3516

Dragon Age has bases who knew?? I only played the first one.

Regarding State of the Decay. I think Murabella is more right than wrong. When you expand the facilities and outpost in State of Decay you create an increasing safe zone. Your traps in the outpost can kill wandering zombies. If you want to argue that State of Decay is better game for recreating a walking dead experience, I think you could make a decent case.

But lets not gloss over the many failing of State of Decay. Lousing shooting mechanics, extremely limited enemies, minimal storyline.

I’ll happily buy State of Decay II, but it isn’t really in the same league of FO4.

3517

Yes, it is almost if people are not reading what others are saying.

The settlements in fallout 4 are 90% cosmetic. I spent dozens of hours probably messing with mine to make them look interesting and unique, but that is cosmetic. It is not going to have any in game effect on the settlement itself, much less the surrounding world. I still enjoy it, because i am a minecraft fan and love customizing my base in a video game, but i realize that my actions are just for looks.

DA:I: Actually this is similar to fallout 4. Nobody is going to attack your bases in either game except for scripted events.

But really my personal feeling is that i FEEL the effect of my base and organization in the world in dragon age Inquisition far more than i do in fallout 4. In fallout 4 you restart an organization and build up a bunch of fortified towns, but it has zero effect on the world and you don’t notice it at all. In DA:I you can feel your influence spreading and the game does everything it can to make it feel like you’re the leader of an organization spreading its tentacles around.

It is true you cannot customize your base though, but that was not what i was talking about. And also, you can’t customize the gameplay effect of your base much at all in fallout 4. It is almost all just skin deep.

State of decay: it has been a while, so forgive me if my memory is wrong, but… i am pretty sure they stop zombies from popping out in their area. You can also set traps in their area and resupply from them. This becomes increasingly important as the game progresses. Keep in mind that you can’t fast travel in the game.

State of decay also has interesting base defense mechanics.

3518

Yes, this is my general opinion too. State of decay was not a $60 game on release though i believe.

However I’m not sure i can pick fallout 4 bases over state of decay bases very easily. It puts the minecrafter in me that wants a pretty base at war with the power gamer in me who wants my base to do shit and feel alive.

And on dragon age… the newest one has you playing as the leader of a military group trying to bring order to a war torn world by sending out forces and improving your base. Sound familiar?

3519

I respect your POV, but I don’t agree; I don’t see that happening really. But perception on internet postings is a tough call, so really not worth arguing much about. It is a great topic in general though, considering the flood of games we are experiencing.

3520

I pretty much agree with you regarding the functionality of FO4 bases. My first character I spent a lot of time on the bases, upped my charisma to get local leader, but the game impact is pretty minimal. This playthrough, I did the minimum. I throw up a shack, makes some beds, build some water pump, add defense, and then add excess settler from Sanctuary and Starlight to my other bases. At level 27 I haven’t even bother to take the Castle yet.

The combination of the lousy settlement tools (finding the unemployed settler is a pain-in-the-ass) coupled with the pretty minor benefits means I’m waiting for expansions/patches/mods before I really bring out my inner mindcrafter.

On the other hand, when you said earlier that crafting was unfinished, I think you and other critics are just looking for things to hate.
I honestly don’t know what is unfinished about it.
Yes, the interface is screwed up. Almost entirely because they added conformations (don’t ask me if I want to leave a crafting station) when they aren’t needed and changed the functionality of the escape/tab keys. I think it is a pretty simple fix. I am annoyed they haven’t patched it yet.

But that shouldn’t take away from what an impressive achievement crafting is. You literally can transform a pipe pistol, into a semi-automatic .45 cal, silenced sniper rifle, or an automatic machine pistol with armor piercing. You can customize your armor from everything to making your drugs more effective, to making you more stealthy, better at melee attacks. All of which have a real and noticeable impact on your gameplay.

Even cooler the same material you use to make your weapons better also can be used to make your settlement defense better,or enhance your power armor.

First and foremost all this crafting is fun (at least for me). But also, it makes me really care about most loot. By mid-level money is pretty much irrelevant in RPGs, FO4 is no different. So the only loot that is exciting is a weapon or armor that is better than my existing stuff.
For everything else, I use a very strict formula gold value/weight. (I’m too anal to not bring home some loot even if I don’t need the money.) This means 99% of loot in an RPG is dull after mid levels

But with FO4, there is always somethings which are running in short supply (adhesive, screws, nuclear material, circuitry) so there is a much wider variety of stuff that I pick up and say “nice!”. My Int3 character is many levels away from Science 2, so when I find or can buy a laser weapon with a level2 mod that’s a cool thing. In FO4 a much higher percentage of loot is useful and that is actually quite an achievement

3521

Marbella, did Bethesda turn you down for a job or something? You seem to like to tear apart Fallout 4.

You’re not going to convince anyone in here thhe game is not fun, or they don’t like it, or base building sucks. Different people like different things. If this game is too complex for you and you don’t get it, may I suggest a simpler, more on the rails game like Call of Duty or Madden? Or the campaign of any shooter, really. You don’t have to worry about creating your own narratives there, or world building, you can sit back and enjoy a very tightly controlled experience. They control where you are and what you at all times so the narrative is much stronger.

For those of us that like flexible systems that play out differently every time due to divergent paths, we like Fallout 4. Perhaps it’s not your type of game. I am enjoying it immensely nd think its one of the best, most immersive, most emergent games ever made. It’s a beautiful thing and quite an accomplishment. Perhaps a game with a more static mission structure but open world like MSG V? Perhaps you just don’t like it and should walk away instead of trying to convince everyone how bad it is. It’s a brilliant game. Full stop.

