Awaken's Flaws

[PaladinHeart]

I know I shouldn't complain, since its one of a very few campaigns for FOT, but its like two completely different people had different ideas while they were working on it. The story, maps, triggers, etc.. feel fallouty, but the entities and their stats are very "childish" in their design.

Uber damage on most items. Little to no exp (as if someone didn't know what they were doing, or really liked FOT's sucky way of awarding exp for kills) for kills. Its really rediculous and sucks the fun out of the gameplay. I find myself avoiding encounters like the plague (like in FOT) simply due to the fact that no good loot is given and there's no point anyway since the exp is little to nothing. 1 point for a bandit? Come on, someone obviously didn't invest much, if any, effort when it come to entity balancing.

Im not sure what the designer/s were trying to accomplish, but they would have been better off taking out any combat at all. Im thinking this is what happens when you have someone help you with a project?

Its just too much when you keep getting killed by a guy that you think has some kind of powerful hunting rifle or shotgun, and then find out he has a "Pipe Rifle" after killing him.

I think I might just cheat a bit so I can finish the campaign without having to put up with the tedious combat. I may have to restart anyway, since I get the feeling there are no big guns and I tagged it as my only weapons skill.

[PaladinHeart]

On 2nd thought, I'll just restart and play by the mod's rules.

Small Guns
Big Guns (for later, just in case)
Lockpick (noticed quite a few locked thingies)

Fast Shot (don't care for targeted shots anyway) & gifted
10 Int
10 Per (few skill points so I need to make up for the lower skill)
6 luc
10 str
2 end (you die fast anyway)
2 cha
6 agi (+ any extra points I haven't thought of)

I might have to change it a bit. I'll want maximized damage and range for small guns while playing to the campaign's strengths and avoiding its weaknesses. Too many early quests require a tough character with good skills.

[PaladinHeart]

After restarting with my uber char, the campaign has went a lot more smoothly. I am now inside the BOS base. Its a lot easier with good small arms skill.

[airsoft guy]

There are big guns, but they are farther along. There's this place out in the middle of nowhere called Jacob's Tower or some such thing, lots of goodies, but everything is expensive, really expensive. Here's the real bitch though, you can't park your car there, so when you enter the map you get to trade with whatever you have in your invintory, and you can't carry a whole lot of anything, I mean I would love to find this Colt SAA that weighs five fucking pounds, it's more around 2 1/2 pounds.

The random encounters were bullshit, you almost get your ass handed to you by these guys, and you get 20XP out of it, at most. Plus the usual loot consists of a Colt SAA, without any ammunition. Why so many Colt SAA? That's why I always make refference to them, it's like the official sidearm of shitty bad guys all over the Wasteland.

[PaladinHeart]

Further play in Awaken (with the right character mind you), has revealed that the mod isn't too bad. There are of course the obvious blunders, but its fun when you realize what your main goals should be. Do any and all quests because that is the best way of getting experience. Its also good to trade for ammo (very scarce) whenever possible. Play on easy (no point in playing on insane. It makes up for the flaws). Don't bother trying to kill any enemies unless they have guns.

When you make your character, give them high perception and small guns skill. This is all you need. Your first weapon may be a pistol but quickly upgrade to a pipe rifle. Then to the hunting rifle. Close quarters combat is very rare but the rifles are more than capable. You should have plenty of ammo so switching to a pistol or shotgun is fine for closer combat. Any enemy is an easy kill if you have at least 7 perception and 100 small guns skill. More is preferable though. Kamikaze and bonus ranged damage x2 at level 6. This makes the mod much more tolerable. Yes you have to fight and helpers are few and far in between so there is no getting out of making a combat oriented character.

I am now at the mutant base killing like mad. I can die in one hit from the nades but its easy enough to catch the muties by surprise with a single burst. Or just pick them off from a distance. I also tagged big guns from the beginning so I am putting points in it now. If I run into heavy opposition I can switch to the gatling guns that are scattered everywhere.

High strength is also a plus. Not to mention the packrat and strong back perks for your helpers. The doggy is worth keeping even tho he sucks. Im going to give him strong back and other good perks when he can get them. As I said, help is far and few in between.

[PaladinHeart]

I just finished Awaken. I appreciate it moreso now than I did. There are some really bad flaws in it (mainly some balance issues). There were a few times when I really disliked the campaign but overall its worth playing. Especially if you're a mapper yourself. It can give you a lot of ideas. Regarding both what you should do and what you shouldn't do. Anyway it was an interesting experience and I enjoyed seeing the different maps (aside from the recycled ones).

The main thing I didn't like was all the effort that went into some of the levels when you only spend a little time there and/or don't even have to go to those spots. Moreso when those enemies don't even give good experience. Its like getting to the end of Fallout 2 when you realize you don't need to pick up that useless junk anymore.

The best stuff is generally found though. All you need is a sniper rifle. The best armor I found was combat (it used the enviro armor sprite so it kinda sucked due to its slow speed). So you really don't need to bother buying/selling for much more than ammunition. A good place to turn all that junk in for money would've been nice. Something good to spend my money on would have been equally nice. Unfortunately it doesn't get much better than the sniper rifle.

The movies seemed to lock up FOT for some reason so I had to disable them. Been better to tell everything in-game as I see it.

I also didn't ever go to the ghoul places like Necropolis and the Glow. I kept expecting to find some environmental armor or power armor. I gave up on that when I was going to the final two places. I never bothered to visit them though. Figured it would be a waste of time. I might reload my game and check them out.

I feel that the whole thing could have been done better if Awaken's authors had took more time to balance the damage of weapons, experience given, and enemy life & position. All too often I found myself using the same old tricks to confuse the AI, or switching to turn based combat to carefully plot each and every exploit I could think of due to the enemies being placed right next to me.

But like I said, its a must to any potential mapper/campaign maker. It shows the essential do's and don'ts. More don'ts than do's, but still a good learning experience.