A major issue with Skillsets and what WX's does well (in part)

[Evelo]

With the beta in swing for WX there is a lot of cool new gadgets and gizmos to play with. As a big (mostly negative, sorry) critic of skillsets, they have a massive potential but I feel are utilized as a re-refresh. Back when Refreshes were a thing to, potentially, dramatically change how a character played. Skill trees are in my eyes at least, meant to be augmentations to pre-existing abilities or characteristics for your selected character. Your character has a crossbow? Well a skill tree will have you choose between rapid fire or powerful slow shots, just an example. However as has been done in the past with other skillsets, using Willow as the example as she is the most egregious I think, where she becomes a dramatically different character than her un-skillsetted counterpart. Where Willow without any skills has a lighter, Bernie, and resistance to fire, compared to a skillset Willow has access to Magic, ability to not spread fire. They are really awesome parts of her, but they aren't baseline. That is my issue with it.

Now moving onto WX, my initial fear is that he will get massive changes only available through the skillsets. And I am both right and wrong. I am extremely elated in seeing that there are true baseline changes to WX that are not locked behind the skill tree! For those who do not know, the Circuits are changed into an Alpha, Beta, Gamma section where you can mix and match essentially 3 (currently 2 implemented Gamma is WIP atm) different sets of circuits to whatever suits your desires. 

Alpha seems to be your the 3 that affect your Health, Hunger, and Sanity
Beta seems to be what we are used to, so everything else such as Speed, Light, Electrocution, Chorusbox, etc.
Gamma is currently unimplemented, though I suspect based on the current skill tree it will have to do with Lunar or Shadow stuff.

This is amazing and I commend Klei for this change, not because of what it is, but because it specifically is not locked behind skills, it is baseline. Additionally Klei added two new circuits that are also baseline. Now with that out of the way let's look at the skills themselves that affect circuits. Below is the image (I don't know how to format on the forum, sorry!) You have 3 sets of 2 skills each, for Alpha, Beta, and Gamma (in order from left to right). The first point enhances the abilities of some circuits that selected circuit type. Using Alpha circuits as an example: The Unskilled "Gastron Circuit" increases Hunger by 40 points. While after the circuit is taken it not only increases Hunger by 40 points, it also <Does... something. Can't tell tbh Please let me know so I can update this!>. 

I think this is great because content is not being missed out on by people who do not put points into stuff, the important aspect is still present (40 points of hunger), but the player can choose to invest further to increase the benefits of that portion. While currently, the balance of the circuitry is way out of whack at the moment, this is what I love and want out of skill trees. Looking at the top portion once you invest enough there is also a small, but meaningful reward with 1 extra circuit slot. Why are you okay with this but not new circuits? Well one extra slot does a lot, but the player already has 6 slots to play with. They are not missing out on new stuff by not taking the skill. So if a circuit is locked behind a skill, then a player must invest into that in order to utilize it. This is why I have an issue with Willow because she does not have access to her magical fire abilities unless you invest points into it.

Overall, I love the Circuitry branch. It is the best designed specifically for skill trees. Moving onto other parts of the tree there is plenty of cool stuff, I will not deny that, but I have little issues with it because it adds new content that is restricted rather than given to anyone to play with. Going onto the next section, the Chassis.

So what is wrong with this branch? Well, honestly, only 1 thing for me. And that is the first point required to gain access to the remainder of the tree. System Backup I - Learn to craft a reliable Backup Body I think this is a problem because it introduces an entirely new mechanic to the character while requiring the player to invest into it. It is only 1 point, sure, but it is quite an important one. I consider it in the same park as Winona's Portability skill. Why lock it behind a skill point instead of baking it into the character itself? The rest of the skill tree is awesome. Small little adjustments that don't dramatically change the function of the Backup Body, but enhances it further if one desires.
Then there are three new crafts, all locked behind skills, those being the Drones.

Functionally, they are cool. A little crate that you can tell to fly to a destination you have revealed on the map. Similar to a Woby skill in Walter's tree. A slow moving Scout that you have to command via the map to explore, and a Handheld device that acts as an orbital shock shooter. Cool ideas that feel (and look) great for our Robot buddy. But, I ask again. Why lock it behind skills instead of baking it into the character itself? This is most prevalent with the Transport II skill that is a new craft of the existing robot. Why make it a separate craft instead of an expansion of the first one?

Now I don't think giving suggestions is generally a beneficial thing, I would like to see these made baseline with upgrades to their efficency, speed, or inventory capacity. Have the base Transport Bot have 2 Slots (1 less than now) The first skill point increases it to 4 slots (total), the 2nd skill point gives it 6 slots (total), and the third skill point increases it to 9 slots (total). That way players have access to this new gadget, without requiring investment to still utilize it. 

This can be done with all the robots, just depends on what you all want to do with it. The ideas here are awesome, but just locking it out behind skills is what I find questionable.

Now the last 4 skill points in the bottom left are not very interesting, but good nevertheless. I think expanding upon those so players can have more choice in the matter would be beneficial. These don't add anything new to the character, just enhancing pre-existing stuffs. Which is awesome, Winona has a portion of her skill tree that I love because it doesn't add anything new, just enhances. It is where specialization comes into play that feel rewarding if that is your preferred playstyle. If you prefer a different part, you can focus on that.

