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[EmCeeGramr]

I'm taking that one step further and arguing that the ability to do what you want only matters if there are situations where you can't as well.

If a game always lets you act how you want to act, it's not really true to life, is it?

I'm not trying to force you to agree with me, but can you at least understand the logic I'm employing here?

And that's where the roleplaying element - and Fallout's tabletop origins - come into play.

It's not just "I am Sir RPG Protagonist, I will pick the most optimum strat to eliminate enemies X, Y, and Z, and then level up," you're attempting to roleplay a character and decide what makes the most sense for them. Giving the Courier a blank slate backstory and the widest amount of gameplay and moral options available is to facilitate this. It's also to allow the player to wonder "can I do that? why? would that be a different playstyle for me to enjoy?" One of the goals of Van Buren's perk system was to specifically give the player new unique options that would be more likely to encourage them to change or modify their playstyle, and you can see the same thing in NV, where perks are very rarely sweeping general stat boosts but end up having some condition regarding what kind of weapon, what kind of speech interaction, what kind of enemy you're facing, etc. Taken individually they might be "meaningless" because you could achieve the same goals in another way, but they're meant to be seen as a toolkit that fits your preference.

And yes, this works. NV, just like FO1 and 2, has had me roll characters with specific ideologies and playstyles in mind, only for me to shift said playstyle not due to min-maxing, but because the writing and gameplay options given to me suggested ways that character could change and evolve naturally. I've never felt that urge in FO3 or 4, where your character just seems to say whatever and the optimum solution is always just being the best gun-man in the world (especially bad in 3, where you can infamously become a nigh invincible murder god by the time you reach level 10 and coast through the rest of the game because you can just keep picking experience and combat perks).

Bethesda Fallout's design is actively antithetical to that philosophy. They increasingly predefine who your character is, and attempt to quickly gate you into binary gameplay and moral choices that stick for the rest of the game because you have no incentive to do anything differently.

 

[Keinning]

Pretty sure I disagreed with what you said, not ignored it. You're the one ignoring my good faith arguments to call me a troll.

I don't think it's a good faith argument to say shooting was better in F3 than FNV. the rest of your post is arguable and arguments, this is a straight up lie or you misremembering at best. In fact many people who like F3 (and not NV) install TTW just for the added gunplay mechanics and never touch vegas at all. Because it's better.

 

[Raven117]

he is and is a pretty cool guy on twitter

Easily the most well thought and in depth analysis of a video games I've read on Gaf.

Might need to edit my post a bit to acknowledge I'm speaking to someone that matters!

 

[joecanada]

I keep my trolling to twitter. I really do think New Vegas gets a lot of praise it doesn't deserve. Like, people always love to talk about how its 'quests' are better than Fallout 3, but the quest they always use is the freezer quest. Nearly all of New Vegas' questlines are dramatically less involved. Other people point out that New Vegas has a lot 'more' quests than Fallout 3, buuuuuuuut... that has a bit more to do with the way New Vegas tries to turn everything into a quest, where Bethesda has a ton of stuff that's just kinda there, and not marked or treated like a quest at all. For them, it's just world design.

One of the reasons I think Fallout 3 is better than 4 is that 4 really shows Bethesda moving towards a desire for way less interesting, less bespoke content. Too much "another settlement needs your help," which really sucks compared to stuff like stumbling upon a booby trapped grocery store with a nuke inside and stuff.

People seem to forget that New Vegas had a really popular "fix the shooting" mod for a while, that just removed RPG stats from the equation entirely. Most of my friends who were heavily into modding Bethesda games said that most of New Vegas map has very little actual work done on it (which I think is attributable to that 18 month thing). I think RPS did a great job explaining why the writing was poor. If I had more time, I'd jump back into the game and dig up more examples. Obsidian has this bad habit of expositing way too much about things, or trying to make mechanics where there don't need to be any. This was a big issue with Alpha Protocol as well.

I feel like Black Isle > Obsidian, personally.



Yeah, there's that Tyranny DLC. Bunch of people got a lot of access to the Obsidian team when Paradox invited them over to try out the DLC.

Yeah you make a lot of sense. there's this hyperbole on gaf that F3 was basically the worst game ever and FNV is the greatest RPG of all time, but they are more similar than dissimilar. in fact I never really even noticed the difference and my friends and I never discussed any differences other than a new world, some cool stuff.

mostly it comes down to the rpg... if you were all about the story options and rpg mechanics, chances are you will love NV. I on the other hand skip through half the story and focus on exploring, shooting, collecting, etc. so I hate to say it here but yeah I never really knew there was a difference until reading on here. also I didn't really like the vegas strip in NV, just thought it was kind of bland and boring. lots to do though.

 

[DocSeuss]

I cut to new vegas for the first time in my last playthrough, and it wasn't that hard as I thought it was going to be


Oh did you use something like the No-Neos mod to counteract the stats then?

I used a mod, but we're talking like four years ago. I don't remember what it was, just that it was one of the top mods on the Nexus at the time? Heck, it might have been right when the game actually released?? There were forum threads complaining about the aiming being really inaccurate compared to Fallout 3.

Sweet beejeebus. This is quite the post. Very well thought out. Are you a developer?

While I dont disagree with your definition of "RolePlay" that is limiting pretty much all JRPGS and many more strictly designed protagonists.

Regardless, Im not sure the distinction is all that important really. Its how it all comes together in the end. Witcher 3 let you define Geralt a little bit (and IMO incredibly well written as whatever option you chose, felt like something the character would do), and Fallout New Vegas (and other Obsidain games) gives you many options to change your characters relation to the world.

