Fallout NV Reactivity and The Vault (wiki) Question.

Anarchosyn

Anarchosyn

Still Mildly Glowing
On another forum a debate recently arose comparing the merits of Skyrim vs, of all things, Fallout: New Vegas. The original poster posited the straw man argument that "people say" New Vegas stands heads above Skyrim and was curious why this view was held.

I've yet to play Skyrim and I wish it the best of luck. My opinion of Bethesda isn't the rosiest due to various structural flaws I've found in their projects (flaws readily apparent when Fallout 3 is compared against New Vegas) but these issues seem less bothersome in the fantastical world in which the Elder Scrolls resides ("So what if settlements don't have an obvious food source? I'm casting fire from my hands and haven't slept in 23 in-game days!," etc).

Anyhow, while expressing my view that New Vegas stood above pre-Skyrim Bethesda titles I thought back to the much vaunted claim that New Vegas had a higher structural complexity than Fallout 3 or Oblivion. Where it is true that NV is the one Bethesda-esque title to offer branching in the main quest (or any quest, if memory serves) I can't think of many examples of the game reacting to player choice beyond those critical decisions (NV plot spoilers follow but I hope this would have been apparent with the title I chose for this thread):

1. You have the choice of aligning yourself with either of the major factions or going it solo through the Yes Man.

2. Umm... and this is why I'm posting here.

I can't really think of anything else in the overall story where a choice made would affect another quest, besides failing them of course. Decisions were peppered throughout many quest lines and those decisions could fork the narratives therein, like talking Cass out of her murder spree or joining in. However, once the choice was made, it seemed contained to that quest and rarely (if ever) affected anything outside of that line.

Can you help me think of anything I'm missing?

'Course, "reactivity" can also mean NPC's reacting to the player's statistical decisions, or in simpler words: the dialog based skill checks peppered throughout the game. However, I like to think in the grander, Alpha Protocol-esque sense (though, even here, they didn't take it far enough).

As an aside, what is the most reactive RPG out there in terms of the play experience actually altering based on player choice? Most examples I have seen fall into that Deus Ex: Invisible War mode where choice wouldn't change the level or even one's entry into it but the enemies littering the level would be swapped out based on alignments. Anybody take this further (i.e. where person A and person B might really feel like they're playing a different course of narrative evolution based on choice)?

Per the Vault

I remember there being a lot of developer commentary about Fallout New Vegas: rationales for decisions and background discussions shared and gathered via forum posts. Anybody know where that material is listed? It would be really nice if the Fallout New Vegas page had an explicit Dev Commentary section as I can geek out on reading postmortem-like materials.
 
Right now I can think only of two:

-You either do "Birds of a feather" or "Heartaches by the number".

-You either help McNamara and do "Eyesight to the blind" or help Hardin and do "Tend to your business".

In general I don't remember being many decisions that cut other quests regardless of your choiches but the quests are so intertwined that unless you plan in advance the order to do them (doesn't this go against the idea of role-playing?) you will end up influencing others quests in some way. For example if you do "Gost Town Gunfight" at the beginning of the game "I fought the law" becomes pretty much out of reach.
 
Witcher 2's second and third acts entirely depend on a single choice made in the first act. It is quite an obvious, yet natural one too.
 
Having (according to Steam) played 322 hours of FONV, some 100-odd hours of FO3 (I deleted it) and now 43 hours of Skyrim, I wanna pick up that gauntlet thrown.

In short, Skyrim suffers from the exact same sorts of narrative problems Bethesda has always suffered from. It's substantively better than Oblivion and FO3, but it's still a Bethesda title.

It's more than mutually exclusive quest paths. It's more a "crafting the world in your image" motif. It's more like, "I personally made a difference, more than just going through the motions. I left my mark."

Mutually-exclusive quest paths certainly help in that. Witcher 2's probably gone the furthest in that sort of gameplay, what with completely separate Act 2s, but most Obsidian and Bioware games (especially Mass Effect's inspired "your decisions carry on between games" design) also carry that torch. But it's more than just that. It's individual NPCs' active response to your words and your actions.

For instance, and here I may use spoilers for Skyrim: [spoiler:c3095b2d67]You can choose to side with one of two armies (or not at all) vying for control of Skyrim: Nordic patriots or Imperial armies. One of the first missions they have is to either attack or defend the most central (and first) cities you come across, where by the time you probably get around to fighting this battle on either side, most of the people in the town should know you. When you do and have essentially declared your side, the town returns to normal.

