But the effect is “emergent,” as most people define it. Those mobs may well be programmed to be hostile, and they may well move randomly, or nearly so, but when the do meet up, it’s rarely anywhere that’s planned in and of itself, but rather in an unscripted encounter. Which, in turn, can spawn other events and encounters, each of which when broken down to its base components is of course just a programmed AI routine. It’s the way these discrete and unremarkable parts interact that is “emergent,” or whatever buzzword we want to use.
In F4, for instance, Deathclaws are programmed to fight each other. They have specific ranges it seems where they roam. When or if they come into contact, they fight. The Brotherhood of Steel patrols certain areas in certain ways. They are programmed to fight Deathclaws. If the BoS comes across a Deathclaw and engages, then another Deathclaw trundles in and joins the fun, and the fight spills out into a raider camp–and the raiders are programmed to fight everyone, say–you have a big free for all that isn’t scripted or predictable in its particulars, even though every single action was programmed and even inevitable at some level. that is enough for me; I don’t demand SkyNet levels of AI here.
Well thank God I am not the only one to see through that bollocks, for all the obvious reasons you mentioned.
This was garbage generated by Smith and Spector in their DX: IW days. It was bollocks then and its bollocks now. It generated a game that was bollocks and almost ended their careers.
For some reason it captures the febrile imaginations of video gamers (our brains presumably deadened by close range CRT radiation), and close to ten years later this crap is still being regurgitated to describe systems behaving exactly as they have been designed.
This really did my head in when it was being taken seriously. It’s no coincidence that Smith’s career was revived by a game that went back to the basics of tight level design and well tuned mechanics.
So the real question re. FO4, are they going to pull Obsidian off their latest F2P shovelware to make a successor to NV? NV was a commercial success right? Does Obsidian even have the chops to make such a game these days? Or should Fallout complete it’s evolution to a first person junk hoarding base building tower defense game?
Must be much cheaper and more profitable to produce Fallout: Settler Fashion Pony DLC.
So now the complaints about Fallout 4 are not only is it not an RPG, it’s also not a socioeconomic simulator?
You forgot to accuse complainers of being from NMA.
No it’s cool, been very enjoyable to have a constant stream of negativity and sarcasm in this thread.
-Todd
I kind of like that this game generates Far Cry 2 levels of love and hate towards its systems and quality.
mixuk
3502
Hate or love it, emergence is an OK word to describe an experience that does not feel “on-rails” or “scripted”. I used the word in that sense, and now it seems the definition has been taken to its extreme. If there is a better word, maybe it is “dynamic” or “simulated”. Who cares, as long as the idea of what is being communicated is understood.
Anyway, I feel this discussion is really going nowhere. I do think there is a huge difference in FO and other Bethesda games compared to other games in the sense on what they allow the player to do in the world, and how the world reacts to it. Under the hood, it is very different. There simply are no other sandbox RPGs that go this far. Some people saying that it is really not that is baffling to me, since it just contradicts what I can see on the screen. We could go into a mode of listing all the crazy things you can do (creating the dynamic environment) but I feel like it won’t really change the tone of the discussion.
And as said, I think it is totally fine to say that you don’t find these things compelling, and it can be left to that.
BadSport
3503
Hmm I like them, they are fun and unscripted. Living world stuff is good. Ymmv.
You can say emergent if you like, no one’s having a go at you over the etymology. Think of it as a side quest.
ShivaX
3504
Under the hood it’s a FarCry game. The world doesn’t react to anything you do other than to maybe flag you “hostile” to one faction or another. Everything else is smoke and mirrors to give you the impression what you do matters, but it never does. Nothing really changes and you don’t impact anything really.
It works for something like Skyrim a lot better for whatever reason.
Which 3 Bethesda games? You mean the Vault Tycoon game thingy?
mixuk
3506
Yes, I understand the point, except what you are asking for is really hard and complicated to do. I don’t think such a game exists in this genre. So it feels a tad unreasonable to complain about and say it is a bad game because that particular thing does not happen.
Now, I guess you could argue that Bethesda games feel like they fall short because the framework of the design makes it more apparent. It is the thing as an advanced player that you yearn for after playing it for a while.
On a smaller scale, you can do cool dynamic things that impacts the world way more than in any other big RPG out there. Just even building settlements is way beyond what everybody else is doing.
Having said that, I’m hoping that larger consequences in the world caused by player actions would be the ultimate goal for Bethesda.
Oghier
3507
Building new towns seems very much like “changing the world” to me, in its most literal sense. Mods will likely (almost certainly) flesh out the strategic depth to some extent. It won’t become a 4x, but it’ll be more than it is.
