Suggested newbie builds

[Greep]

Fallout had 3 pre-made builds.  Fallout didn't need them, because you couldn't make a character that had trouble beating the game if you tried.  Pick guns, and you win eventually.  This game definitely does need to give some guidance in character creation.

I'd say the game's difficulty is like dwarf fortress.  "easy with a difficulty cliff"  That is if you know all the rules, mechanics, quirks, you know what is coming up, you can just breeze through the game with hardly a reload.  But people can make virtually unwinnable characters that are perfectly logical! 

Average stats character? Dead.  Crossbows and grenades with nothing else (like the cover )?  Pulverized.  Hammer without agility?  Sitting duck.
Light armor guns without dex or sniper feats? Hah!

There's a thread in the forum just now with someone who made a "max dodge, evasion, melee, crafting skills build"  Looks great on paper to anyone starting up a game.  I seriously doubt this character can get past balor or the warehouse quests, not to mention any part of the game with multiple stunners/immobilizers.  No stealth with light armor? No subterfuge on dex? No throwing?  He's toast man.  And not powdered toast man. And it's not really his fault.

I think it's great that you have the freedom to make any character you want, but if the game is going to make characters that can't realistically finish the game despite having a maxed combat skill, I think there either needs to be guidance in character creation, or more difficulty levels while making normal even easier and newbie friendly.  So people can get one play through to get a feel for how the game plays before doing some serious build creation. 

And it's not like you have to babysit them and pick all the feats they would need to pick, but a few simple builds with explanations of why they work would be nice, giving the initial attributes and initial skills, and explanations for why those skills are good in case they want to deviate from the premade build.  I think fallout had the right idea here: force a build at start, but allow you to rip it apart in character creation.  They don't even have to be "good"  just not "fatally flawed" if you know what I mean.

Edit: On that note, it might ne nice to give people a very poor quality tactival vest upon saving newton.  Something more experienced players would just toss in the trash.

[Authorchristopher]

I completely agree with you on this one, I love this game so far and have been doing a lets play of my time through the different parts and am only up to the junkyard but I found the points I invested on start up were almost completely useless making the game and fights so difficult I end up having to run back to the doctor 5 or 6 times every fight just to get healed, It really slows down the game, granted I edit the footage so others don't have to wait the extra 5 mins or more per run but would be great if you could give us a respec potion or a npc we can talk to that can reset our points even if its a one time thing perhaps after the first few main quest to allow those who clearly made a mistake to change without starting completely over. I know some games are meant to be extremely hard and not for the average gamer and done this way on purpose and if that's the case you are definitely on the right track as the learning curve is extreme but if you wish to open it up to more of the gamer community I think a starting build or a respec npc would be needed. I hate to even bring this up as I said before I am loving the game but feel most would not go through the countless runs to town as I have.


P.s I haven't quiet gotten to the point I understood a lot of what the post above was refereeing to and if any one out there reads this and wish to give me some tips on my build before its to late I would welcome their advice. https://youtu.be/dzOcYpNENb0

[Greep]

Hey, yeah this is an example of the "average stat" failure I outlined above.  In fallout that made sense, but here having stats of

5
5
5
7
7
5
7

At Level 5, basically is what makes this character nearly unsalvageable due to lack of feats or ability to hit anything late game.  Not to try and get too off topic, but you can salvage just about any character if you max stealth, lock & hack, and guns, as you can avoid any tough battle in the game with those if you go the JKK route.  You'll have to pretend you're playing deus ex lol, but it's doable. 

You might want to consider max traps as well, to cheeze anything you just absolutely cannot handle.  Craft yourself a decent tactical vest or buy one with a lot of DT, and avoid fighting mutants (not muties, the big dudes) in Depot A (if you find a screen with them, you should find a door in the mid left corner.  Sneak to it, and if you don't have the access card, go underground again until you find it.  It's in the second section, the one with lots of sentry bots running around).  And from now on, put everything into perception.

[Elhazzared]

A guide is simple to do. You don't so much need a pre-made build so much as you need the players to have some vary basic notions.

First thing. Always start with a stat at 9 or 10. That stat should be the stat affecting your main form of attack. Either perception for guns, strenght for melee or will for psionics. Similarly you shouldn't be afraid to get some starting stats at 3. A psion probably won't have a problem with str 3 and even constitution which non psi characters normally have no need for will. Think of it like playing D&D. Maximise your best combat stat and have a dump stat.

