Fallout VI: Shotguns and Six-Shooters

[Triaxx]

Which is why you combine it with explosives. Oh no, enem- *frag grenade* Oooh, XP.

As for Suiciders as long as you take Blitz early, you can use it's damage bonus for a one-shot kill very early. And when you're not in VATS very fast weapons like combat knives stack up bleed damage hilariously fast.

True, you will need to be tanky, but that's always useful.

Something I'm going to try: I just got a Legendary Penetrating 10mm pistol. I'm going to set it up as an armor piercing auto to see how effective it is versus a Mirelurk. Should work out to about 70% damage ignoring. Compare that to a non-auto receiver with only legendary piercing. (Then try both with modded AP ammo.)

[LibraryOgre]

In TTW, I find I do most of my sniping with explosives. Fort Bannister with a Grenade Launcher? Don't mind if I do.

[Triaxx]

I definitely am looking forward to sniping with NV's better shooting. Especially around Evergreen Mills.

[Balmas]

Well, thus far we've gone over what Fallout 4 does well and what it could do better. Now for the doozy: Where Fallout 4 failed. I have a limited amount of time to type today, so I'll probably be breaking it up into smaller segments.

The Voice Makes The Man
Come with me on a bit of imagination, will ya? I'd like you to imagine Geralt of Rivia. How does he talk? What inflections do you remember from how he talks? Is he stoic, bubbly, gravelly, kind, abusive? Got that voice fixed in your head? Good.

Now, imagine Geralt. Same actions, same look, same voice, but now he speaks with the voice of Kermit the frog. Or Commander Shepherd. Or the Soldier from TF2.

Makes a difference, doesn't it? See, the thing about giving a character a voice is that it shapes the character itself. If you change Geralt's voice, he's no longer the same character. When you give a character a voice, you lock down that aspect of who they are.

Now, do you see the problem here? One of the appeals of the Elder Scrolls and Fallout franchises is that within the bounds of the story, you could play whoever you wanted. You'll always be a courier who got shot in the head when you're playing New Vegas, but beyond that, you get to define your backstory. The same goes for Skyrim; Grandpa Norris the quietly retired Breton mage talks much differently than Malacath the unfortunately-named Orc knight.

When you're playing Fallout 4, though, you always have that same voice tying you down to who you are. If I play as a raider psychopath who's dedicated to raping and pillaging her way through the commonwealth one settlement at a time, I sound exactly the same as someone who's working to bring the Commonwealth together under the banner of the Minutemen.

Now, Bethesda could have saved some money by not paying for every protagonist line to be voice-acted twice. However, I feel that it wouldn't make much difference unless the character actually had something worth saying.

Your Dialogue is Bad and You Should Feel Bad
"On a scale of one to ten, I'd say it's a 'Shut the f*** up and fix me'."
"This crater looks like it's been tag-teamed by giant f***bots."
"I'm going to kill you SO MUCH."
"Dr. Courier diagnoses a terminally low discussion of caps in this conversation."
"What do I want? I don't really know. Most of the time I ignore my quest and walk into the homes of others, riffling through people's shelves... oooh, like those over there!"
"Hey Lloyd! CATCH!"

See that? That's good dialogue. That's dialogue with character, with humor, which actually affects how people treat you. This is dialogue that you get to read through, decide which fits your character, and say, and which affects the people around you. It brings character to your character, fills out how they act, how they treat others, what decisions they make.

And dialogue like this is completely absent from Fallout 4.

I know I'm dealing with the low hanging fruit here, but the dialogue system in Fallout 4 is garbage, utterly and totally. You're given four options, none of which will actually change how the game plays out or how people treat you. You might as well have a recorded cutscene for all the difference it would make in the game.

This is made worse by the way that Bethesda's writers have handled dialogue. They have a direction they want the conversation to go, and cheat at every opportunity to force the player character down that path. You are given almost no choices in conversation, and even those choices come down to "Which side am I shooting at?"

This, in itself, isn't bad. I have no problem with that if the game provides other choices. Unfortunately, this is Fallout 4. As such...

Your choices do not matter.
Let me be clear in this. I am not arguing that there are no choices to make in Fallout 4, or that none of them make any difference. I am arguing that in the base game, you are given the power to choose which faction takes control of the wasteland, but this choice is meaningless in terms of actual change in the game. This choice, like most in the game, comes down to which side you want to shoot at. The game tries to make you feel like each choice is terrifying in its implications, but then never actually follows it up in changing the world.

