Intro:

The goal of this post is to explore improvements for FOS that Bethesda could work on implementing into the current FOS game, but my hopes are actually placed in FOS 2, if Bethesda does want to make a sequel. I mean, it did reach how many downloads in just two months, 1.3 million? I’m sure the sales of lunchboxes has also been extremely worth the time of making FOS.

I want to first apologize for the length of this post (near 7,500 words). I will not be updating the OP with further suggestions as I have a life (though this will not be apparent by the length of this OP. What can I say, when work emails/internet/servers are down for an entire week you either read an educational book or waste precious life by making massive posts like this… you can tell where my priorities are at). I will keep an eye on this thread though in hopes it opens up discussion.

Please bear in mind that this is intended for next-gen mobile devices as some of this may be a bit taxing for certain devices (I’m looking at you Kindle) as the Memory may need to be more than just 1 GB, the current minimum for FOS, especially near the end of the game. Without further ado please read below to see my suggestion for the next FOS game (as I’m personally chalking FOS 1 up as a loss at this point, please read on to understand what I mean by this)!

Things I am trying to avoid whilst creating this suggestion:

• Anachronisms; I want to make sure that what has happened in the FO universe in various geographical locations is taken into consideration. [AN]


• Over complication; it’s a mobile game that is an ‘on the go’ style so to give it too many bells and whistles will just make it a full blown game on mobile devices and defeat the mobile side of it. In addition, ease of use is important. [OCG]


• Creating an ‘Ultimate End Game’ situation; having 200 dwellers at lvl 50 with 10 on each stat would be this. This creates that ‘what’s the point?’ scenario. The purpose of creating this game should be to get people to replay it and have completely different experiences each time (thus giving more opportunity for them to buy lunchboxes). Note: there should be an End Game but it shouldn’t cripple further progression, it should just be the end of a campaign line, for example. [UEG]


• Dumb-down the game; at the moment it is just as simple as assigning numbers to boxes and clicking boxes that flash green to get resources. It needs more interactivity. [INTR]

The tags at the end of each point represent tags I will use throughout to denote items that are specifically used to avoid these scenarios.

Credits:

Quickly there are two links I need to share to give credit to all those that I have pulled ideas from.

1. http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1533030-this-little-game-has-so-much-more-potential/


2. http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1532106-game-improvement-suggestions/

Purpose/Overview:

The overall gameplay is flawed in FOS. This post will look at improving the game as a whole and from there we will break down each component into more specific details.

At the current time, FOS is Farmville underground. Flixotide (in credits #1) explained it the best. He basically says once you’ve learned the tutorial you have pretty much played the whole game. I agree and there is nothing left for you to learn, you now get to just tap resource rooms to gather resources and try to keep dwellers alive. The Sims 1 is more exciting than that!

Let’s take just a paragraph to explore FOS compared to the rest of the FO universe. In the rest of the FO universe your typical gameplay experience includes the following:

1. Character Creation and levelling up – a deep concern with SPECIAL and anolysing the cost/benefits for allocation each stat point to certain SPECIAL stats and time spent forward looking at perks you’d really like this particular player character to have.


2. Inventory Maintenance – making sure you have enough room before exploring the wasteland. Generally there is a map and a plan which you get to decide how you want to go about your route. You also get to bring along gear to help match the need of the situation.


3. Karmic Choices – each decision builds a bridge, or burns it down. That should be the case in all games. You could disarm the nuke in Megaton… or blow the place sky high!

These three points make up the gameplay experience and looking at FOS we lack in all three areas. (a) SPECIAL can attain max in each stat and levelling up just means more caps (which you’ll have enough of anyway). ( At the moment you can’t adjust the inventory of your explorers even though you can tell them to return when they are hours away and the only real inventory system is dry and boring. Lastly, © the choices you make consist entirely of (1) where do I build rooms (2) should I rush this room (3) can I afford to revive this dweller (4) who should get the biggest gun. There comes a point where none of these make a difference. The game is pretty much over at that point. The rest of the FO universe continues long after you’ve reached max level and beaten the main campaign line. But FOS just becomes an app for you to see if the RNG likes you or not. Thus, I conclude this game is broken.

New Features

I suggest the following overall game changes to increase the game’s (1) longevity (2) replay value and (3) interactivity.

1. Dweller Creation – The first aspect of the FO Universe anyone ever encounters is always the fun and in depth character creation screen. Along with this come two major differences from FOS and the rest of FO. (a) Traits and perks need to make a comeback giving variability to dwellers and ( dwellers will not be able to max out all SPECIAL stats. The game becomes more involved because now the player needs to consider what stats are important for each dweller and the role they want the dweller to play in the vault. This does mean that training rooms need to be removed, but not entirely. Instead of wasting 21 rooms (3 rooms x 7 stats) worth of space in your vault now you can have one room and you can select which stat you’d like that dweller to train in. That is one idea but you could also just scrap training rooms altogether and allow for the 35 + 7 SPECIAL allocation to take place as per the norm. [UEG] This step would help to resolve running an end game issue with the player having exact replica for all dwellers, it allows continued variations.
   
   For the nitty gritty details on how this will work, you dwellers will either be (1) birthed or (2) wander in from the wasteland. Either way you won’t need to assign them any traits/SPECIAL until you, the player, are ready. The way this will be done? The G.O.A.T. obviously! There will be a classroom room (you’ll see why I’m reutilizing this training room in a moment) that you can build to evaluate new dwellers and allow you to do the above suggestion. Until the dweller takes the G.O.A.T. they will only have 1 or 2 points in each SPECIAL stat and no traits.


