Your Complaints Are Pointless...

[Jogre]

And Fallout 4 does the same thing, by virtue of providing a defined background.

Except the defined background is so vague that it doesn't allow for interpretation of a pre-written character.

It has nothing going for it as a Witcher style RPG. At least Geralt was interesting, which made the style of RPG the Witcher is. Sole Survivor has literally nothing going for them beyond "SHAUN!" or "I was once a soldier/lawyer"

I wonder, did Bethesda come and violate you personally for you to have an irrational hatred of them?

"I am perfectly rational in my preferences. Anyone who disagrees with me is motivated by irrational hatred"

That's why you get the mantle of leadership at the end, at Shaun's insistence, and can turn it around. It's kind of part of their selling point.

"You take over at the end, so we can just ignore that the entire basis of this faction is flawed, and that they would otherwise have nothing going for them."

If the only way to make a faction a plausible choice and not completely insane morons is the prospect of you reforming them, maybe, just maybe they are a badly written choice.

Workforce, kiddo. Kind of the whole point of synths, repeated every single time.

So instead of utilising upgraded Mr Handies, or miniturised ZAX's they use workers that could easily run away and go rogue.

Isn't it a waste of resources to make fully sentient workers, when the Fallout universe has computers literally able to make artificial personalities of former presidents(John Henry Eden and his modelling himself after Abraham Lincoln). There is literally no reason Synths need to be sentient to do basic mining work.

Also, you do realize that it's a looped animation to spare the player the need to wait for half an hour or the whole day, right? Repeat after me: Technical. Limitation.

I mean, alternatively they could have just shown the various stages, but working slowly, instead of making them repeat them indefinitely to give the idea that this is a regular thing, but y'know, that would require actual thought being put in to the implications of what's being shown.

Again, part of the story. The Institute is extremely advanced and prosperous, but lacks actual leadership that would unite it. The gorillas are part of it: A pet project of BioSciences, because there's nobody to step in and tell them to shut the fuck up.

[/QUOTE]
Once again ""You take over at the end, so we can just ignore that the entire basis of this faction is flawed, and that they would otherwise have nothing going for them.""

Why waste a good mutant when you can set it loose on the surface and make it distract the surface dwellers from you?

Because, as the game explicitly shows, if the Commonwealth unites, the Minutemen will try to take the fight to the Institute. Because, you know, showing, not telling.

"Showing not telling"

In other words the game literally didn't imply this was the reason they sent Supermutants to the surface at all, but you are going to assume that's how it works, because you want to believe the writing is clever.

Kells: "Now, before we launch our attack on the Institute, we need to address another threat... the Railroad. They're a small, but capable group that uses subterfuge and guerilla tactics to harass their enemies. Our tactical analysis says they could possibly hamper, or harm our operations which is a risk I'm not willing to take. If we strike them now, we should be able to maximize the amount of damage we do to their organization."

Survivor: "Hit them before they hit us. I like it."

After: "Precisely. Destroying the Railroad hinges on completely eliminating their leadership, otherwise they'll simply regroup somewhere else."

and

Survivor: "Why is the Railroad such a threat?"

Kells: "Even with their relatively small numbers, the Railroad is a constant threat to our operations. They've already proven to be resiliant against superior forces, with a knack for disappearing when cornered. Worse still, they possess the capability to help synths flee the Institute. If we intend to end the synth menace, we need to plug the leaks."

Fair point, I accept that as proof.

I mean, it shows some level of interaction between factions, even though compared to every other Fallout game that's very ,very basic and is two factions directly opposed to each other so they'd inevitably have to have some level of interaction.

But maybe there is some amount of thought put in to this. Not much, but some.

Yeah, because the invasion of the Institute by a pissed off militia backed by an organized Commonwealth is totally not an example of why the Institute tries to keep the surface disorganized.

Simpler solution: Don't piss off the surface.

If the Institute never wanted to get involved with surface affairs, they should have stayed anonymous.

I mean, there is literally no reason for them to have gotten involved in the surface in the first place to be perfectly honest.

"Overthinking."

lol

OVERTHINKING.

I mean, saying the writing is clever because "The Minutemen shows why the Institute are afraid of the surface" isn't really that good of an arguement, because all it shows is that the player, as the awesome Mary Sue General of everything that Bethesda makes him can have an independent option to overthrow the Institute.

Plenty, but you won't listen, will you?

The only example I've seen is that the Brotherhood is aware the Railroad is a threat.

That's as basic as you can get in faction to faction interaction. A faction being aware of the threat of another faction. Any writer above mediocre level could write that.

In New Vegas every town, every tribe, every faction had some interest in the wasteland politics. In Fallout 2 towns all over the Wasteland were being dragged in to Reno politics through Jet, with pressure in many others to join the NCR.

By comparison, in Fallout 4 the two major factions are aware of each other and how much of a threat they are to each other. Not much of an interactive world, but a basic level I guess.

It's kind of a shame, to be honest. You're missing on the Danse story arc, which is Fallout at its best.

I fail to see how "Guy is thing he hated" cliche followed by "Either let him die, or don't, with no actual cost to letting him live and carry on as a companion" is Fallout at its best.

Plus, afterwards Danse becomes confusing AF simultaneously hating the idea of helping Synths and hating the idea of hindering them, and instead of addressing this discrepancy and making it part of his character it's brushed under the rug.

 

[Tagaziel]

What it was, it's a tenth question. And the real question was, how did each game take the advantage of that system and how much of viable roleplaying builds are in these games. New Vegas and recently translated Nevada did great. Just FYI, don't answer to this if you're not here for trolling.

Look at my profile, please. It's right there, to the left.

Now, what, precisely, is a roleplaying build?

