[Idea] Legendary Weapon Effects Rebalance

[noptasis]

So while working on some other mods I came to think about the current legendary effects system, and how boring it was. Lacks any sort of themeing or interesting choice, and rather just becomes an issue of what does the most damage. Plus, some weapons are outrageously overpowered with a certain modification (Wounding ripper, Explosive minigun) While some effects are just useless.

 

I think the way to fix it is by introducing trade-offs to the more powerful legendary effects, so that getting a legendary weapon or armor actually affects your gameplay, the way it's intended to. It'll also balance things out between the weapon classes. That is, making the legendary weapons more powerful, but also more specialized and unique.

 

Weapons:

 

Assassin's: Does 50% more damage against humans. -> Does 60% more damage against humans, +100% AP cost

 

Now this is the definition of a boring effect. Nothing but a flat damage increase that doesn't change playstyle at all. When you think of assassin weapons, you think getting headshots or slitting throats instantly. By increasing damage but discouraging VATS, weapons fit that playstyle more.

 

Cavalier's: Reduces damage by 15% while blocking or sprinting. -> Reduces damage by 75% while blocking or sprinting. Damage - 25%

 

This way, the effect goes from useless to a way for even a flimsy melee build or gun-fu type of character to survive giant super mutants, and reinforces an evasive, hit and run playstyle.

 

Crippling: 50% more limb damage. -> 100% more limb damage. -50% Critical damage.

 

Enraging: Critical hits cause target to frenzy. -> All hits have a 25% chance to frenzy the target.

 

Exterminator's: Does 50% more damage against Mirelurks and bugs. -> Does 75% more damage against Mirelurks and bugs. Does 50% reduced damage to robots.

 

Freezing: Does 10 points cryo damage and will freeze targets on critical hits. -> Does 15 points cryo damage and 50 points cryo damage on critical hits.

 

Incendiary: Sets target on fire for 15 points of damage. -> 25% chance to set target on fire for 30 points of damage.

 

Irradiated: Does 50 points additional radiation damage. -> Does 80 points additional radiation damage. Critical damage down 50%

 

Mutant slayer's: Does 50% more damage against Super Mutants. -> Does 25% more damage against Super mutants. Critical damage + 50%.

 

Pretty self explanatory. These changes would make the effects viable on more builds.

 

Explosive: Bullets explode on impact doing 15 points area-of-effect damage. -> Bullets explode on impact doing 15 points area-of-effect damage, - 10 damage. OR Bullets explode on impact doing 30% area-of-effect damage.

 

Both changes are aimed at balancing weapons that are too good with the explosive modifier. Removing flat damage does little for a explosive sniper rifle, but hurts the explosive minigun. The alternative does the same while making things like explosive cannons do more damage, but might be difficult to code.

 

Lucky Weapon: Critical shots do double damage and the critical meter fills 15% faster. -> 15% chance to deal 100% bonus damage.

 

This should make the damage LESS consistent and fit the mold, of, well, luck.

 

Never Ending: Sets ammo capacity equal to the amount one is carrying. -> Sets ammo capacity equal to the amount one is carrying. 30% slower fire rate.

 

Never-ending now balanced for gatling lasers, but almost equally strong for rifles.

 

Penetrating: Ignores 30% of the target's damage and energy resistance. -> Ignores 50% of the target's damage and energy resistance. Damage - 25%.

 

Now you have to think a little.

 

Quickdraw: Costs 25% fewer Action Points. -> Costs 50% fewer Action Points. Critical damage down 50%.

 

Emphasizes the heavy VATS combat by shifting focus away from the crit

 

Sentinel's: Take 15% less damage while standing and not moving. -> Take 40% less damage while standing and not moving. Take 100% bonus damage while sprinting.

 

Punishes you for being a wuss.

 

Two shot: Fires an additional projectile. Decrease in accuracy. -> Fires an additional projectile. Decrease in accuracy. -40% damage.

Two shot is a little bit too strong, but this would help remedy that.

