Mods To Deal With Melee Blocking?

[Wingress]

Is there any mod to reduced it or something? because the melee blocks is too frustrating, how the heck do you expect me to kill someone with a melee weapon if all they do is blocks it everytime I try to hit them?

[The Inept European]

Good grief that Disciples Blade is a stupid, stupid weapon.

A broken old knife that does more damage than almost any mêlée weapon because oh just no reason. Because magic. Because total lame design-breaking stupidity. Which is kind of typical of the DLC.

"But how will we make it interesting?"

"Weapons that look slightly kooky but do ridiculous damage for basically no reason."

"Sweeeeeet!!!"

[DrNewcenstein]

This isn't an old John Wayne Western where you're standing toe-to-toe trading punches "like men". Move. Dodge incoming attacks and swing before they reset, just like in real life.

I haven't done much with melee in F4, but I do recall being able to bash while blocking, and you can stagger an attacker. Not sure if difficulty level affects that, so if you're playing on something where your offense is gimped and your defense is weak, that may be part of the problem.

I don't recall if it has power attacks similar to Skyrim, where you push the stick in a given direction while holding the attack button, but if so, use that.
Also, isn't there a bonus to timed blocking, where you can stagger them only if you block at the right moment as opposed to blocking the whole time you're not attacking? Shield/weapon/block bashing to interrupt an attack should cause a stagger.
Power attacks should break a block and cause a stagger.

Lastly, the game has other combat options, use them. Yes, guns are easy. So what? If the game simply is not designed to accommodate a pure melee play style, you cannot expect it to.

[The Inept European]

I love how a weapon that's literally made up of bits of old junk gets to have a special bleeding effect. Cool, because a robot coming at you with a nuclear powered circular saw, that wouldn't cause bleeding. A .50 cal through your torso, that wouldn't bleed. A katana cut across your body or limbs, can't see that causing any bleeding really.

But a hammered-down wrench with a hacksaw blade welded onto it OMFG Somebody Call the Blood Bank!!!!

Idiots.

I like the story lines of the DLC though. Not just how they broke all the game mechanics. Which weren't too great to begin with. But at least *some* thought had gone into weapon balance etc.

[DrNewcenstein]

It's probably a nod to Final Fantasy's Spoon Dagger. Either way, yeah, it's effing stupid to have some homemade POS cause bleeding but traditional weapons don't. Incendiary rounds don't cause bleeding because they cauterize the wound. However, they do cause burning damage. At least in reality. Then again, it's not like you can find incendiary 9mm shells. You can find them in larger calibers, which also cause near-instant death. But still, no bleeding from the entry/exit wound. Not that there's much of a fleshy target left to test that.

But if they're going to make games more realistic that way, we need structural damage as well. You fire a rocket launcher into a 3 bedroom house I expect that house to either completely shatter or at least turn into a 2 bedroom with a large sun room. Drywall and sheet metal do not stop 9mm rounds. Plaster might for a time, as well as brick, but they have their limits.
Structural supports and load-bearing beams should take damage as well.
High-rise full of super mutants got you pinned down? Take out 2 corners and watch it fall.

Set a house full of Gunners on fire and watch them either burn to death in it or mow them down when they try to flee.

[deidian]

Originally posted by DrNewcenstein:

This isn't an old John Wayne Western where you're standing toe-to-toe trading punches "like men". Move. Dodge incoming attacks and swing before they reset, just like in real life.

I haven't done much with melee in F4, but I do recall being able to bash while blocking, and you can stagger an attacker. Not sure if difficulty level affects that, so if you're playing on something where your offense is gimped and your defense is weak, that may be part of the problem.

I don't recall if it has power attacks similar to Skyrim, where you push the stick in a given direction while holding the attack button, but if so, use that.
Also, isn't there a bonus to timed blocking, where you can stagger them only if you block at the right moment as opposed to blocking the whole time you're not attacking? Shield/weapon/block bashing to interrupt an attack should cause a stagger.
Power attacks should break a block and cause a stagger.

Lastly, the game has other combat options, use them. Yes, guns are easy. So what? If the game simply is not designed to accommodate a pure melee play style, you cannot expect it to.

Yes, it has power attacks. Cost AP, are slower than normal hits and deal 50% extra damage. They may break a block, didn't tested.
You can block or parry. It works more like a parry, so it has to be well timed. The time the blocking animation lasts changes with weapon type. Enemies of your size will suffer stagger, enemies bigger than you...be grateful you get damage reduction. Enemies do the same, so don't expect defensive stances: if they block you it'll be raising their weapon just in time.
Every time you get hit you get stagger, so you cannot expect to be able to exchange attacks, it doesn't work. Also some non-melee attacks cause stagger too: deathclaw roars, explosives,...

Stagger probably can be countered mostly though not entirely using PA. Using Jet will counter almost anything any enemy attemps because your character will be way faster moving and attacking.

[The Inept European]

Originally posted by DrNewcenstein:

But if they're going to make games more realistic that way, we need structural damage as well. You fire a rocket launcher into a 3 bedroom house...

Sounds like fun!!!

I hear you. Let's hope the next release in the franchise has destructable terrain. (Didn't everyone else do that like 5-10 years ago?)

(Original XCom did it something crazy like *25* years ago. Admittedly only in 2.5D.)

[ghpstage]

Originally posted by deidian:

Yes, I know anything that is in view of your character can be targeted with VATS, you can work from partial cover, just showing the minimun to line shots. But then it becomes cumbersome: enemies tend to hide, and you can't get them when they hide. Penetrator allows you to shoot through a wall, but you need LoS to target it, if it's hidden you can't target.

