Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - Redesigning Fallout 76

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Nov. 28, 2018 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

26:45

Redesigning Fallout 76

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	When designing any system, one must bear in mind the purpose of said system is to achieve a desired end goal.
	So what was the desired end goal for Fallout 76?
	It appears that the goal was to have an enormous, almost empty world in which the players would broadly ignore one another in favour of shooting randomly spawned enemies to collect resources, rinse and repeat.
	With these resources one is expected to build a base, but the base isn't a permanent fixture.
	As soon as a player logs out, their base logs out with them, leaving an empty space that, apparently, other players can build over, although they're not supposed to be able to do this.
	Not only is the base not permanent, but the players can decide to pack up their bases and move them with very little effort.
	So what exactly is the point in having a base?
	It seems that Bethesda had in mind to design an open world survival game that could court the myth of the wider audience by removing any sense of danger from their post-apocalyptic world.
	Instead of Fallout 76 being packed with tense encounters with other players, bandits, mutants, and featuring assaults on mighty strongholds, it seems that Bethesda chose to hold the player's hand to the point where there is no challenge to overcome but one's own boredom.
	Not only are the players no threat to one another, they are no threat to each other's bases, and there appears to be little threat from the random spawns, so what is the point of playing this game?
	On paper, Fallout 76 sounds like exactly my kind of game.
	As an avid lover of the Fallout franchise, since the very beginning, and a long-term fan of open-world multiplayer games, I can hardly believe that Bethesda mishandled Fallout 76 in such a fundamental way.
	Instead of pointing out the numerous flaws in Fallout 76, I'll instead propose how the system should have been designed in order to achieve a certain goal.
	The purpose of this thought experiment will be to design a system that would result in a large open world in which the story of the world is unique to that world and driven entirely by the players.
	We will be looking to maximize player engagement, investment and longevity in order to try and create the most realistic post-apocalyptic simulator we can manage.
	The core of this is a strong ground game.
	Firm core mechanics and frictionless interactions with other players should allow seamless cooperation and engagement with the world itself rather than leaving the players stranded and listless.
	So we must begin at the beginning.
	How big should the map be?
	The answer is relative to the number of players on the map.
	Fallout 76 allows 24 players on a map at any one time.
	This is a remarkably small number, especially when compared to other open world survival games, and so we would have to have a remarkably small map.
	Instead of Fallout 76's enormous, pointless and empty world, we would have to instead mimic other survival games and have a large map with many players, having around at least four times the number that Fallout 76 allows.
	If, for some technical reasons, we could only manage 24 players on one server at one time, we would instead can the whole project as untenable and fire everyone at Bethesda for their incompetence.
	Failing that, we would shrink the world map accordingly, but this would be the option of last resort.
	How should the world feel?
	The Fallout world should feel dangerous.
	It is meant to be a post-apocalyptic wasteland after all.
	Player versus player combat should always be on, obviously, but the environment itself should be dangerous enough to low-level players that meeting another player should feel like a relief.
	Two low-level players who run into one another should feel far more inclined to cooperate for their mutual good rather than fight over the scraps they've collected.
	But even then, if every time two players met it were to devolve into a fight, that would still be better than the indifference currently experienced.
	When a player dies, not only should they drop everything they are carrying, but they should also be hit with a modest loss of experience.
	This should not be so severe as to cripple the player's level advancement, but should be severe enough that the player will actively be concerned about avoiding death.
	Players should not generally find an abundance of resources from scavenging.
	In a world that was presumably picked clean by whatever survivors existed for the time that the players were in the vault, it should also incentivize players to cooperate to more easily achieve methods of getting access to high tier resources in order to create advanced equipment.
	For high-level players, the environment is going to be inevitably less of a concern, and so high-level players from rival factions should be the primary danger, with rare encounters a close second.
	In other words, the high-level players should be concerned with triggering unique encounters, politics, base management, and war.
	High-level players should have no particular interest in the resources gained from low-level players, and have no incentive to kill them on site.
	If anything, low-level players should be looked at as potential recruits by high-level players, but this is something I will cover later.
