Fallout VII - Vault-Tec calling

[Balmas]

Episode 7: Crash Counters is up. Join up and see how often I can totally want to die as a result of Fallout 3's total lack of stability!

I have to admit I'm a little interested in the Doom items, as that was a superb game with the visceral speed and aggression I want from FO4 baked in. The catch is, I'm absolutely certain the pricepoint is as insulting as ever. 4-5 dollars might almost be a worthy price IF it had the armor, the gun, some music, possibly a Doom themed encounter to collect them in (or, hell, just a put it beside a gravestone with a rabbit engraved on it, that would be wonderful), and enough modding capacity to compete with the high end of what you can get for vanilla/DLC gear. Maybe crib a page from Persona 5 and script the soundtrack to change when you've got the doom armor equipped. Imagine a gang of raiders swarming out of some back alley and suddenly that metal guitar riff starts up. I would have to start taking psycho just to get the SS to yell "F***IN' KILL!" as the music starts. Anything less... would just be impolite. Junkie-era Cait would be telling me ease up on the chem use.

Instead, if the original batch is any indication, I assume we'll be paying ~$5 for armor that has no mod capacity and goes from gamebreaking to obsolete around level 13 (Armorer 2). We'll be paying ~$2 for a weapon with a similar life span and either zero mod ability, a cheap copy/paste of the tesla rifle from Automatron, or an extremely rare/heavy/expensive ammunition type. Probably all 3. And it will be dropped with, at a maximum effort, some random ghoul encounter around a dungeon chest (not even retextured silver to look like the Doom Marine's coffin) and an instant quest to tell you where to find it.

I just watched Oxhorn's review of the new items, and... well, if you're a pessimist, let's say you won't be disappointed. To get the BFG, you go to a gas station in the glowing sea and kill the person who's using it. The BFG has no mods, and is essentially a gauss rifle that uses unique ammo and has a 30-foot splash radius. The Doom armor looks like a turd sandwich and has no mods. It looks like some kid trying on his dad's armor, complete with torn pants and bare midriff on both male and female models, and yet has protection on par with Marine armor along with 1000 rad resistance.

I mean, honestly, that's probably what really angers me about this whole thing. The losing the Script Extender a few days every month will be exasperating, yes, but it's for the sake of content that is over-priced, under-developed, and poorly presented. I can forgive one of the three, Bethesda, your pick, but it seems you're going for the hat trick.

Thank you for putting it into simple words for me. It's that combination of fatal flaws that makes the creation club so darn unappealing.

[Caelestion]

Bethesda have clearly forgotten that what makes cheap tat so appealing is that it's cheap. I can understand them wanting their own micro-currency to avoid constant credit card charges, but selling it in units of 750 when almost everything is priced in whole hundreds is clearly a cash-grabbing 'feature'.

[Triaxx]

I actually like credits since it prevents them having to burn money on cyber security, I remember when the PlayStation Network kept getting hacked, and the XboX Network jumped to straight credit cards and then pow, repeated hacks. Yay credits.

As for the costs, 100-150 for most of them 200 for the backpack. 4-5 is just too much for even the best of these.

[Calemyr]

I just watched Oxhorn's review of the new items, and... well, if you're a pessimist, let's say you won't be disappointed. To get the BFG, you go to a gas station in the glowing sea and kill the person who's using it. The BFG has no mods, and is essentially a gauss rifle that uses unique ammo and has a 30-foot splash radius. The Doom armor looks like a turd sandwich and has no mods. It looks like some kid trying on his dad's armor, complete with torn pants and bare midriff on both male and female models, and yet has protection on par with Marine armor along with 1000 rad resistance.

Good saints! They didn't even use the new good armor design! You know, the one from the game that's still popular at the moment? And the frickin' BFG is 400c? My pessimism was insufficient to requirements, and that depresses me.

[Triaxx]

For a mere 250 credits you can purchase pessimism, available after a short 'quest'.

[SerTabris]

Eden did want you to plant a virus that would wipe out all non-pure humans. Not sure if Autumn was in on that plan too, but I think if he were, then it would be pretty straightforward evil (and in character for the Enclave).

Personally, I'd go farther and rewrite it so that Eden is against the virus to purify the human gene pool because he realizes it'll kill so many Americans, and what is America if not having roots in the concept of the "Melting pot" (mutants in this case, many being just humans with slightly differentiating DNA, much like your own character)? And then Autumn betrays Eden and goes to Do the thing. So Eden letting you go to stop the colonel (and self-destructing the base) makes a bit more sense.

