Everyone: listening to his math Me: panicking at the scene behind him

My take on Pacifist is this: Weapon skills are the most important skills in the game. Are you gaining something of equal worth with those 4 extra points in exchange for reduced Melee/Firearm/Maintenance experience gain? A level of melee can be the difference between 1 hit and 2. Maintenance is painfully slow to level (and only applies on even levels). Aiming requires using ammo, a very limited resource.

It gimping the maintenance skill was the reason I stopped using the trait. Grinding the skill takes long enough as it is.

Simple, fast learner is 1.3x, pacifist is 0.75x. The order is irrelevant, the math is just adding the multipliers together, which, as these are *multiplicative* and not *additive* (most multipliers usually are, so it should be your first assumption), is done that way : 1.3 x 0.75 = 0.975. Another way to look at it is 1 over 0.75 is 1.33x so you'd need a mult of 1.33x to counter a mult of 0.75x. And 1 over 1.3 is 0.77x so in the same way you'd need a 0.77x mult to counter a 1.3x mult. So you end up with a 1.3x multiplier for all non-combat skills, and 0.975x for all combat skills. Which is less than 1 which means you do lose some xp. You get 75% the amount of xp you would otherwise gain with just fast learner. This is bad, but not as bad as combining slow learner with pacifist which yields a 0.525x multiplier for all combat skills (or 2.47 times less than you'd get with just fast learner), or simply having just slow learner which yields 0.7x the xp. It's slightly worse than having nothing (at 1x). And of course that's just for combat skills. Every other one still gets the full 1.3x 4 points is not a lot, but when you're trying to squeeze out every last drop of juice from a build, well, it's not that bad either.

the percentage isn't additive it's multiplicative. -25% xp means you multiply your xp gain by 1-0.25=0.75 +30% xp means you multiply your xp by 1+0.30=1.30 then since multiplication is transitive, order doesn't matter. xp*1.3*0.75=xp*0.75*1.3=xp*0.975

I always found the crowbar really good at leveling maintenance. Besides its durability, is there any other reason? Are there better weapons to level it?

I always pick Pacifist. I prefer to avoid combat overall after all. But I thought Pacifist was a damage reduction, not experience reduction. Guess it makes sense why my character always tended to be great at murduring Zombies despite being a Pacifist, which led to my friend joking that Pacifist is the true killer. Even after this video I'll still keep taking Pacifist because it's just how I roll.

With the “slow and steady” approach, I felt pacifist worked out well in single AND multiplayer. I’m level 6 long blunt with pacifist in my main playthrough, decimate with crowbars

I like the idea of building a character with the idea that he will EVENTUALLY be strong but isn't immediately....thus pacifist is great to me because while leveling slower can be tedious, the gains I would get for it are so much that by end game you will be so strong you would barely care

Still you'll get 97% for weapon skills and 130 % for others skills at the cost of only 2 points

It's not an order of operations issue really. It's just simply 130% multiplied by 75%. It's really simple; it's multiplication rather than addition. I don't know why so many people get it wrong; I suppose because sometimes some games _do_ have bonuses that stack additively (and it really annoys me when they do this and don't make it clear, or mix both and don't make it clear) And as a side note that I expect nobody to care about, but still hope some do: percentages are _always_ relative. If you have a 50% chance of something happening (outside of the game) and you increase it by 50%, it will become 75%, because it's adding 50% relative to the base amount of 50%. This is how percentages are supposed to work. If you want to describe going from 50% to 100% you need to say 50 percentage points, or 50 pp for short.

I’m not inclined to use Pacifist myself as I use the same rationalization when never picking Slow Learner. Why would I want to gimp myself out of my characters potential? One line of reasoning I see quite often that I disagree with is “once you level the skill up to max, the trait becomes useless, therefore never take the trait”. While the logic here is theoretically correct, applying this into a standard game of Project Zomboid (one without altered starting points or xp gain rates), it would be unusually rare to have a character ever reach the highest level obtainable in a non-book skill. Fundamentally, the hardest part in a standard game of Project Zomboid is the early stage of the game. Speeding up your skill gain rate in combat related skills (and arguably other skills) functionally decreases time spent in the early stage of your game. Thus, I conclude that traits that increase skill gain rate are strong and should not be discounted simply because they can stop being useful at some point (if you even ever reach that point).

