Did you play Fallout 3 Bruce? If so, what exactly were you expecting?
Did you play Fallout 3 Bruce? If so, what exactly were you expecting?
I played the GOTY version of Fallout 3 years after it came out so can only assume most of the shite was patched out of it by then. My only gripe with Fallout 3 was that once you got Fawkes as a companion the game became a bit of a procession but that happened far enough into the game that I didn't mind too much. I never had a perk above level 6 in this and didn't think it impacted on me at all, which wasn't the case in Fallout 3 or New Vegas.
This however was a procession from about a quarter of the way in and had no redeeming features at all. All of the advertised stuff that had me really excited for this was either broken or added nothing. They've taken a step backwards rather than forwards in my eyes, looks a bit like they're pandering to the FPS market with how the combat works too. It didn't feel like a Fallout game to me at all, a lot more like Bioshock, which at least had the benefit of an outstanding story to paper over the cracks in the game itself.
As I said before, it does nothing outstandingly well while haphazardly trying to be 4/5 different games in one. The move to make the power armour a glorified vehicle while adding absolutely no new weapon/armour types at all while adding far too much crafting options that do little is lazy shit too.
The perk systems are different in this to those games so I'm not sure that's a valid comparison and the complaint about it being too easy if you're not playing it on the hardest difficulty level doesn't seem justified either. Fallout 3 was an absolute piece of piss on normal and I'd wager this is no different. I know you whacked it up higher than that, but Survival's where it's at and at least offers a challenge.Originally Posted by The Bruce
I wouldn't say all of it - I really like the weapon and armour modding - but there are bits that have fallen flat, I'd agree. The claim from Todd Howard at the E3 presentation that the settlement building "just works" was straight out of the Miles Jacobson FM playbook. i.e. a load of bollocks and poorly explained bollocks at that.
I alluded to this as a worry before the game was released and again, I'd agree. It's not as bad as I'd feared, but too much of it (particularly in the main quest missions) is 'move into room, clear room out of bad guys, move into next room, clear room out of bad guys' and rinse and repeat.
For me, they haven't fucked it, but Fallout 3 definitely felt more rpg-y and much more of a move away from that and they'd be in danger of going too far.
Power Armour I can take or leave, but there are definitely new/more armour/weapon types and I'm liking the crafting a lot.
As for the story, I normally think video games are dreadful in this regard and while this is nowhere near the level of gripping me like a top quality film or book would, I think it's at least objectively good. That said, you've finished it, so I reserve the right to change my mind if it shits itself in the run in.
I don't think that playing it on survival would change too much for how I view the game. The most fun I had was working my way through Dunwich Borers right at the start of the game against feral ghouls when I had no ammo/shit weapons. The difficulty meaning stimpacks heal less and enemies have more HP/do more damage isn't scaling the difficulty up as I progress through the game. I felt that I got much more powerful items etc while all of the enemies around me stayed exactly the same, there better not be a claim by anyone at Bethesda that enemies scale in difficulty as you get more powerful because that's patent bullshit. In one of the later missions for example I could one shot Brotherhood soldiers who did very little damage too me, that shouldn't be the case regardless of the level of difficulty.
The speech and character interaction is a level of random poorly executed shite I haven't seen for years. And it makes me feel hugely disconnected from the 'world' which never happened in Fallout 3, I felt like the Vault Dweller the whole way through. Halfway through this I just wanted it to end because none of the systems (combat, crafting, interaction, the faction wars) held my attention enough. I spent fucking hours in Fallout 3 searching through shitty locations engrossed in the storylines of each place, that never happened more than three times in this.
Oh and a couple of other points.
Some of the issues I and you have will hopefully be addressed in the DLC (I know) which (given SPECIAL stats with boots already go above 10) is a real opportunity to add in more layers of perks. I'd also like to see more diverse weapons and armour too, a hardcore mode (can't see that happening unfortunately) and weapon degradation (not happening for shit, but mods might help there).
The bolded bit is key, in that the difficulty levels increase the damage enemies do to you and decrease the damage you do to them (I know you've pointed this out), which means it takes a lot longer to become God.
Like you, the bits I enjoy most in Bethesda games are the struggle at the start, so I think I'll enjoy my second playthrough with that build I posted a couple of pages ago more than my first one. In fact, I think I might crack on and finish the main story then start again straightaway. If I've reached the Institute, how many missions have I got left to do?
