutral things target Wes, which would make pig villages dangerous but make it really easy to hunt koalefants since they'd just attack you on sight. Although that one is a bigger drawback since it would also prevent beefalo taming I think, so maybe make that a two-tiered skill with the first tier making enemies hate Wes and the second tier making everything hate Wes. 

[gaymime]

5 hours ago, Creatorofswamps said:

I can assume that sooner or later Wes's skill tree will be used (it would be strange if everyone has it and he doesn't).. Then I have a question for you, what do you think the skill tree should be, at least approximately? As for the jokes in his skill tree and other things, this attitude has been cemented since Fresh Fruit Crepes became his favorite dish. (But probably earlier)

i know, i know, this is not an "if" but a "when". honestly? i've had ideas but nothing that i think would be good enough to implement and certainly the better ideas are ones i personally wouldnt want just because i am comfortable with how he plays now. mostly i have just been pretending to myself that he will definitely be last in the list so i wont have to worry for another year or two.

[WilsonHiggs]

10 minutes ago, gaymime said:

i know, i know, this is not an "if" but a "when". honestly? i've had ideas but nothing that i think would be good enough to implement and certainly the better ideas are ones i personally wouldnt want just because i am comfortable with how he plays now. mostly i have just been pretending to myself that he will definitely be last in the list so i wont have to worry for another year or two.

Do you know that you dont have to use the skill tree if you enjoy the base wes, right?

[goblinball]

12 hours ago, Creatorofswamps said:

one of which will turn survival into a complete hell, he will be attacked by absolutely all mobs capable of attack (even turkeys lol)

I know this is a joke post but I actually really like the idea of wes’ whole playstyle being that life for him is hell; however, it lessens everyone else’s challenges by redirecting them towards wes.

Like during hound waves, they’d all target wes, his balloon items wouldn’t help him much and be challenging to use but would massively benefit his teammates, etc etc.

he’s a support character who has a high skill floor, but mastering him enables your teammates to play to their fullest unimpeded.

[JaxckLl]

On 3/7/2025 at 11:14 PM, mkemal23 said:

Actually rework him to be a fun and unique character and stop with the unfunny "Wes Op, Klei nerf!" sh*t

There is nothing challenging about Wes. He's just insanely boring.

This. The actual challenge in DST comes from surviving, which is countered by game knowledge & playtime, or from fights. There's no practical way to make survival more challenging for one character as the main thing trivializing survival in the current version of the game is the over abundance of forage & easily farmable meat sources (Spiders need a rework with Monster Morsals becoming a thing & raw food needs to have its hunger values nerfed across the board). The player should be rewarded with survival if they base in the right biome and are active about collecting forage & killing mobs. However at the moment this does not require any kind of basing, indeed it is often better to stay mobile in first Autumn & Winter to exploit all the resources that are available over the entire map. This is unintuitive for newer players making the game of survival seem much harder than it actually is AND it is trivial for more experienced players who can play any character and survive without issue. Wes offers no interesting challenge here, indeed I would argue Wurt, Wigfrid, & Warly are all "challenge" characters when it comes to survival due to their dietary restrictions while Wes is not.

The second area of challenge in the game is fights. Here Wes's lower stats do genuinely make the game harder, but that same paradigm is true for Wanda & Wickerbottom both of whom have similarly reduced HP. Wes's low sanity ironically actually makes it more likely that you'll have to fight off sanity monsters more often, making Nightmare Fuel more available early on in the game. This makes getting a Dark Sword before Deerclops all but guaranteed, whereas for most characters it requires genuine thought in order to get insane enough often enough for the same to be true. Most of the newer boss fights are smartly designed enough that they are a challenge for all characters, Wes doesn't really stand out as being especially challenging compared to a Wilson when dealing with Frostjaw or Crab King for example. Wes ironically actually has some cheese potential due to his balloons. As they don't expire but they do do damage, Wes can stack them in truly enormous quantities (we're talking thousands of balloons on a single spot) and insta-kill some bosses when they spawn. This actually makes some fights such as Fuelweaver technically easier than a Wilson, provided your machine can take the strain of so many balloons all spawned in at once.

