Fallout Tactics ... why not?

[jedandjess]

I get the impression that a lot of people here, even some of the admins, are not impressed by FOT. I want to ask why? Valid reasons please, the more detail the better. What didn't you like about it, how could it have been changed so you would have liked it?

From my point of view, since I first played the FO games I thought they were some of the best RPG's on the PC. When FOT hit the shops (I didnt have the internet back then so wasn't really expecting it to appear) I was shocked to see it wasn't FO 3 and a full on RPG. However, the missions are great, the NPC's are great, it follows the rules of the first 2 games to a 'T', there are a LOT of hours of play in the game if you do everything, it's not an easy game to complete (at least not for the first 2 games), the graphics are very nice as are the gib animations, er... it's funny in lots of places and it has multiplayer. So thats my opinion on it. I'd like to hear yours.


edit.. I almost forgot, the drugs are way better in FOT. Feed Kevin an afterburner gum, a psycho and a skin of voodoo (makes a good flower child) and let him punch the turrets to shreds toe to toe.

 

[Dukester]

I like FOT myself. I find it to be a pretty fun and nifty game overall, but it definately breaks the tradition from Fallout 1 and 2.

I like all three of them, and I rotate through them all periodically.

 

[Argonnot]

Well you stated one of the points, That Tactics came out instead of Fallout 3, which is what everyone wanted at the time. Another thing is that it does not follow the rules set down by Fallout 1-2. Main points being: Intellegent talking deathclaw before the Enclave FEV intellegence modifications (Not to mention they were fucking furry, and matriarch had a male voice.) Derigibles(Zepelins, blimps, ext...) are just... wrong, if the brotherhood had the technolodgy to make them, they would have made them sooner, rather than sending them out on some doomed mission. The brotherhood actually giving a shit about where the mutants were going, instead of going back to holing themselves into thier bunker. Vault Zero. Period. The Vehicles looking more like 1980-90 use military vehicles, instead of following the retro theam. The way powered armour looked. Brotherhoods seeming retardation about energy weapons, I mean come the fuck on, they should have just broken out the gatling lazers and just mowed down ever friggen thing in sight. The brotherhoods dependance on the surrounding communites. Ect, Ect, ect....

Campain missions were way to easy, i mean come on, very few of the stradegies that seem like they could be usefull work. The A.I. was either very retarded or very smart, due to the fact opponents with guns didnt run around blind corners, and tended to not move so much. The robots were either way to easy to kill, or way to hard. The whole calculator mission was just boring.

Graphics are ok, i guess.

Multiplayer.... well i never got that to work consistanly, so I cant say to much about it. As well, melea fighters were plain crap.

The reason some fallout fans bought It was because Interplay said the profits would go toward fallout three. But they started making fallout tactics 2, which was canceled, due to people pointing out how much the game sucked.

And that would be my two cents.

 

[Serifan]

Last time I said I liked FOT I got ass raped by everyone.

Yes I enjoyed FOT but I like to look at it as a non-fallout game.

 

[jedandjess]

Well you stated one of the points, That Tactics came out instead of Fallout 3, which is what everyone wanted at the time. Another thing is that it does not follow the rules set down by Fallout 1-2. Main points being: Intellegent talking deathclaw before the Enclave FEV intellegence modifications (Not to mention they were fucking furry, and matriarch had a male voice.) Derigibles(Zepelins, blimps, ext...) are just... wrong, if the brotherhood had the technolodgy to make them, they would have made them sooner, rather than sending them out on some doomed mission. The brotherhood actually giving a shit about where the mutants were going, instead of going back to holing themselves into thier bunker. Vault Zero. Period. The Vehicles looking more like 1980-90 use military vehicles, instead of following the retro theam. The way powered armour looked. Brotherhoods seeming retardation about energy weapons, I mean come the fuck on, they should have just broken out the gatling lazers and just mowed down ever friggen thing in sight. The brotherhoods dependance on the surrounding communites. Ect, Ect, ect....

