Grifman
2876
Huh, not sure how you are getting this. No, the “rebuilding of the Commonwealth” is totally optional and has absolutely nothing to do with the main quest. Only the Minutemen are interested in rebuilding the Commonwealth. The other three factions have nothing to do with it and aren’t interested in that line of quests at all. Ignore Preston Garvey and his sentimental misguided aspirations and join one of the other factions and you’ll never be asked to build a settlement or assist one in any way. The other factions have their own goals and agendas and they have nothing to do with rebuilding the Commonwealth. It really is totally, and I mean totally optional.
Again, like the civil war in Skyrim, it’s optional. It’s also pretty central to the world and story.
They are terrible, aren’t they? Fruity and lame. Not terrifying or interesting at all. The side quests were far more interesting than the main quest.
Grifman
2879
No, it’s not. It’s not central to the story of any of the other factions as none of those factions require you to help or rescue or build any settlements. It’s only central if you want it to be. Comparing it to Skyrim isn’t accurate. In Skyrim there was an active, ongoing Civil War without you doing anything. In Fallout 4, there is no effort to rebuild unless you lead it. If you choose not to do so, it never happens.
Well, just finished my first pass at the game at 68 hours and just short of level 70. Really enjoyed the game, and think it will be even better once some mods start coming out for it. No need to say anything about the UI or settlements - that’s pretty much all been said. The one thing I haven’t seen anyone mention is using terminals. Or, more to the point, once you’re done using terminals. In F3 and FNV, when you exited out of using a terminal, your weapon was at the ready, and your standing/kneeling stance was the same as when you used the terminal. That is still the case for unlocking things, but for terminal use, you’re always standing up, and you never have a weapon drawn. I’d really like to see that modified to work like it did in previous games.
Other than that, it was a great time. I look forward to re-exploring the world in a month or two (or six) once I get through the next set of games - including the latest Assassins Creed and Just Cause 3. Hopefully there will be some great mods by then.
I don’t know what version of Skyrim you played, but the one I played had a civil war in stasis until you completed some milestone objectives. There was no conflict. Camps just sat there. If you just avoided the milestones, they never went to war.
Same with this. Settler locations just sit there waiting for your arrival and assistance. You can ignore it and run off doing your own thing, but the game assumes that at some point in the future you’ll come back and settle the area. Because that’s what the whole crafting system is built around. Ignore Preston and you’ll still come across spots on the map where you’re supposed to build a settlement and start the cycle.
I just realized something. For all of Bethesda’s research into the Boston area, I’m going to be damn disappointed if there isn’t some version of Carvel Ice Cream with Fudgie the Whale and Cookiepuss.
davidf
2883
Eh I don’t really care about the thieving dead minuteman. He can stay dead (besides I couldn’t figure out how to get him to exit the suit even if I did bring him back). Can you cheat a new frame or if I complete the Brotehrhood quests will I get a new frame anyway?
Is there a trick to get people to come to your established homesteads? I have the recruit radio powered, water, food, beds, and protection. Does it just take a really long time or based on luck (which mine is 1)?
Seen them come as I am still building up stuff. I always get enough people to set up a supply line and some food farming.
Maxing pop, who knows. The max is supposed to be 10+CHA, but there must be something else because I had settlements that hovered between 13 and 16 even thought I had 10 CHA.
Grifman
2885
The war was going on, you just didn’t necessarily see it. Else, why all this talk of a civil war?
Same with this. Settler locations just sit there waiting for your arrival and assistance. You can ignore it and run off doing your own thing, but the game assumes that at some point in the future you’ll come back and settle the area. Because that’s what the whole crafting system is built around.
Bollocks! The game doesn’t assume anything. It’s there is you want to use it but NOTHING compels you to do so. Of course potential settlements are there, and crafting is there - it has to be if that is to be an option, LOL! It would be kind of hard to have settlement building if they weren’t! But you don’t have to do it all. You’re being illogical. You’re saying that because it is there, you have to do it, that the game assumes you will. That’s silly. The game doesn’t not assume you are going to do it nor require you to do so. That’s why you can complete the main quest and all of the faction quests other than the Minutemen without recruiting or developing a single settlement. Bethesda was very well aware that they wanted to this to be optional and they made it so.
Ignore Preston and you’ll still come across spots on the map where you’re supposed to build a settlement and start the cycle.
Not “supposed to”, it’s totally optional. You’re being deliberately obtuse now. No matter how much you repeat this, it’s not true. Settlements are totally optional. You can do them or not do them - they are optional and not central to the game or the main quest. If you continue to insist otherwise, then I can’t help you any further with this delusion.
People trickle in very slowly.
The trick is to put recruitment beacons EVERYWHERE and channel people to one settlement at a time.
olaf
2887
The critical banking perk is fucking awesome. It’s really must have IMO, if you use VATS.
Making industrial water purifiers really gets you a lot of purified water put automatically into your workshop storage. This is a great source of revenue that is pretty low maintenance beyond the initial perks required to build the purifiers.
I like the settlement concept a lot but it is a little tedious, there are a lot of settlements.
If Vault-Tec were in the cake baking business, they certainly would have produced an atrocious malconfection like Cookie Puss. The monsters.
Honestly, I give them huge credit for getting Boston right. I have been continually surprised by how well they captured the sense of place and some of the nuance that only a native would recognize. The UI may be terrible, but the user experience is peerless.
Bateau
2889
One of the merchants I encountered was selling power armor frame(s) but I can’t for the life of me remember where. Might’ve been one of the roamers or in one of the quest hubs, but it definitely wasn’t in a military themed settlement or anything like that.
What’s your take on the difficutly? Ever since I respecced into Toughness the game felt like I’m playing on Ultra Easy (I’m on Survival, lvl 58), I can stand out in the open against 20 super mutants and plink at them one by one while their bullets barely dent me. I’m not even using Power Armor, just polyfiber Sturdy Combat Armor set. There’s one more tier of combat armor after that and if I so choose, I can do a quest that will allow me to upgrade my suit that I wear underneath the armor. I want to think that my game is bugged but unfortunately it wasn’t much different in Skyrim at high levels, at some point the difficulty on Master just dropped off a cliff.
Squee
2890
I think the weapon merchant in Goodneighbor supposedly sells power armor frames. Never bothered to buy any since I picked up a ton just out in the wasteland but my friends mentioned it to me.
You can buy power armour frames from the weapons merchant (the hispanic guy) in the Diamond City market.
One thing that works oddly for me is commanding a companion to do something for me, such as e.g. tell Nick to go hack a computer. As far as I can tell, i have to hold down E on him for a second or two, the cross hair then changes, I move it to the computer, and after a click there I ask him to hack it if he can.
But sometimes the cross hair effect seems to “wear off” or I have to look at the computer from a certain angle to have Nick accept the computer. It feels like a very flaky system. I also haven’t figured out how to turn the cross hair system off in case I change my mind. Before I know it my feeble dismiss clicking attempts have ordered him to make me dinner, fetch every third newspaper and paint all the trashcans. I then just quicksave and quickload to get past this problem.
I recall either Escape or Tab usually works for me. I can’t remember which because the UI is so inconsistent.
KevinC
2894
Yeah, it’s tab to cancel out of the command interface. Like everything else in the UI, ordering companions around is really clunky.
The biggest improvement for me in terms of the world building is that the world is just one world. There is no more travelling from The Fens to the Financial District via a loading screen, or in between different parts of New Vegas. It’s just one world, and the loading is limited to going inside buildings.
I can’t speak for how well they captured Boston (I travel there a bit, but am always in Middleton - although I recognize a lot of the place names), but this alone was one of the better features.
