Smushroomed
Banned
More shootbang, less dice rolls
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Fallout 4: Changing the Shooting Mechanics
- Thread starter CraigerGamer
- Start date
I think the important distinction here is that crappy shooting mechanics and character skill levels affecting you accuracy aren't related. F3 and NV have bad shooting because the controls are shit, not because you don't have pinpoint accuracy.
Borderlands?
Spacejaws
Member
Deus Ex rings a bell.
littleworm
Member
I'll have to see how it actually plays but I tend to agree. The Gun stat should change weapon sway and how the character handles recoil. If a player fights trough this and lines up a head shot it should hit.
I get that but I also find shooting a gun point blank into an NPCs face, and missing, to break the immersion a bit.
Silent Chief
Member
Makes the game too easy. You shoot, you win. That's more casual.
There's a stat that governs the accuracy. Ignoring the value of that stat adds another layer of depth?
Not everybody wants their games to be easier. There are already easy and very easy settings, should the normal setting be easier?
It should be possible to satisfy all players. Add a "FPS player" difficulty level (just don't call it super easy) in which all gun skill + Perception, Endurance and Agility are all maxed out. Don't nerf the stats for everyone.
Honestly, that probably is the best it has been done. There's a reason that Deus Ex is so special. The problem is that many people hate it. They complain all the time about Deus Ex and how they should be able to hit what they are aiming at.
Agreed and all they'd have to do is controls that represent the stats.
SerTapTap
Member
Borderlands is perfectly fine, though I guess it's more a shooter with RPG mechanics than the other way around. I don't mind Fallout being an RPG with an FPS input option though. Use VATs if you really want the RPG feel. The weird compromise was a poor solution that was poor for RPG AND FPS.
Combat is the absolute last thing that made Morrowind good/better than it's successors. IMO Morrowind is a great example of how all of the non-combat/non hitroll stuff can be amazing and RPG like and the actual aiming hitroll is the weakest part of that.
Is this really surprising? Bethesda is a vivid student of the Homeopathy school of RPGs: The more you reduce complex mechanics the better the end product. The remaining few mechanics remember how they belonged to an actually good RPG and make the experience still feel completely authentic while allowing Todd Howard to fill his own private Vault with lots of money caps.
Wolvesinthebathroom
Member
kamineko
Does his best thinking in the flying car
It's true, Morrowind wasn't a great action game. I don't think it ever occurred to anyone that it should be. The thought never occurred to me, anyway.
At least at the time. From a business perspective, it's easy to see why head-shotting dragons at low level might be a more appealing proposition for for the broadest possible audience, as opposed to fretting over all these silly, boring numbers.
I get it. Beth is in business to make money, and I'm not knocking their hustle. I'm just not excited about it, either.
Like I said, though, there isn't enough information to evaluate, so I'm leaving it at "doesn't sound good to me but who knows?"
hobblygobbly
Member
STALKER I think is the best game that uses RPG elements as a FPS, better than games like Borderlands or Destiny.
Armor suits/exoskeletons with certain statistics that make sense in the world of supernatural mutants and radioactive materials, weapons are general weapons that need certain ammunition, they can break over time set in an open world of The Zone where bandits and other stalkers are going about their business, random events happening, picking up missions like a traditional RPG, exploring bunkers, warehouses, research labs where some fucked up mutant shit can happen, you usually go to these places for missions or loot such as ammunition, items such as armor and survival items such as food, bandages, drugs, etc. Certain weapons/ammunition will only spawn in places that make sense such as military places. The nice thing is that guns require certain ammunition so you can't just load any sort of ammunition in any weapon. You get weapon accessories for weapons and you can get artifact items that have strange effects that enhance your character and can be used for certain situations in the zone like weird supernatural radioactive phenomena (anomalies). For e.g you will use certain artifacts on your character when dealing with certain types of anomalies. Certain types of artifacts are also created/born through certain anomalies.
Artifacts also are very valuable so you can use it to get currency to trade with NPCs, through some side mission background stories you can find out what NPCs will buy artifacts for a lot if you dont wan't to use them like some scientist etc. They also have a negative affect on your character (hazards) like generationg radiation which you need to negative somehow like through drugs. It doesn't rely on any RPG dice roll mechanics, just a straight up shooter built like a RPG. I think it's the best example.
By far the best the best design I've seen in a RPG FPS. Everything it has done is taken common ideas from RPGs and made it make sense in a FPS where shooting is the main mechanic.
This approach makes perfect sense to me, especially compared to Fallout 3's system.