Later tonight: Replayability and modding.

[Triaxx]

I find nothing at all to disagree about, though I don't recall the Dr Courier line.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Well, thus far we've gone over what Fallout 4 does well and what it could do better. Now for the doozy: Where Fallout 4 failed. I have a limited amount of time to type today, so I'll probably be breaking it up into smaller segments.

Spoiler

Show

The Voice Makes The Man
Come with me on a bit of imagination, will ya? I'd like you to imagine Geralt of Rivia. How does he talk? What inflections do you remember from how he talks? Is he stoic, bubbly, gravelly, kind, abusive? Got that voice fixed in your head? Good.

Now, imagine Geralt. Same actions, same look, same voice, but now he speaks with the voice of Kermit the frog. Or Commander Shepherd. Or the Soldier from TF2.

Makes a difference, doesn't it? See, the thing about giving a character a voice is that it shapes the character itself. If you change Geralt's voice, he's no longer the same character. When you give a character a voice, you lock down that aspect of who they are.

Now, do you see the problem here? One of the appeals of the Elder Scrolls and Fallout franchises is that within the bounds of the story, you could play whoever you wanted. You'll always be a courier who got shot in the head when you're playing New Vegas, but beyond that, you get to define your backstory. The same goes for Skyrim; Grandpa Norris the quietly retired Breton mage talks much differently than Malacath the unfortunately-named Orc knight.

When you're playing Fallout 4, though, you always have that same voice tying you down to who you are. If I play as a raider psychopath who's dedicated to raping and pillaging her way through the commonwealth one settlement at a time, I sound exactly the same as someone who's working to bring the Commonwealth together under the banner of the Minutemen.

Now, Bethesda could have saved some money by not paying for every protagonist line to be voice-acted twice. However, I feel that it wouldn't make much difference unless the character actually had something worth saying.

Your Dialogue is Bad and You Should Feel Bad
"On a scale of one to ten, I'd say it's a 'Shut the f*** up and fix me'."
"This crater looks like it's been tag-teamed by giant f***bots."
"I'm going to kill you SO MUCH."
"Dr. Courier diagnoses a terminally low discussion of caps in this conversation."
"What do I want? I don't really know. Most of the time I ignore my quest and walk into the homes of others, riffling through people's shelves... oooh, like those over there!"
"Hey Lloyd! CATCH!"

See that? That's good dialogue. That's dialogue with character, with humor, which actually affects how people treat you. This is dialogue that you get to read through, decide which fits your character, and say, and which affects the people around you. It brings character to your character, fills out how they act, how they treat others, what decisions they make.

And dialogue like this is completely absent from Fallout 4.

I know I'm dealing with the low hanging fruit here, but the dialogue system in Fallout 4 is garbage, utterly and totally. You're given four options, none of which will actually change how the game plays out or how people treat you. You might as well have a recorded cutscene for all the difference it would make in the game.

This is made worse by the way that Bethesda's writers have handled dialogue. They have a direction they want the conversation to go, and cheat at every opportunity to force the player character down that path. You are given almost no choices in conversation, and even those choices come down to "Which side am I shooting at?"

This, in itself, isn't bad. I have no problem with that if the game provides other choices. Unfortunately, this is Fallout 4. As such...

Your choices do not matter.
Let me be clear in this. I am not arguing that there are no choices to make in Fallout 4, or that none of them make any difference. I am arguing that in the base game, you are given the power to choose which faction takes control of the wasteland, but this choice is meaningless in terms of actual change in the game. This choice, like most in the game, comes down to which side you want to shoot at. The game tries to make you feel like each choice is terrifying in its implications, but then never actually follows it up in changing the world.

Later tonight: Replayability and modding.

Yes. All my yes. Jumping Jehoshaphat on a pogo stick yes.

Dialogue and character interaction is, by far the bottom-of-the-barrel WORST. I would go so far as to say that the voice acting they were crowing about is actively detrimental to the enjoyability of the game. And the dialogue options are 'yes', 'sarcastic yes', 'greedy yes', and 'maybe later'. No matter what you are talking about, with virtually no exceptions, those are your four responses.

