Which feauture did you always miss/want in Fallout1/2?

[Skittles]

Limiting fog of war effects to hostile/unfriendly characters and maybe to items or interactive objects that wouldn't be readily apparent from a distance is my favourite way of seeing it used. It makes sense to me in dungeon-like environments where exploring the layout is important, but in FO/2 style level designs, I don't think it adds much that the natural limitation of the isometric point of view doesn't already add. Dealing with it in towns is a bit of a chore and it can make exploration tedious if you have to move back and forth over maps 'wiping' away the unexplored, dark areas.

 

[villain of the story]

Keeping it practical:

[1] Proximity based sequential & simultaneous turns:

If a son of a bitch is too far away, say, 25+ hexes away, throw him/her/it into the global simultaneous turn list.

[2] Simultaneous turns for non-hostiles:

Simple. if a critter isn't gonna attack anyone/anything at all and isn't being actively chased or attacked by anyone/anything, throw that son of a bitch into the global simultaneous turn list and spare me the torture of having to watch 20 non-hostiles moving around like idiots, one after the other.

[3] Worldmap travel obstacles and skills/tools that work for worldmap:

Don't give me this popamole "I walk everywhere" bullshit. Do it as Wasteland did. Make stats and items matter for navigating the worldmap. Got a mountain ahead of you? Better move around or have the skill/perk/tool/whatever to climb it, motherfucker! Also in other worlds, make outdoorsman worth it.

[4] Fast travel to hotspots from within town:

Yes, both FO still have a lot of time wasting LARPing conventions.

[5] Hide all critters out of your LOS + Observation checks:

This was a huge exploit in both FO1/2. Reinforce this with things like listening to doors, peeping through halls etc. Amazing that JA2 is more of an RPG than FO on certain fine details like this.

[6] Logbook:

As already mentioned, a journal/logbook for past dialogues.

[7] Character database:

A character database of sorts that give you portraits (if you've previously met or been given a pic) of characters with only the in-game information you have gained thus far, with links to the dialogues you've had with that character.

[8] Survival:

A reason to put all that consumable junk to use. Kind of like in FNV except where shit matters and you can collapse and get fucked at the worst of times if you don't manage your hunger/dehydration/sleep levels, all factoring into *everything* you do. Automated consumption options a plus to avoid micro-management (though it never became that cumbersome in FNV)

[9] Tracking:

Another excuse to put outdoorsman to use. Gain information, like, "you notice at least 10 different foot prints by the door of the enslavers". Stuff that you can put to use, in game world and on world map also.

 

[villain of the story]

Travelling on the world map was a chore in FO1/2. You wanted to be done with it as soon as you could. Make it worth spending time on there instead of going A to B to C. Add interesting game mechanics to make travelling an enjoyable experience instead of a chore.

 

[SoupNazi]

better tactical combat: make shooting next to a wall, behind cover, from around a corner, from behind a tree, matter

 

[Quetzacoatl]

Will towns be Tarant size?

 

[PandaBreeder]

Interrupts in combat and cover actually doing something. Those are probably not minor features, though. Seconding the inventory complaints.

 

[curry]

Will towns be Tarant size?

Tarant was tedious. I'm ok with large towns as long as they are interesting and not repetitive.

 

[Quetzacoatl]

Tarant was tedious. I'm ok with large towns as long as they are interesting and not repetitive.

Didn't you use the fast travel system? I'm also sure that Solar can vary things up.

 

[curry]

Didn't you use the fast travel system? I'm also sure that Solar can vary things up.

If you need to even have a fast travel system you should realize you just designed a shitty town

 

[Quetzacoatl]

If you need to even have a fast travel system you should realize you just designed a shitty town

How else would you have the player travel through such a large town? You'd waste a lot of time getting to quest givers by just walking.

 

[curry]

How else would you have the player travel through such a large town? You'd waste a lot of time getting to quest givers by just walking.

That wouldn't feel like waste of time if it was a well designed and interesting town

 

[tiagocc0]

That wouldn't feel like waste of time if it was a well designed and interesting town

Or having NPCs act like they are intelligent and autonomous going on with their lives.

