Fallout 3

[Bokishi]

Fall-what?

[Hurlshort]

I got the Reservist rifle off a hobo in some burnt down church. It rocked.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Hobos and rifles are a deadly combination.

[Musopticon?]

I just started and promptly ran into a robot that killed me in 4 shots. Then reloaded, killed slavers by baiting them to walk into a minefield and used the loot to buy moar drugs.

 

Thank you, Bethsoft. I missed this.

[Aristes]

I personally found the deathclaws were tough. They made it so that you could take them one at a time, which was nice. Hey, I did the Deathclaw caves on very hard without a single reload, but it was time consuming. In that case, not only did I use sneak and snipe, I laid out long trails of mines and all sorts of silly shenanigans. It was really actually quite fun. Overall, on the hardest setting (without mods) the game isn't really all that easy. Sure, you'll run and gun through a lot of stuff, but you can still get yourself killed if you don't watch out. Personally, all difficulty mods would probably do is increase the reload ratio, which I don't find any more of an immersion breaker than being able to plan out and win big battles without a reload.

 

My experience is that mole rats, most humans, and the weakest robots are chumps on the top difficulty. Super Mutants, some robots, and whatnot are easy. Deathclaws and those damned huge radscorpions are a real pain in my backside.

 

However, that was on a non-combat build. I started a new game going combat, but I put it on hold when I heard about some funky game extending xpac or some such. A straight combat build might run roughshod over everything. ...But, hey! Isn't that always the case? In DnD, folks who build for straight combat have a distinct advantage over us clods who add a bit of roleplaying to our rollplaying?

[Tigranes]

So I did find the reservist's rifle, though I had to cheat it in after the sniping bastard bugged & disappeared on me.

 

I also ran into the slavers and deathclaws last night. Deathclaws were easy at level 10, even with the NMA mod nerfing VATS... mainly because after you get your Small Guns up to about 75+, you can get 95% headshots with the scoped magnum from a reasonable distance.

 

The first one I found I shot from an outcrop while iti couldn't pathfind its way to me, and the other two

in the cave

I sneaked & sniped. God bless Stealth boys.

 

The game *was* damn hard until I reached that small-guns threshold (which is the same in FO1/2, I think its a SPECIAL thing), but while half the time it was an enjoyable challenge, the other half was... Super Mutants going RGAH CHARGE.

 

I found

Fort Constantine and the satellite dishes

though, after doing the key quest, and that was really nice. It was the first extensive quest that made a lot of sense in the way it came together since the

Android

one - most quests in FO3 are much more contained (do X to Y, and only we will ever know and it ends here). I was really disappointed you couldn't do more with the clues you found though. Am I missing something, or,

can't you ever fix the dish thing and connect it up with the warhead storage in F.C. to fire off targeted ICBMs?

I had really thought that was what

Crowley

was after.... firing it somewhere. Instead, he just wanted the

stupid power armour

? Guh.

 

Anyway, still haven't seen Dogmeat.

[Gfted1]

Anyway, still haven't seen Dogmeat.

 

 

Hes in

the Scrapyard.

 

[Tigranes]

Nope, haven't found that place, either. I think I've found all the 'towns' now, though - except the

Oasis

, which I know but haven't gone to yet.

[J.E. Sawyer]

It is worth noting that I believe there's some special critical modifier that goes on with scoped weapons fired "naturally" (i.e. no VATS). So if you do legit head snipes with the Sniper, Reservist's, or Victory Rifle, you tend to score crits a hell of a lot. With VATS... not so much.

[Dark_Raven]

The Victory is the best rifle in the game. Knock down damage FTW. Too bad they don't score a lot of damage, I think rifles are too weak in that.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

It is worth noting that I believe there's some special critical modifier that goes on with scoped weapons fired "naturally" (i.e. no VATS). So if you do legit head snipes with the Sniper, Reservist's, or Victory Rifle, you tend to score crits a hell of a lot. With VATS... not so much.

 

Really? I was, before I uninstalled the game, using "sniper-type" weapons exclusively and had 100 in small guns -plus bloody mess and a few other perks- and did not get very many critical hits without using VATS.

