i just want to put out that even though you may hit a target in F3, youre not necessarily going to do a lot of damage.. its gonna depend on your weapons skills.

But it doesn't make much sense. When your character hits an enemy in the arm with low skill, and some hours later he hits the same kind of enemy in the same spot but with higher skill, why should he do more damage? It's still a gun and it's still a bullet, no amount of skill could increase the damage.

well you could easily flip that coin and ask, "how do you miss an enemy in a turn based RPG if youre using explosives or other weapons/spells of that calibur?"

FP combat in F3, how do you know that even if you hit the same area on an enemy, you didnt hit a better spot in that area the next time through with the better skill?
also, if you want you can always go over to VAT where your skill level is going to effect your percentage of hitting that enemy.

That's the RPG elements coming into play. It's a commonly misunderstood abstraction.

Absolutely, a bullet is a bullet - fired at the same range, it's going to leave pretty much the same sized hole in your body. But where that hole ends up can mean the difference between life and death. This is where your character's skill comes in. Just as in real life, a character with low skill is just happy to simply hit the same general area that they were aiming at. Whereas a character with high skill is not only aiming for the arm - they're looking to hit an artery or other critical area. Not to mention glancing blows and flesh wounds - a character with lower skill is more likely to make a shot that just glances off the edge of an enemy; as opposed to a more skilled character at least being more likely to hit the "meat" of what they're aiming for.

Take hunting, for instance. The aim is to kill in one shot, but the difference between doing so and simply wounding the animal is a matter of a couple of inches. The more skilled and experienced the hunter is, the more likely that his aim is going to be on-target.

Certainly, ideally, you should have at least a chance of making a lucky shot on occasion, regardless of your skill level. And I'm not entirely sure just what the mechanics involved in Fallout 3 are. But basically: a character with 20 in Small Guns shooting a Supermutant in the arm is not the same as someone with 100 skill shooting that same Supermutant in the arm - even though both shots are in the arm. (Because they're not hitting the same critical parts of that arm...)

Back on track, I was thinking of ways that you could use some of the DA:O approach to combat with something like Fallout. This isn't an entirely fleshed-out idea, and I'm not sure what it would look like in actual gameplay, but it's an idea nonetheless.

In Fallout 3, you don't really have any options beyond just pulling the trigger. Whereas in DA:O you have a number of special attacks and other feats that you're capable of selecting through the hotkey bar. Fallout has Perks, however; and another potential fault in #3 was that while they gave you a Perk every level, there really wasn't as wide a variety to choose from as there could have been. Maybe something like that would work well for Perks, though - ones that give you special attacks and feats to use during combat (like crippling shots, dodges, whatever - just off the top of my head.)

That would take up more space on the keyboard/controller, however - but if DA:O managed to do it, then obviously it's possible. You could even use DA:O's Tactics options to select when some of these Perks trigger, which would free up the player to a certain degree, as well. It might even be (possibly) sort of neat if the AI could control your character to a degree - so that I could select which enemies I was attacking, but then worry less about lining up my crosshairs for each shot and more about where I'm moving and positioning myself. Just something so where my character can attack without my totally direct control, but where I could seamlessly transition back into a more traditional "shooter" mode, at will.

Anyway, just an idea.

The RPGs of the past were perfectly fine without the player having to aim at anything; the first two Fallouts were certainly fine, and they didn't require the player to aim at anything. Once again it should be the character's skill that determines whether or not you hit something, and not yours. That is part of what makes an RPG an RPG. I fail to see how that is "barking up the wrong tree".



I haven't played Dragon Age yet, but I was under the impression that it played like Baldur's Gate, NWN and KotOR in that you selected enemies and your characters attacked them resulting in their skills determining whether or not they hit or miss. Hitting pause and selecting enemies isn't exactly a "skill".

You would be correct Talonfire, it does work that way.

