Can mods and DLC save it?

[ZigzagPX4]

Fourth installments tends to be a major turning point in a franchise. Not always but still.

In trilogies (movies anyways), first ones tend to make the biggest impression though with many mistakes, second ones tend to be the best, third ones have signs of dreariness and being overdone, and then when they add an extra, fourth ones end up either one last revisit to what made the trilogy great or just proof that the series is done - it's worn out. It can't run any further and pushing it on will end badly.

One could say this was the case with Fallout, but not in my mind, really. I consider Bethesda's Fallout a series all on its own. Fallout 4 was the second game in the series and it obviously wasn't the best one. I guess we'll have to wait and see how they're going to finish their trilogy off, but honestly, I think Fallout 3 will probably the best we'll ever get from Bethesda, which is kind of sad considering all the potential they have.

Bethesda bears the telltale sign of a developer that will one day split apart, all the people who held it back will pursue new jobs that they would be better in, and the ones with restrained potential at the time will go off and start up an indie dev team.

Surface analysis of Bethesda clichés. Nope, Fallout 4 tends to move to more Ubisoft approach. With settlements instead of control points, tbh. Cross out skill system because it's heavely redesigned to not even recognizable under perk disguise, btw.

I noticed that, actually. Not confident they could compete with The Witcher 3 perhaps, so they had to throw in proven formats just to make sure. There's a bit of Borderlands and a bit of the "Ubisoft game".

It still feels more organic and less structured than most Ubisoft games though, usually I would consider that a plus but it's useless if you're going to take away all the RPG elements and branching paths anyways. Might as well just make it a structured game like all the good open-worlds.

 

[Mr Fish]

So, I decided to give FO4 another try now that Survival had gone out of beta and I could add in mods again so I spent all of yesterday getting mods to make it more interesting and fun. According to Nexus Mod Manager I got 87 mods active.

And so, the question is, did it save FO4 for me?

Nope.

I just can't get into it. I got settlement building mods but none of them managed to make settlement building worthwhile. I got weapon mods that added into enemy lists so that they would use them and it didn't make them any more interesting. I got some tweak mods to balance it out but it didn't make me feel any different.

The game is just so... Well... Boring. I already had really good stuff (top modded gear) and I don't see why I should have to start all over again when I'll just end up exactly where I am with this character. So getting new weapons and armor? Why bother? The stuff I have is already outclassing it. Getting balance fixes to combat? Why bother if the combat feels so unrewarding? Getting mods for settlements? None of them made settlements worth spending time with anyway. It takes too long to build a place that looks nice and after an hour or so tinkering with the build mode (which I find clunky and unintuitive) I feel like there's no reward to reap from it.

So what mods could save FO4 for me?
Well FO4 has some major elements of the game. Combat, exploration, settlements, questing and crafting.

So let's start with exploration since that is the biggest one. What could save the exploration part through mods for me? It needs to feel... Rewarding. Like I'm putting time into exploring places for some kind of a reward. Unique bosses (not just reskins) unique loot, maybe new small storylines and characters that can be found would make it interesting again but there is no big mod that adds in tons of stuff to make each area interesting to explore.

The second part would be combat. There's going to be a lot of combat in the game and it needs to feel challenging and rewarding. So the kind of mod I'd want is a mod that evens out everything. No leveled anything. A super mutant is a super mutant, period. No damage sponges. I can kill enemies with a few shots and they can kill me with a few shots.

Problem there is that it leads into the perks, they need to be overhauled to fit in with a combat overhaul mod. And then there's the crafting part of the game, it too needs to be completely overhauled so that weapons don't turn too weak or too powerful. I mean, Fallout 4 as an RPG is unsalvageable(?) so the best it can hope to be is a shooter but. Well, it needs to be overhauled in every aspect for this to work.

And until there is a mod that overhauls crafting, combat, perks, enemies, weapons, armors, healing items etc in one neat combined package so that everything is overhauled together I simply can't play this game. It isn't enjoyable.

