When you make a new character, what traits are too good to not choose? Ive noticed most “lets plays” tend to always take Quick and Night vision for each character. Then usually parkour expert or fleet footed get chosen and one or 2 “flavor” traits.
Are these traits just too good or just crutches to help new players?
With such a huge list to choose from it seems like maybe those traits should cost more or other “good” traits should be made more attractive.
Myself i have passed on taking Quick once or twice but i always take nightvision and psychopath.
Does anyone else have any default “good” traits they choose?
Maybe they should add minor mutations to default scenarios(due to radiation or some mutation-inducing monsters) but mid-tier mutations to lab or experiment scenarios(as you’ve been tested on). And those will take up extra points instead of getting the same traits on every character. But idk, maybe not.
Quick and nightvision are very strong. They’re not broken by any means, but their advantage comes in that they’re useful on basically every character. Rather than the niche use of most traits.
I wouldn’t say they are “too good” but I like indefatiable, quick, scout and parkour, I’ll usually have a couple of those, expensive but I like the quality of life features they grant and stamina is just so important in regards to many actions. Fleet footed, light step and weak scent can be really good too if you play to those strength, I don’t think I’ve ever taken night vision or psychopath but I pretty much always take self aware.
I tend to look at how a character will be end game rather then at the beginning, night vision I guess can be really nice early on but once you can make light amp googles, get implanted night vision or night vision mutations I imagine the value drops off rapidly.
Considering how extraordinarily strong movement traits are, especially for how dangerously fatigued and immobile a base character is compared to your opponents I’m surprised they don’t cost more. I usually don’t bother with nightvision though a lot of my character end up mutating full night vision anyway.
I never take Quick. Packmule is mandatory for me, and I like taking Quick Learner, Optimist, or Stylish. Disease Resistant is cheap and getting the flu is a complete drag.
Night Vision isn’t mandatory, but it’s useful. Parkour Expert, Psycopath, and similar QoL traits are nice but I don’t take them unless I’m playing Freeform.
Night vision is more of a quality of life perk rather than a strong one. If you want actually useful night vision early game without being a perception stacked character, you simply do night raids when it’s clear weather outside.
Strenght of quick (and every perk in general) depends heavily on your world settings. Also taking quick in chargen is quite unoptimal since it’s ‘easily’ gained through mutation and doesn’t have mutation counterparts.
Personally I consider strong back as the best trait in the game, followed by packmule.
I always take Packmule and I always take nightvision. I don’t know if they’re ‘too good’, but they’re mandatory for me to feel comfortable as a character.
In fact, they’re often the only positive traits that I take.
Been my long debated stance on Psychopath to only be for straight up murdering the living. Yet the powers that be seem to think a blood thirsty past tense child zombie is still a human and should get hugs when I pop one off. Oh well.
I don’t really consider any of the non-mutation starting traits “too good”. I can play characters with no good traits and characters with a full 12 points of good traits and play them about the same; in fact I actually prefer keeping positive traits to a minimum since I feel like I can hit the ground running with the right starting skills instead of traits. Parkour Expert is one of my favorite starting traits, but it’s still not necessary to me.
If you want to consider mutations available in the Lab challenge, Fluffy Tail is without a doubt in my mind too good and I always take it. Spend 1 trait point and lose the ability to wear non-fabric pants (not a big deal unless you’re a fan of power armor) in exchange for effectively 4 more levels of dodge skill. That’s followed closely by Whiskers, 1 trait point and requires your face to be uncovered in exchange for 1 dodge level, good but not as good later since I’ll usually have my face covered. Fluffy Tail + Whiskers + 3 starting dodge skill = effectively 8 starting dodge skill.
I always take Night Vision and Fleet Footed. Sometimes those are the only positives I take. I frequently also take Strong Back and Quick and occasionally Packmule. Anything else depends on what specifically I have in mind for the character RP wise.
There are no traits I take all the time. I prefer the RP approach. Autodoc operator with high first aid, IQ and all might have low ST, book wormy traits etc.
Then Biker might be a brutal masculine lady with bad temper and stuff.
Overall I like pretty and stylish on my female characters, optimist and outdoorsman with scout on other types of male toons.
RP approach is the best. But I’d say light step, fleet footed, packmule are good ones. Do not really think any trait is OP.
One I think lots of people seem to ignore is Spiritual. Get two religious books and you can rock +150 morale easily. You can also wear a holy symbol to stop and meditate for a very slight boost. I like using spiritual on any of my “out of time” characters. Like churls, Vikings, and crusaders.
I think the “too good” perks for you are the ones that target something you like to think about and plan around, and elevate it to a level well beyond human.
For instance, I never take the +weight or +volume traits because I can’t get behind roleplaying a character loaded with much more stuff than I could comfortably carry. But I always take Night Vision, because to me, having to plan carefully around lighting is something fiddly I’d rather not be bothered with.
Somebody else might never take night vision, because they don’t want to roleplay a character who can see twenty feet in near pitch black light, but dealing with how much weight and volume they’re packing is fiddly nonsense they don’t want to bother with… even if it means jogging around dodging zombies while hauling around 130 pounds of gear.
So for me, Night Vision is a quality of life gimme, while Strong Back is way too good and I never take it. But to my hypothetical you, it might be the opposite.
This might need some lateral thinking. You can choose negative traits based on the mutagen you intend to take. After all, if you will have them anyways you might as well think of them as free points when they are countered by other traits. It may also be possible, yet I don’t have proof, that you can do something similar with positive traits. If you wish to remove glass jaw or bad back, you might have a bad time just using purifier. Their counters can be limited, difficult to get, or only in the starter set. The trick is to use the purifier to not only have a chance to get rid of bad mutations, but to have a chance to reclaim the mutations that also counter those bad mutations. Toughness and strong back are two traits I use to that effect. Preference should probably be towards traits that can’t be easily included through mutagen.
I usually use traits as a means to roleplay, without giving much thought to balance.
If a character is not cut out for survival, I guess a miserable and untimely end was bound to happen. On the other hand, surviving against all odds is a hell of an adventure.
Wow, great responses. I would never have suspected packmule of being so desirable mainly b/c of the travois and drag-box being so easy to create right away. I’ll admit when I play most games (like fallout) I will always grab any sort of strong back or pack mule quirk, but mostly that is due to a weird compulsion I have to “loot all the things!”
Also I did not mean to suggest any of the good traits were broken or misadjusted–it was more of an idle thought from a newish player. I don’t have a lot of time to play the game. I often listen to “lets plays” (my version of sports radio) where people are talking about certain aspects of the game or who are very entertaining while they are playing. It seemed like each time there was a new character, they were choosing Quick, Night vision, parkour expert, and/or fleet footed after weighing themselves down with interesting ‘bad traits’ that could be mitigated easily and/or ‘bad traits’ that make a play through interesting or challenging. I’ll have to go back and see if my perception matches reality.
QoL traits are interesting. I didn’t view them as such initially but thinking about it now, I can see how there are just certain aspects each of us don’t like dealing with in our gameplay. The QoL traits allow us to fix that nicely. It’s nice to see there are so many people that do avoid Nightvision or Quick.
I’ll have to look into playing with some of the other QoL traits I have completely skipped over in favor of my normal choices.