Autumn is explicitly not in on the plan; Eden gives this as one reason why he's asking you to plant the modified FEV instead of Autumn (because either Autumn has said no or Eden thinks he will based on some other past disagreement).

[Togath]

So I heard Bethesda broke 90% of free mods again in FO 4. Wonderful... do they seriously think people aren't figuring our this is an attempt to kill off free mods?
(either that, or they are one of the most blind and deaf companies out there and somehow can't figure out people are upset[and that CC had driven the Steam rating down to only 69% positive overall, and less than 15% positive "recently"])

[Triaxx]

Nah, it's only the ones that require F4SE.

[Caelestion]

Just every single F4SE mod, every single time they release CC.

[factotum]

Given this is Bethesda and they make a speciality of buggy games, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt in this case. As they say, don't ascribe to malicious intent that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

[DigoDragon]

Given this is Bethesda and they make a speciality of buggy games, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt in this case. As they say, don't ascribe to malicious intent that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

Perhaps it's incompetence. Either way, annoying your customer base is still a bad idea and it's hurting CC's acceptance. I was considering jumping into FO4 as I'm about to complete New Vegas, but now I feel I should wait a bit for things to settle down on this.

[Triaxx]

Nah, you totally want to play Tactics...

[Calemyr]

It's not so much that it breaks mods, it mostly just disrupts them, though admittedly some mods require a specific version of FO4 to run. The releases update the executable, which invalidates the script extender. That's a major pain. Also, it originally had a design choice where it would reorder your mods alphabetically when you installed a CC mod. For about half the mods out there, this doesn't matter. But the other half has dependency of some sort, with the newest one needing to be lower on the mod list than the one it's updating. That can cause merry hell with your mods, but if you quit the game after downloading a CC mod (say, one that's temporarily free like the Chrome power armor skin), you can then run a mod-ordering utility (I like LOOT) to get everything back up and running.

Supposedly they fixed the mod reorder bug, but I wouldn't know because my test seems to have been a success. I changed my game to update "only when I start the game", and then start it through the script extender. Since the launcher never starts, the update never happens. Either that or this latest update didn't involve an executable update. Either way, I was able to use my current F4SE without a problem and that's a win in my book.

Out of curiosity, what are some of the quests/treasuresNPCs that you guys routinely go out of your way to acquire ASAP? Railroad for the ballistic mesh and Deliverer pistol? Cait or Dogmeat for the early treasures behind master locks, such as the Cryolator or Pickman's blade? Do you make a run straight for Dunwhich Borers for Kremvh's Tooth or Salem for the deathclaw gauntlet? Do you need to get Piper as early as possible or claim the Castle? I'm just curious, what are the priorities people tend to go for?

[Caelestion]

Well, that sucks. My Fallout 4 now simply crashes within a few seconds of reaching the title screen every time. I have no F4SE mods loaded, no ESPs or ESMs activated at all and F4SE is not even installed, so I don't know what's wrong.

[Calemyr]

I've had that happen from time to time. I haven't found any great solution beyond simply uninstalling and reinstalling. Personally, because I'm a data hoarder and have disk space, I just rename the Fallout4 folder (usually to Fallout4_Old) and then ask steam to revalidate the files. It downloads the game and reinstalls it, with the old copy handy in case there was a file I wanted. This usually does the trick. You may want to rename your ini files (usually found in Documents/My Games/Fallout 4) as well and let them be rebuilt as well.

It's an extremely frustrating thing when it happens, but this does tend to solve it.

[Caelestion]

I guess I'll give that a try. It was working after the first CC update, so something's gone mammaries upwards this month.

[gooddragon1]

Fallout Vs Skyrim. Not at all representative of the maximums, but fun to watch.

[factotum]

Somebody put a lot of effort into that video!

