Ermmm what do you mean by that? Recipes so you can craft them, or recipes to craft stuff WITH them? As far as I know you can craft them already…[/quote]
Recipes to craft them. I can craft back holsters and ankle holsters, but no regular holsters or sheaths. If there are recipes for them, they are probably in a skill book. In that case, the recipes should be auto-learned at some point.
On the topic of stuff that needs auto-learn recipes: cargo pants.
Sunglasses with corrective lenses. That way characters with far sight or short sight can wear sunglasses and still have their vision benefit! (Have it in both varieties perhaps?)
Ermmm what do you mean by that? Recipes so you can craft them, or recipes to craft stuff WITH them? As far as I know you can craft them already…[/quote]
Recipes to craft them. I can craft back holsters and ankle holsters, but no regular holsters or sheaths. If there are recipes for them, they are probably in a skill book. In that case, the recipes should be auto-learned at some point.
On the topic of stuff that needs auto-learn recipes: cargo pants.[/quote]
You need either long string, or rope.
I noticed that the advanced character build guide on the wiki lists an alarming amount of traits as useless or near useless. Perhaps a re-balance/tweaking of already existing traits is in order? Sorry this isn’t exactly an ‘addition’ to the game, but it seemed like the right thread for this as many of my suggestions aren’t as much rebalances, more actually reworks. If not, let me know! I’ll move my post ASAP! I won’t be addressing ‘challenge’ traits because they don’t seem to be meant to be perfectly balanced or fair. I also understand the wiki does not express everyone opinions, nor is it the one concrete truth, but I though the comments on the traits were very relevant. If any of this has already been changed, I’m simply not aware of it.
POSITIVE:
Accomplished Sleeper:" 0/5 - Not very useful. You can duplicate the effects of this with a rollmat, a bed, some ambien or simple patience."
-Lower the point cost to 1, increase the benefit it provides if possible.
Addiction Resistant: “0/5 - Very expensive for what it does. Addiction is pretty brutally difficult to deal with, but the easiest way to deal with them is simply not to take drugs very frequently.”
-Lower the point cost to 1 and it would be a worthwhile trait.
Cannibal: “0/5, 1/5 if NPCs enabled - human meat is extremely rare if you’re playing with NPCs off, and still very rare with it on.
Mostly an RP-related trait, thankfully it’s only 1 point. If you’re really that concerned about starving, Animal Empathy makes for a much better 1-point trait”
-Cannibal should cost more points but actually do something; perhaps allow you to eat tainted meat? And honestly, after seeing a lot of moral discussions on the forums this trait could be removed altogether.
Deft: “0/5 - this is a melee trait that has no effect if you’re good at melee and very little effect even if you’re bad at it.”
-Maybe have it effect the speed of your attacks slightly? As it stands now it may as well be removed.
Drunken Master: “1/5 - Synergises very well with a Hobo on day 1, and later in the game with the Ethanol Burner bionic.
Unfortunately, will most likely mandate a crippling alcohol addiction.
You could instead spend the 2 points on Unarmed and Melee for a more consistent improvement in unarmed output - but spending points on improving melee and unarmed would still be sub-optimal.”
-Drunken master would be a worthwhile trait if the point cost was increased to 3 and it came with an immunity to alcohol addiction.
Fast Learner: “2/5 - quite strong, but very expensive.”
-Lower the point cost from 3 to 2.
Good Hearing: “0/5 - having more precise/longer range hearing isn’t very useful, and this prevents you from taking the negative trait Poor Hearing.”
-It would probably be hard to implement, but perhaps good hearing gives you a very limited ability similar to infrared vision? If the enemy is making noise you can hear you would be able to see it within a certain radius. This could be useful for knowing what EXACTLY is trying to break down your door.
Good Memory: “1/5 - skill rust is incredibly annoying, but this is a very expensive trait.”
-Lower the cost to 1. Almost no-one plays with skill rust anyway, but it costing 3 points is a bit much.
High Adrenaline: “Doesn’t kick in very often at all, your head or torso HP needs to be very low for this to take effect.”
-Change it so it kicks in if ANY part of your body falls to red HP? That would make the effect more noticeable.
Inconspicuous: “1/5 - This was once quite effective at making “risky sleeping” (especially useful in sewers) a safer proposition, however in the current version sewers are very dangerous locations to sleep in as there are wandering monsters in the sewers that are capable of opening metal doors.”
-No idea how to fix this one. Maybe have it decrease the enemy sight range/aggro range on you slightly? “Safer Sleeping” doesn’t seem to be a huge problem.
Infection Resistant: “0/5 - Infections can be very deadly, however they’re also very rare and potentially treatable with a first aid kit. This trait is far too expensive to consider.”
-Lower it to one point. Not only is it very situation dependent, but neither first-aid kits, disinfectants or antibiotics are that rare.
Light Eater: “1/5 - Hunger is annoying - especially later in the game once everything rots - but it is definitely still manageable, and this trait is very expensive. Consider Animal Empathy instead, if you are very concerned about hunger.”
-Lower the point cost from 3 to 2. Personally I find this trait very useful, but 3 points is a bit steep.
Psychopath: “1/5 - expensive, and by default there are few occasions where this provides any benefit. Also, morale isn’t hugely important at the moment.”
-Lower the point cost from 2 to 1.
Self-Aware: “2/5 - Training wheels for the HP system. Most experienced players don’t bother with this, but it can be handy for first-time players of the game.”
-Add the additional effect of being able to see status ailments that are usually invisible, like parasites. 10/10 would want.
Strong Back: “1/5 - Most of the time your inventory will be constrained by inventory volume, not inventory weight. Even if it is likely to be constrained by weight, strength will generally be a better investment.”
