Reading around the forums I can see a lot of people who want only 'very small amounts of the best gear' available in the wastelands, like Power Armour. Quoting bikkebakke from the PA post - 'only for those who are top members of the enclave/BoS and there should be a limited amount of players being that.'.

I understand this, there is nothing more boring than everyone having everything, and it also suggests there is no challenge in earning these rewards. Limited rewards reflect the harsh wastelands, the BoS aren't going to let just anyone in! etc.

But, what if there is an element of content where it is hugely advantageous to have/or have a friend that owns some Power Armour? Lets assume without PA, this content is basically inaccessible. I don't want to be unable to see some Fallout content just because I am not one of the X number who have PA (and the limited numbers mean the PA wearing roster is full and I can't get in unless someone quits the Brotherhood).

This is a very rough scenario, but I'm sure you can see the point I am making. I think exclusivity is bad if it limits player choice and experience. Also high exclusivity will build an elite group of PA wearing superkillers who will no doubt guild together- which is going to be bad for balance and opportunity for anyone else.

This is a tightrope all MMO's are having to walk, and they each do it differently, but none I think have come up with a very good solution. So, any ideas for how to keep some gear types exclusive and rare, whilst not restricting content access for those who don't have these items?


If the game is heavily faction based, I was thinking perhaps once a faction is 'strong/big' enough with good reputation with BoS or Enclave etc, they will earn X amount of top level items they can buy and hand out to the factions best/most frequent players. The structure must work so those who don't receive these items are still a valuable part of the faction and are still a necessity for maintaining the strength of the faction. If the faction crumbles under bad management etc, the faction loses the ability to repair these exclusive items and they will become useless - this means you can't just abuse your faction to get top gear, but you have to work with them.

Limiting the amount of the best gear is a very bad idea. Why play if you know there is a very good chance that you won't get the items you may want?

On power armor. I think it should be the top of the line when it comes to protection. But to balance that it should have some chinks in it. Like being thinner in the back and taking extra damage from mines and shoulder fired rocket. Just like a real tank. Thinking that you know anything about MMOs because you play WoW. Is like thinking you're a master chef because you work at McDonalds.

Limiting is one thing. Making items not readily available to anyone is another. Great items should be rewards for great gaming PvE and PvP likewise. There should always be better items than even the most active players haven't acquired. Plus the game would look really bad if every common Joe run around in uber armor.


Thinner in the back doesn't make sense. Since when personal armor came out thinner in the back? AP mines and rockets already have the ability to penetrate armor, there's no need to implement special rules to make the armor vulnerable. Please remember that explosive and AP rockets are different things intended for different uses.

I agree.

I agree again. There should always be something better to try for.

Like in a certain new space MMO.

A lot of real world body armors have more plating in the front then in the back. No real world body armor gives equal protection from head to toe. The reason being it would be far too heavy for you to move freely in. Just like a medieval knight. You would be a sitting duck. Medieval armor really didn't work that well. Knights were easy to pull off of their horses and once the fell down they couldn't get back up. That's why that kind of armor isn't used any more.
But power armor I know, would be different. Because you really don't wear it as must as you kind of ride around in it. It would be closer to being in a real world tank. Real world tanks have the thickest armor up front and to a lesser degree on the sides. Because this it the "face" they present in battle. Their armor is thinnest on top and in the rear. For the same reason as body armor. If the armor was equally thick all around. They would be almost twice as heavy and move less then twice a fast. In every design there compromises.
Here's the scenario. You're in power armor with a minigun. I'm in leather armor with a rocket launcher. Face to face, head to head. I'm dead. Even if I do get a shot off I'm not going to do a lot of damage to your thick frontal armor. You will then shred with your minigun. In a face to face, toe to toe slugfest you have all the advantages.
However, if I can use my superior speed a maneuverability to get behind you. Where you can't hit me or turn quickly enough to bring your weapon to bare on me. Then my rockets should do more damage. Because your armor is thinner in the back.
That's balance. Thinking that you know anything about MMOs because you play WoW. Is like thinking you're a master chef because you work at McDonalds.

I have no idea about where you get your info about "modern body armor", but most body armor today has actually a BIGGER plate in the back than in the front. Why? Because the front plate must allow you to move without (much) restriction, while the back plate doesn't have that problem. Same goes for "soft armor" (or kevlar since you probably don't know what it is).

Tanks, IFVs and other vehicles are another world when it comes to armor.

Now, I cannot remember that any of the Fallout games had any armor that actually had ballistic plates in them (due to their shape), it was all about leather, metal and power supplies so this discussion might just be better left in the infant stages.

Combat armor is the fallout equivalent of tactical personal armor and I'd suppose that it consists of a kevlar helmet and body armor with fitted kevlar plates for balistic protection.

