Do you max out?

[RyanX]

Compress the skill tree and add some LBD back in.

[Jinx_DG]

On 3/12/2022 at 4:43 AM, Crater Creator said:

 I've also read repeatedly that many players enjoy starting over,

I've started over early game so many times.... sometimes more then once a night. <sigh>   Speaking of... time to start a new one

[Crater Creator]

On 3/12/2022 at 6:32 AM, theFlu said:

I think I disagree; if people are quitting the moment the chosen skill tree is full, making it shallower will just make people quit sooner, no? I don't see how it would solve much.

 

To the extent this is an issue, I see it as one of utilization.  I don't expect that all players will max out every skill, of course.  If they did, it would mean there aren't interesting choices between different character builds anymore.  But if people aren't even maxing out the skills under one attribute - or if, like me, they wonder if they'll even get to level 5 on more than a couple skills (across the board) before they're done with that playthrough - then I think about how much of the skill tree isn't even being seen.  If a lot of players don't see much of the cooler endgame stuff, because they lose interest before they get that far, that's a shame.  That'd be poor utilization of what the devs have taken the time to create.

 

On 3/12/2022 at 6:32 AM, theFlu said:

The primary problem there is that Fortitude gives you headshot damage. At all...

 

Perhaps.  But I'm not criticizing the stats the player has when reaching the end of the skill tree per se.  I'll reserve judgment on that (since I don't get that far, heh).  Rather, working inside the box of how powerful a maxed out player already is, I question whether there are too many steps to get there.

 

The headshot damage and dismemberment chance you get from raising a base attribute are nice, but they don't seem like game changers.  Maybe those could be condensed into three levels per attribute, and then awarded as a 'set bonus' for completing one of the sub-categories for that attribute.  For instance, if you max out all of the Recovery skills under Fortitude (Healing Factor, Iron Gut, and Rule 1: Cardio), you unlock 30% more headshot damage and 15% more dismemberment chance on fist and machine gun weapons.  The current system encourages you to pick a specialty and stick with it, too, but this would be more like a carrot than a stick.

[theFlu]

2 hours ago, Crater Creator said:

If a lot of players don't see much of the cooler endgame stuff, because they lose interest before they get that far, that's a shame.  That'd be poor utilization of what the devs have taken the time to create.

 

(I spent way too much time on this, wrote about 3 lengthy responses and got nowhere... )

 

I do agree with the base idea here; having plenty of 5 point skills that no-one really takes is a bit off-putting. But, but .. I wouldn't want to make them desirable by adding more "non-sequitur" bonuses to them.

 

It's kind of a design problem through and through. Getting a full tree can not be necessary, since part of the design philosophy is that every spec needs to work; no skill can be mandatory. They've gone to silly lengths to ensure that every tree has a way to heal and a way to eat and a way to earn resources. Then there's Agility that has none of those. If the agi tree works in the game, then every other skill is basically a quality of life thing at best. (One might avoid that by making agi work in a unique way; something like living as a pacifist via stealth + fetch missions, but the world doesn't really support that)

 

I'm still under the impression that the current skill system is set in stone for gold, so I'm pretty disheartened for imagining anything better; especially when I deem the biggest issue being the silly Attribute-to-weapons -binding, which I don't see getting changed any more than LBD making a come-back.

 

With the decisions there, that kinda means you're stuck with the weapon skills being a "power priority" and the rest being various degrees of QoL, some of which will be more popular than others.

[Vintorez]

I usually just play until I die, unless it was from some kind of glitch or another.