Elements you'd have liked explored more

The game has been said to be underwritten.
Bethesda. They "streamline" story, plot and theme with the same gusto that they attack mechanics and gameplay. There's no ghost driving the games shell.

If you're being insanely generous, you could argue that there's a brushpainting aesthetic, where they apply simple strokes of story elements as a subtle framework for creating a bigger whole. But the truth is that they're shockingly sloppy, and either lack writing and game design talent, or have management who suppresses the realization of that talent. Am I ranting yet?

They take ideas from a variety of sources (either anime or cyberpunk or both, often can't tell due to the severely diluted implementation), but either don't understand the originals or can't be bothered to explore the ideas beyond simple references, as if to gain credibility by hinting at superior works, without doing the work to actually insert those themes into the greater story.

The Institute and everything related is, in my opinion, the worst of FO4 and Bethesda. Sociopathic scientists with apparently unlimited resources (to crank out thousands of synths) in a series about scarcity and survival. And then there's the super-super-super science far beyond the Enclave, the Zetans or anything else seen in the world. The tech to develop a conscious AI alone puts them far above all other factions. Of course, this is Bethesda, so they're somehow ridiculously advanced in terms of bio-engineering and AI, but the advances that made those techs possible have barely influenced the rest of their tech. So they're only Enclave level in general despite having access to godlike tech in a couple of select areas. Plus: teleportation, which again is a separate tech stream with no further implications.

They force you into the Railroad quests (as with the other factions), but never ask any questions or allow the player to do so, or to explore their shoddy intellectual playground. The synths came out of nowhere in the FO universe, and we're instantly supposed to accept that these fully conscious beings exist and are being cranked out in hordes. And, what's the point again? Because I've never seen anything that coherently explains the Institute's goals.

I could go on and on, but I think the simplest summary is: if Ed Wood and Michael Bay teamed up to make video games...
 
I would of like the fact to explored that the institute took controll of more settlement and had a reason for creating loads of synths. It kind of whent against what we would expect from FO3. The commonwealth was made out to be a really different place with Zimmerman opening saying hes from the institute witch is fair enough but this really does't go with the story of fallout 4. Witch I guess overall thats the biggest shame that the instutitue had become the insanly powerful faction that could creat humansoids for no apprently reasson or goal. The story then gets messed up as to why even kill you're wife ect. It just gets so conusing and so mind numbing there little to no point in it really
 
The Sole Survivor having to deal with that fact that the world they knew is gone, and every one they knew and cared is long dead. In the game they just brush it off like it is nothing.

It would be nice to have to pre-war segment longer, so you get somewhat attached to your spouse and Shaun, and explore what the pre-war world was like.
 
The Sole Survivor having to deal with that fact that the world they knew is gone, and every one they knew and cared is long dead. In the game they just brush it off like it is nothing.

It would be nice to have to pre-war segment longer, so you get somewhat attached to your spouse and Shaun, and explore what the pre-war world was like.

Or maybe some kind of choose at the beginning of the game. I'd love bethesda or anyone to be balleys and maybe like have that effect like the rest of the game. Maybe there could of been different ways for the spouse to die. And one way made the sole survivor feel more guitly or something like that
 
I originally thought it would go like this:

* The Sole Survivor and his wife are both created by you
* You would go into the cryo-pods
* You'd wake up alone
* Your son would have gone on to be with the Institute but your wife was a Wastelander who had a year or two head start on you
* You would eventually find your wife again and decide whether you'd become too different to continue your relationship.
 
The game has been said to be underwritten.

What elements of the setting, commonwealth, and factions intrigued you?

What would you have liked seen explained more and why.

What characters would you liked to have been elaborated on.
Thought I'd try again since I danced around your actual questions the first time.

The setting as presented by Bethesda, doesn't really intrigue me, since it's just a rehash of past work, so moving on...

The Railroad could have been interesting, if they'd explored the themes of AI, human vs synth and what both of those terms mean, and maybe drew some parallels with the original railroad. Needs to avoid ham-handing, though.

