PC This game has really lost a lot of the fun.

[WhamyKaBlamy]

So, I didn't want to kick off a massive discussion, but I appear to have. That post was just giving my feedback. Seeing as there have been some fairly large assumptions about what I meant to say or what I do as gameplay, I thought I'd clarify a few things.

So, the crux of my post was meant to be this - I see every realism/arcade trade off as coming with some pros and cons, but the game has gone more towards the cons (and hence less fun, for the sake of taking longer).

Taking the example of early game weapons (and responding to some of what Gerry decided to assume with the first big response), the effects of going realistic would be:

- Little to no initial skill with weapons (making the game harder).

- Learning how to use the weapons through use (making it easier as we go along).

- Lots of easy to use makeshift or jury rigged tools (making it easier and, frankly, more fun).

If it were being represented arcade style then it would be:

- No real representation of the multitude of tools there would be in every house (making it harder).

- A baseline level of skill that didn't require us to have good tools to be good (making it easier).

- Increasing our skill in an unrealistic way, ie - not naturally as we use them (making us pick and choose how we used those weapons).

In the past we got a nice mix of:

- Learning to use the tools through use

- No real representation of the multitude of tools

- A baseline level of skill

Now we seem to get:

- Little to no initial skill

- Increasing our skill in an unrealistic way

- No real representation of the multitude of tools

The amount of time it takes me to kill zombies with the basic tools, and the frustration therein, has at least doubled. And yes, I am using all of the different things available, my comment about spears was to illustrate how little of a difference putting the skill points into it made. I generally have a spear, a bow and a sledge hammer on me, and it STILL takes 7-10 blows with the sledge hammer or spear to kill a zombie.

And before you accuse me of not knowing how to use the weapons - how hard is it to understand aiming for the head, throwing the spear at their head and a right click gives a bigger, but more stamina draining swing? Please don't insult my intelligence.

As for the comments about my night time activities, I would really like to know what sort of weak-ass zombies you guys have in your game. Seriously, do you lower them? Because I started a new game today to go check that I wasn't missing out on some fundamental things (after reading the responses), and the first night I had a single zombie make it to the door through 3 rows of spikes. There was literally 1 half a of a spike left.

Whether or not you think night time is more or less dangerous, the point that I was trying to make was that I had more options at night in the past, whereas now I don't. The more that I'm forced to do the same, monotonous things over and over, the more boring and frustrating the game gets.

Why would having a single candle, behind 3 doors and down a mineshaft, cause as much heat as having that candle behind one makeshift door in a badly created little shack? They seem to have the same effect. As does whether you're minining/making sound a long way from the surface or right behind a door.

This wouldn't be so much of a frustration to me if I still had the option of doing "research" at night, ie.. sitting there and crafting/deconstructing things to make myself better at it. Which, ironically, would the actual way you'd learn to make things better in real life.

And one last, final, pedantic reply; I don't think Gerry knows how little force it actually takes to pierce a human skull. A knife can easily pierce a skull, even if not specificially a puncturing dagger. A sharpened metal point embedded on the end of a wooden shaft would have enough force. It would require skill, but that wasn't the point I was making with that comment, and I think the pedantic reply to the concept of makeshift weapons wasn't really thought through anyway.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Why would having a single candle, behind 3 doors and down a mineshaft, cause as much heat as having that candle behind one makeshift door in a badly created little shack? They seem to have the same effect. As does whether you're minining/making sound a long way from the surface or right behind a door.

The only zombie that cares about heat is the screamer. That one zombie at night comes because you are making noise.

 

[BobTheBard]

The biggest difference that I've encountered is that base building is no longer "optimal" for some people. It's still perfectly viable, and IMO a lot of fun. I love coming up with new designs that I think people might actually try in a 'real' zombie apocalypse. The most fun I have is when a base design fails and I gotta rethink it. I've done base designs in both A17 and A18 that take fairly minimal damage.
This is just me being curious - why do you no longer see it as worthwhile?

In a word, Demolishers. Their large explosions that can take down prodigious amounts of walls and defenses mean that if you get any more than one or two you're not going to have much of a base left, and I just can't be bothered to spend my seven days between blood moons building a new base every single time once Demolishers begin to show up. Anything I do build to survive waves of Demolishers is either going to have to be enormous with many-layered defenses that I'll need to fix every single time or incorporate some kind of AI pathfinding cheese so they just never get to me before I have time to find them and kill them.

