Fallout Best 'Modern' Fallout Game

[KilroywasNOTHere]

Fallout 4 has the potintal to be the best game......with a crap ton of mods. stuff like the settlement system needs a bit more polisihng and the game in general just needs more meaningful content.

 

[Navarro]

Um....no? There's nothing in 4 that says the brotherhood stopped helping people, if anything it suggests the opposite given they doubled down on the "hate the mutant, purge the mutant" thing. Since the primary issue in DC is mutants, and Maxton rose to command in part after killing a super mutant warlord, and Maxton is not only 100% aboard the mutant murder train, but is in fact the one driving that train, it's absurd to conclude they stopped fighting mutants.

Also, are you under the impression the brotherhood expeditionary force in 4 is the entire brotherhood? Because it's explicitly not, it's just an expeditionary force.

I mean, there are implications in 4 that the BoS sacked Rivet City and slaughtered its inhabitants to get at its reactors ...

 

[Lanmandragon]

I mean, there are implications in 4 that the BoS sacked Rivet City and slaughtered its inhabitants to get at its reactors ...

True but I bet it's a fairly civilized area now. Just uner a harsh military government.

 

[Navarro]

True but I bet it's a fairly civilized area now. Just uner a harsh military government.

Actually, by the only content to focus on the area in the FO4 time period, it totally collapsed the moment the BOS expedition left.

 

[Lanmandragon]

Actually, by the only content to focus on the area in the FO4 time period, it totally collapsed the moment the BOS expedition left.

That's retarded so they built this huge tech heavy force plus the pyrdwen. Then they just collapse what obviously must be a fairly substantial industrial base? uggh I hate that backstory but alright.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Actually, by the only content to focus on the area in the FO4 time period, it totally collapsed the moment the BOS expedition left.

Oh good. Nice to know everything I did in Fallout 3 was meaningless. Nice world building there guys.

 

[Navarro]

Oh good. Nice to know everything I did in Fallout 3 was meaningless. Nice world building there guys.

I mean, even in the context of base FO4 all the Lone Wanderer really did was ensure the power-armoured soldiers of the authoritarian regime that took over the Capital Wasteland wore T-60 instead of X-02, so ...

 

[TyrantTriumphant]

I have no idea why Bethesda would write something so stupid. It makes no sense in the lore. Sometimes I wonder if the writers for this stuff actually bother to read the backstory for this stuff.

 

[Battlegrinder]

I mean, there are implications in 4 that the BoS sacked Rivet City and slaughtered its inhabitants to get at its reactors ...

Only if you're determined to read things in the worst light possible. Danse lived in Rivet city, I'm pretty sure he would have taken issue with the brotherhood killing his friends and neighbors to retrieve the reactor. Madison Li also probably would mentioned that when you run into her.

Actually, by the only content to focus on the area in the FO4 time period, it totally collapsed the moment the BOS expedition left.

There's no evidence the creation club content is canonical, and in fact strong evidence to the reverse (the various crossover items being the most glaring).

 

[TyrantTriumphant]

There's no evidence the creation club content is canonical, and in fact strong evidence to the reverse (the various crossover items being the most glaring).

I certainly hope you're right. But even if you're not, I'm worried that this demonstrates the kind of thing that writers at Bethesda would come up with for a new Fallout game. As I understand it, (correct me if I'm wrong) this stuff about the Brotherhood leaving the Capital Wastelend was an official Creation Club mod put out by Bethesda. If so, it does not give me hope as to the future of the franchise.

 

[Battlegrinder]

I certainly hope you're right. But even if you're not, I'm worried that this demonstrates the kind of thing that writers at Bethesda would come up with for a new Fallout game. As I understand it, (correct me if I'm wrong) this stuff about the Brotherhood leaving the Capital Wastelend was an official Creation Club mod put out by Bethesda. If so, it does not give me hope as to the future of the franchise.

The Capital Wasteland CC item doesn't say the brotherhood left DC, it says they left GNR and that Three Dog's Good Fight is still ongoing. I'm reasonable certain the backstory behind the events in the DLC was designed to let the player revisit GNR and collect some iconic gear from 3, with the wider implications not really considered.

Given that in general, 4 goes well out of it's way to not discuss the events of 3 even when it strains the narrative of 4, I'm pretty sure Bethesda has no idea/interest in what happened in DC, and the CC slipped through because they were like "yeah, it's not canon, just do whatever".

