Fallout 2 mod Fairer game experience

[Timez]

Hello, fellow players/modders.

I was searching for deeper game engine modifications allowing fairer game experience not requiring expert knowledge of intrinsic mechanics and exploits. Game claims different build and different skill distribution are all equally playable and enjoyable but in reality it is quite skewed and there are such things as "better build" and "better skill". I would love to give life to some of the existing game options those are currently inferior and never chosen due to unfair game mechanics. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything like that so I have decided to create my own.

Please let me know if such mod exists so I don't invent a bicycle here.

General idea

Adjust game mechanics so people can focus more on the game flow rather than exploits and math formulas. Game should be about equally easy playable with any primary stats distribution or more or less any skill advancement. Difference in builds should result in characters more inclined to solve problems one way or another and not in drastic difference in difficulty.

Needless to say that focusing on exploits and research is very much lore killing.

Few ideas

Below are just some of the ideas on the matter.

Agility and AP

AP is one of the most important combat statistics governing number of combat actions per turn. Even complete pacifist needs to fight occasionally. Often adding 1-2 APs may allow another attack effectively doubling player firepower which is an immense advantage. Base AP allowance of 5 is ridiculously low as it not even enough to shoot most rifles!!! Agility accounts for 100% AP pool increase from 5 to 10 turning an absolutely combat crippled character into a relatively versatile fighter. That makes Agility so damn important that seasoned player never start with AG below than 6. That means that game mechanics dictates keep AG high and low AG would be a rookie mistake that most likely force novice to restart the game. That contradicts proclaimed game "freedom" and "flexibility".

Proposed fix

• Raise base AP to 7-9.
• AG over 6-8 contributes 1:1 to AP.
• AG over 1 gives 2-3 AC instead of 1 as in vanilla.

Benefits

• Minimal base AP pool allows handling all combat items/actions at minimal level.
• There is no paralyzing fear to drop AG low anymore. Base AP pool is does not result in absolutely crippled fighter anymore. So player can go for not so combat oriented character and still be able to outrun ants in Temple of Trials.
• There is no stupid halves players need to be aware anymore. Every point of AG over threshold goes to AP pool. AG increasing effects (like drugs) are precisely effective and intuitive.
• AG stays relatively important even below AP contribution threshold due to two reasons: 1) Higher AG requires less drugs to reach/cross threshold and start affecting AP pool. So less amount of drugs needed. 2) Higher inherent AC becomes a noticeable protection bonus. So now AG on low level adds protection and on higher also adds potential firepower and mobility.

AP granularity

Generally low AP pool forces player to adjust it to be a multiple of their attack AP requirement. Otherwise, they could end up with big part of their precious AP wasted every turn (example: 7 AP and 4 AP spear). That is outright stupid and breaks immersion big time.

Proposed fix

• Up to 2-3 unused AP are rolled over to next round.

Benefits

• AP usage now more smoothly distributed across turns. Adding 1 AP on top of 6 AP for 3 AP use attack allows to perform extra attack every 3 turns. Thus essentially giving 1/3 of attack as it should be. Less calculator usage, more playing. Every AP addition is useful.

Books

Commonly known exploit of reducing skills by turning difficulty down or lowering primary stats before reading.

Why not just grant books fixed amount of SP? Yes, there won't be limit for raising skills this way but there is no limit anyway. Giving them like +2SP per book (+3 with comprehension) is completely adequate. Continuous visiting of Vault City book store will eventually raise skills high enough but regular game progress still produces more SP on average.

Difficulty exploits

Just disable all related exploits like SP cost. Tie it to some fixed value not difficulty related.

Unarmed attacks

It is there but … why? Anybody actually designed unarmed character to go through the game?

I have already adjusted unarmed attack table to progress more smoothly. Every 10 skill level reveals better attack with high end ones comparable to mega power fist in damage rate per AP. Could be pretty interested to use them.

Unfortunately, it is based on 4.3.1 sFall where unarmed attack modification is introduced but this version is buggy.

Summary of changes

• New attack type comes at every 10 skill level starting 40.
• Every new attack is generally more beneficial.
• Punches are faster but kicks are generally more damaging.
• Punches deliver slightly more damage / AP against unarmored target. Kicks stay more valuable against stronger armor.
• Higher level punches (especially secondary) relay more on critical. Higher level kicks (especially secondary) grow more in sheer damage.

All the above makes unarmed attack usage more intuitive. Quickly punch unarmored targets. Use kicks and secondary attacks against armored. Use two high level secondary attacks (piercing) against heavily armored. Use kicks for sheer damage delivery. Use punches for more critical fun.

Intelligence and SP/level

Intelligence is another very important stat as it influences skill rate too much. Probably worth shifting balance toward base value like Skill Rate = 10 + IN to allow players pick lower intelligence and not suffer greatly.

Another option would be giving it some active game meaning.

• SP from book reading?
• IN requirement for some sophisticated weapons?
• XP earned multiplier? This is less pronounced than SP bonus as XP=>level conversion ratio is degrading at higher levels.

Weapon holding ST requirement

That is a cool feature potentially demanding higher strength for ranged weapon usage. However, developers seemed to not demand too much. The highest requirement is somewhere in 5-6 range. Why not spread this scale more. I would imagine Miniguns are heavy enough requiring 10 ST. Whereas pistols could be as low as 2-3. This way strength would be somewhat more important for ranged character too and encourage drug use to match the requirement.

