A small mindless rant on games, graphics, brainwashed drones, and Fallout.

[Jogre]

A. That would be true if this was the late 90's, basically no one had the internet, and online communities didn't plaster websites with guides. You basically have to avoid looking up anything about games to not know you can do these sort of things anymore.

The thing is, no walkthroughs I've ever seen suggest Power Armor runs, if someone asks for tips very few people would suggest something like that, very few forums actively discuss the classic games, ect.

It is so unlikely that a new-time player would not only stumble across something which would not only have to suggest the possibility of Power Armor runs, but also tell them exactly how to do it, that it isn't even a factor worth taking in to account.

B. Because you can still have power armor be powerful, while not making you totally immune to damage.

Regardless of how it's handled, getting a powerful suit of armor early in the game will make you find low-level encounters easy. Does it really make that much of a difference whether you're fully-immune, or take tiny amounts of damage?, Your going to own the encounters anyway.

C. You can get power in Fallout 2 in less then two hours into the game. It is by no means difficult.

Well given that on the way there you encounter several Enclave Patrols, that, between all the soldiers do enough damage to take down most high-level players, I would say it's near impossible for somebody who has no prior experience of Fallout.

A good game wouldn't let you do it at all

"A good game would spend lots of time trying to make you play the entire thing in a certain order, because stopping a couple players who would have had to actively read up on these techniques first from abusing the game, is so much more important than allowing player freedom"

Hence why Fo3 and NV had PA training.

"Let's rewrite the previously established rules of the universe, in order to make the gameplay slightly more balanced"

Yeah, that works perfectly

And why Fallout 4 gives you a 80% broken suit of PA, that needs power cores, and uses rare materials you literally can't have early in the game to repair it.

But by doing that, they made using Power Armor feel like a chore, rather than it making you feel badass wearing it.

Which kinda defeats the whole point of Power Armor to begin with.

 

[Prone Squanderer]

And yet every single person I know has bluffed their way in because its incredibly easy.

Only if you have good enough speech and that's if you manage to avoid/escape the Enclave patrols.

A good game wouldn't let you do it at all

Hence why Fo3 and NV had PA training.

The only PA you can get in 3 before joining the Brotherhood is the prototype medic armour in Old Olney (Low levels won't get past the Deathclaws) and the T-50 in Fort Constantine, which has heavy security and you need those keys to get it. In New Vegas you have to visit 2 separate locations to get the PA helmet and suit, both are dangerous areas (Cazadors in one and Deathclaws in the other).

It would have been ok to allow players to wear those without training because they'd have earned it.

And why Fallout 4 gives you a 80% broken suit of PA, that needs power cores, and uses rare materials you literally can't have early in the game to repair it.

Reactionary steps to the faults in Fo1/2's game design.

Power armour and power cores aren't difficult to find.

 

[SarcasticGoodGuy]

@Greed
There's no point in arguing with someone that has superior skills to you.

Respect man, I will know in the future to never make an argument against you ever again.

Seriously $100% I mean it. Good job and you won this battle.

 

[Greed]

snip

Its probably the single most suggested things I've seen about Fallout 2. I don't know what you are talking about.

And making the game easy is exactly why tons of people go after it, and exactly why it shouldn't be allowed.

And you can avoid/get out of those patrols.

Player freedom is fine as long as it doesn't hurt the balance of the game. A good game lets you find powerful items, but none so powerful they remove basically any challenge from the game.

A. PA training was just a gameplay mechanic. IIRC, its even mentioned in Fallout 3 itself that PA is so easy to use a child could do it
B. Gameplay > lore and realism. In every single game.

By ding that they actually made Power Armor feel like a suit of highly technical and specialized armor that needs tune ups and maintenance to keep it functional. Which actually makes it feel like powered armor rather then just another piece of leather/metal you have thrown across you body that can easily be fixed/replaced with another piece of leather/metal. Also, anything that bring the "power fantasy" down a notch or two is a good thing.

There's no point in arguing with someone that has superior skills to you.[/USER]

Real mature.

 

[R.Graves]

There's a difference between graphics and art design. A game with bad graphics and good art design will be remembered. A game with good graphics but poor/bad/nonexistant art design will be forgotten about the moment it is put down.

