And that’s the beauty of the game; you can do it so many different ways, all fun to someone! The one thing I’ve never done is a melee build, and I’ve thought about a “found weapons only, no mods” run.
Huh - I was heading somewhere and detoured through woods, and found what appears to be a crashed flying saucer/alien ship. I was excited - somehow I never found one of those in Fallout 3. I expected, however, to find some cool gun or something around it, but nothing, Did I just not look in the right spot? Surely I can’t find a crashed alien ship and nothing cool to go with it!
Tune to the garbled radio signal, and follow it as it gains strength. There is something to be found, indeed. It took me a while, but it’s there.
Clue #1
Look for green blood on the ground. There may be a trail to follow.
Clue #2
Look east
Clue #3
If you crash-landed and didn’t want to be seen by anyone, where would you go?
Clue #4 (okay, I’m just giving it away)
There’s a cave close by in the side of a small hill, and the alien is in there with a blaster. Note - you only have a select number of Alien Blaster rounds, but it CAN be chambered to accept other … stuff.
I’d have never found the ending to that event if I hadn’t cheated and asked my kids what I needed to do. There was one radio beacon quest that gave you a visual indicator on the signal strength…this one not so much. The designers were asking way to much of my meager intellect.
I’m now a psycho jet master btw. The slow time effect is really awesome.
This was the craziest thing that took me forever to figure out as well. Power armor just doesn’t scream stealth by itself. But it still works, and I too can still sneak up and tap things on the shoulder.
@JeffL I would even wager to say this game was made to be played WITH power armor. Start getting one tricked out, and eventually even painted. The gain in weight you can carry helps a ton, and the armor/defense that it provides help a ton too.
Probably the only negative about power armor is that for all the things this game does to push you to use it, the few remaining items when you cannot will seem … stupid. You can’t use workbenches, beds, chairs, and sometimes terminals when in power armor. And for some reason, some terminals work just fine.
I’m playing through on Vanilla on PS4 and would like to relate an anecdote.
Spoilers up to finishing the Vault 81 plotline, the Old Ironsides plotline, the Kellogg plotline, and early on with the Brotherhood of Steel plotline, I guess. And after the you-know-what flies in.
I made it to level 40 and started giving serious thought as to what to do with the Brotherhood of Steel. I hadn’t done much with them after a much earlier quest with Paladin Danse. At that point, he was pushing me to join the BoS, but I wouldn’t have freedom, and they’d probably take over all those settlements I worked so hard to save and build back up. He was a low-level Amway dealer. But his offer was still cluttering up my quest log. Then, after killing Kellogg, their giant and awe-inspiring airship rumbled into the skies. The BoS vertibirds were everywhere. They weren’t attacking me yet, but they did take occasional potshots at my robot friends in the relocated USS Constitution, now lodged on top of a skyscraper. I thought I should learn whether they’d be friends or foes.
I go back to Danse, who says he can sign me up as a knight. Does that mean I get power armor? No, those are only for paladins. Never mind that I’m already wearing a really kick-ass power armor suit. I have to follow orders if I join them. That sounds like I have to stop being the benefactress of all my villages I built up from scraps. His club is interested in old technology, but he doesn’t say a single word about my floating robot doctor friend, C.U.R.I.E. You’d think he’d be interested in that relic of a bygone age, stuffed with information about contagion and technology. He says I need to visit the airship, and at some point when he and Curie and I are flying there, I learn that the blimp is called the Prydwen. Apparently the BoS has flown over from Wales. It is nice to be in a vertibird. All my other traveling since before the bombs dropped has been trudging along the ground one step at a time, or fast travel, which is sleepwalking one step at a time. We swoop around the Prydwen with the loving approach that they gave the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
We land on the airship. I hear many things about their king, Maxson, who is not only kind and clever and handsome, but he’s on the ship. And I must meet him as soon as I talk with some other drill sergeant guy. The drill sergeant tells me I get to start at the bottom of their club.
What about being a knight like Paladin Danse said I could be? I’m level 40! Why am I way at the bottom? No answer.
What about new power armor? Like Danse, he said only paladins get to wear those, and I’m not a paladin. He also refrained from mentioning the badass armor I was currently wearing. Like Danse, he also neglected to mention my floating infirmière-cherie. He wasn’t making me feel very welcome.
