Strength dominating stat value

[pikolinian]

When you interact with others you see reaction of other people, even small ones. Think of good cop, who ask questions and knows which liar is guilty. High INT is needed for asking good questions, though.

[Tamior]

When you interact with others you see reaction of other people, even small ones. Think of good cop, who ask questions and knows which liar is guilty. High INT is needed for asking good questions, though.

Ok, so what kind of bonus will I get that I wouldn’t be able to easily get otherwise?

[Lerzan]

What about item spawn bonus if it’s possible? Noticing that can of soup under the shelf, or that a sock draw seems to rattle and there is a bottle of pills hidden in the back and so on?

Maybe a boost to hearing noises from far off, like “you hear jittery movement (feral runner) to the east” type of thing?

[Erk]

Well, with the dialogue trees I’m making I’d be quite happy with making certain dialogue options inaccessible below a certain Perc or Int score. I wonder if that’s possible with the current code… I know I can make the options require particular traits or items. Hmm.

[Medi_Ding]

Maybe it could open up special dialogue options. For example, if you notice an NPC twitch slightly when talking, you can call the NPC out for lying.

Maybe it could serve a role in determining how accurate you are when assessing the success chance for skill check lines. For example, with reasonably high int, you should be able to make good arguments, but might not be able to see which argument works best, so you would see something like a 75% - 91% success chance for persuasion, but if you had high per with that, it would show up as 80% - 88% or something. This doesn’t mean very smart people with ample skill in speaking wouldn’t be able to accurately guess the effectiveness of their points; while a blind person might not be able to see someone’s facial expressions, they might be able to notice the delays and tones in a person’s speech.

[Wayticus]

Not sure if this could be coded but maybe have perception, intelligence play a part in identifying the enemies at a distance, differentiating the different types of zombies that are similar, not saying you can’t tell a hulk from a regular, but is that a feral runner, a grabber, a normal zombie. Is that a brute or just a fat zombie?

What kind of soldier type is that, low int and per might just see something in military grab so think soldier, not noticing the grenades strapped to it, or the gas canister on the back.

Hey look a big ant, as opposed to knowing it is a regular, a soldier, or acid ant.

What type of turret is that? You can’t tell, it is just an automated gun thingy to you, who knows if it is a laser, or a smg etc on it.

Even identifying items, a .50 cal sniper rifle vs a RM51 assault rifle. A glock19 vs a glock22, as opposed to rifles, and handguns, can you tell the different types of ammo that it might take with low int? Besides just stuffing them in to try.

What type of mutagen is that again? Let me look, nope no clue.

[Lerzan]

Another idea would be to tie skills into attributes, you have a dex of 4? Well your baseline is basically stumbling drunkenly to walk at that point, so skills such as dodging should be harder to train, you are too clumsy to learn a conventional martial art properly. After a good deal of work you could use a version adapted to yourself but it would take much more training (experience).

Things like that, as that was just an example and it doesn’t cause pain issues since you probably won’t be reading/crafting while in heavy pain.

Some power moved away from strength works as well, why are you able to avoid grapples and the like because you are strong? Break them sure but you can be agile enough to react to the grab, or be perceptive enough to notice the signs of incoming grab.

A clear ruling on what is max human stat wise would also be helpful. I was under the impression that 14 was the best a non augmented human could achieve and once past that point applying human limitations to the player matters less and less as they are increasingly inhuman.

[Tamior]

What about item spawn bonus if it’s possible? Noticing that can of soup under the shelf, or that a sock draw seems to rattle and there is a bottle of pills hidden in the back and so on?

The problem here is implementation.
Perception should not effect if things actually SPAWN, if should effect if you can SEE them.
Otherwise you will create a very bad game mechanic where, for example, zipping through a town sky-high on stimulants will populate said town with all kinds of items you can later go and loot.
Now, if we add “visibility” to each individual item that is being checked each turn, that would be:

1. a nightmare to code
2. a nightmare to code consistently. Say, should items you already seen once be permanently visible? How about items you yourself dropped? How about quest items? It is item-specific or just random? Etc, etc…
3. Will promote lots of, effectively, grind-like behavior, where after clearing a town you will have to switch into “high perception” mode and go and double-check everything.

Maybe a boost to hearing noises from far off, like “you hear jittery movement (feral runner) to the east” type of thing?

Hearing noises is irrelevant in the current meta. You can play a permanently deaf character and will hardly notice any difference. Far off noise are even less relevant, and will mostly just clutter the UI with meaningless chaff. So without an overhaul to how noise works, this is hardly a bonus…

[Tamior]

Maybe it could open up special dialogue options. For example, if you notice an NPC twitch slightly when talking, you can call the NPC out for lying.

Maybe it could serve a role in determining how accurate you are when assessing the success chance for skill check lines. For example, with reasonably high int, you should be able to make good arguments, but might not be able to see which argument works best, so you would see something like a 75% - 91% success chance for persuasion, but if you had high per with that, it would show up as 80% - 88% or something. This doesn’t mean very smart people with ample skill in speaking wouldn’t be able to accurately guess the effectiveness of their points; while a blind person might not be able to see someone’s facial expressions, they might be able to notice the delays and tones in a person’s speech.

