Fallout IX: Nuclear Cash Cows Go MMOoooooo!

[Triaxx]

I think one of the things Fallout 3 did right was how it scaled the world. Capped area scaling meant you could fight raiders early, and find them challenging, come back a bit later and find the ones you'd killed had been replaced with stronger ones that were a challenge again, and then come back later to find the ones that had been challenging were now something you could walk over with ease. F4 uncapped the scaling, which is annoying.

[factotum]

Morrowind got it right as well--it did actually have level scaling, but only between certain limits; so a dungeon might scale from levels 10-25, making it seriously tough if you go in below level 10 and a cakewalk if you're level 50.

My biggest problem with level scaling is what it does to the immersion of the game. I'm the Champion of Cyrodiil, the guy who saved the Empire and shut down the Oblivion Gates, yet no matter how badass I am I lose in a fight with any random town guard? Why the heck are *they* not out there saving the world, since they're so tough? Then there's the bandits wearing 100,000gp worth of weapons and armour who are shaking down passing travellers for 50gp. Skyrim hid this a lot better than Oblivion or Fallout 3 did, fortunately, but I would still prefer a system where, say, anything near the road is low level and things get nastier and more dangerous the further away from civilisation you get, because that makes sense--you would expect a patrolled road to be safer than the middle of Mirkwood.

[halfeye]

Morrowind got it right as well--it did actually have level scaling, but only between certain limits; so a dungeon might scale from levels 10-25, making it seriously tough if you go in below level 10 and a cakewalk if you're level 50.

My biggest problem with level scaling is what it does to the immersion of the game. I'm the Champion of Cyrodiil, the guy who saved the Empire and shut down the Oblivion Gates, yet no matter how badass I am I lose in a fight with any random town guard? Why the heck are *they* not out there saving the world, since they're so tough? Then there's the bandits wearing 100,000gp worth of weapons and armour who are shaking down passing travellers for 50gp. Skyrim hid this a lot better than Oblivion or Fallout 3 did, fortunately, but I would still prefer a system where, say, anything near the road is low level and things get nastier and more dangerous the further away from civilisation you get, because that makes sense--you would expect a patrolled road to be safer than the middle of Mirkwood.

I agree this stuff is a problem, and Oblivion for its many virtues didn't get it all the way right.

However, it is always going to be a problem, in the real world a ton of predator requires ten tons of prey, and that's not how games can be written.

[Rynjin]

My biggest problem with level scaling is what it does to the immersion of the game. I'm the Champion of Cyrodiil, the guy who saved the Empire and shut down the Oblivion Gates, yet no matter how badass I am I lose in a fight with any random town guard? Why the heck are *they* not out there saving the world, since they're so tough?

Aside all the other good points, I seriously find myself wondering how you ever lose a fight with a town guard in Oblivion at high levels.

Yeah their level scales with you, but their gear sucks and their skills still max at 100, so you should be annihilating them based off your gear boosts alone.

[Spore]

Aside all the other good points, I seriously find myself wondering how you ever lose a fight with a town guard in Oblivion at high levels.

Yeah their level scales with you, but their gear sucks and their skills still max at 100, so you should be annihilating them based off your gear boosts alone.

Yea but my gear isn't ME, it is stuff I hang on my outside to become better at what I do. But honestly I feel scaling and lack of immersion is much less of an issue in Fallout games.

After all your usual "high level hero" trope does not really apply here imho. A pack of raiders should give a hero still a challenge, and guards should be probably scaled to them to not be obliterated once the hero is strong enough so a single raider can conquer the whole of New Vegas/Megaton/Diamond City.

Why should random bandits give the player a challenge? I feel they are the easiest way to populate a world and they would become pointless after Lv 5 or so. They poor POOR gear pulls them down at Lv 1 even.

[The Glyphstone]

Maybe the town guards are turning to banditry, after the presence of the demigod-like player character is proven to completely invalidate their existence and they are all fired.

[veti]

Aside all the other good points, I seriously find myself wondering how you ever lose a fight with a town guard in Oblivion at high levels.

Yeah their level scales with you, but their gear sucks and their skills still max at 100, so you should be annihilating them based off your gear boosts alone.

If your skills are over 100, you've already demonstrated far more patience with the game than I ever mustered. I doubt if I ever got a skill past 75. And turns out, that's quite good enough to save the world - repeatedly.

Which brings us back to the question, why aren't any of these other bozos doing it? Plenty of gates to close. A team of half a dozen guards should be unstoppable, regardless of their gear.

[Erloas]

So anyone else not at all surprised by the Battle Royale mode for Fallout 76. They really just want people to care. I don't think anyone I saw on the stream seemed the least bit interested. Like, "if we're going to play a Battle Royale game, we may as well play it on the games we already have and actually work."

I guess it is telling that even with the free week of play I don't find it worth downloading.

[factotum]

So anyone else not at all surprised by the Battle Royale mode for Fallout 76.

It does seem as if Bethesda are trying their damnedest to slap the Fallout name on a game which is as entirely unlike Fallout as they can manage. I fully expect the next development to be Fallout Tetris...