2. Vault location – [AN] There are so many great FO characters but Lucas Simms wouldn’t be found in New Vegas nor would Alistair Tenpenny be available since in FO3 he gets killed. This seems off topic, but here is where I’m going with this. You should be able to decide where your vault will be located (Northeast US, Central, Southeast, Southwest, Northwest, etc.) and based on the location you should get exclusive access to certain geographical aspects. Go to point 8 below for more on this.

My thought is Game Scenarios (point 3) will need to be accurate based on geographical location.Below is a map of the areas you can select followed by a list of previous games that would influence what is going on in that area.

http://imgur.com/9SHCysf

1. Northwest – It is new area but could be combined with Alaska (6) as a bonus area after you have beaten two other areas. This could explore new content such as what is going on with Canada, what happened in the Rocky Mountains, do the Chinese have any strongholds in this area, stuff like that.


2. Southwest – this would be influenced by FO1, FO2, FONV and would have plenty of content to draw upon. Remnant Super Mutants could be trying to make a comeback with a new master, ghouls could be trying to find better shelter instead of at Gecko, etc.


3. Central America – FO; BoS Tactics would influence what is going on in this area.


4. Northeast – This would be influenced by FO3 and FO4. Scenarios may include a BoS vault scenario, Enclave remnant vault, ghouls, etc.


5. Southeast – This would be influenced by FO3 add on Point Lookout. There could be some other new content here to explain what is going on in this area.


6. Alaska – Winterized T-51b armor anyone? This would possibly be added to Northwest and it would be a bonus area but not entirely necessary. This would explore FO3 Operation Anchorage content.

1. Gameplay Scenarios – Also referred to as Archetypes in Credit #2, this would be how you can change up the experience. Vault-Tec built the vaults for two reasons; (1) to shelter people form the bombs but also, and more importantly, (2) run experiments on people in the vaults to observe how they survive with what they are given. Throughout the wastelands in the FO Universe you see that they were given special objectives for their vault to experiment with. Some researched weapons, others music, and others agriculture. This should be a big part of how we, as Overseers, manage our vault.


2. Death – It’s permanent. It is absolutely boring that you can revive dwellers and it makes it too easy to explore the wasteland if you can just run the explorers to death, literally, and then just revive/return. Plus with little threat of your vault becoming fully extinct the game is as far from the FO Universe as it could be. Dead is dead.
   
   I will suggest though maybe giving the ability to decide if you want to play perma-death or not, but I think it should significantly tune down the achievable content if you aren’t willing to do perma-death. So basically, you can select two game styles; (1) Fun play or (2) hardcoe. Fun play would be all these suggestions just without the ability to unlock extra content.


3. Gambits/Vault Policies – If you’ve played Final Fantasy XII you know what gambits are. They are rules you set that your characters follow. So if your HP is below 50%, you cast cure on yourself. Vault Policies would be that same idea. You could be able to have up to 10 policies that allow for dwellers to react automatically during specific incidents or just in general. You could assign dwellers to heal themselves when damaged too much, or to just flee the room. You could also have it that dwellers under certain levels will vacate rooms if certain enemies enter the room. Another policy could be that during a hamper incident (see next point) dwellers with a specific perk will follow the enemies though the whole vault, so to dispatch the enemies quickly.


4. Variable Attacker Strategies – With the ability to set up Vault Policies, to avoid this being an [INTR] problem this feature will make the Overseer still needed in incidents to command and control the enemies.
   
   • Revenge – Super mutants, Mercs, Enclave, Slavers, Raiders, Good townspeople you have bad karma with, ghouls, others; your explorer attacked the wrong group of people and now they want their resources back, or they just want to kill one of your dwellers. You’ll need to be careful as they aren’t afraid to gang up on one dweller in these attacks! Once they obtain their goal (which is unknown to you) they will leave immediately. This could mean you just loss X resources… or one of your dwellers is dead.
   
   
   • Hamper – Super Mutants, Mercs, Enclave, BoS, Raiders, Good people, ghouls, Cannibals; some war strategies require time. In this scenario, the enemies attack with the goal of hurting your economy with a long term goal of you weakening over time. This attack makes you loss resources/caps along with causing numerous issues in the effected rooms if you don’t dispatch of the enemies quick enough. If the enemy succeeds in hampering one room, they will immediately move to another and a few well-placed shots and a few tables is all it takes for them to make a mess so make sure you kill them quickly!
   
   
   • Raid – This is an all-out attack from many different agro groups toward you that will come at you with force. They will bring more troops than usual, and they will split up into a few smaller groups once they breach the vault door and will spread throughout the vault. They will try to kill your people along with slowly sapping your resources. If you don’t kill them within X minutes those remaining will flee the vault.
   
   
   • Kidnap – Super mutants, Mercs, Enclave, Slavers, Raiders, Cannibals; they will come and capture at least 2 dwellers from a random room if you don’t kill them after X minutes. You’ll have a short time to recover them as a location on your map will flash for where they were taken but if you don’t react quick enough or if you send someone that isn’t fit for the mission, you’ll lose these people.
   
   
   • Others – I’m sure there are plenty of other ideas that can be conceived for this game but I think we get the point.
   
   


5. In Game Purchases (Lunch Boxes) – Consider the current state of this aspect. You literally by lunchboxes to get gear to help you out BUT you are literally spending cash to get to the end of the game [UEG]. Think of it like this, you are playing Mario for free, but you have the option to warp to Bowser’s Castle. You are literally paying Bethesda to beat the game for you. With the above suggestions though, the point of the game isn’t to collect gear (though that is still an aspect).


