PC Learn by doing/reading/leveling can be merged.

[Adam the Waster]

Padded armor is absolutely fantastic because it gives you some resist early game when you need it the most and because it gives you zero penalties to stamina or movement or noise. Leather armor in my opinion is awful because while it does Grant small amount of armor more than padded, it also lowers your stamina regen it makes more noise and it reduces your speed. I don't feel like it grants enough additional armor for that trade-off to be worth it. Typically if I'm going light armor I stick with padded and boost it with whatever banded armor plating I can find until I can get a good set of military gear. With heavy armor it's all worthwhile because you're making that trade off of armor for mobility and Noise right from the get-go and the upgrade amounts are significant enough that you always want to have the strongest available

Personally I really hope that the new armors and outfits and everything else being added in the next update will be a lot more interesting and give me reasons to want to do anything other than padded armor 80% of the time

I usually mix scrap with cloth so I had the best of both worlds at most a scrap helmet but I also just hate spam crafting.  It's not fun

But tho leather is my second favorite looking armor.  It sucks in terms of protection

 

[Ramethzer0]

*sigh*

My skin crawls whenever I read variations of things that resemble "I know my idea would make everyone happy," when in fact even the most minute of changes to common elements have literally caused the projectile vomiting of hundreds of saltposts and even youtube videos every time one of those changes occurs.

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

Getting good at something as fast as possible is the whole purpose of min/maxing. And what could be faster than clicking on a perk 5 times? The whole perk system, considering the existence of learning/fergettin elixir, basically is min/maxing. You can totally switch around your character in a matter of minutes. You can go full strenght to go mining and then switch back to full specc into another attribute for hordenight. So yeah, if you prefer that you prefer a system that basically is the essence of min/maxing. If you abuse those possibilities or not is a different story though.  @meganoth

The perk/magazine system is good for people who want to min/max and/or want the easy way of "learning" something. The LBD with perks and level restrictions is good for people who want a steady progression where decisions have consequences that can´t be undone easily and getting skilled does resemble a learning experience (The fact that crafting and such is still a point system is to avoid abuse like we had in earlier alphas, like sitting in the forge watching arrowheads beeing made, no system is perfect). LBD is definitive more immersive aswell.

 

[meganoth]

Getting good at something as fast as possible is the whole purpose of min/maxing. And what could be faster than clicking on a perk 5 times?

Go on, start a new game and klick on the pistol perk 5 times. See what it gets you

I am not here to tell you that the LBD system is bad. I am just telling you that I don't like it. And granted, there is an elixier in vanilla that is, especially at its new price, as OP as the trader and nearly as OP as creative menue. So what? The elixier is not an integral feature of the perk system. Just like getting more resistant by hopping on cacti is not an integral feature of LBD.

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

Go on, start a new game and klick on the pistol perk 5 times. See what it gets you

I am not here to tell you that the LBD system is bad. I am just telling you that I don't like it. And granted, there is an elixier in vanilla that is, especially at its new price, as OP as the trader and nearly as OP as creative menue. So what? The elixier is not an integral feature of the perk system. Just like getting more resistant by hopping on cacti is not an integral feature of LBD.

Well this game continues after starting a new game obviously. Weird that i have to point that out tbh...

Also, hopping on cacti? You really wanna compare that to fergetting/learning elixir? Do you have any idea how many cacti you needed to hop on to get a significant raise in your skill? Besides that armor shouldn´t be an action skill (and isn´t in DF). That was a thing in TFP´s LBD wich was a very faulty system. That´s like taking a chromebook as reference for gaming PC`s.

But this isn´t about personal taste here but about what is good for the game. A game focusing heavily on MP (technically it doesn´t even have SP, just an MP mode with one player) should not be based on a system that highly rewards min/maxing.

 

[meganoth]

Also, hopping on cacti? You really wanna compare that to fergetting/learning elixir? Do you have any idea how many cacti you needed to hop on to get a significant raise in your skill? Besides that armor shouldn´t be an action skill (and isn´t in DF). That was a thing in TFP´s LBD wich was a very faulty system. That´s like taking a chromebook as reference for gaming PC`s.

It was simply an example of something for which LBD can't be blamed in principle just like a cheap forgettin elixier can't be blamed on perks. Perks in principle are not just for min/maxers. And since I never used the elixier just like I never use cm for anything except bug fixing.

But this isn´t about personal taste here but about what is good for the game. A game focusing heavily on MP (technically it doesn´t even have SP, just an MP mode with one player) should not be based on a system that highly rewards min/maxing.

I play MP all the time and we have no problems except with the trader and none of my co-players have ever used fergettin to min-max, so no problem on that part. But all XP-getting activities are generally a source of imbalance (not exactly min/max), that was the case in A15/A16 as it is now in A21.

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

You are again only judging from your situation. Ofc no one abuses the system on a private server. But there is a lot of public servers and given the balance for it, a surprisingly high amount of PvP going on.

If TFP really wants to support PvP after launch, like they claimed several times, they shouldn´t rely on a system favoring min/maxing. That would become dull as everyone would do pretty much the same.

