I kinda like how STALKER did it, the guns didn't deteriorate that fast by themselves, but getting shot in the gun, dropping it, being in the blast radius of any explosive or otherwise damaging it would break it much faster.
[QUOTE=Thunderbolt;49077512]I kinda like how STALKER did it, the guns didn't deteriorate that fast by themselves, but getting shot in the gun, dropping it, being in the blast radius of any explosive or otherwise damaging it would break it much faster.[/QUOTE]
I never noticed any of that. Is that in the vanilla game?
[QUOTE=chunkymonkey;49077568]I never noticed any of that. Is that in the vanilla game?[/QUOTE]
It's in vanilla Call of Pripyat at least, I first noticed it when I found a gun inside a desk and couldn't reach it so I shot it out, it then had 0% condition :V
Plus it's very easily noticeable when you get into a firefight with good gear, a couple of grenades go off near you and your gun instantly goes into the yellows
[QUOTE=GunFox;49077496]There is no immersion to be gained here. Your enemies will, largely, be wielding perfectly functional weapons. Why? Because they aren't going to enter into combat with a gun that is in such poor condition that it jams every other round.
Guns are not horribly complicated and will often go for well in excess of ten thousand rounds before needing an armorer or replacement parts. The rest of it is basic maintenance.[/QUOTE]
Maybe not, but after all the guns are (generally) pre-war - and basic maintainance probably hasn't occured in many cases.
[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;49077720]Maybe not, but after all the guns are (generally) pre-war - and basic maintainance probably hasn't occured in many cases.[/QUOTE]
If they are being used, someone is maintaining them. Ones that have been sitting in a puddle for 200 years? Sure those are going to be all kinds of ruined.
People in the wastes wouldn't have reached adulthood if they weren't maintaining their armaments.
It feels weird to have guns work perfectly all the time in the post-apocolypse, but the old condition system had guns degrading too fast.
Condition systems are a very strange beast to make work correctly.
I remember Far Cry 2 very well, and I remember I hated that game for it's manner of guns becoming these rusted out hunks of shit after 200 rounds had been fired through them, less so for shotguns or pistols. That broke the games pacing and made gunfights a nightmare. It COULD have worked though.
Then I think of STALKER, literally one of the best games series ever in my opinion, which did it mediocrity by default. Guns broke relatively quickly, and high end weapons broke just as quickly as the lower end weapons, and maintenance on them was a nightmare. We saw with many mods though, adding simple repair systems that there was a way to make it work pretty well. However, it still had problems. The degradation system still made weapons work wonky over too short of a time.
Then look to Fo3/NV, which both made attempts to make it more less of a problem, but both failed and just made me toss guns aside because I knew that "i'm going to break this gun before I really get to a point where I need it and I won't find a replacement in time" or in some situations I felt that all I'm doing is collecting weapons to strip them down to make a perfect condition gun, like I did constantly in NV. That was okay, and that worked okay, but the guns broke too quickly, they degraded in stats so dramatically that it became really problematic in long slogs that both games had you going through.
I think the real issue comes from the duration of degradation.
Guns in real life don't break down that quickly, even glocks which I'm not a fan of from their construction can apparently withstand a few thousand rounds in rapid succession before breaking down(Watched a video of it, the rod eventually melted but that was still 800-1000 rounds rapidly.) so the immersion breaking factor is pretty significant. Somethings we can live without, in terms of realism, like eating or drinking or shitting or sleeping, those things are not really required for our immersion to be okay mostly. But guns? Guns don't break like that and our brains go "What the fuck" about it when it happens so quickly.
In STALKER or NV, repairing a weapon fully, and then going out and having a 200 round combat exchange over 10 minutes bringing a gun down to it's knees all over again, for most of us is just too much of an issue, but if you don't make it significant enough, why bother because that minor inconvenience isn't going to be a challenge, just a "Meh" thing for most users.
The real question I guess, is; Is there a perfect middle ground for duration that both balances challenge, but doesn't constantly stick out or become a negative gameplay issue that isn't just something for the player to surmount, but is just a thorn in their side?
