Neither did I. I didn't really have a problem with it in Morrowind either, but it was admittedly a bit jarring all the same.

Do we know that? It looked to me that all the game waited on was to press the 'execute critical' button.

*If so, then it's not quite so bad; but still pretty bad though.

It really seems to appear that the VATS cutscene plays out, and during the show, the player can activate their critical hit gift during the attack.

Yes, I do agree, that is why Bethesda got rid of that kind of stuff post-Morrowind.

OFC, this leads back to the "character skills vs player skill" thing, but Bethesda RPGs, and indeed, many games in general, the game is designed around the idea that the player is the character, so player skill is character skill.

How does surviving 30 point blank shots from a shotgun make sense? It doesn't, but that's fine because its a game.

That kind of stuff is the meat of an RPG; and especially so with the Fallout series; before they tampered with it.

Shot accuracy isn't affected by luck. You still get a 100% chance of a crit whenever you want, provided the bar is full, which once again doesn't make much sense because luck isn't something you call upon whenever you want it.

Regardless of whether the criticals system in VATS has been done in a way that works well in an RPG (I'll withhold judgement until I know more), I really don't think the argument that "Once it's core mechanics, not using it, is not playing the game" works. There are many core mechanics that you don't have to use. Stealth is a core mechanic, but many players will choose never to use it. Will they not be playing the game? Heavy weapons are a core mechanic. If a player sticks to stealth and light weapons, will they not be playing the game?

The real question is, is the crit-meter in VATS a core mechanic with no alternative mechanic to take its place, and which is essential to surviving fights? VATS itself is a core mechanic, but while it gives an advantage in fights in FO3, it is not essential. And there are now alternatives - players can just choose to use the action points that power VATS for sprinting, or using jump-packs, or whatever else action points are now tied to outside VATS. In older games, as far as I'm aware, there weren't even alternatives to the VATS core mechanic, but because it became non-essential in FO3 it was valid to not use it. You traded the advantage in combat for excitement and fluidity, basically.

Even if there is no alternative to using the crit-meter, it seems only to be a component of the no-longer-entirely-core mechanic of VATS.

For better or worse, it seems to me that in FO3 Bethesda downgraded VATS to an optional core mechanic, but didn't put in any optional alternative. They've now put in optional alternatives, and added a feature to the optional VATS mechanic.

Seems reasonable to me. I may not like it, it may be implemented very badly, but I don't think it's an intrinsically stupid change.

It's tied to SPECIAL. It makes sense to be able to call out a critical anyway, not have them play out randomly.

Having a charging critical meter adds more strategy to combat than having criticals that go off randomly. This is an improvement not a decline. Now I can bring my best moves to bear when I need them instead of having my character randomly waste it. It makes sense anyway - if I'm fighting someone do I bust out my most damaging attacks for the most dangerous opponent or do I just let random luck decide? Personally, I would rather choose.

I played Fallout 1 and 2 when they came out along with a lot of gold box games, EOB, Ultima, etc. and the one that I learned along the way is that if you want to enjoy gaming as a hobby you have to ride along with change. If you don't then you will become bitter and then your hobby is destroyed. I'm not flaming here. That's friendly advice. If you want a pretty crunchy post-apocalyptic game in the mean time check out Wasteland 2 after the GOTY edition comes out. Fallout isn't crunchy anymore but that doesn't mean it's not fun, especially if the story and environment pick up the slack. To me, the new settlement add-on looks really interesting and I'll be very interested in seeing what modders can do with economic simulations and town defense.

Depends on the RPG actually. Not all RPGs are D&D clones, nor are all RPGs defined by CS > PS.

Luck isn't a think that exist at all IRL.

If we really wanted to get THAT technical, luck shouldn't even be in the game to begin with.

If you can't hit the body part with any actual accuracy, it matters little if you have 100% chance for a critical. There's still a percentage to hit for body parts, so if that percentage is 15% you're more likely to waste that critical shot than not.

Heavy weapons isn't a core mechanic; weapons are. There is a difference between not using one weapon over another, and not using weapons.

We will see if the critical meter does not auto-fill; and if it does, then don't you think that the player will find themselves in a situation where they use it to avoid PC death ~because it's there... or their PC dies?

I can agree with the per game concept, but the Fallout is certainly one of them that focused on the PC.

I hope you are right.

I'm still annoyed that VATS' design ~again seems to make the mistake of assigning hit chances by proximity instead of target area, and probably doesn't have Fallout's target specific critical hit effects ~just a damage bump.

One of my previous characters in New Vegas who ive now retired had maxxed out agility. He's been around guns all his life so I was thinking that he knew how to handle them, and the game did reflect a bit of this. He could reload very fast, often slapping a new mag into his rifle in 1 second flat. He also shot very fast inside of VATS, able to get off so many shots as to overwhelm those legion freaks. But I was never able to simulate something like a more percise or aimed shot. Taking the time to aim his rifle in such a way to exploit a gap in a set of armour, or land a shot between the eyes of some raider. He was only -faster-, he wasn't -better-. We don't know how things interact on the new crit system, but it looks to be a step forward towards being able to simulate that particular aspect of a character that I may choose to create.

Fallout simulated this in the first game; we lost it in FO3/NV. What I've seen so far of FO4, doesn't bode well IMO; but I would like it if the game did (once again) allow this.

It just doesn't make sense from the perspective of logic. How would the player be able to govern what is a critical and what isn't? If the player has such control over being able to do damage to an enemy then theoretically nothing should challenge him.

Do you think that VATS is based entirely upon proximity, that skills have no factor, and that if you shoot a person whose torso is behind a traffic divider it will automatically go through the divider and hit him and cause straight damage with no crippling?

