Fallout 4: It Happened!

[Antonok]

Never expected to have a second thread BEFORE the game released but here we are.

Previous Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?418670-Fallout-4-It-s-Happening!)

Still don't know what my first character is going to be...

Edit: Launch trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivStn8l6_9w) and I read they also consulted the guy from Destiny they hired for the shooting mechanics along with iD software.

[cavalieredraghi]

For simplicity I am making me!

[DigoDragon]

That sure is a pretty launch trailer. O.O

[5ColouredWalker]

I'ma be taking critical hits to the free time, and will be showing up 200 years late to my next appointment.

[Triaxx]

Tactics managed to refine the combat system from Fallout 1/2. That extra bit of control over the other team members made some awesome tricks possible. Like flushing enemies into firing lines. There's one mission in St. Louis where the Super Mutants hide in houses. Line up most of the group on one side and have a sniper move until they can shoot, and then as they come barreling out, they get mowed down.

Plus it had a tank. That was awesome.

[Starbuck_II]

Currently in second area in Brotherhood of Steel (after you clear bar/warehouse, you get key to go to next area).
One thing that isn't explained is what are these things that burrow/hide in boxes (did they go to solid snake school?)/look like a bug?

Wish they had that aiming feat/perk that Dark Alliance had (so you can see where aim is). Also guns only hit short creatures like scorpions/rat/ burrow(?) bug 50% of time due to size.

So game seems melee centric in beginning.



Yeah, in Tactic you can set shooters to overwatch/real time.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

So far as I can see, from my personal perspective..

Pros:
* Customize weapons to an amazing degree
* Dogmeat
* You are more than just someone who wanders around a blighted land shooting even more blighted enemies, you have a chance to build something positive (city building)
* Dogmeat
* Warring factions you can deal with or destroy, not necessarily stereotypical good and evil, just different choices (unlike the Legion being pure unadulterated unabashedly saturday-morning-cartoon-villain evil)
* Who's a good boy? Dat's right, you're a good boy, aintcha Dogmeat...

Cons:

* They tried to make it pretty. They went for the CoD level realism. This is going to absolutely murder most people's GPU's. It did not need this level of realism, all they did was increase system resource requirements by an order of magnitude.
* This is Bethesda, who does not have the best track record for stable releases. Or stability in general.

[Mobius Twist]

I'm worried that beyond a "build and defend the castle" minigame the city building is going to have no impact on the story or the rest of the world.

I'm worried about those faces. Yeesh.

I'm worried I'll buy it before the Game of the Year edition anyway.

[Antonok]

* They tried to make it pretty. They went for the CoD level realism. This is going to absolutely murder most people's GPU's. It did not need this level of realism, all they did was increase system resource requirements by an order of magnitude.


I'm not too worried about this. Most of the misc stuff that would kill a GPU/CPU can usually be turned down/off.


* This is Bethesda, who does not have the best track record for stable releases. Or stability in general.

This, however, I am worried about. Just hope one of the things they improved on is overall game stability. Modding is still a ways away...

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I'm not too worried about this. Most of the misc stuff that would kill a GPU/CPU can usually be turned down/off.Apparently you didn't see the minimum requirements then, because you need a 2GB GPU at a minimum, with 4GB preferred. You need at a minimum an i5/quad core 3.0 Ghz proc, with i7/6-8 core 3.5 Ghz recommended. You need a MINIMUM 8 GB RAM with 16 suggested.

The minimums are just that... absolute minimum for the game to allow itself to install. What is required with all of the fancy stuff turned down/off.

[Antonok]

Apparently you didn't see the minimum requirements then, because you need a 2GB GPU at a minimum, with 4GB preferred. You need at a minimum an i5/quad core 3.0 Ghz proc, with i7/6-8 core 3.5 Ghz recommended. You need a MINIMUM 8 GB RAM with 16 suggested.

The minimums are just that... absolute minimum for the game to allow itself to install. What is required with all of the fancy stuff turned down/off.

Not really. The minimum they list is usually the minimum they TESTED it with*. I've ran many a game on a toaster that had half the min requirements. And anymore, they inflate both the minimum and recommended specs to the point they started meaning little.

Edit: Requirements also highly depend on how well the game is optimized. With BethSofts record on optimization....

*SoE games not included.

[Sharoth]

I have no idea what my first character will be, but I am thinking of doing a pacifistic run on my second one.

[NeenaNeal]

Thanks for sharing...

[DigoDragon]

Apparently you didn't see the minimum requirements then, because you need a 2GB GPU at a minimum, with 4GB preferred. You need at a minimum an i5/quad core 3.0 Ghz proc, with i7/6-8 core 3.5 Ghz recommended. You need a MINIMUM 8 GB RAM with 16 suggested.

I showed my brother the recommended specs so he had an idea of what I want my replacement computer to be capable of and his answer was "Just that? It's two generations ago, but easily doable."

What I wonder is how the game runs on the consoles.

[Gaelbert]

So far as I can see, from my personal perspective..
* Warring factions you can deal with or destroy, not necessarily stereotypical good and evil, just different choices (unlike the Legion being pure unadulterated unabashedly saturday-morning-cartoon-villain evil)

Have you actually talked to Caesar? The great thing about the Legion is that at first glance (and second, and third, and fourth, etc) you're totally right, they are evil, but talking to Caesar reveals a lot more about their motivations. He quotes Hegel, which blew me away the first time I actually talked to him rather than straight up killed him. Even if he's evil and the Fallout world would be better off without him, his thoughts and analysis of the region aren't exactly wrong and have a level of complexity I don't often see in videogames.
Then on the other hand the NCR is far from a "stereotypical good" group. I've sided with them in every playthrough so far, but the thing that Ranger Hanlon is probably right. Without the Courier the NCR probably wouldn't win at Hoover and even if they did, they certainly don't have the resources to hold the region together. Now obviously the Courier exists and you can walk through the Fort and kill everyone and gather together plenty of allies and make sure the NCR has support in the region, but without all those player interactions the NCR's chances really are quite low.

Compare that to Fallout 3 where all sides really are cartoonish, or to Skyrim where none of the differences between the sides are that apparent in the actual game (people make up their mind about who to side with either after they are almost executed at the beginning or due to reading outside lore usually). I really hope that Bethesda learned from Obsidian and give their factions the level of depth we saw from FNV, where even if you hated the Legion they were at least interesting.

[Starbuck_II]

Have you actually talked to Caesar? The great thing about the Legion is that at first glance (and second, and third, and fourth, etc) you're totally right, they are evil, but talking to Caesar reveals a lot more about their motivations. He quotes Hegel, which blew me away the first time I actually talked to him rather than straight up killed him. Even if he's evil and the Fallout world would be better off without him, his thoughts and analysis of the region aren't exactly wrong and have a level of complexity I don't often see in videogames.
Then on the other hand the NCR is far from a "stereotypical good" group. I've sided with them in every playthrough so far, but the thing that Ranger Hanlon is probably right. Without the Courier the NCR probably wouldn't win at Hoover and even if they did, they certainly don't have the resources to hold the region together. Now obviously the Courier exists and you can walk through the Fort and kill everyone and gather together plenty of allies and make sure the NCR has support in the region, but without all those player interactions the NCR's chances really are quite low.

Compare that to Fallout 3 where all sides really are cartoonish, or to Skyrim where none of the differences between the sides are that apparent in the actual game (people make up their mind about who to side with either after they are almost executed at the beginning or due to reading outside lore usually). I really hope that Bethesda learned from Obsidian and give their factions the level of depth we saw from FNV, where even if you hated the Legion they were at least interesting.

I'll grant you they made the NCR (good but held back by senate) and Legion (Smart boss that runs things horribad) interesting choices.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Have you actually talked to Caesar? The great thing about the Legion is that at first glance (and second, and third, and fourth, etc) you're totally right, they are evil, but talking to Caesar reveals a lot more about their motivations. He quotes Hegel, which blew me away the first time I actually talked to him rather than straight up killed him. Even if he's evil and the Fallout world would be better off without him, his thoughts and analysis of the region aren't exactly wrong and have a level of complexity I don't often see in videogames.
Then on the other hand the NCR is far from a "stereotypical good" group. I've sided with them in every playthrough so far, but the thing that Ranger Hanlon is probably right. Without the Courier the NCR probably wouldn't win at Hoover and even if they did, they certainly don't have the resources to hold the region together. Now obviously the Courier exists and you can walk through the Fort and kill everyone and gather together plenty of allies and make sure the NCR has support in the region, but without all those player interactions the NCR's chances really are quite low.

Yes, I have talked to Caesar. Which is why I have even LESS respect for him. He can quote the classics, he has a scientifically educated background, and yet he STILL permits his minions to commit atrocities on a regional scale. So not only does he permit rapine, slavery, random pointless slaughter, and all the other atrocities which the Legion performs... he KNOWS BETTER and STILL permits it. This is the opposite of a redeeming quality. His logic and reasoning are faulty on several points. He's using it as an excuse to be top dog, and no longer cares about what he has to do to get there. A petty tyrant with a thin veneer of education covering an iron fist.

Also, I never said the NCR was 'stereotypical good' either. This is more of a Grimdark scenario... you have horribad, bad, and apathetic.

[ImperiousLeader]

Hmm, do I need to have played prior Fallouts? I'm guessing no, but figured I'd ask.

[Gamerlord]

Hmm, do I need to have played prior Fallouts? I'm guessing no, but figured I'd ask.
Almost certainly not, it takes place in a separate location from any of the others, it has a different main character, and that character is as much as a newcomer to the Wasteland as you would be. There will probably be some references to other games, but I doubt anything too critical.

[cavalieredraghi]

Hmm, do I need to have played prior Fallouts? I'm guessing no, but figured I'd ask.

I would say play then just because they are good game, however no you do not need to play them to understand Fallout 4.

[TheEmerged]

I'm planning two runs at the moment - a "nerdy" 9 Int character and an "amazon" one. I'm still toying with the builds for both.

[Gamerlord]

My current game plan is a 3-3-3-1-6-7-5 (http://www.nukahub.com/tools/special?s=3&p=3&e=3&c=1&i=6&a=7&l=5), already know where the Perception Bobblehead is so within an hour or two of starting that will be a free point. Focus on getting Scrapper, Gun Nut, Armorer, Hacker, Locksmith after grabbing the Bobble, maybe Scrounger, and than whatever combat perks I realize I need as I go through the game.

Part of me is tempted to swap the Charisma-Luck scores though.

[Calemyr]

I'm planning on doing at least two runs off the bat:
Elliot: The McGuyver guy. Whatever stats are needed to optimize the crafting, Science!!!, and team effectiveness. Sees robots as people, but equally willing to break both groups if they cause trouble. Almost certain to be fascinated with the Institute and the Brotherhood of Steel. Let Elliot near a pile of scrap parts and he'll whip up a super weapon, a fortress, a robot, or a heavily armed super fortress robot. (May be played second in hope of a RobCo certified mod.)

Rayne: The sniper girl. Lone badass, with a rifle in one hand and a sword in the other (or possibly a nasty looking bayonet). Ruthlessly practical, but not particularly selfish. Not prejudiced, but not idealistic - if a faction is a problem, they're the enemy, minority guilt card ignored. Pity I haven't heard any references towards Terrifying Presence, as she'd take that in a heartbeat.

In short, Elliot wants to build a new world, Rayne just wants to demolish anything that's wrong with the current one.

I'll probably make both of them as the couple in the beginning for both games, just picking the other for the second round. No idea if they'll have a role to play in the other's game, but I hold out hope.

[Rodin]

My first run is probably going to be my usual charismatic rogue. Sneaky with really good charisma, preferring non-violent solutions but perfectly happy to sneak in and shoot someone in the head if they won't negotiate.

Second character will be Fezzik, to see if they have any decent low-Int dialogue.

[cavalieredraghi]

From the podcast with the voice actors it is alluded there may be good Low Int dialogue, but I can't confirm for certain.

[Triaxx]

Hmmm.... so, Power Armor runs on Fusion Cores. Interesting. Estimate until mod released for infinite Fusion Core Power: 12:03 11/10/2015 (Two minutes after launch.)

[cavalieredraghi]

Yah my build is going to be 3-3-3-5-9-2-3 (http://www.nukahub.com/tools/special?s=3&p=3&e=3&c=5&i=9&a=2&l=3)

[Cristo Meyers]

I'm planning on doing at least two runs off the bat:
Elliot: The McGuyver guy. Whatever stats are needed to optimize the crafting, Science!!!, and team effectiveness. Sees robots as people, but equally willing to break both groups if they cause trouble. Almost certain to be fascinated with the Institute and the Brotherhood of Steel. Let Elliot near a pile of scrap parts and he'll whip up a super weapon, a fortress, a robot, or a heavily armed super fortress robot. (May be played second in hope of a RobCo certified mod.)

Rayne: The sniper girl. Lone badass, with a rifle in one hand and a sword in the other (or possibly a nasty looking bayonet). Ruthlessly practical, but not particularly selfish. Not prejudiced, but not idealistic - if a faction is a problem, they're the enemy, minority guilt card ignored. Pity I haven't heard any references towards Terrifying Presence, as she'd take that in a heartbeat.

In short, Elliot wants to build a new world, Rayne just wants to demolish anything that's wrong with the current one.

I'll probably make both of them as the couple in the beginning for both games, just picking the other for the second round. No idea if they'll have a role to play in the other's game, but I hold out hope.

I'm probably going to end up doing the same thing that I've done since FO3 came out: the first one being Cris, which is essentially just me making the choices I personally feel like making without any kind of RP influence. The second being Kate, which is basically your Rayne.

I have another character that I've used to good effect in New Vegas, a melee build named Sasha, but I'd have to put her off until I see how melee works in 4 before I go there. I usually use her when I just feel like saying 'screw the world' and killing anyone that displeases me... or looks at me funny... yeah, that one's the 'pure evil' playthrough.

[Gaelbert]

Yes, I have talked to Caesar. Which is why I have even LESS respect for him. He can quote the classics, he has a scientifically educated background, and yet he STILL permits his minions to commit atrocities on a regional scale. So not only does he permit rapine, slavery, random pointless slaughter, and all the other atrocities which the Legion performs... he KNOWS BETTER and STILL permits it. This is the opposite of a redeeming quality. His logic and reasoning are faulty on several points. He's using it as an excuse to be top dog, and no longer cares about what he has to do to get there. A petty tyrant with a thin veneer of education covering an iron fist.

Also, I never said the NCR was 'stereotypical good' either. This is more of a Grimdark scenario... you have horribad, bad, and apathetic.

I'm not saying he was a good guy or I invited him to be the best man at my wedding. I'm saying that he's more complex than a cartoon villain. So far I haven't come across any cartoon villains who made me break out my copy of Phenomenology of Spirit.

[Typewriter]

I assume lots of people are in the same place as I am right now - waiting for FO4, unable to really get into anything else. I can't bring myself to play Destiny any more. WF feels tedious. Even the Witcher 3 fails to hold my attention. I've spent most of the last week helping my wife farm out XP in Persona 4: Golden and I got through the first two chapters of "Tales from the Borderlands" - which I'm enjoying but I still just feel listless and anxious for Tuesday. I'm sitting at work bouncing between subreddits and various forums reading what others are saying (and working!).

I need the future to be now.

[Cristo Meyers]

I assume lots of people are in the same place as I am right now - waiting for FO4, unable to really get into anything else. I can't bring myself to play Destiny any more. WF feels tedious. Even the Witcher 3 fails to hold my attention. I've spent most of the last week helping my wife farm out XP in Persona 4: Golden and I got through the first two chapters of "Tales from the Borderlands" - which I'm enjoying but I still just feel listless and anxious for Tuesday. I'm sitting at work bouncing between subreddits and various forums reading what others are saying (and working!).

I need the future to be now.

I know the feeling. I try to only ever play a single game at a time and now the only games I've available to me would take a lot longer to finish than next Tuesday. I've got Assassin's Creed: Syndicate still waiting to be started, but if that holds to tradition it'll take at least two weeks, I was about 2/3 thru The Witcher before trying to sell the house happened, everything else would be measured in weeks rather than days and I'd hate to start something I know I'm just going to drop once Tuesday rolls around.

Luckily I've still got 4 Storm bolter battle sisters, 2 Immolators, and 2 Exorcists to paint from my 40K Sisters of Battle army. That should get me through the weekend at least.

[Balmas]

I'll grant you they made the NCR (good but held back by senate) and Legion (Smart boss that runs things horribad) interesting choices.

Interesting? Yes. Sensible from a point of game design? Not really.

The problem with New Vegas--one of the very few I have, I should say--is that the factions are not equally interesting, and some less support. For some, this kind of makes sense, EG the Khans. Having a dying tribe have only a few quests associated with them--deliver drugs, try to convert them to your side, find a drug runner--works, narratively. You can knock out their quests in a matter of hours.

NCR quests are fun, with a variety of tasks and approaches, like finding a missing NCR ranger, helping a soldier stuck in a mountain, killing fiends, running drugs for an illicit merchant, interrogating a legion captive, checking on radio transmissions, freeing slaves, rescuing a town, saving a train from a bomb...

