You will either lose or lock yourself out of content.
Not at all.
Grindy indeed.
Why should I have to make a fully non-combat character and then rely on combat to make it through the early game?
Because you shouldn't just ignore the reality of the world you are playing in.
Why should I have to make a fully non-combat character and then rely on combat to make it through the early game?
You doesn't have to make a non-combat character, you decide whether you want to or not while the meantime the combat is perfectly viable with a non combat character. You have to pick your fights. You cannot solo. This isn't a one-man doomstack game. Use a team. IF you don't want to fight, you don't need a team and thus no need to hire mercs -> they won't ruin your economy.
Why is non-combat not viable for early game?
It is.
Why is a combat oriented character not viable for late game?
Okay so there is an on-going misconception here. The simple answer: Combat oriented character is viable. Just have to grind more to catch up in other aspects. Again. This is a team game in terms of fights. Old-school rpg style. You don't solo.
Yes, there is the issue that you will most definitely will not able to pump certain skills high enough BUT not to a degree that would break the game.
The issue i see here is that you talk about 'late game'. There is no late game. This isn't a VN where all updates constitute as an episode. Neither a game that introduced the entirety of the game and the character skills and options just try to catch up.
There is NO end game. There is only early game that you can sandbox in indefinitely. The game is not at the phase where it can make usage of certain skills and thus they are pointless to have and in turn not much reason to increase either.
The mechanics aren't balanced due to this either. Currently things either increase too fast or too slow, can train them or can't train them at all. Because they are just barely optimized to suit the current state of the game. You treat it like a full game but you really shouldn't.
Why put us in a situations where we are obliged to make decisions that make no sense except from a game mechanics perspective? Why make the early game a complete struggle where you're constantly on the verge of bankruptcy, grinding, grinding, grinding in the hope that one far-off golden day you will be allowed to finally play in the fucking sand?
Lots of games do this and i'm not talking about indie games. Not necessarily because they are poorly balanced but you can say that if you want to. Most of these games are optimized to a certain approach. Your display suggests a very specific mono-action viability which is rarely if ever the optimal way and interestingly if they are now THAT is a botched economy (Looking at you, Alchemy, in the ElderScroll series)
Lets take Skyrim for example. Try that game without using readily available self healing magics. Good luck having fun that way. Ramp up the difficulty and follow self-imposed restrictions and you will end up grinding far far more than you should have while doing boring chores for scraps.
Same deal here except with only segments of it being introduced and it isn't optimized to suit this segment alone. That would be a mistake. They would have to redo the entire thing with each new added mechanics and section. So the reason why the economy, the way to get it and skills tied to it, isn't optimized is because they cannot be and shouldn't be.
If I have to make a specific character, invest in very specific skills, and do very specific things at very specific times in order to be able to play, why even make a sandbox game? It's mind boggling.
Fun fact. You are arguing the exact opposite. Your argument in it's entirety relies on that you want to play a specific way with very specific skills and for some reason you expect not to be relegated/forced into a specific role regardless. Which is just misguided expectation from the start. This is what is mind boggling.
The state of the game does not support this approach from all possible angle. You can start out something and currently you can find out that such specific sepcialization is not supported by the currently available parts. This is just the nature of game development.
I, like many others, find the "correct" way to play the game completely torturous. And if you're making a sandbox game with a "correct" way to play it, you're doing it wrong.
I have to disagree. My view on this matter is that it is you who simply aren't getting it right. Not the game play mind you, that you probably can figure out after a while if i could
, but the entire state of the game, that what that implies in terms of balance, economy, viability of certain orientations.
You expect a very specific way of development. You aren't getting it. You blame it on the developers. As if they can't develop the game in their pace in their way, set priorities based on their own ideas. Because it's boring you say. Yeah. Playing a demo over and over again that offers limited possibilities will get you bored.
You got bored too soon? Maybe you were forcing an approach that currently isn't viable. That is on you. That is a YOU problem, not a development problem. Crafting is boring as fuck as sole source of income to get rich. Is this a problem? Not really.
They are making a sandbox game. There are already several ways to get by, just not all of them offer the same results in the same amount of time and definitely not from the get go. This is intentional. This is how it has to be plus this is what it makes an actual sandbox. If everything does the exact same thing in the exact same way then just pick one and forget the rest. Alternatives have to be more than just a different icon.
It is perfectly normal and in fact the common way of doing things is that you start out doing something first and switch to something else later on. Play an economy sandbox game and you won't be getting rich from practices that gets you by early on and the same time the big prizes aren't available for the newcomer.
There is already fighting, working, gambling, crafting, slave trade, investments, trained slave workforce for economy. Are these balanced? Of course not. Nor could they be. Too much effort only to be thrown away if something needs to be changes and something else gets added. The foundations are in.
We haven't even talked about the time factor! Evidently, time is very important. We can age. Yet currently the world we have access to, the things we can do, do not support this. Nothing will keep you interested for years to see kids grow up (which is a thing here) or people grow old. There is no option for skipping extended periods of times either. No point for it yet. So it's grind grind grind if you want to see it.. buut there is no reason to do it. It's not a completed feature. Far from it. No need to bother with it, if you grind ages to see it yourself and found nothing well that can be annoying but hardly something you should be blaming anyone for it.
You should understand that a sandbox game isn't just a free roam game and the same time a sandbox game still won't allow you to do whatever you want. That would be an impossibility as this is still just a bunch of scripts put together.
In case of a Visual Novel this is like having 5 options all the time. Those are still "just" 5. You aren't actually saying what you mayhaps wanted. You pick from predefined options.
This game offers lots of alternatives but those alternatives aren't properly implemented at. Currently they don't lead in to a chain, improving and expanding on the initial piece. I simply cannot imagine that the crafting system for example is already finished and this is what we will get as well with a finished game. OR that as doctor with medicine skill all we can do by the end is using or crafing a medkit. I expect surgeries, plastic surgeries, hospital career, genetic engineering, combating disease outbreaks... but mostly just breast implants not gonna lie
Same with crafting. I expect actual Assembly route with foreman promotions, engineering core, infrastructure improving, setting up rails perhaps or improving sewer system, power grid. Building transportation, advanced systems, urban development, whatever!
But these are just not yet in. Have to be reasonable here. (I wanna have the silicon implants for bigger boobies right now!!
)
