Fallout 4 is such garbage I don't want to fix it

[Walpknut]

The mere existence of VATS as a in game world Spell is one of the worst things Bethesda did. Focusing on it more would just make the game worse. I'll say if it now has to have real time combat is better for it to be good real time combat and for VATS to be fully replaced with something else, maybe a Bullet time effect where you get to target parts more easily and for the Body part damage system to return (FO4 basically made it moot) and for there to be more focus on Melee and unarmed too.

Also make more than 1 minigame for hacking and lockpicking. Why do all doors have the same lock? Why not make it so that the Lockpicking and hacking skills aren't just keys to unlock arbitrary "levels" of the same minigame but they would also allow you to bypass them by crafting tools and shit?

 

[Kohno]

For an RPG/FPS hybrid, the ideal system would be one where skills effect damage but not accuracy. In this kind of system, weapons you aren't skilled with would still be incredibly inefficient, to the extent you wouldn't bother using them, but at the same time you don't get the unsatisfactory feeling of arrows launching off in random directions.

Bethesda did it quite well then.

I can but disagree. The damage progression is horribly unsatisfying as there's never a sense of accomplishment; you always succeed, just better or less well based on whether it's early in the game or later in the game. It is also illogical in that you aren't training your character to shoot with "skill" increments, but that you are buffouting the bullets. The game always starts with a horrible grind as your pellet gun dinks the enemy hp away little by little.

If you are allowed to (or even forced to at times) miss, the hits you score are all the more satisfying. Especially if guns are more or less deadly already from the get go and the damage doesn't scale with skill. This way you have a chance to take on even harder opponents already from the start knowing that if you just have a bit of luck, your .38 can be a lethal weapon even in a higher tier company.

Accuracy need not mean what Morrowind does to the letter, that you empty a clip to someones face and nothing happens. It doesn't need to be a to-hit roll. Spread can well handle that. I remember back in 2010 how disappointing it was that no matter how I tried, I couldn't make a character who's bad at shooting things and gradually gets better, I never even needed to rise the guns skill above 50 (I bet even lower would've sufficed) and had no trouble in combat. That's just bad. If they wanted the game to play like that, they should've left the skills out altogether and focused fully on gear progression like Stalker or something.

But it could be a to-hit roll, if the game offered a form of control that supported that kind of system better than manual aim. Some kind of active target lock accompanied with Deus Ex style focus timer might already do the trick to a certain degree. Certainly not a good shooter, but I don't care about that.

The game also does not need to have the cursor in front of you be a representation of "aim", but simply the direction of vision and focus. When you pull out a gun, you might well lose the cursor altogether and have enemies in fromt of you, that you point the barrel at, get a slight highlight indicating that now's the chance to shoot them. That highlight might even be colour coded with perks to point out the difficulty (they had a system for that with Boone's perk). Once again, probably not a good shooter that way, but it shouldn't be either.

There are all kinds of ways to design it for what ever the sought out experience is, RPG here. But if a good shooter is what is wanted, then that's that. Bethesda is on the right track with losing the skills and all other stuff that's related.

They got the engine and had 18 months to learn and edit it while already making the game.

Yeah, that's a fair argument. They certainly didn't have time for anything radical. But they did have Bethesda people and Salgado there to teach them.

The mere existence of VATS as a in game world Spell is one of the worst things Bethesda did.

As that, sure it is.

But I'd rather tweak it to something at least semi-entertaining and be happy with it, than make the game a better shooter.

 

[Black Angel]

Since it's rather off-topic, I'll just put the entire thing on spoiler.

Spoiler

Projectile skills should have affected gameplay much more, heavier effect on accuracy more specifically.

I'm not exactly on the fence with all the interviews, but wasn't projectile skills did exactly just that? I remembered in my vanilla run, my very first playthrough mind you, when I use a gun while my Guns skill is relatively low, it sways a lot. And because of that I miss a lot if I try aiming down the sight. But as I level up and my Guns skill increases, I can aim better down the sight because it sways less and less. Of course, moving my aim around still feels off but that's just Gamebryo's atrocity, really.

The guns and ew skills did so very little in the game that they could've almost be absent.

Sawyers knack for balancing also made the choices between guns and ew almost an irrelevant one as they were balanced to work so similiarly (Sawyer himself has spitballed how that could've been improved...). There's very little practical distinction inspite what it might say on paper with ew -DT stuff and all. That could've well been differently handled, and again the skills did so very little to the gameplay....

I disagree that they did so very little in the game. Again, I'll say, compared to Fallout 3 it did much more. In Fallout 3, there's no minimum skill requirement to use weapons. Now in New Vegas, there is, and not just Guns and EW. Melee and Unarmed weapons also has minimum skill requirement to use the weapon effectively, or otherwise they will wobble and sways even more. Not to mention minimum STR requirement.

