It's pretty obvious that Bethesda is taking an active role attempting to make the real time combat better (and with good reason, RT combat in FO3 was pretty bad). RPG fans are going to moan that the game is becoming too FPS focused, while FPS fans will potentially see if what they are attempting is successful (a better hybrid of RPG action / Shooter RPG genre). Bethesda gets a potentially wider audience and (hopefully) everyone gets an overall better game experience.

They could certainly fall short in both maintaining the RPG aspects that FO3 fans want AND improving the FPS aspect so shooter fans enjoy the gameplay too, but I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt until I see some actual evidence that they have screwed the pooch. Keep in mind I have yet to pre-purchase, but certainly plan to before release (unless I see something horrific in the next month).

Actually, in many tabletop systems it's perfectly acceptable for a character's skill to play a role in the damage done by an attack. Someone who is a more accurate shot will have a better chance of hitting a critical spot, or at least closer to center of mass. Which means more damage.

The classic example of this is two hunters in the woods. I live in Michigan, and spent a number of years up in Alaska - many of my friends are long-time hunters, while I've only even held a gun once or twice. So imagine that one of my friends takes me deer hunting.

We're out in the woods and I spot a deer first. Now, I'll be lucky to even hit the deer due to my low "skill level." But even if I do manage to land my shot, there's even less of a chance of it being a "kill shot." I'm much more likely to wound and spook and the deer and then have to track it while it slowly bleeds out. I will have a lower chance of causing enough "hit points" of "damage" to the deer to kill it in one shot. In an ideal system, there's still that chance for a lucky shot but it's much less likely due to my skill level that I'm going to just manage to hit a major artery or organ.

In this hypothetical, however - if my friend happens to be an expert marksman who has been doing this all his life, his shots will due more "damage" due to his skill. He's no longer just trying to hit the deer, he's trying to one of the spots on the deer's body that will result in a clean kill. Even if he's a bit off the mark, his shots will tend towards more critical areas due to his skill and practice. Even a poor shot that still strikes the deer will be more accurate and land closer to a vital organ. So here we see real-world examples of skill doing more damage, or at least trending towards higher tiers of damage. If the deer looks up in that fraction of a second before he pulls the trigger, maybe he just wings it instead - there's still a lot of variables to take into account (which is what the random numbers are meant to account for - all the chaotic variables that come into play.)

For another example - sure, if I'm a very unlucky guy in the real world and I get shot in the face that's going to hurt no matter what. But there's a difference between me getting shot in the ear versus me losing an eye. Both are "head shots," but one will do more "damage" than the other. An expert marksman is going to be more likely to hit a vital part of any location, whereas an unskilled shooter is more likely to land a grazing shot.

In some rules systems, the degree to which you succeed in an attack plays a role in the damage done - so that a skilled marksman is more likely to succeed by a higher margin regardless of the difficulty of the shot, which will result in a higher damage output.

Either way, this is why I'm fine with the newer Fallout games applying character skill and level to damage dealt. From a rules perspective, this makes perfect sense and is nothing out of the ordinary. It actually makes more sense for an attack to deal a specific range of damage that is modified by character skill than for every attack to do the same amount of damage. (Why a weapon doing 1-10 damage is more realistically simulating real-world situations than a weapon that always does 5 damage every time it lands.)

That's untrue. RPGs are my favorite games, and I'm optimistic because I know that improving the FPS aspect of the game should make the RP more enjoyable.

I don't have a problem with where they are taking Fallout as an FPS.

I am a twitch player, never really use VATS. ( I do like TB games though..playing W2 DC right now )

The only way your ever going to recreate the true FO or FO 2 experience is to recreate them. Isometric, TB, CPRGs. And that will never happen.

im glad they improve this much the FPS part of the game, is the whole combat on the game.

And i agree with Ogreb ppl should stop complaining that Fallout 3, NV and 4 arent true Fallout. Im sorry but Fallout 1 and 2 will never happen and im glad, with the new graphics and mechanics like VR Isometric game will be die more and more with the years come, only strategy game will stay on Isometric cameras.

