Where to get into fallout series? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

warty goblin

2024-04-29, 06:30 PM

I think the correct answer is "play Wasteland 2/3 instead." Fallout 1/2 have, at least to me, fallen past the Interface Event Horizon, the point at which old games are substantially unpleasant to interact with sans pre-existing nostalgia and familiarity. Fallout 3 is... well I haven't played it in years, but the shooter bits weren't good at the time, and are going to have aged like tuna salad in the sun on a hot July day. Never bothered with New Vegas, because I really do not want to deal with Fallout 3 era gameplay again, like, at all. And Bethesda, in their infinite Bethesda-ness, just kinda broke Fallout 4 so as to quickly onboard people crossing over from the show into what Bethesda games are actually like. Broken, Bethesda games are broken.

Wasteland 2 and 3 by contrast retain the turn based combat of the OG Fallouts, but with a modern and tolerable interface. Also the entire games are squad based, and turn based gun combat works much better IMO with a fireteam sized unit instead of one or two dudes. Since Fallout was originally a spiritual successor to the original Wasteland (now waaay below the Interface Event Horizon) it's basically just tapping directly into the original Fallout wellspring. There's less overt fifties-ness, but that's always struck me as one of the less engaging bits of Fallout; the fifties sucked actually, I know. This isn't exciting social commentary anymore.

Errorname

2024-04-29, 07:10 PM

Normally I'd say start with the first games, but they're very old and not the most intuitive and I can't say I started with them either. Still, worth trying if you feel up to it

The 3d ones are all pretty self-contained, you could go in basically any order. New Vegas is generally considered the best one, which I agree with, but I'll go to bat for Fallout 4 as a pretty competent open-world action game if you can ignore the dodgy writing (Far Harbour in particular is excellent, some of the only worthwhile DLC in the franchise). That said Fallout 3 has aged terribly and was never great to begin with, it isn't worth playing unless you're a completionist.

I'd say New Vegas, personally, but it's your call.

Cespenar

2024-04-29, 07:12 PM

Eh, I'd argue against Wastelands 2-3, unless you go into it knowing that you'll get 95% combats and 5% story/everything else, and you prefer it that way.

warty goblin

2024-04-29, 07:56 PM

Eh, I'd argue against Wastelands 2-3, unless you go into it knowing that you'll get 95% combats and 5% story/everything else, and you prefer it that way.

This is true, but also not terribly different from Fallout 3 and what I understand of Fallout 4. Most RPGs are mostly combat. I think the operative difference is W2/3 are much less annoying to play because they're entirely decent turn based tactics things instead of the awkward kludge that is the RPG/shooter hybrid, where the player skill based interaction mode collides with the number comparison RPG combat core.

Or at least that's my take. I've never been wild about RPG shooter hybrids, and if anything my opinion of the form has decreased with time. Shooting is just more fun when I'm shooting and the spreadsheet component isn't.

Mechalich

2024-04-29, 08:18 PM

Fallout 3 is where the 'modern' iteration of the franchise under Bethesda starts. It established the structure of the games as FPS-RPG hybrids in 3D open-world environments. Fallout: New Vegas operates basically as FO3 with a few minor gameplay and graphical modifications (most notably the color palate due to the shift in environment) and a significantly more vibrant and lived in world with better side quests and NPC interactions. Fallout 4 is similar to FO3 but includes significant upgrades to the FPS elements, a rebuild of the RPG elements, a much larger open world, and a 'settlement management' system that allows for limited base-building. However, the story is generally considered to be inferior to both prior games and certain design choices regarding things like leveling and items make the game feel very sloggy at times and the settlement system is broadly irrelevant to gameplay unless significantly modded. The most recent game in the series Fallout 76, is a massive open-world quasi-survival game that, though it had some gaping holes at launch has been drastically improved over time (and yes, can be played single player), but has a distinct bias to the shooter elements and requires careful research by the player to insure they produce a character with a viable build. However, while it has arguably the worst gameplay and an extremely passive story, has perhaps the best vision of the apocalypse of any of the games.

It should be noted that FO3, FO:NV, and FO4 are all highly moddable games, and playing FO3 and FO:NV especially without at least some mods enabled - just basic quality of life ones to upgrade the UI and such at least - is going to be a painful experience. However, successfully setting up mods for these games is not exactly a simple or swift enterprise.

In terms of where to start, it depends on your interest, patience, and how much you're willing to invest. FO76, for all its problems (though it's much, much better than it was at launch) is the easiest game to just boot up and go and to give you a taste of interest in the general vibe of Fallout in terms of both gameplay and setting. There are also, due to the TV series, various promotions to get your hands on it for free right now. Jump in, bounce around a bit, shoot some things, do some basic quests, and that will provide a feel of whether the games are worth playing, since any deep entry into any of the others will involve dozens of hours of roughly the same gameplay. Otherwise, I'd recommend starting with FO4, which has a pretty good opening act and can be played acceptably well without delving into the mod space.

Errorname

2024-04-29, 09:21 PM

However, [Fallout 4's] story is generally considered to be inferior to both prior games

New Vegas having a better story is inarguable, but I genuinely struggle to imagine a lens where Fallout 4 has a worse narrative than Fallout 3, because Fallout 3 has some of the worst storytelling I've ever seen in a video game.

Batcathat

2024-04-30, 12:55 AM

Personally, I think New Vegas is the best game in the series, followed fairly closely by Fallout 2 and 1 in that order (I haven't played 4 or 76, but from what I've heard they'd be unlikely to break into my top three). Fallout 3 is... alright, I guess, though the fact that I've only played through it once compared to the many, many times I've played 1, 2 and New Vegas might speak for itself.

I do think Fallout Tactics, while flawed, is somewhat underrated, though it would probably be a weird way to get into the series, considering how different it is from the others.

Rynjin

2024-04-30, 01:16 AM

New Vegas having a better story is inarguable, but I genuinely struggle to imagine a lens where Fallout 4 has a worse narrative than Fallout 3, because Fallout 3 has some of the worst storytelling I've ever seen in a video game.

Fallout 3 at least has the KISS principle behind it. The writing's not great, but it's simple and easy to ignore the plot.

4's plot is trash too, and makes the worse sin of forcing you to engage with it CONSTANTLY so how bad it is is shoved in your face.

GloatingSwine

2024-04-30, 02:32 AM

Fallout 3 at least has the KISS principle behind it. The writing's not great, but it's simple and easy to ignore the plot.

4's plot is trash too, and makes the worse sin of forcing you to engage with it CONSTANTLY so how bad it is is shoved in your face.

It's easy to ignore the plot of Fallout 4, all you have to do is aggressively ignore the word Shaun.

Hell if you use an alternate start mod (which also puts traits back in) you can just never start it, act as if you're just humouring Codsworth, and just play Post Nuclear Loot Goblin the way the game was clearly designed for.

Rynjin

2024-04-30, 03:01 AM

It's easy to ignore the plot of Fallout 4, all you have to do is aggressively ignore the word Shaun.

Sure, right up until you hit the (several) points where you try to do stuff that seems like sidequests but don't become available until after a certain main quest. Like everything involving Nick Valentine (and by extension the entire Far Harbor DLC) for example.

Hell if you use an alternate start mod (which also puts traits back in) you can just never start it, act as if you're just humouring Codsworth, and just play Post Nuclear Loot Goblin the way the game was clearly designed for.

This is not an argument for the game's story structure being good, as presumably the OP will not be using an alternate start mod on his first playthrough. The ONLY mods I recommend for first playthroughs of these games are the unofficial patches.

Gnoman

2024-04-30, 03:29 AM

Fallout 1/2 have, at least to me, fallen past the Interface Event Horizon, the point at which old games are substantially unpleasant to interact with sans pre-existing nostalgia and familiarity.

I'm going to disagree with this take. The OG Fallout interface is somewhat clunky, but there's also a lot of extra flexibility that the newer games have discarded for the streamlined Bethedsa-style interface. Some of the features added in New Vegas (most notably the ability to have guns use different kinds of ammunition) were present in the original games but removed for simplicity.

Like many older games, their limitations are also a stealth asset. Very little of the game is voice-acted, but that also means there's a lot more incidental dialogue and such. The graphics can't show as much, but they make up for that by putting in a ton of flavor text you can get by examining things.

It is also worth noting that the game cited repeatedly in this thread as a standout (New Vegas) is much closer to 1 and 2 in terms of writing, primarily because the studio that made it (Obsidian Entertainment) was made up of former members of Black Isle Studios (who produced the original 2 games).

Batcathat

2024-04-30, 03:37 AM

It is also worth noting that the game cited repeatedly in this thread as a standout (New Vegas) is much closer to 1 and 2 in terms of writing, primarily because the studio that made it (Obsidian Entertainment) was made up of former members of Black Isle Studios (who produced the original 2 games).

Yeah, I've always felt that New Vegas pretty much took what was good about the early games and combined it with what was good about Fallout 3, creating a sort of best of both worlds situation.

Mechalich

2024-04-30, 03:37 AM

It's easy to ignore the plot of Fallout 4, all you have to do is aggressively ignore the word Shaun.

Hell if you use an alternate start mod (which also puts traits back in) you can just never start it, act as if you're just humouring Codsworth, and just play Post Nuclear Loot Goblin the way the game was clearly designed for.

Unfortunately, FO4's post nuclear loot goblin experience leaves much to be desired. Because of the way both the loot generation and leveling system works, the game encourages the player to grind the same level-appropriate locations over and over again (in the late game it's like two spots, both of which feature the Gunners as opponents). FO3, by contrast, turning the PC into a post-nuclear librarian and sends you scouring every location on the map in search of oh-so-precious skill books. It also, generally, has superior sidequests and location-based adventures, though FO:NV is superior to both.

This is not an argument for the game's story structure being good, as presumably the OP will not be using an alternate start mod on his first playthrough. The ONLY mods I recommend for first playthroughs of these games are the unofficial patches.

There are some useful quality-of-life upgrades I'd strongly recommend. For example, there's a simple mod that backports the FO4 looting interface into FO3 and FO:NV and that's just a huge time saver in general. There's also some general graphics enhancing mods that are probably a good idea. FO3 in particular benefits here, since the game can be made significantly more pleasant by being less overwhelmingly green/gray.

GloatingSwine

2024-04-30, 04:42 AM

Unfortunately, FO4's post nuclear loot goblin experience leaves much to be desired. Because of the way both the loot generation and leveling system works, the game encourages the player to grind the same level-appropriate locations over and over again (in the late game it's like two spots, both of which feature the Gunners as opponents)

You mostly only need one copy of each piece of equipment though, Post Nuclear Loot Goblin 4 is mostly about feeding your insatiable need for adhesive and screws.

Errorname

2024-04-30, 06:50 AM

Fallout 3 at least has the KISS principle behind it. The writing's not great, but it's simple and easy to ignore the plot.

It is no harder to ignore the plot of Fallout 4, and more importantly the plot stuff in Fallout 4 is better. Not good, but better than Fallout 3.

