Fallout 4 V24: You're Tied to This Thread Kid, Your Energy - Games

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;49499607]We're gonna have to wait for all DLC to be out to judge that fairly. New Vegas had some lackluster elements that were fixed by DLC, and so did Fallout 3. It's unfair to compare Fallout 4 right now to the previous installments.[/QUOTE] The modular nature of the Fallout DLC's makes the statement "New Vegas had some lackluster elements that were fixed by DLC" very hard to swallow. The same with Fallout 3. The only place I feel this is relevant is with Broken Steel. Otherwise, simply saying that more content (which is what the DLCs offered for the most part) 'fixed' lackluster elements is incredibly strange to me. What lackluster elements were fixed by the DLCs? Were there any gameplay changes or alterations to the mechanics, or just more quests, guns and loot? When I come to think of it, I suppose some mechanics were made more useful with the addition of the extra perks in the DLC, but I honestly can't think of much else.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;49499607]We're gonna have to wait for all DLC to be out to judge that fairly. New Vegas had some lackluster elements that were fixed by DLC, and so did Fallout 3. It's unfair to compare Fallout 4 right now to the previous installments.[/QUOTE] not really though? No matter what they do in DLC, the story is pretty shit, the quests are all shooting galleries, the dialogue is lackluster, your choices throughout character creation and the development of your character has next to no purpose beyond combat, and it's severely lacking in what's one of the most core elements of any main Fallout game, namely player choices, and the consequences [sp]some might say the fallout[/sp]of them.

There are some story arcs in New Vegas that went nowhere until you got the DLC. The Burned Man, Elijah and most importantly Ulysses were all mentioned repeatedly, hinted at being important, but never actually showed up until DLC came out to rectify that and further develop the characters. These same DLC add some mechanics that were lacking in the original game, such as being able to reroll your talents, some previously faction-exclusive gear made available to all factions (the riot gear comes to mind), and a lot more variety to the weapons available to the player (GRA adding non-unique variants of a ton of weapons previously only obtainable as non-modifiable unique weapons).

Maybe I'm just a sucker with simple tastes, but, if nothing else, I love FO4 for being a fun post-apocalyptic shooter.

[QUOTE=Hatley;49499638]Maybe I'm just a sucker with simple tastes, but, if nothing else, I love FO4 for being a fun post-apocalyptic shooter.[/QUOTE] Despite what some people like to say, it's still an RPG. It's just not trying to push the same buttons as New Vegas (it does have the same design goals as Fallout 3 and manages to achieve these goals a lot better).

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;49499637]There are some story arcs in New Vegas that went nowhere until you got the DLC. The Burned Man, Elijah and most importantly Ulysses were all mentioned repeatedly, hinted at being important, but never actually showed up until DLC came out to rectify that and further develop the characters. These same DLC add some mechanics that were lacking in the original game, such as being able to reroll your talents, some previously faction-exclusive gear made available to all factions (the riot gear comes to mind), and a lot more variety to the weapons available to the player (GRA adding non-unique variants of a ton of weapons previously only obtainable as non-modifiable unique weapons).[/QUOTE] I wouldn't say that foreshadowing really counts as lackluster elements. As far as I'm aware, while characters and plot points like Graham, Elijah and Ulysses were all planned to be in the base game, their relegation to DLC plots were pretty clear by the time the game released. I actually think this is pretty clever, considering Fallout 3 DLCs kind of felt like they came out of nowhere, although were similarly foreshadowed, like the slavers of Paradise Falls outsourcing slaves to the Pitt. As far the supposed mechanics, well...they're loot. Gaining access to armor, even faction-exclusive, isn't exactly a new mechanic, and GRA is just adding more guns. I'm not sure if adding the same gun models to the same modification system as was in the base game is particularly note-worthy.I suppose you have a point with the portable tent item added in lonesome road, though I feel like it's only a technicality, since it is just another usable item. (Upon rereading your post I realized you actually said talents and not tents. Woops. I still don't think it's a note-worthy mechanical change to the base game, more of a reward from completing the DLC.) When you said New Vegas had lackluster elements fixed by DLC, I figured you were meaning more mechanic based elements. Like balance, for example, or some of the skills lacking in features. Apart from maybe the survival skill getting some attention in the way of perks in DM and LR, I can' t think of any notable examples of this.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;49499637]There are some story arcs in New Vegas that went nowhere until you got the DLC. The Burned Man, Elijah and most importantly Ulysses were all mentioned repeatedly, hinted at being important, but never actually showed up until DLC came out to rectify that and further develop the characters. These same DLC add some mechanics that were lacking in the original game, such as being able to reroll your talents, some previously faction-exclusive gear made available to all factions (the riot gear comes to mind), and a lot more variety to the weapons available to the player (GRA adding non-unique variants of a ton of weapons previously only obtainable as non-modifiable unique weapons).[/QUOTE] You know half the time I have no idea what in the fuck you are trying to talk about.

