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[Hero Prinny]

Has this been posted yet?

man fawkes pissed me off when he was acting like a fucking twat and wouldn't do it. Bethesda are shit writers like straight up, there is no defending their writers, i'd bet money that we could pick 5 random gaffers and they'd write a better story and put more effort into it than what Bethesda's writers did. don't get me wrong, i love the game, its the game that made me fall in love with the series and made me play the previous games but god damn is the plot dumb as fuck

 

[antitrop]

Has this been posted yet?

Author of the piece the thread is about rips that shit off on page 5:

"Dad built a water purifier that didn’t work, for people that didn’t need it, and then made it release radiation it shouldn’t have, to prevent it from falling into the hands of people trying to fix it. This killed the man who had no reason to sabotage it and didn’t kill Colonel Autumn, who had no means to survive. This put the Enclave – an army with no reason to attack – in charge of the purifier, which was of no value to them. Then the player entered vault 87 to recover a GECK, a magical matter-arranger that they shouldn’t need and that would be better put to use in virtually any possible manner besides fixing the purifier. Colonel Autumn, who shouldn’t be alive, captured the player with a flash grenade that shouldn’t have worked that was thrown by soldiers who had no way to get there. The final battle was a war between the Enclave and the Brotherhood of Steel, to see which one would get to commit suicide trying to turn on the purifier that neither of them needed. This resulted in more sabotage that threatened to explode a device that shouldn’t be explode-able, ending with the death of the player character, who had the means to survive but didn’t, and who was never given a good reason for doing any of this."

Might be the same person, I dunno.

 

[DAREALGUMMY]

man fawkes pissed me off when he was acting like a fucking twat and wouldn't do it. Bethesda are shit writers like straight up, there is no defending their writers, i'd bet money that we could pick 5 random gaffers and they'd write a better story and put more effort into it than what Bethesda's writers did. don't get me wrong, i love the game, its the game that made me fall in love with the series and made me play the previous games but god damn is the plot dumb as fuck

lol no.

 

[hemtae]

That's a bit of an overstatement seeing as we have no idea how large or small an impact it will have some XP gain, especially when the level cap seems to be at least 50 this time around and not 30. Having a low INT might mean a painfully slow lvling process.

I doubt that'll be a problem unless they do a major overhaul of how XP works since you can't go that long without something trying to kill you in Bethesda's games.

 

[aravuus]

Having replayed Morrowind recently I really hope they can get something like that together again (I realize most writers who worked on that have long since left).

I'm finally starting to slowly get into Morrowind, so I'm pretty interested in seeing how much better the writing is than Skyrim or Fallout 3's.

Already found a couple of books and they were pretty fun to read through, though I remember Skyrim actually having some pretty interesting books too

lol no.

Go away it'd be great

e: at least it'd be so bad it'd be funny, unlike what we got with FO3

 

[Tyrus]

I'm finally starting to slowly get into Morrowind, so I'm pretty interested in seeing how much better the writing is than Skyrim or Fallout 3's.

Already found a couple of books and they were pretty fun to read through, though I remember Skyrim actually having some pretty interesting books too

Skyrim carried over a lot of the best books written and available in Morrowind and Oblivion.

 

[Odrion]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-07-12-the-murky-genius-of-fallout-new-vegas

This is a great article about why Fallout: New Vegas is better than Fallout 3.

New Vegas presented a murky ideological war between balanced factions rather than a comic-book fight between devils and angels. Fallout 3 pitted futuristic techno-knights of justice and Liberty Prime, a giant walking mech, against a shadowy and implausibly well equipped techno-elite hell-bent on world domination. New Vegas had a deeply flawed militaristic republic against revivalist fascists, with local power-player machinations slicing up the middle. Fallout 3 was Star Wars, New Vegas was Afghanistan.

Playing New Vegas now with the right mods is so, so good. This game's world is better than Witcher 3's even.

 

[Ogimachi]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-07-12-the-murky-genius-of-fallout-new-vegas

This is a great article about why Fallout: New Vegas is better than Fallout 3.



Playing New Vegas now with the right mods is so, so good. This game's world is better than Witcher 3's even.

F3's plot is not even remotely similar to the conflict in Star Wars, and the conflicts in FNV have no similarities with the war in afghanistan either.

Sure, he meant complexity and all, but the analogy sucked.

 

[aravuus]

Skyrim carried over a lot of the best books written and available in Morrowind and Oblivion.

Well, that explains it. I always wondered if the books and general dialogue/quests/etc were from completely different writers, cause the books seemed actually pretty competent for the most part. Writing or characters were most certainly not the reason why I've played so much of Skyrim.

Spoiler

The real reasons are obviously the nudity and sick porn power fantasy mods

 

[jaundicejuice]

My favourite Fallout 3 moment is when you first reunite with your incredibly naive idealistic father. If you chose to murder the entire population of a small town with a nuclear bomb, he's heard about it but he's merely disappointed and wants to discuss it later. Let's get back to restoring this useless water purifier.