The drill instructor guy gave me orders. I had to go see Golden Boy Maxson give a speech, and then, I hear, he had questions for me. Maybe Maxson will let me know if my companions will also be sworn into the Brotherhood, and whether they’ll be taking over all of my settlements as BoS Bases.
I go to the speech. There’s Maxson (the name sounds like an adult film star’s pseudonym, I think) yelling at his group of high-ranking officials. What he’s saying doesn’t sound friendly. He’s talking about taking down the Institute, which is a laudable goal. But he doesn’t seem very flexible with other Bostonian factions. He sounds like a demagogue. His underlings are treating him like a god.
I remember a This American Life clip someone shared on this board recently, when a guy, David Hill, brought a honest-to-gosh diplomat to a Diplomacy tournament for advice. Germany was offering Russia a short-term deal.
David Hill I was still so nervous, I kept out of the fighting for as long as I could. I watched Germany and England turn on France and eliminate him from the game. I couldn’t stall forever. I knew that eventually I’d have to go to war. I just didn’t know who I should fight. But Dennis [the diplomat] watched me talking to Germany, who bears a more than passing resemblance to Jason Statham. I was so anxious, you could hear me tapping my lapel mic with a pen.
Germany All right. I promise you I’m won’t go after any of those four regions.
David Hill This turn.
Germany Absolutely. I can’t promise what’s going to happen in two or three turns’ time, at this time.
David Hill I understand that.
Germany But it’s at least a promise of a commitment that I can make, this turn.
David Hill OK.
Germany I can’t say further than that.
David Hill OK,
Dennis’ [the diplomat’s] evaluation?
Dennis Ross Look, what he told you is he’s not doing anything this time. But what he also told you, basically–
David Hill He didn’t know what he could do later.
Dennis Ross Well, what he is telling you is he is going to do it later. That’s what that meant.
David Hill Yeah.
Now, as Elder Maxson is rallying the troops and the brass, I consider my position. I have before me, in a tight cluster, the very senior leadership of the Brotherhood of Steel. It sounds like they aren’t going to leave. It sounds like they aren’t very welcoming of other power structures. They might help with getting rid of the body-snatching Institute, but at what cost? On the other hand, here I am. Not only am I wearing the power armor they forgot to mention, but I am also bristling with weaponry. Shouldn’t they have checked me for that? As far as they know, I helped a few of their guys and mumbled that I wanted to join them. That’s all the precautions they took, in a city filled with replicants and dangerous wanderers.
I threw the first grenade at Maxson. No one really noticed — what kind of chickenshit outfit is this? — so I took that as an invitation to throw a second one. Then came the explosions.
The fighting was vicious. Curie wasn’t much help. I slaughtered everyone onboard the airship. Well, the game wouldn’t let me harm the squires for some reason. Maybe they can fly the Prydwen home; the game certainly won’t let me take control of the ship. (I remembered how disappointed I was when I easily killed everyone on the Leviathan in Knights of the Old Republic but couldn’t actually fly it anywhere.) Oh, and another shocker: when I looted Danse’s body, I learned he was a synth. Nice quality control, guys! How were you supposed to beat the Institute when you didn’t even know that your ground team was compromised?
Falling back to the ground was easy in power armor, though the toughest part of the whole affair was taking care of all the guys on the ground with their Gatling lasers and spread out positions.
I’m looking forward to the vertibird overflights disappearing and the Diamond City Radio DJ telling the Commonwealth how I made a totally rad preemptive strike against the BoS, but I’m also suspecting that the game will still generate random BoS encounters. And that they won’t like me anymore.
Anyone else take on the Brotherhood of Steel?
Hot damn I loved this story. I hate the BoS, and I really want to replicate what you just did. I’m interested in hearing if that affects anything at all or if it leaves intact all the other actions/scripts related to the BoS.
Heh, I’ve wiped out the BoS leadership several times, in different ways, and it does not seem to affect getting quests later to, well, wipe them out even more I guess. It sure as hell ends your affiliation with 'em for some reason!
BTW, if you plan on getting Danse’s pretty cool perk, make sure you get it before you, um, go postal on Maxson and the rest of the little tin fascists. Even then, he’s the buggiest NPC in the game I think. I tried to send him to Red Rocket after I dismissed him but he’s still standing there by the workbench in Sanctuary. He won’t do anything but trade with me; no other options at all. Then again, he was always kind of plastic.
Yeah, To Infinity And Beyond! Nice perk though.
