1. Sniper rifles are extremely overpowered currently. Not only they are pin-point accurate with true-sight scope even at max range allowing player to snipe enemies that aren't even on ED-E's sensors yet, they also get insanely high 5x critical rate. They should be reduced in power by both decreasing their accuracy below 100% and reducing their crit multiplier from 5x to something more sane like 1.5x. Sneak criticals, they are way overpowered and should be reduced in occurrence to silenced weapons, melee weapons and unarmed techniques.

2. Fast travel, there should be a way to get to the important locations DIRECTLY. Getting to the suite in Lucky 38 means going through 3-4 different loading screens and running for at least a minute. It's wasting our time guys. All districts in Freeside should be on the map, there should be a way to get inside larger map structures too. For example inside BoS bunker or McCarran terminal. I'm sick and tired of running for a minute through a sand-storm because I have to drop a laser pistol and leave right away. Similarily, fast travel outside of friendly buildings should be allowed so I don't need to walk out before I can move on.

3. Energy weapons should be the ones that focus on modding in different ways. We should be able to customize projectiles on plasma or laser more than now. Every second gun has an upgrade or two while only handful of energy weapons can be modded - and typically those of very low tiers. It should be the other way round. Give us more scopes here, high-tech guns should use more advanced targeting techniques than cowboy shotguns.

4. Rebalance survival recipes. They require tons and tons of rare ingredients for little gain rendering vast majority of them simply useless. Since we can't realistically make ourselves stimpaks (there are like 5 empty syringes in the entire game), how about at least we could hunt and prepare ourselves food to make up for it Allow for more recycling. When I use a stimpak, I want to be left with an empty syringe. When I drink a battle of water or coke I'd want to keep that battle and be able to refill it at nearest water source. When I do mass purification, how about I didn't lose the pressure cooker which is hard as hell to find (10 or so in the whole game). Why can't we cook on stoves? Why?

5. Can't purchase stealth boys, can't manufacture them either. Can't purchase weapon parts to assemble them using high skills. Can't purchase ammo parts to assemble them into what we want. Why there aren't HP and AP recipes at the bench? Why are weapon schematics gone? Wouldn't it be better if instead of giving the player a fully functional unique rifle instead you gave him schematics and a list of parts to make one?

6. Enemies. They should get more perception - and when fired at they shouldn't just blindly run around, they should duck and cover and try to snipe the player. They need their sight range improved - and they need to be smarter at dealing with a sniper so player has to come down and finish them off after the first few shots because they are all hidden behind obstacles and refuse to come out.

7. SPECIAL. Charisma and Perception should play a bigger role. How about capping max gun skills with Perception so you need at least 5 to reach 100? How about capping social skills in a similar way to prevent people with CHA at 1 to get to Speech 100? This would encourage more balanced builds and reduce the number of dump stats.

1. I have to agree with you in the accuracy part but to make things simpler make the sneaking harder and the AI smarter.
2. Most probably they need different load cells in order to maximize FPS. The idea of fast travelling from a friendly building is good though
3. The problem with energy weapons is its damage even if we have cool mods for them in the game but their damage still svcks then we have no use for them.
4 Total agreement
5.Total Agreement
6. You just solved the problem in the 1st statement . I think that they need to notice the dead enemy near them.
7. It will not work, being an outcast does not make you a bad speaker. Same thing with perception, even people with bad situational awareness could be very good marksmen.

You could try and request the changes you want in the modding forum.

Charisma is very useful, since it what determines Nerve and speech is just so darn usrful in this game it is unbeleiveable.

Each point of charisma = 5% bonus to companion damage and armor, +2 points barter and speech. If your companion has a weapon with damage 50, each point of Charisma will boost him by 2.5 base damage up to 75 at CHA 10 (noone goes there). If his armor is 20, each point of charisma will add a single point to it up to 30 at CHA 10 (noone goes there). This means difference between 1 and 4 charisma is 12 skill points (half of them useless in Barter), 7.5 more base damage and 3 extra DT on each companion.

Dump stat.

Problem to make sneak harder is sneaking on DeathClaw is as hard as it can be. Player is actually FORCED to take on DeathClaws like that because they are run in packs. If other solutions are viable enough then extreme range snipping would be inefficient enough for people to dump them.

Sniper Rifle didn't actually receive any buff directly from FO3; the difference is you can now buy them from more than one vendor and repair them with super cheap varmint rifle with Jury Rigging, and .308JSP being crazy.

I think the only one of those I agree with is #2.


