slowpoke checking in: New Vegas

[Roguey]

I see, so kinaesthetics is the new visceral

What is it supposed to mean, though? The real meaning, afaik, is (roughly) the sensory input/experience of one's movements.

Gunfeel. Animations and sound working together to make you feel like you're really shooting a gun. I thought NV did a better job of this than AP, and especially Bloodlines and original Deus Ex. Could have been a lot better of course.

 

[Carrion]

How much health you take away from an opponent, how many shots it takes to down them. I one-shotted the legendary deathclaw (who has the most HP in the base campaign) with a sneak critical from the anti-materiel rifle. That's at least 1000 points of damage there. Even had I not been sneaking, I would have been able to kill it within 5 head shots or 5-10 torso shots. You call that "relatively low damage"?

Probably a question of difficulty level again, not to mention that from a player's perspective it's kind of problematic to use a deathclaw as some kind of a indicator of your damage since it's a fantasy creature. On Very Hard many enemies can take sneak headshots from gauss rifle without dying, especially in the DLCs where the HP bloat is worse. High level human enemies can usually survive many normal headshots even from some of the more effective weapons, even if you've maxed out your weapon skills.

Like those other shooters, New Vegas gives you a quick way to deal with the lousy stock accuracy. Having an active way to handle it is better than doing nothing while a reticule shrinks.

I prefer doing that through skill levels, which is what Deus Ex does. I think it's a good thing if a character who's untrained with a weapon seems a bit gimped.

 

[Roguey]

Probably a question of difficulty level again, not to mention that from a player's perspective it's kind of problematic to use a deathclaw as some kind of a indicator of your damage since it's a fantasy creature. On Very Hard many enemies can take sneak headshots from gauss rifle without dying, especially in the DLCs where the HP bloat is worse. High level human enemies can usually survive many normal headshots even from some of the more effective weapons, even if you've maxed out your weapon skills.

Well, don't play on a difficulty mode that literally cuts the amount of damage you do in half (Sawyer doesn't even play on Very Hard, his mod is balanced for normal). You could just modify those settings yourself to retain the double damage you take from enemies while dealing whatever you feel is comfortable.

 

[Carrion]

Well, don't play on a difficulty mode that literally cuts the amount of damage you do in half (Sawyer doesn't even play on Very Hard, his mod is balanced for normal). You could just modify those settings yourself to retain the double damage you take from enemies while dealing whatever you feel is comfortable.

Well, again I'd judge the game as it is rather than what it could be. The game is pretty easy even on Very Hard + Hardcore anyway so going below that wouldn't really be an option for me in vanilla New Vegas.

 

[oscar]

I wasn't minding it, then all of my NPCS disappeared when I used some elevator and I ragequit.

 

[Dustin542]

I wasn't minding it, then all of my NPCS disappeared when I used some elevator and I ragequit.

The companion dismissal terminal could fix that for you. You just have to pick them up where you got them afterwards.

 

[Marsal]

I see, so kinaesthetics is the new visceral

What is it supposed to mean, though? The real meaning, afaik, is (roughly) the sensory input/experience of one's movements.

It means just that in context of the gameplay. It's more than just "gunfeel" (although in a FPS it is a pretty significant element). It's the feeling of movement in the gameworld (climbing in Assassin's Creed, parkour in Mirror's Edge vs "floaty" movement in most games), inertia of weapon swings, quality of animation, responsiveness of controls, camera behavior (NWN2 )... I'd also include the interaction with the interface in mouse driven games (Fallout's nice click sound when you switch weapon modes).

It's the bridge between game sense and human senses. How satisfying is it to play a game just from the input standpoint. "Fighting" the controls/interface is a sign of bad kinaesthetics. I forgot how Errant dude defined it (watch his video), but that's how I see it.

 

[Gord]

Ah yes, I see, in summary it's a nice way for ones critique to sound more intelligent* while evaluating largely subjective qualities.


* I actually doubt whether one does when freely "re-labeling" words like this

 

[Marsal]

Ah yes, I see, in summary it's a nice way for ones critique to sound more intelligent* while evaluating largely subjective qualities.


