Fallout VIII: Another Thread Needs Your Help General

[Avilan the Grey]

I'm not talking epilogues. Fallout 4's basically the story of you accepting you're now stuck in this new bleak, desolate hellscape. At least according to the game's epilogue.

But listen to the radio. Listen to the people you help in towns, and see who attacks on sight because you've done something to them.

No one in Fallout 4 runs over to give you something because you saved the town. No one calls you out for wearing armor which can only be looted from dead guards.

...And?

Let's just say I disagree with your entire premise.

[Triaxx]

Then we'll agree to disagree. I know the rule about arguing on the internet.

[factotum]

The one thing I really appreciate in 4, guns shoot straight regardless of my skill. It was really annoying previously to carefully line up your shot just to have a lack of skill send it off to left field. A shooter where you shoot straight (basically), good move.

Thing is, though, Fallout 4 is *not a shooter*. It has some elements of FPS combat in there, but at its core it's supposed to be an RPG, and in an RPG it's expected that your in-game skills ought to have some sort of influence on your in-game actions. In fact, that's my entire definition of a CRPG, for what it's worth: a game in which your in-game character's skill has more of an influence over gameplay than your own twitch reflexes. FO4 just about fulfils this criterion, because a character who specialises in pistols is going to struggle if you try to blast through with a rifle, but it's getting close to the edge.

This isn't saying that having the bullet go where you point is necessarily a bad thing--I well remember the frustrations of trying to play Daggerfall, seeing my swing hit, and do no damage because the invisible "to hit" roll determined I'd missed. I'm just hoping FO4 is as far down the slippery slope toward a Borderlands-style shooter with vestigial RPG elements that Bethsoft goes with the series.

[Brookshw]

Thing is, though, Fallout 4 is *not a shooter*.

Don't care, doesn't matter. A shooter with RPG elements, or an RPG with shooter elements, either way it's obnoxious when something is dead in your crosshairs yet you miss (doesn't help immersion either imo), especially when you're at such close range that missing with even a minimum amount of skill is an absurdity. I'm glad for the change in 4.

[Triaxx]

Yeah, I guess post apocalyptic CoD is fun.

[Brookshw]

Yeah, I guess post apocalyptic CoD is fun.

That's a pretty wide jump to the extreme there. Try again.

More relevant comparisons might be Metro 2033 or Borderlands, but either way it's missing the point. But ya know what? If missing something dead in the cross hairs because the mechanics of the game don't align with the actual presentation of the game from the in character perspective is something that strikes your fancy, I'm not going to judge.

Regardless, if you want the skill to be relevant then increased weapon sway tied to your skill would probably be a better mechanism for it rather than bullets simply not going where they're pointed.

[Avilan the Grey]

That's a pretty wide jump to the extreme there. Try again.

More relevant comparisons might be Metro 2033 or Borderlands, but either way it's missing the point. But ya know what? If missing something dead in the cross hairs because the mechanics of the game don't align with the actual presentation of the game from the in character perspective is something that strikes your fancy, I'm not going to judge.

Regardless, if you want the skill to be relevant then increased weapon sway tied to your skill would probably be a better mechanism for it rather than bullets simply not going where they're pointed.

Or Mass Effect 2 and 3.
Anyway, Fallout 4 is definitely my favorite Fallout.

New playthrough is imminent after I found that mod that lets you build a robot workbench and start customizing robots as soon as you build it.

[Triaxx]

Sorry, lost quite a lot of a post there for some reason. Phone mis-behaving. Let's try this again with a desktop.

Yeah, I guess Post Apocalyptic CoD is fun. But it's not the game I wanted to play. I did not come to Fallout to play a 90's generic brown and grey corridor shooter with random bits of RPG duct-taped on as an after thought to make it look like something it's not. I came for a Bethesda game, with a short, sweet excuse plot to throw me out in to the world and go shoot things. Not the long drawn out, boring 'Mah Baba!' plot we got. Seriously, could have cut him out entirely, and gone with a New Vegas style revenge plot, pivoting into the institute war, and not had even a third of the issues.

