dex314

Can’t wait to check it out! We reported the unusual fps drops for people with good systems but never got any feedback from the pimps. Hopefully this issue is fixed!

I think with all this discussion it's become over complicated. My point isn't to change much, just add a passive benefit to leveling primary skills.

First of all, sorry for making you read so much and thanks for taking the time to reply. The primary skills only boost perks for specific weapons so it falls under this category of "play the way we tell you to or gain zero benefits." I can understand the notion that it's a trade-off for choosing a build, but it's also a primary skill. Stun batons do not equal intelligence and only benefiting one to two gear items is far too specific. I could go on but I'll stop posting about this aside to clarify since I think my point has been conveyed. That said, tldr is simply as follows: *Add a small passive buff, or move a sub-skill, e.g., melee stamina to the primary skill. That way people can still feel like they're progressing in some tangible way, rather than missing out because they don't like a specific weapon.* - - - Updated - - - Oh i only mentioned the one attribute play style because in your first reply you mentioned I didn't gain benefits from intelligence because I was not playing an intelligence build. I was trying to explain that multiple attributes are necessary.

I already said that I'm not saying you need 5/5, just that single tree builds are not viable and that base stats have severe limitations, but to address your very good question, the issue is scaling. The skill system has to be viable on easy as well as on hard. Your gear stats are capped at lvl 6, so the only thing that can further improve your survival rating on harder difficulties is your skill point allocation. If you are already playing on the hardest difficulty without skills and are still doing fine, then either you are an amazing player, the game is too easy, or the skill system is not even necessary (e.g., looting tons of lvl 6 gear with 0 points in looting). But assuming the game's difficulty is balanced, this isn't a question of how good of a player you are, it's a matter of whether the skill system provides fair, sensible, and tenable routes for progress. If a game doesn't need skills, then there's no point in including them. And if the game does aim to rely on skills for late game hordes and challenges, then everything that I said above holds its ground. Edit: truth be told, the game really isn't that difficult regardless of the difficulty, so some view skills as a matter of comfort rather than survival. But even with this paradigm, the same principles should apply to skill trait progression. Again alllll I am saying is add a minor passive buff to the primary skills. I am not encouraging the pimps to rework the entire system.

To clarify, I am not a fan of changing the skill cost emphasis to the subskills, since this would drive up total skill costs by end game. I think for me the best solution would be to take one subskill from each tree, and add those perks to the primary skill instead. So for Agility, pull the melee stamina drain on tools from the subskill list and make it a passive skill leveled with each point of AGI.

If the skill tree was organized in a way that an intelligence build was viable then it would make sense to play an intelligence build. But with only intelligence, you cannot farm, your loot is crap, lumbering and mining are horrifically slow and yield is terrible, your stamina, light armor, melee, rifle aiming speed, etc are all baseline and untenable. In order to be competent it becomes necessary to pull skills from other trees. Let's say hypothetically you want one skill from each tree for a basic survival prowess. Let's say you want to max each one. And let's say you have a weapon of choice, a "build" as you put it. Then that's 85 points of gate-keeping, and only 17 of those actually giving you perks. Now of course someone will say "you don't have to max a skill" but the point is individual tree builds do not work in a18. And 1/5 subskills ratings are basically the same as baseline. So as a lvl 85 player, 65 points are spent on gatekeeping. Now obviously that's not how it works in game, you level subskills as you level primary traits, but I am trying to point out the empty space occupied by gatekeeping skills. There needs to be collateral progress when investing 65 points in something that your build will not utilize. This notion that other RPGs would block Bartering is misleading. Other RPGs organize primary skill trees as providing benefits other than unlocking skills and those that do ONLY unlock skills, the main gate keeping is the cost of the skill and not the cost of the unlock. In other words, if applied to 7d2d, you would have a constant cost of 1 skill point per lvl for intelligence and instead, increase skill point costs for barter 4/5 vs barter 3/5. That way you can choose to invest extra points for specific skills you want rather than investing the MAX points (17) regardless of whether you max a single skill or all skills in that tree. *My point is, the 17 points becomes a flat rate price regardless of how much of that tree you want to use and for those who want a more granular RPG approach, those invested points are not tied to progress and therefore feel wasted. I really really hope that all makes sense.*