Quests are similarly bad. 'go here, kill mobs, loot stuffs'. That's 95% of all quests in FO4. There's a few rare exceptions, the Silver Shroud quest (which still mostly boils down to 'go here, kill someone, leave a card, get reward'), the pickman questline, and the Cabot Family questline... but even there, most of the quests are 'go here, kill mobs, loot stuffs'. That's IT. That's all you ever do. Go here, kill stuff, loot.

Fallout: New Vegas you could complete as a pacifist, without killing ANYTHING. You'd figure that with all the radiant quests, you could manage this in FO4 easier... but NOPE! Because every single radiant quest is 'go here, kill mobs, loot'. It is actually impossible to beat the game without killing someone, or having your companion kill them for you, because Kellogg.

[LibraryOgre]

I definitely am looking forward to sniping with NV's better shooting. Especially around Evergreen Mills.

Evergreen Mills is SO MUCH FUN when you can snipe.

[The_Jackal]

Spoiler

Show

Well, thus far we've gone over what Fallout 4 does well and what it could do better. Now for the doozy: Where Fallout 4 failed. I have a limited amount of time to type today, so I'll probably be breaking it up into smaller segments.

The Voice Makes The Man
Come with me on a bit of imagination, will ya? I'd like you to imagine Geralt of Rivia. How does he talk? What inflections do you remember from how he talks? Is he stoic, bubbly, gravelly, kind, abusive? Got that voice fixed in your head? Good.

Now, imagine Geralt. Same actions, same look, same voice, but now he speaks with the voice of Kermit the frog. Or Commander Shepherd. Or the Soldier from TF2.

Makes a difference, doesn't it? See, the thing about giving a character a voice is that it shapes the character itself. If you change Geralt's voice, he's no longer the same character. When you give a character a voice, you lock down that aspect of who they are.

Now, do you see the problem here? One of the appeals of the Elder Scrolls and Fallout franchises is that within the bounds of the story, you could play whoever you wanted. You'll always be a courier who got shot in the head when you're playing New Vegas, but beyond that, you get to define your backstory. The same goes for Skyrim; Grandpa Norris the quietly retired Breton mage talks much differently than Malacath the unfortunately-named Orc knight.

When you're playing Fallout 4, though, you always have that same voice tying you down to who you are. If I play as a raider psychopath who's dedicated to raping and pillaging her way through the commonwealth one settlement at a time, I sound exactly the same as someone who's working to bring the Commonwealth together under the banner of the Minutemen.

Now, Bethesda could have saved some money by not paying for every protagonist line to be voice-acted twice. However, I feel that it wouldn't make much difference unless the character actually had something worth saying.

Your Dialogue is Bad and You Should Feel Bad
"On a scale of one to ten, I'd say it's a 'Shut the f*** up and fix me'."
"This crater looks like it's been tag-teamed by giant f***bots."
"I'm going to kill you SO MUCH."
"Dr. Courier diagnoses a terminally low discussion of caps in this conversation."
"What do I want? I don't really know. Most of the time I ignore my quest and walk into the homes of others, riffling through people's shelves... oooh, like those over there!"
"Hey Lloyd! CATCH!"

See that? That's good dialogue. That's dialogue with character, with humor, which actually affects how people treat you. This is dialogue that you get to read through, decide which fits your character, and say, and which affects the people around you. It brings character to your character, fills out how they act, how they treat others, what decisions they make.

And dialogue like this is completely absent from Fallout 4.

I know I'm dealing with the low hanging fruit here, but the dialogue system in Fallout 4 is garbage, utterly and totally. You're given four options, none of which will actually change how the game plays out or how people treat you. You might as well have a recorded cutscene for all the difference it would make in the game.

This is made worse by the way that Bethesda's writers have handled dialogue. They have a direction they want the conversation to go, and cheat at every opportunity to force the player character down that path. You are given almost no choices in conversation, and even those choices come down to "Which side am I shooting at?"

This, in itself, isn't bad. I have no problem with that if the game provides other choices. Unfortunately, this is Fallout 4. As such...

