Power Armour dominating late game

[Woolfe]

There is a smple solution for this.

Power armour requires power at all times. So if you walk X km in it, then expect it run out of juice eventually.

Would mean that for everything except the hardest fights or fights in which power cells/batteries are dropped regularly, you wouldn't want to be wearing your power armour. In whcih case you are carrying it. Add the weight and bulk concept inventory system and you have effective reduced power armour use down to those times were you know you need to use it.

[krellen]

This is not a problem that needs to be solved. There is nothing inherently wrong with power armour, or with players acquiring power armour.

[Woolfe]

This is not a problem that needs to be solved. There is nothing inherently wrong with power armour, or with players acquiring power armour.

Depends on the "bad guy"

In the original you had the Robots etc that were being produced. Presumably there was a whole process behind that production that included acquisition of goods, that allowed it to create alloys and components to produce energy power cells for the robots.

Once that process is removed by you destroying the base, presumably the power cells etc dry up, so you are no longer facing bad guys who are quite as powerful. Thus, it would become over powering.

Plus

I always liked the concept of power armour needing constant power, and without it, the suit becomes more cumbersome. Through a combination of weight, and joints that require power to work efficiently.

The idea of being in the middle of a fight when your power armour runs out of juice, appeals greatly to me. Suddenly you go from being this super warrior to a much slower restricted... target Of course I have been accused of being mildly perverse at times

[krellen]

Wasteland 2's bad guy will be the Guardians. Power Armour will still be relevant.

[Woolfe]

Wasteland 2's bad guy will be the Guardians. Power Armour will still be relevant.

OOOoohh which interview was that in. I haven't watched the new update yet as I am at work, was it in that???

[krellen]

Wasteland 2's bad guy will be the Guardians. Power Armour will still be relevant.

OOOoohh which interview was that in. I haven't watched the new update yet as I am at work, was it in that???

Yup. Guardians in California.

[Woolfe]

Wasteland 2's bad guy will be the Guardians. Power Armour will still be relevant.

OOOoohh which interview was that in. I haven't watched the new update yet as I am at work, was it in that???

Yup. Guardians in California.

I just found me a secret hidey hole and watched it.... Nice that is pretty much the kind of thing I was expecting (except for the guardian element).

Thats awesome.

And yeah, I guess Power armour won't be an issue then I still like the idea of it running out of juice in the midst of a firefight tho. Talk about a "oh shit oh shit oh shit" moment

[Inca]

In Silent Storm there were armor suits (Panzrklines) or something like that. They were well armored, could carry heavy weapons and were diesel powered. Their weak point was the speed and agility.

[Rzarkrusz Rowa]

This is not a problem that needs to be solved. There is nothing inherently wrong with power armour, or with players acquiring power armour.

[GodComplex]

This is not a problem that needs to be solved. There is nothing inherently wrong with power armour, or with players acquiring power armour.

A thousands times this. If you have an issue with the advantages of certain gear, simply don't use it.

[Mandemon]

This is not a problem that needs to be solved. There is nothing inherently wrong with power armour, or with players acquiring power armour.

Can't believe this but I am with krellen here.

[Eaglestoner]

I always liked the concept of power armour needing constant power, and without it, the suit becomes more cumbersome. Through a combination of weight, and joints that require power to work efficiently.

The idea of being in the middle of a fight when your power armour runs out of juice, appeals greatly to me. Suddenly you go from being this super warrior to a much slower restricted... target Of course I have been accused of being mildly perverse at times

Why would someone develop standard issue armour for the military (presumably for use in wars) which is likely to run out of power during a battle?... IIRC they use some kind of nuclear power source which "lasts hundreds of years without needing a recharge" or, in the case of the T-51b, produce 60,000W.

Also, if this kind of system was implemented then it would only be logical to have a "fuel gauge" of some sort to avoid running out at critical times. However a nasty critical hit to the power cell could produce some less than desirable results...

[Woolfe]

I always liked the concept of power armour needing constant power, and without it, the suit becomes more cumbersome. Through a combination of weight, and joints that require power to work efficiently.

