Bethesda has obviously tweaked the VATS system quite a bit (and I certainly like what I'm seeing and hearing), but one thing that previous games VATS system gave the player was a temporary semi-immunity that lingered thru the triggered slow-mo sequences. It made it possible (tho not necessarily easy), to plan a VATS sequence in such a way that a point blank missile hit, grenade, melee strike, or continuous stream of weapon fire directed at the PC would cause barely a scratch (or at least GREATLY reduced damage) when outside of the VATS cut scene the same attack would have been quite fatal. Comments I recall about this side effect of VATS was that there was no way for the clip to animate a death sequence for the PC while in a VATS sequence, so they geared them so a PC death could not happen (and the solution was some huge reduction in possible damage during the scene). Again, I'm recalling what was stated nearly 10 years ago, so sue me if I have it wrong (but I know for a FACT that VATS offers some MASSIVE damage reduction that can be abused in both FO3 and FNV).

Seeing how VATS no longer actually freezes time, it is quite possible you could enter VATS just prior to the fatal melee hit / missile / grenade lands, avoid most of the damage and then exit VATS costing only the AP spent to enter it for a few seconds. I'm not 100% sure if ANY AP will be spent to perform this possible damage avoidance (but I hope that it drains AP since time IS slowly moving forward). This appears to me to have much more potential to be abused than the older system, but maybe I'm missing something.

While I did not review the bits of combat footage we have available to us, I wonder if anyone else can comment or speculate on how FO4 VATS will (or appears to) handle incoming damage to the PC? I my be blowing my concerns out of proportion as I really can't see Bethesda not realizing how the "not fully freezing time" in VATS could allow for this possibility.

You could yourself to kingdom come in VATS in NV. They removed the immunity. I imagine that will carry over

Err....they didn't remove it (they certainly reduced the damage reduction....but I think that's because the damage system was different). You can make 3 or 4 point blank (as in enemy in melee with you) grenade tosses before killing yourself in NV. You could do it nearly indefinitely in FO3.

Also, assuming Bethesda is bringing forward things that Obsidian changed might not be the best thing to do (but I get what you are saying).

Honestly, I don't see any reason to design the feature around players who'll go out of their way (especially to the point you're describing, uber-twitch triggering & de-triggering it at no AP cost) to abuse it. Players will always find ways to do stuff like that, and given that it's a single player game and there's no direct competition with anyone else.... what do I care if someone tries to do that with VATS? I'll just keep using it the "normal" way (of course, normal varies by person. In FO3/NV, I just use VATS when confronted by some totally hyper enemy that I just can't get my damn crosshair on Like trying to snipe a raider whose walking path seems like he's having some sort of seizure. Or the melee-range dog that's bouncing all over the place like a ferret. )

Just like it doesn't effect me if someone else is "abusing" codes like TGM, or modding in 100 DR armor that weighs 2 lbs and gives +300 carrying capacity, the fact that someone else might find a way to dodge explosives with VATS doesn't bother me. (edit: just as it didn't bother me that, in Skyrim, you could recursively loop Smithing, Enchanting, and Alchemy to make zillion-damage weapons. Or could make 100% Chameleon armor in Morrowind or Oblivion. You had to go out of your way to do those things, deliberately. I didn't, so.... no problem.)

(Anyway, given the seemingly-large changes they've made to the system for this game, I'm not going to assume anything about how it'll work.)

It's always seemed to me like if you have the reflexes and forethought to use VATS like that, then you have the twitch skills where you don't need to bother with it.

For example I've never actually seen that happen in my games save one time as a happy accident.

I'm sure there is some tweaking to do, but I think think this is one of those things where its one thing to discuss it in an academic manner and another in actual practice (ie sounds better "on paper.")

Umm, VATS in FO3 was perfectly fine. It was balanced because of the drawbacks to using it which were quite extensive, including being killed while using it (and shortly afterwards). In fact, it is important to use it if you actually want to, you know, ROLE PLAY in a "role playing game" (i.e., outcomes based on character abilities not player "twitch" skills). VATS should be bolstered so that players can actually role play rather than having it be so incredibly limited (e.g., maybe 2-3 shots with rifles which does little good when you face 4-5 or more enemies, at least not until you get Grim Reaper's Sprint).

