So had a thought on this game. I’ve been playing it again waiting for Far Cry 5 after reading about the ‘Sim Settlements’ mod which greatly improves the game. But that aside, I think everyone more/less agrees that the main story is the biggest issue. How despite the fact that your husband was killed and son kidnapped, you probably end up involved in all these side missions unrelated to finding your son, given that as the person playing the game, you really don’t have the feelings necessary to do this in a hurry. I mean, you ‘knew’ them for what, 2 minutes before they disappeared? Anyway, that’s rehashing.
But - what if everything more/less stayed the same with the start, but they redid the whole ‘on ice’ section? I mean, it seems pretty clear that they can thaw/freeze individual pods, so there was no reason to thaw everyone out and only refreeze the PC, leaving everyone else to die. What if they never did unfreeze the PC -when you woke up, the pod with your spouse and baby were just empty? What if everyone else was still alive when you woke up, and the whole bit with Sanctuary was getting them settled in a ‘settlement’, given than you’d been in the neighborhood with all them before the war started? Or - what if the Institute had killed everyone else off, but replaced them all with Gen 3 synths who were trained to suggest you having a spouse/kid was simply not true, and that you lived by yourself? That would seem to be a much better way to sort of lead you into the main story of figuring out what happened while also sort of giving you a reason why you might not rush off to try and track down your missing spouse/kid - especially if you have a town full of people convincing you they didn’t exist.
I know it’s not real possible for someone to mod the main story, but it’d be great if you could and someone with decent story-writing skills gave it a shot. Because (to me) the game really is the best of the series gameplay wise. But Bethesda just can’t write a main storyline to save their life.
As for main story I am replaying Far Harbor. Story isn’t terrible and the place oozes atmosphere and challenge. Move to there at level 40 + or so.
On paper the story isn’t too bad. Some twists, detectives, a villain, some time travel, teleportation, and radiation sea. As implemented? BOR-ing. So in other words I agree.
So one of my main issues with the game was how you pretty much had to choose one faction to live out of BOS, The Railroad, and the Institute. I can’t ever pick the latter one, because they’re dicks. I mean, killing an entire vault of people (save one) for no real good reason, not to mention everything else they do. So they’re out. But with the other two, there are good people in both organizations, and it seems stupid that you have to waste one of them at the end.
Turns out, there’s a mod that restores some content to the end of the ‘Blind Betrayal’ mission that changes things a bit. Makes the main story a bit more palatable, IMO. Doesn’t change the issue above regarding the whole urgency (or lack thereof) for the main PC, but it helps.
I thought Far Harbor was much better done than the main story arc. Then again, the more I play Bethesda open world RPGs, the less I do it for the main story. I’ll get 200+ hours into them without moving the main story much at all. So to be fair, if that’s the one part I don’t like, I should temper my expectation of it being perfect with the items I did love and enjoyed.
But I agree with this completely. I don’t like limitations of gameplay, i.e. “this or that.” In life, things are rarely black and white. You could love the BOS for one thing, but like the railroad for another. Joining a group shouldn’t be so tied to the story that in negates the story from the other factions. I prefer the old school technique of ONE PLOT, with the factions as part of that, not the factions becoming the plot and cutting off the timeline on others. More factions to play = more gaming time.
I couldn’t stand any of the factions, I got inside the institute with the Minutemen, and when the leader of the institute started talking on the PA, teasing a big reveal, I figured they were setting me up for some twist I wanted nothing to do with. As far as I knew, this dude took my kid and murdered my wife, I wasn’t going to listen to him talk his way out of things Walter White style.
As soon as the door opened and he revealed himself, I shot him in the head and killed him. I never learned his identity until I read spoilers later, and I never had to really interact with the annoying factions in depth. That the game let me shoot him redeemed the story a little bit for me.
I must’ve tried to get (what I thought was) my kid out of that cell for like an hour though before I just left him, haha.
It sounds like you might like the alternate start mod - they rework the dialogue and take out the “on ice” bit for you, but you can still follow the path as if it were a murder mystery that someone else experienced.
If they had just given your character some idea early on how much time had passed it would have made your hunt for the kid less urgent. I mean if it has been 50 years what is the rush. You would still look but that feeling that you were trying to “save” him would be gone. The end reveal would still be a surprise, except for the age thing.
This was the reason why I never got why everyone thought it was so urgent. You get frozen again after your kid gets taken. You have no idea if it’s been 5 minutes or 200 years. Why does everyone think makes for such an urgent main quest? I just assumed that it’s been 200 years, and my kid is dead by now anyway.
(Note: I haven’t gotten far enough in the main quest yet to know what the actual number is, maybe it is 5 minutes, maybe it is 200 years, I don’t know).
While that’s true for you as someone playing the game, for the PC, in the span of about 15 minutes, you’ve gone from discussing going to the park as a family after breakfast to waking up alone in a Vault filled with dead people. I don’t think anyone in that situation (aside from someone playing that character as part of a game) is going to logically think things through. They want their kid back, and they want revenge for their spouse being killed. Even after seeing the memories and realizing the kid was 10, that’s still enough reason to want to get him away from the type of assholes that would hire someone like Kellogg.
So I think it makes sense the PC has that urgency. Unfortunately, it doesn’t translate over to the person playing that PC in any real sense.
Having fun again with this in a new game with the FCOM mod. Really great mod, it makes it so you can call in and order around squads of troops. They usually send you 2 but sometimes 4 troops. Get two of these and you have 4-8 people following you around. Each is persistent, inventory can be managed to upgrade them or customize them, etc. They also suffer from permadearh so it’s just like having an X-COM squad. Firefights are big and fun now. I started with 6 grunts and several quests and fights later I’m down to 1 plus my companion. You have to wait about a day to call more as well, and they spawn from your nearest camp so there is even more incentive to get all the settlements.
Can’t wait until whatever they work on next, Bethesda hit it out of the park for emergent, open world game systems in this one. If they can make movement a little better in the next one (and maybe vehicles too) it would be the bee’s knees.
I mean, if they can get rideable dragons in Skyrim and vertibirds and other airships in FO4, why no makeshift land vehicles? It isn’t for story canon reasons, we’ve already had a car in FO2.
That actually sounds fun, and I’m normally against travelling with companions or henchmen. I’ve actually been thinking of starting a new character, with high luck and charisma (Survival mode naturally) and try to complete the entire game again, this time by siding with The Railroad.
Did any must have mods come out in the last year or so? I know about the Sims mod but I’m not really interested in base management, however I will take all the QoL tweaks I can get.
So yeah, FCOM mod is super fun. Either it’s scaling enemies at my low level or enemies are just tough. I had a full squad, 8 squaddies and my companion, for 10 fighters total. We assaulted Fanieul (sp?) Hall which is chock full of Super Mutants. We start out in a pincer formation, laying down fire from an elevated position. Then a Super Mutant with a rocket launcher comes around the corner and it’s a mess. Full squad wipe. There were Minutemen bodies all over the stairs. Just like the original X-COM!
I love how some squads are deployed via Whirlybird dropoff, feels very Vietnam. Also, if there are enemies between you and your requested squad they will definitely get into a firefight getting to you. I’ve had an entire squad wiped out that way, so better to request near a settlement and rendevous with them nearby immediately instead of letting them travel all over God’s creation to get to you. Of course you can also use that tactically by having a squad approach your position as a distraction and hit them from two sides.
This is what I wanted when I was gaming the system having settlers follow me to other settlements several months back. Highly recommended mod!
I’m also siding with the Railroad this time, as soon as I get good with the BOS and can call down some squaddies. When it’s time to choose I guess I’ll just lose those other factions.
