Yeah the enhanced start is definitely overpowered and gives you way more than you need. You get 750 and can still take disadvantages on top of that to get even more if you want.
I suppose that's what some people want, and in the long run I kinda want the same thing, but I like to do it the old-fashioned way and
earn it.
Well I'm thinking compared to the other expert perks. The stuff from soldier I can just buy. I already have 2 hunting sites so unless there's something special about the new one I'm not sure it provides much value unless I'm going to do a LOT of hunting.
It's the reduced stamina loss which is the big benefit, though access to another fertile hunting ground is indeed a big benefit. It's how I started playing the game after I tried combat without any clue what I was doing and a much less helpful wiki convinced me this game wasn't a total walkover. I found some easy money and took Juno out into the woods and hunted all day and whipped and fucked her ass all night long, good times! Then I decided to learn how to play for real and haven't done much hunting since, but you run out of stamina especially in the beginning and once you're good at it you deplete the hunting grounds very quickly.
I've been fondly reminiscing about that and have been considering a hunting build as kind of a tribute. With Loren and the Wildborn perk (which is a great bargain at 10 points for any character) money ought to be pretty good, back then it was even more profitable than fighting after the board was (mostly) cleared. You could get your entire house upgraded, all the little investments, everyone in Combat Armor (no Duraplate then) and Aria bought in thirty days just by hunting if you got a Famine by Day 30.
The academic thing I could see doing if I was going to be an atheist and wanted to RP a professor build or something but otherwise it seems like it's giving you a similar but lessor advantage to the business one. Doctor makes healing a bit easier but I can pump that up to 90 just using stabilize and doctor's kits anyway. So to me that leaves a choice between Business vs Slaver with Business giving me the most money and Slaver giving me an actual quest and some additional story background. So overall I like the slaver option better.
However like a clever fellow once said 'Remember, in the long run everyone's dead...' In other words you can wait too long to enjoy the fruits of your labor if you delay gratification too much. Game-wise the Elite Soldier, Hunting and Doctor expert perks allow you to get off to a faster start which you can capitalize on by getting the major investments quicker and get expensive stats up sooner.
Yeah I will have to play around with a normal or rise start a bit more before I decide which disadvantages I can live with and which ones I can't. I think Debt and Limp are the only 2 no brainers since you can completely counteract those 2. I agree about not really wanting a 70 pt stat cap on anything, but that's not as bad as pacifist.
Limp slows you down in the beginning, which I find irritating because I like to see just how much I can get done the first few days. It's kind of a mini-game with me, I've probably played the first days literally thousands of times just to see if I can find the 'perfect' opening, which changes with just about every update now. Normally the Stables wouldn't be near the top of my Household Upgrade priority list, but if I take 'Limp' they probably would be. That's why I don't consider it a gimme, but it's certainly less debilitating (in the beginning at least) than 'Near-Sighted' (ouch!) or one of the ones that limits stat growth, and less demoralizing RP-wise than 'Body Odor' which really doesn't hurt you much, but....yuck! I've known people like that, I don't want to be one and have a putrid stench wafting about in my wake!
As far as I know Tough is 8% so that could make a significant difference if you're in a tough fight where MC ends up tanking. There are instances with advanced tactics where MC tanks no matter what you do in my experience, even if he's using his fists. So 8% less damage per hit applied to multiple plasma shots and maybe even a cyber cannon is a big deal to me. For a rise start I think combat veteran might be your only choice for an expert perk if you also want deadly strike and tough, but I'm not sure on that. I guess if you take enough disadvantages you could maybe sqeeze in 1 or 2 levels of soldier and still get expert in something else but I think you'd probably have to take all of the 70 pt stat limits to do that.
Yeah, eight percent, my early morning math skills left something to be desired when I wrote that. So more like three points saved on a forty point hit. That can add up, and I can see where it would be desirable, but still not a 'must have' in my book.
I think the disadvantages I'd be most willing to live with for a rise start are debt, limp, near sighted, and unlucky. If I had to take more I could maybe convince myself into body odor,. Weak willed is the only stat cap I might consider but I would only take that if I had to. I think Gluttonous would annoy me since it drains your max stamina down to 49 I would have to train stamina literally forever to counteract it.
Near-sighted sounds like a damned painful penalty in the beginning where you're always starting at range, and prioritizing Dex or MC to get the front position option would stop me from raising my Stamina first which I've always found makes for the most satisfying start. Gluttonous would encourage me to keep training Stamina at least occassionally and that way my later acquisitions wouldn't still have 50 Stamina like they sometimes do now. I always train, every day, and making me mix in a Stamina day later on as well to recover lost stamina would keep me training my girls in it too, which I find
necessary for the kind of sex sessions I subject them to. It aso helps me with the role-play to know I'm doing the work to stay in shape which is what you have to do in the real world too if you don't want to look like a lump or a stick.
At any rate, that's how I talk myself into it when I
must have those points to make my configuration work.
Weak-willed was the only one I'd consider too, it occurred to me I don't really
know just what Willpower does in this game outside a few scattered applications.