<sub>(working title: very corny and unfunny)</sub>
A Fallout-inspired, non-linear, single-player RPG that rewards exploration with loot and content. Scarcity makes resource management important, and skill choices will vary gameplay significantly. There will be at least two distinct endings based on choices made, with some smaller decisions having other impacts on the ending. The intended control scheme is standard Starcraft controls.
Story
Our illustrious hero wakes up under the care of The Doc, with acute amnesia (shockingly original, I know!). He remembers bits and pieces: the face of a smiling woman, children playing in a park, and a man in a military uniform. The Doc says he found him in the wastes, unconscious but still hugging a pistol to his chest, sprawled out at the controls of a nuclear powered hovercraft. Luckily for our hero, The Doc is the really friendly sort and brought him back to town with him.
So, with only fragments of memories and the mysterious lettering on the side of his hovercraft, our hero assumes a name and sets out to find out who he was. In the process he may find the origins of the horrible creatures that infect the wastes, who is pulling the strings behind the new resurgence in civilization, where all the best prostitutes are, what instigated the nuclear war that caused the near-total destruction of mankind, and he is so very good at killing things.
Skills
Each skill can be raised from 0 points up to a maximum of 5 points; points 3 and 5 in a skill provide extra benefits. You get a skill point at each character level, and max level is 30. With 11 skills this would allow you to be well-rounded with 3 points in almost every skill, or focus to have multiple maxed-out skills.
You will be able to beat the game without putting a single point into any Combat skills, so you could use Barter and other skills to afford/find more explosives and energy cells, unlock doors and activate sentry guns to avoid/assist some combat, and Speech your way around others. Of course you will also be able to beat the game without getting any non-combat skills and just kill your way through everything.
Combat
Guns (standard weapons, Ranged damage) - 10% increased damage with each point, 5% ranged critical chance at 3 points, 10% ranged critical chance at 5 points.
Melee (melee weapons, Melee damage) - 10% increased damage with each point, zealot Charge learned at 3 points, 5% melee critical chance at 3 points, 10% melee critical chance at 5 points. Edit: Possibly increase melee dodge rating with each point of Melee skill, giving 2, 4, 8, 10, 15% melee dodge? Dodge percentage doesn't stack, so with Melee 5 and Dodge 5 you'd have two different 15% chances dodge.
Explosives (grenade and mine abilities, Splash damage) - 10% increased damage with each point, (still debating bonuses at 3 and 5 points, maybe critical hits or chance to not use up a grenade when thrown?)
Electronics (other abilities, Spell damage) - increased damage and other effects with electronic toys. Would also increase maximum energy and passive energy regeneration.
Sprint - Hero gains the Sprint ability, increasing movement speed for 4 seconds with a 18s cooldown. Points in Sprint will increase duration and decrease cooldown, ending at 6.5 seconds of sprint with a 12 second cooldown. (Times at each point: 4 duration/18 cooldown, 4.5/17, 5/15, 5.5/14, 6.5/12) I want this to start as mostly a run away skill and, with enough points in it, to become a travel convenience + rush-into-melee ability for melee characters.
Non-combat (all non-combat skills will have at least one instance of being useful in NPC interactions)
Lockpick - simple comparison test: With 2 points in Lockpick you can open locks of levels 1 and 2, while 5 points can open any.
Computers - same as Lockpick, but for computers, allowing various effects (turret controls, security cameras, opening or closing doors, etc.)
Speech - Higher speech lets you use new options in conversation with NPCs.
Salvage - Lets you turn some high-tech junk in the world into resources (salvage materials from "trash" and sell for cash, pull apart derelict battle armor for the weapon, etc.)
Barter - better deals at shops (I'm not sure how to implement this yet, but I haven't investigated it. Suggestions are welcome!)
Inventory
Equipment
Guns with variety - rapid fire submachine guns, spray damage with shotguns, slow but high damage per hit rifles, etc.
Melee weapons with variety - fast-stabbing combat knife, swing weapons with ultralisk-like area of effect, etc.
Two Weapon slots - you can equip two weapons at once, but only one is actually active, and you press a hotkey to switch between the two quickly.
Armor slot that starts off basic by just granting more defenses, but soon you end up balancing between heavy armor and armor with other bonuses.
Helmet slot with various effects for personalization: gun damage increase, sight range bonus, extra armor, etc.
