Fallout IX: Nuclear Cash Cows Go MMOoooooo!

[LibraryOgre]

Continuation from Fallout VIII: Another Thread Needs Your Help

[Brookshw]

Er, title should probably be MMOoooooooo, kinda misses the joke w/o the MMO part.

[Triaxx]

I mean, missed opportunities are kind of a hallmark of the series really. So it fits.

[LibraryOgre]

Er, title should probably be MMOoooooooo, kinda misses the joke w/o the MMO part.

I have now edited it out of spite.

[Brookshw]

I have now edited it out of spite.

Not towards me I hope

[Sholos]

Convenient new thread is convenient, as I just jumped into Fallout 4. Does anyone have a list of QoL mods that they'd recommend? I'm not looking GB for anything that majorly changes up the base gameplay, but would appreciate anything that reduces various annoyances or bugs.

[Triaxx]

This is going to be an alphabetical list, rather than by do this first.

Better Mod Descriptions - This deobfuscates the numbers that change when you add a weapon/armor mod. So it'll say -33% spread instead of 'better spread.

Better Wait Menu Time passes faster, can wait more than 24 hours.

Crafting Highlight Fix This removes a lot of the glow so you can see the change around power armor pieces so you can see the change when you upgrade them.

Lever Action Rifle Reload Fix You might consider this a gameplay change. Personally I don't but it's up to you.

Mod Configuration Menu Should be entirely self-explanatory.

Remove Fighting Arts Fixes something Bethesda did stupidly. I leave it off until I encounter them once then turn it on so I never see it again.

Targeting HUD and Berry Mentats Enhanced This one is up to you. It's a slight change to gameplay, but is so useful for looting that I consider it quality of life only.

Unobtrusive XP Gain Sound The default one made me want to scream, and the silent ones were too much. This is a nice balance of the two.

Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch You didn't boot the game up without this did you?

Wetness Shader Fix Stops the supershininess of things that are wet.

Workshop Spotlight Fix Stops the Spotlights from breaking because you walked away from your settlement and came back.

[SZbNAhL]

Apparently you can't quote posts from closed threads, so apoligies for the linkless manual quoting:

The Capital Wasteland being an unusually devastated area has been the case since at least New Vegas, if not before. The Mojave, despite being a desert, is significantly more fertile.

The Mojave was barely nuked due to House's intervention. I can't remember the exact numbers, but between his hacking the Chinese comms network to send disarm codes to most of the missiles and shooting some of the others out of the sky with laser turrets, only about half a dozen missiles got through, and those mostly hit outlying areas (where he didn't have turrets).

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Apparently you can't quote posts from closed threads, so apoligies for the linkless manual quoting:



The Mojave was barely nuked due to House's intervention. I can't remember the exact numbers, but between his hacking the Chinese comms network to send disarm codes to most of the missiles and shooting some of the others out of the sky with laser turrets, only about half a dozen missiles got through, and those mostly hit outlying areas (where he didn't have turrets).

He mentions it at one point, through some dialogue option. The closest one hit the communications array at Black Mountain. Vault 34 is irradiated because the reactor leaked, not because of nuclear strike. Searchlight was a Legion op that just recently happened. Rabbit Springs just have nuclear waste stored there that have been leaking. Can't think of any other very radioactive areas in the Mojave aside from those.

[Triaxx]

The area near the unique Minigun. He said all but 22 of the missiles, which he'd have gotten if he'd had the chip.

[Caelestion]

Sim Settlements is my go-to F4 mod, other than UI mods such as DEF-UI and English Language Strings.

[Anteros]

Apparently you can't quote posts from closed threads, so apoligies for the linkless manual quoting:



The Mojave was barely nuked due to House's intervention. I can't remember the exact numbers, but between his hacking the Chinese comms network to send disarm codes to most of the missiles and shooting some of the others out of the sky with laser turrets, only about half a dozen missiles got through, and those mostly hit outlying areas (where he didn't have turrets).

Well...also it's a big empty desert and there's not much reason to nuke most of it.

[Mechalich]

That the Mojave was barely nuked is kind of the point though. Fallout 3 portrays one of the hardest-hit areas in the entire US (certainly one of the hardest hit developed areas, since a lot of priority nuclear targets are silos in Wyoming and the Dakotas that aren't near anything). Essentially everywhere else was nuked less significantly than DC.

What you get in the other areas is a combination of societal collapse, widespread groundwater contamination by the global Fallout, and the consequences of technology run amok. Fallout 76, notably, basically vindicates everything Paladin Danse says about the dangers of technology in Fallout 4. Appalachia collapses after the bombs fall due to the impacts of other disastrous technologies that are biological, not radiological, in nature (Scorched plague and FEV). One of the themes of the Fallout from 3 onward has been just how incredibly corrupt the old world actually was, so much that a nuclear apocalypse was only one of many horrors it unleashed. In Fallout 3 the agents of the old world, the Enclave, try to xenocide everything that doesn't fit their definition of purity. In New Vegas House, also of the old world, attempts to take control of the Mojave using his robot army. In Fallout 4 the Institute tries to create a new world in their own image using synths. And in Fallout 76 everyone is dying because the excesses of the old world could not be contained by the survivors. And the same thing repeats on a lesser scale in various side quests and DLCs.

