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So why didn't Fallout 4 live up to the greatness of 3

ScHlAuChi

Member
Fallout 4 was great - except for the writing!

All quests were go to point X and kill monsters. Not a single interesting side quest akin to Tenpenny Tower or Antagonizer.

For Fallout 5 they should take a look at Witcher 3 or FO3/NV to see how its done!
 

Aonuma

Member
Fallout 4 was great - except for the writing!

All quests were go to point X and kill monsters. Not a single interesting side quest akin to Tenpenny Tower or Antagonizer.

For Fallout 5 they should take a look at Witcher 3 or FO3/NV to see how its done!

The robot murder mystery vault was pretty good, but overall they definitely were lacking in originality compared to previous games.
 

Wulfram

Member
Fallout 4 was great - except for the writing!

All quests were go to point X and kill monsters. Not a single interesting side quest akin to Tenpenny Tower or Antagonizer.

For Fallout 5 they should take a look at Witcher 3 or FO3/NV to see how its done!

This is getting semantic, but I would argue the writing is generally pretty good at what its trying to do.

Its the quest design that people object to, because it is so simplified and linear.
 

Bickle2

Member
The obsession with crafting, aka busywork.

Crafting is stupid. It’s simply there to draw thr game out. It’s only purpose is to waste your time. I hate Skyrim, stopped playing that and sold it in teo hours. Making fallout more like Skyrim just made it that much worse.

The story and characters weren’t nearly as engaging, I was getting murdered regularly even at level 20, nothing felt the awe that was 3. I went back and played 3 again after it came out. It was still way more satisfying. Still haven’t come close to finishing 4.

I hope it’s up next for a remaster. The PC version was gorgeous.
 

Dogavir

Neo Member
For me it was the way the game was set up.
Personal anecdote: After 3's intro, you are placed into the world. You have the obvious town you could go to, or you could explore.
With 4, I did the first setpiece, and then was introduced to base building. I was instantly overwhelmed. I thought "Is this necessary? Do they expect me to do this with this crap UI? What do I even need to do?" And I just...stopped. I didn't even go out into the world because collecting bits and bobs to build something clunky and obtuse didn't seem fun even though I looooved 3. I regret never getting back into it, and I guess I still can, but not before I watch a guide or read a FAQ or something to learn how much the basebuilding is required or if I can completely skip it, which I'd prefer.
This is EXACTLY how I felt. The instant I saw crafting and base building, I immediately thought ”not this sh*t again" and stopped playing it. I absolutely hate crafting and base building, and I wish games would stop trying to force it in. It seems like unnecessary busy work. I just want to play the game and move the story forward. Is that too much to ask for?
You can skip basebuilding entirely.
Actually, never getting back to Sanctuary at the beginning, I didn't realize basebuilding was possible until 40 hours into the game.
Technically you are required to do settlement building in a tiny way for 2 quests, but it is basically just open the menu place down X object and you are done, everything else is optional.

I played FO4 more than FO3 so it must have something good to it, mainly gameplay, I really liked the gameplay in FO4, but I still think 3 was cooler, being able to be a good\bad guy with consequences in the game was really nice.
Also voice acting made the character sound boring (in italian).
 

GC_DALBEN

Member
I liked F4 but f3 and new vegas where better, the new dialogue system killed it :(. F4 is a good game ;), but i replayed f3 and Nv a few times, i just cant come back to f4, and i tried at least 3 times.
 
Well it's give and take. 3 and new Vegas had better rpg elements, but awful gunplay. So the answer depends on what is important to you. I think new Vegas was the worst due to uninspired setting, faction bantering, and crippling bugs and glitches (YEAH, even for a fallout game)
 

Peace Tea

Member
Q&A testing the settlement stuff/Minecraft-pitch is something that hogged plenty of development resources is my guess. Opportunities given up.