But, then, I've never used a "dump stat" in FO3 or NV (or most other games for that matter). Very rarely, I'll lower a stat to 4. And even that's difficult, since it can lock you out of some things (like perks).

Also didn't really have a problem with the Survival recipes. Eventually, I found plenty of most things. (I was ignoring empty syringes because I already had plenty and they weighed too much. And really, I never made a stimpack anyway..... I always had too many, since I only used them for emergency healing. Regular healing was done with --> Food made with Survival.)

A few ingredients could have had a slightly lower qty needed. But the only one I can think of is Cherry Bombs for the bottlecap mines.


Edit: and Barter is "useless"?!? There's a bunch of conversation triggers based on it, trading is handy at the beginning, and it unlocks a great Perk. :shakehead:

I agree with number 2, the fast travel system svcks in this game, example, if I fast travel to say, crimson caravan I should arrive in the crimson caravan, not just outside and then have to go through another [censored] 20 second loading screen, and getting to the lucky 38 safe house is a complete joke, I just use novac now. I spend half my time staring at loading screens when playing this game, its installed to hard drive(360) aswell and I regularly clear the cache.

I would like to see backpacks hard-wired into the game. hardcoe "weight" is one thing, but come on, no way you can carry more than one rifle and some boxes of ammo really. So I would like weight limited to one outfit/gun/some ammo and stims, until you can get to a store and buy a backpack/dufflebag. And then buy bigger, and bigger, as you progress in the game.

(i know we can mod it, and I have, but it should be built-in, at least in hardcoe mode. I was carrying 7 rifles, 5 pistols, a rocket launcher, a minigun, 3 shotguns, 5 suits of armor, 8 hats, throwing spears... and was skipping along merrily without so-much as a bulge in my pockets. Whaaaaat?)

Sorry, but while I can understand where you're coming from slightly... barely... it's still simply the way things work. Very few things can take a bullet in the head and survive for more than a few seconds on instinct/reflexes. Some animals (such as the dog the Pitt Bull) actually have a skull hard enough, and with enough of the right angles, to deflect a bullet, some pigs/boars do as well for example. You take out the brain, or a truly major organ like the heart. It just doesn't matter. you, it, whatever is DEAD. If I had the PC version, I might go ahead with the 'headshot-auto-kills'. Even though it could happen to me.

But to say that they're too powerful because they're doing exactly what they should. is just silly.

As for sneak-criticals. It makes sense that they do more damage, because you can line-up the attack far better. A most common one would be a Garrote or just coming up behind someone and slitting their throat. Tends to be a quick/instant kill. Try that with someone who knows your coming. It's not going to happen unless they're just a moron, or unless your skill is THAT much better. Sneak-criticals make sense. And on harder levels, or with less accurate weapons. even a sneak-crit often won't kill something. Esp if they have any worthwhile armor. It's not so much a random occurrence (like regular criticals). It's EVERY time. And should be.

I agree with #2, the fast travel stuff. I don't entirely agree with having more mods and improvements for energy weapon crafting / customization Otherwise, I could not disagree with the OP more.

I especially disagree with #6. I'm an old man. I'd like to come home and enjoy a game. I dont have the reflexes of a 13 year old boy anymore. The last thing I need are enemies jumping around like they are on crack, spotting me a mile away and headshotting me with sniper weapons just because you are personally bored. Want to lobby for that to go in a higher difficulty? Fine. But leave us old men and our normal carebare unwind time alone.

I also super doubly disagree with #7. Hey, quit trying to screw up other people's fun. This is a sandbox game. If you dont want to have charisma 1 and speech 100, dont do so. Leave me alone.

I'm working on a mod for #7

here is what I'm working on (the specific #s will change as I try to balance it out)

our special directly affects your skills by imposing a maximum cap. If you have 10 of a special, then your max skill possible is 100 of course. Anything less and you will have any skills associated with that SPECIAL reduced. The penalty will be calculated based on your intelligence, with the end result modified slightly by your luck. It doesn't make sense that I can max out a skill, if my base attributes don't support that skill. A lower agility should mean I can't ever max out guns.

* At 10 intelligence, you will take a 2.5% penalty for every point below 10 for any given SPECIAL.

* For every point less than 10 in intelligence, you take an additional .5% penalty. i.e. 5 intelligence would equal a 5% penalty. The penalty would be rounded up (i.e. 7.5% * 100 = 7.5 rounding to 8 for the penalty)

e.g. if you have 5 intelligence, and 6 agility, your max Guns skill will be 80 (10 - 6 = 4, 4 * 5% = 20%, 20% * 100 = 80)

* That final number will be modified up by your luck (ideally randomly for each skill so we don't get all skills getting the exact same cap). My thought is to take a random number between 1 and half of your luck. That will be come your minimum bonus for each skill. We would then take a second random number between the previous number, plus half of your luck.

e.g. if you have 10 luck, we take a random number between 1 and 5. Lets say you get 3. We then apply to each special a random number between 3 and 8.

