3276

I rather enjoyed finding a teddy bear sitting on a toilet wearing glasses and reading a newspaper.

3277

On that note, I want to know what is up with the ghouls setting up teddy bears in the buses and trains in their lairs. I probably saw this 3 or 4 different times with teddy bears in the driver’s seat of a bus/train found in a ghoul lair and still have no idea what it means.

3278

Ok, the funniest thing I’ve found in Fallout 4 was this:

There’s a bus and inside the bus someone took teddy bears and set it up like a doctor’s office. There were large teddy bears (parents) and little ones (children) sitting on benches with magazines. There was a curtain drawn across the bus and on the other side was a teddy bear laying on a table, with a surgical tray and scalpel sitting on it. Then the was a doctor teddy holding either a surgical saw or a stimpack, can’t remember which. Totally hilarious that someone took the time to set up this vignette on a bus.

3279

I find my enjoyment of FO4 goes way up the less I use fast travel. Same with FO3. It wasn’t until around my 3rd playthrough of FO3 that I discovered the Republic of Dave, just by walking around and exploring (none of the quests told me to go there). So I try to take my time with these games, which is tough now that JC3 and, soon, ED Horizons are calling my name.

3280

I visited Swan Pond today. Quite enjoyable.

-Todd

3281

Yep. Over a year later, I discovered my issue was resolved and I was able to continue playing on the Xbox 360. What was the issue? New Vegas was locking up every time I entered the Strip because I had a certain cowboy hat in my inventory. No lie. That was the game killing bug. I had to deal with other issues, but it was that damn cowboy hat that stopped me from getting any further. Thanks, Obsidian/Bethesda!

And as malk points out, I also played New Vegas on the PC, where I finally experienced the joy of mods. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen the storyline all the way through. I’ve started three separate games (my 360 game killed by the cowboy hat, a restarted 360 game once I realized it was working again, and then on the PC), but have never seen of them through to the end.

-Tom

EDIT: Oops, I see that Telefrog has already explained all this.

3282

I actually found the endgame less engaging than, well, all the stuff leading up to it. My subsequent playthroughs simply worked through all the DLC (minus Dead Money, usually), and tried different world exploration and attitude approaches. I had zero interest in redoing the endgame, really.

3283

You don’t have to bring mods into the equation. I still think Fallout 4 is a lot easier to like if you haven’t played New Vegas.

Absolutely. Bethesda took Fallout 4 in a very different direction than New Vegas. So if you followed the series all the way up through New Vegas, you’re going to find yourself playing a game that doesn’t build on New Vegas’ strengths. It’s going to be much easier to like that game if you didn’t play New Vegas and therefore don’t have those expectations.

But, yeah, Fallout 3 is obsoleted. New Vegas isn’t. I guess that’s kind of my point. A better Fallout 4 would have obsoleted New Vegas.

Exactly. Plus, as I mentioned, I’ve played New Vegas on the 360 without mods, and after my game-killing issue was resolved.

This is probably my biggest single issue with Fallout 4. And New Vegas. And Skyrim. I wish Bethesda would better leverage their awesome geographies by designing a game that doesn’t require teleporting back and forth through loading screens. There’s so much potential here and they have done nothing to design a game that supports it. Lazy, lazy, lazy.

-Tom

3284

To resurrect this topic again. There is so much content its a pity that such a small portion is going to be visible. Frankly, I think part of the problem is the radiant quest. I got so wrapped up in the settlements (and so frustrated with managing them) that I missed much of the game and eventually started getting repeats, clearing the Ironworks and the Corvga assembly plant once in a game is enough but twice each ugh.

On my 2nd serious playthrough, I’m playing high luck, agility vats character, so I basically avoided both the Minuteman quests and main quest. I ended up down a path fairly far into the main quest. I was really impressed into the way the game gently steered back into the main quest. There was actually some pretty good writing, and lot of attention to detail for a path which I doubt very many people will ever try.

spoiler

I ended up on Memory Lane prior to meeting Valentine, and after some work got myself into the memory lounge. What happened next was pretty cool.

The problem with fast travel is that basically make huge portions of the game fly over terrority.

3285

Because as I said, it’s telling a story.

and that was a bad thing.

