He's got a point. Imagine clearing Quarry junction if every single hit was guarenteed. With VATS at long range, you have all the time in the world to wait for your AP to regenerate, basically turning a careful operation like Quarry Junction into a patient game of shooting fish in a barrel.
I'm sure there are people who would like to play the game purely in VATS, if they could, but look at Fallout 3. You could definitely play Fallout 3 in VATS and in VATS alone, and look what happened: it was ridiculously overpowered (I remember timing my VATS entry to get the massive damage reduction if I knew an enemy was about to fire a rocket, and it always worked) and free-range fire was completely inferior. I recently tried replaying Fallout 3 and I was so used to free-range fire from New Vegas that I never used VATS. The game was x1000 times harder. Enemies just weren't taking the same levels of damage that they would in VATS, and I'd quickly run out of ammo and stims from all the long battles. It'd be very difficult to find a balance that would allow players to play both FPS and RPG style without one being superior to the other. As it is now, the FPS style is usually superior, yeah, but VATS still has it's merits. Compared to Fallout 3, I honestly can't name a time that the FPS style was superior, cept on ocassion when sniping with the Lincoln Repeater.

As for those saying VATS doesn't work on mid-range, have you even tried it? I've walked down the I-15 dozens of times and seen Bloatflies and Geckos at decent distance. Bloatflies are hard to hit and those geckos are always running. On ocassion I'd try VATS to get the kill, and it would always tell me my chance of hitting is 13-20%, but when I actually did it, my accuracy felt more like 50-60%. That's plenty for mid/long range, and this is on a character with Fast shot.

Free hand Long range sniping is too easy in this game - period. You can be an expert marksmen with a 50 gun skill.

The accuracy in VATS in FNV feels no different then F3. However, the perks are extremely weak now. If you wanted to specialize in VATS and go - Commando, Math Wrath, Sniper, Hobbler, Center of Mass, Action Boy 1, Action Boy 2, Concentrated Fire and Grim Repears - you are only SLIGHTLY better then a normal character in VATS. And that is filling every perk spot between level 8 and 22 with VATS perks.

Now, this character is infintely weaker then a Free Fire Guns character who took Hand Loader, Shot Gun Surgeon, Stay Back, Finese, Better Criticals, and Silent Running! And that only took 6 perks - 5 if you drop Silent Running. All this character has to do is move a little closer to score the exact same hit rate in VATS as a character specializing in it,

Edit: Half the problem is VATS accuracy is an extremely slopped graph. Everyone is accurate close range and taking VATS perks only slightly nuges the graph over as distance moves out. A good boost would be to drop the percentage of VATS accuracy for some perks, but give a slight decrease to spread. This way the perk benefits you in and out of VATS.

Long range sniping in Quarry Junction with an Anti Material Rifle is beyond easy. With a 15 Sneak Score you can sit and score Sneak Attack Crit after Sneak Attack crit free firing as long as you are far off. And a Sneak Attack Crit is a double crit and does WAY more then anything in VATS. And in F3, Free Hand Firing was just as good as it is now. Just now VATS is a whole lot weaker. So Free Hand > VATS except in extremely close range encounters. And then it does not matter if you have loaded up on VATS perks, cause you both are going to hit 95% of the time.

Now, if you are saying the VATS percentages are off that is a different story. A big bug, cause I will not waste AP shooting something nasty when I have a low hit rate. Bloat Flies - sure, Deathclaw - no.

Done, at least for PC users: http://newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37396

On the original thread topic, VATS is indeed much less useful in FNV compared to FO3 but that's not necessarily a bad thing as it was highly overpowered in that game as many people have mentioned. I don't bother with it at all to be honest, as the bullet-time mod makes far better use of my APs than VATS ever could.

Direct answer to the OP:

No.

Not saying it isn't easy, I'm saying it'd be RIDICULOUSLY easy if VATS could achieve 95%'s for sniping. At least with the FPS style, if you don't kill a deathclaw in one shot, it alerts some of the others, and then you may have two running at you.

