I promised I wasn't going to do this for many reasons, most of the members here already know whats wrong with the game so what good does it do to post it here. On reddit id tank my karma and fail to get a solid discussion as my post spiraled every downward into darkness and on BSGF I would get ignored or end up with more infractions (the very reason i left anyway) for "trolling". I guess I at least want to feel validated or something, im not sure.
This is the point where I tell you, Thar be spoilers ahead and you should turn away now if you don't want to see them as im not going to hide them, they will be fairly far down the post though.
I no real order.
1) The Ui on PC is awful and by extension navigation of the pip boy menu and container inventory as well. The Ui its self when just trudging around works well enough, I like the overlay for power armor but it feels half arsed as it work regardless of wearing any headgear at all, or of any kind. Why would you have a Ui that looks like a power armor helmet layout when not wearing one, or any other helmet at all? It just screams lazy that they didnt tie the overlay to wearing a helmet.
Navigation of the pipboy by either mouse or keyboard was always very finicky as I would often jump several categories at once by mistake or the keys seemed non responsive.
Im going to include keybinding here as well, why of all keys would you map the dialog controls to the arrow keys of all places? Sure you can click the dialog with the mouse but too much mouse movement leads to exiting the "face cam" and half the time I ended up pulling my weapon and shooting the npc in the face. So you either have to move your hand off the mouse to the arrow keys or from the wsad to the arrow keys. What was wrong with mapping it to 1-4 like the mod does? If Bethesda had taken any PC players and asked them about it it could have pointed out and fixed, yet it was left for modders to do the work.
Another gripe is, why is eject core and power attack bound to the same key, and if they can be separated I am not sure how. Another half implemented idea that could have been avoided if Bethesda has bothered to do some beta testing with a few pc gamers, even if they had done it locally by invite.
Also, we need a way to skill dialog ahead at any time.
2) Graphics and performance.
I think the lack of FOV slider should be addressed as well, along with lack of support for 5760X1080 as trying to run the game with eyefinity on leads to fallout 4 sticking to my left screen and refusing to move from it. Its 2015 Bethesda, would it have have really been so hard to give us a FOV slider and some multi monitor support? FFS its 2015 and this is a AAA game.
The games performance is terrible, for me at least on an I7 4770K, R9 390X with latest beta drivers, Windows 7 64 on a primary SSD, Fallout 4 on one of 2 ssds for games only and 16 GB of ram. Any preset above medium and the game chugs at times, settlements are nightmares with drops to sub 20 fps at times. Any time im hop on a BOS transport I have to look up the entire trip, even on medium or else I get to single digit frames.
This is absolutely unacceptable as I have no issues with MGSV TPP maxed out and very little with The Witcher 3 on fairly high settings.
Bethesda really needs to abandon the 2002 engine that Morrowind was made with and get with it.
3) Voice acting is flat as a pancake, very few lines are well delivered like the "rules of baseball" as an example of about the best you can get. The male VA is unbearably bad where as the female has her moments but is only slightly better. The PC often uses recycled lines over and over throughout the game and even then they sometimes sound like they are cut and pasted together instead of recording a new line. The best dialog, acting and delivery comes from a quest that is so out of place in a fallout game its laughable, I am talking about the Silver Shroud quest. Despite feeling so out of place some of the best work was done here IMO, both as a quest and with voice overs.
"Random" missions will repeat the same dialog over and over again regardless of who is giving them to you, sometimes I swear the VA changes between different actors even when talking to the same person, this seems to be an issues mostly with generic npcs giving quest. Id would rather have seen a system like Fallout 1 and 2 has where the PC is silent and only named NPC's who are plot central are voiced.
Ill just leave this here in-case you haven't seen it.
http://imgur.com/a/koaKe
4) Story line and factions.