But I also have to ask, what do you exactly meant with 'did so very little'? I remembered some minor criticism for Fallout 1&2, that if you tagged Energy Weapon at chargen, you're fucked because EW won't really start appearing until mid and pretty late in the game. In New Vegas, however, tag Energy Weapons and you'll be given one by Doc Mitchell. Hell, you can get pretty good ones quite early in the game.

Although, I'll have to give you that with DT system. Fallout 1&2 has multiple DT/DR for different type of damage, which is what they haven't bring back with New Vegas. Since there's only a singular DT/DR system, yeah there's very little practical distinction in regards to how Guns and EW really work.

The ammotypes and DT actually play into my original criticism of the game working too much like an FPS since it does cut down even the HP grind, even that is now mitigated from the characters aptitude.

I don't really understand this. Care to elaborate further?

They could've well chopped the map in pieces and reintroduced the world map travel between hubs (that this time around would've offered explorable landscapes as well). '

Not possible because they're on the leash by Bethesda.

VATS wasn't altered enough. It was still the sort of panic button safeguard. They should've boldly gone deeper into making it a genuine and somewhat comprehensive combat feature.

Like Cobra Commander said, it was changed. Maybe not altered enough so that it would work immensely better, but it's definitely not 'the sort of panic button safeguard'. I remembered I died a few times in my vanilla run when executing VATS.

Bethesda has earned most of all criticism they've gotten, but two things they did better. They understood that pleas and begs deserve a %-check while expressing knowledge comes with flat threshold. And generally (as Sawyer too has admitted), the dialog checks were kind of "I win" conditions, which they shouldn't have been.

Yeah, it has been the same old song in cRPG community at large that dialogues, specifically Speech checks, were kind of "I win" button. However, I wouldn't say Bethesda's implementation of %-checks are 'better'. Better compared to what? Because the %-checks system is heavily prone to savescum abuse in Fallout 3 because of how you can attempt it at (iirc) as low as 10% chance. Meanwhile, some checks in Fallout 1&2 won't appear unless you've met certain threshold.

I guess it's a matter of design preference, really. Fallout 1&2's system is the best, though I guess they made it that way in New Vegas so they can write those failed checks dialogues.

And the other would be how repair skill worked in Fallout 3... Buying your gun into mintness in NV with 20 duplicates was awful. It would've made the skill much much more worthwhile if it had determined how much the character actually knows how to repair.

Yeah, I'll have to give you this one. On top of that, they even removed that maximum repair possible from Fallout 3, which is a cool system I'd say. At least you can craft Weapon Repair Kit in New Vegas, though.

They could've also well stripped the minigames and allowed the PC to do his dues accordingly with lockpicking and hacking.

Again, not possible because they're on the leash by Bethesda. Possible now thanks to mods, though.

They could've added character based interactivity to the world and objects to underline the mechanical intrigue and meaning of the characerbuild.

If you meant by that with how you can choose to interact with objects and how you do it (Look at, Use Items at, Use Skills at, etc etc) like you do in Fallout 1&2..... well, yeah, I don't think such a whole new feature is possible for the engine. Might there be a mod out there implementing something like this?

There's more, but you get the gist. The game is not going to change anymore, but I would hope people recognized that while there's a lot of good things to say about New Vegas, it's not beyond criticism; and the full on "Obsidian defence force" mode that excuses all the faults and shortcomings and makes up odd diversions ("Not FPS with RPG elements but RPG with FPS elements", that's... I don't even know what it means here, the game plays the way it plays, the combat there plays the way it does....) often sounds frighteningly lot of Bethesda goons from 9 years ago dismissing all criticisms of Fallout 3.

I don't think anyone here is saying New Vegas is beyond criticism. I'd say it's a matter of hitting the mark with right criticism. Although I do agree with Risewild that your criticism has been fair so far. However, adding to Rise's post I would say, and also reiterate, that New Vegas's improvement to shooting mechanics at the very least pretty good for an FPS-RPG hybrid. Definitely miles ahead of what was implemented in Fallout 3, even though sadly you can't see how it's that way.

 

[Risewild]

First Person/Action Games should not make player skill effect accuracy, that's terrible game design IMO.

Skills effecting accuracy works perfectly in turn based games, sure, but in a first person game, you generally go under the assumption that when you loose a bow, the arrow will land where you were aiming for.

Adopting a Morrowind System where you can do everything perfectly, but still consistently miss the target because your skill isn't high enough generally instils the player with a feeling that they are doing something wrong.

