Burn the decline! Kill the doritos! Purge the Popamole! What was decline in original Fallouts?

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Exactly what the topic title says. I was wondering on what exactly can be considered popamole in the original Fallout games. Includes Fallout Tactics as well, due to some improvements we might take from it.

I will start:
- Magical hands first aid/doctor healing (without any item lol)
- Heal with rest, even through you just got sent to a inch of your life by repeated high-caliber shots.
- Eye-shots are too easy

 

[Whisky]

Lack of skill checks for many skills is the worst one. So many useless skills.

 

[hexer]

Yeah, for example I always wanted to earn money with my high Doctor or Repair skill - not just heal myself or solve quests with them.

 

[Commissar Draco]

^
Yes Especially since you could become real MD in Vault City; never played a fully playthrough cause even Commissar ''Good'' and non combat oriented chars always had at least one combat skill on reasonable level as Pacifism in post civilization setting has no sense unless you RP some Priest or Monk but giving more ''jobs'' quests using all those non combat skills like science!, toaster repair and Medicine would be nice . Arena/Working for Militias Quests for pure combat chars too in the name of Of course. All skills should be useful in game even if some chars should be easier and some other more fun to RP.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Exactly what the topic title says. I was wondering on what exactly can be considered popamole in the original Fallout games. Includes Fallout Tactics as well, due to some improvements we might take from it.

I will start:
- Magical hands first aid/doctor healing (without any item lol)
- Heal with rest, even through you just got sent to a inch of your life by repeated high-caliber shots.
- Eye-shots are too easy

All those are abstractions made in the name of game not being tedious to play besides:

-You can fix broken and twisted limbs used improvised materials in RL no reason to clutter the inventory with bandages made of torn clothes and sticks; But Medical bag for surgeries would be nice.
- TBH can't into abstraction again; besides you would have to put qualified Shaman/Doctor into every town and add some loot for Combat oriented characters to pay the bills.

- They're easy for Characters who took right stats and invested XP in combat training as it should be.

Fallout is the baby first RPG so to make it into AoD is mistake in Commissar Opinion; in other words Tim Cain was right in his emphasis on fun and not catering to ultra hardcore crowd.

 

[Gozma]

It was kinda effectively linear, you could mechanically go anywhere but at least vault 13 -> shady sands -> vault 10? I can't remember, the one with rats in it -> Junktown -> Hub is the only start that makes sense (it's that or saving the game and randomly exploring until you see green circles, then reloading and going there). The waterchip timer means you can't Bethesda it and just float around until you inevitably find the chip. It would be nice if the leads you could get to find the waterchip threw you in different directions based on your skillset and characterizing choices so like a "science guy" playthrough doesn't just mean you solve the same order and location of stuff by opening the doors in a different way.

 

[Monstergelo]

Power armor too OP. Make them use some power cell and vulnerable to EMP

 

[laclongquan]

If i remeember correctly.

no prevalence of bleeding and poisoned by wound (sepsis)? They would have made 1st aid useful and logical.

Ammo is not scarce enough. Should have made each hostile drop ammo loot in low amount(1-3) and shop refresh in very slow rate. Ammo scarce will make melee viable and necessary.

You cant trade with your merchant caravans durin quests? Why?

Car not break down often enough. Any driver know hostile environs plus low maintainance condition send you car to stalls often. and make more use for repair kits.

F1's has no transport? wtf? at the least we should be able to hire a brahmin to carry our loots.

just some 1st thoughts.

 

[Kaucukovnik]

I hate the benefit of postponing investment in certain skills until you raise them using books. My OCD keeps telling me I'm wasting skill points by becoming a sharpshooter or proficient repairman at low levels.
This is of no big concern for 1st uninformed playthrough, but needlessly distorts subsequent ones.

 

[DraQ]

you would have to put qualified Shaman/Doctor into every town

With better combat system it would be more feasible to try to avoid damage, and having to find help if you fail.
Failing that, otherwise shitty, but medicine-capable follower(s) would solve that problem.

They're easy for Characters who took right stats and invested XP in combat training as it should be.

They are easy enough to reduce combat to shooting eyes until effective for combat specialized characters.

 

[dibens]

Fast Travel

 

[laclongquan]

I hate the benefit of postponing investment in certain skills until you raise them using books. My OCD keeps telling me I'm wasting skill points by becoming a sharpshooter or proficient repairman at low levels.
This is of no big concern for 1st uninformed playthrough, but needlessly distorts subsequent ones.

Should have made them temporary boost, like the magazines in FNV.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

It was kinda effectively linear, you could mechanically go anywhere but at least vault 13 -> shady sands -> vault 10? I can't remember, the one with rats in it -> Junktown -> Hub is the only start that makes sense (it's that or saving the game and randomly exploring until you see green circles, then reloading and going there). The waterchip timer means you can't Bethesda it and just float around until you inevitably find the chip. It would be nice if the leads you could get to find the waterchip threw you in different directions based on your skillset and characterizing choices so like a "science guy" playthrough doesn't just mean you solve the same order and location of stuff by opening the doors in a different way.

Well, this is something that we should be (at least attempting) handling better. Lots of things about the plot and the main quest is handled through clues and thataways. Shortly after you exit the Tibbets introductory sequence you're essentially given the objective "12 prisoners have escaped Tibbets, are you a bad enough dude Prisoner 13 to bring them back dead or alive", paraphrasing a little there. The plot in Van Buren is a lot more of a clockwork device than the more straightforward story in the previous games, lots of seemingly unrelated things are actually interconnected.

