Traits; Need Rebalanced?

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.

That page was changed in July, more than half a year, several thousand commits, one major version, and at least half a thousand commits on top of that. Shall it be said, data in it is a bit… dated.

None-the-less many of the traits remain the same.

None-the-less many of the traits remain the same.[/quote]

Personally, I always play my games with Cannibal, Human flesh /really/ isn’t that rare. Hell, early in it’s probably more common than regular meat. All you need to do is wait for the nearest batch of nearby dead to have it’s migo “prepare to receive punishment” patrol run off to murder a squirrel and then you can usually get in and grab the goodies.

Or if you’re unlucky just get brutally, brutally murdered.

None-the-less many of the traits remain the same.[/quote]

Personally, I always play my games with Cannibal, Human flesh /really/ isn’t that rare. Hell, early in it’s probably more common than regular meat. All you need to do is wait for the nearest batch of nearby dead to have it’s migo “prepare to receive punishment” patrol run off to murder a squirrel and then you can usually get in and grab the goodies.

Or if you’re unlucky just get brutally, brutally murdered.[/quote]

With my luck I’d be brutally murdered.

And I personally wouldn’t take the trait simply because the idea of a cannibalistic character doesn’t appeal to me. As for it’s balance, it’s only a one pointer and probably the bottom of the ‘trait change’ priority list. I don’t usually stumble across almost any human meat, but if people find it useful then I don’t see any harm in leaving it AS-IS.

Many, yes, but without testing you don’t know which ones. Let’s go per comment.

[quote=“botherations, post:1, topic:8764”]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.[/quote]
Oh, moral discussions? Let’s remove zombie children then too, many would find killing children abhorrent. Let’s inverse the effect of religious-books mod, because there’s a lot of moral discussions on the every religion out there. Let’s disable human butchering, because it’s oh-so-disgusting. Et cetera, et cetera.

Random NPCs mean absolutely inexhaustible food supply with it, much easier than Animal Empathy because NPCs actually come to you, and Static NPCs turn Refugee Centers into huge stockpiles of infinitely-preserving self-walking food.

[quote=“botherations, post:1, topic:8764”]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.[/quote]
Less time between attacks on a miss is a very good thing. No idea how much of an effect it has, perhaps if it really does affect little it should be buffed.

[quote=“botherations, post:1, topic:8764”]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. [/quote]
Note the absence of any immunities in the traits. Compare with Disease, Infection and Parasite Immune - 6, 5, and 4 points.

[quote=“botherations, post:1, topic:8764”]Fast Learner: “2/5 - quite strong, but very expensive.”

-Lower the point cost from 3 to 2.[/quote]
Fast Learner is exceedingly effective, cutting reading times by 40% easily. The complaint about price is unreasonable.

[quote=“botherations, post:1, topic:8764”]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.[/quote]
There’s both mutations and bionics for hearing. Picking only the trait for this would be pointless. However, ability to “guess” what is it you’re hearing would be rather useful. Something to the point of “animal”, “large animal”, “zombie”, “large zombie”, “monster”.

[quote=“botherations, post:1, topic:8764”]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.[/quote]
If you’re not running away by the time anything of yours hits reds, you’re as good as dead adrenaline or not. Needs to trigger at least on yellow head/torso, or heavy strikes (high HP change relative to current - or max - HP) instead along with red-limbs.

[quote=“botherations, post:1, topic:8764”]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.[/quote]
Would be much more effective if enemies that don’t specifically target you already (i.e. investigating a noise) would mostly flat-out ignore you unless bumped if you’re still.

[quote=“botherations, post:1, topic:8764”]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.[/quote]
Only if you’re extensively scavenging for specifically them, and it’s pretty situational if you didn’t get a hospital/doctor’s office.

[quote=“botherations, post:1, topic:8764”]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.[/quote]
Morale is pretty important, what with low morale blocking crafting or reading. However, I remember exactly two things off the top of my head where Psychopath works: killing zombie children (visit a school and it will end) and cannibalism (complimentary to “Cannibal”, you get less morale bonus without being a psycho).

[quote=“botherations, post:1, topic:8764”]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.[/quote]
Would need to be bumped to 2 points. Parasites and fungal infections are pretty important (if kinda obvious).

[quote=“botherations, post:1, topic:8764”]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?[/quote]
Strength, while better investment, isn’t a higher bonus, and Strong Back scales with any Strength which you can raise after character creation. And it’s pretty useful for filling large containers with water.

[quote=“botherations, post:1, topic:8764”]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?[/quote]
It’s a roleplay trait. Throw something noisy, like a grenade, and go the other way.