Yes. And a consultant. And I have spent the last five years explaining game mechanics for game websites. Occasionally, they get GAF threads. I used to bring it up on GAF 'cause I was excited about it and all, but people often took that as "look, I'm better than you," and that's not how I want to be perceived. So like... I'm glad you noticed. It makes me warm and tingly inside. But I've been trying to downplay it. I just really like having in-depth conversations with people about mechanics. Today, I was talking about ammo pickups and how to best encourage players to move around the map (respawning crates vs enemy ammo drops) and I was having the time of my life. I love talkin mechanics with people.

I'm definitely idiosyncratic about this stuff, so I'm totally cool with people disagreeing with me, because I understand my perspective is not the consensus. I don't think JRPGs are RPGs, for the most part. They're more like adventure games. And that's cool--Earthbound is amazing, and I loves me some Digimon: Cyber Sleuth, but I don't really think they're RPGs. Some people take this as an insult. For me it's just like saying "a cat is not a dog." It's just a thing.

I think distinctions in design are meaningful--acknowledging that NV and Witcher are trying to accomplish different things is useful. There's no reason to get on Witcher's case because NV lets you do even more things to design your character.

And that's where the roleplaying element - and Fallout's tabletop origins - come into play.

It's not just "I am Sir RPG Protagonist, I will pick the most optimum strat to eliminate enemies X, Y, and Z, and then level up," you're attempting to roleplay a character and decide what makes the most sense for them. Giving the Courier a blank slate backstory and the widest amount of gameplay and moral options available is to facilitate this. It's also to allow the player to wonder "can I do that? why? would that be a different playstyle for me to enjoy?" One of the goals of Van Buren's perk system was to specifically give the player new unique options that would be more likely to encourage them to change or modify their playstyle, and you can see the same thing in NV, where perks are very rarely sweeping general stat boosts but end up having some condition regarding what kind of weapon, what kind of speech interaction, what kind of enemy you're facing, etc. Taken individually they might be "meaningless" because you could achieve the same goals in another way, but they're meant to be seen as a toolkit that fits your preference.

Bethesda Fallout's design is actively antithetical to that philosophy. They increasingly predefine who your character is, and attempt to quickly gate you into binary gameplay and moral choices that stick for the rest of the game because you have no incentive to do anything differently.

I feel like both games let me do 'everything' on a micro level (individual quests), but New Vegas is better on that macro level (faction stuff), although Fallout 4 definitely made some strides in that direction (though in general, not wild about Fallout 4's factions).

I love giving players options, but only when those options have the chance to bite players in the butt. It's one thing I'm loving about Original Sin 2 right now. My choices have resulted in me not being able to do everything. I felt like, factions aside, you could do everything in New Vegas because the quests allowed it. It's also a problem I have with Bethesda's games, and it's one of the reasons I feel that going "New Vegas good, Fallout 3/4 bad" is a mistake, because they're really not that different in this regard. Both developers let anyone do everything.

Because adding complexity to the game didn't really change it. You can still play like a low-int player or a pyromaniac or whatever, but this is mostly dialogue option stuff. It's not like you're cut off from certain quests (aside from faction stuff) because of who you choose to play as.

I feel like New Vegas and Fallout 4 are pretty much identical in terms of their limited choice and consequence; New Vegas has more choices, but the consequences still don't MATTER. What I want is more games like Tyranny, where an entire town can be absent from the game just because you did something in the character creator.

I don't think it's a good faith argument to say shooting was better in F3 than FNV. the rest of your post is arguable and arguments, this is a straight up lie or you misremembering at best. In fact many people who like F3 (and not NV) install TTW just for the added gunplay mechanics and never touch vegas at all. Because it's better.

I disagree. That's really all it is.

 

[Keinning]

I'd really like the good examples of writing from F3 if you want to sustain FNV writing is on the same level or poorer (which is perfectly possible, you might have higher standards - but you need to show them).

And please, please don't tell me it's anything John Eden or 3Dog says. I can't handle it.

I feel like New Vegas and Fallout 4 are pretty much identical in terms of their limited choice and consequence; New Vegas has more choices, but the consequences still don't MATTER

Alright that's it you're trolling

Bye

 

[MartyStu]

I feel like New Vegas and Fallout 4 are pretty much identical in terms of their limited choice and consequence; New Vegas has more choices, but the consequences still don't MATTER. What I want is more games like Tyranny, where an entire town can be absent from the game just because you did something in the character creator.

This is a problem of scope I think.

Tyranny gets away with it because it does 2 very specific things:

1) - It is VERY short and small. Also not open world.
2) - The game railroads you past the first act.

And yeah I want more games like Tyranny, but there is an obvious reason why that does not happen.

Yeah you make a lot of sense. there's this hyperbole on gaf that F3 was basically the worst game ever and FNV is the greatest RPG of all time, but they are more similar than dissimilar. in fact I never really even noticed the difference and my friends and I never discussed any differences other than a new world, some cool stuff.

mostly it comes down to the rpg... if you were all about the story options and rpg mechanics, chances are you will love NV. I on the other hand skip through half the story and focus on exploring, shooting, collecting, etc. so I hate to say it here but yeah I never really knew there was a difference until reading on here. also I didn't really like the vegas strip in NV, just thought it was kind of bland and boring. lots to do though.

This is not GAF as a whole, just the cRPG community on Gaf.

And given that what sort of game FO3 aspired to be and the sort of game FO4 is, the PoV is understandable.

The idea that New Vegas and FO3 are more similar than not is an idea I cannot get behind though.

 

[carlsojo]

I'd really like the good examples of writing from F3 if you want to sustain FNV writing is on the same level or poorer (which is perfectly possible, you might have higher standards - but you need to show them).

And please, please don't tell me it's anything John Eden or 3Dog says. I can't handle it.



Alright that's it you're trolling

Bye

Deep analysis gets called trolling now?

