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 Psienesis wrote:
That said, unless the world map is *significantly* larger than that of FONV, vehicles will make it feel tiny. One of my biggest gripes with FONV is how small the region is.

FONV seemed big enough to me, how much space do you need in your sand boxes? Isn't what it contains more important than the size?

 Wyrmalla wrote:
So that farm would actually involve a ton of effort. Sure copy and past all the corn rows, but what next? Then you need the fences, the dirt track, scare crows, broken down farming equipment. What about items for the player to pick up? Yeah each of those you need to go in and mark down the quantity and quality. Stick in a barn, right you have that, then what about the containers for looting? Gotta set up leveled lists for those. What about NPCs? Aye, then maybe quests, If they're hostile then you need to plan out multiple routes for the player to attack and their patrol patterns. Random encounters, which can spawn their safely without bugging out? Lighting... Ambient effects... Seriously the amount of work you need to put in to make just one place with the detail required for one of these games. When I make mods I'll literally spend a day just making a single interior, and those developers are expected to dozens. =P

What you're missing is that one house and ten thousand square meters of cornfield takes only slightly more work than just making one house. You're not supposed to be filling it up with assorted junk to distract the player - it's just there to fill space adjacent to the road you'll be following in a more natural fashion than putting a cliff face there.

Aye, which is why I pointed out that not everyone would be driving through the thing at 80mph. If you wanted to stop to scavenge it or were walking the whole way you'd notice. The games are about being able to stop anywhere and find something cool (Skyrim especially), so getting rid of that would be really, really silly. =P

Again play the Mad Max game if you want that.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Aye, which is why I pointed out that not everyone would be driving through the thing at 80mph. If you wanted to stop to scavenge it or were walking the whole way you'd notice. The games are about being able to stop anywhere and find something cool (Skyrim especially), so getting rid of that would be really, really silly. =P

Again play the Mad Max game if you want that.

Having cars doesn't really prevent players from doing this.

The argument I'm hearing "cut down the level of detail on a location so you can make the world larger so that the driving elements are better". That means at the expense of exploring stuff close up, or am I missing something here? Like I said a lot of time goes into even the most basic of locations, so you can churn them out, but if you wanted a game that was say four times the size of Skyrim or something you'd be walking about on a flat plane.

I'm not really concerned about the size of the world (New Vegas is a fine size) I'm more concerned with what it's filled with.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
The argument I'm hearing "cut down the level of detail on a location so you can make the world larger so that the driving elements are better". That means at the expense of exploring stuff close up, or am I missing something here?

What you're missing is that it's not at the expense of exploring stuff close up. Bethesda's games have never claimed that every single thing in their world is worthy of your undivided attention - the people who haven't already figured that out are too busy stealing brooms to play through the game. A cornfield might not be worth exploring but it doesn't pretend to be, and it does add volume to the game world and help with worldbuilding on a very small budget that does not detract from all the other places that are worth exploring.

Ah, so you want a larger game world with the same level of detail? ...In the same time frame and with the same budget?

Like I've said, even locations which people think are empty still take hours to make... You can't just pre-generate all that for the most part, and even those elements that are need to be touched up and checked. That cornfield isn't just a ton of corn in rows, even if it were it'd still take a load of work. Bleh, game design. =P

I think it's mostly a case of while Bethesda games are wonderful sandbox romps, they tend to break immersion when it comes to "developed" areas.

Consider the sharecropper farm in FONV; a couple small backyard gardens "Which feed New Vegas and the NCR Army"

Granted, Skyrim felt better in that regard; while the settlements were still quite tiny at the end of the day, they did lay them out in such a way with suitable sprawl leading up to them that they felt more substantial. Under critical examination, yeah they're 30 guys and a dozen rooms, but wandering through they felt plausable.

