What You LIKE About Fallout 4

[Iprovidelittlepianos]

Bethesda made the concept of pipe weapons a pre-war invention

Wait, what?

 

[PaxVenire]

Wait, what?

Yeah, Bethesda made pipe weapons a pre war thing.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

I like the idea of pipe weapons. I think if done correctly, pipe weapons could make for some great early game weapons, and I think they make sense for a world that’s so far into the future without a good source of manufacturing that they need to resort to makeshift weaponry. Raiders having these weapons make the most sense obviously as they wouldn’t have access to gun merchants regardless.

I think one issue with their implementation was the fact that they gave you a 10mm pistol first. It's an objectively superior weapon in stats, which makes sense. The main way the game entices you to switch over, as I recall, is that to upgrade the 10mm requires a higher level of perk than will be available to the player in the early game, whereas you can start modding pipe weapons and gaining advantages fairly early on.

This lands you with ridiculous contrivances automatic pipe rifles, drum magazines, accurate sniping pipe rifles, heck you can even stick a high-tech recon scope on a pipe weaponry. It all just feels silly. Fallout 2 did it better with pipe rifles, in the sense that you're likely to encounter and start using them before you find a 10mm, which gives it a niche as an early-game weapon without feeling too forced. Pipe weapons make sense in Fallout and should be floating around, but it shouldn't be achieved by buffing the pipe guns IMO.

If any kind of benefit ought be given to pipe guns, it should be that there's more .38 ammo than 10mm (which to be fair the game does do), and if durability is re-introduced then pipe guns would be easier to maintain. They degrade quicker but there's so many of them floating around it's easy to keep up.

Unfortunately, Bethesda made the concept of pipe weapons a pre-war invention like most of their additions to the lore.

I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand, I like the concept that pre-War America was a society in such fundamental break-down that thee most destitute are resorting to improvised weaponry in the pre-War. On the other hand, I don't like it as a lazy explanation for why pipe guns are present in low-level pre-War loot tables. I think it's fine to have this background bit of lore that people were making pipe-weapons before the war (and have that on the perk magazine), but you shouldn't be finding pipe weapons in safes.

I also thought the Automaton DLC addition of crafting robot companions was awesome. The DLC’s story was dogshit and the Mechanist dungeon made me wanna blow my brains out, but I liked making robot minions.

I didn't really care that much for the robot crafting. It's neat and kind of fun, but it felt kind of tedious, and too tied in to the settlement system which I just didn't like. Distracting from the gameplay elements I was more interested.

If anything, the dungeons were my favorite part. The 2 or 3 dungeons felt a cut above the ones in the base game, which I thought were mostly pretty terrible

 

[PaxVenire]

I think one issue with their implementation was the fact that they gave you a 10mm pistol first. It's an objectively superior weapon in stats, which makes sense.

This is another reason why the removal of weapon degradation was a poor idea. I wouldn’t mind if the game had given the player a 10mm first if the 10mm in question was hanging on by a thread (represented in-game as like maybe 3 shots/1 reload before needing repair). It would give you a taste of actual crafted weaponry before throwing you into a world where people are shooting at each other with plumbing equipment taped together. Perhaps the 10mm is worth a lot in Fallout 4’s economy presenting the player with the choice of keeping the dead weight in their inventory until they come across another one to repair it or selling it for a handful of bucks.

This lands you with ridiculous contrivances automatic pipe rifles, drum magazines, accurate sniping pipe rifles, heck you can even stick a high-tech recon scope on a pipe weaponry. It all just feels silly. Fallout 2 did it better with pipe rifles, in the sense that you're likely to encounter and start using them before you find a 10mm, which gives it a niche as an early-game weapon without feeling too forced.

It’s very silly, yes. I personally don’t think pipe weapons should be modifiable at all, perhaps a more stable grip at the upmost. Also the idea of automatic pipe weaponry is indeed ridiculous, pipe revolvers and bold action short rifles only in my opinion. Perhaps a pipe shotgun, but ONE use only, like the gat that killed Shinzo Abe.

Agreed on the Fallout 2 example.

Pipe weapons make sense in Fallout and should be floating around, but it shouldn't be achieved by buffing the pipe guns IMO.

