Fallout Fallout 4 Thread

[Bliblablubb]

Finally managed to spend a few hours in that DLC, just following the mainquest.
Impressions so far:

- Evironment is basically "more of the same but WITH FOG", since eastern Boston already had a shitton of small fishing huts. Point L's swamps were a bigger difference compared to the mainland. Why no snow? Shit is still in the files inherited from Skyrim I bet
- Fucking levelscaling and bullitsponges again, not as bad as point lookout tho. Still, got one-hit-killed by a quest triggered cloaked ASStron murderbot surprise RAEP. Awsome enemy placement there Beth...
- Mehrine Armoah! Without ultra-light mod it weights as much a powah armoah, just without... power. 90+ pounds of armor. Dafuq?
- The fog gives me <0.1 rads on normal difficulty. Spooky. So dangerous. Got more rads from drinking dirty water than enduring the daaaangerous fog.
- Murder mystary quest below the hotel was fun. Required "above average xbox player" brain power to solve right. Positivly surprised. VA overdid it a little tho.
- Believeable 3 factions. A lot better than the base game ones. Which of course isn't much much on paper, but still...
- General level scaling meant only the two-shot lever rifle is useful. Still ditched it and went with the gauss rifle, since I cannot into wasting several shots on some Soopah Mootant Warghlord.
- Dat cyberspace. I bet console forums are already bursting with "halp!" threads about that. Minecraft-portal-tower defense light. Not even the masterrace can cheat there, because the console doesn't work in buildmode. Wasted many minutes searching for a block when I realized a bug had placed another block around it. Still fun.
- Looses a lot of atmosphere because you can travel back home and pimp up your loot. And you have to travel back because fucking settlements are under attack.
- Some of the new settlements are already pre-fortified old bases. Beth learned that players don't want a blank slate all the time while you cannot settle in well defendable and cleared buildings? Tiny incline here.

Would have worked a lot better if they had limited players to how much they can bring with them and when they can go back to the mainland. "But mah freedom!" my ass.

Still, I rate it so far. Maybe the story will add another 0,5 trolls. Good for what it is and modders will fix it. But only for the PCMR.

 

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...r-dlc-is-rich-in-loot-but-light-on-excitement

Fallout 4's Far Harbor DLC is rich in loot but light on excitement
Swamped.

Nice to see Bethesda *still* can't figure how to make their games not mess up on a Sony console.

 

[Sigourn]

Having not played Fallout 4, I need someone to compare the Church of Atom to the guys from Wasteland 2 that worship the Titan. Which one is more interesting? Which one is better developed? I really liked Wasteland 2's approach, and want to see what Bethesda did.

 

[Onholyservicebound]

The ones in Fallout 4 aren't as interesting imo, the sect in the glow just feels like a bunch of homeless people in a ditch and the ones in Far Harbor just feel like raiders.
Also, no suicide bombers.

 

[circ]

Not really the same kind of cult, thought it appears so on the surface. Titan guys seemed more fanatical crazy cultists, Atom seems like stupid morons who because lol why not reasons use irradiated fleshlights.

 

[Sigourn]

The ones in Fallout 4 aren't as interesting imo, the sect in the glow just feels like a bunch of homeless people in a ditch and the ones in Far Harbor just feel like raiders.
Also, no suicide bombers.

Not really the same kind of cult, thought it appears so on the surface. Titan guys seemed more fanatical crazy cultists, Atom seems like stupid morons who because lol why not reasons use irradiated fleshlights.

I thought so. As much as I can't get into Wasteland 2, it's got some interesting factions that aren't as shallow as "we want to help people", "we want to free synths", "we love radiation" and so on. I mean, the M.A.D. monks didn't actually worship radiation IIRC, they just feared the destructive power of the bombs. And once you showed them they could be disarmed, they went bonkers. Plus they worshipped the bomb in a "our protector" kind of way instead of the "it's got the power to kill everyone" kind of way, in that what mattered to them was that the bomb allowed them to impose order on the people of the canyon.

