After experiencing Walter's skill tree, I find it hard to get into other characters, knowing what they have can't be as good.

[Cheggf]

25 minutes ago, readkey said:

1. Non-linear options can cause balance issue easily since they are literally new skills. They can easily over-bloat a character's perks.

Whether or not it's linear has nothing to do with if it's "bloating" a character's perks. And even with this linear boring design they've still made multiple skill trees which are way too overpowered, they're just overpowered and boring instead of overpowered and fun. 

25 minutes ago, readkey said:

2. Some skills are designed to be powerful enough that you must invest more than 1 point to get them.

And I don't think anyone would mind that if it was done in a way that actually makes sense. Needing to buy 4 completely irrelevant perks just so you can get the 1 good perk on your tree sucks. Needing to buy literally the exact same perk 5 times in a row sucks. These skill trees are not skill trees, if nobody is actually making different choices then the choices may as well not be there at all.

If you use cheats to have infinite Insight and get every single skill nothing happens. The characters become a bit stronger, but it isn't by this huge margin, and most of them are still miles behind Maxwell, and the ones that are way too overpowered don't get much more overpowered than they already are. There are a ton of different areas where being concerned about the game's balance and powercreep would make sense, but freaking Wolfgang's skill tree is not one of them. They could condense his skill tree to such an enormous extent that it's 5 points to get all 22 perks and add a bunch of new stuff so you get the entire current skill tree and 10 more perks and he would still probably suck.

[Masked Koopa]

On 3/22/2025 at 8:27 AM, Well-met said:

it's pathetic to witness in real time the hole klei has dug themselves into.

can we go back to the timeline where they just made new biomes and season stuff after refreshes ended?

I understand the sentiment but honestly the content in the skill trees have been way more fun than reworks. I think it is reasonable to fear that the game go through eternal re-rework hell, but this thread also demonstrates that Klei is also able to produce something people look at and go "yes this is the standard and what skill trees should strive toward".

Obviously a character may well never reach perfection or anything, but I think as long as there is an emphasis on bringing the facets of a character in-line with one another, there's not too much room for issue. As long as we can agree X thing is at a good point, we can safely modify the Y things to be more like X without it being an endless battle with no end in sight.

Wormwood may have been changed a zillion times, but the changes that were made moreso elevated his unique crafts and the existing Moon Shrooms, rather than just feeling like bloat. I think for me the best outcome would be a focus on greater parity between the "good" parts of a character and those left in the dust.

[Vinja]

On 3/21/2025 at 1:07 PM, Gashzer said:

You know why Walter got a great skilltree? 

Because Walter mains knew what they wanted an gave practical, reasonable feedback that explained how they played Walter and why they choose Walter. 

You all can thank us for such an awesome skilltree.

Yeah! And you know why Maxwell got such a great character rework and others didn't? Because us Maxwell mains knew what we wanted a gave practical, reasonable feedback that explained why we played Maxwell and what we wanted!

It had nothing to do with the fact that by the time Maxwell got reworked the devs literally had years of experience doing character reworks, or the fact that the base game itself had changed so much between the beginning of the reworks and the end, or the fact that the characters who got reworked at the end had literally been theorized and had ideas bounced around for years not only by the devs themselves but also by people on the forums..

Yeah, none of that had anything to do with it, it was all me! Willow fans, it's your fault your rework was bad! You too woodie fans! I'm the difference guys!

[Gashzer]

5 hours ago, Vinja said:

Yeah! And you know why Maxwell got such a great character rework and others didn't? Because us Maxwell mains knew what we wanted a gave practical, reasonable feedback that explained why we played Maxwell and what we wanted!

It had nothing to do with the fact that by the time Maxwell got reworked the devs literally had years of experience doing character reworks, or the fact that the base game itself had changed so much between the beginning of the reworks and the end, or the fact that the characters who got reworked at the end had literally been theorized and had ideas bounced around for years not only by the devs themselves but also by people on the forums..

Yeah, none of that had anything to do with it, it was all me! Willow fans, it's your fault your rework was bad! You too woodie fans! I'm the difference guys!

I also take some credit for Maxwells kit. I was a maxwell main in the days of old, took me a while to embrace the Walter master race. 

Back then I remember suggesting giving maxwell different spells with one example being a AoE slow down shadow hands field. Which Klei took on board, built on and split into shadow sneak and shadow pillar.

So yeah Maxwell got the better rework because people like me were suggesting practical, reasonable, lore appropriate buffs.

Now that I think about it, some of the better character reworks/skilltrees are characters which I've actively voiced my opinions and suggestions about.

Guess my 11 years of playing DST since the closed beta has made me a bastion for good ideas