Some specialization perks could use some tweaks

[Genoscythe]

I recently made a character that saved some skill points after level 15 and made a backup so I could re-spec to try out all specialization perks, and I must say while some are very strong and consistent, others can only be felt in around 0-10% of your normal gameplay depending on how you play.

Marksman: I think having no sway is a crutch. A normally skilled player like me can hit a tank weak spot with a 8-16 scope from 2-00300m away. Why would you need a crutch skill, something you can substitute with a bit of practice as a specialization skill. Apart from that, There is already a skill that reduces weapon sway, it’s only like a 4th level of it. In my eyes it’s a wasted perk point. Making it add damage after you are using a scope for at least 5 seconds and giving the weapon sway perk a 4th level would be more worthwhile.
On a side note: The make’em count ability in this tree seems like a bad deal. Making it count for all non-auto weapons would be better, single fire on an AR has no real advantage over full-auto as you can just invest into recoil reduction, spend the same amount of perk points for it, and just go for trigger-happy to get insane damage and stability on a machine gun, SMG or AR for the same ammo cost.

Vanguard: Probably the best skill in the entire game. 25% universal damage reduction is huge, it works always, in any situation and just makes so many things easier. It’s simple, consistent and the skills on the way to it are all completely worth it, you’re gonna end up with a 35% natural bullet resistance, now go trash some hunters.

Commander: Again something I can’t see many people using. Field radios are abundant and you have a safe zone every 200 meters. This skill would be highly useful if we wouldn’t have so many bonfires, but as it is, it’s only worth using in multiplayer, has little to effect in solo and counts for only one item. Adding something to it that buffs players around you or having it manipulate ticks around you to attack their masters if you are close to a radio would make it a lot more useful.

Medic: There is no death penalty and you can just respawn close by, adrenaline is pretty uncommon and an advanced medkit heals you to 100% when having heal amount 1 after you got downed. It’s commendable we have so many team-perks, but they lack the real value. If you would lose EXP on death or ammo, being up on your feet with 100% would be a huge boon, but as it stands this perk is a 1/10. If players including you would get a damage resitance and a damage boost after being healed at least 30 health points this would add some value, maybe making giving you a 75% damage over time restance (fire and poison). Having abilities that only work after dying in a game that is about not being hit and planning ahead is kind of a bummer.

Survivor: Well, you did something terribly wrong if you die in the first place, maybe choosing Vanguard would have simply prevented that? It’s an OK skill for players that aren’t confident in their combat skills, but as damage dealt to enemies is saved on death and beyond and there is no penalty for dying, why bother?

Commando: Now I don’t know the formula on damage building perks, if it’s multiplicative or additive, but even with component damage and explosive expert, hitting an enemy while unaware with an RPG would deal 40% extra damage in total if it would be multiplicative. FNIX hunters need 3 rockets to the face to fall over on skirmish. So, you get a first hit and thats it, not even with a 50% bonus you’d be able to kill one on a surprise hit with a rocket. It’s THAT bad. Suggestion: Give surprise hits a guaranteed stagger so you can follow up with some heavy fire. Maybe even add a small heal if you break enemy parts with surprise attacks to add to the guerilla flair. Being a stealth killer is very badass, but you absolutely don’t need this perk for it.

Hacker: Man, this is gonna be awesome I thought when I chose this ability. Then I pointed my binocs at a hunter and nothing happened. When it works it’s OK, but most of the time it doesn’t. I think hacking should not be a % chance. It would be really nice if you could consistently hack enemies by keeping your binoculars on them for a time. A hack-meter would apppear and you would have to keep your binocs on the enemy for a time depending on the type: 5 seconds for runners, 10 for hunters and 20 for tanks and harvester, with the heavy ones having a max of 30 seconds hack time with a 180 seconds cooldown for re-hack. Basing an ability on a random chance that even get’s lower the higher the enemy tier is not a good way to deal with this perk. With a hack-time to reach 100% probability it would be way more consistent and could be used to greater effectiveness, having a dice roll in your favor is no achievement, hiding in a good spot so you can hack an enemy and get the drop on that group of hunters because one of their mates starts firendly fire however, is tactical superiority. No other mechanic except loot is based on randomness in GenZ, it’s about planning and tactics, we have no random critical chance, no random weapon jam, no random instant-kills. Consistency would be much appreciated.