 

[Keinning]

Deep analysis gets called trolling now?

By all means show me how New Vegas is as limited in choices as Fallout 4 instead of saying it is.

I can't wait to respond it

 

[Rushersauce]

When it comes to Fallout, never ever listen/read DocZeuss posts.

 

[Roni]

I'm lining up mods for a replay. Never finished all of the DLC's and there's a ton of stuff from the main game I haven't seen.

From what I've seen, I'll have something close to a next-gen experience playing this time around.

 

[HStallion]

I feel like both games let me do 'everything' on a micro level (individual quests), but New Vegas is better on that macro level (faction stuff), although Fallout 4 definitely made some strides in that direction (though in general, not wild about Fallout 4's factions).

I love giving players options, but only when those options have the chance to bite players in the butt. It's one thing I'm loving about Original Sin 2 right now. My choices have resulted in me not being able to do everything. I felt like, factions aside, you could do everything in New Vegas because the quests allowed it. It's also a problem I have with Bethesda's games, and it's one of the reasons I feel that going "New Vegas good, Fallout 3/4 bad" is a mistake, because they're really not that different in this regard. Both developers let anyone do everything.

Because adding complexity to the game didn't really change it. You can still play like a low-int player or a pyromaniac or whatever, but this is mostly dialogue option stuff. It's not like you're cut off from certain quests (aside from faction stuff) because of who you choose to play as.

I feel like New Vegas and Fallout 4 are pretty much identical in terms of their limited choice and consequence; New Vegas has more choices, but the consequences still don't MATTER. What I want is more games like Tyranny, where an entire town can be absent from the game just because you did something in the character creator.

I don't follow this at all. There are tons of ways for your decisions and actions to have negative reactions and repercussions that are not limited to the faction system. For example putting your intelligence as low as it could go would vastly alter how the game would play out from dialogue options to being totally unable to take on certain quests or interact with certain characters and having a notable different experience than playing the game in any other matter.

Fall Out 3 takes this on to some extent but like many things I thought New Vegas played with it a lot more including some rather hilarious dialogue options. That and I found the Survival mode made for a much more unforgiving game that could leave you totally screwed if you didn't strip search every location and horde everything you found.

Edit: That and I think your Tyranny example is a poor one as someone else pointed out and something like the Witcher 2 and how it handled the second major area based on your choices.

 

[CrichtonKicks]

And that's where the roleplaying element - and Fallout's tabletop origins - come into play.

It's not just "I am Sir RPG Protagonist, I will pick the most optimum strat to eliminate enemies X, Y, and Z, and then level up," you're attempting to roleplay a character and decide what makes the most sense for them. Giving the Courier a blank slate backstory and the widest amount of gameplay and moral options available is to facilitate this. It's also to allow the player to wonder "can I do that? why? would that be a different playstyle for me to enjoy?" One of the goals of Van Buren's perk system was to specifically give the player new unique options that would be more likely to encourage them to change or modify their playstyle, and you can see the same thing in NV, where perks are very rarely sweeping general stat boosts but end up having some condition regarding what kind of weapon, what kind of speech interaction, what kind of enemy you're facing, etc. Taken individually they might be "meaningless" because you could achieve the same goals in another way, but they're meant to be seen as a toolkit that fits your preference.

And yes, this works. NV, just like FO1 and 2, has had me roll characters with specific ideologies and playstyles in mind, only for me to shift said playstyle not due to min-maxing, but because the writing and gameplay options given to me suggested ways that character could change and evolve naturally. I've never felt that urge in FO3 or 4, where your character just seems to say whatever and the optimum solution is always just being the best gun-man in the world (especially bad in 3, where you can infamously become a nigh invincible murder god by the time you reach level 10 and coast through the rest of the game because you can just keep picking experience and combat perks).

Bethesda Fallout's design is actively antithetical to that philosophy. They increasingly predefine who your character is, and attempt to quickly gate you into binary gameplay and moral choices that stick for the rest of the game because you have no incentive to do anything differently.

Thank you for this. More than any other game I've played except for FO1 and 2, of course, New Vegas lets me create an initial concept of a character including backstory, personality, interests and hobbies, all the way down to specifics of a clothing style and gives me the full game toolset to roleplay that character for the duration of the game.

 

[Grady]

Loved fallout 3. Returned new Vegas first week out. Sooo broken on the 360 during release. My least favorite fallout. Fallout 4 is quite boring though.

 

[Ultimadrago]

New Vegas certainly utilized more stat/perk flags in dialogue compared to Fallout 3, which I enjoyed. It didn't always create drastic changes, but added some roleplay seasoning to the dialogue.

 

[Keinning]

Fallout 3 is the one hiding the same outcomes behind the illusion of choices. It's either black or white (megaton, tenpenny, andale) or being railroaded into a thing (the entire main quest, specifically the destiny of enclave and colonel autumn). Fallout 4 doesn't even pretend to give you a choice, it's white all the time.

Compare that to all the different ways you can get your information from deputy beagle in primm to continue the main quest. Which you can follow as the game wants you to or skip to any point in the future you feel like skipping. And then all the ways you can deal with the Strip, and with the different major settlements for House/NCR/Legion. Yup, the game with guiness record breaking dialogue lines and hundreds of ending slides changing according to your actions had the same amount of consequence than Fallout "literally the same video playing in the end regardless of what you done" 4. I'm not trolling, don't dismiss my good faith arguments (which i never enter in detail)

 

[Raven117]

Yes. And a consultant. And I have spent the last five years explaining game mechanics for game websites. Occasionally, they get GAF threads. I used to bring it up on GAF 'cause I was excited about it and all, but people often took that as "look, I'm better than you," and that's not how I want to be perceived. So like... I'm glad you noticed. It makes me warm and tingly inside. But I've been trying to downplay it. I just really like having in-depth conversations with people about mechanics. Today, I was talking about ammo pickups and how to best encourage players to move around the map (respawning crates vs enemy ammo drops) and I was having the time of my life. I love talkin mechanics with people.

