Armor was something every character used and wasn’t tied to skill. Why is it bad that you got upgrades from time to time, culminating in the power armor? (Okay, the power armor might not have been balanced, I suppose, but that’s a different complaint than “oh, the game forced me to upgrade my gear”.)
And yes, Fallout has tended to have some useful and some useless skills, across the board. Fallout 2 exacerbates this somewhat by having the Temple of Trials right up front that you have to pass without any sort of guns or companions, thus making it difficult for non-melee-based characters to get into the wider world. I for one never found Big Guns very useful, preferring to go from Small Guns straight to Energy Weapons. But that may just be my called-shot oriented playstyle.
Couldn’t you talk or sneak your way through the temple? Maybe have to run past the radscorps, sure, but every character has to be able to at least run a gauntlet.
Doesn’t excuse the horribleness of that introduction.
Sarkus
4883
Unarmed and melee are both very viable in the first two games. That’s one thing that I liked about them: that every combat skill was valid in the endgame, unlike many RPG’s that require certain skills at the end that you don’t need before you get there (recent example: Fable).
That said, all of that doesn’t really matter IMHO. The key to the success of Fallout 3, at least for me, is if it feels like I’m in the Fallout universe.
That’s pretty cool, regarding small arms. I actually thought the engergy weapons looked pretty cool from the videos, it’s too bad they don’t have much punch. Is there a plasma rifle? I always liked to use that in F1/2.
Is there Guass technology in the game?
There are plasma rifles (and pistols), and laser equivalents. They definitely are viable and pack a punch - they’re just not necessarily a step up from the better small arms weapons (other than the special encounter item).
Grenades/mines are definitely more frequent options as well, particularly the pulse variety for robots.
Apologies if I’m asking a question that’s been covered, but I’m daunted by searching back through 162 pages so here goes: have Bethesda talked yet about the leveling system in Fallout 3? I’m so thoroughly burned out on how the Elder Scrolls worked this, and trying to ‘game’ the leveling process so you don’t end up with a lopsided character. Are they going to make this part of the game more in line with previous Fallouts, or their previous rpgs?
Sebmojo
4887
More like Fallout, I believe.
Desslock is the man to answer this, but I do know from preview coverage that FO3 does not have Oblivion’s scaling enemies. That is, particular areas have enemies of a particular level, making them appropriate for the player when he achieves a similar level. You won’t see bandits decked out in full Elven or Glass armor (or their Fallout equivalents).
I can offer no proof because I don’t want to shuffle through 162 pages either, but they dumped the old (TES) leveling system.
There is numeric exp, you gain a level, assign some skills, and pick a perk. Although, instead of a perk every 3 levels or whatever, you get a perk every level, and the old abilities or whatever that you choose on creation are gone, and some have been made into perks, such as bloody mess.
EDIT: Damn my slowness and typos, 3rd place is fancy way of saying the loser of losers
Although I’m pretty sure there are no scaling enemies.
What Bethesda has said is that the leveling system from Oblivion has been scrapped, and if you wander into a Deathclaw camp at level 5, you will be slaughtered.
So, explore with caution.
Which is how it was in Fallout 1/2.
Sarkus
4891
I’m pretty sure I read that the game scales on the main plot, with the idea being that those encounters will be challenging, but that the rest of the world is basically level locked. That’s apparently why it’s possible to finish the game relatively quickly if all you do is focus on the main plot.
I can live with that. Thanks for the info, everyone.
Killzig
4893
It’s an exp based system. I don’t know if you still get xp from picking locks/stealing/speech checks but IIRC there was one video where he got the +XP dialog while stealing. It’s a modified version of S.P.E.C.I.A.L. from the original games. Skills are capped at 100%, tagging gives you an initial boost of 15 points but you won’t get 2-for-1 on xp spending when you level, traits have been removed and perks are now given at every level. Max level is 20.
It’s definitely a better leveling/scaling system than Oblivion’s, and feels much more natural (and similar to other RPGs), but it’s not perfect.
The types of creatures/enemies you encounter in an area will still get progressively harder as you level, but this time there are higher level creatures scattered around from the outset – i.e. an area with supermutants will always have supermutants.
If you enter that area at level 20 for the first time, however, you’ll encounter a greater number of stonger supermutant/boss types than you would if you went there at level 5. But you’ll still encounter a mix and it feels more natural. If you enter that area at level 5 and then return at level 20, the creatures will still be the same as those you first encountered and you’ll be able to stomp them pretty easily.
If you run into a Deathclaw, it’ll always have the same attributes - unlike in Oblivion, where certain creatures (quest-based ones, and the “top hog” of a type of creatures - like Liches and Ogres) continued to level up with you.
When you’re exploring around new areas and in the wilderness in F3 at high levels, you’re going to encounter a lot of high level mercenaries/robots/main enemy-types and see more deathclaws, etc. than weaker creatures, however. That’s not unlike how games like the Ultimas handled creatures, and it feels more natural because you tend to be exploring with wilderness extremities by that point, but you’ll definitely still notice leveling of that type in F3.
That’s all correct - and you DO get xp for using all of those skills (in quite large amounts, other than for picking locks). You also get xp for hacking, which uses your science skill. There are mini-games for lockpicking/science, so it’s not a skill level check, but you can’t try the games untill your skill is of sufficient level.
Ironically, Interplay was planning some pretty radical changes to SPECIAL for Van Buren (including a bunch of different skills, etc.) while Fallout 3 sticks pretty close to the original system, other than having perks doled out each level and getting rid of traits. It definitely feels nothing like Oblivion/Elder Scroll’s “skills rise through use” character development system.
Killzig
4896
I think the main thing they have in common is that they trimmed down the skill list pretty significantly (something it definitely needed)…
That’s good. I really dig the notion of being able to stomp and be stomped.
Tickling a formerly impossible enemy makes progression seem more significant. Being able to take down an entire town guard single-handedly feels like power.
Alan_Au
4898
In Fallout Tactics, different squadmates had different stat distributions, traits, and tags. Also, after each mission, you would receive a full XP allocation for the first reservist you swapped into your party. However, you had to allocate the points right then and there or you would lose them. I don’t know if this was intentional, or if it was a bug, or what. Generally speaking, you would want to have picked your squad by the end of the first set of missions (before you move bunkers), and then just keep them throughout the game. The main benefit was getting to allocate skill points and perks, or more specifically, to avoid having points auto-allocated into useless skills and perks.
High CHA would get you promoted in rank faster, giving you earlier access to the “better” NPC squad members sooner. However, since many people used CHA as a dump stat, it meant that later squad members were underpowered by the time they became recruitable.
That reminds me, I never did finish the game; I wonder if I have a savegame somewhere that will let me skip past the annoying early missions.
Take this with the fact in mind that I haven’t read one word of the review, but I got my new OXM today and the cover is Fallout 3 and the review (EXCLUSIVE first review) is an eight page blowout that’s not even in the reviews section of the magazine. Now there are far more qualified that I to make this judgment, but isn’t the 10 that OXM is giving the game a little…suspect?
Grifman
4900
It matters to the person playing FOT wouldn’t you say?