Campain missions were way to easy, i mean come on, very few of the stradegies that seem like they could be usefull work. The A.I. was either very retarded or very smart, due to the fact opponents with guns didnt run around blind corners, and tended to not move so much. The robots were either way to easy to kill, or way to hard. The whole calculator mission was just boring.

Graphics are ok, i guess.

Multiplayer.... well i never got that to work consistanly, so I cant say to much about it. As well, melea fighters were plain crap.

The reason some fallout fans bought It was because Interplay said the profits would go toward fallout three. But they started making fallout tactics 2, which was canceled, due to people pointing out how much the game sucked.

And that would be my two cents.

Hmm it seems most of your problems are with story and consistancy/continuity etc. But a lot of them I do have different opinions on, but I didn't create the FO world. I do think you are gilding the lilly though. As for one thing you said, HTH characters worked great for me. Besides Dos, Kevin was my strongest recruit and kicked ass all the way to the end of the game. I will say this though, when I got to Vault 0 I didn't go on. It had taken me so long to get there I couldn't be doing with that mission it just sounded bad and the game had gotten too easy. But the mission before it was a scorcher. The cutscene with the cow etc....

Thanks for the input though

 

[Duckman]

Eh FOT just bored me.

Especially if you want to stay true to FO by going with turn based.

it follows the rules of the first 2 games to a 'T'

What do you mean rules? If you mean rules as far as the BOS being isolasionists, I'd say you have no idea...

It didn't stay true to FO because it had continuous turn based (ie Realtime) which does not follow the rules at all.

Yes I enjoyed FOT but I like to look at it as a non-fallout game

Finally someone hit the spot. You play this game not from a FO perspective, but from a shooter CRPG. And it actually makes it a better game

 

[SuAside]

jedandjess, you could've just used the forum searchfunction to find out why most people, including ALL admins, dislike Fallout TicTacs.

 

[zioburosky13]

As a squad-based STG game, FO:T is okie.

But it's not a Fallout game we all know and like. Fallout is about choice and consequence, Pen-and-paper Computer Role Playing Game.

And FO:T is about : get the mission, go in, kill, kill, kill, or rescue, go back to base, repeat. You don't have the chance to use your skills other than combat-related. So no diplomacy, backstab, bribe....

 

[Sander]

Search the goddamn forums. It's not that hard, and would have found you the answer easily.

I'm going to be somewhat friendly and summarize it for you:
- The look and feel was nothing like the previous Fallouts.
- Many contradictions of canon (talking Deathclaws, Beastmen, Vault 0, changing the nature of the BoS)
- Not an RPG.
- Real-time/turn-based hybrid worked crappily.
- Crappy engine with lots of bugs.

 

[Sorrow]

The brotherhoods dependance on the surrounding communites. Ect, Ect, ect....

Actually, BoS in F1 was dependant on surrounding communities.

I didn't like FoT because it wasn't true to the setting and it got boring around mutant missions.
I prefer to fight against fellow humans, especially unarmed ones.

 

[Roshambo]

Search the goddamn forums. It's not that hard, and would have found you the answer easily.

I'm going to be somewhat friendly and summarize it for you:
- The look and feel was nothing like the previous Fallouts.
- Many contradictions of canon (talking Deathclaws, Beastmen, Vault 0, changing the nature of the BoS)
- Not an RPG.
- Real-time/turn-based hybrid worked crappily.
- Crappy engine with lots of bugs.

I'll just say...

Ditto.

As I was reading this thread, I was preparing another ass-chewing, because I do recall the rules and neitquette mentioning several times to search. And there's a SHITLOAD of info on these forums, this is where the developers of Fallout Tactics tried to pass off lies, now archived with my amusing revelations* of the SheepClaw and MicroForté obviously having failed Sesame Street.

I would also note this, since Fallout is the Champion of the Old-School. One, very important deviation from the initial release, and pre-release, that quickly killed the spirit of the game, and the game's feeling (aside from the misplaced intro music).