Instead it's all about the shooting because it's 'improved' from previous games. (I'm still not feeling it, no matter what everyone else keeps telling me.) The plot gets you out to shoot things, fine that's it's job. Talking? Why would you want to talk instead of shooting? Did we mention we improved the shooting? Okay, here, have some options to say yes to shooting in various ways. Here's some power armor to stomp around and shoot things in. And here's a quest to be a super hero with a gun you can shoot things with! And here's some lasers to shoot things with! Yes, some of them look straight out of 70's TV shows despite the people who made them being able to make a perfect robotic replica of a human being that you can't tell apart without killing it and ripping it's intestine's apart. But did we mention the shooting?

Sorry, I'm ranting here. I know I'm the only one that actually cares.

[Avilan the Grey]

We care. We just don't agree.

The shooting is definitely better. Also, are you talking about FO3 and NV? Because FO4 is not "grey" or "brown". It uses a full palette and is actually very colorful.

[DigoDragon]

But listen to the radio. Listen to the people you help in towns, and see who attacks on sight because you've done something to them.

No one in Fallout 4 runs over to give you something because you saved the town. No one calls you out for wearing armor which can only be looted from dead guards.

The little blurbs on FO3's Galaxy News Radio about you were nice. There aren't many, but it was something acknowledging your actions in the game. In addition, the random wastelanders who read your survival guide if you completed that quest. It's small details like those that add value to your actions.

[Brookshw]

Sorry, lost quite a lot of a post there for some reason. Phone mis-behaving. Let's try this again with a desktop.

No worries, 99% of my posts are from my phone, a pain I know well.

Snip

Sorry, I'm ranting here. I know I'm the only one that actually cares.

Ah, we're having a disconnect. Let me try again. I'm not advocating that improved shooting is a substitute for the complex plot interactions, variety of solutions, and compelling story that many Fallout games have done so well. However, improved shooting is not mutually exclusive of those desirable elements and the two can co-exist. I like the step they took in the shooting direction as far as bullets going where you're pointing is concerned because it makes sense they should do so, and removes a jarring disconnect between the in game perspective and mechanics. As far as the story and world go, there definitely was a lot to be desired in 4 that I hope to see improved in the next game of the series.

Consider as a parallel, if you're sneaking, you're in a room - several rooms, or floors, away from the nearest enemy with no line of sight between you two - you are not moving, there's no light source, and you're not making any noise, simply sitting there in every sense of the word. Does it make sense that your enemy should magically know where you are because you have a low sneak skill? Do they get ESP suddenly because my skills so low? I suspect people would have a pretty substantial gripe if that's how the sneak mechanism played out.

Incidentally, Frost reworks the mechanics so that weapon sway is far, far harsher if you don't invest in the relevant skills. That's a good way of handling it! I'd much rather note that I missed my shot because I mistimed it with the weapon sway rather than because I have magic bullets that don't go where the gun is pointing after they looked at my skill, decided they don't respect me enough, and subsequently go rogue.

[Anteros]

That's a pretty wide jump to the extreme there. Try again.

More relevant comparisons might be Metro 2033 or Borderlands, but either way it's missing the point. But ya know what? If missing something dead in the cross hairs because the mechanics of the game don't align with the actual presentation of the game from the in character perspective is something that strikes your fancy, I'm not going to judge.

Regardless, if you want the skill to be relevant then increased weapon sway tied to your skill would probably be a better mechanism for it rather than bullets simply not going where they're pointed.

Well, I'm glad you got the game you wanted. The thing is though, that it killed the Franchise the rest of us loved. It really is basically single player CoD in a wasteland with an awful tacked-on dialogue system and an even worse story than a normal CoD game.

There's basically nothing in this game that feels like a Fallout game outside of the set pieces themselves.

[Avilan the Grey]

Well, I'm glad you got the game you wanted. The thing is though, that it killed the Franchise the rest of us loved. It really is basically single player CoD in a wasteland with an awful tacked-on dialogue system and an even worse story than a normal CoD game.

