I'm curious, how do you think this could work? Refractor is available at 7 Perception, so scaling it based on Perception in the same way would yield a very high return right at level 1 (35, or 3.5 levels of the current perk) for the very first perk spent. If it was tied to Endurance as well, that would make it a bad choice for Perception builds because they would need to invest a lot in a separate stat. Maybe just based on level, so you get 10+min(floor(level / 10), 40). That would mean you get 10 right away and another 10 at every 10th level to a maximum of 50 by level 40. That means one perk point in Refractor would be worth up to 50, and all of them would be up to 250, matching Toughness but scaling off of level since a player is already heavily invested in Perception by this point.
Or maybe it's simpler to just scale it with Perception and accept that it's strong for everyone who takes it because they are already heavily invested in Perception.
Refractor could definitely use an overhaul as well, but as skiesbleed points out, the fact it's a level 7 perk makes the scaling bonus approach somewhat problematic. Ideally, one would look at rearranging the actual perk chart so something like Refractor becomes a Level 1 perk, but that's well outside the scope of what I'd be looking to do.
I would probably have to come up with something entirely different for Refractor. For example, "Your armor is 25% more effective against energy damage" (I'm not saying that's a good idea, just providing an example of something different).
Seems to me the more balanced solution to both perks would be to disregard the resistance system entirely and rather go with a damage threshold system that either negates a small fixed amount of damage, and/or negates a percentage of damage based upon perk level (physical/poison? for Toughness, energy/"elemental"? for Refractor). Such a mechanic would always be relevant, but never over- or underpowered assuming you implement a moderate perk scaling.
Hell, just adding the extra damage types (that covers some proverbial chinks in the armor) and going with a more moderate damage resistance increase by perk level (non-scaling off of End) - would make it relevant and better balanced. Poison and Fire resistance alone would arguably be worth the investment. Particularly if using mods such as DeathByPewPew's own Blaze - An Immersive Molotov Cocktail Overhaul that implements fire damage in an immersive and balanced way.
I appreciate what this mod attempts to do, but it's quite unbalanced. Endurance is already a very strong SPECIAL that gets stronger as you level up (level 50 w/ 1 End = 232 hp, w/ 10 End = 497 hp). Needless to say, there's a stacking advantage with very high health coupled with very high damage resistance. This is just as true if you're running mods that overhaul NPC/player health not to increase with level but rather by Endurance and Perks (as any giga-Chad should ;)). If you like bullet-spronges, look no further than this.
Attempting to use perks like Toughness to decrease a percentage of incoming damage can quickly lead to very unbalanced gameplay, which is likely why the FO4 damage system mostly avoids it. Otherwise, if using additive math for the calculations, it's just a race to get as close as possible to 100% damage reduction. From a gameplay design perspective, you would need to catalog every piece of armor, every perk, every object modification that could potentially increase your percentage-based damage reduction, and make sure they don't add up to 100% (or honestly even anything close to that) if the PC gets their hands on all of them. There would be similar conversations and concerns for damage threshold/fixed-amount-of-damage-reduction systems.
I would disagree that this mod is inherently unbalanced simply by virtue of synergizing strongly with the high hit points rewarded by a deep investment into the Endurance stat. This mod assumes that you're playing with a mostly vanilla FO4 experience--which is what everyone begins with by default--and if someone has modded their FO4 game to be vastly different (e.g., "all head shots instantly kill all enemy NPCs"), then they will need to make extensive balance adjustments to their perk lineup in order for their game to feel balanced.
Keep in mind that hitting max Toughness perk investment and DR requires 15 perk points and waiting until nearly level 50. At that point, you're in the end game and facing extremely difficult and tanky enemies in FO4. If you're playing on anything harder than normal difficulty, and playing with mods that make the game more challenging, then combat can get pretty brutal. Bottom line, as always, is that the answer is "it depends" because everyone's load order is different and tailored to different tastes in difficulty.
I second the rework of Refractor! Not every character wants to hit 10 PER so there's still 4 degrees of scaling to play around with. Perhaps adding some Damage resistance to it in addition to Energy resist? So you can play a damage avoidant character that is Perceptive rather than Tough. +5 Dmg Resist per point of Perception
First of all: great idea for a perk buff. As for Refractor: I switched the PER perks around a bit in CK to make the suggested buff work. Refractor now sits on PER 1, Pickpocket on PER 3, and Awareness on PER 7. Now both perks can be buffed and you only take a very slight hit with Pickpocket (although you should be having PER 3 in most builds anyway), and who cares about Awareness in the first place? ^^
EDIT: might as well swap positions with the VANS perk from the INT tree, then it would be unlocked by default through INT 1.
