What's the deal with Skill Trees? |Don't Starve Together|

[@shigudotexe]

you definitely hit the nail on the head in terms of how klei is handling character design and the skill trees! i can imagine that it would be hard for klei to have a comprehensive understanding of what makes each character tick when compared to the community, since they don't really have the time for extensive play sessions and instead have to focus on making the game. they definitely do listen to feedback, but sometimes it feels like they listen to whoever shouts the loudest on the forums rather than the people with nuanced perspectives giving well thought out takes, unfortunately... examples of this: -a lot of people wanted wortox's nice inclination to remove the 'monster' tag from him so that he can coexist with pigs and whatnot, even though that doesn't really make much sense diegetically since they judge based on appearance and not kindness (otherwise webber, a polite monster, would get along with pigs just fine). it's also sort of the issue with failing to distinguish between addressing a downside and addressing a design flaw. giving a character a downside only to remove it with a skill tree perk is just weird, because all you accomplish is nullifying a trait that was supposed to contribute to a cohesive playstyle. despite all this, it got in because the people who wanted it were numerous and loud. pleasing people is good, but sometimes it can't be the end all be all. -like, all of wendy. klei keeps getting pressured into raising the numbers on things that are already overtuned because, while wendy has a high skill ceiling with techniques to help keep abigail alive during fights and make use of her insane damage potential, the vast majority of wendy players tend to lean casual and aren't going to know about things like that, so it appears to them like abigail falls off in the mid to late game. my general impression is that, while they absolutely do possess the capacity to think things through and make great design decisions that address the right issues, they don't always give themselves the time or resources they need to create their best work. this can be pushing out updates undercooked because they're trying to adhere to some sort of schedule, or refusing to outright replace a flawed item or mechanic, because they already put resources into making it, like artwork or character quotes.

[@ralitypls]

Ultimately, I think a big problem is their over-reliance on beta tests, entirely. Instead of having a strong product development or QA department internally, they're outsourcing that labor to unqualified players for free, and it shows in the results of their updates. They're simply lacking the entire professions necessary to function independently, and be able to make good decisions on their own. The concept of beta tests is fine, because it can provide feedback and report unexpected issues before a release is published to the live product, but it's being used as a substitute for strong game design and planning, when it's not capable of accomplishing the same goals on its own. It's all very short-sighted. Klei is, of course, not the only studio with these issues. This is a systemic problem across the entire industry. But it's especially disappointing to observably see this happen to the game I've loved and played for 9 years now.

[@wizardcadillac8728]

Strong skill tree(×) Skill trees that makes character more fun(○)

[@PentaromaLMA0]

i think its the other way around

[@ravenman4228]

I think you can have a fun skill tree that's still strong and has good choices, Willow being a perfect example But yeah, if I had to choose I'd still choose strong over "fun"

[@MrHalstedt]

I like skill trees but I think the implementation in DST is so bizarre. Some of the beta skills were released and made me wonder if they did it to drive community outrage (no such thing as PR etc). I would prefer if skill trees lead to truly unique methods of playing between builds - two players on similar characters could be drastically different in the world. I like the idea of skills being unlocked due to hitting certain milestones in that specific world (could be silly, could be mega milestones). Feel more like a time sink to unlock everything, I guess it's a touch contrived. Anyway Happy Birthday chap have a lovely day

[@lucas_rego]

What’s the point of skill trees: - Klei wants to add more late game stuff, however most players (in general, not us that are casual or regular) haven’t even killed Deerclops, so they need it in order for people to go as far as killing CC or FW

[@ukalistaxd9464]

I'm one of the casual players and when ever i play the game I never even reach the 2nd autumn because summer is a bitch to deal with! I haven't even interacted with any of the late game stuff

[@ravenman4228]

​@@ukalistaxd9464if it's that bad just use Summer as Caves days, 15 whole days to do a deep dive into the caves, Summer is basically Autumn in the Caves

[@cheese3764]

Maybe, because most people don't want to play DST-game about survival, as a game about janky combat?

