As a compromise intended to give a turn-based feeling, VATS is not too good.
The advantages of using it are so strong that it feels more like a built-in god mode rather than an alternative interface functionality (or whatever one might call that).

The best and and most functional compromise between real time and turn-based I've seen, is the real time with pause approach (which is kind of similar to the VATS, but without taking away any of the risk). But for it to work properly, it is required that the player will have a bit less control over the character - as in a less action oriented approach, were the player simply instructs the character which bad guy to shoot and the character takes care of the rest, without the need for more precise aiming by the player for example. However I don't expect that such an approach would be too popular with the average Bethesda fun and neither would I require it from Bethesda, since part of their strength lies in the inclusion of heavy action elements in their games.

As such I am more in favor of getting rid of VATS and the inclusion of a proper bullet-time feature instead (which could be still 'powered' by action points... why not?)

People should stop trying to look for proofs that Bethesda's games are RPGs. It's a practice that gives birth to gutless features such as VATS. I hope more for a game that will play properly as a good FPS, without lazy and distracting compromises, while having all the depth and complexity of a proper RPG under the surface - a solid action/RPG... not an awkward average FPS + average RPG combination. --- In other words, when the RPG approach doesn't work well, get rid of it, use the action approach instead. If we end up with no RPG elements in the game's combat, too bad, make all the action elements work properly though, and I for one will not complain.

I dont want to be unrealistic so i wont suggest super crysis-like graphics, the Fallout 3 graphics were good enough for me.
But what I would really like bethesda to improve and expand are the non-combat skills.
Also I would like to see the outdoorsman skill, reputations, the long endings and the old fallout weapons return.
And boy, the special and karma systems really need to be reworked or atleast greatly improved.
Survival in f3 was child's play, so that really needs improvement, I want the game to be challenging, because it's fun, but not really challenging yet.

And then there's the stuff that I really think MUST be atleast slightly improved:
Animations, AI and reliability. (crashes etc.)

I would take cover while my two followers would just stand there and shoot and thus die, this svcks.
And in the beginning I had lots of problems with crashes. And there are alot more problems other people have.
And the animations are very unrealistic and weird sometimes.
These are big problems for me.

And then the dialogue.
When I say: "This conversation is over!"
It IS over. I dont want an npc to still give me a quest and say: "You better do the right thing" or w/e.
I want to be able to tell people I'm not going to do something or that they have to f.ck off.
I dont want just 3 different options wich actually all come to down to: "Yes."

And in quests, more possibilities to handle situations. For example:
In the Pitt there where a number of ways to get in, and I tried to sneak my way in by trying to go around and climb over a wall. But ofcourse there was no way in like that.

So Bethesda, here are some suggestions:

For survival, make it much harder to get weapons and ammo and change the systems to give you much less hp.
And please, dont add in those overpowered perks we have in Fallout 3, some of them make the game a cakewalk.
And make injuries mean something, a crippled leg shouldn't be fixable by sleeping or a simple stimpak.
When you are crippled, you should be severely weakned.
Crippled legs: movement speed reduced to 60%.
Crippled arms: Spread of weapons and damage of melee weapons decreases.
Crippled head: Perception is lowered and attacking is slower.
Crippled chest: agility and armor are lowered.

And only legs and arms should be fixable, but only with medical braces and medical equipment like that.

Also, change it so that many things cannot be done in combat, like eating and drinking and using stimpacks.
That should only be possible in cover and when there's no enemies.

Also, the world map, make it larger but make it have about the same amount of content as F3, the area was much too small in F3.

I don't think it should be hard to get weapons. Guns are fairly plentiful in the U.S and one thing that is for sure is that when you are at war production of weapons and ammo skyrockets. When the bombs drop in fallout world you can be sure that there are tons of weapons that never reached troops and were never fired. Prime for looting.

Heck I'm common joe citizen and I have never paid a dime for a gun and I own 10.