Your choices do not matter.
Let me be clear in this. I am not arguing that there are no choices to make in Fallout 4, or that none of them make any difference. I am arguing that in the base game, you are given the power to choose which faction takes control of the wasteland, but this choice is meaningless in terms of actual change in the game. This choice, like most in the game, comes down to which side you want to shoot at. The game tries to make you feel like each choice is terrifying in its implications, but then never actually follows it up in changing the world.

Later tonight: Replayability and modding.

On one hand, I agree with you. On the other hand, I am, for the most part, a 'Who cares about the story' sort of person. The story in FO4 is perfunctory. It is functional. It's purpose is to get you out into the game world in classic Super-Mutant 'kill->loot->return' style. And that's the irony: The game only gets clever when they dispense with the story, with the exposition, narrative and other BS that we'd just assume skip past. It's not like the Fallout 1 premise is any more nuanced. Vault need water chip: Get one.

I'm of two minds when it comes to story and dialogue. On the one hand, I think it's helpful to have a backdrop, a motivation to do what you're doing. On the other hand, if the gameplay is fun enough, you don't need one. In Overwatch, my current favorite game, the story is barely hinted at, before you're queued into a mission-based PVP game that's rollicking good fun. Which brings me to MY "how to make the next Fallout better" rant:

1) Fix your FPS mechanics. Let's not put too fine a point on it: Some FPS games are crisp and responsive. Fallout 4 isn't one of those games. I'm not sure if this is a function of animations, AI programming, or the Creation Engine, or what, but for me, it's important when I play a FPS game that the action of bringing the sights up on my gun, aiming and pulling the trigger be smooth and satisfying. FO4 is herky-jerky, with sluggish animations, unpredictable controls, and an AI that has a habit of mysteriously lurching to the side when I pull the trigger. Yes, you can play with VATS, but I'm a FPS gamer and shooting via VATS is slightly more engaging than putting together a Power-Point deck. While we're at it, I'll insert my admonition against making enemies bullet sponges in here as well, for the sake of brevity.

2) More and better customization. This may seem incongruous when there's so MUCH modularity in the game, but the inconsistency of the modularity makes the places where it's lacking really stand out. Inconsistent merging of clothes and armor, garments and ballistic weave, some guns having a vast array of customization choices, and others having virtually none at all. Let us continue to upgrade our favourite weapons as long as we've got skills/perks to support the improvements, and make some attempt to balance the choices available.

3) Make the story support exploration. What I mean here is that the Lifetime Drama story of 'science nerds murdered my husband and stole my baby' is actually an impediment to the game. It injects a sense of mission and urgency which is totally inconsistent with the overarching game thesis of 'giant post-apocalyptic sandbox'. If you're going to have a giant, unsubtle hook like that, then it's probably best that you come up with some mechanical obstructions that prevent you from immediately main-lining the story missions from back-to-back. Instead, let the players discover the world. Or, if you're going to saddle the player with a giant, life-changing macguffin, then put more obstacles in our way to make the journey more circuitous.

Spoiler: Minimalist main quest walkthrough

Show

1. Leave Vault
2. Go to Diamond City
3. Find Nick
4. Find Kellogg
5. Find Virgil
6. Find Courser
7. Find Father

These missions all feel very linear, even the ones with an interstitial 'follow the smell/beacon' mission. In game that's founded on sprawling setting and exploration, why not randomize clues throughout the map, and just let the player actually search for his quarry? Also, it's clear that the mission to the glowing sea was supposed to be some kind of barrier to progression, which is mortally undercut by giving us a set of power armor in the first 30 minutes of play.

Things mercifully do open up after the plot branches, but even then I feel like the interregnum between when you are introduced to all these factions and when you're forced to choose one or the other is bitterly brief. It makes an approach where the player wants to see and explore everything feel positively contrary.

