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? 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.
I had posted this in the ‘simple additions’ thread, but after several peoples comments agreeing with me I think a thread of it’s own couldn’t hurt. I’ve made some edits based on peoples suggestions.
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 and ncreasing the benefit of the trait is a must.
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. It was suggested that each monster instead have a flavour text such as ‘you hear the shuffle of uncoordinated feet and heavy breathing’ when a creature got close enough, but that would take a good bit of work.
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. It seems most people find it even less useful as food isn’t a problem after early game, but I believe the early game to be difficult enough to warrant the trait.
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 as well? As it stands this trait is only useful for those who are planning certain mutation trees.
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.
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. I don’t think anyone would argue it’s worth 2 points. This trait is simply too good to only cost one point.
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. Even then the effects are negligible.
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. Anyway, thanks for your time.