What did Bethesda actually do better than Black Isle?

[Erny]

Another small improvement that comes to my mind : the use of tripmines - place some on the way and lure the dumb AIs. That adds some strategy to the combat.
I killed 5 mutant brutes that way not losing any health.

But I dont even have high "explosives" skill (30) and the mines still do the job fine and I`v never failed an arming/disarming of a mine... Another usless skill? I start to wonder if you can beat the game w/o upgrading skills (you are forced to, so get a low int and dump all points into a most usless skill - someone should try that )

 

[rcorporon]

Another small improvement that comes to my mind : the use of tripmines - place some on the way and lure the dumb AIs. That adds some strategy to the combat.
I killed 5 mutant brutes that way not losing any health.

How is having NPC's that are as smart as bags of hammers an improvement?

 

[Doolan]

Sorry to be the devil's advocate here, but Fallout 1 and 2 had a number of not only useless but also absurd skills with completely arbitrary differences.

Doctor and first aid are a good example. You could technically max one out and never care about the other, resulting in fun results. For example:

You reach 300% First Aid. You are the best of the best when it comes to first response, so you can basically nurse yourself back to health after three gunshots to the face with a little first aid kit, or mend the horrible burns sustained from being on the wrong end of a flamer or stepping knee-deep into radioactive goo.

Too bad you can't fix a broken arm.

Or the other way around! 300% Doctor. You are the Dr. House of Fallout and nothing escapes your abilities for treatment. Oh, except you can't use first aid kits well. You can conduct surgery, but you'll be damned if you know how to put a band-aid on.

Or sneak / steal? While I do realize that these could be different fields... you could have 300% steal and 0% sneak. You would be able to steal a guy's underpants without removing his jumpsuit. You are nimble, accurate and extremely silent, *except* when you walk, then your shoes make a noise much like a hand grenade going off. You're the master of stealing providing you can teleport to the guy's pocket and back, because you can't walk three feet without tumbling into something.

The line between "barter" and "speech" is clearer but not entirely clear. You can be an excellent negotiator and be able to talk terrorists into releasing hostages and inviting you to dinner, but when the word "money" appears in conversation you couldn't convince a guy to sell you his snot for diamonds. Or the other way around, you could talk somebody into selling you his wife for a bottle cap, but you become stupid when there's no actual transaction of goods involved.

That's without even getting into how "science" was considered to be on the same level as "electronics" and "repair". Electronics isn't science? Why did you use "repair" to bring down energy shields? They were mechanical devices? How could you have 300% science and be unable to determine what's wrong with a town well?

All games are bound to have balancing issues, but these are going to be more serious the more variables you put in.

I'm not in favor of "dumbing the game down". In fact, fixing broken arms with stimpacks is the most retarded thing I've seen in a game in my entire life. But being able to heal mortal gun wounds and at a time completely incapable of doing anything with a crippled limb would be close second...

I still like Fallout 1 and 2 a lot better than Fallout 3, like most sensible people, but I just don't buy the skill issue. If you want examples of "dumbing down", how about the doctor in Rivet City being unkillable and getting up after a missile to the face?

 

[Erny]

rcorporon the point is traps usage, not the AI.
hey Im trying hard to find atleast some improvements!

another one: radio stations. you even get to hear the news about yourselves

 

[ferrety]

my favorite improvement -

Lockpicking on a PS3 with rumble is actually quite fun. The feedback feels right, and (I think) it's based on your character's skill level. It doesn't feel 'gamey', it feels right.

I also like the hacking mini-game, though I don't know if character intelligence affects it. It should, somehow. But I always liked mastermind. Perhaps if Intelligence helped (and hindered) you in someway.

Regarding throwing/explosives/traps, etc. While it could sort of be argued that understanding grenades means you can throw them well, the opposite makes no sense - throwing a knife in no way improves my ability to set a trap.

They are three distinct things - settting a tripwire, disarming an explosive, and throwing a knife (or grenade). It doesn't seem like it would be that difficult to make them all distinct. Skills could work in combination as well - explosive + throwing = skill with grenades. Heck, if I remember correctly even Wasteland used skill combinations to determine success.

First Aid vs. Doctor - the game already had a good way to differentiate, they just didn't use it. On the status screen you can use a stimpack on your body or a limb, which mean either 'general healing' or 'fixing a crippled or near crippled limb'. Having first aid affect Hit Points gained with general usage, and Doctor affect 'Limb Repair Points' would have easily and clearly defined their roles.

