Fallout 4 after replaying New Vegas

[Irwin John Finster]

Started playing New Vegas again. I was first amazed at how much dialogue there is in New Vegas after playing Fallout 4. There are so many characters to talk to and they actually have interesting and useful things to say. It's not just talking with them to progress to the next repetitive loot quest.

And then there's the tin cans and other garbage. WOW. I actually had to fight off the instinct to be a garbage collector like in Fallout 4. It really degenerates into a trash collecting simulator. It would be a good addition if it wasn't the prime focus of the game (because let's face it, the prime focus of Fallout 4 is trash collecting and minecraft, not role-playing).

I liked the fact that they found a way to use all those items in a creative way, but after going back to an actual RPG in New Vegas, it is so clear how shallow it is to run around collecting garbage as a major part of the game (and it is major, because there really isn't much else to do since role-playing and story is non-existent).

Fallout New Vegas has a kind of "game of thrones" style focus on political interaction between interesting factions and their larger-than-life characters. Fallout 4 has multiple major factions, and they're all shallow. They exist to give you more repetitive loot quests and then at the very end to choose which faction is the "winner." It just doesn't compare to New Vegas. It's shallow.

I'm simply shocked and the different direction of Fallout 4 compared to its predecessors. I just don't get how the politics, characters, and writing of New Vegas can be so good and those of Fallout 4 can be so shallow.

The world of New Vegas is one I think about when I'm not playing the game. The world of Fallout 4 is sadly not this way. If this is any indication, Elder Scrolls VI is going to be real stupid.

 

[Chud]

You get no arguments out of me. Hell, I'm listening to Dam Nation as I type. I've been itching to head back to NV and revisit the DLCs.

The dumb reason I grabbed Fallout 4 and the season pass was this deluded idea that Fallout 4 would be more of NV. Boy, was I ever wrong. They really need better writers. If only they would hire Chris Avellone, or someone else from the earlier Fallout games. There's enough potential for a good to great Fallout if molded in the right direction. The current state of the series doesn't so much make me mad, as disappointed.

And I greatly agree with you, that the next Elder Scrolls isn't looking good from the direction we're seeing.

 

[Irwin John Finster]

Just gotta say WOW one more time. I cannot believe how lazy Fallout 4 looks in comparison to its predecessors.

Play Fallout 4 for 100 hours then go play Fallout New Vegas or Fallout 3 and you'll see what I mean. That's how you can tell how lazy Fallout 4 really is.

 

[Hassknecht]

Just gotta say WOW one more time. I cannot believe how lazy Fallout 4 looks in comparison to its predecessors.

Play Fallout 4 for 100 hours then go play Fallout New Vegas or Fallout 3 and you'll see what I mean. That's how you can tell how lazy Fallout 4 really is.

Seriously. The amount and depth of the quests, the item variety, the locations, pretty much everything. Even Fallout 3 was better than that.

 

[whirlingdervish]

What's even worse to me is that the story of Fallout 3 doesn't look anywhere near as insane when compared/contrasted with that of Fallout 4. I can forgive a water pump at the mouth of a river all day compared to the makeup and "goals" of the factions in FO4 and the hamfisted binary choices that aren't really choices since you can't really be all that evil.

When you make total shit look good, you're really lowering the writing bar.

 

[aenemic]

Speaks volumes to me personally that I can't recall a single interesting location in Fallout 4. Seriously, it's all a blur and nothing at all stands out to me. Not a single quest, nor dungeon, nor overall location. Well, ok now that I think about it, that highly radioactive wasteland to the southwest was really cool and the only time I felt like I had use for the power armor.

Even Fallout 3 had a handful of memorable moments, and had it's own feel to it. Fallout 4 just felt so utterly bland and devoid of personality. Every single little piece of the game just felt like it was trying really hard to be the source of its inspiration. Everything about it felt watered down and cheap.

Currently playing The Witcher 3, and it's mindblowing how huge the difference is in writing quality.

 

[Irwin John Finster]

I just played the quest "Come Fly with Me" in New Vegas. You meet so many interesting characters, have interesting decisions and there are multiple subquests within the quests just to get the parts needed for the rockets. And Davison and Antler are hilarious. And when you're done you gain a reputation in Novac. The amount of dialogue alone feels like it amounts to much more than Fallout 4, even if Fallout 4 boasts having more total individual lines of voice acting. You can finish the entire quest in multiple ways and avoid violence to a large extent if you want to.

