PC My thoughts on the perk system

[Pichii]

Remove any and all level requirements for skills and add higher cost to higher skills instead of hard barring people from getting the perks they want.

In logical terms: Your past history before infection was a scientist. You have a natural excellence in science and therefor, you excell in it! You pretty much suck at everything else but, you can cure that infection!

We should be able to role-play this game if we wish and imposing level restrictions on ONLY the crafting section is mean.

If you are good enough to survive 16 levels without any skills in offence to get steel by 16, THAT SHOULD BE AN OPTION!

This game is now based on 300 basic levels and you cant even make steel till lvl 70-80 and thats insane! All the best and the fun stuff in the game is based on steel for the most part so WHY deprive yourself of the most fun stuff in the game?!

Let people have fun the way they want to. Dont impose your rules on how people play this game. It takes away from the overall enjoyableness for everyone.

From a Multi-player perspective, its even more unfair. If you dont have steel and they do well... Good luck getting in to raid. xD

Like cmon, let people do what they want, how they want and just make it so more perks are needed to get the final skills for the badass stuff!

Id like to see something like; lvls 1-3=1 skill pt. 4=2 5=3

The vehicles should be; lvl 1=1pt, 2=2, 3=3, 4=4, 5=5

Crafting like iron, steel;lvl 1-2=1pt, 3=2 4=3 5=4

Benches/cement; same as above ^

PS: Please remove the part of NDE that makes it so you somehow forget how to craft items. Thats insane and asinine. xD

 

[wildaxeman1]

some little gates may be nessesary. i have not get past 7 days in last build yet. but as i read the perk trees and rescepies, nothing should be gated beyond lvl 50. if you wish to spend all points in one attribute and perks on this tree, why not. you will be weak in other aspects. if you want hard hitting melee character, with above average mining abilities, go for strenght and bit on agility. want to be shooter? perception, there you go, just do not engage close fights. etc etc

 

[Gazz]

Remove any and all level requirements for skills and add higher cost to higher skills

No, because that would run counter to the specialisation aspect.

You pay the higher price for a high attribute level but once you are Very Strong you get access to multiple "cheap" perks.

 

[Katitof]

No, because that would run counter to the specialisation aspect.
You pay the higher price for a high attribute level but once you are Very Strong you get access to multiple "cheap" perks.

This, I'm playing with 2 friends in coop and we're specializing, however to not cripple ourselves in early game, we have 2 people going for different int perks, so we can also specc in other arease, level limits on perks actually keep us from crippling ourselves through specialization.

 

[lazyknob]

Why do you need a level gate to 'force' you to diversify? Why not just make that choice?

Logical disconnect there.

 

[Katitof]

Why do you need a level gate to 'force' you to diversify? Why not just make that choice?
Logical disconnect there.

Because without them there would be no choice, no diversity, it would just be rush for end game materials and you know it well, that's exactly why you are against it.

I like to use all features game offers instead of skipping them.

With how we can now craft all equipment we can, there would be no point at all to traders and looting, just gathering and crafting powerleveled int perks.

Slower pace and level limitations actually forces to think what you'll do and pick next instead of blindly rushing for "end game".

 

[PoppaTot]

Because without them there would be no choice, no diversity, it would just be rush for end game materials and you know it well, that's exactly why you are against it.
I like to use all features game offers instead of skipping them.

With how we can now craft all equipment we can, there would be no point at all to traders and looting, just gathering and crafting powerleveled int perks.

Slower pace and level limitations actually forces to think what you'll do and pick next instead of blindly rushing for "end game".

TLDR The answer to the question is not in the post. It can either be deduced to because I have no self control, or because I don't want people to play the game they want.

Take your pick lol

 

[Pichii]

No, because that would run counter to the specialisation aspect.
You pay the higher price for a high attribute level but once you are Very Strong you get access to multiple "cheap" perks.

As it should be, jack of all trades and master of none or master of one. -lets be real, I didnt put exact numbers in x3 lol. Lower points should give less and cost less.

