Is the skill system due for an overhaul? A discussion on its strengths, weaknesses, how it can be improved (and whether the devs are planning to do it?)

[Boidster]

What alpha was that for? Zip it up and send it to me, I'll take a look. If it can be done only with XML I might have a go.

[Roland]

5 hours ago, Boidster said:

What alpha was that for? Zip it up and send it to me, I'll take a look. If it can be done only with XML I might have a go.

 

It was mostly xml but as of Alpha 18 (which was the last version it worked for) there was no hook ups in xml for awarding a skillpoint at the end of a timer. You could make skillpoints the reward for doing a quest but not for just surviving to the end of the day.  In Alpha 19, I removed a lot of the fluff things I was adding to the mod and just focused in on the 0xp part but for whatever reason, the coding that allowed the skillpoint to be awarded to the player at the end of each day without any deaths was broken for A19 (and A20).

 

Sent you an email to your hotmail account with the zipped files.

Edited January 9, 2022 by Roland (see edit history)

[Viktoriusiii]

6 hours ago, Roland said:

your hotmail account

I haven't heard that word for years! o_o

 

Edited January 9, 2022 by Viktoriusiii (see edit history)

[meganoth]

On 1/7/2022 at 8:53 PM, GlyphGryph said:

What is "LBD"?

 

 

I just want to be clear - I didn't say Penetrator was bad, I actually think its exceptionally good, I said it was gated by things the player had no control over and without those things it did nothing, which is frustrating - specifically, finding the AP ammo crafting book, or finding enough AP ammo in stores (which I've found to be exceptionally rare unless, again, you've taken many levels of Better Barter, which makes it fairly common and is, I suppose, something the player has control of... but when the answer to every question about how to reliably make something work is "Take Better Barter", I think that's a problem). I had a previous game where I'd gotten to lv50 without any sign of the book, and having specced very heavily into Perception it was... it wasn't a good feeling that my only source of ammo was the occasional handful of bullets I could find from the trader, and even they were a once in a blue-blooded moon kind of deal.

 

Finding AP ammo may just be the part of the loot balance that isn't there yet as they restructured the loot system in A20 again (clearly they are still not satisfied with it and have been at it the last alphas). In my MP game I play perception and through buying and finding I had about 80 bullets AP ammo in the third blood moon which was enough as the blood moon was still short. The interesting part is yet to come, will I find enough of that ammo to buy and loot at higher levels.

 

At least I expect more AP ammo to drop the higher my loot gamestage gets. But I don't expect to use AP ammo on POI raiding and keep it strictly for horde nights

 

You will not hear the "better barter" song from me. Unless I specialize in INT those two levels of better barter that you can get somewhat cheaply save you 15% (10% buying and 10% selling which might be half your income =~ 15%) but do NOT change what the trader has to offer. Even if you get the third point and a better secret stash  this probably will not suddenly give you heaps of the right AP ammo.

 

Me personally, I just like how RNG sometimes just doesn't provide the right stuff and gives you unexpected problems. If you don't find that book you can continue to search for it and use that ammo sparingly (in SP day 50 is mid game for me), depend more on demolition or even melee on horde nights, or use rifles just for the high damage value (i.e. concentrate on head shots instead). Just for completness sakes I could mention forgetin elixier but in all my games I have not used that even once.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 9, 2022 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Stranded_Napkin]

Some of the things can be fixed with modest changes. Mule Kick is generally considered a waste of points as you can open those slots via double pocket mods for your clothing items and triple storage pocket mods for the armor pieces. A simple fix would be a 63 slot inventory instead of the 45. Give the players one more row of open slots, two slots that can be removed/negated by the mods and then the last two rows where the debuff is removed/negated by Mule Kick. For guys like me who are hoarders in-game, that slight increase would be enough to satiate most people who add packpack mods though not all since people have gone insane with them (see 200 slot inventory mod).

 

Of course if past history teaches us anything The Fun Pimps won't make these small changes and will make a drastic change nobody saw coming.

[skylynx]

I dislike that some perks are arbitrarily bundled. For example, master chef and mining, mining and shotguns, etc. I wish there was more independence. For example, I really like to mine, but I also would love to use bows and crossbows or rifles. Similarly, my brother likes building and farming, and would also love to cook food.

 

I would also love LBD to come back. I agree that LBD crafting is abusable, but maybe LBD actions skills at least can come back. They're being spammed anyway, and it adds a second layer of progression, and a little bit of extra level of gamer brain fun. I thank JaxTeller for the Action Skill modlet for now.

[Boidster]

On 1/9/2022 at 4:18 AM, Viktoriusiii said:

I haven't heard that word for years! o_o

 

Edited January 10, 2022 by Boidster (see edit history)

[Roland]

12 minutes ago, Boidster said:

I have a Hotmail account?