 

[Arulan]

I'm finally starting to slowly get into Morrowind, so I'm pretty interested in seeing how much better the writing is than Skyrim or Fallout 3's.

It's not so much the writing, although by extent it is some degree, but the level of care they showed when creating the setting. Details aren't just at the superficial level, as they are in most games, but present all around even when most people might not notice. It rewards the player's scrutiny of the world. In one word, it's the world-building. Secondly, and this does a lot to make your experience within the world feel natural and come alive is the lack of quest markers. I can't express how much of a difference this makes. This image shows a little of the details I was referring to:

 

[Enduin]

I doubt that'll be a problem unless they do a major overhaul of how XP works since you can't go that long without something trying to kill you in Bethesda's games.

True, but that won't mean much if you are getting a fraction of what the normal XP for the kill is and going by what we saw in the trailers none of those kills seemed to payout a whole XP wise.

SPECIAL is 1-10, with a base of 4/10 in this game it seems instead of 5/10 from previous ones. They could easily scale INT to be that at 4/10 you get 100% of available XP from a kill, objective, whatever. But then 3/10 INT you might only get 75% of available XP, 2/10 50%, 1/10 25%. Then for any INT above 4 the gains might be smaller, but still worthwhile. Say 5% for each point above 4/10 INT, for a total bonus of +30% XP with 10/10 INT. That alone, ignoring its likely affects on dialogue options and Perk requirements, INT is still a pretty important attribute.

It's already rather likely the level cap will be 50 instead of 20 or 30 to start with. So level ups will most likely be more diluted than previously since they've been effectively doubled from the start. Though we don't know if they'll maintain the same formula for level gains as the previous two games did. NV with all DLC had a level cap of 50 and still used the same XP formula for level gains, but that's a good 80+ hours to complete and cap out. Imagine getting only half or just a quarter the XP you normally would for the entire game. That's a whole lot of killing you'll have to do to make up for it. That all said I doubt they'll be all that severe about it, but maybe they'll surprise us since so Hardcore mode was received so well in NV and difficulty mods in both FO3 and NV were some of the biggest and most popular.

 

[Parfait]

When i learned that F3 was like hundreds of years after, I was already washing my hands of the series. Like, I didn't like F3, i didn't like NV, I hated the setting already, the style and deco wasn't great either. It was basically a depressing as fuck rpg that everyone kept saying was the best thing ever.

While I stopped playing around the middle, I figured the world would get better. I always thought that the entire postapoc thing was really, really recent (maybe a decade or two ago). I had never played the original fallout games.


Then at some point someone informed me that f3 took place hundreds of years after the bombs fell. My really little interest in the series pretty much dropped to nothing, and god damnit do i wish there was a new Elder scrolls already.. Hopefully one with good combat.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

I can't play Fallout 3 again after New Vegas. The utter lack of sense the Capital Wasteland makes (things are there if they look cool rather than a practical reason), the lack of player agency in the horribly written story, and the general ugliness of the Capital Wasteland make it completely unpalatable to me.

I know that Bethesda won't learn anything from New Vegas and Fallout 4 is just going to be more of the same crap as Fallout 3. And now with the preset in all but appearance character and the apparent tossing of the Skill system means that Fallout 4 is no longer an RPG. It is an action-adventure game with RPG elements.

I wish that Bethesda did purchase Obsidian and just gave them Fallout to put out every 6 years while Bethesda made Elder Scrolls every 6 years, staggering releases by 3 years.

 

[aravuus]

It's not so much the writing, although by extent it is some degree, but the level of care they showed when creating the setting. Details aren't just at the superficial level, as they are in most games, but present all around even when most people might not notice. It rewards the player's scrutiny of the world. In one word, it's the world-building. Secondly, and this does a lot to make your experience within the world feel natural and come alive is the lack of quest markers. I can't express how much of a difference this makes. This image shows a little of the details I was referring to:

Dang, that certainly sounds like they've put a lot of thought into the world and the details. It's not even 6pm on a Friday night and I've got absolutely nothing scheduled for the rest of the day, definitely gonna boot up Morrowind after doing the laundry and start paying attention to the little details.

Also to go back to FO4 for a second, I'm not sure I'm a big fan of INT having an effect on gained XP. It beats getting more XP for playing on higher difficulties which I've always hated, but it's still kinda eh. I'm one of those people who absolutely have to max their XP gain at every possible opportunity, so it seems like I'm starting with a 10 INT, 10 CHA, high-ish LUCK and low everything else character. Which is probably not ideal for first playthrough.

Still, even with all the concerning stuff we've heard about FO4, I'm super excited to play it!

I wish that Bethesda did purchase Obsidian...

