Bobbicus
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Posted 07/30/10 at 01:43 PM
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#26
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Oh man, Autosave on area load would have been so awesome. I can't tell you how many times I've been killed in a freak encounter or a critical hit, only to have to replay a large portion of the game because I haven't saved in the past 2 hours.
Bah!
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Rowan
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Posted 07/30/10 at 02:29 PM
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#27
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Autosaves would have been a marvelous addition to the game, it's true.
The early random encounters are best dealt with by running, but the game, of course, never makes that clear.
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Bobbicus
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Posted 07/30/10 at 03:45 PM
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#28
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Well, I'd say the game makes it clear the first time you see that screen of your skeleton bleaching in the wasteland sun.
Now an interesting thing to discuss - why is it strange to you that you need to run away from encounters? Shouldn't that be the natural inclination when wandering alone in the wasteland? Is that a habit from other games? The fact that you're playing a game?
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Rowan
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Posted 07/30/10 at 04:07 PM
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#29
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I think most RPG players use running as an absolute last resort. Particularly turn-based games with strong character development like Fallout. Action/RPGs like Diablo have more running, in my experience.
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Bobbicus
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Posted 07/31/10 at 02:01 AM
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#30
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That's so interesting to me - how people expect victory in digital games in particular. The ability to save and reload goes from a simple convenience to allow a player to pause and resume an experience to a game mechanic, where the player can replay a scenario over and over again until he gets the optimum outcome. In effect, A player can always achieve the "best" experience through brute force.
Which is why I really encourage Iron Man style games, especially after your first playthrough. Nothing changes a game faster than the inability to exploit player immortality.
If you've never played Original War, you should give it a shot. It's an RTS where every one of your units has a name and stats. It also awards you medals based on performance in mission - and one of them is always "no loading." I played through semi-iron man style; not loading during a mission, but replaying if I failed it. Let me tell you, it was a real punch in the gut whenever I lost a soldier that had been with me for a while. Especially when they would get caught in a freak ambush right at the end of a mission - and so if I wanted to save them, I would have to throw away the last 2 hours and start from scratch. Instead I kept going, and it was pretty powerful.
Other games that work really well Iron Man style are X-Com, Jagged Alliance, and Torment. After all, being able to see the results of a choice, go back in time, and change your choice, really removes much of the impact from your choice. (Torment is good because making a choice that results in your death has no real effect in-game, as you simply come back to life. Really quite brilliant that way.) Games such as FPS and platformers benefit noticeably less, as these types of games are generally focused on guiding the player through a pre-determined narrative, with the only consequence of a player's decisions being "success" or "death," and death only filling the role of minor speedbump on the road to "beating the game."
Noticeable exceptions to this are "S.T.A.L.K.E.R." and "Far Cry 2." If you have played these games before, I highly suggest replaying them in Iron Man mode. Turns them into totally new experiences, and actually improves Far Cry 2 a great deal - really makes you appreciate your rescue buddies, for one.
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AndrewArmstrong
Moderator - Psychonauts
Registered: 07/22/08
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Posted 08/01/10 at 05:55 AM
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#31
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STALKER has a lot of running even with saves. Not sure about Far Cry 2.
Basically; in Fallout, the random encounters might be too high, and if they are the issue usually is that the map spawns you with the monsters RIGHT next to you. Literally within punching distance. Out of Vault 13, with only a pistol, and you get surrounded by 3 rat moles? You're dead whatever you try.
Running might be more palpable at other times though. No doubt it does do some trickery so you don't end up fighting high level encounters all the time on the world map though, so I doubt Fallout has many times when I'd need to do so.
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Bobbicus
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Posted 08/01/10 at 12:32 PM
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#32
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A higher Outdoors skill would serve you well. It drastically cuts down the chance of a bad encounter.
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Rowan
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Posted 08/01/10 at 03:29 PM
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#33
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Luck is important as well.
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AndrewArmstrong
Moderator - Psychonauts
Registered: 07/22/08
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Posted 08/02/10 at 04:57 AM
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#34
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Yes, yes, thanks for rehashing the manual. 
You can't expect every single character to have both high skill and a high outdoor skill at the start of the game (when it is in fact very rarely used from my current experience of the game, and is easily raised by books if you get enough cash it seems - thus I have a relativity high skill now, but not quite sure how it affects the game still! - I'd certainly NEVER tag the skill, and books are only available about 1/3rd of the way through).
