Hi,
First of all, I want to thank phobos2077 for the great mod. It rebalances Fallout 2 nicely and makes new playthroughs a lot less tedious and more interesting compared to vanilla FO2/FO2+RPU. With the new content added with RPU, one can get rich very fast and get the best gear somewhat easily. After this point, you just mow down everyone in your way with little risk to yourself. I really like the rebalancing steps you’ve taken to address the issue.
Having said that, I think some additional changes can be made to further enhance the experience. This is all my opinion of course, so there is no obligation to implement anything, especially if it doesn’t fit within your vision of the mod. Also I don’t know how difficult it would be to implement any of them.
Also wall of text warning.
I think the biggest problem with FO2 is how easily you can get the APA and some end-game weapons by going early to Navarro. I don’t know why it was done like that originally, but it really breaks the balance. On my current playthrough with v.0.9.7, I went Arroyo->Klamath->Den->Modoc en route to VC->VC and Gecko. In the VC-Gecko area I did most quests I could and got the fuel controller chip for the Highwayman. At this point I decided to go back to the Den to get the car and finish the quest for Karl. Since I now knew about Redding, I went there because it was closer and I didn’t have to go through mountains too much. In Redding I got the San Fran location from Lou and went there (detour to EPA) after I was done with most quests. At this point you know the drill with the APA at Navarro. Getting the APA does require some decent Speech to fool the gas station guard (too lazy to look up) and Dornan but most people probably would meet the requirements at this point. And that’s it. You get the second-best armor in the game and some OP weapons to boot. There is no point in wearing anything else, even the PA in the BoS bunker in San Fran, which you also get for free. My suggestion is to change the APA to some power assisted combat armor with stats between the BoS combat armor and the T-51b. You are supposed to be a raw recruit, so giving you the best stuff is a bit strange. Also, there are a lot of troops in combat armor on the base, so you being issued better armor than them is illogical. Dornan calls the armor “Mark II Powered Combat Armor” so it doesn’t really break the lore either, as it's technically still power armor, just not the APA. You can get the APA and APA Mk.2 on the oil rig since it’s the end-game at this point. A new armor perk can be added called “Powered combat armor” or something, that gives 1-2 strength and 25 rad resistance. Since you kind of get the regular PA for free after Navarro, maybe some repairs are necessary to get it working so you have to spend some money or have high (above 100) Repair and Science skills to do it yourself. This should help with armor progression a bit so you don’t get the best stuff for free. At least the end-game weapons you loot from Navarro and the BoS bunker require ammo that may be somewhat expensive and heavy at this point of the game.
Now I know you are supposed to go to San Fran and Navarro in the late game but as I wrote above, I didn’t really go out of my way to rush these locations so from a RP perspective, it isn't really out of the question to do it.
On the topic of end-game weapons, maybe the laser and plasma rifles can be toned down a bit. They use 2/3 MFC per shot which is good but I think they were balanced around you having APA so enemies can bring you down more easily. Anything weaker than PA/APA wearing NPCs gets obliterated, considering MFCs also have -20 DR modifier. The same goes to the gauss rifle and pistol and maybe the ammo can be toned a bit down as well. As far as the pulse pistol and rifle are concerned, they are simply OP with way higher damage than any of their counterparts and only using one cell per shot. And you get them for free on top of that, so maybe they need to use 3 SEC for the pistol and 4 MFC for the rifle per shot. And maybe the damage needs to be lowered even then. The Flamers also deal a lot of damage but those are at least close range.
As far as early game equipment goes, I really didn’t get much use of the zip gun I crafted and the pipe rifle from Vic’s shack. You find a 10mm pistol in Klamath so there is no point in using any of them given they are single shot and require 4 AP to reload. If they had 3-4 rounds and required 5 AP to shoot (to manually cycle them) they would be somewhat usable early game. The 10mm pistol and SMG would still be better but you would have at least some use for them on Vic/Cassidy/Lenny until you find something better.
