A review of the RP game progression experience and small tweak suggestions

teukros said:
lujo said:
- Umbra Tribe having a way to solve the missing sister quest through Vic peacefully with level appropriate speech checks (or if you bring vic, a very easy "ruse") at the right time would provide a very nice hook and disrupt nothing.

- Vault Village simply needs to unlock before the raiders while you're in the Gecko area.

- Abbey just needs a hook from VC or Gecko or both.

- The NCR scouting: Add a "Scout Broken Hills" mission between Gecko Scouting and NCR scouting.
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These are sensible and conservative changes to improve game flow and it is a shame that they did not make it into the RP. Maybe in 2.3.punkgirl?
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Yeah, I'm quite dissapointed. Not to mention that I don't see the fix to the problem that when you get Married in Modoc it changes the fathers dialogue potentially cutting you off from quests and barter if you do it before. Especially since this seems to be mostly a bugfix release.

The source code has been released, though, so it shouldn't be too difficult to make a mod with these, though.
 
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lujo said:
Yeah, I'm quite dissapointed. Not to mention that I don't see the fix to the problem that when you get Married in Modoc it changes the fathers dialogue potentially cutting you off from quests and barter if you do it before. Especially since this seems to be mostly a bugfix release.
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Not sure if you've already checked 2.3.3, at least you can report the brahmin quest now, in up-changelog.txt:
Code: 
Modoc:
------
• If you married Davin/Miria before telling Grisham about the outcome of guarding the brahmin, you would never be able to complete the quest. This has been addressed.
 
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^^ Whee, well that's somethig - checking that thread right now!

Also, I hope someone does the gameflow tweaks eventually. They can be done with minimal work (most of them) and it really would help the whole work better.

EDIT: Oh, and if the car bug with the NCR caravan means I can do the brahmin drive and get there with the car, that's actualyl a big one :)
 
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I want to say that I never responded to this thread not because I hate the ideas or I'm a bad person, but because I wish you came around like a year or more ago during a time when I had the energy to devote to the Restoration Project.

The thing is, I honestly don't think one can ever say the RP will be done. Now it's a fine line since we don't want to progressively end up with the kitchen sink being added just because we want even MOAR Fallout, but yes, things can certainly be tweaked, massaged, and the flow/progression further improved. And that seems to be what you're going for here, but that's where you also have to be careful.

The people I trust in this area area are Dravean and Darek. I say consult with them, if they are interested, and then come back to get further input from the rest of NMA. Who knows, maybe it'll find its way into the RP...along with me in a straight jacket. ;) But honestly, is there ever an end to tweaking/polishing? I personally don't think so.
 
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killap said:
I want to say that I never responded to this thread not because I hate the ideas or I'm a bad person, but because I wish you came around like a year or more ago during a time when I had the energy to devote to the Restoration Project.

The thing is, I honestly don't think one can ever say the RP will be done. Now it's a fine line since we don't want to progressively end up with the kitchen sink being added just because we want even MOAR Fallout, but yes, things can certainly be tweaked, massaged, and the flow/progression further improved. And that seems to be what you're going for here, but that's where you also have to be careful.

The people I trust in this area area are Dravean and Darek. I say consult with them, if they are interested, and then come back to get further input from the rest of NMA. Who knows, maybe it'll find its way into the RP...along with me in a straight jacket. ;) But honestly, is there ever an end to tweaking/polishing? I personally don't think so.
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Thanks for the reply.

I know what you mean and I whish I suggested these earlier, ofc, but I don't have the strenght to have to metagame my way around issues these would solve for the millionth time. As soon as I have the time/energy I'll do my best to see if I can either apply them myself or talk someone with more experience into helping me apply them in the most time and work saving manner possible, at least the 4 core one, so that the next time I arrive at Vault City things play out more smoothly and stuff.

They really are more like bug fixes than anything as they allow the natural gameflow not to lead you to break several progressions (most importantly the reward, economy and relative challenge one). As I said - noone's job to do them, and you've allready done more than a huge lot. Also thanks for the advice :)
 
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Good news everyone! I teamed up with Phobos who, as opposed to me, knows his way around FO2 and sfall code, and with his advice and help we managed to get 2 out of 4 fixes operational! In... basicaly an hour. And that hour was not 15 minutes because I don't know how to code and I was the one mapping the scripst and nodes looking for what to change.

