Einhanderc7
Vat dipped, grown and still oozing with perfection
Hello everyone,
Lately I have found myself playing Fallout 4 again because a dear friend of mine (For reasons unknown to me considering that he knows my opinion of it.) purchased for me all the DLC's for the game. I am a man that honors gifts, no matter their quality so I began to think more deeply how I would have designed the entire game. I suspect that his intent was to get me agitated enough not to rant, but to simply begin to write down my thoughts on how I would have done it.
For this dissertation my intention is to gauge everyone's thoughts on how they think my ideas could either detract or benefit the game overall, as well give me an idea of how people feel about various aspects of the game.
First, the Common Wealth:
I would have had the entire "down town" area look more closely like the black sea in the southern corner. The reason for this is basic strategy when employing nuclear weaponry, always aim for the most populated or highly valued locations.
This change would drastically alter how the game would play out in the long term. Another reason I would prefer to go with this is to generate negative possibility space on purpose. A large burnt out area of a once largely populated and built up area would be a very good place to scavenge for good loot. I would also intend the ruins to be highly populated by creatures resistant to the natural inherent effects of radiation.
This could also allow for all ghoul settlements using the nature of the hostile terrain to safeguard their population from the "feral" humans outside of it.
Outside of the blasted hell I would mostly keep the rest of it the same save for a few minor differences such as available resources and reinforce the scarcity of said resources.
I would also implement unique locations for both the factions and player to take advantage of for their "settlements". These would consist of locations that specialize in the gathering or processing of raw materials such as iron, stone, salvage, etc... We must remember that in the world of Fallout natural resources such as oil are extremely rare or non existent, and due to this I highly doubt I would have implemented any petroleum based products.
Instead I would have had a focus on more renewable energies for settlements and factions, rather than "generators" you would typically see in almost every location as if gas was still a thing.
Old vehicles would have been scavenged and rebuilt to act as generators based on their energy source, which would make much more sense. However given their price before the great war, they would be very rare to find and their fuel not so common.
People in the common wealth would not be as abundant, but those that live there would be enclosed in well defended settlements constantly under assault from the horror that is the wastes around them. The reason for this is due to the massive crater they neighbor which of course would allow mutants to spawn in relative safety. Food would be very scarce outside of settlements, which could be a reason the mutants are so focused on the settlements. This would generate a very real risk for everyone including the player and by extension their settlements as well.
By altering these parameters I feel the entire feel of the game would have changed to be more in line with the Fallout Universe. While not exactly dire, would be enough natural conflict to keep player's on their toes.
The Factions.
The Institute:
My idea of the institute would be very different, instead of a isolationist sci-fi group they would be a small yet powerful settlement near the edge of the burnt out down town area. While they would initially seem like a safe bastion against the mutants that are streaming into the common wealth. They would be much more focused on resource acquisition and control of the area. I also would have had their main focus on being the pacification and eventual reclamation of the down town area. While this goal seems lofty their means won't justify the end. I would also have the Institute engage in active recruiting of personnel from the common wealth to obtain the best trained individuals from the population by spinning their goal as a form of publicity.
This goal of theirs will generate a great deal of friction with the rest of the settlements due to their constant attempts to steal away resources from them. While initially one might think that their goal is in line with the needs of everyone else since the pacification of the mutants, however their real reason for accepting such a "noble" task is to obtain some pre war mcguffin that would ensure their dominance over the area.
To obtain this goal the Institute would rely almost completely on genetic manipulation and good old fashioned technology. For the genetic manipulation side it would be mostly be focused around the use of biological weapons, mutated monsters, and geared towards health benefits for their own people.
Imagine for a moment a settlement is being attacked by a large group of mutants, typically one would consider this just another natural attack from the mutated animals of the wastes, but if one were to consider the close proximity of the Institute to were the mutants come from it would lead to an understandable link that the Institute is capturing and altering them to specifically attack locations. The Institute could also employ engineered plagues and other horrors to obtain their goals. Which would allow for such quests to assist those affected and see the terrible reality of living in the common wealth.
