Fallout 4 is not "Skyrim with guns."

[Korin]

Guys, I love fallout 3 and 4... but Fallout 4 is Skyrim with guns, lol. I've probably got a solid 100 hours in Fallout 4 now and yeah, a lot of the dialogue and story lines are completely vapid. The radiant quests are repetitive kill this/retrieve this quests that take you to the same dungeons to fight draugur and bandits... I mean, ghouls and raiders. Occasionally super mutants. It's a fun game but they've hollowed out the options you have available as far as actual choice goes. New Vegas remains the only recent game in the series that was able to balance both improvements in gameplay and interesting options/relevant consequence as far as dialogue and how you completed quests goes. It does have it's moments and a few times the sarcastic option has made me laugh out loud... but there's definitely little to no depth to most choices. It's basically a game of "yes" with a linear path of what yes will entail.

I'm still playing the game and it's fun but it's a Skyrim kind of fun. That's fun for me if I have no expectations for anything else. I enjoyed Skyrim too. I like wandering around and finding things... I like building up settlements and playing with the design. I like reading stories on terminals and finding bits of history and lore. I like the freedom Bethesda games offer to go in any direction and kill people in any manner of my choosing. But at the end of the day the choices you can make and the options you have to affect the world around you are pretty minimal. Also that dialogue wheel is the worst.

 

[Crni Vuk]

The majority of people are idiots.

Come on now. Had the majority actually hated Skyrim youd been utilizing that fact now and thinking theyre intelligent.

But that's not the point anyway, as the core of the issue is that Fallout was never designed to be what Fallout 3 and 4 are today. So what ever if the masses like Skyrim or not, has absolutely no merrits on the original design of Fallout, namely Fallout 1 and 2. That's the point I guess. There was never a reason to adapt Fallout as franchise to the Skyrim formula or the Bethesda design past Morrowind, no matter how succesfull it might be in selling something to the masses. Because Fallout was never meant to be a game for the masses in the first place.

Just saw this and it made me smile.

Spoiler

 

[HerveCaen]

But that's not the point anyway, as the core of the issue is that Fallout was never designed to be what Fallout 3 and 4 are today. So what ever if the masses like Skyrim or not, has absolutely no merrits on the original design of Fallout, namely Fallout 1 and 2. That's the point I guess. There was never a reason to adapt Fallout as franchise to the Skyrim formula or the Bethesda design past Morrowind, no matter how succesfull it might be in selling something to the masses. Because Fallout was never meant to be a game for the masses in the first place.

Nice straw man argument. Anyway, Bethesda made it in to what it is because they didnt know how to make games with a similar viewpoint as Baldurs Gate. Was it a big change? Yes. For the worse? Yes. Should you be crying over it nearly a decade later when nothing is going to change about it? Heh..

 

[Irwin John Finster]

But that's not the point anyway, as the core of the issue is that Fallout was never designed to be what Fallout 3 and 4 are today. So what ever if the masses like Skyrim or not, has absolutely no merrits on the original design of Fallout, namely Fallout 1 and 2. That's the point I guess. There was never a reason to adapt Fallout as franchise to the Skyrim formula or the Bethesda design past Morrowind, no matter how succesfull it might be in selling something to the masses. Because Fallout was never meant to be a game for the masses in the first place.

Nice straw man argument. Anyway, Bethesda made it in to what it is because they didnt know how to make games with a similar viewpoint as Baldurs Gate. Was it a big change? Yes. For the worse? Yes. Should you be crying over it nearly a decade later when nothing is going to change about it? Heh..

Decade? It's been 1 month since they officially made Fallout into a less polished, buggier version of Borderlands.

 

[whirlingdervish]

You shouldn't bother responding to that guy. He's a pretty worthless troll, and only saying that to get attention.

Notice that his material consists of regurgitating fanboy gambit #5 in a slightly vague form:

"Bethesda couldn't make it isometric, stop crying because its an AWWSSUM FPS GAME NOW BRAH. You're living in the past!"

This is pretty much all he does around here. He shows up in a thread spouts off a one liner attempting to rile up people by pushing buttons that we all know are there, and hopes he causes a ruckus with this lamest and most halfassed of trolling routines.

It's pretty uninspired, just like Fallout 4.

 

[Crni Vuk]

But that's not the point anyway, as the core of the issue is that Fallout was never designed to be what Fallout 3 and 4 are today. So what ever if the masses like Skyrim or not, has absolutely no merrits on the original design of Fallout, namely Fallout 1 and 2. That's the point I guess. There was never a reason to adapt Fallout as franchise to the Skyrim formula or the Bethesda design past Morrowind, no matter how succesfull it might be in selling something to the masses. Because Fallout was never meant to be a game for the masses in the first place.

