Yes, it would be better, if all of that worked. It would also be really really good if they kept it more shooter focused, and everything worked. There are plenty of RPG elements in F76, it’s just that the implementation blows.
I am glad we (at least partly) agree.
Btw if you want to know why I consider NV superior to 3 (by a lot) eventhough I still loved 3, here is a wonderful video explaining some of it - if you have a bit of patience
I may take a look at it. I do remember, though, the extensive discussions on Qt3 about this very subject. I have loved, and put hundreds of hours into, each of the Fallout games (with the exception of Tactics and the shelter game). For me, the key things are stuff like the theme, the vibe, combat, exploration, and some sort of progression. For others, there are different priorities, which is cool. I fully agree that if your vision of a Fallout game is more like yours, the latest couple of games can not have been very satisfying, at all.
I have to say, though, that some of the quest design and writing in F76 is superb. I was actually surprised by a twist in a particular location, and found an area that, while yes reusing a lot of familiar assets (some of them retextured at least), was still unique and interesting. Of course, this is after spending an hour or so figuring out why all of my quest markers vanished, and my quests vanished from my log too; repairing the install fixed that, but really, Bethesda?
Yeah, I don’t think anyone here is expecting an old school more traditional turn-based Fallout from Bethesda or anything else remotely like that. Not in 2018, and not back in 2008, but I do think people have certain expectations from a Fallout game: quests with multiple solutions, memorable NPCs, choices and consequences, character progression, exploration, even humor, etc.
I have long since realized Fallout '76 is doing something different with brand, just like Tactics and Brotherhood of Steel have before, and it is fitting that it should enjoy similar critical acclaim those games received. (too much?)
Nah, totally understandable. When you have something you really like, and you see it getting shit on from your perspective, it’s natural to be pissed. I would be, too, I suppose. It’s just that all the things you list as specifically Fallout I think of as being specifically tied to a certain type of RPG, not a franchise. I like what you are describing, a lot. I also like (in concept; execution is another thing) what we’ve been getting from Bethesda the past decade. But I do understand the frustration of a lot of the fans, for sure. It’s just that while I can enjoy (horrors and all) the current game, and also express my admiration for earlier games and agree with the longings of others for a different path, it seems a lot of folks simply cannot get past their anger at Bethesda.
Ah well, to each their own I suppose.
One question - has there been a serious change in the state of the art in the last couple of years? Or specific games that have elevated the level of games to the point where FO4, if released maybe last year, would look like garbage? Given how people have said this is basically FO4.5
Maybe Witcher 3 or other games changed things? (Missed playing it due to new kids/busy work schedule)
But other than that - to me FO76 is somewhat different yes but personally I was (pre recent personal travel) having fun with exploration, etc. and the level of hate from the review world seems pretty overbearing. Just trying to understand the bandwagon or if Bethesda is really that far behind the times.
In terms of graphics, Fallout 4 did receive criticism during development for how dated the graphics looked. Like Fallout 76, they tend to look better during play, but they’re definitely behind the times in that department. They’re kind of wedded to their engine because they have it doing all the things that other engines don’t. It’s really showing it’s age in a lot of ways, though. Hopefully they have a team somewhere working on another solution so they’re not stuck with with this one forever.
I have both moments of “wow, that looks amazing” and “wow, that looks like it’s from 2006” when I play Fallout 76. The same thing was true for Fallout 4.
“Let’s zoom in on a face that looks like melted plastic for 4 minutes straight,” probably isn’t their strong suit, but they kept fucking that chicken. They just need to hire modders to make their people for them.
I have to assume that there’s a logical reasons for the persistence of certain flaws in these games. Whether it’s a need to have a ton of stuff work together in ways that modders don’t have to worry about, time or money limitations, or whatnot, you would think that the devs know all of these flaws, intimately. So either they are consistently dumb, or incompetent (neither of which I believe is true), or there are extenuating circumstances of some sort. Now, one could also argue that corporate is being penny wise and pound foolish by not funding the sort of evolutionary if not revolutionary development the tools and engine need…
Well, not in this one, right? I thought everyone is mad that there’s no NPCs, but that means no staring into plastic faces. Bethesda just can’t win! ;)
I don’t think it’s a stretch to feel like Fallout 76 should have human NPCs and to assert that the Fallout engine sucks at rendering human faces. They are independent assertions.