 

[dudejo001]

The issue with lack of AP would potentially be easier by simply editing the weapons themselves to use less AP. Although this would make ranged combat further beyond melee combat...

As for STR requirements for weapons, giving firearms a logical STR requirement must also give consideration to the gun's theoretical recoil. Big bullets kick harder and are only comfortable to shoot through a heavy weapon.

 

[Timez]

Agree with ST rationale.

AP adjustment is not a big deal with sFall Stats.ini file. I have already set a minimum to 7-8 which should be enough for bare combat passthrough. However, the problem with low initial AP pool is not only an inability to shoot rifles but that any increase becomes pretty drastic improvement. Like eating Jet when one has 5 AP gives 40% increase right away. I believe base value should be a little bit higher to make any drug induced additions still desirable but not that super impactful. Besides, the more important consequence of having low initial AP pool is that any following game improvements increase it off balance. Early character is exceptionally wimpy and cannot possibly even go through pack of rad scorpions alone. Increasing base AP put it more on par with first encountered companions.

In my experiments the 7-8 base AP seems to do the trick.

 

[Velizar]

I like the overall idea and I hope that sometime in the future I'll release a mod which does something in a vaguely similar direction (don't expect much though, its scope is small initially). In Fallout modding, it's more productive to start with a vague list of things you want to do where everything is flexible and optional, and adapted around what can be done easily and hopefully without modifying the game engine, otherwise you will implmement 1 feature in the time you can implement 10 features.

For Agility I would prefer if it provided roughly the same amount of benefit for every point (rather than every 2 points), but I don't have any specific ideas. Your idea is okay, though I would hope to stumble upon a better idea.

I agree that Intelligence is too strong, and reducing the SP it gives is an easy fix which seems good. Would 1 SP/IN be too little though? Would require playtesting. But even if not, could do something like flat 10 + 1.3 SP per IN - if you have 7 IN then you earn 10 + 1.3 * 6 = 17.8 SP, so you gain 17 SP, and the remainder of 0.8 is stored in a variable, then on your next level up you earn 0.8 + 10 + 1.3 * 6 = 18.6 SP, so you gain 18 SP and you store 0.6.

For all exploits, I don't mind this too much because the player can choose not to do them.

For books, I don't know what to do, but giving fixed skill seems too powerful. I don't mind what they do currently. Trading skill for money (or exploration), but only up to limited skill. Adding new skillbooks could be interesting, for some skills more so than others. Or removing some skillbooks, e.g. Repair, because now you choose between skipping some quest rewards vs spending the skill points in Repair. But both of those ideas are about how to make the game more interesting rather than how to fix the game.

Re ST requirement: in fact the highest is 7, for Minigun and Avenger Minigun, other than those the highest is 6 and it does sound low. But with power armor this means that you either sacrifice SPECIAL to get high ST and use them before Power Armor, after which it's a waste of points; or you allocate more reasonable ST, then struggle until you get the Power Armor. I hate both options. So I'm thinking about removing the ST bonus from Power Armor, or at least lowering it to 1.

Overall I agree that both Fallout 1 and 2 are full of unintuitive mechanics and poor explanation of the UI (unless you read the manual, which most people don't). Unfortunately changing the engine is extremely hard, however it might be helpful to get a specific list of all of those things, and maybe some of them (the easier ones) could get fixed by a mod some day.

 

[Timez]

Thank you for informative response. A lot of interesting things to think on.

I like the overall idea and I hope that sometime in the future I'll release a mod which does something in a vaguely similar direction (don't expect much though, its scope is small initially). In Fallout modding, it's more productive to start with a vague list of things you want to do where everything is flexible and optional, and adapted around what can be done easily and hopefully without modifying the game engine, otherwise you will implmement 1 feature in the time you can implement 10 features.

That is actually the way I travel. I have a list of ideas and then I implemented them one by one starting from low hanging fruit. Check readme on github.

For Agility I would prefer if it provided roughly the same amount of benefit for every point (rather than every 2 points), but I don't have any specific ideas. Your idea is okay, though I would hope to stumble upon a better idea.

I've improved the implementation in recent version and I like it a lot. Namely.
AG contributes to AP completely without truncation of fractional parts anymore. Fractional parts are rolled over rounds and accumulated to wholes those are given to player in form of additional whole AP when they sum up. Example, currently I've set 1 AG => 1/4 AP. This way say player's 5 AG makes 7 + 5/4 = 8 AP at the beginning of the battle. However, the 1/4 of AP rolled over rounds and player gets +1 AP every 4th round. Fair and square!

Combined with skipped AP carryover that eliminates "just barely not enough AP for second shot" frustration completely. The average number of shots per round is governed exactly by number of AP (including fractions). So 5 AP is slightly better than 4, etc.

I agree that Intelligence is too strong, and reducing the SP it gives is an easy fix which seems good. Would 1 SP/IN be too little though? Would require playtesting. But even if not, could do something like flat 10 + 1.3 SP per IN - if you have 7 IN then you earn 10 + 1.3 * 6 = 17.8 SP, so you gain 17 SP, and the remainder of 0.8 is stored in a variable, then on your next level up you earn 0.8 + 10 + 1.3 * 6 = 18.6 SP, so you gain 18 SP and you store 0.6.

