The Fallout Thread

[Great Savaya]

Hey if they shoot first...

troglodytic logic
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dont you know that killing is never right?

wat the hell is a troglodyte

[The Huskar Social Union]

troglodytic logic
r
o
g
l
o
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dont you know that killing is never right?

wat the hell is a troglodyte

HI.


Also someone who is a hermit, or ignorant or something like that anyway.

[The Flutterlands]

Doing a new game... Because my game fucking hates me.

Thoughts on this Character build?

S 4
P 7
E 4
C 7
I 7
A 4
L7

[Licana]

Also someone who is a hermit, or ignorant or something like that anyway.

To wit, it generally refers to not just the ignorant, but the willfully ignorant. Those that, through their own conscious action or inaction, reject the act of expanding their knowledge beyond what is already known.

So a troglodyte is the kind of person that wouldn't know what the word "troglodyte" means. :>

Doing a new game... Because my game fucking hates me.

Thoughts on this Character build?

S 4
P 7
E 4
C 7
I 7
A 4
L7

NV or FO3? Or FO4 with an increased starting SPECIAL count? Also
>pls give thoughts on this character build
>only posts SPECIAL stats
wew

[The Flutterlands]

Also someone who is a hermit, or ignorant or something like that anyway.

To wit, it generally refers to not just the ignorant, but the willfully ignorant. Those that, through their own conscious action or inaction, reject the act of expanding their knowledge beyond what is already known.

So a troglodyte is the kind of person that wouldn't know what the word "troglodyte" means. :>

Doing a new game... Because my game fucking hates me.

Thoughts on this Character build?

S 4
P 7
E 4
C 7
I 7
A 4
L7

NV or FO3? Or FO4 with an increased starting SPECIAL count? Also
>pls give thoughts on this character build
>only posts SPECIAL stats
wew

New Vegas and I'm still at the Special Part.

Sorry, if I wasn't so specific because I didn't get to the questions yet...

[The Derpy Democratic Republic Of Herp]

However, one common criticism seems to be that it's unstable and crashes a lot.

Doesn't make it bad, but it looks like F4 is more stable.

And I would like to pick the game that is more stable to run.

Here's an amusing anecdote, I recently reinstalled FO4 to so that I could waste time with some of the new Nexus mods as I wait for future projects to finish (XCOM 2 WoC, Fallout The Frontier, etc). So I installed the game, launched it briefly, and began installing mods. Crash on startup. First thing I did was uninstall every mod and run the game vanilla, so that I could troubleshoot from a stable base to find the problem. However, the game continued to crash on start up without fail, even after verifying the game cache through steam and a second uninstall/reinstall cycle. While I have experienced crashes in NV, most of them were mod related and none of them ever resulted in a situation that frustrating. Though it did reinforce something that I probably already knew anyway, reinstalling this game was a mistake.

your quality game sure does just work mr howard

While I had my doubts about Fallout 4 seeing that my first impression was that it crashes on playing full screen for some reason, I got it to work and wandering around the rest is history.

After those crashes, there was only three times when it crashed.

Four incidents of a complete game crash is p. fucking bad.

Fallout 4 Treats itself seriously too

This was something that I directly stated.

Elucid's C-finder is cool, I will give you that.

But the Artillery from Fallout four gives you way more ammo, a bit of lore to it (Not as much as Elucid's C-finder but still) and the aoe of the artillery is bigger. With explosions, bigger = better.

Not when you're forced to be right next to your target area because the PC in FO4 has 11 year old girl arms and can't throw the smoke grenades more than ten feet. I'm also pretty sure that the delay between the call for fire and impact is actually longer than it is for Elucid's C-finder, which is already almost unbearably long.

But those benches are not reloadable. Not in Lucky 38.

Three counterpoints:
1. There are other homes than the Lucky 38
2. There's a reload bench right next to the Gunrunner's vendor, which is generally the most useful ammo/weapons vendor, which allows you to buy ammo crafting supplies at an area right next to a workbench. This is better than pretty much any alternative system as all ammo crafting components are weightless in the base game (so carrying them on you at all times has no downsides), most ammo crafting components have to be bought anyway, and because you can buy ammo to break down and convert into better ammo.
3. Fallout 4's brilliant system is to remove this aspect of the game entirely. Which is a nonsolution since NV's reloading system was perfectly functional.

