Fallout 4

Monogram · Nov 26, 2015, 8:44 PM

Been playing it for awhile, figured I'd ask around for anyone who had been playing and what their thoughts had been.

There has been one thing that I feel has stuck out to me, and that's that I get the sensation that FO4 or NV had more sidequests. And by that, I mean more than just something that'll take a couple minutes to complete, more along the lines of The Replicated Man quest from FO3 or There Stands the Grass and Come Fly With Me from NV in terms of overall quest length.

Hold on, I just counted 81 side quests(which does include companion quests I should point out)in NV(not including DLC). There was 17 in FO3(not including DLCs and I don't believe FO3 companion quests, though I could be mistaken on that). FO4 has 39(including companion quests)

This isn't to say that the sidequests in FO4 are bad, just haven't come across any that immediately memerable, but that's more likely as I'm still playing it and it's still pretty new.

But it does tell me that NV had a crapton more stuff to do in it than I remember. Also that Lonesome Road is to me the best DLC that was put out for a Fallout game.

I suppose I'm not taking account faction sidequests from FO4, because of the main three factions had them, but I suspect most of them are the repeatable kind that can be done over and over. Still, I suppose after counting there's more than what I feel there is.

Also, I wish there was a third person view for when you go into building mode. And more unarmed weapons.

tragedyjones · Nov 27, 2015, 4:12 AM

Lonesome Road isn't as good as Old World Blues.

Also I am on my second play through and am already seeing so many things I missed in my first 72 hour "speed run".

(72 hours of gameplay not over 3 days).

Insomnia · Nov 27, 2015, 4:44 AM

I wish dog armour wasn't so random and hard to find. Meanwhile I have 2 Fatman(s) and still end up shooting Dogmeat because he jumps in front of me and I haven't spent the points to not hurt him yet.

That and the whole settlers on the roof thing.

And if you haven't done so yet, start a new game and don't rush to the vault. You can have multiple saves, it's cool.

Jaded · Nov 27, 2015, 4:01 PM

@Monogram

You do get a lot of repeatable settlement defense quests but I believe there's something like 50 quests that make up the main quest. Every companion has their own quest, notably Piper and Strong have two. And then each Faction has their own series of quest chains depending on factors such as Charisma, Favor with the Faction, and so on, could be another 50+ between them.

Then there are also a lot of random in-world quests that you'll pick up out of no where from just wandering around. An example of this is the awkward escort quest for Billy the Ghoul. Or the two, possibly three, for Pickman.

Also. You can get the best melee weapon in the game by killing the behemoth in Swan Lake.

Deleted · Nov 28, 2015, 4:46 AM

Why would you throw out a spoiler for Swan? That was probably the coolest moment I had in the game; stumbling on that, screaming in real life, and fleeing in a mindless panic.

Thenomain · Nov 28, 2015, 7:07 AM

@Admiral said:

stumbling on that, screaming in real life, and fleeing in a mindless panic.

For me, "that" is a deathclaw. Any deathclaw.

Deleted · Nov 28, 2015, 7:26 AM

I... am not afraid of deathclaws. Thanks to awful pathing in the game you can pretty much avoid ever being hit by a deathclaw by just going up some stairs. Or standing on a ledge.

It might take a lot of ammo to kill them, but my most recent character uses a switchblade exclusively (serrated, of course. It does a ton of damage and attacks a million times) so I have tons and tons and tons of excess ammo to spend.

Melee is really the way to specialize in Fallout 4. My character started out with strength 10 and good endurance/agility and I've yet to run into any trouble or even die accidentally like my gun character seemed to do constantly.

ThatOneDude · Nov 28, 2015, 7:41 AM

@Admiral said:

I... am not afraid of deathclaws. Thanks to awful pathing in the game you can pretty much avoid ever being hit by a deathclaw by just going up some stairs. Or standing on a ledge.

It might take a lot of ammo to kill them, but my most recent character uses a switchblade exclusively (serrated, of course. It does a ton of damage and attacks a million times) so I have tons and tons and tons of excess ammo to spend.

Melee is really the way to specialize in Fallout 4. My character started out with strength 10 and good endurance/agility and I've yet to run into any trouble or even die accidentally like my gun character seemed to do constantly.

I've gotten really into the crafting side of the game and have a blast switching it up between my .50 cal sniper rifle (suppressed of course), plasma rifle, and combat shotgun along with a range of other weapons that fit all situations. Once I figured out veggie starch turns into an adhesive you can use in crafting I was able to make everything I could ever need thanks to the farm I built at my "HQ" in Sanctuary.

All in all I have to say I'm impressed with the game. Most games don't hold my attention for very long. The only other game that's had my attention like Fallout 4 is/was Destiny.

Jaded · Nov 28, 2015, 4:50 PM

@Admiral
I apologize Admiral I didn't really consider giving that away as a spoiler.

Sfire · Nov 28, 2015, 8:59 PM

This post is deleted!

Deleted · Nov 29, 2015, 4:42 AM

I came back to Sanctuary to find everyone standing on the roof of my newly built house. Arms akimbo. Eyes straight ahead.

It was like some creepy, bizarre ritual gone wrong.