	Resource management.
	Resources should be dealt with in tiers.
	Basic resources that can be scavenged from the open world should be practically worthless beyond the first stage of a game, useful only to new players or in bulk by settlements, and I will expand on this later too.
	The basic resources should allow the players to create basic equipment or settlements, such as melee weapons, junk armor, and a makeshift tent or hut that they can develop in order to reach the mid-tier for resource collection.
	Once the player has achieved some method for constructing the basic buildings required for the rest of the game, they should be able to make the tools that will enable them to access the next tier of resources for more advanced gear and settlements.
	Once the player has achieved some method of constructing the basic buildings, they should then be able to make tools that will enable them to access the next tier of resources for more advanced gear and settlements.
	This tiered process of advancement should continue until the players reach the maximum technology level, with resources becoming increasingly scarce in order to match the power level and to not allow any one faction to completely dominate via technological advantage alone.
	Resource availability is the key to managing the game's entire economy and should be distributed across the map in a sensible manner.
	No one faction should have access to all of the required resources that they will need to build the higher tier equipment, forcing them to rely on other factions and other players in some way.
	The lowest tier resources should be found widely across the map in small quantities.
	Low level players can spend their time scavenging, fighting NPCs and levelling up in order to get their bearings in the game in relative safety.
	Mid-tier resources should be found in more specific locations and have a barrier to entry to collect.
	This could be because they require some specific tools to extract or are locked behind some level based requirement or are guarded by a foe too fearsome to defeat at low levels.
	Top tier resources should be relatively rare to find, difficult to secure and useful only to high level players.
	All resources above the lowest tier should be exhaustible and require a specific skill set to discover.
	For example, a player who specialises in mining might require a prospecting skill to reveal iron loads, and increasing this skill might allow them to find more important metals and minerals until they reach the top tier to find, say, uranium, which might be a component in powered armour.
	The resource loads should both be plentiful in the amount of resources that can be extracted from them, and exhaustible.
	These should be found semi-randomly around the map, and once found, the loads should be visible to all players.
	Using the example of mining, players should prospect around mountains and caves to find iron, obviously finding none in the ruins of cities or deserts, etc.
	The goal of this balance is to encourage players to build settlements near the resources, but ensure that the resource itself is not necessarily a permanent fixture, as it will eventually become exhausted.
	This will incentivise players to not only invest in a base, but keep the resources of the map fluid enough that they won't simply be able to camp in the same spot for the entire duration of the game and will actually have to venture outside of their walls for reasons other than war.
	Players should absolutely be allowed to monopolize resources if possible.
	If a particular kind of resource is only found in small, localised areas of the map, if players want to build a wall and put guards on duty to prevent others from taking it, they should have the ability to do so.
	This will foster trade, competition and conflict later in the game.
	Settlements.
	Settlements should range from a tent to a vast fortress city and available to build by any player with the required resources and skills.
	Ideally, players would essentially be allowed to build anywhere, but there will doubtless be pragmatic reasons to restrict this to certain areas.
	Players should own property in these settlements, presumably built by the player who owns it, and should be able to dispose of this property as they see fit.
	For example, if player A has built two tents and player B has just joined the map, player A might want to give player B a tent in exchange for an ally in the world.
	Players should be incentivized to work together with their settlements, pooling their resources for greater effect than they would have achieved alone.
	As settlements spring up across the map, the various resources that they have access to could be traded with other settlements in order for players to be able to access gear and building types they would otherwise not be able to create alone.
	Settlements should be both permanent and destroyable at any time.
	Settlements over a certain size should become visible on the world map once discovered by the player.
	Each settlement should have a purpose, even down to the humble tent.
	At the very least, a low-level player's tent should provide a place to fast heal from any damage taken and allow them to store things that they have scavenged.
	The more time the players take to upgrade their settlement, the more resistant it should be to attack from wandering NPCs, raids from other players, or any other potential harm that might befall it.
	The more advanced a settlement becomes, the more options it should provide to the players to access higher tier resources, gear, trade, and diplomatic options.
