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Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 11:02 am
by Daddy Cool!

The map would need to be larger.


Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 9:12 pm
by Greg Cavaliere

Been suggesting that since 2008. :smile:

I would think that most towns would have to restrict the car to outside the town as well.

I would of course, love the map to be on par with the originals... something like a FO2/Skyrim hybrid would be nice.

*Something like this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mhb0u90nucxjrta/Fallout-styled-3d-map.mp4?dl=0


Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:18 pm
by Mizz.Jayy

The real problem is that cars like a chryslus highwayman would need proper ground to ride on. The streets are broken and that's a flavorful reason imho why normal streetmobiles (non modified unlike F2's) haven't made it back so far. All-terrain or military vehicles and motorcycles are a different thing.

The repair feature:

It isn't broken. Ha! Repair is broken, fix it. Hihi. Every weapon (NV style guns serves as example) has several statistics:

-Damage per shot

-Rate of fire

-Critical chance multiplier

-Critical damage

-Action Point cost (VATS)

-Spread

-Magazine capacity

-Weight

-A Skill requirement

-A Strength requirement

-Weapon Durability

These statistics can be converted into pros and cons (with additional factors like ammunition quality and availability taken into account) for different playstyles. If you have no LUCK, what do want with high critical multiplier? Without strength, you don't even meet the requirements! High spread? Either you fight close quarter and specialize in it, or you take some Steady and guess what? You can specialize in taking chems, too! Wow (Logan's Loophole was op and should be cut as a trait, there should be no need for it -even as a mode- with good game design)! The skill system in Fallout allows for pretty much everything. And a weapon that easily breaks, it needs you to have high repair or find other means of fixing it. The same goes for armor and other kinds of weapons.

See this is the context in which you have to observe REPAIR. Weapon durability is not part of a situation, it's part of any kind of equipment, one of the parts that either gives it quality or takes away from it. EQUIPMENT IS BOUND IN THE SAME SYSTEM THAT ANIMATES THE WHOLE OF THE FRANCHISE: THE DICHOTOMY OF EXCEL AND CRAP.

I love the LAER (+Elijah's advanced one), because it's a primary example for the context in which weapon durability is to be seen.


Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:29 am
by FLYBOYLEAK

It would be neat if the player had to leave the car parked, in order to travel straight across a mountain; or decide to spend the days [and fuel] to drive around it.

*FO4 really needs the concept of actually accounting for time, and of being late ~restored back to the series, as it always had been previously.


Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 4:48 pm
by leigh stewart

Difficult one (because WAITING -or essentially waiting, like having to find a way around an invisible wall- is NOT fun) but you're right.

First: Healing items should heal over time to prevent menu exploiting.

Second: Actions like repair and doctor's bags (or FIRST AID YEAH, BRING IT BACK BABY) should be shown to require time. No repair during combat! Have the screen go black, then clear again, boom, 30 minutes spent on time account.

Third: A sense of urgency brought into quests. And by that I mean quests that give you all the information you need BEFORE you decide to go on the mission (better not the main quest). No unfair .

Fourth: A sense of actually progressing time. I love CHAPTERS in a STORY that introduce new elements that haven't been there before. Have some SURPRISES.

An other point is availability of items. Quality stimpaks = scarce. Certain ammunitions = rare.


Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 8:03 am
by Jennifer Rose

We would get rid of that stupid fast travel worldbuilding breaking teleport. Of course, we might get rid of that without cars, but there would be complains.


Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 6:36 pm
by Romy Welsch

Yeah, it breaks worldbuilding, that's a true word.

Why would I even care making the game world and traversing it interesting when I can just lean back in my comfortable seat and be like: "Hey, why care? Players gonna use fast travel, so c'mon. Not going to make the game world awesome when in a game about travelling you don't have to make traveling interesting or feel like travel whatsoever."

First: TRAINS OR SOMETHING! Fast travel shouldn't be a mighty map device but a successfully integrated PART of the WORLD.

Second: WORLD MAP! We need the feeling of a true wasteland, with several points of interest and vast spaces of barren lands in between LIKE IN THE OLD GAMES (I'm not nostalgic, I can't be, since I didn't play the originals before F3/NV). And you know what's handy? You wouldn't even need to care about designing the game world to accomodate this feeling of 'wasteland' to that extreme amount and have it be like a themepark nontheless (which totally breaks the feeling for some). Because that which is of interest is the show! And this does not come at the expense of exploration, because you explore the map AAAANND you explore the points of interest (varying in size) like F3 or Vegas!

Third: TRAVELING = PART OF ROLEPLAYING! Seriously, we have a Survival skill. This could become what it's meant to be and make traveling easier for the skilled people (by enabling you to find ways across mountains on the world map or making map travel faster or helping you find oasises and hidden locations for example - along with the 'hardcoe' elements of NV that should come by default imo).


Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 6:52 am
by Robert Garcia

There is, which is the way in which every item gets the correct decay rate to prevent it from being broken one way or another, and no such way exists.

Also, that video shows nothing that is broken, so I am not sure what it was you were trying to prove with it. Unless you are suggesting the entire concept of character skill is broken, and that every weapon should kill realistically like a full on action game?

Except

A. It isn't a teleport, as time passes while you fast travel. Fast travel is a quick simulation of you walking to that place, not a teleport.

B. You can only fast travel somewhere you have already been, so you would have had to experiance all the world between there and location you walked from. Fast travel can't destroy worldbuilding, since it forces you to see the world at least once.

C. You shouldn't get rid of something no one forces you to use, you can just chose to not use it.

So you want a map thats nearly 1/10 the size of the ones we have now? You could fit all of Fallout 1 or 2's content into an area that takes up 1/10 of Fo3 or NV.

Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 5:56 pm
by jaideep singh

What do you mean? Is a weapon like LAER broken in your opinion?

A. C'mon you know how he meant it. It DOESN'T feel like traveling.

B. Makes the world stagnant. Everywhere you've been remains the same.

C. That's a good argument. But it has a deep flaw. First, you can excuse EVERYTHING with this argument. Second, it's not like fast travelling isn't taken into account when creating the world. And that is the root of the problem.


Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 7:54 pm
by Jimmie Allen

You know that this is not the logical conclusion. World map PLUS locations of a grander size than in Fallout and Fallout 2 is totally possible.


Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 4:42 pm
by CHARLODDE

I'd like to see that... I can't, because it's not true... but I'd like to see it tried.


Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 2:56 pm
by Stephanie Valentine

Wasn't bad in the first two games, but I missed the scale of the 3d locations. What would you say about combining both styles?


Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 6:59 am
by JESSE

Well my opinion was based largely on concerns arising from seeing how horses were implemented in Skyrim. If driveable vehicles could be as good as, say Farcry3, that would be no problem. But, I just don't think the game engine that Bethesda uses could cope with it, as it's clearly not something it was designed for. Maybe when we really do get a "brand new engine", it's something that could be included in the game.

Anyway, motorbikes? cars? Forget them, I want one of http://www.defencetalk.com/pictures/showfull.php?photo=45400. :D (if you do an image search for "mobile military command post" you get some awesome vehicles, and the Russian cold-war era ones look quite Fallout-friendly)

Now, talking of maps and gameworlds, I see Boston gets mentioned a lot as a possible location for Fallout4. Is this just because "The Institute" is mentioned in Fallout3, or is there something more substantial behind the rumours?


Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 9:50 pm
by Add Meeh

The only substance I see behind the rumors is rumors (beth employees checking out Boston started it in 2011 or 12 I think). It's quite possible that it will indeed be Boston, since it was hyped in Fallout 3 with the Institute, yeah.

There are many possibilities for this location in my humble opinion. Those who think Bethesda will ruin it because androids, well if your trust in the developers is that low, they could just as well [censored] up any location. Androids being a bad idea as a whole is a different matter (and I think they can be executed well, if we diverge from the common tropes or subvert them).

