Forum Stuff 08.06

[Killzig]

<strong>[ -> N/A]</strong>

Oh that wacky Sawyer, here's some more <A href="http://forums.interplay.com/viewtopic.p ... 448#520666" target=_blank>fun</a>.

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If that's the case, I'm not sure why this is being rehashed yet again. Did we not already have enough threads on the pros and cons of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5+ firearm skills? If this thread is a roundabout way of bringing up that beaten-to-death topic yet again, I don't think I've seen anything new.


The proficiency/skill-crossover argument was ineffective when it was first made and it continues to be ineffective now. You can't act shocked and amazed at the suggestion that a single firearms skill encompasses all firearms when "Science" covers basically all aspects of science. I think the range of knowledge and procedural skills between a chemist, a computer programmer, and an electronics engineer are probably broader than the difference between the "highly complex and different" tasks of firing a plasma rifle vs. a conventional rifle.


The "we can't make diverse characters" argument doesn't go too far, either. Why is diversity measured by the number of gun skills you can take? Wouldn't a single firearms/marksmanship skill promote more diverse characters since combat kids wouldn't have to feel the need to tag two or three firearm skills? Or, conversely, why isn't anyone making the argument that Melee should be exploded into two or three skills? Why isn't anyone making the argument that Unarmed should be exploded into two or three skills?


Same arguments, one month later.

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Owned, though really wouldn't just one gun skill lend itself to big friggen tank characters? Ah well, you're the boss.

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Whether you have one gun skill, eight gun skills, or something in-between, the skill is only, at BEST, as powerful as the best tool useable by that skill. System balance with skills can be difficult to frame properly if that skill requires the use of a tool. People often forget that the extent to which people can use the skill is limited by their available tools. Big Guns with no big guns is worthless. Big Guns with a big gun and no ammo? Also worthless.


I've stated previously that the great abundance of ammunition (especially of the high end types) in the previous two Fallout games both 1) made the firearm skills have all the benefits with no drawbacks and 2) detracted from the wasteland feel of the world. You can throw a punch or a kick anytime. You can use one baseball bat to kill eighteen radscorpions. There shouldn't be sources of endlessly replenishing .50 and 2mm EC ammo so characters can burst with machineguns and fire supersonic slugs whenever they want, without any concern for what they're doing.


EDIT: Have you tried playing Fallout 2 with an unarmed character? For a good portion of the game, it's extremely useful. And once you get the Mega-Power fist, that can take you through the rest of the game. It's the intermediate phase where it becomes difficult. Fallout 2 goes from NO firearm and NO ammo in the beginning to a glut of it by the halfway point.

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Here here. Sawyer's doing a good thing by addressing the glut of ammo in Fallout 2, lessen the "monty haul" feel as Tim Cain would say.

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One more post before I go.


The point is that in most cases, the best firearms in the game will have the most difficult to procure ammo and highest chances of critical failures and/or heat threshold issues (do a search for heat threshold to see my previous comments on this topic).


A .50 machinegun is great to throw around if a) you're insanely strong b) you have plenty of .50 ammo (hahahaha) to burn through c) you accept mediocre accuracy d) you give it time to cool down instead of bursting like a madman.


A 5.56mm minigun is also pretty great if a) you're very strong b) you have plenty of 5.56mm ammo (eh...) to burn through c) you accept the fact that in exchange for a low heat index, your weapon also requires a single small energy cell charge with every burst to power the rotating barrels and cooling d) you accept that it has a relatively high chance of critical failures due to complexity.


You can extend this general trend to many high-end weapons. In the mid-range spectrum of firearms, the standard assault rifles, combat shotguns, and similar weapons should have a healthy amount of ammo and good reliability. That doesn't mean that the high end weapons are useless, but it's certainly requires more attention and maintenance than throwing one of fifteen or sixteen different unarmed combat moves with your bare hands and feet.


The Bozar runs out of steam really quickly unless you troll for patrols of guys carrying .223. If you were limited to the .223 ammo available in set encounters, the Bozar would be nowhere NEAR as useful.


