Interview Pete Hines chats with Gaming Source

[Volourn]

Not to mention, the IE games take more advantage of chokes, ambushes, and the like as well which helps it too. the FOs, of course, have called shots, to give it an edge as well...

 

[Transcendent One]

I personally think BG2's spell system alone makes it far more tactical than anything possible in Fallout. It just allows for a whole lot more things than whatever Fallout offered (uhh... target shots and two ways of attacking for most weapons).

 

[Shevek]

The depth of tactics is not just based on the number of actions one can perform in combat. Its also based on how combat is approached. For example, KoTOR had lots of force powers but it was extremely chaotic and nontactical. Similarly, Jagged Alliance 2 had no spells or drugs or as many types of called shots and it was a very tactical title. BG2 sometimes allowed some interesting tactics (using area affect spells, setting up choke points, sequencers, buffs..) but also many spells were used to play paper rock scissors (ah, he has a spell protection on, but i have a spell protection bustah, oh, whats this, he has a spell protection bustah bustah!) which has no real tactical value or were simply some form of direct damage. Also, the RT nature of BG sometimes made navigating the batlefield more a game of chance since pathfinding could be random and actions can occur simulatenously which wreak havoc on tactical thought.

Jung:
Sure, early on when you are fighting rats or your accuracy is bad, the game isnt very tactical but I felt it picked up quite a bit as the game progressed.

 

[Snuffles]

Well i'm glad to see some people agree with me. It just seemed a bit odd people were raving about the combat, when it seemed to me, to be very basic.

With Fallout, I used the same move, over and over, then if I died, when I re-loaded, I used the same move, over and over again, but hoped for better rolls. I tried aiming at other body parts, but it never seemed to be as effective. It seemed silly to use another class of weapon as I had no skill points in them, so I just used the best weapon I found and stuck with it. I put what I thought was quite an average amount of points in my one combat skill as well, in what I thought would be a basic combat skill in small guns.

Positioning seemed a bit pointless, as most enemies could reach me in a couple of shots, and a tough encounter (one powerful enemy, or several medium enemies) took about 15 eye shots to win. So, no matter what you did, you ended up taking quite a few hits.

 

[triCritical]

Well i'm glad to see some people agree with me. It just seemed a bit odd people were raving about the combat, when it seemed to me, to be very basic.

With Fallout, I used the same move, over and over, then if I died, when I re-loaded, I used the same move, over and over again, but hoped for better rolls. I tried aiming at other body parts, but it never seemed to be as effective. It seemed silly to use another class of weapon as I had no skill points in them, so I just used the best weapon I found and stuck with it. I put what I thought was quite an average amount of points in my one combat skill as well, in what I thought would be a basic combat skill in small guns.

Positioning seemed a bit pointless, as most enemies could reach me in a couple of shots, and a tough encounter (one powerful enemy, or several medium enemies) took about 15 eye shots to win. So, no matter what you did, you ended up taking quite a few hits.

I can play any game in the world and just right click and call it easy. LOS is one thing that you are not taking into consideration. Scarcity of ammunition, and burst. If you don't have any skill points in any other weapon class, whose fault is that? Should I feel sorry for the guy that did not diversify his stocks and consequently lost all his money? Furthemore, is doing the same thing over again after dying really an argument against simplicity? After all, just because you don't try to use different tactics does not mean that there are no other tactical options.

 

[triCritical]

Not to mention, the IE games take more advantage of chokes, ambushes, and the like as well which helps it too.

This is more like taking advantage of some of the stupidest AI ever. Chokes in IE games are cheese, if it was a real game it was included LOS.

 

[suibhne]

Positioning seemed a bit pointless, as most enemies could reach me in a couple of shots, and a tough encounter (one powerful enemy, or several medium enemies) took about 15 eye shots to win. So, no matter what you did, you ended up taking quite a few hits.

I'm interested in the fact that, although my first Fallout character was a sniper, I never had the experience you describe. By the end of the game, I was taking out deathclaws and super mutants with single shots - albeit glorious-bloody criticals. Combat was still relatively challenging, but my experience was different from your experience because of the way I built my character.

Combat complexity isn't only about the complexity of the actual combat mechanics; it's also about the broad range of combat mechanics available to different types of character builds.

