Big Guns

[darious24555]

I guess the perks would be better suited for an optional/mod.

[Oceankhayne]

As someone who has used the M16, M4, M249, M240, and the AT4 before I can say that I'd like to see the big guns skill return, but rocket launchers should be left in another category entirely. Leave them in the explosives category. Place all belt fed machine guns into the Big guns category along with the other large weapons.

The problem I'm having is with the large energy weapons. It's just too bad that a weapon can't pull from two separate skills. But on the other hand no one's suggesting you require 50 in small guns before the big guns skill becomes available. That would be an Idea, but you've stated before that hiding a skill isn't possible. Ideally, you would require 50 small guns, energy weapons, and explosives before you could unlock big guns but I don't see that happening.

In the end, there's no perfect solution but what the hell, why not throw it back in and see how it goes? I like the idea of needing a special skill before I pick up the equivalent of an M134 and spewing hot death into everything that looks at me wrong.

[CyberDanz]

My opinion is to "Restore" it.. not make it optional.  It was already a part of the game and disabled to accommodate the TTW integration.  I think the more that can be added (e.g. skills, traits, perks, etc), the more challenge it can be to play (considering you don't use the console or cheats).  I'm down either way, optional or restored.  However, I'd like it better restored since it's not a "new" feature really.  It's already there and disabled.  I also feel the more we can keep busy with, the longer these two games will remain active by both players and modders.  This series is one of the longest running series and is just as active now as before, thanks to our modding community!  If the TTW Team has found a way to make it work, we need to trust them and let it be worked!

[EnderDragonFire]

[quote=CyberDanz] My opinion is to "Restore" it.. not make it optional.  It was already a part of the game and disabled to accommodate the TTW integration ... I'd like it better restored since it's not a "new" feature really ... It's already there and disabled. [/quote]

What do you mean by these three lines? It is NOT part of New Vegas by default at all, which is the game on which TTW is built. It had to be manually re-added by jazzisparis, from the ground up, and is part of JIP's NVSE plugin. TTW does not disable Big Guns, that is something *New Vegas* itself did when it was made by Obisidian. Adding it to TTW would indeed by adding a "new" feature, both from a technical point of view, and from a gameplay point of view when compared to New Vegas. It doesn't make your opinion less valid, or make the change itself less valid, but I don't think that these statements are accurate. It doesn't matter, from TTW's current design viewpoint, if the mechanic is new or not, but it still is new. New Vegas does not have it natively, it has to be added through the script extender. 

[jlf65]

He means it was part of FO3, so it should be part of the FO3 portion of TTW at least. TTW removes Big Guns from the FO3 portion to make it work with the FONV engine... but that's not needed anymore due to JIPLN, so he wants FO3 to retain the Big Guns by default. It would mean less changes to the FO3 weapons. There's also not a whole lot of weapons in FONV that would be affected, so from a standpoint of amount of work, it makes more sense to have BG enabled by default.

[darthbdaman]

Most of the weapons that would be affected are in NV. The only weapons that aren't are the Rock-it-Launcher and the Drone Cannon (Unique versions of weapons in New Vegas don't count for this purpose). The Drone Cannon easily fits as an Energy Weapon (wouldn't be out of place as one in FO3 either considering the Tesla Cannon is an Energy Weapon imo). That leaves the Rock-it-Launcher, the one weapon that really doesn't fit in any category without Big Guns, so it basically goes to Explosives because that's where is makes the most sense.

Bringing back Big Guns destroys the progression in New Vegas, and would require substantial rebalancing to make it work properly. Fallout 3 however doesn't really need to be changed that much, as Big Guns were already endgame restricted, so having them there without the skill works even better. Fallout 3 is built around a much less strict progression model than New Vegas, so it makes more sense to just to leave things as they are in FO3, which doesn't really change whether big guns is there or not.

[Oceankhayne]

After reading a bit more into it, I mostly agree with darthbdaman. If you really want to bring back big guns though, how about this? Is there a way to restrict their use to an appropriate perk? Have a big guns perk for every category? Like "This is my boomstick!" for guns, "Disintegration!" for energy weapons, and "Why are my ears still ringing?" for explosives (the names of the perks would be better of course). My main gripe with big guns is it allows you to start out using rocket launchers and miniguns with the right build at early levels if you know where you can find them. You get to 75 in guns and have a str of 9? You can now use big guns! You have a 75 in energy weapons, a str of 6, and an int of 7? You can grab the perk for big energy weapons! You have a 75 in explosives, an int of 5, and a lck of 7? You can now use the big boombas! This needs a bit of refinement, but there you go, my two cents.

