I was just wondering if they've changed anything about the lack of health on targeted limbs. It would've been nice to see a deathclaw without legs still using it's arms to pursue me, or a raider forced to lay on his/her back or stomach and continue shooting, maybe even making for a smaller target while laying down and less percentage of being hit. It did'nt make sense to shoot a limb down to zero health and have the enemy contunue to use it (even if it was less effective). Maybe you could destroy a limb and the enemy does'nt die right away, then you would still have to finish them off.

How long would someone live if their arm was blown off? Or Leg? They would bleed out in moments without medical attention.

Well the thing is, the engine/game assumes that once a target has it's limb blown off, it's dead, so when you shoot a guys are off, the game forces him to die.

No that just takes away from the game, yes it would be hilarious but it would ruin the game, when you cripple a limb you just break it not rip it off, that only happens if you hit a critical... or you can chop the limbs off after there dead.

They'd be so overwhelmed with pain that they certainly would not be up wandering about anyway.

agreed

I don't think any animal in the wasteland is stupid enough to try to hunt the PC down if he/she shot off it's arm or leg.
They got to have some sense of survival instinct.

Man, you must want every [censored] you mow down to chase you 'till the end of the game.

Hmm, Return Of The Living Dead: Wasteland Edition.
... I'd play it...
Would be an incredible challenge since they never die, in fact, you blow someone into two parts and you just duplicated her instead.

Maybe a deathclaw wouldn't give that easy

http://img709.imageshack.us/img709/3232/blackknight7602944.jpg

I don't think any living thing would do well bleeding gallons of blood per minute, and without legs.

Deathclaws are still animals though.
And even though it looks big and scary does not mean it's a relentless monster that will keep hunting you until you finally put a bullet in it's brain.
All animals have survival instinct, you blow a deathclaws leg off and I'm sure it will try to limp away from you.
I can understand robots or zombies trying to hunt you down forever since they are programmed to kill you, they have no survival instinct.

the enemies I faced never gave up until they were dead.

In fallout 3?
That's called bad programming.
In fallout 1 and 2 they run away if you're high-leveled or if you hurt them so much that they are at "almost dead".

During battle pain response would be greatly delayed, if anything it would be shock that got to them first, but it's better to look at it from a practical point of view, blow off a leg and they are going to fall awkwardly, no chance to aim a weapon, shoot an arm off they might be able to continue with a single handed weapon, but then again a blast strong enough to take an arm off would send them reeling, by the time they have recovered their footing you've already put another several rounds into them, seems a little pointless and a waste of ammo.

I was playing Lego Star Wars last night for a diversion. My friend was over and she was trying the game out. Well, as the battles wore on she hacked off the arms and one leg of the driod that opens doors for you. He was hopping around on one leg and using his head to punch the buttons. I busted a gut when I watched this going on.

Why are people here so damned gorey? Sheesh.

Enemies in F3 ran away, sometimes.

I never played the originals (too poor for a computer growing up), but that wouldv'e been nice to see in FO3. Anyway, it was just a thought. Also I believe when hurt that bad, they would probably go into shock and it would take a few more body/head shots to finish them off. I was just thinking maybe it would add a different level of tact for different playthrough types.

I think that the idea of NPCs with missing limbs would actually add alot to the atmosphere of the game. Its actually fairly strange that in a world plagued by danger and mutation, Everybody seems to have the right number of limbs. The closest thing we got to missing body parts in Fallout 3 was the eyepatch, which we then could not take as our own...

That was very superfluous.
If you lost limbs in a world like Fallout, I doubt you would survive very long.
If I lost an arm, I would need an ambulance immediately, there are no ambulances in a world like this.
I doubt there are enough doctors to correctly amputate...Well anything.
I'd think death was a more plausible option.

I guess, after some thought, I could see this possibly making sense for some enemies in the Fallout world. I could see a Feral Ghoul getting blown to bits and still trying to advance on you with what HP it still had left after all that damage, for example.

(As an aside - enemies would occasionally run from you in Fallout 3 - I assume the same will hold true in New Vegas. If you go into the GECK, NPCs have a morale rating, if I remember correctly. There's even a "cowering" animation that they use. Gameplay-wise, I generally found this more annoying than not. By the time an NPC has low enough morale for this to come into play, the actual battle is effectively over, and it tends to materialize as me chasing a nearly-dead enemy around the level to put one last shot into the back of it's head...)

In general terms, however, the dismemberment is more about a critical-hit death sequence than anything else. This goes back to the original Fallout games, where if you overkilled by enough points - or scored a critical hit on the last shot that killed them - you'd be treated to various gratifying animations (like seeing them turned to hamburger by bullets, explode, or what-have-you.) Shooting off limbs is simply the incarnation that concept took in Fallout 3. Getting a limb down to 0 HP only means it's been crippled - not necessarily severed from the body wholesale.

Sure, I think it would be cool if limbs could show a bit more detail pertaining to their status (things like rag-doll physics, procedural animations, etc would - I think - go a long way in a game like Fallout 3/ New Vegas.) But overall I don't think it would make too much sense if 0 HP on a limb meant severing it entirely. (Not to mention that, to be fair, the same might hold true for your PC...)

Actually, I think (I could very well be wrong), but from my experience in the GECK, it seems as if the dismemberment happens once the enemy's health is low enough that that hit would have killed them anyway, or on critical hits. So, it would actually be impossible for someone to have their limb blown off and not be dead, does that make any sense? lol

I think we as a race are spoilt by our modern conveniences.
You may need an ambulance, but how long have ambulances been around for? In the American civil war, lots of people lost limbs and lived to talk about it.
I know this is not the best example, but there IS a reason that the stereotypical image of a Pirate has a hook and a peg-leg.
People have lost limbs just as long as people have had limbs, and survived through it.
To say that because you have lost your lower leg, you must then die, is just stupid.