And Fallout 4 got pretty decent art design. Not amazing, but decent. It has pieces that are memorable and will always stick out among the rest. But the graphics are just godawful. When you decide to go first person and try to have realistic design to the world so that you can almost count the leaves on a tree then it pretty much 'needs' to have good graphics. You're going for realism then it needs to be as realistic as possible. And there is a lot of things in Fallout 4 that took me out of my immersion. The difference would be a game like Team Fortress or Overwatch which is a bit more cartoonish in its approach. It's okay for certain things to not be graphically impressive then. But Fallout 4 is designed to be like 'living in another world' and with that it fails if it has graphical inconsistency.

Point I'm getting at is that "muh graphics" is a valid argument when it comes to certain games. Fallout 4 is one of those games that 'should' be lambasted for its inconsistent graphical quality.

The graphics are nowhere near what ruined my immersion. Everything wanted me dead. No one would say more than 4 sentences to me. Shit like is what broke my immersion. The graphics were fine in my opinion.

 

[SarcasticGoodGuy]

Real mature.

What? I was congratulating you on an outstanding victory. Some people just have no grace.

 

[Prone Squanderer]

No one would say more than 4 sentences to me.

Well you don't want to end up confused do you?

 

[Jogre]

Its probably the single most suggested things I've seen about Fallout 2. I don't know what you are talking about.

I rarely, if ever see references to PA runs on any forums.

And besides, if you find out a way to cheat through the game by reading up on it, that's kinda your fault for reading up on it.

And making the game easy is exactly why tons of people go after it, and exactly why it shouldn't be allowed.

What?

So people shouldn't be allowed to use there prior knowledge to make the game a little easier?

Why?, who does it harm?

And you can avoid/get out of those patrols.

You can, but it's unlikely that you would at low-levels given how much damage the patrols deal, and I'm sure those encounters would discourage most players.

B. Gameplay > lore and realism. In every single game.

Except that Fallout games are designed to be a Roleplaying Game in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The charm in Roleplaying Games isn't that they have good mechanics, but rather that they let you interact with people as different characters in a world.

In a Roleplaying game, simulation should be the main focus, not gameplay. The Crunchy Mechanics in a Roleplaying Game should always be treated as a guest. By this I mean it's important to make sure mechanics are treated well, and a game with poor treatment of mechanics is a poor game, but rebuilding the entire game-world to make sure it accommodates the gameplay and to make sure it's balanced, is just a ridiculous idea.

By ding that they actually made Power Armor feel like a suit of highly technical and specialized armor that needs tune ups and maintenance to keep it functional. Which actually makes it feel like powered armor rather then just another piece of leather/metal you have thrown across you body that can easily be fixed/replaced with another piece of leather/metal.

But the way Fallout 1 and 2 handled it made it feel more than a generic suit of armor.

It was so powerful in those games, that it felt like a truly special piece of armor.

Plus, in FO4 by making PA literally everywhere and giving you access in the first 5 minutes, it feels even more generic, and unimportant than in the previous games.

Also, anything that bring the "power fantasy" down a notch or two is a good thing.

A. Ironic that you say this, when Fallout 4 pandered to Power Fantasy more than any other Fallout game (With you being leader of the Minutemen, Director of the Institute, Sentinel of the Brotherhood)

B. Classical Power Armor wasn't to fulfill a power fantasy, it was to make you feel powerful. There is a big difference there.

A power fantasy implies that it's fulfilling your desire to be someone powerful, for example if you are put in a position of power, or given the powers to smite your enemies, or control people or something.

Being made to feel powerful simply implies that you feel empowered, and able to take on the game-world with it. Let's face it, nobody would actually fantasize about wanting a suit of Power Armor, mainly because it's simply a technologically advanced tool, and wouldn't really provide too many advantages IRL, however having the Power-Armor makes you feel like you've got this incredible piece of machinery, and that with it, you are considerably more powerful than before, and therefore when fighting encounters, you feel like with the armor your character has become powerful.

 

[R.Graves]

Well you don't want to end up confused do you?