I've actually since built my own personal perk overhaul that, among other things, moves Toughness, Refractor, and Rad Resistant to Level 1 perk slots and makes them scale with their respective Special traits. I had to teach myself some JPEX to figure out how to manipulate the flash file so the resulting perk animations would all look correct. I haven't released it because it needs more polish, but Starfield is just around the corner and will be my focus for the foreseeable future...
I just swapped VANS and Refractor in my own personanel testing mod as well. Now I wonder why this hasn't been this way in the vanilla game in the first place. :D
Interesting adjustments. Looking forward to trying this on a "clothing but no armor pieces" playthrough and not feeling the need to rely on ballistic weave.
This is a good mod. The only thing I don't like is the cap at ten endurance, since my SS has 22 endurance (without perks, gear, consumables, or collectibles. No mods or commands)
It's perfectly fine for your player character to exceed 10 endurance, but I've coded the Toughness perk to only scale up to 10 endurance. The perk doesn't care where the endurance is coming from, only that you have it. So if you've taken one or more ranks of the Toughness perk, and your endurance gets temporarily boosted from something like a consumable or even another perk, then your Damage Resistance will get temporarily boosted as well.
23 comments
Or maybe it's simpler to just scale it with Perception and accept that it's strong for everyone who takes it because they are already heavily invested in Perception.
I would probably have to come up with something entirely different for Refractor. For example, "Your armor is 25% more effective against energy damage" (I'm not saying that's a good idea, just providing an example of something different).
Hell, just adding the extra damage types (that covers some proverbial chinks in the armor) and going with a more moderate damage resistance increase by perk level (non-scaling off of End) - would make it relevant and better balanced. Poison and Fire resistance alone would arguably be worth the investment. Particularly if using mods such as DeathByPewPew's own Blaze - An Immersive Molotov Cocktail Overhaul that implements fire damage in an immersive and balanced way.
I appreciate what this mod attempts to do, but it's quite unbalanced. Endurance is already a very strong SPECIAL that gets stronger as you level up (level 50 w/ 1 End = 232 hp, w/ 10 End = 497 hp). Needless to say, there's a stacking advantage with very high health coupled with very high damage resistance. This is just as true if you're running mods that overhaul NPC/player health not to increase with level but rather by Endurance and Perks (as any giga-Chad should ;)). If you like bullet-spronges, look no further than this.
I would disagree that this mod is inherently unbalanced simply by virtue of synergizing strongly with the high hit points rewarded by a deep investment into the Endurance stat. This mod assumes that you're playing with a mostly vanilla FO4 experience--which is what everyone begins with by default--and if someone has modded their FO4 game to be vastly different (e.g., "all head shots instantly kill all enemy NPCs"), then they will need to make extensive balance adjustments to their perk lineup in order for their game to feel balanced.
Keep in mind that hitting max Toughness perk investment and DR requires 15 perk points and waiting until nearly level 50. At that point, you're in the end game and facing extremely difficult and tanky enemies in FO4. If you're playing on anything harder than normal difficulty, and playing with mods that make the game more challenging, then combat can get pretty brutal. Bottom line, as always, is that the answer is "it depends" because everyone's load order is different and tailored to different tastes in difficulty.
Not every character wants to hit 10 PER so there's still 4 degrees of scaling to play around with.
Perhaps adding some Damage resistance to it in addition to Energy resist? So you can play a damage avoidant character that is Perceptive rather than Tough.
+5 Dmg Resist per point of Perception
As for Refractor: I switched the PER perks around a bit in CK to make the suggested buff work. Refractor now sits on PER 1, Pickpocket on PER 3, and Awareness on PER 7. Now both perks can be buffed and you only take a very slight hit with Pickpocket (although you should be having PER 3 in most builds anyway), and who cares about Awareness in the first place? ^^
EDIT: might as well swap positions with the VANS perk from the INT tree, then it would be unlocked by default through INT 1.
S7 Skill System - Toughness Redux Patch