What Makes A Good Fallout Game?

Fallout Guy117

Fallout Guy117

Feedback is Key.
Hi there folks, I'm new to the community and am currently working on a script for a fallout game. While I am still playing the original fallout still (and I am loving it), I have also played 3 and 4, and did in fact enjoy them, 4 though having some removed elements that would have enriched it better like the Karma, repair items and weapons, and skill points. What I want is feed back and what makes a good or great Fallout game. Please leave what you think made each game good. While I know 3 and 4 are looked down at, put it what you thought were actually descent, or improved elements that they brought.

If you do view this article, please leave a reply. Everyone's feedback is appreciated!
 
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Consequences for the player's actions is a big one to me. Fallout 1 has several examples, such as being able to pay the water merchants to deliver water to your Vault. It provides more time to find the water chip, yet the Master's armies will find the Vault faster because there's outsiders who know where it is.
 
Prone Squanderer said:
Consequences for the player's actions is a big one to me. Fallout 1 has several examples, such as being able to pay the water merchants to deliver water to your Vault. It provides more time to find the water chip, yet the Master's armies will find the Vault faster because there's outsiders who know where it is.
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I completely agree that that is a crucial aspect that was missing.
 
Good world building. And by that I mean settlement and their interaction between one another must make a good deal of sense I look at fo2 as the best example in the series for this. And New vegas recently added good, understandable, motivations for NPCs beliefs and actions. (Yes, I know factions motivations were often clear and made sense in the classics But I'm talking about individual NPCs here) NV did this especially we'll for it's companions. Er... I have come to expect great previously existed music from fallout (This is more of an anecdote than a legitimate suggestion) New vegas also gave every npc a distinct personality which I felt the classics and three and four severely lacked. And as the first responder said c&c is important again fo2 is a great example for this imo. I also feel gray morality is super fallout. I recall the vault dweller saying he learned "sometimes doing a good thing means being a very bad person". Anyway that's my 2 cents.
 
R.Graves said:
Good world building. And by that I mean settlement and their interaction between one another must make a good deal of sense I look at fo2 as the best example in the series for this. And New vegas recently added good, understandable, motivations for NPCs beliefs and actions. (Yes, I know factions motivations were often clear and made sense in the classics But I'm talking about individual NPCs here) NV did this especially we'll for it's companions. Er... I have come to expect great previously existed music from fallout (This is more of an anecdote than a legitimate suggestion) New vegas also gave every npc a distinct personality which I felt the classics and three and four severely lacked. And as the first responder said c&c is important again fo2 is a great example for this imo. I also feel gray morality is super fallout. I recall the vault dweller saying he learned "sometimes doing a good thing means being a very bad person". Anyway that's my 2 cents.
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Thank you, this is great feedback!
 
To keep things short: everything that Fallout 4 lacks.
For addition though, Fallout is well known for it's humor, often dark humor. Don't boil down to showing 'just teen jet whore' or 'just children murdered in a basement', that's not dark humor and to some extend not even just dark images, that's just edgy.

Everything boils down to coherent writing and world building. Settlement doesn't work in F4 not because settlement are foreign element in Fallout (it's untrue, look for Real Time Settlements for New Vegas, this mod shows what's needed to build a better settlement system in Fallout 4) but because it's not written well and thorough enough. There are no written in-between conflicts, the world building is immersion breaking with settlements surrounded with hazardous and hostile environment, you can't have allies with factions, and that's only surface things.
 
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0wing said:
To keep things short: everything that Fallout 4 lacks.
For addition though, Fallout is well known for it's humor, often dark humor. Don't boil down to showing 'just teen jet whore' or 'just children murdered in a basement', that's not dark humor and to some extend not even just dark images, that's just edgy.

Everything boils down to coherent writing and world building. Settlement doesn't work in F4 not because settlement are foreign element in Fallout (it's untrue, look for Real Time Settlements for New Vegas, this mod shows what's needed to build a better settlement system) but because it's not written well and thorough enough. There are no written in-between conflicts, the world building is immersion breaking with settlements surrounded with hazardous and hostile environment, and that's only surface things.
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THIS IS GREAT! I hadn't thought about possible conflicts with settlements that you yourself can establish. Thank you for the Idea!
 