The FO4 VATS looks interesting but we will have to wait to play the game and see whether or not it actually enhances role playing or pushes non-RPG mechanics (i.e., "twitch" reflexes rather than character skill).

Never really thought about VAT reduces incoming damage but has noticed it.

Has however never used for that reason just to increase accuracy at short to medium range against mostly moving enemies.

If i take lots of incoming damage I take cover preferable around an corner dropping an mine or two as a gift.

Considering your character is a veteran, the whole "relying on character skill" notion holds no water.

Someone trained to use power armor was probably trained in the ability to handle a firearm.

The character's skill with firearms (or energy/me lee weapons) is going to be head and shoulders above the average player's experience; "twitch" skills are entirely justified.

And yet, being an amazing legendary badass has never stopped a game from starting off your character (Geralt, Cmdr Shepard, the list is endless) with crap gear and skills at the beginning. Gameplay frequently =/= lore or story.

edit: Sometimes, they'll give some sort of hand-wave explanation (like, say, spending 200 years in cryo ), sometimes they just don't bother.

The way Pete talks about VATS around the 10:40 mark in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQjjIeYUQE0&feature=youtu.be, it sounds as though we may take normal damage while in VATS.

That's not at all what I saw referring to in my post.

I was pointing out that the hate for twitch skills over character skills can't be applied when your character is a trained soldier.

Also, he seems to have maintained his ability to use power armor, despite being frozen for 200 years.

Edit: I'm not expecting him to wake up and know how to hack a computer, but things like "how do I have no sway while shooting this gun" make sense considering the background.

That all really depends on their military background i.e which branch were they in, did they just go so they could pay for college and left the military, did they serve as infantry or in the R&D department. You can role play these through your special/perk allocation unless it's all spelled out for you.

More important most people in the military is not marksmen, during gulf war 2 the US found that the marksmanship of soldiers who was not in active combat was lacking so they did so much training that the price of 5.56 ammo worldwide increased a lot

Yeah one of the reasons why I hate VATS, it's an in-built cheat mode that poses as an olive branch for NMA people. A shame they didn't remove it altogether and instead incorporate more of the RPG system into real-time play.

That makes no sense, your trying to decide on how people should role play their PC.

What if someone's PC was just a cook in the army and wasn't a good shot...

I have a hard time seeing any game mechanic that's put into a game, by the devs, as a standard part of play... as a "cheat" mode. (I'm reminded of the folks in the Skyrim forums who referred to fast travel as cheating.... )

And, given that the stereotype of the rabid NMAers is that they wouldn't accept a first person/action Fallout 3 in the first place? I'm willing to bet that they came up with VATS as a callback to the FO1/2 targeting system, for the normal, lower-key fans.

Eh, whatever. VATS in FO3 & NV is fantastically avoidable for people who have a strong hatred of it. Nothing in the game forces you to use it, and if you happen to accidentally hit V, it's easy to abort. Which puts it - once again - in the category of irrational people getting offended at how someone else might be playing a single player game.

That's... completely missing the point though, isn't it?

When people bring up "character skill," they're not talking nothing more than "I shouldn't be able to hit this, damn me and my proficiency with real-time targeting being so much better than my character's abilities scores would suggest!" It's more to do with cognitive dissonance and how your stats describe and define your character. For illustrative purposes I'm going to have to refer primarily to Fallout 3, since Fallout 4 seems to be employing a rather different system (which I'll get to in a moment.)

So in Fallout 3 Bethesda used a modified version of the original Fallout 1 ruleset, which itself was heavily influenced by tabletop rulesets. Getting into the esoteric philosophy at the core of these systems was what those stats described about your character and their place and relevance in the world. With a 1-100 system (or 1-10 if you talk about the Attributes,) you're basically ranking yourself among the general populace. A 1 in a stat described the absolute lowest value possible among all mankind. If you had a 1 in Small Guns you barely knew which end to point with. A 1 in AGI described someone who was just barely this side of even being able to walk.

