Fallout 4: Still wandering the wasteland

[Warden of the North]

Starting up a new thread

After a few months away im back into this and continuing my "hard game". Im playing with heavy damage modifiers which makes the game considerably different. Headshots kill (both me and the bad guys), tossing a grenade in a room cleans it out, rockets kill in one hit etc. Im having a ton of fun and with this difference the game will be virtually endless. It takes a lot of time to clean out bases, especially if theyre heavily armoured or super mutants. Stimpacks have been made considerably rarer too, also Legendaries arent as powerful and are much rarer. I also dont use fast travel.

I cant do full on survival mode (sleeping and eating? No thanks), but Ive changed the game enough and increased the difficulty to a level where it feels very different.

Anyways, this game is two years old and I still love it.

Click to read more...

 

[Crabapple]

I just bought GOTY Edition on Steam, I have in on PS4 and played it a ton, but I recently got a good PC setup and wanted to try the full experience with much better mods. It's one of my favorites and I'm excited to start playing it again.

But I'm also playing Cities: Skylines right now and the hours are flying past too quickly.

 

[Warden of the North]

I also just added a mail mod. Craftable mail boxes that have assigned settlers for transporting goods between settlements. This will make things much better for my no fast travel rule.

 

[Brownbeard]

I loved Fallout 3 and liked New Vegas quite a bit, but I haven't been able to get into Fallout 4 as much. It's not as good, I guess, and the whole building thing really hurts it. (It couldn't be more boring).

Over a year ago, I completed the first story DLC and then did the quest where you have to 'hack'. Haven't touched it since, but I've been meaning to. Just too many other games.

 

[Redder Winger]

Loved fallout 2.
Really liked fallout 3.
Fallout 4 bored the hell out of me.
Most of the tasks are tedious. It tries to be a city building game for some reason, but doesn't try very hard.

 

[XX]

4 is a great sandbox but a pretty mediocre game. Obsidian is struggling to keep the lights on so I'd really like to see them take a crack at another west coast fallout game, but I bet Bethesda doesn't want to be outshined again.

 

[tmurfin]

Man, I gotta get in and finish this game.. came to a crossroads a long time ago where I couldn't decide who to side with and stopped playing

 

[Bjorn Le]

I don't mind the sleeping and eating food part of survival mode, it makes it fun. The problem is saving. Only when sleeping? f*** off. The game crashes or glitches out far too much for that to be fun. Run into the side of that car and it kills you? Sorry, too bad your last save was 45 minutes ago. I modded that part out but it's not the same.

My solution would have been to have the game autosave every time you enter/leave a building or new zone, or every half hour, which ever comes first. Means you can't savescum but aren't at the mercy or typical Bethesda performance issues.

4 is a great sandbox but a pretty mediocre game. Obsidian is struggling to keep the lights on so I'd really like to see them take a crack at another west coast fallout game, but I bet Bethesda doesn't want to be outshined again.

New Vegas might be better in the eyes of a certain segment of fans but critically and commercially Fallout 3 did better. I don't think Bethesda is worried about Obsidian outshining them. The bigger problem is Obsidian almost certainly lacks the capacity to make a AAA game anymore, save Bethesda bankrolling Obsidian and providing coders to help. And in that case, Bethesda has no incentive to do it. If they're going to be paying for a new game, they my as well make it themselves. If Bethesda bought Obsidian, I could see it happening. No chance otherwise. Obsidian are excellent storytellers (they're Bioware with significantly less resources and significantly less coding talent), but they're not what they once were. A pretty bad sign is that Paradox isn't publishing Pillars of Eternity II, which is almost certainly not Obsidians choice. They partnered with each other for Tyranny, which was solid, but for whatever reason PDX is not publishing PoE II.

 

[tacogeoff]

Finally a GOTY edition. will have to pick it up in the near future. I just played the base game originally and enjoyed it. The story itself was kind of lame but the premise and world was interesting enough to keep me engaged.

