Fallout 3, Discuss Options

[Wounded Ronin]

IMO Fallout 3 does a pretty good job of having characters with characterization, and the Speech skill is used in a manner similar to the earlier Fallout games, i.e. to convince people to do things or believe things.

[Stahlseele]

no, speech usually doesn't figure into most talking trees . . mostly the skills used in the subject of the discussion . . you talk to a doc, your meidicne skill might help.

[nezumi]

Another question, apparently with the earlier Fallout games, there was a percentage chance of your speech 'attempts' being successful, i.e. saying the same thing, sometimes it'd go one way, sometimes the other. Is that also the same, or do you always get the same response, and speech only allows you more options to try?

[Wounded Ronin]

Another question, apparently with the earlier Fallout games, there was a percentage chance of your speech 'attempts' being successful, i.e. saying the same thing, sometimes it'd go one way, sometimes the other. Is that also the same, or do you always get the same response, and speech only allows you more options to try?

Like I said, Speech works exactly like it did in Fallout 2. It actually shows you the percentage.

Responding to an earlier post, it's not like Speech came up during every conversation tree in the earlier Fallouts. Only in key ones. Most NPCs weren't really affected by it.

[Backgammon]

I'd say speech is used on 2-3 NPCs per "location". You solve a lot of quests and avoid a lot of trouble using only speech, along with getting extra loot (i.e. "I'll do it for double"). Having made a pretty social character, I am happy with my point investments. Science is the bomb, though. That skill is awesome.

[Platinum Dragon]

I've heard all sorts of praise for Fallout 3 concerning the combat and the scope of the game, etc. However, I also heard gobs of praise for Morrowind and Oblivion, two games with writing so bad and NPCs so generic that after 100 hours total of game time, I couldn't bear the experience any longer and stopped playing. While I think what Bethesda has created in the Elder Scrolls games is fantastic considering all the items, books, and large tracts of land they crammed into each game, their dialogue options and lack of any personality for the majority of NPCs infuriates me to no end. The generic side quests also drove me to distraction after the 100th time I got a variation of, "go kill Foozle. Oh, great! You killed Foozle? Here's some gold!" So, my question, that I haven't seen addressed in the comments and reviews of Fallout 3 that I've read, is: is the writing better in Fallout 3 than in the Elder Scrolls series?

On the one hand, NPCs are characterised marvelously, and every NPC you can talk to (basically everyone with a name, which is most people unless you're in a town, at which point it's about half, and the other half are '(town name) citizen') will have their own unique responses to the same question. The speech skill doesn't give you more options in dialogue, per-se, it just gives you a much higher chance of success when you try to convince someone of something (and it tells you what that chance is next to the dialogue choice). Having other skills and perks will occasionally give you dialogue options (having a high medicine skill occasionally gives you extra options when talking to a doc, having the Gun Nut perk gives you the option to comment on a couple of people's sweet weapons, etc), even to the point where there is the 'child at heart' perk whose only purpose is to give extra dialogue options with children.

On the other hand, the protagonist feels a lot less engaging than he/she did in Fallout & Fallout 2. The long sweeping and occasioanlly smart-arsed dialogue options from the earlier games are mostly gone, replaced with simple questions like 'heard anything interesting' or 'what can you tell me about the sheriff?' There are a small handful of NPC's you can have 'real' conversations with, but most of the time it feels like you're just choosing which question to ask and then listening to their soliloquies.

All-up, you'll probably love it, and will likely have few complaints about it, regardless of what you though about Oblivion, but, like me, you'll probably miss conversations like the one you can have with Renesco in New Reno, to maneuver him into telling you what he knows about G.E.C.Ks. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Rad]

Just started playing, and true to form, I haven't gotten past Megaton yet because I keep restarting. I don't know what it is about the fallout series that makes me do that, but I keep going back and either re-tweaking my character or wanting to try a different approach.

It runs fine on my tower at home, which is technically .4 ghz shy of the listed minimum requirements.

Of course, after hearing from people in this thread that the science skill is actually useful in this game (seemed rather limited in this version judging from the manual) I'll probably go back and make a techie character who just happens to be good with a bat.

Stealth seems to be worthless so far as I've only been able to sneak up on people once with a high agility and the skill tagged, so I think I'll trade that one out. I'm sure it'll be more useful at higher levels, but that's what the tag perk is for. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)

As for the humor, the game does seem slightly more serious, but it still has the dark element to it. There's something just twisted about the opening segments in the Vault, especially if you pay attention to some of the dialogue. It may be less overtly funny, but it still makes my inner demon smile.

