Game is a Mess - Look In The .ESM : Fallout 4

» Fri Dec 11, 2015 1:18 am

I'm just glad someone has confirmed that scrounger doesn't affect shotgun shells because I was starting to drive myself bonkers having 999+ of most ammo and only 350 shotgun despite shotgun shells being the only ones I make a conscious effort to store up.

» Fri Dec 11, 2015 4:36 am

Oh look,one of "those" people.

» Fri Dec 11, 2015 4:57 am

Frankly, I don't like this anti-casual sentiment that seems to be going around. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing wrong with being a casual. All it means is that you play the game differently than I do, and I'm not going to condemn you for that. Not everyone has the time or the inclination to play the game for hours on end, and there's no reason that they should expected to.

» Fri Dec 11, 2015 9:10 am

Character customization and/or roleplay can trash or trump any resource limitations.

And it's not that Bethesda doesn't try - it's that what they are mostly doing is very different from what most modders are doing. (However, currently, there are a ton of fallout 4 mods and most of them are worthless, or worse.)

Anyways... I do not like all of how the base game works, but I do not like all of how real life works, either. And the game is easier to change.

» Fri Dec 11, 2015 1:59 am

OP does not understand how real guns work or how game balance design works, at least based on the OP claims.

The various complaints you have made are intended and accurate design for either real life or game balance. They are what they should be, at least as far as your examples.

For example, a Minigun is a short range weapon just like a shotgun. It fires small, low damage projectiles but does so at a very rapid rate so that many small projectiles hit targets as long as the targets are fairly close. If you fire a Minigun at anything a fair distance away, most projectiles will miss.

The same thing applies to full automatic weapons such as submachine guns or assault rifles. In fact, the actual complain that should be made for these types of weapons is that the AI is FAR too accurate with them even at medium to long range. Automatic weapons are very inaccurate by nature, just like a Minigun, but they are not intended to be accurate. Instead, they are intended to fire many rounds at a very fast pace so that it is more difficult to miss with some rounds.

Basically, these types of weapons use the concept of percentage victory rather than the sniper, sharpshooter mindset of "one shot, one kill". They are intended to hit several times, miss with the majority of their rounds, but the several hits will add up to good damage at a rapid rate. They are also useful as distractions / cover fire, unlike sniping, single shot weapons. This is basic weapon design.

As far as creatures are concerned, the higher level creatures do not necessarily need to have higher health. Higher level =/= higher health, ever. You have many creatures in real life that are very weak physically and easily killed but are extremely dangerous due to elements such as poison or other abilities. For a game, this real life element is useful for game balance, just like with various weapons. A glowing deathclaw would not have higher health because it never needs to evolve that way since its radiation kills most things faster and it won't have as many protracted fights. That's just one example from the OP list, but everything follows this type of evolution (and game balance).

It is possible that there may be some mistakes in the .ESM, of course. I found four weapon mistakes/typos in Skyrim, for example (i.e., weapons that had incorrect stats based on comparing them with other weapons of the same type and material, such as an Orcish Dagger having an incorrect range compared to an Iron Dagger even though all other Daggers have the same range). However, that is out of all the weapons in the game, even unique ones, so that is a very small number of legitimate errors/oversights.

» Fri Dec 11, 2015 12:10 am

ok?

I'm glad I can pick up a game like FO4 and just enjoy the experience of playing it, problems and all, without obsessing over every trivial problem or inconsistency that might exist within it.

» Fri Dec 11, 2015 1:27 pm

So you think a game where there is a gun that kills things in one hit and another gun that kill things in 100 hits is balanced?

#Logic

Percentage of victory? Lets say you have won 83% that means you still lost, wasted a ton of resources and didn't get any loot or xp.

Automatic weapons are very inaccurate by nature, just like a Minigun, but they are not intended to be accurate. Instead, they are intended to fire many rounds at a very fast pace so that it is more difficult to miss with some rounds.

They are intended to hit several times, miss with the majority of their rounds, but the several hits will add up to good damage at a rapid rate. They are also useful as distractions / cover fire, unlike sniping, single shot weapons. This is basic weapon design.

Have you played a single fps in your life? Automatic weapons have never been inaccurate. They have been harder to control which not the same thing as inaccurate. Miniguns in particular are usually really accurate doomsday weapons. High damage, high fire rate, high accuracy and high ammo capacity are all trademarks of the minigun.

Higher level =/= higher health

This is a betheda game where higher level=higher hp. All beth can think is higher levels => moar hp=>moar dps in a strict linear fashion. Having enemies that strictly weaker than their low lvl counterparts makes no sense (even in a beth game). It's like at lvl 1 you need to kill deathclaws with a butter knife and at high lvl you need to kill mole rats with an unlimited mininuke arsenal.