Shield slot with max shield, recharge rates, and delay-after-damage-taken-before-recharge-starts all being important to balance and pick between.
Two accessory slots for things like fancy belts, boots, gloves, or whatever else you might find, giving a wide range of buffs.
Grenades - explosive for balanced damage, fragmentary for biological, EMP for mechanical, and rare plasma grenades that are simply the best.
Mines - same as grenades, but they drop and are proximity detonated by enemies.
Consumables
Food takes time to eat and heals a little health; First Aid Kits take time to use but give you lots of health.
Happy Hypos are intended for combat situations, instantly giving you short-term health regeneration.
Energy Cells completely refill your energy battery, which you use for electronic toys; you start with a maximum of 80 and get more with Electronics skill points.
Rocket Launcher - single-shot rocket launcher that is consumed on use, dealing high damage to one target.
Electronic toys
Dopplepopper - (has cooldown) Creates a hallucination with a short lifespan that you can use for quick scouting as well as distractions and luring enemies into mines.
Shield Booster - (has cooldown) Increases max shield temporarily and gives an instant "heal" to current shields.
Shocker - (has cooldown) Causes enemies within range 2 of the user to be stunned for five seconds.
Motion Sensor - Gives you Sensor Tower style enemy detection for a good amount of time, covering an area larger than your sight but smaller than typical sensor tower range.
Laser Pointer - A palm-sized laser pointer, supercharged to fire a damaging laser beam at a single target. You'll put out someone's eye with this thing!
(Still brewing up more; please offer suggestions! I definitely want at least two toys that cause damage.)
Currency = "minerals"
Shops in town. What they sell and their prices will end up depending on balance, but it will include healing items, energy cells, explosives, and at least a few pieces of equipment.
You can sell generic salvage at shops for currency, though there will be a crazy inventor that you can give special scrap to for experience and various rewards.
Overworld Map
Small, slow moving vehicle unit on a big map, with small sight range. You'll start with only a small number of revealed locations on your map.
Once you get close enough to an unknown locale you discover it, and gain sight of it indefinitely on the overworld. Get close enough and you will be asked whether or not you want to enter that locale.
Random encounters on the world map that automatically transport you into a locale map: battle, NPC encounter, goofy pop-culture reference, etc.
Locale Map
Camera switches to focus on your hero unit, in a "locale area," surrounded by unwalkable ground.
Trying to exit the region triggers a dialog box asking if you want to return to the overworld map.
You do a majority of your killing, looting, npc interacting, and other activities in the various locale maps.
Death
When you "die" a cocktail of nanobots in your bloodstream keeps you intact long enough for The Doc's robot buddy to drag you back to town to get resuscitated. This does some significant damage to your organs, so you can only do this two times before you die permanently, essentially giving you three lives. But... there might be someone out there in the world that, for a large sum, would be able to provide you with a few extra lives.
(I know this is ridiculous because the robot would get destroyed, or you would be eaten whole by creatures, or you'd be stripped naked by looters by the time the bot showed up... but I don't want ONE death to be final. Another idea I had is that there is something fancy about you and you can be cloned into a new body from afar, but there's a limited number of these bodies, and a sneaky guy can sell you a few clone shells... but the problem with that is how do you get all your equipment back? Should you have to do a corpse run with NO abilities/weapons/armor/etc? And what if you were killed in a random encounter with bandits... did you just lose EVERYTHING? I think I might have to ditch logic on the whole death angle and go with the idea I detailed above, unless someone has a great idea.)
Concepts I'm still toying with
Multi-player! But I want a fun, balanced single player experience first. Usually when I play RPGs with friends I rarely get time to read the story or quest text when I care... that's not how I want people to experience this map unless they choose to do so.
Karma system: doing naughty things and nice things, with some content varying based on your karma and decisions.
Skill: Stealth - hero gains Sneak ability, giving you 3 seconds of sneaking on a 30 second cooldown. Points in Stealth would increase duration and decrease cooldown, maxing at 7 seconds of stealth with a 20 second cooldown. Attacking would immediately end Sneak. OR, maybe there could be a Sneaker electronic toy that you can get later in the game, that uses a lot of energy.
All criticism and brainstorming is very much welcome; your opinion may enhance the final product!
I was thinking Level 30, so that you had 30 skill points to spend, but if that's too many then I might drop it to 25. Or, if I add another skill (Sneak, or something else) then 30 might be perfect. I'll find out in testing.