I'm definitely idiosyncratic about this stuff, so I'm totally cool with people disagreeing with me, because I understand my perspective is not the consensus. I don't think JRPGs are RPGs, for the most part. They're more like adventure games. And that's cool--Earthbound is amazing, and I loves me some Digimon: Cyber Sleuth, but I don't really think they're RPGs. Some people take this as an insult. For me it's just like saying "a cat is not a dog." It's just a thing.

I think distinctions in design are meaningful--acknowledging that NV and Witcher are trying to accomplish different things is useful. There's no reason to get on Witcher's case because NV lets you do even more things to design your character.



I feel like both games let me do 'everything' on a micro level (individual quests), but New Vegas is better on that macro level (faction stuff), although Fallout 4 definitely made some strides in that direction (though in general, not wild about Fallout 4's factions).

I love giving players options, but only when those options have the chance to bite players in the butt. It's one thing I'm loving about Original Sin 2 right now. My choices have resulted in me not being able to do everything. I felt like, factions aside, you could do everything in New Vegas because the quests allowed it. It's also a problem I have with Bethesda's games, and it's one of the reasons I feel that going "New Vegas good, Fallout 3/4 bad" is a mistake, because they're really not that different in this regard. Both developers let anyone do everything.

Because adding complexity to the game didn't really change it. You can still play like a low-int player or a pyromaniac or whatever, but this is mostly dialogue option stuff. It's not like you're cut off from certain quests (aside from faction stuff) because of who you choose to play as.

I feel like New Vegas and Fallout 4 are pretty much identical in terms of their limited choice and consequence; New Vegas has more choices, but the consequences still don't MATTER. What I want is more games like Tyranny, where an entire town can be absent from the game just because you did something in the character creator.



I disagree. That's really all it is.

I edited my response to say the distinction of RPG vs Non-RPG from a player perspective I don't think matters very much, but as you have eloquently described, very much matters from a developer design and philosophy standpoint.

It is unfortunate that some folks on Gaf somehow takes offense to ...ya know....actual game design philosophy. Sounds like you love what you do, and thats awesome! Shame some folks on here cant cheer you on for it.

Can't agree with you enough on the bolded, and why to me, Bethesda games loose alot of charm once you realize in the game world (for me about 35 hours) that the things you are doing are not affecting the game world at all. At least with New Vegas, even if just the small contained narrative, you felt like you were affecting something. Was it a sweeping world change? No. But it felt like you did something.

In any event, thank you for taking the time to post. And congrats on your gig! Pretty freakin' sweet if you ask me.

 

[CrichtonKicks]

I used a mod, but we're talking like four years ago. I don't remember what it was, just that it was one of the top mods on the Nexus at the time? Heck, it might have been right when the game actually released?? There were forum threads complaining about the aiming being really inaccurate compared to Fallout 3.

This is blowing my mind. I have literally never heard someone say the shooting was better in FO3. Even trying to search this now I can't find anything showing people preferring FO3 shooting.

There was a pretty clear progression in gun mechanics from FO3->FO3 Wanderer's Edition (mod)->FO:NV->FO:NV Project Nevada (mod)-> Fallout 4.

Hell one of the reasons that people like the Tale of Two Wasteland mod so much is because it allows you to play Fallout 3 using New Vegas' systems because NV is almost universally viewed as an improvement in that area.

 

[Lostconfused]

People refusing to acknowledge that Bethesda are one of the best developers on the planet, ignoring all the amazing bits of game design that go into making their games so wildly successful... it's hard not to see those people as grumpy assholes who can never be happy about anything. New Vegas feels like a game that gets a lot of love for what it could have been, rather than for what it is, which is a dissatisfying shooter with awful world design and a boring story.

Nonsense. I'll have to read all of your posts later but the basic game structure of New Vegas is better than anything in Fallout 3 or 4.

New Vegas starts of with a basic tutorial hub for the player and over reaching goal that's far off in the distance. Then the player is given basic directions towards their first major objective. After that they follow a relatively straight line with a few minor branching points on the side.

This lets the person get acquainted with the game, get comfortable with it, start to feel like they know what they are doing. This helps avoiding choice paralysis of "here's a huge open world do whatever the fuck" and prepares them for the later part of the game where it does become a lot more open after the player reaches New Vegas.

It's pretty decent design for an RPG. If you instead want to play a post apocalyptic survival game on a large map then go play the STALKER series because they are superior to all of Bethesda published Fallout titles.

Edit: It's a bit rude to just ignore this whole 3 page convo you got going but the part I quoted is just bullshit and you are guilty of the very thing you are complaining about. Dismissing everyone's personal opinion as "refusing" or just "grumpy" is some real shit and makes you no better than the supposed people you calling out.

 

[Big_Al]

Nonsense. I'll have to read all of your posts later but the basic game structure of New Vegas is better than anything in Fallout 3 or 4.

New Vegas starts of with a basic tutorial hub for the player and over reaching goal that's far off in the distance. Then the player is given basic directions towards their first major objective. After that they follow a relatively straight line with a few minor branching points on the side.

This lets the person get acquainted with the game, get comfortable with it, start to feel like they know what they are doing. This helps avoiding choice paralysis of "here's a huge open world do whatever the fuck" and prepares them for the later part of the game where it does become a lot more open after the player reaches New Vegas.

It's pretty decent design for an RPG. If you instead want to play a post apocalyptic survival game on a large map then go play the STALKER series because they are superior to all of Bethesda published Fallout titles.

