Slowtrain

Man, wut? It's like a machinegun sniper rifle. AKA The Munchkin.

*shrug* It has nothing to do with realism. I never used the word once. The word I used was context. A context can be completely non-realistic, but still have things that fit and things that don't. The context in game like Fallout incorprates both the illusionary world-building AND the gameplay mechanics. Fallout 3 already has way too many "well, that's really stupid" moments. It doesn't need any more.

Bored Lone Wanderer plays with oribital laser. Creates mystery that will puzzle humanity for generations to come.

Snake Plissken?

Blowing raiders up with landmines is fun, too. It doesn't make for a terribly engaging game experience though over the long term. *shrug* Like I said, it's not a game breaker. I won't not buy the game because of it. But it's disappointing that this is where development time is going. They don't exactly have a lot to begin with.

Can you be more specific about what you dislike about it? In and of itself, nothing. I'm sure a remote controlled orbital laser would be great in a Battletech game or in a Halo game. Heck, it would probably work in Alpha Protocol to some degree or another. But in a Fallout game? Eh, not so much. Suitability is all about context, as I'm sure you know, being a game designer and all. What works fine in one context, fails grotesquely in another. I mean seriously, what's the difference between remote controlling an orbital laser platform and remote controlling a strike wing of F4 Phantoms. To me they are both equally silly within the context of Fallout. Obviously, you guys either a) disagree that it is too silly for the context or b) think silliness is good. So, in that sense it is what is it. Secondly, don't you think that Fallout 3 already has enough ridiculous and over-the top explosions and guns and people melting and stuff? We've got so much all ready, do we really need more? Isn't there a lot more that can be done with an rpg that doesn't involve nuking and blasting and burning? At this point, that is what I've come to expect from Bethesda, but I was hoping Obs would take a noticeably different approach. I'm still hoping that your concentration on story and character and choices and consequences stuff is really the focus of NV and the rest of this is just PR stuff. ANyway, its not a game breaker. I'll just toss the remote control unit in the same locker with the Alien blaster and the Fat Man and the Stealth Armor and the Gauss Rifle and the Power Armor and all the other overpowered stuff I don't like. Out of sight is out of mind, as they say.

Sure. One more gameplay mechanic into the "forced to ignore" pile.

It's ****ing retarded. WHy not remote control your own personal battleship or carrier strike group? Is there something about the Fallout IP that forces developers to sit around dreaming up the stupidest stuff possible?

I believe I've written this but, different from S.T.A.L.K.E.R., FO series are RPGs. As long as you invest on a proper skill, you'd be able to repair them. If your character doesn't have it, he needs to ask NPCs for the task probably with cost. Repeating myself is rather pointless, I guess, though. *shrugs* I wasn't saying Fallout should be like STALKER. I was merely using STALKER as an example of a game in which weapon rarity is a balancing factor. In Fallout 3 weapon rarity is not a balancing factor. Both games have their problems.

hmm. Once a pc has a laser pistol though, they will always have it. (Unless they choose to leave it behind or sell it, of course). So regardless of how uncommon laser pistols are (vs. say 10mm pistols), once acquired, rarity of the weapon ceases to be a balancing factor. Ammuniton rarity, otoh, will always be a balancing factor, since no matter how powerful the weapon, without ammo, it's just a club or a walking stick. That's my only point really. That actual game balance for powerful weapons is more dependent on availability of ammo than the availability of the weapon itself. The exception being a game like STALKER where weapons will degrade with use and cannot be repaired. In which case the rarity of a weapon is much more of a balance factor since once you find a powerful weapon, if you use it, the weapon will eventually get "used up" and can only be replaced by finding another weapon of the same type. Which is a fairly uncommon gameplay mechanic since it tends to make gamers angry. Though, I must say I prefer it personally.

Uncommon is irrelevant though, if the weapon can never be lost or made useless. Once you have one, the degree of scarcity no longer matters. Ammo is more relevant in regards to scarcity, and in general a better game balancer than the weapon itself. One of the reasons why weightless ammo is so stupid: it eliminates one potential way to balance weapons. I'll also point out, relative to the general convo, that Fallout 3 was much more poorly balanced than either Fallout 1/2. The only super out of whack balance issue in Fallout 1/2 was the gifted trait, which simply needed a lot more penalties to it.

I don't recall the F1 or F2 manual having anything along the lines of "Warning: the following skills are nearly useless" or "Tag Small guns and Speech for EZ Mode." I dunno. It wasn't hard to figure out. Never had a problem. Never had a problem with any game along those lines actually. Maybe gamers are a lot more stupid today than 10 years ago. Or maybe it's not as a big a problem as some people think.