 

[Tyzuris]

I would say New Vegas. The amount of freedom one gets in that game combined with its solid writing and characterization of individual characters and various organizations around the Mojave Wasteland sets it high in quality. I also adore how it's not babysitting you like Bethesda games are with ''Can't kill that character because you might ruin some side quest for you.'' and it instead just lets you know you failed a quest by killing that character giving you a decision whether you care about said quest or not.

And this doesn't even touch on the game's biggest flaw, which is that the game is mechanically unstable and badly designed. Want to unlock Boone's personal quest? Better hope you have the foresight to have him with you at all the right times, or it'll not happen. Ditto for Arcade, and even more so for Raul.
Want to complete the Great Khan's quests and learn their unique unarmed move? Hope you didn't kill motor-runner during the earlier quests at McCarran that sent you into vault 3, because if runner's dead the Khan quests don't work. Oh, BTW, the quest from McCarran that sends you into 3, specifically asks you to kill motor runner. This is inexcusably bad quest design.
And that's just off the top of my head, there's probably a bunch of other issues I've forgotten or not encountered.

That is because it's a game based on choice and it's simulates the very real aspect of going into one door closes another and not all doors shutting are immediately obvious to us when we do so.

Yeah this is why I love New Vegas. It feels so realistic with not being able to do 100% of the game and its quests in one playthrough as one decision closes another door like in real life. I love that to the moon and despise Bethesda's babysitting. And also that's where I prefer the skills system over other systems in Bethesda games because it limits you in not being able to grind a character with all skills maxed. That makes it feel so realistic. Because irl if you let's say focus on making yourself this big muscular dude, you're not gonna be as agile as a slim acrobat can be despite your efforts.

 

[Hlaalu Agent]

I would say New Vegas. The amount of freedom one gets in that game combined with its solid writing and characterization of individual characters and various organizations around the Mojave Wasteland sets it high in quality. I also adore how it's not babysitting you like Bethesda games are with ''Can't kill that character because you might ruin some side quest for you.'' and it instead just lets you know you failed a quest by killing that character giving you a decision whether you care about said quest or not.


Yeah this is why I love New Vegas. It feels so realistic with not being able to do 100% of the game and its quests in one playthrough as one decision closes another door like in real life. I love that to the moon and despise Bethesda's babysitting. And also that's where I prefer the skills system over other systems in Bethesda games because it limits you in not being able to grind a character with all skills maxed. That makes it feel so realistic. Because irl if you let's say focus on making yourself this big muscular dude, you're not gonna be as agile as a slim acrobat can be despite your efforts.

I think things like that are the reason why Morrowind is unironically the best TES game, even if it is janky as fuck, as someone put it the NPCs look like beef jerky monsters, the combat is...decent but incredibly dated, and so on. There still was an immense level of freedom, without the hand holding and if you killed the wrong npc (or some bugged ones) it would warn you in an immersive enough way... "With this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed. Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world you have created."

And Morrowind's system did hold you off on becoming the best at everything until the end game, if you really did grind, grind, grind and it is flexible enough that there are mods that rectify it easily.

 

[Battlegrinder]

Yeah this is why I love New Vegas. It feels so realistic with not being able to do 100% of the game and its quests in one playthrough as one decision closes another door like in real life. I love that to the moon and despise Bethesda's babysitting.

I think you're missing a few points. The only things you can't do in every playthrough are the quests locked behind the factions, and there's only a handful of meaningfully different faction quests even so. You can do everything else, it just requires working around NV's terrible quest design.

Secondly, the issues I cited aren't caused by player decisions creating and closing different paths as you go. Raul's personal quest doesn't fall to progress because you made choices that prevented it, it doesn't progress because the game is bugged. "Aba Daba Honeymoon" doesn't fail as a natural consequence of player choices, it fails because the developer's deliberately set out to screw you, something NV devs do at multiple point. Remember that skill check in Dead Money that turns Dean permanently against you. Every single other skill check in NV, bar non, gives you a favorable outcome for passing it. Every. Single. One. And then, having trained the player to know that, the devs set up this one out there as a trap in order to screw you over. This isn't realistic consequences, this is the dev team being actively malevolent.

And, as I've mentioned before, NV is also extremely cowardly when it comes to making the player face up to the consequences of their decisions, with the mid-game faction rep reset. You could have gone out of your way to oppose and harm a given faction while working with their rivals, and they'll still work with you even though it's not at all in their interest and they have no reason to beleive you'll play ball. Ceaser even has special dialogue where he'll list all the things you've done to sabotage legion interests, all the people you've killed, bases you've leveled, plots you've foiled, and he'll still work with you.