Conversely a 10 in STR represented the absolute peak of human conditioning. The human physique could just not physically support any more muscle at this point - any higher would mean genetic or cybernetic modification beyond standard human capabilities (literally super-human levels.) Ditto for skills - 100 in a skill represented someone who was in the top 1% of all the experts in that field. 100 in Science meant you knew as much about that field of study as anyone currently living.

Going into a real-time system where player skill played a role, the trouble (at least potentially) comes from the cognitive dissonance this can cause when your character's stats no longer accurately describe how your character plays due to your own level of skill in playing the game. So yes, a character with 20 in Small Guns who headshots everything all day long because you're just that good at shooting things as a player can be problematic from a certain point of view on a philosophical game design level.

Likewise this can cause potential dissonance if your character is maxed in a skill, like Energy Weapons, yet is held back by the player's own competence at that style of gaming. If my own skill as a player at shooting things is not on a level of a master marksman, then I'm going to have trouble roleplaying a master marksman - my stats say one thing about my character but in practice I may have trouble hitting the broad side of a barn. (This is why I rarely do melee builds in Fallout - the flighty controls make it difficult for me as a player to do things I would want a character like that to be able to do.)

Take Bruce Lee, for a classic example of this. His Melee skill is through the roof, and he is so experienced at close combat that he's assessing the situation faster than I can. In a real-time game I could construct a character that on paper has all the characteristics of Bruce Lee, but I would not be able to play that character and make that PC do all the things that the real Bruce Lee could have. I just don't have the years of intense training and coordination to react that quickly or assess my options as fluidly. "Real" Bruce Lee would be acting as he was planning out his next handful of actions where I as a player would still be struggling to land that first blow.

So to take this back to topic, that's where I think VATS can play a really important role. More than just being "now go roll some dice, old-timer," this mechanic can be used to open up options not otherwise available to me as a player depending on my own personal skill level. By halting (or slowing) time and allowing me more options I can (potentially, if done right) assess the battlefield, react to changes, and plan my moves in a way that would more accurately resemble a character with a commensurate level of skill.

In Fallout 4, I think there may be an interesting change of paradigm, a different take on the ruleset. There's a precedent for this in tabletop games, even - but if the classic Fallout ruleset made use of a "universal standard" for it's characters (whereby those values could be used to describe every sort of NPC and creature in the game - all having their own relevant values and skills,) there is another concept that equates your character's stats to... essentially their own personal maximum growth. Intentionally or not, I suspect Fallout 4's system will fall more closely in line with this philosophy.

So in previous titles 1-10 for your SPECIAL ranked you within the entire scope of humanity, with a more perk-based system this time out, those same ratings could conceivably more accurately represent your character's own personal potential. So a 10 would essentially mean you've reached the highest level you could within the scope of the game - there might be others stronger than you out there, but you've pretty much reached your peak. And conversely a 1 wouldn't necessarily signify incompetence so much as you sitting at your base level (so you could be considered to have some knowledge of weaponry, you've picked a couple locks, you at least know how to hack a computer, etc - no matter your original scores, you start with some basic knowledge in these areas.)

I think it comes down to scope and the focus of the game. There's more than one way to skin a cat, after all. I actually think it could be an interesting take if that's something the direction they're going to go with Fallout 4.

Very apt, and well put.

really OP that is your biggest worry the removal of npc s shooting back at you in vats

i think i killed or gotten killed my characters in nv and fo 3 plenty of time while using vats or atleast in the aftermath

I never said it was a "biggest worry", but it is concerning and I NEVER said enemies will not shoot back at you, just that the damage you take was GREATLY reduced while the VATS camera was in progress. I'm not here to debate if this "feature" existed in FO3 because it did (and if you don't want to believe it, don't....no skin off my nose).

It IS very difficult to "protect yourself" with the FO3 type VATS situation and usually happens as a fluke, but with the system slowing down time (rather than stopping it), I'm just concerned that it COULD be abused to avoid damage. I 100% agree that people doing so in no way effect my game, so it's certainly nothing to get overly upset about . if someone wants to abuse an "exploit" (let's use that term rather than "cheat") in a single player game, it's not a game stopping issue, but it is a design flaw that possibly should be corrected.

