Emil comments on V.A.T.S.

Section8 said:
Oblivion, Morrowind and even Daggerfall are more or less devoid of core gameplay. What they have instead are frictionless activities that allow the player to act in a way befitting the "role" the player has defined for themselves.
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I wouldn't go as far as Daggerfall, but the way Bethesda is stripping their series of any content as of late will likely result in just that, a pure LARP simulator. But I do wonder if that isn't a consequence of their pandering to the largest audience possible instead of an anti-design philosophy of sorts.

Section8 said:
If Bethesda ever made a car racing game, there would be no time limit, no opponents, just 50,000 miles of roads that look the same
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Coming soon, from the developers of Oblivion and Fallout 3, the most immersive racing experience ever: Big Rigs 2. :D
 
sectionB said:
At the end of the day, the Bethesda way hasn't got much to do with actually gaming, and VATS is just the lastest iteration. Oblivion, Morrowind and even Daggerfall are more or less devoid of core gameplay. What they have instead are frictionless activities that allow the player to act in a way befitting the "role" the player has defined for themselves. They let you swing a sword, cast fireballs and so forth just so you can act like a warrior or a mage, but don't let that fool you into believing there's any real game component to this, because there's basically no challenge.
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I don't get your point, being able to act the role you have defined for yourself is one of the key elements of RPG games. What exactly do you mean by "being devoid of core gameplay?"
 
Normal RPGs limit how your gameplay choices either by your character's skillset or by circumstances. Section8 is saying Bethesda tries to avoid limiting the player in this way.
 
Well, actually I would argue that most pc or console RPGs limit your gameplay with a predifined story you have to follow.

Beth does this to a degree, but less so then most but moreso then some.
 
Normal RPGs limit how your gameplay choices either by your character's skillset or by circumstances. Section8 is saying Bethesda tries to avoid limiting the player in this way.
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well thats a trade-off, you get some freedom but, unlike Fallout, the gameplay wont change according to your character's sex, karma, skills.
 
Brother None said:
Normal RPGs limit how your gameplay choices either by your character's skillset or by circumstances. Section8 is saying Bethesda tries to avoid limiting the player in this way.
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In that way, I agree with Section8. Even about Daggerfall. My gaming buddy, who's probably played more games than I ever will, and who has worked (is working?) as a coder and game tester for some awfully big companies, played Daggerfall when it was still fairly new, before Morrowind came out, and he complained about the lack of consequences.

He pointed out to me that you basically ended up grinding the same quests over and over, based on the type of character you made: Warriors did "kill these things" quests, thieves did "steal this stuff" quests, etc, and you basically did all that until you were strong enough to advance the plot. It didn't sound that interesting to me, so I never played it.

It just seems like an almost pathological problem that Bethsoft has- the lack of consequences to one's actions. It certainly got much worse as time went on, but the seeds were there during Daggerfall.
 
Arash said:
Normal RPGs limit how your gameplay choices either by your character's skillset or by circumstances. Section8 is saying Bethesda tries to avoid limiting the player in this way.
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well thats a trade-off, you get some freedom but, unlike Fallout, the gameplay wont change according to your character's sex, karma, skills.
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A trade off for what? What is good about being able to be more of a Jack of all trades and not have sex, karma, and skills effect gameplay?
 
it's a fundamental difference between the two phrases

"you never play through the game the same way twice"
which is a very RPG-ish concept, in the western world

or

"you only ever need to play this game through once"
which is what bethesda seems to be making possible, but trying to circumvent by giving a level cap.

the second part is once again a fine example of Bethesda stubbornly grasping onto a basic concept despite wanting to implement another, mutually exclusive concept. they do so by futzing with game mechanics that need not be futzed with, instead of following the logical progression of their new (hopefully more desired) direction.

c'est la vie!
 
