Fallout 4 Overhaul (Planning stages)

[raney]

I originally posted this in Mod Suggestions, but I feel this should be more of a collaborative effort. We're nowhere near the point where a system like this could be implemented, but I'd like to lay out the groundwork for such a project ahead of time. When the necessary tools are available, we can have a running start.

 

Here are the ideas I've had. Bear in mind, a lot of these are solely to make you feel less empowered from the start. I want to have to work really hard to become King or Queen of the Wasteland, which entails more reward for having high attributes, and penalty for having low. Having an attribute at 10 should mean more than just "Now you can pick a perk that maybe you didn't even care about."

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Perks aren't available until you have (at least) two points invested in an attribute.

I don't like the fact that the current system pretty much gives you a trophy just for showing up. By that, I mean I can have a 1 in Luck and can obtain and rank up Fortune Finder, to the point where enemies explode bottlecaps upon defeat. I like the idea of being penalized for not investing in certain skills--if I have 1 in strength, I should be weak (i.e. no bonus to unarmed combat available).

 

Alternative Proposal: You start with seven additional SPECIAL points to spend, but attributes now go from 0 to 10. Note that as this idea evolves, it may become necessary to start the player with a few additional points for balancing.

 

Perk ranks can't be increased unless you meet SPECIAL requirements.

So let's say I have 2 in strength. Eventually, I'll be capable of dealing twice as much melee damage and knocking enemies' heads off once that perk hits max rank. And remember, a 2 in strength was considered a 'Wet Noodle' in New Vegas. Perhaps instead of solely having level requirements, the ability to rank up a perk should also depend on how many points are in your SPECIAL (So maybe I'm not able to knock off someone's head until my Strength is 10--so that having a strength of 10 is actually more meaningful).

 

Perk benefits scale with the amount of SPECIAL points in each attribute.

This is sort of an alternative to the last point. Maybe I can rank up my Big Leagues perk to maximum with only 2 in Strength, but the attack bonus I'm given is 'some value multiplied by Strength': A +20% bonus to melee or unarmed damage is the maximum value you can achieve at rank 1, assuming you have a 10 in Strength, whereas a 5 in Strength might get you only a +10% bonus (Doesn't have to be linear scaling).

 

SPECIAL training becomes harder the higher you go.

Using strength training as an example yet again. It would work like this: when I choose to level up my Strength, it counts as choosing one perk. But as strength gets higher, you have to dedicate more and more in order to increase. Maybe by 6 or 7, it takes two levels to get your Strength to 1, and maybe 3 by the time you hit 9. You'd go from 'Strength Training 1/3' to 'Strength Training 2/3', and then you get your full point the next time you choose it.

 

Based on current speed of leveling, this kind of system may be too tedious. I think getting multiple perk points to spend per level might be in order...

 

Medicine Overhaul

New types of healing items in the game, and changes to existing.

 

(NEW) Stimpak: Much less common now. Does not heal injuries (Unless you have proper medicine trainig/perk). Takes longer to heal over time (modifiable with perk).

 

Lite Stimpak: Where you would normally find regular stimpaks, you now find these. Functions as fast as a vanilla stimpak, but only for a tiny bit of health. Using too much at once can make your vision blurry for a short period of time.

 

Super Stimpak: Must be very rare. Making these would require a combination of very rare materials as well. Basically acts like a Stimpak would in Vanilla.

 

Doctor's Bag: Less common than lite stimpaks, but not quite as rare as the new stimpaks. Functions only to restore broken limbs, and not even completely. (Reverts limb health to maybe 1-10%, the rest you have to get from sleeping or using a stimpak on limb New Vegas style). Medicine perk might allow better limb healing.

 

Refreshing Beverage: Same effect as in vanilla, but a longer time for recovery. Requires the regular (now rare) Stimpak instead of Lite Stimpak to create. Or could go one further and require super stimpak.

 

Without a medicine perk, you can't use a Doctor's Bag to restore limb condition on your own. If you go to a doctor, they can restore your limbs for a price--but if you have a doctor's bag, they'll do it for free (Either way, they'll completely or significantly restore limb health). That way, there's still a benefit to going to them (You don't have to waste additional healing items to restore your limb condition to full).

 

Strength Requirement for Weapons.

