Extensive Gameplay and Combat Rebalance
A comprehensive overhaul/rebalancing mod that changes the way the game is played, and rebalances combat for more challenge and tactical approaches.
PREMISE:
The selection of overhaul mods for Fallout 4 was always a bit lacking, for me. You have the all-encompassing, groundbreaking mods like Horizon, which fundamentally change the game (and are mostly out of balance with many other mods out there), on the one end of the spectrum, and you have selective small-scale rebalances of weapons or perks, on the other. I was missing something… in between, shall we say. Something that would address some of the glaring issues with the vanilla game, but something that won’t completely change the way the game is played, something that will play nicely with most other mods, without the need for extensive patching of said mods. So I decided to make my own mod, that tries to accomplish that.
OVERVIEW OF CHANGES:
Perks have been entirely redone. All VATS-specific perks have been removed/replaced with perks that affect gameplay as a whole. VATS has been nerfed massively. It’s still a part of the game, and you can use it, but you cannot empower it in any way, and all weapon AP cost in it has been doubled, or in the case of some weapons, tripled. VATS damage is now 1x, instead of 0.1x. No more easy-way-outs of fights, no more chaining a bazillion crit shots. Nope. Now, fights are actually dangerous.
Overpowered and useless perks have been removed/replaced with something else (Pain Train, Nerd Rage, and Mysterious Stranger). None of them have a place in this mod. Sorry.
A lot more perk ranks! And I mean, a LOT MORE! Vanilla F4 has perks that can be relatively quickly maxed out, by the time you hit level 50, turning you into a super-god. My mod adds way more levels to almost all perks. For example, all weapon-related perks (Gunslinger, Big Leagues, etc.), now have 8 ranks, instead of 5. Many other perks have at least 6 ranks. You will not be able to become an expert at everything, unless you reach at least level 150 or higher. Perk selection and specialising is now very important, especially early game where every point makes a huge difference, especially in light of brutal combat-scaling (see below). Characters who spread themselves out too thin will be at a massive disadvantage.
Hardcore combat balace! All weapons do a LOT more base damage, and NPC damage bonuses have been buffed, as they become stronger. You start out as a total weakling, stepping out of Vault 111. A starting Raider has roughly the same health as you, and does roughly the same amount of damage. No more 1 shot kill on weak cannon fodder, even these basic NPCs can now hand you your ass if you take them lightly. By the time you hit lvl 15-18, you had better invested into some defensive and offensive perks, or you won’t have a chance against leveled enemies corresponding to that level. Leveled lists of NPCs have been rebalanced, you’ll start seeing higher-powered enemies sooner then in vanilla game. They will be doing a lot more damage, and even have partial armor-piercing capability (regardless of weapon used). Pick your perks well! Your life depends on it. Spreading out will get you killed.
You can now score Critical Hits outside of VATS, with 1% base chance per point of Luck. Many perks enhance this.
Very very deadly “boss” enemies. Gunner bosses, Nuka World raider bosses, High level Power Armored NPCs are now very hard to take down, and slowly regenerate. Coursers have a 50% chance to evade (negate) any damage you do to them, move 20% faster, their limbs can NOT be crippled, deal 300% base weapon damage, use Automatic weapons, and your Critical Chance on them is halved. They are immune to staggers, and they regenerate relatively rapidly. A 1 on 1 fight with a Courser is virtual suicide, unless you’re very, very good (and appropriately perked, armed, and leveled). A few dozen Stimpaks wouldn’t hurt, either! Vertibirds are flying tanks, they take a LOT of focused fire to take down. Vertibird miniguns do 50% more damage per bullet then hand held ones. Take cover or die!
Courser Jackets (now renamed to Courser Polymesh Duster), now function as stealth-suits, granting a Stealth Field similar to Stealth Boys, while sneaking (think Chinese Stealth Suit from F3). They are very expensive, sell for a pretty penny, and are very useful for a sneaky-assassin-y character build.
Synths now wear full armour sets, from the base Synths to Synth Eradicators, do more damage, and have an innate damage reduction bonus. Also they’re Gen2’s, not the shitty Gen 1’s. Crappy Institute Lasers are completely redone. They’re now Disruptors, fire pulses similar to plasma guns, do more damage and have a higher rate of fire then Laser weapons, while still using the same ammo. They are an all-around superior weapon to lasers (except that you need to lead your shots, like Plasma guns, so sniping with them is tricky). Still weaker then Plasma, though, falling neatly in between. Now, the Institute and it’s tech really are a force to be reckoned with.
