"-1" professions

[Bonevomit]

I like that the profession system is now more balanced in the experimental version but it’s still pretty problematic.

I get the “-2” professions like Bad Android(permanent flaws) and Tweaker(really rough start) as challenge professions, but the negative professions should be more balanced because “unhappy on day 1 because of addition” isn’t really worth the skill point.

I’d say balance out the -1 professions to the regular level and debuff the +2 and etc. professions to normal levels. It’s kind of a pain in the ass if you’re points hungry and still want to play as something other than a hobo all the time. I really can’t help myself from grabbing that one extra point but I’m sick to death of shower victims, chain smokers, and hobos being all my characters.

At least add more variety to the bad professions if you can’t balance them out. I’m kind of sick of feeling obligated to min/max all my characters into bland formulas. I guess that’s kind of my issue, but with deals like an extra point for the price of an incredibly minor setback, it’s almost impossible to resist.

[John_Candlebury]

Hmm add more points to your starting amount so you can cancel the price of the profession you want?

Pretty sure no one will think lowly of you for that.

[FunsizeNinja123]

I always put the starting points and the “gained points after giving yourself bad points” at 25.

I’ve always wanted to do a "just stats and mutations, no skills"run for a while now.

[Bonevomit]

Does everyone here just cheat themselves up points right at the start? I thought it was just that one guy, but wow.

I wanted to improve the balance of the game. But if everyone else just cheats that’s pretty disappointing.

Like, if it were only 1 or 2 points it might even be reasonable but 25 points? That’s pretty sad. No offense, I get the whole minecraft thing and that games have changed, but 25 points? really?

It’s not like the game has a story or some end to work towards, why cheat? The developers spend all this time trying to get the game balanced, just to throw it out the window?

[FunsizeNinja123]

Points just give you starting mutations, skills, stats, and professions.

No idea what you’re talking about, buddy. I can still die if I had 20+ in all stats with beginning gear.

And the game is only singleplayer. So why not cheat? You can make it super easy or give yourself the hardest challenge, which is one thing Cata excels at.

[SpaniardSlayer]

When I do raise my starting points, I only increase it by 2. Since most “Bad” professions are quite boring (start with some cigarettes and a nicotine addiction! Start out naked! Start with an alcohol addiction and some whiskey! ), the extra 2 points help balance it out for me. Maybe if there were more interesting Bad professions like the Failed Android, people wouldn’t want to cheat so much (I know I wouldn’t).

Also, this is a game that has tons of content and for some people, it is very hard to reach a lot of said content without cheating.

[EkarusRyndren]

I’ve started with over 200 points before (via cheat engine)

You still die. Starting points really don’t make that big a difference.

[Waladil]

[quote=“Bonevomit, post:4, topic:4784”]Does everyone here just cheat themselves up points right at the start? I thought it was just that one guy, but wow.

I wanted to improve the balance of the game. But if everyone else just cheats that’s pretty disappointing.

Like, if it were only 1 or 2 points it might even be reasonable but 25 points? That’s pretty sad. No offense, I get the whole minecraft thing and that games have changed, but 25 points? really?

It’s not like the game has a story or some end to work towards, why cheat? The developers spend all this time trying to get the game balanced, just to throw it out the window?[/quote]

I don’t see how modifying the starting points is cheating. It’s clearly labeled in the starting menu with a limited range of 0-25 (default 6). Would setting it to less than 6 be cheating, or only setting it over 6? What about other things in the options menu? I think increasing the viewport size did more to help me do well than increasing my starting points did.

And, by the way, “the developers” didn’t really spend “all this time” getting the game balanced. There’s a ton of unbalanced things still around. (Heck, look at the brand new black belt profession: Cost of 8 points but comes with 48 points worth of skills, an unprecedented 6:1 ratio. Most +1 professions come with 3-4 skill points, work 2-4 trait points. Way worse ratio.)

But, besides the point. If you’d like to run through and come up with some alternate profession values to be better-balanced, I’d be willing to give them a fair shake.