While I agree with what everyone else says about the lacklustre story, shooting gallery enemies and repetitive quests, I do have to say that I have actually [i]liked[/i] playing the game. I haven't personally been disappointed with much, but I suppose that's because I never rollplayed games to begin with. Even when I replay 3/NV I tend to make the same choices each time, so a lack of options in 4 didn't phase me much. I also treated most quests in a "Shoot all your problems" way :v: That's just a me thing, though. I do think it feels less Fallout-y than previous games. Though I've had more fun exploring the world in 4 tbh.

[QUOTE=WillerinV1.02;49499657]When you said New Vegas had lackluster elements fixed by DLC, I figured you were meaning more mechanic based elements. Like balance, for example, or some of the skills lacking in features. Apart from maybe the survival skill getting some attention in the way of perks in DM and LR, I can' t think of any notable examples of this.[/QUOTE] No it's just that the game outright missed some aspects of the plot and the DLCs rectified that. The experience wasn't complete until all the DLC came along, which also introduced some additional elements that the fans wanted. Bethesda's DLC also tends to fix some stuff people felt were lacking, but it's not the same things. The end result is however the same, the game is only truly finished and can be fully evaluated a good year after its original release. The point being, people are comparing Fallout 4's current experience (with no DLCs) to the full experience they had with all DLCs included with Fallout 3 and New Vegas, which isn't exactly fair.

The Pitt was great, but IMO it didn't make Fallout 3's base game better in anyway.

[QUOTE=UnidentifiedFlyingTard;49499704]The Pitt was great, but IMO it didn't make Fallout 3's base game better in anyway.[/QUOTE] It made the motivations of Lyons a lot more clear and understandable in retrospect. Same deal as meeting Elijah after hearing so much about him in vanilla NV. It helps put in perspective the events of the vanilla game.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;49499695]No it's just that the game outright missed some aspects of the plot and the DLCs rectified that. The experience wasn't complete until all the DLC came along, which also introduced some additional elements that the fans wanted. Bethesda's DLC also tends to fix some stuff people felt were lacking, but it's not the same things. The end result is however the same, the game is only truly finished and can be fully evaluated a good year after its original release.[/QUOTE] You know, I generally can level with you with a lot of your posts, despite not agreeing with you [del]all[/del] a lot of the time, but I don't understand how you can say that the experience wasn't complete until the DLC came along just because the base game drops references to what the DLC would contain. It just sounds silly to me. Like, if they [I]didn't[/I] include the few terminals, dialogue options and graffiti that foreshadowed the DLC elements, suddenly those elements would no longer be lackluster and all the DLC that gets released is no longer "fixing the lackluster base game."

