Please don't take the DR from FO3 Perks

[Risewild]

Lately (specially due to the team trying to find a way to "fix" the cheat non avoidable damage from the enemies from Point Lookout) I have been thinking a lot about DT and DR and it's effects.

I reached a conclusion that the Perks from FO3 that give DR and were not modified to give DT in the FNV game should still stay giving DR (an example of one that FNV changed from DR to DT is the Toughness Perk, so that one should stay as it is in FNV).

I must warn you all that I am a bit biased since I always defended that the DR perks from FO3 shouldn't be changed to DT. But I also always thought that FNV wasn't made to handle both DR and DT and that would unbalance TTW by using both.

Now why did I reached the conclusion that it might not unbalance TTW after all:

• 
  Reason why TTW should get rid of DR giving perks:

-FNV wasn't made to allow a player to have a high DR and still wear a high DT armor, it will unbalance the game!

FNV actually uses DR more than I first noticed, for example if one uses Med-X, Slasher and a  Battle brew together it will get the MAX 85% DR allowed by the game and those are all stuff found in FNV and the player can even craft some of those, not to mention equipment from FNV that also add DR:

• 
  Regulator duster 10 DR


• 
  Scientist outfit     3 DR


• 
  Vault 11 Jumpsuit 1 DR


• 
  Rebreather           3 DR

So FNV already easily allows one to pump his character to the maximum value allowed of DR just by using a few chems or wearing some equipment while using one less chem.

Reason why TTW should get rid of DR giving perks:

-All good, but it is still one sided, enemies and NPC's should be allowed to have some DR too!

But they do, FNV has enemies and NPC's that have bonus DR beside their normal DT from equipment:

• 
  Sunny Smiles (10% DR)


• 
  Ranger Stella (10% DR)


• 
  Legion vexillarius (10% DR)


• 
  Praetorian guards (10% DR)


• 
  Lucius (10% DR)


• 
  Certain Legionary assassins (10% DR)


• 
  Ulysses (10% DR)


• 
  Blister (10% DR)


• 
  Beast (10% DR)


• 
  Bonesaw (10% DR)


• 
  Blade (10% DR)


• 
  Colonel Royez (10% DR)


• 
  Gaius Magnus (10% DR)


• 
  Mean Sonofabitch (20% DR)


• 
  Motor-Runner (20% DR)


• 
  Nightkin (30% DR)


• 
  Dog (but not God) (30% DR)


• 
  Certain NCR Rangers (30% DR)


• 
  NCR Veteran Rangers (30% DR)

Reason why TTW should get rid of DR giving perks:

-OK but then we want followers to get some DR too!

They can, all companions will get a nice DR bonus of a whooping 50% DR if the player uses Ferocious Loyalty and his HP goes below 50%.

Personal reason why TTW should keep DR giving perks:

In TTW I see FO3 and all of it's DLC's as a massive FNV DLC, every FNV DLC brought new things, new perks and new features (for example the OWB brought us the crafting of Skill books, the recycling of most junk items, growing our own harvestables, a teletransponder or whatever it is called that allows one to teleport home easily and more, Dead Money gave us the "Replicator" vending machines, etc) so to me one of the most obvious changes from FO3 to FNV was the DR, so keeping four or five perks that still give DR in FO3 makes it feel like it was part of actual FO3 and makes it kinda feel like a new DLC feature (perks with DR) and since a few of these perks are Special Perks one gets from quests in FO3, it makes it feel even more like a feature of that particular DLC (make some quests, get perks that increase DR as a reward)...

And the last point is that the game only allows a maximum of 85% DR, with or without DR perks there is no way to get above that limit, which again I point out one can already easily achieve in FNV.

I think that the only reason one changes the DR to DT in FO3 perks is because it happened to the Toughness perk, although I think Obsidian only did that because they wanted to keep that perk in use because it exists in every single Fallout game ever released and would look weird being the only perk to give DR in FNV so they changed it, but that is just speculation on my part .

In the end I say, if it is not broken do not fix it, FNV was made to have DR, not like FO3 was but changing all the armors pretty much makes it feel part of a FNV DLC already. There is DR being used in FNV in enemies, NPC's and companions, there is some equipment that still give DR in FNV and one can achieve the maximum value by using 3 FNV chems. DR is everywhere in FNV so please return the DR to FO3 DR perks.