Maybe if a condition system was made so that the player needs to check his gun every so often and clean it up or something, and that slowed down the degradation process almost to a halt, including also something like STALKER were guns are able to take damage, it could work well and not be much of a issue, since you just need to take care of your weapon to make it last.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;49079275]The real question I guess, is; Is there a perfect middle ground for duration that both balances challenge, but doesn't constantly stick out or become a negative gameplay issue that isn't just something for the player to surmount, but is just a thorn in their side?[/QUOTE]
What about a system that works on activity level? If you fire 1000 rounds over 30 minutes, the gun takes little to no real damage, but if you're shooting the gun almost non-stop for extended periods of time, it starts taking damage. This could help stop people being reliant on a single power-weapon, and could help incentivise players to use different types of weapons.
holy shit, a giant flying brotherhood zepplin
The best implementations I've seen of weapon damage/degradation/stoppage systems are in ArmA 2's ACE2 and Jagged Alliance 2 1.13. Not that these are very relevant to Fallout, but it's a feature I'll always welcome so long as it's handled properly.
To start with ACE's, it goes like this. In normal conditions, a gun will have a 0.0004% chance to jam on a given shot (or something minuscule - it'd take too long and too much brainpower for me to work out) with a chance of a "critical" jam several orders of magnitude smaller(ie you can't use this gun no mo). However, as you fire more and more in a short space of time, those chances increase exponentially. If you fire off rounds as fast as you can out of an M16, its accuracy would start degrading around the 1000 mark, and while its chances of a stoppage would increase it'd still be very low - unlikely, but still possible, probably still within one percent. As you take that to around 1500 however, its rate of fire will begin to degrade and the chances of a malfunction will skyrocket. It'll jam, you can clear it, but if you keep firing constantly it will probably do so again within the same mag. Anyway, if at any moment you stop firing, those chances will begin to decrease after a few moments, though slowly. If you were jamming every 5 shots, it'd probably take around 15 minutes if not longer to return entirely to normal. With MGs and ARs, the effect is much more pronounced due to their ability to maintain such a high rate of fire.
JA2 113's implementation is a bit more complex. Your guns have several factors; Condition, Dirt and Heat - all pretty self-explanatory. Condition is the mechanical... condition of the weapon and degrades with every shot fired (to an almost insignificant degree, maybe like 0.01% depending on the weapon), or in relatively large chunks if it takes explosive damage; Heat is generated by firing and will accumulate quite quickly if you're firing bursts every turn; Dirt is accumulated on shots fired, to varying degrees depending on the environment.
Heat is the main one you have to worry about in a battle, and is relatively easy to manage. Dirt can be cleaned by anyone with a cleaning kit and is only significant if you've gone through 5 battles without cleaning (IIRC dirt increases the rate of condition degradation, or maybe the other way round), but if a gun is significantly damaged it takes a technician to restore it, to what condition depends on their skill. All affect the accuracy and chance to jam to varying degrees.
Both serve their purpose very well IMO. I've had a jam on the first shot in a firefight in ArmA then gone several missions without a single one, while in some situations especially when playing as AR it can be unavoidable - it's there, but it's not something you always have to account for in most instances, and 99% of the time it won't make an impact - even if your gun does jam you have 20 other guys covering you while you deal with it (which takes just about as long as reloading). Nasty if it happens in close quarters though.
In JA2, it again adds depth to resource management & economy as well as promoting use of a balanced team of mercs. If you take what little time it takes to have a technician repair everyone's gear, it'll essentially be a non-factor, but if you're skimping on it or even just collecting enemy weapons and using them then and there, you're going to spend a lot of turns hearing click instead of bang. If that sounds like a bore, JA2 probably isn't the game for you anyway since 1.13 adds modular vests and disease and food/water and shit like that - though most of these you're able to disable.
Not to say that you can't pick up a weapon dropped by an enemy and use it, but in that moment you almost have to expect it to jam. If you intend to use it in the long term, all it takes is an investment of time and a portion of a toolkit provided you have the requisite character. It makes you commit to using a given weapon to a larger degree than if there were no such system - especially if you go through the game without using Bobby Ray's.
Where Fallout's concerned, the best implementation would be somewhere between the two, scaled down to fit the pace of its gameplay. Fire 500 rounds as fast as you can? You're probably going to jam near the end of that, but it's not going to ruin your gun forever. Use the same gun throughout the whole game without maintenance? It'll probably jam every five shots by the end. If you keep a gun well-maintained and don't go ham at every opportunity? You'll probably never suffer a stoppage.
