Yes, you are too Min/Max. The best part about a re-playable RPG like M&B is variety in character builds. Every playthrough is something new.
Except that BL isn't nearly as versatile for play as WB or VC. For instance, the fact that "party skills" are no longer a thing means that it really only makes sense from a gameplay perspective.
From a "fun" perspective? I dig what you're saying. But the game just isn't fun enough yet for me on that account and there simply isn't enough game design support for alternative playstyles in this release. I worry that won't change by the end of EA.
I think I have seen it mentioned that there are mods that increase xp gain. If you need mods to make smithing work then you could in principle just take such a mod to make other skills work instead.
Other than that I basically agree.
After testing on 1.7.0 to figure out what's most "fun", I decided to use Kaoses Tweaks to double XP gain for everything and triple XP gain for Medicine/Engineering/Leadership/Tactics/Roguery. This seems to be the correct balance between slow-and-steady leveling and pointless MMO grind.
But I didn't really need the XP mod for Smithing. The one thing that made Smithing work was the "learn parts by smelting" option, which made it possible to regularly fill crafting orders and get hella Smithing XP. I can't imagine the pain of Smithing without that option on.
Keen sight + mounted patrols
I'm not 100% sure this combo still exists in 1.7.0 but meh? That's one combo that
required you to drop 5 points into Endurance and 8 points into Cunning.
You had no points in 1H/2H/Charm/Trade... and you didn't have anything in INT skills either...
Yah that's a meme build, girl. A murderhobo, I guess? A build designed exclusively to imprison all of the lords of Calradia. That's cool? But not exactly practical or applicable to regular play.
I can't even imagine the grinding it took for you to max out Tactics that high, but I'm genuinely curious as to whether that was worth it. Did you do a lot of autobattling? Did you have the Improved Autobattle mod on?
Social skills: Charm is must have for late game character, 275 perk is insanely good and for a change it is not hard to get. Leadership is great for late game king/vassal, useful perks and main skill effect.
Correct.
Tactics is actually useful for late game, there you grind army after army and siege after siege. Saves a lot of time. Getting to 275+ is too slow to really aim for it.
Ouch. Again, I really can't imagine grinding Tactics that high. What... do you just start a siege, tell your guys to hold position and then go make a sandwich? The only things I've seen level Tactics are autobattles and long played battles, both of which are an un-fun chore.
Trade, hmmm, Trade is a waste of time, doing absolutely nothing to gameplay and leveling it is chore of nightmares.
Half-correct. Leveling it is indeed a chore of nightmares, but the capstone ability allowing you to buy and sell fiefs was BOSS... right up until they changed it from 225 to 300. I don't even want to think what kind of grind it would take to level it up to 300 and it angers me that - on the latest patch - I have to.
There are some really cool perks in Trade, which you might as well invest in if you're already investing in Charm and Leadership with high SOC. Though I will admit that if your goal is "make money" then there are much better ways to do it than trading. Trading is just a thing you do to get the perks which gives you a pitiful amount of money as a side effect.
Athletics and Smithing not needed at all on main character.
Sort of correct. The "Having Going" athletics perk seems to vastly increase persuasion chances, so 2 focus points are worth that alone. Also it's a lot easier to get level-ups for your MC than companions, so I found it worth it to max out Smithing on my main simply for convenience's sake. It seems very few companions have decent END also. Like I said before, it's a very easy skill to power-level on 1.7.0 if you've got the smelting unlock option checked. All that smithing XP means I level up faster too.
This is all lead to boring, but effective 2 Vigor, 2 Control, 3 Athletics, 3 Cunning, 7 Social, 7 Intelllect builds. Very suitable for miind numbling late game experience .
Unfortunately, this is extremely correct. After the first few rounds of EA releases, I settled on 10 SOC + maxed SOC skills + 3 attribute points in everything else... 3 points in 1H + Riding + Athletics, 1 point each in 2H/Polearm, 5 points in Bow and Smithing... then whatever points are left over in things like Tactics. Yeah it's not optimized, but I like to win Tournaments and this game already bored me enough without shopping around for a non-main with non-crap END to do my smithing for me (which, again, would rob me of level-up XP).
Yeah, one of the best parts of RPGs is different builds.
In warband you had the potential to create at least a couple of different overarching builds. E.g. a warrior build for killing stuff, a general Int build for stronger bonuses or even a persuasion build so you could run 16 companions.
Unfortunately, this game is NOT an update of warband. It's some weird hybrid thing, with significantly dumbed-down mechanics that lost a lot of the nuance of the real McCoy.