The problem with the engine Bethesda is using is that it renders landscapes and scenery at a distance really well, still. There are amazing vistas in Skyrim and Fallout 4 and 76.
But it’s all built by tacking stuff onto the Gamebryo Engine, which is now old enough to drink. Animations of player and npc movement are terrible. It still handles PhysX in really awkward ways, way too often. And it has all kinds of other issues too. Pop-in is terrible. It does weird stuff with blurring at intermediate distances stuff that it shouldn’t be blurring because it tries to dynamically render textures. It also struggles with POV in ways that a modern engine shouldn’t.
The result just can’t stand in a world that has seen Assassin’s Creed games, or Witcher 3, or GTAV (which pre-dates Fallout 4), or Mad Max or Hitman, for instance. Even holding it up to something like Dragon Age Inquisition, it doesn’t get it done.
And it doesn’t get better in modern times. Compared with the Big Three late summer/fall releases of Spiderman, AC: Odyssey, and RDR2, Fallout 76 looks two gens behind almost.
And I don’t get why they still use that antiquated engine! The real strength here, the real deal, is the database system Bethsoft has used since Morrowind. That is what makes the Bethsoft games what they are, the ability to track, store, and render like everything in the game world. Do they really need that ancient garbage rendering engine perched on top of the actual magic they came up with 15+ years ago?
It’s likes there’s two teams, the database team and the everything else team. And neither of them exist anymore at Bethsoft. It’s just modders and level designers all the way down, with no hardcore programmers or graphic wizards in site.
I guess there might be a couple of reasons. I don’t know for sure. Perhaps it’s a nod to the modding community. This engine is so, so old that it’s (comparatively) easy to do graphical mods with it, and the modding tools are pretty readily available, even without a Creation Kit or whatever.
But it may also be that something that you mentioned, like the interaction between the graphical “world” and the complex db and commands underneath could be a daunting problem to try to solve, and one that Bethesda seems uneager to try to tackle.
Bethesda’s teams have historically been tiny by AAA standards, and it’s been by choice rather than due to financial constrains. Not sure whether they believe there’s some maximum size on what an effective team can be, or whether they think there’s a maximum speed they can safely grow at. But either way, they don’t actually have the developer bandwidth for fully modernizing the engine, and even if they did their art teams are too small to be able to take advantage of a more modern engine.
And since their games keep on selling even with the lack of tech refreshes, they probably feel vindicated with that approach. But Telltale also thought they were doing fine despite not updating their engine, until suddently they weren’t. Let’s hope Fallout 76 acts as a wakeup call for Bethesda.
I suspect it’s as triggercut suggests; the database stuff rests on and is intertwined with the old engine, and doing it over modern-style would be like converting those old COBAL systems…
I’m totally with you, the GMG Black Friday deal is somewhat tempting, but wow the reviews are painful, and my IRL friend that I’m most likely to play with has already tried and stopped.
So many ups and downs. Downs include logging in only to find my camp gone, no icon, nada, and no indication whether it was attacked or just vanished. Rebuilt it, but none of my crafting benches were stored, leading me to believe either someone destroyed them (no message or note, of course, from the game) or the game simply ate them. Also, yes, I can definitely confirm that even in a “zone” building, if someone else enters it, the default mobs do respawn, often right on top of you. Yay.
OTOH, the ups are pretty cool too. Followed a side quest (a really cool one) and, upon entering a dark doorway, found myself face to face with two level 63 ferals. I was, um, 28 at the time. Lots of back pedaling and jumping down cliff sides (power armor frame at least, no falling damage) but it was rather a hoot. Lots and lots of cool stories to discover, many of which really do tap into West Virginia/Appalachia history and culture.
It’s down to $35 on Amazon now…
Kadath? When it hits 11.99 lemme know… that said I am still sleepy tempted now.