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It's sort of a weird duck for Bethesda- they have to write a main story that's big and meaningful, but not so big and meaningful it changes the world fundamentally because their games are about dungeons and quests and stuff. New Vegas was able to do it because they were VERY set on the whole 'once you beat the story you've beaten the game, that's it, credits roll'. But fundamentally for Morrowind, Oblivion, (later) FO3, Skyrim, and FO4, the story has to be designed so after you say 'okay, what next?' and go off to do something else. So you can't really have a big dramatic change to the world. Morrowind was able to do it because fundamentally it's not about changing a massive disaster that's happening right now this instant in the way other games are- the threat of Dagoth Ur is still pretty well contained, it's just nearing crunch time. Oblivion and Skyrim are, and they suffer a bit for it- demons are pouring out from gates to Hell but okay, I'm going to go do some work for the Fighters Guild, you'll all wait until I get back, right? k thx bye. FO4 and FO3 suffer because they try and add personal meaning to it: "I HAVE TO FIND MY SON/DAD". And that's not fundamentally that good.
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Dec 16, 2016 13:43
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| # ? Jun 2, 2024 18:36 |
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Fallout 4's story would be improved tenfold by adding a sarcastic option to all the "MY BABY" moments. It feels super dumb to have my character go through the entire game like "The apocalypse? Sign me up  " and being a snarky poo poo, only to immediately become a worried mom who can barely hold back her tears "th..they took my BABY, my poor BABY SHAUN" whenever that plot point comes up. Imagine if we could go "who? oh right my baby lol. j/k, yeah I'm still looking for him" when asked by Valentine for instance, instead of all the options being a variant of "my baby  " I don't mind the plot being "find your baby" so much as I hate how Bethesda forces you to react in a very specific way when you're allowed to react differently to so many other things.
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Dec 16, 2016 13:53
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I wanted to be a terrible father like Liam Neeson in 3 and couldn't
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Dec 16, 2016 14:06
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The really funny part about Bunker Hill and the Railroad for me is how their numbers just suddenly expand by hundreds of members and they all are clones of Glory with gaus rifles even though you never (I never had) see a Railroad Heavy before that moment. The railroad is supposed to be a super small group of people who struggle to help synths and use their very particular set of skills to be a nightmare to their opponents... not an overwhelming private army.
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Dec 16, 2016 14:30
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EPIC fat guy vids posted:The really funny part about Bunker Hill and the Railroad for me is how their numbers just suddenly expand by hundreds of members and they all are clones of Glory with gaus rifles even though you never (I never had) see a Railroad Heavy before that moment. The railroad is supposed to be a super small group of people who struggle to help synths and use their very particular set of skills to be a nightmare to their opponents... not an overwhelming private army. Depending on how you navigate the quests you can arrive to battle and not be hostile to anyone but turrets so you can just observe, and Railroad always wins against both Brotherhood and Institute synths without breaking a sweat. Especially funny how they can easily dispatch the courser they hype up as existential threat to Railroad up until that point.
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Dec 16, 2016 15:19
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Pyromancer posted:Depending on how you navigate the quests you can arrive to battle and not be hostile to anyone but turrets so you can just observe, and Railroad always wins against both Brotherhood and Institute synths without breaking a sweat. That's why I always pick weapons development in the Institute story.... which does nothing  Man their guns suck for being the science moguls of the Commonwealth.I usually go the lazy way against the railroad and get infinite guaus rifles and ammo. I really need to try the railroad angle once and I think that mod that allows me to spare them just might do the trick.
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Dec 16, 2016 15:25
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I thought the Railroad was supposed to be somewhere in between "literally 4 people in a crypt" and "a small army capable of taking on the Institute and the Brotherhood at the same time and win"? Like, they got a decent bunch of agents out and about at all times but they work in secrecy and two agents are never supposed to meet (like Glory tells you in Memory Interrupted), which explains why you never run into anyone except when you visit HQ. Supposedly every Railroad heavy was dispatched to Bunker Hill once it was clear poo poo was going down.
