Fallout 3 vs Fallout 4

[mediocrepoet]

F3 and F4 are both shit in different ways, but let's not get crazy. At least you can play the Fallouts as games, while OW is Cain/Boyarsky's magnum opus in the sense that it really captures the essence of boredom.

Yeah, I don't know. Everything in F3 is brown and gray. OW at least has more than two colors in it. I would imagine that would make it at least a little bit more interesting to explore than post-apocalyptic Washington.

You can imagine whatever you want. Try playing that shit.

You want colours? Go look at a picture.
I want gameplay in my games.

 

[Axel_am]

You can imagine whatever you want. Try playing that shit.

You want colours? Go look at a picture.
I want gameplay in my games.

No, I want to explore an interesting world in this case.

F3 doesn't exactly have enticing gameplay either. Using V.A.T.S. isn't really my thing and it felt like F3 was forcing me into doing so at every possible moment.

 

[mediocrepoet]

You can imagine whatever you want. Try playing that shit.

You want colours? Go look at a picture.
I want gameplay in my games.

No, I want to explore an interesting world in this case.

F3 doesn't exactly have enticing gameplay either. Using V.A.T.S. isn't really my thing and it felt like F3 was forcing me into doing so at every possible moment.

Yeah, F4 moves away from the VATS shoehorning at least, but both are crap games. It's just that OW is a crap game that is insanely easy to boot. I can't think of many games that bored me more than OW did before I just dropped it.

 

[Lemming42]

So, what is so bad about these two games in a bullet list rather than wall paragraphs. Links to examples are fine.

Fallout 3:
- Abysmal main quest, both in terms of structure and writing
- Generally dodgy writing across the board, though if you like weird surreal shit, you'll find a thing or two to interest you
- Bad combat and RPG systems (if you played New Vegas, it's the same as that, bar a couple features like ammo types that NV added)
- Dungeons are a very mixed bag, mostly bad, especially the metro systems

Fallout 4
- Virtually no content - few quests (and they're all terrible), literally only one notable settlement
- Tedious settlement building mechanic which is simultaneously totally avoidable and also central to the game thanks to the loot system
- Forced to gather shit to upgrade your weapons just to deal with the enemy health bloat
- New critical hit system is the stupidest thing ever in a videogame
- "Legendary enemies" that are absolute shit
- Subjective, but I think the game looks hideously ugly and the generic art direction makes it look worse than either Fo3 or FNV

To say a couple good things about each game:
Fallout 3:
- Good quest structure, often with creative solutions and consequences of the kind you can't really find in any other Fallout game
- Skill checks are usually percentage-based, rather than New Vegas's shitty fixed ones
- World looks very nice due to strong art direction, though you may not like the green filter
- While dungeons are mostly the usual copypasted shit Bethesda's always done, there are some very memorable and unique ones
- Radio is great, especially if you kill Three Dog to shut him up

Fallout 4:
- Combat mechanics are a step up, though again, not by much
- Weapon and armour modification system is fairly expansive, if you're interested in it
- Some of the city-based areas are nicely vertical and let you go bouncing around on rooftops
- Some of the perks are interesting (but a poor substitute for the old system)

 

[Just Locus]

- Forced to gather shit to upgrade your weapons just to deal with the enemy health bloat

There are certain points in the game where upgrading your weapon is just a hindrance more than a boon to the gameplay, There'll be a mental roadblock you hit where you just go "This isn't doing anything anymore" and you'll begin hunting for legendary weapons desperately hoping that they'll drop an explosive automatic weapon that'll make it so you can cruise through the game with immense ease.

- Radio is great, especially if you kill Three Dog to shut him up

It also makes sense logically why radios would exist 200 years after the apocalypse to re-establish communications with other settlements and so forth.

