Thoughts on traits.

[Hollow]

So, I've been thinking about the traits and builds recently and have come to a conclusion. I wanted to hear your thoughts on it.

I personally put the traits, positive and negative, into two categories. I'll call them passives or boosters. Any trait you take that offers some kind of bonus unearned in any other way are the passives.

Some examples of what I consider passives are wakeful, dexterous, cat's eyes, outdoorsman, graceful, inconspicuous, lucky, organized, adrenaline junkie, eagle eyed, keen hearing, thick skinned, and fast learner. The negative equivalents apply too.

The boosters are the traits that give you a static increase or decrease in a stat starting out. Some offer more than this, but it's not really as significant as the passives. Many of these may be immediately awesome, but they are investments countered by just grinding in the game.

Examples of boosters, positive and negative, are strong, athletic, brave/veteran (You panic less the longer you survive. This eventually makes them useless.), obese/overweight/underweight, weak/feeble, and almost all of the hobby traits like gardener that don't offer passives with their skill point.

So with all of this in mind, what do I take from it?

I've stopped using any traits that I call boosters. I don't mean to jab anyone here in the ribs, but to me they're for the inpatient who want to spawn as death machines. And from my own crappy experience, what comes with the over-reliance on great power and speed is arrogance, which always kills me.

Not to mention that, in exchange for this strong head start, we're accumulating negative passives and boosters that make our survival chance overall lower. Sure, many of them like high thirst are manageable, but we're taking an eternal 200% water intake debuff to accommodate our laziness to level a skill.

I've recently opted for a simple build with the most important passive traits and least impacting negatives.

Occupation: Unemployed.
Negatives: Slow healer, prone to illness, and slow reader.
Positives: Cat's eyes, dextrous, outdoorsman, wakeful, graceful, inconspicuous, and lucky.

If you're very skilled, or a risk-taker, you can also take the negative boosters like obese. They've basically free points to spend on other passives.

[Johnny Copperhand]

Interesting points, I agree and i also use the passive ones and usually never take any booster ones unless it is underweight and feeble for points.

[stecph]

What's the story with obese? Will the % boost come back once you lose weight?
I have tried it a couple of times,but never survived enough to get to that point.

[Animalman]

WhT r your thoughts on light eater and weight loss? Does it slow weight loss?

[bfc]

This game has an inverse difficulty curve - the beginning is much harder than lategame, when you have all your skills, passives, armors, weapons, but zombies stay the same. So, is there any reason to have a perfect build for lategame? It also depends on the game mode, as you can be fine with 0 fitness in standard apocalypse, but starting the same in cdda will be a real struggle.

[Animalman]

So, is there any reason to have a perfect build for lategame?

the only trait that is truly anti-late game is Illiterate. Handy will give an epic headstart to Maintenance, its taken me without trying to skill it up about 5 months to get 1 in maintenance. But if you pick handy you'll be at two maintenance in no time.

But what you say is true the game gets exponentially easier, especially once established a farm and safe zone. To optimize for late game is kind of anti climactic. However certain traits such as Illiterate, asthmatic provide absolutely no benefit.

both Obesity and Underweight are = in that it both are free points once you know the game. Because when you know the game you know how to drop and gain weight. And at the early game there is abundance of food if you do the correct type of looting so gaining is easier, while also if you are obese you can exist on less food during the vital periods, so basically they are as easy as eachother and comes down to preference. But the obesity is more likely to watch the tv than the hungry underweight. The obese is more inclined to undergo excersize fatigue aswell.

[Hollow]

Originally posted by bfc:

This game has an inverse difficulty curve - the beginning is much harder than lategame, when you have all your skills, passives, armors, weapons, but zombies stay the same. So, is there any reason to have a perfect build for lategame? It also depends on the game mode, as you can be fine with 0 fitness in standard apocalypse, but starting the same in cdda will be a real struggle.

The only reason I can think of is that overall comfort and survival chances may be increased without having tons of permanent negative passives. And, yes, I do agree about the difficulty curve. It's just that whenever I compare two late game characters, one who started with powerful boosters and one who chose only the most important passives, they'll both end up with mostly the same stats, but the character with boosters will be more inconvenienced due to having more negative passive traits.

And, just say, a character using only passive positives decides to use something like obese, this gives them the ability to invest in the more niche passives that may save your life someday. Like keen hearing. One thing to keep in mind as well is that I'm just assuming we the players are careful and knowledgeable since that's all you really need to counter the need for strong stats in early game survival.