 

*Huff Puff* I never wrote a more passionate post around here before... I do hope I will not start a flaming war or anything like that, but I think I know the community here quite well and I am also not a sour loser so if people tell me why DR perks shouldn't exist in the FO3 part of TTW and it is good reasons, I will just stick my opinion where the sun doesn't shine and shush about it .

 

[JaxFirehart]

See, I'm torn.

It is my opinion that DT and DR express different things: DT is stopping power, DR is staying power. So something like barkskin implies DT, skin that reminds people of bark is harder than regular skin. The Toughness perk implies DR, the player isn't any better at stopping knives/bullets but he CAN take more knives/bullets than most people through sheer toughness. The reason I'm torn is that, following this logic, some NV perks, like Toughness, should become DR based, and some FO3 perks like Barkskin should become DT based. Unfortunately, FNV Devs already declared Toughness to be a DT perk. It is because of this that my assumption has always been that consumables were the exception to the no DR rule. After all, a pain killer isn't going to make knives less effective, it's just going to make you better able to ignore them. The few armors that give DR I always assumed were overlooked mistakes. Similarly, the fact that you can max out DR by using a variety of chems I see as an exploit of the poorly balanced additive system of DR whereas it really should be multiplicative (any damage that gets through MedX gets reduced by Battle Brew, andthing that gets through battle brew gets reduced by slasher etc...) You'll notice I'm using assume a lot here because there is no real evidence for either.

Because there is no hard evidence, the question becomes: what makes the most sense for gameplay balance and realism.

Basically:

Toughness has to be DT

Cyborg makes sense as DT

Barkskin makes sense as DT

Superior Defender makes sense as DR

Pitt Fighter makes sense as DR

Survival Guru (Tough) makes sense as DR

The remaining DR perks total 19 when standing still and 9 when moving. Totally acceptable to me. DR still exists and is high enough to be meaningful (math below) but isn't so high as to be overpowering. Your MedX, Slasher, Battlebrew combo will still slam you to 85% though.

At 100 base damage, DR and DT become equal. 15DR against 100 damage results in 85 damage. Same for 15DT, 15DR + 15DT results in 70 damage. Because of the way they are calculated, at damage levels below 100 (which is most of the time) DR is actually worth less per point than DT. At levels above 100 (rare) DR becomes worth more.

After running all that math and thought I came to the conclusion that the problem isn't DR vs DT. In fact, leaving them as DR is LESS powerful in most cases. Rather, the problem is that, between the 2 games, there are SO many sources of natural DR/DT that the player eventually becomes a human tank WITHOUT the need for Power Armor. Using my choices above for DR/DT for FO3 perks and standard FNV perks it is possible to get 19DT and 9DR no matter what. Under ideal condtions (attacked by explosives, nerd rage active, Cass as companion and you've had 1 of each alcohol, standing still) that becomes 70DT and 19DR. Pop your drugs and you get 70DT and 85 DR. Enough to turn 500 damage into 15. You could laugh at an entire barage of tiny tots. From the MIRV.

Of course I'm getting beside the point. What I'm illustrating is that, in vanilla FNV, it is already possible to push DR/DT to extreme levels.

In conclusion: pick whatever sounds most appropriate, ultimately it makes no real difference.

[RoyBatty]

Long passionate replies on both sides there... not sure what to add here other than I think the Barkskin perk should be a straight DT of 4 or 5 then instead of 2, because 2 is like why bother. However I still interpret it as having "tough skin" which would be DR and not DT because skin won't stop a bullet, only slow it down thus reducing damage and not negating it.

I still feel also the toughness perk should work the same way regardless of what they did in New Vegas, because it was a design choice and not a logical decision. However that's debatable, and FO3 should have had DT like the rest of the games. Perhaps whatever is the established lore system is how it should work.

Then again this goes against the TTW philosophy of not altering New Vegas and that's also a consideration, however I feel also that there should be some wiggling room, however slight it may be.

In the end I think Jax's reasoning makes the most sense, but maybe some small concession can be made for at least Barkskin.

[TJ]

Let me start by saying I totally prefer a DT/DR system. It's supposed to be both (and AC too, but we can't do that.)

That said: this has to be looked at without bias. The question that should be asked is thus:

• 
  Where there any Perk holdovers from FO3 that remained DR?

If there were, and it was intentional (I tend to believe that alot of the things that do remain DR in NV were things that were overlooked) then we should have perks that give DR. If not though, they should be converted to DT.

