FO: NV

[bhlaab]

so... what is problem with fallout 3 stimpacks? too numerous?

 

...

 

stimpack problem is similar to money problem... though solutions is may be different. gotta make money or stimpacks plentiful enough for folks who does critical path. problem occurs with a big open world likes fo3... makes real easy for folks to accumulate ridiculous quantities of stimpacks and 1007. so how does developers balance? reduce availability o' stimpacks and does you still have 'nuff for critical path players? add weight to stimpacks is simply a retarded notion and folks should feel embarrassed to suggest as it not solve anything and potentially only adds a small annoyance factor to some players' game experience.

 

haven't read the last +10 pages, so maybe has already been suggested, but as much as Gromnir loathes the spectre of reality in games, you can use to limit stimpack abuse. Many drugs loose efficacy as you takes more. the thing is, the more you take, the more you need... is not addiction so much as it has something to do with liver metabolizing the stuff. make stimpacks similar? more you take, the increasingly less effective they become. take more than 1 stimpack during some chosen length o' time, and you reduce their efficacy overall. the more stimpacks you use, the less they work.

 

has probably already been suggested, and no doubt there is obstacles. seems to make sense to Gromnir

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

Maybe grow some balls as a designer and say "You can't beat this game if you refuse to level up and talk to anybody"

 

Lower the rate of stimpacks in randomized loot to a more reasonable level, handplace the majority of found stimpacks in the world, and have a steady (yet expensive) supply of them come into shops in case the player does run out. Balance the gameplay so that the player doesn't NEED them if they're playing carefully.

 

Adding weight to them DOES add something. It means the player can't hoarde a million healing items and become invincible. It means that players that choose to have extra strength get an added benefit. But yeah, god forbid someone who gimps their character in a specific way gets annoyed by the consequences of their decision.

[cronicler]

Another way to balance the game would be using a system similar to Left For Dead's "Director" System. Depending on the Difficulty and amount of stuff you have, the game spawns less of your primary items and more of other items.

For eg: You have 20 stims (if 20 is accepted a lot) and the game difficulty is insae? then the loot becomes 1 or 2 stims per encounter and some low quality food and water for the most part. Or in the reverse, if you are barely crawling to your destination, the game could help you by spawning a very damaged (?) opponent that you can dispatch easyly whom yields some urgently needed supplies.

 

Wish folks at Obsidian could implement/add such a filtering system to the random encounter generation...

[Aristes]

Yeah, but that kind of thing in a CRPG sounds kind of iffy to me personally. If they could manage to come up with a good procedural system, I'd be for it. Of course, if they came up with a system that good, then they wouldn't even have to script all of the dialogue, right? I think going for the Left4Dead method, as much as I enjoyed that game, would be a huge mistake.

 

Frankly, now that I've had time to digest it, I think probably any change will probably suck. Just make sure there are enough stims for the main path and let folks horde them if they want. The biggest problem is with how stimpacks work, and we have 3 previous games on at least... what? two expansion packs to reinforce how they work? Yeah, they could have been used to make combat more tactical, but I think you're looking for players who enjoyed the original games and anything you do to 'fix' the problem will probably be worse than the problem itself.

 

...And it's just stupid to fault Fallout 3 for an overabundance of stimapacks. Hell, even the original Fallout had tons of 'em. I just got finished with another run last night and, let me tell you, there were plenty of stimpacks. Fallout 2 was even worse and probably no different than Fallout 3 in terms of the stimpacks.

 

Change the skills and tinker with VATS a little. Don't monkey with the stimpacks. The skills in particular could use some work.

[Gromnir]

so... what is problem with fallout 3 stimpacks? too numerous?

 

...

 

stimpack problem is similar to money problem... though solutions is may be different. gotta make money or stimpacks plentiful enough for folks who does critical path. problem occurs with a big open world likes fo3... makes real easy for folks to accumulate ridiculous quantities of stimpacks and 1007. so how does developers balance? reduce availability o' stimpacks and does you still have 'nuff for critical path players? add weight to stimpacks is simply a retarded notion and folks should feel embarrassed to suggest as it not solve anything and potentially only adds a small annoyance factor to some players' game experience.

 

haven't read the last +10 pages, so maybe has already been suggested, but as much as Gromnir loathes the spectre of reality in games, you can use to limit stimpack abuse. Many drugs loose efficacy as you takes more. the thing is, the more you take, the more you need... is not addiction so much as it has something to do with liver metabolizing the stuff. make stimpacks similar? more you take, the increasingly less effective they become. take more than 1 stimpack during some chosen length o' time, and you reduce their efficacy overall. the more stimpacks you use, the less they work.

