Jobs & Traits

[BioFringe]

I've tried many different combinations of Jobs & Traits and I always end up pretty much the same. No matter what setup I use to start with by the time I reach Manufacturing West all of my Skills are at the same levels. After many attempts at finding a good job with a nice mix of traits I've pretty much settled on Summer Intern with only a Fannny Pack. All of the other traits seems useless after the first hour of game play. I could pick another Job but again, the bonuses all seem like a waste shortly after starting.

Anyone else feel this way? Does anyone have a different experience?

[MechWarden]

There are a few exceptions, but mostly yeah, you'll get similar skill levels if you play the same way.

You could start with a jumpstart in certain skills, and have some access to a few things sooner than usual, or pick a trait or career that'll inflate a skill more than normal.

However with each skill level needing exponentially more points than the last, you'll level up most lower level skills fast and start to slow down when getting closer to the max level.

I have noticed a slightly different skill level distribution when I played difficulty, like forgoing sharp melee for the entire run, or trying to focus more with ranged weapons, but most of the basics skills like strength, sprinting, crafting, construction, and others you can't avoid (especially in solo) your skill levels will look similar for each run.

[Crochwhisle purple]

The best job would be the one that gives you instant rolling from the get go. The traits that are good are wrinkly brainmeat, defense course and fanny pack. Thick skin is also good, but it may be bugged as of right now. The negatives could be weak bladder, dry skin, narcoleptic, hearty Appetite. and painfully obvious.

[Yaridovich]

Originally posted by Crochwhisle purple:

The best job would be the one that gives you instant rolling from the get go. The traits that are good are wrinkly brainmeat, defense course and fanny pack. Thick skin is also good, but it may be bugged as of right now. The negatives could be weak bladder, dry skin, narcoleptic, hearty Appetite. and painfully obvious.

If by "defense course" you're referring to Self Defense, this is actually not a good trait. It's only helpful during the early game, but makes virtually no difference later in the game since it's just a flat +3 damage. Using better weapons and leveling up Blunt Melee and Sharp Melee will heavily offset the bonus from Self Defense.

I wouldn't recommend taking it even if you plan on focusing on melee.

[Hoooar Gosaresty]

I hope that some fast melee weapons can be added in the future, such as chainsaws.

[BioFringe]

Originally posted by MechWarden:

There are a few exceptions, but mostly yeah, you'll get similar skill levels if you play the same way.

You could start with a jumpstart in certain skills, and have some access to a few things sooner than usual, or pick a trait or career that'll inflate a skill more than normal.

However with each skill level needing exponentially more points than the last, you'll level up most lower level skills fast and start to slow down when getting closer to the max level.

I have noticed a slightly different skill level distribution when I played difficulty, like forgoing sharp melee for the entire run, or trying to focus more with ranged weapons, but most of the basics skills like strength, sprinting, crafting, construction, and others you can't avoid (especially in solo) your skill levels will look similar for each run.

Exactly this. At least now I know that what I'm experiencing isn't out of the ordinary. Thank you.

Originally posted by Crochwhisle purple:

The best job would be the one that gives you instant rolling from the get go. The traits that are good are wrinkly brainmeat, defense course and fanny pack. Thick skin is also good, but it may be bugged as of right now. The negatives could be weak bladder, dry skin, narcoleptic, hearty Appetite. and painfully obvious.

Noticed the bug last night. Means I'll have to wait till the next update in order to start a Tank character.

Originally posted by Yaridovich:

If by "defense course" you're referring to Self Defense, this is actually not a good trait. It's only helpful during the early game, but makes virtually no difference later in the game since it's just a flat +3 damage. Using better weapons and leveling up Blunt Melee and Sharp Melee will heavily offset the bonus from Self Defense.

I wouldn't recommend taking it even if you plan on focusing on melee.

Agreed. Except that with most other Traits it pretty much comes down to Role Playing. I want a Tank and it makes sense that a Tank would have that skill. Just a shame that it's not a percentage and a better one at that.

[BioFringe]

So I just wiped hundreds of hours of saves in order to get a clean slate. I'll be playing through the game with 3 different character builds and will pay more attention this time to how they unfold as I level. My guess is that the first two will end up playing (felling) the same while the last will be dramatically different.