I know some people think it should be hard to find weapons but imo it be easier to get guns and ammo than food.

Imo the kiss principle works best for games. Keep it simple stupid.

Actually it irked me how often I had to fix a gun. Give me a gun cleaning kit and I could keep my firearm in working order for a long time unless I decided to use it as a club.

Also I like the perks system in fo3 but I do think they should add and remove some. I don't think it unbalances the game. It supposed to be fun and in fo 1 and 2 you can be godlike as well.

I'd like to see living anatomy.

Bonus rate of fire could give like 30 ap for ranged weapons. Bonus hth attack the same for obviously hth.

Should be able to target specific location in hth combat.

If you can pull a trigger or punch someone you should be able to inject yourself with a stimpack but I agree that eating food and drinking kinda odd.

Because that caters to the popular majority, right?
You're echoing the concerns of those that asked for similar things when they found that the game wasn't the same as the first two. Valid concerns, of course, but you must understand that most, if not all of them, will be addressed.

e: Oh, and I completely agree with your statements about dialogue; those do need to be changed.

As far as VATS goes, there's nothing turn-based about it. It offers almost literally nothing that I would look for in a turn-based game. And it really has nothing at all to do with turnbased. Rather than some form of compromise between realtime and turnbased, I view it (as a turnbased fan) as a fancy bullet-time. Or some hybrid between pause-and-play and bullet-time, if that. If they implemented VATS for no other reason than to make us turnbased fans happy, then I think they probably shouldn't have bothered.

Frankly, I don't think there's really any available compromise between RT and TB, to be honest. They're sort of diametrically opposed approaches to videogames, the way I see it. The only real compromises I've seen are games that offer you the ability to play both ways (ie, X-Com Apocalypse, Fallout: Tactics, Blood Bowl, etc.) And of course, the potential downfall of that method is that one gamestyle might come off as feeling sort of "tacked on," as opposed to being a playstyle essentially suited for that game.

Back to VATS, though, I'm actually a fan of it (even if there's plenty of room for improvement in that area, surely.) I don't think they did it just because Fallout 1 was turn-based, however. I think one thing the guys at Bethesda thought was cool about the old games was the ability to target individual limbs, and then see the gory effects of making those shots (for their death animations, at least...) That's all VATS brings to the table - it helps you cripple limbs and then gives you a cinematic way to show off the gore in the game. I think we maybe need to get off this idea that VATS has anything in common with a turn-based system, at all, and focus more on what it's actually there to do in the first place.

To that end, I'd like to see more gore options. Weapon-specific ones, especially. Blowing off limbs wholesale is neat, but riddling people with holes, cutting chunks of them off, etc - that would be neater, I think. And there's always going to be room to expand on the cinematic replays, as well.

In regards to VATS being god-mode, they likely just need to refine it a bit more. As I understand, they were tweaking VATS up until release; it was one of the last things they "finished." Originally, they had your PC take full damage during the VATS replays, but playtesters were getting annoyed at coming out of the replay to find themselves dead. So the damage you took was dialled back some. In effect, I honestly don't see the problem with this - an entire VATS replay is a split second or so of "actual" time - maybe some people do, but I lack the reflexes necessary to take any real advantage of this "shield effect."

Still, there's probably a decent compromise available there. I'd like to see a nice cover system implemented, for one. And that would probably work well with VATS. And could likely allow you to dial the damage back up during the replays - as if you're standing out in the open making a VATS shot instead of popping out from cover for a moment, then you should probably expect to take some damage. That's just one idea, though.

But it's more than that: You don't take much damage, you have high chance of success + it's a split second of actual time. Effectively in that split second you have a too high chance of dealing devastating damage with minimum use of ammo without risking taking any substantial damage or losing any time. In FO1&2 at least, when you were making a targeted shot, had lower chance to hit than normal and you spent more action points (ie it takes more time than a normal shot). That's too many advantages I think.
Perhaps it could be 'fixed' but I'm not sure if it would worth it... I do think a more 'traditional' action-oriented bullet-time or something similar where you could get a bit more time to target specific body parts - by using 'player skill', would fit just fine.