Plus Far Harbour is easily the best Fallout content Bethesda have ever made. Base game doesn't get credit for that and frankly it makes me mad that Bethesda weren't able to consistently deliver that level of quality, but it counts for something.

GloatingSwine

2024-04-30, 07:10 AM

It is no harder to ignore the plot of Fallout 4, and more importantly the plot stuff in Fallout 4 is better. Not good, but better than Fallout 3.

TBH I think they're both exactly as dumb as each other in different ways.

I stand by the assertion that until relatively late in development the player would be revealed to be a "Nexus 6" style synth with false pre-war memories in Fallout 4 and they changed it when the internet guessed it 0.2 seconds after they mentioned synths would be in the game, which is why the supposed timeline of the player's memories make no damn sense.

Errorname

2024-04-30, 07:42 AM

TBH I think they're both exactly as dumb as each other in different ways.

I understand what everyone in Fallout 4 is fighting about and what the stakes are, which is more than I can say for Fallout 3.

Beelzebub1111

2024-04-30, 08:24 AM

Fallout 3 and 4 completely misunderstand what fallout 1 and 2 were about and make no sense in the greater context. Like, the story of 1 and 2 was about coming out of the ashes of the apocolypse and used the retrofuturism as a backdrop for the rebuilding society.

Then fallout three comes along and it's obsessed with living in that retrofuture past. It still has people living in the trash sleeping literally next to skeletons inside crumbling buildings, when in fallout 2 people were actually cleaning up the mess and building new homes.

Also why are they just happening to use caps on a completely separate part of the country when in Fallout 2 the government started minting their own backed currency? A side quest in fallout 2 involved finding something like a milion caps that are now completely worthless, showing that society has moved on and advanced from its barter system.

Bethesda just wants Brotherhood of Steel, Enclave and Super Mutants because that is what fallout is to them, without thinking of them as consequences of the actions of people who were specifically formed on the west coast. The Bethesda fallouts treat all those things as aestetics of what fallout "is" rather than aspects of a story.

GloatingSwine

2024-04-30, 08:41 AM

I understand what everyone in Fallout 4 is fighting about and what the stakes are, which is more than I can say for Fallout 3.

In Fallout 3 everyone is fighting over a limited necessary resource (clean water), it just doesn't do a lot with the worldbuilding to establish the scarcity of that resource. There's like one guy per city that seems to have a problem you can fix by giving them water.

In Fallout 4 everyone is just doing their own thing they just happen to be in the same place doing it. And they don't do a lot with the worldbuilding to establish why the Institute want to bother taking over the like ten guys who aren't mad or mutants or both in all of Boston. (They could have just turned up with an army of robits and said "We have shot all of the raiders and supermutants, you're welcome. Tax collectors will be along shortly." That, after all, is largely what the player does on behalf of the Minutemen except they have to do it all themself.)

LibraryOgre

2024-04-30, 01:39 PM

I understand what everyone in Fallout 4 is fighting about and what the stakes are, which is more than I can say for Fallout 3.

I get Fallout 3; readily accessible clean water is established as a thing people need, even if the game doesn't bear it out too well (I mean, you wind up with a Robot that makes clean water for you, for free). Project Purity was a semi-independent attempt to create a large amount of pure water. The Enclave wants to control the water purifying Maguffin, and kill all mutants. The local BoS is having a civil cold war, because the leadership decided to be heroes instead of fanatics. You, the player, didn't know any of this, and just want your dad back. He spends a good portion of the game lost, and you have to go find him.

Fallout 4... the factions are all shooting themselves in the foot. The Institute wants to be free to continue their work, but they do this by making everyone paranoid about them and their motives. The Railroad wants to free synths, but they do this by killing the synth's personality and installing a new one. The Brotherhood of Steel wants to capture technology, which they're doing ok at; I just get annoyed because they treat my character like a fresh recruit, instead of having any awareness of me as the general of the Minutemen... there's no way to approach them on that basis. The Minutemen are saying "Hey, what if we tried trading and helping each other?"

Mechalich

2024-04-30, 04:48 PM

You mostly only need one copy of each piece of equipment though, Post Nuclear Loot Goblin 4 is mostly about feeding your insatiable need for adhesive and screws.

The Fallout games are notable for their location-based storytelling. All the terminals, object placements, holotapes, and other artifacts that tell the stories of how things unfolding immediately before, during, and immediately after the apocalypse in all of the many, many locations on the game map. Unfortunately, the core gameplay mechanisms of the various games isn't all that good at giving the player a reason to visit all these places. FO:NV is the best because it manages to tie story to as many as possible through its numerous integrated factions. FO3 does it by scattering skill books - which you need if you want to succeed in the unlisted quest to become the ultimate bad*** that most RPG players naturally subscribe too - all over the map, encouraging the player to search everywhere. FO76 does this in the worst way by sending the player on a seemingly endless series of radiant quests to retrieve this or that thing that various dead people tell you must be acquired to unlock the next step in the extremely Rube Golderbergian anti-scorched crusade you undertake. FO4, unfortunately, just kind of...doesn't bother. The gameplay encourages the play to raid whatever location has the strongest enemies they can take on over and over again, which is extremely repetitive. Murdering your way through Gunner's HQ becomes extremely bland after the sixth time.

LibraryOgre

2024-04-30, 05:10 PM

FO4, unfortunately, just kind of...doesn't bother. The gameplay encourages the play to raid whatever location has the strongest enemies they can take on over and over again, which is extremely repetitive. Murdering your way through Gunner's HQ becomes extremely bland after the sixth time.

I never really encountered that. Maybe it's a different style of play, but while I've been sent to the same location from radiant quests (how many times have I done the Dunwich Borers radiant?), I've never really had an urge to repeatedly raid the same place on my own.

Mechalich

2024-04-30, 05:17 PM

I never really encountered that. Maybe it's a different style of play, but while I've been sent to the same location from radiant quests (how many times have I done the Dunwich Borers radiant?), I've never really had an urge to repeatedly raid the same place on my own.

It's mostly a late game thing, admittedly. Once you hit a level ~75 or so, quest XP just kind of stops making any difference. At that point only the XP from high-level enemies moves the needle anymore, and since level-equivalent enemies are only found in a small number of high-level areas, it encourages repeatedly hitting those areas. FO76 has a similar problem, where the most efficient way to spend your time is murdering your way through the ghouls at the Whitespring over and over and over.

Cikomyr2

2024-04-30, 05:53 PM

Jon from MATN made a very informative video that highlights the pros and cons

https://youtu.be/OQNQELRjQaY?si=DzL-Ls8D0fXACy34

LibraryOgre

2024-04-30, 06:15 PM

Triaxx

2024-04-30, 08:58 PM

NeoVid

2024-05-01, 02:31 AM

I'd say to start off with New Vegas, and add some mods for stability and bug fixes. It's got its issues, but it's one of the few video game RPGs where I was actually able to roleplay... as in, I had a character concept, and then did everything in game from the perspective of how that character would approach things. There were only a handful of times that the thing my character would do wasn't an option, and I later learned most of those were intended options that were cut for time. I was intending to do the same in Fallout 4, but no, FO4 doesn't even have a dialogue tree, much less unique conversation options for your stats and perks.

If you have a high tolerance for outdated mechanics and presentation, Fallout 1 and 2 are still excellent games... but if there's any games out there that need Remastered Editions so they can be properly appreciated, it's the original Fallouts. ...Just don't let Bethesda have anything to do with those remasters.

Man, it's depressing that Bethesda got Fallout: London delayed, or I would have seriously suggested playing that first.

It's mostly a late game thing, admittedly. Once you hit a level ~75 or so, quest XP just kind of stops making any difference. At that point only the XP from high-level enemies moves the needle anymore, and since level-equivalent enemies are only found in a small number of high-level areas, it encourages repeatedly hitting those areas. FO76 has a similar problem, where the most efficient way to spend your time is murdering your way through the ghouls at the Whitespring over and over and over.

The Whitespring's enemies are too spread out. Fastest progression comes from the events that spawn enemies nonstop, like Radiation Rumble and Eviction Notice. Which also gets you a stack of legendaries to turn in at the trader!

Errorname

2024-05-01, 04:31 AM

In Fallout 3 everyone is fighting over a limited necessary resource (clean water), it just doesn't do a lot with the worldbuilding to establish the scarcity of that resource. There's like one guy per city that seems to have a problem you can fix by giving them water.

I think the game does a really bad job at making the Water Purifier seem like it's a limited resource. It's ostensible purpose is to make the entire river clean, to the benefit for literally everyone in the wasteland. Bethesda also made the frankly baffling choice for Autumn to not be onboard with the omnicide plan and for him to instead have literally the exact same endgame as the Brotherhood.

It turns the final conflict from 'stop Enclave from killing everyone' which would be boring but functional, into a massive war between two factions with no meaningful ideological differences killing each other over who gets to press a button.

Fallout 4... the factions are all shooting themselves in the foot.

Yeah, I'm not going to pretend that Fallout 4 is good, but it has an obvious irreconcilable ideological conflict on the matter of Synths. The Institute want to enslave them, the Brotherhood want to destroy them, the Railroad want to free them. I get why this is a conflict and it's clear to me how the Wasteland will be different depending on who wins.

GloatingSwine

2024-05-01, 06:02 AM

It's mostly a late game thing, admittedly. Once you hit a level ~75 or so, quest XP just kind of stops making any difference. At that point only the XP from high-level enemies moves the needle anymore, and since level-equivalent enemies are only found in a small number of high-level areas, it encourages repeatedly hitting those areas. FO76 has a similar problem, where the most efficient way to spend your time is murdering your way through the ghouls at the Whitespring over and over and over.

That sounds a lot like complaining that it's hard to get XP long past the point where XP can provide meaningful value to your character. The player power curve in Fallout 4 plateaus long before level 75. The last tier of perks is 41+ and the loot tables stop scaling at 50.

Judging the loot goblin experience by something which is clearly beyond the scope of intended play is like complaining that Dark Souls is a bit hard if you play naked onebro with a club. Sure people do it but it's not normal.

Cikomyr2

2024-05-01, 09:59 AM

Yeah, I'm not going to pretend that Fallout 4 is good, but it has an obvious irreconcilable ideological conflict on the matter of Synths. The Institute want to enslave them, the Brotherhood want to destroy them, the Railroad want to free them. I get why this is a conflict and it's clear to me how the Wasteland will be different depending on who wins.

I have a hard time determining how the wasteland would be different based on the survival status of the Synth.

Ultimately, the Commonwealth was more impacted and terrified of the Institute than they were of the Synths. People were afraid of the Institute getting to them through Synths, more than the Synths as an independant threat out of itself.

The status of the Institute (and whether or not its population is allowed to evacuate en masse if destroyed) is probably the most impactful choice in the setting, compared to the rights of Synths.

The game isnt interested in actually exploring the story and impact on the Commonwealth life the Synths may have. Could they be an influx of skilled labor to help rebuild? Should they just make their own settlement like Acadia? Should they try to blend with the humans, or declare themselves as Synths?