Given the Lunar and Shadow portion of the skillset is not out yet, I am of the impression they are going to be related to the Gamma Circuits, but I am partially fine with this. I am hopeful that we will see Gamma Circuits that are not locked behind skills. that way players who have never defeated AFW or Celestial Champion can still play with a some aspect of the Circuitry. This is why I feel that Willow would have benefited from an ability that is replaced when they take either the Shadow Flame or Lunar Flame abilities. As they are a selected augmentation. Much like how Bearnie and Abigail get alternate forms based on Shadow or Lunar, but they are still present without either of those skills.

 

Anyway this is a long post. Sorry about that. I want what is best for DST and I feel the current implementation of skill trees focuses on adding new content via the skill trees, rather than enhancing aspects. I am all for adding new things to do, Willow's magic, Winona's Packup, Wormwood's Lunar Mushroom Farming, Wigfrid's Weaponry, Walter's Ammo are all great and cool in their own right, I think they deserve to be available to everyone free from choice while the skill trees allow players to focus on one or two aspects they prefer to lean toward. Let me know what you think and Klei, I would love to know your design philosophy behind adding new content locked behind skill trees vs giving it baseline. So far I am quite positive to the WX tree in terms of the aspects, the balance is a separate subject which I am not concerned with in this post specifically. Love the work you have done over the years Klei, please do not think of my criticism as hatred, because it is anything but. I love this game and want the best.  
PS: Idk if this should be in Beta or General because it touches on topics both related to WX and the general game design of DST.

Edited March 20 by Evelo
added a PS

[Swiyss]

I read everything, don't worry about it being too long, that's completely normal.

My vision of development
My perspective is extremely similar to yours. I do agree that wx78's skilltree does very well in the "skills that only increment, not add new things" scenario, but I completely disagree with making the character have a skill that adds a completely new mechanic to it being bad; While I do agree that's the case for Willow, for wx78 is a whole different story, the character was already pretty substantionally complete before the skill tree, and the skill tree just basically added a bunch of cool stuff to it.

My experience/The Problems
My personal biggest concern after extensively playing for some hours in a regular world without mods or cheats is that some skills are really useless. Take Fine Motor Control for example, it cuts in half the durability lost when switching circuits, in my opinion, this is a bait skill; It basically minimizes a downside that is not really a downside. You can mass craft circuits, they are cheap, period. Other skills like Watts up, Right to Modify and Hot Swap are just skills made for the unprepared noob who has no idea how their character works.

Description of the problems
When you analyze it from a skill tree perspective, we have to give out skills to choose others. You know when a skill tree is great when you can look both ways and both sides and can't make your mind of what to choose. Take wormwoods skill tree for example, would you sacrifice having the ability to craft sleeping mushrooms to be able to passively heal while in full bloom? It depends on your playstyle and that's a very great skill tree. Now take willow's skill tree for example, would you sacrifice your main shadow/lunar skill to be able to set bearnie on fire for some seconds and have him do minimal AoE damage? That's an obvious choice to keep the allignment spell; that's an example of a badly implemented specific set of skills in my opinion.

Taking that in consideration when you take a look into wx78's skill tree and you realize, it's an obvious choice. 4 described skills are useless, Inhabited machines 2 and 3 are also noob traps, if you happen to die by drowning -which is the most lethal case for wx- or from deerclops after you got frozen, your skill is useless because you lost energy. Now say you die at full energy but used a chassis for something else, well the skill is useless either way. Reviving with full health and reviving with half your health is basically the same thing, you're probably gonna have more ways to revive by either having someone have a revive skill or just reviving you with a spider gland which are way better than what's proposed here and that could be improved upon.

Then you look at other skills like the Zaptrocuter and the Robo-Mapper and realize that they are both not good enough to be worth having over the other ones. I would much rather have a maximum health buff and a max hunger buff circuit over a robot that will do what I will eventually do one day and then be useless for the rest of my gameplay.

What I think could be healthy for the player and what the developers didn't take in consideration when making this skill tree.
Aside from the skill tree itself being really good already; How broken is a skill? You can measure it by having an experience with it and comparing it to what it would feel like to play without it. And being completely honest, the chassis and the circuit upgrades are what makes this skill tree what it is. The rest is not good enough to have over it.

And to fix this is very simple, to make the other skills more united and better, bringing a different playstyle/perspective of gameplay that sides with the other skills way better, but still giving the player the ability to choose a low tier of other sides/individual skills like we have currently presented.

From my testings and my experience playing the game, and from my idea of how the pacing and playstyle works:

• Drone skills are a great start. But they need some tweaking.
  

Reasonings:

1. The robo-mapper is permanent. Making it cost cheap makes 0 sense, having it cross a part of the ocean to check the area for me takes way too much managment and it's way too slow when I need it. (I need to control it, I'm not gonna just sit there and wait for it to reveal an area, then change positions and reveal another, that's just waste of time)
2. Other characters like woodie can do it way faster and better, making wx do it slower makes so that in a scenario where both exist, wx is going to be miles behind the team, and the skill that was supposed to help will turn into some random robots that will get eventually discarded because they left the range in which the player is satisfied enough to go back to, just to make it check an area.
3. Having to constantly control and command the robo-mapper and check what it revealed just makes it a very annoying task with little to no benefits.
4. Late game map is way more important than early game map. It takes a player just 20 grass and 20 twigs and 7 days to completely map out every biome on a big world, but it takes way way longer to do that in the ocean. Having the ability to say "well, while I go to the caves, I can let my robo mapper in the surface wonder around in the ocean until it finds something".