With the Institute, we could explore transhumanism in a nonbiased way (we only have dystopian or utopian scenarios so far) for example.


Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 10:21 am
by R.I.p MOmmy

It totallty is, the total area of all actually explorable areas is around 1/10 the size of the plyable game space of Fo3 or NV. All the stuff on the map isnt actually explorable, its like DAO's map, just a little less primtive.

Either it decays too fast, thus making it worthless, or it decays too slow, thus making it overpowered.

A. No form of map travel has ever felt like traveling, becuase you don't actually experiance the content between the places you travel. That's not really an argument.

B. Not true, new random encoutners can happen in places you have already been.

C. Not exactly, you can't avoid things like the repair feature, or the stat system, and still complete the game.

Except it really isnt, as theres tons of dynamic and random content happening in places you have already walked through. The only game so far that is built around the fast travel system is NV, since it removed any form of dynamic and/or random enoucnters for a 100% static world which heavily inctivized the use of the fast travel system by making nothing new happen.

Mostly it comes from The Elder Scrolls, ever since Redguard released in 1998, Bethesda has had clearly etablished pattern of dropping hints on what thier next game will be about, or where it will be set.

And Boston/The Institue is the only location mentioned multiple times across the base game and its DLC, besides The Pitt, but we got that in a DLC.


Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 5:49 pm
by Vahpie

I lost the link of the thread that deal with that issue. My answer will be shorter than the previous article. Sorry for being shor.

A - You click on location X, you are at location X. Gameplaywise, it is a teleporter.

B - You can go from Goodspring to Primm, then teleport at Goodspring to go to Sloane, then teleport at Primm to go to Nipton. Feel like everything is one click away, not close to this or far to this. Only happen once.

C - Would you be kind enough to list me all the alternatives for travelling they included in Fo3-FoNV ? Alternative that applies often ?

To have a choice, you need options. Let's say you want to go from LA to NY, and only planes exist. You aren't force to use planes, but if you don't, you don't go to LA. If you could use cars/trains/bus/boats/motorbikes/horses, you could say you have choice and not take plane. But if you use planes, planes should also be used by other people. I didn't see much NPC use fast-travel. They wouldn't need me to give new got to all those NCR camps if they could use fast-travel.


Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 11:17 am
by renee Duhamel

You mean the "correct" as in real life or "correct" as in for the game. The latter, as "correct" as it can get for what the game intends, very much exists and is up to the designer but there is no universal "correct" that is "correct" everywhere.

The way it is handled there it is. The abstraction of "nick in the ear" for -5 HP doesn't work there because "show, don't tell", the character is not inept with the gun, the gun is inept. And the skill simply angering the bullets leads to stupid situations like that in the video; and others like backpedaling away from enemies or cricle strafing while spraying them full of lead that tickles them until they die while spamming stimpaks, with none of the guns having any "oomph" at all outside of the all too frequent criticals.

And no, I'm not suggesting for "realistic" shooter combat - quite the opposite, I'd want the series to move away from being combat heavy, for the [censored] that the combat is. I am suggesting that the skill actually concerns the character. The gun is the gun whether it takes 1 or 5 shots to the head (instead of 20+) to kill the opponent (or the PC), that the combat situations are not to be taken lightly especially if you lack in skill. The characters hardship and reward should come from actually scoring the hit (and not get hit yourself), not heating the ammunition.


Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 9:06 am
by Amy Smith

A. Except, if it was a teleporter, time wouldn't pass in-game when you fast travel, which it does. Gameplay wise, fast travel is a process that makes your character walk to a place, but skips the actual visual process of you, the player, having to manually make the character walk there.
B. If you feel that way then don't use it, walk, see the sights of the randomly occurring events, well, in Fo3 at least, NV has no such things for unexplainable reasons.
C. Walking.

You do see NPCs use fast travel though, every time you see them walking around the wasteland, because that is what fast travel is.... walking, except you, the player, don't have to experiance the time your character spends walk. That's why the NCR needs you to deliver those orders.... because someone has to walk there, which is what you do, even if you fast travel there.

Fast Travel is no more teleportaton then using carriages or dragon riding to move to places across Skyrim is, they are all just methods of fade-to-black simulated travel that remove the need for the player to manually walk/ride for 10-20 real world minutes, while the character/carriage/dragon moves to another place.

And the designer intended for decay rates to be set at a point in which items decay at such a speed as to be useful, but not overpowered, which literally no game has achieved.

Except it isn't, as almost no one actually cares if its damage or accuracy that skill controls. Its no more or less stupid then a sword that very obviously hits an enemy, or a bullet fired from a gun at point blank range that should logically hit the enemy, not doing so because "LOL RNG SAYS SO!" In fact, I've seen more complaints about skill based accuracy, then I have skill based damage, as skill based damage still allows you to actually do SOMETHING to your enemy, which is far less frustrating then doing nothing at all to them, as such when you miss with skill based accuracy.

And skill does concern the character, if it didn't, you would be able to easily kill things with a single head-shot from most weapons, as damage would be realistic, which it isn't. While you may not prefer the means by which character skill is abstracted, that doesn't change the fact that your ability to do things well is character skill based.

As for your claim of "all too frequent criticals" the maximum base crit chance in Fo3 is 10%, from having 10 luck. The finesse perk can add another 5, and one specific path of the wasteland survival guide can add another +3, if you pick all snide answers when talking to Moria. That leads to a grand total of a 18% crit chance for the majority of weapons, if you get all three of those things. Now, when loking at the Fallout 3 weapon list

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_3_weapons

We can see that the overwhelming majority of weapons have a 2 or less crit multipler, which means that most weapons have a 36% or less chance of getting a crit, assuming you have all three of the crit bonuses listed above, which, not everyone has, leading to a even less crit chance then that. on avarage. That's actually pretty low, as most RPGs easily let you get a constant 50%+ crit chance.

The only weapons with a consistant crit chance in Fo3 or Nv are unarmed/melee weapons, and only if you have the ninja perk, which adds a +15% chance for crits with those weapons.


Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 9:16 pm
by Jack

It's quite clear that in an FPS-RPG you have to get creative in order for combat not to be completely ridiculous but still be skill-based. Though I know jack [censored] about RPG mechanics, I never quite delved into it, but I would say that having Critical Failure be much more likely and creative would be a good solution. Or maybe say that XY gun can only be used with a Small Guns skill of 25 and even then Critical Failure is very likely.


Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 7:10 pm
by lucy chadwick

So what? The designers job is to create the systems that enhance the experience the way they want it to be, if he does poor job, which he can, he needs to improve it, come up with a better solution.

Reverse that and you get "LOL I'M SHOOTING MARSHMALLOWS". It works with a sword since it is the character who does the blow with his strength and skill; that does not apply to firing a bullet. :shrug: At least when it's about accuracy, your bullets get to do something when they hit.

And by the way, you put the "point blank should logically hit" there, while I never argued otherwise. I didn't say a thing about ranges, or even about RNG.

And it still baffels me that it is actually considered less frustrating that you are always succesful even though an individual success does next to nothing, compared to having less frequent successes that all pack a punch.

No, the skill concerns the guns. You can hit anything if you know your controls, and you can afford to miss a couple of shots because missing is not a concern for two things 1. an individual hit is insignificant, and 2. the game is designed to accommodate the bullet sponging so you are not really losing anything by missing those few shots amidst the dozens you put out before and after.


Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 12:34 pm
by Angel Torres

LAER isn't broken, just needs high repair/barter to be maintainable (and doesn't serve as primary weappin) - it's NOT worthless. Guess what, with some additional depth to repair (like the 4 stage system Undecaf proposed and different kits for field repair instead of only duplicate fixing) the system could become interesting and balanced.

