As for the animation, Beth has always had issues with animating stuff.
S'why there aren't any diagonal walking motions in Fallout 3.
And by the looks if it ... it doesnt seem like F4 will have them either :/
Looky here
I mean how hard can it be to do correct move/walking animations in a game these days? And particularly after so many years of experience in making games.
For fucks sake, if memory doesnt fail me the 15 year old Jedi Knight II Jedi Outcast had already diagonal walking animations for characters.
Flame throwers should force a morale check on humans and animals; but not the insane. Animal morale check should be double difficult.
Flamers should leave temporary fire-walls when streaked across the landscape that has anything flammable; and should ignite most anything combustible. Targets should have a chance at engulfment; and that should have a chance to spread fire to adjacent targets ~including the PC; (don't go spraying the feral ghouls with a flame thrower
).
Death by flamer should copy the flame dancer critical death.
Yeah! That is another aditional effect of Flamethrowers that seperates it very much from usual firearms/explosives. Flamethrowers, at least the modern ones, tend to use napalm or something similar which has the nasty habit to be like glue. Burning glue. Which is also very difficult to put out. Setting something on fire that is mindlessly charging at you could be a real danger ... if it could set you as well on fire. Imagine a horde of ghouls engulfed in flames runing at you, trying to give you a nice hug.
I think one of the few games that had a really decent Flamer is Alien Isolation. Though I can only judge that from what I have seen in lets plays. But the reaction of the creature is that it will keep it's distance from you and rather escape when you use it. Sadly you can't really create walls of flames. There was also a really old game which name I really can't remember (I tink it was in Alien vs Predator 1 or 2 on the PC) where you could use the Flamethrower to create walls. A secondary attack allowed you to spray the ground with fuel, ignite it, and it would burn creating a wall.
A flame thrower could be a very tactical and maybe even a situational weapon. But I doubt that Fallout 4 will really offer that sophisticated gun/weapon play. Things will be more about just damage and maybe if they have a good day different damage reduction where a target will take more damage from Plasma or Laser or Radiation or what ever ... and just like in Oblivion, Skyrim and F3 it will be a matter of how much amunition you have before the targets go down.
It would be interesting to see something done with immunities and weak spots. Imagine if certain enemies would be actually completely immune to some forms of damage. For example I could imagine that some targets could be immune to small arms. And players had to eventually come back later once they learned about weak spots or finding better more powerfull weapons.
*Edit
So Crni you mean like what the flare gun does to "Abominations" in Lonesome Road? I think it would require some work, mostly on the AI where enemies would try to flank you if you have a flamer and melee enemies would hide because they can't do anything.
Better and inteligent AI where they decide to flank you are actually deploying tactics would be very welcome in general. Now I never played lone some road, so I can't say anything about the combat AI there. But as far as F3/vegas goes the AI was in general extremly bad , but not worse than in 99,99% of the other shooters out there - that I know at least, I don't claim to know all shooters out there!.
I think combat AI is really something that needs no clue, a revolution in gaming? I mean not for EVERY game of course, Doom sure works with what it has perfectly. That's what I expect of a Doom game. But most combat oriented shooters really bore me to death with their AI. Guess I am simply spoiled by years of playing shooters online. Most players are worse than bots/AI. But sometimes you really get those rare situations where teams work together or where the other team out smarts you, by flanking or what ever.
Morality checks should not be overdone though, nothing sucks more than chasing a target for 5 min. that is left with 1% health ... but it would be really a nice change for once if the AI would actually use believable combat tactics. Supressive fire, grenades, change of cover etc. Trying to blind/confuse the player, maybe with flash bangs, retreating for healing, luring him in traps, calling for support and so on.