They need both. If they try to change it to bullet time, half of the fans will complain that they aren't staying true to the game's roots. If they change it to turn-based mode, the other half will complain about complicated systems and it will likely go unused. What they have with VATS, a change in the combat system at the push of a button, is a great idea. They should separate VATS into a bullet time mode and an honest to goodness turn based mode, with movement and weapon switching.

I downloaded a bullet time mod that allowed you to enter a slow down mode based on your agility (the higher the agility, the slower everything became) that used action points like a timer. It even came with new perks to increase your sense of time(You aren't slowed down as much as those around you). Sure, the system was a little unbalanced, but if one guy can pull it off within a few months of the game's release, than a group of skilled bethesdites could knock it out of the park.

And for the record, I totally agree with nu clear's gore statement. Sure, a super mutant's head flying off as I snipe him from 100 ft is really awesome, but it gets old if it happens EVERY TIME. and when I look to observe the effects of my nuka grenade applied directly to a group of super mutants, I should not see a pile of cleanly cut limbs.

The reason for VATS explained in the making of video was
1) they wanted an FPS game
2) they wanted to give the player/game a movie like cinematic feel
3) they didn't want to do exactly what every FPS game has done since Soom. To para-quote them they couldn't outdo Halo 3 in the FPS genre.
4) FO1 and FO2 had body part targeting, they wanted that in game

VATS works great about 80% of the time.
I wish Halo had vats, I'd play it again, but it doesn't so there goes any sense of doing anything but pulling triggers and killing everything that gets in the way spastically.

I wish Fallout had Halo 3's stop time move the camera system, if I could place the camera myself for the killshots, that would be spectacular.
Sometimes the vats camera is just weird, but sometimes its awesome.

If you don't like VATS, just don't use it.
Its taken me about seven play throughs but I've gotten used to going VATS free for the fun of it.
Of course that backfires when you are saving a merchant from a raider, and you shoot the merchant, and the merch goes hostile so Fawkes dissects the merchant with laser fire.

Let's break this down, though.

You don't have any more chance of success, really, than you do with regular targetting. Until I got my Small Guns skill up to around 75% or so, I was missing most of those VATS shots, anyway. Personally, I found just regular shooting to be more forgiving than anything else - 30% or so at the beginning (in my experience) meant that I was still making most of those shots, with the only difference dictated by more skill points being higher damage ratings. And I'm not even very good at aiming in FPS games. Sure, at higher skill levels I'm regularly getting 95%, but I'm going to make that shot inside or outside of VATS, regardless.

It's a split second of time, but that's the time it takes to fire one bullet anyway. That doesn't change whether or not you're doing VATS. I also don't believe that VATS imparts any extra damage modifiers, either. If I shoot a guy in the head in regular real-time combat, I believe I still have the same chance of crippling it as I would with VATS (I could be wrong on this, though.) It's all done with damage capacity. If that shoot you make takes his "head" bar down all the way, it gets crippled. Whether or not that's done in VATS, I don't think makes any difference. Damage dealt is the same. Really the only difference, effectively, is that interval of time it takes you to fire off your three shots or so, you take significantly less damage.

This is why I look at it as fancy bullet time with some extra bells and whistles. Because you're not making any shots that you wouldn't have anyway, and you're not gaining any "extra" shots either.

Fallout 3, however, doesn't treat VATS as an aimed shot. Maybe that's a direction they could go the next time around, somehow. Because I do agree, that was a central part of the original Fallout combat experience - deciding whether or not it was worth taking that extra time to make an aimed shot which would have more chance of doing critical or crippling damage. There might possibly be some way to go with that, but I'm not sure how it would work to everyone's satisfaction.