EDIT TO ADD: Actually, they could have even dealt with the skill overlap issue in this way - have both skills affect both General Hit Point gain and Limb repair, but to different extents. That is, say, 100% First aid serves as, say, 50% Doctor in terms of Limb Repair, and 100% Doctor serves as 50% First Aid. Obviously the % would need tweaking, but it's not difficult to imagine.

 

[Doolan]

They are three distinct things - settting a tripwire, disarming an explosive, and throwing a knife (or grenade). It doesn't seem like it would be that difficult to make them all distinct. Skills could work in combination as well - explosive + throwing = skill with grenades. Heck, if I remember correctly even Wasteland used skill combinations to determine success.

Now, *that* is a way of not dumbing down the game and still making things coherent. Kudos to you, good sir!

 

[Bal-Sagoth]

I will go ahead and throw another in the hat that I really enjoy the repair system they put in place. I love the idea of having to maintain weapons and armor.

While this system could use a lot of work, maybe customizations? Sorta like The system is Metal Gear Solid 4 which I also loved. Or giving the player more choice than just repairing with an inferior version of the weapon your currently using.

I am interested to see where they take this in future installments.

 

[bhlaab]

Combining skills (medicine/doctor; repair/traps; sneak/steal) means that specialization is less risky and two relatively useless skills are made into one useful skill. Fo1+2 were heavily biased towards focusing on small guns and speech. I will admit that they made fixing broken limbs far too easy.

The fact that it's not isometric means less cold emotional distance on the part of the player. This one is a double edged sword since that emotional distance is what heavily contributed to the sort of anarchistic Fallout "feel". For better or for worse it makes seeing, say, the ruins of the washington memorial less of an ironic subversion and more of a grizzled "War. War Never Changes." feel which is both good and bad depending on who you ask.

Same as above, the use of a giant overworld instead of a map screen. I've always hated that map. What's the point of telling me how awful the world has become if I'm not allowed to see most of it! Again, double edged sword because it means the sense of scope is downgraded from the entirety of SoCal to a downgraded DC area.

Getting a new perk with each level instead of every other one (three? Can't remember) makes levelling up more exciting and makes for a more customizable experience. Wish they hadn't gotten rid of traits, though.

I'm a fan of the Radiation system. Not a fan of being able to curb addiction by visiting the doctor.

 

[bhlaab]

Oh, I also like the idea of gathering together parts to make specialty weapons. It's just too bad that they're all idiotic Wacky Weaponz(tm)

If they had done it like a more ad-hoc STALKER:Clear Sky they'd be onto something

 

[Sander]

Or sneak / steal? While I do realize that these could be different fields... you could have 300% steal and 0% sneak. You would be able to steal a guy's underpants without removing his jumpsuit. You are nimble, accurate and extremely silent, *except* when you walk, then your shoes make a noise much like a hand grenade going off. You're the master of stealing providing you can teleport to the guy's pocket and back, because you can't walk three feet without tumbling into something.

Er, sneaking and stealing are two completely seperate things. Stealing (or at least pickpocketing) generally requires diversion, and mostly hand-eye coordination and low-level agility.
Sneaking requires body coordination and an eye for the shadows. They're really seperate things, not even comparable. Sneaking doesn't make you good at picking pockets.

That's without even getting into how "science" was considered to be on the same level as "electronics" and "repair". Electronics isn't science? Why did you use "repair" to bring down energy shields? They were mechanical devices? How could you have 300% science and be unable to determine what's wrong with a town well?

Er, have you ever walked around a physics or mathematics department on a university campus? It's filled to the brim with people who are brilliant scientists, but couldn't fix a broken pen.

Lockpicking on a PS3 with rumble is actually quite fun. The feedback feels right, and (I think) it's based on your character's skill level. It doesn't feel 'gamey', it feels right.

I also like the hacking mini-game, though I don't know if character intelligence affects it. It should, somehow. But I always liked mastermind. Perhaps if Intelligence helped (and hindered) you in someway.

Both of these get shitty very quickly, though. After the third time or so.
And no, Intelligence has no effect on the hacking minigame for as far as I could tell.

Also, electronics wasn't a skill in Fallout.

Same as above, the use of a giant overworld instead of a map screen. I've always hated that map. What's the point of telling me how awful the world has become if I'm not allowed to see most of it

The whole point was that there was a huge wasteland with nothing in it. You know, they could've modeled that in its entirety, but I suppose that after three miles of rocks it'd get pretty boring.

