Powercreep is getting out of control (Really)

[Swiyss]

24 minutes ago, Maxil20 said:

The thing is, WX looks really good from a casual perspective. Casual players value stats and general connivence perks, which WX has in spades. They can manipulate whichever stat as high as they want to please the player, in addition to speed/light/temprature needs being cared for. They even have a early-midgame AOE move to support general combat play, which can scale very well if you build around it.

The thing is, most of these perks become much less impactful/stop mattering once you progress past certain points. The enlightened crown is effectively an infinite light source, so oppoelectronic/illumination circuits lose quite a bit of value. Pearl’s temprature teas make the thermal circuits much less mandatory. Stats are nowhere near as required when most characters are not one shot by threats and have means to rapidly recoup lost stats in a matter of seconds. They lose a lot of value from the kit as the game progresses and players get alternatives to a lot of their functions by just progressing the game. The only things they’ve really got going for them are backup chassis/delivery drone/spin cycle circuits and their affinities. And don’t get me wrong, these are good! But they don’t result in a clear “the balance is destroyed!” when several other characters can compete with their loadout. 

WX’s kit effectively relies on burrowed time, where they start off pretty strong and begin to fall off a decent amount past the champion/fuelweaver into a more “normal” power stance The thing is most players will never exit the time window when they are very good because they don’t kill these bosses, so they effectively see them as always powerful. They have some incredible perks prior to these bosses, but once you get to that point they really start to fall in line with the strength of other characters who likely have optimized setups to reap as much strength from them as possible.

Yes this is true. But I'm not really on the side of thinking about their gameplay perspective, but rather their skill tree design itself. I am very not satisfied with some 4 random skills being weak as dirt but 7 (half) of them being just NECESSARY (like a second rework). The rest of their skills are actually fine, if the player wanna choose more carrying capacity or having more chassis (which is also arguably a necessary skill side), it will fit based on the way the player is going to play the game.

Then when you take a skill tree that was made years ago, we still have the same issue that I pointed out at their BETAS even. Some skills are just insanely overpowered, but other are sh**, then the players come at me telling me the skill tree is actually balanced; No it isn't (??), especially if it forces you to choose one side/skill because it is just THAT better. Not only do we not have choice, but the main idea that was made when they released the first skill trees >> A PERMANENT UPGRADE TO THE CHARACTER FOR THE VETERAN PLAYERS just first of all: Insults actual veteran players by forcing them to choose a permanent upgrade (+1dmg, +2dmg..){Wolfgang, Wilson and Woodie's cases} or a random "you can now (ignore fundamentally surviving mechanic aspect) walk on water and not use (strictly thought out said mechanic, design getting obsolete) boats anymore"; Second of all: gets overriten by the lack of support from the community not understanding the base idea of what the developers proposed.

I was talking to a 10+ year dst player friend of mine who does not play the game anymore, and he proposed the same idea I've been talking about a lot but seems to get overlooked. Goes to show how a simple fix was already there but Klei will not do it because for them it is not necessary because they don't play their own games for 5+hours a day like we do and will never understand this. >> An actual fix for skill trees. Just make 2 skill trees per character. One for permanent upgrades for the character (things that would look like second reworks for some, but just +5 damage for others that are already strong or already have a set design imposed by their innate skills, these would fix any inbalance problems and are the ones that can be meta-adjusted) and another for actual choosing of skills and creative ideas for the characters than can just be EXPANDED ON FOREVER, where you then pick a lunar or shadow side. This would fix upgreadability problems, balance problems, design of personality feeling disjointed etc.. And I would LOVE if anyone can expand on any problems we would get with an idea like this.

But as I said, Klei will think something like this is "too much unecessary work", probably because they don't see the core issue (or they do but don't think it's that much of an issue); This will never get fixed or touched, just permanently re-reworked again and again and again until we run out of patience and drop the game after 5 more years of character reworks. Creating a solid foundation for upgreadability is necessary atp.

[Mr Giggio]

It. Never. Had. Balance. In. The. First. Place.

 

That never was a thing.

You guys keep talking about this balance like it's a sacred rule but it only lived on your minds and trying to push a role to then complain it doesn't make sense the way things are and the company is ignoring this sacred PVP feature present in competitive games WHEN DST IS NOT is delusional to say the least.

Let that go dude

Edited yesterday at 10:42 AM by Mr Giggio

[Dr. Safety]

5 hours ago, Mr Giggio said:

It. Never. Had. Balance. In. The. First. Place.

 

That never was a thing.