* I actually doubt whether one does when freely "re-labeling" words like this

Aesthetics being subjective, you don't say?

Even then, it's easy to compare extremes. Fallout 3 (pretty much all Bethesda's Gamebryo games) are awful in this aspect. Is there even an argument to be made that New Vegas wouldn't be a much better game "kinaesthetically" if it was built around (for example) STALKER and not Fallout 3? It's the equivalent of comparing aesthetics (art style, not engine) of Oblivion and Assassin's Creed. There is a place for subjectivity, but isn't that the case in every opinion, ever? You have people who are not blind, yet like anime, FFS.

How would you call it? I think it's a good fit, but if you have a better description, I'm eager to hear it. It doesn't have to be a single word or have a Greek origin/root. We need a word to call "it", though. I think "gameplay" is too broad of a term and "tight controls" too narrow. Maybe "gamefeel"? That just sounds gay Kinaesthetics is more . We also need a proper (precise) definition, so have a go at that too.

EDIT: I think "polished" applied often to Blizzard comes (in part) from their games having good kinaesthetics. Even if Diablo 3 doesn't have great gameplay overall, it still has responsive controls and a nice weight behind Barbarian's hits, that makes shit go flying, for example (only played beta for a couple of hours, may be wrong for other classes).

 

[Gord]

Marsal, I'll freely admit that I don't have a good word I can just pull out of my ass like that.
It's one of those things were you have a more or less clear idea what you want to convey, yet you are lacking a specific word or expression.
I'm not sure about using "kinaesthetics" (literally meaning the ability to feel movements of the limbs and body), though, to describe the agglomerated "gameplay experience" of a computer game.

 

[Gurkog]

How much health you take away from an opponent, how many shots it takes to down them. I one-shotted the legendary deathclaw (who has the most HP in the base campaign) with a sneak critical from the anti-materiel rifle. That's at least 1000 points of damage there. Even had I not been sneaking, I would have been able to kill it within 5 head shots or 5-10 torso shots. You call that "relatively low damage"?

Probably a question of difficulty level again, not to mention that from a player's perspective it's kind of problematic to use a deathclaw as some kind of a indicator of your damage since it's a fantasy creature. On Very Hard many enemies can take sneak headshots from gauss rifle without dying, especially in the DLCs where the HP bloat is worse. High level human enemies can usually survive many normal headshots even from some of the more effective weapons, even if you've maxed out your weapon skills.

Like those other shooters, New Vegas gives you a quick way to deal with the lousy stock accuracy. Having an active way to handle it is better than doing nothing while a reticule shrinks.

I prefer doing that through skill levels, which is what Deus Ex does. I think it's a good thing if a character who's untrained with a weapon seems a bit gimped.

I just replayed the game again on Very Hard difficulty and could kill almost everything with a single sneak headshot. I took the Logan's loophole trait though (level capped at 30), because I hate the level bloat from DLC.

EDIT: Without sneak attacks most enemies only take 2-3 headshots. 'Spray and Pray' with high-end automatic weapons works well too, but uses a fuckton of ammo (just like the originals).

 

[Carrion]

I just replayed the game again on Very Hard difficulty and could kill almost everything with a single sneak headshot. I took the Logan's loophole trait though (level capped at 30), because I hate the level bloat from DLC.

EDIT: Without sneak attacks most enemies only take 2-3 headshots. 'Spray and Pray' with high-end automatic weapons works well too, but uses a fuckton of ammo (just like the originals).

Generic enemies usually die with one or two headshots in vanilla, but many unique enemies can take a lot more than that. Lanius has, what, 1000 hit points? High-level legionnaires in general can take a shitload of beating, even without power armor. Vault 34 security officers have 400 hit points, although they're ghouls so it's a bit more understandable. There are other examples that I can't remember right now as it's been a while since I played the game.