Oh god no lmao

 

[Ogimachi]

I can't play Fallout 3 again after New Vegas. The utter lack of sense the Capital Wasteland makes (things are there if they look cool rather than a practical reason), the lack of player agency in the horribly written story, and the general ugliness of the Capital Wasteland make it completely unpalatable to me.

I know that Bethesda won't learn anything from New Vegas and Fallout 4 is just going to be more of the same crap as Fallout 3. And now with the preset in all but appearance character and the apparent tossing of the Skill system means that Fallout 4 is no longer an RPG. It is an action-adventure game with RPG elements.

I wish that Bethesda did purchase Obsidian and just gave them Fallout to put out every 6 years while Bethesda made Elder Scrolls every 6 years, staggering releases by 3 years.

That would suppress their talents and eventually kill the company. The stories and the writing are the best thing about Obsidian games, whereas in Bethesda games that's just as important as using a good engine.

 

[Tigress]

I can't play Fallout 3 again after New Vegas. The utter lack of sense the Capital Wasteland makes (things are there if they look cool rather than a practical reason), the lack of player agency in the horribly written story, and the general ugliness of the Capital Wasteland make it completely unpalatable to me.

I know that Bethesda won't learn anything from New Vegas and Fallout 4 is just going to be more of the same crap as Fallout 3. And now with the preset in all but appearance character and the apparent tossing of the Skill system means that Fallout 4 is no longer an RPG. It is an action-adventure game with RPG elements.

I wish that Bethesda did purchase Obsidian and just gave them Fallout to put out every 6 years while Bethesda made Elder Scrolls every 6 years, staggering releases by 3 years.

Ok, I worry about all of what you say. But I think it's ridiculous to outright decide it's going to be like that before Fallout 4 is actually released to play and before we even see reviews of the game.

I'm not saying I don't think what you are saying is probable or a valid worry. I just think people are jumping the gun by already writing off the game. Especially as from what is said it sounds like there is a possibility they have at least learned some stuff from Fallout 4 (I mean we already know they have iron sights in the game and they've brought in modding weapons, something Obsidian introduced). And there is hints that they still have something your character levels up that affects how well he can do stuff (apparently combat is not all skill based and that has been said and people have pointed out for example in crafting there is requirements to be able to make stuff). So it's quite possible they haven't completely turned into an action game.

What I'm really worried about is they got rid of skill checks in dialogue which there is no proof that there is going to be any way to do checks in dialogue that your character has to be good at something to pass. That's some of my favorite ways to play Fallout so if that happens I'll be pissed... even if I overall enjoy the game. And we've seen nothing to show that they still have that kind of stuff in the game. Hell, I don't care if combat becomes pure first person shooting really, it's the skill checks in dialogue or even when inspecting stuff (for example vegas had times when you could only heal some one if you had enough medicine) that would annoy me. If it gets rid of skill checks in combat and combat is pure player skill based but still has the skill checks elsewhere, I'd still consider it an RPG with first person shooter gameplay. Honestly I don't think skill checks in combat is near a deal breaker at all. But getting rid of your character to do non combat stuff cause his/her skills are good enough... yeah... that is definitely getting rid of the RPG aspect.

What I wish is that Bethesda would do what Obsidian proposed (Cause they aren't going to just give Fallout to another developer to do and not do any themselves). Bethesda does East Coast Fallout and Obsidian does West Coast Fallout. Twice the fallout and we get an Obsidian Fallout (and a Fallout in the west coast). And Obsidian seems to do great on taking what Bethesda has done, keeping what they do well, and improving on what they don't. That's why to me New Vegas was so awesome. Cause there was stuff I did like about 3... course it's mainly bringing Fallout into a walk around/explore world and first person perspective. But even this time it sounds like they introduced some neat stuff (ok, I'm just really enamored with the village building, I so want to try that ).

 

[ANDS]

I love how we've gone from "The story in FO3 makes no sense. . ." to "Bethesda are SHIT writers!" and finally landed at "Any random GAF members could write a better story. . ." I swear it's like I've tripped and landed in a NMA thread.

 

[Oogedei]

You know, I think that yes, Bethesda dumbed down the RP aspect. The previous Fallouts were a lot better for really allowing you to play however you want and your choices really making a difference in how people treated you and what choices you had to make.

But, where people lose me is when they claim that 1 + 2 did better exploration/world building. First most of that wide map area was just that, a map that you got to watch an icon of where your character was on it. Random events happened in a set amount of premade areas that were randomized as to which one you got and what it contained. That's not really exploration at all nor is it immersive. It felt more like a representation of where your character was at/use your imagination kinda thing. Having the car in 2 was great cause that meant I wasn't spending a lot of time watching a line on a map, it sped that part up (which honestly was boring until you got a random encounter or hit a town). Towns all had the same buildings but in different set of angular shapes.

The exploration in 1+2 was more just in discovering the NPCs than the areas. The areas were just backdrop.

