Same here - I’m only three or four hours in but loving it so far.
Level 3, I just beat that first tougher mission in Concord, and returned to Sanctuary for the start of some workshopping. Modded a few pieces of equipment including beefing up the 10mm pistol quite nicely, cooked some food and drugs, chose some perks (lockpicking of course, plus a point in Int to get scrapper once I realised I’d be doing a fair bit of weapon customisation).
I finally gave up and switched to using an Xbox controller with this game (all prior Bethesda games has been mouse and keys), so obviously the UI and controls work just fine as controller is what they’ve been designed for. The game looks good and runs smooth. No bugs or crashes thus far beyond the usual mild collision/pathing jank.
For those complaining about a lack of instructions, there is substantial ‘help’ text available for most game functions in the pause menu. Looking forward to playing more tonight after work!
Bateau
2016
Uhhh, I foresee a lot of save scumming in my character’s future (thanks to Idiot Savant). 700xp for first quest, 1000 for second? That’s HUGE early in the game when you’re scrambling to get the good perks.
Chaplin
2017
I guess I need to look at the help menu, but that screenshot above sort of captures a lot of my “I think I’d rather just play something else than learn this” feeling I get when navigating any of the UI with mouse and keyboard.
In general though, this game is bouncing off of me. Hard. I am new to the franchise. I never played the earlier Fallouts unless you count Tactics. I guess that is good in that every bit of the universe is new to me, but the game seems miserably unable to give one &@$# if I know how to play, what to do, or even if I care to continue playing at all. I am lost on what is going on for the crafting and rebuild stuff other than I bumped into some interactable stations, saw a quick text pop up, then saw a bunch of grayed out options with E, F, Enter, Tab, and whatever else next to them. I have no former knowledge of what items to grab in the sea of junk. I don’t really know much about what my choices for statistics did. I saw a perk poster chart somewhere that seemed meaningful. I got two blinks worth of information about the stop time mode before I now have to bumble through it (needed to look through key bindings to even know how to bring it back up) repeatedly in encounters. I got a nice meaningful video about agility abilities, but it showed at the start of my second launch of the game so my abilities were already locked in. The technology of the engine seems very dated. The conversations seem very on rails and yet awkward for an RPG. As noted by others the world design seems to have as much TLC as a procedurally generated rogue-like. I just…
I don’t know. I could dig deeper as information is there I guess. Somewhere. However, after one night, I didn’t even want to go back. Instead, I went right back to Vermintide and HotS. I will probably put in some more time just to see if it gets better or to salvage the money spent. At this point though, as a newcomer, Fallout 4 comes across as a lazy and obtuse formulated love (or possibly “dear john”) letter to fan base rather than a game. This is only the second game like this right? Fallout 1 and 2 were different creatures. Why does this feel like Fallout 12?
I’m sure there’s plenty of XP to go around - what’s the rush?
Bateau
2019
In my previous playthrough I found the start a bit slow, things only picked up around lvl 13. This time I also have much more ‘mandatory’ perks within my reach and I’m trying to get them asap before I start exploring the map.
Bateau
2020
In my previous playthrough I found the start a bit slow, things only picked up around lvl 13. This time I also have much more ‘mandatory’ perks within my reach and I’m trying to get them asap before I start exploring the map.
Miramon
2021
It sometimes happens with a subsystem that is difficult to design and implement that the person assigned to do the design does it really badly. And yet there’s no one to replace that designer because everyone else’s time is spoken for and most people can’t even do it as well. And the designer is arrogant and obstinate and refuses to make any changes no matter how obvious they are. But you have to live with it because otherwise something critical won’t be done at all. I’ve seen this half a dozen times at least in MMOs. This is a bit mysterious when you consider that Bethesda is supposedly rolling in money, but it’s the only explanation I can think of.
Let me guess - you rolled your real-life character with low Perception, Timex? It’s visible every time you open that screen, the one that people are complaining they open 100 times accidentally. ;)
The only real tutorial annoyance for me, was the lack of a mention of VATS. I was waiting for something to pop up, thinking perhaps I had to unlock the ability first. When it didn’t, I just went and read all the help text.
Scrax
2023
I’m 20 hours in and only level 10 thankfully. I’ve always thought I’ve leveled too fast in these games. I’m enjoying exploring and you don’t get a ton of experience from exploring/killings things it appears. Quests however, especially story quests, look like they give a crap ton of experience.
I can appreciate wanting to get past the first couple necessary perks though. You immediately need rank 1 in lockpicking, hacking, and lady/man killer to not be excluded from early content :). Local leader, bloody mess, and lone wanderer too if that kind of content is important to you.
Timex
2024
Well, for ME, since I’m playing on the PS4, I don’t tend to accidentally open up the screen which leads to the help system.
But honestly, even seeing the help menu item there, I didn’t really expect it to have as much detailed information as it does.
TurinTur
2025
I’m at peace with the game, and having fun. It’s an open world ARPG and that’s it.