Nice straw man argument. Anyway, Bethesda made it in to what it is because they didnt know how to make games with a similar viewpoint as Baldurs Gate. Was it a big change? Yes. For the worse? Yes. Should you be crying over it nearly a decade later when nothing is going to change about it? Heh..

Basically what Irwin said. Strawman? I am not sure in which way it is a straw man, if the transition is still fresh, to say it that way. In the end it all boils down to this, no matter what we think about success, Skyrim or if F4 sells many games or not.

What are we supposed to do? We're just discussing it here anyway. Nothing more, nothing less. Bethesda will do their thing no matter if we have an opinion about it or not. So, no, it's not a straw man.

It's simply stating a fact. Bethesda today follows a very different principle and direction as the original team behind Fallout did.

But, no one has to believe me:

My idea is to explore more of the world and more of the ethics of a post-nuclear world, not to make a better plasma gun.
- Timothy Cain

vs.

Fantasy, for us, is a knight on horseback running around and killing things
- Todd Howard - about the design of Oblivion.

Today he could probably just as well say, Fallout, for us, is a guy running around and killing things to 50s music. But there have been equally stupid statements in the past.


The success of Skyrim doesn't tell us much about it's quality as product, and as far as what Fallout is, in it's core, it should also not play any role at all. Fallout 1 and 2 have been very succesfull on their own terms.

 

[DirtyOldShoe]

The Dragonborn is canonically named Yingvar for male of Yilna for female with a full back story as a general in the Imperial legion or respected court appointed legal advisory. The story starts off with your canonical child being taken from you while you where under a Daedric spell and your canonical spouse was crudely stabbed with a dagger whilst under the same spell. Through Skyrim's limited voiced PC dialogue you discover quickly that your missing child is secondary to helping Riverwood building a better defense and that your spouse practically may have not have been written in as you don't have dialogue about their death other then seeing them dead. After the Dragonborn has devoted 30 hours of game time into improving the defenses of 30 hamlets and providing the generic nameless NPC's with reliable basic necessities, they decide it is time to continue their secondary mission. To save there child they have a choice to join the Empire, Stormjokes, the Thalmor or the Blades. You discover the only way to save Galf, your canonically named child, is to be teleported to a Daedric realm that only Legate Rikke, Galmar Stonefist, Ondolemar or Esbern have the magical know how to do. All weapons and armor are modifiable, all the enemies and most of the voiced non hostile NPCs are not given names but titles like Legendary necromancer rouge and Legendary Mudcrab Queen. Explorable areas are now chalk full of hostiles, some areas have 30 to 100 wolves with no logistical food source or reason to inhabit placed areas and just eat up your non-replenishing magic pool. Spells have been cut from the game to streamline it, now with magic perks you can invest your level up points in, so no more magic grinding! Healing potions are no longer crafted with ingredients but blood.

 

[Ninja]

The Dragonborn is canonically named Yingvar for male of Yilna for female with a full back story as a general in the Imperial legion or respected court appointed legal advisory. The story starts off with your canonical child being taken from you while you where under a Daedric spell and your canonical spouse was crudely stabbed with a dagger whilst under the same spell. Through Skyrim's limited voiced PC dialogue you discover quickly that your missing child is secondary to helping Riverwood building a better defense and that your spouse practically may have not have been written in as you don't have dialogue about their death other then seeing them dead. After the Dragonborn has devoted 30 hours of game time into improving the defenses of 30 hamlets and providing the generic nameless NPC's with reliable basic necessities, they decide it is time to continue their secondary mission. To save there child they have a choice to join the Empire, Stormjokes, the Thalmor or the Blades. You discover the only way to save Galf, your canonically named child, is to be teleported to a Daedric realm that only Legate Rikke, Galmar Stonefist, Ondolemar or Esbern have the magical know how to do. All weapons and armor are modifiable, all the enemies and most of the voiced non hostile NPCs are not given names but titles like Legendary necromancer rouge and Legendary Mudcrab Queen. Explorable areas are now chalk full of hostiles, some areas have 30 to 100 wolves with no logistical food source or reason to inhabit placed areas and just eat up your non-replenishing magic pool. Spells have been cut from the game to streamline it, now with magic perks you can invest your level up points in, so no more magic grinding! Healing potions are no longer crafted with ingredients but blood.

Wouldn't be surprised if TESVI is more on rails than that Rambo game.

 

[DirtyOldShoe]

When I was younger my grandparents used to always ask me if I was watching Nintendo, I tried to explain to them that you play video games and how they are not like TV or movies. I guess times are changing and so are games. makes me sad to know what limitless possibilities these companies have and how they got things so right before, and now they lost focus because of $$$ and bend over for console to rake in as many caps as they can. Seriously I don't get it. With all the let's Plays out there and the content being a literal carbon copy for every player, why buy the game when you can watch some random person do the exact thing you can do, not better or worse?

