Quite possibly the most unituitive skills in the game

[HowlVoid]

Hello it's me, ya boi, I'm back.

TL;DR further below

Today I want to talk about two skills;

Growth spurt 1

 Growth spurt 2

First let's talk about how much actual value these skills bring to the table.

For those unaware, here's how Wormwoods blooming stages work:

Spoiler

Wormwood goes throughout 3 stages when blooming is commenced with a valid fertilizer.

Stages 1 & 2 go through 360 seconds before it can progress to the next stage using growth spurt 1&2 (usually 480 seconds). Using a stronger fertiler, like super growth formula, will greatly speed up the process. One use will speed this up to about 4~ minutes. 

Stage 3 is different, as this stage will instead provide 3 days of full boom once reached. This stage will instead count backwards and once the 3 days are concluded will revert to stage 2.

Once in stage 2, you can re-apply fertilizer to make progress to stage 3 again instead of waiting to revert to stage 1.

The bonuses and penalties are as follow:

Stage 0 : None

Stage 1 : 6% movement speed and hunger drain

Stage 2 : 13% movement speed and hunger drain

Stage 3 : 20% Movement speed and hunger drain

Wormwood has 35 days out of a dst year where blooming works as Normal (Summer - Autumn).

Winter: Winter has a huge blooming penalty to Wormwoods stage 3 duration as well as a penalty to fertilizer through stages 1 & 2. This will be important later.

Spring: During spring Wormwood will begin blooming automatically and will remain in stage 3 throughout all of spring with 0 input from the player.

During the 35 days, just how often is growth spurt 1 and 2 actually active when stage 3 provides 3 days of full bloom? Especially when you can bounce between stage 2 and 3?

The maf (math)

Spoiler

I will present three numbers: 1. The minimum amount of time Wormwood will be in stage 2 (with spurt 1&2) within 35 days 2. how that is affected by introducing strong fertilizer. 3. How that compares to a lack of those skills. 

First the minimum:

Stage 2: 360 seconds to reach stage 3

Stage 3: 3 days of bloom = 1,440 seconds in dst.

Combined for one cycle: 1800 seconds total to revert back to stage 2 and start again.

1800 x 9 dst days = 33.75 days

(+.75 (360seconds) +.5 whats left for a stage 3)=35

This means wormwood can bounce between stages 2 and 3 a total of 10 times within the seasons of summer-autumn.

Within those 35 days Wormwood will spend:

27.5  days in stage 3

7.5 days in stage 2

Using a similar method we can figure out how that compares without those skills.

(480 default blooming time + 1440 stage 3 duration = 1920 x 9= 17,280 (36 days))

26 (27-1day) days of stage 3 

9 days in stage 2

In all Wormwood gained (9 - 7.5= 1.5) 1.5 days of an extra 7% speed boost. 

So what if you used an entire super speed growth to hasten the time you spend in stage 2? (Special thanks to @ZackAR for providing these numbers)

(213 hastened bloom + 1440 stage 3 duration = 1653 × 10 = 16, 530 (34.4 days))

Stacking a whole bottle of super speed growth during stage 2 allows for 10 transformations within 35 days.

30~ of those days are spent fully bloomed

5~ of those days are spent in tier 2

Stacking fertilizers further reduced the time. Meaning growth spurt 1&2 have less time to contribute.

Summary:

Growth spurt 1&2 contribute about  1.5 more days of full bloom bouncing between stages 2 and 3. Thats a 7% increase in speed for 1.5 days for the seasons of autumn + summer. 

If you were to go fully through the first and second stages before reaching stage 3 the difference grows by half a day aka 2 total days of 7% more speed.

Spring is free perma-bloom so what about Winter? 

Blooming during winter can be costly/annoying to maintain as Wormwood. The season is only 15 days and he can end up going through the stages very fast. 

However, if you did decide to go between stages 2 and 3 for the seasons of winter you'd gain .75 more days in bloom 3. The reason why it's high when you compare it to the total amount between two seasons is because in winter alone wormwood can transition 7 times. 