	It is common for settlements in such games to be essentially hostile to the world at large, but this is a mistake.
	Settlements should be neutral towards neutral actors in the world, only becoming hostile, through whatever defenses they have, after an act of hostility has been committed towards it, or unless the faction that owns it is in an active state of war with whatever force approaches it.
	For neutral factions and independent players, the settlements should be neutral and open to trade, diplomacy, and subterfuge.
	Players who are not part of the faction that owns the settlement should still be able to use the facilities at that settlement, with the discretion of the settlement's owners, and trade in the shops there.
	The permanence and utility of settlements should be used to incentivize players to work together and form factions, which is where the true narrative of the game is created and gives the players something into which they can become really invested.
	Factions and politics Initially, players should have no method of creating or joining a faction.
	They might own a tent in the woods, but this is not a political force.
	Low-level players will undoubtedly want to work together in order to achieve the resources and level to found or join a faction, however.
	When enough unaligned players of sufficient level have decided to create a faction, this should give them access to a faction creation system by which they can choose the method of governance for their faction, however complex the designers wish this to be, and include whatever kind of hierarchy or lack thereof to accompany it.
	The players must decide who has what kind of political power in their faction and should be given the tools to arrange this as they please.
	The faction is, essentially, a state, and should engage with other factions as such.
	It is up to each faction to decide their trade policy, diplomacy, and any kind of in-faction decisions that need to be taken, and the political tools should be available to the player to enforce these decisions.
	Factions must be able to form treaties with one another that will be fulfilled automatically by the game, if possible, and broken by the players, if at all.
	For example, if faction A signs a non-aggression treaty with faction B and a player from faction A kills a player from faction B, the game should notify the members of each faction and the players can then take action accordingly.
	Factions will likely be hierarchical and should have a capital, with other settlements being subsidiary to it.
	Settlement leaders should be able to set laws for their settlement, and the game should notify the entire settlement when a law has been broken, or at least when the players would become aware that a law has been broken, via a failed skill check or whatnot, in order to keep all players within the settlement informed of local politics.
	Most importantly, when a player dies, they must lose their rank in their faction, and when they respawn, they respawn as a standard member of that faction.
	The other members below them should receive a promotion automatically to fill the gaps.
	How this is done obviously would depend on the faction or the kind of governance that they have decided on, or on player choice, depending on how flexible the faction system is created to be.
	Losing high-ranking members of a faction should come with temporary in-game penalties to the other members of the faction, in order to incentivise them to keep their faction leaders alive.
	This could be quite simple, such as receiving a 10% penalty on all damage dealt for 10 hours, or something of that nature.
	Trade.
	No one settlement should be able to provide for all of its needs on its own, and so trade should become a necessity to reach the top-tier equipment.
	That is, trade or looting.
	Maintaining a steady supply of resources is a time-consuming job, and so trade should become a key feature of any settlement's economic activity and provide steady work to low-level players.
	Trade could take many forms.
	The most basic form is one player travelling with a particular good or service to another settlement and directly bartering with other players without any particular intervention from the game itself.
	As settlements become more advanced, NPC caravans should become available through a specific building, with parameters set by the player who creates them.
	Once a trade agreement is made with another settlement that has the capacity to receive caravans, the caravan should be scheduled by the player and automatically traveled to its destination with the required resources in order to fulfill the contract.
	This should be done autonomously by the game.
	A caravan is created by a player, it must wait for X time until the goods are loaded and guards are chosen, and then the caravan travels via a route predetermined by the player using waypoints until it reaches its destination, upon which it automatically unloads its goods, receives the payment in return, and after waiting X time again, returns to its destination to complete the transaction.
	Not only will this allow settlements to become wealthy and provide low-level players with something useful to do, it will allow high-level players to free themselves of the burden of resource collection and allow them to commit to diplomacy and statecraft.
	Naturally, players would be able to create their own caravans by domesticating a Brahmin and loading it up with the resources they collect or trade for and travel from settlement to settlement and trade with the NPC shopkeepers or other players that happen to be there.
	NPCs.
