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12 reasons why F2 is a bad Fallout game

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,282
Other than the fact he is from fucking Hollywood and is therefore genetically predisposed to up-his-ass-ism, I don't really see a problem with that
Here goes:
0)Good ol' Codex tradition at its finest
1)Fucking Hollywood
2)I'm simply tired of all sub-20/20-something "muh-RPG-gamers", who can't appreciate old games due to, more often than not, stupid reasoning (muh-graphics aka "art direction", muh combat is clunky and I cannot into it and so on).
Maybe I'm wrong to discredit a person based on rather bland reasoning why F1 and F2 are bad, but then again, first impressions are like that
0 is a bad reason to tear the fool a new one.
However, 1 is an EXCELLENT reason to do so.
2 really depends on the game and individual taste. I bet there are some classic FIFA games running around but that type of games never really grabbed me, so I won't appreciate them. Neither would I ever appreciate Dance, Dance Revolution, so there you go :D
 

Risewild

Arbiter
Joined
Mar 23, 2018
Messages
491
Location
Australia
I'm starting to think mfknggrfll has been hired by Bethesda to enhance their ability to shit on their old games.
He's not doing a very good job of it.
I'll say. He seems to have Emil Pagliarulo's definitions of moral ambiguity.
And he has the same coherence and deals with criticism the same as Pete Hines....
:philosoraptor:
Wd1rXZw.png
 

Falksi

Arcane
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
10,538
Location
Nottingham
1- Awful introduction and PC background. The introduction and starting area are cringeworthy to say the least. Your character is the grandson of Fallout 1's vault dweller, basically someone with a lot of knowledge on the outside world and technology. The village was even founded by the vault dweller and built with the help of his knowledge. Yet the whole place is filled with bone-in-nose shamans and ???????? people who live in a completely different world. Some even have special shaman powers, and the game features A LOT of dumb stuff like people believing in ghosts. Your village also built a fricken temple and for some reason doesnt even live in it. Basically F2 devs completely misunderstood what makes a proper post-apocalyptic setting.

2- Terrible MQ with bad pacing & scaling. The MQ is the same as F1 which isnt a bad thing, aside from the execution. You are looking for a GECK to save your village but the game is designed so 99% of the NPCs will answer "Uhh idk" when asked where you might find it (Unlike F1 which had a proper pacing and scaling that slowly guided your search). This basically turns the game into a cryptic point & click game. The game quickly starts feeling more like a chore than a game, expecially considering the fedex nature of the quests. As you progress in the game you realize that of all towns/factions your village is the least and qualified and worthy of holding a GECK, literally every other settlement could make a better use of it. The main path is also padded with filler like a 1k caps requirement to free a key NPC from slavers in order to progress. The other options are to reroll a female character and have sex with the slaver boss or somehow manage to cheese the fight enough to kill 10 slavers armed with guns while you only have a spear... The 1k caps will have to be earned by grinding fedex quests. Overall the game feels like one of those early age MMORPGs where the game doesnt offer enough quests to naturally level up so you need to grind just to progress.

3- Broken combat system. Aside from being broken the combat has some more serious flaws. The encounter design is the worst ever. Mark my words when I say that there isnt a single memorable combat encounter in the whole game, aside from the last boss which requires tremendous amounts of grinding to defeat. The non-premade fights are all dull and follow a similar design pattern. Its always 1 named NPC with a character model slightly different from the rest of his copy pasted guards. The amount of guards is just too damn high, you simply cannot enjoy killing a certain NPC the way you want, you have to cheese the fights to be able to take out the mob of guards. For those who played Fallout 3, imagine if Mr. Tenpenny was surrounded by 10 guards with miniguns, would you still be able to enjoy decapitating him and tossing his remains off the balcony?

4- Unbalanced random encounters. The random encounters met when traveling the world map are arguably the worst aspect of the game. None of them are enjoyable or contributes anything to the game other than xp and loot. Combat somehow feels slower than F1 and is extremely tedious even on fastest speed. Note that it isnt rare to stumble upon virtually unwinnable fights that require a reload. Many times you will get 1 shot on the first round before you can even act. Even when you manage to escape its still very tedious since you often need 2+ turns to reach the exit and you face multiple enemies that all have enough APs for 2-3 actions. Typical encounter : a bunch of farmers (3-5+) getting attacked by a bunch of raiders (3-5+), so lets say 10 units acting 2-3 times and triggering 20-30 animations for 2 turns, thats an average of 40-60 NPC actions that you need to slog through just to reach the exit tile. And those encounters are very frequent. The game teaches you to save scum in order to travel.

