^Make your votes, or reply below^

The main thread is here: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1147473-relz-xfo-nv-the-overhaul-for-new-vegas/ (or http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1147473-relz-xfo-nv-the-overhaul-for-new-vegas/) and the site is at www.xfo-nv.com.

I really want to make XFO a fully-featured mod, and I need to know what people want to see. I don't do textures or modeling, and quests take too much proportional time, but I'm happy to work on anything else. I have a ton on my plate just getting it ready and up to beta stage, as well as finding ways around using NVSE (is this an issue for people? It would certainly be easier to incorporate it, and in the future, I will probably just give both choices) -- but I want to make sure I'm heading in the right direction(s)! And I want this to be made for YOU, not just what I envision...

I hope I'm being more accommodating than obnoxious

For a reminder, here's what it has so far (so you don't have to click over) - all are optional/chooseable:

* Scale Weapon Damage, and change the way damage works

* Rebalance and Revamp armor, including options for DR and hybrid DT/DR

* Change the rarity (or commonness!) of meds, caps, and ammo. Scale them each individually!

* Gain access to new perk skill trees and class-like "paths"

* Choose whether to gain a perk every level

* Change the pacing, the speed, the feel of experience, and adjust the balance of xp gain from different activities

* Remove that level cap!

* Remove the skill cap!

* Rebalance the effect of SPECIAL and derived statistics

* Rebalance the skill point formula and change tag! skills to double skill points instead of instant 15.

* Rebalance the effect of meds, survival, and repair, and increase the effect of those skills

* Change the way sneaking works to be more realistic

* Steepen and scale the bartering curve, making a harsher wasteland economy, with more relevance on CHA and the barter skill

* Remove pesky messages (like karma alerts and sounds) and even choose to remove immersion-killers like [HIDDEN] or [EMPTY]

* Rebalance cripple effects, the tactics of targeting, and the significance of body parts

* Increase the movement speed of everyone

* Widen the karma range and change its effects

* Change gore settings

If using NVSE gives you more/better options to make your mod better than it already is, then I'm all for it. Personally I don't understand why some people don't want to use it, most of the best mods out there make use of it. I've been using it in one form or another since OBSE and can't imagine not having it.

I have gone as far as porting over (for my own personal enjoyment) one of those Enemy AI overhauls because I still wasn't happy with how it worked in NV. Unfortunately when NVSE was installed on my system that mod kinda killed performance, so now am in need of another.

I think that a compatibility patch for Larger overhauls such as FOOK and hopefully Fallout Courier's Edition (FWE) would be a necessity to avoid conflicts between mods such as these.

That's all I can remember at the moment.

Wait... There's an FWE coming out for NV? Is it on the Nexus? FWE for FO3 picked up where XFO left off; I gave them my code and they added a ton of other stuff. It's amazing, and I still use it (not XFO, now) for FO3. Great coders, with excellent in-game menus.

I don't see it in the nexus -- is it still WIP?

I may have to actually view them as (friendly) competition

I believe that the FWE folks are working on something. When it comes out, only they know :shrug:

I like the fact your keeping this modular. Enemy ai and damage, including explosives is perhaps the most important things to me in an overhaul, I like to feel I've earned the xp.

It's incompatible with the 4GB file fix, which I definitely like. For me, the greatest mod that anyone could make is one that makes the game run smoother -- this is all beth's fault, of course, and they have little/no excuse for not updating the engine... but that's the one "mod" that NVSE can't do, and can't go with...




Hmm... That's both exciting and disturbing. Unfortunately, I can't really make XFO "compatible" with FWE since they do the same thing. FWE had more time to develop and more talented scripters than myself, and has an incredible ingame customization process that would take me months to fully implement. As in the past, though, I would definitely make any of my code available to them (and probably only them).



My issue with enemy rebalancing is that it's very difficult to do either elegantly or "above the hood" (say, through a "quest" script) -- the only way I know how to do this is to go in and edit the enemies themselves, one-by-one (which, of course, takes for freakin' ever), which will make it inevitably incompatible with any other mods that do the same (I may esm it in that case, though), like if Mart is planning to do an MMM for NV (GOD I hope so! ).

