Far Harbor Official Discussion

Personally i quite enjoyed Far Harbor. It's map is very good. It has a post-apocalyptic setting more close to Stalker than Wasteland.

I believe it's possible to finish the DLC without killing any human being so it's a improvement. Skill checks are here but they're still limited and few. Also the way they implanted doesn't helps to role-play. In New Vegas it was possible to keep with your role through out the game whether be it a cowboy, a doctor or a brute. Fallout 4 doesn't have this and neither Far Harbor.

Main quest allows you to broke a relative peace but it requires rather serious moral compromises here and there so i really liked this. Story feels mature without being "edgy!!!1!"

There are super mutants again for no actual reason than being mobs to kill (without pesky moral dilemmas.)

Map is really big for a DLC and way they designed it feels natural and good looking. It feels desolate but always some thing interesting on the horizon.

Far Harbor as a settlement is small but it feels atmospheric and organic. Though it only reminds me what was lost to have "Settlement Buılding" in Fallout: varied towns with stories and quests.

Except for one NPC all quest givers ask for killing pests or retrieve a specific item. So as i said it's very much possible to finish the DLC without killing people.

Children of Atom is fleshed out more and characters openly admit that some people are actually immune to radiation. My guess is they're another type of ghouls or whatever. The music and atmosphere in their base fits with a Doomsday Cult, so to my surprise i find myself enjoying my time with CoA.

New enemies (especially the giant mud crap) look great however they don't bring anything actually new. There're no underwater content nor a water creature. Which makes me wonder because of some leaked files including a Giant Squid.

New weapons and armors are... decent i guess. Except for the new combat armor there's nothing interesting.

However since this DLC doesn't add new perks or mechanics and new items/enemies can only be found in Far Harbor; it's not improvement for the main game. For example Automatron brings new gameplay opportunities and a reason for another walkthrough. On the other hand player can finish Far Harbor and be done with it. It doesn't breath a new life into the game. Also it's story (while has decent amount of dialog and choices) not a breath taker.

Both the beginning and the end of main story are rather underwhelming. Climax of the story is interesting but doesn't feel like a revaluation. There're no radiant quests and even simplest quest provides a choice and has a consequence. Story doesn't inspire emotional investment unlike New Vegas DLCs. Just like Fallout 4's story it doesn't delves deeper into many subjects it brings up.

My conclusion is this' the best DLC Bethesda ever released, it's unique and has a good amount of content. It's not as good as Bloodmoon or Shivering Isles in my opinion and better than all New Vegas DLCs except Dead Money and Old World Blues. Even though i really didn't like Old World Blues due to it's pretending setting. Yet even i can admit that for it's price Old World Blues was a master piece (they sacrificed The Honest Hearts to make it that good). Dead Money is good only because of it's superb story and characters. Still i can understand that some might think Far Harbor is better than Dead Money (i'm unable to be objective when it comes Dead Money.)

So if you got the season pass when it was 30$ then Far Harbor is very much worth it. For it's standalone price i would only suggest it for people who really enjoyed and invested in Fallout 4. Also season pass so far yet to earn it's price.
 
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Far Harbor was pretty much excellent, I only have a few small gripes with it and it mostly succeeds at everything it tries to do.

Spoilers below!

Story:

Despite a few too many essential characters, Far Harbor offers a great role-playing experience (the best it can with Fallout 4's heavily flawed base system) and gives us interesting moral dilemmas along the way with consequences that feed in from side quests we could have optionally partaken in. It can also be completed without loss of human life, which is an astonishing feat compared to the base game of Fallout 4. Overall, one of the better and thought provoking stories given to us in a Fallout DLC, it's no Dead Money, but still great.

Characters:

The characters here are really well written and have very interesting stories to tell, plus your dialogue often effects their outcome. The first characters that come to mind with excellent roleplaying are DiMA and The Mariner, depending on your actions with these two characters they go through some extreme character development and can help change the outcome of the DLC. With DiMA, you can convince him to admit his crimes and give the people of Far Harbor the truth and justice they deserve, or cover up his crimes in order to keep peace for the greater good. With The Mariner, who is nothing more than a side character, depending on your actions she will leave behind a grand legacy (which is a lie) or will tell her friends and fellow Harbormen the truth and become a laughing stock in the town. The Mariner will also stand up for you in one particular ending if you chose to help her (same with the other towns people). The treatment of characters here is very reminisent of Old World Blues, as even the simplest actions with them can greatly effect the outcome of different paths taken. While these characters in general aren't as strong as characters such as Nick, Maxson, Piper and Hancock from the base game, with new companion Old Longfellow being forgetable, their treatment is far superior. Just like New Vegas, you influence their development as people, it's not you following a straight narrative of dialogue. I was sad to not see Desmond Lockheart back in a swamp setting, but maybe this was for the best.

