Fallout 3 Combat

[TheUnk]

Am I alone? Seriously, apart from the VATS, which only looks cool anyways, the combat in this game is pretty terrible.

You can't take cover, run, crouch to improve accuracy, go prone, anything. You just have to stand there like that kid who sucks at Quake. Sure you can run and stand behind an object to take "cover" but it just feels retarded. The same with strafing and trying to run away, I just feel like my guy has been sedationary for his whole life and just now learned how to walk.

If it wasn't for the exploding body parts and good story/quests, I don't know if I could keep myself playing this.

I guess this is Bethseda, and compared to Oblivion the combat blows it away, cause Oblivion combat was the most pathetic excuse for sword swinging on the planet.

 

[RallyMaster]

I think all the hyped up games always end up sucking. Just look at FC2.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: TheUnk
I guess this is Bethseda, and compared to Oblivion the combat blows it away, cause Oblivion combat was the most pathetic excuse for sword swinging on the planet.

Morrowind had even worse combat than Oblivion =p.

And yes, Fallout 3's gunplay is pretty damn bad.

 

[Zenoth]

There are more things I dislike and really just hate in Fallout 3 than things I like, but the things I like make me come back for more of it, it's worse than Oblivion (or better, depending on the point of view). I would say that Fallout 3 is both the worst and the best game that Bethesda developed to date, it's the only way I can explain how I feel about it.

 

[ZappDogg]

Originally posted by: Zenoth
There are more things I dislike and really just hate in Fallout 3 than things I like, but the things I like make me come back for more of it, it's worse than Oblivion (or better, depending on the point of view). I would say that Fallout 3 is both the worst and the best game that Bethesda developed to date, it's the only way I can explain how I feel about it.

What you're trying to say is that the glaring errors are only made worse and more shocking when presented with something they did brilliantly, right?

That pretty much sums it up. I didn't get it expecting a solid FPS, though.

 

[imported_Imp]

Was going to counter by saying 'you suck'... but I agree. VATS is awesome, and adds a lot to the gameplay. Outside of VATS, you pretty much do have to stand in place and blast each other while hoping that the guy you're shooting goes down first. You can't lean around a corner, aiming just feels "off" for an FPS on PC, and enemy movement is jerky/awkward, making them much harder to shoot. There isn't much cover to use either.

On the other hand, I think it comes down to the play style. This is an RPG without huge hordes of ammo (unless you go looking for it and buy it), so your mindset is to be conservative on ammo. To compare, I think Deus Ex 1 had similar combat. When you weren't sneaking and popping heads, which was 90% of the time, enemies just started strafing like idiots and you probably stood roughly in place and shot back.

Aside from Fallout 3 and Deux Ex (Deus Ex 2 doesn't count), are there any other FPS-RPG with guns out there? It probably came down to game design. They were so focussed on the RPG parts and integrating stats into combat, they probably didn't spend as much time on gunplay. Maybe you can compare it to Stalker, but even that had no stats, and was just an FPS with quests when it all comes down. To excuse Bethesda slightly, they didn't have the luxury of focusing all their development time on gunplay.

 

[Fox5]

For an RPG, the combat is pretty good. Things that bug me though:
Insanely slow movement speed.
Lack of a lean or dodge function. (minor, but the game offers enough cover that lean would have been nice)
Enemies hear you from a mile away unless your sneak is really high.
And all enemies attack you the same way. Run straight at you shooting/swinging. They don't differ in intelligence or movement. Sure, radscorpions turn slow and run fast, but they still follow the same thought patterns as everything else in the game. Enemies look different, but they don't feel different, just stat changes. I'm not even sure if the game takes into account different armor/weapon types, other than the combat shotgun killing nearly everything and radscorpions having insanely tough armor, with super mutants almost as tough.

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

Yep, the shooting game is terrible. But Bethesda isn't an FPS developer - they make RPGs. And that's what F3 is. VATS works quite well.

 

[9mak9]

this game was made for VATS, plain and simple...they added FPS because maybe some people would want some variety? I don't know. Many perks add to your skills and such only in VATS mode...this game was like the originals in turn-based combat not FPS.

 

[nismotigerwvu]

Originally posted by: 9mak9
this game was made for VATS, plain and simple...they added FPS because maybe some people would want some variety? I don't know. Many perks add to your skills and such only in VATS mode...this game was like the originals in turn-based combat not FPS.

Couldn't say it any better myself.

 

[VashHT]

Originally posted by: 9mak9
this game was made for VATS, plain and simple...they added FPS because maybe some people would want some variety? I don't know. Many perks add to your skills and such only in VATS mode...this game was like the originals in turn-based combat not FPS.