Just one of those things that makes Strength feel more meaningful. If I'm not a strong guy, the only way I can use a minigun is through power armor. If I have low strength and try to use a heavy-class weapon, it'll slow down my movement speed. The stronger I am, the faster I can move with the weapons.

 

Equipment Degradation.

If weapon condition is low, damage and accuracy will suffer (And value). Unlike New Vegas, you'll still be able to use weapons that have condition of 0%, but some other effects will come into play to make it undesirable to use. Firing rate plummets, accuracy is 60-75% of pristine condition value, etc.

 

Armor will just have a penalty to damage reduction. Like with weapons, this equipment will still be usable, just not as convenient as when it's at 100%.

 

The degradation rate would perhaps be slower than in New Vegas. The frequency of getting worn out equipment would be high, so that running around with guns that are at 50% or so feels like the norm, and having equipment at 100% is the exception.

 

Equipment can be repaired at workbenches, or with Weapon Repair Kits. At a workbench, you will need to have the necessary materials for the weapon or armor you're repairing, but condition will revert to 100%. Some rare material might be necessary, in order to make it feel as though repair is not just something you can do whenever you want, to get the most excellent version of the gear.

 

Not sure if Weapon Repair Kits should be craftable--I feel the materials needed to create one are pretty common, and would make the whole system redundant.

 

Enemies will mostly drop equipment that is in poor to fair condition. Weapons in special crates will range from good to pristine. It's a nice touch that diversifies the loot mechanic, to make scavenging feel more rewarding.

 

Eat/Drink/Sleep

Other hardcore mods I've played always make it a point to penalize immediately after hunger reaches a certain point. Sure, there's a warning stage, and when you hear it you think "Oh great, I'm hungry again. Time to eat, again. I'd like to handle it in a way that's more subtle. First and foremost, the time it takes for these effects to set in is longer. Long enough that you can feel safe exploring around for an hour at a time without having to worry. However, the state change when you go from hungry to starved will be invisible: no notification that pops up telling you 'it's time to eat so you can have this status penalty immediately removed!' No, I want it to be so unnoticeable that you don't realize you're hungry until you find that you're underperforming in certain situations. Then you check your PipB oy and see, "Oh, looks like I haven't been eating. Better do something about that." Finally, the negative status effect of your malnutrition will remain even after you eat, until you've gotten a good night's sleep.

 

Not eating will negatively affect Strength, Endurance and Perception (Only minor Perception). Overeating lowers Agility and Endurance.

Dehydration lowers your Agility, Strength and Perception. If you have severe dehydration, sprinting shouldn't even be an option.

Overhydration would also affect your ability to sprint, by increasing the action point cost to the point where you can only sprint for 2-3 seconds. AP recovery would also be lowered.

Sleep deprivation impacts Perception and Intelligence, then Strength and Endurance.

 

Radiation Sickness

Max HP reduction is a cool continuous effect, but I still want penalties for prolonged exposure that don't go away so quickly.

 

An idea I had would be to have it not function solely on your current rad level , but rather on how much you've accumulated throughout the game. Radaway cures the health penalty, but a behind-the-scenes variable that builds up regardless of whether or not you use Radaway. If in the course of the game, you've accumulated a health bar's worth of radiation, the sickness will set in the next time you visit a radioactive area. Eventually, you *have* to see a doctor in order to revert this value back to 0.

 

Companions can die....

Companions who fall in battle won't get back up once the battle is over. You HAVE to heal them. If you don't heal them within a certain amount of time after they've fallen (Let's be lenient and say 5 minutes), then they die for good. Ideally this would be universal, but there are some points in the main story that require certain characters to be alive. Haven't thought too much about how to deal with this, other than having characters be essential up until that point. Or we could just have the player fail all of the main story and let them reload.

 

Critical Hits are random again.

I don't like that currently the only way to score a critical is to use VATS (meaning no criticals for playing like a shooter). This would change up the mechanics a bit. The Vanilla critical system would be redubbed the "Focus System," and is not available until you have a specific perk. Critical shots can now happen at any time based on luck. Critical chance should probably never exceed 5-7.5%.

 

 

Enemy behavior overhaul

 

 

There's a lot of room for improvement in enemy/NPC combat behavior. I don't know how much of this will be feasible, but here's what I propose.

