Gamescom Fallout 4 Impressions

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Gamescom is currently occurring in Cologne Germany with Bethesda showing closed door Fallout 4 footage. Apparently this footage is the same or very similar as the one shown at Quakecon. A couple of site have posted impressions based on what they saw.

Gamespot has a positive impression praising bigger battles with multiple independent sides interacting. There is also a radial menu for quick changing weapons and equipment. They also talk about a battle with Feral Ghouls that sounds like something out of a zombie game.

http://www.gamespot.com/videos/fallout-4-bigger-battles-better-shooting-and-less-/2300-6426382/

VG247 has a more neutral impression not seeing that much change from Fallout 3 despite the 7 year release gap.

http://www.vg247.com/2015/08/05/fallout-4-looks-more-and-more-like-a-recycled-fallout-3/

Also on Twitter Bethesda has announced that you can play after the ending and there is no level cap in fallout 4.

https://twitter.com/BethesdaStudios/status/629340621459877888
 
No level cap at all? I feel sorry for the kids that are going to grind thousands of hours of their lives into this trying to get to some absurd level.
 
Fallout 2 had a level cap of 99 though. If you play the game normally you won't make it close to half-way there.
 
I think this might be one of the worst things I have read so far. No level cap? With the limited amount of perks I can't see how this works out well.
 
My unrequested thoughts on level caps:

Hard coded level caps don't make much sense to me. If someone wants to grind out 100+ levels to reach supreme jerk status, why not let them? Games are so easy nowadays; gaining some ridiculous level can't 'ruin' the challenge if no challenge exists in the first place.

In any case, the amount of content in the game produces a de facto level cap. The level cap in the original Fallout could only be reached by grinding random encounters or farming the deathclaws. And even if you did that, it only gained you an extra perk or 2 and maybe 1 or 2 additional maxed out skills. Getting to the cap certainly didn't make you overpowered. I can't even imaging the tedious grinding it would take to get to the level cap in Fallout 2 before the end of the game. You could go through all of the content and still be less than a third of the way there (until you beat the game and found the Fallout 2 cheat book).

The problem with Fallout 3 was the exact opposite. The level cap in vanilla Fallout 3 was annoyingly low, especially if you preferred to explore the wasteland over plodding through the main quest line. You'd easily reach the cap before running through even half of the minor quests that you'd find just by wandering around. If they had made the cap higher and stretched out the perks a bit more, then I would never have noticed a cap existed in the first place. Then, once the level cap was raised with the DLCs, it became trivial to max out the PCs stats and get all of the useful perks, again well before running though most of the game content. It would have better if they had raised the cap, but lowered the rate of skill points and perks gained per level. New Vegas did that, and I'm pretty sure I wondered through the mohave a much longer time before I bumped into the cap (and never reached it at all once the DLCs came out).

So in the end, the lack of a level cap might not mean much, depending on what it is exactly that you get for leveling up. We know that there are no more skills percentages, so maxing those out isn't an issue. I can only assume that your character will be able to raise his SPECIAL values through perks, but if that isn't included, or if it is somehow limited, then the PC will eventually run out of Perks that it can gain. That means the only real gain from leveling will be hit points, assuming those are tied to your level and not simply pegged to your endurance. So, even with no hard level cap there will be a de facto soft level cap once you run out of perks and only those with OCD will bother to go much beyond that.

Of course when the DLCs come out you rinse and repeat. Anyone want to take a bet on whether SPECIAL values will be allowed above 10 once the DLCs come out?
 
TorontRayne said:
I think this might be one of the worst things I have read so far. No level cap? With the limited amount of perks I can't see how this works out well.
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It's a Bethesda game, so "you feel like you're a badass" is a core part of the aesthetic appeal. There are people who will really want to end up with 10s across the board in SPECIAL and all the perks. That the game allows them to waste a tremendous amount of time doing so doesn't really affect me one way or the other. What happens in the part of the game I don't care to play (endlessly doing procedurally generated quests in the postgame) doesn't concern me about what happens in the part of the game I do care to play.

I'm personally in favor of level caps that are higher than you'll plausibly go, but leveling gets much slower at the high end.
 
The problem is not wether you will level up forever yourself or not. The decision of an uncapped RPG directly affects the game design (AS ALWAYS). THis kind of move is obviously tailored so that people will never ever miss a single thing. This also further implies that most perks will be generic percentage increases just like in Skyrim. Then the idea of having a build is completely thrown out the window, there will be no replay value so it's obvious they also scrapped the multiple endings completely.

It's a sad day when so many people praise bad game design. Then they will try and defend gaming as an art form while they allow this shit to happen and even celebrate it...
 
If there is one argument I never bought, it is the one saying "lack of build diversity kills replay value". Maybe it is true for others but not for me: in FO2, for example, I always use gifted + fast shot and tag small guns + speech + lockpick, and still play the damn game once every two or three years, because it is awesome in itself.