- Virtually no content - few quests (and they're all terrible), literally only one notable settlement

I'm actually of the opinion that the game has too much content lmao.
The main issue is the amount of dungeons that are in the game and how many of them are incentivized to be plunged through due to how many radiant quests get placed into your quest log, and because radiant quests can be easily mistaken for legitimate quests due to how poorly-made the man-made quests are, and (if you're playing on higher difficulties why?) going out and killing legendary enemies hoping for a good drop and not:
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ Radioactive Pipe Iron
‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ 10% Extra damage to Mirelurks

 

[Butter]

The trick to Fallout 4 is to not do any quests unless they're specifically required for the main quest/DLC and you want to do that. Believe it or not, the payoff for collecting a can of green paint (not a radiant quest!) isn't worth the effort.

 

[Just Locus]

My idea around making radiant quests ""bearable"" was just going "I'm gonna go dungeon-crawl anyways, might as well do it for a reward/sizeable amounts of XP".

 

[Axel_am]

Yeah, F4 moves away from the VATS shoehorning at least, but both are crap games. It's just that OW is a crap game that is insanely easy to boot. I can't think of many games that bored me more than OW did before I just dropped it.

Damn, that's a shame. Hopefully I like it more than you do. I've been eyeing it up for some time now. When I look at it I'm really reminded of New Vegas.

If you liked the setting Encased could be to your liking. Tho it's an isometric turn-based RPG. I'm not sure how well that will mesh with you desire to have gameplay in your games.

 

[rubinstein]

- Skill checks are usually percentage-based, rather than New Vegas's shitty fixed ones
- Radio is great, especially if you kill Three Dog to shut him up

i hate FO3, but gotta admit, i couldnt imagine any new major FO game without a radio. its introduction felt so organic, i sometimes forget that ancient fallouts dont have radio
and yeah fnv fixed checks suck. i like some chaos in my rpgs, nothing feels better than betting on a low chance speech check and coming out of trouble unscathed like:
Player: "[Speech 20%] Dont kill me."
NPC: "[SUCCESS] Fair."
+50XP

 

[mediocrepoet]

Yeah, F4 moves away from the VATS shoehorning at least, but both are crap games. It's just that OW is a crap game that is insanely easy to boot. I can't think of many games that bored me more than OW did before I just dropped it.

Damn, that's a shame. Hopefully I like it more than you do. I've been eyeing it up for some time now. When I look at it I'm really reminded of New Vegas.

If you liked the setting Encased could be to your liking. Tho it's an isometric turn-based RPG. I'm not sure how well that will mesh with you desire to have gameplay in your games.

TB iso RPGs still have gameplay, especially if they're challenging. You should really go check out the TOW thread if you haven't though. There's a lot of hate for the game there for a variety of reasons.

 

[markec]

Fallout 4

- Subjective, but I think the game looks hideously ugly and the generic art direction makes it look worse than either Fo3 or FNV

I consider Fallout 4 to be a bad game but I cant understand how anyone would think its uglier game then either F3 or FNV. Here are few of my screenshots.

To say a couple good things about each game:
Fallout 3:
- Good quest structure, often with creative solutions and consequences of the kind you can't really find in any other Fallout game

Whats the points of having a good quests structure when every quests and piece of dialog is retarded.

- World looks very nice due to strong art direction, though you may not like the green filter

Its just same constant same looking ruins, its like praising Oblivions for its art direction or green forests and plains.

- While dungeons are mostly the usual copypasted shit Bethesda's always done, there are some very memorable and unique ones

You praise F3 dungeons which are mediocre at best while ignoring Fallout 4 dungeons who are at worst best then F3s.

After you went on praising Dungeon Siege I didnt think you could go even lower.

 

[Lemming42]

Those are some of the ugliest screenshots I've ever seen, to be honest. They're pretty much what I'd have come up with if someone had asked me to post examples of why I think the game looks awful.

I like Fo3's art direction in parts because it draws from 1920s/30s American architecture, which I've always found very opulent and evocative. This applies mostly to the DC areas; it falls apart quite a bit in the wasteland.

Whats the points of having a good quests structure when every quests and piece of dialog is retarded.