As I said, it isn’t.

Besides 90% of the fun in the games isn’t the main quest, but the little stories you find along the way.

That’s in Bethesda games, not in Fallout NV. In Bethesda games the main quest is short and it sucks ant it isn’t clearly the focus of the game, so doh, of course the rest is better!

3286

This is probably my biggest single issue with Fallout 4. And New Vegas. And Skyrim. I wish Bethesda would better leverage their awesome geographies by designing a game that doesn’t require teleporting back and forth through loading screens. There’s so much potential here and they have done nothing to design a game that supports it. Lazy, lazy, lazy.

If I may put on my retro gamer geek hat for a moment, I still think the old Ultima games set a good standard in this respect. As the game went on and you grew more familiar with the locales, different transportation modes would be unlocked (ships, steeds, moongates, a hot air balloon, teleport spells). Each mode of transportation tended to have its own idiosyncracies and learning curve, but by the time you were late in the game, you had the ability to get around much more quickly than before while still feeling you were inhabiting the game world.

I think that’s a good model to follow. I like the idea of a game where your geographic placement can be a meaningful part of what’s happening (e.g. stock up on supplies, it’s gonna be a long journey across that desert, etc). But of course you absolutely have to design around it; otherwise you’re just creating time sinks to annoy players. That said, I’ve been fast traveling like crazy in Fallout 4 and it’s hardly killed my enjoyment of the game. I’ve gotten a lot of aimless wandering in too. You can’t fast travel somewhere you haven’t been, and you can’t find new duct tape/magazines/etc. unless it’s a new location.

3287

Moongates.

[Nostalgia intensifies.]

3288

Sorry, I’m trying to understand you but I don’t. What should they do? You build a big world, people can choose to FT or not. I FT only between points I have been to and areas that I have already traveled through before. I certainly don’t want to walk that road between Sanctuary and Diamond City dozens of times. I don’t really understand the complaint (FT is totally optional) nor do I understand what your proposed solution would be. Can you clarify?

3289

Actually, in this game the main quest is fairly long, especially if you explore each faction up to the point where you have to make a choice. Now FO3, that main quest was very short -but this is much more involved.

3290

It’s only going to be not be visible is you choose to play the game that way. I’ve been pretty involved in MM quests but that certainly hasn’t kept me from the main quest. There’s absolutely nothing preventing you from ignoring/dropping/putting of MM quests to follow the main quest at any point.

On my 2nd serious playthrough, I’m playing high luck, agility vats character, so I basically avoided both the Minuteman quests and main quest. I ended up down a path fairly far into the main quest. I was really impressed into the way the game gently steered back into the main quest. There was actually some pretty good writing, and lot of attention to detail for a path which I doubt very many people will ever try.

And why do you think few people will ever follow the main quest? That’s pretty counter-intuitive seems to me.

EDIT: Ok re-read and what I think you are talking about is how you sort of went around the main quest and saw content there that would not be seen by someone just following the main quest sequentially and not exploring like you did. But that sounds pretty cool, and not a flaw of the game at all. I thought branching paths, different options was something to praise games for, not complain about because everyone wouldn’t see them. I remember the original Fallout having some events happen if you did certain quests in different order - but no one complained that those story parts were hidden. It was considered great game design.

The problem with fast travel is that basically make huge portions of the game fly over terrority.

And it’s totally optional. What’s wrong with player choice? People are free to invest as much or as little time as they want in the game. Why is that bad?

3291

Just getting ready for the fast travel debate again! ;-)

-Todd

3292

3293

I’ve been using this mod to fix that, and it makes things feel a lot better:

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/847/?

3294

Game design. Not to be facile, but as I’ve written elsewhere, Bethesda’s approach to game design is so often to shrug. How to balance geography (i.e. this desert is big, that city is on that ocean, these mountains are between me and my goal) with frustration (i.e. argh, I don’t want to have to walk all the way over to my goal, so fuck it, imma play something else) is a game design challenge. Bethesda doesn’t even try to solve it.