6. Exploration Targets – Currently, to explore you push a button… then wait… then push a button (or two if you need to revive the explorer)… then wait. Then the explorer arrives back at the vault. Wasn’t that riveting… oh wow, this game is so much fun… not really [INTR]. Let’s face it, this could use some interaction! My thought is to add a map that gives you places to go explore. The harder the place, (1) the longer it takes to complete the task and (2) the higher level/specific stats are needed to have any chance of beating the area. Also, when the explorer successfully beats a location, they can be instructed to continue on to another location or to return home. This aspect will also avoid the mindless “send them out until they die, revive, and return” mentality (along with the feature that death is permanent). As pointed out in point 2, [AN] you should only find the Arlington library in Arlington, or the Hidden Bunker in the Mojave wastelands, so exploration targets are limited based on where you place your vault. That’s right, for all you NGD fanatics, you’ll have to choose the Northeast to get there. But hey, there will be various points of interest wherever you go!

Also exploring should result in finding weapons and armor specific for that area. Moreover, you should also have a chance to find new dwellers in the wasteland and each target location should have specific prompts for you to complete as well.These prompts will generally be at the end or beginning of the dwellers search over a specific area.So you’ll send the dweller out of the vault toward a specific location.They’ll have small encounters on the way, but when they arrive they’ll wait for you, the Overseer, to tell them how to go about the task (Diplomatically, Stealthily, Guns Blazing, et al).There’d be benefits and costs to each option but also a success rate based on their SPECIAL stats.Also at the end of each search there is a chance for prompts that will be effected by your karma (below) and SPECIAL.Things like interactions with potential new dwellers.Not all potential dwellers will need to be convinced to join the vault by Charisma as some will be looking for any of the SPECIAL stats to be convinced.

1. Exploration Log –“ I found a dog… It looks feral. Oh no it attacked! I killed a dog. Suffered 1 damaged, gained OVER 9000!! Exp… well, at least 100. Oh and I found a MIRV.” This is the driest log I’ve witnessed. Wouldn’t it be better if it was more than just two to three lines each minute? The thing is the game mechanics can determine the dialogue in an instant but slowly feed it to you so they could have it be more like this:
   
   
   “I have spotted a dog, it looks mangy but I’m not sure if it is just stray or a companion of a beggar.
   
   It is definitely feral, as it just caught my scent and it is growling and sniffing me out.
   
   It found me. I fired my [gun’s name] and hit it for X damage.
   
   The dog bite me for 3 damage!
   
   I fired another round, hitting it in the head. Critical hit for Y damage.

The dog is dead, I suffered a total of 3 damage but gained 55 EXP.

It seemed to be guarding a corpse, maybe the previous master?

Upon searching the corpse I found 20 caps, a rusty .32 and some scrap metal.”

This could feed to you evenly over two minute and would flow into each encounter.I’ve noticed gaps in the reporting time where it’ll give you one encounter within 30 seconds and then you’ll have to wait a few minutes for the next encounter.Instead of waiting, it would make it more interesting to just have a steady stream of information from the explorer.Plus breaking up the fights into turns and how much damage is dealt would make it more realistic, that it was more than just “I killed it.”Now it will be tit-for-tat and you’ll create in the player’s minds the feeling that the enemies have their own health.It isn’t just “I killed a dog,” and in the same breathe “I killed a deathclaw.”Surely, a deathclaw will take a few more rounds to put down than a dog and it would be fun to see the damage dealt.

1. Explorer’s pack – In all the rest of the FO universe your character gets anywhere from 150 kg to 300 kg of room to carry in your inventory. I think weight needs to play a role again but also to help with your dwellers that go exploring they should be able to bring gear in their inventory with them into the wastelands. When you play all other FO games you can bring handyman fatigues to give you a boost to repair and lockpicking when you need to pick a lock that is above your current stats, or when you need to repair an item that is rare and valuable you want to make sure you get the most out of the repair. I think this needs to come back. This could make the game a bit too complicated, I know, so I think a solution would be only explorers need be concerned with inventory upon leaving the vault and also whilst in the wasteland [OCG][INTR]. It makes exploring more interactive because just like any other fallout game you are constantly aware of your inventory whilst exploring but it will only be upon sending a dweller into the wastelands that you will put in their inventory extra armor so that when they come upon a SPECIAL check they will equip the armor that gives the best results for that check.

Along the same line, with the explorer interactions above, this will come in handy for when you meet potential dwellers in the wastelands, as the explorer will gain the benefit from the armor that is most needed for the situation.So if you need Intelligence to convince a wastelander to join your vault then a Lab Coat would give up to +3 to your check.

1. Real Objectives (mini-games) – Objectives aren’t fulfilling. You’ll still get objectives though this time they won’t svck. At this point the game currently just has you either clicking resource rooms, performing rushes, changing outfits, moving dwellers around, selling gear, or sending dwellers out to the wasteland. All of which only require you to tap, tap, tap the screen in a semi-zombified state of mind. Why not use mini-games! Games that are mini puzzles that get harder with the larger you merge the room and the more you upgrade it. There could be a hacking mini game (science areas get a virus/bug in system), a memory game (circuit box brain game/Simon matching game), visual games, reflex games, basically any game that should only take about 30 seconds to a minute to play. “But Muthodes, that will mean you could burn through objectives at 60-120 objectives in an hour!” This is where time restrictions come in. You can, and will, fail these mini games. They won’t be too easy, especially later on. Your dwellers will have to take some time to activate the mini game for you before you can have a few attempts at it. If you fail all the allotted attempts, you will have to wait for the dweller assigned to the task to take further time (10 minutes, 20 minutes, etc.) until you get more attempts unlocked to you. This way you are actively doing something.

Along with these mini-games, you can also select which objectives you’d like to start.There is a price though for starting a task.Not in caps or anything like that… you’re vault will become ‘inefficient’ in some manner.Certain doors might not work, resources will be collected after long periods of time or less over the same time, entire rooms will power down, some rooms are more prone to incidents, et al.You take the objectives when you feel your vault can take on some rough times, but the rewards will be well earned!