Pop gun: It's a tin can with gunpowder, dirt, sawdust, and easy-to-use string trigger. Setting it off creates a cone of flame that can light enemies on fire and disorient them... but it also leaves an unpleasant tingling sensation where your hand used to be. Don't try this at home, kids!
(Does fire damage and applies a DoT effect to enemies in front of you, but does some damage to you too.)
Bug Bomb: It's a small, carefully sealed box of fire ants. Shake it up, punch a hole in the side, drop and run. Lure enemies to it, then point and laugh.
(Works like a mine, but creates a swarm cloud in the area. Enemies that walk near it cause broodlings to spawn and attack. Powered armor (if applicable) and robot units are immune.)
Mechanical Lockpick: Works like the Fallout ones did, gives you +1 lockpicking for a single lock.
Breath Spray: +1 to speech for a short time. This covers up the fact that toothpaste hasn't existed for hundreds of years, but the illusion of hygiene only lasts a short while. Use it wisely.
High tech toys:
Overload harness: A light vest with powered circuitry that's gone somewhat haywire over the years. You have no idea what it was originally for, but pressing a button on the shoulder pad charges up the exposed wiring. Anyone that hits you while this is active gets a nasty shock, but there's a slight chance it shorts out and jolts you too.
Rocket boots: Yeah, you can fly. These babies make you airborne for a few seconds, letting you leap out of danger or over walls. There's no way you could steady yourself enough to attack while they're engaged though, just focus on pulling off the landing and keeping your pretty face intact.
Mechanical crawly: It's some weird little thing with six legs and a camera. Turn it loose and scout a short distance ahead. Includes self-destruct button to prevent capture. Also does EMP damage on explosion, suitable for taking out scout robots or security monitors.
I'm sure I'll come up with more, but that's what I got off the top of my head. Looking forward to hearing much more about this project!
Ha, yes, I'll definitely have a Nuka Cola reference. Perhaps an ice cold, refreshing bottle of Dr. Nuker? And I won't be using Perks or Traits at all; this is Fallout-inspired, not a direct copy. But, maybe that's something to plan for multiplayer... a Fallout-inspired ORPG would be really, really awesome.
Those are some great ideas... I have to be careful with having too many consumables that are used in combat, because I don't want to force people to fumble through their inventory for stuff while they're in the middle of a firefight. But, having a few optional, random, and fun items used from the inventory wouldn't hurt... and Bug Boxes are random and fun, so they're in! Still, I want to fit as much as possible on the command card.
There are only 15 slots on the command card. I'd have 5 slots taken up with Move, Stop, Hold Position, Attack, and Level-Up. Then I'd have Hypos and Energy Cells, Grenades and Mines, and Sprint. That's five more. The Laser Pointer, Shield Booster, and Shocker would definitely need to be on the command card with easy hotkeys. Plus, a button to access another command card with the rest of the electronic toys, where you'd put longer buffs (Motion Sensor, Overload Harness) that you don't really need to worry about activating/deactivating in the middle of combat.
So, that only leaves one command card slot open at the moment. It makes me wonder if I should take Hold Position off, and set the Hero to not auto-acquire enemies outside of a small range unless they hit him first; probably. It also makes me wonder if I need Sprinting AND Hypos AND Shield Boosting AND a Shocker. That might be too many "Oh crap!" abilities. To make room on the primary command card I should probably ditch either the Shocker or the Shield Booster. Hmmm.
FYI, I definitely want to take your Overload Harness idea, especially for melee characters wading into combat with little gnawing broodlings and such. I was also considering +1 skill items, rare and short lived that sell for a decent amount, so I'm glad you agree. As for the Crawly, I want players to be using the Dopplepopper for scouting, so another is redundant, plus an exploding mechanical spider (while an awesome homage to Arcanum) would be hard to just "recharge" from your energy battery.
But yes, please share anything else that comes to mind; thanks for your assistance!
Why fallout? Borderlands had much more replay value with the 87 bazillion guns it had. Better yet, try and incorporate borderlands weapon system into this!
While I would enjoy trying a Borderlands-inspired RPG map, and could foresee it having great cooperative play, I'm initially focusing on a single player RPG with an interesting story and more variety in combat than the different guns you use. Fallout and Borderlands are very different types of games despite both being firearms-based RPGs, and I'd rather not mix the two in ways that don't enhance the style I'm going for.
To misquote Abraham Lincoln, "You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time."