While I agree that not everyone can/wants to learn to mod, modding is a huge part of this game for the very reasons we're all seeing in this discussion. We've all got different wants - some small, and some big - when it comes to the game. Not all of those wants are going to be met. Some that aren't met we'll be tolerable of and not mind (see: me with the old weapon parts system. I found it aggravating, but wouldn't complain if it came back), but at the end of the day, the devs can only design their vision and give us options (both in game and with modding) to tweak it to our individual Nirvana.

While this is true to some extent, 'Just mod it' is an argument I don't like seeing because once it becomes common it will all too often be used an excuse to ignore feedback and criticism by both developers and veteran players. Mods should, in my opinion, be smaller tweaks and modifications to a strong base game rather than being relied on to overhaul entire systems of the game that don't work the way they should, and if a large portion of the community is using and encouraging others to use mods to 'fix' perceived problems then it becomes difficult for the developers to get legitimate feedback.

Also, please pardon me for jumping in mid discussion. Some of the points you've brought up interest me.

No offense taken! Reasonable discussion is always welcome.

 

[ktr]

In a word, Demolishers. Their large explosions that can take down prodigious amounts of walls and defenses mean that if you get any more than one or two you're not going to have much of a base left, and I just can't be bothered to spend my seven days between blood moons building a new base every single time once Demolishers begin to show up. Anything I do build to survive waves of Demolishers is either going to have to be enormous with many-layered defenses that I'll need to fix every single time or incorporate some kind of AI pathfinding cheese so they just never get to me before I have time to find them and kill them.

The Demolishers, I do suspect, will be tweaked over time and there are definitely some general zombie pathing items that I'd like to see adjusted. Some of which have existed since I started played (A14 or A15, I think) some that are new. I'd really like to see zombies not give as much weight to traps in their pathing is the biggest example off the top of my head and I'm really glad we have the option to adjust zombie block damage.

While this is true to some extent, 'Just mod it' is an argument I don't like seeing because once it becomes common it will all too often be used an excuse to ignore feedback and criticism by both developers and veteran players. Mods should, in my opinion, be smaller tweaks and modifications to a strong base game rather than being relied on to overhaul entire systems of the game that don't work the way they should, and if a large portion of the community is using and encouraging others to use mods to 'fix' perceived problems then it becomes difficult for the developers to get legitimate feedback.

No offense taken! Reasonable discussion is always welcome.

I don't necessarily disagree, though I will say that sometimes 'mod it' is the only answer. There are people who really LBD back in the game or want, to reference another discussion, food spoilage. Both of these are probably major adjustments to the game as it stands now. The chances of LBD coming back are possibly so low as to be non existent. Food spoilage might have a better chance, but at best it's a long term possible implementation. So, the only answer *is* mod it, or find a mod that does those things.

The only thing I'd point out is the 'large portion of the community'. I know this is another topic that has been debated endlessly, so I'll keep it brief. Fact is, none of us know what the 'large portion of the community' want, or even that the 'large portion of the community' is correct in asking for certain changes.

 

[n2n1]

I, too, not despite to read all your texts, but want confirm - that A17-A18 have become not interesting for gameplay.

That's my opinion.

That's all.

I can't change it because it's me. Especially since your opinions can't change it either, because it's yours.

Release will judge.

 

[Liesel Weppen]

While this is true to some extent, 'Just mod it' is an argument I don't like seeing because once it becomes common it will all too often be used an excuse to ignore feedback and criticism by both developers and veteran players. Mods should, in my opinion, be smaller tweaks and modifications to a strong base game rather than being relied on to overhaul entire systems of the game that don't work the way they should, and if a large portion of the community is using and encouraging others to use mods to 'fix' perceived problems then it becomes difficult for the developers to get legitimate feedback.

I see that the other way round. All mods i/we played were almost "total conversions" and we have chosen them, because of that.

Feedback to the current alpha should be only for minor changes and adjustment. The developers decided to LBD be gone after A16 (?), because they got feedback that it was bad. Now the discussion starts again some people want to have LBD back. Do you notice running in circles? The devs have to break that circle and TFP is doing that. Some people will be always pissed because of some decissions.

