Fallout3 Shortcomings & your ideas

[ancalimonungol]

I had a response all typed addressing what you said, but then I remembered you don't care, so I deleted it.

 

Instead, I'll just say this: Being able to take cover, aim, and not have a cruel roll of the dice decide my fate (ie: the switch to F/TPS) is far, far more immersive than standing one tile away from an enemy and missing 9 out of 10 times. That alone makes Fallout 3 a hundred fold more enjoyable than any previous Fallout game. And despite its flaws, it's still one of the best damned games I've seen or played in a good long while.

 

http://webbstuff.net/evilneko/trollsuccesful.jpg

 

Ummm. I agree with that.

 

Although back in the day Fallout2's fight system was the best we had.

Today Fallout3's is not really good when compared with other similar games.

 

That cruel roll of dice is still present I think. Otherwise what good are the stats? Apparently they are not used much (or at all) for role playing aspects.

[Teamkillerz]

 

Ummm. I agree with that.

 

Although back in the day Fallout2's fight system was the best we had.

Today Fallout3's is not really good when compared with other similar games.

 

That cruel roll of dice is still present I think. Otherwise what good are the stats? Apparently they are not used much (or at all) for role playing aspects.

 

Fallout 2 = Best fight system? Come on, it was medicore.

 

Also, previous fallouts had their share of useless stats never used in roleplay. Here's a run-down grading them based on usage and usefulness

 

Doctor: Rare, Useful

 

First Aid: Rare, Useless

 

Outdoorsman: Never, Useless

 

Small Guns: Rare, Very useful

 

Big guns: Never, Useless

 

Energy Weapons: Never, useless

 

Throwing: Never, Useless

 

Unarmed: Never, Useless

 

Melee: Never, Useless

 

Repair: Sometimes, Useful

 

Science: Sometimes, Useful

 

Sneak: Never, Useless

 

Steal: Never, Useless

 

Traps: Never, Somewhat useful

 

Lockpick: A lot, Useful

 

Barter: Never, Useless

 

Gambling: Never, Useless

 

Speech: Almost always, VERY VERY USEFUL

[Burbinator]

Unless you're a save/reload angel, outdoorsman is very useful. Enclave patrols with gauss weaponry will rape you unless you get the APA (which you can't get without passing through enclave patrol territory... uh oh). Try playing an ironman runthrough.

 

Steal is absolutely not useless. Reverse pickpocketing live explosives is one of the best ways of assassination and can net you a gauss weapon early on (NCR) for little pain. Or you can get a bozar from outskirts of NCR, or literally a dozen H&KG11e's from the people on the ship in San Fran. Even just stealing a couple stims or some ammunition is still a good way of stocking up early on. Unless you're one of those people who saves and loads so you don't worry about your % to succeed.

 

Obviously if you're going to be abusing the game, some skills aren't going to be useful. Why even talk about it then?

 

Big guns are far from useless. Vindicator burst mode at melee range will easily do 400-500 damage or more. You odn't need to use aimed shot, which means you can then get the trait fast shot. Your damage per ap point is the highest, you can easily wipe out 3 enemies if they line up with just one burst. Remember you can also get a bozar early on from pickpocketing the guards at NCR. This weapon can 1hk anything at close range.

 

Energy weapons are also not at all useless. You can get laser weaponry in Reno or hell, just head straight to navarro (but only possible if you have a high outdoorsman skill... see above). Plasma weapons do more damage than any small guns weapon except perhaps for gauss, but the ammo is more common than gauss.

 

Melee isn't actually useless. If you combine it with stealth, you can get those double damage hits (stealth from behind) and as long as it's all in one round, you can get multiple hits for double damage I believe. Also, mega power fist ignores armor. with a super low AP cost, going melee is actually a very viable strategy. Better than melee, anyway.

[ancalimonungol]

I'll write about my first time playing Fallout3. Here are what happened.

 

I choose a female. When dad came after I choose my stats, I kicked a ball and the ball went out of the door. I went after it. Dad went into the room looked at an empty floor and started to talk to me even though I was on the other room. I went into the room, and dad "tried" to look at me. He finished his speech and started to walk backwards but showing the walk forward animation! (Half Life1+Counterstrike?!?)

 

When I got the BBGun, I tried shooting dad countless times and he didn't do anything. (I would have taken the gun back as punishment! and that would have been the real Fallout way)

 

Then came the Future Imperfect part. I tried to help Amata by fighting the Tunnel Snakes. I was confident and determined to give them a good beating. Again, the game decided before I decided anything that the fight should end. They stopped fighting but I kept hitting them. They didn't even blink and tried to walk to the classroom but kept moon-walking (The first time I saw his I though it was an Easter-Egg about Michael Jackson) because I was on their way. Two of them became unconscious, and they got up after a couple of seconds. I kept hitting them and they didn't react. It was like playing a cute platform-adventure game where you hit some friend for fun they say ouch don't that.

 

My first couple of minutes playing Fallout3 was a huge disappointment. After I got out of the vault I liked the atmosphere a lot. Then I saw a guy trying to moonwalk on a catwalk in Megaton and he fell down into the radiated water. I thought to myself Fallout2 was buggy when it was first released. they will fix these things. After patch 1.7 we still have hundreds of documented bugs and many other imperfections that kills the role playing aspect of Fallout3..

[babyeatingdingo]

I'll write about my first time playing Fallout3. Here are what happened.

