Duck and Cover

Skynet Brain Bot wrote:so rather than controlling npc's as you would the pc, you'd rather have a series of inbattle commands like
- lay down fire on that area (click over area)
- vic come with me, sulik and cassidy cover us (f2 for example)
- switch to your strongest weapon

maybe there could be a series of shots feature ala X-COM, you and your npcs can perform a series of shots that may make combat more random.
- aimed shots (better acuracy btu costs more ap's)
- snap shots (normal attack and ap)
- auto shot (less accuracy but less ap's needed to fire)

You just need something simple, like follow me/stay close, cease fire or fire at will, stay here/cover me.

Skynet Brain Bot wrote:and i am inclined to disagree with rosh, in the times after f1 and f2 mutants and ghouls will either be accepted or wiped out. Playing as different species adds so many different dimesions to gameplay and yes maybe some people would shoot you on sight but thats another factor to the species you play as. In most rpgs you have the selection of elf, dwarf, orc etc. why cant this trend be continued to Fallout

I'm inclined to agree with Rosh, nothing about real life suggests that things have to be so absolute. Racism still exists, hate groups are continuing to find new recruits and in the world of Fallout it's likely that normal humans will occasionally produce mutant offspring, while not Super Mutants or Ghouls they'll help keep the distrust amongst different groups alive, especially if someone started a silly rumour that SM's aren't all sterile : ).

Having the ability to play as different races would be nice from a modding point of view but it wouldn't really suit the main game. It would add a level of complexity to the game that would detract from the design of the main game and would turn out to be no better than all the easter eggs in FO2. I'd rather see a game that had all the quests fully implemented and finishable.

I think CH should be the governing attribute conserning the NPC commands. That would balance the game, because there's really not much need for Charisma at all and if we strip down it's usefullness even more we'll end up with Fallout Tactics II.

I think there is much significance to charisma, but I don't think it should affect combat.

Dan wrote:I think there is much significance to charisma, but I don't think it should affect combat.

It should effect sombat in a leadership kinda way. Balancing the low combat abilities of the high ch characters with the high combat (or theiftype skills) of the low ch characters.

paynetothemax wrote:It should effect sombat in a leadership kinda way. Balancing the low combat abilities of the high ch characters with the high combat (or theiftype skills) of the low ch characters.

Charisma should effect how likely the npcs are to follow your orders, but not how big a choice of orders you have in the first place. Something like that would depend on your intelligence, experience level and combat skills, kind of like the perks.

I think it should depend mainly on intelligence, but there should be a pretty good selection of basic combat communication that just about anyone could use.

In my opinion, charisma should affect NPC reactions, dialogue(persuasion), party size and magic duration. OK, the last one was joke.
Party NPCs should act independent during combat, just like in previous Fallouts. It might be hard to 'give orders' if the combat isn't realtime. Customizing their combat AI(distance, target, chem usage etc.) should be allowed. Charisma wasn't useless in Fallout, it's as important as strength, depending on your character of course. CH should be useful for diplomatic character who rely a lot on dialogue and the help of party members.

On the issue of ghouls, what about Talius and Harold?

Both are ghouls that live among humans, in two of the more populated areas in the game (LA and the Hub respectively) and they didn't go around killing the people they lived around.

i think too much emphasis was on the 'big 3' stats Charisma, intelligence and agility. with most stat points in these 3 areas you had access to most quests and npc's.

Endurance is redered useless after the 'lifegiver' perk, even low luck didnt cause many (or any) critical failures to me and the more random encounter gave me exp. Then strength can be supplemented by power armour or buffout. hadling larage weapons again can be achieved by a perk.

a bright, wellspoken character can make it much further than a brute. this doesnt seem right to me in an rpg world, like i said the path a person follows should be as varied by their stats as their alignment. when playing as a bruiser or the premade charctaer in F2 narg, he has nothing beyond toughness, taking a few extra hits hardly equals missing out on many, many quests.

The strong, silent type.... isn't Fallout

Actually, Perception was a lot more useful in order to get the most npcs and quests than Agility.

And too bad if you're a silent, stupid brute - but that's how it goes, eh? When you're stupid you're been used. When you're stupid you don't get as many quests. When your vocabulary is made up pretty much from words "Ug" and "Guh" there isn't much room for dialogue.

But like you said, it's the price to pay for being mean lean killing machine.

no such thing as a lean mean killing machine in the fallout world: seems that the post apocalyptic USA is intelligence orientated. skills such as melee, unarmed and throwing are obsolete after very little in game time, the selection and use of melee weapons was no where equal to that of even small guns.

yes perception is important but only for ranged combat, improved sequence is only beneficial to start with. again that can be supplemented by the sharpshooter perk.