Watches as he avoids all zombies making a train: "Haha, lol pacifist run." Watches as he trains all the zombies to fire so the entirety of my last starting neighborhood has no more zombies without a single swing: "Oh, big brain."

it essentially just gives all your weapon skills (with no other bonuses beyond pacifist + fast learner) a 0.975 multiplier. A 2 skill point cost and a 97.5% multiplier on weapon skills to get 130% learning on other skills isn't that bad.

New players: do not choose pacifist. Experienced players: pacifist or no balls.

Project Zomboid X OSRS is a combo I didn't know I needed.

Go in depth on Fractures 1.What activity may increase or decrease fracture recovery rate. 2. How long do they typically take to heal. 3.How much does the Slow Healer trait effect recovery rate. 4. Does the comfrey poultice need to be applied more than once to gain benefits. 5.Does exercising effects recovery rate. (It would be extra helpful if you did it for a separate body part like Torso which can't be bandaged)

Sees the exp gain mod “wow it’s like RuneScape” narrator then goes on to point out the RuneScape music in the background lol thank you for that idk why but that made my day :)

So doing the math of Positives followed by negatives it's (1 + X) * Y so (1+0.3) * 0.75 = 97.5. So you lose 2.5% exp gained in combat skills. Here is how I view it. Singleplayer: Net positive, your character needs to be a jack of all trades. 1.3 x to Sprinting/Lightfooted/Nimble/Sneaking/Carpentry/Cooking/Farming/First Aid/Electrical/Metalworking/Mechanics/Tailoring/Fishing/Trapping/Foraging 0.975 x to Combat / Gun traits. Base EXP is 25% EXP so 0.25 to simplify it Quick Learning 0.25 * 1.3 = 0.325 1.3 x EXP Quick Learning + Pacifist is 0.35 * 0.75 = 0.24375 so a loss of 0.00625 exp gain or .625% 0.975x exp gain Now Lets look at Starting Bonus +1 (0.25+0.75) = 1 4x exp gain Quick learning + Starting Bonus 1 = (0.25+0.75)*1.3)) = 1.3 5.25x exp gain Quick Learning + Pacifist + Starting Bonus 1 = 1.3*0.75 = 0.975 3.9x exp gain Starting Bonus + 2 = 1.25 5x exp gain Quick learning + Starting Bonus 2 = 1.25 * 1.3 = 1.625 6.5x exp gain Quick Learning + Pacifist + Starting Bonus 2 = (1.25 * 1.3) * 0.75 = 1.21875 4.875x exp gain Starting Bonus +3 = 1.5 6x exp gain Quick learning + Starting Bonus 3 = 1.5 * 1.3 = 1.95 7.8x exp gain Quick Learning + Pacifist + Starting Bonus 3 = (1.5 * 1.3) * 0.75 = 1.4625 5.85x exp gain So looking at the results No starting Bonus 2.5% less with the combo Starting bonus + 1 is 10% less with the combo Starting bonus +2 is 12.5% less exp than Staring Bonus + 3 is 15% less with the combo So what it looks like is Starting build has a lot of starting bonuses in non combat skills, DO THIS Starting build has only combat bonuses, DONT DO THIS Starting build is mixed, DO THIS as the losses are next to nothing.

omg that ending is a stuff of nightmares "it will fester in your mind"

For me, maintenance is the best stat, that's why i play as a "repairman". I only use spears as weapon because i love spears

I only ever take pacifist when I'm using repairman occupation, 125% extra maintenance and you can have maintenance 4 and short blunt 4 by day 2, its great