 

I choose a female. When dad came after I choose my stats, I kicked a ball and the ball went out of the door. I went after it. Dad went into the room looked at an empty floor and started to talk to me even though I was on the other room. I went into the room, and dad "tried" to look at me. He finished his speech and started to walk backwards but showing the walk forward animation! (Half Life1+Counterstrike?!?)

 

When I got the BBGun, I tried shooting dad countless times and he didn't do anything. (I would have taken the gun back as punishment! and that would have been the real Fallout way)

 

Then came the Future Imperfect part. I tried to help Amata by fighting the Tunnel Snakes. I was confident and determined to give them a good beating. Again, the game decided before I decided anything that the fight should end. They stopped fighting but I kept hitting them. They didn't even blink and tried to walk to the classroom but kept moon-walking (The first time I saw his I though it was an Easter-Egg about Michael Jackson) because I was on their way. Two of them became unconscious, and they got up after a couple of seconds. I kept hitting them and they didn't react. It was like playing a cute platform-adventure game where you hit some friend for fun they say ouch don't that.

 

My first couple of minutes playing Fallout3 was a huge disappointment. After I got out of the vault I liked the atmosphere a lot. Then I saw a guy trying to moonwalk on a catwalk in Megaton and he fell down into the radiated water. I thought to myself Fallout2 was buggy when it was first released. they will fix these things. After patch 1.7 we still have hundreds of documented bugs and many other imperfections that kills the role playing aspect of Fallout3..

 

 

Fallout 3 is a crappy game, just like Oblivion was.

 

 

you can make it much better through mods, but in the end mods can only do so much. you cant change the fact that they are both shoddily made, and that they are obviously unfinished.

 

 

its a huge disappointment. we need developers that can make QUALITY rpg's, like Morrowind and Fallout 1-2. apparently Bethesda is no longer that developer.

[HappyDingo]

LOL wow. We got everything in here, from those who are very critical and those that might as well be paid lobbyists for the capitalist free marked companies.

 

This thread seems most likely dead....ish, but still. I must speak my piece. And what I say might have been mentioned several times, but it doesn't matter. Nor do I care.

 

Fallout 3 is great. I ordered the collector's edition of both the game and the prima game guide. I don't regret it, even though the games greatness is much because of the official DLC and fan made mods.

The fact that I've played through the game several times and have done most of what's doable every time proves it has staying power for some. But unfortunately it is easier to speak up about what is wrong than what is right, I let the hundreds of hours playing this game speak for itself.

 

But this is what needs to be improved in my opinion:

1. The armor: it's been mentioned before, but it doesn't matter if you slink in megaton in wasteland settler clothes, or if you come in with full enclave hellfire armor gatling laser ablaze. The reaction is pretty much the same: none. Some may sourly comment on you firing your weapon, but as long as you don't hit anyone, it's all cool. How hard could it be to make generic npcs react differently to someone clad as a raider, a BOS knight, or as an enclave trooper? Yeah it'd take some programming, but the npcs lack of reaction to you is a shame on this fine game. Which leads me to the second, well commented problem

 

2. yeah, the dialog: It baffles me that some of you try to defend this with beak and claw. The dialog is not good. No it's not (very) awful, but IT IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

Feel free to help me with examples, but:

- Elder Lyons when getting the power armor training from him. He repeats a sentence twice and sound necessary retarded.

- The Republic of Dave thing is a scripting disaster. You can go in, shoot him through the head (yeah I know the programmers can't think of all possibilities, but this is rather important), lie him face down on the dinner table, rip his head off and V-grab his head and bump it in both his wifes' and all his children's faces. Nobody say poo. In fact, they still say they can talk to you because (now dead and molested) Dave said it was ok. The only thing they notice is that he can't run for president anymore, and this show that they've though about the very likely possibility that Dave would get shot for his very provoking behavior. They just didn't follow through.

- The reaction for shooting very important npcs like Mortiary, the Sheriff Lucas, the doctor in town, should all have some npc reaction. It needn't be much, but the existing just doesn't do.

- Shooting Tenpenny. It's highly likely as it's actually a side-quest. Nobody notices, nobody cares. His captain of the guards doesn't care nor notice, nor does his enemies in the train station. Come on....was it really that hard to script and voice act a few minutes more?

- Asides from shooting people you shouldn't shoot, what about the Pitt? You save them from slavery....nothing happens, nobody cares. It's like you weren't even there. Dialogs still the same.

- You meet a lone wanderer, strangely survived from the grossly overpowered (in comparison to their environment) albino radscorpions suddenly plaguing the wasteland. What does he say? "go away" or something equally silly. There is so much that could have been said.....but no.

 

This list could easily have filled many pages. But one of the saddest parts is that you have a community willing to help. But many doesn't because of the voice acting challenge. And luckily they don't, because voice acting from fans may become horridly bad. I'm thinking that the decision to make (as good as) all dialog be covered in voice acting, while it sounds good, wasn't a good one. It sure wasn't modder friendly. I think many out there would be willing to improve the dialogs if they were just given the means to.

 

There are also more little shortcomings that I could comment on, but these two, dialog and reactions, are the biggest flaws of the game in my opinion. The DLCs and some usermods are very important to the game however.

 

Tl;dr: It's a great game in my opinion, with two major flaws. The dialogs is a tenth of what they could be, and the reactions to the players appearance and actions are too thin.