Fallout 3

The Game Room
681

My numbers are roughly the same as yours, though as I intimated before the F2 numbers are inflated a bit with essentially identical weapons, not to mention useless pseudo-weapons. Still, 52 vs. somewhere around 65 to 70 is indeed significant, though not “blown into tiny bits of dust”. When you further consider 66 with upgrades vs. 80-85 and/or 117 unique weapons vs. 100 (tilting in the other direction) or something like “infinitely more” mine weapons in F3 vs. F2, things are considerably murkier. Hell, you could say there are hundreds of weapons in F3 once items are combined with the Rock-It Launcher.

All of which is to say if you throw up a list saying one game had so many more weapons and the same source actually lists more weapons for the other game, you should probably expect some pushback, on this board anyway.

682

Regarding the many variations of weapons (and ammo! What about 10 mm AP versus HP rounds?) Personally while I think it would be more realistic to find a random Thompson smg or something from time to time, it’s just not that practical for the gamer, what with needing to keep things in good repair and finding ammo…I mean, does ANYONE ever keep the .32 revolver for long? Or the 10 mm handgun, for that matter? Assault rifles are ubiquitous, but the Chinese Assault rifle is superior and there ARE enough of them (in shops, carried on enemies) to keep them in decent repair, why would you want to keep using the inferior versions? So the regular assault rifles seem superfluous to me. The hunting rifles are slow and eventually are only useful in repairing other, better weapons. They could have done away with the .32 entirely in this game and I doubt anyone would miss it. Maybe if you prefer to challenge yourself by using shitty weapons, you might arm yourself with the Chinese Pistol and a Pool Cue, but seriously, do you really need so many varieties of guns?

683

To be fair, Bethesda implemented the repair system in a screwed up manner, IMO. Personally, I far prefer a system with no weapon degradation. But if they were absolutely sold on it, I’d have at least preferred that it be based on bottlecaps or scrap metal or something.

The variation in Fallout 2 really made a difference, in that you could select the optimal weapon for any particular task, and the variation there actually made a difference. The sniper rifle, for instance, didn’t lose accuracy when things got close, but the scoped rifle did. There was also a gun with viable night vision that eliminated your penalty for shooting in the dark, etc…
And there was, of course, the differences in ammunition types.

I for one would definitely have preferred the chance to use a larger variety of guns.

684

Cannibalizing other weapons for spare parts makes more sense, IMO. People have been doing that with cars for over half a century.

685

I actually would have liked to have a variety of bows and crossbows with different arrow types (kind of like Thief) in case I’m trying to play as a sneaky ninja type. Obviously you’d have to have a pretty good crit on a sneak attack to take down a super mutant, but it should be possible.

686

Speaking of Super Mutants, where are the Regular Mutants?

687

They’re called Ghouls. :wink:

688

Oh, don’t get me wrong. If we’re talking realism, it makes much more sense.
But then again, if we’re talking realism, a bullet to the chest from a hunting rifle should most likely kill you straight off, and there would be no such thing as ‘levels’. And you couldn’t refill ‘hit points’ with a ‘stim pack’, or what have you…

It’s actually interesting… the one thing that still bothers me (and probably the only thing) about System Shock 2 is weapon degradation. I’ve hated it in absolutely ever game I’ve ever played.

Edit: Cuckoorex, I’d have loved crossbows and different arrows, too. I’d just like more variation than “shotgun for close range, Chinese assualt rifle for mid range, hunting rifle for long range… and that’s that.” (yes, oversimplified, but still. Hell, even just give me a choice between armor piercing, incendiary and anti-personnel rounds…)

689

Unless you’re wearing sufficiently thick armor.

And you wouldn’t have a very popluar game, either. Some concessions must be made.

690

Yeah, but that’s my point. You can run around naked at lvl 20 and you can soak up minigun rounds like a bullet sponge. You do have to make some concessions to simple fun. And in my view, the first step would’ve been to get rid of the ‘weapons wear out like a 20 dollar whore’ thing, and then give players a fun variety of weapons and ammunition beyond just a few basic choices.

691

And leave the player with nothing to do with all those weapons out there, except sell 'em. In your case, get a “100% condition all the time” mod.

692
  1. I’m on the Xbox I can’t mod it like that.
  2. I shouldn’t have to mod it to avoid a feature which is there only to require constant maintenance, instead of to increase enjoyment.
  3. I did, in fact, enjoy the variation of weapons in Fallout 2, and would have greatly preferred that, especially if all that Bethesda had to do to make it viable was to remove weapon degradation.
693

I don’t see anyone else here complaining about this “reduced enjoyment”.

694

The size of the bandwagon doesn’t matter. But simply as a point of fact ,there are numerous other folks on the 'net who’ve had the same complaint. The fact that no-degradation and slow-degradation were quickly added as mods should tell you something.
And not only am I entitled to my own views on gaming (regardless of how many other Dopers have addressed that point) I have already provided support for why weapon degradation doesn’t add anything and weapon variation does. I’ve done my best to argue fairly and plainly for my position.