	NPCs should be available if for no other reason than to flesh out the world and provide functionality for services that the players will need in the course of running the game.
	NPC shopkeepers would essentially be receptacles for players to purchase goods from or sell goods to, and this can be restricted by type and level by the players who own them.
	The NPCs don't actually have to do anything of particular note beyond their ascribed function, but it probably will be a requirement that they exist.
	All NPCs must be killable and would require resources to replace if killed.
	A base building mod for Fallout 3 had a new NPC arrived at the settlement each day that could be recruited and assigned a function in the settlement.
	This is a good mechanic and provides scarcity to the NPCs, giving the players a reason to protect them but ensuring that no NPC is irreplaceable.
	The NPCs should have variable stats so that there is a reason to hire one NPC over another to say run a shop or be a guard etc.
	All NPCs must be lootable for whatever it is they have on them if killed.
	The learning curve.
	What I've laid out so far is very complex and to introduce new players into this kind of environment in the course of a game will require a gentle learning curve and methods by which to integrate them into the political environment of the server.
	Once this game has gotten underway, within the first few days factions will spring up and begin establishing themselves across the map.
	We do not want to exclude players from coming onto a server halfway and joining in the fun, so we must provide a smooth way for them to engage with the world that has sprung up.
	To do this, we must, unfortunately, have a certain area of the map that is dedicated to new players.
	Fortunately, the Fallout world has provided us with the perfect method of doing this.
	Vault City.
	As each server should begin anew from scratch, each server must have its own vault, and around it, a Vault City.
	All players must start in Vault City as their point of origin, and all players start as members of the Vault City faction, as Vault Dwellers.
	Unlike the other settlements, Vault City must have special rules placed upon it in order to facilitate the transition of new players out into the wider server.
	Vault City must be an indestructible location that cannot engage in politics.
	The only people who may enter Vault City must be members of the Vault City faction, aka new players.
	Violence must be prohibited within the city, and each player must be able to build a locker to store gear that they find in the wasteland.
	Various indestructible NPCs must oversee the vault and provide functionality to the new players, such as giving them their starting gear and a place to rest and heal and give advice about the world.
	This will provide the new players with the opportunity to relax in safety and network with other new starters, and get a taste for the law and atmosphere of the game.
	The local area around Vault City should include a standard set of low-tier enemies and resources to collect, allowing players to explore the basics of the game, set up a tent, learn combat and how to interact with others.
	The player should be able to leave the Vault City faction at any time.
	At a certain relatively low level, let's say level 10 out of 100 potential levels, the players should find themselves exiled from the Vault City faction and unable to return to the city itself.
	This should give new players enough time to learn the ropes and get to grips with the game, giving them a safe haven to retreat to if they should need it.
	The players can learn the basics of fulfilling quests, levelling up and building a base, and dealing with other players in safety.
	Quests.
	All quests must be set by players and operated by NPC characters.
	Once a player's settlement is advanced enough to build whichever building provides access to a quest mechanic, any players should be able to approach the NPC and engage it to get a quest, assuming another player has assigned one.
	Returning to the NPC completes the quest and the players receive whatever reward they are due.
	Players should be encouraged to join together in bands to engage in quests, to both foster cooperation and allow them to achieve more difficult goals.
	Each kind of quest should become available to be set by players as they achieve certain levels or positions within a faction's hierarchy.
	Most players in a faction should be able to set some kind of quest.
	Players who set quests should be able to customise their quest with a wide variety of options.
	Whatever building and NPC is used to operate the quests in a settlement, all payment must be provided up front.
	This will be stored with the NPC and automatically paid to any players upon completion.
	The quests must scale for the entire duration of the game, and many quests could be regular features.
	Here are a few examples.
	Resource collection.
	An NPC is instructed to pay out X caps per unit of scrap metal collected from the Wasteland, until all caps for this quest are expended.
	The quest could be a low-level quest that any member of a faction could assign, and provide a resource sink for low-level players who are exploring the wasteland and find themselves with an abundance of metal but a lack of caps.
	The metal collected could be retrieved by the player who set the quest at any time.