On power armor: "Made of a poly-laminate composite, the outer shell of the T-51b is lightweight and capable of absorbing over 2500 Joules of kinetic impact. The 10-micron-thick silver ablative coating can reflect laser and other radiation emissions without damage to the composite subsurface." I've got no idea if "poly-laminate composites" provide ballistic protection in the real world but the game supposes that it can save you from a 7.62x51mm NATO round at about 3500 Joules. (It won't totally absorb it but will slow it down considerably). Not a great feat considering that there are better armors in use right now.

I guess the developers didn't do their war lessons but I think that the idea behind power armor, is that it's so heavy that you are considered to be on par with armored vehicles, since it needs it's own fusion power supply to power the limb actuators and let you move.

such armors barely started to show when they made FO1/2 besides PA is exoskeleton and full body armor.

maybe the way to solve the problem is with stats. Like player 1 & 2 both do quest 5 . After said quest they are both rewarded a piece of PA. A "piece" only 1 part eg gloves boots body ect . Anyways so player 1 gets to put certain stats on the armour. As does player two. Player 1 chooses small guns +5 and STR +5 . whilst player 2 chooses Stimpack potency +3% and rad resistance +10. I know this is still early in develope ment. But with this type of system players must do 5 quest to get the full set. Each piece is a seperate quest or mission. And with certain stats your armour changes or. "morphs" onto a diffrewnt shape and/or colour. with these added most armours can look diffrent whilst keeping things goin out of control.

that sounds nice, if those stats he chose is more of an suite addon that can be installed by some "crafter", for example replacing the core adding some circuitry for night vision more plating.

i always loved armor the idea of armor sets, its just more natural to me to to find body armor, helmet pads etc separately not necessarily all from the same set but as far as PA i dont think its a good idea its an exoskeleton you cannot combine some metal plating and cap you find.

another thing, i dont like is all that talk of PA and level 5, i dont think PA should be something common its should be the equivalent of WOW last levels epic gear and only for "tanks" guys who spent a lot of points on strength. (its not like a thief a sniper or a doc can do much from within one of those)

yeah I agree with mor. Heavy DD and Tank like classes should be suited for the PA, But for stealth like classes there should be like a Recon set. With some cool gizmos with it I was going to say night vision ect . But this is fallout so post apocolypia might not have them. But this is only said 2 assume there might be job/class types like tanks dd ect

I mentioned this in the power armour thread, but I'm of the opinion that a tiered selection of armours is one of the best ways to balance players' desires to be Bad Ass, and the hesitation to give the best gear to everyone. Simply make sure that the lowest tier of PA isn't the best. That way you can ensure that everyone has access to Power Armour, but still preserve higher tiers of upgraded PA (Mark II, hardened, energy-resistant, or entirely new varieties altogether), or other armour types (meteor-metal armour, deathclaw leather, etc) as rewards for the most advanced players.

Just because Power Armour was the cream of the crop in fallout 2, doesn't mean that that has to be replicated in P:V13. Certainly, I think a suit of Power Armour should be a status symbol in the game, but it shouldn't be the most prestigious status symbol. Maybe you'll sit and sigh, wishing that I were near
Then maybe you'll ask me to come back again
And maybe I'll say "Maybe"

I personnally like the idea of being able to get gear close to the highest quality of gear solo but through a lot of effort.

But to get the best gear one must do the high end content.

That way if you dont wish to participate in the highest level content you dont feel like your being left out, and if you do the highest level content you still will have an edge over people who dont.

Also some of the more unique weapons and armor would only be available though high level content on hard modes.

Essentially this:

Solo content/small group content: ilevel 90 gear
Large group content Normal mode: ilevel 100 gear
Large group content Hard Mode: ilevel 100 gear + a few unique ilevel 105 gear and vanity items

Also on PvP content I think on a larger scale, say a war-zone gear can be a deciding factor since so many players will get involved that it feels less overwhelming if people have less gear then you. However with the recommended system the gear difference would not be so large that you feel no chance.

However on small scale and truelly competitive pvp outlets I don't think gear should matter at all. I think everyone should have the same basic gear. But as you rank hire you should get consumable items that can make the base set look flashier and customized, IE Decals and other adornments showing your skill level off..

why?!

here let me rephrase that, in your which of the following should be wearing a PA if they happen to appear in FO universe?

in other words PA was always the "end game armor" but in MMO which presumable will include more than one role you can play and some balance, there should be more talk about verity and original ideas for top gear for other classes rather than recoloring PA with +X stat or +Y stat to fit it for everyone.

PA should be symbol of status only for heavy types and if you see one you should now you better avoid a one on one in open area as he got more fire power and more HP and better defense, PA should be this guy trade of for playing a "dumb" character.