You guys keep talking about this balance like it's a sacred rule but it only lived on your minds and trying to push a role to then complain it doesn't make sense the way things are and the company is ignoring this sacred PVP feature present in competitive games WHEN DST IS NOT is delusional to say the least.

Let that go dude

I think balance is important (or at least it was at one time), for the sole purpose of keeping every character relevant. Back when DST first came out, characters had more defined roles. Maxwell and Woodie were both the gatherers, but Maxwell was just objectively better in every way. Same case with Wigfrid and Wolfgang. Stuff like that is why I see balance as important.

You're definitely right in modern DST though. That idea is kinda pointless now as everyone seems to be a jack-of-all-trades. There are vague roles but so much overlap that you can really play anyone and they will be good at everything. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is anybody guess.

Edited yesterday at 03:44 PM by Dr. Safety

[Swiyss]

15 minutes ago, Dr. Safety said:

I think balance is important (or at least it was at one time), for the sole purpose of keeping every character relevant. Back when DST first came out, characters had more defined roles. Maxwell and Woodie were both the gatherers, but Maxwell was just objectively better in every way. Same case with Wigfrid and Wolfgang. Stuff like that is why I see balance as important.

You're definitely right in modern DST though. That idea is kinda pointless now as everyone seems to be a jack-of-all-trades. There are vague roles but so much overlap that you can really play anyone and they will be good at everything. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is anybody guess.

I doubt they even tried to understand my posts here because they completely missed the point.

[Mr Giggio]

9 minutes ago, Swiyss said:

I doubt they even tried to understand my posts here because they completely missed the point.

I'm here for seven years.

Wolfgang was objectively the master of goal reaching throught loot from bosses

Wicker to mass farm resources

And Wx to steadiness

Anything out of this was loosing a lot

And people used to play other chars for fun, liking the chars or perks. Not because it was stronger than X or Y. If that was the reason, they would be with one of three. Not even a far comparison. Because it never had one.

It's not me avoiding your point. It's you missing it enterily and thinking it's hot topic and above my inferior line of thinking, "unable to get yours".

Looking for this invisible balance thing is pointless.  The characters are in a better place now and we should be gratefull for it. Gatekeeping balance is not it.

Edited yesterday at 04:08 PM by Mr Giggio

[Swiyss]

5 minutes ago, Mr Giggio said:

And people used to play other chars for fun, liking the chars or perks. Not because it was stronger than X or Y.

That is a complete false statement. You absolutely cannot out of nowhere tell me something so vague like it's a fact, because I know several people who just play Wolfgang because he is stronger, not because they like the character.

5 minutes ago, Mr Giggio said:

Looking for this invisible balance thing is pointless. 

Yeah, because that's not the point, the point is that Klei focuses too much on adding a bunch of stuff to certain characters, but not similar unique ones to others. Why can't Wigfrid call the thunder skies to transport her items elsewhere or teleport too? See what I mean? Klei just decides a certain character gets everything while others rot. It's not really about balance, but about respect to those who main only one character.

Edited yesterday at 04:10 PM by Swiyss

[Mr Giggio]

4 minutes ago, Swiyss said:

Why can't Wigfrid call the thunder skies to transport her items elsewhere or teleport too?

She's an actress that truly believes she's an warrior not a spell caster.

I see what you mean. Saw since the beggining. But you do you. 

Now, if you care to humor me and consider this - have ya ever thought that the characters with HIGH usage got skill trees more basic and the others poorly to rarely used got more creativity and insights to improve them?

Wilfrid and Wendy are hands down the ones community picks the most. You can check the numbers. By a far difference.

If it had any criteria for balance it was to make poorly used characters to be more playable. And that's what's up.

Edited yesterday at 04:16 PM by Mr Giggio

[Swiyss]

27 minutes ago, Mr Giggio said:

She's an actress that truly believes she's an warrior not a spell caster.

I see what you mean. Saw since the beggining. But you do you. 

Now, if you care to humor me and consider this - have ya ever thought that the characters with HIGH usage got skill trees more basic and the others poorly to rarely used got more creativity and insights to improve them?

Wilfrid and Wendy are hands down the ones community picks the most. You can check the numbers. By a far difference.

If it had any criteria for balance it was to make poorly used characters to be more playable. And that's what's up.

I feel like if that's the sole reason they made Wendy and Wigfrid's skill trees so bland and boring, then that's one very bad reason. Willow just got buffed and is now sustained on one skill, her case is probably the worst; They took a character that no one liked and was underplayed and made it strong by just giving it raw power with a used fire asset instead of being more expansive with her pyromaniac side and specially fire skills. For me atleast, a cheap star caller, a redundant and expensive aoe fire, and a 25% damage bonus was kind of underwhelming.

