Permanently improve stats

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

Hello Forum,

I had this idea while at the gym yesterday, tell me what you think:

Currently, the starting stats are somehow important, as you can’t really permanently change them, except through mutations and CBMs (if I am not mistaken). Both CBMs and MUtations are definitely end-game stuff, so I propose easier ways to increase your stats somehow.

My first idea is to add a regular “gym” building (if it isn’t there already, you never know wth this game) that has weights littered all around, which you can use repeatedly to slowly gain strength.
To make this somehwat realistic, there should probably be a status “exhausted” during which your strenght is reduced. If you work out often enough, your strength can increase by one point.
This definitely has to be capped, and should include diminishing returns, meaning to get from 4 ->5 strength is rather easy, while from 14->15 is hard.

For the other stats I have no ideas yet how to increase them, especially Intelligence is somewhat hard to do, as it is somewhat hard to define, what this game takes as “intelligence”. Perhaps something like a rubics-cube, or a book with puzzles for logical thinking?

For Dexterity there can be other tools that train exactly that, although I can’t really think of some right now.

Perception is also hard to do, as I can’t really think of a way to “train” perception. Perhaps some "Where’s Waldo books? :smiley:

Making the stats increase passively, just as skills do right now is probably not a good idea, as it can easily lead to grinding, even though it would technically make sense, that someone, who is constantly hauling wood logs get’s some how stronger over time.

So, to sum it up, I believe there should be some “regular” way of improving your stats, as that is very well possible in real life. This probably had to be capped and rather slow, but it allows player to start with suboptimal stats and develop their character.

2

Hello forum search, has this come up before?

It has, and the problem is avoiding encouraging grinding & minmaxing.

3

Whoops, I had only a quick glance at what search had showed, didn’t realize it, I humbly apologize.

I still believe it would be a good idea, but that is not upon me to decide.

4

[quote=“KA101, post:2, topic:7070”]Hello forum search, has this come up before?

It has, and the problem is avoiding encouraging grinding & minmaxing.[/quote]

Don’t be rude. It encourages people to shut up, and then you miss out on cool ideas like Dropper Bays.

Now, y’all constantly yammer on about “realism” when at best you’re going for verisimilitude, and your current argument falls flat because the current setup of the food/water tracks encourage grinding out a heinously large supply of clean water and bones and never worrying about it again.

Furthermore: If avoiding minmaxing was a real and worthwhile goal, the starting professions would be at least vaguely equal to one another at the various point loadouts. They’re not and there’s very little reason aside from roleplaying to pick anything but Ballroom Dancer until you’re at 2 or 3 points dedicated towards your profession.

Finally: It adds a new vulnerability mechanic. If you mindlessly grind it, then you die. Period.

(Unless, perhaps, you decide to hole up in the gym itself and make that your base-- And between wandering hordes and how surprisingly fragile most buildings are, I don’t really consider that a bad tradeoff.)

And on the flipside: It’s a non-gear based path to advancement that can happen in the early or midgame. I’m sick of all the cool inherent effects to your character happening at a stage of advancement most characters never reach-- Not because it’s particularly hard to do so, but because it’s frankly really boring to do so at this stage, since there’s no other worthwhile content at that point.

5

The initial stats should carry some meaning to you character more then just /thats where you start of.
If training stats is made possible it should be in a reasonable array… meaning if i start out with 8 strength i can maybe train up to 12 and will have reached my limit unless i modify it further with cbm or mutation <---- in which case one might considder recalculating your top form.
And also i would suggest if you can increase stats they should also fall in decline if you neglect em… also in a reasonable frame like 8 base strength ----> 6 min (in bad shape)

If you want to grinde you can do that as you do already with abillities, in which i see no problem at all. It never felt forced to me as my skill naturaly developed with the things i did most of the time…

One could also adjust the alpha mutation so it would greatly improve your potential instead of direct results (training feels more rewarding lately and you just love to hone your skills for the sake of mankind)