Edit: It's a bit rude to just ignore this whole 3 page convo you got going but the part I quoted is just bullshit and you are guilty of the very thing you are complaining about. Dismissing everyone's personal opinion as "refusing" or just "grumpy" is some real shit and makes you no better than the supposed people you calling out.

If I remember correctly Doc likes the STALKER series but is also one of the few people who prefers Clear Skies over the other two (you can correct me if I'm wrong here Doc). That's an opinion I don't see common amongst STALKER fans in general

 

[DocSeuss]

This is a problem of scope I think.

Tyranny gets away with it because it does 2 very specific things:

1) - It is VERY short and small. Also not open world.
2) - The game railroads you past the first act.

And yeah I want more games like Tyranny, but there is an obvious reason why that does not happen.

I agree. And let's not forget that New Vegas was developed in less than two years. With more time, they might have done better. But as a critic, I can really only look at what is in front of me, and I feel that a lot of New Vegas' decisions are meaningless ones.

I don't follow this at all. There are tons of ways for your decisions and actions to have negative reactions and repercussions that are not limited to the faction system. For example putting your intelligence as low as it could go would vastly alter how the game would play out from dialogue options to being totally unable to take on certain quests or interact with certain characters and having a notable different experience than playing the game in any other matter.

Fall Out 3 takes this on to some extent but like many things I thought New Vegas played with it a lot more including some rather hilarious dialogue options. That and I found the Survival mode made for a much more unforgiving game that could leave you totally screwed if you didn't strip search every location and horde everything you found.

Edit: That and I think your Tyranny example is a poor one as someone else pointed out and something like the Witcher 2 and how it handled the second major area based on your choices.

I don't think Tyranny is a poor example when explaining how I think decisions should work vs how they work in the game. Based on every Obsidian game I've played, it feels like a lot of their other games just try to let everyone play the way they want without offering meaningful consequences based on that. I think most of the time, this isn't Obsidian's fault (what up KOTOR 2!), but the end result can still be criticized.

I edited my response to say the distinction of RPG vs Non-RPG from a player perspective I don't think matters very much, but as you have eloquently described, very much matters from a developer design and philosophy standpoint.

It is unfortunate that some folks on Gaf somehow takes offense to ...ya know....actual game design philosophy. Sounds like you love what you do, and thats awesome! Shame some folks on here cant cheer you on for it.

Can't agree with you enough on the bolded, and why to me, Bethesda games loose alot of charm once you realize in the game world (for me about 35 hours) that the things you are doing are not affecting the game world at all. At least with New Vegas, even if just the small contained narrative, you felt like you were affecting something. Was it a sweeping world change? No. But it felt like you did something.

In any event, thank you for taking the time to post. And congrats on your gig! Pretty freakin' sweet if you ask me.

Nah, I was pretty flippant a while back. Was like super sick one day, browsing GAF, totally did the "I know what I'm talking about, I'm a pro" thing, and people took it way too far, so I try to be more cautious about it. Though there is a definite issue with trying to downplay the expertise of others.

Hopefully my gig starts paying better soon. Been working pretty much for free on this indie game. Sent a build to a prospective publisher last night. Fingers crossed they give us what we ask 'em for.

This is blowing my mind. I have literally never heard someone say the shooting was better in FO3. Even trying to search this now I can't find anything showing people preferring FO3 shooting.

There was a pretty clear progression in gun mechanics from FO3->FO3 Wanderer's Edition (mod)->FO:NV->FO:NV Project Nevada (mod)-> Fallout 4.

Hell one of the reasons that people like the Tale of Two Wasteland mod so much is because it allows you to play Fallout 3 using New Vegas' systems because NV is almost universally viewed as an improvement in that area.

I believe this had to do with other mechanics than the shooting. I don't think people wanted TTW because the guns felt better to use in NV as much as TTW uses a lot of other things, like the dramatically improved perk system, reputation system, and the like. I could be totally wrong! Maybe a lot of NV fans are totally into that shooting system. I'm not, and I remember a lot of people being pissed about it years ago.

Nonsense. I'll have to read all of your posts later but the basic game structure of New Vegas is better than anything in Fallout 3 or 4.

New Vegas starts of with a basic tutorial hub for the player and over reaching goal that's far off in the distance. Then the player is given basic directions towards their first major objective. After that they follow a relatively straight line with a few minor branching points on the side.

This lets the person get acquainted with the game, get comfortable with it, start to feel like they know what they are doing. This helps avoiding choice paralysis of "here's a huge open world do whatever the fuck" and prepares them for the later part of the game where it does become a lot more open after the player reaches New Vegas.

It's pretty decent design for an RPG. If you instead want to play a post apocalyptic survival game on a large map then go play the STALKER series because they are superior to all of Bethesda published Fallout titles.

Edit: It's a bit rude to just ignore this whole 3 page convo you got going but the part I quoted is just bullshit and you are guilty of the very thing you are complaining about. Dismissing everyone's personal opinion as "refusing" or just "grumpy" is some real shit and makes you no better than the supposed people you calling out.

Yo, since STALKER is my favorite game ever, I'm always down to play it.

I think you're overlooking something when you talk about starting the game, which is that Bethesda does that! They have "The tutorial section" dungeon that starts all their games, then they use a really good weenie to sort of point you in the right direction. They're so good at their level design that nearly every player will go where they want them to--the intro area--while giving players the choice to do anything. New Vegas doesn't give you that choice. In many ways, its first several hours are a lot like Fallout 3's vault/Fallout 4's past, just that it plays at being more open than it is, and I feel that the "definitely limited area moving into totally open area" is better than "wasting a lot of the map on a fairly empty tutorial zone."

Personal preference of course.

And I don't feel there's anything wrong being annoyed by the grognards who can't talk about New Vegas without ranting about Fallout 3 and 4.