The game is just not interested in asking these questions. Even less so in answering them.

Errorname

2024-05-01, 12:06 PM

I have a hard time determining how the wasteland would be different based on the survival status of the Synth

It's not just the Synth thing. The Synth stuff explains why the conflict is happening and means that each faction has a clear oppositional position to the other two, but separate from that I do get a sense that the factions have distinct visions of the wasteland and would lead to meaningfully different outcomes depending on who won.

And again I'm not saying this is good, merely better than Fallout 3, which is quite a low bar to clear.

GloatingSwine

2024-05-01, 12:37 PM

I'm not sure that holds.

The Railroad are pretty much tunnel vision on their single issue of "freeing" the synths (via personality erasure so basically killing them and sending the body on as another person, but they're all tracked by the Institute and can maybe be reactivated so are the Railroad just a false flag the Institute is too dumb to realise it has?). They don't seem to have much of an interest in the wasteland outside of that.

The Institute are maybe infiltrating the wasteland with synths but for an unknown purpose and to unknown benefits since they don't appear to need anything the Wasteland has and if they wanted to conquer it they could have used their armies of cheap robit ones for that decades ago, and the Brotherhood are simply trying to conquer it because the west coast chapter went fash at some point and conquering stuff because it's there is fash 101.

The Railroad and Institute have differences over the single issue of how to disperse Synths into the population, but neither care about the wasteland. The Minutemen could have an ideological conflict with the Brotherhood (freedom vs fash) but the Brotherhood were the cool good guys with the meme robot one game ago and Bethesda hadn't got the balls to make them Enclave style baddies, and the Minutemen don't have an ideology because the Minutemen are basically Preston Garvey, Boston's Wettest Blanket and the player, who is a loot goblin who will do anything to anyone for a sniper rifle with a star after it's name.

Errorname

2024-05-01, 01:48 PM

The Railroad and Institute have differences over the single issue of how to disperse Synths into the population, but neither care about the wasteland. The Minutemen could have an ideological conflict with the Brotherhood (freedom vs fash) but the Brotherhood were the cool good guys with the meme robot one game ago and Bethesda hadn't got the balls to make them Enclave style baddies, and the Minutemen don't have an ideology because the Minutemen are basically Preston Garvey, Boston's Wettest Blanket and the player, who is a loot goblin who will do anything to anyone for a sniper rifle with a star after it's name.

I do think there's a difference between the Institute actively suppressing the surface communities and subtly manipulating things to suit their nebulous interests, versus the Railroad who are willing to blow up the two major powers to protect their own but don't have a strong vision for what comes next or the resources to really exert their own vision. To be clear, I think these are pretty boring factions that don't hold a candle to the actual nations we see in New Vegas (or even Far Harbour's three communities) and synths were a weak fulcrum to build the entire game around, but it's better than what Fallout 3 came up with.

Mechalich

2024-05-01, 03:57 PM

That sounds a lot like complaining that it's hard to get XP long past the point where XP can provide meaningful value to your character. The player power curve in Fallout 4 plateaus long before level 75. The last tier of perks is 41+ and the loot tables stop scaling at 50.

Judging the loot goblin experience by something which is clearly beyond the scope of intended play is like complaining that Dark Souls is a bit hard if you play naked onebro with a club. Sure people do it but it's not normal.

But if you explore the map thoroughly (especially with DLC) your character can very easily hit such a point. Want to get all the companion perks? Then you'll absolutely do that. So it's a generalized problem: there's more game than can provide reasonable XP, which means that playing an extensive playthrough of the game means spending a lot of time going through areas that don't induce character growth. It's distinctly sub-optimal.

FO76 has the problem much worse, since even getting to a functional endgame build might will involve getting a character to level 100+ (and there are numerous veteran players out there with level 300+ characters), making for lots of repetition concentrated over a handful of areas/events.

GloatingSwine

2024-05-01, 04:20 PM

I do think there's a difference between the Institute actively suppressing the surface communities and subtly manipulating things to suit their nebulous interests, versus the Railroad who are willing to blow up the two major powers to protect their own but don't have a strong vision for what comes next or the resources to really exert their own vision. To be clear, I think these are pretty boring factions that don't hold a candle to the actual nations we see in New Vegas (or even Far Harbour's three communities) and synths were a weak fulcrum to build the entire game around, but it's better than what Fallout 3 came up with.

Yeah, but your original point was that "it was clear how the wasteland would be different depending who won", when the factions' goals are variously so wooly and ill defined or narrow in outlook that that really is not true.

(Let alone the fact that the narrative doesn't bother having any kind of resolution in the form of epilogue, with the whole game having less in that regard than the toaster had in New Vegas).

But if you explore the map thoroughly (especially with DLC) your character can very easily hit such a point. Want to get all the companion perks? Then you'll absolutely do that. So it's a generalized problem: there's more game than can provide reasonable XP, which means that playing an extensive playthrough of the game means spending a lot of time going through areas that don't induce character growth. It's distinctly sub-optimal.

That still seems like missing the wood for the trees given how little extra value you get from getting XP past about level 50-55. If XP doesn't have any value, why does it matter how hard it is to get XP?

ShneekeyTheLost

2024-05-01, 04:55 PM

My two cents:

Fallout 3 was... an attempt. It wasn't an amazingly successful attempt, but it at least *was* an attempt. The plot kind of works, even though it is incredibly weak. Honestly, your character basically is forced out of the vault for reasons, and has to live outside on his own. He eventually decides that if he's going to be out here where his dad is, he should probably look the old man up. Things progress from there. You can largely avoid the plot for much of the game, and the plot doesn't really 'drive' you to do anything strongly.

Fallout: New Vegas is a significant improvement over FO3. The plot is simple, but hangs together. After all, who doesn't enjoy a good revenge plot? Oh yea, and there's that mysterious package as well, but mostly it starts off as a revenge plot. The early game plot revolves around hunting down the bastard who shot you in the head without, yanno, getting eaten by radscorps, oversized tarantula-hawk wasps, deathclaws, or murdered by super mutants. So that kind of strongly hints at a particular path, and with a trail of breadcrumbs liberally scattered along the way. It's a crapsack world, and no one is entirely in the right, so it's morally grey vs morally objectively bad.

Fallout 4 decided it didn't really want to be an RPG anymore, so it did away with pesky things like skills, skill-based checks, skill-based character interactions... you know, playing a character in a role. Your predefined character with a predefined backstory, because we wouldn't want player agency (or heaven forbid, player *creativity*!) to get in the way of our Grand Design(tm), is given a critical mission to go rescue your own son. In a game whose mechanics revolve around doing everything but that. The tonal dissonance is... severe. Your only interaction that doesn't involve combat is generally limited to the following options: "Yes", "Sarcastic Yes", "Greedy Yes" (and an attempt to extort caps), and "Maybe Later". You can't even get a good solid "GFYS, hell no" response. At least power armor is appropriately stompy, but they put the demo in the beginning of the game which gives you access to it way too early and thus ruins the prestige of it.

Personally, I'd suggest starting with Fallout 3 because that way you can appreciate the contrast between 3 and New Vegas. Fallout 4 is... well, I suppose it's a really nice platform from which you can use mods to create an enjoyable experience, I guess. Which is also, if I'm being fair, about the only thing Bethesda is good at. People like Skyrim not for the vanilla game, but for all the mods that make it an enjoyable experience. Which is why 76 flopped so hard. They made a mostly empty and boring experience, and then prohibited people from modding it. Then tried *charging* people to mod it, but not in a fun way, just in a mostly cosmetic or pay-to-loot way.

Errorname

2024-05-01, 05:25 PM

Yeah, but your original point was that "it was clear how the wasteland would be different depending who won", when the factions' goals are variously so wooly and ill defined or narrow in outlook that that really is not true.

I mean, in comparison to Fallout 3 I think it is. Like I cannot emphasize enough that any praise for Fallout 4's main plot from me is solely in terms of 'more functional than Fallout 3' rather than actually good on it's own.

Triaxx

2024-05-02, 05:39 AM

GloatingSwine

2024-05-02, 07:22 AM

I have to disagree with Shneekey about Fallout 4 and Skyrim. Yes, they're excellent platforms to put mods on, but both games do have solid bases. You can easily play and enjoy both games completely vanilla. There are definitely things you want to fix or adjust to taste about them, but they're both perfectly functional vanilla. It's why they've become completely amazing mod platforms. And it's why Starfield was dead on arrival, because it's just not fun to play the base game.

Skyrim certainly is, but I think Post Nuclear Loot Goblin 4 sacrificed too much on the altar of settlement building and lost something important along the way. The gameworld is a collection of duct tape and desk fan mines that the player can deconstruct into stuff to feed into the customisation and settlement building systems, with far too much reliance on procedural quest generation over authored content. (Starfield is just yet even more procedural content, and not even a lot of it repeated over and over).

Cikomyr2

2024-05-02, 08:01 AM

If i may interject?

I think the issue is that Bethesda has focused solely on the long-term viability of their short term hamster wheel.

Go to a quest marker. Kill what's there. Look around and loot. Go back to base, dispose of loot, upgrade, repeat.

Its their core gameplay loop, and the itteration between Fallout 3, Fallout 4, Fallout 76 and Starfield indicate how much work and game design that went into preserving that core loop and making sure that loop can be mindlessly repeated forever so you can grind whatever custom currency reward they have this week - even if the game is single player and doesnt have a special custom currency reward.

The entire games have more and more designed with the emphasis of repeating these same goddamn loop. Quest direction have had significant diminished quality because the designers have to bet on their players doing a "mindless loop" so they just need to plop a quest marker on the world, rather than have directions that make sense.

Same for quest objectives. Nowaday its "go there, kill everyone and/or trigger a trigger". Because its simple gameplay loop.

Quest locations also have been implemented in a mindless fashion. Since the world has unlimited fast travel, why bother have a cohesive world with sensible locations when you can just spawn a location in the ass-end of the other side of the world map and expect your player to mindlessly fast travel there, kill, loot, and fast travel back.

The game mechanics Bethesda has adopted in their game design has led to some seriously lazy implementation. Quest markers and fast travel have turned into crutches that prevent their writers and players from having to think.

I played Starfield for a while, and i have to say the hamster wheel is pretty good. But it rage quit when i realized the hamster wheel went nowhere, achieved nothing. At least in Fallout 4 i had the illusion of doing stuff and making a difference.

GloatingSwine

2024-05-02, 08:24 AM

Cikomyr2

2024-05-02, 09:14 AM

TBH I don't think the total degeneration in quest design kicked in until Fallout 4. It's the procedural generation that bungles it, all the previous games had the same "go to a place and loot it" loop but in the peak period (Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 a bit*) they had interesting authored things going on in the places for you to follow along whilst you looted them, you weren't being sent there on a procedurally generated task from a blank slate settlement that you were then expected to build yourself.

* My problem with Fallout 3 is more that Bethesda have Old World Blues when it comes to Fallout. They are primarily interested in telling stories about stuff that has happened not stuff that is happening and they very often reach back to the pre-war world for it, whereas 1, 2, and New Vegas are stories about stuff that is happening. They don't do this nearly as much in Elder Scrolls.