So if we are really generous, we can say Wormwood gains 3 days in full bloom in a dst year. 3 days where you have 7% more speed.

Conclusion:

Let's assume everything I've said up until now is wrong. That I've gravely misunderstood how these skills work (and maybe I did).

After all even I, at some point, thought nothing was wrong with these skills. Its hard to quantify just how much these skills are helping you when you are playing the game casually. 

But just think about it, if you can count Wormwoods transformations on one (or two) hand(s) and you take a small fraction of that out, youre not going to see much improvement.

Meet your nemesis: Flower Power

Now the REAL problem:

This whole time we have been assuming you cant stay in stage 3, but you can.

If the benefits of using these skills are about 1 more instance of stage 3 or 3ish days where you're 20% faster instead of 13% but only in the most optimal conditions:

1. You immediately reapplyed fertiler when you became stage 1.

2. You bounced between stages 2 and 3 without missing a beat, 7 times throughout winter.

3. You used the worst fertilizer possible to delay the amount of time you reached stage 3 to use the most of the skills.

4. You avoid applying fertilizer during stage 3 like your life depended on it.

Let's say the benefit of growth spurt wasn't 3, let's say is was 1,000. We can reduce that to 0 without even breaking a sweat.

TL;DR

Flower power can turn to near 0 every and all benefits from growth spurt 1&2 simply by finding your first bottle. 

The 30% boost to a full use of super growth formula (during stage 3) provides enough bloom time to allow another formula to fully mature in your inventory and then some (its not a lot of wiggle room but it will add up over time). Allowing near perma-bloom for autumn and summer.

Need a bloom meter? Look no further than the freshness on your bottle of growth formula starter.

Unfortunately this won't work in winter, but hey, you'd have proven me wrong and gotten a 0.75 benefit! 

It is very easy to make the negligible value of growth spurt 1&2 (providing about 3 extra days of an extra 7% speed boost) even less using the very own skill branch it's in.

End of TL;DR

Solution:

Flower power used to provide a 50% increase to the initial bloomeness of stage 3 as well as the maximum meter (4.5 days of initial full bloom instead 3, and 7.5 days of maximum full bloom instead of 5). Take this 50% and split it between growth spurt 1 & 2, while keeping their current power. After all, these current skills might be very, very weak but in emergent gameplay blooming just a few seconds early could prove beneficial. While the improved version would continue to provide support when staying in stage 3.

Or

Gives us back the petal skill.

Split it between growth spurt 1&2, the first providing 2 petals and the second 4 petals. 

If Wormwood transitions 10 times the seasons of autumn-summer, that's only 40 petals in 35 days. That's picking about 1.1 flowers a day.

If he transitions 7 times in winter that's 28 petals in 15 days, which is 1.8 flowers a day.

Klei, you claimed there were too many unintended effects in one skill but now we have skills with what, 7 effects? No this isn't about power creep, I'm aware a lot of skill merges NEEDED to happen due to how niche or weak they were. But cmon, picking 1-2 flowers a days has a LOT of uses but is it actually op?

Not to mention it's a Trade-off for not staying in stage 3 providing an alternate way of managing your transformations.

[loopuleasa]

The problem is not fertilizer, it's the unintuitive way blooming stages work.

[Cheggf]

16 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

Flower power used to provide a 50% increase to the initial bloomeness of stage 3 as well as the maximum meter (4.5 days of initial full bloom instead 3, and 7.5 days of maximum full bloom instead of 5). Take this 50% and split it between growth spurt 1 & 2, while keeping their current power.

I hate that they nerfed Flower Power into this really bad version thinking that they buffed it. If they were to put its effects onto the first two growth skills that would be great, since otherwise those skills aren't doing very much. Although ideally he wouldn't need to get 3 skills that all just make his blooming slightly better, I wish all of these minor effects would be obtained from at most 2 skills. 

[HowlVoid]

6 hours ago, loopuleasa said:

The problem is not fertilizer, it's the unintuitive way blooming stages work.

Stage 3 and stages 1-2 are basically 2 different things.