[QUOTE=WillerinV1.02;49499710]You know, I generally can level with you with a lot of your posts, despite not agreeing with you all the time, but I don't understand how you can say that the experience wasn't complete until the DLC came along just because the base game drops references to what the DLC would contain. It just sounds silly to me. Like, if they [I]didn't[/I] include the few terminals, dialogue options and graffiti that foreshadowed the DLC elements, suddenly those elements would no longer be lackluster.[/QUOTE] It's pretty well accepted that both Fallout 3 and New Vegas had a lot of cut content which ended up reused in the DLC. As such, the experience that the developers wanted the players to have is the one with all the DLCs (or at least major DLC like Broken Steel and Lonesome Road), because it actually finishes up things that had to be removed or severely altered to fit in time constraints. It's not a situation where the developers managed to fully finish a game and then decided to drop some completely original content. At least with Broken Steel and Lonesome Road, the intent of the developers was to actually finish the game proper, several months after it was actually finished. This means that the full experience is with DLCs, since the base game is retroactively lacking some crucial plot elements. [editline]10th January 2016[/editline] Also part of my original point, the problems that people have with the game as of now may be fixed in future DLC, the same way some issues with the previous games (unfinished plot threads, cut content, absence of certain mechanics) were fixed with DLC. Therefore, judging the vanilla experience to games that had up to a year of post-release content made for them is unfair.

I don't think the DLC will fix peoples issues with its plot/story, writing and gameplay mechanics.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;49499718]It's pretty well accepted that both Fallout 3 and New Vegas had a lot of cut content which ended up reused in the DLC. As such, the experience that the developers wanted the players to have is the one with all the DLCs (or at least major DLC like Broken Steel and Lonesome Road), because it actually finishes up things that had to be removed or severely altered to fit in time constraints.[/QUOTE] I can kind of understand your argument for it being essentially cut content being re-purposed for DLC, but as I said before, Fallout 3 and NV's DLC's are so...[I]modular.[/I] Fallout 3's were entirely removed from eachother and NV's all followed the same theme with one character's arc being told throughout. [I]Because[/I] New Vegas's DLCs are story heavy, and [I]because[/I] they're linked up, I guess that it would technically count as a storyline or thematic narrative that the developers originally wanted to convey to the player, but I feel it's so unfair to say that the exclusion of those stories impacted the base game, or at worse made the elements lackluster. Again, what if they never had those elements in the base game, but also never released the DLC either. New Vegas would still be the amazing game that it is, and you'd probably get scoffed at for saying that your base game experience was ruined by never having met Ulysess or not finding out the backstory to Elijah. You'd still would have experienced all the storytelling and narrative purpose the game set out to convey. They deliberately separated the storylines of the DLC from the main storyline for this reason, I feel. Lonesome Road is the only one that really comes close to interacting with the powers at play in the Mojave, and because of this playing it out of it's intended order can induce a real sense of narrative dissonance. In that case, I would say that the original elements of the base game are actually hampered by the DLC. You couldn't even make your argument for Fallout 3 at all, though. The modular DLC adventures add nothing to expand the game outside of item and perk based content, and Broken Steel seemed more like an intentional business decision than cut content re-implemented.

[QUOTE=UnidentifiedFlyingTard;49499741]I don't think the DLC will fix peoples issues with its plot/story, writing and gameplay mechanics.[/QUOTE] Broken Steel fixed up a lot of problems with the ending of Fallout 3. If you look at other companies entirely, Bioware outright fixed up Mass Effect 3's ending with free DLC. It's not out of the question that they may fix shit up.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;49499753]Broken Steel fixed up a lot of problems with the ending of Fallout 3. If you look at other companies entirely, Bioware outright fixed up Mass Effect 3's ending with free DLC. It's not out of the question that they may fix shit up.[/QUOTE] Yeah but what about the rest of the story? Fallout 3's ending was the least of its story problems.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;49499718]Also part of my original point, the problems that people have with the game as of now may be fixed in future DLC, the same way some issues with the previous games (unfinished plot threads, cut content, absence of certain mechanics) were fixed with DLC. Therefore, judging the vanilla experience to games that had up to a year of post-release content made for them is unfair. [/QUOTE] I just feel you're [I]reeeaallly[/I] stretching when you say that the base game of Fallout 3 and New Vegas were significantly improved by the DLC. If you're insisting that storylines and narratives that were originally going to be in the base game count as "lackluster elements that need expanding", you still don't have an awfully strong case to say that issues of the previous games were fixed by DLC, because in most cases they weren't. Game mechanics stayed buggy and broken, central systems weren't expanded upon and balance always stayed broken as hell, and only got worse with the DLC. The DLCs were about adding more content that used the base game system. More guns, quests and general content to consume. I think it's perfectly fine to judge the vanilla experience of Fallout 4, because I generally compare it to the vanilla experience of 3 and New Vegas. The DLCs added nothing worth of substance to 3, not even broken steel in my opinion, and New Vegas's DLCs were entirely separate experiences that served as a separate storyline running parallel to the original game.