[quote=“botherations, post:1, topic:8764”]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.[/quote]
Full Moon nights. Pretty much only useful inside/underground, and then you’d flash a really common flashlight instead.

[quote=“botherations, post:1, topic:8764”]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.[/quote]
My only complaint about this trait is that it’s impossible to toggle directly from debug-mutate menu.

[quote=“botherations, post:1, topic:8764”]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.[/quote]
They’ve might lost a character to a moose only once - but others are losing characters to moose all the damn time. For that matter, they’re losing them to moose with Animal Empathy as well, Discord just makes it happen faster.

[quote=“botherations, post:1, topic:8764”]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.[/quote]
Enemies love hitting the eyes, especially wolves and bears, but zombies as well. It would be quite easy to lose glasses if they didn’t have that high of damage resistance.

[quote=“botherations, post:1, topic:8764”]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.[/quote]
Needs to be merely un-buffed to “wake up to moose in your face” state instead of “wake when said moose is merely gently prodding at your barred window”.

[quote=“botherations, post:1, topic:8764”]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.[/quote]
I don’t remember last time I’ve used a gun that has burst fire. Many would attest to that as well. Increasing the chance would just make you waste more ammo occasionally.
However, could be made to have a chance of bump-firing semiautomatics.

[spoiler]

Oh, moral discussions? Let’s remove zombie children then too, many would find killing children abhorrent. Let’s inverse the effect of religious-books mod, because there’s a lot of moral discussions on the every religion out there. Let’s disable human butchering, because it’s oh-so-disgusting. Et cetera, et cetera.

Random NPCs mean absolutely inexhaustible food supply with it, much easier than Animal Empathy because NPCs actually come to you, and Static NPCs turn Refugee Centers into huge stockpiles of infinitely-preserving self-walking food.

I wasn’t making any moral argument, only pointing out that it was debatable. Your slippery-slope argument doesn’t serve any purpose.

As for balance, you have a point. With NPC’s enabled (which I assume they are if you even consider this trait) food becomes much less scarce. But if it ‘supplies inexhaustible food’ maybe it should cost two points?

Less time between attacks on a miss is a very good thing. No idea how much of an effect it has, perhaps if it really does affect little it should be buffed.

If your character is good at physical combat you won’t be missing that often, and the better you get at it the less this trait does for you.

Note the absence of any immunities in the traits. Compare with Disease, Infection and Parasite Immune - 6, 5, and 4 points.

It would only supply an immunity to alcohol addiction, not really comparable to infection or disease.

However, ability to "guess" what is it you're hearing would be rather useful. Something to the point of "animal", "large animal", "zombie", "large zombie", "monster".

I like that idea, and it’s simple to implement.

If you're not running away by the time anything of yours hits reds, you're as good as dead adrenaline or not. Needs to trigger at least on yellow head/torso, or heavy strikes (high HP change relative to current - or max - HP) instead along with red-limbs.

Yellow Head/Torso or red-limbs. I think that would make sense.

Only if you're extensively scavenging for specifically them, and it's pretty situational if you didn't get a hospital/doctor's office.

I disagree. Assuming you have a base/vehicle to store items you will find TONS of medical supplies after raiding only a few houses. I’ve never had an infection without having already found medicine.

Morale is pretty important, what with low morale blocking crafting or reading. However, I remember exactly two things off the top of my head where Psychopath works: killing zombie children (visit a school and it will end) and cannibalism (complimentary to "Cannibal", you get less morale bonus without being a psycho).

Those two examples are pretty much the only uses for it.

Would need to be bumped to 2 points. Parasites and fungal infections are pretty important (if kinda obvious).

I don’t think it would be worth two points. Seeing your exact HP isn’t useful beyond your first few noob games, and your going to know you have a parasite from the effects anyway. This would just allow you to know of the parasite the moment you contracted it.

Strength, while better investment, isn't a higher bonus, and Strong Back scales with any Strength which you can raise after character creation. And it's pretty useful for filling large containers with water.

Not useful enough. I’ve never had problems with weight, other than picking up and moving car parts. I just think it needs small changes, its not horribly broken as is or anything.

It's a roleplay trait. Throw something noisy, like a grenade, and go the other way.

“It’s a roleplay trait” is no excuse for a lack of balance, and I’d hardly classify clumsy as a role-play trait. Lowering the noise just slightly would make it a viable choice for many types of characters.

Full Moon nights. Pretty much only useful inside/underground, and then you'd flash a really common flashlight instead.