-No real idea how to get this trait a higher rating. Maybe increase the weight gain to 40% and lower the point cost from 3 to 2?
Terrifying: “1/5 - scares away harmless critters you want to kill, has no effect on monsters with full HP that you’re running away from and very little effect regardless on most of the deadlier monsters in the game.”
-As long as it effects large and dangerous wildlife like Moose or Cougars I don’t see a problem. If it doesn’t effect hostile predators, it needs to.
Tough: “0/5 - Early on, it won’t be HP damage that will kill you - it’ll be pain, or being massively outclassed. Later on, there are a great number of alternative methods of avoiding damage.”
-Lower the point cost or increase the benefit. As it stand there are better investments for three points.
Tough Feet: “0/5 - Even at only 1 point, there is practically no reason why you wouldn’t just wear shoes. Maybe you’re RPing a hobbit?”
-Increase speed from being barefoot. Its the only way this trait will EVER be useful. Otherwise it’s just a waste of space, remove it.
NEGATIVE;
Asthmatic: “1/5 - this is effectively quite a nasty permanent addiction. You do start with an inhaler, but additional inhalers are somewhat rare and cannot be crafted.”
-Obviously inhalers need to be craft-able, if they aren’t yet. I’ve only ever found a few, I can’t imagine trying to use this trait as is.
Bad Temper: “1/5 - Although morale isn’t a huge concern in the current version, this is still quite an annoying trait to have. It will slow down your learning significantly, and make it more difficult for you to read depressing books.
By default, this trait sets your morale to -5. However, you also get +25% to all negative morale received, and -25% to all sources of positive morale. This can really add up to a lot of annoyance”
-Increase the point cost from -2 to -3 or change it to +10% all negative moral. As it stands its one of the most challenging traits, and not even for that many points.
Clumsy: “2/5 - Makes your footsteps volume 10 - a pretty significant amount of noise, this can make night raids significantly more troublesome.”
-Not being heard and killed is important for characters who aren’t combat powerhouses. Change it to make your footstep volume 8, perhaps?
Slow Runner: “1/5 - This eliminates your ability to escape melee from a large number of monsters. You may be able to tank these monsters in the endgame but this makes it much less likely that you’ll make it to the endgame.”
-Change the point cost from -2 to -3. Again, this is one of the more challenging traits in my opinion.
These traits addressed, they aren’t the only problem. Many other traits are far TOO good, and I want to address these as well.
Animal Empathy:" 3/5 - This can make it a great deal easier to hunt animals that would normally flee from you. You can even get right up close and kill them. For one point, you could certainly do much worse."
-This trait is very useful early game. Increase the point cost from 1 to 2.
Night Vision: “5/5 - makes it much easier to navigate at night and sometimes lets you snipe at dangerous enemies from outside of their visual range. For 1 point, that’s probably too good to pass up.”
-One of the most useful traits that comes into play constantly. Personally I think it should cost 3 points, but 2 points would also be balanced. This trait is simply too good to only cost one point.
Optimistic: “TODO/5”
-Another trait that has a CONSTANT effect on your game-play. Increase point cost from 2 to 3.
Addictive Personality: “4/5 - Even with this trait, becoming addicted to substances involuntarily will be rare. Just don’t make frequent use of hard drugs if you don’t want to get addicted to hard drugs.”
-This trait gives you a LOT of points. Decrease it from -3 to -2 AND increase the penalty.
Animal Discord: “TODO/5 - Pretty sure the effects on aggressive animals aren’t be a meaningful difference, need to investigate if it makes hunting easier or harder. If it makes it easier, this is 5/5 and animal empathy can lose a point (though I did lose a character to a moose once).”
-Change point cost from -2 to -1.
Far Sighted/Near Sighted:
-The odds of you ever losing your glasses are small, and during my games I almost never noticed it. I think this flaw should NOT start you with glasses, but a limited supply of contact lenses until you find a pair of glasses.
Heavy Sleeper:
-Change this to a positive trait, as it currently helps more than it hurts. Or have it increase the players overall sleep time.
Insomniac:
-Doesn’t make it that hard to sleep. Change it from -2 to -1 and I think it would be more balanced.
Poor hearing: “5/5 - This is a strong favorite amongst min-max players. Having great hearing can be slightly handy, but even with poor hearing you generally maintain the main benefit - knowing approximately where monsters are. For 2 points, this is a very strong pick.”
-Again, this is a trait that has more of a positive effect than a negative one. I’d either remove it or make the penalties far more severe. In any case it should not be a -2 trait but a -1.
Trigger Happy: “This trait only causes you to have a 1 in 30 chance of using burst fire unintentionally, however it does also increase your chance of continuing a burst beyond the point where all targets are dead (i.e. wasting ammo).”
-The chance of using burst fire unintentionally needs to be much higher, like 1/10 at least. I’d say even more than that for the current point cost. Or change it from a -2 to a -1.
This is all just my opinion! I don’t mean to imply I know better than the devs or anything like that. Again, I apologize profusely if this is the wrong thread for a comment like this. I didn’t really want to make a new thread since I’m so new and all. Anyway, thanks for your time.
To unlock the holster recipe, you need a handguns skill of 3. To unlock the sheath recipe, you need a cutting weapons skill of 3.
Perhaps it’s already been suggested: Adding the sorting options (Namely the per category one) from the AIM interface to the Shift-V interface would be 99.8% baller.
Ice cream must be a thing.
[quote=“botherations, post:1424, topic:5570”]I noticed that the advanced character build guide on the wiki lists an alarming amount of traits as useless or near useless. Perhaps a re-balance/tweaking of already existing traits is in order? Sorry this isn’t exactly an ‘addition’ to the game, but it seemed like the right thread for this as many of my suggestions aren’t as much rebalances, more actually reworks. If not, let me know! I’ll move my post ASAP! I won’t be addressing ‘challenge’ traits because they don’t seem to be meant to be perfectly balanced or fair. I also understand the wiki does not express everyone opinions, nor is it the one concrete truth, but I though the comments on the traits were very relevant. If any of this has already been changed, I’m simply not aware of it.
