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1

Suggestions / Version 0.1.13.0 feedback

« on: March 16, 2015, 08:49:44 am »

Played through the majority of the content on this version with a guns/throwing/lockpicking/hacking a little persuasion/mechanics/tailoring/dodge/evasion.

I'll bullet point these for easier consumption.  I know some of these probably have been said but I think some points need reiteration.  Some of these are just very minor things but maybe it would help to know what some of the players are thinking.

-Extra content did not disappoint.  The game world is turning out very well.   The extra people, quests, and gear are working out well.

-The vendor list of items they buy is really clunky looking and kind of hard to read.  It almost looks like a massive blob of text and is an eyesore.   Maybe a nice neat list style would be better.   Or doing without it altogther and letting vendors buy everything that they would normally sell.  I'm beginning to see elhazzareds points on how the current system is a little broken.

-The mouse controls are really picky.  I know I've meant to shoot things several times only to see my character walking towards the enemy instead of shooting it so it's really frustrating.  Even when the indicator is blinkning that I'm about to shoot the mouse will move maybe 0.5mm and all of a sudden it changes and my character ends up walking towards the enemy completely frustrating combat.

-Riot armor doesn't seem to be that great.  I get that it's supposed to be effective against melee but it doesn't seem to work very well against melee and is weaker against bullets than a tactical vest.

-Experience and leveling seems more balanced than before.  I think it's about right. 

-Money scarcity seems about right.  I ran out a couple times and other times I was barely able to get by but it was enough to survive.

-Items seem to need to be repaired way too often and is annoying.  I'm ok with deteriorating weapons but it seems like I'm constantly repairing stuff and it just adds to tedium and breaks gameplay.  The rate of deterioration should probably be cut in half or quartered.

-A map or scanner of some sort would be nice.

-Carry weight seems almost right I would give the characters just a hair more.  Like maybe add in 10 more lbs to each STR point. 

-A slightly more polished game menu and inventory would be nice.  Maybe separate tabs for weapons/armor/misc./etc.

-For some reason energy shields just seem out of place in this game.  I'm not against having them but it just seems weird. 

-Didn't do a whole lot of crafting but from what I saw and experimented with it doesn't really seem worth it to invest points in it. 

-New enemies are pretty cool and somewhat unique. 

-Maybe have a quick creation and default "classes" for newer people (or anyone really) during character creation.

-More face pics available for character creation would be nice.  Also a lot of NPC's have the same face graphics.  I would only make key people have faces and have them all be unique and different from the ones available for the character to choose from.

-Persuasion doesn't seem that useful in most situations.  It seems like there are a lot more options for intimidation to get what you want. 

I think I covered most of my impressions.  Overall the game is enjoyable but it still needs that bit of polish to make it great.  Good job thus far and best wishes. 

2

Suggestions / Concerning skills and crafting

« on: February 03, 2014, 04:38:27 am »

Started a new character a few days ago to try and do a more stealthy and crafting based character since I really hadn't messed too much with either.  After playing this type for awhile I realized and observed something I think should be addressed.

-Crafting - More often than not I can't make any equipment because the prerequisites are almost always too high.  Some things require like 40-60 points in a certain technology for me to be able to use it and even if you put in the initial 15 points to a crafting skill and put 5 in each level you still need to be at level 6-10 to just to make some halfway decent items.  And by the time I get to that level I could have already bought something better.  I think I read somewhere that it's random on how high a certain crafting components level is.   Now here's a couple suggestions to make crafting a little more rewarding while still maintaining the idea you're going for.  It also seems crafting components for armor and weapons are a little scarce also.  Crafting although not horrible by any means in its current form as I still can craft SOME things I think it could use a little tweaking. 

Suggestion 1
Make it so you're allowed to put in 20 points initially in each skill and up to 10 at every level up.  This way if someone really wants to they can have a skill at 100 at level 9 if they really want to and this could make it where you can craft stuff better than what you can buy in most cases. 

Suggestion 2
Make it so the random craft components are generally lower at early parts of the game (maybe they are but they seem to still be too high in too many cases).  Maybe make a stop gap of 20-25 for parts up till Junkyard then maybe up to 40-45 till rail crossing and so on so the components can match the average crafting skill if 5 points were to be invested at each level up.

