You forgot about a few of the perks from the Tech Demo, such as Feral Child, which made your melee weapons and throwing skills have a +10% overall bonus and that they’d get a 20% increase to movement speed while traveling on the world map, possibly making speed runs a lot easier while also giving the player a -1 decrease in how many companions they could have at a time.
One of the things I've noticed is the OG Fallout team definitely have "DM Mindsets" when it came to how NPCs functioned: aka the NPCs follow similar rules to the PC, meaning those "Break The Rules" perks are justification as to WHY they can break said rules
4:40 Perhaps the devs wanted to ensure Otto would still be able to repair things even if the player had stolen the toolkit from his inventory? Since canonically Otto's tools were supposed to be in his body, thus impossible to steal.
Thanks, Loki! I definitely appreciate every one of my viewers. Though I'll admit, it still feels so strange knowing that hundreds of people are listening to me chatter away about video games!
"makes it impossible for the player to deliberately pick a fight with collerige" well dammit if that was true and i CAN'T attack him despite him being right in front of me i would probably stop playing after wanting to kill him and then but finding out i can't
Thanks, Alessandro! I don't usually dwell so much on a cancelled game, but Van Buren was odd in that there was just so much information released about it after cancellation. I find it fascinating to look at all the things they had planned, and how it ended up influencing the later games in the series.
Banzai or Bonsai? If I remember correctly only one Ghoul companion had that unique perk. In Fallout Tactics there was perk Bonsai - fruit can appear in inventory. You know, growing tree on Ghoul's body, like Harold from F2, but that tree can bare the fruit.
Banzai was a perk only mentioned in the description for a single NPC in the Reservation document, but it's possible it was one planned for player use. It's hard to say for certain. As for Bonsai, I think that's just more indicative of the FOT writers being unfamiliar with the actual Fallout lore. Harold wasn't a ghoul, he was a unique FEV mutant that just looked visually similar to a ghoul. That was going to be a major plot point in Van Buren, which basically ignored about 90% of the material from FOT.
It's a tough mechanic to pull off in general in a game. Especially without making clear every aspect of the mechanics going on during checks. Usually in a player's perspective, either a disguise works perfectly, in which case it's gamebreakingly powerful or nearly so since it allows instant circumvention of security checks, or it doesn't seem to work at all and the player can never figure out what they're doing wrong. The trick is really giving the player enough information that they have a good grasp of what they need to do to make a functional disguise, then make the disguise checks clear to the player somehow (in Fallout, maybe automatic dialogues with NPC guards that figure out some way to "inspect" you), then have other skills come in to make the disguise check succeed, such as knowledge skills or speech skills to push you over the edge and pass the check. This way the player is let know - in a natural way - that their disguise is working. Then, to make sure disguises aren't gamebreaking, they either need to only be able to get a character through either limited sections of the game, or limited layers of security in general. Enough that they can make the difference and matter, but not so much they trivialize other skills or abilities. And that's a tough nut to crack, as with most balance issues. In Metal Gear Solid 2 for example, you get a disguise pretty far into the game, and it's functionally perfect, trivializing the stealth for the section of the game you get it in, but by then other aspects (including a bit of puzzle solving) are the game's focus, and not too long after, the disguise is invalidated and never becomes usable for the rest of the game. It lets you use an overpowered disguise for a very limited amount of time, which is one way to make it not trivial, but not OP. Hitman games focus a lot on disguise, but they focus on making lots of different layers of security with each disguise acting as a key to a specific layer, AND making it so that you have to keep your distance from people in that security layer who might recognize that you're NOT Bob the new hire while folks in other layers wouldn't know enough to ever check. So it still maintains an element of stealth gameplay (distance affecting visual confirmation) even with an active disguise. In theory, the one good thing about disguises in a game like Fallout, especially in the older style of top down games, is that you'd at least get a good chance to use disguises more than once. The problem is that they don't really fit well into the established skill set. Is it more of a Charisma/Speech Skill, or more of a Sneak/Agility skill? In Van Buren it probably would have been fine, since they split speech into Persuasion and Deception, and the Deception skill sounds perfect for disguise checks, but in normal Fallout games, that's not the case so you end up with imperfect systems like seen in New Vegas.
@@MidlifeCrisisJoe That's a very well approached evaluation of it. So, it makes the disguise system in Outer Worlds decent since it's for limited time periods and you can't move too quickly without it glitching out a bit. Even has speech checks if it does fail that can help extend the time you are able to don it.
Sadly, I think Avellone and Sawyer are probably the only ones who have full versions of it these days. There was a wiki for a little while, but it was hard to separate original material from material written by fans.
@@RetconRaider damn, that’s unfortunate. i’m writing my own fallout ttrpg ruleset and i was trying to grab some ideas from them. thanks for replying though, i love these van buren videos they’re so well done!