3522

Yes.
No.
Sarcastic.
Job?

They all result in exactly the same response, so don’t think too hard about it.

3523

Fallout 4 is very much not a brilliant game. Full stop (??).
It is in some very significant ways total regression not just from New Vegas/1/2, but even from Fallout 3.
I have 130 hours in it, just about to finally visit the Institute, and it is quite fun (though it is starting to wear thinner by the minute), but just because I find it fun in that “solid 7/10” way does not mean I ignore its many, many flaws. Flaws that frankly should not be there at this point.

BTW regarding the whole amazing “emergent gameplay” aspect of it - can anyone actually tell me what emergent did you experience in this game that does not involve some factions/monsters spawning around you fighting each other as preprogrammed ?

I have a hard time coming up with anything. Unless you count things like talking with someone while he is pushed by some other NPC away forcing me to restart the dialogue and such.

3524

I took a party of 14 across the entire map. Everyone started out with default gear. Along the way we got into plenty of firefights. As we beat off attackers I upgraded the gear of my party with the gear we looted from our attackers. The entire look and feel of the party changed. Eventually we got into a huge fight with a mutant behemoth and lost half our party in the confusion. By the way, 14 guns make mincemeat of any enemy we met. Sometimes I just sat down on a chair or park bench and watched the battles unfold. One of my settlers went crazy and started shooting everyone. I let them put him down. At one point in the journey the 5 guys we lost must have gone a different routte after we separated because they caught up to us later when there was a fork in the road that merged. So many memorable events. At one point 5 of us were taking cover from machine gun fire in a burned out bus. Another time one of our guys decided he was going to storm a high rise by himself. The rest of the group continued on. Eventually he caught up to us. Wonder what the story there was.

All of this no one planned or scripted. It was all emergent behavior set by the game’s system and AI.

3525

How the hell do you get 14 settlers to follow you? That sounds like a great way to deal with excess settlers at Starlight…

3526

How the hell did you manage that?

3527

Here’s a picture of the 7 of us that were left after the Battle of the Highway Bohemeth. We met up with the other 7 later on in our journey.

gbyTUzV.jpg3264×2448

This is not a Far Cry game. It’s a hundred times more sophisticated.

3528

Taking cover in the bus:

tlSgup9.jpg3264×2448

In order to do this just go to a settlement with a lot of settlers that are not flagged to stay at the settlement. I think most of the guys came from Sunshine Co-op. You gather them (the bell does this) and give them the “move” command. Send them all to the same settlement. They will take a moment to decide their path and then head out. To keep th together, block any that get to far ahead and they will stop for a moment, letting the group catch up. I wonder if there is a limit. Maybe I’ll try for 20 next time, a slightly understrength Marine platoon.

3529

I mentioned this earlier in the thread. The junkyard robot you can send on missions and then follow it there. That’s great until it shits itself and keeps driving into the water and back on an endless loop. I see what they wanted to do but they didn’t make it. If this is advanced AI in 2015 it’s a pretty sad state of affairs.

This coming from a guy who actually liked the game (for all the wrong reasons)

3530

I don’t see “Emergent Gameplay”. I just see AIs executing simplistic enemy engagement routines and some players are just filling in what happens.

There would be more " Emergent Gameplay" if the settlers had their own agendas and priorities which somehow created shortages or oversupplies or other interesting situations. This is very much Dwarf Fortress territory perhaps and beyond Bethesda’s scope.

3531

Did the designers anticipate people artificially herding 10 cool cats together to make a journey to the next quest destination? I don’t think so. Emergent. My party isn’t just the one companion they designed. My party rolls deep, mama.

This weekend if I can break away from the Mythbusters marathon I’m going to try and get a party of 20 rolling through the wasteland.

3532

Thanks for proving my point about people replying to specific criticism that is generally agreed on with “so you hate fallout 4 and bethesda, right?”

3533

I like the idea of crafting and how it works. I do think they way overhyped how much you could change guns in pre release hype, but that is normal. My main problem with crafting is that there are so few viable options. You’re basically going to use the same upgrades for every weapon with few exceptions. Some of these preferred upgrades do change based on your build (IE obviously if you are focused on semi auto pistols, you aren’t going to go automatic receivers). With armor upgrading for example, if you’re focused around stealth, there is a stealth option, otherwise there is the general option.

Overall i feel that once i’ve picked my general perk build, i don’t have many real choices of gear customization (either in picking different items or in upgrading in different ways via the crafting system). I personally find this disappointing, but to be fair, it was pretty similar in fallout 1/2.

3534

I think your definition of emergent is suspect.

3535

And I think ALL of our definitions are “suspect,” in that there is no single definition of what is really just a hazy concept. For some folks, emergent gameplay requires a lot more than for other folks. It’s not a term with a clearly defined definition, it’s mostly a container for a lot of ideas each of us has for the type of unpredictable and intriguing gameplay we like. I think ElGuapo is right. I think Destarius has a point too. I agree with ElGuapo, not with Dessstarius; I think the gameplay in F4 qualifies for the term “emergent,” but that’s using my definition. That doesn’t make Destarius’ point invalid.

Folks, this isn’t a zero sum game. We’re dealing with stuff that simply does not have universal definitions. And it’s ok to disagree on whether the game is good, bad, fun, not fun, emergent, not emergent, whatever. What’s important is that we each make a good argument and clearly articulate our opinions, and I think for the most part that’s happening.