It'll be a semi-strategy role playing game with base building to some extent, but your base is always managed by an AI.
Think of it like raising a army but you only really control a hero.
There can be a lore to it, like war occurring in a post-apocalyptic planet, and the 3 factions become stuck on it because of the condition of the planet (they are trapped on the planet).
So this means, resources will be scarce the entire time, while at the same time you'll be dealing with 3 factions in SC2, and you'll also find events like mercenaries or supply ships appearing in the game (they got sucked into the planet too).
There can be a main story plot to get to the center of the planet (under a mountain) and solve the mystery of the planet, while at the same time fend off the mutated zerg (being confined on a planet and having no connections to the swarm made them go crazy).
As far as the skills go, Dodge looks rediculously overpowered and essential (avoiding 25-40% of incoming attacks is just silly), while sprint looks to be more of an annoyance than anything.
Either just another button you need to push while running around, or an essential 1 point talent that everyone would have to get since the first point is grossly better spent than subsequent points (if that makes sense, you gain access to a new ability by spending 1 point, whereas subsequent points just add a very small increase in effectiveness).
Lockpick and Computers are also really dull skills. Binary abilities that are just "You either can do this or you can't" always turned me off in games. If this were my project and I really, really wanted to keep skills like this in, I'd have the lockpickable "chest" items become damaged by players with lower skill. Attainable by anyone, but players with higher lockpick skill would recover gear in better condition. "Damaged" could be anything, from poorer stats to a WoW-esque durability loss.
Bartering reminds me of charisma in basically every RPG that's ever existed - a stat almost universally ignored by everyone. I wouldn't really recommend adding that. I mean really, pretend you're playing this yourself, which would you rather have; a 10% boost to your rifle or a 5% increase in how much the junk you pick up vendors for?
I guess you were looking for some harsh critique by posting here. If not, feel free to disregard what I said!
After reading your inventory/interface design the gadgets/consumables make a lot more sense. I was mainly throwing out ideas from a fallout perspective rather than a SC2 interface perspective. That said, if you want to take the shield booster off primary command card, how about changing the functionality from an in-combat boost to something more like a temporary buff or on-the-fly character configuration. Say for example it's a 20-30 second duration buff with a 2 minute cooldown, that adds +2 to the shield armor value, but costs you 30% of your energy regeneration rate (or whatever, arbitrary values). You'd be more suitable to take on high-damage encounters, but less able to continue fighting for extended periods of time, unless you spent energy cells to recharge. You could also make it something like the Immortals' Hardened Shields ability, reducing massive damage to a flat amount until the shield fell or the effect wore off. The latter idea would prevent players from using it to trivialize bigger groups of weaker enemies.
You mentioned the ability to use non-combat skills to deal with certain situations. How would these come into play?
Also, regarding the command card thing. I know you're already looking at a massive undertaking with the entire project and completely understand not wanting to take on anything else... but... If you use your overland map system as demo'd you'd kinda want to remove the minimap to avoid immersion breaking. And if it's all revolving around one hero, the group selection panel in bottom middle would be redundant as well. You could take the idea one step further and trash the command card in favor of a different UI that's more organized with fewer design constraints that would accommodate your system better. That would be a ton of extra work though, probably not worthwhile unless you wanted to make a series of RPG's with the same basic idea set.
Dodge: In hindsight I completely agree. The game would have significantly different difficulty for someone with or without 3-5 points in Dodge. I will have to consider this. Sprint: In the process of re-writing some of that write-up I messed up. Everyone starts with Sprint, but higher levels would make it last longer and cooldown faster. I should re-write that part again. Your use of Sprint as a "press every 5 seconds ability" is up to you. If you never level it up you might want to save it for emergencies instead since waiting on cooldown could be costly. Lockpick/Computers: Then don't pick them? They're meant there as extra loot, extra content inside (one or two random quests), the ability to use doors to access/circumvent OTHER content/combat, etc. They're completely optional. Your opinion is valid, but not for everyone. Barter: That is easily fixed by making the percentages involved more attractive. For example, if maxed Barter makes it so everything you sell goes for 50% more and all prices are 40% off, then only someone with Barter 5 might be able to buy ALL the most expensive toys/equipment with the money available in the game instead of 1 or 2, or some other reason to want it. You didn't ever take it in other games because it was never balanced to make it worth your while. I plan to do something about that.