With settlement building, all your work benches in a settlement are linked. With provisioners you can use that resources to craft anything at any linked settlements. No hauling around things in your inventory just dump them in a crafting station in say Sanctuary, and you have access to that stuff via provisioners to craft something in spectacle Island.

Which is useful only to people who want to play FalloutCraft. I've already gone over how Fallout's settlement crafting/management system has very little actual impact on the game itself, and is just a lazy way to get users to generate their own content so that the devs don't have to do the hard work of doing it themselves.

That's the thing, Fallout 4 isn't a qualitatively bad thing.

I have gotten more game hours out of playing vanilla Fallout 4 then I did with most pokemon games. Heck even Saints Row 4, a game that I love, only got me to 40 hours in and that game is the closest I have ever gotten to 100% a game.

There are people who still genuinely daily old Ladas with hundreds of thousands of kilometers on the odometer. Does this alone make these vehicles good? There are thousands of people who, individually, put in thousands of hours into modern Call of Duty games, are these games paragons of quality?

Fallout 4 is giving me 198 hours of gameplay that I want to keep on playing. Not like the Pokemon post game where there isn't that much to get you past over a hundred hours other than grinding until you get your team to lvl 100 and the occasional shiny hunt.

>198 hours of gameplay

Heh, you have barely more playtime in FO4 than I do, and I genuinely despise the game. As a point of comparison, I have 694 hours of play in New Vegas, and that's only on my steam record. I owned physical copies of the game before I was on steam that I played for a significant amount of time. It's also interesting that you lament the grindiness of pokemon, yet the radiant quests and settlement buildings are built-in grinds to acquire resources and put them to work towards the goal of acquiring even more resources to put to work. It's an even worse grind than Pokemon, because at least the grind eventually ends in Pokemon![/quote]


Don't have mods so I don't know.


Just Cause 2 crashes more times then I can count, and the Crashes in Fallout 4 I experienced were all at least 40 hours apart.

I was talking about ammo, one charge per-day is a long time compared to then 10 smoke grenades that respawn.

Lucky 38 is a big home that lots of players use.

Fallout 4 makes every bench reloadable. If you wanted a weapons shop and a place that sells scrap right next to a bench, just put them right next to each other at any settlement.

Grind ends in F4 too, once you have done the thing you wanted to do. Set your own goals.

I don't think we can achieve agreement here, some things that F4 does you hate and I like.

I think it is a good game, you don't agree.

[Prusslandia]

Writing from a Legion perspective is difficult. I don't want to go the "muh evil" route. Trying to humanize him(The Frumentarii).

[The Derpy Democratic Republic Of Herp]

Hey if they shoot first...

Why DO they shoot first though?

Hopped up on cems, programmed to kill you, want to eat you or, you attacked first.

[The first Galactic Republic]

Okay. Explain then how they have no rrreeeeaaaaalllll motive.

I agree that New Vegas has better writing, but the bad guys in 3 have pretty obvious motives. They're not the deepest characters but that's a strange criticism. Care to elaborate?

I literally just did in that exact post, and Cedoria elaborated even more on why the Enclave has no real motive in Fallout 3. Try reading them.

Agreed, I find the best fiction is ones with a bit of villianous complexity. In this I think New Vegas shines through. I despise Caesar but as a character he is terrifyingly sane, offers a compelling theoretical and philosphical basis for his actions (I loved the Hegelian Dialectics incorporation in his dialogue), and in his mind, there is a clear reason for the things he does. Agree with him or not, he's not just a "herr derr, we're ebul kill everything" character. Even Caesar can be said or at least argued to have redeeming qualities (I don't abide the argument, but plenty of pro-Legion arguments exist).

