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Fallout 3D Fallouts VATS System

Did you like the 3D Falout's VATS System?

  • YES!

    Votes: 22 27.2%
  • NO!

    Votes: 45 55.6%
  • Kingcomrade!

    Votes: 14 17.3%

  • Total voters
    81

Falksi

Arcane
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
10,538
Location
Nottingham
Did you like them, hate them or somewhere in the middle?

Personally i liked them, especially with the bloody mess perk. I thought it was very gimmicky & cheap, but still found it entertaining enough throughout to keep using it.
 

Curratum

Guest
How is that any different from aiming for specific body parts in old games? I mean, I used it, not all the time, but it was good fun every now and then.

I have no strong feelings about it, really. It wasn't a flagship feature that sells the games for me, but it was good fun.
 

Wunderbar

Arcane
Joined
Nov 15, 2015
Messages
8,809
VATS in Fo3 and FNV is just a crutch. You can't handle our shitty real time combat? Just press V to win!

Fo4 slow-mo VATS is a huge improvement, but still far from something that can be called a good game mechanic. Maybe in Fo5 Bethesda will finally upgrade VATS into something tactical instead of it being an AP-based aimbot.
 

Falksi

Arcane
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
10,538
Location
Nottingham
How is that any different from aiming for specific body parts in old games? I mean, I used it, not all the time, but it was good fun every now and then.

I have no strong feelings about it, really. It wasn't a flagship feature that sells the games for me, but it was good fun.

Because in the old games it wasn't displayed in 3-D.

Now I love isometric & 2-D games, and am no big fan of the 3-D revolution at all, but I'll admit it was just really entertaining seeing it all in action.

Bare in mind I love shit horror flicks, and am a big fan of things such as watching Freddy's cheesy kill scenes, and these to me had something of that "quality"





It was just fun to watch and felt satisfying.
 

Tavar

Cipher
Patron
Joined
Jun 6, 2020
Messages
1,046
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Germany
RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In
The only good thing about Fallout 3 is the prologue in the vault (and maybe that you can blow up megaton). Everything else is terrible, including the combat mechanics. In Fallout 2 aimed shots were an extension to the regular combat system, in Fallout 3 VATS is the exact opposite of the regular (and terrible) shooting mechanic. I'll never understand why shooter RPGs still refuse to copy System Shock 2. Just make the weapons handle like regular weapons in shooters and use attributes/skills as a requirement to use them at all. This is a clean system that everyone can understand and it doesn't break immersion like missing a super mutant half a meter away because your skill is too low.
 
Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
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Joined
Apr 30, 2020
Messages
3,292
Location
Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
I generally like it. Its a neat way to bring stats into a shooty rpg without having a frustrating miss mechanic like in Morrowind. Makes builds possible which dont just want to pump the damage raising attribute like in other shooty rpgs and gives a lot of stats a reason to exist.

Also using it in itself is a bit shallow, since you will usually just target the head, or cancel and reposition until you can target the head with high %, but its still somewhat satisfying, especially with the manual crit Fallout 4 added, and sometimes it leads to some interesting decision making where you get high accuracy for sub optimal body parts. I think more shooty rpgs should try something like it.
 

Morblot

Aberrant Member | Star Trek V Apologist
Patron
Joined
Aug 30, 2014
Messages
2,288
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Finland
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut
Basically yes, but actually no. In New Vegas having to shoot a random raider 5 times in the head to kill her in VATS really killed my immersion. It was often actually easier to just serious sam the shit out of the enemies (= hold S and mouse1 down until everyone is dead). Also there was the bug where your gun's barrel clipped through the enemy and therefore of course missed them completely.
 
Unwanted

Sweeper

Unwanted
Zionist Agent
Joined
Jul 28, 2018
Messages
2,394
I killed the vast majority of enemies with VATS in 3, it's far less useful in NV though.
I liked it well enough.
 

Feyd Rautha

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Apr 17, 2009
Messages
1,934
Location
Nestled atop the cliffs
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
The FPS part of the 3d Fallouts worked so terrible that I had to continue use VATS to be able to hit people at all. Without it aiming was difficult. And Fallout 3 didn't even have iron sights.
It was also important to use VATS if you wanted to conserve your ammunition. So essentially it was just a god mode gimmick.
 

Ol' Willy

Arcane
Zionist Agent Vatnik
Joined
May 3, 2020
Messages
24,574
Location
Reichskommissariat Russland ᛋᛋ
Are you guys retarded?

