New Settings Update

[mojede]

Dear Developer Team,

I’ve had this idea for quite some time and wanted to share it with you. It would be amazing to have a setting when generating a world that lets players decide whether the skill trees should be reset with each new world or stay as they are.

This option would give players more flexibility and replay value. You could choose to start fresh and rediscover the skill trees in new ways, or keep your existing progress if you prefer consistency. My friends and I think this would make the game even more fun and rewarding over time.

Thank you so much for reading and for all the work you’ve put into Don’t Starve Together. I really love this game and appreciate how much thought and care goes into it.

[Edible Coal]

it is a nice idea, too bad skill tree arnt designed that in mind, some early game skill require 4 skill point to get....

[HowlVoid]

I cant go back to being without skills, i imagine this is a very small minority. Still, I dont see this being too hard to implement?

[Mike23Ua]

40 minutes ago, HowlVoid said:

I cant go back to being without skills, i imagine this is a very small minority. Still, I dont see this being too hard to implement?

Actually, it would be a nightmare to implement in the manor that the op is asking for it. And as for myself personally: Since with the SOLE exception to “Affinity” Skills all skill points are mostly unlocked through just standing around and being idle- It would be a complete waste of development time and resources that could literally go into giving us ANYTHING else.

And no, I’m not trying to be a jerk. I’m saying that if Klei were to ever even consider this, they would have to re-redesign skill trees and how the skills are “unlocked”

And I’d much rather get more stuff like the new cave puzzle which added cute “stone hopping” animations.

[lowercase skye]

35 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

they would have to re-redesign skill trees and how the skills are “unlocked”

Why?

[Milordo]

7 hours ago, HowlVoid said:

I cant go back to being without skills, 

Lmaoooo.

Playing since 2023 without skill-trees and had tons and tons of new people learning and discovering the game without it. 

I get it that very few have band-aid fixes for characters and Walter, but trust me you can very easily live without them. It's  like you're doing a life with steroids.

[Edible Coal]

tbh i doubt this would be fun or interesting at all, all it would do is make people just wait around for their skills to light up so they can do the things they can on day 1 instead of day 50 

[Hungry French]

15 hours ago, Edible Coal said:

Это хорошая идея, но, к сожалению, дерево навыков не рассчитано на это. Для получения некоторых навыков в начале игры требуется 4 очка навыков...

That's literally the meaning of these skills... They are strong and therefore they cannot be taken immediately...

3 hours ago, Edible Coal said:

Честно говоря, я сомневаюсь, что это будет весело или интересно. Скорее всего, люди будут просто ждать, пока их навыки проявятся, чтобы они могли делать то, что могут, с первого дня, а не с пятого

They don't have to do it from day 1. This is a survival experience, not an innate buff like a rework. They complement the gameplay well, appearing gradually throughout the game. And from the start they only disfigure it...

12 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

На самом деле реализовать это в том виде, в котором просит автор, было бы сущим кошмаром. Что касается меня лично: поскольку, за исключением «Аффинити», все очки навыков в основном открываются простым стоянием на месте и бездействием, это было бы пустой тратой времени и ресурсов на разработку, которые можно было бы потратить на что-то другое.

И нет, я не пытаюсь вести себя как придурок. Я хочу сказать, что если бы в Klei задумались об этом, им пришлось бы полностью переработать деревья навыков и систему их «разблокировки»

The skill tree destroys itself because of Klei's stupid decisions. 
1. The skill tree opens once for all worlds... So the scoring system is pointless.
2. The skill tree is also limited, which is why there are 0 reasons to even upgrade the worst skills. And this is 33% of the skills of all Persians...
Therefore, the skill system is *****.  Not to mention that the tree makes the gameplay more monotonous and simple.

[Cassielu]

To remove only purpose of the skilltree system? Thats a bad idea

[Cheggf]

They should just make it so you earn the skill points instead of them being a really boring automatic timegate with no input from the player at all.

[Edible Coal]

Btw, theres a badge mod that allow you to earn new skill by doing stuff, i think is pretty close to your idea

[hoxi]

21 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Actually, it would be a nightmare to implement in the manor that the op is asking for it. And as for myself personally: Since with the SOLE exception to “Affinity” Skills all skill points are mostly unlocked through just standing around and being idle- It would be a complete waste of development time and resources that could literally go into giving us ANYTHING else.

And no, I’m not trying to be a jerk. I’m saying that if Klei were to ever even consider this, they would have to re-redesign skill trees and how the skills are “unlocked”

And I’d much rather get more stuff like the new cave puzzle which added cute “stone hopping” animations.

I don't usually do this, but I'll do an exception here since you're claiming something when you have no idea how the code is structured or how it works.

 

It took me a few days to go through and learn the skill tree code, and write some scripts to make a system that works as follow:

1. Vanilla skilltree experience earning is unaffected, it gets earned in the same usual way, and saved as expected, but the experience is unused.
2. Instead, skill points are calculated per amount of days that have passed in the world with the same thresholds vanilla uses (could be made to depend on how many the player has survived, but given how some mechanics scale based on world days, I just didn't bother, and it also makes it less annoying when swapping to a character with 0 xp, you'll have the same amount of skill points).
3. Affinities are unlocked for everyone in the world when the respective bosses have been defeated at least once.