5- Terrible quest design. The quest design is where F2 crashes and burns. It simply is the worst of the series. The game is filled with uninteresting fedex quests offering no moral ambiguity. It is always a matter of 'yes or no' rather than 'right or wrong'. More often than not both the player and the character dont give 2 craps about the outcome of these quests because they are devoid of relevant consequences. If you read the wiki, and I am not joking, the large majority of quests begin with words like 'get', 'deliver', 'retrieve', 'collect', 'kill', etc... Very often the quest giver straight up tells you exactly where you need to go and what to do and leaves little to no room for the player's intelligence to be useful. The quests lack the interesting alternative solutions that F1 had, it very often boils down to doing exactly what you were told with no relevant consequences, or you get an out of place evil option.

6- NPC dialogue is bare-bone and unfinished. People feel more like zombies than wastelanders trying to survive. The only memorables NPCs are remembered for the wrong reasons, that is because their dialogue was particularly cringeworthy and/or immersion breaking. The world is filled with generic NPCs and the named ones arent interesting because they only offer some typical fedex quests. There are plenty of areas where named NPCs offer nothing but services and offer copy pasted answers, like at one certain marketplace in a very large end game settlement is filled with NPCs that reply "I sell junk, not info" when asked for rumors or info. NPCs feel like tools more than anything. Even Skyrim had more and better dialogue, and we all know how bad it is.

7- Lack of exploration value / bland world design. Over 99% of the art assets are recycled from F1 and are misused. The famous 'Blades' sign that served to mark the Blade's hideout is not cut n paste around every corner. If you enjoy exploring every nook and cranny in the games you play then F2 will be a utter disappointment. Towns are small and empty filled with generic NPCs. World design like building placement is dull and feels copy pasted. Houses are lined up on grids like a game of sim city. Towns offer no memorable architecture, lore or layouts. There are a few magazines

8- Skill check system is flawed. The way it currently works if your character meets the requirement to unlock a certain dialogue option, the game will STILL roll a dice just to know if that option is VISIBLE to you. That means you can talk to certain NPCs who should be offering certain options but they dont, you need to exit and re-enter dialogue until it shows up. How's that for breaking the immersion? It also means you can accidently skip on content that will block you from progressing/finishing a quest. Your playstyle is also largely dictated by your initial build and tagged skills. You cannot become good at speech if you didnt tag it because most speech skill checks require you to tag speech.

9- Karma system is broken. Just for grinding fedex quests and not selecting the obvious psychopath option each time your character slowly becomes a goody two shoe. The game forces you into some ridiculous C&C, you often have the option of just doing what you were told or pick an unjustified evil option. Like the quest that turns you into a messenger boy/ambassador between 2 towns. You get the option of playing the fedex role or turning the 2 towns against each other for no RP reason. There is no neutral ground (Ignoring the quest triggers the war). Worst part is that I only did those quests for the rewards because I needed caps to progress the MQ and never really cared about them, yet they defined my character as 'good'. As a result you get locked out of content given by evil NPCs in a game already very limited in content.

10- Talking heads are dull , most of them use copy pasted assets like 4 out of the whopping 13 total heads are simply metal helmets. Fallout 1 had 21 talking heads and there simply isnt a single talking head in F2 that can compare to those in F1. These NPCs mostly speak with a bored and monotoneous voice.

11- Companions are boring. They share the same dialogue lines which makes them lose all their personality and uniqueness. "Im going to beat you like a red headed step-child" was funny the first time I saw it, then other companions started spewing out the same line over and over... They mostly serve as packing mules and do not offer much interaction beyond that. Most of the companion who were supposed to get their own quests didnt because of cut content. Most of the companions are earned by simply spending caps to pay them off.