Just to make sure you do not miscontrue my argument, i made the progression of Fallout 3 --> Fallout 4 --> Fallout 76 --> Starfield to highlight the progression.

I.e. every game in that sequence incrementally focused more on making you run the Hamster wheel than actually engage with the world.

Goddamn, the writers of Fallout 3 were so lacking in confidence in their own work and writing the only evil options they included were Moustache-twirling murderhobo "ill nuke Megaton for a THOUSAND CAPS and then poison the Wasteland!! Mwahahaha!!!". You have to be completely disengaged from the narrative and the world to even consider these evil options.

And there's no evil option in Fallout 4. Bethesda made sure nobody ever has to deal with the consequence of moral choices. You never get to chew out the Institute's worst actions. Its all just swept under the rug.

Errorname

2024-05-02, 09:27 AM

Skyrim certainly is, but I think Post Nuclear Loot Goblin 4 sacrificed too much on the altar of settlement building and lost something important along the way. The gameworld is a collection of duct tape and desk fan mines that the player can deconstruct into stuff to feed into the customisation and settlement building systems, with far too much reliance on procedural quest generation over authored content. (Starfield is just yet even more procedural content, and not even a lot of it repeated over and over).

Skyrim's definitely better, but I think Fallout 4 is okay. I would agree that Fallout 4's settlement system is a drain, it feels like it's in the rough position of not getting enough attention to make it actually good, but also drawing too much focus away from the more important parts of the game.

I can imagine a version of Fallout that is very settlement focused, you could make that work. It wouldn't really feel like the classic titles but building up communities is cool and very Fallout. But the lack of actual characters and questlines tied to the settlements is a death sentence. I can't name a single character from any of the custom settlements outside of the first one, and even those characters are pretty shallow. The actual mechanics aren't bad but there's just no narrative weight to the settlements, they feel completely divorced from the actual story.

warty goblin

2024-05-02, 09:33 AM

I mean if you boil it down most RPGs are get quest, go to place, kill/talk to somebody, repeat. That's the fundamental loop of the genre.

On its own that's boring, you need to attach something to it to make it engaging. Most RPGs use some combination of mechanical power reward and narrative engagement, something like an MMO leans really hard on character advancement rewards, singleplayer games generally put more weight (but by no means all the weight) on the narrative.

The problem is that if you aren't good at the narrative side, the paint flecks off and you see the rust underneath, it's just a sequence of go here commands you are following like a good little puppy. Bethesda are generally pretty dry and straight laced writers, even their funny stuff is very <insert wacky joke here> studied performance. This works decently well in Elder Scrolls, which is a pretty straight laced self serious fantasy setting. I think it works quite a bit less well for something as tongue in cheek as Fallout. The cracks in the paint start to show much faster if the writing, even ay a moment to moment level, doesn't work.

The other, deeply fundamental issue is that all Bethesda games since Oblivion feel the same. It's a bit hard to describe exactly what this is, because the games do add new mechanics, but the underlying philosophy and concept of what they should deliver is unaltered. There's a big open world that you can run around doing whatever you want in, it's dense with stuff, but the stuff doesn't really connect together, characters are one note and the world is extremely static. With Oblivion I thought this was just the limitations of the hardware and technology at the time, but after fleeing in terror from the mind-eating tedium of Starfield, I think it's actually what they are going for. You go to <a place> it doesn't matter where because places don't interact with other stuff such, you pick up <some loot>, kill <enemy type> and get <cool reward> and then do another one.

As the technology to generate quests has "improved" they can get closer and closer to their perfect game, where you do a bunch of auto-generated tasks before the final quest, which resets the map, makes some irrelevant changes, and you can start all over. Rinse and repeat, forever. A perfect, endless adventure where you never have to run out of things to do, never have to stop getting <cool rewards>, a live service without the live part. A dead service. Which is exactly how Starfield feels, dead.

Also how Starfield is doing critically and commercially at this point, but that's another matter.

LibraryOgre

2024-05-02, 10:10 AM

Yeah, I'm not going to pretend that Fallout 4 is good, but it has an obvious irreconcilable ideological conflict on the matter of Synths. The Institute want to enslave them, the Brotherhood want to destroy them, the Railroad want to free them. I get why this is a conflict and it's clear to me how the Wasteland will be different depending on who wins.

The thing is, the Railroad DOESN'T want to free them. They say they do, but their actions are to preserve the body at the expense of the person.

Let's try a hypothetical:

The Institute, when it finds an escaped synth, lures them to a location and wipes their memories of the Institute, installing, instead, a program that makes them... happy to work for the Institute. Sure, they may need to redo this in a few years when Unit TK-421 starts to get ideas of freedom again, but they can just keep doing it. So long as the "Railroad" keeps funneling them escaped synths, they can do this indefinitely.

GloatingSwine

2024-05-02, 10:22 AM

Skyrim's definitely better, but I think Fallout 4 is okay. I would agree that Fallout 4's settlement system is a drain, it feels like it's in the rough position of not getting enough attention to make it actually good, but also drawing too much focus away from the more important parts of the game.

I can imagine a version of Fallout that is very settlement focused, you could make that work. It wouldn't really feel like the classic titles but building up communities is cool and very Fallout. But the lack of actual characters and questlines tied to the settlements is a death sentence. I can't name a single character from any of the custom settlements outside of the first one, and even those characters are pretty shallow. The actual mechanics aren't bad but there's just no narrative weight to the settlements, they feel completely divorced from the actual story.

Fallout 4 just has a critical lack of authored content outside of the main quest. And it's because so many locations are blank slates for the player to build on or get building materials out of. There are loads of locations that are just generically present with nothing pointing you to them and nothing happening at them except mobs to shoot and desk fans to loot. And that's not how it used to be in their earlier games. There used to be more stuff going on.

There could be a Fallout game where you build a settlement up over time, but it should be based on characters quests and choices not Fortnite.

If you want to feel the difference then when they've fixed all the things Bethesda broke with the "next gen" update install Sim Settlements 2 and pursue that as the main quest and just see how it keeps sending you to locations the game has but doesn't otherwise use for narrative to do quest stuff.

Cikomyr2

2024-05-02, 10:23 AM

I mean if you boil it down most RPGs are get quest, go to place, kill/talk to somebody, repeat. That's the fundamental loop of the genre.

No. I am sorry, no. I disagree fundamentally with this, and the very idea that this is what an "rpg is" has poisoned Bethesda games since Oblivion.

RPG can HAVE that. I do not mind the idea that there can be "go there, kill/loot, come back" as part of an RPG. But it is not the "boiled down to its fundamental". Its not even basic quest design boiled down to its fundamental.

Here's another grudge I have against Bethesda: the few quests that arent structured around the "follow quest marker, kill, loot" template are usually nothing more than theme park rides with a set destination, a set sequence of events, and don't you dare try to think or find creative solutions to the story being told.

You HAVE to work for the traitor in Oblivion's Brotherhood

Bethesda implements less and less alternatives to quest and challenge resolution in their game design. Its always about killing stuff now. Its always about following the quest marker until you get get out of the ride safely where the designers wanted you to.

They never want you to think, because thinking goes against the mindless repetitive stupor of the hamster wheel they want you to run in.

Errorname

2024-05-02, 11:14 AM

The thing is, the Railroad DOESN'T want to free them. They say they do, but their actions are to preserve the body at the expense of the person.

The Railroad think they're freeing the Synths. I can see where you're coming from about their methods being troublesome, but they clearly believe in their cause and are sincerely opposed to the Institute on the basis of how the Institute treats the Synths.

Let's try a hypothetical:

The Institute, when it finds an escaped synth, lures them to a location and wipes their memories of the Institute, installing, instead, a program that makes them... happy to work for the Institute. Sure, they may need to redo this in a few years when Unit TK-421 starts to get ideas of freedom again, but they can just keep doing it. So long as the "Railroad" keeps funneling them escaped synths, they can do this indefinitely.

The Railroad aren't funneling escaped Synths back to the Institute though, not deliberately, and if either faction gets a real shot at it they'll wipe the other out. This is not a situation where the Railroad are unwitting pawns of the Institute.

Fallout 4 just has a critical lack of authored content outside of the main quest. And it's because so many locations are blank slates for the player to build on or get building materials out of. There are loads of locations that are just generically present with nothing pointing you to them and nothing happening at them except mobs to shoot and desk fans to loot. And that's not how it used to be in their earlier games. There used to be more stuff going on.

Yeah, the settlement system eats up everything outside of the two cities and the faction quest hubs. Admittedly Fallout 3 was also pretty low density in terms of NPCs compared to Oblivion, but still, it's not good.

GloatingSwine

2024-05-02, 11:19 AM

The Railroad aren't funneling escaped Synths back to the Institute though, not deliberately, and if either faction gets a real shot at it they'll wipe the other out. This is not a situation where the Railroad are unwitting pawns of the Institute.

That's only because the Institute don't have the wit to use them as such. There's a terminal showing that they're tracking at least some synths the Railroad have "freed" and we know that even memory modified synths can be brought back with a recall code, so the only reason the Railroad aren't embedding perfectly clean sleeper agents is because the Institute haven't thought of it (because their own plans for the rest of the world are so vague and nebulous beyond "infiltrate synths because we can").

Errorname

2024-05-02, 11:32 AM

That's only because the Institute don't have the wit to use them as such. There's a terminal showing that they're tracking at least some synths the Railroad have "freed" and we know that even memory modified synths can be brought back with a recall code, so the only reason the Railroad aren't embedding perfectly clean sleeper agents is because the Institute haven't thought of it (because their own plans for the rest of the world are so vague and nebulous beyond "infiltrate synths because we can").

Yeah, if you take two factions that are both pretty dumb and only rewrite one to be smart you throw off the balance, this is true.

But in the actual game as written the Railroad is clearly a thorn in the Institute's side and the Institute would rather be rid of them.

Cikomyr2

2024-05-02, 12:10 PM

I mean, part of the reason the Railroad wipes the mind of escaped synths and give them new identities is to protect the Railroad's operational security.

And we know the Railroad was definetly more than a mere thorn in the Institute's side, but in story the Institute recently stormed the Railroad's HQ, and they have been on the run in temporary facilities since. So maybe "at the moment" the Railroad was a mere nuisance, but they definetly warranted a direct strike team in the recent past.

What annoys me most in the writing of the Institute is their Schrodinger's knowledge of the surface. They know within days when an archeotech is dug up from University Point. They keep close tabs and infiltrators all over the Commonwealth. And yet they have absolutely no clue nor care about most of the living conditions on the surface.

Rynjin

2024-05-02, 05:59 PM

I mean, part of the reason the Railroad wipes the mind of escaped synths and give them new identities is to protect the Railroad's operational security.

Yeah the Railroad are so concerned with opsec that when you show up unannounced they're like "Come right into our secret base, meet all our people, learn all our secrets, and then go work with our spymaster alone and unsupervised in the wilderness. Hope you don't **** us!"