Thanks!, Though I knew about that mod. In fact I liked that sooo much more then Vanilla! Just trying to get the devs to to implement it for XBOX/PS.

In F3 Vats was over powered - mainly due to the huge crit bonus and DT of 75%. Just seems that the perk nerfs went to far.




It is ALMOST ridiculousy easy to Snipe free fire. I mean come on, who here takes on Quarry Junction in a straight Run And Gun?! No, most people Sneak Snipe.

And I do not want VATS to be an easy card, I just want my character who dumps over half his perks perks to be a LOT better then some guy who takes no perks!

Well for a melee/unarmed characters vats are useful against deathclaws and cazadors and throwing spears are very accurate in vats as for guns well yeah they svck. Btw my strength is 10. And also we have steady

I disagree. Both my Melee and Unarmed specialist take a lot less damage in real time.

My Gun character with VATS Perks *may* use VATS if he doesn't have any high RoF guns or shotgun and a pre-patch Cowboy gun.

EW characters would get their hands on a Laser RCW asap.

Explosive character......kill them all with out of sight bombardment.

I only use VATS in certain situations. The real time shooting is pretty good so it's not worth using it all the time. When the legendary deathclaw ran at me I VATS him under the chin 5 times and he was over and out. That's the kind of situation when you use VATS. It's like a desperation power up.

That is true when i remember to use VATS, most of the time when the cazadoors are inbound it is because i have sniped a few at range and they have finally figured out where the rounds are comming from, but by then it is too late. Even if they get close a shotgun in free aim works wonders. So i will usually start out free aiming with something with reach, medium to long range, then clean up what is left as it rushes in. At about 50 feet or less approximately, i pull out a shotgun or something of equal spread and wait till i see the whites of thier eyes so to speak before i start to blast away. Since the patch nerfed the ranges a cazadoor can attack and do damage this works even better now as i have more time to pickem off before i even have to worry about taking a hit. Even if one does land a hit it is usually only one, anti venom and a stim is all one needs, most of the time i do not even bother with the anti-venom choosing to throw a stim, some food and a water at the problem after the venom has ticked away as much health as it will.

I like the system as it is because as i said in my previous post, even with 100 guns that is NO guarantee of a hit while free aiming. I have missed free aiming up to 5 or 6 times in a row at range and close in. I will not lie when i first started playing FO3 this pissed me off to no end, to the point i came here and railed and screamed until another poster pointed out to me that FONV is not a player skill driven game but stat driven RPG, and as i said this used to bother me but i understand now that for skills and perks to have any value this is necessary. Player skill is no guarantee of a hit neither is a high weapon skill and i think IMHO it has to be that way as frustrating as that may seem to FPS/TPS shooter fans, FONV IS NOT A FPS OR TPS it is a RPG, stats have to trump player skill in order for the stats to mean something or there is no point to them and we all might as well go play CoD or HALO where twitch relfex is king. FONV is not a twitch reflex game it is a stat driven RPG and to change that changes FONV, you have to accept that. If you can not accept that then FONV is not for you, then respect the game for what it is and move on to what is more to your liking, because to do anything else changes the game.

Now back to VATS as someone who uses it only in limited situations, which is usually after free aim has failed a few times, it for me is an easy "I win button". I am not trying to be offensive but i think VATS does need to have some work done to it. What exactly needs to be done i cannot say as i do not use it often enough to have formed an opinion other than it is neat but for the most part unnecessary. I do not want to see further FO titles force the player to rely on it soley but i do not want it to be tossed either as there are some who like it and it from what i have read here seems to work better with some other weapons guns aside. I do think though that if your chance to score a hit in VATS is 50% you should also have the same chance to hit free aiming. So maybe making the player's stats influence the chances to hit, to crit, or miss entirely in both VATS and Free aim may make VATS more usefull? In either case i am sure there is going to be more discussion and i appreciate it when someone of authority (developer etc) chooses to participate in game related conversations not that i expect a direct line to god, or to have the ear of god, it is nice though. It is like going to a gallery and looking at an artist's work, seeing what the artist has done, getting out of it what YOU get out of it, and then walking over shaking the artist's hand and discussing what their motivations and feeling that was the inspiration for thier creation.