1. Stealth - Lab Assistant

+ Decathlon Competitor
+ Fanny Pack
+ Inconspicuous
- Dry Skin
- Hearty Appetite
- Slow Healer

2. Tank - Summer Intern

+ Buff Brainiac
+ Decathlon Competitor
+ Fanny Pack
+ Self Defense
+ Thick Skinned
- Dry Skin
- Hearty Appetite
- Painfully Obvious
- Slow Healer
- Slow Learner
- Weak Bladder

3. Forsaken...Summer Intern with All Negative Traits and No Positive Traits

All played on Apocalyptic Difficulty of course :)

Some of the Traits are taken because they "Make Sense" in an RP kinda way. The first two builds have 0 left over points as well. All thoughts are welcome :)

[Yaridovich]

Originally posted by BioFringe:

Agreed. Except that with most other Traits it pretty much comes down to Role Playing. I want a Tank and it makes sense that a Tank would have that skill. Just a shame that it's not a percentage and a better one at that.

I'm hoping that at some point they'll do a rework of traits. They've already made some changes to jobs and some to traits too, but traits in general still seem to need some more changes. Some traits are clearly more useful than others while others are just not useful at all.

For instance, besides that Self Defense should be changed to a percentage rather than a flat value, Fear of Violence only gives +4 points for something that severely limits your character. It should be a lot more than that.

[BioFringe]

Originally posted by Yaridovich:

Originally posted by BioFringe:

Agreed. Except that with most other Traits it pretty much comes down to Role Playing. I want a Tank and it makes sense that a Tank would have that skill. Just a shame that it's not a percentage and a better one at that.

I'm hoping that at some point they'll do a rework of traits. They've already made some changes to jobs and some to traits too, but traits in general still seem to need some more changes. Some traits are clearly more useful than others while others are just not useful at all.

For instance, besides that Self Defense should be changed to a percentage rather than a flat value, Fear of Violence only gives +4 points for something that severely limits your character. It should be a lot more than that.

Agreed. Compared to Narco which is just an inconvenience and gives more points.

[Nerevar]

just for the record : self defense is underestimated still by people. each level in a melee skill grants +1 dmg for that weaponclass. so self defense is the same as haveing 3 extra levels. the difference is they stack on top of the skill cap.

its one of only 3 positive traits that never lose thier usefulness and never become obsolete. the other 2 beeing buff brainiac and fanny pack.

weak bladder is actually a positive trait in disguise because mugnades are OP.

they already confirmed they want to make more changes and think about ways to make jobs more unique without adding OP traits to each.

by 1.0 the system should be finialized.

they are still uncertain if they wanna provide a way to respec traits where if they do it itll be limited to a 1 time deal per character as they feel the trait system would become pointless if the player could just respec

[Yaridovich]

Originally posted by Nerevar:

just for the record : self defense is underestimated still by people. each level in a melee skill grants +1 dmg for that weaponclass. so self defense is the same as haveing 3 extra levels. the difference is they stack on top of the skill cap.

its one of only 3 positive traits that never lose thier usefulness and never become obsolete. the other 2 beeing buff brainiac and fanny pack.

Actually, this is exactly why Self Defense becomes obsolete later in the game.

+3 damage when you're just starting the game, where your Blunt and Sharp skills are low, and using weapons like a Makeshift Spear or Pipe Club, is great. It's a damage increase of at least 30%.

+3 damage when you're later in the game, using better weapons and with higher Blunt and Sharp skills, is considerably less useful.

Let's say you're using a Lightning Spear with Sharp 10. That's 36 damage, or 39 with Self Defense, which is less than a 10% increase.

With a Laser Sword and Sharp 10, it'd be 50 damage and the increase from Self Defense is even less considerable.

With heavy weapons it's even worse. An Impact Hammer, for instance, and Blunt 10, that would be 70 damage. The +3 from Self Defense is less than 5% of an increase, which virtually makes no difference.

If they change it to a percentage increase instead, it'd never stop being useful. And they could make it so the damage bonus is a minimum of +3, so it wouldn't lose its usefulness during early game.

EDIT: just to add a note here, I understand that you were saying it doesn't become obsolete because it always provides a bonus even if your skills are maxed out. The counterpoint I'm providing here is that, while this is true, the bonus provide becomes less and less useful over time, until reaching a point where it virtually makes no difference.