At its most basic a good fallout game has:

  • Sensical world building
  • Interesting factions
  • Interesting villain
  • Good writing
After that you get into tone. Fallout has had many. There was a dark unforgiving wasteland (fo1) there was a slightly more silly but still dark wasteland (fo2) and there was a wild west frontier wasteland (fo:NV). Those are the ones that worked for fallout imo. The funhouse wasteland (fo3 & fo4)doesn't work.
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Fallout Guy117 said:
THIS IS GREAT! I hadn't thought about possible conflicts with settlements that you yourself can establish. Thank you for the Idea!
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That's not everything. Aside from what was mentioned in prevous edited post, the settlers actually need to be autonomous (or this settlement building mechanic will become rather dull and worn out, player can't rip himself apart and wipe snots to every individual) with own leaders. Which can lead to another layer of possible conflicts.
 
0wing said:
That's not everything. Aside from what was mentioned in prevous edited post, the settlers actually need to be autonomous (or this settlement building mechanic will become rather dull and worn out, player can't rip himself apart and wipe snots to every individual) with own leaders. Which can lead to another layer of possible conflicts.
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Now I get it, the anonymous idea is great.
 
There's something more about Fallout structure. Basically, Fallout is, bear with me, a western, by structure. You'll understand when watch one.
The wasteland in Fallout is something similar to wild west in the 1800s.

Of course you can always go full S.T.A.L.K.E.R. approach like Fallout 3 & 4 with city ruins and poisoned wastes containing pre-war treasures and horrible secrets and populated by rather questionable people like convicts and thugs running away from NCR or Legion's law but keep in mind what was said earlier.
 
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I've seen the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, as well as a few others, westerns not being my specialty in movies, sci-fi and mystery being my expertise, but I am getting your point. I can see the similarity with New Vegas and the first two Fallout, the more open and natural spaces, with the occasional settlement with one being very large. I can see that.

Yet there was one aspect about fallout 3 that I like. Fallout 1 feels like it's been so much longer since the Great War past, and the scale of destruction seams limited. I liked how in fallout 3 it felt huge in the aspect of how bad the war was and how it felt like the war only happened a few decades ago. Say what you will about the colors in fallout 3, but they did add a sort of hopeless bleakness to them. Like "what the hell is out here, but trash" kind of feel
 
For me, it's about the politics (or lack of) in a post nuclear World.
The consequences also play a large part and the World Building.

All three I consider to be lumped into one group, the classics and New Vegas built around these components rather fittingly.
The stories are very much human, and about the damage that man can do.

Personally, I see the Fallout series itself not as a Post-Apoc series, but as a tale or rebirth and righting the wrongs. There is very much a survival element in them. New Vegas showed that sometimes the best options weren't exactly good, but needed to survive the Wasteland (you create your own personal fiction in that game, which is one of the reasons I love it so much).

One of the issues I have with 3&4 is how they miss out on these rather simple ideas and themes.
Fallout 3 was such a mess thematically that by the end, I had to question whether this was a human conflict.
It was just a simple tale of Greed, which we've seen a billion times over again.

As many people have said, Humour plays a big part.
One of the things that could have made F3 better was if Eden was an idiot, or a poorly programed A.I that just gave up on a second's notice.
Hell, even a one-off remark from Autumn could have saved the character of Eden.

But no, Bethesda understands the skin of Fallout, but not the layers.

In all honesty, Fallout is a series without good guys, or even bad guys for that matter.
The Master wasn't evil, he was a more justifiable Hitler in a World that needed something different.
The Enclave... fine, they are evil, yet as Arcade Gannon said in New Vegas "There were some good people in the Enclave".
Caesar's Legion isn't even that evil, just very flawed.

But Bethesda try to simplify that.
All of a sudden, the Brotherhood of Steel are good guys, even through they were never really shown to be in 1,2 or New Vegas (they then ended up being weird chaotic good in F4 however).
The Railroad are somewhat Wasteland saints.
The Institute are very bad.
The Minutemen are just laughable...

So to me, a good Fallout game is something that just feels real.
I'm not asking for hard actual science, just something that fits in the boundaries of its own Fiction.
 
Fallout Guy117 said:
Yet there was one aspect about fallout 3 that I like. Fallout 1 feels like it's been so much longer since the Great War past, and the scale of destruction seams limited. I liked how in fallout 3 it felt huge in the aspect of how bad the war was and how it felt like the war only happened a few decades ago. Say what you will about the colors in fallout 3, but they did add a sort of hopeless bleakness to them. Like "what the hell is out here, but trash" kind of feel
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I know what you mean. But after experienced Fallout 1, 2, and New Vegas, those feelings in Fallout 3 just fell apart, and I can't get back to it anymore, even with mods! Seriously, at least Fallout 3 had some worldbuilding and narrative problems that can be easily solved by simply rewrite and redesign few stuff, so when and if @Radiosity's reconstructing Fallout 3 retrospective series is done, I would take them as canon Fallout 3, completely replacing Emil's stupid shit. I recommend you to take a look at those for some good advice on what makes good Fallout game.
 
Millim said:
For me, it's about the politics (or lack of) in a post nuclear World.
The consequences also play a large part and the World Building.

All three I consider to be lumped into one group, the classics and New Vegas built around these components rather fittingly.
The stories are very much human, and about the damage that man can do.

Personally, I see the Fallout series itself not as a Post-Apoc series, but as a tale or rebirth and righting the wrongs. There is very much a survival element in them. New Vegas showed that sometimes the best options weren't exactly good, but needed to survive the Wasteland (you create your own personal fiction in that game, which is one of the reasons I love it so much).

One of the issues I have with 3&4 is how they miss out on these rather simple ideas and themes.
Fallout 3 was such a mess thematically that by the end, I had to question whether this was a human conflict.
It was just a simple tale of Greed, which we've seen a billion times over again.

As many people have said, Humour plays a big part.
One of the things that could have made F3 better was if Eden was an idiot, or a poorly programed A.I that just gave up on a second's notice.
Hell, even a one-off remark from Autumn could have saved the character of Eden.

But no, Bethesda understands the skin of Fallout, but not the layers.

In all honesty, Fallout is a series without good guys, or even bad guys for that matter.
The Master wasn't evil, he was a more justifiable Hitler in a World that needed something different.
The Enclave... fine, they are evil, yet as Arcade Gannon said in New Vegas "There were some good people in the Enclave".
Caesar's Legion isn't even that evil, just very flawed.

But Bethesda try to simplify that.
All of a sudden, the Brotherhood of Steel are good guys, even through they were never really shown to be in 1,2 or New Vegas (they then ended up being weird chaotic good in F4 however).
The Railroad are somewhat Wasteland saints.
The Institute are very bad.
The Minutemen are just laughable...

So to me, a good Fallout game is something that just feels real.
I'm not asking for hard actual science, just something that fits in the boundaries of its own Fiction.
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Millim, that is a very great ammount of feed back and it is great to hear this point of view, but doesn't this ammount to the karma system losing some value in a way?
 
Fallout Guy117 said:
Millim, that is a very great ammount of feed back and it is great to hear this point of view, but doesn't this ammount to the karma system losing some value in a way?
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The karma system is a nice way of showing where our character is in the World, and while I would like to see it make a return in a different way, it wouldn't kill me to never see it again.

It needed retooling from 3 and NV, but it going isn't the biggest loss.
What is however is the reputation system.
 
Fallout Guy117 said:
Yet there was one aspect about fallout 3 that I like. Fallout 1 feels like it's been so much longer since the Great War past, and the scale of destruction seams limited. I liked how in fallout 3 it felt huge in the aspect of how bad the war was and how it felt like the war only happened a few decades ago. Say what you will about the colors in fallout 3, but they did add a sort of hopeless bleakness to them. Like "what the hell is out here, but trash" kind of feel
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Remember the coherent writing and world building part. Fallout 3 takes place after 200 years after the war. 200 years is a lot of time. Remember what people built in 160 years in Fallout 2? That's how people behave after destruction. People not used to sit ass in the ruins without any comfort and establish societies where no plant can grow and therefore no life can born. Bleak mood is fine as far as it's not immersion breaking. If it feels like a decade ago but it was 200 years then the story should be rewritten and the world is redesigned too keep this in mind. STALKER is a good example of what Fallout 3 tries to bring but still being an immersive and coherent game.
 
The problem with the karma system was that this means a) the game believes it's the ultimate authority on morality (and Beth's idea of morality is actuall pretty dumb and scary). Or b) the games choices are actually so simplistic that they actually can be summed up with bad or good.
 
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