Fallout Fallout 4 Thread

[CthuluIsSpy]

I tried running Savant once, but I gave up on it. That sound effect that plays when it procs really got on my nerves.
I appreciate the idea behind it, but not the execution.

 

[Fedora Master]

This is how you get casuals. You give them an "in" with threads like this and they get drawn to it like ants to spilled sugar. Next thing you know they'll start praising Bethesda and EA. Absolutely disgusting.

 

[Butter]

decent action RPG

True. The perks aren't the worst too, sadly they could have be much better without being level gated.

I went through the perk list recently and there's actually a few interesting/decent ideas there. e.g., Idiot Savant one is rather cool, something I'd like to see in more traditional cRPGs.

You're not stupid! Just... different. Randomly receive 3x XP from any action, and the lower your Intelligence, the greater the chance.

Low INT + high LUK perk

Savescummer perk.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

decent action RPG

True. The perks aren't the worst too, sadly they could have be much better without being level gated.

I went through the perk list recently and there's actually a few interesting/decent ideas there. e.g., Idiot Savant one is rather cool, something I'd like to see in more traditional cRPGs.

You're not stupid! Just... different. Randomly receive 3x XP from any action, and the lower your Intelligence, the greater the chance.

Low INT + high LUK perk

Savescummer perk.

Kind of shit that doesn't even cross my mind.
Begone, foul beast! Accost thineself with thee magicks no further!

 

[Robotigan]

People who pretend every aspect of the game is awful feel like edgelords to me. There's the bones there for someone to make a decent action RPG

Creation Engine is probably the single best engine out there for RPG development. The amount of full-fledged features Bethesda crams into it is kind of crazy. Sure, they could strip stuff out to improve stability, but I say the tradeoff is more than worth it especially since Fallout 4 is their most stable game to date. The game is streaming in tons of physics assets, a dense downtown metropolis, all running at high fidelity with dynamic lighting, AND they put in a fully dynamic settlement system? Granted, they strategically placed all the settlements far away from the downtown area, but still! Even if you don't like some of the systems, it's impressive that the game can handle all of them.

It's still odd to me that Josh Sawyer has basically come out and said Creation Engine is the only reason Obsidian was able to make New Vegas and yet gamers are apparently dumbfounded that Obsidian hasn't been able to replicate that success without it.

 

[Butter]

People who pretend every aspect of the game is awful feel like edgelords to me. There's the bones there for someone to make a decent action RPG

It's still odd to me that Josh Sawyer has basically come out and said Creation Engine is the only reason Obsidian was able to make New Vegas and yet gamers are apparently dumbfounded that Obsidian hasn't been able to replicate that success without it.

Sawyer's point was that Gamebryo allows for rapid content generation, and they couldn't have made New Vegas in 18 months without it. The game could obviously have been made in a more stable engine at the cost of time.

 

[Robotigan]

Sawyer's point was that Gamebryo allows for rapid content generation, and they couldn't have made New Vegas in 18 months without it. The game could obviously have been made in a more stable engine at the cost of time.

Time is opportunity cost. More time in another engine buys them a bit more polish. More time in Bethesdabryo buys them whole new features and questlines.

 

[NoMoneyNoFameNoDame]

Ugh. Let's address this NV engine stuff.

Anytime a game company has years and years and years of figuring out how to do things, they can almost certainly make a decent framework for doing them.
Now take industry veterans who know how to make games and just hand them the tools and a bunch of assets to get started.
Things will go very quick! Esp. if people acutally get paid to do what they love. 18 months is enough. But i'm not saying it was easy or cakewalk either.
The IP also was fairly aged, one is hardly working from scratch there, and some of the developers got to use ideas they premade for a past game that never released.
Also NV was greenlit a spin-off basically. That is some serious freedom. The popularity of FO3 also meant you didn't really need original gameplay ideas.
You just needed to make more fallout that wasn't worse.

NV devs did a pretty good job. But there's no special credit necessary for Bethesda's engine or Obsidian of that time.

Let me take the moment to shit on NV then I will shit on FO4.

