Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Fallout 3 2D/TB vs 3D/FPS

mister lamat

Scholar
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
570
For example you can't possibly simulate the complexity and scenarios of a TB game in a FPS.

stalker on it's highest level of difficulty differs from your statement, with the added bonuses of having to think on the fly and constantly react.
 

Dpayne

Scholar
Joined
Mar 23, 2007
Messages
341
I actually think a lot of the spirit of Fallout combat would be lost in an FPS situation. Called shots are no longer a reflection of how one designed their character, but merely a reflection of my own ability with a mouse. Burst fire is no longer a powerful risk (with party members), but now simply a matter of holding down the mouse button. Dodging no longer reflects my characters agility or armor but rather my own ability to strafe and run away. Additionally, just because my character is more agile I do not necessarily recieve more actions or the ability to act more quickly than my opponent that all becomes a reflection of my own abilities a player. Numerous perks, abilities and combat skills would essenially be meaningless if I was even remotely competent. I know these things could be engineered into the game, but considering how combat functions in Oblivion none of these would be present.
 
Joined
Oct 8, 2006
Messages
452
KingComrade said:
No, that's not what I'm tired of. I'm tired of people jacking off about their amazing and impressive knowledge of pedanticism.

Oh, foolish me. But:

Some random dictionary said:
2 a : one who makes a show of knowledge b : one who is unimaginative or who unduly emphasizes minutiae in the presentation or use of knowledge c : a formalist or precisionist in teaching

A: I am not making a show of knowledge, since it was pertaining to what i was answering and i just exposed a general definition, not my knowledge on the topic. If you think a definition is knowledge, your opinion is worthless anyway B: I would have been emphatizing minutiae in the presentation or use of knowledge had i began quoting some obscure passages of some obscures FMs or similar, not a pretty simple definition of a word. Definitions are always implied in words, i just pointed at it and said "Hey, you used it in an ambiguous way" C: Since i am not teaching anything anyone, it does not follow.

See the difference? Now i am being pedantic, and even then not really. Before, he said tactics, i pointed why he was using the word in a wrong way to reach the conclussion he wanted to reach. Go flame someone else.

Dpayne said:
I actually think a lot of the spirit of Fallout combat would be lost in an FPS situation.

Fallout combat had not spirit, to begin with. Even if most people around here acts like it was the second comming, it was just a quite simple click-click-click thing without tactical depth outside called shots and quaffing a pot... a drug if things got ugly. Make a system for called shots to work in real time, make it real time, and you have something not very different from diablo, whit some companions running around like headless chickens without any kind of situational awareness. I would say Diablo II, but then all those spell like skills gave that one more tactical depth than the fallout combat systems ever had.

Yeah, burn me in the stake, but before think about what i am saying. Tell me one instance of deep, thoughtful, complex tactical combat in Fallout that relies not on abusing the braindead AI and the fact it had the same situational awareness your companions did.

I can remember quite a few instances of walking around the wasteland and getting some jet guys to "Random Encounter" me. The battle begins: They all zerg rush me in a big, pretty packed up bunch, through open ground (was there other kind?). That brings me memories of Diablo II in Hell Mode, just that it was easier in this case, since i just had to spam eye-shots until boredom.

Such a deep system, such spirit!

Give me a break. If someone here loves Fallout because of his combat system, he is an hypocrite.

[note] The funny thing? I never used weapons other than PISTOLS in my "serious" playthroughs. So much for deep, intellectual, challenging combat systems.

Dpayne said:
Numerous perks, abilities and combat skills would essenially be meaningless if I was even remotely competent.

Just like in the original, but this time depending on your skill and not in weak design? Wow.

I am not defending Beth, as i don't believe they can do it, but in either ITB or FPS a good character system can be used that would make the point rather pointless. System Shock II worked pretty well with his hybrid system, and even when it was not a full fledged RPG it made a precedent. Your own skills may have defined how things worked out in SOME cases, but then the character system said what you could do and what you could not even try. It is not perfect? Develop it and make it so. Do not make a prison out of some concept just because it is already done, and not as flawlessly as everyone suggests to begin with.