[Backgammon]

I have a high Sneak. It's ok. Basically, of the hundred enemies I've come across, I've perhaps only truly avoided combat by sneaking by them once or twice. More if you count outdoors - it's much easier to avoid combat by sneaking when outdoors. You just can't do it indoors.

Sneak is more useful to get into the correct range to engage, and the almighty Sneak Critical Attack. Killing a Super Mutant Master in 1 hit is nothing to sneaze at. It's also really useful later, combined with Robot Expert perk - you can sneak up to robots and deativate them. Then again, come to think of it, I just use a Sneak PIP when doing that.

[Stahlseele]

i can deactivate robots from 100m away . . i just need the scoped 44 magnum *snickers*
science is all important and lockpicking is all important . . then some weapons skills and high perception and agility will net you a good allrounder i think

[Rad]

Well, I haven't been trying to *avoid* combat--just rack up some stealth criticals. But most enemies see me coming before I can get at a decent range to use VATS. I like to do mostly melee anyway, and you *never* get that close without being detected, so I'll just ditch it until later.

About lockpicking: How do you use it, exactly? I take it the game will just give you the option if it's available and you have a high enough skill? That's what it looks like so far, but I've yet to have it actually come up and I miss the simplicity of just pressing a button and clicking on the thing you wanted to try your skill on.

Also, I miss locking random doors in fallout 2 with the lockpick skill for experience. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Fix-it]

lockpicking is a minigame.

you need a minimum skill level to even TRY to pick a lock. and then it goes to the minigame, where you have to find the right position for a bobby pin in the lock (You rotate it in a half circle) while turning the cylinder with a screwdriver.

almost like real-life picking.

[Stahlseele]

easy enough to get around.
quicksave, try to break it open, if it fails, quickload, try again . .
much easier than hacking, because even at 10% probability, probability says that one in 10 successive tries will work . .

[thepatriot]

I just can't wait until they release a construction set so I can get to work on a Shadowrun mod.

PS: has anyone seen Adam Jury or Ancient History around lately? Pistons? Any of the old timers?

[Fortune]

Adam and Ancient History, and even Bull are all still here. Pistons, not so much.

[Platinum Dragon]

As for the humor, the game does seem slightly more serious, but it still has the dark element to it. There's something just twisted about the opening segments in the Vault, especially if you pay attention to some of the dialogue. It may be less overtly funny, but it still makes my inner demon smile.

Just wait 'till you start helping Moira write her 'Wasteland Survival Guide.'

[Wesley Street]

So, my question, that I haven't seen addressed in the comments and reviews of Fallout 3 that I've read, is: is the writing better in Fallout 3 than in the Elder Scrolls series?

Yes. Much better. Voice acting as well.

I'm playing this on the Xbox 360 and I think it's awesome. When walking around a blasted nuclear landscape actually makes you feel a little depressed inside, the creators have done their job. And if launching mini-nukes (Fat Man ammo) at Super Mutants and watching their limbs tear off in slow motion using rag doll physics is wrong... I don't wanna be right.

[PBTHHHHT]

speaking of fallout 3, here's a glimpse of a mod someone made for the game. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbyhpsv-6sM

uhm... could be considered spoilerish possibly. not really, but still gotta warn ya.

[Abschalten]

Sneak is one of those skills that you either want to have very very high or not bother with it at all. If you want to build a stealth-based character, then the perk for you is Silent Running. Your ninja abilities go from mediocre to bad-assed very quick after you grab that one, and I think it becomes available at level 12. What it does is discounts your rate of movement from calculations for your sneak attempts... basically, if you're sneaking, you can run at full sneak-mode speed and it counts it as walking for purposes of seeing if enemies detect you. Given how slow one moves in sneak-mode anyway, you'll be detected either because you're moving too fast, or not fast enough when an enemy turns around and spots you. Once you pick up Silent Running then stealth becomes a truly viable tactic.

My current character is a Mr. Lucky build... basically I went with Luck 8 in chargen, got it up to 10 (with the Lucky 8-Ball + the Luck Bobblehead.) This gives me a base 10% critical hit chance. 1:10 chance to do critical damage. I then later picked up Finesse, giving me another 5% critical hit chance. When I did Moira's Wasteland Survival missions, I did all the optional missions and kept giving her the snarky responses... this gives me another 3% critical hit chance when I'm done. This adds up to 18% critical hit chance... which is statistically a bit higher than rolling a 6 on a 1d6. It's below 1:5 and above 1:6. Them's pretty good odds when you are firing off alot of rounds. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

If you build a melee character and get them up to level 20, you can pick up the Ninja perk. That adds an additional 15% chance for criticals on your melee and unarmed attacks. I think my next character will work towards that on top of a Mr. Lucky build, as that would land me criticals every 3 attacks or so. Combine that with Better Criticals, for another 50% damage whenever a critical hit is landed, and you could be a beast.