6

[quote=“Snaaty, post:1, topic:7070”]My first idea is to add a regular “gym” building (if it isn’t there already, you never know wth this game) that has weights littered all around, which you can use repeatedly to slowly gain strength.
To make this somehwat realistic, there should probably be a status “exhausted” during which your strenght is reduced. If you work out often enough, your strength can increase by one point.
This definitely has to be capped, and should include diminishing returns, meaning to get from 4 ->5 strength is rather easy, while from 14->15 is hard.[/quote]

Well not really. 4-5 is just as difficult as 14-15, its just that you have to more work for 14-15.
Your body doesn’t strengthen in standard increments, it improves with percent. So lifting a 10 pound weight you could barely do and lifting a 100 pound weight thats just as difficult later in your training is going get the same benefit. The hard part is finding all the weight to build that muscle up. And of course, getting enough food to actually improve your stat.

All exercise with the sole purpose of improving your strength for example is grinding. If anything, grinding in this area is probably the most balanced. Of course, one could try to discourage constant grinding by increasing certain requirements in one’s nutrition to effectively increase these various stats. To improve strength, aside from the high calorie diet you’d need, you’d also need plenty of iron and protein. To improve intelligence, things like fish oil and the like would be needed. Perception could be improved with things that provide nutrients to your eyes such as carrots and the like. No clue what dexterity would need nutrition wise though.

All in all, a good idea.

Personally, I’m against the idea of capping a stat based on your initial stat. One can go from weakling to pulling a car with their eye-lids if they put enough effort and nutrition in.

Of course, if one can improve one’s muscles, they can also atrophy. Same goes for other stats.
An idle mind begins to slow, and an unstretched limb start to tighten.

7
Well not really. 4-5 is just as difficult as 14-15, its just that you have to more work for 14-15.

That is… not true? It is definitely easier for a person that is very much out of shape to build up some muscle, people that are already in a good shape often reah “plateaus”, that they can only overcome with even more investment. (Time, Nutrition)

I can definitely see and understand that this idea is kind of grind-y and that that is something we really want to avoid.
Yet there are measures to counteract that:

  • Make it give diminishing returns so it becomes highly unfeasibly to increase your strength (e.g.) beyond 12.
  • Make it impossible for your workout to increase your strength above a certain level, the same way it is done with many tasks regarding recular skills.
  • Make it require proper nutrition. Apart from being realistic, this could make it more of a task to find healthy food while capping the grinding
  • Implement a “exhausted” status, as I earlier proposed, that kicks in after a few sets of working out. For that time, working out is too exhausting to work, and your overall strenght is temporarily reduced. While exhausted you could continue exploring that town or go to bed or whatever.

So, all in all, I believe there is quite a number of measures we could take to counter the grindy part of stat increase.
More problematic are the other stats that would then also need some way of increasing, (or would they?).

On the topic of becoming “out of shape”, I am somewhat reserved. I also play with skill rust off, because it annoys me to no end.
So, if you’re a regular survivor, who is fighting for his life everyday, running, doing construction and manual work, becoming “Out of shape” should be a pretty slow process, and also give the player some opportunity to prevent that.

8

Gee, if killing, running, and climbing all the time generally doesn’t make you stronger.

9

For a dda survivor its probably unlikely tohave a decline in strength due to playing video gamesall day. but perhaps if you do a long reading session or are bedridden for a few days.

Concerning the other stats … well dexterity with fighting crafting and int with reading of difficult books and science related crafts uh like mutagen and electronic devices. as for perception… uh maybe marskmenship :confused: dunno thats something mostly gifted to you at birth… it usualy just gets worse :stuck_out_tongue: all you can train is your allertness and thats something id say is more of a skill then a stat.

10

One thing I also perceive to be true is that certain stats are more important/useful in certain stages of the game.

I’d really like to start with one of my usual “dumb brute” characters, that studies and practices enough to finally be able to implant advanced CBMs and stuff.

Or to start with a weakly scientist, who starts to work out and in the end smashes hulk skulls to pulp with his bear (pun intended) hands.

