JE Sawyer on GIFTED!

Saint_Proverbius · Post by **Saint_Proverbius** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 5:01 pm

[Game -> Update]

Per <a href="http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth ... 6323">this thread</a> on <a href="http://forums.somethingawful.com/">the Something Awful Forums</a>, JE Sawyer is once again talking about fun design hammering out on SPECIAL for Fallout 3. This time, he takes aim at the Gifted Trait and how powerful it is.
 
 <blockquote>one might be tempted to make the decreased perk rate the penalty for gifted.
 
 that trait is the most easily abused one in the bunch. seven primary attribute points in exchange for -5 skill points per level and -10 skill points to each starting skill value. only the jack-of-all-trades really suffers from the exchange. the specialist can dump three points into IN (making the net skill point/level benefit +1 over what it was before), and then put the other four points into stats that affect their three to five favorite skills. those stats often bump up the skills over the -10 initial penalty, and the character has higher stats for perk prerequisites, weapon strength requirements, dialogue requirements, and so on.
 
 shifting the penalty to perks and lowering the total attribute benefit to +5 instead of +7 actually makes the tradeoff a difficult one to consider.</blockquote>
 
 That's rather like beating a fly to death with a skyscaper, JE. The Perk Rate really shouldn't be affected by any trait, ever. It's too uber of a penalty. Instead, try shifting the perk level requirement up a notch, so you get the same amount of perks, but you get those better perks just a little later in the game. Huzzah!
 
 Hell, one of the big reasons not to take Skilled is that it fucks with the Perk Rate. Just don't do it!
 
 Thanks to Fenrick for showing me this thread.

Megatron · Post by **Megatron** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 5:15 pm

I always take gifted ITS A WAY OF LIFE.

I don't think altering the perk rate would be a good idea, it doesn't relate to what the trait does and will fuck up your perks in the long-run.

I wouldn't mind seeing a few new traits though, mabye a schizophrenic trait or something lewl

atoga · Post by **atoga** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 5:21 pm

Why not just give the player five extra stat points instead of increasing all seven stats by +1? That way it's slightly toned down, balanced enough so that not everybody is forced to take it, but still the same.

Also, add more useful traits in general, as well as some non-combat ones... each skill should have a trait that deals with it, I think.

SuperH · Post by **SuperH** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 6:34 pm

Yeah, hanging around the Iply boards for a while, for some reason all the regulars have this feeling that Gifted is not only a neccesary trait but an excessively unbalanced one. The quote in my signiature is actually from a thread where I was arguing against that... it's from a later post by the author, when he started getting more in depth about the traits he didn't like. >_>
But yeah... I guess I saw this coming. Psh. It's dumb, there's nothing wrong with gifted, the penalty is bad enough. I never use it myself because of the skillpoint penalty... I usually won't drop the points to counter the skill penalty, so I'm stuck with it, and you grow too slowly that way.
Pretty dumb.

Huan · Post by **Huan** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 8:06 pm

I think JE's take on gifted is fine. Personally I think it is way to good as is.
Stat checks frequently eclispe skill checks and with drugs on top of it gifted yeilds little 'trade off'

Hokkien · Post by **Hokkien** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 8:29 pm

As I know JE Reads these boards, I hope he reads this thread.

Really if gifted is slightly overpowered, why no just give the player less stat points?

I think Atoga is right... Gifted is chosen most by people because it has a strong benefit (And a strong penalty), the other perks are minor things... Rather then fucking around wtih gifted, why don't they mess around with the perks which were sort of... ... blegh, like Drug Reliant, and Drug... whatever else it was?

OnTheBounce · Post by **OnTheBounce** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 9:02 pm

Hokkien wrote:Rather then fucking around wtih gifted, why don't they mess around with the perks which were sort of... ... blegh, like Drug Reliant, and Drug... whatever else it was?

Yes, I agree that Chem. Resistant and Chem. Reliant are two Traits that should go the way of the Dodo. Jynxed would be another one, but I'd want input from other people first since my prejudice is that I've never used it m'self. (Might come in handy w/a pacifist character who doesn't fight.)

Gifted...that's a difficult question, really. I personally don't take it very much since I usually play generalist characters -- yes, "specialization is for insects" -- and Gifted does hurt quite a bit in that case, to the point that I usually take Thief as my first perk instead of the near-automatic Awareness, just so that I can get 4 skills up to something resembling a decent starting level.