This is where the game really falls apart, the main story is pathetic and is full of holes and none of the factions interact with the others other than whole sell slaughter. Right off the bat we are thrust into the "traditional" family role and not 5 minutes later we are supposed to care about our spouse getting killed and child getting kidnapped. Really? I dont care about either of them, I never interacted with them in any meaningful way. Bethesda squandered the chance to give us a glimpse of what the world was like before the war, let us go on some activities with your spouse and child and help us feel attached. What if we had gotten to visit starlight drive in and super duper mart before the war? We could have seen what the world was like, or Bethesdas version of it, before the war. Maybe we go to the store and shop a bit, see some news about the riots over the energy crisis and China and catch a movie. They could have let us explore some places prewar and then fade them to black and jump to another. Watch part of the movie at the drive in, visit a park and maybe have a "X days later" where you made plans and then start the trip to the vault.
Nope, game starts and you get some forgettable lines and then the war starts, spouse dies and child gone and then everyone else is killed for no real reason that is never explained.
Not to mention the fact that before FO4 cryo stasis was show not to work.
After starting the game it seems pretty clear that you are supposed to run the main quest right away instead of exploring, a lot of the dialog supports that as you are often told "you dont look like a solider". Really? Im standing here in power armor with a mini gun, how can you even know what I look like?
The main quest never generates any feeling of urgent need.
The plot twist that your child is now 60 and dying never hits home, and we are supposed to "love" this machine child? Again wasted by lazy writing.
So, the Minutemen. The generic good guys who never appear to be doing anything, ever and always wait for you to do it for them besides one or two missions. Why should I support them? Does anyone have a long term plan? Why am I now in charge but taking orders with no way to give any? We should have been able to give orders to help people after we recruited some npcs and took the castle. Why cant we assign patrols, order anyone to do anything, and why does it seem that the entire world is waiting for the player to save it? Instead we are given a endless stream of fetch quests that we cant deny, completing one leads to another and the player is the only one doing anything.
What happens to the faction when the player isnt around to hold the minutemen together.
The BOS at least appears to be doing something in act 2, and they often fly around shooting stuff and looking cool. Sadly they are fairly shallow and all show. This is the only faction that is ever seen doing anything to help everyone without the players involvement. its too bad that they dont have some meaningful quest with the population of the commonwealth, something like trading protection for supplies and manpower, sure its hinted at in the game in some terminal entry but thats it. All you get is a generic "we need food talk to X" quest. Why cant we talk to several farms and setup some deals with them for steady supply of food?
The institute are awful, one way in and one way out with a apparently limitless supply of synths. Instead of doing something to better them selves and the commonwealth all they ever do is piss everyone off and start a panic over synths replacing people. GG Bethesda. They are almost comically ignorant. Why they didnt set up some synth run farms on the surface and trade clean water, food and medicine for things they needed is beyond me. They quite literately control the only way in that leads to a door that is indestructible and easily defended. This could have created a real problem for the player. The BOS wants to destroy them because they are doing some shady stuff but are also generally helping the people out with food, medical treatment and water.
There is no reason that the institute didnt slowly expand and make the commonwealth a better place while providing the above, they have a limitless supply of robot labor and force projection to do it with. If people didnt trust them why didnt they set up a wall, institute stays on one side and traders stay on the other and they trade through a door system like the bank does at the drive through.
The railroad isnt worth my time.
The only faction that can work with any other faction is the minutemen. Why cant we broker a uneasy truce? Why does everything develop into a killing mission? Why would you want to destroy the prydwen or liberty prime? Everything feels rushed and shoehorned in. Why would we want to trust the institute when all they have done is spread fear and mistrust, the minutemen has no plan and the railroad are worried about robots instead of real people who need help.
Its lazy and sloppy writing and I dont want to spend any more time on it.
5) Locations and the map.
Locations often feel half finished, listing post bravo is a prefect example. What did that guy hear? Was he going crazy? Why was that tape blank? Its almost like they half finished one location, started some good idea and then drifted off to another location.