Basically; you are saying that you can run? I say the game is not set up for running in a lot of cases, apparently you can be utterly surrounded by heavy melee creatures 1 foot away from you when the encounter is created; it's certainly flawed. More skills to decrease the chance of that happening is still not good design wise 
I've seen better encounter systems; one recent one that comes to mind is Neverwinter Night 2: Storm of Zehir (a underrated game I might add at least gameplay wise) where you can see the roaming monsters, the strength and so forth, and like the Fallout map, if you don't move time doesn't carry on (in addition your relevant skills, like Outdoorman in Fallout, affects it - of course made easier by having a party rather then a single char though, and the effects are much more visible which is great!). It makes it much easier to "run" properly, but if you get caught you do have to fight before leaving the map (and random encounters are also present too, mind you - finding random things in the map if you explore a lot, also creatures might run from you and so forth) - it actually seems rather absurd in comparison that you get to the edge of an area and can simply escape in Fallout
World maps are hard to do I'd admit - probably why they're so rarely used, or at least used well. The one in Fallout is good that it exists - it gives the world much-needed extra depth of "it isn't just empty" - yet it at the start of the game can be completely and utterly merciless!
I'd say it certainly is however one of the items in the game that pushed CRPG's past the tabletop routes, where such encounters are painfully time consuming to sort and usually quite boring since they're not plot relevant. Making it a more dynamic map (along with ways to partially bypass it for the plot or with caravans and for simply as I say expanding the world in a relevant and fun way) adds something that the tabletop doesn't really have much of.
There is perhaps a vast amount of other things that define what a CRPG is different from a classical RPG and why, but this stands out as something that is mainly CRPG.
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Bobbicus
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Posted 08/02/10 at 11:19 PM
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#35
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No you can't expect every character to have high outdoor skill in the beginning. So the ones that don't will have more trouble with random encounters. Still, it's not nearly as well implemented as it could have been - it would have been cool if a high outdoors skill allowed you to see encounters, track them, etc, as well as increasing your overland traveling speed.
I've never been completely surrounded by melee characters and unable to escape. You usually have at least one turn to make a break for it.
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AndrewArmstrong
Moderator - Psychonauts
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Posted 08/04/10 at 11:42 AM
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#36
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If you have enough AP perhaps you can try it in the first turn, if you go first
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Bobbicus
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Posted 08/04/10 at 02:17 PM
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#37
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Can you give a few examples of when this happened to you? Not that I'm doubting you or anything, but I've never been ambushed and killed fresh out of the vault on the way to Vault 15. I think it's pretty cool that we can have completely different experiences.
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Rowan
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Posted 08/04/10 at 03:12 PM
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#38
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I got smashed by mantises on the way from Shady Sands to Vault 15. It can happen.
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Bobbicus
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Posted 08/04/10 at 03:42 PM
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#39
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What character? Did you try to fight? Run on the first turn? I want juicy details!
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Rowan
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Posted 08/04/10 at 03:54 PM
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#40
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My main character - only one I've played through with. I think they got the jump. The damn mantises are fast little bastards, though I might have tried to fight, oops.
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Bobbicus
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Posted 08/04/10 at 04:17 PM
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#41
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Yea, mantises are surprisingly deadly - they look so small and puny, yet there's so many of them, and they move pretty quick.
I don't think this is the game being unfair though. It's simply a judgement call to run or fight - and a little thinking will tell you to run!
Even if it only takes one shot to kill them, when there's twelve of them, that's 12 turns minimum to kill them off - which is plenty of time for them to subject you to the "death of a thousand papercuts."
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AndrewArmstrong
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Posted 08/15/10 at 11:58 AM
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#42
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Right out of the vault...to Shady Sands.
Um, those mole rat things, ones with a fair few hit points. Started within 1 tile of 3 of the buggers.
I tried shooting one (first time seeing them, thought they would be weak). Nah. They go, eat me up in 1 go!
No armour, plus me concentrating on talking skills and lacking AP, means my one shot didn't go very far
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Bobbicus
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Posted 08/24/10 at 01:16 AM
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#43
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There's the key, methinks. Most people that I've talked to about this game do the same thing - they think "Oh! Low level critters! I should kill them for juicy xp!" because that's what every almost every single other RPG out there does.
It's one of the things that makes Fallout unique, and one thing that draws me back to it in this era of leveled lists and player coddling- This is the Wasteland, beeyotch. Even the insects will eat you alive.
It's discouraging and disconcerting, but I think it works in the game's favor.
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