This is what I mean about Fallout 4's plot being worse than 3's. The more you think about it the dumber it gets. At least FO3's dumb is right up front and in your face so you can easily ignore it going forward. If you can accept the basic premise of the game that every faction is essentially just fighting for ego ("Who gets to turn on the water purifier?") you're gold.

Fallout 4 is some new bit of idiocy you're clubbed over the head with at every turn. The Sean twist only makes sense if the "tracking" mission never happened. The factions' goals are largely nonsensical, with the exception of the Brotherhood who at least are pretty consistent about wanting to kill everyone and take their stuff. Diamond City should be a bustling metropolis by now but they seem to have absolutely zero desire to expand and hold new territory. Etc., etc.

Errorname

2024-05-02, 06:23 PM

This is what I mean about Fallout 4's plot being worse than 3's. The more you think about it the dumber it gets. At least FO3's dumb is right up front and in your face so you can easily ignore it going forward. If you can accept the basic premise of the game that every faction is essentially just fighting for ego ("Who gets to turn on the water purifier?") you're gold.

I don't find Fallout 4's plot any harder to ignore than Fallout 3's, and I find Fallout 3's bad stuff a lot more frustrating.

Cikomyr2

2024-05-02, 06:37 PM

Yeah the Railroad are so concerned with opsec that when you show up unannounced they're like "Come right into our secret base, meet all our people, learn all our secrets, and then go work with our spymaster alone and unsupervised in the wilderness. Hope you don't **** us!"

This is what I mean about Fallout 4's plot being worse than 3's. The more you think about it the dumber it gets. At least FO3's dumb is right up front and in your face so you can easily ignore it going forward. If you can accept the basic premise of the game that every faction is essentially just fighting for ego ("Who gets to turn on the water purifier?") you're gold.

Fallout 4 is some new bit of idiocy you're clubbed over the head with at every turn. The Sean twist only makes sense if the "tracking" mission never happened. The factions' goals are largely nonsensical, with the exception of the Brotherhood who at least are pretty consistent about wanting to kill everyone and take their stuff. Diamond City should be a bustling metropolis by now but they seem to have absolutely zero desire to expand and hold new territory. Etc., etc.

I feel the Commonwealth, like Skyrim, is a setting rich with potential. Just try out Sim Settlement 2 to get an impression of some life breathed in this world.

You could easily base a procedural explore/loot/build settlement tabletop rpg campaign set in the commonwealth and itd be awesome.

Man, they should have integrated Nuka World to the overall story. Actually get to attack the institute with raiders.

Mechalich

2024-05-02, 07:11 PM

Fallout 4 just has a critical lack of authored content outside of the main quest. And it's because so many locations are blank slates for the player to build on or get building materials out of. There are loads of locations that are just generically present with nothing pointing you to them and nothing happening at them except mobs to shoot and desk fans to loot. And that's not how it used to be in their earlier games. There used to be more stuff going on.

There's even more stuff going on in the locations in FO76, in which pretty much every location on the map either has some kind of connection to the main story or some kind of location-based event. Now, because of the way FO76 works a lot of those things are dumb (ex. collect some bit of Raider memorabilia Rose wants for no reason) or pointless (fix the power plant that will be ruined again when you log back in) but they do exist, and some of the best ones - like when you do the Fire Breather test mission and recover the logs of the team that failed it before you along the way - have real story impact.

FO4, and to a lesser extent FO76, also have the problem that the settlement system isn't fully integrated into the gameplay loop. The system functions kind of like base building in an open-world survival game like ARK (in FO76 this intent was clearly explicit), but system isn't properly integrated so everything you build is pretty much entirely cosmetic, it does not serve to upgrade your character and make them better at killing - which is what most players want. That's why if you actually go to player settlements in FO76 you find a bunch of really perfunctory bases designed to optimize ammunition production (pretty much the only thing the settlements are useful to produce) and maybe exchange a few schematics for cosmetic purposes. Starfield, for what its worth, has this problem too. Sure, you can build a really cool outpost and set up interplanetary trade routes and stuff, but why would you even bother when all you really need is a half-dozen crafting stations?

Errorname

2024-05-02, 08:06 PM

I feel the Commonwealth, like Skyrim, is a setting rich with potential.

I'd say Skyrim does a lot more to live up to it's potential. Honestly even if New Vegas hadn't spoiled me I still would have been disappointed coming off of Skyrim, which has a way better realized world and a much more compelling core conflict.

Just try out Sim Settlement 2 to get an impression of some life breathed in this world.

Yeah, I've heard good things. Definitely an impressive modding effort, and I think it's further evidence that the game would have been improved if they'd done more to integrate settlement mechanics into the actual questlines.

Man, they should have integrated Nuka World to the overall story. Actually get to attack the institute with raiders.

Raiders or some form of evil Minuteman counterpart absolutely should have been a base game thing. Frankly I'm amazed that regardless of what faction choice you make all your settlements will be minuteman aligned

Cikomyr2

2024-05-02, 09:25 PM

I'd say Skyrim does a lot more to live up to it's potential. Honestly even if New Vegas hadn't spoiled me I still would have been disappointed coming off of Skyrim, which has a way better realized world and a much more compelling core conflict.

Yeah, I've heard good things. Definitely an impressive modding effort, and I think it's further evidence that the game would have been improved if they'd done more to integrate settlement mechanics into the actual questlines.

Raiders or some form of evil Minuteman counterpart absolutely should have been a base game thing. Frankly I'm amazed that regardless of what faction choice you make all your settlements will be minuteman aligned

Ok. Pitch idea:

The whole point of the main faction storyline is around assigning settlements to factions. Brotherhood, institute, railroad, minuteman.

The minuteman and Brotherhood are open about it. The plot then is scripted to the Commonwealth reaction to your settlement emergence. The more settlement you make (and other threshold, like total pop, and x settlements with 15 people) the "regional" metaplot progresses.

GloatingSwine

2024-05-03, 05:42 AM

TBH I'd have stuck to one player-managed settlement, and have the management be more about making choices for the settlement with different choices available from different perks and recruited NPCs than a freeform greeble-placer where nothing matters except for the aesthetic.

And then have all the other settlements in the world be actual inhabited places with their own characters, allegiances, and quests they want you to do.

Beelzebub1111

2024-05-03, 05:44 AM

Ok. Pitch idea:

The whole point of the main faction storyline is around assigning settlements to factions. Brotherhood, institute, railroad, minuteman.

The minuteman and Brotherhood are open about it. The plot then is scripted to the Commonwealth reaction to your settlement emergence. The more settlement you make (and other threshold, like total pop, and x settlements with 15 people) the "regional" metaplot progresses.

I would cut the brotherhood out entirely. they, much like deathclaws and supermutants, feel really out of place in the new setting of boston. It would be like having the NCR show up. I say you can basically replace them with any kind of militia group that knows about and doesn't trust the synths. Also have them in a separate questline from the minutemen, like an alternative option from the start so you don't HAVE to join the minutemen at any point.

GloatingSwine

2024-05-03, 05:55 AM

Lurkmoar

2024-05-03, 07:30 AM

If I rolled my eyes any harder when I heard the BoS were announced to show up in FO76, I would have recreated that scene from The Exorcist.

ShneekeyTheLost

2024-05-03, 07:57 AM

I would cut the brotherhood out entirely. they, much like deathclaws and supermutants, feel really out of place in the new setting of boston. It would be like having the NCR show up. I say you can basically replace them with any kind of militia group that knows about and doesn't trust the synths. Also have them in a separate questline from the minutemen, like an alternative option from the start so you don't HAVE to join the minutemen at any point.

Brotherhood was in DC, which isn't too far from Boston. Same with Supermutants. Their being *present* isn't a problem. They're trying to do callbacks to Fallout 3 with this, while trying to ignore New Vegas. The way they are going about it is silly, their mere presence is not offensive. What is more offensive is the lack of Enclave (despite the recent addition from the Creation Club), given their proximity as well. You could have had the Enclave as the jackboot-stomping... that word that we're not permitted to use on this forum, while the BoS are the 'also possesses jackboots but can be convinced that they might get further without them' faction. See also, Lyon's Pride.

The institute's presence itself is not necessarily offensive. How they operate certainly is, though. Not in a 'proper villain you love to hate' sort of way, but more in a 'oh come on, even Starscream can do a better job at being evil than you!' kind of way. Either close yourself off from the surface world and pretend you don't exist other than a few discreet covert units to quietly collect resources otherwise difficult to obtain, or just go ahead and start playing actual puppetmaster like you're already being accused of doing. This half-and-half nonsense is just silly. Either embrace your inner Big Brother, or your inner Big MT. Pick one.

The railroad is the epitome of 'You are doing more damage than you are preventing. Please stop, you are making things unarguably worse for everyone involved'. And frankly, the painfully obvious parallels to slavery are borderline insulting, given how the matter is handled. Especially given how synths can basically have their personality overwritten at any time, either by the Railroad in an attempt to 'help' them, or by the Institute issuing a recall order. The more you find out about them, the more their story just... falls apart and doesn't *work* in any conceivable way.

The Minutemen as a concept isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, if handled right, it can be an excellent plot tool. And it can even be used as a rather uncomfortable mirror, as your choices as General *will* shape their tactical doctrine and moral standards. You can either be the shining example to live up to, putting foot to ass against threats but also extending a friendly hand to those who need it, or you can strap on a pair of jackboots yourself. And your troops *WILL* follow your lead. So if you start strapping on jackboots, so will the Minutemen in general. The problem with the Minutemen is that it is something the character is supposed to be investing in to grow into a faction, and that never happens within the context of the game, making it seem like a bad investment for no return.

All of the factions suck. Which is fine, it's a grimdark crapsack world. There are no good guys, only varying shades of grey. It's a good vibe for a post-apocalyptic setting. However, they don't suck as in 'these guys are ideologically bad, and capable of enforcing their ideologies on their neighbors if someone doesn't stop them' so much as 'wow, they have all the coordination of the Three Stooges, the competence of Starscream, and the survival instinct of a rabid lemming. How have they actually lasted THIS long?'.

Cikomyr2

2024-05-03, 08:00 AM

If I rolled my eyes any harder when I heard the BoS were announced to show up in FO76, I would have recreated that scene from The Exorcist.

Oh. Out of all idiot things that violate the lore and really is stupid, the whole Wastelander+ storylines about the Brotherhood take the cake.

Sure, a group of 5 brotherhood members were able to voyage from California to West Virginia. On foot. Its totally something the Brotherhood would attempt.

The idea that they had long range communications that early in the timeline is also ludicrous.

Rodin

2024-05-03, 09:18 AM

I should probably turn in my nerd card for this blasphemy... but I don't enjoy Fallout 1. And it's not even that there's anything wrong with the game, it's just that I was very bad at it. Fallout 2's my preferred entry into the series, if you like the older top down style ones. I did really enjoy Tactics, but it's fairly not canon friendly and if you don't play it, you don't lose much.