All that said I can live without it ofc
Imagine coming to a game's thread for the sole purpose of shitting on that game
like really do you have nothing better to do
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;49079275]Condition systems are a very strange beast to make work correctly.
I remember Far Cry 2 very well, and I remember I hated that game for it's manner of guns becoming these rusted out hunks of shit after 200 rounds had been fired through them, less so for shotguns or pistols. That broke the games pacing and made gunfights a nightmare. It COULD have worked though.
Then I think of STALKER, literally one of the best games series ever in my opinion, which did it mediocrity by default. Guns broke relatively quickly, and high end weapons broke just as quickly as the lower end weapons, and maintenance on them was a nightmare. We saw with many mods though, adding simple repair systems that there was a way to make it work pretty well. However, it still had problems. The degradation system still made weapons work wonky over too short of a time.
Then look to Fo3/NV, which both made attempts to make it more less of a problem, but both failed and just made me toss guns aside because I knew that "i'm going to break this gun before I really get to a point where I need it and I won't find a replacement in time" or in some situations I felt that all I'm doing is collecting weapons to strip them down to make a perfect condition gun, like I did constantly in NV. That was okay, and that worked okay, but the guns broke too quickly, they degraded in stats so dramatically that it became really problematic in long slogs that both games had you going through.
I think the real issue comes from the duration of degradation.
Guns in real life don't break down that quickly, even glocks which I'm not a fan of from their construction can apparently withstand a few thousand rounds in rapid succession before breaking down(Watched a video of it, the rod eventually melted but that was still 800-1000 rounds rapidly.) so the immersion breaking factor is pretty significant. Somethings we can live without, in terms of realism, like eating or drinking or shitting or sleeping, those things are not really required for our immersion to be okay mostly. But guns? Guns don't break like that and our brains go "What the fuck" about it when it happens so quickly.
In STALKER or NV, repairing a weapon fully, and then going out and having a 200 round combat exchange over 10 minutes bringing a gun down to it's knees all over again, for most of us is just too much of an issue, but if you don't make it significant enough, why bother because that minor inconvenience isn't going to be a challenge, just a "Meh" thing for most users.
The real question I guess, is; Is there a perfect middle ground for duration that both balances challenge, but doesn't constantly stick out or become a negative gameplay issue that isn't just something for the player to surmount, but is just a thorn in their side?[/QUOTE]
The issue with this is that there's no maintence on a weapon. Using any ammo you pick up off the ground, especially in games like Fallout will degrade the gun more quickly because there's always that off chance of finding weird cartridges.
I hated the duration on them, those should've been lengthened but I would've also loved to see a maintenance minigame you could every so often where you actually clean the gun out and everything.
Funfact, you can't actually fire a weapon for 200 rounds without residue and other fragments from getting into the gun.
[QUOTE=Swilly;49081839]The issue with this is that there's no maintence on a weapon. Using any ammo you pick up off the ground, especially in games like Fallout will degrade the gun more quickly because there's always that off chance of finding weird cartridges.
I hated the duration on them, those should've been lengthened but I would've also loved to see a maintenance minigame you could every so often where you actually clean the gun out and everything.
Funfact, you can't actually fire a weapon for 200 rounds without residue and other fragments from getting into the gun.[/QUOTE]
I don't think it really matters though. You could theoretically get by with cleaning a gun every 10,000 rounds through it and it'd still be fine. You're not going to be completely breaking a gun down every single time you shoot it unless you just feel the need to, and basic cleaning isn't that hard.
[QUOTE=Swilly;49081839]The issue with this is that there's no maintence on a weapon. Using any ammo you pick up off the ground, especially in games like Fallout will degrade the gun more quickly because there's always that off chance of finding weird cartridges.
Funfact, you can't actually fire a weapon for 200 rounds without residue and other fragments from getting into the gun.[/QUOTE]
You mean like bad loads? Maybe some rounds could foul the internals quicker, but I don't think it would really contribute significantly.
As soon as you fire a single round, residue is introduced into the gun, it's not just a 200+ round thing. There are gun reviewers on YT that have put 1,000+ rounds in AKs and some AR15s without cleaning them, and no problems whatsoever.
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