If your aim was on point, you should hit the target.
Let the gun stat dictate things such as hip-fire accuracy / draw time / recoil management / VATs. A low stat shouldn't mean your bullets magically float around targets you aimed to hit.
If your aim was on point, you should hit the target.
Let the gun stat dictate things such as hip-fire accuracy / draw time / recoil management / VATs. A low stat shouldn't mean your bullets magically float around targets you aimed to hit.
Lanrutcon
Member
That's great and all, but FO4 isn't a shooter with RPG elements. It's an RPG with shooter elements. Hence the character attributes and their effect on your performance.
Stalker doesn't even have an attribute system, so the comparison is a bit of an ill fit.
Edit: I'm actually getting a headache from some of the replies here. Holy fucking shit it's obvious some people just want a COD with dialogue wheels. RPG fans my ass.
I can think of how they could do this well. Instead of it still "rolling" to see if you hit when you aim, your skill affects how stable you hold the gun. Also, maybe you have to have really good skill and you can hold your breath to add extra stability (but this should be a perk. Some one new to shooting probably won't know to do that). Something along those lines.
The problem here is the fix to make both sides happy is simple. By doing that it still can feel actiony without feeling cheesy cause you knew you had a dead shot but still missed. But your skill still affects how well you shoot.
Anyways, I really am glad he said that your skill or whatever they'll use (since skills seem to be gone) will affect how you shoot. As some one above me said, this is an RPG with shooter elements. Not a shooter with RPG elements (you want that there are plenty of those, Destiny, Borderlands, Bioshock <- those are off the top of my head). I think also part of the problem is I know some people ahve really loose ideas of an RPG (when I have had people argue with me that Bioshock is an RPG simply cause you can add some powers and you get all of three yes/no type choices, some people really have no clue what an RPG is *sigh*. Bioshock is the least RPG like of all those three games i mentioned).
I like the combo of action, but I really hope Bethesda keeps in mind that it's an RPG and is true to their word that it is an RPG first.
joecanada
Member
Well it is post apocolyptic plus an RPG, so I would say this would totally negate the need or use for skills at all.....
they could change it to damage modifier "oh you hit that but your toon sucks so 10 dmg instead of 100" but people would still bitch.
It's not supposed to be based on your skill its your characters skill, otherwise its just a FPS...
If your toon sucks then blame him he twitched or jerked or didn't clean the gun properly and you found the gun in a dumpster, what'd you expect that it would just be sighted perfectly?
Beths fallout really isnt much of an RPG though and its a better shooter with mods than an rpg. It falls more in the immersive sim category of rpgs with stuff like Deus Ex and System Shock2, I think the Stalker comparison holds and for me Fallout 3 modded to play more like Stalker was the best time I had with the game and the stats still remained very much in play or had even larger changes over your character depending on what was thrown at your .ini files
Rpg fans are well resigned to the streamlining of Beths stuff post Morrowind and would use the term 'rpg' pretty loosely with their more recent efforts.
Sounds fine to me.
Maybe they could do some kind of mechanic where crosshair/weapon stability is stat based, first shot is fairly accurate in relation to your point of aim but your stats dictate the accuracy of follow up shots if there has not been enough time for your character to level aim back out after recoil, which again could be based on stats.
Whatever anyway, I'm sure I am going to lap this game up regardless.
Maybe they could do some kind of mechanic where crosshair/weapon stability is stat based, first shot is fairly accurate in relation to your point of aim but your stats dictate the accuracy of follow up shots if there has not been enough time for your character to level aim back out after recoil, which again could be based on stats.
Whatever anyway, I'm sure I am going to lap this game up regardless.
Silent Chief
Member
The term "mods" usually refers to user coded hacks which are basically cheats that make games easier.
If fallout was a good shooter they would have a made a multiplayer mode and people would just have been buying map packs. Let's not confuse things.
Imagine if Fallout was made with the last COD engine with no RPGs elements. That would be a pass for me.
If youÂ’re good at aiming, says Howard, you can compensate somewhat for lower stats. But not entirely
In PC land "mods" has always meant modifications to the game in a good way, i.e. total conversions, texture packs, GUI mods, replacement models, gameplay tweaks etc. It's only in the past few years it's come to be used as a term for online cheats really, though they are modifications to the game so it's not wrong. Probably in part due to kids "modding" COD to cheat on consoles. Nobody I know has ever referred to mods and actually meant cheats.