No, they can’t choose. You play a Bethesda game by fast traveling all over the place. Otherwise, you’re in for a world of tedium. Bethesda’s gameplay is based entirely on fast traveling. Walking everywhere is an interesting experiment, but not a viable way to play Bethesda’s games. For instance:

Exactly. That’s why it’s a matter of game design. Game design is the art of enjoyable frustration. That road between Sanctuary and Diamond City should matter (the frustration part of the equation), but it shouldn’t be a disincentive to play (the enjoyable part of the equation).

For what it’s worth, I don’t expect everyone to agree with my observations on fast travel, any more than I expect everyone to agree with whether I thought a movie had a good script, or how important cinematography is, or if a running time is too long, or if it matters whether something is realistic. We all put varying amounts of importance on different parts of our entertainment. But Bethesda is missing an opportunity to make their games so much better by actually designing them to better leverage the worlds they’re so good at building.

As for possible solutions, again, I don’t mean to be facile, but that’s not really my problem. However, Gordon’s Ultima reference a few posts up is a great example. Almost all MMOs struggle with it to various degrees. Games with traversal based gameplay (Spiderman 2, Grand Theft Auto, Crackdown, Assasssin’s Creed) have come up with some great solutions. There are various mods for Bethesda games that attempt to make travel meaningful. I haven’t tried it, but there’s a motorcycle mod for New Vegas that turns fast travel into a resource sink. There are all sorts of ways to make geography more meaningful, and plenty of games actually try, and some of them succeed. Bethesda doesn’t even try. They simply shrug and make a game based on fast travel, worldbuilding be damned.

-Tom

3295

Sure, I’ll chime in on the fast travel debate. ;)

I never use fast travel in Bethesda games, unless the game itself gives me an in game mechanic, however minor, for why I’m able to do it. A perfect example is Morrowind. You had Silt Striders, Mage Guild teleports, Boats, the Mark and Recall spell, Divine Intervention and whatever the equivalent spell was that teleported you to the nearest Imperial Fort. There was no shortage of ways to quickly get where you wanted to go in Morrowind. (And of course, fast travel didn’t otherwise exist in that game.) Moving forward to Skyrim, you could get on caravans at the major towns and take one to another distant town. I think some DLC added boats in some of the coastal towns. Sure, you still had to walk to your final destination, but you could at least get close.

I make a conscious choice to not fast travel because I enjoy the game more. I don’t care if I’ve walked that bit of terrain before… things respawn and travelers appear where they weren’t before. And sometimes I find things I missed the first few times through. I don’t particularly care if other people want to use it; their choice. I haven’t really experienced the “boredom” or doing so that others have mentioned. I do admit though to getting sidetracked from my destination because I spot something interesting I hadn’t seen earlier. ;)

So I didn’t use fast travel in Fallout 4 either… with the sole exception of using it to get my lost companion back, since I consider the fact that AI companions get stuck on terrain or lost to be a bug, and fast travel makes them reappear by your side. Even then, I only ever fast travel to destinations I am already at; fast travel to Sanctuary when I’m already in Sanctuary, for example.

I was so pleased when I got to the part of the game that felt like Bethesda was finally actually catering to people like me (and I know a lot of them); those of us that eschew fast travel. I’m referring to
spoiler

the use of Vertibird grenades from the Brotherhood of Steel. I get a trip to where I want to go, and moreover, it isn’t even instant. I get to fly there in real time, yet it’s still far quicker than walking.

It’s not perfect. I’m a little annoyed that I pretty much have to
spoiler

use a vertibird to get to and from Spectacle Island, or else I have to swim from the Castle or Warwick Homestead. It would have been nice to have a boat transport available at least between those points. Especially since there’s already a sea worthy rowboat sitting in a boathouse on Spectacle Island itself.

So anyway, I feel like Bethesda is making efforts to cater to those of us that want to traverse the world and not use fast travel, but sometimes it feels like they are really pushing you to. I mean, at least one perk lets you “use fast travel while encumbered”. (I didn’t take that one.) ;) And having to run about and defend settlements also gives you a sense of urgency that might make you want to fast travel, though I’ve always made it in time, even on foot. (I think the time window before the quest is “failed” is quite generous.)

So yeah… in my ideal world, Bethesda games would continue to have fast travel for those who want to use it… but also implement a Morrowind RP style of travel. The aforementioned spoilered items are a step in the right direction. I want more of that.