Bethesda brought in a lot more interesting areas to explore. IT was far more interesting to just go around just to see what was around the corner in the Bethesda/Obsidian games. Also, I quite enjoyed the first person gameplay perspective (Obsidian did it better to be honest but for me just the introduction of iron sights made it a lot more fun and I used VATs a lot less). They did bring things to the game that I do think improved it. As well as stuff that weakened it (some of it was necessary cause you only have so much resources to go around and building the world of 1 and 2 definitely takes a lot less time/resources than 3 and New Vegas. You don't have to spend near as much time in detail and just more in layouts. Giving yourself more time to put details in other stuff like character writing/story). And I'm sorry, I do enjoy the real time combat to turn based (and I have nothing against turn based. I'm excited for when Wastelands 2 gets to PS4).

New Vegas would not have been my favorite game of all time without some of the major changes Bethesda brought in. Sure, the RP wasn't as strong in 2 and you didn't get near as many choices on how to respond to characters in the dialogue. But to me they did a perfect compromise between what was good about old school Fallout and what was good about what Bethesda brought in. I really really hope Bethesda allows Obsidian to do another Fallout. Or at the very least Bethesda has taken some lessons from New Vegas (and honestly, if what some of what they are claiming is true, it sounds like they did take some lessons. Of course that remains to be seen and I'm a tad skeptical but I'm not going to close my mind that maybe they did).

If it makes those who hate what Bethesda did feel better, 2 was my 2nd favorite Fallout I've played (but *Gasp*, I actually enjoyed 3 more than 1).

This!

These threads about Fallout are so annoying. It's always the same. Always the same elitist dudes accusing the newer Fallout players of being stupid and just falling for a theme park game. Elitists are being awkward and they don't even realize it. It's not that they shouldn't state their opinions but there is a difference between a good discussion and nostalgic populism. If you argue like this: "Fallout 4 is going to be shit because Bethesda sucks" then you're obviously not interested in a real discussion. It's just an ignorant view and shows your bias.

 

[Lothars]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-07-12-the-murky-genius-of-fallout-new-vegas

This is a great article about why Fallout: New Vegas is better than Fallout 3.



Playing New Vegas now with the right mods is so, so good. This game's world is better than Witcher 3's even.

Which says alot when Fallout 3 game's world is vastly better than New Vegas, New Vegas does have the better story but the game world is lacking.

I love how we've gone from "The story in FO3 makes no sense. . ." to "Bethesda are SHIT writers!" and finally landed at "Any random GAF members could write a better story. . ." I swear it's like I've tripped and landed in a NMA thread.

Welcome to every thread about Fallout 3.

 

[aravuus]

Welcome to every thread about Fallout 3.

Well, every non-OT thread about anything, really. Such is the nature of GAF, when something goes on for long enough, it'll boil down to people arguing about a single thing.

e: OT as in official thread, not off-topic

 

[joecanada]

Has this been posted yet?

about 3 times and its total shit anyway. its a parody and doesn't even reflect the story. as stated before the real reason for the fight at the water source was to poison it to kill unpure humans, which you can do or not do. Obviously there is going to be a battle surrounding this.
if you had a ghoul companion of course its likely he would have gone in the chamber, but hey its not all hamlet that's for sure.

and this is coming from someone who skips most of the dialogue.

 

[foxtrot3d]

about 3 times and its total shit anyway. its a parody and doesn't even reflect the story. as stated before the real reason for the fight at the water source was to poison it to kill unpure humans, which you can do or not do. Obviously there is going to be a battle surrounding this.
if you had a ghoul companion of course its likely he would have gone in the chamber, but hey its not all hamlet that's for sure.

and this is coming from someone who skips most of the dialogue.

Except that's not really true. The whole big thing is that Col. Autumn has second thoughts and disagrees with Pres. Eden is poisoning the entire Wasteland, the entire final fight is meaningless since Autumn does not want to use the FEV virus in the water supply.

 

[Odrion]

F3's plot is not even remotely similar to the conflict in Star Wars, and the conflicts in FNV have no similarities with the war in afghanistan either.

Sure, he meant complexity and all, but the analogy sucked.

This post is like if someone said "this drink tastes like shit" and someone else entered the conversation to point out that shit is a solid matter while the drink is a liquid.

how's that for an analogy?

 

[joecanada]

Except that's not really true. The whole big thing is that Col. Autumn has second thoughts and disagrees with Pres. Eden is poisoning the entire Wasteland, the entire final fight is meaningless since Autumn does not want to use the FEV virus in the water supply.

Yes and what if you the wanderer wanted to do so? Why would they let you wander around with either a virus or control of any water supply? Look I never said the story was great but anyone can use basic imagination to determine why war surrounding either water or virus or even land and landmarks could occur in the wasteland. Maybe autumn just hates you

 

[Brerlappin]

The way people jerk off New Vegas story but shit on F3 makes me laugh. Like some of the shit in NV makes just as little sense. Caesars legion for example is retarded. Like did they not realize all the centurion armour they wear is made of plastic? Both games are riddled with dumb shit but i think because Obsidian developed NV, people go out of their way to defend it as some amazing piece of writing while crapping on F3. The end of F3 was terrible, but lets not pretend like NV is some amazing piece of writing

 

[lukeskymac]

well as for dialogue we saw what, 2 conversations? which are also evidently very early on in the game, we have no idea if there have been concessions made to the dialogue system as a result of a voice protagonist.