	Alternatively, it could be a high-level quest for rare resources.
	Caravan Guard.
	A player could pay the NPC in charge of a caravan route to hire guards for the caravan, paying X per guard until all caps are expended.
	The players who accept the quest would be given the route of the caravan and the destination in advance, and must protect the caravan from being destroyed or looted until it returns to its destination with its cargo intact, to receive their reward.
	This would be a low to mid-level quest.
	Mercenaries.
	A player could pay an NPC to hire other players as mercenaries for a particular period of time for X caps paid at the end of their service.
	The mercenaries would need to muster at a specific place to attack a certain settlement or something like that within a specific timeframe.
	This would be a mid to high level quest.
	Assassination.
	A player could pay to hire other players to assassinate the leader of a rival faction, chosen by their position and not by the individual player, as this may change as we saw earlier.
	If the player or players succeed in their mission, they receive the reward upon their return to the NPC.
	This would be a high-level quest.
	Encounters.
	Random NPC rats and robots are boring and pointless.
	It would make more sense for the game to place a small NPC settlement and spawn X amount of defenders for the players to attack and loot.
	Not only will this give the players a sense of a challenge, the settlement size and power could depend on the level of the NPCs, it tethers the NPC encounters to the world itself and gives the players a reason to engage and provides the possibility for the players to find a random loot drop that they might not otherwise find in the wasteland.
	It also anchors the NPCs to a location, as in the NPCs exist there for a reason.
	This could be as small as a rat's nest with a few caps in, to a ghoul's shack with a pipe gun to a raider's den laden with caps.
	The encounters would be challenging and fruitful for new players, but probably too difficult for a single low-level player to handle alone, giving them another incentive to work together with others.
	Nukes Nukes are actually a really great idea in a game like this.
	To prevent one faction from monopolising the entire server, the nuclear option should indeed be available, but it should be quite difficult to achieve, and most importantly, it should be achieved politically.
	To enable a nuclear weapon, it should require multiple factions to cooperate in order to be able to access the nuke, with the faction leading the coalition determining the target from the start.
	The target must be notified that there is a mission underway to nuke them, and the timer must be set.
	If the coalition has not achieved the goals to unlock the nuke in the time period, the mission fails.
	If they do, the mission succeeds and the nuke is released.
	The targeted faction then has X amount of time to prepare accordingly.
	Conclusion.
	I believe that these mechanics would create a game that not only has breadth, but depth.
	At each stage of the game, regardless of the levels of the players who encounter one another, they will have a use for one another, and a purpose to either cooperate or compete with one another.
	The entire server will have a political life, and factions will grow powerful and find themselves in need of resources that the other factions possess, encouraging them to either trade or war with one another as the game goes on.
	Non-aligned players will be able to visit the player-made towns, meet players there in peace, trade and purchase upgrades to their gear.
	They will be able to take part in quests and be part of the achievements of a settlement, presumably with an eye to joining a faction and taking a direct part in the politics of the world.
	In addition, the contributions of the low-level, non-aligned players would not be meaningless.
	While the individual player might be depositing 100 scrap for 500 caps so that they can buy a new shotgun, the owner of the quest might be looking for 10,000 scrap in order to build a new base near a high-tier resource.
	This would allow the players to work together without even realising that they were working together, using each player's self-interest to benefit the others.
	A wide variety of classes of player would emerge.
	If a player wished to become a merchant, they could.
	If they wished to become a gun for hire, they could.
	If they wished to become a ranger in the wilderness and build a small base of their own, they could.
	If the player wished to join a faction and attack and conquer enemy settlements, they would have that option.
	The world would be built and operated by the players, and there would be a regular stream of new recruits available at Vault City for factions to take into their ranks.
	The density of options beyond this is up to the creators of the game, but there is no particular limit that needs to be set.
	The purpose of this is to give people the tools to create their own epic storylines in a living, breathing world with an economic and political life, giving the players an investment in the form of the buildings and settlements they create, the customized gear they make or buy, and the personal glory they achieve with their rank and their faction, defeating their rivals and managing their civilization.

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