Let’s compare for a moment.Let’s think about a mini game about lock picking for example.In the current FOS game, it would probably be something along the lines of ‘tap this door, ok now tap that door, ok congratz here are your 5 lunchboxes’.With this new system you’ll have to assign a dweller with high enough SPECIAL to complete the task, they’ll have to take some time to evaluate the task, and then you’ll get to attempt to do a lock picking mini game.This whole time you have the task active that door will not be operational (no one can leave that room in some cases if it is the only door to exit from)!

1. Storage and Gear Management – No qualms with the interface of the storage screen other than the upgrades to make it a bit more efficient (mostly covered in the threads credited above). My suggestion though would be able the storage rooms and their function. I think instead of giving an overall storage increase, they should give X spots for weapons, X for armor, and add another tab for Y spots for random items. There would be a larger number of spots for the random items because these will be things you collect in order to upgrade your weapons and gear in a new room ‘R&D Workshop’ (next section).

Also gear should break down which you could now break down current rusty equipment for random items or just repair/upgrade gear with other gear of the same type.This runs the risk of [OCG] so the interface will need to be seamless for this aspect to work.

1. The Workshop (to make it feel like a real Vault-tec vault for research)– this is where you assign dwellers to craft mods for your weapons/armor or to restore current weapons/armor in your storage to a higher level. The junk you get in the wasteland will be used in recipes that you gather from two sources; either the wasteland or research in the workshop. There will be certain recipes exclusive to the wasteland and also some exclusive to the workshop. Think of the Rollercoaster Tycoon research aspect, it would work like that where you could check and uncheck groups of things you would like to research [OCG]. That research system is intuitive and if you know what you are hoping to get you can only check off the specific items you’d like to research. Research may also cost caps, not sure how that’d work though. You can research things like the following:
   Weapons:

Melee research

Energy research

Pistol research

Rifle research

Big gun research

Alien research (most recipes will be found in the waste for this)

Explosives research

Weapon mods research (items to increase rate of fire, damage,

Armor:

Armor mods research

Power Armor research (Enclave and BoS armor (recipes only found in wastelands), Vault-tec power armor which would be wicked weak compared to even combat armor, et al)

Combat Armor research (Any armor that would be suitable for combat, raider armor, merc gear, et al)

Casual clothes research (Any misc. articles, sun dress, pre-war casual outfits, et al)

Cosmetic outfits research (Funk and special outfits that give no bonuses (also something to add to in game purchases))

Survival gear research (any fatigues, generally your Str/Agl/Per/End items that don’t fit any other category above)

Room Upgrades:

Defense research (turrets, security features, more health for doors, etc)

Efficiency research (more resources from certain rooms, etc)


Bottom line on how this room works is you can purchase this room very early on for cheap.The next purchase will be for some ridiculous amount like 10,000 caps, and 25,000 caps for the third section.Also upgrading the room will cost equally as much.This is to serve two purposes; (1) unlocingk better recipes is based on the size of the workshop and (2) this prevent players from immediately gunning for the alien technology/power armor (pun intended).

1. Karma – Bring it back. This is a simple tool that will determine who likes you and who doesn’t. The more a group outside the vault doesn’t like you, the more likely they will attack. The more they like you, the more likely you will have positive outcomes from exploring the areas near them. Also a good suggestion that was brought up about traders being located in the wasteland by explorers should stop by your vault and trade. I agree but I think what would be even more cool is if they decide to make your vault one of their regular stops. To implement this you need choices in the exploration mode, whether to kill or heal people, rob compounds, et al. If you come upon a trader your explorer can spend caps they find on traders in the wasteland to get at random certain gear. If they have good Charisma this interaction will boost your chance of buying good items for less but also give a slight chance that they swing by your vault. Enough good karma built up with these trade caravans will have them come to your vault every so often.


2. Lore [AN] – this game could have exploration in the wasteland result in lore. There could be a chance that you find characters from the series in areas where you might actually find them. For example, Bryan Wilks (who I used below) can be found in four places; (1) Paradise Falls (2) Little Lamplight (3) Rivet City or (4) Grayditch. There should be a chance to found him in any of these places and depending on where you find him he will have slightly different dialogue referring to the vault dweller that either sold him to the slavers or how wonderful the vault dweller was for reuniting him with his Aunt in Rivet City. Things like this would be fantastic in the game. It would make looking through the explorer log valuable because instead of it just being “You got a MIRV from National Guard Depot” you will see that other interesting things that flush out the story of what is happening in the waste. The one thing that Bethesda needs to do that they aren’t currently doing is have a behind the scenes checklist. If you find Bryan Wilks in Rivet City, you will never find him anywhere else. And if you find him in Paradise Falls, chances are you will find Little Lamplight children in Paradise Falls as well because that meant the Vault Dweller from FO3 was a bad dude. This wouldn’t be hard to set up either, Bethesda would just need to look at the geographical area, say to theirself, “Self, if the players interaction in this area built good/bad karma, what would the worst results be?” So right from when you start your vault there would be a roll in the geographical area you selected to decide what the most recent happenings were based on good/bad karma. Thus, rewarding players of the series for knowing the lore because they could discern, “oh I found Bryan Wilks in Paradise Falls, so now I know I can probably find Flak from Rivet City in Paradise Falls because the Vault Dweller was a jerk and worked for the slavers.” #Boom #YourWelcome


3. Campaign Line – This is really based on the Archetype. There could be for each archetype a different overall objective for that particular vault. And these objectives are different based on the geographical location as well. So a Super-mutant vault in the Southwest would have to build a Vat room and dip X amount of dwellers along with sending Y number of them to feed the New Master’s Army [AN?]. This could be an [AN] but the point remains that this objective is different than what Super Mutants in the Washington DC area would be trying to accomplish. I think there should be a fantastic reward for this as well that you can choose to apply to that vault (why? I don’t know some people might want to do this though) OR you could start a new vault and have the reward serve as an early game boost. It could be something like 10 lunchboxes, 10 random rare cards and 3 random legendary cards. That would be a for sure way to give you a fantastic boost in your new vault.


