Gizmojunk
Antediluvian as Feck
No roleplaying game does; those who want it are not interested in roleplaying.
Why do people think Fallout 3 was actually good?
- Thread starter KingArthur
- Start date
-
- Tags
- bigchungus420 humor joke parody
Antediluvian as Feck
Norzan
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
if it was actually like this, then it would have been impossible to form new settlements like Megaton if it was this hard to make new settlements in the Capital Wasteland.
UNATCO Agent
First time out of the vault
They use the settlements to their advantage. They control the routes leading to the settlements and areas adjacent to them. They attack caravans traveling along these routes and abduct their members.
Try it for yourself. It has a setting in the options where you can disable the iron sights. They literally do nothing other than hoard a considerable amount of the screen. And yeah, I'd much rather they copied a game like Quake than a game like Call of Duty, at least then it can be called a good first person shooter even if the game itself isn't a good RPG. You can make the argument that Fallout isn't supposed to be a mobile shooter as much as you like, but if that was the case then it makes the experience even more pointless. The combat isn't fun, and the combat isn't necessarily reflective of roleplaying either. So what is it exactly? Just slow and clunky for the sake of being slow and clunky? Realistic? It doesn't really do a good job at anything. The only thing that matters in modern Fallout combat is how quick the player is on the draw to hold down the right mouse button and click the left a bunch of times. It's actually hilarious how that kind of combat is so bad that they even added VATS just so people could skip the tedium of it, and that's the only part of modern Fallout combat that actually takes your skills into consideration. If it's going to be like that, at least make it fun, I say.
Can we all appreciate that my parody post continues to inspire genuine debate
UNATCO Agent
First time out of the vault
Pretty much. I'd be the first to admit that RPGs can successfully hybridize with FPS games, but Fallout is probably not the best example of that. It hopped on the FPS train when FPS games were already ruined by inept design trends, including iron sights which is a concept completely at odds with roleplay. It's genuinely a surprise that modern Fallout hasn't already received regenerating health and weapon loadouts to make "combat in modern Fallout tolerable without VATS" too.
Alphons
National Beholder
Todd couldn't choose one and instead opted to combine the worst parts of both.
Norzan
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
It now makes you question why anyone would even setup settlements in the vicinity if Super Mutants are a thing in the area. Even if they aren't aware of their existence, they would notice the missing people and maybe setup elsewhere.
And if they can just take anyone they want, why not just take everybody at once and force people to procreate so that they can make more Super Mutants? What's the point of attacking settlements and trade routes occasionally when they can just take everyone at once?
It's like from any angle you look at the setting in Fallout 3, it just makes no logical sense whatsoever.
And Fallout 1 didnt had much trouble having trade routes with Super Mutants being an even bigger presence than in Fallout 3, but yet Fallout 1 looks somehow better than Fallout 3.
Last edited:
5545Trey
Underground Deviant
If that's the case, that applies a greater level of intelligence we don't see from Super Mutants on the East Coast, so I find that hard to believe. Also, they're in desperate need of FEV, yet they search in locations where they wouldn't find any of the "green stuff".
I know, and I already have, before. Even when it's off, it stills centers the gun in the middle screen instead of being a simple zoom-in function. The gun is still being aimed down the sight, regardless of how much of the screen it takes up. All it proves was how misaligned Iron Sights were in NV, not that they were useless.
Except that's literally untrue since the game checks for the strength and skill requirements in order to maintain effective accuracy.
Seriously, it's okay to dislike Iron Sights, but you're using your own personal preference to argue against something that objectively let's you aim better, just because you personally don't like how much of the screen it takes; this isn't just a cosmetic difference. Not everyone is going to care about that drawback, and it doesn't bother me. And not every FPS that has Iron Sights plays like CoD; why is that always the first thing people compare games with similar mechanics to, other than the fact that it's popular?
Combat in the newer Fallout games have much bigger issues than just being slow, clunky, and failing to immersive the player in realism.