1 would be even simpler to implement for Klei, I had to do some hacky checks here and there to avoid overriding functions entirely and keep vanilla functionality for when the game saves the information on the client's profile. But they could instead make more structured systems by adding new functions and things to keep track, or change functions to handle either system when needed.

2 same as 1. Also fun fact, worlds already keep track of what skills you have selected on them and how much XP you have, it's just that your client profile can override how much XP you have if you unlocked more XP in another world (as well as some measures to reset the whole thing if there's some weird data mismatch or so). I removed the ability to let the client override this (as it'd be invalid and out of sync anyway), and instead let whatever was saved on the server be what the client uses.

3 would be pretty simple and similar to what I did. They would likely add a shard_network component to track and sync things between shards, and this information is saved and kept when the game saves. The game already keeps track of defeated Celestial Champions in an existing component, but Fuelweaver doesn't have something like that, so I had to do some specific checks for things like Charlie's hand (the one that receives Dreadstone to enable rifts), the portal being repaired, etc.

 

It's nothing trivial, but it's also not overcomplicated, or a "nightmare" as you claim it would be. The only thing I'm not accounting for here is that they'd need to implement a setting or world option for it, when I just use some simple mod setting toggles.

 

 

12 hours ago, Edible Coal said:

tbh i doubt this would be fun or interesting at all, all it would do is make people just wait around for their skills to light up so they can do the things they can on day 1 instead of day 50 

I dunno, I personally like what skill trees can bring in some cases, but what I never liked about them is how affinities can massively change the game for some characters prior to defeating the respective bosses, and how some do little or even nothing for others.

While I agree that skill points learned just by time passing isn't the most interesting and could be improved on, I personally find having that + affinities being checked per world more interesting than starting the game with 15 skill points and having affinities like the ones Willow and Wurt have to massively change the game as much as they do.

Keep in mind, I tend to play the game at my own pace, which is very slow, so there's some bias there as to why I don't mind unlocking things every time I start a new world, but this hasn't been the first post about it either so I know I'm not the only one. What I don't get is why whenever people try to push back on this being suggested, they treat it as if it's being suggested to make that the only way the system should work, or come up with non-tangible reasons as to why it'd be a bad idea, when what's being suggested is a setting.

 

I feel like adding a setting to make skill points be tracked per world, and another setting for affinity unlocking, wouldn't really take as much effort as many other things they have implemented recently, and would give more options for people to play how they like.

[Mike23Ua]

I’m just asking what would be the purpose for doing this? Like I mean, for any sort of update to happen to this game it has to first go through PC and then be passed on through Sony, Microsoft & eventually Nintendos painful certification process.

This takes time, can delay or straight up cancel other ongoing projects or ideas, I do not see this as being a feature the game needs.

Especially seeing as how you can just build the celestial portal, character swap and not apply skill points until you feel like you’ve “earned them” yourself?

The game already gives us the freedom to remove all skill points, but it’s entirely on the player to re-spec.

you can make up your own rules for it too for example: You can say that growing a carrot farm and turning them into Carrats grants a skill point. Etc.

If dst was only a PC game, sure maybe..? but it’s not, and I even recall Klei having plans (which may be scraped by now..) to bring the game to Mobile.

[Nikki Darks]

20 hours ago, Cheggf said:

They should just make it so you earn the skill points instead of them being a really boring automatic timegate with no input from the player at all.

The issue with suggestions like this one is that certain characters... Were barely characters at all without the current skill trees.

Woodie, Willow, Walter... Why would you ever want to have to "earn" skills for your character to have any resemblance of an influence in the game?

This is why the current system is probably the best we'll ever get.

[Spicybullfrog]

It'd be great to be able to revisit the new player experience of unlocking skills as you go. That'd shake up the game and force you to consider what skills to prioritize, i think it'd be fun!
I've always felt that the amount of meaningful world creation options are shockingly sparse for how much stuff there is in there, I mean, look at "taste of terraria", which was supposed to be dst's version of the constant seed and all they do is switch around a couple of the resources and monsters. It doesn't help that the options that do mess with the map are so cryptic, and kind of inconsistent.
I want bisected maps separated by ocean! the option to set environmental damage to MORE, like how you can increase damage to players! landmasses separated by bridges like caves! caves that generate like the surface!
...maybe that one would cause a few issues.

On 10/19/2025 at 4:12 PM, Nikki Darks said:

The issue with suggestions like this one is that certain characters... Were barely characters at all without the current skill trees.

Woodie, Willow, Walter... Why would you ever want to have to "earn" skills for your character to have any resemblance of an influence in the game?

This is why the current system is probably the best we'll ever get.

in a perfect world, we shouldnt have to rely on a skill in a skill tree for our character to be "complete", but ehhh, i guess some of the skill trees have ended up becoming character refreshes. I couldn't imagine playing wortox without soul jars, or walter without any of his slingshot progression.