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Easily Digestible List of Trait Balance Issues


lemmy101

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Hey all - since there's lots of feedback on Traits, thought we could distill it down to some kind of consensus list. If mods could edit my OP to add stuff that's agreed upon, in this thread, perhaps ordered by amount of consensus/severity, that would be ace.
 
For e.g.
 
All Thumbs - Too extreme
Slow Reader - Effect too mild in SP
 
Not sure if everyone agrees with the above but these are examples. A simple one line 'Name of trait - issue with trait' be that 'too expensive', 'not expensive enough' 'cheesable with X trait combo' and so on.
 
Just to give the devs a good reference point without reading 20 pages of arguing and discussing.
 
Deal? <3 Love yas.

Template:


Deaf -

Obese -

Weak -

Illiterate -

Feeble -

High Thirst -

Overweight -

Restless Sleeper -

Slow Healer -

Slow Learner -

Thin-skinned -

Asthmatic -

Agoraphobic -

Claustrophobic -

Conspicious -

Disorganized -

Hearty Appetite -

Pacifist -

Prone to Illness -

Sleepy Head -

Unlucky -

Hemophobic -

Weak Stomach -

All Thumbs -

Clumsy -

Cowardly -

Hard of Hearding -

Hypochondriac -

Short Sighted -

Slow Reader -

Cat's Eyes -


Dextrous -

Fast Reader -

Iron Gut -

Angler -

Baseball Player -

Brave -

First Aider -

Gardener -

Graceful -

Inconspicious -

Gymnast -

Brawler -

Eagle Eyed -

Fast Healer -

Fit -

Former Scout -

Hiker -

Keen Hearing -

Adrenaline Junkie -

Handy -

Hunter -

Athletic -



Code to copy the template:

[b][color=#ff0000]Deaf[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Obese[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Weak[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Illiterate[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Feeble[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]High Thirst[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Overweight[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Restless Sleeper[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Slow Healer[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Slow Learner[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Thin-skinned[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Asthmatic[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Agoraphobic[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Claustrophobic[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Conspicious[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Disorganized[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Hearty Appetite[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Pacifist[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Prone to Illness[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Sleepy Head[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Unlucky[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Hemophobic[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Weak Stomach[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]All Thumbs[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Clumsy[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Cowardly[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Hard of Hearding[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Hypochondriac[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Short Sighted[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Slow Reader[/color][/b] -[b][color=#ff0000]Cat's Eyes[/color][/b] -[b][color=#00ff00]Dextrous[/color][/b] -[b][color=#00ff00]Fast Reader[/color][/b] -[b][color=#00ff00]Iron Gut[/color][/b] -[b][color=#00ff00]Angler[/color][/b] -[b][color=#00ff00]Baseball Player[/color][/b] -[b][color=#00ff00]Brave[/color][/b] -[b][color=#00ff00]First Aider[/color][/b] -[b][color=#00ff00]Gardener[/color][/b] -[b][color=#00ff00]Graceful[/color][/b] -[b][color=#00ff00]Inconspicious[/color][/b] -[b][color=#00ff00]Gymnast[/color][/b] -[b][color=#00ff00]Brawler[/color][/b] -[b][color=#00ff00]Eagle Eyed[/color][/b] -[b][color=#00ff00]Fast Healer[/color][/b] -[b][color=#00ff00]Fit[/color][/b] -[b][color=#00ff00]Former Scout[/color][/b] -[b][color=#00ff00]Hiker[/color][/b] -[b][color=#00ff00]Keen Hearing[/color][/b] -[b][color=#00ff00]Adrenaline Junkie[/color][/b] -[b][color=#00ff00]Handy[/color][/b] -[b][color=#00ff00]Hunter[/color][/b] -[b][color=#00ff00]Athletic[/color][/b] -
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Slow reader+slow healer: just speed up time in singleplayer.