I think I picked every perk that improved critical hits on my last playthrough, and still most creatures in the DLCs were little more than tickled by my sneak criticals. Vanilla New Vegas is a lot more tolerable for the most part, but two or three normal head shots is still two or three times more than you'd expect. And if you're using a pistol instead of a rifle, you might need around a dozen head shots or so, even if the enemy is barely armored. If we come to the original point I brought up earlier in the thread, how can you estimate whether you're good with a weapon or not based on that kind of information?

I might add that although I used Gauss Rifle as an example earlier, I almost always pick Guns instead of Energy Weapons, which might have something to do with it considering that the former do a lot less damage. Still, underpowered (fantasy) energy weapons probably wouldn't be as obvious a problem as seeing someone take a .50 round in the face without even slowing down.

 

[Gord]

I think it's a safe bet that every half-way realistic damage model would cause orders of magnitude more bitching than bullet-spongy enemies.

 

[Carrion]

By whom? I'm probably just sounding like a broken record at this point, but Deus Ex had a half-way realistic damage model that would've fit New Vegas just fine if NV had similar combat mechanics. I can't really think of a good reason why anyone would bitch about that. You would still have deathclaws, cazadors, super mutants, robots, tougher human enemies with power armor and so on. I don't mean that you should necessarily have a system where a head shot is always lethal, but the weapons should really pack a lot more punch. The current system is pretty much based on HP bloat since you can shoot with great accuracy regardless of your skill, weapons have little recoil, and pretty much all the AI can do is either stand still or run straight at you. Basically the combat is about two or more people shooting each other in the head until someone runs out of hit points, spiced with the occasional VATS head shot.

I mean, if there's one thing I remember from the combat in Fallout and Fallout 2, it's not that people can take multiple gunshots in the face, it's that it's brutal as fuck. There's a guy who gets fucking cut in half and he'll still crawl on his belly to try to make you suffer. It's the exact opposite of what I feel about New Vegas' combat which is just dull and sterile all around, except for the ridiculous exploding bodies that you see about five thousand times during one playthrough.

 

[Roguey]

By RPG players.
http://www.formspring.me/JESawyer/q/359833383989169298

My job as a game designer is to get a sense for what people *enjoy*. Many people (e.g. people who play RPGs) enjoy having a sense of power progression, both through their characters and gear. "Face shot = death" as a standard does not scale well.

I'm not writing hypothetically. I mean I've set up the characters and damage models to do this, and that's what happens. If I take the extra step of "immersion" and make the player as fragile, all combats devolve into quick draw/distance competitions.

Melee/unarmed are impotent. If any combatant fires an explosive, the battle ends. Rifles and automatic weapons rule the battlefield. You can argue that it's more realistic, but it doesn't feel like Fallout IMO and I don't think most RPGers would enjoy it.

And people did take multiple gunshots to the face in Fallout.

 

[Gord]

By whom? I'm probably just sounding like a broken record at this point, but Deus Ex had a half-way realistic damage model that would've fit New Vegas just fine if NV had similar combat mechanics. I can't really think of a good reason why anyone would bitch about that.

I wouldn't mind the DX approach in FNV either, but if my memory serves me right, numerous people here have complained about the targeting reticule solution it used - if there's one constant on the codex it's that people will find something to bitch about.

The current system is pretty much based on HP bloat since you can shoot with great accuracy regardless of your skill, weapons have little recoil, and pretty much all the AI can do is either stand still or run straight at you.

Maybe I did overestimate just how realistic you want the system to be. Because doing it "realistic" will likely mean something like in the Josh Sawyer quote by Roguey.
Generally I prefer games to be as "symmetrical" as possible, i.e. if it makes sense, NPCs should have the same possibilities and abilities as the player character. So as you say, the AI should do more than just stand around or run straight at you. Yet this also means that you probably don't want to have too much realism, unless you enjoy dying fast and often.
If a shot to the head kills, it should kill the player as well - and the AI should use it. If it doesn't kill outright, but say, incapacitate the target for a while, you have a potential stun-lock.
Fights with multiple enemies would be out of question unless you are heavily armored or in a superior position (e.g. sniping from far away). And you don't bring a knife to a gunfight.
I'm not saying you couldn't do it and still make it somewhat fun, but it would be completely different from Fallout combat (all parts).