The manual. The manual was a non-informative waste of firestarter, printed on pages so cheap, the ink bled around with your fingerpints.

Oh, and the game was done before, and better, and wasn't anywhere close as promised. Jagged Alliance 2.

You can all personally kiss my ass for getting them to entertain the existence of the world map, a bit of an illusion of non-linearity with some special encounters and random encounters; as Fallout Tactics was originally intended to be mission map after mission map, with a pause in the bunker between missions, and special missions activated or entered through special means from the main mission maps. I think it was a "WHAT THE FUCK?!" to Chris Taylor on the phone about that and many other issues, that saved the game from being a *total* flop in my eyes, yet some things could not be saved at that point.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

Love ya, Tony. Good to know you're learning.

* - Not entirely what I was critiquing, many of these topics are picked up from the entire forum but I have commented upon previously. I also liked how he appreciated me playing ignorant about his self-jab about Descent to Undermountain.

 

[jedandjess]

Well it's like I thought, 80% of peoples problems with FOT lie in the fact that from a total purist's pov it's not FO 3. It never was meant to be, it is what it is and it accomplishes what the designers set out to do perfectly. You few people are mainly scouring, trying to find inconsistences as unimportant as 'the vehicles look too new' or 'the bortherhood have a slightly different attitude' or 'the game HAS a real time - or continuous TB mode'. FFS it has 3 modes, play as you please. It's a great game which is head and shoulders above the Jagged Alliance games because it's SET IN the Fallout world. The humour is still there and the music and graphics and atmosphere is as good as any of the first two games. As for being all about combat, if you want to play FOT that way you can but I found plenty of opportunities to use every part of my skilldex through the game.
And as a final note, you Moderators have a very strange attitude to keeping this forum alive if every time someone posts you have a baby and tell the poster to read the archives first. You said this forum was about communication, but you police it so much you'd rather someone not ask a legitimate question to spark a debate.
Anyway, thats it for me. Cheers for the replies. If anyone wants a game of FOT with me PM me and we can sort it out sometime.

 

[Sander]

Well it's like I thought, 80% of peoples problems with FOT lie in the fact that from a total purist's pov it's not FO 3.

No, from *anyone's* point of view it's not Fallout 3. Claiming otherwise would be stupid at best.

It never was meant to be, it is what it is and it accomplishes what the designers set out to do perfectly.

What?
You mean that a lumbering hulk of an engine that is quite possibly amongst the poorest I have ever seen (contending with Neverwinter Nights' Aurora Engine for the definite prize of the worst) is exactly what the designers set out to do? Heh, funny.
Was it also their aim to completely butcher the Fallout setting?

You few people are mainly scouring, trying to find inconsistences as unimportant as 'the vehicles look too new' or 'the bortherhood have a slightly different attitude' or 'the game HAS a real time - or continuous TB mode'. FFS it has 3 modes, play as you please.

The fact that it had real-time meant that the engine had to be adapted quite a bit, also that they had to butcher a lot of game mechanics and balancing for Turn-based (since you should be able to switch at any time between the two). The balancing is fucked due to that. What's more, this necessarily degrades the AI as well.
What's more, the vehicles don't look too new, they are too new for a Fallout setting. We know for a fact that the Fallout setting was based upon fifties sci-fi, yet what do we get in Tactics? Hummers. Vehicles not created for another 30 years.
Hell, the entire presence of that many working vehicles in a world where a world war was sparked over the lack of natural resources to fuel said vehicles is ridiculous to say the least.
The rest of the design of the game also had nothing to do with the 50s sci-fi it was supposed to be based in.

Also, let's then take a look at some other design elements from Tactics, shall we?
- Beastmen. Telepathetic semi-humans that mind-controlled an army of mutated animals and intelligent Deathclaws.
Where the hell does that fit in Fallout's setting?
- Real world weapons. Why? Just, why? This, again, has nothing to do with the original design of Fallout, which was designed to have several nondescript, general weapons instead of an assload of named but very similar guns.
- Multiple high-tech bunkers, apparently built up from the ground in a post-apocalyptic future. Huh?