Weak stomach: free points, just dont eat bad food... Maybe make it where you have a chance to get sick from cooked animals like rats and mice

All-thumbs: Don't get me started... This is wayyyy to powerful. Maybe make it reward you with more points?

That's all I can think of for now :D

Deleted your other post. This not the place for jokes :D whole point of it is to be concise and to the point :P


Edit: Ok :(
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Traits :
 
Cat's eyes - A bit useless since the night is quite clear even without flashlight 
Eagle eyes - Quite expensive for a higher visibility arc comparing it to the rest (does it affect aiming ?)
Keen Earing - Same thing, a bit expensive, 2 point difference with handy and a lot less usefull
Hearty appetite - should'nt it be a +6 like high thirst ?
 
 
About all the slow / fast - reading / learning I have a suggestion :
 
It could maybe be a good idea to add the option allow the time management and sleeping on servers the excatly same way it works in local multiplayer ?
 
Here is my point :

When I played split screen zomboid with a friend, we had a great time, the time management is perfect, if everybody wants to x3 speed the time is accelerated, when everybody sleep, the time is accelerated, there is a way to wake up friends, etc... But when we played it with 4 players on my server, it was a bit more boring to take away this part of the gameplay, and more painfull to read books at real speed time. I understand this functionality won't be a good one for servers with multiple groups but excellent when you play with a single group of player.

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 prone to illness, Just go inside when it rains then you have 4 trait points. also weak stomach 3 points for being sensible and not eating bad or raw food.

 

 

It is supposed to increase your chance of getting infected when you get scratched right ? 

If not, I agree with you, "weak stomach" points should be higher or "prone to illness" points lower  ;-)

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 prone to illness, Just go inside when it rains then you have 4 trait points. also weak stomach 3 points for being sensible and not eating bad or raw food.

 

 

It is supposed to increase your chance of getting infected when you get scratched right ? 

If not, I cant totally agree with you ;-)

 

Nope it just increases how fast you zombify but your screwed anyway so who cares

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Also just realized resilient is pointless because outdoorsmen means you can't get colds, So whats the point of having it when it doesn't even grantee you won't get colds while outdoorsmen means you can't get them and its cheaper 

 

I think resilient works for all desease : infection from zombies, infection from dirty wounds, catching cold, food poisoning.

This needs to be explained / more clear in the trait description  :-D

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I think resilient works for all desease : infection from zombies, infection from dirty wounds, catching cold, food poisoning.

This needs to be explained / more clear in the trait description x)

 

 

 

Ah right I see. It just doesn't state it. But yeah it might affect it I don't know maybe the devs should update the description 

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Iron gut, hemaphobic, and at least one other trait cost +/- 3 points, making it somewhat difficult to choose and still end up at 0. I'd suggest having all traits be worth even point values, or at least have more odds to expand combinations.

Hopefully that's relevant to this thread. If not, moderate this post right out of existence.

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Iron gut, hemaphobic, and at least one other trait cost +/- 3 points, making it somewhat difficult to choose and still end up at 0. I'd suggest having all traits be worth even point values, or at least have more odds to expand combinations.

Hopefully that's relevant to this thread. If not, moderate this post right out of existence.

Yep, I think traits should keep the same denominator or stay even (+2, +4, +6, +8, +10, +12), the +5/-5 and +3/-3 traits sometimes make it hard to counter-balance since there's no +1/-1 trait : I often end up with -1 in the end, so I take a +2 negative trait and end up with 1 useless point, which is a tad annoying but not really important I guess.

Also, Illiterate characters shouldn't be able to write & read player notes.

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Outdoorsmen - Not expensive enough. 2 points to completely avoid the rain mechanic.

 

Hemophobic - Free points.

 

Weak Stomach - Free points. Who still eats rotten food anyways, even with hearty appetite?

 

Agoraphobic + Claustrophobic - Should disable all other panic traits when you take this combo.

