Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Khalagar]

I agree with that, but it's mostly just the inconsistent design philosophy that I think makes it seem wonky, especially because . . . there's no reason for it to be wonky besides just "It is the way it is"

 

Like, what exactly is lost by Int having a tier 0 blow pipe you can make out of a pipe, that shoots junk ammo? What detriment to the int class, other players, and game as a whole, is there for the Int to fall in line with the others and have a week 1 melee and ranged weapon combo that actually scales with their point investment?

 

Strength is also where most of the "support" perks are, including the entire cooking and mining line, but . . . it also just has a functional weapon combo at all stages of the game

[Guppycur]

@khalagar

 

If true, I agree, seems like some legit issues.  Thanks for the still tl but did r;.

[khzmusik]

15 hours ago, Roland said:

You can continue to intentionally ignore the idea of asymmetrical design all you want but it doesn’t change reality. The attributes have been designed to offer different experiences and play styles and challenges. 
 

You guys seem to want to be able to just play the game exactly the same way regardless of the path you choose and want the name “intellect” and “strength” and “fortitude” and “agility” and “perception” to just be synonyms and have guns that are basically just reskins of the same dps machine.  
 

Intellect is never going to have a correspondingly equal ranged weapon to the other attributes. It is a different path with its own challenges and strengths but also proven by many people to be a viable path just as it is. 
 

Look…it’s perfectly OKAY to shoot weapons you haven’t perked out to the max. It’s also fine to not try and play a pure intelligence build if that is too much of a challenge. 
 

Asymmetrical design is much more interesting than symmetrical design and if the only vocal people who can appreciate that are two moderators then you’ll continue to hear from us whenever you try and push for intellect to become just like one of the other attributes. 

 

I think it's quite telling that most people who are complaining, are complaining about weaponry. And not, say, the lack of crafting perks in the strength attribute tree.

 

Personally, my only serious complaint is that Master Chef should be under Fortitude and not Strength. It makes zero sense to be under Strength, which is otherwise specialized mainly in "tank" combat and mining perks.

 

Also, I might possibly prefer swapping Pummel Pete and The Brawler, but it's not a serious complaint, more a slight preference. I only think Pummel Pete belongs in Fortitude because otherwise Strength is a bit too OP.

 

Otherwise the attribute trees make a good deal of sense, if you consider that they're not all supposed to be combat trees. Consider that Intelligence is the tree for traps and turrets; workstations; vehicles; and health recipes - and it's already incredibly powerful. Adding combat perks that are as good as the other trees would make it way overpowered.

 

EDIT: Though, I do agree that the Intelligence skill point costs are pretty wonky. They don't match any other tree, and you can't even spec into the first level of many perks until mid game.

 

(p.s. counting down until this entire topic is moved to the Discussions thread)

Edited October 24, 2021 by khzmusik
gah... typos (see edit history)

[yessas]

There are no particular changes, they added a little, and corrected it. So do not want to return to the game. 7 years to alpha

Edited October 25, 2021 by yessas (see edit history)

[Roland]

2 hours ago, khzmusik said:

 

(p.s. counting down until this entire topic is moved to the Discussions thread)

One of the signs of the coming of the Kraken is a crazy and raw Dev diary. The alt thread is no more. 

[Guppycur]

Hype train build up and speculation run these forums.

[SnowDog1942]

1 hour ago, Roland said:

One of the signs of the coming of the Kraken is a crazy and raw Dev diary. The alt thread is no more. 

BOOBS

 

BOOBS

 

BOOBS

 

And BOOBS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

[Blake_]

 

3 hours ago, Roland said:

One of the signs of the coming of the Kraken is a crazy and raw Dev diary. The alt thread is no more. 

Ah, yes.

 

18 hours ago, NukemDed said:

 

 

btw, boobs seem to give the best overall qol pekrs                             imho

hard to beat

no encumbrance at night

land mines dont detonate when stepped on

cigar

and more i forget right now.... cheers 🙂 hic

 

 

 

Excellent.

 

 

21 hours ago, Roland said:

You can continue to intentionally ignore the idea of asymmetrical boobs all you want but it doesn’t change reality. The attributes have been designed to offer different experiences and play styles and challenges. 
 

Asymmetrical boobs are much more interesting than symmetrical ones and if the only vocal people who can appreciate that are two moderators then you’ll continue to hear from us whenever you try and push for intellect to become just like one of the other attributes. 

Fantastic. Really neat.

 

 

19 hours ago, stallionsden said:

Boobs have been ruled out for the vanilla game.