11

[quote=“Snaaty, post:7, topic:7070”]

Well not really. 4-5 is just as difficult as 14-15, its just that you have to more work for 14-15.

That is… not true? It is definitely easier for a person that is very much out of shape to build up some muscle, people that are already in a good shape often reah “plateaus”, that they can only overcome with even more investment. (Time, Nutrition)[/quote]

Like I said, same difficulty, just more work. The reason why people plateau is, the majority of time, the fact that they’ve been training in set increments as apposed to percentage increases. When i started working out a year ago, i couldn’t do even 1 push up. So i found the number of a certain exercise I could do, and every week i would increase the amount of work i did by 50%. By the end of 4 weeks, i could do fifty, whereas i could only do 10 initially. Every new week was just as difficult as the start of the last.

Someone being able to barely lift 10 pounds going to 15 pounds is no different than someone lifting 100 pounds to 150.

Edit:
Also, a suggestion for a different name to this thread:

Do you even stat, bro?

12
Someone being able to barely lift 10 pounds going to 15 pounds is no different than someone lifting 100 pounds to 150.

You’re kinda wrong there, detahramet. Along the widely spread misconception that anyone could be fit if they just tried, there is a big difference in every aspect of your organism’s functioning when it comes to lifting one gallon and TEN gallons of water. There’s only an understanding over a certain type of graph (a function) that shows how much percent of your total body weight you are safe to lift and carry, if you needed to. Your muscle mass equals your ability to handle physical stress and the tone (tonus, whatevah) goes to show only how much of that mass is being used. Think of the ripped muscles on an athletic body as a natural buff, only made to better overcome the nature of the physical obstacle in front; yet the total ammount of muscle weight (and the proportion to body weight in total) plays the key role in such an encounter.
A young body is easily adaptable and works to overcome any hazard. An older individual may strain himself doing the same, intensive “adapting work” (should I say, training?). The game should consider your age for that matter, if we’re still showing things about CataDDA and survival simulation. There’s no doubt a 25-year old body could get very fit after a month of serious training and work - otherwise constant stress over mind and body, but to make a general rule out of an exception would be just out of any sense.

I had this NPC character in an old D&D campain. It was a male barbarian resembling a popular comic/movie character. When I was asked about the nature of his unique, great strength that no one amongst the player’s ranks could parry, I answered:
“Well, if you can work your way from the latest and greatest foe he destroyed, along with all the practice, sacrificing, injury - therefore experience that made him as formidable as he is right now, down to his earliest childhood where, you know it for sure, he was determined to be the only boulder amongst the rocks – then you can understand the capacity of this brute’s strength.”

13

Eh, fair point. Though, to incorporate age into this whole system seems as though it might just be over complicating the system, and would require the reworking of a few traits, as well as social stats.

14

I’m glad you understood. The players, be it they are gamers or kindred RPG enthusiasts sometimes “drift away” looking for improvement, therefore personally attaching themselves with the game characters they engaged in playing. If the case was D&D-ish in nature, they could wait until the opportunity arises (raise a couple of levels) but otherwise - they just want some of their perks to get better, like mana points or number of weapons/attacks. Because an AD&D game has quests, a group of players can accomplish a certain venture and conclude it with getting some XP, so some of them in particular could thrive. Here in CataDDA you could have a natural born athlete or a geek for the same matter, and even them up with a few mutations and implants.

Other than that, through my endeavors with differents rulings and RPG systems I always, and I mean literally always considered upgrading the 6-or-so base stats has a thing or two to do with magic: either having a magic-embued item, a master alchemists potion, or as a result of overcoming a particularly heavy quest that contains an obstacle which has magical nature.

15

It would be nice if there was SOME way to get like one-point perks, even if stupidly hard and annoying. Like if you farmed 100 plants, you’d get +1 strength (more carrying, tougher melee). Take a certain lab-potion and drink it, +1 to int. Find yourself in a drug trip fighting lovecraftian horrors, plus one to perception. Play a guitar or piano until your string instrument skill is level 5 or 10, +1 to dex (or maybe self-surgery, eh?)