You better not be a fan of Fallout 2 if you're asking this.

To answer seriously, though: take Tenpenny Tower as an example. It's not a hugely well-written quest (though it's not exactly badly written, either, certainly no more than most of Fo2). Even if I'm not a huge fan of the concept, I can appreciate the way in which it has the balls to subvert the player's will, in a way literally no other quest in a Fallout game does. There's also the Wasteland Survival Guide - yes, Moira's annoying, but I'm still impressed by the multitude of permutations that can occur in that quest, and the way almost every dialogue choice you make during it ends up affecting the outcome - again, there's nothing else in any Fallout game with that level of reactivity that I can think of.

The writing's mostly just dumb rather than terrible - there's nothing especially wrong with the writing in quests like Agatha's Song, Stealing Independence, Reilly's Rangers, Head of State, etc. Most of the severe retardation is in the main quest, and a couple of especially bad sidequests like Blood Ties and The Replicated Man (the latter of which forms the entire basis of Fo4's main plot, lol).

Its just same constant same looking ruins, its like praising Oblivions for its art direction or green forests and plains.

I would praise Oblivion for that actually, I think the visuals are possibly the only really good thing about the game.

 

[Camel]

The F3 trailer and song are awesome. I've downloaded I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire after the F3 playthrough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssB5kpI6aoo

 

[Ash]

FO4 looks significantly better than FO3. Fo3 is ugly asf. New Vegas isn't pretty either on a technical level but the varied and tasteful art direction helps it a great deal. FO3 is offensive to look at in every way.

Anyway, FO4 is a better game (largely thanks to survival mode, more varied locations and better combat), FO3 is a better RPG though not particularly great at that either. Ultimately I'd pick FO4 any day. Just ignore the retarded plot stuff and play as a post apoc survival scavenging FPS, with mods to make it deeper. I may possibly return to FO4. I will never touch FO3 again after trying it heavily modded a couple years back. the gameplay is OK (yet executed better in every way in New Vegas) but everything else about it is awful. The ugly art and puke filter, the retarded writing, copy-pasted mostly lame dungeons, open world is also quite empty and very bland save for a few locations, annoying characters and off-putting quirkyness. A lot of this is a problem in FO4 too but not nearly to the same degree. FO4 even has some interesting characters like for example those in Goodneighbor (Hancock, the Bartender robot, The Jazz singer, Bobbie No-nose). FO4 while decline, dumbed down RPG systems, often retarded plot, is just better than FO3 in nearly every way.

 

[gruntar]

Those are some of the ugliest screenshots I've ever seen, to be honest. They're pretty much what I'd have come up with if someone had asked me to post examples of why I think the game looks awful.

I like Fo3's art direction in parts because it draws from 1920s/30s American architecture, which I've always found very opulent and evocative. This applies mostly to the DC areas; it falls apart quite a bit in the wasteland.

Whats the points of having a good quests structure when every quests and piece of dialog is retarded.

You better not be a fan of Fallout 2 if you're asking this.

To answer seriously, though: take Tenpenny Tower as an example. It's not a hugely well-written quest (though it's not exactly badly written, either, certainly no more than most of Fo2). Even if I'm not a huge fan of the concept, I can appreciate the way in which it has the balls to subvert the player's will, in a way literally no other quest in a Fallout game does. There's also the Wasteland Survival Guide - yes, Moira's annoying, but I'm still impressed by the multitude of permutations that can occur in that quest, and the way almost every dialogue choice you make during it ends up affecting the outcome - again, there's nothing else in any Fallout game with that level of reactivity that I can think of.

The writing's mostly just dumb rather than terrible - there's nothing especially wrong with the writing in quests like Agatha's Song, Stealing Independence, Reilly's Rangers, Head of State, etc. Most of the severe retardation is in the main quest, and a couple of especially bad sidequests like Blood Ties and The Replicated Man (the latter of which forms the entire basis of Fo4's main plot, lol).