Wounding: Targets bleed for 25 points of additional damage. -> Targets have a 20% chance to bleed for 50 points of additional damage. 50% bonus limb damage on wounding hit.

Wounding was a little too strong since some weapons could stack it up too quick. This way, the strengths are tempered while giving the weapon much more utility.

 

Hopefully, I can eventually introduce more legendary effects that also fit the mold. Anyways, let me know what you think and give any suggestions you may have.

Edited December 25, 2015 by noptasis

[Toxification]

I too strongly dislike the current legendary weapon setup.

 

I like most of your suggestions, I'd argue numbers could be tweaked for some of them, but hey it's a good start.

 

Ideas

-increases in damage the farther you are away from a target, but receives a damage penalty for being closer to the target. Say 20% damage bonus at max range and 10% damage penalty at close range.

-Provide knock back based on the weapons attack speed. Lower speed means greater chance of a knock back.

 

 

There's a ton of idea's that are feasible for legendary weapons, it's just that implementing them isn't necessarily simple without the creation kit. Especially from the perspective of balance. For instance the bleed effect is far more potent on certain weapons than others, unless you take certain variables into account and that kind of requires math.

[SirNewbzAlot]

My mod already makes a lot of these changes. http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/5406/? Maybe you'll like it.

Some changes like your suggested changes to explosive will have to be done after the geck comes out where we can have a script change a mod based on the item base it rolled on, right now we can just change it based on if its a meele weapon or a ranged weapon like in the case of powerful/mighty and vats enhanced.

Edited December 28, 2015 by SirNewbzAlot

[AtmaDarkwolf]

some of your ideas make a 'good' or overpowered(REALLY good) effect utterly useless or close to.

 

Example: your suggest two shot fix absolutely neuters it. Makes it an absolute mistake to bother using.

[Toxification]

some of your ideas make a 'good' or overpowered(REALLY good) effect utterly useless or close to.

 

Example: your suggest two shot fix absolutely neuters it. Makes it an absolute mistake to bother using.

Yeah his numbers need work in some places. Having said that, that gives two shot a 20% damage increase, at the cost of a little accuracy. Not necessarily a bad thing, it's arguably still more powerful than a lot of the other legendary weapon mods he's suggested.

 

It's a similar thing with his never ending suggestion, for me personally, that would make the mod utterly useless on almost all of my weapons, but numbers are always tweak able, it's the concepts and providing interesting idea's around legendary mods that's important, numbers are easy to work with.

[AtmaDarkwolf]

my point is, for the most part, its just better NOT having any effects on a weapon(Unless you plan to carry many, many weapons for many different types of enemies)

 

I typically carry 3 weapons - 1 melee, 1 long ranged/high power, and 1 low ranged, quick weapon.

 

With the above mod changes I wouldn't use ANY legendary effects (Truth is, a loss of accuracy isn't just a 'vats' stat, it affects how 'tight' the aiming recipticle is and this gets worse if your moving, which you need to do.)

 

Legendary effects SHOULD be better (by a margin) than vanilla. That being said, I think a better route would be to RESTRICT certain effects to some weapons. IE: two shot/never ending on a missile launcher is just plain silly. Same as with explosive on a sub machine-gun (I mean really, that and/or on a mini-gun is just plain foolishly silly overpowered)

 

So not trying to be too critical, just feel a better idea would be to match 'valid' effects with what weapons they work well with(As in not useless or stupid-silly) and THEN tweek the values.

[Toxification]

The problem with two shot, is it's literally double damage at the expense of accuracy. It's blatantly far too strong, the weapon you put it on is irrelevant. I understand the impact of what decreased accuracy does on the weapon, I personally never use V.A.T.S. It's not like the accuracy is halved, it's like a 10% decrease in accuracy at the expense of double damage, I can't think of a weapon where this wouldn't be fantastic.

 

But I do have to agree with you about matching the mod to the weapon class.

Edited December 28, 2015 by Toxification