And perilisk, no, there should not be endlessly replenishing streams of bad guys in random encounters. If you have ten encounters with Enclave troopers in four squares of the map, you should be able to call it a day and never worry about those guys again.

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Can't we just take the random out of random encounters all together plz?

[OnTheBounce]

A 5.56mm minigun...also requires a single small energy cell charge with every burst to power the rotating barrels...

That wacky JES! Maybe someone suggested this somewhere else, maybe they came up w/it on their own, or...maybe he lurks here! This was suggested on DaC a while back.

Can't we just take the random out of random encounters all together plz?

That's not a bad idea at all. While it would make more work for the designers I'd rather have set-piece encounters like in some games I've played on the table-top.

Whatever they do, I hope they get away from a Wasteland teeming with nasties who are lurking around w/nothing better to do than to find their way into your sights.

OTB

[Evil Natured Robot]

It seems that nowadays they could script movements for beasts and baddies that you'd otherwise encounter randomly. While it made sense to run into Enclave patrols near Navarro or the occasional caravan between major cities, there's no reason I should have to stop for a family of mantises.

And unless you're encountering someone who's also in a vehicle, I can see no reason why you should have to stop for anything if you're in a car.

[j1nsa1]

I liked the random encounters, especially in the early parts of the game. Here's why:
* Makes traveling the wastes risky. The enemies may be strong and may catch you just as those drugs are wearing off. The encounters also force you to use your scarce ammunition and other supplies. (This is one of the reasons "Outdoorsman" is/was useful).

* Keeps the game fun and increases replayability - if you get tired of questing around, you can always go drum up some more combat.

[swordinstone]

Wow, im actually impressed with his defense of the firearms skill. Seems kind of all at once though, is this the first time he has said it?

I did always find the amount of reasources available in FO2, and FOT to be contradictary to the setting. This isnt commando, where you can find an arsenal stashed in the back of any pawn shop.

[Ripper]

i still disagree with the merging of the 3 firearms skill into marksmanship. Its waay too easy to just dump 150% points into that skill alone and forget burning 450% worth of points into Small arms, Energy weapons and Big guns (yes i had tried making a tri gunner before).

[Zetura Dracos]

I agree with ripper here. That would make it way to easy to create a simple commando/tank character and blow through the game easily with the first big gun you find.

While streamlining the combat skills to some extent may be overall advantagious pouring them all into one skill makes it far far to ambiguous.

[ExtremeDrinker]

I've got no problems with making one gun skill..Who cares HOW some people play FO3? You don't have to put all your SP into the gun skill, YOU can put those points into something else...

Just because it's all in one skill now doesn't mean that you HAVE to abuse it...Some people will, and hey..That's how they want to play..

If I remember, it's almost possible to beat FO2 without using a weapon (Horrigan being an exception)...But by that point in the game, you should have enough skill points to be a pretty good shot with the gun of your choice..

[DarkUnderlord]

Here's a whammy. I don't think combining the combined gun skills is a problem for me anymore.

i still disagree with the merging of the 3 firearms skill into marksmanship. Its waay too easy to just dump 150% points into that skill alone and forget burning 450% worth of points into Small arms, Energy weapons and Big guns (yes i had tried making a tri gunner before).

That's my main reason for sticking to the three guns. There's just no point in having one skill, if you can push it up to max and then have a whole lot of useless left over points, as pushing science up to 150% is a waste.

Reading along JE's general suggestions though, the idea he's aiming for is to make the other skills worth it. To the point that you'll NEED those 450% worth of points to chew up on science, mechanic AND your firearms skill if you want to be a good shooter and be capable of pulling off some of the more advanced science and mechanic stuff further on in the game.

As it is, it's quite easy to make an all-rounder in Fallout. With a small guns skill in FO2, you've still got plenty of skill points to burn on everything else AND pull off some of the advanced stuff. To me, you shouldn't be able to specialise in any more than 3 skills really, and those should be the tagged ones. Anything else you can get up to an 'adequate' level, but not high enough to achieve anything remarkable with.