Borderlands 2 is another favorite, but even with 6 characters and a lot of builds, I never managed to play beyond the 4th time [twice with the commando, once with the assassin and once with the siren], because it is not the build diversity that makes replayability, it is the game itself - there is only so much I could do the same stuff over and over again. In FO2 I sometimes try things different ways, but my build is bread and butter forever because it fits me so well.

All things Bethesda suck at some degree, from what I've experienced, but some less the the others: FO3 was worse and uglier than a scythe fight in the dark, but Skyrim was kinda fun. And Skyrim, in my opinion, has replay value despite a possible lack of build diversity [for those who manage to max everything by, lets say, spending weeks only forging daggers, instead of going out there]; but that's because I played one or two quest lines to their end [example: Company of Mercs or w/e they are called], then left the game untouched and, after a years, came back to it to try from start, but with the very same build again, another quest lines [example: joining the Roman Legion or w/e it is called].


PS: I know Borderlands 2 level cap with all DLCs is 72, and that actually kills build diversity, yes... if you had the balls to play the damn game over and over again [insanity] with the same fraking character, until all skills are maxed. I could never do that, maybe I'm too old? Back in the day, I managed to do this kinda stuff in games like Final Fantasy V, complete all ting possible, but nowadays level caps and stuff are not my concern because I never get even close to them... hell, I remember I got level 32 in FO2 BEFORE going to the Oil Rig, but now I rarely get level enough to buy the Sniper perk... can't grind enclave patrols anymore, I have real life stuff to do.


EDIT: goddamn, my English is this post was very bad, wasn't it? I mean, not the spelling, but the syntax...I feel it was, correct me if possible guys...
 
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Well so far Dutch gamers seem to follow their US 'cousins' when it comes to praising Bethesda's decisions to remove level caps and kind of conclusive ending. It's all good as long as they can wander around even when there is absolutely no point to it any more.

https://translate.google.com/transl...out-4-heeft-geen-level-cap&edit-text=&act=url

Again I think Bethesda made a mistake, they should have removed non necessary stuff like plots and quests and instead have made this a full Fallout minecraft game.
 
Well let's not forget Dark Souls had a nearly unlimited soft level cap, but it was insane to get there.
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or all we know, 4 will do the same.
 

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Nah, I don't see it being like that.

We have prior evidence in Skyrim for that.

Skyrim has no real level cap.

Hell, they even crammed in that stupid option to reset your skill when you got it to a 100, just so that you can brag about about how many hours you wasted getting it up there to begin with.
 
After playing Rage, I understood what Bethesda was doing with Id. That game was one of the most fluid shooters i have ever played. While the story was extremely lacking,
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the gameplay itself was phenominal. From what i've seen they've tried to implement as much as the can from that games control scheme. i.e. weapon wheel, pistol(gunstock)

whip, having a grenade button. As a basic shooter the game was very good. But there was basically no story and the endgame was extremly anticlimactic. Lets hope controls

and functionality are the only things they took from Rage. Its quite obvious they didn't take the graphics or make much use of Id's engine. As far as playing after the main quest

ends, im all for it as long as it applies the changes you've made to the world. If you have never played Rage check it out, I have a feeling the fps play will be stageringly similar.

Also i hope that VATS will have a 3rd person view option. F3 pissed me off zooming in everytime you want to use VATS which is only made worse by the fact that 3rd person

aim doesn't really exsist in the game.
 
generalissimofurioso said:
Nah, I don't see it being like that.

We have prior evidence in Skyrim for that.

Skyrim has no real level cap.

Hell, they even crammed in that stupid option to reset your skill when you got it to a 100, just so that you can brag about about how many hours you wasted getting it up there to begin with.
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To be fair, in the case of Skyrim that was really needed. Because it can become an extremly stupid chore to gain more perks if you have most of your main-skills at 100. Which can happen with some skills fairly quickly, like weapon related skills, while others take ages because the balance of the game is so shitty - magic I am looking at you!.

On paper Skyrims system sounds fun. But in reality It sucks in my opinion. It feels way to often like grinding in some deranged MMO, sitting at a work bench making millions of dagers and enchanting that crap just so that you can level up your smithing and enchanting skills as fast as possible ... and breaking your game completely by the way.
 
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Exactly.

They're just not good at doing the whole balancing thing to begin with.

And instead of actually working with it and trying to fix it, they just strip it away and render the entire concept pointless.
 
Lets not forget that smithing, enchanting and meddling with alchemy early on can seriously screw you over as leveled monsters don't care how you got to your level...
 
.bat file? Console commands dude. Player.rewardxp 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000. Enter.
 
Walpknut said:
.bat file? Console commands dude. Player.rewardxp 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000. Enter.
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.bat files are actually easier, because you can type that + many other console commands (like addperk) and then type a command in the console, and it'll run the batfile.
 
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