 

has probably already been suggested, and no doubt there is obstacles. seems to make sense to Gromnir

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

Maybe grow some balls as a designer and say "You can't beat this game if you refuse to level up and talk to anybody"

 

Lower the rate of stimpacks in randomized loot to a more reasonable level, handplace the majority of found stimpacks in the world, and have a steady (yet expensive) supply of them come into shops in case the player does run out. Balance the gameplay so that the player doesn't NEED them if they're playing carefully.

 

Adding weight to them DOES add something. It means the player can't hoarde a million healing items and become invincible. It means that players that choose to have extra strength get an added benefit. But yeah, god forbid someone who gimps their character in a specific way gets annoyed by the consequences of their decision.

 

what bs. add weight does nothing. 'stead of hording in pack, you horde in mailbox or locker or wherever. hoarding ain't prevented. occasionally have to trek back to location X via insta travel? big deal. is a dumb solution that solves nothing... should be obvious to anybody by now.

 

am fine with reducing number of stimpacks available, but again, is a balance issue trying to figure out number necessary for those who wish to do critical path only. what of person who does critical path and only a couple side-quests? what of person who does all? again, like money, is very difficult to find an appropriate number or rate o' availability.

 

our suggestion avoids weight nonsense or availability and instead focuses on use.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[GreasyDogMeat]

Limiting the number of stims you can carry would be a dumb idea. It's been pretty well established by now that stims are weightless, and there's no good reason at all to say "you can only carry 50 of these" without adding weight. All you can do without making the game plainly dumb and arbitrary is make stimpacks harder to come by (although inevitably, by the time you hit high levels there isn't anything that is hard to come by) Stims have been plentiful in all the other games, but F:NV is taking place in a new setting, so that gives them a certain bit of leeway. Stimpacks were incredibly common and durable prewar tech. The devs will have to come up with a good reason why there would be supply problems.

 

Another possibility is to introduce alternate means of healing. Make stims relatively common but expensive enough to make getting a stim a zero-sum proposition, and have them provide a considerable, immediate benefit. Then provide other healing healing materials that are very common and cheap but only provide small-scale, gradual healing. Like healing powder but more common and with no drawbacks.

 

Reintroducing kits, possibly in order of efficacy (first aid -> doctor, etc) dependent upon medicine skill is probably the easiest means of doing this. Maybe raise maximum daily use from 3 to 4 or 5. I wouldn't hold out much hope of splitting the medicine skill again.

 

A limited # could be justified by a pouch that could hold only a certain number. Its like any of the myriad FPS games that don't feature any form of inventory system but still only allow the player to carry a certain number of rounds of ammo or portable healing kits. I also don't see how some arbitrary fps style number of carryable ammo/stimpaks is any dumber than being able to carry an infinite amount of these items. At one point in Fallout 3 I had near 300 stims on my person at once.

 

No matter how its handled, SOMETHING should be done to balance the stims in Fallout: New Vegas. As someone who's other favorite genre is the FPS genre I just think that some balanced number limit would work well with Fallout 3's established no weight limit to ammo & stims. An arbitrary limit beats no limit any day of the week if you ask me (unless you are playing some kind of arcade style game) which is why I haven't been happy about Alpha Protocol's unlimited pistol ammo. I'll be able to 'get over it' though.

[Aristes]

Hell, Left4Dead had unlimited pistol ammo and it's a straight shooter.

[bhlaab]

what of person who does critical path and only a couple side-quests? what of person who does all? again, like money, is very difficult to find an appropriate number or rate o' availability.

 

The person who does barely anything should have a much harder time than the person who does it all.

[GreasyDogMeat]

Left 4 Dead just lost a few points in my book then.

 

-Keep weightlessness but reduce the amount of stims in the world

-Add weight to stims

-Keep weightlessness but add arbitrary limit to amount carryable

-Any combination of above or stim balance I haven't heard/thought of

 

Any of the above would be an improvement to the current F3 system, so I'm honestly not going to get bent out of shape whatever Obsidian decides to do. Only be disapointed (but not enough to = no sale) if they decide to keep it 'as is' in F:NV.

 

I wonder if the Obsidian devs sit around a circular table arguing about the exact same things we are doing now. I can just imagine them yelling at each other. "No! We need to limit the number!", "No! Just add weight to the stims!"