Thank you for your reply, though. Your criticism is welcome. I might have moved forward with Dodge being the "everyone gets it to 5 points just because it's OP" skill and then had to totally rebalance it (and much of the monsters in the game, possibly) later on.
Please, continue throwing out ideas! I enjoy them. They are delicious.
In combat I expect Energy Cells to be the primary method of regaining energy, not passive regen, so in the end your idea wouldn't quite be as "painful" as you might have suspected. Anyway, taking Shield Booster or Shocker away wasn't as much a command card issue as a too many "oh crap" abilities issues. Having so many ways to survive a sneak attack or sudden bad turn of events starts to get redundant. The Shield Booster is intended as written to be a way to survive spike damage so that a Hypo has time to recover your HP to comfortable levels.
And yeah, I don't think I want to re-write an entire UI system right now... I'm already getting sick of spending 3 hours every other night after work learning how another whole aspect of the map system is going to work. I'm on the verge of almost starting content creation, and that would be a big step back! Though... can you turn off the Group Selection Panel alone? If so, I could put a menu right over where it is, slightly taller than it, for more stuff... that'd be nice.
Oh, and take a peek at the current version of the minimap system. Version 1.1 fixed all that, by changing camera and minimap bounds. It's nicer.
Borderlands is a terrible game with diablo sized imbalances. It's all about luck and not about skill due to randomness. I dont think he is interested in a map based on randomness and excess at all times. Fallout is about scarcity, there arent tons of enemies, but there is definately even less stuff that's friendly to you. I agree with his direction, and the two universes dont really work together.
Lock-picking doesn't have to be binary (ditto computers). Hacking could be an ability to change the energy amount (or life amount, or shield amount) of the computer/lock, so that adept hackers could deplete a computer's energy quickly and lessen their chances of being caught. Or, hacking a computer could be a channeling spell that gives you shared control with the computer (or door), and in the command card for the computer/door would be different sets of abilities which could either be: a) usable a bit like a SysShock2 puzzle game, or have different abilities that require different skill levels as validators. Level 3 can disable a turret in the command card, but cannot give you control...or whatever.
Also, instead of nano-bots, you could have a zealot-like teleportation system that teleports your character when he is really injured, including his equipment. I think people are likely to load/save in a single player, so having an established number of lives is moot, but if you want the teleport suit has special energy cells, and you have access to three, but maybe there are more out there...
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Falling Out: A Post Nukeular Role Playing Game
<sub>(working title: very corny and unfunny)</sub>
A Fallout-inspired, non-linear, single-player RPG that rewards exploration with loot and content. Scarcity makes resource management important, and skill choices will vary gameplay significantly. There will be at least two distinct endings based on choices made, with some smaller decisions having other impacts on the ending. The intended control scheme is standard Starcraft controls.
Story
Our illustrious hero wakes up under the care of The Doc, with acute amnesia (shockingly original, I know!). He remembers bits and pieces: the face of a smiling woman, children playing in a park, and a man in a military uniform. The Doc says he found him in the wastes, unconscious but still hugging a pistol to his chest, sprawled out at the controls of a nuclear powered hovercraft. Luckily for our hero, The Doc is the really friendly sort and brought him back to town with him.
So, with only fragments of memories and the mysterious lettering on the side of his hovercraft, our hero assumes a name and sets out to find out who he was. In the process he may find the origins of the horrible creatures that infect the wastes, who is pulling the strings behind the new resurgence in civilization, where all the best prostitutes are, what instigated the nuclear war that caused the near-total destruction of mankind, and he is so very good at killing things.
Skills
Each skill can be raised from 0 points up to a maximum of 5 points; points 3 and 5 in a skill provide extra benefits. You get a skill point at each character level, and max level is 30. With 11 skills this would allow you to be well-rounded with 3 points in almost every skill, or focus to have multiple maxed-out skills.
You will be able to beat the game without putting a single point into any Combat skills, so you could use Barter and other skills to afford/find more explosives and energy cells, unlock doors and activate sentry guns to avoid/assist some combat, and Speech your way around others. Of course you will also be able to beat the game without getting any non-combat skills and just kill your way through everything.