[Triaxx]

Because Balmas asked about an updated modlist for my LP, here we are:

Spoiler: Modlist

Show

A World of Pain
Adjustable Hud
Advanced Desert Ranger Helmet
Advanced Recon Range Finder
Advanced Recon Stealth Armor
Advanced Recon Thermal Nightvision (Plus the Project Nevada patch)
Advanced Recon Trap Detection (+patches)
Bottle That Water
CASM with MCM
Complete Incendiary Ammo Overhaul (with DM Patch)
Courier's Stash Corner Messages
Courier's Stash Pre-order pack selector
Craft Master
Darnified UINV
DYNAVISION 3
ELECTRO-CITY
Euclid C-Finder NVSE Upgrade
EVE (Essential Visual Enhancements)
EXE (Effect teXtures Enhanced)
Flashlight NVSE
Glow Sticks
HiRes Skill Books Retexture
Immersive HUD
JIP Companions Command and Control
JIP Improved Recipe Menu
JIP LN NVSE Plugin
Light my Flare
Manual Reload
Mateba Model 6 Unica
Mod Kit Crafting
MP412 REX
Nevada Skies
New and Improved Perks
New Vegas Enhanced Camera
New Vegas Bounties 1
New Vegas Bounties 2
(not installed yet) New Vegas Bounties 3
New Vegas Stutter Remover
NMC's Texture Pack
New Vegas Anti Crash (NVAC)
Powder Charge Fix
Primary Needs HUD
Project Nevada (with Patches)
Project Nevada Extra Options
Quick Trade
Recipes for Weapon Mods (Realistic)
Recipies for Weapon Mods WMX (Realistic)
RobCo Certified
Selective Fire (Pelinor)
Signature Armor
Snowglobe Perks (with additional effects)
(Not installed yet) The Better Angels
The Gun Runners M60
Mod Configuration Menu
The Someguy series
The Weapon Mod Menu
Throwing Weapon Retexture
Underground Hideout New Vegas (with WRP patch)
User Interface Organizer (UIO)
Ultimate Invisible Wall Remover
Unified HUD Project
Vault 34 Better Reactor
Weapon Animations Replacer (FOMOD)
Weapon Mods Exapnded (WMX + patches)
Weapon Retexture Project
Winchester M1897 Trench Gun
WMX-AWOP Patch
Zan AutoPurge Crash Protector

A couple notes, first, UIO is supposed to deprecate uHud. Unfortunately, the second thing is that I was never able to get oHud to work for me the way it should and thus I never managed to not need uHud, but there seems to be no issue with using UIO on top of that.

On the other hand, as long as I'm not using PNV sprinting while CASM is attempting to auto-save, this is the most stable I've ever had NV. 95 episodes in now, and I've had less than a dozen crashes.

Anyone find any good quest mods for Fallout 4 yet?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Is it just me, or is Andale just... creepy? I'd just go wipe them all out for the sake of sanity, but that's just me.

Also, I find it ironic that Oxhorn did a video on Andale about a day before Balmas's video released where he ended up there.

[DigoDragon]

Is it just me, or is Andale just... creepy? I'd just go wipe them all out for the sake of sanity, but that's just me.

Poke your nose where it don't belong. You may find out why you feel that way. ;)

[LibraryOgre]

Is it just me, or is Andale just... creepy? I'd just go wipe them all out for the sake of sanity, but that's just me.

Also, I find it ironic that Oxhorn did a video on Andale about a day before Balmas's video released where he ended up there.

Oh, yeah. It's creepy. It's double creepy with a side of icky and a Double Gulp of squick.

[Triaxx]

Yeah, Hills have Eyes level of icky.

I remember that feeling the first time I went in. Amusingly it was on the way back with Dad.

[DigoDragon]

I remember that feeling the first time I went in. Amusingly it was on the way back with Dad.

I passed by that place with Dad, and the weirdness caught my attention. I didn't stop to check it out the first pass though, as I got distracted by a gang or raiders and Dad decided to go punch them all in the face. And then loot their weapons to upgrade fists to bullets in the face. Dad has anger issues. :'

[Rynjin]

Fallout 3 was really good when you got off the beaten path a little, it was mostly the main quest that stunk everything up.

Though at least in 3 you could ignore the main quest, and sequence break to do it faster if you wanted to rush through, unlike 4.

[Triaxx]

I think they did that on purpose, to show off the voicing.

Yeah F3's best bit is the off the beaten track bits.

[factotum]

Yeah F3's best bit is the off the beaten track bits.

That's always been Bethesda's strength--their world building. It's writing plots and believable characters they struggle with.

[The_Jackal]

That's always been Bethesda's strength--their world building. It's writing plots and believable characters they struggle with.

