Fallout series

[Fields Of Rye]

I'm trying out 76 (I got it for free) because nothing else really interests me and I have a good bit of free time. Gameplay wise it's alright. I don't know why, but I really hate 4 and 76's artstyle. I don't know what it is, but it lost the charm it had when Bethesda made 3 and then Obsidian polished what Bethesda made. My only issues are why anyone cares about some 60 year-old woman going on a road trip.

Bethesda seems to be able to make some interesting stuff. The region and some of the enemies are fun, except for the Supermutants and Scorched those just feel like crappy raiders. It's too much of a Sandbox, you're an errand boy for your boring wine mom. For the life of me, I cannot understand why these people write the most grating female characters. Every fucking one is so cliche and pointless. Moira from 3 was fun because she was chipper in spite of the world, but that was the point and she was mostly for a side quest. I swear to god, write a charismatic character. People loved Caesar because despite his pessimisstic outlook he was genre savvy in an entertaining and endearing way, he called out how everyone was pretending like the world never ended with the NCR. Harley Quinn Raider Robot, bald dyke raider, and generic geriatric wine aunt do not inspire any sort of fun.

They can't write women for shit because the idea of a friendly, normal woman is way too boring for these kinds of people to write.

Not to channel a different RPG in here, but I didn't realize how bad it was until I played underrail. There is a character in there whose friendly, nice, attractive, normal looking woman who doesn't have a shaved head or a dead family. It was like a breath of fresh air. Something I hadn't seen since Eder in Pillars of Eternity.

You'll never get that in fallout. It would never clear the sensitivity readers or the higher ups. They'd try and throw some kind of twist into the personality.

Imagine if you met someone and the first thing they did is vomit out their entire life story. Or they act snarky and standoffish. Throw in the Bethesda brand fish face and it clicks. You need to get mods for that, usually the ones written by actual women, or by people who have at least talked to one before without covering themselves in grease.

 

[The handsome tard]

I don't know why, but I really hate 4 and 76's artstyle. I don't know what it is, but it lost the charm it had when Bethesda made 3 and then Obsidian polished what Bethesda made.

This, there was always something...off how 4 and 76 look. 3 and NV still had a "grounded" look if that makes any sense. 4 and 76 feel too "shining" and "clean" in a way.

 

[DaBigBopper]

They can't write women for shit because the idea of a friendly, normal woman is way too boring for these kinds of people to write.

Not to channel a different RPG in here, but I didn't realize how bad it was until I played underrail. There is a character in there whose friendly, nice, attractive, normal looking woman who doesn't have a shaved head or a dead family. It was like a breath of fresh air. Something I hadn't seen since Eder in Pillars of Eternity.

You'll never get that in fallout. It would never clear the sensitivity readers or the higher ups. They'd try and throw some kind of twist into the personality.

Imagine if you met someone and the first thing they did is vomit out their entire life story. Or they act snarky and standoffish. Throw in the Bethesda brand fish face and it clicks. You need to get mods for that, usually the ones written by actual women, or by people who have at least talked to one before without covering themselves in grease.

It's what made NV refreshing because yeah, New Vegas has a lot of women in positions of authority, but most of them treated shit like a job and were only dismissive because of the environment of the game. Gloria Van Graff, the Garrett Sister, Moore, and Sunny Smiles all were fairly well-written and all of them fairly likeable. I do miss the insane Raiders, but they're only fun or scary if you have an actual variation. The Legion Dog Handler and Motor Runner were more memorable as the insane and brutal guys because you had references.

I really think Bethesda wants to go full Mad Max when the original Fallout games never were full Mad Max. Fallout had settlements and raider towns, Fallout 2 had isolated settlements that could handle the odd raider gang, but could call in help from major Settlements if needed. I didn't hate Fallout 3 because it basically was implied that Chinese Infiltrators had been fucking up DC since the war ended.

This, there was always something...off how 4 and 76 look. 3 and NV still had a "grounded" look if that makes any sense. 4 and 76 feel too "shining" and "clean" in a way.

It's too plastic, it lacks the bulkiness. It's also too invested in the style and made it so it doesn't look like an extension of the 50's. Not everything was mass produced and replaced at the same time, and it looks better when you have some hum-drum buildings next to the Art Deco and Space Age buildings.

