Grumblemumble... · 3:06am Mar 2nd, 2014
You know those times when you write something, and then go back to rewrite a certain part of that something because you realized that it was kinda dumb as dumb-stuff, but wind up getting completely stalled in the process, and the wind is taken out of your metaphorical sails?
...yeah. That kinda happened. To me.
*groan* Hopes...dashed! At least I have Dr. Pepper...I'll take it...and DRINK IT! ...at 8:30PM. It's a Saturday anyway, no one cares.
Now...last blog post I mentioned something about how I'd like to see certain SPECIALs to have a greater effect when moved to extremes? Well, time to move on to the next one:
Perception.
As it is, all it really does is allow for perks, and detects enemies only if they are in front of you. No matter if you are at 1 or 10: if it isn't in front of you, you can't detect it. If enemies didn't have a tendency to announce their presence when they attack you, you probably would realize that someone was standing right behind you. Also, said red tick marks are at the bottom left on the compass by default, which that's normally where I'm not looking when baddies are about, my eyes are usually on what's in my sights.
Here's what I propose: in addition to a general accuracy bonus (High Per was essential to a sharpshooter in the first two games), you can detect what is behind you as well (to a lesser extent). Rather than at the bottom left, have red tick marks be centered around the player's crosshair in a circle. At high enough Per, you could even see outlines of the bad guys through walls, so a really alert character could plan accordingly to when multiple bad buys are in the same room, in addition to knowing how far away they are, elevation, and other info.
I know some might think this would be a hit to immersion, but as it is...having a really high perception not doing a darned thing is pretty sketchy as well. Less major tunnel vision more...neat stuff. Certain game features are in there not necessarily to break immersion, but to compensate for certain things that you outright can't simulate easily in a video game. Like the sense of touch, for just one example.
Ngh. Kinda hard to describe but...mmm...I hope I got my point across.
Oh, and one more thing (haven't done one of these for awhile): Something I find annoying.
1) When someone's character has a really nonsensical name, and expects me to take it seriously. This only really applies to the Lone Wanderer, given that both of their parents were named. It's James, Catherine and...wait, who the hell names their kid that? Vault Dweller less so, since their cultural background is unknown, but they were still raised in a 'Murican esque way (Though it's implies that Albert may be the canon name...). The Chosen one having a goofy name is perfectly fine since you know...tribal. Courier is fine as well since their background is unknown, but I would expect that if they had a Latin name, it would be a title given by the Legion of Naughty Cosplayers. Like Serpens ex Occidentali (Snake of the West for "Betraying" Caesar) Venenum Caesar (Bane of Caesar, for...you know. Plus Courier's scary!) or Vox Legio (Voice of the Legion, for "delivering" Legion "messages").
Thank Google Translate. Have no idea if it's accurate.
I guess it's the Fallout equivalent of me disliking pony names like Shadowy Buttmunch Grimdark. Ptooie.
Here's to hoping I can get back on track! (Drinks Dr Pepper).
Have some Apple Bloom.
A bunch of Twilights
and a Duck.
Dammit, you just described exactly what happened to me today. I realized what I had didn't really fit and wound up rewriting almost an entire scene.
When I first played Fo3, I couldn't get past the metro to get to the GNR building, I kept dying, so I restarted and as a joke, made my character a black woman named Deshawndra. Then I beat the metro. And the game. As Deshawndra, daughter of James and Cathrine.
1886551 dehawna is op plz nurf
I always try and name my characters something in Latin, mostly cause I love the language, and partly cause I don't care to much.
I can see perception being a factor when an enemy is behind you or the extreme peripherals if they are moving. I mean, it would be difficult to tie 'smelling' and enemy in a game and spotting something through the back of your skull is a bit ridiculous but sound makes perfect sense. So then if the enemy is generating sound of some kind by movement or from a weapon or wings or whatever, then increased perception should help you pick them out if they approach from behind.
1887225
Or you could have very keen ears and could have heard them breathing, thanks to your super hearing.
Edit: High sneak means they control their breathing better.
I named my FO3 character Leon W. Ander
No reason but I thought it would be funny to imagine everyone getting his name wrong and calling him Lone Wanderer
1887302 Make sense to me.
I hope that duck gets shot. Shitposting should be a capitol offense.
Funfact: the Doge meme was often used by ironic shitposters before it grew out of control and went mainstream. It used to be kinda fun, but now it's become cancerous. You know it's bad when vidya companies are using it on Facebook and Twitter.
If you want an awesome example of super high 'perception' but with using other senses like hearing and smell in a wasteland, watch The Book of Eli.
The main character is like a black Joshua Graham.
This has happened like fifty times over the past two weeks...
1890649 Morgon Freeman IS a black Joshua Graham
It took me this long to get this reference.
So um... You planning on continuing "It Must be Tuesday" at some point? I'm in the middle of the 10th chapter, and so far I'm liking it very much. Your style was a bit wobbly in the beginning there, but it settled well into the 5th chapter, and I've gotten used to the rhythm of it. I'd very much like to know what happens.
As for SPECIAL having more pronounced effects, I happen to agree with you. In fact, most of them could be delivered via perks that you get if your SPECIAL is above a certain level (and you could have them go up in rank as you climb higher). For instance, a high Luck could start giving perks like Better Criticals and such - as long as we're confining ourselves to what the games originally have coded in.
If you want to expand... I personally think that the SPECIAL scale shouldn't be taken as a linear. I mean, a character with INT 7 shouldn't be "a bit smarter" than INT 6 - they should theoretically be twice as smart, much like it works with general IQ. The more INT a character is, the more bizzare but excellent ideas they start getting, the more they notice things procedurally (like, during a conversation), and the faster they put things together in their head. Excessive DEX should mean they can't be bound by anything, they can easily escape a monster when caught by suprise, and do stuff like the wall-run thing some martial experts do to jump behind their enemy... ;] And so on.
In terms of game mechanics, I don't see "see through walls" as working, even if you have enormous PER - I mean, what, you do a variation of Sherlock Scans now? You'd need both PER 10 and INT 10 for it to work. Maybe you'd need all of your SPECIAL stats at 10 for it to actually work, because the only way you could determine where someone is standing behind a wall would be if you were a master of your body, and could determine the capabilities of others' - not to mention the brain processing power required for it to "click" together... Though it might work as a "mist" of sorts, a shimmering "blob" that would indicate their general position, that would widen and dissipate with time since last sighting... In fact, this wouldn't be far off from how the AI "seeing and remembering" works - as time passes, the probability of you being in some spot gets diluted by the number of "spots" you could have moved to in that time, covering both range of motion and distance.
I'm pretty sure I had some other thoughts on this, but they escape me right now.