By comparison, the Legion has "Go kill the NCR in that spot. Now kill them in that spot." Plus, all but two of the companions will be estranged by a Legion playthrough. If I had my way, the Legion would have just as many quests as the NCR, and a good portion of Legion-friendly companions.

[Gamerlord]

It isn't like they didn't try to give the legion a good focus, they just didn't have the time before release to implement more legion-focused content, the Legion-friendly companion they had planned (Ulysses) was cut due to having too many lines to reasonably record in the time frame they had, and they could apparently never implement a major Legion controlled city in the DLC due to memory limitations.

[Cristo Meyers]

...the Legion-friendly companion they had planned (Ulysses) was cut due to having too many lines to reasonably record in the time frame they had...

Probably the biggest favor they did the Legion. If he was planned to be anything like the pompous windbag that appeared in Lonesome Road I'd probably start indiscriminately killing Legion members out of sheer spite.

Though it is sad they couldn't find the room to expand the Legion a little more. Every so often something really kinda interesting peeked through, but then ended up buried in, like Balmas said, a terribly uninteresting mission arc.

[Sajiri]

I assume lots of people are in the same place as I am right now - waiting for FO4, unable to really get into anything else. I can't bring myself to play Destiny any more. WF feels tedious. Even the Witcher 3 fails to hold my attention. I've spent most of the last week helping my wife farm out XP in Persona 4: Golden and I got through the first two chapters of "Tales from the Borderlands" - which I'm enjoying but I still just feel listless and anxious for Tuesday. I'm sitting at work bouncing between subreddits and various forums reading what others are saying (and working!).

I need the future to be now.

That's what I've been feeling like. Im kind of bored of the games I was already playing, but I dont want to boot up anything new for just a few days.

My next dilemma is that my husband takes my car to work, so Im debating if it's worth getting up at 5am to drive him to work just so I have the car to go pick the game up when stores open, or wait until that afternoon for him to come home. This also leads into I found some places selling it for $60 here (which is $40 cheaper than usual) but the stores are all in areas I dont know how to get to and I dont particularly like driving much as it is. Husband said he'd drive me...but again, I'd have to wait for him to get home in that case

[Ogremindes]

My understanding is that there were plans to have the game world extend further into Legion-controlled lands, but that was cut due to time constraints. Probably because there wouldn't of been much for the player to actually do there, since the point would've been to show that the Legion has the resources and the will to keep the peace.

[cavalieredraghi]

That's what I've been feeling like. Im kind of bored of the games I was already playing, but I dont want to boot up anything new for just a few days.

My next dilemma is that my husband takes my car to work, so Im debating if it's worth getting up at 5am to drive him to work just so I have the car to go pick the game up when stores open, or wait until that afternoon for him to come home. This also leads into I found some places selling it for $60 here (which is $40 cheaper than usual) but the stores are all in areas I dont know how to get to and I dont particularly like driving much as it is. Husband said he'd drive me...but again, I'd have to wait for him to get home in that case

If your husband is willing, I'd say making getting and playing the game a family thing. were you both enjoy it. I am myself throwing a small party with my friends, while we play and live stream it. It is half for the game, and half a goodbye party since I am moving the week after.

[Cristo Meyers]

If your husband is willing, I'd say making getting and playing the game a family thing. were you both enjoy it. I am myself throwing a small party with my friends, while we play and live stream it. It is half for the game, and half a goodbye party since I am moving the week after.

Yeah, LadyMeyers and I have done something like that quite a few times in recent memory (Dragon Age 2 & Inquisition, Mass Effect 3). Not for this one, since Fallout isn't her thing, but being able to enjoy it together makes for a nice start.

[Antonok]

Looking over the build thing, a low Int high Luck build looks like it would be fun. Granted from what it says every time you level you have the choice of a perk or SPECIAL point so starting stats are going to have a minimal impact with no level cap.

Think I'm going to go with my usual mid range machine gunner with starting stats at 3-3-4-5-6-6-1 with my lvl 2 going into perception for the lockpicking, and hunting down a point to put into charisma for the ability to set up trade routes between my settlements.

Damn you Bethesda! There really aren't any good dump stats aside from Luck :smallfrown:

[Sharoth]

Yea. Choosing where to put your points is going to be hard.

[Sajiri]

If your husband is willing, I'd say making getting and playing the game a family thing. were you both enjoy it. I am myself throwing a small party with my friends, while we play and live stream it. It is half for the game, and half a goodbye party since I am moving the week after.

Im not sure if he'd want to be there to watch me play it. He's the one that got me into fallout but suddenly doesnt seem interested in 4. I think he's worried about paid mods returning and the game being stripped down like it used to, so he said he'd rather wait, in which case he wont be playing it at the same time, and he wont want to be in the same room to see spoilers.

Kinda sad though, part of the reason I was so hyped for this game was because I thought it was something we'd both be into, then it turns out he's expecting the worst ):

[Antonok]

Fallout 4 can now be pre loaded on Steam (for the last 3 some hours actually). Total pre load size was 23.8 GBs.

Now I anxiously await Tuesday like I was an 8 year old on Christmas Eve. Just hope I can play it and stream it at the same time.

[veti]

Hmm, do I need to have played prior Fallouts? I'm guessing no, but figured I'd ask.

A game studio that wants to survive - isn't going to put this much effort into hyping a new game, only to tell the excited prospective new customers "yeah, you won't get it unless you're one of our established customers that we needn't have bothered even advertising to."

[DigoDragon]

I guess come the 10th I'll have to drop out of this thread a while.

Still annoyed my monitor on the gaming computer is dead. Really wish I could continue my FO3 play through. I was gonna go save Reilly's Rangers and that is a fun little quest.

[Sharoth]

So should I stock up for two weeks or three? I need to have enough provisions for the coming expedition.

[Triaxx]

What kind of monitor do you use? Newegg always has something on sale if you can 'get by' with less than the ultra high-end top of the line. Expedited shipping should see it on your doorstep in more than enough time.

I kind of have to agree with him Sajiri, I'm a little nervous. Not for paid mods or anything, but more over the voice acting. Voice acted main characters take something away. Not sure why.

[Fable Wright]

I kind of have to agree with him Sajiri, I'm a little nervous. Not for paid mods or anything, but more over the voice acting. Voice acted main characters take something away. Not sure why.

The voice actors are pretty good, really. They do add a strong emotional aspect to the game at some points that wouldn't come across nearly as well without a voice actor there. They never detracted from the experience for me, and occasionally added a lot to it.

Semi-related, I am very much looking forward to Monday/Tuesday. I will finally be able to talk about the game to people without breaking my NDA! :D

EDIT:

This, however, I am worried about. Just hope one of the things they improved on is overall game stability. Modding is still a ways away...
Bethesda made a very concerted effort to cut down on this. They did some fine tuning since I left, but the engine was turning out to be significantly more stable than Fallout 3 or Vegas was.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I'm probably gonna end up with 3-4-1-6-5-3-6 (http://www.nukahub.com/tools/special?s=3&p=4&e=1&c=6&i=5&a=3&l=6). Reasoning:

Str 3 for Armorer. Because living is good.
Per 4 nets me Locksmith to get into places I want to be in, plus Rifleman because snipers rock and Awareness. Push it up eventually to 8 for Sniper.
Endurance 1. Because other than Toughness, nothing here really rings my bell. Gonna be squishy, though.
Charisma 6. Trade Routes are teh bomb. Also building up your workstations and stores. Depending on the build, may go for either Attack Dog or Lone Wanderer
Int 5. All five of these perks. All of them.
Agility 3. Sneak. Maybe push it up to 7 eventually for Ninja.
Luck 6. Better Critical. Better. Freeking. Criticals. Also Bloody Mess.

This is set up for a sniper-style build wherein I will attempt to stay far enough back in stealth that my opponent will never know what just blew his head off. Dogmeat is an ideal companion because his low body is easier to shoot over.

[Fable Wright]

This is set up for a sniper-style build wherein I will attempt to stay far enough back in stealth that my opponent will never know what just blew his head off. Dogmeat is an ideal companion because his low body is easier to shoot over.

You may wish to invest another point in Intelligence a bit down the line. Science! is one of the stronger workshop perks in my opinion, especially lategame, and complements Armorer well.

[Gamerlord]

Out of curiosity, would you be willing to say how frequently we can expect to be leveling up?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

You may wish to invest another point in Intelligence a bit down the line. Science! is one of the stronger workshop perks in my opinion, especially lategame, and complements Armorer well.

I had assumed tech upgrades are for energy weapons. Is this not the case?

[Drynwyn]

Out of curiosity, would you be willing to say how frequently we can expect to be leveling up?

I've done some research into this- apparently, the level-up rate will be faster* then in 3/NV, especially for the first 15-20 levels. And do remember, you can increase a SPECIAL by one instead of taking a perk- my current character build puts the first several level-up points into stats.


*In terms of raw numbers- the same amount of gameplay in 4 will end with a character with a higher level, but not necessarily a higher power level relative to the world around him.

[Fable Wright]

Out of curiosity, would you be willing to say how frequently we can expect to be leveling up?

Very quickly in the early ~dozen levels or so, and much slower by the time you get to the 20s and 30s. Each of the early missions usually has a level ding associated with it.


I had assumed tech upgrades are for energy weapons. Is this not the case?

It is required for all of the good tech upgrades for energy weapons—but it's also required for a number of the better upgrades in conjunction with armorer, and there are some specific weapons that require Science and Gun Nut to upgrade. Also of note is the fact that you get the damage bonus from Rifleman when using Rifle-class non-automatic energy weapons.

[Triaxx]

A Unicycle with a flat tire is occasionally more stable than Fallout 3. New Vegas was just too much game for the engine to handle.

I'm thinking I might try a character with 5 Endurance, if only so I can take Aquaboy and go exploring all the underwater bits. Which is to say I'm assuming the Glowing Sea is actually a body of water and not a Vault 87 style Bajillion rads/s zone.

[DigoDragon]

What kind of monitor do you use?

Whatever is cheap. Then I work it to past the normal life expectancy they're designed for, at which point it dies in a fantastical fashion. It's the strangest luck I guess. The last CRT I owned has it's insides explode while I was using it. :3



Bethesda made a very concerted effort to cut down on this. They did some fine tuning since I left, but the engine was turning out to be significantly more stable than Fallout 3 or Vegas was.

That's good to hear. ^^

[cavalieredraghi]

As I was looking over the perks I was deciding just which perks I would take. Science and Gun Nut go with out question as does Armorer. Then I took a closer look at Live Giver, the last rank regens health! I will be taking that yes I will. Also I love Animal friends, so thath will be one I take as well, and lastly for now is Bloody mess.

Also I am doing a Marathon today, at 12:30 Mountain time, for Tale of Two Wastelands.

[Gamerlord]

A Unicycle with a flat tire is occasionally more stable than Fallout 3. New Vegas was just too much game for the engine to handle.

I'm thinking I might try a character with 5 Endurance, if only so I can take Aquaboy and go exploring all the underwater bits. Which is to say I'm assuming the Glowing Sea is actually a body of water and not a Vault 87 style Bajillion rads/s zone.
From what we saw of it (https://youtu.be/Ty2hU0Y7kAg?t=143), the Glowing Sea is a Divide-style wasteland of horrifying monsters and rads.

[Fable Wright]

From what we saw in the trailers, the Glowing Sea is a Divide-style wasteland of Deathclaws and rads.

It's also a surreally awesome environment to wander around in if you can survive the rads.


As I was looking over the perks I was deciding just which perks I would take. Science and Gun Nut go with out question as does Armorer. Then I took a closer look at Live Giver, the last rank regens health! I will be taking that yes I will. Also I love Animal friends, so thath will be one I take as well, and lastly for now is Bloody mess.

Also I am doing a Marathon today, at 12:30 Mountain time, for Tale of Two Wastelands.

There are, sadly, significantly fewer animals in the Wasteland than Wasteland critters. Wasteland Whisperer, though, can be really, really, really fun and ridiculous at the high level range.

[cavalieredraghi]

There are, sadly, significantly fewer animals in the Wasteland than Wasteland critters. Wasteland Whisperer, though, can be really, really, really fun and ridiculous at the high level range.

I will look into it more, but I am getting the animal friend for the settlement building having animal friends can add animals to your settlement, which I know I will enjoy.

Also good news test for my stream of the marathon are going well. There should hopefully be no problems later today.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I will look into it more, but I am getting the animal friend for the settlement building having animal friends can add animals to your settlement, which I know I will enjoy.

Also good news test for my stream of the marathon are going well. There should hopefully be no problems later today.

There wouldn't happen to be a link for said stream, would there? I happen to be free this afternoon as well.

[cavalieredraghi]

Why yes actually I was going to link about this time anyways, we still are 1/2 hour away just to let you know from the time of this post.

STREAM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL-igP-skfU)

[LuckGuy]

Hi all! I joined the Forum just for this thread.

I'm going to take all of the crafting and the settlement perks, so that's most of my points. Otherwise, the perk that really appeals to me is Ricochet: it would be hilarious to walk into a pack of Raiders and have them all take each other out. So I think I'll go with a high Luck, Intelligence, and Charisma guy with a energy pistol weapon. Not sure whether that falls under Gunslinger.

I see him as kinda like the vault guy in the Nuka-Break movies.

I will be running the game on something just below the minimum specs, so I'll let y'all know my experience. I plan to sacrifice everything (resolution, detail) to keep the draw distance up. I do have the 8gb ram and an SSD, with the SSD really helping for most games. So if you are on the fence about minimum specs, check for my message.

I am optimistic that the new 64-bit engine will make better use of modern CPUs than we've seen from Bethesda before, so it might just end up working out ok.

[Fable Wright]

I'm going to take all of the crafting and the settlement perks, so that's most of my points. Otherwise, the perk that really appeals to me is Ricochet: it would be hilarious to walk into a pack of Raiders and have them all take each other out. So I think I'll go with a high Luck, Intelligence, and Charisma guy with a energy pistol weapon. Not sure whether that falls under Gunslinger.

Energy pistols do fall under Gunslinger, yes.

Ricochet isn't capable of clearing out entire packs of raiders for you, but it will score you a fair number of free kills at ranks two and three, though relatively few at rank 1. You may want to start with a slightly lower Luck and it up as you approach level 30 for Ricochet. Do be aware that it meshes well with Nerd Rage; the bonus DR will help survive at low HP, and Ricochet's increased odds of triggering at low HP are very noticeable.

[cavalieredraghi]

Those watching is anything happening?

[Fable Wright]

Those watching is anything happening?

There's a little red circle making waves. That's about it.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Those watching is anything happening?

It just says 'Please stand by, starting soon'

[cavalieredraghi]

I'll fix it right away

[LuckGuy]

Ricochet isn't capable of clearing out entire packs of raiders for you, but it will score you a fair number of free kills at ranks two and three, though relatively few at rank 1. You may want to start with a slightly lower Luck and it up as you approach level 30 for Ricochet. Do be aware that it meshes well with Nerd Rage; the bonus DR will help survive at low HP, and Ricochet's increased odds of triggering at low HP are very noticeable.

I'd have to give up too much to get 10 in two attributes. Not showing 1 point to each point SPECIAL from Bobbleheads...

2 Strength
3 Perception
4 Endurance + 1 more from a perk
5 Charisma
5 Intelligence
1 Agility
9 Luck

and thus

Armorer 4
Locksmith 3
Toughness 5
Aquaboy 2
Cap Collector 3
Lady Killer 3
Attack Dog 3
Local Leader 2
VANS 1
Gun Nut 4
Hacker 3
Scrapper 2
Science! 4
Gunslinger 5
Better Criticals 2
Richochet 3

It's a long way into the Luck tree for not very much, but I've never played Fallout game yet where I was hurting for caps or ammo. I don't like Mysterious Stranger and I don't often use VATS. So we'll see how that goes.

I made a nifty excel spreadsheet, which is why I can assemble this stuff easily. Can I attach files here?

[cavalieredraghi]

Argh! Thing were working a moment ago I will try to fix this as fast as I can,

[Fable Wright]

It's a long way into the Luck tree for not very much, but I've never played Fallout game yet where I was hurting for caps or ammo. I don't like Mysterious Stranger and I don't often use VATS. So we'll see how that goes.

I made a nifty excel spreadsheet, which is why I can assemble this stuff easily. Can I attach files here?

I don't believe the forum supports attachments anymore, if it ever did. You might be able to link to a dropbox, though.

I'm not quite sure why you're investing so heavily in Endurance for just Aquaboy, but that might just be me being weird and enjoying 1-END characters. Gear can make you take very, very little damage from radiation while underwater and let you breathe while under, and submerging yourself usually will break enemy line of sight fairly quickly. On the other hand, if you're mostly pumping END for the rad resist and HP, it's not a bad choice.

[cavalieredraghi]

Damn it, I hate were I live. I lost internet, and the stream would line up with my encoder. I will record the marathon unfortunately.... I really wanted to do a actual live stream.