Gizmojunk
Antediluvian as Feck
Problem #1: The player points the gun instead of the PC; the player can compensate for handicaps, to make shots of which the PC should be incapable of doing consistently, or sometimes at all. The flipside of which is that the PC should not be handicapped by the inept aim of the player... In Bethesda Fallouts the PC cannot hit what the player cannot aim at; not so in the series proper, where the player indicates who to attack, and the PC does their best unhindered by the player's mistakes.
Problem #2: The player pulls the trigger instead of the PC. The PC is supposed to make mistakes.
Weapons should do variable damage to reflect aim and the severity of injury caused by the attack.
IE. A headshot is a hit, but injury should be different from a hit to the forehead vs. a hit to the ear cartilage.
Accuracy and damage are not the same thing.
*Alas... I haven't found the clip where he aims at the ear to nick them —twice.
Accuracy and damage are not the same thing.
*Alas... I haven't found the clip where he aims at the ear to nick them —twice.
Last edited:
UNATCO Agent
First time out of the vault
Same reason. The super mutants want to encourage more popularity in these zones so they can have an endless supply of humans. Simply abducting them off the bat will scare away other humans, and we don't really know how babies and infants would react to the dipping. The Master only had a 15-20% success rate as it stood with adult subjects. The procedure is incredibly traumatic. It's likely that the super mutants would have to wait a considerable amount of time for the child to grow enough to be able to have a chance at surviving the dipping, and I don't think they're running a daycare.
But we can actually see this happening in the game. On the route to Rivet City, we encounter a super mutant base with a hostage there. They attack on sight. The only other way to Rivet City involves going through the Metro Tunnels, which is the far safer option all things considered, but the far less obvious one.
The zoom mechanic itself is important to the overall combat design regardless of whatever it chooses to zoom in on and I never suggested it wasn't. What I'm saying is that the iron sights themselves are not important to it. The zoom-in function was already horrible, I have no intention of making it worse by using the iron sight. You said the iron sights themselves have an noticeable effect on how guns are fired. That's not true clearly, because we can remove it without consequence. There is no difference on the gameplay whether we choose to use the Fallout 3 zoom-in, the Fallout NV true sights off, or true sights on. It's a visual difference. The gun is always viewable on your player model, but the less screen space it takes up the better.
Yet the player can still cheat this because the player is the one aiming. One minor hindrance will not stop the player from pulling off shots as long as they have good aim control. There isn't much difference between 40 Guns and 100 Guns if you know what you're doing. It forms a divide between player and character and thus impedes the legitimacy of the roleplaying.
It really doesn't. On my end it makes my aim worse. I don't like the zoom-in from Fallout 3, but the crosshair in the middle was of far more use to me than the iron sight, since I could line up shots and anticipate them hitting without having to squint through a tiny curve in the metal or an ugly aperture obstructing my view.
Because modern military shooters like COD popularized this unnecessary trend. It's bottom of the barrel for FPS games, so it shouldn't be accepted in RPGs either.
Norzan
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
No offense and don't take this personally, but this is the dumbest shit i read in a while. They want to encourage more popularity in these zones? You mean in the zones where the abductions HAPPEN? I'm sorry but what? That is such a twisted logic that i don't even know where to begin how wrong it is.
Abducting everyone and forcing them to breed would produce far more people than creating an hostile enviroment on an area that may cause those people to run away because literal abductions happen.
I mean, the most controversial practice of the Legion which is to enslave people and force them to breed is responsible for a big percentage of the number of their soldiers.
You are using this argument in favor of more people but also less people. It can't be both. The Super Mutants can't be responsible for the low amount of people and also the current amount of people.
You are mixing the West Coast Super Mutants with the East Coast Mutants.
