MetalMartyr

Aye, and I'm here to tell you that I am your 'astronomically bad luck' guy. But for what it is worth, I immediately dump into Int since I knew from my first few attempts at a19 that I'd never get a forge/bench recipe before first horde night. Yes, not a hard decision. If you've got enough luck that it felt difficult, that's great. Pass some of that luck my way, please'n'thanks. Alright, that's good to know. I found my bench schem around the same time. I guess that's the new norm. I spoke in the sense of completely ignoring any of the skill trees (like, not investing in them for the entire game). Int's consequences would be far more likely to hit the player harder and faster than the others, just off the forge/bench schem's (apparent) lower drop rates. That's exactly what I've been doing in my latest run. Not happy about it, but hey, if it's the only choice working, then that's what I gotta do. Again, I'd vouch for the End-of-a-Tier quest reward for T1/T2 being a Forge Recipe among the usual randoms to choose from. You still make your decision on gambling a forge/recipe popping up as loot or shop inventory, but here you do have a chance to grab it after spending some time in the game.

I'd argue that after the initial experience of "Have forge/bench schems stopped existing!?", it's not a hard decision when you make a new game, or jump to a new server. That bein' said, if we look at all skill trees the same way as we're arguing about Intellect ("pay the price in limitations or sp"), then Intellect is pretty much the only one that has real/unavoidable consequences for ignoring (early on, anyway). Refusing all the other trees will make you inefficient in their tasks, but you can more-or-less bypass the punishment with patience, food, and a good head on your shoulders. Refuse Intellect, and you might've just barred yourself from the rest of the game (unless you have amazing luck with Trader Stations working, or finding the prints). Imo I'd find it much more tolerable if the Forge/Bench schematics were Tier-completion reward choices for T1 and T2. That way, it's on the player to choose to attempt to speed-clear their quests for technology (consequence being the higher tier zombies coming in to play), or take it slow and invest those points into Intellect. Or, y'know, roll a quadrillion-to-one odd of finding those prints in the wild/shops.

Making a skill tree's value increase is fairly different from nerfing everyone else's value. If TFP want people to invest in Intellect, they need to buff it, instead of taking a baseball bat to everyone else's legs (in this case, the acquisition of vital crafting schematics) Since a18 (I've been on'n'off for a while, so that's when I rejoined again), Intellect has always been a mid-to-late game skill tree. Why? - Weapons cannot be accessed without a workbench (and then you need to find the baton/turret parts, as they can't just be built with mats, since they don't have a T1 version (ex: wood club, knuckle wraps, Stone Spear)) - Damn-near everything aside from the Forge/Workbench cannot be crafted without a Workbench (and in some cases, Chem station). - Extra rewards and better bargains aren't much of an issue unless you're buying vehicles, elixirs, or expensive mats like steel. By the time you can buy these, you have a steady (albeit not the quickest) supply you're making on your own. There's nothing aside from the Forge craft that says, "Hey y'all, invest in me for early game!" Backhanding everybody else did nothing to make Intellect better as of now. It's still the same as it was a18, but now a necessary evil./imo

My Feedback: - Give T1/T2 quest rewards a chance of spawning Forge and Workbench Schematics (maybe Chem station schems). I'm not going to explain in-depth my reasoning, as it's largely RNG based on how @%$*#! your luck is finding these by looting/inventories/rewards. That being said, the explanation is that my luck is @%$*#!, and I don't like being forced into blowing points on Intellect. - Sex Rex still sucks (imo), and shooting the Stamina system in the foot didn't help. Just buff/change Sex Rex completely. I won't speak for combat, but it's always seemed more efficient to farm mats with left click spamming, as power attacks took too much stamina and had a long wind-up time for what little boosted damage it had. So how about giving Sex Rex Faster, Stronger, and less draining power attacks over plain stamina efficiency? Grant Power Attacks increased damage at max rank, and decrease wind up time by some amount. - revert the stack nerfs to Meat, Boiling/Murky Water, etc. It's not a major change, but it's a noticeable inconvenience. Thanks for listenin', and thanks for the game.

Melee combat on Day 1 with wood weapons isn't straight-up suicidal on Insane. Zombies flinch more, and seem to be slower on reaction/attacks. This is great, as the original plan I had was to completely avoid combat, and spam buried supply missions until I basically had iron gear.