 

 

Enemies can run away

I always wondered why killing just one raider in an area could qualify as "taking care of the problem" for those radiant quests. So to emphasize this, I think raiders should fear you if you kill their leader, and avoid combat from that point onward. Other instances when they might flee: when running out of ammo, or if watching you dispatch one of their pals in a less than a second.

 

Enemies only use what they have

This should put an end to the days of raiders throwing infinite grenades at you. If a raider runs out of ammo, they either resort to melee or run away.

 

Luck affects enemy behavior

Enemies will be able to get critical hits on you. If you're a lucky person, this won't happen very often at all. Also, their will be a luck calculation that takes place before certain behaviors such as tossing a grenade. Having high luck doesn't mean you won't get a grenade from time to time, just that it won't happen so frequently during fights.

 

Enemies evaluate the situation

MUCH easier said than done. Enemies take into consideration factors such as your current health, the DPS of the weapon you're using vs. theirs, and a bunch of other variables I'm not thinking of at this time, when deciding how to attack. If ammo is scarce in this world, maybe they want to conserve it more--meaning they'll only start shooting when the perceived threat level exceeds a certain threshold. If you're using melee, they'll lose melee, until they see you dominate them--then they switch to the guns. If their health is low, suddenly it becomes a fight for their lives, and they get more desperate. If they see you running in with your gun, they'll retaliate appropriately. This could lead to some neat gameplay opportunities such as tricking your enemy into using up their available ammo by coming in with a big gun, when you might in fact be empty.

 

This would all be probability-based, so that you don't always get only melee attackers if you run in with a knife.

 

More perks

Remember how having a 1 in an Attribute = no perks? Having 2 perks become available one point higher might be jarring, if the rest of the time you only gain access to one perk. The obvious solution: more perks! Now every point in SPECIAL gives you access to two perks. Iron Fist and Big Leagues are now side by side in Level 2. Armorer and Blacksmith are now side-by-side at Level 3 or 4. The downside is, we'd have to come up with 70 additional perks to fill in the empty spaces. I suspect having a hardcore mode will pave the way for some obvious ones--but I doubt I'll be thinking up 70 on my own.

 

Here's my attempt to come up with a few. Suggestions are welcome, and if this post gains any traction I'll be dading to the list.

 

- Strength 1/10 -

 

Level ?: (Heavy Wielder)

Rank 1/2: Enables you to move faster when drawing and aiming heavy weaponry.

Rank 3: Any weapon you have out does not contribute to your total carryweight. (A 30 lb. Missile launcher will no longer take up that weight in your inventory as long as you have it equipped).

 

- Perception 3/10 -

 

Level ?: (Trap Detection)

 

Rank 1: Traps and feral ghouls pretending to be dead will now show up in VATs (meaning they won't without this perk).

Rank 2: Mines and tripwires will glow.

Rank 3: Light Step. No longer set off traps.

 

Level 2: (Reaction Speed)

VATS slows down time at different speeds depending on rank in this perk. This will have to be pretty subtle. I don't know to what extent Vanilla slows time, but it seems like one of those features where not having good perception should penalize you A BIT. The highest rank in this perk would be as close to stopping time as possible.

 

Level ?: (Pack Rat)

Rank 1: Items 3 lbs. or under now take up 1/2 weight.

Rank 2: effect raised to 5 lbs.

 

Level (?) Focus shot

Basically takes the place of the critical hit system in Vanilla.

 

- Endurance 5/10 -

 

(Food Perk 1):

Rank 1: Hunger builds down more slowly.

Rank 2: Hunger builds more slowly. When fully satiated, you gain additional bonus to health restoration from stimpaks (They heal faster over time).

Rank 3: No more penalty for overeating (Need endurance of 9 or 10).

 

(Drinking perk 1):

Rank 1: Thirst builds more slowly.

Rank 2: Alcoholic beverages no longer dehydrate you (Well, they do in real life).

Rank 3: Can sprint even when thirsty.

 

(Body awareness):

You're aware of what's going on in your body. Despite my wishes to make hunger and thirst effects set in without the player's knowledge, this one will inform you when you're getting hungry, thirsty or tired.

 

(Sleeping Perk 1)

Rank 1: Don't have to sleep as long to restore tired.