[Animalman]

Anything that increases the speed of your endurance loss is painful early game. This is why I avoid obese. Illiterate really is for special type of run because could you imagine not having the book increase xp gain as you level up. It would be a straight up you would be 5x less capable of looking after a car. Which which to me it’s very important to look after a vehicle as they can degrade so quickly.

Also an illiterate could also never use a generator. Never bake bread. It’s severely underpriced for its level of nerf

He couldn’t do it

He could never work on commercial models, standard models, or sports models because he couldn’t read the mags

[[B&E] Killer Pineapple]

Originally posted by Hollow:

One thing to keep in mind as well is that I'm just assuming we the players are careful and knowledgeable since that's all you really need to counter the need for strong stats in early game survival.

Correct. Strong boosters are great if your expected life span is < one week.
But otherwise I agree with all you have to say. Plan for the future and grab those great unobtainable traits!

Originally posted by Animalman:

Anything that increases the speed of your endurance loss is painful early game. This is why I avoid obese.

Originally posted by stecph:

What's the story with obese? Will the % boost come back once you lose weight?

Good point AM. (ps I don't take smoker anymore either =) ) While we are all here is there any lingering (invisible?) side effects from initially choosing Obese once you enter a healthy weight range?

This is my current preferred loadout

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2630028209

Just a special mention that choosing burglar (booster) (for hot wiring) as a profession might be wise as grinding mechanics and electronics the first week is a time investment (cars are a rare beast who like to dwell in pastures infested by the dead). The time could be spent making other preparations.

Finding car keys is just pot luck...

[Hollow]

Originally posted by B&E Killer Pineapple:

Originally posted by Hollow:

One thing to keep in mind as well is that I'm just assuming we the players are careful and knowledgeable since that's all you really need to counter the need for strong stats in early game survival.

Correct. Strong boosters are great if your expected life span is < one week.
But otherwise I agree with all you have to say. Plan for the future and grab those great unobtainable traits!

Originally posted by Animalman:

Anything that increases the speed of your endurance loss is painful early game. This is why I avoid obese.

Originally posted by stecph:

What's the story with obese? Will the % boost come back once you lose weight?

Good point AM. (ps I don't take smoker anymore either =) ) While we are all here is there any lingering (invisible?) side effects from initially choosing Obese once you enter a healthy weight range?

This is my current preferred loadout

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2630028209

Just a special mention that choosing burglar (booster) (for hot wiring) as a profession might be wise as grinding mechanics and electronics the first week is a time investment (cars are a rare beast who like to dwell in pastures infested by the dead). The time could be spent making other preparations.

Finding car keys is just pot luck...

That's a really nice build there. Only thing I'd do is switch brave with dextrous and outdoorsman since you naturally panic less with the amount of zombies you kill or the amount of days you survive (I don't remember which it is). I honestly really want to go with a burglar build again because I've had literally NO luck with finding keys at all. Like, yesterday, both a school bus and this top tier military vehicle from a mod spawned in the Rosewood police station parking lot without keys.

[bfc]

Originally posted by B&E Killer Pineapple:

[
Correct. Strong boosters are great if your expected life span is < one week.

what are the strong boosters you are talking about?

[bfc]

Originally posted by Hollow:

I honestly really want to go with a burglar build again because I've had literally NO luck with finding keys at all. Like, yesterday, both a school bus and this top tier military vehicle from a mod spawned in the Rosewood police station parking lot without keys.

you know you don't need burglary to be able to hotwire vehicles, right?

[[B&E] Killer Pineapple]

Originally posted by bfc:

what are the strong boosters you are talking about?

Stout and Strong. Generally things which enhance combat early game which could be acquired through grinding mid to late game.

Originally posted by bfc:

you know you don't need burglary to be able to hotwire vehicles, right?

Fairly certain Hollow knows. I think what was being eluded to was that being able to hot wire a car pre chopper event is insanely handy.

[bfc]

Originally posted by B&E Killer Pineapple:

Stout and Strong. Generally things which enhance combat early game which could be acquired through grinding mid to late game.

You will probably not get 7 str before third month, and retire your character long before getting 9. Also, I don't see too many useful unobtainable skills, the only one worth it would be keen hearing.

[bulbatrs]

It takes about 40 days of burps to get 0 to 5 fitness and 0 to 6 strength.

[bfc]

Originally posted by bulbatrs:

It takes about 40 days of burps to get 0 to 5 fitness and 0 to 6 strength.

another month to setup a home with defenses and a steady supply of food, and another 6(?) months of gameplay full of fun to level 6-9. is it worth it? not for me