[bhlaab]

I don't think anything in an rpg should have an arbitrary limit.

[Tigranes]

I don't think anything in rpg design should be limited by arbitrary rules.

[Gromnir]

what of person who does critical path and only a couple side-quests? what of person who does all? again, like money, is very difficult to find an appropriate number or rate o' availability.

 

The person who does barely anything should have a much harder time than the person who does it all.

 

why? and even if it is, how much harder should it be? perhaps maybe you should look at in the reverse... game is only sooooo easy 'cause you chose to waste so much time on game. why complain 'bout ease? simply do less or don't use the stimpacks if you do not wish to use 'em. for folks who plays critical path there probably don't seem like an overabundance o' stims, and for folks like you and Gromnir, well, we can simply choose to show a little restraint. reasoning works equal as well if burden is placed on the hardcore fanatic as 'posed to the casual gamer.

 

or, you could put in a mechanic that makes stims less useful as you use more of 'em... in any event, the weight stuff is a joke.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps am in agreement with aristes that this is a relative non factor. adjust vats and work on skills progression... stims is minor in comparison.

Edited August 4, 2009 by Gromnir

[cronicler]

If I am gauging this correctly, the main problem people have with medicines, and ammo is the over-stockpiling aspect of it. With L4D method, i tried to implement a soft limit / reduction to players hoard (depending on the difficulty level) without giving it a hard cap. Hard caps (be it 4, 10 or 1000) just irritate people.

 

I just say that adjusting the random drops would be a better and subtler way than giving a limitation on the player side of the interface. Besides the place is supposed to be desolate and bare!

 

I am not really bothered by medicines having no weight. It would be nice if they had some token minimum weight but that is a minor gripe. However weightless ammo was a WTF! moment for me. Yes I know it is a game but there is a reasion why Rocket Launcher teams are made out of 2 man teams; 1 carries the tube and 3 or so rockets, the other carries 7 or so (when loaded for bear). Those friggin 50cal boxes are a bear to carry. And this place is supposed to be a wasteland. A battle to scavenge.

 

Edit: On a side note, the whole weight system is topsy turvy. The basic unit of weight is 1 so a lot of stuff gets funny weights like 13 forks being heavier than a rocket launcher and so on. IF I remember correctly, there was an Oblivion mod to give detailed weights to the items in it. Why can't we have it here?

 

Sure FO2 had it wrong too but does it have to be wrong in every game?

Edited August 4, 2009 by cronicler

[GreasyDogMeat]

Yeah, being able to carry an infinite supply of objects is much better.

 

Previous GTA games have allowed the player to carry as many rounds of ammo as they find. GTA IV has limits, like 8 RPG rockets. Arbitrary, but it feels better for it. More balanced, makes the world feel just a bit more realistic. In F3 some arbitrary # probably wouldn't fix the problem. So you can only carry (insert #) stimpaks? Use what you need, go to the next room and stock up on one of the dozens of health stations within a single building.

[cronicler]

Gromnir: On the subject of Vats and Skills you are both right. That part is in dire need but I had assumed that pnp and comp. gamers that are a part of the Obsidian team would be aware of that (and we all have mentioned that aspects time and time again )

[bhlaab]

what of person who does critical path and only a couple side-quests? what of person who does all? again, like money, is very difficult to find an appropriate number or rate o' availability.

 

The person who does barely anything should have a much harder time than the person who does it all.

 

why? and even if it is, how much harder should it be? perhaps maybe you should look at in the reverse... game is only sooooo easy 'cause you chose to waste so much time on game. why complain 'bout ease? imply do less or don't use the stimpacks if you do not wish to use 'em. for folks who plays critical path there probably don't seem like an overabundance o' stims, and for folks like you and Gromnir, well, we can simply choose to show a little restraint. reasoning works equal as well if burden is placed on the hardcore fanatic as 'posed to the casual gamer.

 

or, you could put in a mechanic that makes stims less useful as you use more of 'em... in any event, the weight stuff is a joke.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

You can say the weight stuff is a joke for weapons and armor as well, then.

 

And here's why: the point of an rpg is to do quests to get rewards in either XP or items in order to topple greater challenges. If you choose not to do the quests or level up then you don't get the benefits and the game is harder.

 

What about the players who want to teleport instantly to the end boss? Shouldn't they get that right, and isn't it up to the hardcore player to go out of his way to actually see the game's, yknow, content? How about I just open the DVD case and there's a slip of paper inside that says YOU! ARE! A! WINNER! so I don't even have to put the disc in and can skip straight to that warm fuzzy affirmation.

