Fallout 3 Gameplay Thread

no way, i totally disagree with you about the weapon damage, its completely bogus, even on very easy mode, you consider having to place more than 1 round from an ak47 into someone's head to incapacitate them as realistic? i shot a guy from a sawed-off shotgun point blank 2 times in the face and he didnt die...thats not realism thats sci-fi; the damage model currently in this game isnt anything approaching realism, maybe we can also mention the fact that my ak47 has a spread at 50m as big as a real ak47 would have at 200m, hell i cant even hit anything at 50m with the fallout AK, i think it actually does not allow it to deal damage from further than 50m away...REALISM? yea okay, modding in guns into oblivion was obviously tough for Beth or apparently mainstream gamers prefer guns that break after 2 clips and cant shoot further than 50m unless they're sniper rifles

play stalker with a damage mod to see what damage with firearms should be like

about the ammo i agree, there is WAY too much ammo and weapons, and it kills any reason to make your own weapons from schematics (spoiler?) (whats the point when you have missile launchers, flamers and miniguns)

as for weapon condition i totally disagree, weapon breakdown in this is way too overdone, an ak47 in good condition breaking down after 100 shots - yea right, and why when i use another AK to fix mine i can only fix 10% of it's condition? what am i replacing? the barrel? the trigger group? the receiver? none of these parts wear out that fast

my perception of combat IS skewed, im not going to play a game where i can't kill a biological creature without a helmet in 1 shot from a high-caliber sniper rifle, thats arcade mode and kills any remaining realism in this game

im used to playing clear sky (with obligatory realistic damage mod) and CS:S where a headshot is a headshot and ammo is scarce, but in clear sky i can also lean, use lots of cover and have 2 different levels of crouch, so yea fallout combat is pretty retarded BUT it can be fixed with mods without a doubt, once damage is fixed then we can talk about ammo levels

 

In reality, people need to clean their rifles to maintain their weapon. If you dont know how to reload properly or how to clean your weapon, its effectiveness/accuracy goes down.

So in Fallout 3 none of these weapons were maintained in the first place! they were old and used! How many years old are they? oh yeh about 500. Weapons should deteriorate as fast as they should? And your weapon skill also affect the deterioration rate of your weapon? Im using small guns only and its at 100, Im using these guns way longer than when my skill was lower.

And your repair skill increase the % of a weapon repair? Mine is at 95 and slopping two crappy weapons below 30% net me a slightly over 50% weapon. Did you somehow expect that three crappy weapons somehow = a perfect conditioned weapon?

Yeh the weapon damage is off. Its harder. If the system should be realistic, less bullets doing more damage then the ammo system needs to be fixed drastically.

I rather have a game in which damage towards me is more realistic. That system pushes more intelligent gameplay. On easy, you can take so many more shots, you dont have to worry about taking care of the most pressing threats cause you never have to. On hard, I'll run away from anything charging at me (even a lone scorpion can be deadly on early levels) especially when you're using a crappy gun, back tracking and switching between VATS to cripple and normal shooting to kill.

Whats the point of being able to blow enemies heads off in 1 shot and walk around like a tank yourself. The damage system needs to be fixed, and it should go both ways while simultaneous shrinking the ammo pool by vast proportions.

If weapon damage is real, ammo is scarce and accuracy is an issue, the difference between scoped weapon and rifles become so much more obvious. The whole system feels more real because you'll be force to take some long shots and going in with close shots during encounters.

For the time being since we dont have this modded yet, I rather play on higher difficulties under which it feels more like a survival game to me.

 

ok this is starting to get to me

SPOILER

why can't i stun mutant captives and collar them?! its retarded i thought they were there for that purpose
END SPOILER

also i came across several rock formations where textures were missing in several spots and you could see through the rocks....tsk tsk

 

Cool things that you start noticing...