Engineer: Very nice idea, unfortunately Tick droprate is too low and the damage negligible. In 4 hours playtime and after killing around 7 tanks, 5 harveys and 50 hunters (Military or FNIX, a few Apoc and proto) I had a glorious amount of 8 ticks with the mechanic 2 perk. They are like budget grenades and on skirmish difficulty it takes more than two ticks to kill a single FNIX runner. If their droprate wouldn’t be so incredibly low it wouldn’t be a problem, you could use them in packs to start an attack. If their droprate stays the same, they should at least be 50% stronger than a grenade. It’s just the numbers that are an issue here, being a cool tech-guy that is able to fight the machines with their own tech is an awesome idea.

[Aesyle]

Marksman : I think having no sway is a crutch. A normally skilled player like me can hit a tank weak spot with a 8-16 scope from 2-00300m away. Why would you need a crutch skill, something you can substitute with a bit of practice as a specialization skill. Apart from that, There is already a skill that reduces weapon sway, it’s only like a 4th level of it. In my eyes it’s a wasted perk point. Making it add damage after you are using a scope for at least 5 seconds and giving the weapon sway perk a 4th level would be more worthwhile.

Marksman specialization completely eliminates any aim sway and if you don’t see use for it, don’t unlock it. Spend your skill point somewhere else. However, there are plenty of people who find this specialization very useful.

Removing it’s ability for complete sway elimination and adding damage bonus instead is far less useful since there are already 6 skills in the game that increase the damage you do. No need to add 7th one.

Medic : There is no death penalty and you can just respawn close by, adrenaline is pretty uncommon and an advanced medkit heals you to 100% when having heal amount 1 after you got downed. It’s commendable we have so many team-perks, but they lack the real value. If you would lose EXP on death or ammo, being up on your feet with 100% would be a huge boon, but as it stands this perk is a 1/10. If players including you would get a damage resitance and a damage boost after being healed at least 30 health points this would add some value, maybe making giving you a 75% damage over time restance (fire and poison). Having abilities that only work after dying in a game that is about not being hit and planning ahead is kind of a bummer.

I guess you didn’t test properly the Medic specialization since i don’t see you listing it’s 2nd, and far more useful ability.

Yes, Medic does revive you to 100 HP after death and while you can heal yourself back to 100, taking out first aid kit, using one or two and then taking your weapon out again all take time. Being under heavy fire, can (and have) resulted in situations where when you revive yourself and come back with 20 HP, you don’t have time to heal yourself before you’re shot down again. (It has happened with me few times.)

The 2nd ability of Medic specialization is MP focused and when you revive your buddy, he/she will come back with 100 HP as well, with the cost of one a-shot. This is especially helpful in co-op play where 1st player is gunner and 2nd player is support with Medic specialization.

[knobitobi]

Marksman specialization completely eliminates any aim sway

I might add that it eliminates sway for every weapon (except baseball bat and hammer ). This combined with the AG5 which has almost no recoil makes for a very accurate fight imho.

[Genoscythe]

Marksman specialization completely eliminates any aim sway and if you don’t see use for it, don’t unlock it. Spend your skill point somewhere else. However, there are plenty of people who find this specialization very useful.

Removing it’s ability for complete sway elimination and adding damage bonus instead is far less useful since there are already 6 skills in the game that increase the damage you do. No need to add 7th one.

I guess you didn’t test properly the Medic specialization since i don’t see you listing it’s 2nd, and far more useful ability.

Yes, Medic does revive you to 100 HP after death and while you can heal yourself back to 100, taking out first aid kit, using one or two and then taking your weapon out again all take time. Being under heavy fire, can (and have) resulted in situations where when you revive yourself and come back with 20 HP, you don’t
have time to heal yourself before you’re shot down again. (It has happened with me few times.)

The 2nd ability of Medic specialization is MP focused and when you revive your buddy, he/she will come back with 100 HP as well, with the cost of one a-shot. This is especially helpful in co-op play where 1st player is gunner and 2nd player is support with Medic specialization.

And you probably didn’t read my suggestion entirely, because with the reduced sway perk getting a 4th level there could still be something that eliminates sway completely (even without having to fill the tree completely), because having to invest 4 perk points into one single aspect of a mechanic that can be countered with skill is a very heavy point investment, anyone who wanted to do it would be free to do so. I understand that some people like it that way and that’s why I suggested to not eliminate the possibility to have no sway, but to simply move it to the skill that already does it. Right now you can just have one point into the sway reduction perk and then invest more into the tree to reach specialization, which essentially nullifies the point investment you put into the sway reduction in the first place.

