your evil twin
It Wandered In From the Wastes
The "action points" system is a bizarre relic of Fallout's turn-based past. I loved the original turn-based Fallout games, but since Fallout 3 is a real-time first-person-shooter there's no real place for action points.
The PipBoy is a device you wear on your arm, not a futuristic targeting recticle you wear over your eye, so how are you making an aimed shot, where are those action points coming from, why does the VATS in your PipBoy need to recharge action points?
Some people want to mod Fallout 3 and make it turn based, but I think a turn-based first-person game is a bit silly. Other people want to make the game more like STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, and get rid of VATS altogether. That's a bit too far the other way I think.
The reasoning behind action points in the old turn-based fallouts was to represent a weapon's rate of fire and how difficult it was to fire a particular weapon while moving around/reloading etc. In a real-time first person shooter, weapons have an actual rate of fire, an actual time to reload, and using a certain weapon can physically slow you down. This means that in Fallout 3 the VATS action point meter is basically a "bullet-time" meter. I think we can get rid of that!
I'm not a modder, I haven't tried using the mod tools yet, but from what I've seen of the mods that are already out (before the release of the GECK!) I am certain these ideas should be possible to impliment. So here's my suggestionss on how to have a sensible "aimed shot" that makes sense in an FPS game, and which does not require a magical Vault-Tek Assisted Targeting System with bullet-time meter.
1) When you press the VATS key, the game pauses and zooms in as normal, but you only get to make ONE aimed shot. There are no action points.
Obviously, when using a full-auto weapon like an assault rifle or submachine gun this "one shot" fires a burst of bullets, not one bullet. But you get the idea - weapons would not have action point values that allow you to make 2 or 3 or 4 VATS shots, you only get one aimed shot per press of the VATS key.
If you want, you can repeatedly click the VATS key, and take aimed shot after aimed shot after aimed shot. This may not be advisable though, because...
2) While in VATS mode, you take normal damage, not 10% damage like in Vanilla Fallout 3. (There is already a Fallout 3 mod that lets you take full damage in VATS mode, I've been using it, works nicely.) This way, instead of VATS mode being being a sort of brief God mode, it would be the player standing still and taking a careful aimed shot at a specific body part. While doing so you are especially vulnerable!
This simultates how in the turn-based games doing aimed shots used up more action points than a regular shot, letting you shoot less and/or move less.
3) Sucessfully using the aimed shot feature would be made more rewarding by increasing the effects of crippling body parts. There are a couple of mods that do this already. Of course, you can cripple body parts in normal run-and-gun mode, but aimed shots let you specifically aim at a body part and try to cripple it. This also means that players have more incentive to target body parts other than the head.
4) I'm uncertain about whether to keep the slow-motion aspect. I think that if you only get to fire one shot in VATS mode, the slow-motion third-person aspect might not be so bad. You'd have only a very brief out-of-body experience while firing that one shot. And the third-person aspect is nice because you get to see your character. (Playing Fallout 3 in third-person mode is not really viable, so the only time most players see themselves is in VATS.)
5) Alternatively, time could run at normal speed. In this case, it might be best if the view remains first-person while taking an aimed shot.
It might be nice if it switches to standard slow-motion & third-person when an aimed-shot kills an enemy with a critical hit. (Not EVERY critical, only criticals that cause death.) You can't fully appreciate the awesomeness of a plasma weapon turning someone to goo in normal-time mode.
6) Decapatations and body parts exploding could be reduced (there's already a nice mod that lets you reduce or increase this). This would make it much more special when it occured.
7) Weapon accuracy outside of VATS mode could be made more dependent on your skill points. Deus Ex was able to manage this well, the better your weapon skill the better you coped with recoil and the better your shots while moving.
It would be nice if your gun and/or your crosshair wavered about when you have low skill points. It does seem odd to hold a rifle dead steady, get a motionless crosshair onto an enemy, and then have the bullet go somewhere else. I think Deus Ex had a very large crosshair that shrunk the longer you stayed still, and shrunk faster when you crouched. That worked quite nicely.
8) As for the right-mouse-button aiming ability... firstly, it could be made a toggle so that you merely have to click the right mouse button, rather than having to hold it down. I find holding the right mouse button, clicking with the left, and running around with the WASD keys all at the same time slightly tricky. (Maybe that's just me.) I perfer Call of Duty's method of entering and leaving ironsight mode with a click rather than having to hold it.
9) Did I say ironsight mode? Yep, I'm hoping the right-click aim mode could be altered so that it becomes like using ironsights in STALKER/Call of Duty/Far Cry 2/Red Orcehstra etc. This would require repositioning the weapon models and arm/hand positions though, since some of the guns do not actually point correctly towards the crosshair.
9) If that is too difficult to pull off, then perhaps the zoom could be increased slightly and the gun could be moved closer to the player's eye and into a more centred position. It wouldn't be ironsights but it would be slightly more convincing that you are "aiming" rather than "moving your head and gun one inch".
