the only realism i care about in Fallout is with regard to guns. a game with guns should have those guns actually feel like guns. a game with guns and skills should have those skills control the usage of the gun, rather than the usefulness of the gun (that should be dependent on the gun itself). i'm fond of tactics and having to think about fights. i realize there are people who are fond of being walking tanks and shrugging off any attempt at injury but they should have to put work towards becoming that walking tank.

the developers can make the setting and situations and characters and story and whatever as bizarre as they want - hell, if New Vegas doesn't have giant molerat mounts and day one DLC featuring molerat armor i'm going to be at least a little disappointed - but a gun is a gun and should feel like a gun.

(i like guns)

i don't really care about overall realism beyond ballistics modeling, honestly. i mean i'm pretty much guaranteed to be playing on "hardcoe" mode (as stupid a name as that is) but that's just because i like CHALLENGE and i'm sure if "casual" mode is anything like Fallout 3 it will stop being challenging like an hour in. i don't care about stuff like thirst or whatever unless it's done in an interesting way (i.e. animations attached to it, so you actually have to STOP AND DRINK and not just assign water to a hotkey and hit it when YOU'RE THIRSTY pops up on the screen in the middle of a fight).

I'm in total agreement. Aren't they making a hardcoe mode for the realism players? Isn't that enough? I personally love the goofy random things about fallout and don't want it any different. I really like this hardcoe mode idea, just because it's an option.

Totally agree, when I got it I thought "Now, no-one will stop me!" and then I met 5 half naked (these raider armours) raiders with Chinese assault rifles and they nearly killed me, if I wouldn't use stimpaks I would die, I was like: :huh: :ahhh: and :violin: for Fallout.

"RPG games really should be the most unrealistic because its suposed to be fun being someone else for a change and doing stuff that would be difficult in real life."

-xxcYyLOnexx-Friday March 19, 2010

Yeah, this basically. I tend to divide realism in Fallout into two distinct categories: background realism and activity realism. The former relates to things like centaurs, big green angry mutants and, especially, ghouls. It's not realistic, at all, but I don't really mind. Let's be honest, it makes the game a lot more interesting (provided it isn't taken too far).

Activity realism is about the player themselves, and the actions they take. So lugging around half a metric ton of stuff, taking a missile to the face and having to pump a lot of rounds into the skulls of some demented hillbillies, which aren't realistic and do bother me, because it's directly immersion breaking. This is the direction I think Fallout should take: the retro-themed, slightly bizarre and colourful universe it already has, complete with surreal things like the aforementioned naughty nightwear, but at the same time being a reasonably realistic (I don't want ARMA, but I don't want Halo either) post-apoc survival RPG.

He's referring to http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Clover from Paradise Falls using a Katana to easily carve up an Enclave soldier wearing poly-laminate composite armor and firing a fully loaded gatling laser. Little better?

As to the rest of your (long) post, it would seem that you completely understand what the 'realists' are looking for: a mix of consistency where most things encountered have a sense of logic or an explanation of sorts behind them and a more mature approach to the humour.

Agreed

Several things I wanted to respond to

First:


"aliens are stupid and unrealistic" (and I suppose 6 metre long ants aren't)
"No magic pockets"
"no magic" (then we wouldn’t have weird and cool quests like the dunwhich building)
"Fallout isn’t about humour it about survival" (somebody actually said this, I’ll try to find the quote)


Aliens are a sci fi space element that has nothing to do with humans. They are not from earth they've nothing to do with it. Those ants are supposed to be a result of the nuclear war the destroyed the earth. While not as eloquent as some of the others its the whole "What have we wrought" idea

Magic Pockets are lame. Fallout settlements are often mud, brick, wood, or dilapidated buildings. People are starving or dying from thirst. Some resort to cannibalism. You carry 3 sets of Power Armor, 3 rifles, 2 shotguns, 4 handguns, 237 stimpaks, and more ammo than Los Alamitos Army Base.