1 point: 7% melee, 4% ranged; 2 points: 14% melee, 8% ranged; 3 points: 24% melee, 14% ranged; 4 points: 31% melee, 18% ranged; 5 points: 40% melee, 25% ranged.2, 4, 8, 10, 15% melee dodge, 1, 2, 4, 5, 7.5% ranged dodge? Still considering balance...Inventory
Overworld Map
Locale Map
Death
When you "die" a cocktail of nanobots in your bloodstream keeps you intact long enough for The Doc's robot buddy to drag you back to town to get resuscitated. This does some significant damage to your organs, so you can only do this two times before you die permanently, essentially giving you three lives. But... there might be someone out there in the world that, for a large sum, would be able to provide you with a few extra lives.
(I know this is ridiculous because the robot would get destroyed, or you would be eaten whole by creatures, or you'd be stripped naked by looters by the time the bot showed up... but I don't want ONE death to be final. Another idea I had is that there is something fancy about you and you can be cloned into a new body from afar, but there's a limited number of these bodies, and a sneaky guy can sell you a few clone shells... but the problem with that is how do you get all your equipment back? Should you have to do a corpse run with NO abilities/weapons/armor/etc? And what if you were killed in a random encounter with bandits... did you just lose EVERYTHING? I think I might have to ditch logic on the whole death angle and go with the idea I detailed above, unless someone has a great idea.)
Concepts I'm still toying with
All criticism and brainstorming is very much welcome; your opinion may enhance the final product!
I'm looking forward to this. Will the level cap be level 21 like in fallout 1 or 99 like in fallout 2
@marine63: Go
I was thinking Level 30, so that you had 30 skill points to spend, but if that's too many then I might drop it to 25. Or, if I add another skill (Sneak, or something else) then 30 might be perfect. I'll find out in testing.
Consumables:
Pop gun: It's a tin can with gunpowder, dirt, sawdust, and easy-to-use string trigger. Setting it off creates a cone of flame that can light enemies on fire and disorient them... but it also leaves an unpleasant tingling sensation where your hand used to be. Don't try this at home, kids!
(Does fire damage and applies a DoT effect to enemies in front of you, but does some damage to you too.)
Bug Bomb: It's a small, carefully sealed box of fire ants. Shake it up, punch a hole in the side, drop and run. Lure enemies to it, then point and laugh.
(Works like a mine, but creates a swarm cloud in the area. Enemies that walk near it cause broodlings to spawn and attack. Powered armor (if applicable) and robot units are immune.)
Mechanical Lockpick: Works like the Fallout ones did, gives you +1 lockpicking for a single lock.
Breath Spray: +1 to speech for a short time. This covers up the fact that toothpaste hasn't existed for hundreds of years, but the illusion of hygiene only lasts a short while. Use it wisely.
High tech toys:
Overload harness: A light vest with powered circuitry that's gone somewhat haywire over the years. You have no idea what it was originally for, but pressing a button on the shoulder pad charges up the exposed wiring. Anyone that hits you while this is active gets a nasty shock, but there's a slight chance it shorts out and jolts you too.
Rocket boots: Yeah, you can fly. These babies make you airborne for a few seconds, letting you leap out of danger or over walls. There's no way you could steady yourself enough to attack while they're engaged though, just focus on pulling off the landing and keeping your pretty face intact.
Mechanical crawly: It's some weird little thing with six legs and a camera. Turn it loose and scout a short distance ahead. Includes self-destruct button to prevent capture. Also does EMP damage on explosion, suitable for taking out scout robots or security monitors.
I'm sure I'll come up with more, but that's what I got off the top of my head. Looking forward to hearing much more about this project!
nuka cola consumable plox. also will you be able to create your own character? be able to pick traits? how often do you get perks every blank level?
@marine63: Go
Ha, yes, I'll definitely have a Nuka Cola reference. Perhaps an ice cold, refreshing bottle of Dr. Nuker? And I won't be using Perks or Traits at all; this is Fallout-inspired, not a direct copy. But, maybe that's something to plan for multiplayer... a Fallout-inspired ORPG would be really, really awesome.
@Ghrabthaar: Go
Those are some great ideas... I have to be careful with having too many consumables that are used in combat, because I don't want to force people to fumble through their inventory for stuff while they're in the middle of a firefight. But, having a few optional, random, and fun items used from the inventory wouldn't hurt... and Bug Boxes are random and fun, so they're in! Still, I want to fit as much as possible on the command card.