And that's what people are looking for, preferably expanded upon, for FO4; we don't need cities with 10,000 active AIs and a surrounding farmland of several thousand acres, but designed in such a way that it looks like a believable settlement, not a bunch of random rooms and a few NPCs and minimal props. More Whiterun and Megaton, less Winterhold and, well, every New Vegas settlement after your start locale (and I loved NV, don't get me wrong).

The more they can add to making an area look believable, and of a proper scale, the better, the settlements in particular. The FO3 Wasteland felt big, with a right mix of empty and stuff to not feel overly constrained or jam-packed. FONV did a lot better on the narrative side than F03, and had many excellent gameplay additions, but the wasteland was much more linear in nature; you basically had a circular canyon with limited access mountains and side-areas. The follow the road thing worked in a Mad-Max sort of way, but reduced freedom and sense of exploration. Even so, it was the settlements which remained the weakest part of the presentation.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Ah, so you want a larger game world with the same level of detail? ...In the same time frame and with the same budget?

Like I've said, even locations which people think are empty still take hours to make... You can't just pre-generate all that for the most part, and even those elements that are need to be touched up and checked. That cornfield isn't just a ton of corn in rows, even if it were it'd still take a load of work. Bleh, game design. =P

That's why they need to go back to the old school way of doing it. A huge vast map that you get random encounters on. Maps felt huge, weren't cluttered and more importantly weren't immersion breaking. Much better that way.

 Cheesecat wrote:
FONV seemed big enough to me, how much space do you need in your sand boxes? Isn't what it contains more important than the size?

Sure content is more important. But it sure felt small when I followed some freed slaves from the Legion Compound at the bottom of the map to see where they went. It was a run through a field with a few Bighorns and featurless terrain and suddenly I was already at the Viper Raider den south of Novac, from Novac to Boulder City and then New Vegas... I was kind of let down by how uneventful the trip was and how quick it was over.

 Swastakowey wrote:
That's why they need to go back to the old school way of doing it. A huge vast map that you get random encounters on. Maps felt huge, weren't cluttered and more importantly weren't immersion breaking. Much better that way.

It was plenty immersion breaking for me. First time I played, got some wounds trying to figure out how to fight the rats, healed up, left the cave and was suddenly surrounded by raiders that all managed to sneak up within 10 metres of me on featurless terrain. I gave up on that game for a few months. The next time I played there was a car salesman. I looted a BB Gun from his trunk which could kill Super Mutants in 2 hits. No, I don't like it, my immersion is broken.

Aye in the first games you could be any type of character you want. ...Then you met the higher level enemies and you pretty much had to be a tank. You could act any way you wanted, but unless you were nice to everyone you'd fail their quests (Yogscast Sips did a let's play of the first game. Its just him repeatedly reloading his game for saying literally anything at all to Rhombus and being kicked out of the Brotherhood).

Skyrim was a major improvement on world design from Bethesda's older games. They made a point of putting notes and quests in every location and included a ton more random encounters. Sure it still wasn't amazing, but it felt like there was more going on. ...And yeah, as ever that's just the vanilla game, there's plenty of mods that add tons of content.

Oh, and as ever Obsidian made New Vegas. Just saying. =P

 Lotet wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:
FONV seemed big enough to me, how much space do you need in your sand boxes? Isn't what it contains more important than the size?

Sure content is more important. But it sure felt small when I followed some freed slaves from the Legion Compound at the bottom of the map to see where they went. It was a run through a field with a few Bighorns and featurless terrain and suddenly I was already at the Viper Raider den south of Novac, from Novac to Boulder City and then New Vegas... I was kind of let down by how uneventful the trip was and how quick it was over.

 Swastakowey wrote:
That's why they need to go back to the old school way of doing it. A huge vast map that you get random encounters on. Maps felt huge, weren't cluttered and more importantly weren't immersion breaking. Much better that way.

It was plenty immersion breaking for me. First time I played, got some wounds trying to figure out how to fight the rats, healed up, left the cave and was suddenly surrounded by raiders that all managed to sneak up within 10 metres of me on featurless terrain. I gave up on that game for a few months. The next time I played there was a car salesman. I looted a BB Gun from his trunk which could kill Super Mutants in 2 hits. No, I don't like it, my immersion is broken.

