LogFAQs > #880010065

thompsontalker7 posted...

The balance between trying to save VATS points and standard fighting. Sure there was no ADS in 3, but the guns handled decently enough that it wasn't too necessary, and again, VATS was key. Do you save your good guns for later or use them now to get out of a pinch (hello BOTW)? Do you attempt to nail an enemy for a critical or just center mass in VATS? How about checking out the things scattered on the floor to determine whether or not you have enough supplies to push further into exploring a vault or building or need to retreat and try again later? There's enough there to keep you playing carefully, but doesn't punish you for being bold.

Of all the questions I asked you, the one concerning combat was the most rhetorical; Fallout 3's combat, especially it's gunplay, is almost indefensible. This fundamental failure is rooted in two distinct issues - gun accuracy, and VATs invincibility. Fallout 3 relies on a bizarre mix of FPS skills and skill-based die rolls for its combat, and fails on both fronts. Morrowind gets copious amounts of grief for doing something eerily similar, and it's always baffled me why Fallout 3 doesn't get the same ('sorry, couldn't see the issue here, I got atmosphere in my eyes'). When you are aiming your gun, your FPS skills take a backseat to your gun stats in terms of both damage AND accuracy (among its many notable improvements, NV wisely removed the accuracy portion from the skill / stat equation). You can literally watch a bullet fire from your gun at an impossibly skewed angle, because having a low gun skill can apparently bend the laws of physics. Even with a 100 skill and an enemy perfectly trained in your crosshairs, you can fire a sniper rifle, watch the bullet go into the enemy's body, and have it not register as a hit because the game didn't want you to. This exact scenario has happened so many times that - should I ever decide to play FO3 again - I wouldn't pick up a sniper rifle if you paid me.

So maybe this isn't a flaw in and of itself - maybe you're a hardcore old-school RPGer who believes actual player skill is a travesty and should not pollute your role-playing experience. Okay, I'll give you that. On its own, while maddeningly frustrating, the stat-over-skill approach isn't enough to kill gunplay. Invincibility in VATS piled on, however, is. You are completely immune to damage while in VATs. I have, in the past, VATs'd a Nuka Grenade right at my feet to clear out a swarm of raiders that were right on top of me - walked away without a scratch. Hell, I think I was even still on fire when VATs ended. No damage. This is cheap enough on its own merit. But when paired the incredibly wonky approach to gunplay outside of VATs, it forces over-reliance on VATs. Seriously, why even bother to shoot outside of VATs when I can just bum-rush the guy, take some up-close shots without taking damage, run back behind cover, and repeat in a few seconds? By the time Grim Reaper's Sprint becomes available, that's all she wrote - combat becomes a slo-mo slideshow as opposed to an actual interactive struggle.

'Well, I just won't take Grim Reaper's Sprint,' you might say. That's fine, won't argue that. I'm a firm believer in player choice and willpower - if there's an easily-avoidable weapon or ability that breaks the game's challenge, I'll just leave it be. 'And maybe I just won't use VATs in this game!' Lol, good luck. I tried that once or twice, and for reasons already elaborated upon, it was so fucking frustrating that I couldn't keep with it for long.

I didn't elaborate much on melee or unarmed, since the accuracy issues that plague guns don't apply, and thus said combat mods aren't as inherently flawed. But given the example I just gave about invincible VATs, melee and unarmed combat (the best weapons of which can be easily obtained early if you know where to look) is even easier to break than guns.
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