 

Slow Reader - Definitively free points in single player.

 

Handy - While nothing wrong with it, we do need another option for +1 Carpentry that isn't +8.

 

Hearty Appetite - Free points still in my opinion. Has more to do with food being too readily available.

 

High Thirst - Now that we can boil water from lakes, definitely free points.

 

Cooking - Really need a trait for this. Not sure why this skill has been left to professions only.

 

Hypochondriac - Considering that this trait can actually KILL you, at -2 its too little.

 

Night Owl - Does nothing, and overlaps with Wakeful. Needs to be re-worked or removed from Security Guard, especially since it seems to be costing the profession points.

 

Also, and I know it would be a pain in the ass, but at some point could we get some EXACT details on what traits do, so we can make better judgement calls on their worth? For example, its been said in the notes that baseball player allows faster swings with baseball bats, but no where on the trait does it say that. Lucky is another one, with several people saying it does (and doesn't) affect X things. Prone to disease and Resilient is another one, knowing the exact % it aids or debilitates in would be helpful (and could probably use a rework since I doubt it affects the new medical systems "infection" that was added in).

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All Thumbs: Yes, definitely too extreme, at least in MP. It's fine (even free points) if you take it in SP or on a "specialist" character in MP that does nothing but sit at your base and cook or provide first aid or build and never goes out to gather supplies, but for an actual character it's a horrible malus for almost no gain. In my experience it's really not worth ever taking.

 

Iron Gut: Why bother? If you don't eat bad food you don't have to worry about illness anyway, and as some people have already said food is rather plentiful and easy to find. Especially if loot respawn is turned on at all.

 

Weak Stomach: Opposite of Iron Gut, it's basically free points unless there's no loot respawn. Even then it's fairly easy to just grow your own food or fish/trap/forage even in winter.

 

Hypochondriac: This needs to give a lot more points considering, as Moose65 mentioned, it can actually kill you. This should easily be a 10 pointer, or at the very least 8.

 

Hemophobic: Free points in SP, and even in MP if you're playing with a group that has a character with high FA. It's easy to log out and wait for them to get on and treat your character.

 

Fast Healing: Pointless in SP, but nice to have in MP. Not sure what could be changed to make it not be pointless in SP without ruining it for MP.

 

Slow Healing: Opposite of FH, free points in SP but doesn't give enough points to be worth taking in MP unless you're hardcore and enjoy being overly punished for falling off of stairs.

 

Brawler: Would be better as a 4 point trait, how many people level both blade and blunt? Personally I've only seen 2, and one of them was just running a gimmick character with all weapon types to see how effective it would be. He didn't like it and scrapped it after a couple days because he had no skills in anything else.

 

Clumsy: Straight up free points, why would you not take this? The only way I can see this being useful is on a server with insane zombie numbers where fighting is almost guaranteed death and the only way to survive is avoid detection and run if spotted.

 

Conspicuous: See Clumsy.

 

Slow Reader: Another straight up free pointer. Just speed time in SP, and let your character read while you do something else in MP.

 

Fast Reader: Useless in SP, only good as an "I have 2 extra points and already have Outdoorsman" filler in MP.

 

Outdoorsman: Massively OP for only 2 points. I can't really think of too many builds that would be so starved for points that they couldn't fit it in, and if you can fit it in there's absolutely no reason not to.

 

High Thirst: Another straight up free pointer.

 

Hearty Appetite: Basically free points as well, even with level 0 foraging you can still scrounge up enough berries to keep from starving.

 

Cowardly: Doesn't give enough points, should be at least 4 if not 6. Cowardly is a bigger penalty than Brave is a bonus.

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Cat's eyes - currently useless (I'd vote for make nights a lot darker and introduce moonlight and lunar phases: new moon - extremely dark, need a source of light to move around safely; full moon - current night brightness)

 

Eagle eyed - I think it's too expensive for a few degrees wider view angle +4 would be more balanced

 

Fast learner - too cheap

 

Fast reader - can't think of a reason to ever take this in SP

 

Former scout - a bit expensive, I'd add a slight boost to the quantity of forage finds (+15%? +10%?)