No Magic - Dunwich wasn't magic. Dunwich was occult and had vague implications (as they ought to be since it was a Lovecraft reference)

Fallout isn't about humor it is about survival. Humor is a part of it. but the premise of Fallout is that we destroyed the world through our own greed. Nearly wiped ourselves out, but we survived and are slowly building it back up. But war, war never changes. In each game you try to stop greedy people from destroying the world again. Clearly survival is the basis, regardless of how many funny references F1 and 2 had and how many....meh....jokes Fallout 3 had.




"Someone said Fallout is not about the humour?? these casual players..."

Same as just above, with the addendum that condescension is sad. It's even more sad when you condescend but refuse to elaborate on why those you have condescended to are wrong. But then I suppose three small dots are easier than elaboration...aren't they?




"RPG games really should be the most unrealistic because its suposed to be fun being someone else for a change and doing stuff that would be difficult in real life."

-xxcYyLOnexx-Friday March 19, 2010

I love unrealisticness...? Its the best especcially when they have some cucked-up, half-assed reason, behind it, hell i like to see more unrealistness in the game. Fun times...

For my mind I like the daft escapist idea that some dot of a woman with a katana (or whatever Japanese sword) could take on a guy in power armour, silliness aside I take from it a sense that she has a total desperation to survive and going out fighting and as I said it also amuses me somewhat.
Certain things should be a bit more realistic for the immersion factor (sighting along scopes, using your skills as a method of persuasion in NPC interactions for example).
I feel if you go over board with realism surviving the wasteland would be a dreary boring drudge and would lose some of the thrill. Such as when you see dogmeat take down a talon company merc. In real life Dogmeat wouldn't last two seconds going up against a trained merc with an assault rifle!
Yeah I love humour in games there has to be a careful balance, if your best mate never cracked a smile you'd get shot of them for being boring, if they were supersillious you'd ditch em for being a giddy irritating moron.

I think combat in Dragon Age is supposed to be turn based(They were the guys who made those old Baldur's Gate D&D CRPGs), but presented in such a way that it looks like it's real time. Whether an attack would succeed or not would be calculated when the attack was made rather than when it arrived. It's kind of like Fallout 3's VATS but all the time, it's never actually you attacking or blocking(as it is in say, Modern Warfare, Oblivion or Fallout 3's normal combat), but your character and how well they do is determined entirely by their stats, not your personal input.

That probably doesn't make you feel any better about it, but I love and cherish both systems and even hybrids like Mass Effect(That reminds me, if Fallout 4 isn't all VATS I want an actual cover system)

We can now return to the subject of realism in setting and difficulty.

People don't know what's good for 'em, always been that way. They'll get exactly what they asked for in the game and most likely end up whining about how much the game svcks.

Why do you always take aim at Halo? Halo is fine, it's not perfect nor is Fallout or any game, but it has good and bad qualities just like any game as well. Anyways, realism is fine just don't overdo it.

For me it's like the old saying with movies and books "willful suspension of disbelief." Essentially, even though you're reading something or watching something that obviously wouldn't be happening (ie. Avatar (movie), Oblivion, Harry Potter, etc.) it's told in a way that makes you want to pretend it's true for enjoyment purposes.
Specifically, I don't want to have to press a button to blink my eyes. I do want to have some benefit for sleeping and some punishing for not sleeping for 5 days straight (in the game) other than just I lose my well rested bonus.
Realism has a fine line, I think. The more realistic the better up until the point it becomes annoying to the gamer. When it becomes annoying or tedious, it's bad and shouldn't be so realistic. For example, if in FO3 dad died on his way back to Rivet City b/c I didn't follow him the whole way (I fast traveled), it would be realistic b/c dad could die, but it would be annoying b/c you'd have to reload to move the main story forward. If it's not realistic and it's just weird (like you never have to eat, sleep, or drink to survive) it's bad. That's my opinion, anyway.