 

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

In the base game the entirety of their core reasoning/motivation is lol cuz radiation. They're raiders that are more annoying to encounter. That's it.

 

[Bliblablubb]

Severall Skillchecks and options that actually make a difference.

You mean the savescum extravaganza called "persuashun", right? Otherwise I would like the version you were playing.
F:NV had skillchecks. If we start praising this here as a "skillcheck" our standards really have reached rock bottom.
I noticed one instance were a persuashun attempt got "easier" after talking a little more. Not that I needed it, since my unresistable charm involves a red womyn dress with a pirate hat while being drunk and drugged. Normal people would shoot me, but in a bethesda world everyone adores me.

The synth ending is okay-ish in a "sacrifices have to be made for the greater good" way, but nothing earth shaking. The Mariner and the hotel quest were pretty nice, extra atmosphere if your bring Nick with you during the main quest. My main beef is the harmless fog, it just doesn't deliver the whole "Oh noes, the fog is taking over the island!" problem. They could have at least done it glowing sea style, but I guess metrics showed that people didn't bother exploring that area because of rads. Don't want the island go to waste after all.

"Best FO4 DLC" yes, but the competition isn't exactly big. Still, you get your money's worth out of it if you liked the base game.

Also: what is the deal with that lever rifle reloading animation? It always reloads 5 magic bullets, regardless how many you used. Obsidian did a proper reload in F:NV, why can't beth do that?

 

[circ]

People probably don't explore the glowing sea because there really isn't much to explore there.

Anyway I was thinking earlier about the worldbuilding or more specifically professions, they've got going in FO4.

So you have doctors that are so good they never fuck up and harm their patient, or atleast the player, and can even cure rads in seconds. Pretty good.
Mechanics so good they can fix power armor in seconds and they fix your weapons up so well they never break.
You have heavy machinery still in working condition and several energy sources - highly portable too.

But goddamn, in 200 years you still haven't figured out how to fix a fucking roof, a drawer or a chair.

 

[typical user]

Glowing sea has handful locations you can visit and almost none are interesting. Maybe some military facility with some sort of prototype technology or scientific experiment which you can read and inform one of main factions? No? Maybe some unique enemies, not a reskin, not a glowing variant, not another raider or mutant wielding pipe-gun but mutated plant, Cazador, Centaur, Floater or whatnot? The only thing worth interest was crashed plane but it didn't have anything interesting and at least half competent player should have Gauss Rifle while venturing into Glowing Sea. The leveled loot magic makes secret goverment bunkers boring and similar to rotten hut with huge boss chest.

The radiation problem is tied to ridiculous protection from gear. If I wore Vault Suit I would get 1-2 rads from water ponds around sanctuary but when I switched to Road Leathers I would get around 10. In Power Armor you get 1000-1500 rad resistance which makes you pracitcally immune to radiation. In Fallout 1 Power Armor had 50% rad resistance + you got 0-20% from Endurance. You still had to pop Rax-X or two to survive The Glow. In Fallout 4 you don't need to thanks to some weird rad resistance formula and magic items giving you stupid buffs.

 

[Duellist_D]

You mean the savescum extravaganza called "persuashun", right? Otherwise I would like the version you were playing.

You didn't find the hut with shittons of loot where you need to unlock a bunker first?
That one has a lot of skillchecks (INT etc) to get the devices running again.

 

[Beastro]

Meanwhile the Brotherhood are a step away from being the Enclave

You say that as if it's a bad thing...

 

[orcinator]

You mean the savescum extravaganza called "persuashun", right?

Someone savescums for those checks instead of putting on their charisma outfit?

n Fallout 1 Power Armor had 50% rad resistance + you got 0-20% from Endurance. You still had to pop Rax-X or two to survive The Glow.

But that was also the only time you had to use rad protection, unlike Beth fallouts where there's a radiation patch every two feet.

 

[DosBuster]

Two new dlcs just got uploaded to steamdb, I'm guessing one is content and the other is workshop content.