4) Quit trying to be movie directors, or failing that, get better at being one. Look at how Doom took a mute protagonist and minimal exposition, and made an atmospheric and compelling game. The writing imperative to show don't tell MUST include an aversion to blank NPC exposition. Your guys need to be more than mission delivery mechanisms, and they need to present their motivations to the hero like they're not reading them off a spreadsheet. Because if that's all the work you're willing to put into making your characters' depth, you may as well skip it altogether, and just have them stand in one spot with an exclamation point over their heads.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Fallout 4 falls into the same issue as Skyrim and Oblivion in this way, that New Vegas, Morrowind, and to a lesser extent Fallout 3 manage to avoid. Fallout 4 suffers this less than Skyrim and Oblivion, as those two games continually go "DO MAIN QUEST OR WORLD ENDS", while Fallout 4 merely offers you a personal emotional push (GO FIND YOUR SON YOU MONSTER). Why are you going exploring random caves when your son is missing / daedra are invading / dragons are attacking? Meanwhile, Morrowind and New Vegas offer you mysteries; pulls not pushes. Morrowind pulls you into a web of secret agents, cults, and secret societies, but its not until the very end of the main quest that there's a sense of urgency. New Vegas gives you a central mystery (someone tried to kill me because of a package I was carrying), but you're not overly pushed into following the quest, you can reasonably have other priorities. F3 is midway; finding your dad seems moderately pressing, but he's an adult, not a child, and the ties from a kid to a father aren't as protective as from a parent to a son, so you can excuse going and doing other things.

TL;DR, open world games need to have main quests that PULL you along with intriguing mysteries, not ones that PUSH you along with pressing crises.

[unseenmage]

(GO FIND YOUR SON YOU MONSTER)

This. This all the time. As a dad it is an irritant that, sure, doesn't ruin the game. But it sure bugs one in the background whilst hunting elusive legendaries.

[SZbNAhL]

New Vegas gives you a central mystery (someone tried to kill me because of a package I was carrying), but you're not overly pushed into following the quest, you can reasonably have other priorities.

During the first act, sure, but by the time you reach Vegas you know there's a major battle coming and unless you're doing a Legion playthrough you need to accomplish an awful lot before then or the Mojave's going to be overrun by slavemongering cultists. Bonus urgency on a House playthrough where your rather irate employer's watching you through his heavily-armed death robots as you piss around in casinos instead of doing your job.

[Rodin]

One thing that seems deeply ironic now is Bethesda's push to voice every line of dialogue while simultaneously pushing Radiant quests. Imagine Radiant quests in Morrowind - they'd give a couple of detailed paragraphs of plot, ending with "search for the quest solution at [RADIANT LOCATION]. In a game with voice, you either get "here's a note with quest directions on it", or "I found a new place for you to do X" and the location is given in your quest log. Having the voiced dialogue makes it dreadfully apparent when you aren't hitting a main quest, because they have to talk around the Radiant location and/or characters.

[Triaxx]

Found a new contender for most hilariously useless weapon. Gamma Gun of the Roboticist.

I would argue that F4's plot does pull, but it's not the smooth constant pull you want to follow. It's more a series of sharp jerks. Jerked towards Concord, then Diamond City, then further on.

[The_Jackal]

One thing that seems deeply ironic now is Bethesda's push to voice every line of dialogue while simultaneously pushing Radiant quests. Imagine Radiant quests in Morrowind - they'd give a couple of detailed paragraphs of plot, ending with "search for the quest solution at [RADIANT LOCATION]. In a game with voice, you either get "here's a note with quest directions on it", or "I found a new place for you to do X" and the location is given in your quest log. Having the voiced dialogue makes it dreadfully apparent when you aren't hitting a main quest, because they have to talk around the Radiant location and/or characters.

That's actually a really good point, however, I'd offer the notion that one drives the other. As you increase the production costs of creating content, the incentive to add more repetitive and procedurally generated content also increases. So in spite of the outcomes seeming counterproductive, I'm pretty sure it's one factor driving the other.

[Rynjin]

Fallout 4 falls into the same issue as Skyrim and Oblivion in this way, that New Vegas, Morrowind, and to a lesser extent Fallout 3 manage to avoid. Fallout 4 suffers this less than Skyrim and Oblivion, as those two games continually go "DO MAIN QUEST OR WORLD ENDS", while Fallout 4 merely offers you a personal emotional push (GO FIND YOUR SON YOU MONSTER). Why are you going exploring random caves when your son is missing / daedra are invading / dragons are attacking? Meanwhile, Morrowind and New Vegas offer you mysteries; pulls not pushes. Morrowind pulls you into a web of secret agents, cults, and secret societies, but its not until the very end of the main quest that there's a sense of urgency. New Vegas gives you a central mystery (someone tried to kill me because of a package I was carrying), but you're not overly pushed into following the quest, you can reasonably have other priorities. F3 is midway; finding your dad seems moderately pressing, but he's an adult, not a child, and the ties from a kid to a father aren't as protective as from a parent to a son, so you can excuse going and doing other things.

