Prodigy trait is terrible, easily the worst trait

[Sykar]

Mostly because it is a multiplier instead of being additive. Otherwise it might be worth considering on a Loner character from the Blue Wing and having high base learnability.
Consulting the Fallout experience table since this game follows that one a Prodigy ends up at level 15 when a non-Prodigy ends up at 21 and it only gets worse from there. There is absoloutely nothing that Prodigy offers outside of RP elements that cannot be outdone by ANY other trait. Even if you go White Wing7Silverwing with maxed Brains and Renaissance Man you still end up with less skill points, far less HP and 2 less feats by that time.

[➕⁺+₊ ⁺]

Hmm...
1) There are skill/weapon abilities that scale off the brains, check the scalpel one in medical skill tree for example. And I haven't even mentioned some scary science-based weaps...
2) one of the strongest lvl 15 traits has 10 brains as prereq, you have more room for min-maxing thanks to that
3) there is no level cap, brains-based builds would probably also have high psi and perception too which alone gives 120 base learnability -50% +75% is nothing (you can also get +10% from science, +25% from criminal in stealth, 10~15% from gear. That, and the fact that there is plenty of random (and challenging) encounters that reward you with tonns of XP, leveling turns to be fun that way actually

[Sykar]

Anything you want to achieve you can get without Prodigy all it does is help you dump 1 stat a little less. One ability is no reason to suck so hard compared to any other character. I told you that the gap gets worse and worse the longer the game lasts. You people all make the same mistake of thinking that "at some point in the distant future" is a good argument. It is not, availablity for as long as possible is in fact far more important. What good would an "I-Win" button be if it came at the very last fight. Yeah sure you win that one fight in the most boring way and had nothing of the ability for the rest of the 99.9% of the game. The button might as well not exist.
You can min max up to 4 attributes to 10 without sacrificing that much leveling progress and add a little extra due to faction bonus and in case of Guts and Deftness even from ability passives up to 12. Like wise you can get Charisma up to 13 for that juicy PSI ability in Influence without sacrifing dozens of hitpoints and skill points.
As I have said before the 50% reduction is multiplicative not additive. Anyting you do to increase learnability gets cut in half effectively. So the point still stands by the time you reach 21 you are already 6! levels ahead and it gets only worse.

[The Shoes of God]

Okay cool don't take it then, game isn't balanced. Pretty sure that trait is inspired by the original Fallout games too.

[➕⁺+₊ ⁺]

As an example, an encounter on lvl 18:
2 lvl 12 necrouds that instakill you with poison after 3 turn delay and do heavy phys attacks
3 lvl 12 necroids of sleeper type, 200 health, almost absolute immunity to phys damage, which do 2 100 fatigue and 1 50 fatigue + knockdown attacks. Which means, if you don't roll with 100+ fortitude (black wing + redneck 14 base constitution) and more than 2 attack you at once on the same turn - you are dead. You are also dead if you don't have ways to cure/prevent poison. And definitely dead if you can only do phys damage (learned tht a hard way when my 250 phys damage blows were inflicting 20-30 dmg per hit, being completely absorbed, good thing I had that energy-based glove with me)
I see 3 possible strategies to win this:
1) bursty damage that would down sleepers FAST and don't let em knock-down you cuz no amount of HP or whatever will save you from massive fatigue damage
2) tanky redneck build with ungodly fortitude
3) science-based build that can CC the whole field and do various types of damage (and LOTS of it, thanks to the prodigy trait).
Any other builds would fail here (ofc I'm talking about classic+ difficulty), be they lvl 15 or 25, it doesn't matter. See what I'm trying to say here?

[Sykar]

The Shoes of God eredeti hozzászólása:

Okay cool don't take it then, game isn't balanced. Pretty sure that trait is inspired by the original Fallout games too.

Literally a non-argument. I am making this thread to point out that a trait is so terrible it is not even worth using for RPG characters. I am not even talking from a pure min-max perspective.

[Sykar]

Lifewarden eredeti hozzászólása:

As an example, an encounter on lvl 18:
2 lvl 12 necrouds that instakill you with poison after 3 turn delay and do heavy phys attacks
3 lvl 12 necroids of sleeper type, 200 health, almost absolute immunity to phys damage, which do 2 100 fatigue and 1 50 fatigue + knockdown attacks. Which means, if you don't roll with 100+ fortitude (black wing + redneck 14 base constitution) and more than 2 attack you at once on the same turn - you are dead. You are also dead if you don't have ways to cure/prevent poison. And definitely dead if you can only do phys damage (learned tht a hard way when my 250 phys damage blows were inflicting 20-30 dmg per hit, being completely absorbed, good thing I had that energy-based glove with me)
I see 3 possible strategies to win this:
1) bursty damage that would down sleepers FAST and don't let em knock-down you cuz no amount of HP or whatever will save you from massive fatigue damage
2) tanky redneck build with ungodly fortitude
3) science-based build that can CC the whole field and do various types of damage (and LOTS of it, thanks to the prodigy trait).
Any other builds would fail here (ofc I'm talking about classic+ difficulty), be they lvl 15 or 25, it doesn't matter. See what I'm trying to say here?