 

[typical user]

You didn't find the hut with shittons of loot where you need to unlock a bunker first?

I probably did but the point is with leveled loot and no unique equipment there was no excitement. If you have level 26< then you have good chance to buy Gauss Rifle in Diamond City and you also can roll Enclave Power Armor. What's more that you need at this point? Money is no issue, you mainly spend it on ammunition, drugs and scrap to repair your suit or build settlements. In Fallout 1 you could sink thousands on surgical enchacements in Fallout 2 on dermal implants which had combined cost around 100-120k. In Fallout 1 the only place to find Plasma Rifle was in The Glow, the only place to get Power Armor was in Brotherhood of Steel base, to upgrade it you had to complete quests in The Boneyard. In Fallout 4 all you need is to get high enough level and you can buy and upgrade this equipment to the best degree all by yourself. If on the other hand the only working suit of Enclave Power Armor was in The Glowing Sea protected by at least 10 Deathclaws and deadly amounts of radiation then players would memorize the place and feel accomplishment for getting it.

But that was also the only time you had to use rad protection, unlike Beth fallouts where there's a radiation patch every two feet.

So what's the point? This is good but could be better.

 

[RK47]

Their radiation threat is definitely barely on the level of noticeable if it wasn't for Radaways having a detrimental side effect when used.
I was expecting something really horrible when I went into Far Harbor's fog but that's all I got from the whole 'radiation fog is dangerous' they talk about in game. The bullet sponges and high monster damage is more threatening than background radiation.

 

[Sigourn]

Is there literally ANY sense of progress in this stupid game?

I remember playing Fallout 1 coming from the 3D games, and it was amazing how NPCs kicked my ass early on (sort of like my current Gothic playthrough). And getting Combat Armor was just beautiful, not to mention Power Armor.

What about this game? Does anything give the player that sense of satisfaction?

 

[racofer]

Sense of progress in a Bethesda game.

r00fles!

 

[Onholyservicebound]

Is there literally ANY sense of progress in this stupid game?

I remember playing Fallout 1 coming from the 3D games, and it was amazing how NPCs kicked my ass early on (sort of like my current Gothic playthrough). And getting Combat Armor was just beautiful, not to mention Power Armor.

What about this game? Does anything give the player that sense of satisfaction?

You're pretty much immortal by level 3, when you find the power armor. it's easy to maintain and negates all fall damage, most physical damage, and most radiation damage.

 

[Sigourn]

You're pretty much immortal by level 3, when you find the power armor. it's easy to maintain and negates all fall damage, most physical damage, and most radiation damage.

I thought so. It's no wonder Survival Mode depends on sleeping to save the game. Fallout 4 must be so unchallenging the only way to make it "challenging" is to threaten the player to delete his progress upon dying.

 

[circ]

SO I got around to playing Far Harbor.

Well it starts ok, even though it's still weird to see characters with barely any facial expressions. Is it just me or did Skyrim do expressions better, and that's not saying much.

But how have the Nakatomis or whatever survived out on the edge of nowhere? There are 2 mirelurk queens fairly close. Lots of regular mirelurks. Two deathclaws, and lots of Gunners. They have no turrets or any other defenses. Makes no sense.

Theeen, it's all downhill. Fog does nothing. It's an annoyance at best, forcing you to visit a doc every now and then. I understand why Bethesda did it - too strong and it's retarded considering it's everywhere, although it's pretty easy to actually find connected pockets so you never have to come into contact with it. But I said fuck that and just sprint through everything. Fog is shit, and Bethesda should have come up with a better gimmick. It works in Dead Money because you will die, but here there's too much of too little.

Encounters are laughable. So we got reskinned Raiders. Reskinned Deathclaws. Reskinned mongrels. No challenge at all on survival unless I get bored and rush into combat.