I'd love if one of the DLCs brings back Fawkes or maybe another super mutant companion. I like how I can put different sets of armors on strong but he's such a whiny asshole that I don't want to travel with him.

[QUOTE=-Iker-;49499782]I'd love if one of the DLCs brings back Fawkes or maybe another super mutant companion. I like how I can put different sets of armors on strong but he's such a whiny asshole that I don't want to travel with him.[/QUOTE] Imagine [url=http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Uncle_Leo]Uncle Leo[/url] randomly wandering around to be a companion. It'd be a nice call back to 3 and it makes sense because he's a wanderer. [editline]10th January 2016[/editline] Though Uncle Leo is a pacifist so he's probably not what most people want from a Super Mutant companion.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;49499753]Broken Steel fixed up a lot of problems with the ending of Fallout 3. If you look at other companies entirely, Bioware outright fixed up Mass Effect 3's ending with free DLC. It's not out of the question that they may fix shit up.[/QUOTE] I like that you used Bioware's Extended Cut DLC as an example of how possible DLC could patch up issues with the story and ending, because I think it's a perfect counter point. Regardless of how you feel about that extended cut ending in ME3, it's undeniably better than the illogical trash they gave us originally. This is [I]good.[/I] I still think the ending is terrible, but most people are content. Unfortunately, Mass Effect 3 still suffered from an undeniable narrative dissonance compared to the rest of the series, a consequence of having completely different writers by that point, and regardless of the ones opinions on the quality of the writing, the extended cut ending still serves as an incredibly unsatisfying ending to the series. The extended ending made the original ending logical, concise, and tied up loose plot points of the third game. But the third game in its entirety was fundamentally designed to fail in conveying the ending of the original story the first two titles set out to tell. This is what people mean what they say the ending to Mass Effect 3 was bad, and the extended cut ending didn't fix that. This is what I'm worried will happen with Fallout 4. The best they could do to address the complaints with the storyline is to add some sort of extended ending DLC. Maybe one of the expansion packs will add an actual, traditional fallout style slideshow. But that's about all they can do. Bethsedas too modular with their DLC, and I can't see them overhauling a significant portion of their storyline to address some of the most common complaints, only adding more quests, guns and locations to explore. DLC can't fixed what is fundamentally broken. Whether or not you consider Fallout 4 "broken" is up to you, I myself wouldn't go that far, but we can be rest assured that the experience in terms of dialogue interactions and story telling is going to be more or less the same, couple of DLC packs or not. [editline]10th January 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=-Iker-;49499782]I'd love if one of the DLCs brings back Fawkes or maybe another super mutant companion. I like how I can put different sets of armors on strong but he's such a whiny asshole that I don't want to travel with him.[/QUOTE] If DLC companions is a thing, I definitely hope we get another super mutant of some kind. I love strong in a love-to-hate sorta way, but he is kinda boring.