Because now we're dealing with a real-time game. I need a pause-at-will function simply to be able to play the game without throwing my mouse through the monitor. I get too overwhelmed in heated combat without something that lets me take a breath and pick my shots. (This is why I don't, as a general rule, play shooters anymore.) In an RPG, I literally need some sort of mechanic that gives me, as a player, something close to the level of my skill my character's stats are supposed to represent. Because no matter how high my character's skill gets, I'm still functionally never playing the game at anything higher than an effective 50% skill level.

Maybe a bullet-time aiming mechanism would be the way to go, instead of simply pausing the action - at least for targetting specific body parts. I could see this, of the top of my head:

Tapping the "VATS button" still pauses the game, and lets you select your targets. My gut reaction would be to give this a very fast recharge, if not something you could do at will, with no restrictions. The drawback here is that you're just selecting which enemy you want to aim at - you're not targetting any specific body part. Basically a target lock-on, and a bit of a crutch for those of who desperately need something like that to keep us playing, and to catch a breath every once in a while.

However, from the VATS menu, you could also opt to begin an aimed shot at a specific body part. The drawback is that you're not automatically taking that shot. There would be a warm-up period before your character could fire. Off-hand, I'd say you'd have to keep the "fire" button held down until the action is carried out. Otherwise, it could concievably work like the current implementation of VATS. You'd still have the cinematic playback (and possibly even an option so that simply any death that warrants it could give you a nice cinematic,) and still take reduced damage while in the "playback mode." Those advantages would be countered by the time you have to spend "aiming," however. During which you'd be vulnerable, of course (and maybe even immobile.) And the charge-up time for aiming would be dictated by your AGI.

Anyway, that's one idea. It would totally be something were you're not gaining an advantages you couldn't get by just staying in real-time, but could be helpful to some players - and of course would end in a fun little bit of cinematic gore on top of it.

I thought Bigtown was a missed opportunity.
They should've let you lead more people to it. Slaves, kids, tied up and kidnapped people. Let it be graduately built to a city. protect them from the supermutant attacks, have more protectrons gaurding the place. settle disagreements, select a mayor, build up a merchanting empire, brind food and drinks for caps. be their saviour.

...Or just destroy it all, if you'd like.

That's true if the one bullet that I'm going to fire outside of VATS is going to hit - but when I don't use it, I just unload my weapon at the general direction of the enemy who's charging at me - and it takes a bunch of bullets before I make the hit (because I'm no good). Therefore I do have far less chance of success to hit an enemy with each shot I take, at least because time is against me or because I svck at aiming in real time So it's effectively it's the same as giving me extra shots, and I'd rather VATS wasn't used as a way for me to make the game easier - I'd rather use the difficulty slider for that and use VATS for some extra functionality.

Maybe all you say it's true, and it probably is, but one thing remains: when I use VATS combat becomes dramatically easier for me.
(At least I get all the benefits of a shot made by someone more skilled in that kind of thing than I am - but if it was intended to give someone with less skill in FPS combat an alternative way of fighting, why not let me go through the entire combat sequence within VATS?)

But really all I'm saying is that VATS shouldn't address all of my problems at once... perhaps it would as simple as to introduce some sort of 'penalty' depending on what you do - like your ideas, which I like a lot, they seem perfectly fine to me (so what on earth am I arguing about? :huh:)



Well... they succeeded in all accounts, it's different and cinematic and everything... but it's unbalanced :shrug:



A bad feature (generally speaking) is bad whether I use it or not. I want a game that will be full of good features that I will enjoy using, not a game with dumb ones that I will be allowed to ignore.

And people should not come here and try to argue that Beth games should be remade to fit their particular likes and dislikes. The combat aspect of any Beth game is marginal compared to to the rest of the package. If folks dont lkiike the combat, they should be playing something else. If they don't like the exploration aspects, there are other options. If they want to be lead down the primrose path by the nose with story and dialogue, DA:O is a great game.