Hardboiled Android
Vault Fossil
Similar rates of success are probably a fair inference
UNATCO Agent
First time out of the vault
Let me rephrase: they want to leave these settlements to grow in popularity without their intervention, thus "encouraging" more growth for these settlements. It's not like they can't launch a siege of Rivet City, but why would they? It's short-sightedness to just abduct and kill every human settlement they see, because then they would spread themselves too thin trying to locate more humans rather than just having them come to them. It would be an inconsistent endeavor, and they also eat humans so it's crucial for their survival to have a consistent supply of them, not only for "dipping" purposes (even if it's an airborne variant).
On trade routes. Raiders also attack caravans and traders. People aren't always aware that their caravans are getting abducted by super mutants. There are dozens of other fates that could've befallen them.
No, I'm not. The FEV strains have similar and different effects. The strain in Fallout 3 is simply an experimental variant. Similarly to how The Master had a low success rate, the FEV in F3 also has a low success rate. The excruciating pain that people are exposed to causes long-term effects such as memory loss and insanity. A child would likely not survive the process.
Hardboiled Android
Vault Fossil
Are you suggesting this is intentional on the part of Capital Super Mutants? That would stretch credulity considering the very low level of intelligence we observe even in its highest ranking members. It would be more believable to say this behavior is naturally emergent, but I don't see how that would be the case.
Even if we assume that it's intentional and that that is not ridiculous, the fundamental problem remains that the Capital Wastelanders do not practice agriculture, and that's independent of the influence of the Super Mutants. Without agriculture, most of the settlements should not eixst. There would be a "handful" of hunter-gatherers (though mainly just "hunters") and scavengers, maybe with a dozen or so banded together in the shell of some building here and there. It's not conceivable that large permanent settlements with complex public works and decently sophisticated hierarchies could exist.
UNATCO Agent
First time out of the vault
It's not a stretch at all. Consider that these super mutants have been able to successfully establish bases and hierarchies, to kidnap wanderers, and hold strategic positions in the Capital Wasteland even under the threat of the Brotherhood. It's not an overly complex strategy; wait near settlements and kidnap those coming to you. These super mutants aren't necessarily entirely dumb either, we see friendly super mutants who can rationalize themselves like Uncle Leo and Fawkes. What the FEV does is destroy their cognitive functions over time. The older mutants at the top of their hierarchy are the ones with the least cognitive ability, which is why their whole culture relies on killing and abducting, they're obsessed with preservation and hampered by their own incompetent leadership.
There is a lore entry that suggests that the Rivet City hydroponics lab keeps Rivet City wealthy via trade with surrounding settlements. We also see hunters and scavengers out in the wasteland and can trade with them. Megaton is a trade hub that was established by traders who used the crater as protection from duststorms. We can see several caravans stop by there, it's reasonable to assume that the same scrap they used to build their walls can be traded to the caravans for food. The noodle bar there is run by Leo Stahl, also a chem dealer. I would agree that all of this would've been more easily explained had they decided to place farms nearby, but I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that console limitations made some of these massive trade hubs seem like small villages. Sadly the same thing happened to NV with the casinos - they had to strip back the amount of wandering NPCs to have it run optimally on consoles. It was fortunate that New Vegas managed to highlight the error and fix it. I could imagine that Megaton could've been the sprawling trade hub it was always destined to be if this wasn't the case, but that's just my theory.
Iprovidelittlepianos
Vault Senior Citizen
Or you could just, you know, go around them. There’s no reason the trade routes have to get so close to D.C., they’d be better off heading down south from Megaton and then taking a ferry across the Potomac to reach River City. The only other places super mutants control (iirc) are Arlington cemetery and Germantown police station, which are pretty easy to go around.
I am 99% sure that aiming down the sights/zooming in decreases the weapon’s spread.
These points aside, everything you are saying about super mutants amounts to little more than headcanon. This supposed strategy of the super mutants is never stated nor implied, as far as we can gather they are simply a horde of violent retards that kill/capture any humans they come across. Bethesda didn’t place them where they are following this logic, they just exist as slightly more difficult raiders to populate more “dangerous” areas.
