What could Obsidian do with FO4?

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peadar87

Still Mildly Glowing
Anybody who has played the game have any idea what Obsidian would be able to do using the FO4 engine, and their different philosophy?

A few thoughts from me:

-Lack of skills: I think Obsidian could still make things interesting with the new system. It appears badly implemented, as opposed to a bad idea. There's presumably no reason perks couldn't work the same way as in New Vegas, with multiple prerequisites, rather than being chaining each perk to one level of one SPECIAL stat. I'm sure you could even implement skills as a workaround, have each of the skills as its own "perk". In fact, that could work even better than the previous system, as it would be easy to limit, say, your science skill based on your Intelligence, increasing the importance of your character build.

-Dialogue: Could Obsidian do good things with the dialogue wheel? Or could it be modded out?

-Crafting system: I think good things could be done with this for sure. Even if it is just to increase the importance of things like repair. One thing I did enjoy about Skyrim was the crafting system. I would like to see different applications for different gear though, I don't think there should be a "best" armour, for example, I want to have to make a choice. Light armour should allow me to run fast enough to escape most enemies (at least with a decent agility). Heavy armour should protect against more damage, but force you to stand and fight.

-Settlement building: Surely there can be cool quests written around this?
 
1. Cut down on the population size of raiders.
2. Write a story and a deeply engaging questlines.
3. Save money on Speech / threatrical showmanship and work on the bugs.
4. They can change the dialouge wheel. First thing in layout, the next in the length of the text.
5. I do not like the crafting system, but i agree they can build a proper purpose to it.

I dont know much about the engine, but i am hoping obsidian will introduce proper RPG play into F04. Thats all i ask for.
 
Obsidian already had a dialogue wheel RPG (Alpha Protocol) and it was pretty good IMHO. I have faith that they could still work with this and crank out something decent. Somehow.
 
Starting with the easy things, they should at least bring back skills, traits, ammo types, Damage Threshold (and combine it with DR) and a Hardcore mode. I trust that there would be no essential characters. (There really are no essential characters in New Vegas: Yes Man is not essential, but he comes back in a new Securitron when the current one he's in is destroyed, and Vendortron is killable if you noclip to get inside his shop.)

I think it would be a good idea to have skill points have a smaller domain, such as from 1 to 20. Some skills would also be capped depending on your SPECIAL stats. For instance, Intelligence caps your Science and Medicine skills, and as you raise Intelligence, the cap moves up. This system would allow traditional skills to exist and be more closely tied to SPECIAL, which is similar to the Fallout 4 character system, but even better in that when you level up, you can still allocate multiple skill points.

The dialogue wheel should go away. Your options shouldn't be limited to only four at any time, and if they use several word cues, they should use Deus Ex: HR's system where hovering over each cue shows the full dialogue.
 
Well... If I remember correctly, then New Vegas was developed in about 18 months and such kind of thorough modification of a modern game system may be a little too time consuming to correct FO4's oversimplified system, so I wouldn't count for big changes in dialogue wheel and leveling system...

All things considered though... I really loved the approach and atmosphere of New Vegas. The whole concept of Post-Post Apocalypse setting similiar to a wild west really suits a new Fallout game (especially since slowly starting to rebuild the world anew kind of was the main concept of Fallout 2) and since the strongest aspect of FO4 lies in the whole building your own city, then a potential new Obsidian Fallout could really embrace this idea and craft a complex story focused on politics. Just imagine a game where you try to build your own society and trying to create best possible political system while at the same time constanly trying to maintain peace with NCR or Legion...
 
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Remake the "settlement-building-system" into a "player stronghold" kind of feature where you are the boss of a settlement. Other factions in the world wants to incorporate your settlement into their territory and depending on who you choose to ally with you get different outcomes. Your settlement can also remain neutral throughout the game but that would be difficult. If you decide to ally with one of the bigger factions they can offer you protection.

You and your settlement is only a brick in a the struggle between two big competing factions. This would be a game about politics and war and you and your town are not that important in the grand scheme of things.

The settlement building feature could become more meaningful is all I'm saying. It just works.
 
Assuming that Obsidian can't just scrap the dialogue wheel as it is completely, the one thing that I would very much like to see them do is change it so that when you're talking to someone "LT" brings up another four options (considering a controller here as obviously there are more buttons on a PC keyboard). This would preclude aiming at someone when you're talking to them, but most someone you're talking to would probably take issue (and/or cover) if you start aiming down the sights at them anyway.

So you have four options linked to ABXY and four more options linked to LT+ABXY. Eight choices at any particular conversation juncture should be enough, I think.
 
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And they really should change the randomly talking to you NPCs. It should always have to be initiated by pushing the right button. It's annoying when they start a conversation with me only because I walked by them. Or they themselves walked by me. Sturge is really annoying me every time I craft stuff in Sanctuary.
 
PossibleCabbage said:
Assuming that Obsidian can't just scrap the dialogue wheel as it is completely, the one thing that I would very much like to see them do is change it so that when you're talking to someone "LT" brings up another four options (considering a controller here as obviously there are more buttons on a PC keyboard). This would preclude aiming at someone when you're talking to them, but most someone you're talking to would probably take issue (and/or cover) if you start aiming down the sights at them anyway.

So you have four options linked to ABXY and four more options linked to LT+ABXY. Eight choices at any particular conversation juncture should be enough, I think.
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I was thinking something similar, but the solution that you've provided isn't as organic to the PC as it could be. Personally, I'd have each direction of the dialogue wheel branch out to at most three other options along with the way back to the central hub; this way, you get at most twelve options (after all, Planescape: Torment had fifteen or more dialogue options at times) and you don't have to unnecessarily hold down a button on the PC, which would feel even clunkier than what we've got right now.

That said, I think the dialogue wheel in general is a console-focused abortion and if there was any sense in the gaming world, it would be scrapped as an evolutionary dead-end.
 
Ditch the Dialogue cross, go back to a list. Ditch the voiced protagonist. Reintroduce Skills. Just use the art assets. Make melee mods more varied.
 
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peadar87 said:
Anybody who has played the game have any idea what Obsidian would be able to do using the FO4 engine, and their different philosophy?
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Depends on what that philosophy is [currently]; do we really know?

If they wanted to, they could do a Fallout title in the style of Fallout, ToEE, or Pillars of Eternity, using the FO4 engine. Unlike with New Vegas, they would be going in with engine experience, and a respect for its quirks. That's a game I'd love to see BTW; and love to back on Kickstarter, and probably really love playing.

*Offhand handy concept image:
Clipboard01_zpsa485bdf7.jpg
 
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RAKTHEUNDEAD said:
I was thinking something similar, but the solution that you've provided isn't as organic to the PC as it could be. Personally, I'd have each direction of the dialogue wheel branch out to at most three other options along with the way back to the central hub; this way, you get at most twelve options (after all, Planescape: Torment had fifteen or more dialogue options at times) and you don't have to unnecessarily hold down a button on the PC, which would feel even clunkier than what we've got right now.

That said, I think the dialogue wheel in general is a console-focused abortion and if there was any sense in the gaming world, it would be scrapped as an evolutionary dead-end.
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Mass Effect had a similar thing going on, most of the time you had an "investigate" option on the left side of the dialogue wheel that had as many as 5 options, making for a possible 10 options in any given situation (though only 3 of them would generally advance the conversation). It was far from perfect, but it works a lot better than Bethesda's disaster of a dialogue system.
 
A better written-story and dialogue, but that's almost a given with Obsidian. I think the new "perks" system is beyond saving, as well as the stupid Bioware-tier (or worse) dialogue wheel. I actually like the crafting system, and don't mind settlements, so I hope they'd keep them. Weapon degradation like in New Vegas would help provide an incentive to keep trying new guns and reduce the piles of crafting junk too. The new graphics are great so that's good at least.
 
To fuck with Bethesda they could return SPECIAL to its former glory (as much as it can return considering the real-time first person change), force the perk system to not rely on the numbers of SPECIAL and then change every single damn perk in there into a skill, so a whopping 70 skills. Along with perks in a new perk screen that goes back to the old formula.

I dunno about the rest of yall but I long for the day when I get to master the art of juggling in a video game RPG.
 
Dr Fallout said:
I long for the day when the ability to write for games doesn't require coding knowledge.
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There are several engines that are nearly point & click; many of them free.

Of the many, the easiest one I know of [but it's not free] is actually the editor built into Legend of Grimrock.
It's very easy to create a full map; or even a dozen linked maps. Very easy to mod. I've seen conversions to Warhammer with that one.

I remember using Click Team's Games Factory [version 1]. They now seem to have it in version 2.5 ~and free. :shock:
http://www.clickteam.com/clickteam-fusion-2-5-free-edition (I've not tried it before, but I've just downloaded it, and plan to have a look at it later.)


_________

The problem with code-less game design, is the problem with greeting-card creation apps. They let you make great greeting's cards... but there is nothing you can do in them, that you cannot do in Photoshop; but a hell of a lot you can do in photoshop, that you can't do in a greeting card app. It's the same way with point & click engines and even just script code; but to program it yourself is to have the greatest control over the final result. (Though that's not always the best plan... programming it yourself might take a year or more, and as you approach the end, a change in the industry might render it hard to sell. That's what happed to Lands of Lore 2... A very clever 2d FPP RPG, that took so long that they found themselves competing with true 3D FPP games when then went to market.)
 
I guess SOME programming/coding knowledge does help you to get the job. But do you really need to code? Isn't there some female writer out there working for games, even though she said that she doesn't play games and doesn't even really like them, just that she loves writing for games. I remember that people all complained about her, how she could write stuff for games if she doesn't even like it and such.
 
^^^^

I would love to follow in her footsteps, as my biggest passion is also the writing and coming up with ideas part.

Anyway, I have been talking with friends and contacts about Obsidian using Fallout 4's frame to make a Fallout 'spin off', but we pretty much all agree that Fallout 4's frame such as the reduction of speech options, removal of skills, traits, and other RPG elements makes a lot more difficult to create an experience similar to Fallout New Vegas, let alone Fallout 1 and 2.
I would love to see Obsidian doing another Fallout title but perhaps it is much better if Obsidian continues with its own project instead of doing another contract for Bethesda in which they have to accept all kinds of rules and only receive additional payment for their work if their game reaches a pre defined Meta critic score.
 
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