I don't even understand some people are modding the game because they want to change it, but if a new alpha is released, they complain about the game has changed. Just see a next alpha as the next "big" mod. If you don't like it, keep using the previous version. At least 7d2d allows doing that by the beta branches.

It is impossible to solve all requests. One wants this, the next one want something else, third one... in the end you should have a configuration UI which might be even harder to understand then modifying XML files directly. And then again other people would complain about complexity and to remove all that stuff and make the game work a definite way. Welcome to the next circle.

 

[Ghostlight]

The amount of time it takes me to kill zombies with the basic tools, and the frustration therein, has at least doubled. And yes, I am using all of the different things available, my comment about spears was to illustrate how little of a difference putting the skill points into it made. I generally have a spear, a bow and a sledge hammer on me, and it STILL takes 7-10 blows with the sledge hammer or spear to kill a zombie.

Woah, hang on there. This cannot be correct. What difficulty setting are you on?? I never use Spears or Sledgehammers so I cannot comment, but a basic level 1 Wooden Club will absolutely kill a zombie with 2 (maybe 3) hits maximum on default difficulty.

And before you accuse me of not knowing how to use the weapons - how hard is it to understand aiming for the head, throwing the spear at their head and a right click gives a bigger, but more stamina draining swing? Please don't insult my intelligence.

You need to tell us your difficulty setting. You are either missing or playing on Insane or other high difficulty.

As for the comments about my night time activities, I would really like to know what sort of weak-ass zombies you guys have in your game. Seriously, do you lower them?

Well as I said above, you will kill zombies with 2 hits on default setting regardless of nighttime, so....Seriously, did you increase settings??

and the first night I had a single zombie make it to the door through 3 rows of spikes. There was literally 1 half a of a spike left.

One wooden spike will kill one default difficulty zombie, though you will likely lose that Spike.

Whether or not you think night time is more or less dangerous, the point that I was trying to make was that I had more options at night in the past, whereas now I don't. The more that I'm forced to do the same, monotonous things over and over, the more boring and frustrating the game gets.

I work through the night now. Not because the zombies are any easier to kill than in previous alphas, but because the chances of me actually meeting one are pretty much zero.

It really sounds to me like you are playing on a high difficulty then complaining about the enemies being bullet-sponges. If not, there is something seriously wrong (as in "weird") with your experience - and I am afraid to say it might well be your aim. Remember A18 melee combat is atrocious, probably the worse it has ever been in the game, you need a lot of practice to get good with it; you might just be missing???

- - - Updated - - -

In a word, Demolishers. Their large explosions that can take down prodigious amounts of walls and defenses mean that if you get any more than one or two you're not going to have much of a base left, and I just can't be bothered to spend my seven days between blood moons building a new base every single time once Demolishers begin to show up. Anything I do build to survive waves of Demolishers is either going to have to be enormous with many-layered defenses that I'll need to fix every single time or incorporate some kind of AI pathfinding cheese so they just never get to me before I have time to find them and kill them.

While this is true to some extent, 'Just mod it' is an argument I don't like seeing because once it becomes common it will all too often be used an excuse to ignore feedback and criticism by both developers and veteran players. Mods should, in my opinion, be smaller tweaks and modifications to a strong base game rather than being relied on to overhaul entire systems of the game that don't work the way they should, and if a large portion of the community is using and encouraging others to use mods to 'fix' perceived problems then it becomes difficult for the developers to get legitimate feedback.

Fantastic post m8, and I agree with every word.

 

[Gazz]

I generally have a spear, a bow and a sledge hammer on me, and it STILL takes 7-10 blows with the sledge hammer or spear to kill a zombie.

That explains a lot. You must be playing on Insane.

I don't even consider that a "fun" difficulty. It's for those who have flat out run out of challenges. =)

 

[DeadGerry]

Most of this is your opinion. I agree that many people cry about things because they refuse to adapt but you too belong to one of these groups. You say "Alpha 16 was great - but it was FAR from perfect" that's your opinion, others may find it perfect.
You say A16 was " too easy to tech up on day one and have an invincible base and endless farm by the end of week one", others say turn up the difficulty.