I had this feeling when I wanted to replay them, so I started with 2. After your post I went back and did Fallout 1, and I found myself revising my opinion in interesting ways.

Fallout 2 is a much better game. That much is clear. It's bigger, it has better features, and the quests are far superior. Except Fallout 1 has better gameplay.

...yeah. I said it. Fallout 2's gameplay loop is terrible. The game has tons of random encounters, and those random encounters are fatal to 99% of characters who run into them. I stepped outside Arroyo and was attacked by 8 Large Mole Rats. You know, the ones the size of a bear? First encounter. As a melee-focused monster (in other words, the single best class to do that fight so early) I died on turn 1. Fallout 2 cranks up the danger of enemies at every turn while vastly decreasing the availability of loot, particularly in the early game. In Fallout 1, I was able to use my starting pistol to great effect in the early game and had solid weapons and armor after cleaning out the raider camp near Shady Sands. I didn't see equivalent equipment in Fallout 2 until Vault City, and I was hard pressed to hang onto ammo for it. Meanwhile, the enemies around Vault City were carrying Uzis that could one-shot me.

Random encounters in Fallout 1 were usually pretty manageable. A few radscorpions here, a few bandits there. Fallout 2 would drop groups of 8-10 gun-wielding raiders on you while you were still level 3. Later in the game it drops enemy groups that would wipe the floor with endgame Fallout 1 enemies, long before you have the possibility of getting equivalent gear.

Fallout 2 is an exercise in running around the map, trying a quest, dying horribly, then going and searching for an easier quest and praying you get two groups of enemies fighting so you can steal some high-end loot. Once you get past that, the game is amazing. But I think Fallout 1 holds together as a cohesive game much better than 2 does.

----

On Brotherhood on the east coast? Meh. The Brotherhood were established to have airships long before Bethesda got near the series. Fallout Tactics takes place in Chicago, and the only reason they didn't go further east is that their airship crashed. Since 3 and 4 are supposed to take place a long time after that, it's hardly out of line with previously established Brotherhood capability. Heck, given Tactics' dubious canoninity it could even be the same ship.

LibraryOgre

2024-05-03, 09:38 AM

Raiders or some form of evil Minuteman counterpart absolutely should have been a base game thing. Frankly I'm amazed that regardless of what faction choice you make all your settlements will be minuteman aligned

You can make a couple Railroad-aligned in the base game, and Nuka-World includes the option to make things raider-aligned. Though, an option to ally with the Gunners (for your "Evil Minutemen") would have been an interesting thing I never used.

Errorname

2024-05-03, 11:00 AM

Fallout 2 is a much better game. That much is clear. It's bigger, it has better features, and the quests are far superior. Except Fallout 1 has better gameplay.

Honestly the most common take I see is that Fallout 1 is the better of the two. Fallout 2 is bigger and has some very high peaks, but Fallout 1 is tight and consistent in a way that Fallout 2 kind of isn't.

You can make a couple Railroad-aligned in the base game, and Nuka-World includes the option to make things raider-aligned. Though, an option to ally with the Gunners (for your "Evil Minutemen") would have been an interesting thing I never used.

Nuka-World's Raiders suffer pretty badly from being expansion content, they don't integrate cleanly into the game proper.

And yeah, Gunners feel like a good anti-Minutemen. You'd have to rejig the starting state for both factions (you'd probably want the gunners to be a much weaker presence in the rest of the world and maybe have you pick who to side with in Concord), but I think if you built the game around those two factions as the main ones the player could join it would work well.

LibraryOgre

2024-05-03, 11:26 AM

Honestly the most common take I see is that Fallout 1 is the better of the two. Fallout 2 is bigger and has some very high peaks, but Fallout 1 is tight and consistent in a way that Fallout 2 kind of isn't.

IMO, it's a textbook case of a sequel that is released right after the main game:

The first game has a better story, the sequel has better mechanics. Because they were able to take their time writing the first one's story, but able to refine some mechanics in time for the second one. The second one also usually has more bugs, because it got shoved out the door before QA was finished.

Cikomyr2

2024-05-03, 04:56 PM

On Brotherhood on the east coast? Meh. The Brotherhood were established to have airships long before Bethesda got near the series. Fallout Tactics takes place in Chicago, and the only reason they didn't go further east is that their airship crashed. Since 3 and 4 are supposed to take place a long time after that, it's hardly out of line with previously established Brotherhood capability. Heck, given Tactics' dubious canoninity it could even be the same ship.

So, first of all Fallout Tactic isnt hard canon compared to other fallout games. The ending is absolutely world-changing. A constantly replenishable army of robots?

Second, even in Tactics it's pretty much stated fact that the Airship made the practically impossible travel barely possible, and yet the Brotherhood is still cut off from their power base in the East.

An expedition of 5 people couldnt just cross the radioactive continent on their own.

Rodin

2024-05-03, 05:19 PM

IMO, it's a textbook case of a sequel that is released right after the main game:

The first game has a better story, the sequel has better mechanics. Because they were able to take their time writing the first one's story, but able to refine some mechanics in time for the second one. The second one also usually has more bugs, because it got shoved out the door before QA was finished.

The way I saw it described today is that Fallout 2 is a better sandbox. Each zone (The Den, Vault City, NCR, etc.) is better than the first game, but there isn't any cohesiveness holding the plot together. You just sort of wander around until you stumble into the Enclave, whereas with Fallout 1 there was a clear progression.

In many ways, Bethesda were the perfect company to take up the mantle, because that's how I would describe their best games.

Errorname

2024-05-03, 05:37 PM

So, first of all Fallout Tactic isnt hard canon compared to other fallout games. The ending is absolutely world-changing. A constantly replenishable army of robots?

Honestly the biggest problem with Bethesda's Fallout games is that they're better sequels to Tactics than they are to Fallout 2.

Winthur

2024-05-03, 05:51 PM

The way I saw it described today is that Fallout 2 is a better sandbox. Each zone (The Den, Vault City, NCR, etc.) is better than the first game, but there isn't any cohesiveness holding the plot together. You just sort of wander around until you stumble into the Enclave, whereas with Fallout 1 there was a clear progression.

Eh, they both follow the "your village asks you to look for a thingy, which you then proceed to ask the townspeople about constantly and moving on to the next location, and then springs up a bigger threat, not only to your home but also to the world at large". It uses many of the same plot devices, it's just that FO2 has a ton more side locations because it's just a bigger game. FO1 can be completed with all quests and everything to see in like 8 hours, FO2 would take a bit longer.

It's really more that there's a lot more sideplots and politics between NCR, New Reno, Vault City, and their various spheres of influence, so by the time you're done solving all of their problems you might find yourself forgetting to push for the MacGuffin, IMO. There's a ton of Yojimbo-style mafia action to be had in New Reno between becoming a boxing champion and doing adult movies, can't rush the main quest in such a case. It helps that FO2 has no time limit whatsoever, just an occasional shaman jumpscare.

Gnoman

2024-05-03, 08:06 PM

...yeah. I said it. Fallout 2's gameplay loop is terrible. The game has tons of random encounters, and those random encounters are fatal to 99% of characters who run into them. I stepped outside Arroyo and was attacked by 8 Large Mole Rats. You know, the ones the size of a bear? First encounter. As a melee-focused monster (in other words, the single best class to do that fight so early) I died on turn 1. Fallout 2 cranks up the danger of enemies at every turn while vastly decreasing the availability of loot, particularly in the early game. In Fallout 1, I was able to use my starting pistol to great effect in the early game and had solid weapons and armor after cleaning out the raider camp near Shady Sands. I didn't see equivalent equipment in Fallout 2 until Vault City, and I was hard pressed to hang onto ammo for it. Meanwhile, the enemies around Vault City were carrying Uzis that could one-shot me.

I've got too much time in the two games to really test this, but even on my first playthrough of 2 I don't remember having this problem. I distinctly remember being disappointed because the Trials and the first town made it seem like weapons were going to be more limited and thus melee would be more viable, but that didn't last long. The shop in the Den (the infamous one where children steal from you on entering) has a selection of firearms and ammunition available, and that's early. Granted it is a bit annoying to shop there if you don't blow the children up, but it works.

Cikomyr2

2024-05-04, 12:18 AM

Honestly the biggest problem with Bethesda's Fallout games is that they're better sequels to Tactics than they are to Fallout 2.

I guess you are right. Make a Helldiver 2-like game set in Fallout verse where the players have to fight off an invasion of robot genociders.

Winthur

2024-05-04, 05:41 AM

I've got too much time in the two games to really test this, but even on my first playthrough of 2 I don't remember having this problem. I distinctly remember being disappointed because the Trials and the first town made it seem like weapons were going to be more limited and thus melee would be more viable, but that didn't last long. The shop in the Den (the infamous one where children steal from you on entering) has a selection of firearms and ammunition available, and that's early. Granted it is a bit annoying to shop there if you don't blow the children up, but it works.

Disclaimer: I replay Fallout 2 regularly on absolutely unreasonable settings (hard, ironman and no Gifted trait).

I can vouch for the fact that you are liable to be absolutely eviscerated by an overscaled random encounter very early in the game, and I think that's genuinely the biggest obstacle, especially to new players. The Den <-> Vault City route is particularly infamous for this and I don't leave town without picking up a lot of Psycho or tagging Sneak to be able to survive an encounter against 6-8 bandits armed with spears, submachineguns, and hunting rifles. Granted, the loot pays back for the Psycho, but still.

I can also, in that same breath, vouch for melee being plenty viable (my last character killed everyone in The Den's Slavers' Compound with a Combat Knife at level 5).

Triaxx

2024-05-04, 06:24 AM

I assumed Fallout 2's encounter system was just bugged. Guess I'm not the only one who noticed. Though running the Den/Modoc/Redding Triangle for guns and gear was quite nice. Then again I always aimed for a high mobility build so if the encounter was tough, I could out run basically anything to an exit grid. The only hard one was the San Fran/Mil Base run.

I feel like saying F3/4 is a follow on to Tactics is a tad disingenuous. It was too well done even as an alternate take on the setting to really feel right as something being followed on by the Bethesda games. (And yes, I get the objections, trust me.) But it's also a really solid game in the style of the first two. It's got some flaws, don't get me wrong, but it's the right balance of hard/fun.

Rodin

2024-05-04, 09:51 AM

I can also, in that same breath, vouch for melee being plenty viable (my last character killed everyone in The Den's Slavers' Compound with a Combat Knife at level 5).

Oh, it absolutely is, and once you get into endgame you can have a lot of fun smashing people between the eyes with Super Sledges. The problem I found with my Unarmed character is that there's a section in the midgame where 10mm SMGs become common, and if an enemy wielding one of those burst attacks you just get OHKO'd. And for some burst weapons it's not by a little bit - at around level 11 or so (so before I could get the dodging perk to increase my AC) I got hit for 174 damage by a dude with a Combat Shotgun. I went back and did the fight again, and this time he didn't use a burst attack and I won easily.