There's basically nothing in this game that feels like a Fallout game outside of the set pieces themselves.

"Killed the francise" seems hyperbole to me.
Fallout 3 has a slightly higher Metacritic score. FO4 is still in the mid 80s.

Fallout 4 is Bethesdas most sold game to date, surpassing both FO3 but also Skyrim.

So no. It might have killed your personal interest in the francise, just like Dragon Age II killed my interest in the Dragon Age francise, or Mass Effect Andromeda killed any trust I have in Bioware whatsoever. I respect that.


Edit:
Also... Funny how your criticism of this game is almost word for word the criticism of the members of No Mutant's Allowed when they first looked at FO3.

[Rynjin]

A franchise can be spiritually dead without being technically dead. Sales figures are not a measure of quality (and in this case, actually somewhat indicative of that point).

Fallout, and RPGs in general, have always been a somewhat niche genre. Roleplaying elements simply don't appeal to everybody in the same way strategy, puzzles, etc. don't.

This is a good thing. Not everything needs to appeal to everyone.

Pushing the series to wider mass appeal removed what made it good to the fans of the series, and genre.

This is not a good thing. Trying to be everything to everyone means you are the opposite.

Fallout 3 and New Vegas struck a good balance between RPG and shooter, which is the correct way to expand your audience; keep the core, expand to the mass.

Fallout 4 made the mistake of dropping the core roleplay elements. Not just in the reduced RPG GAMEPLAY elements (which are largely ancillary) but in reduced impact and focus on the RP part of that acronym. This is the wrong way to expand a franchise appeal, because it simply leads to collapse in the long term.

Mass appeal games have to compete with every other mass appeal game out there. That's what these publishers do not and have never understood. Short term gains are dwarfed by the long term losses of this approach. It has played out in every era of this industry and every other industry since the dawn of the industrial age and the lesson has never been learned.

It happened with platformers, it happened with MMOs, it happened with FPSes, and it will happen with these RP-lite open world "RPGs" that Fallout 4 skirts dangerously close to being a clone of. If Fallout 5 continues on the same path and doubles down on 4's mistakes, it will not be hyperbolic that Fallout 4 killed the franchise; its very success will have doomed the series to failure in the long term.

[Mando Knight]

"Killed the francise" seems hyperbole to me.
Fallout 3 has a slightly higher Metacritic score. FO4 is still in the mid 80s.

Fallout 4 is Bethesdas most sold game to date, surpassing both FO3 but also Skyrim.

So no. It might have killed your personal interest in the francise, just like Dragon Age II killed my interest in the Dragon Age francise, or Mass Effect Andromeda killed any trust I have in Bioware whatsoever. I respect that.

We also had to wait the better part of a decade to get from FO3 to FO4, and Bethesda introduced a "continue milking the revenue stream as long as possible" system in Creation Club. Fallout 5 might take a while, but Fallout is anything but dead at this point.

[LuckGuy]

The RPG way of aiming is more realistic. I mean, I don't know what anyone else's personal experience with shooting is, but it is entirely possible to line up the sights, squeeze the trigger, and completely miss the target.

I took my kids to an archery range not long ago, and it took them 20 minutes to get on the board. I had done archery at camp rather a lot 30 years ago, but it took me an hour to get my first legit bullseye (my first shot happened to be a bullseye, which was great for looking awesome to my kids but was in fact pure luck :+D)

So put me on team RPG aiming.

[Brookshw]

Well, I'm glad you got the game you wanted. The thing is though, that it killed the Franchise the rest of us loved. It really is basically single player CoD in a wasteland with an awful tacked-on dialogue system and an even worse story than a normal CoD game.

There's basically nothing in this game that feels like a Fallout game outside of the set pieces themselves.