Same with House and NCR, either could be 'good' or 'bad' depending on the values and perspectives we bring to the table. I find House a megalomaniac with far too much faith in his own abilities and judgement to think he can't be corrupted by power (Newsflash: They ALL think that), and he strikes me as essentially a souless corporatist. Even the Independent ending (my personal favorite) has drawbacks if you make bad choices or play a character a certain way. These choices matter in New Vegas, and they are actually HARD to make. Others would argue from a completely different perspective of House based on personal values and ideas.

Haven't played 3 or 4 but a common criticisms seems to be the factions being more cookiee-cutter.

A good description I heard comparing this aspect was a reviewer who said Fallout 3 was Star Wars (clear-cut good vs evil), whereas New Vegas was the Afghanistan War (lots of tension, complexity and moral ambiguity).

It's one of the most sophisticated games I've found in respect for how it treats political morality and philosophy. Those things are hard to do well in a video game, but New Vegas does it and does it well. When a game can make a character even as absolutely vile and reprehensible as Caesar seem justfiable from a certain perspective (or at least have a rationale that many real people would find compelling), it's done very well. With few exceptions, it doesn't demarcate 'heroes' or 'villians' but allows the player to decide who is heroic and villainous, if anyone really is.

In that it's a good reflection of moral ambiguity in our own world. Almost all people can and occasionally do bad things, almost all people have redeeming features and justifications for their actions (even vile ones). I find fiction that reflects this, when done well, to be very compelling.

Exactly this.

The key to writing a good villain is to make him the hero to himself or to others, even if he's a total waste of oxygen. What are Eden or Autumn in Fallout 3? Leaders. Their men follow them obediently like dogs and that's all there is to it. What does the average Enclave soldier think of Autumn or Eden? Nothing, as far as I can tell they never bother to show any kind of friction in the organization. That's the thing: They had the chance to put emphasis on this clear ideological dispute between Autumn and Eden. Eden's trying to keep to the original principle that only "pure" humans should exist, while Autumn is clearly undermining him, outright overriding his orders and clearly has the real power in the Enclave. It's obvious he disagrees with Eden's purity BS, which is why he doesn't want the FEV injected in the water. But is this ever elaborated on? No, all the soldiers blindly follow Autumn first, Eden second (if at all). There is no internal conflict like in the BoS. It's garbage, a waste of a perfectly good plot point. The Enclave are just mindlessly evil drones for the hell of it. They're fighting the BoS because they're old enemies, they're trying to takeover Project Purity because they want to claim all the glory for themselves. It's a joke. There is no motive here, just 80s action movie villainy. They're the bad guys because they wear scary armor and want to control everything and shoot you on sight.

Compare that to the closest New Vegas has to antagonists: The Legion. The Legion are obedient, not because they're mindless nobodies but because they actually believe in who they're fighting for. They believe in Caesar's ability to lead humanity into a golden age. They believe in the man himself, but not his ideology. This is an important distinction that many are aware of, even Caesar himself. Caesar won't outright admit it, but he does hint that believes the Legion won't last after him when he questions Lanius' ability to lead. Which is precisely why I personally believe that all that stuff he says to justify his actions are just clever excuses to cover up his real goal: Going down in history. The man, undoubtedly, has an ego but whether he actually believes in his own ideology or is just stroking his image is entirely up to debate. That's the great thing about him, he's so cleverly written that you don't actually know what he really believes, as you only hear what he says and what others say about him, and his tendency to outright lie or cover the truth for the sake of his troops' loyalty makes his truthfulness on the subject questionable. He could be telling you all this just to convince you to join him, after all. He is clearly a charismatic individual, and he knows this. His Legion believes in him and his abilities. This is in contrast to the Nazis, many of whom did not believe in Hitler's ability to lead and even tried to assassinate him multiple times but they still believed in the Nazi ideology. Hitler, as charismatic as he was, could not elevate his Cult of Personality to the point it surpassed his ideology. This could primarily be attributed to the fact that he didn't invent the ideology, but at the same time Mussolini failed to keep both his ideology or his Cult of Personality alive enough to stave off his own public execution or garner enough support in Italy during the Allied Invasion.