And those weapons/armors that don't decay as fast should have some other DISadvantages to make up for you not requiring high repair.

A: Well, an essential teleport (during which you can't encounter anything) certainly is different from a map (WASTEland you know) you travel across while being shown how DAYS pass and that let's you encounter and find stuff. To me it feels like traveling (yeah not the rl equivalent, you have to translate it of course. Fast travel is a lame translation).

B: Yeah, can happen everywhere. That's not so special.

C: These things aren't what I was talking about. Random content is random. And thus it requires interchangeability to function. It's not 'living' content that is in any way bound to where you are. Not bound to locations and certainly not to characters.


Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 1:55 pm
by Valerie Marie

This idea is most likely half-baked, but would a reactive cut scene of the pc walking through the wasteland for days (shifting from day to night etc) to get to his next location, while passing by landmarks in the game etc work? We could also have enemies provide an encounter with them traveling to the pc in the cutscene.

I'm not sure if I have the linguistic ability to proper depict my idea :tongue:

But basically gizmo's video but brought up to current cinematic standards, instead of a red marker we have a fully rendered PC with his companions and instead of the satellite view we have something closer like a birds eye view of the journey and instead of the red lightning indicating an encounter we see it physically manifest?


Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 9:39 am
by Lizbeth Ruiz

All this is is a vague remark of "they should make it better", without actually giving any sort of detail into how to make it better.

The things in Cheeze's wishlist post are mostly actual arguments, things like
What do we want: No races like ghouls or super mutants
Why: because the game wouldn't react to that choice properly
How to do what we want: by either making it to where the game can react to those choices, or by not making the races at all.
This is a clear and complete idea, that can actually be followed through with.

All this turns out as
What do we want: better repair systems
How do we get this: by making repair mean more
In what way: by making it have more of an effect
How do we achieve that: by making it do more

It's nothing but an endless circular loop of "make it better" without actually saying anything about how to, and then complaining that the devs didn't find the magical other way that is asserted to exist, yet no on can actually seem to describe in any real detail. What makes it more annoying is that this tactic also assumes they didn't try to make it better, and couldn't find a way to do so, which is almost always actually what does happen. You can say "its their job to fix it" and "they should have made it better" all day, but if you can't actually go into detail about how to do so, then you shouldn't expect anyone else to find the magical "good way" to do it that you yourself cant explin in any detail beyond "it should be better".

-And as Morrowind showed, people end up being more frustrated by seeing MISS MISS MISS on the screen, then seeing their bullets hit and do little damage because the person is of high level.

-Unfortunately, that is a problem that has, and will, exist in every RNG accuracy game.

-It's because bullets dont always pack a punch in a skill based accuracy game. So not only do you not hit most of the time becuase the hit forumlas are designed to be stacked against you in every way possible, you arent even guaranteed to do any significant damage to the enemy when you do hit. which makes impactful hits even less frequent then they are now, unless you are very heavily overgeared/stat for the level of monster you are fighting.

-The skill concers your characters ability to use said gun in such a ay as to do the most damage with it.

1. Its only insignificant if you have a low weapon skill, and are using a terrible gun. Using something like the AMR, or any other end game weapon, makes every hit significant, becuase each hit does massive damage.

2. Not every shot IRL is a life or death situation either, especially when we have so many automatic guns that can shoot tons of bullets a mintue.

Missing would be logically highly significant in a game set in like the revolutionary war, when reloading took 5 mintues, but modern guns are called the great equalizer for a reason.

I never said it was, i gave a general statement about the problems of weapon decay in general.

That just makes those armors even less viable gameplay wise as not only do they still decay improperly, but they are now stacked with even more things that are likely just as imbalanced.

A. your character ahs already walked there once, and thus knows the dangers on the route, and how to avoid them. Thats the trade off for not just being able to fast travel everywhere from the get go.

B. All of Fallout's random events count happen on basically any tile of the overworld map. that's just how the series has alwys been.

C. Why would most content be bound to a location when it wouldl ogically have nothing to do with that location? Animals attack people and other animals all over the place, raiders will raid people anywhere they find them, stuff like that logically happens everywhere naturally.


Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 4:50 pm
by Trista Jim

Here's a bit of everything (including repair stuff):

Spoiler
Some of these things should, imo, be considered and searched for possibilities from while making the game and designing the gameplay:


Short version (just bullet points) :

Spoiler

General gameplay:

- More direct skill and stat uses on items, environment and NPC's (healing, repairing, examining, entering worldmap, etc) -- with a supportive interface in the vein of old school RPG's and adventure games.

- No level scaling; or, at most, an adjusting scaling where easy fights do not disappear when the more challenging ones appear.

- More frugal skillpoint economy and higher gaps between levels to make it slower.

- Upwards scaling skillpoint costs for mid and high level increments.

- Wold map and nodes large enough to support exploration (+classic map travel).

- Grid inventory (with both weight and space limits).

- One page character sheet.

- PDA pipboy.

- No compass markers for quests, no compass markers for locations, no compass markers for enemies.

- More comprehensive quest descriptions and mapmarkers for general quest areas (toggleable if possible), let the player find things out him self but don't leave him in the dark without any hints.

- Minimap with perception based (including distance) detection of close by NPC's or critters (also, perception/perk/trait based color codes for disposition).

- Less aggressive wilderness AI. Combat is generally where you want it (not always, but often).

Timed dynamic quests:

- Quests that have timelimits; but instead of said timelimit causing pure failure, it would open up new possibilities (where appropriate, not always).

Lockpicking, repairing, hacking, manual healing:

- A skillcheck with a timebar (not a "timelimit" but how long the attempt takes for the character based on skill versus task difficulty).

- No pausing the world. Everything happens in realtime, so you can get interrupted.

- No minigames.

Gunplay and VATS:

- Skills for projectile weapons greatly (!!!) affect accuracy (spread, sway), recoil control (each bullet fired throwing the aim off the target, and increasing spread), and general handling (reloads, holstering, unholstering, etc).

- Static bullet damage ranges regardless of skill, and generally higher damage output across the board.

- Melee/HtH skills affect attackspeed and damage.

- Critical failures.

- Close proximity penalties for firearms in.

- Less loot and supplies.

- Action points into combat resource; every action aside from moving eats up AP (shooting, reloading, opening inventory, doing stuff in inventory, quick key use.....).

- Focus on less frequent and less "run'n gun", but more slow paced, tactical, challenging and character driven combat.

- Categorized craftable and modifiable weapons with tangible upsides and downsides.

Healing and drugs:

- Tolerance meter for drugs and medication with severe OD effects.

- Maual healing (made viable and needed through less available provisions) - a skillcheck with a possibility to fail and critically fail to cause more damage.

- Animated stimuse to prevent spamming -- or, heal overtime.

Skillsystems:

- Retaining the premise, greatly upping the effects (skills and stats being more of requirements than recommendations as they are now), but revising the workings to better suit the current style of gameplay.




Long version (with more details) :


General gameplay suggestions (again -- but updated):
Spoiler

Here's some of my ideas on along which lines I would like some aspects of Fallout 4 to be made (I posted this before Fallout: New Vegas was even annouced, and several times again since then, but made some changes so I'm not just reposting the same thing over and over again). Whether or not all the following would actually work in the game, is beyond me as I'm not a game designer, but at least to me it sounds decent on paper for altering the current form of FPS gameplay.
The WALL OF TEXT:

A minimenu:

There would be a minimenusystem that would trigger various functions needed during the gameplay. Pressing (for example) the mousewheel would open a dropdown menu (somewhat similiar to Fallout 1 and Fallout 2) beside the cursor that would present commands like Enter Worldmap, Heal, Heal Other, Repair, Rest/Wait etc. If well implemented, this could potentially offer a greater gameplay diversity through bigger possibilities for direct skilluses in several situations. Available commands would be highlighted and non-available would be greyed out.