» Fri Dec 11, 2015 12:07 am

Lol, it's a minigun, it's supposed to be OP.

» Fri Dec 11, 2015 7:47 am

This does not surprise me having seen Bethesda's data in other games. It's sad that a casual modder like myself can open up and look at the files for a couple hours and quickly see not only balance issues, but flat out data errors. Bethesda should give their beta testers access to alpha mod tools in addition to the game if they don't already.

As far as weapon balance for this game goes, I'd like to see damage more or less flattened by ammo caliber and give fully auto guns higher spread and greater recoil. Then have weapon perks decrease these stats. That way full auto weapons are much harder to handle, but still have potential for greater DPS than semi-auto weapons. Of course this would need to work with NPCs also. Perhaps easier said than done.

But all together this is not surprising or a big deal. The game is entertaining enough as it is and mods will fix this and totally change how the game feels.

» Fri Dec 11, 2015 12:31 pm

» Fri Dec 11, 2015 10:41 am

Ehhh. As someone who hasn't looked through the .ESM in painstaking detail, the game feels fine to me. The fuss over automatic weapons in this game reminds me of the complaints about destruction magic in Skyrim - sure, it's underpowered compared to the other combat types, but you can still go through the game with absolutely no problems focusing on it, especially at the base difficulty.

I wonder what kind of errors you can find if you dig through the files in "balanced" games.

» Fri Dec 11, 2015 5:24 am

Upgrading a weapon on a Weapon Upgrade bench seems to tell me all I need to know about what I'm gettin in way of improvements to power and accuracy... but I still love the 10mm pistol, such a fast reloader it's close to being an automatic.

A pipe rifle can be usefully upgraded as well......

» Thu Dec 10, 2015 10:21 pm

I know, and most people dont either. But I dont have the time to put tons of time into digging through the esm files and especially tactically thinking through a battle. I have an hour or so a night I put into the game if I can find time for it. I dont want it to just be one battle a night on the "correct" difficulty.

Thank you for the devs to realize this and helping me out.

» Fri Dec 11, 2015 12:36 am

Amen to this. Since we now have a talking protagonist, you get to see yourself a lot. That means I'm not giving up my fedora and sunglasses for a dorky-looking helmet, no matter how high the buff. I've come across some serious armor-boosting helmets, but I refuse to look like a tool. I'm the coolest dude in the Commonwealth, everybody knows it.

» Fri Dec 11, 2015 6:53 am

but a perk about getting more ammo randomly leaving out specific types is probably more about bugs ten balance.

» Fri Dec 11, 2015 3:34 am

All these arguments against weapon balance are for naught.

Modders will modify the auto's these guns will do more damage, and have many other interesting features like selective rate of fire...

In real life, you don't have to empty the whole magazine into a person to stop them...you only need to hit with one bullet...

There will be mods that are going to be that brutal...Even that Pipe Pistol will be absolutely lethal in the right hands for the whole game.

________________________________

No one that wants to play optimally will use an Automatic weapon at the moment without a proper modification.

Semi Riffle

-Does more Damage per bullet

-Perk reduces the effectiveness of the targets ability to soak that damage

This means that the Riffle is always better than a Mini-Gun, sub-machine gun, automatic combat riffle you name it the Semi-Riffle always better in every situation better.

So my choices are

Spend one bullet of Riffle Ammo

280 rounds of 5mm Mini-Gun Ammo

Spend 60 rounds of 5.56

Or 12 Shells

Hmm, its just faster to make one head shot with the Riffle.

That riffle has a clip that holds just as many rounds as my Auto....But I will reload that auto several times in a fire fight...My Riffle will still be over half full when I have cleared the entire building.

» Fri Dec 11, 2015 3:52 am

Sometimes, yes. Is one far more rare than the other? Far more expensive? More difficult to find ammo for? Heavier? Slower to aim? Does one have a massively higher RoF than the other? Longer range? etc. etc.

And FYI in your sig regarding people not taking criticism you spelled "people" incorrectly.

» Fri Dec 11, 2015 4:12 am

Lets talk about ranged weapons shall we,

Some like to talk about close ranged weapons....

Thing is that in a game like this...If your at what is typically close range what are you doing using a gun?

I mean for real...We have Ripper Blades for what games treat close range as...So right there basically entire classification group of guns essentially is useless and pointless to carry around.

Rippers don't run out of bullets either.

At close range I use my bayonet on my Riffle and its ggmf.