Environment is ok actually. But there's nothing interesting to discover. Probably the most interesting thing I found was a drive-in theater with a feral ghoul audience. Whom I didn't kill because hey, they like movies. Atleast the points of discovery are stretched far wider than shit every 5 feet in FO4 vanilla, and that's really the only good thing.

Fun quests. So much fun to go kill SHIT on the other end of the map. Every fucking time. That even goes for settler quests. Oh man.

Why are there super mutants on the island?

I have not found any equipment that was remotely interesting. Some nice fisherman hats I will never use because the defense on them sucks. Radium rifle has a fucking satellite dish at the end of the barrel. I don't get it. Both new ranged weapons do a ridiculous amount of damage, and I wouldn't call any NPC a bullet sponge when done with them. 45-70 ammo is rare as shit though it seems, unless bought.


So, better than Automatron? Actually, no. Automatron atleast gave you robots with shitload of carry weight and murderlasers. Far Harbor gives you NPC's who don't speak with a Maine accent that all want you to kill shit far away in a landscape that's devoid of anything of interest.


I've also noticed partially why FO4 was suddenly running like shit with the 1.5 patch - meshes and texture streaming more specifically - leftover references in the 1.5 patch to Far Harbor, even if it's not installed. Install Far Harbor, and mesh and texture loading is suddenly improved by a third. Rest is still a shitty patch. Good job Bethesda.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Bethesda design philosophy is "make fucktons of irrelevant caves and places and fill it it fuckton of scaled enemies"

And bethesda fuckbois new vegas map is boring, while mojave is alot more coherent thatn any of bethesda's map.

There are at least semblance of logic put into new vegas map, locations makes sense, why this type of enemies here, border between legion and ncr territory is full of sign of skirmish and all.

In fallout 4, diamond city is practically on siege, with guards patrolling and doing nothing to super mutants and raiders across the street.

Look at new vegas, the exterior is heavily guarded, there are sharecropper farm and water pipes that send water from camp golf to th city, and it all heavily guarded.

Diamond city is better than "LLLOOL LETS BUILD A CITY AROUND AN ATOM BOMB BECAUSE WACKY!" but it isnt much better at portraying a civilization either

 

[Bliblablubb]

Framerates becoming shittier after each patch is a classic Bethesda tradtion. Probably "improvements" to the visuals, to cater some high end rig fags. I remember a Skyrim patch secretly changed the display of fogs, dropping my framerate drastically.
FO4 just honors that tradition. When I logged in in preperation for the DLC (after patching), my toon was sitting in the Corvega fagtory. Framerate there was back to being worse than in the completely unpatched version, something Beth had already mostly fixed since then. Probably fog again. Because Fog Harbor.

Beth gonna Beth.

 

[typical user]

Is there literally ANY sense of progress in this stupid game?

I remember playing Fallout 1 coming from the 3D games, and it was amazing how NPCs kicked my ass early on (sort of like my current Gothic playthrough). And getting Combat Armor was just beautiful, not to mention Power Armor.

What about this game? Does anything give the player that sense of satisfaction?

Fully upgraded Enclave Power Armor and Gauss Rifle. At the end of the game I was slowly walking towards my objective and instagibbing any kind of crap foolish enough to attack me. Most stuff died in 1 shot only large mosquitos and mirelurk queens were a threat because their poison somehow bypasses enviromental protection of power suit which allows you to breathe underwater for couple of minutes and has superb rad protection.

Satisfactory was when I found radioactive plasma rifle. No matter their hp bloat, rad damage will decrease it's max hp by 5-10% per shot and if you have perk which prolongs fusion cores then it also boosts rad damage of your weapons. I just turned it into full auto and it would take 10 shots to bring the most tanky mobs down. Only ghouls are resistant/heal from rad damage but that was the beuty of plasma rifle - 100 normal and energy damage so no real way to counter it. Only stuff in power armor would be resistant to that weapon but then I would just pull out my Gauss Rifle.

 

[undecaf]

You mean the savescum extravaganza called "persuashun", right?

I find it hard to believe there's anything in the game worth the trouble to savescum.