Bethesda’s Pete Hines Fallout 4 interview

[djmani]

For all you Sawyerists:

"The character systems that have most influenced me are the ones in Darklands, Fallout, Mass Effect, and Oblivion. There are things that I utterly despised about the character systems in all of those games, but they were moving toward an ideal that I believe in very strongly: a shallow learning curve that expands into thought-provoking depth."


Sawyer explains that the one thing he thinks modern games have done well is to “make their RPG system rulesets clear and consistent”. “The old D&D systems were not very consistent,” he says. “They were full of trap builds and ‘gotcha’ moments and stuff like that. I don’t think that’s good, I think it restricts player enjoyment a lot, for not a lot of gain.”

“Maybe the grognards like it, but for everyone else it’s kind of frustrating and so we try to get away from that as much as possible.”

 

[Dr Fallout]

For all you Sawyerists:

"The character systems that have most influenced me are the ones in Darklands, Fallout, Mass Effect, and Oblivion. There are things that I utterly despised about the character systems in all of those games, but they were moving toward an ideal that I believe in very strongly: a shallow learning curve that expands into thought-provoking depth."


Sawyer explains that the one thing he thinks modern games have done well is to “make their RPG system rulesets clear and consistent”. “The old D&D systems were not very consistent,” he says. “They were full of trap builds and ‘gotcha’ moments and stuff like that. I don’t think that’s good, I think it restricts player enjoyment a lot, for not a lot of gain.”

“Maybe the grognards like it, but for everyone else it’s kind of frustrating and so we try to get away from that as much as possible.”

Are you against it or for it?

 

[Dr Fallout]

For all you Sawyerists:

"The character systems that have most influenced me are the ones in Darklands, Fallout, Mass Effect, and Oblivion. There are things that I utterly despised about the character systems in all of those games, but they were moving toward an ideal that I believe in very strongly: a shallow learning curve that expands into thought-provoking depth."


Sawyer explains that the one thing he thinks modern games have done well is to “make their RPG system rulesets clear and consistent”. “The old D&D systems were not very consistent,” he says. “They were full of trap builds and ‘gotcha’ moments and stuff like that. I don’t think that’s good, I think it restricts player enjoyment a lot, for not a lot of gain.”

“Maybe the grognards like it, but for everyone else it’s kind of frustrating and so we try to get away from that as much as possible.”

Are you against it or for it?

 

[generalissimofurioso]

Wait, so it's bad for people to understand a game's mechanics?

Because that's a good thing.

This is why RPG's get overly simplified by studios like Bioware and Bethesda, because instead of explaining mechanics and ensuring that they're not needlessly complex, they just chop away the mechanics.

It's easier to remove than to fix.

It's why New Vegas merged the gun skills and kept first aid and doctor merged as medicine.

They didn't drop skills entirely because a couple of them weren't practical to take like Beth did, they simplified and made clear how they worked and still provided the choice.

That's what Sawyer is getting at.

 

[Dr Fallout]

If Medicine and First aid were handled better then I would have disagreed. But you're right... however merging big guns and small guns was A MASSIVE mistake. Those two skills could change the game.

 

[Crni Vuk]

I think the Doctor skill and first aid skill worked OK in Fallout, if you decided to use it. It was just that there was no real reason use any of them. In neither of my playtroughs in Fallout did I ever really had to use it. Outside of a few quest related answers - see Vault City and the use of Doctor the skill.

 

[generalissimofurioso]

The problem with the big guns skill was that it was an end game skill and none of the games gave any indication of this.

If you started off with it as a tag skill and put lots of points into it early on, then you were basically screwing yourself and not realizing it until it was too late.

That's one of the punitive trap builds that Sawyer was talking about.

Big guns in New Vegas were balanced out by reinstating the strength requirements and generally keeping them in the hands of high-level enemies. (No more Minigun at level 2 that you got by killing a Super Mutant with a 10mm pistol ala Fallout 3)

And the general medicine skill makes more sense than the two separate first aid and doctor skills.

Yes, first aid and doctor covered different things, but those things weren't really specified or elaborated upon.

What's the difference between a severe injury and a non-severe injury in a game where your general well-being is determined by hit points?