Thanks for making this 👍

One thing I think many people ignore, usually strawmanning that 'once you hit max level xp doesn't matter' Is the concept of skill. A good player can theoretically survive with 0 in every skill, think those 'all negative trait' runs that are popular in many youtube series. I myself haven't done one of those challenges because it seems like a lesson in futility, but it would be an experience, the same as the CDDA challenge. To me, pacifist reduces weapon xp gain, but it also doesn't make me incapable of doing what I've done for hundreds of hours, and it doesn't prevent me from getting crafting levels to progress the rest of my character where carpentry L7 was required till the new city, to get efficient rain barrels or cooking to level 7 for cooking rotten ingredients. While weapon skills can be the difference between only a few hits or many hits, if you are able to play well you won't be making enough mistakes that the game can punish you for using the trait. I ran pacifist right from the start from the moment I learnt how to reliably instant kill many versions ago, before I knew it was weapon xp, because damage didn't matter in A40 with the knife instant kill, skill decided how many zombies I could kill, even with a pen or butterknife, it was more reliable than most other weapons due to the extremely exploitable instant kill with stabbing weapons. And so I've kept that habit, even if its slower, I'm still many times more effective at kiting zombies, picking fights, luring them even compared to my friends in multiplayer who with trait mods, take weapon specialist traits. If you play project zomboid with the intent to go and play for a long time, penalties might add up, I agree; to a point where most end up with that 'max level xp doesn't matter' strawman, but there are many other elements to the conversation. The same could be said about dying repeatedly. If you keep dying then it doesn't matter how many 200% bonuses you get to a weapon skill, you will be reset back. Over the course of a long playthrough on a server, I'll end up with the highest weapon skill, even though I took pacifist, because I go and hunt zombies, to clear the area for my friends who aren't as good at those things. Its also worth noting that Project zomboid isn't an RPG, enemies don't (without mods) scale. Zombies don't get bonus health, don't do bonus damage or get extra speed the further you get in. Many games have that with 7 days to die adding harder zombie varieties. So no matter what, your targets aren't improving, there is no 'arms race' that people keep running after if you are playing PvE. Once you can 'one hit' most zombies, was there a point of getting that ability at only level 6 in the weapon type? And I completely agree with the replies I'm likely to get of 'skill based' or 'elitism' it does sound like that, but this isn't a 'get gud' moment. This is me saying that always playing with good traits, optimising builds, can end up with you using those good skills as a crutch. That when the skill rework comes in A42, where they remake most skills, many people who relied on specific good traits, will find themselves hating the rebalance. Its fun to debate the value of traits, the good ones to take and the bad, the ones you are required to take or should leave unless forced to grab. But there needs to be consideration for the use of it. For a crafter, especially with mods like hydrocraft on multiplayer with friends, you could argue weapon xp gain doesn't matter. For players who expect to die a lot because they are learning, it can be free points to let them grab some extra things they need. For people who want to train combat awareness and learn how to not get caught in a bad spot, requiring those extra few hits helps train you for the moment RNG doesn't instant kill a zombie. The place pacifist has no place in, would be people with only a hundred hours or so in the game, or for people who want to go for a long time in a world with potentially higher difficulty settings. There are disadvantages beyond just 'gaining skill levels slower', you would find it easier to die and be overwhelmed, which at that playtime, I would expect someone would be learning how to build and farm usually, dying would impede that area of learning. Same for people learning mechanics around the same amount of playtime. There are uses for every trait and reasons not to use them.

hey Retanaru, do you know what counts as "rare loot" for the purposes of the unlucky/lucky traits?

I love the background Runescape musics :D

With the new foraging update I was choosing between a Park Ranger build with a bunch of panic traits, or a Veteran build with a bunch of XP down traits like Pacifist. I take poor weight and fitness traits on the regular so I'm used to taking things slow, but my goodness Slow Learner x Pacifist is rough. 🤣

That house you started in has been my base for my last 3 runs lmaoo

Bro, I would love to see a Trait Tier list video from you.

The ultimate question would be is the difference between skill exp gain greater than the skill points given? Would depend on what you prioritize imo.

PZ's % skill xp gains are added multiplicatively, so it doesn't really matter where they are added. X*1.3*.75 = X*.75*1.3. So any reductions will hit harder than any similarly sized boosts. It is nice to know that level 1 starting skill gives a lot more than it sounds like it will.

