2836

PSA: There’s only 2-3 autosaves.

If you hit a bug, check where you can reload from!

Just hit a horrible bug with an endgame Railroad quest. Entire place was emptied out of NPCs and it’s broken. Lost an evening of progress.

possible workaround

Googling around that quest it seems to happen very often. It’s the “Nuclear Option”. Solution may be not to go in wearing power armor.

2837

I just want to express how amazing Rifleman + critical banking/bloody mess luck perks are. I have a really souped up 50 cal that one shots every legendary I have faced so far (at level 23).

Because… no matter the distance and the hit%(above 0), a critical always hits, and a headshot critical with those perks has an insane damage boost. Nothing is more satisfying than having a legendary super mutant pop out of a door about a mile away, and that 5% hit chance = a dead foe.

2838

I think I read on the Fallout wiki that the world had de-escalated yields down to the kiloton level by the time of the war. Still big bangs though, and lots of them.

2839

There are settlements that can supply excess food because of their location, and in one case, because of their “unique” residents. That allows you to use other settlements to set up vendors rather than farmers. The vendors can contribute scrap to your workbench, generate income, or allow you another source for buying weapons/ammo/chems/meds, etc. The fact that some start as a surplus is irrelevant if you plan to recruit more settlers for them.

2840

This might be my favorite Fallout game of the entire series. I am only 20 hours into the game on survival difficulty, and have been chasing side quests and enjoying exploration after completing the Minutemen and early parts of the Brotherhood of Steel quests so my opinion might shift, but so far I am having a blast! I loved Fallout 1 & 2 back in the day, had a complicated relationship with 3, and really enjoyed New Vegas, but 4 has delivered what I wanted from Fallout at this point in time with a lot of strengths. Thinking about it this morning I realized that Fallout 4 is filling several holes that recent titles have not met. When I pre-purchased Destiny I was hoping for a FO4 experience and not the thinly-veiled Skinner box/slot machine diet-MMO with tiny maps that it was. I’ve also been craving a single-player STALKER-like experience in recent years in a market that has shifted to YouTube-bait survival MMOs with shitty crafting and lots of trolling. 4 delivers in these areas and more. The non-VATS gun handling is superb and the gun modding finds a sweet spot between complexity and enjoyable agency.

This is not to dismiss any criticism in this thread since I enjoy reading from multiple perspectives and expectations, but a lot of the complaints seem to fall in the “forest for the trees” category. Lots of pointed directed complaints about individual trees and saplings when I find there to be a very spectacular forest when one is a bit more forgiving or flexible with Bethesda’s design philosophy. The settlement feature has been very divisive with a lot of focus on the output as people suggest that there is no gameplay or mechanical purpose for the systems to exist. I haven’t dived too far into the complexities of settlement building, but it has been one of my favorite new features this time around. I am looking at the settlements from an input perspective. The value the settlements (and modding/crafting) add to the game centers on the inputs in that it makes all the junk strewn about the world interesting, contextual, and valuable. In previous Fallouts I would either ignore the junk or treat it like an annoying way to earn caps and discovering it was never interesting. At all. Now I get excited whenever I see a fan, tube of glue, or junky gun (with a cool mod to remove). The existence of the settlements has made exploration and discovery in this world far more captivating than earlier installments. There have been a lot of complaints about recent Far Cry title’s loot when you open a crate and all it contains are 20 tampons, a comb, and a crack pipe. Fallout 4 has made nearly every piece of junk and every corner of the world meaningful and worthwhile. Modding and legendaries are just icing on that carefully tiered cake.

