FO4 - finished

[unibalm]

Or "finished", since with the settlement building it never ends.

Verdict: meh. Not up to FO3 and FONV standard.

First, the writing, the characterization of the world, lacks the humor
that gives 3&NV their special sauce. Totally lacks it except for one
quest (won't name it - might be a spoiler?).

Next, the quests are half-done, not fleshed out, all similar.

Almost the whole world is modular with the same basic elements
repeating over and over, so altho' extremely cluttered it's just
repetitive, the same few basic scenes in every building, every room.

Although I got a good impression of the more difficult combat, the
superior non-VATs combat especially, when starting out, I quickly
leveled up to the point where the challenge faded to nothing.
I upped my stealth and bingo, they couldn't see me at all. I upped my
guns and bingo, all of them fell with just a few shots with my modded
.10mm or 44. Nothing else needed. Just a few shots to take out a
legendary deathclaw - which can't see me. Because the enemies don't
level up with the player a promising game gets blander and blander
until it simply fades away.

Settlement building never gets to be much more than a chore, even when
the basic rules are learned. The "happiness" indicatorfor a
settlement makes little sense.

_________________

I agree with Tim O re. 2015 being a bad year, and except for my
whining about the savegame system, it's the most memorable new game I
played in 2015. It towers over FO4. Good writing, good and memorable
quests, an interesting and varied world that gets ever better as the
player gets engaged.

[unibalm]

On Tue, 19 Jan 2016 19:13:50 -0800, unibalm <uni...@csipga.zzzz>
wrote:
....

>
>I agree with Tim O re. 2015 being a bad year, and except for my
>whining about the savegame system, it's the most memorable new game I
>played in 2015. It towers over FO4. Good writing, good and memorable
>quests, an interesting and varied world that gets ever better as the
>player gets engaged.

"it's the most memorable game" -- Far Cry 4.
Sorry.

[Justisaur]

On Tuesday, January 19, 2016 at 7:13:53 PM UTC-8, unibalm wrote:
> Or "finished", since with the settlement building it never ends.
>

Still playing, just reached level 50 the other day. I've been working
on getting my companions to like me. I'm working on Strong right now, but
I hate him, since he dislikes me getting in power armor and lockpicking.
I've just been doing minutemen quests to improve their view of me, I think
I might have all the settlements now.

> Verdict: meh. Not up to FO3 and FONV standard.
>
> First, the writing, the characterization of the world, lacks the humor
> that gives 3&NV their special sauce. Totally lacks it except for one
> quest (won't name it - might be a spoiler?).

Yeah, I don't remember much humor so far. Strong is mildly entertaining
with his rant about the milk. I got a little bit of a kick from a
certain broadcast that sounds 'Mars Attacks'. The radio dj, well until
I 'fixed' him, now he's boring. There was the guy with the potted meat if
you like potty humor. Certainly nothing like Bob. I don't think it's quite
as humorless as NV, but pretty low on the humor, or the humor is maybe more
of a slight chuckle than anything.

> Next, the quests are half-done, not fleshed out, all similar.

I think there's two kinds of quests - there's the procedurally generated
ones like the minuteman ones, then there's the set quests which are a bit
more interesting, like the aforementioned one to 'fix' the dj. You could
just not do the cookie cutter ones.

>
> Almost the whole world is modular with the same basic elements
> repeating over and over, so altho' extremely cluttered it's just
> repetitive, the same few basic scenes in every building, every room.

There's a lot of that, and I keep wondering "Why is there so much useful
junk lying around 200 years later." and of course even more immersion
breaking is when you're sent back to a place you've already cleared on
another mission and the same junk you already picked up is there
again.

But there's a lot of different places, especially the settlements. The bad
guy places are pretty similar for the most part though.

> Although I got a good impression of the more difficult combat, the
> superior non-VATs combat especially, when starting out, I quickly
> leveled up to the point where the challenge faded to nothing.
> I upped my stealth and bingo, they couldn't see me at all. I upped my
> guns and bingo, all of them fell with just a few shots with my modded
> .10mm or 44. Nothing else needed. Just a few shots to take out a
> legendary deathclaw - which can't see me. Because the enemies don't
> level up with the player a promising game gets blander and blander
> until it simply fades away.

I'm still not getting stealth, I try to start out stealthed, and I'll
usually get one sneak attack, but that's it. It doesn't really matter, as
most places I can clear 4 or 5 mooks in single headshots in VATS before
they get a chance to retaliate.

The stuff along the bottom edge of the map has been pretty hard for me
though, ran into some super-mutants where there were something like 4
named ones all with skulls on their names. I did finish them, but it was
touch and go, and pretty hard on my action points, and I think I did have
to reload my game once.

> Settlement building never gets to be much more than a chore, even when
> the basic rules are learned. The "happiness" indicatorfor a
> settlement makes little sense.

I don't even have local leader, and I've got a low cha, so I just figured
out exactly what scrap I need to build up enough defense, beds, water &
food for 12 people since that seems to be the limit for me, and have been
just putting those up, takes me a few minutes and I'm done and never have to
go back to a settlement (unless minuteman quest).