It's a great game which is head and shoulders above the Jagged Alliance games because it's SET IN the Fallout world.

...
No it isn't. It's set in a world that claims to be the Fallout world but could never be.
Talking Deathclaws, hello? Those talking Deathclaws were bio-engineered by the Enclave (and were a mistake to begin with) only years *after* Tactics took place, and also a lot farther away.

Claiming it's better than Jagged Alliance is also silly, since JA's combat engine is widely considered to be far superior for tactical combat. Mainly because it wasn't re-balanced for real-time combat.

The humour is still there

What, you mean stupid easter-eggs? Because I detect very little of the dark irony that was originally prevalent in Fallout.
Easter eggs and 'special encounters' do not make a Fallout game and are, in fact, only a very small part.
Did you know, by the way, that the world map, and with it random and special encounters, were only implemented after much disgust by fans who found out through early interviews that there wasn't going to be any of that?

and the music and graphics and atmosphere is as good as any of the first two games.

Most would disagree. Whether or not the games are atmospheric is more a matter of taste than anything else. Whether they were Fallout-y, however, wasn't. Simple fact: they weren't. No fifties sci-fi anywhere, much more 80s and 40s than anything else, and extremely little sci-fi.
Also, hairy Deathclaws that looked like cuddly little dogs (when I first encountered them I never thought they were anywhere near fearsome, more cute, whereas in Fallout 1 the minute I saw a Deathclaw I knew I had to be scared).

As for being all about combat, if you want to play FOT that way you can but I found plenty of opportunities to use every part of my skilldex through the game.

Pft.
There is no way to avoid most of the combat. Yes, you can sneak around, yes, you can most of your skills. But hey, in about 90% of the missions you'd have to kill people.

Now, get this, most people *don't* think it's that poor of a game. Most people do think it's really poor as a Fallout game or even as a game that utilises Fallout's setting.

And as a final note, you Moderators have a very strange attitude to keeping this forum alive if every time someone posts you have a baby and tell the poster to read the archives first. You said this forum was about communication, but you police it so much you'd rather someone not ask a legitimate question to spark a debate.
Anyway, thats it for me. Cheers for the replies. If anyone wants a game of FOT with me PM me and we can sort it out sometime.

We seem to have kept this forum alive all these years now with this kind of moderation.
Hell, is it really that strange to ask people to read up on stuff before they post? It's not a legitimate question if the answer can be found very easily by yourself, you know. We are not here to answer every random question any newbie has, nor are we here to see the exact same redundant debates with the same debunked arguments pop up every time someone feels like bringing it up again for whatever reason.
Much like this thread.

 

[Kahgan]

I just have to

it's SET IN the Fallout world.

'cept it isn't. The only Fallout-ish thing about it is that it's post apocalyptic. None of the original FO weapons were there, only the ones we see every time we play any other game with guns(wich by the way doies not fit the setting). The super mutants didn't look like super mutants, they were just called super mutants, and that's the only resemblance, the houses and buildings were of a totally different design. Hairy talking deathclaws that didn't look like deathclaws...ghouls...well, of all the mutated creatures from the Fallout universe, they were the ones resembling the most...but they were wrong too. Especially in the portraits.
Every single armour was wrong, and they had left out the coolest of them all, the leather jacket. And they had stuck BOS logos on all of them (I HATE! uniforms). The music was good enough, after all it was an action game and not an RPG, wich I personally would have been ok with, if just the setting was right...wich it wasn't.
Aside from that, I enjoyed the game up untill I had been fighting robots for some time...For some reason I got stuck and I didn't bother enough to try and get further...
And did I mention anything about the weapons?

EDIT: Sander was quicker than me...damn...