There are a lot of 60s pop culture references in this game, thankfully after the film lit class junior year, Im recognizing them

"Those" a quest given to you in Fallout 3, revolves very much around the theme of classical horror film "These"

robots in this game are replicas of the robot main character in sci-fi classic "The Forbidden Planet", even their voices are close to identical.

The two movies referenced were both top horror movies of its time, both movies had under laying anti-dictator, anti-communism themes, its not without irony that they're appearing in this game.

Something cool to think about, there's a nice chunk of surrealism that they should fit in with Fallout 3's retro 60s undertone.

 

*EDIT* It seems that WileyCoyote pretty much said the same thing three posts ago, so erm... oops *EDIT*

Just quietly, you can do that in FO3 too...

Just wondering about all the people *****ing about weapon degradation speed... My weapon's don't seem to degrade fast at all... Is that because I'm playing on normal difficulty?

And I've gotta say, I'm enjoying the game a lot less as time goes on, because as the encounter difficulty scales up, you just can't perform long distance raids, even on raiders, because you can never hit even in FPS mode and when you do it takes off such a piddly bit of health that it doesn't even matter...

Like there was a raider base at the end of a big gully/valley, with a couple guards lining the walls. I thought to myself "Excellent, sniping tiemz a la Proof of Life!"

Eight shots later when I'd finally killed one of them and 700 more were within spitting distance, I thought to myself:

This takes all the excitement and strategy out of it.

Personally, I'd like to see a mod that increased the damage of all weapons or cut every human's health (super mutants and armoured enclave are allowed to have ridiculous damage resistance lol) - yes players would die more, but that would give us more options in a firefight than just running out of cover and emptying three clips into an enemy's head while he does the same to us (at the cost of only 20% of our health or whatever), which is currently what we have available.

If anyone has come up with a strategic method during firefights that works, please share with the class.

I just feel that when a lot of your enemies are human, making non-big-guns basically ineffective is a little mean, especially when it would make the game so much more involving, strategic and, well, fun!

 

Pointers and great things to notice during the experience.

Its surprising that this game actually take place in America, and especially near our capital. I forget that sometimes. The place feel so different, but very solid reminders of its locality remains.

Go see the different memorials, jefferson, lincoln, see the white house, washington monument and actually take time to look around for information. Computer terminals, notes, etc fill you in on the "future" of america and the war that took place. Overall, its just insane to see the testimonies of our nation lying in shambles as their deteriorting shells are now occupied by true deterioration of humanity: bands of bandits and super mutants.

 

hey, where's that raider base?

also HUGE SPOILER/COMPLAINT

the Oasis NPC, i wont say it so i dont spoil it for people, how does it make any sense for him to be in DC if he was in Fallout2 in California??!?! what are you thinking, Beth?

ps.: BURN IT WITH FIRE!!

 

My apologizes, 'narky.

Upon unplugging my controller, I see the "hotkey" reminder, which is present with the controller plugged in (see thumbnail), inconveniently disappears.

To contribute to what Wiley added with regards to the golden ages of sci-fi films, the "Protector" is an homage to "Robby the Robot," which appeared in a number of sci-fi films and was prominently used in a 1962 episode of the Twilight Zone.

 

SLIGHT SPOILER

does anyone know who im supposed to be taking the ears to (contract killer perk), the perk description says it will give me the identity but it never did

 

Game Hints *Possible Spoilers*

Theres something you cant escape on higher difficulties of Fallout 3, during earlier lvls, 1-5 I'd say, there are some enemies I just cant beat. Even when I met a single Super mutant brute and I was lvl 4 armed with an assault rifle, I just died. Hes got a mini gun and twice your my health with better armor... cant do anything at such a low lvl.

Combat really works once you pass lvl 5 and can invest enough skill points into one gun skill, small arms preferably since most weapons early are small arms, to 75 asap. and get the repair skill to lvl 50 asap. These two combined allow you to get hands on decent damaging small arms early on, especially when you repair alot. Use the hunting rifle and assault rifle whenever you encounter multiple enemies, and use the pistol against single enemies.