[Gromnir]

Gromnir: On the subject of Vats and Skills you are both right. That part is in dire need but I had assumed that pnp and comp. gamers that are a part of the Obsidian team would be aware of that (and we all have mentioned that aspects time and time again )

 

is a matter of priorities. stimpacks is relative minor for Gromnir. am not a fan of fact that they fix crippled status, but other than that...

 

*shrug*

 

from the moment fo:nv were announced we has seen people asking obsidian 'bout the "stimpack problem." is no more obscure than vats and skills. that being said, am not seeing that obsidians addressing stims is a particular high priority. you can bring anything to the attention o' the obsidians, but always keep in mind that getting what you want is God's curse. fix stims necessarily means that developers ain't working on some other aspect. so, what is you willing to give up to get fixed stims... recognizing that we ain't seen no unanimous notion as to how to fix 'em in any event?

 

btw, to fix stims we is willing to throw doctor + first aid (and any other fo1 fo2 skills resurrection requests) on the pyre.

 

"You can say the weight stuff is a joke for weapons and armor as well, then."

 

yes. is there a question?

 

balance through weight, particularly when you got insta-travel, is nothing but a joke. add weight for flavor or "realism" or ambiance or immersion (HA!) but try to sell us on balance...

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited August 4, 2009 by Gromnir

[cronicler]

Gromnir; you generally use the "effort and time required to make this right is not worth the end product" argument but in this minor issue the fix is already out there in the form of Mods. Incorporating it is not a Herculean task.

 

Also while needing an overhaul in the "Skill" area, Obsidian team is also going to go over the Medicine skill. Tieing the ability to heal crippled limbs to a perk (skill number and in the world trained perhaps?), Adding negative side to combat drugs, overhauling the healing mechanisms (toilet drinking and all) would not be too little gain for a lot of work

 

On the weight & Travel issue, I am curious. Would you prefer timed travel (Fallout 1&2 style on the map) to Insta-Travel (Ala Oblivion and F3)

[Slowtrain]

from the moment fo:nv were announced we has seen people asking obsidian 'bout the "stimpack problem." is no more obscure than vats and skills.

 

I don't think its meant to be a high priority per se. Josh has just mentioned a couple times that he has played with a stimpack mod that changes healing from instant to spread over out time. This was mentioned again a few pages back and we started talking about stimpacks, mostly as to how they affect the amount of tactical thinking in combat.

 

Josh has suggested that the healing over time adds a tactical thought process to healing during combat.

 

 

Then we just went on to talk about different ways of limiting stimpack use to make combat a bit more challenging. SOme of the suggestions have been limit the anmount of stims a person can carry at any given time, add weight (functionally the same thing except not a hard limit), or make them much harder to find.

[Gromnir]

Gromnir; you generally use the "effort and time required to make this right is not worth the end product" argument but in this minor issue the fix is already out there in the form of Mods. Incorporating it is not a Herculean task.

 

Also while needing an overhaul in the "Skill" area, Obsidian team is also going to go over the Medicine skill. Tieing the ability to heal crippled limbs to a perk (skill number and in the world trained perhaps?), Adding negative side to combat drugs, overhauling the healing mechanisms (toilet drinking and all) would not be too little gain for a lot of work

 

On the weight & Travel issue, I am curious. Would you prefer timed travel (Fallout 1&2 style on the map) to Insta-Travel (Ala Oblivion and F3)

 

1) am disagreeing that the mods exist, 'cause so far the solutions suggested... suck. the mods is no genuine improvement over status quo. add weight or some crude limit on stims is not genuine solutions. a real solution will take time and resources to implement and test. why waste on minutiae?

 

2) possibility for ammo and stim depleting encounters should exist via travel. random encounters that actual serve to boost 1007 and exp is no help neither. am not caring how implemented, but there has got to be some cost attached to travel, otherwise weight and carrying capacity is more of a joke than a serious balance method.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Slowtrain]

Well the idea is that if stimpacks are a far rarer commodity or if you can't have 500 in your inventory every time you go out into the wastes, a player can't just charge into the middle of a fight, take 300 points of damage in just a few seconds, then open inventory and spam stimpacks, then wash rinse repeat over and over again.

 

Fallout 1 and 2 had the same problem, although it was a better better in those games because stimpack use had a couple limitations: 1) You had to wait for your turn to do any healing, and 2) you had to decide if spending AP to open inventory was the best tactical move. IN FO3 you can spam stimpacks anytime with no consequences.

