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Fallout 4: Changing the Shooting Mechanics

Hm, yeah just what another Fallout 4 thread needs. More Fallout 3 vs New Vegas tripe. I long for the day where a thread about Fallout 4 just sticks to Fallout 4.
It's directly relevant to compare the design choices made by Bethesda with Fallout 3 and those by Obsidian in New Vegas to the new game.
 
As long as it's not just straight up FPS, this sounds good to me. Using a long-range weapon and missing every single shot when you have a low guns skill was horrible in FO3.
 
Hm, yeah just what another Fallout 4 thread needs. More Fallout 3 vs New Vegas tripe. I long for the day where a thread about Fallout 4 just sticks to Fallout 4.

That day will never happen if this game never learns from the corpses of those that preceded it.

There also needs to be a 'facetious' emoticon.
 
Even though I always want my Fallouts to lean more to the RPG side, this is the best possible outcome.

All those times lining up shots and leading them up only to:

1.Have it shoot up in the air because RNG
2. Have the shot hit one of the enemy's buddies in the chest so the whole group aggros you

Was so annoying. There's only so much VATs you can do before it feels like straight up cheating.
 
I don't see how the Fallout 3/NV gun system is a RNG. From what I understand it's an equation. Your gunskill is the default percentage. 50 points equals 50% chance of hitting your target. The other parts of the equation are SPECIAL, distance, movement, stance, weapon condition, and ammunition with perk and weapon mod modifiers.

It's not random at all. Unless I'm completely mistaken here.

If the hit % isn't 100%, then that means the game is rolling a number to input into that equation to determine whether you hit or not. That means in the exact same scenario where you are aiming at the exact same spot on a target, you might or might not hit it based on a dice roll.

That's what people mean, as far as I know. Someone correct me if I'm mistaken.

If pointing and clicking is a skill, I guess you shouldn't be punished? Guns aren't point and click devices, though, except in most games, so some fair, interesting mechanics could be mined out of that concept, I cluding in ways that actually respect high player skill much more than simply, "bullets go wherever I click, however long I hold the button down."

Which games actually do this, though? The FPSs I'm thinking of right now (such as Battlefield) incorporate things like recoil and bullet drop. If you shoot expecting to hit all the time where you aimed then it simply won't work. The question is how to simulate the difficulty of using guns. A FAMAS in Battlefield is extremely difficult to use long-range, but it's difficult in a predictable way that can somewhat be accounted for in arepeatable fashion (burst fire, holding analog stick down to simulate kick resistance).
 
It's directly relevant to compare the design choices made by Bethesda with Fallout 3 and those by Obsidian in New Vegas to the new game.

Comparisons of Fallout 4 to previous games are fair but it seems like every related thread just turns into a FO 3 / New Vegas debate.
 
I don't recall it doing much with the combat, other than making fixed enemy levels more of a norm.

One thing I remember from FO3 that they did away with in NV was that when you aimed at someone head in for example a sniper rifle, the bullet would go for the torso instead. Regardless where you aimed really. While in NV it does what it's supposed to.
 
This sounds good. It's basically a trade-off with VATS. Where VATS requires no aim required and is entirely based on stats, actually shooting requires faster reaction time and better aim. The stats should matter a little less if it makes it more fun as well.
 
It's directly relevant to compare the design choices made by Bethesda with Fallout 3 and those by Obsidian in New Vegas to the new game.
Is that what you think he did? Is that what you think the purpose of his post was? LMAO. He's just trying to turn this thread into another Fallout 3 vs New Vegas dumpster fire and that's probably what you want too.
 
If your Guns is low, don't bother shooting like it's a shooter. There's VATS you can use until then. Can't get all those sick boss nasty headshots when you're not a master at Guns.
 
Ugh... The more news there is about Fallout the less interested i am. I just want a combat system which outcome is based on my character's stats and what gear he/she has, not my reaction time.
 
Don't see the problem, I normally play in VATS save for sniping shots so that will be a nice addition given I'm taking my time with those shots and trying to really get them on sight. So having my skill and deliberate aiming taken into account is nice, even if it's only a minor bonus applied to it.

Plus they're not moving to a completely player skill based aiming system, stats will still play a role, from the sound of it the majority role still, just now they're allowing the player's skill at aiming to have a bit more of an effect on the outcome, which is totally reasonable.