Regarding the output and consequence of settlements, I do find them to have an intrinsic value rather than the extrinsic/instrumental value many here wished they had. Again this comes down to taste. Some people are very mechanics and systems focused in games. I am someone that loved Dear Esther because I thought it was an evocative and original way to deliver a compelling story (something only games can do) while a majority deride it as a “walking simulator” with no mechanical objectives. I took a screenshot of my barely rebuilt Sanctuary (below in spoiler tags because it is large) to capture what I enjoy about the settlement features. I haven’t done any complex building yet and I have a pair or generators powering water purification and hastily strung wires that connect to a few lights in my old house. They illuminate my favorite area in the game: on the porch/garage where I do all of my weapon and armor modding, talk to everyone, and sort through inventory. That one tiny spot has become home for me in the game. A place of peace and respite after long journeys out into the wasteland fighting abominations and collecting the abandoned detritus of a lost civilization. A place to excitedly see what powerful weapons I can create and augment in preparation for my next adventure out into the unknown. It isn’t much compared to the settlement showcase videos that are cropping up; a solitary suit of power armor, gaudy strings of power-lines, barely any repairs or remodeling, and notable absence of decorations and ownership. That stuff will come in time. What is there is a grounded sense of home, a solitary soft glow of installed lights that guide me back to my crafting stations in the murky hours of nighttime. I am starting to unlock other settlements, but that one tiny spot in Sanctuary will always be my main point of reference within the geography of the game. It is the three lonely Stalkers strumming a guitar, singing Russian songs around a tiny fire in the middle of a god forsaken nightmare of anomalies and human terror.

My expectations were tempered going into Fallout 4 and the game has exceeded them in many ways. It has filled many holes in the gaming landscape with its careful and conservative introduction of newer systems like settlement building in a market that is chasing MOBAs, unlockable FPS loot crates, F2P, survival MMOs, progression grinds, and catering to Youtubers. Fallout 4 has been refreshing amongst all of that.

-Todd

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2841

Good discussion.

I feel it’s the opposite. The settlement system gives a reason for the components you find in the game, but settlements themselves are purposeless. You can build a bunch of stuff and collect anonymous settlers, but other than creating a network of places to drop off collected junk, there’s really no need to do any of it. You can dot the map with highly defended settlements and the nearby (sometimes distressingly near) points of interest will remain Super Mutant or Raider strongholds. There’s no sense of pushing back on the apocalypse and rebuilding civilization. You’re just making snap-together shantytowns with inventory chests.

I’ve seen some really cool looking Fallout 4 settlements created by other people, but I can’t help but think there are better games for that kind of creative building. It’s just so pointless here. Even the supply line network advantage is rendered moot by the game’s design. Why even bother with it, when you can just fast-travel back to Sanctuary all the time?

2842

It has filled many holes in the gaming landscape with its careful and conservative introduction of newer systems like settlement building in a market that is chasing MOBAs, unlockable FPS loot crates, F2P, survival MMOs, progression grinds, and catering to Youtubers. Fallout 4 has been refreshing amongst all of that.

The market is also chasing the Minecraft audience, that’s why there are so many survival games where you can build and craft. Which is why they put the settlement system, imo, it appeals the same creative types.
I get why people like it, even if there isn’t a gameplay advantage it can be cool to build your own custom town. It’s the same appeal of something like a physical lego, it isn’t like doing that it is going to give you any kind of reward apart from the experience itself.

But judging the feature itself, well, there aren’t so many pieces to play with (in comparison of what you would expect in a game fully focused on building), in the end it’s a side feature of a bigger game. And the UI for building is bad, and the snapping system is so horrible and and…

2843

I think “struggling to make snap-together shantytowns” fits my experience better.

Everywhere I’ve tried to indulge my creative side with settlments, I have met nothing but hostility from the UI. I’ve cheated to givemyself the mats I need because otherwise dealing with the UI and low carryweight is an incomprehensible nightmare in a game that tries to incentivize picking everything up (yes, yes, I know I can focus on certain types of junk but this can slow down the game. Even putting crucial things like copper or ceramics on the shopping list to help ID the right junk requries me to stop and examine all the loot, every time. I prefer to loot for a spell and then sit and pour through it). Point being, I removed all the pain points I could. I can’t imagine wanting to care about every piece of junk without cheating on the inventory. It’s just a very bad design for that (mechanically and the actual UI).