Where are you getting at? Dialog options are now restricted to four (one for each face button) and the dialog itself stinks. There's nothing else to it.

Skills, again we don't know for certain they're out, evidently they're there in some form as in the E3 presentation we see a bobblehead for barter http://imgur.com/g3N7Y9e. Also some of the gun crafting requires a certain 'science' or 'gun' level http://i.imgur.com/FhpabhZ.png

Barter perk level 1, barter perk level 2, etc...

so yeah, certainly nothing concrete yet

Keep dreaming.

That's a bit of an overstatement seeing as we have no idea how large or small an impact it will have some XP gain, especially when the level cap seems to be at least 50 this time around and not 30. Having a low INT might mean a painfully slow lvling process.

In a franchise, especially in this open-world incarnation, where having tons of stuff to do is one of the main selling points, do you really think people are going to want to hit the level cap sooner?

INT also probably is a requirement for certain perks so dumping it will lock you out of a good number of them most likely which isn't exactly smart. Plus we have no idea if or how speech checks work out which INT is usually a top contender in. So I'd hardly say it's useless. At least with what we know so far.

Every stat is used for speech checks. But unlike Int in this Fallout, they are also important for a bunch of other things.

Taking skills away murdered the importance of Intelligence. Unless every perk not strictly physical has an intelligence requirement, Int has definitely become a dump stat, no two ways about it.

 

[lukeskymac]

Yes and what if you the wanderer wanted to do so? Why would they let you wander around with either a virus or control of any water supply? Look I never said the story was great but anyone can use basic imagination to determine why war surrounding either water or virus or even land and landmarks could occur in the wasteland. Maybe autumn just hates you

The way people jerk off New Vegas story but shit on F3 makes me laugh. Like some of the shit in NV makes just as little sense. Caesars legion for example is retarded. Like did they not realize all the centurion armour they wear is made of plastic? Both games are riddled with dumb shit but i think because Obsidian developed NV, people go out of their way to defend it as some amazing piece of writing while crapping on F3. The end of F3 was terrible, but lets not pretend like NV is some amazing piece of writing

The mental gymnastics people go through to defend a mediocre game...

 

[Almighty]

And outside of the main plot, there's like... quests that end in such a way that it's like they forgot how they started.

Blood Ties starts for most people when Lucy West asks you to check on her brother. You go to Arefu, and find that it's locked down because a gang called The Family has been terrorizing them worse than usual and even killed their only cattle. The West mother and father were killed, and you have to search a bunch of places until you find the right subway tunnel with The Family. Despite a lot of their incidental dialogue indicating that they just view themselves as a "tough gang," the leader reveals that they're actually cannibals with some kind of psychological compulsion to eat people. You're instructed to "educate yourself" about them, and learn that they pretend to be vampires and only murder select people to drink their blood. Oh, and the killing of cattle thing was just stuff getting out of hand. The Wests were actually killed by their own son, Lucy's brother, who has THE HUNGER™ which is a thing that exists in Fallout now I guess.

As the "kill the fucking murderous vampires and free Ian" thing is glitched to make Arefu hostile the quest a failure, the only real solution is to negotiate with Vance, the literal vampire man. The game suddenly acts like this cult of murderers is an oppressed minority of dangerous fanatics like the X-Men and Vance is their Charles Xavier, which makes sense since he's a brainwashing jackass. Depending on your skills and stats, you're given like four ways to ask, "Have you considered just drinking blood from the blood packs that are everywhere and not murdering people?" Vance reveals that he thought of this, but didn't really care too much until you brought it up. Turns out, you're going to negotiate a deal on Arefu's behalf! This malnourished, isolated little hamlet will donate their fucking blood on the regular and the heavily armed cannibal gangsters who terrorized them will leave them alone, or even guard them if you've got a silver tongue! Some might call this "extortion." Fallout 3 calls this a wise choice filled with good karma.

Ian West can go home, or not, and you're just left to assume that his whole "I have a mental illness that causes me to black out and murder and eat people" will just work itself out because you talked to him kind of nicely.

Lucy West can never be told about this, and any attempts to talk to her will result in her saying something like, "Oh yeah, I asked you about my family, eh they're probably fine."

The glitch can be bypassed if you kill every family member before you talk to Ian. That includes the guy guarding the entrance which I assume most people forget. As the game merges the Arefu and The Family factions into one after you resolve things with Ian. So killing that lone guard after you have resolved things with Ian causes everyone to treat you as hostile. Just a little trivia as I had to deal with that shit piece of programming not too long ago.