That can't be.

 

 

12 hours ago, Adam the Waster said:

Damn i need to step up my game

Nope those have entered Snowdogs @%$#

A dark place were nothing can leave... AKA they are scraped

Kinda wish boobs Did came back in a way. 
Boobs.

I swear to Goddog, that Hes just a Clone of me in 2018 

I bet iv given Roland and Madmole PTSD from my endless trash

I see. Culture.

 

 

10 hours ago, Guppycur said:

What's the trdl; of this argument/discussion?  I don't get it. 

It's boobs.

 

 

1 hour ago, SnowDog1942 said:

BOOBS

 

BOOBS

 

BOOBS

 

And BOOBS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

He gets it.

 

 

 

 

[Aldranon]

7 hours ago, Khalagar said:

I agree with that, but it's mostly just the inconsistent design philosophy that I think makes it seem wonky, especially because . . . there's no reason for it to be wonky besides just "It is the way it is"

 

Like, what exactly is lost by Int having a tier 0 blow pipe you can make out of a pipe, that shoots junk ammo? What detriment to the int class, other players, and game as a whole, is there for the Int to fall in line with the others and have a week 1 melee and ranged weapon combo that actually scales with their point investment?

 

Strength is also where most of the "support" perks are, including the entire cooking and mining line, but . . . it also just has a functional weapon combo at all stages of the game

 

And this is the key, even if you wanted to stay away from strength, you almost cant as a solo player.  The temptation of playing strength ("Just one more time.") is compelling.

 

With strength at "full power", a tweaked auto-shotgun and lots of ammo...  (Lets add a tweaked set of heavy armor, because YEAH BABY!)

Everyone knows what happens when you step into ANY POI (as of A19 anyways).

 

They're all speed runs.  Admittedly, I LOL'd myself through many POI's and made timed runs through the tougher ones.   (Edit: Clearing runs that is)

Edited October 25, 2021 by Aldranon (see edit history)

[meganoth]

22 hours ago, Matt115 said:

Well i can't agree about smg- smg have diffrent type of ammo so : sledge turret- cheap ammo , small dmg , small shot speed,  smg turret - expensive ammo but bigger dmg and shot speed for longer distance - shotgun turret- big dmg but slow - perfect to keep small rooms safe.  So turrets would be just base defense system not  "weapons"

I would change INT into "gasoline" weapons- flamethrower and circular saw similar to elite zombie from nza4. INT weapons would be powerfull as hell on short and medium distance but need gasoline. this would make give 2 unique weapons + baton maybe stun gun too so 4 weapons

 

I distinctly remember that the developers said something about the gun arsenal being done, A20 will just fill in some holes. If you want to be a game designer, get in line, all forum users here are hobby game designers but don't want to work for it. But the only real way to be a game designer is to mod and actually do the work. So, as a free hint: Propose smaller changes with watertight arguments and you might actually see one of your concepts come to reality. Like the newsstand

 

[BFT2020]

8 hours ago, Aldranon said:

And this is the key, even if you wanted to stay away from strength, you almost cant as a solo player.  The temptation of playing strength ("Just one more time.") is compelling.

That is strictly a personel choice.

 

My last several playthroughs in Alpha19 (break until Alpha20 comes out to give me a chance to play games I neglected, like BattleTech) I did builds where my focus was either on Perception, Agility, or Intelligence.  And yes, I only play SP.

 

Sure I could go Strength; and sure, it would allow me to do speed runs through POIs and make me OP to anything the hordes can throw at me....but where is the enjoyment in making the game easier for me?  I want to fight off wandering hordes with nothing but my knife; I want to have to take my time to clear out a POI using caution and cleverness, not just walk through it like a tank (or run though it).

[meganoth]

17 hours ago, Khalagar said:

 

Int perk line has several issues. The critics raise valid points pointing out inconsistencies where it doesn't make sense / doesn't match the other trees, the defenders just go "Yeah but you can just use a shotgun lol" and "yeah but that makes it different from the other perk lines, which is better for some reason!" basically as their only defense.

 

Int isn't awful or anything, but it does need a bit of tender love and care imo because it's just not consistent with the design logic of the other trees. 

 

The TLDR; of issues for me at least is

 

* No tier 0 or even tier 1 ranged int weapon like every other tree has, so you have no use for junk ammo until way into the game, since the tier 1 int weapon can't use it either, so you don't even have your only ranged weapon until the steel age

 

A valid concern. But this is in line with INT being a support/not-gearde-towards-fighting class and leeching on other trees weapons. Besides the one or two points people playing other attributes usually put into their gun perks you are their equal using their guns. As long as junk ammo isn't found in early loot that still seems fine by me if you look at the other advantages of the INT player.

