Legendary Deathclaw, was kitten

[secksegai]

You must have missed the whole "melee-focused character" bit.

 

There is no "challenge" to ranged unless you're a terrible shot and/or have terrible equipment. Or upgrade your enemies a bit through modding.

 

If one uses VATS then he/she forfeits any right to be complaining about things being too easy.

 

 

I don't even try the melee focused character because as far as I can tell the vanilla game doesn't have the wherewithall to do it with any style. Sure, I keep a big Morealin weapon for close encounters but I can only strike or block with it. I cannot target body parts in VATS and have no special moves worth the name.

 

We don't need a 'Riddick'-ulous amount of melee controls but as far as I'm concerned we don't have any!

 

You've got to invest into melee/unarmed for it to be worthwhile. My current system is lacking in the performance department, and as I've always played ranged in the FO games I always lean towards it. Melee's not pefect, but has come a long way from FO3.

[pjz]

The problem isn't with the aforementioned critter being too weak, it's that the best guns are immensely powerful, moreso if you powergame. Not that there's anything wrong with powergaming, but if there's a balance problem it's really with these guns themselves. Sniper rifles in the real world are certainly very effective when used the right way, but grunts don't carry them into close quarter battle because in that context they are terrible. FONV simply doesn't portray these guns in anything like a realistic way. It's a little better than it was in FO3, at least stuff like the minigun is worth looking at, but sniper rifles are stupidly powerful in pretty much all situations, not just sneak attacks at very long range.

 

Melee in general is just a great deal harder to play, and Survival feels like it's only barely implemented - all poisons derive from the same major components (cazador poison glands and horse nettle, because NOTHING ELSE IN THE WORLD is poisonous)

[TheNeutralGood]

You must have missed the whole "melee-focused character" bit.

 

There is no "challenge" to ranged unless you're a terrible shot and/or have terrible equipment. Or upgrade your enemies a bit through modding.

 

If one uses VATS then he/she forfeits any right to be complaining about things being too easy.

 

But the promontory isn't a cake walk, unless the spawns screw up. It isn't hard, but its not a place you can just run around and shoot unless you're on lower difficulties, the spawns failed, or you use vats.

 

But seriously complaining/bragging that things are too easy from a ranged perspective is pretty silly. Expecting enemies to be hard when they rarely even see you before they die makes no sense.

 

 

Thats what we call a balance issue. Using one style of play to it's max should be just as good as another style of play, if the game is designed right. Currently, it doesn't seem like there are any close quarters combat that is worthwhile. Odd that you cant make any weapons out of the deathclaw hands.

[WarKirby3333]

You must have missed the whole "melee-focused character" bit.

 

There is no "challenge" to ranged unless you're a terrible shot and/or have terrible equipment. Or upgrade your enemies a bit through modding.

 

If one uses VATS then he/she forfeits any right to be complaining about things being too easy.

 

But the promontory isn't a cake walk, unless the spawns screw up. It isn't hard, but its not a place you can just run around and shoot unless you're on lower difficulties, the spawns failed, or you use vats.

 

But seriously complaining/bragging that things are too easy from a ranged perspective is pretty silly. Expecting enemies to be hard when they rarely even see you before they die makes no sense.

 

 

Thats what we call a balance issue. Using one style of play to it's max should be just as good as another style of play, if the game is designed right. Currently, it doesn't seem like there are any close quarters combat that is worthwhile. Odd that you cant make any weapons out of the deathclaw hands.

 

I don't think you've posted what difficulty you were playing on yet?

 

Melee is a fairly viable playstyle. You just need to use cover, get good armour, and a good weapon asap. The "Oh, Baby!" unique super sledge is my personal favourite, it's very easy to get ahold of too, I believe you can do it from very early on if you can weave around nightstalkers.

[secksegai]

You must have missed the whole "melee-focused character" bit.

 

There is no "challenge" to ranged unless you're a terrible shot and/or have terrible equipment. Or upgrade your enemies a bit through modding.

 

If one uses VATS then he/she forfeits any right to be complaining about things being too easy.

 

But the promontory isn't a cake walk, unless the spawns screw up. It isn't hard, but its not a place you can just run around and shoot unless you're on lower difficulties, the spawns failed, or you use vats.

 

But seriously complaining/bragging that things are too easy from a ranged perspective is pretty silly. Expecting enemies to be hard when they rarely even see you before they die makes no sense.

 

 

Thats what we call a balance issue. Using one style of play to it's max should be just as good as another style of play, if the game is designed right. Currently, it doesn't seem like there are any close quarters combat that is worthwhile. Odd that you cant make any weapons out of the deathclaw hands.

 

 

With the current mechanics, you can only so go far to increase difficulty without breaking melee. DT basically nerfs high dpsecond weapons into needing a lot more ammo to be effective, whereas sniper rifles and other high dpsecond weapons are most effective.

 

If ranged combat was as dangerous as it could be, melee wouldn't be possible as you'd get killed closing the gap, like getting shot in the head. Ranged is powerful because not only does it require melee foes to close the distance (assuming they can), your enemy or enemies must also compensate for the distance (effectively reduced accuracy).

 

Logically speaking, ranged is always going to be better, this isn't a fantasy universe based in legends and magic.

 

I'm guessing you didn't play FO3 since you're unaware of the deathclaw gauntlet.