 

[whirlingdervish]

So far, the only time I have even considered buying this game was after watching people who don't know anything about Fallout play it incredibly poorly on twitch.tv and praise the game highly (only to not stream it again after a few times).

Something competitive in me just screams when I see people being bad at video games, or not knowing anything about the gameworld in an RPG.
I'm left feeling something like "well I could play that way better and actually know what I'm looking at" even if I hated it.

 

[Ninja]

Honestly, I'm having fun with Fallout 4. No it's not a good main Fallout game, and it's not a good RPG. But it is a fun shoot-and-loot game. I quite like the Borderlands games, and I just take Fallout 4 as a spin-off with those kinds of elements.

 

[DirtyOldShoe]

So far, the only time I have even considered buying this game was after watching people who don't know anything about Fallout play it incredibly poorly on twitch.tv and praise the game highly (only to not stream it again after a few times).

Something competitive in me just screams when I see people being bad at video games, or not knowing anything about the gameworld in an RPG.
I'm left feeling something like "well I could play that way better and actually know what I'm looking at" even if I hated it.

I bought it. I went into it thinking, "the story will be copy/paste FO3 and I hate FO3, but I want to like it." I put off buying it. My friend bought it and "raved" at how good it is. I caved in and got it. Kept an open mind and tried hard to like it. There are a few things that are nice. Too many things that are not nice. I was never into power armor, so being forced to use it bothers me. I like going my own way. But if you go off the tracks the game forces quests on you that you don't want and you can't reject. Some parts of the main quest are okay, but then stupid design comes into play. Why do I have to become enemies with faction A and B that have no reason to be. Why does faction C randomly spawn in and agro every enemy every 3-5 minutes regardless of where I am? How in the **** did a raiding faction get an unlimited supply of virtibirds that respawn every 3-5 minutes? Why do I have to build a safe house every time I play? Why do I have to craft? Why am I forced into investing perks into modding guns? Why are the only things I can do to level is kill stuff or bake bread? I stopped playing for a few days and then watched a lets play. The person was wearing their god suit of 300dt, 300et and 300rt looking like an idiot taking no damage. I thought like you. That newfan doesn't know anything, I am so much better, I don't play with op god armor. But I just can't get into it. Over half the quests force you into settlement building. I don't like settlement building. I've calculated that there are approximately 9 quests that I can "roleplay" without breaking a character. after those nine quests I have spread-out areas that all seem decorated by the same level designer. Raiders are creative with the junk and place bears and other items in cooky ways, super mutant areas are predictable, mines are everywhere, silent zombies. It has been a few days now and I honestly can't get in to it. I think, "Dogmeat is cool, but after 9 quests it gets very explore with no quest fatigue", "this doesn't feel like Fallout" and junk loot fatigue. Having to junk loot each time can be fatiguing too.

 

[Ilosar]

1. Mages?
2. Sarcastic
3. HATE MAGES
4. Of course

Fixed that for ya.

It really is VERY jarring to go from F4's dialogue wheel to Mass Effect. The difference in execution and quality is staggering. If you're going to copy Mass Effect and Bioware you should probably ensure your writers are up to snuff because I played only a few hours of ME3 and I don't know if I can even go back to F4 because it's lame attempt at a dialogue wheel system is insulting.

The dialog wheel had a rough start in ME1 (several times which option you took literally didn't matter, Shepard said the same thing with the same tone). But by ME3 Bioware got the hang of it, and Inquisition's is very nice, it has tonal icons, clearly marked investigative options and tells you which options move the conversation forward. Important decisions are also detailled beyond the paraphrase. I like what they did with it.

The above really only became evident in hindsight, after struggling with FO4's dialog wheel. Way to take a concept and just fail to implement it properly in any way. Cripes, even Deus Ex: Human Revolution had a way better dialog wheel and paraphrase. And that wasn't even an RPG.

One thing Skyrim actually did right is improve the dialog, shockingly enough. Morrowind and Oblivion had dialogs that were composed of freaking Wikipedia entries shared across the majority of NPCs. I like the game, but let's be real, the dialog system in Morrowind was shit.

 

[Irwin John Finster]

1. Mages?
2. Sarcastic
3. HATE MAGES
4. Of course

Fixed that for ya.

It really is VERY jarring to go from F4's dialogue wheel to Mass Effect. The difference in execution and quality is staggering. If you're going to copy Mass Effect and Bioware you should probably ensure your writers are up to snuff because I played only a few hours of ME3 and I don't know if I can even go back to F4 because it's lame attempt at a dialogue wheel system is insulting.

The dialog wheel had a rough start in ME1 (several times which option you took literally didn't matter, Shepard said the same thing with the same tone). But by ME3 Bioware got the hang of it, and Inquisition's is very nice, it has tonal icons, clearly marked investigative options and tells you which options move the conversation forward. Important decisions are also detailled beyond the paraphrase. I like what they did with it.

