Level Caps Are Not Welcome & Here's Why

Feedback/Feature Requests
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And this is the main issue, people, not the game itself.

Thing is, there have to be limitations in the game to make game challenging and enjoyable. Limitations like: walk/run speed, sprint time, weight limit, inventory/storage capacity, skill points etc. Since if you were to remove all of those limitations, there won’t be much of a game to play.

You are forgetting the multiple char system GZ has. People are able to use all of the skills, between 4 chars, if they like. So, means to do it are there.

In my example, there would be 8 new skills and 4 extra skill points. All it takes to test out all 8 skills, is either 2x current max lvl chars (since each would get 4 points), or one, (new) char, who’s below level 27.

To get “one char with all skills”, devs have to radically change the game and remove multiple char system, since it would be obsolete after that.

I don’t know about other players, but i’m not willing to give up my 3x lvl31 chars, just to have one char with all skills. For the least, i’ll loose the extra storage my 3x additional chars give, i also loose the different looks they have and the most, i’ll loose hundreds of hours i put in, to level them all up to lvl31. And all that loss for what?

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For one, there could be a logical reason to keep the multiple character thing going. For instance, if a split screen feature was added, it would only make sense that you’d want more than one character.

Also

To be honest, a game is mostly a game because people play it. And I assure you even more people might play this if you were able to unlock all of the levels. So, again, not all people want the level cap gone. That’s all good, and for multiplayer, there really would be no reason for everyone to have every single skill. But for single player, you are literally all you have. So continuing to use the “ multiplayer only requires one skill per person” argument is getting kind of old, and repetitive.

Before people ask how we would make multiplayer work, without making them all level 31 is this- Instead of relying on levels, we choose a specific skill, corresponding with our levels. So, if I’m level 5, that’s the maximum level I can use for the specialization of my choice at the beginning of the match.

That could work for multiplayer, so that people can use all of the abilities.

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I’m going against TOS, but for the argument sake I’ll go on. I did try all-skill build. Got dull pretty fast and lost edge of thrill of being “lacking”.
And in reality I’ve used skills worth about fourtish points (around half of all skills). Minus damage buffs - mid-30s count. So I’m saying “Will you really use all skills provided?”. I’ve deleted that char and started anew - was surprised that current count is a “sweet spot”, limited, yet enough for everything you really gonna use.
Right now I’m playing Meaty Vanguard (Vanguard spec + all health and heal-related skills) and build tightly fits into 30 points. To quote and agree with Aesyle.

Tailor SP character to your playstyle. Or at least don’t pick up skills that you won’t use or have playing skill/finese to compensate for. Like I don’t pick any skills in marksman build, except aiming speed, thanks to late-game guns (4*-5*) that are accurate and stable themselves. Or didn’t pick any scavenge skills, also due to knowledge where and how to farm resources. It becomes a fun challenge to my incorrigible greed and hoarding habits - to spend efficiently more than I can scavenge and my playstyle is “no stone unturned, no useful resource recycled and scrap only if intented to throw away”.
Specs are very powerful themselves - Vanguard and Survivor are free health and adrenaline. Marksman can save up a SP or few and makes long range WAY too comfortable for example. But only one at a time, anyways. Bino skills are fun utilitarian skills, but they shine most in the MP. Not that they shine very bright.
I ditched Tech View, because after thousands of destroyed machines I’ve learned their “spots” and can approximate their health by counting destoryed modules or mags dumped on them. Explosives ain’t that powerful to spend a skill, if we talk about damage, but range increas do help agains groups. etc etc.

So current SP to skill count ratio I say good enough.

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263

I have a few games that are still development that are facing this same problem. They want character specialization while maintaining choice. To ensure that this happens, they have the level cap. All of these games have the same problem where things get a little rough for the solo player. As a solo player, there are certain skills you need. From a solo survivor’s perspective, the more you can be a jack of all trades, the better your chances. Generation Zero has the added wrench in the works that your character could be solo character part of the time and teamed up another part of the time.

The common denominator between these games, and I believe the source of all the headache, is that they all have placed the basic survival skills that any player type would logically want into a tree or among many trees that a person may not want anything to do with.

It would be nice to have the basics pulled out of specialization trees. Maybe you get limited specialization points that stop at a certain level, but all the basics level up slowly with your character. In Generation Zero, some of these basics would be max health, max stamina, heal speed, stamina regen speed, run speed, aim speed, throw accuracy, and lockpicking. Of course, there needs to be a cap to this as well, but this is the part that should take many, many months of gameplay to really develop.

