Woodie's Skill Tree lacks progression, but this could be easily fixed.

[lowercase skye]

If the devs are planning on revisiting the older skill trees, I fear that they may focus entirely on the highly criticized ones like Wolfgang, and leave the "good enough" ones alone. So I'd like to advocate for a change to Woodie's skill tree.

Newer skill trees offer a FANTASTIC sense of progression, just look at Walter: Early on you can find the Lunar Island or Grotto and get Moon Glass rounds as a great source of early damage, fight the Nightmare Werepig for Dreadstone rounds that you can renew with green gems, and either rushing the ruins or finding the scrapyard early gets you a special new frame. Once you get in the late game, activating shadow rifts not only lets you craft the Void Wrap and Icky/Pure Horror rounds, but it also lets you put your slingshot band into an ornery chest for a Possessed Band. Or if you choose lunar, you can get to crafting Pure Brilliance and Brightshade rounds. At every step of the game's progression, your character evolves too, getting access to new tools to overcome the problems you're facing.

In contrast to this, Woodie specs into whatever skill tree perks you want on day 1... and, well, that's it. He's a static, never-changing character, who doesn't get any fancy alignment upgrades or special items to craft as he explores the world. He chooses which wereform he wants to focus into, gets all the idol perks and the easier board crafting perk, maybe grabs some of the misc ones like treeguard idols or quick pick, then picks an alignment and spawns in. Whatever perks you chose, that's it for the whole game, all of those perks are available day 1 and they will never change at any point. Not only does this lead to Woodie feeling pretty stale compared to newer characters' skill trees, but it also means that his perks will inevitably fall off in the end game, as planar gear becomes far more powerful and convenient than that Weremoose that hasn't upgraded past the state it was in on day 1.

A simple solution to this, in my opinion, would be some way to "infuse" idols with the resource of your alignment:

For example, a Weremoose idol infused with Pure Horror could put you into a shadow-aligned Weremoose form, with a short range teleport attack in place of the charge, giving you a unique tool for dealing with bosses (particularly on the shadow side of things) after you've progressed to the point of defeating the Nightmare Werepig. Meanwhile, a Weregoose idol infused with Pure Brilliance could allow you to teleport to anywhere on the map during a full moon at the cost of your weremeter, allowing the Weregoose to stay useful for navigating the world far into the endgame, while also rewarding you for keeping Moonstorms turned on. Lunar Werebeaver could have some special interaction with the tail stomp, Lunar Weremoose could chain multiple charges together, Shadow Weregoose could walk on the cave void... there's all sorts of interesting things you could do with just minor adjustments to the existing mechanics, and it would make your progression through the game as Woodie feel like it really meant something.

Woodie has a tendency to fall behind whenever other characters get more interesting, so it may feel like a bit of a Sisyphean task to try and keep him in line with the others, but I would really like it if he were given just one extra adjustment like this to put him on par with newer skill trees.

[Guille6785]

lunar/shadow wereforms are something I think woodie would've 100% had if he had been given the skill tree a tiny bit later

[_mylilsunshine_]

pray may klei bless character/skill tree refreshes with dope-ass skill tree similar to/better than walter pray  

[Frosty_Mentos]

I know there are some problems with a few of current skilltrees but I will go insane if we go for a 3rd round. Or will die of age.

[Radicaljoe]

8 minutes ago, Frosty_Mentos said:

I know there are some problems with a few of current skilltrees but I will go insane if we go for a 3rd round. Or will die of age.

Skilltree Reworks comin 2027, finished 2030.

[Cassielu]

I love the sense of "progress" based on Pure Horror or Brilliance or other rift item that different for each character, and every character should have them.

[ShadowDuelist]

This. I love woodie but the only reason I’ve been avoiding him lately is due to how flat his gameplay falls in the post rifts world.

[Cuernito.]

Not all characters need to get a mini progression for their power, wolfgang doesnt have any progression either he is a beast from the start, now woodie only need to farm some monter meat to get his power. Walter is special cause his ranged combat is really convenient, you can fight without taking damage so imagine if he start the game with all his strong ammo. And to be honest if klei go for a round 3 of skill trees/rework i will just stop playing this game forever, no point in playing a game thats its not sure about its own balance.

[Mysterious box]

2 hours ago, Frosty_Mentos said:

I know there are some problems with a few of current skilltrees but I will go insane if we go for a 3rd round. Or will die of age.

Hey after round 5 we'll become enlightened they won't even bother us anymore then after round 8 we'll realize this is the real reason Wanda has so much trouble remembering things.

[Cheggf]

Just now, NekoSoulx said:

Not all characters need to get a mini progression for their power, wolfgang doesnt have any progression either he is a beast from the start, now woodie only need to farm some monter meat to get his power. Walter is special cause his ranged combat is really convenient, you can fight without taking damage so imagine if he start the game with all his strong ammo. And to be honest if klei go for a round 3 of skill trees/rework i will just stop playing this game forever, no point in playing a game thats its not sure about its own balance.

