Big Guns

[darthbdaman]

Getting back on topic,

Big Guns should not be brought back. It's a relic, that's needs to be kept as far away from NV as possible.

Fallout has always had problems with excessive skills since the very beginning. Gambling was a skill on par with shooting things, in a game with hundreds of enemies and one small casino. Reducing the number of skills isn't a bad thing (though it obviously needs to be accompanied by skill point and advancement limits, which NV does not have enough of with DLC).

In NV, there are 5 weapon skills, Guns, EW, Explosives, Melee, and Unarmed. The 2 main combat skills that have been removed from the previous games are Big Guns, and Throwing. Both of these have very good reasons to be removed. They overlap with other categories far too much. In NV, I know exactly which weapon will go in which category. Weapons which use conventual ammunition are Guns, weapons which use energy cells are Energy Weapons, Explosives blow up or use blowing up ammunition, Melee encompasses traditional close combat weaponry, as well as throwing because it fits rather well, and Unarmed is all manner of physical attacks (unarmed and melee are very similar by the definitions, and there would be no harm in merging them, besides endurance losing a skill).

Moving to the missing skills, Throwing, which I believe there is actually a better argument for bringing back, overlaps heavily with explosives. What is a hand grenade? It is a thrown explosive. That level of overlap is a problem. I would have no problem with removing explosives, as landmines don't particularly need a skill, and thrown explosives can fit under Throwing, while rifles and launchers could then be added into a restored Big Guns. Just restoring Big Guns without a total skill revamp though, is a big problem. With explosives still in the game, Big Guns has an identity crisis. All of the weaponry that got moved to and added to Explosives in NV would be removed, substantially weakening the skill. Having a skill entirely devoted to throwing grenades and placing mines really isn't that fun, especially when the other combat skills all have a much greater level of utility. Explosives already has the most limited usage cases of combat skills at low level, and adding Big Guns back just creates another skills with the same problem, as well as reducing Explosives late game utility.

New Vegas doesn't have perfect balance, but it strikes a fair balance between it's different skills, a much better balance than Fallout 3. Explosives is a good support skill throughout the game, that avoids most of big guns pitfalls. All 4 other combat skills are very viable throughout the game. Adding Big guns massively upsets this balance. Melee and Unarmed remain valuable throughout the game, Guns and Energy Weapons are replaced by Big Guns during the end game, while Big Guns are non-existent or found in terrible condition for the early and much of the mid game. Explosives is greatly reduced in power, removing much of it's late game support utility, and making it next to useless.

Basically, Big Guns cannot work in NV as it stands now. NV may not be that balanced, but it is way tighter than Fallout 3, and attempts to mimic Fallout 3's style will only hurt both games

[RoyBatty]

Fallout isn't ARMA. It's supposed to be fun, not realistic and also somewhat silly at times.

I don't see where a missile or rocket launcher would take the same skill as throwing a grenade either, so that point doesn't make any sense to me if you want to use that angle.

Actually that line of thinking is what brought Fallout 4's system, no skills at all and just perks. I personally don't find that system that fun.

Throwing couldn't be brought back, it was replaced with survival.

It is true that a lot of the weaponry in explosives would be pulled back out, but not all of it. There are still the grenade rifles and launchers. Frankly those could fit into Guns too since they are rifles that shoot large center fire cartridges, as a counter argument.

Conversely the Incinerators and Flamers are not energy weapons, but Pyro weapons to which there is no skill for them anymore as they were Big Guns originally. They don't make any sense being in the Energy Weapons category. Same as molotov's don't belong in the explosives category. So there is always going to be some crossover.

I'll make some charts with weapon counts and skill levels to get a better idea of the spread of things with and without Big Guns.

[darthbdaman]

I know throwing can't be brought back :(

I'm not arguing for realism. I don't know where you got that from. My argument is entirely about game balance and progression.

Explosives is devalued by Big Guns, so I don't like restoring it. Fire weapons could be Explosives as well, I don't care. Realism doesn't matter, but they are fine in Energy Weapons as well

[RoyBatty]

Guns, Explosives and Energy Weapons are all devalued by Big Guns, explosives doesn't take as large a hit as Energy Weapons does. That was clear by the list of weapons I posted above. I've already said this will be optional as I have to nip at least one trait from previous games and then there is the issue of the GOAT not having a survival combination, and the stuff from Doc Mitchell not having a Big Guns combination. Such a change is not just a trivial slap and paste it together thing.

Can it be made to work? Yes I believe so, absolutely. Will everyone want to use it? Of course not.

Some people will love it, others will hate it, such as it goes with anything we do.

Again I wanted feedback on how best to make it work, not how much people hate the idea.

I'm not really getting that kind of feedback.

[Damianwolff]

I think the explosives are no more devalued by guns thank real world grenades are devalued by rocket launchers.

An average gamer gets a chance to even further diversify the type of character they are making, which is always a bonus. 

Additionally, I personally disliked that what used to be "big guns" became top skill "guns" in NV. It feels the same as training a character in archery, only to advance towards siege crossbows after being proclaimed absolute master.

It is ridiculous.