Edited December 18, 2008 by Deadly_Nightshade

[Tigranes]

Really? If you sneak up behind them then get them in the head, it's a crit more than half the time, for me. Can blow out a Super Mutant Brute in one shot that way with Psycho.

 

Although, I do have the Finesse trait (NMA F3C mod).

 

I was delighted to discover that those Mr. Handy/Gutsy models don't trigger mines, because they float in the air. Nice touch - took me ages to realise it.

[J.E. Sawyer]

They don't, but a .308 round at two hundred yards sure will. I really enjoyed setting up elaborate booby traps involving frag mines, bottlecap mines, and funny triggering mechanisms.

[Gromnir]

So if you do legit head snipes with the Sniper, Reservist's, or Victory Rifle, you tend to score crits a hell of a lot. With VATS... not so much.

 

 

letting your twitch gamer prejudices get the better of you again? it has been argued that what sets a crpg apart from action games is that is 'posed to be the Character's physical skillz that determine success or failure in a crpg, as 'posed to skillz o' the Player. player side o' the gaming in a crpg is 'posed to be focused on tactics and strategy (the 'line twixt the two invariably blurs) as 'posed to demanding manual dexterity beyond absolute minimum needed to move mouse and punch keyboard.

 

Bob builds a fantastic sniper character and uses irreproachable tactics to achieve a perfect kill scenario, but 'cause he gots terrible reflexes all the planning and character building goes to waste?

 

is simply disturbing to see a developer o' crpgs use "legit" as you did above. does that makes use of vats fraudulent from josh pov? ouchie.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Tigranes]

Talk about spin doctorin'.

[J.E. Sawyer]

letting your twitch gamer prejudices get the better of you again? it has been argued that what sets a crpg apart from action games is that is 'posed to be the Character's physical skillz that determine success or failure in a crpg, as 'posed to skillz o' the Player. player side o' the gaming in a crpg is 'posed to be focused on tactics and strategy (the 'line twixt the two invariably blurs) as 'posed to demanding manual dexterity beyond absolute minimum needed to move mouse and punch keyboard.

 

Bob builds a fantastic sniper character and uses irreproachable tactics to achieve a perfect kill scenario, but 'cause he gots terrible reflexes all the planning and character building goes to waste?

 

is simply disturbing to see a developer o' crpgs use "legit" as you did above. does that makes use of vats fraudulent from josh pov? ouchie.

 

HA! Good Fun!

A player with a Sneak-oriented build, Commando, Finesse, and Sniper is typically going to rock a target whether he or she is using VATS or manually aiming. The AP cost of using sniper rifles (specifically) with VATS encourages players to use manual aim with the scope. But if you're not going to use the scope, you can use the Hunting Rifle and other non-scoped weapons in VATS with much greater success. The terrible bolt-action reload of the Hunting Rifle sort of discourages its use in standard combat (at least it did for me).

 

Use of VATS for headshots isn't fraudulent, but it's a no-brainer, high-success action in Fallout 3. If you have a reasonable number of points (like, more than 30) in the weapon type you're using and the target is anywhere near you, it's rare to not pull off 95% success head shots over and over again.

 

But I'd never use the sniper rifles in normal combat in Fallout 3 on the 360. I can't track a target's head well enough with the 360 controller unless the target's totally unaware of me. So in that sense, I don't even really think the headshots I pulled off were very twitch-oriented. I really just waited for targets to hold still. My character build was oriented towards Sneak, Melee, Small Guns, and shooting people in the head (inside or outside of VATS). I don't think I would have been as successful without the character build to back it up. On the rare occasions when I couldn't kill something with one surprise headshot, I'd pull out the Combat Shotgun, run straight at the target, and spam VATS headshots until the target was gone.

[Pop]

(substitute swearing and provocations with arguments about game design) Edited December 18, 2008 by Pop

[Amentep]

It seemed to me that I was more accurate with sniper rifles outside of VATS, but I chalked it up to the fact that VATS pretty much seems to be a "fire the weapon until AP points were used."

 

Which you could do with a sniper rifle, but the ideal use was to fire the rifle when using the scope. So my guess was that VATS didn't use the scope, so if I wanted the scope bonuses, I needed to do the scope manually (which as Josh said was usually sneaking to a position and then sniping unwitting subjects then switching to other weapons if I got spotted).