Its just same constant same looking ruins, its like praising Oblivions for its art direction or green forests and plains.

I would praise Oblivion for that actually, I think the visuals are possibly the only really good thing about the game.

"Writing is mostly just dumb rather than terrible" - what does that even mean, what is the difference ?

Protagonist asking every npc if they seen his dad, a middle aged man, was it more dumb or terrible ?

Tenpennys motivation for nuking entire fucking town because it was spoiling view from his tower, was it more dumb or terrible ?

Entire Little Lamplight, was it more dumb,or terrible ?

Most important question: why are you putting so much effort trying to whitewash that shitstain of a game often at cost of vastly superior Fallout 2 and New Vegas ?

 

[markec]

Those are some of the ugliest screenshots I've ever seen, to be honest. They're pretty much what I'd have come up with if someone had asked me to post examples of why I think the game looks awful.

I like Fo3's art direction in parts because it draws from 1920s/30s American architecture, which I've always found very opulent and evocative. This applies mostly to the DC areas; it falls apart quite a bit in the wasteland.

Let's agree to disagree, to me F3 just looks ugly and bland while F4 has some really good looking and creative areas even if entire world feels like a inconsistent theme park.

Whats the points of having a good quests structure when every quests and piece of dialog is retarded.

You better not be a fan of Fallout 2 if you're asking this.

Fallout 2 has some simple, some stupid and some out of place dialog, but there are also many good parts. F3 has none of the good parts, also it's not like F4 is any better in that area.

To answer seriously, though: take Tenpenny Tower as an example. It's not a hugely well-written quest (though it's not exactly badly written, either, certainly no more than most of Fo2). Even if I'm not a huge fan of the concept, I can appreciate the way in which it has the balls to subvert the player's will, in a way literally no other quest in a Fallout game does. There's also the Wasteland Survival Guide - yes, Moira's annoying, but I'm still impressed by the multitude of permutations that can occur in that quest, and the way almost every dialogue choice you make during it ends up affecting the outcome - again, there's nothing else in any Fallout game with that level of reactivity that I can think of.

The writing's mostly just dumb rather than terrible - there's nothing especially wrong with the writing in quests like Agatha's Song, Stealing Independence, Reilly's Rangers, Head of State, etc. Most of the severe retardation is in the main quest, and a couple of especially bad sidequests like Blood Ties and The Replicated Man (the latter of which forms the entire basis of Fo4's main plot, lol).

No writing goes from retarded to mediocre at best with retarded parts being more prevalent. Which is pretty much what you can say for writing in F4. It's nowhere close to quality of F2 and quests are only structurally better then in F4. Which doesn't make it good just better then in F4.

Its just same constant same looking ruins, its like praising Oblivions for its art direction or green forests and plains.

I would praise Oblivion for that actually, I think the visuals are possibly the only really good thing about the game.

While there is nothing wrong with green forests and plains problem is that the game does little with unique geographic features and with no variety in biomes entire game ends up looking bland after the initial impression wores out, just like with F3.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

The F3 trailer and song are awesome. I've downloaded I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire after the F3 playthrough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssB5kpI6aoo

Ah! The Ink Spots. It was/is an interesting choice of a band. Want more? Discogs discography



Yeah, I might come off racist as all hell by today’s standards but there are excellent black artists I enjoy like The Ink Spots, certain jazz, blues, and good old R&B esp certain female singers. Modern shit like 99% of rap and crap singers like Nikki Minaj I find utter shit befitting the NIGGER STEREOTYPE.

 

[Lemming42]

"Writing is mostly just dumb rather than terrible" - what does that even mean, what is the difference ?

Meaning most of it makes sense in the context of the game's own internal logic, it's just that people won't like the tone the game goes for.

People complained about Oasis, for example, but there's nothing in Oasis that contradicts Fo1 or Fo2 (in fact, Fo2 was the one that introduced the tree mutation), and nothing that contradicts the rest of Fo3. Contrast with something like the ghost, or Keeng Rat, or the chess radscorpion, or the Big Trouble in Little China characters in Fo2 - all of which make no sense on any level, don't fit in with Fallout 1, and don't fit in with the rest of Fo2.