Sure, that's because they don't make RPGs. They make sandboxes. And IMO, a good sandbox is way better than a good RPG. That's not to say I don't like a decent RPG. Here's a good example: SW:TOR had a great single-player story, for each of the class story arcs, and even for lots of the planet's story missions. But the minute you stepped off the marked trail and started poking into the weeds, it became immediately clear you weren't in a world, you were in a backlot.

That's the great strength of Bethesda games, in spite of all the griping from people who craft movie-length critiques of the game, in spite of them having played for hundreds of hours. There's a world there for you to explore, completely untrammeled, with all sorts of cool stuff hidden in every nook and cranny. The primary single-player story is there to move the player toward the gameplay; to provide context; and to deliver exposition.

If you ask me which I'd rather play, Mass Effect or Fallout IV, that's no contest. Someone else can spend time guiding Commander Shepard through dialogue trees. I want to shoot the faces off Super-Mutants.

[Rynjin]

That's my main issue with Fallout 4, as I put in some too-crude language a few months back. The storyline INTRUDES on the sandbox, briefly turning it into a hallway. Skyrim had the same issue in certain ways, but it's heavily exacerbated in Fallout 4. Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, New Vegas...none of them ever required you to TOUCH the story past the prologue.

Skyrim and to a much larger extent Fallout 4 locks certain content and non-story quests behind the main story quest progression. In Skyrim it can be largely overlooked unless you want to play a character who heavily utilizes Shouts, but Fallout 4 is a whole 'nother beast.

[Balmas]

I've been examining Fallout 3's DLC a bit in preparation for when I play them in my Let's Play, and wanted to get your thoughts about something. My favorite of Fallout 3's DLC is the Pitt, mostly because it gave you a morally-gray choice that allowed for different expressions of what a character valued. However, the more I think about it, the more niggling issues I find in it. It mostly comes down to three major issues.

Spoiler: Pitt DLC

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Pacing
The first one comes down to pacing. Depending on how much time you spend looking around, you'll probably spend fifteen minutes from thje time you meet Wernher to the time you actually set foot in the Pitt. Then it's another ten minutes, maybe, from the door of the Pitt to actually being inside and a slave. From there, you might spend five minutes getting to the steel mill. The steel mill, if you know where everything is, is probably going to take between an hour and two hours, or five minutes if you just grab the bare minimum. From there, it's only half an hour of Pitt fighting, Ashur conversation, and decision time before the DLC is done

There's just too much focus on the Steelyard. It's almost longer than every other portion of the DLC, put together. To make matters worse, nearly all of the DLC's unique weapons and armor are either located in the Steelyard or are rewards for finding steel ingots. I could just be nitpicking, but I really think like the DLC would have been better if there'd been less focus on a hundred-ingot scavenger hunt, and more on developing the characters you could meet and the choices you can make.

Unsurprisingly, those are talking points two and three: better characters, and better ability for the player to make choices.

Better Characters

One of the main reasons I like the Pitt as a DLC is the characters you can meet. I think Lord Ashur is a fascinating character, both as an Orwellian newthink despot and as a man trying desperately to make his dreams reality. You listen to his radio broadcasts, and it's all propaganda about how Ronto and Montreal and the Capital Wasteland all envy this nation, but it's all through the strength of the workers that the Pitt is great! He's almost certainly a delusional madman, and one who lacks the charisma to truly impart that vision to the people under his control; the raiders mock his hubris, while the slaves are too preoccupied with not dying to care about the reasons behind it.

Wernher, on the other hand, is just in it for the power. We're told he was Ashur's second in command, who made a failed attempt at a coup and was demoted to a slave as punishment. (This is actually fairly interesting in its own right, since it's the first mention we've had of a raider being demoted back to slavery instead of fighting your way up.) He makes a big stink about how he's in it to free the slaves and steal the cure, but he acts callously towards the slaves almost from the moment you meet him and takes no steps to actually free the slaves once you put him in power. He is, for all intents and purposes, the Lord of the Pitt. That's why he brings you here, that's why he lies to both you and the slaves.

If I were to rewrite the Pitt, I wouldn't even change all that much. Let's take Ashur, and magnify the elements of being a charismatic madman. This Ashur holds his raider gang together through force of personality and faith, inspiring awe and worship from the people who join his gang. Whether or not work can actually produce the miracles he claims is a matter of debate, but to side against or for Ashur is very much a matter of faith. Think Jason Bright levels of both faith in the vision and future. For Wernher, likewise, I'd exaggerate his power-hungry, manipulative traits. He doesn't care about the Pitt, except inasmuch as it provides ammo and a home base for the raiders he wants to control. He's a manipulative weasel who will lie, cheat, and steal to get what he wants.