NOBODY MENTIONS THE BATTLE. If you attacked the town, nobody mentions all the guardsmen you killed or the town leader ('Jarl') you forced to abdicate, unless you ask them, at which point they say something to the tune of "I don't care" and treat you exactly as they did before. Nobody hates you for killing their best friend or family. Nobody volunteers anything. Nobody runs up to you. Nobody shuns you. They're all mere setpieces: Vendors and quest-givers.

There's also the fact that, if you play either the Nordic patriots or the Imperial army's side in the civil war to completion, nothing of substance changes except the flags on the forts. You don't lock yourself out of anything, and all the townsfolk, farmers and city dwellers act exactly the same, live exactly the same, and treat you exactly the same. It's all for flavor, and all the flavors are vanilla.[/spoiler:c3095b2d67]

To give a couple non-spoiler examples: You're given a servant/bodyguard fairly early in the game by the leader of the first 'city' you settle in. No matter what happens: If you kill everybody in that city, including the person that originally commissioned your servant to you, if you run to the ends of the earth, if you do any manner of act, your companion never offers an opinion. Ever. Never leaves you willingly. Never responds at all. Might as well be a pack mule.

You're also given a series of side-quests to clear out bandit camps around the city in question. They're simple kill quests, and every bandit is named either "bandit" or "bandit leader." They all have the same three stock phrases, and if they say anything else they're really only signposting a mechanic you can exploit nearby. When you've run the course of these quests, you look at your statistics and realize you just killed three hundred people to defend a town of less than one hundred, nameless guards included. That's not highway banditry. That's an insurrection. That's a popular revolt you just put down in the most bloody manner possible.

The only conclusion you can make is that the town leader is a tyrant and you've just willingly perpetrated a massacre. Never once were you given an opportunity to parley with them. Never is there justification as to why there are so many of them. Never is there an acknowledgement of what you just did by the people who commissioned you, or the regular farmers and townsfolk who would most be effected by your actions.

That's a failure of narrative. That's a point where the immersion breaks down and you're flung back into looking at the game as a series of numbers that increasingly get higher. Where the point is not to roleplay, but to loot better gear, because roleplaying is fundamentally broken.

Now, I can't fault Bethesda too badly. They make huge sandboxes, and trying to weave narrative into a huge sandbox game is so work- and time-consuming as to be nigh impossible. The games that do it best are far more "on rails" than wide open sandboxes - such as the Witcher, Dragon Age and Mass Effect series - or basically limit fundamental changes to inter-connected vignettes: The individual towns and faction systems in FOs 1, 2 and NV.

But at the same rate, if what you want is memorable characters and depth of interaction, a Bethesda game is not it.
 
Nalano said:
Having (according to Steam) played 322 hours of FONV, some 100-odd hours of FO3 (I deleted it) and now 43 hours of Skyrim, I wanna pick up that gauntlet thrown.

In short, Skyrim suffers from the exact same sorts of narrative problems Bethesda has always suffered from. It's substantively better than Oblivion and FO3, but it's still a Bethesda title.

It's more than mutually exclusive quest paths. It's more a "crafting the world in your image" motif. It's more like, "I personally made a difference, more than just going through the motions. I left my mark."

Mutually-exclusive quest paths certainly help in that. Witcher 2's probably gone the furthest in that sort of gameplay, what with completely separate Act 2s, but most Obsidian and Bioware games (especially Mass Effect's inspired "your decisions carry on between games" design) also carry that torch. But it's more than just that. It's individual NPCs' active response to your words and your actions.

For instance, and here I may use spoilers for Skyrim: [spoiler:72d29c999e]You can choose to side with one of two armies (or not at all) vying for control of Skyrim: Nordic patriots or Imperial armies. One of the first missions they have is to either attack or defend the most central (and first) cities you come across, where by the time you probably get around to fighting this battle on either side, most of the people in the town should know you. When you do and have essentially declared your side, the town returns to normal.

NOBODY MENTIONS THE BATTLE. If you attacked the town, nobody mentions all the guardsmen you killed or the town leader ('Jarl') you forced to abdicate, unless you ask them, at which point they say something to the tune of "I don't care" and treat you exactly as they did before. Nobody hates you for killing their best friend or family. Nobody volunteers anything. Nobody runs up to you. Nobody shuns you. They're all mere setpieces: Vendors and quest-givers.