If I try to snipe some enemy from 50 yards out and I'm dead on with my sights but only have a mediocre gun skill I should get some appreciable bonus to my accuracy due to my input as the player. If my stats determine a 50/50 chance it's not outrageous if my skill as a player can increase that to like 60/40 or 70/30 depending on the shot and my skill as the player in aiming. There's still a large margin of error where I can miss it, but at least my direct input has an affect on things.
 
One thing I remember from FO3 that they did away with in NV was that when you aimed at someone head in for example a sniper rifle, the bullet would go for the torso instead. Regardless where you aimed really. While in NV it does what it's supposed to.

That was a thing? That would explain the larger number of headshots I had in NV in comparison.
 
Is that what you think he did?

I mean, it kind of is.

The aiming in FO3 was garbage; this was rectified, somewhat, in New Vegas.
If they stick with the inferior model from the worse game, than they've learned nothing.

If it needs to be pointed out that New Vegas had superior mechanics to FO3 in order to provide a decent model, then it should be done.
 
If you’re good at aiming, says Howard, you can compensate somewhat for lower stats. But not entirely

Sounds like it's still very stat-driven. And it's Bethesda, so of course it will be. They aren't action game designers. They make RPG's.

Roll on the overreactions, though!

EDIT: Yup, just about everybody is overreacting massively, as always.

If you don't have high enough stats your aim should be shit imo. The fact that you're good with a mkb irl shouldn't matter at all if you're a level 1 scrub fresh from the vault.
 
I mean, it kind of is.
No. It kind of wasn't. Come on. You yourself started your post with the phrase, 'as an aside'. Dropping in to post five words about how Fallout 3 is so much worse than New Vegas has little to no relevance to the topic at hand and you didn't even bother to try and link the two subjects until people called you out on it. Now you're tenuously trying to justify that shit as an actual contribution to discussion by re-framing it entirely after the fact.
It's worth mentioning that nothing in the article linked suggests that they're retaining Fallout 3's shooting model or ignoring the changes made by Obsidian to make the shooting more compelling in New Vegas - quite the opposite, going by the excerpts in the OP. So your entire premise is bullshit.
 
I think Action RPGs feel better to play if character skill scales damage rather than hit chance. Inaccuracy makes more sense, but it's just not fun.
 
Just remove the entire dice roll Bethesda. Quit fucking around and just make it a straight up fps, instead of tip toeing around it pleasing no one.


Christ.


Now what was my NMA password again...
 
This sounds good. It's basically a trade-off with VATS. Where VATS requires no aim required and is entirely based on stats, actually shooting requires faster reaction time and better aim. The stats should matter a little less if it makes it more fun as well.

Exactly. Punishing players regardless of skill due to a dice roll is bad game design. I'm not sure how anyone that has a problem with this can argue that randomly missing makes the game better or more rewarding because it does the complete opposite. It makes sense in the VATS system because, as you said, it requires no skill and is entirely stat based.

I do think they could implement weapon sway or bullet drop to compensate though since that rewards player skill.
 
Today I learned there are people that play Fallout 3/NV without VATS...

Why would you play this game like a first person shooter when it isn't?
Since VATS is a feature unique to Fallout, why would you not use it?

I always felt the free-aiming feature to be out of place in a game like this.
 
If you don't have high enough stats your aim should be shit imo. The fact that you're good with a mkb irl shouldn't matter at all if you're a level 1 scrub fresh from the vault.

Then the game shouldn't even be an FPS with real-time mechanics. It should be Fallout 2.
 
If the hit % isn't 100%, then that means the game is rolling a number to input into that equation to determine whether you hit or not. That means in the exact same scenario where you are aiming at the exact same spot on a target, you might or might not hit it based on a dice roll.

That's what people mean, as far as I know. Someone correct me if I'm mistaken.



Which games actually do this, though? The FPSs I'm thinking of right now (such as Battlefield) incorporate things like recoil and bullet drop. If you shoot expecting to hit all the time where you aimed then it simply won't work. The question is how to simulate the difficulty of using guns. A FAMAS in Battlefield is extremely difficult to use long-range, but it's difficult in a predictable way that can somewhat be accounted for in arepeatable fashion (burst fire, holding analog stick down to simulate kick resistance).
But isn't that natural though regardless? I mean if you are new to shooting all of your shots won't go where you think you aim. There are many different factors. Bad ammo, misfires, wind, unsteady hands, yanking the trigger, etc. It only makes sense that as your gunskill increase you get more accurate.