[Sajiri]

Im not sure what kind of character I want to make. I certainly want to favour charisma, but for weaponry...Im not sure about some kind of handgun or possibly sniper which I never do in any game that features guns, or try hand to hand again. I did that in NV but was disappointed with the animations in that my character was just kind of flailing her arm around instead of actually punching, but then my husband pointed out that was the specific weapon I was using all the way through, and that other ones had other animations. A charismatic brawler feels a little odd though, unless she's someone who gives you the chance to talk, but if you don't listen/dont answer how she likes, she'll punch you in the face.

[LuckGuy]

I'm not quite sure why you're investing so heavily in Endurance for just Aquaboy

It just looks interesting. I have this image of getting somewhere cool with it, since Boston is so maritime-y. Changing it to Strength isn't quite enough for Strong Back. Maybe more Charisma would be cool.

I gotta say, I'm really digging this new system. I wouldn't have thought getting rid of skill points would work, but it's shaping up to produce more distinct characters and that makes for more replays.

[LuckGuy]

if you don't listen/dont answer how she likes, she'll punch you in the face.

I like that, very Commander Shepard.

[Sajiri]

I like that, very Commander Shepard.

Which was coincidentally exactly how I played my Shepard, you just reminded me :p

[cooldes]

the game looks really promising, and very crisp

[Triaxx]

I think I might go pistols again. I did that once with New Vegas, specializing in One-handed guns. Safest I ever felt one shotting my way through Vault 34. Also a high-charisma run now that I think back on it.

[LuckGuy]

Hold the phone, I just realized I don't need both Gun Nut and Science! So now I have:

2 Strength
3 Perception
4 Endurance + one more point from a Perk
5 Charisma
5 Intelligence
1 Agility
9 Luck

Armorer 4
Locksmith 3
Toughness 5
Aquaboy 2
Cap Collector 3
Lady Killer 3
Attack Dog 3
Local Leader 2
VANS 1
Hacker 3
Scrapper 2
Science! 4
Gunslinger 5
Better Criticals 3
Critical Banker 3
Richochet 3

That makes Luck a lot better. Or maybe:

Armorer 4
Locksmith 3
Toughness 5
Aquaboy 2
Cap Collector 3
Lady Killer 3
Attack Dog 3
Local Leader 2
VANS 1
Hacker 3
Scrapper 2
Science! 4
Gunslinger 5
Better Criticals 2
Critical Banker 2
Grim Reaper's 1
Four Leaf Clover 1
Richochet 3

[Fable Wright]

Hold the phone, I just realized I don't need both Gun Nut and Science! So now I have:

You might not need it, strictly, but a lot weapons do have some mods requiring Science!, others requiring Gun Nut, and still others requiring both. On energy and ballistic weapons, IIRC.

Crit banker and Four-Leaf Clover do very little for you, as you expresses a preference for not using VATS. Crit Banker and Four-Leaf Clover only apply to crits generated from filling the luck meter from shots fired and landed in VATs.

[Sharoth]

My first Fallout 4 Character will be this one.

Samantha

S - 3
P - 4
E - 1
C - 6
I - 5
A - 6
L - 3

Add one to each for Bobbleheads. I will eventually be bumping Perception to 8 for Sniper, Agility to 7 for Ninja, and Luck up to 6 for Better Criticals.

Edit - removed one from Strength and added one to Luck.

Edit 2 - Removed one from Perception, Endurance, and Intelligence by one each and raised Agility to 6.

[TheEmerged]

Well, I think I've sorted my "nerd" build, even if it's not as nerdy as initially intended -- 3-5-2-3-9-3-3 (http://www.nukahub.com/tools/special?s=3&p=5&e=2&c=3&i=9&a=3&l=3)


Strength 3 is higher than I wanted for the concept, but Armorer just looks too good to pass up (I'm a crafter by nature).
I actually want Perception higher (I wanted 8 in particular) but I can't convince myself to bring Charisma, Agility, or Luck below 3. I might drop this to 4 s I can grab the Endurance 3pt tier, but at that point I'm less Nerd than Really Smart Jack Of Trades.
Endurance at 2 is just for "Lead Belly", which is mostly my own nerd-like paranoia kicking in. It will ultimately depend on how important eating & drinking are.
Thematically Charisma should be 1, but Lone Wanderer looks too good to pass up for the "lonely geek" archetype.
Intelligence 9. Yeah, there's going to be a +1 INT out there somewhere.
Agility is another one where the concept says I should go lower, but my typical playstyle depends too much in sneaking.
Of the attributes I might lower to get Perception closer to what I want, Luck is the most likely. I actually dislike Bloody Mess, I typically turn down that sort of feature in the game but the pluses to all damage look too good to pass up.


THIS (http://www.nukahub.com/tools/special?s=8&p=1&e=8&c=2&i=2&a=4&l=3) is my current "amazon" build, which I'm still toying with.

[5ColouredWalker]

I'm going 6/4/1/6/6/3/2, get's me all the perks I really want from the get go to put points in [Bypass, Crafting, Settlement Building, Carry Weight.], then I can boost my other stats as desired/needed...

Weapon rise, I'm looking at a minigun and laser/Cryo rifle... And a Plasma Thrower, because.

[Fable Wright]

I will eventually be bumping Perception to 8 for Sniper, Agility to 7 for Ninja, and Luck up to 6 for Better Criticals.

You may wish to move some from Int to Agility. Science! takes a little while to get use from and becomes stronger as the game goes on, whereas Agility will determine your AP (and thus time you can spend looking down a scope) from the very beginning. Your call, honestly; I'm less familiar with scopes than I am with VATS.



Endurance at 2 is just for "Lead Belly", which is mostly my own nerd-like paranoia kicking in. It will ultimately depend on how important eating & drinking are.

Once you begin crafting food, Lead Belly becomes much less useful. Good in case of emergencies, not necessary when planning.

[TechnOkami]

Once I get the game, I intend to play a female. Typically I've played males, because I just couldn't get past the Survivalist Beard, but given the story circumstances of where we start and who we can be, I think playing the Wife is infinitely more interesting due to the tragedy of playing her. She's a wife who, assumedly, loses both her husband and child, and is now wandering The Wasteland. Surviving.

And of course, screw the guns. I'm going full melee as usual.

[LuckGuy]

Gah, I forgot Strength = carry weight. Strength 2 is probably going to drive me insane. In fact, the way, I pack rat it up I should definitely make room for the full Strong Back perk, especially because I'm taking my Dog as the companion... he probably can't carry much.

So now I'm thinking (add one for bobbleheads):

5 Strength plus 1 from perk
3 Perception
1 Endurance
5 Charisma
5 Intelligence
1 Agility
9 Luck

Armorer 4
Strong Back 4
Locksmith 3
Toughness 5
Cap Collector 3
Lady Killer 3
Attack Dog 3
Local Leader 2
VANS 1
Gun Nut 4
Hacker 3
Scrapper 2
Science! 4
Gunslinger 5
Richochet 3

But then I bet I'll really want something else in the luck tree... Gah, this is hard. That's good! I love how hard I'm having to think about this. Maybe I'll ditch Lady Killer, or just take one point there. Maybe I can lose Toughness since I'm going full Armorer... That would fit my concept of a guy surviving by the things he creates rather than his inherent skills. But then I should get rid of Gunslinger too... Or even give up Locksmith and rely on Hacking.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I have, completely by accident, encountered something truly epic.

While playing F:NV, I had my soundtrack playing in the background. As the scene with the Legion storming Hoover Dam came up, so did Manowar - Warriors of the World (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6POUitQf8v8), and I could not help but edit the lyrics to fit. Not that it needed much in the way of editing to be a good parody. Imagine Caesar inspiring his troops in such a manner. Hell, imagine having a sound system on the battlefield blasting something like this, with the troops marching in lockstep to the tempo.

And imagine the NCR's reaction. An army of Legion, numberless as the formation just continues marching at a normal pace over the ridge with no end in sight, chanting something like Queen's 'We Will Rock You'. Haka's bigger, more intimidating brother.

[Sharoth]

DMofDarkness, what will your first character's build be? If you can talk about it.

[5ColouredWalker]

Gah, I forgot Strength = carry weight. Strength 2 is probably going to drive me insane. In fact, the way, I pack rat it up I should definitely make room for the full Strong Back perk, especially because I'm taking my Dog as the companion... he probably can't carry much.

Take lone Wanderer, can add 200lb to your carry weight and massively increases your defences, and I'm nearly certain the dog won't count.
Or, take companions, and let them carry your spare stuff.

[Fable Wright]

Take lone Wanderer, can add 200lb to your carry weight and massively increases your defences, and I'm nearly certain the dog won't count.
Or, take companions, and let them carry your spare stuff.

The dog definitely counts as a companion for that perk.


DMofDarkness, what will your first character's build be? If you can talk about it.

My first character that I can remember was something like this:

S: 1
P: 7
E: 1
C: 3
I: 1
A: 7
L: 8

Built out what was referred to by some as the 'Lucky Mother<censored>' build. Gunslinger maxed out. VATS everything. Bank criticals, unload them on anything deserving. With the game build as it was, was capable of taking out the entire <spoilers> quite literally by accident. Then that went to the balance team, some things were nerfed, Ricochet was moved to the rank 10 ability for Luck and nerfed, etc.

My plan for once I get the game again? I had wanted to try a no-kill run, but... well, ask me again tomorrow. They left the reason why I don't want to try anymore in the game, and I'd kinda like to tell the story behind that.

[Ogremindes]

I'm not gonna go out of my way for spoilers, but I'll probably be the same sort of character as I used in FO3 and NV: light armour, pistols, sneak, VATS and crafty/survival stuff. Based on what I've seen in this thread, I'll probably also get perks for going without companions.

[DigoDragon]

My plan for once I get the game again? I had wanted to try a no-kill run, but... well, ask me again tomorrow. They left the reason why I don't want to try anymore in the game, and I'd kinda like to tell the story behind that.

I might have to stick around for that story. :3

[Triaxx]

I very much concur. Though I suggest perhaps writing it down twice. Once with spoilers and once without and putting them in two separate spoiler boxes for those of us who don't care about spoilers.

[Fable Wright]

I very much concur. Though I suggest perhaps writing it down twice. Once with spoilers and once without and putting them in two separate spoiler boxes for those of us who don't care about spoilers.

The telling does rely on spoilers, but it only spoils/relies on knowledge of the first plot quest. I'll put it under a spoiler box labeled 'light spoilers'.

[Avilan the Grey]

So the reason I haven't pre-ordered is that the pre-order bonus is pointless to me. Why not something I would actually enjoy :smallannoyed:

[QuintonBeck]

Does anyone know of any moderate-high quality YouTuber or Twitch Streamer who is going to do a playthrough on day one? Preferably someone who isn't going to comment over it or if they do isn't annoying about it (I know that's subjective but if there's suggestions I figure I can check their other videos)

[cavalieredraghi]

I am a YouTuber who will be doing a day one stream. I will be doing it for over 20 hours.

[Sharoth]

I am a YouTuber who will be doing a day one stream. I will be doing it for over 20 hours.

That sounds good. I would be watching, but I will be too busy playing Fallout 4 myself. Good luck.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Since I have to play through WINE anyway since I run Linux, I will be waiting for the game to become more stable and for WINE to update. Oddly enough, WINE is probably going to happen first, typically within a week for most Bethesda offerings. If they'd use OpenGL instead of the .NET framework, it'd probably be native compatible out of the box and get better performance... but then they wouldn't be able to do an Xbone release, so I suppose they are going for the money. Which I can't blame them for, and it isn't a major inconvenience since it's probably going to take bethesda longer to stabilize than it will for the WINE team to compatible.

Honestly, I'm tempted to wait until after the modding scene goes live, probably wait for the first steam sale or something.

[ShadowFighter15]

So out of curiosity - the extra mods that SCIENCE!! (yes, I know that's not how it's spelt, but that's how it should be spelt, damnit!) unlocks, I assume some of them are for Power Armour?

Have they said anything about how long a single fusion core can power a suit for? Debating whether to make Nuclear Physicist a priority (not right off the bat, of course, but grabbing it not long after getting my first suit of Power Armour). How far into the game do you get your first suit of power armour, BTW? I have a hunch that it's early on, unless they either removed it from Concord or made that section much later in the game.

[Gamerlord]

So out of curiosity - the extra mods that SCIENCE!! (yes, I know that's not how it's spelt, but that's how it should be spelt, damnit!) unlocks, I assume some of them are for Power Armour?

Have they said anything about how long a single fusion core can power a suit for? Debating whether to make Nuclear Physicist a priority (not right off the bat, of course, but grabbing it not long after getting my first suit of Power Armour). How far into the game do you get your first suit of power armour, BTW? I have a hunch that it's early on, unless they either removed it from Concord or made that section much later in the game.
From the leaks I have heard of and official footage, the power armor is obtained within the first main quest mission after getting out of the Vault, and a single core with no perks lasts 30 minutes.

[Fable Wright]

From the leaks I have heard of and official footage, the power armor is obtained within the first main quest mission after getting out of the Vault, and a single core with no perks lasts 30 minutes.

It lasts up to 30 minutes. Core drain is increased when you burn AP (for example, to sprint, use VATS, or hold your breath), and possibly (though I'm not certain) when you shoot from the hip.


So out of curiosity - the extra mods that SCIENCE!! (yes, I know that's not how it's spelt, but that's how it should be spelt, damnit!) unlocks, I assume some of them are for Power Armour?

Have they said anything about how long a single fusion core can power a suit for? Debating whether to make Nuclear Physicist a priority (not right off the bat, of course, but grabbing it not long after getting my first suit of Power Armour). How far into the game do you get your first suit of power armour, BTW? I have a hunch that it's early on, unless they either removed it from Concord or made that section much later in the game.

If you want to upgrade power armor, you do want Science!, yes. Lategame Science!'d and Armorer'd up power armor is an awesome thing to behold.

Having tried the perk, Nuclear Physicist is useful in the early game, but is less necessary when you acquire a stockpile of fusion cores. (But by then, you can fire fusion cores like grenades, and those are fun when you get the knack.) I can discuss fusion core acquirement strategies come tomorrow.

[ShadowFighter15]

From the leaks I have heard of and official footage, the power armor is obtained within the first main quest mission after getting out of the Vault, and a single core with no perks lasts 30 minutes.

Ahk, thanks. Figured it was early because
the wiki lists a suit of T-45 power armour in the Museum of Freedom in Concord - the one from the trailer where we first saw the power armour in action - which is also where you find the Perception Bobblehead and DMofDarkness mentioned getting that bobblehead about an hour into the game.

And now I'm wondering how far you can travel in half an hour. I'm hoping that you can track where you left the armour if the core runs dry while you're in the middle of nowhere (beyond a custom map marker, I mean).

[Fable Wright]

Ahk, thanks. Figured it was early because
the wiki lists a suit of T-45 power armour in the Museum of Freedom in Concord - the one from the trailer where we first saw the power armour in action - which is also where you find the Perception Bobblehead and DMofDarkness mentioned getting that bobblehead about an hour into the game.

And now I'm wondering how far you can travel in half an hour. I'm hoping that you can track where you left the armour if the core runs dry while you're in the middle of nowhere (beyond a custom map marker, I mean).

Er, no, that was Gamerlord that stated that the Perception Bobblehead was an hour or two into the game. That's one thing that I'm not allowed to confirm or deny until Monday, I think.

Your Pip-boy will automatically mark the location of the last suit of power armor you left on your map with a unique icon, so long as no one steals it. Also, you can move around in power armor while the core is drained—you will just be unable to perform any actions that require AP, such as sprinting, melee attacks, and aiming holding your breath to aim.

How far you travel in a half hour depends on how much you sprint (and as a result, what your Endurance and Agility are), though again, sprinting will make your power armor core burn down faster. (Though it will increase your sprint speed.) You're able to travel a very fair bit of the map in 30 minutes walking, but again, that takes 30 minutes.

Also be aware that fast traveling in power armor does not reduce your core charge.

[Triaxx]

AP to aim down the scope? What bright spark thought that was a good idea? Well, I know the first thing I'll be modding out.

[Fable Wright]

AP to aim down the scope? What bright spark thought that was a good idea? Well, I know the first thing I'll be modding out.

...No, you're right, that's dumb. I think I was conflating two mechanics. Just aiming down the scope didn't cost AP—holding your breath to keep the gun steady while looking down the scope did, but just looking didn't, you're right. I am suddenly unsure if the final build keeps you from looking down the scope while in drained power armor or not.

[Madcrafter]

Went ahead and bought my copy, and have started pre-loading it.

Though now I'm having concerns about my video card, looking at the specs. Various sites seem to rank mine (an Nvidia GT 755M) either slightly higher or slightly lower then the GTX 550 Ti listed as the minimum. Anyone more knowledgeable about these things care to comment?

That said, I'm no stranger to running games on the lower end settings, my version of "good graphics" probably lags the newest releases by a few years.