You're missing the point. I agree that many of the elements that I love in the Fallout franchise suffered in 4. That doesn't mean that EVERYTHING was done wrong. Would Fallout NV have been a worse game for better shooting? No? Didn't think so. These aren't mutually exclusive features. Your and Triaxx's argument is that you don't like what they did to the rest of the game, and you're blaming the improved shooting for those other changes, but that's not a good argument because they can happy exist in harmony. These are distinguishable elements.


For the record:

The thing is though, that it killed the Franchise the rest of us loved.

Don't even try it. I started playing when Fallout 1 came out and easily have over a 1000 hours invested in the same Franchise just as you do. You don't get to claim some pure love of the series to support some argument that the same series is better with worse shooting.

[Avilan the Grey]

For the record: Don't even try it. I started playing when Fallout 1 came out and easily have over a 1000 hours invested in the same Franchise just as you do. You don't get to claim some pure love of the series to support some argument that the same series is better with worse shooting.

Indeed.
this argument pops up in almost every gaming franchise, btw. No matter if it's The Sims (4 sucks, nobody that enjoyed 2 or 3 would ever TOUCH 4!), Fallout (2 ruined the lore from 1! Too many jokes! Only people never playing 1 can ever like 2! Also, 2 is the best and 3 is an abomination! Nobody that ever played the classics would even dream of buying 3!), Civilization (you know the drill by now) or...

[Triaxx]

I am... a competent shooter. I know how to do it, I have the proper reflexes to do so, I have the knowledge of how to put a round into the target where I want. And I still completely whiff on occasion. I can read the wind, adjust for it, alter the scope aim to compensate. And I still miss. Yes, I guess going off into space with a shot is somewhat unrealistic, but at the same time, it's a clear, visual indication of a miss. The same shot in F4? Maybe it missed, maybe it hit, but did no damage for some reason. Improving the shooting removed that clear visual indication of you not hitting.

As for Stealth... this is a perfect conditions issue. Under perfect conditions it should work like X, but perfect conditions are nigh impossible to achieve. No, in those circumstances, an enemy shouldn't be able to detect you. But at the same time, those conditions are then useless, you're not doing anything except not being detected. You're not learning to move stealthily, not learning to watch your body space and be aware of hitting objects.

I find it amusing you're busy praising Frost for doing the same thing New Vegas and 3 did.

[GloatingSwine]

We also had to wait the better part of a decade to get from FO3 to FO4, and Bethesda introduced a "continue milking the revenue stream as long as possible" system in Creation Club. Fallout 5 might take a while, but Fallout is anything but dead at this point.

There will be another game called "Fallout" but it will share absolutely none of the ideals of player choice and consequence in mechanics and narrative the series was founded to explore.

That Fallout won't be called Fallout any more.

[Anteros]

"Killed the francise" seems hyperbole to me.
Fallout 3 has a slightly higher Metacritic score. FO4 is still in the mid 80s.

Fallout 4 is Bethesdas most sold game to date, surpassing both FO3 but also Skyrim.

So no. It might have killed your personal interest in the francise, just like Dragon Age II killed my interest in the Dragon Age francise, or Mass Effect Andromeda killed any trust I have in Bioware whatsoever. I respect that.


Edit:
Also... Funny how your criticism of this game is almost word for word the criticism of the members of No Mutant's Allowed when they first looked at FO3.

I didn't say "killed the franchise" in the sense it didn't sell. I said it in the sense that it's not the same game at all anymore. My point had literally nothing to do with sales.

Also, I have absolutely no idea who No Mutants Allowed even is. Thank you for insinuating that I'm not capable of forming my own opinions though. That's swell of you.

Maybe next time you should consider that instead of people just parroting random opinions you saw before, that perhaps it's possible for multiple people to come to the same conclusion? Even when that conclusion doesn't agree with your own? Maybe there's actually a reason that multiple people are coming to the same conclusion? Maybe there's actually evidence that supports that position? Nah, they must just all be morons who can't think for themselves!