I'm not going to complain about Fallout 4 having some very good improved combat. I welcome it and I'm glad Bethesda Game Studios hired a employee from Bungie to develop a brand new combat system for Fallout 4.

As long as the RPG elements are still in Fallout 4 then the improved combat system is just icing on the cake.

I surely do hope armor and weapons degradation exists in Fallout 4, not for just the Power Armor, but for all armor and weapons.

Then to me Fallout 4 will possibly be one of the best video games to play this year.

An RPG does not require relying on character skill. See the witcher or mass effect or dark souls if you'd like examples.

As for traditionally being skill based, tradition is irrelevant.

Traditionally, the series was turn based. It isn't anymore.

Traditionally gunplay (very slightly) relied on character skill. Doesn't seem that way anymore.

Not to be that guy, but - eh, why not:

1) Fallout 1 wasn't technically isometric. These days "isometric" has become kind of an umbrella term for any sort of game that used to have what was considered "top down" or "bird's-eye" view. So the common usage of the term has changed from it's technical meaning. Not really a pet peeve of mine or anything - but the graphics designer in me would be remiss if I didn't point out on occasion that, actually, Fallout 1 and 2 made use of trimetric perspective.

You also normally only have isometric perspective in a 2-dimensional game. Many modern games may have a top-down camera, but if it's rendered in full 3D (3D models and world space,) then by definition it's not isometric.

2) It's actually been a great couple of years for more traditional CRPGs. No one's ever argued that these particular tastes aren't niche, or that they ought to (or will) dominate the market. But I'm looking at my Steam library and seeing high-quality titles like Shadowrun, Invisible Inc., Banner Saga, Dead State, Wasteland 2, Pillars of Eternity, I believe Age of Decadence just went gold today... There's some great stuff out there that continues to evolve the genre, even if it has "isometric" camera angles.

Maybe that's not your taste, and that's fine. I don't care if you don't like all the same games that I like. But there's this odd trend towards assuming roleplaying games are evolving down this straight path toward some kind of Platonic Ideal, and I just don't see that happening. When of late it's actually been one of the better couple of years for those types of games. I have a feeling that many different types of games will continue to be made; and that some will continue to be more popular than others (and that tastes will always change and what's popular now doesn't predict what will be popular fifteen or twenty years down the road.) That's actually a good thing, as I find it tends to be overall beneficial when genres bleed into each other and games of one sort borrow features from other types of games.

I don't know where people are getting the "no character skill" stuff from. There only seems to be one element from 3/NV that I haven't seen yet, weapon sway. The effects of the skills are still there, with character stats determining damage. Just this time its perks that do that stuff for a wider variety of guns, not just "80 guns skill mean all guns are 80% better!"

And even then, weapon sway could still be in there, the perks could reduce it. The sway was only really noticeable at extremely low levels, and it could be that the Sole Survivor just has weapons training from his military days making the starting skill level a bit higher than with the LW or Courier.

Nitpick: trimetric projection, not perspective .

And I agree completely with you with regards to "isometric" games. In fact, I think it's a shame that so many indie devs stick with full 3D graphics and skimp on gameplay, when they could be making incredibly deep games like Baldur's Gate 2.

I looked at the E3 gameplay video a few more times and I like what BGS have done to the gunplay. I used the Xbox360 controller and really like the different feedback (combined with animation) each weapons have in games like Modern Warfare and Far Cry 4. Heck, even Skyrim's bows, crossbows, swords, and axes felt different. In FO3 and FONV, the feedback was rather weak. I'm glad to see that they consulted with Id and hired a guy from Bungie to help with that.

You say it's untrue while typing in a thread named;

Fallout 4 focusing too much on FPS?

I did not mean to imply EVERY RPG fan will think that, but obviously many are taking that view (this is certainly not the first "FPS OH NOES!!!!" thread in this forum).