I have changed the HP formula for enemies and they do more damage, have different loot lists, and (may) have better armor. But, of course, that doesn't feel quite like getting in there and tweaking everyone, not to mention making them smarter or more tactical. They make good use of the speed upgrade, but with the body part / cripple changes, I may have to encourage them to blow your legs off and kite you

Mart has stated he intends to, not sure on the WIP or anything though. =3

NVSE rules, been using it since OBSE as well and I can safely say any crashed I have had are from mod incompatibility. Never once have I used a proper load order and crashed because of the script extender. On New Vegas I haven't crashed at all yet. But as a downside I get massive slowdowns around some NPC inside of interiors and the horrible microstutter. Durn system. :brokencomputer:

Othewise I look forward to this and am also glad to see it as modular. I voted my votes and hope to see something soon.

Any Plans to include a Chem module, to add some more chems, beside the standard ones!

It's a good idea. I like chems -- they're like the "spells" of Fallout. A wider variety would be nice, as well as a more robust system around them. Something "mana"-like as a limiter and balancer. And maybe a new skill/stat for it Big stuff, there, but certianly not impossible with NVSE. I'll look into it. Like I said -- I like the idea!

That's exactly my problem with NVSE -- the 4GB executable hack removes all the slowdowns, microstutters, and "macrostutters" (on entering VATS for me), which is essential to me. But it doesn't work with NVSE. Still, I will *definitely* be adding some NVSE esps during the beta ramping. It's a necessity for some things, for sure. I just also hate having to research and learn a bajillion new functions

AI edit finished. Let's say that different groups will have radically different tactics and much more severe strategies. Some groups will take cover and shoot out of cover defensively, strafing when possible and putting snipers into position for your head. Some groups will lay down suppression fire while their melee-ers attempt to flank you. I've tried to make it group specific, and I've even added the ability for individuals and groups to withdraw, regroup, and counterattack. It's actually pretty minor so far, but it should be fun. I'll try to put the specifics behind a spoiler tag in the readme, so that those who don't want to automatically know the tactics and countertactics of groups won't have to. Most of it makes sense, though: supermutants are more aggressive, troopers are much more defensive/tactical, deathclaws are psychotic.

The enemy rebalance hasn't begun, though; that's just the AI packages. I want to mess with stats, skills, loot lists, patrols, etc. I'll probably leave spawn amounts and locations to the professionals, though. If Mart's on his way, I'll have to redo 90% of this part, anyway.

-------

Coming back, it looks like perk paths (my favorite, though most time-consuming task) are topping the list. I have ideas for double-stat perk paths, which would be... 21 paths! Examples would be something like

END + STR: The Tank (6STR/6END) 5 ranks

Basic: You've mastered the art of fighting in heavy armor. For each rank of Tank!, you will receive 5%DR and 5DT while wearing power armor!

Expert: Metal Monk: (8STR/8END/lvl15/ Tank(3)) Some people couldn't even move in all that metal. You move faster -- you no longer receive movement speed penalties in heavy armor and your sneak (noticeability) penalties are cut in half.

Master: Mobile Fortress: (10STR/10END/lvl30/Tank(3)/MM): Whenever you wear Power Armor, it will function at max condition. In addition, your Damage Threshold will no longer suffer bleedthrough (minimum damage).


END + INT: The Medic (same stat stuff)

Basic: If there's anything the wasteland needs, it's more doctors.... in the field! You'll fit the bill just fine. For each rank in The Medic, your drugs have +10% effect and duration. Stimpaks have +20% eff/dur. At rank five, doctor's bags heal all limbs completely.

Expert: Healer: You will keep empty stimpaks and can use them with any other drug or med to refill them.

Master: Miracle Worker: In hardcoe mode, you can bring your companions back to life with a doctor's bag, though they may be in poor shape -- If not in hardcoe mode, a stimpak will return them to full health (and consciousness) instantly.