TL;DR, open world games need to have main quests that PULL you along with intriguing mysteries, not ones that PUSH you along with pressing crises.

Even Oblivion and Skyrim have one thing that FO4 lacks though, more of an immersive sense of fun exploring their worlds, and it's easy to get sucked into NPCs' little plots the first time around. You completely forget about the main quest because you're sucked into looking in Cave X or doing Daedric quest Y or assassinating some poor schmuck or sneaking into a house to steal something for Delvin. The lack of voice also helps. Though I still don't think the voice 'ruined everything' it is quite annoying that I want to play a grizzled, pissed off former soldier and have Chipper Pants McFranticvoice coming out of my face, and neither Oblivion or Skyrim have that problem.

I get nothing of that sense of fun exploring FO4's world. I got it with 3, and New Vegas, but I care very little about most of the NPs that aren't followers. Their quests are usually boring without even the window dressing Oblivion and Skyrim put on them. In Skyrim, "Wipe out this bandit clan in random cave #36454" is a radiant quest you can pick up talking to a random innkeeper. In FO4, it's a quest you get from a named NPC that tries to make you give a **** and fails miserably.

I can remember nearly every sidequest from 3 and New Vegas. I can remember a OT of them from Oblivion and Skyrim. I can remember very few of the ones in FO4. Partly because a lot of quests are locked behind a "story wall". None of the factions are joinable or able to be significantly progressed through without a certain number of story missions done. And then at a certain point, they force you to go through the main plot anyway.

I've never completed the Skyrim storyline. Not in 5 years of playing that game pretty regularly off and on. I can join the Brotherhood, or do Dawnguard, or the Companions and any other major questline, and all of the smaller ones without ever touching the story. All I miss out on are Dragon Shouts, basically. Oblivion is similar. And is also interesting because some of the questlines actually change things in the world, like the Mages Guild quests wiping Bruma's chapter off the map partway through.

Fallout 4 falls on its face in that regard. Everything is slave to the story, and the voiced protagonist is just a tiny thing that acts more like a straw that breaks the camel's back than anything.

[factotum]

I would argue that F4's plot does pull, but it's not the smooth constant pull you want to follow. It's more a series of sharp jerks. Jerked towards Concord, then Diamond City, then further on.

I would disagree there. The only reason that almost everyone goes to Concord is because it happens to be the nearest large town to Sanctuary Hills, and it's where you end up if you follow the road out. There's not really any *plot* reason for you to go there, other than an offhand remark Codsworth makes. If the map were laid out differently, so that Concord isn't the obvious first place to visit after Sanctuary and Red Rocket, then you might not go there at all--and since it's only speaking to the druggie woman there that leads you off to Diamond City you could quite easily just go randomly off and have no idea what you were supposed to be doing. That's not really great storytelling, to be honest.

And I would say that story *is* important in an RPG. If anyone's ever played an RPG with no storyline I'd be interested to hear how that goes...

[Triaxx]

I don't know. Considering I instantly went wandering east out of the Vault, just to see what was there, I'd say Concord is immanently skippable. I even found myself wandering into Diamond City just to see what the fuss was about after hearing about it from Tenpines Bluff.

[GloatingSwine]

Fallout 4 falls on its face in that regard. Everything is slave to the story, and the voiced protagonist is just a tiny thing that acts more like a straw that breaks the camel's back than anything.

The video posted upthread makes a compelling argument that everything is slave to the Explore > Loot > Craft cycle, including the story and the factions, because most faction quests are just a pointer to go to a new place to explore and loot.

[DigoDragon]

Evergreen Mills is SO MUCH FUN when you can snipe.

Oh heck yeah!

Even when it glitches and the raider bodies shoot up into the sky, cartwheel, and land next to me for easy looting (yes, this happened once). I need to find where I put the screenshots of that.

The Voice Makes The Man

Very much agreed. I prefer my protagonist silent so that I can immerse myself into the game with how I think my character should sound. It's a quibble I had with Mass Effect, but at least that game gave me some dialog choices that kind of mattered a little with the way the plot unfolds, so I got something for it.