I was confused. Because no one would talk to me. In an RPG

 

[Walpknut]

A good game wouldn't let you do it at all

Hence why Fo3 and NV had PA training.

And why Fallout 4 gives you a 80% broken suit of PA, that needs power cores, and uses rare materials you literally can't have early in the game to repair it.

Reactionary steps to the faults in Fo1/2's game design.

A good game shouldn't let you use your knwledge so you become better at it? What? Are you proposing the game just sets a hard auto leveled cap on everything and thus makes any progress always feel the same? You think retarded mechanics like forcing you to pick up trash and collect cores (which becomes trivial like 3 hours in anyway) is good game design?

A good game shouldn't have secrets that reward unorthodox play or risky gameplay situations?

Man not only are you boring with how you approach RPGs but you also like shitty mechanics like colecthatons....


To summarize: Game allowing you to have different builds and rewarding player exploration with rare items being available to anyone who manages to find them > BAD DESIGN

Giving you broken equipment on the first quest and gimping not only endgame creatures but also equipment and weapons with retarded mechanics like Level scaling, forced Trash collecting and just making weapons that should be good into complete shit > Great Game Design.

 

[ThatZenoGuy]

*Slaps @Greed*

Look, DT with no bleedthrough is balanced.

You know how?

Because believe it or not, having a million dollar supersuit should SHOULD make you immune to Mr Raider and his .22 revolver.

What the hell is it supposed to do to such a ridiculous piece of armour?

Armour STOPS damage, if its good enough, it doesn't 'bleed through damage', unless the hit is particularly severe.

In FO1-2, PA was entirely balanced, a single critical hit from a minigun or AR could turn even level 12+ hardened power armour guys into red paste, by ignoring said armour.

Even in NV its entirely balanced.

No, Mr Raider cannot kill me anymore with his dinky revolver, but guess what? THAT'S HOW IT SHOULD WORK.

Mr Legion and his .50 cal, or supermutant and his rocket launcher can still kill me, WHICH IS FAIR.

 

[Greed]

Because believe it or not, having a million dollar supersuit should SHOULD make you immune to Mr Raider and his .22 revolver.

Real world logic isn't an argument for game balance, as the real world is not based on balance. In fact, that's an argument for how its not balanced, by proving how absurdly broken it is. Which is why no game dev allows such things in video games. If it was balanced as you claim, why do no games use the system you propose?

No, Mr Raider cannot kill me anymore with his dinky revolver, but guess what? THAT'S HOW IT SHOULD WORK

Except he can because of the 20% bleedthrough that happens on every shot no matter what in NV.

 

[Jogre]

Real world logic isn't an argument for game balance, as the real world is not based on balance. In fact, that's an argument for how its not balanced, by proving how absurdly broken it is.

No it isn't.

If you wear the most powerful suit of armor in the game, then why should you struggle taking down a Raider?

Isn't the very idea of having good equipment, that you can take down low-level encounters with relative ease?

why do no games use the system you propose?

What do you mean no games?

Are you discounting Fallout 1 and 2 here?

If it was balanced as you claim

We never said it was balanced

It's just that not every single game has to be balanced.

Let me put it this way: If there's no overpowered equipment anywhere in a game, that just makes the whole process of looting incredibly boring. It feels tedious in modern games to search for loot, because you know you'll never find anything interesting.

Almost every Classical RPG on the other hand, had tons of ridiculously broken equipment lying around, and that encouraged you to actually go out and explore, as you might find something worth your time. And this also makes the finding of said equipment far more rewarding.

 

[CerberusGate]

I see Greed is hard at work trying to justify head canon and putting down other games to make its own beloved game look good. Too bad it does not get the idea that it does not seem to know what it is talking about at times and that it is not the main arbitrator of what is right and wrong in Fallout.

What? I was congratulating you on an outstanding victory. Some people just have no grace.

I know what you mean. After I gave it advice, it told me to grow up too.

If it was balanced as you claim, why do no games use the system you propose?

If every game has supposed to be balanced perfectly, I imagine it would be a nightmare for any game developer to do so and sometimes, their attempts at implementing balance may simply ruin a game's entertainment value i.e all items feel the same. Like a certain game claiming to be the fourth installment of a dead venerable series.

