Material for Future Webber Skill Trees

[layangan putus]

 Spider Traits 

(I am no expert on arachnid)

1. Carnivorous by nature exploiting its fangs;
2. Nocturnal but mind that they rely on their senses like vibrations, touch, and smell rather than relying on their sight;
3. They always have 8 legs and usually have 0 up to 8 eyes;
4. Glands related to status ailment ranging from slow, paralysis, and venom;
5. Being ectothermic (cold-blooded), they can tolerate temperature up to around 43C and are capable to produce antifreeze-like compounds against low temperature but they'd still prefer comfortable 26C;
6. Amazing jump ability related to non-nocturnal spiders;
7. Nest type creature for at least making silk structures in contrast with whale which maybe has no decent structures to fit its size;
8. DST only: Spiders are considered creature with low intelligence with no language abilities except for Webber since the boy is half human.

 

 Spider References 

1. Broodmother from Dota 2 (giant spider form, decent exoskeletons, web, and capable of lifesteal);
2. Elise from LoL (flexible form mainly in human form, nimble, web, and venomous);
3. Spiderman from Marvel (human form, nimble, web, and spider sense);
4. Quelaag from Dark Souls (human body with spider legs, wielding curve sword, jump and slam, and manipulating lava);
5. Armogohma from Zelda (spider form, tough exoskeletons, crawling on ceilings, shooting laser);
6. Dwarven Spider from Skyrim (spider form, tough exoskeletons, may explode);
7. Any generic spiders with giant size or swarm or poisonous.

 

 My Take 

1. Webber should have aggressive playstyle with flexible survivability especially for night time;

• No penalty eating raw meats (already implemented).
• Able to perform jump like in DST uncompromising mod.
• Anything but night vision to embrace nocturnal life.
• Ability to make ball formed of spiders covering him for mobility and major slam damage (credit to the person who came up with this idea).
• See if Webber may use 4 other limbs on his head.

2. More silk structures or equipment to put emphasis on half human, being the smartest spider in DST;

• Tent with similar visual like hanging water strider nest but bigger.
• Hammock? trampoline? cheap fishing nets? web walls between stone walls or trees?
• 12 slots backpack with visual like Wortox knabsack, better function than piggyback but worse than krampus sack.
• Hanging food storage for raw ingredients up to 25 slots or small ones but cheap cost.
• Web trap for lord of the fruit flies or mosquito or any other small creatures.
• Sticky lasso to grab items and immobilize foes.

3. More resistant to cold (already implemented through beard) and susceptible to fire (similar to wormwood - bad idea);

4. Current Webber has quantity or army playstyle similar to Wurt but lesser in many ways;

5. Issue with poison or venom (no mechanics) and verticality which a "spider boy" would shine if it exists in game (imagine a tower, other survivors need to climb the ladder or use stairs, yea Webber is already on the top);

6. Combining machine with spider is whatever because machine + anything just works;

7. I guess Webber will never have spider queen on his side, but then not fond of tens if not hundred of small spiders on the screen (noisy, messy, chaotic);

8. Extra generic boring abilities like:

• Hardened exoskeleton for less damage taken (similar to Wig - bad idea).
• Spitting sticky web ball for status ailment especially slow debuff (similar to Walter pebbles - bad idea).
• Webbed turf for the hounds. 

 

 

 What's your take on future Webber? 

 What kind of gaming experience do you want from future Webber? 
 

[NPCMaxwell]

I definitely would enjoy more dive into real life spider qualities for him maybe you could tag Dr.Webber here who already has many ideas how to combine the DS specific spider lore with real life ideas

[layangan putus]

Tagging @DrWebber

Do you find real life ideas too constricting in developing spider character in a video game?

[Walrusst]

I love how in the last day we've gotten three separate threads on webber. Not complaining but I find it funny how many people are same braining here.

I also suggested a backpack, but its a bit of a special one cause it starts with 6 standard slots and upgrades to 10 with spider queen materials.
But its key feature is working as a hive you can deploy repeatedly to call back spiders into your inventory, and call out spiders that are in it (Preserving them with the basic hivesack, but healing them with the upgraded one, using special spider exclusive slots.)

My thoughts on this one was simple.
One of the pains of webber is the lag caused by your spiders always running around, having a fast place to store them and call them out only when they are needed would be a huge quality of life.

I was a bit less focused on real life lore and decided to blend a bit of his gameplay legend with the strangeness of the constant, as well as powers themed around the various spiders you meet (eating the switcherdoodles to temporarily be able to do what they do, so you could learn to jump with a warrior switcherdoodle but you could also be a spitting spider instead.)