The Legion followers Caesar blindly, but for a good reason. He gave them a better life than what they had, made them part of something bigger, gave them a chance to change the world and having seen his greatness firsthand they believed he knew what he was doing, because they had no experience with anything different. The NCR is the first great threat to the Legion, and it shows. The Legion - possibly for the first time ever - lost a major battle against an army of individuals they view as "cowardly" and "weak". The only reason the Legion didn't start questioning itself after this was the fact Caesar himself wasn't leading the battle. Imagine though, for a moment, that Caesar is there at the Fort when the NCR wins again. Regardless of the outcome, whether the NCR, House, or the Courier takes over New Vegas, imagine what the Legionaries would think of this. Not only did they lose a major battle against a foe they view as inferior twice, but they might have possibly lost their precious leader right before or during the Securitron assault on the Fort. That is going to raise questions even amongst the staunchest of the Legion's believers. If Lanius is dead, then the collapse would be almost instantaneous.

The Legion has a flawed ideology, but is being held together by one man's abilities in spite of it. Even if he dies, it doesn't immediately fall apart as Lanius can enforce order for a while out of pure fear alone. It takes decades for them to truly collapse because even though Caesar is dead he has cemented his ideology enough that it seeps into the minds of his followers even after death. They figure "If Caesar wanted this guy to succeed him, then we must be on the right path!", only to find out the hard way that this is not the case. And so they fracture into infighting as Centurion after Centurion battles for supremacy.

The Enclave? They have a flawed ideology nobody even follows, and one guy - who isn't even the official leader - controls everything... just because. And even when these guys die the Enclave still exists for some reason. There is no chaos despite no evidence that the organization has any backup leaders. What are the Enclave even doing after their leaders are dead? Just existing to be slaughtered by the BoS? Where is the chaos that comes with the death of your leadership? The internal fighting for supremacy that's inevitable in these situations? The ideological split... anywhere at all throughout the game? Is Eden really the only one who holds true to the original Enclave's ideals?

It's disgusting how badly they're written, honestly.

No you didn't. You talk about the motivations of New Vegas characters, but you won't elaborate on your views regarding characters in 3.

Of course they're not your views so maybe you just can't. You don't have to understand a viewpoint to just parrot it after all.

[The first Galactic Republic]

Writing from a Legion perspective is difficult. I don't want to go the "muh evil" route. Trying to humanize him(The Frumentarii).

Remember that all Legion soldiers are really conscripts. They have to serve. They're not all whole-heartedly in agreeance with Caesar. I'm sure most of them are just trying to get ahead and make the best of their lives. They have practical wants and goals.

[The Huskar Social Union]

Also someone who is a hermit, or ignorant or something like that anyway.

To wit, it generally refers to not just the ignorant, but the willfully ignorant. Those that, through their own conscious action or inaction, reject the act of expanding their knowledge beyond what is already known.

So a troglodyte is the kind of person that wouldn't know what the word "troglodyte" means. :>

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh

[Prusslandia]

Writing from a Legion perspective is difficult. I don't want to go the "muh evil" route. Trying to humanize him(The Frumentarii).

Remember that all Legion soldiers are really conscripts. They have to serve. They're not all whole-heartedly in agreeance with Caesar. I'm sure most of them are just trying to get ahead and make the best of their lives. They have practical wants and goals.

That could be true for the footmen, but a Frumentarii? I imagine every Frumentarii is a diehard believer in the ideology.

Though I think a majority of the Legion are in agreement. When you're raised from the cradle on to be in "This Mans Army", it's difficult to think otherwise.

[The first Galactic Republic]

I actually never really thought about it, but where is Caesar during the Second Battle? I doubt he'd be at the Fort, given how close that is to a potential NCR attack during the battle.

I believe Lanius confirms that Caesar is at the fort during the battle, but I could be mistaken. It's been a very long time since I've played NV and seen Caesar survive into the end-game. Regardless, with how hard the NCR is getting pressed (overwhelmingly so, depending on the PC's actions), they're not really in a position to immediately counter-attack anyway.

I've always wondered if Caesar is killed by the securitrons underneath the fort when they activate in a House/Independent ending.

[Licana]

Fallout 4 makes every bench reloadable. If you wanted a weapons shop and a place that sells scrap right next to a bench, just put them right next to each other at any settlement.