 

[Risewild]

Player freedom is fine as long as it doesn't hurt the balance of the game. A good game lets you find powerful items, but none so powerful they remove basically any challenge from the game.

How is owning a power armor that can only be obtained if you have previous knowledge of it before playing the game and it is not that easy to get unless you try hard hurting the balance of the game?
I have played Fallout 2 more than any other Fallout game, I played it more than 14 times and never once I went to get the armor at the beginning of the game or even in the middle of it. Why? Because I am not forced to (far from it).
I like to roleplay in in my Roleplaying Games and even though I know there is an armor in Navarro, my character doesn't, so he has no motivation to go into the wild and face deadly random encounters until he stumbles upon a secret military base.
You see, be able to get the armor is called an exploit, and what's good about exploits is that if the player doesn't want to use them then there is no balance issues. If you complain about how getting this armor throws balance out of the window then why are you getting it in the first place?
Also interesting is that armor is not even the most powerful armor in the game, the most powerful armor is the Advanced Power Armor MKII that can only be obtained

Spoiler: Spoilers

in the Oil Rig.

Don't accuse a game of breaking the balance if the player has to do it on purpose and go to all the effort to do it (run from all the map encounters, have a high enough skill to bluff his way through, etc), if the player does that then it is because they don't care about balance and will have more fun being powerful at the beginning. I don't think I would have as much fun so I never did it and my game is not unbalanced.
Now if the game gave me the Power Armor right away for no good reason and told me to use it right away, that would mean it was throwing the balance out of the window.

TL;DR: If you use an exploit to get powerful, then it is your fault you're powerful. You are not forced to do it and most players that never played the game or played before will not do it unless they actually want to go to all the effort to use the exploit because they prefer being powerful from the start.
Exploits =/= Unbalanced Games

EDIT: Also you say it removes all the challenge from the game, but I still remember getting blown to bits even at higher levels (have more HP) while using that armor. Missiles for example still can destroy a character with that armor. Critical hits from Missiles, a Gatling, etc. will one-hit kill any character, etc and this is at normal difficulty, not even at hard.

 

[CerberusGate]

EDIT: Also you say it removes all the challenge from the game, but I still remember getting blown to bits even at higher levels (have more HP) while using that armor. Missiles for example still can destroy a character with that armor. Critical hits from Missiles, a Gatling, etc. will one-hit kill any character, etc and this is at normal difficulty, not even at hard.

Plus if your character is not built right, certain weapons hurt like dump trucks regardless of exploits. My low Endurance, high Intelligence builds always suffer in the Oil Rig even in Advanced Power Armor Mk II.

 

[R.Graves]

I was once beaten to death by bare handed yakuza while wearing advAnced power armour so I find this entire argument even more pointless than you @Risewild.

 

[ThatZenoGuy]

Real world logic isn't an argument for game balance, as the real world is not based on balance. In fact, that's an argument for how its not balanced, by proving how absurdly broken it is. Which is why no game dev allows such things in video games. If it was balanced as you claim, why do no games use the system you propose?


Except he can because of the 20% bleedthrough that happens on every shot no matter what in NV.

Are you a fucking idiot?

Fallout 1-2 had no bleedthrough, and it was entirely balanced, a missile launcher, or a plasma rifle/gauss rifle could do damage to any character.

No other game uses it, because they're usually as retarded and braindead as Fallout 4.

STALKER, with the misery mod, manages to make armour completely ignore sufficiently weak damage, for starters.

And you can mod NV to stop bleedthrough, I have it like so right now.

 

[Greed]

If you wear the most powerful suit of armor in the game, then why should you struggle taking down a Raider?

Who the flying fuck struggles to take down a raider while you are wearing power armor in Fo3, NV, or 4?

Whats with this bizarre argument of extremism where you act like you can only be godly immune, or you are struggling against everything?

Fallout 1-2 had no bleedthrough, and it was entirely balanced,

Which is why getting power armor in Fallout 2 right at the start of the game is infamous for making 99% of the game a cake walk, and why the devs at Obsidian added bleedthrough right?

 

[Walpknut]

Getting Power Armor at the begining of FO2 is infamous? What? In what universe?