cronicler

Let me clarify this; I don't advocate the removal of game mechanics from the game. I or You or anyone thinking about them as useless, overpowered, a must, etc is fine but removing something means loss of work time. What I would like to see is a detailed "game play options page" where you can arrange how game mechanics work. Allow the player to adjust his combat difficulty, social difficulty, Vats options, Immortal or Mortal Companions by his choice and you have a game that can satisfy both extreme ends of the spectrum. Heck allow a Wimp mode to play the game with +4 all stats and +40 all skills for experimenting with stuff and such. Give the player some choice instead of railroading the whole game on a single track. (game Mechanics Wise)

I'm sorry Lucian but you are glossing over the unbalanced, over the top parts of the system. Like most parts of the games mechanics, the vats also needs some serious maintenance

Hmm, you have taken away the sp. casting, familiar, domain spells, med and heavy, shields, Turn undead, and the bonus feat... I would suggest 1 level of armored arcana in level 5-7 range and shield prof at 13 or so... I don't see why he shouldn't get a familiar. If my vision of him as a searcher, seeker of knowledge is correct, then I would suggest something mischievious and curious in nature, such as a magpie or maybe a tiny elemental, clockwork Also as you say that you boosted the normal classes a bit, I don't think it is unreasonable to keep sp. casting. But then again it is your campaign, you are the final judge on balance Now that I checked the saves and all, It seems you nerfed the saves a bit too.

5W / 5C /10MT BAB: 10 (+1 every other level) Fort: 8 (+1 at 3rd, 5th, 8th, 10th, 13th, 15th, 18th, 20th levels) Ref: 5 (+1 every 4th level) Will:15 (+2 Will every 3 levels) HP 5d8+15d4 (60Hp average. a uniform d6 will give an average of 70HP, but thats not too much by itself tbh.) Skill Points 2 per level Armor Prof. Light Armor Prof. Med Armor Prof. Heavy Shield Prof. Weapon Prof. Simple Aura Turn Undead Sponteneous Casting Scribe Scroll Summon Familiar Bonus Wizard Feat Spells: 0- 6C, 4W 1- 6C, 4W 2- 6C, 4W 3- 6C, 4W 4- 5C, 4W 5- 5C, 4W 6- 4C, 3W 7- 3C, 2W 8- 2C, 1W 9- 0C, 0W I am not sure if you want to give him the full casting power of 20 wizard and 20 cleric or the minimum option of 17th level spell caster. I will continue this after your input. As a base class I see this class as one that is dedicated to learning instead of crusading, who channels the divine to aid. (d4 to d6, Maybe drop the Medium and Heavy armor profs?)

It wouldn't be so bad if the character turned 45' to move diagonally while keeping his upper body facing forward..... Ummm yeah, it needs a new animation Slow Mo was nice but if you used VATS all the time, it got very boring. I wouldn't say no to a switch to control the amount of slow mo procs. (All the time, sometimes, rarely, only on crits, only on massive or deadly crits, never etc.)

Despite being "hardcore" defenders of the "golden oldies", we do have some rough estimation of how much work would X require and since there is about only- 9+ months to base the development on FO3's foundations, It is not reasonable to demand both extreme complexity and massive quest numbers at the same time. I guess I would be pretty happy with a solid foundation of main story and gameplay sauced with small to decent amounts of side stuff. The fact that this approach also provides the modders to build upon strong foundations instad of having to fix buggy gameplay and artifical restrictions every other step is also a big plus. Personally I would like to see this game consisting of 5 chapters, 0: Tutorial chapter that puts you in a relatively safe envirolment and allows you go get your legs firmly on ground. Getting some traits, special "learned" perks depending on your training and so on. 1: The City/Quest chapter allows you to freely work as a wandering problem solver/creator. This chapter should be about small businesses letting you to get "clearance" for serious missions and cash but ultimately it should be the starting point of the Main story. 2: You gain acceptance to real factions and start doing jobs for them. The few pebbles you started rolling in chapter 1 become a landslide as you add more rocks to it 3: Big Trouble chapter, Doing very important, critical, delicate missions for the faction you support. Maybe even a chance to turncoat and sell for the highest bidder Finale: A chain of events that you will be fighting to stay on top and not get crushed under the crap you started/caused...

