Fallout series

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The handsome tard said:
Bethesda could have done it better but they didn't...
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How to summarise every Bethesda game made since Oblivion...

It really does feel like Bethesda sat down for a day or two, sketched out a whole bunch of ideas, then just left it at that. What we got in the final product feels like a tour of things Bethesda wanted to do, but either couldn't be fucked, or didn't have the time to develop beyond a bare-bones outline. There are so many good ideas in the game that if they'd maybe just picked a few of them and done them well, the game could have been vastly better.

Take settlements, for example. Personally, I was hugely let down by what we got. I know some people have made some impressive towns, but ultimately it all feels hollow to me because there's no real feedback. There's no functional difference between a settlement that took 10 minutes to build and one that took 10 hours. One might look better than another, but that has no impact on gameplay. If aesthetics matter (of course they do), then even there the game falls short. I really wanted to customise my settlements and make them feel different, but the number of assets you're given felt really small and bland. Why can't I make specialist towns? How about some settlements generate a unique resource, or give access to a unique NPC? Why not add some consequences to not meeting the food/water/security requirements other than just :( How about as the prosperity of the town rises and falls, we see a change in the kinds of NPCs who live there? Dirty, emaciated junkies in poor towns, well-dressed and useful NPCs in wealthy towns. Visual feedback, Bethesda!

On the matter of factions, Bethesda's got this weird obsession with making you King of Everything but not giving you any responsibilities to go with your rank. My Oblivion character was the head of every single guild in the game. She was the Grand Champion, Listener, Archmage, Guildmaster, Grey Fox, and a literal God, but had practically nothing to do with the running of these guilds. Likewise, being General of the Minutemen comes with fuck-all responsibility. If I'm going to be the General give me some kind of strategic command, not just sweet-talking farmers because Garvey told me to.

I'm going to stop now, because this is turning into a rant...
 
Furina said:
How to summarise every Bethesda game made since Oblivion...

It really does feel like Bethesda sat down for a day or two, sketched out a whole bunch of ideas, then just left it at that. What we got in the final product feels like a tour of things Bethesda wanted to do, but either couldn't be fucked, or didn't have the time to develop beyond a bare-bones outline. There are so many good ideas in the game that if they'd maybe just picked a few of them and done them well, the game could have been vastly better.

Take settlements, for example. Personally, I was hugely let down by what we got. I know some people have made some impressive towns, but ultimately it all feels hollow to me because there's no real feedback. There's no functional difference between a settlement that took 10 minutes to build and one that took 10 hours. One might look better than another, but that has no impact on gameplay. If aesthetics matter (of course they do), then even there the game falls short. I really wanted to customise my settlements and make them feel different, but the number of assets you're given felt really small and bland. Why can't I make specialist towns? How about some settlements generate a unique resource, or give access to a unique NPC? Why not add some consequences to not meeting the food/water/security requirements other than just :( How about as the prosperity of the town rises and falls, we see a change in the kinds of NPCs who live there? Dirty, emaciated junkies in poor towns, well-dressed and useful NPCs in wealthy towns. Visual feedback, Bethesda!

On the matter of factions, Bethesda's got this weird obsession with making you King of Everything but not giving you any responsibilities to go with your rank. My Oblivion character was the head of every single guild in the game. She was the Grand Champion, Listener, Archmage, Guildmaster, Grey Fox, and a literal God, but had practically nothing to do with the running of these guilds. Likewise, being General of the Minutemen comes with fuck-all responsibility. If I'm going to be the General give me some kind of strategic command, not just sweet-talking farmers because Garvey told me to.