Agreed. From a purely world building standpoint, I think without an established subfaction such as the Gun Runners, pipe weaponry should be what’s most available in the overworld. Of course that wouldn’t fly in-game, which begs the question why Bethesda hasn’t made something akin to them. Fallout 3 and 4 have caravans that hawk guns and bullets, but from my recollection they never say where the source of their goods are from, leading me to believe they scavved for it like a lot of Bethesda’s economy relies on. I don’t Arturo has a gun factory hiding in Diamon City. Not having a gun manufacturer also kinda annoys me because in this game as you stated you can craft shit like recon scopes using tape and scrap metal. It just doesn’t make sense. Weapon mods made sense in New Vegas because you bought them from traders who most likely source them from the Gun Runners.

I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand, I like the concept that pre-War America was a society in such fundamental break-down that thee most destitute are resorting to improvised weaponry in the pre-War. On the other hand, I don't like it as a lazy explanation for why pipe guns are present in low-level pre-War loot tables. I think it's fine to have this background bit of lore that people were making pipe-weapons before the war (and have that on the perk magazine), but you shouldn't be finding pipe weapons in safes.

I mean, it’s a serviceable explanation for them in the pre-war era I suppose. I know pipe weaponry isn’t a novel concept and has been used in our world (Shinzo Abe’s murder weapon comes to mind again), but as you said, it just feels lazy on Bethesda’s behalf to just shove that explanation on a magazine explanation and takes away from what could’ve been some neat post-war lore. They did the exact same thing to Jet in this game. And you’re exactly on point when it comes to that magazine merely being justification to Bethesda for finding them in prewar safes, because Bethesda was too lazy to implement dynamic leveled lists for loot. Going back to the Gun Runners, perhaps the East Coast version of them could be the ones making these pipe weapons since they’re so cheap and easy to make, and because they don’t have access to many good weapon schematics. This would also drive a junk prospecting market as well.

 

[Yossarrion]

I'll put this post in paragraph sections I guess. I'll edit this post with more things as I remember them, gotta take my kid to martial arts so gotta cut it short.

Mechanics: I liked how power armor felt, I liked the visual changes and the audio changes. I enjoyed the Weapon modding, and I liked the modular armor pieces like Combat armor. The gunplay was vastly improved and the peak feature was a great addition. I also enjoyed the kill cam, and I always laugh when an unarmed enemy suplexes someone.

Story/Characters: I liked how the Brotherhood was a big player in this game, the intro of them when you leave Fort Hagen is very cool, even if it is somewhat tone deaf to how the BoS have been portrayed prior. I enjoyed Nick as a companion, he was interesting to interact with. I thought Kellogg was a very interesting villain and I enjoyed the time you had in the Fort and exploring his memories.

Enviroment/monsters: I enjoyed Far Harbours setting a lot. I liked the Glowing Sea. I really like the overhaul to how Deathclaws look and the way they interact with the world.

I'll put my dislikes here too.

I don't like pipe weapons, part of the reason Fallout was neat was the weapons were realistic. In NV I can grab a 9, a .45 and a .44 and enjoy the fact I own those guns in real life as well as the game. Pipe weapons are dumb, and the amount of effort to build them would be the same as stripping and cleaning existing guns. Probably easier and more reliable tbh as well.

I don't like how the raiders are all this weird caricature of just plain evil pieces of shit. It makes it so retarded when they try to pull the whole pick a side thing on it. There's no compelling reason to do it other than for the sake of picking that option.

Super mutants, nuff said.

The change to weapons not allowing unique weapons was really disappointing.

 

[PaxVenire]

I enjoyed Nick as a companion

I'll co-sign on this. Most of the companions in Fallout 4 were enjoyable overall to me, though needed some better writing. I was a Cait simp, loved Nick, LOVE Hancock's personality, liked seeing Macready again, enjoyed Curie, Piper is fun. Not too crazy on Danse, but did like his synth quest. Codsworth and Dogmeat are a bit of a weird case for me, I like them but they're so annoying to travel with, especially Dogmeat running into every trap near me.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

I'll co-sign on this. Most of the companions in Fallout 4 were enjoyable overall to me, though needed some better writing. I was a Cait simp, loved Nick, LOVE Hancock's personality, liked seeing Macready again, enjoyed Curie, Piper is fun. Not too crazy on Danse, but did like his synth quest. Codsworth and Dogmeat are a bit of a weird case for me, I like them but they're so annoying to travel with, especially Dogmeat running into every trap near me.