 

I don't think that changing stimpack use is a priority, but it is ONE possible way to increase the challenge of combat.

[Gromnir]

so, what is limit in inventory that would solve problem? with insta-travel it is very easy to re-stock. spam use of stims, insta-travel back to your stash. restock. repeat.

 

you is talking 'bout some kinda system that protects those who exploit the system... protect from selves? what makes you think they won't use insta-travel exploit to circumvent limited stock. hell, the first thing the exploiter can do when you get to new area is to take a few insta-travel trips to create a stims supply depo. no doubt is other ways 'round your inventory limit.

 

is not a practical solution. is not a solution that genuine needs a solution, but even if it were, weight and inventory limits won't fix.

 

somebody said they not like arbitrary rules... but impose an arbitrary weight or arbitrary inventory limit is ok?

 

am not recalling the sawyer solution you mentioned earlier... perhaps is better than suggestions we is seeing.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[bhlaab]

so, what is limit in inventory that would solve problem? with insta-travel it is very easy to re-stock. spam use of stims, insta-travel back to your stash. restock. repeat.

 

Even without changing the fast travel system at all you can't travel during fights or from inside dungeons

[Aristes]

He didn't have a solution. To be fair, he simply said that they were trying a mod that made stimpacks heal over time rather than instantaneously. Kind of like pots in Diablo. To be even more fair, he came clean and said some folks really didn't like it.

 

I'm a firm believer that designers can train players to understand and live with different rules. They could implement any of the solutions I've seen so far and the players would adapt to them. However, they need to balance between the desire to add a level of complexity to combat with the irritation level of the player. Personally, I don't think spending much time on the stims is worth it. Of the suggested ideas, I like the stack limit for stims least and the heal over time idea best. They could also use the addiction/diminishing returns idea, I suppose. That's not my fave, but maybe easier to slip in under the radar. Weight would be okay, but I agree with Gromnir in that it won't stop the folks exploiting them in the first place. It can screw the casual gamer, sure, but it won't do a damned thing to me because, frankly, the things Gromnir says we can do as a workaround for stimpacks is what I already do for everything else with weight requirements.

 

I think skills are a worse problem, frankly. Without even eeking every last skill point possible, I was able to max literally 1/2 of my skills in Fallout 3 by the end of the game. Personally, if I'm trying to balance the game, I might start with that one. I mean, yeah, I was trying to bump my skills just for the hell of it, but I could probably max half my skills in Fallout 3 even without going with a skill based build. I just wouldn't have as many in the 80s and 90s.

 

so, what is limit in inventory that would solve problem? with insta-travel it is very easy to re-stock. spam use of stims, insta-travel back to your stash. restock. repeat.

 

Even without changing the fast travel system at all you can't travel during fights or from inside dungeons

 

I don't understand. I didn't think you were one of the folks suggesting weight in the first place. I thought you were going for simply balancing the availability by reducing the numbers laying around and making the steady supply source expensive.

Edited August 5, 2009 by Aristes

[Gromnir]

"He didn't have a solution. To be fair, he simply said that they were trying a mod that made stimpacks heal over time rather than instantaneously. Kind of like pots in Diablo. To be even more fair, he came clean and said some folks really didn't like it."

 

if bringing up were s'posed to show that Gromnir's resource argument were invalid, then am not seeing point. end up back to where we were when Gromnir suggested that a genuine fix would take resources.

 

"Even without changing the fast travel system at all you can't travel during fights or from inside dungeons"

 

see aristes' comments. is no solution. stockpile at a convenient location and carry max needed. only the casual gamer is affected, 'cause the guy who is exploiting has easy alternatives that has no cost save minor annoyance factor.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[cronicler]

Ok: A little reminder on skills:

-If your stats are all 5-5-5 range, then your skills will be around 10 to 15.

-Tagged skills have a further +10 on them

-The game has 25 books and 1 bobblehead for each skill.

-If you take the Comprehension Perk and Collect all the stuff, this nets you 60 skill points.

 

 

So if you are a bit patient, you can get all your skills into 90+ range even with an Int 1 character. (Int 1 gives you 11 skill points per level.)

 

On the other hand, skills don't relly affect anything in the world (other than giving you extra damage...) . Nearly everything (except dialogue checks) has a fixed minimum skill requitrement and if you pass that somehow (mentats, clothing, items etc) then the game doesn't care if you are a moron or genius...