Of course, the randomness hinges on being able to calculate this value once, and then have that # persist through the game. If we can't do that, then I would say just add half your luck to the max for each skill

* Finally, I think the tag skills should also play a role. The tag skills, to me at least, suggest that you are innately better at that skill, even though your base attributes wouldn't ordinarily support it. I could see tag doing one of three things.

o It removes the cap from that skill altogether.
o It increases the cap by 15 points.
o Tag could change completely so it doesn't grant you a bonus at the beginning, it simply raises your cap so that through training, you can get better.

1. No random encounters.
Look, I don't want to meet level scaled enemies every 30 meters like in FO3 but I would like random encounter zones where it is possible to meet a random group of enemies scaled to that areas overall level.
As it is now I can kill the Gecko's outside of Vault 34 and when I go back they have respawned in the exact same locations.
Why I want this back is because I want to for example meet generic Khans out on scouting parties or maybe Van Graff caravans or Van Graff hit squads.
The game just becomes predictable with absolutely NO random encounters.

2. Energy Weapons freaking svck.

3. Unarmed perks requiring Melee skill and vice versa.

4. Not enough Legion quests.

5. Some factions could really have needed a couple of more quests to them.

Here's one more:

No crawling is a poor design choice. There's crouch, there's no crawl. If you really want to do sneaking and sniping, ducking for cover or even getting through tight spaces, game engine should support lying down and crawling, it'd be slow, but it'd add to sneak and in general better hide from bullets. Enemies engaged by a sniper should do exactly that, drop on the ground and disappear in the grass trying to figure out from where the bullets are coming. Next Fallout - I want crawl.

The only bad design choice (well, not bad, but somewhat poor) I can think of is the seeming meaninglessness of the soft requirements (both skill and str) for weapons. They don't seem to slow me down in the least. If not casual, at least the hardcoe mode should've put some real meat to them (actual sway instead of this little bit it has now, recoileffects or something along those lines)

i concur with all of those points. especially the sneak criticals. they're a joke.

I opened this thread thinking the first post would be awful but I actually agree with everything. I also agree with gabriel77dans points.



You dont need Charisma for Speech though. Nerve grants a +5% bonus to damage and armor for your companions which still isnt as good as a point of Intelligence, Strength, Endurance or Luck.

1. Totally disagree. It functions as a sniper rifle should function.

2. I agree that you should be able to fast travel within faction cells that are friendly. Of course, the game is buggy enough as is, and that extra layer of code would probably make things worse.

3. I'm never against more modding and customization options for any weapon. Armor modding would be awesome too.

4. Survival isn't that bad if you take the time to invest in it. I do like the idea that you keep empty containers if they have a use. That's only sensible.

5. Purchasing SBs would ruin the point of their rarity. If you want to be stealthy, invest in Stealth. Also, I don't get what you mean about not being able to load HP and AP rounds at a bench. You can load much better rounds.

6. I agree enemy AI needs tweaking. They're simply idiots. I doubt you could add a cover mechanic without giving the PC one and I think that's heading too far down the FPS road. I don't want to see that happen. I would just like to see better path finding and collision recognition. It breaks immersion when you're sneaking up on a mob and half of them insist on walking in place against a wall and the other half are stuck walking into each other. Case in point, I go to kill the Legendary DC last night, finally get to him, and he's just walking non-stop into a wall obliviously. He doesn't seem so tough then.

7. I'm torn on this. I don't mind the idea of skills being dependent on primary stats but it would have to be implemented in a way that doesn't limit varied builds. I'm afraid it would limit options and essentially make de facto character classes.

That's nice but I'm from Missouri and I call BS on that one.

Come to think of it, I can't remember very many places beyond the SW corner of the map where you can in fact eyeball *anything* inside Ed-E's sensors: my way is almost always blocked by canyons, dunes and rocky outcrops with invisible walls I can't cross. I've spent more times going the long way around a peak than almost any other form of travel in NEW VEGAS, all the while my screen was filled with red lines.

But go ahead and prove me wrong another way: capture a video of someone clearing the Quarry using nothing but a hunting rifle without a scope.

Good luck with that.

