(Poll) How many people legitimately unlock their skill points on skill trees?

[Hollow soul 3]

I unlocked one legitimately. If you know how to play the game, surviving indefinitely isn't a challenge. It makes waiting around for the insight boring.

If klei cares about the consult experience, some of the console commands need to be moved into the options. So much qol locked behind PC exclusive features.

[GrapeVruit]

9 hours ago, Radicaljoe said:

I'll be honest, I've already got 5,000 hours. I guarantee you without a shadow of a doubt I've played every character for a full 70 days to meet that requirement. I'm going to get a lot more enjoyment from having all the points I already should have gotten. Klei doesn't have an individual character playtime tracker, so I understand why it didn't automatically retroactively allocate them all for me. I just skip forward and get the points that should already have been awarded to me.

The one exception to this will be Wes. Because I haven't played 70 days of Wes, I will unlock all of those skills by playing as him.

Honestly, I highly recommend playing him if you're getting bored of the game and or character skill trees. Surviving and killing bosses as Wes has giving me so much joy and excitement that I haven't felt in quite some time. Just downed Armored Bearger and dopamine is just oozing all over the folds in my brain.

[BezKa]

I don't unlock skill trees at all

[00petar00]

Developers made the right decision making skill tree time based. Forums are often the outlier because experienced players will gather here and most players don't talk about game they play online or engage in these discussions.

DST is at its very essence a sandbox game before anything else and that's why cheating skill trees should be allowed like there are countless clientside mods that make the game easier on any server you play.

I can understand players not finding it fun to wait but anyone that plays the game for first time or doesn't have much experience would enjoy this more compared to getting specific quests like kill X tallbrids or gather X of this because they might not even know the names of mobs unless they look outside of the game and gathering task can also be difficult as a lot of players avoid caves or sailing at first which seems reasonable.

[BB Marioni]

Here is what I think: The introduction of Skill trees were said to be able to cater the game to both veterans and newbies who are trying to learn the game. The devs are aware that we can just skip the process and unlock all skill points as veterans, but they do not care as it was not meant to be a progression system for veterans. The unlocking of skill points every couple of days was meant for beginners to slowly learn the character and their capabilities, so unlocking skills the legit way is meant to be more for beginners. For veterans, the reason why these skill trees can be carried over to other worlds is because they are meant to be customize-able perks and not a per-world progression. But instead of just adding all these skills as base perk, they want vets to have the ability to choose which perks to use and which to not use as adding all of the skills might be too much perks for one character. It also introduces different ways to play a character for veterans. Some people might think that "it's useless coz all players follow the same meta skill tree that is best for boss DPS" but that is untrue as only elitists in this game play the game that way, and I still know a lot of people who enjoy farming, travel, base building or survival perks and even just ignore boss hunting. 

[00petar00]

46 minutes ago, BB Marioni said:

Here is what I think: The introduction of Skill trees were said to be able to cater the game to both veterans and newbies who are trying to learn the game.

Veterans already know enough to survive and what to do, I am not disputing that you can always continue learning and practicing but isn't it obvious that skill tree buffs besides affinity would help a new player much more?

48 minutes ago, BB Marioni said:

The unlocking of skill points every couple of days was meant for beginners to slowly learn the character and their capabilities, so unlocking skills the legit way is meant to be more for beginners.

That would be a hard sell for players that already enjoy characters they play so skill trees need to be something that most players want because of the time between updates, If klei could pump out all skill trees within one update I don't think anyone would complain If there wasn't much to them but If we didn't get skill trees there could've been years of content that could've went into something that everyone can access no matter which character they play.

59 minutes ago, BB Marioni said:

For veterans, the reason why these skill trees can be carried over to other worlds is because they are meant to be customize-able perks and not a per-world progression. But instead of just adding all these skills as base perk, they want vets to have the ability to choose which perks to use and which to not use as adding all of the skills might be too much perks for one character. It also introduces different ways to play a character for veterans. Some people might think that "it's useless coz all players follow the same meta skill tree that is best for boss DPS" but that is untrue as only elitists in this game play the game that way, and I still know a lot of people who enjoy farming, travel, base building or survival perks and even just ignore boss hunting. 

I think this goes deeper for example customization as its not interesting when 3 out of 3 players play the same character but If they can use skill trees there will be difference between them. 

Experienced players can take advantage of their knowledge and get the most out of skill tree but its not like you can't use portal to reset it. There is meta when it comes to fighting but you can include other perks that help with utility that can be as important If not more because fighting is only a part of the game even though it is a big part.

[lowercase skye]

This poll is basically useless data considering that the vast vast majority of people unlocking their skill trees legitimately are doing it while still learning the game and so aren't going to be in a forum community of its most dedicated long term players.

[MA7xGE]

16 minutes ago, 00petar00 said:

I think this goes deeper for example customization as its not interesting when 3 out of 3 players play the same character but If they can use skill trees there will be difference between them. 

I'm playing a world with a noob WX as a Wormwood, and I'm a Maxwell main.

I have currently used like all but 3 skill points, since we have progressed the game no longer than the first spring. I don't know yet which final 3 skills will be the most useful for us, but I have been slowly unlocking them as we go.

Once we get to Maxwell's skilltree, I'm gonna unlock it legitimately to really learn to master every skill one by one. I think it's going to be a good thing for my WX-buddy too, to be able to master the skilltree and plan beforehand how to get the best out of it as our story progresses.

I really like the system as it is, since it allows for the most diverse use of it.

