There are many ways to skin a cat. And many cats that need skinning. :foodndrink:

it doesnt sound that good to me.

*picks up light machine gun.

pc- wow this is the strongest weapons ive found so far!

2 minutes later in gunfight.

bang, bang, bang, CRITICAL FAILURE.

Pc-oh fart

Life happens, guns break. Try shooting an M-60 machinegun. Just make sure you get the cleaning rod assembled first to clear all the jams. :gun: :chaos: :brokencomputer: :banghead:

Unless you took the jinxed perk you rarely dealt with it. And even if you did: the worst that happened was gun jam (AP loss and 1 round spent) or clip dropped.
I've gone multiple play-throughs of Fallout 1 and 2 and never saw a critical failure. And every time my luck was between 7-8. Even with a 2 or 3 luck, I saw it once in a great while.
Now, take that with F3 where a 10 luck is easy to get because of "intense training"? It should never be an issue.

I like the idea of a cleaning kit, you'd have to buy brushes, patches, lube, chemicals; new brushes for different calibers. if you can carry a repair kit you can carry a cleaning kit.

It is one thing to acknowledge the weapon is fundamentally unreliable. It is another to make a videogame in which using it in a single firefight will absolutely wreck its reliability even past its poor baseline. I would support a realistic reliability statistic on all weapons that was part of their baseline stats and a factor in weapon selection. It doesn't change the fact that portraying wear on the weapon orders of magnitude faster than real life and then congratulating yourself for being "realistic" is just ridiculous.

e: Actually, amend that, I would support a reliability statistic as part of a weapon's baseline stats if that reliability statistic was represented in a way that was either remotely realistic or contributed to gameplay. Fallout 3 doesn't deliver.

Nobody said it was realistic. Of course running accross Enclave armed with Plasma weapons every 2 minutes isn't realisic either. When they decided to put that many enemies/weapons in such a tight space in the game world they had to do something to balance out your PC picking up all that expensive gear and breaking the economy. The only other way to do it would be to NOT have most of the enemies drop loot, only a few. Would you rather have that? They have to find a way to achieve some kind of game balance. And please notice the operative word there.

What I'm wondering is if there will be cleaning kits too. They'd be cheaper and lighter than repair kits, but could only be used to top off the condition of your gun, that is to keep it past that "maintenance" threshold.
Maybe "maintenance kits" would be a better word, just something to do general touching up on your weapons. Lore wise, it would include gun oil, bore snake, cleaning cloths, some energy weapons gizmos like amp-meters and polarity reversers (everyone knows reversing the polarity fixes anything), and maybe some whetstones, and some duct tape and wonderglue.

That has everything you need to do general cleaning and preventative maintenance on any weapon or armor in the game.

I like this idea. If for no other reason than to give me something for my PC to spend his cash on. Might not be able to afford such a luxury at low levels, but later, when you're swimming in cash, it'll help keep all the real good guns at top condition. Draft the petition.

Also, I don't have a real big problem with the gun repair as it was or will be. It's a little unrealistic, but I understand the need for the game mechanic and to me it's not too insufferable. But for the armor? I think it should degrade even faster. What good is armor all full of holes? We get shot/burned/stabbed/mauled/bit/smashed/exploded/poisoned/stung so much that I'm suprised they let us repair our armor. But again, a game mechanic that does it's best to comprimise between reality and game balance.

So, you're saying that instead of slowing down the power creep in a game, they'd rather rush it AND THEN penalize the player with sub-par weapon conditions for frustration? They where able to maintain the power creep respectfully in Oblivion. Everyone started with sub-quality metal weapons then it built up to Elven, Dwarven, and even Daedric. The same can be done with the Fallout series. Pipe rifles and melee weapons at start. You find the 10mm pistol, SMG, sawed off shotgun, hunting rifle soon. And it goes on to seeing things like Laser Gatling gun, rocket launcher, and the Fatman. Uniques and bosses will always use signature weapons, or a base minimum weapon, but random raiders will have weapons scaled to you. They've done this before.
They required players to be forced to LEARN how to wear power armor. That was good. It stopped me from just hunting and offing Outcasts for their armor by 4th level.