Endurance has a MASSIVE effect on how much health you start with, and how much you gain per level. Your Base health is 40% lower, your End bonus is over 2 times higher. For low-Endurance characters, living in Power Armor is a survival skill. There are perks that add additional health, but they don’t replace putting points into Endurance. Not long-term.
Strength now affects both Melee and Unarmed damage (vanilla only Melee). And also has a MASSIVE effect on it, adding 25% base weapon damage per point in Strength (up from 10% in Vanilla). A low-Strength character using melee or unarmed weapons will do barely any damage with them. A strongman wielding the same, will be a force of nature, with proper perk investment and defenses.
Beware of melee Supermutants! Their Strength stat is through the roof, and they can really mess you up if they hit you! Supermutant Suiciders redone, they are now Supermutant Berserkers, wield Super Sledges, and have a 25% movement speed bonus as they rush you! Take them down quickly, or die!
Turrets are NASTY! They do a lot of damage, have a lot of health and armour, and can mess you up if you don’t play it smart with taking them down. Same with military robots like Assaultrons and especially Sentry Bots.
New Receivers for certain weapons, expanding their utility to using different ammo types. 5mm ammo is no longer an exclusive Minigun ammo, for example. 10mm pistols can be fitted with .45 and .32 receivers (.38 ammo renamed to .32 ammo). Combat rifles (now Assault Carbines) now use 5.56mm ammo as standard (no more .45 cal nonsense), Machine Guns (renamed from Assault Rifles) now use .308 as standard. A lot more 5.56mm and 5mm ammo to buy from vendors at low levels. More .308 ammo at mid-high levels.
NO MORE ENERGY DAMAGE. Yes, you read right. Now, all Laser and Plasma weapons do base damage, like guns. This is because Energy damage type isn’t a “primary” damage type, and doesn’t scale with certain bonuses.
Machine Gun is now a Heavy type weapon (like Minigun and Gatling Laser), relying on Heavy Gunner perk for damage increase, instead of Rifles or Automatics. Now Heavy weapon users have an option to use a single shot weapon, and to snipe with it (with the right upgrades), if they want to.
Miniguns and Gatling Lasers no longer need to spool-up to fire! Damage MASSIVELY boosted on both.
No more mismatches patchwork armour for Gunners! They are an organised military faction, and they are equipped accordingly. All Gunners wear a full set of armour, a mix of Metal and Combat parts, plus a metal helmet. They are well protected, do quite a bit of damage, and don’t die easily.
Better armour for Minutemen, as well as expanded weapon leveled lists and more health and damage bonuses. They’re no longer pushovers in a fight!
All DLC weapons and ammo now integrated into main game NPC leveled lists and vendors! You’ll be seeing Chinese Assault Rifles (renamed from Handmade Gun) and Lever Guns in the hands of Commonwealth factions. Also expect to see DLC1 electro-rifles in the hands of Institute synths, at times.
Increased Raider and Feral Ghoul spawns in certain interior locations.
Settlers are now mortal, they can die in settlement attacks (except named quest-giving ones). They are leveled, have Raider weapon leveled list, and better outfits. They can hold their own in small-scale fights, most of the time. Base settlement-size-limit increased from 10+Charisma to 20+Charisma.
Buffing Charisma is no longer the only way to persuade someone. The top ranked Strength perk (Ripped), adds a persuasion (or intimidation, if you will) bonus, to all Speech checks, that stacks with any Charisma bonus you have. It stands to reason people would look at your huge muscles and feel a bit hesitant to give you any crap. Same with the Lucky Charm perk, in the Luck tree. Now even a low-Charisma character can be pretty persuasive, with the right perk investment. They won’t stack up enough to replace raw high Charisma bonus, but they will help low-Ch characters.
And much, much more!
FULL NEW PERK LIST (perk descriptions in-game):
STRENGTH:
1) Strong Back
2) Steady Aim
3) Scrapper
4) Stand Your Ground
5) Iron Fist
6) Heavy Gunner
7) Big Leagues
8) Basher
9) High Flying
0) Ripped (Your body is corded in hard musculature. You gain +100 health. Your are also naturally intimidating to most people, giving you a flat 12% bonus to
any speech checks. Additive to base Charisma chance and any other bonuses.)
