Useless Weapons and Tiers

[Woolfe]

1) Damage
2) penetration
3) range
4) accuracy
5) rate of fire
6) weight
7) size (for concealment purposes)
8) accessibility (holstered vs slinged)
9) capacity (mag size)
10) reload times
11) available accessories
12) scarcity of ammo type
13) limitation to certain stances
14) cost

I like this, for the simple reason you could have 2 guns that are effectively the same, but with enough variation in stats that you might consider having one guy with 1 type and the other guy with another.
You could also have a weapon which excels in say damage, but is lacking in other areas. (shotgun anyone) So in certain situations it is awesome. But in others there are better. So you might equip one guy with that, just so that you have the advantage in those certain situations.

I am in the Lots of weapons camp. But I like to qualify it with the idea of there being progression. But that progression may not always be as obvious/important as say "damage".

[CaptainPatch]

I am in the Lots of weapons camp. But I like to qualify it with the idea of there being progression. But that progression may not always be as obvious/important as say "damage".

In terms of, "You gain access to more powerful weapons by taking them off the corpses of the former owners," I agree. But if the program notes, "Player has reached Level ____, therefore Tier ____ weapons will now be available for purchase from merchants, " no. If they were _ever_ available for purchase, they should be available _immediately_ . The fact that the weapons ARE superior sort of suggests that the owners would be reluctant to part with them.

[Woolfe]

I am in the Lots of weapons camp. But I like to qualify it with the idea of there being progression. But that progression may not always be as obvious/important as say "damage".

In terms of, "You gain access to more powerful weapons by taking them off the corpses of the former owners," I agree. But if the program notes, "Player has reached Level ____, therefore Tier ____ weapons will now be available for purchase from merchants, " no. If they were _ever_ available for purchase, they should be available _immediately_ . The fact that the weapons ARE superior sort of suggests that the owners would be reluctant to part with them.

Agreed.... And if they do part with them, its through death or large large sums of cash... And in that situation I think the death option should have a good solid chance of weapon being broken...

Altho sometimes that sort of "level" tier available change, can be hidden in amongst story changes that occur.

Blow up base cochise. Suddenly high powered energy weapons start making their way into the population... Real expensive... until the ammo runs out anyway

[jymm]

I admit I haven't read all posts in this thread, but I was drawn to it immediately as I _hate_ junk weapons. Its OK if I get more powerful and can take on bigger baddies to relieve them of their better equipment. If I'm king of the wasteland then I get the best toys. Its also OK in my mind if I find / earn money somehow over time and no I can buy awesome weapons. I agree that those weapons should be available from the get-go and denied to me based on their outrageous price. The market shouldn't change unless there is a plausible in-game reason for it to change. (someone clears an unexplored area of wasteland and makes contact with a different community that has better equipment.)

What I'm not a fan of is having 50 different kinds of pistol, 48 of which have nothing by which to recommend them. I have to look at all of them and evaluate them each only to find that most of them are 1-40% worse than the one I already have and are therefore vendor trash. If there must be 50 different kinds of pistol for flavor (which is cool) then I would personally rather have only 5 distinct "stats" for them. And color code the titles for all I care. Then I can tell immediately if I want to use it or sell it. Or have only 10 kinds of pistol in the game and have them all be interesting at least at the time when they become available to me.

I'm also not a fan of the lazy tier system where all pistols are actually the same except tier 2 have a tiny cosmetic difference and +10% stats. I'd prefer as others have suggested that there are really lesser cheap weapons and better more expensive / rarer weapons.

I'm glad someone brought this topic up.