Second thing. Use the wiki... Seriously, just use it. You may not want spoilers and that is all nice and dandy, but consult the perks and learn which stats you need for the perks that will make your character functional so that you can better create the character.

Third. Some almost universal usefull skills. Stealth is great. Aside a heavy armor character which will have too much penalty it's always a solid investment as it allows you to start combat on your own terms. Hacking and Lockpicking. They allow to bypass some stuff but above all you don't lose a ton of extra loot. ombat skills. well yes, you'll always need some combat skills but do not forget to always have at least 2 different types of attack skills! If you limit yourself to just one type of attack you will find yourself in a situation where you will probably regreat it.

I think this is enough for any newbies to start learning the ropes.

[Loriac]

A guide is simple to do. You don't so much need a pre-made build so much as you need the players to have some vary basic notions.

First thing. Always start with a stat at 9 or 10. That stat should be the stat affecting your main form of attack. Either perception for guns, strenght for melee or will for psionics. Similarly you shouldn't be afraid to get some starting stats at 3. A psion probably won't have a problem with str 3 and even constitution which non psi characters normally have no need for will. Think of it like playing D&D. Maximise your best combat stat and have a dump stat.

Second thing. Use the wiki... Seriously, just use it. You may not want spoilers and that is all nice and dandy, but consult the perks and learn which stats you need for the perks that will make your character functional so that you can better create the character.

Third. Some almost universal usefull skills. Stealth is great. Aside a heavy armor character which will have too much penalty it's always a solid investment as it allows you to start combat on your own terms. Hacking and Lockpicking. They allow to bypass some stuff but above all you don't lose a ton of extra loot. ombat skills. well yes, you'll always need some combat skills but do not forget to always have at least 2 different types of attack skills! If you limit yourself to just one type of attack you will find yourself in a situation where you will probably regreat it.

I think this is enough for any newbies to start learning the ropes.

Whilst this advice seems reasonable, I don't think its really true anymore.

The major impact that stats have is over feat access rather than skill enhancement.  For instance, its entirely fine to run a guns build with a perception of just 4, or perhaps 6 if you really want aimed shot.  The additional build points into perception don't really help your damage output all that much, all they do is open up further feat choices you may want depending on your chosen weapon.

The majority of builds will also want access to decent AoE options, which is probably going to come from either throwing (dex 6 req for grenadier) or from metathermics (wil 7+ is probably a good idea in this case).

The new crafting feats mean that Int 6 or 7 is very useful, again depending on exactly what gear you want to run with.

Pistols now have an effective str requirement of 6 (for steadfast aim).

And so on.  Basically, a build which looks horribly 'unoptimised' [e.g. str7/dex6/agi4/con4/per8/wil10/int7 @L24] may in fact be necessary to provide access to all the feats you want to have on your character (in this case, the listed stat distribution would allow for full assault rifle damage, grenadier, locus of control, gun nut - i.e. a very good balanced hybrid character that would output almost 100% of the damage a 'pure' assault rifle build would do along with access to crowd control via thought control, AoE damage via throwing, and even stealth if desired if you tack on ballistics to give you very good tactical vest options).

[Greep]

Well.. sort of.  Every point in your primary attack is about 10% more damage, so that adds up.  While most builds don't benefit from going all the way to 16 in a stat like they used to, most of the time you should go pretty high.  My current assault build is 8 str, 10 con, 11 perc, and 7 int, and I probably didn't need to go so high in int, the feats really didn't pay off.

But even then, a lot of players don't even get that feat access and damage is the primary purpose of stats.

[Loriac]

Well.. sort of.  Every point in your primary attack is about 10% more damage, so that adds up.  While most builds don't benefit from going all the way to 16 in a stat like they used to, most of the time you should go pretty high.  My current assault build is 8 str, 10 con, 11 perc, and 7 int, and I probably didn't need to go so high in int, the feats really didn't pay off.

But even then, a lot of players don't even get that feat access and damage is the primary purpose of stats.

I didn't know that each point was 10% damage - are you sure about this?  How does the damage formula work, is it based on total attack skill for all damage types?  When I look at item stats (e.g. gun damage range) they don't seem to be affected by the player's skill total; does one have to monitor the combat logs to see the impact of the additional skill on damage?

