Gameplay additions/changes for a hypothetical future fallout game?

[Iprovidelittlepianos]

When I say hypothetical future fallout game I of course mean a fallout game made in the style of the originals, which I know will likely never happen.

I’m sure we all have ideas for what could have been added to fallout to improve the gameplay, or what aspects of gameplay could be changed, and there have been countless suggestions posted throughout various threads on this site. I’d love to hear what your ideas are, regardless of how well thought out they are. Anything from combat to karma to stat checks to new skills to dialogue options, as long as it has to do with gameplay, post it here.

I’ve got plenty of ideas myself, I’ll reply to this thread with some of them later, but I’ll let some of you get the obvious ones out of the way first.

 

[Iprovidelittlepianos]

Alright, here are my ideas, for anyone who cares. I’ll be editing this post to add to it, so these changes aren’t in any particular order, just what came to mind first.

1. Differences between male and female characters: Obviously there should be differences between genders when it comes to story and NPCs should react differently to you depending on your gender. For example, if you play a female, you shouldn't be able to join a misogynistic band of raiders/slavers that cosplay as Romans. But as far as gameplay goes, there should be some actual, tangible advantages and disadvantages that males have over females, and vice versa, much like those that exist in real life. It doesn't have to be balanced either. I'm okay with the game being harder if you're a woman, or at least force you into different playstyles, kind of like in real life.

I think female characters should have a -1 (maybe -2) modifier to all Strength checks, forcing you to put more points in Strength if you want a female character to be as strong as a male. Maybe women are more affected by drugs, or get some kind of bonus to Speech. Maybe women can kick more accurately than men (yes, that's a real thing).

2. Expanded Karma System: Most people think that Karma has outlived it's usefulness, and that the town reputation system is a better replacement for it. I'd have to agree, but I think a Karma system can still be used. Karma needs to be revamped to accurately portray the more gray areas of morality. I propose that instead of a sliding scale of good to evil, there should be a separate tracker for good karma and evil karma, like in Mass Effect. But the Mass Effect morality system isn't that good either, so let's expand this some more.

There should be three different "types" of Karma: Honorable, Pragmatic, and Psychotic. This way we can use Karma to track the various shades of moral ambiguity that exist. For example: having high Honorable karma but low Pragmatic and no Psychotic would mean your character is seen as a hero that never compromises in the face of evil, never kills if he doesn’t have to and rarely even accepts payment for his deeds. A character with high Pragmatic and Honorable and no Psychotic would be seen generally as a hero but one that is willing to get their hands dirty and perform immoral acts in the name of the greater good. A character with high Pragmatic but low Honorable and no Psychotic would be seen as someone who is purely self-interested, like a mercenary or thief. A character with high Pragmatic and Psychotic and low Honorable would be seen as cold-blooded and ruthless, but not the kind of person that just kills impulsively. A character with high Psychotic and low Honorable and Pragmatic would be seen as a bloodthirsty psychopath with no self-control.

Sure, it's needlessly convoluted and it would be better to just drop Karma entirely, but I thought I'd just throw this idea out there.

3. Drugs: Drugs were one of the most innovative things the originals did in my opinion. They were a nice way to have "potions" exist in a magicless modern/futuristic world. And they mimicked real world drugs by causing addiction and having withdrawal and coming down systems. I think this could be expanded on by allowing you to overdose on drugs as well. In fallout 2 you are limited to taking two of each kind of drug, after which the effects no longer stack. With overdosing, drug effects could continue to stack (but probably decreased benefit for each successive dose taken), balanced out by the fact that if you take too much it can lead to some serious negative effects, possibly even death. Mixing drugs could amplify your chance to OD as well. How much you can take before you OD would depend on your endurance.

 

[Atomic Postman]

If it were updating from Fallout 2's gameplay I'd want serious upgrades to combat to give it more variety and minor strategy without going full X-COM or Wasteland

Tiered cover system, cones of suppressing fire, dual-wielding, sliding, flushing enemies out of cover with thrown explosives or shotguns, hip firing. Taking AP to aim, dodge or parry.