I don't know why I bothered though, doesn't do anything for me, I suppose
just to be ms. nice.

- Justisaur

[Trimble Bracegirdle]

<<<<""unibalm" ; wrote Verdict: meh. Not up to FO3 and FONV standard.">>

Sad to hear.
I just started FO4 .
Played the opening section a number of times as I trying out the
Texture Optimization Project which improves the look and
improves performance on lower settings.

At that very 1st I was impressed.
(Better than FO3.)
Intriguing story start .
What happened to the Vault cryogenic system ?
Are wicked Corporations doing / done things that are not what they seem?
Where has the child gone ?
Will Hero/Heroine return to the Vault & someway resuscitate there partner
& others ?
etc...etc.
Then my poor gaming heart sunk as I 1st came up against the invisible wall
game world edge & see that game world is one big square (sob ;(

"you can't go that way' what the hell is Bethesda up to ?
All games - even the biggest open'est of them- have places the player
can see but not go to.
Mountains / steep hills, many doorways, sea, canyons .
But to display landscape immediately in front
that's just the same as that the player is in
but suddenly & inexplicably cant go any further is just design laziness.
(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(") mouse (Groan & Mumble....)

[Justisaur]

I ran into that pretty early, as you start near the NW limit. Typical
for Bethesda. I'm pretty sure I played one of these post apoc games
that actually had some reason you couldn't go off the map - extreme
radiation, giant civil defense lasers that would kill everything that moved
in the DMZ, or even just impassible mountains.

If there isn't yet, I'm sure there'll be some mod that will fix this in
some way, eventually.

- Justisaur

[unibalm]

On Wed, 20 Jan 2016 09:05:24 -0800 (PST), Justisaur
<just...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Tuesday, January 19, 2016 at 7:13:53 PM UTC-8, unibalm wrote:
>> Or "finished", since with the settlement building it never ends.
>>

...

>> Next, the quests are half-done, not fleshed out, all similar.
>
>I think there's two kinds of quests - there's the procedurally generated
>ones like the minuteman ones, then there's the set quests which are a bit
>more interesting, like the aforementioned one to 'fix' the dj. You could
>just not do the cookie cutter ones.
>

Yah, I finished all the main quests. Well, not all. But the one's
that I did complete are all very similar. And uncooked individually,
uncooked well together.

I couldn't bring myself to do the Brotherhood questline. What I did,
I lied to the Brotherhood guy and said I wanted to play along and when
I got on the airship I immediately killed the leader, killed all the
enemies then looted the ship in the most complete manner possible.

I got sent back to the airship later as part of another questline -
and then I just did a vanilla runthru' and out again.

(it was fun. also fun was when I shot MacCready and suddenly I was in
an all out war with the entire neighborhood, which up to then held me
in the very highest esteem. I killed all the fuckheads, then again
looted everything.)

[Justisaur]

Ugh, hate the agro mechanic.

I was just doing the Atom Cats, they were being attacked by gunners, we
wiped them out, I saved my game, then started talking to them about
it, suddenly something blew up in the middle of our conversation, and they
went apeshit on me. I reloaded, same thing happened again. On my third try
I was looking around trying to figure out what was happening, that's when
I noticed the red car icon. I must have hit the car once or twice during
the fight is the only thing I can think. So I had to go back before the
fight.

Interestingly the second time the gunners had an assault bot, which they
didn't the first time.

I had a similar problem there earlier, when my power armor was beat up,
there were power armor stations, so I was going to repair it, but instead
of grabbing my armor, it grabbed the framework next to it - there was some
sort of explosion and I was dead. I'm not sure if the framework was
trapped, or the game tagged it stolen and unable to be taken back, so they
went nuts on me again, or what. Reload - go back to sanctuary to repair
my armor.

I plan on trying to find everything before finishing. I was trying to pick
up one of my quests last night - freedom road, but it didn't have a
marker, reading it it said it was in 'boston common' but there wasn't
any markers for that either.

I'm not too sure about the brotherhood either. I left the questing with
them when they asked me to go to the blimp. They're kinda a-holes, but
they've been nothing but helpful, when I've run across them when fighting supermutants etc. I suppose one might become a bit of an a-hole when
you're military and essentially surrounded by monsters and psychopaths, and
the slightest mistake could cost you or someone else your life.

- Justisaur

[unibalm]

The questlines are half formed.

I'll explain with an example. The Railroad vs. The Institute. One
rendered in post acopalyptic doom and surrounded by glowing seas, the
other medically white and scientifically advanced in a secret
underground habitat.

The whole introduction and middle and end to that consisted of "get
the component" questlines so the miracle machine is created clomp
clomp clomp and the player stands in the miracle machine and is
transported. After which it's instantaneously a medically white and
scientifically advanced looking layout, but with the exact same kind
of "get the component" type questlines.

It's interesting, kinda fun, but my lord, the opportunities lost in
not creating a game world where the player actually *did something*,
so there was a palpable difference in gameplay.