[spoiler]
POSITIVE:
Accomplished Sleeper:" 0/5 - Not very useful. You can duplicate the effects of this with a rollmat, a bed, some ambien or simple patience."
-Lower the point cost to 1, increase the benefit it provides if possible.
Addiction Resistant: “0/5 - Very expensive for what it does. Addiction is pretty brutally difficult to deal with, but the easiest way to deal with them is simply not to take drugs very frequently.”
-Lower the point cost to 1 and it would be a worthwhile trait.
Cannibal: “0/5, 1/5 if NPCs enabled - human meat is extremely rare if you’re playing with NPCs off, and still very rare with it on.
Mostly an RP-related trait, thankfully it’s only 1 point. If you’re really that concerned about starving, Animal Empathy makes for a much better 1-point trait”
-Cannibal should cost more points but actually do something; perhaps allow you to eat tainted meat? And honestly, after seeing a lot of moral discussions on the forums this trait could be removed altogether.
Deft: “0/5 - this is a melee trait that has no effect if you’re good at melee and very little effect even if you’re bad at it.”
-Maybe have it effect the speed of your attacks slightly? As it stands now it may as well be removed.
Drunken Master: “1/5 - Synergises very well with a Hobo on day 1, and later in the game with the Ethanol Burner bionic.
Unfortunately, will most likely mandate a crippling alcohol addiction.
You could instead spend the 2 points on Unarmed and Melee for a more consistent improvement in unarmed output - but spending points on improving melee and unarmed would still be sub-optimal.”
-Drunken master would be a worthwhile trait if the point cost was increased to 3 and it came with an immunity to alcohol addiction.
Fast Learner: “2/5 - quite strong, but very expensive.”
-Lower the point cost from 3 to 2.
Good Hearing: “0/5 - having more precise/longer range hearing isn’t very useful, and this prevents you from taking the negative trait Poor Hearing.”
-It would probably be hard to implement, but perhaps good hearing gives you a very limited ability similar to infrared vision? If the enemy is making noise you can hear you would be able to see it within a certain radius. This could be useful for knowing what EXACTLY is trying to break down your door.
Good Memory: “1/5 - skill rust is incredibly annoying, but this is a very expensive trait.”
-Lower the cost to 1. Almost no-one plays with skill rust anyway, but it costing 3 points is a bit much.
High Adrenaline: “Doesn’t kick in very often at all, your head or torso HP needs to be very low for this to take effect.”
-Change it so it kicks in if ANY part of your body falls to red HP? That would make the effect more noticeable.
Inconspicuous: “1/5 - This was once quite effective at making “risky sleeping” (especially useful in sewers) a safer proposition, however in the current version sewers are very dangerous locations to sleep in as there are wandering monsters in the sewers that are capable of opening metal doors.”
-No idea how to fix this one. Maybe have it decrease the enemy sight range/aggro range on you slightly? “Safer Sleeping” doesn’t seem to be a huge problem.
Infection Resistant: “0/5 - Infections can be very deadly, however they’re also very rare and potentially treatable with a first aid kit. This trait is far too expensive to consider.”
-Lower it to one point. Not only is it very situation dependent, but neither first-aid kits, disinfectants or antibiotics are that rare.
Light Eater: “1/5 - Hunger is annoying - especially later in the game once everything rots - but it is definitely still manageable, and this trait is very expensive. Consider Animal Empathy instead, if you are very concerned about hunger.”
-Lower the point cost from 3 to 2. Personally I find this trait very useful, but 3 points is a bit steep.
Psychopath: “1/5 - expensive, and by default there are few occasions where this provides any benefit. Also, morale isn’t hugely important at the moment.”
-Lower the point cost from 2 to 1.
Self-Aware: “2/5 - Training wheels for the HP system. Most experienced players don’t bother with this, but it can be handy for first-time players of the game.”
-Add the additional effect of being able to see status ailments that are usually invisible, like parasites. 10/10 would want.
Strong Back: “1/5 - Most of the time your inventory will be constrained by inventory volume, not inventory weight. Even if it is likely to be constrained by weight, strength will generally be a better investment.”
-No real idea how to get this trait a higher rating. Maybe increase the weight gain to 40% and lower the point cost from 3 to 2?
Terrifying: “1/5 - scares away harmless critters you want to kill, has no effect on monsters with full HP that you’re running away from and very little effect regardless on most of the deadlier monsters in the game.”
-As long as it effects large and dangerous wildlife like Moose or Cougars I don’t see a problem. If it doesn’t effect hostile predators, it needs to.
Tough: “0/5 - Early on, it won’t be HP damage that will kill you - it’ll be pain, or being massively outclassed. Later on, there are a great number of alternative methods of avoiding damage.”
-Lower the point cost or increase the benefit. As it stand there are better investments for three points.
Tough Feet: “0/5 - Even at only 1 point, there is practically no reason why you wouldn’t just wear shoes. Maybe you’re RPing a hobbit?”
-Increase speed from being barefoot. Its the only way this trait will EVER be useful. Otherwise it’s just a waste of space, remove it.
NEGATIVE;
Asthmatic: “1/5 - this is effectively quite a nasty permanent addiction. You do start with an inhaler, but additional inhalers are somewhat rare and cannot be crafted.”
-Obviously inhalers need to be craft-able, if they aren’t yet. I’ve only ever found a few, I can’t imagine trying to use this trait as is.