I play almost exclusively in VATS, so maybe my view is skewed on the matter.
 
Why would this be a bad thing? Why would anyone not want their headshot to not count even though you lined your shot up. It is an FPS afterall.
 
Horrible combat was the one thing that I really disliked about Fallout 3 and NV so good to hear they are at least trying to change it. We'll see if it's for the better or the worse.
 
Today I learned there are people that play Fallout 3/NV without VATS...

Why would you play this game like a first person shooter when it isn't?
Since VATS is a feature unique to Fallout, why would you not use it?

I always felt the free-aiming feature to be out of place in a game like this.

because some people don't find a game that plays itself entirely compelling

VATs is broken in a lot of ways. Just because it's there doesn't mean we all want to use it. Especially when mods can improve the shooting experience profoundly and offer up alternatives like AP-reliant bullet time that are a lot more compelling and engaging than VATs on a moment to moment basis.
 
RNG accuray and RNG hit chances in general are extremely stupid and should never become a thing. I recall two extreme cases in which such systems ruined my experience.

The first is Stalker Clear skies. Not only everything is a health-sponge, headshot-tanking aimbot, but you have to get close AND lose 80% of your magazine because RNG. It was just stupid, unrewarding RPG shit.

Valkyria Chronicles had that stupid accuracy probability that scales with levels. I was using the tank at POINT BLANK range to shoot down the turrets in mission 7, and my tank was literally bumping into the large boss tank. I marked the turret/cannon and it freaking missed something physically impossible to miss; it was a prime example of why RPG stats--particularly ones that work with RNG--are unrewarding bullcrap.


Anyways, I could see them implementing some V.A.T.S RNG mechanics that are affected by perks and levels. I don't like such implementations but I am not completely against it because the game is not purely turn-based RPG, and having V.A.T.S related stuff is for specialized builds; I WILL play the game less or skip on it if normal shooting is RNG based like Stalker.
 
It lessens the importance of your stats. I don't care how much Howard claims that their games are RPGs first. The evidence is to the contrary. They want to make action-adventure games now, not RPGs
The constellation system in Skyrim was nearly irrelevant for example.

Now the line between action-adventure RPG and an action-adventure game with RPG elements is progressively blurred.

To top it off we get a heavily predefined voiced character with a fucking Bioware dialog wheel.

Compare New Vegas to 3 and you'll see how shallow of an RPG modern Bethesda games are.
I'm sorry I have no idea what you are talking about. Stats still effect the accuracy of the shot and always will. It just means if you are real good you can compensate for the inaccuracies. That second part about Bioware? So this time our character has a voice and now its on a wheel = casualization PUR-LEASE.
 
If you don't have high enough stats your aim should be shit imo. The fact that you're good with a mkb irl shouldn't matter at all if you're a level 1 scrub fresh from the vault.

Why? Player actions should have some degree of input in the outcome. If I'm aiming my reticle center mass on a rad roach, dead center, not a pixel left, right, up or down off from center shouldn't I get some bonus to accuracy compared to if my reticle is barely on the edge of the roach's body?

Ultimately my stats will determine the final outcome of the shot, but why can't where I'm aiming exactly provide any kind of input into the equation? My aim will still be shit if I'm lvl 1 with 15 skill points into Guns but instead say a 1/20 change at hitting I now have a 1/16 chance. This can also be used to work against the player so if you have shit aiming as a player only having the weapon sights on the very edge of an enemy could decrease your odds from 1/20 to 1/24.
 
No. It kind of wasn't, don't give us that crap. You yourself started your post with the phrase, 'as an aside'. Dropping in to post five words about how Fallout 3 is so much worse than New Vegas has little to no relevance to the topic at hand and you didn't even bother to try and link the two subjects until people called you out on your bullshit. Now you're tenuously trying to justify that shit as an actual contribution to discussion by re-framing it entirely after the fact. Lmao.

It's worth mentioning that nothing in the article linked suggests that they're retaining Fallout 3's shooting model or ignoring the changes made by Obsidian to make the shooting more compelling in New Vegas - quite the opposite, going by the excerpts in the OP. So your entire premise is bullshit.

All right, first off, there's not really a need for so much hostility. Let go of your anger!