This doesn’t mean that a specialization cannot add onto these basic skills. For instance, maybe there is some new melee build and it has a perk to reduce stamina 2%, 5%, 10% when using melee weapons. Gain 2hp, 5hp, 10hp for each kill with a melee weapon. Etc. Add in the build specifics. 2%, 5% 10% more damage to enemies with melee weapons. These should probably be in this order going up the tree as well, or in a similar way such that the higher up the tree, the more beneficial for that particular class. Lower in the tree is more beneficial for anybody. Now apply this concept in similar ways to each build type.

Going the Marksman path, you currently get aim speed. If aim speed was a basic skill, then this would become aim speed increase when using rifles. If hip shot accuracy was a basic skill, then you could also get improved hip shot accuracy with rifles going this path. Apply to recoil and weapon sway, but only for rifles. This allows you to beef up similar abilities for trees that would use other weapon types.

The last specialization perk, besides added ability, could also unlock a unique craftable that cannot simply be randomly found in the world. Perhaps go as far as to make it so that only players with the specs can wield it. Specialization should be meaningful in the end if people are going to accept the caps.

Finally, XP gain increase shouldn’t be in any trees. It has no benefit in a capped system and does more harm to a player than good. However, if the basics were pulled out and leveled slowly with the player, it might make sense to place one of these at the end of every tree. For instance following the melee build as an example again, 1% 2% 3% XP gain for killing an enemy with a melee weapon.

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The idea that simple things like stamina would increase over time makes sense, because physically speaking, our stamina increases the more we use our bodies, so it doesn’t make much sense that we would have to level it up ourselves.

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You could use the same line to justify any suggestion made so far. :roll_eyes:

While split-screen may work for consoles (since those usually have two controllers), how this would work on PC? With only 1 KB and mouse? Ask PC players to buy 2nd KB and 2nd mouse to play on split screen?

Also, i don’t get how multiple chars ties in with slipt-screen. Are you supposed to control 2 of your chars at once, in split-screen? :thinking:

Like said above and in other topics as well, the issue isn’t about level cap, but instead the poor placement of skills in a tree.

For example: if i want to have Enemy Marking in my solo game, i have to take Flaking skill, which is solely MP skill. I have 0 use of Flanking in my solo game and that’s a wasted skill point. I also have to pick Throw Accuracy as well and while useful to some, it isn’t useful to me.
So, to get Enemy Marking to level 2, i have to spend 4 skill points, where 2 skill points are for skills that i don’t want at all.

Topic here: [Suggestion] Skill Tree Rebalancing

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OffTopic

I have Logitech F710 connected all the time and it is essentially XBox gamepad. GZ recognizes it and I can switch KB/M and gamepad any moment and both work. Even button tips change on the fly on the UI.

That’s the idea - it is done in the “Road Redemption” game, which actively suggests up to 4 characters before the start (activating your character by KB/M or gamepad you posess). Thing is - how to split it on 19’’-21’’ screens :slight_smile: Buuuut, PC have luxury of multiple screens, so…

Say, did you played PayDay2? Your description close to their skill trees.

You say “it shouldn’t be in any tree”, then immediately propose to put it 'in the end".

I dunno if devs would like it, but how about skill system or at least certain stats that raise by usage (BL1 proficieny, TES3+ skill system)? I admit that it weawing skill system into skill system, but that how it was in Borderlands 1 - skill tree and weapon proficiencies. I don’t say “we need that”, I’m just throwing into discussion if we want this here.

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Yeah, what deadwanderer said. Also, split screen is for multiple people. This is kind of off topic, but it’s the only way to explain what I’m talking about, so bear with me.

Currently, there is not an option for a two player split screen. But, it would be beneficial, because since you already have four characters, you could choose two, and then two people could play in the same world, but on one device. I say this because many times while playing I’ve thought to myself “ man, too bad we don’t have another ps4, me and my dad could play together” obviously the gaming community is much larger than me and my dad, but the logic still stands. Why not add a split screen feature? That way, it would make sense that you can have more than one character, and there would be an actual reason for it. Not to mention that instead of someone having to buy a 3-500$ devise, they can buy a 20-50$ controller, and get to playing, because you can share a console/ PC.