 

Hiker - same as above

 

Iron gut - can't think of a reason to take this in SP

 

All thumbs - should be at least +4/+6, it's a nightmare to play with this

 

High thirst - I suggest +4 instead of +6

 

Hypochondriac - should be at least +4 or more, it melts your food reserves and, as was mentioned before, can actually kill you

 

Slow healer - not severe enough for the price

 

Slow reader - free points in SP

 

Weak stomach - free points in SP

 

Resilient / Prone to illness - those need to be crystal clear if they affect zombie infection chance and also "slower/faster rate of zombification" has marginal meaning - you're dead anyway

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Self Defense Class - Imo cost to much.

Eagle Eyed and Keen Hearing - not worth 6 points.

Burglar occupation cost too much compared to other occupations.

Iron Gut - not worth it.

Dont see point in taking Organized when you can pick stout

Hemophobic - free points

High Thirst and Hearty Appetite - dunno why they have different cost, and they are more or less free points ( incerease their impact).

Obese and Weak are IMO much worse than deaf.

Weak Stomach - Free points

Slow reader - free points in SP and in some way in MP too coz you alt tab most of time when reading :P ( perhapse just decrease xp bonus from reading a book ?)

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It has been mentioned that Iron Gut is useless in singleplayer and that Weak Stomach is free points. It might be good to make them affect the happiness loss from eating food that is going stale rather than just make you more/less likely to get sick when you eat rotten food.

Slow/Fast Reader could work like it does now, but in addition decrease/increase the XP multiplier. (kind of like Slow/Fast Learner, but only once you get your hands on the skill books)

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I don't like the approach to this survey. Which difficulty level are we talking about? Is it Survival? If that is true, make sure you state that upfront. And then there is a huge difference between SP and MP. Finally there should be a spreadsheet with all the traits, so the likelihood of people going through the long list of traits is increased and the grading should be standardized. The grades could be very OP, OP, a little OP, balanced and vice versa. And then there is the category of plain useless traits.

 

If a mod can create an excel spread sheet for the users to download, we can upload the survey for the mod to copy&paste and analyze the results.

 

And here is my last suggestion: Redo the whole character creation. Why can't I go for a +1 or +2 in any trait and +25% +50% etc. XP gain?

 

That's the way to stay true to my name.

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Wow such "free points" bashing  :-D
I disagrea a bit with what have been said so here is my point.
 
Let me remind you that all of those "free points" skills always add a counter balance :
 
1 - "Slow" traits : 

Slow Reader - Definitively free points in single player.
Slow Reader: Another straight up free pointer. Just speed time in SP, and let your character read while you do something else in MP.
Fast Reader: Useless in SP, only good as an "I have 2 extra points and already have Outdoorsman" filler in MP.

  • More time spent reading skills books = character faster bored = unhapiness
  • Waiting =/= Playing ... So slow reader is a real "IRL bored" skill in MP
  • Same thing, less time spent reading = less newspapers consumed / less time spent waiting instead of playing

Slow healer - not severe enough for the price
Fast Healing: Pointless in SP, but nice to have in MP. Not sure what could be changed to make it not be pointless in SP without ruining it for MP.
 
Slow Healing: Opposite of FH, free points in SP but doesn't give enough points to be worth taking in MP unless you're hardcore and enjoy being overly punished for falling off of stairs.

  • Have you fell of a construction with that skill ? Let me tell you that even in SP it's painfully long to recover from it x)
  • Bleeding wound takes more time and a lot more disinfectant to get cured, so possible "death by infection trait" in late game
  • Same thing for fast healing, less disinfectant used is a huge deal, considering that it's an item you can't create I don't think it's pointless
  • It takes FOOD to recover from inguries, the longer you have them, the more you drain your stock

 

 

2 - "Needs" traits : 

High Thirst: Another straight up free pointer.
Hearty Appetite: Basically free points as well, even with level 0 foraging you can still scrounge up enough berries to keep from starving.
 