Also, in your hate to play with your friends, youve forgotten the solo player entirely. What if you are playing solo and CANT specialize like that? ...

- - - Updated - - -

Because without them there would be no choice, no diversity, it would just be rush for end game materials and you know it well, that's exactly why you are against it.
I like to use all features game offers instead of skipping them.

With how we can now craft all equipment we can, there would be no point at all to traders and looting, just gathering and crafting powerleveled int perks.

Slower pace and level limitations actually forces to think what you'll do and pick next instead of blindly rushing for "end game".

And id like to have fun not play for legit 4 weeks in game JUST to build my first decent mod.

SOME people dont have legit 100hrs to sink into this game per month...

And again, you also forget the single player and leave them completely in the dust with this 'specialization'.

Everyone should be able to play this game, solo or MP and this current skill system takes away from solo play.

This being said, im in no way advocating for the old skill system where you could just... steel as soon as you got a forge but I dont like the idea of having to wait till lvl 60,70,80+ to build a jeep, make a steel pickaxe or make 70% of the mods... I think making them cost more resources would be the better way to go about it.

 

[Dunkurtin]

Because without them there would be no choice, no diversity, it would just be rush for end game materials and you know it well, that's exactly why you are against it.
I like to use all features game offers instead of skipping them.

With how we can now craft all equipment we can, there would be no point at all to traders and looting, just gathering and crafting powerleveled int perks.

Slower pace and level limitations actually forces to think what you'll do and pick next instead of blindly rushing for "end game".

No it doesn't. There is absolutely nothing to think about now. All you need to do any given day is ask yourself 2 questions. Is it horde day? Is it after 2pm? If the answer to either is no you should be killing zombies. If yes, spending half a day preparing for horde(if you even want to pretend you still need to build).

There is absolutely no strategy or meaning left in game choices.

 

[Guest]

Part of the problem, I think, is that unlocking high-end materials unlocks high-end recipes at the same time. Being able to make steel is the same as being able to make steel tools, weapons and amor at high quality levels.

Maybe if the crafting was spread out differently, you could allow players to rush to certain skills without having them unlocking half the end game in the process.

All in all, I think the perk system is rather poorly thought out in its current form. Some of them are essential for any quality of life, while some are practically pointless, especially beyond early game. Take something like "rule no.1": it only offers marginal benefits (10% more stamina regen, but only while sprinting) for the first two ranks, and as soon as you get access to higher ranks, you're unlikely to need those benefits anymore (hello bicycle and other vehicles). Compare that to the world of change that investing the same skillpoint in hammer & forge means...

Or "master chef": the first point is nearly essential if you don't want to spend the rest of the game looking for eggs or canned food (and rolling the dysentery dice to boot), but after that it's purely flavor, because anything beyond bacon & eggs or even boiled meat doesn't really offer that much benefits. Why would I invest precious skill points there if I can up my headshot multiplier to insta-kill most zeds (i.e. XP piٌatas) instead? By the time I can unlock the stat-boosting recipes, I'm powerful enough to have no use for them.

I know Madmole is a fan of how this worked in Skyrim, but I think he should take another look at that game's perk/buff system. Most of those perks were useful (if specific to certain builds) and impactful when you unlocked them, and besides that there were other progression systems in the game that fleshed out your character (dragon shouts, magical equipment, three main stats that develop independent from perks, standing stones, etc.) This lead to a variety of builds being viable and fun, without players feeling like they have to go for X or suffer for the rest of the game. In 7dtd, you have to be quite a masochist to forego most of the INT tree, no matter what build.

Anyhow, here's to hoping TFP seriously reconsiders what they have now and does some more theory-crafting before working out a better skill tree, instead of just shuffling around perk costs and tweaking effect percentages a little.

 

[WolfyBlah]

Just swinging by to say the same thing over again:

Make the game fun at level 1 and then add perks ontop of it.

