Potential changes for Learn By Doing for Actions

jadMurray

Refugee
So I've been reading how everyone else has been responding to my previous posts on here, and kind of update my thoughts and add potential fixes. First off, I would like to apologize for being so negative about the changes. What they're adding for LBD for items, tools, cooking pieces, vehicle parts, and so on and so forth, is a good change. It's something I would love to encounter in game and do support.

I've been reading off and on for other people's thoughts on the subject. For me, the biggest objections seem to be minor skills that are hard to use a lot being harder to level up then more common skills like say, weapon skills, or mining skills. For me, a huge issue with the current system is the attributes. Weapons being assigned to attributes do not make sense for me personally. I understand that the way they made the attributes are meant to have perks that focus on helping the player with a certain build, but its too restrictive. A lot of good perks that are more niche or only invested in late game when it might be used a bit more early game are locked behind a less used attribute. Along with that, I'm sorry, but all of the melee weapons would fall into the Strength attribute if we're being brutally honest. Forcing people to have different builds for different melee weapons just isn't my idea of a good levelling system.

My compromise is, if they're not willing to go all the way with Learn By Doing, at least make Weapons LBD. A shotgun and fist build is probably a super fun build idea, but the issue right now is shotguns are in STR, fists are in FORT. Now people can get their hands on a shotgun, some fist wraps, and go level up for the build they're looking for. It opens up build diversity rather then forcing people into chunks of builds. Now obviously with a fisticuff build they'll need to still get fortitude for pain resistance, but now they can spend points between Pain Resistance and Agility. Skills like Pummel Pete, should be moved to the general perks tab, and based off of level skill with a type of weapon. Oh, and perks that make you attack faster like Lightning hands, should be merged with the main perk. You shouldn't have to spend 10 points on 2 different perks. Pummel Pete should make you swing harder AND faster. And naturally you should swing with less stamina and quicker as you level your skill with a type of weapon. Or aim faster and reload slightly faster with ranged weapons.

I also think major skills used by all players around should be LBD or at least general perks. Medical skill, vehicle repair, etc. But what I'm willing to start with is frankly just the ranged and melee weapon skills. Or at LEAST put them in the general tab.
 
I hope it goes back to a16.4 where harvesting tools and weapons were not locked to a stat and you'd level up the skill by using it, and that would determine what level of relevant perks like miner 69'er and motherload you can learn. Can keep crafting quality still by magazine, I just would like weapons and harvesting/salvage tools decoupled from stats. You can even add the headshot bonus in with the action skill.
 
So I've been reading how everyone else has been responding to my previous posts on here, and kind of update my thoughts and add potential fixes. First off, I would like to apologize for being so negative about the changes. What they're adding for LBD for items, tools, cooking pieces, vehicle parts, and so on and so forth, is a good change. It's something I would love to encounter in game and do support.

I've been reading off and on for other people's thoughts on the subject. For me, the biggest objections seem to be minor skills that are hard to use a lot being harder to level up then more common skills like say, weapon skills, or mining skills. For me, a huge issue with the current system is the attributes. Weapons being assigned to attributes do not make sense for me personally. I understand that the way they made the attributes are meant to have perks that focus on helping the player with a certain build, but its too restrictive.

In my opinion(!) there are multiple reasons for this attribute system, though I don't know which importance TFP places on them or if they have others:

1) Attributes offer replayability as players get an incentive to play one time as a strength player, then try out perception, ... always with a new set of strengths and weaknesses.

2) It is much easier to balance perks for the game designer if he tries to balance whole attributes as perk sets with stronger and weaker perks instead of individual perks.

3) It is a natural way to differentiate players in multiplayer. Each player simply specializes in a different attribute. Often that also gives him a task to contribute to the group, i.e. the FOR player will usually take over farming.

4) It makes minor skills more enticing if they are in the attribute you are putting points in. Example: While run-and-gun from AGI would be a natural choice for all players, raising AGI as well as your attribute of choice. say STR, just for run-and-gun makes it relatively expensive, packmule from STR may be less useful, but since you are already at 7 in STR it is also cheap to level up.

A lot of good perks that are more niche or only invested in late game when it might be used a bit more early game are locked behind a less used attribute. Along with that, I'm sorry, but all of the melee weapons would fall into the Strength attribute if we're being brutally honest.

If we are brutally honest, 7d2d is not at all realistic and we can almost argue for any change by bringing up realism. Lets stick with fun to play arguments.

In one alpha we actually had a system where all melee weapons were in strength, all guns were in perception, all crafting was in INT, ... Have you been around at alpha 17? It was the first version with a fully perked system and it was a complete failure. The players didn't like it, TFP didn't like it. They practically changed it to the current system at the first opportunity, alpha 18.

Were you around and have played A17? Did you forget, or is my memory faulty? If you were not around, please try out A17 and tell us if you like it. The problem with that was that you had to invest into all attributes. You need a gun, you need melee, so you needed to invest in STR AND PER, no matter what you wanted to play. A similar argument applied to almost all attributes, making them into trivial perk point sinks instead of choices. Since all guns and melee weapons were equally expensive to raise everyone would always use the best (or favourite) gun with the best melee weapon. That hurt replayability for example, but many players probably found that out only after they had already lost the fun playing the game.

