>Give your character an agility lower than 5.
>Game immediately devolves into an unplayable slog that necessitates frequent savescumming to bypass even mundane encounters, even for non-combat oriented characters.
Why would you tie such an absolutely mandatory element of gameplay (Action Points) to a modifiable stat? I'll quote the late, great Josh Sawyer when I say, "If something is required for viable play, why is it optional?"
Because 90's isometric rpgs. That's why. Think of the shit rolls you could get on BG.
some people aren't zoomers and enjoy difficulty in their games
if you don't want to savescum just have 10 agility and perception
but that comes at the cost off not being able to bypass mindless fetch quests or outright not having the options of completing questlines a certain way
you win some, you lose some
Rest in peace Joshua, miss you big man
Legitimately bad design, but still a great game
It's a masterpiece in regards to atmosphere, world building and dialogue, but it is a shit RPG. I've seen people on this board say that this game has more "build potential" than New Vegas. Borderline nostalgia-induced delusional behavior.
If I remember correctly, CHA isn't neccessarily a dump stat in this game because it means you can't have as many followers. That is something I like, that threre's not true dump stat. My biggest grievance with F3/NV's builds is that CHA is worthless
I'm trying to remember if CHA only worked like that in F2 though
Charisma in NV boosts companion nerve, allowing them to take more damage. I'm playing a 10-charisma pacifist run currently and there is a notable difference in the amount of punishment your companions take endure.
Followers were almost impossible to keep alive late game in 1 anyway though, so that’s not a big downside
>pacifist run
How do these work, exactly? Are there really no story-mandatory battles that can't be talked around?
Charisma in Fallout doesn't affect your number of followers at all. It is completely worthless in the first game. Your followers also have unlimited carry weight, so your own carry weight stat is basically worthless.
I didn't experiment much with Fallout, so I can't say if Agility is necessary for all play styles, but I agree that letting players reduce those skills to 1 was a bit ridiculous. On my first of two attempts at Fallout, I set my strength to 1 and restarted once I realized I'd be unable to use any firearms.
I played a modern RPG with stats that went up to 10 but could only go as low as 4 and it made a lot of sense. It felt like they played Fallout, made your observation, and went about fixing it directly.
I don't play a lot of RPGs so maybe making the minimum higher than 1 is old news. You could still lower them to 1 via enemy debuffs and you'd be fucked.
It also makes the useless skills more useful because their effects can be condensed into 6 levels.
All major combat encounters, such as your meeting with Benny and your final confrontation with Lanius, can be evaded with a high enough speech or barter skill (also a couple of perks that open up more dialogue options). This also applies to all of the DLCs.
Then make it a scale of 1-6. This is the exact shit that makes numerical scores and comparisons meaningless.
Or think of how weak a real person who rated 1/10 for strength must be if 5 is average. Do you really believe that person could wield a gun effectively?
I assume this locks you out of certain paths? (though I can't imagine a pacifist messiah really aligning with anyone but Yes Man maybe)
I just explained that. The game let you get debuffed lower than 4, so it had a gameplay purpose, and it used it as an explanation for why your character wasn't completely useless in some regard when you minimized the stat at character creation.
No, all four questlines can be pursued as a pacifist, even Caesar's Legion. All story-related quests have a diplomatic option.
Legion and House both make you wipe out the BoS.
Neat, thanks.
Not him, but I'm thinking maybe pacifist runs only count the "People Killed" counter on the pip-boy
right but having my INT temporarily lowered to 2 or 3 has no impact once the battle is over. it's a cute balancing shortcut for skill reqs/checks but shitty from a roleplaying perspective
Oh, right. You're correct. However, you can use keycards to set the bunker to self-destruct. This option completes the quest and doesn't count any kills on the player's stat screen.
The random, punishing nature of Fallout is at least partially intentional. It’s not actually a difficult game, but by making encounters random and unforgiving game time is increased and it contributes to the brutal post-apoc atmosphere.
Not exactly brilliant design, but it works well enough.
The idea is that a character with int lower than 4 would be too stupid to go on the adventure at all so why have it be a possibility? Just so a player can find out that all of their dialogue options were reduced to "uuuughhhrf"?
I should note that there were originally routes to allow the Brotherhood to ally with the Legion and House. Both routes were cut, but dialogue still remains in the files.
>dump stat
I never tried but other than Charisma, Luck and Endurance could be used as a Dump stat.
So 3 out of 4 stats could be dumped.
It CAN be dumped, but when making a character in Fallout 3 for example then charisma SHOULD be dumped. There's a difference
>Game immediately devolves into an unplayable slog that necessitates frequent savescumming to bypass even mundane encounters, even for non-combat oriented characters
Uhmm...no, it fucking doesen't? I can easilly finish F1 without AG less than 5.
There really aren't enough games where having a low intelligence actually makes your character too stupid to communicate.
try underrail
True
>10 luck
>game becomes a cakewalk
Yeah I heard it has good build variety.
Probably because it’s sort of a joke “option”. only a very small amount of players would want to complete a whole game like that and it doesn’t make much logical sense most of the time.
>lower the stat that allows you to take actions in combat
>wtf why can't I do lots of stuff in combat
What did he mean by this?
>literal rng that will make you fail sooner than later
>difficulty
You're a fag
It's the opposite of bad design, you ignorant fuck.
Action points don't just govern combat, they govern all "actions", including movement.
How do you do a pacifist run of the dlc's? They're filled to the brim with hostile npc's.
>"If something is required for viable play, why is it optional?"
The fucking air control rune in doom eternal man, they should have just made it 2 runes with air control being innate.
Sneak, of course. There's no locations in any of the DLCs that lock you into combat with enemies, there's always a way to avoid them entirely. The Compliance Regulator helps immensely if you don't want to invest points into sneak.
Why don't you read my post again.
Being able to do "lots of stuff" in combat is essential to play the game at a somewhat reasonable pace, even for non-combat oriented characters.