What starts as a simple request to investigate the REPCONN facility ends up becoming an interesting quest where you meet multiple interacting characters with their own priorities and you even learn a little about the Nightkin and what happened after the Master was destroyed. You end up with the feeling that you had some actual impact in the game world. And this is just one of the side quests in the game. Not even a main quest.

Then I think of how U.S.S. Constitution quest unfolds in Fallout 4. It has a similar background - an eccentric leader needs you to help send him and his crew on some crazy voyage. But it plays out so much simpler. It's a series of fetch quests without the deep character interaction you get with the New Vegas quest, and everything still revolves around the same formula that all the other quests do - "go here, loot this, come back." Sadly this is one of the more "complex" quests in FO4.

 

[Mr_Beardman]

At first I loved Fallout 4 then I awoke from the fallout dream

 

[CerberusGate]

Currently replaying New Vegas in my spare time. For me, what really makes Fallout 4 far worse is how much Bethesda ignored Obsidian's efforts and improvements. The most glaring of this for me at least is the companions and the writing behind them.

While they were always available in the Fallout series (and some were as memorable as Marcus), New Vegas did so much with them. Not only did they add side-quests, they gave them so much depth, complexity and personality that allowed for certain ideas to be explored like Boone (a former NCR soldier suffering PTSD from several distinctly traumatic events), Veronica (a scribe undergoing a crisis of faith when it came to Brotherhood ideology), Raul (a ghoul made world-weary by his experiences but still desiring to be of service), Arcade (a man torn between his past and present) and most of the companions from Dead Money. Even the characters without these dilemmas are made interesting and relate-able through appropriate banter and background writing (I lost an hour debating with myself on whether Lily should take full doses or stay on half-doses of Doc Henry's medicine). Obsidian really improved on companions through quality writing that explored ideas, aided in characterization and made each of them memorable.

In Fallout 4, all we get are simpletons (like Preston) that only use stereotypes as characteristics and each of the human ones are coincidentally bisexuals. Even the more interesting ones like synth-Nick barely have an ounce of depth to them while the rest don't have any. Very little ideas were explored through companion interactions and what little there is felt shallow when compared to New Vegas. The fact that simply unlocking doors or using drugs would be considered as human interaction or flirting was the final straw that made me give up viewing them as actual characters (had to grind for way too long to get MacCready's broken perk so that I could cheese my way through the ending).

After finishing 4, there is no way I could ever force myself to play through Fallout 4 again when that bright shining monument that is New Vegas would be another option.

 

[Irwin John Finster]

Currently replaying New Vegas in my spare time. For me, what really makes Fallout 4 far worse is how much Bethesda ignored Obsidian's efforts and improvements. The most glaring of this for me at least is the companions and the writing behind them.

While they were always available in the Fallout series (and some were as memorable as Marcus), New Vegas did so much with them. Not only did they add side-quests, they gave them so much depth, complexity and personality that allowed for certain ideas to be explored like Boone (a former NCR soldier suffering PTSD from several distinctly traumatic events), Veronica (a scribe undergoing a crisis of faith when it came to Brotherhood ideology), Raul (a ghoul made world-weary by his experiences but still desiring to be of service), Arcade (a man torn between his past and present) and most of the companions from Dead Money. Even the characters without these dilemmas are made interesting and relate-able through appropriate banter and background writing (I lost an hour debating with myself on whether Lily should take full doses or stay on half-doses of Doc Henry's medicine). Obsidian really improved on companions through quality writing that explored ideas, aided in characterization and made each of them memorable.

In Fallout 4, all we get are simpletons (like Preston) that only use stereotypes as characteristics and each of the human ones are coincidentally bisexuals. Even the more interesting ones like synth-Nick barely have an ounce of depth to them while the rest don't have any. Very little ideas were explored through companion interactions and what little there is felt shallow when compared to New Vegas. The fact that simply unlocking doors or using drugs would be considered as human interaction or flirting was the final straw that made me give up viewing them as actual characters (had to grind to for way too long to get MacCready's broken perk so that I could cheese my way through the ending).

After finishing 4, there is no way I could ever force myself to play through Fallout 4 again when that bright shining monument that is New Vegas would be another option.

Yup there is simply no contest when it comes to companions - New Vegas wins.

I get why some companions in Fallout 4 are liked, but in my opinion they are still totally shallow compared to the depth of writing you see with all the companions in New Vegas. Plus they don't have ridiculous "likes" and "dislikes" that contradict their own behavior.