I wasn't saying fertilizer is the problem, I'm saying you can stay in stage 3 indefinitely making growth spurt 1&2 basically dead weight skills if you know what you're doing.

On top of the fact the skills are giving negligible returns anyways.

[HowlVoid]

8 hours ago, Cheggf said:

I hate that they nerfed Flower Power into this really bad version thinking that they buffed it. If they were to put its effects onto the first two growth skills that would be great, since otherwise those skills aren't doing very much. Although ideally he wouldn't need to get 3 skills that all just make his blooming slightly better, I wish all of these minor effects would be obtained from at most 2 skills. 

Yeah the whole branch is kinda weak. The only skill thats doing a lot is shade plant. 

Photosynthesis is also not in a great place imo. I don't wish it was stronger, it just doesn't feel like a good stand alone skill nor does it warrant the 4 point cost. It's only salvageable because you can use it along with his living logs and pet summoning. 

You could fuse it into shade plant, especially given summer is the only time you'll get close to its full benefit (if you dont spend that time undeground) . And it does feel like a side skill instead of a final tier skill. 

Overall, the old flower power and petal skills were his best (none niche) skills in the branch.

And they got rid of both.

[Cheggf]

15 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

Photosynthesis is also not in a great place imo. I don't wish it was stronger, it just doesn't feel like a good stand alone skill nor does it warrant the 4 point cost. It's only salvageable because you can use it along with his living logs and pet summoning. 

You could fuse it into shade plant, especially given summer is the only time you'll get its full benefit (if you dont spend that time undeground) . And it does feel like a side skill instead of a final tier skill. 

I wish Photosynthesis and Shade Plant were merged into one perk that also provided wetness resistance. It would make sense, since the idea is he's blooming so big that it's creating a canopy of shadows to keep him cooler. Walter has a skill (which doesn't require several others be taken before it) that gives summer protection, water protection, and doubles his sanity resistance, so Wormwood getting a skill that gives summer protection, water protection, and an extremely minor health regeneration would be fine. Especially considering how weak the rest of the blooming perks are. Even if you condensed the 3 standard bloom perks into 1 or 2 it would still be 2 or 3 skill points to make blooming's activation slightly easier, provide some resistance to two seasons, and grant a very minor health regeneration effect. That's much less impactful than what other people are able to do for 2 or 3 skill points so I think it would be fine. 

[Gashzer]

But growth spurt 1 and 2 synergise with flower power even in stages 1 and 2??

Flower power boosts all growth formula fertilizers by 30% in all stages not just stage 3.

The rate of which you bloom with a single use of fermented growth formula is 5% better with flower power at stages 1 and 2 compared with without flower power

However its around 10% faster with 2 uses of fermented growth formula. With continued increasing effectiveness the more fertilizer you use while in stage 1 and 2...

Another example of character "mains" not knowing their own characters... 

Flower power is designed to reward several uses of fermented growth formula to rapidly gain bloomness much faster than without having the skill, applying one use of fertilizer to slowly gain bloomness is not what this skill is about. And once you hit stage 3 it helps you stay bloomed forever. Reverting to stage 2 before applying a single use of fertilizer to regain stage 3 acts against this skill.

The whole branch of this skilltree aims to get you to stage 3 fast, helps you stay in stage 3 forever and rewards you for doing so with self regen and better summer protection 

 

[HowlVoid]

33 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

 

Another example of character "mains" not knowing their own characters... 

 

Ok...

I'm going to explain things in a way that hopefully help you understand.

Growth spurt 1&2 make the racetrack shorter.

Flower power makes the runner faster.

In a race that takes 1 year to complete (a dst year), Growth spurt only removes 3 days from the race track combined.

In a race where the runner is fast (flower power + any fertilizer).

Or

In a race where the runner is running at normal speeds (no skill)

The amount growth spurt is removing from both tracks is still 3 days because it's a flat amount it removes.

You may feel there is a synergy there because the faster runner completed the race first but you're tricking yourself into believing growth spurt 1&2 did more than it actually did. The value is the same in both tracks and independent of the performance of the runner.

I hope that helps.

[Gashzer]

20 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

Ok...