I don't think we can fine tune it down to decimals. I just made it 15 + 1 * IN and it should be good enough. One IN point grants extra 20-30 SP over the game and that is good enough incentive to raise it but not so imperative anymore.

For all exploits, I don't mind this too much because the player can choose not to do them.

True. However, I like game to mobilize all my in game abilities to overcome game challenge to feel satisfied. Just discovering and using some strategies to get ahead of the curve is fun. When such strategy is there but you just decide to not use it - it breaks the concentration and turns challenge into something disgusting. Compare: crossing the desert with minimal supply of water is a challenge vs. just sit home and make yourself suffer by not drinking water which is right there is stupidity.

For books, I don't know what to do, but giving fixed skill seems too powerful. I don't mind what they do currently. Trading skill for money (or exploration), but only up to limited skill. Adding new skillbooks could be interesting, for some skills more so than others. Or removing some skillbooks, e.g. Repair, because now you choose between skipping some quest rewards vs spending the skill points in Repair. But both of those ideas are about how to make the game more interesting rather than how to fix the game.

New book modification implemented. Each book may improve different skills (choosing the weakest). I have tightened skill cost to increment at each 25%. So after 150% they all cost 6 and each book generates only 1%. If one is dedicated to read all books in the universe - they are allowed to but this is far from competing with normal level progression.

Re ST requirement: in fact the highest is 7, for Minigun and Avenger Minigun, other than those the highest is 6 and it does sound low. But with power armor this means that you either sacrifice SPECIAL to get high ST and use them before Power Armor, after which it's a waste of points; or you allocate more reasonable ST, then struggle until you get the Power Armor. I hate both options. So I'm thinking about removing the ST bonus from Power Armor, or at least lowering it to 1.

6-7 ST is pretty easy reachable with drugs. I don't want end game weapon to be usable by newbie. Player should work toward it in both ST and skills. Reduced accuracy for high end weapons is actually a nice idea. Player is get to choose whether they want stronger impact or higher hit rate. They may even decide to use stronger weapon even before they reach good accuracy with it. Makes interesting dilemma.

Agree with power armor criticism. +3-4 ST is an exceptionally high jump that breaks initial build. Don't know how to fix it though.

 

[Velizar]

Very cool idea about Agility. If you left the formula untouched and only added +0.5 AP for odd numbers then I think that is a pure improvement to the game; changing the formula to make low-AG characters viable is going to be a further improvement. The only problem I see is the user interface: will there be a way to display something sensible in the Character screen, and how about in the combat UI? Even if not, I still like the idea.

Since you're doing something vaguely similar, I'll post my list of ideas. The list starts with my plan on adding big guns and energy weapons in Fallout 2 from the very start of the game and also making Throwing usable, I'll omit those parts because they seem offtopic and also they take up half of the list. I originally wrote it for myself only, so there might be ambiguities, but hopefully not.

There's also a Laser DR tweak, which changes the laser DR of all critters and armors to be no higher than its second highest DR, which in practice means that laser weapons become usable against all foes instead of doing next to nothing against many foes. (This was especially needed because I introduce a few laser weapons in the earlygame)