There's also the fact that, if you play either the Nordic patriots or the Imperial army's side in the civil war to completion, nothing of substance changes except the flags on the forts. You don't lock yourself out of anything, and all the townsfolk, farmers and city dwellers act exactly the same, live exactly the same, and treat you exactly the same. It's all for flavor, and all the flavors are vanilla.[/spoiler:72d29c999e]

To give a couple non-spoiler examples: You're given a servant/bodyguard fairly early in the game by the leader of the first 'city' you settle in. No matter what happens: If you kill everybody in that city, including the person that originally commissioned your servant to you, if you run to the ends of the earth, if you do any manner of act, your companion never offers an opinion. Ever. Never leaves you willingly. Never responds at all. Might as well be a pack mule.

You're also given a series of side-quests to clear out bandit camps around the city in question. They're simple kill quests, and every bandit is named either "bandit" or "bandit leader." They all have the same three stock phrases, and if they say anything else they're really only signposting a mechanic you can exploit nearby. When you've run the course of these quests, you look at your statistics and realize you just killed three hundred people to defend a town of less than one hundred, nameless guards included. That's not highway banditry. That's an insurrection. That's a popular revolt you just put down in the most bloody manner possible.

The only conclusion you can make is that the town leader is a tyrant and you've just willingly perpetrated a massacre. Never once were you given an opportunity to parley with them. Never is there justification as to why there are so many of them. Never is there an acknowledgement of what you just did by the people who commissioned you, or the regular farmers and townsfolk who would most be effected by your actions.

That's a failure of narrative. That's a point where the immersion breaks down and you're flung back into looking at the game as a series of numbers that increasingly get higher. Where the point is not to roleplay, but to loot better gear, because roleplaying is fundamentally broken.

Now, I can't fault Bethesda too badly. They make huge sandboxes, and trying to weave narrative into a huge sandbox game is so work- and time-consuming as to be nigh impossible. The games that do it best are far more "on rails" than wide open sandboxes - such as the Witcher, Dragon Age and Mass Effect series - or basically limit fundamental changes to inter-connected vignettes: The individual towns and faction systems in FOs 1, 2 and NV.

But at the same rate, if what you want is memorable characters and depth of interaction, a Bethesda game is not it.
Click to expand...

The non-spoiler example, in fact, is something that bothers me with most games, Bethesdian included. Games rarely have enough difficulty and I end up slaughtering thousands - but the thing is, the game does not treat you as a badass. So if I'm not a killing machine badass, then... why can't a single guard in the whole town massacre those thousands? Or why can't an army deal with this threat? Why can't elite bodyguards do the job?

It's fairly annoying because yes, I don't feel like roleplaying anymore and I start exploiting the game in the most horrendous ways.
 
This is true about Elder Scrolls games. I had an Imperial Guard say to me "I know your type, keep your weapon sheathed" and then a second later say "Sir, you remind me of why I joined the Legion in the first place. I salute you"

They'll call you the Hero of Kvatch one second and then say "I've fought mudcrabs more fearsome than you" the next
 
Yeah, exactly. Also, about calling you the hero of Kvatch - excuse me, I closed down 20 more gates in the past 2 weeks. Why does everyone ignore that? And if they do, then why are they so amazed at my Kvatch kicking-ass skills?
 
I agree. Im not going to use the dark brotherhood or thieves guild lines because you were presumably clandestine. What you can do is go on a rampage, pay the fine and then all is in balance.

The Knights of the Nine piece actually did well by having the armor fall off if you stray from the good path but you can get it back by going to 9 spots and tapping A.
 
Well, simply allying with any of the main factions in New Vegas changes several things, most notably the quests and services provided, and not getting shot in the face by half the Wasteland if you piss off the NCR.

Can't befriend Goodsprings citizens and Powder Gangers both.

Some quests will make companions unavailable. Such as healing the Legion rules out Arcade, helping the Van Graffs kills Cass. And even if you get companions, they are more than pack mules and will leave if you do something against their morals (Skyrim is real bad at this, I beat up this girl in a tavern and she is ready to lay down her life for me repeatedly while carrying all my junk?).

There's not that much mutual exclusivity in truth, but lots of different outcomes within the same factions. The Khans can end up in like 10 ways, same for the Followers and some companions, Jacobstown has like 2 quests and still 4 or 5 endings, etc. It's that aspect I love so much with New Vegas.
 