It's not a great system for an open-world sandbox bethesda's Far Cry killer to parrot. And yes, levels in TW3 were fairly unbalanced when you have overpowered Witcher gear. Not to mention the loot-hoarding method of getting rich due to poor quest rewards... Not much to like there.

I found it serviceable, though confusing for a lack of concrete guidance and no sorting (though that's more of an UI issue, not the fault of the system). In terms of gameplay, I found it worked well, lacking in said ease of use. It's not a highly abstracted game, like Fo1/Fo2, after all. It was also similar to FNV (yeah, heresy, I know) in terms of function. The weapon "perks" are basically skills, except expressed in a more granular way (1-5 scale, like in DX, as opposed to the 300/100 point scale in previous games), each providing more concrete advancement.

Ask yourself: If these basic skills were taken out and listed as skills, would it feel all that much? Even FNV relied on thresholds for its weapon skills (0, 25, 50, 75, 100), so it's a cosmetic difference whether these are expressed in 1% increments or bigger levels.

 

[0wing]

It was also similar to FNV (yeah, heresy, I know) in terms of function. The weapon "perks" are basically skills, except expressed in a more granular way (1-5 scale, like in DX, as opposed to the 300/100 point scale in previous games), each providing more concrete advancement.

It was a mistake. Perks shouldn't do the basic leveling stuff, they should add cool bonuses like they did in a previous Fallout games. "Skills" already did boring numeric crap. Adding however many you want skillpoints and get cool talents according to distributed skillpoints and SPECIAL parameters IMO is far more rewarding and fun than adding 1 point per level and go grind another one to do the same until you get to what you want.

Now, what, precisely, is a roleplaying build?

Is this ever a question for an RPG fan? Any build designed with intention of roleplay a character instead of clearly going full munchkin and 100%-run.

Look at my profile, please. It's right there, to the left.

Does this somehow cancels anything? You have said your word, however, so... Have a nice day with more endurant and overlooking members, the discussion would go worse otherwise.

 

[Kohno]

I have some 445 hours logged, ahead of FNV already, so I feel I'm in a position to give an opinion on the game's quality and content. Some of it is on and off, but in general, the game holds up well. You didn't like it, that's fine. I don't get into a good deal of games. But you're the rare poster who's aware of their limited exposure to the game and thus careful in formulating their opinions.

It's kind of a shame, to be honest. You're missing on the Danse story arc, which is Fallout at its best. Or the rebirth of the Brotherhood and BGS mocking its previous game, sometimes quite relentlessly.

I have 17 hours down, that's almost as much as it took to finish Deus Ex HR. Each passing hour was heavier than the previous. And it all just collapsed in Diamond City with that aggravating reporter chick and the constant reminder that I need "adhesive" to install some shit to my gun that'll give it +1 to damage.

I did buy it, though, so there's this certain urge not to have that 19€ wasted as badly as it would with not finishing at least once. So... some day probably. It took me a year to finish Witcher 3, too. That game also just spontaneously died on me after arriving to Novigrad for having gameplay so boring that I thought no amount of Bloody Baron quests would've saved it. I did manage to do it though.

It's a rare case these days a "modern" game can hold my interest. They all feel too much focused on things I don't care almost at all about. The good stories that are advertised, most all seem like cheap Hollywood knockoffs. And the gameplay is too often samey and boring; the saddest thing being that cRPG's are now just your every saturday action titles with some loose as fuck perk trees that do nothing in particular to make the gameplay interesting. They exist more to show off because it's cool to say "we are making an RPG, we have X amount of skills, we're so cool'n crazy" (where "skills" of course means a perk that gives you a nominal buff to something that you won't even notice or opens up a minigame). I dunno. I'm hoping Cain/Boyarsky's game will eventually turn the tide to some degree and makes games interesting again at least for a while (I don't believe CDPR's Cyberpunk will even if they have Pondsmith on board).

 

[Tagaziel]

It's a rare case these days a "modern" game can hold my interest.

It's called getting old (or mature, whichever you prefer). I get the same thing with most games, so you're not alone. Fallout 4 basically grabbed my interest because it's my favorite series and it's finally getting a good game out of Bethesda.

It was a mistake. Perks shouldn't do the basic leveling stuff, they should add cool bonuses like they did in a previous Fallout games. "Skills" already did boring numeric crap. Adding however many you want skillpoints and get cool talents according to distributed skillpoints and SPECIAL parameters IMO is far more rewarding and fun than adding 1 point per level and go grind another one to do the same until you get to what you want.

According to you, they should. According to me, a system should achieve what it's supposed to do with a minimal amount of boring numeric crap (i.e. handling of skills in previous games).

I agree, what could've worked better was still separating the skills and perks or having perks categorized according to function, rather than attribute, essentially refining the system into one that has more punch.

(also, remember that most Fallout perks really didn't do cool stuff; most were pretty... unperky)

Is this ever a question for an RPG fan? Any build designed with intention of roleplay a character instead of clearly going full munchkin and 100%-run.

And you can do that in Fallout 4, if your intention is to roleplay it. Note that you're emphasizing intention, not the systems.

 

[Kohno]

It's called getting old (or mature, whichever you prefer). I get the same thing with most games, so you're not alone.

Yeah, I know. Kinda wish it wasn't, though. Would be more fun having fun with these games.

Fallout 4 basically grabbed my interest because it's my favorite series and it's finally getting a good game out of Bethesda.

That's fair. I've been basically hanging on a thread for the past 19 or so years. Got stuck on being an on/off fan. Forgetting it for having nothing in the horizon, then coming back all pumped up after hearing there's some new stuff coming, then going off again disappointed once it's turned out to be a yet another letdown. It's now that phase again when there's nothing good or unknown in the horizon. I'm not a learning animal it seems, at least when it comes to this series.

Anyways. There's no argument here.