The real challenge is going to be designing the gameplay side of this without resorting to levelscaling. I'd envision it as something of a ring structure, with a central area that it then expanded so increase distances alone make higher level areas harder to just stumble into.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

For a game about survival in the wasteland, there weren't many survival elements in the first two. *cough*newvegashardcoremode*cough*

 

[laclongquan]

Double that hardcore mode at least. I mean, you can sleep two hours each day and still function perfectly well?

 

[Kalin]

Aside from everything that has already been said, I dislike the huge amount of stimpacks littered all over the place. They remove the challenge from combat, since you can magically heal back to max hps in a single turn. The only thing you need to watch out for is basically getting swarmed or suffering those silly critical hits that deal hundreds of damage (which is another crappy thing).

(Fallout was still a blast though and I still enjoy it a lot, please forgive my blashpemy, 10 x hail Timothy Cain etc.)

 

[Commissar Draco]

There was Hardcore mode in F01; Commissar does remember failing [Outdoorsman] check and being dumped on the dessert with depleted health which simulated dehydration. In Sequel they dumped it cause you started as tribal who has all Survival skills as part of his Origin kit. Why force player to be prisoner scum in VB BTW ? Give him some origins like Guard/Bounty Hunter/Prisoner/Sucker who found prisoner body as blank state/ with starting equipment and traits instead and made some conversations and quests to reflect that. I am sick of starting my games from prison cells like in TES games.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

There was Hardcore mode in F01; Commissar does remember failing [Outdoorsman] check and being dumped on the dessert with depleted health which simulated dehydration. In Sequel they dumped it cause you started as tribal who has all Survival skills as part of his Origin kit. Why force player to be prisoner scum in VB BTW ? Give him some origins like Guard/Bounty Hunter/Prisoner/Sucker who found prisoner body as blank state/ with starting equipment and traits instead and made some conversations and quests to reflect that. I am sick of starting my games from prison cells like in TES games.

Tibbets is very, very, very different from a normal prison, and its function and your own incarceration there is an important aspect of the story.

And my own pet feature is that we are greatly expanding Black Isle's originally planned Innocent/Guilty background dynamic. Being an actual criminal is now only merely one of twenty (this is the aimed number of them) possible background perks.

 

[Grunker]

Shit character system

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Shit character system

No, wait, I remember someone(you) having a grievance against the character system, but can't remember the argument.
Also, nerf aim to eyes please.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Clearly they should be replacing SPECIAL with a faithful implementation of GURPS as it was originally intended. No, wait that's too simulationist, we wouldn't want that.

 

[Kaucukovnik]

nerf aim to eyes please.

But don't just turn eye shots into a waste of AP.
Make them harder to achieve, like 200 in respective skill for consistent eye hits. Or make them nigh impossible over long distances.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

I hate the benefit of postponing investment in certain skills until you raise them using books. My OCD keeps telling me I'm wasting skill points by becoming a sharpshooter or proficient repairman at low levels.
This is of no big concern for 1st uninformed playthrough, but needlessly distorts subsequent ones.

What I'd do is have books postpone the skill cost increments (e.g up by 5 for each book read). You can't script that (yet) in FO2, but might be possible in FOnline. To make that truly useful you'd have to (1) introduce the increments earlier (e.g. 75-100 costing 2 points, etc.) and (2) make all the book skills more important at higher levels.

nerf aim to eyes please.

But don't just turn eye shots into a waste of AP.
Make them harder to achieve, like 200 in respective skill for consistent eye hits. Or make them nigh impossible over long distances.

Problem with just making them universally harder is that they just end up useless until the last 2% of the game or so. Making higher THC's with eyes progressively harder (e.g. going from 90-100% costing ten times the amount of skill as going from 0-10%) keeps them as a (very risky) option throughout the game.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Clearly they should be replacing SPECIAL with a faithful implementation of GURPS as it was originally intended. No, wait that's too simulationist, we wouldn't want that.

No they don't want to be sued by fag who owns GURPS; fair use clause which let you mod the game doesn't allow using 3d parties ''intellectual property''* without costly license.

There was Hardcore mode in F01; Commissar does remember failing [Outdoorsman] check and being dumped on the dessert with depleted health which simulated dehydration. In Sequel they dumped it cause you started as tribal who has all Survival skills as part of his Origin kit. Why force player to be prisoner scum in VB BTW ? Give him some origins like Guard/Bounty Hunter/Prisoner/Sucker who found prisoner body as blank state/ with starting equipment and traits instead and made some conversations and quests to reflect that. I am sick of starting my games from prison cells like in TES games.

Tibbets is very, very, very different from a normal prison, and its function and your own incarceration there is an important aspect of the story.

OK then thought it would be another Twicher or Gothic game with predefined character; its good for what it was for one playthru only.

*Joo nonsense but what you can do; blame shitler for loosing the war.

 

[Grunker]

Clearly they should be replacing SPECIAL with a faithful implementation of GURPS as it was originally intended. No, wait that's too simulationist, we wouldn't want that.

I am not arguing against simulationism.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...project-eternity.75947/page-1059#post-3055514

Selective strawmen are big among butthurt simulationists I see.

Yes, GURPS would be better, but obviously that's beyond scope and possibility (primarily because of copyright). Most of my problems with the practical implementation of SPECIAL will be taken care of by the team if Whisky's posts are any indication. He seems to dislike most of what I dislike. Of course the basics of the systems probably can't be change.

But yeah, kudos on being butthurt that I state my opinion of the shittiest thing in Fallout in a thread about what people think is the shittiest thing in Fallout.