Why should a player who is interesting in healing themselves and others be penalized because they chose to prioritize one skill of the two skills and not the other?

The skill system should be approachable and understandable, without being overly complex and suffering from redundancies.

Stripping it from the series entirely is a stupid mistake and completely misses the point of having RPG mechanics in a game to begin with.

 

[Dr Fallout]

The problem with the big guns skill was that it was an end game skill and none of the games gave any indication of this.

If you started off with it as a tag skill and put lots of points into it early on, then you were basically screwing yourself and not realizing it until it was too late.

That's one of the punitive trap builds that Sawyer was talking about.

Big guns in New Vegas were balanced out by reinstating the strength requirements and generally keeping them in the hands of high-level enemies. (No more Minigun at level 2 that you got by killing a Super Mutant with a 10mm pistol ala Fallout 3)

And the general medicine skill makes more sense than the two separate first aid and doctor skills.

Yes, first aid and doctor covered different things, but those things weren't really specified or elaborated upon.

What's the difference between a severe injury and a non-severe injury in a game where your general well-being is determined by hit points?

Why should a player who is interesting in healing themselves and others be penalized because they chose to prioritize one skill of the two skills and not the other?

The skill system should be approachable and understandable, without being overly complex and suffering from redundancies.

Stripping it from the series entirely is a stupid mistake and completely misses the point of having RPG mechanics in a game to begin with.

Big Guns were not always an end game skill. I got a flamer at level 2 in Fallout 2, yet I couldn't use it so I sold it for a gun I could use and was better then my other one. I like the dynamic that you don't have to keep every gun you find. If you can't use it... sell it because the money you have will be useful elsewhere. Yes money is good in the first two Fallouts so it's a fair trade off. They took that away and now there is literally no point of using lighter guns... anywhere in the game because unless you were weak you could always use them.

 

[Crni Vuk]

The problem with the big guns skill was that it was an end game skill and none of the games gave any indication of this.

If you started off with it as a tag skill and put lots of points into it early on, then you were basically screwing yourself and not realizing it until it was too late.

That's one of the punitive trap builds that Sawyer was talking about.

Big guns in New Vegas were balanced out by reinstating the strength requirements and generally keeping them in the hands of high-level enemies. (No more Minigun at level 2 that you got by killing a Super Mutant with a 10mm pistol ala Fallout 3)

And the general medicine skill makes more sense than the two separate first aid and doctor skills.

Yes, first aid and doctor covered different things, but those things weren't really specified or elaborated upon.

What's the difference between a severe injury and a non-severe injury in a game where your general well-being is determined by hit points?

Why should a player who is interesting in healing themselves and others be penalized because they chose to prioritize one skill of the two skills and not the other?

The skill system should be approachable and understandable, without being overly complex and suffering from redundancies.

Stripping it from the series entirely is a stupid mistake and completely misses the point of having RPG mechanics in a game to begin with.

Depends on the depth of the health system and what you do with it. Like I said in my opinion it really made sense for Fallout to have those two skills. It's just that the game never created enough opportunities to actually make use of it. Injuries would usually never criple me or my companions enough that I had to fall back on it.

Though you could ultimately say that about a lot of skills. Like the Outdoorsman skill. In my opinion a completely useless skill. I never saw any use for it. However, that doesn't mean other players could not find it usefull. If only for the sake of role playing. That is something that we really shouldn't neglect. The PnP roots of Fallout. Many skills seem to make not much sense, but they also have their value in role playing. Sounds strange for an RPG, I know

Sadly most games today rather remove or merge all of the skills rather than to create more opportunities.

 

[Gnarles Bronson]

One problem I have with big guns is they've almost never been that good, and they're not practical. In wasteland 2 assault rifles are almost universally better without chewing through ammo. In FO2 I made a big guns build but the ammo is so rare that it makes it impractical, and again even the vindicator is barely competitive with the pulse and gauss rifle.

Also flamers and rocket launchers are never as good as they should be in my mind. If you light someone on fire they should be blind, screaming and dead in that order. Rocket launchers should realistically clear out a small room of super mutants, not just annoy them and knock them over.