Suggestions:

1. Make Robo-Mapper wonder instead of receiving commands.
2. Make it cost way more to craft to make up for it, like adding gears, scrap or more doodads to the recipe. Even some wires would be great as well. This needs to be quite expensive.
3. Make it slower than it already is, and the second skill would make it slightly faster than what it currently is.
4. Make it map the entire world in about 30 days in the first levels, and 15 or 20 days at second level.
5. Make it so that we can craft 4 instead of only 2 maximum. Having the ability to set my robo mappers to wonder in 4 different parts of the world while I do something else is the whole reason we would like this as a quality of life.

Now the robo-mapper is challenging the spot for a skill way better than what it once was. Trust me, having to control the robo mapper and then lose it all the time got annoying really quick even with the increased range, make it wonder in a limited set area ahead and it will be way way way better.

The RC Enthusiast needs to be snappier and have an improved attack. It needs to be more satisfying to use and be more FUN in general.

Permanently stunning a creature with those electric zaps is not balanced and deals too litle damage and is too unintuitive and repetitive gameplay to be worth using. My idea is to make it be a Lazer.

With a lazer, you can make creature run from it like they run from fire, but if you hit them, they get slowed slighly and the lazer will increase damage the longer you can keep the target inside the lazer, basically a mini-game where you have to keep your lazer at the enemies until they die. Also, there needs to be an aim indicator right in the middle where the lazer will drop so that you can feel where it's gonna hit. The control needs to be more on point and snappier, I don't care how realistic it is with it being like it currently is, but it's definitely more annoying to use than anything you can do in this game. Making the lazer have hambat dps at level 1 and dark sword dps at level 2 IF you can maintain a lazer on an enemy should be perfectly balanced and extremely fun and rewarding. Remove the electric stun as well.

Another reason that the drone needs to be more responsive is the fact that most people play on laggy servers with delay already, put in another delay on top and it gets super unsatisfying and counter-intuitive and not fun. Trust me, this minigame would be way better than whatever we currently have.

The Transport skill is great actually, really amazing and works perfectly, but why have it be 2 crafts? If I only wanna send 3 things somewhere, and this skill is only for transport, then make it so level 2 has 9 slots instead of 6. This will now bring a question: "well, the level 1 is ok, but the level 2 is really good, I may take it instead of something else..". That's basically it, because for me the skill is simple and effective already, just this balancing trick that needs to be checked on.

• The 4 filler skills are a problem. These are an example of things that people wanted just thrown in there and were not thought out.
  

Easiest fix for me is to link them up, requiring one after the other, but to do that, we would have to change some skills. I would personally merge them together into sets of 2 skills, where you need level 1 and 2 to make it effective. It could be like an engineer side, where wx78 is trying to make themselves effective and smart.

It would be arranged like this :

1 is Right To Modify and Fine Motor Control mixed together into one skill.
3 is Watts up and Hot Swap mixed into one skill as well.
2 and 4 are completely different new skills.
Here's what I suggest can be added:

• "2" skill: When your circuit board is completely full, gain a sanity buff (+3.33/min). Changing circuits increase your sanity by 15 each time. (change is good!)
• "4" skill: Can now craft a new snack made of gears, 1 gears equal 3 snacks, each snack gives 1 charge and can be eaten, has no spoilage time and can be put in the polar bearger bin.

This would be perfect since people would be able to choose at least the level 1 of these skills if they want one or another, but they would definitely be more intrigued to go on a full Modding side if they want the next level of it, making the chassi less viable in their eyes. This change would also make it perfectly balanced to choose just skill number 1 or 3, they would be just a touch up that would take if there are skills left, and these would greatly increase quality of gameplay; But if you also want the next upgrades, you would then consider getting them because of how chill and helpful they are in making you learn which combinations of circuits are better, and even help out the new player with some sanity buffs, rewarding them for completing a circuit board. Isn't this just perfection??

Now, remote backup needs a nerf, there could be a cost each time you change chasis. We are here as Wilson spending 3 purple gems PLUS the setup and a bunch of nightmare fuel and living logs and gold just to teleport, and here mister survive 10 days, open map and press right click at the cost of 1 gear and 1 red gem and even leaving one behind? This skill should cost atleast 1 purple gems per teleport, that would already make it way better and fix this problem completely. This would make it so people would need to send a transport drone with the teleport to the area with the teleport item before going; making the 2 complement each other perfectly as skills. It does not make sense to just right click and magically appear somewhere as well, there needs to be an interaction on the map somehow.

This is my analysis of the skill tree, but basically the skill tree is honestly 80% complete. There shouldn't be much added or subtracted, just some touch ups here and there and eventually balance it out when the gamma side and affinities comes out.

Edited March 20 by Swiyss

[Curly Bill]

22 minutes ago, Swiyss said:

Other characters like woodie can do it way faster and better, making wx do it slower makes so that in a scenario where both exist, wx is going to be miles behind the team, and the skill that was supposed to help will turn into some random robots that will get eventually discarded because they left the range in which the player is satisfied enough to go back to, just to make it check an area.