Factions:

The factions are wonderful here, while not as fleshed out as several factions in the main game (Maxson's Reformed Brotherhood of Steel is one of the most perfectly written factions in the entire franchise), they do offer more chance for roleplaying and offer interesting philosophies and choices. The Church of the Children of Atom are better than they've ever been, as come across as a true force to be reckoned with while still being sympathetic. The Harbormen and Acadia are even more fleshed out, and how to deal with their problems made me really question my morals. Originally I thought Far Harbor deserved justice and told DiMA to surrender to them, only for this option to result in a highly unstable ending with many characters dead. The fishermen vibe to the Harbormen made the land feel different to that of Point Lookout, differentiating the land enough for me not to feel like the DLC is a clone.

The Island:

The island for the most part is wonderful, but has a huge feeling of "been there, done that." It feels like a combination of Zion and Point Lookout, albeit with more interesting characters (minus Graham, Desmond and Calvert) and factions. The creatures found on it are a true testament to how creative Bethesda can be, as the Fog Walker, Hermit Crab and Angler easily rival any new creature they introduced in Fallout 4 (Stingwings, come on...).

Items:

The items, while less than desired, are very creative and add a lot of fun gameplay, it has a bowling ball Fat-Man launcher for crying out load! Also, there is lots of unique looking items in the DLC as well, which is a huge improvement over vanilla Fallout 4.

Overall, the DLC was great, analytically speaking I think it's the third best produced for Fallout, behind Dead Money and Old World Blues respectively.

Edit: Vault 118 is fantastic, forgot to mention how great that side quest was.
 
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Spacemunkey said:
on the subject of mods is it true you cant use any mods without a beth.net account, if so I'm not ever going to, I refuse to even attempt the DLC with the voiced character.
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It's complicated. You don't need the Beth.net sign in, but you have to use NMM to use mods from Nexus and other sites.
 
After few hours with Far Harbour I must admit I'm somewhat impressed. If only F4 was more like this DLC.

Location is nice, this HPL/King/Carpenter throwback works better than previous ones. I only had problem with Vault 118. I get it, it's pastiche, but whole side quest was too... theatrical for my taste (but I found many situations in this DLC too theatrical, dialogues during family story with revenge quest, etc).

Maybe I change my mind after next couple of hours into FH but for now it's ok (and after Automaton I thought I was done with F4, damn).
 
I Couldn't care less about Far Harbor. Some of the things i'm really confused by. Like why is it Synths have "Brothers" In the biological sense i'm guessing? I'm assuming since in fallout 4 their idea's of synthetics are so fucking different than what i thought. (Organics with simple augmentation) They're more akin to terminators then to for instance Desus EX where they were born with all organic parts and then from then severed their body parts infavor of augmentations that allow them to do different feats.

So how can they procreate? Also, Remember in fallout 3 when you nuked megaton and almost nobody really gave a shit? Other than a few comments by daddy and maybe Three dog just shitting on you? No actually Consequence for an arbitrary choice their? Like here would have been some good C&C right there. If by blowing up Megaton a newly erected massive trade up. Word gets out that you blew up the city and some survivors that heard the tale and maybe even saw you from a glimpse even (I'm working with shit tier writing give me a break) Then maybe some syndicate that was extorting said traders and the traders themselves who weren't involved by being coerced attempt to find you and either make you work it off or just straight up kill you. (Skill checks would apply) And that half of the traders would have NOT even want to barter with you at all or if they do prices are sky rocketed and reputation with those said factions would have gone down immensely.

After that tangent, I bring this up because in fallout 4 same shit again. What does nuking far harbor have to even have? Might as well just do it, Wipe out everyone because none will honestly give three fucks anywhere else. That is some of my 2cents however. The DLC feels like going back to have normalize shits after a week of non-stop constipation.
 
In comparison to the Fallout 3 DLCs, Operation Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel, Point Lookout, and Mothership Zeta, how do you people think Far Harbor matches up content wise?
 
all right, so where are the voice down here that used to shout "fah harbour " is gonna be damn clone of Point lookout?
 
The Dutch Ghost said:
I strongly disagree with this one but to each his own.
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Maxson's Reformed Brotherhood is a faction I think many fail to see the true brilliance of. It's an effective military force that aims to establish a stable state out of the east coast, and in the process gives a perfect arc to the franchise's most iconic faction. But to explain why they are so perfect we have to understand the Brotherhood of Steel, and thus we have to go back (or forward) to 2077.

