Alrighty twenty hours in and with a level 15 character I feel like I can remark on some things. If you sit there and seriously try and harp about it is early access, I played the original game back when it was not even available on steam. If there is one thing that should be solid over the other it is how you develop your character, eight years they had to polish the thing players are going to putting the most work into.
The Leveling system is interesting since it does encourage you to develop your character outside of a specific build if you want to get those focus and attribute points faster. I think it can work over just grinding generic exp for your levels. Of course you will be grinding a lot of those lesser skills into the ground at the higher levels if you want to see that character progression.
Attributes, So all they are is just a flat exp bonus towards three skills per attributes and nothing more making them barely matter at all when you have the focus mechanic contributing to the lions share of what you want to develop the fastest.
Skills, you get em by doing stuff a lot that falls under a specific skill. Shoot stuff with bow, bow skill. Trade fat lewt, trade skill. What does it mean?
Well I am going to give you a little hit, there is this button that looks like i click the bastard and it will tell you what certain skills actually improve.
I got a few issues here.
Any path finding skill is just gone, Scouting only applies to tracking and spotting and that is it, and the perks it offers to help you move faster is a joke. Navigator at skill level 50, you get 1% percent bonus to your movement speed on the map. so you need to be moving at 10.0 to see a .1 change, **** off. Don't worry at 275 scouting skill you will get a... 3% movement speed boost, hold onto your hat boys those horses are in warp drive!
Tactics strongly favors people who just want to Auto-calc your fights all the time, there are a few nice perks in the tree though. Right now I feel like it should contribute more to morale on the field, something tangible like that for the people who don't care about the simulated fights.
Mind you leadership has the flat morale bonus on the map and that BOTHERS ME. You want to grind leadership? Get high morale! Want high morale? Get high leadership! The most I have been able to get my Morale to is 80-85 and that was after some wicked victories under my belt. Interestingly enough that was also the same point I started seeing the Leadership points rolling in. Yeah I don't know about this one at all.
Roguery is what contributes to your loot value, so if you are trying to be the good guy guess you don't to have nice stuff drop after your honorable battles! Mind you, it ONLY increases after combat loot, but you know, not actually buffing your raiding or increasing your odds into intimidating caravans to just straight up dropping their stuff and high tailing it.
Athletics only helps you be faster on foot, extra health is for chumps. All the HP gains are locked away in the perks trees and are all over the place.
I have no idea how to increase Charm yet, I tried to barter with nobles and spanked them at that weird chess type game, have not seen a point come out of it, The skill bonus is weak as hell but some of those perks seem spicy so right now it is a form of torture.
Who thought it was a fun idea to put Smithing on a cooldown? A cooldown that only recovers by waiting and not from doing other things, fun things. The person that coded that in needs a HARD slap.
Some skills you can grind super fast, I got 125 riding and 95 bow by being a cheeky horse sniper. Other skills, good luck on ever seeing you gain a single point in them. I am fully focused on Leadership and have 10 points into Social, I should be getting points like gang busters when I am over 80 morale and with a times 8 bonus. I have a leadership skill of 28 after 20 hours. What is absolutely mental about this is I have NOTHING invested into my combat. I am sitting at 2 Vigor, 2 Control and 2 endurance and my three biggest skills with no focus at all invested into them. Yet they are the skills I have earned the most points into.
That is pretty much what I got to say about how you develop your character so far, now I am going to see if I can make my character a bow god or something!
The Leveling system is interesting since it does encourage you to develop your character outside of a specific build if you want to get those focus and attribute points faster. I think it can work over just grinding generic exp for your levels. Of course you will be grinding a lot of those lesser skills into the ground at the higher levels if you want to see that character progression.
Attributes, So all they are is just a flat exp bonus towards three skills per attributes and nothing more making them barely matter at all when you have the focus mechanic contributing to the lions share of what you want to develop the fastest.
Skills, you get em by doing stuff a lot that falls under a specific skill. Shoot stuff with bow, bow skill. Trade fat lewt, trade skill. What does it mean?
Well I am going to give you a little hit, there is this button that looks like i click the bastard and it will tell you what certain skills actually improve.
I got a few issues here.
Any path finding skill is just gone, Scouting only applies to tracking and spotting and that is it, and the perks it offers to help you move faster is a joke. Navigator at skill level 50, you get 1% percent bonus to your movement speed on the map. so you need to be moving at 10.0 to see a .1 change, **** off. Don't worry at 275 scouting skill you will get a... 3% movement speed boost, hold onto your hat boys those horses are in warp drive!
Tactics strongly favors people who just want to Auto-calc your fights all the time, there are a few nice perks in the tree though. Right now I feel like it should contribute more to morale on the field, something tangible like that for the people who don't care about the simulated fights.
Mind you leadership has the flat morale bonus on the map and that BOTHERS ME. You want to grind leadership? Get high morale! Want high morale? Get high leadership! The most I have been able to get my Morale to is 80-85 and that was after some wicked victories under my belt. Interestingly enough that was also the same point I started seeing the Leadership points rolling in. Yeah I don't know about this one at all.
Roguery is what contributes to your loot value, so if you are trying to be the good guy guess you don't to have nice stuff drop after your honorable battles! Mind you, it ONLY increases after combat loot, but you know, not actually buffing your raiding or increasing your odds into intimidating caravans to just straight up dropping their stuff and high tailing it.
Athletics only helps you be faster on foot, extra health is for chumps. All the HP gains are locked away in the perks trees and are all over the place.
I have no idea how to increase Charm yet, I tried to barter with nobles and spanked them at that weird chess type game, have not seen a point come out of it, The skill bonus is weak as hell but some of those perks seem spicy so right now it is a form of torture.
Who thought it was a fun idea to put Smithing on a cooldown? A cooldown that only recovers by waiting and not from doing other things, fun things. The person that coded that in needs a HARD slap.
Some skills you can grind super fast, I got 125 riding and 95 bow by being a cheeky horse sniper. Other skills, good luck on ever seeing you gain a single point in them. I am fully focused on Leadership and have 10 points into Social, I should be getting points like gang busters when I am over 80 morale and with a times 8 bonus. I have a leadership skill of 28 after 20 hours. What is absolutely mental about this is I have NOTHING invested into my combat. I am sitting at 2 Vigor, 2 Control and 2 endurance and my three biggest skills with no focus at all invested into them. Yet they are the skills I have earned the most points into.
That is pretty much what I got to say about how you develop your character so far, now I am going to see if I can make my character a bow god or something!