I understand the idea, I just can’t think of a kind of interaction with NPC worth spending valuable stat points for.
NPC’s just don’t DO much, that’s the problem. Even if a character can persuade them to do anything, it’s still only as valuable as the things they can do. And in the current meta that’s not very valuable, and can be achieved via different mean (skills, etc) anyway.

[dissociativity]

I do think hearing deserves a buff with perception, the ? appearing in darkness do help as an improvised idea of knowing where monsters are, I’m sure perception and dex will mean a lot more with stealth mechanics in future

[Tamior]

Not sure if this could be coded but maybe have perception, intelligence play a part in identifying the enemies at a distance, differentiating the different types of zombies that are similar, not saying you can’t tell a hulk from a regular, but is that a feral runner, a grabber, a normal zombie. Is that a brute or just a fat zombie?

What kind of soldier type is that, low int and per might just see something in military grab so think soldier, not noticing the grenades strapped to it, or the gas canister on the back.

Hey look a big ant, as opposed to knowing it is a regular, a soldier, or acid ant.

What type of turret is that? You can’t tell, it is just an automated gun thingy to you, who knows if it is a laser, or a smg etc on it.

Even identifying items, a .50 cal sniper rifle vs a RM51 assault rifle. A glock19 vs a glock22, as opposed to rifles, and handguns, can you tell the different types of ammo that it might take with low int? Besides just stuffing them in to try.

What type of mutagen is that again? Let me look, nope no clue.

Not a bad idea, even if it will be nowhere near easy to code.
However, the real devil here is in the little detail: what perception score do you need to consistently identify most things, and what bonus will you get for perception over that score?
(Also, identifying items is intelligence based, really. Since once you have them at hand you are no longer limited by your ability to “perceive” them.)

[Tamior]

I do think hearing deserves a buff with perception, the ? appearing in darkness do help as an improvised idea of knowing where monsters are, I’m sure perception and dex will mean a lot more with stealth mechanics in future

This is only valuable if you can’t see in the darkness well. Which is already something perception effects.
The problem is, why would I ever want to spend valuable stat points on something that is rendered effectively moot by a night vision bionics, vehicle headlights or even a good flashlight?

[dissociativity]

Because you do not start with these things, it’s a small buff that the stat deserves which will make early game easier in this particular aspect.
That and let’s say, what happens if something in future is perhaps both invisible and cold blooded?
The player is blinded?
Perception should make a blinded player far better off than without.

[Tamior]

Because you do not start with these things

Yes, you DO start with those things on, like, 5-10 different professions. And even if you don’t, it’s not hard to find at least something in that list within the first couple of days.

it’s a small buff that the stat deserves which will make early game easier in this particular aspect.

Start with perception 4 and don’t go adventuring in the dark in early game until you’ve found night vision, flashlight or a vehicle with headlights. Again, we are looking for a bonus that is good enough for a player to trade strength, or intelligence, or dexterity for and NOT feel like his “bonus” was rendered moot by the end of the week.

That and let’s say, what happens if something in future is perhaps both invisible and cold blooded?

How invisible are we talking here? “Even-in-bright-daylight” invisible?

[dissociativity]

we could perhaps make blindness/ monsters than can blind, and time to recover from it depend on intelligence and perception, dex for boomers depending on the source, and make these effects more common?

[dissociativity]

What I’m trying to say is there should be a lot of small gameplay reasons to choose dex/per/int, not specifically ONLY big ones, I’m not qualified for the less creative more impactful balance decisions those would entail.

[Tamior]

we could perhaps make blindness/ monsters than can blind, and time to recover from it depend on intelligence and perception, dex for boomers depending on the source, and make these effects more common?

Again, would you REALLY ever trade high strength or intelligence for being able to recover faster from some obscure attack that can blind you for a few turns (if you even allowed the monster to come close enough in the first place)?

[dissociativity]

how about this, let’s say acid attacks, imagine you could avoid them and have it fly past you and end up on the ground behind you, along with other projectile attacks that would be reasonable to dodge (so not bullets), which of course at higher stats/skills, would be very useful.

Perception and dex should be excellent for this, perception to see the attack coming and predict how to move, dex to actually do the dodging.

With both of those low, these should almost always hit.

With low dex/per, a bite should almost always be solid and deep if there’s nothing protecting that part of the player, instead of a glancing bite that just hurts.

It makes perfect sense that if you’re minmaxed, you’re too useless to avoid solid hits, hits will rarely be grazing shots and will be far more likely to be square on, or even critical hits against the player.

[Tamior]

What I’m trying to say is there should be a lot of small gameplay reasons to choose dex/per/int, not specifically ONLY big ones, I’m not qualified for the less creative more impactful balance decisions those would entail.

Int is already more or less fine.
Dex, we already have ideas for.
Perception is the problem.

And the REAL problem is, we need POSITIVE things high (8+) perception can give you on a regular basics, not just penalties that it will help you avoid.

[dissociativity]

perception should definitely benefit dodge I believe, dex should decide how long it actually takes to dodge or block, perception should help decide if you can do it in the first place, obviously dex should be useful for that particular part of the process too.

dex = reflex, flexibility, perception = conscious action, decision, how to best do dodge or block, whether you can spot a vulnerable spot on the enemy and exploit it.