I like the Railroad characters of Deacon and Glory. I thought we got enough of Deacon, but I would have liked to see more of Glory and maybe even get her as a temporary companion or love interest. It would have been surprising to see her die if she'd been a companion for a while (and maybe offer some interesting parallels having recently lost your wife as well).

The Minutemen concept was fine, but they needed to have less frequent radiant quests, and more handcrafted quests. This is true of the game in general, but at least feels the worst to me in the MM.

More fleshed out characters: have I mentioned Glory? Maybe Curie, too. She seemed to have only a small amount of dialog compared to Nick or Piper, and it was mostly one dimensional. I'd even be happy with building up Nick and Piper more and just cutting several of the other companion options. And some additional character building with Preston to build up camaraderie would have been a smart design decision.

The other issue with the MM and Preston is that, like all Beth games, the player is the only active, competent being in the world. The fawning and praise grates pretty quickly, and the mismatch of roles, creates unpleasant dissonance with the narrative. You're the "leader", but gameplay is about being the lackey. IMO, leadership-oriented gameplay wouldn't work in this type of title even if Obsidian or more competent devs were doing the design, so it would be better to just cut that aspect entirely. This is true for the TES series as well, but particularly important in Fallout, which has a tradition of characters being the lone wanderer.

Avoiding all of the leadership issues also allows expanded roleplay options. Being a champion or altruistic passerby fits a lot better with the quests, stories, and gameplay. And there's more room for non-altruistic play as well. For example, a forward-looking character could be selfish and mean-spirited, but still see the advantages of supporting the Minutemen to improve general safety, open up trade options, etc.
 
Would like to explore why Fallout 4 was such a trainwreck.

For real though, why the Commonwealth wants to sit in their own filth and leave the place such a dump instead of cleaning up and making it a better place.
 
Would like to explore why Fallout 4 was such a trainwreck.

For real though, why the Commonwealth wants to sit in their own filth and leave the place such a dump instead of cleaning up and making it a better place.

Because the skeletons won't let them.

falloutreality5.jpg


It might look like she hasn't bothered cleaning up, but the truth is that skeleton has a gun and he's not afraid to use it.
 
WTF why would you post something like with spokey skeleingtons and post no warnings ??

DO NOT WATCH THE VIDEO IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO GET SPOKED
 
Put something in the fucking ocean to justify their circlejerking about "the biggest map we've ever made". Yea congratulations half the map is filled with murky shit water with zero reason to go into it.
Oblivion had a similar issue but at least there was *some*thing down there.
 
Put something in the fucking ocean to justify their circlejerking about "the biggest map we've ever made". Yea congratulations half the map is filled with murky shit water with zero reason to go into it.
Oblivion had a similar issue but at least there was *some*thing down there.
There was an underwater quest in the works, and a harpoon gun or something. The content got cut, though. I guess Bethesda was too busy tacking on the clunky, half-baked settlement system.
 
Put something in the fucking ocean to justify their circlejerking about "the biggest map we've ever made". Yea congratulations half the map is filled with murky shit water with zero reason to go into it.
Oblivion had a similar issue but at least there was *some*thing down there.

There's a Chinese submarine, with a bunch of ferals and a ghoul Captain!

"We all live in a Commie submarine..."
 
There was an underwater quest in the works, and a harpoon gun or something. The content got cut, though. I guess Bethesda was too busy tacking on the clunky, half-baked settlement system.

Known Cut Content

* The Race Track where you can bet on robot races.
* The option to compete in the Combat Zone
* The option to place bets in the Combat Zone
* The Underwater Area the pipe leads to
* The option to help Paladin Danse overthrow Elder Maxson so you can make a kinder-gentler BOS
* The option to become Elder yourself (that was good to help cut)
 
Yea but it's still really close to the mainland, to the point where they could have taken off a good 1/3 of the map and still not even touch it.

In all seriousness though, I'd have preferred to have found the submarine half marooned and everyone on board dead. And instead of finding the Captain as a ghoul you find the crew all dead and you piece together what happened from the environment.

It's like the Kid in the Fridge thing. No one can seriously expect to believe the Captain stayed down in that sub for the last 200 years, nor that Raiders attacked so often he could steal their food.
 
Back
Top