4. Resource Storage and limits – You probably fall into three categories when it comes to resources; you don’t have enough and are struggling, you are making just enough, or you are completely maxed out. I think there should be, in addition to the minimum required, an efficiency limit as well. If you are running below 80% max resource capacity it should have some negative side effects. I’m not thinking anything too drastic, just lower overall happiness (-25% happiness). This would lower your resource bonus, but maybe if you are running above 80% max capacity you should see more incidents happening? Something to consider I guess.

Mechanics:

Start a new game – an example scenario…

1. Opening screen, choose vault number. The next thing will be to choose a geographical area. After this, you can choose the game archetype from a list or select RANDOM for the game to give you it at random. Random will also have a chance to give you hidden archetypes that are not listed (just to spice things up). We’ll choose Northeast (area 4), the Washington DC area and anything north of that will happen in this area. We will also select the basic human vault, no super mutants or ghouls for us!


2. The tutorial will be pretty much the same, just with a slight intro to the R&D Workshop just to make sure people know it is there and that they are using it.


3. Welcome to the G.O.A.T! You’ll learn how to give the test with the tutorial prompt giving you a simple guide and some imaginative insight into what you should think when creating a character. Suggestions like, “Moriorty seems good at negotiating prices and leading others, give him a 6 for Charisma!” and “Moriorty has been blue collar for most of his life which means he did very well in the physical part of the test but didn’t have time to study up on his arithmetic, give him 6 for Strength and 3 for Intelligence!” This will cause the players to think more of personalities for each dweller and thus decide more how the dweller will interact with others and their role in the big picture.


4. Now the game will pick up with the additional dwellers at your vault door for you to give the G.O.A.T. to and to begin really managing the vault how you want. As opposed to the current FOS, instead of just collecting resources and pressing a button to send dwellers into the waste, you’ll stop to consider what dweller is best suited to tackle the neighbouring suburban ruins. There will be a suggested explorer archetype with 8 Str, 8 Per, 4 End, 7 Cha, 3 Int, 7 Agl, and 5 Luck. You decide to send Moriorty (6/9/6/8/3/7/3, respectively). When it comes to certain encounters within this place, Moriorty will have low chances to succeed in the SPECIAL that he is under, and when it comes to the SPECIAL he exceeds, he has a bonus chance to succeed with a slight chance of critical successes). While he travels to the ruins, we’ll continue with this mock Vault.


5. Back on the ranch, you’ll have to still collect resources, rush rooms, along with doing research and making babies. Therefore, your first objective is “Oh snap! Your power generated is on the fritz and you are only gaining 50% power from this room. Please use Dweller X to repair it!” Now you will need to use dweller X (someone generally in that room already and with the correct SPECIAL credentials) to play a mini-game to fix the generator. That dweller will evaluate the situation and after 5 minutes (this is the start of the game after all, 5 min isn’t harsh) you’ll be able to tap the generator to play a mini game to try to match the proper wire connections to the corresponding color plugs.

Imagine playing a mini game like the one below.You tap and drag the tiles to the correct spots within a time limit and you succeed in fixing the problems with the power generator.

http://imgur.com/ccmu0Uq

1. Hey! Moriorty has reached the suburb ruins and is now searching through it. You can watch his interactions with this area. He fights some giant worker ants, and a few molerats. He also finds some gear and random items to bring back. He also found a rare encounter with Bryan Wilks (and he is an advlt now, time has passed since FO3)! You get a notification about needing to decide whether to talk to him, leave him alone, or kill him. Since he has +1 over Charisma for this (7 req., Moriorty has 8), and let’s assume he picks up sixy Sleepwear in the suburb ruins so now he has +3 Charmisa, he does well and convinces this rare character to join you! Bryan will arrive at the vault in 30 minutes. When he arrives at the vault door, you can accept this parentless street urchin in for good Karma, or turn him away for bad Karma. Beware, bad karma with the children of the wasteland may result in hamper attacks involving children from the Little Lamplight, as Bryan was out on a resource run for them when Moriorty found him, and through some dialogue you find out that he was starting to get tired of their childish antics, Bryan is ready to join advlts! We now know that the Vault Dweller was a good person, so that will help us in finding certain things in the DC area that we know would have most likely happening in FO3 (though nothing within the game would give you hints, this is where you would rely on your knowledge of FO3 to figure these things out).


2. At this point, Moriorty is at 75% HP and can choose to return with his loot, go to a new location that opened up on the exploration map, or explore the suburb ruins again (only taking 25% of the normal time because he is already there).

I think you get the point. The game gains depth now and it remains mobile because you can return 48 hours from now. Moriorty will still be waiting for you to tell him what to do with regards to Bryan, you don’t have to start the generator fail objective unless you are ready to devote the time to it, and the G.O.A.T. is optional until you are ready to handle it. Incidents take the same amount of time as in FOS as well so you aren’t locked into fighting off enemies for half an hour. Also all these side aspects just help you pass the time as you wait for the room rushes to cool off (since the incident rate increases the more frequently you rush it).

Also, the game is only as involved as the player wants to be. There are plenty of stopping points throughout the game to ensure that accidental death doesn’t occur. There is also tons of depth to the game that a lot of the players will enjoy if they’d like to soak in each aspect. You really will feel like the Overseer instead of the guy that taps a room to make sure the resources are collected.

