Universal health formula

[MrMooras]

So I really liked how Fallout 1 and 2 were surprisingly fair and enemies were balanced. Almost no overpowered or underpowered bandits/raiders/soldiers...but in Fallout 3 it kinda breaks role-play and gameplay that enemy health varies.

Formula for player's (and most followers', like Butch's) Health is : 90 + (Endurance x 20) + (10 x Lv), so with basic 5 endurance, at level 1 you have 190 Hit points. However, say, Raiders have 25-85 health at that level, while some unique NPC have up to 500 (Doctor Li, for example). It makes being "pacifist" character pretty pointless, as you can easily kill most enemies without weapon skills, while when you increase game difficulty, certain enemies are just plain overpowered. Is there a single way to just change the formula for health?

[vforvic]

Not that I am aware. As a modder it can be a real pain to work with how the GECK deals with enemy levels when you are trying to balance your mods.

 

Let's start with how the GECK handles NPC's. They can either be set at a specific level or a percentage of the Players level. So you can set a Raider at level 15 or you can set it at say 125% of the player or %50 of the Player or whatever number you want.

 

Spread out throughout the map there are what is called Encounter Zones. If you enter an Encounter Zone at level 1 or 30 or whatever then that Zone is set at level 1 or 30 or whatever for the entire game. The NPC's you meet that are set to a specific set level are not effected by this, but the NPC's that are set to a %, which are most, are based upon this level number for the entire game.

 

So as an example. The Encounter Zone that covers the Vault 101 exit in the Wasteland. When you leave the Vault I think you are level 2 and immediately level up to 3. The second you walked out that door at level 2 then all NPC's in that Encounter Zone using the % method where set to their level based upon your level 2. So let's say I put a Raider outside the entrance at 200% your level or 2.0. as it says in the GECK. That Raider is going to be set to 2X using your level 2...more or less using its stats. I say that because when I say 2X I mean using it's base stats multiplied using your level 2 and not exactly 2 times your stats.

 

So I play and play and play some more and at level 30 I come back to that same Vault 101 Wasteland Encounter Zone. All those NPC's in that Zone are still setting their stats based upon my original value that I entered the Zone which was level 2. So when they respawn they are still respawning thinking you are level 2.

 

Oblivion used the same system. This is why it is possible to complete Oblivion and never level up at all. FO3 got around this by making the level ups not dependent upon sleeping thus forcing you to level up.

 

This is why it seems some NPC's or Creatures seem easy and some seem very hard. You would think that 2x is 2x right, but not so much. You see an NPC at 2x % would give you a level 6 enemy to fight at your level 2, but a level 20 enemy at your level 10. One is only 3 levels higher than you, but the other is 10 levels higher than you. It all just depends on when you enter that encounter zone the first time as to how tough you fight might be with the particular enemy.

 

I am not even taking into consideration the issues with the Player getting much better Weapons and Armor as the game progresses.

[MrMooras]

Well I get what you say, but I knew how it worked. But I was checking their stats via console.

command "getlevel" shows current actor's level, and "gethealth" (or maybe "getavhealth", I forgot) current health. And so the only NPCs with higher health than me were some with level 20 or so, while level 5 Raider had 3-4x less than me. It was gamebreaking. All NPCs with level based on player's level "grow" using specific formulas. For health, from what I noticed, most of them have about 10x Endurance and 5 per level, with base health being 10-30. I just wondered if it would be possible for all NPC "classes" to have same formula.

[vforvic]

Sorry for the long answer, but I figured it might be beneficial for other people who read the thread now and in the future who might not have your understanding of the system.

I guess the short answer to your question is no. :smile:

[africaisstarving]

ok..actually enemies do use the health formula as they have stats/perks/skills just like the player. yes they have perks. for example some enemies have cyborg perk. etc . but enemies are coded to have different health base for example behemoth would not have the same health as a human. etc . also the max health you can have using stats alone i like 500ish or something like that with str 10 and end 10 + 5-20 hp i think per level. 500 health behemoth is not very realistic. you need to change the formula to make str/end count more. you can do that and will work but then you will get 2000 health when you are at 10 str 10 end thats not realistic either.

The game is not well balanced. i'd rather spend time balancing enemies than balancing health formulas. Health formulas should only apply for humans and humanoids imho