17 hours ago, meganoth said:
I have seen the same mechanic (specific classes are good for beginners, some classes are more difficult) in many games, some limit you to the beginner class for the first game, some just mention it in the class description. This is quite normal, just that it is communicated better elsewhere, something we can surely blame TFP for.
I have played all classes and I have never had a special problem with INT, i.e. that I was dying more when using INT. I would say the difference between INT and other classes for an experienced player is almost negligible, though I am not in a position to really measure that with certainty as I haven't played INT in single player in the last 2 alphas, only in co-op. A bit of knowledge how to play that class may be necessary, but that is as it should be for a replayable game that you should not know everything after playing for a few hours.
Me I am very very glad this class exists, just like AGI with stealth. These are the two classes where at least combat and maybe strategy as well is or can be very different than the other classes, whereas STR, FOR and PER to a lesser degree feel very samey when you have played them multiple times.
Note: We are at day 4 of our current co-op game, everyone still has a quality1 pipe rifle and a q1 or 2 melee weapon. And the melee weapon is by far the most important weapon in our arsenal, the damage output of pipe rifles alone is not enough to help you in oh-@%$# situations anyway. Nobody of us has more than 1 point in any ranged weapon, if at all, and with the quality of the pipe weapons it would be a waste of points (the only reason for the one point is magazine find chance really). [EDIT] Two of us already died because they were relying on their pipe rifles to save them by the way.
So I would guess it takes at least another week before the INT player might feel any handicap in his ranged arsenal because his pipe rifle is lacking in damage. But I would guess by that time he already might have a pusher turret, and for survivability I would say a well placed pusher turret is at least as good as the 10 or 15% better ranged damage someone else would have with his gun. Especially the poor PER player with his single-shot rifle 😉
in Alpha 21 I was always rushing daring adventurer and reached mid game by day 7 to 10 doing trader stuff exclusively. I always skipped or glossed over the stun baton because int weapon perks were power crept compared to everything else available to me at the time(pump shotguns, Ak's, tier 3 snipers)
now in version 1.0 because the progression is much slower, going into other trees for weapons feels like a weak investment because you still just have pipe weapon tiers of everything. I just put enough in str/perception skill/weapon perks to get more magazines for shotgun/sniper progression and I pour all my skill points into the baton perk/physician skill since I already have 10 int to get lvl 4 daring adventurer.
I got lucky and found an early stun baton and this weapon with perks, easily fills that power gap between tier 0 and t1 weapons and gave me alot of needed punch because I found I was struggling with ferals in t2 infested pois with pipe weapons.
Imo the stun baton is actually a really strong melee weapon and totally viable/usable untill midgame or later.
in previous alpha I would never go so all in on int before because of how easily accessible and useable power from other trees was. now its the very pathway for me to do better in the early-midgame.
Int is more then strong enough to hold its own even without a dedicated ranged weapon perk unless you are playing on some crazy difficulty settings.