Gun nut on its own is at least 10% extra damage on average, and that would be multiplicative with any primary stat increases (it may be better than 10% on high damage threshold targets).  Plus the 7 int also opens up power management along with ballistics or armor sloping (and it makes crafting skills cheaper skill point wise to achieve a certain target) - as such, I would argue that there is a good reason to go with 7 Int on most gun builds unless you absolutely needed the points elsewhere (e.g. a high dex pistol build).

But my main point was really that blindly putting 9 or 10 into the 'primary' stat may not be the best build advice any longer, and that it may be better to think of builds as collections of feats that you want to access, with stat distributions primarily being about how to accommodate that.

[Greep]

Primary stats don't affect damage, but they effectively do because skills affect primary damage.  Since primary stats bump skills by 8-10% (don't know the number) I'm assuming it's a 10% increase.  Possibly not, but I know it's pretty decent.  The extra damage is not shown on your guns, although it is shown on your psionic skills.

[Mindless]

Primary stats don't affect damage, but they effectively do because skills affect primary damage.

Not true =P
Think about some Melee weapons!

[Greep]

Primary stats don't affect damage, but they effectively do because skills affect primary damage.

Not true =P
Think about some Melee weapons!

Oh fine, nitpicker   As for the int feats, it's mainly a matter of disassemble not paying off.  That -10% condition really bites you in the bum, as you end up finding better components in stores.

[Loriac]

Primary stats don't affect damage, but they effectively do because skills affect primary damage.  Since primary stats bump skills by 8-10% (don't know the number) I'm assuming it's a 10% increase.  Possibly not, but I know it's pretty decent.  The extra damage is not shown on your guns, although it is shown on your psionic skills.

I agree that thats how it works for psionics, I'm just questioning if the same damage formula applies to guns/throwing/crossbows.  Also, the impact will be affected by the 'base' number that the skill modifies.

E.g. if the damage calc is (100+effective skill)/100 for the damage multiplier, then you'd see e.g. a 4% difference at effective skill level 100 vs 108 (i.e. the increment from one extra stat point).

Edit: I just saw Epeli's note about the combat stats page, I will check this out - thank you.

[captainmeow]

Attack skills increase your damage (idk the exact formula, never bothered to check it)

I think it's Base Damage x (0.7 x effective skill)%

at least for melee weapons and guns, I think it scales differently with psi

[Loriac]

Attack skills increase your damage (idk the exact formula, never bothered to check it)

I think it's Base Damage x (0.7 x effective skill)%

at least for melee weapons and guns, I think it scales differently with psi

I'm assuming that should read base damage x ( 1 + (0.7 x effective skill)% ) in which case 8.5% increase per stat point equates to around an extra 3% per stat point if I've done the maths correctly.  E.g. at 100 effective skill vs. 108 effective skill, you end up with:

1+0.7x1 vs. 1+0.7x1.08 as the damage multiplier to base damage, i.e. 1.7 vs 1.756.  1.756/1.7 => 3% increase in damage

Therefore, you'd need to spend 3 points in Per to get the same effect as 'Gun Nut' on its own, all other things being equal.  Sure its nice to boost Per for an extra 3% damage per stat point, but only if you had literally nowhere else to spend the points.

[Greep]

Attack skills increase your damage (idk the exact formula, never bothered to check it)

I think it's Base Damage x (0.7 x effective skill)%

at least for melee weapons and guns, I think it scales differently with psi

I'm assuming that should read base damage x ( 1 + (0.7 x effective skill)% ) in which case 8.5% increase per stat point equates to around an extra 3% per stat point if I've done the maths correctly.  E.g. at 100 effective skill vs. 108 effective skill, you end up with:

1+0.7x1 vs. 1+0.7x1.08 as the damage multiplier to base damage, i.e. 1.7 vs 1.756.  1.756/1.7 => 3% increase in damage

Therefore, you'd need to spend 3 points in Per to get the same effect as 'Gun Nut' on its own, all other things being equal.  Sure its nice to boost Per for an extra 3% damage per stat point, but only if you had literally nowhere else to spend the points.

Pretty sure this is only true for skills = 100.  Consider as skills approach infinite, the 1 makes no difference.  But yeah, much less than 10% anyways, more like 5 by the end of the game

In any case, I think this mere discussion proves the need for some form of guide or suggested builds

[Greep]

Ah, bonus damage yes, but "% higher damage" no, that's what I meant with skills = 100.  e.g. at 3 skill in guns you could have 40 perception and not do much extra damage, maybe 10%.

But anyways, yeah this doesn't matter much to the suggestion xD  Fun discussing, though.