I don't get your point, being able to act the role you have defined for yourself is one of the key elements of RPG games. What exactly do you mean by "being devoid of core gameplay?"
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Well, in your "typical" RPG, there's a synergy between role playing and gaming. You can take an action, but the game holds you accountable for the success of that action. You're limited by the character you've defined and developed, and your character strengths become a necessity.

The Bethesda way is to make character strengths and weaknesses largely irrelevant. No matter what you choose to be, you could act completely contrary and still be successful.

So when I say "devoid of core gameplay" I basically mean that absolutely everything the game has to offer is an optional peripheral. In Oblivion there was really no need to every fight anything, since you could kite your way through the game, and the occasional combat that was forced upon you was relatively simple because it scaled to your level. Fallout 3 looks to be similar with the added bonus that you can just go into VATS when something is about to whack you, and as long as you're hit during the slow-mo bit, you won't get hurt.
 
Section8 said:
Fallout 3 looks to be similar with the added bonus that you can just go into VATS when something is about to whack you, and as long as you're hit during the slow-mo bit, you won't get hurt.
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Actually Texas Renegade pointed out that VATS may not always reduce damage. In the quote where that originally came from Emil said that there is a setting (I'm pretty sure he was referring to difficulty settings) where you take less damage in VATS. The bad news is that in that same quote he says that in certain camera angles they stop time for everything but you. Here's the quote I got that stuff from:
Another thing we stumbled into, because time is moving forward, is that while you are watching an enemy react to getting shot in this great camera angle, your character can be getting mauled by another enemy. Really frustrating early on as we played it, so we do two things now: 1) depending on the camera chosen we essentially pause the rest of the world, and 2) we have a setting that dramatically reduces the damage the player takes during such an occurrence.
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Source: http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=755135

I agree with your argument and I'm interested in what the final verdict on VATS was but I just thought that it was worth bringing up again.
 
Section8 said:
Fallout 3 looks to be similar with the added bonus that you can just go into VATS when something is about to whack you, and as long as you're hit during the slow-mo bit, you won't get hurt.
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From what I've seen, the game pauses when you go into VATS, it's when you're taking the shot that time is slowed and enemies will fire at you. So, if you are about to die and you don't have enough AP for a shot, you have essentially just paused the game -- not reduced the damage you take.
 
Casual Gamer said:
Section8 said:
Fallout 3 looks to be similar with the added bonus that you can just go into VATS when something is about to whack you, and as long as you're hit during the slow-mo bit, you won't get hurt.
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From what I've seen, the game pauses when you go into VATS, it's when you're taking the shot that time is slowed and enemies will fire at you. So, if you are about to die and you don't have enough AP for a shot, you have essentially just paused the game -- not reduced the damage you take.
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Which still gives you time to decide which way to run away from enemies while your AP recharges. As a result breaking the real-time gameplay. VATS looks to be trying to please both turn-based & real-time players and as result probably pissing the hardcore sections of both groups off.
 
Casual Gamer said:
Section8 said:
Fallout 3 looks to be similar with the added bonus that you can just go into VATS when something is about to whack you, and as long as you're hit during the slow-mo bit, you won't get hurt.
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From what I've seen, the game pauses when you go into VATS, it's when you're taking the shot that time is slowed and enemies will fire at you. So, if you are about to die and you don't have enough AP for a shot, you have essentially just paused the game -- not reduced the damage you take.
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You seem to have misread Section8's post. He's saying that if you're hit during the slo-mo play-out of the VATS shot(s), you take reduced damage. This is true, as it has been stated as much by Pete or Emil or Todd or some combination of that unholy trinity. He was never talking about taking damage while the game is paused after you bring up VATS in the first place, only the following slo-mo playout of the shot(s). Obviously it would be a bit odd if you were taking damage while the game is paused.
 
Kyuu said:
Obviously it would be a bit odd if you were taking damage while the game is paused.
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Might be an interesting balance to VATS if you did take damage while it's paused. Assuming of course that they could come up with a good explanation for it. Of course it would be another point in favour of it being RT instead of turn-based, but it would be C&C.
 
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