[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:40, topic:348”]I agree with the voices against randomization. It’s all too tempting to startscum for a good starting item.
There seem to be three goals of starting kit that are somewhat at cross-purposes.
One is supplying some basic necessities so the character isn’t completely helpless. This is the pocketknife and lighter type thing, also including Xanax, glasses, and inhaler, and possibly a suboptimal container so the starting character doesn’t have to ignore good loot until they do find some kind of container. I don’t think there’s any controversy on this part of it.
Second is not wanting investments in skill points to go to waste. I think this is where “spending points in skills gets you items” comes from. Basically you don’t want to invest in a skill and then be unable to use it, such as with firearms. Especially with static spawns where the “shopping spree” period has been abolished, and making it to a gunstore requires significantly more effort and risk. Surviving and bootstrapping yourself from nothing is a core part of the game, if you can drop a few points in firearms and go take on the horde head-on from the start, it seems to detract from the survival aspect of the game. Particularly if taken to the extreme, you might end up with the ideal equipment for your build and have no reason to challenge yourself to acquire more loot, bypassing a large pert of the game. That’s not to say that the game is at an ideal point with respect to starting conditions, there’s a reason static spawns are default off after all. Personally I’m against providing a wide variety of options for this. Perhaps picking out a basic item per skill where needed would be worthwhile.
Last there’s the desire to customize the character, which I think is where people want choices in which firearm or melee weapon they start with, possibly to the extent of spending starting points on them. I’m more torn on this aspect, I can definitely see the attraction of “I’m playing a fireman who carried a small child out of the city to the shelter, only to collapse in exhaustion upon arrival…” and wanting a specific loadout of equipment to reflect this, but inevitably this kind of option turns into “which template is best for melee characters?”
In the end though, I’m not sure how much a problem it is. I want the default loadout to be playable but challenging, but I’m not particularly opposed to having the option to start with decent equipment, as long as it doesn’t become the de-facto default, shortcutting the early game entirely.
I like the idea of making it clear how easy you’re making your character to play, which gave me an interesting idea. Instead of providing a limited number of character points to “spend”, you could freely choose aspects to add, but as you do so it sets a difficulty level for the player. If you start out with pathetic stats, no skills, and no equipment, it gets labelled an ultra-hardcore character, then as you add things that make the game easier, the label changes to reflect that you’re making it easier and easier. Worth thinking about. The career option fits into this easily as each career will automatically be labeled with how difficult it is.[/quote]
After reading this I’m wondering if it would be best just to have a universal starter kit for the bare necessities and a slightly different kit for the different careers? (that is assuming that careers will be preset classes rather than part of custom classes, if that’s not going to be the case then I’m not sure :p) As you said in the second point the only problem with having items related to skills is that people will just go, “ok that item will help me so I’ll pick this so and so skill” which I don’t think was the intention of this.
Other than that though I’ll just be happy to start off with a little container of some sort 