Alignment perk confusion.

[JustAPineapple]

This is an open question because maybe I'm missing something, but it's always strange to me when they're called 'overpowered because they're accessible day 1' or 'free bonuses' when they aren't..?

Unless you skip day's or otherwise cheat to get them all immediately (which im not saying is a bad thing mind you, play how you want) You have to survive and play the game to earn the points, they aren't immediate upgrades and I believe they are/should be balanced around that fact. Like, surviving as long as you can is, for a new players especially, a big intrinsic goal of the game. 

So, skill points are a reward given to the player for being good at the game, one that sticks between worlds and the world wipes that result from death. Beyond being a way for new players to measure their progress and a carrot dangled to start another world and try to push a little further into the year, they open up new options, obviously, options made more meaningful due to their persistence between worlds and servers.

Additionally, it gives players a motivation to try new characters, to go through and unlock all of their skills to, something thats, well, really fun!

And so, the alignment perks are the ultimate reward for 'mastery' over the game, you beat the big bad boss, prove you know what your doing and can deal with what the game throws at you, and you get something big flashy and cool! (Unless your wolfgang) These perks should be powerful, they should make surviving through the early game easier, they should be relevant during rifts, because to access them you had to have already "beat" one of dsts hardest challenges.

Well, unless you skip days, but skipping days or beating the bossess in god mode genuinely should not be taken into consideration for skill tree balance and analysis. If your playing the game unmodified, you do have to earn those points by playing the game, and beating the games hardest bosses and their associated questlines.

In a way they are the dst equivalent to ds chatacter unlocking, in that they are a meta progression aspect in a game that, I promise, is still permadeath on default settings. If anything it suits dst's multiplayer nature very well imo, sense these milestones carry over between servers, so even if your hopping between public servers, you are meaningfully making progress.

Is it perfect? No, and there's plenty you can criticize about it, but I do genuinely think its a good addition to the game and adds significantly more then it subtracts.

Its more then "reworks two" it's the implementation of meta progression, and I don't think many people see it that way, and i really dont understand why?

But again, maybe Im missing something and Id love to hear other peoples two cents, this is just my opinion after all.

 

[YouKnowWho142]

I think this is a really interesting perspective to have. I really wish they leaned harder into this idea of meta progression past just days survived by having unlock conditions on more skills for doing certain milestones. The insight points can remain working the way they do now, but more skills than just alignment perks can get their own conditions. For instance, Woodie can unlock the ability to put points into his wereforms by spending time in these forms or doing their specific tasks. Maybe Woodie can gain the ability to level up the treeguard skills by killing enough treeguards (or even require pacifying them), or unlock the faster picking skills by picking a certain amount of grass and twigs. Wigfrid already did this by requiring certain things such as blowing beefalo horns or use battle stingers enough times, and I wish it was something they did a little more to make unlocking the ability to use skills more interesting than simply skipping time, and while you'd still be able to cheat in all the unlock conditions to use in other worlds it would help to incentivize character experience for those who want to do it more legitimately

[JustAPineapple]

Oh absolutely! I honestly forgot wigfrid had that, that is a really cool feature I'd be tottally down if every chatacter had a flavorful and unqiue condition like that!

[qwp18]

9 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

I really wish they leaned harder into this idea of meta progression past just days survived by having unlock conditions on more skills for doing certain milestones.

Same! In a lot of games I dislike meta progression, but the little things you go out of your way to do as wigfrid is really fun! Reminds me of miscellaneous Isaac unlocks (:

[hyoton123]

26 minutes ago, JustAPineapple said:

And so, the alignment perks are the ultimate reward for 'mastery' over the game, you beat the big bad boss, prove you know what your doing and can deal with what the game throws at you, and you get something big flashy and cool! (Unless your wolfgang) These perks should be powerful, they should make surviving through the early game easier, they should be relevant during rifts, because to access them you had to have already "beat" one of dsts hardest challenges.