QOL perks that people *need* for the game to be enjoyable:

-Motherload- either have it and gather resources or dont take and spend 2x the time for the same resources... ♥♥♥♥ that grind.

-Pack mule- tiny inventory is not fun, everyone takes this because being able to hold more items is a massive difference in quality of life.

-Miner69er - just try mining without this perk, or breaking blocks in general.

-crafting quality/recipes- pretty obvious why this one is mandatory.

-stamina - nobody enjoys having ♥♥♥♥ stamina.

Id say these perks that make the game unfun if you dont take them should be removed and replaced with somthing that adds more fun if you do take them instead. Crafting somthing is supposed to be gated by the cost of resources for somthing and not whacking zombies till 'Ding! You learned to fry an egg/make a helicopter'.

 

[BobTheBard]

A specific gripe with the perk system is the fact that steel is gated at a much higher level than virtually everything made from it. This means I have no way to repair wrenches for a very, very long time and also means that I have little incentive to invest in Advanced Engineering before level 70 beyond the crossbow (a sidegrade to the wooden bow) and the cement mixer (admittedly useful if you can't find one). It feels rather backwards, especially since iron is gated in the opposite way, allowing you to get the resource before most of its recipes. Is there a reason for this?

 

[-Holo-]

I think it would go a long way to take out all crafting recipies from progression.xml and move them into the world as random and _rare_ books to learn the skill from, instead of killing 300 zombies and then magically know how to craft a forge. This would free up some points for the perks thats seems to be fun, but can't be taken yet since there is so many must have perks to put points in first.

I modified a16 to require players to find the skillbooks in the world, and it was fricking amazingly fun, It took us about 4 ingame weeks before one of us found a book for the forge.

 

[Guest]

This means I have no way to repair wrenches for a very, very long time

You can wrench steel from several things in the world, although how much is subject to RNG: there's the electricity pole tops you find in junkyards and atop err.. electricity poles in the wasteland and the small army base POI. Pretty reliable source, even if it'll only give you enough to repair a few tools and maybe make a mod or two. As I understand it, wrenching the big gun safes should give you steel as well, although the one I tried just gave me scrap iron and mech parts.

Then there's the chance of finding steel as loot, and the fact that you can buy it from the trader more often than not.

I'm not saying the current gating is fine (I'd prefer no level gates but soft gates with skill points and/or materials), but in my opinion not being able to craft steel isn't a problem until you want to start producing advanced vehicles, your own firearms and large amounts of mods.

 

[Pichii]

You can wrench steel from several things in the world, although how much is subject to RNG: there's the electricity pole tops you find in junkyards and atop err.. electricity poles in the wasteland and the small army base POI. Pretty reliable source, even if it'll only give you enough to repair a few tools and maybe make a mod or two. As I understand it, wrenching the big gun safes should give you steel as well, although the one I tried just gave me scrap iron and mech parts.
Then there's the chance of finding steel as loot, and the fact that you can buy it from the trader more often than not.

I'm not saying the current gating is fine (I'd prefer no level gates but soft gates with skill points and/or materials), but in my opinion not being able to craft steel isn't a problem until you want to start producing advanced vehicles, your own firearms and large amounts of mods.

replace large amounts of mods with any decent mod and i can agree.

Even scopes cost steel. :/

Like, silencer? Sure, steel makes sense...

We made sight scopes out of bronze and glass tho... (425 BC) -WELL before the age of steel by any measure.

Now things like... say 6x scopes+ should cost steel as they were not invented till after the discovery of steel.

Recipies, item costs and multiple skill points should be the way to go and not hard capping by lvl it just feels gross and takes away from fun.

I get wanting some sort of... grind between iron and steel but alot of things that require steel dont make sense or 'costs' too much for what the mod gives in terms of inteligence, science and perk points.

As im sure not everyone here is a history nerd like me... Increase item costs to create, remove skill hard-caps, soft cap skills so people can 'specialize' early into what they wish.