The Institute's advanced technological position would also allow them to be not only the most well defended as well better equipped to handle more dangerous tasks around the common wealth by using various unique robot designs. While I would really like to retcon the Synths all together I thought of a reasonably good out for them. What if instead of them being mass produced they were limited creations of a mad genius, made for specific tasks or people. This would satisfy the Fallout 3 requirements, as well make them much more realistic than ripping off Westworld so obviously. In this case it would have more in common with Data from Star Trek, which I think would be a much more apt direction to follow.
The Brotherhood of Steel:
Honestly I would not have had them in the game at all, but only reference in contradictory rumors around the common wealth as either good or bad in some fashion. With wild stories depicting them as more machine people than well armored tech hoarders.
But if I did put the BOS into Fallout 4 I would only have their presence be very limited similar to as it was in Fallout 2. The reason for this is due to the limited resources available in the universe. They literally can't be everywhere at once, and over extending like they did in Fallout 3, was by far on of the dumbest things I ever saw in that game. I would only have maybe 4-5 BOS personnel in the game in total, and only as observers/recon that have very little influence on the overall game. But might be good to eliminate just for their loot alone.
Minute Men:
With the way I would have set up the "new" common wealth these bumbling bunch of idiots would be more relevant. Instead of them wandering around trying to reenact the American civil war, and bitching about crap the player doesn't care about I would make them central to the actual plot.
In this case I would have them behave similar to the Gun Runners and a military outfit, I would have them be one of the prime sources for weaponry and ammo as well the go to guys for defense of a settlement. This could allow players to hire or through patronage obtain them to defend key locations or settlements around the wasteland. They could also maintain their lofty goal of helping the common wealth and be completely "good", as their entire role would be that of supporting the people of the common wealth. However I would implement them in such a way that their reach would be limited, and they would not have the capability to police the entire area.
Also Preston Garvey would not exist, or that stupid repeating quest he does.
Raiders:
Raiders would be much more intelligent and actually attack settlements with strategy instead of just rushing anything that moves. I would implement this so that they would approach a settlement with different individuals focusing on different roles on how to approach. While some may think this is too difficult a task, in actuality its very simple. By allowing raiders to seem like they actually planned an attack vs. what it is they do now would actually make them a legitimate threat vs. an annoyance.
I would also have raiders employ tactics such as diversions, mortaring defenses/or sabotaging them, and attempting to infiltrate a location through the typical settlement recruitment to disable defenses.
To me giving raiders more leeway to be more of an issue makes them more, human in my opinion. The fact that this wasn't even thought about confuses me as it leave a massive gap. This would also discard the idea that raiders are just run of the mill human filth that can be easily and quickly dispatched.
This also allows for the opportunity to shine a light on raiders and give them a much more human element. Such as the outcasts or criminals that were exiled from various settlements to the down right depraved. I would also not have them 100% aggressive towards the player. I think if players could actually interact more with raiders it could lead to some interesting scenarios vs. go kill bad guy. If you think about it not even a raider wants to roam around killing everything, maybe they want to trade, or just talk to someone for a change?
I would also have raiders be a finite faction, the more you kill the less there will be and the more aggressive they would become. I also would have them be well equipped instead of using "pipe" weaponry because to survive in the common wealth as I would have made it would be very difficult since they would not have an established settlement like the others. Hell I would even have some of them be in a position to be hired or even find a way to get them to give up their nefarious ways. Just got to think of a viable way to make it seem natural rather than forced.
Story:
For the main story, I would have ditched the family plot line and just gone for a man out of time approach. I would keep the cryo vault, let the family die due to a cryo failure and just have the player wander out into the wastes trying to make sense of it all. With this I would focus on the growth of the player character rather than running around ruins screaming some kids name no one cares about. I also think this would allow the player most more freedom to interact with the world vs. constantly whining about a child to people who could literally not even care if your character existed or not.
My approach would be that of the restoration of humanity through actions (Just like the originals), letting the player's influence on the wasteland be the end goal. However I would also allow the player a lot of latitude such as conquering the entire common wealth, establishing a small city state, destroying the Institute or helping them, banding the settlements together, or simply being a drifter making small differences in peoples lives. I would really want to emphasize the choose your own adventure dynamic.