Running across Enclave armed with plasma weapons isn't realistic in the sense that there is no such thing as a plasma weapon. I'm at least able to speculate that if I accept the game's proposal that some time in the future, a plasma weapon will be developed, I can at least accept that that just might be how it would work. You're just equivocating the senses of "unrealism" at play here. Plasma weapons don't exist in reality but they don't directly contradict reality the way ultra-rapid weapon degredation does.

While it may, as you say, have some value as a game balance mechanic it is by no means the only way they could have handled the issue, and as is self-evident from the degree of controversy surrounding the decision, it was absolutely not the wisest way they could have handled it. Earlier Fallout games actually got by pretty well on limiting the economy's ability to buy everything you were selling, and limiting how many game-breaking items were for sale in the first place. Modifying the encounter balance to stress difficulty through disadvantageous formation or terrain, as well as battles with more skilled and worse funded enemies would have done a lot too, and bulk sales of their inferior equipment could have been controlled by stepping up the value gap between common, poor grade weapons and the kind of game breaking ones that the player would be far more likely to want to keep for themselves. Yeah, it 'balances the game,' but it only justifies itself if I first take for granted every other assumption that created that imbalance in the first place.

I'm not gonna get in an argument over game level scaling. They did what they did in Oblivion and they did what they did in FO3. You don't have to agree with their decisions, but then again you don't have to play the game either. It does sound like Josh is trying to keep the weapons tiered in FONV, but there's almost NO level scaling so we'll be in the same position. Lots of gear to loot and get rich on.

Please pardon my euphemism. You're correct, but only in the literal sense. And, judging by your posts, you seem an intelligent chap. Intelligent enough to know it was a euphemism and also intelligent enough to know not very many folks like being called a bold-faced liar. I reckon our conversation is at and end, friend.

I have to disagree on the level-scaling mostly as a matter of simple principle. It was pretty awful and I can't condone supporting it in any future games for pretty much any reason, ever. It would also be immersion-breaking in Fallout in a way it never could have been in Oblivion - high end items in general are supposed to be rare, futuristic weapons that are pretty much signature to influential groups within the setting and it's going to screw with my suspension of disbelief if they start showing up in the hands of every two-bit thug. It's going to screw with it just as bad if Enclave enforcers start roaming the countryside by the hundreds.

This being said, proper encounter balancing can do a lot to control access to high level items, and P0x absolutely does have a point about what a terrible idea it was to give low level characters access to the high end guns from square one in the first place. If items are game-breaking then access to them needs to be limited, either by the same plot barriers that prevent sequence breaking in the story, or by keeping them strictly as very finite loot, not commonly available goods. Money is only as game-breaking as the items you let people buy with it.

I should have actually expounded on my idea a bit more, I guess.
Raiders with randomly generated weapons and a max-cap to what they can carry would be a bit better. So, start out with leather-like armor, melee weapons and weak pistols. Then move to automatics, rifles, and shotguns and metal armor or low-grade ballistic armor. Then, eventually, they finish their gear off with rare encounters of assault rifles and good combat armor (Those being the 40xp raiders) or rare situations where they killed a someone powerful and stole the gear (Like outside that one subway station where they have a rocket launcher). Then, for more powerful encounters like super mutants: have them start with Bolt action's and ending with rockets and Laser Gatling guns. Enclave would obviously be starting with high-tech and keeping it.
Like I said: they stumbled across it in Oblivion and it worked.

I think the conditions are a bit exaggerated. The deterioration speed should be MUCH slower. And the condition of a gun shouldn't affect the damage too much, but things like spread, and accuracy.