I had a good run in a hospital infested of super mutants, so many of them. I died 6 or 7 times in there. In the end I advanced through labyrinthine corridors and changed floors with combat shotgun on hand while dropping on the ground mines, so the ones who were patrolling or trying to attack me from behind would
Galadin
2026
Wow! I am having a blast with this game. I played about 4 hours with the Steam controller on my treadmill. Then moved to my couch and played another 4 hours through the nVidia Shield and its controller. I would have played more, but was getting the stinkeye from the wife from hogging the TV. It doesn’t have a huge narrative strength, but I love exploring the world and advancing my character.
As for the story, really early, but spoiler tag just in case:
hide
When your child is taken, the cryo container goes dark. So while my character wants to find her child, she doesn’t know how long ago the kidnapping happened, how cold the trail is, or even what the actual status of the world is like. So stumbling around, trying to find some help, and lending a hand if possible all fits into her character well. I see her definitely helping to build up Sanctuary with the Minutemen so that she has both a base of operations, and a sense of home to explore from.
I am so excited to get home tonight and get some more time into the game. I loved Witcher 3, but the combat and continue trekking between places to advance story and plots made it so that I only wanted to play the game when I knew I had a large chunk of time. With Fallout 4, I have no problem loading it up for a quick jaunt, but then get sucked into it and don’t want to quit playing. The carrots in Fallout 4 come faster and more consistently to keep me on the trail than they did in Witcher 3.
Someone went hog wild with their Sanctuary:
Image
JFrazer
2028
Last night I installed the game and managed to get 2 hours in before I had to hit the hay. I enjoyed the 2 hours, but the UI is killing me. The UI feels like it was developed by multiple groups that weren’t talking to each other. They were given a general direction of “you can use Tab, ESC, WASD, E,R,F and T” and they each ran with it. Oh, hey, right now Tab means exit. But in this menu, it means cancel and ESC means exit. Here it means previous menu.
Last night I was stuck in my power armor until I got fed up and Googled how to exist. “Hold E”. Really? REALLY? How about a little message that hovers in the corner saying “Hold E to exit” or something? Like in The Witcher 3, where when you are on a horse it shows Hold shift to gallop, Shift twice to sprint and E to dismount? Help me out here, game. I didn’t realize there was in-game help anywhere. No idea how I missed it. I’ll have to make sure I use it in the future to hopefully alleviate some of my frustration.
A tutorial for the building portion of the game would have been appreciated. There is a nice quest line that walks you through the basics of getting your settlement running (“Build 5 beds. Plant 6 crops. Build a water source”). It even gives you some info on how to do it (hold V to open the menu, arrow key over to furniture, arrow to beds, etc.). Nothing about how to position what you build, or even that you need to walk around to the place you WANT to build and THEN start to build. I’m standing at the workbench figuring that you build stuff and put it in your inventory then put it where you want it, not realizing the whole town is basically a work-zone. A $60 AAA title shouldn’t rely on trial-and-error to figure out how its core components function. Spend a few bucks on integrated tutorials. Have Sturgess teach me how to do things instead of just giving me quests to do them.
As I said, only 2 hours in, and I enjoyed those 2 hours despite the UI frustrations. I can see past those kinds of warts. Just disappointed that, despite iteration after iteration of the same general game that we’re somehow regressing in UI/control quality. Starting to feel like we’re in beta stage and the Bethesda is saying “don’t mind the UI, we’re working through the kinks and will have it working better by release day”.
Scrax
2029
Oh also, 20 hours in - I’ve only had one raider attack. They attacked the little farm you run into west of Sanctuary. I fast traveled into the middle of a fire fight. Molatives sailing through the air and hitting the poor brahmin. The farmers put up a good fight though. I hadn’t set up any defenses there and I may get around to putting up a sentry at each location, but I don’t have the patience to actually develop the smaller outposts. Not sure what happens if you ignore the raiders.
The controls for the UI are really bad. It’s true. Not such a big deal for me, though. Really enjoying the combat. And, as Bateau referenced, it’s fun just tooling around and finding all the little places that pop up on the radar. I’m okay with a more combat focused approach – that’s how I would have played it anyway. The real problem is the lifelessness of interactions and the lack of compelling reasons for doing anything. It’s still a good (not great) game, though; quite fun.
I think I remember a tool tip that said your settlement won’t be attacked if your defense rating is the same as your food and water production combined. I have two turrets and a spotlight on the bridge in Sanctuary and haven’t been attacked yet.
DeepT
2032
I knew about that, however, you can’t re-map that to a new key. If you tap the alt button you do a power attack. If you hold it just a little to long, then you will use a grenade which will blow up in your face. I still can’t figure out how to throw them in vats.
Bateau
2033
Now you got me curious, where is ladykiller needed? I thought I explored a significant chunk of the upper side of the map in my previous run but I’ve never come across an opportunity to use it.
MMDuran
2034
I dunno. What early content do you even need Hacking and Lockpicking for? I’ve been using both, but I can’t recall it doing anything I needed, as opposed to just giving me extra resources or occasional shortcuts.
