So I've been putting some thought into attribute and starting perk balance. Just for "fun", I decided to start with Physical as my main attribute. While this provided one advantage, in that I could choose to do fights early on and I could impact alignment with the maintenance job, overall, I just wind up regretting not having picked social instead. And while purposely min'ing instead of maxing my attributes, I maxed my perks. Both these aspects are things I think should be addressed.
1) Character creation stat perks.
2 Physical vs Social vs Mental
Thoughts? Do you think changes like this would provide a bit better balance between the three attributes? Or do you think it isn't an issue or that there's better ways to address it?
I agree with all your points if not your solutions. One thing to remember is the natural attribute divergence is an early game thing only. By January my Billy has evened out his stats to 2 / 3 / 3 and by May they are 2 / 5 / 5 -- strength would be higher, but I find combat works best with a natural strength around 2 so I never raise it past that.
The dev has written he wants to add intrinsic advantages to the talent perks such that having one opens up exclusive paths.
A couple of thought wrt your solutions:
My primary problem with neighborhood watch is the two-period opportunity cost since you lose the lower-value period where you are patrolling (passing up a booty call, potential random event or public Ops opportunity) and lose the morning period the next day. The reward would have to be substantially better for it to not be a trap option as it currently is.
If the opportunity cost was just the night period, early strength would have some early value. It probably wouldn't be worth a primary pick, but running a Billy with a strength secondary would likely be an interesting diversion. It would still be sub-optimal, but a more eventful playthrough.
The problem with buffing class rewards for Mental is my Billy doesn't attend a class after about October unless there is a ulterior motive (it completes a talent training, I want to watch a vignette or it is necessary to advance a mission). Personal training is more than sufficient to max all talents sometime in May/June and has no RNG hell associated with it. Additionally, there are more valuable activities to pursue during school hours like working and influence conversion. Cash is the primary bottleneck and Initiative influence is the secondary. Talents are pleasant to acquire, but by and large have limited impact outside threshold checks and the social talent checks.
A modestly simple and potentially decent way to balance out the starting choices is have the school girls respond differently depending on your stat picks. Give a higher starting Favor for physical primary to all school girls with a bigger bonus to the cheerleaders. Give a modest boost to the nerds for a mental primary.