Fallout X: Back after those messages

[factotum]

You really think anyone on the team tried to plan out settlements based on how they might have logically grown?

In Fallout 1 and 2, yes--just look at Shady Sands, which even has (shock!) farms where they can grow their food. What you're talking there is a specifically Bethesda-era Fallout problem.

[Cikomyr2]

In Fallout 1 and 2, yes--just look at Shady Sands, which even has (shock!) farms where they can grow their food. What you're talking there is a specifically Bethesda-era Fallout problem.

Early Fallout bethesda. They really went full stupid aesthetic rather than even try to make it seem actually "lived in". For me, the biggest offenders werent Megaton but the guys living on the highway, and the woman deluding herself she lived pre-war despite being born 200 years after the flippin' bombs.

They got better with some DLCs, and then Fallout 4 had the entire settlement designed rehauled. Things are much more grounded, just completely disjointed. I dont see caravans of food crossing downtown boston to resupply Goodneighboor. And the flippin' Gunners. Oh man the Gunners are basically Gigantic Space Flea. A fully armed faction without any agenda or reaction to plot development. They are just there, goddamnit.

[Grim Portent]

Early Fallout bethesda. They really went full stupid aesthetic rather than even try to make it seem actually "lived in". For me, the biggest offenders werent Megaton but the guys living on the highway, and the woman deluding herself she lived pre-war despite being born 200 years after the flippin' bombs.

IIRC Bethesda originally planned for FO3 to be set shortly after the bombs fell, one or two generations at most, then got told to set it later to include iconic FO elements from the west coast and then didn't have the time to go and fully replace all their ideas that only made sense in the immediate aftermath of the bombs.

Andale, Little Lamplight, and the woman living in her own little world are the primary examples, but I would also lump the Republic of Dave in there, since it just seems weird that a cult like that would form in a post-apocalyptic environment. Vaut 101 and the whole small genetic pool thing as well, it should have come up well before the events of FO3.

[LibraryOgre]

They got better with some DLCs, and then Fallout 4 had the entire settlement designed rehauled. Things are much more grounded, just completely disjointed. I dont see caravans of food crossing downtown boston to resupply Goodneighboor. And the flippin' Gunners. Oh man the Gunners are basically Gigantic Space Flea. A fully armed faction without any agenda or reaction to plot development. They are just there, goddamnit.

The Gunners are just Talon Company from FO3 with a different name. Their only purpose is to shoot you, with no real narrative place or sense. "Why are you shooting me? Your bullets cost caps, and I'm not doing anything to you, or even near one of your strongholds!"

I tried setting up a slightly alternate FO4 playthrough over the weekend, where I went straight from 111 to Nuka-World (story version: I was kidnapped for the Gauntlet right after waking up). It was tough, but it was mostly doable until the fight against the electrified power armor. I may turn the difficulty way down for that fight, then turn it up after.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

The Gunners are just Talon Company from FO3 with a different name. Their only purpose is to shoot you, with no real narrative place or sense. "Why are you shooting me? Your bullets cost caps, and I'm not doing anything to you, or even near one of your strongholds!"

I tried setting up a slightly alternate FO4 playthrough over the weekend, where I went straight from 111 to Nuka-World (story version: I was kidnapped for the Gauntlet right after waking up). It was tough, but it was mostly doable until the fight against the electrified power armor. I may turn the difficulty way down for that fight, then turn it up after.

Talon Company at least had the legitimate reason of being hired to put a hit out on the PC. So they have an actual reason to target the PC, because they've been paid to do so, as mercenaries tend to do.

Gunners don't even have that fig leaf of a reason.

[Spore]

Gunners don't even have that fig leaf of a reason.

Maybe a mix parodying militarism of US civilians mixed with the want to present another raider type? Still a thin excuse.

But it adds to the feel that Fallout 4 (despite me liking it) feels unfinished in some instances.

[Grim Portent]

There's some sort of implied beef between the Gunners and the Minutemen, which could maybe explain their hostility after you've agreed to become the general for Preston, but even that's a bit of a stretch.

