Week 1, 8/30/24. Disocord Update 1

I’ve recently found myself with more time to work on Fallout: New Austin due to some life changes, and we’re going to use this opportunity to bring you more regular updates. We’ll also be sharing these updates in other places.
For this update, I want to talk about what we’ve been working on over the summer and go over some changes we’re implementing in the game. There’s a lot to cover, so let’s do the Internet’s favorite thing: a numbered list! How exciting, right?

1) Changes to SPECIAL Stats
Fallout: New Vegas had both SPECIAL stats and skills. Unfortunately, skills were dropped in Fallout 4. While it would be possible to bring skills back in Fallout: New Austin, we decided to take a different approach and see if we could find something better—a bit of both worlds. With a background as a forever DM, we looked towards TTRPGs for inspiration, as well as many different games. Learning from the masters and all that.
As a group, we found that many of us preferred a more static character development. Think about how little your character actually changes in games like Dungeons & Dragons. Instead of becoming good at every aspect of play, you specialize in a specific style. Since Fallout is supposed to be an RPG, we wanted to bring this back—this feeling of creating a well-established professional. We believe this was lost in Fallout 4 and Skyrim, where you aren’t really encouraged to make new characters but rather to play as a “Mary Sue” who is simply great at everything. Every character in Fallout 4 can hack, pick locks, sneak, snipe, etc. The mechanics of the game really just act as locked gates that you unlock over time to gain access to everything. Honestly, Starfield took this idea to the extreme, to an annoying degree.
To counter this system, we are implementing some significant changes to how SPECIAL stats work. At the beginning of the game, you will immediately gain access to twice as many SPECIAL points as you would at the start of Fallout 4. This is to reflect an already established character background (more on this in a minute). These points can be allocated to your character in any way you like. There will still be all the expected SPECIAL stats that are well-known in the Fallout games.
The other change we are implementing is the return of skills. However, these will mostly be hidden from the player. These “skills” will simply reflect the SPECIAL stats. For example, if you allocate 8 points to Intelligence, an Investigation skill would get a +8. This will all be handled behind the scenes. The player will know which skills are impacted by specific SPECIAL stats but won’t see the details throughout the game.

2) Changes to Perks
Since we’re changing SPECIAL stats, naturally, we need to change perks as well. In Fallout 4, there are over 70 different perks. I know it doesn’t feel like that, right? That’s because most perks either act as game mechanic unlocks or simple stat increases. They don’t actually change how you play the game. They usually just unlock new weapon upgrades or similar features. We find this very annoying, so we’re making some changes.
We’re keeping the number of perks, but for each perk, we want to create a dramatic change in how you play the game. We’ve looked towards immersive sims for inspiration here. I can’t go into too much detail yet, but rest assured that a player with zero perks will still be able to get through the same content as someone with many perks, just in very different ways. Prey would be a decent example of the kinds of things we want to add. We’ll do a spotlight on perks in the future to explain these changes in more detail.

3) Backgrounds
Fallout: New Austin is a role-playing game, so we figured we’d allow the player to implement a background. Typically, in video games, backgrounds are treated as a toggle in a menu. Starfield does this. We wanted to go in a different direction.
In Fallout: New Austin, as you explore the world, there will be several opportunities to naturally introduce yourself to different characters. When you introduce yourself, this triggers different flags in later quests and dialogue, as well as adding background-specific perks and items to your inventory. For example, when you first enter New Austin, you may be asked if you are visiting or returning. Choosing the returning option will give you access to a small player home in one of the cities. Choosing visiting will lead to being asked why you are visiting, opening up options to give specific details about a job you’re doing or perhaps just visiting for vacation.
Maybe your player ends up in a bar and an attractive character asks if you’re taken. Do you talk about your family, or are you single? Maybe you lie to them. These interactions will allow you to naturally flesh out your character. Of course, this is still a game, so when these dialogue options become available, there will be detailed descriptions for the player. We don’t want you accidentally adopting a pet you didn’t intend to—or worse, a child.

4) Changes to Quest Dialogue
This will be the last thing we talk about for this update. This mechanic changes what dialogue options you have access to based on the active quest in your Pip-Boy. Want to find out where someone is? Just activate that quest, and the relevant dialogue options will become available. Someone’s got to know where this person is, right? It’ll be up to you to find the right person to ask.
This mechanic is designed to make dialogue trees more manageable. We don’t want to overwhelm the player with 1,000 different options all at once.