Unarmed:
- Implement the WR melee damage buff to make it stronger - maybe add it at level 4? Playtest
- Reduce AP costs for special attacks
? Make some special attacks do something interesting, for example a guaranteed crit, or a guaranteed knockdown, knockout, etc
? Do something to make it substantially different from Melee weapons - also give a reason to raise it to high levels?
Melee weapons:
- Implement the WR melee damage buff to make it stronger - maybe add it at level 4? Playtest
? Slightly increase the stats of the late game weapons
Remove (or reduce) power armor strength bonus:
- Change the armor perks instead of the armors, this increases mod compatibility
- Note: should provide bonus carry weight / Melee Damage, because multiple sources of lore mention that Power Armor provides hydraulics.
- Provide an installation option to leave power armors unaltered, because there's a Fallout Bible quote which says that soldiers wore Power Armors in order to use big guns, so removing the bonus is slightly lore-breaking.
To steal from the WR (Weapons Redone) mod:
- AP ammo tweaks
- Apply melee damage to minimum damage in addition to maximum
- Apply melee damage to most thrown weapons
- Reduce AP costs for special unarmed attacks
? Psycho nerf
(...)
? Fix other imbalances / add more options?
- Useless skills:
- First Aid - Grant (fast & free) healing during combat, including fixing limbs? Make stimpaks more powerful? Note: you can beat most stronger enemies with enough stimpaks, so this is very useful.
- Doctor - Craft healing items & drugs with it? some might grant permanent improvements?
- Doctor and First Aid: get Healer perk for free above certain levels; get more ranks at higher levels (if that works with the game engine); alternatively, outright increase healed amount without granting a perk. Note: ideally, raising either skill shouldn't increase the healing from the other - so adding Healer is not ideal.
- Sneak - Fix sneak chance formula? Also add sneak attack criticals (might be stronger if the attack is closer or with more sneak)? Bonus to Repair on robots to disable them? (What about NPCs? Wouldn't they get spotted? Can I program them to hold their position while the PC is sneaking?) (Stealth boys should be useful)
? Get Silent Running for free at some level of Sneak?
- Steal
? Idea 1: add deterministic but limited-budget stealing: it costs X points to steal an item, if you don't have them you can't steal it, but this comes back when you level up or time passes. This would work much better if on hovering an item we can show its point cost.
- Idea 2: have a sharp formula for stealing success chance, so it's very often at 0% or 100%. This would work much better if on hovering an item we can show its probability of stealing. Stealing becomes more difficult the more you steal from the same person.
- In the inventory menu, display the chance to steal plus the penalty from previously stealing from that NPC. In order to find out the currently hovered inventory item, use this: 0x821c - int get_mouse_x() 0x821d - int get_mouse_y() -- and figure out the order in which the inventory items appear, and try to make it work with scrolling too?
- Also: in combination with Sneak, should be possible to steal from enemies. If a skill check is passed, the NPC's off-hand weapon temporarily moves to their inventory so that it's stealable?
- Traps - Add placeable traps, like this mod? https://www.moddb.com/mods/ecco-gameplay-overhaul-for-restoration-project
- Science - Buff Skynet? have a few science-based crafting options?
- Repair - No vanilla game benefit for raising it above 90%; add high-skill bonuses such as:
- Repair robot NPCs during combat for low AP cost (using it while your skill is too low should give the message of "you're not skilled enough to repair during combat, you're too slow")
- Crafting
- Barter:
- Bugfix: Make it impossible to be so good at barter that you can sell something for higher than you buy it for and rob the merchant
- One option to make Barter viable is to remake the whole game economy
- Make players naturally much worse at bartering, or add more rewards for having a lot of tradeable money
- Gambling - Do what New Vegas does: add rewards at casinos, and at some point they kick you out, and maybe increase the types of different games in casinos (especially add fun games, at least Blackjack or Poker?):
- Some of the rewards are unique items
- Need to be able to buy something with the caps - need to add more purchasable items, just like with Barter
- Later casinos will require more Gambling, but you'll get a message about whether your Gambling is good enough ("you feel lucky" kind of thing)
- Also do something with Tragic the gathering cards
- If Luck plays a big role in gambling then its role in Sniper / Slayer should be diminished. Maybe those perks can merely increase crit chance by 10-20%? Or 2x?
- Outdoorsman:
- Skin more animals in addition to silver & golden geckos
- Crafting options
- "The knowledge of plants and animals" - cultivate plants or animals? Make your animal companions stronger?
- Traits - replace bad ones with better ones; do something with Gifted
- New trait: reduce Melee Damage by 3 (capped at 1), but increase Throwing range by the equivalent of +2 ST. (For Throwing characters who use it casually, yet have invested enough skill points to throw at far range)
? The opposite of the above trait: increase Melee Damage by 2 only for Throwing purposes, decrease ST for throwing purposes by 3, but not below 1 ST. (Having low range isn't that bad!)
- Remove extra 1 AP cost for targeted shots; penalty?
- Look at traits in already existing mods and in Fallout Tactics
- Perks:
- Sniper, Slayer, and the -1 AP cost per level perks are all overpowered
- SPECIAL:
- Low AP is too weak (can agility grant no AP instead?)
- Non-high intelligence is too weak; Int < 4 is too weak as well
- High strength is too weak for non-melee chars (and also for melee?) - can Strength grant 2 hp per point instead?
- Companion level-ups - when a PC levels up, companions currently in the party roll a chance to level-up on some levels, but that roll might fail. Any companions not currently in the party permanently miss out on this level-up opportunity. Feature: pay (with caps?) to train a companion in order to make up for missed level-ups. (Activated by companion dialogue?)
- Burst fire bad implementation - 2/3 of bullets can't hit your target unless in point blank range. Replace with a more intuitive formula, while maintaining burst fire at roughly the same strength. Display a lower hit % chance. Higher investment in the weapon skill is demanded, just like it is for aimed shots, which are unavailable for burst-fire. Point-blank shouldn't be a boolean check, and vanilla point-blank burst is too strong, however decreasing the range should increase the power a lot.


Comment: the Steal idea is one of my favorites, but might require fiddling with the engine, so it might never happen unfortunately. (Not that anything else in this list will definitely happen. I plan to just do the much less ambitious mod of adding small guns & energy weapons in the earlygame, anything else is lower priority.)

 

[Timez]

Cool stuff.

Organizational wise it makes sense to post them as issues in my github project. One idea - one issue. That is to keep track of them and not lose them in forum thread. Other option is to directly contribute to readme (future idea section).

I am playing with RPU + EcCo mods + FO2Tweaks (with damage mod). EcCo seriously rebalances combat items. Specifically laser DT/DR and other stuff you may find appealing. FO2Tweaks damage mod is just insane simplification of ammo problem that people tried to solve forever. It seems to be the best solution I have tried so far.

Very cool idea about Agility. If you left the formula untouched and only added +0.5 AP for odd numbers then I think that is a pure improvement to the game; changing the formula to make low-AG characters viable is going to be a further improvement. The only problem I see is the user interface: will there be a way to display something sensible in the Character screen, and how about in the combat UI? Even if not, I still like the idea.

No. The interface is obviously not designed to display any fractional parts. The only way to highlight it is either in AP description or word it out as game message when player is awarded some accumulated AP.

