Skill trees in Dont starve elsewhere

[Capybara007]

1 hour ago, Ridley said:

Wasn't Willow's original foundation extremely unpopular? The problem was that she was a fire themed character who never used fire outside lighting the campfire. The skill tree gave her the ability to kill burning enemies without losing the loot, spread or contain fire quickly, summon a dwarf star, etc. I know that it isn't everyone's preferred way of solving Willow being a lame character to play, but there was no point to playing the original Willow before.

I doubt Klei is considering making the best parts of skill trees basekit for the characters either, since the whole point of gaining insight is to encourage new players to not give up. Maybe Klei will go back to letting you unlock characters this way instead? Although, I can't imagine that being a very popular decision. 

I'm interested in playing DSE regardless of whatever decision Klei makes on skill trees, but I wonder if they are tempted in having a game where all characters have skill trees on release date.

I also think that bernie + lighter + flavor perks such as "more sanity when fire" or "cook things faster" is not a reason for picking a character, but they didnt need to go all out on the battle arena spells that feel like they belong in another game, or in some chinese workshop anime mod

think about her dont starve roots, the lighter was infinite so new players didnt need to bother with light that much, think about something like this:

Willow
150 hunger
150 health
120 sanity
Any item from the old "light" tab is infinite, torches dont drain durability, lanterns, minerhat, even morning star dont drain durability ever when held
Its small but meaningfull, also it would made it so late game players can use morning star as a go to weapon with infinite durability
Downside: She starts freezing at 20º or 15º instead of 0º like Wilson, she would start freezing by day 16 instead of by day 19

And with that they dont have to bother for 2 months making 20 different items with 20 different mechanics for every character

[Lord-King-Bear]

I love the skill trees it shakes things up after so long of regular dst. Interesting for sure tho if they changed it up some and just gave characters special things without skill trees. 

[Antynomity]

On 4/21/2026 at 11:19 PM, Ridley said:

Wasn't Willow's original foundation extremely unpopular? The problem was that she was a fire themed character who never used fire outside lighting the campfire. The skill tree gave her the ability to kill burning enemies without losing the loot, spread or contain fire quickly, summon a dwarf star, etc. I know that it isn't everyone's preferred way of solving Willow being a lame character to play, but there was no point to playing the original Willow before.

I doubt Klei is considering making the best parts of skill trees basekit for the characters either, since the whole point of gaining insight is to encourage new players to not give up. Maybe Klei will go back to letting you unlock characters this way instead? Although, I can't imagine that being a very popular decision. 

I'm interested in playing DSE regardless of whatever decision Klei makes on skill trees, but I wonder if they are tempted in having a game where all characters have skill trees on release date.

 

 

Klei turned her from a Pyromaniac into a Pyromancer and I think that's Lame

Edited May 6 by Antynomity

[Mike23Ua]

If skill trees do return in Elsewhere, I would greatly appreciate Klei not locking powerful game changing abilities under “affinities” this is single handedly my least favorite feature in DST. Because it throws players into a pool of players who CAN use them, and players who Have yet to Unlock them.

And if affinities have to exist in Elsewhere at all, I hope it’s on a Per game world Basis, instead of like it is in DST, do it once and it unlocks end game ability access as early as Day 1.

Come to think of it… can we just not do skill trees at all? 🥺🫶🏻

[Jakepeng99]

On 4/14/2026 at 8:44 PM, Capybara007 said:

Think about this for a second, how cool the game would be if each character,  instead of having over 5 different mechanics that have some weird interaction, it was ONE core mechanic that affected all stages of gameplay

Something like this:

- Wolfgang

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- 200 health

- 150 hunger

- 120 sanity

His mightiness is not tied to his hunger, but his health, when he is at 100% health, more speed and damage, when he is 99% health or lower, normal, when he is 50% or lower, wimpy wolfgang

This would be a mechanic that is not tied to an item, so playing as him would be 100% unique (so no winona or warly problem) but its also so important that it always has an effect on gameplay

It also has the benefit of being extremely easy to learn, no need to watch guides on youtube, just by reading you already know how to play as him, dont get hit

Even if you are a new player it basically means avoid danger at all times (like wolfgang in character would) to always have free speed and damage, so its not some super difficult mechanic

- WX

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- 500 health

- 200 hunger 

- 150 sanity

Because it is a robot, food will not heal it, instead as long as it is above 80% hunger his health would automatically regenerate by 10 per minute, this can be done by having a little robot arm in the health meter doing a healing animation (simpler and easy to understand) rather than having some weird module that you need to craft that heals you (complicated and unintuitive)

This ONLY perk would make it so, because the massive health and automatic health regen, day to day fights wouldnt matter for your health, and you could survive without ever needing to heal (UPSIDE)

HOWEVER, if you fight a boss that you dont know the patterns, you will take a lot of damage and you will be unable to heal instantly unlike other characters

The SAME PERK makes both a DOWNSIDE and an UPSIDE

- Wickerbottom

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- 120 health

- 150 hunger

- 300 sanity

She "has the knowledge of an entire library" that means that she doesnt need to prototype anything, if she has the resources for a dark sword, she can make it without any crafting stations

The downside is that, while wilson can prototype something new and gain sanity for it, everytime wickerbottom crafts something she hasnt prototyped yet she looses 30 sanity, she has to craft the crafting stations normally to avoid this effect

She can also do the books (it would be too much sacrifice to remove those)

Skill trees or not, i dont want the average DSE character to be this:

WONKUS

- Can craft an special "gem sword"

- The gem sword attack changes depending on which gem it has (90 parragraphs for each gem)

- Can summon the souls of defeated enemies to aid him in battle

- Cooks an special meal on his special crockpot

- Can craft a crossbow with 17 special arrow types (the game ends up not designed for ranged combat which makes this item horrible, look at walters slingshot or wanda's alarming clock)

- +5 sanity when close to a potato cup (it reminds him of his uncle or something)

Tbh I don’t really like your proposition of perks.

On 4/14/2026 at 8:53 PM, Harrowick said:

If they bring back skilltrees I think it'd be neat to see each skill introduce an upside, and a downside. Trade-offs and that kind of thing. Maybe offer a few skills that replace upsides with new ways to interact with that character.

A quick example would be a perk that gives Wilson's hair natural rain resistance (paired with a straw hat would negate wetness altogether?) but as a tradeoff your beard can only grow to its first stage, something like that!

 

I don't mind if trees are in either way, the game looks so good already AHHH

I agree