Disclaimer: I am not saying TB is dead or anything like that. But since this is a theorical discussion, as in "whatever we say is not going to change anything," i am saying you should be not making a flag out of something without being sincere about it to begin with, and consious that the fact you can't imagine something else working well does not mean is not possible.

In conclusion: Stop stereotyping FPSs and begin thinking how can you make a full fledged character system work well in one of those. Bethesda is going to do his own thing wichever conclusion we reach here.

Now, if you just want to bitch about it, be my guest. This is the Codex, bitching is our religion.
 

Dpayne

Scholar
Joined
Mar 23, 2007
Messages
341
Well frankly, I enjoyed the Vampire Bloodlines compromise, and I wouldn't be broken hearted if they took that route and added recruitable party members (although melee would certainly need to be balanced), but I think I'm one of the three people on this planet who really liked that game so maybe that wouldn't fly.

That said I can understand your complaints about Fallout's combat system, but if you look at them they're all things that could be changed and improved upon for a turnbased sequel. Make the AI sharper (able to do their own called shots for instance) add cover, hinder the effectiveness of most guns when you're standing next to someone (except shotguns). Add smarter party members, make them develop alongside you more consistently (the random levelling was kind of weak) also making their support skills more consistent and useful (if you have someone whose skill is repair make him good at it). Make weapons more interesting such as assault rifles with 3 shot burst and attached grenade launchers.

I'm just really of the belief that the turnbased combat is the best route, but honestly the combat is not my main concern with the Bethesda development, it's the writing and the ability to influence the course of events in the game through the player's decisions, then there's my concerns over the sense of humor and the adult content, don't be like movies don't dumb your product down to pg13 to sell it to a wider market. If this game gets less than a mature rating I will be very upset.
 
Joined
Oct 8, 2006
Messages
452
Dpayne said:
I'm just really of the belief that the turnbased combat is the best route, but honestly the combat is not my main concern with the Bethesda development, it's the writing and the ability to influence the course of events in the game through the player's decisions, then there's my concerns over the sense of humor and the adult content, don't be like movies don't dumb your product down to pg13 to sell it to a wider market. If this game gets less than a mature rating I will be very upset.

About the sense of humor and the adult content i am more concerned about they turning it into something of a more "in your face" nature than about them trying to get a PG13 rating. We are in the age of games glorifying the most decadent elements of our crumbling society, just because a young generation too worthless as to be truly nihilistic, and that so must become consciously decadent to be even something, thinks it is cool.

The humor and "adult content" in fallout was kind of inocent and naive. I am somewhat affraid they are going to turn it into something along the lines of all those "Be a dirty criminal without class! Be an almost corrupt cop! Be some random ghetto black guy!" games that are appearing as of late, where comic-like, immature violence and excess are the names of the thingy.

So i am more concerned about how will they earn a Mature rating, if they go that way, than about they making this one PG13, really.

Other than that, on the writing and causality topics we stand on the same side of the fence.
 

Dpayne

Scholar
Joined
Mar 23, 2007
Messages
341
Oh I agree with you about Fallout humor (it was very similar to the often satirical dialog found in Icewind Dale only not as constant). Playing through Fallout 2 again I'm still amused by certain jokes which would vanish in a Bethesda games. Jokes such as all the characters looking the same and someone speculating there was a cloning accident, or cracking a joke about there not being any children in Vault City and mistakenly thinking the game was the European version of Fallout (jabs at the industry and standards are always great). I think a sense of humor adds a lot of depth to a story. A world that can occasionally laugh at itself is a world I can laugh with. I want Fallout to be subtle and witty like a British sitcom not over the top and ridiculous like Family Guy.

As for the violence I often like the original game's approach where descriptions were often more gory than what was seen on screen (although the occasional melty and exploding deaths we a nice addition). I don't want everything I see on screen to get gibbed if I look at them wrong. I definately don't want the game to be post apocalyptic GTA or god forbid even worse Manhunt (second biggest piece of shit purchase I made after State of Emergency).
 

elander_

Arbiter
Joined
Oct 7, 2005
Messages
2,015
mister lamat said:
For example you can't possibly simulate the complexity and scenarios of a TB game in a FPS.

stalker on it's highest level of difficulty differs from your statement, with the added bonuses of having to think on the fly and constantly react.