I went with the railroad. I have to say that going to the police station and having to slaughter your former quest givers especially Hayden I think it is, is really sad. There is a terminal entry too where she starts doubting whether joining up with the brotherhood was a good idea…starts questioning their actions even if they profess other beliefs.
Your point about the downsides of the main quest choices is one I share. In a “real” RPG, we’d be able to talk to the NPCs we actually like, and maybe have them skedaddle somewhere before the shit hit the fan. Or something. But no, it’s all or nothing, black vs. white, Spy vs. Spy stuff all the time. All of the main quest choices suck, for different reasons. Especially as there isn’t a fuck’em all choice, either.
On the positive side, hitting someone with an 88mm AT cannon for 1900 damage base is kind of neat. Just don’t, um, do it to a target right in front of you. Unless you like pain.
My biggest complaint is that the various factions really don’t recognize the Minutemen as a faction, or me as the general, and all the implications of that. I’d love to be able to negotiate with the other factions. I should be able to go talk to Maxon, general to general, and try to reach some settlement with him. The same as with the other factions. I’m the general with the faction with the widest presence in the Commonwealth through all my settlements, and though Deacon says I’m a big deal, no one seems concerned about the Minutemen, or interested in seeking their support. The other factions need allies (since they each want to destroy the other two), yet none seem interested in seeking after the MM for allies. Kind of a major fail in the story here.
Yeah, this is so annoying on one level. I mean, ok, I’m not a hard-core role-player; I like shootin’ and lootin’ and levelin’. But yeah, there are so many possibilities that go untapped. I think it’s largely a function of the game being essentially an open world shooter, though. Do this in Fallout 2-esque isometric TBS mode, and yeah, you can do tons of stuff. To do all that with all the ramifications of a fully realized 3D open world, etc., might be a bit much to ask.
So I finally grew tired of failing settlement defense objectives when I wasn’t able to peel away and go defend them. So I’ve slowly been going through all of the settlements and adding turrets as I can, which lead me down the path of cleaning up some of the settlements, which lead me down the path of using a mod so that I can delete some crap out of them, which lead me down the path of making them more settlement like, which lead me to making a couple of awesome, if overprotected, settlements.
Don’t you love how open world games create their own objectives as you play them. Thinking, “I wish I could change X,” then going about it, and that leading you to some other gameplay is just awesome.
Another annoying inconsistent story beat is Danse and the BoS. Danse makes a point of telling me that if I join the BoS, I have to take orders, no more free lancing mercenary work. So yes, I do have some BoS missions to do, but I don’t really have to do them, and I can go off on any quest I wish, free lancing mercenary that I am, and Danse trundles right after me like a good little companion without complaint. Total disconnect, Bethesda just didn’t care about this inconsistency at all :(
Full of win!
I think Fallout 4 is almost a total fail in story telling. Aside from the horrible main quest story, there are only a few other stories to discover. The writing is very inconsistent and simply lacking in many places. This is part of why I think fallout 4 is a failure as a Fallout game, but is a decent generic open-world game.
One of my biggest grips is that most buildings are just full of generic raiders or mutants. There is no story to be found around this. Compare this to fallout 4 where you find a compound full of powder gangers and then the story of why they are there. In another area you find an infestation of giant ants and again there is a story why they are there. Go up to the the new vegas area and you find more generic raiders, but they are not generic, they are drug running gang with energy weapons and there is again, a story to explain it all.
All that is missing in fallout 4. Even when there is a potential there, they totally miss it. For example, the gunners is described as a professional merc organization who will take any contract. Yet they are just like generic raiders. They do not act, in any way, like a professional merc organization. They attack anyone who isn’t a gunner. Why attack potential customers? Why attack people when they could be paid to do so by someone else? There is a tremendous story potential there, but none of it was realized.
If the next fallout game is done by the same studio, Ill have to pass on it unless I hear good things about it. It most certainly will not be a day 1 purchase for me.
Yeah, the main quest is problematic. I actually played Fallout 2 but I can’t remember it very much besides the car with the trunk that messed up my save games and the Good, the Bad and the Ugly scene. Oh and the pron studio bit. So I’m not an expert enough to compare and contrast.
But I will say that I think Fallout 4 is packed with stories. You just don’t interact with them. For the most part you stumble on them and dig them out like a private investigator or forensics expert. Check out this guys youtube channel. He has made a huge amount of entertaining videos covering the “hidden” history of Fallout 4. It shows you how much back story is packed into this game.