It would've been nice if they would've just gone and implemented the turn based combat from the originals, I mean they halfway did it with VATs anyway. I originally thought VATs was going to be totally turn based, the half turn half real time is pretty stupid if you ask me.

 

[CVSiN]

Sigh.. again... this game is NOT a shooter.. this game is an RPG.. it just happens to look like a shooter.. cover.. hits.. everything is rolling against skill checks in the background.

so cover doesnt matter it would still be chcking dice rolls in the background against your skill checks to see if you are hit or not.

the game is very good.. my only complaint is how they did the world near downtown. the subways sucks and remind me of why I dont play hellgate London.

 

[imported_Imp]

Originally posted by: CVSiN

the game is very good.. my only complaint is how they did the world near downtown. the subways sucks and remind me of why I dont play hellgate London.

For those of us who didn't play Hellgate, how do the subways remind you of it

 

[skace]

Playing through Fallout 3 I began to ask myself... why even have stats, whats the point? You can 100 almost every stat in the game on a single char. You can do just fine with 30% in any given weapon skill.

In fact, the only real reason to even have skills is so that you can't pick a very hard door or hack a very hard computer right from the get go. But I have an idea for that, they could have made tools for different doors. Like you start with a basic lockpick that works on shitty doors, but then you need something for chained in gates and one for large steel vaults, etc. You'd have to move away from the whole lockpick breaking aspect, but that hardly matters since I don't think anyone ever runs out of lockpicks. So it's kind of a stupid non-aspect of the game. Similar thing could be done for computers, better tools to hack better terminals, also could add more and more difficult mini games for the difficult stuff.

Then bring combat to the STALKER level. Make it entertaining to fight.

Remove the [Speech] choices and instead make people actually have to think about what speech choices are the 'good' ones. Intelligence will be based off of how well you can intelligently converse with another individual.

Give everyone the 300 weight or whatever the max is, it's not much of an addition anyways.

Then take all that time you wasted on skills and add more meaningful quests, more weapons, more varied graphics for destroyed structures (90% of fallout 3 has the same indoor office structure - it's literaly everywhere).

Then hire a better animator and make movement feel more fluid.

Then make the house you get actually fun to customize and look somewhat good. Maybe make it so you can even start your own town somewhere and upgrade it's defenses / etc.

On top of all this, you'd have more benefits in game play. Since everyone could excel in everything (you almost do anyways), you could have dungeons built entirely around stealth and lockpicking and dungeons built entirely around hacking, etc. Therefor adding much more varied game play.

 

[udneekgnim]

Originally posted by: TheUnk
Am I alone? Seriously, apart from the VATS, which only looks cool anyways, the combat in this game is pretty terrible.

You can't take cover, run, crouch to improve accuracy, go prone, anything. You just have to stand there like that kid who sucks at Quake. Sure you can run and stand behind an object to take "cover" but it just feels retarded. The same with strafing and trying to run away, I just feel like my guy has been sedationary for his whole life and just now learned how to walk.

If it wasn't for the exploding body parts and good story/quests, I don't know if I could keep myself playing this.

I guess this is Bethseda, and compared to Oblivion the combat blows it away, cause Oblivion combat was the most pathetic excuse for sword swinging on the planet.

crouching = pressing the sneak button

right click = improve accuracy

and FO3 is a RPG with a first person view

if you're missing it's because your skill in the weapon isn't high enough or the distance between you and your target is too great

 

[garkon]

I'd also like to add that there is a reason to raise your weapons skills above 30. It's the difference in being able to hit someone with a targeted shot at 95% at 6 feet max, verses being able to hit them with a targeted shot at 95% chance from "the distance".
The reason they have skill for lockpicking etc is so that if you never put skill into it, your character will never be able to pick that lock, hack the computer, etc. It's an RPG, that's the whole point.

 

[9mak9]

I think its more to the point that you can easily max out all your skills if you search around (you can get 60 points in every skill just by using the skill books and bobbleheads). Also there is no way to tell the different between 40-70-100 points in small guns. No measure to say at 40 points you have a __% change to hit the target...I know they have %'s when you look into VATS but I don't think that is greatly affected if at all. Maybe if you are far away it might be like 25% or 50% but otherwise it is usually 95%

Correct me if I am wrong but I can't be sure if the skills affect your attacking in FPS mode

 

[TheUnk]

Originally posted by: udneekgnim
crouching = pressing the sneak button

right click = improve accuracy

and FO3 is a RPG with a first person view

if you're missing it's because your skill in the weapon isn't high enough or the distance between you and your target is too great

From what I've experienced, crouching does not improve accuracy, and neither does right clicking. It seemed to me that all right clicking does is make it easier for me to put my crosshair where I want it - but does it also increase the chance to hit?