There's also a Laser DR tweak, which changes the laser DR of all critters and armors to be no higher than its second highest DR, which in practice means that laser weapons become usable against all foes instead of doing next to nothing against many foes. (This was especially needed because I introduce a few laser weapons in the earlygame)

EcCo mod, man.
Mandatory task for you: check it out! There are a lot of things like that already.

Unarmed:
- Implement the WR melee damage buff to make it stronger - maybe add it at level 4? Playtest
- Reduce AP costs for special attacks
? Make some special attacks do something interesting, for example a guaranteed crit, or a guaranteed knockdown, knockout, etc
? Do something to make it substantially different from Melee weapons - also give a reason to raise it to high levels?

Check out my mod for that. Already implemented very strong unarmed attacks comparable to high end close range weapons.

Melee weapons:
- Implement the WR melee damage buff to make it stronger - maybe add it at level 4? Playtest
? Slightly increase the stats of the late game weapons

Not sure why. High end melee is already very damaging and fast. So may even surpass high end ranged weapons on damage / AP basis.

Remove (or reduce) power armor strength bonus:
- Change the armor perks instead of the armors, this increases mod compatibility
- Note: should provide bonus carry weight / Melee Damage, because multiple sources of lore mention that Power Armor provides hydraulics.
- Provide an installation option to leave power armors unaltered, because there's a Fallout Bible quote which says that soldiers wore Power Armors in order to use big guns, so removing the bonus is slightly lore-breaking.

I am for it but don't know how to modify perk. Any experience?

To steal from the WR (Weapons Redone) mod:
- AP ammo tweaks
- Apply melee damage to minimum damage in addition to maximum
- Apply melee damage to most thrown weapons
- Reduce AP costs for special unarmed attacks
? Psycho nerf
(...)

Not aware of this mod. Need to see description.

- First Aid - Grant (fast & free) healing during combat, including fixing limbs? Make stimpaks more powerful? Note: you can beat most stronger enemies with enough stimpaks, so this is very useful.

I like the FO3 idea when medical skill increases medicine effect in combat. Like if you are not advanced in the skill all medicine has crappy effect.

- Doctor - Craft healing items & drugs with it? some might grant permanent improvements?

I think EcCo already count this skill for crafting all kind of mixtures. It also separates first aid and doctor effects.

- Doctor and First Aid: get Healer perk for free above certain levels; get more ranks at higher levels (if that works with the game engine); alternatively, outright increase healed amount without granting a perk. Note: ideally, raising either skill shouldn't increase the healing from the other - so adding Healer is not ideal.

This is already like that in vanilla and more so in EcCo.

Generally speaking, there is no need to balance all skills. Some can be mildly usable and that should be enough. All the above suggestions could do just fine.

- Sneak - Fix sneak chance formula? Also add sneak attack criticals (might be stronger if the attack is closer or with more sneak)? Bonus to Repair on robots to disable them? (What about NPCs? Wouldn't they get spotted? Can I program them to hold their position while the PC is sneaking?) (Stealth boys should be useful)

This is already pretty much like that in vanilla and more so in EcCo. Major problem is that player do not see who spotted them. Other than that the mechanics is pretty much there.

? Get Silent Running for free at some level of Sneak?

Nah. That is the point of picking perks.

- Steal
? Idea 1: add deterministic but limited-budget stealing: it costs X points to steal an item, if you don't have them you can't steal it, but this comes back when you level up or time passes. This would work much better if on hovering an item we can show its point cost.
- Idea 2: have a sharp formula for stealing success chance, so it's very often at 0% or 100%. This would work much better if on hovering an item we can show its probability of stealing. Stealing becomes more difficult the more you steal from the same person.
- In the inventory menu, display the chance to steal plus the penalty from previously stealing from that NPC. In order to find out the currently hovered inventory item, use this: 0x821c - int get_mouse_x() 0x821d - int get_mouse_y() -- and figure out the order in which the inventory items appear, and try to make it work with scrolling too?
- Also: in combination with Sneak, should be possible to steal from enemies. If a skill check is passed, the NPC's off-hand weapon temporarily moves to their inventory so that it's stealable?

This is one of the least useful skills in the game and, to be honest, in MANY OTHER RPG games! People are just fixated on adding it to the list but don't really know what to do with it. Not worth even bothering, I think. No one could save it in any of the games and we should not try either.

- Traps - Add placeable traps, like this mod? https://www.moddb.com/mods/ecco-gameplay-overhaul-for-restoration-project

This is the one. Why to do the same if we can just use this mod????

- Science - Buff Skynet? have a few science-based crafting options?

It is for hacking computer terminals. I feel like it does the job pretty well. You want more from computers - pump the skill.

- Repair - No vanilla game benefit for raising it above 90%; add high-skill bonuses such as:
- Repair robot NPCs during combat for low AP cost (using it while your skill is too low should give the message of "you're not skilled enough to repair during combat, you're too slow")
- Crafting
- Barter:
- Bugfix: Make it impossible to be so good at barter that you can sell something for higher than you buy it for and rob the merchant
- One option to make Barter viable is to remake the whole game economy
- Make players naturally much worse at bartering, or add more rewards for having a lot of tradeable money

EcCo did it.