So far you’ve told me to mod it (impossible on an Xbox which had roughly 55% of total Fallout 3 sales).
And you’re now evidently arguing that my points about how it doesn’t increase enjoyment and is only in there to require constant maintenance on the part of the player are invalid because other Dopers haven’t chimed in to say that it reduced their enjoyment. Which you thoughtfully put in quotes.

I’m not really in the mood for a pissing match or to argue for the sake or arguing. If you’d like to talk about game mechanics, I’d be happy to. But the direction this is taking leaves a bad taste in my mouth and I’m not game to carry it on further.

695

Never have used the .32 pistol or Chinese pistol even once, so sort of agree there, though I still like them as flavour ( every little bit of flavour is nice ). I also agree with the assault rifle from about mid-game on. Once I accumulate enough cash and CARs I pretty much leave them where they lie.

However I do still love my 10mm pistol. Like xtisme I shoot everything, to some extent because I dislike the hand-to-hand implementation ( if you could use spiffy martial arts I’d much prefer it ). 10mm are very handy for conserving ammo and taking out low-level threats like feral ghouls and I like the way pistol-sniping looks in VATS.

Similarly hunting rifles are the most cost-effective sniping weapons up until end-game, especially if you don’t have the upgraded version(s) and only limited means of keeping the sniper rifle/scoped magnum well-repaired. I love hunting rifles - cheap, abundant ammo, easy to keep repaired.

696

I think the degradation mechanic is worthwhile, but I certainly agree that weapons wore out far, far too quickly. I almost never used the sniper rifle precisely because it hardly lasted five minutes and spare ones were like gold dust, which is a mite annoying; sniping is how I prefer to play all these games.

697

It’d be nice if, at the very least, they could’ve included an option to turn that mechanic off/on in the options screen. Much like Bioshock would’ve benefited from that same option for the Vita Chambers, or what have you.

698

Many times a game will be 95% great but have a few issues that bother you and are almost dealbreakers. If you’re not having fun, why are you playing the game?

Oblivion showed that a mod community could very successfully alter and/or improve the basic game.

699

I don’t really have a dog in this fight, though I share FinnAgain’s feeling that Fallout 2 had more variation. I think a large part of that comes from the different ammo types, which in my opinion added a lot. It also makes a difference with the turn based combat, and being able to choose between types of strikes, aimed or unaimed, burst or single shot.

You say 66 with upgrades for Fallout 3. Which are the upgraded, non-unique, weapons? Honestly curious. And I can’t figure where you get 117. I got 97 weapons in Fallout 3, counting every single one, including four weapons you can’t use in game without adding with the console and Col Autumn’s 10mm and laser, neither of which you’ll actually get to use. Admittedly, I only count 90 in Fallout 2 (92 with dynamite and plastic explosives).

As for “infinitely more” mine weapons, what do you mean there? The Rock-it Launcher is really only one weapon, regardless of what you’re shooting with it.

700

I suppose that it matters if they’re almost deal breakers, or deal breakers. The lack of weapon/ammo variation was a minor annoyance, and I felt that it took a lot away from the richness that Fallout 2 had in terms of combat choices. It was just nifty to know that even in the same class of weapons, some were better up close, some at a distance, some had better burst fire, etc… The lack of variety of weapons was just a niggling annoyance.

The weapon degrading mechanic was a greater annoyance, but still wasn’t close to being a near-deal-breaker, let alone ruining the entire game. All it meant was that I had to horde dozens of each type of weapon and keep them in my house in Megaton. Not a huge problem, but an annoyance that instead of just having fun with a variety of different weapons, I had to, essentially, engage in a stripped-down grind to keep my weapons up to snuff. It is a feature that annoys me, and I can’t find a good reason for it. I’ve never seen a single game with weapon degradation that had it add anything to the enjoyment of playing the game, at all. Appeals to realism seem misplaced, as nobody really wants a realistic game if realism doesn’t make the game more enjoyable.

That being said, I think that one of my first posts to the thread called Fallout 3 “awesomesauce”. And I stand by that. I’d peg it at around a solid 90%, maybe 92 or 3. For me, getting rid of weapon degradation would have brought it up a few more points, as would keeping the variety of weapons from Fallout 2. Under no circumstances, if I was designing the game, would I have taken the arsenal from Fallout 2 and cut the vast majority of weapons from each class of weapons. It was nice, for instance, that for some enemies you knew that the grease gun would do fine, but for others you’d need the tommy gun. And that for mid range combat the FN FAL might do fine, but if you really needed to bring the pain the gun that fired caseless ammo would be best, etc…

I think it added a lot to the tactical richness of the game.

That is, in Fallout 3 while weapons like the Chinese pistol were pretty much useless, in Fallout 2 almost all of the different pistols had valid roles depending on the situation you were in. And the upgrades often made a significant difference. In Fallout 3, even the named weapon variants pretty much just do more damage. Unless I miss my guess, they don’t offer better range, more ammo capacity, etc… With the exception of the firelance alien blaster which really did have a different mode of action. Then again, that’s pretty much the rarest and most difficult weapon to get in the whole game.

All that being said, there are some games where the game is otherwise good, but some mechanic pisses me off enough that I wouldn’t ever play the game again. The cover system in Gears of War comes to mind. If I got that game as a gift I’d return it for store credit.