I think I only really like Nick. Great VA, decent dialogue. The thing that holds him back, however, is how monumentally stupid his quest is in almost every aspect.

It plays poorly since you just go to 10 different ruined police stations. Each police station is boring, hardly even dungeons, mostly just open-air ruins. There's never even any complication, every single police holotape is safe and sound exactly where it 'should' be. If we read it charitably perhaps the idea was supposed to be lie Josh Sawyer's rationale for "Return to Sender", where the gameplay comes from finding the locations and exploring the interesting areas around them. But 10 was probably excessive, and mostly they're not in interesting locations (the only two I really remember are the one by East City Downs and the one in that flooded town). And despite being a companion quest for a detective, no detective work is required of the player. It's just a bunch of fetch quests, and then Nick solves the mystery for you.

Then there's the insane happenstance Nick's mortal enemy, of all people, ghoulified himself and proceeded to live in a bunker by himself for the next 210 years. Nick then just straight up kills the guy - no input from the player, no decision one way or the other, no differing outcomes for Nick. It's just a cmpletely unadulterated cliched revenge story. And then the insane coincidence that 10 steps away from the location of this guy's bunker is exactly where he murdered Nick's girlfriend.

Nick's most interesting writing came in Far Harbor. There his story actually dealt with what should be his primary conflict - the split in his identity between his pre-War self and his robotic form. That actually plays off of the character, whereas getting even over a dead dame is purely a hackneyed story for a detective. Really he could have had no pre-War personality and the heart of the quest would be unaffected.

 

[PaxVenire]

I think I only really like Nick. Great VA, decent dialogue. The thing that holds him back, however, is how monumentally stupid his quest is in almost every aspect.

Oh absolutely. I think the only memory I have of the boring tape fetching quest is when it brings you to the BADTFL building which gave me a good chuckle when I first saw it. A1 voice actor though, and he just exudes an aura of someone I wanna hang with.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

Oh absolutely. I think the only memory I have of the boring tape fetching quest is when it brings you to the BADTFL building which gave me a good chuckle when I first saw it. A1 voice actor though, and he just exudes an aura of someone I wanna hang with.

Yeah to be fair BADTFL was neat to have, and a good pull from the lore.

In terms of the other companions - Cait, didn't like her, stupid cheesy character with a retarded quest (stupid vault and stupid drug-curing chair). Hancock, annoying epic reddit character whose back story is stupid (magic radiation drug that doesn't exist otherwise and has no relevance outside of explaining how he became a ghoul in a drug-induced manner). MacCready, boring fan service with a boring sob story quest. Piper, I like the idea of a post-apocalyptic newspaper proprietor but she was annoying. Codsworth is just kind of nothing. Dogmeat is annoying purely because of the fanservice cult around him.

I liked Curie, though the waifuism around her is a bit annoying. I actually liked Danse, I thought he was a reasonably interesting character and had the only companion quest with any kind of choice or consequence, and it was a decently well written one. Strong, I really like conceptually the milk of human kindness stuff and what I felt like his companion quest was going to be... but it never actually goes anywhere, which is unfortunate.

KLE-0 was OK. I didn't like Old Longfellow, boring cliche. Porter Gage was a nothing.

 

[PaxVenire]

Cait, didn't like her, stupid cheesy character with a retarded quest (stupid vault and stupid drug-curing chair).

I'll admit the drug curing chair was stupid, and of course the Vault in general bears the weight of the Jet controversy, but I liked Cait in my party a lot. Loved the Irish accent, even if it doesn't make much sense.

Hancock, annoying epic reddit character whose back story is stupid (magic radiation drug that doesn't exist otherwise and has no relevance outside of explaining how he became a ghoul in a drug-induced manner).

Annoying epic Reddit character is honestly what I would call Dogmeat. I loved Hancock's personality, it felt good not having to be a prude when he was in my party. The rest of his backstory I absolutely cannot and will not defend though LMAO.