I agree with the point that FO's combat could have been much more tactical. Aside from high-level farkling with mage spells, though, FO is more tactical than the BG series, and vastly more tactical than Morrowind (which I otherwise enjoyed - though I'm damn tired of having to list that as an asinine disclaimer).

 

[Volourn]

"This is more like taking advantage of some of the stupidest AI ever. Chokes in IE games are cheese, if it was a real game it was included LOS."

Liar.

 

[mr. lamat]

fallout's combat was extremely basic and nothing to write home about. was it more tactical than skeetball? yes. was it tactical combat? not really. keeping track of ap's and targeting specific points on a body with line of sight functioning isn't all that in-depth. is it a step up from spamming spells and having your tanks block a doorway in bg? sure. was it lightyears beyond morrowind's combat? most definately.

too say it was indepth... that's a bit of a stretch. it was honestly one of the weakest points in the fallout series (ranking right behind the story-line and worldcrafting of fallout2). there's serious room for improvement on the model and holding it up as a finely tuned example of what the combat should be is sad. silent storm and the toee steam engine are far better for a reference on what a modern, good tactical combat system should be.

 

[Greenskin13]

Sure could use a bagel right now....

Mr. Lamat, I agree. The problem I have is that these people have the logic that 'Fallout's combat wasn't that in depth, ergo we should make combat in real time'. That's not right, and it's not evolution. Instead, I think we should keep it in TB and instead add all the little things that made these new TB games (like Silent Storm) better. Me and Spazmo had a brief discussion about what things we should add, and we came up with things like stances, aimed shots and other things we 'borrowed' from SS. So while I think FO's combat can be improved, let's not toss the baby out with the bath water.

 

[mr. lamat]

i'd prefer it if they kept the baby too. something like silent storm or freedom force would be my choice, cuz frankly, i am old and real-time makes my heart flutter and i can barely keep up. i have sad visions of a raider screaming "you n'wah" while stabbing at my character in a herky-jerky fashion while i'll fumble around with the controller.

at this point though, i'm rather resigned to the fact there isn't going to be tb combat in fo3. i don't even think we'll get the pseudo-tactical spamfest of kotor. hearing over and over again how fallout's combat was so great is bloody annoying, though. sometimes, i feel it's better to admit to a weakness in a product and use examples from others to prove a point.

 

[suibhne]

Re: Sure could use a bagel right now....

The more I think about it, the more I think I wouldn't mind first-person perspective - for called shots only. Assuming a top-down 3D engine, I wouldn't have any beef with switching into FPV to line up your called shot, choosing the targeted body part by literally targeting it rather than selecting it in a generic menu screen. Done right, it could actually be kinda cool (though, depending on the granularity of NPC control, it opens up important philosophical questions for the game design, about seeing things directly from an NPC's perspective). It would add "realism" and "immersiveness," whatever the hell those are, but maybe it would just seem gimmicky.

 

[suibhne]

at this point though, i'm rather resigned to the fact there isn't going to be tb combat in fo3. i don't even think we'll get the pseudo-tactical spamfest of kotor. hearing over and over again how fallout's combat was so great is bloody annoying, though. sometimes, i feel it's better to admit to a weakness in a product and use examples from others to prove a point.

I think part of the reason I've described it as "tactical" isn't because it has tactical depth, exactly, but because it's well-balanced. The actual combat mechanics aren't any better than Arcanum's, but the overall character system is so much more balanced than Arcanum's that combat simply works better.

I hope Bethesda learns this lesson.

 

[mr. lamat]

having the camera zoom from a top-down perspective ala silent storm to along the barrel of your gun in a first-person perspective, for targeting purposes would be cool. pointless, but pointless like fins on a cadillac.

 

[triCritical]

silent storm and the toee steam engine are far better for a reference on what a modern, good tactical combat system should be.

Modern is the key word, and FO is about six years old now. I would hope that a FO made today would be up to par. However, SIlent Storm might be too much for a CRPG, in which if designed correctly, combat can be avoided entirely.

 

[Avin]

hmmm... really... fo1 and fo2 aren't the best tactic combat games evah... toee excels them single handed. it does not make toee better than the great FALLOUT 1, for sure.