There are only 15 slots on the command card. I'd have 5 slots taken up with Move, Stop, Hold Position, Attack, and Level-Up. Then I'd have Hypos and Energy Cells, Grenades and Mines, and Sprint. That's five more. The Laser Pointer, Shield Booster, and Shocker would definitely need to be on the command card with easy hotkeys. Plus, a button to access another command card with the rest of the electronic toys, where you'd put longer buffs (Motion Sensor, Overload Harness) that you don't really need to worry about activating/deactivating in the middle of combat.
So, that only leaves one command card slot open at the moment. It makes me wonder if I should take Hold Position off, and set the Hero to not auto-acquire enemies outside of a small range unless they hit him first; probably. It also makes me wonder if I need Sprinting AND Hypos AND Shield Boosting AND a Shocker. That might be too many "Oh crap!" abilities. To make room on the primary command card I should probably ditch either the Shocker or the Shield Booster. Hmmm.
FYI, I definitely want to take your Overload Harness idea, especially for melee characters wading into combat with little gnawing broodlings and such. I was also considering +1 skill items, rare and short lived that sell for a decent amount, so I'm glad you agree. As for the Crawly, I want players to be using the Dopplepopper for scouting, so another is redundant, plus an exploding mechanical spider (while an awesome homage to Arcanum) would be hard to just "recharge" from your energy battery.
But yes, please share anything else that comes to mind; thanks for your assistance!
Why fallout? Borderlands had much more replay value with the 87 bazillion guns it had. Better yet, try and incorporate borderlands weapon system into this!
@DarkForce9999: Go
While I would enjoy trying a Borderlands-inspired RPG map, and could foresee it having great cooperative play, I'm initially focusing on a single player RPG with an interesting story and more variety in combat than the different guns you use. Fallout and Borderlands are very different types of games despite both being firearms-based RPGs, and I'd rather not mix the two in ways that don't enhance the style I'm going for.
To misquote Abraham Lincoln, "You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time."
What about a post-apocalyptic SRPG?
It'll be a semi-strategy role playing game with base building to some extent, but your base is always managed by an AI.
Think of it like raising a army but you only really control a hero.
There can be a lore to it, like war occurring in a post-apocalyptic planet, and the 3 factions become stuck on it because of the condition of the planet (they are trapped on the planet).
So this means, resources will be scarce the entire time, while at the same time you'll be dealing with 3 factions in SC2, and you'll also find events like mercenaries or supply ships appearing in the game (they got sucked into the planet too).
There can be a main story plot to get to the center of the planet (under a mountain) and solve the mystery of the planet, while at the same time fend off the mutated zerg (being confined on a planet and having no connections to the swarm made them go crazy).
As far as the skills go, Dodge looks rediculously overpowered and essential (avoiding 25-40% of incoming attacks is just silly), while sprint looks to be more of an annoyance than anything.
Either just another button you need to push while running around, or an essential 1 point talent that everyone would have to get since the first point is grossly better spent than subsequent points (if that makes sense, you gain access to a new ability by spending 1 point, whereas subsequent points just add a very small increase in effectiveness).
Lockpick and Computers are also really dull skills. Binary abilities that are just "You either can do this or you can't" always turned me off in games. If this were my project and I really, really wanted to keep skills like this in, I'd have the lockpickable "chest" items become damaged by players with lower skill. Attainable by anyone, but players with higher lockpick skill would recover gear in better condition. "Damaged" could be anything, from poorer stats to a WoW-esque durability loss.
Bartering reminds me of charisma in basically every RPG that's ever existed - a stat almost universally ignored by everyone. I wouldn't really recommend adding that. I mean really, pretend you're playing this yourself, which would you rather have; a 10% boost to your rifle or a 5% increase in how much the junk you pick up vendors for?
I guess you were looking for some harsh critique by posting here. If not, feel free to disregard what I said!
After reading your inventory/interface design the gadgets/consumables make a lot more sense. I was mainly throwing out ideas from a fallout perspective rather than a SC2 interface perspective. That said, if you want to take the shield booster off primary command card, how about changing the functionality from an in-combat boost to something more like a temporary buff or on-the-fly character configuration. Say for example it's a 20-30 second duration buff with a 2 minute cooldown, that adds +2 to the shield armor value, but costs you 30% of your energy regeneration rate (or whatever, arbitrary values). You'd be more suitable to take on high-damage encounters, but less able to continue fighting for extended periods of time, unless you spent energy cells to recharge. You could also make it something like the Immortals' Hardened Shields ability, reducing massive damage to a flat amount until the shield fell or the effect wore off. The latter idea would prevent players from using it to trivialize bigger groups of weaker enemies.