Example:

Point at a locked chest; click mousewheel; available commands drop down:

Examine (PER 5)

Pick Lock (54%)

Bash (27%)

Open (Locked)

Lock (--)

Repair (--)

-------------------

World Map

Heal

...


General gameplay:

The general gameplay would be quite similiar to F3 and F:NV. You roam around the wastes doing quests and exploring. But combat would be less frequent unless the player decides otherwise - in other words, you could pick some of your random fights. (Though I'd very, very much prefer it, I'm not suggesting ISO/TB gameplay, since I don't believe for a second that Beth would implement it no matter what. [:dry:] )

This could partly be handled through wildlife AI, which would be set less aggressive in general. An aggression stat would be implemented which would vary from species to species - from completely neutral (only defensive combat) to total aggression (hostility almost immediately). The animals would have their own immediate surroundings, or personal spaces, somewhat like in Risen and Gothic series, and partly in F:NV. Get too close and you get a warning sign from the critter giving you time to get out of their space, linger and be chased off (or be attacked, if you don't flee). The radius of the space and the time you are tolerated in it would depend on the critter.

The mainquest would be scaled to a certain degree through chaptering it (not visibly, as in presenting a loadscreen: Chapter 1: In which you slither out from the uaginal cavity and learn the first lessons of life, but through certain major events through the main quest). And after those, the game would replaces some of the lower level enemies with higher level ones in the MQ areas - defeating which (if not gettin past by other means) would require you to level up some more. Or through a nonlinear levelscalingsystem where, for example, when one starts the game at level one, the enemies in the levelscaled zones would range from 1 to 10, and after one hits somewhere between levels 12 to 15 (which ever works the best) some of the lower level creatures scale up to about level 18 to 25 (but not all, to not make the world appearing to spin around the player too much). This would offer both, challenge and sense of progression to the player, as one becomes better than the current enemies before they scale up again.

There wouldn't be any quest- or enemycompasses, but there would be (toggleable, perhaps) minimap in which you could see the living beings in immediate vicinity. Perception would determine the range in which you see things, and with a perk (with appropriate requirements - outdoorsman and perception, for example) you could tell the difference between friendly (green dot), neutral (yellow dot) and hostile (red dot) targets.

The questcompass would be replaced by mere markers on the map which would point towards a general area instead of the exact target. And with that, the quest descriptions would be more accurate.

The wrist pipboy would be scrapped and replaced by a more handheld PDI like contraption, which would offer a more userfriendly inventorysystem (something like mix of what Morrowind or S.T.A.L.K.E.R. had, for example) with less scrolling while still holding the tabs to sort items by their nature, a one page charactersheet much akin to the original games -- no more tabs behind tabs behind tabs. All actions during combat but shooting and moving would cost action points (opening inventory, using items inside it, using quick keys, etc) - more on this later.

Skillcap would remain at 100, but the cost to raise them would rise as follows: 1-50 1:1, 51-75 2:1, 76-100 3:1, the point being, the better you get the more difficult it is to get even better - this would make a maxed skill equal to skillcap of 175 - and I think it'd be easier to utilize the full scale of the skill, if it caps at 100 (instead of having skills cap at 200 or 300). Also, the gaps between levels would be raised:

How it is now (first number is the level, the second XP needed to reach the level from previous point, the third is total amount of XP needed to reach that level):

Spoiler

z=n+(y+150)
z=xp for next lvl
n=xp 'til prev lvl
y=previous xp raise

2 - 200 - 200
3 - 350 - 550
4 - 500 - 1,050
5 - 650 - 1,700
6 - 800 - 2,500
7 - 950 - 3,450
8 - 1100 - 4,550
9 - 1250 - 5,800
10 - 1400 - 7,200
11 - 1550 - 8,750
12 - 1700 - 10,450
13 - 1850 - 12,300
14 - 2000 - 14,300
15 - 2150 - 16,450
16 - 2300 - 18,750
17 - 2450 - 21,200
18 - 2600 - 23,800
19 - 2750 - 26,550
20 - 2900 - 29,450
21 - 3050 - 32,500
22 - 3200 - 35,700
23 - 3350 - 39,050
24 - 3500 - 42,550
25 - 3650 - 46,200
26 - 3800 - 50,000
27 - 3950 - 53,950
28 - 4100 - 58,050
29 - 4250 - 62,300
30 - 4400 - 66,700

How it should be (first number is the level, the second XP needed to reach the level from previous point, the third is total amount of XP needed to reach that level) for example:

Spoiler

z=n+(y+200)
z=xp for next lvl
n=xp 'til prev lvl
y=previous xp raise

2 - 200 - 200
3 - 400 - 600
4 - 600 - 1,200
5 - 800 - 2,000
6 - 1000 - 3,000
7 - 1200 - 4,200
8 - 1400 - 5,600
9 - 1600 - 7,200
10 - 1800 - 9,000
11 - 2000 - 11,000
12 - 2200 - 13,200
13 - 2400 - 15,600
14 - 2600 - 18,200
15 - 2800 - 21,000
16 - 3000 - 24,000
17 - 3200 - 27,200
18 - 3400 - 30,600
19 - 3600 - 34,200
20 - 3800 - 38,000
21 - 4000 - 42,000
22 - 4200 - 46,200
23 - 4400 - 50,600
24 - 4600 - 55,200
25 - 4800 - 60,000
26 - 5000 - 65,000
27 - 5200 - 70,200
28 - 5400 - 75,400
29 - 5600 - 81,000
30 - 5800 - 86,800
31 - 6000 - 92,800
...and so on up to, say 50The formula I made may not be correct, but the point remains.



Timed, dynamic quests:
Spoiler

For the larger events, and where appropriate otherwise, the game would take time into account. Not to push for failure (except for where it's appropriate), but for altering the conditions of the quest. Like postponing a quest (which is narrated as "urgent") enough, and the conditions to solving it get harder.

Simple example (somewhat paraphrasing the Goodsprings versus Powder Gangers situation):

You get a mission from a village mayor to scout some raiders and find out why they've been appearing so active lately. You obtain info about an upcoming raid on the village you got the mission from "in two or so weeks". You neglect it and go about your business for a while. Then you decide to finish the quest and deliver the info, but upon arrival, you notice that the raiders have seized the village, killed most of the denizens and captured the rest. Two options from there on to solve the quest (1) Take on the raiders and free the captives, or (2) Strike a deal with the raiders and recieve an additional questphase.

Had you delivered the intel in time, the village would've prepared and fought the raiders off with (or without) your further help.

These events would be there to point out that the world doesn't revolve around the player and that neglecting given responsibilities has consequences.



Map and Travelling:
Spoiler

A return to the classic worldmap system (with some tweaks to make it look more... erm, "modern"). The actual FPP/TPP playground area would be roughly about 2x or 3x the size of Fallout New Vegas; and the area is divided into 5-7 (or so) hubs scattered in the worldmap which vary in size and content. General gameplay in those would be about the same as in F3 and F:NV, run around and do local quests and explore.

When you enter the node you could spawn at any "formidable" (as in settlementlike in size) location you've already found. The first time entering a node you would spawn at the side of the map on special spawnpoint for that purpose (which could be used later on too, of course).

Outdoorsmanskill is reintroduced (or merged within the Survival skill) and works similiarly to Fallout 1&2 with the difference that nonhostile encounters are always avoidable should the player so decide (to decrease the amount of loadscreens).

The worldmap itself is zoned in couple of ways:
- The farther away from the starting position, the harder the enemies and vice versa; but there is still a (small) chance to encounter harder enemies on starting grounds and vice versa, based on outdoorsmanskill, luck and placement of the zone (but still keeping the MQ areas within reasonable range of enemies).
- The map is zoned into territories, which each have their set of unique enemies as well as a few commonones that can be found on every zone.