You're missing the point. I agree that many of the elements that I love in the Fallout franchise suffered in 4. That doesn't mean that EVERYTHING was done wrong. Would Fallout NV have been a worse game for better shooting? No? Didn't think so. These aren't mutually exclusive features. Your and Triaxx's argument is that you don't like what they did to the rest of the game, and you're blaming the improved shooting for those other changes, but that's not a good argument because they can happy exist in harmony. These are distinguishable elements.


For the record: Don't even try it. I started playing when Fallout 1 came out and easily have over a 1000 hours invested in the same Franchise just as you do. You don't get to claim some pure love of the series to support some argument that the same series is better with worse shooting.

I'm not missing the point. You're just conflating those arguments together because it's easier to argue against that way.

Also, yes. I do feel that my character should have to actually invest in shooting to be good at it IN A RPG. It makes a lot more sense to me that my character should get better aim as I improve his skills than his bullets magically doing more damage.

Also, your personal opinion of the franchise doesn't invalidate mine or anyone else's. I'm not claiming some moral high ground that my opinion is more important than yours...but you don't get to discount my opinion just because you disagree either.

[Brookshw]

I'm not missing the point. You're just conflating those arguments together because it's easier to argue against that way.

Also, yes. I do feel that my character should have to actually invest in shooting to be good at it IN A RPG. It makes a lot more sense to me that my character should get better aim as I improve his skills than his bullets magically doing more damage.

You said:

awful tacked-on dialogue system and an even worse story than a normal CoD game.

I'm not talking about the dialogue system or any of the story elements.

Triaxx went on for a bit about plot. I wasn't talking about plot.

That's the disconnect. I'm saying I appreciate the improvement of one element, guns shooting straight, you and Triaxx used that as a basis to complain about other elements I'm not talking about.

I don't mind skills improving shooting but feel it's better done through sway than bullets going where you're not pointing the weapon. No opinion on damage multipliers, I could take it or leave it.

@Triaxx: NV & 3 vs. Frost are done very differently. NV & 3 give a spread affect from where you aim, Frost makes it harder to aim where you want to begin with.

Also, your personal opinion of the franchise doesn't invalidate mine or anyone else's. [...] but you don't get to discount my opinion just because you disagree either.

Agreed. Also, we're not in disagreement on the story/plot issues. Your preference for mechanics differing from my is something I can respect, please understand though that bringing the story elements into that conversation isn't relevant.

[The_Jackal]

Thing is, though, Fallout 4 is *not a shooter*. It has some elements of FPS combat in there, but at its core it's supposed to be an RPG

According to whom? It may not be as tight with its FPS mechanics as Overwatch or Call of Duty, but saying it's "not a shooter" is inane. Fallout 4 doesn't have to meet any arbitrary standard of what game category it ought to occupy. It is what its designers have made it, no more, no less, and doesn't owe anything to prior iterations of the franchise, or to earlier fanciers of those games.

Now if you don't like the changes Bethsoft made to Fallout 4, that's entirely your right, but it's not supposed to be anything, save for a successful game, which is is, beyond any doubt.

I'm just hoping FO4 is as far down the slippery slope toward a Borderlands-style shooter with vestigial RPG elements that Bethsoft goes with the series.

I think that's a highly dubious outcome. Bethesda may be working to make their games work with a more mass-market, cross-platform audience, but I doubt a sudden change in tone and content from an immersive sandbox into a tongue-in-cheek loot and shoot is in the offing.

Yeah, I guess post apocalyptic CoD is fun.

I would totally welcome that. In fact, I think that would make a better Call of Duty sequel than anything they've made since Modern Warfare II. But the conflation of "Let's make the shooting mechanics in Fallout not a joke" with "I guess we're CoD now" is pure hyperbole.

But it's not the game I wanted to play. I did not come to Fallout to play a 90's generic brown and grey corridor shooter with random bits of RPG duct-taped on as an after thought to make it look like something it's not.

Did we even play the same game? Fallout 4 is definitely more sandbox than RPG, but it's still got enough RPG to meet the definition; certainly once you include the DLC. Don't believe me? Check out the Fallout walkthroughs with the Fallout 4 walkthroughs listed on Gamefaqs.