Since we were getting into the territory of cyclical arguments, I was just going to ignore this post. But this statement here irked me.

No. No it doesn't. It doesn't because YOU CAN'T RELOAD AMMO AT ALL. Someone had to mod that in, along with craftable ammunition. Frankly, this mod doesn't work nearly as well as New Vegas's system did because the mod was created quickly in order to fill the void of a needlessly gutted system that SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN THE BASE GAME. This is an actual example of FO4's simplification of gameplay causing a genuine regression in progress, the removal of a useful feature for no appreciable reason. This was a big sign to me that FO4 wasn't going to be an improvement over its predecessor, and it's something that I still find intensely annoying.

Grind ends in F4 too, once you have done the thing you wanted to do. Set your own goals.

The Glorious Never Ending Story: The Ride That Only Ends When You Realize How Trivial and Tiresome It All Is!
This is bad, lazy game design. This is especially bad from a narrative perspective. This is a bad aspect of the game from any angle you want to approach from.

I've always wondered if Caesar is killed by the securitrons underneath the fort when they activate in a House/Independent ending.

I don't think so. I believe House stated that he did not wish for Caesar's death, and Yes Man isn't really the type that has independent initiative to order something like that. He'd probably think that, since the PC let Caesar live until this point, the PC doesn't want Caesar dead.

[The Derpy Democratic Republic Of Herp]

Fallout 4 makes every bench reloadable. If you wanted a weapons shop and a place that sells scrap right next to a bench, just put them right next to each other at any settlement.

Since we were getting into the territory of cyclical arguments, I was just going to ignore this post. But this statement here irked me.

No. No it doesn't. It doesn't because YOU CAN'T RELOAD AMMO AT ALL. Someone had to mod that in, along with craftable ammunition. Frankly, this mod doesn't work nearly as well as New Vegas's system did because the mod was created quickly in order to fill the void of a needlessly gutted system that SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN THE BASE GAME. This is an actual example of FO4's simplification of gameplay causing a genuine regression in progress, the removal of a useful feature for no appreciable reason. This was a big sign to me that FO4 wasn't going to be an improvement over its predecessor, and it's something that I still find intensely annoying.

Grind ends in F4 too, once you have done the thing you wanted to do. Set your own goals.

The Glorious Never Ending Story: The Ride That Only Ends When You Realize How Trivial and Tiresome It All Is!
This is bad, lazy game design. This is especially bad from a narrative perspective either. This is a bad aspect of the game from any angle you want to approach from.

My mistake, I thought reloadable meant that you can put item A in workshop A and still get item A in workshop B.

So, you could make a mirelurk egg omelet from putting a mirelurk egg in a wepons work bench and cooking it at a cooking station.

You can't do that in NV at least at lucky 38 because of a lack of shared inventory.


Not what I meant.

You set a goal for your settlements like "I want a missile turret here and here" you go out and get the crafting items, and then you buld it.

Goal completed.

In my eyes, it makes things more organic.

[Pasong Tirad]

Writing from a Legion perspective is difficult. I don't want to go the "muh evil" route. Trying to humanize him(The Frumentarii).

Dirty filthy fucking peasant Californians UNCLEAN!!!!

[The Derpy Democratic Republic Of Herp]

Sorry if i'm pissing anyone off here.

I'm not feeling the greatest.

I don't really want to get myself hated here. So sorry.

[South Sinai]

I never played any Fallout game but god i love the memes

[The Empire of Pretantia]

However, one common criticism seems to be that it's unstable and crashes a lot.

Doesn't make it bad, but it looks like F4 is more stable.

And I would like to pick the game that is more stable to run.

Here's an amusing anecdote,

Right.

[Licana]

Not what I meant.

You set a goal for your settlements like "I want a missile turret here and here" you go out and get the crafting items, and then you buld it.

Goal completed.

In my eyes, it makes things more organic.

...and then what? You build another turret. and then what? You build a generator to build more turrets? and then what? You build up services and production. and then what? You do this to again. and then what? Repeat ad infinitum.