 

Oh, and I don't think you went to the Promontory, as you were probably in Quarry Junction. If you didn't do any swimming across a river, you weren't there. After running through it again last night, admittedly it wasn't very difficult for ranged if you are familiar with positioning (and exploiting the AI/collision geometry to be in your favor).

[pjz]

The thing is, there are many situations where various weapons have weaknesses .... except the sniper rifle. It excels in all situations (in FONV anyhow) due to its tiny weight, cheap and plentiful ammo, immense damage, reasonably quick rate of fire (if you're built for VATS then I'm pretty sure you can get four shots out of it) and vast range. Oh yeah it can be silenced too (not that that really matters too much). Plus if you take Jury Rigging (such a great perk) you can repair it to full pretty much any time, for 750ish caps. Yes the AMR can be repaired for cheaper, but it isn't nearly as flexible, FONV sniper rifles pretty much trump everything in all ways.

 

Melee is inferior by orders of magnitude even using the sniper rifle at point blank range, even when not being stealthy. Energy weaps are terrible at the moment, and while Bethesda has said they're going to give various ammunitions an "armor piercing" feature, it doesn't sound like they're going to change the crazy ammo requirements for the upper tier zappers - seriously the ammo they require in the vanilla game is nuts.

[pjz]

I've discovered that there's a vendor in Hoover Dam that sells gobs of pretty much all kinds of ammo, which pretty much removes any concern of ammo rarity (450 .50 cal for example, and large amounts of everything else except no mini nukes). It makes sense given the context. :confused:

[Zephyr2011]

I got really sick of sniper rifles being so overpowered in all situations I altered them in the GECK to save my sanity in FO3 and I'm about to in NV. What I did in FO3 was set their damage to pitiful, I left their RoF the same, and then I cranked their critical damage and set critical chance to multiplier to x0 so that you absolutely could not get crits with them unless you were sneaking and undetected. It had some flaws (for example a sniper should still blow a guys head off if he's charging at you from 100 yards off or shooting at you for that matter but theres no distance checking stuff) however it did force both myself and NPCs to stop hip shooting at everything and just cleaning up like its nothing. My scripting has come quite a ways so I think this go around I'm going to tweak a little more. Something else that would be really interesting would be an integrated global script for increasing weapon spread dramatically once targets get too close for effective range as presently someone with a sniper rifle and a steady mouse hand can still blow anyone to pieces while they are mauled at point blank. Just my musings there.

 

On melee I'm severely dissapointed that it was as undeveloped as it is. Special attacks should be involved and I don't just mean a "backslash" option in VATS but atleast something more akin to oblivion, or far better, Morrowind in terms of combat playstyle. Making it a more tactical and feasible option with more a lot more strategy. It only takes one good knife stroke to kill someone after all. One stab through an eye socket or between the ribs or a slashed jugular and you're gone and I feel like melee should reflect that "deadly when precise" power. Course hacking and slashing into a bullet proof vest isn't going to do much and it should reflect that as well.

[secksegai]

The thing is, there are many situations where various weapons have weaknesses .... except the sniper rifle. It excels in all situations (in FONV anyhow) due to its tiny weight, cheap and plentiful ammo, immense damage, reasonably quick rate of fire (if you're built for VATS then I'm pretty sure you can get four shots out of it) and vast range. Oh yeah it can be silenced too (not that that really matters too much). Plus if you take Jury Rigging (such a great perk) you can repair it to full pretty much any time, for 750ish caps. Yes the AMR can be repaired for cheaper, but it isn't nearly as flexible, FONV sniper rifles pretty much trump everything in all ways.

 

Melee is inferior by orders of magnitude even using the sniper rifle at point blank range, even when not being stealthy. Energy weaps are terrible at the moment, and while Bethesda has said they're going to give various ammunitions an "armor piercing" feature, it doesn't sound like they're going to change the crazy ammo requirements for the upper tier zappers - seriously the ammo they require in the vanilla game is nuts.

 

In the vanilla game, that's just it, the sniper rifle is the most versatile weapon. I was really disappointed when I tried the AMR the first time, as I did basically the same damage (if not more) with the sniper rifle since its possible to get a 100% crit hit chance, yet the AMR doesn't get the same 5x crit multiplier. It's also probably the main cause for my love/hate relationship with the DT system. As DT basically nerfs all the rapid fire weapons against almost all the targets you'd really want to use them for, the game practically begs you to use it. Miniguns should be threatening for their sheer size alone. Having to dump a full belt (or box or whatever) into an armored npc/creature takes any real value out of the weapon, especially when cost per kill is evaluated.

 

Melee will always have its drawbacks, like needing to heal more (unless life leech is added) and needing to repair more since you're taking more damage. I always saw melee as more of an rp or playstyle choice.

 

Energy weapons are definitely disappointing in the vanilla game, without modding there's no real reason for the ranged player to stray from guns.

 

While I enjoy being able to utilize the sniper rifle much more in FONV, it's just not right that no other weapon can compare in lethality.

[pjz]

Granted that the sniper game is implemented very well and is pretty engaging and fun, if you like sniper games (and I do). I agree with you that the damage threshold system is really the heart of the problem, it's a nice concept but it puts way too much favor on a small number of weapons, at least until your character finds some way of bypassing a lot of DT (not really possible for energy weapons in the vanilla game).