I think there's also some mention of them being backed by someone from outside the Commonwealth, with the intent of destabilising the Commonwealth, but... who and why? What's the point of destabilising a bunch of fractured farming communities? Why spend a fortune on it?

[Cikomyr2]

There's some sort of implied beef between the Gunners and the Minutemen, which could maybe explain their hostility after you've agreed to become the general for Preston, but even that's a bit of a stretch.

I think there's also some mention of them being backed by someone from outside the Commonwealth, with the intent of destabilising the Commonwealth, but... who and why? What's the point of destabilising a bunch of fractured farming communities? Why spend a fortune on it?

Pretty much. Just.. something, goddamnit. Is it so hard?

[LibraryOgre]

I think there's also some mention of them being backed by someone from outside the Commonwealth, with the intent of destabilising the Commonwealth, but... who and why? What's the point of destabilising a bunch of fractured farming communities? Why spend a fortune on it?

I mean, imagine if they'd just decided to be warlords. "We're the Gunners. Pay us or we kill you." Not many in the Commonwealth could stand up to that, and if you said "Hey, why don't you live in a house here?", they'd even stand as a level of protection.

[Grim Portent]

I think them being a form of highwaymen/mafia that's taken root in the Commonwealth with the decline of the Minutemen would have worked so much better than the vague 'better raiders' thing. Have Gunners stationed at important road intersections, guarding various settlements and so on. Demanding payment ('road tolls') from travelling traders, and extorting money from settlers in exchange for some protection from raiders and hostile wildlife. If you refuse to pay them protection money they raid your settlement, if you do pay them a few Gunners will man your defenses but reduce the rate the settlement produces resources from jobs*.

Set them up as essentially an evil Minutemen counterpart which you gradually beat back as you expand on the Minutemen. Maybe even make them joinable if you want to go down the route of a tyrannical commonwealth government. Have Goodneighbour and Diamond City have alternate states in which the Gunners have managed to muscle in and replace the local guards, linked to quests in which you can help the Gunners do just that in exchange for more power over those towns.


*Though by and large settlements are garbage at producing resources other than adhesive anyway.

[NeoVid]

The Gunners are one of the big failures of FO4's writing. If you get into the vault that created them, you learn a ton of backstory about the supersoldier experiment in that vault, which gives more than enough plot hooks to have a good storyline based around the Gunners. They're the best trained and equipped faction in the Commonwealth until the Brotherhood shows up, they have a ton of resources due to controlling two Vaults, and they hold a bunch of territory... but they're not even considered a faction by the game's plot. There aren't even Gunners you can talk to. Bethesda seems to have completely overlooked how important that bunch should be considering the sheer amount of force they should be able to use against the Commonwealth. Why aren't they actively trying to conquer the region? They're extremely dangerous and well armed, shouldn't the Institute have riddled the Gunner ranks with Synth agents? Ten seconds of thought is enough to come up with good mission hooks involving the Gunners, too bad Bethesda didn't put in that much time.

[LibraryOgre]

One of the loading screens talks about how they're willing to take any contract... then they don't. They've got this massive complex with huge communication facilities... and then don't do anything with it. "Gunner Radio" could have been a great counterpoint.

On the play front, I decided to keep going with my "kidnapped from the Vault to run the gauntlet" storyline. I turned the difficulty way down to beat Colter, and am now trying to handle the space park. Which is really goddamn hard at level 8.

[Spore]

What's the point of destabilising a bunch of fractured farming communities? Why spend a fortune on it?

Maybe they don't need to spend a fortune on it. Maybe the threat of combat gear and assault rifle is enough to intimidate even minutemen. Flashing weaponry and armor is often enough to make sensible people shy away. But assuming the Institute is more active by the time the Sole Survivor waltzes about, I assume the power balance is shifted towards the Minutemen, and the arrival of the even better geared Brotherhood of Steel forces their hand.

Before you awaken they have to deal with an almost dead minutemen, some sneaky institute spies and railroad agents (which I am unsure they are even aware of). They are found in some of the better secured buildings in Boston city, making me think they have the guts and gear to plunder actual worthwhile stuff. Raiders plunder cheap crap and scrap, Gunners plunder military bases, surface science faculties and police stations.