I'm going to stop now, because this is turning into a rant...
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And with the responsibilities of being General, it's only in a very miniscule form of "a settlement is under attack." And that ends up being annoying since you'd be on some important quest or exploration in some far off island only to be told a bunch of junkies in rusty car armor is attacking a settlement of well-armored settlers that may not be able to actually handle said junkies because of some jank or poor programming. The last time there was any responsibility in factions for a Bethesda game was Daggerfall. Didn't complete the quest in time? You bring great shame to the guild along with a hit to your reputation. Haven't worked with them for a good while? You're moving on down in the totem pole of the knightly order. All this from a game 23 years ago. Morrowind didn't give much responsibility but that and Oblivion at least required you to work your way up. Come Skyrim and it feels shorter. Come Fallout 4 and all you need is just one quest of saving Preston's group and bam, a newly thawed vault dweller becomes the supreme leader of a faction that's nearly dead.
 
Furina said:
How to summarise every Bethesda game made since Oblivion...

It really does feel like Bethesda sat down for a day or two, sketched out a whole bunch of ideas, then just left it at that. What we got in the final product feels like a tour of things Bethesda wanted to do, but either couldn't be fucked, or didn't have the time to develop beyond a bare-bones outline. There are so many good ideas in the game that if they'd maybe just picked a few of them and done them well, the game could have been vastly better.

Take settlements, for example. Personally, I was hugely let down by what we got. I know some people have made some impressive towns, but ultimately it all feels hollow to me because there's no real feedback. There's no functional difference between a settlement that took 10 minutes to build and one that took 10 hours. One might look better than another, but that has no impact on gameplay. If aesthetics matter (of course they do), then even there the game falls short. I really wanted to customise my settlements and make them feel different, but the number of assets you're given felt really small and bland. Why can't I make specialist towns? How about some settlements generate a unique resource, or give access to a unique NPC? Why not add some consequences to not meeting the food/water/security requirements other than just :( How about as the prosperity of the town rises and falls, we see a change in the kinds of NPCs who live there? Dirty, emaciated junkies in poor towns, well-dressed and useful NPCs in wealthy towns. Visual feedback, Bethesda!

On the matter of factions, Bethesda's got this weird obsession with making you King of Everything but not giving you any responsibilities to go with your rank. My Oblivion character was the head of every single guild in the game. She was the Grand Champion, Listener, Archmage, Guildmaster, Grey Fox, and a literal God, but had practically nothing to do with the running of these guilds. Likewise, being General of the Minutemen comes with fuck-all responsibility. If I'm going to be the General give me some kind of strategic command, not just sweet-talking farmers because Garvey told me to.

I'm going to stop now, because this is turning into a rant...
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The main storyline is such a letdown, too. I know they wanted the decision as to which faction you side with to be a tough one, but at the end of the day none of them make any sense, because against all logic and common sense they all want to destroy the Institute, which is absurd. Not the organization (whose goals are never sensibly defined), but the facility. Consider:

Brotherhood of Steel: "This is far and away the largest and most advanced cache of technology we've ever discovered. We must blow it up!"

The Railroad: "This is the only source of the synthetic lifeform we've dedicated ourselves to protecting. We must blow it up!"

The Minutemen: "This is an impossibly secure base that's home to a teleporter that would allow us to offer protection to the entire Commonwealth at a moment's notice, allowing us to live up to our name. We must blow it up!"

It's reached a point where I always side with the Institute (when I can be bothered to finish the storyline) simply because the other factions are clearly morons.
 
Furina said:
How to summarise every Bethesda game made since Oblivion...

It really does feel like Bethesda sat down for a day or two, sketched out a whole bunch of ideas, then just left it at that. What we got in the final product feels like a tour of things Bethesda wanted to do, but either couldn't be fucked, or didn't have the time to develop beyond a bare-bones outline. There are so many good ideas in the game that if they'd maybe just picked a few of them and done them well, the game could have been vastly better.

