After playing Oblivion, I noticed how simple Fallout 3, and lesser so New Vegas was. It feels like it was just..less extensive than Oblivion was. I'm not saying Fallout should be Oblivion with nuclear bombs (I'm sure there's a mod for that), but does anyone feel like it's getting too simple? Leveling in Oblivion is slower, Oblivion gives more room in character backround, overall I feel like Oblivion has more RPG-ish content in it, whereas with Fallout 3 and onward, it's starting to become an open-world game with an inventory and levels.
What are your feelings about this? If it is becoming an open-world action game, is this a turn for the worse a step forward for the series?

I don't reallly feel that way, sure its easier to make a Medevial RPG than a Post-Apocalyptic RPG but I found that everything in Oblivion leaned towards one side whereas F3 paid equal attention to both.

Oblivion has a bigger map than both Fallout 3/New Vegas, and more quests (though by a smaller margin with New Vegas). Other than that, I'm not so sure what you mean by "extensive". If you actually mean more complicated, I guess I can see that for Fallout 3, but I cannot fathom how Oblivion would be considered more complicated than New Vegas. For the specific points you mentioned, character background and leveling speed, those have absolutely nothing to do with RPG status (at least with the case of these particular games, and they're also completely different systems). Besides, New Vegas has a character that is equally as open as Oblivion's. Also, Sebor's right. Oblivion's quests were in general rather linear with little choices, while even Fallout 3 had some sort of choice in most quests. New Vegas, with grey morality and the degree of ways to complete objectives and outcomes really stands out there too. Could you be more specific at things that make Oblivion more complicated than Fallout (rather than basically just saying that it feels that way), and also say why New Vegas being much more complicated than Fallout 3 still foreshadows a dreary end to Fallout's RPG status?

By using certain weapons you level up their skill (Marksman, Two-handed, One-handed, etc.)


Other than that, there's...no, wait...um, theres....no, that's not it...damn. :sadvaultboy:

Like I said, they're two different systems, each allowing you to specialize. Neither are really superior for an RPG, as both work. Though, the DLCs adding extra levels that can potentially ruin specialization can kind of ruin it. Even still, such a thing only ruins it because the game was balanced for 30 levels from the start as opposed to 50.

But yeah, perhaps you spoke too soon? Oblivion is a bit of a bigger game so it can be deceiving.

Well, what this thread REALLY should have been about is less things in the game, actually. Ie. home customization (its in the game, but very very limited), clothing customization (barely in at all), and the environment. In Oblivion, everyone in the city except the guards had a name and usually, unique dialogue choices and sometimes quests of their own.
Now I realize this thread is useless :cryvaultboy:

No.

It is an Action Role Playing Game with First Person Shooter elements. Which makes it an ARPGFPS.

Yes, it is becoming that (and to a point it already is). And no, that's not the right direction at all - it's the complete opposite, of what it should be becoming. And that "opposite" here most definitely is not Oblivion, or TES in any way.

What is there to differentiate Fallout 3 from Oblivion anyway -- besides aesthetics, that is? Both have weak and nigh meaningless mechanics and weak, uninvolved stories, and both strive on running the player around an open map finding random stuff. That's not how Fallout was, or should be. Imo.

New Vegas makes a genuine effort (and succeeds on the writingside of things), but is still gravely held back by its most recent - above mentioned - predecessor(s).

Oblivion had no dialogue, extremely few choices in quests, no action and consequence and you could do everything with enough time.
Even Fallout 3 was better than Oblivion simply for having these and by restricting the players abilities (to some extent..), sure enough it was bad as well but at least it had these things.
And New Vegas evolved on the whole thing even more, so if Bethesda follows New Vegas' example with Fallout 4 then I'd say it's on good way to becoming more of an RPG than an FPS.

So no, I do not understand how Oblivion was more of an RPG than Fallout 3 and New Vegas was.
Just cause Oblivion has a "learn by doing" system and a traditional fantasy setting does not mean it's more of an RPG.

Bear with me on this, in Oblivion you can create a whole lot of characters, you can be an archer, an assassin, a paladin, a berserker, a knight, a summoner, a conjurer, a healer, a battle mage, an arch mage and so on.
BUT! Could you roleplay with them?
Cause you get no dialogue to define your character with.
You get next to no options in quests, it's either "do this evil'ish quest or don't do it."
Sure you can define their abilities, but what about their actual character?
You cannot do that in Oblivion.
Fallout 3, while too black and white, gave you those choices, to define how you want to portray your character.

So you can define your abilities, what you're good at and what you're not in both, but Fallout 3 has dialogue and choices.
Fallout 3 is therefor superior as an RPG IMO as dialogue and choices are what matters.
And New Vegas expanded on it 10 fold, sooooo...
No.