 

[Kestrel]

4 is a great sandbox but a pretty mediocre game. Obsidian is struggling to keep the lights on so I'd really like to see them take a crack at another west coast fallout game, but I bet Bethesda doesn't want to be outshined again.

That's more or less how I feel about it. I played around with the settlements (with a few mods) for awhile - once I got bored of that, I quit playing. I'd love to see a 3/NV-esque Fallout - you could even include the settlement building if it's improved upon - but I'd love to see one done in Canada, complete with ridiculous post-apocalyptic winter conditions. Not going to happen, but I'd still love to see it.

 

[NyQuil]

I'd love to see one done in Canada, complete with ridiculous post-apocalyptic winter conditions. Not going to happen, but I'd still love to see it.

Just take the Skyrim map and add mutants and machine guns.

 

[Kestrel]

Just take the Skyrim map and add mutants and machine guns.

I want my Brush Gun too... I think that one was my favourite NV gun.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

I enjoyed FO4 for what it was, but I didn't put nearly the number of hours into it as I did for FO3 and New Vegas (both of which I came back to after a while and played for a long time again as well). Reached the limit of satisfaction much, much faster than I was hoping, so I was disappointed in that regard. Wouldn't remotely call it a bad game, though.

That being said, I'll be very disappointed if the next Elder Scrolls game (in a decade) is closer to this than their past games.

 

[NyQuil]

I enjoyed FO4 for what it was, but I didn't put nearly the number of hours into it as I did for FO3 and New Vegas (both of which I came back to after a while and played for a long time again as well). Reached the limit of satisfaction much, much faster than I was hoping, so I was disappointed in that regard. Wouldn't remotely call it a bad game, though.

That being said, I'll be very disappointed if the next Elder Scrolls game (in a decade) is closer to this than their past games.

According to Steam:

Skyrim - 434 hours
Fallout 4 - 433 hours (funny how close it ended up)
Fallout New Vegas - 162 hours

Now I bought Fallout 3 and Oblivion the old-fashioned way so I'm not sure about those.

The biggest gap is the sheer number of mods I brought to bear for the top two games. As in, hundreds by the end.

I spent a lot more time tinkering with Skyrim and FO4 than I did with Fallout: New Vegas. Both games also had settlement/housing mechanics that I probably wasted a lot of time on.

Fallout NV was always like a heavily modded version of FO3 for me anyway.

FO3 had a tight and straightforward storyline with some interesting twists but it was fairly direct from beginning to end, much like Skyrim and Oblivion.

Fallout 4 and Fallout: New Vegas offered a lot more in terms of variety of who you could ally with and what the repercussions of those alliances would be. I found some of the decisions difficult to make. As a result though, the main storyline necessarily wasn't as focused because it had to accommodate any number of variations based on your faction status.

Fallout 4 in particular did an excellent job in portraying all three major factions as having moral equivalency depending on what perspective you adopted. I carefully did all of the missions up until the "must decide" mission and it was heart-breaking to go against the Institute and the Brotherhood at that point.

In Fallout: NV, I had pretty much adopted a very independent character from the get go, so going Yes Man and No Gods No Masters was a pretty simple decision.

 

[Crabapple]

A lot of the fun I had in FO4 was using my mental gymnastics to bend the game world to fit with the RP of my character. The game itself doesn't allow much RP within it but if you ignore or alter some stuff with the main storyline you can have a real good time.

 

[NyQuil]

A lot of the fun I had in FO4 was using my mental gymnastics to bend the game world to fit with the RP of my character. The game itself doesn't allow much RP within it but if you ignore or alter some stuff with the main storyline you can have a real good time.

Ultimately, I think players who are better at "sandboxing" and filling the gaps with their own imagination will have more fun with Bethesda style games.

People who want their hand held all the way through from beginning to end will chafe.

Some of my favourite encounters were actually randomly generated and yet they've stuck with me all these years later.