For all you Sawyerists:

"The character systems that have most influenced me are the ones in Darklands, Fallout, Mass Effect, and Oblivion. There are things that I utterly despised about the character systems in all of those games, but they were moving toward an ideal that I believe in very strongly: a shallow learning curve that expands into thought-provoking depth."


Sawyer explains that the one thing he thinks modern games have done well is to “make their RPG system rulesets clear and consistent”. “The old D&D systems were not very consistent,” he says. “They were full of trap builds and ‘gotcha’ moments and stuff like that. I don’t think that’s good, I think it restricts player enjoyment a lot, for not a lot of gain.”

“Maybe the grognards like it, but for everyone else it’s kind of frustrating and so we try to get away from that as much as possible.”

I agree with this. I've almost finished Pillars of Eternity (not to mention Baulders gate) and have never understood the stat system. I feel like it only really makes sense to Dungeon and Dragons players.

It's just not intuitive. "ok I'm fighting a ghost, so does that mean I need piercing or blunt or what, and should buff my will?"

 

[Dr Fallout]

One problem I have with big guns is they've almost never been that good, and they're not practical. In wasteland 2 assault rifles are almost universally better without chewing through ammo. In FO2 I made a big guns build but the ammo is so rare that it makes it impractical, and again even the vindicator is barely competitive with the pulse and gauss rifle.

Also flamers and rocket launchers are never as good as they should be in my mind. If you light someone on fire they should be blind, screaming and dead in that order. Rocket launchers should realistically clear out a small room of super mutants, not just annoy them and knock them over.

For all you Sawyerists:

"The character systems that have most influenced me are the ones in Darklands, Fallout, Mass Effect, and Oblivion. There are things that I utterly despised about the character systems in all of those games, but they were moving toward an ideal that I believe in very strongly: a shallow learning curve that expands into thought-provoking depth."


Sawyer explains that the one thing he thinks modern games have done well is to “make their RPG system rulesets clear and consistent”. “The old D&D systems were not very consistent,” he says. “They were full of trap builds and ‘gotcha’ moments and stuff like that. I don’t think that’s good, I think it restricts player enjoyment a lot, for not a lot of gain.”

“Maybe the grognards like it, but for everyone else it’s kind of frustrating and so we try to get away from that as much as possible.”

I agree with this. I've almost finished Pillars of Eternity (not to mention Baulders gate) and have never understood the stat system. I feel like it only really makes sense to Dungeon and Dragons players.

It's just not intuitive. "ok I'm fighting a ghost, so does that mean I need piercing or blunt or what, and should buff my will?"

Are you playing the same game? Because big gun ammo was not that rare and they were some of the only weapons that kill a super mutant in a go. They were extremely useful. And hnestly, do you think every chump is going to have mini gun ammunition. That's the kind of thing we find in Fallout 3.

 

[Dr Fallout]

One problem I have with big guns is they've almost never been that good, and they're not practical. In wasteland 2 assault rifles are almost universally better without chewing through ammo. In FO2 I made a big guns build but the ammo is so rare that it makes it impractical, and again even the vindicator is barely competitive with the pulse and gauss rifle.

Also flamers and rocket launchers are never as good as they should be in my mind. If you light someone on fire they should be blind, screaming and dead in that order. Rocket launchers should realistically clear out a small room of super mutants, not just annoy them and knock them over.

For all you Sawyerists:

"The character systems that have most influenced me are the ones in Darklands, Fallout, Mass Effect, and Oblivion. There are things that I utterly despised about the character systems in all of those games, but they were moving toward an ideal that I believe in very strongly: a shallow learning curve that expands into thought-provoking depth."


Sawyer explains that the one thing he thinks modern games have done well is to “make their RPG system rulesets clear and consistent”. “The old D&D systems were not very consistent,” he says. “They were full of trap builds and ‘gotcha’ moments and stuff like that. I don’t think that’s good, I think it restricts player enjoyment a lot, for not a lot of gain.”

“Maybe the grognards like it, but for everyone else it’s kind of frustrating and so we try to get away from that as much as possible.”