Or sneak past it or ignore it, etc. I play nothing but Tactical, Classic is a joke with uneccessary boni for supposedly "experienced RPG" players. Still not an argument why Prodigy has to suck so hard. Any kind of build you proposed to "solve" the situation can be done easily without Prodigy. Yeah you are trying hard to justify the worst trait in the game by far which has no way of at least somewhat counteracting its negative while most other traits can to varying degrees. No increasing your learnability is NOT an argument because, and pay attention because I do not like to repeat myself, it is a multiplier and ergo halfs EVERYTHING you gain in terms of learnability.
So in the end, you have failed to make an argument as to why Prodigy, the worst trait in the game, should not get another look at. This is easily fixable by either toning down the negative or make it additive, not multiplicative.

[➕⁺+₊ ⁺]

If they give you a trait that boosts one of the characteristics that can significantly boost output damage and provide other benefits along the way (more skillpoints per level, for one) they have to add a nasty negative to counterbalance. You basically get a major power boost in exchange for XP penalty. XP can be grinded easily, and you don't need to be lvl 50 really, 20 is enough and you'll get there quick anyways. You want em to rebalance it in a way that would cripple some other attribute? Then no amount of XP will fix that

[Stoibs]

Woops, I'm already 20 odd hours in my first blind run as a Prodigy character :P
I dunno, some of the traits in Fallout 1/2 were pretty garbage also but nothing that made the game impossible. I'm still having fun at the moment and don't feel *too* gimped.

[➕⁺+₊ ⁺]

Sykar eredeti hozzászólása:

make it additive, not multiplicative.

man, I get it that you want this badly :D They kinda borked the multiplicative/additive on many traits yo, like when you take "salieri" (-20% dmg +20% crit) and tehn later take 10 charisma +40% damage one, guess what - that 40% damage boost completely REPLACES -20% penalty and bam, you got yourself a terminator there... I suppose a lot of balancing and fixes are on the way

[Sykar]

Lifewarden eredeti hozzászólása:

If they give you a trait that boosts one of the characteristics that can significantly boost output damage and provide other benefits along the way (more skillpoints per level, for one) they have to add a nasty negative to counterbalance. You basically get a major power boost in exchange for XP penalty. XP can be grinded easily, and you don't need to be lvl 50 really, 20 is enough and you'll get there quick anyways. You want em to rebalance it in a way that would cripple some other attribute? Then no amount of XP will fix that

You really are not listening I see. No you do NOT gain more skill points in total. Yes per level, but so effin what? Using the level 21 vs 15 comparison again, being 6 levels ahead where the other collects easily between 16-20 skill points are not compensate by the meager 4 extra skill points per level. Nevermind that you lose more and more feats and HP the longer the game goes compared to a non-Prodigy character.
As to damage increase, there are so many other ways to increase damage via extra AP/saved AP, conditional stuff like Opportunist, crit, crit damage, base damage increase, etc. that getting something so niche and sacrificing so much with no way of compensating for it like almost any other trait is just pathetic.

[➕⁺+₊ ⁺]

Do you propose us combine the power of whining and plead em to make it additive? :3 I don't mind, actually

[Sykar]

Where is the whining? I have shown explicitly that the trait is terrible. Adjustments can be made in a variety of forms. See the trait "Bossy" which had hugely different negatives before. So why are you so adamant about a terrible trait like this not getting changed to something that is not so bad that it makes the trait worthless outside of a niche build, at best.

[➕⁺+₊ ⁺]

Because I see a hidden joke planted by the devs there, that playing a "dumb as a bag of nails" character is acually smarter than +1 white wing +4 prodigy XD

[➕⁺+₊ ⁺]

Nah, seriously, I'll support your proposition if ever there will be list of balance changes suggested by players, right now there are so many glaring balance issues that should be fixed ASAP that your suggestion will drown in all that... Maybe go to their discord and voice your concerns there? Right now the "suggestions" thread is overloaded with meaningless garbage (at a rate of one nicely argumented suggestion per twenty "WHERE IZ ZE QUEST MARKERZ???")

[Sykar]

I am not saying that this has to be priority, far from it. I would rather have them stealth improved to be closer to Underrail for example than a small change to Prodigy.
Edit: Strictly speaking this is a fine trait from a RPG perspective but so are most others. You can definetely build something decent around it and finish the game.
I would much rather prefer Slacker for example, which is a great trait, both mechanically and RPG wise, that gives a tremendous early power boost but makes you lose noticable amount of skill points in the long run, but with traits like Nerd!, Deft Hand and Observant around you can work around its -3 skill points per level drawback.