Fallout 4 coming out on November 10, free mobile spin-off out now

[sesom]

It's...interesting to see a stray dog following commands like it was trained ever since it was born.

Everyone knows that dogs in the wild follow your commands perfectly minutes after meeting them. Where have you been?

Yeah we learned this in Fallout 1 where this stray dog fights for us even if it was knowing us only a short time,

 

[Gnarles Bronson]

Couple possibilities:

when you level up you have one skill point and one perk -- like how in skyrim you had a choice where to invest, in health magic or stamina, only now it's gun nut, science, whatever

or Straight Skyrim style: the more you lockpick the more ranks you gain (which, meh, is more plausible than shooting deathclaws and becoming an expert computer hacker)

 

[Gnarles Bronson]

It's...interesting to see a stray dog following commands like it was trained ever since it was born.

Everyone knows that dogs in the wild follow your commands perfectly minutes after meeting them. Where have you been?

Yeah we learned this in Fallout 1 where this stray dog fights for us even if it was knowing us only a short time,

Yeah, you give dogmeat an iguana on a stick or wear a leather jacket like his previous owner to gain his trust. It's more plausible than just finding an extremely well trained dog imo. A more realistic option would have been to have your dog learn to follow your commands, like in GTA 5. But that might be annoying so, meh. I never bothered in GTA 5, but thought it was a cool feature.

 

[fred2]

Oh, god... they did remove skills, look at that option... Press Y for Skill Chart? It's gonna be like the Skyrim perk screen. Keep in mind I didn't mind it when they did it with Skyrim, that's theirs they can mutilate it all they want. But for Fallout? I'll play it and enjoy, but it'll definitely feel like something is missing.

Whats a skill chart?

 

[Willy Rogers]

It's...interesting to see a stray dog following commands like it was trained ever since it was born.

Everyone knows that dogs in the wild follow your commands perfectly minutes after meeting them. Where have you been?

Yeah we learned this in Fallout 1 where this stray dog fights for us even if it was knowing us only a short time,

Yeah, you give dogmeat an iguana on a stick or wear a leather jacket like his previous owner to gain his trust. It's more plausible than just finding an extremely well trained dog imo. A more realistic option would have been to have your dog learn to follow your commands, like in GTA 5. But that might be annoying so, meh. I never bothered in GTA 5, but thought it was a cool feature.

I always picture the jacket option as the Vault Dweller doing his best to dress like Mel Gibson and say something really stupid like "G'day mate let's throw some shrimp on this barbie!", luckily the dog is to dumb to notice his horrible, and insensitive (not!), acting.

 

[Willy Rogers]

Oh, god... they did remove skills, look at that option... Press Y for Skill Chart? It's gonna be like the Skyrim perk screen. Keep in mind I didn't mind it when they did it with Skyrim, that's theirs they can mutilate it all they want. But for Fallout? I'll play it and enjoy, but it'll definitely feel like something is missing.

Whats a skill chart?

This, but styled like a kind of poster sheet i'm assuming.

 

[TorontoReign]

Oh, god... they did remove skills, look at that option... Press Y for Skill Chart? It's gonna be like the Skyrim perk screen. Keep in mind I didn't mind it when they did it with Skyrim, that's theirs they can mutilate it all they want. But for Fallout? I'll play it and enjoy, but it'll definitely feel like something is missing.

Whats a skill chart?

This, but styled like a kind of poster sheet i'm assuming.

No wonder I felt a sense of dread when I played Skyrim and first saw that screen.

 

[Willy Rogers]

No wonder I felt a sense of dread when I played Skyrim and first saw that screen.

I didn't like it, but it wasn't as bad as I first thought it was going to be. I can see it working in FO4 if they get rid of the friggin' Health, Magick (AP?), and Stamina options and keep those restricted to either perks or SPECIAL

 

[Walpknut]

Plot twist: The dog is also a Synth, not a Cyberdog, but a Candroid!

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Straight Skyrim style: the more you lockpick the more ranks you gain (which, meh, is more plausible than shooting deathclaws and becoming an expert computer hacker)

This part would not be such a bad change - I've found the skill point progression to be a bit contrived, to be honest, even in the original games. That said, I'm not sure doing away with it altogether is a good idea. I would have rather seen a modest reform of how skill points are acquired and distributed, rather than scrapping them for a Skyrim style system.

But what I'm really bummed about is the voiced protagonist and what will presumably be a corresponding lack of character customization. I don't understand how you can take that away and still have Fallout. Being able to create your own character - with their own voice, to say nothing of their own appearance, motivation, and back story - was such an integral part of the Fallout experience. I really feel like an integral part of the game is missing without that. Fallout is not the Witcher, and it's not even Mass Effect; it's never been about playing a pre-made badass character, and to adopt that model now seems like it really does break with the kind of roleplaying that's been at the center of the series. It's taken one of the worst aspects of Fallout 3 - a PC whose backstory and motivation have been forced onto the player - and kicked it up several notches.

Sure, I get it's going to have open world gameplay and the ability to shoot anybody you want in the head (unless they decide to take another feature from FO3 and have immortal NPCs), but what good is that when the PC with their predetermined history is just railroaded down the garden path of the main quest? It takes something away from the "open world" experience when there's nothing to do in the open world but kill people (often for no reason other than boredom) and follow the main quest.