I agree with this. I've almost finished Pillars of Eternity (not to mention Baulders gate) and have never understood the stat system. I feel like it only really makes sense to Dungeon and Dragons players.

It's just not intuitive. "ok I'm fighting a ghost, so does that mean I need piercing or blunt or what, and should buff my will?"

Are you playing the same game? Because big gun ammo was not that rare and they were some of the only weapons that kill a super mutant in a go. They were extremely useful. And hnestly, do you think every chump is going to have mini gun ammunition. That's the kind of thing we find in Fallout 3.

 

[Gnarles Bronson]

I'm clearly talking about caseless little buddy, and

they were some of the only weapons that kill a super mutant in a go

"some of the only weapons, aside from all the other ones which you could use from across the level without distance penalty with a much lower ammo cost and without chancing friendly fire."

 

[Dr Fallout]

I'm clearly talking about caseless little buddy, and

they were some of the only weapons that kill a super mutant in a go

"some of the only weapons, aside from all the other ones which you could use from across the level without distance penalty with a much lower ammo cost and without chancing friendly fire."

Such us? Excluding cheat weapons of course.

 

[Mr Fish]

I'm clearly talking about caseless little buddy, and

they were some of the only weapons that kill a super mutant in a go

"some of the only weapons, aside from all the other ones which you could use from across the level without distance penalty with a much lower ammo cost and without chancing friendly fire."

Such us? Excluding cheat weapons of course.

Well, with a good AP and that perk that lowers AP cost for weapons as well as that trait for lowering One Handed's AP cost I'm fairly certain some of the pistols can down super mutants in one turn by aiming for the eyes. Then there's a lot of burst weapons, as well as explosives. Not to mention plasma weapons and the pulse weapons. Hell, even Spiked Knuckles can down a super mutant in a turn once you're level 21 and you got the right build.

 

[TheChosen1]

I remember the Gauss Rifle being a complete beast.

 

[Zerginfestor]

I'm clearly talking about caseless little buddy, and

they were some of the only weapons that kill a super mutant in a go

"some of the only weapons, aside from all the other ones which you could use from across the level without distance penalty with a much lower ammo cost and without chancing friendly fire."

Such us? Excluding cheat weapons of course.

Well, with a good AP and that perk that lowers AP cost for weapons as well as that trait for lowering One Handed's AP cost I'm fairly certain some of the pistols can down super mutants in one turn by aiming for the eyes. Then there's a lot of burst weapons, as well as explosives. Not to mention plasma weapons and the pulse weapons. Hell, even Spiked Knuckles can down a super mutant in a turn once you're level 21 and you got the right build.

^This, pretty much. Unarmed build I would say was the most OP thing I ever done, and grabbing Power Fist made things insane. The only issue I have with it now is the lack of Microfusion cells, since I'm now down to 100 or so.

 

[FearMonkey]

Not sure where else to put this:

Three Dog's actor surprised he's not in Fallout 4. News felt like a gut punch to him.

Poor guy. All he wants to do is fight the Good Fight with his voice on Galaxy News Radio.

 

[Mohamed2001]

Not sure where else to put this:

Three Dog's actor surprised he's not in Fallout 4. News felt like a gut punch to him.

Poor guy. All he wants to do is fight the Good Fight with his voice on Galaxy News Radio.

Good. Lets establish it in the canon that a terrorist attack was conducted on GNR and led to its destruction by a nuke.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

No offence to the voice actor but his character was badly thought up and written.
Lore wise he was rather implausible and from a gaming point of few his only purpose was to give the player a quest, some information, and for the rest served little to no purpose that would make him memorable like Ian, Lynette (yeah she is a bitch, but at least there is enough to the character that you will remember), Harold, the Master, or new characters like Elijah, the Burned Man, Mr House.

Three Dog is not some iconic character that needs to re appear in future Fallout games or be referred by characters in new games. If anything I think adding omniscient DJs was a very bad addition to Fallout (though I don't mind Mr New Vegas who just seems to play records and tell general news in which the player can have a role or not)

He should just apply for other characters if he wants to do more voice work for Fallout.

I find it more annoying that Ron Perlman might not appear as the narrator, now he is iconic!