Alright, this looks like one of these games where I'll be staring at the character creation page for 10 hours before I decide to start it, only to be unsatisfied with the result and re-start again.
Any tips? Also should I create 1 character because I get companions later or just 4?
Good reason as any to put out some of my tips for character creation so far.
Some
SPOILERS, possibly?
- number of toons you wanna go with is up to you but there are a lot of skills to level up and you won't cover that with just 1 or 2 guys; I recommend going with full party, if you want challenge, switch to higher difficulty (you can have 7 characters max)
- do NOT put any points in toaster repair; it's a useful skill but you'll find a good companion with a high-level TR skill early on; so just note the locations of toasters you find and collect them later
- as for putting anything in surgeon and computer, depends on the route you choose in the beginning; if you go save AG Center, don't put anything into either, Rose has you covered, if you save Highpool create a computer-focused character for sho; for surgeon 1 or 2 points is enough
- great skills to have and level up from the get go are lockpicking, field medic and safecracking (afaik you won't find any companions with those)
- alarm disarm and demolitions are nice-ish but you don't
reallly need any of those; there are only a few places where tripping an alarm is inadvisable and tripping a booby trap does only pitiful damage anyway
- mechanical repair is very weird I don't think I've encountered more than 2 places where you can actually use it and I'm deep into California now, plus you can find a +1 MR trinket very soon and +2 MR toolbox right at the start of California
- the ASS skills are nice but you can mostly do without them just fine; they'll give you a bit more XP, dialogue and equipment but I found most of the benefits cosmetic
- don't rely with Brute Force on Angela, she'll leave soon-ish and you'll want a good Brute Force level on somebody else too
- Leadership is quite nice actually, I'd definitely create one char with high CHA and Leadership
- high-ish Outdoorsman is nice if you don't wanna constantly fight random mobs while traversing the overland map - and you probably don't, especially on higher diffs those fights always drain more ammo and resources than you can get back from the drops
- Animal Whisperer can be completely disregarded, it's relatively useless and you'll find a companion with high AS skill very soon (in the Highpool branch)
- Barter is completely useless, don't bother
Attributes:
- lotsa people recommend dumping coordination, luck, charisma or awareness and maxing INT; it's up to you but I wouldn't do that; if you dump COO and AW, your AP and initiative will suffer and relying on Speed only is not good enough
- I'd keep COO at 4, that gives you +2 AP
- Luck can be safely dumped
- Awareness is ok, I'd keep it somewhere between 3-5
- don't underestimate strength, it doesn't have to be maxed but don't dump it either, you'll need a reasonable HPs and carrying capacity
- Speed is tricky you'll get +1 AP at lvl2 and then another one at lvl6, personally I wouldn't go that far, 3 or 4 is probably enough, except for melee chars, those should go all the way to 6
- INT is the most important attribute but I don't think you have to max it, I'd say 5 is absolute minimum (that gives you +1 AP and +1 SP/lvl). Anything higher is obviously nice but not absolutely necessary. The chars level up very quickly and if you go with full party and read up on meta beforehand you don't need ALL DA SKILLZ POINTZ!!1!!; there are books, shrines and trinkets that will raise your skills too so don't fret about it too much
- I wouldn't completely dump charisma either, the bonus XP is not huge but it adds up over time (right now the difference between my CHA 6 guy and CHA 1 guy is 3 levels, at the beginning of California, that means 9 more skillpoints); plus a toon with high CHA and Leadership is a VERY nice addition to your team; plus some of the cooler companions you'll meet are Charisma locked (counted across your whole team) so if you make all toons with CHA 1, you'll be able to recruit only chumps
As for weapons:
- in my next playthrough I will go with two melee chars with high speed and strength and only INT 5, they'll be my main dmg dealers and they'll focus mainly on Brawling and Blunts which on higher levels are godly; Blunts have a higher armor penetration and start to shine later on; I wouldn't bother with Blades
- Handguns is the worst weapon skill dmg-wise but compared to Submachine guns it uses a lot less ammo; and if you play on anything higher than Seasoned you will have trouble feeding that early on, especially if you go with the "save AG Center" branch; if you choose to go with handguns, don't bother with levelling it up too much, it's just something that will carry you through the beginning and can be dumped afterwards (even the .45 guns later on are extremelly meh)
- Assault rifles and submachine guns are great but start to lose out in the 2nd half of the game against robots and armored mobs; against those Energy Weapons are godly so I'd probably level up assault up to 5 or six and then start levelling up Energy
- Heavy weapons are nice and on lower difficulties you can even sustain them ammo-wise; but you'll get them late-ish and by that time most opponents will be armored, I'd definitely level up Blunts or Brawling first and only then throw in Heavies for some additional fun
- Shotguns are matter of taste, I found them awful for the majority of the 1st half, then awesome for a while and then again meh, as soon as you start encountering armored mobs; I'd probably still get it for one char (only with the Highpool branch though) because at least the ammo is plentiful
Although the endless end game fighting and cat litter/zeolite searching were annoying, overall I enjoyed the game a lot, especially the L.A. part. It's a game that I will remember for years and certainly replay in the future.