Well if the vast wasteland is meant to be full of sand dunes as all the art in the game shows. So it's likely they snuck up most of the way. In order for games to be immersive they need to be abstract or they will never succeed. Less abstract means the problems stand out more, like shooting people in the face shot after shot in fallout 3. Its almost as bad as skyrim having arrows in peoples faces but them not being able to see you, the lack of abstraction messes with the game big time.

Sounds like you need to up the difficulty in that game, a bb gun should suck, especially since the 10mm pistol does crap all against mutants. Although to be fair I have yet to use the bb gun, but I am sure it does at most 3 damage from memory, so it wont be killing super mutants. More than likely you are exaggerating a bit...




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 Wyrmalla wrote:
Aye in the first games you could be any type of character you want. ...Then you met the higher level enemies and you pretty much had to be a tank. You could act any way you wanted, but unless you were nice to everyone you'd fail their quests (Yogscast Sips did a let's play of the first game. Its just him repeatedly reloading his game for saying literally anything at all to Rhombus and being kicked out of the Brotherhood).

I never had this issue, all my characters can beat the game except ones focussed on throwing skill, which only the most hardcore players can do. I am not hardcore enough to throw things at my enemies until I win haha.

I think the issue is the game doesn't hold your hand, many of my friends struggled because it didn;t tell them what to do every step of the way. Once they got passed that they loved it.



I will admit the old games have their flaws though, it has doctor who in it and I hate doctor who.

 Swastakowey wrote:
Sounds like you need to up the difficulty in that game, a bb gun should suck, especially since the 10mm pistol does crap all against mutants. Although to be fair I have yet to use the bb gun, but I am sure it does at most 3 damage from memory, so it wont be killing super mutants. More than likely you are exaggerating a bit...

I looked it up, it's the Red Ryder LE BB gun, it has a base damage of 25 which is higher that the Sniper Rifle's damage between 14-34, averaged to 24. Assuming Super Mutants have 50 hp, which is only a guess, it would reliably kill them in 2 hits.

 Lotet wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Sounds like you need to up the difficulty in that game, a bb gun should suck, especially since the 10mm pistol does crap all against mutants. Although to be fair I have yet to use the bb gun, but I am sure it does at most 3 damage from memory, so it wont be killing super mutants. More than likely you are exaggerating a bit...

I looked it up, it's the Red Ryder LE BB gun, it has a base damage of 25 which is higher that the Sniper Rifle's damage between 14-34, averaged to 24. Assuming Super Mutants have 50 hp, which is only a guess, it would reliably kill them in 2 hits.

Ahhh so not the real bb gun

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Red_Ryder_BB_gun_(Fallout)

The special one.

I played the original games as a high intelligence character who focused on long range guns and didn't like wearing Power Armour. That's my build in the newer games see, especially New Vegas where speech is really important too. In the originals though you've no chance with all those tight corridors and high health enemies. It could probably work if I'd dumped all my points into gaining AP and toted about a Plasma Rifle, but I was roleplaying. See you can talk your way out of a lot of situations, but there's so much combat in between those that you just can't beat the game without some fighting (screw the sneaking system and its RNG...). Of course you can't talk a Deathclaw to death in New Vegas either, but at least then I could get away with a lot more (you don't have to be a straight combat character to win that game. You don't have to be in the originals either, but its just not fun constantly reloading the game because an enemy spotted you). Meh, old game design compared to new ones I suppose. =P