[GetNerfedOn]

a previous, similar poll i did on the matter yielded similar results

 

[Nikki Darks]

As someone who religiously plays this game; has around 4K hours.... I using the insight mod that instantly unlocks all insight for me. I am not waiting even 10 days for skill points I've been waiting for months to come out in the first place.

[BB Marioni]

4 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

That would be a hard sell for players that already enjoy characters they play so skill trees need to be something that most players want because of the time between updates, If klei could pump out all skill trees within one update I don't think anyone would complain If there wasn't much to them but If we didn't get skill trees there could've been years of content that could've went into something that everyone can access no matter which character they play.

On this note, this actually feels like the biggest downside as more later characters get better treatment as devs get better ideas, while earlier characters get worse skill trees just because the devs have not yet thought of new stuff when they got released. 

[Nikki Darks]

1 hour ago, BB Marioni said:

On this note, this actually feels like the biggest downside as more later characters get better treatment as devs get better ideas, while earlier characters get worse skill trees just because the devs have not yet thought of new stuff when they got released. 

This might be unrelated to the post, but I really wish Klei would revise earlier Skill Trees before moving onto new ones... Because what the hecc is Wormwood's skill tree still doing here in its current form?

I started playing Wormwood, love him to bits; his skill tree feels mostly irrelevant besides Ipecaca which helps me get poo faster... And maybe the healing during day time.

[Hollow soul 3]

10 hours ago, 00petar00 said:

Developers made the right decision making skill tree time based. Forums are often the outlier because experienced players will gather here and most players don't talk about game they play online or engage in these discussions.

DST is at its very essence a sandbox game before anything else and that's why cheating skill trees should be allowed like there are countless clientside mods that make the game easier on any server you play.

I can understand players not finding it fun to wait but anyone that plays the game for first time or doesn't have much experience would enjoy this more compared to getting specific quests like kill X tallbrids or gather X of this because they might not even know the names of mobs unless they look outside of the game and gathering task can also be difficult as a lot of players avoid caves or sailing at first which seems reasonable.

It's going to be around 150 hours to unlock all the skill trees once they're all released. There's plenty of time for new players to get board with it. 

It's not really our job to think of a fun or interesting way to unlock insight, but that doesn't make the current system right or good. It's uninspired, with no challenge and meaning way to interact with. 

[Crazy Gorilla]

8 hours ago, lowercase skye said:

This poll is basically useless data considering that the vast vast majority of people unlocking their skill trees legitimately are doing it while still learning the game and so aren't going to be in a forum community of its most dedicated long term players.

I was thinking about if the data would be any different if I asked people in public servers about this. 

[SpookyXy]

If I was a new player I'd unlock them naturally but I've been playing the game for years and have over a thousand hrs, so I just skip the days and get right into the new stuff.

[Cheggf]

9 hours ago, lowercase skye said:

This poll is basically useless data considering that the vast vast majority of people unlocking their skill trees legitimately are doing it while still learning the game and so aren't going to be in a forum community of its most dedicated long term players.

If a poll is useless if it doesn't reach every single person ever then every single poll ever made in the history of mankind have all been useless. It is impossible to get data that isn't useless.

[Maxil20]

I’ve never minded the slow and steady approach to unlocking character skilltrees. It’s pretty rapid, and most of the perks I like that are not affinity defining can easily be reached with a few points, which just so happen to be the quickest points you earn while unlocking all 15 points.

It’s also given me some sort of excuse to play as a character “long term” and mess with their existing perks with their skilltree ones. I think its a nice experience, at least.

[lowercase skye]

40 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

If a poll is useless if it doesn't reach every single person ever

I feel like I shouldn't have to explain that that's obviously not what I mean. Please read my post again and consider the significance of me mentioning two specific groups of people.

[Cheggf]

3 hours ago, lowercase skye said:

I feel like I shouldn't have to explain that that's obviously not what I mean. Please read my post again and consider the significance of me mentioning two specific groups of people.

The useless data would be "Hey people who don't even know what a console command is, do you use console commands? Yes or no please". The forums are not some elite group of god gamers, tons of people here are new to the game and there's frequently fresh faces around. Especially with the implication that people aren't going to "community forums" when they're learning the game, when 99% of posts on more popular sites like Reddit & the SCUD are from people who just got the game. 

[Clopsy627]

I play on the switch so i can't use commands to skip it but at least it got me to beat fuelweaver :]

[FillerText]

I personally think it's kinda lame to cheat Affinity skills in. But Regular skills you unlock by literally existing being skipped is okay because it's lame to wait 72 days(about as much as it takes to unlock Woodie in DS) just to try out everything new the character has to offer. It's just a weird chore to do that I am not willing to do, since I can "just survive" just fine as Wes for that amount of time.

[Rizzy2711]

On 4/30/2025 at 2:25 PM, Crazy Gorilla said:

I am curious to see how many people unlock their insight points and affinities the way the game was intended (waiting 68 days and killing the required bosses) vs how many people skip unlocking their skills using a mod or commands and also why. This only really applies to PC players though, since I am not really sure console players have any good ways of skipping that. 

As a previous PC but now a console player (some friends who were new to the game only got console), there isn't an "express" way to unlock them. We did so with a massive merm army to kill all the bosses! Pretty much the closest to a "cheat" you are going to get lol. 

[hyoton123]

I skip time only.

[Waywarbler]

There's a few characters I haven't played before, and a few more I haven't played in a long time, so when one of those gets a new skill tree, I start a new world as that character just to fill it out.