From what little I played of Fallout 3, I didn't really like the dice rolls system for accuracy. The game is controlled as a shooter, but it all falls apart as soon as you fire a shot. I feel like System Shock 2 worked better as an FPS-RPG hybrid without feeling frustrating to people who are familiar with the language of action games.
If they wanted to avoid the expectations that come with an FPS, they could have gone with a system like KOTOR with auto-attacks and pause targeting. Kinda like VATS, but more integrated into the combat system as the main method of attack.
If they wanted to avoid the expectations that come with an FPS, they could have gone with a system like KOTOR with auto-attacks and pause targeting. Kinda like VATS, but more integrated into the combat system as the main method of attack.
When I say mods I mean, Fallout 3 with gameplay modifications installed is a better survival type fps than it is an rpg, I am by no means arguing for removal of rpg elements, Im saying the ones that are there are so fucking lousy, we might as well improve the gunplay.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Some of you people are absolutely ridiculous. "Not an RPG," holy shit.
I played NV and FO3 in 3rd person most of the time. I switch back and forth but I prefer 3rd person.
People cant stop themselves from overreacting for some reason. It's a bit weird. I'm not entirely sure what it is. Extreme cynicism, maybe. Total pessimistic outlook. I kinda wish I understood it more. But it happens all the time. ALL the time.
Silent Chief
Member
There's no such thing as really good. What's the difference between player A who sucks and player B who is elite, if they both pull the trigger with the target in the middle of the crosshair? If the stats say you miss, how can being really good help compensate for that?
Either the bullet goes where you click or it goes somewhere close to it. It can't be both. Maybe they'll reduce the spray, but Fallout 3 was an uber easy game. It was my first platinum trophy.
OrlanisWorks
Banned
That's silly.
I felt Fallout 3 was a lot more reasonable with stat combat than Morrowind, in which it would take me 10-15 strikes to kill a rat right at my fucking feet.
Stats should absolutely play a part in your aim, but I'm all in support of making your ability to aim count. There needs to be a balance. I look forward to better combat in Fallout 4. Fallout 3 left something for New Vegas to pick up and do pretty great with. NV was strangely a lot more fun due to that.
BobTheFork
Member
People get personally attached to things they didn't make all the time. I honestly think people see it as a personal insult. Like someone told them THEY need to change or aren't good enough as the things they like evolve.
Silent Chief
Member
The opinions are divided. Some people want more role playing, some want a generic shooter. It's okay to react negatively when you're offered the opposite of what you want.
I think the shooting was fine. I just hated the NPCs and the dam dog dying all the time.
Because when you have multiple enemies attacking and they're moving it's not so easy to put your sights right on target. A good player will be able to while a bad one won't as much.
This is especially true if your aiming for a specific part of the body like the head.
Octavianus
Banned
Ha, that's my exact reaction to what Bethesda is doing to this IP as well!
Oh snap!
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
I think NV had a pretty good handle on the balance between skill and RPG. Taking careful aim should reduce the spread, but if your character can't handle the gun well, the aiming was harder because the gun would sway back and forth more.
With FO3 I definitely felt like they took the skill level away a bit too much. So I am happy to see they are taking it up at least a notch.
In the end though, since even XB1 is eventually getting mod support (with potentially ps4 in the future as well), there is almost a guarantee that we'll have the option to easily find a mod that suits what each individual likes. Welcome to the future (of 20 years ago or whenever modding became popular).
With FO3 I definitely felt like they took the skill level away a bit too much. So I am happy to see they are taking it up at least a notch.
In the end though, since even XB1 is eventually getting mod support (with potentially ps4 in the future as well), there is almost a guarantee that we'll have the option to easily find a mod that suits what each individual likes. Welcome to the future (of 20 years ago or whenever modding became popular).
NullPointer
Member
Players in RPGs can already make very smart and knowledgeable decisions for their characters even when their characters may have low IQ. Agency matters, above and beyond stats.
Silent Chief
Member
RPG players are more like poker players than pool players.
RPG players are more likely to work around the lack of accuracy by
1) avoiding conflicts
2) using stealth
3) using melee
4) improving the accuracy of one weapon and sticking to it.
Now RPG players will switch to the more powerful weapon they find and pull their points in charisma, intelligence, etc. (potentially skills they lack in real life).
Skyball Paint
Member
The problem is that the actual combat of pretty much every "RPG with shooter elements" sucks because the developers do everything in their power to make shooting guns at low levels as miserable as possible, without impairing the enemy whatsoever.