I know others probably have a little better success with crafting in its current form than I do.  Maybe I'm going about it wrong or something but to me as of now in its current form it doesn't seem too useful.  Thanks for reading.

3

Suggestions / Ideas for new weapons, armors, items, feats, and psionics

« on: January 29, 2014, 03:24:41 am »

Thought I would make this topic since I had some ideas for some of these things.  Anyone else feel free to ad your ideas as well.  Maybe we can use this topic to put all ideas for these things to keep it organized and in one topic. 

Not sure if any of these things I name are planned but thought I would mention them anyway.

New weapon ideas
-Shotguns - Something I think is missing from the game and could add an extra layer and option for gun users.  In theory they might be overpowered compared to handguns and machine guns but this could be offset by having them be more expensive, have lower accuracy, or higher AP cost.  Maybe if not too difficult to implement have a feature where it spreads over a certain distance and can attack multiple targets at lessened damage.  For instance bewteen 1-3 panels have it hit main target for full damage but at distance of 4-5 panels have it able to hit main target and any target 1 panel adjacent for 50% damage and for a distance of 6-7 panels 2 panels adjacent to main target at 25% damage or something like that.  Also have standard and specialized shotgun shells (electric, armor piercing, etc.) 

-Rocket or grenade launchers -  Should have high Gun, Str, and possibly mechanic prerequisite since they should be powerful and hard to use.  Yeah you can just put points on throwing and use grenades but the launcher can provide further distances and not have that cooldown that throwing grenades require.  Can also have specialized missiles that can cause different effects (for instance a rocket that explodes toxins on impact poisoning anyone it impacts along with bio damage.)

-Swords - A melee weapon I would like to see and could give a couple more unique character and enemy types.  Having that bushido/samurai type or even the knight in not so shiny armor type.  Similar to daggers but a little stronger and have a slightly higher AP cost.   Maybe even have a perk or two designed for sword users. 

-Axes - Another melee weapon that can function similar to a sledgehammer but that can also cause bleeding wounds and do a little more damage maybe at the cost of more AP.   

-Spears - Another melee weapon that can pierce more armored enemies and have a distance of 2 for striking.  Is 2 handed so cannot wield two weapons or shield. 


New Armor ideas (these could also be implemented as armor craft parts to give desired effects to current existing armor)

-Mirror or rubber armor - Armor or armor craft part that has anti-electric properties.

-Blast suit - Armor or armor craft part that is resistant to explosive type attacks.

-Asbestos - Resistant to fire based attacks.

New feats ideas

If swords or axes or implemented
-Behead, decapitate, or executioner for name.
At the cost of double or 1.5x AP can attempt to auto-kill an enemy who is not wearing a helmet.

Others
- Scavenger -  Finds 20% more loot and any currency based loot is 10% higher.
- Silver tongue - A 10 point bonus to persuasion and mercantile (maybe intimidation also)
- Vampire - Able to restore 5% of health of dead human enemy based on the enemies max HP. 
- Scientist - A 10 point bonus to chemistry and biology skills.
- Engineer - A 10 point bonus to mechanic and electronic skills.
 -Block - Melee skill that when turned on can block and unarmed attack at 75% or other melee attack at 50%.

New Psionic ideas

Thought Control
-Mindflay, Chaos, Mindstorm for name - When used on an enemy causes confusion and causes the enemy to attack his friends for 2-4 rounds. 

Psychokinesis
-Biokinetic Chain, Biokinetic Levitation - Can move an enemy up to 6 tiles away from their current location and can smash them into the ground for maximum damage or into another enemy at 50% damage to each.

Metathermics
-Boiling blood, Magnus Fever for name - Causes an enemies internal temperature to keep rising causing increased damage each round up to 5 rounds, if the enemy dies during that time they expode and lightly damage any surrounding enemies.   

These are just a few ideas for now.  I tend to come up with things on the fly sometimes so if I think of anything else I will keep adding ideas to this topic.

4

Suggestions / Suggestions after beating Alpha 1.0.6.0

« on: January 25, 2013, 12:21:20 am »

I wanted to say like many others how much I'm looking forward to this game.  I would dare to say its shaping up to be even better than FO 1 & 2 and this is saying something.  Keep up the good work and keep at it.  I really hope the finished product is at least 40 hours or more.

