FO: NV

[Gromnir]

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...

 

am thinking that the fact that skills were unfathomable worked in bethesda's favor. first time we played through, Gromnir were able to boost virtual every skill to 100 without trying hard. the problem is that we couldn't see much improvement past some seemingly unrecognized point. was left with a vague impression that skills weren't working right, but it were difficult to tell how or why. ultimately we were able to enjoy game in part 'cause the busted mechanics were hidden from view. a tb game with hexes it is easier to see and compare how mechanics is playing out in-game. with fov 3 perspective Gromnir were left with impression that something were wrong with fo skills without being able to clear identify where and when the problems occurred.

 

obsidian faces tougher task. now that busted mechanics is a Known, can the developers simply use same prestidigitation to fool people into thinking that dumping points into small guns past X% is meaningful and useful? skills were unfathomable, now they is ineffable?

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

HA! Good Fun!

[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."

 

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.

Just relaying the gist of his post. I think Jaesun quoted it out of a blog.

[Slowtrain]

I would agree with Aristes that skills are a bigger problem. The discussion only turned to stimpack use since JOsh had mentioned it again, and it is about the only hint we've seen on what the developers might be thinking about changing.

 

On a side note: I would argue that having a stack of stimpacks tucked into your locker in megaton is not the same as carrying them on you. I stash things in my megaton house all the time, but only periodically go back there. Of course, I never use the insta-travel option, so that probably makes a difference.

 

Anyway, stimpacks are not that critical an issue, but I do support healing over time vs instant heal at the very least. That at least forces a bit of tactical thought in combat.

[J.E. Sawyer]

"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.

I think it depends on what you consider "fixing" or if you think that the way stimpaks work in F3 is broken to begin with. Healing over time does genuinely make F3 combat more dangerous and tactical as a result, but clearly not everyone likes that change.

[jero cvmi]

How about adding stimpak addiction / tolerance? Or making inventory use cost some action points?

Anyway, IMHO the main thing that's "broken" about stimpaks in Fallout 3 is just that they're so damn many and dirt cheap.

[cronicler]

I wonder if guys at Obsidian founded 2 different teams for this game; 1 making the new game content (story, dialogs, design, voices etc) and other fixing the mess they were given.

 

I do feel sorry/angry for them. They will be the ones fixing Bethesda's sub-par products and B will be using those fixes in their new title....

[Gizmo]

I wonder if guys at Obsidian founded 2 different teams for this game; 1 making the new game content (story, dialogs, design, voices etc) and other fixing the mess they were given.

 

I do feel sorry/angry for them. They will be the ones fixing Bethesda's sub-par products and B will be using those fixes in their new title....

I don't think of it as sub-par ~just an unfortunate choice of design. They made it PA:TES... Its what their fans would want ~and do want. I can't think they would loose the leash to slack though, and that is equally unfortunate if true. ~Still, one can have high hopes for New Vegas.

Edited August 5, 2009 by Gizmo

[Slowtrain]

To me, a major problem with combat is Fallout 3 is that it is almost impossible to die. There are really only 2 reasons my characters ever die in Fallout 3:

 

1) I run off a cliff. DOn't laugh. It happens more often than you might think.

 

2) I wait to long too hit my inventory and get caught with low hitpoints having to wait for an animation to finish before the inventory opens. During that wait I end up taking a couple hits and its game over. This happens most often with the reload animation on the hunting rifle.

 

 

But other than that, as long as you don't wait for the last minute to hit inventory, its basically impossible to die, since hitting inventory freezes the game and allows you to suck down as much health as you need. Yes, if you actually run out of stimpacks then you've got problems, but that's pretty hard to do except in the very early game since stimpacks for all essentail purposes basically grown on trees.

 

Sop in the end, surviving combat in Fallout 3 is basically nothing more than foraging for enough stimpacks. ANd since they are incredibly easy to find and you can carry an unlimted amount there's isn't much to worry about in combat. FOr me, personally, that makes for pretty unexciting FPS combat.

 

Another option would be not having the game freeze when you enter inventory. Let the baddies continue to attack even as you futz around looking for your medx and psycho and 20 stimpacks. THAT would be a lot more interesting.

[Gizmo]

To me, a major problem with combat is Fallout 3 is that it is almost impossible to die. There are really only 2 reasons my characters ever die in Fallout 3:

 

1) I run off a cliff. DOn't laugh. It happens more often than you might think.

 

2) I wait to long too hit my inventory and get caught with low hitpoints having to wait for an animation to finish before the inventory opens. During that wait I end up taking a couple hits and its game over. This happens most often with the reload animation on the hunting rifle.

My peeve is that I like to base my actions on the actions of my NPC's (carry over from the first two games). You can't really play from high TPP, and in FPP or over-shoulder-TPP, you can't see what they're doing unless they are blocking your own line of sight.

Edited August 5, 2009 by Gizmo

[cronicler]

The animations have a lot of problems.