The map is fairly small, it only feels large if you stop at every map marker too look around. That would be fine if more of them turned into interesting locations like the dunwitch in FO3 or the intelligent deathclaws of fallout 2.
Most of the map just feels like it was created to make a shooting gallery for the player. It also seems that for every farmer/friendly NPC we see about 15 raiders or ghouls whose only purpose is to wait for the player to kill them.
There really isnt much to talk about, the game doesnt have a lot of memorable places to go, most are filled with npcs waiting for you to kill them and some of them are just empty.
6)Settlement system.
This is, without a doubt the shining feature of the game. Too bad its half finished, wonky and lacks any sort of UI to actually help you manage anything. Happiness levels drop for no reason despite having more than 30 beds, more defense than the institute and enough water to supply everyone in the game. Junk fences cant be clipped or joined by the player, but Bethesda does all the time leaving the player with fence with gaps in it, or just using the shack foundation and metal walls instead, since they, you know, work, and snap to each other.
It really feels like you are just supposed to plop some premade shacks down throw turrets in random places, plop beds and some water/food and leave. Enemies often spawn inside your walls anyway, so they are pointless and just for show. This could have been something neat, instead its just another half finished idea that is wonky at best. It really needs a settlement UI or control center so that you can assign roles to settlers instead of tracking them individually and assigning them individually. You should have been able to assign "farmer", "guard" and "trader" at least and then let the AI sort it out, but I guess thats asking too much of Bethesda and its shoddy AI.
7)AI.
Its not much of an improvement, companions are often more hassle than they are worth, especially since you can carry an unlimited amount of items and weight while still fast traveling and sneaking just fine. Dont mind me, im only carrying over 2,000lbs of junk but I can sneak just as well as a mouse and can travel anywhere in an instant!
The AI often doesnt even look for the player, oh my best bro just had his head blown off? Must be the jet giving me jitters! Really? They rarely move more than a few feet before going back to standing around waiting to die. FFS Bethesda they should at least stop standing out in the open for a while. Any suppressed weapon might as well be cheat mode as 9/10 times the AI is too stupid to move more than 10 feet in any direction. Sometimes I can be within handshake distance and the NPCS still wont react to me while sneaking.
8) Power armor and weapon modding.
Just tossing the lore out the window and rolling with the new power armor, its pretty neat to make your own suit that looks how you want, right down to some special touches and paint. Too bad its EVERYWHERE, raiders have it, its found in lakes and just standing around in the open. Fusion cores are everywhere, by the time I finished the main story I had 92 of them. it turns you into a walking god, and that would be perfectly fine if it had any balancing at all. Instead you can walk in it everywhere. It does add some neat sound effects and the NPC's sometimes notice it (and/or your minigun) for some dialog.
We finally get some solid weapon/armor modding, too bad that the game contains what feels like 10 weapons in varying configurations and weapon and armor health are gone. This could have been something great if they had improved on the weapon/armor health and simply gave it a on/off menu setting for anyone who didint want to deal with it.
9) The Gunners/other npcs.
Replaced talon mercs for generic enemies who are never explained. Ghouls are now more akin to 28 days later than say Harold or the ghouls from the first 2 fallout games. Super mutants are still out of place. The assaultron doesn't really fit with what we know of the lore, they just seem to be shoehorned in. Why have Power armor and risk human lives when you can send in the assaultron that is faster and quieter?
In closing, since I dont want to waste anymore time on this, not touching on terrible companions and some other issues.
The game is plagued by half issues, mods for previous games do it better, namely Willow and Project Nevada. A lot of good ideas that are half finished, locations that are lackluster, dialog that is bland and uninspiring. Voice acting is mostly flat and detracts from the game. The main quest feels disjointed, rough and out of place.
Its a thoroughly average game, plagued with half finished ideas. Exploring can be fun, sometimes Bethesda pulls some solid environmental story telling out. Its not a very good RPG, its not a very good Fallout game, its an average at best shoot and loot and the story line is a let down. I got my $60 worth but I am glad I didnt get the season pass, both NV and Fallout 3 do it better in almost every way.