I really doubt that. One reason is technological limitations. Stalker spends a huge amount of time rendering graphics and high poly npcs with skeletal animation and so has less time to process AI and can put less actors in the game. I bet Stalker uses an AI radius which makes everything outside this radius to stand still and do nothing. Second reason a TB game simplifies the game for tactical decisions. In a FPS you have fun playing in 1st person and using your reflexes. In a good and realistic FPS the gameplay is similar to a real combat situation but still doesn't compare to a TB game for tactical combat and complex AI. At the time when Fallout was released most FPS bots could not even pathfind correctly. There will always exist a huge difference in AI quality between TB games and FPS.
 

Attrebus

Novice
Joined
Feb 21, 2007
Messages
24
Now, considering FO3 is in all likely hood going to be in frist person view (Or behind the character or whatever), it'd be a neat feature to have "Aimed shots" work slightly differently to normal ones.

Say you want to do an aimed shot. The action pauses and you zoom into the creature. You say, aim where you want to shoot from the parts you can see, then it goes back to normal FP view. Put in a slight delay or something before shooting (Allowing the target to hide or whatever) and you fire. Accuracy depends on your skill in the weapon, reduced accuracy if you are hit before you fire and so on.

I personally think that'd give enough tactics into battles to make them interesting and mostly real time. I doubt anything like that will be implemented though.
 

suibhne

Erudite
Joined
Aug 21, 2003
Messages
1,951
Location
Chicago
I think a useful way to approach this question is to examine how SPECIAL would work in real-time first-person perspective. Mostly, tho, I can't believe we're having this conversation yet again. :wink:
 

Ivy Mike

Scholar
Joined
Jun 28, 2005
Messages
495
Location
Ground Zero
suibhne said:
I think a useful way to approach this question is to examine how SPECIAL would work in real-time first-person perspective. Mostly, tho, I can't believe we're having this conversation yet again. :wink:

I'm daring anyone to think up a way for SPECIAL to work in a real-time FPS enviroment. Why'd you have to pull that card out? You might just have killed this though provoking debate right there.
 

mister lamat

Scholar
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
570
I think a useful way to approach this question is to examine how SPECIAL would work in real-time first-person perspective. Mostly, tho, I can't believe we're having this conversation yet again.

keep the stats and perks, kill the skills. done.
 

Cronstadt

Scholar
Joined
Mar 29, 2007
Messages
143
Location
in ur base, killin ur d00dz.
I'd prefer for FO3 to retain the structure of the original, and the Fallout-y feeling be preminent over other concerns (and that means TB combat, presence of a party, multiple choices on how to go on your mission, etc - some of which call for either an isometrical perspective or a mobile camera, but certainly not a first person view), but this, of course, isn't the driving logic behind the production, and as everyone by now knows, FO3 is gonna be "Oblivion with guns", so the issue is rather rethorical.

Now for a bit of nitpicking...

Bloodeyes said:
I prefer turn based combat. I like to feel that I am limited by my character's strengths and weaknesses, rather than my own.

What kind of RT are we talking about here? In RTS or FPS-style, you are limited by your speed and coordination, which is why I consider them entirely inadequate choices for a RPG; in RTWP, you aren't: your characters abide by the precise rules of the setting which work in a fixed time frame - you only have to pause, issue oders, unpause, repeat.
 

stargelman

Scholar
Joined
Jan 21, 2006
Messages
337
Location
Funky Bebop Land
Hi Pete,

I've thought about what we can do with Fallout. Here are my preliminary thoughts.