@@Sam-tj4ci Well, here's some fragments you can poke through if you're looking for inspiration. The Vault's done a pretty good job of keeping track of it. Chris Avellone's original in-house Van Buren RPG: fallout-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Van_Buren_PnP J.E. Sawyer's unfinished Fallout/Van Buren RPG: fallout-archive.fandom.com/wiki/J.E._Sawyer%27s_Fallout_Role-Playing_Game
@@RetconRaider thank you for this! very neat stuff. not sure if you’re interested, but i can send over my game system when finished if you’d like to give some feedback on it. i trust your critique as turn based rpg’s seem to be your fancy
I bet the implants in Van Buren inspired the implants in New Vegas too. I didn't know New Vegas' approach the perks originated in Van Buren. I knew of Coleridge but forgot his name. I didn't know of any of the unique NPC perks. I didn't know they were adding the fatigue element to combat either. I forgot of Sting like a bee and didn't know about the Hangdog fighting style in the quest perks. I didn't know of any of the forum perks except body snatcher, eye on the prize and suicide king. I didn't know of any of the perks from the RPG
The NEMEAN Subdermal Armor *is* literally one of implants you can buy in FO: NV. The Phoenix implant reminds me of the perk reward (Ant Might/Ant Sight) in F3 when you kill the fire ants.
@@SimoExMachina2 I found it weird how there were Fire Ants outside Vault 11 in New Vegas when in 2281 they would only exist in the Capital Wasteland. At least with Radscorpions and Deathclaws on the East Coast makes sense when they had 200 years to migrate across the continent.
"Bonus HtH Attacks All hand-to-hand attacks cost one less action point to perform." there were always flat boost perks. Are you forgetting about the ones like local leader or intimidation?
You forgot about a few of the perks from the Tech Demo, such as Feral Child, which made your melee weapons and throwing skills have a +10% overall bonus and that they’d get a 20% increase to movement speed while traveling on the world map, possibly making speed runs a lot easier while also giving the player a -1 decrease in how many companions they could have at a time.
One of the things I've noticed is the OG Fallout team definitely have "DM Mindsets" when it came to how NPCs functioned: aka the NPCs follow similar rules to the PC, meaning those "Break The Rules" perks are justification as to WHY they can break said rules
4:40 Perhaps the devs wanted to ensure Otto would still be able to repair things even if the player had stolen the toolkit from his inventory? Since canonically Otto's tools were supposed to be in his body, thus impossible to steal.
Could just make the item invisible to the player
I swear you deserve more subscribers
Thanks, Pokeshorts!
Great Job! We're a small group, but we're diehard fans!
Thanks, Loki! I definitely appreciate every one of my viewers.
Though I'll admit, it still feels so strange knowing that hundreds of people are listening to me chatter away about video games!
"makes it impossible for the player to deliberately pick a fight with collerige" well dammit if that was true and i CAN'T attack him despite him being right in front of me i would probably stop playing after wanting to kill him and then but finding out i can't
Sixteen minutes worth of information
Sweet, sweet, information....
Living toolset=Raul
As usual, nice video Retcon, very interesting information, even for a canceled game.
Thanks, Alessandro!
I don't usually dwell so much on a cancelled game, but Van Buren was odd in that there was just so much information released about it after cancellation. I find it fascinating to look at all the things they had planned, and how it ended up influencing the later games in the series.
Banzai or Bonsai?
If I remember correctly only one Ghoul companion had that unique perk.
In Fallout Tactics there was perk Bonsai - fruit can appear in inventory.
You know, growing tree on Ghoul's body, like Harold from F2, but that tree can bare the fruit.
Banzai was a perk only mentioned in the description for a single NPC in the Reservation document, but it's possible it was one planned for player use. It's hard to say for certain.
As for Bonsai, I think that's just more indicative of the FOT writers being unfamiliar with the actual Fallout lore. Harold wasn't a ghoul, he was a unique FEV mutant that just looked visually similar to a ghoul.
That was going to be a major plot point in Van Buren, which basically ignored about 90% of the material from FOT.
@@RetconRaider I see. Thanks.
Shame that the disguise system in New Vegas was garbage.
It's a tough mechanic to pull off in general in a game. Especially without making clear every aspect of the mechanics going on during checks. Usually in a player's perspective, either a disguise works perfectly, in which case it's gamebreakingly powerful or nearly so since it allows instant circumvention of security checks, or it doesn't seem to work at all and the player can never figure out what they're doing wrong.
The trick is really giving the player enough information that they have a good grasp of what they need to do to make a functional disguise, then make the disguise checks clear to the player somehow (in Fallout, maybe automatic dialogues with NPC guards that figure out some way to "inspect" you), then have other skills come in to make the disguise check succeed, such as knowledge skills or speech skills to push you over the edge and pass the check. This way the player is let know - in a natural way - that their disguise is working.