But yeah that whole quest line is so incredibly dumb when you think about it and it is not alone pretty much everything in Fallout 3 story wise falls apart when you actually think about it.

 

[Tigress]

The way people jerk off New Vegas story but shit on F3 makes me laugh. Like some of the shit in NV makes just as little sense. Caesars legion for example is retarded. Like did they not realize all the centurion armour they wear is made of plastic? Both games are riddled with dumb shit but i think because Obsidian developed NV, people go out of their way to defend it as some amazing piece of writing while crapping on F3. The end of F3 was terrible, but lets not pretend like NV is some amazing piece of writing

Or maybe some of us genuinely liked Vegas's story. I had no idea who obsidian was when I first started Vegas. I only like obsidian so much because of Vegas. So maybe you should realize that just cause you don't understand it doesn't mean you can just decide it is fanboys who are being biased is why people like it

 

[Enduin]

In a franchise, especially in this open-world incarnation, where having tons of stuff to do is one of the main selling points, do you really think people are going to want to hit the level cap sooner?

Plenty of people like to level up really fast. You gain HP, AP and Carry Weight sooner, not to mention access to useful Perks sooner. Now that it seems pretty evident Perks are all we have in this game, that's even more important. So yeah a lot of people would like to level fast, maybe not necessarily cap out extremely prematurely.

But again depending on the XP bonus or penalty is based on your INT, dumping it might result in a very slow leveling process. Meaning you'll be stuck with low HP, AP, Carry Weight and access to limited Perks for much longer. Limiting your ability to access certain areas and do somethings. Especially if Perks and certain Perk Ranks are now used in Speech checks in lieu of Skills.

Every stat is used for speech checks. But unlike Int in this Fallout, they are also important for a bunch of other things.

Taking skills away murdered the importance of Intelligence. Unless every perk not strictly physical has an intelligence requirement, Int has definitely become a dump stat, no two ways about it.

This just goes back to my previous point. If Perks are now the driving force behind our characters development then leveling faster, or at least not significantly slower, which may happen if you dump INT, will be important as you'll have access to more Perks sooner which may allow for better or different dialogue options and other gameplay opportunities you wouldn't normally have. Effectively the same as in previous games by having a high or low INT which granted to you more or less Skill Points to allocate. It's definitely been streamlined but the overall effect may still be the same in the long run.

Not saying this is definitely an equal or better system than the old one, but we currently only know superficial details about it and not nearly enough to make any definitive statements one way or the other. All we know is things have been changed. To declare definitively they are better or worse now is foolhardy at best. I prefer to think of the ways these changes could be handled and the opportunities they provide instead of bemoaning whats lost and proclaiming doom.

 

[Almighty]

Morrowind is an improvement, and there are a handful of actual memorable character interactions, but it mainly suffers from the same problem as Oblivion and Skyrim: you can become the head of many factions, most of the quests have you skipping back and forth across the world haphazardly, and most of the dialogue is simple exposition about your next immediate task. If you're OK getting your enjoyment from wandering libraries and reading books, there is some epic, thoughtful, amazing lore to be found. But again... You can do that in the sequels, too.

To be fair to Morrowind the stat requirements made it a bitch to become the head of more then just a few of the factions. As unlike the later games your actually had to be a pretty good mage to lead the mages guild and so on. Some of them also required a little finessing as they are opposed to each other as well.

 

[aravuus]

The way people jerk off New Vegas story but shit on F3 makes me laugh. Like some of the shit in NV makes just as little sense. Caesars legion for example is retarded. Like did they not realize all the centurion armour they wear is made of plastic? Both games are riddled with dumb shit but i think because Obsidian developed NV, people go out of their way to defend it as some amazing piece of writing while crapping on F3. The end of F3 was terrible, but lets not pretend like NV is some amazing piece of writing

This post made me realize how absolutely not-amazing NV's writing actually is

Fucking plastic armor, how did I never realize this?!

 

[lukeskymac]

Plenty of people like to level up really fast. You gain HP, AP and Carry Weight sooner, not to mention access to useful Perks sooner. Now that it seems pretty evident Perks are all we have in this game, that's even more important. So yeah a lot of people would like to level fast, maybe not necessarily cap out extremely prematurely.

But again depending on the XP bonus or penalty is based on your INT, dumping it might result in a very slow leveling process. Meaning you'll be stuck with low HP, AP, Carry Weight and access to limited Perks for much longer. Limiting your ability to access certain areas and do somethings. Especially if Perks and certain Perk Ranks are now used in Speech checks in lieu of Skills.(...)

HP, AP and CW are directly tied to Endurance, Agility, and Strength, respectively. Apart from a couple of perks, nothing else will change those stats. Since Bethesda loooves level scaling, getting to a higher level quickly is kinda moot.

