Voracious Reader Yearning for Learning Exploit

[NMLevesque]

Voracious reader is a new vegas perk that converts destroyed books and such into blank magazines, which can themselves then be crafted into 'blank books'.  Such items show up in inventory as pre-war books instead, which can be given to Scribe Yearling at the Arlington Library for 100 caps and and 10 exp a piece.  Given the vast quantity of destroyed books in both games this is an easily exploitable source of easy money and experience.

[Risewild]

Yes it is, but the team has been discussing for quite a while now, how to deal with books and the rewards, a couple of days ago we (Roy, DeadBoy and me) talked about it again and now DeadBoy made a team only plugin (it also changes a few things about the rewards from delivering ears and fingers with the perks Contract Killer and Lawbringer) with several changes for the team to test and see if it should be part of TTW or if it needs tweaking or changing anything else.

So if everything goes well and the rest of the team approves of these changes, this will not be much of an exploit anymore. Which means it will make some people happy and others not so happy I guess.

[AnvilOfWar]

Looking it up, Can you really call a level 22 perk an exploit, if 1. It's level 22 just about halfway though the game's default cap, 2. It requires the character have a 7+ INT to even take, and 3. It requires you to craft the pre-war books, and then haul them to the scribe? There are -plenty- of pre-war books already in New Vegas to begin with, from a vanilla standpoint, heading back to the CW would require you to get on the train and head back to the scribe if your already in NV. Also needing to have a INT 7+ character means you have already spent honestly well over the required S.P.E.C.I.A.L. to cap every single skill by level 50, more likely you will run out of skills by the mid to late 30's. While it is true you can do this in the CW's where destroyed books are very common, You loose a perk and S.P.E.C.I.A.L. balance that could have been used for other things. I have 50K caps right now from just killing enemies and playing the game normally at level 13, have caps ever been difficult to get? I should state, that I have never taken this perk so it's not like I have some vested interest in seeing it not changed. It just seems like a massive ammout of work for little gain.

[Risewild]

Just to be clear, the team didn't made the changes we are testing and debating at the moment because of this perk, it was because of the higher number of books from FNV and it's DLCs, we from time to time make small balance changes and these were just the ones we discussed lately. Like I said we also changed the reward we get from the Contract Killer and Lawbringer perks (we actually increased the caps amount from those rewards four times) .

The book reward changes that are being deliberated are simple, we counted the number of pre-war books on FO3 and it's DLCs, reached the conclusion that are around 150 of those, then we made it so that the reward (100 caps and 10 xp) for books is not changed until the player give 150 books to the scribe, then after those were delivered we reduced the caps reward and removed the xp reward:

• 
  151-175 books will get 50 caps each and no XP


• 
  176-200 will get 25 caps each


• 
  201+ will get 10 caps
  
  
  
  • 
    A note, the lesser the caps reward, the higher the reputation gain the player gets with the BoS (using the DC reputations system we are making) becasue it becomes clear that the player is not doing it to get rich anymore, but to help the BoS.
  
  
  
  

Why did we do this in the first place: To keep the reward system close to the FO3 one and not be so broken (although I am sure most people will never even bother to deliver more than 150 books anyway). So most people will not even notice anything changed.

Note: Again I say that the team did not voted on these changes to be implemented yet, only three of us (mentioned on my previous post) agreed to it, we still need to hear from the other members.

I hope the team wasn't planning on keeping these changes secret for now... because if they were... I just blew it .

[RoyBatty]

We've discussed these changes before, especially when you consider the Lucky 38, NV Interiors, AWOP and New Bison Steve I was able to get 350000 caps in one trip, and I didn't even get all the books because I couldn't carry them all even with 4D Storage. :D

No it's not hard to get a lot of caps, but someone using rebalance mods to limit stuff compared to vanilla is going to find that little exploit possibly too much to resist (including myself) and I don't want to be tempted by it.

[Puppettron]

i just figured diminishing returns would kick in eventually.  like scribe horseterm there would be like "ok, you brought us 50 agatha christie novels now, i'm not giving you full price for junk anymore"

[AnvilOfWar]

[quote=RoyBatty]

 

We've discussed these changes before, especially when you consider the Lucky 38, NV Interiors, AWOP and New Bison Steve I was able to get 350000 caps in one trip, and I didn't even get all the books because I couldn't carry them all even with 4D Storage.

[/quote]

Roy, I can understand that, however as a "sandbox" game that Fallout is, I'd consider balance issues vs as "vanilla" a game as possible, so the content of: FO3 + FO3 DLCs + NV + NV DLC's, should be it, when talking rebalance issues in the two games. It's why I look at many mod guns and armors while thinking: "good god these things are way better then anything in the base game!"

If anything the "exploit" for these kinds of quests is, getting EXP in the first place. You're getting paid to deliver a needed item, whatever that is be it scrap metal, books, ect. The player has already done their exploring and advernturing, this is the "end phase" of the event, the payout. Procuring the items should have given you the EXP killing creatures in the area, uncovering new places, ect.

Also taken in the game worlds context 100 caps, in the case of the books, is roughly good food and drink for a day, perhaps two. While I can understand people will be using more then just TTW in their games, I feel that balance issues are best examined in a vanilla context. Theres a thin line from this is exploitable, to this quest is no longer worth doing. :(

[Puppettron]

tbf, the diminishing returns we're looking at are at obscene numbers of turn-ins.  also bumping fo3 turn-ins to fnv economy worthiness.

[RoyBatty]

13500 caps vs a potential half a million is a bit of a difference, and clearly unbalanced.