MacCready, boring fan service with a boring sob story quest.

I wouldn't say fan service, I can't imagine there were many fans of Macready in Fallout 3 praying for his return. I would call it fan service if like, Amata or Butch was a companion. As for his backstory, it's pretty slop yeah, but I liked his Gunner angle. Funny thing about Macready, even after telling you his sob story about his sick son and making you go on that arduous quest where you visit that Medical Facility for the 10th time for it, he still hates when you cure that Vault 81 kid suffering from Mole Rat disease.

Piper, I like the idea of a post-apocalyptic newspaper proprietor but she was annoying.

I thought she was fun. Too judgmental of the most menial shit like using Buffout in the fucking post apocalypse, but fun otherwise. Backstory was boring as fuck though.

Codsworth is just kind of nothing.

Agreed. I liked having a Mr. Handy companion, but hated travelling with him. Way too judgmental and the retcon where Mr. Handies have emotions was annoying.

Dogmeat is annoying purely because of the fanservice cult around him.

I like him as a settlement NPC, that's it.

I liked Curie, though the waifuism around her is a bit annoying.

Agreed.

I actually liked Danse, I thought he was a reasonably interesting character and had the only companion quest with any kind of choice or consequence, and it was a decently well written one.

Agreed with the Synth quest, but otherwise I found him to be very bland in the party.

Strong, I really like conceptually the milk of human kindness stuff and what I felt like his companion quest was going to be... but it never actually goes anywhere, which is unfortunate.

I completely forgot about Strong which, probably tells everything you need to know about how I felt about him as a companion.

KLE-0 was OK

I assume you meant, Ada. I didn't much care for Ada.

I didn't like Old Longfellow, boring cliche. Porter Gage was a nothing.

I never had them in my party tbh.

 

[Yossarrion]

Annoying epic Reddit character is honestly what I would call Dogmeat

Kinda disagree, dogmeat is just a dog. I actually dislike traveling with him because of the hurt dog noises lol.

I felt ambivalent about cait, her accent is dumb for post apocalyptic america. I disliked Hancock and the stupid courser. Strong I enjoyed for the memes of human kindness. Danse I liked a lot, perfect brotherhood companion and his quest was interesting. Curie was ok, putting her in a human body was just too fan servicey for me. Codsworth felt like a generic Mr handy and that's ok.

 

[Resardiv]

From what I remember, I enjoyed the weapon modding system. It was a bit bloated and over the top with some ridiculous mods, but in general, the system added something valuable to the game.

 

[Baron of Arizona]

Just remembered Memory Den. Very cool idea with selling VR sessions, I could imagine them offering people to life a day before the war or something like that. A pity Bethesda used it for 2 quests, one of which is just a big cutscene and both aren't directly connected to Memory Den and just use their services. Another waste.

 

[PaxVenire]

Just remembered Memory Den. Very cool idea with selling VR sessions, I could imagine them offering people to life a day before the war or something like that.

I could also imagine it's uses pre-war as perhaps a dystopian therapy machine that allows you to relive the happier moments of your life.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

Just remembered Memory Den. Very cool idea with selling VR sessions, I could imagine them offering people to life a day before the war or something like that. A pity Bethesda used it for 2 quests, one of which is just a big cutscene and both aren't directly connected to Memory Den and just use their services. Another waste.

it's just remarkable when you think about how devoid of actual content that game is. what did they do with all the money for production? did they heat the offices by burning dollar bills for four years?

 

[Alphons]

I like that they tried to broaden the companion affinity increases.

NV is very narrow in that regard, like Raul having to speak to exactly 3 specific people to trigger, but then Ranger Andy's dialogue can just bug out and completely lock his quest.

But the implementation feels very artificial. You cracked one lock and you have unlocked another part of Piper's backstory! Also the companion stories (as majority don't even have a quest) are very linear. No matter what you say Nick will always kill the gangster/ McCready his Gunner buddies, Preston will be optimistic about the Minutemen and Hancock won't do anything with his brother.

You're just watching the story, not shaping your companions with your actions, which was something I enjoyed especially in NV.