Now you may not have been wild about the quality/tone of the writing, and to be frank, I wasn't a huge fan either, but Fallout 4 doesn't meet your bar for CRPG, I'm not sure if any game will. Obvously, they totally gutted the dialogue system, and yes, that's been harped on to death, but for my part, I've never found dialogue trees to be good for anything other than being a Bioware-devised mini-game devised to piss off half your party. It's never actually used for its purported purpose, to allow you to express your character's persona, it's there so you can avoid picking the choice which results in "Strong hated that".

Bottom line time: If you're going to get resentful every time a feature changes to accommodate wider market appeal, broader sales, or wider platform support, you're going to be eternally disappointed by triple-A games. You owe it to yourself to shop over with Obsidian Entertainment. They've got your medicine.

[Triaxx]

@Brookshw: I never expected anything but a bad plot. I wasn't talking about plot either. I'm talking about every time it gets discussed, someone brings up 'but they improved the shooting'. As if this makes up for all the things they did wrong, by waving the one thing they did 'right'.

I'm not sure what you're talking about, because sitting and playing New Vegas at least, the guns all sway rather madly, even if it's far more noticeable on scoped weapons. Unless you're talking about VATS here, which might explain our disconnect.

@The_Jackal: I have mad love for Obsidian Entertainment. Pillars is turning out to be exactly what I expected, an Ode to Baldur's Gate, without giving up any of the modern convenience features a new game should have. Just like New Vegas was to the old Fallout's.

'Let's make the shooting mechanics in Fallout not a joke' is the exact issue here. We're no longer given the choice of whether or not our character is skilled with guns. Whether we play the bitter male ex-soldier, or his civilian lawyer wife, the character is apparently an expert marksman. Never mind if I might prefer to play a smooth talking lawyer who's preferred recourse for violence is heaving explosives from safety, or for sneaking up and killing with a punch, or a knife. Nope, apparently you spent law school taking courses on marksmanship. And kept it up through a pregnancy and the first few months after birth, which are clearly filled with nothing but free time. So, no matter what we're playing the super soldier gun expert.

Here's the thing, my requirements are what they have always been. A degree of individuality. I would like the option to have Survivor different too yours. My smooth talking grenade hurler should have a different result from picking up a gun, than your rifle focused sniper. While you can't throw a grenade as far as I can, or do as much damage, I should look down the scope and have a very difficult time keeping the cross hair on a target because I haven't trained myself to shoot with a scope. That is the definition of a role playing game for me. Fallout 4 landed short of the mark. It's still a good game, and I don't fault it for failing to meet that qualification of RPG.

I would then argue you haven't seen dialogue trees at their best then. Fallout 2, New Vegas, Baldur's Gate, back when the wrong dialogue option could not only close off branches of conversation, but entire quest lines and from there even see friendlies become enemies for having the wrong option selected. And I realize we're in a phase of gaming where 'player choice' is the watch words, meaning we must never ever close off anything so they can always do everything. And in giving out this infinite choice, we make the individual choices meaningless.

[The_Jackal]

'Let's make the shooting mechanics in Fallout not a joke' is the exact issue here. We're no longer given the choice of whether or not our character is skilled with guns. Whether we play the bitter male ex-soldier, or his civilian lawyer wife, the character is apparently an expert marksman. Never mind if I might prefer to play a smooth talking lawyer who's preferred recourse for violence is heaving explosives from safety, or for sneaking up and killing with a punch, or a knife. Nope, apparently you spent law school taking courses on marksmanship. And kept it up through a pregnancy and the first few months after birth, which are clearly filled with nothing but free time. So, no matter what we're playing the super soldier gun expert.

I think this is putting a bit too much of the onus of your characterization on the game engine and mechanics. You want to play a sneaky knife-wielding psycho or explosives enthusiast, you can absolutely do that. Yes, you CAN pick up a rifle and be magically competent at it, if you've got some basic FPS skills, but let's not overplay that, shall we? A private in the army gets basic training for 10 weeks, after which they get sent to the front. So being able to operate a firearm isn't some tremendously inaccessible skill.