Firstly, Stealthboys should be rare for how powerful they are. Also you can buy them in certain places.

Secondly, you can purchase all ammo parts and use the reloading bench. You can also use the Hand Loader perk to give yourself certain variants that are similar to (and often better than) HP and AP ammo.

I absolutely agree with this. To carry a small arsenal around with you breaks the immersion, in my opinion. To counter this, a few months ago I created a rule in the F3 section (I'll post the link if you want) in order to create some structure and restrictions. Its basically limited to 2 two-handed guns (commando perk), and any two from one handed guns (gunslinger), melee, and unarmed. That's it. I currently play Normal + hardcoe + my weapon restriction rule. I'm tough like that.

Also, I agree with point #6 regarding enemies. I want to be spotted a lot earlier, unless its a Feral Ghoul, or I'm using a Stealth Boy.

This is a balance issue, not a design choice. And I disagree with you as well, a low gun skill with average luck leaves me with few criticals.



Disagree again, this destroys the sense of the world being large. You may be sick of running around and not "energizing" into the exact spot that you want, but this is a personal preference. I think that philosophy is lazy, why not drive a car on auto-pilot so we don't even have to play the game?! Heck lets just watch it happen?! No.



Totally disagree here. After nuclear war what kind of knowledge will be Most prevalent with regards to firearms in the wasteland? Guns, Not lasers. Lasers are high-tech items and there should really be alot fewer of them IMHO than guns, which there are hundreds of millions in households even today. After war, guns and traditional firearms will dominate all forms of weapons, and mods would clearly be most prevalent there.



I agree that stoves should have also been cooking sites (and I modded my game to this effect in the first week). To say this is a "bad design choice" again goes too far, this was an Ovesight not a design flaw. Your request for more features in survival is interesting, but again just opinion and Not flaws in the game's ovearall design.



Stealth boys are too powerful as it is, what your suggesting would totally wreck combat balance. The point of having very few of them around is so that we can't use them Regularly in combat - they are specialty items that should be used in special situations. To make them craftable would make players like Nitekin - no one would ever need to be visible. This was a Good design choice, you have it backwards.



Interesting opinion, this Was upgraded from Fallout3 where you could shoot and kill an enemy, and the enemy right next to them wouldn't even react if you were hidden. At least now when you kill an enemy, the rest of them go alert and start hunting for you. They run around chaotically because they can't find the player, this is Strategy on the players' part, not a design flaw. Try doing that again and remaining visible so the rest of the enemy can see you after you kill one - they will come right for you.



Disagree, I think the Charisma and Perception are well balanced.

Honestly and with no offense intended, I see very little discussion of actual "design flaws" and alot of opinions about likes/dis-likes - which if fine and good, we all have them, but these aren't design flaws.

Miax

I agree strongly with #4.

1) its more the mods than the gun you can always pick if you want it on or not

2) i dont think that there should be more fast travel location would just make sence to have them in better postions like the one to enter the strip drops you in freeside

3) energy weps just arnt as good because most mobs n such have armour making energy weps damage mealing less agaist them

4) yep no questions for that ive only even ended up making about 3 items with it

5) not sure on this i think there should be a little more avaible than they are now but there shouldnt be on for are chacters on to make besides 100 sneak is about the same as a stealth boy ( for me anyway)

6) indeed being able to take 4 of a group of 5 out from 3 feet away without anyone batting a eye is rather disapointing

7) it would need some more planing if it was to work like that but i could work but would it be worth doing it?

With a high gun skill though theres no point in using anything other than a Sniper Rifle, Gobi Rifle or Anti-Materiel Rifle. The problem with snipers is they are as good up close as they are at range.



Err what do Hunting Rifles have to do with Snipers? The Hunting Rifle doesnt have a 5x crit multiplier and deals considerably less damage. The fact is a sniper can and probably will OHK something well out of sensor range as long as its within line of sight.




Poor argument. Bad fast travel locations dont add to the feeling of the game world being large though. All it adds to is the number of loading screens as you travel from instance to instance.



Care to elaborate on why you think they arnt dump stats?

I don't think a perfect headshot should be achievable at distance of a few kilometres (seriously, I can snipe targets farther than ED-E's sensors see them) by a character who doesn't have 100 guns and 10 PER. Adding sneak attack critical or 5x critical chance on top of PERFECT accuracy is just silly. It dumbs the game down and all the AMR noobs on this forum are a perfect example making snipers so powerful was a poor design choice. If my energy character can kill Deathclaws faster with Ratslayer than with Plasma Caster, something isn't right. It needs a nerf.