[Triaxx]

Not since 3, but all the way back to 1 with the FEV making super mutants. Or the Enclave in 2.

[The_Jackal]

So, here's the problem I'm having in my Fallout 4 vanilla survival game: I've gotten to the Railroad, and unlocked Deacon's first mission, finished it, but when I return to The Old North Church, complete my turn-ins, then go out the back entrance, my game consistently crashes after I jump down to street level from the wrecked house. No mods at all, just base game. Any ideas of what I can do? Since it's survival, I can't quicksave, and it's a long jog from Hangman's Alley to The Old North Church where I can reproduce this bug.

[Triaxx]

There should be a bed you can use in the hideout itself.

[The_Jackal]

There should be a bed you can use in the hideout itself.

I guess. It looks pretty gross. I'm tired of getting diseases from the flea-ridden mattresses other people seem content to sleep in, but I guess under the circumstances, I don't have much choice.

[Triaxx]

Why not go out the front door?

[The_Jackal]

Why not go out the front door?

Well, I find the back door to be more convenient in the long run, and you can only unlock it by using a terminal, and unchaining the door. I also don't know if going out the main entrance won't crash me too. I'll save before I leave and try a few alternate routes, we'll see.

[Triaxx]

You can also use an exit save as long as you copy-paste it out of the folder.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Was watching someone speedrun Fallout 4. It's interesting how he manages to bypass a lot of the flags.

[The_Jackal]

Was watching someone speedrun Fallout 4. It's interesting how he manages to bypass a lot of the flags.

I find the mindset of the speedrunning community to be very questionable, when so much of their tactics involve use of glitches and bugs to get around the game. I get how this might be interesting or legitimate when you're playing Super Mario Brothers or Quake, but jumping up a flat wall face by standing on a fusion core you're holding is.... not interesting to me. You might as well just type 'tcl' in the console. I find the challenges like Dead is Dead Survival to be much more engaging and fun to watch.

[Brookshw]

I find the mindset of the speedrunning community to be very questionable, when so much of their tactics involve use of glitches and bugs to get around the game. I get how this might be interesting or legitimate when you're playing Super Mario Brothers or Quake, but jumping up a flat wall face by standing on a fusion core you're holding is.... not interesting to me. You might as well just type 'tcl' in the console. I find the challenges like Dead is Dead Survival to be much more engaging and fun to watch.

Or old mega man style speed runs where the players were just ridiculously good but still legitimately beat the game.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I find the mindset of the speedrunning community to be very questionable, when so much of their tactics involve use of glitches and bugs to get around the game. I get how this might be interesting or legitimate when you're playing Super Mario Brothers or Quake, but jumping up a flat wall face by standing on a fusion core you're holding is.... not interesting to me. You might as well just type 'tcl' in the console. I find the challenges like Dead is Dead Survival to be much more engaging and fun to watch.

I dunno, I find it funny how poorly coded the game is that stuff like that can happen without needing to use a console.

[Erloas]

So while its just one other random guy on the internet, I watched a video basically talking about how 76 is going to hurt Bethesda more than by simply failing. Basically it is bringing to the forefront all of the issues they have as developers and not giving them any way to hide from it.

The first part was that it gives a glimpse into what we can expect from future games. The same game engine they've been using for 7 years they have no intention of updating and they're using it specifically because they can copy-paste so much old content into new games with little effort. That even with 7 years of experience with the engine they are still stuck with way too many bugs, if they haven't worked them out by now, will they ever? Without fan moding to fix the game it isn't likely to get any better either.

The biggest one is how completely out of touch they are with their players and they're completely unwilling to even have a dialog about problems or what they plan on doing. Their customer service and community relations are practically non-existent.

They seem to be very quickly running out of any long term good will.

[The_Jackal]

So while its just one other random guy on the internet, I watched a video basically talking about how 76 is going to hurt Bethesda more than by simply failing. Basically it is bringing to the forefront all of the issues they have as developers and not giving them any way to hide from it.

The first part was that it gives a glimpse into what we can expect from future games. The same game engine they've been using for 7 years they have no intention of updating and they're using it specifically because they can copy-paste so much old content into new games with little effort. That even with 7 years of experience with the engine they are still stuck with way too many bugs, if they haven't worked them out by now, will they ever? Without fan moding to fix the game it isn't likely to get any better either.

The biggest one is how completely out of touch they are with their players and they're completely unwilling to even have a dialog about problems or what they plan on doing. Their customer service and community relations are practically non-existent.

They seem to be very quickly running out of any long term good will.