Thats why having many races (species) would add a unique experience to each tiem you play the game: each species should have a particular domain in which they excell. Somewhat like fallout tactics.. (but obviously not like because that game sucked).
1) Humans: the base character, average stats, access to all weapons and skills but no advancement beyond 'medium'.
2) Mutant: high hps, good ac, slightly more aps, able to become 'advanced' in big guns and energy weapons but cannot go beyond 'basic' at subtle skills, such as speech, barter, doctor.
3) Ghoul: less hps, less aps, can only use small guns and basic weapons but can gain 'advanced' level in techincal and intelectual skills.
4) Deathclaw: lots more hps, higher ac, lots of aps, 'advanced' in melee btu suffers only 'basic' levels in techincal and social skills.

because a character chooses to be a non human or a brute in f1 or f2 shouldn't affect how much of the game they see, you should be able to play Fallout games a thousand times and never have exactly the same game.
In the sequal (if someone gets off their ass and makes one) quests should be open depending on your character. Not quite sure how to phrase this so... the game should be open ended, every single npc and quest should be random yet specific for each character in the game. If you go to an npc in a city to help them.... as a smart character you can discover rationally a solution, as a brute you can crush the problem.

The Fallout games didnt have the variety of characters, even as the brute i was having to put large amounts of skill points into speech. Either intelligence charisma and agiligty have to be 'nerf'd' or the strong silent type improved.

The attributes definitely need to be tweaked for Fallout 3. Intelligence was the über-stat, speaking your way through different situations was ok but IN regulated the amount of skill points you got way too much. I'd like the skills depend more on the individual attributes, for example you can raise your gambling skill 'faster' with a high Luck. There was no need for a higher strength than 6, because you got +4 to Strength with the power armor. You didn't need a higher PE than 6, because you could easily compensate that with a high weapon skill. Same thing with Endurance, your armor was more important than amount of hitpoints. Charisma was well balanced, in my opinion. Agility too. Luck was my favorite attribute, I loved to do critical hits, but Luck could have some more affect to the gameworld than it had. Lack of certain attribute points wasn't too serious though, as you could easily raise them with drugs.

On the subject of having the possibility to choose from different races, I think it depends a lot on what the story is gonna be. It doesn't really make sense starting as a Super Mutant in a tribal community, does it? Super Mutants should be enemies, in my opinion. That's why they were designed for originally. Choosing between human and ghoul could be interesting. The game could offer two different paths and maybe even different starting circumstances, like in ToEE. Playing as a ghoul could be a totally different experience. People would dislike you and you'd have to earn their trust. Ghouls could also have their own communities and laws in the town slum districts/sewers. Playing as a ghoul would give you bonuses to certain attributes and also make it easier to gain respect among fellow ghouls throughout the wasteland, but quite the opposite when dealing with with humans.

Skynet Brain Bot wrote:skills such as melee, unarmed and throwing are obsolete after very little in game time, the selection and use of melee weapons was no where equal to that of even small guns.

Bullshit. A character with high unarmed or melee skills can be highly effective, provided he's got the right gear. Unarmed characters can use spiked knuckles, power fists, and mega power fists, ensuring that they kick ass throughout the game. Melee characters have a wealth of options availible: spears, sledgehammers, and eventually, rippers and super sledges, which are highly effective, let me tell you.

Spazmo wrote:Bullshit. A character with high unarmed or melee skills can be highly effective, provided he's got the right gear. Unarmed characters can use spiked knuckles, power fists, and mega power fists, ensuring that they kick ass throughout the game. Melee characters have a wealth of options availible: spears, sledgehammers, and eventually, rippers and super sledges, which are highly effective, let me tell you.

As well as the joy of beating the shit out of everything with the Slayer perk and Bloody mess trait.

the right gear!? surely thats jsut the same gear as any other player but with melee weapons instead, this isnt like most rpgs where you have individuals pices of armour and weapons with randomly genreated stats.

The only times a melee fighter works effectively is when he has a major advantage: being in their face when combat starts or fighting people weaker than himself, eg killing metzeger and the slavers only after having got much better armour and heavy melee weapons.
In a straight fight a small arms player would annhialate a melee character. If they got too close then groin and head shots would keep them at bay.

I've played melee/unarmed characters in both games quite effectively. I don't know why you're having such a problem.

i'm not
playing as a melee character is just too unrewarding and inhibiting on the game. Rather than attempting quests that require brains i end up looking for every fight possible and slaughtering anything that moves. Fallout just isnt much of a game for the brute characters.

I repeat, bullshit. A small guns or heavy weapons character is just as vulnerable to groin and head shots as a melee/unarmed character. All you need is higher APs to get to the other guy faster, and melee/unarmed chars typically have high agility and thus APs. Didn't you ever notice how much ass Sulik will whoop with the right gear?

sulik: advanced power armour and supersledge or power-first....
he still sux, i would rather have vic and cassidy with gauss rifles.

the 'big 3' skills includes agility, and if you have the fast shot trait you are getting as many attacks as the melee character

Yeah, I hate it when Sulik knocks enemies on their ass all the time. It makes it too easy for the rest of the party to score crits to the eyes, and I think it's unfair when the the other guy loses two APs standing back up.