As a long time fan of Fallout, I am sure that you are more than familiar with Roger Maxson, founder of the Brotherhood of Steel. Roger Maxson was stationed at Mariposa Military Base when the Great War occurred and not long after began to lead his men and their families to a new, less psychologically disturbing area of the world. Here, as the bunker known as Lost Hills, Maxson founded his order; the Brotherhood of Steel. Maxson founded the Brotherhood of Steel, a techno-religious, paramilitary organisation not to pointlessly horde technology for the sake of it, but to preserve it, learn from it and analyse it for the future generations of humanity to come, and when the time came to better the world when it begins to heal with the knowledge they have historically collected. To quote Paladin Talus; "wear our power armor as a symbol of hope as you walk the wasteland, for someday when the world is ready we will surface and restore our battered Earth."

Originally the Brotherhood kept to these ideals, focusing on soft-sciences as much militaristic technology, even claiming their own land and establishing trade relations. But, even at the time of 2161, the Brotherhood began to lose their identity, and the knowledge that had been there primary goal had almost become lost to another goal; the hording of technology, to the annoyance of characters like Vree and Sophia, with the latter saying; "It has gotten so bad that many of the new initiates don't even know who Roger Maxson is or what exactly he did for us." Their focus on humanities began to deteriorate and focus on hard sciences this began their slow descent into becoming nothing more than raiders with better tech. While they did mostly remain true to their founding, such as helping local settlements after the crisis with the Unity, the Brotherhood was destined to crumble.

By 2254, the Brotherhood was nothing more than a husk of their former selves, and in desperation sent a detachment, led by the highly skilled Owyn Lyons, to find and locate any and all advanced technology on the eastern seaboard, Washington D.C. in particular.

When this detachment arrived in D.C. they kept to their mission set out for them by the Lost Hills Elders and began to gather any and all advanced technology. But the emotional plight of the citizens of the "Capital Wasteland" began to gain the empathy of Lyons, and he enlisted his Brotherhood in aiding the local settles in their squabbles against larger enemies. Lyons looked to be digging the Brotherhood out of the well they fell into so long ago, seemingly achieving what Maxson had originally intended his Brotherhood to be when founding it. But, it was not long until Lyon's incompetency as a leader began to show, his focus on the middling threat that was the Super Mutants and his willingness to throw inexperienced men and women into the firefight caused his Brotherhood to slowly crumble too. The technology that was meant to be used to improve the world instead became the instrument in the loss of so many human lives and was wasted in a war that shouldn't have begun in the first place, to the extent where many abandoned Lyons to pursue goals more inline with the traditional Brotherhood, dubbing themselves "Outcasts".

Now, we have two Brotherhoods, both being driven by incompetent leaders, on the west we have ones who refuse to climb out from their slow descent into irrelevance and one on the east who is too fool hardy and idealistic for the good of anyone. Luckily for one, two grand pieces of fortune came their way, one in the form of the remnants of the remnants of the U.S. government, and one in the form of a 19 year old Wanderer. Due to the help of the Wanderer and the vast influx of technology from the war with the Enclave, Lyons' Brotherhood seemed to be gaining momentum as a powerhouse in the wasteland, much like their ancestors. But with the incompetent and stubborn Lyons at the helm, they weren't progressing any time soon. Lyons passed away shortly after the war with the Enclave however, and the legacy he had built for himself slowly dissipated away and his Brotherhood became even more fractured and unfocused than ever before. Elder after Elder tried to lead the Brotherhood, but they failed, one by one. This was until a young man, by the name of Arthur Maxson, young yet a highyl capable tactition and warrior, stood up and took leadership of the Brotherhood of Steel. In fact, he showed so much promise and dedication to the Brotherhood's original foundation and goals, the Western Elders bestowed the rank of Supreme Commander of the Brotherhood of Steel onto Maxson. He brought the Outcasts back into the fold, abandoned the Lyons Doctrine and his Brotherhood soon became a distant memory.

The Eastern division's (and by extension, the whole Brotherhood's) ideology is now defined by Elder Arthur Maxson. Hearkening back to the earliest years of the Brotherhood, its core tenet can be summarized in the following sentence: Control technology, so that it may serve humanity and never endanger it again. Maxson's Brotherhood's primary directive is the preservation of advanced technology, but now using this for the betterment of mankind, fulfilling the dreams Roger, Vree, Sophia, Talus and many more once dreamed about. No longer is the Brotherhood of Steel a band of raiders with superior technology or a band of misguided foolhardy "heroes", they are everything they were originally intended to be; the best of humanity preserving, researching, maintaining and developing technology not just for simple preservation, but for the betterment of mankind. All of this spearheaded by the last descendant of the man who started it all.

The Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout 4 are perfect.
 
Alright, finished Far Harbor.
Well, it's not their worst. The island itself is a really nice setting and looks beautiful, and most of the characters are ok-ish, nobody really stands out as super good or super bad. There are some new items, but most of them suck or are not really interesting. The super special new Marine combat armor looks like utter dogshit, though. But nice to see them taking another page from New Vegas with the lever action rifle. And the integrated gasmask/helmet system from the Marine armor also reminds me of the Desert Ranger helmet...
Anyway, on to some potential spoilers regarding story and content:
Obviously, the story is about finding a family member, in this case the daughter of some dude who ran away because she suspected she was a synth. On the island you start helping the guys in Far Harbor (who are all a bunch of cunts), then you reach Acadia where they're kinda nice and stumble into a larger plot involving lost memories of Nick's "brother" (another prototype synth, only without human memories [weirdly enough Nick doesn't seem to react to DiMA at all if you don't bring him along right from the start]) and the fragile peace on the island. You're introduced to the third faction on the island, the Children of Atom (who are totally going to be anyone's favourite, because psychopathic religious zealots clinging on to a made up wrong faith trying to kill everyone are definitely a valid faction to follow, especially since their mainland people are almost all hostile), and have to infiltrate them to access some of DiMA's memories. This involves a terribly annoying "hacking" section that is literally a cross between Minecraft, Portal and tower defense. It sucks. Anyway, you uncover DiMA's secret security plans to destroy the Children and Far Harbor, and gain a third option to replace the topdog religious zealot with another synth to keep the Children of Atom from murdering everyone. Third option is what I did, but since the Children are utter dicks I think I'll nuke them anyway. Anyway, the rest of the island is pretty standard, kinda like a prettier Point Lookout without the mutated yokels. There are murderous yokels, but they're not mutated. Vault 118 was kinda cool, not exactly too deep of a quest but kinda fun nonetheless. It just had some of the worst voice acting ever, since the VA for the female Survivor decided to go FULL SHATNER on every single line, which was fine in the Silver Shroud quests, but here it's kinda out of place since it's an actual detective case. The quest about the Red Death was also pretty funny. So you help out the Mariner in Far Harbor, and her final quest is to slay the mystal beast of the sea, the Red Death. All excited you pack your biggest weapons and ride a boat to another island to face that beast, and it turns out to be an adorably tiny razorclaw mirelurk that has superstrong red headlight eyes. Hence the name. Either way, you can decide if you want to lie about it or tell the truth, but when you tell the truth it's not like much changes. People make fun of Mariner for a few seconds, after that it's over. Yeah, that's the "extreme character development" THIJAKA was talking about. So in the end, not too many moral dilemmas. You either lobotomise the Children (resulting in a status quo peace on the island), let them nuke the island, or turn off Far Harbor's fog condensers, destroying them. The Children are pointless dicks, so actually helping them is not an option, really. And knowing Bethesda the mainland faction of them will still mostly be hostile.
So, does it suck?
Eh. Could be worse. I think it's somewhere between Point Lookout (which was mediocre, but unoffensively forgettable) and The Pitt (which was decent, at least compared to the rest of Fallout 3) in terms of quality. In many ways it's Point Lookout 2.0, you travel to a swampy region to find the daughter of a person, there are memories/minds unconnected to bodies and old subs involved, you infiltrate a retarded religious cult (which of course involves a drug trip after which it turns out you're some sort of chosen one)... It's not original, but at least it doesn't suck too hard. Bonus points for ripping off Wasteland 2's giant car-dwelling hermit crabs.
 
The Dutch Ghost said:
In comparison to the Fallout 3 DLCs, Operation Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel, Point Lookout, and Mothership Zeta, how do you people think Far Harbor matches up content wise?
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Like I said in my mini-review, I'd put it above all DLC except the masterclass that is Dead Money and the fun romp that is Old World Blues. Generally great, but still has problems that the base game of Fallout 4 inherently plagues it with.
 
THIJAKA said:
Care to throw a counter-argument my way? You could also maybe learn to understand the Brotherhood of Steel ;)
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Okay, lets see. The BoS in Fallout 4 is the second dumbest faction in Fallout 4. The main reason being that they want to destroy The Institute. Now the Brotherhood I know from Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas would never do something like this. Destroy The Institute, the most technology advanced place in the known wasteland? HELL NO! Preserve The Institute and hoard its tech, especially their weapons tech, for themselves? YES! Elijah from New Vegas would have a stroke if he saw what the East Coast Brotherhood was trying to do to The Institute but hey whatever helps you sleep at night bub.
 
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