Horrible bullet sponge aside, how was Point Lookout so much better than everything else released as FO3?
Horrible bullet sponge aside, how was Point Lookout so much better than everything else released as FO3?
Horrible bullet sponge aside, how was Point Lookout so much better than everything else released as FO3?
who do you suspect are other members of the 'great game' of the minds? i think Robert House is in it for sure, i wish they'd say more about this in game.
Honestly I've always been super interested in that aspect of the DLC and feel that for sure House is either directly involved or at least in the know about what's going on.
>Horrible bullet sponge
I hate Bethesda's approach to difficulty so god damn much.
desmond after killing calvert says that he is going north to face another one of the great minds
how would you design "hard" enemies in a bethesda type RPG without making them bullet sponges?
you cant because the AI is only capable of doing a very select few things until you kill them. how could you make difficult an enemy that will either stand out in the middle of nowhere shooting at you, or run at you with a melee weapon and swing til dead? In Fallout 4 "shooting from cover" is added to that which brings the total amount to 2 behaviours that Bethesda enemies have.
What Bethesda needs is enemies that manoeuvre and coordinate or have varying levels of combat skill but fighting a Raider is the exact same as fighting a top tier BoS commander bar the weapon difference. the difference should be fighting a zombie with a gun vs a F.E.A.R soldier
>a F.E.A.R soldier
need a scripted, tunnel-like level design for that
i suppose so but then that just means the indoor environments shouldnt be designed like a theatre ride of a post apocalyptic building and actually be designed like a disused location. F.E.A.R had plenty of industrial, maintenance and uninhabited spaces just like the locations of Fallout
alot of the "dungeons" in Fallout are actually linear or otherwise looping, just with braindead AI patrolling. theres no reason why scripted behaviours cant made to apply to random props common in level design to give the illusion that the enemies are navigating through and around a level to get to a player but again that requires more depth than Bethesda is willing to put into what is clearly a "jangling keys at the player" style of game.
even modern FPS have managed to have a variety of animations and scripts for enemies to run and i hate to say it but modern Call Of Duty has done a good job of making enemies that dont look like theyre running on a loop of two lines of code
even something as simple as making two enemies move in a group together towards the player would be a step up
a) now you're comparing a game from 2022 to a game from 2008 and saying 'see? you can do that why didn't they do that'
b) there's literally nothing impressive about that CoD gameplay, the AI even does the most moronic stuff like switching from RPG to a pistol just so he can get killed
c) I don't think you understand, it's not just the type or style of environments in F.E.A.R. that I'm talking about, the AI is heavily scripted around most of the encounters so it will flip a specify shelf and it will crawl under that specific shelf, it will use callouts for this specific encounter and so on. Even the tables, not all of them are flippable to AI so to speak. How many encounters like that would you get in an open-world RPG? 10 times more? 100? And if you gonna repeat an encounter the exact same way people will cry about it. Also Bethesda already does some unique stuff in the main quest dungeons like cave-ins or whatever.
So the only really cool thing that could be of use in an open-world RPG would be those tables and I think it should be doable. But then again, AI flips a table - cool, now the game turns into a cover shooter that people apparently hate.
Mind you, in Starfield AI (at least on very hard) will already pelt you with grenades, flank you if in advantage, change levels using jet pack and keep in cover if they can. Now the problem is that AI is kinda sluggish and will do some of this stuff pretty slowly, but the fundamentals are there. We'll see if they change anything in the updates, probably not sadly. What else would you do as far as firefight is concerned? Destructible environments? Sure that would be awesome but what else? And this stuff applies not only to Bethesda games but to Borderlands, Stalker or Cyberpunk
>And this stuff applies not only to Bethesda games but to Borderlands, Stalker or Cyberpunk
In stalkers enemies are capable to flank you and sneak on you if you don't pay attention. They also capable of ambushing other stalker squads, if you're lucky to see it you can witness a single stalker slowly crawling up to a squad and bursting them down from behind.
And that's on top of npcs having actual tasks forcing them to move around the map to complete those objectives like mutant and artifact hunting, or even trading.
>In stalkers enemies are capable to flank you and sneak on you if you don't pay attention.
Well yeah same thing in Bethesda games as far as actual combat is concerned.
>And that's on top of NPCs having actual tasks forcing them to move around the map to complete those objectives like mutant and artifact hunting, or even trading.
So something that Oblivion did at much larger scale or even Fallout with caravan traders and faction patrols. Are you trying to imply something or what? We're talking about combat and bullet sponges and you're moving to NPC tasks and faction relations.
Youre now fully talking absolute shit and have no idea about the examples presented to you. No, Oblivion doesnt have NPCs travel around the map "at a much larger scale". there are around 4 NPCs in the whole of Oblivion that do this. STALKER has entire squads of multiple factions move across the map as a major game mechanic.
but fine, you said the guy was moving away from combat- and even then youre still talking bollocks, evident from you saying "Well yeah the same thing in Bethesda games"- anyone who has played even 10 minutes of a STALKER game knows the behaviours are nowhere near comparable. Nobody has ever been snuck up on in a Bethesda game moreso than they just didnt see the enemy behind them. In STALKER you can actually SEE enemies in stealth against each other through binoculars if youre careful
Oblivion has literally hundreds of NPC that have 24h of tasks and jobs moving around cities, talking with different NPCs, fricking praying at the chapel. And you compare to that to the glorified caravan system with faction mechanics tacked on to that
>In STALKER you can actually SEE enemies in stealth against each other through binoculars if youre careful
Literally the same thing happens with Legion patrols in NV. Amazing way to out yourself as somebody who didn't play the games.