[@AHMAD__XD]

I was in the middle of watching while you remove it and re uploaded it lol 😂

[@abyss8354]

I’ve seen videos do that before Heck, I’ve even finished watching a video just for them to take it back down and make a small edit and we have to rewatch the whole thing to figure out what the reason was

[@DreamRex1]

I want from skill tree system to: 1) Give me variety of playstyle. 2) help with managing downsights of your character. 3) something usefull that help me in couple things thgrough out the game. Like Im woodie i can go to lunar island and have free vegetable filler for my crock pot in early game. Its NICE. Or im wigfrid and i can tame beefalo faster and it wouldn't feel like a chore. 4) basically become stronger. No, i don't care about balance, wanna challenge? play wes. So my answer is : -yes, skill tree belong in this game, it gives variety and make your character more stronger throughout the game, therefore more enjoyable. -They are good, just some of them need more interesting things. Woodie is the best example of how skill tree should be. Helping with your downsides, giving new stuff and options, makes you stronger. - no i don't care that they're unbalanced, wanna challenge? play wes. SIMPLE.

[@misael22]

What I don't understand about these skilltrees is that some of the skills are just completely utterly MEH. You would expect 2 people playing the same character being like "I built my character on the utility branch" and the other person says "oh I put all my points in the fighting skills", so they end up with 2 different (kinda) characters. This would make the skilltree meaningful. But... Not really. There is pretty much always a "meta set of skills" and a bunch of fodder. I like wormwood's because you can actually build him like a "megabase builder" or a "fighter with cool perks". But you can always use the celestial portal to reset everything. I don't know how i would fix any of this. Maybe let everyone get every skill in their trees like a "level up system" locked behind milestones like "beat X boss", "befriend Pearl", etc.

[@raingaming3209]

Just happy winkerbottom was mentioned in the video she doesn't get as much love as she deserves ❤

[@vanvan5761]

I do like the skill trees and feel they belong. I find them fun extensions to the characters that offer them greater utility or just improvements to their base kit, generally. Wortox skill tree is one of my most anticipated and it does most things I wanted it to do. I wanted a skill that would let me take a buddy with me on a soul hop to other end of the map. Kind of got that. I like the concept of knabsack. I've liked what they did with Wormwood, Woodie, Willow. In a lot of ways I feel it was initial reworks of Wendy and Woodie to what they were before their skill trees that opened the wider perspective. Wilson was the first with the tree, but Wendy and Woodie were really pushing what you could do with a single character before that. So in a way, everyone is getting their rework now, which means a lot of characters are getting reworked twice. Although in some places it feels like Klei should revisit some of them later, I may be mistaken of course. But some trees like Wurt and Winona somehow felt... bad compared to the rest. Either way, I feel a lot of it is in good place, and permits people to play characters in different ways not possible before. And I love the choice, well in most cases. I think Wortox is looking pretty good so far, but that is my preference speaking. Now I am just waiting to see how Webber and Wickerbottom look considering their peculiar nature in my opinion. Hopefully not a straight row of minor buffs since that'd be a bit boring.

[@arde5009]

13:50 hey thats me

[@vaalfify]

heyy did you have good holidays? in my opinion skill trees tend to hurt a game more than it helps it if it wasn't thought out extensively. if they include a skill tree, it automatically felt like i had to balance between all the skills rather than focus on the game if i didn't have a clue how they worked because of how much you could miss out on if it isn't well designed around what you gain vs what you lose by picking a certain branch of skills (though i've only played Skyrim [with skill trees] and Morrowind [without] so take that with a grain of salt). the only skilltree where this kind of works is wormwood's because each one has a distinct enough perk and you'd probably spend the most time thinking about and comprehending his skills in a meaningful way. as it usually goes, it seems like at first that skill trees are a great idea to spruce up a game, letting people diversify their playstyle but it tends to have the opposite effect now, making people hone in a certain playstyle because the skills they choose because some are clearly better than others, and the game already is more often than not about picking the best option (when it comes to items and strategies for example) so you dont waste a ton of time. the disparity between people who pick less optimal skills and those who have the best skills can be frustrating, at least to me. like you said, people can pick what they want but it feels like another barrier of passage of being the best you could be at this game. if new players who dont have this "barrier of passage" did more research chances are they'd just cheat the skill points in anyways and pick what's best. it doesn't feel like you've actually earned the skills either way because you have the skill points forever and theyre earned passively. then again, if they reset on each server that also can be frustrating because your utility can entirely rely on the skills in some circumstances. because not every player is reworked, but every character is going to have a skill tree. so what place does insight actually hold when it comes to gameplay? does it improve on anything substantial or is it another thing you have to learn, or worse yet wait for, or you'll be worse off than other players? making people do playtime on a character to unlock skills is pointless when it comes to improving gameplay and people's actual skill. if you have a character, i think it would be best if they could have their full potential from the jump and obtainable within a season, otherwise what's the point if you can pick a character thats immediately powerful? you're able to swap to them later on when you have the celestial portal if you're not able to take advantage of their skills. one would rather pick a character that's stronger on early on at the start if they don't have any particular character in mind. if the philosophy of insight was to let duplicate characters have unique playstyles to one another, a more accurate solution that also fits don't starve's character balancing more would be having a certain core perk you could choose (like dont starve reforged if you can imagine that) where you have all your new skills immediately and each set has its own strengths and drawbacks. this would be a lot easier to balance in the scope of dst (where both power and likeability could matter) and let you go farther with the direction of characters. as it is now, insight is mostly additive, with the only downside being not selecting other perks. however, this promotes a line of thinking that you must pick the better skills or people will not think you know what youre doing or think youre suspcious. examples that come to mind of these insight skills are werebeaver, coach wolfgang, beefalo wig, and any willow who doesnt pick controlled fire. which i think are fine skill choices, but there is still potential for ridicule for them for various reasons. i have heard a player say "i know its way worse than the other alignment but i picked this one anyways cause i liked it better" and that stuck with me. i think the psychology about the illusion of more choice when it comes to skill trees is also something to refer to when it comes to this because it feels more like feature bloat than something that promotes an experience. in the very least, the lack of design of insight negatively impacted the game only a little more than underpowered items (that players often craft and discover theyre near useless to their counterparts) left in the game because the game directs your focus to them more.

