First: I started playing with Fallout 1, back in 1998 I think. I have played them all and love the story and idea behind the games. I really liked 1,2, and Tactics, and grew to love 3 and NV AFTER downloading a lot of mods. I love the franchise, and eagerly awaited 4 so I'm not here to just bash it for no reason, more because I love it and hate to see it like this.

I have spent many, many hours working on a mod, at first it was going to be a simple weapon damage adjustment, because it bothered me how bad the Minigun and SMG were, but I just couldn't stop once I got started, and what would of been 20 minutes has turned into about 40 hours, going over and adjusting and then testing 100's of entries in the Fallout4.esm.

Let me give you some examples, I'll start with the Minigun, which started it all. It does 8 damage. With the way armor works in the game, it will be hitting any enemy bigger or better geared then a raider for 2. TWO DAMAGE. on normal... forget hard+ where your damage is nerfed. I've tested non stop, and done math. The base Minigun is of zero use vs an auto assault rifle or combat rifle. Zero. Even if it gets the exposive mod, an explosive assault rifle is still better in every way. For the Minigun to even compete in the vanilla game, its damage would have to be at least tripled, to about 24. Even at that point, it would only be a worthwhile option at close range.

Another weapon, the Sub Machine Gun, does 13 damage, yet the mod it comes with lowers its damage to 10 (wtf, automatic is its only option....why would the auto mod nerf the damage?) Thus, it does 10.... the same amount as an auto modded .38 pipe. Oh, and the .38 pipe is cheaper, lighter, and gets more mods.... why does the .45 SMG exist? Did they even test for a minute?

Lets get off weapons, to NPCs. Know how much health the first raiders you meet have? 30hp. Guess how much health a CHILD has...40hp. On top of that, all riders below level 9 have a perk, which nerfs their damage by 25%. So, you are fighting guys with 30HP and doing 10 damage a hit, modified by armor (if you have ten armor they will be doing 5) How could the game release like that? The challenge level is zero, even if you TRIPLE that damage. If you died to level 1 raiders, you need to look at how you play games... I'd honestly love to watch a fraps of "Joe Average Gamer" playing on normal and dying to level 1 raiders, not sure how you can do it.

Staying on NPC's, lets move to other things, Vertibirds, an attack gunship. Guess how much damage they do. Go ahead, guess, I'll wait.

Ready? 5. FIVE DAMAGE. FIVE. The "strongest" one (there are 4 for some reason that all look/act exactly the same) does 15. Apparently in Bethesda's eyes, we are soooo bad at the game, an attack aircraft should do 5 damage, and the big bad one we should fear if we fight the brotherhood does 15. Keep in mind, if you are wearing PA, it will be doing 3ish, oh and missing 2/3 shots. Does that sound like any sort of threat? Is that fun?

Maybe you are a total casual and that doesn't bother you. Ok, fine. How about this. As we all know, you have a base enemy like a Deathclaw, and they have ranks. Deathclaw, Deathclaw Alpha, Glowing Deathclaw, etc. As they level up they get more health and damage.... or they should. Going through these files, its very apparent nobody checked their work. Either 2+ people were working on NPC Health/Armor/Damage and never spoke, or they did revisions and the person doing it was sloppy and missed a lot of enemies. For example, lower level Deathclaws have more health then some higher level ones. Some they forgot to add extra health at all (most NPCs have a template for base health, then the higher level ones get + health) Some Gunners randomly didn't have their weapon perks. Security Assault Bots MKII are weaker then lower level Security bots. I can go on and on.

I found lots of problems like this. These aren't up for argument like "oh so because its not the difficulty you want or stats you think it should be its broken?" its just broken, lazy work. Forgetting to check your own work for basic stat consistency, really? Let me add, I'm no scripter, or programmer. I have basic a basic understanding of modding Skyrim and NV, but nowhere near as extensive as I have gone into this. I have had to learn a lot and do a lot of trial and error to figure out FO4Edit and mod the game as far as I have. I have spent more time trying to fix the game then play it, because what they released (in terms of combat) was just so weak, I couldn't stand it.

Anyway, for those of you who read this far, thanks for reading my rant. I just want others to know the poor state this game was released in and back it up with details. Hopefully, with the work of countless mods, when I replay the game in 9-12 months we will have a good game.... as usual with Bethesda games they gave us a solid foundation but the house built on it is a mess and needs MAJOR renovation.

Sadly, all your work in fixing these issues will likely have very little impact on the experience since there is no real tactical overlay in the gameplay. In a more tactical based system, these numbers would matter greatly...but in an action shooter system...no one really notices...

Yet, despite all the issues....I am having fun.

High ROF weapons have to have low damage per hit otherwise they would be completely overpowered.

Especially with certain legendary effects that stack.

I have edited out the flames from the OP, any more and warnings will be handed out. We do not tolerate abusive behavior to members and groups of members, that includes not only the fans of this game who are spending many happy hours playing it without too many problems but also the Devs who have put time and effort into making it.

Criticism is always permitted on these forums but it should be posted in a constructive and polite discussion.

Well the exploding machine pistol you can get from an trader has far higher dps than an 120 damage shot laser rifle. Even considering that the laser is far simpler to keep on target and has fast semiautomatic fire.