I mean, if there's one thing I remember from the combat in Fallout and Fallout 2, it's not that people can take multiple gunshots in the face, it's that it's brutal as fuck. There's a guy who gets fucking cut in half and he'll still crawl on his belly to try to make you suffer.

I remember that standing still at 4 meters apart and shooting at each other for several turns, slowly chipping away the enemies health wasn't that uncommon in F1/2 until you were able to effectively AIM FOR THE EYES! Even then taking several hit TO THE EYES! without much effect wasn't too uncommon, either.
And Horrigan was the end-boss in F2, so that thing happened exactly one time and was scripted.

 

[Carrion]

By RPG players.

Well, like I've said a few times, I thought Deus Ex had a much better sense of power progression than New Vegas. I have no doubts that Sawyer is right in saying that realistic damage would have made New Vegas' combat worse, though, as there's only so much you can do with FO3's combat system and AI. Still, there are first-person shooting games (not necessarily shooters, per se) where melee/unarmed combat can be useful, like Escape From Butcher Bay and *sigh* Deus Ex, so it's not like it couldn't be done in any way. It's just that melee and unarmed combat should be viable for different situations and require different tactics than firearms.

I don't know if you could make a more realistic stat-based combat system that would really feel like Fallout, but the current one sure as hell doesn't feel like Fallout either in any way.

Maybe I did overestimate just how realistic you want the system to be. Because doing it "realistic" will likely mean something like in the Josh Sawyer quote by Roguey.
Generally I prefer games to be as "symmetrical" as possible, i.e. if it makes sense, NPCs should have the same possibilities and abilities as the player character. So as you say, the AI should do more than just stand around or run straight at you. Yet this also means that you probably don't want to have too much realism, unless you enjoy dying fast and often.

Yeah, I definitely want a symmetrical system too. "Realistic" is probably the wrong word, since I'd just want to have a system where stats play a bigger part than they do now and where combat is more punishing all around. Weapon damage plays a part in it, but it's just one of the many factors.

If a shot to the head kills, it should kill the player as well - and the AI should use it. If it doesn't kill outright, but say, incapacitate the target for a while, you have a potential stun-lock.
Fights with multiple enemies would be out of question unless you are heavily armored or in a superior position (e.g. sniping from far away). And you don't bring a knife to a gunfight.
I'm not saying you couldn't do it and still make it somewhat fun, but it would be completely different from Fallout combat (all parts).

Well, in most shooters it's possible to avoid getting hit even once when in combat. It's just that you need to constantly move around and make sure that you don't become a sitting duck. I'm not really saying that I'd want New Vegas' combat to be like most shooters, but utilizing cover and movement is usually kind of an important part of a combat system that involves people shooting each other with guns. If you attack multiple enemies while just standing out in the open, I don't think you should expect to survive that even with a high-level PC. Deus Ex has the Realistic difficulty level where head shots are potentially lethal even for the PC, but you can still fight multiple enemies at once as long as you keep moving. Of course, it's far from being a symmetrical system, but anyway.

If you want to kill someone with a melee weapon, you obviously shouldn't be able to just run to them in the open either, but if you want to just stun someone or take on multiple enemies in close quarters, melee weapons could be more useful than firearms. Fallout's weapons arsenal would definitely make melee weapons an interesting choice when fighting indoors. Bringing a knife to a gunfight is one thing, bringing a Power Fist, a Ripper or a chainsaw is another. It's just that I don't buy into the design philosophy where every weapon type should be suitable for every situation.

I remember that standing still at 4 meters apart and shooting at each other for several turns, slowly chipping away the enemies health wasn't that uncommon in F1/2 until you were able to effectively AIM FOR THE EYES! Even then taking several hit TO THE EYES! without much effect wasn't too uncommon, either.

And people did take multiple gunshots to the face in Fallout.