[ShadowFighter15]

Er, no, that was Gamerlord that stated that the Perception Bobblehead was an hour or two into the game. That's one thing that I'm not allowed to confirm or deny until Monday, I think.Ahk; my mistake.


Your Pip-boy will automatically mark the location of the last suit of power armor you left on your map with a unique icon, so long as no one steals it.I assume, then, that the marker doesn't travel with the suit if it's stolen?

Also, you can move around in power armor while the core is drained—you will just be unable to perform any actions that require AP, such as sprinting, melee attacks, and aiming holding your breath to aim.

How far you travel in a half hour depends on how much you sprint (and as a result, what your Endurance and Agility are), though again, sprinting will make your power armor core burn down faster. (Though it will increase your sprint speed.) You're able to travel a very fair bit of the map in 30 minutes walking, but again, that takes 30 minutes.Makes sense.


Also be aware that fast traveling in power armor does not reduce your core charge.

Oh thank christ! Would've been painful to fast-travel from the armour's storage (which is probably going to be in a player home or settlement, or the BoS base I just stole it from:smalltongue:) only to wind up with no power when I reached my destination.

[Antonok]

Went ahead and bought my copy, and have started pre-loading it.

Though now I'm having concerns about my video card, looking at the specs. Various sites seem to rank mine (an Nvidia GT 755M) either slightly higher or slightly lower then the GTX 550 Ti listed as the minimum. Anyone more knowledgeable about these things care to comment?

That said, I'm no stranger to running games on the lower end settings, my version of "good graphics" probably lags the newest releases by a few years.

As long as you're in the general ballpark you should be alright. Turning off things like shadows, Deapth of Field, Dynamic Lighting, Light Shafts, etc helps a ton. As long as it's not a Sony Online Entertainment game(which likes to prevent you from even launching the game if you don't meet the min requirements) you can usually go a bit below the recommended specs and still be able to play.

Which does beg a question for DMofDarkness, is the game more CPU or GPU intensive?

[Fable Wright]

I assume, then, that the marker doesn't travel with the suit if it's stolen?

That's correct. Most of the time when that happens, it's a case of hunt-the-companion-I-was-with-last.
Bloody idiots. Though that quirk of their AI did net me a power armor suit at one point, it was mostly just annoying.


Which does beg a question for DMofDarkness, is the game more CPU or GPU intensive?

I don't think I can answer this. I'm not familiar enough with the relative capabilities of CPUs and GPUs to tell you how the data I saw maps to relative stress on them for PCs, and giving you what I did see to draw your own conclusions is something I can't ever do because trade secrets.

[Dhavaer]

Is it required to use power armour? I've never liked it and don't intend to use it if I can avoid it.

[Sharoth]

DMofDarkness, iin your opinion, is Fallout 4 at least as good as Fallout 3? No need for specifics.

[Fable Wright]

Is it required to use power armour? I've never liked it and don't intend to use it if I can avoid it.

After its introductory mission, you never need to use power armor ever again. Heck, it's possible to skip power armor in that section with the right build.


DMofDarkness, iin your opinion, is Fallout 4 at least as good as Fallout 3? No need for specifics.

It's significantly better in my eyes, in terms of plot, environment, graphics, combat, and stability if nothing else.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

It's significantly better in my eyes, in terms of plot, environment, graphics, combat, and stability if nothing else.

This was what I needed to know. Sold.

I don't care about the graphics, in fact I'd have preferred older-generation graphics just from the perspective of system requirements since I was apparently issued low-res eyeballs and can't tell the difference anyway. But if you can confirm the game is more stable, I'm sold.

[Sharoth]

It's significantly better in my eyes, in terms of plot, environment, graphics, combat, and stability if nothing else.

AWESOME!!! Thanks DMofDarkness. I appreciate the honest opinion. ~grins~

[Sajiri]

So in about 16 hours I'll be able to head to the store and pick up the game, providing my husband doesnt forget I want the car tomorrow and drive off with it at 5am leaving me asleep.

I still don't know what kind of build I want. I like the idea of hand to hand, but for the image in my mind it just doesnt feel like it meshes well with the type of character I'd want to play- charisma and luck. Pistols or Rifles maybe. I like most of what I see in agility and luck, and I want at least upto 6 charisma at some point, I dont know how many chances there are to increase your stats throughout it.

I am curious if anyone knows if this has been clarified- the lone wanderer perk. Does dogmeat count towards that, because I think it was confirmed you can have the dog and one other companion with you so Im not sure (unless Im just thinking of something else entirely)

[Fable Wright]

I am curious if anyone knows if this has been clarified- the lone wanderer perk. Does dogmeat count towards that, because I think it was confirmed you can have the dog and one other companion with you so Im not sure (unless Im just thinking of something else entirely)

I do not recall being able to use Dogmeat and another companion at the same time. You can at a certain point in the game, but I don't think that's general functionality.

And no, you will not get the benefits of Lone Wanderer if you have Dogmeat.

Also, Strength and Luck work surprisingly well together, if you use melee VATS a lot.

[Sajiri]

I do not recall being able to use Dogmeat and another companion at the same time. You can at a certain point in the game, but I don't think that's general functionality.

And no, you will not get the benefits of Lone Wanderer if you have Dogmeat.

Also, Strength and Luck work surprisingly well together, if you use melee VATS a lot.

Hm, I must have been thinking of something else then. Also its not so much the stats I dont think will work well, it's more just the image for roleplaying. I want the dog, but I dont like having two characters both in melee or both in range. If I have a dog holding something down, I like the idea of shooting from behind it.

Maybe I'll just make two in the beginning, play for a bit to decide which I like more, and go from there

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Well, I finally figured out what was going screwy with NVSE... for some reason, despite the fact that I was telling FOMM to run it, it wasn't. So now I have it actually working again.

I've got Signature Weapon and Armor going now. My signature weapon is the Riot Shotgun. Sure, it doesn't get any mods, sure it has probably worst damage per shot of any of the shotguns... but hey, look at that, I've got Lethal and Penetrating traits I can pick up to solve that problem. Toss in Lucky for good measure. Fun times.

Combo Penetrating with Shotgun Surgeon for a -25 DT per shot, and very little is going to be shrugging off much of anything. Toss on Lethal for the bonus damage per shot, and you've got something truly sick. Lucky gives at 20% bonus chance to crit and 100% bonus crit damage. On top of Better Criticals. Combo THAT with Boone's Cap, Ulysses's Duster, and various crit-enhancing perks.

For armor, I'm currently using Naughty Sleepwear. In addition to the fashionable leopard print, it's got a +1 Luck score. Which will keep me going until I grab said duster. Extra DT, extra DR (and how does that work, does DT apply first or does DR?), Stealthy, Speedy... I'm running out of things to apply to it. I suppose once I get real armor, not only will I have to start over, but it'll go up MUCH slower.

When I hit 14, I'm going to start hitting up the DLC's, starting with Honest Hearts, then to OWB, then to Lonesome Road. Screw Dead Money, I have no interest in energy weapons this run.

[Antonok]

Seems some twitch streamers are getting an early release of Fallout 4 and being allowed to stream it. If anyone wants to get an early look, the embargo ends at 8AM EST (about 1 hour from this post).

Sadly I am not one of them :smallsigh:

[DigoDragon]

Core drain is increased when you burn AP (for example, to sprint, use VATS, or hold your breath)

I had this silly thought of a platoon of power armored Brotherhood all with the hiccups in their suits because they couldn't do anything about it. :smallbiggrin:

[Chen]

So I haven't read through all the previous threads but I just got to looking at the revealed perk list and had a question. There are perks that let you use higher level mods, does that mean by default you just CAN'T put those mods in weapons without the perk?

[Calemyr]

So I haven't read through all the previous threads but I just got to looking at the revealed perk list and had a question. There are perks that let you use higher level mods, does that mean by default you just CAN'T put those mods in weapons without the perk?

I believe that is the case. You cannot craft advanced mods without the perk, and I don't think they're items the way they are in New Vegas. You craft the upgrade ON the weapon, not apply an existing upgrade to it. Of course, you might find one already existing that has the mod you're looking for already integrated.

[Chen]

Ah crafting the mod into the item rather than as a separate item. That makes much more sense as to why a perk would be required. Would be very fiddly if it was somehow "nope you can't use this piece of tech, even if someone else attaches it to your gun for you".

[Ailurus]

Another thought/question about the lone wanderer perk, for anyone who might know. Bethesda games have a habit of forcing various companions on you for one or two missions (usually plot-critical ones - such as having to escort Dr Li & co through the sewers in FO3). So, when that happens in FO4 (cause you know it's gonna happen at least once), what happens to a Lone Wanderer character? Do they get a temporary pass, since the game forces them to have a companion? Or, do you instantly become badly over-encumbered and start taking more damage because Bob the Wastelander insists on tagging along somewhere? If the latter, I can sadly see the perk becoming problematic at best even though on the surface it's one of the ones I want the most.

[Fable Wright]

Another thought/question about the lone wanderer perk, for anyone who might know. Bethesda games have a habit of forcing various companions on you for one or two missions (usually plot-critical ones - such as having to escort Dr Li & co through the sewers in FO3). So, when that happens in FO4 (cause you know it's gonna happen at least once), what happens to a Lone Wanderer character? Do they get a temporary pass, since the game forces them to have a companion? Or, do you instantly become badly over-encumbered and start taking more damage because Bob the Wastelander insists on tagging along somewhere? If the latter, I can sadly see the perk becoming problematic at best even though on the surface it's one of the ones I want the most.

In those times when a companion is forced on a character, they do not take the character's companion slot. For non-Wanderer characters, this means that they have two companions during that quest; for Lone Wanderers, that means you have one while retaining Lone Wanderer's benefit.


So I haven't read through all the previous threads but I just got to looking at the revealed perk list and had a question. There are perks that let you use higher level mods, does that mean by default you just CAN'T put those mods in weapons without the perk?

You will be capable of using weapons that have higher level mods installed on them already, and you are capable of purchasing weapon mods as separate items, then installing them on your weapons. I don't know for certain if you need your Science! or Gun Nut or Armorer ranks at the level of the mod to install it, but mods are separate items that you can buy and sell.

[Calemyr]

In those times when a companion is forced on a character, they do not take the character's companion slot. For non-Wanderer characters, this means that they have two companions during that quest; for Lone Wanderers, that means you have one while retaining Lone Wanderer's benefit.



You will be capable of using weapons that have higher level mods installed on them already, and you are capable of purchasing weapon mods as separate items, then installing them on your weapons. I don't know for certain if you need your Science! or Gun Nut or Armorer ranks at the level of the mod to install it, but mods are separate items that you can buy and sell.

Do you know these details or are you just making an educated guess. Mine are guesses, I'll admit. However, all the modding screens I've seen have been directly applied to a specific weapon - I have seen no evidence of mods as separate items. Also, as for, Lone Wanderers, I would just assume you simply don't get the benefit of the perk during escort missions. Which makes sense, if you think about it: escort missions cramp your style, giving you a concrete reason to resent having a mandatory companion.

I do think the dog is a free slot, and not effected by Lone Wanderer. That's how they've handled it in both Bethesda-style games and the "a man and his dog" aesthetic has been irrevocably burned into the franchise by now.

[Fable Wright]

Do you know these details or are you just making an educated guess. Mine are guesses, I'll admit. However, all the modding screens I've seen have been directly applied to a specific weapon - I have seen no evidence of mods as separate items. Also, as for, Lone Wanderers, I would just assume you simply don't get the benefit of the perk during escort missions. Which makes sense, if you think about it: escort missions cramp your style, giving you a concrete reason to resent having a mandatory companion.

I do think the dog is a free slot, and not effected by Lone Wanderer. That's how they've handled it in both Bethesda-style games and the "a man and his dog" aesthetic has been irrevocably burned into the franchise by now.

...I've got several hundred hours logged from my time testing it over the summer. I've not taken Lone Wanderer, so that is an educated guess, but one backed up by a large amount of knowledge of the general game structure.

[Calemyr]

...I've got several hundred hours logged from my time testing it over the summer. I've not taken Lone Wanderer, so that is an educated guess, but one backed up by a large amount of knowledge of the general game structure.

Ah, a beta tester? That's a better source than I can provide. Fair enough.

[Sharoth]

...I've got several hundred hours logged from my time testing it over the summer. I've not taken Lone Wanderer, so that is an educated guess, but one backed up by a large amount of knowledge of the general game structure.

So you are a Beater? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rrDhu-5M3E)

~grins~ Lucky devil. Thanks for helping make the game better for the rest of us.

[Fable Wright]

Near the end of my time at Bethesda, I built a high-Charisma character to test out the upper-level perks there due to a change that I disagreed with. The main perks in question were Intimidate and Wasteland Whisperer. For those of you who aren't familiar with how the perks work, they give you the ability to look down a scope at an NPC wasteland critter or denizen and get the option to try and 'pacify' them. If they're already in combat with you, if you've failed your first pacify check, or if they're too high level, the option won't show up.

With this in mind, I build a schoolmarm character. Exceptional Charisma, Int high enough for Robotics Expert, enough Strength to figure out how to build armor, and low luck for that 'put upon by the universe' feel. And rather averse to killing, if she can help it. She'd much rather scare someone silly and hope they don't come back over putting two between the eyes.

The intro cutscene comes and goes, and I find myself in the vault. I decide that the schoolmarm is fine with killing insects, though they are rather gross. I make my way through the vault, pick off some radroaches, and make my way back home.

After a little while, I find out about Concord. About survivors. Neighbors. Possible friends, in this post-atomic world. I head over there immediately, picking up a stray mutt along the way, and I'm greeted by the sound of gunfire and laser musket twangs. They're killing each other! I sneak around back, and I accost several raiders. In my intimidating dress, fashionable glasses, and cool totally-not-shaking manner in which I level my guns at their heads, the raider surrenders, hands behind his head, sweating bullets at the terrifying memory of overly-harsh primary school teachers. Except this is the wasteland, he never went to school, etc. But we'll ignore that for the moment. Regardless, I cautiously make my way to the Museum of Freedom, intimidating raiders left and right. Some aren't afraid of the little old lady and her dog. I feel terrible, but I have to shoot them; my dress doesn't really offer much protection. I make my way inside at the urging of the owner of the laser musket; he's got survivors in there, and they're in trouble! I need to help them.

The Museum of Freedom, though, is chock full of raiders. With the help of Dogmeat, I cull them out. I tell a raider to surrender, and he puts his hands behind his head—long enough for me to put down his buddy next to him. Yeah, no, he's not going to make trouble. No sirree. No messing with the school marm. I cautiously, painstakingly make my way to the top of the building, about half the raiders willing to put up their guns, the other half putting up a pitched fight. But finally, blood-soaked and low on supplies, I've made my way to the survivors. When I come to tell them the good news, that they're safe, the man behind the door tells me that it's not safe. He's not opening the door until all the raiders are gone.

Now, I realize that you all haven't played the game much, if at all. But if you have, you know that the man is Preston Garvey, and he's just about the most good-two-shoes person in the entire wasteland. If you go out of your way to take him along as your companion, slaughtering every one of your allied settlements? He'll get mad at you, but after a few days to cool off, he can find it in his heart to forgive you. He never picks a fight, and he's always patient. He's the closest thing that the wasteland has to Mr. Rogers. And right now, in the wasteland, Preston Garvey Demands Blood.

I'm honestly a bit startled at this point, but I go on with it. There's just no other way to go on with the main quest. I turn around to the sweating raider behind me, looking at me with terror in his eyes, realizing the situation he's in. He lets out a whimper. He doesn't want to die. He searches for the mercy he knows is in my heart... and I put one right in his head. He's startled, he reaches for his gun, before Dogmeat leaps on him and viciously tears him limb from limb as he screams and struggles. I'm honestly a bit sickened at this point. I turn back to Preston, begging him to let me in. But Preston says no. Not until every raider in the building is killed.

Now, the entire thing becomes flat-out sick. The raiders aren't fighting anymore, meaning they no longer show at my mini-map. There's only one way to progress, and it's with all of them dead. I wind up threading my way back down to the surface, searching the entire way for a helpless prisoner before executing them in the most horrible way possible. After a point, I take away their ammunition before proceeding, so they can't fire back at me when they turn hostile. I remember the first raider I tried that on. He had seen me kill his friend, just feet away, and he knew that he was next. I took the bullets out of his wallet, and I could see the relief in his face. He was going to make it through. He was going to live. And then I shot him, and Dogmeat takes the helpless raider apart, terror and betrayal in his eyes.

Out of game, I'm honestly queasy at this point. There's violence in Fallout, but that's fighting for your life. Killing helpless prisoners... well, you can do it, but that's a whole new level of screwed up. But I get through it, I get to Preston, and he greets me in his smooth, glad-to-see-me tone. I'm beginning to feel a bit better about myself as I talk to everyone there. It's okay, the schoolmarm tells herself. They were monsters, and I saved all these people. I'm beginning to feel better about myself, and I jump into the power armor and leap off the building. Some raiders surrender before the power armored lady of death. Some are gunned down by Preston. Some I had to deal with. It's not that bad a situation.

