Fallout 3: Ranged vs Melee weapons, don't nerf ranged!

[Rhec]

I was reading some old Fallout 3 articles and interviews, and one thing mentioned in the unofficial faq at http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=1594 was giving melee weapons a larger role.

This would be done by making ammo for guns much more rare, so players conserved using guns for times that they absolutely needed them. In my personal opinion, that's not too fun. I remember playing Fallout 2 and at the start that was one of the things I didn't quite like; I always used to enjoy aiming a gun right between someone's eyes and watching their head blow off. That's one of the things Fallout is all about, and making this any less common is an issue.

On the other hand, I do see how melee weapons became really useless, but I don't think nerfing guns is the answer. What if you gave melee weapons a new role, like being more useful in stealth? Generally guns make a lot of noise, and if you choose to sneak in to an area being heavily guarded, you could blow your cover.

You could be going in covertly with a pocket knife, or maybe avoiding a huge confrontation by sticking a spear through some head gangster. This sounds much more fun to me. There could be certain situations in the game where melee was absolutely required, or where it could be done just for fun.

Old idea I've seen: make ammo scarce, force players to rely on melee
New idea: Keep ranged weapons the same, require melee for stealth situations

Feedback?

-Rhec

--

AIM:thenextrobot

 

[Sept13]

Remembering that the game is post apocalyptic and there aren't so many gun/bullet factories in the wasteland, so ammo shouln'd be the thing you find most commonly.

I'm all up to the idea of making melee much more important.

 

[SuAside]

Remembering that the game is post apocalyptic and there aren't so many gun/bullet factories in the wasteland, so ammo shouln'd be the thing you find most commonly.

modern guns are hard to make but bullets are daaaarn easy to manufacture dude

in a post apocalypse situation i guess we'd go back to some sixshooters western style, but ammo wouldn't really be in short supply

 

[Dack]

Call me weird, but I think resource scarcity is an artform. When done right, it can add a lot of depth - done wrong, it can suck majorly. I'll always remember the original Resident Evil, where I had to conserve every clip and every health herb - try to make every shot a head shot because it would save bullets. 'Course, R.E. took it too far in some areas, especially in the save game department.

For me it's not about making melee weapons more useful at all. It's about how ammo scarcity forces me to micro manage resources - and how that makes the game more interesting. Example:

You face a warehouse with 7 raiders inside - 2 just inside the door and 5 further back standing around a table. You can have:

A-a shotgun with 13 rounds + an uzi with 4 bursts
B- an AK47 with 200 rounds, a handgun with 80 rounds.

Situation B - depending on which weapon I think is more powerful, I probably use only that.

Situation A - because I have so little ammo I have to use both weapons to their full potential. Maybe I open the door and burst on the guards and then take mid range pot shots with the shot gun on the others. Hell, maybe I can't even finish the fight - I have to loot corpses for ammo and then run for an exit. That's much more compelling for me.

Don't get me wrong, I like spray and pray bulletry as much as the next guy, I just think it shouldn't always be an option. Designers should force the player to think through a gun fight now and then instead of always having 'overwhelming force'. Some players like to be challenged to manage their resources just right. I definitely like it.

 

[SuAside]

idd that kind of micromanagement is better if done right (and im all for it)

but i just dont think that would happen "irl"

although i do think that walking around with a bozar with 1000-1250 spare rounds (as i did in fallout 2) is kinda overkill :p

 

[Big T]

modern guns are hard to make but bullets are daaaarn easy to manufacture dude

To what specification though?
Another way to pump up the importance of melee would be to make guns less reliable. 80 years after a nuclear holocaust nearly all the remaining pre-war ammo would be gone, and the limited means for manufacture of new ammo would make it less than reliable.
Just think, you'd have a choice between very rare (and thus expensive) pre-war ammo, or more plentiful (hence cheaper) but unreliable post-war ammo.
If guns (with the shitty ammo) had a 30% chance of critical miss, it would be a sufficiently large deterrent to using them.
The same could be implemented for guns manufactured post-war, or maybe all guns due to wear & tear from improper maintenance.

EDIT - It would also make using automatic (and semi-auto) guns more difficult as they would be much more prone to jamming/misfiring with poor shells loaded.