That and having a voiced protagonist seemed like an odd change, mainly because it was introduced alongside poor character development. The Witcher 3 has a voiced protagonist, but it doesn't seem bothersome given most surrounding characters are well developed and retain actual personality (in main/side quest cutscenes).

That & no longer having concrete dialogue responses didn't help either. Instead players were given the face button tree, with sort of emotional summaries of what would be said, then plenty of times, the actual voice line didn't match the players expectation (given such a general summary).
 
Well it's give and take. 3 and new Vegas had better rpg elements, but awful gunplay. So the answer depends on what is important to you. I think new Vegas was the worst due to uninspired setting, faction bantering, and crippling bugs and glitches (YEAH, even for a fallout game)

Agreed. I do like FNV but Obsidian really dropped the ball when it came to creating an inspired setting to explore. I suspect that the short development timeline was one of the causes for that. It's a shame that FNVs great RPG elements didn't get to shine in a game world as intriguing as Fallout 3's. That first moment when you step out of Vault 101 in F3 was a "Mario 64 moment" for me.
 

120v

Member
Q&A testing the settlement stuff/Minecraft-pitch is something that hogged plenty of development resources is my guess. Opportunities given up.
.

i kind of doubt it... seemed like a fairly resource insensitive aspect of the game. though i imagine they thought it was way more fun than it really was

i think the game just wasn't particularly inspired. they thought "we'll do the Institute this time" and kind of left it at that.
 

Humdinger

Member
This is EXACTLY how I felt. The instant I saw crafting and base building, I immediately thought “not this sh*t again” and stopped playing it. I absolutely hate crafting and base building, and I wish games would stop trying to force it in. It seems like unnecessary busy work. I just want to play the game and move the story forward. Is that too much to ask for?

Same here. I quit at the base building part. That just killed my interest.
 
Fallout 3 aint that great, New Vegas is the best of the 3D Fallout games.

It is the one that stays the most true to the first games too.
 
It’s inferior to FO3 in almost every single possible way
Holy hyperbole, Batman! Combat and graphics (two huge metrics) are unequivocally better in FO4. I'd argue the story and world design of FO4 are superior as well.
Fallout 4 is good game and one of the best games of 2015

the reason why people say it's bad and a huge disappointment is because they hyped the fuck out of it, no game has ever received as much hype as Fallout 4, not even GTA 5 was that hyped
What? Where were you in 2013? GTA V was significantly more hyped. Fallout 4 didn't make a billion in three days or break any records. It garnered a lot of hype, certainly, but not even close to what GTA V achieved.
 

MadMod

Member
Really liked it, with the DLC, ended up playing it more than FO3. Yet I think I preferred FO3 due to me being fresh to the world. It was a new experience for me as I didnt play 1 or 2. Still really enjoyed 4.
 

L Corleone

Neo Member
the reason why people say it's bad and a huge disappointment is because they hyped the fuck out of it, no game has ever received as much hype as Fallout 4, not even GTA 5 was that hyped

This entire statement is so untrue. I feel like you are a huge Fallout fan and are speaking for yourself here because this is far from the reality.
 

JaxBriggs

Member
This entire statement is so untrue. I feel like you are a huge Fallout fan and are speaking for yourself here because this is far from the reality.

Yeah I have to agree. I mean yeah there was a lot of hype for a new Fallout, but GTA V levels? No way.

Big difference too was probably the much shorter announcement to launch window with Fallout 4, rather than like 18 or so months or trailers and screenshots like with GTA.
 

Kumorin

Member
excluding New Vegas


Fallout 4 is seen, generally speaking, as being inferior to Fallout 3

I have never played Fallout 4 yet, but I always wondered what were the main reasons it never got the same amount of reception that 3 got?

is it because it was merely a similar copy to 3 or was it because it didn't have the same atmosphere as 3?

what were the main reasons it didn't live up to the greatness of 3

For me it slipped up from the get go. I chose to play as a female lead, who I think is supposed to be a lawyer or something in the pre-fallout world so would have no business being a munitions expert yet the game made me kill and kill and kill again. It was more like a FPS at times than an RPG. That didn’t sit right. Then there’s the sort of time-dependent main storyline where this woman wakes up distraught that her son is missing and then casually builds a fort and takes on kooky missions. It just didn’t mesh. The go anywhere, do anything open world doesn’t work with a story this compelling.

