Fallout 3 discussion

[frogbeastegg]

Could be that I just didn't bother with looking under every stone, but I didn't find too much caps. Ammo neither. It may seem much now, but believe 60 rounds for 10mm pistol is not much. It's practically nothing. When you had out to the wastes, you'll find that your ammo disappears rapidly.

:gasp: Yay! :grabs gun, runs out into wastes:




Another factlet I've found about criticals. According to the official guide, being in VATS mode gives you a 15% chance to critical. Add that to my character's 9% from luck and it's no wonder heads are exploding all the time. Once I collect that +5 perk I will have a 29% chance at a critical hit. That is crazy!

[Kekvit Irae]

Another factlet I've found about criticals. According to the official guide, being in VATS mode gives you a 15% chance to critical. Add that to my character's 9% from luck and it's no wonder heads are exploding all the time. Once I collect that +5 perk I will have a 29% chance at a critical hit. That is crazy!

Don't forget the perk that adds an additional 50% damage on a critical hit!
Sneak + Sniper + Commando + Finesse + Better Criticals = Oh my god.

[Bob the Insane]

Yeah, with Sniper + Commando + Better Criticals and 100 in energy weapons I was killing ghouls (feral obviously with me being the boyscout hero of the wastes) in single headshots with my laser pistol (in VATS).

Later on it is the only way to keep your ammo usage remotely reasonable. I mean when I made the switch to energy weapons I had over 1500 rounds for the Laser Pistol. I though I would never run out, but some of the later enemies take a lot of killing.

The fact that picked up weapons only have 8 rounds of ammo really helps the balance and prevents things getting silly. And that you use them to repair your equipment is good too. I mean, repairs by merchants can get expensive and there are big advantages at keeping you weapon 100%. Also with the limited carry capacity you get into the habit (especially later on) of simply leaving anything you don't need to repair your stuff.

Also note that ammo has no weight, unrealistic sure, but at least it avoids the inventory shuffle from Fallout 2...

[Kekvit Irae]

I blew up Megaton and...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

that annoying girl, Moira, is STILL alive and she's a ghoul. Great. Now she's going to haunt people with her annoying voice and insane babble for centuries.

Although I did love how Deputy Weld (or, what's left of him) still talks about how the bomb is perfectly safe.

[Sarmatian]

Finished the game. I must say I'm a little disappointed. Considering the scale of the game, how many locations and NPCs there is, there should have been far more quests, and they should have been more interesting. Actually, not that they aren't interesting, but they usually involve huge dungeon crawl in complex labyrinths. While doing quests, most of my time was spent on figuring out which freakin' corridor to take to get to the next level.

I've also found energy weapons overrated. With 100 invested in them and 90 in small guns (level 17), I've used guns far more often, even against opponents in power armour. Chinese Assault Rifle, Combat Shotgun and Hunting Rifle are much more versatile. Not to mention that it's far easier to repair them and get ammo for them.

I guess I'll try a female melee/big guns build next. There's nothing sexier than a scantily clad chick with a flamethrower

[Zenicetus]

Some first impressions after starting the game last night (this is the PC version, BTW). There are some annoying things here and there, but overall it's a fun game and I'm looking forward to diving back into the post-apocalypse tonight. I never played the earlier Fallout games, or Oblivion. Lately I've been playing the Witcher EE, so that's an inevitable reference point for some things, since they're somewhat similar games.... sort of a RPG/FPS hybrid.

Good Stuff:

The post-nuclear world feels right, and it's fun to move around in. I love the trashed and rusting "1950's idea of a 2000 future" cars and trucks. The radio music and the graphic design on the faded ads and billboards feel a bit like a Bioshock ripoff, but it still helps establish the setting.

I'm using an older PC (Athlon 64 3800+, 2 gigs RAM) with a newer, but not state-of-the-art video card (GeForce 8800 GTS). The framerate is very smooth with full effects on, at 1024x768. I haven't tried running it at my monitor's native 1600x1200 yet, but it might be okay there too.