Because the helmet alone has been the centre-point of every fallout game's box art since the original. It's an iconic and defining part of the fallout universe. If you restrict it to a particular class, then you're going to end up with a lot of people playing that class. I think it's fine to have PA be optimal / sub-optimal for various classes, but I also think that as far as things that are Definitively Fallout go, you can't really go past Power Armour.

I'm also extremely dubious that WoW's "hard mode" paradigm is one that should be emulated by a brand new game, or that solo play should provide rewards anywhere near the level of top-tier stuff. WoW as it stands today is a game almost totally devoid of community, co-operation, or meaningful progression. You log on, do your random heroic with random people, send a few people in trade your gearscore, then flail through half a dozen bosses in ICC before people get bored and start leaving. That might be a perfectly fine model for a game with 10 million+ established users, but it doesn't really help to develop the levels of community needed for a game to grow. Maybe you'll sit and sigh, wishing that I were near
Then maybe you'll ask me to come back again
And maybe I'll say "Maybe"

again let me rephrase that, what do think is wrong in that picture:
http://nowostey.net/uploads/posts/2008-10/1224353129_fallout-online.png

just imagine that everyone wearing PA instead of the vault suite

But what are the alternatives?

a) Limit PA to certain classes, and risk having people flock to those classes.
b) Limit PA's availability, and risk alienating players who feel that they should be able to achieve PA without having to spend a year working on it.
c) No PA in the game.

None of those seem particularly attractive.

Note that I'm not trying to say that everybody should get PA, only that everybody should have both access to PA and a range of options that are better than the standard suit of PA. Any solution which leads to everybody wearing the same thing is a bad one. That said, I think it's entirely reasonable to have, say 20% of people working on getting their PA, 40% using beginner PA, 20% using more advanced non-PA, and 20% using more advanced forms of PA.

Again, this is something that's very difficult to discuss without more detailed information on skillsets / classes etc, and what sort of character types we're going to be seeing. That said, PA in the fallout series has always been a huge status symbol, and in accordance with its name helps to exemplify and define the sort of technological power relationships which exist within the emerging societies. It distinguishes those with access to technology from those without, and serves as an identifying marker to all those who wear it.

In any event, we're not going to end up with a situation where everybody looks identical. At the very least, graphical updates will enable a much larger degree of character customisation, especially if various races are made available. For a relevant anology, take WoW's mount system. Everybody has one, but there's still a huge degree of variation. I don't really see any reason why P:V13 couldn't implement a similar system. Maybe you'll sit and sigh, wishing that I were near
Then maybe you'll ask me to come back again
And maybe I'll say "Maybe"

PA is the equivalent of the MMORPG tank but unlike traditional games this tank is not melee only, so first they need to make a system that will allow balanced gamplay making the game more tactical and not tank wars.

when you have such a system your question will be answered and if you wish PA dont have to be class limited only have massive negative bonus to anyone but heavy type.

As long as rare gear isn't a requirement to access content (past level cap), I'm all for it being limited.

As far as power-armor goes, it's high AC can be balanced with low mobility (ie. slower).

The faction balance might look just like that. Balancing AC, DPS, and mobility.

The only thing is that the only organizations that have PA:s are BoS and the Enclave and they hardly give it out for free and they just don't enlist anyone they see (only every second!), I just can't see everyone being able to get a PA without raping the fallout canon somehow :/

This could work, but the idea of designing the game's balance and class system around power armour strikes me as being a little far fetched. Are we even going to see the holy-trinity of RPG archetypes in P:V13? Will that be expanded upon with buffbots / kiters / utility classes? How will PvE and PvP balance be weighted against each other? Restricting something so iconic and powerful is always going to be a really delicate balance between making it powerful but not imbalanced.

Regarding canon -- I don't think that the dissemination of PA necessarily 'raqes' canon; I think that it's probably fairer to say that it's an evolution and development of the canon. Just like every other poster on this forum, I loved Fallout 1 & 2, that hardly needs to be said, but if P:V13 is just Fallout-2-but-in-first-person-also-you-can-raid-vault-15 then it's going to be a huge let down. I want to see what's happened to the wastes since my last visit twelve years ago. I want to see how the Enclave recovered from the 2mm EC round I put through their president's temple. I want to see how Cabbot and Michael are doing (if they're still alive). I want to see whether Broken Hill has flourished or floundered and what Marcus is up to, etc. Maybe they used the profits from their mine to fund expeditions to abandoned Enclave bases to scavenge technology, and have developed Super Mutant sized suits of PA.

Canon shouldn't be static, it should develop and evolve over time. Maybe you'll sit and sigh, wishing that I were near
Then maybe you'll ask me to come back again
And maybe I'll say "Maybe"