Let's see: we have a regular shooting mechanics. Poor, and largely independent of stats (gun skill affects scope swaying and that mostly all). There's no point in investing in gun skills unless one intends to use VATS.

But here comes the magic awesome button! Press V for VATS. Time magically stops. Click on the head until you out of your AP. Press E. Watch enemy die.

Proper gun "build" (kek, builds in F3) allows you to kill everyone in VATS. High gun skill for perfect accuracy, perk that replenishes your AP if you kill the critter, stealth to creep on them. How it goes: crouch to enable stealth. Come close to enemy. Enable VATS. Select head for all your AP. Press E. Rinse and repeat. Oh, and also you are invisible while you in VATS!

Magic time stopping powers have no business in Fallout games. VATS is absolutely out of place in Bethpizda games.
 

Carrion

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 30, 2011
Messages
3,648
Location
Lost in Necropolis
I don't like it since it's essentially a tacked-on superpower that gives you an unfair advantage in combat compared to your enemies. It's also not particularly satisfying to use since the gore and ragdolls are pathetic compared to FO1&2. The worst crime is that you can't even aim for the crotch.

I would've preferred to see stats have a greater impact on combat outside of VATS. I especially disliked how Agility was more or less useless in combat for melee characters aside from your action points in VATS, making it a potential dump stat for them.
 

The Jester

Cipher
Joined
Mar 1, 2020
Messages
1,414
I don't use it, don't like it, it feels like cheating to me.
Never played 3 but in new vegas i replace vats with bullet time and even then i barely use it.
 

EldarEldrad

Savant
Joined
Sep 13, 2017
Messages
253
Location
Russia
3D Fallout VATS is shit. Fallout 3 is shit in every aspect.

In fact, even original Fallout mechanics to shoot specific point was cool, but not even good due to its balance issues.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
It was taken from GURPS.
Yep, I know, but what worked good in GURPS, does not work properly in another system. Especially if this new system allow character' HP differ in 10x scale or easily get +200% hit chance to negate accuracy penalty for eye shot.
It was good for what it was and likely caused a lot of RPGs to adapt a similar body part targeting system.
I agree that it was broken and could be abused though.
 

Falksi

Arcane
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
10,538
Location
Nottingham
Are you guys retarded?

Let's see: we have a regular shooting mechanics. Poor, and largely independent of stats (gun skill affects scope swaying and that mostly all). There's no point in investing in gun skills unless one intends to use VATS.

But here comes the magic awesome button! Press V for VATS. Time magically stops. Click on the head until you out of your AP. Press E. Watch enemy die.

Proper gun "build" (kek, builds in F3) allows you to kill everyone in VATS. High gun skill for perfect accuracy, perk that replenishes your AP if you kill the critter, stealth to creep on them. How it goes: crouch to enable stealth. Come close to enemy. Enable VATS. Select head for all your AP. Press E. Rinse and repeat. Oh, and also you are invisible while you in VATS!

Magic time stopping powers have no business in Fallout games. VATS is absolutely out of place in Bethpizda games.

See, I don't disagree with those points. It is essentially an awesome button.

But what sets VATS apart is that it is pretty awesome. It's cheap, tacky, gimmicky, and doesn't hold much quality or tactical value, but it just looks fucking mint at times.

Combat generally tends to be a bit shit in these games anyway, so just having that satisfying gimmick goes a long way.

It's a bit like watching shit horror films for their death scenes. Plot, believability, acting quality etc. - none of that matters, like the 3-D fallout games' RPG elements it's all a bit shit. Watching the death scenes & daft humour etc. is where it's at.
 

Butter

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
7,523
VATS is some of the worst ludonarrative dissonance out there. Give the player an unexplained superpower (it's supposedly part of the pip-boy, but other characters with pip-boys can't make use of it) just to get around how fucking bad your real time combat is.
 

TemplarGR

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck Bethestard
Joined
May 30, 2013
Messages
5,815
Location
Cradle of Western Civilization
VATS is some of the worst ludonarrative dissonance out there. Give the player an unexplained superpower (it's supposedly part of the pip-boy, but other characters with pip-boys can't make use of it) just to get around how fucking bad your real time combat is.

OOOOOOOHHHHH i want super-realism alongside my ghouls my supermutants and my deathclaws. VATS has not been scientifically explained, ooooohhhh the horror.
 

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