I played around with one of those UFO/XCOM inspired games. The UI was so clunky that I never got into it. There was also a little TB alien combat game called Incubation which also had an expansion. That was fairly nifty. There were those green-plastic army-men combat games. I think they were TB, but they might have been more of an RTS. Now that I'm thinking of it, I think a lot of those squad TB games I thought were around about 8 years ago were actually RTS's. It's a genre that's really never had a lot of titles, unless you add crpgs with TB combat into the mix. Then the number goes up by a fair bit.

There have been numerous attempts, though. True. Although since Silent Storm I can't think of any. There was a period there where tactical combat games were fairly common, but they were mostly linear, mission-based affairs with little strategic element. Which isn't to say there haven't been any since SS either, only that I can't think of them. And SS still didn't have that blend of strategy and tactics that make Jag 2 and XCOM so interesting.

The thing is that with games like XCOM and Jagged Alliance 2, while they are certainly dated, no one has made a game that replaces them. I mean, I don't keep going back to XCOM and Jag 2 BECAUSE I like playing outdated games, rather I keep going back because there is nothing comparable in the last 5 years to replace them. If I want THAT gameplay done THAT well, I have to play THOSE games. There is no other choice. No one needs to go back and play Doom or Quake or even Half Life because the shooter has kept evolving and there are plenty of current games that offer the same gameplay as Doom/Quake/HL but in a nice modern wrapper. I think, personally, that I nice modern update of XCOM would actually sell pretty well. The game has a lot of cred and a lot of fans. But in this day and age, no developer or publisher takes any sort of risks with games. So we get the same game over and over again. And games like XCOM are redone and become games just like every other nextgen game.

Actually that's not the village idiot, its a attractive, eagle eyed sloth, innit? lol. I suppose. But none too bright.

Let's see: I'll put all my stat points into charisma and perception, lower my endurance and agility to 1, not raise any weapon skills, and run around with the .32 pistol for the whole game while not wearing armor. Wow, FO3 is now so challenging. Unfortunately, roleplaying the village idiot in order to create a challenging experience isn't my idea of a fun or balanced gameplay.

What. "Childish whiners without selfrestraint" was the full label, iirc. And suggestions for a better balance were idiotic, mainly because selfgimping is the way to go. There were some very good arguments in the opposing (the "childish") front, though they kinda went for deaf ears. I've tried creating gimped characters in FO3. It's almost impossible. Self-gimping is an idiotic approach to gameplay anyway. If you have to self-gimp then its pretty obviouis that game balance is completely broken.

They are a gameplay factor in the begining; I guess you could make the argument that as your PC gets more experienced with the ins and outs of the wasteland, they do improve in everything (I think the problem is the perception that being at 100% implies expertise...the trail of broken bobby pins in my wake proves otherwise...) I'll agree they are more of a factor at the beginning, which is indicitive of the fact that they are too easy to raise. The skill increase curve is a pretty b0rked. Although if someone just wants to have a god character and kick ass then I guess FO3 is perfect for them. I just find such an approach rather dull. If I can't lose, I don't see any point in playing.

If skills aren't going to be a gameplay factor. ie they are easy to raise and max then why waste time having them in the game?

TFTD is a lot harder and fixes some of the balance issues that made the first game too easy. There's a lot more stuff to think about tactically. But, it's pretty much the same game at its foundation.

Yeah. I don't get that really. I just think that a crpg should be about making significant choices and then living with the consequences. And that most definitely should include what skills you develop and how far you raise them. A crpg without significant choices is pretty dull.

That's a good point and very true. Ideally though, by lowreing the number of skill points available but increasing the ability to riase three choosen skills over the course of the game, skill choice in generakl would have more specific game impact. No more all-characters-can-do-everything syndrome. Which is fine for a shooter, but pretty much completely antithetical to a crpg. I wish you were designing the game.

The point though is to "leverage the IP" (good PR talk there), nothing else. They own the IP, they don't think a TB squad combat game will sell, so they make an FPS, which do sell. If the XCOM IP was originally built on an FPS gameplay style, but FPS's weren;t selling and TB combat games were, the exact reverse would happen. I hate as much as anyone the fact that next-gen gaming has basically killed entire game genres, but at this point the best we can hope for is that it will be a good FPS. And maybe it will. Especially if the Bioshock 2 developers aren't actually the ones making it.

It would be nice if tag skills went back to the way they were in FO1 and 2 as well. I find significant choices that affect my pc to be more interesting than insignificant choices that make little difference. Tag skills in FO1 and 2 made a big difference to how your character played. In FO3, they had little impact.