I am of the exact opposite opinion.
A bullet fired from a weapon shouldn't deal more damage like magic. Doesn't matter if a professional shooter shoots a 9mm at the chest of a target and then someone who never shot a weapon does it too, the damage doesn't decrease just because one is not as experienced using the weapon.
In reality what matters is that a professional shooter hits the target better.
Increasing weapon damage with higher skill always annoyed me in RPGs. By making the weapon hit more, you're already increasing the damage you deal (you miss less, you deal more damage, you are better at hitting vital point like the head, your damage is increased, etc).

In the real world we also see that people who never shot a weapon much think they are aiming perfectly at the bullseye of a target and the end result is missing it, by usually a lot. While experienced shooters will hit the bullseye or miss by little. Practice at shooting makes people hit the target more, not deal more damage to the target (a 9mm will always leave the same sized hole in a target, no matter who shoots it).

So saying that it should be realistic so aiming the weapon at someone should always hit and depending how skilled you are should deal more or less damage is totally silly, because that is not what happens in real life.

Also only people who I ever see complaining about Morrowind combat are younger players, no one complained much at all when the game was released and subsequent years after because it was aimed at P&P players, and those have no problem with it. It was the FPS players that started to complain. Most RPG players had no problem and what that achieved was them knowing they needed to train their fighting skill with those weapons if they wanted to hit more.

 

[Kohno]

@Black Angel There they are inside the spolertags.

Spoiler

I'm not exactly on the fence with all the interviews, but wasn't projectile skills did exactly just that?

There is some. But not enough to make any sensible difference character progression-wise. In my very first playthrough I set a goal to myself to create a character that's an absolute noob with guns, but learns through the adventure. I set AGI and PER to low (turns out PER didn't affect accuracy afterall even though the description says so, or so I'm told), took the +20% ROF -20% ACC and Foureyes traits (and decidedly did not wear glasses early on) and didn't tag Guns. It just so turned out that ne sway and spread are negligable and further offset by crouching and ironsights. It was quite disappointing.

My criticism on that from 2010 already has been that the accuracy penalties (sway and spread, Sawyer said there was nothing in the engine to support dynamic recoil so I don't know if asking for that would've been plausible) should've been heavyhandedly larger than what they were and the increments adjusted such, that it gets subtly easier otherwise with point increments, but once the requirements are met, there's is a bigger jump in performance.

Again, I'll say, compared to Fallout 3 it did much more.

Being better than Fallout 3 is a selfevident absolute. One can justify any kind of shortcomings by comparing to it. I'd rather judge the game by its own merits.

But I also have to ask, what do you exactly meant with 'did so very little'?

I mean that they didn't affect gameplay as much as they should've. Dialog checks are all well and good, but otherwise, the primary use of the skill.... it's accuracy argument above.

I remembered some minor criticism for Fallout 1&2, that if you tagged Energy Weapon at chargen, you're fucked because EW won't really start appearing until mid and pretty late in the game. In New Vegas, however, tag Energy Weapons and you'll be given one by Doc Mitchell. Hell, you can get pretty good ones quite early in the game.

But it makes so little difference whether you choose guns or energy weapons now that it's quite practically a choice between aesthetics. That's the criticism. In original games energy weapons were thematically something odd and in a way mysterious high tech wonders that had devastating effects. They were "late game" weapons for a reason.

I don't really understand this. Care to elaborate further?

Eliminating even the damage vs HP progression makes it even closer 'just a shooter'.

Not possible because they're on the leash by Bethesda.

Yeah, I don't believe that's entirely true. I have a very vivid recollection of Sawyer saying - several years ago and I can't remember if it was on Formspring or in some interview - that had they wanted to, they could've made a game completely from scratch on another engine. But due to the time and money constraints, it would've meant that the game wouldn't have been even half the size of New Vegas and they had set their own goals such that "it has to be bigger than Fallout 3", and that that's why they went the way they went. They had quite some creative freedom.

I try to point my criticism towards what I believe they were capable of doing. The map thing was already half done through transition between DLC areas, only the dynamic overland map part was missing.

Like Cobra Commander said, it was changed. Maybe not altered enough

Yeah. Not enough.

However, I wouldn't say Bethesda's implementation of %-checks are 'better'.

Not Beth's "implementation" specifically, but the system being used.

And the savescum argument is... I dunno. If someone chooses to do it and thus ruin their experience and still complain about it, it's their fucking loss and nobody else should care, not devs nor other players.

Ways of discouraging savescumming and encouraging accepting failure is a new conversation entirely.

Meanwhile, some checks in Fallout 1&2 won't appear unless you've met certain threshold.

You'll notice that I didn't say %-checks should replace thresholds.

Expressing knowledge that comes with higher skill or stat number and is otherwise hidden, is good design, it is how it should be. But when it comes to persuading, begging pleaing, intimidating, or otherwise trying to influence one's sensibilities, it is logical and called for that the result is not written in stone.