The Stats system is barely working

The skills are also in need of adjustment

Vats needs a serious overhaul

Crafting and weapon degradation needs overhaul

Random spawns need to be regulated in a meaningful way

That idiot level scaling needs to go and burn in hell

The Npcs that are in your group need to be overhauled

Inventory system has its borked moments every 7 steps

Weapons are prone to go ape

The perks are filled with useless and illogicals and cheat codes

Overland map needs a decent stylization and be useful

the pipboy interface needs to be cleared and steamlined

Fast travel needs to be overhauled....

 

Then related to all of these, there are lots of bugs that make the game act weird.

I am not even touching dialogue / story etc as Obsidian are crafting those from ground up. The barely working parts do make a long list...

Edited August 5, 2009 by cronicler

[Slowtrain]

I like the bug where when an area loads, dead protectrons come flying out of the sky

[TwinkieGorilla]

off-topic:

 

so...like...why is Causa Sui's s/t album ****ING BRILLIANT yet their sophomore effort pretty...uh...horrible? i mean i've heard of the "sophomore slump" but this is ridiculous! *cue canned laughter*

 

 

on-topic: hey Sawyer. 'sup?

Edited August 6, 2009 by TwinkieGorilla

[Slowtrain]

I just got access to the ammo press in the Pitt. I converted all my ammo to .44 magnum and 5.56 rounds. I now have something like 20,000 rounds of ammo for those guns. lol. Ludicrous.

[Gizmo]

I just got access to the ammo press in the Pitt. I converted all my ammo to .44 magnum and 5.56 rounds. I now have something like 20,000 rounds of ammo for those guns. lol. Ludicrous.

How many alien blaster cells do you have?

I've got a gun mod that I made that uses them in a oversized "alien steampunk" rifle, for 125 per shot/per cell ~so it eats ammo fast, but packs a punch.

Its plausible to find it on the Mothership ~given it's name and it's history.

(on the PC, just type " player.additem 0100154D, 1 " in the console to get it in inventory. )

 

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=7751

 

 

Edited August 6, 2009 by Gizmo

[Slowtrain]

Take me to your leader.

[Slowtrain]

MOAR unique Big Guns. With cool pop cultural names. Like The Boomstick.

[Slowtrain]

MOAR unique Big Guns. With cool pop cultural names. Like The Boomstick.

 

 

No seriously. It would be nice if the Big Guns category got a few new members. Right now there's a pretty big imbalance between Small Guns and Energy/Big Guns.

 

Also, unrelated, I think it would be cool if some sort of gameplay consequence was attached to both saving and fast traveling.

 

BOth of those activities are essentially non-gameplay related activities, but they do have a pronounced effect on the gameworld.

 

 

I think fast travel should cost caps, how much depending on how far you have to go. Otherwise its essentially a gamebreaking/consequence free means of being anywhere at anytime. Ideally, I'd love to see fast travel removed from the game and replaced with some sort of ingame travel system that conencts disparate points of the map for a cost. Perhaps caravan travel or something.

 

 

ALso, being able to drop a save with no cost at any time, hurts the game as well. I'd like to see a XP penalty, say -5% of your current XP total, each time you save outside a town. That way there's a little something to think about when you are considerign wether to save or not before rounding an unknown corner. But its a little more open ended and gamer friendly than just forcing only checkpoint saves or something.

[cronicler]

Does anyone have any ideas on making big guns a viable alternative? As it stands now, you can prettymuch do the whole game with small guns (FO1, 2 ,3) or be stuck in called in sometimes guy (FoTactics) Big guns just eat too much ammo and are generally overkill. (If the game is balanced in a decent loot/resource rate)

 

Maybe give it some boost by adding its modifiers to fixed guns (that could be present in some defence missions like guns fixed on a settlement wall or vehicle, deployable MGs for general use etc.) Or maybe move the heavy caliber sniper cannons into HG skill. Any ideas?

Edited August 22, 2009 by cronicler

[bhlaab]

Does anyone have any ideas on making big guns a viable alternative? As it stands now, you can prettymuch do the whole game with small guns (FO1, 2 ,3) or be stuck in called in sometimes guy (FoTactics) Big guns just eat too much ammo and are generally overkill. (If the game is balanced in a decent loot/resource rate)

 

Maybe give it some boost by adding its modifiers to fixed guns (that could be present in some defence missions like guns fixed on a settlement wall or vehicle, deployable MGs for general use etc.) Or maybe move the heavy caliber sniper cannons into HG skill. Any ideas?

 

 

I'd make small guns and melee weapons weaker across the board so that they're less effective near the 'end' of the game. This means you either have to rely on your non-combat skills or start developing your character towards upper-tier weapons.

 

I'd make energy weapons and big guns have comparable damage, but different in execution.

The idea of Big Guns is either you pray and spray with the minigun or get splash damage with rockets. It's unlikely that you'd miss with EVERY shot of a minigun or SO wildly with the rocket launcher so you're guaranteed at least a little bit of damage with each shot to compensate for the ammo expenses.

Meanwhile, one shot from a plasma rifle would do as much damage as a full minigun barrage, but if you miss then you've completely wasted your shot.