If you want to see improvements in future Beth games within the framework of the sandbox/explore system Beth uses, then fine, but don't expect to see Beth make Bioware games, and don't expect an FPS, which FO3 was never meant to be. I'd be perfectly happy with ANY combat system they put in there, as long as it isn't turn based, or as long as the turn based is OPTIONAL.

How did I suggest that Bethesda should make Bioware games?
Do you feel that you should be the only one making the suggestions because, unlike me, you loved every single aspect of the game, and the rest of us should svck it up and go dragonage ourselves?
Did you read any of my arguments for that matter? Do you care to discuss it with me or did you simply want to point out what a huge *somethingcencored* I am?
If you care to discuss it with me, let me point out that I do not expect to see Beth make Bioware games, I believe FO3 is 50% FPS already (which is a big part of it's 'charm') and that this is the Fallout 4: Speculation and Suggestions thread, which I understood it was a place for people to post their likes and dislikes for a future game - which means that if I want a FO4 to be a hidden object casual game in ancient Egypt, I have every right to say so here. In which case of course you also have every right to tell me to go dragonage myself, although I think it would be more 'constructive' for everyone if you took the time to read my arguments and present your own to explain why my idea is so terrible, like nu_clear_day did. In this case for example, I wouldn't mind reading your reasons why VATS is a so well implemented feature - maybe you can even make me change my mind... not extremely likely, but still, unlike what you might have thought, I did not come here exclusively to rip on your favorite game and spoil your fun.

That would work if there were really any other options, seeing how the weapons workings and aiming system is next door to useless.

There's still a lot of combat in Fallout 3. Combat's generally a central focus of most RPGs (videogame or otherwise.) DA:O is pretty combat-heavy, and is obviously what the game was built around doing, but lately I've found I spend quite a lot of time between those fights exploring towns and talking to people - I haven't played very far into it yet, but so far it (at least feels like) about on par with a Bethesda game.

I think combat generally needs to be a prime consideration in a game like Fallout - because you're going to be doing alot of it, in general. By that, I don't mean it needs to be as polished and tight as an FPS game - that's unrealistic (since an FPS gets to work on doing just thing right, and RPG has to be jack-of-all-trades; obviously there's going to be a tradeoff.) But that doesn't mean that it can't be a constant area of improvement, either. When you get right down to it, most modern RPGs are essentially shooters with extra stuff added on. (Since design-wise, once you have the game up to the point where you can move your charater around and shoot things, you have a shooter - you can't really move forward with quests and dialogue until the framework is up - which is in essence a shooter game.)

Honestly, I hope maybe one of the benefits of Zenimax buying id is to get some help in this area. To say those guys have a bit of experience making shooters is quite an understatement, after all. I honestly don't have that much of a problem with the combat in Fallout 3. But then again, I didn't have a problem with the combat in Morrowind, either (which wasn't exactly known for it's variety and cinematic action sequences...) But it's never going to hurt an RPG to have as high-quality a combat system as possible.

I agree with this - if the Bethesda crews didn't have to focus so much time on getting the shooter part of the game right, they could spend alot More time on RPG-related features. There is so much more they Could do with RPG, but it all requires code time, devel time and alot of effort to do RPG stuffs right.

Here's to hoping!

Miax

You know when you exit Vault 101 the first time and you get that melodramatic music and that wonderful view of a destroyed DC greets you? When you blow up the alien ship and you want to watch the gas cloud expand?

It's ruined with the level up sounds and the achievement beeper. In New Vegas and 4 I hope they let us enjoy the moment before ruining it with noise and pop-ups.

I think that's the way it's supposed to be. If you are really bad at shooters, you can still win fights as long as your character has good combat skills. Now, if you think VATS makes it too easy, then I would recommend a simple mod that reduces the damage nerfing. In my experience, VATS actually becomes a risky proposition if I drop damage nerfing to 0%. It's well balanced for me at around 25%.