Monogram · Nov 29, 2015, 5:05 AM

I'm still trying to figure ways to make every settlement look...for lack of a better word, awesome. But the problem I come into is I either A, run out of steel(because once you open up Spectacle island, you will never run out of wood again, EVER), or B, and this is more common, fill out the size bar.

I hate that thing.

Thenomain · Nov 29, 2015, 7:07 AM

I built Fort Ticonderoga. It was awesome.

Ashen-Shugar · Nov 29, 2015, 11:20 PM

I'm enjoying Fallout 4, and while it has the same feel, more or less to New Vegas, it doesn't seem quite as polished. Granted, it's a hell of a lot more stable, but the overall interaction seems... less thought out.

The user interface is also annoying me. I absolutely loathe that it doesn't mark new notes or messages as unread, when you already have an inventory over-spilling with them it's becoming a trifle irritating to find the one that flashed on your screen for the 1 1/2 seconds as you picked it up.

This is something I appreciated with the Fallout 3/NV series in that it kept things marked as unread until you actually got around to reading them.

Requiring DX 11 also makes me scratch my head some, but meh.

I also dislike that you have such a small space to rename items yet the self-naming with attachments is ridiculously long. I have other irritants with Fallout 4, but overall I find the game pretty enjoyable.

Thenomain · Nov 30, 2015, 1:51 AM

Fallout 4's writing of NPCs is without par. New Vegas' writing of plot is without par. All we need to do is develop New Vegas with the budget of Fallout 4.

tragedyjones · Nov 30, 2015, 2:14 PM

An example of the needless but awesome depth of NPC interactions: Codsworth and the Boborov brother who bartends at the Dugout Inn in Diamond City had a 2-3 minute talk about moonshine as an alternate fuel source.

Thenomain · Dec 17, 2015, 3:21 PM

That's the end?

That's it?!

So lame. So very lame.

Thenomain · Dec 29, 2015, 11:07 PM

Continued, now that time has passed:

I hope there is some kind of ending in a DLC that is more than a nod that you finished what you were told to do from the start of the game because once you're done, that's it, you get a 'you're done' screen and you are dumped back into the game. Like Skyrim, I had no real direction, and the game was so prone to being open-world that it missed giving out the directions. The direction that I wanted to take, the faction I wanted to push into the limelight, was not an option which is ironic since it's the first faction that you are introduced to, the Minutemen.

Otherwise, I can't say that the game has an ending. It tries to have a story, and the story has a definitive moment where it could end (even after being forced into one of three factions I don't really care about), but it doesn't. It even gives you the illusion of post-ending denouement, with missions for that faction based upon the ending, but they don't seem to go anywhere. I've played an extra ten or so hours past the ending and nothing gets resolved. Nothing.

Fallout 4 falls flat in so many ways. I enjoy the game play, but not the game itself. I will try for a Complete Asshole run, but I can tell you right now that I refuse to help the Minutemen any more than I have to, and their greedy surprise-mission bullshit. I am not the only goddamn Minuteman; why can I not delegate?

Ganymede · Dec 29, 2015, 11:38 PM

@Thenomain said:

Otherwise, I can't say that the game has an ending. It tries to have a story, and the story has a definitive moment where it could end (even after being forced into one of three factions I don't really care about), but it doesn't. It even gives you the illusion of post-ending denouement, with missions for that faction based upon the ending, but they don't seem to go anywhere. I've played an extra ten or so hours past the ending and nothing gets resolved. Nothing.

This is the main beef I have with open world games. They always seem to end on a whisper.

Thenomain · Dec 30, 2015, 12:09 AM

Fallout 3 is an open-world game, but it ends. Fallout: New Vegas is an open-world game, but it has direction and pacing and writing and it ends a hell of a lot stronger than most any other game I've played in recent memory.

Fallout 4 seems like a number of smaller games with a loose goal. But screw that goal if you want to play Fallout: The Sims, and by the time you get to the main city you're pretty unrestricted as to where you can survive, unlike FO:NV which if you tried to wander off said, "Hahahahahaha did you want to not be dead because too bad, now you're dead!"

That is, in FO4 and FO:NV, it's open-world but you are directed. FO4 pushes a moral urgency on you from word go (which is fine) then doesn't give a damn about that urgency until a mid-game boss-fight and the end.

Someone once complained in my presence that Fallout was a bad game because your stats dictate your combat skill. Had they not been a terrible troll who would say things like that just to say them, I would have said, "It's an RPG. This is what RPGs do." They force you to act within a series of rules and roles, and this is something that Fallout 4 mainly fails to do.

Incidentally, other little things I liked better in FO:NV, besides a story: Wear and tear on things. Power was explained or nonexistent (screw you working terminals and elevators and lights for no reason, not to mention ever-burning candles). The radiation system (the new one su-uuuuuucks). I think I preferred how rare finding a safe place to sleep was, and in fact scarcity exists barely at all in FO4. I want to like that we have a solid history that leads up to the Fallout world but why was everyone in 2077 still in 1950s styles?

I feel like Fallout 4 had a ton of creativity poured into it but it didn't go far enough. It's the usual list of Super Mutants, Ghouls, and Brotherhood of Steel. This is partially also a complaint of FO3, but they had a chance to branch out here ... and missed.

I liked the game. I liked it a lot. Just ... I don't want this to be what people think Fallout is at its best. It's not.