Faction System in Fallout 3?

[Hotel California]

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I hate to remind you but isn't this mostly what we have already in Fallout? There are at least 2 or 3 different ways of finishing almost all the quests, most giving the option to skip combat, sneak or just damn right slaughter everyone. You shoudn't be forced to go down one of those routes because the engine has decided you're best at it. Often it is up to you to realise you skill is the best and use that instead.

For instance in FO1 in junktown when you rent a room a man roughs up a hooker and takes her hostage. You open the door and either

a) Talk him out of it peacefully and he goes to jail (or kills himself- i forget)

b) You try to talk him out of it but he doesn't buy it and tries to kill you instead.

c) You tell him there'll be no trouble and walk away, but then sneak back in and either kill or knock him out.

d) You're too stupid to talk and just waste the bastard.

Depending on how good you sneak or speech skill is you succend at one of these routes. Naturally speech is the best and gets you the best XP and karma (and a shag), sneak saves the girl but she takes his side and says he was only a big softy, and brute force can either save her or get her killed, more often the latter.

This is exactly what you're trying to suggest but it doesn't force the player to do anything. It is already there and instead of trying to get a line of code to make quests (which invariably will be poor) they are each designed by hand by a skilled developer.

Tell me, which would you really want more?

 

[Sander]

Uziel, that's a ridiculously un-Fallouty idea. Fallout is about *choices* and consequences in gameplay. This way, you deny the player the choice to do anything and force him onto a certain path based on his attributes. Instead, the player should be able to choose what to do himself.

 

[Endless Void]

the *special* would be you, yourself, think about that, everytime you start a new game, different situations in different places would occur, according to your character stats and tags. So there will be a gang instead of a locked door, when you are a sniper instead of a lockpicker.

And, categorization would be a disaster, I still want to save Fallout 2 system in this point.

Your claims contradicts themselves.

Former one roughly translates; you want the game to pick you a class considering the skills you choose to rely on and shape the gameworld considering this class.

SPECIAL never forces you to pick a skill unlike the other roleplaying systems. And by never I mean not only in the character creation screen, but also in the game itself.

So; in Fallout you don't become a lockpicker or sniper. In Fallout you lockpick or snipe.

Of course, as I mentioned in the main topic, that could affect the factions,

And, as it was mentioned to you earlier, factions don't fit in the Fallout world.

and when you are a thief, you could get quests from the Ghost farm residents (these are only examples).

It was already done in a perfect way in the original Fallout. Remember Loxley?

 

[uziel]

Uziel, that's a ridiculously un-Fallouty idea. Fallout is about *choices* and consequences in gameplay. This way, you deny the player the choice to do anything and force him onto a certain path based on his attributes. Instead, the player should be able to choose what to do himself.

Hadn't thought of it thattaway. But to be honest, the 'Decide how to do it yourself' system eventually got on my nerves when I tried to do certain things, such as Mafia jobs, and they didn't work or simply wouldn't happen. Also, is it not your own decision on where to specialize in? It would help shape the whole game to how you want to shape your character. A better idea would be to combine the two. It would also make Reputation actually useful.

 

[Sander]

Hadn't thought of it thattaway. But to be honest, the 'Decide how to do it yourself' system eventually got on my nerves when I tried to do certain things, such as Mafia jobs, and they didn't work or simply wouldn't happen.

That's in part because games never happen exactly the way you want them, because there are limitations to the game and it's supposed to be a challenge (although that's generally just forgotten by developers these days).
The other bit of it is that developers can't account for everything a player may think of to do. They can account for a lot, but certainly not everything. And your suggestion certainly won't fix that.

Also, is it not your own decision on where to specialize in? It would help shape the whole game to how you want to shape your character.

No, it railroads your character development instead of allowing the character to develop freely.

Again: by forcing a player to do things based on his own specializations you deny him any choice in the matter. This leads to a *forced* specialization and an inability, eventually, to change your specialization because you get to do a lot of quests that are *only* doable through the use of the skill you 'specialised' in. Just because people spend skill points on one thing doesn't mean they want to use it solve everything.
It's also ridiculously unrealistic, not to mention unbalancing, and it also removes a lot of variation people may get when they are not forced into using a specific skill. Lastly, it gives people the feeling (and rightly so) that they are denied the option to do a quest in more than one way.

Also, this fucks over anyone who doesn't want to specialize in a single thing, like jack-of-all-trades.

A better idea would be to combine the two. It would also make Reputation actually useful.

Ehm, what does reputation have to do with skill-specific quests?

PS: Fuck you Firefox spellcheck. Fuck you in the ass.

 

[uziel]

I suppose now it's simply a matter of opinion, and I won't press the issue further.

 

[chaos_ocean]

"No, it railroads your character development instead of allowing the character to develop freely. " , Sander said.

My idea was only based on the game system, so the encounters. There wouldn't be a neccesity to use a specific skill. When you had a higher lockpick and sneak skills in the game, the game would create locked doors, maybe patrolling gurards. But You would still be able to rush in and kill everybody or use your speech skill.
The higher skills would only change the encounters, neither a forced dependance of your skill nor a restriction in a specific event would occur.

 

[Sander]

"No, it railroads your character development instead of allowing the character to develop freely. " , Sander said.

My idea was only based on the game system, so the encounters. There wouldn't be a neccesity to use a specific skill. When you had a higher lockpick and sneak skills in the game, the game would create locked doors, maybe patrolling gurards. But You would still be able to rush in and kill everybody or use your speech skill.
The higher skills would only change the encounters, neither a forced dependance of your skill nor a restriction in a specific event would occur.

That *is* a restriction in characters because this:
A) Makes the skills less valuable when you don't have them, giving you *no* reason to value skills you don't have since hey, there will only be *more* locked doors when you invest in lockpick.
B) Forces people, again, to specialise in that they will encounter a lot of locked doors when already having a high skill and then would need to spend even more skill points on them since they just keep encountering more of the doors. Which is ridiculous.

Effectively, it devalues any progression in a way very similar to the leveled creatures in Oblivion.

 

[chaos_ocean]

I seriously wonder about your opinions about the gameplay in Fallout 3, Sander, please share them with me. If you want a classical Fallout 2 system, I'm still with you.
And thanks also for paying attention to my topics, even they seem ridiculous.

 

[Sander]

I seriously wonder about your opinions about the gameplay in Fallout 3, Sander, please share them with me. If you want a classical Fallout 2 system, I'm still with you.
And thanks also for paying attention to my topics, even they seem ridiculous.

My opinions on Fallout 3's gameplay are very simply: they should be truthful to Fallout, and hence its PnP roots.

 

[Ashmo]

Fallout is "non-linear", but it's not a sandbox.

It's a game, not a toy.

If you want a toy, get The Sims ... or Spore.