So basically a lot of this call for game balance just doesn't make a lot of since to me in a lot of ways its more broken than it should be...The worrying thing is that guys that are going to try to fix it are going to keep treating things like shotguns, mini-guns, and other associated weapons as close combat weapons when we have Real Close Combat weapons that are more effective and cost less to use.

» Fri Dec 11, 2015 2:36 am

That's pretty darn cool. I like this post.

» Thu Dec 10, 2015 11:17 pm

The reason we have negative feelings toward you, is you allow games to be made that are too easy, aren't balanced, have glaring problems or lazily made. A lot of weapons are just flat out broken, a lot of magical effects (explosive, double shot, bleed) are vastly over powered. Easy is boring. You guys happily gobble it up and allow them to get away with putting out crap. Back in the day, games were were better... not perfect, but better. I miss having a big manual to go through and having to make a well built character in order to win. Those days are gone now.

You have no idea what you are talking about. Yes, Miniguns are spray and pray but in real life 1 hit would kill or wound you beyond fighting back. Now, yes its a game, but 8 damage is unacceptable. 5/5 skill you would be doing 16. With that damage you would be hitting a Gunner Private (level 21) for 4 damage or so. You would need 50 bullets to kill him.

You did not read my post clearly, a Glowing Deathclaw is just a name they call the 4th rank Deathclaw. He has more health then the 5th rank Death Claw, AND more armor. I did not say a Deathclaw has less health then another lower ranked mob, I said less health/armor then an enemy in his specific line up. Clear mistake. They repeat the mistake with BOS, Ghouls, and Super Mutants. Nobody error checked this. Nobody (who cares about the game at least) tested out weapon damage either.

They have a mode for you, its called easy. Unless you 1) invest in 5/5 toughness 5/5 refractor and 2) are a sniper 5/5 sneak char, you should have no chance of winning on hard+ if you don't want to wear armor. Thats why we have difficulty levels. A mode for you, a mode for me. Problem is, Survival is easy, and easy is just sad. I change into my "street outfit" in cities and armor in the field. If you could save outfits like armor/charisma outfits etc and press 1 button to switch outfits, that would be great.

» Thu Dec 10, 2015 10:03 pm

Gag me with a spoon. Older games weren't indisputably better - half of the time they're "harder" because their mechanics are esoteric, or disproportionately imbalanced in ways that make no logical sense, or literally broken - the other half of the time there are easy exploits to use to completely cheese the entire game (eg every Bethesda game since Daggerfall). The "casual vs hardcoe" rhetoric is a load of elitist baloney.

And again, I don't really care if the .ESM is a mess or a neat little library with everything in the right place - the game feels fine. As for the challenge, all of Bethesda's RPGs have been designed on the easy side - going all the way back to Arena and Daggerfall. This is nothing new.

» Fri Dec 11, 2015 3:25 am

People are silly and don't know what they want. I couldn't decide between pizza or lasagna tonight so I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and potato chips.. I then regretted my decision so I went ahead and made lasagna.. which I then didn't want to eat because I was full.

» Fri Dec 11, 2015 10:08 am

Are you talking about sub machine gun that you can get from the trader around ~~Rivet City~~ Diamond City (forgot what her name is but she looks like a cue ball, jet junky)? That thing is ridiculously strong because it not only benefits from the explosive perk but also from the automatic weapons perk.

» Fri Dec 11, 2015 9:36 am

So much angst over weapon damage lol. If you're so obsessed over it, mod it yourself and be done with it. At least Bethesda allows you to mod their games with this much freedom.

The way you talk down about developers and fellow players alike, tells me I should avoid your mods in the future.

» Fri Dec 11, 2015 3:42 am

I would be a bit bothered about weapon stats if this were an unmoddable game or a MMO. It is however a Bethesda SP game which gives the player a wide range for individual changes. F.e. I use the minigun mod with 12 base damage, I gave the Supersledge double damage (it's a rocket propelled heavy piece of steel, isn't it?), helmets more damage resistance (helmets are very important protective gear) and will try to give some impact weapons the "fast" label because you can hit with some as fast as with a knife. And so on. It's fun in itself to mod (even though my abilities to mod are rather restricted).

Nevertheless I have to say that also in vanilla state the game is absolutely playable. The OP's rant with it's mixture of real life and game related arguments is only one point of view.

AiThensil made some good points. Automatic weapons are relatively inaccurate unless not handheld but based on a firm structure or using a tripod. To counter this with a reference to FPS games is ... interesting. In a game maybe balancing automatic weapons to semi-automatics by recoil only however is not the best way. And of course miniguns are accurate in real life and long-distance weapons, they are normally fixed weapons on vehicles. Try to shoot one holding it in your hand and tell me wether it's a great weapon.