And then the Deathclaw jumps out of the sewer. It takes out most of the raiders, even some of the surrendered ones. There's the usual pitched fight between the player and the deathclaw and all of the raiders running about, and secretly, I'm kinda glad for it. I don't have to kill the raiders. But then something unusual happens. The deathclaw's legs are crippled. Both of them. At this point the raiders are all dead or surrendered. The deathclaw is crippled on the ground, harmless, whimpering. I turn to Preston, and tell him the coast is clear. He responds that it's not. The deathclaw must die before they leave.

I turn to the helpless beast, tears in my eyes, and raise my gun. I don't want to do it. It deserves better than this. But I have no choice. Because Preston Garvey Demands Blood. I put down the helpless deathclaw. I slaughter the surrendered raiders again. Of course. I have no choice. Preston Demands Blood.

Over the course of the game, it becomes quite clear: The Minutemen are the single best hope for the Commonwealth. They're the only ones who care about every single member in there. They're the ones building towns, clearing radioactive gunk to make new settlements, trying to make peoples' lives better. They care about everyone. And their leader, the bleeding-heart Preston Garvey, the man who never picks a fight, the noblest man in the wasteland? He Demands Blood. Every settlement must be built on the blood of those who lived there before. There are no survivors when the Minutemen claim a settlement. The Wasteland will grow strong on the blood of its oppressors.

And they're unquestionably the good guys.

So yeah, I don't think I want to try nonviolent runs anymore. Too many moral questions I'm not ready for Fallout, of all franchises, to ask of me.

[Avilan the Grey]

So... once again, Steam was the most expensive option! WTH?
I could order the digital Steam download from one of our larger retail stores for 449 SEK. Steam wants €59 for the same deal. That's... a heck of a difference in price.

BTW is anyone going for the Season Pass without testing the game first? I won't.

[Sharoth]

I will be getting the season pass, but not until next month or so.

[Calemyr]

So... once again, Steam was the most expensive option! WTH?
I could order the digital Steam download from one of our larger retail stores for 449 SEK. Steam wants €59 for the same deal. That's... a heck of a difference in price.

BTW is anyone going for the Season Pass without testing the game first? I won't.

I did. Bethesda does not let me down, and the timing of my paychecks means I had the funds handy now when I couldn't promise them later. There are very few companies left that I'd pre-order from and far fewer than that that I'd buy a season pass from, but I have a lot of respect for Bethesda and am willing to gamble on them without blinking. Bioware and Bungee used to have that standing as well, but Destiny and Mass Effect 3 have relegated both companies to "no coin 'till it's on the market*" status. (I do tend to buy DLC immediately for games I already really like, such as Dragon Age Inquisition - I'll gamble some money then, at least.)

[Typewriter]

I did. Bethesda does not let me down, and the timing of my paychecks means I had the funds handy now when I couldn't promise them later. There are very few companies left that I'd pre-order from and far fewer than that that I'd buy a season pass from, but I have a lot of respect for Bethesda and am willing to gamble on them without blinking. Bioware and Bungee used to have that standing as well, but Destiny and Mass Effect 3 have relegated both companies to "no coin 'till it's on the market*" status. (I do tend to buy DLC immediately for games I already really like, such as Dragon Age Inquisition - I'll gamble some money then, at least.)

Mass Effect 3 killed that franchise for me (I'm not even remotely excited about Andromeda) but I personally loved Destiny and all the DLC for it so far. I also tend to buy lots of DLC and extra content and stuff like that but for FO4 I've probably gone a bit overboard - I got the lootcrate, and the pipboy edition, and... something else? I think? Oh whatever, if there's something FO4 related I can buy I probably will.

[Calemyr]

Mass Effect 3 killed that franchise for me (I'm not even remotely excited about Andromeda) but I personally loved Destiny and all the DLC for it so far. I also tend to buy lots of DLC and extra content and stuff like that but for FO4 I've probably gone a bit overboard - I got the lootcrate, and the pipboy edition, and... something else? I think? Oh whatever, if there's something FO4 related I can buy I probably will.

Destiny is probably a fantastic game for folk that play it as a multiplayer shooter. I was never one of those. I never much cared for Halo for that regard either, come to think of it. Halo, however, did tell a story that was well structured, coherent, and more often than not flat-out badass. Halo 2's ending not withstanding, of course. Destiny was sold to me as some epic planet-sprawling adventure and what I got was a very dry paint-by-the-numbers FPS where the story was almost completely told to you by by the talented but clearly not invested Peter Dinklage and most of the cutscenes left in the game lead nowhere but to promote paid DLC, and the ending was absolutely unsatisfying - there was no closure on any front for anything in the game. End result: a brilliant "dumb fun" game, but a fantastically amazing disappointment for story-hound like me. Then they pull that stunt with releasing a major paid DLC (Taken King) that isn't covered by the Season Pass before they even finished the season pass DLCs (but it's included in the "game of the year" version...). Short version, I am not pleased with them.

ME3 was freaking awesome until the last bit of it. I can forgive the utter narrative failure that is Kai Leng, but the ending was just nonsensical and bad, bad, bad. (Though I know at least a couple people who would contest that opinion.) The worst part of it was Bioware's attitude about it, honestly, but they ultimately made good on it for the most part with a revised ending, a (paid, unfortunately) DLC that gives much needed context to the ending, and a final DLC that made my last impression of the trilogy the equivalent of a big, warm hug. They're still not high on my trust list, though.

But Bethesda... Bethesda I can't help but like. I haven't felt let down by them yet. (Though only because ESO was done by Zenimax Online rather than Bethesda.)

[5ColouredWalker]

Near the end of my time at Bethesda, I built a high-Charisma character to test out the upper-level perks there due to a change that I disagreed with. The main perks in question were Intimidate and Wasteland Whisperer. For those of you who aren't familiar with how the perks work, they give you the ability to look down a scope at an NPC wasteland critter or denizen and get the option to try and 'pacify' them. If they're already in combat with you, if you've failed your first pacify check, or if they're too high level, the option won't show up.

With this in mind, I build a schoolmarm character. Exceptional Charisma, Int high enough for Robotics Expert, enough Strength to figure out how to build armor, and low luck for that 'put upon by the universe' feel. And rather averse to killing, if she can help it. She'd much rather scare someone silly and hope they don't come back over putting two between the eyes.

The intro cutscene comes and goes, and I find myself in the vault. I decide that the schoolmarm is fine with killing insects, though they are rather gross. I make my way through the vault, pick off some radroaches, and make my way back home.

After a little while, I find out about Concord. About survivors. Neighbors. Possible friends, in this post-atomic world. I head over there immediately, picking up a stray mutt along the way, and I'm greeted by the sound of gunfire and laser musket twangs. They're killing each other! I sneak around back, and I accost several raiders. In my intimidating dress, fashionable glasses, and cool totally-not-shaking manner in which I level my guns at their heads, the raider surrenders, hands behind his head, sweating bullets at the terrifying memory of overly-harsh primary school teachers. Except this is the wasteland, he never went to school, etc. But we'll ignore that for the moment. Regardless, I cautiously make my way to the Museum of Freedom, intimidating raiders left and right. Some aren't afraid of the little old lady and her dog. I feel terrible, but I have to shoot them; my dress doesn't really offer much protection. I make my way inside at the urging of the owner of the laser musket; he's got survivors in there, and they're in trouble! I need to help them.

The Museum of Freedom, though, is chock full of raiders. With the help of Dogmeat, I cull them out. I tell a raider to surrender, and he puts his hands behind his head—long enough for me to put down his buddy next to him. Yeah, no, he's not going to make trouble. No sirree. No messing with the school marm. I cautiously, painstakingly make my way to the top of the building, about half the raiders willing to put up their guns, the other half putting up a pitched fight. But finally, blood-soaked and low on supplies, I've made my way to the survivors. When I come to tell them the good news, that they're safe, the man behind the door tells me that it's not safe. He's not opening the door until all the raiders are gone.

Now, I realize that you all haven't played the game much, if at all. But if you have, you know that the man is Preston Garvey, and he's just about the most good-two-shoes person in the entire wasteland. If you go out of your way to take him along as your companion, slaughtering every one of your allied settlements? He'll get mad at you, but after a few days to cool off, he can find it in his heart to forgive you. He never picks a fight, and he's always patient. He's the closest thing that the wasteland has to Mr. Rogers. And right now, in the wasteland, Preston Garvey Demands Blood.

I'm honestly a bit startled at this point, but I go on with it. There's just no other way to go on with the main quest. I turn around to the sweating raider behind me, looking at me with terror in his eyes, realizing the situation he's in. He lets out a whimper. He doesn't want to die. He searches for the mercy he knows is in my heart... and I put one right in his head. He's startled, he reaches for his gun, before Dogmeat leaps on him and viciously tears him limb from limb as he screams and struggles. I'm honestly a bit sickened at this point. I turn back to Preston, begging him to let me in. But Preston says no. Not until every raider in the building is killed.

Now, the entire thing becomes flat-out sick. The raiders aren't fighting anymore, meaning they no longer show at my mini-map. There's only one way to progress, and it's with all of them dead. I wind up threading my way back down to the surface, searching the entire way for a helpless prisoner before executing them in the most horrible way possible. After a point, I take away their ammunition before proceeding, so they can't fire back at me when they turn hostile. I remember the first raider I tried that on. He had seen me kill his friend, just feet away, and he knew that he was next. I took the bullets out of his wallet, and I could see the relief in his face. He was going to make it through. He was going to live. And then I shot him, and Dogmeat takes the helpless raider apart, terror and betrayal in his eyes.

Out of game, I'm honestly queasy at this point. There's violence in Fallout, but that's fighting for your life. Killing helpless prisoners... well, you can do it, but that's a whole new level of screwed up. But I get through it, I get to Preston, and he greets me in his smooth, glad-to-see-me tone. I'm beginning to feel a bit better about myself as I talk to everyone there. It's okay, the schoolmarm tells herself. They were monsters, and I saved all these people. I'm beginning to feel better about myself, and I jump into the power armor and leap off the building. Some raiders surrender before the power armored lady of death. Some are gunned down by Preston. Some I had to deal with. It's not that bad a situation.

And then the Deathclaw jumps out of the sewer. It takes out most of the raiders, even some of the surrendered ones. There's the usual pitched fight between the player and the deathclaw and all of the raiders running about, and secretly, I'm kinda glad for it. I don't have to kill the raiders. But then something unusual happens. The deathclaw's legs are crippled. Both of them. At this point the raiders are all dead or surrendered. The deathclaw is crippled on the ground, harmless, whimpering. I turn to Preston, and tell him the coast is clear. He responds that it's not. The deathclaw must die before they leave.

I turn to the helpless beast, tears in my eyes, and raise my gun. I don't want to do it. It deserves better than this. But I have no choice. Because Preston Garvey Demands Blood. I put down the helpless deathclaw. I slaughter the surrendered raiders again. Of course. I have no choice. Preston Demands Blood.

Over the course of the game, it becomes quite clear: The Minutemen are the single best hope for the Commonwealth. They're the only ones who care about every single member in there. They're the ones building towns, clearing radioactive gunk to make new settlements, trying to make peoples' lives better. They care about everyone. And their leader, the bleeding-heart Preston Garvey, the man who never picks a fight, the noblest man in the wasteland? He Demands Blood. Every settlement must be built on the blood of those who lived there before. There are no survivors when the Minutemen claim a settlement. The Wasteland will grow strong on the blood of its oppressors.

And they're unquestionably the good guys.

So yeah, I don't think I want to try nonviolent runs anymore. Too many moral questions I'm not ready for Fallout, of all franchises, to ask of me.


Yep... If that doesn't get patched out, I know it's going to get modded out.

[Cristo Meyers]

Yep... If that doesn't get patched out, I know it's going to get modded out.

Part of me wants to say it's an unintended consequence by the devs. As I was reading my most constant thought was 'this just doesn't jive.'

Makes for a hell of a story, though.

[Madcrafter]

Part of me wants to say it's an unintended consequence by the devs. As I was reading my most constant thought was 'this just doesn't jive.'

Makes for a hell of a story, though.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually unsafe for them to go through the raiders. Just because the raiders/monsters are coded not to attack the player once they've surrendered doesn't necessarily mean they've been programmed not to attack anyone else. DMoD can confirm/deny if this is the case.

[LuckGuy]

So I just learned 1 thing that everyone else probably knows, and one thing I'd love confirmed:

1. No level cap! So much for my careful builds, but that is fantastic news.

2. What happens if you have 10 in an attribute, and you pick up the relevant Bobblehead? Does it go to 11?

Thanks!

[Cristo Meyers]

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually unsafe for them to go through the raiders. Just because the raiders/monsters are coded not to attack the player once they've surrendered doesn't necessarily mean they've been programmed not to attack anyone else. DMoD can confirm/deny if this is the case.

I can see it going either way. There's an understandable lack of context in how everything played out.

Though I do think we've found the next thread title. :smallamused:

[Avilan the Grey]

I did. Bethesda does not let me down, and the timing of my paychecks means I had the funds handy now when I couldn't promise them later. There are very few companies left that I'd pre-order from and far fewer than that that I'd buy a season pass from, but I have a lot of respect for Bethesda and am willing to gamble on them without blinking. Bioware and Bungee used to have that standing as well, but Destiny and Mass Effect 3 have relegated both companies to "no coin 'till it's on the market*" status. (I do tend to buy DLC immediately for games I already really like, such as Dragon Age Inquisition - I'll gamble some money then, at least.)

If the first DLC come before Christmas I'll get it then, otherwise the "Season Pass" will be a Xmas present just for me :smallwink:

[LibraryOgre]

What is a season pass in context? I've heard them talked about for other games, but assumed it was for online multiplayer.

[Cristo Meyers]

What is a season pass in context? I've heard them talked about for other games, but assumed it was for online multiplayer.

Basically pre-buying all the future content DLC for a discount.

[DigoDragon]

[Why I no longer want to do a no-kill run (light spoilers)]

Uh... is there an alternative faction you can hook up with that is okay with that style of play? I agree that it seems way off for the style.

[Calemyr]

Uh... is there an alternative faction you can hook up with that is okay with that style of play? I agree that it seems way off for the style.

Sounds like a logic failure, where it's not differentiating between "live and subdued" vs "live and hostile" when determining whether objectives are met. "Mr. Rogers" is explicitly demanding the area be safe, but the logic isn't considering it safe when all living enemies are subdued. This results in you having to kill every prisoner you took to move to the next stage of the quest. "Mr. Rogers'" faction IS apparently the best faction for that style of play, but the logic bug makes subduing them effectively more evil than killing them in battle, because then you are forced to ruthlessly execute prisoners...

[5ColouredWalker]

Like I said.
It will be patched or modded out really quickly.

[Typewriter]

So I just learned 1 thing that everyone else probably knows, and one thing I'd love confirmed:

1. No level cap! So much for my careful builds, but that is fantastic news.

2. What happens if you have 10 in an attribute, and you pick up the relevant Bobblehead? Does it go to 11?

Thanks!

My understanding is that it will go to 11 if you're already at 10 when you get the bobblehead, but if you get it before you're at 10 then you won't be able to get to 11. Personally, I plan on doing this with INT for the extra XP.

[Fable Wright]

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually unsafe for them to go through the raiders. Just because the raiders/monsters are coded not to attack the player once they've surrendered doesn't necessarily mean they've been programmed not to attack anyone else. DMoD can confirm/deny if this is the case.

Oh, no, the raiders weren't able to attack anyone, hostile or nonhostile. But if you leave the building and come back (say because you had to clear a bunch of raiders and a Deathclaw outside), they'll be just as hostile as ever to everyone inside the building—including the NPCs heading downstairs offscreen.


2. What happens if you have 10 in an attribute, and you pick up the relevant Bobblehead? Does it go to 11?

It does indeed to to eleven. I've actually had times where my Charisma was in the 20s before, albeit with temporary-use items. Except for that one time with the really bad bug.


Uh... is there an alternative faction you can hook up with that is okay with that style of play? I agree that it seems way off for the style.

All of the factions will require you to kill. Brotherhood of Steel? Kill the supermutants. All of them. And your commanding officer/friend/love interest. The Railroad is better about it, but they will still require you to kill debatably-alive things quite frequently. There's one mission for them that was notoriously awkward for players in certain situations.

But yeah. The devs did not design with a complete pacifist strategy in mind. Then again, it only comes up with players who decided to go with 9-10 Charisma; in the other cases, it's a tragic case of kill-or-be-killed.


Sounds like a logic failure, where it's not differentiating between "live and subdued" vs "live and hostile" when determining whether objectives are met. "Mr. Rogers" is explicitly demanding the area be safe, but the logic isn't considering it safe when all living enemies are subdued. This results in you having to kill every prisoner you took to move to the next stage of the quest. "Mr. Rogers'" faction IS apparently the best faction for that style of play, but the logic bug makes subduing them effectively more evil than killing them in battle, because then you are forced to ruthlessly execute prisoners...