I guess it's a matter of design preference, really. Fallout 1&2's system is the best, though I guess they made it that way in New Vegas so they can write those failed checks dialogues.

I've no qualms with how NV handled it's threshold checks other than that the numbers [INTELLIGENCE 5/6], at least, should've been hidden. I thought the failure dialogs in those checks were quite novel idea. I just had hoped, that persuasion and intimidation checks were more about "haggling" than flat checks.


Yeah, I'll have to give you this one. On top of that, they even removed that maximum repair possible from Fallout 3, which is a cool system I'd say. At least you can craft Weapon Repair Kit in New Vegas, though.

Again, not possible because they're on the leash by Bethesda.

In the light of the previous response to Beth's leash, I don't believe they said "minigames or bust".

As for mods. I don't use them anymore (tried some with Oblivion and Fallout 3, and... they didn't get any better that way, just a bit different in certain ways). Too much hassle over worth for someone not that much into all those technicalities and the troubleshooting that's likely to follow. If a game is not good enough on it's own, it doesn't deserve to be played.

If you meant by that with how you can choose to interact with objects and how you do it (Look at, Use Items at, Use Skills at, etc etc) like you do in Fallout 1&2..... well, yeah, I don't think such a whole new feature is possible for the engine.

When you first find ED-E, and click on it, a dialog window opens that gives you various options for interactions (and there are few other context sensitive cases of that elsewhere in the game too). Same with when you click companions and the companionwheel opens up. I don't see how those systems couldn't be utilized for environmental and item interaction.

I don't think anyone here is saying New Vegas is beyond criticism. I'd say it's a matter of hitting the mark with right criticism.

What is the "right mark" here, though, if it is not the aspects that counter the original RPG design that could have been closer to the ideal only if made so?

However, adding to Rise's post I would say, and also reiterate, that New Vegas's improvement to shooting mechanics at the very least pretty good for an FPS-RPG hybrid.

Yeah, my criticism in that regard is precisely against making it a better shooter at the expense of more potent RPG mechanics affect the combat situation. I think the game should've been worse as a shooter and be adjusted so that there's less trashcombat that requires that shooter aspect highlighted.

Definitely miles ahead of what was implemented in Fallout 3, even though sadly you can't see how it's that way.

"Miles" does indeed sound like an exaggeration based on my experience. And indeed I think the "improvement" went in the wrong direction there. It should've went to become more of a wholesale RPG than a better shooter-RPG.

A bullet fired from a weapon shouldn't deal more damage like magic. Doesn't matter if a professional shooter shoots a 9mm at the chest of a target and then someone who never shot a weapon does it too, the damage doesn't decrease just because one is not as experienced using the weapon.
In reality what matters is that a professional shooter hits the target better.

Indeed!

 

[SilverStarApple/Epsilon7]

>Bethesda has earned most of all criticism they've gotten, but two things they did better. They understood that pleas and begs deserve a %-check while expressing knowledge comes with flat threshold. And generally (as Sawyer too has admitted), the dialog checks were kind of "I win" conditions, which they shouldn't have been.

No.

For starters, every dialogue option in Fallout 4 was a speech check, a random chance that gets boosted by your charisma score. "Give me more caps" and "There's something you're not telling me" and so on are all randomly-succeeding or randomly-failing until you RELOAD THE QUICKSAVE MID-CONVERSATION to succeed.

A smooth-talking character should have more "Get out of combat for free" scenarios to compensate for the fact that his Charisma and Int are 8, not his Str and End and Agi. He should have more options to intimidate people, get rid of people, and generally bypass combat altogether because that's the way old-fashioned RPGs were made, so the Party Face could solve things diplomatically whenever the fighters didn't feel like fighting.

If your character is a smooth-talker, his speech checks are "But if you do that, nobody benefits" and "You realize you'd lose the east trying to hold the west, right?".

If your character can't talk to save his life, his speech checks are pleas like "Please don't do that!" and "But that's a bad thing!". They aren't going to convince anyone.

Remember that scene in Fallout 4?

Mary Sue BOS Boss: Synths are evil! Synths must be eliminated! Danse must die! Every synth is an atomic bomb in an arsenal that could wipe out humanity!
SS: Do you really believe that?
(Get the speech check fail SFX and reload mid-conversation until you succeed)
SS: Do you really believe that?
(Speech check success SFX)
Mary Sue BOS Boss: (Confused and conflicted) Do... Do I?

Yeah, dude, this is... This is just so much better than that silly long complicated unfighty "Get out of fighting free" thing at the end of Fallout New Vegas against Lanius. Just so, so much.

 

[Kohno]

No.

