I was looking at the NPC hit points/level today and it's all over the place. There's level 1 NPCs with 20 HP and some with 80 HP. The highest is a level15 with 225 HP. What I wanna know is how hard should it be to one shot a human target? Should you ever be able to? At early level? Or max level? With any gun? In spite of armor? Do you feel that NPC health and armor are balanced against the weapon damage correctly? Or to boil it down, is it too easy or too hard to kill stuff, including you?

-Gunny out.

If you have a good weapon and you sneak attack a person it's most likely they will die anyway so I think the system is fine where it is when it comes to damage dealt to NPC's.
But NPC's should get either better weapons or damage+ perks themselves as we level up cause they do way too little damage at lvl 30.

I don't feel that you should ever be able to one shot a high level anything, man, beast or machine. I also feel the game is laughably easy once you get some levels under your belt in its current state.

But then again, I treat fallout as a roleplaying game, not a shooter, and not everyone seems to.

I know I'm in the minority here, but I loved Oblivions level scaling because it kept the difficulty even throughout the level range. I'm not the type that feels the games inhabitants should cower before me once I hit max level and get some decent gear.

I want the game to continue to challenge me at max level and gear, not have easy mode turned on.

Do you think I should add that to the poll? Should any NPC ever be able to one hit you? At low level? At max level?

Edit: Decided to add it.

-Gunny out.

One hitting the player?
Sure, some can do that, like Legendary Deathclaw.
And if wearing light armor or clothing and a Desert Ranger shoots you with AMR should mean instant death no matter the level you're at.
Problem is, not many enemies are "that" dangerous. (Still hoping for a patch to scale enemy inventory to player level :crosses fingers: )

I just wanted to explain why I voted yes for question 3: Boss(es) should be different thing compare to "enemies".

While "enemies" can appear in multiple, and respawns; Boss(es) are mostly unique and would not respawn.

So to addition to the last question, the toughest boss should not be able to be one-shoted.

I can't believe so many people want this game to be so easy. Does nobody like a challenge anymore? I guess the fact that most people roll around with two companions loaded to the gills even though the game is already easy as pie should answer that question for me.

People just want to steamroll the Mojave after they hit level 30, apparently.

Pu the diffculty up if you want a challenge, but one shotting anyone is kinda boring.

I've had it set on VHARD from start to finish in every playthrough I've done, it doesn't go any higher. It starts off to my liking, but quickly tapers off in difficulty as you put some levels under your belt.

I'm not advocating anything vis a vis difficulty or challenge. I am merely collecting data. I wish to know how powerful the majority of players want their guns, and conversely, because any changes to the weapons may also make enemies more/less powerful, how powerful the enemies' should be. Here's a new question:

There are some level one NPCs called chem addicts that have a whopping 20 HP. Should you be able to kill them with one shot? I believe you can kill them with a sneak crit with a BB gun.

-Gunny out.

From what I remember, Oblivion got harder as you leveled and depending on your race/skillset would become am extreme grindfest on the highest difficulty at high levels. I never did play that game for very long because it took so long to kill things (I only play games on highest difficulties). Please do not say "just turn down the difficulty" because a grind is not difficult it is a GRIND.

EDIT: If I recall correctly you could 1 shot anything in Fallout 1 &2, but you needed max skill and perks and even then the chance of instant death was based on a dice roll. I killed the last boss in FO2 in 1 shot from a gauss rifle the first time I finished it (my other characters had a much harder time with him). It was also possible to get through almost if not all quests/nonrandoms encounter without causing any physical harm to anyone.

I used the giant laser (ARCHIMEDES II) on a Deathclaw at level 16 and it didn't one shot it, albeit it had on bar left on its health but come one.

I don't recall Oblivion feeling grind-y at all... but I'm not saying I'd like a perfect mirror of that system. I just don't feel that becoming a god at level cap supports an entertaining and challenging experience.

One-shotting everything once you hit the level cap and find the right weapon makes for a very dull end game experience. It might be fun if you didn't have such a huge advantage in having human sight vs an enemies predetermined sight radius, they should tie max visual range to the PE stat - make anything beyond what your PE grants you invisible not just on the compass, but in the game world.

I'm not really interested in level scaling with what I'm looking for here. That would be a completely different discussion. Well, maybe level scaled loot. I am interested in how you feel damage capabilities should change over the course of the game. Should it get easier as you accumulate wealth and gear? Should the enemies have the same hard hitting gear you have at the end of the game? Should they (or some) of them have it at the beginning of the game. Should YOU have access to the hard hitting gear at the beginning of the game?

-Gunny out.

i just think u should give tough enimes immune to things . like say make legendery deathclaw immune to crits sneak crits and maybe immune to guns or Ew etc. Or every 3rd shot does no damage . but only to the hard enimes .Be annoying if a shoot a radroach with a fat man and it lol's at me.

Yes w/critical hit
No
No
Yes



Overall too easy to kill stuff, and overall, too hard to kill me. (On Very Hard)
There are the few enemy exceptions to both, of course...especially if you're not doing the stealth-sniper route...hence the 'overall.'

I think we (The Player) should be easier to kill, I also think that the enemies should be harder to kill. However a shot to the head should kill anything.

OK. Hypethetical: Assume the BB gun is not in the game. Can you kill the weakest umarmored human with one shot with a:

a) .22 pistol?
2) Laser pistol?
other) Rolling pin?

Edit: Remember, chen addicts only have 20 HP.

The problem with that in a video game, is it then becomes too easy. Everyone running around with a sniper or other scoped weapon and shooting all enemies in the head via VATS and then complaining the game isn't hard enough....oh wait...

A .22 to a power armored noggin or a deathclaw skull should be a one shot kill? I can't say I'd call that realistic or balanced. I hope you just forgot to add the qualifier of top tier weapons to that equation.



Yay, I'm not the only one who feels this way! :celebration:

Yes with a crit.

Your poll wasn't specific to weapon. Since it was all that was given to me, I answered in a very generalistic fashion, and in the first two questions, you specifically said unarmored, which I assumed to mean no DT or DR. If you want to get into very specific weapons, create another poll. Trying to compare a rolling pin to a laser pistol, imo, doesn't work, because 1 - their damage potential is very different and 2 - one is ranged and the other melee.

Edit: in other words, no, I don't think all weapons should be able to do all things to all creatures.

Why? An Arizona senator just survived being shot in the head in the real world with a 9mm Glock. Throwing the realism argument out of the equation, why is that OK balance-wise?

I asked because I respect your opinion. I'm trying to get a feel for what players consider appropriate minimum damage for a killing shot. I named those three because their damages went from 3 to 9 to 12. I know you like a real challange when you play and I was interested in what you thought.

-Gunny out.

I know...and I wasn't trying to be snarky in my answer or anything. I just have a difficult time giving an answer when I think there are too many possible variables involved or when I don't know all the possible variables. My mind is like that. The dmg. rating may be similar but the DPS (I think) is not, and for me in this game, that's the more important variable. Others may feel differently. Tho I suppose if we're only talking a single hit, maybe the game mechanics in that case, the dmg would be the number. I'm no math person, heh.

With the mechanics of this game + VATS (which I think the majority use a lot), I don't think a head shot should be an instant kill (too easy, like I said), and even tho it's an amusing/fun thing to try/do & hear about, I don't think that a BB Gun should be able to take down a deathclaw even using stealth/sniper. If a game wants head shots to be instant-kills, you'd have to redesign the whole combat/VATS mechanics to make such shots rare and hard to actually obtain, or something. imo.