The above really only became evident in hindsight, after struggling with FO4's dialog wheel. Way to take a concept and just fail to implement it properly in any way. Cripes, even Deus Ex: Human Revolution had a way better dialog wheel and paraphrase. And that wasn't even an RPG.

One thing Skyrim actually did right is improve the dialog, shockingly enough. Morrowind and Oblivion had dialogs that were composed of freaking Wikipedia entries shared across the majority of NPCs. I like the game, but let's be real, the dialog system in Morrowind was shit.

Deus Ex Human Revolution was more RPG than Fallout 4. You could actually make dichotomous choices in small quests rather than have a linear quest, and that's not even for the main quests. In the main quest, you had significant choices. Human Revolution was actually one of the best games I've ever played and I definitely consider that game to be more of an RPG than F4.

 

[coldroll]

Yeah, Skyrim has terrible combat whereas Fallout 4's combat is at least acceptable. Skyrim does, however, allow for (very) light roleplaying that's more or less impossible in Fallout 4.

As bad as Fallout 4 is at least they got the gun play right this time.

 

[Aaron Burr]

Yeah, Skyrim has terrible combat whereas Fallout 4's combat is at least acceptable. Skyrim does, however, allow for (very) light roleplaying that's more or less impossible in Fallout 4.

As bad as Fallout 4 is at least they got the gun play right this time.

Which has about as much impact on my (and I suspect most of NMA's) experience as a particularly well crafted chess set would have on the game experience of chess. Completely extraneous and missing the point.

 

[Khannis]

Yeah, Skyrim has terrible combat whereas Fallout 4's combat is at least acceptable. Skyrim does, however, allow for (very) light roleplaying that's more or less impossible in Fallout 4.

As bad as Fallout 4 is at least they got the gun play right this time.

Which has about as much impact on my (and I suspect most of NMA's) experience as a particularly well crafted chess set would have on the game experience of chess. Completely extraneous and missing the point.

Can I get an Amen?

 

[GeorgieBest]

Yeah, Skyrim has terrible combat whereas Fallout 4's combat is at least acceptable. Skyrim does, however, allow for (very) light roleplaying that's more or less impossible in Fallout 4.

As bad as Fallout 4 is at least they got the gun play right this time.

Which has about as much impact on my (and I suspect most of NMA's) experience as a particularly well crafted chess set would have on the game experience of chess. Completely extraneous and missing the point.

Can I get an Amen?

You know that's exactly it. I can understand someone who likes shooters getting into fallout 4, at least for a while...what i don't understand is people telling me its worth it for the story (without even discussing interactivity) :p

 

[Khannis]

You know that's exactly it. I can understand someone who likes shooters getting into fallout 4, at least for a while...what i don't understand is people telling me its worth it for the story (without even discussing interactivity) :p

People love to be railroaded into a story, apparently. I am amazed that people think Fallout 4 offers freedom and character creation diversity. I mean, the Vault Dweller could be anybody, aside from the fact it came from Vault 13, and was kicked out to find the water chip; The Chosen One could be anybody yet again, just a descendant of the Vault Dweller on a quest to save his village; In New Vegas, you were simply a Courier with a job, and that, again, could be anyone (I know, Lonesome Road). Heck, even Fallout 3; You were James' son and brought up in a Vault, but that still gave you considerable leeway. In Fallout 4 it's pure railroad, the game world doesn't respond at all to your particular character, and you're always the worried parent, griefing for his partner, ex-soldier/esquire, etc,etc.

 

[MercenarySnake]

You know that's exactly it. I can understand someone who likes shooters getting into fallout 4, at least for a while...what i don't understand is people telling me its worth it for the story (without even discussing interactivity) :p

People love to be railroaded into a story, apparently. I am amazed that people think Fallout 4 offers freedom and character creation diversity. I mean, the Vault Dweller could be anybody, aside from the fact it came from Vault 13, and was kicked out to find the water chip; The Chosen One could be anybody yet again, just a descendant of the Vault Dweller on a quest to save his village; In New Vegas, you were simply a Courier with a job, and that, again, could be anyone (I know, Lonesome Road). Heck, even Fallout 3; You were James' son and brought up in a Vault, but that still gave you considerable leeway. In Fallout 4 it's pure railroad, the game world doesn't respond at all to your particular character, and you're always the worried parent, griefing for his partner, ex-soldier/esquire, etc,etc.

You forgot, we're not playing the game right as their fans will continue to tell us. We have to LARP in order to feel like we're not railroaded. Oh wait story doesn't matter anyways so lets explore the [strike]boring[/strike] "fun" world of Fallout: Wacky Fun Edition. Like town building using recycled trash, killing everything that lives, fucking a robot/ghoul/news reporter/drug addict, exploring places that don't make sense and finding kids locked in fridges for 200 years.