You mention Little Lamplight, and that's what I'd consider to be actually "terrible" writing - it doesn't make sense in context, because they forgot to explain where the kids are coming from (though there's a sidequest solution in which you deliver a child to them, so maybe they take in orphans, but who fucking knows honestly).

Most important question: why are you putting so much effort trying to whitewash that shitstain of a game often at cost of vastly superior Fallout 2 and New Vegas ?

You are going to encounter views you disagree with on a videogame discussion forum.

It's nowhere close to quality of F2 and quests are only structurally better then in F4.

I'm not sure if you meant quest structure or just writing here - I'd argue Fo2 goes just as low as Fo3 at points (and Fo3, at its absolute worst, doesn't plunge to the same depths as Fo2's San Francisco), though Fo2 has far better high points.

The quest structure in Fo3 is the game's ultimate strong point; again, I don't think there's anything as C&C-heavy as Wasteland Survival Guide in any other Fallout game.

For anyone who's not played it or has forgotten:

quest summary

- A woman asks you to help her write a survival guide. You can immediately convince her that she's incompetent and that the guide will turn out terrible, which ends the quest and grants you a unique perk. Otherwise:
- She asks you to go to various places and perform tasks for her. All of these have multiple options and ways to complete them. She typically gives bonus objectives, which are optional but yield greater rewards, different equipment, and contribute towards one of the quest's various endings.
- You can lie about having completed each task, using a variety of different dialogue-based skill checks.
- You can also, in typical Fallout style, choose between being polite or verbally abusive to her.
- At the end of the quest, the book can turn out several different ways. If you lied to her, the book is garbage. If you were polite and heplful, the book is considered great. If you did the tasks but were a dick about it, the book becomes known as an accidental comedy masterpiece.
- For each of the above solutions, the quality of the book is determined by how many tasks you actually completed, and how well you completed them. I'm not sure how many quality variants the book has.
- Each variant of the book has two consequences - one, you'll get a mechanical reward based on how well the book turned out and what kind of tone it had.
- Secondly, a random event is added into the game's overworld encounter deck in which you meet a wastelander who owns a copy of the book. The quality of the book determines this person's fate: if the book is shit, they're an under-armed weakling who dies in combat, while if the book was good, they're well-armed and able to defend themselves. There's three variants of this encounter.

I don't think there's anything as involved as this in, say, Fo2. This is one of the first quests the player will get in Fo3, whereas the player's first quests in Fo2 are stuff like Arroyo's "kill the plants" (completely linear, one way to complete this) or "get the flint" (two ways to do this), or Klamath's "kill keeng rat" (completely linear, one way to do this), "rescue Smiley" (completely linear, one way to do this), "free Sulik" (three clearly-defined ways to do this, I think?), and "guard the Brahmin" (two clearly-defined ways to do this).

 

[9ted6]

The best Fallout 3 gets is mediocre, but it's only truly terrible in a few places. Lamplight, Tenpenny Tower, Vault 101 treating you like an errand boy, Liberty Prime, and the forced Brotherhood plot are the only standout awful bits I can remember.

Fallout 4 has an edge in graphics and gunplay, but it has way more terrible moments. The writing in 3 is bad but 4 is far worse, the lore makes zero sense, and while the graphics are prettier the aesthetics are full retard. Everything looks like a cartoon parody of the 1950s now. 3 has several really stupid plots or quests, but 4 takes it to a whole new level, and the dialogue is universally rushed and artificial.

I wanted to play more of 3 but never wanted to boot 4 up again after a few hours.

No Fallout game is worth playing after 1 anyway. They're all different flavors of dogshit, NV included, and 1 itself isn't perfect.

 

[Lemming42]

Lamplight, Tenpenny Tower, Vault 101 treating you like an errand boy, Liberty Prime, and the forced Brotherhood plot are the only standout awful bits I can remember.