[@chieftress4395]

I honestly find that people in dst community worry too much about how others enjoy the game. Tbh if you don't like the skill trees there is nothing stopping you from playing without them. They brought me back to the game and made it a game I can have fun with long term. That's just me

[@chieftress4395]

Sorry I should have said if someone doesn't like the skill trees. I didn't mean for it to sound targeted or mean

[@tacogodboomdogg]

I think Winona's skill tree has lore implications. Wagstaff want to get enlightened shards so he'd have unlimited energy.

[@oreo5850]

30:00- i'm saying specifically on this one you are wildly mistaken the ability to dismantle and pick up builds(as an item) is maybe the most god tier thing winona gets

[@supermilordo5153]

Which should have been a base kit thing....oh wait! And Klei did promised that! Before lying and eat their words.....

[@watervssodies]

Really good video. I went into this video kind of disagreeing but you make a lot of good points. The current skill trees really are all over the place. I hope they look over some of the old ones and fix them (and give Winona the uncompromising Mode toolbox)

[@GeorgeEgroed-e7f]

(i agree with your love for willow. I mourn her thou. For she was changed forever. Made stronger , but her new strengths overshine her old abilities.)

[@babafisi8135]

I kinda think it’d be cool to have a mod where the Charaters get their skilltree abilities with their basekit, no skilltree required, and they get more at certain milestones, or once the endgame comes into question. Going to the Repaired Portal gives the Shadow Side stuff, and going to the Archives Portal Unlocks the Lunar Side Stuff. Some can unlock both without slight drawbacks, and some can only take one.

[@BassistJD]

hi exo what mods do you use thank you i love yr vids btw thought u should know that

[@dnidaz2553]

Tbh, idk if klei would take this idea in a lifetime BUT, i do think some skill trees need to be "freshend up", especially the firsts ones to come out because for example, i think Wilson's and Wolgang's skill tree are very bland in my opinion

[@supermilordo5153]

Ah yes. The skill tress of the skill trees electrical boogalo 3.0. Can't wait for the new level up system to try to fix the skill trees that aimed to fix the characters! Oh boy!

[@girlygo2]

To be fair about Wilson, he's intended to be simple. I think he did good with introducing how skill trees were going to work, and his skills keep him simple. While they don't really say "gentleman scientist" to me, it's important to keep in mind Wilson isn't all too good of a scientist. I also think his transmutation skills are fitting and handy for those who may play the guy (which includes me.) His skills are like tiny little benefits that add to his pre-existing playstyle (which to begin with was hardly anything) and add something new as well. Him being so simple is what makes him unique.

[@IcaarusLuvsMen]

If you don't mind answering really quickly, what's the name of the mod you used at 8:47 ?