 

[Tigranes]

Sorry, no. It would still be boring to go through said town a hundred times throughout the course of a game, especially as you replay it. That's also bound up with the quest system, where you're often running around rather purposefully and you want to get somewhere to do something, instead of being idly bored and wanting to explore a little.

Give me one game where a town was so well designed and interesting you could run around for hours and hours and not want a limited form of fast travel. As it is you'll just sit there and go "NOT DESIGN ENUF" for every game out there.

 

[Quetzacoatl]

Besides, why is Curry making this thread off-topic?

 

[Surf Solar]

The biggest town so far is twice as big as the Hub in Fallout 1 (so it's huge) but there are different sectors you can easily switch between without walking back and forth. Mostly only the metropolises (Chicago, Detroit etc) are very big, the rest is like The Den in FO2 or such, so not very big. In general, I avoided making lots of very huge places and rather have many smaller ones, so you don't need to run back and forth, and back and forth and so on and have some visual variety. I like it better this way.

 

[tiagocc0]

The biggest town so far is twice as big as the Hub in Fallout 1 (so it's huge) but there are different sectors you can easily switch between without walking back and forth. Mostly only the metropolises (Chicago, Detroit etc) are very big, the rest is like The Den in FO2 or such, so not very big. In general, I avoided making lots of very huge places and rather have many smaller ones, so you don't need to run back and forth, and back and forth and so on and have some visual variety. I like it better this way.

Sounds good to me.

 

[curry]

Sorry, no. It would still be boring to go through said town a hundred times throughout the course of a game, especially as you replay it. That's also bound up with the quest system, where you're often running around rather purposefully and you want to get somewhere to do something, instead of being idly bored and wanting to explore a little.

Give me one game where a town was so well designed and interesting you could run around for hours and hours and not want a limited form of fast travel. As it is you'll just sit there and go "NOT DESIGN ENUF" for every game out there.

If you have to "go through said town a hundred times throughout the course of a game" then it's not well designed.

 

[villain of the story]

Your mom is not well designed, she cooks you breakfast every morning. LOL.

A fast travel based on UI, not some underground tube shit that's every much as tedious, is enough for me. At worst, make it so that you fast travel to districts from the map instantly (adding in the travel time if the game has passage of time), but ability to travel to the door of individual buildings would be the best. If you gotta have random encounters in a town, dangerous streets or that kind of shit, you can do implement it through the town map.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Survival & Scarcity

You didn't really have to survive in Fallout (which deserves a special topic), but what bugged me the most was the overabundance of ammo.

So, if I was designing a Fallout-like game, I'd make melee a pretty much mandatory skill, as melee weapons are the easiest to make, find, and use. I'd make widely available guns clearly superior to melee but unreliable (high chance of misfire due to wear, tear, and poor maintenance). 30-40% chance of misfire maybe.

Then you'd have rare "mothballed" guns in mint condition and special weapons, found in pre-war facilities, sort of like +2 weapons in fantasy dungeons. Ammo is rare, so running out should be a frequent occasion. Ammo for special weapons should be extremely rare. Burst mode should be the last resort option.

In the end, a well to-do post-apoc warrior would have a mint condition magnum with 2 rounds, an old glock with 12 rounds, a well maintained hunting rifle with 5 rounds, and an assortment of melee weapons.

 

[tiagocc0]

Survival & Scarcity

You didn't really have to survive in Fallout (which deserves a special topic), but what bugged me the most was the overabundance of ammo.

So, if I was designing a Fallout-like game, I'd make melee a pretty much mandatory skill, as melee weapons are the easiest to make, find, and use. I'd make widely available guns clearly superior to melee but unreliable (high chance of misfire due to wear, tear, and poor maintenance). 30-40% chance of misfire maybe.

Then you'd have rare "mothballed" guns in mint condition and special weapons, found in pre-war facilities, sort of like +2 weapons in fantasy dungeons. Ammo is rare, so running out should be a frequent occasion. Ammo for special weapons should be extremely rare. Burst mode should be the last resort option.

In the end, a well to-do post-apoc warrior would have a mint condition magnum with 2 rounds, an old glock with 12 rounds, a well maintained hunting rifle with 5 rounds, and an assortment of melee weapons.