Anyway, that’s my suggestion. Also again as DeadWanderer said, split screen is possible on PC, and if you have two screens, it’s not that hard at all.

Sorry if that was confusing, I meant that two people would play at once on the same device.

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No, I haven’t even seen gameplay of it yet. That’s interesting. I’ll check it out.

Yes, provided that there would still be a reason to get XP, which there might be under the condition that those basic skills were pulled out and leveled slowly and for much longer. I knew someone would point that out, but I didn’t want to say the same thing over again in a lengthy post. If the system remains as is, then there shouldn’t be XP gain as a skill under any tree. It serves no purpose in the current system and does nothing but waste at least one point for anybody going with that build.

But anyway, the underlying point I was trying to make is that a capped system with class trees should work and would probably even be desired by most players if the basics that every player needs were separated out of it somehow. The class perks might augment those basics when using specific weapons and equipment, but you wouldn’t feel like you were missing out on essentials if you didn’t take them.

Here’s another example. Carry Capacity is something that every player would want to improve regardless of how they play. If it were pulled out as a basic skill, this would improve slowly with my character level. On top of that as a bonus, I can also improve it with my class perks. Going back to my pretend melee build, it could have a perk like melee weapons weigh 5%, 15%, 25% less. For a Medic, all medical equipment weigh less… and so on. The way it is now, I must absolutely invest into a survivor class if I want any carry capacity improvement at all. This is not the kind of player choice I believe the devs really want.

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So you want divide skills to level-based stat raise and SP system?
Well, I’m not against it. But game’s skill system is fine as it is. It just need clean up and tweaks.
And it isn’t something very complicated for now, but I’d like to be GZ being as sophisticated as Chris Avellonne’s FallOut games (1, 2, NV) in terms of storytelling or quests. But GZ has it’s own charm of being pure open-world guerilla action against machines in not too distant alternative to 80s-90s and I don’t really want another FallOut game after it’s name was so much tainted. And being pure open-word guerilla action game against machines in not too distant alternative 80s-90s doesn’t require too sophisticated RPG elements as quite a lot of suggested skills/systems. Especially “too supernatural” like heal-on-kill.

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Traditionally, Fallout’s skill system was picking them before you even start.

I may have provided something like that as a simple example, but can easily be replaced with something like an increased chance of an enemy dropping a med-kit when killing it with the weapon(s) of that class. Enemies having med-kits is pretty weird too, I suppose… but that already exists so I can be spared the criticism on that one.

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Off-topic

Some background info:

When GZ launched, only FNIX tank had advanced first aid kit in it’s loot pool and that too rarely. No other machine had first aid kits in their loot pool. But then came player complaints and in June '19 update, devs brought Machine Loot, which messed up the game pretty good. :confounded: Btw, i don’t like that Machine Loot at all but i have to accept it, if i want to play GZ.

This reminds me skill system in GTA games, where the more you practice certain activity (e.g riding a bike), the better you get at it. While it makes sense, it’s slow going and if one would like to max out all skills (for 100% completion), it’s tedious thing to do. Especially when the activity in question doesn’t appeal at all.

I can understand that when you play, your carry capacity slowly increases over time but for items to magically start loosing weight, is something i’m not okay with.

It would make more sense, in the Medic example, where the higher your medicinal skill is, the more HP you can recover in each consumption.
E.g: simple first aid kit currently heals 25 HP. If you’d have medicinal skill half-way, you could get 27 HP out of it and if it’s maxed, you could get 30 HP out of it.

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That would be “learn by doing.” Slightly different because under that system you would have to do silly things like jump a lot in order to raise jumping skill, or run in circles to raise running skill. In my example, a foundation of all of the basic attributes builds up as you play. The only tedium is whatever already exists in the game because you play as normal. If you really wanted to, there could be separate points. Survival points and class points. That would give you some more added freedom to do something like focus on health initially. All that really matters is that the basic survival character enhancements are separate from class, but then enhanced further when you actually play as that class.

Sure, but again my example is being taken too literally. The idea is to provide a way for players to build up the things that everybody uses regardless of your character type, but then you can augment or enhance with class-specific perks. My example could easily be replaced with as a melee build, you obtain special holsters to be able to carry melee weapons easier. It could easily be defined as class-specific backpacks that can hold the class items more efficiently because they were designed for that purpose. The details and semantics of it all doesn’t matter in my proposal.