[snowblizz]

It does seem as if Bethesda are trying their damnedest to slap the Fallout name on a game which is as entirely unlike Fallout as they can manage. I fully expect the next development to be Fallout Tetris...

Make it something that "runs" on the Pip-Boy and you gota winner ;).

[Ailurus]

The quest/NPC based DLC planned kind of interests me. But then, I did sorta like the co-op mode of Fortnite as well, and we all saw what happened when Epic added Battle Royale mode to that. Given the history of problems Bethesda's had with FO76, and that they're jumping on the battle royale bandwagon I've got very little hope for Bethesda continuing to care about the story parts of 76 long-term. I'll also be skipping the free week.

[Kesnit]

Since FO76 is free until June 17, I decided to try it out. I've only gotten to play a few hours, so don't have a great basis to judge yet. I almost missed the stuff you get when you leave the Vault because there is nothing to indicate it can be picked up. (It looks like it is just a static display.) The combat feels clunky, but maybe I just need to get used to it. I almost attacked another player because he appeared out of nowhere and I thought he was a bandit at first. (Yeah, I know no human NPCs yet, but my reflexes kicked in before my brain.) The tutorials are lacking.

[Balmas]

Hey, for all the people who are interested in New Vegas and Let's Plays:

Last monday, I put up the prologue of my upcoming Let's Play. The first official episode is coming out in three days, on Monday June 24th. Take a look!

Spoiler: New Vegas: Prologue

Show

[LibraryOgre]

So, who else goes into DLCs essentially naked? I mean, the Pitt, you have to, but I do it for pretty much every single one, figuring I'll get neat stuff while I'm there, and not wanting to bog myself down with too much junk beforehand. I even enter Zion without weapons or armor... folks will die in a couple minutes, then I can get get what I need.

[Ogremindes]

So, who else goes into DLCs essentially naked? I mean, the Pitt, you have to, but I do it for pretty much every single one, figuring I'll get neat stuff while I'm there, and not wanting to bog myself down with too much junk beforehand. I even enter Zion without weapons or armor... folks will die in a couple minutes, then I can get get what I need.

Yeah, I did that with all the NV DLC. The part of the game where you're scavenging and using what you find is my favourite, so getting to do that 5 times instead of once was fun.

[Erloas]

Really only works after you've already done them once to know if that is even possible. Considering how often I replay games (almost never) I would say I've never even thought about it.

[Balmas]

So, who else goes into DLCs essentially naked? I mean, the Pitt, you have to, but I do it for pretty much every single one, figuring I'll get neat stuff while I'm there, and not wanting to bog myself down with too much junk beforehand. I even enter Zion without weapons or armor... folks will die in a couple minutes, then I can get get what I need.

I'll usually pack one set of armor, maybe one or two weapons, and enough ammo to last until I can make my way to a shop. Really, it depends on my character setup and my foreknowledge of the DLC, I.E. if I don't have any Energy Weapons skill and I'm heading to Mothership Zeta, I might pack a bit more ammo than if I were heading to Point Lookout.

Admittedly, it can be fun to subsist on what the game throws at you, but I find it difficult to choose to do that if I'm not given an in-character reason to do so. I mean, I've invested time and money in keeping this hunting rifle relevant, upgraded, and fed with JSP rounds; why would my character just decide to leave their favorite weapon home?

[factotum]

I don't go in "naked" simply because, by the time I come to play any DLC, I've got a favourite armour and weapon and you can pry them out of my cold, dead fingers if you want me to take them off!

[Triaxx]

Depends on the DLC and it's presentation. Honest Hearts, and curiously enough, Point Lookout did this fairly well. Honest Hearts presented it as a challenge, bring only the basics, because the terrain is rough.

Counter point is point lookout, which made the place seem like it was going to be fairly benign and non-threatening. It definitely wasn't, but you could have been forgiven for thinking that. I went in with combat armor, my hunting rifle and Blackhawk. I came back 30 minutes later for my Power Armor, Minigun, and MIRV.

[GloatingSwine]

So, who else goes into DLCs essentially naked? I mean, the Pitt, you have to, but I do it for pretty much every single one, figuring I'll get neat stuff while I'm there, and not wanting to bog myself down with too much junk beforehand. I even enter Zion without weapons or armor... folks will die in a couple minutes, then I can get get what I need.

Of course you go into the DLCs as naked as possible.

That way you can maximise the amount of new useless crap you can pick up.

Of course I'm generally back on the cusp of encumbrance limit by about five minutes in....

[DigoDragon]

And then there's Dead Money... >.>

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Some DLC's lend themselves to going in stripped more than others. DLC's like Dead Money and The Pitt require it. Others, like Honest Hearts, strongly suggest it by putting in arbitrary weight limits. OWB... you can if you want, you get access to at least *an* energy weapon, even if it isn't really all that good right from the intro, and if you have sufficient Guns skill, you also get access to the K9000 immediately. Killing a few lobotomites nets you some okay-ish armor, but nothing to write home about. If you know where the good loots are, you can gear yourself up pretty well, but if you don't know where things are you can wander around a long time before you find something useful, making it more difficult than it has to be. Lonesome Road expects you to come in loaded for bear, and you don't really get any decent chances to gear up before you're dumped into some pretty heavy combat. Assuming, of course, you didn't put a ton of points into Explosives and you want to use the Red Glare as your primary weapon.