Needs bugfixing, but the following has been done and will be available first as a side option and then if Killap is merciful as standard issue for all you RP lovers:

- 1) A new scouting quest which has you scout Broken Hills between Gecko and NCR scouting for Stark the guard seargent in Vault City. Which means you'll have a nice reason to visit it at an appropriate time, take a jaunt to New Reno, find the raiders before you get end game gear in NCR and ruin your game and economy! Play the mid game in the mid game, and the late game at late game, and don't get jumped by power armored Kaga before you can unlock Vault Village! Weeee...

2) Vault Village now unlocks after you scout Gecko in VC. Once I reduce the money and guns involved in it tommorrow - we'll all have a chance to experience that place before we get to see the endgame, and we'll have a chance to complete the first quest before we've allready completed a whole lot of stuff, so we can enjoy the change that happens in it after 2 months when we return from out southern forays. Weeee!

Bugfixing these two, smoothing out the dialogues (not that I changed them much, you'll barely notice), and then just 2 more to go before it's ready - linking up Umbra Tribe and Suliks sister to the game to allow players to experience it when it's optimal, and finaly linking Abbey to the world in general and the VC questing hub in particular (+ reversing the brother tully quest to add another new reno hook).

And if those take as little time and effort as these have, I might just go around smoothing a bunch of other stuff - conservatively, subtly, and with the aim to simply make the whole thing more enjoyable.

First build, hopefully, in a few days ^^
 
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lujo said:
and then just 2 more to go before it's ready - linking up Umbra Tribe and Suliks sister to the game to allow players to experience it when it's optimal, and finaly linking Abbey to the world in general and the VC questing hub in particular (+ reversing the brother tully quest to add another new reno hook.
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These are the only two I was personally considering to add to the RP. I'd be willing to make those changes if you have dialogue and wish to discuss integration plans. Send me a pm.

As for the first two you already have done, well, I'd be curious to see what you did. I'm hesitant about #1, but curious about #2.

Yes that's right, I've been pulled back.
 
killap said:
lujo said:
and then just 2 more to go before it's ready - linking up Umbra Tribe and Suliks sister to the game to allow players to experience it when it's optimal, and finaly linking Abbey to the world in general and the VC questing hub in particular (+ reversing the brother tully quest to add another new reno hook.
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These are the only two I was personally considering to add to the RP. I'd be willing to make those changes if you have dialogue and wish to discuss integration plans. Send me a pm.
As for the first two you already have done, well, I'd be curious to see what you did. I'm hesitant about #1, but curious about #2.
Yes that's right, I've been pulled back.
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For linking Abbey to VC, the only possibility I can think of is getting its location from Happy Harry or Ed in the courtyard, probably via the good ol' "do you know where I can find a GECK" dialogs. (it's cliché but suits the nature of Abbey pretty well, plus it might be easier writing dialogs)
And I fully support enabling Vault Village quest before scouting NCR, but not sure if the guns involved should be reduced. If they only need less or even weaker guns, that'd make VC guards feeling too weak in game IMO.
 
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^ I was reffering to the guns and money you get and get to keep as a part of doing that quest the peaceful way (which is how I always did it tbh). There's a 10 000 gold, assault riles and a shotgun involved if I'm not much mistaken and that's a huge bonanza for a few speech checks at that time in the game. Or any really, but you don't need it later.

I've allready prepared one dialogue link to the abbey - I gave a bit of dialogue to Khol the book keeper which you can get if you tell him you like books and he mentions he used to trade them secretly to a trader who used to come around and would take them to the abbey. I was also thinking that the bartender at the tap could mention that her last alcohol supplyer was from the abbey (same guy, he doesn't come around anymore because he got caught! - which is why she doesn't have any more alcohol. If I add the right booze to the abbey merchant I don't even have to make a quest for it - it's allready there, lol), but I kinda though she'd be too obvious since she puts stuff on your map allready.

