Energy Weapons Underpowered? : Fallout: New Vegas

» Thu Jun 03, 2010 10:58 am

Threshold: The point that must be exceeded to begin producing a given effect or result or to elicit a response: a low threshold of pain.

In the game, this means that a weapon with less damage than the target has of DT is only going to be doing 20% of it's damage the target (this is a min damage they added so that you can still do damage to the target). So say a target has 20 DT and you use a gun that has 18 damage, you will only be doing 3.6 damage per shot. What i'm not sure about is if, say they have 20 DT and you have a gun that has 25 damage, does it just subtract the 20 from DT so you do 5 damage?

Also, DT is maxed at 45.

id like to know that myself. i tried doing some tests ingame but combat is so chaotic that its hard to tell.........i was fighting deathclaws cause i figured they had the highest DT in the game. there was a code to disable AI but i havent used it in years, does anyone remember what it was?

» Thu Jun 03, 2010 2:45 am

id like to know that myself. i tried doing some tests ingame but combat is so chaotic that its hard to tell.........i was fighting deathclaws cause i figured they had the highest DT in the game. there was a code to disable AI but i havent used it in years, does anyone remember what it was?

TAI or TCAI.

» Thu Jun 03, 2010 5:48 am

TAI or TCAI.

:facepalm: yeah i just looked it up......talk about a "duh!" moment.

» Thu Jun 03, 2010 9:13 am

Personally, I really have to disagree with you on this one.

As someone who loves Energy Weapons, I'd really, really like to be able to use them for as much as possible. I'm fine with them being a bit harder to obtain, IF they are proportionately stronger. Thing is, they are harder to get, take more ammo, and are weaker. It's just bad.

I agree with that. In F3, on Very Hard, I needed the Metal Blaster (short range) and the Tesla Cannon (long range) with the Fire Lance reserved only for the ridiculous creatures (albino). However I managed to play it through with Guns and didn't feel terribly handicapped. This game, even unique energy weapons barely kill stuff (Q-38 whatever).

» Thu Jun 03, 2010 10:23 am

I was talking to somebody that did an energy weapons playthrough and said it was rough at first but somewhere in the twenties he got bored with it because he said it is to easy to kill things, anytime he gets a crit it is an instant kill he said. It is not hard to get 30% chance to crit (10 luck with a few intense training if needed, finesse +5, laser commander +10 and 1st recon beret +5), with a plasma rifle thats 60% chance to crit.

» Thu Jun 03, 2010 3:02 pm

except that guns do good damage even without crits. having to create a character with 10 luck and then having to wear the beret and picking certain perks just to make your weapon viable doesnt sound fun to me. guns are plenty effective even without any perks. the only perk i use and thats not until im past level 20 is the finesse perk. i also use the handloader perk but that doesnt effect your attack.

my first two playthroughs were primarily energy and even with 90 or 100 in them i still ended up using guns more often cause they just worked better even though i was 10 or 20 lower in guns skill. the multiplas and the plasmacaster are the only weapons of note and its hard to roleplay a stealthy low strength ninja guy hauling around a gargantuan plasmacaster. i dont mind the extra ammo usage and weapon degradation if the weapons did significantly more damage. that should be the upside and downside. more power but less durable weapons and use more ammo.

» Thu Jun 03, 2010 3:53 am

I was talking to somebody that did an energy weapons playthrough and said it was rough at first but somewhere in the twenties he got bored with it because he said it is to easy to kill things, anytime he gets a crit it is an instant kill he said. It is not hard to get 30% chance to crit (10 luck with a few intense training if needed, finesse +5, laser commander +10 and 1st recon beret +5), with a plasma rifle thats 60% chance to crit.

Pretty sure critical chance doesn't multiply that way, as that's the loadout I was using. I believe crit mult acts on your luck, then the others stack on top of that.
The problem is only crits do any damage. Try hunting Deathclaws with a plasma weapon, for example- you do almost no damage at all, until you get a crit, at which point they lose about half their health. That makes it a bugger to try and cripple them to slow them down, as you can't reliably work your way through a limb's HP.

» Thu Jun 03, 2010 4:02 pm

Pretty sure critical chance doesn't multiply that way, as that's the loadout I was using. I believe crit mult acts on your luck, then the others stack on top of that.
The problem is only crits do any damage. Try hunting Deathclaws with a plasma weapon, for example- you do almost no damage at all, until you get a crit, at which point they lose about half their health. That makes it a bugger to try and cripple them to slow them down, as you can't reliably work your way through a limb's HP.

Character effects that increase crit aren't multiplicative, they are additive, than the final value is subject to the weapon multiplier that all weapons have.

This is the fallout 3 crit chance article on the wiki, it can be assumed that nothing has changed.

Base ChanceEdit href= http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1136592-energy-weapons-underpowered/Edit

Luck in the main base factor that determines the chances of a critical strike on a opponent.

Initial level = Luck x 1%

Example: A starting Luck of 5.

5 x 1 = 5% (Base chance)

Notes:

* Maximum initial base is capped at 10%.
* Ninja perk can increase this limit by another +15% for Melee and Unarmed weapons.
* Finesse perk can increase this limit by another +5%.
* Survival Expert perk can increase this limit by another +3%.
* Strikes dealt in V.A.T.S have additional +15% critical chance added.
* Some weapons have 0% chance of a critical strike (see Critical Multiplier for detail of effects).