Yeah. There's no good way to handle it from the dev's side. The area must be safe... but once the player leaves, the raiders will attack. But then the player is forced to execute prisoners.

It's a dilemma.

[LuckGuy]

It does indeed to to eleven.

Thats excellent, thanks. I hate to waste points in games, so that was actually kinda stressing me out. :+D

[Sajiri]

Went to the store and got directed to a shoppers carpark, since the usual one was being renovated or something. Found all the parking areas were chained off anyway with signs saying they didn't open til 8.30 despite stores being open at 8. Ended up driving 2 blocks away from the mall to find a parking space. Made some friends in the gaming section of Target who were also looking for Fallout when it wasnt on the shelf yet, and we had to hunt down a staff member to get it out of the box for us. Tried to leave and got sent in a circle twice because of those roadworks.

That was my adventure for the morning, now I have the game and it's time to disappear from the internet for a while. Still worth it for it being $40 cheaper than EB games here

[DigoDragon]

But yeah. The devs did not design with a complete pacifist strategy in mind.

I'm okay with that, as I never do such runs. It's just the story you provided was indeed jarring for the style. But good to know that limitation!

[5ColouredWalker]

-snip-

I got a price match...
However I had the rain suddenly pick up so bad I couldn't see the car in front of me on the high way when we all slowed right the **** down so as to not die, and missed my turn off because I couldn't see the sign...
The rain lasted all of 3 minutes, ended up spending an hour trying to find myself, and damn near became religious when I did so.

[Sajiri]

I got a price match...
However I had the rain suddenly pick up so bad I couldn't see the car in front of me on the high way when we all slowed right the **** down so as to not die, and missed my turn off because I couldn't see the sign...
The rain lasted all of 3 minutes, ended up spending an hour trying to find myself, and damn near became religious when I did so.

I hate when rain happens like that :/ I'm just hoping it doesnt storm here and the power goes out as so often happens lately.

Anyway, while Im waiting for the game to install/update (another 5 minutes >_<) Ive been checking out the list of voiced names (http://hastebin.com/raw/ovayuyalej).

My name/s are in there, but I dont think I'd use them. Thinking between Charlotte, Ava and Quinn. Guess I'll have to see what my character suits when I finally make her

[5ColouredWalker]

*Checks the list*
Huh, I could have everyone calling me Sir or Maam... I might have to try that one.

I'll be going Maria the first time through. I use Aleandrea instead of Alexandra and those two are the names I prefer.

[cavalieredraghi]

Well I will leave this here for those who are wanting to watch the live streams. Link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fevoCLxKi6M)

[Dhavaer]

Whoo! 40 minutes of installation time! Hopefully I can get some play time in before my doctor's appointment.

Edit: Wait, what? Why is it saying '1 day' and apparently trying to download it? What the hell, Steam?

Edit2: Okay, so apparently the entire installation isn't on the disk, but why couldn't they have put more than 20% on?

[Antonok]

Still 5 hours to go before I can play it /cry

I'm overall very displeased with how bethesda did the launch, but that's for a few different reasons.

[Fable Wright]

Still 5 hours to go before I can play it /cry

I'm overall very displeased with how bethesda did the launch, but that's for a few different reasons.

One of my old coworkers has linked me to a thread (http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1543458-feel-bad-now-human-right-inequality/) on the Bethesda forums about how their launch constituted human rights abuses.

They are aware of the drama involved.

[Sharoth]

Well I will leave this here for those who are wanting to watch the live streams. Link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fevoCLxKi6M)

I subscribed and will probably watch a bit. I hope that you have fun.

[Sharoth]

One of my old coworkers has linked me to a thread (http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1543458-feel-bad-now-human-right-inequality/) on the Bethesda forums about how their launch constituted human rights abuses.

They are aware of the drama involved.

~LAUGHTER~ Oh! I am in such pain! ~grins~ Melodrama at it's best. Thanks for the laugh, DMofDarkness.

[LuckGuy]

Ive been checking out the list of voiced names.



Heh, there are some interesting choices in there, starting with "Boobies".

[DigoDragon]

So if you put a name that is not voiced it just doesn't voice it? Cause it sounds like a gimmick that will never get used with me. It's like those named keychains or "Share a Coke with" thing. I got a rare name. And nick name. And apparently none of the names I usually use in Bethesda games are on here. Not even "Doc"? Dang. :smalltongue:

Maybe a name can be added via mod? (I hope)

[5ColouredWalker]

Given there are fully voiced quest mods in NV I think so... However you'd need to imatate either:
-Every sentence said with the name
-Every voice speaking the name at least once.

Yea, it'd be impractical... If it is just inserting the name into a gap in the sentence [which would sound horrible so I doubt that's how they did it.] then they could release 'Name Packs' to cover more esoteric names...
Or just more curse words/in jokes/references/titles.

[DigoDragon]

Given there are fully voiced quest mods in NV I think so... However you'd need to imatate either:
-Every sentence said with the name
-Every voice speaking the name at least once.

Yea, it'd be impractical... If it is just inserting the name into a gap in the sentence [which would sound horrible so I doubt that's how they did it.] then they could release 'Name Packs' to cover more esoteric names...
Or just more curse words/in jokes/references/titles.

So, every line in this game has been recorded several times, each with a different name? :smallconfused:

[Cristo Meyers]

I hate when rain happens like that :/ I'm just hoping it doesnt storm here and the power goes out as so often happens lately.

Anyway, while Im waiting for the game to install/update (another 5 minutes >_<) Ive been checking out the list of voiced names (http://hastebin.com/raw/ovayuyalej).

My name/s are in there, but I dont think I'd use them. Thinking between Charlotte, Ava and Quinn. Guess I'll have to see what my character suits when I finally make her

Huh, cool, most of my stand-bys are on there. I spell Chris without the 'H' though.

Though 'Imperator' is pretty tempting :smallbiggrin:


Whoo! 40 minutes of installation time! Hopefully I can get some play time in before my doctor's appointment.

Edit: Wait, what? Why is it saying '1 day' and apparently trying to download it? What the hell, Steam?

Edit2: Okay, so apparently the entire installation isn't on the disk, but why couldn't they have put more than 20% on?

Ugh, wonderful. Like I'm not going to be fidgety and distracted enough tomorrow. I won't see the inside of my house until 6 or 7 in the evening if I'm lucky... might not get to play until Wednesday at that rate.

Normally I avoid hype and exposure to a release that I'm looking forward to, and this is why.

[Triaxx]

Yay voice acting... Sorry, just can't be excited for that.

I have faith in Bethesda, but Call of Duty is one of those games that's put me off voice acting. 'We paid a fortune for this actor, so stop trying to play the game and listen to the story we're trying to be dramatic with.'

I like silent characters, because it's a lot easier to be sarcastic if I'm not listening to the protagonist yap. I really hope it doesn't end up feeling like I'm just riding along in someone else's head.

[cavalieredraghi]

Only an hour left!!! I am excited.

[Fable Wright]

So, every line in this game has been recorded several times, each with a different name? :smallconfused:

Nope. Most of the dialogue doesn't involve the PC's name. I'm fairly sure that only Codsworth, possibly your spouse, and maybe one other NPC ever mention your name. So just a few NPCs giving dialogue for every recorded line.


I like silent characters, because it's a lot easier to be sarcastic if I'm not listening to the protagonist yap. I really hope it doesn't end up feeling like I'm just riding along in someone else's head.

But the protagonist does voiced snippy sarcasm so well! (Yes, their dialogue options can be serious if you want them to be. But why would you do that? Ever?)

[Sajiri]

I havent gotten very far yet (spent a ton of time in the character creator, then had to go get husband from work) but I've only heard the voiced name once or twice (from the robot).

I'd assume sir/maam is what he'd call you if you dont choose one of the names, since he also called me maam.

[Madcrafter]

And here I thought I'd get to play right away. Have never preloaded a game on steam before, so didn't realize that it doesn't do the final install until after release. Oh well, what's another half hour.

[Antonok]

An hour in so far. My kid was named Shaun.

As far as running it goes, I have an i5 4690k with a GTX 960 2GB and 8GB Memory, the games recommended settings when I started it up? Ultra.

Turned everything down to medium (with certain features off like shadows and the lighting), I'm seen 1 spike of 60% usage on cpu and hovering around 45-50% Memory usage. Frames are hit and miss, usually around 60 but can dip to around 40, with low activity areas hitting around 100. And even at medium/low settings the game looks good.

All in all so far, +1 to Bethesda on this.

[Fable Wright]

An hour in so far. My kid was named Shaun.

Your kid is always named Shaun, by the by. His name is bandied about often enough that they didn't want more than one name on it for every related bit of dialogue.

[Sharoth]

If at all possible, can we use spoilers until others can play it?

[Fable Wright]

If at all possible, can we use spoilers until others can play it?

That... wasn't really a spoiler at all, but sure. Going back and spoilering everything.

[cavalieredraghi]

I hate my life and I am glad I am leaving this area with crappy internet. I am sorry to those I promised live stream. I will however upload.

[Sharoth]

That... wasn't really a spoiler at all, but sure. Going back and spoilering everything.

~grins~ Sorry. I wasn't meaning to fuss. Thanks, DMofDarkness. I appreciate it.

[Sharoth]

I hate my life and I am glad I am leaving this area with crappy internet. I am sorry to those I promised live stream. I will however upload.

Thanks for doing your best. Having had crappy internet, I feel your pain.

[thirsting]

If at all possible, can we use spoilers until others can play it?

Then again, for some of us that's like 3-5 years off from now... *shakes fist at inadequate laptop*

[t209]

I hate when rain happens like that :/ I'm just hoping it doesnt storm here and the power goes out as so often happens lately.

Anyway, while Im waiting for the game to install/update (another 5 minutes >_<) Ive been checking out the list of voiced names (http://hastebin.com/raw/ovayuyalej).

My name/s are in there, but I dont think I'd use them. Thinking between Charlotte, Ava and Quinn. Guess I'll have to see what my character suits when I finally make her
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeeyzcUAg54
Well, Robbaz didn't make a name but it called him Robert instead.
Coincidence, much?
has "son", "nuke", "Massachusetts", "Institute", and "ending".

[Madcrafter]

-The vault design is actually really neat. Even the little bit of yellow adds so much compared to the old ones. Also, all those pipes everywhere. :smallsmile:
-Ghouls are damn fast, it's scary
-Rads feel like they have much more consequence, since I can always see that little red bar eating up my health
-Some of the controls feel a little unintuitive, especially in the menus using tab for everything. Also it took me a long while before I figured out they had put VATS on q instead of v
-I almost liked the old forced level up, made it so you didn't forget
-The modding is a little strange, there doesn't seem to be any way to take the scope off the one gun I found and put it on another? I can only change them, which seems to scrap the old one for not all its parts

Game looks great to my eyes even on low settings (though I mentioned before that I am a few years behind the curve on that). Runs great as far as I can tell, though the load times on fast travel are really long.

But now it's 3AM and I need to sleep. More Fallout tomorrow!

[Farix]

Played for a bit and really have nothing but positive things to say so far. Only real complaints are that load times do feel a bit long and facial animations aren't quite as good as Witcher 3. But to be fair thats a pretty high bar to set.

Base building system is fun so far, but gonna get sucked into obsessively cleaning up all of the debris in the area. For Fort Not Vault will be the cleanest part of the wasteland.

Only heard him on the radio but the poor Diamond City radio guy really reminds me of this guy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W45DRy7M1no).

Oh god, Bongo Bongo Bongos back, now the waiting begins for Johnny Guitar.

[5ColouredWalker]

So, every line in this game has been recorded several times, each with a different name? :smallconfused:


I think so. I got to play for a little over two hours [Am already starting to get loaded with side quests and... Loot.], and I doubt they could fit in the name that well if it was just jigsawed in, though it's not said that often.
This would help bulk the game up to it's 11K lines [I think.], but not by much.
I could however be wrong.

As for running it, it runs smoother than Inquisition on my same old PC, where it stuttered badly... I'm looking forward to upgrading my PC come December though.


Also, I have to say, **** power armor. Sure, it might be really tough, but you're imidiately pit against a Deathclaw which laughs at it, and you don't have the power to get anywhere... And that bloody beeping when it runs out of power! If it didn't, I'd be fine with being forced into walking, but this beeping!
That is so getting moded the **** out, I will find a way to do it myself despite no previous experience.



I'd assume sir/maam is what he'd call you if you dont choose one of the names, since he also called me maam.

I got that at the start to, I'd say that was just for some of the lines given it was Codsworth.

[Rosstin]

im traveling for work and trying to download from a hotel room

so facemeltingly slow :-<

i thought the game was predownloaded but i guess there are lots and lots of hidden things it needs to download before it lets me play :-P

[Alaris]

im traveling for work and trying to download from a hotel room

so facemeltingly slow :-<

i thought the game was predownloaded but i guess there are lots and lots of hidden things it needs to download before it lets me play :-P

Probably less to do with downloading more, and more to do with Unpacking the game. That took me a good hour on its own, and I had preloaded the rest of the game already.

[Dhavaer]

12 hours to go... I bought the damn thing 12 hours ago.

[Ailurus]

-The vault design is actually really neat. Even the little bit of yellow adds so much compared to the old ones. Also, all those pipes everywhere. :smallsmile:
-Ghouls are damn fast, it's scary
-Rads feel like they have much more consequence, since I can always see that little red bar eating up my health
-Some of the controls feel a little unintuitive, especially in the menus using tab for everything. Also it took me a long while before I figured out they had put VATS on q instead of v
-I almost liked the old forced level up, made it so you didn't forget
-The modding is a little strange, there doesn't seem to be any way to take the scope off the one gun I found and put it on another? I can only change them, which seems to scrap the old one for not all its parts

Game looks great to my eyes even on low settings (though I mentioned before that I am a few years behind the curve on that). Runs great as far as I can tell, though the load times on fast travel are really long.

But now it's 3AM and I need to sleep. More Fallout tomorrow!
Most things seem fast to me, if for on other reason than they keep moving (albeit really slowly) in VATS. But for me, the most terrifying thing so far are the blasted mole rate. Popping up out of the ground like that, only to disappear back under. *shudders*




Also, I have to say, **** power armor. Sure, it might be really tough, but you're imidiately pit against a Deathclaw which laughs at it, and you don't have the power to get anywhere... And that bloody beeping when it runs out of power! If it didn't, I'd be fine with being forced into walking, but this beeping!
That is so getting moded the **** out, I will find a way to do it myself despite no previous experience.



I like the power armor implementation so far. Sure, the Deathclaw ate my face like three times (seriously, I blame the E3 Gameplay Vid for BADLY misrepresenting that fight), but then I realized there was a balcony right near his spawn point, and just hosed him down from safety.

As for the power cells fusion cores, I didn't find it to really be an issue yet (but didn't do too much with the armor). Followed Garvey & Co back home afterwards, since it was a logical plot progression point, and then hung up the power armor while looting and reinvesting in the town. Copper, need more precious copper!

[Kesnit]

I wasn't going to come in here because I wanted to play for a bit before I read everyone's comments. Sadly, I have hit a snag...

I was a little worried about running the game since my PC is about 5 years old. (I have to play Skyrim on really low graphics to avoid jerky graphics.) I fired up FO4, and when I should get a loading screen, I get...nothing. I have audio, so I know the game is running. But my screen (which is a TV with the plugs to use it as a monitor) is blue (the "no signal" color, like if my computer is a sleep mode) and says "Not Support."

I suspect my graphics card is the issue (NVIDIA GeForce 520).* Does anyone know of something else that could be causing my problem?


Edit: I just checked the specs. It is almost certainly my graphics card.


*I was going to upgrade that at Christmas anyway, but it looks like the upgrade is coming sooner.

[BlueHerring]

I wasn't going to come in here because I wanted to play for a bit before I read everyone's comments. Sadly, I have hit a snag...

I was a little worried about running the game since my PC is about 5 years old. (I have to play Skyrim on really low graphics to avoid jerky graphics.) I fired up FO4, and when I should get a loading screen, I get...nothing. I have audio, so I know the game is running. But my screen (which is a TV with the plugs to use it as a monitor) is blue (the "no signal" color, like if my computer is a sleep mode) and says "Not Support."

I suspect my graphics card is the issue (NVIDIA GeForce 520).* Does anyone know of something else that could be causing my problem?


Edit: I just checked the specs. It is almost certainly my graphics card.


*I was going to upgrade that at Christmas anyway, but it looks like the upgrade is coming sooner.

Yeah, a 520 is kind of out of date for Fallout. Most online stores should have some sales on graphics cards, especially with Thanksgiving coming up, which is nice.

Speaking of graphics cards, does anyone know if the new NVIDIA drivers (358.91) add anything significant to Fallout 4? I had to roll them back to the drivers released in October since the new updates were causing tremendous lag issues in Witcher 3 (Going from being able to play at around 50 FPS at High settings to <10 FPS on Low).