So I can play, have maxed out firearms, science and medic, and my steal skill might be hovering at 40%. That lets me steal some things from some of the early game things, but is useless late in the game. Like-wise, my lockpick skill might be at 65% which lets me pick quite a few easy locks, but is useless if I really want to play that way, as most locks in the late game are simply too hard.

If he can balance it so that I really do need those 450% worth of points in other things, I'd be interested in seeing that.

[Section8]

I have pretty mixed feelings on the whole thing. There's no doubt that it's fairly easy to rationalise reasons for merging the gun skills based on the understanding that using one gun is not a whole lot different to using another gun ( forgetting of course the general maintainence that is considered part of the gun skills ) but in the end, who gives a shit what you can realisitically rationalise. It's the game that counts.

My concerns are that having a marksmanship skill eliminates some dramatic choices in favour of some obvious ones. Tagging a gun skill at the start of the game is a dramatic choice, and a character defining one. It's a choice that affects you for the whole game, and as such, making a different choice next time you start a new game opens up a range of new possibilities, seeded by the fact you saw all these weapons you couldn't use effectively. This choice becomes even more significant the more dramatic the difference is between weapons.

The obvious choices as opposed to the drama above, comes down to choosing which firearm to use, which in many cases will be a given. The choice becomes little more than a comparison of damage yields, in which case it ceases to be a choice. Why wouldn't you go for the Turbo Plasma Rifle?

So we have a bunch of other factors introduced, like the chance of failure, weapon heat and other considerations, and while those choices can make things interesting, there's no reason why they can't be accounted for with multiple weapon skills, in fact it adds to the layers. I choose small guns, and I choose reliable guns that won't fuck up at precisely the wrong time.

Then there's the concept of ammunition, having a Big Gun and no ammo makes Big Guns useless. Exactly right, but because you've made that important choice in tagging Big Guns doesn't it get so much more interesting? If you're just a marksman, then there are no interesting choices or consequences. If you can use any weapon you come across, then ammo is less of a factor.

[~Kagemaru~]

Hmm... wouldn't it make more sense reducing the weapons skills to two? Like, 'small guns' and 'large guns'?

I mean, the mechanism for firing a plasma pistol and a regular pistol are the same, just pull a trigger. Reloading? load up a magazine of bullets or a magazine of battery power.

It would make sense to have them completely seperate (like FO 1 & 2) if you were disassembing them, or fixing parts in them. Then, you would need specific knowlege in the weapons.

Also, about random encounters... That's the first time I ever heard an idea like that. Some reason it seems cool to me, that if you met raiders, you can eventually wipe out their ranks if you meet them alot of times. Gives things a realistic feel that people in the game really die and fade away from existence.

[Zetura Dracos]

I had this idea last night after signing off. What if you you merged all combat skills into three types on the basis of complexity. (ie: simple, low complexity, and high complexity)

"Simple" includes the Unarmed, Melee, and Throwing skills of the original games and your skill is directly impacted by your strength, agility, and perception. This works out because it allows the character to have a good amount of skill wil unarmed and melee combat (skills they would aquire just by living in the wastes) without investing a lot of points and, if the amount of ammo and weaponry is in fact greatly reduced, it's much more usefull in the setting.

"Low Complexity" includes pistols, non-automatic rifles, shotguns, and the like. Its for guns that you dont really need to be trained to use. This would be impacted by perception and maybe another skill.

"High Complexity" includes youre more technological weapons; mini-guns, gauss rifles, and laser/plasma technology the guns that require a good amount of training to use effectively and are much harder to come by. These are once again impacted by Perception, maybe Strength since they are as a whole larger guns, and possibly Intelligence and Science skills.

At this point in time Im not really sure where to put Rocket Launchers, Assult Rifles, and the like since Ive never really paid much attention to weaponry. I thought this would be a good way to handle things though since it greatly streamlines the number of combat skills from I think seven to three without making the count so low its just a completely ambiguous skill.

[Evil Natured Robot]

"Small guns" and "large guns" makes the most sense to me. It always seemed strange that your character could become a top marksman with a sniper rifle and then have no clue what he was doing with a plasma rifle. At the same time, it'sa lot harder to fire (I'm assuming) a bazooka or minigun than a pistol or SMG.