I’m not sure if the recipe for the makeshift laser pistol, you can get from Smitty, is worth it either. At this point you can’t really find or afford the ammo for it and by the time you can, you already probably have a regular laser pistol. Making SECs cheaper and more common may be a solution but I’m not sure how it will affect the balance. At the very least, you will be able to keep the car running a lot easier that way. Maybe the schematic can be changed to one that lets you upgrade the laser pistol instead. It's a nice addition in theory but it's kind of useless in practice.
While on this topic, the Needler pistol is in a weird place where it’s outclassed in almost everything by the 14mm pistol. It has 10 shots instead of 6 but its damage potential is lower even with the AP ammo and the ammo is a lot more expensive. Does it still have the Weapon Penetrate perk? I found it doing consistently lower damage to Floaters/Centaurs than the 14mm pistol, which doesn’t have the perk, at least in vanilla.
The Deathclaw gauntlet is also in a weird place. It requires a bit of farming to get the 3 claws, unless you decide to exterminate the intelligent Deathclaws in V13. It requires a Power fist to craft but does less damage than one. It doesn’t require ammo but having the regular Power fist fed isn’t all that difficult by the time you get one.
In the playthrough I described, I found the leather jacket->leather armor->leather armor mk.2/combat leather jacket progression really nice. Especially since you can craft them somewhat easily (except the combat leather jacket, of course). By the time you can craft regular metal armor, let alone the mk.2 variant, you usually already have some combat armor. You can find some metal armor in a few places but at roughly the same time you can also find the regular combat armor, which is superior. Since you can’t use Vic to help with armor crafting, you may not have the necessary skill to craft it (especially the mk.2) before it becomes obsolete. It also requires 5 junk for each piece so you may have to go farming to get more than 1-2 suits post VC-Gecko. Not sure how this can be fixed however.
I really like the changes to how First aid/Doctor work. They are a lot more useful now. Maybe a bit too useful since I have used stimpaks maybe 2-3 times during combat and never outside. Maybe you can use the same logic like in Tactics and require the corresponding item in order to heal. The 1st aid kit/Doctor’s bag can be somewhat easier to find/purchase to compensate, or you can use healing powder/stimpaks instead. Not sure if the bonus they give is still present, but it should probably be removed as well. The higher tier ones can get the 20% bonus instead, though I'm not sure you'll really need it at this point.
The same can probably be done for lock picking and repair. You can get a tool in Klamath and since the Temple of Trials requires a door to be picked, you can either start with one (or some rudimentary set) or find one in the temple rooms so the item list doesn’t get bloated. With no added skill bonus for the basic ones, it shouldn’t break gameplay. Some entities may need to be reviewed however, since I remember some not working with tools.
Maybe there should be more radiation sources as well. Geckos, scorpions, rats, <insert other critter> can add a few rads on a successful attack. Not sure if some of the locations can be changed to irradiate you as well. Gecko does if you play Tragic, at least before you repair the reactor. Maybe the Wanamingo mine and Mariposa base can add some rads each minute and also the Broken Hills mine, before you repair the air purifier. This way you will have some use for the anti-rad drugs you find and may even have to buy some, instead of selling the majority for cash. Until you open the BoS bunker in San Fran that is.
Since you can craft poison, maybe you can use it to assassinate NPCs quietly, if you pass a Sneak check. It will provide an alternative to assassinating boss Salvatore, besides the oxygen/poison tank swap, since that relies on Steal. It can also be used on AHS-9, without turning the Hubologists hostile, at least until you report the deed to Ken Lee. It will also make investing in Sneak somewhat useful. You can also use the Stealth boy you get from Brother Jason for this I guess.
I want to second the suggestion from NightmareOmega about crafting ERSI using Biomed gel at Mr. Chemmie. I think you can get 3 in total in the game and you need 1 for Skynet. This way you can get 2 out of the 3 EPA companions. And have Dex die horribly for his crimes while you’re at it.
I liked the idea of higher Agility giving bonus move points but it was excessive in the previous version. Maybe you can reimplement it so it gives 1 hex at 6 AGI, 2 hexes at 8 and 3 hexes at 10.