Rank 2: No penalties for oversleeping. (END 5)

Rank 3: Being in combat does not fatigue you. (END 6)

Rank 4: Sleeping now heals you a bit. (END 7)

Rank 5: Sleeping heals you more, recovers injuries. (END 8.)

 

Charisma 1/10

 

Level 2 (Companion-allowable perk)

Rank 1 (Charisma 2): You are allowed one companion.

Rank 2: (Charisma 3): You are allowed one companion + one dog*.

Rank 3: (Charisma 5): You are allowed two companions + one dog.

Rank 4 (Charisma 10): You are allowed three companions + one dog.

 

*Or any future animal companions.

 

Level ?: (Carry this back for me)

Can instruct a follower to return to a settlement and store all of his/her equipment in the workbench. It works kind of like when you dismiss them, the difference being that they'll add any junk or spare weapons (Anything they don't have ammor for) to that settlement, and then return to you. They physically go back to the location, so it should take some time for them to get back. Oh well, you were just using them for extra carrying space anyway.

 

Rank 2: You're so charismatic that your companion is eager to get the job done. They will leave and return much faster (When no longer visible to player, movement speed increases?)

 

- Intelligence 1/10 -

 

(Scrapper 2?):

Read this one from a post: someone wanted to overhaul the scrapping system when building settlements so that you'd get more materials from cars and things. So for this one, you get different kinds of metals when scrapping big items, and nuclear materials from cars at a higher rank).

 

Some tweaks to the medic perk are ni order regarding the new healing system. Will outline th4ese later.

 

We REALLY need a second level 10 perk that isn't Nerd Rage. I dislike the fact that the only thing you get from having 10 in Intelligence is a combat skill--the very thing I'm trying to avoid, when building a character who's supposed to solve problems with their brain and not their brawn. I originally had a 'think outside the box' perk in mind, but it goes far beyond the scope of this project.

 

Agility 1/10

 

(Melee Perk)

Something that makes your melee attacks swing N% faster. Probably a haard cap on 15 or 20% (Fastest should require very high agility)

 

Luck 0/10

 

This area for rent.

 

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This is all open for suggestions and feedback. I don't see myself taking on such a beast of a project by myself--in fact, I've never even modded. Consider this a jumpstart, or a preliminary design document that someone much more talented than myself (or preferably a team) could take and run with.

Edited December 12, 2015 by raney

[Boombro]

Oh, I made a post about something like that hours ago. Thoughts?

 

 

We really need an enhanced dialogue, and thus it means no voice since it crazy to voice them all. Skills, moral and perks should help interact with npcs more. Once a UI framework is up, this is fairly easy, yet time consuming and thus a nightmare if the task is not split between a team.

An alt start to get some replay out of fo4 or offer fast start option. Since a quest modder will be on this, an option to disable MQ may be do-able. This is no brainer.

A thief/hitman faction or freelancing quests to add more life to evil RP.

A radiance system will also be sweet like the notice board mod for Skyrim for mercs style plays and more replay ability. One can deliver items, hunt monsters and find gear to earn caps.

Tweak damage to be more realistic.

Tweaking loot levels to make healing items rare, ammo less and junk items offer little scarps while buildings more.

Optional weights for caps, ammo and other items.

Tweak melee combat so it will help with combat more in ways gun can't.

Making most buildings access-able in Boston. With level design and notes left behind as the main story teller.

Adding more work benches or make true build anywhere system. Find a house that nice in the Boston? Make it yours!

[aceb20]

My thoughts on dialogue:

I think the voice should be removed and, alongside, the dialogue ui should be revamped and changed to Fallout 3's and NV's. In the new UI, the dialogue of what the SS will say will be written in full so that the NPCs respond exactly the same. After that, it should feel like the old games again.

[raney]

Jus tso this doesn't become a sea of quoteboxes, here are the ones I think would be applicable to the project:

 

>Tweaking loot levels to make healing items rare, ammo less and junk items offer little scarps while buildings more.

Yes.

>Optional weights for caps, ammo and other items.

Yes!

>Tweak damage to be more realistic.

Maybe!

>Tweak melee combat so it will help with combat more in ways gun can't.

Not sure what this entails. Elaborate a bit? Maybe it could be worked into a Strength perk?

>We really need an enhanced dialogue, and thus it means no voice since it crazy to voice them all.