What I like about the current iteration of the robo mapper is that it's a side method; Woodie does it faster, but WX can multitask; That's the tradeoff, which i really like;

 

Also, i'm not sure if you adjust the robo mapper's directions via the map, but if you can, then i think occasionally checking on it is a fun exercise in dandori (the art of arranging things in a way that they accomplish multiple tasks simultaneously in the most efficient way).

Now if you have to keep going to where the robo mapper lands, then maybe it could be tweaked to be a bit better; would have to test it some more

[Swiyss]

5 minutes ago, Curly Bill said:

What I like about the current iteration of the robo mapper is that it's a side method; Woodie does it faster, but WX can multitask; That's the tradeoff, which i really like;

That is actually true, thanks for pointing that out. I also like the multitask take on it. What I just slighly disagree is on the implementation of it. My take wasn't perfect as well, but what really felt unintuitive and honestly boring to use is the fact that you have to constantly change it's direction and having to keep a look at it all the time. You know, in real gameplay, you will eventually run faster than the drones, and trust me, it's very annoying having to go back to their range to put them back in place, specially when you wanna explore somewhere and run in the opposite direction to cut more ground, hence why my first argument stands.

5 minutes ago, Curly Bill said:

Also, i'm not sure if you adjust the robo mapper's directions via the map, but if you can, then i think occasionally checking on it is a fun exercise in dandori (the art of arranging things in a way that they accomplish multiple tasks simultaneously in the most efficient way).

I agree with your take as long as the robo mapper is either slighly faster or has infinite range, otherwise it's just a slop skill that I'm ignoring in my point of view.

Basically, it's counter intuitive, to map an area is not to have something right by your side exploring with you, but either having it go ahead faster and explore a little, or have it be slower but go on a opposite way. In practice the current iteration does not work seemlesly.

Edited March 20 by Swiyss

[Curly Bill]

4 minutes ago, Swiyss said:

Basically, it's counter intuitive, to map an area is not to have something right by your side exploring with you, but either having it go ahead faster and explore a little, or have it be slower but go on a opposite way. In practice the current iteration does not work seemlesly.

How does it work currently? do you basically have to be in really close range for it to work, or can you send it a specific direction and just let it go in that direction for a long whiles?

[Swiyss]

Just now, Curly Bill said:

How does it work currently? do you basically have to be in really close range for it to work, or can you send it a specific direction and just let it go in that direction for a long whiles?

Say you wanna explore an edge of the map, you can send one left and one right, but because you have no idea of how the world looks, you can sometimes leave the range in which you can command them. The range is pretty big with the level 2 skill, but it's not justified, especially since when it leaves the area in which you can give it a command, you then have to go back to it to "retrieve it", and it's painfully slow; revealing an useless area is basically a waste of time because sometimes I don't need to know what's inside a savanna, only where the savanna is, same for the mosaic since both rarely have connecting biomes after them. I wish it would be more expensive and faster, or more expensive and wonder instead of commanded. Or still cheap but wonder closer around you at character speed and commanded, or still cheap but with infinite range and commanded. The current interaction is first "wow this is so op", to then "wow this is so annoying, I would just rather walk in that area". And if you want to walk to explore, find mostly everything, then use the drone for the ocean, then number 1: woodie is way better for that, number 2: there are better skills to have other than this and number 3: it is as fast as grabing a grass boat and rowing to explore. And with how easy it is to find the lunar island by guessing world formation, it felt completely and utterly useless as of now.

One small note that could REALLY help that skill as well is to add a sound like a CLICK to it when you use it on the minimap. We need a response, a feedback to know if it's moving or not, right now it just stop and go and we have to constantly stop, then look to check if it's moving, then check if it's moving to the right direction I sent it, to then finally analyze if the direction I sent it has something in it, and then manage to control 2 at the same time, constantly reevaluating the position to judge if it's useful to keep going or not and that is way too much. It needs to either wonder and you can leave it behind, or be way faster and you can control it and be a bit more expensive to account for it being fast.

[Curly Bill]

I'll have to test around some with it then; I think it slowly uncovering far away areas of the map will be very helpful for some playstyles, letting you multitask, but if the range is too short to where you need to basically follow it, then that would definitely defeat the purpose of it. So it might need some rang extensions

[Evelo]

@Swiyss I don't quite follow your train of thought as to why adding new mechanics is good (in some situations) via skill trees. Your example of Wormwood I could see working both ways. The current way it is implemented now. Or have Wormwood heal 1 hp every 10 sec while full bloom and eating lunarshrooms causes a sleep cloud, but there are now some skills that can enhance them. Taking the sleepcloud lunarshroom as the primary example. Baseline it could still make Wormwood Groggy to eat the shrooms, the cloud can be smaller, and/or take longer to apply the sleep. With skills allowing for a progression of that specific ability. One skill could remove the groggy effect, another could increase the sleepy application to mobs, another could increase the radius of the cloud, then further compound those with going beyond what we have now. The passive healing is every 10 seconds, but with skills it could increase the rate of healing to every 8 seconds, then every 5 seconds. Another skill could be heal 2 hp instead of 1 whenever it activate, then 5 hp instead of 2. Something like that.

This could be done with everything and I just don't understand why we should restrict neat functions behind a skill tree rather than augmenting these abilities in ways the player prefers. I know you talk about noob traps here, but I think that is a balance issue. If the power level of all the skills are lower, than even the "traps" can still be utilized in some way. You even went into a way that they could be beneficial to take. It could branch so unplugging circuits doesn't cost any durability if you invest enough into it. Unplugging could not drain any energy. There are so many little tweaks that can be done with baseline characters that are small and seem ineffective but added up based on a player's preference become useful.