Everything changes when you enter the game. You strengthen the minutemen, shortly after you arrive, the Brotherhood joins the fray and your actions trigger the Institute and Railroad. Suddenly the Gunners have to fight on all fronts.

They're the best trained and equipped faction in the Commonwealth until the Brotherhood shows up, they have a ton of resources due to controlling two Vaults, and they hold a bunch of territory... but they're not even considered a faction by the game's plot. There aren't even Gunners you can talk to. Bethesda seems to have completely overlooked how important that bunch should be considering the sheer amount of force they should be able to use against the Commonwealth.

Yea, dropped the ball on that one. Pretty sure they went that way:

"We have the Minutemen and the Institute for the story. We have to add the Brotherhood of Steel to add to sales, and we have to introduce some way for the player to get to the Institute. Mike over there came up with a secret service working from the railroad. But he hasnt given them any major characters. Ben has ideas for a fifth faction involving heavy military aesthetic, to explain the abundance of power armor in the game."

"Great stuff, guys. You know I like the power armor as a selling point. So finish the railroad dudes and ship the game."

"But sir, our factions are not fleshed out. They are the bare minimum. The game will feel hollow."

"Nonsense. Ship it as is. Let the modders do the work."

[DigoDragon]

Why build your home in the bottom of a hole containing an unexploded bomb?

I had this idea of a scenario for FO3 where the Enclave comes and shoots up the place while looking for you, instead of capturing you at the vault where you get the Garden of Eden kit.

So the idea is you hatch a crazy plan. You get the sheriff to evacuate the townsfolk while you distract the Enclave in a heroic one person stand, forcing them to come into the city. Then, when their forces are busting through the thin rusting sheet metal walls, you fix the bomb in the center and you set it to explode, giving yourself a couple minutes to make your own escape.

The detonation takes out a chunk of soldiers, you get captured, and the people who evacuated Megaton resettle at Minefield, using the mines to their advantage against raiders.

[LibraryOgre]

Bit of a thought exercise:

14 years ago, Bethesda gets their wish, and sets Fallout 3 much sooner after the bombs.

What changes?

TBH, I think the main thing that winds up changing is the name "Brotherhood of Steel".

1) The Enclave still works as an opponent; the American Government in Exile, as it were.
2) Super-mutants still work; East Coast lab was developing their own version.
3) You can still have fragments of the American Military in power armor around, and the split between the "Brotherhood" (who want to be heroes) and the "Outcasts" (who want to control technology).

What else really changes?

[Grim Portent]

Not much really, except for having to not include Harold. Though he could be rebranded as a different person easily enough.

I think under those circumstances the Outcasts would be kind of pointless, they only exist as fundamentalists rejecting the Brotherhood's shift in policy. No Brotherhood, no need for that dynamic.

Instead the dynamic could be government loyalists, willing to oppress and subjugate the citizens of the former USA especially mutants on the orders of a branch of the Enclave in communication with the oil rig base, opposed by a group of defectors who want to be heroes even though they're a bit out of their depth with the ghouls and mutants, with the oldest ones remembering what the US was but not all agreeing on what parts were important enough to be worth trying to bring back.

The conflict could also shift to focus more on the superweapons like Liberty Prime, rather than the water purifier. The defectors have Liberty Prime, but it doesn't work properly, as well as one or two other pre-war projects, the loyalists have access to various other prototype superweapons, both are in stalemate while they try to actually get one of the devices working so they can drive the other out completely. In the meantime they're working on two different visions for the wasteland, the loyalists purging mutants and 'communists' and other Enclave/pre-war American goals, the defectors trying to figure out what ghouls actually are and if they can be treated, helping people out regardless of their ideology. Then a vault opens up, and a single person steps out into the harsh unforgiving sun of the nuclear hellscape.

[Cikomyr2]

Not much really, except for having to not include Harold. Though he could be rebranded as a different person easily enough.

I think under those circumstances the Outcasts would be kind of pointless, they only exist as fundamentalists rejecting the Brotherhood's shift in policy. No Brotherhood, no need for that dynamic.