That RNG can be deeply frustrating, and the Fallout 2 experience often feels like you're just reloading until RNG goes your way. Fallout 1 still had some of this, but the abundance of good armor and the ease of getting power armor made it feel a lot less oppressive.

As for the shop in the Den, I didn't have enough money to afford more than a single weapon and a bit of ammo for it. I then couldn't replenish my money supply because all the random encounters were 8-10 guys and I got to make one shot per turn (I got 8 AP thinking that would be enough, not expecting 5 AP per shot).

That character eventually got wiped after a random map corruption blew up my save, which was when I started the melee character. They had better luck, especially in the early game, but it has still involved loads and loads of loading.

Currently tooling around with a high Charisma character. High barter really helped, as did my very first encounter being a group of 10 raiders attacking a caravan. I sat back, watched the caravan get slaughtered, then used my 10 AP per turn to outdistance the raiders and loot the caravan master.

Winthur

2024-05-04, 10:16 AM

Oh, it absolutely is, and once you get into endgame you can have a lot of fun smashing people between the eyes with Super Sledges. The problem I found with my Unarmed character is that there's a section in the midgame where 10mm SMGs become common, and if an enemy wielding one of those burst attacks you just get OHKO'd. And for some burst weapons it's not by a little bit - at around level 11 or so (so before I could get the dodging perk to increase my AC) I got hit for 174 damage by a dude with a Combat Shotgun. I went back and did the fight again, and this time he didn't use a burst attack and I won easily.

That issue is more with the volatile nature of burst criticals that bypass all of your armor at the same time. What I ended up abusing on my melee characters was the fact that with high Sequence (through decent Perception and maybe Kamikaze) you are allowed to often take two first turns before most enemies take theirs, and hope you cripple or kill them instantly with Better Criticals infused hits to the eyes. Taking Psycho before big fights like that is also helpful, as it makes it so you usually take chip damage or no damage at all - though burst crits are still deadly.

Really the biggest advantage to being melee is -1 AP cost on most weapons (though not a clear cut advantage because there are cheap Small Guns that fire as fast, like Magnum 44), the fact that you can sell all of your guns and ammo spoils for chems early on, and the fact that you get a ton of free training throughout the game from various NPCs and items.

Errorname

2024-05-04, 12:02 PM

This thread got me to boot up a new Fallout 4 playthrough, since I've never done a full survival mode run. The story stuff is about as bad as I remembered it being, but I gotta say survival does a lot for the game.

Bohandas

2024-05-04, 12:07 PM

I started with New Vegas and then played Fallout 3.

I tried to play the Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 but the control scheme was so dated that I couldn't get into it. Also the speed that the player character walks is very slow and it took too long to do anything.

Triaxx

2024-05-04, 02:19 PM

The walking speed is one I can fix. Inside the settings is a toggle to chnage your default movement speed. It's set to talking for what I assume are Aesthetic reasons. Just swap that to always run anf then you can use shift to walk say if you're sneaking

Bohandas

2024-05-04, 02:27 PM

Hell if you use an alternate start mod (which also puts traits back in) you can just never start it, act as if you're just humouring Codsworth, and just play Post Nuclear Loot Goblin the way the game was clearly designed for.

Speaking of which. While a lot of stuff has been said here about the fact that Bethesda games are glitchy, not enough attention has been paid to their other consistent flaw, which is that they all start terribly to the poibt where people have found the need to make alternate start mods for all of them.

That said, none of the Fallout games are as bad as The Elder Scrolls in this regard. Skyrim starts out with a 15-20 minute long cutscene in which nothing of interest happens followed by a very tedious unskippable tutorial.

EDIT:
The one thing I can say to their credit in this regard is that at least they're not as bad as Valve. When Half-Life 3 finally comes out it's gonna be just a 12-hour train ride with no game attached.

warty goblin

2024-05-04, 02:49 PM

Oblivion has one of the better constructed openings around in my opinion. The story gets rolling ASAP, the tutorial does a decent job of introducing the major gameplay systems, and then lets you try them all out free form for a bit, while the character building is spread out pretty evenly so the game starts without a lot of sliders and spreadsheets. And then you can change everything before it becomes permanent, and if you save at the obvious save spot you never need to replay it.

LibraryOgre

2024-05-04, 02:50 PM

That said, none of the Fallout games are as bad as The Elder Scrolls in this regard. Skyrim starts out with a 15-20 minute long cutscene in which nothing of interest happens followed by a very tedious unskippable tutorial.

Fallout 4's opening scene is at least somewhat narratively important. It establishes who you are, that you come from before the war, that sanctuary was your home.

Skyrim is just "You are here. Now never come back here again, because none of this is important."

Mechalich

2024-05-04, 05:50 PM

Fallout also has a much higher barrier to entry as a franchise than Elder Scrolls. Fallout is a post-apocalyptic setting, but the pre-apocalypse world is a bizarre 1950s sci-fi pastiche and the whole setting is distinctly titled towards black comedy. It takes some getting used to and it's not unreasonable for Bethesda to try and ease new players into the story.

The length of the intros does become irritating on later playthroughs, but I suspect Bethesda has calculated that most players will only ever create a single character and that those inclined to go through a second playthrough like the game enough that enduring an overly lengthy intro sequence won't be a deal-breaker.

Errorname

2024-05-04, 06:12 PM

Fallout 4's opening scene is at least somewhat narratively important. It establishes who you are, that you come from before the war, that sanctuary was your home

This makes Fallout 4's opening worse, not better. A lot of Fallout 4's worst narrative content spring directly from how much the opening establishes about who you are.

Skyrim is just "You are here. Now never come back here again, because none of this is important."

I actually think Skyrim has a pretty strong opening. It's length gets tedious on repeat playthroughs, but it feels way less constraining than Fallout 4's and does a much better job at introducing you to the setting and the central conflicts it introduces (the dragons are returning and a civil war is raging) are much better than Fallout 4's whole nonsense with Shaun.

I also think Skyrim waiting to establish how personal your stake in the story is until a few quests in is a good call. Much easier to avoid the main quest while still role-playing a coherent character.

Fallout also has a much higher barrier to entry as a franchise than Elder Scrolls. Fallout is a post-apocalyptic setting, but the pre-apocalypse world is a bizarre 1950s sci-fi pastiche and the whole setting is distinctly titled towards black comedy. It takes some getting used to and it's not unreasonable for Bethesda to try and ease new players into the story.

I don't agree that it's hard to establish, Fallout 1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geLiEiAiQJA) and New Vegas (https://youtu.be/BxOiVxTB0KY) pretty effortlessly convey the vibe before Ron Perlman's even said a word, but I also I don't think Bethesda are trying to ease players into the setting.

Bethesda clearly value the idea that Fallout's protagonist is a fish out of water, so their intros spend a lot of time trying to establish what your character's life was like before the inciting incident of the story. They're trying to create enough of an attachment to a non-representational slice of the setting so that being thrown into the post-apocalypse is kind of jarring and alien.

tyckspoon

2024-05-04, 07:38 PM

Oh, it absolutely is, and once you get into endgame you can have a lot of fun smashing people between the eyes with Super Sledges. The problem I found with my Unarmed character is that there's a section in the midgame where 10mm SMGs become common, and if an enemy wielding one of those burst attacks you just get OHKO'd. And for some burst weapons it's not by a little bit - at around level 11 or so (so before I could get the dodging perk to increase my AC) I got hit for 174 damage by a dude with a Combat Shotgun. I went back and did the fight again, and this time he didn't use a burst attack and I won easily.

It's because a Burst weapon actually projects a cone and the game assigns how many potential bullets the enemies in that cone can take based on how far along the cone they are. If you're right at the origin of the cone, then you get All The Bullets. Which can either do.. basically nothing, if they hit normally and you get to apply your damage reduction/damage threshold to all of the separate bullets, or insta-gib the target if you get crit(s) and bypass armor or score a big damage multiplier. Giving Sulik one of those 10mm SMGs and letting him use it as basically a melee weapon is one of the more dangerous things he can do.

.. and on the other end of it if you try to use Burst as an area attack which is apparently what it's -supposed- to do, you tend to mildly annoy three or four different enemies and then they all shoot you.

Quizatzhaderac

2024-05-05, 01:47 PM

I think I'll start with NV, unless fallout 1 is basically free.

.......The problem is that if you aren't good at the narrative side, the paint flecks off and you see the rust underneath, it's just a sequence of go here commands you are following like a good little puppy. I have this theory that a good game (or other longform fiction) should essentially "lie" about what it's overall structure will be. Or to put it another way, early expectations should be broken.

The ur example of this is Arabian Nights, which has a framing device where Scheherazade deceives the king about how many stories she will tell. If you haven't read it, the deception is nested, and it's hard to say how many stories are included, even being aware of the central conceit; for example in The fisherman and the Jinn, neither the fisherman or the Jinn appear after the halfway mark; or when Scheherazade's father threatens to beat her, he pauses in the middle to tell a story about a rooster/pimp, and a story about a lazy horse to provide context about the rooster's owner.

A good earlier example is in FFVII where initially you have the goal of blowing up these eight reactors. You blow up two before so much stufftm happens you forget about blowing up reactors.

With most good stories you should be a little surprised at where you are and what's happening all the time. All of good videogames will have thier plot dip in and out of being formulaic in order to keep you from between being bored and adrift.

No. I am sorry, no. I disagree fundamentally with this, and the very idea that this is what an "rpg is" has poisoned Bethesda games since Oblivion.

RPG can HAVE that. I do not mind the idea that there can be "go there, kill/loot, come back" as part of an RPG. But it is not the "boiled down to its fundamental". Its not even basic quest design boiled down to its fundamental.I think maybe a helpfull analogy is that that gameplay loop it like a big concrete slab is to a house.

It's standard practice to build a house with a concrete slab as a foundation, but the foundation is not (by itself) a remotely a house. A tent makes a much better house than a plain concrete slab. But if you're a (very stupid) construction company putting in foundations for houses feels like building houses. Or if you're a little less stupid you figure you'll worry about the first part first, and find you don't have time to figure out roofs before your deadline.

veti

2024-05-05, 02:59 PM

I think I'll start with NV, unless fallout 1 is basically free.

Back when games came on discs, I got Fallout 1&2 in a combo pack for, IIRC, $2.99. So I'd be surprised if you can't get 1 for "basically free".

But I'd recommend NV anyway. The only problem with starting there is that it's basically downhill every way. Plus we may have built up your expectations.

I have this theory that a good game (or other longform fiction) should essentially "lie" about what it's overall structure will be. Or to put it another way, early expectations should be broken.

Well, I think plot twists are pretty generally recognised as a key part of good storytelling, and most games have them to some extent. But some work better than others.

Quizatzhaderac

2024-05-06, 11:46 AM

Well, I think plot twists are pretty generally recognised as a key part of good storytelling, and most games have them to some extent. Generally, yes, but I think in this specific circumstances it's not often not recognized.