Bad Temper: “1/5 - Although morale isn’t a huge concern in the current version, this is still quite an annoying trait to have. It will slow down your learning significantly, and make it more difficult for you to read depressing books.
By default, this trait sets your morale to -5. However, you also get +25% to all negative morale received, and -25% to all sources of positive morale. This can really add up to a lot of annoyance”
-Increase the point cost from -2 to -3 or change it to +10% all negative moral. As it stands its one of the most challenging traits, and not even for that many points.
Clumsy: “2/5 - Makes your footsteps volume 10 - a pretty significant amount of noise, this can make night raids significantly more troublesome.”
-Not being heard and killed is important for characters who aren’t combat powerhouses. Change it to make your footstep volume 8, perhaps?
Slow Runner: “1/5 - This eliminates your ability to escape melee from a large number of monsters. You may be able to tank these monsters in the endgame but this makes it much less likely that you’ll make it to the endgame.”
-Change the point cost from -2 to -3. Again, this is one of the more challenging traits in my opinion.
These traits addressed, they aren’t the only problem. Many other traits are far TOO good, and I want to address these as well.
Animal Empathy:" 3/5 - This can make it a great deal easier to hunt animals that would normally flee from you. You can even get right up close and kill them. For one point, you could certainly do much worse."
-This trait is very useful early game. Increase the point cost from 1 to 2.
Night Vision: “5/5 - makes it much easier to navigate at night and sometimes lets you snipe at dangerous enemies from outside of their visual range. For 1 point, that’s probably too good to pass up.”
-One of the most useful traits that comes into play constantly. Personally I think it should cost 3 points, but 2 points would also be balanced. This trait is simply too good to only cost one point.
Optimistic: “TODO/5”
-Another trait that has a CONSTANT effect on your game-play. Increase point cost from 2 to 3.
Addictive Personality: “4/5 - Even with this trait, becoming addicted to substances involuntarily will be rare. Just don’t make frequent use of hard drugs if you don’t want to get addicted to hard drugs.”
-This trait gives you a LOT of points. Decrease it from -3 to -2 AND increase the penalty.
Animal Discord: “TODO/5 - Pretty sure the effects on aggressive animals aren’t be a meaningful difference, need to investigate if it makes hunting easier or harder. If it makes it easier, this is 5/5 and animal empathy can lose a point (though I did lose a character to a moose once).”
-Change point cost from -2 to -1.
Far Sighted/Near Sighted:
-The odds of you ever losing your glasses are small, and during my games I almost never noticed it. I think this flaw should NOT start you with glasses, but a limited supply of contact lenses until you find a pair of glasses.
Heavy Sleeper:
-Change this to a positive trait, as it currently helps more than it hurts. Or have it increase the players overall sleep time.
Insomniac:
-Doesn’t make it that hard to sleep. Change it from -2 to -1 and I think it would be more balanced.
Poor hearing: “5/5 - This is a strong favorite amongst min-max players. Having great hearing can be slightly handy, but even with poor hearing you generally maintain the main benefit - knowing approximately where monsters are. For 2 points, this is a very strong pick.”
-Again, this is a trait that has more of a positive effect than a negative one. I’d either remove it or make the penalties far more severe. In any case it should not be a -2 trait but a -1.
Trigger Happy: “This trait only causes you to have a 1 in 30 chance of using burst fire unintentionally, however it does also increase your chance of continuing a burst beyond the point where all targets are dead (i.e. wasting ammo).”
-The chance of using burst fire unintentionally needs to be much higher, like 1/10 at least. I’d say even more than that for the current point cost. Or change it from a -2 to a -1.
This is all just my opinion! I don’t mean to imply I know better than the devs or anything like that. Again, I apologize profusely if this is the wrong thread for a comment like this. I didn’t really want to make a new thread since I’m so new and all. Anyway, thanks for your time.[/spoiler][/quote]
I disagree with the build on the wiki on many points. This is mostly because the traits are analyzed only from the viewpoint of a single play style and my play style differs from that style, so my view of the traits also differs. I’m not saying that some of the traits couldn’t be tweaked, but it’s not as clear cut as it seems from that article.
Maybe the wiki article should have some sort of disclaimer explaining this.
[quote=“Hardluck, post:1428, topic:5570”][quote=“botherations, post:1424, topic:5570”]I noticed that the advanced character build guide on the wiki lists an alarming amount of traits as useless or near useless. Perhaps a re-balance/tweaking of already existing traits is in order? Sorry this isn’t exactly an ‘addition’ to the game, but it seemed like the right thread for this as many of my suggestions aren’t as much rebalances, more actually reworks. If not, let me know! I’ll move my post ASAP! I won’t be addressing ‘challenge’ traits because they don’t seem to be meant to be perfectly balanced or fair. I also understand the wiki does not express everyone opinions, nor is it the one concrete truth, but I though the comments on the traits were very relevant. If any of this has already been changed, I’m simply not aware of it.
[spoiler]
POSITIVE:
Accomplished Sleeper:" 0/5 - Not very useful. You can duplicate the effects of this with a rollmat, a bed, some ambien or simple patience."
-Lower the point cost to 1, increase the benefit it provides if possible.
Addiction Resistant: “0/5 - Very expensive for what it does. Addiction is pretty brutally difficult to deal with, but the easiest way to deal with them is simply not to take drugs very frequently.”
-Lower the point cost to 1 and it would be a worthwhile trait.
Cannibal: “0/5, 1/5 if NPCs enabled - human meat is extremely rare if you’re playing with NPCs off, and still very rare with it on.
Mostly an RP-related trait, thankfully it’s only 1 point. If you’re really that concerned about starving, Animal Empathy makes for a much better 1-point trait”
-Cannibal should cost more points but actually do something; perhaps allow you to eat tainted meat? And honestly, after seeing a lot of moral discussions on the forums this trait could be removed altogether.