A lot of good comments but I want to address this notion that skill points aren't being wasted. Using myself as an example, I only use Better Barter from the intelligence skill tree. That means it takes 17 points to unlock 5/5 bartering and 5 points to max it. Now, it does not matter if I decide to use 1 skill or 5 from that tree, because of those 17 skill points, 0% improve my character. Yes, removing a gate is "progress" in the literal sense, but not in terms of the actual character. After 17 points, unless I use 2 specific weapons, I am not stronger, I am not faster, I cannot fight harder, I cannot trade better, I cannot level faster, I cannot craft better, I cannot heal more, I cannot eat more, I cannot loot smarter etc. Adding a point to bartering is progress. Unlocking crafting options is progress. Anything that makes you feel stronger or better is progress. Unlocking the option to unlock progress is not the same as progress, it is purely gate-keeping. So yes, in my opinion, spending 17 points for the opportunity to spend more points without any other benefits feels like a waste, and how a game feels is key. Skill trees have to balance sacrifice and reward to maintain a sense of progression. The current sacrifice to reward ratio for primary skill categories is just too large. All I am saying is if a passive buff was added to intelligence, even if it was tiny, then WHILE a player spends 17 of their hard earned levels to unlock max bartering, they can actually feel like they're still progressing.

After many hours in A18, it seems inverted that primary skills only offer weapon specific perks. For example, intelligence only benefits junk turrets and stun batons. If you never use those weapons, your character experiences 0 progression for unlocking those perks. However, since Intelligence is required to level bartering, you're forced to invest points in a skill that offers no benefit just to unlock a skill that does. I understand that RPG elements require choice, but choosing between HP gain and EXP gain is a choice. Choosing between pistols vs machine guns is a choice. Being forced to invest 17 skill points in machine guns just so you can become a better farmer is not a choice, it is an act of arbitrary gate-keeping. If anything, please have primary skills impact primary stats. Allow stat specific weapons to become a subskill because at the end of the day not every farmer benefits from machine gun skills, but every machine gun toting rambo benefits from stamina.

Since the update to A18.2 our large server repeatedly kicks 20-30 players at once, repeatedly. Server stats show massive memory consumption, about 3x that of our A18.1 server. We've run this server with the same player cap and except for isolated cases here and there didn't see any forced disconnects in A18.1 Apparently we're not the only server with this issue. Pimps, any idea what is going on?

VRAM usage is basically 0 outside of game and no processes are utilizing it while the game is running. I'm not new to this game or to GPU tech etc., so I have definitely adjusted everything I could adjust. Textures never become steady--even at 1/2 textures I get decent frame rates but the frame rates are just as wildly inconsistent. THAT is why I am saying there is an issue. - - - Updated - - - Yes from what we've gathered, it's really specific GPUs and since I do have a nvidia it was something we considered. I tried different drivers and profiles however, without any success. - - - Updated - - - I do not have 6 gb of VRAM but neither do others who get steady frame rates. My settings are already all at lowest, so there's no where else to go. Also, I cannot run experimental right now since I admin a server that runs the stable build. That said, I'll be looking forward to when terrain quality can be adjusted at a later date

Yo, you have to remember that the pimps implemented texture streaming in a18. That means that even if your GPU is strong, if you choose to stream your textures, then any decrease in your bandwidth will decrease your fps. For example, my motherboard is dying so my ethernet connection regularly drops from 200 mpbs to 40 mpbs. Whenever this happens I see a massive drop in FPS. So, double check your connection and run speedtest regularly to make sure that's not the issue.

So the photos I posted were with texture filtering off already and it did help when I changed that setting, but there is an optimization issue at play here. I have plenty of people on our server who are using 4gb GPUs and are having no FPS instability. Regardless of where they are, their FPS stays relatively constant. I don't think that upgrading hardware needs to be the solution for poor optimization. Optimization should be the solution for poor optimization. - - - Updated - - - Haha our server owners designed and built it as our server lobby. It houses some traders, player vending machines, the rules, etc. Come on by if you want to check out some of the other player builds. We have some really creative people!

Several of us on our server are still having optimization issues for a18. In a17 we could run textures on max and high settings with a consistent 100+ FPS. Now certain terrain textures cause massive fps drops. Even after turning all settings on low (esp texture filtering), full texture size still results in 130 fps indoors and only 10 fps outside. This is bizarre and cannot be considered normal. GPU / CPU temperatures are all nice and cool. I have attached a link with 3 images showing the wildly varying FPS rates based on location. https://imgur.com/a/0OHIll0 Anyways, a18 has been a blast otherwise. Keep up the amazing work. Also, those demo zombies are my favorites.

20% of us on our server have the same issue. It appears to be certain terrain textures that are tanking performance. On a17 I could run all my textures on full with high settings and get a solid 80 fps. Now when I am outside it goes down to 8 fps, but 130 inside. This is not normal. GPU temps are all running cool. I have attached 3 images below 12 FPS 132 FPS 90 FPS https://imgur.com/a/0OHIll0 There is no reason why FPS should be deviating THAT much between environments. I will also post this in the general forum as well.

Oh hey that's great news! I'm not sure how I missed that. Thanks Roland! Also, points for the function reference