[John_Candlebury]

[quote=“Bonevomit, post:4, topic:4784”]Does everyone here just cheat themselves up points right at the start? I thought it was just that one guy, but wow.

I wanted to improve the balance of the game. But if everyone else just cheats that’s pretty disappointing.

Like, if it were only 1 or 2 points it might even be reasonable but 25 points? That’s pretty sad. No offense, I get the whole minecraft thing and that games have changed, but 25 points? really?

It’s not like the game has a story or some end to work towards, why cheat? The developers spend all this time trying to get the game balanced, just to throw it out the window?[/quote]

The starting professions in the game are pretty much balanced right now, i often play with the default 6 starting points (unless I want to be an archer, in which case I often start with 8) and I can tell you that there’s no real need to min max anything to have a decent start or character, gonna tell you that your stats all at 8 work perfectly well for the entirety of the game (well 8 strenght is kinda annoying because of the cargo capacity, so I almost always rise it to 10) hell an empty template works well for the enterity of the game if you play it smart and take your time to equip yourself.

Now anyways, perhaps gamers have “changed”, whatever that means, but Im pretty sure that this thing is a sandbox game, and there exist only two obectives on a sandbox game: 1) have fun, 2) use the game as a way tell or recreate an interesting story. And if you find it more enjoyable for your story to start with a Mexican bandido crossing the border with 10 kilos of coke in a van while crossing a bridge that has a zombie police officer blockade, your use of the debug menu to completely orchestrate the scene using the debug menu is completely justified. Also, I will say that you have wasted a lot of the fun cataclysm has to offer if you have never tried to do such things and instead concentrated on playing the game “properly” all the time.

[EkarusRyndren]

-snip-

99 barrels of mutigen in the cargo-hold… 99 barrels of mutigen…

[Bonevomit]

The debug tools are for testing the game or at worst for getting yourself out of a jam caused by a bug. At least that’s the way I’ve always seen it. I don’t think they’re actually meant for legit play. Hell, using the debug menu has the game straight up call you a cheater, in big bold letters even.

@SpaniardSlayer: See, even that’s more reasonable.

You also don’t need to cheat to experience all the content of the game though(drugs). Also by cheating you are cutting out more content. You’re missing out on having to use your brain to solve the challenges that come from overcoming your characters weaknesses and beating the wasteland(though even that’s not particularly hard).

@Waladil: That’s true, the game isn’t very well balanced as it is. I was under the impression that more was being done about it until I saw the higher priced professions like what you just noted. I usually pay so much attention to the “bad” professions I don’t even look down the list that far.

Anyway, I think I might have a few ideas. Addictions could be moved to traits, and should start you off with a strong addiction while also making that substance more addictive for your character in the future. That would remove the tweaker, chain smoker, and crackhead professions. The hobo profession could be given two-three points in survival and have the the alcoholic addiction removed to balance out with the other professions. If we wanted, for roleplaying, we could rename the now modified hobo profession to “lowlife” or something because it’s history and item loadout are pretty similar to that of the crackhead or tweaker(without the alcohol of course). The more classy smoker profession you couldn’t really replace though(although “chain smoker” isn’t much of a profession to begin with). The more expensive starting professions could be nerfed by reducing their point cost and dropping their skills.

Having addictions in the form of traits rather than professions also allows for more freedom for roleplay during character creation, like you can now play a chain smoking hockey player instead of a generic chain smoker.

Though I have plenty to say about cheating and all that, it’s kind of besides the point. I started the argument, so it’s really my fault, but let’s stick with talking about the balance of professions as far as playing without cheats goes.

[ted]

[quote=“EkarusRyndren, post:7, topic:4784”]I’ve started with over 200 points before (via cheat engine)

You still die. Starting points really don’t make that big a difference.[/quote]

You would have to intentionally misuse points to make a >200 point character that isn’t vastly superior to a default 6 point character.