And also that's where I prefer the skills system over other systems in Bethesda games because it limits you in not being able to grind a character with all skills maxed. That makes it feel so realistic. Because irl if you let's say focus on making yourself this big muscular dude, you're not gonna be as agile as a slim acrobat can be despite your efforts.

In NV you can, with quite trivial effort, create a character that can use every weapon, solve every quest in any way they want, with every skill maxed out.

 

[Navarro]

Dead Money had good themes, but some elements of the plot were clearly contrived and the gameplay was an utter nightmare. Until you realise the Ghost People are utterly trivial as it isn't really that hard to cripple a limb once they're unconscious and not fighting back.

Worst thing about NV mechanically is the bizarre energy weapons nerf. This is the same team that in FO2 made the Salvatores rulers of New Reno via their supply of laser pistols, the most basic energy weapon in the game (though FO2 also has a hilarious plot hole in that the Enclave, just as in FO3, could have trivially won by doing a very sensible thing they had no reason not to do).

Energy weapons in FNV should have been powerful, but rare and with rarer ammo. Plasma weapons should have been king tier, able to kill a basic NCR or Legion trooper in one hit and seriously injure an elite, but with ammo having a seriously high price. Laser weapons would have been less effective, with more common ammo (about the top tier of conventional rifles). Recharger weapons would exist if you wanted to not have to worry about ammo, but would be slightly less powerful than mid-tier ballistic guns. And a gatling laser or plasma caster would be god tier, able to annihilate whole squads of basic troops and easily kill elites, but ammo would be very rare and expensive.

PA would also have been more powerful, not utilising the FO4 subsystem but more than "metal armour+" and "boss" characters (Oliver, Lanius, Lucius, Moore) would be equipped in full suits of it in combat (the NCR bosses would also have energy weapons). If you press the button to expose House's pod, it would also spawn a "boss" securitron bodyguard and all securitrons would become permanently hostile.

 

[Battlegrinder]

Yeah, dead money was just the worst. I'm pretty sure that if the devs didn't basically bribe players with a giant pile of gold and an unlimited supply of ammo and supplies via the replicators, it would have been utterly reviled, instead of merely being a bit controversial.

 

[Navarro]

Worst thing were the bloody holograms. And the utterly retarded way you can accidentally get a bad ending.

Want to learn about the full backstory of what happened with Sinclair and Vera? HAHAHAHA FUCK YOU WANTING TO KNOW BACKSTORY IS GREED FOR KNOWLEDGE.

(The whole idea of "greed for knowledge" is inane anyway; unless you're deliberately hoarding it like the BoS does and refusing to share. And being nosy into people's private lives is ... moderately bad, but when they're both dead and beyond caring either way it kinda loses its moral weight. Not to mention that the game is paused while you're looking up terminals so the idea that you spent too long reading is ludonarrative dissonance.).

And the stupid way-out-of-the-way snowglobe that you can completely miss out on relatively easily and requires a circuitous route to access.

Yeah, dead money was just the worst. I'm pretty sure that if the devs didn't basically bribe players with a giant pile of gold and an unlimited supply of ammo and supplies via the replicators, it would have been utterly reviled, instead of merely being a bit controversial.

There's a popular mod on Nexus that just lets you have the shit from DM without having to trudge through it. No wonder it got made.

 

[Tyzuris]

Remember that skill check in Dead Money that turns Dean permanently against you.

Nope as I have never encountered that.

 

[Navarro]

Worst thing were the bloody holograms. And the utterly retarded way you can accidentally get a bad ending.

Want to learn about the full backstory of what happened with Sinclair and Vera? HAHAHAHA FUCK YOU WANTING TO KNOW BACKSTORY IS GREED FOR KNOWLEDGE.

(The whole idea of "greed for knowledge" is inane anyway; unless you're deliberately hoarding it like the BoS does and refusing to share. And being nosy into people's private lives is ... moderately bad, but when they're both dead and beyond caring either way it kinda loses its moral weight. Not to mention that the game is paused while you're looking up terminals so the idea that you spent too long reading is ludonarrative dissonance.).

Thinking on it more, the subtext is utterly repugnant.