That wasn't what made it enjoyable, though, was it? I don't know why you'd want to try to replicate that.

Okay, shooting someone in the crotch and blinding someone without killing them are some things I'd probably want to have in a Fallout game in some form.

And Horrigan was the end-boss in F2, so that thing happened exactly one time and was scripted.

Yeah, but you also got stuff like this:

 

[Gord]

You get over-the-top death animations in FO3/FNV, too.



Anyway, I guess you had to redesign a large part of the game to accommodate a more realistic (but not too much) and more dynamic combat system - to make e.g. melee work (or everything else close range), you need terrain that supports it - or go a different way, like e.g. Dune with its shields that can be penetrated by knifes, but not by bullets.
But it will still be only an approximation that requires a certain suspension of disbelief.
Although I have to say that from what I remember, Operation Flashpoint (and now Arma?) did a good job at it.

Ultimately however I think that 1st person will always be problematic in rpgs. Third person (iso) helps to avoid a lot of issues due to higher level of abstraction.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Best RPG since MotB... which was the best RPG since KOTOR 2...

If any New Vegas newbie is interested, here's my mod load order:

FalloutNV.esm
DeadMoney.esm
HonestHearts.esm
OldWorldBlues.esm
LonesomeRoad.esm
GunRunnersArsenal.esm
ClassicPack.esm
MercenaryPack.esm
TribalPack.esm
CaravanPack.esm
FOOK - New Vegas.esm
FOOK - New Vegas DLCs.esm
NVStripOpen.esm
FreesideOpen.esm
Mission Mojave - Ultimate Edition.esp
Plausible Starting Outfit.esp
Vurt's WFO.esp
Fellout.esp
friendofnightforfellout.esp
StripOpenMain.esp
FreesideOpenPatch.esp
FSOmusic.esp
outsidebets.esp
FOOK - New Vegas.esp
FOOK - New Vegas DLCs.esp
FOOK - JSawyer.esp
jsawyer.esp

Total active plugins: 27
Total plugins: 27
FOOK New Vegas basically adds new weapons and armour, renames the items to fit more with Fallout and Fallout 2 and a lot of other things. JSawyer is made by J.E. Sawyer (surprise!) and is basically what he wanted to do with official patches, but wasn't allowed (something to do with the Xbox I think). New Vegas Strip, Freeside Open and Outside Bets are part of the New Vegas Uncut series. They restore quests and events that were cut from the game because of time and bugs. Fellout is a must-have, it removes the horrible yellow tinge on everything and just makes the weather look more realistic. Vurt's WFO adds trees and fauna to the Wasteland. After all, the Mojave was largely spared nuclear devastation thanks to Mr. House, but even if it was, the game takes place a few hundred years after - the environment should have recovered by now. Mission Mojave is the unofficial patch. Plausible Starting Outfit gets rid of the vault suit, which never made much sense.

 

[Carrion]

Anyway, I guess you had to redesign a large part of the game to accommodate a more realistic (but not too much) and more dynamic combat system - to make e.g. melee work (or everything else close range), you need terrain that supports it - or go a different way, like e.g. Dune with its shields that can be penetrated by knifes, but not by bullets.
But it will still be only an approximation that requires a certain suspension of disbelief.

I do think that making NV's combat actually good would've required rebuilding the entire combat system from scratch instead of trying to fix the mess left by FO3, which most likely wouldn't have been possible. There are some mods that I think already do a pretty good job when it comes to making weapons more satisfying and increasing stats' importance in combat, but it's still just a band-aid, and there's still the major problem with the crap AI that hasn't been fixed by any mod that I know of.

Although I have to say that from what I remember, Operation Flashpoint (and now Arma?) did a good job at it.

Well, OFP and ArmA are best at simulating infantry combat where the distance between you and the enemy is usually several hundred meters.

Ultimately however I think that 1st person will always be problematic in rpgs. Third person (iso) helps to avoid a lot of issues due to higher level of abstraction.