I'm not really trying to look at the current balance of the skills themselves, this is more about new mechanics and upgrading the mechanics to align with a playstyle. Using wormwood again, I like a lot of the stuff added conceptually, I just think it would benefit from making it baseline then tweaking to player playstyle. The Bramble Husk hitting every 3 strikes could be modified to baseline be every 4 strikes. Then upgraded from 4 to 3, then 3 to 2. It could be improved by increasing the damage, by increasing the area of effect. Whatever, doesn't matter. This way players have all the tools a character has, and through the skill tree they can specialize. New mechanics can be brought in as augmentations to skills. See the Ranged Bodyswap WX has. That is pretty cool and requires investment in that tree. But baseline, all WX players would have that ability to body swap with only 1 body (since they could only build one) and would have to walk up to it.

Maybe it is just my thinking but I think that kind of decision making is more fun than what we have currently with a lot of skill trees. Balance wise, like I stated, I am not concerned about that right now as Circuits are at the moment, clearly superior to practically everything else, but balance is easier to tweak compared to adding new mechanics and restructuring skill trees at later dates.

[Swiyss]

2 hours ago, Evelo said:

I just don't understand why we should restrict neat functions behind a skill tree rather than augmenting these abilities in ways the player prefers

It's Klei's unfortunate decision.

2 hours ago, Evelo said:

Maybe it is just my thinking but I think that kind of decision making is more fun than what we have currently with a lot of skill trees

I agree. And on another note; I really would like to see skills that can only be unlocked by doing specific actions in-game, like for example the fact that Wendy has to upgrade her sister in a full moon.

I would also really enjoy to see a skill that requires a different point to upgrade, like for example, killing warbot unlocks a level 2 insight point, killing the shadow upcoming counterpart would also unlock that level 2 point, and with that point, you could upgrade any additional skill, making it a 16 points total; The skill upgraded by this point would have a gilded visual effect on the skill it was applied to indicate that. And maybe you could get 14 more gilded points by doing insanely hard or time-consuming stuff, until you can finally complete a skill tree. And I don't care about balancing in that scenario, I want the player to have everything as long as they can put their time into it.

But idk man, it seems that there are sooo many development philosophies that Klei introduced and then broke at the same time with skill trees. First they had one reason, but then it sort of changed on the way somewhere and now we don't even know what they want with skill trees anymore. It's like the main restrictions or reason to have a skill tree were abandoned, not really touched in development or just unrestricted due to some other clashing idea.

And I absolutely cannot go into that rabbit hole because Klei would never take a look at these issues unless they really wanna spend more 6 years doing skill trees. So that's why sometimes I have to unfortunately resort to try to understand what their intention was in that specific scenario, and only put my critique in balance issue and gameplay interaction flaws that really only come with experience playing with the skill tree. And I think everyone should do that too so we can not waste any more time in having a say with the main phylosophies of skill tree development that Klei seem to not reveal, or don't even have it.

[Evelo]

4 minutes ago, Swiyss said:

But idk man, it seems that there are sooo many development philosophies that Klei introduced and then broke at the same time with skill trees.

Ah I see, alright well thanks for chiming in Swiyss, much appreciated. I am hopeful that Klei focuses on core issues with stuff before looking at balance, as that's my biggest form of feedback, but ultimately their decision like you stated.

[Kolibria]

I don't have much to add, but just two small tidbits: I do think the 4 points in the bottom left should be changed. But to the Body system, I agree that it feels a bit strange to not have it be a thing from the beginning, though, I'm a bit unsure how it would feel *without* the rest of the upgrades. I assume this is why Klei just had it all together ultimately, it'd feel... strange? Still, relatively minor, I just hope it's considered.

[Evelo]

After speaking with others about this topic I was able to finally articulate a big part of why I feel it is important for stuff to be made baseline: If the majority of the player base takes a skill to the point they consider it an essential part of the character (ie Willow's Magic), then the skill itself isn't much of a choice in the first place.

[Cheggf]

1 hour ago, Evelo said:

After speaking with others about this topic I was able to finally articulate a big part of why I feel it is important for stuff to be made baseline: If the majority of the player base takes a skill to the point they consider it an essential part of the character (ie Willow's Magic), then the skill itself isn't much of a choice in the first place.

I feel the exact opposite way. If the only thing a skill tree does is adjust numbers, what even is the point of a skill tree? You aren't choosing which fun abilities you want, you're just choosing whichever numbers are the best numbers. Every game with skill trees that just have numerical adjustments have 95% of people use the exact same skill tree because it's the best one. 

[Edible Coal]

1 hour ago, Evelo said:

After speaking with others about this topic I was able to finally articulate a big part of why I feel it is important for stuff to be made baseline: If the majority of the player base takes a skill to the point they consider it an essential part of the character (ie Willow's Magic), then the skill itself isn't much of a choice in the first place.

if u add that , then people would say ember are useless without fire magic, which then you need to add them as base as well, the list goes on and on

[Evelo]

1 hour ago, Cheggf said:

I feel the exact opposite way. If the only thing a skill tree does is adjust numbers, what even is the point of a skill tree? You aren't choosing which fun abilities you want, you're just choosing whichever numbers are the best numbers. Every game with skill trees that just have numerical adjustments have 95% of people use the exact same skill tree because it's the best one. 

