Any information on how 'aiming' is going to work in FO:NV?

I

Innawerkz

First time out of the vault
Hey all. Just signed up so - 'Hello!'

A conversation at another site sparked an idea within to try and make aiming & accuracy slightly more realistic. The poster there was hoping that the aiming mechanics were tweaked so that when the reticule turned red, it was a sure hit. I felt this was a terrible idea, as it would essentially make every character a crack shot: Thieves, Charisma Boys, Scientists, etc. It would also guarantee the return of FO3's ridiculous 30+ shots to the head to bring down a Raider (and require a similarily absurd amount of ammo that was available in the CW)... something I would love to see changed.

So I don't reinvent the wheel and offer an already made suggestion, I was wondering what some of the long-time posters here have come up with to change the aiming mechanics (through mods or forum chit chat) and if anything has been mentioned among the numerous articles that have stated they will remain similar to FO3's current concept.

- werkz
 
Alright, maybe that was the wrong approach to start the thread. So here is what I came up with to start discussion and let me know what you think. Also, I'll preface that this is simply to inject more realism into the First Person perspective while preserving more of the RPG element (In other words, letting the character skill be more involved in accuracy).

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My suggestion on how Aiming in Real-Time could be improved and make use of the 'Weapon' skills beyond simply increasing weapon damage:

Imagine if, instead of an 'x' as a reticle, it was simply showing on your screen the general area that your skill is likely to fire within. Essentially, this would create a realistic scenario where - when the enemy is far away - it is dificult to hit him, but as you move closer and the target fills more of your reticle, the higher the chance that you will hit. Just like in life. Quick picture for an example (obviously the reticle shouldn't be so jarringly obvious):

ws1sty.jpg


Now - as you add skill points, this reticle 'tightens'. The area you are likely to miss now becomes smaller, which allows you to make higher percentage shots gradually further & further away (assuming your weapon choice allows the range). In the picture on the right, you can see that I left the 'area of effect' still quite large despite being a a near perfect skill of '100' (using FO3 cap). This was to allow room for weapon upgrades to still be useful for high-level characters.

Weapon upgrades like laser sights & scopes either tighten the spread or make the target larger on your screen. Essentially bringing your 'skill spread' closer to the target as it fills more of the reticle. This would make one-shot kills still difficult until later levels (where you will presumably be fighting better armoured/tougher opponents anyway - so the game doesn't suddenly become too easy).

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Other game uses relating to Weapon Skill & this concept:

First, the quick one: As you raise your skill, the weapon damage increases slightly to represent you are a more lethal shot. However, the *majority* of the weapon damage is decided by the weapon itself & its condition.

The second idea: Allow the Player to 'aim down sights' to slightly tighten the reticle the longer you aim at your target (up to a certain maximum). The higher your skill level, the faster this precision aiming shrinks the reticle so it takes less time to size up the shot. I feel this would still allow 'beginner characters' to place shots, but they would have to leave themselves exposed longer as they are drawing a bead.

Bonus: Different weapons would have different spreads. Single shot pistols & rifles would have a tighter spread than shotguns & automatics. This would allow for a wider variation between weapon types. This might make pistols have a use longer in the game, as they would be quite accurate at mid-to-close range.

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IMO, this change would be a positive step towards allowing two necessary changes to FO3 combat:

1) Increasing Damage per 'Hit': no more shooting unarmoured raiders 30+ times in the head. If your character has the skill (or the good fortune) to make a headshot, it should kill him pretty quickly in 1 - 2 shots. Beginner level enemies should fall to well-placed shots. It's just that these shots will be rare for your character at the start.

2) The Return of Scarcity: Less bullets needed to make a kill = less bullets required to be in the Wasteland. Combat would be measured in $/shot as in: "Oh shit.... I just shot my 10mm sixteen times at those two molerats for $15 per round." This could eliminate the ammo bonanaza that is FO3.