[Triaxx]

You talk about the Explore>Loot>Craft cycle as if it can only be a bad thing.

But honestly, it's been the heart of Fallout since 3, and even as far back as 2, though to a lesser extent.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Also, Mass Effect wasn't build-your-own-character in the same way. They had a set amount of Shepards you could make, with set backgrounds. You could make the Survivor, the Ruthless, or the Hero, and those were your set personalities.

[Triaxx]

Ah, but you did at least have options. We got Flat Male #238, and Trying so hard to deliver lines seriously Female #480. And that was all we had.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

You talk about the Explore>Loot>Craft cycle as if it can only be a bad thing.

But honestly, it's been the heart of Fallout since 3, and even as far back as 2, though to a lesser extent.

It wasn't the Explore -> Combat -> Loot cycle that was so bad, it was that it was so threadbare and blatantly obvious without even the fig-leaf of window dressing to try and pretend there was any sort of depth to it at all. They didn't even try to pretend there was a plot beyond 'go here, kill things, loot'.

[snowblizz]

Makes a difference, doesn't it? See, the thing about giving a character a voice is that it shapes the character itself. If you change Geralt's voice, he's no longer the same character. When you give a character a voice, you lock down that aspect of who they are.

Now, do you see the problem here? One of the appeals of the Elder Scrolls and Fallout franchises is that within the bounds of the story, you could play whoever you wanted.

I have honestly never really noticed the speaking protagonist or reflect over his voice or anything. Nor do I have an elaborate background mapped out. Some punks stole my kid and did kill me, they will pay. And that was enough for me. Because invariably, I end up playing myself.

[LibraryOgre]

This. This all the time. As a dad it is an irritant that, sure, doesn't ruin the game. But it sure bugs one in the background whilst hunting elusive legendaries.

I only got to play a little bit of FO4 on a friend's console. I got to play it while my baby, then slightly less than a year old, was napping on my lap.

That makes the opening pretty fraught, I will say.

[Spore]

Some punks stole my kid and did kill me, they will pay. And that was enough for me. Because invariably, I end up playing myself.

Having neither wife nor kids IRL the Fallout 4 intro hit my feelings like a truck. Loosing your perfect peaceful life, having your wife killed in front of your eyes with you being helpless and then even seeing your Robot Butler having a mental breakdown was quite emotional for me. It's was worse than being empathetic towards Adam Jensen's involuntarily "cyberificiation"

[Rynjin]

The video posted upthread makes a compelling argument that everything is slave to the Explore > Loot > Craft cycle, including the story and the factions, because most faction quests are just a pointer to go to a new place to explore and loot.

That's a very much lesser issue. A few hours into my first playthrough of the game I got tired of picking up mounds of trash to craft better gear, sure. My solution was just to console up a bunch of crafting gear and just let the perks and finding the actual weapons be my locks on how strong my gear gets.

It DID increase my enjoyment of the game by a lot, but it was still drug down by everything else around it. I explored for a bit, and it was fun, but eventually I decided "Hey, let's help Danse out like he asked" and went and retrieved the satellite doohickey for him. As expected, I got to (sort of) join the Brotherhood after that. Okay, cool, I'm a probationary member of the Brotherhood of Steel, but at least I can help secure and fortify this outpost, right? Wrong. The only missions I get are generic "Kill these Ghouls" or "Find this doohickey". But I figured, I do enough of these and then I'll get an actual next mission from Dane and the Brotherhood plotline will progress.

"Wrong again, dip****" the game merrily exclaims after I complete five of each mission. I get bored and leave them to their broke down police station, and don't go back. Until, lo and behold, the Brotherhood appears after I get bored enough to actually do the story missions. It was at this point I basically said "Screw this game, I'm out" and dropped it for about a week, but I picked it back up again figuring hey, at least now I can do the Brotherhood plotline, that'll be fun.

But nope "MAIN QUEST IN DISGUISE, WOO, TRICKED AGAIN *******" the game shouts, waving its junk in my face at this point, and I drop the game again.