There is the activity meter. FO:NV was set out in the desert (with less activity), where as Oblivion had stuff to do around every hillside. :shrug:

While I agree that clearly the new mechanics have made such a transition, we have absolutely no idea whether Bethesda will dumb it down further than Fallout 3, stripping RPG mechanics, giving fewer choices, and whatnot. I know Skyrim merged some things, but we need to see the game itself to know whether it'd actually dumbed-down. I'm not expecting them to dumb down it extensively after New Vegas. Sure, they may change it, but that doesn't mean they'll dumb it down. We'll probably see more dynamics (a good thing), a "personal" storyline (according to some, this is a requirement for a good story :shakehead:), more exploration, more "epic" moments, lack of a proper ending, and perhaps even no level cap. Of course, this stuff would mostly svck. However, it does not necessarily translate to dumbed down mechanics and story. Being able to make a diverging and good storyline while representing choices without an ending would depend on how much they make the choices impact the game world (personally, I really want a lower-stakes Fallout game anyway). The level cap bit can also still allow for specialization and not being god by letting you cap by yourself whenever you want, or changing the leveling in a way that makes it so it's other wise optional. Exploration is a staple of Bethesda, and I honestly have no problem with it as long as the more important things (like quests and things with actual substance) are looked at first. With all of those things, none of them necessarily comes with the game being dumbed down. I just don't see them going back from New Vegas and stripping away things like reputation, crafting, grey writing, complicated questing, etc. It just seems foolish and those aren't what people generally complain about. Also, for all we know, Todd will eat his words about no level cap and no ending after seeing New Vegas and will change it accordingly. We'll just have to see in 2-5 years, I guess.

What would you rather the old Fallout games or the newer ones. I think this question is pretty obvious. Please reply to me if you think otherwise.

I noticed F3 had different ways of doing quests, usually Good,Evil,Neutral and sometimes Hitler. I liked that

Do you mean "What would you rather have, the old games of the new ones?". Also, plenty of people will actually say the old games if that's what you're getting at. Personally, I think New Vegas has struck a pretty good balance and that they should go closer to the originals from there as well as improve on all of the current gameplay mechanics.

Y'know I recently made a character in New Vegas that I deliberately nerfed just to see how difficult combat would be for an ostensibly non-combat character. Armed with a modded Varmint Rifle he was sneak killing Powder Gangers and Jackals from a considerable distance without ever exposing himself. With minimal skill in both Sneak and Small Guns. On Very Hard. Increasing damage is a horrible way to reflect skill progression. Realistically that character shouldn't have been able to hit anyone from such a distance and his shots should've alerted everything to his position rather than having idiotic AI wander in to investigate dead bodies before slowly moving in his direction.

So yes Fallout is becoming an action game and I really wish it would stop. There is nothing wrong with a proper traditional RPG.

Personally, I wouldn't have managed that. But I think the reason is that the skill level for the Varmint rifle is 0, because it's a piece of crap and the game should start you off with something useable anyway.

It's surprisingly deadly when coupled with stealth which of course takes no skill at all to use at such ranges. I dunno maybe the game gets harder later on this is my first time using a character who is awful at every form of combat but right now he's performing like a pro sniper despite mediocre perception and no developed combat skills whatsoever. This is a bad sign for a game that wants to be an RPG.

The old ones, of course,

Its looks like that FPS is becoming a standard genre for resurrected IP

Just look at X-COM and Syindicate, they are now FPS!!!!

Not saying that I dont like that genre, but If I want to play a shooter or a FPS, I would rather to play a game who born with that genre,

You have to realize that most people in the forums are the minority for what they want.

What is there to strip or to dumb down (oh, and dumbing down is now "removing confusion", keep that in mind ) anymore, though? The only thing that worked towards a real benefit, was the repair skill -- and even it was way off, since none of the other skills or even the condition effects were in balance with it.

I gotta hand it to you, I'd love to have your optimism. But the problem with Beth, is for most part exactly their "staple". They're so focused in that one thing and making sure everyone gets everything no matter what, that the other features (like the mechanics and stories) are left neglected (whether on purpose or not, I have no idea). They overdo that stuff (as they admit), and underdo the rest (which they also partly admit - as Todd has said, that building their worlds leads them to sacrifice a well placed story [for one example he gave] - and which is evident in their games anyway). I don't see them breaking that formula easily (as they didn't already with FO3).

There is some little hope left for FO4 to be a decent/semi-decent RPG, though (otherwise I'd have left a long time ago from these forums). But not much.

And I swear, if/when I finally hear Toddler say in an interview that, SPECIAL was just a middlehand, and that they are now removing confusion by cutting down and merging skills, and adding perktrees and iPhone interfaces, and that there is still complexity behind the screen (in an apologetic manner), my head will implode.

I can see why they removed attributes in TES, because they did nothing original. BGS removed most of the ways SPECIAL affected skills with FO3... so if they use that line for FO4 I will know that the developer has no intention of making an RPG. BGS removed a LOT of features from the originals Fallouts that would work fine with the new 3d FPS format and I am starting to doubt they will try to work them into FO4.

BGS makes me a sad panda... even though I am liking what they announced for TES so far.

Agreed, I am still worried about what the future will bring for the series. The reason I have some optimism though is that they didn't force Obsidian to do those things. There are also DLCs like The Pitt where they acknowledge that it is closer to the originals, which tells me at least they don't have an issue with going more towards that style of plot. I think Skyrim will tell us a lot about how they'll approach the next Fallout. Honestly, they don't seem to be doing too many objectionable things that dumb it down (though some skills were merged), and they are doing some things that I really like (character creation mostly). However, Skyrim foreshadowing Fallout's future is distressing at the same time, of course.

Fallout 3 makes it seem that Fallout is becoming a FPS.

Fallout New Vegas still has FPS aspects but it is it true to the roots of RPG and Fallout.

FPS will be bigger part of Fallout from now on but I hope it doesn't just become another FPS.