Take settlements, for example. Personally, I was hugely let down by what we got. I know some people have made some impressive towns, but ultimately it all feels hollow to me because there's no real feedback. There's no functional difference between a settlement that took 10 minutes to build and one that took 10 hours. One might look better than another, but that has no impact on gameplay. If aesthetics matter (of course they do), then even there the game falls short. I really wanted to customise my settlements and make them feel different, but the number of assets you're given felt really small and bland. Why can't I make specialist towns? How about some settlements generate a unique resource, or give access to a unique NPC? Why not add some consequences to not meeting the food/water/security requirements other than just :( How about as the prosperity of the town rises and falls, we see a change in the kinds of NPCs who live there? Dirty, emaciated junkies in poor towns, well-dressed and useful NPCs in wealthy towns. Visual feedback, Bethesda!

On the matter of factions, Bethesda's got this weird obsession with making you King of Everything but not giving you any responsibilities to go with your rank. My Oblivion character was the head of every single guild in the game. She was the Grand Champion, Listener, Archmage, Guildmaster, Grey Fox, and a literal God, but had practically nothing to do with the running of these guilds. Likewise, being General of the Minutemen comes with fuck-all responsibility. If I'm going to be the General give me some kind of strategic command, not just sweet-talking farmers because Garvey told me to.

I'm going to stop now, because this is turning into a rant...
Click to expand...
I loved the Settlement idea on paper. All the best towns are the ones have gimmicks or some sort of theme to them so I figured it would cool to do that too but the game never really lets you. The system for construction kind of prevents you from building interesting things since you are always fixed to the same snap point based pre fab system and if you do manage to build some interesting things npcs probably won't be able to path find around it. The one place I actually built up ran into a problem where every time I spawned in all the settlers would spawn standing on top of a roof. So I built a way for them to get down but they'd still decide to hang out on there rather then well lit areas with chairs and furniture. At the end of the day the only settlement I built that I didn't come to hate was one where it was a single guy living in a dirt hole in the ground because I thought it was funny.

The worst settlements are the raider ones since you have no control over their population growth and resources and the game never tells you how much food and water are going into them.
 
Fine. I'll accept not a popular opinion. Just as long as you don't set my ass on fire and throw me down a canyon. Joshua Graham I ain't.

I'll give Bethesda this for the mocking of Garvey during the FO76 premier. And to be honest the Minutemen was a shit idea. I've heard people justify it but..damn. why must Garvey have me hold people's hands to take a shit.

Perhaps a mod where you could appoint someone to oversee each community and they send monthly reports? Like Sanctuary: Not enough water, asshole. We have dysentery. Or the movie theater: all's well here. Need more supplies as we had a mutie raid.

Then again this shit of fans fixing the mistakes of game devs..why doesn't Bethesda offer jobs to the dinguses who fix their shit? At least recognize that their mod community gives a crap and reward good ones. Not those who want to fuck Piper while wearing a Woody Woodpecker condom.
 
Gaat said:
And to be honest the Minutemen was a shit idea.
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Thats one of my (many) huge gripes with Fallout 4 is the minute men could have been such a cool faction. It could of been an awesome faction that wanted to restore America to its former Constitutional glory (cuz remember in fallout lore the US before the nukes was pretty much a fascist empire with the illusion of republicanism). But instead we got some speds cosplaying with shitty lasers on a stick (the laser musket weapon).
 
The musket laser was cool though with a bit of lore. Though more appropriate for 76 vs 4.

You could have even had Minutemen with pre WW2 ideas. (You're cool as long as you're not a damn dirty commie). Self militia was in the Constitution so why not.

Just playing glorified bitch to Preston and having to bust ass to keep Leeroy Jenkins motherfuckers from dying because I'm special is a pain in the ass.

..ok fine Fallout 4 had its flaws. I'm seeing them. A good term paper which got fucked over when the author had a few kegs of moonshine.
 
Gaat said:
Fine. I'll accept not a popular opinion. Just as long as you don't set my ass on fire and throw me down a canyon. Joshua Graham I ain't.

I'll give Bethesda this for the mocking of Garvey during the FO76 premier. And to be honest the Minutemen was a shit idea. I've heard people justify it but..damn. why must Garvey have me hold people's hands to take a shit.