Educated is probably one of the best perks to take early on. If you explore alot, then I also highly recommend Comprehension (gives you 2 skill points for reading the skill books instead of one.) There are roughly 25 skill books for each skill spread across the game. That's 25 skill points per skill waiting to be found. If you take Comprehension, that number DOUBLES to 50. Combine that with the bobbleheads and you're looking at 60 skill points just laying around the wasteland, theoretically. If you have an Intelligence at 8+ w/ Educated and Comprehension, then you get all the bobbleheads, your attributes and skills will be fairly high all around.

Small Guns is probably the best all around skill group in the game. Those weapons are plentiful, powerful, and there's a great selection of them so it's very well-rounded. They're easier to find than Big Guns and Energy Weapons. Energy Weapons are ass when you first start the game and your Repair skill is low. They start to shine in the mid-game, however, especially if you get alot of criticals, sneaking and otherwise. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Oh man, I really need to end this post here. I've put about 175 hours into the game since I got it and it's starting to show.

[Rad]

Yeah, stealth has been like that in all of the fallouts--but it seems moreso in this one. Just bugs me because when I pick a list of skills crucial for survival in the wasteland, stealth is right up there--but the game's mechanics say otherwise.

[Crusher Bob]

Science vs. Lockpicking is much more of an either/or thing. Lockpicking is more generally useful for getting loot, but science is the skill that actually has conversation choices. In the default game, of course, you can basically max out every skill, so it's no big deal, just take both.

[Wounded Ronin]

Everyone says that Science and Lockpicking are so important, but I just don't see that.

My character had Science and Lockpicking under 25 for much of the time I've been playing and it's only screwed me out of completing 1 quest, Stealing Independence, and that's just because I told Sydney to screw off. It seems like most of the time there's always alternate entrances.

The game is much easier than Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 in terms of the combats, and there's so much weightless ammunition that you end up with thousands of rounds of 5.56 and hundreds of 10mm carts. So instead of playing the aggravating hacking game just shoot everyone. It's so much easier and you get where you need to go faster than with the guessing game.

The main consequence to not having either Lockpicking or Science seems to be just that I can't open all the chests that I find. But like I said, you don't even need to open all the chests. In a sense I'm glad I don't have to deal with more openable chests because it would just lead to stress when I have to decide what to drop due to encumberance. I think I probably end up spending more time combing my EQ lists and prioritizing what I should drop than I would just shooting all the enemies and grabbing their rifles as loot so that if I go overweight I can just consolidate the rifles using Repair.

Thanks to Fast Travel, you don't have any problem with bottle caps, ammo, or stimpacks if you Fast Travel back and forth from a battle site a couple of times and dump every scrap of EQ on each of the Megaton merchants until you have stockpiled enough weightless stim packs to last the whole game.

So yeah, Science and Lockpicking seem less important than just having a little patience and loads of resources which can carry you through any firefight. Ha ha, I guess that's actually one of the disadvantages of having something be more RPG style and less FPS style. If it's more RPG style you can just budget your way through any sticky situation by having monolithic piles of weightless healing items.

[Platinum Dragon]

The hacking game isn't so bad. Don't forget to look for the pairs of brackets: I missed that when I first read the manual, and since I figured it out, the whole hacking minigame became blindingly easy. Even 'very hard' terminals usually only end up with one or two passwords once you've hunted down all the brackets.

The biggest benefit of hacking I've found so far is releasing protectrons on unsuspecting raider camps in the metro system. Just don't forget to have a ticket in your inventory.

[AngelisStorm]

I would like a mini mod for the X360 adding some old Christmas music to listen to on the radio.

I like the game on the 360, but I'm sad I'm going to miss out on all the crazy things people are going to mod. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif) People are making more weapons, expanding the waistland, and all sort of neat things.

[ Spoiler ]

And the end of the game makes me so angry! That super mutant is immune to radiation! Send HIM in! And "lethal" levels of radiation my but. The first time I went in, I had RadX, the unique lab coat, and a power helmet on. I wasn't taking THAT much radation, and I had enough Rad Away to last me hours. LET ME OUT of the room damn it!

[Wesley Street]

Is it wrong that I laugh out loud every time I slow-mo vaporize a merc or mutant with a laser pistol?

[PBTHHHHT]

Is it wrong that I laugh out loud every time I slow-mo vaporize a merc or mutant with a laser pistol?

As bad as when I was laughing gleefully while running around with the scoped magnum just to see how many heads will disintegrate just to see the jawbone fly away from the rest of the head...