This is the point where I tell you, Thar be spoilers ahead and you should turn away now if you don't want to see them as im not going to hide them, they will be fairly far down the post though.
I no real order.
1) The Ui on PC is awful and by extension navigation of the pip boy menu and container inventory as well. The Ui its self when just trudging around works well enough, I like the overlay for power armor but it feels half arsed as it work regardless of wearing any headgear at all, or of any kind. Why would you have a Ui that looks like a power armor helmet layout when not wearing one, or any other helmet at all? It just screams lazy that they didnt tie the overlay to wearing a helmet.
Navigation of the pipboy by either mouse or keyboard was always very finicky as I would often jump several categories at once by mistake or the keys seemed non responsive.
Im going to include keybinding here as well, why of all keys would you map the dialog controls to the arrow keys of all places? Sure you can click the dialog with the mouse but too much mouse movement leads to exiting the "face cam" and half the time I ended up pulling my weapon and shooting the npc in the face. So you either have to move your hand off the mouse to the arrow keys or from the wsad to the arrow keys. What was wrong with mapping it to 1-4 like the mod does? If Bethesda had taken any PC players and asked them about it it could have pointed out and fixed, yet it was left for modders to do the work.
Another gripe is, why is eject core and power attack bound to the same key, and if they can be separated I am not sure how. Another half implemented idea that could have been avoided if Bethesda has bothered to do some beta testing with a few pc gamers, even if they had done it locally by invite.
Also, we need a way to skill dialog ahead at any time.
2) Graphics and performance.
I think the lack of FOV slider should be addressed as well, along with lack of support for 5760X1080 as trying to run the game with eyefinity on leads to fallout 4 sticking to my left screen and refusing to move from it. Its 2015 Bethesda, would it have have really been so hard to give us a FOV slider and some multi monitor support? FFS its 2015 and this is a AAA game.
The games performance is terrible, for me at least on an I7 4770K, R9 390X with latest beta drivers, Windows 7 64 on a primary SSD, Fallout 4 on one of 2 ssds for games only and 16 GB of ram. Any preset above medium and the game chugs at times, settlements are nightmares with drops to sub 20 fps at times. Any time im hop on a BOS transport I have to look up the entire trip, even on medium or else I get to single digit frames.
This is absolutely unacceptable as I have no issues with MGSV TPP maxed out and very little with The Witcher 3 on fairly high settings.
Bethesda really needs to abandon the 2002 engine that Morrowind was made with and get with it.
3) Voice acting is flat as a pancake, very few lines are well delivered like the "rules of baseball" as an example of about the best you can get. The male VA is unbearably bad where as the female has her moments but is only slightly better. The PC often uses recycled lines over and over throughout the game and even then they sometimes sound like they are cut and pasted together instead of recording a new line. The best dialog, acting and delivery comes from a quest that is so out of place in a fallout game its laughable, I am talking about the Silver Shroud quest. Despite feeling so out of place some of the best work was done here IMO, both as a quest and with voice overs.
"Random" missions will repeat the same dialog over and over again regardless of who is giving them to you, sometimes I swear the VA changes between different actors even when talking to the same person, this seems to be an issues mostly with generic npcs giving quest. Id would rather have seen a system like Fallout 1 and 2 has where the PC is silent and only named NPC's who are plot central are voiced.
Ill just leave this here in-case you haven't seen it.
http://imgur.com/a/koaKe
4) Story line and factions.
