[Dj Matty P]

This topic is for ideas and suggestions for Fallout 4 so that we can keep all the discussion in one thread. At moderator discretion, threads about specific and distinct topics as they relate to FO4 and the rest of the Fallout series may be acceptable in the Fallout Series forum. General idea/suggestion topics for a future Fallout game will either be closed, or moved to this one.

This thread should be used to discuss items you'd like to see in a future game, gameplay tweaks, quest ideas, things you hope are not in the next game and so on. If you want to discuss major issues, use a separate topic - such as the discussion about adding multi-player or co-op play, which already has a thread. Please search first to see if there is an active/recent thread on a particular topic.

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1403774-fallout-4-speculation-suggestions-and-ideas-thread-81/
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1404746-fallout-4-speculation-suggestions-and-ideas-thread-82/2
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1405539-fallout-4-speculation-suggestions-and-ideas-thread-83/3
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1405824-fallout-4-speculation-suggestions-and-ideas-thread-84/

[louise tagg]

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

General gameplay suggestions

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.


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. )

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. Opening inventory wouldn't pause the game (could be tied to difficulty - normal and beyond: No inventorypause, for example), but slow the time and not give extra resistances (adjustable through perks, slow time more, give some resistances, etc). All actions during combat but shooting and moving would cost action points (opening inventory, using items inside it, using quick keys, etc).

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 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, 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, 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 in the gaming market anymore, and Bethesda does not deviate for their 15 year old formula...

So instead, actionpoints would count in combat (suggested before by me and some others).


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).

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...

TL;DR?
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.



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 3 free points to put in which ever skills s/he wishes.

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

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.
- ...to be continued...

[ashleigh bryden]

Off topic but can someone remind me how to make spoiler tags? The search function isn't showing me what I want to see. Will edit this post into something useful afterwards.

[Heather Dawson]

[spoiler]-text-[/spoilerr] with both spoilers spelled correctly.

[gemma]

So, what other features in 3 and NV don't "Fit Fallout"?

Well like Abyssal said, a lot of things, but let's say ignore the major things for now, we can't expect Bethesda to change Fallout back to isometric view, Tb combat and map node system like *snaps fingers* that.
Let's focus on the smaller things instead.

Fallout is not about settling down during the gameplay.
Maybe it's fine for TES to have the hero go like "Yeah I know I'm supposed to save the world, but I'm bake some muffins first!" but for Fallout it simply isn't.
How consistent to the storyline would it be for The Warrior to go "Yeah Barnaky listen, no matter how much you yell at me to finish my mission I'm kinda busy here, I need to finish playing Tragic: The Gathering, just wait a little while, I'm sure the Calculator will wait." ?
And how coherent would it be to the overall feel of the game to have a little house on the prairie that feels completely out of touch with everything else?
"Yeah I know there is a bunch of soldier going around killing innocent ghouls, but I need to finish knitting this sock!"

It doesn't fit.
It's that simple.
It's not for Fallout.

Just like how it doesn't fit for Borderlands to have a system where you can buy houses and shops and rent them out.
Just like how it doesn't fit for Fable to have brutal gory death animations.
Just like how it doesn't fit Planescape Torment for you to go sailing all of the sudden.
Just like how it doesn't fit GTA IV to run around butt naked.
Just like how it doesn't fit Saints Row for the lulziness to be toned down to seriousness.

Certain things do not fit certain franchises. It's that simple.
Just cause it "can" be implemented doesn't mean it "should".

So some other things that doesn't fit Fallout:

Running a shop, for the same reason as before, you are on a important quest and you're gonna sit on your ass and sell Jell-o? That doesn't make any sense.

Realistic damage, it doesn't fit Fallout as it's a game based around numbers, damage numbers, health numbers, armor numbers, critical hit rolls et cetera.

Jetpaks, we don't even have motorcycles, why would a jetpak fit in?

Vehicles with the current size of maps, it doesn't fit in simply because it makes traveling too easy, it's not the actual vehicles that is the problem, vehicles should be introduced again at some point, but it's how they would work with the current gameplay that is the issue.

Building a settlement, this is not settlers. If you want to help someone fix up a communit that's fine, but running the place like some mayor goes back to the whole "I'm gonna save the world! After I've added a nice rose garden to the town square."

Just cause certain things don't fit Fallout doesn't mean others won't.
Caravan guard jobs fit in Fallout. It's a relatively easy way to make money, which the protagonist might need as (s)he is piss poor.
Fight clubs, boxing and arena's fit in Fallout, agian, for making money so one can continue ones travels, or proving themselves to a faction and gaining their respect to solve a quest.
Choosing between being a ghoul, human and ghoul fit Fallout IF the area is mutant-friendl-ish.

So it's not like I or others want Fallout to stagnate.
We simply want them to add things that fit into Fallout.