Spoiler

NV was a great improvement because it was a more realistic FO3 and your decisions mattered a bit more.
It was also a little less insulting on the hand-holding.

But other than that NV looks like shit set out in the sun too long.
The faces and voice actors aren't memorable.
The whole Vegas strip thing was corny and underdeveloped.
I suppose if they made it much larger and elaborate of a location I could have lliked it a lot more.
Caesar's legion felt like dumb doom mod idea. Bro don't ever waste AAA dollars on some carnival bullshit like that again. It was cool for like a second. Not primary faction material.
Reminder: Cool on paper doesn't mean it belongs in your game either. (No offense to developers I am not attacking the quality of implementation.)
The NCR rangers seemed dumb to me. Some ideas shouldn't be borrowed from your previous games if you can't make them cool.
Again i'm not saying the implementation was sloppy, it was just forgettable fodder is the problem.
I welcomed the return of the look and level design of some of the OG fallouts. But there was too little of it.
The retarded neat trick Obsidian says they learned frome Bethsda where you focus on making specific landmarks standout from afar, is probably why I will never play NV again.
Why play a game if you know exactly what's around the corner?

Spoiler

FO4's characters and voice acting were more memorable. And the look was on point and ENJOYABLE for what it was trying to be. Unlike NV.
Factions were decent. But there use wasn't Fallouty.
The starting areas look way better in FO4 than NV. But NV gave you way more freedom at the start.
Speaking of freedom, FO4 lacks it almost entirely. It's typical example of World Building at expense of Character Buildling.
I don't understand the choice to make FO4 so unreplayable outside of looting and shooting.
That said FO4 was probably pushed out the door when they realized they made enough to appeal to casuals.
If NV was ported fully to FO4's engine, then i'd admit it was better.
Now here's a thought what if you moved FO4's plot into the Mojave desert? I'm not sure.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

People who pretend every aspect of the game is awful feel like edgelords to me. There's the bones there for someone to make a decent action RPG

It's still odd to me that Josh Sawyer has basically come out and said Creation Engine is the only reason Obsidian was able to make New Vegas and yet gamers are apparently dumbfounded that Obsidian hasn't been able to replicate that success without it.

Sawyer's point was that Gamebryo allows for rapid content generation, and they couldn't have made New Vegas in 18 months without it. The game could obviously have been made in a more stable engine at the cost of time.

Yes, an immense amount of time.
People severely underestimate the amount of features that make Beth games what they are.

If it was the hundred dollar bill sitting on the sidewalk, it would have been picked up already. Everyone knows Beth games are generally junk -- so why isn't anyone making similar games except better? Because it's hard.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Yeah, even the other AAA open world games semi RPG like Ubisoft evoke entirely different kind of feeling to Bethesda games. TW3 in general feels closer to Ubisoft games than it is to Bethesda.

TOW I think is the first serious attempt at creating Bethesda like but it's kinda mediocre.

 

[Robotigan]

The key difference in design philosophies between New Vegas and Fallout 3/4 is that the former really wanted to focus on its narrative and the latter two really wanted to focus on the game world. Shouldn't be too remarkable of a statement, both studios have operated the same way for a long time. Bethesda typically uses their engine's quick development to create a lotta lotta content throughout the map. Obsidian did something interesting, they used that Gamebryo speed to flesh out their branching questlines instead. Which is probably what got it so much love from RPG fans as generally modern RPGs have had to sacrifice that experience on the alter of expensive assets.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

TOW I think is the first serious attempt at creating Bethesda like but it's kinda mediocre.

Not even close, much closer to games like Mass Effect.
The only thing that really comes close is KCD after years of development. Still missing a lot tho.

 

[Bad Sector]

The original Doom was made in 1993 so I'm not sure applying today's expectations to it is fair.