I pick it back up again later, exploring around and actually having fun again, until I pick up mention of these "Eddie Winter" holotapes from an old police station and I go on an ADVENTURE. I drag my ass all around the Commonwealth looking for these things. I was having fun, man, never really knew what to expect in these places, unmarked in any quest log, I had to rely a bit on remembering the next station marked on the map, it was cool. Sometimes they were filled with raiders, sometimes completely empty, IIRC there was a deathclaw near one, I had a blast, and actually gained quite a few levels exploring some of the ruins and whatnot I came across along the way. All told I spent maybe 6, 8 hours exploring the Commonwealth to find these tapes. I was convinced this was going to lead to some kind of awesome loot, like the MIRV gun from FO3 that you needed to find all those passwords for. Only problem...I couldn't find tape #1. I went to all the locations, I had tapes 2-9 and 0, but I could not for the life of me figure out where tape 1 was. I fast traveled back to all the places before and checked the computers because they gave me clues to all the others...and nothin'.

Eventually, I break down and look it up on the wiki and learn...hey, this is actually a companion quest for Nick Valentine, a character I've never traveled with, but think is pretty cool, so hey, why not pick him up. I read a little further to see what I need to do to unlock it. 750 affinity, cool, expected, it's a companion quest. Oh, but you also have to complete Dangerous Minds. What's this? A side quest? One of Nick Valentine's detective mysteries?

Nope, it's another damn main quest story mission. {{scrubbed}} so I drop the game again for a loooong time, and only pick it up because I really was curious how that quest ends. In my mind, that's the end of the story. Valentine gets his guy (and what an anticlimax after all that, and barely any reward to speak of for it), and he and the main character go off and keep running that detective agency.

Which, as I find out, is a hell of a lot more interesting than what the story actually is about (which I learned by watching TeamFourStar's playthrough of it) which is exactly what I thought it'd be. "Oh no, you went into cryo sleep for an indeterminate amount of time and your son is now older than you and leader of the evil organization? WHAT A TWEEST~"

TL;DR: This game's story literally ruins everything fun about it.

[The_Jackal]

TL;DR: This game's story literally ruins everything fun about it.

While I agree that the story is kinda weak, I find this cart before horse logic. How do ANY of the story missions, radiant or otherwise, change what the game IS? Going out of your way to avoid engagement in the story seems to be contrary to the point of obstinacy. The game's story is an inducement to go out and actually PLAY THE GAME, ie: Shoot stuff, collect their stuff, haul it back to town and use it to make techno-macrame. Settlement needs help? Kill, Loot, Return. Radio distress signal? Kill, Loot, Return. Bald dude shoots your wife? Kill, Loot, Return.

This isn't a unique phenomenon to Fallout IV, either. For virtually ALL games, the story is there to direct the player to where the fun is happening. Bioshock? The story is an incentive to find more deranged libertarians to shoot. Baldur's Gate? The story is an incentive to find new orcs to dismember. Call of Duty? Find more terrorists to shoot.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

While I agree that the story is kinda weak, I find this cart before horse logic. How do ANY of the story missions, radiant or otherwise, change what the game IS? Going out of your way to avoid engagement in the story seems to be contrary to the point of obstinacy. The game's story is an inducement to go out and actually PLAY THE GAME, ie: Shoot stuff, collect their stuff, haul it back to town and use it to make techno-macrame. Settlement needs help? Kill, Loot, Return. Radio distress signal? Kill, Loot, Return. Bald dude shoots your wife? Kill, Loot, Return.

Unfortunately, the game's story does NOT, actually, act as an inducement to go out and actually play the game. In fact, it does the complete reverse. It keeps pushing you to play the main quest INSTEAD of going out, exploring, killing stuff, and looting. And the logic behind the main quest is just so annoyingly bad that it completely breaks immersion.

[Avilan the Grey]

I get nothing of that sense of fun exploring FO4's world. I got it with 3, and New Vegas, but I care very little about most of the NPs that aren't followers. Their quests are usually boring without even the window dressing Oblivion and Skyrim put on them. In Skyrim, "Wipe out this bandit clan in random cave #36454" is a radiant quest you can pick up talking to a random innkeeper. In FO4, it's a quest you get from a named NPC that tries to make you give a **** and fails miserably.

Fallout 4 falls on its face in that regard. Everything is slave to the story, and the voiced protagonist is just a tiny thing that acts more like a straw that breaks the camel's back than anything.

Definitely disagrees with the first point above; I truly enjoy the characters in Fo4. And also the second point: I love the voiced protagonists. But then I adore Mass Effect.