Here's the thing, my requirements are what they have always been. A degree of individuality. I would like the option to have Survivor different too yours. My smooth talking grenade hurler should have a different result from picking up a gun, than your rifle focused sniper. While you can't throw a grenade as far as I can, or do as much damage, I should look down the scope and have a very difficult time keeping the cross hair on a target because I haven't trained myself to shoot with a scope. That is the definition of a role playing game for me. Fallout 4 landed short of the mark. It's still a good game, and I don't fault it for failing to meet that qualification of RPG.

How they chose to mechanically accomplish their expression of 'firearms proficiency' could possibly have been more nuanced, but I don't think what they did fails to meet your requirements. If you want to be better with explosives, pick explosives expert. If you want to be better with a rifle, take rifleman. Sure, they could have added sway and bloom to reflect a lack of firearms skill, or lack of investment in perception, but I think they do that at the risk of really frustrating a potential player who's less invested in the franchise for its own sake.

I would then argue you haven't seen dialogue trees at their best then. Fallout 2, New Vegas, Baldur's Gate, back when the wrong dialogue option could not only close off branches of conversation, but entire quest lines and from there even see friendlies become enemies for having the wrong option selected. And I realize we're in a phase of gaming where 'player choice' is the watch words, meaning we must never ever close off anything so they can always do everything. And in giving out this infinite choice, we make the individual choices meaningless.

No, I'm just not that interested. To be honest, no selection of canned dialogue is going to satisfy me, because when I play a role-playing game, I'm doing it in person, with other people. I actually think the very term 'computer role-playing game' is a giant oxymoron, and will continue to be so, until true artificial intelligence becomes a reality. You don't ever have infinite choices, both in a CRPG, or a real-life RPG. Your options are always bounded by what the party presenting the content has prepared. The difference is that in an in-person RPG, your GM can improvise and adjust to your actions, so that next week, they'll cook up something to react to what you've chosen. That option simply doesn't exist, in any CRPG.

[Brookshw]

I'm not sure what you're talking about, because sitting and playing New Vegas at least, the guns all sway rather madly, even if it's far more noticeable on scoped weapons. Unless you're talking about VATS here, which might explain our disconnect.

Happy to elucidate. It's two separate issues, 1) gun sway, 2) spread (for lack of a better term). Sway exists in all games to some extent, you point, the targetting recticle or iron sights moves about some. No objections there. Spread, you point, you fire, the bullet goes somewhere other than where the recticle is pointed. There in is my objection.

By way of example I was playing NV the other day clearing out the Bison Hotel, a ganger is 15 feet away, my gun is aimed at central mass dead on, I'm kneeling, I fire. Despite the ganger being square in the iron sights the bullet goes to the side of him completely missing.

Edit: here, this may help.
http://www.gamesas.com/depth-explana...cy-t49622.html

[Triaxx]

@The_Jackal: Yes, I understand that. But it's like saying all skills go from 15-100, but everyone starts at 50, which is average ability. So person who potentially has never even picked up a gun in their life, is equally as proficient as someone who spent 10 weeks training under experienced instructors? Very hard to believe. Anyone can shoot at something, but training and practice are the difference between shooting at and having a good chance to hit the target you're aiming at.

My requirement, my answer as to whether it meets it. If it meets it for you, fine.

Not all of us were lucky enough to have people close enough to play with, or be the sort of person who has friends. Somethings have not changed, if you hadn't noticed.

@Brookshw: What's your character's gun skill? Vanilla Fallout New Vegas? Gun Condition? Weapon for that matter. You're waving the flag of the shooting being awful, but there's more than one thing that has an effect on it.