 

[meganoth]

You are again only judging from your situation. Ofc no one abuses the system on a private server. But there is a lot of public servers and given the balance for it, a surprisingly high amount of PvP going on.

If TFP really wants to support PvP after launch, like they claimed several times, they shouldn´t rely on a system favoring min/maxing. That would become dull as everyone would do pretty much the same.

I am not arguing about vanilla being min/maxable, I am contesting that "min/maxing" is an intrinsic quality of a perk system. And it isn't, but it has always been a part of vanilla as long as I have been playing it, no matter whether LBD or perk based.

A15/A16 could be minmaxed as well, and if they had stayed with LBD, surely their version still would have mechanics that could be min/maxed. It just doesn't seem to be their priority for vanilla.

Now if you are not talking about the perk system in principle but just what vanilla looks like then we are in agreement.

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

@meganoth And what vanilla looks like is exactly the topic here, this isn´t about what the perk system could be, but about what it is and what would be best for the game.  Even without elixir, the perk system still is the one that makes it easier to min/max if it hasn´t level restrictions. 

 

[meganoth]

@meganoth And what vanilla looks like is exactly the topic here, this isn´t about what the perk system could be, but about what it is and what would be best for the game.  Even without elixir, the perk system still is the one that makes it easier to min/max if it hasn´t level restrictions. 

 Vanilla is one of the topics. As I was initially replying to Khyron's idea his idea should be an approved topic as well, don't you think?  

"Best for the game" depends very much on the specific player, or for TFP the group of players TFP is targetting with the game. I for example have no problem with elixier and min/maxers and have no problem with other players using it, mostly because I don't play competitively with anyone.

Basic vanilla will never be heaven for PvP players on open servers, they probably need a special mode, or EAC-friendly workshop mods. I don't know what TFP wants to do for them exactly after release, but they show no sign of wanting to nail down the release version itself for PvP and restrict the possibilities for SP, co-op MP and new players. Especially level-gates were already tried out by TFP and they seem to have decided to not want level-gates (and lots of players as well).

Now the current perk system would be relatively free of min/max if it weren't for two things: Traders are too powerful which makes higher levels of the daringadventurer and BB perks too valuable. And the (non-perky) magazine system got changed in the last minor alphas to be exploitable. The trader fault TFP seems very reluctant to change, the OP perk-boost we know TFP will not change (at least for now), I got the confirmation through my bug report. But both are fixable in theory.

The same goes for any other scheme TFP might implement, perk-based or LBD-based. In theory it could be free of min/max exploits, but it probably won't be if TFP doesn't consider it as one of the most important design principles for their game.

If you are proposing to just copy DF into vanilla just because it is not min/maxable (if it is(?), I don't really know), that would be an idiotic idea for many reasons.

 

[YourMirror]

When level gates were introduced in vanilla, it was an even bigger @%$#storm than removing waterjars. So cool cool if DF masochists like it, it will not be accepted my the "normal" players.

Let mods be mods. Play them if you like. But stop the evangilism that its the "only good way (for the game bla bla)". Just go to the mod thread and give praise and halleluja but stop dragging vanilla into that.

 

[Zxaiercese]

I posted this in my Steam review of the game - the devs treat the updates as though this is an MMORPG. Their updates rarely add to the game, but instead remove and replace features. This makes it virtually impossible to pick and choose what you like and how you want to play the game, since it all vanishes after a few updates and the core foundation of the game changes every few months. 

I do agree that I wanted this game to be the apocalyptic, open world, RPG, zombie survival game with a huge crafting system, that was promised. Once they started introducing "other survivors" in the form of traders and even the starting note you have in your inventory to the game, I felt betrayed. Then the zombies started turning into Resident Evil creatures, and resembled zombies less and less at higher stages. Then they trimmed down the crafting portions so you no longer had to mine and craft most of the resources yourself as you could run quests for all the essentials. Then they watered down the RPG elements of crafting and character progression and skills by awarding you recipes as you leveled up. Then they severely limited the survival aspect by nerfing farming into oblivion. Now they force you to depend on traders for water so you no longer have to hunt down a strategic location (near water, or risk dehydration for a better location farther away) for a base. And now they go even farther to remove the bulk of the RPG elements by having first-person shooter style combat for looting magazines to make any progression.

This game is just not fun anymore. 

Yes, you can play a previous version of the game, but then you sacrifice the actual changes that are good. I LIKE the towns and the way the random gen maps are now created. I don't want the jankiness of Alpha 16 detracting from the gameplay. Remember roads  that went up in 80 degree slopes? Or POI's set inside an bottomless crater? Or towns laid out in perfect square blocks without rhyme or reason to them? Or getting bottlenecked by NEEDING a very specific item and/or recipe to craft a forge and then to make certain other items?

 

[binf_shinana]

Talking about level capping as if it's a good idea requires some thought.
It's also an idea that was highly disliked in past alphas.
If the upper limit of strength is determined by level, that means that what each level can do is forcibly determined.