I do like Prov's idea of upping the Level Requirement for Perks rather than fucking w/the Perk rate. That would help to put the teeth back in Skilled, which is a Trait I'm very leery of taking simply because it means the difference between 4 perks at 12th level or only 3, even though the extra SPs do come in handy in my line of character.

Something that JES might consider regarding Skilled is that rather than raising the SPs/Level, each skill starts out 5 or 10% higher, and then raise the Level requirement for each Perk by one, and not have it affect the SP/level. That would seem to be more in line with the Trait's description, since it seems to represent a childhood spent experimenting w/things, just like Gifted represents a childhood spent more-or-less idly due to the character's superior stats.

Speaking of Gifted again, we could impose the penalty to starting skill levels, leave the SPs/level (no penalty), but give the character 3 additional Stat Points to distribute as they see fit.

Or maybe he should even consider making levels for Traits, so that you can grade the curve of starting benefits and concommitant penalties to avoid the "all or nothing" effect that some of the Traits suffer from now.

OTB

This post has been edited to correct typos, and to better fit your screen.

Megatron · Post by **Megatron** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 9:21 pm

I take jinxed, though I can't decide on high or low luck.

I've never used the chem traits. I hope they bring back night person or whatever it was though, that was useful yo.

I think that fast shot is slightly unbalanced, as I rarely used aimed shots so managed to get the gass pistol to fire at something like 2ap. Mabye something like a 'Rusher' trait, where it costs -1ap to do things but you stand a higher chance of critical failure could replace it?

A lot of traits don't seem worth 'risking' though. They're either used so little with a damaging balance or too good for certain players (like small frame+gifted, you can usually balance it out with donkey or something later). I suppose it's sort of like a class-system but could do with a bit of tweaking?

Virus · Post by **Virus** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 9:45 pm

What about an "Asshole" you get +4 int for dialogue choices that will make people mad at you, and -2 for ones that will make them like you. You also make people mad at you 25% faster, except for some people it will make them like you 25% faster.

Hehehe...

I agree, don't put a perk penalty on Gifted... in fact... i'd take the perk penalty off of skilled, and give you something like one less tag skill

Human Shield · Post by **Human Shield** » Sun Jul 27, 2003 1:31 am

I sugggest taking one the player's skill-tags away and reducing him to only two tags in addition to the other skill hits.

The perk hit should be taken out of the skilled trait and replaced with something else.

Walks with the Snails · Sun Jul 27, 2003 8:48 am

I actually think just reducing perks would make gifted more powerful, if we're talking every 3 levels to every 4. With his idea, just buying the stat increase perks, you'd have to hit 60th level just to break even compared to taking Gifted, and the stat increase perks are really some of the better ones out there. Up to 60th level, you come out ahead, which is a major benefit even if for some crazy reason it's expected you're going to surpass that. Maybe I'm the only one, but I thought Skilled seriously owned in FO1. Then it was +10 to all skills in exchange for a perk every four levels. Given max level was 21, it really wasn't that huge of a sacrifice; with a perk every 4 levels you can still make do quite well. Chances are you lost one or at most 2 perks in exchange for +10 to all skills. They toned it down to +5 skill points a level, which might have been overkill given the higher levels you hit.

It's also pretty much a given I'm going to take Gifted unless I'm deliberately trying something different, though, so maybe it is a little too powerful. One of the problems is, the -10 skill penalty isn't so bad when there's books and also the fact that skills get more expensive past 100 anyway (at least after FO1), so generalists aren't completely screwed by it. The -5 skill points isn't bad, either, since it's very easy to have 10 Intelligence with Gifted and still be good in other areas.

peasofme · Post by **peasofme** » Sun Jul 27, 2003 3:28 pm

its too bad je sawyer will never read this board since he doesnt give a shit about us.

Briosafreak · Post by **Briosafreak** » Sun Jul 27, 2003 4:52 pm

peasofme wrote:its too bad je sawyer will never read this board since he doesnt give a shit about us.

Hmmm maybe he fears this boards a bit, like Saint usually says, but not giving a shit it`s not correct, really, i know what i`m talking about...