Suggestions

• I pointed it out earlier, but nerf raw food's hunger. This should be accompanied with an increase in the variety of raw food available (aka give us wild crops other than carrots & pumpkins) and a looking at all cooked food values (Carrots currently provide 12.5 both raw & cooked. That should instead be 8 raw, 14 cooked). These sweeping changes should be aimed at making the new player style of super early basing less punished, while overall reducing the total value of the entire map's forage without first being cooked. I might even go so far as to suggest that a "new player package" of blueprints & basic supplies be a game option that can be enabled to further ease the new player experience.
• Spiders should drop Monster Morsals instead of full-size Meat. Add Twine which can be made inefficiently from Grass/Kelp (3-1) or efficiently from Silk (1-1) and switch fishing rods, bird traps, and masts to use Twine. These two changes are meant to remove spiders as a blocker to fishing & farming, which are two mechanics I often see new players ignoring because spider nests are so intimidating for new players. As with the theme above, the opposite is true for more experienced players. Spiders aren't intimidating, they're an easy source of massive amounts of meat. So much meat that spiders completely outcompete any other easily farmed mob or hunger-solving activity. That is, if you're experienced enough to fight them or have brought a character with cheesing potential.
• Give Wes a quesiness mechanic instead of his current food penalty. Periodically Wes will get quesy and will have massively reduced hunger while so, all but the very best foods should provide basically 0 hunger in this state. This would create windows of time that are somewhat predictable in which a Wes player must stop and fill up their hunger, as most of the time they can't. This would give Wes an interesting rythmn compared to other characters, in particular while fighting. The expectation should be that a player will want to eat when they have the opportunity, and the window should be short enough that there is tension between eating & doing what you were already doing. This introduces a new survival clock that makes Wes more challenging and doesn't allow game knowledge or materials accumulated to compensate. Quesiness should scale with how full Wes is, draining slower when his stomach is more full. This would create a grace period of sorts where your next window to eat comes sooner & more predictably when your hunger is lower and Wes is more likely to starve.
• Give Wes a Ques-be-gone Pill that he can craft with Salt & Kelp so that quesiness becomes optional as a mechanic after the point where early season survival has been addressed. Give Wes a Work-harderer Pill that he can craft with Leafy Meat & Nitre that removes his basic interaction speed penalty, but retains his reduced durability use bonus. This wouldn't be relevant for speedrunning, but it would reduce the wide variety of penalties that Wes has that makes playing him in the mid game so dull compared to other characters. Retaining his bonuses while using the pills would actually make Wes slightly better than a Wilson while under their influence. The challenge would then shift to providing a supply of those necessary resources while also doing everything else a player wants/needs to be doing at that stage in the game.
• Give Wes pantomine basic tools that require only Twigs to craft. This would give Wes a unique early game speedrun potential, as you wouldn't even need to think about Flint at all. This plays into the idea that he's a challenge character, and what's more challenging than competing with other players for speedrun records? These pantomime tools wouldn't be practical or useful in a normal context, as their durability would be even lower than flint tools and flint isn't exactly a rare resource.
• Give Wes Shadow-aligned & Lunar-aligned balloons that deal a substantial amount of planar damage. By the time players get to the Planar stuff, much of the challenge of the game both survival & in fights will have been addressed. Giving Wes a powerful late game cheesing option provides a reason to play him in the late game beyond the point where he'd otherwise have become incredibly dull. Just because he's a challenge character doesn't mean he shouldn't be fun. Blowing up an entire hound wave with some enchanted birthday balloons sounds like a lot of fun.

[Guille6785]

I will forgive Klei for the terrible Wes rework if his skill tree is sort of like the skull system from the Halo games, like one skill could cause all enemies to automatically aggro on Wes, one skill could cause all enemies to be invisible to the Wes player until they enter a certain range, one skill could increase all damage taken, double his hunger drain, remove healing from foods, etc.

I stopped playing Wes after the rework because they thought it'd be a good idea to give the challenge character upsides (???) and I will want to play him even less if the skill tree buffs him again, even if it's stuff that's only applicable to multiplayer, please just double down on the challenge character concept and let me enable challenges within challenges

[gaymime]

33 minutes ago, WilsonHiggs said:

Do you know that you dont have to use the skill tree if you enjoy the base wes, right?

yup and when his skilltree comes out i will probably avoid using it if it is reasonable to do so like i do with his balloons.

