Mephiston, your ideas on suppressing fire don't have a place in Fallout (IMO), nor are they warranted when taking the genre into account. Fallout 1/2 aren't tactical strategy games, and neither are they action. Seeing as Fallout 3 is following the tradition of using a numerical moniker modifier instead of adopting a subtitle ala FOT:BOS and FO
OS, it stands to reason that F3 will share the same genre and, hopefully, most of the same features and gameplay systems as F1/2.
Besides, seeing exactly how you outlined your idea for suppressing fire, it would be far too easy to exploit (There was a very similar problem in Star Wars Galaxies).
Mephiston said:
A critical Suppresion would cause total or movement imobilisation or perhaps cause the npcs in question to run away in fear or drop their weapons or go berserk and take truly random actions.
Immobilization- Roughly translates to "lose a turn". While arguably realistic, it's overpowered and makes little sense within the confines of this type of RPG. Incidences of temporary immobilization due to being knocked ass-over-teacups, blown over by a rocket, being shot in the family jewels, etc. make far more sense than this part of your idea, which is just great considering they're already a part of F1/2/FOT.
Fleeing- Makes no sense, since the whole point of supression is that the target is pinned down and CAN'T move.
The Berserk/Random actions idea- I can't see anyone going bugfuck-insane from battle fatigue when they've only been under suppressing fire for a relatively tiny amount of time. One combat turn in Fallout equates to a minute in real world time, at the max (in my estimation)- usually much less. Battle fatigue-related psychological problems don't manifest anywhere near that quickly.
Weapon dropping- Makes no sense. "OMG, a bullet just passed through the air near me! Whoops, lost my grip!"
What's to stop a person from, say, allocating 10 LK, taking the More Criticals and Better Criticals perks, and then using nothing but suppressing fire? Just let their party members kill the enemies, who are all weakened or can't fight back, period. Seeing as Bethsoft will likely follow in the footsteps of F2 and cluelessly place absurd amounts of ammunition in the game (thus making this "tactic" viable), it's a more than likely scenario.
Mephiston said:
Npcs who are not fully in cover will have a small but not insignificant chance to be hit by a bullet, and all npcs within the designated area regardless of cover will suffer AP, accuracy and/or morale penalties for their next combat turn.
Even without taking into account critical hits, the most common effects outlined in your idea are too strong. No idea what you mean by morale penalties, though, unless it means that when their turn comes they move away from you a few hexes instead of all-out running. Thus anyone in the cone of suppressing fire potentially (meaning more than likely) suffers a double hit to their AP and a double penalty to accuracy, and that's WITHOUT a critical. So even if a person with a ranged weapon still has enough AP to fight back, they'll probably miss anyway. Someone with a melee weapon more than likely won't be able to retaliate at all, thus making your idea a kiter's dream (Run away while shooting, thus avoiding taking any damage from melee opponents).
Here's a question: Why would untargeted weapons fire be able to do all of these things, but gunfire that's actually AIMED at someone wouldn't? I don't know about you, but the knowledge that someone is actively attempting to blow my head off is much more frightening than the idea that someone is firing indiscriminately in my general direction. I guess actually shooting AT someone would result in them throwing a grenade at their nearest ally before dropping the entire contents of their inventory and attempting to dig their way to China.
The Fall has the market cornered on poorly thought-out features/bugs/exploits within the single-player PA genre, let's try and keep it that way if you so please.
Mephiston said:
and of course you can run and fire fullauto, you can do that while bunnyhoping like an idiot, you can do it with one hand on your dick, sure the only thing you might hit is cowering bitch which you werern't aiming at but its deff possible.....
That makes you sound like the perfect little posterchild for those who come to NMA to wank about how Fallout would be SOOOO MCUH BETTAR ROFL LOL!!1 if it were more like Counterstrike/America's Army/Insert brainless "military-based" FPS.