Agreed though I think Avatar could partially happen. If it did, then those blue smurfs would immediately die.

i think it should be very realistic, but not TO realistic. i found that as a problem when watching avatar at cinema because i was so amazed by it that i couldn't get up and then the cinema people didnt even notice i was there and i watched it again! :celebration: :wink_smile:

So, If you dis agree with realism you wouldn't mind if the main enemy are giant pink bunnies, and they can take 100 shots to the head?
I don't think so. The whole idea for realism is to make a story easier to beileve. Fallouts backstory made perfect sense with the energy crisis and the invasion of alaska. Even when these things are immpossible (alaska is invasion proof) but because they gave us a reasonable explanation for these things to happen it was beilevable. Do you know what they just used to make it believable? It's called realism. I don't understand how a supermutant can take 20 shots in the head and still be alive and kicking. If they told us that the FEV had changed the melecular code for the bones, making them equal in strengh to 2 feet of steel. Although hard to beileve it helps to beileve that they can take 10 shots to the head. I don't understand how I can repair a weapon almost instantly in the heat of battle. It is just hard to get into a game that isn't as believable. But it is also hard to get into a game too realistic.

for me a good game is always made when it?s core is

good, fun gameplay> realism

not saying a game should?t have some roots in realism but in instances when sticking to realism creates unneeded frustration that?s when it?s time to take a step back, realise it?s a game and take the less realistic but more enjoyable and fun route.

Also people there is something called...imagination, a game shouldn?t need to spoon feed you a reason behind everything it does, if a Mutant can take 10 headshots use your own imagination and inject some immersion on your own by making up a explanation in your own head.

boom headshot :goodjob: Ralos your dead on

While I agree that perfectly mirroring real life is not what a game should try to do (unless it's the Sims series), the various systems in a game should at least try to act realistically, especially where combat is concerned.

For example: pistols in FO3 can be used effectively over considerable distances (their efficacy is another subject though ), whereas anyone who has fired them in RL knows that beyond about 100-200 yards you're not gonna hit jack no matter how good you are with them. This is, of course, a gameplay concession in order to make using them a more attractive prospect, however it breaks immersion for some folks to be able to match a rifle's range with a handgun.

There's also the Sneak-Critical mechanism- while this makes sneaky combat more viable (in FO1 and 2 sneaky combat was nonexistent since if you were in a fight you had already been discovered), the level of efficacy provided by the multiplier applied to damage reaches ludicrous levels when using certain weapons, and it is entirely possible to never be detected while doing so. A more realistically modeled approach would be that after your initial sneak-attack (which would not have damage multipliers) the target's buddies would IMMEDIATELY come looking for you and/or scatter to the nearest cover. They wouldn't know your exact location, thus you could move and try another shot, but they would eventually find you if you stayed which would encourage the more realistic tactic of fire-and-withdraw as used by military snipers.

I understand using your imagaination but I shouldn't have to use my inagination everytime a fight. A game is meant to make it so people can experiance their fantasies in a fatasy world, a game is not meant to give you more reasons to use your imagination. "take the less realistic but more enjoyable and fun route." The problem with this is that many people find the realistic way to be fun and many people find the imaginary way to be fun. Why force someone to play a route he doesn't want to? This is why I am excited fallout may accept the hardcoe mode because now players can choose. If you like the normal way play it, if you like the somewhat more realistic way then play that.

Sigged. I don't want realism taking out the fun of a game. It's not like anyone can actually predict what would happen in the event of a nuclear holocaust anyhow.

i'm pretty sure people would still die if they got shot in the head.

GTA4 opened my eyes to the horrible reality of realism in games. It scored a 10/10 for being a game where you have to drive your fat cousin's girlfriend's friend somewhere. If I wanted to do that, I would drive my buddy Dan's girlfriend Michelle's crazy friend Elaine to the airport. Not that much fun if you think about it. Police are actually able to catch you. Not fun. Imagine how bad things could get if your post apocalyptic wasteland was realistic.

No need to predict, we know, lest we forget populated areas were hit with nuclear bombs in 1945.


I wonder what's the breakdown of the ( for lack of a better term) pro-realism crowd who play the game on a computer vis a vis the (again, for a lack of a better term) anti-realism who play the game in consoles. I guess the gap has closed with time, but not so long ago, the gaming experience from console to computer was much different than what it is today. I always found console games to be "arcadey"; very repetitive with not much logic behind them.

And do not confuse realism with real life: wanting to go to the bathroom but being constipated, that's real life. Falling off a 20-story building and dying, that's realism.