Norzan
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Two out of several dozen. And even then Fawkes isn't exactly smart (hes hardly above Harry in Fallout 1). The fact is that the East Coast Super Mutants are shown to be complete idiots who only care about killing anything that is not a Super Mutant. It goes at odds with anything you claim they do (it's a plan a little too complex for a bunch of bloodthirsty psychopaths) and also the plan the game claims they have of wanting to find more FEV.
It does. That's been the entire point of aiming down sights since its introduction.
Hardboiled Android
Vault Fossil
As you say, not an overly complex strategy: the overly complex part is allowing the settlements to develop to the level they have at all. That is what stretch credulity for me.
I think this is assuming too much. At least in the case of Fawkes, the clear impression is that his friendliness is a direct consequence of his intelligence. Uncle Leo I don't think we can even say is smart, just friendly. And of all of the hostile super mutants, never are we given evidence of intelligence past basic tool use and language. Maybe secretly all of the rank and file of the Super Mutants are smart and conniving, but I really don't think anyone who played the game would walk away with this impression honestly.
Is there? To the best of my recollection, the hydroponics lab in Rivet City is strictly experimental, and a fairly recent development all things consider. Moreover, I can't think of any references to its produce being traded, or any mention of fresh fruits and veggies. And we never see this stuff anywhere else in the Wasteland, not even in the Rivet City marketplace to my memory (of course these last two points are circumstantial and coul just be down to vendor inventory population and not a statement on lore, but I think it's worth considering). But if there's a lore entry suggesting that, please direct me to it.
The existence of hunters and scavengers is of course fine, but not the implication that their activities in so small and deprived an area as the Capital Wasteland could support the populations or political economies we see.
Aside from the fact that Megaton was established well before the population should have had trading caravans in the region or the organization needed to build such a structure, the notion that its business is scrap is just plainly ridiculous. There's no nearby reserve of scrap: even the material it is built from was said to have been dragged from an airport a long ways away, an airport which no longer exists. There is no discussion or indication of a scrapping business in town, no scavengers hanging out or smiths. And it's also worth mentioning that unless you're actually turning scrap into something useable or if its some kind of particularly rare scrap, and not just scrap metal, it doesn't really make sense in a place like the Capital Wasteland to be a scrap dealer on a large scale - the place is replete with the stuff.
Putting aside the fact that it doesn't necessarily make sense to hide from a dust storm in a crater: More likely is as you say that its primary economic role is as a trade hub, a middleman facilitating transactions. Such places certainly exist, but the issue becomes you need a decently robust economy for a settlement to survive as a largely non-productive and essentially parasitic entrepot. It just doesn't really make sense that a place like Megaton could exist absent a more developed Wasteland.
I actually agree that the settlements we see in Fallout 3 are abstractions of larger settlements, but this only inflates the problem of food, and how poorly thought out the economy is in general. None of the various professions or dynamics that ought to exist are represented even in truncated form.
I just plum don't buy that "console limitations" are the thing that prevents Fallout 3 from having any sort of representation of these things. New Vegas was able to represent a more or less functional economy in very abstracted form. The larger problem was simply that it wasn't impressive, but that's an entirely different question to representation of economy. But we get the idea more or less, both from NPC conversation and even from the truncated economic activities. And it's not as though Obsidian was revolutionary in this regard - in spite of the typical fantasy game problems, Oblivion more or less had a sensible economic world, as did Skyrim.
The simple fact is the reason we don't see farms or industry or anything of the sort isn't because of console limitations, it's simply because Bethesda had a very specific aesthetic of desolation they wanted to go for, and on the whole put style over substance. I actually happen to think that a good deal of the style in Fallout 3 is quite well done and interesting, but it just doesn't have the worldbuilding chops to back it up.
PaxVenire
Wasteland Peacemaker
Fallout 3 bad. I grew up on it, but I don't like it any more.
Copey
First time out of the vault
You think you liked it when you were younger or because you were younger?