Forcing people to have different builds for different melee weapons just isn't my idea of a good levelling system.

Essentially nobody is forcing you. There is pressure or suggestion to stay with your attribute, but this is an "open class" system. If some veteran player wants exactly this gun and that melee weapon and they are in different attributes, he should be perfectly able to do so. He will have a slightly more difficult run but with practically the same perk points he can level up one gun and melee weapon combo to 5 in one attribute he can level up an arbitrary gun and melee weapon combo in two attributes to 4. With the advantage of having twice as much "secondary" perks to choose from.

Why that is so impossible for players who often want more difficulty from the game? I don't know really. Sure, everyone has an inner voice telling him to go the most efficient route, but we also eventually have our preferences in what we want to use, just follow your preferences.

You said somewhere else that you would like slower progression. If you have to invest into two attributes you also get slower progression.

LBD per se does not guarantee slower progression as well. TFP has to make a game that doesn't feel too grindy to most players. If they changed everything to LBD they would probably make it the same balance as currently regarding the leveling speed. You would level up just as fast. Essentially you should use the XPMultiplier setting for slowing down your progression

My compromise is, if they're not willing to go all the way with Learn By Doing, at least make Weapons LBD. A shotgun and fist build is probably a super fun build idea, but the issue right now is shotguns are in STR, fists are in FORT. Now people can get their hands on a shotgun, some fist wraps, and go level up for the build they're looking for. It opens up build diversity rather then forcing people into chunks of builds. Now obviously with a fisticuff build they'll need to still get fortitude for pain resistance, but now they can spend points between Pain Resistance and Agility. Skills like Pummel Pete, should be moved to the general perks tab, and based off of level skill with a type of weapon. Oh, and perks that make you attack faster like Lightning hands, should be merged with the main perk. You shouldn't have to spend 10 points on 2 different perks. Pummel Pete should make you swing harder AND faster. And naturally you should swing with less stamina and quicker as you level your skill with a type of weapon. Or aim faster and reload slightly faster with ranged weapons.

I also think major skills used by all players around should be LBD or at least general perks. Medical skill, vehicle repair, etc. But what I'm willing to start with is frankly just the ranged and melee weapon skills. Or at LEAST put them in the general tab.
 
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So, if I'm getting this straight in my head,

Option 1 is Perk availability depends on Attribute Prerequisites: such as STR 3. (current)

Option 2 is Perk availability depends on some measurement of some Activity: Kill 100 Zombies with a club. (LBD)

In both cases, you still earn XP. In Option 2 you could still spend XP to improve STR for the benefits listed there.

Then switch between them in game options?

Am I close?
 
1: No the attibute system does not tempt people to try new builds, as not all weapons are equal, for example rifles and pistols are basically useless at high game stages, other than the SMG. The junk turrets are useless period due to low damage. Shotguns are good but they suck till you get the pump shotty. People will look up the most efficent build and most will just use that, which currently is a high int build just for the mastery, and some of the other powerful perks under it. Str is prob 2nd, as it has quite a few useful perks under it. The game scales so slow in vanilla you can easly go for 8 int first if you wanted to, then get your prefered weapon stat, I do the opposite, I get str to 5 first, get some perks, then I take intel to 8, intel mastery to 3, physican to 3, I don't even really look at the other stats as they don't have much of value. Stealth is pointless as every t3+ poi has triggered spawns that auto lock on to you, not to mention the artifical way sleepers are placed so you can never get a clear shot at them. So that rules agi out. Perception has alot of perks that are generally not even remotely needed in the game, for me its a dump stat if I literally have nothing else to spend points on. Machine guns are useful, but other than that and maybe pain tolerance the rest of fort is kinda useless.
 
1: No the attibute system does not tempt people to try new builds, as not all weapons are equal, for example rifles and pistols are basically useless at high game stages, other than the SMG. The junk turrets are useless period due to low damage. Shotguns are good but they suck till you get the pump shotty. People will look up the most efficent build and most will just use that, which currently is a high int build just for the mastery, and some of the other powerful perks under it. Str is prob 2nd, as it has quite a few useful perks under it. The game scales so slow in vanilla you can easly go for 8 int first if you wanted to, then get your prefered weapon stat, I do the opposite, I get str to 5 first, get some perks, then I take intel to 8, intel mastery to 3, physican to 3, I don't even really look at the other stats as they don't have much of value. Stealth is pointless as every t3+ poi has triggered spawns that auto lock on to you, not to mention the artifical way sleepers are placed so you can never get a clear shot at them. So that rules agi out. Perception has alot of perks that are generally not even remotely needed in the game, for me its a dump stat if I literally have nothing else to spend points on. Machine guns are useful, but other than that and maybe pain tolerance the rest of fort is kinda useless.

Players are tempted, not forced. Some players do, some don't. Especially veterans eventually pick some favourites and ignore some possible builds, but that should be okay. I mostly play AGI, but sometimes I play some other attribute to mix it up
 
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