Each zone has about 5-7 small maps for random/special encounters, which are either hostile or nonhostile, and are based on the topography of the location in the worldmap and the contents of the encouters would be based on the zone in which it occurs.

The visitable locations on map would be as follows: A settlement - with explorable wasteland around it to provide smaller sidequest and exploring. Or just a visitable location like a majorsized building, militarybase, factory etc. They could even include two settlements, but in general all towns would be much bigger than those in Fallout 3 or New Vegas.

Each settlement has its own set of architecture (not too different from other settlements, but so that one can tell the difference), general theme and mindsets. These are small things, but they would add a lot of variety to the game.

Entering worldmap from a node would happen through the edges of the map. In Fallout 3, when you bumb to an edge of the map, you get a popup message that says: "you cannot go further that way" - now it would be like this: "e) enter worldmap".

To not have to always run to the edge of a map, you could use the minimenu command "Enter Worldmap", which could not be used indoors, during combat or if there are enemies nearby. However, escaping combat through the edge of the map would be possible.

Fasttravel through world map would offer options for pacing (could be enabled by a perk, or be an ability from the get go). Such as "Cautious", "Casual", and "Rushing". Where "Casual" would be the normal travelspeed with no bonuses or hits, "Cautious" a much slower, but with giving a bonus to outdoorsman in determining avoidance of an encounter, and "Rushing" much faster, but with giving a hit to outdoorsman. There would also be related quests, solving which could be easier by utilizing this system (to make it have a bigger point).



Repairing:
Spoiler

Repairing happens either with repairkits, by gunsmiths in towns/caravans, or by a duplicate.

The kits would repair a fixed and relatively large amount of CND and have limited amount of succesful uses (and would offer a small bonus to the skill and crit. failure) each, but they would be expensive to buy, weight a somewhat hefty amount and would also be weakened and eventually broken by a certain amount of critical failures and general wear. Gunsmiths and repairmen would be very expensive but would get the job done no matter what. A duplicate would repair a small amount of CND (with no bonuses or hits to skill or crit. chance) so that you'd have to weigh the benefit of losing the weapons monetary value against the increase in CND (at least at early stages of the game).

Success in repairing is dependant on repairskill (a diceroll happens, dreadful I know). And the repairing takes a certain amount of time (few seconds) depending on the chance of success.

One would now be able to repair guns and armor beyond his/her skill but the further above the skill they go the harder they would get to repair. The math is irrelevant (as long as it complements the premise), but here's a quick idea on how it could go:

After the guns/armors condition is above the skill, the amount going above is turned into percentages that is taken away from the skill. IE: skill = 30 and rifles condition = 80. Condition - skill = 50. 50% of skill (30) is 15. So trying to repair a weapon in condition of 80 with a repairskill of 30 would give a chance of success of 15%. This is not necesserely realistic, but it is assuming that the more shiny the condition gets, the more difficult (but not impossible) it would be to repair it further.

Guns and armor would also have a chance for a critical failure if an attempt to repair fails. Critical failure, instead of repairing the gun, has a reverse effect. The chance would be from 1% to 10% (depending on the weapon) if a trait or a perk doesn't raise/lower it.

The increased hardship of repairing would be compensated via much slower degredation rate (based on the weapon, of course), though the effects of CND (jamming during firing, reloading disorders, rate of fire, damage, buying/selling values) would also be much bigger and more frequent.

There would also be a possibility to repair broken robots or computers or what ever there is to repair, by pointing the target opening minimenu and selecting repair.

Also, while repairing would work much like explained above (the 1-100 CND scale would remain in the background to provide for it but all effects would be tied to the 20% thresholds - when attempting to repair, you'd see the successrate according to how the 1-100 scale behind the screen), the visible item health would be changed to 1-5 scale, to offer more robust effects.

The weapon health would be changed from being a 1-100 scale to 1-5 scale and give each rank more profound effects on the weapon, additionally I'd hide the item health-o-meter and add a title in front of the item name so that one never knows exactly where their weapon health goes.

Example:

- Well Maintained Assault rifle or Fine Assault Rilfe (CND 5; well maintained bonus: accuracy +5%, no disorders, -5% from critical failure chance))
-> Assault rifle (CND 4; assault rifle at its default condition, no extra bonuses, but 5% chance of jam)
-> Dirty assault rifle (CND 3; -5% to accuracy, -10% to rate of fire, 15% chance of jam, 10% higher chance of "critical failure")
-> Worn Assault rifle (CND 2; -10% to accuracy, -10% to rate of fire, 20% chance of jam, 15% critical failure chance)
-> Crummy Assault rifle (CND 1; -20% to accuracy, -15% to rate of fire, 25% chance of jamming, 20% chance of critical failure)
-> Broken Assault rifle (CND 0; no shooting with this piece of [censored] anymore, no repairing it either, skilled weaponsmith NPC's could repair it at a cost up to CND 2 for the same price they usually take from full repair from 1 to 5, or offer a few caps from the spare parts)

With each rank, while going downwards, requiring varying degrees of usage. And Repairing (success and amount of repair (from half a rank to 1 rank) would happen through skillchance affected by certain factors (Gun cnd, duplicate cnd, repairkit, skill level, etc). CND 5 would be a high skill privilege reachable by no lower than 80 in repair.

I would boost all the negative effects and make them count much higher in combat.

Additionally I would add cleaning kits to add a slight timed bonuses to the weapons (-> Clean worn assault rifle: cleaned bonus +5% accuracy, +5% rate of fire, -10% jamming, for example).

With Melee and armed HtH the effects would consist of damage reduction, and higher critical failure rate (which would break the weapon).
With Armors the effects would consist of lowered DT and DR and lowered "social status" (when going on in really crummy gear, people initially think your a vagran or a bum just loitering around).



Healing & drugs:
Spoiler

Stimpak usage would be animated, so no more smashing a quick key for dozens of stims in few seconds (I like this method more than the concept of heal overtime from HC-mode of F:NV). The speed of the animation would be dependant of the related skill (doctor). More over stims now would always heal the same amount (no skill effect in there), and they would come in two variations: stimpaks and superstimpaks. Both of which would be rare and expensive (so that you cannot live off of them, but also have to rely on other methods of healing) and superstims much more so than ordinary stims.

The player would have a tolerance meter which would measure how much the player can medicate himself before overdosing. Overdosing would cause an instant loss of health according to how much the limit is surpassed and would also cause some visual distortions and statloss. The effect would last for a while and the time would be depending on endurance and doctor skill (and perks/traits that would modify it). The tolerance meter slowly lowers itself after the medication is done, and the magnitude it is filled is dependant on the drug used (powerful drugs - like Jet and superstims for example - obviously fill it more quickly), related skill and perks/traits modifying it. Using food as a healer would not affect the tolerance meter, but food would have a heal-over-time effect.

Doctorskill would be reintroduced and so would manual healing. Manual healing would be similiar to Fallout 1 & 2 (only a few uses/24hours - they would take few in-game hours to be completed - success is determined by skill), and couldn't be used in combat or when enemies are nearby. Healing cripples wouldn't be possible with stims or sleeping, but would require manual healing and the ability to heal cripples would be dependant of the doctorskill and the skillrequirements of the crippled bodypart (head and torso would be harder to treat than legs and hands), otherwise a doctor is a must see.

Manual healing would be entered by the minimenu, which would also have the "heal other" option to heal a companion or other alive being in need of assistance.

Healing through sleeping would work similiarly to Fallout 1 & 2.

Addiction would need a doctor or a certain amount (pretty long) of time to heal. Radiation poisoning needs a doctor or radaway (which would be rare and expensive).