[QUOTE=-Iker-;49499782]I'd love if one of the DLCs brings back Fawkes or maybe another super mutant companion. I like how I can put different sets of armors on strong but he's such a whiny asshole that I don't want to travel with him.[/QUOTE] [I]"Stop fiddling. Smash!"[/I]

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;49499718]It's pretty well accepted that both Fallout 3 and New Vegas had a lot of cut content which ended up reused in the DLC. As such, the experience that the developers wanted the players to have is the one with all the DLCs (or at least major DLC like Broken Steel and Lonesome Road), because it actually finishes up things that had to be removed or severely altered to fit in time constraints. It's not a situation where the developers managed to fully finish a game and then decided to drop some completely original content. At least with Broken Steel and Lonesome Road, the intent of the developers was to actually finish the game proper, several months after it was actually finished. This means that the full experience is with DLCs, since the base game is retroactively lacking some crucial plot elements.[/QUOTE] in what way are the NV DLC's plot elements crucial? it only actually involves the main game's plot at the end of Lonesome Road, aside from that they just cross incidentally (Ulysses being the former courier, Elijah causing the current BoS situation) as any story realistically would when it takes place within a larger world. this is such a bizarre complaint

[QUOTE=LolzMan1325;49496735]Okay I'm just gonna say it: I hate how weapon modding is a substitute for weapons. Like I'm not saying I hate the new weapon crafting system, I'm saying I hate that because of how modifiable weapons are now there are now less actual different weapons. I miss things like pump shotguns, SMGs of different calibers, heavy pistols that aren't magnums, things like that.[/QUOTE] It would work a lot better if more mods changed the appearance of weapons (which was possibly the original aim before content was cut.) For instance, no matter what receiver you put on a gun it will always look the same. Even if you fully upgrade a pipe rifle with a "powerful automatic receiver" it's still a rusty tube with a block of wood screwed on. Imagine if the upgrade gave it a polished iron pipe and smooth, varnished wood. Maybe then people wouldn't discard pipe guns as soon as they find something better looking.

[QUOTE=TheRealRudy;49499583]the gunplay? yes. the voice acting? i suppose, it was pretty great in all games. the characters? yeah most are pretty great. the story, the quests, the entire roleplaying aspect? so fucking shit, this isn't fallout, this is an open world exploration based shooter with some very minor gimped rpg "elements" thrown over it. it sure made some improvements over f3 and even nv, but that's only in things like the gunplay, crafting, armor system, power armor system, etc. although i really enjoyed the previous artstyle, i think this one is miles better and very fitting for fallout. fallout 4's story was interesting and miles better than f3, up to the point where you meet the institute and it starts to shit itself. even fallout 3, despite it flaws, made more sense than this illusion of choice you have at f4's ending, and that ending cinematic is just fucking insulting. nv meanwhile however is still miles and miles above story wise. everything that made fallout stand apart from other rpgs, deep focus on character roleplaying, actual choice that impact the world, the dialog options that you can influence with your character's stats (which also all, skills perks and traits, have been gimped into this "streamlined" insulting perk chart which is just utter shit compared to the previous changing), all that stuff has been thrown out of the window in favour of "moving the series forward". i'll say you, put f3 and nv in f4's engine with all its features so you can only compare the actual content of the game to previous games, like quests and such, and you'll see what the better game is. spoiler nv is the best out of the three, dubble spoiler even fallout 3, the black sheep of the series, was more of a rpg than fallout 4 really is.[/QUOTE] Voice acting pretty great in all games lmao Have you ever played New Vegas or Fallout 3? It was all voice acted by the same guy. I cannot stand it. But, I suppose (in a perfect world) if they remade Fallout NV on a new engine, it would probably be ten times better then Fallout 4 (and remove the darn orange tint) The ending is a disappointment tho, 'war, war never changes.' I missed the way NV and FO3 did with showing the future due to the actions of your choices. [QUOTE=WillerinV1.02;49499603]"it may be lacking a bit in the rpg department" is a hilarious understatement, "it is miles better than fallout 3 and a tiny bit better than nv" is hilariously misguided and "everyone hates fallout 4" is just hilariously wrong in all seriousness fallout 4 is a fine game, though it's differences make it too far removed from some basic and foundational design principles that made fallout 3 and new vegas the unique gems that they are for them to even be compared, imo even fallout 3 holds its own against fallout 4 in some aspects. while fallout 4 will be an obviously vastly superior game in terms of mechanics and systems, it outright strips down so much "fallout-ness" that it almost feels like an alien game comparatively. i don't think it's fair to compare fallout 4 to 3 and least of all nv.[/QUOTE] Disagree with the everyone hates fallout 4, while that may be a bit exaggerated, look at Metacritic userscore. But lets think of it like this: If you didn't add the Fallout title to it, would it be a good game? Sure, it may not be a Fallout game (which imo I disagree, except for maybe the 'You are a parent!' one.) but would it be a good game? I believe it would be. But the more I read your guys posts, I am starting to think; Fallout 4 may not be a true fallout game, but it is still a RPG ('but, but you have to play as a parent! I guess Witcher 3 doesn't count as a RPG then, you play as Geralt of Rivia.') But I guess you are right, in the 'brekaing off from the design principles' tl;dr [QUOTE=Hatley;49499638]Maybe I'm just a sucker with simple tastes, but, if nothing else, I love FO4 for being a fun post-apocalyptic shooter.[/QUOTE] My opinion. Sure, it may not be a complete RPG, but; its still a great game. Its fun, its creative, and its awesome. IMO I had a better time with FO4 then NV, and its okay if you disagree. Yes, it has its flaws, yes, it isn't perfect. [editline]10th January 2016[/editline] Also, FO3 before broken steel is laughable.