Heh... I don't use mods... I'm just weird like that...
But in any case, I shouldn't need a mod to balance the game, nor to fix bugs etc.
Mods should be used to add non-essential content and to allow creative players to get more from the game.
Every mod that's considered essential is a thumbs down for the game.

No, mods definitely should be used to balance the game. There are a ton of different variables in a game like FO3, and the use of mods is the most powerful way of changing them according to your preference. People are not all the same, and one person's idea of fun can be different from another's. The mod I use for adjusting VATS damage actually has 4 settings, and I happen to use one that wasn't recommended by the author. Personally, I think VATS damage should have changed with the difficulty level, but it's a non-issue for me because they put out mod tools that allow me to change that myself. If you've got access to mods, then it's really your own fault if you don't use them to customize the game in order to maximize your own enjoyment.

I expect a game developer to know when the game is balanced - that's one of the services I pay for when I buy the game (The game comes with a difficulty slider which I can use to adjust it's difficulty to my preference - and I expect that all available difficulty options will be well balanced). + especially because there are so many variables I do not like messing around with them because that might as well cause even more trouble - I used mods when I played Morrowind, and it just caused me to start over or stop playing altogether.

+ I can't trust a modder, because I don't pay for the mods, so I can't make demands.
I expect that someone makes a mod solely for his/her own personal entertainment and not to offer some sort of service to me... if he wants to 'publish' the mod eventually that's great, but I shouldn't be expected to use something, that some guy I don't know and has no responsibility towards me, made just for fun, to make the game I bought off professionals worth what I paid for.
(And if any modder does what he does, without enjoying it enough, because he believes he's offering a service to fellow gamers: he's been fooled, he should make his own games and potentially even get a bit more than "thank yous" for his trouble)





+ I could be playing on XBox
(well I'm not... but I could be...)

i agree that mods shouldnt be needed.. sure theyre fun.. but they arent really the game at that point, rather a texidermed (even if done well) version of the game.. i did really like some of HL mods they made for deathmatch and can see the appeal for other games like F3.. but they shouldnt be needed

Mods are nice bit of "extra" for a game like Fallout, but that's all they are, as well. I'm sure Bethesda gets some very good ideas from modding community about where to go next; and I'd be suprised if some of their team hadn't got their start making mods for their games.

But yeah, it shouldn't be (and I highly doubt it is) much of a consideration during a game's development. Because like has been said - mods are only ever available if you're buying a game for the PC. Consoles don't use mods, ever. (It's doubtful that they're even capable of such, at this point.) Mods are a nice bit of extra fun (and at this point I've probably spent more time in the GECK than playing the actual game,) but ideally you shouldn't "need" them.

That's always been a (very minor) pet peeve of mine, when I bring up a personal criticism, to get the stock response of "there's a mod for that."

Well, the game is balanced according to Bethesda. If you expect a dev to tailor every variable in a game to your specific tastes, then you'd better be paying for it with a commission, because it's probably not going to happen otherwise.

A lot of mods (including the one I just mentioned) are contradictory. They don't fix anything from an objective standpoint, they just change things. I'm sure that there are people that think the mods I use are actually making the game much worse, perhaps even unplayable.

I would agree in a situation in which I thought that the vanilla game was nearly perfect. Otherwise (and in the case of FO3), I'd say that you are pretty far off. Mods can change the gameplay. That's not just "extra."


I think that's a pretty weird perspective. If something about a game bothers you so much that you'd complain about it on a messageboard, shouldn't you be happy if someone points out that you can make the problem go away? Shouldn't complaining be a means rather than an end?

Accepting that there's a mod out there that solves your complain and dropping the case exempts the developers from their fault, while keep on discussing (or even complaining) increases the chances they'll address the issue next time. Also, most mods that fixes big complains are broken one way or another.