Wolfgang is the #1 example everyone uses when they want to talk about what bad skill trees look like. 

[Mysterious box]

1 minute ago, NekoSoulx said:

Not all characters need to get a mini progression for their power, wolfgang doesnt have any progression either he is a beast from the start, now woodie only need to farm some monter meat to get his power. Walter is special cause his ranged combat is really convenient, you can fight without taking damage so imagine if he start the game with all his strong ammo. And to be honest if klei go for a round 3 of skill trees/rework i will just stop playing this game forever, no point in playing a game thats its not sure about its own balance.

If you try to leave we'll refresh you until you feel like playing again...all jokes aside Wolfgang could stand to get refresh...

[YouKnowWho142]

33 minutes ago, NekoSoulx said:

Not all characters need to get a mini progression for their power, wolfgang doesnt have any progression either he is a beast from the start, now woodie only need to farm some monter meat to get his power. Walter is special cause his ranged combat is really convenient, you can fight without taking damage so imagine if he start the game with all his strong ammo. And to be honest if klei go for a round 3 of skill trees/rework i will just stop playing this game forever, no point in playing a game thats its not sure about its own balance.

The difference between other characters and Woodie's transformations is that Woodie's transformations are at their max potential from the very start of the game. Other characters can get new armor, weapons, staffs, amulets, cane, etc but aside from maybe jellybeans or spices nothing improves how the wereforms perform. That's why it doesn't feel like there's any progression

If you don't want to play the game anymore because they are trying to give people what they want, that is on you. It is a co-op game, and while it's completely acceptable and encouraged to put importance on game balance it is okay for things to change over time. The game is a decade old, a lot of the content is even older, and I want change, and if you don't there's always the original Don't Starve which is a complete game and won't change :)))

[Evelo]

Skill trees were such a mistake...

[Dr.Webber]

I think Lucy should get alignments

[Walrusst]

I would love if the two treeguard skills added damage to lucy to make her a viable self defense option.

The biggest pitfall I saw for newbies who played woodie was them assuming she was an adequate defense with no armor and then saying mean things about klei. Since you won't know until someone tell you to use a real weapon or you experiment with a real weapon (Like, showing them armor and weapons saves them, but its still a case of, for every person you manage to speak to and calm down, there is at least 12 who probably  aged in silence.)

If we had like. "Lucy is now as good as a normal tool in terms of damage" in his skill tree, it adds a warning people will run into and think.
Even better though, would be if treeguard feller 2 also gave woodie a few lucy upgrades when he encounters better axe materials like thul and moonglass.

Doesn't need to affect his chopping speed, it just lets him keep up with what "Standard tool level" damage is at any point in the game. (For balance, the lucy upgrades could wear out in combat and revert her to standard lucy, and I wouldn't complain.)

[GimplyGoose]

3 hours ago, Evelo said:

Skill trees were such a mistake...

Personally, I have a lot of fun with the skill trees and I haven't been disappointed by any of them (even Wolfgang is fine in my opinion). But... When I see so many threads on the forum requesting major skill tree changes, I can't help but sympathise with this sentiment.

[Well-met]

easily fixable by making insight server-dependent

[YouKnowWho142]

15 minutes ago, Well-met said:

easily fixable by making insight server-dependent

it would make his hardwood helmet and wooden cane almost unusable though, especially since they both have a prerequisite. There's a lot more to consider with an idea like that, and a lot of trees would need reworks

[lowercase skye]

10 minutes ago, Well-met said:

easily fixable by making insight server-dependent

That would basically kill all the appeal of Woodie. It would take 33 days of insight to get a single Wereform to a usable state, or 53 days plus a Fuelweaver kill if you want the mainstay perk of shadow alignment (which, to be clear, is only useful early game, and immediately falls off after defeating Fuelweaver.)

There's a reason people barely played him before the skill tree.

[hyoton123]

I kinda like having some characters be extremely frontloaded and fall off over time, vs other characters waxing and waning as the world progresses…

[Wawchik]

27 minutes ago, Well-met said:

easily fixable by making insight server-dependent

Woodie is a horrible character without skill tree, and what you're suggesting is a huge nerf, even though he's already kinda weak because of how hard he falls of mid-late game

[Dr.Webber]

5 hours ago, Dr.Webber said:

I think Lucy should get alignments

Specifically ones that allow her to follow Woody around while in were form 

[Masked Koopa]

10 hours ago, Frosty_Mentos said:

I know there are some problems with a few of current skilltrees but I will go insane if we go for a 3rd round. Or will die of age.

I think it is a reasonable concern but also I think part of the issue is that Klei treats character changes like some big event rather than be willing to make a small tweak here and there where needed. While I'm sure Willow mains have some sort of balance concern somewhere, her tree does at the very least consist of unique skills and probably doesn't need any new content. But characters like Woodie or Wolfgang absolutely do have pretty bland trees that would justify a fair few genuinely new skills. I think as long as things are kept in perspective, it doesn't have to be some never-ending spiral.