Deft: “0/5 - this is a melee trait that has no effect if you’re good at melee and very little effect even if you’re bad at it.”
-Maybe have it effect the speed of your attacks slightly? As it stands now it may as well be removed.
Drunken Master: “1/5 - Synergises very well with a Hobo on day 1, and later in the game with the Ethanol Burner bionic.
Unfortunately, will most likely mandate a crippling alcohol addiction.
You could instead spend the 2 points on Unarmed and Melee for a more consistent improvement in unarmed output - but spending points on improving melee and unarmed would still be sub-optimal.”
-Drunken master would be a worthwhile trait if the point cost was increased to 3 and it came with an immunity to alcohol addiction.
Fast Learner: “2/5 - quite strong, but very expensive.”
-Lower the point cost from 3 to 2.
Good Hearing: “0/5 - having more precise/longer range hearing isn’t very useful, and this prevents you from taking the negative trait Poor Hearing.”
-It would probably be hard to implement, but perhaps good hearing gives you a very limited ability similar to infrared vision? If the enemy is making noise you can hear you would be able to see it within a certain radius. This could be useful for knowing what EXACTLY is trying to break down your door.
Good Memory: “1/5 - skill rust is incredibly annoying, but this is a very expensive trait.”
-Lower the cost to 1. Almost no-one plays with skill rust anyway, but it costing 3 points is a bit much.
High Adrenaline: “Doesn’t kick in very often at all, your head or torso HP needs to be very low for this to take effect.”
-Change it so it kicks in if ANY part of your body falls to red HP? That would make the effect more noticeable.
Inconspicuous: “1/5 - This was once quite effective at making “risky sleeping” (especially useful in sewers) a safer proposition, however in the current version sewers are very dangerous locations to sleep in as there are wandering monsters in the sewers that are capable of opening metal doors.”
-No idea how to fix this one. Maybe have it decrease the enemy sight range/aggro range on you slightly? “Safer Sleeping” doesn’t seem to be a huge problem.
Infection Resistant: “0/5 - Infections can be very deadly, however they’re also very rare and potentially treatable with a first aid kit. This trait is far too expensive to consider.”
-Lower it to one point. Not only is it very situation dependent, but neither first-aid kits, disinfectants or antibiotics are that rare.
Light Eater: “1/5 - Hunger is annoying - especially later in the game once everything rots - but it is definitely still manageable, and this trait is very expensive. Consider Animal Empathy instead, if you are very concerned about hunger.”
-Lower the point cost from 3 to 2. Personally I find this trait very useful, but 3 points is a bit steep.
Psychopath: “1/5 - expensive, and by default there are few occasions where this provides any benefit. Also, morale isn’t hugely important at the moment.”
-Lower the point cost from 2 to 1.
Self-Aware: “2/5 - Training wheels for the HP system. Most experienced players don’t bother with this, but it can be handy for first-time players of the game.”
-Add the additional effect of being able to see status ailments that are usually invisible, like parasites. 10/10 would want.
Strong Back: “1/5 - Most of the time your inventory will be constrained by inventory volume, not inventory weight. Even if it is likely to be constrained by weight, strength will generally be a better investment.”
-No real idea how to get this trait a higher rating. Maybe increase the weight gain to 40% and lower the point cost from 3 to 2?
Terrifying: “1/5 - scares away harmless critters you want to kill, has no effect on monsters with full HP that you’re running away from and very little effect regardless on most of the deadlier monsters in the game.”
-As long as it effects large and dangerous wildlife like Moose or Cougars I don’t see a problem. If it doesn’t effect hostile predators, it needs to.
Tough: “0/5 - Early on, it won’t be HP damage that will kill you - it’ll be pain, or being massively outclassed. Later on, there are a great number of alternative methods of avoiding damage.”
-Lower the point cost or increase the benefit. As it stand there are better investments for three points.
Tough Feet: “0/5 - Even at only 1 point, there is practically no reason why you wouldn’t just wear shoes. Maybe you’re RPing a hobbit?”
-Increase speed from being barefoot. Its the only way this trait will EVER be useful. Otherwise it’s just a waste of space, remove it.
NEGATIVE;
Asthmatic: “1/5 - this is effectively quite a nasty permanent addiction. You do start with an inhaler, but additional inhalers are somewhat rare and cannot be crafted.”
-Obviously inhalers need to be craft-able, if they aren’t yet. I’ve only ever found a few, I can’t imagine trying to use this trait as is.
Bad Temper: “1/5 - Although morale isn’t a huge concern in the current version, this is still quite an annoying trait to have. It will slow down your learning significantly, and make it more difficult for you to read depressing books.
By default, this trait sets your morale to -5. However, you also get +25% to all negative morale received, and -25% to all sources of positive morale. This can really add up to a lot of annoyance”
-Increase the point cost from -2 to -3 or change it to +10% all negative moral. As it stands its one of the most challenging traits, and not even for that many points.
Clumsy: “2/5 - Makes your footsteps volume 10 - a pretty significant amount of noise, this can make night raids significantly more troublesome.”
-Not being heard and killed is important for characters who aren’t combat powerhouses. Change it to make your footstep volume 8, perhaps?
Slow Runner: “1/5 - This eliminates your ability to escape melee from a large number of monsters. You may be able to tank these monsters in the endgame but this makes it much less likely that you’ll make it to the endgame.”
-Change the point cost from -2 to -3. Again, this is one of the more challenging traits in my opinion.
These traits addressed, they aren’t the only problem. Many other traits are far TOO good, and I want to address these as well.
Animal Empathy:" 3/5 - This can make it a great deal easier to hunt animals that would normally flee from you. You can even get right up close and kill them. For one point, you could certainly do much worse."