 

[SuAside]

lol big T

you like the slayerperk i guess

anyhow, i think we are going into extremes here

 

[Big T]

you like the slayerperk i guess

anyhow, i think we are going into extremes here

Not really, I always liked the criticals to the eyes. I was talking about improvement of the game universe, not making it easier to play one character type.
I'm not going to extremes with this, what I've suggested would fit well in a post apoc environment, and different quality items are hardly unknown in RPGs.

 

[SuAside]

Not really, I always liked the criticals to the eyes.

hah, everybody does

I'm not going to extremes with this, what I've suggested would fit well in a post apoc environment, and different quality items are hardly unknown in RPGs.

thats true, but even for a crapweapon 30% of jamming or blowing up in your face is pretty high

 

[Big T]

thats true, but even for a crapweapon 30% of jamming or blowing up in your face is pretty high

Not really. Using a weapon that's been stored in a desert environment with no proper maintenance for eighty (plus) years and loaded with irregularly shaped ammunition (with unpredictable explosive power) you would be lucky to get one shot off without something going wrong. Of course using a well made and well maintained weapon with high quality ammo the failure rate would drop substantially.

For instance, in FO1, the ammo made in the LA Boneyard would be of a fairly low quality, perhaps equvalent to 19th century efforts. (Equivalent to those used in the Wild West, guns in those times were notorious for jamming, backfiring and being very innacurate)
Wheras in FO2, the ammo made by the Enclave would be of high quality (perhaps even surpassing modern standards - after all, they are rather an advanced group).

 

[SuAside]

i'm not convinced.

if you take in account the amount of guncrazy americans (and in particular the militias) you end up with quite a lot of people that know how to handle guns (at least standard maintenance).

if anything happens, being able to make decent ammo will become pretty important and therefor it shall be passed on rapidly.

i am sure that there will be some bad ammo floating around but there will be quite a lot of places with very descent ammo (vault city, san fran, NCR, new reno,...)

making a standard FMJ 9mm slug is not that hard, only advanced designs will be almost impossible to make in the wastes. (the 5.7mm special P90 bullet for instance)

 

[Big T]

if you take in account the amount of guncrazy americans (and in particular the militias) you end up with quite a lot of people that know how to handle guns (at least standard maintenance).

Some maybe, but after so long most of the skills would have gone (or at least decreased).

making a standard FMJ 9mm slug is not that hard

Not that hard with modern materials and equipment. But making them from recycled scrap metal using wood burning stoves and very limited machinery (no proper lathes for starters (unless they could salvage and repair a pre-war power supply and re-fit a manual lathe, AND they'd have no high strengh (magnesium-steel?) bits) and basic casting techniques would not be accurate enough) would become much more difficult.
That's just the casing (and the projectile, but the spec on that would be less important methinks). What about propellant?
They'd have to go back to simple explosive (like gunpowder) rather than the more sophisticated modern explosives. This would greatly decrease power (and hence range) and also (I would imagine) reliability.

 

[Roshambo]

Then, tack on the regular hazards of living in the wasteland. The guards would be using them regularly to keep the place safe, and the chemist would be the one on the hand crank making more bullets from old shells.

Factor in a regular loss of the shells, having to find lead or other suitable materials for the actual bullet (and lead is picked for a reason), and then you'll find supplies in general dwindling or the general effectiveness of the bullets are drastically lowered.

A muzzle-loader is far more probable to see in the universe with that attrition level, or pipe rifles. Real guns and bullets should be a far more scarce thing, depending upon the location and date of the setting.

 

[Kahgan]

Not really, I always liked the criticals to the eyes.

meh, me to...altho it was kinda wierd how you get a critical shot in the eyes and half the guys chest and arm flyes through the air.......but damn i loved that death animation.....

 

[SuAside]

meh, me to...altho it was kinda wierd how you get a critical shot in the eyes and half the guys chest and arm flyes through the air.......but damn i loved that death animation.....

especially with the limited edition Red Ryder BB

 

[Kahgan]

or dogmeat when you has the bloody mess perk

 

[Jabbapop]

or dogmeat when you has the bloody mess perk

thats the only perk i ever give myself starting game.
i just cant handle the negative effects of the rest of them.

 

[Kahgan]

first, i wrote wrong, its trait, but fuck that.....secondly, you gotta have more than one trait.....