Asai

I seriously cannot link when you remember to use VATS and how to deal with Cazadors, nor how free aim can miss when they should/could/may have hit.

Yeeah I do kinda, at least I do when my guns skill is at 100 and I've invested multiple perk slots (which are at a premium now) on VATS-related stuff like Commando, Sniper, Action Boy etc. and so on. Even with a VATS-focused build you can't reliably hit anything (70% chance to hit or more) at medium range or longer. The same shot that has a 20% chance to hit in VATS willl have a 99% chance to hit in real-time, which svcks.

IMO, VATS was cool and fun and stylish. In Fo3, about 95% of my combat was using VATS. In NV, that figure's more like 5%. Nerfing the DR was the right call, no doubt, but there was no need to kill the accuracy as well. VATS should be useful beyond the cazador-swarms for those who've invested in the requisite skills/perks, but as it stands now stuff like Sniper or Math Wrath feels like a complete waste of a perk slot. A VATS-focused build should still be viable, should still be a goer. But it's not really.

I'll only speak to this part.

Out of vats sniping isn't that difficult even with a low score, but, then, you can take almost anyone give them a rifle & scope and they'll probably hit things pretty accurately out to what you would normally snipe in FNV (you are probably really only hitting stuff 50 yards out, with no worry about weather conditions). I wouldn't say that's "unRPG."

Second, your score (and, depending on your weapon, STR) actually matter a great deal when sniping. I *THINK* that it affects the damage you do on a hit and the damage you do on a crit. I may be wrong about that. But I *KNOW* that there's a lot less "scope wander" as you get your gun skill higher. With 100 skill and a 6 str, the sniper rifle scope barely moves at all, with a 50 skill it waves around like a drunken (NON-SEAL) sailor was holding it.

What I find about the VATS is when the target is moving close in, it's indispensable to me. I have a horrible time leading a shot. Plus, the cinematic for crits are incredible.

Gobi Campaign Scout Rifle + commando + sniper + TRIGGER DISCIPLINE + grim reaper's sprint.


Armed with hollow point bullets , those cazadores will be dead on the ground before they know what happened.

I find VATS to be very useful at extremely close ranges. Also when Cazador Hunting, or trying to land a high with an unmodded plasma weapon (since it compensates for the slow projectile speed). Things like Quarry Junction involve me at extreme range, a laser rifle without a splitter on it, and a sneak attack critical to the deathclaw's face with max charge ammo. If the DCs get close, I switch to a plasma defender (bypassing the 'too close' vats problem) and fire up vats to pump green death into that giant lizard's head before it eats me.

I personally have only one gripe with VATS. It sometimes takes far too long to come *out* of VATS. 6 seconds after I'm done firing, while 5 melee enemies charge is not a good thing.

Nerfed way way to hard... When I go into vats, and get a 0% chance to hit any body part, then pop out of vats, and get a head shot I scream in victory at my computer . I used Vats all the time in FO:3. All I use it for in NV is for close up head shots with my shotgun.

VATS is far less effective in NV than FO3.....and from the comments on this thread I can see why. I don't even bother with VATS for shots outside of point blank range with NV and I certainly don't waste perk slots on it.

That about sums up my thoughts.


Light Machine Gun + Hollow Points = Bunch of Dead Cazadores. And I did not even need one perk! Throw in Endomolgist + LMG + Hollow Point for the win. And you can do it ten levels before Grim Repears rolls around.

Don't get wrong, I do the same thing with my VATS guy. But my Run n Gun guy blasts things a whole lot faster.