But what else is there out there to play?????
Right now I'm reduced to eg. creating wierd scenarios in Starlight
Drivein where I built a winding staircase 8 stories high, on nothing,
and a shack on top of that with whatever might keep my settlers happy,
and lots of lights so it can be seen from a distance. I built this
going up from the drive-in kiosk, so I next added a stair to the top
of the movie screen, just to give the setllers a break.

It's not a bad game. Just not as good as it could be.

[Warewolf]

unibalm <uni...@csipga.zzzz> wrote in
news:4g59abtl3iunp06j4...@4ax.com:

> [Fallout 4]'s interesting, kinda fun, but my lord, the opportunities lost

> in not creating a game world where the player actually *did something*,
> so there was a palpable difference in gameplay.

Adaptive gameworld? What's that?

*thinks back to some of the classics he played (such as Lands of Lore)*

> But what else is there out there to play?????

Plenty, if you know where to look (and I can provide you with a ton of
links).

Even old-school games can be fun if you give them a chance. ^_^

(And there is no shortage of solutions available, if you run into trouble)

> Right now I'm reduced to eg. creating wierd scenarios [at the] Starlight
> Drive-In...

>
> It's not a bad game. Just not as good as it could be.

*considers posting a(nother) dream game thread*
*before giving his head a shake*

Any truly great (indie) title would need actual effort put into it by
talented people who understand what made (most) classic games rewarding to
play.

To go beyond the 'limitations' of the genre and sate/bolster the players'
(collective) imagination is achieve true greatness (or invite disaster, I
forget which).

Until a good multi-genre/multiversal sandbox game (eventually) appears,
there are plenty of alternatives available, if you're willing to lower your
standards slightly.

Cave Story is a good platformer, SpeedRunners is a good multi-player game
and I've been using Serious Sam 3 for my 'war hero' fix.

(I've never had a taste for COD, iykwim) ~_^

And, if all else fails, you could always (try to) make your own game.

Surely better worlds/universes can be built than the ostrich-riding, bug-
zapping, dungeon crawling fantasies we once explored/experienced.

Signed,
Warewolf
who will never forget the classic titles he enjoyed.

[Justisaur]

On Tuesday, January 19, 2016 at 7:13:53 PM UTC-8, unibalm wrote:

> Or "finished", since with the settlement building it never ends.
>
> Verdict: meh. Not up to FO3 and FONV standard.

I just finished it, level 71. I had been trying to see the railroad through, but after finally meeting with the institute I decided to
switch sides to them. I still don't feel like I know if that was
the 'right' choice, but all the choices seem bad, the game did good
in making me feel horrible about the choice, but that's not what I
really want in a game. Maybe next time I'll be a douche and I won't give
a shit about the commonwealth. I didn't really like the end game,
there were a couple big battles, but I far more enjoyed some of the
middle game & side quests. I was just getting tired of the game, and
wanted to end it.

I was almost feeling like restarting and trying big guns again, but I
decided I was going to wait until geck is out and some real mods
are available, and perhaps after all the inevitable DLCs.

I was somewhat tempted to go try FO3 again, and see if I could get to
the DLCs again, but I'd just bought 5+ games on the last steam sale, so
I've got to check those out.

My original feeling on it stands, not as good as FO3, but better than NV.

Like FO3 I found it really bad until I got the hang of it, but once I did
it was good.

I already answered most of your comments, but there was one or two I feel
I can answer better now that I've finished it.

> Although I got a good impression of the more difficult combat, the
> superior non-VATs combat especially, when starting out, I quickly
> leveled up to the point where the challenge faded to nothing.
> I upped my stealth and bingo, they couldn't see me at all. I upped my
> guns and bingo, all of them fell with just a few shots with my modded
> .10mm or 44. Nothing else needed. Just a few shots to take out a
> legendary deathclaw - which can't see me. Because the enemies don't
> level up with the player a promising game gets blander and blander
> until it simply fades away.

It wasn't a quick level up for me, stealth never worked well for me
either. But yeah, the challenge faded to nothing after level 50,
except for a few weird spots (and bugs). VATS is still the bomb, it
just took 5 characters before I figured out how to take advantage of it
with a crit build.

> Settlement building never gets to be much more than a chore, even when
> the basic rules are learned. The "happiness" indicatorfor a
> settlement makes little sense.

I pretty much just ignored my settlements as I pushed for the end, I got
a few failed 'defend' missions and a warning that one of my settlements happiness was so bad that they might abandon me as an ally. Never
happened though. The majority of settlements did nothing for me, I
really only used the first two, and the other ones were a complete waste
of time. I suppose I could have used flares/smoke more, I never even
used smoke, and flares just seemed like they'd be taking away my xp.

One of the things that really annoys me I hope a mod will fix, is that
once you gain certain settlements/ complete certain missions, you can't do
some of the other missions associated with that place. You can't help
harvest melons once the farm is an ally? What if I want to do some
farming? Even worse is the fertilizer quest, which I've never
completed, because when that other quest starts automatically it blocks
the fertilizer quest.

Overall if you haven't played this one, I'd give it a very
soft recommendation, basically only if you REALLY liked FO3, and if you
haven't played FO3 go play that first before considering this one.

- Justisaur