This is where the game really falls apart, the main story is pathetic and is full of holes and none of the factions interact with the others other than whole sell slaughter. Right off the bat we are thrust into the "traditional" family role and not 5 minutes later we are supposed to care about our spouse getting killed and child getting kidnapped. Really? I dont care about either of them, I never interacted with them in any meaningful way. Bethesda squandered the chance to give us a glimpse of what the world was like before the war, let us go on some activities with your spouse and child and help us feel attached. What if we had gotten to visit starlight drive in and super duper mart before the war? We could have seen what the world was like, or Bethesdas version of it, before the war. Maybe we go to the store and shop a bit, see some news about the riots over the energy crisis and China and catch a movie. They could have let us explore some places prewar and then fade them to black and jump to another. Watch part of the movie at the drive in, visit a park and maybe have a "X days later" where you made plans and then start the trip to the vault.
Nope, game starts and you get some forgettable lines and then the war starts, spouse dies and child gone and then everyone else is killed for no real reason that is never explained.
Not to mention the fact that before FO4 cryo stasis was show not to work.
After starting the game it seems pretty clear that you are supposed to run the main quest right away instead of exploring, a lot of the dialog supports that as you are often told "you dont look like a solider". Really? Im standing here in power armor with a mini gun, how can you even know what I look like?
The main quest never generates any feeling of urgent need.
The plot twist that your child is now 60 and dying never hits home, and we are supposed to "love" this machine child? Again wasted by lazy writing.
So, the Minutemen. The generic good guys who never appear to be doing anything, ever and always wait for you to do it for them besides one or two missions. Why should I support them? Does anyone have a long term plan? Why am I now in charge but taking orders with no way to give any? We should have been able to give orders to help people after we recruited some npcs and took the castle. Why cant we assign patrols, order anyone to do anything, and why does it seem that the entire world is waiting for the player to save it? Instead we are given a endless stream of fetch quests that we cant deny, completing one leads to another and the player is the only one doing anything.
What happens to the faction when the player isnt around to hold the minutemen together.
The BOS at least appears to be doing something in act 2, and they often fly around shooting stuff and looking cool. Sadly they are fairly shallow and all show. This is the only faction that is ever seen doing anything to help everyone without the players involvement. its too bad that they dont have some meaningful quest with the population of the commonwealth, something like trading protection for supplies and manpower, sure its hinted at in the game in some terminal entry but thats it. All you get is a generic "we need food talk to X" quest. Why cant we talk to several farms and setup some deals with them for steady supply of food?
The institute are awful, one way in and one way out with a apparently limitless supply of synths. Instead of doing something to better them selves and the commonwealth all they ever do is piss everyone off and start a panic over synths replacing people. GG Bethesda. They are almost comically ignorant. Why they didnt set up some synth run farms on the surface and trade clean water, food and medicine for things they needed is beyond me. They quite literately control the only way in that leads to a door that is indestructible and easily defended. This could have created a real problem for the player. The BOS wants to destroy them because they are doing some shady stuff but are also generally helping the people out with food, medical treatment and water.
There is no reason that the institute didnt slowly expand and make the commonwealth a better place while providing the above, they have a limitless supply of robot labor and force projection to do it with. If people didnt trust them why didnt they set up a wall, institute stays on one side and traders stay on the other and they trade through a door system like the bank does at the drive through.
The railroad isnt worth my time.
The only faction that can work with any other faction is the minutemen. Why cant we broker a uneasy truce? Why does everything develop into a killing mission? Why would you want to destroy the prydwen or liberty prime? Everything feels rushed and shoehorned in. Why would we want to trust the institute when all they have done is spread fear and mistrust, the minutemen has no plan and the railroad are worried about robots instead of real people who need help.
Its lazy and sloppy writing and I dont want to spend any more time on it.
5) Locations and the map.
Locations often feel half finished, listing post bravo is a prefect example. What did that guy hear? Was he going crazy? Why was that tape blank? Its almost like they half finished one location, started some good idea and then drifted off to another location.
The map is fairly small, it only feels large if you stop at every map marker too look around. That would be fine if more of them turned into interesting locations like the dunwitch in FO3 or the intelligent deathclaws of fallout 2.