 

[Xelebes]

That's more or less how I feel about it. I played around with the settlements (with a few mods) for awhile - once I got bored of that, I quit playing. I'd love to see a 3/NV-esque Fallout - you could even include the settlement building if it's improved upon - but I'd love to see one done in Canada, complete with ridiculous post-apocalyptic winter conditions. Not going to happen, but I'd still love to see it.

Have you played the Frost Mod? Made by the same maker of the Dust Mod for NV.

 

[Kestrel]

Have you played the Frost Mod? Made by the same maker of the Dust Mod for NV.

I haven't, I'll have to take a look at it.

 

[Xelebes]

I should issue a warning. Frost is hard, just like Dust. It is supposed to be a hardcore survival game so play it only if you want to be given a good challenge.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

What was the moral justification for the institute? They literally kidnapped people and replaced them with robots. Then will attack you for no reason if you decide to join the minutemen.

 

[Bjorn Le]

What was the moral justification for the institute? They literally kidnapped people and replaced them with robots. Then will attack you for no reason if you decide to join the minutemen.

They thought they were necessary for humanities survival, and that their failure to work with people in the Commonwealth in the first years after the bombs fell proved the people outside the Institute were savages who couldn't be saved. They thought they were doing everyone a favour.

 

[NyQuil]

What was the moral justification for the institute? They literally kidnapped people and replaced them with robots. Then will attack you for no reason if you decide to join the minutemen.

They were the only ones with the technology and scientific expertise to actually make sweeping changes to the Wasteland. In terms of actually making the lives of citizens better, I think they actually had the most potential. They were arrogant, domineering and patronizing, sure, but with you in charge, perhaps that could be blunted over time. They had very little contact with the outside world and feared it, and so their actions were understandable to a degree. With them coming out into the open, that mentality could be softened.

With respect to their kidnappings and replacements, they did this in most cases to avoid outright war - simply controlling those in power in order to make decisions in their favour as opposed to destructive invasions or attempts to conquer. A much more subtle faction than the Brotherhood, busily focused on annihilating everything that wasn't human, but they were both "ends justifies the means" types of organization.

I ended up going Railroad, but I don't see the Wasteland as a much different place with them in charge. They were largely a single issue faction - focused only on the freedom of artificial humans.

I think you could play the Institute as an untapped resource for good - with the right leadership of course.

 

[Morbo]

They have freaking teleporting robots and hydroponics labs.

I mean, on that basis alone, they were clearly the best option. Railroad were just dudes in a broken down hideout like everyone else. they weren't the answer.

And the Brotherhood were simply much better armed and equipped Raiders.

 

[tmurfin]

Ultimately, I think players who are better at "sandboxing" and filling the gaps with their own imagination will have more fun with Bethesda style games.

People who want their hand held all the way through from beginning to end will chafe.

Some of my favourite encounters were actually randomly generated and yet they've stuck with me all these years later.

This.

I had said earlier I was struggling to pick a side, so I decided to hop on and try decide again, I played for about 4 hours doing random missions, when I realized, I had to make the choice. And what happens? As I'm standing in Sanctuary Hills, a troop of Synths start attacking. Boom. Choice made, made up my own motive and inner dialogue as to why I would leave/betray the institute. The rest is history.

I did the Minutemen ending, the Railroad, meh, I didn't care either way for them, and the BoS were flat out dick heads this game so that was a no brainer.

Now that that's all wrapped up, I've started loading some mods (Xbox), so what mods do you guys recommend? I'm currently going crazy with the Sim Settlement mod . Any other building mods I should be looking into? And I'm open to just any good mods that might extend the gameplay.

 

[Whiplash27]

I cheated a bit. I did the walkthrough on how to get the minuteman ending where the Railroad and BoS all survive. Best possible ending I guess. Second time around I think I did BoS ending.

On another note, I can't stand how they have GotY edition out now and yet the Season Pass still costs like $25. I hear there's only one or two pieces of DLC that are worth anything, but I'm not paying more for the DLC than I paid for the game itself (think I paid like $15 or so).