Then, to make sure disguises aren't gamebreaking, they either need to only be able to get a character through either limited sections of the game, or limited layers of security in general. Enough that they can make the difference and matter, but not so much they trivialize other skills or abilities. And that's a tough nut to crack, as with most balance issues.
In Metal Gear Solid 2 for example, you get a disguise pretty far into the game, and it's functionally perfect, trivializing the stealth for the section of the game you get it in, but by then other aspects (including a bit of puzzle solving) are the game's focus, and not too long after, the disguise is invalidated and never becomes usable for the rest of the game. It lets you use an overpowered disguise for a very limited amount of time, which is one way to make it not trivial, but not OP. Hitman games focus a lot on disguise, but they focus on making lots of different layers of security with each disguise acting as a key to a specific layer, AND making it so that you have to keep your distance from people in that security layer who might recognize that you're NOT Bob the new hire while folks in other layers wouldn't know enough to ever check. So it still maintains an element of stealth gameplay (distance affecting visual confirmation) even with an active disguise.
In theory, the one good thing about disguises in a game like Fallout, especially in the older style of top down games, is that you'd at least get a good chance to use disguises more than once. The problem is that they don't really fit well into the established skill set. Is it more of a Charisma/Speech Skill, or more of a Sneak/Agility skill? In Van Buren it probably would have been fine, since they split speech into Persuasion and Deception, and the Deception skill sounds perfect for disguise checks, but in normal Fallout games, that's not the case so you end up with imperfect systems like seen in New Vegas.
@@MidlifeCrisisJoe That's a very well approached evaluation of it.
So, it makes the disguise system in Outer Worlds decent since it's for limited time periods and you can't move too quickly without it glitching out a bit. Even has speech checks if it does fail that can help extend the time you are able to don it.
Yeah it was so garbage that it worked. Can you imagine?
@@steelbear2063 I see you never played New Vegas.
@@averagejoe455
Played it extensively with F3 modded into it as well. It's a simple system, but it works. Nobody's complaining about it in Hitman
Some very good content you have i hope you keep makeing videos
Thanks!
does anyone have a link or know where to find the black isle ttrpg referenced in this video?
Sadly, I think Avellone and Sawyer are probably the only ones who have full versions of it these days. There was a wiki for a little while, but it was hard to separate original material from material written by fans.
@@RetconRaider damn, that’s unfortunate. i’m writing my own fallout ttrpg ruleset and i was trying to grab some ideas from them. thanks for replying though, i love these van buren videos they’re so well done!
@@Sam-tj4ci Well, here's some fragments you can poke through if you're looking for inspiration. The Vault's done a pretty good job of keeping track of it.
Chris Avellone's original in-house Van Buren RPG:
fallout-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Van_Buren_PnP
J.E. Sawyer's unfinished Fallout/Van Buren RPG:
fallout-archive.fandom.com/wiki/J.E._Sawyer%27s_Fallout_Role-Playing_Game
@@RetconRaider thank you for this! very neat stuff. not sure if you’re interested, but i can send over my game system when finished if you’d like to give some feedback on it. i trust your critique as turn based rpg’s seem to be your fancy
Triage is pronounced differently as well.
True. I suppose it's just not a word I tend to use very often.
I bet the implants in Van Buren inspired the implants in New Vegas too.
I didn't know New Vegas' approach the perks originated in Van Buren. I knew of Coleridge but forgot his name. I didn't know of any of the unique NPC perks. I didn't know they were adding the fatigue element to combat either. I forgot of Sting like a bee and didn't know about the Hangdog fighting style in the quest perks. I didn't know of any of the forum perks except body snatcher, eye on the prize and suicide king. I didn't know of any of the perks from the RPG
The NEMEAN Subdermal Armor *is* literally one of implants you can buy in FO: NV. The Phoenix implant reminds me of the perk reward (Ant Might/Ant Sight) in F3 when you kill the fire ants.
@@SimoExMachina2 I found it weird how there were Fire Ants outside Vault 11 in New Vegas when in 2281 they would only exist in the Capital Wasteland. At least with Radscorpions and Deathclaws on the East Coast makes sense when they had 200 years to migrate across the continent.
@@Canada1994 I'm guessing Dr Lesko has been busy. ;-)
@@SimoExMachina2 those implants already existed on fo2
The fallout 1 vault boy get ready image on the pistol holster it has white pixels
Trinston was here......
Much more creative than fallout 3s asnd 4s 5 points to barter or 20% to rifle damage
"Bonus HtH Attacks All hand-to-hand attacks cost one less action point to perform."
there were always flat boost perks. Are you forgetting about the ones like local leader or intimidation?
@@moogobIin B-but muh Bethesda bad!!!!!!
Imagine thinking perks ripped almost exclusively from GURPS are original and creative