 

My post was way too big and I don't expect much of it to be taken verbatum if anything, but I will be sad if we don't get the hivesack or the switcherdoodle eating. Sort of expect nothing but I really want those two things its a strange vibe I know, but its basically where I'm sitting.

[Mike23Ua]

I’m going to call it right here right now, the Webber skill tree will rework/overhaul how Webber plays as drastically as Wendy’s skill tree reworked function and control over Abigail.

And I have the hilariously funny feeling that amongst those changes: Switcherdoodle cookies could be getting more complicated to craft by needing newer and rarer ingredients or by giving Webber **Exclusive Tasks** only he can perform, like I don’t know… making friends with the tree dwelling water spiders so they climb up into the trees and Scavange resources that otherwise would be unobtainable?

I also get the funny feeling that a lot of current Webber mains are going to be very very upset when to “Webber” (TM) they have to do more complicated tasks.

But, you can’t please everyone so it is what it is.

[NPCMaxwell]

1 hour ago, DST enjoyer said:

Tagging @DrWebber

Do you find real life ideas too constricting in developing spider character in a video game?

No no no I always welcome a mix of fantasy and reality \o/

[Dr.Webber]

On 3/17/2025 at 12:38 PM, DST enjoyer said:

 Spider Traits 

(I am no expert on arachnid)

1. Carnivorous by nature exploiting its fangs;
2. Nocturnal but mind that they rely on their senses like vibrations, touch, and smell rather than relying on their sight;
3. They always have 8 legs and usually have 0 up to 8 eyes;
4. Glands related to status ailment ranging from slow, paralysis, and venom;
5. Being ectothermic (cold-blooded), they can tolerate temperature up to around 43C and are capable to produce antifreeze-like compounds against low temperature but they'd still prefer comfortable 26C;
6. Amazing jump ability related to non-nocturnal spiders;
7. Nest type creature for at least making silk structures in contrast with whale which maybe has no decent structures to fit its size;
8. DST only: Spiders are considered creature with low intelligence with no language abilities except for Webber since the boy is half human.

 

 Spider References 

1. Broodmother from Dota 2 (giant spider form, decent exoskeletons, web, and capable of lifesteal);
2. Elise from LoL (flexible form mainly in human form, nimble, web, and venomous);
3. Spiderman from Marvel (human form, nimble, web, and spider sense);
4. Quelaag from Dark Souls (human body with spider legs, wielding curve sword, jump and slam, and manipulating lava);
5. Armogohma from Zelda (spider form, tough exoskeletons, crawling on ceilings, shooting laser);
6. Dwarven Spider from Skyrim (spider form, tough exoskeletons, may explode);
7. Any generic spiders with giant size or swarm or poisonous.

 

 My Take 

1. Webber should have aggressive playstyle with flexible survivability especially for night time;

• No penalty eating raw meats (already implemented).
• Able to perform jump like in DST uncompromising mod.
• Anything but night vision to embrace nocturnal life.
• Ability to make ball formed of spiders covering him for mobility and major slam damage (credit to the person who came up with this idea).
• See if Webber may use 4 other limbs on his head.

2. More silk structures or equipment to put emphasis on half human, being the smartest spider in DST;

• Tent with similar visual like hanging water strider nest but bigger.
• Hammock? trampoline? cheap fishing nets? web walls between stone walls or trees?
• 12 slots backpack with visual like Wortox knabsack, better function than piggyback but worse than krampus sack.
• Hanging food storage for raw ingredients up to 25 slots or small ones but cheap cost.
• Web trap for lord of the fruit flies or mosquito or any other small creatures.
• Sticky lasso to grab items and immobilize foes.

3. More resistant to cold (already implemented through beard) and susceptible to fire (similar to wormwood - bad idea);

4. Current Webber has quantity or army playstyle similar to Wurt but lesser in many ways;

5. Issue with poison or venom (no mechanics) and verticality which a "spider boy" would shine if it exists in game (imagine a tower, other survivors need to climb the ladder or use stairs, yea Webber is already on the top);

6. Combining machine with spider is whatever because machine + anything just works;

7. I guess Webber will never have spider queen on his side, but then not fond of tens if not hundred of small spiders on the screen (noisy, messy, chaotic);

8. Extra generic boring abilities like:

• Hardened exoskeleton for less damage taken (similar to Wig - bad idea).
• Spitting sticky web ball for status ailment especially slow debuff (similar to Walter pebbles - bad idea).
• Webbed turf for the hounds. 

 

 

 What's your take on future Webber? 

 What kind of gaming experience do you want from future Webber? 