- Gambling - Do what New Vegas does: add rewards at casinos, and at some point they kick you out, and maybe increase the types of different games in casinos (especially add fun games, at least Blackjack or Poker?):
- Some of the rewards are unique items
- Need to be able to buy something with the caps - need to add more purchasable items, just like with Barter
- Later casinos will require more Gambling, but you'll get a message about whether your Gambling is good enough ("you feel lucky" kind of thing)
- Also do something with Tragic the gathering cards
- If Luck plays a big role in gambling then its role in Sniper / Slayer should be diminished. Maybe those perks can merely increase crit chance by 10-20%? Or 2x?

Another not worth saving skill. I would not bother at all. It is not that bad having few garbage skills out there. There are too many of them anyway. Impossible to balance perfectly.

- Outdoorsman:
- Skin more animals in addition to silver & golden geckos
- Crafting options
- "The knowledge of plants and animals" - cultivate plants or animals? Make your animal companions stronger?

I think EcCo did it as well.

- Traits - replace bad ones with better ones; do something with Gifted

I would if I could. Unfortunately, don't know how to even modify them.

What is the problem with Gifted? I would say it is a pretty mediocre trait if not bad one. Why do you think it is overpowered?

- Remove extra 1 AP cost for targeted shots; penalty?

Err, isn't it already targeted shot cost 1 extra AP?

- Low AP is too weak (can agility grant no AP instead?)

Didn't get it. Don't you like my new AG => AP formula?

- Companion level-ups - when a PC levels up, companions currently in the party roll a chance to level-up on some levels, but that roll might fail. Any companions not currently in the party permanently miss out on this level-up opportunity. Feature: pay (with caps?) to train a companion in order to make up for missed level-ups. (Activated by companion dialogue?)

EcCo did it.

- Burst fire bad implementation - 2/3 of bullets can't hit your target unless in point blank range. Replace with a more intuitive formula, while maintaining burst fire at roughly the same strength. Display a lower hit % chance. Higher investment in the weapon skill is demanded, just like it is for aimed shots, which are unavailable for burst-fire. Point-blank shouldn't be a boolean check, and vanilla point-blank burst is too strong, however decreasing the range should increase the power a lot.

This is an excellent implementation if you ask me. Otherwise, it would be 10 times as stronger as single shot. Even with this formula people keep using burst fire all the time. No need to make it even stronger.

 

[Lexx]

What is the problem with Gifted? I would say it is a pretty mediocre trait if not bad one. Why do you think it is overpowered?

Because increasing your SPECIAL stat is not as easy as increasing your skill levels. Usually the lowered skills are barely noticeable and easy enough to get up to speed again.

 

[dudejo001]

Because increasing your SPECIAL stat is not as easy as increasing your skill levels. Usually the lowered skills are barely noticeable and easy enough to get up to speed again.

Yeah, you can just raise your INT to compensate and still have good stats everywhere else.

One thing I'd like to see is for melee bonus damage from STR or the Bonus HtH Damage perk to also enhance minimum damage. Because it's only maximum damage, you need a ridiculously high bonus to push the average up in any meaningful way.

 

[NovaRain]

or the Bonus HtH Damage perk to also enhance minimum damage.

Bonus HtH Damage is already applied to the minimum damage if you enable BonusHtHDamageFix in ddraw.ini.

 

[Velizar]

Oops, I just now saw that my list's formatting got lost because the forum ate all the indentation. Oh well, it looks like it was readable enough this way.

Apparently the EcCo mod does a lot more than I thought? I'll have to check it out before I do anything from this list.

The only way to highlight it is either in AP description or word it out as game message when player is awarded some accumulated AP.

I like the idea of a combat message every time you end your turn: "You ended your turn and accummulated 0.X action points". This way you can also tell when you end your turns from looking at the combat log.

I am for it but don't know how to modify perk. Any experience?

https://github.com/phobos2077/sfall/blob/master/artifacts/config_files/Perks.ini#L78
It should be trivial, just change both power armor perks to have STR=0 or STR=1.

Generally speaking, there is no need to balance all skills. Some can be mildly usable and that should be enough. All the above suggestions could do just fine.

My motivation behind balancing skills, perks, traits, and SPECIAL is to empower very weak choices, so that there are many different strong builds, and that the player has a lot more choice. Character building is much richer if you have to choose between more options. Obviously you would ignore the totally crap options.

The other problem with crap options is that the game doesn't tell you that they suck. So if you're less experienced then you can accidentally pick them, which is frustrating.

What is the problem with Gifted? I would say it is a pretty mediocre trait if not bad one. Why do you think it is overpowered?

It gives you 7 SPECIAL points, you can allocate them to IN to compensate for its decreased skill points per level. The fact that it decreases all of your starting skill points isn't such a big deal, because with the extra IN you can make up for that in a few levels.
Even if you were already going to play a high-IN character without Gifted, then you'll be swimming in skill points. Especially later in the game. At the same time, SPECIAL points are scarce and always valuable.
Without Gifted, you have to make many sacrifices to your SPECIAL allocation; with Gifted, you get everything - both a diplomat and a fighter.

Err, isn't it already targeted shot cost 1 extra AP?