On hard, I couldnt handle 3 raiders at once until I was lvl 5, espcially if one of them have an assault rifle. Its possible but i ended up chewing through 8 stim packs.

Once I had both a hunting rifle and assault rifle, and using a good strategy, I was taking on packed enemies. I had two approaches and they ended invariably the same, If they spot you, they'll shoot from the distance, not very accurately, and the melee attackers will try to flank. If you spot them, shoot the melee attackers first to get their attention first, and they'll come to look for you. So get behind cover, and as soon as you see the melee attacker, when hes not too close to you, VATS into assault rifle, go for the legs/head/armed hands with the higher % or just lob a grenade in VATS mode when they're close in pack. You'll take care of most melee attack groups without getting too hurt. Then you can pick off the range attackers without distractions.

 

wow...i have 1.82Gb worth of fallout 3 saves already...

 

Nice. That could be a game for a third-world country.

 

As much as I hate DRM I already bought it...arghh ahh well still fun lol! back to the game!

 

just walking back from Arefu caught glimpse of something in the sky...upon closer examination turned out to be an Enclave soldier levitating about 100 feet in the air....reasons unknown...target does not appear to be hostile...

EDIT: wow this is like the Twilight Zone...about 100ft away a Scavenger with a scuba tank and mask is battling 2 Mirelurks in the middle of the river....

anyone notice how you can swim 4x faster than you can run?! makes no sense considering im wearing 150lbs of power armor

 

lol, havent checked mine, but 20 hours into the game, I have 82 saves.

 

i have about 600...i save alot

 

I'm playing on normal, and could handle three raiders easy (3x headshot with the (to start with) beautiful hunting rifle)... Now I get raped by the same group because apparently they've learned to use their submachineguns with 75% accuracy from a imperial ****-mile away, they're pounding me, and I can bearly hit them in manual aim...

Maybe it's my 60% condition weapons and level 65 small arms skill at level 8 that's letting me down, I'll try upping my repair and SA skills like you suggested...

Also, has anyone noticed whether upping your weapons skill affects damage/bullet-spread-when-aiming-manually/reload time/degradation-rate/etc?

I really want to get my hands on a copy of the explaination of the game mechanics...

 

Well I am definitely certain that uping weapon skills allow you to be more accurate in fp mode. Weapon degradation is really slow for me @ 100 into small arms. Its lost 5% durability in the last 2 hours.

The hunting rifle rocks, but try to get your hands on a scoped magnum, 6 bullet chamber, more accuracy than the hunting rifle and better damage. Save it against harder enemies.

Honestly, this play through, I just want to explore as many hidden options as I can. I invested in Speech as well, and Child at heart, lady killer perks. They're useless except to get more options in dialogue. I'll get serious on the next play through. It'll be a way different character. And I'll play evil too.

What I want to know is if 100(+) for a skill means anything? Is it better than just 100?

 

Thanks, I appreciate the info.

I thought the magnum was hideously underpowered - less than the hunting rifle, despite the total of 24 rounds i've managed to find so far...

The (+) represents a boost to your skill/attribute through stims or equipped items.

 

hehehe being evil is good, only evil characters can kill sweet old ladies and put their severed heads in the toilet

SPOILER

anyone else kind of annoyed with the vampire wannabees? what was the whole point of having them? does Beth need to have a vampire dungeon in every single game they make or something? because its reaaaallly a stretch the way they did it

END SPOILER

POST YOUR EVIL RANK!!

mine is "Villain Of The Wastes" =)

also there's a severe lack of ugly people in this game, 90% of the men and women you come across would rank an 8-10 on the hot-or-not scale...which is fine i guess but having female raiders that look better than photo models is a bit unrealistic...they should have made people mutated with extra fingers, cancerous growths, skin problems, etc

SPOILER

anyone else think they did a terrible job animating Dogmeat?

