Farmer armor : balance issue

[VanMeilleur]

It's almost always and only me who takes care of the farming and cooking in our group. Before V1, I increased vigor for the harvesting bonus (and anyway, vigor is an important line, so I increase vigor in all my builds, but not necessarily up to 10) and strength for the cooking bonus. Since strength was already increased, I put points into "heavy armor" and made a "tank boxer" build.

But now, with the arrival of the farmer's outfit, it's more complex.
As it's a medium armor, I'm encouraged to increase agility to invest in "medium armor," but the farmer's set also gives bonuses to rifles, which encourages increasing perception as well.

In short, I find that the farmer's armor is not viable as a "main armor" and should be left in a chest, equipped for harvesting, and then put back in the chest. I find it very unfortunate because, all things considered, I find it visually appealing.

In my opinion, the farmer's armor should be light armor (no penalty and no associated skill = saving skill points and more comfortable use).
Or reduce the strength prerequisites for the "cooking" skill (to require less strength and thus make it easier to level up agility) OR move "cooking" to "vigor."

What do you think?

[Mithrandir]

I don't know, I expected that some armor sets would be specialised and not ideal for "main armor" as you say or to wear for doing everything. I expected to dress like a farmer to farm then put on my exploration/combat armor when going into POIs, same for crafting.

But I still have to see many armor sets, so I'm still learning their features.

[Fido]

Originally posted by Mithrandir:

I don't know, I expected that some armor sets would be specialised and not ideal for "main armor" as you say or to wear for doing everything. I expected to dress like a farmer to farm then put on my exploration/combat armor when going into POIs, same for crafting.

But I still have to see many armor sets, so I'm still learning their features.

It's still worth having a couple. So far, for general all-situation stuff, Nomad (-20% food/water use on the helmet) heavy armour and Scavenger (+2/4/6/8/10/12% loot rarity) medium armour seem most suitable./

[Tox]

In my opinion:
- Remove animal tracking perk entirely*; it's a waste of early perk points and ceases to be relevant the moment you either start questing/revisiting POIs with animal spawns (such as Bob's Boars / Carl's Corn and a handful of the farms) or venture out of forest biome and see how abundant animals are, making it even more of a waste to put points into during mid-late game.
* Maybe merge the animal tracking into huntsman (makes sense thematically and increases its value as a perk)

- Move cooking perk to fortitude line (or vigor, as you call it)
- Create a new replacement perk in the strength line (not sure what would make for a good idea, but folks out there can be creative)

[Fido]

I don't think they should put more must-haves in Fortitude, I'd rather see some things removed from the line, because as it stands it's the most valuable skill to invest in by a pretty enormous margin.

[VanMeilleur]

I think it's a good idea to combine animal tracking and huntsman into the same skill. This new skill would be more appropriately placed in the "perception" section, and it would make sense with the rifle damage bonus of the farmer's set.
Speaking of which, I find it unfortunate that rotten meat is so much more valuable than fresh meat. In addition to making a better dish, rotten meat is used to make cultivable plots, and it's also easier to find just by searching around a bit.

However, I still believe that the cooking skill should be moved or its prerequisites should be reduced. Or moving harvesting into strenght ?

[Pain Weasel]

I sort of prefer mixing and matching armor sets. The set bonuses are OK, but not enough to force me to always go with a full set. As far as what sets I use, I pretty much use them all depending on what I'm doing. I dumped points into both heavy and medium armor early on because the armor magazine loot bonuses stack, so I was able to max out the armor crafting skill by day 14. That let me craft a bunch of Q5/6 sets that I can use as I see fit.

Since I spend most of my time running quests and clearing POIs my "main" armor is purely combat related. I then have other sets depending on what task I may be doing because the overall amount of time I spend on those tasks is relatively low.

I have a Farmer set that I toss on when I need to harvest, a Miner set with STR mods for when I need ore, a Ranger hat with a cigar for visiting the trader and a Nerd chest for when I read magazines etc.

[URMarty]

wait untill you get t6 preacher gloves xD

[cnote261]

If you look at the overall design of the armor and set bonuses there's an interesting trend where the most "powerful" sets, clearly designed with combat in mind, don't favor any particular weapon or skill tree. An argument can be made that the Commando set is entirely ranged-focused and the Raider set is entirely melee-focused, but they still work with every skill tree and an off-set damage bonus would make the rest of that set's bonuses a bit lackluster. The Commando bonuses are great for someone who gets tagged rarely (and isn't really built for survivability) while the Raider bonuses are great for toe-to-toe combat. This doesn't mean they're Perception and Strength armor respectively; you could easily have a spear build using Raider armor to hold a choke point against a horde of zeds.

"Theme" sets, on the other hand, generally have very specific bonuses that boost alternate weapons or tactics. The farmer set, for instance, allows you to use rifles as if you were 2/5 in Dead Eye (at legendary quality, and for damage only), which would otherwise be a fair few points in Perception that wouldn't really help with your farming. And you can even pop a single point in Dead Eye to instantly deal damage with rifles as if you were 3/5 Dead Eye.