[@JustExo]

@@IcaarusLuvsMen ground chest

[@abyss8354]

I think when the skill trees are finished, they should make each character get skill points in different ways And have requirements for certain skills Even special skills they don’t require any points to get, but you have to complete a task for Like Warly cooking to get skill points like every so many dishes and making certain dishes Like Wormwood getting the lunar mushroom skill and mushroom skills by mushroom things Willow killing dragonfly or killing deer clops Of course, the stuff would still transfer world to world Probably not specific skills that could be like endgame op level skills or they could have the skill get stronger the more things are completed in that world starting weak becoming stronger over time so it can compete with end game things we haven’t gotten yet A world setting to change if the skills starts weak or not for each character would work great

[@lovkarts]

I'm so lucky being a Willow main lol

[@krugozor3904]

To me skill trees are a way to refresh the expirience playing a character that I wasn't finding interesting / fun / impactful before. I was very interested in Winona Wurt beta checking every single small patch and adjustments they made because Winona particularly became a character I consider playing now. Yes she has a bunch of +% crap and skills that are unreachable earlygame and could use more structures like the same sprinklers from Hamlet to help out with farms besides winbots. But in general is quite nice to go sister path earlygame having easy and cheap travel / resurrection methods and also being able to build a bunch of pullts to kill both BQ and dfly with not as an absurd investment as it used to be due to mobility of her stuff. Lights are useful now being a great structure for yourself and teammates every winter. Then going Wagstaff path and build a wild web of telepads for mega base that could appear even more convinient than Wanda's setup. Imo they did a fine job at making characters such as Woodie, Wormwood and especially Willow much more enjoyable to go for yet the rest of the cast hopefully will be getting needed tweaks here and there eventually when they'll be done with the end game and the rest of the skill trees. But for the time being all I hope for is revival of some of the characters that were murdered in the past such as WX, making switch offs such as Warly / Wicker not a utliity but a character you want to play and at the end of the day just funny things like balloon-mech for Wes and more ways to customise your spider army.

[@unfrogettable9495]

Skill trees exist for 2 reasons in my eyes. 1. To make characters feel more unique from one another even more than they already are and instill a sense of co-operation with their skillset. 2. To give players incentive to do certain tasks because of skill tree requirements for certain insight points. This is mostly to give newer players something to look forward to and pursue. Skill trees dont exist in solo don't starve because simplicity is the name of the game, but with multiple players playing different characters you can run into issues of redundancy between multiple characters so this added complexity makes characters more interesting from a baseline perspective. Now I play mostly Warly and I'm almost certain the thing Klei may end up doing is making him stronger early, but I feel that would just kind of make him a little too good. As Warly is now a lot of people can't stomach playing him because of his downside with food requiring different preparation measures and more knowledge to get the most out of him, it just results in most players swapping to him later and swapping back after making some of his food which really sucks. I think they should instead focus on his strengths in a way that will require more effort from the Warly player; forcing the Warly player to use his advantages as much as they can; something like allowing him to get more meat from killing things or gain sanity from cooking but lose sanity as food spoils a stage in his presence or something. They could also just give him abilities like knowing what dish a crock pot will make, using his nose to find specific ingredients, making his insulated pack better, making his spices last longer and yes; I know these all miss the point which is that his crockpot downside is really massive for people and his food memory makes it hard for people as well. I do think there will end up being some way of alleviating his food memory in his eventual skill tree but honestly it's not an issue to handle if you play him enough and I would much rather him get more utility and unique elements that only he can do in the moment rather than people using him for swapping and cooking.

[@abyss8354]

Wigfrid got skills for beefalo, including a special saddle that’s supposed to help even though it’s weaker than the endgame saddle

[@marfmaster2567]

Her saddle is redundant because it's trying to do a bit of everything but not best at anything, less speed than normal saddle, way harder to make, less damage than war saddle. The only thing it could have going for it is the tankiness but that's just not useful. I see great value in being able to tame a rider beefalo easily to get around quickly, but not in fighting on one, unless if it was blatantly overtuned. That's just the Klei special though I guess, implementing features that are completely cannibalized by others. The saddle needing azure feathers is also not helping it. If it at least had the same speed as a normal saddle I'd consider making it when winter comes around, since that'd make it a small upgrade.