Now the issue of whether or not anyone will WANT to do this type of exploit (if possible) is another debate, but anyone that thinks some players won't use it (again, if possible) is just kidding themselves (not that it matters in the great scheme of the game). Also, I fail to see how this is a twitch / vs PC stat issue at all (I would not consider hitting the VATS button when you see an enemy about to fire requiring any special "twitch" skills....but whatever).

Again, I just brought up my concerns about this being possible and wanted to see if anyone had opinions or had seen any evidence that it may or may not be possible as an "exploit".

I rewatched this section of the interview and while he does repeatedly state, "you are still being shot at and are still taking damage", he does not specifically state the damage is not reduced like in the FO3 kill cam sequences. It is highly likely that the actual VATS slo-mo sequence is NOT actually related to the kill cam sequences, so my concerns may be completely unfounded.

Has anyone identified any actual gameplay where VATS is enabled (in the slo-mo sequence) for an appreciable length of time so we can evaluate:

1. Is AP being drained?
2. If so, at what rate (not sure you could tell this without know the PCs total AP).
3. Is the PC taking damage and does it appear to be in any way reduced? (Again, would be very difficult to tell the potential reduction).

BTW if anyone has the ability to actually PLAY the game (or has input to anyone that will play it), one sure way to test this is to take a melee hit in and out of VATS and see the damage difference. Also, toss a grenade at an enemy that is in melee with you (not sure if you can still VATS a grenade?) so it falls near both your feet and evaluate the damage that happens as a result.

Finally, I want to state that I do NOT feel this is a major concern and I also don't really care if other use an exploit in a single player game, I'm just curious if this potential flaw still exists with VATS since Beth has tweaked the system.

Think the reason why they nerfed damage taken in VAT is that you can not avoid taking damage. once you start the VAT action you can also not abort.

Normal practice in ranged duels is to move sideways all the time, preferable inn and out of cover.

Against slower melee enemies at close range you move backward.

Now if you use VAT you stand still and eat all damage.

I don't necessarily agree with this. Yes, if the bug/exploit/whatever intrudes upon your gameplay or is hard to avoid, then sure - that's an annoying bug that needs to be taken care of. But stuff that you have to go out of your way to do? Like 100% Chameleon in Oblivion, or uber-crafting in Skyrim, or heck - the Oblivion paintbrush glitch. I don't see any more reason to get rid of those than I would want them to get rid of the console commands. If it's something you specifically have to work at in order to "mess up" your game, then it doesn't seem like a real problem to me.

(Like the complaints about Skyrim crafting from people who said that super-crafted items ruined the challenge - but they were forced to use them because their obsessive min-max personalities required them to always do the Most Effective thing, even if it made them hate the game, and how dare you suggest they have to "self-nerf"??!? Sorry, that's your issue, not the devs.)

I look at 'self-nerf' as something akin to tip-toeing through alpha software; avoiding the options that currently crash the app. Not something that should be needed ~or tolerated in the retail release.

Well designed & well polished games should put the PC firmly in their place, based on their choices; and that place is not on a pedestal, and not on a throne.

I don't see 75% Damage Reduction returning, New Vegas was 25% and I could easily see Beth looking at that number and putting something similar in for Fallout 4. Heck even VATS isn't pause anymore, so I definitely think Vats will still be good, maybe even god tier but it's not going to be the pause and damage everything within a mile mode, like it was in the past. At least, that's how I see it.

Whereas I don't see 100% Chameleon, or the recursive Smithing->Enchanting->Alchemy->Smithing loop in Skyrim to be something you have to carefully avoid - they're obscure min-maxing that you have to put serious effort into achieving. Kind of like I don't have to tiptoe around hitting ~ and typing in TGM. And don't have to tiptoe around installing a mod that gives me 100k caps and DR200 armor.

(min-maxing has existed in nearly every RPG. Including tabletop ones. Doing it, or avoiding it, is all in the hands of the player - well, and the GM, in the case of tabletop games. )

...I'm suddenly reminded of all the house-rules formulas to keep people under control in the Champions RPG. Now that was a game open to creativity abuse.