 

[jedandjess]

Sander you don't have a clue do you? Every argument you put is total bullshit, save maybe one and thats due to personal opinion. I don't have the time you obviously have to say anything more sorry.

 

[Hotel California]

Sander you don't have a clue do you? Every argument you put is total bullshit, save maybe one and thats due to personal opinion. I don't have the time you obviously have to say anything more sorry.

In all fairness he does have a clue. This guy has time and again put me (and most notably almost everyone) in my place about all manner of FO discussions: from FEV to radscorpions. Arguing about the setting with anyone of these fans is pointless. They have many more years experience on a game that is so deep on so many levels that the irony washes over you in waves once you look. And unless you discuss it you probably won't see the tiny little insights that we have.

Flaming someone over your personal opinion is childish. Full stop. Please explain how it is bullshit.

* Talking deathgoats - they are hairy, they talk. In FO they're descended from Jackson Chamelons. I see no hair there. In FO 1 i hear no talking. (Please before you start going on about FO2 read every single thread about it)

Very little in Tactics agrees with any of Fallout. If you've played both like you say you have then you've not looked very hard. The robots from FO were big and chunky, even FO2s humanoid bots were reasonalbly fifties and just huge and blocky. But in Tactics they were sleek and ningery - you've seen the spinning kicks. They were shiny.

Now i expect you'll go on about how i must hate Tactics and how i'm just spouting my personal opinion but hey, i loved Tactics and have played it many many times through. But it ain't Fallout. Its not even close. Its nice but nothing but stimpaks reminded me of FO. There was no shoty, no assult rifle and no fifties Power Armour.

Sorry, but end of story.

 

[Sander]

Sander you don't have a clue do you? Every argument you put is total bullshit, save maybe one and thats due to personal opinion. I don't have the time you obviously have to say anything more sorry.

Oh, I have no idea what I'm talking about. Really now? Where exactly do I not base my reasoning on facts (besides the little spat about Deathclaws)?
Here's a fact: Fallout was based on a retro-50s sci-fi setting.
Here's another fact: Fallout: Tactics' graphical and general game design was not.
Put those facts together and what do we get? Right, that Fallout: Tactics does not fit with the Fallout design. Bitch all you want about that being opinion, that isn't going to change the fact that it's not, quite simply because we have *gasp* facts to prove it.

 

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

It's a great game which is head and shoulders above the Jagged Alliance games because it's SET IN the Fallout world.

FOT has only three advantages over JA2 in my mind. Relatively easy to use level editor, better burst sfx and SPECIAL.

Which is a rather pitiful short list, whereas JA2's advantages well here's a few.

Destroyable environment, giving more tactical options since you don't have to go in through the front door. All you can blow up in FOT are fuel tanks and generators, which is really stupid given the whole premise of the Fallout universe existing because of a shortage of fuel.

Control of up to 18 recruits, without having to resort to exploiting bugs.

Sound matters, in FOT sound only comes into play when a character is out of your LOS but you are still aware of them.

Energy levels, fatigue doesn't really play a part in the Fallout rpgs, too much a case of micro managing but in a tactical combat game it's one of the things that make up for the lack of interactive dialogue. Sadly missing in FOT.

Wounds and bleeding, again something that can be glossed over in an rpg but in a tactical combat game bleeding to death, and not being at full health until given time to rest really makes the game more... tactical.

Jumping and climbing, in FOT you can't climb anything without a ladder, in JA2 you can jump and climb etc really filling out those tactical options there.

Cover, light and tall grass, light sources something really missing in FOT really make a difference in JA2 and tall grass provides cover, whereas in FOT about the only cover you really get is if you're out of LOS of your opponent.

Weapon jamming, repairs maintenance and ammo magazines. In FOT you might have a weapon be damaged, but it's a rare occurance and easily repaired even by a non-repair specialist, and like the lack of magazines means even less tactical options.