 

[Walpknut]

They are obviously gonna have a ton of Immortal NPCs. Did you play Skyrim? I tried to carry out a political assassination on the leader of the Stormcloaks, it was a tought fight and then he just kneeled a while and got back up. In New Vegas I could go fucking kill Caesar, Colonel Moore, Crocker, Dead Sea, House and Benny whenever the fuck I pleased and that was great because the NPCs reacted to this and some quests have optional dialogue to reflect this. But no Fallout 4 is probably gonna follow the TES model....

 

[TorontoReign]

They are obviously gonna have a ton of Immortal NPCs. Did you play Skyrim? I tried to carry out a political assassination on the leader of the Stormcloaks, it was a tought fight and then he just kneeled a while and got back up. In New Vegas I could go fucking kill Caesar, Colonel Moore, Crocker, Dead Sea, House and Benny whenever the fuck I pleased and that was great because the NPCs reacted to this and some quests have optional dialogue to reflect this. But no Fallout 4 is probably gonna follow the TES model....

Guess what one of the first things I mod out of the game is?

 

[Walpknut]

I installed the "kill anyone mod" on Skyrim too, and it broke after I killed a couple essential NPCs.

 

[RangerBoo]

Straight Skyrim style: the more you lockpick the more ranks you gain (which, meh, is more plausible than shooting deathclaws and becoming an expert computer hacker)

This part would not be such a bad change - I've found the skill point progression to be a bit contrived, to be honest, even in the original games. That said, I'm not sure doing away with it altogether is a good idea. I would have rather seen a modest reform of how skill points are acquired and distributed, rather than scrapping them for a Skyrim style system.

But what I'm really bummed about is the voiced protagonist and what will presumably be a corresponding lack of character customization. I don't understand how you can take that away and still have Fallout. Being able to create your own character - with their own voice, to say nothing of their own appearance, motivation, and back story - was such an integral part of the Fallout experience. I really feel like an integral part of the game is missing without that. Fallout is not the Witcher, and it's not even Mass Effect; it's never been about playing a pre-made badass character, and to adopt that model now seems like it really does break with the kind of roleplaying that's been at the center of the series. It's taken one of the worst aspects of Fallout 3 - a PC whose backstory and motivation have been forced onto the player - and kicked it up several notches.

Sure, I get it's going to have open world gameplay and the ability to shoot anybody you want in the head (unless they decide to take another feature from FO3 and have immortal NPCs), but what good is that when the PC with their predetermined history is just railroaded down the garden path of the main quest? It takes something away from the "open world" experience when there's nothing to do in the open world but kill people (often for no reason other than boredom) and follow the main quest.

Thank my good sir! This is also the problem I have with a voiced protagonist. Thank for putting it in words better then I can.

 

[fred2]

@Willy Rogers, *googling damn skill charts*

If I understand correct, a skill chart is basically a visual representation of your character progression options. Since you can draw a chart for most cRPGs (although not as exciting with its level 1\2\low\high) what really matters what under the hood i.e. what skills will be in FO4. (And more specifically i want to know what non combat related skills will be and how they will be used)

But, in the meanwhile some recent visual examples I found:


Borderlands

Spoiler

Witcher

Spoiler

Dishonered

Spoiler

Misc

Spoiler

Plot twist: The dog is also a Synth, not a Cyberdog, but a Candroid!

Ohhh. you are on different level, you need to go deeper :/

 

[Continental Op]

I watched the gameplay demo, and one thing that bothered me was the complete lack of reaction to their new environment the PC had. It might be just the dialogue choices they made, but learning 200 years have passed would likely fuck a person up (if they're not an android). No attention seems to be drawn the sheer amount of denial it would take to completely ignore that everything you know is gone. I don't know about anybody else, but I can't imagine any human being reacting to the end of the world with 'Hey, my robot butler's still alive!'.

Could be that we just don't see his devastation, could just be typical bethesda lack of Verisimilitude though.

Really hoping its the former, but it's just a tad jarring that they're talking about having a voiced PC, and then ignore any characterisation that would logically come with it.

 

[Walpknut]

Well, he is voiced by Troy Baker's generic gruff dude voice. They aren't going to allow for "weak" moments on dialogue for him, only yelling and talking in a monotone "badass" tone. Poor guy, becoming famous actually has limited his roles.

 

[TorontoReign]

So I guess every game will use Troy Baker from now on.

 

[Walpknut]

Troy Baker has done some impecable work, his Kanji is actually much better than the japanese one, and he even included a lot of little touches to the performance like a slight southern drawl and his comedic timing was pretty good. Now the poor guy is just generic Gruff anti hero with brown hair, forever.

 

[Continental Op]

Well, he is voiced by Troy Baker's generic gruff dude voice. They aren't going to allow for "weak" moments on dialogue for him, only yelling and talking in a monotone "badass" tone.

Sad thing is he can do great things when he's allowed to work with his voice (ie Penguin from Batman AC). Not asking for that, but it's seems like Bethesda is trying to go for 'voiced, but as little character as possible so players can still project.'