So, as noted in the last post, I finally got around to actually playing the game this morning.
I don't think I played 1.3 but for an hour or so to test some NCCS functions; so this was my first real play in quite awhile.
Ended up deleting all but one of my existing savegames. I dropped back to my "clean" save, just before using the Vit-a-matic or whatever they called it in Doc Mitchell's place.
Immediately, I noticed a difference from previous versions of the game. It seems that they've disabled most quest scripts during character generation. Normally, my companions pop right in to come find me as long as their plugin was active. They've actually appeared before it even lets me out of bed from the intro. This time they didn't though. They weren't allowed in until the generation process was complete, I had my pip-boy, and could leave the house. As soon as that happened, they made it inside.
Thankfully, character generation went without a hitch; and my plugin-placed containers were still in the house from the start.
From there, I noticed again something different. When running through the tutorial with Sunny, FPS were greatly improved. Playable, even. I remember the first time I played the game, FPS through the tutorial were prone to dropping into the 3 - 5 range, and crashes occurred about every ten minutes.
This morning, I played for about ten minutes shy of five hours, without shutting the game down. No crashes, and when I finally decided I needed a break, the game was still playable in FPS, but beginning to lag a bit.
Companion behavior throughout was quite good; bordering on exceptional. There were no hesitations to enter combat, no screwy cover behavior; accuracy was excellent, and not once did anyone freeze up at the end of a fight, or get stuck on bad navmeshing or obstacles.
Sit/stand behavior, teleporting, weapon drawing/holstering, sneaking -- all went without incident; as did weapon and armor equipping, and stimpak use. There were no incidents of mysterious, magical insta-healing either.
Encountered one bug; out north of NCRCF I spied a Bighorn stuck on some terrain, and exhibiting some pretty severe Havok behavior. Removing the poor thing's head from its neck solved that, though.
...What? It was the kind thing to do.
As well, weapon accuracy at low levels seems to have improved; though the cowboy repeater is still as inaccurate as ever. I recall reading that that had something to do with the first person model not being aligned correctly; so it's possible that this lingering issue is a side effect of the custom rifle animations I have installed. I'll have to remember to pull those and see if it improves.
Thus far, it appears everything still works correctly with most mods. I'm not far enough into the game to test my Capitalism mod yet; as even I can only play for so long in one sitting.
On the whole, I'm fairly impressed. Obsidian seems to have finally dislodged their collective heads from their asses, and made a patch that doesn't suck. Considering the play time I got in today, they may even have finally seen fit to address the memory leak that's been plaguing us since Oblivion.
I hesitate to get my hopes up too high; but on my system at least I can finally declare the game playable, by and large.
Still haven't tested NCCS itself -- since believe it or not I'm not all that fond of the system -- but since it and my personal companions run on nearly identical (if independent) scripts, I don't foresee any issues.
So, somewhat of a pleasant surprise to find things working so well for a change? It is good to hear if that is the case :) Maybe if things keep improving on Obsidian's end, I will finally pick up F:NV if they come out with a GOTY type release.
ReplyDeleteI've had my "new" system for almost a week now, and found performance of FO3 to be dramatically improved from the laptop. I'm finally able to run EVE and I'm loving it:) I have hit a snag with ctds in a couple of places, but I can live with them for now.
I'm beginning to believe that PC game CTDs are something that we will never be able to eliminate entirely. Depending upon the game and the system, they can be greatly reduced, yes. But even playing older games like Morrowind and Doom on my newer PC (it's maybe four years old now) I still experience some CTDs when too many things are happening all at once. I think a newer video card would fix most of that in my case.
ReplyDeleteWhat's that you say? All my games are so heavily modded that they hardly resemble the originals? I should expect problems because I refuse to play the vanilla versions of just about everything?
Perhaps...
I doubt we'll ever fully see the end of the CTD event; but it is nice to at least mitigate the issue enough that it isn't happening every time enemies spawn, or a particular menu opens.
ReplyDeleteI'm willing to tolerate the odd crash -- Gods know Windows has enough problems with memory management of its own to keep our quotas of crashes full -- but it is nice being able to play without having to save every five minutes.
Oh, I agree wholeheartedly, of course.
ReplyDeleteI was quite ecstatic when I finally got my Morrowind game to the point where it would load a saved game without crashing a dozen times first. (For the record, the Morrowind Code Patch is not all it's hyped up to be and you're most likely better off without it. At the moment I'm ranking it right up there with Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul as one of the top ten game fuckers of all time.)
Sometimes I can't understand why my brother clings to his consoles so adamantly, but in this regard I think I do understand. Simply turning the machine on and playing a game without worrying about whether or not all your installed mods are compatible and loading in the proper order surely is far less stressful. Still, when I turn on one of those games and start playing with the knowledge that this is all the game can ever be and once it's finished the best thing to do is trade it in at GameStop for something else, I feel kinda sorry for him...
I could weigh in on consoles sucking for lack of mods... but I'm giggling too hard.
ReplyDelete"At the moment I'm ranking it right up there with Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul as one of the top ten game fuckers of all time."
I saw this, and now all I can think of is a girl in nekomimi sitting there yelling at her monitor:
"You game fucker!"
So... cute... I think I may have diabetes now...
Ooh ooh! Especially with the anime-esque bulging temple vein.
ReplyDeleteGAAAAAAAAME FUUUUUUUCKER!
I can see that now too! Lmao!
ReplyDeleteHeh... it seemed to be the most appropriate and accurate term I could come up with at the time...
ReplyDeleteSoo off topic but was wondering something for you Nos and Herculine.
ReplyDeleteDid you two ever figure out (or some random read me) on TES consruction set combat styles and what they all mean?
@Crimson:
ReplyDeleteTES3CS or TES4CS?
@Herculine
ReplyDeleteNot sure....oblivion if that helps?
Keep in mind that I've never scripted a combat style myself, but...
ReplyDelete...to the best of my knowledge, assigning a specific combat style to a character rather than having them use the generic default style should affect how they behave in combat situations, particularly in regard to the differences between warrior-types and spellcasters.
"Not sure....oblivion if that helps?"
ReplyDeleteOblivion would be The Elder Scrolls (TES) IV.
As for combat styles... what exactly is it you want to know?
My Oblivion styles aren't as refined as the Fallout ones, but I have tinkered here and there.
"What they all mean" is pretty much what you see -- they control NPC/creature behavior during combat. Things like direction and time spent dodging; chance (by a percentage) of blocking; chance of using power attacks; range to enemy where the NPC will swap from missile weapons to melee weapons (or vice versa).
There are deeper settings as well, but most of them are better not to mess with too much.
If you look, you'll notice CM comes with its own combat styles. This is because the base Oblivion game is sorely lacking -- as I recall there are only two or three for NPCs, and they're not particularly good.
My most successful Oblivion CS has been rather Spartan: basically, hide behind the shield until your enemy attacks and bounces off, then lash out and tear 'em a new one.
"As for combat styles..."
ReplyDeletePretty much wanted to see if I could tweak a npc to improve on the combat. So far overall npc combat has not been the smartest thing in the world in my game I have taken note of.
So was trying to make a new companion and see if I could have a more influence on the combat fighting side of things but lets face it even after months of looking at the TES and even longer watching you and Herculine I still know nothing of anything.
Or is it I am just trying to much and even off base when it comes to looking at what I had in mind?
Improving on combat is certainly possible, yes; though I've never tried it on a game-wide scale.
ReplyDeleteHave you tried one of the 'combat overhauls' for the game yet, or did you have something more specific in mind?