Don't tear another game down just to prop another game up. Let New Vegas stand on its own merits. Whining about other games--great games, though not necessarily in direct comparison. And I think that behavior should be called out. If people are gonna be grumpy assholes who can't stand that games they don't like are successful, I'm going to point out that's shitty behavior. I find it hilarious that people get so mad and take it so seriously, like it's some big moral problem. I think we should make fun of this kind of dumbshit rage. Grognards are one of gaming's worst aspects.

If I remember correctly Doc likes the STALKER series but is also one of the few people who prefers Clear Skies over the other two (you can correct me if I'm wrong here Doc). That's an opinion I don't see common amongst STALKER fans in general

Clear Sky is great, but most people don't like it because A) it was only about half new maps (which I like 'cause I felt it made the zone more real) and B) it has missions that can be failed without you doing anything (because the world exists independently of you). I loved that sense of hopelessness and "the world doesn't exist for my pleasure." People liked Call of Pripyat because it didn't lose points they'd captured and didn't fail missions without them being present. It's great if you're into 100%ing games. It's not great if you're into artificial realities, which I am.

Playing Divinity now, may forget to return to this thread.

 

[Keinning]

Don't tear another game down just to prop another game up.

Said the guy coming on an Obsidian thread to bash New Vegas while propping up aspects of 3 and 4 (without ever mentioning them) and defending poor, unjustified bethesda. Are you for real now?

chances are high that you're going to respond this post while you still ignore all the others where i argued back, though, just to show how people are "hating on you" without arguing back. here's hoping!

 

[Buckle]

All I remember is nonstop complaining around release while I was falling in love with it. A lot of it about bugs but thats pretty much par for the course with gamebryo at release, don't know why NV got it so much harder than the others.

Easily my favorite game of the modern Bethesda style Fallouts. Would give anything for another Obsidian Fallout.

 

[Screaming Meat]

While I have great admiration and respect for Obsidian, I think people forget how genuinely awful New Vegas is in basic moment-to-moment gameplay because there's more reliance on RPG stats than there should be in a fuckin real-time video game.

Don't you mean than there should be in "a fuckin real-time RPG", right?

 

[TheYanger]

I love how hardcore gamers get mad that Fallout 4 is dramatically more successful (and higher rated on metacritic lol) than New Vegas.

While I have great admiration and respect for Obsidian, I think people forget how genuinely awful New Vegas is in basic moment-to-moment gameplay because there's more reliance on RPG stats than there should be in a fuckin real-time video game. It's got a couple great quests and mostly mediocre writing throughout. There's just not that much of a difference between what Bethesda and Obsidian did.

Could Obsidian have made a better game than they did? Yeah. They had basically no time to make the game. Can't hold it against them.

But people like Bethesda's games more because Bethesda makes dramatically better worlds and systems. *shrug*

Wish Obsidian had the time to make something great, but other than the one cannibal quest in New Vegas, and the overall aesthetic, the game really isn't that great.

People refusing to acknowledge that Bethesda are one of the best developers on the planet, ignoring all the amazing bits of game design that go into making their games so wildly successful... it's hard not to see those people as grumpy assholes who can never be happy about anything. New Vegas feels like a game that gets a lot of love for what it could have been, rather than for what it is, which is a dissatisfying shooter with awful world design and a boring story.

Your comkplaint about RPG stats should be directed at Bethesda, not Obsidian, that's just the engine they had to make the game in and it's largely the same as fo3.

Bethesda makes vastly shittier RPGs than Obsidian when it comes to player agency in writing and quests, they do a bette rjob of making large, mostly empty/pointless worlds, which is what FO3 and FO4 are.

The same quest written by Bethesda would have some comically good and evil choice at the end, and no ramifications beyond itself, where an Obsidian one would have a multitiude of ways to finish it, perhaps some moral grey area, and possibly even have an effect on other things down the road. Almost like Fallout 1 and 2! and every other good CRPG of the 90s.

 

[Lostconfused]

I'm taking that one step further and arguing that the ability to do what you want only matters if there are situations where you can't as well.

If a game always lets you act how you want to act, it's not really true to life, is it?

You might as well say not playing the game is a choice you are giving to the player. It's like saying the twist in Bioshock is actually a choice for the player where they turn off their console and walk away. Philosophically meaningful but fucking retarded for a commercial product like video games.

Said the guy coming on an Obsidian thread to bash New Vegas while propping up aspects of 3 and 4 (without ever mentioning them) and defending poor, unjustified bethesda. Are you for real now?

chances are high that you're going to respond this post while you still ignore all the others where i argued back, though, just to show how people are "hating on you" without arguing back. here's hoping!

This is an extreme stance, but I kinda agree with it. The first few posts in the thread were way too confrontational and kinda hypocritical. They mellow out into a somewhat reasonable discussion later, but not a good opening argument.

 

[Buckle]

Really been seven years since New Vegas was released.

Jesus. Time flies.

 

[joecanada]

This is a problem of scope I think.

Tyranny gets away with it because it does 2 very specific things:

1) - It is VERY short and small. Also not open world.
2) - The game railroads you past the first act.

And yeah I want more games like Tyranny, but there is an obvious reason why that does not happen.



This is not GAF as a whole, just the cRPG community on Gaf.

And given that what sort of game FO3 aspired to be and the sort of game FO4 is, the PoV is understandable.

The idea that New Vegas and FO3 are more similar than not is an idea I cannot get behind though.

Think about if you just gave any random gamer both games and said here play for an hour. Do you honestly think they would say " wow NV is clearly leagues better" . That's not to say I don't appreciate NV and I do appreciate it even more for having read RPG gafs opinion to the tune of I just bought it on gog .... But yes they are quite similar when I first played them I actually played NV less because it was just " more of the same" ... I was burnt out on the formula.