I think the whole thing with random encounters is that we have the computing ability these days to track them (i.e., these monsters run around these map squares on this kind of schedule). Take the random out of it, and if the character encounters them then he encounters them. But once they're all gone, there's no wasting your time with a "group of molerats fighting some raiders." You still get the feeling that the wastes are a dangerous place, and there's no chance of having five encounters when you travel six squares - which is pretty annoying, speaking from personal experience.

[swordinstone]

Tagging a gun skill at the start of the game is a dramatic choice, and a character defining one.

I agree with this, but there is a pattern that cannot be ignored. In every single fallout game, you really only have the choice of picking Small guns, Unarmed, or Melee at the beginning. If you were to take none of those, and tag, Big or NRG, you would have a VERY tough time getting to the point in the game where you could actually use those skills.

The thing I dont really get overall however is, why dumb the system down (or streamline, if you'd rather call it that)? I didnt find Fallout's SPECIAL system, or any of it's skills to be particularly hard to understand or over complicated. Are there really a lot of people who feel this way?

[Viktor]

A 5.56mm minigun...also requires a single small energy cell charge with every burst to power the rotating barrels...

That wacky JES! Maybe someone suggested this somewhere else, maybe they came up w/it on their own, or...maybe he lurks here! This was suggested on DaC a while back.

OTB

I remember that too! There was also an "Armourer" skill and PC/NPC tech level Vs. weapon type discussion in the Fallout 3 forum a while back.

I think the crux of the discussion was that while your basic tribal could maintain an SMG or AK type weapon with minimal training and "gun smarts" there's no way on Earth they could keep a state of the art minigun/Gauss weapon/enery weapon combat ready. Seeing SMs with low IN and hands like a bunch of unripe bananas using miniguns still makes me chuckle today as they would be struggling to load the damn thing, let alone maintain it and clear stoppages!


I know that we're not going to see such an "Armourer" skill or perk anytime soon, but at least the chance of a PC or NPC being able to pick up and fire an advanced type of weapon should be linked to IN!

[atoga]

Whatever happened to the game balance issue? Three firearms skills for the price of one is, hello, broken. I realized from the start that all disciplines of Science is a hell of a lot harder to learn than three guns skills, but I'm not defending JE's arguments.

Can anybody afford to not tag Marksman now? Marksman is now as nifty as the old Gifted trait was. Unless you feel guilty about it, it seems you'll tag it. Unless you want to majorly cut down on the guns and combat eh?

[Megatron]

Well a combat dude could just tag marksman as well as being able to talk and stuff, while before combat guys had to specialize in all the gun skills and that's it. You waste a lot of points in the 3 guns skills because it'd be to powerful as only 1 skill?

[N]

Don't forget the ability to tag a skill later in the game.

Start the game with unarmed, and then whatever else (non combat) skills... let's say...steal and barter, for example.

As you play (and/or perhaps get Sulik or Cassidy or whoever to follow you), you get your melee skills up to about 120 percent. The rest of your points, you 'smooth over' the remaining skills, keeping a few points unused. Then, later on in the game, you tag energy weapons, dump those saved skill points into the NRG weapon skill.

You could mix and match things up, just depended on how hardcore/a master you wanted to be in certain aspects of your character.

Although I agree, now, that NOT tagging marksmanship will be almost foolish. Seems counteractive to the balance problem so screamed about by JE with gifted. If you are going to get in ANY sort of combat role in your character, it's almost a given.

[Tekkaman_Blade]

I've got a feeling that the usage of certain types of ranged weapons will be affected by other skills besides the one marksmanship skill.

[pnutz]

Well he sounds like he's trying to make firearms in general less powerful by designing them so in the game world. There will be less bullets for the bigger guns and they incur more severe critical misses, making their use more limited. This still won't keep everyone from getting the Marksmanship tag.

Hauling 15 different guns around in your pack NPCs to accomodate the 5 rounds of ammo for each gun sounds like loads of fun.

Also, where do bows and crossbows fit in?