Furthermore, XP is an infinite resource in these games, so anyone playing long enough will eventually reach max level. HP, AP, CW, etc are not infinite resources, so it's pretty obvious how much better of a choice their respective stats are next to Int. In older Fallout games, Int governed skill points per level, which were also a finite resource thanks to level cap, so it becomes clearer how better balanced the classic SPECIAL was.

This post made me realize how absolutely not-amazing NV's writing actually is

Fucking plastic armor, how did I never realize this?!

Yeah! How can any respectable fictional setting get away with th-

...nevermind.

 

[joecanada]

The mental gymnastics people go through to defend a mediocre game...

Wow u sure told me. great point,
if people don't want to use their imagination and want to be handheld through every scenario that's cool with me. I'll continue to play RPG s the way my character develop not how the narrative shows anyway . I guess that's why I never noticed all these plot holes I was busy settling my own vendetta against autumn I didn't give a damn why he was there . Doesn't change the fact there's multiple reasons why he would face off against you and especially the brotherhood

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

This post made me realize how absolutely not-amazing NV's writing actually is

Fucking plastic armor, how did I never realize this?!

It is clearly made out of football gear. Did you ever look at it closely? Why would they be prancing around in metal armor when they are a tribe that outlawed all technology to make that kind of armor?

So is sticking to your story of criminalizing technology bad writing? I don't think so. To be honest, I don't recall the specifics on what is and what isn't allowed. But I recall they don't use certain things like medical technology and such.

edit:

Caesar firmly believes that reliance on technology weakens humans, and was responsible for the Great War. As such, his Legion is mostly a low-tech organization, relying on numbers, physical fitness and discipline to achieve their objectives. A typical legionary will wear armor mimicking the Roman lorica hamata or lorica segmentata, usually created from pre-War sports gear (mostly if not exclusively football gear) armored with metal plates, including the helmet, worn over a tunic. In combat, they use either simple firearms (typically revolvers or lever-action rifles), power fists, or melee weapons in the form of machetes and throwing spears, crafted from scavenged materials that mimic the ancient Roman short sword (gladius) and javelin (pilum).

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Caesar's_Legion

 

[MasterOfPastures]

[FAILED] Wow u sure told me. great point,

On topic, I'm a bit confused after hastily catching up on this thread. Have they announced that there are no more skills in FO4? Like, Guns, Science and so? Only perks and SPECIAL? Is this true?

 

[Ogimachi]

This post made me realize how absolutely not-amazing NV's writing actually is

Fucking plastic armor, how did I never realize this?!

How does that change anything? Legionaries are nutcases, news at 11. Or is it because they're not effective? Might as well bash every game for the vault jumpsuit.

 

[xaszatm]

I think for me the problem with FO3 is that the story (in addition to being a stupid mess) didn't support the gameplay. I know people go "make your own story" but FO3 should of had a story that encourages such behavior rather than be so railroaded into a certain type of character that everyone ignored the story. I think this is why I liked New Vegas more. It tried to be more accommodating to the role play. Did it succeed? Not exactly but it certainly felt like your choices mattered more there than in 3.

I don't think 3 is bad but I do think it's poor story does affect my enjoyment of it.

 

[aravuus]

Yeah! How can any respectable fictional setting get away with th-

...nevermind.

It is clearly made out of football gear. Did you ever look at it closely? Why would they be prancing around in metal armor when they are a tribe that outlawed all technology to make that kind of armor?

So is sticking to your story of criminalizing technology bad writing? I don't think so. To be honest, I don't recall the specifics on what is and what isn't allowed. But I recall they don't use certain things like medical technology and such.

edit:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Caesar's_Legion

How does that change anything? Legionaries are nutcases, news at 11. Or is it because they're not effective? Might as well bash every game for the vault jumpsuit.

Hahaha sorry about that, I was actually joking, I thought it was obvious lol

I was trying to make fun of Brerlapping and how they apparently thought the legion wearing plastic armor somehow demonstrates NV's bad writing and is at all comparable to the utterly illogical main quest of FO3

 

[Ogimachi]

Hahaha sorry about that, I was actually joking, I thought it was obvious lol

I was trying to make fun of Brerlapping and how they apparently thought the legion wearing plastic armor somehow demonstrates NV's bad writing and is at all comparable to the utterly illogical main quest of FO3

Oh hahaha sorry, it's just that with the kind of arguments from F3 fanboys...

I think for me the problem with FO3 is that the story (in addition to being a stupid mess) didn't support the gameplay. I know people go "make your own story" but FO3 should of had a story that encourages such behavior rather than be so railroaded into a certain type of character that everyone ignored the story. I think this is why I liked New Vegas more. It tried to be more accommodating to the role play. Did it succeed? Not exactly but it certainly felt like your choices mattered more there than in 3.

I don't think 3 is bad but I do think it's poor story does affect my enjoyment of it.