PERCEPTION:
1) Pickpocket
2) Rifleman
3) Precognition
4) Locksmith
5) Demolition Expert
6) Assassin
7) Awareness
8) Night Person
9) Opportunistic Stabber (Timing is everything! You have a talent for stabbing people where it hurts the most. With this Perk, you do 6% more damage, and have 2% higher Critical Chance, with any one handed, bladed melee weapon.)
0) Sharpshooter
ENDURANCE:
1) Chem Resistant
2) Lead Belly
3) Cannibal
4) Toughness
5) Aquaboy/Aquagirl
6) Rad Resistant
7) Shell Shocked
8) Solar Powered
9) Ghoulish
0) Resilient (Because your body has been injured so many times, and healed back tougher each time, you take 5% less damage from all sources, while NOT
wearing Power Armor.)
CHARISMA:
1) Cap Collector
2) Party Boy/Girl
3) Lone Wanderer
4) Local Leader
5) Charming Racist (You despise mutated demihuman denizens of the Wastes. And your outgoing personality makes your distaste felt. You deal 5% more damage to Supermutants and Ghouls (normal and Feral).
6) Animal Friend
7) Gigolo/Black Widow
8) Inspirational
9) Wasteland Whisperer
0) Psychological Warfare
INTELLIGENCE:
1) Blacksmith
2) Armorer
3) Gun Nut
4) Hacker
5) Medic
6) Science
7) Microfiber Musculature
8) Energy Specialist (You specialise in power curve analysis of prefire chambers in energy weapons, being able to optimise them for higher discharge output then normal. You deal 10% more damage with Laser, Plasma and Disruptor weapons. )
9) Nuclear Physicist
0) Exoframe Optimizer (Your have expert knowledge of exoframe design, like Power Armors. You can add more external plating by means of clever weight distribution of it, enhancing any Power Armor beyond it’s spec. You take 5% less damage from all sources, while in Power Armor.)
AGILITY:
1) Gunslinger
2) Commando
3) Action Boy/Action Girl
4) Mister Sandman
5) Sneak
6) Moving Target (They can’t hurt what they can’t hit! Get +150 Damage/Energy Resistance while sprinting, and wear no armor of any kind (underarmor and clothing not classified as armor isn’t affected). Also, your overall movement is 7% faster.)
7) Ninja
8) Quick Hands
9) Pistolero (You handle one-handed semi auto weapons as if you were born with them in hand! You gain a 5% damage bonus with any Pistol type weapon, as well as bypassing 6% of the target’s Damage Resistance.)
0) Evasive Blitz (A timely twitch to the left, a semisecond twist to the right… Your bodily coordination and honed reflexes allow you to literally dodge bullets! You gain a 5% chance to dodge incoming damage of any type. Since you need to stay light on your feet, any Armor worn will negate the effect of this Perk.)
LUCK:
1) Fortune Finder
2) Scrounger
3) Idiot Savant
4) Lucky Charm (What is it about you? You’re not particularly good with words, but people seem to like you anyway. You have a flat 6% higher chance to pass any Speech check. This is additive with Charisma bonuses and any other associated perks.)
5) Lucky Damage (Karma favors you in combat! For whatever reason, you do +3 points of damage. This is a flat value, regardless of weapon used, so most useful on low damage weapons.)
6) Better Criticals
7) More Criticals
8) Death Defying (Do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do ya? You should… for some reason, you tend to shrug off injury better then the average loser! You take 2% less damage from all sources. This is cumulative with either Resilient or Exoframe Optimizer perks.)
9) Handloader (Revolvers, bolt/lever actions, DB shotguns… say what you will, but they can take a hefty powder load and not blow up! You use handloaded ammo with them, so you do 20% extra damage, and +1% Critical chance.)
0) Ricochet
DISCLAIMER:
This is a beta. I like to think I’ve ironed out all of the bugs, but I haven’t really had time to extensively test all the aspects of the mod. Any bugs reported will be welcome, and will be addressed!
INSTALLATION/COMPATIBILITY:
Just drop the ESP into the Data folder, or use the manager. Simple. Make sure the ESP is as close to the end of your load order as possible, so it can work it’s magic on as many mod NPC templates as possible (assuming the modders use an existing template for their NPCs, some mods don’t).
Should be fully compatible with most mods out there, except (obviously) those that change the perks, weapons or NPC stats. Is mostly compatible with content mods (will be releasing weapons/armor/NPC rebalance patches for Fusion City Rising , Outcasts and Remnants , Project Valkyrie , and Depravity , more in due time).
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