There are some really cool ideas presented on this post. I think the idea of having your own town to manage would be fun especially if this lent itself to some type of online game play.
My suggestions are:
1. Start the game off as either a vault dweller or a young member of the Brotherhood of Steel. With each option comes different attributes such as armor for the B.O.S. or more stem packs for the vault dweller. Also you would basically have the same missions but different objectives and challenges to overcome. An example would be as the vault dweller you have to sneak into a town to save a person of interest that is held captive by raiders, whereas for the B.O.S. you would be given the order to sneak in and execute the same person. Another example would be there is a virus infecting a town. As the vault dweller you need to isolate the virus and find a cure, but as the B.O.S. you need to isolate the virus so that you can mass produce it as a weapon to use against the Enclave. If incorporated this idea would greatly increase reply value.
2. Your reputation proceeds you. This idea was incorporated in F.O.3 but never really built upon. I mean come on Threedog is talking about your escapades all over the radio and he's supposed to be one of the most respected guys in D.C. yet no one seemed to know who you are. Why not have some characters react to your reputation as either good or bad upon the first meeting? The occasional person saying "So you're the guy." or after fragging all the super mutants in the nearby area having other super mutants shout "There's the one killing all our brothers!" would bring us some joy. If you are good people bowing to you or offering you deals and if you are evil people wanting to pay you off to just stay the hell away would be nice.
3. Evil intentions of others. In F.O.3 people asked you to complete missions because they wanted your help, but in reality some people, for whatever reason, just don't like you. Why not add that into the game? It would be pretty funny to take a mission only to find out the person that gave you the mission didn't like you and wanted to see you screwed over royally. Retribution of said NCP would be a major blast. It would be fun to pepper the next game with a few gotcha moments from NPC's with evil intentions.
4. DLC that changes the wasteland. All of the DLC from F.O.3 gave you new maps, the problem with that is the old map stayed the same. Change that. Create a DLC that changes the wasteland itself by removing all your corpses and revitalizes the main map with new challenges, missions and people to fight and help. Given that by the time the DLC's come out most will have beaten the game and maxed out their perks and have plenty of cash on hand so keep that in mind. Where a drawer once gave you 30 caps, it now gives you 10. Increased costs of goods. Also where a town was once friendly, now ambushes await you. You get the idea.
5. Talon Company. I don't know about you but I personally loved fighting these guys. I enjoyed being surprised by them and killing them. Why not add the option to join Talon Company? If you join them you can rank up cash quickly but you increase in evil points. Then once a valued member of their team, screw them all over by setting a trap to kill them all.
6. Weapons have draw backs. Most people have a style of playing they prefer i.e. melee, heavy weapons, plasma. Why not have the game create draw backs to your established game play? So if you use heavy weapons too much, your character develops a serious hearing problem that you have to have an expensive surgery to get fixed. Or if you use plasma too much then you develop of radiation sickness that can only be helped by going to a certain region to get the cure. In other words consequences for you game style.
7. Pet stolen. You gotta admit if in reality someone kidnapped your pet and left a ransom note you would be pissed. Why not have someone do that to you in the game?
Well those are my ideas for Fallout4 or New Vegas. Thanks for reading.

Sure, but that is just a matter of preference. The fact is, your IN determined your character's tactical aptitude, and the character's IN was irrelevant in that regard.

And the RPGs of the past were perfectly fine with the player having to aim at everything (Ultima Underworld, TES, etc). This is entirely your personal preference. Any decent computer RPG needs player skill, and this player skill will necessarily override or determine some aspect of the character. It is entirely arbitrary to suggest that aiming is a special aspect that player skill should not influence, but it's OK if the character's skill doesn't factor into all sorts of cognitive tasks. You might want to try something like Morrowind to see how skills can have a big impact on FPS gameplay. Or even try FO3 with a mod that increases the effect of skills on accuracy.

Yes, the hitting and missing is up to the character/equipment. But you are tasked with doing much of the thinking for your characters. And that's the way it should be. Otherwise you'd just be watching the AI play itself.