Traits:

Bloody Mess: Because ‘A bloatfly bursts into pieces… disgusting’ just doesn’t cut it. Now enemies IN your vault will burst as well!! Clean up in the Dining Hall!
Imposing Threat: You look tough because you are tough. You gain 5% DR but now 5% of damage dealt to all other dwellers in the same room will be transferred to you.
Speedy Recon: You get to your exploration target in half the time but all search checks gain +1 against your SPECIAL, and rare/legendary items are 25% harder to find.
Cheater: You cheated on the G.O.A.T. and didn’t get caught! You gain +2 to all checks involving interactions outside the vault but beware! Failure of these checks will cost you doubly so!
Nerd Alert: You’re the brains and everyone knows it. When it comes to fixing rooms, or any involvement in INT based rooms, you gain a bonus (easier mini games/more INT for resource rooms) but in Hamper attempts the enemies know you are valuable to the efficiency of the vault, they will gun for you first!
Teacher’s Pet: The teacher likes you more than the other students and on the G.O.A.T. they gave you +3 to the stats of your choice, but in reality you are just charming/good looking. Your max intelligence is set to 5.
VAT Junkie: You’re always targeting the enemy’s head which leads to some epic damage… when you hit them. 60% less likely to hit your mark but you are 40% more likely to score a critical hit with a 5% insta-kill chance!
Workaholic: You love work so much that you gain happiness and resources 10% faster but this makes you hard to love. No dweller wants to procreate with you because you never are turned on enough with your mind always on work.
Gifted: Gain a perk every 7^th level instead of every 10^th, but your giftedness doesn’t show on the G.O.A.T. so you get -2 bonus SPECIAL.
How Special?: Very Special! You gain +2 SPECIAL bonus points to your G.O.A.T. score, but you only gain perks every 13^th level.

There would be others as well… moving on!

Perks:

Perks will be available every 5^th or 10^th level, whatever Bethesda decides would make most sense. I’d say every 10^th, with a trait to make it happen ever 7^th level so you can gain two extra perk on the dweller.

Black Widow/Bachelor: +10% damage to opposite six.
Swift Learner: The dud perk is always available though most serious players never choose this. +10% EXP, as per the norm.
Here and Now: Why am I putting these in here? Yup, your dweller levels up… but you loss a perk. Good job Einstein.
Pack Rat: When stationed in the Storage Room, you gain an increase in storage capacity (END*1.5 for weapons/armor, and END*2 for random items).
Explorer: You take 25% less time traveling to new areas, and 50% less time to areas you have already travelled to.

Others – Scoundrel, Fortune Finder, Mysterious Stranger, Light Step, Robot Expert, Cyborg, and much more!

Pretty much you’d have the same perks you know and love (maybe with a twist), but there would be added ones to fit this style game as well.
Electrifried (3 ranks): You gain +10% electricity, and just your very presence in the vault increases electrical storage by 1%.
Water Buffalo (3 ranks): You gain +10% water when working in water resource rooms, and just your very presence in the vault increases water storage by 1%.
Diner Dasher (3 ranks): You gain +10% food when working in food resource rooms, and your lack of appetite increases food storage by 1%.
Mr. Fixit: You are the go to guy to fix the vaults problems. All mini game puzzles are scaled down one difficulty level when you are assigned to an issue.
Supreme Mutation: (Super Mutant only) you are luck, the Vats only made you smarter and more cunning. +1 Charisma, +2 Intelligence, and +1 Luck.
Sentry Training: When stationed at the Vault Door Room, you gain +25% damage, +10% DR, +2 DT, and will pursue the enemies into further rooms. Only works if dweller is stations in the Vault Door Room at the start of the incident (AKA only will work on two dwellers at a time).
Good Humoured: (Ghoul only) A branch may be growing out of your head but at least it makes for a good conversation piece! +3 Charisma when it comes to non-aggressive speech checks.

Conclusion:

I honestly love the Fallout Series, I really like what Bethesda did with Fallout 3 even though they deviated from some of the mechanics in FO1 and FO2, but with FONV brought back some of those mechanics which just made me appreciate what they did with FO3. I also love Elder Scrolls and I believe this company enjoys making really in-depth worlds for the players to explore. With that said, it svcks but I have to be brutally honest. Bethesda insulted us all with this mobile app which they call a ‘game.’ If you are severely upset with the recent lacklustre FOS game, please up vote this by making comments and further suggestions. I want to make a comparison for a moment. When I reflect on my childhood, at the age of nine I played Goldeneye on N64. It was fun even with the difficult controls that come with old game consoles but I had a blast with every frustrating attempt to get the invincibility cheat. I’m sure some of you will remember it, you needed to beat Facility on Double Agent (hardest) mode in only 2 minutes and 36 seconds (or something ridiculous like that). And to make it even harder, one of the objectives was a guy you needed to talk to randomly placed so if he wasn’t in the exact right spot you couldn’t complete the mission fast enough to get the best cheat code. At nine years old I could do this. Looking at FOS, I wouldn’t dare give my nine year old (if I had kids) such a brainless game. It’s an insult to my (future) children, and it should be an insult to all of you. So again, for the third time, please if you like these suggestions plus keep commenting on this post to up vote it and get this game the attention it deserves.

[polite] Bump, I likey. You may want to review your formatting. Many of the numbered lists I think are misnumbered.

Thanks for the BUMP! I appreciate it.

Also there is a good brain storm session that poolcleaner and I had on this post http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1534920-special-not-retroactive/. We talked about enhancing the combat system so that when incidents happen you have more control over the battle which I think would mesh well with the ideas above.

I also realized that copying and pasting from a word doc has messed up my numbering system. I plan on getting to it at some point.

Cheer!

Very nice Sadly as you stated this could probably be complete new version of the game.

A few suggestions.