 

Basically every complaint about INT is about its weak weaponry. Doh, weaponry isn't INTs strong suit, it is supposed to be underdeveloped. Thanks @khzmusik for making this point

 

17 hours ago, Khalagar said:

* No tier 3 weapon at all for the baton or robotic line. When your friends are running around clearing entire bloodmoon hordes with M60s and Autoshotguns you are . . . . also using those and competing with them for ammo

 

Depends largely how many players you are in MP. There are 4 general ammo types besides scrap ammo, as long as you are not more than 4 players there is always a "free" ammo type you can select. Note that PER and FOR players automatically use the same ammo and THEY don't have a choice to avoid that competition like the INT player has.

Once you are 5 players there is unavoidably a competition around ammo that has nothing to do with INT.

 

17 hours ago, Khalagar said:

* Expensive perk line. You can't invest into the robotic perk line until 5 int I believe, so even if you did have a robotic sledge in the first day somehow you wouldn't even be able to build around it until you had invested a lot of points into int

 

Agree on it being expensive. It fits with INT being NOT a combat-centered attribute aka class. And this discussion is primarily like every other "my class is nerfed" discussion in every other RPG game. "Yeah, but I want the strengths of my class but no downsides". Sorry, that wasn't the idea, accept the weaknesses of your class or play a different one

 

17 hours ago, Khalagar said:

 

Int basically doesn't have an early game weapon or late game weapon, it's only got mid game stuff. Late game I don't even really bother with robotic turrets and just use sledges, because the turrets will drain tens of thousands of iron to do the same thing that an unperked molotov and unperked autoshotgun can do, and early game you quite literally don't even *have* an option. Unless you plan to play the entire first week using a pipe baton and nothing else, int users just have to shrug and invest in a different tree and use a club and shotgun like everyone else

 

Oh, again the myth of an unperked weapon being useless. Are you really telling me you can't kill basic zombies with an unperked melee weapon full of mods you easily bought from the trader? The trader still is OP in A19 and you seem to miss what you can do with that when you can afford ANY weapon he has earlier than other players.

 

By the way, the tier3 INT "weapons" being totally defense-oriented is a big sign from the devs that says "Don't use this class if you want a conventional gun-toting warrior". Expecting them to balance INT so it keeps up weapon-wise with other attributes when there are so many red flags pointing the other direction is IMHO a lost cause. THey want INT to be offensively challenged and when you compare that with support classes of some shooters we even came away with a much better deal!

 

16 hours ago, Khalagar said:

I agree with that, but it's mostly just the inconsistent design philosophy that I think makes it seem wonky, especially because . . . there's no reason for it to be wonky besides just "It is the way it is"

 

Like, what exactly is lost by Int having a tier 0 blow pipe you can make out of a pipe, that shoots junk ammo? What detriment to the int class, other players, and game as a whole, is there for the Int to fall in line with the others and have a week 1 melee and ranged weapon combo that actually scales with their point investment?

 

Strength is also where most of the "support" perks are, including the entire cooking and mining line, but . . . it also just has a functional weapon combo at all stages of the game

 

First page of this thread:

Quote

9) Weapons

• Pipe Rifle
• Pipe Pistol
• Pipe Baton
• Pipe Shotgun
• Pipe Machine Gun

 

The idea to have the scrap baton having a ranged ability is actually not bad (if that was what you were proposing). Since this is still alpha, who knows if there will be a tier0 turret eventually, but what exact properties it will have (it might just be a weaker sledge turret again) I can't even guess

Edited October 25, 2021 by meganoth (see edit history)

[meganoth]

20 hours ago, Scythe-Messiah said:

For the INT tree, My big question is: does the drone's heal get impacted by the drone owner's Physician perk? e.g. 25%, 40%, 55%, 75% added healing? Does the player who owns the drone also get the XP from the heal? and if so, is that XP boosted by Physician bonus? That synergy is going to be really important co-op for folks who want to double down on supporting their friends. 

 

Regarding INT tree balance; Personally speaking, I've always felt like 'Demolitions expert' should be in the INT tree. IMHO The tree with advanced engineering better reflects someone who's actively producing explosives and has the know how that best reflects how to maximize their effect. Perception makes sense with hand eye coordination of tossing say, a grenade -- but is hand eye coordination really more important than the knowledge and act of preparation for chemical/electrical/mechanical components of explosives? If the explosives aren't made well, it doesn't matter how good your hand eye coordination is if the explosive doesn't go boom (or goes boom too soon).

