Hunting Skills and What I'd have Done Differently

 It is easy to think unlocking a new skill is no big deal. I thought that. Until I spent months trying to finish the next few levels to reach level 70 BLP so I could unlock commando skills. Whats the big deal about Commando skill? Well. Every 200 points is 1 health point! That is huge! But also, it makes levelling go much faster, too, and really, once you reach level 100, all those level 100 weapons that are TT food or low priced because by the time people can use them they already have more expensive UL's that they use, you can use anything you want to use.

I spent the first portion of the game skilling laser. At some point I switched to BLP, I just found laser annoying. BLP, for me, at least, tended to be quicker and sound better. But, had I decided to go BLP from the beginning and only skill that, I might be much closer to level 100, and that is probably one of the biggest things I'd do differently.

If you want to build your strength so you can carry a lot of stuff, melee probably is the way to go. It is unclear to me the full extent of which the strength attribute impacts gameplay. Intelligence tends to help crafting and mining, stamina seems to improve overall survivability against tough mobs. The attributes tend to operate in ways that are different from the other skills. I always figure the hardest to get attribute, or the hardest to get skills, might be the most important. If something is really helpful, I figure MA won't let us have much of it at one time or at all. I've done some limited testing along these lines and my results are encouraging.

I suppose the other thing I regret is not maintaining a record of every run, the cost, the loot, everything. I know it doesn't sound like much fun, but if I had that data for the 15 years I've been playing, I might be closer to figuring certain things out. And, the most successful players tend to track everything. I suppose there's a reason MA doesn't give us an ingame pedflow statement. It would be nice, but something tells me they would never do it. Sort of why they never put a clock in a casino, they don't want people aware of the passage of the time... Similarly I feel MA doesn't want us aware of the passage of our peds.

Having a clear goal, and focusing on the goal. It can be many goals. You can have a goal for every profession. But focusing on them is probably better than jumping around randomly hoping something works out.