When i first passed the GOAT test in Fallout 3, i was suprised at how many of the skills were dropped. Gambling, Outdoorsman, First Aid, Doctor, Thrown... So here are some ideas aswell as additional suggestions
Also, with a Fallout 3 mod i made, i had changed alot of stuff which just generally annoyed me about fallout some of them were big and others were pretty minor, titles marked with an * are an indication of this.
Chem usage and AddictionI liked the system but it been more "worth" it. All chems should last 10 minutes but the withdrawls from the drugs are extremely horrible and extremely SPECIAL degrading, other then that... Nothing else, really.
Karma*I am positively sick of this "ranked Karma" your reputation should display how much of a bad ass/kiss ass you are.
It's pure sillyness, if Person A blows up Megaton and Person B hands in 10-15 slaves, both people are frowned apon in the same manner. I believe blowing up an entire town is more evil then enslaving 15.. However didn't megaton only have 15 people? >_>;
I suggest a new Karma Title 1,000 for every karma earned/lost, if i wish to go out and kill 492,000 people and enslave half of the Capital Wasteland i expect to be notorious as one bad ass person, not some "very evil" person who can justify their past with church donations.
SPECIAL changes*I made players start with a base of 4 AP
I also removed the base carry weight, because it made strength redundant.
Agility: 1 point = 1 AP
Strength: 1 point = 25 weight
Radiation*I had made a mod for Fallout 3 so an irradiated player would be severly punished for being heavily irradiated.
"Changed RAD level of all water to 40
Water Towers are irradiated with 30 Rads
You will receive 0.35% of the radiation by swimming in irradiated water
Radiation Accumulation Rate changed to 0.5
200 Rads: -1 Agility, Endurance and Strength. Lose 1HP a second +Glowing effect
400 Rads: -3 Agility, Endurance and Strength. Lose 6HP a second +Glowing effect
600 Rads: -5 Agility, Endurance and Strength. Lose 13HP a second +Glowing effect
800 Rads: -8 Agility, Endurance and Strength. Lose 25HP a second +Glowing effect"
By making radiation more life threatening, people would try harder to avoid it, because in real life, people avoid radiation as much as possible.
Doctor and First Aid SkillsIn Fallout 1&2, you would occassionally stumble across First Aid Kits and Doctor bags, these kits could be thrown into future Fallout releases.
Stimpacks would heal 10-18% // The reason i suggest a variable amount is because the Medicene skill was overpowered and stimpacks were too easily found and too cheap to not afford.
First Aid would always heal 15% of the players health // Apon using the Kit, the player would receive some XP for honing their skills (Much like in Fallout 1&2)
Doctor Bags would heal 30-75% of a selected limb // Using the Docs Bag would give the player XP for honing their skills (much like in Fallout 1&2) Alternatively, the player could sleep to heal the limb.
Traps SkillI can understand why you guys decided to knock it off, but i find it somewhat unfair that people who have NO understanding of anything would be able to successfully disarm a trap purely because they have a high enough explosive skill, bring it back for old times sake and returning normallity to Fallout, If you don't wanna set the trap off, avoid it. 0 Traps Skill means traps always get set off when you disarm them, 100 Traps skills means you successfully disarm them.
Thrown SkillAgain, another obvious one... Used for Grenades, rocks and other throwable objects
Lockpicking Skill*How could i have something against Lockpicking? I love the system and way its done, but its waaaaaaaaaay too easy. Five Bobby Pins last me a life time because i rarely ever break one while cracking open a lock.
Changing the angular acceptance would mean its a tad bit more challenging and means more bobby pins would be broken.
Very Easy - 60? angular limit
Easy - 45? angular limit
Normal - 30? angular limit
Hard - 20? angular limit
Very Hard - 15? angular limit
Lockpick set could give a lock a +5? angular limit, making it easier to pick, however, these sets would have a use a single use so it would pay to make sure you pick the lock successfully without breaking a pin.
Oh and i almost forgot, for goodness sake PLEASE for the LOVE OF GOD get rid of the "You need 25 lockpicking skill to open this lock" If i have 5 Lockpicking skill and i want to open up a lock which needs 50 skill, i
want that lock to be 10 times harder.
Science SkillI think it might just be me, but i found the lower level science mini-games more harder then the higher leveled ones. I guess it makes sense, since the longer a word is, the more unlikely it is to have a match. Perhaps a similar thing but not with actual words, just random strings like KLPS, JMAN, HJSY etc. but make the list of preset strings massive... Atleast 1000, which should be easy to do but painfully long and daunting. Also remove the "You need 25 Science to hack this terminal" it is most annoying.
GamblingCOME ONNNNNNNN, please?
I absolutely LOVED gambling in Fallout 2, spending long hours in New Reno earning a fortune and then calling it a night, it wouldn't be just limited to slots and craps.
I'm not suggesting make gambling as overpowered as it was in Fallout 2, make it primarily skill based but it would only act as a winnings multiplier.
Vault-Tec Assisted Targetting SystemApon using your Action Points, you remain in vats for the enemy to have a few seconds of VATs to themselves, or even a turn sequence where they use up all their available AP.
And a higher damge intake for being shot in VATS would be loverly, 90% damge resistance is easily exploitable aswell as overpowered, atleast 20% damage intake would be super.
Fast TravelGoing by Fallout 1+2 +Tactics "world map" that would have been considered a form of fast travel, so i'm suggesting bring back the Outdoorsman skill for this reason;
The map will be littered with zones (invisable circles) each time a players fast travel path crosses one of these zones, they undergo an Outdoorsman skill test.
Failing the outdoorsman test means the player is warped to the zone where they failed the "Outdoorsman skill test" and are surrounded by enemies
Passing the outdoorsman test means the player is asked a question "Do you wish to encounter:
?" apon which they can say "No" earn some XP and continue their Fast Travel, or say "Yes" and fight.
0% Outdoorsman = 0% successful Outdoorsman Test
100% Outdoorsman = 100% successful Outdoorsman Test
Other then that, (besides criticizing everything within Fallout 3 ) i think i've gotten everything off my chest... wait, nope.
Weapons and Equipment
Fallout 1&2 made combat fun because for me, i find that RPGs are alot more fun when there's variable damages. I know Oblivion used static numbers with dynamic variables but it's not the same.
Variable damage in an RPG, for me, MAKES it an RPG. without variable damages fights get boring "Oh i just hit this guy 4 times and his dead" where with Variable damge it might take 2-6 hits.
And in Fallout 1+2 the different ammo types would impact so much with a weapons performance. You may have the worlds hardest hitting weapon, but the bullet makes all the difference.
Also, please bring back ammo weight... I hate it how i can carry around 10 rockets yet the ashtray in my backpack burdens me more it makes no sense.
Now, i think that's it... ... ... ... Yep.
Can't wait to play New Vegas and i look forward to TES V (for any Bethesda employee who took their time to read this post) thanks for your time~