 

Not trying to rain on anybody's parade, just the way it should be. All that said... The new optional system that Grib is working on should allow both to co-exist.

[JaxFirehart]

[quote="RoyBatty]However I still interpret it as having "tough skin" which would be DR and not DT because skin won't stop a bullet, only slow it down thus reducing damage and not negating it.[/quote]

Well the same could be said of leather armor (or even super mutant skin), it would never stop a bullet, but it slows them down a bit, but the amount of slowdown isn't proportional to speed/weight of the bullet (i. e. its damage) or at least, not directly proportional.

[RoyBatty]

[quote=JaxFirehart]

 

 

RoyBatty wrote:

However I still interpret it as having "tough skin" which would be DR and not DT because skin won't stop a bullet, only slow it down thus reducing damage and not negating it.

Well the same could be said of leather armor (or even super mutant skin), it would never stop a bullet, but it slows them down a bit, but the amount of slowdown isn't proportional to speed/weight of the bullet (i. e. its damage) or at least, not directly proportional.

[/quote]

Indeed and I think that kind of goes with the Inertial Dampener field too, I'm with TJ on DR/DT. It's a tough decision how we end up going with this... as I said there are many reasons for and against altering things. Then again you said you like balancing stuff, so maybe it's something you want to mull over a bit.

 

[Puppettron]

let me just weigh in with a quick thought.  i like dr/dt, i think it's excellent.  i don't like looking at game things using a realistic logical lens because it's a game.  if you make all the armor function logically like it would in the real world, then you have to make everything that touches it function logically, and pretty soon we've just overhauled the entire game into a mess of damage flowcharts.  also, everything would be dead because nuclear apocalypse probably wouldn't spare people long enough to pick back up 200 years from now.

essentially, it doesn't matter what leather armor should stop or not stop, leather's just an adjective that takes the spot "low-level light" in front of "armor".

[Risewild]

I also used to think about DR equipment in FNV as oversights, since most of them are things that existed in FO3 and hard to get in FNV... But then there is the Rebreather Mask, which is a reward for a quite important side/main quest and was totally made from ground up for FNV and there is nothing even close to it in FO3 or any DLC... Also if it was a bug that was giving DR wouldn't it have been fixed in one of the patches that Obsidian made, since it was well known and in the base FNV game, but they never patched it. Which makes me believe that they didn't care or they made it on purpose (in which of the cases means that they don't consider having things that give DR a problem).

Again I say, if it is not broken don't fix it why change the Perks that were not in FNV to DT if keeping them as it is doesn't really affect playability or break immersion in any way... I would be totally in favour of getting rid of DR if FNV had not used any DR, but like I pointed out in the first post, FNV uses DR in enemies, NPC's and even has a Perk that gives 50% DR to companions, not to mention the chems... Let's keep DR in FO3 perks as they are, they are a part of FO3 and I don't really see a conflict or game breaking in them (also I always said that Perks in FNV should give DR because they represent the character, his skills, his mental state and his body state, while DT should be equipment because it is something external to the character. Even if the character would put metal plates under his skin, it would still be his capability of shrug off some damage because the way I see it in this game that means the metal plates became part of the character, not the equipment that is something one can change and it is external to the character body).

I understand that they had to change the Toughness perk since it was always about increasing the armor value and in FNV DT is the armor value... But that was it all the perks that do not exist in FNV should be kept the way they are unless they affect something that is not used in FNV anymore (ex: Big Guns Skill) but since DR is still in use and a lot in FNV, just keep the Perks that were not changed as they are...

[EnderDragonFire]

I agree with risewild. I really feel that removing the DT from the perks would break TTW's near-vanilla directive, and would alter the effectiveness of these perks. To use the old adage, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[Risewild]

Just to clarify, TTW near vanilla directive is applied more on the FNV side of TTW, where TTW makes only changes when it is unavoidable . in FO3 TTW makes all teh changes possible to make the FO3 feel like FNV, so that is why the DR perks were changed, because FNV has no DR perks so it feels strange that FO3 would have them.

SO I do understand if the DR perks get changed to DT, I just think there is no need to do it (and I like the mix of DR/DT in the game too), but I am a player that uses light armors that show the character's torso so usually 8 DT or something, so I don't know if it has different effect on someone that uses PA and has over 30 DT just from armor.