Got a link to the video? I mean, the thesis is quite plausible, and yeah, reputation takes a lot of work to build, and not much to wreck. But the big problem with Fallout 76 is that what I mostly felt made Bethesda special is that they were practically the only game in town doing what they were doing, so their community (myself included) was willing to overlook a lot of the messier aspects of their games. The fact that mods and a console were available to pave over some of the more disastrous bugs helped too. But this isn't a single-player sandbox RPG. It's basically a Division or DayZ clone, and and that invites comparison with all the other online looter shooters that have been made available to the market for the past decade, and the comparison is not good.

Now personally, I'm not quite so worried about spin. The fact is, the people who make the decisions are almost never the people who communicate the decisions to the public, so for all we know, Todd Howard and company are elbows deep in the FO76 code trying to fix what's broken. But I kind of doubt it, because if they had merely looked at the game, they would have known it was not suitable for release. So this might have been a giant middle finger exchange between the Zenimax money shmucks and the line developers who work on actually making the product. I've got some experience in the software industry, and I have plenty of tales of utterly inane leadership pushing terrible product decisions over the frustrated howls of the technical teams who need to make things work. Upward communication problems are common in businesses, and it's not always leadership's fault (but it usually is).

[Mechalich]

But this isn't a single-player sandbox RPG. It's basically a Division or DayZ clone, and and that invites comparison with all the other online looter shooters that have been made available to the market for the past decade, and the comparison is not good.

If you actually play Fallout 76, it actually is closer to a single-player sandbox RPG than anything else, still. The multiplayer elements are minimal and unless you are specifically playing co-op with friends you can play for hours and hours without encountering another player, especially now that most players have moved out of the opening areas and are spread across the map. The survival elements are extremely modest, and mostly impact play in that they clutter up the inventory rather than imposing any real needs. Food, water, and radaway are all abundant and if you care to bother with it at all, can easily be produced in vast quantities at your camp.

The real problem is twofold. First that the new mechanics added to make multiplayer happen are generally either poorly conceived, don't function, or otherwise distract from the single player experience and second that, in support of their 'all people are players' adamant design philosophy the Appalachia they created is dead, hopeless, and tragic. Actually playing through the story of Fallout 76 is an act of unearthing a tale of profound horror and failure as you happen again and again upon not only the monstrous aspects of Fallout's particular take on nuclear powered America but also watch the survivors, despite their best efforts, completely fail to hold back the rising dark. It's a shockingly grim experience. To paraphrase the series slogan: 'War never changes, unless everyone dies.'

The inability to find anyone alive means that while you cross Appalachia on a massive and complex quest to halt the spread of an extinction level event, there's no feeling that you're actually helping anyone, and that creates a massive disconnect and lack of motive.

In Fallout 3, by the time you figure out what the actual plan is with the purifier you've met the people of Megaton, Rivet City, the Brotherhood of Steel, and probably some other places. So your character is choosing to help (or potentially betray and destroy), those people. New Vegas connects you with the settlement of Goodsprings from the very beginning and you pass through numerous other struggling communities, most of whom need your help in some way, as your slog your path to Vegas. Fallout 4 does the same thing with the Minutemen, placing you front an center in an effort to rebuild life in the Commonwealth. 76 has nothing like that.

[factotum]

The same game engine they've been using for 7 years they have no intention of updating

7 years? More like 12--Oblivion in 2006 used pretty much the same engine. It's been tweaked a bit since then, but the basics are the same.

[The_Jackal]

7 years? More like 12--Oblivion in 2006 used pretty much the same engine. It's been tweaked a bit since then, but the basics are the same.

Well, being in the software line, I'm keenly aware of the arbitrary nature of versioning and naming schemes. Every 3D engine has antecedents, from Unreal (Fortnite) to Quake (Doom reboot) to Lithtech (Shadow of War). Now I agree that Creation Engine has some problems, and given that Bethesda is a Subsidiary of Zenimax, which also owns Id Software, transitioning the Bethesda engine over to IdTech 6 seems like a no-brainer. But I know enough to know what I don't know, and I don't know how much work that would take, to completely re-design Bethesda's tools and technology to use a completely different 3D engine. It could be very, very expensive and difficult.

[Erloas]

Got a link to the video?

https://youtu.be/7hRljZhtGdo
Not that I give him any more weight than anyone else on the net, but there it is.

7 years? More like 12--Oblivion in 2006 used pretty much the same engine. It's been tweaked a bit since then, but the basics are the same.

I just Wikipedia'd the engine and that was the date given. How much was revised in it between the earlier versions and that one is harder to know.

Now I agree that Creation Engine has some problems, and given that Bethesda is a Subsidiary of Zenimax, which also owns Id Software, transitioning the Bethesda engine over to IdTech 6 seems like a no-brainer. But I know enough to know what I don't know, and I don't know how much work that would take, to completely re-design Bethesda's tools and technology to use a completely different 3D engine. It could be very, very expensive and difficult.

The implication was that it had more to do with being able to simply reuse assets than anything else. That they can create new games with minimal effort because not much is changing. That it seems like any effort is more than they want to do.
The effort to transition has to be done at some point, but advancing doesn't even seen to be an after thought.