I think most of us agree, when it came to progression and a lot of the rpg elements in general, that New Vegas has a better system in place. Please don't fix what's not broken.

[RoyBatty]

The test version of the Tesla Cannon was Big Guns, they seem to have changed it on purpose.

A lot of these guns are end game weapons in New Vegas too, but hardly all. Most NPC's don't carry any of them anyway and you can only purchase them, find them in the world at specific locations, or get them from mods. The vast majority of NPC's in Vegas use 1hand and 2hand conventional firearms or energy weapons.

They are not exactly end game in DC the same as NV, you can b-line straight for GNR and get a fat man at level 1. There's a rocket launcher in Grayditch, and other big guns spread around in various low level places.

End game for NV and F3 is level 15, which doesn't really constitute that high of a level honestly, so massive rebalancing is not needed at all. Only DLC's scale beyond level 15 mostly, even Zeta which is interesting being that it scales to 43 and that is vanilla.

[Cataca]

I say no, because of three reasons:

a. Big guns is going to be the most versatile weapon skill in the game. Balance wise, energy weapons were always decent damage with very versatile ammo but lacked suppressed weapons. Small arms had to shop for ammo specific to weapons but were immensely powerful because the stealth approach was easy to do. You now have your suppressed sniper, can draw from all ammo sources and have a weapon for all situations. If this happens the anti-material rifle (gra) will need its suppressor mod removed at the very least.

b. Heavy weapons introduced by mods are going to default to the wrong skill.

c. Every weapon that is now a Big Gun, is going to not be in Small Arms/Energy Weapons. While that sounds obvious, i'll need to ask myself, why would i ever pick EW or SA, my endgame weapon is in Big Guns and i get the other endgame thingies too, with melee weapons to boot. Energy weapons especially have become completely dead for me if this change makes it, because all the fun toys are now another skill.

[Risewild]

[quote=Cataca]

 

I say no, because of three reasons:

a. Big guns is going to be the most versatile weapon skill in the game. Balance wise, energy weapons were always decent damage with very versatile ammo but lacked suppressed weapons. Small arms had to shop for ammo specific to weapons but were immensely powerful because the stealth approach was easy to do. You now have your suppressed sniper, can draw from all ammo sources and have a weapon for all situations. If this happens the anti-material rifle (gra) will need its suppressor mod removed at the very least.

b. Heavy weapons introduced by mods are going to default to the wrong skill.

c. Every weapon that is now a Big Gun, is going to not be in Small Arms/Energy Weapons. While that sounds obvious, i'll need to ask myself, why would i ever pick EW or SA, my endgame weapon is in Big Guns and i get the other endgame thingies too, with melee weapons to boot. Energy weapons especially have become completely dead for me if this change makes it, because all the fun toys are now another skill.

[/quote]

Well, we can look at the other side of things:

a) All weapon skills are versatile, both Small Guns and Energy Weapons have close combat weapons and long reach ones, both allow to make a gunslinger (pistols), a skirmisher (medium range weapons like normal rifles and shotguns), a sniper (long range rifles), an assassin (silent weapons), etc. and they would still be versatile even with the inclusion of Big Guns skill.

I don't see why the Big Guns would unbalance this, I also don't see why the suppressor would have to be removed. Only the GRA version of the weapon can get that mod and NPCs don't use modded weapons, so I don't see why would make any difference if the PC can use it or not, after all it was balanced when it was a Small Gun, why wouldn't it be balanced if it was a Big Guns? Also to have a weapon for all occasion when making a Big Guns character, you will be lugging around almost 100lbs of weight just for the weapons, if you play hardcore you will add the ammo weight too. It is quite a penalty for many players. Also for the most part one would be limited to use the Rock-it Launcher or try to get a better Big Gun which will probably be in very bad condition and the ammo will be scarce at the start fo the game. The way I see Big Guns is that it penalizes the player in the early game but then rewards it by the end game.

b) As several team members said before, integration with other mods will not be a problem.

c) If you like to use big weapons by the end game, then shouldn't you love that skill? That way you can play the entire game using the type of weapons you would only enjoy by the end game.

 

But don't worry, I am pretty sure that Big Guns will be optional .