 

It is listed as your registration email for our forum...lol

[Ramethzer0]

edit

Edited January 10, 2022 by Ramethzer0 (see edit history)

[Boidster]

1 hour ago, Roland said:

It is listed as your registration email for our forum...lol

 

Yeah, it's real. It's used for bulls**t "registrations" with companies I don't want to be bothering me later.

 

And also for 7D2D.  

[POCKET951]

On 1/9/2022 at 8:50 AM, meganoth said:

 

Finding AP ammo may just be the part of the loot balance that isn't there yet as they restructured the loot system in A20 again (clearly they are still not satisfied with it and have been at it the last alphas). In my MP game I play perception and through buying and finding I had about 80 bullets AP ammo in the third blood moon which was enough as the blood moon was still short. The interesting part is yet to come, will I find enough of that ammo to buy and loot at higher levels.

 

At least I expect more AP ammo to drop the higher my loot gamestage gets. But I don't expect to use AP ammo on POI raiding and keep it strictly for horde nights

I have to agree with this, you never find AP/HP ammo atm and I assume it is because the A20 loot system needs more polish/tweaking. We just need to give them time and constructive feedback and they will get it to a better state.

[Viktoriusiii]

3 minutes ago, POCKET951 said:

We just need to give them time and constructive feedback and they will get it to a better state.

Ah to be young/new and full of hope 😜

[PoppaTot]

On 1/7/2022 at 8:49 PM, Roland said:

 

There was no one alpha when LBD came out. It was a process of development that evolved over several alphas. For example, in Alpha 11 there were no skills at all. There was only quality of tools and weapons and as you crafted them they increased in quality with a plus or minus 50 modifier to keep things somewhat variable. That was it. Then in Alpha 12 - 16 there were alterations and additions made. In some alphas you got xp for killing zombies and then they removed that and then brought it back. They tried a few iterations of crafting to get better at crafting (spam crafting) all the way to Alpha 15 when they changed it to only working in a workstation so people were babysitting their workstations and then A16 they removed spam crafting for higher quality completely but still had LBD for a number of skills. After all this experimentation from A11 to A16 with various forms and hybrids of LBD they decided to go with the more Fallout-esque system we have now.

 

A14 was probably the pinnacle of LBD crafting for better quality tools before it started diminishing and A16 the pinnacle of LBD skills before it was dropped but there really isn't one Alpha you can point to and say "This is where they turned LBD on"

 

To be honest, the chatter back then was much like it is now. People unhappy with whatever the current system was would come and post and those who liked it would defend it. There has never been 100% consensus by the player base of everyone being happy with the system. When Alpha 11 hit and tools and weapons had quality that was dependent upon how many times you crafted that tool it significantly changed the way the game was played by many people. So we had a lot of people who enjoyed the grind of making 100 stone axes and we had a lot of people who hated it but did it anyway. There were even some who tried their best to just keep playing normally (normally being how they played in Alpha 10 and below) and just let their tool and weapon qualities advance slowly over time even though the temptation to rush the progression was definitely something new in the game.

 

Good to be back and good to see the LBD debate is still alive and strong 😛

[SenpaiThatIngnoresYou]

 

I think it does need a tweeking. Right now there are 5 stats, And these stats follow the traditional pattern seen in many games. I believe they need to be tweeked and the stat screen should say "Seven" and each letter represents a group to put points in. Those groups will be called: Sadism, Evasion, Violence,  enlightenment and Nerdery. Bam, it's an acronym for seven and it contains the 5 elements of the universe and when those powers combine you become captain apocalypse.

 

Sadism will have blade weapons and explosives, enligthenment will have mining and living off the land, nerdery will be most of the science skill, evasion will be stealth related skills and weapons. Violence will be mid range guns and melee skills and some support skills. Those also represent the archetypes of survivors who can be seen in the zombie wastes. the system goes from being dollar store S.P.E.C.I.A.L and becomes something a little better. 

 

When a group gets maxed out you get the apocalypse person perk associated with that group. 

[Roland]

26 minutes ago, SenpaiThatIngnoresYou said:

you become captain apocalypse Master Midwesterner

 

Fixed that for you. Stick with the established theme man!

Edited January 11, 2022 by Roland (see edit history)

[BFT2020]

23 hours ago, POCKET951 said:

I have to agree with this, you never find AP/HP ammo atm and I assume it is because the A20 loot system needs more polish/tweaking. We just need to give them time and constructive feedback and they will get it to a better state.

 

Probably because the advanced ammo is only really found in buried loot treasure, which ironically enough, doesn't look like it is tied to any loot container in the game (unless I missed it somewhere).