Yes, I want to make it 0 AP with a trait. This is for 2 reasons:
1) During earlier game, you can't use aimed shots because you're too inaccurate and it's not worth trading further accuracy even if extra AP cost was 0. Especially if you're fighting with guns, then even in the midgame your chance to hit is often below 95% because you're shooting from a distance.
2) Even after you're accurate, aimed shots aren't that great. They give some boost to crit and give you a little control of the type of crit you get. Lategame if you can shoot the eyes every turn then that WILL be very powerful, but this trait should have a drawback to make up for that. Maybe the drawback should matter a lot more in the lategame...

Didn't get it. Don't you like my new AG => AP formula?

I wrote this before I saw your formula, and I haven't thought about your formula very much, but fractional AP sounds great and I'll add it to that section of the list.

This is an excellent implementation if you ask me. Otherwise, it would be 10 times as stronger as single shot. Even with this formula people keep using burst fire all the time. No need to make it even stronger.

My annoyance with it is that:
1) The player doesn't know about it, so the player must guess the mechanic from playing the game, but it's next to impossible to guess! Why would even someone with 300% Small Guns always miss 2/3 (rounded down) of their shots at 2 tiles away, but get a chance to hit for every bullet at 1 tile away? Why 2/3 (rounded down)? This means that a burst of 5 bullets at any range which isn't point blank is going to be the same as a single shot!
I played through the game multiple times and when I found out about this mechanic from the NMA forums, I was shocked!
2) The reason why it's so hard to guess is because it uses a bunch of discrete cut-offs, so I just want to replace them with a smooth transition. The difference between 1 tile away and 2 tiles shouldn't be abrupt, but relatively small.
I don't want to make burst fire stronger. Ideally it would have the same overall power.

Edit: thinking about this further, I came up with some new ideas and it makes me realize that before I implement anything, it's worth thinking a lot and going through many ideas, rather than implementing a good idea and missing the chance to do a better one. And asking other people for their ideas, because it turns out that there are pretty good ones out there.

 

[dudejo001]

Bonus HtH Damage is already applied to the minimum damage if you enable BonusHtHDamageFix in ddraw.ini.

I'd have to see the formula for that.

I was indeed dealing damage beyond my inventory rating of "mix-max 1-11" (max STR and Heavy Handed) while punching rats in Et tu.

However, the melee damage rating doesn't seem to apply equally on the minimum and maximum value...


Also looked at that tidbit on Burst Fire. From what I've seen of YouTube demonstrations, it is possible to get a full mag dump (with popular firearms, such as the M16 or the AK-47) within a chest-sized area out to 15 yards.

And as it turns out, 1 hex in-game scales pretty accurately to 1 yard in real life. With the reduced burst lengths in Fallout, getting all the rounds on target is definitely possible. I will concede, however, that some weapons would be harder to control than others, influencing the burst's maximum range.

As for potential damage, well, it's already been mentioned that eye shots are extremely powerful. With enough skill, they can be done at will. They also provide not only a 4x damage multiplier but a straight-out chance of auto-kill as well. All for only one bullet and no particular range restrictions.

Burst Fire, even if all the bullets hit, still checks DR/DT for individual bullets. It's why the Minigun barely deals any damage to armored target despite the volume of fire. If there weren't critical hits, the Minigun would be utterly useless.

 

[NovaRain]

I'd have to see the formula for that.
I was indeed dealing damage beyond my inventory rating of "mix-max 1-11" (max STR and Heavy Handed) while punching rats in Et tu.
However, the melee damage rating doesn't seem to apply equally on the minimum and maximum value...

It's just the inventory display not matching the real damage range, it's fixed in sfall 4.3.1 or newer.
The "formula" for display was fairly simple: min = 1, max = (2 + Melee Damage). When it comes to real damage calculation, it's min = (1 + bonus from special unarmed attacks), max = (2 + Melee Damage + bonus from special unarmed attacks).
BonusHtHDamageFix adds the bonus from the perk to min when calculating damage.

 

[Timez]

Because increasing your SPECIAL stat is not as easy as increasing your skill levels. Usually the lowered skills are barely noticeable and easy enough to get up to speed again.

That is correct. It is not as easy but this does not make them more important. They do not have some drastic effect on the gameplay except perk requirements and some quest/dialog requirements. Meaning player will get perks and dialog options corresponding to its built but not all of them in the same game. Which is completely by design. Not getting all perks and dialogs, using your words, is barely noticeable and easy enough to circumvent with other approach.

 

[Timez]

My motivation behind balancing skills, perks, traits, and SPECIAL is to empower very weak choices, so that there are many different strong builds, and that the player has a lot more choice. Character building is much richer if you have to choose between more options. Obviously you would ignore the totally crap options.

The other problem with crap options is that the game doesn't tell you that they suck. So if you're less experienced then you can accidentally pick them, which is frustrating.

This is my motivation too. I was just highlighting there is only so much we can do and redoing everything is to create new game completely. Let's concentrate on low hanging fruit and then gradually move toward more difficult fixes.

It gives you 7 SPECIAL points, you can allocate them to IN to compensate for its decreased skill points per level. The fact that it decreases all of your starting skill points isn't such a big deal, because with the extra IN you can make up for that in a few levels.
Even if you were already going to play a high-IN character without Gifted, then you'll be swimming in skill points. Especially later in the game. At the same time, SPECIAL points are scarce and always valuable.
Without Gifted, you have to make many sacrifices to your SPECIAL allocation; with Gifted, you get everything - both a diplomat and a fighter.