Perhaps a mod where you could appoint someone to oversee each community and they send monthly reports? Like Sanctuary: Not enough water, asshole. We have dysentery. Or the movie theater: all's well here. Need more supplies as we had a mutie raid.

Then again this shit of fans fixing the mistakes of game devs..why doesn't Bethesda offer jobs to the dinguses who fix their shit? At least recognize that their mod community gives a crap and reward good ones. Not those who want to fuck Piper while wearing a Woody Woodpecker condom.
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The problem with Garvey is that Bethesda thought "radiant quests" were a good idea. They can be, when done right, but when used in the way that Bethesda used them (a lazy way to generate shit to do) they're boring, repetitive and ultimately meaningless. Go here, kill this. Go there, clear out that. And so on and so forth. You can ignore these quests entirely and it makes as much difference as doing every single one of them. They have no function other than to generate busywork for the player when Bethesda couldn't think to write any new quests.
Compare Garvey the meme to something like the Antistasi mod for ARMA 3, which is entirely radiant quest-based. In that mod, however, every mission has a direct impact on the player. Capturing a town means denying assets to the enemy and boosting your own. Raiding a barracks means more manpower for your team, meaning more recruits, meaning more boots on the ground for when you want to go capture an airfield. I have a reason to care if my bases are under attack because I'm going to lose troops and supplies. Not just +10 Frowny Faces.
 
But that would make sense. Give a reason why to support the settlers or the raiders.

For fucks sake I've read fanfic which had scavved shit or troops from Nuka Cola for a raider Sole Survivor or Minutemen General. Not this bullshit.

Makes me wish I could code so I could do a mod for that.

Each settler happiness provides:
Supplies
Scavenged shit
Train x to make y. (Sanctuary Hills close to Vault 111. Have some of them go inside and man the medic wing to make some stims and chems.). Use this for logical resources.

Raiders:
Direct them to terrorize x or y.
Browbeat some into farming.
Slave trafficking.

Common sense.
 
Gaat said:
Fine. I'll accept not a popular opinion. Just as long as you don't set my ass on fire and throw me down a canyon. Joshua Graham I ain't.
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Too soon...

Gaat said:
Then again this shit of fans fixing the mistakes of game devs..why doesn't Bethesda offer jobs to the dinguses who fix their shit? At least recognize that their mod community gives a crap and reward good ones. Not those who want to fuck Piper while wearing a Woody Woodpecker condom.
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Isn't that what Creation Club is supposed to be? Also I supposed paid mods could have been an attempt at that if they at least had modders getting most of the money instead of pocketing the vast majority.

I guess why bother though when you can just have hundreds to thousands of people working to fix your games for you for free. Slave Labor, it just works.
 
Burned Man said:
Isn't that what Creation Club is supposed to be? Also I supposed paid mods could have been an attempt at that if they at least had modders getting most of the money instead of pocketing the vast majority.
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I am rather miffed what Bethesda did with Creation Club as on paper the idea is rather great. Imagine if a modder or group of modders worked together with aid from Bethesda employees to make what amounted to next worldzones with unique NPCS, weapons, armor, and other crazy quests that would make it less paid mods, and more like DLC. I am willingly to pay for something if it is good and worth it, but the product as it stands as a whole isn't worth it as weapons should be sold like the The Gun Runners DLC in New Vegas where we got several new weapons and even unique ones.
 
Kyria the Great said:
I am rather miffed what Bethesda did with Creation Club as on paper the idea is rather great. Imagine if a modder or group of modders worked together with aid from Bethesda employees to make what amounted to next worldzones with unique NPCS, weapons, armor, and other crazy quests that would make it less paid mods, and more like DLC. I am willingly to pay for something if it is good and worth it, but the product as it stands as a whole isn't worth it as weapons should be sold like the The Gun Runners DLC in New Vegas where we got several new weapons and even unique ones.
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I love the idea of some of the most prolific modders being given some extra resources in exchange for producing a special "guest DLC" or something, but a company like ZeniMax would probably never allow it. They're too big and risk-averse to be on-board for something like that. If Bethesda were an independent company, I could see them doing something like that, but that sadly isn't the case. ZeniMax want to protect their IP and inviting outside creatives to do things more interesting than what their full-time employees can (or are allowed) do is... not always a good look.
 