10) Alternatively, perhaps the right-click ability to aim your gun could be removed altogether. I hesistate to suggest this though. In a first-person shooter, The VATS aimed shot shouldn't be the only way to "aim".
The PipBoy is a device you wear on your arm, not a futuristic targeting recticle you wear over your eye, so how are you making an aimed shot, where are those action points coming from, why does the VATS in your PipBoy need to recharge action points?
Some people want to mod Fallout 3 and make it turn based, but I think a turn-based first-person game is a bit silly. Other people want to make the game more like STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, and get rid of VATS altogether. That's a bit too far the other way I think.
The reasoning behind action points in the old turn-based fallouts was to represent a weapon's rate of fire and how difficult it was to fire a particular weapon while moving around/reloading etc. In a real-time first person shooter, weapons have an actual rate of fire, an actual time to reload, and using a certain weapon can physically slow you down. This means that in Fallout 3 the VATS action point meter is basically a "bullet-time" meter. I think we can get rid of that!
I'm not a modder, I haven't tried using the mod tools yet, but from what I've seen of the mods that are already out (before the release of the GECK!) I am certain these ideas should be possible to impliment. So here's my suggestionss on how to have a sensible "aimed shot" that makes sense in an FPS game, and which does not require a magical Vault-Tek Assisted Targeting System with bullet-time meter.
1) When you press the VATS key, the game pauses and zooms in as normal, but you only get to make ONE aimed shot. There are no action points.
Obviously, when using a full-auto weapon like an assault rifle or submachine gun this "one shot" fires a burst of bullets, not one bullet. But you get the idea - weapons would not have action point values that allow you to make 2 or 3 or 4 VATS shots, you only get one aimed shot per press of the VATS key.
If you want, you can repeatedly click the VATS key, and take aimed shot after aimed shot after aimed shot. This may not be advisable though, because...
2) While in VATS mode, you take normal damage, not 10% damage like in Vanilla Fallout 3. (There is already a Fallout 3 mod that lets you take full damage in VATS mode, I've been using it, works nicely.) This way, instead of VATS mode being being a sort of brief God mode, it would be the player standing still and taking a careful aimed shot at a specific body part. While doing so you are especially vulnerable!
This simultates how in the turn-based games doing aimed shots used up more action points than a regular shot, letting you shoot less and/or move less.
3) Sucessfully using the aimed shot feature would be made more rewarding by increasing the effects of crippling body parts. There are a couple of mods that do this already. Of course, you can cripple body parts in normal run-and-gun mode, but aimed shots let you specifically aim at a body part and try to cripple it. This also means that players have more incentive to target body parts other than the head.
4) I'm uncertain about whether to keep the slow-motion aspect. I think that if you only get to fire one shot in VATS mode, the slow-motion third-person aspect might not be so bad. You'd have only a very brief out-of-body experience while firing that one shot. And the third-person aspect is nice because you get to see your character. (Playing Fallout 3 in third-person mode is not really viable, so the only time most players see themselves is in VATS.)
5) Alternatively, time could run at normal speed. In this case, it might be best if the view remains first-person while taking an aimed shot.
It might be nice if it switches to standard slow-motion & third-person when an aimed-shot kills an enemy with a critical hit. (Not EVERY critical, only criticals that cause death.) You can't fully appreciate the awesomeness of a plasma weapon turning someone to goo in normal-time mode.
6) Decapatations and body parts exploding could be reduced (there's already a nice mod that lets you reduce or increase this). This would make it much more special when it occured.
7) Weapon accuracy outside of VATS mode could be made more dependent on your skill points. Deus Ex was able to manage this well, the better your weapon skill the better you coped with recoil and the better your shots while moving.
It would be nice if your gun and/or your crosshair wavered about when you have low skill points. It does seem odd to hold a rifle dead steady, get a motionless crosshair onto an enemy, and then have the bullet go somewhere else. I think Deus Ex had a very large crosshair that shrunk the longer you stayed still, and shrunk faster when you crouched. That worked quite nicely.
8) As for the right-mouse-button aiming ability... firstly, it could be made a toggle so that you merely have to click the right mouse button, rather than having to hold it down. I find holding the right mouse button, clicking with the left, and running around with the WASD keys all at the same time slightly tricky. (Maybe that's just me.) I perfer Call of Duty's method of entering and leaving ironsight mode with a click rather than having to hold it.
9) Did I say ironsight mode? Yep, I'm hoping the right-click aim mode could be altered so that it becomes like using ironsights in STALKER/Call of Duty/Far Cry 2/Red Orcehstra etc. This would require repositioning the weapon models and arm/hand positions though, since some of the guns do not actually point correctly towards the crosshair.
9) If that is too difficult to pull off, then perhaps the zoom could be increased slightly and the gun could be moved closer to the player's eye and into a more centred position. It wouldn't be ironsights but it would be slightly more convincing that you are "aiming" rather than "moving your head and gun one inch".
10) Alternatively, perhaps the right-click ability to aim your gun could be removed altogether. I hesistate to suggest this though. In a first-person shooter, The VATS aimed shot shouldn't be the only way to "aim".