I agree with this completely, but I think it goes beyond what this gameplay overhaul could accomplish. My 'Think Outside The Box' perk would have offered additional dialogue choices to sitautions that let you resolve quests in a non-violent way. The point behind it is that you put so many points into Intelligence that you SHOULD be able to think of more solutions than the binary choices Bethesda often gives you in these contrived 'moral dilema' situations--and because you've spent so many points there, the other lower attributes come back to bite you in the ass. Maybe you do have all the answers, but now you're not good at combat or surviving on your own. Anyway, this one requires you to tackle completely different aspects of the game, so I don't think it'd be feasible to incorporate into this kind of project.

Edited November 12, 2015 by raney

[Boombro]

I was thinking of "fallouting." fo4 more.

 

 

The point behind it is that you put so many points into Intelligence that you SHOULD be able to think of more solutions than the binary choices Bethesda often gives you in these contrived 'moral dilema

Int has nothing to do with moral, but risks and rewards.

 

 

>Tweak melee combat so it will help with combat more in ways gun can't.

Not sure what this entails. Elaborate a bit? Maybe it could be worked into a Strength perk?

There is already the plus that you need no ammo, but melee should offer more. but I'm not that creative.

Some would suggest weapon types offer different damages for some hostiles types blunt>robot>blade>fleshy creature. But that make carrying different weapon needed.

 

A guy walking to you with a big hammer and getting close should make you scared and run away for example, disarm guns when attacked with a melee weapon, break limps faster ( it makes sense.) or a slow effect with blunt weapons to make fighting ghouls easier, maybe guarding with a weapon will block ammo better.

[raney]

>Int has nothing to do with moral, but risks and rewards.

 

I made a big post about this awhile ago. Moral dilemas presented in games are often contrved scenarios that succumb to the either/or fallacy. "Either you save this one guy and kill a bunch of people, or kill a bunch of people but save this one guy, nothing else!" It bugs me when I, the player, can think of a much better solution that doesn't involve going down that road. My argument is that, if my character is smart enough, he/she should be able to come up with alternative solutions to certain problems. I'm not saying get rid of moral ambiguity, just those really cheap moments that fail to make me feel any remorse at all, because of how the game forces them on you.

 

>A guy walking to you with a big hammer and getting close should make you scared and run away for example, disarm guns when attacked with a melee weapon, break limps faster ( it makes sense.) or a slow effect with blunt weapons to make fighting ghouls easier, maybe guarding with a weapon will block ammo better.

 

I like this. I think the disarm feature is already in the game, but not increased limb damage (with melee anyway).

Edited November 12, 2015 by raney

[raney]

I've found that progression feels really slow on a level-to-level basis. "I WANT to level up in Locksmith, but I find myself dangerously underpowered every time I go on one of those raider-camp clearing missions and need to be able to deal more damage with my sniper. Or have higher defense. Guess I'll have to wait another hour for the next level. =(" Breaking up everything so that you have two separate perks per attribute point might just make the game feel even less progressive (i.e. you're accomplishing far less with every level up, making things all the more frustrating). The immediate remedies I can think of are controversial: faster leveling, or letting you choose two perks at every level. The former would introducve some problems with the game's scaling (you'd start seeing some higher-leveled creatures earlier, though their appearance levels could undoubtedly be edited). The latter would introduce a bunch of problems. Off the top of my head, "I want to level up Strength TWICE in this level!"

 

I'm going to keep this post around for anyone who'd like to collaborate on such a project, or just wants some ideas. Maybe a good solutionl occur to me in the upcoming months before the creation tools become available.

[infamousraziel]

i would love for all that you mentioned to be optional, meaning i can enable what i like from your mod and disable the things i dont like. to make your mod more custom to each person's taste. just my peace of mind..

[Boombro]

Or maybe make lockpicking like the older games? Also, it doesn't have to be a lockpick.

Think of mine or grenade, an acid that melt the lock or strong attack from a melee weapon.

[raney]

Made a bunch of changes today. Took a few things out that just don't sit right, now that I've played the game for an extended time.

 

New things: Medical system overhaul, enemy behavior adjustments, some perception perks, one strength perk, one charisma perk.

Expanded on: Equipment Repair, Radiation Sickness.

 

Newer ideas are italicized.