Ok, let's reinvent Fallout:

- Make it 3D and realtime - everything else is just obsolete
- Less dialog. If people wanted to read, they'd buy a book. Use Oblivions system
- Make fighting more fun: add more futuristic and cool weapons that make stuff go 'boom'
- Make cool 'dungeons' with killer robots, like we had in Skynet
- Get rid of all the traits except 'bloody mess' and invent a few new ones
- Add barrels of radioactive goo that explode when you shoot them
- Add achievement points for the X-Box so the player feels like they achieve something
- Center everything around quests, for quests are the golden calf: write dialog for quests, design landscapes for quests, design everything for quests. Everything is a tool for the quest.The quest is holy.
- Let's be flexible with the 'lore' - most of the gamers will not have played the earlier two titles, so lets not be restricted by what they established
- Let's get some cool celebrity voices for the chief characters. Arnie would fit in nicely.
- Let's make sure we have good and evil factions
- Make sure a player can join all factions with the same character, because people these days only want to play games with a single character and don't want to miss out
- Let's make it violent but clean fun - no needles or nudity, that'd just look cheap and get us in legal hot water needlessly
- About music: has Jeremy Soule ever done any scifi material? I don't think so, but might be worth exploring. That or that guy that made the music for Star Wars, what's his name... John Williams

I think these ideas should go over really well with everybody - in the end the game will appeal to a lot of new fans as well as the old 'hardcore' ones. I still agree about your suggestion about keeping as quiet as possible about it all though. No need to give the more rabid guys out there more attack surface than necessary.


- Todd
 

rei1974

Scholar
Joined
Jan 11, 2006
Messages
105
3D and realtime already would make me not willing to buy it.
Seriously, there are no TBS games anymore around?
I'm playing Fantasy General with Dosbox now. One of my best gaming experience this year (2007) for a game made a bit of time ago (1995).

Realtime is cool for story games etc, but for Fallout?? no..please...!
 

User was nabbed fit

Guest
If it'll be at least as good as STALKER, I'd be willing to buy it. It wouldn't be a Fallout Fallout, but it could be entertaining. A bit like FO:T.
 

A_Leftist_Pig?

Scholar
Possibly Retarded
Joined
Apr 1, 2007
Messages
206
As in 90% of cases today: I will download it, play it at a friends, a IT café or test the Demo before I do anything. If I like it I'll buy it.


Perhaps though (such is the case with Doom 3 and Fallout 1 (I got F2 first) ) I will just buy it anyways. But I'm 100% sure that is NOT the case if the game is what you describe above :)
 

suibhne

Erudite
Joined
Aug 21, 2003
Messages
1,951
Location
Chicago
mister lamat said:
I think a useful way to approach this question is to examine how SPECIAL would work in real-time first-person perspective. Mostly, tho, I can't believe we're having this conversation yet again.

keep the stats and perks, kill the skills. done.

Not done, alas. Your response raises more questions (many) than it answers (...none :wink: ). E.g., how will you implement Perception in real-time 3D first-person perspective? What about Agility? Never mind your preference about perks and skills.
 

Kingston

Arcane
Joined
Jan 13, 2007
Messages
4,392
Location
I lack the wit to put something hilarious here
There could be a very crappy implimintation of SPECIAL in an fps.

Strength - Pretty obvious. How much you can carry, how hard you hit etc.

Perception - Perhaps some graphical effects, such as depth of field and all that.

Endurance - How long you can keep on going.

Charisma - Non-combat.

Intelligence - Non-combat, although could be used so that you fuck up with all weapons etc.

Agility - How fast you move, reload etc.

Luck - Perhaps the bullets penetrate through they guy competely or do double damage etc.

All in all, sounds pretty shitty.
 

rei1974

Scholar
Joined
Jan 11, 2006
Messages
105
A FPS... what about the control of the party then? Seems that the games where you control a party, TBS, are dead?
 

The Dude

Liturgist
Joined
Mar 17, 2007
Messages
727
Location
An abandoned hurricane.
Best Implementation of Fallout-like Combat with *focus on character skill* in a realtime FPS:

As soon as your crosshair is over an enemy it dissappear and is substituted with a targeting box a la flightsims and space sims, but more detailed. Maybe by the press of a button you can "lock on" to the enemy. By moving the mouse/analog stick in some way you can make called shots and such. Chance to hit and stuff like that is of course calculated on the fly, taking in range, skills and weapons just like the old FOs.

There are 2 problems with this however. The first is how to make all this as intuitive as possible. All this should hopefully happen in a split second after a few hours playing.

The second is how to make the targeting interface as unobtrusive as possible.

Neither of these problems is insurmountable though.

Personally I would prefer a system like this both to an Oblivion with guns system (the only thing increasing with character skill is damage) or a Deus Ex system.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom