If you had to choose ONE thing Fallout 4 did wrong, what would it be?

Emil Pagliarulo. All the problems of Fallout 4 could have been avoided just by firing him 7 years ago.
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This. Emil once again proves he can't write to save his life. The story in FO4 is filled to the brim with cheap, melodramatic, tug at the heart strings moments. While FO3 had piss poor writing, FO4 is on a whole nother level. Seriously, my favorite is the Institute/Sean coming up to the surface for 5 nano seconds and deciding that the Commonwealth must be destroyed and how their the best hope for humanity....by living under ground and making Synths for no reason.
 
I think it's easier to ask what's one thing you like that Bethesda didn't fuck up. For one thing they did wrong, it's really hard to only choose one.
 
Gaddes said:
Emil Pagliarulo. All the problems of Fallout 4 could have been avoided just by firing him 7 years ago.
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This. Emil once again proves he can't write to save his life. The story in FO4 is filled to the brim with cheap, melodramatic, tug at the heart strings moments. While FO3 had piss poor writing, FO4 is on a whole nother level. Seriously, my favorite is the Institute/Sean coming up to the surface for 5 nano seconds and deciding that the Commonwealth must be destroyed and how their the best hope for humanity....by living under ground and making Synths for no reason.
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Are you dumb and stupid? Do you not understand the genius of it being inverted Fallout 3, not you are the dad looking for your son etc etc. Emil is just such a good writer you do not understand...

In all seriousness, perhaps the problem is that the two people doing all the writing are Todd and Emil, while companies like Obsidian, Ubisoft and god forgive Bioware, have entire writing staffs. While here Emil wrote almost everything, in other games one guy could have wrote a few quests and a companion so they actually focused on something for more than a millisecond.
 
Bioware is better at schlock and tropes, but ... I feel they always produce the same kind of characters over and over again, where Obsidian has a bit more diversity. They can deliver both. Tropes and schlock with Pillars of Eternity that puts even Baldurs Gate to shame (hey I liked Baldurs Gate ok?) and relatively deep and morally ambigious content like in NV and in some aspects Kotor 2.
 
Crni Vuk said:
Bioware is better at schlock and tropes, but ... I feel they always produce the same kind of characters over and over again, where Obsidian has a bit more diversity. They can deliver both. Tropes and schlock with Pillars of Eternity that puts even Baldurs Gate to shame (hey I liked Baldurs Gate ok?) and relatively deep and morally ambigious content like in NV and in some aspects Kotor 2.
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Inquisition breaked that mold somewhat. Half your companions don't really fit a previous character archetype, and the actual villain behind the events of the game, which you find out at the very end, is a very interesting and well-written character, easily as good as the Kreias of this world.

As for the topic, I'd say the dialog really. The writing across the board is not awful (just mostly mediocre with some good moments) but the dialog wheel really sucks and most of the conversations you have are just boring. The fact that they sometimes try for cutscene-esque conversations but the engine clearly can't handle it doesn't help.

I mean, dialog wheel doesn't always mean bad dialog. Bioware has mostly sorted out their problems with it, Witcher 3 almost never had more than 2 conversation options but still managed, Alpha Protocol made a very similar system work, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution made some creative set-piece dialogs thanks to judicious use of paraphrases, body language and the like. It's just that Bethesda's dialog system is even worse than ME1's which pioneered the trope.
 
I could have rolled with the lack of skills if the story and dialog was good. As it is that is my major gripe with the game. It is hard to pick just ONE though. I know I'm not the only one.
 
Yeah, this might be really the only case where our Todd is the Alpha and the Omega here.

Ilosar said:
Crni Vuk said:
Bioware is better at schlock and tropes, but ... I feel they always produce the same kind of characters over and over again, where Obsidian has a bit more diversity. They can deliver both. Tropes and schlock with Pillars of Eternity that puts even Baldurs Gate to shame (hey I liked Baldurs Gate ok?) and relatively deep and morally ambigious content like in NV and in some aspects Kotor 2.
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Inquisition breaked that mold somewhat. Half your companions don't really fit a previous character archetype, and the actual villain behind the events of the game, which you find out at the very end, is a very interesting and well-written character, easily as good as the Kreias of this world.
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I will have to take your word for it, as I simply don't know the game. But knowing BIoware, that is hard to believe. Anyway. I might play the game at some point. Than I will see it for my self :P
 
Crni Vuk said:
Yeah, this might be really the only case where our Todd is the Alpha and the Omega here.

Ilosar said:
Crni Vuk said:
Bioware is better at schlock and tropes, but ... I feel they always produce the same kind of characters over and over again, where Obsidian has a bit more diversity. They can deliver both. Tropes and schlock with Pillars of Eternity that puts even Baldurs Gate to shame (hey I liked Baldurs Gate ok?) and relatively deep and morally ambigious content like in NV and in some aspects Kotor 2.
Click to expand...
Inquisition breaked that mold somewhat. Half your companions don't really fit a previous character archetype, and the actual villain behind the events of the game, which you find out at the very end, is a very interesting and well-written character, easily as good as the Kreias of this world.
Click to expand...

I will have to take your word for it, as I simply don't know the game. But knowing BIoware, that is hard to believe. Anyway. I might play the game at some point. Than I will see it for my self :P
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Yeah, if there's one thing Bioware does well it's writing characters. Sure, some are very clichéd, but I always feel they manage to give them personality and believability. I played through Inquisition one and about a half time when it came out. I don't at all miss the gameplay, I actually dread going back to the combat. But I miss some of the characters.
 
Usamiko said:
Definitely the dialogue wheel. I love reading and when I first saw it, I felt insulted. Like Bethesda thinks its fans doesn't have the attention span to read a fucking sentence.


Which, sadly, is probably true for young, modern day gamers...
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It would seem that reading itself, is seen as a (hostile?) challenge. With Todd Howard at the helm, the games will not be designed as a challenge (as they should be), but rather for spectacle alone.

@topic ~of course they did the Fallout series combat mechanics all wrong; just as they did before with FO3.
 
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I love reading myself, I enjoyed reading the dialogue of that farmer that was scared away from the ghost farm and then wound up in The Den. He tells you about what happened and that right there is more dialogue then anything I've seen in terms of dialogue with someone in Fallout 4.
 
Ilosar said:
Crni Vuk said:
Bioware is better at schlock and tropes, but ... I feel they always produce the same kind of characters over and over again, where Obsidian has a bit more diversity. They can deliver both. Tropes and schlock with Pillars of Eternity that puts even Baldurs Gate to shame (hey I liked Baldurs Gate ok?) and relatively deep and morally ambigious content like in NV and in some aspects Kotor 2.
Click to expand...

Inquisition breaked that mold somewhat. Half your companions don't really fit a previous character archetype, and the actual villain behind the events of the game, which you find out at the very end, is a very interesting and well-written character, easily as good as the Kreias of this world.

As for the topic, I'd say the dialog really. The writing across the board is not awful (just mostly mediocre with some good moments) but the dialog wheel really sucks and most of the conversations you have are just boring. The fact that they sometimes try for cutscene-esque conversations but the engine clearly can't handle it doesn't help.

I mean, dialog wheel doesn't always mean bad dialog. Bioware has mostly sorted out their problems with it, Witcher 3 almost never had more than 2 conversation options but still managed, Alpha Protocol made a very similar system work, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution made some creative set-piece dialogs thanks to judicious use of paraphrases, body language and the like. It's just that Bethesda's dialog system is even worse than ME1's which pioneered the trope.
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I find it surprising that you would actually say that Inquisition broke the mold, especially when the main villain was that horrible in my opinion, which I share with the following blog post:
http://johnswritersblock.com/2014/12/13/dragon-age-inquisition-ending1/

MercenarySnake said:
Hardboiled Android said:
The quests. Maybe three were interesting, maybe two had actual branching decisions.
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Like the "Kill Slag and Jake" or "Kill Slag and save Jake"? That's the only "branching" quest I found.
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Actually, that quest is probably the place where the dialogue system worked best. There were quite a bit of option in the dialogue which weren't yes no sarcastic. Made me excited about the dialogue for a bit, before it all became clear again.
 
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I'm going to be the n'th person to say dialogue. In general, I like imagining my own characters' voices. Perhaps a mod will change this; I hope so at least. Perhaps I'd even be fine with the dialogue if I liked the voice acting, but right now, there is some truly cringe-worthy stuff I've run across. I'm fine with emotions delivery, but the way this VA says certain "emotional" stuff is just... no. Also his sarcastic voice sounds like someone making fun of someone else's sarcasm.
 
RedRockRun said:
I'm going to be the n'th person to say dialogue. In general, I like imagining my own characters' voices. Perhaps a mod will change this; I hope so at least. Perhaps I'd even be fine with the dialogue if I liked the voice acting, but right now, there is some truly cringe-worthy stuff I've run across. I'm fine with emotions delivery, but the way this VA says certain "emotional" stuff is just... no. Also his sarcastic voice sounds like someone making fun of someone else's sarcasm.
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It sounds like a try hard trying to be sarcastic and failing.
 
Gizmojunk said:
Usamiko said:
Definitely the dialogue wheel. I love reading and when I first saw it, I felt insulted. Like Bethesda thinks its fans doesn't have the attention span to read a fucking sentence.


Which, sadly, is probably true for young, modern day gamers...
Click to expand...
It would seem that reading itself, is seen as a (hostile?) challenge. With Todd Howard at the helm, the games will not be designed as a challenge (as they should be), but rather for spectacle alone.

@topic ~of course they did the Fallout series combat mechanics all wrong; just as they did before with FO3.
Click to expand...

The only spectacle toddy boy did was a spectacular destruction of the series.
 
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