Lately I have found myself playing Fallout 4 again because a dear friend of mine (For reasons unknown to me considering that he knows my opinion of it.) purchased for me all the DLC's for the game. I am a man that honors gifts, no matter their quality so I began to think more deeply how I would have designed the entire game. I suspect that his intent was to get me agitated enough not to rant, but to simply begin to write down my thoughts on how I would have done it.
For this dissertation my intention is to gauge everyone's thoughts on how they think my ideas could either detract or benefit the game overall, as well give me an idea of how people feel about various aspects of the game.
First, the Common Wealth:
I would have had the entire "down town" area look more closely like the black sea in the southern corner. The reason for this is basic strategy when employing nuclear weaponry, always aim for the most populated or highly valued locations.
This change would drastically alter how the game would play out in the long term. Another reason I would prefer to go with this is to generate negative possibility space on purpose. A large burnt out area of a once largely populated and built up area would be a very good place to scavenge for good loot. I would also intend the ruins to be highly populated by creatures resistant to the natural inherent effects of radiation.
This could also allow for all ghoul settlements using the nature of the hostile terrain to safeguard their population from the "feral" humans outside of it.
Outside of the blasted hell I would mostly keep the rest of it the same save for a few minor differences such as available resources and reinforce the scarcity of said resources.
I would also implement unique locations for both the factions and player to take advantage of for their "settlements". These would consist of locations that specialize in the gathering or processing of raw materials such as iron, stone, salvage, etc... We must remember that in the world of Fallout natural resources such as oil are extremely rare or non existent, and due to this I highly doubt I would have implemented any petroleum based products.
Instead I would have had a focus on more renewable energies for settlements and factions, rather than "generators" you would typically see in almost every location as if gas was still a thing.
Old vehicles would have been scavenged and rebuilt to act as generators based on their energy source, which would make much more sense. However given their price before the great war, they would be very rare to find and their fuel not so common.
People in the common wealth would not be as abundant, but those that live there would be enclosed in well defended settlements constantly under assault from the horror that is the wastes around them. The reason for this is due to the massive crater they neighbor which of course would allow mutants to spawn in relative safety. Food would be very scarce outside of settlements, which could be a reason the mutants are so focused on the settlements. This would generate a very real risk for everyone including the player and by extension their settlements as well.
By altering these parameters I feel the entire feel of the game would have changed to be more in line with the Fallout Universe. While not exactly dire, would be enough natural conflict to keep player's on their toes.
The Factions.
The Institute:
My idea of the institute would be very different, instead of a isolationist sci-fi group they would be a small yet powerful settlement near the edge of the burnt out down town area. While they would initially seem like a safe bastion against the mutants that are streaming into the common wealth. They would be much more focused on resource acquisition and control of the area. I also would have had their main focus on being the pacification and eventual reclamation of the down town area. While this goal seems lofty their means won't justify the end. I would also have the Institute engage in active recruiting of personnel from the common wealth to obtain the best trained individuals from the population by spinning their goal as a form of publicity.
This goal of theirs will generate a great deal of friction with the rest of the settlements due to their constant attempts to steal away resources from them. While initially one might think that their goal is in line with the needs of everyone else since the pacification of the mutants, however their real reason for accepting such a "noble" task is to obtain some pre war mcguffin that would ensure their dominance over the area.
To obtain this goal the Institute would rely almost completely on genetic manipulation and good old fashioned technology. For the genetic manipulation side it would be mostly be focused around the use of biological weapons, mutated monsters, and geared towards health benefits for their own people.
Imagine for a moment a settlement is being attacked by a large group of mutants, typically one would consider this just another natural attack from the mutated animals of the wastes, but if one were to consider the close proximity of the Institute to were the mutants come from it would lead to an understandable link that the Institute is capturing and altering them to specifically attack locations. The Institute could also employ engineered plagues and other horrors to obtain their goals. Which would allow for such quests to assist those affected and see the terrible reality of living in the common wealth.