I liked 3 in it's own way. It had the same problem as 2 in that it couldn't stop referencing things and fuck it's own balance at times with those Ghoul Reavers that would spawn at level 10 and be worse then a Deathclaw. I have my complaints about it, but they mostly center on firing Emil Parinaglo or letting him advise instead of forcing the same five ideas into the game.
I'd honestly prefer a Deep South or Midwest/Rustbelt Fallout going forward.
Fallout is best when it's kind of like a frontier with trading outposts initially and expansionist factions within the area making hell for the locals. I always liked Klamath and Goodsprings for that reason. The base building shit kinda bores me.

 

[Snekposter]

It's what made NV refreshing because yeah, New Vegas has a lot of women in positions of authority, but most of them treated shit like a job and were only dismissive because of the environment of the game. Gloria Van Graff, the Garrett Sister, Moore, and Sunny Smiles all were fairly well-written and all of them fairly likeable. I do miss the insane Raiders, but they're only fun or scary if you have an actual variation. The Legion Dog Handler and Motor Runner were more memorable as the insane and brutal guys because you had references.

I'm going to be controversial and add Veronica to the mix. Whenever Felicia Day gets reined in she's an interesting character, deeply concerned about the Brotherhood as she's had a first-hand look at its extremes of both stasis and dynamism, and rightfully worried that it needs to adopt a change in course, because it turns out hiding in a bunch of bunkers is a great way to let everyone else gather strength. Strength enough, perhaps, to defeat even the Brotherhood. Its a lot easier to outlast the end of the world than the NCR, funnily enough.

Bit of a side note, but its a shame we never see any changes in the NCR's arsenal following a successful completion of Birds of a Feather. Given the NCR's size I can only imagine how many laser and plasma rifles the NCR purchased from the Van Graffs. I don't know how much Caesar offered them but the way Gloria mentions "five times what the Legion was paying" somehow I doubt it was a tiny order... I fully expect any post-NV conflicts between the NCR and BoS to decidedly turn against the BoS once NCR heavies with plasma rifles and casters start storming bunkers instead of dudes with service rifles and LMG's...

 

[Ghost of Wesley Willis]

This, there was always something...off how 4 and 76 look. 3 and NV still had a "grounded" look if that makes any sense. 4 and 76 feel too "shining" and "clean" in a way.

It's too plastic, it lacks the bulkiness. It's also too invested in the style and made it so it doesn't look like an extension of the 50's. Not everything was mass produced and replaced at the same time, and it looks better when you have some hum-drum buildings next to the Art Deco and Space Age buildings.

I'd say another big part is the engine and it's lighting and shaders. Like when it rains , everything gets really shiny and reflective for some reason. Plus Bethesda wanted more "realistic" lighting that just wound up looking really goofy most the time.

I really just hate how they killed the art style and ruined the consistency compared to the other games. At least they tried to connect you back to the original fallouts in 3 and NV. and You play FO4 and it doesn't feel that much like Fallout more than it does a goofy borderlands bioshock hybrid with awful writing.

 

[Snekposter]

I really just hate how they killed the art style and ruined the consistency compared to the other games. At least they tried to connect you back to the original fallouts in 3 and NV. and You play FO4 and it doesn't feel that much like Fallout more than it does a goofy borderlands bioshock hybrid with awful writing.

Issue is they really, really overemphasized the Zeerust style, and so everything just looks super-impractical and ridiculous. You'd think in a period of total war against China and persistent resource scarcity at least some of it would be toned down, but nope. Gotta have some ridiculously massive APC's with awkward frontal guns and material-eating bulges and curves. You want to know what the US military was like in the 1950's?

Utilitarian-as-fuck metal boxes. Everything got worse, too. We went from this:
to that. Everything got big, clunky, and painful to even look at, never mind actually use.

 

[Lone Star]

Issue is they really, really overemphasized the Zeerust style, and so everything just looks super-impractical and ridiculous. You'd think in a period of total war against China and persistent resource scarcity at least some of it would be toned down, but nope. Gotta have some ridiculously massive APC's with awkward frontal guns and material-eating bulges and curves. You want to know what the US military was like in the 1950's?
View attachment 3551110
Utilitarian-as-fuck metal boxes. Everything got worse, too. We went from this:
View attachment 3551112 to View attachment 3551113that. Everything got big, clunky, and painful to even look at, never mind actually use.

Honestly I like how they changed the Power Armor. Made them bigger, slower, like they're walking tanks. Made you feel like there was weight and actual power to them. In Fallout 3 and New Vegas, they just slipped on like any other armor and it didn't feel as good.

 

[Snekposter]

Honestly I like how they changed the Power Armor. Made them bigger, slower, like they're walking tanks. Made you feel like there was weight and actual power to them. In Fallout 3 and New Vegas, they just slipped on like any other armor and it didn't feel as good.

