Slowtrain

I don't really like FO3 all that much, period. Just as a game. Nevermind any comparisons to FO1 or 2. FO3 is a terrible crpg and a mediocre (at best) first person shooter. Its saving grace is its exploration. I kinda think of it as a great big scavenger hunt. WIth miniguns. edit: But it is still about 1 billion times better than Oblivion.

I don't think it was unplayable, but compared to games like XCOM and Jag 2, Fallout's combat was pretty pedestrian. It didn't even have interrupts/opportunity fire, iirc. WHich is almost required for TB combat, to help gave the combat a bit more ebb and flow

I could bring up the werewolf here. But I won't.

I hate VATS and always play using pure RT combat. It is still not great, but I think VATS is just unplayably tedious. I should also point out that I really only like Big Guns, Melee and, and mines for use in combat. I think the small gun/energy weapon combat is terribly boring.

I would never defend FO1/2 TB combat as the pinnacle of TB combat, but I do think a lot of the tediousness came from design decisions that had you fighting 30 rats. Not the combat engine itself. No, its not. Fallout's RT gameplay is terrible and ridiculously easy compared to other FPS games. VATS is just some kind of weird joke.

I don't think difficulty has much to do with it. Complexity, maybe. Too much thought required?

Thief 1 and 2 AI was pretty excellent for its day though. Yes, but it won't be enough for a 2011 (?) game anymore. They really have to make the guards as challenging and invigorating as in the past titles again, for present standards. I agree. But hopefully the standard has been set by the previous games. Thief needs a good AI to be a fun game. Shooters can get away with a lesser AI and still be enjoyable.

Thief 1 and 2 AI was pretty excellent for its day though.

That sounds like a QA nightmare. The only way to make it fun/useful though... Wasn't that the way it was in Thief 1 and 2? Perhaps my memory has failed me in my advancing age.

Madness & Civilization: The Game *Intro Sequence* you look around. you find yourself in chains on a ship of fools. what do you want to do now? > look down Just give Foucalt a really big sword and lots of muscles and send him to hell to fight teh demonz.

Exactly. I think "bad" difficulty is when things are hard just to be hard and gameplay becomes just an exercise in endurance and repitition until you finally get the lucky break and can move on. Good game design should reward thought, not simply force endless reloads.

Its easy. Rope arrows can be used wherever arrows can stick. SO, mostly wood, but not stone or metal. I would trade climbing for rope arrows ANY DAY. Rope arrows are awesome.

I agree, but spreaking only for myself, difficulty usually requires some degree of thought to overcome. That thought process, is for me the end goal. The more I have to think when playing a game the more rewarding the game will be for me. And I don't mean think like reading Foucault kind of think, but thinking as in how to overcome the game challenges.

Visc used to be so hardcore, too. Now he is mr. reasonable. what the hell happened to this world? Edit; really, I don't think he has been the same since he bought an xbox.

There are quite a few ways that healing item use can be balanced: 1) Limit the availability of healing items in the world 2) Limit the number of healing items a player can carry at any given time 3) Limit access to healing items during combat 4) Limit the amount of healing that can be consumed at any given interval I'm sure there are many others. FO3 took almost the same approach as Fallout 1 and 2 in that once you are in your inventory you can do as much as you like. The big difference of course is that in FO1/2 TB combat, accessing inventory had an AP cost. edit: Vs say JAg 2 which has no AP cost to enter inventory (though you stil have to wait for your turn), but each discreet inventory action does have an AP cost.

The Witcher had one or two tough fights, such as the Beast at the end of chapter 1, but no it wasn't a hard game either. Wasn't my point that the Witcher was harder or easier than FO3, rather I was merely commenting on different balancing mechanics for the use of healing items.

I thought the toxicity mechanic was pretty effective in the WItcher. Sure you could heal yourself nad give yourself all sorts of abilities, but you always had to balance that with your toxicity level. Plus of course, you actually drank the potions in real time, while the combat was happening around you. WHich add another wrinkle to the potion quaffing.

Rope arrows and/or climbing plz! Preferably both.

i liked that in the Witcher as well. I like it as well. It's not a major change, but at least it forces you to think ahead a little bit when going for your healing. You could also do as Beth did in Oblivion and simply limit the number of items you can injest at any one time. Ultimately though I don't know if there is any real way to balance stimpack use, other than doing something similiar to what mkreku mentions and design the game so that stimpacks cannot be applied during combat and then balance the combat accordingly. In FO3 stimpack use is mostly a war of attrtion: you either have enough stimpacks to survive or you don't. IF you use up a bunch you have to go find more. Such an approach works, but it is not very tactical.

awhile back Josh was playing FO3 with a stimpack mod that changed the healing provided by a stimpack to a healing-over-time rather than a healing all at once thing

Even all these years later the Thief 1 opening title sequence is probably my favorite ever in a game.

If it doesn't have Hammerites I will be a sad panda.

I agree. Ads don't really bother me. I mean, I ain't buying soda cause it was in Die Hard, ya know. But it doesn't defray the copst of anything and get you the game, movie, etc cheaper. Publishers charge as much as they can charge. Ads are just a little extra gravy on the train for the suits.

That pretty much describes all games though, dealing with anything.

Volourn will be here soon.