Posted June 04, 2015
OneFiercePuppy: I tend to agree, and I also would say that you've precisely described how VATS works. When you trigger VATS, you enter a planning phase. When you have chosen your targets (which you must manually assign and can be from all over the place) and execute, the game then takes control of your character and uses the RNG and your success rate to carry out your actions. Your opponents continue to move (and actually so do you if you're doing melee against multiple, mobile opponents) and shoot at a fairly consistent tick rate - as though they have AP but cannot store them.
While it fits the basic description to a letter, it doesn't actually use the mechanics for what simultaneous turns are supposed to represent. Simultaneous turns, and that's why I said they won't work when real-time then allows you to take the same actions, work as they do to force players to commit to certain actions, and that commitment being an inherent risk for the player. You neither really commit, nor do you take any risks in Fallout 3 and New Vegas - actions taken in VATS are strictly beneficial. Even if you miss every single shot taken, you actually risk very little by taking actions in VATS, to a point where, unless you're starved for ammo, there's no reason NOT to use VATS even with low hit chances. At this point is really not an issue of balance - it's an issue of core design philosophy being completely different for simultaneous turn-based combat and VATS. Additionally, simultaneous turn-based mechanics are called simultaneous because they presume more than a single actor entering the planning phase. When there are no actual simultaneous turns taking place in the combat, but instead player gets a chance of pausing the real-time combat and issue orders, well... We've been there already ;-)
darthspudius: Nostalgia was the only reason New Vegas was made. It was catered to the oldies who did nothing but moan about Fallout 3. Fans reacted to FO 3 the same way they reacted to the recent Deus Ex. it's not the original so it's bad. So they made a glorified expansion pack in a rush to please them. Results are still highly debatable just on a technical standard.
It was catered to oldies who complained about writing and storytelling presented in Fallout 3, and rightfully so. New Vegas has beat Fallout 3 in that department by miles. I would agree that it's a case of nostalgia if their arguments were wrong, but they were not - Fallout world as presented in Fallout 3 was unfaithful to actual established canon in many ways, and it has failed to present the world in shades of grey most fans of postapoaclyptic fiction adore. Actually, I agree with you on level-design perspective. Level design in New Vegas was a mess, especially when compared to the masterfully crafter world Fallout 3 presented. I was talking about level design of early stages of the original Deus Ex, which is to this day used as an example of fantastic level design - we've had an argument about that some time ago that for some reason got stuck in my head, and ever since I've observed a tendency on your part to present your subjective criticism in some discussions as "I'm right and you're wrong because you're being nostalgic", regardless of arguments presented.
Post edited June 04, 2015 by Fenixp