12- Overwhelming amount of parodic and immersion breaking content. You simply cant avoid it, its all over the place. Where do I start? In random encounters you meet parodized homeless people walking toward you like zombies, just like a South Park episode (which came out after F2, but still). A dog causing bad luck stalking you with more HP than 10 super mutants (can possibly require a reroll if met at low levels because he is virtually unkillable). The only doctor of the one settlement of the waste that represents law and order, a doctor that heals the mayor, is parodized as a mad scientist/incompetent doctor. A guy in the same settlement is living too much stress, so he blows himself up like a terrorist and leave you with a huge pile of loot. People living the big life doing drugs and gambling all day and still being able to survive. A town that specializes in gold digging in a post-apocalyptic world. A town with a PORN STUDIO, do I need to say more? The jokes are the meat of this 'game' and the pieces of serious content are hidden like easter eggs.

Thankfully FO3 fixed all this.
 

mfkndggrfll

Learned
Shitposter Bethestard
Joined
Mar 21, 2018
Messages
546
Define bad.
No, I don't mean your beyond useless arguments on why you think FO2 is bad. Define the term bad.
You don't like it? Something something aesthetical and artistic merits (*cough * ... pompous asshat ... *cough*)? No immershun? Or what?
And do you think it's just a bad Fallout sequel because the tone is different or a bad CRPG in general.
What would be a good CRPG in your opinion? And why should anyone care that you deem good?

Bad as in it is a disgrace to the series and the whole cRPG genre. I rank F2 in the same trash tier as Pillars of Eternity.

Its a bad video game, a bad Fallout, a bad sequel, a bad cRPG and a bad joke if it was meant to be one.

laclongquan The combat is borderline broken with all the glitches to the point where it isnt fun at all. Can you say than an AP bullet scoring as crit in the eyes for 3 dmg because the enemy doesnt wear armor is a functional system?

The random encounters in F1 and other cRPGs arent as unbalanced as F2. Your build will not affect the amount of damage you take so its all pointless. Makes me laugh when people respond to encounter issues by 'hurr durr ur build isnt gud enuff'. Investing any amount of points in Outdoorsman is a pure waste because you will still die from encounters so you might as well max a combat skill.

''Again, play the game instead of reading wikis and other people's experience and think that can substitute for actual playing.'' ''Hell, you can try an even earlier quest, resolving the conflict in Modoc and Ghost Farm ghoul community''

Oh but I did play the game, the Modoc conflict is actually one of the worst instance of quest design, its literally a messenger boy job with absolutely no challenge. Ghost Farms is virtually empty and devoid of anything that matters in building a town in a cRPG. Skyrim had better quests than F2.

You misunderstand my point about karma, I was not even able to resolve any conflict because the V15 leader turned hostile after talking to him simply because I had 300ish karma from trying to be neutral and avoid evil options.

Lynette is a good looking head but everything else about that NPC is wrong. You need to save before talking to her or you might randomly get locked out of dialogue for stupid reasons. The game rewards trial and error rather than logical speech when talking to her.

If you only count the serious stuff there is indeed nothing worth exploring for. The pieces of serious content are hidden like easter eggs.
 

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,282
Investing any amount of points in Outdoorsman is a pure waste because you will still die from encounters so you might as well max a combat skill.
Let me guess, wikiboy: You didn't know that Outdoorsman allows you to skip random encounters, the very thing you were complaining about earlier?
 

FeelTheRads

Arcane
Joined
Apr 18, 2008
Messages
13,716
Oh but I did play the game

Except you didn't.

Or if you did, you are shit at playing games what with the constant crying about difficulty. "Virtually impossible encounters" and "the last boss which requires tremendous amounts of grinding to defeat." are just :lol:

The biggest flaw of F1 and 2 is actually that they're very, very easy.

So, which is it? You either didn't play the game or you are a newfag shitstain raised on games where you push the awesome button to progress.

Let me guess, wikiboy: You didn't know that Outdoorsman allows you to skip random encounters, the very thing you were complaining about earlier?

Avoiding encounters you still die from encounters. Totally knows what he's talking about.
Remember, this is the same retard who didn't know the currency in F2 is not caps.
 
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Commissar Draco

Codexia Comrade Colonel Commissar
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Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Divinity: Original Sin 2
The fact that currency in fallout is good old gold bullion not caps sold this game to me; finally the game word which is not frozen in place like Bethpizda ones. This and that you can side with VC in game made by Comiefornia libruls no less. Sad we wont have another game such as FO2 cause now nobody knows how to make sprites.
 