[Gorgon]

Vats had shorter range, you could pick em off as soon as you were able to see them with the scope. Also heavy weapons you were not proficient with still did a tolerable amount of damage as long as you didn't use vats.

[Gromnir]

It seemed to me that I was more accurate with sniper rifles outside of VATS, but I chalked it up to the fact that VATS pretty much seems to be a "fire the weapon until AP points were used."

 

Which you could do with a sniper rifle, but the ideal use was to fire the rifle when using the scope. So my guess was that VATS didn't use the scope, so if I wanted the scope bonuses, I needed to do the scope manually (which as Josh said was usually sneaking to a position and then sniping unwitting subjects then switching to other weapons if I got spotted).

 

 

that is kinda key, eh? get spotted after shot 1? what then? josh claims no dex needed for aim outside of vats, but in Gromnir experience, we were taking many shots that required our personal dex skills... 'cause it were hardly rare that a critter/personage would fail to die with 1st shot. is a funny thing, but fallout 3 enemies we hit rarely stay motionless after being shot. security bots we could sneak up on and deactivate, but what if we not have taken robot perk? how often did you manage to kill giant radscorpions with a single shot, and how often did you set up "legitimate" mini-minefields in anticipation of their inevitable attack post wounding? those monsters always seemed to spawn in pairs too.

 

also, we found that if we snuck up close enough to set up kill shot w/o needing any sorta manual dexterity to aim, we might as well have just gone ahead and used scoped .44 anyways.... which kinda seemed silly.

 

'course all the aforementioned ignores what it is that josh ignored in his response: what makes josh way "legit." if his way is "legit" and he is contrasting compared to vats, then it is pretty clearly vats is Not legit in josh's mind. why? does he honest think it is the strategy and tactic considerations?

 

ask 100 people who played fo3 what is reason for using vats. what is gonna be answer o' over 90% o' folks? vats takes burden o' manual dexterity based aiming out of hands o' player, no? nevertheless, what is typical considered a defining characteristic o' the crpg genre, is considered something other than legit by josh... not "fraudulent" but clearly not "legit" neither... which is also a baffling distinction in and of itself.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Amentep]

I thought Josh's use of "legit" had to do with taking the shot and actually GETTING a headshot, as opposed to lining it up, having it look like a head shot but pull the trigger and get an arm or chest shot (or a miss entirely). Which I did a bunch of times, looked like a headshot when I pulled the trigger but either lack of character skill or movement of the enemy sent the shot elsewhere.

[Gromnir]

"I thought Josh's use of "legit" had to do with taking the shot and actually GETTING a headshot, as opposed to lining it up, having it look like a head shot but pull the trigger and get an arm or chest shot (or a miss entirely)."

 

yeah? what is your point? is not legit in a crpg to let your character's stats replace necessity of manual aiming? how so? is an unusual pov for a developer o' crpgs.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[J.E. Sawyer]

'course all the aforementioned ignores what it is that josh ignored in his response: what makes josh way "legit." if his way is "legit" and he is contrasting compared to vats, then it is pretty clearly vats is Not legit in josh's mind. why? does he honest think it is the strategy and tactic considerations?

There is no strategy or tactics involved in using VATS, not even character building. You can have virtually no points in a weapon skill, rush a target, and spam called head shots in VATS with a 95% chance of success.

[Gromnir]

sure didn't seem that way to Gromnir. without sniper perk and some points in small guns we failed at vats head shots for most of first 1/3 of game.... which is why we tended to go manual, 'cause we could spam a heck of a lot more shots outside o' vats than in it. after correct perks and point distributions, then the head shot thing changed, but not for early portion.

 

regardless, you may have issues with how bethesda implements vats, but to suggest that manual dex way is the Legit way is, at the very least, arrogant, and disheartening... a disturbing pov from a crpg developer.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited December 18, 2008 by Gromnir

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Josh vs. Gromnir can only be solved Thunderdome style.

 

Two men enter, one man leaves!

 

 

(probably because one of them uses VATS, lulz)