The idea of being in the middle of a fight when your power armour runs out of juice, appeals greatly to me. Suddenly you go from being this super warrior to a much slower restricted... target Of course I have been accused of being mildly perverse at times

Why would someone develop standard issue armour for the military (presumably for use in wars) which is likely to run out of power during a battle?... IIRC they use some kind of nuclear power source which "lasts hundreds of years without needing a recharge" or, in the case of the T-51b, produce 60,000W.

Also, if this kind of system was implemented then it would only be logical to have a "fuel gauge" of some sort to avoid running out at critical times. However a nasty critical hit to the power cell could produce some less than desirable results...

Um the same reason we currently have vehicles etc that can run out of fuel.

Perhaps they just figured on having enough power cells on hand. Or maybe they thought the short power bonus was worth the risk.

Lots of reasons. My point was actually around not having the ability to produce the power cells etc to power it, and thus being restricted in how long and when you could use it.

It was idle thinking more than anything. I don't really mind if we have Power armour or not....

[Exodus]

I could only see this working as some kind of "joke" power armor. Perhaps made by some loopy scientist in a border town with a raider problem. That could be kind of fun to have as a single unique power armor, dependent on energy cells. It would enhance your stats if you decided to activate it, but otherwise it would just give you an increased defense at the cost of weighing a ton and than some, basically crippling the user if he/she isn't strong enough.

But this would definitely not work for the standard power armor we'd encounter in the game!

Edit:

And it would definitely not be as strong or useful as the standard power armor.

[Gremlin]

Yeah, I'm not seeing the problem here, either. Both Wasteland and Fallout had advanced armor you could get towards the end of the game, and it worked just fine. Wasteland power armor didn't have connotations that Fallout had.

Maybe if you explained why you think it needs a drawback?

[whosdriving]

I always got bored with the falout games once i had power armour, the fights stoped mattering, every time i encountered an enemey it was just like "sigh, here is ten miniutes wasted whiel i mindlesly slaughter these goons" i actualy like the idea of having limited power in my power armour it would make me think before using it "do i realy need to waste my power cells on som random band of raiders or should i save it for when i have to storm a building"

also as a way to reduce the amount of power armour in the mid late game have a signivicant chance that anyone in power armour will drop broken power armour insted of functional stuff (after all you did just shoot it full of holes)

this broken armour could be fixed either by one of you charicyors with the apropriet skills or a ncp yeilding (based on skill levels and random chance) either
jury rigged power armour (less AC and stat bounses than a good set)
jimmed heavy metle armour (full AC but no stat bouns, also vary heavy)
power suit (only the powered skeleten was salvaged full stat bounes but not mutch AC)
or
Power Armour( the real McCoy only realy high repair skills get this)

[Mandemon]

In Fallout series usually by the time you got your hands on the Power Armor, you needed since there were super mutants everywhere or Enclave troops.

[Inca]

My beef with power armors and plazma rifles is that RPGs create a progression of gear and enemies, you start with squashing roaches and end up fighting super robots, so your skills do not matter (or you get even worst situation where not only you gear ramped up, but your skills and stats are on steroids too at the late stages of the game).
This dynamic breakes the basic canon of heroic literature-the hero is the underdog-he fights with his wits and element of surprise. Especially if you only have 4-7 people in your party. You not supposed to be a one man army, you supposed to be special forces-infiltrators. If you done the power armor on and take your gatling gun and than plow through other tanks-than you are playing a battle of tanks and not the original game.

[Vryheid]

Power armor dominating late game is lazy game design. It's just a way to tell the player that all of their individual character development choices regarding armor up to this point is irrelevant because there's only one suit of gear actually capable of allowing you to survive endgame combat. I'm not a fan of the "power armor requires energy cells" concept, as I wouldn't really like to have to constantly switch my armor in and out, but I do think that wearing power armor should cause severe limitations to evasion and movement speed at the very least. If there is a stamina stat in Wasteland 2, it should probably severely reduce the regeneration of it as well.

Fallout 1 and 2 got things completely backwards in this respect, and we saw how pointless the armor system in those games were because of it. Fallout New Vegas honestly did a hell of a lot better job with Power Armor because it wasn't always the best armor to be using with every build in every situation. With the much larger variety of possible combat focuses we'll be seeing in Wasteland 2 I hope we have an equal variety of high end armor types to go with it.

[Inca]

+1 Lazy design