Eh, it was a joke on the "every decent FPS ever" :-P

 

[Yosharian]

FO4's characters and voice acting were more memorable than New Vegas'

 

[markec]

The key difference in design philosophies between New Vegas and Fallout 3/4 is that the former really wanted to focus on its narrative and the latter two really wanted to focus on the game world. Shouldn't be too remarkable of a statement, both studios have operated the same way for a long time. Bethesda typically uses their engine's quick development to create a lotta lotta content throughout the map. Obsidian did something interesting, they used that Gamebryo speed to flesh out their branching questlines instead. Which is probably what got it so much love from RPG fans as generally modern RPGs have had to sacrifice that experience on the alter of expensive assets.

Problem with Bethesda Fallouts is that their world design and quest design are basically theme parks within theme parks. There is no consistency in the world or common sense used in design of pretty much anything. Its just rule of "cool", just put something cool here even if it makes no sense or even if it just completely destroys any shred of internal consistency.

There are many criticism of New Vegas how its world feels empty but it everything about has a logical place in the world. There are towns with food and water supply and even its defenses are logical. In Bethesda Fallouts you have countless "settlements" that consist of few people armed with lowest tier weapons living in a couple of huts without any food or water supply all while surrounded by deathclaws and super mutants.

Quests are no better, my favorite example is from Fallout 4 where you have this diner in a middle of nowhere and couple of drug dealers are arguing with a owner whose son owns them money. Now again problem, location of this diner that like all settlements is surrounded by different mobs and the owner is armed with a pipe gun. Second issue is that the diner itself is just copy pasted from archive and populated by two npcs, and you have pre war skeletons and junk covering every meter of that diner.

There is no attention to detail and those moments just completely takes you out of the game. And those are just poorly designed moments lets not waste time on many simply retarded quests moments like the ghoul kid in the fridge.

The worst part of it all is that Skyrim was a massive upgrade compared to Fallout 3 in terms of worldbuilding. As it actually had pretty much logical world design and people just wanted Fallout 4 to be Skyrim with guns. Which would still be a mediocre game at best but a solid foundation for modding.
Yet Bethesda still managed to disappoint that low expectations.

 

[Yosharian]

The actual theme park that was one of the dlcs is the worst, I fucking hate that area so much

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I hate how they put it at level 30. It really feels like you should start that DLC early, but you can't because you'll get wrecked hard.

 

[Gargaune]

Quests are no better, my favorite example is from Fallout 4 where you have this diner in a middle of nowhere and couple of drug dealers are arguing with a owner whose son owns them money. Now again problem, location of this diner that like all settlements is surrounded by different mobs and the owner is armed with a pipe gun. Second issue is that the diner itself is just copy pasted from archive and populated by two npcs, and you have pre war skeletons and junk covering every meter of that diner.

I can top that, and this isn't even world design but literal bloody dialogue. The receptionist at the hotel in Goodneighbor, when you ask her about the place she goes on about how you should've seen it back in the day like she did, with the parties and stuff, and even mentions that this is not how she'd envisioned her retirement or somesuch. A few streets away, if you talk to the scavs stalking the flying sailship crashed in the tower blocks, one of 'em will ask you something like "America? Is that some pre-war mumbo-jumbo?"

So let's recap. Wastelanders are so far out that they don't even know the name "America", but a couple of blocks over, Goodneighbor has a pension plan?! And there's tons of stuff like this in the writing and environmental design alike, there's no way staff had a clear chronology for Fallout 4 during development.

P.S. Where the fuck did "doctor" Amari get her degree?!

 

[Robotigan]

The worst part of it all is that Skyrim was a massive upgrade compared to Fallout 3 in terms of worldbuilding. As it actually had pretty much logical world design and people just wanted Fallout 4 to be Skyrim with guns. Which would still be a mediocre game at best but a solid foundation for modding.
Yet Bethesda still managed to disappoint that low expectations.

Yeah, I wonder why Bethesda seems to take the Fallout world less seriously than they do for Elder Scrolls or how they're seemingly approaching Starfield.

* Are they less motivated because they feel penned in by established lore they had no part of? I think this unlikely considering they were big fans of the originals and lobbied hard for the IP.

* Did they read Fallout 2 as steering the franchise in a less serious direction (which I guess is backed up by Brotherhood of Steel)? I see some plausibility here.