I'm really quicked shocked by this stuff. Playing New Vegas AFTER playing Fallout 4 really makes it so clear how dumbed down and incredibly lazy Fallout 4 really is. And it's not just New Vegas, even Fallout 3 has a lot more going for it in the writing and character department.

 

[Mr muggyman 3000]

In my opinion new Vegas is the sexy experienced MILF who knows exactly how to treat you right, while fallout 4 is her her stupid daughter that can't do jackshit

 

[olestra]

Fallout 4 is trash collecting and minecraft

i kept wondering what to call it; except minecraft probably features a ui right, not just clicky-clicky repetitive stress injury? the console and workshop just feel like watered down dev tools shipped as features. blow the lore entirely, i wish they just called it GECK ("someone make a Fallout out of this, please" or Get Everyone a Crackhouse Kit) ugh this game is punitively tedious.

Spoiler

i still haven't made it through a single one of an embarrassingly large amount of playthroughs of this game

 

[aenemic]

i kept wondering what to call it; except minecraft probably features a ui right, not just clicky-clicky repetitive stress injury?

It's actually an insult to Minecraft to compare it to Fallout 4. Sure, that's likely where they got the idea from, but from what little of Minecraft I've seen (never played it myself), the building and crafting is actually really deep and allows you to build whatever the heck you want (such as a moving submarine or aircraft). Can't really say the same for Fallout 4.

 

[Ragemage]

I've already written so much about New Vegas VS Fallout 4 that I really don't have much to contribute here that's new.

In my opinion new Vegas is the sexy experienced MILF who knows exactly how to treat you right, while fallout 4 is her her stupid daughter that can't do jackshit

Sexy MILF? Do you mean Maude?

Those legs. Also a much better lay than any of the so-called "romances" in FO4.

For that matter I feel like the companions in New Vegas are much better fleshed out because they weren't made with the idea of a romance in mind. They were just meant to be relatable companions who all have fun/interesting personal quests and they actually let you dive into their personality rather than just 1 off-speeches after you've picked a certain amount of locks and computers.

 

[Mr Fish]

Sexy GMILF? Do you mean Maude?

*Fixed

Anyway, yeah FNV is way better as an RPG but whenever I come back to it I am reminded of just how fucking awful it plays. Clunky pip-boy UI that is a chore to get around in, weird stiff movements with enemies and AI, your own weapon sometimes doesn't fire the way you want it too (the FPS mechanics are absurdly bad IMO), the walkathon around the world gets tedious real fast and honestly? By the time that I've done most of the sidequests and the DLC's the little niggling irritations have piled up on me and I feel like I don't even wanna finish the game.

Fallout New Vegas got some truly amazing stuff in it but no matter how good that stuff is it will always be held back by Bethesda's shitty FO3 limitations.

FNV really would've worked better as a isometric turn-based cRPG if you cut away all the pointless fluff of a sandbox world and replaced it with a worldmap. I've played it for over 800 hours in total (Along with 800 hours of FO3, who's core gameplay is identical) and I simply can't stand the gameplay any more. I start up the game and immediately I sigh deeply at what is in front of me.

As bad as Fallout 4 is (in oh so many ways) I can start that game up and actually enjoy myself for a while. Yeah it is mindless pointless dumb fun but at least it is fun. Because it 'plays better'. The UI is still clunky but it is not nearly as clunky as FNV is. The AI still isn't great but god damn if it isn't an improvement over FNV. The shooting mechanics are just straight up improved. And as to grindy enemies? Did any of you fuckers play Old World Blues at a high level? That place is grindy as fuck. FNV aint exempt from that either when it comes to the DLC's.

If we're gonna go with sex parallels then Skyrim is like a fun dumb slut who you can fuck any way you please and she's damn good at it but there is nothing else there to keep you invested, there is absolutely zero depth to her. FNV on the other hand is someone you can have amazing deep discussions with and is just generally pleasant to hang around with but when it comes to sex she's a dead fish and she smells like it too.

Sorry, but a long-term relationship with either of them simply isn't going to work. I'll hook up with the fun dumb slut whenever I want to get my rocks off but the intelligent one? She only wants to talk about stuff post-sex and I ain't touching that rank muff.

 

[Irwin John Finster]

It's actually an insult to Minecraft to compare it to Fallout 4. Sure, that's likely where they got the idea from, but from what little of Minecraft I've seen (never played it myself), the building and crafting is actually really deep and allows you to build whatever the heck you want (such as a moving submarine or aircraft). Can't really say the same for Fallout 4.