There is no finite conclusion to this. It's just a cyclical time-wasting trap used to artificially pad the game. """infinite""" content, because if there's infinite content there's no way you could ever be limited by playtime. At least, not until you realize that the very concept is self defeating and become disinterested with wasting any more of your time on something that is ultimately pointless even by the standards of a video game. It's precisely as you said, when you reach that point is entirely up to you. I think I was fortunate to have realized precisely what this was at a glance, though, and thereby avoided dedicating any time to it beyond setting up the aforementioned minimum-effort water farms. Because this kind of never-ending cycle is something that does not appeal to me in the slightest.

Sorry if i'm pissing anyone off here.

I'm not feeling the greatest.

I don't really want to get myself hated here. So sorry.

I think you're overreacting to someone who disagrees with you. I don't hate you, and in fact I don't even think lesser of you for liking a game I dislike. As much as I may like it, and as strong as my opinions are on FO4 and the direction this implies for the series, at the end of the day it's a just a video game. It's ultimately trivial.

I'm not sure what prompted this, as you certainly haven't acted uncivil towards me, and I hope neither you nor anyone else perceives what I'm writing as being uncivil to you or anyone that enjoys this game.

[The Empire of Pretantia]

Not what I meant.

You set a goal for your settlements like "I want a missile turret here and here" you go out and get the crafting items, and then you buld it.

Goal completed.

In my eyes, it makes things more organic.

...and then what? You build another turret. and then what? You build a generator to build more turrets? and then what? You build up services and production. and then what? You do this to again. and then what? Repeat ad infinitum.

Pretty much Minecraft, nothing wrong with that.

[Yes Im Biop]

I have 694 hours of play in New Vegas

Fucking filthy casual

Doing a new game... Because my game fucking hates me.

Thoughts on this Character build?

S 4
P 7
E 4
C 7
I 7
A 4
L7

A better one woulf be 10 10 10 10 1 10 10 for the maximum idiot savant build

[Licana]

Pretty much Minecraft, nothing wrong with that.

No, there isn't. But I would much rather play Minecraft if I wanted to play Minecraft.

[Licana]

A better one woulf be 10 10 10 10 1 10 10 for the maximum idiot savant build

>putting levels into special
>ever

really puts the idiot into idiot savant :>

[The Derpy Democratic Republic Of Herp]

Not what I meant.

You set a goal for your settlements like "I want a missile turret here and here" you go out and get the crafting items, and then you buld it.

Goal completed.

In my eyes, it makes things more organic.

...and then what? You build another turret. and then what? You build a generator to build more turrets? and then what? You build up services and production. and then what? You do this to again. and then what? Repeat ad infinitum.

There is no finite conclusion to this. It's just a cyclical time-wasting trap used to artificially pad the game. """infinite""" content, because if there's infinite content there's no way you could ever be limited by playtime. At least, not until you realize that the very concept is self defeating and become disinterested with wasting any more of your time on something that is ultimately pointless even by the standards of a video game. It's precisely as you said, when you reach that point is entirely up to you. I think I was fortunate to have realized precisely what this was at a glance, though, and thereby avoided dedicating any time to it beyond setting up the aforementioned minimum-effort water farms. Because this kind of never-ending cycle is something that does not appeal to me in the slightest.

Sorry if i'm pissing anyone off here.

I'm not feeling the greatest.

I don't really want to get myself hated here. So sorry.

I think you're overreacting to someone who disagrees with you. I don't hate you, and in fact I don't even think lesser of you for liking a game I dislike. As much as I may like it, and as strong as my opinions are on FO4 and the direction this implies for the series, at the end of the day it's a just a video game. It's ultimately trivial.

I'm not sure what prompted this, as you certainly haven't acted uncivil towards me, and I hope neither you nor anyone else perceives what I'm writing as being uncivil to you or anyone that enjoys this game.

You can just stop at that turret.

No need to buld any more. You could come back and make minor edits to your settlement, but they would be mostly cosmetic. But still, you can set goals for yourself.

You can always stop when you think a settlement is good enough.

Sorry, I just get worried when people say I irk them.