Sure, but I think the problem is that few first-person RPGs even try to come up with anything good. Usually the combat systems in those games are really simplistic (damage/accuracy scaling based on skill level and little else) and/or unbalanced when it comes to player skill vs. character skill (like NV where numerous stats affect your combat efficiency but in almost completely insignificant ways). Even with all its shortcomings Deus Ex was probably the best in balancing the latter, although it did still suffer from the former.

 

[Gord]

Sure, but I think the problem is that few first-person RPGs even try to come up with anything good. Usually the combat systems in those games are really simplistic (damage/accuracy scaling based on skill level and little else) and/or unbalanced when it comes to player skill vs. character skill (like NV where numerous stats affect your combat efficiency but in almost completely insignificant ways). Even with all its shortcomings Deus Ex was probably the best in balancing the latter, although it did still suffer from the former.

Might also have to do with the target audience. Even if FNV's target audience were more hardcore/oldskool rpg players, it still had to use the FO3 framework, as you say.
And FO3 is at best an aRPG-light/hiking simulator with some aspirations to target the shooter crowd, which cannot into the whole character skill vs player skill thing.

 

[Gurkog]

Combine STALKER's combat with Fallout and you would have a much better game.

 

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

Combine STALKER's combat with Fallout and you would have a much better game.

Get out of here Courier.

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

I do think that making NV's combat actually good would've required rebuilding the entire combat system from scratch instead of trying to fix the mess left by FO3, which most likely wouldn't have been possible. There are some mods that I think already do a pretty good job when it comes to making weapons more satisfying and increasing stats' importance in combat, but it's still just a band-aid, and there's still the major problem with the crap AI that hasn't been fixed by any mod that I know of.

I remember a mod that made them cover, heal themselves, flank, run away when low health etc.

For some reason some enemies were stuck for a few seconds with their "combat mode angry faces" putting rifles on their back, then equipping it, and putting it back etc. Also some scripts like Burned Man vs. Salt-Upon-Wounds stopped working. Oh well.

Anyway I don't see the fuss about the "omg shitty combat and even worse engine, can't play it", stop saying like it fucking breaks the game. Since we're at mainstream, every BioWhore game has much more outrageous, hideous, repulsive, despicable combat than every Bethesda game (yes, even including Morrowind's poking), even though it's more "polished" engine; and nobody isn't as harsh on those abominations as they are on NV. At least weapons are numerous and nicely designed.

New Vegas' combat is clunky and with many shortcomings, but it isn't anywhere near the abhorrent abomination you make it sound like.

 

[Hirato]

Clunky combat and unresponsive controls pretty much sums it up.


Personally I think you underestimate just what offal Bethesda's rendition of gamebryo is, and not to mention their technical incompetence.
Everything about it, except for the fact that it's really easy to make mods for, is complete and utter shit; The graphics with that downright primitive lighting system (what am shadows), the gameplay, the abysmal performance of their rendering engine, and not to mention it locks up or crashes more often than Windows from the mid-late 90's.
What kind of game company would release multiple patches which only add additional achievements when the game itself is in such a wretched state? Not even mods can fix this stuff!

If you assembled a team of monkeys with typewriters to recreate the works of shakespeare, if they in the interim produced something that looks like the source code to a game engine, that would be of higher quality than this feculence Bethesda has derived from gamebryo.

And all of this works to the detriment of Fallout: New Vegas, downgrading it from a great game to a good one.
It's a real shame and that really pisses me off, in spite of the fact that Obsidian improved the base they had to work with in every conceivable way possible.


I really, really hate Bethesda for Fallout 3, can you tell?
Worst fucking game I've ever played!


I've pushed through my first playthrough of the main campaign and finished the dead money DLC, and I'm rather burnt out on the whole experience, and there's still 3 more DLCs to go.
Didn't have any problems with the dead money DLC, excepting some weirdness with the terminals regulating the forcefields. Makes me wonder where it got the reputation of "being too hard," the ghosts people were pretty straight forward (hotkey a knife, chop up their corpse if they fell unconscious instead of dying). And I say that even with the constant health drain from hard-core.