 

I was surprised at the vampire lair too, then I read something about its reference to Oblivion...weak. Im killing that entire place after getting the quest when I play evil.

I will also be very tempted to get cannibalism if I play evil.. as well as the assassin perk.. collecting ears?!! ahaha sick.

Has anyone attempted to build a super good character? That sounds interesting as well: with animal friends, lol, you'll have all the molerats and coachroaches as your meatshields. Its so good that its evil??!

 

actually if you were evil killing a lair of cannibals would be the last thing you'd want to do

the thing that frustrates me is that ive been unable to find an evil way to do the Arefu quest, there are no bad endings for it unless i slaughter everyone myself...no fun

SPOILER

cannibalism perk is the way you get into the vampire lair to begin with, its about as useful as 'lady killer' perk, which is to say just useful enough to put a smiile on your face once in a while

 

How are you s'pose to know what which form of armor is better than the next?

 

you look at their condition and current armor bonus, then you basically guess

so ranger armor that's 14 DR at 40% condition (about) is worse than power armor 25 DR at 50% condition...its actually a flawed system, they should give the maximum potential armor rating

i just made those numbers up btw

also i really miss not having any descriptions for items; what's the point of stealing people's lawn gnomes if i cant even read a witty description about it in my inventory

something like "A damaged lawn gnome - this stalwart defender of the front lawns of countless suburban developments has suffered irreparable damage as a result of his long lifespan and difficult conditions in the wasteland. A good percentage of the paint has long chipped away and there are visible tooth marks all over the body"

 

Can my laptop this game?

 

Yes, most likely at your native resolution at all high and maybe some medium settings.

 

Been playng for two days now and I really like the game so far, though it was kinda hard at first with weak armor.
Hopefully we will get expansion packs too, like Oblivion.

 

ok I had it since yesterday and it takes awhile to explore and chat, also how the hell are you suppose to repair the weapon using keyboard and mouse the help option doesn't go into detail it just says do it in the pip boy. Wow big help. And yes so far I die alot when I run into raiders and it's sucks changing weapons with the pip boy. I use a nostromo n52 te and mouse combo so I'm not sure how I can hotkey weapons with the limited buttons.

 

read the thread, all of this has been answered just a page or two back

you repair weapons by highlighting a weapon in pip boy and pressing R if you have more than one "assault rifle" for example you can use the second one to repair the first, destroying it in the process, if you only have 1 you can't repair it except at a trader

you hotkey weapons by pressing shift + # in the weapons screen then clicking on a weapon in your inventory it will show it assigned to that #, then you can just switch between weapons like any FPS

 

anyone know why Talon Company is always hostile to me? is there any way to make them friendly? also where is their HQ?

EDIT: i was just walking around north of DC near a freeway and i see this ghoul is running at me and my AK only has like 10 rounds left, so i start firing at it and suddenly a deathclaw jumps from off-screen and kills him just as im running out of ammo...gave me quite a start...i guess deathclaws dont like ghouls..or anyone actually

 

Did you disappoint Mr. Burke?

I'm thinking Talon Company and Burke were in cahoots.

 

So I just found out that raising your weapon skill also increase the damage you do with your weapon and you can see it on the DMG stat.

Before that when I was steadily investing points into small arms, I keep running into hunting rifles that did more and more damage. And I thought I was just a lucky son of a gun.
Also, maxing repair skill is a must, the damage jump from 99% to 100% in quality is way more than 1%. Using half repaired weapons is a huge waste of ammo, and on harder difficulties especially, ammo is alot harder to come by...

 

Where is the best place to buy ammo? it seems like the crater supply store in megaton never has enough


*spoiler*
Does anyone know where the Find The Family? i need to deliver that one chicks note but i cant seem to find them at all any tips?
*end spolier*

 

Rivet city has alot more merchants, but you have to find the city first!

