Main Problem with Fallout 4

[Ziggy Stardust]

Be respectful. This is not a “Fuck Bethesda!” thread. It is constructive criticism of Fallout 4. Vote for what you think is the biggest problem, feel free to leave your justification in the comments. If your answer is not listed, comment it and I’ll add it.

 

[R.Graves]

Almost all of it is to do with writing. Lack of consistency. Lack of good ideas. Lack of writing talent. The dialogue wheel was nothing more than extension of this problem.

 

[Octavian]

Almost all of it is to do with writing. Lack of consistency. Lack of good ideas. Lack of writing talent. The dialogue wheel was nothing more than extension of this problem.

I actually disagree. I know this is kind of a chicken and egg problem but I feel like the writing mostly suffered as a result of the game systems.

It’s practically impossible to implement proper choice and consequences and RPG mechanics when you have 4 dialogue options, levelscale everything, have no ways to solve problems with the game systems besides dude shoot them or sneak past them lmao, and whatever the fuck you call the way they butchered the stat system. If it was possible there would likely be a mod that would have done it by now.

Like seriously if someone put a gun to my head and told me to build a good world with a good story with that shit to work with id just tell him to pull the trigger on my sorry ass and hope that Bethesda doesn’t ever touch fallout in the next life

 

[mef]

I feel like the writing mostly suffered as a result of the game systems.

nah, they had a perfectly fine opportunity with fallout 3 and they fucked it up. new vegas had to work with the same mechanics and it turned out good. bethesda made fallout 4's mechanics so simple and limited because they knew they wouldn't need anything more

look at breaking mel out of jail. the dialog with the guard ran like
- [charisma] hi, i'm a friend of mel, could you let him go?
- yeah okay
it's not a matter of game mechanics

 

[Octavian]

nah, they had a perfectly fine opportunity with fallout 3 and they fucked it up. new vegas had to work with the same mechanics and it turned out good. bethesda made fallout 4's mechanics so simple and limited because they knew they wouldn't need anything more

look at breaking mel out of jail. the dialog with the guard ran like
- [charisma] hi, i'm a friend of mel, could you let him go?
- yeah okay
it's not a matter of game mechanics

4 had worse mechanics than 3 tho

 

[SquidWard]

What about the perk system and how shit it was?

 

[Millim]

While I think everything was a problem with F4, it all comes down to ''Poor implementation of of ideas'

There's a few things I like, even love about F4, but my problem is with the pay off.
I like the settlement stuff on paper, but it doesn't work half the time.

I like building my own companion, but items to build said robot are a grind to find.

I feel the android story had potential, but anything interesting was waved away for the sake of simplicity.

The ideas are good, but the execution is rather poor.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Almost all of it is to do with writing. Lack of consistency. Lack of good ideas. Lack of writing talent. The dialogue wheel was nothing more than extension of this problem.

I would agree. It lost a lot of the charm that came with subtlety, the subtlety that made things like Old World Blues so great

 

[Sublime]

The real problem of the game is the linear gameplay. They a had a clear idea in mind for Fallout 4, and It can be summed up with " Kill, Pillage, Build; repeat". All the rest is built around it.

 

[R.Graves]

I would agree. It lost a lot of the charm that came with subtlety, the subtlety that made things like Old World Blues so great

I detect a bit of sarcasm. Did you just use old world blues, a dlc explicitly meant as a throwback to fallout 2s dumb shit and early sci-fi movies as a metric for subtlety in fallout? At any rate the humor in old world blues is miles above "I'm BoJAngLEs tHE MoOn MoNKey"

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I detect a bit of sarcasm. Did you just use old world blues, a dlc explicitly meant as a throwback to fallout 2s dumb shit and early sci-fi movies as a metric for subtlety in fallout? At any rate the humor in old world blues is miles above "I'm BoJAngLEs tHE MoOn MoNKey"

Well, it was somewhat sarcastic, but there is some subtlety in the concepts of Old World Blues. A lot of its political commentary went over my head in my first play through. The same could not be said of Fallout 4.

 

[LovinglyGaslight]

A good deal of things were wrong with Fallout 4. Too bright visually, excessive settlement quests, the dialogue wheel-thing that only a mod can make somewhat acceptable (That or it shows that the options are all actually the same), misses some of that old fallout charm that NV had a perk to encapsulate and 3 still held onto a thread of with things like Mothership Zeta, And plus (Say it with me folks) the outdated as all heck engine that Bethesda needed to retire years ago.
Probably controversially, I'm fine with the Settlement building. I find it fun to do. However 4 put too much emphasis on it. Should've only been a small handful of settlements (Like, 3) and it should've just been considered an extra thing you can do and not something intensely mission integral

 

[SquidWard]

old fallout charm that NV had a perk to encapsulate and 3 still held onto a thread of with things like Mothership Zeta

the outdated as all heck engine that Bethesda needed to retire years ago

I think it's been determined that the engine can work but stacking layers and layers of years of bugs onto each other is not optimal. Gamebryo/Creation is still meh but I don't think the engine is the one to blame here, at least not fully.

it should've just been considered an extra thing you can do and not something intensely mission integral

Yeah, it was too janky and boring to be interesting enough to force on players from time to time.

 

[NMLevesque]

Poor implementation of ideas seems like another way of saying 'all of the above', so I excluded it. To me linear gameplay means weak choice architecture if any. Which is what the dialogue system stems from, and also what the most important part of Fallout is. So that was my pick.

Fully voiced protags aren't a deathknell to choice or good writing, but they certainly aren't optimal. Settlements could have been good, if they weren't the worlds shittiest mashup of the SIMS and Minecraft; great even, if well integrated into the rest of the game (especially lore relating to survival).

My second choice would have been lore, because that's what makes Fallout--Fallout. I guess I prioritize experience or identity, because I would more likely enjoy a game that walks the walk but doesn't talk the talk, than the other way around.

I think it's been determined that the engine can work

How?

Even if it can work, I don't think that means it shouldn't be retired.