And we don't have that now? A famous quote that goes somewhere along the lines of, "When given the option, players try to optimize the fun out of the game." So I don't really see how this is an issue because it happens now.

1 hour ago, Edible Coal said:

if u add that , then people would say ember are useless without fire magic, which then you need to add them as base as well, the list goes on and on

I don't follow. Could you reword it perhaps? From what I am seeing, Ember is useless without Fire Magic, which. Yeah because you need Ember to do the fire magic? They are inherently interlinked, I don't understand the issue with that one in particular.

[Cheggf]

1 hour ago, Evelo said:

And we don't have that now? A famous quote that goes somewhere along the lines of, "When given the option, players try to optimize the fun out of the game." So I don't really see how this is an issue because it happens now.

Klei being bad at making skill trees doesn't mean anything. "You can now create two Woby Snacks out of one monster jerky" is a fun choice, I can do something new. "The amount of Woby Snacks you create out of monster jerky is now 3 instead of 2" is the most boring thing I can think of. I don't care. You may as well just not even have a skill tree if none of the skills do anything. I'm not going to be changing anything about the way I play, I'm not able to do any new cool thing, I don't do anything. Nothing changes about the character, it's just some passive number bonuses that nobody cares about.

Even if a skill tree is imbalanced, there's still choice. Even if something is clearly worse than something else, you can still pick it if you want, and do something fun and different with the character. You can't do that with number tweaks. I could pick a new suboptimal skill just because it's fun, but what's the point in picking suboptimal numbers? It's not like anything changes either way, I'm just playing a weaker character. I'm not doing anything new, I'm just worse. 

No skill trees at all would be better than your proposition of skill trees just adjusting numbers on existing characters. Wolfgang's skill tree is just "Number go up" over and over and over again, but everyone else derides as the worst skill tree ever.

[YouKnowWho142]

41 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Even if a skill tree is imbalanced, there's still choice. Even if something is clearly worse than something else, you can still pick it if you want, and do something fun and different with the character. You can't do that with number tweaks. I could pick a new suboptimal skill just because it's fun, but what's the point in picking suboptimal numbers? It's not like anything changes either way, I'm just playing a weaker character. I'm not doing anything new, I'm just worse. 

I think this is one of the biggest things to me, but I don't think I've ever really seen it put into words until now. Sometimes I enjoy messing around with weaker skills since they still at least usually offer something entirely new for a character, but if the trees were just focused on numbers as you mentioned then it's only natural I'd simply focus on choosing the skills where the numbers are the most beneficial. I think this articulates my own thoughts well on this subject.

Also, I feel as if by having things baseline and just not putting points into them, it's usually because it's not something you plan to utilize anyways. At that point what's the real difference especially if a lot of these skills would need to be nerfed to compensate?

Edited March 22 by YouKnowWho142

[Swiyss]

@Cheggf You're talking about Walter when he had the most ground up character build without a skill tree possible, to that I agree; But if we're talking about Willow, it seems to me at least that she is absolutely nothing without skill tree points. There's a big difference between those two.

And I completely disagree with Willow's skill tree design. But I completely agree with you on Walter's one. I also don't wanna have a skill that adds 1 more treat per craft or anything like this as well.

So then, if you look at what a skill tree can do, it's way better to think of it as an additional perk rather than something that is essential or necessary to play with. The difference between Willow with controlled fires and a lunar skill vs without is night and day in a non-healthy way. But playing Walter without a skill tree still feels like Walter, it's just less boring to play WITH skill trees. And I think that's @Evelo's main point here. 

If you generalize their comments, of course it's gonna sound bad when you put it in the wrong place.

57 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Even if a skill tree is imbalanced, there's still choice.

That is a false statement for even the non-extreme cases. It's like saying that you can choose between a 900k$ house with everything in it, or the same house but with nothing in it and in a dangerous neighbourhood; and saying that having a choice is a good thing when 99% of people will choose the better house. 

Some skills are objectively better than others and you cannot argue with that, but we can at least understand HOW better they are, and at which point it turns out to be unhealthy for a system that requires you to choose.

[Cheggf]

13 minutes ago, Swiyss said:

@Cheggf You're talking about Walter when he had the most ground up character build without a skill tree possible, to that I agree; But if we're talking about Willow, it seems to me at least that she is absolutely nothing without skill tree points. There's a big difference between those two.

And I completely disagree with Willow's skill tree design. But I completely agree with you on Walter's one. I also don't wanna have a skill that adds 1 more treat per craft or anything like this as well.

So then, if you look at what a skill tree can do, it's way better to think of it as an additional perk rather than something that is essential or necessary to play with. The difference between Willow with controlled fires and a lunar skill vs without is night and day in a non-healthy way. But playing Walter without a skill tree still feels like Walter, it's just less boring to play WITH skill trees. And I think that's @Evelo's main point here. 

If you generalize their comments, of course it's gonna sound bad when you put it in the wrong place.

That is a false statement for even the non-extreme cases. It's like saying that you can choose between a 900k$ house with everything in it, or the same house but with nothing in it and in a dangerous neighbourhood; and saying that having a choice is a good thing when 99% of people will choose the better house. 