It also comes down to factions at a certain point and I legitimately hated all my options and only chose the one I did based on story possibilities. The fact that there’s very little pay off to your choices was also dire. I liked the game well enough, and it kept me going for over a hundred hours, but it was hard to care about the world or its fate. Less Marcus Garvey busywork would’ve been nice.
 

radewagon

Member
This. It just felt very bland compared to the capital wasteland. It wasn't fun or engaging

Not knocking your opinion, but I felt the exact opposite way. I loved Fallout 3's world, but Fallout 4 was the first time I felt like the environment was even remotely livable enough to give the world a sense of believability. It was, finally, not bland.
 

Kadayi

Banned
Never got that far into it, and haven't felt the urge to go back, despite the proliferation of crazy mods. For myself, reasons being a combination of that Janky assed game engine and having zero interest in the base building. I'm up for a bit of customization here and there, but I don't want to waste hours building defences, or making settlements. I get some people like that sort of thing, and I'll freely admit I've been known to exercise my inner architect in games like The Sims, but it's not sort of thing I necessarily want from my RPGs as a rule.
 
FO4 was much, MUCH more polished than FO3, BUT:

- It forced "The sims" down our throats (lot of effort was invested here)
- It lacked a true story, NPCs lacked reasons and motivations, as you too.
- Way to much repetition in certain pattern (red rockets everywhere, farms everywhere etc)
- Also, the game lacks seriousness, it´s like a child´s nuclear comedy, YOU CAN´T FEEL COMMITED TO THE GAME.
 

Alebrije

Member
Basically is a lazy developer game:

No next gen graphics
lame storyline
No deep conversations
Is more a FPS than a RPG
The map fell small basically every 2-3 minutes you discovered a new location.
little sence of exploration.
The same old glitches / that Bethesda never cares to fix.

DLCs little adds to the story.
 

HKA6A7

Member
For me, it's a amazing sequel to Fallout 3.
The thing is, it's also a horrible sequel to Fallout New Vegas.
 
I really enjoyed Fallout 4, I actually liked it more than Fallout 3. I don't necessarily think the writing was bad, but it wasn't ground breaking. I enjoyed the story and the DLC packs were quite fun. I spent hours and hours building settlements too which took ages.

My biggest annoyance was the continuing missions that never ended. I can't abide those. Other than that the bugs are pissing me off now, they need to drop that engine.
 

gioGAF

Member
Basically is a lazy developer game:

No next gen graphics
lame storyline
No deep conversations
Is more a FPS than a RPG
The map felt small basically every 2-3 minutes you discovered a new location.
little sense of exploration.
The same old glitches / that Bethesda never cares to fix.

DLCs little adds to the story.
Basically all of this. I also did not like:

- The legendary system: a stupid RNG grind that replaced finding awesome variants throughout the world. Now I can kill some stupid monster over and over again to try and get what I want, f' that.

- Crafting: before it was a more compact system and you could just carry and pick up what you wanted as needed. Now you have to carry around a bunch of trash.

Bethesda didn't really add anything I care about to the title. Crappy crafting, a town building mechanic I care nothing about, removal of RPG elements. They basically took everything I liked about NV and removed it. F4 is/was a colossal disappointment.
 

johntown

Banned
My problem with Fallout 4 and newer Bethesda RPG's in general is they strip all the RPG elements and meaningful choice out of the game and leave you with a shell of a game with little to no substance.

What I liked about Fallout 3 was.....

The dark and gritty world that just seemed hostile and genuine (Fallout 4 does this fairly well but not as well as 3 IMO).