Vats needs to be pruned down thats for sure. As Gromnir mentioned it is a great tool for those "oh, sh***!" moments and personally I cant see any better way to implement targeted shots in FP mode without depending on Player skills and depending on Character skills. The Holywood aspects like slow motion, the extra damage resistance are not really good ideas and I would vote for them to be scrapped with the exception of getting slow-mo on "Massive" critical hits now and then. Even then not more than once a minute or 2 in heavy combat or specially on important story Villains. Another part of Vats that needs balancing is the hit detection. Vats should be an "instant hit spell" that has its calculations based on the time you fire the bullet instead f the moment at the end of flight which takes much longer due to slow mo. Removing the physics calculations might crate weird animations now and then but it is preferable to having bullets striking invisible pixels, As I have said before, I would love to see a "Pause" option that gives you 3rd person bird eye view of the area, where you can examine the battlefield and give order to your henchman, squad, squads. Then again considering the ultra stupid AI, It might be even better to scrap the companions that follow you into combat altogether. The Movement rates do need an Overhaul too. Typically a person can move at speed 1 backwards, Speed 1,2,3 or 4 forwards and speed .75 laterally. In the game you move at Speed 2 in all directions and this really causes the animation to become "skating", feeling no connection to be on the ground..

and mkreku also falls prey to buried discussions A while ago me and gromnir were debating on the removed skills. Our opinions were about the same; Doctor on top of F/A was redunant. Medicine is ok but stimpaks healing crippled limbs etc pretty much kills it. Also It would be nice to have some learned perks that allow you to use your skills in new ways like advanced medicine to heal crippled limbs, Gambling was a way to translate your characters skill into the game, however the gambling mini games can be a lot of fun. We don't really need a "skill" with that if we are going to play dragon dice or pazaak. If they implement slot machines and the like? Marginally useful WTB Throwing skill back with knifes, spears, rocks and other nasties Outdoorsman; I defend having it in the game if we have a "world" map as well as city map tieing world map travel times, survival aka water and ration finding, special encounters and cooking craft to it. Gromnir hates it. He also hates cooking too

Actually the whole Cyborg-Blade Runner part and Canada was a bit... weird. I mean US attacked and pillaged the place in the Pre WW3 days, didn't they?

No problem! The less water there is the more fun there will be! Think about all the possible fights that would "spring" from the wells drying up a bit. Also in VB documents (the place were Chinese stealth suits were taken from) there was a nice part about Black Ghosts trying sabotage attacks on several places including Hoover Dam. I would love to see a half broken, filled with silt but still majestic bit of engineering and the little sickly shallow pool that is still a source of life... Edit: While the mention of robots first caused a reaction like "NO! NO! F. NO! NOOO!" that is mostly based on my personal tastes, or more correctly the way my interest in robot stories was burned down to ashes with pathetic "new" robot media like I Robot and Terminator etc. On a more rational level I have to accept that those walking Tanks were very scary opponents. I would like to see some "Boss" battles facing creatively "big" bosses. A Behemoth class Robot, An AFV (Something ranging from a Bradley to Abrahams), a Sniper sequence like the old mad guy at minefield....

Hey don't bash me. My sole knowledge of Vegas comes from corny Mafia Novels and a lot of Written material about the place (And Poker tournaments on Eurosport ). Not a US citizen either. My knowledge of non Navy States are not very good other than generics. Anyway thanks for that link. It would make the game simpler to use that actually. Let the Oasis be the trouble spot and leave the remains of the Dam and Military Installations / Deep Bunkers for other "sinister" factions Like BoS, Gunrunners, Mercs, Raiders, Mob etc

Err a little point Aristes; the place is a desert. The faction that controls the remains of the dam probably has the region by its balls. It wouldn't suprise me to see a somewhat shaky balance between wildly different factions and a very uneasy peace at the start of the game. As you start your deeds you begin some small shifts and by mid-game your actions act as the feather that broke the camels back. Endgame would be about the mess you created and "hidden" factions getting out into the open. The tendrils of far away places like Patriots(Someone had suggested these a few threads back ), Enclave (if it is rehashed one more time), BoS(Old Xenophobic thech hunting bastards not Paladiins), NCR, VaultCity, Reno can be given in the story as small organizations, trade missions and hidden scouting outposts that you can convince to support you/trade with you etc. Mainly I would like to see the PC manipulating "Local" factions like XXX traders vs YYY traders, This Mercs vs That Raiders etc...

Ugh don't remind me Sanfran Tig. That place was so hastily put together that nearly 3/4 of its quests and stuff was not used. Combined with the idiotic merchants and other corny stuff that place was a sore point.

GDM you are a bit off target there. I and a lot of GGoH people argued that Enclave, BoS and Mutants were not really good choices for the East Coast but to no avail

Erm, aristes was that sarcasm? Because you/we/the player will be playing a BD in the game.