[Boidster]

1 hour ago, BFT2020 said:

Probably because the advanced ammo is only really found in buried loot treasure, which ironically enough, doesn't look like it is tied to any loot container in the game (unless I missed it somewhere).

 

HP/AP is also in quest loot, but you're right about the buried treasure. Not used in any containers. I think in these root-level ammo groups they just need to add HP and AP ammo with a proper lootstage-scaled probability curve. Same for 7.62 and the other ammo types.

 

<lootgroup name="group9mmSmall">
<lootgroup name="group9mmMedium">
<lootgroup name="group9mmLarge">

 

Unless of course they intend for HP/AP ammo to only be available through quests and crafting. Incentive to do both.

[bloodmoth13]

The system is fine but it does need some rebalancing.

I think treasure hunter and the lockpicking perk could easily be merged as they are both far too niche to really be playstyles. I think forge and workbench need to be basic recipes that are always known, the limiter should be resources not luck or just picking int. I think salvaging and grease monkey should be merged and put in the int tree, as crafting skills feel bad if that's all they offer and cost reduction for something that you will likely only ever craft once feels bad.

 

I think every branch needs one harvesting skill, int can have salvaging, strength mining, agi should have pelting, endurance has LotL and perception I guess has lucky looter. Less lucrative harvesting skills should get some other bonuses too like randomly harvesting a valuable item that you can sell at a trader (thinking of pelting specifically, you could harvest trophy heads that sell for good coin at the traders since bones and leather have a limited amount of uses)

[BFT2020]

27 minutes ago, Boidster said:

 

HP/AP is also in quest loot, but you're right about the buried treasure.

 

And if I am reading it right, only awarded for Tier 3 and Tier 4 quests.  Ammo as a quest reward is weird:

 

• Normal (ball) ammo is T1Prob which means offered on Quest loot levels 0 - 3 and no probability (prob = 0) at 4 or higher
• HP and AP ammo is T2Prob which means offered on Quest loot levels 3 - 4 and not before and not after
• T3 prob is offered quest loot level 5 and higher only, and this includes ammo like exploding arrows/bolts and rocket frags

So if you are hoping to obtain AP/HP ammo without having to craft it, you either have to run T3/T4 quests to see if you get it as a reward or buy it from the traders - AP only as they don't stock HP ammo.

 

We know that they are overhauling the loot system / traders and I bet a lot of this is because of changes made throughout the development stages so things were put in and taken out - over time it gets confusing which is why they are going through it now closer to launch.

 

[Weazelsun]

 Have to agree. There are some perks that I feel should possibly, be merged? Such as the Lock Picking perk into Treasure Hunter perk. As for "learn by doing", devs should take a look at how Undead Legacy does it, with its action skills.

[SenpaiThatIngnoresYou]

19 hours ago, bloodmoth13 said:

The system is fine but it does need some rebalancing.

I think treasure hunter and the lockpicking perk could easily be merged as they are both far too niche to really be playstyles. I think forge and workbench need to be basic recipes that are always known, the limiter should be resources not luck or just picking int. I think salvaging and grease monkey should be merged and put in the int tree, as crafting skills feel bad if that's all they offer and cost reduction for something that you will likely only ever craft once feels bad.

 

I think every branch needs one harvesting skill, int can have salvaging, strength mining, agi should have pelting, endurance has LotL and perception I guess has lucky looter. Less lucrative harvesting skills should get some other bonuses too like randomly harvesting a valuable item that you can sell at a trader (thinking of pelting specifically, you could harvest trophy heads that sell for good coin at the traders since bones and leather have a limited amount of uses)

 

Good call. Every branch needs a defense and harvesting skill. We have ranged and melee covered, but not the other stuff.  Over time i have grown from missing the old system to enjoying it's absence. one advantage is that it is easier to add new skill trees via mods. Muzen made a fist of the north star mod that causes zombie heads to explode from being punched. Works great in most overhauls, as long as they do not mess with the skill system. 

 

The main issue is progression. Do you feel like you are making meaningful progression? I think so far it does a good job with that. Osirus new dawn ruined their system by getting rid of stat points, and now that game is completely unplayable. 

 

On the flip side, maybe we should not completely spec into one particular branch but should mix things up? Maybe if you put too many points into on skill tree the price should go up a few levels, and the price for other trees should go down, maybe even have a 2 for 1 deal if you meet certain criteria? 

 

So far with recent alpha's the balance is good. Sure i don't farm as much as i used to, but if find myself attacking bears out of hunger desperation, and i find using guns i am not perked in still viable. The only mods i add for skills are meme tier where it adds crazy anime stuff because it's fun. The new building system and shapes make horde base construction easier and more creative. pillbox bunkers, which are my favorite, can  be built in 4 in game hours and last a horde night. Useful if you play like i do wihtout horde night warnings and with shifting horde nights.