Kyria the Great said:
I am rather miffed what Bethesda did with Creation Club as on paper the idea is rather great. Imagine if a modder or group of modders worked together with aid from Bethesda employees to make what amounted to next worldzones with unique NPCS, weapons, armor, and other crazy quests that would make it less paid mods, and more like DLC. I am willingly to pay for something if it is good and worth it, but the product as it stands as a whole isn't worth it as weapons should be sold like the The Gun Runners DLC in New Vegas where we got several new weapons and even unique ones.
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Isn‘t that applicable to everything Bethesda does? Brilliant on paper, but a total shitshow once the rubber hits the road seems to be their niche in the world.
 
Sir Wesley Tailpipe said:
Isn‘t that applicable to everything Bethesda does? Brilliant on paper, but a total shitshow once the rubber hits the road seems to be their niche in the world.
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The thing is that many of Bethesda's ideas require balls and integrity, something that is sorely lacking as of now in a large number of large gaming companies. Something I don't understand though is why are there so many companies that are so damn risk adverse in entertainment when the whole entertainment industry is a risky business to begin with?
 
Kyria the Great said:
The thing is that many of Bethesda's ideas require balls and integrity, something that is sorely lacking as of now in a large number of large gaming companies. Something I don't understand though is why are there so many companies that are so damn risk adverse in entertainment when the whole entertainment industry is a risky business to begin with?
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When companies fire your ass for tanking hard you're hoping to get a grand slam. Need to get one. Otherwise it'll be scrapped.

FO76 (and I'm looking at you here Y2K) still has the shell and some of the meat to be a good game. Lore wise it fills in the gap but some things are massively ass pulled like the BoS. Instead of fixing shit like the armor bug they make a retool of armor paint, make an object which perks make useless (Fridge) or pointless if you camp appropriately (Robot) or some other asinine crap.

Upper tier Bethesda is fart sniffing. People buy the games expecting nostalgia. However as of 2011, as far as I can tell, every game made by Bethesda needs three or four major patches before becoming playable.

Back to your point, the reason they don't take the risks is their demand and need for money. And we get fucked by them selling us the Alpha/Beta shit in the process.
 
Gaming management is non-gamer boomers that fundamentally don't understand the product they are selling. They are completely unequipped to tell good ideas from bad ideas so instead they expect devs to produce clones of whatever game has a successful business model. Compare to Hollywood where the investors understand enough about movies to know that not every movie has to be Avengers to be a success.
 
Kyria the Great said:
The thing is that many of Bethesda's ideas require balls and integrity, something that is sorely lacking as of now in a large number of large gaming companies. Something I don't understand though is why are there so many companies that are so damn risk adverse in entertainment when the whole entertainment industry is a risky business to begin with?
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If Bethesda’s games required integrity to make, Bethesda would be singularly incapable of making them.
 
Oddjob OTP said:
Compare to Hollywood where the investors understand enough about movies to know that not every movie has to be Avengers to be a success.
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I will file this in the "Press X to doubt" department, but you are right with a lot of game companies being boneheaded due to men that haven't worked in the games industry heading these companies.
 
Oddjob OTP said:
Gaming management is non-gamer boomers that fundamentally don't understand the product they are selling. They are completely unequipped to tell good ideas from bad ideas so instead they expect devs to produce clones of whatever game has a successful business model. Compare to Hollywood where the investors understand enough about movies to know that not every movie has to be Avengers to be a success.
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Alot of it also has to do with wanting ridiculously high pay offs ridiculously quickly from investors putting up capital. They treat brands like a blackjack table or a short trade instead as a long term financial cash stream that you should foster and take care to grow as healthy as possible over time,
 
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