For instance I was disappointed with Tales of Arise which established early on that there were five lords and a kind to be defeated. There were a bunch of plot twists, but they were all neatly contained in exactly the expected order lord1, lord2, lord3, lord4, lord5, and the king. Each chapter was in it's own completely separate geographic area. You could comfortably forget most everything from the last chapter as it would have no bearing on the plot or setting moving forward.

Cikomyr2

2024-05-06, 01:41 PM

Well, I think plot twists are pretty generally recognised as a key part of good storytelling, and most games have them to some extent. But some work better than others.

I don't know about plot twist. But a minimal number of plot misdirection is usually a good thing to avoid your plot being episodic and predictable.

If your players expect to go and collect the 6 McGuffins of the End World, make sure the last one has already been snapped by the bad guys, or broken. Or instead of being a big showdown like all the other 5 pieces, have the bad guy not even contest the final piece, but instead he confess he knows the plot about the McGuffins that is fated to end him, has seen it coming.

I think ultimately, the "misdirection" is meant to allow the reconciliation between what a character wants vs what a character needs.

In New Vegas, the Courier wants to recover the Chip/Revenge on Benny. But what the Courier needs is build a network of partners and allies to help him reshape the face of the Mojave.

The initial "want" is but a mirage thrown in your face, a pretext to adventure informed by your inexperience.

Errorname

2024-05-07, 01:35 AM

I think ultimately, the "misdirection" is meant to allow the reconciliation between what a character wants vs what a character needs.

In New Vegas, the Courier wants to recover the Chip/Revenge on Benny. But what the Courier needs is build a network of partners and allies to help him reshape the face of the Mojave.

The initial "want" is but a mirage thrown in your face, a pretext to adventure informed by your inexperience.

I don't really see a conflict between want and need in New Vegas. That's partially because what the Courier actually wants is player determined so maybe you really hate Benny's guts, maybe you're just a professional, hell maybe you didn't actually try to track him down and you just ran into him in Vegas coincidentally, but it's also because there's never a moment where you have to realize "I don't need to get revenge, I need to be the kingmaker in the battle for Hoover Dam".

The way the story is structured, tracking down and dealing with Benny is the thing that puts the courier on the map and makes them a serious player on the field.

veti

2024-05-07, 03:22 AM

there's never a moment where you have to realize "I don't need to get revenge, I need to be the kingmaker in the battle for Hoover Dam".

The way the story is structured, tracking down and dealing with Benny is the thing that puts the courier on the map and makes them a serious player on the field.

Sheer dumb luck puts the courier in a unique position to decide the fate of the Mojave. From that position, you kinda do need to pick a winner from the available candidates, self included. It's the condition for completing the game.

Errorname

2024-05-07, 08:00 AM

Sheer dumb luck puts the courier in a unique position to decide the fate of the Mojave. From that position, you kinda do need to pick a winner from the available candidates, self included. It's the condition for completing the game.

Right, but it's not "want vs need" in the sense of "I thought I wanted to get revenge, but instead I really needed to singlehandedly win the battle of Hoover Dam for [X]". There's no conflict between these motivations in the game, the revenge story gets resolved and then as a consequence the Courier gets tangled up in the political story. It's not a story about a character realizing what they actually need instead of what they thought they wanted, both because that's not the structure and because the Courier is so player directed that their actual motivations can be variable depending on the player.

Cikomyr2

2024-05-07, 08:54 AM

Right, but it's not "want vs need" in the sense of "I thought I wanted to get revenge, but instead I really needed to singlehandedly win the battle of Hoover Dam for [X]". There's no conflict between these motivations in the game, the revenge story gets resolved and then as a consequence the Courier gets tangled up in the political story. It's not a story about a character realizing what they actually need instead of what they thought they wanted, both because that's not the structure and because the Courier is so player directed that their actual motivations can be variable depending on the player.

There is no "conflict", but they go in different directions nevertheless.

You are 100% right that the two objectives are not at odds. But transitioning from the hurt/revenge story to the Power Broker story enacts this transition.

In a way, the Courier also has the choice to simply refuse to engage mentally with the power broker plot. In that case, he simply remains House's loyal little employee who gets paid. Going for the NCR, Legion or Yes-man requires you to take matter in your own hands and actually decide to stake what you believe in.

Errorname

2024-05-07, 11:38 AM

There is no "conflict", but they go in different directions nevertheless.

I don't dispute that taking down Benny is a major turning point, I am specifically objecting to describing it through the framework of "want vs need". I think it's a bad lens that doesn't really reflect how the story functions. There is no tension between taking down Benny and the wider faction conflict, and the courier's character isn't solid enough to actually have clear 'wants' or 'needs'

Cikomyr2

2024-05-07, 12:00 PM

I don't dispute that taking down Benny is a major turning point, I am specifically objecting to describing it through the framework of "want vs need". I think it's a bad lens that doesn't really reflect how the story functions. There is no tension between taking down Benny and the wider faction conflict, and the courier's character isn't solid enough to actually have clear 'wants' or 'needs'

Well, the thing is, merely killing Benny and delivering the Chip.. does nothing, right?

Nothing is accomplished by this. Hell, there's even a scripted even that allow Benny to escape Caesar's camp. And it has no impact on the plot.

Because the revenge, ultimately, was pointless.

Errorname

2024-05-07, 01:00 PM

Because the revenge, ultimately, was pointless.

Foiling Benny's plan and taking the platinum chip is necessary for 3 out of 4 main quest pathways. That the game lets you spare Benny and then didn't have the budget to factor that into the rest of the game (they batted about having him come back and try to kill you or making him a follower, neither panned out) doesn't mean that confronting Benny and obtaining the Platinum Chip is not essential to the main quest.

Cikomyr2

2024-05-07, 01:57 PM

Foiling Benny's plan and taking the platinum chip is necessary for 3 out of 4 main quest pathways. That the game lets you spare Benny and then didn't have the budget to factor that into the rest of the game (they batted about having him come back and try to kill you or making him a follower, neither panned out) doesn't mean that confronting Benny and obtaining the Platinum Chip is not essential to the main quest.

Hmm.. is it even possible to complete the game by never even touching the Platinum chip and never accessing the Bunker? Does the NCR make you go to Caesar's camp?

Mando Knight

2024-05-07, 03:33 PM

Hmm.. is it even possible to complete the game by never even touching the Platinum chip and never accessing the Bunker? Does the NCR make you go to Caesar's camp?

NCR's main quest doesn't even require you to enter the Tops, you could decide that the ultimate revenge is having Benny live his little NPC life totally oblivious to the fact that the person he thought he killed not only survived but turned into the regional kingmaker.

Lurkmoar

2024-05-08, 10:03 PM

NCR's main quest doesn't even require you to enter the Tops, you could decide that the ultimate revenge is having Benny live his little NPC life totally oblivious to the fact that the person he thought he killed not only survived but turned into the regional kingmaker.

Isn't one of Colonel Moore's missions to get rid of Mr. House? I've never ignored Benny personally, so The Platinum Chip always ended up back in my hands. I suppose that's what those random Lucky 38 override cards are for? For players who had Benny escape and had the Legion hostile, so if they balked at going to the fort, they could accomplish removing House another way?

Mando Knight

2024-05-08, 10:29 PM

Isn't one of Colonel Moore's missions to get rid of Mr. House? I've never ignored Benny personally, so The Platinum Chip always ended up back in my hands. I suppose that's what those random Lucky 38 override cards are for? For players who had Benny escape and had the Legion hostile, so if they balked at going to the fort, they could accomplish removing House another way?
The Chip is just one of several ways to get into House's inner sanctum. The terminal is a Hard (75 Science) lock, and the Lucky 38 VIP keycards can also provide access.

veti

2024-05-20, 02:37 AM

Rodin

2024-05-20, 06:11 AM

Deathclaw Vault 13, no question. A bunch of intelligent Deathclaws roaming the Wasteland and rescuing people so they have a safe space. Really cool take on what had previously been (and would in future be) a mindless enemy.

Cespenar

2024-05-20, 10:19 AM

Cikomyr2

2024-05-20, 12:01 PM

What's your favourite vault?

Not as a place to live. Obviously, even the best of them would suck. But the one that sticks in your mind as having a cool story, artfully revealed during exploration?

I'm thinking like Vault 11, whose inhabitants were told to offer a human sacrifice every year. Just got done exploring that one for only about the second time ever. It's a gentle yet horrible mix of tragic and hilarious.

Vault City. An actual vault that did what it was supposed to do, absolutely no hidden agenda, and yet they still devolved in authoritarianism because of the power disparity their very existence represented in the wasteland.

Because you dont need a willing malevolence by shadowy figures for bad thing to happen*. Bad things emerge on their own even when things go all according to plan.

*The idea that all vaults were some sort of stupid social experiment never sat well with me. I much preferred the flavor that the Vaults were.. a stupid pipe dream sold by Vault Tech predating on the anxieties of a pre war America. They made a quick buck, and they cut corners to maximize profits, which is why Vault 15 failed, Vault 12's door did not close properly and Vault 13 had a faulty water chip.

The idea that all the bad things happened because some people centuries happen just didnt care is much more poignant to me than the notion that some people centuries ago decided it would be fun/interesting to put 300 peoples with a panthera.

veti

2024-05-20, 07:16 PM

If that is the one with the surprise death turrets in the end, that was my favourite as well.

"Surprise death turrets" is a pretty good way of describing it, yes. Things would have gone very badly if I hadn't happened to have the pulse gun in my pocket.

Seriously guys, turrets? I was expecting gas, or maybe just a long drop.

Because you dont need a willing malevolence by shadowy figures for bad thing to happen*. Bad things emerge on their own even when things go all according to plan.

Good thought. I also have a soft spot for Vault 21 (the one inside New Vegas, where all disputes were to be settled by games of chance), which apparently maintained itself quite contentedly for a good 200 years before Mr House - who wasn't even in the vault, mind - won ownership in a game of blackjack. (How, exactly, Mr House participated in a game of blackjack is left as an exercise for the imagination.)

Lurkmoar

2024-05-20, 07:36 PM

IIRC, House didn't go to Vault 21 personally, he had representatives go in.

ShneekeyTheLost

2024-05-21, 12:23 PM

I liked Vault 22. It didn't fail because of some secret sabotage they wanted to see how people dealt with. It failed because they were honestly and legitimately working on a serious and actual problem (food shortages), and were so focused on their mission goal they didn't consider the consequences of their actions, which proceeded to bite them on the rear.

By the way, does anyone have a mod for Fallout 4 that scraps everything *that is normally able to be scrapped* to give me a clean slate to work with? I don't want to break precombines, I don't want to remove anything that you can't normally remove by just wandering around hitting the 'scrap' key in workshop mode. Surprisingly, it has been very difficult to find a mod with that functionality. Scrapall scraps everything, including things that shouldn't. Raze My Settlement just deletes everything. I'll use it if I have to, but that's a lot of scrap you're just removing from the game. Immersive Cleaning doesn't go far enough, and leave things like piles of tires lying around.

I just wanna emulate running around the settlement, scrapping everything I am normally allowed to, without actually spending ten or fifteen minutes doing that. That's all.