Fallout 4...

[Lexx]

It's what I find the most painful. Setups that seem super interesting turn out to be a turd. Man, just think of that "bard school" quest in Skyrim... which was a dumb short quest with a generic loot dungeon or something if I remember right. Suddenly you are a bard. Bleh.

[Longknife]

Actually chess-playing, talking radscorpion was always criticised. As well as all the other stupid stuff in Fo2.

 

 

More importantly, FO2's crimes are more "hey developers, you've crossed a line to a level of goofy many of us don't appreciate cause we like realism in our world. Please tone it down."

 

FO4's are "holy **** Bethesda why don't you realize how asenine and retarded this is?"

 

The former is actively striving for a tone of humor and ridiculousness, the latter wants to be taken seriously while managing to be just as ridiculous as those actively trying to be ridiculous. The latter, in my opinion, is of greater cause for concern, because with FO2's dev team you can actively tell them you want them to switch up the style to being back to what it was, whereas with FO4, they seem incapable of properly doing either "style;" the goofy elements and the realistic elements blur into one entity because their writers are that bad, and wouldn't know how to seperate the two even if they actively tried.

 

 

 

therefore, am genuine wondering if the feel that content is endemic underdeveloped is based on comparisons to crpgs in general, or does such impressions hold true when compared to oblivion and fo3?

 

 

Yes and no. It varies by case.

 

 

For the most part, Oblivion and FO3 offered worlds that perhaps stepped on the toes of predecessors (Oblivion has conflicting lore with Morrowind, FO3 conflicts with past fallouts), but they remain internally consistent for the most part. FO4 has issues where it isn't even internally consistent. The ghoul kid makes no sense no matter what, as I think I recall there's another quest confirming ghouls do eat. (they run a farm or something?) It conflicts with it's own ****ing lore, which is quite an accomplishment in the name of bad writing. Curie and the Institute is another one. Curie has managed to cure every known disease in the 200 years she's been isolated. Meanwhile, an entire society of thinking, feeling, reproducing, flourishing human scientists with multiple robots and synths at their disposal has not found the time to cure cancer. Don't worry though, we have synth gorillas. Because reasons.

 

 

  Another example would be that for all the **** it deserves, Kid in the Fridge at least attempts to explain it's "logic," however bad it may be. Megaton is similar. Megaton makes no ****ing sense whatsoever, but it will provide you a really retarded explanation as to why this settlement exists. FO3 is ripe with this, where while the actual logic behind the stories isn't structurally sound whatsoever, the game at least does provide (bad) answers to questions. The only exceptions to this rule I can name are Tenpenny Tower - an oversight I don't find outrageous as it required someone to sit down and think about how nonsensical it would be for rich people to exist in a resource-starved region, why those rich people would relocate to the resource-starved region, or how ridiculous it is for any of them to pay rent so Tenpenny can waste some of their life savings on "safaris" rather than the community collectively overthrowing him for the benefit of everyone's longevity and safety - with the other exception being no community explains where they get food beyond "caravans," which begs the question what on earth these communities can offer in exchange for food.

   Both of those cases involve a level of detail that Bethesda simply wasn't aiming for or bothered with, so it's not really a case of Bethesda saying "**** it, let's leave a loose end in our game," but rather they were unaware of the Loose End's existence. FO4 again differentiates here, in that the loose ends are so god damned frequent and often center stage, that yes I am led to believe that Todd told his writers "who cares, no one will bother asking that question." Unfortunately for Todd, not all of us are as easily distracted by shiny explosions. The synth gorillas, the Institute's lack of clear goals or motivations, the needlessness of synth attacks and espionage on above communities, why Piper is suspicious of that Mayor, how the USS Constitution got on that building, how the USS consitution got rocket engines to begin with....I could go on and on. This game just actively doesn't give a **** about even bothering to answer you.