Good and evil choices - this is what I personally loved the most (not necessarily the karma system). In Fallout 4 your choices only matter in a few instances and lets all be real......you know you wanted to walk up to Preston Garvey and blow his head off when he told you yet another settlement needed help.

Traditional RPG leveling - Sure the perk system is ok but I like to further refine my playstyle.

I still like Fallout 4 a lot but I prefer Fallout 3 more for the reasons above.
 

Grinchy

Banned
Fallout 4 took a LONG time to load areas.

I don't know if you're on PC, but the loading times when you are going from indoors to the outside world were tied to the game's framerate.

So if you had vsync turned on, it would load slower than someone who had vsync turned off. It is mind-blowing that this is a real thing, but I faced 3 minute + load times until I found out about that and then played with vsync off from then on.

You can also alt-tab out of the game and the load finishes. Great engine, Bethesda.
 
The DLC was hot garbage.

At least that's my only beef with the game. Fallout 3 had some of the most entertaining DLC I ever played. Loved each installment and was happy to buy them. Got the season pass for Fallout 4 expecting the same but instead got boring and stupid settlement upgrades.
 

BANGS

Banned
I hated the dialogue options and progression. I never felt like I was in control of what was going on with those two aspects. Basically, they improved combat, destroyed everything else... and I don't play fallout for the combat...
 

KiLLaDeZo

Member
To me the fallout 4 world seemed really boring, nothing stood out and there were no "wow" moments for me. Add that crappy base making rubbish in the mix and it was a wrap.
 
The writing, story, and changes to the skill/perk systems were a big turnoff to me, but I enjoyed everything else, especially with mods installed (PC). Crafting, combat, building were all pretty good, imo.
 

Aztorian

Member
For me it was the way the game was set up.
Personal anecdote: After 3's intro, you are placed into the world. You have the obvious town you could go to, or you could explore.
With 4, I did the first setpiece, and then was introduced to base building. I was instantly overwhelmed. I thought "Is this necessary? Do they expect me to do this with this crap UI? What do I even need to do?" And I just...stopped. I didn't even go out into the world because collecting bits and bobs to build something clunky and obtuse didn't seem fun even though I looooved 3. I regret never getting back into it, and I guess I still can, but not before I watch a guide or read a FAQ or something to learn how much the basebuilding is required or if I can completely skip it, which I'd prefer.

You can basically skip it after the intro to basebuilding. You gotta get back to the minutemen for the minutemen faction story, but basebuilding is completely optional AFAIK.
 

Aztorian

Member
I really really loved Fallout 3. If the game would get a remaster for PC, Switch or even PS4/Xoen would be amazing. Basically because I really do not feel like hooking up my PS3 just for F3. The PC version requires 'Games for Windows Live', which is a horible discontinued service (I believe), but the client is still required to run F3 on PC. The game also runs very poorly on pc with random crashes, freezes and so on..

F4 was a fun shooter with a kinda poor story but interesting features based on F3. It felt like Bethesda took Fallout as an example and created a different game that is more shooter-ish. Maybe it's just a matter of time before Bethesda uses some kind of "Ubisoft Formula" where every IP gets all the same gameplay mechanics, world design and features just with different skins and a few iconic elements based on the franchise.
 

mindatlarge

Member
I've always heard that some were disappointed that dialog choices weren't more abundant and that there was less focus on the writing and more just on action and such.

I liked Fallout 4, though I've never played 3 or NV very much. So I really don't have a gauge to set disappointment.
 

Grinchy

Banned
I've always heard that some were disappointed that dialog choices weren't more abundant and that there was less focus on the writing and more just on action and such.

I liked Fallout 4, though I've never played 3 or NV very much. So I really don't have a gauge to set disappointment.

They're probably still worth checking out if you have a decent PC and can install mods.

I'm still hoping for a Fallout 3 VR remaster for PSVR + Aim.
 
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