 

Sledges and junk turrets can hold the line, but explosives are the perfect supplement to support when they get overwhelmed or you need to repair/reload them. Plus, IIRC INT has 8 skills and PER has 10. Arguably not much of a stretch to move it. Plus, Demolitions expert is already pretty asymmetrical vs. other weapon groups and it 100% fits the base defense/support aspect of INT. 

 

Toss in some tools for demolition/area denial and it really reinforces INT as a base defender. A flamethrower for example could also have the added utility of clearing out plants/trees/grass from an area in the wilderness for a build or quickly clearing sight lines before a horde. 

 

INT weapons feel like they need some balance tweaking. I've never found the baton useful enough to warrant putting points into it. If the stun had a guaranteed proc that recharged every 5 seconds(reduced time required on perk spent), I'd use it more often. I wish there was a ranged taser or another ranged weapon with high stun chance/duration low damage for co-op(bean bag cannon). My other major concern on the INT tree is ammo efficiency on the junk turret. I wish the turret perk had a much higher damage vs. fire rate ratio (which would help with ammo efficiency). Sledge turrets have greater utility since they're more reliable and don't hemorrhage resources.

 

You are mentioning balance, but then your argument goes on about it "reflecting someone" who has high intelligence instead of hand eye coordination. That is not a balance argument.

 

8 perks instead of 10 is possibly a balance argument but ignores that the perks itself have vastly different value. I would say demolition is one of the prime PER perks, without it PER would be the pariah of all attribute classes. 

 

In my view the sledge turret is by far the most ammo-saving item on horde nights in the game, ahead of electric fence and blade trap. But junk turrets are more useful in POIs as safety/support device. Since I lately played too much MP where we always had a miner in the group I can't judge ammo efficiency correctly, but I can say that as a precaution against dying junk turrets are excellent. 

 

[Laz Man]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

 

You are mentioning balance, but then your argument goes on about it "reflecting someone" who has high intelligence instead of hand eye coordination. That is not a balance argument.

 

8 perks instead of 10 is possibly a balance argument but ignores that the perks itself have vastly different value. I would say demolition is one of the prime PER perks, without it PER would be the pariah of all attribute classes. 

 

In my view the sledge turret is by far the most ammo-saving item on horde nights in the game, ahead of electric fence and blade trap. But junk turrets are more useful in POIs as safety/support device. Since I lately played too much MP where we always had a miner in the group I can't judge ammo efficiency correctly, but I can say that as a precaution against dying junk turrets are excellent. 

 

 

Would be great if the junk sledge/turret would transform into the drone when you got a certain distance from it the followed you lol.  This would be a interesting QoL improvement since the player wouldn't have to double back to pick it up.  Somehow make the transformation process tied to an existing INT perk so its exclusive to tree and not a function everyone could use it.

 

Since sledge/turret's don't draw aggro from zeds, its best use in POIs come into play for bigger encounters/set pieces, and that assumes you have the foresight to know where those encounters are.

[PBRstreetgang]

Quote

Downside: It lacks flexible combat, period. You better plan before you fight and pivot from a fixed position. Unexpected fast crowded attacks are its Aquiles' heel when not prepared.

 

You do realize you can pick up a robotic sledge or gun and use it as a weapon right? And yes, it loses it's perk bonuses, but that does make them very mobile.

[Roland]

2 hours ago, BFT2020 said:

That is strictly a personel choice.

 

Yeah, who I hire to play the strength build for me is nobody else's business!

[Gamida]

Just now, Roland said:

 

Yeah, who I hire to play the strength build for me is nobody else's business!

Speaking of...you still owe me for 2 games

[Roland]

I would be willing to agree that a tier 3 ranged weapon for intelligence could be added if it also took up at least one of the robotic control slots while equipped so that you were not able to use that tier 3 fully perked ranged weapon in conjunction with your robots. Either that or create some mods that really enhanced the junk turret while used as a handheld weapon-- but then also make it so that a handheld turret also burned one of your robotic slots.

[Blake_]

19 minutes ago, Roland said:

I would be willing to agree that a tier 3 ranged weapon for intelligence could be added if it also took up at least one of the robotic control slots while equipped so that you were not able to use that tier 3 fully perked ranged weapon in conjunction with your robots. Either that or create some mods that really enhanced the junk turret while used as a handheld weapon-- but then also make it so that a handheld turret also burned one of your robotic slots.