All of the above I worked into my PnP to be in-tune with the Fallout system. I can post screenshots here if anyone cares to see, but the document itself is floating around NMA.

You can make arguments for leaving unchanged a lot of stuff in Fallout 2 in terms of systems, but the "stand in a hex and spam the attack roll until dead" is pretty inarguably in need of variation

 

[Iprovidelittlepianos]

If it were updating from Fallout 2's gameplay I'd want serious upgrades to combat to give it more variety and minor strategy without going full X-COM or Wasteland

Tiered cover system, cones of suppressing fire, dual-wielding, sliding, flushing enemies out of cover with thrown explosives or shotguns, hip firing. Taking AP to aim, dodge or parry.

All of the above I worked into my PnP to be in-tune with the Fallout system. I can post screenshots here if anyone cares to see, but the document itself is floating around NMA.

You can make arguments for leaving unchanged a lot of stuff in Fallout 2 in terms of systems, but the "stand in a hex and spam the attack roll until dead" is pretty inarguably in need of variation

Yes, that's exactly the kind of stuff I'm talking about. I'd particularly want more variation in the action point cost of weapons. Pretty much every gun costing 5 action points to fire was pretty boring to me.

Oh, and I've read through some of your PnP and I'm very impressed by it. Feel free to post anything from it that you're particularly proud of here, or post the whole damn thing if you want.

 

[Atomic Postman]

Yes, that's exactly the kind of stuff I'm talking about. I'd particularly want more variation in the action point cost of weapons. Pretty much every gun costing 5 action points to fire was pretty boring to me.

I think that's good for balancing reasons. For guns in particular. It gives Unarmed and Melee a nice counter balance if they have lower AP. Also makes investment into Traits like Fast Shot worthwhile. Although I do have a couple handguns as being lower AP. I think 5 as the standard works for balance.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

if you play a female, you shouldn't be able to join a misogynistic band of raiders/slavers that cosplay as Romans

In Black Isle's Fallout 3 there would have been a female counterpart to Caesar's Legion, the Daughters of Hecate.
They weren't so much a female warrior group though probably some could fight, but rather more of a tribal cult that controlled a group of male warriors; the Hounds of Hecate, remnants of the Vipers that had fled East when the NCR drove them out of California.

The player could either become a priestess of Hecate, a very powerful and influential figure among various tribes influenced by the Daughters.
Or a hound, you life in general would be considered lesser than that of a Daughter, but perform well and they would allow you to be the father of the next generation of children.

The founder of the Daughters of Hecate had a grudge against Caesar and through a chance contact with DIANA she learned about genetics, especially in animal husbandry you can breed better offspring by only allowing the strongest animals to breed.
Hecate decided to practice this with humans. Her cult which would be all about fertility would build up an important role in any tribe to the point that her priestesses would oversee all childbirth.
Strong and healthy children would be secretly replaced with weak ones to weaken the tribe while the children themselves would be either raised as new Daughters of Hecate or Hounds of Hecate.

Once Hecate had a sufficiently large army she intended to have them march against Caesar's Legion.

 

[Iprovidelittlepianos]

In Black Isle's Fallout 3 there would have been a female counterpart to Caesar's Legion, the Daughters of Hecate.
They weren't so much a female warrior group though probably some could fight, but rather more of a tribal cult that controlled a group of male warriors; the Hounds of Hecate, remnants of the Vipers that had fled East when the NCR drove them out of California.

The player could either become a priestess of Hecate, a very powerful and influential figure among various tribes influenced by the Daughters.
Or a hound, you life in general would be considered lesser than that of a Daughter, but perform well and they would allow you to be the father of the next generation of children.