So while you have an approximately 50% chance of hitting the floor if you point a gun directly below yourself and fire, your enemies are running around, shooting full-auto from the hip with perfect accuracy from like a mile away. This happens in Mass Effect, it happens in Alpha Protocol, it happens in Fallout: New Vegas, and it's never fun.
Either I should be able to shoot without the game rolling a d20 to decide whether I actually hit, or low-level enemies should also suffer from abysmal marksmanship. I wish developers would go down one path or the other without waffling.
What? FPS's don't let me decide to solve a problem by using speech or intelligence checks. They don't allow me to go finding stuff to craft stuff with. They don't have several different skills I can get better at that help me get around stuff.
FPS's focus solely on the shooting in a game cause that's what they are concerned with, shooting. And that's it. There is no choose your own story. There is no choose how your character decides to solve this problem (other than what gun do you use).
FPS's more focus on player skill for how good they are at combat rather than the player being able to choose his character being good at something he might not be good at himself. The whole idea is your character is not you, your character can be better than you even on stuff. So that you are allowed to roleplay sitautions you'd not be so good in. But also your character can be weak and it will make you be weak cause your character is (That's the point in not letting you do stuff if your skills are low). You are roleplaying your character therefore you should be at the whim of how good your character is, not you.
Fallout was great cause for shooting you could choose to try it yourself if you found that fun (but if your character was weak in guns you'd not be so good regardless and you'd have to spend points you could spend elsehwere on guns if you wanted to be good at it), or if you sucked at aiming there was vats and you'd be entirely at the whim of how good your character was (but that meant when his/her stats/skills were high that he/she'd shoot better than you would).
Silent Chief
Member
Really? I didn't notice a difference. Well, except for the the switch from true bullet flight path to simulated bullet flight path. (In NV bullets don't come out of the barrel, they come out of the crosshairs).
Stiler
Member
To me, the whole "hit rolls" can take a flying leap.
It's a holdover from tabletop games where you needed Die rolls to simulate actions and time progression.
However in a computer game, with actual simulations, having a roll to hit something (when the player is the one who actually has to aim and do said action) it feels very out of place.
Morrowind, standing toe to toe agains tan enemy, swinging your sword clearly on them and having it "miss" because of the roll just absolutely made no sense in terms of a game mechanic.
They are other ways to have "rpg" elements that impact combat, but in a direct way that messes with what the player is doing to the point it detracts from what they "think" should happen and doesn't.
A good example of this? Mount and Blade.
The game has plenty of rpg elements, but also great action-combat.
You have an archer for instance, when you draw your bow and hold it back, you get a circular crosshair. Now the longer you "hold" your aim, the wider/shakier your aim gets. Your characters stats can influence this, allowing you to get a longer window to aim, a tighter crosshair, etc.
It doesn't feel like you "miss" when you aimed good, but it feels like that sweet spot between having "rpg elements" that influence the combat but not in a way that you, as the player, feel like it is "lying" or "interfering" with you because of some random die roll behind the scenes.
You can shape and build your character over time to develop them in a way that you can directly see how it changes what you can and can't do in the game.
I think a good action-rpg knows how to balance this, where the "action combat" feels like you as a player are "in control" while also having the rpg elements play a role in teh game but not at the cost of taking away from that control or presenting it in a way that it detracts from the action (like I though Morrowind's combat did).
It's a holdover from tabletop games where you needed Die rolls to simulate actions and time progression.
However in a computer game, with actual simulations, having a roll to hit something (when the player is the one who actually has to aim and do said action) it feels very out of place.
Morrowind, standing toe to toe agains tan enemy, swinging your sword clearly on them and having it "miss" because of the roll just absolutely made no sense in terms of a game mechanic.
They are other ways to have "rpg" elements that impact combat, but in a direct way that messes with what the player is doing to the point it detracts from what they "think" should happen and doesn't.
A good example of this? Mount and Blade.
The game has plenty of rpg elements, but also great action-combat.
You have an archer for instance, when you draw your bow and hold it back, you get a circular crosshair. Now the longer you "hold" your aim, the wider/shakier your aim gets. Your characters stats can influence this, allowing you to get a longer window to aim, a tighter crosshair, etc.
It doesn't feel like you "miss" when you aimed good, but it feels like that sweet spot between having "rpg elements" that influence the combat but not in a way that you, as the player, feel like it is "lying" or "interfering" with you because of some random die roll behind the scenes.
You can shape and build your character over time to develop them in a way that you can directly see how it changes what you can and can't do in the game.
