Essential mechanics for third person perspective Fallout game.

[Artemis]

In this thread I would like to share my view on the things that should be (and aren't) core parts of the good Fallout third person perspective game.

1. Game mechanics overall:

I don't know what is your perspective, but for me current game mechanics looks more like Quake than proper tactical shooter. In short: player and npcs are spamming enormous amount of damage to each other, things go even worse when npcs got melee weapons, so they are even capable of charging opponent armed with Power Armor and rolling Minigun. This shouldn't have happened at all, from the game mechanics perspective, and from the lore point, where bullets are limited and very expensive.

My solution to damage spam:

Use of damn action points again! How more challenging the game would be, if every action (shot, stimpack, reload, changing the weapon...) would be defined by them. And it's not even fresh idea, Fallout Tactics (loved or hated) got that system implemented, and if you ask me, that was done very well. But that does not change the combat environment.

Combat environment solution:

Use of "cover system" aka Deus Ex: Human Revolution or Mass Effect (I don't point the Gears of War because i want to live spend some time on this forum). Fallout 4 shown that in case of npcs (or more like mmo mobs...) it's working already. With the proper action points mechanics added, limiting the numbers of ammunition on the wasteland, that would lead to more tactical approach to the game, helping balance whole the garbage that Bethesda done.

Reinventing the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. systems at it should have work, based on short example:

Firstly - backing on the pre-Fallout 4 skills system.

Secondly, I don't know what kind of idiot creating Fallout 4 was thinking, that "sprinting" should be based on AGILITY. Isn't there ENDURANCE for that? I could imagine that walking or running can be done without the use of action points. Sprinting on the other hand, would cost some amount of action points used by the time (as any action made). The difference should be that character on Endurance based on 10, should be able to run longer on the same cost of the action points.

On the other hand, creating character with AGILITY 10, could give us possibility of unlocking mechanics allowing us to jumping from cover to cover aka Jensen style, with high enough level unlocked by perk.

Every single stats could bring even more of them, giving possibilities of creating ground to dozens of different playthroughs, rather than Fallout 4 which is after my second one pretty much dead end.

Ammunition managing:

And here I would want to drop the hammer. We should be forced to buy magazines or clips for our weapons, that would be later on filled with the rounds (pretty much like in DayZ). So having 100 5,56 bullets in the inventory would mean nothing, if we have only one 30 rounds magazine for your weapon.

 

[ZigzagPX4]

Game mechanics overall - snip

STALKER already provides a good baseplate for them to build off. So did literally the hundreds of overhaul mods for Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Unfortunately, they all got ignored to an amazing degree. I'm impressed at the amount of good mechanics laying there just for them to base it on they managed to ignore. It takes a lot of dedication to screw up that badly.

My solution to damage spam - snip

An interesting theory, and I have no idea how to expand on that, not having played Fallout Tactics. I do agree that Action Points were criminally underused in Fallout 4.

Combat environment solution - snip

While I'm not really sure a "press X to cover" system would benefit the game, a number of mechanics from DX:HR and smarter ammo placement would improve the balance of the game.

Reinventing the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. systems at it should have work, based on short example - snip

Needs the skills system back. No drawbacks to this - they get further complexity, and for the new fans that came in with the streamlined system, they can make it look like an addition that comes with the sequel rather than making it too complicated. But then again focusing on pleasing the new fans that like streamlined systems is what got the skills ditched in the first place... Maybe I shouldn't have brought it up.

Every game mechanic was reworked in ways that didn't make sense because they had to make it work without skills, which was very difficult considering even Skyrim had skills. This is why certain things are based off inaccurate SPECIALs.

Again, I'm not sure a binary cover system is a good addition. It just makes Fallout even more of a loot shooter than it already is. Unless it's going to get Tomb Raider or MGSV dynamic auto-cover, I would hold off on this idea. Enough games have cover-based shooting. I prefer the Half-Life school of shooter design.

Just bring skills back, no need for anything else, really. Skills were already perfectly balanced, needed only a couple of tweaks to fit the new shooting mechanics. But they got ditched, oh well.

Ammunition managing - snip

I would rather that be part of an optional hardcore mode. Realistic ammo management is not really a focus of Fallout, and if you're talking about needing them to balance the combat, it would be somewhat unneccesary in the first place if they didn't ditch skills and meaningful AP in the first place.

 

[Artemis]

While I'm not really sure a "press X to cover" system would benefit the game, a number of mechanics from DX:HR and smarter ammo placement would improve the balance of the game.

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier or upcoming The Division are tactically enough, but true that they are also bullet spray very much. Moreover with limited and expensive ammunition, combat could look like firing exchange with rarely burst-fire on both sides, limited for the amount of the action points that every character have. No more V.A.T.S., or even possibility of creating turn based combat for those who want, aka UFO: Enemy Unknown.