Raising the point cost to 2 points is a no-brainer, and I think most people would agree with that. Full moon nights doesn’t make it any less useful. For every other night it serves a purpose.

They've might lost a character to a moose only once - but others are losing characters to moose all the damn time. For that matter, they're losing them to moose with Animal Empathy as well, Discord just makes it happen faster.

I’ve died to Moose countless times. The problem is that Animal Discord doesn’t make it happen much faster, the difference is hard to notice.

Enemies *love* hitting the eyes, especially wolves and bears, but zombies as well. It would be quite easy to lose glasses if they didn't have that high of damage resistance.

I’ve had dozens of characters with glasses who have lived and died of both natural causes and getting brutally murdered. My glasses only got damaged ONCE out of all of these times, and even then they were not destroyed.

I don't remember last time I've used a gun that has burst fire. Many would attest to that as well. Increasing the chance would just make you waste more ammo occasionally. However, could be made to have a chance of bump-firing semiautomatics.

I use burst fire all the time with my gun-using characters, so I don’t think it’s exceptionally rare. And the point of the trait is wasting ammo occasionally. In any case, we agree that it needs some tweaking.[/spoiler]

I disagree with whomever did THAT about tough… I’m normally killed by a lucky shot to my head/torso while running away. Tough can be quite useful.

I really enjoy the Clumsy trait, and the potential it has to be very interesting, instead of it just increasing the sound you make while walking. It would be great if you would occasionally trip taking very light damage to your arms/legs and making some noise in the process, or maybe bumping into things like tables and chairs when walking next to them. I don’t feel like Clumsy necessarily means you stomp around everywhere.

I’d like to add:

Junkfood Intolerance & Lactose Intolerance - they pretty much don’t matter. I know you can’t go lower than 1 point, but they’re pretty much free points.

Glass Jaw - grants one less point than -25% to all body parts, for a measly -20% to your head, which will usually be pretty well armored once you find a helmet. This should be worth 2 points and incur a more significant hit. Maybe 30%?

Disorganized - this actually incurs a much bigger hit than the bonus Packmule gives(percentage wise), and it’s just too awful of a trait for anyone to take it. Lower it to 25% or 30% reduction in volume capacity and it will be worthwhile.

Bad Back - similar argument. This one is much less awful, but it’s still pretty bad. Not sure what kind of fix would be worthwhile though.

Illiterate - as it stands, currently not grinding with books is semi-suicide(or at least denying yourself the access to bionics, electronics, mutagens). 5 points is far too cheap, it probably should be worth 7+, unless we’re chalking it up as a conscious decision about playstyle, and 7 as too much free points for those who don’t want to venture into said areas.

Also, the “Experiment” traits could use some rebalancing.

[quote=“Llamageddon, post:10, topic:8764”]I’d like to add:

Junkfood Intolerance & Lactose Intolerance - they pretty much don’t matter. I know you can’t go lower than 1 point, but they’re pretty much free points.[/quote]

Junkfood Intolerance can actually be a problem in the early game, particularly if you also have Fast Metabolism. (It is, however, a good trait long-term, because you shouldn’t be eating junk food anyway.) On the other hand, agree about Lactose Intolerance. You may have to pass up a food or drink item here or there in the early game, but it’s pretty trivial.

Glass Jaw - grants one less point than -25% to all body parts, for a measly -20% to your head, which will usually be pretty well armored once you find a helmet. This should be worth 2 points and incur a more significant hit. Maybe 30%?

No disagreement from me. (It might be worth noting that it’s a bit more difficult to armour your eyes and mouth, though, at least without incurring encumbrance to those locations, and those can effectively serve as the weak points in your head protection, or encourage you to deal with the encumbrance in the interests of protecting your weakest HP pool.)

Disorganized - this actually incurs a much bigger hit than the bonus Packmule gives(percentage wise), and it's just too awful of a trait for anyone to take it. Lower it to 25% or 30% reduction in volume capacity and it will be worthwhile.

It is pretty nasty, yeah. I once took it on a character who was an eight-year-old (to simulate having more difficulty carrying a lot of crap volume-wise because of her smaller size); it was the perpetual thorn in her side. Vehicles helped, though, and if I’d thought to take a folding shopping cart into places like labs, I probably would’ve had an easier time.

Bad Back - similar argument. This one is much less awful, but it's still pretty bad. Not sure what kind of fix would be worthwhile though.

Me neither. I don’t really like the looks of this trait either, but for 3 points it probably should hurt. Right now we’re kind of spoiled by things like two points for Truth Teller and three points for having the good sense not to shred our health over-using drugs.