I'll probably give it another shot on a higher difficulty if the DLC adds anything but simply scaling up the disparity in damage/health doesn't make it a more difficult game in the way I'd like. The fear of seeing a deathclaw that will take more bullets to kill isn't the issue, it's the fact a deathclaw really doesn't behave much differently from a molerat if you ignore the difference in damage/health. The strategy to kill them is exactly the same.
If you focused on nothing but the main quest and chose a side early, I'd say you're looking at 5-6 hours of head down slog.Like you, the bits I enjoy most in Bethesda games are the struggle at the start, so I think I'll enjoy my second playthrough with that build I posted a couple of pages ago more than my first one. In fact, I think I might crack on and finish the main story then start again straightaway. If I've reached the Institute, how many missions have I got left to do?
Out of interest Bruce, how long have you played it for? I'm at about 100 hours now and bar the main quests I feel like I've barely scratched the surface and can't help but wonder if by making the game so big it's made the more interesting stuff harder to find.
Of course it could be the case that it isn't there to find, but at this stage I've only found two vaults, for example.
3 days 14 hours when I finished the main story after dabbling with all of the factions until I had to make a choice to piss them off and pick a horse. Excluding the initial vault I found two others (81 and 95) by stumbling upon them and Vault 114 through the Nick Valentine quest. I've just had a look and there's one more in the whole game (which I have on my map through a terminal entry) with only Vault 81 being one of real interest with a cracking back story.
I'm sure there are other locations that I'm missing out on not exploring but my concern with exploring was that I'd end up with another settlement to 'look after' which I never bothered doing anything about unless I was there when a raid happened. They diluted the impact of the settlement stuff by having about 400 of them, 6/7 well established and different settlements would maybe have held my interest. Joe Bloggs and his hut and fenced off carrots can fuck off for example.
When I get home to tonight I'm going to have a look at my map as I'm sure there are great swathes of it that I've haven't looked into more closely. The glowing sea for example is somewhere I'd definitely like to look more into, the mission at the nuclear bunker for the Brotherhood of Steel was excellent for example. The Mayor's shelter also.
The settlement stuff is rabidly overdone.
I'm up to about 13 of the buggers now, which is just far too many, and I know they'll be more.
Bruce, am I right in saying that once you get so far in the story mission and side with a faction, that's it and all other factions will attack you on sight and you won't be able to do any of their missions?
If so, that's rubbish.
Who you gon' pick?
Steely Dan[se] can get lost if he thinks he's even in contention for me.
I'm a twit
Having read the rest of this page it seems as if the world is great but some of you would prefer better systems to complement it.
Welcome in chaps, the newsletter arrives quarterly and help yourself to snacks.
I've gone with the Institute, but I don't really care. I want a world where I can do everything and not be tied to siding with one faction at the expense of being able to do quests for others (if that's the case).
Factions were rubbish in Vegas and from what I've seen so far they'll be rubbish in this. What's the point in letting you carry on after the main missions are done if you're no longer able to do x% of the quests.
Now I know what happened to Shaun I might not even bother seeing it through and just start again.
No spoilers on the Shaun front please.
I'm a twit
Pretty much, though I inadvertently ended up doing the Brotherhood of Steel course by accident, failing 6 quests I had open by simply saying the wrong thing to their arsehole leader. I reloaded and then went with the Institute just to get an ending.
Another couple of missions down and this is shitting itself quite quickly.
Oh and factions.
Sacked off the main quest in favour of starting again with a ridiculous non-combat build on Survival, starting with 10 in Charisma and Intelligence, 4 in Perception and 1 in everything else.
A few self imposed rules:
No perks until I have my Perception up to 10 (which should be no earlier than level 6)
No Fast Travelling
No buying junk from merchants to get the better components
No scrapping everything (or anything for that matter) in Sanctuary to get shitloads of components
No looting Vault 111 or the two dead raiders outside Sanctuary - I'll be leaving the vault in my pants and will have punch something to death to get a weapon or find one somewhere else, which probably means avoiding enemies with piss poor stealth ability.
Looking forward to this.
Personally that sounds utterly hideous, but Godspeed Yev you mental bastard.
Cheers DS.
Did you trade this in in the end?
Sold it to a mate for £25, bought it for £40 and I've got £15 worth of fun out of it so not half bad.
What are you on next? A bit of Just Cause 3?