[DigoDragon]

Nope. Most of the dialogue doesn't involve the PC's name. I'm fairly sure that only Codsworth, possibly your spouse, and maybe one other NPC ever mention your name. So just a few NPCs giving dialogue for every recorded line.



But the protagonist does voiced snippy sarcasm so well! (Yes, their dialogue options can be serious if you want them to be. But why would you do that? Ever?)

Maybe Spoilers Maybe Mundane
Ah, that seems more reasonable. Can't imagine the other way. Though, I wonder how long until they just program a speech synthesizer to simply read off whatever you put in for a name. Probably not for a while, but it'll be fun when that day comes (I work for a simulation company that does voice recognition and talk back). :3

And yeah, I love snarky comments. It's so me.



I hate my life and I am glad I am leaving this area with crappy internet. I am sorry to those I promised live stream. I will however upload.

I hate your life too because it isn't within a 20 minute drive from my house. :smallbiggrin:



-Some of the controls feel a little unintuitive, especially in the menus using tab for everything. Also it took me a long while before I figured out they had put VATS on q instead of v

Maybe Spoilers Maybe Mundane
Does the game have an options menu to change your control scheme?

[Chen]

So I have a Radeon 6850 (pretty old) but my system runs Witcher 3 perfectly fine at high settings. Should I be concerned about this? I don't really have an issue with turning off the fancy graphical bells and whistles if need be (complex shadows, water stuff etc).

[Gaelbert]

Anyone know of people streaming Fallout 4 who've played the first couple games in the series and are paying attention to the lore? Self promotion is perfectly fine if you fit the bill. I'd prefer to watch a GitP streamer anyways.

[Rosstin]

I think that the initial 4 gigs of the game was just the SPECIAL videos and stuff and now it's downloading the next 30 gigs or something. Leaving the console on all night, I'm at 56%. There's no disk process that takes that long, it's still downloading stuff.

[Typewriter]

Does anyone know how much bonus XP is gained from each point of INT? I've heard conflicting reports of both 3% and 6.5%

[Starbuck_II]

So, about vault techs new vault

cryogenics that seem to fail for some of your fellow members. Granted, when first getting in the thing, I thought this was really a virtual reality seat thing. So I hope the ending isn't this was all a dream.

[cavalieredraghi]

Slight spoilers but need help.

I am encountering a glitch i can't get around. I have started a new character and when it come time to leave the cryo i can't move.

Also trying to upload the 3 hours me and my buddies did first for Fallout 4.

[Fable Wright]

-The modding is a little strange, there doesn't seem to be any way to take the scope off the one gun I found and put it on another? I can only change them, which seems to scrap the old one for not all its parts
Yeah, time for the tower of hanoi shuffle. Here's how swapping mods works:

1. As soon as you craft a new mod for your gun, the mod that was previously on it will be added to your inventory.
2. When you craft a new mod for you gun, if you have the mod that you're trying to craft in your inventory, it will be removed from your inventory instead of the component parts for the new mod.
3. As a consequence, to swap the scopes between the guns, take the gun with the scope you want to remove, craft the lowest-quality scope on it, then craft the scope you want on the other gun. Then feel free to swap out the lowest-quality scope with the scope that was on the other gun.


Maybe Spoilers Maybe Mundane
Ah, that seems more reasonable. Can't imagine the other way. Though, I wonder how long until they just program a speech synthesizer to simply read off whatever you put in for a name. Probably not for a while, but it'll be fun when that day comes (I work for a simulation company that does voice recognition and talk back). :3

You do NOT want the Fallout 4 robo-voice to read your character's name in the middle of Codsworth's sentences. Trust me, the inflection of the voice actor did quite a lot that the robo-voice couldn't match.




Maybe Spoilers Maybe Mundane
Does the game have an options menu to change your control scheme?
I believe so, but I'm not 100% on that.


So, about vault techs new vault

cryogenics that seem to fail for some of your fellow members. Granted, when first getting in the thing, I thought this was really a virtual reality seat thing. So I hope the ending isn't this was all a dream.


Dear god no the ending is not a dream. That would be a terrible twist.

Also, it didn't just fail for some of them. You're the only vault survivor. Well, maybe with one exception.



I am encountering a glitch i can't get around. I have started a new character and when it come time to leave the cryo i can't move.

I'll ask around for this one. It wasn't there when I was testing.

[Starbuck_II]

Slight spoilers but need help.

I am encountering a glitch i can't get around. I have started a new character and when it come time to leave the cryo i can't move.

Also trying to upload the 3 hours me and my buddies did first for Fallout 4.

I guess you could say, your frozen in anticipation (put sunglasses on) :smallcool:.

So, first glitch of the game. We knew it was coming.

[cavalieredraghi]

I guess you could say, your frozen in anticipation (put sunglasses on) :smallcool:.

So, first glitch of the game. We knew it was coming.

I thankfully have my first character, but still I would like to have more then one.

[DigoDragon]

You do NOT want the Fallout 4 robo-voice to read your character's name in the middle of Codsworth's sentences. Trust me, the inflection of the voice actor did quite a lot that the robo-voice couldn't match.


LOL... maybe spoiler?
No, obviously don't want a robo-voice (well, maybe for a robo companion?) :smallbiggrin: But you might be impressed how the half-million dollar simulator we built sounds. It ain't too bad with speech. Understands accents pretty well too.

Or maybe you won't be impressed. Dunno what circles you traverse in the speech recognition industry.



So, first glitch of the game. We knew it was coming.

Two more and Cav gets a free sundae?

[Rodin]

Yeah, time for the tower of hanoi shuffle. Here's how swapping mods works:

1. As soon as you craft a new mod for your gun, the mod that was previously on it will be added to your inventory.
2. When you craft a new mod for you gun, if you have the mod that you're trying to craft in your inventory, it will be removed from your inventory instead of the component parts for the new mod.
3. As a consequence, to swap the scopes between the guns, take the gun with the scope you want to remove, craft the lowest-quality scope on it, then craft the scope you want on the other gun. Then feel free to swap out the lowest-quality scope with the scope that was on the other gun.



Wow, seriously?

I don't know what it is with Bethesda and interfaces. They could seriously just look at their own modding community and do what they do, but for some reason their interfaces get worse with every game instead of better. The town building actually looks like it could be fun, but the utterly horrible way they designed it is putting me off. No Bethesda, I should not have to scroll through the structure list with the freaking arrow keys. I should not have to manually walk over to a person, say "I want you to do something", then walk back over to whatever it is and tell them to do that. Even if you ignore that these are grown-ass people who should handle that crap themselves, there should be a frigging menu that allows me to quickly select anyone in the town and assign them over, or even just a "quick assign" that picks the closest unassigned worker.

Well, at least this means that when I get a gun that I don't want with a cool mod, I can strip the mod off it and get that. Time to go fiddle...

Other than the town building and a couple other minor complaints (main one being how you are frozen in place for several sections after reloading, which means that if you saved while an enemy was sneaking up on you the game can reload at a point where you are dead because your character stands there like an idiot instead of running forward when pressing sprint), I'm really digging the game. Great graphics, great gameplay.

[Fable Wright]

Wow, seriously?

I don't know what it is with Bethesda and interfaces. They could seriously just look at their own modding community and do what they do, but for some reason their interfaces get worse with every game instead of better. The town building actually looks like it could be fun, but the utterly horrible way they designed it is putting me off. No Bethesda, I should not have to scroll through the structure list with the freaking arrow keys. I should not have to manually walk over to a person, say "I want you to do something", then walk back over to whatever it is and tell them to do that. Even if you ignore that these are grown-ass people who should handle that crap themselves, there should be a frigging menu that allows me to quickly select anyone in the town and assign them over, or even just a "quick assign" that picks the closest unassigned worker.

Speaking as I can without breaking NDA...

Bear in mind that this was designed to allow the player to move around while interfacing with the menu, and the limitations of controllers and engine. They need the analog sticks to look around and move while into the menu, and that means only one thing remains that can operate a menu in four directions. Stopping gameplay to bring up the menu and block out the town would be an even worse way to design the interface.

Granted, many/most of us wished, so badly, that there was a way to quickselect civvies and companions in a town, or at least see where they were on a mini-map. But because reasons, that was left to the modding community.

Though civilians will begin collecting scrap on their own when not assigned to anything. Unfortunately, they will not automatically farm after you plant a thing.

[Rodin]

Speaking as I can without breaking NDA...

Bear in mind that this was designed to allow the player to move around while interfacing with the menu, and the limitations of controllers and engine. They need the analog sticks to look around and move while into the menu, and that means only one thing remains that can operate a menu in four directions. Stopping gameplay to bring up the menu and block out the town would be an even worse way to design the interface.

Granted, many/most of us wished, so badly, that there was a way to quickselect civvies and companions in a town, or at least see where they were on a mini-map. But because reasons, that was left to the modding community.

Though civilians will begin collecting scrap on their own when not assigned to anything. Unfortunately, they will not automatically farm after you plant a thing.

While I can understand how it happened now, blaming bad PC design on consoles should never be a valid excuse. It should not be that freaking hard to design two GUIs for the game - one for the PC crowd, and one for the console crowd. The worst part is, they took GUI designs that actually worked in the previous two games and replaced them with ones clearly designed to be used solely by a controller. Which is insanity. I know I've ranted about this before, but companies keep trying to re-invent the wheel and failing when they should just look at the wheel they designed 20 years ago and use that instead.

[Fable Wright]

It should not be that freaking hard to design two GUIs for the game - one for the PC crowd, and one for the console crowd.

It... really is. Look at how much time it took for Fallout shelter to get an android release. Now multiply that by the time to debug two interfaces. Then add that to the development cycle again while Fallout pushes forward to a well-planned release date. It's simply not feasible.

[Sajiri]

So, about vault techs new vault

cryogenics that seem to fail for some of your fellow members. Granted, when first getting in the thing, I thought this was really a virtual reality seat thing. So I hope the ending isn't this was all a dream.


I got the impression all the others were either dead because they were shot like the spouse, or the pods just failed because nobody was around to maintain them. I think one of the terminals said something about after staff were evacuated, vault tec would maintain them remotely, but considering it was supposed to be a 'short term vault' and you were in there for 200 years...I dont think that was happening.

Of course I could be wrong, I only got as far as returning to sanctuary with Preston and his crew, then I had to spend the night on FFXIV

[Rosstin]

75%.... Almost there

[Fable Wright]

I got the impression all the others were either dead because they were shot like the spouse, or the pods just failed because nobody was around to maintain them. I think one of the terminals said something about after staff were evacuated, vault tec would maintain them remotely, but considering it was supposed to be a 'short term vault' and you were in there for 200 years...I dont think that was happening.

Of course I could be wrong, I only got as far as returning to sanctuary with Preston and his crew, then I had to spend the night on FFXIV

Father, the one who eventually let you out of cryostasis, deliberately let all of the other pods fail. The reasons why aren't really explored; my personal theory is because he didn't want you to try and rebuild the past with people you knew, he was a greedy man who wanted you to come to him.

[Ailurus]

It... really is. Look at how much time it took for Fallout shelter to get an android release. Now multiply that by the time to debug two interfaces. Then add that to the development cycle again while Fallout pushes forward to a well-planned release date. It's simply not feasible.

On the other hand, though, look at SkyUI. Sure, the first version was a far cry from where it is today, but that first version came out barely more than a month after Skyrim itself did (Nov 11 for Skyrim, Dec 16th for SkyUI 1.0). If you check out the user screenshots on SkyUI's nexusmods page you'll see that even that first version had significantly more effective inventory management than Beth's PC UI. And while I'll freely say that FO4's UI is overall better than FO3 and Skyrim's default PC UIs, there's still so many little things that could have been easily tweaked to take advantage of the PC having an order of magnitude more input options. Given what modders pulled off in a month with absolutely no familiarity with the game or it's core systems, Beth could have had a couple programmers add even just a few quality of life tweaks to the PC UI in like a week or so. But, since I'll be stunned if we hit the end of 2015 before BostonUI or w/e it gets called comes out we probably won't have to wait long before those fixes start showing up.

[Fable Wright]

On the other hand, though, look at SkyUI. Sure, the first version was a far cry from where it is today, but that first version came out barely more than a month after Skyrim itself did (Nov 11 for Skyrim, Dec 16th for SkyUI 1.0). If you check out the user screenshots on SkyUI's nexusmods page you'll see that even that first version had significantly more effective inventory management than Beth's PC UI. And while I'll freely say that FO4's UI is overall better than FO3 and Skyrim's default PC UIs, there's still so many little things that could have been easily tweaked to take advantage of the PC having an order of magnitude more input options. Given what modders pulled off in a month with absolutely no familiarity with the game or it's core systems, Beth could have had a couple programmers add even just a few quality of life tweaks to the PC UI in like a week or so. But, since I'll be stunned if we hit the end of 2015 before BostonUI or w/e it gets called comes out we probably won't have to wait long before those fixes start showing up.

To make a long story short, in any area of the game design industry, the most valuable resource you have access to is your programmers' time. You have a finite team of programmers who has a finite amount of time they can work on the game in. A week of a programmer's time is a large investment. Compound this with the fact that the build, as in all projects, is constantly updated in hundreds of different ways a day, and that any small change in a function the menu AI relies upon can cause a ripple effect that eventually causes, say, the workshop menu to crash. And then you have to debug this. While, in your hypothetical, you concurrently develop a completely separate menu system for consoles.

The job of a modder is vastly easier than Bethesda's job. They have a stable build, crowdsourced QA, and they don't get hundreds or thousands or more fans complaining about every bug introduced. This is a fix catering to improve the experience of a small fraction of the userbase, when they could have the programmer in charge of that improve the experience of every user instead. It could be done, true. But the cost/benefit analysis doesn't necessarily make it high on Bethesda's priority list.

[DigoDragon]

Especially when the cost of SkyUI for Bethesda is like, zero. I suspect they know this and continue to simply release the the modding resources.

[Gamerlord]

Just a few comments after playing about ten hours between today and yesterday (Hooray for the magic of VPNs!) In general the gameplay itself is pretty good (Although I understand the complaints on other websites of it being a bit monotonous.) Haven't seen enough of the story to really judge it yet.

* Companions have a weight limit, but you can't see it when you are trading with them, which is pretty annoying. Also no sort options on that particular mode.

* The only bugs I have run into so far are some blink-and-miss-it visual errors and my Pip-Boy sometimes vanishing into thin air, only reappearing after a trip to the pause menu. I'm assuming this just means some horrifying is about to happen in a few hours.

* Like that the AI now tries to find cover. The cover mechanic doesn't seem that useful for the player but it is neat. Kind of silly when Super Mutants try it though. :smalltongue:

* Not sure why anyone had Bethesda looked at the random chance skill check mechanic from F3 and thought "This is a brilliant idea, lets do it again, but this time reduce it to three vague colors!". :smallsigh:

* At the very least a minimap indicator for companions would be nice. They keep on lagging behind me in the open world, and I end up having to find them after charging into a raider outpost.

* Just entered Diamond City, really like it. Not sure how it actually compares in size to past Bethesda cities, but it feels a lot more lively. Dudes hawking wares to you, all kinds of alleyways, etc.

* Not sure what the rest of the factions are like, but Minutemen missions are feeling pretty repetitive; Get told to go to some tiny village with ghoul/raider problem, chat up a nameless villager, get pointed in direction of ghouls/raiders, kill them, go back, get a new settlement to manage, chat up Preston, repeat.

* Voice actors are pretty inoffensive so far, one audio tape was pretty nasty but otherwise they're good.

* The weapon/armor crafting is great. The interface as mentioned above is pretty crap, but you can create all sorts of fun stuff.

* At level 15 in the area around Diamond City, combat seems mostly easy even with me mostly ignoring direct combat perks (Been picking hacking,lockpicking, and crafting stuff.) Guess crafted gear is just that good.

[Fable Wright]

* Not sure what the rest of the factions are like, but Minutemen missions are feeling pretty repetitive; Get told to go to some tiny village with ghoul/raider problem, chat up a nameless villager, get pointed in direction of ghouls/raiders, kill them, go back, get a new settlement to manage, chat up Preston, repeat.

The other factions' sidequests are significantly more interesting, though Minutmen has two great unique quests after you progress far enough into the game.

[Gnoman]

Will this run on a gtx 560?

[DigoDragon]

* Not sure why anyone had Bethesda looked at the random skill check mechanic from F3 and thought "This is a brilliant idea, lets do it again, but this time reduce it to three vague colors!". :smallsigh:

Heart of the what now? Random skill check?


Seeing some interesting tweaks (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=551069501&tscn=1447077828) from the Steam Community.

[Madcrafter]

I'm guessing I'm in the minority here but I don't mind the random speech checks, mostly because it's satisfying to succeed at one every once in a while with my 2 CHA.

[Ogremindes]

I'm guessing I'm in the minority here but I don't mind the random speech checks, mostly because it's satisfying to succeed at one every once in a while with my 2 CHA.

I dislike them, simply because I'm of the mentality that has trouble resisting save scumming.