Some skills are objectively better than others and you cannot argue with that, but we can at least understand HOW better they are, and at which point it turns out to be unhealthy for a system that requires you to choose.

Some people play games for fun instead of being a weirdo. I don't understand this need to exclusively pick the strongest things in an easy PvE game regardless of what they do. 

Edited March 22 by Cheggf

[Swiyss]

57 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

I think this is one of the biggest things to me, but I don't think I've ever really seen it put into words until now. Sometimes I enjoy messing around with weaker skills since they still at least usually offer something entirely new for a character, but if the trees were just focused on numbers as you mentioned then it's only natural I'd simply focus on choosing the skills where the numbers are the most beneficial. I think this articulates my own thoughts well on this subject.

Also, I feel as if by having things baseline and just not putting points into them, it's usually because it's not something you plan to utilize anyways. At that point what's the real difference especially if a lot of these skills would need to be nerfed to compensate?

The reason why you're saying this is because it makes sense in certain skill trees. But as we mentioned here, Klei had a vision, changed it, then came back to it but in a completely weird way, then forgot about it completely and started doing the opposite when they realized what they intended was not well taken.

It's actually very simple to understand:

1. skill points are acquired by surviving.
2. spending skill points to make survival easier rewards players who can survive a long time with their character.
3. Planar damage skills are introduced to characters that would feel bad without it, but still rewarding only those characters you have experience with.

that's wolfgang skill tree in a nutshell. And that is actually a good design. It was one of their first design.

Willow's skill tree is a free rework.. Is it good? Yes, but it defeated the purpose of a skill tree, which was to reward the player for surviving with a character by making survival better with that character, not by making the character turn into a whole different thing, then making it survive better, then making it essential to use.

Some stat skills ARE good, let's NOT mix things up. Opinions about Wolfgang's and Wilson's skill tree started to get thrown around like crazy right after we had Willow's skill tree.\

If I get a Wanda skill tree that is essentially +5 planar, then +10 planar, then +15 planar, it makes sense. But If I get a Wilson skill tree with +5 planar etc.. then It's a whole different thing, and that's why skill trees need to be treated differently.

@Evelo's main point is that at which point does a skill tree gets so strong that it makes playing without a certain skill a completely different experience?

And I would like to add, at which point did Klei forgot about why they made skill trees in the first place?

19 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Some people play games for fun instead of being a weirdo. 

You're out here arguing the wrong arguments and quotes. You're not reading the points and understanding them. You're then presenting a whole different point, generalizing it, using a specific scenario to prove that point (but that point only works in THAT scenario), then presenting an opposing opinion to your quoted main point to sound like you're right after you just stated the obvious. Making the reader think you're right just because you presented a factually correct statement right before it.

As I said, I do agree with your point, but that's not the point. And if you twist a quote to fit another point, that's a falacy. And if you then generalize an opinion when you presented a non-generalized fact, you're making it seem that your completely unrational argument makes sense when it's not really like that.

And I'm completely dissapointed at you for just randomly trying to offend instead of focusing on the real discussion which is how to make Wx87's skill tree better than it is without compromising what we have.

Any further replies from you are definitely going to be other falacies, fake arguments, strawman's or the extremely rare rational "I'm wrong", because you are.

Edited March 22 by Swiyss

[YouKnowWho142]

4 minutes ago, Swiyss said:

The reason why you're saying this is because it makes sense in certain skill trees. But as we mentioned here, Klei had a vision, changed it, then came back to it but in a completely weird way, then forgot about it completely and started doing the opposite when they realized what they intended was not well taken.

It's actually very simple to understand:

1. skill points are acquired by surviving.
2. spending skill points to make survival easier rewards players who can survive a long time with their character.
3. Planar damage skills are introduced to characters that would feel bad without it, but still rewarding only those characters you have experience with.

that's wolfgang skill tree in a nutshell. And that is actually a good design. It was their first design.

Willow's skill tree is a free rework.. Is it good? Yes, but it defeated the purpose of a skill tree, which was to reward the player for surviving with a character by making survival better with that character, not by making the character turn into a whole different thing, then making it survive better, then making it essential to use.

Some stat skills ARE good, let's NOT mix things up. Opinions about Wolfgang's and Wilson's skill tree started to get thrown around like crazy right after we had Willow's skill tree.\

If I get a Wanda skill tree that is essentially +5 planar, then +10 planar, then +15 planar, it makes sense. But If I get a Wilson skill tree with +5 planar etc.. then It's a whole different thing, and that's why skill trees need to be treated differently.

@Evelo's main point is that at which point does a skill tree gets so strong that it makes playing without a certain skill a completely different experience?

And I would like to add, at which point did Klei forgot about why they made skill trees in the first place?

The issue with that is, where is the line drawn? In that very same skill tree you praise he still gets new items in the coaching whistle as well as the various dumbbells. In that same update we also received crafts such as the treeguard idol, hardhat, wooden walking stick, or the various wormwood summons. By your criteria, those should have been baseline too, not a part of the tree, so where is this idea that their original design was the "correct" one, or their best one? Even looking at Wilson, what stopped him from getting torch tossing baseline, or his alchemy skills baseline, or his beard storage?

