Fallout3 Shortcomings & your ideas

[ancalimonungol]

The whole point I was trying to make is that you can't expect

 

Game A to be as good as Game B in an area Game B is specializes but is bad in almost every other aspect (like Dark Messiah)

 

as well as being as good as Game C in an area Game C specializes in but has limited other features (Like Call of Juarez)

 

and not expect Game A to have shortcomeing somewhere else.

 

 

Makeing a game is all about compromising based on the size of the team working on it and the amount of time to finish it. If Bethesda had spent their time makeing a complex meele system then they would have had to cut corners somewhere else to make up for the extra time spend of meele. If they had spent more money on better voice actors that would have had less money to higher texture artist or something.

 

If anything Bethesda is simply guilty of trying to do too much with limited time, money, and technology. But if you want a polished but less extensive game then go buy something else.

 

More can be done with less resources. Since Fallout3 owes its success to the success of the previous titles, it should be at least as good as the previous titles.

 

If a Fps engine is found more suitable to Fallout, than it should be made properly "without" losing the positive sides of the previous titles. If you do not preserve the positive sides of previous Fallout series, which young gamers know nothing about because after playing modern games, Fallout1 and Fallout2 are not that appealing to play for them and even some of the fans of Fallout, and trying to act like a FPS without much success, you have a mediocre game like Fallout3. And young gamers would think Fallout3 as the best game ever made after so much hype that a new Fallout is coming after years, without knowing that most of the good parts about original Fallout was removed from Fallout3 with only addition of the graphically impressive Oblivion's engine.

[Burbinator]

The whole point I was trying to make is that you can't expect

 

Game A to be as good as Game B in an area Game B is specializes but is bad in almost every other aspect (like Dark Messiah)

 

as well as being as good as Game C in an area Game C specializes in but has limited other features (Like Call of Juarez)

 

and not expect Game A to have shortcomeing somewhere else.

 

dark messiah is hardly "bad in every other aspect", considering it was more rpgish, better immersion, better voice acting, better stealth system AS WELL as better melee. I'm not expecting fo3 to be perfect in everything but when it's bad in everything, that's when you begin to wonder.

 

If anything Bethesda is simply guilty of trying to do too much with limited time, money, and technology.

 

I don't understand why they need to have such bad gameplay or rpg system though. The perks are very, very similar to fo2; it's not that they didn't spend enough time on the character development part, but that they seem not to have spent ANY time on it at all. The SPECIAL system is the same, in fact if anything your stats affect LESS in fo3 than it did previously (perception has no effect on aiming for example, intel affects very few speech options). They removed skills, rather than adding from fo2, making it even simpler. The repair system is straight rip off from oblivion. They removed "traits" that were from fo2. Can someone point me to where bethesda showed some originality and creativity in character development? And seriously, why is the gamebryo engine so bad at BOTH melee AND shooting? Take a decade old shooter like half life, notice how they don't have this "invisible wall" crap. Why should such a massive undertaking fail in such simple manner with technology ten years more advanced? I dunno man, wherever bethesda spent their money it wasn't terribly cost efficient.

 

1) Poor writing. quests are for the most part bland. I think everyone can agree that project purity was the lamest plot point in all 3 fallouts. They don't even emphasize how essential water is, since you never need to drink. The only time it's referenced outside of the quest itself is via the water beggars, who themselves have no depth whatsoever (whoopee, a karma exploit system. They don't ever do anything even if you give them a poolfull of purified water)

2) graphics are good in some regards but terrible in other ways. I mean, just look at vanilla females and their super broad shouldres. Too lazy to make a different skeleton for females, wow.

3) I've spent enough time on why the gameplay is bad

4) enormously unstable game. hard to make a game run perfect for all systems, but fo3 has more issues than most. So it's not as if bethesda spent lots of effort on bug testing, either.

 

But if you want a polished but less extensive game then go buy something else.

 

or I can mod it, which I did. Besides, it's a little late not to buy it. Or do you think I'm making stuff up without ever having played it?

 

If you do not preserve the positive sides of previous Fallout series, which young gamers know nothing about because after playing modern games, Fallout1 and Fallout2 are not that appealing to play for them and even some of the fans of Fallout, and trying to act like a FPS without much success, you have a mediocre game like Fallout3.