 Wyrmalla wrote:
I played the original games as a high intelligence character who focused on long range guns and didn't like wearing Power Armour. That's my build in the newer games see, especially New Vegas where speech is really important too. In the originals though you've no chance with all those tight corridors and high health enemies. It could probably work if I'd dumped all my points into gaining AP and toted about a Plasma Rifle, but I was roleplaying. See you can talk your way out of a lot of situations, but there's so much combat in between those that you just can't beat the game without some fighting (screw the sneaking system and its RNG...). Of course you can't talk a Deathclaw to death in New Vegas either, but at least then I could get away with a lot more (you don't have to be a straight combat character to win that game. You don't have to be in the originals either, but its just not fun constantly reloading the game because an enemy spotted you). Meh, old game design compared to new ones I suppose. =P

Its pretty easy, you say sniper? Then with your stats simply hit them in the eyes. It's pretty easy for sniping geared players to do that. Hitting enemies in the eyes increases the critical chance by a huge amount (30% if I remember correctly) and critical hits is how the less combat geared players get by. You can also run from situations as well, in new games almost all the enemies are beatable with ease. Heck I used to roam the wasteland with Pajamas and bonnie hat for ages in fallout 3, even on the hardest it was only a challenge because the enemies seemed to have way harder health.

In the earlier fallout games you are much less of a super soldier and more of a normal person, so you can't kill hundreds of super mutants without a scratch and enclave soldiers are something you have to run away from etc. The games kinda simply get easier I guess.

Stealth is always an RNG, even IRL. There's always a chance that the person you're trying to avoid being noticed by turns his head at the wrong time, or the wind shifts and he (or his guard animal) smell you, hear you, or happen to notice the moonlight catch on your watch, your weapon, your equipment... or you step on something that makes a noise that you didn't see in the dark.

As to it taking hours to create multiple detailed areas... not really. Once you have the first building modeled and rendered, you're done with the hard part. Place as many of those in your game world as you want (until the engine explodes). All games recycle textures and meshes, sometimes complete models. The FO series does this everywhere, with buildings, junked cars, terrain, plants, people, weapons... basically, things only have 2 or 3 different variations, and from these basic variations entire areas are created. All ammo cans look the same, all mines of a given type look the same, there's only like 5 variations of the "Wasteland house", most of which only adjust the placement of doors and windows (which are, themselves, separate objects inserted into the model) and so on and so forth.

Has anyone played the Hardcore mode in New Vegas? Any advice for that? Is it any good?

I'm at the point now where I'm a ridiculously overpowered monster and I'm thinking about re-rolling as a straight up Cowboy. (Revolvers, Cowboy Repeaters etc ). I also missed out on a lot of the Companion quests, the ones that depend on accumulating "history points" by having them present when you visit certain places or the first time you speak to a certain NPC.

HC mode bumps the challenge only slightly. You're required to remain fed/hydrated, ammo and caps have weight, and stimpacks have a heal-over-time effect, rather than immediate restoration of HP.

I have never played FONV without it enabled, but have also never found it to be particularly impactful to a playthrough,

Are you on the PC Shadow Captain Edithae? If so then there's mods out there that add to hardcore mode. As in ones which expand the variety of food available, add additional requirements to hardcore (counting calories) and making it so you need to manually reload guns (every magazine has its own bullet count, so if you reload before one's empty you'll wind up with a load of half full mags).

I always played New Vegas with Hardcore mode on, particularly because I play the other Bethesda RPGs with mods that require you to eat and sleep, so having it already built into the game makes that easier. It adds another layer to the game which yes after a while is simple to manage (its not as intrusive as the mods that build on it which need you to manage protein, etc). So you'll start the game putting aside those caps that you would have spent on ammo on buying a bit of food, but even by the mid game you find enough food in the wasteland to survive. Personally though I roleplay it, set my maximum weight to something like 50 and then your inventory management becomes a lot more important. Which brings me to the bullet weight. With that it means that you can't just pick up every piece of loot you see and don't care. Again if you have a massive encumbrance it doesn't matter, but in my case I limited my character to only a few mags for their AK and a few for their backup pistol (anything else and I wouldn't have been able to carry their armour, medicine - which has weight too - and other bits of crap like books, and that's not counting any loot I happen to find).