Again, when we say player skill we talking purely physical skill - anything that has to do with moving some muscle - not thinking skills.
You could play FO1 by giving instructions to someone else to do all the clicking, and it still will present the exact same amount of challenge for you.
Therefore any decent cRPG does not need player skill to be decent.
The tag 'Action RPG' was conveniently invented for RPGs that demand a certain amount of (physical) player skill - as in TES.
(Now, why some people seem to consider that calling a game action RPG, instead of simply RPG, is degrading to the game is beyond me)

I'm pretty sure all of those (with the exception of Oblivion) relied on your character's skill to determine whether or not your character's attack hit your enemy.

I think everyone here understands that distinction. The argument, then, is the feeling by several of us that the physical skill required by FO3 is, at best, marginal.

maybe they call it an action RPG because its not turn based at least in the sense where it pauses every time you need to take your moves....


from a physical standpoint moving a cursor with a mouse and hitting click in a turn based is essentially the same as moving a joystic controlled sight and pulling a trigger button in a FPS..
maybe the fact that first person style games arent (normally) turn based makes vision and reaction time the factors.. but at this point its like splitting hairs, because theyre all ( playing styles) pretty instantaneous as far as decision making...

I want to drop it but you won't let me!
I'll just note that the majority of old-school hardcoe RPGs up until the mid 90s were, in fact, both first person and turn based.
Ok... I'll drop it now.

hahah hence my (normally)

Maybe I'm not making myself clear enough. I'm not referring to the action of aiming in itself, but rather the player being able to play Fallout 3 like a FPS by aiming and shooting, and always hitting the enemy even if your character has barely any skill with guns. Morrowind while clunky in places handled what I'm talking about quite well (though the system certainly could have been tweaked so that it would have been less clunky).

i got what youre saying on this.. the mechanics are completely different in that aspect.. yet its not like a FPS in that in a FPS ifyou shoot someone in the head with a pistol in the beginning of the game, it is going to do the same amount of damage to hit someone in the head towards the end of the game.

it doesnt follow all of the traditional mechanics of either RPG or FPS as it isn't really either one, rather a hybrid.

Yeah, but this has nothing to do with whether the game is played like an FPS. The basic gameplay of Morrowind is no different than the basic gameplay of Half-Life. The player needs to avoid hits, while putting the reticule on the enemy and hitting LMB in real time. That's what I meant by saying that you're barking up the wrong tree. The problem isn't that there's too much player skill involved, but that character skill isn't as important as it should be. Accuracy mods aren't really any solution for that either though. All other things being equal, there's no difference between hitting 100% of the time for 50% damage or hitting 50% of the time for 100% damage.

They could make weapon skills more important by giving the players bigger penalties at the lower levels (whether they use accuracy or damage mods doesn't really matter), but I still think that the bigger problem is in the level scaling and the ease with which the player can accrue skill points. If you can get up to 80/100, then you should be very good with a weapon, and it's far too easy to get there without sacrificing much.

I may need to dust off Fallout and Fallout 2 again, but I thought that your skill in Small Guns, Big Guns, etc determined not only your chance to hit, but the amount of damage you did? I remember there being a minimum and maximum damage, and multiple factors coming into play here. Distance from target, skill, attributes and damage resistance of the target.

It doesn't affect damage directly IIRC. It might have affected critical chance, but I think that was determined by luck and perks. Either way it doesn't matter. Skills could easily be less important in a system in which they mod accuracy relative to a system in which they mod damage. I tend to prefer accuracy mods in FPS-style games because they can automatically deal with distance issues provided that they affect spread (not like Morrowind), but it doesn't really matter if you're just concerned about whether the skill is important. You could make a damage modding system that feels absolutely oppressive at low skill levels.

All this stuff about skills and perks make my head spin.
Really all I want it to seem to have the retro 50s look and good quests involving china stuff. Also I would like it to still take place on the east coast cause more possiblies if you ask me.

Relying on mods is great for PC users.. but unless youre pitching these mods to DEVs as "please make part of the game" it doesnt really matter, does it?

I think that's a bit overstated. At level 2, i can console-poof myself a brand new AK, and precede to hit very little while running and gunning in the SuperDuper mart. Give it a shot.

No BoS/Enclave as major good guys/bad guys.

Believe me I've tried, but there's auto aim.