You mentioned "many guns and ammo" in A16, if I remember correctly there was a great brass shortage in pretty much every alpha but A18 and you weren't getting a lot of ammo early game at all. Even less if you turned down the loot drop percentage. So you want less ammo because you refused to turn down the loot.

It's all about opinions and I can pick many more out of your post but I think you get the point. My point was we are here to exchange OPINIONS and mostly all of these opinions can be changed with settings such as loot percentage.

I just dislike the fact that his opinion means that he is "butt hurt" where as yours are to be accepted as fact. Sorry but that's not the case.

Edit: "Whatever line you take, it's a road lined with options which you chose to take or not to take." That includes "You could literally concrete up a base, surround it with wooden spikes in week 1, add a few gun turrets in week 2 and never have to fight or fear a horde ever again for the rest of the game." That's a line you chose to take, most likely on an easy difficulty with 150% loot or something like that.

Read it again,

I didn't present anything as fact, I presented that there a multitude of options addressing every single thing the OP raised, which the OP had - either though not knowing or not exploring - not tried. My reply was that there were alternatives, including my own suggestions and alternate sources of other suggestions.

The OP presented a situation where things were broken and no longer fun because (reasons) and I specifically replied with 'here's how you can do what you are saying you cannot do.' These were facts, not opinions.

I then ventured my own experience, and clearly labelled them as such - and only for the purpose of demonstrating the OP's assertions were not 'how it is', rather just 'how they are finding it by not using stuff right.'

I then ventured my own understanding on how things are now and why they are that way.

In my second post, which you reference I already addressed this aspect, but went to to respond to the inevitable cries of 'alpha 16 was better and alpha 18 is dead!' which always follow, and I am equally comfortable with my assertions.

Alpha 16 was far from perfect; the evidence can be found in the reviews and player responses at the time, and your point of turning up the difficulty simply backs up what Im saying now - however, if you watch the youtubers you'll see that by alpha 16 most of them started on gigantic auto kill bases within the first week; and very few of them were bothering to loot, survival was no problem and food / water was barely even notice-able as a thing - regardless of difficulty and regardless of game-stage.

Brass was a problem for some, but there were LOADS of traders, and you could sell concrete - which was too cheap - for massive amounts of money so that you never had to find Brass, you could just buy ammo, buy brass and didn't need to use guns on horde night. The basic bow and arrows, wooden spikes, crossbow and shotgun turrets made brass unnecessary, unless you chose to be a bullet sprayer.

The point was, you didn't NEED brass - the basics killed everything just fine, and the shotgun killed anything that didn't; and since it was easy to perk into multiple weapons you'd never NEED it.

I don't require to accept anything I'm saying as fact except that which is - there are multiple options and 95% of the complaints and concerns raised here come from people unwilling to use them - they want their one way of doing things to be the standard for everyone - Im just poiting out that there are ingame, mod and rollback ways of getting what they want.

Incidentally - Crater Creator has edited my post because apparently 'sunshine' is NOT OKAY to call someone. Not sure why.

 

[DeadGerry]

All that stuff you said removed so as not to be an extra wall of text from me

Agreed in theory - the game has changed - but that information is available from a variety of sources. I've given some advice in the thread and pointed to multiple youtubers who can show it.

While the balance has tipped in a different direction on 18 the Devs have been clear and repeatedly stated that they are tweaking the settings; but they wanted an end to the auto kill bases, and changed the AI from 17 to get rid of the Harry Hill Hordes. The overwhelming feedback from players is that the specialisation in specific guns and the need to kill the hordes with ammo has meant the over supply of ammo is not as overpowering as it was in 17 and 16, with many struggling to keep up with ammo demands on later hordes, requiring new strategies.

The RNG maps are still an issue; that's why there are 3 pregens in addition to Navezgane; and is something they are working on - but it' s MUCH better than 17.

Lots of players, including me, are feeding back that we don't love all POI's being dungeons, but at the same time, nobody is ignoring looting anymore -so it's obviously a work in progress.