So if you are going to play that mode I'd say that put the effort into it. As it is you'll not really notice it after a while, the only bug being those 1000 Stimpaks weigh 20 pounds, etc. If you do care about roleplaying download some mods which at least cut down on your encumbrance (J.E.Sawyer's mod is geared towards hardcore mode and includes this. He was the lead dev, so that mod is how he wanted the game, but couldn't as it'd make the game too difficult for the average gamer), add more food types and crafting recipes into the game and well just ones that add more depth and challenge (like say the gun and armour expansion ones, ones which add more graffiti, magazines, etc).

Speaking of Fallout would anybody like to try get a PnP game set up?

I have all the rules that came with my fallout 1 and 2 disc and can probably get interactive sheets etc all set up. Just need people and a place to try it out?

If keen let me know and I will start a thread for it somewhere. I am keen to DM if needed etc.

Could be fun.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Ah, so you want a larger game world with the same level of detail? ...In the same time frame and with the same budget?

Like I've said, even locations which people think are empty still take hours to make... You can't just pre-generate all that for the most part, and even those elements that are need to be touched up and checked. That cornfield isn't just a ton of corn in rows, even if it were it'd still take a load of work. Bleh, game design. =P

And yet, The Witcher 3 was developed in 3 years with half the budget Skyrim had (and CDPR created a new engine for TW3). Fallout4's development time will be at least 2.5 years, and will almost certainly cost at least as much as Skyrim, if not more (and do we know what engine it is using, maybe the same as Skyrim?). And TW3 is full of detail, and bigger than Skyrim.

So, yes, large and detailed gameworlds can be done, if the developers really want to do it.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Has anyone played the Hardcore mode in New Vegas? Any advice for that? Is it any good?

I recommend it. One thing I would suggest is the mod Bottle That Water, which as its name suggests lets you refill water bottles. It's probably not necessary to do well, but it's the kind of thing that feels right to be able to do.

I just downloaded this for NV
http://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/38719/?tab=1&navtag=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nexusmods.com%2Fnewvegas%2Fajax%2Fmoddescription%2F%3Fid%3D38719%26preview%3D&pUp=1

Oh god, not that mod... A mod which puts a lot of effort into adding new locations into the game, but then fills them with a ridiculous number of overpowered enemies (least that was the case when I played it a couple of years ago). Eugh, I just don't mods like and the Monster mod which think that its fun to add a boss level monster every five steps. For all the mods that increase the number of NPCs that spawns and up their damage to a silly level, none of them decrease them (the wasteland's turned into a zoo for all intents).

Oh, hell yes! "AWOP" and "Zombie Apocalypse" mods can be a lot of fun, if you want to experience an entirely new philosophy behind the Wastelands.

I think AWOP was my fave, as you could get pulled into a Silent Hill-like aspect of certain regions and have to make your way through a hellish nightmare-scape before you could escape, with an additional add-on to the core mod.

AWoP is a great mod that I do not use. (I ended up starting over with a fresh character - my AWoP character just ended up with way too much stuff.) Lots of fun, plenty of mayhem... just not what I wanted. (I am quite sure that it is something that a lot of other folks would enjoy a great deal.)

I am a much bigger fan of Project: Nevada.

The Auld Grump

 AlexHolker wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Has anyone played the Hardcore mode in New Vegas? Any advice for that? Is it any good?

I recommend it. One thing I would suggest is the mod Bottle That Water, which as its name suggests lets you refill water bottles. It's probably not necessary to do well, but it's the kind of thing that feels right to be able to do.

Cheers. Downloading now.

Gonna start a new character for Hardcore. As I'm watching Firefly lately, its feels right that I call him Malcolm Reynolds.

In Fallout 4 I really hope a lot of the Western style weapons make a return - I've enjoyed the weapons in New Vegas far more than Fallout 3. The (scoped) Hunting Rifle and Cowboy Repeater especially.

I've got a feeling the weapons may be a step back again from New Vegas.