I think a good action-rpg knows how to balance this, where the "action combat" feels like you as a player are "in control" while also having the rpg elements play a role in teh game but not at the cost of taking away from that control or presenting it in a way that it detracts from the action (like I though Morrowind's combat did).
MikeBreezy92
Member
You can't give the players direct agency and then make everything they do based on a dice roll...
Springfoot
Member
So I doubt they're going to do anything I'm about to mention, but I think it would be cool.
I think a really smart and fun way to handle this duality would be to have the stats directly affect the "physical" FPS aiming mechanics. Having low stats for areas that change your shooting effectiveness in VATS would then translate to wobbling, shaking, breathing sway, etc. in your weapons when you try to aim in first person.
Make it so aiming down the sights really means aiming down the physical front and rear sights, which you can see swinging and bobbing out of alignment if your stats are too low. It would significantly delay anyone trying to shoot accurately at a distance, and it would sort of turn it into a Golf-like minigame where you'd have to wait and pull the trigger at just the right time when everything was lined up - the timing for that would be unpredictable if multiple forms of movement were layered on top of each other (breathing undulation, micro hand quiver/shake, and macro shake/sway).
Meanwhile, if you ran up to melee range, none of that would matter and you could plug away at the enemy just as your character would regardless of low shooting stats.
Basically the idea you'd be working with here is a tradeoff between time and accuracy. VATS operates on a constant timeline, but choosing to use it means dealing with a variable accuracy rating that may cause a miss. Meanwhile choosing to shoot in FPS mode would penalize the player with time by forcing them wait until their sights align to give them a good shot, all in exchange for the ability to hit accurately if they do manage to pull the trigger at the right moment.
EDIT: To be clear, the turbulence of this weapon sway would scale with applicable skills. So if you had absolutely no points put into anything related to weapon accuracy, then your FPS aiming would look like you're in an earthquake and show your character's hand and weapon making wide swings around the entire screen, making hitting anything farther than point blank effectively impossible (even point blank would be hard, like they would literally aim almost straight up or to the side at certain points in the swinging motion with 0 stats). Meanwhile nearly maxed out stats would be similar to Call of Duty or Battlefield where your character is a machine and keeps the aim perfectly level and steady. Everything else in between would just be closer or further to one or the other.
I'm in total agreement though that the old Morrowind method of watching your character's sword literally swing through the enemy only for the behind-the-scenes dice mechanic deem it a "miss" was stupid and annoying. Meanwhile having the FPS mechanics give the player machine-like rock solid aim invalidates the use of VATS.
I think a really smart and fun way to handle this duality would be to have the stats directly affect the "physical" FPS aiming mechanics. Having low stats for areas that change your shooting effectiveness in VATS would then translate to wobbling, shaking, breathing sway, etc. in your weapons when you try to aim in first person.
Make it so aiming down the sights really means aiming down the physical front and rear sights, which you can see swinging and bobbing out of alignment if your stats are too low. It would significantly delay anyone trying to shoot accurately at a distance, and it would sort of turn it into a Golf-like minigame where you'd have to wait and pull the trigger at just the right time when everything was lined up - the timing for that would be unpredictable if multiple forms of movement were layered on top of each other (breathing undulation, micro hand quiver/shake, and macro shake/sway).
Meanwhile, if you ran up to melee range, none of that would matter and you could plug away at the enemy just as your character would regardless of low shooting stats.
Basically the idea you'd be working with here is a tradeoff between time and accuracy. VATS operates on a constant timeline, but choosing to use it means dealing with a variable accuracy rating that may cause a miss. Meanwhile choosing to shoot in FPS mode would penalize the player with time by forcing them wait until their sights align to give them a good shot, all in exchange for the ability to hit accurately if they do manage to pull the trigger at the right moment.
EDIT: To be clear, the turbulence of this weapon sway would scale with applicable skills. So if you had absolutely no points put into anything related to weapon accuracy, then your FPS aiming would look like you're in an earthquake and show your character's hand and weapon making wide swings around the entire screen, making hitting anything farther than point blank effectively impossible (even point blank would be hard, like they would literally aim almost straight up or to the side at certain points in the swinging motion with 0 stats). Meanwhile nearly maxed out stats would be similar to Call of Duty or Battlefield where your character is a machine and keeps the aim perfectly level and steady. Everything else in between would just be closer or further to one or the other.
I'm in total agreement though that the old Morrowind method of watching your character's sword literally swing through the enemy only for the behind-the-scenes dice mechanic deem it a "miss" was stupid and annoying. Meanwhile having the FPS mechanics give the player machine-like rock solid aim invalidates the use of VATS.