2775

Yep, duh, realized that just now and fixed!

2776

Actually, there’s 4th factions that you didn’t mention that you could commit to. But I’m not going to discuss it here :)

2777

Could you please take all the discussion of the endgame and factions to the spoilers thread? I’m progressing slowly, and I really didn’t need to see which faction is the ‘good guys.’

2778

Yes!, np. Sorry, I trought I was mostly safe-talk, but seems I was wrong, again :P

2779

That’s a known bug, happened to me too and I saw postings of it on their forums.

2780

The beta patch is up on Steam, for PC. It’s, um… well, maybe I’ve just been spoiled by indie/smaller developers, but my reaction was “that’s it?”.

2781

Just wondering what it was you thought that needed patching that they have missed?

2782

Interface improvements would have been a nice place to start. There’s some low-hanging fruit as well, like how about back/exit key consistency. Is it Esc? Tab? Who knows!

Settlement management is also a clusterfuck that could use UI work.

2783

I assume that if Bethesda does anything about the UI, it would be something more down the road. Crash issues and quick fixes are usually the first things fixed.

Again, that’s even assuming Bethesda does anything about the UI. They may just leave that to modders.

2784

Modders always fix the PC Interface for Bethesda. Rather than have them struggle at something which clearly isn’t a priority or strength, I’d like to see them get the new GECK finished and released.

If I were a smarter man, I’d put this game away for six months. My backlog is overloaded with fantastic, fully ripened games. But I’m a bit locked onto FO right now ;)

2786

I think it’s fine, it’s a big game and it’s unlikely they can tackle a whole lot of things all at once without risking breaking a bunch of other stuff. The things they are improving/fixing seem pretty important, so they probably have to prioritize what they can do, and if so that’s a pretty solid start.

2787

I think you’re probably right. Like I said, I’m probably spoiled by the smaller/indie developers who are really passionate about their games. Look at tbaldree’s post-release when Rebel Galaxy shipped, and he’s one dude. Oh, people complained about wanting to pull the camera back further? Interface improvement: done. Camera shake is making some people motion sick? Okay, here’s an option to disable it.

Anyway, like Oghier said above, it’d be a lot smarter for me to put the game aside for six months, but I’m really hooked on it. I’m also worried I’ll run into the same problem I had with Skyrim. In that game, I did decide I needed to shelve the game for a while to allow time for modders to do their thing. Unfortunately, I could never get back into the game after I took my break.

Some of my frustration comes from knowing how many resources Bethesda has available compared to the smaller studios that manage to get so much more done. The settlement interface and the like should never have shipped in the condition it did. I know Bethesda has a reputation for bad interfaces, but it still doesn’t really excuse it. I really do enjoy the game, but I still do have complaints about it and Bethesda.

2788

After working through the main quest I am going to shelve Fallout 4 for the time being. I have played for a little over 60 hours and I thought the game was enjoyable but it is missing that certain something to keep me playing. As it stands Fallout 4 is less than the collection of its parts. I do not regret buying it and I am positive I will revisit the game but not until there are compelling mods and DLCs to add points of interest / fix some of the annoying issues.

The building component feels like it was tacked on and is saddled by a bad interface (as is the rest of the game), difficult mechanics and most annoyingly the inability to share resources among your different settlements. I realize there is a trait to let you do this, but it should not exist. The inability to share your junk without manually having to pick it up and fast travel from one settlement to another is idiotic. In addition there is no real reason to spend the time doing this. If I want to build structures I have far better games that allow me to do this. I vastly prefer Skyrim’s Hearthfire to this annoying mess.

The quests are generally bad. They are probably the worst I have experienced from any Bethesda product and Bethesda is not known for their quest quality so that is saying something. Most every quest is simply “go here, kill everything and find something”. There is very little imagination in any of the quests. The one involving the USS Constitution is a pale and bland imitation of Come Fly With Me from New Vegas. There is not anything even as good as Head of State from FO3 (the ones who worshiped Lincoln) or anything revolving around Tenpenny Towers. Even the main quest was a bit of a letdown with seemingly mediocre faction choices (better than New Vegas’ terrible factions which were a massive joke) and far less emotion than should have been displayed given the circumstances.

I think I could get around some of these issues and keep on playing if the world itself was simply more interesting. But it is not. There is no super-mutant community trying to improve itself. There are no followers of Lincoln. No cool farming settlements. No person who grew into a tree who wants to die. The most accessible vault is known for being entirely ordinary. No Oasis, Paradise Falls or Andale - all minor areas that had their own unique feel and interesting tales. I know the Boston area very well since I once lived there and I felt the coolest area was the absolute desolate wasteland in the SW corner of the map. Other than that I just did not find too many awesome areas. Faneuil Hall was a massive disappointment as it was too small and the layout was not even close to correct. Fallon’s looked nothing like the old Filene’s. Boston Commons looked like a tiny dog park compared to the real world location. It FO3 they did almost an exact replica of the Lincoln Memorial, down to the dirt path around the back side of it. They made the Mall huge. Not as big as the real-world version but still very impressing. Touches like that made those locations very cool but they did not do the same thing in FO4. It is the exploration that drives me in a Fallout/Skyrim game because finding that cool new off-the-beaten-path location is exceptionally rewarding and I do not feel like I am being rewarded for exploring in FO4.

