JE Sawyer on mergers

Saint_Proverbius · Post by **Saint_Proverbius** » Tue Jul 01, 2003 4:00 pm

[Game -> Update]

Just to steal Brios's thunder, <A href="http://phpbb01.interplay.com/viewtopic. ... 0">someone suggested merging Melee and Throwing skills</a>, since one or more of the two are believed to be useless on the <A href="http://phpbb01.interplay.com/">IPLY forum</a>. JE Sawyer piped up with:
 
 <blockquote>Good idea. I just changed it yesterday.</blockquote>
 
 I have the best idea ever. Let's merge all the skills in <A href="http://www.interplay.com/fallout">Fallout</a> in to one skill since you can probably find one or more people out there who find any of them either useless or too confusing. We'll call the new skill simply SKILL and use it to determine every aspect of the game.

Forty-six & Two · Post by **Forty-six & Two** » Tue Jul 01, 2003 4:08 pm

The idea about merging some of the skills has sounded reasonable if the game would change accordingly, but this is a bad idea. Its two different things.

Slave_Master · Post by **Slave_Master** » Tue Jul 01, 2003 4:14 pm

I am simply baffled at how this Ulric justifies his idea by saying that the same muscles are used. Different skills are used for each, ergo having a skill for each one.

Edit:

Sawyer wrote:Since it's "implausible" to merge throwing and melee because it's unrealistic, what should we do about the fact that throwing is, overall, a skill with low usage and few tools (grenades, knives, spears)?

I'm just throwing a wild idea out here, but maybe make more uses for throwing instead of fucking up what isn't broken?

Saint_Proverbius · Post by **Saint_Proverbius** » Tue Jul 01, 2003 4:24 pm

Slave_Master wrote:I am simply baffled at how this Ulric justifies his idea by saying that the same muscles are used. Different skills are used for each, ergo having a skill for each one.

No kidding. The tricep is one of the major players in both swinging a club, throwing, and steadying a pistol after recoil.. Therefore, pistols, throwing, and melee should be all the same skill.

The thing about it is, I can hammer a nail pretty well. I rarely miss that nail. Now, ask me to throw that same hammer 20 feet and hit a coffee cup or something, I bet I'll miss it. The ability to aim a melee instrument and a thrown object are two, totally different things. What muscle grouping is involved is irrelevent.

Araanor · Post by **Araanor** » Tue Jul 01, 2003 5:11 pm

What kind of role should throwing play? There's the stuff that goes BOOM and there's the stuff that cuts, you run out of stuff to chuck around quickly in both cases.

DrWacco · Post by **DrWacco** » Tue Jul 01, 2003 5:23 pm

hmm

merging could be alright

as long as you they a perk that made you proficient with a weapon type...

Sammael · Post by **Sammael** » Tue Jul 01, 2003 5:23 pm

At the risk of repeating myself entirely too much, my counter-proposal is to turn Melee into Cold Arms, which would include both regular and throwing weapons of the non-gun variety (except for stuff like punch daggers or power fists which should go into Unarmed), and include grenades of all sorts into my proposed Explosives skill (which would also handle arming and disarming of dynamite and C4-type-things). To make Explosives a bit more useful, it could also handle rocket launchers, mortars, and other former "big guns" that cause area damage rather than precision-based damage.

Is setting dynamite related to throwing grenades? Not really. However, Fallout's skill system is pretty abstract. Doctor, for example, does lots and lots of things that are completely unrelated - from treating rad and poison to doing cyber-surgery to fixing broken bones. Similarly, Science includes a large number of unrelated disciplines.

Jimmyjay86 · Post by **Jimmyjay86** » Tue Jul 01, 2003 5:39 pm

Is it that difficult to throw in a few extra skills? So they may not have that much significance in the game but how much extra scripting is involved to add a driving skill for example or having small guns as separate from energy weapons, etc??

Sammael · Post by **Sammael** » Tue Jul 01, 2003 5:42 pm

Jimmyjay86 wrote:Is it that difficult to throw in a few extra skills? So they may not have that much significance in the game but how much extra scripting is involved to add a driving skill for example or having small guns as separate from energy weapons, etc??

It is probably not difficult at all. However, the more skills there are, the bigger the balance problems are going to become.

Each skill must be significant enough for the player not to feel as if he is wasting his skill points.

EvoG · Post by **EvoG** » Tue Jul 01, 2003 6:06 pm

One thing no one brought up regarding all these seemingly odd additions/changes to FO...there may very well be an attempt to deliver the game to both the PC and EckSbocks, so we could be seeing a 'fine balance' of PC gameplay and console gameplay going on.

Realtime combat, akimbo( boy that thread topic needed to go on any further :roll: ), skill consolidation...maybe I'm missing something. This is the same mentality that will be applied to kill two birds with one stone when developing crossplatform. Unless there's someone with definite knowledge to the contrary, I offer this conclusion. Isn't Iply footing the bill? This very well was hinged on a console version being simultaneously made to maximize sales.

Then again who cares.

I'm keeping throwing and melee seperate anyway so let them do WoTEvAH!