Minecraft is great. Making it the focus of a Fallout game is not.

Same with Borderlands. Borderlands is fine by itself but frankly it's a boring, repetitive FPS and could have been so much more. Turning Fallout role-playing games into that is abomination.

 

[Risewild]

Minecraft is great. Making it the focus of a Fallout game is not.

Same with Borderlands. Borderlands is fine by itself but frankly it's a boring, repetitive FPS and could have been so much more. Turning Fallout role-playing games into that is abomination.

Also Borderlands games are focused on co-op, which was the only times I had fun playing them... This is a big flaw in Bethesda's plans because Fallout 4 is single player, so not only just copies the boring parts of Borderlands, it also copies them badly...

 

[Hassknecht]

I wouldn't even mind the settlement system too much if they hadn't used to to basically justify not making any proper settlements of their own. Seriously, how many actually fleshed out settlements/locations are there in Fallout 4?
Actual civilian settlements:
- Diamond City
- Bunker Hill
- Goodneighbour
Faction HQs:
- The Institute
- Railroad HQ
- BoS Airfield
Then there are few pre-existing settlements like Abernathy Farm and Graygarden, but the vast majority of locations are all dependent on the player building stuff
Take the Quincy ruins for example. A really cool location with a nice walled city center and a lot of nice space on the highway that would be even more secure in case of attack. Could have been been a really cool location. But no, you can't drive the Gunners out and let the Minutemen (once back to strength) or one of the other factions build up a new town there. The Gunners respawn every few days and that's it. Total waste of opportunity, very much like Rivet City in Fallout 3.
That reminds me that the whole "build the Minutemen back up" was a total waste of opportunity as well and half-arsed to boot. For example, what about equipping the Minutement with power armour? There's tons of that shit around, why not make it a quest where you have to find a stash of power armour frames for the Minutemen to refurbish (with their own style of armour plates, why not? I mean, raiders can do that, why not the Minutemen?) so all their protected settlements can have at least one power-armoured Minuteman protecting them? Or use the naked frames for construction, stuff like that.
Have the other factions looking for the armour-stash as well, everyone would be interested in a garage full of power armour (like, a storage bunker for the National Guard or something like that).
But no, you only advance the factions by doing fucking radiant quests.

 

[aenemic]

As bad as Fallout 4 is (in oh so many ways) I can start that game up and actually enjoy myself for a while. Yeah it is mindless pointless dumb fun but at least it is fun. Because it 'plays better'.

I can totally get what you're saying, and I think that was the reason I actually enjoyed the game and tried to stay optimistic and find the good parts when I first played it. It's just such a huge step up from their previous games, ranging from gunplay to animations and overall graphics. No, it's not the prettiest game, but compared to Fallout 3/NV it's fucking beautiful.

But that's just further proof to me that it's actual content that matters. I will keep coming back to NV, even though I've played it to death and know it inside-out, and won't find much new stuff. But it's a coherent game world with interesting things happening in it, and I will replay it just as I will rewatch my favorite movies or tv series no matter how badly they have aged. But just looking at some Fallout 4 footage right now, I can get a slight urge to play it based solely on it looking good, gameplay and graphics-wise. A few seconds later I start thinking about the actual game and how utterly bored I was last time I played, and the urge is gone.

Anyway, judging from comments on YouTube in regards to the dlc news, it looks like people are pretty pissed off. I would be absolutely fucking furious if I had purchased the season pass, even if I had enjoyed the base game. That much money for only two proper dlc's with new content, and the rest bullshit stuff that modders have already made. I just cannot fathom why Bethesda thinks it's a good idea to make their own content that straight up competes with what modders do. They obviously realize how important mods are for their games, so why in the world are they not focusing on providing what modders can't?

 

[Irwin John Finster]

This is getting more ridiculous the further I get into New Vegas now. The conversations I've had with companions like Veronica, Arcade, and so many others have more interesting content than any character in Fallout 4. I mean the most MINOR character in New Vegas has more thought-provoking dialogue than anything you'll find in FO4.

It's an absolute disgrace that New Vegas is overflowing with such great writing and dialogue and Fallout 4 is basically Fallout for kids by comparison. It really does feel like they intentionally made the writing as stupid as possible with Fallout 4.

I never thought I'd actually be wanting to play Fallout 3 again because it's a better RPG than 4. What a massive fail.