I see some people still building bases, some people running and some people trying to outlast rather than kill the hordes - The demolishers are a clear signal of intent from the Dev's that they don't want an auto kill base to be easy - though it is still possible. The increase in cost of base materials and the perk spread make it clear that they don't want uber castles to be easy - but they are still possible. The complaint appears to be that people want it to be easy; but not to turn down the difficulty, block HP or up the loot - this is the point Im repeatedly making - if you aren't happy there are many, many, many ways to achieve what it is that will you make you happy - so go try them out and come back when you have the experience to give useful feedback. 'I tried it one way and it didn't work so it should be changed' is not useful feedback.

My portrayal specifically references the tone of the posts, not the content - and differentiates between the kind of tone that generates discussion and the kind that generates friction - you have helpfully ignored and not posted that part, so strawman on your own.

The options I listed were play with the ingame sliders - you can change difficulty, availability of items and block strength, to answer a multitude of problems. You can also roll back to an earlier alpha. If neither of those suit you you can mod - or REQUEST mods - LOTS of people are sharing mods and making mods to order for people who can't; and any one or combination of these things would give the player what they are requesting. Ignoring the vastly positive feedback of the majority of players and expecting the Dev's to make the game to the liking of a minority is silly.

They've explained their reasons for what they are doing, outlined what aspects are still being tweaked and will be revamped or reworked; and my ire is directed at the people ignoring that, ignoring their own options and ignoring the wealth of helpful material out there for them.

Even then Im always including my own experience and pointing at other great sources of material for the player to investigate.

 

[DeadGerry]

Lots of stuff snipped cos there's already loads here

First up; you have started a GOOD discussion. Text talk is always heated cos it's hard to impart tone; so things often sound harsher than intended.

What you miss (in my opinion) is that it's not realism vs arcade - it's realism vs arcade vs single player vs multiplayer vs fun vs default difficulty vs other difficulty.

I don't know what games you play where you can make easy weapons that remain effective throughout the game on day 1. Sounds naff to me; but starting weak, playing clever, getting better, killing things easier before encountering harder enemies which require better tools and playing smarter is the cycle this game has always been going for.

As your abilities and equipment increase, so does the threat - but if the game starts off too easy people get comfy and then can't handle the curve as it increases, unless you keep the game easy. This can be accomplished, if you want it, by turning the settings down.

LBD is gone, and while Im actually of the people who loved it - I accept it isn't what was intended. TFP want us to earn good stuff and earn the ability to use it to max effect. It's something they are still tweaking and working on, but this particular iteration has come from LBD not working - players artificially boosted skills by spam crafting, and spent time doing things TFP didn't intend or want us to - ie spam crafting.

You can still tech up the specific things you want, but to earn them you need to do some of the things the game wants to be about - harvesting, building, killing, questing, looting; but it's still up to you how you spend your time.

Sorry, but even on default and one up from default, 2 thrown spears and a headshot from the stone sledge kills basic zeds. The combination of skill points and better materials is noticable; but of course 1 skill point and stone tools isn't going to be much better - but I agree that it sounds like you're either playing on a higher setting or not getting clean hits. Turn the settings down - then up them till you find the level you enjoy, or practise head-shotting (note - they are aware the headshot and glancing blow system isn't optimal yet and are tweaking it.) - but if you expect to kill zeds with one or two stone arrows from a basic bow, or one or two spear stabs in the first few days then you've lost me.

None of the youtubers I referenced or me are having the same issues as you, except those playing on the higher settings, and that's because they enjoy that - and it's easy enough to find better stuff to kill em quicker.

I disagree that you have less choices at night - the only thing you can no longer do is spam craft. In a week of mining under my initial POI base I've encountered maybe 4 screamers and maybe 20 zeds in total; who have found their way to my door; and the spikes took care of most of them, the junk turret or me with a handgun or spears took care of the rest. Im not sure why our experiences is so divergent unless your settings are much higher or you're doing something very wrong. I do not mean to insult your intelligence, but if it's the difficulty you ought to turn it down and if you're not killing single zeds you're doing something wrong. Failure on either count indicates a certain ignorance (meaning lack of knowledge, not intelligence) which is why I pointed you to the youtubers, so you can SEE what other people are doing and compare.

 

[Liesel Weppen]

The complaint appears to be that people want it to be easy; but not to turn down the difficulty, block HP or up the loot - this is the point Im repeatedly making - if you aren't happy there are many, many, many ways to achieve what it is that will you make you happy

Totally agreed. Like seen in another thread here these day.