Your rant is totally meaningless because you take everything out of context. And context is that game sets player in to the world where he is expected to take on hundreds if not thousands of enemies and come on top. In the first likely encounter with raiders, there is player and one NPC against about 5-6 raiders. If they were equal stat-wise to player, and if friendly NPC would not be invincible, there is just no way you could go through it without reloading about 20 times. And that does not even consider fact that player just freshly entered totally unfamiliar world while those raiders would be experienced.

Let's face it, there is very little realism in Fallout 4 fighting system. You can't expect realistic stats. It just would not work.

I sort of already knew about it without having to look at hard numbers in the Fo4edit, and I knew basically from looking at weapon stats and already knowing how damage was handled in their previous games.

Automatics are busted the fans argue that its so that these weapons are not overpowered or for balance but when actual gun nut fans get their hands on the tools most if not all of the weapons, armors, and aid items will be changed. Your going to notice that automatics will take a giant leap forward in lethality especially Heavy Weapons like the mini-gun. Essentially if your used to being a bullet sponge right now with 4 Endurance and no perks in this tree well uh I got news, your going to probably die horribly in a game balance sweep. With the right update you'd need to invest into END and its perks to behave like we do now in the game currently...Although I do find it a tad disappointing BSG didn't do this themselves.

Although a lot of people want to continue to believe that AI cannot be effected well I gotta say they likely didn't mod out their Skyrim Installation and perhaps are not actually aware of what has been done to that game by the fans. Heck there is so much stuff we have done to these games I doubt that any employee in their company is as aware of what has already been done to step up the game like some of us mod fans.

Its going to change but if your an uber fan of typical game balance acts well you might not be too happy, its just going to be a lot more brutal in balance than a lot would want to be in for.

The short answer,

The Mod Community has a long track record of fixing up the games lethality and challenge.

I'm not worried about the future of the game at all neither should you.

I'm confused. I thread after thread about the game being too easy, but people complaining that guns are too weak. Which is it?

Both. There is no internal logic being adhered to. Everything seems to have been slapped together with duct tape and the result is that certain features / weapons / armor are completely useless while others are over the top. Want to main the .44 revolver? Tough [censored]; .44 ammo isn't included in the scrounger perks (not even shotgun shells!), but here, have truckloads of .50 cal cartridges. Not that you'll get good use out of them, given that Righteous Authority (edit: Overseer's Guardian) chambered in .308 makes the bolt-action rifle completely redundant. The list goes on and on and on. The game is objectively a mess.

So it'll need an overhaul mod. I knew that Before Skyrim was released

Though even still, they seem to be improving. By ever so little bits


That would explain a lot. Well, something for the unofficial patch guys to fix

There is no reason why in game like this, everything should have being equally useful and perfectly balanced. Not that it's even remotely possible.

New Vegas managed it


Yeah, i know what you mean. This game is a very compelling argument against buying their next game at full price

Well unless they change the game so that anyone shot in the head once dies, or a gut shot critically injures you, it's unrealistic. But it's a game so I'm ok with that. If the game was trying to be realistic I would have died the first time a raider shot me.

This is the case with most games ever made.

Sadly, it will continue. Most players have low standards and don't think long-term, specially the console crowd to wich bethesda is now aiming.

Dialogue and writing in this game is a little bit of deprovement, as is the lack of learning skills from Bethesda staff, practically can't see past their belly button. Sometimes I wonder how the game companies survive, but its pretty simple... their competition is just as inept.

Knowing what you're doing goes a long way. There are enough balancing overhauls made by modders to attest this. I would take a (decent) modder to balance stuff over the company wage earners, any day.

TL;DR - Hey why should Bethesda care, they have herded enough cattle inside the fence as it is, to console gamers and whatever "final fantasy" crap they're fed with on a regular basis, FO4 is probably a masterpiece.

Just a note: Righteous Authority is a Laser weapon, and can't be chambered for any sort of ballistic round.

However it has the same effect as any generic legendary "Lucky" weapon, so you can have an equivalent ballistic weapon.

I highly recommend you to use this mod, "Real World Damages".

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/217/?

I'm sure it's just shoddy work, or some "balancing" crap that some in Bethesda decided on. Probably > 1 person did it and everyone thought everyone else knew. Then changes came and then stuff's forgotten. In any case, the mod fixes it (I think). Well, at least the enemies are no longer bullet sponges.

We casuals just cannot get a break anytime, anywhere....

+1

I too agree that some stuff in the game needs adjustment/optimization. IMO the game is very enyojable as is, tho it's a good thing there are enthusiactic people like you to step up to the challenge and optimize it to perfection

I know, heaven forbid we have other duties that keep us from play so hardcoe. At least we can stick together, I love being a casual console gamer, I dont have to worry about mundane stuff like weapon damages and I can enjoy the game regardless.

Plus if high rof weapons did high damage there would be no use for semi auto weapons.

Why use a 110 damage laser rifle, when the automatic laser rifle does 110 and fires 20 times faster.

Sorry I meant overseer's guardian, though combat rifle would have sufficed.

Higher rof also means more ammo used. Balance the game around resources and not dps.

Bethesda doesn't even try. I don't get why beth can't just stop hp scaling. If the player doesn't get more hp each time he levels up it becomes significantly easier to balance things.

See above and there lots of ways to make automatic weapons not just strictly better versions of semi auto. Bigger recoil, overheat mechanics, use more ammo, inaccuracy etc.