Then again, you could stop at any point on the map and open the map if you wanted to.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

Mines and grenads. Both cases, you're handling explosives. since there aren't any non-grenade throwing weapons (knives are all melee, even darts are ammo for a kitbashed weapon), it streamlines the system AND makes sense to have a general knowledge of explosives affect how well you use grenades and set/defuse mines and bombs. Frankly, not differentiating between rifles and pistols is less realistic, and that's been the case since the first Fallout.

I mean, fine, but that really limits the options of the game and limits the feel. Are explosives that abundant, really? And, 200 years after the end of the world, no other trap types exist?

As a more relevant argument, which part of being good with disarming mines (an intelligence and dexterity-based skill) makes you good at throwing grenades? "I'm good at sewing together balls made out of leather, so I must me good at baseball!" /bs

------------------------

As for the inventory pros/cons discussed, I have to agree that including item types was a good idea. The rest of the inventory is just bad. You do have items grouped, but then you have to scroll through a list of alphabetized stuff. It's not intuitive. Sometimes I have trouble finding certain things in my inventory because I don't remember the exact name for them. Granted, FO2 inventory weas pretty bad too, but I found it easier to deal with.

 

[ferrety]

Combining skills (medicine/doctor; repair/traps; sneak/steal) means that specialization is less risky and two relatively useless skills are made into one useful skill.

The problem, though, is that they took it too far. Specialization is no longer 'risky' at all, to the point that it's difficult for any two characters to be different, with the exception of who you decide to kill. It would be hard to make a character that can't do pretty much everything in the game by level 20, with the possible exception of intentionally ignoring, say, lockpick to a ridiculous degree.

I, and many others, WANT to have specialization be risky. I want to miss opportunities because I decided to practice small guns instead of lockpicking. I want to have to avoid fights because I focused on sneak and science.

Sure, now I never need to have that feeling of missing out on something. But I can also guarantee my level 10 character isn't all that different from yours, game play wise. Sure I focused on different skills to different degrees, but our actual gameplay will be very similar, with the possible exception of very early on when one of us might not be able to open locked containers... oh wait, most of them are 'easy' or 'very easy'.

 

[asuhdds]

Oh please, FO2 inventory easier to deal with? Are you kidding me? It was probably the worst design for an inventory, no categorization, NO ORGANIZATION WHATSOEVER unless you manually took things out and put them in how you'd like it to look like.

I would have preferred an inventory system ala Deus Ex or Stalker, but this is good enough.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

Oh please, FO2 inventory easier to deal with? Are you kidding me? It was probably the worst design for an inventory, no categorization, NO ORGANIZATION WHATSOEVER unless you manually took things out and put them in how you'd like it to look like.

I would have preferred an inventory system ala Deus Ex or Stalker, but this is good enough.

I prefer dealing with items in the inventory by the way they look, I don't want to memorize every dam name of every dang object. Given how much stuff you can actually carry, it's a hassle to scroll through.

I'm not saying FO2 inventory was great, but FO3 inventory is utter crap. Why is it in the PipBoy anyway?

And agreed, inventory ala Stalker or RE4 is what it should've been. Or, at the very least, something like NWN2.

 

[ferrety]

Lockpicking on a PS3 with rumble is actually quite fun. The feedback feels right, and (I think) it's based on your character's skill level. It doesn't feel 'gamey', it feels right.

I also like the hacking mini-game, though I don't know if character intelligence affects it. It should, somehow. But I always liked mastermind. Perhaps if Intelligence helped (and hindered) you in someway.

Both of these get shitty very quickly, though. After the third time or so.
And no, Intelligence has no effect on the hacking minigame for as far as I could tell.

Also, electronics wasn't a skill in Fallout.

Using your lockpick skill a couple dozen times in a row in the originals got old pretty fast too. At least with the lockpicking mini-game + feedback on a PS3, you can control the amount of feedback you get (as well as the 'success' area for the lockpick) based on character skill and make a lock either 'simple' or 'a lockpick insta-breaker' pretty easily.

I can understand not liking mini-games, but even 'hit lockpick 100 times till you get it right' is a sort of junk mini-game, so I view this one as a serious improvement. Also, any 'if you fail the skill check, reload' type mechanic is a bit flawed. By making a mini game influenced by skill, but not dependent on reflexes, there is a chance of killing two birds with one stone.