BlargPoop!

atoga · Post by **atoga** » Tue Jul 01, 2003 7:00 pm

For fuck's sake, read this thread. It's Fallout PNP, yes, but it's more balanced & reasonable than what JE is going for..

Not that I disagree with JE too much. Throwing is obsolete.

Zetura Dracos · Post by **Zetura Dracos** » Tue Jul 01, 2003 11:48 pm

I dont know, some of the other proposed mergers actually sounded good but this is really pushing it, the skills are completely seperate things after all. Oh well, never used either of them anyway.

Rydiak · Post by **Rydiak** » Wed Jul 02, 2003 1:23 am

I use Throwing in FO. It is fun.

I just wish there were more things to throw, or better things to throw for that matter. What prevents me from hurling this weapon I am not skilled in at my enemy? Or this chair for that matter?

Calal · Post by **Calal** » Wed Jul 02, 2003 1:55 am

Well I supose you could split Throwing and merge it with two skills:

Throwing knifes, spears and the likes could either go to Small Guns ,since throwing them is like making a ranged attack, but then you have that whole Small Guns/Big Guns/Energy weapons bullshit again, fucking it up even more by adding another contestant. And in the end you' re still left with the grenades and molotov cocktails. (okay, so they could easily be added to Small Guns too. Damn, I think I' m contradicting myself)

Or you add the all package to Explosives. Grenades do blow up! But then there are those pesky spears and throwing knifes that no longer fit in. Hmmm...

What I' m trying to say is that you CAN' T merge it with Melee. I thaught Melee ment going into close combat, not making a ranged attack!

The only real place where throwing can realy come to it' s right is in the PnP version, where only your imagination limits what objects can be thrown at the enemy. And I guess this explains why throwing is so underrated in the crpg; you don' t have that freedom.

Neon Dingo · Post by **Neon Dingo** » Wed Jul 02, 2003 4:08 am

Throwing is NOT obsolete. Grenades do around 50 to 100 damage. Plasma even more. Now tell me, is that obsolete? Hardly. You just never used it, I'll bet.

Saint_Proverbius · Post by **Saint_Proverbius** » Wed Jul 02, 2003 4:27 am

I think one of the big problems with all this merger talk is that rather than finding better uses for the skills that exist, they're busy finding what skills to slap together.

I fail to see the logic in making throwing and melee one skill. If throwing is useless, which is the assertion, it'll be useless when it's combined with another skill anyway. The end result is basically the removal of that skill. Even though it'd still be possible to throw, who cares because it's not useful enough to do, right?

As far as throwing having enough things to throw, look at it this way.. Fallout 3 is going to be 3D, right? Then surely they can make nearly everything in the game throwable. Chairs, tables, plates, pots, guns, rocks, hammers, crowbars, etc. should all be able to be picked up and tossed with damage based on weight of the object as well as a modifier for that skill, indicating that not only have you hit the target, but hit it with the best possible side of the thrown object.

In addition to the above, throwing should also have a sliding factor just like melee did in Fallout. If you pick up a heavy enough object, then damnit, it should knock someone on his ass when you nail him with it from across the room. That would allow throwing to not only do damage, but also do a disruptive attack - forcing the target to burn AP standing up, and getting back in to range.

OMFG... That would actually make throwing more useful, and keep the skill. I R teh GEENYOUS.

Sammael · Post by **Sammael** » Wed Jul 02, 2003 8:28 am

EvoG wrote:One thing no one brought up regarding all these seemingly odd additions/changes to FO...there may very well be an attempt to deliver the game to both the PC and EckSbocks, so we could be seeing a 'fine balance' of PC gameplay and console gameplay going on.

No. And that's a fact.

4too · Post by **4too** » Wed Jul 02, 2003 2:05 pm

EvoG wrote: One thing no one brought up regarding all these seemingly odd additions/changes to FO...there may very well be an attempt to deliver the game to both the PC and EckSbocks, so we could be seeing a 'fine balance' of PC gameplay and console gameplay going on.

Read the Gamespy review of the latest, Lara ''Twin Akimbo'' Croft, vehicle and consoles don't look like such easy money.

http://www.gamespy.com/reviews/july03/tombraideraodps2/

Appears to be ""PC"" with enough bugs and glitches that it's "rack ready" for a PC port.

JE has already discussed the moneymen demanding REALTIME or no doe.

And how would you invest your clients' money, to be realistic. FO:BOS Thongs?

Would it be too far a stretch to imagine this balancing as design anticipating platform(s)?

To paraphrase what JE might say: "how would the number of angels dancing on a head of a pin have anything to do with the numbers of skills and console control systems..."

4too

atoga · Post by **atoga** » Wed Jul 02, 2003 4:23 pm

What about Gambling?!?!?

HanoverF · Post by **HanoverF** » Wed Jul 02, 2003 5:55 pm

Gambling should be merged with Outdoors skill, since they're basically the same thing, using a bit of luck and a bit of knowledge to do something.

Barter should be merged with speech, hello, no brainer

Do we really need Science AND Repair? I've seen Junkyard Wars enough to know we dont.

:p

Maybe if we merge all the designers at Black Isle we'd get a half decent game?