   In short, again the game takes past mistakes a step further, because while Oblivion and FO3 at least had the common courtesy to attempt to bull**** you, FO4 actively insults your intelligence, wishing to pretend the problem doesn't exist and that you won't notice. Even if you wish to argue this is yet another case of Bethesda not being aware of loose ends existing, then this is an ALARMING amount of loose ends to not be aware of. It's an unacceptable amount that would lead most businesses and companies to conclude their writing staff is severely underqualified and needs to be fired with poor recommendations for any future companies these "writers" attempt to work for. Tenpenny tower and food sources in FO3 are just two that were completely glossed over, but FO4 might as well have more plot holes than it does coherent stories.

Edited January 20, 2016 by Longknife

[GhostofAnakin]

we got fo4, but haven't played it yet.  nevertheless, current discussion makes us curious.  in our opinion, bethesda open-world rpgs has always favored breadth over depth.  bethesda games has many small quests or encounters but those quests and encounters is, compared to obsidian or even bioware games, undernourished.  therefore, am genuine wondering if the feel that content is endemic underdeveloped is based on comparisons to crpgs in general, or does such impressions hold true when compared to oblivion and fo3? 

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

IMO, the depth of quests in FO4 fall short even in comparison to previous Bethesda titles.

[HoonDing]

There are 4 memorable quests, that's 6 less than FO3 but 2 more than NV.

[Gorgon]

There's another thing. FO4 was leaked before they were ready to make an announcement and/or the leaking pushed the announcement so they had to start polishing before everything was fleshed out. I believe cut content and dialogue has been dug out of the game files as well. So it could be 'Not enough time'. 

[WorstUsernameEver]

There's another thing. FO4 was leaked before they were ready to make an announcement and/or the leaking pushed the announcement so they had to start polishing before everything was fleshed out. I believe cut content and dialogue has been dug out of the game files as well. So it could be 'Not enough time'.

Fallout 4 was leaked in 2013 and Bethesda revealed it and published it in 2015. I can scarcely believe the leak had much of an influence on their plans.

[Gorgon]

There were hints along the way but it got decidedly warmer and warmer towards the announcement until people had more or less made up their minds that it was being made. At that point the jig was up. 

 

The first big leak was a spoof, remember. Well in retrospect it wasn't, but that's what everyone thought. 

[WorstUsernameEver]

I'm talking specifically about the Kotaku casting calls, which were more than legitimate (they revealed Preston Garvey, the voiced protagonist, official art that would later be published in the game's artbook, etc.) and published in December 2013. I'm just not seeing any evidence they rushed the game's reveal and release, considering Bethesda still work for something like 2 more years after them.

 

I also don't think Fallout 4 feels particularly rushed. There's content cut, yeah, but so far there isn't evidence for a lot of cut content, certainly far less than Fallout: New Vegas (which wasn't even that bad by Obsidian standards) and about on par with Fallout 3.

[Hurlshort]

If anything, I wish they had cut more stuff out of Fallout 4.  It doesn't feel rushed, it just feels like they tried to do too many things with no real main focus.

[WDeranged]

Seems there's a noticeable backlash happening, lots of videos attacking and defending Fallout 4.  I knew the shine wouldn't last long, most of the hype came from those magical first hours where the game shows all this staggering promise, so many 'final thoughts' videos were from people who hadn't even completed the damn thing.

[CoM_Solaufein]

Gotta love patches. Instead of fixing problems, they create more of them!

[WDeranged]

Gotta love patches. Instead of fixing problems, they create more of them!

 

Plenty of people were reporting problems during the recent beta but for some reason they were ignored.

[CoM_Solaufein]

Other than one area, I've never had texture glitches before the patch. Also these painful loading times. I dread going from inside a building to outside.

And that one texture glitch that I mentioned above, still isn't fixed and its been there since the release of the game. Thicket Excavations.

[Lexx]

Looks like a bug with the lod. It's clearly the low quality model on your screenshot. So either something wrong with caching, lack of memory or if it happens to everyone then something is borked with the generated lod of that cell. Does it disappear if you save & load there?