Anyway Puuk already posted on NMA, it`s a good sign of their interest on the fallout fan sites, let`s see what the future brings...

Hokkien · Post by **Hokkien** » Sun Jul 27, 2003 7:35 pm

^J.E. Does have an account here, he also has a post count; he has also stated he reads NMA, DaC, Something Awful, and the Interplay Boards, All of them!!! :oops:

Franz Schubert · Post by **Franz Schubert** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 9:07 am

Hmm... what about a perk that reduces your attributes by 1 each, but increases your perk rate to one every 2 levels? lol that would be too powerful.

Also, I don't think fast shot is too powerful. Using the gauss rifle (it's better than the pistol saint

) with high luck, more criticals, better criticals, and/or sniper perk, aiming at the eyes kills anything in one hit 95% of the time and if it doesn't, one of your npc's can easilly finish it off.

I wish there was a perk that reduced the melee attacks by 1 ap, that way you could do 12 unaimed punches in one turn (with 10 agility, and 2 x action boy).

Quick question: Do the HtH attacks that you get later in the game (hip kick, hook kick, etc.) actually do more damage than regular HtH attacks? Because they take a ton of APs, yet I haven't noticed that they do more damage, or even cause more/better criticals.

One more question: I almost always take the better critical perk, and from my observations it seems to make a difference. However, in the perk description it mentions the "critical hit table"... Does anyone have any idea what this table is and how it works?

Thanks in advance for cluing me in

atoga · Post by **atoga** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 4:55 pm

Franz_Schubert wrote:Quick question: Do the HtH attacks that you get later in the game (hip kick, hook kick, etc.) actually do more damage than regular HtH attacks? Because they take a ton of APs, yet I haven't noticed that they do more damage, or even cause more/better criticals.

Yes, they do increased damage with each 'level'. Each different attack has different damage, AP, and critical modifiers. Higher level attackd do significantly more. The exact details are listed in the Fallout 2 manual, I believe.

Spazmo · Post by **Spazmo** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 5:17 pm

The HtH damage depends on your amount of skill ranks in unarmed, which, of course, are more or less dictated by your level, assuming you're an unarmed warrior. I think level may also be relevant.

Franz_Schubert wrote:Also, I don't think fast shot is too powerful. Using the gauss rifle (it's better than the pistol saint ) with high luck, more criticals, better criticals, and/or sniper perk, aiming at the eyes kills anything in one hit 95% of the time and if it doesn't, one of your npc's can easilly finish it off.

The whole point of Fast Shot is that you can't aim for the eyes.

Evil Natured Robot · Post by **Evil Natured Robot** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 6:39 pm

Spazmo wrote:Franz_Schubert wrote:
Also, I don't think fast shot is too powerful. Using the gauss rifle (it's better than the pistol saint ) with high luck, more criticals, better criticals, and/or sniper perk, aiming at the eyes kills anything in one hit 95% of the time and if it doesn't, one of your npc's can easilly finish it off.

The whole point of Fast Shot is that you can't aim for the eyes.

I think what he was saying is that, eventually, you can finish people off very quickly without fast shot - no need to fire off hundreds of rounds when one right in the eye will do it. My characters tend to be snipers, so I've never finished a game with a character who had Fast Shot. Seems to me it would be pretty devastating in the early part of the game, when your accuracy is up, but once the enemies get tough I like to have called shots. Although, I s'pose once you're working with Gauss, you're getting criticals any way you do it.

Megatron · Post by **Megatron** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 6:49 pm

called shots only seem worthy against enclave soldiers. I like fast-shot earlier as you can use something like an smg in burst twice, and for the majority of the game there seems to be a lot of targets.

Though called shots with the plasma rifle is good, by that time I'm using the laser minigun or something

Using the gauss rifle (it's better than the pistol MEGATRON lol )

I use the gauss pistol when cleaning out the wanamingo mines and stuff. Rar.

SuperH · Post by **SuperH** » Mon Jul 28, 2003 7:50 pm

I always do called shots. Once I can hit the eyes with a degree of accuracy, it'll only take like one or two shots to take anyone down, depending on my Luck. The only things i don't do called shots on are the rats in the beginning of fallout 1, and the weak people around shady sands. Once I get past that, i pretty much exclusively aim for the eyes to bypass any armor.