 

[bhlaab]

Combining skills (medicine/doctor; repair/traps; sneak/steal) means that specialization is less risky and two relatively useless skills are made into one useful skill.

The problem, though, is that they took it too far. Specialization is no longer 'risky' at all, to the point that it's difficult for any two characters to be different, with the exception of who you decide to kill. It would be hard to make a character that can't do pretty much everything in the game by level 20, with the possible exception of intentionally ignoring, say, lockpick to a ridiculous degree.

I, and many others, WANT to have specialization be risky. I want to miss opportunities because I decided to practice small guns instead of lockpicking. I want to have to avoid fights because I focused on sneak and science.

Sure, now I never need to have that feeling of missing out on something. But I can also guarantee my level 10 character isn't all that different from yours, game play wise. Sure I focused on different skills to different degrees, but our actual gameplay will be very similar, with the possible exception of very early on when one of us might not be able to open locked containers... oh wait, most of them are 'easy' or 'very easy'.

What you're talking about is a rebalance within the actual game itself. Make lockpicking harder, make guns more inaccurate at lower levels. That I can get behind, even though I haven't noticed a problem (then again I'm not at level 20 yet)
There's no point in having useless skills, ever. Well, unless you feel like intentionally screwing over the player.

 

[bhlaab]

Lockpicking on a PS3 with rumble is actually quite fun. The feedback feels right, and (I think) it's based on your character's skill level. It doesn't feel 'gamey', it feels right.

I also like the hacking mini-game, though I don't know if character intelligence affects it. It should, somehow. But I always liked mastermind. Perhaps if Intelligence helped (and hindered) you in someway.

Both of these get shitty very quickly, though. After the third time or so.
And no, Intelligence has no effect on the hacking minigame for as far as I could tell.

Also, electronics wasn't a skill in Fallout.

Using your lockpick skill a couple dozen times in a row in the originals got old pretty fast too. At least with the lockpicking mini-game + feedback on a PS3, you can control the amount of feedback you get (as well as the 'success' area for the lockpick) based on character skill and make a lock either 'simple' or 'a lockpick insta-breaker' pretty easily.

I can understand not liking mini-games, but even 'hit lockpick 100 times till you get it right' is a sort of junk mini-game, so I view this one as a serious improvement. Also, any 'if you fail the skill check, reload' type mechanic is a bit flawed. By making a mini game influenced by skill, but not dependent on reflexes, there is a chance of killing two birds with one stone.

I think the morrowind system of lockpicking was good enough. Dicerolls, with limited uses on lockpicks. No danger of jamming the lock. Time isn't stopped so you still have that danger of being spotted.

I'm not a fan of minigames in general. I think hacking should just be a barrier to entry instead of a minigame OR a dieceroll. Also simply not enough computer terminals around period.


Oh, and I've thought of another thing Bethesda has done better: Armor system. Now THAT is beyond question, because oldschool Fallout had a terrible armor system.

 

[Ausir]

Note: I don't know if there are throwing knives in Fallout 3.

No.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

I can understand not liking mini-games, but even 'hit lockpick 100 times till you get it right' is a sort of junk mini-game, so I view this one as a serious improvement. Also, any 'if you fail the skill check, reload' type mechanic is a bit flawed. By making a mini game influenced by skill, but not dependent on reflexes, there is a chance of killing two birds with one stone.

Well, you couldn't do that in the original FO either, becaue the lock would get jammed.

The FO3 system is OK but could've been better. I'd love a lockpicking system like in Thief.

 

[Doolan]

(long and informative post on skills, mainly separating sneak / steal and explaining that electronics wasn't a skill in Fallout)

True, but reading Dean's Electronics made you better at repairing town wells.

Sneaking and pickpocketing being different fields doesn't mean they "don't even compare". Why does pickpocketing require diversion instead of stealth? Wouldn't it be a bit of both? Technically you can also "steal" (the actual name of the skill) from a dead body and require neither. As for the university department argument, there's also a ton of people in CS departments who can't tell an atom of helium from an African swallow. Yet, for some reason, "Science" (talk about a generic term) applied to computers and growing crops just as well, but had nothing to do with mechanics, electronics, chemistry if it was related to explosives, etc.

The skill system was *far* from perfect, and any skill system out there can be argued for and against. What about medicine / first aid and speech / barter anyway?

The point here is that the issue with the names of the skills is mostly semantics, and the game is not "dumbed down", nor improved nor made worse, by arbitrarily adding / removing skills or changing their names to something else.