-------

I'm very RPGish

...... Of course, I may just scrap the doubling idea, too, scale down the rewards, and make them more single-stat paths. I like the idea of making combined paths, too; paths that merge and split and make more of a "tree" or web. Or either/or perks, maybe even as Mastery perks... I'm taking notes. Perks like these take a long time to make. Just keeping people updated with where my head's going. Next step for me will be to finish out the armor and damage mods and the LCK and CHA paths for what's already in there.

Votes are starting to really show what people want.

By the end of this weekend, I will try to have these things added to 0.02a:

Two to Four more perk paths

The rest of the damage scaling options marked NYI in the readme, and taking suggestions for more.

Several mods for scaling hardcoe reqs (hunger/thirst/sleep) and timescale

Enemy rebalance and AI tweaks.

-----

Let's just cross our fingers that RL doesn't pull a curveball on me like last week, and I'll have a lot more time to work! :celebrate:

What do people think of the couple perk paths I threw out? (two posts up)

Should I scale them down a bit and make them single stats?

Do you like them? Do you like the idea-style/thought-process?

Any general ideas for play-types to be represented via perk paths?

I like the idea. Personally I'd like to see perk paths use skills more than just SPECIAL stats. It's a nice incentive to make max SPECIAL builds, but logically it would make more sense for the medicine path to rely on science and medicine (and INT).

I like the doctor perk idea, keeping empty stimpacks for refilling with different chems but just two ranks to be able to heal all limbs with doctors bags may be a bit much though, unless doctors bags were scarcer, more expensive and took more ingredients to craft. I ended up nerfing hydra because I felt it was ruining the game with healing all limbs and it seemed relatively easy to get hold of. I would really like to be able to specialize character build through perks.

One can fork their script(s) around NVSE's presence/absence using an indicator such as http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=36600 (inspired by HugePinball's FOSE Detect), allowing a mod to offer NVSE specific features only in the event NVSE is loaded while scripts checking for NVSE's presence will still run all the way through in NVSE's absence provided all NVSE stuff is wrapped in 'If NVSE' checks.

If NVSE    ;NVSE reliant codeElse   ;NVSE independent codeEndIf

Since the NVSE form is a global in this case and autonomously maintained, the script won't halt if NVSE isn't loaded as NVSE == 0, thus the NVSE specific code won't run allowing the script to run all the way through in either case w/o halting. If a feature is NVSE dependent, it can be contingent upon NVSE being loaded allowing a mod to incorporate NVSE stuff without making NVSE a requirement. FOOK, for instance, has gobs of *SE dependent features and code but will never halt or try to execute an NVSE command in NVSE's absence, effectively making NVSE merely optional. For instance, the 'N'' key opens the menu if NVSE and the player is given a menu item if not. You can even hide/show option buttons by affixing If (NVSE != 0) checks to buttons...

Anyhow, Xodorap, you're more than welcome to utilize the above linked resource if you're interested. NVSE does add all kinds of new potential.

Good luck with the overhauling

Maybe its easier to ask what people dont want in an overhaul?

What I dont want:

• Vanilla items renamed to "classic" or real world counterparts.
  
• Backpedal speed reductions, or reductions in speed while jumping
  
• Ammo/caps weight
  
• Ammo/Cap reduction
  
• Custom sounds for vanilla weapons.
  
• Anything "hardcoe" Sorry but having to open my pipboy every 30 seconds to eat a sandwich or drink water is not FUN.
  
• Extreme Inventory limitations (6 weapons, 50lbs etc)
  
• CS:S Style damage aka realistic damage. I like shooting bullets, lots of bullets.

Generally if a mod does any of those and I cant disable them I avoid it like a plague.


What I am looking for in an overhaul:

• More unique weapons that are balanced for the vanilla game.
  
• Larger selection of cloth and light armors instead of re-textures of existing. Maybe some perks that make light armor or cloth worth it compared to power armor
  
• Increased spawns (MMM!) I miss not knowing if there was going to be 0 or 15 raiders waiting around the corner or if I would walk into 2 factions at war. I miss running low on ammo and trying to evade groups of enemies as I desperately attempted to find a safe place to attempt a defense, or fast travel to a merchant.
  
