Fallout 4 Pre-Announcement Bullshit Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Decado]

You're basically stealing shit to sell.

Because money is so great in a world where there isn't anything of worth to buy.

This is a problem with a lot of games, maybe even most. Most modern RPGs, whether open world or not, are horrible at creating balanced, playable economies. FO:NV was better than most, but even still, by the end of the game you are fucking swimming in money and there is nothing left to spend it on. To see really well balanced economies I feel like I have to go back to really old games like Betrayal at Krondor and the Quest for Glory series. In Bethesda games, money eventually becomes just another collectible.

 

[DalekFlay]

Well as I said, they didn't only make stealing useless. They made the whole idea of shopkeepers useless. When was the last time you ever bought weapon and armor from a shop in Skyrim ? there is nothing like, say, the Gun Runners from Fallout 1. You don't need to let the player be able to steal the very best weapon from a random no name unprotected shopkeeper. You can balance the mechanics without doing either extreme (of letting the player steal the best stuff from the first minute of gameplay vs not giving the player anything of worth ever).

You definitely need money in Skyrim, at least early on. And the best way to get that money is to sell shit to merchants. Buying from merchants? Other than spellbooks or smithing supplies I agree, not much there to buy. However since exploration is the focus of the TES games one could say you'd rather be finding shit than buying it anyway.

As it is, the "open world" moniker on the current TES is meaningless. It's devoid of any reason and depth. The truth is that nothing you can do in these games really matters or help you in any way shape or form. Levelling up doesn't help either. Nothing ever does. The game is static and scaled to the extreme so everything feels just pointless. Never encountering enemies that overpower you, but also never overpowering enemies that used to overpower you.. it's just static. They managed to make the world dynamics feel static by tying it completely to your character.

Oblivion was like this, Skyrim isn't this bad. Sabercats are in the hills at level one and will destroy you. A lot of dungeon bosses are super powerful early on. After level 20 or so you're a god, sure, but Morrowind and New Vegas are the same way. All these games do the steady power buildup until you literally can't be hurt at high levels.

 

[Spectacle]

You definitely need money in Skyrim, at least early on. And the best way to get that money is to sell shit to merchants. Buying from merchants? Other than spellbooks or smithing supplies I agree, not much there to buy. However since exploration is the focus of the TES games one could say you'd rather be finding shit than buying it anyway.

If you're not enchanting yourself then stores are the best places in Skyrim to find weapons and armor with the specific enchantments you want, dungeon loot is too random. But I'd say the main money drain in Skyrim is training, which can get quite expensive at higher skill levels.

It should be no problem to complete the game without ever visiting a store, but having money is certainly nice.

 

[Delterius]

There are trainers in Skyrim?

 

[Turisas]

I don't know what the happy medium is there.

The problem is that the stores are always locked as tight as a dunmer girl's snatch (as in, not tight at all). I liked the Vivec vaults in this regard, you needed to be a master thief (or journeyman mage, but everyone knows casters are best at everything ) to get in without alerting the guards and having to kill everyone. Lockpicking obviously is no deterrent at all because TES games now use a minigame a 5-year-old could beat, so that leaves guards present at all times. It'd be neat if there was a change of the guard at regular intervals that'd leave a small opportunity for some plundering, but even then people would just probably put buckets on the guards' heads or some stupid shit like that.

 

[Cadmus]

Except that there is absolutely no point in burglary in Skyrim. Because you can't ever steal anything of worth. In *good* open world games shopkeepers actually have decent stuff to either steal or buy.

You're basically stealing shit to sell. Potions seem to be the best route there. There are no uber-weapons sitting around in shops, no. Which is a shame on one hand, however on another hand it was arguably way too easy to go directly to uber equipment and steal it at level one in Morrowind. I don't know what the happy medium is there.

As for shops done well - I remember from my Witcher 2 playthrough that I simply couldn't afford the final buyable armor when it was available. I think a good way to do shopping is to have super-expensive items and/or seriously reduce the means of income to be controllable. As in, have all the shitty loot cost a few coins to sell, don't provide the player with bullshit blue set items all the time and make the quests actually matter by rewarding good money for doing them. This will have a by-product of a realistic feel to the economy, you gotta actually work for money instead of stealing 3000 wooden spoons from the first inn. Man would it be cool if the next TES had a completely overhauled economy system similar to The Witcher for example. There's no better feeling than finally getting a good weapon and armor and TES throw it all away by spamming bullshit items everywhere for you to loot.

I remember when playing Morrowind and Oblivion for the first time, I was excited because the iron/steel armors looked good and I was happy the games have some sort of good loot system so that I'd be stuck with this realistic, medieval looking stuff and have to work for a better,nicer armor. But nooo, fuck you, everything looks the same, only stupid +% enchants matter and you can pick up any bullshit new armor anywhere with no effort and to add insult to the injury, Oblivion shops scale so you can't go window-shopping and be like OH MAN I'M GONNA SAVE 5000 FOR THIS AWESOME-LOOKING GLASS ARMOR.

 

[tuluse]

Witcher games were linear until now, balancing an economy for a linear game is much easier.

Let's see how they do with an open world.

 

[Cadmus]

Witcher games were linear until now, balancing an economy for a linear game is much easier.

Let's see how they do with an open world.