I like the way your hit points don't replenish automatically between combat events, like they do in the Witcher and some other games of this type (including "rest anywhere" variants of the D&D games). Auto-healing has a tendency to reduce the feel of danger and risk. You take more chances, and enemies are less scary. In Fallout 3, I'm being much more cautious about initiating combat, I'm being careful about my supply of food, water and meds, and that's good.

The interface is pretty good. The main screen isn't too busy, and the wrist gadget thingie works well to handle all the inventory, quest info, maps, etc.

Not So Good Stuff:

I don't like how fast weapons and armor deteriorate and need repair, but I can live with it until someone mods a reduced rate. A little deterioration over time would feel realistic, but this seems over the top... just a game mechanic to force the player to spend money or invest in repair skills.

The over-the-shoulder 3rd person view of your character isn't very well animated. The combat moves are okay, but I hate how your avatar rotates like he's on a turntable when you turn around. It just breaks immersion. Would it have killed them, to animate the character taking steps while turning in place? The transition from standing still to running is a bit wonky too. I've gone to the full frame/shooter view so I don't have to watch my guy move around.

The text display for conversation is MUCH LARGER than it needs to be, for a PC game. Probably due to it being a cross-platform game, but I still think it looks a bit cartoonish. Maybe there will be a mod for this.

I started at Normal, like I usually do with a new game, and might have to re-start at a higher level. I'm leaving the Vault with more stuff (gun, ammo, armor) than I thought I would. I had this image of having to get by in a very hostile environment with just a crowbar and a T-shirt and jeans. I feel awfully buff for my first encounters with the outside world, and combat so far is going a little too smoothly.

The combat design works pretty well, although it's disappointing that there's no cover system, as in Mass Effect for example. It's fun to watch the "bullet time" animations after you've selected actions in the V.A.T.S.

However, I think the realism suffers from the number of bullet hits it takes to bring down even a lower-level "soft" enemy, like a human Raider with minimal armor. If a V.A.T.S. sequence shows 3 direct hits to the head (no helmet), you don't normally expect a standard human to keep running at you. The number of allowed hits may be related to the way the player's character can also soak up a lot of damage. Or maybe it's to make the starting weapons weaker, so there's room for the damage inflicted with better weapons. But either way, I'd prefer a more "realistic" game like Bioshock, where one single shot to the head from a revolver will take down a splicer. And you're equally vulnerable, more or less. That matches real-world expectations better than what I'm seeing, so far, in Fallout 3. Maybe this will change as I get deeper into the game.

Speaking of head shots...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

What's with all the decapitations? Before I even left the Vault, I'd shot a guy's head off his shoulders with the 10mm pistol. I've done that a few more times now, in my initial wanderings outside Megaton. It's the kind of thing I like seeing in The Witcher... it's at least potentially possible for a sword to do that, in combat. But small caliber pistols just don't rip people's heads off. Maybe I'm just being too literal... I'm sure some people like the effect.

I'm still very early in the game so take this with a grain of salt, but what I've seen so far of the enemy AI during combat, isn't very impressive. It's mostly just bum-rushing the player with no apparent tactics or use of cover, and the occasional scripted surprise (locked door behind you suddenly opens and they jump you). I've see too many human enemies rush straight into my gunfire, bringing the proverbial knife to a gunfight. You expect that from critters, not humans. About the only impressive thing I've seen in the AI so far, is one Raider bailing out of a fight and running away, after taking some damage. It's not a game-breaker, but in a game that relies fairly heavily on combat, I was hoping for more.

Bad Stuff:

I ran into one area that triggered constant crashes to desktop. I avoided that area, then came back later and it was fine. I'm hoping that's rare, or will be cleaned up in a patch soon. My current gaming rig is very stable and never crashes with a well-programmed game.

That's enough for now. Gripes aside, I'm glad I bought the game.

[OverKnight]

I've noticed that the longer each individual session of playing becomes, the more likely I am to suffer a CTD. To combat this, I save often and if I'm in a marathon session, I restart the computer periodically. I remember similar issues with Oblivion and memory leakage.

I love the Winchester-esque "Repeater" I found. To bad I haven't found a Cowboy hat to go with my Regulator duster, so I could properly wander the Wasteland dispensing Kinetic Justice.

[LeftEyeNine]

We've received patches for your major CTD problems.