I'm normally shit at character creation on these things, but fuck me I've made a right handsome bastard this time. Befitting of his 10 charisma.
Just Bloodborne DLC, Golf Club, Isaac and FM. Nothing coming out I want until Dark Souls 3.
Its like Yev's decided this is the game he's going to play for the next year as he tries to find something to match up to his standards. If you want a challenge, dive deep on the Souls series. Although you'd probably go too far with a broken hilt, mimic head run.
The having to restrain yourself with rules is something I've never got with games. Especially so many
Now do you see what I ended up moaning about Yev? It does no aspect of the game better than okay.
Not really, as I wouldn't go anywhere near as far as that, but I'd agree that once you reach the Institute the main story shits itself and having to side with a faction (thus screwing all the others over) can fuck right off.
At this stage I'm definitely veering towards Fallout 3 and Skyrim being better games.
85 HP and 70 AP to start. I'm going to get munched.
On the plus side with 10 intelligence you get 7 XP for killing a radroach.
Just did the mission with Nick where the BoS make their entrance
I'm not keen on picking a faction (and having to therefore commit to one quest line). It feels like it's expecting you to replay it to try the alternatives, whereas in something like Skyrim you can play through each group's missions - it may not be as realistic but I'm already a wizard/futuristic scavenger so it's all bobbins, really.
This is the thing that got my goat, I ended up siding with the Institute because the Railroad leader ended up pissing me off. In the end, the Institute is nowhere near as captivating as it should be as the premise is excellent. It's underdeveloped even when compared to the faction mess of The Legion in New Vegas. Which is saying something.Just did the mission with Nick where the BoS make their entrance
I'm not keen on picking a faction (and having to therefore commit to one quest line). It feels like it's expecting you to replay it to try the alternatives, whereas in something like Skyrim you can play through each group's missions - it may not be as realistic but I'm already a wizard/futuristic scavenger so it's all bobbins, really.
Fallout 3 shits on this for me, I'll be firing it up when I get round the houses in other games now I can play it on XBOX One.
Loving this new build so far.
Up to level 5 now, with Perception up to 9 and Charisma and Intelligence 10 (with everything else 1). Winning every speech check looks like it'll never get tired and I'm literally shitting caps.
Can't kill anything beyond Molerats, Bloatlys and Radscorpions, so having to be far more tactical about what I'm doing and where I'm going.
Three of them had sides to choose within them though so you were always blocking off content at some point. I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, I always found it faintly ridiculous that you could end up as king of everything.Just did the mission with Nick where the BoS make their entrance
I'm not keen on picking a faction (and having to therefore commit to one quest line). It feels like it's expecting you to replay it to try the alternatives, whereas in something like Skyrim you can play through each group's missions - it may not be as realistic but I'm already a wizard/futuristic scavenger so it's all bobbins, really.
By the way, I finsihed a mission and a Alien ship crashed out the sky. I can't find it. Is it cool?
I'm guessing it'll have the Alien Blaster in it.
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My Dog's gone missing.
I had to fast travel, but I've found him.
I've given him a chain collar as a reward.
It's in the same engine as other Bethesda games so travelling between cells (basically anything that involves a loading screen) should have your companions back by your side/standing in front of what you want to get to.
Someones created a mod so you can have an extra follower. You'd never get through a corridor again.
It's a shame I'm so shit at interior design, some of the settlements online are properly impressive.
Fallout 3/New Vegas had a great mod that let you not only have loads but also customize them, the best part though was that you could click on them and drag them around the screen to re-position them.
Is there an easy way to tell in this (without constantly having to change into the different items) if something can be worn under a chest piece?
I wish there was, but I haven't found it. That part of the menu system is shambolic.
It is absolute dogshit.
I don't know how that Bethesda chap who said he'd played this for 300 hours had played it for 300 hours and not noticed that that might be a useful indicator to add.
It makes no sense either. My undershirt and jeans can take a chest piece, but my T-Shirt and Slacks cannot.
The Syrim one was garbage too.
The other one which annoys me is not being able to open doors when in build mode. Someone must have spotted that.
Talking of build mode Raoul, how do you move items closer/further from you when you're positioning them? I've completely forgotten.
I've just picked this up and quite like it, but it's fucking immersive as all hell. There are so many moving parts and so much to learn.
Did you play Fallout 3 or Fallout New Vegas Luca?
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