[Ailurus]

OK, seriously considering abandoning my lone wanderer plans.


Puppy is just too cute. And apparently takes the command "fetch" extremely literally. Seeing him trotting back to me out of an abandoned house with a stimpack in his mouth, and then setting it down in front of me... too many feels.

[TheEmerged]

Well, I'm running into a glitch the moment I start it. I can bring up the menu and then... nothing. No mouse on the screen, no response from keyboard or my game pad, nothing.

[Dhavaer]

Well, I'm running into a glitch the moment I start it. I can bring up the menu and then... nothing. No mouse on the screen, no response from keyboard or my game pad, nothing.

I got that. Try disconnecting your gamepad.

[TheEmerged]

Thing is, I only tried the gamepad when the mouse didn't work - wasn't plugged in before that. I'm currently trying a reinstall.

[Driderman]

Gameplay is pretty fun. So far, story is about as inane as Fallout 3. Minor spoilers for introduction/first couple of quests of game to elaborate: Your partner gets killed as you watch, your infant son kidnapped and you... apparently shack up with some historical re-enactors to settle the wasteland while the perpetrators you swore vengeance on are off to wherever, doing whatever to your child. Oh yeah, and a magical fortune teller is your only link to the main quest. Seriously, WTF? This is not even trying :)

[Cristo Meyers]

I'm guessing I'm in the minority here but I don't mind the random speech checks, mostly because it's satisfying to succeed at one every once in a while with my 2 CHA.

I'm right there with you. I preferred the FO3 version. New Vegas' hard values meant I had no reason to take a Speech check when I couldn't meet the threshold. I knew it was going to fail, my reward was what? Some funny dialogue maybe?

At least with FO3's chance system I could look at the possibility and make a choice based on that chance, rather than looking and knowing if I'd succeed or not.

...10 more hours or so. It'll be done just in time for me to leave for work in the morning.

Oh well, I needed to put those Exorcist (http://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Sisters-of-Battle-Exorcist) turrets together anyway

[Antonok]

Just discovered my first companion outside Dogmeat.

Curie, a Mister Gutsy style medical bot (French woman's voice included if anyones wondering). A medical bot found at the end of the Vault 81 quest. Have yet to see what it can do in combat though, though the entire thing does add in yet another reason why Vault Tec are just plain evil ***hats

Edit: Just noticed that after you do that quest, you get a room in the vault and have free rein to loot the place of everything not in the private rooms.

[5ColouredWalker]

Gameplay is pretty fun. So far, story is about as inane as Fallout 3. Minor spoilers for introduction/first couple of quests of game to elaborate: Your partner gets killed as you watch, your infant son kidnapped and you... apparently shack up with some historical re-enactors to settle the wasteland while the perpetrators you swore vengeance on are off to wherever, doing whatever to your child. Oh yeah, and a magical fortune teller is your only link to the main quest. Seriously, WTF? This is not even trying :)


You can follow them, but you don't have to. I made my way straight to Diamond City, on the way through meeting the BoS, killing a raider group that sought to trap me, and found out insects seem to be energy-weapon resistant.

I decided to help the BoS while I was in the area... I now have plenty of laser weapons... Got to turn on a spaceship engine on top of a Paladin, which was fun.

Just got to Diamond City before I needed to take a break for my eyes. I'm 4 hours and about 5 deaths in.

[t209]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCYV8Y9Ywh8
Well, I actually agree with Conan on the jumpsuits. Why are they like this? I kinda see it as a fanservice on seeing female Vault Dwellers' curves.
I know I know, the "easily make uniforms for community stability and standardization" but I kinda have like for skin-tight suits (on female though). Just making some stupid assumptions.

[Ravian]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCYV8Y9Ywh8
Well, I actually agree with Conan on the jumpsuits. Why are they like this? I kinda see it as a fanservice on seeing female Vault Dwellers' curves.
I know I know, the "easily make uniforms for community stability and standardization" but I kinda have like for skin-tight suits (on female though). Just making some stupid assumptions.

I think it's just because for some reason the 50's assumed that jumpsuits would be the fashion of the future, this despite the fact that anything that requires you to strip naked in order to pee is generally considered impractical for modern life.

Fallout's never tried to take itself seriously in terms of aesthetics. It's literally like we gave the 50's advanced technology and let them run wild with it.

[Triaxx]

Did you know? Appearently Sentry Bots get a melee attack when sufficiently damaged? Or at least the one I found and have spent the better part of an hour attempting to beat to death with a pair of spiked knuckles does. It's possible I could have killed it without turning it on, but where's the fun in that?

And yes, being level 2 does mean I get one shotted. As I should.

[Fable Wright]

Did you know? Appearently Sentry Bots get a melee attack when sufficiently damaged? Or at least the one I found and have spent the better part of an hour attempting to beat to death with a pair of spiked knuckles does. It's possible I could have killed it without turning it on, but where's the fun in that?

And yes, being level 2 does mean I get one shotted. As I should.

Yes. Yes I did. Did you know that the Penetrator perk makes shooting Sentry Bot Fusion Cores ridiculously easy in VATS? As long as they're vulnerable to damage, you'll never really miss a shot at them with it, and they hit for massive damage.

[5ColouredWalker]

It does however sound like something stupid to shoot though unless you're a sniper from far away... I've a feeling they explode in a manner similar to cars.

Also, super mutant suicide bombers... Want to guess what they use as their suicide bomb?

They are glorious.

[Zetapup]

So far I'm about 7 hours in and enjoy the game more than the previous fallouts (although that's prolly because I'm a sucker for building stuff). I'm kinda surprised that I'm able to run the game on my laptop, given that it doesn't even meet the minimum requirements (amd 5350 2.90 ghz with 4gb of ram. I've got it on the lowest settings and the frame rate isn't that great, but hey, it runs).

The only funky thing I've run into so far is a sidequest right after the first quest. Minor spoilers
The folks from Concord go to Sanctuary, and one of them asks me to build the basic necessities for them. It goes something like this.
"Hey could you make some beds for us? We need shelter."
Me: Stares at the 12 beds in the barracks I made 4 hours ago, then enter back into dialogue with him.
"Great. We need water. Could you make a water purifier for us?"
Me: Stares at the industrial water purifier in the middle of the river that's giving 40 water, then enter back into dialogue with him.
"Alright, next we need some crops because our supplies are running low."
Me: Stares at the melon crops planted 20 feet behind him that one of the settlers is already farming, then enter back into dialogue with him.
"Good job. Finally, we need some defenses in case raiders attack."
Me: Stares pointedly at the guard post that he walked past to get into the town, which has two machine gun turrets and a flamethrower trap next to it, then enter back into dialogue with him.
"Alright, thanks for all you've done."
Quest completed.

[Ravian]

Haven't even started the game and ran into my first bug. I'm using the steam version and whenever I try to start it, it takes me to the opening screen with the start, options and support buttons. When I try to start it loops back to launching fallout 4 and brings me back to the same opening screen.

Any ideas on what to do?

[Antonok]

So yeah, I just found an infinite XP exploit lol

In Jalbert Brother's Disposal you can keep relocking the safe via the terminal and picking it for 19XP each time.

[LuckGuy]

Skipping all the posts to avoid spoilers, so my apologies if someone beat me to it. My promised review of trying to run FO4 with a Radeon 6550 and an AMD Phenom II 940 is: it sucks. The game boots like a champ and it can certainly be played, but even with the lowest settings only gets sub-10 fps especially when turning. It is an excellent way to get nauseous and throw up, but not a very fun way to play.

So I'm typing this on my first new computer in 7 years, longer than my kids have been alive! Crazy. It was fun showing them how these things are put together, worth at least half of the $600 right there. I'd be playing right now, except the one thing I forgot to get from Frys was a 6-pin to 8-pin PciE power cable adapter. There's always something.

[Ravian]

Yeah, just realized that I'm not sure my Laptop is up to specs for this game. Probably should have checked that before buying it. :smallannoyed:

I thought given that my computer's only about three years it could probably handle it with my extra fans. But I appear to be short about two RAM for it and only has half the recommended ghz.

Still given that those are only the recommended specs and that it actually could run on a seven year old PC (however badly), It's still possible that there is something else going on here. I'm not losing faith until someone more tech-savy than me explains if there might be some other problem. I may be willing to try to install more RAM if that's what it takes. Otherwise, it may be a while before I can justify a new Computer.

[Driderman]

You can follow them, but you don't have to. I made my way straight to Diamond City, on the way through meeting the BoS, killing a raider group that sought to trap me, and found out insects seem to be energy-weapon resistant.

I decided to help the BoS while I was in the area... I now have plenty of laser weapons... Got to turn on a spaceship engine on top of a Paladin, which was fun.

Just got to Diamond City before I needed to take a break for my eyes. I'm 4 hours and about 5 deaths in.

True, you don't have to join up with the minutemen but if you head straight for Diamond City, like I tried to, enemies and wildlife is a lot more dangerous so it seems pretty obvious what the intended idea probably was.

[DigoDragon]

I'm right there with you. I preferred the FO3 version. New Vegas' hard values meant I had no reason to take a Speech check when I couldn't meet the threshold. I knew it was going to fail, my reward was what? Some funny dialogue maybe?

At least with FO3's chance system I could look at the possibility and make a choice based on that chance, rather than looking and knowing if I'd succeed or not.

Oh! So that's what the random skill check thing is. Y'all talking about the Percentage Chance system. Okay that mystery solved.

[5ColouredWalker]

It's funny watching Dogmeat run along railways. He''s suddenly start running so that his body is on an angle.

Also, the game just told me that chameleon deathclaws are a thing...
They have officially earned all my nope before I've met them.

[5ColouredWalker]

True, you don't have to join up with the minutemen but if you head straight for Diamond City, like I tried to, enemies and wildlife is a lot more dangerous so it seems pretty obvious what the intended idea probably was.

Eh... Kinda, I died once to a turret emplacement and then I mostly stuck to the roads...
But the Focused Scopped Insitute Rifle I picked up on the BoS quest hass meant that for the most part combat has become a none issue, except when it's 'Suddenly Big Animal'.

[Antonok]

Well it was a nice concept, but I think I'm going to have to pass on the settlement building. Have tried for 4 hours to build a house and it's just not working. Doors won't line up right and when they do its not in line with anything resembling the concrete walkways leading up to it (they only like to line up in front of bushes that can't be removed, or they only line up backwards so you can't connect a ceiling to it :smallconfused:); walls not lining up with the concrete leaving foot wide gaps not matter the wall size...

[Fable Wright]

Well it was a nice concept, but I think I'm going to have to pass on the settlement building. Have tried for 4 hours to build a house and it's just not working. Doors won't line up right and when they do its not in line with anything resembling the concrete walkways leading up to it (they only like to line up in front of bushes that can't be removed, or they only line up backwards so you can't connect a ceiling to it :smallconfused:); walls not lining up with the concrete leaving foot wide gaps not matter the wall size...

Even when you rotate them with the left or right? But yeah. I was confused when I saw so much hype for settlement building.

Tricking out The Castle is pretty fun, though.

[Eldan]

So far, I find it very... mediocre, really. It's what I thought it would be. More Fallout 3. I mean, I'm only one or two hours in, but so far, there's nothing that's actually new or exciting. Even the fights feel pretty routine.

[Fable Wright]

So far, I find it very... mediocre, really. It's what I thought it would be. More Fallout 3. I mean, I'm only one or two hours in, but so far, there's nothing that's actually new or exciting. Even the fights feel pretty routine.


The beginning of the game, and the Minuteman questline, perhaps barring 1-3 sections, is just more Fallout 3. The Railroad is significantly more dynamic, causing Kaiju fights with 9 Charisma at high levels is absolutely hilarious, power armor customization and modding were good fun for me lategame. The early game is just more Fallout 3. The factions that aren't Minutemen and the main quest are where it begins to branch out a bit, both in player capabilities and fights.

In summary, don't judge the game before you've had a chance to explore Goodneigbor for a bit. Talk to Kent in the memory den, perhaps. That's a fun type of quest you don't see in Fallout 3.

[Eldan]

Certainly, certainly. Just a very first impression. I will surely play more of it tomorrow.

That said, power armour is a bit disappointing so far. I felt stronger without it. I had a sort of sniper build, so I could headshot several raiders in one round of vats, while with the minigun, it was hard to hit anything other than the road around a raider three steps in front of me.

[Fable Wright]

Certainly, certainly. Just a very first impression. I will surely play more of it tomorrow.

That said, power armour is a bit disappointing so far. I felt stronger without it. I had a sort of sniper build, so I could headshot several raiders in one round of vats, while with the minigun, it was hard to hit anything other than the road around a raider three steps in front of me.

Oh, for sure. That section does not do power armor justice. You don't have to use heavy weapons with power armor, and they raise your strength to the point where you can carry ridiculous loads in addition to your sniper build. When you get up to Science! and Armorer 4, the instant stealth field whenever you crouch is perfect for your build. If you spend time in VATS at all, the AP regen from leg servos might be useful, as might the Railroad paint job on a complete T-51 model. I think that the head could be modified to help with your build, but I'm not sure.

In general, power armor is mostly a very strong defensive buff that doesn't penalize stealth with added perks with Science! and Armorer, at the cost of spending fusion cores to keep it running.

[Chen]

Can you craft fusion cores at any point?

Also is VATS accuracy affected by any particular stat? Is it perception or something? Or is it just the accuracy stat on the gun along with distance and cover?

[Gamerlord]

Can you actually do anything with the Cybernetic stuff Kellogg drops, or is it safe to sell it?

[Rodin]

Well it was a nice concept, but I think I'm going to have to pass on the settlement building. Have tried for 4 hours to build a house and it's just not working. Doors won't line up right and when they do its not in line with anything resembling the concrete walkways leading up to it (they only like to line up in front of bushes that can't be removed, or they only line up backwards so you can't connect a ceiling to it :smallconfused:); walls not lining up with the concrete leaving foot wide gaps not matter the wall size...

This, and the fact that apparently my junk doesn't transfer from settlement to settlement is pretty much what's left me leaving the settlements alone. And the whole GUI thing. The settlements in general just feel unfinished and poorly explained.

Fortunately, they're optional so I'm just going to leave those alone until the modders have had a crack at them.

As for the rest of the game, it's been pretty amazing. The depth of some of the minor sidequests have been rather astounding, my companion has been far more compelling than either 3 or NV and actually chimes in during conversations where she can contribute (and the NPCs respond to her too!), and I ran across an honest-to-God world change.

I ran across a dude trying to drain a quarry, but the pump wasn't working. I volunteered to go in and fix it, and did so. I ask him what it's in aid of, and he suddenly gets coy and even my speechifying character can't get him to cough up the details (shoulda worn my charisma gear). I leave and then come back many levels later, and the quarry is now drained and...inhabited by a crap-ton of Raiders, with the guy I helped as the boss. Got me a sexy VATS Sniper mod out of it too.

[Eldan]

Shouldn't even take much. I had pretty functional settlement building mods in FO3, NV and Skyrim.

[Fable Wright]

Can you craft fusion cores at any point?

Also is VATS accuracy affected by any particular stat? Is it perception or something? Or is it just the accuracy stat on the gun along with distance and cover?

VATS accuracy is based off of Perception, distance, and Legendary weapon abilities, if applicable.


Can you actually do anything with the Cybernetic stuff Kellogg drops, or is it safe to sell it?

Safe to sell except for the quest-essential part. You will be physically unable to sell that one.


This, and the fact that apparently my junk doesn't transfer from settlement to settlement is pretty much what's left me leaving the settlements alone. And the whole GUI thing. The settlements in general just feel unfinished and poorly explained.

In order to transfer junk from workshop to workshop, you must have a supply train set up between them. This requires the Local Leader perk. It's also why I just dumped my stuff at Sanctuary.


Fortunately, they're optional so I'm just going to leave those alone until the modders have had a crack at them.

As for the rest of the game, it's been pretty amazing. The depth of some of the minor sidequests have been rather astounding, my companion has been far more compelling than either 3 or NV and actually chimes in during conversations where she can contribute (and the NPCs respond to her too!), and I ran across an honest-to-God world change.

Yep! Bunch of small things like that all around. Companions also banter at each other when you swap between them; if you ask a companion to join you with another companion in the party, the previous companion will be dismissed and they will exchange a line. It's a nice touch. It's also why I didn't take the Lone Wanderer perk. Also, when the game tells you that companions like or dislike things? Listen. If you do enough stuff they like, they will either give you a personal quest or become romance options.

[Drynwyn]

A loading screen tip includes the word "Chameleon Deathclaws". I'm scared. Hold me.

Also: Found an Instigating Hunting Rifle, which deals double damage to targets at full health. Slapped a long barrel and scope on it, and HEYO, best sniper rife ever.

[Fable Wright]

A loading screen tip includes the word "Chameleon Deathclaws". I'm scared. Hold me.

Oh, they're not as bad as the Mythic Deathclaws. I also think that the Albino Deathclaws are even higher level than them, but I'm not positive on that.