* Or were they afraid they couldn't sell a depressing setting to mass audiences without a Dr. Strangelove-esque touch? Again, plausible

 

[Zombra]

Yeah, I wonder why Bethesda seems to take the Fallout world less seriously

It's quite possible that they observed, correctly I might add, that Fallout never took itself seriously. From Godzilla to Dr. Who's Tardis to UFOs and ray guns, the first game had no qualms about throwing in wackadoo claptrap - and the first game doesn't even scratch the surface of the easter egg atrocities of Fallout 2. What were Bethesda supposed to do? Suddenly change it to a setting that made any fucking sense? Now THAT would have been disrespectful to the series.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Yeah, I wonder why Bethesda seems to take the Fallout world less seriously

It's quite possible that they observed, correctly I might add, that Fallout never took itself seriously. From Godzilla to Dr. Who's Tardis to UFOs and ray guns, the first game had no qualms about throwing in wackadoo claptrap - and the first game doesn't even scratch the surface of the easter egg atrocities of Fallout 2. What were Bethesda supposed to do? Suddenly change it to a setting that made any fucking sense? Now THAT would have been disrespectful to the series.

Most of this forum really fell for the "ethics of a post-nuclear world" meme

 

[Valdetiosi]

Yeah, I wonder why Bethesda seems to take the Fallout world less seriously than they do for Elder Scrolls

A game studio buying a franchise they didn't create and don't know what to do with it? No way.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Yeah, I wonder why Bethesda seems to take the Fallout world less seriously than they do for Elder Scrolls

A game studio buying a franchise they didn't create and don't know what to do with it? No way.

Codexers unironically shilling for brotherhood of steel 2

 

[markec]

The worst part of it all is that Skyrim was a massive upgrade compared to Fallout 3 in terms of worldbuilding. As it actually had pretty much logical world design and people just wanted Fallout 4 to be Skyrim with guns. Which would still be a mediocre game at best but a solid foundation for modding.
Yet Bethesda still managed to disappoint that low expectations.

Yeah, I wonder why Bethesda seems to take the Fallout world less seriously than they do for Elder Scrolls or how they're seemingly approaching Starfield.

* Are they less motivated because they feel penned in by established lore they had no part of? I think this unlikely considering they were big fans of the originals and lobbied hard for the IP.

* Did they read Fallout 2 as steering the franchise in a less serious direction (which I guess is backed up by Brotherhood of Steel)? I see some plausibility here.

* Or were they afraid they couldn't sell a depressing setting to mass audiences without a Dr. Strangelove-esque touch? Again, plausible

Yeah, I wonder why Bethesda seems to take the Fallout world less seriously

It's quite possible that they observed, correctly I might add, that Fallout never took itself seriously. From Godzilla to Dr. Who's Tardis to UFOs and ray guns, the first game had no qualms about throwing in wackadoo claptrap - and the first game doesn't even scratch the surface of the easter egg atrocities of Fallout 2. What were Bethesda supposed to do? Suddenly change it to a setting that made any fucking sense? Now THAT would have been disrespectful to the series.

Yes Fallout 2 had silly moments, silly quests, silly dialogs and characters and silly easter eggs. But majority of world locations are internally consistent and realistic.

The problem of F3/4 is not only humor or silliness (that horrible writing and voice acting makes even more horrible) but far more important, pretty much nothing in the worldbuilding makes any sense.

Basically my bigger issue in the game is not that some characters are annoying or some quests are stupid. But that pretty much no person in both F3/4 has any business being alive and living in the world that surrounds them and that any attempt at building civilization we see in those game would collapse in a heartbeat.

Entire game is filled by internal inconsistencies and every time you trip on one of those moments it completely takes you out of game as you stop taking seriously world around you.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Yes Fallout 2 had silly moments, silly quests, silly dialogs and characters and silly easter eggs.

Why do people pretend it was just Fallout 2? Fallout was loaded with pop references, it was just a shorter game.

But majority of world locations are internally consistent and realistic.