 

pretty much agree with you. FO3 removed a lot of the rpg parts (boring character development, actions have little effect on game world, poorer immersion) while, indeed, being a mediocre shooter. Meaning, it's sorta mediocre in everything.

 

I still think that FO3 is a good game. Just that bethesda could've done MUCH better than they did. Thank god for modders, i am eternally grateful to everyone that works on such things =)

[amcclell]

Remember that FO3 is based on the TES4 engine used in Oblivion as well, so FO3 is, to oversimplify, a hacked together total conversion for Oblivion.

 

Now, they did do engine modifications for FO3, so it's a bit more complicated than that, but really, a lot of these complaints about FO3 could also be said about Oblivion, especially with regard to graphics/stability. I'm not really saying that makes it BETTER, but if they had based it on a brand new engine instead, it probably would have been in development for a hell of a lot longer.

 

That said, the writing is a bit of a let down. It's functional, but it's not very interesting. Personally though, I think most of the story is told not through dialogue, but through all the little details in the Wasteland, and that IS done very well. FO3 isn't so much about the story as it is the setting. Really, the previous two fallout games weren't exactly stellar on story either. I mean, the plot of Fallout 1 was basically "Find a water chip -> Stop the supermutants. Do a lot of sidequests on the way". Fallout 2's story was a bit more involved, but it was still more about the overall setting of the game than the primary story arc.

 

Gameplay-wise, I do agree that vanilla FO3 is kind of on the dull side, but that's what mods are for. I'm finding the game a hell of a lot of fun with FWE, but really, FWE is NOT for everyone. If the game shipped like that, I bet a lot of people would claim that it was way too hard.

[Tertisentar]

The small details everywhere are indeed done quite well, but they make up the environment, not the story. A story develops through information, not through 'do this for me and do that for me and I'll tell you where the next person who wants you to do this and to do that will be' dialogue.

[Burbinator]

@cheshire: there's simply so little incentive to purify the water in FO3. I really don't care about it and it certainly doesn't affect anyone else. It doesn't affect anything outside of the quest itself, which bugs me. In FO2 it was all about stopping the enclave and the enclave had a pervasive presence. You meet horrigan soon in the wastes murdering some poor guy. You can call down a vertibird in Gecko, there's an enclave base in navarro dealing with a quest, you can see the evidence of the enclave in the military base, you observe an enclave weapons deal, the enclave actually destroys your hometown. Now, on the other hand, when does water ever actually affect you? Okay, sure, the enclave ends up becoming your main enemy anyway and kills your dad, but they don't affect any of the settlements, no one really cares. And I still don't give two craps about purified water.

[Ihoe]

Fallout 3 is a great game, though nothing is without problems.

 

the dialogue is cheesy, way too simple, one would not require high standards to say this. every thing a character says is predictable, you don't have to be careful with what you say, it's like talking to yourself, and only in your own personality, few characters in fallout 3 have their personality, you ask, they tell. I'm not comparing this to the previous titles which i haven't played, but to other games, and specially RPG games like Dragon Age: Origins (Not awakening).

 

the RPG elements are too simple, from character generation to morality. your skills are defined by numbers added each time you level up, you can be a gun expert by shooting with laser weapons the entire game and perks are not that special either. you get few choices to use lady killer perk in dialogue for example, attributes like intelligence don't have a real impact on dialogue at all, except from a few choices here and then. you morality is on based on three words : white, gray and black. titles are for decoration. in all your simple ended quests that you are given a choice to fix loose ends, you are either good, bad or sometimes neutral. and the majority of your actions die without consequences.

 

but in my opinion, on total, Fallout 3 is a great game, it's fun is sometimes because of it's simplicity, and that simplicity makes it mod-able for the average gamer.

[Hijaxx]

@cheshire: there's simply so little incentive to purify the water in FO3. I really don't care about it and it certainly doesn't affect anyone else. It doesn't affect anything outside of the quest itself, which bugs me. In FO2 it was all about stopping the enclave and the enclave had a pervasive presence. You meet horrigan soon in the wastes murdering some poor guy. You can call down a vertibird in Gecko, there's an enclave base in navarro dealing with a quest, you can see the evidence of the enclave in the military base, you observe an enclave weapons deal, the enclave actually destroys your hometown. Now, on the other hand, when does water ever actually affect you? Okay, sure, the enclave ends up becoming your main enemy anyway and kills your dad, but they don't affect any of the settlements, no one really cares. And I still don't give two craps about purified water.