Yeah, yeah. I read the rationale myself. That is completely correct. Even without Gifted player is swimming in SP. So why not take it?! That is the problem of the game that it is too easy. FO is too easy by design because it is not a combat tactical simulator but a story in first place. It should be passable with whatever weird built player choses.

My point is that for that level of easiness player does not need these extra stat point as much as they don't need extra skill points to finish the game. Taking this trait or not taking it does not make game passable.

Game is somehow designed around perks. Whereas it should be around skill set (i.e. specialization) as most RPG do with perks playing some additional role on top of specialization. The fact that skills are so unimportant is the game oversight. What can I say? A lot of unbalance in it.

Yes, I want to make it 0 AP with a trait. This is for 2 reasons:
1) During earlier game, you can't use aimed shots because you're too inaccurate and it's not worth trading further accuracy even if extra AP cost was 0. Especially if you're fighting with guns, then even in the midgame your chance to hit is often below 95% because you're shooting from a distance.
2) Even after you're accurate, aimed shots aren't that great. They give some boost to crit and give you a little control of the type of crit you get. Lategame if you can shoot the eyes every turn then that WILL be very powerful, but this trait should have a drawback to make up for that. Maybe the drawback should matter a lot more in the lategame...

Interesting idea but this is more of adding something new rather than fixing existing stuff. Need to think about it. How do you make aimed good if it not worth it every with 0 AP early game?

My annoyance with it is that:
1) The player doesn't know about it, so the player must guess the mechanic from playing the game, but it's next to impossible to guess! Why would even someone with 300% Small Guns always miss 2/3 (rounded down) of their shots at 2 tiles away, but get a chance to hit for every bullet at 1 tile away? Why 2/3 (rounded down)? This means that a burst of 5 bullets at any range which isn't point blank is going to be the same as a single shot!
I played through the game multiple times and when I found out about this mechanic from the NMA forums, I was shocked!
2) The reason why it's so hard to guess is because it uses a bunch of discrete cut-offs, so I just want to replace them with a smooth transition. The difference between 1 tile away and 2 tiles shouldn't be abrupt, but relatively small.
I don't want to make burst fire stronger. Ideally it would have the same overall power.

Edit: thinking about this further, I came up with some new ideas and it makes me realize that before I implement anything, it's worth thinking a lot and going through many ideas, rather than implementing a good idea and missing the chance to do a better one. And asking other people for their ideas, because it turns out that there are pretty good ones out there.

The player does not know about 2/3 rule but the wider bullet spread is expected naturally. Use the burst few times and you get the idea how good it hits. That is actually one of the game mechanics that does not require consulting formulas. I would even make it harder to hit when target is farther away. The fact that 1/3 of bullets still hit the target at 25 hexes is just hilarious bonus to the shooter.

5 bullets shot will result in 5 - [5 * 2/3] = 2 bullets. In fact shooting 4+ bullets always results in more hits than single shot. So double shotgun and combat shotgun bursts are ineffective at more than 1 hex away. Others are.

This is a pretty standard trade-off. You shoot more bullets but only 1/3 hit the target. More damage per action for more ammo consumption. Besides, you can hit others with these missed bullets. So against 3 enemies in the row it is gives just insane efficiency! If you believe it sucks use single shot. What is the problem?

 

[Velizar]

You're saying that some of my ideas are adding stuff rather than fixing stuff.

That is correct. When I think about it, I prefer changes which fix stuff without adding much.

However, adding some stuff seems inevitable for my goals at least. For some skills like Outdoorsman and Traps, there is almost no content in the game; in order to make them usable, they need to be made to do something. Which must be something new. They do almost nothing right now.

Though it would be also cool if they were removed from the skills menu altogether, so that the player can't tag them, level them, or see them.

 

[Timez]

That is completely fine to add stuff as well. I am not criticizing it just trying to narrow my focus and set priorities. Otherwise, this mod will be all over the place.
Yes. There are plenty things to fix like skill and others. First I am trying to fix everything with number juggling and existing sfall hooks.

 

[Timez]

# 0.6
Finally, with the help of sFall and people on that forum I was able to fix previously driving me insane ranged combat accuracy to my liking! The complete readme is here. Let me just duplicate few key points.

• PE does not add to accuracy but lengthen weapon effective range as advertised in FO manual.
• Sharpshooter stretches weapon effective range.
• Weapon long/scope range now are better on long distance but worse on short thus making short range weapons more usable in close combat.
• No more incredible jumps in accuracy for scoped weapon. All changes are smooth and intuitive.

Enjoy!

 

[Timez]

# 0.7
Power armor ST bonus nerfed.

 

[Zorchar]

# 0.6
Finally, with the help of sFall and people on that forum I was able to fix previously driving me insane ranged combat accuracy to my liking! The complete readme is here. Let me just duplicate few key points.

• PE does not add to accuracy but lengthen weapon effective range as advertised in FO manual.
• Sharpshooter stretches weapon effective range.
• Weapon long/scope range now are better on long distance but worse on short thus making short range weapons more usable in close combat.
• No more incredible jumps in accuracy for scoped weapon. All changes are smooth and intuitive.

Enjoy!

Good stuff, keep it up. What is your approach on shotguns? Will you be changing their formula as well? Like for example, less damage the farther the target is (accounting for less pallets hitting)