But getting back to the combat and exloration, a sandbox world needs to have something new around every corner otherwise it gets repetitive fast. So Fallout 4 needs new enemy mods. Creature and faction mods that add in unique stuff to locations so that the game can actually surprise you with stuff. And it needs water enemies, badly. I couldn't find any such mods though. Problem here is that they would need to fit in with the total overhaul mod I hypothesized about.

Then there's questing, questing is fine. I suppose. I mean it's FO4 so you know what to expect from it and there are quests I enjoy because of the characters and storylines but they're held back by the combat so... Yeah...

And finally, settlements. Like, if I go through a dungeon I might spend X of my ammo but I'll gain Y of crafting supplies and other stuff, maybe even a magazine or bobblehead. But settlements? You just pour stuff into them and get nothing out of them. And I just can't think of any reason to build settlements. You only need one for crafting stuff and having vendors at. There's no point in having more than that and I can't think of any reason to make settlements worth bothering with through mods.

All I can think of is turning them into raider slaughter fests (which I get enough of from the exploration) or other micromanagement that ultimately is not worth my time.

I...

Heh...

I basically need to mod the entire game myself to suit my tastes. And it's about time:enjoyment ratio. It's ultimately not worth it.

So, yeah. I started up FO4 again, tried to give it another try and I just can't get into it. There isn't any incentive for me to play the game. So can mods save FO4 as a game on its own merits? I actually think they can. It's just that the only way you'll get that kind of mod is if you do it yourself. And it simply isn't worth my time.

 

[Vergil]

Unless theres a mod or DLC that gives me my money back; no, mods and DLC can't fix it.

 

[Shardik]

One of the big "tells" about Fallout 4, at least to me, was the explosion of mods that came out right after release, months before the official modding tools were released. It happens with every Bethesda game, but I had never seen the volume of early mods that Fallout 4 generated, and it wasn't all just the chain mail g-strings, stripper heels and other nude stuff, either. Major overhauls to the crafting system, the dialog system, the UI ... stuff no one in previous releases would have even tried before the Creation Kit, or a working, stable script extender at a minimum, were released.

Within a month or two of release, I saw people posting load orders with 200+ mods. For so many people to feel the need to extensively mod the game, even without official support, doesn't really say much good about the vanilla game, IMO.

 

[Vergil]

-snip-

I think it says more about the community really. The games barely out for a few weeks and they're already working around the clock on fixing it. Bethesda should just hire some of the most prolific modders of their series. I think the evidence supports the claim that they're more talented than the hacks working at Bethesda. I mean if they're going to basically just copy a handful of the game's most popular mods anyway they might as well hire the people who can actually do it right as well.

 

[R.Graves]

No.

 

[Hassknecht]

One thing mods can fix are the abysmal weapon and armour designs. Almost everything looks like shit.
Why does combat armour look like it's made of 3 cm thick steel plates bolted on 15 cm spacers while covering absolutely nothing essential?
Yeah, I get it, Fallout combat armour always looked bulky, but holy shit did they overdo it this time. The basic combat armour looks like someone bolted a frying pan to the character's chest in terms of proportions.
Of course there's already a mod that adds New Vegas' Desert Ranger armour, and of course it looks a billion times better than anything the vanilla game has to offer.
Same for the weapons. Can't wait for the inevitable "Classic Fallout Weapons" mods that adds the Winchester City Killer and overall variety.

 

[Deleted member 93956]

One thing mods can fix are the abysmal weapon and armour designs. Almost everything looks like shit.
Why does combat armour look like it's made of 3 cm thick steel plates bolted on 15 cm spacers while covering absolutely nothing essential?
Yeah, I get it, Fallout combat armour always looked bulky, but holy shit did they overdo it this time. The basic combat armour looks like someone bolted a frying pan to the character's chest in terms of proportions...