I suggest an electric toothbrush that shoots toothbrushes. It does the exact same thing as a baton combat-wise so it wouldn't unbalance the game and it would also take that robotic "slot". It can have a primitive version (scrap iron toothbrush).

[Roland]

35 minutes ago, Blake_ said:

I suggest an electric toothbrush that shoots toothbrushes. It does the exact same thing as a baton combat-wise so it wouldn't unbalance the game and it would also take that robotic "slot". It can have a primitive version (scrap iron toothbrush).

 

No deal. Because, then they would need to introduce a flosser as well, since for realism, you should always do both. Then for added realism players could just leave the flosser lying around until just a few days before the 6-month horde night and then use it vigorously just to get through that...er....appointment...

[dcsobral]

On 10/23/2021 at 5:00 PM, Khalagar said:

As someone who primiarily uses INT build, INT is both amazing and absolutely terrible IMO. Junk Sledge + Trader price perk + Quest reward perk are 3 of the best S tier perks in the game, everything else is pretty much bad

 

Stun baton is pretty mediocre but I've used it for my last couple of builds for fun, but it's just objectively worse than the club most of the time, and in multiplayer it gets your friends killed because you ragdoll zombies to them that aren't dead, and people walk past and then get clobbered when the zombie stands back up. It's better than the Machete and about as good as the spear though, so not worst in game

 

Junk Sledge is amazing and one of the best weapons in the entire game when used right, and 70% of the reason to even go into the int tree at all

 

Junk Turret is honestly pretty bad now because it uses an absolutely absurd amount of iron. It took me well over ten thousand iron to clear a Shotgun Messiah using dual junk turrets compared to me clearing it with about 80-90 shotgun shells with my autoshotgun, and then the loot along the way and at the end replaced those shotgun shells anyway.  Using dual junk turrets even just for big hordes will easily eat right through hundreds of iron, compared to just throwing your two junk sledges down in a door way or using a shotgun + club.

 

Junk Turret Shotgun Ammo is also pretty awful because the turret will rapid fire out your entire stockpile in 0.234 seconds to do what you could have done with a single shotgun shell with an unperked double barrel

 

Int doesn't even have a tier 3 weapon, and anyone can pick up and use the drone and no dev has commented AFAIK if the robotic perk line even changes the drone in any way at all. A single autoshottie with no perks absolutely smokes the fully perked dual junk turrets in terms of cost and overall efficiency

 

The rest of the perks are pretty bad besides the trader one and quest reward one. You can find schematics / buy the entire item from traders  for all the craftables or just make your benches and then buy a respect potion and put the points somewhere else, and none of the crafting bonuses from the perks are worth it.

 

 

Junk Sledge is so good that it keeps the int tree relevant weapon wise, and any good horde base relies 90% on the existence of dual junk sledges, but outside of the sledge, the rest of the int weapons are pretty power crept compared to the other trees.

 

I still say that the Int line should have gotten a "Blowpipe"  tier 0 int weapon that uses junk ammo. In the rework they wanted to give everyone a weapon for each type that uses the correct ammo right from the start, but Int got kinda left high and dry, and only got a tier 0 melee weapon and no tier 3 one for the stun baton line

 

 

"Just use a shotgun and a club lol" isn't really a good reason why the int tree can't just be balanced like every other tree

This is a decent analysis, though it treats players being dumb as being a stun baton problem -- just remove the repulsor mod in that case, though. The stun baton with nerd tats is one of two AoE melee weapons, the other one being a sledgehammer when perked up (I think level 3 and above?). Combine with the repulsor mod it makes a great weapon to clear zombies from a place during horde night.

 

The stun baton is faster than people expect so I see a lot of people using it like a club -- with the RoF of a club -- and effectively capping their DPS. That said, here are some weapons that have a higher DPS than the stun baton: the wrench, the claw hammel, the wood club, the candy cane knife and club, the iron fireaxe, the steel shovel.  And, of course, all other T2 and T3 melee weapons except the iron spear.

 

And a20 will introduce the pipe baton... I hope we get to see it during the dev streams, but here's the irony about it: did anyone ever thought that what the Intellect tree was missing was a worse stun baton?