Yeah, if you read, say, the stuff on the terminals in F4, you can find a whole host of stuff about the denizens of the Commonwealth. Raider gangs with their own feuds, personal agendas of specific people, backstories for a lot of NPCs, that sort of thing. And then there are the little tableaux that litter the landscape and buildings, micro-narratives about love, loss, and addiction among other things. There are hand-written notes, holotapes, and repeating radio broadcasts that also tell stories, some of them pretty poignant.
The game, to me, is the best open world game of this ilk I’ve every played (600 hours and still going), even if it fails to deliver the Fallout 1/2 experience. But then, I’m not sure how people expected a 3D FPS style game to reproduce the sort of RPG-ness of the 2D isometric turn-based early Fallouts. People keep pointing to the Witcher 3 as an example of how you can have meatier RPG stuff but the tradeoffs don’t seem worth it to me–I could never, ever get 600 hours of play out of a game where the stories and role-playing decisions were developed at the expense of emergent, random, wtf? moment gameplay. So I guess it’s a question of do you want a one (maybe two) time play-through with real role-playing and narrative chops, or do you want a sandbox to kick around in forever? I tend to prefer the latter over the former, but I understand if you’d rather have a less extensive but finely crafted experience too.
For me, though, the Fallout world simply can’t sustain a deep role-playing or narrative-heavy experience. The idea is an interesting an innovative take on post-apocalyptic fiction, but it played out pretty much in the first two games, and it has so many logical inconsistencies and areas where the narrative (fictional future based on fictional 1950s-esque past extrapolated forward) clashes with gameplay needs (um, 200 years after the bombs and no one has cleaned up the bodies? No one has looted this huge freakin’ stock of pristine guns and ammo? People walk on by perfectly good shelters and live in the ditch next to it?) that it is, really, a hot mess. It works as a game world, not a story world, and hence, to me, role-playing goes out the window. Yeah, I’d love to have more consistency–that ting with Danse and the BoS is a good example, as is the fun you can have when you force Danse to work with a Courser–but I think that if they tried they could never fix all of that and the effort, ultimately, would not change the game much for the better.
I wish they’d either retcon the story line to better deal with the time lapse between the bombs and when you are in the game world, or set the next one closer to the time of the bombs. I think a game set a few months after the war, when the vaults were supposed to get the all clear from what I can tell of the lore stuff, would be infinitely better than this 200 year bullshit.
So funny thing there. I did not want to side with the BoS but had started their initial questline by helping them defend Cambridge Police station early in my game. But I wanted to feud with them. So despite me having taking out a ton of them along the way, the guys in Cambridge, including Danse, were still happily waiting on my return.So I shot Danse until he took a knee, then killed the other two. Presto, BoS questline failure, and finally an enemy. You would think that these things had something akin to a MMORPG structure of +faction or -faction to a point when you would be an enemy not long after taking out a few of them.
As for storyline objections, I’m with @TheWombat here, there is a ton of story in this game. The -setting- can suck sometimes, but still, tons of story. I don’t reminisce with fondness over the first two titles nearly as much as others either, they lacked the open world RPG piece that Bethesda has added in spades. If you wandered somewhere you weren’t supposed to be yet, you died really damned quick. New locations were mostly all about pixel hunting for the item(s) they hid on that location map somewhere, peppered with pretty straightforward combat. The stories? Like finding a water chip or GECK? Really? You also shuffled between NPCs a lot making pretty simple agree/disagree/maybe choices. Your gun didn’t speak for you until you broke out of realtime and into turn based, sometimes frustrating combat. Don’t get me wrong, it was the way things were then, and as a series Fallout shined above others. But that style of gameplay isn’t what pumps the adrenaline anymore.
Really I can think of no other dev house I’d want working on an RPG in this setting. Projekt RED could maybe add some of the story people want, but in my opinion, would lose the do anything mentality of Fallout as it is now. If you took off in Witcher 3 and tried to bypass the story, you were blocked along the way with progress quests. New places with things to do were already question marks peppered on the map, even the ones under water. How many cool little nuggets in Fallout 4 are completely hidden unless you literally stumble upon them?
The stories are fine given the enormity of the world they are placed in. Not to mention, the greatest underlying strength of the current form of this game, people making mods to extend the gameplay even further.