A smooth-talking character should have more "Get out of combat for free" scenarios to compensate for the fact that his Charisma and Int are 8, not his Str and End and Agi.

No arguments there. A talker PC should have options to try and pass through situations without violence.

"Give me more caps" and "There's something you're not telling me" and so on are all randomly-succeeding or randomly-failing until you RELOAD THE QUICKSAVE MID-CONVERSATION to succeed.

Nobody gives a shit if you (or anyone) savescum those checks. It's your choice. If you watch the loading screen and fast forward the dialog until the check arrives for 10 times, I'd say you've earned the few more caps it grants you or what ever other minor favorable response there is. If it ruins your experience, you only have yourself to blame.

The concept is still logical and sound.

What ever could be done to make things wholesale interesting enough for the player who's prone to savescum and then complain to not do so, is another matter.

Remember that scene in Fallout 4?

No.

And I'm glad I don't.

 

[Black Angel]

@Kohno

Spoiler

Yeah, fair enough.

In regards to environmental and item interaction, well, it's actually a thing but most, if not all of them are tied to a quest (like when you are to pull the lever to finish Come Fly With Me, you have a chance to use Science check on it), and unfortunately they're rather lacking compared to companion's interaction. But I'd say it's just not possible to try implementing it with exactly every pieces of environment and items cluttered in the game (which is also in an open-world format, mind you) like in Fallout 1&2. It's just the shitty engine, really.

And the 'right' mark I meant was more of criticism on RPG aspects, and moment-to-moment gameplay mechanics related to it. Like Lockpicking and Hacking minigames, which is exactly a gameplay moment where player's skill is put to test, and character's skill have very minor contribution on how it's done, other than putting arbitrary threshold before you can even begin the attempt. And many things more RPG-related, like how they remove the maximum repair possible from Fallout 3 which simulates a character's maximum ability when repairing stuff, and also your criticism regarding %-checks&threshold. Hell, let's not stop at that and actually ask for a full-fledged turn-based combat, because changing the combat mechanic from that of Fallout 1&2's to that of Fallout 3's is the wrongest move ever because TB-combat mechanic was a core aspect of Fallout 1&2's gameplay, but this is more of a same old song that I'm sure the most ancient member of this forum have sang before.
But arguing that it would be 'better off a worse shooter'..... I agree with wanting less trash and filler combat so that the atrocious shooting mechanic won't be as glaring, but worse shooter.... compared to what? Fallout 3? I have to disagree with that, certainly not 'a right criticism that hits the mark'.

 

[Kohno]

@Black Angel

Spoiler

In regards to environmental and item interaction ... unfortunately they're rather lacking compared to companion's interaction. But I'd say it's just not possible to try implementing it with exactly every pieces of environment and items cluttered in the game

It doesn't need to be implemented on "every piece of environment and item". Not at all, let's not get over our heads here. Here and there to the point that it feels like the environs aren't just decor would be quite enough.

Boone's highlighter perk design could be a provider here too. The player might notice these things based on perception, and when zooming in, the interactables within a certain distance would highlight. For one example, zooming in at a group of car carcasses (like the ones leading up to Mojave Outpost) and a couple might flash out in green with a succesful PER check; not all of them need to, but that already gives a wholly different feel to the world. If the engine can fit in a shitload of containers with useless loot and other trash with physics, why not interactables?

And the 'right' mark I meant was more of criticism on RPG aspects, and moment-to-moment gameplay mechanics related to it.

I thought that's pretty much what I was doing. The skills affecting combat so that it feels less of a shooter and more like an RPG surely count, no?

Hell, let's not stop at that and actually ask for a full-fledged turn-based combat, because changing the combat mechanic from that of Fallout 1&2's to that of Fallout 3's is the wrongest move ever because TB-combat mechanic was a core aspect of Fallout 1&2's gameplay, but this is more of a same old song that I'm sure the most ancient member of this forum have sang before.

VATS already has the trappings of how it could be done. If you look at how combat in Wizardry 8 works and swap the partymembers there for action points, it looks very much like VATS but with a good deal of additional depth.

In any case, my criticism here was more about what the game does and how that would've been better. Of course the ideal situation would've been that they made a completely new game in the original format and didn't give a fuck if it was "as big as-" or "similiar to Fallout 3" and said "to hell with FPS combat". The original games weren't nearly that big and they've lasted for two decades; NV lasted me for a couple of years inspite of its good aspects. We can go there too, the game's not negotiable anymore.

But arguing that it would be 'better off a worse shooter'..... I agree with wanting less trash and filler combat so that the atrocious shooting mechanic won't be as glaring, but worse shooter.... compared to what? Fallout 3?