Hearty Appetite - Free points still in my opinion. Has more to do with food being too readily available.
High Thirst - Now that we can boil water from lakes, definitely free points.

  • About the thirst, not everybody is playing in westpoint, in murglauh 8+ month run, High Thirst is a death trait
  • Even in West point it's a painfull trait, you spend twice more time going to fill your cooking pots, cuttings logs, starting a fire... Urgh...
  • Oh god Hearthy Appetite is so NOT a free points skills, once again guys, when you get to late game, even after your first winter, these kinds of skills are the one that kills you... And foraging is not always the solution : waiiiiting... in MP / not everybody plays a foraging character + now that it has been nerfed it takes a day to find 20 berries to a character with foraging at level 6, considering you need to eat at least 10 of these berries per day... It's not that OP, but I agree with you, berries should'nt show up before the level 2 of foraging.

 

 

3 - "Stomach" traits : 
 
Not a 100% sure of what I say but here is what I have understand about food poisoning

Weak Stomach - Free points
 
Weak Stomach - Free points. Who still eats rotten food anyways, even with hearty appetite?
 
Iron Gut: Why bother? If you don't eat bad food you don't have to worry about illness anyway, and as some people have already said food is rather plentiful and easy to find. Especially if loot respawn is turned on at all.

  • About Iron gut, not everybody "turn the food respawn on" I mean, it's kinda like cheating for me, we have to consider that the game is more about surviving and that most of the players plays without respawn, this trait definetly allows you to survive longer (but it's not a very usefull trait in early game).
  • About food poisoning, I heard that every rotten / poisonous (bleach / berries) have a poison value (the poison value of the white berries is 2) having a better resistance to food poisoning might save you if you drink a bowl of poisoned soup or may allow you to survive after eating rotten/uncooked food on the other hand weak stomach FORCE you to eat perfectly healthy food and its fine in early game when you have full fridges and canned food everywhere but could starve you later...

 

 

4 - Definetly agree : 

Outdoorsmen - Not expensive enough. 2 points to completely avoid the rain mechanic.

Handy - While nothing wrong with it, we do need another option for +1 Carpentry that isn't +8.

Cooking - Really need a trait for this. Not sure why this skill has been left to professions only.

Hypochondriac - Considering that this trait can actually KILL you, at -2 its too little.
 
All Thumbs -  Yes, definitely too extreme, at least in MP. It's fine (even free points) if you take it in SP or on a "specialist" character in MP that does nothing but sit at your base and cook or provide first aid or build and never goes out to gather supplies, but for an actual character it's a horrible malus for almost no gain. In my experience it's really not worth ever taking.
 
Cat's eyes - currently useless (I'd vote for make nights a lot darker and introduce moonlight and lunar phases: new moon - extremely dark, need a source of light to move around safely; full moon - current night brightness)
 
Eagle eyed - I think it's too expensive for a few degrees wider view angle +4 would be more balanced
 
All thumbs - should be at least +4/+6, it's a nightmare to play with this
 
Hypochondriac - should be at least +4 or more, it melts your food reserves and, as was mentioned before, can actually kill you

Resilient / Prone to illness - those need to be crystal clear if they affect zombie infection chance and also "slower/faster rate of zombification" has marginal meaning - you're dead anyway

Self Defense Class - Imo cost to much.

Eagle Eyed and Keen Hearing - not worth 6 points.

Burglar occupation cost too much compared to other occupations.

Obese and Weak are IMO much worse than deaf.