The Alpha was good and is definitely and improvement over the demo but there are a few things that I think should be polished to make a more enjoyable gameplay experience.

1.  Better organization of items - You get a lot of stuff in this game and that's great and all but dividing your inventory a little would be much more user friendly.  Maybe have different sections for weapons/armor, usable items, and crafting components in separate sections in the inventory menu, and maybe divide shops the same way to match.  Even 2 different sections in the inventory menu would make a world of difference.

2.  Slightly tweaked combat balance - The balance seems a little off on some encounters.  Sometimes you have decent armor and still get killed by something stupid and eventually by reloading the game a dozen times you can get the desired outcome.   I don't know too much about the inner workings of numbers in game coding but maybe put it slightly more in the players favor.   Which kind of ties in to the next suggestion.

3.  Have difficulty settings - I don't usually like these options in games but having the standard 3 difficulties easier, normal, harder and making slight adjustments for each one could cater to all the types of gamers. 

4.  A lot more armors and a few more weapons - The amount of weapons in the game is pretty good but it would be nice to see a few different ones.  There's like 5 or 6 different types of knives it seems and that seems to be the core of melee weapons, some other weapons like swords, axes, and/or spears would be a welcome addition.  I would definitely consider adding fist type melee weapons too for the puncher/melee characters like brass knuckles. sappers, claws, etc.
As far as armor goes it seems to be pretty scarce.  I think the crafting system is good and you can basically make custom type armors which is neat but having more readily available armor would be ideal especially headgear.  All that seems to be available are goggles and steel helmet.  Maybe get like a leather/padded helmet to match the body armor before going to full on metal and maybe another type of body armor and headgear (like some kind of plastic or something). 

5.  Option to see AP in numbers easier - This is pretty much just a personal thing but I would like if AP (both movement and action) were displayed in numbers rather than the green and yellow bars.  Having an option to do so would be great. 

6.  A few number tweaks for leveling up - I would reduce the amount of skill points received by 5 to 10 as it seems like you get just a few too many points upon leveling and can almost max out your character with the amount given by the time you get to level 20.   I would also consider making the level cap somewhere around level 30 (I think I read you wanted it to be level 20).

7.  A retweak and addition of more feats - Some of the feats seem pretty pointless and have little appeal to them.  I want to rack my brain trying to figure out what feat I want because they would all be useful, it seems like there's only a handful of good ones and its easy to pick the good ones out of the bunch.  Some of them give something good but then take something away and usually the good does not outweigh the bad as it should.  And i know you said you were also going to make a lot more feats but I would keep in mind to make all of them more useful than not.

8.  Lockpick/hacking tweaking -  This is me nitpicking a bit but there seems to be an imbalance in this.  At the start of the game almost every door you come across that is locked has a 10-15 rating and gets higher as the game progresses which makes sense but it shouldn't be blanketed throughout.  For instance section 1 has locks with 10-15 skill needed, section 2 has 25ish skill needed, section 3 has 35-40ish skill needed, section 4 has 55-70 skill needed.  Have it mixed up a bit, like have a few locks in section 1 to require like 50 or 60 and have a few in the later sections that only need 25 or 30.  This will mix it around a bit and encourage full exploration and occasional backtracking.  Not sure if its a random seed but some of the harder to pick locked mediums have crap for rewards and sometimes only 1 thing like a simple component I can find anywhere, not too rewarding for having a high lockpicking skill. 

9.  I way to make random encounters - I know you made the decision to use random respawning which many seem to disagree with but there's a solution for those wanting random surprises and those who don't.  Areas for the possibility of random encounters.  First get rid of the random repawns throughout the main game.  Make the random encounters similar to Fallout where after an area is discovered by conventional traveling means (in your game,not FO) then have a way to travel throughout a map (like FO) and have chances for random encounters, and have a feat that isn't too difficult to get that allows you the choice of accepting the random encounter or not.  Something along these lines could cater to the crowds who want to get through the game and the others who want to collect, level up, and loot as much as possible.  These randoms can range from easy to hard. 

I really think most of these suggestions could cater to a broader range of players and could be thing that will make the whole gaming experience even more enjoyable than it is.  Best wishes to you.