Q: Horde destroyed our base, don't know how to keep up with repairing and ressources

A: Lower difficulty to get your gamestage down?

Q: I'd rather quit playing 7d2d instead of lowering the difficulty

...

Q: I cheated in a complete base because i don't have ressources and enough time between BM to build and repair

*doh*

 

[Kalen]

Totally agreed. Like seen in another thread here these day.
Q: Horde destroyed our base, don't know how to keep up with repairing and ressources

A: Lower difficulty to get your gamestage down?

Q: I'd rather quit playing 7d2d instead of lowering the difficulty

...

Q: I cheated in a complete base because i don't have ressources and enough time between BM to build and repair

*doh*

TFP are balancing the game for the default difficulty so feedback based on default difficulty is completely fair.

 

[Liesel Weppen]

TFP are balancing the game for the default difficulty so feedback based on default difficulty is completely fair.

Right, but obviously they don't really balance it for multiplayer... if you play with 5 players (which are taken into account for multiplayer-gamestage-calculation) it escalates really quickly.

So in MP you easily get stuff on your 3rd bloodmoon, you would see in SP on your 8th bloodmoon first or even later.

Iirc gamestage 124 was the one which brings demolitioners first? So in SP you need to become at least level ~60 before seeing any Demolitioner with difficulty modifier of 2.0 (2 was de default, iirc?).

In MP 4 players at Lvl 25 will already do that on the same difficulty. And even with only 4 players you can make a huge jump in gamestage between 2 BMs just by leveling.

 

[Kalen]

Right, but obviously they don't really balance it for multiplayer... if you play with 5 players (which are taken into account for multiplayer-gamestage-calculation) it escalates really quickly. So in MP you easily get stuff on your 3rd bloodmoon, you would see in SP on your 8th bloodmoon first or even later.

Iirc gamestage 124 was the one which brings demolitioners first? So in SP you need to become at least level ~60 before seeing any Demolitioner with difficulty modifier of 2.0 (2 was de default, iirc?).

In MP 4 players at Lvl 25 will already do that on the same difficulty. And even with only 4 players you can make a huge jump in gamestage between 2 BMs just by leveling.

Good point, you're right.

 

[Ghostlight]

Totally agreed. Like seen in another thread here these day.
Q: Horde destroyed our base, don't know how to keep up with repairing and ressources

A: Lower difficulty to get your gamestage down?

Q: I'd rather quit playing 7d2d instead of lowering the difficulty

...

Q: I cheated in a complete base because i don't have ressources and enough time between BM to build and repair

*doh*

And guess where we've seen that pattern before? Back in A17....

A17 terribad player: POIs are a nightmare and take too long to clear, they must be nerfed!!

Me: Cant you just lower the difficulty?

Terribad: No way!

Me: Sigh

TFP: Nerfs zombies inside POIs

OR

A17 terribad player: POIs are a nightmare and take too long to clear, they must be nerfed!!

Me: Cant you just lower the difficulty?

Terribad: It's already quite low

Me: Are you specced for combat?

Terribad: No all my points are in Int

Me: Sigh

TFP: Nerfs zombies inside POIs

- - - Updated - - -

TFP are balancing the game for the default difficulty so feedback based on default difficulty is completely fair.

Correction, they balance for the default difficulty and for players who also SUCK. QED

- - - Updated - - -

Right, but obviously they don't really balance it for multiplayer... if you play with 5 players (which are taken into account for multiplayer-gamestage-calculation) it escalates really quickly. So in MP you easily get stuff on your 3rd bloodmoon, you would see in SP on your 8th bloodmoon first or even later.

Iirc gamestage 124 was the one which brings demolitioners first?

158 last time I looked at the XML

 

[Kalen]

Correction, they balance for the default difficulty and for players who also SUCK. QED

stay classy, dude

 

[Liesel Weppen]

A17 terribad player: POIs are a nightmare and take too long to clear, they must be nerfed!!

Me: Cant you just lower the difficulty?

Terribad: It's already quite low

Me: Are you specced for combat?

Terribad: No all my points are in Int

And with the current perk/skill system it's even harder, especially in the beginning. You need to skill INT if you want to build, but then you are limited to stun batons and junk turrets if you want to use the buffs given to you by INT. Or you have to put points in another skill additionally.