Thoughts?
 
I like it, but the problem inherent is your not gonna be able to kill super mutants off the bat! It's a good idea, but stuff like iron sighting wouldn't make it past the drawing board before being removed for the console crowd.
 
Aphyosis said:
I like it, but the problem inherent is your not gonna be able to kill super mutants off the bat! It's a good idea, but stuff like iron sighting wouldn't make it past the drawing board before being removed for the console crowd.
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Ha! I'm confused. The only reason I even suggested being able to ADS was to appease consolers. However, I want to be clear that I wasn't suggesting that ADS =/= automatic hit. I was thinking that it would be a slight increase to the natural aim of the character.

For example: If my 'Energy Weapon' skill is at 46%, I take the time to Aim Down Sight (ADS) and it will slowly shrink the 'spread circle' to as if I had skill at 56%. Basically it will help a lot at longer ranges (especially at lower level), but not allow crack shots at 300 yds. As the 'Energy Skill' increases, the speed at which I ADS increases with it.

With regards to the Super Mutants, I was actually thinking this system combined with a lot of luck and a weapon in reasonable condition would actually allow you to kill a mutant (and not requiring 70+ shots to do it). You simply couldn't Rambo a whole camp of them like you always did in FO3.

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I currently have this up on the Bethesda Forum and it is generally being well received. One guy on there suggested creating a Perk for it - which I thought was brilliant.

Something along the lines of:
SNAP SHOT: Adds '5% to your acuracy when ADS and increases the 'aiming' speed by 25%.
 
Ausdoerrt said:
Iron sighting? What do you think this is, an FPS? It's an RPG FFS!! /sarcasm
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I know you were joking, but I felt that the current system in FO3 was a very broken FPS with minor RPG elements (speaking strictly of the combat system).

My attempt with suggesting this was to actually reintroduce a stronger RPG element to the combat - as in having your Weapon Skill be the primary reason your character is hitting or missing.
 
I know what you mean and i think its good, but frankly man, stuff like that which requires thought and tactics to use means in turn the majority of today's gamers (Consoles in particular, hence why i singled them out) won't like it.

Rambo is what most people want now :roll:

Edit: Personally i prefer a FPS viewpoint in games and i'd be willing to sacrifice a leg for this system and decent ballistics, but i just can't see it happening.
 
To be honest, you should just use some mods. In the vanilla FO3, skill and weapon type/condition do affect spread. But the effect of skill on accuracy is relatively minor, and that probably won't change in NV.

It's pretty easy to find mods that do most of the things you want. I don't know if there are any that implement a shrinking reticule.
 
Innawerkz said:
I know you were joking, but I felt that the current system in FO3 was a very broken FPS with minor RPG elements (speaking strictly of the combat system).
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IMO FO3 combat system is clearly broken beyond repair. If they wanted FPS (which is not a problem per se), they should have just made FPS. And allow skill points to be distributed between hacking/lock picking/first aid/speech and other non-combat skills. Throwing "small guns" and so on out of the window. Adding skill factor to a real-time battle that depends on player's reaction/coordination was a big mistake of Beth. But since they are depending on the Oblivion engine, devs have little choice here.
 
As an old-time PC gamer that loved FO1 and currently games on the PS3, I love the combat idea! :clap:

Have any of you tried FO3 combat exclusively in VATS? No RT shots? I think it adds a bit to the challenge.
 
I think it makes it easier actually, the aiming in FO3 was lousy on the console, courtesy of the crappiness that is the gamebryo engine, the only time I left VATS was for sniping.

I really do like this system, combine it with autoaim and you completely remove the twitch based realtime combat of FO3.
 
Kallisti said:
I really do like this system, combine it with autoaim and you completely remove the twitch based realtime combat of FO3.
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Jesus christ no. Auto Aim is terrible. On consoles maybe, but that's because consoles are a shitty platform to play a FPS on anyway.
 