 

PS: The excavator site looked pretty cool. Just sucks that once again they did nothing good with it and just turned it into yet another combat dungeon...

Edited February 8, 2016 by Lexx

[Hurlshort]

I had that bug in the same area too.  I just restarted the game, worked fine afterwards.

[HoonDing]

Finally started rebuilding Sanctuary.

 

The minecraft nonsense is actually fun with fixed controls.

[WDeranged]

Bethesda are apparently working on a proper survival mode.

[Sakai]

Bethesda are apparently working on a proper survival mode.

Too little, too late. 

[Lexx]

I didn't know Fo4 had a survival mode at all.

[WDeranged]

I didn't know Fo4 had a survival mode at all.

 

Yeah, it was halfhearted and lame.

[HoonDing]

So finally those hundreds (thousands?) of stimpaks and deathclaw/radscorpion steaks I have stored will come to use.

[Longknife]

Seems there's a noticeable backlash happening, lots of videos attacking and defending Fallout 4.  I knew the shine wouldn't last long, most of the hype came from those magical first hours where the game shows all this staggering promise, so many 'final thoughts' videos were from people who hadn't even completed the damn thing.

 

Just yesterday there were two seperate threads all upvoted to front page of the Fallout subreddit from people whose first fallout was Fallout 4. They went back and played New Vegas and then came to post about how staggeringly awesome, detailed and immersive New Vegas is and how it might become their favorite game of all time.

 

 

I recall saying YEEEEEAAARS ago that I expect New Vegas to haunt Bethesda titles. May sound dickish, but I'm so glad that's turning out to be true. That bar is ****ing set in stone, I don't expect New Vegas to go away until a decent effort is made to AT LEAST be within the same league.

 

 

So finally those hundreds (thousands?) of stimpaks and deathclaw/radscorpion steaks I have stored will come to use.

 

 

Wouldn't count on it just because Bethesda often has a strange idea of difficulty. I mean these are the guys that think you can make a deathclaw fight harder by giving the damned thing 3000+ health but only enough damage to hit you for 20 or so through power armor.

Edited February 12, 2016 by Longknife

[HoonDing]

It's a completely phoned in game, it lacks the heart and soul that Skyrim had. GECK still not out, no news about DLC... probably only a skeleton crew working on it now.

 

Now the question is whether Bethesda's cynicism also has spread to TES. The answer will be there in 2020.

Edited February 12, 2016 by HoonDing

[GhostofAnakin]

Instead of DLC, Bethesda should just flesh out the stuff that's already there but that was under-utilized.  That Vault you visit where you pick up Curie, for instance.  Add some major quest line, instead of ending on curing that kid of his addiction.  Do something more with the Gunners' stronghold.  Etc.

 

The game just felt like they had too many ideas to fit into the development cycle, and ended up releasing a game where 50% of them just fizzled.

[WDeranged]

I recall saying YEEEEEAAARS ago that I expect New Vegas to haunt Bethesda titles. May sound dickish, but I'm so glad that's turning out to be true. That bar is ****ing set in stone, I don't expect New Vegas to go away until a decent effort is made to AT LEAST be within the same league.

 

I remember saying it was brave of Bethesda to let Obsidian do it, I totally expected them to school the Toddster.  At first I was slightly let down, I think Fallout 3 destroys it from a world design perspective (also heavy locational advantage, Washington!) but in every other area New Vegas completely excels.

 

 

It's a completely phoned in game, it lacks the heart and soul that Skyrim had. GECK still not out, no news about DLC... probably only a skeleton crew working on it now.

 

Now the question is whether Bethesda's cynicism also has spread to TES. The answer will be there in 2020.

 

I'm currently playing Skyrim again, just to see if rose tinted spectacles were warping my view of Fallout 4...nope, one Skyrim hold has more charm and thoughfulness than anything Boston has to offer.  

Edited February 12, 2016 by WDeranged