Since most DR you get is for Normal damage (Toughness perk, Psycho), you and NPCs become quite tanky when it comes to attacks that deal normal damage and not so much to the other types. Maybe Toughness can give 8% DR or less all around per rank. And Psycho can give 25-35% to all DRs. This way some NPC high on Psycho can withstand whatever weapon you use on them, instead of tank loads of normal damage but get lasered/plasmad to death in a 2 hits. You’ll have to go for the eyes or just mag-dump them with whatever you have until they go down. Or use a weapon/ammo combo that negates the DR enough.
Now for a few suggestions that may not be possible to implement or require massive rebalance and testing and/or not be feasible for other reasons.
One is to address the horrible HP bloat as PC/NPC levels increase. You start with around 30HP depending on your STR and END stats and get (END/2)+2 HP per level. On top of that you have the Lifegiver perk that grants 4 additional HP per level. At 6END after 20 levels (so at level 21) you have gained 100 additional HP. That’s more than 3 times what you start with if you have 5STR and 6END at level 1. Add to that HP from Lifegiver and you gain a substantial HP pool, especially if you decide to push END to 10 as well. Same goes for NPCs. Because of that you need OP weapons to be able to bring down a high level PC/NPC and the late game turns into a slug fest until one side lands a good crit. Maybe the HP gain formula can be changed to END/3 (with a min of 1 HP gained with END 1 and 2). You still gain a lot of additional HP but not as much as with the original formula. Lifegiver can probably be reduced to 2HP per rank.
I think the Bonus HtH Attacks perk can go the way of the Bonus RoF one for the same reason. Maybe instead attack AP cost can be tied to the corresponding skill, a bit how unarmed attacks are upgraded as you increase Unarmed. So lets say you specialize in HtH combat. Below skill 60 you spend 1 additional AP per attack, between 60 and 120 you spend the normal amount and after 120 you spend 1 less AP per attack. At the moment, if you have 10AGI, 2 ranks of Action Boy/Girl and Bonus HtH Attacks you can hit a total of 6 times with regular punch attacks or 4 times with targeted hits. If you reserve AP from a previous turn, you can attack one more time. That’s quite a lot. Now granted, with my suggestion it will be the same with a skill of 120 and above but that at least requires investing in the skill rather than reaching level 15 with AGI of 6 or above.
While on this topic, I like the AP cost distinction between the different firearms. The smaller pistols needing 4AP per shot makes them a good choice for the early game, when you may not have enough AP to shoot twice consistently with a bigger weapon. You’re unlikely to make targeted shots this early and will miss a lot so being able to shoot again is quite nice. I would argue that throwing a punch isn’t really faster that shooting a gun so maybe unarmed/melee base attacks can also be set to 4/5 AP. Removing the point blank to-hit bonus from guns is probably a good idea as it doesn’t make much sense to be able to shoot accurately someone/something when it’s in your face. I would go as far as assigning a to-hit penalty to long guns when you are next to a target, similar to how scoped weapons work but less severe.
Maybe how AC is calculated can be changed a bit as well. When you have no armor, AC can be based on PER and AGI (let’s say PER+2xAGI rounded down). Instead of increasing AC, armor can decrease it instead depending on type and quality. The Dodger perk can either increase AC like it does now or lower the armor penalty. Or maybe a combination of both. Additionally, some perks may add a point or 2 of AC. Considering how many ammo types lower AC and how after the mid-game you will probably wear some heavy armor that decreases AC further, this may help not getting constantly hit or you always hitting with 95% chance. It will also make targeted shots more difficult so there is more incentive to push the combat skills beyond 120 to be able to land hits reliably and make targeted hits with decent hit percentage. Hits to the eyes should be really hard to pull off, unless you really invest in the skill.
And for the last one since this got really long, is there a way to change the companion level-up system? At the moment, the most useful ones are those you recruit at the beginning of the game as they have a lot of time to level up. The EPA companions, Skynet and possibly the cyber-dogs are lagging behind by the time you can recruit them. I would argue that Marcus is also such a case, maybe less so. Would it be possible to make the companions level up based on your level instead of having a chance to level-up when you do? Maybe automatically gain one level for every 5-6 you have. The check can be done when you add them to the party or when you level-up, if they are already following.
OK, this was quite long so thanks to anyone who made it to the end. Take care everyone.