So put down the hack of the Fallout setting to people's personal opinion, all you want but I bet you can't argue away the lack of tactical options in a tactical combat game.

 

[Roshambo]

Well it's like I thought, 80% of peoples problems with FOT lie in the fact that from a total purist's pov it's not FO 3.

That was never the point, more like it wasn't even a good tactical game, nor was it a good Fallout game. Read what the fuck we say in this very thread if you want to remain posting here, because if you're not going to and keep giving us this attitude while inventing your own reality, I can correct that rather quickly.

It never was meant to be, it is what it is and it accomplishes what the designers set out to do perfectly.

No, it was said to be JA2 in the Fallout universe. Which it fails on both accounts. Is it any surprise it tanked, when JA2 was pretty popular, and so was Fallout?

Use your brain, kid. This is even more amusing when I have to note that JA2 came out 2 years before FOT, and FOT blows by comparison.

You few people are mainly scouring, trying to find inconsistences as unimportant as 'the vehicles look too new' or 'the bortherhood have a slightly different attitude' or 'the game HAS a real time - or continuous TB mode'.

"Continuous TB" is simply real-time, and there is a TB mode.

I like that you first say it's set in Fallout's universe, then have the balls to say that the setting details are "unimportant". Which is it?

FFS it has 3 modes, play as you please.

All suck.

It's a great game which is head and shoulders above the Jagged Alliance games because it's SET IN the Fallout world.

...

No, it isn't, and you're a moron if you believe that. We've had this conversation about the setting design with the original developers long before you even heard about the game, don't presume to tell me your revisionist belief of history and the game's design. Again, you can kiss my ass for getting the game to be improved from what little it was planned to be.

Opinion is bullshit when compared to fact. That you try to equate the two is irrelevant.

The humour is still there

So is this a lie or ignorance? Fallout's humor was in the form of dark ironies. FOT was from Troma in comparison. Again, get a fucking clue, child, before you presume to try and equate your opinion as fact.

and the music

The intro music proves you to be a liar, now.

and graphics and atmosphere is as good as any of the first two games.

Liar. Unless you didn't see a reason for speech, which JA2 had FAR better speech than FOT's "click and listen" bullshit, versus using different speech methods.

As for being all about combat, if you want to play FOT that way you can but I found plenty of opportunities to use every part of my skilldex through the game.

That is beside the point, Captain Clueless. That they are most often irrelevant, imbalanced, and are just like you said. Opportunities, but not really valuable or meaningful in most cases, as combat played a higher role than anything else.

And as a final note, you Moderators have a very strange attitude to keeping this forum alive if every time someone posts you have a baby and tell the poster to read the archives first.

Because it might be an indication that you need a clue. WE have this attitude, when you want to post clueless shit, equate your ignorant and lying opinion as fact, and try to re-invent some favorable image for FOT? Check in the archives for the history of how this game was released, the problems that exist with it, and more that prove you to be a bit clueless. Oh, and what we've done to similar idiots who have done this in the past and then decided to give attitude.

You said this forum was about communication, but you police it so much you'd rather someone not ask a legitimate question to spark a debate.

Not if you're going to keep spewing bullshit ignorant opinions and try to suddenly polish FOT's ass after it's been a mediocre failure for years. You're a little late for the FOT fanboy party, nobody cares about you and your clannie trash kind.

Anyway, thats it for me. Cheers for the replies. If anyone wants a game of FOT with me PM me and we can sort it out sometime.

Clannie trash, indeed.

Sander you don't have a clue do you? Every argument you put is total bullshit, save maybe one and thats due to personal opinion. I don't have the time you obviously have to say anything more sorry.

Hey, guess what's head and shoulders above you...your ass!

 

[zioburosky13]

jedandjess a little word of advice don't piss Roshambo off.

<---------- example

Hey, guess what's head and shoulders above you...your ass!

Too late!

Adding to the insult, FO:T's engine is shitty as hell especially the memory leaking problem. Even with a user-mod and official patch those are not helping at all.