I've explained why the F1/F2 approach was flawed several times in the past, but I'll do it again here: F1 and F2 had phased obsolescence designed into their weapon skill system, but the player wasn't let in on it that design goal at all. The player was "supposed" to use Small Guns, then use Big Guns, then use Energy Weapons, but there's not much in the descriptions of those skills that would indicate a) how powerful those weapons are relative to each other b ) where those items are distributed in the world. So if you set off from Vault 13 for the first time thinking that you might find an Energy Weapon somewhere in the first few hours, you're dead wrong. If you made the terrible mistake of tagging Energy Weapons from the get-go on your first playthrough, you'll likely get nothing out of it for a long while. This essentially punishes players for "guessing wrong".
There are a few ways to address this: 1) keep that scaled skill/weapon progression and staged distribution of weapon types, but tell the player about it. This is problematic because it's the only set of skills that works like that in the game and it also limits the player's options rather than opening them up. 2) get rid of the scaled progression and staged distribution and try to make viable energy weapons throughout the course of the game. 2) is what I tried to do for F:NV, but there were a few problems. First, DT is extremely punishing to laser weapons and, unlike shotguns, there was no antidote to the problem prior to the latest patch. DPS and high accuracy could not make up for the dramatic effect of DT on lasers. Now, of course, all energy weapon ammo types (other than flamer fuel) have increasing amounts of DT bypass in addition to increased damage. Second, distribution in the early game was poor prior to the patch. It was very hard to find any decent Energy Weapons and/or ammo. With the patch, Bright Followers all along the early areas and into REPCONN HQ have leveled lists of energy weapons, so you find more ammo and better weapons much earlier. And finally, I didn't make plasma weapons do enough damage and had them consume too much ammo. Their high capacity was not a good trade-off. So now they do a lot of damage, especially the plasma pistol and rifle, and some of them consume less ammo than they used to.
I fully admit that energy weapons were not competitive with guns (with a few exceptions, like the laser RCW, gauss rifle, and plasma caster) before the patch. With the patch, I think they're certainly competitive from a combat perspective, but they are more expensive to maintain. Right out of the gates, a .357 Magnum revolver is doing 26 DAM compared to a plasma pistol's 33 (which is also negating 2 DT by default). That pistol also holds 16 shots and reloads in about second. The revolver holds six shots and is a looping reload. Add OC ammo into the equation and you're doing 41 DAM while negating 5 DT. The .357 Magnum can hold HP, doing 45 DAM, but only if the target has no armor. And you still have the looping reload to contend with. Both are great weapons. I can see someone preferring one over the other, and that is more than good -- that's awesome. But I really don't think one is a piece of junk and the other is awesome in comparison. You can take the Cowboy perk to help improve .357 Magnum revolver/cowboy repeater DAM, but that's at the cost of a perk, and there are obviously good/great EW perks that the player can take as well.
The plasma rifle/cowboy repeater show similar traits. The plasma rifle is doing 47 DAM to the cowboy repeater's 32. The plasma rifle holds 12 shots and reloads in a second. The cowboy repeater holds 7 (11 with mod) with a looping reload. Both have the same OC/HP ammo progression. And yes, you can upgrade your .357 Magnum rounds to JFP, but that costs a perk. You can make Max Charge ammo with just a good skill and enough ammo lying around. The cowboy repeater's certainly more accurate, and it certainly has a faster moving projectile an it's more durable. Those are all great traits, but I don't look at the two weapons and think, "Man, the plasma rifle svcks compared to the cowboy repeater." And if you want incredible accuracy, a high RoF, and can compensate for (or don't have to contend with) DT, that's why the laser rifle exists. You can also fire it 24 times before reloading, and the reload takes a second.
When you get to the mid-tier pistols, you have the .44 Magnum revolver and plasma defender. I don't need to break down their stats. You know where this is going. The plasma defender is a powerful mid-tier pistol. Post-patch, you can find them on Bright Followers in and around REPCONN HQ. It does more DAM than the .44 (while inherently negating 2 DT), holds more shots than the .44, is more accurate than the .44, and fires faster than the .44. This is a weapon that "svcks"? Really?
I'm sure there are still some weapons that need tuning, but without chalking it up to "feel", I don't get how EWs, post-patch, aren't good/competitive with Guns. If you want them to be demonstrably better than Guns across the board, rare, and only found late game -- well yeah, that's not going happen because that was never part of the goal of the design. If you'd like to mod it, that's your choice and totally fine, but my goal is still 2) above.
First of all, I have to say again thanks for taking the time to respond. People have to remember that J.E. Sawyer doesn't have to respond to anything, let alone criticism so I appreciate the willingness to step inside the frying pan for a bit. It's always nice to get insight into game design and the info you dropped was surprising on how players were supposed to go about grabbing weapons. I didn't know the process behind energy weapons was that it was meant to scale from guns up to energy weapons in Fallout 1/2, but you can get a plasma rifle and advanced power armor by going from arroyo straight to navarro if you wanted to.
I always thought energy weapons were the highest single shot weapons, but lacked automatic fire, so that was the trade off, accurate shots vs lots of shots and small selection of weapons due to them being rare, rather than guns->energy in terms of progression as apposed to them being a choice. In New Vegas, the hierarchy for Energy Weapons is still a bit strange, you've got weapons like a Tri-Laser Beam rifle outclassing the Multiplas Rifle, which I always thought it went Laser then Plasma, but it doesn't work like that in New Vegas. You then get guns like the Gatling Laser, which eats through tons of ammo (don't want to imagine how much Max Charge Electron packs is needed to make 200 -10DT rounds for the Gatling Laser), getting outclassed by the Laser RCW in terms of damage. Then there is weapons I have no idea what their purpose is like the Tesla Cannon, 45 Electron Charge Packs per shot, I mean what the fudge is reasoning behind that, let alone the purpose of the gun itself.
I feel the scaling of energy weapons is off in New Vegas, Laser Weapons should be accessible then followed by Plasma Pistols onwards to Pulse. Each gun should do something either better then the previous like Plasma over Laser, or a function like Lasers were weaker, but longer range, plasma was stronger but shorter range. If the Plasma Defender is available so early in the game, where does that leave the regular Plasma Pistol? My suspicion is that you have to incorporate Fallout 3 Lore, and that means their weapons. Trying to add in weapons people remember from Fallout1/2, on top of Fallout 3 version of your weapons is messing up the scaling system. There should no Urban Plasma Rifle, just the P94, no AER9, just the Watts. Too much trouble trying to balance almost double the amount of Energy Weapons, not to mention they're not so rare when everyone has one and they're a dime a dozen.
If you read this great, if not I hope the players enjoyed the late night rambling.
» Tue Sep 02, 2008 5:57 pm 
