Are games much easier with VATS, Dead-Eye, Slo-Mo etc.

Recently like many of you, I have been playing a lot of Red Dead Redemption. I have found the Dead-Eye targeting system to be quite effective for sure.
 
I have also played a hell of a lot of Fallout 3 in the past, and i think i overused VATS so much, i can not even remember a point where i killed someone by aiming down the sight, or firing from the hip. It was just a constant overuse of VATS.
 
And then I absolutely loved the Max Payne games. Even in that i think I'd slo-mo jump with my dual berettas or sawed-off just about every chance i got.
 
So with all the VATS, Dead-Eye and Slo-Mo i have ever used, i have found it makes games a bit too easy. Do you think this is the case, or does the use of these combat enhancements make a game more interesting?

It makes games easier and arguably more dull. Shooting in a game shouldn't be based off of a dice roll or some silly gameplay mechanic like VATS & Dead Eye. Spend more time fine tuning the shooting system to work effectively without relying on these ridiculous gimmicks.

Well, I haven't played the other games except for Fallout 3, but, in there, you're definitely not supposed to play it as a normal FPS.  I'm sure everybody used the VATS system as much as they could.  It didn't make the game any easier, either.  The bar depleted consistently and, if you weren't playing the game on 'Easy', the enemies could do some real damage during that down time.

" VATS doesn't count, Fallout is an RPG and is meant to be played like that. "

Dead Eyes pretty useful especially on the later bounties if you want to get back alive.

VATS didn't make it easier as it was fucking terrible.

In Fallout you can get some long range kills with rifles, but the game is meant to be played through VATS and strategy etc. I cannot say anything about Red Dead since I haven't played it yet. But Max Payne was set up so that if you didn't use cover and slo-mo you'd be stuffed. It's a mechanic. 
 
FrogSox

VATs in Fallout 3 needed to be way more involved.  Different enemies and situations should have made you think about how you could best use your points.
 
They're all fine, the games just need to be balanced to take them into account.  Dead Eye in RDR was more engaging than the ridiculously OTT auto-aim on the default setting at least.  I still don't think they've really figured out the ideal way to handle shooting with a pad.

" VATS doesn't count, Fallout is an RPG and is meant to be played like that. "

Dead Eye made you feel like an absolute bad ass, allowing you to pull off kills that you would otherwise be unable to perform, while still making you do a good portion of the work and time-limiting it's use. The gun play in RDR would be significantly duller without it, and the game's difficulty level as a whole is aleady easy enough to not let Dead Eye feel like a major advantage.

If RDR didn't have the Dead Eye targeting, think about how much more of a pain in the ass the game would be, even if you are full up on medicine at all times. It seems like they balanced out the use of Dead Eye by making Marston's health very very low. The only critical thing I would have to say about Dead eye is that you might be able to slow down time for too long before it depletes.

dead eye is fine, its a game mechanic, the auto aim is what made RDR super easy, hold L2 let go, shoot, repeat. 

I don't mind the mechanics so much, my issues comes from the fact that often they seem like an attempt to cover up a poor shooting mechanic. 
 
Red Dead plays fine, but I really think that just a few changes would have made the aiming outside of dead-eye far more enjoyable: first, I think that the acceleration is too jerky (it goes from too slow to too fast too quickly), and the crosshair, at least for my eyes, is far too small. I always lose track of it in the dust and brush.

" @xaLieNxGrEyx said:

" VATS doesn't count, Fallout is an RPG and is meant to be played like that. "

Agreed. "

Hmm, I disagree that it's bad, but I will say that devs aren't pulling out all the stops when they make great systems like VATS. VATS had some great potential to put some depth into where shooting your enemy matters, but they didn't go far enough.
 
Max Payne was pretty hard and it had bullet time, so it's more a design thing, imo. 
 
One thing I don't like in recent video games is the "If I'm in cover, I'm basically invulnerable from this direction" mantra, which is a game design and AI problem for me.

" VATS doesn't count, Fallout is an RPG and is meant to be played like that. "

" dead eye is fine, its a game mechanic, the auto aim is what made RDR super easy, hold L2 let go, shoot, repeat.  "

I think such mechanics highlight the fact that the simple act of firing a gun isn't satisfactory in-itself, thus the experimentation with other mechanics that almost seem to trivialise gunplay - mark and shoot in Splinter Cell, VATS, Dead Eye, etc. Personally, I think they are mostly uinteresting gimmicks, not satisfactory solutions to the homogeneity of the shooter genre.
These games need to find different ways of making their gameplay different, as Heavy Rain attempted to do in a particular sequence involving a gun. Not that I'm saying shooters need to try to be Heavy Rain, but development of characters, contextualisation, moral ambiguity, experimentation with mood and theme and so on are all much better than finding another way of doing the same thing that is disguised as not doing the exact same thing you've done too many times before.

Easier but more dull. I found dead-eye with automatic marking to be lame, but when given the opportunity to mark the shots myself it made it somewhat more fun. Auto-aim and these "new" things don't really make a game more fresh or fun, just...easier.

I hated VATS, and tried to use it as less as possible. Except when I was aiming for a robot's control centre thingy on his back. But I find Dead Eye to be fair you're only given a certain amount per fight, and you have to use it wisely.

I don't think these game mechanics necessarily make a game easy, but they are effective and make it more interesting. I overused slow-motion (aka matrix) in Max Payne and loved it, but in a game like Red Dead Redemption, it's more fun for me to just shoot them without using Dead Eye.

" VATS doesn't count, Fallout is an RPG and is meant to be played like that. "

Slow motion only does anything for me when the game has good physics. Otherwise I think it's gimmicky. But Fallout's VATS system was really efficient I thought.

It helps hide bad shooting mechanics in Fallout and Red Dead Redemption.

Games are easier with VATS etc. but I believe there's a place for these auto-targeting systems in games. The only auto-targeting I really have any proper experience with was VATS but it worked because Fallout 3 was more of an RPG than it was a shooter.

At first, i thought the Dead Eye in RDR was making things too easy, but then i remembered that its the Wild West... things were going too fast around you and you didnt have the proper fire power, thats why slowing shit down is necessary. (Same as CoJ2) 
 
In max payne, the bullet time mechanic is what made is awesome

I think these mechanics add to a game, gives you more options and ways to approach or handle certain situations. 
 
Besides, if a person feels as though it makes a game less challenging or enjoyable, they can just avoid using it.

F.E.A.R. would have been insanely difficult without the ability to use slow motion, the artificial intelligence in that game was relentless.

i see what you mean, but i'd rather dead eye was just nerfed a bit. When a guys riding off in the distance, a bounty escaping for example, it's great that i can slow down time and put a bullet right in his back just before he gets out of reach. I like that, it's as if John's aim and skill makes shots like that possible. But i'd rather it was reduced to a last resort thing like that only. Perhaps reduce the amount of time you get to pick your target, or maybe you can only aim at the one target and put as many bullets as you like into him.
 
Because at the moment i just reduce what could be a really fun gun fight sequence into slow down time, click on people a bit, and then they all fall down. 

In Red Dead Redemption, Dead-Eye can take a while to regenerate after you've used it.  Vats also depleted points very fast, though I never used it as much as I could've.

I never really thought about how they were similar, but I'd definitely say dead eye is a better mechanic.