Merge Athletics and Strenght again, and don't make it level up from walking

[Alfons100]

So this latest little patch brought a lot of controversy in a way, like the priority change again and such. Most of the stress is around that the update 'release' deadline probably means = Update done, since it is like a day away. But I'm not sure when most of these changes werent accepted by most, maybe spend another few days on it to work out on some kinks so everyones happy.

But the only change I was most upset about was that Athletics and Strenght was split again, and athletics level up like normal. I have complained a lot about this I just realised, but having super fast dupes makes several items in the game worse since them being sonic fast just takes care of the job for all of those.

One, gofers, couriers and groundskeepers are a weird inbetween of worse or better than a normal-job dupe in terms of hauling. Because everyone will be at varying levels of athletics because it levels up all the time, no matter what, it will make that this job-type isnt as needed or nifty as it used to. Because either if a fast but weak hauler or a slow but strong hauler is the best, not sure at this point. But they will get 20 in athletics like everyone else

Comfy Beds, this sounds like a weird comparison, 'how can a bed be related to that?'. But my idea behind why is because that Comfy Beds are pretty much only made to recover from loss or unbalance in the sleep schedule. From say, maybe getting stuck somewhere or getting home late because they were far in a mine or something because they were in an exosuit. Comfy Beds helped that issue. But if they're fast, they will most likely always come home just in time to get to 100% Stamina back anyways. Comfy Beds take up a whole twice as much space as a normal cot but the point of them isn't very expansive other than recovering better from coming to the base late from work.

And the items that are actually made to combat slow people, to make getting around much easier. These arrange from Fire poles, the tiles, and especially Transit tubes. Firepoles and tiles can be useful because even if someone is super-fast, it will make them go even faster, same with normal tiles. But the transit tubes cost lots of plastic to make, power and all that, when a nimble dupe is almost as fast as one.

Though this could make it into the 'Buff everything rather than nerfing something to make something else good' but considering that so many of these issues I can find, fusing Athletics and Strenght and not make it level up from something as simple as movement, would be justifiable.

I am quite new to the Klei forums, but I hope people see my thought on this. 

[Steelflame]

IMO, the stat caps should be a bit less generous for the all-stat cap.  20 is too high.

 

The way I see it, there should be 4 sources of stats.

1.  Base stats.  These can level up to 10 points at max.  Your starting stat distribution effects where you start along that, but it doesn't increase your maximum potential.

2.  Perks/Traits.  These grant further stat bonuses over the cap, or reduce the cap respectively for negative traits.  These can let you specialize a dupe further.

3.  Job stat cap increase passive.  Jobs will have a passive benefit, that faintly increases the stat cap related to that field.   This increased cap last only as long as you remain within that job field, and if you swap jobs to another field, you LOSE the stat points that took you over the cap increase.  This rewards you keeping dupes within a dedicated field of study long term, because swapping jobs means you lose the stat points they gained while working within that job over the standard cap.  For instance, a Gofer may get +5 max athletics, while a courier may get +10 max athletics.

4.  Active job benefits/mastery.   So long as you are actively working a job, or have mastered that job, you get the benefit, regardless of how long you have worked it.

[AileTheAlien]

47 minutes ago, Steelflame said:

4.  Active job benefits/mastery.   So long as you are actively working a job, or have mastered that job, you get the benefit, regardless of how long you have worked it.

This is effectively a roundabout way of having dupes with the same unlimited maximums for stats / skills, that we had before the jobs update. Both are grinding to level up your dupes to absurd levels, but this is two extra systems to get to a broken end-state, on top of the skills/stats we already have in the game.

I'd rather just have these methods of increasing skills / stats:

1. Base random rolls for new dupes.
   1. Where you start, and
   2. also a modifier on the caps.
2. Perks / interests / traits / negative traits.
   1. Where you start, and
   2. also a modifier on the caps.
3. Increases in stats / skill over time, from doing jobs.
   1. Decays over time, as a soft-cap to prevent master-of-everything for all dupes.
   2. Decay could be reduced for very old dupes.
   3. Decay for physical skills / stats could increase for old dupes, to simulate / force wise-but-frail old dupes.