As for the changes I've done, I'll share them as soon as they're slightly debugged which will be in 2 days because I'm writing my major thesis ATM and time is running out fast. :(

The first one is wonderful and is the whole reason I'm doing this. It's just what it is, after you scout gecko, you can get to scout broken hills, and after that you can get to scout ncr. Puts the mid game right back into the game. Anyone doubting, give it a shot - if you've been taking BH -> NR detours from the NCR scouting anyway, now you can end up with tons of stuff to do once you arrive in NCR off the NCR mission by following the natural progression, and you've allready done a ton of stuff so no NCR guns or rewards break the challenge/balance/economy.

I've sent the details to Killap. Please, I need to do this master thesis, sorry about riling you all up 2 days ahead of time I can actually give you something.
 
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lujo said:
I need to do this master thesis, sorry about riling you all up 2 days ahead of time I can actually give you something.
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Ah, so this is where your free time was initially coming from -- thesis procrastination. It all makes sense now. ;) Heh, I personally know many who did graduate work, so I feel like I am allowed to joke about it.
 
Well, you got me :)

Also - this isn't just me, couldn't have done anything without phobos, I can't compile or decompile stuff at all (atm) and he's done stuff to my copy/paste/arrange blunderings through code which made it actually work. Credit where credit's due!
 
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Ok, so the status is the following:

1) Broken hills scouting fully operational and bugfixed (I hope).

2) Vault Village unlocks after Gecko Scouting. How it works:
- After scouting Gecko you can ask from more reconnaisanse, and you get offered broken hills.
- Stark warns you not to rush it with the scouting to the south as it's dangerous
- You can also ask for any other kind of job and you get offered Vault Village
- Stark makes sure you understand that you're on a clock (made it two linked nodes so there's less dialogue to absorb and you can't miss it)
- Also tweaked the initial Stark dialogue about vault village to make him seem like less of a moustache twirling villan

3) Added to easy ways to get Abbey on your map:
- Khol, the guy at the information center has a one-shot bit of dialougue which you only get to access when you talk him into giving you the books.
- Talking to the bartender at the tap house about booze also gets the Abbey on you map

Working on ATM:

- Reducing the value of money and guns involved in the Vault Village quest
- Vic/sulik sister (this just needs a few lines of dialogue)


This will all be compiled once phobos wakes up tommorrow, hopefully bugfixed and and available. Implementing it shouldn't be difficult at all, we used the source scripts, and phobos edited the few vars related to scouting to make Broken Hills scouting show up on the map.

One thing is that the vcstark (the guard seargent) dialogue and scrip has been modified a fair bit for the broken hills scouting and the vault village quests. The end results are minimal on the user end, but a bunch of new nodes have been added, an a few old ones modified (most notably the main node064 which looks quite a bit differently than it used to). I tried to make sure nothing has been affected by these changes.

If someone can think of something that might have been - please inform us! The only thing which i can think of is Lynette / becoming captain of the guards.
 
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EDIT: I thought up a solution to having either too strong guns which would break progression or too weak which would to break immersion. It's simple - the villagers know that VC squads will only pick on them if they're not risking it. What they want is GRENADES. "We can probably get a few hunting rifles and shotguns, but that won't be enough..." But if they get grenades VC guys are sure to back off. Grenades are also cheap, so the player can get a chance to run away with less money, and if you decide to keep the grenades - you're unlikely to be able to use them too efectively and if you do you'll simply run out. Since the villagers can also run out and not be able to permanently defend themselves you can talk them into letting you try a more permanent, but peaceful solution more easily.

Problem solved.