Nalano said:
For instance, and here I may use spoilers for Skyrim: [spoiler:e2de5a11b0]You can choose to side with one of two armies (or not at all) vying for control of Skyrim: Nordic patriots or Imperial armies. One of the first missions they have is to either attack or defend the most central (and first) cities you come across, where by the time you probably get around to fighting this battle on either side, most of the people in the town should know you. When you do and have essentially declared your side, the town returns to normal.

NOBODY MENTIONS THE BATTLE. If you attacked the town, nobody mentions all the guardsmen you killed or the town leader ('Jarl') you forced to abdicate, unless you ask them, at which point they say something to the tune of "I don't care" and treat you exactly as they did before. Nobody hates you for killing their best friend or family. Nobody volunteers anything. Nobody runs up to you. Nobody shuns you. They're all mere setpieces: Vendors and quest-givers.

There's also the fact that, if you play either the Nordic patriots or the Imperial army's side in the civil war to completion, nothing of substance changes except the flags on the forts. You don't lock yourself out of anything, and all the townsfolk, farmers and city dwellers act exactly the same, live exactly the same, and treat you exactly the same. It's all for f
lavor, and all the flavors are vanilla.[/spoiler:e2de5a11b0]

The only conclusion you can make is that the town leader is a tyrant and you've just willingly perpetrated a massacre. Never once were you given an opportunity to parley with them. Never is there justification as to why there are so many of them. Never is there an acknowledgement of what you just did by the people who commissioned you, or the regular farmers and townsfolk who would most be effected by your actions.
Click to expand...
1. Your spoiler example also applies to NV. I can slaughter the inhabitants of Novac, and as long as no one sees me, I can have a happy chat with an oblivious Cliff Brisoce. He never even notices that no one else lives in the town. I can murder the leaders of every faction in the Mojave, and I get nothing besides the occasional comment. Slaughtering the heads of the caravans, and the caravans themselves doesn't affect the prices of items, and merchants are still happy to deal with me.

2. Or you could realize that this is simply a limitation of the game. The game designers had the choice of giving the player realistic cities with populations in the thousands, or giving the player realistic amounts of bandits. They chose the one that would make the game more entertaining, rather than the one that would be more realistic. This also applies to NV. There are more Powder Gangers, Jackals, etc. than the entire combined population of the organized towns. The only reason that the deficit isn't even worse is that NV is able to give the player interesting animal enemies to fight, and can substitute these for human enemies.

You've got me on the rest of your points.
 
Your examples are a bit off. Yes, you can kill everyone in Novac and nobody really cares. But killing everyone in Novac isn't a quest you've got from someone. The thing is, *if* there would be a quest to kill everyone in Novac - just like there are Quests in Skyrim, where you have to conquer towns - then the people in the world must react on it in order to produce a believable game world. Expecting to have the world react on the killing of random people is a bit too much to ask, imo, but expecting people to react on what you have done in a quest which should influence the game world a lot, is really *not* too much to ask.
 
Yeah, as much as I love skyrim, I do find it annoying that even after finishing the civil war or becoming an archmage, or even finishing the damn main quest, no one seems to care.
 
Keep in mind that the Stormcloaks and Imperials in Skyrim differ in only 1 small detail: one worships Talos and the other outlaws the worshipping of Talos. So when one side conquers a town ruled by the other group, the only difference is the banning or allowing of worshipping Talos. Most merchants and NPCs say they don't care who runs the town.

Also, Skyrim has choices later in the game that will allow you to join the Blades and have way more companions, or have no access to the Blades at all; instead having an old dragon that can train you to do more damage with certain shout attacks.

Choices made in the Thieves' Guild quest-line can affect how certain merchants and NPCs act towards you (they become fences for stolen goods), and even other choices in the TG can effect how much gold the fences have for bartering, how many gems you find in dungeon containers, and even your ability to buy a house in the town of Riften.

There's also special side-quests that will affect how merchants and other NPCs will act towards you (Daedric artifact quests), because you know something secret about their private life.

It even goes as far as having a quest completely broken (Blood on the Ice) if you killed certain NPCs before. There's tons of reactivity in Skyrim, it's just not overt reactivity... you have to really look for it.
 
This is the biggest reason why NV is in my eyes head and shoulders above Skyrim:

Quest objective: Go to dungeon XY and kill John Doe.

Skyrim: You go through the dungeon, find the generic ultimate boss John, kill him, take the phat lootz from the big chest on the big pedestal at the end of the dungeon.

Fallout: You go through the dungeon, find John, and then have the choice to kill John, side with him and kill your contractors, do both, or marry John and write a pottery book.
 