Its not the characters LoS that matters in this case but the players.
The third person camera allows you to see around corners, over walls and the like, and in doing so allows you to target things while you stay completely behind said walls.

[The Inept European]

Wow that sounds like a bug? Or do you think it was intended?

[The Inept European]

Does it still require Penetrator for the shot to actually pass through the wall? Or does this trick work for anyone in 3rd person view?.

I use 3rd person view in combat sometimes because of the marrow field of view in 1st person view, so I have better situational awareness. I didn't realise it would allow me not just to see more opponent but target them, including I guess opponents that are behind me that I shouldn't be able to see?

[DouglasGrave]

Critical hits can pass through walls, regular shots generally don't do so without Penetrator. But funnily enough, VATS will still count shots towards charging criticals if they would otherwise have hit (had an obstruction not been in the way).

[deidian]

You can open VATS menu as long as one enemy is in VATS view: it's 3rd person at the end of the day always, but covers more angles than actually your current 3rd person perspective. So I'd rather say VATS view is a view cone based on an angle from the current direction you are looking at.

Either way Penetrator or not, you cannot target someone behind a wall or a column. If an enemy is FULLY covered you cannot target it in VATS, he even won't be highlighted like your character is aware of their position.

Originally posted by DouglasGrave:

Critical hits can pass through walls, regular shots generally don't do so without Penetrator. But funnily enough, VATS will still count shots towards charging criticals if they would otherwise have hit (had an obstruction not been in the way).

No, critical hits don't pass walls. It's sort of an edge case hitting a wall with a critical though, so from practical sense most of the times a critical does well enough. VATS criticals have 100% if hit chance >=1%, that covers cases when an enemy is hiding while you make the shot.

Practical case for penetrator:

Some guy is showing only left toe from cover.
You open VATS and upon targeting the guy it goes to the left leg as target(10% chance)
You swap target to the head(Penetrator!)
You perform your shot and hit the head(Penetrator!)

Summing up: you got a guy's head grabbing your target from their left toe.

Thing with Gauss Cannon it's buggy. Sometimes this scenario have you the bullet exploding on the wall, sometimes the guy dies. A crit ensures the guy will get hit.

Other cases would be hitting a sentry robot fusion core shooting anytime or going for a deathclaw belly regardless if it's exposing it or not. Simpler but practical ones.

PS: VATS in F4 is more dynamic than in F3. Lots of things can change since you start a qeue to the end of the action sequence. Enemies have smarter AI, they move all the time: while you choose and while the cinematic stuff is going on. The chance you see when choosing is not the real one. The real one is calculated at each shot time with it's circumstances. You get too the advantage of being able to cancel a qeue if in the cinematics you see things heading to a pointless shot.

[DouglasGrave]

Originally posted by deidian:

No, critical hits don't pass walls.

Tell that to the ghouls I was just shooting through corners in Dunwich Borers (mostly because the legendary one kept flying past as I tried to blow its leg off). You may have to angle your camera to get the VATS to select them in the first place, but the critical can definitely pass through walls when triggered.

I've frequently had the same thing with Gunners in Vault 95, since there's a part where you can descend the stairs and get a VATS lock on some of them through cafeteria windows.

EDIT: From what I can tell, the critical does its auto-hit thing in a manner much like Penetrator, and relies on VATS having selected a proper target in the first place. You can also play around a bit with swinging the camera and selecting targets before the game properly aligns on them.

[ghpstage]

Originally posted by The Inept European:

including I guess opponents that are behind me that I shouldn't be able to see?

This made me re-read what I wrote, and I missed out something important. I was focused on targeting through walls above so if anything here contradicts that then this post is the one to look at.

The list of things you can target when you open VATS is made up of
1) Every entity in a location where you can draw a line from your character straight to it
2) Every entity you can see in the camera as it was before entering VATS

1) This means that it is entirely possible to target things that are behind you, you just need to open up VATS first.
Everyone who has tried it will be familiar with the way that quickly tapping Q will only open up VATS if a target can be seen, else you get an odd noise. However, if you hold Q you can fire up VATS even if there is no valid target nearby, like so
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1975270015
It will still start like this if there are targets behind you, but cycling targets will pick them up right away.

2) This part is what allows wallhacks. Example,
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1975261570
3rd person view allowing me to see a raider that is blatantly behind feet of rock, and then Q
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1975261672
You don't need Penetrator to target things in this way but without it you will have all zeros with a gun, though Blitz Melee gains from this trick.
When you attack through an obstacle the shot will lose some of its damage depending on what the obstacle is made from (the damage predictor won't account for this). In the case of rocks all of it is lost, unless you crit.... then none of it is.

Originally posted by The Inept European:

Wow that sounds like a bug? Or do you think it was intended?

May not be a simple question.
It does differ from NV in a way that seems intentional, perhaps specifically for the purposes of making Penetrator and Blitz more useful. On the other hand it doesn't seem to have been thought through much, if at all.

Todd's law perhaps?
"Some Bethesda game mechanics are so bizarre as to be indistinguishable from genuine bugs"

[The Inept European]

I'm shocked by this. Thank you for the detailed explanation.

[The Inept European]

Originally posted by ghpstage:

Todd's law perhaps?
"Some Bethesda game mechanics are so bizarre as to be indistinguishable from genuine bugs"

Sounds about right!