-This trait is very useful early game. Increase the point cost from 1 to 2.
Night Vision: “5/5 - makes it much easier to navigate at night and sometimes lets you snipe at dangerous enemies from outside of their visual range. For 1 point, that’s probably too good to pass up.”
-One of the most useful traits that comes into play constantly. Personally I think it should cost 3 points, but 2 points would also be balanced. This trait is simply too good to only cost one point.
Optimistic: “TODO/5”
-Another trait that has a CONSTANT effect on your game-play. Increase point cost from 2 to 3.
Addictive Personality: “4/5 - Even with this trait, becoming addicted to substances involuntarily will be rare. Just don’t make frequent use of hard drugs if you don’t want to get addicted to hard drugs.”
-This trait gives you a LOT of points. Decrease it from -3 to -2 AND increase the penalty.
Animal Discord: “TODO/5 - Pretty sure the effects on aggressive animals aren’t be a meaningful difference, need to investigate if it makes hunting easier or harder. If it makes it easier, this is 5/5 and animal empathy can lose a point (though I did lose a character to a moose once).”
-Change point cost from -2 to -1.
Far Sighted/Near Sighted:
-The odds of you ever losing your glasses are small, and during my games I almost never noticed it. I think this flaw should NOT start you with glasses, but a limited supply of contact lenses until you find a pair of glasses.
Heavy Sleeper:
-Change this to a positive trait, as it currently helps more than it hurts. Or have it increase the players overall sleep time.
Insomniac:
-Doesn’t make it that hard to sleep. Change it from -2 to -1 and I think it would be more balanced.
Poor hearing: “5/5 - This is a strong favorite amongst min-max players. Having great hearing can be slightly handy, but even with poor hearing you generally maintain the main benefit - knowing approximately where monsters are. For 2 points, this is a very strong pick.”
-Again, this is a trait that has more of a positive effect than a negative one. I’d either remove it or make the penalties far more severe. In any case it should not be a -2 trait but a -1.
Trigger Happy: “This trait only causes you to have a 1 in 30 chance of using burst fire unintentionally, however it does also increase your chance of continuing a burst beyond the point where all targets are dead (i.e. wasting ammo).”
-The chance of using burst fire unintentionally needs to be much higher, like 1/10 at least. I’d say even more than that for the current point cost. Or change it from a -2 to a -1.
This is all just my opinion! I don’t mean to imply I know better than the devs or anything like that. Again, I apologize profusely if this is the wrong thread for a comment like this. I didn’t really want to make a new thread since I’m so new and all. Anyway, thanks for your time.[/spoiler][/quote]
I disagree with the build quite on the wiki on many points. This is mostly because the traits are analyzed only from the viewpoint of a single play style and my play style differs from that style, so my view of the traits also differs. I’m not saying that some of the traits couldn’t be tweaked, but it’s not as clear cut as it seems from that article.
Maybe the wiki article should have some sort of disclaimer explaining this.[/quote]
I understand the wiki doesn’t cover all play styles, but I still think most of the points it made were valid. The point value of many traits seems really odd to me, with ones that constantly effect game-play having lower point costs than ones that rarely come into play.
It’s an extremely important part of character creation, and the whole game in general.
Of course some that seem useless to me might be favourites of yours, but I highly doubt that applies to the majority of my examples. Heck, I’d love if someone explained why some of the ‘seemingly’ useless/underpowered traits are actually good, I’d probably learn more about the game.
But on Traits like night-vision, don’t you agree that it does a lot and comes into play often for only one point? It costs the same as tough feet, and I don’t think the two can even be compared in usefulness.
A lovely toy bear, good for your mental health. Keep you calm when sleeping.
Any musical instruments, like guitar or flute. I would die living in apocalypse without playing music.
Whenever a building is competly destroyed, it reverts to crater.
[quote=“botherations, post:1424, topic:5570”]Tough Feet: “0/5 - Even at only 1 point, there is practically no reason why you wouldn’t just wear shoes. Maybe you’re RPing a hobbit?”
-Increase speed from being barefoot. Its the only way this trait will EVER be useful. Otherwise it’s just a waste of space, remove it.
Animal Empathy:" 3/5 - This can make it a great deal easier to hunt animals that would normally flee from you. You can even get right up close and kill them. For one point, you could certainly do much worse."
-This trait is very useful early game. Increase the point cost from 1 to 2.
Optimistic: “TODO/5”
-Another trait that has a CONSTANT effect on your game-play. Increase point cost from 2 to 3.
Animal Discord: “TODO/5 - Pretty sure the effects on aggressive animals aren’t be a meaningful difference, need to investigate if it makes hunting easier or harder. If it makes it easier, this is 5/5 and animal empathy can lose a point (though I did lose a character to a moose once).”
-Change point cost from -2 to -1.
Insomniac:
-Doesn’t make it that hard to sleep. Change it from -2 to -1 and I think it would be more balanced.[/quote]
Most of the rest is good, but I disagree about those.
[ul][li]Tough feet is mandatory for mutants who want foot mutations - tentacles or the foot talon. Foot talon is really good.[/li]
[li]Animal empathy is not worth 2 points. Animals are peaceful enough even with discord. If you put those 2 points in dexterity, you could easily kill any that would get hostile anyway.[/li]
[li]Optimistic is worse than gourmand. At 3 points it would have to compete with fast learner - a trait that most of the time is better (than optimist, not necessarily gourmand).[/li]
[li]Animal discord is essentially a free point now. Even at -1 cost, it would make sense to double the effect.[/li]
[li]Insomniac effect is incredibly minor. Even at -1 cost, doubling the effect would be a good idea[/li][/ul]
I’ll expand on the optimist vs gourmand vs fast learner:
Optimist gives you 25% boost to morale and 4 passive morale boost. Without other boosts, 5 morale (4+25%*4) is barely noticeable. You need music to get that ~18 morale above regular survivor.