I think that's the biggest problem here. I don't think anybody knows what the true design philosophy of the skill trees are. Not me, and not you. Everyone has drastically different views on what makes a skill tree good or what a skill tree should look like, so we are judging the same things by criteria that isn't even remotely similar. You and Evelo seem to operate under the idea of what a skill tree is in general for perhaps other games, but not what a skill tree means in DST. I won't pretend to know either, but all I do know is that whatever Klei considers a skill tree for DST is not just numerical increases and statsticks, and based on what we have seen that was never their original vision either.

[Swiyss]

14 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

In that very same skill tree you praise he still gets new items in the coaching whistle as well as the various dumbbells. In that same update we also received crafts such as the treeguard idol, hardhat, wooden walking stick, or the various wormwood summons. By your criteria, those should have been baseline too, not a part of the tree, so where is this idea that their original design was the "correct" one, or their best one? Even looking at Wilson, what stopped him from getting torch tossing baseline, or his alchemy skills baseline, or his beard storage?

I think that's the biggest problem here. I don't think anybody knows what the true design philosophy of the skill trees are. Not me, and not you. Everyone has drastically different views on what makes a skill tree good or what a skill tree should look like, so we are judging the same things by criteria that isn't even remotely similar. You and Evelo seem to operate under the idea of what a skill tree is in general for perhaps other games, but not what a skill tree means in DST. I won't pretend to know either, but all I do know is that whatever Klei considers a skill tree for DST is not just numerical increases and statsticks, and based on what we have seen that was never their original vision either.

Yes I kind of agree somewhere on these lines, but I was not generalizing my points. All I think is that skills are different, and when the context (character, playstyles, impact on gameplay) is analized, the outcome is different. The major problem is people compare Wolfgang getting planar damage with Walter having a round of ammo that Cripples a boss completely, that's not comparable at all.

And yes, Evelo's point still stand. If a skill is so much better than another in the same skill tree, that's unfair for that other skill and that is exactly how I treated my suggestions in the very first response of this topic.

Now to answer your question:

14 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

The issue with that is, where is the line drawn?

The line is drawn when the skill is used, tested, and analized in the right context of the character.

Is it fun or is it boring? Is it overpowered or underpowered? Is it unnecessary or completely necessary?

The more you can fit the skill in the middle of these features, the better the skill is. Simple as that

15 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

By your criteria, those should have been baseline too, not a part of the tree

By my criteria, every skill is different. And if a different skill is unbalanced, do not defend that skill by arguing that it's just different when you would be missing the point. That's my main argument. And as I said, I didn't generalized.

Edited March 22 by Swiyss

[Swiyss]

On 3/20/2026 at 4:29 PM, Evelo said:

I'm not really trying to look at the current balance of the skills themselves, this is more about new mechanics and upgrading the mechanics to align with a playstyle. Using wormwood again, I like a lot of the stuff added conceptually, I just think it would benefit from making it baseline then tweaking to player playstyle. The Bramble Husk hitting every 3 strikes could be modified to baseline be every 4 strikes. Then upgraded from 4 to 3, then 3 to 2. It could be improved by increasing the damage, by increasing the area of effect. Whatever, doesn't matter. This way players have all the tools a character has, and through the skill tree they can specialize. New mechanics can be brought in as augmentations to skills. See the Ranged Bodyswap WX has. That is pretty cool and requires investment in that tree. But baseline, all WX players would have that ability to body swap with only 1 body (since they could only build one) and would have to walk up to it.

Reading this again and it's perfect. If Klei added most of these skills as baseline features and made the skills themselves only be stat upgrades, every skill tree would actually feel like a skill tree. This would be a dream world and it would reward the player much better. It's would perfectly fit what they first wanted with skill trees, which was something for the veterans to play with. And now we have most skills being revives and etc.. Such a letdown.

[Cheggf]

55 minutes ago, YouKnowWho142 said:

You and Evelo seem to operate under the idea of what a skill tree is in general for perhaps other games

Other games where there's like a thousand nodes on the skill tree and you pick 300 of them. Games where you get dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of pieces of equipment which are all functionally identical except numerically superior. These games have nothing in common with Don't Starve, so a skill tree of their design doesn't fit at all. It's not like there's 100 different football helmets of varying power. Don't Starve has always been about everything serving a specific purpose and not just bloating things with random numbers for no reason. A skill tree that does that goes against the core idea of the game. Over a decade later and the only way weapons are dealing over 68 damage is if you're doing something to boost them like using electricity against a wet target. This isn't an RPG of infinite upwards progression.

Plus, you keep the skill trees between worlds. "Nothing changed, you're just better" is more of a progression thing and less of a character building thing. That doesn't make sense with the skill trees persisting. 

Edited March 22 by Cheggf

[Swiyss]

28 minutes ago, Cheggf said:

Other games where there's like a thousand nodes on the skill tree and you pick 300 of them. Games where you get dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of pieces of equipment which are all functionally identical except numerically superior. These games have nothing in common with Don't Starve, so a skill tree of their design doesn't fit at all. It's not like there's 100 different football helmets of varying power. Don't Starve has always been about everything serving a specific purpose and not just bloating things with random numbers for no reason. A skill tree that does that goes against the core idea of the game. Over a decade later and the only way weapons are dealing over 68 damage is if you're doing something to boost them like using electricity against a wet target. This isn't an RPG of infinite upwards progression.

You're assuming something to discredit my arguments when I don't even play or know games with skill trees like that..

I'm basing my ideas on the game alone. Not on something else.