It's also morality-wise, because in the main quest you have to be the good guy, except you can be a dick while you're at it.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

I remember seeing this thread a few weeks ago, but I was still playing FO3 and wanted to avoid spoilers. So now that I just beat it today, I revisited this thread and read the whole article.

Surprised that there's so many negative reactions. I thought he was spot on for the most part (except for the eating part, there might not be agriculture but there's hunting, at least, but yeah this doesn't invalidate the rest of the point).

I was wondering the same issues about Dad's purifier and the whole drama with the Enclave. When they threaten Dad I was like, "ok, why can't we cooperate with them again?" and then Dad sacrificed himself, and I figured eventually they'd reveal the real reason for that, that there was more to it than that... but nope. And the whole bit with the "president" was more contrived nonsense.

I can handwave Megaton itself making no sense just because hey it's amusing, but when just about nothing in the game makes any kind of sense when you start thinking about it, well... for a story-driven RPG about making choices and blah blah it's a huge flaw.

The most insulting part, however, which the article doesn't even really mention, is the ending. I had Fawkes as my follower.... Yeah. Enough said. Holy shit that was such a dumb moment. And now I hear DLC can retcon it? Hahaha fucking unreal.

Fallout 3's gameworld is nonsensical. The settlements make no sense. The motivations make no sense. The dialog is idiotic. Choices don't matter.

Agreed.

I used to love Fallout 3, then I played New Vegas.

I played New Vegas and enjoyed it, then I played Fallout 3. Sigh. It's amazing how ridiculously better the writing is in New Vegas.

The author should take on Mario next. I mean, a pipe that goes into an underground cavity full of coins? There would be no drainage!

Yeah because Mario is an open-world story-driven RPG full of lore, world-building, moral choices where personal motivations are focused on... right?

What an asinine post.

What is with people and their inability to appreciate critiques? Video games should absolutely be examined under a critical lens so we can identify the flaws in writing and story-telling so we can improve them. If we keep this "It's videogames, why is he bothering to understand the problems of the story" attitude, then developers will never grow as storytellers. It is important for such critical analysis to exist so we can appreciate the positives and negatives of a product.

Exactly. If people are that unconcerned about the writing, internal consistency and world-building of Fallout, then I doubt Bethesda is that concerned either, and that doesn't give me great hope for Fallout 4.

 

[Neff]

I loved Fallout 3, but maybe that has something to do with the fact that I never played Fallout 1 or 2, and from the look of them, I don't want to.

 

[Ogimachi]

I loved Fallout 3, but maybe that has something to do with the fact that I never played Fallout 1 or 2, and from the look of them, I don't want to.

Two masterpieces that should be in any serious top 10 RPGs of all time. I can't recommend them enough, even today. Graphics are not that bad, and the gameplay aged better than you'd expect.

 

[vocab]

I loved Fallout 3, but maybe that has something to do with the fact that I never played Fallout 1 or 2, and from the look of them, I don't want to.

So graphics is your judgment on these two ground breaking games. Alright.

 

[Victrix]

I replayed FO3, all DLCs and FO:NV DLCs in the last year or two.

FO3 was even worse than I remembered it being. By a significant margin, everything about the writing was just... ugh.

I was surprised how muted my reaction to the FO4 news at E3 was, but it's pretty obvious why when I took a second to search my feelings think about a Bethsoft sequel rather than an Obsidian one.

I'm still curious, I'm not actively hostile to it, just indifferent, which feels sort of sad.

 

[Soodanim]

I stopped reading a few paragraphs in. Not because I don't agree with the points made, because they make enough sense. It's because it's always a comparison to the original Fallout(s), which I own but have not yet played. And I feel I would be doing myself a disservice to read an entire article comparing two games in detail before I play it for myself, especially given how good they make 1 seem.

I still love F3 though.

 

[Lucifelle]

When is part 2 due?

 

[saunderez]

I loved Fallout 3, but maybe that has something to do with the fact that I never played Fallout 1 or 2, and from the look of them, I don't want to.

I loved Fallout 3 as well and I have played Fallout 1 and 2 countless times. You should definitely play Fallout 2 at the very least if you're a fan of 3. I feel it's closer to Fallout 3 whereas 1 is closer to NV. There's people here who have argued otherwise with me but I doubt I'll ever concede. Fallout 2 is silly in many of the same ways Fallout 3 is and that is why I love both games.

 

[BigDes]

I replayed FO3, all DLCs and FO:NV DLCs in the last year or two.

FO3 was even worse than I remembered it being. By a significant margin, everything about the writing was just... ugh.

I was surprised how muted my reaction to the FO4 news at E3 was, but it's pretty obvious why when I took a second to search my feelings think about a Bethsoft sequel rather than an Obsidian one.

I'm still curious, I'm not actively hostile to it, just indifferent, which feels sort of sad.

Yeah, its a shame that I get excited for Bethesda games not for their own merits but because they are platforms for decent mod delivery.

New Vegas stands up on its own

Fallout 3 is for the mods