Fast learner gives you effective extra 15 focus (not morale), which means you still keep on gaining skills even at ~20 focus after a long fight. Or when depressed from lack of alcohol or something like that.
Gourmand increases morale cap from comestibles by 50% and gain by 200%. This lets you stack morale gain from drugs to cheaply gain extra intelligence. It also lets you do drugs much faster (saved my life from a double-speed hulk once - winners do meth) and carry more food in stomach instead of on your back (helps in early game).
Optimist loses to fast learner for experience boosts and to gourmand (and loses to it hard) when it comes to gaining huge morale boosts. You can stack them, but that’s a fair bit of an overkill - you don’t need to snowball that hard, put that in dex.
Dexterity is a good measure of power: “Would I gain more from getting this trait or getting more dex?” is a really good approximation of trait power.
[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:1432, topic:5570”][quote=“botherations, post:1424, topic:5570”]Tough Feet: “0/5 - Even at only 1 point, there is practically no reason why you wouldn’t just wear shoes. Maybe you’re RPing a hobbit?”
-Increase speed from being barefoot. Its the only way this trait will EVER be useful. Otherwise it’s just a waste of space, remove it.
Animal Empathy:" 3/5 - This can make it a great deal easier to hunt animals that would normally flee from you. You can even get right up close and kill them. For one point, you could certainly do much worse."
-This trait is very useful early game. Increase the point cost from 1 to 2.
Optimistic: “TODO/5”
-Another trait that has a CONSTANT effect on your game-play. Increase point cost from 2 to 3.
Animal Discord: “TODO/5 - Pretty sure the effects on aggressive animals aren’t be a meaningful difference, need to investigate if it makes hunting easier or harder. If it makes it easier, this is 5/5 and animal empathy can lose a point (though I did lose a character to a moose once).”
-Change point cost from -2 to -1.
Insomniac:
-Doesn’t make it that hard to sleep. Change it from -2 to -1 and I think it would be more balanced.[/quote]
Most of the rest is good, but I disagree about those.
[ul][li]Tough feet is mandatory for mutants who want foot mutations - tentacles or the foot talon. Foot talon is really good.[/li]
[li]Animal empathy is not worth 2 points. Animals are peaceful enough even with discord. If you put those 2 points in dexterity, you could easily kill any that would get hostile anyway.[/li]
[li]Optimistic is worse than gourmand. At 3 points it would have to compete with fast learner - a trait that most of the time is better (than optimist, not necessarily gourmand).[/li]
[li]Animal discord is essentially a free point now. Even at -1 cost, it would make sense to double the effect.[/li]
[li]Insomniac effect is incredibly minor. Even at -1 cost, doubling the effect would be a good idea[/li][/ul]
I’ll expand on the optimist vs gourmand vs fast learner:
Optimist gives you 25% boost to morale and 4 passive morale boost. Without other boosts, 5 morale (4+25%*4) is barely noticeable. You need music to get that ~18 morale above regular survivor.
Fast learner gives you effective extra 15 focus (not morale), which means you still keep on gaining skills even at ~20 focus after a long fight. Or when depressed from lack of alcohol or something like that.
Gourmand increases morale cap from comestibles by 50% and gain by 200%. This lets you stack morale gain from drugs to cheaply gain extra intelligence. It also lets you do drugs much faster (saved my life from a double-speed hulk once - winners do meth) and carry more food in stomach instead of on your back (helps in early game).
Optimist loses to fast learner for experience boosts and to gourmand (and loses to it hard) when it comes to gaining huge morale boosts. You can stack them, but that’s a fair bit of an overkill - you don’t need to snowball that hard, put that in dex.
Dexterity is a good measure of power: “Would I gain more from getting this trait or getting more dex?” is a really good approximation of trait power.[/quote]
I hadn’t thought about how mutations effect tough feet. That does at least give it a purpose.
As for Animal Empathy, it makes it a lot easier to hunt when wild animals rarely flee. The effect on hostile animals is minor. I still think its worth more than one point, but its not unbalanced enough to be a big deal. Two points in DEX would probably be more useful, so I see why keeping it at 1 makes sense.
Optimist is a constant effect where gourmand relies on having food/drugs. Although after reading your points, I agree it’s fair as it is.
And I also agree with you on animal discord and insomniac.
Part of the problem with Tough Feet as something useful for toe-talon and tentacle-leg mutants is that it only works if you actually plan to become one of those from the start. If you (intentionally or otherwise) randomly mutate and just happen to roll those without having specifically planned for them, welp.
(That said, at least there’s footwear in the experimentals that accommodates mutated anatomy, though it probably shuts down the use of toe talons. Once the code gets fixed so that natural weapons can work through certain articles of clothing, like fingerless gloves and foot wraps, this won’t be as much of an issue.)
Though, I find myself wondering why, say hooves automatically grant the benefit of Tough Feet, but other mutations that render you unable to wear normal footwear don’t. I mean, sure, the thing where planning on playing a mutant with toe talons gives Tough Feet a purpose, but even that’s only until code handling the interaction of natural weapons and clothing gets the appropriate update. I suppose the argument could be made that hooves are tougher than tentacles or taloned feet, and that’s probably true, but even in the real world people shoe horses.
I don’t do night time raiding or loot labs in the early game, so the extra vision radius doesn’t really do anything for me in the early game. I can always flick on a flashlight for a moment in basements. Later on in the game there are several ways acquire the same or greater benefit.
And because I mostly function during the day, clumsy isn’t a problem either, monster see me way before they hear me.
