Fallout 4 Thoughts?

[Harold Jones]

I'm fine with the lack of an 'evil' path and the light tone of the game. That said there are a bunch of dark stories in the game, they just tend to be hidden in holotapes terminal logs and the occasional note. I have a new hobby, I shoot every one of those symbol playing monkeys I see, mostly because they are creepy, but also because it makes their heads fall off. For whatever reason this amuses me.

[DB]

Are they the FO4 equivalent to the garden gnomes?

[Harold Jones]

Garden gnomes?

[Brian Kennedy]

it gets a lot eviller (which may be a bit of a fail, but it does)

[Mistral]

I got into the Institute last night. Not sure if I want to nuke them now or wait till the end.

[Harold Jones]

I don't know if artillery kills enough baddies to make it worth the effort of building emplacements in every settlement so I can maximize coverage. But then I toss some smoke when in range and the sheer fun of watching it come in almost makes it worth the effort to expand the coverage.

[DB]

Garden gnomes?

Plenty of garden gnomes in Fallout 3.

 

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Garden_gnome

[Harold Jones]

Ah, this is my first fallout game didn't realize there was a precident.

[Mr King]

Some early mods I think really add to the game.

 

Full Dialog

 

Improved Map

 

Vivid Fallout

 

True Storms - this one is really awesome for immersion.

 

Mega Explosions This one is up to personal taste but has made life in Fallout rather interesting and fun. Affects all explosions.....so you really have to plan out how you are taking out that sentry bot, least you be near it when it goes low order.

[Harold Jones]

I'm not sure what mods I'm waiting for but so far nothing I've seen really trips my trigger. I did install some kind of easy config mod, but otherwise I'm waiting till they finally release the official modders tools.

[Harold Jones]

Sometimes you just gotta hit the sarcastic reply. Spoiler'd due to potentially nsfw language

 

[Brian Kennedy]

Finished it, as Railroad faction. Was questioning it for a while, but am content with my decision...

Edited December 29, 2015 by Brian Kennedy

[Fritz]

As usual with Bethesda it is miles wide and inch deep.

I was going to ask if it's any better than Skyrim in that regard...

[Matt Urbanski]

 

As usual with Bethesda it is miles wide and inch deep.

I was going to ask if it's any better than Skyrim in that regard...

 

 

I think it's an improvement over Skyrim, yeah. It takes considerably longer to get to the point where you realize that the things you thought were new and fresh and interesting when you first started to play have been excessively copy-and-pasted throughout the rest of the game, and I'd say the amount of genuinely interesting locations with original content is also higher.

 

I'd say the most glaring issue with the game - in this day and age - is how incredibly devoid of anything except combat many of the quests are, to the point where it's a big pleasant surprise when you encounter the rare ones in which you only kill shit 90% of the time, and actually get to have a brief conversation with the "boss" enemy before you're forced to kill him. The game really, desperately needs more quests of the "You go somewhere expecting a fight, but find an interesting NPC instead, have a good talk, and decide to solve things through other means" or "You're sent to kill some shit, then halfway through something unexpected happens forcing you to change sides" variety. It's directly connected to the second biggest issue - your attributes, aside from Charisma, don't affect anything except combat mechanics and the speed of XP gain. You can have 3 Intelligence or 10 Intelligence, and the conversation you'll have with a scientist NPC will be exactly the same, for example.

 

I'm still enjoying it - I think overall, it's a huge improvement over Fallout 3 or Skyrim in terms of content and storytelling, even though it's really not a Fallout RPG in any meaningful sense of the world, the way Fallout 1,2 and New Vegas are.

 

Though I really try not to think about the Witcher 3 when playing it... the sheer difference in terms of quest depth and writing is downright embarrassing at times.

Edited December 29, 2015 by Matt Urbanski

[bojan]

Yeah, W3 was really, really good. Not Planescape good, but then nothing else was...

 

FO4 is basically Stalker with FO themed skins and w/o all things that made Stalker so good. Which might not have been as bad if it has been marketed as action spinoff, not as next part in series...

[Ssnake]

Is all the puppet house management (a.k.a. base building an establishment of trade routes) a major time consuming element, all in all?

I'm not sure if I like the approach of "salvaging parts from everywhere, grind it down to its basic components, then start your own manufacturing".

