Sure, for the first few levels, until you get to the point where everything is a bullet sponge and now it stops mattering how good or bad gunplay feels when every enemy takes 5 minutes to kill if you use anything other than the highest damage weapons in the game. Late game Fallout 4 is just bad to play, it feels awful and makes you hate the combat after a while. At that point, I’d take the crappy gunplay of Fallout 3 or NV any day. (I’d give NV the slight edge over 3 on that, due to having actual iron sights instead of a generic zoom effect when aiming.)
Lol, fair points. Kinda reminiscent of the jump from Morrowind to Oblivion in that regard.
But that doesn’t change the fact that it is better in a myriad of ways related to combat. Enemies actually take cover, guns have recoil, you can lean, VATS has uniqe mechanics that add a layer of strategy, power armor is vastly improved, etc, etc.
Even if the bullet spongey enemies do turn it into a chore after a while. tbh, 3 had this problem too, though not as bad. Albino Radscorpions come to mind. But I wasn’t looking to nitpick in my original reply.
If we are getting nitpicky though, throwing out the term ‘‘better designed’’ is quite a large umbrella to gloss over the myriad of design choices that 3 simply don’t hold a candle to NV on.
In a couple ways sure. Its map encourages exploration more than NV, and it sets a stronger visual tone.
But in no other way is it better designed than NV. Leveling is less impactful with many perks just being stat increases. Many dungeons are pointless copy paste jobs that are mostly fluff and filler content(the equivalent of bullet sponge enemies really, they become a chore after a while). Quest design isn’t as bad as many folk say, but is on the whole less inspired than NV.
Combat is either tied or just worse in every way (understandable since NV was able to simply improve on the framework 3 built). Damage threshold was simply a better system than damage resistance that largely solved the bullet sponge problem.
Heck, even glossing over NV’s superior writing fails to acknowledge how large of an impact this has on overall design. With the increased choices becoming a mechanic in of itself that 3 largely lacks. The improved interconnectivity of the world creating greater value to the actions of the player. All directly tying into the RPG mechanics, which tie back into the players build in ways 3 never even attempted.
I could go on, but I digress.
It’s enough to clarify that NV is the overall best designed game in most regards, with the hands down best writing.
3 has the strongest visual tone. (Though 4’s city design does nail the retro future aesthetic the series originally had)
3 and 4 are largely tied for ‘‘most explorable map’’.
And 4 is the hands down winner in gunplay feel. Even if that title is significantly diminished by terrible enemy scaling. (and has the worst writing, and worst quest design, and a terrible dialogue system, and…)
Sure, for the first few levels, until you get to the point where everything is a bullet sponge and now it stops mattering how good or bad gunplay feels when every enemy takes 5 minutes to kill if you use anything other than the highest damage weapons in the game. Late game Fallout 4 is just bad to play, it feels awful and makes you hate the combat after a while. At that point, I’d take the crappy gunplay of Fallout 3 or NV any day. (I’d give NV the slight edge over 3 on that, due to having actual iron sights instead of a generic zoom effect when aiming.)
Lol, fair points. Kinda reminiscent of the jump from Morrowind to Oblivion in that regard.
But that doesn’t change the fact that it is better in a myriad of ways related to combat. Enemies actually take cover, guns have recoil, you can lean, VATS has uniqe mechanics that add a layer of strategy, power armor is vastly improved, etc, etc.
Even if the bullet spongey enemies do turn it into a chore after a while. tbh, 3 had this problem too, though not as bad. Albino Radscorpions come to mind. But I wasn’t looking to nitpick in my original reply.
If we are getting nitpicky though, throwing out the term ‘‘better designed’’ is quite a large umbrella to gloss over the myriad of design choices that 3 simply don’t hold a candle to NV on.
In a couple ways sure. Its map encourages exploration more than NV, and it sets a stronger visual tone.
But in no other way is it better designed than NV. Leveling is less impactful with many perks just being stat increases. Many dungeons are pointless copy paste jobs that are mostly fluff and filler content(the equivalent of bullet sponge enemies really, they become a chore after a while). Quest design isn’t as bad as many folk say, but is on the whole less inspired than NV.
Combat is either tied or just worse in every way (understandable since NV was able to simply improve on the framework 3 built). Damage threshold was simply a better system than damage resistance that largely solved the bullet sponge problem.
Heck, even glossing over NV’s superior writing fails to acknowledge how large of an impact this has on overall design. With the increased choices becoming a mechanic in of itself that 3 largely lacks. The improved interconnectivity of the world creating greater value to the actions of the player. All directly tying into the RPG mechanics, which tie back into the players build in ways 3 never even attempted.
I could go on, but I digress.
It’s enough to clarify that NV is the overall best designed game in most regards, with the hands down best writing.
3 has the strongest visual tone. (Though 4’s city design does nail the retro future aesthetic the series originally had)
3 and 4 are largely tied for ‘‘most explorable map’’.
And 4 is the hands down winner in gunplay feel. Even if that title is significantly diminished by terrible enemy scaling. (and has the worst writing, and worst quest design, and a terrible dialogue system, and…)