Just going by the endless threads complaining about it.
You couldn't spam it as I explained. It would be natural growth.
Odder than leveling up by Mining all day and then spending a point to become a better Chef? So hitting rocks all day taught me how to cook Stew. Really? We are already way over the rainbow as far as "odd" goes.
Exactly! It is very very limiting.
Indeed. Your group got pigeon-holed into being like that because it's only way to divide things up and be efficient with points. This is the main complaint. The system limits choice. What if you farmer - whom I assume is also your Miner, right - only liked using Sniper Rifles?
And his group wanted to exercise a different choice from the obvious pigeon-holing split the game pushes on you so they got punished by wasted points.
If you are happy with the very limited choice and pigeon-holing the game forces on you. And it works abysmally if you are not and wish to try anything a little bit different. It's actually one of the worst systems I've ever seen in any game that used perks points / skill trees.
THANK YOU!!! You gave the best example i could imagine.
So if you asked your friend to help out a little bit he would quit playing? Sounds like someone you probably don't want to be playing with anyway. But I digress. You also have the option to not put any points in to cooking or farming. Being able to collect the cooking recipes makes Master Chef completely useless after a time. Everyone on my server can cook every dish but none of us have any points in Master Chef. With farming all you have to do it make a bigger farm. Instead of getting three per harvest you would only get one but all you have to do is put out more plots to make up for that reduction. Making those changes will open up all those points for doing things you want to do more.
Not just help out a little but care for the garden for the whole time while playing. It is not a job he wants to do. Simply as that.
I even prefer playing with such people, because on the other hand they do stuff i don't like to do. And that's what multiplayer makes interesting, you can work together in way you WANT to do it, no need to do things you don't like. That's also the reason, why i absolutely don't play singleplayer.
Yes, up to now everybody can cook most meals here too. But in the beginning we haven't found the books for a long time. That's another point i don't like in the skill and book system. Some perks can be done by books. But it's a pure gamble if you find them, and find them in time when you need them. But yes, as you say it, it might be the time to use this grandpas moonshine and reskill, because in the meantime i would not need master chef anymore. Moonshine requires master chef 5, lol. I think we found one item, but still no receipe. Does that just reset the skillpoints or do you also forgett every book you've read so far?
Leveling up should make things improve. Lotl is one of these to do farming more efficient. Why do you skill for shotgun? You shotgun also kills without any extra skills, maybe you need 5 times more bullets, but hey, it kills, why use any skills?
So you're not playing an intelligence build. The intelligence perks are outside your class so to speak. In most other RPGs you would be blocked from taking Better Barter in the first place. It would be greyed out. At least in this game if you choose to spend the extra points you can reach into any other tree and take what you want. It should be expensive to do so. It IS expensive to do so.
Well said good sir.
If the skill tree was organized in a way that an intelligence build was viable then it would make sense to play an intelligence build. But with only intelligence, you cannot farm, your loot is crap, lumbering and mining are horrifically slow and yield is terrible, your stamina, light armor, melee, rifle aiming speed, etc are all baseline and untenable. In order to be competent it becomes necessary to pull skills from other trees. Let's say hypothetically you want one skill from each tree for a basic survival prowess. Let's say you want to max each one. And let's say you have a weapon of choice, a "build" as you put it. Then that's 85 points of gate-keeping, and only 17 of those actually giving you perks. Now of course someone will say "you don't have to max a skill" but the point is individual tree builds do not work in a18. And 1/5 subskills ratings are basically the same as baseline. So as a lvl 85 player, 65 points are spent on gatekeeping. Now obviously that's not how it works in game, you level subskills as you level primary traits, but I am trying to point out the empty space occupied by gatekeeping skills. There needs to be collateral progress when investing 65 points in something that your build will not utilize.
I have zero points in farming but I still have a farm that provides all the crops my group ever needs. I don't have any points in looting and yet I still have all Q5 or 6 items plus a ton in storage just in case I want to try using them one day. I have no points in heavy armor and yet I still have a full set of Q6 fully modded out that provides enough defense that I fight the blood moons on the streets. Lumbering and mining are still viable and very easy even if you don't have any points in them. The resources are so plentiful currently that there really isn't much of a reason to put points in, I still do but it would be easy to do it without. Why do you assume that it is impossible to do something unless you have 5/5 points spent in a skill? You can easily play this game without spending a single point and be just fine.
I already said that I'm not saying you need 5/5, just that single tree builds are not viable and that base stats have severe limitations, but to address your very good question, the issue is scaling. The skill system has to be viable on easy as well as on hard. Your gear stats are capped at lvl 6, so the only thing that can further improve your survival rating on harder difficulties is your skill point allocation. If you are already playing on the hardest difficulty without skills and are still doing fine, then either you are an amazing player, the game is too easy, or the skill system is not even necessary (e.g., looting tons of lvl 6 gear with 0 points in looting). But assuming the game's difficulty is balanced, this isn't a question of how good of a player you are, it's a matter of whether the skill system provides fair, sensible, and tenable routes for progress. If a game doesn't need skills, then there's no point in including them. And if the game does aim to rely on skills for late game hordes and challenges, then everything that I said above holds its ground.
Are you saying that you would never consider playing the game by choosing Agility and seeing how well you do? Are you always and forever going to choose strength because those perks are predominately the way you like to play? If so, that is certainly your choice but the developers are supporting a variety of playstyles that everyone can try out by making a different choice the next time they decide to start over. If your plan is to just play this game once and then move on to new experiences or if your plan is to play maybe 5-10 complete games but always stick to the same exact attribute tree then I agree that the game is limiting and you won't be able to experience it all. But if you choose to play it through 5+ times and decide to mix up the attribute trees in different ways each time then the current system is great and allows for a different feel every time you play.
I had 1200 hours in the game before A11 and the beginning of the whole LBD saga. Game was great before it and it is great again without it. In A11-A14 there were aspects of it but then thanks to changes in A15 and A16 LBD became the whole point of the game and in my opinion overwhelmed it. A17 and A18 were a return to the roots of the game without the distraction of LBD.
This RPG has primary skill trees that provide benefits other than unlocking skills. You may not be interested in those benefits but they are there and can be utilized. There is not one step up in any of the attributes that's only purpose is to unlock the next tier of perks. They all have benefits beyond unlocking the perk levels. Why do you keep stating that their only function is to unlock a lock?