If ‘changing the world’ requires a dozen different endings and wildly different mid-game states, each of which requires a heap of new writing, artwork and voice acting, then I think we’re doomed to disappointment. I’d love to play a AAA Dwarf Fortress in a beautiful 3D engine with full voice acting, deep character creation and countless possibilities, but I don’t expect anyone to make that game. Well… not until after the singularity, right? ;)
JeffL
3508
I don’t think gamers need a lot of “emergent” game response to give them the feeling they are seeking, that their actions are having some effect on the world. For example, a little thing, in Just Cause 2, when you get to the point where you’ve cleared out much of a city, you see the rebels become much more active and they begin to fight back more, instead of just being cowed by the military, as if they are encouraged by your actions. Just a little thing but it adds to the “feeling.” Another little thing is clearing out a village in W3 that has been taken over by monsters, and watching the people move back into their town afterwards, and hearing the praise you get from them when you come back into their town (which is dramatically different than how you are spoken of in most towns, where you hear people talking about you as a monster or mutant.) Certainly in Fallout:NV the way factions respond to you in the world changes depending on how you treat them.
I don’t think it takes a lot, just some kind of change in the world that is a clear result of your actions. Perhaps, though, I’m missing what people are looking for when they say “emergent” game play? What would be an example of how that would look in, say, W3? Or a Fallout game or Skyrim?
No, it really doesn’t. It is just that it has extremely vocal defenders as is usual for any bethesda game or Nintendo system. Any questioning of perfection must be met with overwhelming force.
Consider that this “hate” is basically just people saying that “Emergent gameplay” is deeply overrated and all it consists of is a super mutant and a minuteman fighting if they bump in to each other. This was after defenders said fallout 4 was its own genre and could not be compared to other open world rpgs because of its “Emergent Gameplay.”
“Emergent Gameplay” is a very small part of fallout 4. It is almost an afterthought by Bethesda. We don’t need “Emergent Gameplay” in fallout 4 to be genre defining for the game to be good.
The problem is that the towns don’t change the world in any way.
Do people living in surrounding areas react to my uber fortress 10 feet away?
Do super mutants stop spawning outside my uber fortress with its patrolling minutemen?
Do people start flocking to my settlement in a way that isn’t super artificial?
Does my settlement get attacked by being in a dangerous area (not from scripted events like Food + water > defense)?
Ask yourself this. Does the surrounding area change in the slightest if you have no settlement somewhere or the biggest settlement possible? The answer is of course no.
As mentioned before, i feel that Dragon Age Inquisition does a MUCH MUCH MUCH better job at making you feel like you have a base and are expanding its power/defenses. In this game you don’t get that feeling at all even if you have fully upgraded settlements everywhere.
I think Tom mentioned it (but forgive me if i’m wrong), but State of Decay does a much better job on settlements as well. Your settlements and fortifications basically because safe zones and buffers against undead. They greatly affect the surrounding area and indeed your whole game. You also feel like you’re defending something instead of just ignoring it as long as your food + water < defense.
stusser
3511
I agree with all that stuff, but complex systems do not necessarily produce a more enjoyable game.
mixuk
3512
Murbella, it’s almost as if you don’t really read what others are saying.
Also, Dragon Age, seriously? Let’s just take ourselves out of the equation and see how others are experiencing it. I’ve seen zero people being excited about how to customize and “expand defenses” (which really isn’t happening) in Dragon Age, while I’ve seen tons of amazing settlements being built in FO4. The other one has traction because of agency and freedom, and the other in merely ticking boxes in a menu.
Nobody is actually ever attacking your bases in DAI and you can’t have things like artillery since the base does not actually exist in the rest of the gameworld. The differences in lower gameplay level are stark and clear, and it is honestly baffling why you would argue it is superior in DAI.
Also, in State of Decay, the bases have zero impact on the surroundings.
Edit: You don’t see articles like this popping up like mushrooms related to State of Decay or Inquisition (which both of I enjoyed immensely): http://www.gamesradar.com/best-fallout-4-settlements/
OR
Maybe just people that enjoy the game for what it is and enjoy discussing its merits while acknowledging it is not perfect.
Actually I think the reverse of what you said is true. It’s not a group of vocal defenders silencing all criticism but a group of critics intent on challenging every aspect that someone mentions enjoying. Someone posts they enjoyed an unscripted 7-way fight which was a fun comment to read but then the discussion devolved into painstaking descriptions about how, actually, this game isn’t emergent.
I do enjoy reading the different perspectives including the negative criticism but I wonder if the most vocal negative perspectives are from people still playing the game. Grudgingly hate-playing it?
-Todd
That’s…silly. Really. Most of the people who like the game are saying, yes, it has all the flaws you point out, but that those don’t really matter much to us. No one is engaging in blanket absolution of Bethesda from whatever game development sins they may have committed, though a lot of us are doubting just how mortal those sins might be–they seem mostly venal at worst. But there simply isn’t a knee-jerk defense at any cost reaction. The game is extremely enjoyable to some people, much less so to others. No one is saying it’s perfect, or that Bethesda doesn’t have some weak spots or blind spots to work on. Reasonable people are going to disagree, and there are a slew of games one can play to try and find that sweet spot that works.
Murbella
3515
This is exactly what is happening though.
Just because someone questions the idea that so called “Emergent Gameplay” in fallout 4 is 1) a large part of the game and 2) completely changes the genre, does not mean they hate the game.
Seriously, how many times have people in this thread accused people complaining about specific mechanics in the game not working well (that most reasonable people admit are true to some degree) of hating the game?
