Where to get into fallout series?

[Cikomyr2]

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]

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]

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]

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.

I mean sure it would be nice if Bethesda got creative with the east coast but they're not gonna. Me I'd keep the Brotherhood as they are in 4 but make it much more explicit that they've basically turned into the new Enclave and are just the overt villains to the Institute's covert.

[Lurkmoar]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

...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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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 and New Vegas 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]

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.