 

oh cool, yeah i have to do a quest their for the research project,


but yeah this game has really indept i love it


Does anyone know whats up with the "live" option on the main menu for PC? does it mena u get to play with xbox live? or what

 

I have to ask this.. for the people who have the game, do you have Vsync off? its much better than Vsync on i heard.

 

We're both doing the Blood Ties quest for Lucy West.

 

with 2x1.6Ghz and only 2.5G ram?

Maybe I'm underestimating how good his GPU is?

 

In case you were wondering, the robots are located in the junk yard.

Where in the bloody hell is the junk yard?

 

i run vsync on with dxtweaker because nvidia doesnt support vsync in
directx3d games correctly (fps falls to 1/2 of refresh...bad), with dxtweaker it runs at refresh fps...good, without vsync there is too much tearing no reason to run it without, if anyone needs help with dxtweaker you have to enable the "present changer" module for the executable and set the Count to 2 under "module properties"

CAUTION SLOW DOWN SPOILERS AHEAD

as for the Family, they're at Mereseta Station (SP?), 2 ways there, one is through the mereseta trainyard (to the east) another through the Seneca Station (marked on your map), there is a manhole in the irradiated room behind the ghoul

Amadeus no im friends with Burke since i blew up Megaton...oh but i also kidnapped his wife put an explosive collar on her and sold her to the slavers....would that be a problem? i really wanted to be friendly with Talon Company, still cant find their HQ, i hear its somewhere near DeadDitch or something

 

you mean Scrapyard right? where? the same one where you find a certain dog that's useless in combat and growls for no reason?

 

ok thanks for the tips. Do you use the xbox controller? I kinda like its simplicity.

 

its located north west of the springvale elementry school

 

lol where's the elementary school? also you know where Greyditch is?

@jacob: no i dont use an xbox controller, i dont like simplicity thats why i have a PC and not an X-box

wow lol i just went back and played fallout 1 to compare....it looks so bad lol its like going back to play doom after quake 4

but the combat is somehow more satisfying.. and being able to examine everything and read a description of every item is great

 

North of Springvale.

 

Ok I found this game to be much more satisfying using Xbox 360 controller. Combat is more satisfying and accessing everything just feels more natural. Seems as though Bethseda designed this game more for console than PC and just ported it over. So it just feels more like a watered down console RPG.

 

So far I'm hooked. Running maxed out at native, and keeping 60FPS at all times. It does seem to have that same "Oblivion" scheme (visual), just in a post-modern theater.

 

No, I do not mean the scrap yard.

These fools are waiting for me to show 'em how to use robots as a line of defense; they say the robots are located in the junk yard -- all of Big Town looks like a **** junk yard.

 

--------------------
Possible Spoiler:

When you go to Lamplight to get into Vault 87, how come I can't get through the back gate to get through to Murder Pass?
--------------------
Something completely different:

Now that Fallout 3 is out, I'm wondering if there is going to be a lot of cross-modding with Oblivion. Maybe someone will completely transfer the resources from one game to another to play Oblivion Fallout style! xD

Or we might see Oblivion textures in Fallout, or vice-versa. (Oh God, no)

Who knows? That would be a pretty interesting thing to see. it might tempt me to completely reinstall my copy of Oblivion!

What I'm wondering the most is how many weapon mods will come out. Since there are plenty of different guns now there are surely more animations in Fallout 3 than Oblivion. (except for the melee ones; the melee animations are almost completely recycled from Oblivion) I wonder how someone will work weapon mods into Fallout 3 and keep the animations in check. I couldn't stand another clipping issue. (for example with Counter-Strike when someone gave the M4A1 a vertical grip; hand clipped right through it, since the default M4A1 has the more traditional "barrel grip")

 

Kierkes,
Go back to the entrance and talk to the kid who is the Mayor, he'll open up the gate for you.

I'm right at the end of the game and enjoyed it immensely. I pretty much used small arms for all my combat, best weapon I had was the Lincoln Repeater. Fires .44 ammo and hardly degraded at all compared to other weapons, especially the sniper rifle.