With that said, these things can and will be fixed. Bethesda will release DLC and quite often those areas are interesting (example: The Pitt). Modders will also add new areas to spice things up. The UI will change for the better. New quests will be added. The perks will be improved. When those things are done I look forward to putting in 100-200 hours in my next FO4 run. Until then…well, the Black Friday Steam Sale starts Wednesday!

2789

Well 60 hours of entertainment is not bad value. I’m nearing that myself and think I’ve got a few more hours left in me, hopefully just enough to slide on into Just Cause 3 in a week’s time. And then Xenoblade X not long after…

2790

Yeah, for me there is zero Bostonian feel in this game. Sure, sure, I know, it’s alternate Boston, but FO3 gave a strong flavor of DC. This is just like some kind of ruined-Boston theme park made by people who seem never to have actually visited the city. Perhaps Boston was a poor choice of venue for the game, but the implementation of Boston in the game is likewise poor.

2791

This is just personal preference, but I like that such perks exist. I like perks that are about convenience or efficiency instead of just straight combat gains. For that reason, I like that my carry capacity is limited. I like that, if I want to focus on being the leader of a bunch of settlements, I’ll need the charisma. It gives a tension to perk allocation that wouldn’t exist if it was just boosting weapon damage/hp/armor etc. Not trying to convince you of anything, just sharing how my opinion differs.

That being said, my big gripe with settlements is of the “what’s the point?” variety. I love this kind of thing in games and I’m really happy to see it show up in Fallout, and I really love the theme of restoring some civilization to the wasteland, the problem is it just… doesn’t have a purpose. Okay, I have this thriving collection of heavily fortified, prosperous settlements. Now what? Other than… well, it’s a minor spoiler so I won’t get into specifics, but aside from a couple small inconsequential things, I just don’t see the point of any of it. I think it’s really a cool idea, but it feels tacked on and superfluous to the rest of the game. I like that I built some shops and some crafting stations, but there’s no real benefit to doing so. I want to build an armory in Sanctuary that’s producing ammunition and weapons for myself and the other settlers. I want to set up outposts from which the settlers can take sections of the map back, bringing the ruins back to life. The little raids against your settlements are a diversion, but I want a nearby Supermutant stronghold to take notice of my settlement and want to take it over for themselves. I want the loss of such a settlement to matter to me, and unfortunately it doesn’t. Just last night, I got a little notification in game that I failed to protect one of my 12+ settlements. Oh… that’s too bad, I guess? I just kind of shrugged and moved on.

Still, I’m glad Bethesda put the system in game. I’m really hoping that modders can go wild with it and do some amazing things.

2792

I like all of those ideas, Kevin, but you’re talking about FO4 becoming a hybrid, first-person 4X strategy game. That’d be awesome, but I don’t think Bethesda is anywhere near that ambitious. They’re… formulaic.

Again, maybe modders ;)

2793

Yea, Fallout meets post-apocalyptic Anno or something like that. :) Build a settlement near the abandoned foundry, but you’ll need to source the materials. So, convince the settlement up near the abandoned mines to join the minutemen. But they’re poorly armed, so you’re going to need to do something about those raider/supermutant strongholds along the route. Maybe you can even poach one of those BoS vertibirds for some air cav support! And you want to do all this why? Well, because the world is an incredibly dangerous place, and you’ve got a Big Bad Battle to worry about. Having a well-armed militia by your side will be of some real use!

Again, I like that they put the settlement stuff in the game, I just don’t feel like it ties in with the core gameplay loop well enough. It doesn’t have to be full-on 4X/citybuilder, just hooked in a little more to the FPS/loot portion of the game. Having friendly outposts scattered around the map would probably be more meaningful without Fast Travel, but with it I don’t really care if a settlement is nearby or if I have to bounce all the way to Sanctuary, it’s all just a click away.

But yeah… I’m hoping to see this thread bumped one day with news that a crazy ambitious mod project that some guy just spent the last 2 years working on has been finished.

2794

How about the large number of major bugs in the game?

2795

Going to put this here - didn’t seem right to put it in the spoiler thread, since I haven’t finished yet, but…

Minutemen quest line

[spoiler]So, I’m trying to ‘choose’ the Railroad faction and do there quests. I’m at the mission ‘Battle of Bunker Hill’, where it seems you’re given only the other three factions to align with. Fine - I try to tell Desdemona about the upcoming attack, and all she wants to do is give me a holotape and have me get some info from the Institute, starting a new mission (undercover underground, or something). Anyway, the only way to do that is to ‘choose’ the Railroad over the Minutemen - which seems odd because I already gave the tape to the Minutemen.

Anyway - if I choose the Railroad over the Minutemen, and complete UU, do I still get to go back to the Minutemen for their finish? Nothing else has popped up from them after completing Inside Job.
[/spoiler]