 

A problem with both the robotic turret and the robotic sledge is that they activate demolishers. There are things you can do with the robotic sledge to make it less likely but the robotic sledge seems almost drawn to that green light. You can have it shooting zombies in the back, but sometimes zombies decide they want to go the other way and, then... boom. I never use robotic turrets on my horde base because of that: early game the ammo is too expensive and the turret is not needed, late game it will activate demolishers. And, on top of that, you cannot use sledge and turret at the same time. I use robotic sledges to kill screamers while I mine, and that's all. And that makes all those magazines benefiting robotic turrets useless. It is fun as a novelty but if you stop and think about its effectiveness instead of just using them because they exist, you'll end up not using them.

 

Edited October 25, 2021 by dcsobral
typo (see edit history)

[Roland]

3 hours ago, dcsobral said:

And a20 will introduce the pipe baton... I hope we get to see it during the dev streams, but here the irony about it: did anyone ever thought that what the Intellect tree was missing was a worse stun baton?

 

The pipe baton is better than the wooden club. Unless I perk into clubs, I craft a pipe baton as soon as I get my hands on some short pipes.

Edited October 25, 2021 by Roland (see edit history)

[hiemfire]

13 minutes ago, dcsobral said:

The stun baton with nerd tats is one of two AoE melee weapons, the other one being a sledgehammer when perked up (I think level 3 and above?). Combine with the repulsor mod it makes a great weapon to clear zombies from a place during horde night.

One of these just requires investing perk points while leveling, the other requires rolling 652 twice on a pair of d1000 at GSy or higher, 652 twice on a pair of d2500 at GSx or lower...

[dcsobral]

20 hours ago, Khalagar said:

 

Int perk line has several issues. The critics raise valid points pointing out inconsistencies where it doesn't make sense / doesn't match the other trees, the defenders just go "Yeah but you can just use a shotgun lol" and "yeah but that makes it different from the other perk lines, which is better for some reason!" basically as their only defense.

 

Int isn't awful or anything, but it does need a bit of tender love and care imo because it's just not consistent with the design logic of the other trees. 

 

The TLDR; of issues for me at least is

 

* No tier 0 or even tier 1 ranged int weapon like every other tree has, so you have no use for junk ammo until way into the game, since the tier 1 int weapon can't use it either, so you don't even have your only ranged weapon until the steel age

* No tier 3 weapon at all for the baton or robotic line. When your friends are running around clearing entire bloodmoon hordes with M60s and Autoshotguns you are . . . . also using those and competing with them for ammo

* Expensive perk line. You can't invest into the robotic perk line until 5 int I believe, so even if you did have a robotic sledge in the first day somehow you wouldn't even be able to build around it until you had invested a lot of points into int

 

 

Int basically doesn't have an early game weapon or late game weapon, it's only got mid game stuff. Late game I don't even really bother with robotic turrets and just use sledges, because the turrets will drain tens of thousands of iron to do the same thing that an unperked molotov and unperked autoshotgun can do, and early game you quite literally don't even *have* an option. Unless you plan to play the entire first week using a pipe baton and nothing else, int users just have to shrug and invest in a different tree and use a club and shotgun like everyone else

This argument is a good example of the Great Intellect Divide. Here are the two sides of this divide:

• Jawoodle perks up early in weapons, and has level 5 in his weapons of choice as his ultimate goal. He hates Intellect.
• I never perk up in weapons until I'm pretty much done with every other skill I might possible want. I love Intellect.

As much as it might be an anathema to many, it is perfectly possible to play 7 Days to Die without perking up on weapon skills. If you do so then your skill trees and your weapons have no connection whatsoever and, therefore, it is irrelevant what the Intellect "weapons" are. On the other hand, getting BB3 or 4 quickly and buying an auto shotgun for a thousand dukes enhances your fighting capability far better than what any other attribute can accomplish. You might not have cardio, but you have a motorcycle by day 7. You might not be good at looting, but you are good at buying stuff from the trader. You suck at using a pickaxe or fireaxe, but you don't need to because you bough a chainsaw and an auger. You don't need fast clear every POI desperately searching for crucial loot items because you can craft them. And you don't need to be super efficient at killing zombies during horde night because your base will help you out.

 

So Intellect is a very good tree for people who don't want to spec into weapons, and bad tree for those who do.

 

[Blake_]

6 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

The pipe baton is better than the wooden club. Unless I perk into clubs, I craft a stun baton as soon as I get my hands on some short pipes.

That's good to hear. In any case, the baton would benefit from another superspecial mod (like the repulsor), like a chain eletrocution one or a superslow beam supercharger with tiny ranged capabilities. Pew pew.