 

that being said i also know myself and know that if there is something in his skilltree that is super desirable or exciting for me i am quite likely to fall into the trap of filling out the skilltree list since i have a personality that aches to "complete" things once i start using them. i am currently struggling with walter because there is not enough points to fill everything out despite there only being two things in his whole tree that i actually want. don't need OR want all these skills but it still bothers me i can't mark them off as "gotten". i wouldnt be such a pillock as to say wes shouldnt have a skilltree but i still dont look forward to it happening. it will come, eventually.

[Aester]

6 hours ago, WilsonHiggs said:

Do you know that you dont have to use the skill tree if you enjoy the base wes, right?

God i see that phrase so much. No, it's not a solution to potential skill issues. A skill tree will set expectations for you as a teammate, a skill tree will set expectations for yourself, it will always loom in the background like a missed opportunity, you can't just pretend it doesn't exist. Unless you want to do a challenge, but that kind of challenge won't last longer than a run or two. Though i think people who use that phrase already understand that.

Wes is fine honestly. 

I like that this character doesn't have any particular strengths in the lore, that gameplay-wise he's simply unable to take any direction. I like that in the team no one expects anything from you, but at the same time you still try to be useful and not get in the way, you try to look for alternative ways for every task.

His current set of balls is already quite enough, to be honest. The rest of the problems like "just Wilson but weaker" are just problems of other characters. And if the challenge with his current state is not enough for you, then you're probably too good at the game, you can't be surprised much anymore. 

[Cheggf]

26 minutes ago, Aester said:

God i see that phrase so much. No, it's not a solution to potential skill issues. A skill tree will set expectations for you as a teammate, a skill tree will set expectations for yourself, it will always loom in the background like a missed opportunity, you can't just pretend it doesn't exist.

Also if you have unspent insight it constantly spams a huge annoying HUD element on your screen telling you to spend your insight. 

[Super27]

I'm not the biggest fan of how Wes was reworked in the first place; they kind of just... made him more boring and annoying to play, with some extra niche abilities, and especially with so many characters having interesting skill trees now, there isn't a lot to draw people to play him. And... I mean, isn't one of his key quirks that he has terrible luck? That shouldn't feel boring.

Here's my idea: Aside from more Balloonomancy crafts and QoL (if the devs even go the direction of making him better with his skill tree), he could have a Luck tab akin to wild magic from D&D. Good, bad or just kind of quirky things that can happen to him, either at random or when activated by the player somehow.

Imagine that you're minding your own business and it randomly begins raining just on Wes. Or say you're being chased by hounds during heavy rain, and the lightning suddenly starts targeting anything that's aggroed onto you. There would be many good and bad effects, but you could only see them if you took the relevant skills.

Preferably, none of these effects would enter griefing territory, but... the idea of a Don't Starve "chaos mode" where all sorts of unusual things just happen around Wes just feels like something I would want to play.

[AliceShiki]

2 hours ago, Aester said:

God i see that phrase so much. No, it's not a solution to potential skill issues. A skill tree will set expectations for you as a teammate, a skill tree will set expectations for yourself, it will always loom in the background like a missed opportunity, you can't just pretend it doesn't exist. Unless you want to do a challenge, but that kind of challenge won't last longer than a run or two. Though i think people who use that phrase already understand that.

I mean... But it's a valid point in this context?

In the context of a theoretical Wes Skill Tree having only downsides to make the character more challenging, how much Insight you spend on the Skill Tree is directly connected to how harder you want your playthrough to be.

So... Playing Vanilla Wes if you don't want the extra challenge makes sense.

Similarly, playing wes while only spending 5 Insight instead of 15 Insight would also make complete sense if you only wanted certain aspects of the game to be harder.

"Just don't use it" is usually a dumb argument, I agree... But in the context of a challenge character and optional mechanics that make things extra challenging (in this case a Skill Tree), it makes complete sense. A challenge character getting a skill tree that makes the game harder would absolutely be a 100% opt-in thingy and people absolutely wouldn't be expected to be using everything the skill tree has to offer.

It's like... Well, I can't think of any popular games that do it from the top of my head, but I remember that Bastion had some Totems you could activate to make things more challenging... You weren't expected to use the totems. The Totems were just added as an extra optional challenge you could play with if you wanted... It's the same thing for this theoretical downside-only Wes skill tree. It's the kind of opt-in thingy that you use as much as you're willing to challenge yourself and only that much.