I don’t do night time raiding or loot labs in the early game, so the extra vision radius doesn’t really do anything for me in the early game. I can always flick on a flashlight for a moment in basements. Later on in the game there are several ways acquire the same or greater benefit.
And because I mostly function during the day, clumsy isn’t a problem either, monster see me way before they hear me.[/quote]
But for those of us that DO take part in night raids or other stealth type things (something I don’t think is that rare) the night vision trait is a must, especially since it’s so cheap. Assuming you are a character that does anything at night, the trait is too useful to only cost one point. Obviously if you don’t go out at night it’s not worth two points, but that doesn’t change the fact that, when the trait is used as intended, it’s too cheap.
Night raiding is much easier and hassle-free than day raiding. On “higher difficulties” (fast zombies mod, less dexterity etc.) it’s really important. That is, unless you also pick zombie NV mod.
3 points would be debatable, but 1 point is obviously too little.
Not picking night vision is almost a challenge. It’s the Robust Genetics of early game (Robust Genetics is a must have for endgame mutagen scummers).
[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:1437, topic:5570”]Night raiding is much easier and hassle-free than day raiding. On “higher difficulties” (fast zombies mod, less dexterity etc.) it’s really important. That is, unless you also pick zombie NV mod.
3 points would be debatable, but 1 point is obviously too little.
Not picking night vision is almost a challenge. It’s the Robust Genetics of early game (Robust Genetics is a must have for endgame mutagen scummers).[/quote]
Of course you should make your character fit the style you want to play and fit the challenge to your liking. Picking vegetable allergy is a challenge if you limit yourself to only eating vegetables(I guess only eating vegetables is already a challenge, but the allergy makes it more so).
I wouldn’t mix mods with balancing choices of the core game. They should come with their own balancing.
All right, I’ma chime in a bit more.
I find Light Eater worth even less than botherations does, as I tend to end up hoarding way more food than I can eat after a while. Might be useful for inexperienced players or for players opting for a winter start with seasons set particularly long, but even if it cost only 1 point I would be unlikely to take it except for specific concept characters (like someone with such a poor appetite they often forget to eat, or a child who doesn’t yet eat as much as an adult does).
Masochist would cost too much even if it were knocked down from 2 to 1, as its effect is virtually negligible and it’s not likely to kick in much past the early game unless you deliberately do things to invoke it (and that’s probably a bad idea). It’s fun flavour, but it really needs a price cut and an effect increase. Also, it’d be nice if burning yourself with the soldering iron for shits and giggles were option 2 and using it for its intended purpose were option 1, unless the devs just think a good chance of the player accidentally slipping and letting the character indulge is funny. It kind of is. Still not useful.
Infection Resistant costs too much. The only time it’s actually useful is if you’re doing a start in which you have an infection (given that I’ve actually recovered from the infection on my own when playing infection-resistant characters starting with an infection), but even then the wound is still an ongoing source of pain in the already touch-and-go early game. It’s probably not even a great place to put 1 point, unless the devs are deliberately balancing it around the possibility of players taking it in conjunction with infected starts.
High Adrenaline probably costs too much. I can understand that it theoretically can save your life in a bad moment, but is it actually enough to save you from the pain you’re likely to have racked up by the time it kicks in? Because I’ve found more than once that if it doesn’t involve bursts of bullets or explosives, the pain mechanic decides fights well before your HP runs out. It could probably use a cut to 2 and a little more applicability. (Yes, having taken a very strong painkiller beforehand can help, as can traits like Deadened or Cenobite… but at that level of play it tends to get usurped in usefulness by an adrenaline pump bionic or even just keeping a hit of meth on you for those “oh shit” moments.)
Gonna agree with Night Vision being worth 2 points. I find it almost a no-brainer, which is really an indication that it’s an unfair bargain in my favour.
This last one is probably just me whining, as Sleepy and Slow Reader probably are only worth -1 point, but wow are they an annoying -1. I wouldn’t complain (and still likely wouldn’t take them outside of specific concept characters) if one or both of them were bumped up to -2, though this is probably just me overreacting.
…On botherations’ idea for Good Hearing. I don’t know that I’d handle it as an IR-like per se, but rather, a decent chance of getting a message with some suggestion as to what the source of the sound is and how dangerous it is might be helpful. Like “From the southwest, you hear ominous moaning” (zombie). Or, “From the east, you hear a horrifically, inhumanly loud and deep groan and terrifyingly loud footsteps” (zombie hulk). Or, “From the north, you hear the skittering of little paws” (unthreatening animals, like small game, so you don’t flip out when you’re sleeping and a raccoon outside the house generates like fifty question marks in the dark and makes it look like a horde is descending on you or some shit). Or “Oh fuck, from the northwest you hear deep grunting and the sound of hooves!” (MOOSE)
EDIT: I don’t think Asthma is necessarily too bad for its point value. It’s bad, what with inhalers being a finite resource and also adding a lot of risk to the use of stimulants, but it’s also -4 points, so it should be expected to be nasty, and there are ways to deal with it. The trick is that inhalers aren’t the only thing that can stop an asthma attack–if you run out of inhalers or want to preserve them, you can also hoard oxygen tanks (which, while bulky, are relatively common finds in bathrooms–great for putting on your bedside table or in your car) and make adrenaline injectors (or royal jelly, but that’s just unnecessary). Granted, you could argue that even that’s really just putting off the inevitable, but if the adrenaline pump bionic has the asthma-attack-stopping effect of adrenaline injectors, it would be an always-there option for an asthma sufferer who’s installed it–thus making it an important goal for an asthmatic survivor. I admit that it would be convenient to be able to turn off the game’s automatic usage of inhalers to stop attacks if you have ready access to another solution or if you’re in a safe situation where you can wait it out if it doesn’t get worse.
I agree with most of the negative trait changes completely.