Hopefully we have an option to use VATs in the same way Fallout 3 used it. VATs was clearly an improvement over the first games and most, if not all, FPS games should take example on it.
 
I'd like to see a swing toward MORE rpg based combat (and yes sorry FPS fans.. that means some form of turn based thingy)

FPS fans need not read the following, I firmly believe that in ANY rpg character ability in combat must be directly comparable to the related skills and skill bonuses, and in NO WAY related to player d-pad/mouse capability.

The reason for this (as an oldskool rpg enthusiast) I've had many proficient archers, swordsmen, snipers etc. when playing PnP games (GURPS, D&D, Vampire, Twilight 2k) but in real life I cant use a sword, have never used a bow, don't need to drink blood to survive and am not part of a post apocalyptic European military group.

And to the nub of how I would like to see things...

As 'combat' begins time pauses, and the player is presented with a tactical view of the situation, which is completely interactive via simple rotation menu's (this suits consoles and PC's) with this overview the player then makes decisions, such as 'shoot at' - 'go to' - 'hide behind' or other basic combat manoeuvres, then the computer does the magic, based on character ability, your movement and attacks play out until something occurs that causes the plan of action to fault... (i.e your arm just got chopped off) which would require a new plan of actions to be made.

Sure it breaks 'player immersion' for a while but it would allow the player CHARACTER to actually take part in combat.

A low Agility score? that order you gave to 'jump over' the bench goes horribly wrong... and your character stumbles over making him vulnerable for a brief while...

Low sneak skill? not such a great idea to issue 'hide behind' lamp-post... your character is easily seen and the enemy are still charging toward you!

Low big guns? issuing 'shoot at' Big ass raider with missile launcher isn't going to end well.

Certain things like 'pause for a stimpack' could be set up as default orders which 'interrupt' other orders, so your character would automatically undertake that action if the criteria are met(much like FO2 companion orders, use stim-pack when... hurt a lot)

I would enjoy these brief cinematic play out's and also enjoy the tactical decisions required before hand. I'd become more interested in my characters abilities ... always attempting to deal with situations in a way that would best fit my character, as opposed to...

Oh look (Insert enemy type) I'll charge toward them with my (insert weapon type) until they're all dead, and should I take damage I'll hit the pip-boy insta-break-time-and-laws-of-physics button and inject myself with around 50 stim-packs from the several thousand I'm carriyng.
which accounts for every encounter in FO3.

So, in short, more character based game play, my example of how to do things is just because I LOOOOOOOVE tactical gaming but there is no doubt other ways to achieve this.

slight edit>
Todd Howard's #1 Fan said:
Hopefully we have an option to use VATs in the same way Fallout 3 used it. VATs was clearly an improvement over the first games and most, if not all, FPS games should take example on it.
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I hope to high necropolis that they DO NOT use Failout 3 style VATS, it was an abomination of the called shots system from the previous games, even with no skill it was far to easy to hit V to enter cheat mode... sorry... VATS and headshot your way to happiness. If they re-use VATS then fuckitall I'll loose all faith in there ever being a true successor to fallout (1/2)
 
ah here wat if they just stuck in a switch r watevr so you could choose betwwn whatevr it is you (joe) want and ads (confirmed! fuckin A!) plus vats for the rest of us.

Appeased?
 
pipboy-x11 said:
Adding skill factor to a real-time battle that depends on player's reaction/coordination was a big mistake of Beth.
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I don't know, in Deus Ex it worked well.

Oh look (Insert enemy type) I'll charge toward them with my (insert weapon type) until they're all dead, and should I take damage I'll hit the pip-boy insta-break-time-and-laws-of-physics button and inject myself with around 50 stim-packs from the several thousand I'm carriyng.
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Pffft, amateur. Bringing up the Pip-Boy is slow and boring. I put stimpacks on a quick select button on the d-pad and use them the moment I take damage. :P
 
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