Everybody wants to run faster. So, let everybody level up their character to run faster over time. Now, let players boost that with their class selections in some way. I’m sure this can be picked apart and taken literally as well… but again just as an example, a Marksman with the perks could run faster while holding rifles. Not a supernatural event, it’s just that the marksman is more comfortable running while holding the weapons a marksman would normally hold. For the imaginary melee class I’ve used before, faster while holding melee weapons. This allows players to really specialize in the classes they choose. No matter what route you go, you don’t have to feel like you missed out on the running speed perk due to the skill points cap. You get some from general leveling, and you get some more provided that you are truly playing the classes you choose. Person A being marksman and Person B being a melee grunt can be on level playing grounds as long as they stick to their class.

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I get what your idea is but i think it’s too complex for GZ. :thinking: Currently, it’s easy and straightforward: gain XP, level up, get skill point, use skill point to unlock one skill. Separating skills to base skills and class specific skills and also changing their improvement, over-complicates things.

This, “stick to the class”, is something i, personally, am not okay with.

Some time ago, Systemic Reaction released 2nd game: Second Extinction and at 1st, i thought i might give it a go. Since it looked similar to GZ, except it has dinos instead of machines. But once i saw that it has predefined char classes in it, i instantly gave it a hard pass.

I don’t like when i’m forced to pick specific player class in a game. I like when i can freely pick the skills i like and be “Jack of all Trades”, which i can in GZ. And while skills in GZ are defined into 4 categories, you are not bound to stick with one category. You can freely pick skills from all 4 categories and make a char that is unique to you.

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Nothing forces you stick to the class though. Sticking to your class I mean for maximizing the benefit of your perks. It doesn’t mean that you can’t step outside of it. In the current system you are absolutely forced to go down the survivor class for example, if you want to run faster. That is not freedom at all. You are forced to start the survivor tree if you want to improve your hp even just a little. Nothing allows a true jack of all trades in these skills… and like I said before, it’s all because those basic survival skills that every class should have available are not. This is why people hate the cap. They want to improve health, stamina, carry capacity, all those basics that everyone wants, but still be able to take advantage of the perks and the special ability for their character type.

If you were to truly try a jack of all trades build, it would be garbage. You would have what? the first couple perks of each tree? How does that compare to the classic vanguard plus some survivor build that I’m pretty sure the majority of players end up with?

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Uh… “Specialization” type skill anyone?

I admit that I ended up to classic Vanguard. Because I more single-player player and it does make me JoaT. Why? Mostly because other builds ain’t that practical and my playstyle in general (not only GZ) is about overpowering through upfront skirmishes, but that isn’t solid. Hence Vanguard, health and to fuel inner pack rat - carry capacity. Other skills are either of no use to me, due to being solo most of the time (flanking, marking, revival speed, Last Man, Commander) or I learned how use stuff/behave without other skills, since they are not that rewarding or build deemed too impractical to bother (marksman, salvage and bino skills right off the bat). Oh, and I’d really like to skip some mandatory +dmg skills for Vanguard.

I’ll repeat myself again: we need to tweak and shuffle a bit current skills and branches, unhook from “rigid 8 branches” to about “a bit more flexible 4 branches” since half skills aren’t worth to even bother (not rewarding or can be compensated with player’s finese) to pick in the first place or worth to own, but must dump precious SP into trash/redundant/unwanted skills (that means you, Tech). No need to reinvent bicycle from scratch.
Game moved too far from what current skill tree offers.

Those “mandatory” survival skills actually do their part in balancing builds. I’d say there’s no “compensation” for not picking them.
Let’s look at Deus Ex (the first one, 2000 release date). There’s up to four “layers” of means to progress: skills, augments, inventory and environment (collective term for pathes taken, dialogue choices, money spent). This system is very complicated, but arrange for you a wide variety of choices how to progress. Lacking in skills and augmentation - get critical item and prepare some bribes. For example - no lockpicks and corresponding skills for certain door? Ask for password. Or buy password. Or circumvent the door. Or just f’ng blast the door. There’s always “compensation” or way to circumvent.
It’s not always as described, but thought should get across - system is not balanced, but organized and have counterweights.