• Additional unique skins for existing enemies.
  
• My dynamic damage system based more on ammo. For example many RL guns are able to be rechambered for a larger or smaller caliber. Like a 9mm SMG rechambered for 5mm would have a larger ammo capacity and fire rate capability but less range, damage and stopping power. Where a 12.7mm would be the opposite suiting 2 different playstyles and sitations.
  
• New quests and areas to explore. Anything that converts empty buildings into something useful.
  
• New factions. Maybe semi scripted events where the new factions raid select areas when you exit a building in town, like the hitmen from FO3.
  
• Craft system overhaul. Currently I find myself stocked up with millions of consumables for crafting and the current menu for it is mind numbing.
  
• Fallout 3 weapons. I miss the Chinese assault rifle

All of the current overhauls all seem to focus on making the game tedious. I personally want more reasons to go out and explore the waste lands, I like collecting things for my home and killing things not fast travelling home every 10 mins or constantly having to open my pipboy to eat something. In FO3 I would explore places just to hunt for ammo and things to sell so that I could buy more ammo and go out and kill more things. It was a cycle that worked beautifully. Sure I always had about 10,000 .32 rounds that were useless as hell but I often found myself being able to easily burn thru 1000 5.56mm rounds and dont get me started on how fast 10mm ammo went lol.

That's the coolest thing ever and my hat is OFF to you! I'm going to have to rescript a lot of things, but this adds worlds of potential! :bowdown:

I wish everyone could be as detailed and thorough as you!

As for what people don't want in an overhaul, since mine is modular, that doesn't matter. You can just not select the things you don't want. :shrug: But I also, for the reasons you mentioned, started adding (contrary to old XFO) opposite-direction scalability. For example, in old XFO, you could pick to make, say ammo (I separate ammo, caps, and meds for rarity mods), "mild" "med" or "high" rarity -- all of which were significantly rarer than vanilla. Now there's a "more" option, making things /less/ rare. So you could actually ramp UP ammo to be less rare. If it's not enough for you, I'll release an "even more" option with tons of (ammo, caps, or meds) to be found! :clap:

One of the perk paths I'm making currently (next on my list, actually) has its basic "five-rank" perk as a progressive rarity-modifier, making ammo, caps, and meds ALL progressively less rare. Kind of like a multi-rank Scrounger on steroids. I would work on spawns, but I heard Mart's porting to NV, so it seems silly for me to even try

If people want it, I can make more "cheat"-ish (that's not an insult, I just mean more "unbalancing") options, like unlimited encumbrance. Doesn't hurt the mod at all: again, it's all modular / pick-and-choose - the more options, the merrier! :foodndrink:

Speaking of perk paths, I finally finished up the first CHA path -- it took me all freakin' day. I *love* working on these perk paths, but I hate the proportional time they take... I'm sure I'm doing things quite inefficiently

CHA: Beloved

Basic: Forgiveness (CHA 7, five ranks)
You have a face that no one can stay mad at for long! ... And allies that can be pretty persuasive! Your infamy with any faction will slowly fade to nothing (From Vilified to Neutral in a month at rank 1; in a week at rank 5)

Expert: The Bard's Muse (CHA 9, Forgiveness(3), lvl 12)
News of your deeds has traveled far and wide -- and continues to! As you gain fame in general, a fraction of that fame will spread to all factions with whom you already have fame. (req Forgiveness(3))

Master: Dire Paragon (CHA 10, TBM, Forg(5), lvl20)
Those who respect only power prostrate before you and those who admire heroism dote upon you. Your greatness is undeniable. You will slowly gain fame with all factions. (Req Forgiveness(5), Bard's Muse)

(Master is VERY slow, but also means that the Expert perk will start to effect all factions!)

I heard a lot of griping about how people wanted to do A or B, but couldn't because they unwittingly ruined their standing with a faction, or couldn't hire someone, or whatever. This path may drastically affect intended gameplay, but it could also open up a LOT of possibilities!