Are you some ukrop from stalker team or something? No wonder the game gets delayed every month. Maybe you should focus on your game instead of shitposting on Ganker and trying to implement garbage NFTs into your jank?
not pleased with how you just created the image that the person youre discussing this with is a moron that cant tell the difference between a new game and an old game.
especially when were talking about Bethesda who are 40 years behind current game development and game mechanics.
>i dont think you understand
its not that difficult to understand. stop making excuses for Bethesda being shit.
the only good F3 quests did just that (megaton/tenpenny, haunted house, liberty prime) every other quest was dogshit
Add more enemies of different types. Like give bandits wolves and a missile launcher or something like that. Idea stolen from a Tim Cain video
A couple of idea:
-Diversifying the weapon selection and having it deal different types of damage that might be strong or weak against a particular enemy (ballistic for human enemies, energy for robots, etc.)
-Limiting quick saves inside of a dungeon
-Limiting inventory (guns/health items/buffs)
-Limiting player health
-Increasing number of enemies/spawn in more enemies if the player gets spotted
-Making the AI more sophisticated such that IRL tactics can be applied like suppression, grenade spam, flanking, etc.
-Giving dungeons many different routes so players are always at risk of being flanked
-Decreasing player movement speed/fidelity of combat
-More status effects that can kill the player quickly
-Enemies can do more than just shoot you
-Greater recoil from getting hit/shot
My suggestions basically turn Fallout into more of a tactical shooter that emphasizes stealth, but maybe this allows for a dichotomous play style where getting into Power Armor allows you to go full rambo for a limited amount of time or is primarily meant for late game dungeons where direct shootouts are more common. You can argue F3 does this in the very early game with difficulty mods, but quickly moves to a more regular shooter experience with RPG elements.
The issue is that 3D Fallout games (including NV) center their RPGs around guns which are an inherently boring method of combat compared to sword and sorcery. With a gun fight, there's no real ebb and flow to fighting the same way there is with a fist or sword fight. Excepting maybe John Wick which requires some ludicrous ballistic suits to make visually interesting, Fallout is simply hamstrung by the fact it's meant to be semi-realistic, and as such human enemies have to be reasonably expected to die within a few shots, and especially because it has to cater to lower fidelity movement on consoles.
I just mod the shit out of the game until it becomes a tactical shooter. Unfortunately even this can become a bit of an issue in making creatures and melee mobs too easy. its a difficult balancing act.
Program a pair of enemies where one has a high damage sniper rifle and the other has explosives. If you are in the open the one with the rifle shoots at you and can potentially one shot you. If you are behind cover the one with explosives tosses them at you. Neither run at you ensuring you have to somehow close the distance or figure out some other strat.
Literally anything besides "enemy stands there or runs directly at you".
locational damage weakness points for example
I wouldn't. Nobody buys Bethesda games for the intricate gameplay.
It's not about the gameplay, it's about the game spending an entire dungeon hyping up a boss and having him literally be just as weak as a normal enemy. Coursers should have at least moved faster than normal NPCs, been able to jump higher, and be able to melee knock you over if you get too close Deathclaw style
>better accuracy and reaction time
>immediate grenades or flanking if you pause shooting
>realistic snipers, with great positions, no lasers, scope glints or slow bullets
>detection doesn't wear off after crouching for 30 seconds
>easy enemies take cover behind penetrable materials, smart enemies use proper cover and can know they can shoot through some things if you hide behind them
>bigger calibers and special ammo can penetrate more
>smart enemies don't stand near explosive barrels and will shoot them if you do
for me half-life 1 has the best human enemies, especially on hard. remember in most areas you only fight 2 or 3 at once and they don't have more health than you even on hard. they don't need huge numbers to be difficult. i say half-life has the best soldiers because they really act like they're trying to kill you. they don't see you, say "what was that," and waste 10 seconds before detecting you. when they shoot, they don't fire one burst, stop, hop to the side, fire another 3, and say a line. when they see you they just fricking lay into you with automatic fire until you have to take cover. they they just rain grenades on you. there's always one nailing you from a surprise angle if you just try to camp a doorway. they can't be instantly headshot from behind with a 9mm because the PASGT actually stops it instead of just popping of their heads like in stealth games.
and one of the hardest enemies in half-life is the assassin, and she has even less health than marines. but they're hard because they're super accurate, don't talk to each other when they throw grenades or move, they follow your footsteps, they relocate IMMEDIATELY after shooting, and turn invisible. not the crappy shimmery invisibility when fallout npcs use stealth boys. COMPLETE invisibility. you don't need feral ghoul reavers with 93 million health to make an interesting encounter.
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I wouldn't call it 'so much better' It's more on par.
I think since Point Lookout doesn't have the few bad moments everyone fixates on, it allows an audience to appreciate what is really good in Fallout 3. Atmosphere, exploration, and the unique, stilted, awkward tone the game goes for.
Frankly if people's first thoughts of Fallout 3 weren't the ending, or comparisons to other games, it would be much more popular
Point Lookout > The Pitt > The rest
Scared the shit of me many times, Desmond was a sick sob and a dickhead, the dead mother badtrip really hurt my feefees back then.
>better
Was it?From what I remember it wasn’t very good and the only way to complete the main quest required getting a lobotomy from a bunch of tribals.Which was fricking moronic.