[@abyss8354]

@ the skills for beefalo taming time it should’ve been buffing the beefalo stats

[@Sito1479]

I haven’t been involved with dst in a while so idk if I’m repeating a common idea or not so please bear with me. I’m absolutely okay with how it currently works but I think I have a solution peoples “distaste” for skill trees. I think we could find some structure (preferably in savannah because it’s pretty much just grass) like a rock den or pig king to choose and change lunar and nightmare alignment. We could even find trinkets to feed it to earn skill points. Finding it in tumbleweeds, killing hunt animals, and killing bosses would be a nice way to implement the system into the game. You could even completely ignore this mechanic to stay as a non leveled character so both sides would be happy.

[@Sito1479]

Also I haven’t watched the whole video yet so please ignore all of it if you’ve adressed this.

[@abyss8354]

I think when the skill trees are finished, they should make each character get skill points in different ways And have requirements for certain skills Even special skills they don’t require any points to get, but you have to complete a task for Like Warly cooking to get skill points like every so many dishes and making certain dishes Like Wormwood getting the lunar mushroom skill and mushroom skills by mushroom things Willow killing dragonfly or killing deer clops Of course, the stuff would still transfer world to world Probably not specific skills that could be like endgame op level skills

[@abyss8354]

Even starting a New World I still pick the endgame skills because I am not gonna go back and change it at the celestial portal Other people like to change characters constantly I like to have a big friend group to be different characters

[@Dvd_d8]

32:48 ok but where's Wanda 😭

[@xxGreenRoblox]

2:30 I think you've used that clip before

[@wox4983]

warly don't have a solid player rate that scares me

[@lupinangel]

Disagree with the beefallo section on Wigfred. Its only 4 points and most of them are amazing if you want to beefalo rush. The rest of her skill tree is incredible and much better sure but this is a great way for new players to learn beefalo. Everyone acts like it sucks but I've nothing but fun experimenting with her skill tree. I do wish they would buff the battle saddle though. Reasonably not getting it till winter sucks and needs a damage buff or armor buff to make it worthwhile.

[@Trashcontent3421]

I think some skill trees are fine

[@supermilordo5153]

But then what's the point of skill trees if the intent is to update the characters??? Why not a godamm normal update??? Why are you forced to spend points to fix the character, a point of which you didn't address, since Woodie is very flawed, thus not a good skill tree. I'll give you the reason why they did it. Money, marketing, player retetion. Skill trees shouldn't absolutely exist in the game and Klei should have stopped with Wilson, who btw, shall I remind got robbed of his rework. (Btw JustExo I tried 1 month ago winona skill tree for the meme since I don't play skill trees in general. Godamm what a joke xD and she gets out with a nerf!!!! Incredible. What a circus. And since you don't have a large amount of people screaming for that character in particular, as someone in particular right now coff coff... winona will stay there....as an afterthough....)

[@filipkopanski7460]

Nahhhh, you are delulu

[@michalvrabec454]

skill trees are bad for this game because klei cannot make them balanced, it was better when characters had few upsides and few downsides, at this point every character is starting to become overpowered and I'll probably not play any official character and instead go on a workshop and use few really interesting and fun to play characters that don't have skill trees... TF2 pyro character mod is basically willow but without a skill tree and still powerful and fun

[@jx5b]

Does it really matter that much if the characters are not completly ballanced?

[@michalvrabec454]

@@jx5b here's the thing, they can be balanced and still fun, or just slightly imbalanced but still fun, however if you can kill bosses with one ability then that isn't balanced and nor is it fun = willow lunar flame / shadow flame

[@smellybearc7411]

I don’t think character balance is that important in a game like this. You could play the weaker characters to give yourself a challenge and the stronger characters if you just want to have a more casual experience. I think “flavor” or the characters “making sense” is more important than balance. For example, Wurt’s skill tree is strong (overly so) but the main problem is more about it not matching her play style as a city builder. Instead of giving her merms excessive combat ability, they should have focused more on making her base building fun and rewarding.

[@michalvrabec454]

@@smellybearc7411 i feel like majority of people are instinctively going to play the stronger character, you say balance is not that important but balance means fun in long-term, imbalanced characters are fun only for short-term, klei should focus on things that matter and things that make don't starve "don't starve", exploration, new survival threats, and so on... combat is not really the strong point of don't starve yet klei devs are focusing on it

[@Dvd_d8]

Why can't they just make all characters (except Wes) overpowered? Still different levels of overpowering to let people decide their difficulty level If everyone is overpowered, then anyone is