Why would you want this, you ask? Why not a bonus to assault rifles, you say? Because a dedicated farmer is already in the Fortitude tree and can just drop a light sprinkling of points in Machine Gunner if they like, but trying to use any other weapon well means gutting their build. And making the bonus for the farmer gloves favor assault rifles would add very little combat utility to a set that has no other bonuses useful for combat. Adding that bonus to rifles means you're still carrying around 7.62 as your favored ammo type and can effectively use a rifle to drop any zombies that come to bother you while you're farming using the least amount of ammunition, rather than spraying your ammo with an assault rifle.

Other thematic sets are similar, like the Ranger set. Unless you've modded your rifle entirely for hip-fire accuracy, and taken 3/3 Run and Gun, then your ability to use a rifle from the hip is basically garbage after the first shot. The .44 revolver bonus allows a Perception player to use a reasonably effective alternative weapon when the long-range weapon is unsuitable. So why not a bonus to all rifles and .44 weapons? Dear lord... Every ranged build would be a Perception build. Can you imagine the DPS of a sniper rifle with half the reload speed and an extra 50% damage? The meta would be written in stone.

Overall, I think the sets are pretty well balanced and reasonable. There's only one that leaves me scratching my head. Like, what's the deal with the Lumberjack set?

[Nerevar]

i dont think any armor set is meant as a main armor. your problem is super minimal and very personal. not a good reason for changes. as your logic also applys to the miner set or the nerd chest etc etc. list goes on.

the new armors will most likely see some balance changes anyway very soon when the experimental gets first updates and changes during the next 10 days.

i predict that preacher gloves will see a nerf.

but farmer armor is not something youll ever wear for combat.

[cnote261]

I see a lot of predictions that the Preacher gloves will be nerfed. Maybe they will, you never really know; but that seems a bit short-sighted. The trade-off between armor and damage output might seem like an easy choice now, but what about when bandits are added to the game? The Preacher glove bonus is only effective against the undead, so they'll be more in line with other damage gloves that are currently more situational.

[VanMeilleur]

Originally posted by Nerevar:

i dont think any armor set is meant as a main armor. your problem is super minimal and very personal. not a good reason for changes. as your logic also applys to the miner set or the nerd chest etc etc. list goes on.

the new armors will most likely see some balance changes anyway very soon when the experimental gets first updates and changes during the next 10 days.

i predict that preacher gloves will see a nerf.

but farmer armor is not something youll ever wear for combat.

Miner set is "weel fitted" as 3 skill related to te set are in strenght (heavy armor and the two mining skill)

I just think the farmer set need à bit of balance. Moving it to light could be a fair solution to me.

[Nerevar]

you vastly overestimate the armor perk bonuses dude. by a mile. thier effect is so minimal gameplay wise it just doesnt matter if you have them or not due to the special books existing. once you got the urban combat book it just doesnt matter if you have these perks or not where it matters.

i never put points into heavy armor despite useing heavy armor. the perk benefit is way too minimal to matter overall. its the same for med armor one.

like i said before this is too minor to justify changes.

Originally posted by cnote261:

I see a lot of predictions that the Preacher gloves will be nerfed. Maybe they will, you never really know; but that seems a bit short-sighted. The trade-off between armor and damage output might seem like an easy choice now, but what about when bandits are added to the game? The Preacher glove bonus is only effective against the undead, so they'll be more in line with other damage gloves that are currently more situational.

nobody knows if bandits are ever added. i hope they dont add them ever as they would feel off in this game and would probaly create a balance mess for enemys all around. but despite that happening or not :

the majority of the enemies you will STILL fight regardless of this are zombies because its zombie game afterall. so bandits even if they ever get added will probaly end up beeing a very rare encounter not something you will face commonly every day.

[Jolly]

Something else to add to OP's point, since it seems you can almost never use Farmer's armor just to keep on as armor (so ur not constantly switching between clothes) is the Set Bonus that Food gives you more health and stamina, which incentivizes you to use the armor during combat, that Set Bonus has nothing to do with farming, so it's like wth are they thinking.

I'm starting to think these combos from these armors are telling us the specifics of how their new skill tree is going to work... like Ranger armor has the Tier 3 Lever Action Rifle with Magnum, uhh.. Lever Action isn't even highest tier and those two weapons aren't even in the same tree... very sus

I know Set Bonuses are basically useless. Im just saying...

[Serious]

I would say the general farming quality needs to be nerfed before the farmers armor have the option to shine.
I crafted a T6 farmer armor but used it just a single time as i already have more than enough of everything i need (with just 1 point set into farming and 0 into cooking).

[Macdallan]

Originally posted by Fido:

I don't think they should put more must-haves in Fortitude, I'd rather see some things removed from the line, because as it stands it's the most valuable skill to invest in by a pretty enormous margin.

I think they need to toss the whole perk and stat system. It makes no sense.