Lexx said:
Your examples are a bit off. Yes, you can kill everyone in Novac and nobody really cares. But killing everyone in Novac isn't a quest you've got from someone. The thing is, *if* there would be a quest to kill everyone in Novac - just like there are Quests in Skyrim, where you have to conquer towns - then the people in the world must react on it in order to produce a believable game world. Expecting to have the world react on the killing of random people is a bit too much to ask, imo, but expecting people to react on what you have done in a quest which should influence the game world a lot, is really *not* too much to ask.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that you are simply one soldier fighting alongside several hundred others in a battle that could likely have contained nearly a thousand soldiers. The only people outside of your faction that no what faction you are in are the other members of your faction, the steward of an enemy city (who you blackmail into supporting you), and the opposing general, in the final moments of his life. The vast majority of the gameworld have no reason to suspect that you are anything out of the ordinary, least of all the citizens of the town who were completely uninvolved in anything you did. The truly unrealistic thing is that enemy soldiers attack you on sight, despite never having seen you before.

As for reactions to the change in the gameworld, what would they realistically do about it? They reason that their is no change besides who is in charge is because that is really all that is changing. The Stormcloak rebellion is centered around the right to worship Talos, while the Empire simply wants to return the rebellious areas to its control. The citizens experience no change to their personal lives except for the gain or loss of a single right. There's no logical reason for them to do anything, having recently seen how the Empire deals with rebellions or how effective the newly formed regime is.
 
Moe Canibo said:
This is the biggest reason why NV is in my eyes head and shoulders above Skyrim

Fallout: You go through the dungeon, find John, and then have the choice to kill John, side with him and kill your contractors, do both, or marry John and write a pottery book.
Click to expand...

Riiiight.... I guess we can just make up rediculous crap to prove a point, now?

Ok, my turn. New Vegas causes cancer and Skyrim cures cancer.

Sounds pretty stupid when you make shit up, huh?
 
outofthegamer said:
Moe Canibo said:
This is the biggest reason why NV is in my eyes head and shoulders above Skyrim

Fallout: You go through the dungeon, find John, and then have the choice to kill John, side with him and kill your contractors, do both, or marry John and write a pottery book.
Click to expand...

Riiiight.... I guess we can just make up rediculous crap to prove a point, now?

Ok, my turn. New Vegas causes cancer and Skyrim cures cancer.

Sounds pretty stupid when you make shit up, huh?
Click to expand...

It is marginally more fair to compare the fort capturing missions of the Civil War questline in Skyrim to the the retaking of Nelson in New Vegas.

In Skyrim, you charge into the fort and fight off a couple of waves of soldiers in order to win. You get to the soldiers on your side, and then you follow them into the fort. That's it.

In New Vegas, you charge into Nelson and kill off all of the Legionaries in order to win. You meet up with a sergeant and some soldiers either north or south of Nelson, you tell him that you are ready to attack, and then you follow them into Nelson. That's it.

Actually, this is an extraordinarily bad example to prove my point, but it does a pretty good job of helping you, so you can have it.
 
Hey, there's a point;
In NV, it is believed that the courier is the first person to have gone into the lucky 38 in years, which people duly acknowledge, yet when Mr. House dies, no one ever puts two and two together, and confront you about it. Hell, no one even seems to want to know the details of his passing (and decide that the obituary is enough to go by, I suppose).

Just a thought.
 
outofthegamer said:
Moe Canibo said:
This is the biggest reason why NV is in my eyes head and shoulders above Skyrim

Fallout: You go through the dungeon, find John, and then have the choice to kill John, side with him and kill your contractors, do both, or marry John and write a pottery book.
Click to expand...

Riiiight.... I guess we can just make up rediculous crap to prove a point, now?

Ok, my turn. New Vegas causes cancer and Skyrim cures cancer.

Sounds pretty stupid when you make shit up, huh?
Click to expand...

He was just making up a generic quest and comparing the games two different approaches to it.

In NV, it is believed that the courier is the first person to have gone into the lucky 38 in years, which people duly acknowledge, yet when Mr. House dies, no one ever puts two and two together, and confront you about it. Hell, no one even seems to want to know the details of his passing (and decide that the obituary is enough to go by, I suppose).
Click to expand...

I guess the developers made an oversight or decided that most people don't care that House is gone or that you killed him, or are too scared to confront you about it. I think some fiends can ask you what happened when House died, but I might be wrong. Either way, its only a small flaw in a overall great game.
 
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