The founder of the Daughters of Hecate had a grudge against Caesar and through a chance contact with DIANA she learned about genetics, especially in animal husbandry you can breed better offspring by only allowing the strongest animals to breed.
Hecate decided to practice this with humans. Her cult which would be all about fertility would build up an important role in any tribe to the point that her priestesses would oversee all childbirth.
Strong and healthy children would be secretly replaced with weak ones to weaken the tribe while the children themselves would be either raised as new Daughters of Hecate or Hounds of Hecate.

Once Hecate had a sufficiently large army she intended to have them march against Caesar's Legion.

Yes, this was one of the things I liked about Van Buren, at least as far as your gender affecting the way certain people/factions react to you.

I remember in the Denver design document the NCR work-release prisoners (were they called salvagers, prospectors? I can’t remember) would react differently if the player character was female. Something about them being all males and having not seen a woman in a long time, possibly leading to them attempting to rape you, which would likely be represented in the game as starting combat with you.

But these all have more to do with “story” than “gameplay” if you know what I mean. I think there should be actual stat differences between genders to reflect the physical differences between genders in real life. Maybe this is controversial, but it’s something I’d like to see in a video game. Hell, the elder scrolls series did it up until Skyrim.

 

[Risewild]

I would like to have an Armor Class system that is usable for the entirety of the game.

I always like games to have the super armored tank that shrugs damage and the nimble wimp that avoids damage. I wish FO1 and FO2 would allow to make both types of characters.

Depicted are both types of character:

Apparently imgur videos don't seem to play automatically (at least for me), so you have to click on the image to go to the ingur site...

 

[Gizmojunk]

Maybe women can kick more accurately than men (yes, that's a real thing).

 

[Risewild]

Another thing I would change from the classic games is allowing unarmed attacks to stack with unarmed weapons.

What I mean with this is that in the classic games, with high Unarmed skill, SPECIAL values and character level, you will gain various unarmed attacks (Strong Punch, Hammer Punch, Haymaker, Jab, etc.). These attacks have bonus damage and critical chance. But if you equip any unarmed weapon (Brass Knuckles, Spiked Knuckles, Power Fist, etc) you lose these bonuses and instead use the weapon bonuses.
This makes Brass Knuckles and Spiked Knuckles being outdated by level 6. Using the Hammer Punch attack is stronger than using those weapons.

Since unarmed weapons are gloves or knuckles, it makes no sense you can't hit the enemy with a Jab, Strong Punch, Hammer Punch or Haymaker while equipped with those weapons.

It would be cool to have "feet" weapons. Fallout 1 and 2 have punch attacks, but also kick attacks. Stuff like metal toed, bladed, spiked, power shoes/boots/add-ons.
It would make sense having the gloves and knuckles only affect the hand attacks, while the feet weapons only affect the kick attacks.

 

[Gizmojunk]

 

[Alexander Fringer]

Differences between male and female characters:

it would be cool but i feel like Bethesda would rather die than acknowledge gender differences

 

[Sublime]

Bring back Fallout Tactics ability to crawl on the ground and kicking from the originals, with new and old special moves for unarmed.

 

[Iprovidelittlepianos]

I think that's good for balancing reasons. For guns in particular. It gives Unarmed and Melee a nice counter balance if they have lower AP. Also makes investment into Traits like Fast Shot worthwhile. Although I do have a couple handguns as being lower AP. I think 5 as the standard works for balance.

I agree that melee and unarmed should, for the most part, cost less action points than ranged weapons for balancing purposes. But I would like there to be some diversity in action point cost to reflect how different types of guns have a different rates of fire. For example, semi-autos could cost 5 ap, then pump actions and lever actions could cost 6 ap, followed by heavy bolt action guns that could cost 7 ap. Aimed shot cost could depend on the type of gun as well. For example, pistols would cost the standard 1 extra ap to take an aimed shot, rifles could cost 2 extra points, and maybe scoped weapons would cost 3 extra points.

Of course, we’d probably have to increase the amount of action points in play. Like maybe characters start with 10 by default (meaning Agility 5 = 10 ap) and most actions cost roughly twice as many points.

Also, more perks to reduce the action point costs of certain weapons later in the game would be nice.