Here's the one I'm starting work on, to round out the first round of paths. (THEN, I'm going to make another round for each SPECIAL stat, then make an interconnected "web" between all of them, including some either/or decisions.... because I'm insane )

LCK: The Blessed

Basic: Fortuity (LCK 7, 5 ranks)
(fun part of description coming) For each rank, you'll find more ammo, meds, and caps in containers, and vendors will be more likely to have just what you need for sale!

Expert: Boon (same stat deals)
(fun part coming) Once a day, upon sleeping, you'll wake not only refreshed, but with a little extra something... or things! (random item/s)

Master: Destined
Someone is truly watching over you. If you would die, you will instead resurrect at the Doc's house. (having trouble getting this one to work w/o crashing. commands seem simple enough... might have to change it... Ideas welcome )

Destined seems like a nice mechanic, but considering quicksaves I'm dubious about how much it's going to be used.

Also in terms of perk paths it would be fun too have some for specific weapons. Say laser or plasma, etc...
As an example.

Basic: Laser Commando (EW 45 and SC 30, level 4)
You know how to use a laser, where to shoot and how to get the most damage out of it. +5% DAM and 1% critical chance

Expert: Laser Technician (EW 70 and SC 50, Laser Commando(3), lvl 15)
Your knowledge of laser has improved your handling with them. Laser weapons have improved condition (30-50%) and repairs are more effective on them (don't know if this is possible to implement)

Master: Laser Commander (EW 100 and SC 70, Laser Commando(5), Laser Technician, lvl 22)
You have mastered laser weapons. You have adjusted your lenses to focus the beam ignoring 10 DT on you enemies. On critical hits your beam penetrates the target allowing you to hit someone behind the target.

This is mostly me trying to make lasers competitive with plasma late game, though. But it would be nice to have people who focus on a more specific weapon type (say laser or pistols) these options.
And like I said earlier, though High SPECIAL perks are great, some paths would more logically involve skills and it's a great way to make less useful skills like medicine (you don't need a very high med to pass all the skill checks the max being 65) something to invest all the way to 100. Except for combat skills I saw very little need to bring a skill all the way to 100 with all the magazines and skill altering clothes.

I like alot of your goals. Im not so much looking for cheat style options tho. In FO3 my main overhaul was MMM, all of the mods that I looked for specifically fixed anything that I believed to be boring. I tried a few ammo mods but all of them seemed to make ammo too abundant negating my reasons to explore. Then I discovered a mod that set all ammo boxes to respawn and increased only the ammo found in ammo boxes by 50-100% and when combined with zone respawning this made for some very interesting ammo raids.

I like the idea of perk paths. If you combined that with something like http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=35043 things could get very interesting. How hard would it be to convert the Morrowind way of raising skills to FO:NV? Having the weapon based skills increase as you use them rather than skill distribution would be pretty interesting. You could use something like the traits at the start of the game to determine starting proficiencies with weapons and if it was possible you could cap the amount of skill points per level that could be put into the attack based skills. Its pretty bad that you can hit 100 small guns skill within a couple levels currently.


I wasnt aware that XFO was modular, now I regret not trying it out in FO3

Well, my original perk paths has a path for sniper rifles and a path for pistols, BUT you make a VERY good point about skills!

I was just about to start work on a second set of perk paths for SPECIAL traits, but many of them were clearly already skill-inspired, like the Medic and the Survivor. So instead my next set will be skill-inspired :dance:

No wonder you mod seems so similar to FWE, instead of viewing them as competition you could join them. Your idea of having the most customizable overhaul mod is a grand one, FWE 5.0 was that for FO3 and is my favorite mod for any of Beths games yet or any game(but I have only use mods extensively with MW,OB and F3), I think every game should have that level of options. You guys working together can top FWE, have even more options, blow all other FNV overhauls out of the water(do everything they do, and much more or less whatever the players wants changed, yippee!). Plus it won't be as much work for you and things will progress at a much faster rate.

Right on! It's been great for FOOK as the alternative would have been either releasing separate file versions for NVSE/Non-NVSE users (major headache) or making FOOK absolutely require the extender. May the "http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1137419-relz-the-chicken-and-the-egg/page__p__16635555#entry16635555" serve you well.