In most of the places I’ve tried building (talking 6+ settlments and the Castle), I can’t get things to snap together consistently much of the time. I “discovered” the concrete wooden foundations (there’s some nonsense for you) and thought they would help but they aren’t. I try starting at the highest elevation along a future “wall” and eventually one of the ones I ry to place won’t snap to the right height (even though they are designed for that purpose). That means no getting walls or prefabs to line (up the original problem I was having until I discovered the foundations). I’m impressed with these walled fortress settlements people are making but attempting to build them is frustrating.

2844

I built up sanctuary, the drive in and a bit of the castle, but overall the horrible building interface on PC with the keyboard has made me really hate building stuff.

Also as mentioned it just not flushed out enough, and feels more of a useless time sink than anything else. I am 30+ hours in and still haven’t made it to Diamond city, heh.

I easily have spent 2+ hours trying to get fences set up around my settlements. Damn you horrible building interface!

2845

Last night I spent 3 hours playing and accomplished almost nothing, thanks to the dang settlements. I had a settlement join what I am tentatively calling “The Frazer City-States”. They had 6 residents that wouldn’t move to other settlements and a huge amount of food already being harvested. I plunked down a bunch of Mutfruit trees which upper their production to 48 food. Assigned one of my Sanctuary settlers to set up a supply line to the new place and then went to The Castle to assign 2 new settlers that joined there. With the excess of food and the 2 new settlers, I figured I should fiddle around with the place a bit. I built a secondary wall outside of the main entrance and converted the land between the walls from farms in to a barracks area. I then took my former sleeping area for some of my folks, removed the beds and replaced the area with merchant stands. So the inside of The Castle now looks like some kind of post-apocalyptic farmers market.

Right when I was finishing up assigning the last settler to his new snake-oil stand, I noticed that it was time to hit the hay.

Even though I accomplished nothing that impacts the game (well, maybe I have some cash-flow coming in, but not enough to be note-worthy), I still enjoyed the heck out of the time. The UI is still junk, no denying that. The snap-together was getting in the way more than it was helping last night (I wanted to slightly angle the walls to form a half-moon, but they insisted on snapping in to straight lines. Had to fight it all the way to get what I wanted). Still, I now have a lot of hours of play time in to this game and am still interested in playing more. A well spent $44.

2846

puts on Bro hat

bitches love their housing feature on dem role playing games, bro

2847

Also forcing in and out of VATS by holding the button down fixes it.

2848

That is not true, you can set them up to produce things you need for yourself. e.g. adhesive

2849

You only need more adhesive to craft more settlement stuff. It’s just feeding into itself. I’ve crafted all the gun and armor I’ll ever need already without settlement production.

2850

Also not true. You need adhesive to modify weapons and armor…

2851

Did you read what you quoted?

2852

I have often wondered if the Settlement feature was a testing pad for a future Fallout MMORPG

It is pointless in Fallout 4… but a future open world Fallout MMORPG may use an enhanced version.

2853

Given the amount of adhesive I go through modding weapons and armour, I suppose it must depend on your play style and the difficulty level you play at.

In any case even if you don’t need the resources it is extra income. Keep in mind the game has to viable for people who don’t want to mess with settlements at all, so how awesome can they possibly be?

2854

Geez, all the industrial facilities and workbenches in the commonwealth are festooned with duct tape and wonder glue. How can you run out if you explore?

2855

I don’t get it how people run out of crafting materials if they’re only making gun and armor mods.

You pick a couple of guns that you’ve decided to be proficient with and mod them to whatever level you can mod them. Since you can store mods you downgrade off items, they go into the workshop inventory. If you find a better Legendary mod on the same base gun, move your mods to that one. break down all the stuff you don’t need.

Same process with armor.

I’ve never run out of gun and armor crafting materials.