Most of the map just feels like it was created to make a shooting gallery for the player. It also seems that for every farmer/friendly NPC we see about 15 raiders or ghouls whose only purpose is to wait for the player to kill them.
There really isnt much to talk about, the game doesnt have a lot of memorable places to go, most are filled with npcs waiting for you to kill them and some of them are just empty.
6)Settlement system.
This is, without a doubt the shining feature of the game. Too bad its half finished, wonky and lacks any sort of UI to actually help you manage anything. Happiness levels drop for no reason despite having more than 30 beds, more defense than the institute and enough water to supply everyone in the game. Junk fences cant be clipped or joined by the player, but Bethesda does all the time leaving the player with fence with gaps in it, or just using the shack foundation and metal walls instead, since they, you know, work, and snap to each other.
It really feels like you are just supposed to plop some premade shacks down throw turrets in random places, plop beds and some water/food and leave. Enemies often spawn inside your walls anyway, so they are pointless and just for show. This could have been something neat, instead its just another half finished idea that is wonky at best. It really needs a settlement UI or control center so that you can assign roles to settlers instead of tracking them individually and assigning them individually. You should have been able to assign "farmer", "guard" and "trader" at least and then let the AI sort it out, but I guess thats asking too much of Bethesda and its shoddy AI.
7)AI.
Its not much of an improvement, companions are often more hassle than they are worth, especially since you can carry an unlimited amount of items and weight while still fast traveling and sneaking just fine. Dont mind me, im only carrying over 2,000lbs of junk but I can sneak just as well as a mouse and can travel anywhere in an instant!
The AI often doesnt even look for the player, oh my best bro just had his head blown off? Must be the jet giving me jitters! Really? They rarely move more than a few feet before going back to standing around waiting to die. FFS Bethesda they should at least stop standing out in the open for a while. Any suppressed weapon might as well be cheat mode as 9/10 times the AI is too stupid to move more than 10 feet in any direction. Sometimes I can be within handshake distance and the NPCS still wont react to me while sneaking.
8) Power armor and weapon modding.
Just tossing the lore out the window and rolling with the new power armor, its pretty neat to make your own suit that looks how you want, right down to some special touches and paint. Too bad its EVERYWHERE, raiders have it, its found in lakes and just standing around in the open. Fusion cores are everywhere, by the time I finished the main story I had 92 of them. it turns you into a walking god, and that would be perfectly fine if it had any balancing at all. Instead you can walk in it everywhere. It does add some neat sound effects and the NPC's sometimes notice it (and/or your minigun) for some dialog.
We finally get some solid weapon/armor modding, too bad that the game contains what feels like 10 weapons in varying configurations and weapon and armor health are gone. This could have been something great if they had improved on the weapon/armor health and simply gave it a on/off menu setting for anyone who didint want to deal with it.
9) The Gunners/other npcs.
Replaced talon mercs for generic enemies who are never explained. Ghouls are now more akin to 28 days later than say Harold or the ghouls from the first 2 fallout games. Super mutants are still out of place. The assaultron doesn't really fit with what we know of the lore, they just seem to be shoehorned in. Why have Power armor and risk human lives when you can send in the assaultron that is faster and quieter?
In closing, since I dont want to waste anymore time on this, not touching on terrible companions and some other issues.
The game is plagued by half issues, mods for previous games do it better, namely Willow and Project Nevada. A lot of good ideas that are half finished, locations that are lackluster, dialog that is bland and uninspiring. Voice acting is mostly flat and detracts from the game. The main quest feels disjointed, rough and out of place.
Its a thoroughly average game, plagued with half finished ideas. Exploring can be fun, sometimes Bethesda pulls some solid environmental story telling out. Its not a very good RPG, its not a very good Fallout game, its an average at best shoot and loot and the story line is a let down. I got my $60 worth but I am glad I didnt get the season pass, both NV and Fallout 3 do it better in almost every way.
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