 

[robotrock]

Who else came in here expecting a thread about KOTOR 2 (the GOAT)

 

[CrichtonKicks]

I believe this had to do with other mechanics than the shooting. I don't think people wanted TTW because the guns felt better to use in NV as much as TTW uses a lot of other things, like the dramatically improved perk system, reputation system, and the like. I could be totally wrong! Maybe a lot of NV fans are totally into that shooting system. I'm not, and I remember a lot of people being pissed about it years ago.

This is what I want to see some sort of evidence from. I have literally have never heard anything like this from anyone but you.

You are normally 100% fine being the guy with the idiosyncratic opinion and don't seem they type to use the masses as some sort of backup for your opinions but you keep going back to this like its some widespread opinion that NV had worse shooting mechanics. It's not.

 

[OG Shaka Zulu]

This is my next rpg when I'm done with P5.

 

[CHC]

It's weird, but I find Obsidian to be one of the most absolutely overrated (by game enthusiasts) developers, but I also really like that they exist and what they do.

I can never manage to finish their games (though I usually get like 40 hours in!). There is just a certain something they all seem to be missing - New Vegas, for example, I find to be one of the most overrated games on this whole forum.

Again, I'm glad they're around and I want to love their games, I just never manage to complete them or really fall in love. They're full of some really cool ideas, I just never enjoy them in the short term. I feel like their charaters are usually kind of boring or overwritten, and the games just aren't that rewarding on a moment to moment basis - there's few "small pleasures" in them for me.

 

[RenegadeXV8]

Yeah you make a lot of sense. there's this hyperbole on gaf that F3 was basically the worst game ever and FNV is the greatest RPG of all time, but they are more similar than dissimilar. in fact I never really even noticed the difference and my friends and I never discussed any differences other than a new world, some cool stuff.

mostly it comes down to the rpg... if you were all about the story options and rpg mechanics, chances are you will love NV. I on the other hand skip through half the story and focus on exploring, shooting, collecting, etc. so I hate to say it here but yeah I never really knew there was a difference until reading on here. also I didn't really like the vegas strip in NV, just thought it was kind of bland and boring. lots to do though.

Think about if you just gave any random gamer both games and said here play for an hour. Do you honestly think they would say " wow NV is clearly leagues better" . That's not to say I don't appreciate NV and I do appreciate it even more for having read RPG gafs opinion to the tune of I just bought it on gog .... But yes they are quite similar when I first played them I actually played NV less because it was just " more of the same" ... I was burnt out on the formula.

Stop being disingenuous.

You're basically saying if you're the type of gamer that doesn't care about RPG mechanics, story or writing and ignore all the differences between these two games, then they're pretty similar!

Yeah, no shit. You can say that about any two games in the same genre.

 

[Yort]

Who else came in here expecting a thread about KOTOR 2 (the GOAT)

I did too, but I'm definitely in the Kotor 2 > Kotor 1 and NV > FO3 camp.

 

[Conciliator]

some of the harshest fire I have ever received on these boards has been from when I once said that I thought Fallout 3 was better than New Vegas

which I'm not sure I would stand by today, but I still think FO3 has a distinct flavor that is worthwhile. And some underrated questlines(like

Spoiler

Tree Harold

)

 

[Irobot82]

To me Fallout 3 and 4 you were the hero and the story revolved around you. In New Vegas you were just a person and you could help the world around you or screw them all (I did). The story was the world around you and you were experiencing it.

 

[AntraxSuicide]

Edit: It's a bit rude to just ignore this whole 3 page convo you got going but the part I quoted is just bullshit and you are guilty of the very thing you are complaining about. Dismissing everyone's personal opinion as "refusing" or just "grumpy" is some real shit and makes you no better than the supposed people you calling out.

As someone playing NV for the first time, I agree with him. In my opinion, I'd rather have Skyrim than NV in this regard.

To spin it another way, I think it would definitely be a mistake to just add Legendary dragons all around Solitude in Skyrim just to drag you towards Ivarstead, even if you could scheme your way past them. But this is literally how NV works. If you prefer that, cool. But I think Doc's point is that the prevalent attitude of "NV is the Citizen Kane of western RPGs" isn't so clear for a lot of people.

It's interesting that everyone hyping NV to me used the argument that it's based around tabletop mechanics when the game is designed in a way that, if it were a tabletop game, would have players telling their DM to stop telling them where to go and let the party do it instead.

 

[Lostconfused]

This is what I want to see some sort of evidence from. I have literally have never heard anything like this from anyone but you.

You are normally 100% fine being the guy with the idiosyncratic opinion and don't seem they type to use the masses as some sort of backup for your opinions but you keep going back to this like its some widespread opinion that NV had worse shooting mechanics. It's not.

well there is this mod which seems to be around the time of the release

https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/34723

 

[Renekton]

To me Fallout 3 and 4 you were the hero and the story revolved around you. In New Vegas you were just a person and you could help the world around you or screw them all (I did). The story was the world around you and you were experiencing it.

3 not really. Most of 3 focused on the world and Liam Neeson.

 

[Irobot82]

3 not really. Most of 3 focused on the world and Liam Neeson.

To me it felt like you were chosen son to continue where I failed. It's not like you couldn't save everything right? You had to fix it?

In New Vegas I was helping the Brotherhood and NCR until the NCR wanted me to kill the Brotherhood or something. I kind of said screw you both, killed Caesar's Legion on the Dam, then the NCR was all like thanks, I threw a Holy Hand Grenade on those fools and also made sure Mr. House was dead and let all the people be free to make their own future. Now that is choice!