 

Voilà ! I just wanted to show that not everybody think that a lot of skills are free points when they are more late game skills, sure taking them won't impact at all your first month surviving, but when you get you survive serveral month, these free points sometimes became the reason you die : exausted because of the lack of water, unable to knockback a zomby because you are hungry, dead because you had to eat a little bit of rotten food to survive or because your wound got infected and you had no disinfectant left.  :rolleyes:

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Wow such "free points" bashing  :-D

I disagrea a bit with what have been said so here is my point.

 

Let me remind you that all of those "free points" skills always add a counter balance :

 

1 - "Slow" traits : 

Slow Reader - Definitively free points in single player.

Slow Reader: Another straight up free pointer. Just speed time in SP, and let your character read while you do something else in MP.

Fast Reader: Useless in SP, only good as an "I have 2 extra points and already have Outdoorsman" filler in MP.

  • More time spent reading skills books = character faster bored = unhapiness
  • Waiting =/= Playing ... So slow reader is a real "IRL bored" skill in MP
  • Same thing, less time spent reading = less newspapers consumed / less time spent waiting instead of playing

 

Sorry, but I completely disagree here, as the solution to get rid of boredom is extremely easy. I did clarify that it was free points in SP (and they have already disabled some traits in MP, so the same could be done for SP). Getting rid of boredom is already easy enough, as you can either stop reading the book before it happens and go do something else, or simply make a meal to remove it. I've NEVER had to use newspapers/magazines, as boredom/unhappiness is trivial to remove.

 

 

2 - "Needs" traits : 

High Thirst: Another straight up free pointer.

Hearty Appetite: Basically free points as well, even with level 0 foraging you can still scrounge up enough berries to keep from starving.

 

Hearty Appetite - Free points still in my opinion. Has more to do with food being too readily available.

High Thirst - Now that we can boil water from lakes, definitely free points.

  • About the thirst, not everybody is playing in westpoint, in murglauh 8+ month run, High Thirst is a death trait
  • Even in West point it's a painfull trait, you spend twice more time going to fill your cooking pots, cuttings logs, starting a fire... Urgh...
  • Oh god Hearthy Appetite is so NOT a free points skills, once again guys, when you get to late game, even after your first winter, these kinds of skills are the one that kills you... And foraging is not always the solution : waiiiiting... in MP / not everybody plays a foraging character + now that it has been nerfed it takes a day to find 20 berries to a character with foraging at level 6, considering you need to eat at least 10 of these berries per day... It's not that OP, but I agree with you, berries should'nt show up before the level 2 of foraging.

 

Still really disagree here, as your artificially creating challenge. Muldraugh does have a well, and if your in a 8+ month run where you haven't built several rain barrels or moved to it, your doing something wrong.

 

As for the second point, there is no need to cut logs to build a campfire......its not that hard to forage up tree branches and such. Not a painful trait at all as I simply toss on the pots when I'm fixing to cook. The only thing we could really use is a QoL change to have an option to fill all water bottles.

 

Lastly about hearty appetite, foraging isn't the only option, as fishing provides ridiculous food and is year round. ATM, foraging is only for gathering some non-perishables and campfire materials TBH. Both of these traits are free points, even in the late game, till they make it more difficult to manage food. Since food is too easy to maintain, even late game, hearty appetite is definitely free points.

 

You can argue about starting and wanting to stay in Muldraugh, but then that's your choice for wanting to stay in an area that is not easily sustainable. By the 8 month mark you should have rain barrels and enough in foraging to somewhat stay alive, or have moved to the well. However, if you start and/or move to Westpoint, like most people would, its ridiculously easy to survive with all the rivers and lakes around there.

 

Edit Edit: Basically, food being too easy to get is what makes most of these "Free" traits the problem. Foraging probably still needs a perishable tag on a lot of the foods (including the weird frog, not sure why it was handled differently than rabbits and birds). But even then, fishing is gonna remain the king solution to this, and I really don't know how your gonna keep people from fishing unless you add in River Zombies :D

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