It's hard to say for certain, it's not like you could shoot a wall and check your if your bullet spread descreases when apparently every shot against an enemy rolls against skill checks to see if it's a hit or a miss.

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: udneekgnim

Originally posted by: TheUnk
Am I alone? Seriously, apart from the VATS, which only looks cool anyways, the combat in this game is pretty terrible.

You can't take cover, run, crouch to improve accuracy, go prone, anything. You just have to stand there like that kid who sucks at Quake. Sure you can run and stand behind an object to take "cover" but it just feels retarded. The same with strafing and trying to run away, I just feel like my guy has been sedationary for his whole life and just now learned how to walk.

If it wasn't for the exploding body parts and good story/quests, I don't know if I could keep myself playing this.

I guess this is Bethseda, and compared to Oblivion the combat blows it away, cause Oblivion combat was the most pathetic excuse for sword swinging on the planet.

crouching = pressing the sneak button

right click = improve accuracy

and FO3 is a RPG with a first person view

if you're missing it's because your skill in the weapon isn't high enough or the distance between you and your target is too great

i have like an 85 in small arms. i still miss just as bad as i do when it was 34.

 

[imported_Imp]

Originally posted by: 9mak9
I think its more to the point that you can easily max out all your skills if you search around (you can get 60 points in every skill just by using the skill books and bobbleheads). Also there is no way to tell the different between 40-70-100 points in small guns. No measure to say at 40 points you have a __% change to hit the target...I know they have %'s when you look into VATS but I don't think that is greatly affected if at all. Maybe if you are far away it might be like 25% or 50% but otherwise it is usually 95%

Correct me if I am wrong but I can't be sure if the skills affect your attacking in FPS mode

Your damage goes up moderately (50-100% of 20 point skill level) in addition to accuracy. After playing 37 hours using small arms with no points in it, I definately can tell the difference after restarting and making it a primary skill.

 

[Nik]

Originally posted by: VashHT

Originally posted by: 9mak9
this game was made for VATS, plain and simple...they added FPS because maybe some people would want some variety? I don't know. Many perks add to your skills and such only in VATS mode...this game was like the originals in turn-based combat not FPS.

It would've been nice if they would've just gone and implemented the turn based combat from the originals, I mean they halfway did it with VATs anyway. I originally thought VATs was going to be totally turn based, the half turn half real time is pretty stupid if you ask me.

I hardly ever used VATs. The only time I used it was while I was sniping, which wasn't often. I used the run-and-gun method, didn't have a problem not getting hit, and had a blast.

You guys just suck

 

[Nik]

Originally posted by: pontifex
i have like an 85 in small arms. i still miss just as bad as i do when it was 34.

Are you keeping your weapon condition up as high as possible?

 

[ubercaffeinated]

dood. upgrade your weapons and use vats nigh exclusively. the battle system is awesome. you know that you can queue attacks on body parts via vats right? and that crouching increases damage/accuracy? and you can hide and use cover. i was just inside the museum of technology, and i used a broken piece of an airplane wing hanging from the ceiling as cover, as it rotated from gun fire.

-use vats
-aim for the head
-upgrade weapon skills
-repair weapons

 

[Izzo]

Anyone else feel like VATS is a little unbalanced? It's an automatic win if something sneaks up on me and I have a full AP bar. 2 hits in the head kills everything including supermutants. IMO, if you enter VATS and don't have enough AP to kill all of the enemies, you should be stuck in VATS and not able to do anything until all enemies get a crack at you. As it stands now, you can use VATS to kill one or two raiders, then exit and shoot the rest FPS style. Doesn't seem quite fair.

My biggest gripe is the map system. Some of those buildings are pretty difficult to navigate through and the PIP BOY map sucks. If I didn't have the guide, I'd probably just stick to the main quest because some of the buildings got pretty annoying.

I don't particularly care for the way they dealt with the weapons. Thus far, there hasn't been much excitement going to new towns and places to find better weapons. I've been using the same two from the time I was level 10 to now (level 16). [Terrible shotgun and the unique chinese assualt rifle, don't know how to spell it). I hope when I get further in the main quest and get more involved with the Enclave and the Brotherhood there will be bigger and better weapons to aim for.

Overall, I'd give it a 8 to 8.5, but there are definitely flaws in the game. I think Bethesda got the "darkness" of the game, but haven't seen much of the humor. Overall, I think they did a good job of carrying on the FO franchise.

Any Wing Commander fans notice the Malcolm McDowell easteregg of "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance" on the radio?

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

@Izzo, your enemies can still hurt you while you're shooting in VATS (it only pauses while you're queuing up shots). I think it's just that your character is superior to every enemy you come across, so it's not hard to kill anything. Although I do find it a bit disconcerting that Radscorpions can take as many hits (maybe more) as a supermutant in FO3.