Critical MultiplierEdit href= http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1136592-energy-weapons-underpowered/Edit

All weapons have a critical multiplier that modifies the player's base critical chance to create a new percentage to score a critical hit. This may improve or hinder the player's ability to score a critical hit depending on the weapons Critical multiplier.

Base chance x Critical multiplier

Example: A starting Luck of 5 and using a Sniper Rifle.

5 x 1 = 5% (Base chance) x 5 = 25% (Critical multiplier)

Notes

* The critical multiplier for fully automatic weapons is much lower than for single-shot weapons.
* There are a few weapons that have a x 0 multiplier, which makes it impossible to score a critical hit
* For a detailed list of weapon critical multipliers see Fallout 3 weapons.

Weapon ConditionEdit href= http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1136592-energy-weapons-underpowered/Edit

The final critical chance is also modified by weapon condition.[1]

Base chance x Critical multiplier x Condition

For example, a character with 5 Luck and using a Sniper Rifle in 50% condition would have,

5 x 1 = 5% (Base chance)x5 = 25% (Critical multiplier)x50%(Condition) = 12.5% Critical chance

As far as it only doing any damage on crits, that could be the way they tired to bring the inconsistent damage of energy weapons from FO 1&2 back. Since in FO 1&2 energy weapons had very large damage ranges compared to other guns, and since variable damage doesn't seem to be possible in the engine, maybe this was their at an attempt at less consistent energy weapons.

I'm not trying to argue that energy weapons are not underpowered at all, I'm just saying maybe they aren't as weak as a lot of people think, and maybe part of it is just people that loved energy weapons in fallout 3 are going though sort of a shock coming to NV and finding them significantly changed.

» Thu Jun 03, 2010 3:31 pm

I was talking to somebody that did an energy weapons playthrough and said it was rough at first but somewhere in the twenties he got bored with it because he said it is to easy to kill things, anytime he gets a crit it is an instant kill he said. It is not hard to get 30% chance to crit (10 luck with a few intense training if needed, finesse +5, laser commander +10 and 1st recon beret +5), with a plasma rifle thats 60% chance to crit.

Laser Commander only affects laser weapons, not plasma (at least by design), so that would only be 20% x weapon crit multiplier if you used a plasma weapon which would be 40%.and with the Q-35 Matter Modulator that would be a 40% chance to do 129 dmg at 1shot/second expending 1 microfusion cell per shot.

Now with Pew Pew, the unique laser pistol with a 2.5x crit multiplier, this would be a 70% crit chance (using the above bonuses) which would do 136.25 damage and with the Better Criticals perk would be a total of 161.25 damage per critical hit at a fire rate of 2 shot/sec expending 15 EC/shot.

The Alien Blaster blaster has a 100x crit multiplier and would give you a 3000% chance to crit for 250 damage with Better Criticals at a rate of 1 shot/sec using 1 alien power cell (which can really only be found around the alien blaster)

You can easily see here the trade off between Guns and Energy Weapons where Energy Weapons can be highly lethal (mainly lasers) if you take the right perks and get the right weapons but will use up your ammo much more quickly. Sadly there's really only two weapons that really gives this high of a benefit and one of them you can't buy/find/make more ammo for.

» Thu Jun 03, 2010 8:04 am

Laser Commander only affects laser weapons, not plasma (at least by design), so that would only be 20% x weapon crit multiplier if you used a plasma weapon which would be 40%.

Hmm, I didn't realize that, that's kinda balls.

The AER14 unique laser rifle has a 2x multiplier also though.

» Thu Jun 03, 2010 7:46 am

Hmm, I didn't realize that, that's kinda balls.

It really is, especially since the Plasa Spaz perk is not helpful at all.

The AER14 unique laser rifle has a 2x multiplier also though.

Yes, but it only adds 22 damage when it crits (33 with Better criticals for a total of 60% chance to crit for 58.6 dmg at 3shot/sec using 2 MF/shot) Oh yeah, I've been getting my info on weapons from the fallout wiki if you're wondering.

» Thu Jun 03, 2010 3:37 am

Yeah it seems to me that maybe they tried to make energy weapons more distinctive compared to conventional guns and it didn't get enough balancing. To be honest i don't really like damage based on criticals either, and it is even harder to balance.

» Thu Jun 03, 2010 9:44 am

Yeah it seems to me that maybe they tried to make energy weapons more distinctive compared to conventional guns and it didn't get enough balancing. To be honest i don't really like damage based on criticals either, and it is even harder to balance.

Exactly how I feel. Someone just needs to go in and modify the base damage and crit damage on all the weapons to make them scale better so the usability of energy weapons throughout the game is more feasible. Honestly though, I like how they're supposed to crit more often but it feels like most of the weapons just don't have high enough crit damage to really pack the punch necessary. That and the fact that a lot of their base damage is so low that once you start seeing metal/combat armor, you're outclassed (especially with rifles). If the base damage output is raised slightly to compensate for the lack of dt penetration and the crit damage is raised slightly as well to make energy weapons much more lethal if your character is built to use them properly (High crit chance + better criticals), then the game would be much more balanced.

For now, I'll just stick with Pew Pew even though it's kind of a pain to get since it takes a while to collect 50 star caps.