Mister Six
First time out of the vault
One of the things that's been a consistent disappointment throughout all the Fallout games is the melee combat; while there have always been melee perks, having a two-fisted rough 'n' tumble hero was never really a practical option, even when F2 introduced alternative fighting moves, etc.
It was even worse in Fallout 3, because the real-time nature of the battles made up-close fighting pretty much impossible - good job the ammo was so plentiful, then.
And while the talk of special moves for melee weapons is promising, I suspect the finishing moves are merely cosmetic, which would be a shame.
I think, however, that you could do a lot with melee if you were prepared to overhaul the combat system to some extent. On the simpler end of things, you could make melee criticals easier to score than ranged ones, make melee attacks bypass all armour modifiers (with the exception of power armour, I suppose) or make melee damage consistently higher than equally-levelled ranged damage (with some handwave that up-close-and-personal fighting lets you target weak points more efficiently).
You could also make a low-level perk for dedicated melee fighters that makes them receive less damage (or make it harder for them to be hit at all) the closer they get to a ranged enemy (again with a handwave about being able to dodge out of the way of the attacker's aim). So while they're vulnerable at a distance, if they can get the jump on the enemies they can cut through them like a hot knife through a jugular. Maybe add sneak bonuses onto melee attacks, or offer instant kill perks if you can sneak up on an enemy unannounced - with the penalty of alerting other enemies within a certain area.
These perks and additions could reduce the player's ability to use ranged weapons, or only be active when the player is wielding melee/hand-to-hand weapons, to encourage melee-only character builds. Other, lesser melee perks would be available for people who want to be relatively handy with a melee weapon in a squeeze, but don't want to make it the core of their combat.
Another idea would be to allow special moves that are only accessible through VATS. Moves that, say, incapacitate enemies, disarm them or damage their armour. So players will want to flick to VATS to score hits with these special attacks, then wail on the bad guys while their AP builds up. The attacks can have their own cooldown periods, as in Dragon Age, to stop players using them over and over.
Thoughts? TL;DR?
It was even worse in Fallout 3, because the real-time nature of the battles made up-close fighting pretty much impossible - good job the ammo was so plentiful, then.
And while the talk of special moves for melee weapons is promising, I suspect the finishing moves are merely cosmetic, which would be a shame.
I think, however, that you could do a lot with melee if you were prepared to overhaul the combat system to some extent. On the simpler end of things, you could make melee criticals easier to score than ranged ones, make melee attacks bypass all armour modifiers (with the exception of power armour, I suppose) or make melee damage consistently higher than equally-levelled ranged damage (with some handwave that up-close-and-personal fighting lets you target weak points more efficiently).
You could also make a low-level perk for dedicated melee fighters that makes them receive less damage (or make it harder for them to be hit at all) the closer they get to a ranged enemy (again with a handwave about being able to dodge out of the way of the attacker's aim). So while they're vulnerable at a distance, if they can get the jump on the enemies they can cut through them like a hot knife through a jugular. Maybe add sneak bonuses onto melee attacks, or offer instant kill perks if you can sneak up on an enemy unannounced - with the penalty of alerting other enemies within a certain area.
These perks and additions could reduce the player's ability to use ranged weapons, or only be active when the player is wielding melee/hand-to-hand weapons, to encourage melee-only character builds. Other, lesser melee perks would be available for people who want to be relatively handy with a melee weapon in a squeeze, but don't want to make it the core of their combat.
Another idea would be to allow special moves that are only accessible through VATS. Moves that, say, incapacitate enemies, disarm them or damage their armour. So players will want to flick to VATS to score hits with these special attacks, then wail on the bad guys while their AP builds up. The attacks can have their own cooldown periods, as in Dragon Age, to stop players using them over and over.
Thoughts? TL;DR?