Yes, but the idea seems clear - limit the sources of income to a controllable level, limit the purchasing options to a controllable level thus allowing you to adjust the economy easier

 

[Drax]

You don't have to take the north route in NV to avoid the southernmost one, you can cut through NCRCF pretty easily and arrive at (IIRC) 188 trading post, from there to vegas is a simple walk.

 

[AW8]

Except that there is absolutely no point in burglary in Skyrim. Because you can't ever steal anything of worth. In *good* open world games shopkeepers actually have decent stuff to either steal or buy.

I wasn't defending Skyrim's lack of worthwhile and interesting loot to steal, I was trying to explain why Skyrim has more appeal to non-gamers than Dragon Age 2.

 

[Spectacle]

Witcher games were linear until now, balancing an economy for a linear game is much easier.

Let's see how they do with an open world.

Yes, but the idea seems clear - limit the sources of income to a controllable level, limit the purchasing options to a controllable level thus allowing you to adjust the economy easier

It's hard to maintain balance that way that way though, in an open-world game players will always find a way to grind for money and buy top quality gear at low levels, unless you restrict store inventory by player level. And then you'd be back to oblivion/skyrim style boring shops.

The obvious solution is to say fuck balance and let the player buy high-level gear if he can afford it, even if it makes the game easy. If your open-world game is well designed without level scaling everywhere, this would just mean the player could enter more challenging areas at an earlier level than the norm.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

So. I wonder how bad FO4 will be. Was the Skyrim world small or fairly large?

 

[Jaesun]

So. I wonder how bad FO4 will be.

It will be the same badly written, shit action console game garbage just like Bethesda always shits out. Thankfully we have the real Fallout successors, Underrail and Wasteland 2 coming soon.

 

[2house2fly]

I've heard differing accounts of how big Skyrim is, some saying it's the same size as every other Bethesda game and some saying it's a little smaller than Fallout 3/New Vegas/Oblivion. It certainly seems bigger than other Bethesda games, likely an illusion caused by the huge mountains everywhere.

 

[Excidium]

Morrowind feels bigger to me

 

[ED-209]

I've heard differing accounts of how big Skyrim is, some saying it's the same size as every other Bethesda game and some saying it's a little smaller than Fallout 3/New Vegas/Oblivion. It certainly seems bigger than other Bethesda games, likely an illusion caused by the huge mountains everywhere.

Like with Morrowind, it's mostly the design of the land that makes it feel much larger than it actually is. Both Cyrodiil and the Capital Wasteland are very badly designed; the former is basically a giant bowl while the latter is mostly flat. The poor use of distant land in Oblivion and Fallout 3 magnifies the effect.

 

[Jick Magger]

Skyrim feels big the first time you put your feet in the water, then you start walking further and further in and realize it's just a lake-sized puddle. Morrowind is like one of those flooded sink holes or open storm drains people accidentally walk into thinking it's just a puddle and wind up breaking their leg in five different places.

 

[AN4RCHID]

There was no variety in Oblivion and Fallout 3. If Bethsesda did one thing right in Skyrim it was that world map; good variety of terrain types, clear landmarks, and good use of elevation to show off the world. It really is a good hiking simulator.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Better than Honest Hearts?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

So. I wonder how bad FO4 will be. Was the Skyrim world small or fairly large?

It wasn't that big, especially if you use a horse. But it didn't feel cramped, there are nice open spaces and you don't always have a town in the horizon. Then again even Morrowind isn't that big, it just uses tricks such as fog and twisty passages to mask that (the Graphics Extender can give you an unfortunate reality check). If they can pull that off with FO4, the sheer size of the landmass doesn't matter that much. (I just hope they don't do it with TUNNELSTUNNELSTUNNELS like in FO3)

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Meh, probably will. They're not that creative.

 

[Excidium]

I don't mind some metro tunnels and shit, they just forgot to put settlements on them and such, Make it more varied than corridors with feral ghouls

 

[Metro]

So. I wonder how bad FO4 will be. Was the Skyrim world small or fairly large?

It wasn't that big, especially if you use a horse. But it didn't feel cramped, there are nice open spaces and you don't always have a town in the horizon. Then again even Morrowind isn't that big, it just uses tricks such as fog and twisty passages to mask that (the Graphics Extender can give you an unfortunate reality check). If they can pull that off with FO4, the sheer size of the landmass doesn't matter that much. (I just hope they don't do it with TUNNELSTUNNELSTUNNELS like in FO3)

^ This. Although Skyrim feels a bit bigger in terms of content although I'm sure it's about the same (with both games having their share of filler). Morrowind, obviously is better written. As far as FO4 goes I have little hope they'll expand on the faction system in New Vegas (since that was Obsidian's doing) but, like Clocky, I can only hope they don't just make the game half fucking subway systems... which is a danger if they set it in Boston.

 

[DalekFlay]

Skyrim certainly feels big enough to me. I never really found myself wishing the game was larger. I did wish the Dragonborn add-on was larger, but it was still pretty decent.

I'm not even sure Oblivion felt small to me, it more felt repetitive and bland.

 

[Jaesun]

I don't mind some metro tunnels and shit, they just forgot to put settlements on them and such, Make it more varied than corridors with feral ghouls

Really? THAT would make it a better Fallout game?