You mentioned the ability to use non-combat skills to deal with certain situations. How would these come into play?
Also, regarding the command card thing. I know you're already looking at a massive undertaking with the entire project and completely understand not wanting to take on anything else... but... If you use your overland map system as demo'd you'd kinda want to remove the minimap to avoid immersion breaking. And if it's all revolving around one hero, the group selection panel in bottom middle would be redundant as well. You could take the idea one step further and trash the command card in favor of a different UI that's more organized with fewer design constraints that would accommodate your system better. That would be a ton of extra work though, probably not worthwhile unless you wanted to make a series of RPG's with the same basic idea set.
@dra6o0n: Go
That sounds like an interesting idea... that is totally not what I had in mind. Go ahead and make it!
@Eiviyn: Go
Dodge: In hindsight I completely agree. The game would have significantly different difficulty for someone with or without 3-5 points in Dodge. I will have to consider this.
Sprint: In the process of re-writing some of that write-up I messed up. Everyone starts with Sprint, but higher levels would make it last longer and cooldown faster. I should re-write that part again. Your use of Sprint as a "press every 5 seconds ability" is up to you. If you never level it up you might want to save it for emergencies instead since waiting on cooldown could be costly.
Lockpick/Computers: Then don't pick them? They're meant there as extra loot, extra content inside (one or two random quests), the ability to use doors to access/circumvent OTHER content/combat, etc. They're completely optional. Your opinion is valid, but not for everyone.
Barter: That is easily fixed by making the percentages involved more attractive. For example, if maxed Barter makes it so everything you sell goes for 50% more and all prices are 40% off, then only someone with Barter 5 might be able to buy ALL the most expensive toys/equipment with the money available in the game instead of 1 or 2, or some other reason to want it. You didn't ever take it in other games because it was never balanced to make it worth your while. I plan to do something about that.
Thank you for your reply, though. Your criticism is welcome. I might have moved forward with Dodge being the "everyone gets it to 5 points just because it's OP" skill and then had to totally rebalance it (and much of the monsters in the game, possibly) later on.
@Ghrabthaar: Go
Please, continue throwing out ideas! I enjoy them. They are delicious.
In combat I expect Energy Cells to be the primary method of regaining energy, not passive regen, so in the end your idea wouldn't quite be as "painful" as you might have suspected. Anyway, taking Shield Booster or Shocker away wasn't as much a command card issue as a too many "oh crap" abilities issues. Having so many ways to survive a sneak attack or sudden bad turn of events starts to get redundant. The Shield Booster is intended as written to be a way to survive spike damage so that a Hypo has time to recover your HP to comfortable levels.
And yeah, I don't think I want to re-write an entire UI system right now... I'm already getting sick of spending 3 hours every other night after work learning how another whole aspect of the map system is going to work. I'm on the verge of almost starting content creation, and that would be a big step back! Though... can you turn off the Group Selection Panel alone? If so, I could put a menu right over where it is, slightly taller than it, for more stuff... that'd be nice.
Oh, and take a peek at the current version of the minimap system. Version 1.1 fixed all that, by changing camera and minimap bounds. It's nicer.
@DarkForce9999: Go
Borderlands is a terrible game with diablo sized imbalances. It's all about luck and not about skill due to randomness. I dont think he is interested in a map based on randomness and excess at all times. Fallout is about scarcity, there arent tons of enemies, but there is definately even less stuff that's friendly to you. I agree with his direction, and the two universes dont really work together.
You definitely need a stealth boy, son.
So how long until you get to the first "release candidate?"
Lock-picking doesn't have to be binary (ditto computers). Hacking could be an ability to change the energy amount (or life amount, or shield amount) of the computer/lock, so that adept hackers could deplete a computer's energy quickly and lessen their chances of being caught. Or, hacking a computer could be a channeling spell that gives you shared control with the computer (or door), and in the command card for the computer/door would be different sets of abilities which could either be: a) usable a bit like a SysShock2 puzzle game, or have different abilities that require different skill levels as validators. Level 3 can disable a turret in the command card, but cannot give you control...or whatever.
Also, instead of nano-bots, you could have a zealot-like teleportation system that teleports your character when he is really injured, including his equipment. I think people are likely to load/save in a single player, so having an established number of lives is moot, but if you want the teleport suit has special energy cells, and you have access to three, but maybe there are more out there...