Compared to what it ended up as. And Fallout 3. But don't take the "worse shooter" to mean simply what it says, that the gameplay should be bad. Obviously the intent is that while it would be worse as a shooter, it should still play well in another fashion.

I have to disagree with that, certainly not 'a right criticism that hits the mark'.

Why not, though? Is the "shooter" aspect really that important that it has no satisfactory alternatives in the world of gamedesign? That criticising it is going too far?

 

[Cobra Commander]

>Bethesda has earned most of all criticism they've gotten, but two things they did better. They understood that pleas and begs deserve a %-check while expressing knowledge comes with flat threshold. And generally (as Sawyer too has admitted), the dialog checks were kind of "I win" conditions, which they shouldn't have been.

No.

For starters, every dialogue option in Fallout 4 was a speech check, a random chance that gets boosted by your charisma score. "Give me more caps" and "There's something you're not telling me" and so on are all randomly-succeeding or randomly-failing until you RELOAD THE QUICKSAVE MID-CONVERSATION to succeed.

A smooth-talking character should have more "Get out of combat for free" scenarios to compensate for the fact that his Charisma and Int are 8, not his Str and End and Agi. He should have more options to intimidate people, get rid of people, and generally bypass combat altogether because that's the way old-fashioned RPGs were made, so the Party Face could solve things diplomatically whenever the fighters didn't feel like fighting.

If your character is a smooth-talker, his speech checks are "But if you do that, nobody benefits" and "You realize you'd lose the east trying to hold the west, right?".

If your character can't talk to save his life, his speech checks are pleas like "Please don't do that!" and "But that's a bad thing!". They aren't going to convince anyone.

Remember that scene in Fallout 4?

Mary Sue BOS Boss: Synths are evil! Synths must be eliminated! Danse must die! Every synth is an atomic bomb in an arsenal that could wipe out humanity!
SS: Do you really believe that?
(Get the speech check fail SFX and reload mid-conversation until you succeed)
SS: Do you really believe that?
(Speech check success SFX)
Mary Sue BOS Boss: (Confused and conflicted) Do... Do I?

Yeah, dude, this is... This is just so much better than that silly long complicated unfighty "Get out of fighting free" thing at the end of Fallout New Vegas against Lanius. Just so, so much.

And I say more. Whoever prefers the hidden skills/perks checks like Fallout 1/2 is is a boring and annoying nostalgic. I do not have to guess what kind of manipulation my character is making in the conversation. I need to see what it is because it is not real life.

 

[Black Angel]

@Kohno

Spoiler

Why not, though? Is the "shooter" aspect really that important that it has no satisfactory alternatives in the world of gamedesign? That criticising it is going too far?

I'm not saying it's important in and of itself, but in regards to being a part of an FPSRPG hybrid, the shooting mechanics I felt is good enough. What I see is that there's a lot of room to improve the shooting mechanics so that the game can felt more of an RPG without making it outright worse as a shooter.

Hell, why don't we talk about your criticism and initial suggestion of how it could've work? This is what you said when you first start played with NV's shooting mechanic:

In my very first playthrough I set a goal to myself to create a character that's an absolute noob with guns, but learns through the adventure. I set AGI and PER to low (turns out PER didn't affect accuracy afterall even though the description says so, or so I'm told), took the +20% ROF -20% ACC and Foureyes traits (and decidedly did not wear glasses early on) and didn't tag Guns. It just so turned out that ne sway and spread are negligable and further offset by crouching and ironsights. It was quite disappointing.

Basically, I assumed from that quote that you expected the sway and spread to be more than negligibly affected by low AGI and PER, and crouching and ironsights don't outright offset it. I feel like if they were to implement these properly, for the shooting mechanics to abide much, much more to the RPG mechanics in that regard, I'd say the game wouldn't become 'worse as a shooter', but instead even better.

Whoever prefers the hidden skills/perks checks like Fallout 1/2 is is a boring and annoying nostalgic. I do not have to guess what kind of manipulation my character is making in the conversation. I need to see what it is because it is not real life.

That's fucking bullshit. New Vegas's skill threshold being shown is just Obsidian's compromise to please Bethesda's audience. Mind you, my first 'Fallout' experience was Fallout 3 and I played it first back in 2015. I didn't touch Fallout 1&2 until well into 2016, and I have no fucking problems whatsoever to see that hidden skill/perks checks of Fallout 1&2 worked immensely better to give a proper RPG experience. Hiding those checks was meant to give genuine choice&consequence experience in a form of simulation. Thanks to that, replayability of the games is much more authentic.

 

[Cobra Commander]

New Vegas's skill threshold being shown is just Obsidian's compromise to please Bethesda's audience.

Please. What else should they hide? The chances of hit something in VATS? Or can this be just because..............?