1. Special stats should matter. You shoud not be able raise a special stat more than 3 times. So a Strenght of 3 should be maximum 6. And also the time required to raise stats should be independent of the starting stat. So for ex
   
   1. STR 3 to 4 is 6 hours.
   
   
   2. STR 4 to 5 is 12 hours.
   
   
   3. STR 5 to 6 is 24 hours.
   
   
   4. PER 7 to 8 is 6 hours.
   
   
   5. PER 8 to 9 is 12 hours.
   
   
   6. PER 9 to 10 is 24 hours.
   
   


2. Skils shoud be back to some extend:D (Note: There will be rooms to train skills. Skills doesnt have a cap so you can go all the way. But since the skill will be multiplied by the associated SPECIAL stat to get the effective skill level you wouldnt want to waste training time and skill points you get from level ups to a skill that needs a stat that you have in low. You get skill points from level ups and the skills that you are using in the wastes and assign the dweller to specific training rooms will get multiplier when you are increasing a skill [For ex you are assigned a dweller to small guns training room and/or you use the skill in wastes for 6 hours and level up, you put a skill point and the skill goes up 4 skill points, but If you use it to increase a skill you did not use or train for it will go 1 to 1.]
   
   • Small Guns (Ability to use Small Guns) based on PER.
   
   
   • Big Guns (Ability to use Big Guns) based on PER.
   
   
   • Energy Weapons (Ability to use Energy Weapons) based on PER.
   
   
   • Melee Weapons (Ability to use Melee Weapons) based on STR.
   
   
   • Sneak - Based on AGI (Sneaking around. For your exploration areas options like guns blazing, sneaking.)
   
   
   • Barter - Based on CHA (You should not be able to make money inside the VAULT by yourself. Where does the CAPS come from? You send a dude with high CHA and Barter skilll to sell stuff to towns. )
   
   
   • Medicine - Based on INT (You can heal people. Stimpacks will not heal people but will give temp. health so they dont die. The additional health will go away. In order to truely heal you will need doctors with this skill. Also a Auto-doc will be the part of a Vault here you send people to heal their wounds and heal crippled extremities. A doctor stationed near a auto-doc will get a bonus)
   
   
   • Speech - Based on CHA (You will be able to persuade people out in the wastes to do your biddding, be it to give you stuff, join your cause or let you to a specific place.)
   
   
   • Science - Based on INT (You will be able to craft advanced equipment like energy weapons. And you will be able to repair broken versions of such items found in the wastes. Also you will be able to upgrade such equipment. For all these you will need spare parts found in wastes. During exploring you will be able to use Science to tackle problems like hacking the computer to disable the shield etc.)
   
   
   • Repair- Based on INT (You will be able to craft small guns and big guns. And you will be able to repair broken versions of such items found in the wastes. Also you will be able to upgrade such equipment. For all these you will need spare parts found in wastes.Also with high repair and science you will be able to craft Robots like Mr.Handy or Sentrybot. You can send these robots to missions or keep them in Vault as dwellers. Also during missions the only way to repair robots is to have a dwealler with Repair. During exploring you will be able to use Repair to tackle problems like repairing a generator etc.))
   
   


3. For defenses and robots:
   
   • You mentioned Turrets. With Repair skill you can craft turrets and place them anywhere. You can craft and customize these with weapons you find. They can fire like energy wepaons and small guns and big guns. Energy versions also require Science. Also Turrets will not use room for they will be placed on the ceiling.
   
   
   • As stated in Skills part you will be able craft all kind of robots which include:
     
     1. Mr.Handy (Basic worker and explorer. Can engage in melee combat.)
     
     
     2. Mr.Gutsy (Advanced defense unit. Can engage in melee and ranged combat.)
     
     
     3. Securitron (Advanced defense unit. Can engage in melee and ranged combat.)
     
     
     4. Sentrybot (Advanced defense unit. Can engage in melee and ranged combat.)
     
     
     5. Mulebot (A robot mule that can be assigned to squads
     
     
     6. Eyebot (Non combat exploration robot. Can be sent to wastelands for exploration and scouting but doesnt have inventory and cannot loot.)
     
     
   
   
   • Robots and sentries does not level up. SPECIAL and skills are fixed. But some can be equipped with weapons and some have their inherent weapons which can be upgraded. Also they dont have levels but they can be upgraded themselves to better versions (MK2, MK3)
   
   


4. Squads. You will be able to send squadto wasteland just like sending them solo. They will be as slow as the slowest person in the group but they will be much more powerful in handling stuff. Also different Special and Skill setup in squads will make them much more powerful. Like having a person with high perception will alert other squad members with low perception against dangers. The charisma score of the member with hightest charisma can determine the maximum squad size. Also can make other bonuses like leadership. (Maybe speech skill to use as a leadership tool?)


5. 
   

   Effects of SPECIAL on exploration missions:

   
   
   • 
     

     Strength : There should be carry limit and strength should increase it. Also should increase Health Points with more muscle.

     
     
   
   
   • 
     

     Perception: Better damage with guns. Better at killing things. Allows the dweller and those in his/her party to see enemies from further away. Also increases the number of items found by seeing hard to see items.

     
     
   
   
   • 
     

     Endurance: Should increase resistance to heat and radiation. Also cause natural regeneration (in vault or outside). Should also increase run speed dweller.

     
     
   
   
   • 
     

     Charisma: Finding Dwellers in wasteland. (Maybe this could be handlged by speech skill instead. Also used to calculate maximum party size of a specific party. (highest cha beign the leader)

     
     
   
   
   • 
     

     Intelligence: Rather than I stabbed the mirelurk in the face where he has no armor be a generic text they should be specific to high intelligence in the long run less damage during exploration.

     
     
   
   
   • 
     

     Agility: Gives a chance to dodge attacks.

     
     
   
   
   • 
     

     Luck: Not just caps, it should factor in all items found

     
     
   
   


6. 
   

   Construction

   
   
   • You have to excavate a room before you build any room.Excavation is free. It takes time and people. The more poeple assigned faster it is.
   