 

 

if not night vision what nocturnal abilities do you suggest 

Also I Need help coming up with and filling in the blanks of structure/items/spiders, something that affects all spiders to replace the second half of each alignment, and at least one more skill

skill tree:
 

(befriended nurse spider to unlock)
    •    Unbreakable friendship: Make decorated dens  not break when attacked and spiders in the  Bedazzled range only attack attackers and nurses spawn from tier 3 + decorated dens ground webs no longer reduce


(Befriend all spider types)
    •    Beneficial bite : teach spiders how to “chop/mine” with each having the efficiency of a pig by demonstrating it done normally so they make the connection between that and them breaking down stuff + they eat yucuse snot now when you’re stuck 
   


    •    Silk harvester: razors can be used to remove webbing from tiles dropping two

    •    Rapid Growth: Webber can upgrade dens with 4 silk instead of 5 silk
 
 


    •    Regeneration sensitization:increase stats from nurse spiders for Webber(15 hp)

    •    Nocturnally adept: partial night vision  (sense spiders walk around at night) only silhouettes  not enough to not be attacked by Charlie but enough to  see where your going, reduced sanity lose from dusk or night              60-80% during dawn and 40-60% during night.


    •    Deep den sleeper:Stats for sleeping in dens to 2 health and 3 health per second 

    •    No picky eater: Webber has the ability to eat pig skin, bunny puffs, or any non human edible meats that pigs and spiders eat for 50-60 hunger

 


    •    Den Relocation: Tier 1 dens can be picked up by Webber and relocated (affects Decorated Dens + can remove and relocate the stickers)(pulled from @JJ0264)

    •    Unnatural brood: You are now able to craft the itsy bitsy nest reusing the baby spiders from the forge and they fill up a Polar Bearger Bin like item called the itsy bitsy nest and they would act as distractions somewhat like the parasitic shading  but the victim wouldn’t be immune to damage they each could only be outside the itsy bitsy nest for a total of 8 minutes after that they return to the itsy bitsy nest and nap and they’ll need to charge back up before using them again so they hunger durability that can be refilled using meat, honey, or electric milk/monster milk similar to the eye mask, but you decide if,when,and how many you takeout at a time so you can have them out over the course of multiple days without needing to recharge them. If you’re smart about it, also depending on what beard skin you have on will determine what they look like  they would look like tiny versions of what spiders from a den that has a queen that looks like that beards respective Webber skin as well as the egg sack having the same color,you get 6 slots with 12-20 second cool down until you can spawn the next one and they would do 9 damage,have 7 hp, upon death one will respond every 90 seconds 
(You need this to craft other 3 crafts and after the first 4 uses you need to replace the den decorating set for five more uses each time you run out)
8 silk, 3 paper, and 1 spider egg, 1 den decorating set,24 health

Concept examples:

 








(like this except they smile like befriended spiders)











    •    Carecrafts :  (unnatural brood required)
?:

?:

homemade den: You can make a homemade den if you place a cookie in the homemade den it will turn 2 spiders into that type, every time the den has a spider added it lose 1% durability, you can find out how much durability there is by inspecting, and you can repair it using silk but maybe by 2-5%. it has 12 spiders with the inventory of a scaled chest but for spiders only, it’ll take 90 seconds for each spider to respawn it (and how it will respawn a spider after the 90 seconds is the lightning conductor purple gem combination will cause lightning to strike around up in the respawned to spider crawl out of the ground like rapid king as a reference to how you unlock Webber in solo Don’t Starve)
it will spawn that Webbing Wickerbottom spawns with Overcoming Arachnophobia around it, craft the homemade den  with some number of bone shards and silk to make a sort of kit when you add a purple gem, a lightning conductor and one use of the den decorating set, you could also call the spiders out of the den by interacting with it
And it can be broken using a hammer


 

    •    Silkcrafts:
Silk shooter: 
?:

Silk spindle:@blacknight7890 came up with an idea I re named it and changed its look but other then that it’s all there’s Learn to craft a 'Silk spindle', [like a giant spindle with spider hair and  a finial on it (with white string when silk is on it)] a structure that can be placed near decorated spider dens. Spiders will spin webs onto it over time, can be harvested for silk." [passive silk farming]

finial looks like this:



    •    Garden spider :farm like Webber does in the gorge and learn more from the gardeneer hat


(Icon borrowed from @BiddoBams’ Warly skill tree)
    •    Spider Goatherder: learn to milk volt goats that won’t be disturbed by Webber anymore and calm charged volt goats by feeding them any number of Wobsters, bananas,meat,Burch nuts, pomegranates,eggs, Asparagus, pumpkin seeds (doing this while not charged will make them follow you for a short period time to allow for easier relocation)

    •    Silk stitch: You can now repair things with silk like Winona’s trusty tape

    •    acidophilic arachnid: when in acid rain Webber gets: 