I didn't touch Fallout 1&2 until well into 2016, and I have no fucking problems whatsoever to see that hidden skill/perks checks of Fallout 1&2 worked immensely better to give a proper RPG experience.

I was playing Fallout 1 this week and working for Set. After I killed the mutants, he gave me a shitty reward (If I remember well, 2 nuka colas and some 12 slugs) and I went to talk to him and demanded more information. He turned hostile and I had to kill everyone there.

I played Fallout 1 before other times. Do I really need more information? No, not really. I do not know where the chip is? Of course I know. But I chose this dialogue for roleplay purposes.

Do you know when I will choose this dialogue again? Never. I do not know if a character with high charisma would rip this information from him. Or maybe a character with high repair could negotiate with him the chip for the repair of the pump. Or a character with high melee (like my current char) would intimidate him, but failed in the skill check. I don´t know.

And it will not be me who will be trying a million combinations and a million of save/reload to see one go right.

Hiding those checks was meant to give genuine choice&consequence experience in a form of simulation

Set and his goons became hostile and I killed them all, instead of reloading the game. That is choice and consequence, not to be guessing if among the thousands of dialogues that exist in the game, which can be changed and which can not.

Thanks to that, replayability of the games is much more authentic.

Thanks to the visible speech checks, I know, only playing the game, withou look at wikia or ask in foruns that my pacifist character can convince Lanius to abandon the fight. A fair reward for those who invested speech or barter points rather than investing points in explosives and energy weapons.

 

[Walpknut]

Gun skills should controll accuracy, sway and effect and recovery from recoil, along with Strength and perception to mitigate certain weapon usage. I am not fond of upping damage to bullets based on level either, I think all gear should have a fixed damage output and any increase to the base power of a weapon should be only improved with modifications or special ammo.
You might hate this but I think Weapon condition should be back, altho it should be reworked for it to be controlled by a combination of repair and the type of weapon it is (maybe science for energy weapons?).

Energy weapons on the other hand, to separate them from guns, should have no spread but they would have stronger sway and they should have a lot of secondary effects and tasks needed to be taken into account due to their nature. Energy weapons would also be rarer and would come in different presentations other than just stronger pew pew pews. Some of them could be self charging weapons that would generate a lot of heat when used repeatedly and the like. Ammo should be scarce and you would basically be forced to either spend a lot of money or recycle your ammo a lot with crafting.

Melee and Unarmed should have a different system than just clicking to swing, they should have a whole combo system akin to Godhand where you could map certain moves to specific buttons while still being able to enter input combinations to pull special moves and AP would work like a stamina meter to limit your actions.

AP Would also give you special moves for all combat types like rolling or dodging, maybe even parrying and running and abusing them too much would leave you exauhsted. AP wouldn't be controlled exclusively by Agility but also by endurance, and both stats would control how specific actions deplete the AP depending on their nature.

But maybe that would be way too complicated.

 

[SilverStarApple/Epsilon7]

While pretty much everyone here agrees the Gun Skill should have more of an in-game impact and control the severity of things like recoil, accuracy chance, crit chance, and pereferably also a limb damage multiplier and weapon hit chance multiplier so you get a reason to aim at body parts besides the head, the shitty Gamebryo engine BUGTHESDERP forced on Obsidian didn't have a recoil system. Fallout 4 had one, but it knew its target audience (Those who would defend its shitty cashgrab ass online in favor of the FNV masterpiece) was too stupid to understand numbers and skills and skill checks.

 

[Black Angel]

Please. What else should they hide? The chances of hit something in VATS? Or can this be just because..............?

What the fuck does that even mean? What the fuck does chance to hit something in VATS have anything to do with %-chance being hidden from skill checks in Fallout 1&2? I don't see how hiding them would hurt the experience, and in fact helps a lot because people who actually paid attention would know that the game is perfectly, genuinely replayable with completely different build. You don't 'have to guess what kind of manipulation my character is making in the conversation' if you have good reading comprehension when reading the dialogue options.

I was playing Fallout 1 this week and working for Set. After I killed the mutants, he gave me a shitty reward (If I remember well, 2 nuka colas and some 12 slugs) and I went to talk to him and demanded more information. He turned hostile and I had to kill everyone there.

I played Fallout 1 before other times. Do I really need more information? No, not really. I do not know where the chip is? Of course I know. But I chose this dialogue for roleplay purposes.

Do you know when I will choose this dialogue again? Never. I do not know if a character with high charisma would rip this information from him. Or maybe a character with high repair could negotiate with him the chip for the repair of the pump. Or a character with high melee (like my current char) would intimidate him, but failed in the skill check. I don´t know.

And it will not be me who will be trying a million combinations and a million of save/reload to see one go right.