You didn't even need training in FO1 or FO2, actually. Things were even easier to wear. Trouble was getting the suits though, unlike in FO3 where you can pull one off a dead BoS or Outcast member, never mind the Enclave post-takeover of the purifier, plus there's the T-51 suit at Fort Constantine It was a deliberate balancing choice there IMO since they pretty much hand you them.

That autism aside, I do agree with you they're a nice change, especially with heavy weapons, but they fact they need to be repaired unlike everything else you use in the field and the limited heavy weapons choices makes them a bit of a resource sink compared to just grabbing some combat armor and trying to move fast and low. And while they handle well and heavy, they still look terrible, lacking the relatively clean, utilitarian lines of the earlier armors.

 

[Prophetic Spirit]

That autism aside, I do agree with you they're a nice change, especially with heavy weapons, but they fact they need to be repaired unlike everything else you use in the field and the limited heavy weapons choices makes them a bit of a resource sink compared to just grabbing some combat armor and trying to move fast and low. And while they handle well and heavy, they still look terrible, lacking the relatively clean, utilitarian lines of the earlier armors.

Yeah, FO4 is actually a mix between FO3 & Oblivion repair system with Skyrim's upgrade system with the power armor but not with the normal armor, which works like exactly Skyrim BUT with Morrowind's versality in using more than 4/5 slots of armor to use.
The only painful gay shit to watch in that game isn't viewing your own weapon holstered in 3rd person. Why Bethesda? In earlier games that wasn't a problem.

 

[HeyYou]

Issue is they really, really overemphasized the Zeerust style, and so everything just looks super-impractical and ridiculous. You'd think in a period of total war against China and persistent resource scarcity at least some of it would be toned down, but nope. Gotta have some ridiculously massive APC's with awkward frontal guns and material-eating bulges and curves. You want to know what the US military was like in the 1950's?
View attachment 3551110
Utilitarian-as-fuck metal boxes. Everything got worse, too. We went from this:
View attachment 3551112 to View attachment 3551113that. Everything got big, clunky, and painful to even look at, never mind actually use.

The power armor change is one thing I appreciate about Fallout 4. The power armor in 3 and New Vegas looks like a cosplay suit (actually, that's not fair, even cosplay suits often look beefier than 3 and NV power armor). Meanwhile, 4's power armor is genuinely intimidating and you can see why people wearing it would be one man armies. Hell, it even made me appreciate the T-45 a bit more when it was actually full size. My only complaint is that I'm not a big fan of it being something that you get in and out of, it should have been armor like previous games. Gameplay wise, power armor isn't particularly strong either, but I think that's the fault of Bethesda once again using DR instead of DT.

 

[Snekposter]

Gameplay wise, power armor isn't particularly strong either, but I think that's the fault of Bethesda once again using DR instead of DT.

FO4's DR isn't even sensible. It uses a weird scaling formulate based around ratio of DR to damage where DR equal to the incoming fire reduces it roughly by half.

 

[Mega Black]

Not to channel a different RPG in here, but I didn't realize how bad it was until I played underrail. There is a character in there whose friendly, nice, attractive, normal looking woman who doesn't have a shaved head or a dead family. It was like a breath of fresh air. Something I hadn't seen since Eder in Pillars of Eternity.

You'll never get that in fallout. It would never clear the sensitivity readers or the higher ups. They'd try and throw some kind of twist into the personality.

We're in this bizarre timeline where women who are traditionally feminine are considered sexist, despite there being a massive push for female representation in games. So you can't have a woman who is talented in a specific way but also kind of cute. Moira, for instance, was passive and chipper and ran her own shop but was also a talented writer and mechanic. This is sexist, she's passive, she does woman stuff like write and tinker, rather than shoot guns and punch men in the face. So now we get walking, talking, dyke cunts who are male characters in all but genitals. They exist purely to pass a blue-hair editor's arbitrary list of what you MUST include in order to not be blacklisted from your gig as a writer for hire.

Writing by committee means writing without passion. Characters written without passion wind up being boring and by the numbers. Cass is about as unfeminine a female character as you could possibly write, but I still love her because Avellone was clearly writing a character that he was passionate about and wanted you to find compelling. You don't get that with the buzzhead dyke leading the 'progressive' side of the Brotherhood in 76 because she was written as a bulletpoint list of traits first and a character second.

This, there was always something...off how 4 and 76 look. 3 and NV still had a "grounded" look if that makes any sense. 4 and 76 feel too "shining" and "clean" in a way.