Attack Damage    Physical DamageTaken    Move Speed
+5%    -2.5%    +1.5%

    •    Queen decorator: you can now decorate spider queen that will give her all the same effects of a decorated den(if you have unbreakable friendship, decorations won’t fall off when hit and will only attack attackers), when fighting nearby, spider queen will send over befriended nurse spiders to your aid

    •    Animalistic arachnid: Webber has the same all fours running ability as Wilbur and wonkey, when you fight bare handed you use your claws doing double the normal amount of damage

    •     In the spirit of friendship: When dying with Webber will drop 2 spider glands, Webber can give players the shoebox and they could only use it for its calling off aggressive spider function

    •    Garden spiders:
Flame touched spiders:  has built in scale mail as well as can cook
Switcherdoodle: 2 monster meat, 2 silk, 2 fire nettle fronds

Concept art by @chenxx



:
:

    •    

    •    

    •      

    •    

   
          
 Alignments:
 
     

shadow spider care:
 
The Queen will reward your loyalty with  the recipe to help your spider friends evade dangers

 2 monster meat, 3 silk, and 4 dark pedals
The shadow spider is a spider that will teleport like shadow creatures after attacking. They also have faster walking and attack speed then normal spiders, have 450 health, and deal 30 damage.

 
You can power spiders by using a new item called _____
After biting a mob That mob will receive 25 planar and normal damage for the next four minutes with mobs of the opposing alignment receiving an extra 10 planar damage per minute and the spider will lose they’re power until next time you power the spiders

 


Lunar spider care: 
 

The cryptic founder will reward your curiosity, with  the recipe to help your spider friends blitz dangers

 2 monster meat, 3 silk, and 4 lune tree blossoms 
The lunar spider is a spider that will move like greater gestalts when attacking (Wigfrid’s elding spear ability, but with a larger range). They also have faster walking and attack speed then normal spiders, have 450 health, and deal 30 damage.

You can power spiders by using a new item called _____
After biting a mob That mob will receive 25 planar and normal damage for the next four minutes with mobs of the opposing alignment receiving an extra 10 planar damage per minute and the spider will lose they’re power until next time you power the spiders

… any suggestions?

[Walrusst]

Oh yeah, I did mention mine earlier but here is my version of it.

Some ideas that I had that might fit into your silkcraft branch was the whip that uses webs and hounds teeth.
My woofer spiders were a pun on wolf spiders initially before I decided on a more cartoony childish version of the idea because webber talks like he likes dogs (I put a lot of thought into character personality/backstory with my versions of these.)

Similarly, I'd be down to writing down the garden spiders into my secret spiders branch because of how I kinda missed the gorge so I didn't realize webber had tilling spiders in the past events.

I would love to work together to try and combine ideas in the three threads since we all started work at around the same time and there is overlap in what we want! (More switcherdoodles, switcher dens, silkcraft/webcraft.)

[layangan putus]

3 hours ago, Dr.Webber said:

if not night vision what nocturnal abilities do you suggest

I suppose they need to visualize vibrations or visualize smell into the ability:

• Vibrations could be like distorted silhouette (similar to your suggestion about partial night vision) and that would be enough since spiders are known to be very sensitive to vibrations so I'd imagine the vibration comes from a beating heart can be felt by sensing it through the feet touching the ground then finally reach the spiders. Stay still is not enough if the organs are constantly vibrating even just the slightest.
• Smell could be like messy gas if there is wind. Although I am not sure if spiders are experts in smelling chemical signals and should they make different color of messy gas released by each creature?

This is very different with how night vision works which amplifies faint light signals, that's why you can see clearly using night vision like different turfs up to tiny detail. We, human, are limited to this sense of vibration like if you've ever experienced vibration from earthquake then you can tell the earth is vibrating but you wouldn't know the source by sensing the vibration alone. Now the answer to your question is like answering how a xenomorph can navigate and locate its prey without relying on its eyes. Although, I am not sure how spiders can sense the vibration produced by shadows like Rictus and also Charlie.

 

BUT..

 

Clearly I am only talking one type of spiders since there is another spider type called "Jumping Spiders" as usually non-nocturnal and they possess incredible 360 degrees vision with their 8 eyes in total specifically their 2 larger front eyes capable to scope for detail. The problem in DST is, this is just the basic vision of every character which the players can see every angle surrounding the character unlike in PZ which you can only see reasonable cone-like angle depends which side your character is currently facing.

 

In the end, this vibration visualization is just one way to offer unique experience for Webber enjoyers but explaining things is easier than coding from scratch about this complex idea like is it worth it? I think how meaningful when one character which is Webber can have so much freedom for "lights out" excluding Winona's immunity against Charlie with no interaction due to total darkness. I bargain for 80% during dusk and 90% sanity loss reduction during night to complement this nocturnal playstyle.