Instead the dynamic could be government loyalists, willing to oppress and subjugate the citizens of the former USA especially mutants on the orders of a branch of the Enclave in communication with the oil rig base, opposed by a group of defectors who want to be heroes even though they're a bit out of their depth with the ghouls and mutants, with the oldest ones remembering what the US was but not all agreeing on what parts were important enough to be worth trying to bring back.

The conflict could also shift to focus more on the superweapons like Liberty Prime, rather than the water purifier. The defectors have Liberty Prime, but it doesn't work properly, as well as one or two other pre-war projects, the loyalists have access to various other prototype superweapons, both are in stalemate while they try to actually get one of the devices working so they can drive the other out completely. In the meantime they're working on two different visions for the wasteland, the loyalists purging mutants and 'communists' and other Enclave/pre-war American goals, the defectors trying to figure out what ghouls actually are and if they can be treated, helping people out regardless of their ideology. Then a vault opens up, and a single person steps out into the harsh unforgiving sun of the nuclear hellscape.

The story of the remnants of the US government going through a civil war in the ruins of Washington DC is such a ****ing awesome thematic idea i now regret it.wasnt what they did.

The world would have felt bigger if we had had that story.

[NeoVid]

Bit of a thought exercise:

14 years ago, Bethesda gets their wish, and sets Fallout 3 much sooner after the bombs.

What changes?

TBH, I think the main thing that winds up changing is the name "Brotherhood of Steel".

The time change that made so much of FO3 not make sense wasn't even necessary, now that we know the BoS formed less than 25 years after the end of the world...

[Rynjin]

The time change that made so much of FO3 not make sense wasn't even necessary, now that we know the BoS formed less than 25 years after the end of the world...

I mean, we've known that since the original game. The guy who founded the BoS was still alive and in charge in Fallout 1.

[Spore]

What changes?

I mean one of my biggest gripes in Fallout's narration will be alleviated. Concrete is a cheap and fast building material. But it rots and breaks up fast. Some with underground tunnels. The subway should be caved in. The concrete buildings should be broken down. There should little aesthetic be left form a pre-war era. Because people rebuild; and rebuild differently. I remember Fallout 1's buildings being more akin to corrugated iron roofs. Walls made of dirt or patched up concrete, single story buildings. That is how it should be.

And conversely 3D Fallouts try to give you a sense of emptiness. A few years or a decade after the bombs, the primary thought should be danger of visible and invisible variety. Predatory animals (and mutant beings) roam the land in an ecosystem not fully balanced yet. Some are vicious to the point of frenzy, some are diseased from having their territory pushed into radiated zones. But all things are hostile. Weather and radiated areas should play a role. Rain pushes radiation in the water, heavy winds make radiation move far.

The primary feeling should not be emptiness, but rather a resurgence of life that is very much threatened from all angles. But I feel at this point I should just play STALKER.

[Mechalich]

And conversely 3D Fallouts try to give you a sense of emptiness. A few years or a decade after the bombs, the primary thought should be danger of visible and invisible variety. Predatory animals (and mutant beings) roam the land in an ecosystem not fully balanced yet. Some are vicious to the point of frenzy, some are diseased from having their territory pushed into radiated zones. But all things are hostile. Weather and radiated areas should play a role. Rain pushes radiation in the water, heavy winds make radiation move far.

The primary feeling should not be emptiness, but rather a resurgence of life that is very much threatened from all angles. But I feel at this point I should just play STALKER.

This was how FO76 initially felt (and to a significant degree still does, outside of a few areas with people tacked on). There's plenty of life, and robots too, but just about everything you meet is trying to kill you. There's even a contrast between pre-war structures that were in use after the war and post-war construction built in new areas - such as the territory reclaimed after the Charleston dam was destroyed. There's even, via the Whitespring, structures built to pre-war luxury standards and fully maintained. So the full gamut is presented.

FO76 also offered greater clarity with regard to how the Fallout setting isn't just one apocalypse but rather a sort of 'rolling apocalypse' produced by the machinations of the extremely corrupt groups controlling the country in the immediate pre-war timeframe. In Appalachia there was an initial period of recovery following the bombs, followed by additional devastation due to war with the raiders, followed by even further loses as the scorched overwhelmed the Brotherhood of Steel and then systematically overran the entire region.