In current GZ it’s simplicity isn’t properly organized and doesn’t have “balance” across the board. It’s “center of mass” or most stable point ended up around these “mandatory survival skills” and Vanguard being meta-build. It’s may not be trivial matter for balancing game’s system with currently implemented skills and items, but at least I don’t see it as unsolvable equation.
Again, game doesn’t offer much to “compensate” for not to pick most meta skills.

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277

Then i’d have this:

Aesyle_char1
Aesyle_char11820×1080 817 KB

No Vanguard, no extra HP or even Stamina amount, no Steady Feet. But loads of Tech skills (with many useless skills as said by many), Enemy Marking (said by some to be useless in solo play) and Marksman. I’d say that she is Jack of all Trades, having skills from all 4 main categories.

She is my 1st char. And while i have 3 other max lvl chars, she is always the one, to whom i prefer when playing GZ.

Well, isn’t faster Running Speed literally one of the survival elements? Since i don’t see how it could be considered part of the Combat, Support or Tech.

There are no predefined classes in GZ. What there are, are skill groupings: these skills are combat oriented, these skills are tech oriented etc.

Besides having basic survival skills (run speed, carry capacity, health amount), there are also basic tech skills (e.g lockpicking), basic support skills (e.g flanking) and basic combat skills (e.g aim speed). Which by your account, should all be considered as Basic skills, and available for all “classes”.

I’m pretty sure that many players end up picking lockpicking skill as well. And players who prefer playing GZ in MP, flanking skill is the 1st one to pick due to it’s ability.

So, is it really any better if 1/3 of all skills are taken out from their current groupings and classified as Basic skills? :thinking:

Great game. :+1: One of the best, if not The Best, game ever made. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

Speaking of Deus Ex:
There are 11 skills in Deus Ex, which you can further upgrade 3 times. All skills (except Pistol), start out as Untrained. You then can improve them to Trained, Advanced and Master, to max it out.

Thing is, it takes 86.925 skill points to upgrade all skills to Master but in the entire game, there are only 34.275 skill points available. And not all skills require same amount of skill points to upgrade.
E.g to Master the Environment Training, you’ll need 4.275 skill points but to Master the Lockpicking skill, you’ll need 11.600 skill points.

This above system is great and it’s similar to GZ, where you have to plan ahead and decide which skills you want to improve. There was no mentality of: “remove the cap and get all skills at max level”, like we currently have here in this topic.

On top of the skills, you also have Augmentations in Deus Ex. Each time your get Augmentation Cannister, you had to choose between 2 augmentations. There were no take backs or skill respecs. If you picked e.g Run Silent over Jump Higher, you were stuck with it up to the end of the game. Of course, you could also upgrade each of your augmentations, if you got the rare Augmentation Upgrade Cannister. But once you upgraded it, you were stuck with it.

Like said by DeadWanderer above, there were many different ways to solve a situation. E.g if your Lockpicking skill wasn’t high enough to pick a lock with the lockpicks you had, you could: go find a key, buy more lockpicks, find more lockpicks, buy a key, destroy the door or find another way past the door.

In that sense, there are similarities in GZ as well. There are no required skills in GZ, that you absolutely must have, to finish all missions in GZ. Skills make your life easier but there are other ways to make your life easier. E.g lower in-game difficulty, use Field Radios more, don’t shoot everything on sight etc.

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This has better wording than I did and I agree on that. I’d like to ephasis that I didn’t mean that GZ been lacking ways to circumvent, but the ways to circumvent are too disbalanced, so there’s a noticeable bias in people’s choices.

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It would at least be nice if we were notified at some point along the way that there is a level cap so we don’t waste points on, you guessed it - the tick specialization.

But anyway, beyond that, why use precious skill points, to simply run faster? Or be able to run slightly longer? Obviously the specializations…or, some of them that is…should be bought with skill points, because they do things that are slightly unrealistic, such as eliminating weapon sway entirely.

Realistically, stamina would increase simply because you are moving more. So, it makes sense that you wouldn’t have to upgrade it.

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I agree. Though, i found out about level cap before starting to play GZ (watched some gameplay vids beforehand). :slight_smile:

When taken realistically, many skills would be increasing over time, the more you do that activity. This kind of skill progression is in use e.g in GTA series. Though, this skill progression system takes far longer, to max skills out, than the current skill point system. And that could be another source of complaints.

Also, i don’t think devs would make drastic changes to the game, to implement completely different skill system. But you’ll never know. We already got a huge change in inventory system.