The Institute's advanced technological position would also allow them to be not only the most well defended as well better equipped to handle more dangerous tasks around the common wealth by using various unique robot designs. While I would really like to retcon the Synths all together I thought of a reasonably good out for them. What if instead of them being mass produced they were limited creations of a mad genius, made for specific tasks or people. This would satisfy the Fallout 3 requirements, as well make them much more realistic than ripping off Westworld so obviously. In this case it would have more in common with Data from Star Trek, which I think would be a much more apt direction to follow.
The Brotherhood of Steel:
Honestly I would not have had them in the game at all, but only reference in contradictory rumors around the common wealth as either good or bad in some fashion. With wild stories depicting them as more machine people than well armored tech hoarders.
But if I did put the BOS into Fallout 4 I would only have their presence be very limited similar to as it was in Fallout 2. The reason for this is due to the limited resources available in the universe. They literally can't be everywhere at once, and over extending like they did in Fallout 3, was by far on of the dumbest things I ever saw in that game. I would only have maybe 4-5 BOS personnel in the game in total, and only as observers/recon that have very little influence on the overall game. But might be good to eliminate just for their loot alone.
Minute Men:
With the way I would have set up the "new" common wealth these bumbling bunch of idiots would be more relevant. Instead of them wandering around trying to reenact the American civil war, and bitching about crap the player doesn't care about I would make them central to the actual plot.
In this case I would have them behave similar to the Gun Runners and a military outfit, I would have them be one of the prime sources for weaponry and ammo as well the go to guys for defense of a settlement. This could allow players to hire or through patronage obtain them to defend key locations or settlements around the wasteland. They could also maintain their lofty goal of helping the common wealth and be completely "good", as their entire role would be that of supporting the people of the common wealth. However I would implement them in such a way that their reach would be limited, and they would not have the capability to police the entire area.
Also Preston Garvey would not exist, or that stupid repeating quest he does.
Raiders:
Raiders would be much more intelligent and actually attack settlements with strategy instead of just rushing anything that moves. I would implement this so that they would approach a settlement with different individuals focusing on different roles on how to approach. While some may think this is too difficult a task, in actuality its very simple. By allowing raiders to seem like they actually planned an attack vs. what it is they do now would actually make them a legitimate threat vs. an annoyance.
I would also have raiders employ tactics such as diversions, mortaring defenses/or sabotaging them, and attempting to infiltrate a location through the typical settlement recruitment to disable defenses.
To me giving raiders more leeway to be more of an issue makes them more, human in my opinion. The fact that this wasn't even thought about confuses me as it leave a massive gap. This would also discard the idea that raiders are just run of the mill human filth that can be easily and quickly dispatched.
This also allows for the opportunity to shine a light on raiders and give them a much more human element. Such as the outcasts or criminals that were exiled from various settlements to the down right depraved. I would also not have them 100% aggressive towards the player. I think if players could actually interact more with raiders it could lead to some interesting scenarios vs. go kill bad guy. If you think about it not even a raider wants to roam around killing everything, maybe they want to trade, or just talk to someone for a change?
I would also have raiders be a finite faction, the more you kill the less there will be and the more aggressive they would become. I also would have them be well equipped instead of using "pipe" weaponry because to survive in the common wealth as I would have made it would be very difficult since they would not have an established settlement like the others. Hell I would even have some of them be in a position to be hired or even find a way to get them to give up their nefarious ways. Just got to think of a viable way to make it seem natural rather than forced.
Story:
For the main story, I would have ditched the family plot line and just gone for a man out of time approach. I would keep the cryo vault, let the family die due to a cryo failure and just have the player wander out into the wastes trying to make sense of it all. With this I would focus on the growth of the player character rather than running around ruins screaming some kids name no one cares about. I also think this would allow the player most more freedom to interact with the world vs. constantly whining about a child to people who could literally not even care if your character existed or not.
My approach would be that of the restoration of humanity through actions (Just like the originals), letting the player's influence on the wasteland be the end goal. However I would also allow the player a lot of latitude such as conquering the entire common wealth, establishing a small city state, destroying the Institute or helping them, banding the settlements together, or simply being a drifter making small differences in peoples lives. I would really want to emphasize the choose your own adventure dynamic.