Illiterate - as it stands, currently not grinding with books is semi-suicide(or at least denying yourself the access to bionics, electronics, mutagens). 5 points is far too cheap, it probably should be worth 7+, unless we're chalking it up as a conscious decision about playstyle, and 7 as too much free points for those who don't want to venture into said areas.

Hmm, dunno. It’s one of the highest-bonus negative traits, so being a serious limitation is to be expected. Dunno what else to do about it.

[quote=“botherations, post:1, topic:8764”]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.[/quote]

Useful for lab starts and random NPC worlds.
And “moral discussions” should be about killing innocents rather than eating them.

[quote=“botherations, post:1, topic:8764”]Fast Learner: “2/5 - quite strong, but very expensive.”

-Lower the point cost from 3 to 2.[/quote]

Most of the time it’s optimist on roids. Not sure if it’s worth 3 points, but it’s worth more than optimist which costs 2 points.

[quote=“botherations, post:1, topic:8764”]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?[/quote]

Useful for late game, where volume is easy to gain, but weight capacity isn’t. But yeah - strength is generally better and this trait could use a buff.

[quote=“botherations, post:1, topic:8764”]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.[/quote]

Mandatory for Toe Talon and Leg Tentacles mutants, which are available in both Lab start and Experiment start.
If it was up to me, I’d remove both the Tough Feet trait and the requirement to wear shoes to gain full speed. Not wearing shoes is enough of a problem already, no need to add an extra walking speed debuff on top of that. Plus, it’s not really realistic - realism would be gaining pain and random damage when walking over rough terrain, not having running speed lowered.

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:12, topic:8764”]Mandatory for Toe Talon and Leg Tentacles mutants, which are available in both Lab start and Experiment start.
If it was up to me, I’d remove both the Tough Feet trait and the requirement to wear shoes to gain full speed. Not wearing shoes is enough of a problem already, no need to add an extra walking speed debuff on top of that. Plus, it’s not really realistic - realism would be gaining pain and random damage when walking over rough terrain, not having running speed lowered.[/quote]
Walking/running/jogging (like what are CDDA characters are doing) barefoot like you’d walk in shoes hurts the feet if you try to get any semblance of speed. Realistically running speed would be lowered subconsciously due to pain. Now if you know how to run barefoot, running like that against anyone else turns into the segment of Bombur outrunning the rest of the gang.

Logically, that would be represented by lowered speed overall plus hurting on rough ground (concrete, asphalt, gravel) until you spend enough time to learn how to do it right - represented by gaining “Tough Feet” mutation - or have Parkour Expert, because these ought to know how to run well.

It would make sense to lower “travel speed”, but not to lower the “oh fuck tank drone” speed.

Plus, most of the pain generally starts few hours after moving (especially if it was on soil and not asphalt), when the blisters start forming.

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:14, topic:8764”]It would make sense to lower “travel speed”, but not to lower the “oh fuck tank drone” speed.

Plus, most of the pain generally starts few hours after moving (especially if it was on soil and not asphalt), when the blisters start forming.[/quote]
Yeah, but CDDA doesn’t have different “speeds” or proper “danger assessment”, which would release adrenaline and shut pain off.

Or when the body realizes “oh wait, I’m damaged” even without blisters. Either way, walking on rough surfaces barefoot without a long history of doing so still hurts immediately, you’ll just be feeling full extent of it later in “safer” environment.

Lack of movement modes is more of an argument against passive speed penalty than for it.
Travel speed doesn’t really matter, combat speed does.

Except for the detail that combat speed is not sustainable over long periods of time, whilst travel speed is. If I only had one speed setting, I’d set it based on travel, not combat.

Cata’s travel speed is practically jogging, and it’s somewhat easier to do barefoot, as well. I’d say periodical damage whilst barefoot walking on asphalt/rock/gravel[sup]*[/sup]/mud (without Tough Feet/Padded Feet/Parkour Expert) would make more sense than speed reduction. Especially if spitter zombies are considered, because they’d basically instadrop barefoot characters with their spit.

[sup]*[/sup] Bawww I want train tracks why is there zero train tracks anywhere in CDDA.

Because no one implemented them.

Plus, it happens in 'Murka and 'Murkans haet mass transit.

I’d say periodical damage whilst barefoot walking on asphalt/rock/gravel[sup]*[/sup]/mud[/quote]
Why mud?
Other than that, I agree. Though I’d rather see “damage” as “pain and occasionally 1 hp hits to one of the feet” than just damage.

Hence pain which slows down the runner.

Now that you mention it … why don’t people suffer penalties for wearing ill-fitting shoes?