Intellect needs more melee weapons.

[The Pistol Experience]

Intellect tree only has 1 melee weapon for it.

The stun Baton. It is a weapon that is nigh impossible to acquire before you hit 20-30 ish gamestage without using traders.

Therefore in the early game intellect is completely devoid of having any melee boosts without speccing into other trees, and even then stun batons are rather bad compared to a higher tier club, fist or sledge.

Personally i think intellect could use a primitive early game melee weapon that it can use. The idea is that it is a makeshift stun baton, made with electrical components, iron and wood. It would statistically be inferior to the regular stun baton but would give intellect a early game weapon it can use.

For late game the stun baton is rather weak as always. So perhaps it would be a good idea to add a juiced up version of it?. This would be a heavier weapon which swings slower but the stun effect would have an AOE, which will be useful for fighting crowds of zombies.

Then there would be a 3 tier system for the batons.

While we are at it, the perk that boosts batons could use a buff. The benefits it provides are rather boring(+10% dmg, +20% longer stun) If the perk received other buffs like "charged batons do 100% more damage", "batons degrade 20% slower"(batons need a lot of hits to kill) and maybe something like removing the rng from these weapons(the charge effect is random) to something like tier 0: 5 hits to charge, tier 1 4 hits to charge etc.

[Hexerin]

https://steamcommunity.com/app/251570/discussions/0/4349865446120851499/

Supposedly we have T1 and T3 variants of batons in the works.

[TKimball]

Hoping for a cattle prod.

[Segovax]

Yeah a base weapon that needs parts hurts the int tree.

I think the change to bats was a good move, would be good to see something like that here. Personally I'd like to see weapon parts removed from the stun baton and replaced with electrical parts, then add a perk weapon like a chainsword or something.

[CoinSpin]

I like the idea, hopefully those T1 and T3 tiers are coming for batons, as @Hexerin pointed out.

I mean, it makes total sense, to match the other weapon / tool paths in general. Low end (primitive, stone, etc.), middle range (iron, standard gun, etc.), and high end (steel, compound archery, high end gun, etc.). Did seem like the melee was left out of normal weapon progression, probably as a balance initially to prevent that tree from being overpowered with the junk turrets?

[magnetmannen WW3]

modified cattle prod, would make most sense, something that you just need 2 car batteries and some wood and iron to craft. maybe some electric parts too. effect would be like a spear but with electric damage instead of stabbing.

[JimmyIowa]

Originally posted by CoinSpin:

Did seem like the melee was left out of normal weapon progression, probably as a balance initially to prevent that tree from being overpowered with the junk turrets?

Quite frankly, INT seems OP already. With several must have essentials that are needed in every game, workbench, chemistry, vehicles, forge, along with turrets (which are honestly insanely good) and soon a full line of melee stun weapons.

Speaking as someone who goes full INT first every game, if INT gets melee equal to all other attributes I would like to see maybe forge and workbench and chemistry moved, or vehicles moves to other attributes. INT is just way incredibly far too overwhelmingly good right now, and getting better with each patch.

[Hexerin]

Originally posted by JimmyIowa:

-snip-

Considering a character can max out all attributes and all skills, whether or not a given tree is "OP" is ultimately irrelevant.

That being said, if you want to look at the balance of attributes then STR is currently king by a significant margin. There's a reason the meta start is STR into VIT.

[Xilo The Odd]

dunno what your talkin about, i find em all the time in early game. its not common true, but common enough you can use the other melee weapons just fine till you find one.

[JimmyIowa]

Originally posted by Hexerin:

That being said, if you want to look at the balance of attributes then STR is currently king by a significant margin. There's a reason the meta start is STR into VIT.

Nah. Never heard anyone say this before. With fists as main melee weapon, I go INT and a few points in fort much later. No str (even Trex is totally optional, until later, with fists). A couple of few pts in STR much later mid-late game for level 2 or 3 trex. And I breeze through lategame high difficulty hordes.

It's extremely easy to go lategame without several attributes like perception, or str, or Agility. But I'm pretty certain very few people go late game, or even mid game, without forge, and workbench, and vehicles, gunpowder, etc. Pretty sure that's true. Sorry.

Not sure where you are getting this str is "meta' from. (And I'm not even sure what VIT is. Maybe Fortitude?) I'm very active on this forum and with many other players for years, and that claim is totally new to me. I know a dozen experienced players, and none of them do that, except maybe on a very large team where there are other int specialists.

From a SP perspective most games will need forge, workbench, chemistry, and vehicles. You can easily do without parkour and lucky looter and salvaging and mining faster. Those are nice to have, no doubt, but not essential like the stuff INT give you. Even health regen from fort is mostly not useful now that it uses the same amount of food as a healing bandage or just eatsing something.

Even if you say there one nice thing in one or two other attributes, there is no other attribute besides INT with half a dozen game changing ultra-essentials. Forge, workbench, vehicles, electric grids, steel, gas, ammo, gunpowder, bartering. All in one perk.