Fallout 4 is a pretty good game, I don't think any of it's elements except the world design for the wasteland are really especially amazing, but it all ties together to become better than the sum of it's parts. That said though, I don't really think it's an especially amazing game, but it's pretty good. As an RPG, it's okayish, I guess, not really especially good, but it isn't outright terrible. And It has more in common with hack-and-slash loot gathering games like Diablo than it does the more plot focused RPGs that the previous Fallout games were. Which brings me to the last point, which is that it's an absolutely terrible sequel to the Fallout franchise. It retains almost no elements that made the series what it is beyond the very basic premise of the setting. As a fan of primarily New Vegas and the original Fallouts, it goes against just about everything that I would want from a Fallout game.

[QUOTE=elowin;49500111]Which brings me to the last point, which is that it's an absolutely terrible sequel to the Fallout franchise. It retains almost no elements that made the series what it is beyond the very basic premise of the setting. As a fan of primarily New Vegas and the original Fallouts, it goes against just about everything that I would want from a Fallout game.[/QUOTE] this reminds me, if everything is now full-on stylized atom/dieselpunk with almost no (real world) 80's or 90's influences, how are Obsidian gonna reconcile that with the Fo2 style aesthetic they used in New Vegas? like there's pretty much no real world guns anymore for starters

[QUOTE=Cone;49500241]this reminds me, if everything is now full-on stylized atom/dieselpunk with almost no (real world) 80's or 90's influences, how are Obsidian gonna reconcile that with the Fo2 style aesthetic they used in New Vegas? like there's pretty much no real world guns anymore for starters[/QUOTE] hopefully, they'll just do it. or undo it, depending on how you see it

I'm really not getting my hopes up for dlc. Maybe dlc will come out and it will be excellent, in which case ill be pleasantly surprised. But im thinking it's far more likely we will get a lame memory den simulation with no lasting impact on the story or world, or ~OH NO THE ZEATONS ARE ATTACKING EARTH! turns out the world was nuked by aliens! here's a short quest-line and some radiant quests where you infinitely drive back the aliens and save the wasteland!.

Just like Fallout 3. Fallout 4 I feel was just trying to appeal to a more broader audience. And I think that is why the RPG elements were toned down and the whole "Everything must end violently no peace allowed" was added.