0:58 Warning: The math depends on whether multipliers like this stack additivly or multiplicativly. If additivly, then yes, +5%. If multiplicativly, then 0.75*1.3=0.975, so you get -2.5% with weapons.

This seems beneficial for those of us that play a character in-game beyond a few months and can tolerate singleplayer!

when i get this game i wanna make my self as close as possible

I loss all focus listening to you explaining the topic and started to cheering on hard for the zombies to all catch fire while you elegantly brisk through them.

I'm not really a fan of pacifist but on my current mp build it's the difference between having the awesome athletic trait or just fit. The way I see it as long as you pick trait or occupation that gives you at least 1 point in wep skill you mainly gonna use like axes, shortblunt or even maintenance the xp gain is actually still pretty fine.

Grub

It's a free trait, all it does is lower weapon XP gain. Not actually making the weapon useless.

I've never noticed the lowered maintenance xp, because I'm in the crowbar gang.

I think it depends on settings and play style. If you are a zombie killer rather than a zombie avoider, pacifist is fine because you will be attacking so much that your skills will still rise. Plus i rarely get over 5 anyway.

can you make like a "settings for the most realistic experience" or smth like that? thanks :)

Thanks

0:59 Except if it is multiplicative bonus(which i have no idea wheter it is) if it is a multiplicative bonus you do NOT end up with 5% extra exp, you instead end up with 1.3*0.75 = 0.975 --> 97.5% exp total for weapon, so basically you get 2.5% less exp if you get both.

There are a few trait combos I think people underutilize but are almost direct upgrades imo. My favorites are Pacifist + Baseball Player, and Very Underweight + Fit.

i can't watch that footage goddamn thats anxiety inducing

I didnt pay attention to a word you said, just the sick fucking background gameplay

Taking handy can massievely negate any issues with maintenance xp gain as well as provide carpentry exp bonuses. A costly trait to take, but worth it in the long run imo.

subbed the moment i heard runescape music >

Could you do video on zombie memory settings? I've been trying to find exact stats for short, normal, and long with 0 luck

Odd that the various adjustments to XP gain are multiplicative with eachother rather than additive.

Pacifist is good with things like baseball player or any trait that gives u weapon xp boost since youll still come out positive for xp gain

Hey, that's the house me andvmy Budd decided to take for our spawn

this combo is best for long blunt users because maintenance isnt needed with crowbars. everywhere else, its much more suspect as you will miss that maint dearly when you are forced to use weapons outside your skills.

all of my runs are going like this: spawn in rosewood, hit up the school, get some bags, hit up some garages, get a hammer and a screwdriver, set up a base on a two story house wich is close to a wall separating it from the police station, loot the police station armory, get a shotgun and a bunch of shell boxes, hit up the court of justice for some lighters, siphon gas out of a car or get some bourbon, make molotovs, get a working car, rest and then its off to drive up to the gas station slowly, honking all the time, getting all the damn zombies on a horde, molotov and absolute blast those dummies with the shotgun. I managed to kill 225 zombies in my first day doing like this, not even counting the ones I burned. I cant survive a month but I sure can clear the majority of rosewood in the first day of the run 🤣 and bro I cant even imagine not using guns in this game, its so freaking fun, also leveling up aiming.

The question for me at this point is, should I sacrifice some weapon exp for Runner or not?

your like my go to now instead of the wiki lol

for me i still pake pacifist for my repair man build because im still gaining a ton of extra xp in that group anyways, and in the build i have a +75 to both types of weapons i use

This reason this happens is because the numbers are multiplicative. Not because of order of operation (two multiplications don’t change the result if the order is changed). The final result is 97.5% experience gained. You can confirm this by taking the numbers you got, Retanaru, 4.86/4.98 to get 0.975904. Which is suspiciously close to the math equation 1 * 0.75 * 1.3 = 0.975 which converts to 97.5%. This is important because multiplicative gains and losses perform wildly different from additive gains and losses. Ie let’s say you gain 10x experience for some reason. 100% less experience would be 0% experience if multiplicative. But it would only reduce your gains from 10x to 9x if additive.