How exactly did they simulate being better at dealing damage instead of sheer accuracy? If I made Alexander in Fallout 1 his skill with guns would only inform his chances of hitting a target, the damage would be the same regardless. Unlike in Fallout 3 and NV where the guns skill would govern both accuracy and damage. If he has 20 skill instead of 100 skill he would be missing all the time, both with the weapon sway outside of VATs and the inaccuracy inside of VATs, and he would also do far less damage in his attacks.

In FO4 I'm not sure; I was looking at the percentages on the Deathclaw, and couldn't quite tell.

In FO3, I recall that the head could have a higher percentage to hit than the leg.

* It's true that technically if the head is closer, that it can appear as a larger target, and so be easier to hit; but that was not the purpose of aimed shots in the Fallout series. The purpose for allowing it was to offer risky attempts at greater damage, and target specific effects. Shoot the eye and blind, shoot the leg and impede; shoot the arm and impair. (And the attempt cost you; put the PC in a vulnerable state ~for commuting the time. It ensured that they were subject to more accurate attacks from their opponents. )

And?

If the leg is behind something, while the head is not, OFC the head would have a higher hit %.

Well do you think that the whole wounding the legs and crippling still happens? That you can wound a enemy and create effects based on where you wounded him? Also a leg can have a zero pecent chance to hit over a head because the target is standing behind a wall, with only his head visible.

Stealth, then. Unless that's not a core mechanic? What does count as a core mechanic?

I suppose part of the problem is that in Fallout 1 & 2 VATS was a core mechanic, because VATS was combat. It seems to me that it was so far from being a core mechanic in Fallout 3 that, really, any messing around with it in Fallout 4 seems like pretty trivial stuff.

As I say, the crit-meter may be very badly implemented, but so long as it's dominated by player-character stats (even if it's moderated by player skill in choosing when to invoke their critical), then it's RPG enough.

Would I be right, Gizmo, that basically what you want is the chance for a critical attack to fail (controlled by character stats), rather than a limit on how often critical attacks may occur (controlled by character stats)? If so (and apologies if I've completely misunderstood you) it seems that the old critical-chance calculation was a behind-the-scenes calculation of how often a critical attack could occur, but the moments they would occur were unpredictable, and only averaged out over many fights. What Bethesda seem to have done is made the frequency with which critical attacks can occur up-front and obvious, and the precise timing under the player's control.

If Bethesda choose stupid character stats to control the rate at which the meter fills, or mess up the importance of different stats, then it would obviously be badly implemented and no-one will be happy. But I can't really see what's not RPG about the basic principle - unless the meter fills at a rate that is the same for all players regardless of SPECIAL. Now I agree that that would in no way be RPG.

What does that have to do with anything?

Luck- success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions.

The point is, it makes no sense that crits are affected by luck since it's a 100% chance of a something that is available whenever you want it(provided the bar is full), which is the exact opposite of the definition of Luck.

The only way to simulate that danger would be if Vats didn't slow down time as you tried to take aim. It would svck in actual gameplay though.

The series treated this in the abstract. It was insignificant other than choice for choice. The PC aimed at the leg to cripple the mobility ~at a fixed (lesser value) difficulty. They aimed at the eye to blind ~at a fixed (higher value) difficulty.

VATS didn't exist in Fallout 1&2 ~other than as a visitable location, and that's why they invented the Backronym; the location was called the Vats; [of FEV].

In Fallout, Aimed Shots were not VATS, and were a more expensive combat option; one that was not available to all PCs. In FO3, VATS is free, and comes with no down side to it. In Fallout aimed shots could get the PC killed; in FO3 it's a way to soak additional damage and survive. .

Or... just drop the magic damage shield in VATS; that would be enough, and would be accurate. (The time slow wouldn't matter.)

*I think the problem is that the VATS kill-cam is non interactive, and the player sees their character get attacked or killed for committing them to an aimed shot. (Just as it should be.)

And indeed, when Alexander was fresh faced in the Mojave wasteland, he wasnt skilled enough to both place the shots accurately and do enough damage with them to cripple the legs. But 100 hours of gameplay later when I junked his savegame had had 100 Guns skill ,and could cripple eyes to reduce a targets sight, or their legs to slow them to a hobble, or even put a few rounds into the weapon of a enemy so that it falls from his hands, giving enough time to line up a final shot to kill.

The fact that complaining about a lack of realism in something that is unrealistic itself is honestly kind of silly.

It also makes no sense that attributes and skills are treated as linear 1-10, or 1-100, ranges, when those things are multifaceted IRL. No one complains about that because, again, its a game.

Eh, "critical hits" have generally always meant a lucky chance that your attack hit something worse than usual - it's not "busting out your best attacks". It's your anti-tank shell glancing off the armor at just the right angle to deflect into the turret joint; it's your bullet shattering a rib at the right angle so that bone shards perforate the lung; etc.

Tell that to the guy who falls out of the airplane and lives, by some freak chance. Or the dude who gets an iron rod through the skull, that somehow manages to squeeze between the parts of the brain that mean something. Or the person who took a bullet to the head, but it deflected off...... these things are all a product of chance, to a greater or lesser degree.

....like in a peaceful/Speech-based playthrough?

Ah, I was misremembering.

So VATS is Bethesda's replacement for aimed shots, but a very bad replacement because there's no penalty for using it and no threshold to clear to use it at all. So VATS completely removed the risk/reward attached to aimed shots.

So if VATS was completely non-RPG in FO3... then pretty much anything Bethesda do to it is irrelevant to how RPG FO4 is, right?

[edited to not repeat myself annoyingly]