It's not hard to see that you need good Barter to be able to haggle for better deal, which would yield better reward. It's not hard to see that you need good Speech and/or good Charisma to be able to gain more information. All you need is common sense, and again, good reading comprehension.

Set and his goons became hostile and I killed them all, instead of reloading the game. That is choice and consequence, not to be guessing if among the thousands of dialogues that exist in the game, which can be changed and which can not.

You're saying that as if one of those two things have anything to do with the other one. You triggered hostility from Set and his goons, killed them all and continued the game, that's good mindset. That's how people should play cRPGs, make a character they want to roleplay and roll with it, not get bothered simply because skills/perks checks are being hidden and not dangled in front of them like shiny toys.

Thanks to the visible speech checks, I know, only playing the game, withou look at wikia or ask in foruns that my pacifist character can convince Lanius to abandon the fight. A fair reward for those who invested speech or barter points rather than investing points in explosives and energy weapons.

And if the speech checks aren't visible and presented just like any other dialogue options, nothing really changes because if you paid good attention and have common sense and good reading comprehension, you will still know that your pacifist character can convince Lanius to abandon the fight.

 

[Kohno]

What I see is that there's a lot of room to improve the shooting mechanics so that the game can felt more of an RPG without making it outright worse as a shooter.

Applying control distortions or dicerolls through RPG stats and progression system inevitably makes the shooter part worse as it takes away portion of the players control. That's really what I'm trying to say with the "worse shooter" thing. It comes naturally, if the character system is designed to pack a punch instead of just existing with little meaning.

Hell, why don't we talk about your criticism and initial suggestion of how it could've work? This is what you said when you first start played with NV's shooting mechanic:

In my very first playthrough I set a goal to myself to create a character that's an absolute noob with guns, but learns through the adventure. I set AGI and PER to low (turns out PER didn't affect accuracy afterall even though the description says so, or so I'm told), took the +20% ROF -20% ACC and Foureyes traits (and decidedly did not wear glasses early on) and didn't tag Guns. It just so turned out that ne sway and spread are negligable and further offset by crouching and ironsights. It was quite disappointing.

Basically, I assumed from that quote that you expected the sway and spread to be more than negligibly affected by low AGI and PER, and crouching and ironsights don't outright offset it. I feel like if they were to implement these properly, for the shooting mechanics to abide much, much more to the RPG mechanics in that regard, I'd say the game wouldn't become 'worse as a shooter', but instead even better.

I did expect the sway and spread to be far greater. Before it was fully revealed, I expected the whole game to be quite different from what it ended up as (I was 100% sure it wasn't going to be a Fallout 3 knockoff that soo after it... live and learn).

I think a lot would've already been different (for the better) with shooting if the maximum spread and sway penalties from not meeting the requirements were something like 3 or 4 times what they are (just a rough estimate based on hands-on experience) and the progression towards better was more tangible -- smaller gradual improvements per point, larger jump at reaching the requirement; and if damage was a range like in the originals (i.e. Hunting Rifle 8-20) and the skill raised the minimum closer to the max while the max damage was static. That'd make for a horrble FPS experience, but... yeah, we went over that already.

You might hate this but I think Weapon condition should be back, altho it should be reworked for it to be controlled by a combination of repair and the type of weapon it is (maybe science for energy weapons?).

I don't hate it. The original games didn't need that, but now it is kinda called for.

I'd make the condition such that braking a weapon would be very rare and the CND would be divided into 4 states: Pristine, Normal, Dirty, Worn (broken is broken, throw it away). Worn might still be usable but it'd be a state where sights are off, rate of fire is erratic, and the gun is very prone to jamming, and going up from that the behavior of the gun would get better. No duplicates for repairing either. Just a skill check (possibly enhanced by a repairkit) against the difficulty of the CND state.

 

[Walpknut]

I really like that idea, should apply to armor too.

The problem with the current Hybrid of FPS and RPG is that they aren't going far enough with it out of fear that people won't enjoy a shooter where they have to level up and do quests for it to improve.

With those changes, can it really be a bad shooter if it's offering an in depth and cohesive experience?

 

[CT Phipps]

You didn't like a game.

The series isn't ruined.

Just one game of it.

 

[Walpknut]

Except it spells the direction the series will take seeing how the people in charge are so blatantly tailoring it to follow the most profitable trends on the industry. We don't have a reason to give them the benfit of the doubt, they have to show the next game isn't following the new direction.

 

[TheHouseAlwaysWins]

Except it spells the direction the series will take seeing how the people in charge are so blatantly tailoring it to follow the most profitable trends on the industry. We don't have a reason to give them the benfit of the doubt, they have to show the next game isn't following the new direction.

Based on your posts, It seems like the game you want is Deus Ex. The first Deus Ex does a lot of what you describe in regards to things like swaying.