I mean, since Fallout 3 at least there always was this pack rat mechanic where you'd collect so many worthless tin cans that you might no longer be able to fast travel between locations, because ... well, you might be able to trade them in for something of dubious value. The perks I then learned to value most were the "strong back" and similar things, which only addressed the symptom (and only to an extent), but at least made it less of a hassle. I understand the logic behind it and can justify it to an extent, but I still hated the mechanic.

 

That the quests have become less complex certainly is a major disincentive to me, I must say. It seems like "The Pitt" DLC for FO3 seems to have been the singular highlight in telling a clever story that puts the player in a moral dilemma. FO:NV at least brought a good Yoyimbo plot which was leagues ahead of the FO3 main story. Maybe I never learned to truly appreciate the "learn your cooking recipes" part of FO:NV because I played with survival mode off which certainly would have made it more interesting to decide what weight is worth carrying if you have to sacrifice water and food for it. But still, that's the kind of micromanagement that doesn't appeal much to me. So, how much of it would I find in FO4?

Edited December 29, 2015 by Ssnake

[Matt Urbanski]

Is all the puppet house management (a.k.a. base building an establishment of trade routes) a major time consuming element, all in all?

I'm not sure if I like the approach of "salvaging parts from everywhere, grind it down to its basic components, then start your own manufacturing".

I mean, since Fallout 3 at least there always was this pack rat mechanic where you'd collect so many worthless tin cans that you might no longer be able to fast travel between locations, because ... well, you might be able to trade them in for something of dubious value. The perks I then learned to value most were the "strong back" and similar things, which only addressed the symptom (and only to an extent), but at least made it less of a hassle. I understand the logic behind it and can justify it to an extent, but I still hated the mechanic.

 

That the quests have become less complex certainly is a major disincentive to me, I must say. It seems like "The Pitt" DLC for FO3 seems to have been the singular highlight in telling a clever story that puts the player in a moral dilemma. FO:NV at least brought a good Yoyimbo plot which was leagues ahead of the FO3 main story. Maybe I never learned to truly appreciate the "learn your cooking recipes" part of FO:NV because I played with survival mode off which certainly would have made it more interesting to decide what weight is worth carrying if you have to sacrifice water and food for it. But still, that's the kind of micromanagement that doesn't appeal much to me. So, how much of it would I find in FO4?

 

You don't really have to do it at all if you don't want to. There's one faction that's heavily tied into it (the Minutemen) but even there, it doesn't have to take up a ton of time.

 

And the "recipe" management is very simple, actually. Walk up to a workbench, hit the "store all junk" button, then pick what you can build from a list. It's pretty easy to get enough stuff to build whatever you feel like.

 

The most worthwhile part of it, IMO, is upgrading your weapons.

[Colin]

That be fixed by the Modders, in skyrim I have a merchant wench follow me around, that I can sell stuff to as I get it. That requires 3 mods (EEF, Summon Followers spell & Immersive wenches) Without proper access for modders, the game will die.

[Ssnake]

Well, in Skyrim, I have more money that I can reasonably spend, and more items that I can sell at their nominal price - the result of grind-leveling smithing and putting spells on your items (and going there twice to 100% each (plus potion brewing) 'cause I needed to redistribute a few skill points. What's the point of even more money.

[Brian Kennedy]

Yeah, W3 was really, really good. Not Planescape good, but then nothing else was...

 

FO4 is basically Stalker with FO themed skins and w/o all things that made Stalker so good. Which might not have been as bad if it has been marketed as action spinoff, not as next part in series...

Actually Fallout 4 kind of seems like Skyrim with FO themed skins to me. You have the various factions that give you radiant quests (all of which seem to be go-here-kill-that), the crafting system is pretty similar to Skyrims enchanting system, etc.

[Simon Tan]

I just carry ammo and bottlecaps. No....I aint on survival....

[Mr King]

I solved the problem with "having too much money" by buying for instance shipments if aluminum. Gives me two advantages: I spend less time searching for specific junk, and an actual incentive for earning money.

 

I never really have much use for money, but when I need it I never have enough. I tend to scrap all the weapons and gear I find for those sweet sweet materials they are comprised of. Especially energy weapons. However when I do bother to try to sell them, the damn NPC's have dick in the way of money to buy them. So unless I want to go all around the map to different NPC''s, I just don't mess with it.

 

I keep finding great little gems in the terminals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The weather mod I linked in another post does such a great job at boosting the immersion of the weather.

 

[Mr King]

[JW Collins]

So where did you guys set up your primary settlement? Or the place where you just dump all of your stuff?

[Harold Jones]

Same for me