Cael

Arcane
Joined
Nov 1, 2017
Messages
20,282
The fact that currency in fallout is good old gold bullion not caps sold this game to me; finally the game word which is not frozen in place like Bethpizda ones. This and that you can side with VC in game made by Comiefornia libruls no less. Sad we wont have another game such as FO2 cause now nobody knows how to make sprites.
Best of all is that using caps as money is explicitly lampshaded, laughed at and given a take-that ramped up to 11 in FO2, and wikiboy still tries to claim he played the game...
 

Darth Canoli

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Jun 8, 2018
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Perched on a tree
This account is probably a multi from a guy not capable of speaking his mind with his own main fake identity so he needs a second fake identity (as we're not using our real names and pictures, right ? --> Fake identity).

So there is two appropriate answers, one needs proper admin tools, the other one is just to ignore this kind of threads, he can't keep talking to himself for long, right ?
 

FeelTheRads

Arcane
Joined
Apr 18, 2008
Messages
13,716
This account is probably a multi from a guy not capable of speaking his mind with his own main fake identity so he needs a second fake identity (as we're not using our real names and pictures, right ? --> Fake identity).

So there is two appropriate answers, one needs proper admin tools, the other one is just to ignore this kind of threads, he can't keep talking to himself for long, right ?

Is that supposed to be a revelation or a great insight or what?
 

ItsChon

Resident Zoomer
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Երևան
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
1. That is your opinion. I find combat to be pretty fun, and oftentimes hilarious. There isn't many other games that allow you to shoot someone in the groin and make a snarky comment on it.
Yes it is my opinion, any statement anyone makes on the forum is an opinion, and people constantly mentioning it are being redundant. That being said, my metric for whether or not a game has an engaging combat system extends further than being able to shit someone in the dick.
And it is acknowledged in-game. They had resourcing issues with FO2, and they did a take-that and lampshaded it.
That doesn't justify the game being an absolute eye-sore to look at. I'm not someone that needs triple A graphics to enjoy a game. Fallout 2 with the restoration project has crisper resolution than BG, the issue is literally the art. I don't want to stare at this,
maxresdefault.jpg
for any period of time longer than I need too. It's not even the way shit's drawn, it's just the fact that everything is so brown for no fucking reason.
3. What pacing? FO2 isn't a linear game like Diablo, boy. You do what you want, when you want and if you go to areas intended for higher levels, you die. The mobs don't level with you like the Bethesda shit you are no doubt intimately familiar with.
By pacing, I mean the beginning of the game is an absolute drag, and some of the combat encounters are absolutely fucked. The Gecko cave, which you need to complete if you want Sulik, is so horribly designed; as well as the random encounters generally being annoying as hell later on in the game.
Other than the fact he is from fucking Hollywood
1)Fucking Hollywood
California =/= Hollywood. It's an entire fucking state boys, albeit a shitty state, but everyone who's from California isn't from Hollywood/associated with it.
2)I'm simply tired of all sub-20/20-something "muh-RPG-gamers", who can't appreciate old games due to, more often than not, stupid reasoning (muh-graphics aka "art direction", muh combat is clunky and I cannot into it and so on).
Except I've had this discussion with other people and I'm sure you'd agree with pretty much every game on my top RPG list, a lot of which are just as old as FO if not older. The combat is boring, the game hurts to look at, and the dialogue + setting wasn't interesting in the first 2-4 hours of the game that I played. I don't dislike the game because it's old, I dislike it for all the reasons I've outlined above.
 

Master

Arbiter
Joined
Oct 19, 2016
Messages
1,160
That doesn't justify the game being an absolute eye-sore to look at. I'm not someone that needs triple A graphics to enjoy a game. Fallout 2 with the restoration project has crisper resolution than BG, the issue is literally the art. I don't want to stare at this,
Show Spoiler
maxresdefault.jpg

for any period of time longer than I need too. It's not even the way shit's drawn, it's just the fact that everything is so brown for no fucking reason.
Sorry but the art is fine here. It may be that you just dont like brown colour for some reason.
 