Gunplay & VATS (should it be implemented):
Spoiler

Gunskills would now have much heavier effect on waivering and general accuracy than what it is in F3 or New Vegas, utilizing the skill and STR requirement system from New Vegas (but more heavyhandedly). In addition, the players stance, movement, weapons type and recoil also would affect it.

The normal (according to skill) situation would be standing still and aiming through iron sights (firing from hip would give a large hit on accuracy). Crouching would give a small bonus to accuracy and going prone would give a slightly bigger bonus (with the bonus from aiming coming on top of that). The tradeoff with going prone and being accurate would be extremely slow moving and turning, and it would take its time for the player to get up and ready the weapon again. Firing from the hip would cause bigger spread. Movement would also give a hit to accuracy -- the faster you move, the bigger the waivering with ironsights and spread with hipfiring. Recoil would work dynamically based on the gun used, and would throw the aim off a bit with each shot (while bursting, the amount of recoil per shot would stack up eventually leading to firing straight up -- with hipfire, the "offaim" would be a bit smaller, but the spread would increase).

Guns would do generally more damage and the damagestats would be ranges. IE: Huntingrifle - dmg 11-20, like in Fallout 1&2, but with growth of related skill raising the minimum amount closer to the maximum (though not as far as up to having a static damage, there would always be some range left).

The combat overall would go through a total overhaul. No more run 'n gun FPS bullsh*t but more slowpaced, focused and tactical. A RTwP/TB (optable) setup with full control over the player character and partymembers would be nice. But of course that ain't gonna happen since nothing but horrid FPS twitching is viable way of gaming anymore.

So instead, actionpoints would count in combat.

A simple example:

Lesser cost rate:
Shooting (very low cost) - shooting with not enough AP's left would give a hefty penalty to accuracy and recoil control
Reload (low cost) - reloading with not enough AP's left would triple the time it takes to reload and increase the chances for reload failure

Moderate cost rate:
Using quick keys (cost rate depending on what's being done, changing a weapon (moderate cost), using stims (higher moderate cost), changing ammunition (high moderate cost due to including reloading)) - with not enough AP's, quick keys won't work, no stimspamming or changing weapons, tough luck.

High cost:
Inventory access - with not enough AP's, inventory access is denied, run for cover and wait for the AP's to refill.
Using items inside inventory - if AP's run out during doing something in the inventory, you can still browse and assign quick keys, but after that only action allowed is to exit inventory.

Additionally, no AP's left would increase running speed for... say.... oh well, for examples sake, 20% to provide chances to get to cover while AP's recharge.

And AP's would recharge much slower while moving and at normal rate while being still.

All that only during combat (and during shooting/whacking thin air when not in combat for the lesser cost actions).

Consider AP's in the lesser cost section as representing exhaustion.
And in the moderate and high cost sections as representing mental strength, situtional loss of focus, a panic of sorts leading to indesicion and inability to operate properly.

NPC's would also have their own AP's which would dictate their performance (a bit differently than the PC, since NPC's don't use quick keys or the sort).

In vats you would now have an option to choose a firing mode. Rapid fire - a hastily aimed rapid shooting towards the target; or aimed shots, which would be the opposite of rapid fire.

Rapid fire would lower the accuracy a bit and you could only target a foe as a whole; but it would spend less actionpoints, while aimed shots would cost more and calculate the accuracy without minuses, and you would be able to target specific body parts. The bonuses and hits of chosen stance would be similiar to those in realtime firing.

Being prone in vats would force you to choose a firing sector (so that the player doesn't spin like a dreidel in all directions while being the most accurate he can). Prone position would also be the most expensive stance to fire from, while standing would be the cheapest, and being crouched in the middle. The player would be able to change his preferred stance in VATS, but at a cost.

About craftable weapons... I once toyed around with an idea where there was to be 3 categories of weapons based on their craftmanship. I can't quite recall all the specifics, but the general idea was to have:

Category 1: Post war selfmade weaponry (craftable, high damage output, cheap and easy to repair, high availability, high modability, fairly cheap -- but, non reliable (prone to jam and reload disorders regardless of CND), low accuracy, fast deterioration rate (constant need of repairing)).
Category 2: Pre war Home defense weaponry (more reliable, more accurate, lesser deterioration rate -- but, less damage output, more expensive, less available, moderately harder to repair, non-craftable and less modable).
Category 3: Pre war military grade weaponry (Very high damage output, very high accuracy, very high reliability -- but, extremely expensive and rare, barely modable, non-craftable, very hard to repair).

Something along those lines, and with each category having 1-3 (max) base weapons for each type of weapon (pistols, SMG's, rifles, assault rifles, machineguns, shotguns etc). You'd that way have an entire category of highly modable weapons to craft from scratch and alternatives which have their ups and downs over that category. Weaponcrafting could be handled through related skillthresholds (what ever the skillsetup for that sort of crafting would be).

Close combat penalties for firearms (especially heavy and long arms).

- In face to face combat where the other side is toting a firearm, a chance (manual triggering for the player, but chance based success) for the NPC to perform defensive move and shove the players gun and facing off and slightly stagger the player (and possibly then deliver a more damaging blow/s). This to remove the horrendous way it is now where... you know how it is, and possibly slightly improve closecombat.

Also, damage bonus for melee/HtH enemies (animals included) that come in numbers (overwhelm the player). One guy with a knife or one gecko might seem harmless to your assault rifle toting combatarmor wearing character, but if there are three or more, you better dispatch them before they reach you or you are in serious trouble no matter what armor you wear (if the DT eats all the damage, turn it into fatigue damage that'll eventually collapse the PC after which the foes start to pummel the "weak spots" in the armor and healt starts to drop).

Generally, turn up the damage done by weapons -- the previous situation might seem that it puts a melee oriented PC in a rougher than needed position, but if you are skilled enough, and if the damage values are higher, you may be able to drop one or two before they get to overwhelm you (if you see a group or powerarmored melee units, though, you might want to reconsider attacking them with melee yourself unless you are absolutely skilled and geared enough).
In addition, projectile weapon skills affecting accuracy, not damage (except for - possibly - higher critical dmg multipliers). And locational armor DT values (head, torso, feet, hands).
Enemies and the PC are generally more easily taken down by weapons (no more people eating 30 bullets or 50 stabs and still coming on strong), but only if you know how to use them.

Alernatively - for VATS - it could remain functionally almost as it is, but it would be made a separate phase based combat mode altogether (at players choice) where you would queu up actions and execute them as you do now, but instead of the game hopping back in realtime, it remains in phasebased mode and the enemies would get their actions through the execution phase based on their own set of action points - kinda like how combat in Wizardry 8 and, to a lesser extent, Wasteland works. This would allow for more precise and accurate control of the possible companions too than what we see in the games now.



Lockpicking:
Spoiler

Success is determined by skill so that you can try to pick any lock from very easy to very hard; and NO minigame involved. It would work somewhat like repairing; lock level - skill (if the skill is under the lock level) = percentual number that is taken from the skill. If the skill surpasses lock level, the chances are purely skillbased with maximum chance of success being 95% (this, the max chance, would go for every chance based system). And the percentual chance would be presented when moving the reticle over the locked object: E) Pick lock [Very hard: 13%], for example.

Lockpicking would be animated so that you either see your characters hands doing the job (FP view) or seeing your character from behind (TP view). You would have the ability to turn your head (or the camera) some ways left and right to see if someone is coming - so the game doesn't pause during the picking. But looking away from what you're doing, would have an effect (see below).

Picking locks would take a certain amount of time depending on your skill and level of the lock (aka the chance of success). When attempting, there would be a timebar similiar to what Vampire - The Masquerade: Bloodlines had. Skill would give bonuses to the time it takes to pick a lock in such manner that you don't get bonuses to picking hard locks before your skill surpasses maximum level of normal locks. More over, the bonuses would stop stacking up after your skill surpasses the next level of difficulty (no bonuses to picking normal locks after skill level of 75, for example, depicting that there is no way to open that kind of lock any better - other than with a fluke).