"The past is dead. Wanting to learn more about it is a moral failure that deserves a karmic punishment. Just like being chastened by the knowledge that instead of building skyscrapers you can barely get adobe huts together is "Old World Blues", wanting to learn the history of what happened at the Sierra Madre is 'being unable to let go of the past'. Best to just let it go and treat 2077 as Year Zero to begin again, let the title of President become a boogeyman to scare children with (while continuing to use the technology and infrastructure that you scavenged from the more advanced society of that era, of course)."

 

[Husky_Khan]

And, as I've mentioned before, NV is also extremely cowardly when it comes to making the player face up to the consequences of their decisions, with the mid-game faction rep reset. You could have gone out of your way to oppose and harm a given faction while working with their rivals, and they'll still work with you even though it's not at all in their interest and they have no reason to beleive you'll play ball. Ceaser even has special dialogue where he'll list all the things you've done to sabotage legion interests, all the people you've killed, bases you've leveled, plots you've foiled, and he'll still work with you.

Honestly reaching Vegas happens probably in the early third of the game, so there's plenty of chance to fuck around with everything again. It was a good mechanic, especially for people who haven't played the game multiple times since being anti-Legion is the default outcome of early gameplay. Plus the moral pronouncement of it being extremely cowardly, I'll be honest, is a fair bit dramatic. Like I know your serious about this but I just can't take it seriously because I doubt if anyone beyond a sliver of gamers is actually registers that sort of take. It sounds like it's nitpicking based on antipathy.

Yeah, dead money was just the worst. I'm pretty sure that if the devs didn't basically bribe players with a giant pile of gold and an unlimited supply of ammo and supplies via the replicators, it would have been utterly reviled, instead of merely being a bit controversial.

Yes the reason I enjoy games is because they bribe me with in-game currency in a game where losing due to impoverishment is hilariously unlikely. That's how shallow gamers are apparently.

Worst thing were the bloody holograms. And the utterly retarded way you can accidentally get a bad ending.

Want to learn about the full backstory of what happened with Sinclair and Vera? HAHAHAHA FUCK YOU WANTING TO KNOW BACKSTORY IS GREED FOR KNOWLEDGE.

(The whole idea of "greed for knowledge" is inane anyway; unless you're deliberately hoarding it like the BoS does and refusing to share. And being nosy into people's private lives is ... moderately bad, but when they're both dead and beyond caring either way it kinda loses its moral weight. Not to mention that the game is paused while you're looking up terminals so the idea that you spent too long reading is ludonarrative dissonance.).

Hey you were warned.

Vera, if you're reading this, my fears have come to pass, and this is an apology.

I hope you realized what my last words meant to you. If so, they have led you here, and this place will keep you safe. I know what they meant for me, and I fear they have trapped me here.

I have extracted the previous entry after our conversation tonight. It can't have been easy for you, and I am sorry for all I've put you through in silence. I know while you do not love me, you did not mean any malice in what you did.

I knew about your plans to rob the casino with Dean before you told me. Hearing it from you didn't make it any easier. For what it's worth, I am glad you told me yourself, and I understood the tapes he had in his possession.

I do not think either one of you realized what your addiction stemmed from, however, and that is the tragedy in this. I suspect the world would not have believed you, regardless, so I respect your desire to keep it from others.

When first building this Villa, this casino, I meant it for you. As the world seemed to race headlong toward war, it became part of my desire to protect you. The loans, the funding I poured into the casino's construction...

I knew it would not matter when war came for us. It was my means of creating a shelter, a defense if the world was bombarded in radiation and bombs.

When Dean revealed his plans inadvertently through our introduction, I realized what had happened, and how I had been tricked. For a time, my thoughts were dark. I changed the casino vault from a shelter to a trap, as I knew the first one to enter would be Dean. He would die down here, and it would have been by his own hand.

I fear, however, that I overstepped myself, and the only safe place in the casino is the Vault. I have tried to rewire the systems, change the protocols, and I cannot. I will do one last check on the pipes by the edge of the outside platform and see if anything can be done. I fear it is useless.

If you come down here, do not access my personal accounts entry.

It contains only a message for Dean, and it will seal the door and you will have no way out - even the elevator is designed to automatically return when the door is closed, and it will lock in place.

There should be enough in the Vault to sustain you until help arrives. I have ensured that there is enough medical supplies down here to keep you comfortable.

The holograms should defend the casino from any attackers, and the hologram beacon in the Villa will broadcast an emergency signal so that others know you are here.

When danger has passed, rescue will come.

I hope you were able to read this, and know that I loved you.

Frederick Sinclair