Squid

Arbiter
Joined
May 31, 2018
Messages
536
How the hell is the art style bad and why would you expect people to agree with you on that? Most of us like it. It's done well and presents the atmosphere appropriately. What in that picture isn't supposed to be a shade of brown to you? The rust? The dirt? Wooden boxes? All things that are generally brown? You ever just get mad when a game tries to convey a snow covered area but it's just too damn white? Or whenever they show a heavily forested area or jungle and it's just too much green?

Also, mfkndggrfll is about hit his 2k goal in under 6 months, just a few more comments on this thread and I'm sure he can make it there!
 

ItsChon

Resident Zoomer
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Sorry but the art is fine here. It may be that you just dont like brown colour for some reason.
How the hell is the art style a bad thing something you expect people to agree with you on? Most of us like it. It's done well and presents the atmosphere appropriately. What in that picture isn't supposed to be a shade of brown to you? The rust? The dirt? Wooden boxes? All things that are generally brown? You ever just get mad when a game tries to convey a snow covered area but it's just too damn white? Or whenever they show a heavily forested area or jungle and it's just too much green?
I don't know why, but for some reason Fallout 1 and 2 just look like dog shit to me. Maybe it'd look better if the buildings weren't literally rectangles with a horrible system for seeing through roofs. Primordia is a game that's primarily brown and it looks infinitely better than FO 1 & 2. It's a weird point to harp on, but the shit combat, the art that makes me want to alt+f4 out of the game, and the lack of anything interesting happening in the first four hours that I played, just make me think that the game really isn't my cup of tea. Maybe in the future when I'm bored, I'll try to push past the Den and get to Vault City.

My main point isn't necessarily that the game is bad though, my main point is that pretending there is no reason to not like FO 1 & 2 is disingenuous and retarded.
 

Squid

Arbiter
Joined
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Messages
536
if the buildings weren't literally rectangles
Where the hell are you from and what is the normal, everyday building's shape over there?

EDIT: Buildings aren't just rectangles but that's a general basis that we use for buildings.
 

ItsChon

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Where the hell are you from and what is the normal, everyday building's shape over there?
Fair enough, I did a shit job of explaining what I meant. Look at the two spoilers I posted.
bgcity.jpg
latest
There is a fundamental difference in the way the buildings look. Again, I don't really know why, but something about the odd regularity of all the buildings and the shitty roofs just pisses me off. Why the fuck does every building have the same roof, and why do they all essentially look the same.

But again, my own autism about the way FO 1 & 2 look aside, my point is again, that there are plenty of things about Fallout 1 & 2 that can turn someone off of them. The graphics just being one of those things, the others being combat, UI, shitty pacing for the opening act of the game, and the lack of any really interesting dialogue in the first half of the game either.
 

Jacob

Pronouns: Nick/Her
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Hatington
Grab the Codex by the pussy
But to be fair, there are some valid reasons for why fallout graphic sucks. You're playing it on a modern monitor with large native resolutions and it screwed up the Fallout's delicate visual that's made up purely of rendered sprites. Using your monitor's native resolutions and everything is too small, playing it on 640x480 make everything so pixelated. I think people already posted workarounds for this problem somewhere but I forgot where it is.
 

ItsChon

Resident Zoomer
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
But to be fair, there are some valid reasons for why fallout graphic sucks. You're playing it on a modern monitor with large native resolutions and it screwed up the Fallout's delicate visual that's made up purely of rendered sprites. Using your monitor's native resolutions and everything is too small, playing it on 640x480 make everything so pixelated. I think people already posted workarounds for this problem somewhere but I forgot where it is.
Fallout 1& 2 both have restoration packs that actually clears it up. They make the games really crisp. My problem is pretty much only with the colors.
http://www.killap.net/
http://falloutmods.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_Restoration_Mod
 
Joined
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Messages
1,875,967
Location
Glass Fields, Ruins of Old Iran
If Bethesda came up with San Francisco, Modoc, or friendly talking deathclaws, the Codex would have mocked them relentlessly for it.

Those are universally recognized to be derpy (I don't mind the deathclaws that much, they're so heavily engineered/mutated that they can't really be considered a "talking animal" anymore, despite Avellone's views on the matter). New Reno would be a more divisive one.
 

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