That'd be my list of terrible shit too, except swap Tenpenny Tower for Blood Ties. Tenpenny kind of works if you really strain credibility a bit - some rich guy has tried to reopen and refurbish a pre-war resort for the wealthy, performs credit checks on new residents, hires mercs to guard the place, and at least one of the people inside is a former slaver which explains how she got enough money to get in - fine, I can broadly see how that might happen. It's basically just a smaller-scale, more ostentatious version of what House does in New Vegas.

But I still have no idea what the fuck was going on with the cannibal cult in Blood Ties. I've tried to read it as charitably as possible and the only conclusion I can come to is that Emil hit his head on a metal bar before writing it.

Like, I get that the leader is a fan of gothic literature or whatever and believes that modeling himself on vampries will let him keep his urges under control, but why the fuck are they all wanting to eat people in the first place?

No Fallout game is worth playing after 1 anyway. They're all different flavors of dogshit, NV included, and 1 itself isn't perfect.

Wouldn't go that far, Fo1 is the best by quite a margin but I think 2, 3 and NV are all worthwhile, especially NV. You just have to treat each of them as their own thing - Fo2's retardation is fine if you segregate it from Fo1 in your mind and treat the whole thing as the joke that it was clearly intended as, Fo3's surreal pulpy weirdness is acceptable if it's self-contained, and NV feels like its own thing anyway.

 

[9ted6]

Lamplight, Tenpenny Tower, Vault 101 treating you like an errand boy, Liberty Prime, and the forced Brotherhood plot are the only standout awful bits I can remember.

That'd be my list of terrible shit too, except swap Tenpenny Tower for Blood Ties. Tenpenny kind of works if you really strain credibility a bit - some rich guy has tried to reopen a pre-war resort for the wealthy, performs credit checks on new residents, hires mercs to guard the place, and at least one of the people inside is a former slaver which explains how she got enough money to get in - fine I can broadly see how that might happen. It's basically just a smaller-scale, more ostentatious version of what House does in New Vegas.

The existence of it wasn't the problem to me, but how its quest goes. Tenpenny doesn't want ghouls coming into his tower, and the leader of the ghouls you meet immediately threatens him, everyone in it, and acts like an asshole to you. Later you find out he's planning to massacre everyone in the tower and take it over. However, the game says without exception that Roy's the good guy and Tenpenny's evil for not letting the ghouls in.

Disregarding the fact it's not in any way evil to decide who does and doesn't get into your apocalyptic base, even if you think Tenpenny's being too harsh and you convince him to let all the ghouls in, Roy still kills everyone anyway and takes over for himself. That alone wouldn't be that stupid, it's a bad consequence of the stereotypically good choice, and while the game making Roy seem like the good guy is weird, it could be considered part of that subversion of C&C expectations.

Then you realize Todd must've also been smacked in the head by a metal bar, because if you confront and kill Roy after he murders everyone, you still lose karma and the game treats it like you just killed an innocent man and should've let the ghouls live in peace. Characters don't just suggest Roy's good to fuck with your expectations, he is good mechanically and him murdering the innocent humans in the tower is treated as a good outcome.

 

[markec]

It's nowhere close to quality of F2 and quests are only structurally better then in F4.

I'm not sure if you meant quest structure or just writing here - I'd argue Fo2 goes just as low as Fo3 at points (and Fo3, at its absolute worst, doesn't plunge to the same depths as Fo2's San Francisco), though Fo2 has far better high points.

The quest structure in Fo3 is the game's ultimate strong point; again, I don't think there's anything as C&C-heavy as Wasteland Survival Guide in any other Fallout game.


I don't think there's anything as involved as this in, say, Fo2. This is one of the first quests the player will get in Fo3, whereas the player's first quests in Fo2 are stuff like Arroyo's "kill the plants" (completely linear, one way to complete this) or "get the flint" (two ways to do this), or Klamath's "kill keeng rat" (completely linear, one way to do this), "rescue Smiley" (completely linear, one way to do this), "free Sulik" (three clearly-defined ways to do this, I think?), and "guard the Brahmin" (two clearly-defined ways to do this).