 

This. is pure truth.

 

Actually, purifying the water must be the most STUPID thing to spend a lot of resources on, EVER. i mean, seriously, dirty water gives you what, two rads? imagine how MUCH you can drink of the stuff and still be clean with ONE appliance of RadAway. Maybe we should just find a quick way to make RadAway, and MOVE ON with our lives. Seriously, with all the tech the Enclave has, i'm surprised they give a DAMN about that purifier, they must have TONS of RadAway stored, seriously.

[Tertisentar]

For those of us that don't play Vanilla radiated water can be a pain in the ass when you actually need to drink :unsure: Most of my caps go to doctor bills, and I'm pretty sure the rest of the wastes isn't as wealthy as I am

[ancalimonungol]

Some other things just came to mind. Clipping and animation. Hair needs to be animated like in at least Vampire Bloodlines. We need to have a flexible animation system for characters. I'm fed up with seeing my character running sideways but he looks like he's running forward.

 

Find a way to stop characters from killing themselves by falling, or beaming to other parts of the map. Find a workaround if you can't implement a proper AI at least. Make them stationary, or make the characters clip through themselves. Just don't make them behave absurdly.

[Burbinator]

Some other things just came to mind. Clipping and animation. Hair needs to be animated like in at least Vampire Bloodlines. We need to have a flexible animation system for characters. I'm fed up with seeing my character running sideways but he looks like he's running forward.

 

Find a way to stop characters from killing themselves by falling, or beaming to other parts of the map. Find a workaround if you can't implement a proper AI at least. Make them stationary, or make the characters clip through themselves. Just don't make them behave absurdly.

 

haha yeah. for a game whose strength is in visuals, the animations are pretty bad. I mean, they didn't even include a backwards running animation.

 

Also, remember when Radiant AI was such a huge selling point of oblivion ? idk all the details but it doesn't seem very good to me. Take the stealth system, for example. In vanilla, if you 1hk a guy with a silenced weapon you can take out a whole camp even if they're right next to each other, watching each other's bodies fall. Or I can kick shopping carts halfway across the room into a metal shelf and no one notices. On the other hand, I can lock myself in a secluded room in megaton, kill a sleeping dude with a silencer, and have all of megaton go hostile. But wait, it gets better! no matter how many people you kill, you can just wait a day or so and then everyone magically forgets your mass murder. Conveniently, they don't forget who you are for quest purposes.

 

There were better stealth systems in deus ex. Good thing they made stealth crits overpowered or people wouldn't use it at all.

 

For those of us that don't play Vanilla radiated water can be a pain in the ass when you actually need to drink Most of my caps go to doctor bills, and I'm pretty sure the rest of the wastes isn't as wealthy as I am

 

I play FWE, radiated water is only a hassle when you need to wade/swim (it's like 30+ rads a second without resistance, ridiculous). However, you can easily get the environment suit early on (+30% rad resist), and there are various perks that have a side effect of rad resistance (the pitt DLC, wasteland guru, cyborg). Also, the water purifier is < 200 caps. Not only does it drop the rads tremendously, but purifying dirty water to good water (for those who don't know, you cant actually completely purify it) but it ups the hydration by a TON. It's like 17-18% a drink, meaning you can go for at least two~ game days without drinking. And since FWE turns down the time to 5:1 rather than 30:1, that's a long time. You don't even need to bring water with you, just leave it at home when you drop off all the items you can't sell.

 

You're gaining essentially 6~ rads every 2 days from drinking water, as long as you equip the rad resist armor. But even if it was 100, remember that alcohol in FWE reduces rads by 20. Beer costs like 2 caps but you don't even need to buy it, you find a TON everywhere in the game even if you use it on a regular basis (I've got like 120+ in my fridge just chillin).

 

tl;dr: there is no overhaul mod that actually makes drinking water difficult.

 

unless you're using something besides FWE, but I hear imps' complex needs is easier, just need different specific stuff.