I was surprised at the linearity of the game, at least early on. There were quests I could do, but a lot of them I felt like I was to underleveled for them to play them how I wanted (like the quest in the starting town defending it from convicts), but for the most part I was just funneled along to the Vegas Strip before I could do much of anything else.

In Fallout 3 i felt pushed to drive the narrative forward and never felt like I should be exploring. But in both FO:NV and Skyrim I felt like I was meant to explore the world and discover things, I never felt like I was being fulled to the main quest. I probably put 50+ hours into both before really pushing hard on the main story.

 

[Rodney McKay]

A lot of the map is either trying to be realistic (and thus unfun; way too many flat, boring areas) or is just unfinished (see: all the invisible walls), and it spends a lot of time making you play in a linear structure rather than taking advantage of its open world design.

Bolded is one of the main things I disliked about New Vegas. I remember hitting a pretty massive invisible wall and I remember think how ridiculous it was in one of these Open World RPGs. Either make walls I can't climb, or let me get there how I want, don't just throw an invisible wall there.

I was surprised at the linearity of the game, at least early on. There were quests I could do, but a lot of them I felt like I was to underleveled for them to play them how I wanted (like the quest in the starting town defending it from convicts), but for the most part I was just funneled along to the Vegas Strip before I could do much of anything else.

 

[CrichtonKicks]

well there is this mod which seems to be around the time of the release

https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/34723

Right but that mod's description includes both FO3 and NV into what it's changing.

And there are lots and lots of great mods that improve NV's shooting.

I'm specifically trying to find out what was different (and worse) about NV's shooting compared to FO3's that supposedly had widespread criticism at the time of release.

Bolded is one of the main things I disliked about New Vegas. I remember hitting a pretty massive invisible wall and I remember think how ridiculous it was in one of these Open World RPGs. Either make walls I can't climb, or let me get there how I want, don't just throw an invisible wall there.

I was surprised at the linearity of the game, at least early on. There were quests I could do, but a lot of them I felt like I was to underleveled for them to play them how I wanted (like the quest in the starting town defending it from convicts), but for the most part I was just funneled along to the Vegas Strip before I could do much of anything else.

Yeah in the article in the OP, JE Sawyer specifically says the invisible walls were something that he regrets.

That said, you are not funneled to the strip before things open up at all. You pretty much have to navigate almost half the wasteland to get to the strip in the "intended order" and there is all kinds of things you can do in that time. Hell you can spend hours and hours just doing the sidequests triggered out of Novac.

 

[AntraxSuicide]

Also, I'm a bit surprised people care enough to defend the shooting in NV. I've played a lot of both first and third person shooters, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the developer behind the shooting had never played a game before and had the genre/mechanics read to them by someone else. Except the reception was bad. And the written description was in a language that the reader barely spoke.

If it wasn't for VATS, I'd have uninstalled the game after the first combat encounter.

 

[Onemic]

I just wish New Vegas didnt look ugly as sin. Man, that engine looked bad even when FO3 was brand new.

 

[fester]

Thank you for this. More than any other game I've played except for FO1 and 2, of course, New Vegas lets me create an initial concept of a character including backstory, personality, interests and hobbies, all the way down to specifics of a clothing style and gives me the full game toolset to roleplay that character for the duration of the game.

I completely agree.

Bethesda really deviated from the original RPG mechanics of the first two games, with FO3 being a significant step away and FO4 dropping all pretense. At this point the series seems more aligned with an FPS, and it's obviously been very popular; but if traditional roleplaying elements are what you were expecting, it's no wonder that FNV would resonate more as the better game.

 

[pezzie]

Unlike most of Gaf, I really liked Bethesda's Fallout games. 3 and 4 were both a blast to play for me, and I'm currently in the middle of a second playthrough of 4. Both are solid B games to me, and I've spent over 100 hours on them.

That having been said, Fallout New Vegas is easily one of my five favorite games ever. I played through that one at least 4 or 5 times, something I almost never do these days, simply because the play style you could choose to be like in that game. It is the first and still the only RPG I actually decided before playing what my character was going to be like. This guy will really suck at guns and will try to talk his way out of everything. I loved that you could actually get around almost everything in that game that way.

 

[CrichtonKicks]

I just wish New Vegas didnt look ugly as sin. Man, that engine looked bad even when FO3 was brand new.

Mods really help out a tremendous amount thankfully. I never understood why the engine that made Skyrim and Oblivion look so nice was such a freakshow when translated to the wasteland.

Also, I'm a bit surprised people care enough to defend the shooting in NV. I've played a lot of both first and third person shooters, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the developer behind the shooting had never played a game before and had the genre/mechanics read to them by someone else. Except the reception was bad. And the written description was in a language that the reader barely spoke.

If it wasn't for VATS, I'd have uninstalled the game after the first combat encounter.

It's less about defending NV's shooting and more about incredulity that anyone could find FO3's shooting better. NV at least added in true iron sights, a better weapon skill balance, and the DT system.

Modded NV adds a lot more to the point of getting the shooting in pretty respectable shape.

 

[Brad Grenz]

Who else came in here expecting a thread about KOTOR 2 (the GOAT)

There are legitimately 4 games that this thread topic could have been referring to.

 

[Keinning]

Also, I'm a bit surprised people care enough to defend the shooting in NV.

The shooting is ass
We are surprised someone is saying F3 shooting, which was ass and a half, was better

 

[Renekton]

To me it felt like you were chosen son to continue where I failed. It's not like you couldn't save everything right? You had to fix it?

There wasn't a chosen one narrative around the protagonist in FO3, unless you count being instantly trusted to fix problems. The whole design is to make your character take a backseat to the world-building of Bethesda's version of Fallout.

After the world-building, Liam Neeson was the star and you merely followed breadcrumbs. The original ending even let you wimp out.