Most of the best loot in the game comes from various DLC's. For example, the Survivalist's Rifle found in Honest Hearts is probably the single most powerful carbine style weapon in the game. Christine's toy is in OWB. However, some of the loot comes as end-of-DLC rewards such as ALSD and Ulysses' Trenchcoat. So, if you know you're wanting Survivalist's Rifle, you can enter Honest Hearts with a bunch of 12.7mm ammo, and acquire weapons from the convoy bodies to get you there, but it won't be easy if you are relying on found drops unless you're high enough level that the White Legs ambushing have decent equipment.

On the whole, I really don't like it when a DLC in an open-world game like F:NV forces you to strip all your gear through some contrived cutscene such as with The Pitt and Dead Money. But as something I choose to do, I think you can probably manage just fine, even if it increases difficulty anywhere from a bit to quite a bit depending on the DLC.

[Ailurus]

On the whole, I really don't like it when a DLC in an open-world game like F:NV forces you to strip all your gear through some contrived cutscene such as with The Pitt and Dead Money. But as something I choose to do, I think you can probably manage just fine, even if it increases difficulty anywhere from a bit to quite a bit depending on the DLC.

I'll mostly agree on that as it is quite annoying. It does makes sense in some cases (Mothership Zeta makes sense to me, for example, with the whole tractor beam abduction). But the Pitt is super annoying especially when someone loaded to the gills with high end guns and in power armor gets beaten down without a chance to blink by a bunch of raiders. Dead Money is little better than the Pitt to me, but the magic undetectable trap and Dog 100% stripping you does still require a lot of suspension of disbelief.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I'll mostly agree on that as it is quite annoying. It does makes sense in some cases (Mothership Zeta makes sense to me, for example, with the whole tractor beam abduction). But the Pitt is super annoying especially when someone loaded to the gills with high end guns and in power armor gets beaten down without a chance to blink by a bunch of raiders. Dead Money is little better than the Pitt to me, but the magic undetectable trap and Dog 100% stripping you does still require a lot of suspension of disbelief.

I suppose a bunch of ragged raiders with metal pipes taking down someone in full power armor and gattling laser makes about as much sense as a gas trap working on someone with a fully functional full-face mask and respirator. Which is to say... none at all. I mean, even if you haven't gone to the Boomers to get your respirator going, there's still Lonesome Road and THAT gas mask, or any of the Riot Gear helmets.

[Balmas]

I discovered yesterday just how powerful camps are in Nuclear Winter. You just pop down a prefab sniper tower/bunker, and keep an eye out for the enemy. If you pop it down in the right place, the enemy doesn't have much choice but to come across open ground towards your elevated shelter.

[Lord Raziere]

I'll mostly agree on that as it is quite annoying. It does makes sense in some cases (Mothership Zeta makes sense to me, for example, with the whole tractor beam abduction). But the Pitt is super annoying especially when someone loaded to the gills with high end guns and in power armor gets beaten down without a chance to blink by a bunch of raiders. Dead Money is little better than the Pitt to me, but the magic undetectable trap and Dog 100% stripping you does still require a lot of suspension of disbelief.

this is why I console commanded to get enough turbo take all the gold out of the vault and escape. the game cheats me out of using all my equipment, I cheat it back out of keeping all its gold. "don't be greedy" kind of falls flat when you force me to go around being greedy to get enough things to make it through the DLC.

[Spore]

Do you feel it is sensible for a courier that is smart and charismatic enough to invest in both guns 100 and energy weapons 100? I know it is not optimal but is it such a waste (on an Int 8 (+1) character) to max both? Because science gives me so much energy weapon ammo, and the weapons are pretty enticing in NV compared to Fallout 4.

I am not talking purely from a gameplay perspective but is there also a reason to employ both, as in - is there different DT and DR for both damage types?

[Triaxx]

Dead Money I treat as a special case. On the rare occasions I play it, I cheat with Robco Certified. Yes, I can do it fair. But it's vastly more fun to cheat.

The Pitt... you were told and agreed to the plan. (not that you had a choice) If your suspension of disbelief was ruined by your unwillingness to try it the way it was planned, that was your own fault.

[Balmas]

The Pitt... you were told and agreed to the plan. (not that you had a choice) If your suspension of disbelief was ruined by your unwillingness to try it the way it was planned, that was your own fault.

Okay, but "we had to railroad you into doing what we said, because you didn't agree to being railroaded" isn't really a defense of its writing. What about players who want to join the raiders, or who have a high speech check, or want to try to bribe their way straight to Ashur? There are so many ways that the plot could have gone, but Bethesda couldn't figure out how to code them, so we get the stupidest cutscene in the game.

[Caelestion]

I can't imagine it's an inability to code it, but rather that it wouldn't be cool to do it in that way. We all know that Because It Looks Cools is the main reason anything happens in a Bethesda game.