I'm going to explain things in a way that hopefully help you understand.

Growth spurt 1&2 make the racetrack shorter.

Flower power makes the runner faster.

In a race that takes 1 year to complete (a dst year), Growth spurt only removes 3 days from the race track combined.

In a race where the runner is fast (flower power + any fertilizer).

Or

In a race where the runner is running at normal speeds (no skill)

The amount growth spurt is removing from both tracks is still 3 days because it's a flat amount it removes.

You may feel there is a synergy there because the faster runner completed the race first but you're tricking yourself into believing growth spurt 1&2 did more than it actually did. The value is the same in both tracks and independent of the performance of the runner.

I hope that helps.

Ok let me teach you game design 101... you have weak skills you need to unlock to get to the good skills... that provide a sense of progression for us the players.

Your analogy is flawed. It's like saying why does walter have Basic Customization as a slingshot skill when it gets outperformed by the rest of his mod skills?...  obviously Basic Customization is a prerequisite for the better mod skills....

Why does woodie have Transformation Timer 1 and 2 when Transformation Timer 3 exists?

Flower power is growth spurt 3... 

This complaint is a whole load of nothing lol

[HowlVoid]

1 hour ago, Gashzer said:

Ok let me teach you game design 101... you have weak skills you need to unlock to get to the good skills... that provide a sense of progression for us the players.

Your analogy is flawed. It's like saying why does walter have Basic Customization as a slingshot skill when it gets outperformed by the rest of his mod skills?...  obviously Basic Customization is a prerequisite for the better mod skills....

Why does woodie have Transformation Timer 1 and 2 when Transformation Timer 3 exists?

Flower power is growth spurt 3... 

This complaint is a whole load of nothing lol

So this is actually a different argument from the first one you made but I'll answer you.

Walter is a good example of a good skill tree. It doesn't suffer from a lot of repetition unlike previous skill trees. Understandably, Walter deserved a good skill tree but we can still look at it's well desinged structure. 

We see a lot skills that follow a 1-2  ramp up skills Willow's, Wigfrids, Walter's, etc.

And some Skill trees the community feels have too many ramp up skills such as Wolfgang's which has 5, Woodies which has several with 3, or Wilson's.

How many "filler" skills are too many?

The answer is subjective, but my post isn't breaking any of the existing rules. 

What I've done is taken 1 skill, the old flower power, and slapped over the current 1-2 (i wouldn't mind if the current 1-2 (growth spurt) were completely removed in its place). 

This follows his mushroom branch which has a 1-2 ramp ups increasing growth, while the third increases yield.

Similarly, I suggest 1-2 increasing max/intial bloom, while the third helps prolong bloom.

This creates a more cohesive overall branch.

[Picklesaurus]

I wish the petal skill would come back, it was a really cool skill with a lot of small uses like helping taming beefalo as a source of obedience, being a source of rot and ashes and probably other uses I didnt think about at the time. Nowadays I don't understand why they removed it, they have added much stronger things than that since then, if the problem was it being perceived as strong by the devs just adjust it or make it be the last skill of a branch he uses less, that would open up more build variety, this skill was so unique and fitting. Also, please, take a look at plant crafts, I have talked about it since they made his skill tree, that skill branch makes me feel like worm has an akward crafting station attached to his skill tree that brings it down, it really makes me sad 
 

Spoiler

Also, carrats should be able to pick up Manure 

 

[HowlVoid]

After giving it some thought I think flower power serves better as "foundation" for the bloom skill tree.

If the first and second skills are a 10% and 20% increase to fertilizer respectively; you can stop there for a 3 day max bloom from super growth formula (a .5 day increase). That gives an important milestone while preserving the integrity of lower tiered skills. (Growth formula starter matures in 3 days normally).

The third skill could be the old flower power which it had been in that tier before.

The extra 10% fertilizer increase for a tier 3 skill is not needed. The increase to initial bloom or focusing on max bloom is far more useful.

Increasing the strength of fertilizers is a far more universal utility in wormwoods kit. Growth spurt 1&2 are just too specific in what they do (of which they do very very little).