Ending:

That brings us to what I think is both the Pitt's biggest strength and its greatest weakness: its endings. Right now, you have the option of supporting Ashur--which condemns the slaves to a short, brutish life with maaaaybe a hope of a future cure and the rebuilding of the Pitt--or supporting Wernher, which leads to nominally free slaves at the cost of kidnapping a child, making a cure all but impossible, and essentially perpetuating the same system as before with fewer raiders. The good of this is that both endings are shades of moral grey, but the bad is that both sides are monumentally stupid and result in endings that are virtually identical.

Let's start with the Pitt. It is, at its core, a hostile environment that is unfit for human life. You don't see normal settlements built at ground zero (ssssssh don't mention megaton), or underwater, or the Sierra Madre, or other places that humans aren't able to easily survive. Ashur is resting his hopes and dreams on the idea that they'll be able to make a cure for the troglodytic degeneration that makes the Pitt so uninhabitable, but we have no evidence that A) Marie is actually immune to radiation, B) Marie won't develop the trog disease later on, and C) that any immunity she may have can be transferred to other people. Ashur's dream of rebuilding the Pitt is based on a hope, but his obsession with Pittsburgh means that he's going to keep kidnapping and enslaving people to work in the Pitt until the cows come home. Ending A is off the table.

What about Ending B, with Wernher? If your goal is to find a cure, or free the slaves, then you'll not find it here. Ostensively the "moral" option, all that choosing Wernher will do is put a new boss in charge of the Pitt. What's more, it takes Marie out of a laboratory environment, and puts her with an overworked slave with no medical or scientific history; good luck finding a cure there, even if we didn't have to deal with the uncertainty of any existing immunity outlined above. My final problem with this outcome is that even if we ignore the rest, it means that Wernher is still keeping the slaves here, in the Pitt, to no benefit, and with no raider army. If I were Wernher, I'd be leaving the Pitt in favor of somewhere that doesn't kill you just by being near it. If I were a slave, I'd be abandoning the city for friends or family or, again, somewhere that isn't the Pitt.

So, both endings are pretty bad, both in terms of morality and in terms of common sense. What other options could there be? I'm thinking mostly in terms of outcomes that I'd want to see for different kinds of player, although it's been helpful to think in terms of various outcomes for aspects of the Pitt, New Vegas endcard style.

I'd want an ending that I would consider the most moral ending, which would require more work but end with the most people happy. That'd require a cure to be found, at the very least. This would require the player to kidnap the baby and either have a high science skill or bring the baby to a competent scientist like Dr. Li.
With the cure found, you'd need to figure out a way to free the slaves. Cult-leader Ashur could be handled several ways. With the cure in hand, you can let him rule the city as he sees fit so long as all the workers are treated equally. Alternatively, with high science or speech, you can convince him to give up on his dream of rebuilding the Pitt in favor of leaving with his family. Or, you can just kill him, which will lead to the collapse and complete abandonment of the city in the absence of his charismatic leadership. Wernher's power-mad ways means that in order for the slaves to be freed, you'd need to pass several difficult speech checks to get Wernher to leave the Pitt, or just kill him. Speech checking Wernher will see the raiders following him out, while convincing Ashur to let the slaves go will mean the raiders turn on both you an him. With Ashur's leadership--or your own--

If you don't get the cure, or if you choose not to give the cure to the slaves, you'd probably see a neutral ending. You can help the slaves escape by stomping your way through the raiders guarding the gate and killing/convincing both Ashur and Wernher to leave, but this will result in the abandonment and collapse of the Pitt. The Pitt goes back to the diseased, chaotic state it was in before the Brotherhood Scourged it.

The Jerkass ending requires you to not find the cure, not free the slaves, and then side with one of the aforementioned leaders, much like in the base game. Alternatively, you could decide to seize control of the Pitt for yourself through force of will and killing anyone in your way

It's all just ideas at this point, but one I'd like to share. Ideas? Thoughts?

I think they did that on purpose, to show off the voicing.

What, Fallout 4's complete inability to sequence break? That's a bit like being brought told that even though you've done what the torturer asks, he's still gonna keep you on the rack because he's proud of the woodwork on it.