I meant quest structure in way of options and skill use and I agree that F3 have lots of c&c and skill use. Again my point is that its pointless to have a good quests structure when the writing is horrible. Also again F2 has some bad and stupid moments in writing and worldbuilding but unlike F3 it also has good and great ones. You can have the most complex quest structure ever but its wasted if the writing is horrible.

Its like with dungeons in F4, the game has easily the best dungeons of all nuBethesda games. But that doesnt change the flaws of the gameplay loop, there are too many dungeons, many arent interesting, most of them have little of value to find in them and there is a lack of enemy variety. All those things sooner or later makes exploration a chore. What adds to the problem is that due lack of good story or quests there in no narrative thread to keep you playing beyond the point when you get best gear and combat becomes a breeze.

No Fallout game is worth playing after 1 anyway. They're all different flavors of dogshit, NV included, and 1 itself isn't perfect.

Both F2 and NV are worth playing, F3 is beyond salvation and F4 is only worth playing if you love open world survival action games (you will need to mod it heavily) and even then you will be bored after 20 hours.

 

[Ash]

Bethesda style games:

New Vegas (monocled though imperfect) >> Morrowind (highly flawed but there's a monocle buried somewhere) >= FO4 (good for what it is) > FO3 (7.5/10 gameplay but let down by all the retarded) >>> Oblivion & Skyrim (ultimate decline. No amount of mods can save them. Awful in pretty much every way. except the music).

FO4 SHOULD be lesser than Morrowind. Morrowind is full of creativity, systems upon systems, unique innovations, starts out hardcore RPG etc etc, but it all completely falls apart half way through and becomes unplayable due to retarded game balance and excessive copy-paste content. FO4 starts out as a somewhat lesser game but maintains that standard the entire way through.

I forgot The Outer Worlds. I'd probably rank it slightly under FO3, but at least it isn't a complete eyesore to look at. Same ranking, probably.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

The error here was making Fallout to be a "big" game when it wasn't. You can beat Fallout in less than 10 hours, if you're lazy or a neet you can even beat it in one afternoon, one sitting. All those big, sprawling parts of the games just take away from the core Fallout experience from 1.
Fallout 3 is way worse than even Oblivion, to be fair. It really feels like a lazy game. Plus it made people think the Brotherhood are supposed to be the good guys.

 

[Lemming42]

Then you realize Todd must've also been smacked in the head by a metal bar, because if you confront and kill Roy after he murders everyone, you still lose karma and the game treats it like you just killed an innocent man and should've let the ghouls live in peace.

Aha, I didn't know you got bad karma for killing Roy after the massacre. Regardless of that quirk though, I'd suggest that the game does clearly paint Roy as the bad guy, and it also goes out of its way to make several of the Tenpenny residents sympathetic - if you do the quest through the "peaceful" Roy route, you've already convinced several of them to welcome him in.

You can have the most complex quest structure ever but its wasted if the writing is horrible.

True, so I guess it's another agree to disagree thing - barring the examples we're talking about above, I don't think the writing is horrible (EDIT: and The Replicated Man, I forgot about that, that's a really shit quest). I think most of it's fine and occasionally strays into good - as long as you're interested in the game recapturing the surreal pulp style of a lot of 1940s - 60s sci-fi and adventure fiction, which is what it's generally going for with all the cults everywhere and villages/settlements based around a single theme, in the style of Star Trek planets.

Basically, Fo2 is a great game if you approach it as a piss-take, but a terrible game if you approach it as a sequel to Fo1. Similarly, Fo3 is a solid game if you approach it as a series of weird adventures out of the pages of Amazing Stories magazine, which is what they're going for, but a terrible game if you approach it as a Fo1 sequel. Each of the sequels has to be taken on their own terms, including NV.