0:37 if you had pink hair, then you'd complete the MULTIPASS outfit.

honestly? for me?, it doesnt change much... i mean im already a wild card when it comes to this game, sometimes fighting sometimes running and just being unpredictable over all so... what does it change if i have that extra exp gain or not?

I always run strong athletic and either repair man or handy. it negates the negative from pacifist completely. Personally i don't see the need to go 10 str or 10 fit so i never run fire officer or lumber jack

I have mods that add books for weapon skills, so Pacifist is semi-tolerable. I couldn't imagine playing without books for every skill...

It's not an order of operations thing, plus 10% and minus 10% leave you with 99%. If you do the plus first, (110%), removing 10% of that gets amplified, taking away 11% If you do the minus first, (90%) adding 10% to that gets reduced, only adding 9% You can also find this by just multiply 1.1 with 0.9, which is how you would "add" or "remove" 10% of something, and gives a result of 0.99 For the relevant numbers here, 1.3 (+30%) multiplied by 0.75 (-25%) is 0.975 (-2.5%)

Dude the osrs xp mod is fucking awesome

This is why chads go for Repairman with Brawler trait for axe builds. lvl up maintenance on short blunt/long blunt and then swing away with all the hoarded axes once lvled up! Also benefit to having so many weapon type multipliers makes you much less reliant on renewable weapons and makes the combat less repetitive when you can switch between 3 weapon types and if all goes wrong, there is always the OP spears, right?

I really hate how Pacifist appears in most games (and other media for that). A Pacifist is, but difinition, someone who wound run away from a zombie or hope really really really hard that he reconsiders attacking you before he reaches you. The moment the "Pacifist" picks up an item with the intent of swinging it after another being, he isn't a Pacifist anymore. This is like showing an Cannibal who starves to death because he doesn't want to eat human.

I always take the Pacifist trait on my mime characters. :D

This is neat. I did pacifist+fast learner combo before but I felt something is wrong with the gain. I decide to not to take pacifist with my next char, plus... weapon skills are harder to level than crafting.

Lower the Weapon skill penalty and give it Unhappiness increase each Zombie or Player Kill, or if you like more drag add some Unhappiness gain when hunting and fishing.

This makes me glad I decided against pacifist with my current lumberjack build

Here's my issue on both Fast Learner and Pacifist, or really any skill that increases XP gains: You stop gaining XP, and at a point combat means nothing. Some of you will play this game enough to get to this point as well. All of the Utility Skills (Construction, Cooking, Farming, etc) all are VERY easy to hit level 10 on. Even when Indie Stone does their revamp to the skills and crafting (coming SOONtm) there will still be a very easy path from 0-10 due to VHS and Book XP multipliers. This means that as soon as any of the Utility Skills becomes level 10, you devalued the perk. Casual basic play of PZ will result in maxing out of a lot of Utility skills before you're even finished the year. Without exploits. As for combat, there comes a point (usually ~4 blocks) where you are attacking quick enough and strong enough that minor and medium sized hordes becomes nothing. Spears especially, with their two different "instant kill" animations makes you a Spinning Spear of Death. Weapons aren't an issue in Project Zomboid, nor will they ever really be one. If you are in a situation where your weapons will not save you, then you made multiple mistakes that aren't related to your weapon choice. I don't take Pacifist for the opposite reason, there isn't any compelling reason to take it. Yeah I get more perk points but honestly after taking so many other perks, why bother? I already have 1 STR and 0 FIT, I don't need those extra 4 points. Not to mention for Aiming and Reloading, there are massive penalties after level 4. You're just making it even worse, on top of making your grind longer. Lucky is the best perk in the game.

Yay RuneScape music

Enginmagrey posted in january on steam that this exp behaviour with skill points you describe at around 1:30 is a bug btw.

I like to level long blade whenever i can (get my hands on one), and pacifist makes it even more painful, so no thanks.

0:57 you understand difference between percent and point percent?

So the UI was, surprisingly, accurate when it says the trait makes you less effective with weapons

Favorite build; Pacifistic Psychopath (Psychopathcifist/Pacpsycho).