I'll see your article and counter with this one: Men against Fire The short version is it's talking about an inherent human desire to neither kill or be killed and thus to fire over the heads of enemy soldiers. Something else skill can be representing is overcoming this tendency.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

My two cents, which are purely my opinions and not to be considered an attempt at creating 'facts', when I speak of 'what made it great', I speak from personal perspective, not trying to project it into any sort of objectivity:

It isn't that the shooting mechanics are better in FO4 that causes people to conflate it with CoD. It is that it both has better shooting mechanics AND it has removed all but the most vestigial of RPG elements from the game, trivializing your ability to affect and influence by reducing your speech options to 'yes', 'sarcastic yes', 'greedy yes' (with RNG dice roll to see if you suceed), or 'not right now'. That's it. You have four ways to respond to an NPC, and three of them are just different ways of saying the same thing while the last is basically a neutral response. Your responses do not, in any way, reflect your character's experiences, knowledge, skillset, or any other factor (other than the Silver Shroud questline in which you have a different set of 'yes', 'greedy yes', 'scarcastic yes' without a 'not right now' option, in which they got the character to actually have emotion).

There is zero actual roleplaying in the game beyond what any FPS has. Hell, it has LESS. There is more conversational depth in Titanfall 2, with your own mech, than there is with the vast majority of all NPC's you ever interact with in FO4. THAT is the problem.

I don't mind a better shooting mechanic, I mind that they took away what made Fallout great. It was never about great combat mechanics, it was never about shiny graphics. Even FO3 was not spectacular graphics for its day. What it had was a world to explore, with tons of NPCs, larded heavily with over-the-top campy acting and chewing of the set left and right. It didn't take itself seriously. Sure, it didn't make sense at points. Why go into a heavily irradiated bunker when I have a companion who is not only immune to the effects of radiation, but actually *HEALS* from it AND is contractually obligated to do what I say, down to a brainwashed level (Charon)? Fine. You can pick it apart all you want, and there's plenty to pick. But in the end, it wasn't the plot that made Fallout such a great game (although campy b-rated plot was pretty amusing, especially if you keep in mind the MST3K mantra), it was the environment and how over-the-top your interaction with it could be.

[Spore]

Spoiler: Visual representation of me revisiting this thread

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I tire of online discussions easily, so I'll just throw my opinions into the mix without effort or arguments. Just to reinforce whichever side they might help.

1) Fallout 4 didn't kill the franchise. On the opposite. To be a ROLEplaying game you don't even NEED experience points or levels. It pulled me right in when it gave me what almost everyone desires(a stable family life) and then ripped it apart.

2) Whether it is a Shooter RPG or an RPG Shooter is a stupid question to begin with. FO 4 has more action elements than the previous games. I like both ways but I still hate the fact that you have to plan your SPECIAL stats completely out in the beginning to achieve a somewhat optimized build. I ragged on Skyrim's "learning by doing" system but at least you do not need to tack on another hour of character creation after you have used 5-6 hours creating the PERFECT FACE!

3) While the story is weak and somewhat predictable, the set pieces hold up. But the major faction's plans crumble upon closer inspection. But then again, there are states IRL that call themselves supreme, organizations that deem themselves competent and that ruin everything they touch in an instant and on a constant basis.

4) Whoever plays a Fallout game for the story or a 3D Fallout game with voice acting for freedom in character progression needs to check out their priorities. I feel there are a lot of (text-based) RPGs out there that do that. Most of them look like someone dove into the dumpster of RPG-Maker assets and dug up the "free samples" though.

[Avilan the Grey]

Just pointing out that the whole "what is an RPG" has been done to death and is also rather impossible to determine.
Remember, there were people (very loud people) who didn't consider Baldur's Gate to be an RPG because the fights weren't pure turn-based.

Games, like all art and entertainment exists in a spectrum. Or maybe a kaleidoscope, rather.
Some people say Skyrim isn't an RPG because the story isn't railroaded enough.
Some people consider the Saints Row series to be the greatest RPGs ever made.
Some people STILL hates Fallout 2 because it ruined the series.

If you don't like a game, that's fine. Again, I have been publicly, on these forums raging at the heavens many times over the awfulness (that I consider it to be) of Dragon Age II.