The continuity of mechanics

[Piers Arkan]

So i've been playing TTW for a bit, and it's pretty good about some things, and one of the biggest things you can get out of this mod is seeing, side by side almost, the differences that each game has. Some of the differences are in gameplay bits, like random encounters, level scaling, Crafting, Custom Weaponry, some types of weapons, the value of misc items, Damage Threshold, and some other things.

I'd like to address or at least touch bases with the developers and see how some things are addressed, to see a bit of what is to come.

My first point is to ask about the purpose or use of the .22 revolver, now that it is of a very low caliber. Has anything been done to actually buff this weapon now that the .357 revolver exists, in addition to the chinese pistol, the 9mm, and the 10mm? Is there future plans to either buff it, rechamber it, change some effects in it, or anything? Do you guys have anything to say on it? The same perhaps could go for the Chinese Pistol. I could suggest making it fully automatic, like the Chinese Type-17(don't quote me on this for accuracy).

My second point also has to pertain to the Damage Threshold, and the weapons of Fallout 3. Not many of the Fallout 3 weapons had to account for Damage Threshold, and are you guys in a comfortable spot with the damage of the Assault Rifle and the Chinese Assault Rifle in comparison to guns like the Service Rifle, the .357 revolver, the hunting rifle, and other guns that go beyond the calibers that Fallout 3 provide. How does Lincoln's Repeater compare to the Trail Carbine, and does it hold a candle to the Brush Gun? Was the idea to fill the gaps left by Fallout 3's guns with New Vegas'?

My next point pertains to the prescence of Random Encounters. Now Fallout 3 is rife with them. Tons of them, never quite know what is beyond the next ridge. New Vegas does not hold these too much. Is it in the interest of the TTW project or developers to synergize the mechanics, thus meaning that Fallout New Vegas gets a much wider variety of random encounters across the Mojave? Maybe you could even take some from Fallout 3 that are rather neutral and fill in some of the empty spots around the Mojave with the more neutral ones from 3 thus quietly conveying that War Never Changes? 

My next point is about level scaling. Fallout 3 was full on embracing Level scaling, but New Vegas has a bit of a higher threshold for levels, and a bit of scaling as well. The Mojave exists as a set of sort of metaphorical gates of levels. The next tier of weapons and higher level enemies after goodsprings is either at the wall of Deathclaws to the North, or right at the 15 Highway patrol sign, when Jackals/Vipers use 10mm pistols and cowboy repeaters, which will cut through your armor pretty well(well demonstrated by the two powder gangers who walk up there). So, I think I have an idea of how you deal with this, and it is through the wide variety of weapons new vegas has to offer, and the armor. I have met Talon Mercs in reinforced combat armor, and one of them had a Trail Carbine. Does the wider variety of weapons in New Vegas lend to a smoother curve or a prescence of one with new weapons? What might I have to look forward to in New Vegas, other than complete annihilation of the powder gangers?

My next question is about the misc items and Fallout 3. Specifically, I wanted to ask about the Big Mountain Transportalponder, its use of the book chute, and the 750 books in the arlington library? This is probably on the same level of stuff as the ammo press in the pitt, and I know its disabled. Was the reasoning for disabling the press to compensate for the prescence of crafting? I just want to observe, if it hasn't already, that Fallout 3 has no use for some items, and new vegas does. With that in mind, some misc items are introduced into the world from New Vegas. Some of which could work excellently in the Rock-It Launcher. Like the Dinky the Dinosaur toy. Is this a thing? If not, Why?

Another point I want to ask about is that some ammo types are in Fallout 3, but may not be in New vegas. Railway Spikes, and Darts. Are these in random loot bits now throughout? Can they be Crafted? are they placed manually? Can they be bought in New Vegas from newly altered bartering lists? Is there any plan to alter them to add new ammo types, like heated Railway spikes to cause heat damage at the cost of durability, Cazador poisoned darts to add even greater damage to the Dart guns, at the expense of harvesting from one of the most dangerous enemies in the Mojave? 

Then I have to ask about Perks. Did the almost Perfect perk get brought in? the one that could be used in conjunction not with the bobbleheads, but the implants from the New Vegas Medical Clinic and the obvious thousands of caps we've accumulated to basically get a perfect score anyway? Do you guys have any plans to alter some of the perks that simply add skill points, whereas our 50 levels surely could not? Is there any plan to change the way speech challenges are calculated to more match New Vegas where you pass thresholds instead of a percent chance? I'll think of more questions as I think of them, but I need sleep. 

 

[Piers Arkan]

Are all of the Fallout 3 weapons covered under their appropriate New Vegas perks?

Like the Assault rifle and Chinese Assault Rifles covered under the Grunt Perk? 

Is the metal Blaster automatically under the Laser Commander perk?

Which groups fall under the Fight the Power or Sneering Imperialist perks? Do characters in New Vegas drop the fingers and ears for the lawman and contract killer perks?

Can we find Railway Rails in the mojave, buy them, or craft them? same with Darts in the same places we get ammo? 

Do you guys ever plan on introducing some of the DLC neutral weapons to DC? I think it seems odd to not have a .45 pistol anywhere in Washington. The same goes for the Automatic Rifle from Dead Money, but the more intense weapons from OWB and Lonesome road have enough evidence to be isolated. 

I re-iterate: Is anything going to be done about the extra, un-ignorable damage in the super mutant overlords and Swampfolk? Don't we have Damage Threshold, much less Damage Resistance for this? Can they be given cowboy repeaters, trail carbines, or even Brush Guns? 

 

[LT Albrecht]

[quote=Piers Arkan]

[words]

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Happy 2014, have a reply. Yes, we thought about all this.

For instance that .22 revolver? used to be .32, but when .32 ammo was phased out because only that gun used it (hunting rifle was made .308 in F:NV) it got rebalanced, it has lower DAM but a faster fire and reload rate coupled with cheaper ammo vs the .357, whereas the .357 has higher DAM and accuracy. This puts it in a niche for a low tier revolver of being better against less well protected targets and at closer range by way of DPS (and using cheap ammo).

Other things like this have been considered and thought about, some have solutions already integrated (conversion of DR items to DT, altering of levelled lists, rebalancing of the Assault Rifles) whereas others have been decided upon but are not yet integrated. If something was in FO3, it made it into TTW. Whether fitting it into the gameplay has been finished yet is usually less certain, but in general some things are next to finished (most FO3 weapons just require the art assets for their weapon mods and the implementation of the mods for instance) and most have had at least a cursory glance. A few need a definitive solution ('no weaknesses' benefits minmax builds far too much and 'almost perfect' is just horribly OP), but most have a plan in place.

Cheers for the thought, but most people working on the project have been mulling this stuff over since the idea of merging FO3 and NV came up, so we have almost all the answers we need right now. That said, if you're playing the game and come up with a simple, elegant solution to something don't be afraid of sharing it - just make sure it's not been dealt with already.

Oh, and the perk description for grunt in TTW tells you it does indeed affect ARs and Chinese ARs.