THANK YOU for confirming this combination. On one of my first multiplayer playthroughs I took the pacifist+fast learner combo and found I was leveling combat skills like aiming significantly more slowly than a friend who did not have either trait. I stopped using the combination since as I had a sneaking suspicion this combination was not actually providing an xp boost to combat and never looked back. Beyond that, I've stopped using fast learner entirely as it is much more effective to start with a point in a combat skill and find books for non combat which offer a way bigger xp boost than fast learner will. I treat fast learner as the same way I treat herbalist - don't waste skill points on things you can learn in game. I would recommend fast learner to anyone who is new and may have to go through rebuilds more often but if you're getting a 2+ month character more consistently then fast learner seems like a waste. Until NPCs arrive the beginning and mid game are the best part - late game when you have every item/skill you want the game largely becomes less about survival as you've likely reached self reliance between base defense and renewable food/water.

One thing I'd like to confirm is, does the pacifist also make you slightly slower to swing weapons? I can't remember if your previous videos covered this part or not.

When you said that maintenance is a weapons skill my entire world fell apart and all my struggles suddenly made sense

If it affects maintenance, that’s already out the window. Maintenance is easily one of the best skills in game

What is the mod that you are using the xp amount that you gain top right?

I thought you were playing the theme song to that George Lopez show at first

"limited amount of axes" *dude* i literally find them in zombies all the time not even talking about the small ones i find the big ones wedged in zombie skulls more often than even knifes and im playing vanilla i just have the luck perk on and that increases the chance of finding a weapon ig either way i use small ones to level up axe and maintenance skill and i stomp on zombies whenever i get a chance to and that increases the maintenance at least ive noticed it happening That way i save my axe for bigger ammounts of zombies and level up stuff so i think pacifist is like free points I thought it was gonna be worse ill definitely take it on my next play through Ill finally be able to take my dream build

is that background music crash bandicoot?

Ironically, those exp pop-ups originate from Rs2, and look more like Rs3 today

youre telling me this music isnt toontown?

If the numbers are multiplicative +30% and -25% comes out to 97.5% total. I would imagine most % based multipliers would work this way in most games

honestly, while it's not great to earn reduced maintenance, pacifist doesn't make THAT much of a difference, especially with fast learner. if you take an occupation / trait with weapon skills it matters even less. free 4 trait points imo.

Honestly I've had the game less than a month and I've used pacifist the entire time as well as fast learner (for other skills) etc etc. Anyhow, I kill most z's in one swing unless I'm tired. Have multiple levels in long blad, long blunt and short blunt. It has not hindered me -at all. At least... I don't feel that it has.

It's all about roleplaying

Is there any chance you could dissect lucky/unlucky?

It sucks because I want my LONK BLUNT SKILL!!!

I always take a trait or profession that gives me maintenance, so pacifist is a nice way to get 4 of the 6 points of fast learner back. With actually getting 1.0 xp instead of .25 from the one maintenance skill alone, .975 overall does not mean much to me. Used to take Handy, but cook is actually a cheaper option for a single maintenance and before the animation update short blades used to easily one shot any zombie in the world with the under-the-mouth stab.

I feel like project zomboid is misleading on purpose when it comes to things like trait information. Keeping it vague gives you less information, less information = more RNG to work with. It's like an extra layer of stakes. Will you risk taking overweight or slow learner? Pacifist or high thirst? I feel that keeping it vague is great but only for single player. Now that multiplayer is functional, every server that has PvP on should have that trait mod so players can min-max their character faster for their specific needs.

I chose it every time

Maintenance isn't that important IMO. A month or two into the game, you can acquire so many fireaxes and other good weapons from zombies that it's actually weird seeing so many of them rotting in crates. Always carry a back up weapon regardless.

i use the pacifist trait. after this video however, i will still use the pacifist trait. the reason you use it is because you are sacrificing exp for those points. i will sacrifice some exp gained to get another point in something, like brawler.

I love watching zomboid videos but I had to 1.9 hours refund it because I just can not calmly walk around zombies like that. I tried to calmly tread around and my muscle memory kept kicking in and I would just run around like a maniac alerting everything and dying.

"Maintenance is a weapon skill" ... I'm never, ever taking pacifist again, it seems.