The lore in FO76 really manages to hit the right buttons, aside from a few annoying indulgences like Super Mutants. There's a lot to like about the setting, it's just a shame about the gameplay.

[LibraryOgre]

Even turned down to Very Easy, the Bottling Plant in Nuka World SUCKS.

"Let's fill a place with bull****, super-tough monsters AND the bull****, super-tough robots with giant laser cannons on their heads, who run faster than the player!"

[Cikomyr2]

Even turned down to Very Easy, the Bottling Plant in Nuka World SUCKS.

"Let's fill a place with bull****, super-tough monsters AND the bull****, super-tough robots with giant laser cannons on their heads, who run faster than the player!"

It is endgame content meant to drag out playtime as significantly as possible...

[Grim Portent]

Still less bullet spongy than the late game enemies in FO3/FNV, some of those things took a stupid amount to kill.

My personal beef with the cola plant is that for some reason I find it a pain to find my way around in it.

[Spore]

Even turned down to Very Easy, the Bottling Plant in Nuka World SUCKS.

"Let's fill a place with bull****, super-tough monsters AND the bull****, super-tough robots with giant laser cannons on their heads, who run faster than the player!"

Never done it, but is it meant to adress the "crafting" players like myself? Because my character in crafted and upgraded power armor, a mechanical servant, with upgraded and crafted weapons and a follower in power armor with upgraded weapons is a significant difference from a chill roleplaying build with dogmeat, even if they took the perk that doubles your damage when you're alone.

[Triaxx]

Cola plant really rewards sniper builds.

[LibraryOgre]

Still less bullet spongy than the late game enemies in FO3/FNV, some of those things took a stupid amount to kill.

My personal beef with the cola plant is that for some reason I find it a pain to find my way around in it.

Oh, sweet monkey, some of those Super Mutant Overlords. I remember breaking an assault rifle shooting one of them. Just magazine after magazine till the thing was dead.

As for navigation, it's a bit confusing, partially because it's less linear... all those side passages and employee doors that you can switch through.

I finished the Cola Plant, on Very Easy, once I got power armor. I'm now making my 3 settlements. I am doing it this way SOLELY to get the perks from the Pack and the Disciples (and Gage), then I intend to abandon Gage and just murder the hell out of every ganger in Nuka World. Load up my power armor and power-murder EVERYTHING.

[Triaxx]

I got hilariously lucky in trying an L1 Nuka-world run. There was a legendary gunner with a Bleeding Pipe SMG. Turns out it works on basically everything.

[LibraryOgre]

I got hilariously lucky in trying an L1 Nuka-world run. There was a legendary gunner with a Bleeding Pipe SMG. Turns out it works on basically everything.

That sounds lovely. I wound up just sprinting through the Gunners. They were VERY surprised when I came out, several days and 20 levels later, Overboss of the entirety of Nuka-World, and able to turn their assaultrons against them.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Weapon balancing in FO4 was... not even an afterthought. I can only assume they just... went with whatever numbers they decided on.

For example, what is the difference between a Pipe Pistol with an automatic receiver and an SMG? Answer: About ten pounds of weight and the pipe pistol uses .38 instead of .45 which is way easier and cheaper to get.

Likewise, apparently a handmade rifle is strictly superior to both the assault rifle and the combat rifle. Granted, it's chambered in 7.62 vs 5.56 for the AR or .45/.308 for the CR, but even so, it's kinda silly. I mean, .308 is roughly comparable to 7.62mm (not exactly, don't even start that, but they're both at least .30 cal rounds and while I wouldn't suggest swapping ammo because one has a higher bore pressure than the other, they're still at least comparable), yet the Combat Rifle chambered in .308 does a base 57 damage while the handmade rifle with the advanced receiver is doing 68 damage by base.

So theoretically you can end up with a L1 guy walking into Nuka World and accidentally end up with the best base rifle in the whole game right out of the gate.