 

I'd also make Unarmed focused almost specifically on disabling your opponant by crippling their limbs to make up for the fact that it's kind of a ridiculous combat path-- especially if your firsts end up hurting more than bullets.

 

Throwing/Explosives, screw it. Just make landmines fall under "Traps" and ditch the grenades. They sucked in Fallout 1 and 2 and they never hit in VATS in Fallout 3 no matter how high your skill was anyways.

[Slowtrain]

I love the Big Guns!

 

I play entirely in real time No VATS at all) and they are really awesome in RT mode.

 

 

The flamer is the best close range weapon in the game; the minigun is the best midrange automatic weapon (except for the Gatling Laser of course) and doesn't suffer from the tiny magazine problems of all the other automatic weapons. The RL is awesome at blowing away large groups of enemies at a distance. Just gotta aim for their feet.

 

 

That being said the Big Guns have some pretty bad downsides. They are grotesquely heavy because you have to carry multiple copies of each weapon cause of the games stupid repair system. Ammo is somewhat rare and they chew through it like there is no tomorrow: 5000 rounds for the minigun can disappear in just a few battles. There's no good way to hit single targets at long range, unless you don't mind expending missiles on single targets or uwing a tremendous amount of minigun ammo. There's no scoped sniper atatck.

 

 

But overall, I find the rt combat benefits of Big Guns far outweighs the negatives.

 

 

Generally, since my big guns characters all start the game with an 8 strength, I tag melee weapons and explosives use those through out the first part of the game while I'm building up a stockpile of the ammo for the big guns. Around level 10 I start bringing them out! But even then, my big guns character make hevy use of melee and unarmed (Deathclaw gauntelt ftw!) throughout the game. I think it would be impossible to be a dedicated Big Guns-only character from start to finish.

[TwinkieGorilla]

delete my thread? MY thread? HOW DARE Y-

 

....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Syraxis]

delete my thread? MY thread? HOW DARE Y-

 

....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

Remember kids, don't consume too much sugar at breakfast time!

[Jaesun]

delete my thread? MY thread? HOW DARE Y-

 

....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

Remember kids, don't consume too much sugar at breakfast time!

 

Are you sure it's sugar?

[J.E. Sawyer]

I think one of the classic issues I've had with the Fallout series is that the combat skills seem to be balanced around the idea of phased obsolescence. The first Fallout was probably the worst about this, with almost no Big Guns or Energy Weapons for the first half of the game. That is, you're "supposed" to take Small Guns, then Big Guns, then Energy Weapons. If you do something wacky like take Big Guns or Energy Weapons at low level, you suffer. There really aren't any "low-level" Big Guns to speak of, and in the long run, it's hard to justify a heavy investment in them for the reasons CrashGirl mentions: very high weight, enormous ammo consumption, difficulty dealing with targets at long range, especially if they are moving perpendicular to your facing. In F3, you can make up for the Big Guns difference by raising it later in the game and slapping a couple of Size Matter perks on, but it's a high cost for what you get.

[Gromnir]

big guns were useful in much of fo:t, but that were a party-based game. 'course, by the time you had to face robots you were needing to use the .50 browning, which had very scarce ammo. any other big gun were pretty much useless.

 

the thing is, you build energy and small guns character pretty much the same... is an easy transition. and no wasted attribute points. in fo:3, small guns were effective all the way through game, but the presumed obselecence weren't too bad in earlier games 'cause you pick up energy and you can still use gauss for the boss and tough battles. paucity o' ammo for super weapons is a bit of a joke for balancing, 'cause chances are you only genuine need the super weapon for a few battles anyways. unlike the fo:t example with the browning, your gauss wielding small guns/energy weapon character always had alternatives for the fodder combats.

 

if melee weapons and unarmed were genuine effective early an/or late in game, you could maybe work similar to the energy/small guns kinda thing. the obsolescence is annoying but manageable, as long as you got effective means o' dealing with all combats. build a super-buff big guns character who gots something equivalent to the .50 cal browing for tough battles? great, but you still gotta make so that such a character can handle all the fodder combats too. and what you do before you got or is effective with big guns? am simply not certain how you make melee and unarmed effective... 'cause lack o' range is a huge disadvantage.

 

'nother problem is fact that you end up having very little effective customization when you got obvious Right builds. we made all kinda minor changes to our fo, fo2 and fo:t small/guns characters, but there were clearly a sorta Most Effective build that were obvious from start. sure, we could change up the non-combat skills a bit, but our fo characters had a tendency to look real similar. never bothered with big guns in a fo game other than fo:t, but similar customization situation occurred in that game. our big guns characters all looked same... limitless opportunities for custom, but effective choices were limited.

 

if you gotta make big and burly to handle big guns, then you gotta make melee/unarmed genuine effective too, so that such a character can be useful at low levels before big guns is viable. were never a fan o' throwing neither... depend on strength to lob your grenades 'n such. never seemed to balance out for us.

 

dunno. Gromnir would be perfect ok if big guns were simply a super mutant weapon... phase out altogether and we would not miss at all.

 

HA! Good Fun!