[Dominae]

Its that dreaded “Is it a roguelike and therefore best played ‘difficult/hardmode’ or a sandbox and best played ‘creative mode’” topic again. The community here is split.

I get what you’re saying though Bone … if you approach the game like you would any other roguelike (Tome; Qud; DCSS) you take what you’re given and make the most of what points you can scrounge up to ensure you survive. You tinker with builds until you get one that you like the play style of, or that gets you further than last time. Cata doesn’t have that … its more an interactive storybook that reads very similarly each time.

I pretty much always play Shower Victims for the 1 extra point, because I play a standard point distribution and a more “roguelike” mindset. I don’t touch the higher point professions because frankly, they cost way too much unless you “gift” yourself extra points, and that defeats the fun for me. They just don’t feel like professions/features I’d ever use really because of that, really.

To me … if they’re “just for roleplay” then having them assigned points isn’t needed.

[One-Eyed_Jack]

Does fast reader make the game easier? Not really, but it limits tedium somewhat so I take it every game pretty much.

Is tailor that much better than just sewing 100 bandanas out of sheets? Not significantly, but I still might take it for reasons unrelated to difficulty.

Compare this to legitimately strong stuff like quick or krav maga kr whatever

The game is a.) pretty easy in general and b.) a sandbox game with no win conditions so calling out people for “cheating” is even more insufferable and elitist than it usually is

In any case faik the long term plan is to remove the point system and just describe to the player how strong their starting kit is.

[i2amroy]

In any case faik the long term plan is to remove the point system and just describe to the player how strong their starting kit is.

Well the game will still track points, it’ll just do so behind the scenes (and won’t necessarily have limits on how far positive/negative you can go).

That said you can always feel free to edit professions in your own game if there is any balance decisions you greatly disagree with (or while waiting for changes) all you need to do is crack open the professions.json file, find your profession, and change the points value, simple as that.

[Ferodaktyl]

the last time i didn’t play a random char was when i was trying to see if a failed android with hardcore/glass jaw traits has any chances of survival (it doesn’t :P).
on topic : more “bad” profession would be welcome, but those that are permanently bad, not just 1 day bad. For example, chain smoker should also give a minor speed penalty.
Also why not combine good and bad traits in 1 package? I’m quite sure there are quite a few interesting combinations we could think of.

[i2amroy]

One thing that I personally have been planning is a bit of a rewrite to the addiction code, which should make the bad professions a little more permanently damaging (because face it, somebody doesn’t kick a lifetime habit of drinking or drugs in the space of three days).

[Uneron]

One thing that I personally have been planning is a bit of a rewrite to the addiction code, which should make the bad professions a little more permanently damaging (because face it, somebody doesn’t kick a lifetime habit of drinking or drugs in the space of three days).

Revamping the addiction code would be quite lovely. It could allow for more interesting stories then: I didn’t do so well for half a day.

[Williham]

[quote=“Waladil, post:8, topic:4784”]-snip-

And, by the way, “the developers” didn’t really spend “all this time” getting the game balanced. There’s a ton of unbalanced things still around. (Heck, look at the brand new black belt profession: Cost of 8 points but comes with 48 points worth of skills, an unprecedented 6:1 ratio. Most +1 professions come with 3-4 skill points, work 2-4 trait points. Way worse ratio.)

-snip-[/quote]

The blackbelt profession also comes with nothing but skills, and it’s really kind of only 16 points worth of skills: Melee, unhanded and dodge are pretty useless on their lonesome; and really only useful for kicking ass, making the distribution somewhat deceptive. It’s an all-eggs-in-one-basket sort of deal.

[i2amroy]

[quote=“Rekozg”]+1 for addictions being traits.

I would like that too for roleplaying reasons, and it makes more sense imo.[/quote]
Addictions shouldn’t be traits, since that prevents us from doing anything but toggling them on/off. Really we just need a small expansion/rebalancing of the current system (along with a potential spot to display some vague data about it, potentially).