I think that they should do something about the Power Armor, I mean, a suit of PA with less DR than a suit of combat armor? Really?

Yeah, it always bothered me to find dead BOS guys with armor with a DR of 9, making them equally matched with raiders. What is the point of wearing power armor when you'd be better off wearing leather?
Power Armor should never have a DR (now DT, I guess) less than 40. Ever.

Ideas like Muzzle rise, spread, accuracy, and whatnot have all been mentioned. I, personally, would like to see it handled by the related weapon skill and not the condition of the weapon (because your character is not a rubber-helmet wearing window-licker and he will properly maintain his weapons).
Also: as mentioned in previous posts, it'd be nice to see "repair" set to include things like weapon modifications and customizations.

Are you talking about the Tribal Power Armor vs the Ranger Combat Armor?

I could see how that would be some horrible power armor.

I'll absolutely second that repairs ought to be handled passively. I'll also continue to maintain though that the repair skill being effectively necessary to use some high-maintenance weapons would add an interesting extra dimension to the game. Weapon mods are of course something I support one hundred percent, although they nominally risk making repair simply so awesome that no build can be without it. Making at least an acceptable subset of mods available from NPCs at a price and occasional modded weapons drop as loot might help that, while allowing for the highest-grade mods to remain exclusive for players with the skill to DIY their guns. Keeping the scaling at such a pace that skilled characters would on average get early access to the newest gen of mods, likewise.

Ha. I remember that. One of the recruits in my platoon got a call home because we were performing drill in front of another platoon at the rifle range barracks on the backside of the island, and (he was in front), he shattered his handguard, sending plastic fragments flying everywhere. He just stood there at port arms, blood running down his rifle, glaring at the other platoon. Our DI almost grinned despite himself.


Or misfire. You never re-evaluate your life quite so quickly as when a M203 misfires and you're faced with the possibility of a 40mm grenade exploding in your face. The inevitable downside of the thrill of shooting grenades, I guess.


True. Actual armor is only good for one engagement in which you actually get hit. Ceramic inserts are no good once they break - kind of defeats the purpose of dissipating impact force when they are already broken.


:huh: ?! Worked? That system was awful. I think professional articles have been written in some of my game design books on how awful that was. I think F3 and NV are a definite improvement. Level-scaling, even just on equipment, is not a good idea unless implemented very, very, carefully. There should be no guarantees that you'll survive a fight if you've wondered off the beaten path. Uncertainty is what creates excitement and drama. A player should be able to encounter just about any enemy in the game, regardless of their level, and the same goes for equipment. The most powerful equipment should simply be harder to reach or find, or be much more expensive.

I like the fact that one of the interviews mentioned that level scaling is really only done in subtle way on the "critical paths" of the game, and most other areas are static. It was even said that there is a place 5 minutes away from the start of the game that will destroy unprepared and low level characters. That's where good game design comes in, as long as there are warnings and signs that you should turn back, it then becomes the player's choice to press on and either die a horrible death, or pull off an amazing bragging moment and take down that Deathclaw at level 1 or 2.

I got either frustrated or bored with Oblivion's level scaling mechanic, especially considering the way leveling worked for the player. Everything stays the same threat level to you, and either you can handle that threat level okay because you focused on combat skills to level and it becomes boring, or that threat level is always overwhelmingly deadly to you, because you leveled focusing on non-combat skills, and you get frustrated.

This take on the issue is far too simplistic. Uncertainty absolutely is necessary, but the kind of uncompromising randomness you're discussing does not make sense on any level. In terms of internal logic, it makes far more sense for certain enemies to appear within a certain radius of their bases of operations. Generating enemies totally at random without concern for geography serves if anything to ruin the setting by homogenizing the local color. In terms of game balance, your idea is just flat-out awful. A well balanced encounter creates good uncertainty; the looming possibility that if the player is not at the top of their game they may die. Throwing encounter balance out completely creates exactly the opposite kind, an uncertainty as to whether the player's effort will even matter at all because it is up to the will of a random number generator whether they'll be handed a cakewalk or totally impossible odds.