EDIT:

- Vault village now wants 10 grenades and 2 dynamites, otherwise works the same. Money is 2500 base, 4000 harry top price, 1000 bottom price, otherwise everything is the same. Edited Connor and Harry scripts and msg, Old Joe and Stark msg to allow and reflect the change. Will check ann and mcclure for possible edits needed.
- Edited the very first dialogue lines with Connor slightly as they were sparse and confusing about what leads where
- Waiting for phobos to wake up, if everything goes right, 80% done, and everything should work

Working on:

- Vic tie in to sulik sister quest / Umbra tribe
- Vanilla 2.3.3 RP + Modifications savegames for easy playtesting/quality evaluation of every single change ;)
 
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Update:

Status:

- Vault vilage Grenade change works
- BH scouting works
- Abbey reveals work

- bugfixing and testing vic

- The peaceful solution to the vault village tie in with the brain and the gecko power plant needs a bit more work (especially sorting out the brain dialogue).
- the vault village quest is allready structurally divided into arming the villagers and getting rid of molerats, so I'll simply separate those two and then it'll go smooth - and it will finaly integrate the renewal cult sensibly into the whole thing
 
I just wished to say my thanks for the work you and phobos are doing lujo. I must say I don't necessarily agree with all things you are saying about progression. I mean games today are holding the players hand way too much, and guides him in ways and situations so that things never gets too tough on him. A "better flow" they call it, but it's really just a way of making the game easier for more impatient players these days. Fallout was released in a much more unforgiving state and, in my opinion, part of it's charm is how random it can be. I remember the first time I played it and how I ran for my life many times when i discovered new areas. Those are good memories, indeed.

It might be that I have not fully understood your thoughts about what you want to do (I admit that I have not read the whole thread, yet) but it does seem like you want to make Fallout hold the players hand a little bit extra. Correct me if I'm wrong. I am however a sucker for things that make more sense and also for "peaceful solutions", and I will be keeping a close eye on what you and phobos produce :smile:
 
Oh, don't worry, you can still screw yourself over in plenty of ways (not much has changed at all, tbh), all this stuff fixes things in a way that prevents you from screwing yourself out of the challenge, dialogues and options rather than screwing yourself out of solutions. It's not about holding your hand or forcing linearity, but allowing for legit hooks and smoother and more senible interactions between the vanilla and the RP content.

People have been complaining about two things about the RP for a long time 1) the disconnectedness and "tacked on" feeling of the added content and 2) the way the economy gets messed up in favor of the player (soooo many economy fix mods out there). Those are actually connected (but it takes textwalls to explain why). These fixes adress those 2 somewhat - they help integrate the added content in better and allow you to acess it at more appropriate times (noone sayes you HAVE to acess it, in fact you cold still miss all of it entirely - but with these fixes acessing it won't take out of game knowledge and metagaming and a lot of the new content will more readily available).

In other words, keep calm and trust me - if this is bugfixed before relese and if I don't inadvertedly mess anything up, there will be no complaints about them once they're in. If you miss the hooks or don't take the hooks - you won't even notice. If you do, maybe you'll get to see stuff before you're overequipped to feel challenged/interested in it for the first time in a while.

Also, the VC questing hub is really richer with the Vault Village enabled eariler, you can't even imagine without seeing it (I'm connecting and smoothing out the final stuff, and just playtesting the changes with a savegame editor makes it look like a whole new richer and more coherent experience - and with all the ways to screw up it also adds plenty of replayability). Give me one more day to get all the loose ends connected and see for yourself.

EDIT: And I agree that games today are holding the players hand too much. I'm actually quite oldschool myself, lol.

EDIT: Progress:

- Temporary Vic - Kurisu mech in place, working out the potential unitended concequences

Working on:

- The brain dialogue and the interactions between the vault village quests and the gecko plant quest chain. Trying to make the whole thing as conservative as possible, even if it means going so far as to only enable the village if the plant is repaired first (or at least the diplomatic part of it).
 
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Update - vic/kurisu thing finally fixed. I'm still considering balancing it against other ways to do it and I still need to do some fancy work on the vic dialogue, but how it works is:

- If you free Vic, he can tell you where he was held (Slaver Camp). If you go there with him you have the regular roulette of answers (with rolls) except if you've got vic along with you you get a few chances to talk the slavers into letting you get away with Kurisu by convincing them that Metzger did indeed send you. Still doesn't guarantee anything, though, but it means you can free sulik's sister quite early and end up in Umbra Tribe when it's best appreciated if you pay for Vic's release, which you can do earlier than you can shoot up Metzger's gang in the Den.
 
Oh, I see. I understand now what you are going for. Thanks. It sounds amazing and I will definitely try it out when it is released.
 
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