4 and 76 have a really bizarre almost-cartoony artstyle that still leans too heavily into realism. It's like an awkward middleground between Skyrim and Borderlands, and this is coupled with too much of the retrofuturism angle being slapped into the designs of every object you interact with. Now everything is bulky and huge, on top of being slightly 'off'. It's why mods that retexture everything and make 4 look more like STALKER, while not really befitting Fallout's aesthetic, still tend to look 'better' than the original game. It commits to one style, and helps to add atmosphere.

The power armor change is one thing I appreciate about Fallout 4. The power armor in 3 and New Vegas looks like a cosplay suit (actually, that's not fair, even cosplay suits often look beefier than 3 and NV power armor). Meanwhile, 4's power armor is genuinely intimidating and you can see why people wearing it would be one man armies.

They feel great but I hate the claustrophobic UI. I get what they were going for, but it makes running a power-armor build kind of a nightmare. It is the one change I hope carries on into the future though, wearing a power-armor suit feels good in 4 and it made me actually use them, unlike in other games where I had a tendency to ignore the suits because they look kind of awkward and silly.

 

[The handsome tard]

You know, I remember we discussed why the BOS and NCR havent retrofitted the Enclave's P.A into their arsenals (a mixture of plot convenience and the NCR suddenly being too stupid).
But what is the East BOS's reason? They had Raven Rock (even if destroyed, Im sure there must be SOMETHING salvageable) and Adams Air Force Base (destroyed but, again, a lot of intact stuff Im sure).

It would honestly be cool to see a new model that mixes the Enclave P.A but with a "BOS" touch. My only explanation for that one is "Bethesda forgot/didnt think about that".
What you guys think?

 

[Overcast]

I'm going to be controversial and add Veronica to the mix. Whenever Felicia Day gets reined in she's an interesting character, deeply concerned about the Brotherhood as she's had a first-hand look at its extremes of both stasis and dynamism, and rightfully worried that it needs to adopt a change in course, because it turns out hiding in a bunch of bunkers is a great way to let everyone else gather strength. Strength enough, perhaps, to defeat even the Brotherhood. Its a lot easier to outlast the end of the world than the NCR, funnily enough.

Bit of a side note, but its a shame we never see any changes in the NCR's arsenal following a successful completion of Birds of a Feather. Given the NCR's size I can only imagine how many laser and plasma rifles the NCR purchased from the Van Graffs. I don't know how much Caesar offered them but the way Gloria mentions "five times what the Legion was paying" somehow I doubt it was a tiny order... I fully expect any post-NV conflicts between the NCR and BoS to decidedly turn against the BoS once NCR heavies with plasma rifles and casters start storming bunkers instead of dudes with service rifles and LMG's...

I’ve always liked Veronica. Couldn’t help but feel the whole manic pixie girl attitude was just her way of coping with the torment she felt over her family and possibly having to leave them for her own sanity.

I still remember getting sucker punched by what happened if you get her to leave the Brotherhood.

 

[AnotherPleb]

I’ve always liked Veronica. Couldn’t help but feel the whole manic pixie girl attitude was just her way of coping with the torment she felt over her family and possibly having to leave them for her own sanity.

I still remember getting sucker punched by what happened if you get her to leave the Brotherhood.

Veronica is a character that doesn't soon like she can ever have a good end, especially considering House is in my opinion the canon ending to New Vegas. Either she keeps herself leashed to a BOS that is fated to irrelevance or she has the BOS destroy her new calling.

 

[The handsome tard]

That moment when you realise that there hasnt been any game radio station that even comes close to Galaxy News Radio

 

[Maurice Caine]

That moment when you realise that there hasnt been any game radio station that even comes close to Galaxy News Radio

View attachment 3557433

Blah, never liked Three Dog. Always thought the music selection in both F3 and FNV were lacking despite some hits.

 

[Mola Ram]

Blah, never liked Three Dog. Always thought the music selection in both F3 and FNV were lacking despite some hits.

Srsly. Don't get me wrong, both FO3 and NV have some bangers, and FO4 has some great stuff itself, but all of 'em would be blown away by any one radio station from Vice City.

 

[Overcast]

That moment when you realise that there hasnt been any game radio station that even comes close to Galaxy News Radio

View attachment 3557433

Mr. New Vegas will always have a special place in my heart. Dude is so nice to listen to.

 

[Fwiffo]

Mr. New Vegas will always have a special place in my heart. Dude is so nice to listen to.

Wasn’t he actually a robot or something?