How Could Combat Be Improved?

[EvolutionZero]

Simulated bullet curve, shoot through.

 

Thats all Ive ever wanted added to combat, I hate how a thin piece of sheet metal offers the same cover as a steel dumpster -.-

 

And bullet curve, well thats hard to explain, you would have to google "Sniper Ghost Warrior" to see what I mean, but it would be nice if it did this only for sniper class weapons.

[Deleted2039153User]

My suggestions are more for the melee/unarmed weapons, as those are what I mostly use:

 

- The ability to do "special attacks" like Unarmed (i.e. Paralyzing Palm, Ranger Takedown) with Melee Weapons. I've asked about this before and it got few responses, but it seems to be difficult to implement. It would be great though if possible.

 

- Better blocking/guarding with Melee Weapons/Unarmed. I made a thread about this on mod requests, actually. It would be nice if there was a way to make blocking actually useful, like a much larger increase in defense and greatly reduced limb damage when your guard is up. Ideally, it would be even better if it did this but the benefits gradually lowered the longer you held down the block button so that you couldn't sit there and hold it all day fishing for a blocked attack.

 

- Tie some sort of fatigue to Melee Weapons/Unarmed. That way you can't just hit the button a bunch of times rapidly or you'll tire yourself out and get say, reduced attack speed or lowered attack strength. It would make melee fighting much more tactical.

 

It would also be awesome if you could target body parts in V.A.T.S. with Melee Weapons/Unarmed, but I know that one's pretty much impossible due to the game's engine.

[drakeelvin]

While working on my current mod project, Beyond Boulder Dome, someone brought up the issue of combat and the ways it might be lacking in Vegas. So for BBD, I want to improve upon the combat experience of the vanilla game.

 

That's where you come in. What is your opinion of the combat in New Vegas or Fallout 3? In what ways is it lacking? How could it be improved? Are there any combat elements you'd like to see? Do you have any cool ideas related to this topic?

 

Any and all opinions are welcomed!

 

Thanks!

 

Rob

 

A few things come to mind immediately:

 

A 360 degree threat indicator to tell you what quadrant you are getting shot at from, as well as always showing caution/danger even when you are standing up. The audio in the game is useless as far as telling what direction something is coming from and one can only hear a 1,000 lb. Deathclaw charging up behind you at full speed, snorting away, when it gets within 20 feet of you. So if it were possible to improve the audio detection of threats and combine that with visual feedback on direction that would be great. Motion detectors were around in Fallout 1, they ought to have been automated over the past century.

 

Add to that a poison indicator so I know if that's poison or bullets thats killing me, and how strong the poison is. You'd feel poison, you'd know. In this game you have no idea why your health bar moves half the time.

 

 

Enemy Balance:

 

This is a big one.

 

New Vegas is a game that early on is an absolute cake walk once you know what you are doing. A varmint rifle with a scope can take out nearly everything you meet in one shot, most of the raiders are extremely weak despite living in souch a tough environment. There are a few exceptions like the raider leaders. But it would be nice if there was some more balanced resiliance and toughness to the enemy. The only serious threat through the midgame are Giant Radscorpions and Nightstalkers, and I find Giant Radscoropions to be a well balanced "tough" challenge for the mid game, since they often run in packs.

 

But seriously, the only tough fights even against Fiends (the toughest of tough raiders) are when I have to walk through a door and get ambushed at point blank range, then they can hurt me.

 

However, later in the game you go from cruising to bruising (being bruised) by ridiculously overpowered enemies. The combat challenges go from easy/mediocre to off the charts when you run into Deathclaws or get pounced on by a swarm of Cazadors. You can go down in seconds often without time to get more than a couple of shots off unless you are using ED-E to spot threats and are being extremely cautious, or else know where the threats are from a previous save. I found this aspect of the game to be pure frustration and it long ago killed the immersion.

 

In one game I created the best armored and resiliant tank character I could, level 30 in full power armor with all the perks and implants for damage resistance, 50DT or so. A Deathclaw would still down me in two swipes, and the alpha male always killed me outright with one blow or left me at 10% health with half my limbs broken. It's just stupid.

 

Not even the best robots or turrets could even scratch me to much effect with that armor and perk loadout. The balance is so stupid I've longed stopped playing the game for combat, I just play for story and exploration. I don't even enjoy trying to fight a single deathclaw, becaues even though the modern power armor should help a lot more than it does, but it just doesn't help at all.

 

The problem with Deathclaws as I see it is their speed, damage output and critical chances are way off the charts so even having 50 DT and a powerful rifle is meaningless -- you might sneakshot the first one, then get a few shots off at the second one, and then get overrun. The Deathclaw Alpha (and he's not even the toughest one) still kills me easy in one or two blows when I have 50DT and 300+ health. I would say leave Deathclaws as defensively tough as they are but scale back their damage and criticals to something more in line with the best armors in the game. If Deathclaw attacks were 3x more powerful than the most powerful melee weapon in this game, they'd still probably be half as powerful as what they are currently, and maybe it would make Deathclaw hunting a more reasonable challenge.

 

Perhaps the other problem with Deathclaws is that the vanilla game limits you to two companions but when I've had 3 or 4 companions with mediocre armor but good guns, Deathclaws are way less of a problem.

 

So I would say on the lower end, increase enemy toughness more linearly as you go up levels, and at the higher levels, reduce the speed and toughness of Deathclaws to something reasonable, and certainly reduce their damage output and crit chances significantly. I don't care how tough the average Deathclaw is, it should not be hitting me regularly for 200+ damage every time it hits me, and often more than 250, when I'm fully tanked out in T-51B with all the toughness perks and implants there are, especially when the most powerful gun in the game only hits for 120 and maybe 200+ on the rare crit. In that gear I have, I can laugh at nearly everything else I meet, then along comes this one type of creature that makes it all pointless.

 

Just my two bits.