   
   • After excavation of a specified size room you build the equipment inside to make the room whatever you want. For this you assign people to it. Which takes time. People with high repair will allow you to use lower amount of materials for making the room.
   
   
   • You dont use CAPS to make rooms. You use other materials, mainly scrap metals and some other crafting materials.
   
   
   • You can move a room by excavating new room and assiging people to move the room. If you assign people good repair skill you move the room without neeeding addiional materials for the moving process
   
   
   • You can dismantle a room. This is like building or moving. You assign people to it. It take time. If you assign someone with high repair you get most of the material back.
   
   
   • Upgrading rooms is similar. You assign people to it.
   
   


7. 
   

   Building/Crafting/Upgrading/Resources

   
   
   • 
     

     For now there is 4 resources in FOS. Power, Water, Food and Caps. Water and Power and Food would be important. But they should cover half your vault for just for 100 people. Needing 2 floors of fusion reactors for 100 people is stupid. Having to click for resources is also stupid . It should be automatic. Having people with repair skill in buildings should decrease automatic incidents.

     
     
   
   
   • 
     

     Having diners for food is good but where do you create food? You should first have farms and animal pens to make food and diners to cook and serve food not create it. There may be a cooking skill that needed for people working in restaurants.

     
     
   
   
   • 
     

     Assigning power rooms with people with hight strenght is stupid. What the hell are they doign there? Running on a theadmilll to create power? Or are they banging on reactor pipes to make it run more efficient? Power and Water rooms should have people with science skill and and repair skill depending on the tech level of the building.

     
     
   
   
   • 
     

     Caps are useless in the vault. Why on earth should people in Vault use caps? CAPS should be only acquired from outside with trade an exploration unless you press them yourself in the vault.

     
     
   
   
   • 
     

     The other main resouce should be scrap metal. You scavange in the wastelands for scrap metal. Also you can deconstuct weapons and armor and ammo for scrap metal. There is also scrap plastics, common metals, rare metals.You can get them thru mining near the vault and sending mining expeditions.

     
     
   
   
   • 
     

     Ammo should be implemented. With energy ammo can be recharged by the reactor. Other ammo can be made in ammo press.

     
     
   
   
   • 
     

     Deconstructing items gives metal, plastics, and some basic crafting materials such as barrel, handle, trigger, armor plating etc.

     
     
   
   
   • 
     

     These items can also be found when scavenging.

     
     
   
   
   • 
     

     Mentioned crafting materials is used for crafting, upgrading and repairing items.

     
     
   
   
   • 
     

     Upgrading a rusty weapon will yield a normal weapon.

     
     
   
   


8. 
   

   Vehicles: You can assing vehicles to dwellers or squads. They greatly increase travel speed and also gives large inventroy space for loot. In order to get the vehicles you find crashed or not working bodies where you must go with special items and a dweller with high repair to repair the vehicle. Once acquired they can be further upgraded with similar methods. Vertibird also requires science.

   
   
   • 
     

     Chryslus Highwayman (4 dwellers.)

     
     
   
   
   • 
     

     School bus (20 dwellers)

     
     
   
   
   • 
     

     Army Truck ((6 dwellers)

     
     
   
   
   • 
     

     Vertibird (12 dwellers) flying

     
     
   
   


9. 
   

   Multiplayer: Since you are implementing a map for exploration you can as well play with friends that create vaults in the same zone. You can send stuff and trade with nearby vaults for anything.

   
   

I really like what you guys are trying to do in this thread, and it is incredible and well thought out feedback, for the wrong game. It just seems unrealistic to ask Bethesda to put the entire Fallout 4 experience in a tablet. That is what Fallout 4 is for, to give you the Fallout 4 experience, on consoles and the PC. This was meant as an advertisemant for Fallout 4, not a complete port of all the complexity of the next Fallout game. I would ask you humbly to please keep every bit of your enthusiasm, but channel it away from bringing Fallout 4 to the tablet, and more towards making Fallout Shelter its own game with all the strengths and weaknesses of the tablet form factor. I am not a Bethesda employee, just one gamer talking to another. Peace!

Thanks, and please do understand that isn't my intention with this post. I don't expect Bethesda to make FO4 on tablet, I expect them to do a better job next time around. That is what this post is about and how it is different from other posts.

I honestly believe that a few simple UI tweaks, a few new features, and an overall reconsideration of each aspect would really go a long way (in both gameplay value AND revenue from the game).

As far as mobile games go, this game takes the cake for worst in gameplay concept and depth. You literally build a vault and collect resources every minute or so. There is no aim or ultimate goal, which isn't a crime but for a game like this it is critical. SimCity Build It has different disasters you can unleash on your city. Also, like any SimCity game you can design your city. The game lacks a lot but one thing that shines brighter is that you only have to be concerned about resources/emergancy services as you expand. So the focus isn't to keep tapping a room/building to make sure you put out a fire, or catch a robber. This type of gameplay would be, and in FOS is, a horrible game design.

You really are only concerned with shuffling dwellers around, tapping them so you can heal them, collect resources, and give dwellers gear (which, once your dweller is lvl 50 and 10 in all SPECIAL, END gear becomes useless since it isn't retroactive, and for resource rooms you literally gain a few seconds once you've surpassed 20 of the respective SPECIAL skill for that room, and you won't even notice any benefit from SPECIAL from gear). Bethesda literally diminish their own gameplay because of these horrible mechanics/concepts.

To wrap this post up, you should now understand that we should be expecting more from such a video game giant that is Bethesda. There are smaller companies creating better mobile games. Albeit, this is a good first attempt and the graphics are fun and entertaining, I know that this game could be packed with fun which would leave the players extremely entertained and Bethesda raking in the dough. All they have to do is make it more interactive in ways that inspire creativity.