Killian: We should agree on the definition of large for a Post Apoc. Settlement i guess. A typical settlement that can take care of its own needs with farming, building, entertainment and all numbers around 50-100 or so including elderly, children etc (going by minimum round numbers). something like a 20-50 man town and a few farms that are somewhat fortress like and have worker barracks and all... These places are actually really small. A mining or trader boom town can have population up to 1000 (with a permanent pop of about 100 I guess) easyly. A Mercenary organizations camp, and its camp followers would also be around 500 or so (with 300 mercs in a company organization) I know people don't like (me) using "Realism" arguments but I would have liked to see some more "random" people that made the place look alive instead of just standing there...

Ah the view distance, and no you are correct on that O. was a lot smaller than M. and F3 follows the same trend. Less distance, more things on the screen (engine limitations. I don't think they can get much better results then the current game. the engine doesn't have/can't use low res models for distant models as far as I'm aware...). And you are also correct that Megaton was jumbled and quite small. Unfortunately other than Rivet City (which is built on a "dungeon" tile set) It is probably the biggest settlement. (The Paradise Falls were about the same size I guess. everything else is smaller. much smaller.) Edit: Actually the place should have been a marshland, swamp if you want to nitpick (Climate due to position/distance from sea and equator...) but I guess they went for the wasteland= sick and dead desert tones... Edit 2: I did not mean fight. I meant you were fencing here and there as an example, I and everyone else here does some fencing too but as we are in the same room it resembles a bar fight now and then

SteveThaiBinh: Actually the amount of stuff you do is about the same with Oblivion. The small villages are on par with the Oblivion ones too. As for size... I think the actual area is a bit smaller and has more stuff in it but as most of this stuff is configured as dungeons, it is not easy to notice when above ground. (Ps: Unfortunately, there is quite a big chunk of world "fenced" with impassable barriers reserved for the trench warfare sections. those really cut a good sized part of the map unusable for exploration.) Edit: Yay! thank you. was my first thought, then uh oh here comes the spam posts followed it Edit 2: There are some natural bickering between TG and Aristes on FO3, Me and Gromnir on Outdoorsman and Vehicles, KK being a pessimist on creativity vs cash gain issue but none of them are actually that bad from the forum rules perspective. It just gets bad when all of these happen side by side and on top of each other.

I would like to have some illusion of "bigger than just 1 city". A city map like FO3 and some satellite locations that are accessible by a world map. The "other" locations don't even have to be big or extremely complex. As I said, an illusion can work as well as the real thing at times. (and from a modding point, It would enable the modders to put "other" new communities, locations without too much forcing the limits/definition of "Wasteland". (I know you hate these Gromnir but this would also allow us to mod in usable Outdoorsman and some basic function Vehicles too. ) Sorry (Mr? Developer? or plain? Not goot at nettiquette sorry) Matthew Rorie but I think you are misreading the causes and effects. Most of the off the rails discussions start from 2 or 3 different discussions going at the same time and creating chaos. I have to add my not veteran voice to the benefits of having a sub-forum and keeping the discussions seperate. At the moment we are jumping from game mechanics to opinions on story to guns to beth bashing to story wishes and so on.... It is hard to make a cohersive discussion here unless you ignore 3/4 of the posts and reply solely to 1 topic...

Actually, entrerix, Mr J.E.S. and other people from the Obsidian them have been going outside the normal parameters in Dev-Fan relationships a lot even by letting us see that they read the threads let alone answering/participating as often as they do. Sadly the norm in these relationships has become something like: Open a forum, appoint a forum handler and let the beggars amuse themselves with the decoy. (And no this is not a dig solely at Beth. A lot of my favorite games' developers are using this including Blizzard, Relic and so on.) I can understand how this becomes needed after a certain "critical mass" of forum posters, hangers on are reached but it makes me sad nevertheless.

No i mean can you list the progression at lvl 20 for the base class. ( And I can't find that p. class anywhere. Which book is it from?)

Can you post the base stats for Xwizard/YCleric/10MT? Byw which book is MT is in?

After brief and very short experiences with some more modern title,s loaded up JA2 and Thief DS again. Have too much equipment unused in T, due to ghosting the levels and have too little heavy ammo for my "cheat" guns. Silenced P-90 + Vykhlop make a weird and too powerfull combo. And yes that thing is a silenced sniper rifle with a range of 1km due to subsonic round. Basic round has an effective range of 2.3 km and a max range about 4km..

Steam campaigns. You can get any game for 10 to 20 on steam from time to time. Considering they still get some + from even those sells, I wonder how much cash goes MIA from consumer to developer...

Err.. You do remember that NPCs who have stimpaks use them now and then (Or if you use some of the overhauls)? It might be comic to see you and some npcs regenerating their eyes and balls on the fly... Wonder if stimpaks have any Viagra or Spanish Fly in them