I think it would be okay to put a few good things in other perks. Maybe engineering in perception. Maybe grease Monkey in str or agility. I generally go long games with needing perception. And I think the attributes should be balanced so that they all offer something you really want. Currently INT has 90% of what everyone wants. That's simply a fact.

[JimmyIowa]

Originally posted by Hexerin:

That being said, if you want to look at the balance of attributes then STR is currently king by a significant margin. There's a reason the meta start is STR into VIT.

And besides, your own post supports spreading the good stuff around a bit more. As you said - "a character can max out all attributes and all skills". So spreading the most common must-haves around a bit won't matter to you at all, by your own logic you just posted. :)

[Hexerin]

You can just pick up the schematics for the workstations from the destroyed ones in any of the many POIs that have them (I usually have schematics for half the stations from the first trader's base alone). INT provides nothing that is necessary, it's a pure convenience / speedrun tree.

Meanwhile STR has the best ranged and melee weapons, infinite stamina in combat, the only food skill, and your primary resource gathering.

Then VIT has your armor and mitigation, renewable food, better healing and recovery, more efficient food, and infinite stamina while sprinting.

The next best tree is AGI, but it's far behind those two. You want it for Parkour and Run'n'Gun, which mostly offset the mobility reduction from the heavy armor you're wearing.

Only then do you look to Perception and INT (in that order). Everything you can get from these two attributes revolve around crafting stuff you can just get through multiple other avenues (that are also significantly more useful in combat and exploration, 90% of the game).

Ultimately, what this comes back to is the same old thing. TFP killed crafting, because they wanted to cater to the Twitch streamers and YouTube personalities. Looting and exploration is more attractive to today's wider "instant gratification" audience, while crafting is not.

[JimmyIowa]

Originally posted by Hexerin:

You can just pick up the schematics for the workstations from the destroyed ones in any of the many POIs that have them (I usually have schematics for half the stations from the first trader's base alone). INT provides nothing that is necessary, it's a pure convenience / speedrun tree.

Okay, so you won't mind if we spread those "unnecessary" things around to other attributes. Which was my point.

You seem to keep making my point for me.

Originally posted by Hexerin:

INT provides nothing that is necessary,

btw - You may have to agree to disagree with nearly 100% of experienced players, on this claim.

[JimmyIowa]

two skill swaps -

move Salvage Operations to int, and move Advanced Engineering to perception.
move Master Chef to int, move Grease Monkey to str


I say this as someone who goes full max int starting from day 1 on every playthru and finds it too lopsided that nothing else is needed.

[The Giving One]

I actually like to go Fort. and Iron Gut for the increased duration of buffs. Then get the Grandpa's Learnin' Elixer, and nerdy glasses. Lay down some frames and have a huge backpack of resources right up to concrete at least.

Now this works best with a nail gun, but the hammer will do. Get everything set up and then drink the elixer and start spamming out upgraded blocks. The EXP gain is just freaking sick doing this.

I have gotten three levels before in a matter of about 5 minutes doing this. Not to mention the other benefits of using Fort. and Iron Gut.

The INT tree already has the stun baton and the turrets also. So that kinda counts as a benefit in melee also. After all, you can go to do quests and carry it with you and shoot it from your own hands, or set it down and it will autofire on zeds AND vultures also, taking them out and stunning them for you so YOU can melee them in the process.

Have to agree with the good JimmyIowa here. The INT tree is already pretty strong, honestly. Now, it's much harder for other builds to even get the turrets anyway. I have not found any in my game so far, because I guess that changed that from previous alphas.

[ladyeternity]

Originally posted by JimmyIowa:

Originally posted by CoinSpin:

Did seem like the melee was left out of normal weapon progression, probably as a balance initially to prevent that tree from being overpowered with the junk turrets?

Quite frankly, INT seems OP already. With several must have essentials that are needed in every game, workbench, chemistry, vehicles, forge, along with turrets (which are honestly insanely good) and soon a full line of melee stun weapons.

Speaking as someone who goes full INT first every game, if INT gets melee equal to all other attributes I would like to see maybe forge and workbench and chemistry moved, or vehicles moves to other attributes. INT is just way incredibly far too overwhelmingly good right now, and getting better with each patch.

I kinda like the idea of spreading out the crafting.

Intelligence: All 'electrical' items and Gyrocopter
Agility: Workbench and Motorcycle
Fortitude: Chemistry and Bicycle(because fort has iron gut and bicycles use stamina)
Strength: Forge and Minibike
Perception: Cement Mixer and the 4x4 truck

To beef each new line up, each tier would have mods and increased speed+durability for the vehicles. For the crafting station lines additional spec could increase crafting speed, reduce resource cost for that table.

I am really liking this idea. Makes more sense, makes all the primary stats have a mode of transportation that makes sense with the stat while also spreading out the crafting tables.