So the only decision leftt is: Waste skillpoints for being able to build AND fight, or let your playstyle force to build but not fight or fight but not build.

Or hope to find the right skillbooks in time.

In MP you can compensate that a little by specialization by player. But you are still limited to what TFP tied together for one skill. If you want other combinations of melee and ranged, or want to become a miner, but not use clubs or shotgun -> Waste of skillpoints needed for that.

In detail this is only levelgates hidden behind a skill...

 

[DeadGerry]

And with the current perk/skill system it's even harder, especially in the beginning. You need to skill INT if you want to build, but then you are limited to stun batons and junk turrets if you want to use the buffs given to you by INT. Or you have to put points in another skill additionally. So the only decision leftt is: Waste skillpoints for being able to build AND fight, or let your playstyle force to build but not fight or fight but not build.

Or hope to find the right skillbooks in time.

In MP you can compensate that a little by specialization by player. But you are still limited to what TFP tied together for one skill. If you want other combinations of melee and ranged, or want to become a miner, but not use clubs or shotgun -> Waste of skillpoints needed for that.

You don't need to perk into any particular weapon early on, although doing so will help you with combat - though not massively until later on in the perk path. With no perking thrown stone spears, and stone sledgehammers can do the trick just fine. If you find better quality stuff then wooden clubs, iron clubs, iron spears, iron sledge, wooden bow, crossbow, blunderbuss, stun batons are good enough, and if you add a handgun, shotgun, junk turret or knuckle wraps you can cope just fine - you won't 1 shot much, but you can get along fine.

I'm perked into clubs and shotgun; but I use spears, club and handgun; and it's fine. It's not optimal, but I'll get there, I don't need to be optimal yet.

You also don't need to perk into INT to build - it just speeds the process, but there's no need to build early one - a standard POI can be fortified easily enough and you'll find better stuff than you can make tool wise. You'll find working forges, workbenches, chem labs and cement mixers in the world and can use those till you can build your own.

You've got it the wrong way around - do the stuff you want to do and perk in as you go to do it better; but you'll find / buy / earn schematics, tools, weapons and recipes that bypass the NEED to perk to use things.

I think the game could explain this better, but then again you can ask questions here, on the steam forum or watch you tubes to get the info too.

You can get by just fine without perks - they don't have to steer you, you're meant to pick the ones that best suit what you want to do; but you can't max perks without earning lots of points, and it's more efficient to focus on specific things if you really want to maximize things earlier - but you really don't have to.

The mistake you are making is presuming you HAVE to follow the perks and HAVE to max them out - you don't; nothing is a 'must have' - and certianly not a 'must have now'. You even have the option of perking for what you need ealry and resetting later with a forgetting elixir, once you've found the schematics you 'needed'.

 

[Liesel Weppen]

The mistake you are making is presuming you HAVE to follow the perks and HAVE to max them out - you don't;

You got that wrong. I don't talk about MAXING perks, i talk about WANTING them.

E.g. i want living of the land 4 to harvest 3 vegetables per plant, because i'm the one to feed our group. For being able to get LOTL 4 i need to skill fortitude to 8 which costs 10 skillpoints, right? Those 10 skillpoints are completely wasted, because i don't use machine guns or knuckles.

I repeat: It's ok that LOTL4 requires fortitude at 8. What i dislike is that fortitude only buffs machine guns and knuckles. Couldn't it be a generic buff like maybe "reload faster" and "increase melee attack speed"? Then these 10 skillpoints would have a use for everyone, because then also a pistol would reload faster and you can attack faster even when using a club.

It's also ok to have brawler and machine gunner in here. Those i can skip completely if i don't want to use them, but fortitude itself i CAN'T skip.

But machine guns and knuckles has absolutely no advantage for me.

On the bottom it's the same as requiring Level 40 for LOTL4, like it was in A17 (?). Only difference is, i don't need Level 40 directly, but i need additional 10 for me useless levelups to reach the same.

You even have the option of perking for what you need ealry and resetting later with a forgetting elixir, once you've found the schematics you 'needed'.

Right, but wont help me with the example above, because i need this skill all the time.