This doesn't make any sense on any level, for either balance or immersion. It isn't a feature that actually contributes to the game, except dubious bragging rights for a certain kind of gamer who prefers to brag on forums that the game 'doesn't hold their hand' and being able to endure it anyway. When did games stop being entertainment and become trials by ordeal, anyway?

So that we're clear, I still hated Oblivion's level balancing. But it has always been a strength of RPGs that escalating difficulty between areas very elegantly empowers the player to decide exactly how hard they want the game to be, by determining at what point they're comfortable progressing. It's an excellent formula and I don't see a good reason to break with it.

Uncompromising randomness? Perhaps I wasn't clear in my point. I'm not advocating randomness. I think all encounters should be designed, I'm not talking about deathclaws suddenly being randomly generated outside Megaton, for example, I'm talking about the player being able to travel to Old Olney right out of the Vault and fight Deathclaws at level 2. My argument was simply that parts of the world should be static, and not have every enemy and encounter leveled to match the player, and expressing my satisfaction that apparently the NV developers agree with me.

I'm still not certain what made you think I was talking about complete randomness - as I never mentioned that word in my post. Let me try again - "A player should be able to encounter just about any enemy in the game, regardless of their level, and the same goes for equipment" - if they know where to go in the game world.

Your first post seemed unclear. I'm glad we're in agreement after all, then.

Ok, after some much-needed sleep, and some more reading and thought, here are a few things.

1. I was rather off base in my original post. I was thinking you were saying "remove the ability to repair guns", not that you meant to remove gun condition all together (and repairing along with it), or whatever. So yeah, misunderstanding. sorry.

2. After much thought, I can see the flaws in the repair system, and that I agree, the best way to fix it would be to, instead of just lowering damage/reload speed, The accuracy, and (moreso) reliability of the weapon to fire should go down. The only weapons that should lose damage as they fall into disrepair are melee weapons, for obvious reasons.

It seems the repair system is stuck in the oblivion age, where all weapons are more or less melee, and if a bow, sword, axe, etc gets damaged/dull, it will not work as effectively, doing less and less damage. Guns are mechanical. As long as it fires, it will still have the same "damage" or "effect" no matter it's condition. however, if you fail to maintain your weapon, you risk having it jam, having bullets misfire, difficulty to reload, and prettymuch eventually you wouldn't be able to fire it at all. I think the pacing is OK for how long it takes for weapons to degrade, because after all, why make it a part of the game if it's never really necessary. But when the gun hits 74%, you should lose a little bit of accuracy, and 2 damage, when it hits 49%, the reload time is increased, damage decreased by 2 25% and it starts to have minor jamming issues, causing an even longer reload time, less accuracy, and -2 damage, and finally at 0%, the gun just locks up, and is unusable.

something like that. Damage decay does have a purpose, even if it's not really logical, but I don't think it should be as dramatic as it is right now. Except with melee weapons. I think the FO3 system works fine with melee (if not a little too rapid of degredation, especially on unique/crafted weapons)

thoughts?

I still object to guns rapidly decaying to the point of uselessness, on the prior stated grounds that it turns this into a logistical rather than a tactical issue, and Fallout is very much a tactical game before it is a logistical one. I can get behind most of these changes but I really don't know that the weapon needs to decay until it falls apart in your hands. Give it a nightmarishly unreliable floor in quality - it'll still create plenty of drive to keep it in better shape. I still think the best answer is to differentiate durable weapons from high maintenance ones, though. An AK47 is going to handle heavy wear far better than a Bizon.

Possibly as has been proposed before, also just carry repairs out passively during downtime instead of requiring the player to constantly monitor for damage. It would make building characters more interesting if high levels of repair served to broaden the kinds of weapons you could keep in serviceable condition, instead of just being universally necessary for every character.