On these conditions you said, maintaining a weapon should be a skill that almost nobody had, and if available to the player it should be quite expensive or only available after completing some special quests.
And people would usually have poor skills at using/firing weapons because if there's not much ammo, then people probably wouldn't be able to train, because it would be a waste of ammo.

 

[Quetzacoatl]

Survival & Scarcity

You didn't really have to survive in Fallout (which deserves a special topic), but what bugged me the most was the overabundance of ammo.

So, if I was designing a Fallout-like game, I'd make melee a pretty much mandatory skill, as melee weapons are the easiest to make, find, and use. I'd make widely available guns clearly superior to melee but unreliable (high chance of misfire due to wear, tear, and poor maintenance). 30-40% chance of misfire maybe.

Then you'd have rare "mothballed" guns in mint condition and special weapons, found in pre-war facilities, sort of like +2 weapons in fantasy dungeons. Ammo is rare, so running out should be a frequent occasion. Ammo for special weapons should be extremely rare. Burst mode should be the last resort option.

In the end, a well to-do post-apoc warrior would have a mint condition magnum with 2 rounds, an old glock with 12 rounds, a well maintained hunting rifle with 5 rounds, and an assortment of melee weapons.

What about slings, crossbows, or bows & arrows? If included how will they fit in?

 

[Gorawala]

On these conditions you said, maintaining a weapon should be a skill that almost nobody had, and if available to the player it should be quite expensive or only available after completing some special quests.
And people would usually have poor skills at using/firing weapons because if there's not much ammo, then people probably wouldn't be able to train, because it would be a waste of ammo.

From a realism point of view, it generally takes a long time to train someone to proficiency and strength/endurance with a bow, while a firearm has a shorter learning time. Arrows are harder to craft than rudimentary bullets, though both would have poor accuracy in a survivalist setting. In a Fallout universe, wouldn't archery be something that has developed depending on how long after the resurfacing on the world took place and the quality of wood around? Depending on your timeline, wouldn't it be a case of guns being found abundantly soon after people resurface thus little need for archery, but with declining salvaaging excursions, alternatives (including archery, spears) begin to arise. Follow the "necessity is the mother of invention" through and it will be believable.

On the accuracy front, I think the gameplay over realism abstraction takes priority. It would make for dull combat if everyone misses more than they hit with little ammo. The only real workaround is if there are virtual reality programs in vaults to practice shooting.

 

[tiagocc0]

The only real workaround is if there are virtual reality programs in vaults to practice shooting.

Nice!

 

[Vault Dweller]

On these conditions you said, maintaining a weapon should be a skill that almost nobody had, and if available to the player it should be quite expensive or only available after completing some special quests.

I'd say not you shouldn't be able to fix weapons. If you're a savage in a post-apocalyptic world and you find an MP5 with a worn out barrel, there is no way you can fix it. All you can do is pull the trigger and hope for the best.

And people would usually have poor skills at using/firing weapons because if there's not much ammo, then people probably wouldn't be able to train, because it would be a waste of ammo.

A PA game would really go well with an increase-by-use system. The scarcity of, well, pretty much everything would prevent the abuse and give you a more or less realistic learning curve, from 'absolute beginner' to 'experienced'.

What about slings, crossbows, or bows & arrows? If included how will they fit in?

I don't see them as a viable option due to ammo issues. The initial post-war supply of bolts and arrows would be low (vs the availability of firearms and ammo) and once it's gone, it would be hard to replace. Besides, why waste time trying to make a bow and arrows that fly straight, when there is plenty of knives, bats, hammers, axes, shovels, crowbars, pipes lying around? A good bow with a decent supply of arrows is better than a baseball bat, but the bat is probably better than a crappy bow with a shoestring you've just made.

 

[Quetzacoatl]

I don't see them as a viable option due to ammo issues. The initial post-war supply of bolts and arrows would be low (vs the availability of firearms and ammo) and once it's gone, it would be hard to replace. Besides, why waste time trying to make a bow and arrows that fly straight, when there is plenty of knives, bats, hammers, axes, shovels, crowbars, pipes lying around? A good bow with a decent supply of arrows is better than a baseball bat, but the bat is probably better than a crappy bow with a shoestring you've just made.

Ok then, what about slings then? All they require for ammo are rocks.