Each lock would have a certain amount of tries before (if you keep failing) the lock jams for a certain amount of time (preferably at least a couple of weeks, so that your attempts at just waiting at the lock for it to unjam would be a tedious job and prevent exploitation of the system). Moreover locks would have a chance for a critical failure that would immediately jam the lock despite if it was you first attempt, and critical success, which could occur at any point during the time it takes to pick the lock -- both of these chances would be very small.

This system would also be fit for hacking.



Difficulty settings:
Spoiler

The difficulty setting would affect the following:

Startingpoints of th skills (this would work so that easy players would be able to max out almost everything and the harder you go, the less can max out and the more you need to rely on specializing). The toggle would work dynamically so that if you start with easy and change it to hard half away through, your skill would take an appropriate hit.
The gaps between levels -- the harder the setting, the more XP you need for a levelup.
Base carry weight (before STR modifier).
Base HP (before END modifier).
Number of encountered enemies
Slight (!) changes in NPC/critter HP and damage modifiers

HC mode (one time toggle on/off, no flipflopping) would affect the following:

Number of enemies encountered
Severity of negative effects (stat/skill losses and their effects, crippled limbs, diseases, poison effects, etc)
Add a Nutrition gauge (thirst and hunger combined) -- could do without this though.
Damaging effect of radiation.
Add weight for absolutely everything (meds, ammo, random clutter like pencils, everything).
Slower base speed for stimpakking (before skill modifiers).
Harsher addiction and withdrawal effects.
I'll come up more when I have time...



Thoughts on a skillsystem more (IMO) in line with the current gameplaystyle (This will contradict with some of the ideas in the longer suggestion above as I haven't had time to merge them properly, but that doesn't matter as I endorse both systems.) - now with an incomplete (har har) SPECIAL outline:
Spoiler

Ok, so going by the current gameplaystyle where dicerolls no longer apply (which is a shame)... redesign the characterprogression system to better suit it (to be more responsive and give more immediate feedback to the player as s/he progresses).

At character developement every SPECIAL defaults as 5 as it is now, but there are no bonuses to add, just a possibility to rearrange the points. Increasing SPECIAL during the game, would be a special occurance like finding an implant and then someone who can install it. Traits increasing stats would offer an equal drawback in some other stat (or a general drawback). There'd be an individual perk for every stat offering a one time bonus of plus one -- as it was in the original Fallouts. And rare cases where an equippable item gives a bonus for during the time it is equipped (like how PA gives a bonus to strength). Nothing more. The point is to make the character one builds to hold throughout most of the game. And to help that there'd be hard SPECIAL requirements for certain items and activities.

Perks would be more like additional abilities that the skills do not govern straightforward (like pistolwhipping, enhancing stimpaks, increasing inventory space and/or such) but still offer the requirements for. They'd also have tiers (up to 3) to enhance said abilities when appropriate.

Skills would now have a 1-10 and some others 1-5 point scale. With each point cumulatively increasing the price of buying it. Each of these points would also hold more to it than mere nominal increases with little to no visible effect (like how it is now with the 1-100 scale). The skills would work more like thresholds opening new related abilities than random numerical values. At characterbuilding phase each skill would default to 0, but the player would have 4 free points to put in which ever skills s/he wishes with the maximum initial increase being 2.

A couple of "along the lines of" -examples of the skills and their effects:
Spoiler


Guns:
oooooooooo
Cost : The first two - 5sp, 3rd and 4th - 10sp, 5ft and 6th - 15sp, 7th and 8th - 20, 9th and 10th - 25sp. This would equal a skillcap of 150 with the current method.
Effect: 0 p oints - You are so terrible with guns you suffer 50% damageloss and 75% of accuracy loss with any conventional firearm, plus your unholstering, holstering and reloading take much more time. Points 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 would open "proper" usage of guns in their respective tiers of 1-5. Having lacking skill of one tier would result in 50% penalty to accuracy and 25% penalty to damage, lacking 2 or more tiers would offer similiar penalties of 75% and 50% plus decresed reloadspeed and increased probability of jamming during reload and firing regardless of weapon condition.
Points 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 would offer a 25% bonus to accuracy for the previous tier of weapons (except for 1, which would offer it to the next tier and 10 which would offer an accuracy bonus to all tiers), and similiarly with damage but with an increase of 15%.
This would make increasing the skill a paramount act, if one wishes to master it (unlike with the current system where a skill 50 - for example - is quite adequate to handle all given situations the game offers).

Energy weapons:
oooooooooo
Cost: 5, 5, 10, 10, 15, 15, 20, 20, 25, 25
Effect: Similiar to guns otherwise, but in place of damage increases/decreases would be heating/cooldown effects which would be harsh enough to greatly limit firing large amounts of highly powerful energy ammunition. In effect, energy weapons would be much more powerful than guns, but also much more limited in rate of fire and most of them would also, due to their light effects, hinder stealth.

Melee:
oooooooooo
Cost : 5, 5, 10, 10, 15, 15, 20, 20, 25, 25
Effect: Same as guns and ew with tiers, but in place of accuracy increases/decreses would be attackspeed. Lacking a tier would offer a 50% penalty for overall damage and 25% for attackspeed, lacking 2 tiers similiarly 75% and 50%. Points 3, 6 and 9 would also offer a "special move" which would be slower than normal attack, but more powerful.

Explosives:
ooooo
Cost: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25
Effect: With explosive based weapons, refer to the guns section. 0 points, you can throw grenades and dynamite very inaccurately, that's it; 1 point - opens up the ability to create and tinker with satchelcharges and firebombs and removes penalties from grenades and regular dynamite; 2 points - landmines and their modified and custom variants enter the picture; 3 points - creation and operating with C4, semtex, and other plastic explosives and remote detonatables; 4 points - Energybased explosives (electricity, EMP, plasma, etc) explosives; 5 points - Mix and match your own cocktails with all available ingredients.

Sneak:
ooooo
Cost: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25
Effect: With 0 points you do not sneak, you're so clumsy that going crouched wouldn't make any difference. Each point decreases the chance of detection according to circumstances (LOS distance, lighting, sound) by 15%. Also, point 1 - ability to use light armor without penalties, point 3 - ability to use medium armor with decreased penalties, point 5 - ability to use heavy armor with decreased penalties.

Speech:
ooooo
Cost: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25
Effect: Wit h 0 points, regular default dialog (plus other skill/perk related options); with points 1-5, thesholds for related speech-check lines.

Lockpick:
ooooo
Cost: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25
Effect: Wit h 0 points you do not pick locks, you simply have no idea how to. Each point opens up ability to open locks at respective levels. The skill also modifies the amount of time an attempt takes. Also, if a minigame is involved, which I wouldn't put there, each tier increases the durability of the lockpick when attempting current or previous tiers.

Barter:
ooooo
Cost: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25
Effect: 0 points - 20% selling value, 200% buying value; 1 point - 40% selling value, 175% buying value; 2 points - 60% selling value, 150% buying value; 3 points - 80% selling value, 125% buying value; 4 points - 100% selling value, 100% buying value; 5 points - 120% selling value, 75% buying value.

Science:
ooooo
Cost: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25
Effect: Hacking abilities similiar to lockpicking. Also handling the modding requirements for energy weapons. Thresholds for various skilluses outside of inventoryitems.

Repair:
ooooo
Cost: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25
Effect: 0 points - you do not repair anything by yourself, Point 1 - Repair light armor to top condition, medium armor to 50% CND, and heavy armor to 25%, Point 3 - Repair medium armor to top condition, medium armor to 75% and heavy armor to 50%, Point 5 - Repair all armors to top condition. Handles various crafting requirements and modding reqs for Guns category of weapons. Thresholds for various skilluses outside of inventoryitems.