Second, whether the vaguely worded article has stated anything about dropping or retaining mechanics from either game isn't really relevant; there's the chance that they'll botch it, so I'm proffering my opinion that one way is better than another. If anyone from the studio developing the game peruses the board (which, as opposed to gamefaqs, is a possibility) then maybe seeing the opinions and ideas in this thread leaning more towards a retention of the New Vegas model will influence them.

Which leads me to my third point; I have already submitted two different opinions, in two separate posts, regarding what I feel would be an effect model.
 
Why? Player input should have some degree of input in the outcome. If I'm aiming my reticle center mass on a rad roach, dead center, not a pixel left, right, up or down off from center shouldn't I get some bonus to accuracy compared to if my reticle is barely on the edge of the roach's body?

If you think about the area where your bullet might land as a circle, placing your reticle on the center mass of a rad roach will fill most of the circle up with the radroach and help to ensure that despite your low accuracy as a result of low stats, you'll still probably hit the guy. Aim left or right and the radroach fills less of that 'circle' and you have smaller odds to hit.
 
Why? Player actions should have some degree of input in the outcome. If I'm aiming my reticle center mass on a rad roach, dead center, not a pixel left, right, up or down off from center shouldn't I get some bonus to accuracy compared to if my reticle is barely on the edge of the roach's body?

That would be the aiming, actually hitting should be 100% stats based.
 
If you think about the area where your bullet might land as a circle, placing your reticle on the center mass of a rad roach will fill most of the circle up with the radroach and help to ensure that despite your low accuracy as a result of low stats, you'll still probably hit the guy. Aim left or right and the radroach fills less of that 'circle' and you have smaller odds to hit.

Exactly. The player's ability aim should have some degree of influence on whether it's a hit or a miss. Big or small where you aim should have some effect on the final outcome.

That would be the aiming, actually hitting should be 100% stats based.

Sure, stats influenced by where you aimed. Hit/Miss/Crit should be mostly determined by your characters stats/skills but it should also be influenced somewhat by your input as the player, as shown by the above example.
 
They did basically what Howard is saying here, and toned down how often you could just miss completely even when you were aiming directly at a target. I think they got the balance right there.

Exactly. I'm not seeing the issue with what Howard said. It sounds like New Vegas in terms of execution which is a good thing.
 
I am glad they are moving in this direction. The shooting mechanics in Fallout have always felt clunky as hell. By all means, keep the stat crunching for VATS, keep the stat crunching for damage but I prefer not to shoot wildly at an approaching mud crab because my accuracy stat is too low.
 
Just look at New Vegas' combat system and do that. Problem solved.

I understand that Howard and the team are busy people. But I sincerely hope they - as self-proclaimed fans of the series - played New Vegas, even if only for a dozen hours or so, and were able to take a few things away from it. I hope.
 
Why? Player actions should have some degree of input in the outcome. If I'm aiming my reticle center mass on a rad roach, dead center, not a pixel left, right, up or down off from center shouldn't I get some bonus to accuracy compared to if my reticle is barely on the edge of the roach's body?
In this case its fine, I just think it's ridiculous that you can snipe a guy, a mile away, on the edge of the rendering distance just because you can. How is that immersive considering this is a RPG?
 
But isn't that natural though regardless? I mean if you are new to shooting all of your shots won't go where you think you aim. There are many different factors. Bad ammo, misfires, wind, unsteady hands, yanking the trigger, etc. It only makes sense that as your gunskill increase you get more accurate.

I play almost exclusively in VATS, so maybe my view is skewed on the matter.

Hit % is a good way to account for all that in a combat system that is purely stat-based without any manual aiming (like VATS!). My view is that once you start to incorporate how guns actually fire and how aiming actually influences that into gameplay (by FPS and manual twitch aiming) then you need to incorporate similar ways to balance the difficulty of using guns that don't rely on dice-roll abstractions. Because the core of the gunplay is no longer a dice-roll abstraction. It's an actual representation of aiming and firing a gun. One excellent way to do this is to simply increase recoil or horizontal weapon sway, so that while firing a gun with an RP build that doesn't focus on guns is hard, it's hard in predictable ways that make sense and can therefore be accounted for by the player, just like it eventually would for the character regardless of their build.
 
Today I learned there are people that play Fallout 3/NV without VATS...

Why would you play this game like a first person shooter when it isn't?
Since VATS is a feature unique to Fallout, why would you not use it?

I always felt the free-aiming feature to be out of place in a game like this.

I've always found vats to be crap. Either go full turn based or don't bother in my opinion.
 
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