[Frosty_Mentos]

I expect tuning will happen for the environment and how the skilltrees will be obtained. Expect another skilltree year where we get everything looked into and ways to balance those things out. Maybe we'll get some kinda quest system for the skills you obtain, resources you gather, tools you use, maybe older bosses will get more variations, or survival in return will be more difficult with world changes. We're getting stuffed like turkeys with all these new additions, makes me wonder what's in store with all of that cause so far each skill tree is a big game changer.

Edited yesterday at 04:58 PM by Frosty_Mentos

[Swiyss]

1 minute ago, Frosty_Mentos said:

I expect tuning will happen for the environment and how the skilltrees will be obtained. Expect another skilltree year where we get everything looked into and ways to balance those things out. Maybe we'll get some kinda quest system for the skills you obtain, resources you gather, tools you use, maybe older bosses will get more variations, or survival in return will be more difficult with world changes. We're getting stuffed like turkeys with all these new additions, makes me wonder what's in store with all of that cause so far this is a big game changer.

I really really hope that becomes reality 😊

[Frosty_Mentos]

Just now, Swiyss said:

I really really hope that becomes reality 😊

It really needs to cause a lot of people been asking for environmental, survival, and worldgen changes. Veterans been wanting the game to feel uncompromising and survival again, having proper character progression and some older bosses tuned up to date with new powers. Or bosses stronger with better yields of loot? Bee queen is one of them that is heavily contested over in pubs, needs some kinda yield increase for combs by making her harder maybe. Toadstool is generally fine? Dragonfly is good but closer to a one-off boss.

[Cheggf]

If balance truly doesn't matter then nobody would complain about the nerfs in WX's skill tree since nerfs are balance and balance doesn't matter. But as usual everyone acting like balance doesn't matter is just intentionally pretending not to understand what balance means to disingenuously try to trick people as low as themselves into thinking every game should be Warframe. 

[Jakepeng99]

On 4/13/2026 at 11:16 PM, Hi. said:

Yeah idk, Wilson is supposed to be the default character but the power creep just keeps getting worse and worse and it kinda feels like Klei is ignoring it. This is also making characters without skill trees a lot weaker. But I haven't messed around in the beta that much too so idk

If they make Wilson too powerful, or complex, it would kind of ruin his character identity it’s just the game surrounding him has changed.

1 hour ago, Cheggf said:

If balance truly doesn't matter then nobody would complain about the nerfs in WX's skill tree since nerfs are balance and balance doesn't matter. But as usual everyone acting like balance doesn't matter is just intentionally pretending not to understand what balance means to disingenuously try to trick people as low as themselves into thinking every game should be Warframe. 

People complain about nerfs in all games so it’s not that new.

 

I think of Mewgenics as a recent thing, the developer is planning to nerf a few things and there are people complaining… though way more people are on his side. Probably cus it’s funny to see his answers to the comments about it and he gives good reasoning.

[Antynomity]

10 hours ago, Mr Giggio said:

It. Never. Had. Balance. In. The. First. Place.

 

That never was a thing.

You guys keep talking about this balance like it's a sacred rule but it only lived on your minds and trying to push a role to then complain it doesn't make sense the way things are and the company is ignoring this sacred PVP feature present in competitive games WHEN DST IS NOT is delusional to say the least.

Let that go dude

There used to be a limit to the madness you could do, for good reason too all the while you could still do bullshittery with spamming bunnymen, rock lobsters, bringing an overabundance of gear.

Listen, I'd absolutely love to tear into the "PVE games need balance" after experiencing Helldivers 2's version of it. But DST genuinely just does everything it can in it's power to make sure that the player keeps getting more powerful, while the game stays behind. No, Rifts do not alleviate that at all, at least when comparing it to the closest thing to it (and probably the main inspiration) - Terraria's Hardmode.

[maxwell_winters]

On 4/14/2026 at 1:47 AM, Cruvimaster said:

Perhaps this balancing will come in the new game (Don't Starve Elsewhere), because I hope there won't be any reworks or skill trees there for many years to come.

As someone who lost the interest in DST after the direction they took with character design, I hope Elsewhere will be a clean slate without skill trees and hundreds of different perks.

[Hi.]

5 hours ago, Jakepeng99 said:

f they make Wilson too powerful, or complex, it would kind of ruin his character identity it’s just the game surrounding him has changed.

Thats what I was trying to say I just didn't word it right