Medical:
ooooo
Cost: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25
Effect: 0 points - you can use stimpaks but they only heal 50% of their potential, and after 5 in a row, you suffer double the overdoespenalty. Point 1 - Ability to heal 30 HP manually when no hostiles are around, and with a cooldown time for use. Intoxication meter allows for 5 stimpaks in a row without overdosing. Point 2 - Manual healing cooldown time decreased for 25%. 7 stimpaks without penalties. Point 3 - Can use 1 superstim without a penalty. 30% chance of healing a crippled limb. Point 4 - 10 stims or 2 superstims without penalty. Cooldown time decreased additional 25%. 50% chance of healing a crippled limb. Point 5 - 75% chance at healing a crippled limb. 5 superstims or 15 stims without penalty.

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SPECIAL (outline, and not including governed skills and related bonuses):
oooooooooo
S - Carryweight, melee/HtH damage and attackspeed modifiers, lifting and moving heavy objects, weapon STR requirement modifiers, (+ other situational misc tasks)
P - Accuracy, vision distance, identifying consumables and their effects (in conjuction with survival skill), detecting traps, (+ other situational misc tasks)
E - Base HP, HP/level, poison-, radiation-, damage (other) resistances, sprint time, (+ other situational misc tasks)
C - Initial reaction modifiers, companion nerve, soothe (a chance of rendering humanoid enemies nonhostile for a moment -- situational) (+ other situational misc tasks)
I - Skillpoints/level, identifying objects not in the range of perception, (+ other situational misc tasks)
A - Movespeed, actionpoints, weapon handling speed, jump height and distance, (+ other situational misc tasks)
L- Luck is blind [:wink:]



Another alternative method for skills could be to structure them into skilltrees of sorts, to present general knowledge and specialization:
Spoiler


This can work with both of the afore mentioned progressionstyles, generally.

For the 1-100 system, the skillpoint costrates would work the same as explained in General Gameplay up above - 1-50 1:1, 51-75 2:1, 76-100 3:1. But after the point where the skill reaches 50, it would split (with skill appropriate for such splitting) into 2 or 3 specialization paths. This would be to present the general knowledge (1-50) of a given category and the requirement to specialize in order to excell (51-100) in various ways within the said category, a need for higher focus to master something at the cost of other things. This could also, potentially, address the plea for more skills as well as the demand for higher gameplay variety.

Some of the skills and specializations could - for example, it's not a fleshed out list - be like:

Guns (general knowledge about and handling of conventional firearms from pistols to LMG's, etc) - skillpoints 1 to 50 - cost 1:1;

* Pistol grip (specialization path for conventional firearms held with one hand -- like pistols, and lighter SMG's) - skillpoints 51 to 75 at the cost of 2:1 and from 76 to 100 at the cost of 3:1

* Rifle grip (specialization path for conventional firearms held with two hands -- like larger SMG's, rifles, and assault rifles, and gauss/antitank rifles) - skillpoints handled as above

Alternatively, the Guns specializations could be:

* Precise weapons (specialization for single/semiauto firing regardless of weapon used) - illustrates focused fire and accuracy - skillpoints handled as above

* Imprecise weapons (specialization for burst/full auto firing regardless of weapon used) - illustrates recoilcontrol - skillpoints handled as above.

Energy weapons (general knowledge about handling weapons that use energy as their means to cause harm)

* Plasma (specialisation path for plasmaweapons)

* Laser (specialisation path for laserweapons)

Explosives (all manners of things that go boom)

* Traps (spotting, disarming and arming of higher grade traps, whether explosive or not)

* AOE (area of effect) weapons (rocketlauncers, greneadelaunchers, flamethrowers, grenades, etc)

Close Combat

* Melee (extensions of your fists)

* Hand to hand (your fists and feet)

Speech (general logic and reasoning)

* Persuasion (make people act according to your whims)

* Deception (the art of lying)

Medic (first aid bandaging)

* Doctor (manual healing of greater proportions)

* Pharmacist (the medicineman skill to create uppers, downers, laughers, criers, and healers)

Barter (knowing the value of an item and the ability to make others know it your way -- this skill does not need to split)

Repair (basic tinkering with stuff)

* Craftsman (create high class protective wear and Guns)

* Maintenance (repair and maintain higher class [/i]Guns[/i], armor and other appropriate utilities in the game)

Science (basic scientific knowledge)

* Computers (hacking and reprogramming)

* Electronics (repairing energyweapons and other higher grade electrical devices)

Outdoorsman (basic knowledge of the nature)

* Cooking (cooking for the royal)

* Biology (identifying different plants and animals to make the difference between healthy and unhealthy)

Stealth (the ability to do things without other people noticing)

* Sneak

* Steal

Security (opening stuff without a key)

* Conventional locks (opening stuff with lockpicks)

* Electronic locks (opening stuff with electronic lockpicks)

There's only 12 primary skills ( for now, could be added more if appropriate and not overlapping others), but the specialization paths cover - imo - a lot of that.

The 1-10 skillprogression system - explained earlier in this post - could utilize this for those skills that reach for 10 points, while those that do not, remain as they are.




TL;DR?:

Spoiler


Make the game lean less towards the TES style of gameplay - find a better middleground in between - to create a greater diversity between the two franchises.


Even still TL;DR?:

Spoiler


Learn to read pal....



Things I'd appreciate if omitted or otherwise excluded (read: not implemented to begin with):

- Sandbox map -- the game can still be an open world (like how the first games) and support random exploration with large enough "nodes".
- Main focus on exploration -- this shouldn't be the selling point of the game, it's fine for TES, but Fallout should be set apart from that series in all ways possible.
- Too heavy focus on combat more than other styles of gameplay -- there should be more balance on how to fare with the gameworld, well made and settlement centric nodes would support this in that there'd be less empty space that needs to be filled with random combat.
- Straightforward FPS run'n gun combat - there's nothing more boring in these games than RPG combat hampered by FPS mechanics (and while this works both ways, I do not care about improving the FPS elements at the cost the RPG side).
- And stop wasting time in handplacing every sandbead in the desert. There's absolutely no need what so ever to not use procedurally generated landscapes in a wasteland that is mostly sand, rocks and rubble. Use that time to create as unique and differing focus spots as possible.
- And most importantly... less content from the Big Bag of Cool-on-paper +1 -- think before implementing, does it fit the setting, does it make sense, does it have a real purpose.
- Extraterrestials
- All that The Settlers/Sim(s) stuff like: building a house and playing home, building a city and "defending" it, forming a faction, setting up and managing a shop, farming, playerdriven marriage and romances, and all that useless and distracting fluff which is better suited for other games that use them as a the core point of gameplay.
- No multiplayer of any kind - there is a [censored] ton mp games out there for pepole who want that, there's absolutely no reason what-so-ever to have it in here.
- Excessive strive towards "realism" over statistics based gameplaymechanics and RPG feel.
- Combat music -- seriously, it just gets in the [censored] way.


Fallout 4 Speculation, Suggestions and Ideas #232

PostPosted: Tue Sep 22, 2015 8:44 pm
by chirsty aggas

You haven't in this thread, nor have I seen it before, nor did you quote the relevant part in any of your posts, forgive me for not being all knowing and reading all 231 other threads.

Though I will say, just by reading over the repair section, that it doesn't do anything to actually fix the problem of repair rates being either too fast or too slow, it just imposes further negatives upon lower item conditions, and also makes it harder to fix said items in the first place, furthering the already terrible problem item condition imposes upon gameplay. Repair, as it is now, is only remotely decent becuase of how easy it is to negate the poorly set decay rates, making that harder just makes a broken system even more painful to sit through.