Big Guns have a completely separate and situational use in comparison an average Chinese Assault Rifle or a Service Rifle. A minigun is not a more hard hitting version of an assault carabine, a Gatling Laser is no Laser Rifle, and a Nuka Cocktail has radically different applications than a Fatman.

In terms of logic, Explosives make much less sense than Big Guns. Indeed, throwing is much more applicable for weapons in that section. But that right there is very much a personal opinion.

 

EDIT: On how to make Big Guns work better, I personally believe that the hard hitting nature of Big Guns needs to be balanced by well considered drawbacks. The most obvious one would be speed of movement and weight of the weapon itself. Difficult to imagine a character running around with it like they would with a hunting rifle.

A different option, to differentiate Big Guns builds from character builds focused on Energy Weapons or Small Guns, it could be tied to a different Special stat, to represent the unwieldiness and lack of precision of such weapons. Tie it to strength, perhaps. The way I see it, this would also have some implications for the characters. If they focus on Agility-based skills and raise Agility, it also invites higher Sneak. While having a Big Guns Strength-based character invites more focus on Melee as a secondary skill. Or A Primary Melee character, with a complimentary Big Guns skill.

One way or another, even if none of the things I brought up wind up being of any use, the point stands that the best way to not have Big Guns as super-skill to Explosives, Small Guns and Energy Weapons, is to make it sufficiently different in terms of gameplay and requirements.

 

[TAWM]

As far as making Big Guns work in TTW if brought back Fallout 3 is already setup for it...New Vegas that would need some work starting the game off in the Mojave...just like how survival needs some TLC for it to work in Fallout 3 which it was not designed for.  The DLCs are hit or miss with supporting big guns just like how they are hit or miss with energy weapons or guns.  Old World Blues and Lonesome Road actually supports Big Guns right off the bat where as Honest Hearts doesn't and the Automatic Rifle in Dead Money has very little ammo so Big Guns skill would be in the same boat as guns currently are in Dead Money.  Also Big Guns isn't really supported in Point Lookout (other than bringing one in), a good chunk of Operation Anchorage and you can't get a big gun right off the bat entering The Pitt and those are Fallout 3 DLCs.

 

Really just add the schematic for the rock-it launcher to chets vendor inventory in the Goodsprings general store with the parts to build it would solve the problem of not having big gun starter weapon in the Mojave.  It's the same solution Bethesda did with giving Moria the schematic for the rock-it launcher in Megaton so you have a starter weapon for Big Guns.  As far as Honest Hearts go just add the parts to make a Rock-it Launcher in the different buildings or just don't even bother since players can bring a Big Gun into Zion if they want to.  

[darious24555]

I think a good way to have overlap between Big Guns/Small Guns would be to have perks be added that increases your proficiency, since you can't have a weapon be in 2 skills at a time.

 

Like say if you have 100 Big Guns and 100 Small Guns, your better at using the Guns that use conventional ammo (like the AMR or Auto Rifle). That way your knowledge with the 5mm Minigun is tied with the 5mm assault carbine, or the 10mm SMMG is tied to the 10mm Pistol/SMG. Basically, Pistol/rifle cartridges being tied with each other.

 

Same applies with energy weapons in the Big Guns stat, like the EC Gatling Laser being tied to the EC Laser RCW, or the MC Plasma Caster being tied with the MC Plasma Rifle. That or just retrofitting Laser Commander/Plasma Spaz

[EnderDragonFire]

I don't know if Roy would be willing to add such perks, but I think that would certainly be interesting, balanced, and rewarding from a role-paying point off view! Sort of similar to how Fallout 4 uses rifle/pistol/auto/heavy categories, but also uses energy/ballistic divisions as well. There are magazine perks that benefit all energy guns, regardless of their size category, encouraging specializing in matching weaponry, such as minigun with combat rifle, and laser gating with laser rifle, rather than ignoring damage type entirely.

It would make a cool mod, not sure if it fits with the scope of TTW or not, since it would mean adding new perks from scratch. You could even go as far as to actually use magazines like Fallout 4 does. 

[RoyBatty]

No new perks outside of one trait for Big Guns, which would be from Fallout 1, 2 or Tactics.

[Risewild]

Weapon Skills affect accuracy and damage. At max in a skill you're dealing twice the damage using a weapon from that skill. So if you're using a skill with just 5-10 ranks in a skill, you're doing just 5-10% more damage with the weapon, if you have 60, you're doing 60% more damage, etc.

So if you have 100 on a weapon skill, you are dealing twice as much damage and that can factor in a few different ways. You are saving ammunition (you reduce the ammo needed to kill an enemy by half), you're increasing the longevity of your weapon by twice (kill things in half the amount of shots, means your weapon durability only decreases half of what it would). You save healing items (if you kill things in half the time, you get hit only half of the time too), etc.

All of the above can't be countered by just using Steady and crouching.

It also affects being able to pick some perks because they have skill requirements.

What the inclusion of Big Guns would also mean (as mentioned before) is that we wouldn't need to keep the edits to FO3 part of TTW that we had to remove, because the skill was gone. These are things like the Big Guns Skill book locations, the Big Guns Bobblehead, The Big Guns G.O.A.T. related questions and stuff like that.