As for medic, you know you get a damage immunity period after reviving that allows you to whack out a medpack, right? Try throwing a grenade in front of you after you just revived, it’s 2-5 seconds of complete damage IMMUNITY, more than enough to run to cover AND heal yourself. By the time you reached medic 5 medpacks are so abundant that you won’t have problems with using them unless you play very, very sloppy, same goes for your teammates.

[Aesyle]

I understand that some people like it that way and that’s why I suggested to not eliminate the possibility to have no sway, but to simply move it to the skill that already does it.

The entire skill system in GZ isn’t perfect and while there are some skills that do the same thing (Weapon Sway and Marksman; Armor, Chemist and Vanguard) it’s their position in the skill tree that’s the main issue, not the skills themselves.

For example, if Weapon Sway would be much higher up, e.g 1st or 2nd skill, Marksman would have more value since people can decide if to get some sway reduction for less skill points or no sway at all for more skill points.

Also, Weapon Sway to Marksman isn’t the only place where you can waste skill points. Another would be Support left tree. When you’re solo player and want to get Enemy Marking skill, you have to unlock MP only Flanking skill, thus wasting one skill point for nothing.
Or when you want to get Heal Amount skill but you don’t have Enemy Marking skill, you’d be wasting skill point for Veteran Guerilla skill, just to unlock Heal Amount skill.

[Genoscythe]

The entire skill system in GZ isn’t perfect and while there are some skills that do the same thing (Weapon Sway and Marksman; Armor, Chemist and Vanguard) it’s their position in the skill tree that’s the main issue, not the skills themselves.

For example, if Weapon Sway would be much higher up, e.g 1st or 2nd skill, Marksman would have more value since people can decide if to get some sway reduction for less skill points or no sway at all for more skill points.

Also, Weapon Sway to Marksman isn’t the only place where you can waste skill points. Another would be Support left tree. When you’re solo player and want to get Enemy Marking skill, you have to unlock MP only Flanking skill, thus wasting one skill point for nothing.
Or when you want to get Heal Amount skill but you don’t have Enemy Marking skill, you’d be wasting skill point for Veteran Guerilla skill, just to unlock Heal Amount skill.

Aye, the placements are not perfect and could use reiteration. There also seem to be some must-haves you can’t really go without. I haven’t seen a single person that didn’t go for the running speed level 2. I mean, you CAN theorethically play without, but dodging a mortar strike or simply moving around becomes so much easier once you get that speed up. I also always go for reload speed, on shotguns and LMGs it cuts away a huge portion on the reload time and the earlier you can re-fire, the faster you will have no more enemies dealing damage to you.

[Aesyle]

One skill that i’ve also found very useful and 3 out of 4 chars of mine also have is: Steady Feet.

The only char of mine who doesn’t have Steady Feet, with her, i’m seeing considerable trouble during combat. Since my char falls over very easily and depending on how i land, i can die on the spot.
I’ve had moments where my char without Steady Feet is ragdolling for quite some time before sitting upright and getting up. Worst part is that during ragdolling, i’m completely defenseless and open to any incoming damage, without ability to heal. I’ve died several times during ragdolling.

If skill respec ever comes to the game, i’ll give away my Hacking specialization and get Steady Feet skill instead.

[Genoscythe]

Interesting, I didn’t give it a go yet, but yeah, instead of hacker you might go for it, as getting hit by a shockwave of the inner 50% of an explosion or 2 or more FNIX explosive flechettes can ragdoll you and opposed to hacker it ALWAYS works consistently. It’s essentially a live saver if you are going against multiple enemies, but it seems like the rocket barrage of a Tank deals less damage for every subsequent rocket that hits you, plus you get damage resistance under 20% health. If you combine it with vanguard spec and some lvl 2+ upgrades on clothing, you can take the shockwave of a harvester or tank and deliver an EMP to it, which can be decisive for a battle. I understand why it can come in handy, yet I don’t see it as a must have, as it only reduces the punishment for doing something wrong, as in, getting hit, bombed or stomped.

And this is where my opinion comes in, there’s too many abilities that only kick in after you did something wrong. Not saying we don’t need defensive abilities, as I stated above vanguard seems like the best perk in the game, especially when playing on guerilla that damage reduction changes the world. I wish every specialized perk (and some non-specialized ones, too) would be so consistent and useful without breaking the game or being only useful in a very select couple of situations.