Yeah, agreed. Theres something to be said for recognizing that someone actually knows what theyre doing now. And it’s a side benefit but I also think that telling new players that theres big bosses out there, via the skill tree, is a good thing.

[Johnny_Waffles]

I Think the main reason people think the affinities are OP is because all you gotta to do is kill that boss as any charater to unlock them. But i really do like the skilltrees since they make me branch out and try out new charaters.

[Well-met]

4 hours ago, JustAPineapple said:

You have to survive and play the game to earn the points, they aren't immediate upgrades and I believe they are/should be balanced around that fact

it's just one world year, I think you are overreacting a bit.

[Swiyss]

ok buddy, tell me why Willow skill tree removes most issues with almost every mob in the game, but wilson skill tree doesn't. I think there should be at the very least some bit of combat in every skill tree, like wormwood for example.

[JustAPineapple]

30 minutes ago, Well-met said:

it's just one world year, I think you are overreacting a bit.

Yeah, thats surviving 10hours which I think is reasonable. It's not at all a lot for people who play a bunch and know enough about the game, but for what you get out of the skill points, and needing to do it for every chatacter, honestly yeah! Personally the time frame makes sense to me. Especially considering most public servers and peoples first couple runs have winter as a major roadblock, and then summer later on. Like don't get me wrong its not reinventing the wheel here, it's a very basic level up mechanic.

I also think this could be remedied with more unique perk unlock conditions like youknowwhomentioned

13 minutes ago, astareus said:

ok buddy, tell me why Willow skill tree removes most issues with almost every mob in the game, but wilson skill tree doesn't. I think there should be at the very least some bit of combat in every skill tree, like wormwood for example.

How skill trees compare to one another wasn't really the point of this post? But yeah I do think characters like Wilson would have benefited from more fun and impactful alignments, not necessarily needing to be combat focused but still.

And no need to be so confrontational?

[Swiyss]

12 minutes ago, JustAPineapple said:

How skill trees compare to one another wasn't really the point of this post? But yeah I do think characters like Wilson would have benefited from more fun and impactful alignments, not necessarily needing to be combat focused but still.

And no need to be so confrontational?

I'm so sorry if I came out as confrontational to you, that was not my intention. I hope you have a wonderful and amazing day with your family and friends!!!

[FillerText]

What I personally find odd about Skill Trees is that unlocking all Vanilla characters in the Singleplayer took about 80 days while all 15 points are unlocked in like 72 days.

When Skill trees took double the time it was basically equivalent to the time spent unlocking Wheeler. I might be wrong, but it was just always strange.

[Radicaljoe]

The 70 day limit makes some sense, just survive a year, but I wish they did more "quests"

Like they experimented slightly with that for Wigfrid. You do to quest of blowing the horn a couple times and you get the skill unlocked forever. Would be cool if they used more of those 1 time quest locks to kinda teach the player how to use the characters. 

Wilson can have the 70 day thing as normal. 

But imagine Willow snuffing like 5 smoldering items to unlock the lighter fire extinguisher skill. Or Winona refueling her catapults a couple times to unlock the better battery skills. Obviously not extremely difficult tasks, but I think it'd be more interactive and interesting than just surviving 70 days.

[YouKnowWho142]

2 hours ago, Radicaljoe said:

The 70 day limit makes some sense, just survive a year, but I wish they did more "quests"

Like they experimented slightly with that for Wigfrid. You do to quest of blowing the horn a couple times and you get the skill unlocked forever. Would be cool if they used more of those 1 time quest locks to kinda teach the player how to use the characters. 

Wilson can have the 70 day thing as normal. 

But imagine Willow snuffing like 5 smoldering items to unlock the lighter fire extinguisher skill. Or Winona refueling her catapults a couple times to unlock the better battery skills. Obviously not extremely difficult tasks, but I think it'd be more interactive and interesting than just surviving 70 days.

this is what I suggested earlier in the post and I 100% agree with it, it wouldn't affect people who just cheat in all the points anyway while making it more engaging and interactive for people doing it legitimately