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Dec 16, 2016 15:39
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Pyromancer posted:Depending on how you navigate the quests you can arrive to battle and not be hostile to anyone but turrets so you can just observe, and Railroad always wins against both Brotherhood and Institute synths without breaking a sweat. I had that situation my first play through. I figured I had to pick a side so I killed somebody and nothing changed. So I walked around killing all the legendary guys that spawned for awhile looking for good loot. After that I went down into the bunker and Doc Weathers was down there having it out with the Railroad guys. I couldn't do anything with the synth's down there so I just left. Nothing got resolved.
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Dec 16, 2016 15:49
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Thanks to the "glitches" thread in PYF, I'm reminded of this hilariously appropriate video in regards to Fallout 4's story  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t0uCWjQ6Og Different game but drat if Fallout 4 didn't feel just like that during parts the main quest.
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Dec 16, 2016 17:27
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EPIC fat guy vids posted:That's why I always pick weapons development in the Institute story.... which does nothing Yea all that tech where is my gun that shoots a tagger on an enemy and then teleports that body part back to the institute.
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Dec 16, 2016 17:32
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Does anybody know why Fallout 4 crashes every single time I exit the main game application or the launcher? Every time. I have to manually end the process in task manager, or else it just sits there chewing on a gig of my RAM. This happens whether or not I load any mods, or whether I start the game via Mod manager or straight out of Steam. 100% crash on exit. This started happening occasionally around the time they updated the game to autosave on exit, but has gotten worse since. I don't see how the exit-save is a factor though, since the launcher won't exit cleanly even if I don't boot the game. I wanted to pick the game up again and play through all the DLC, but I think I'm getting close to flushing it if the game doesn't start behaving.
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Dec 16, 2016 17:44
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The Railroad are huge pieces of poo poo and total idiots so any chance to kill them all should be taken.
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Dec 16, 2016 18:42
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Your Computer posted:Thanks to the "glitches" thread in PYF, I'm reminded of this hilariously appropriate video in regards to Fallout 4's story That was pretty drat funny  Pwnstar posted:The Railroad are huge pieces of poo poo and total idiots so any chance to kill them all should be taken. Carrington and Desdemona are kind of shitlords from my little experience with them. Deacon is pretty fun, Glory is merely cautious because of what happened at Slocum. I don't really know much about the others tbh. Though if their method for memory wipes can cause brain damage and lead synths to become violent or dangerous... they're a big danger for the commonwealth. Something I'm pretty sure of is that you don't get a new base after you beat the institute/BOS which is stupid because you can basically go anywhere at that point and take the best building in the game. EPIC fat guy vids fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Dec 16, 2016 |
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Dec 16, 2016 18:52
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Their memory wipes also do not always work. Sometimes they go crazy like at libertalia. Other times their suppressed memories come back and they start ranting about the institute while slumming around DC
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Dec 16, 2016 19:37
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The memory wipes are kinda awful, both because they can be botched (like any medical procedure) and because they're literally erasing their own identities, however they don't cause synths to go crazy and the whole thing about Libertalia is the dumbest thing ever. Becoming a raider was Gabriel's own choice, just like the literally thousands of humans before him. The whole thing with the Railroad is giving synths rights and the chance to make their own choices. Sometimes those choices are bad choices, just like any other person. e: I must say I really liked the DiMA dialogue about the Railroad, actually. Since he's all about synths being able to live proudly as synths, he's justifiably angry that the Railroad are facilitating the erasure of their memories and identities (even if it's ultimately voluntary) but he's also able to take a step back and apologize for this anger since he's off on an island far away from the Institute, living in relative safety from being snatched away and enslaved/killed himself. Your Computer fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Dec 16, 2016 |
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Dec 16, 2016 19:50
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I probably would have had an easier time siding with the bos if nick wasn't the cool rear end motherfucker he is. Also there definitely should have been a Silver Shroud arc that leads to its own ending of riding the commonwealth of bos and the institute.
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Dec 17, 2016 00:22
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xxEightxx posted:I probably would have had an easier time siding with the bos if nick wasn't the cool rear end motherfucker he is. Also there definitely should have been a Silver Shroud arc that leads to its own ending of riding the commonwealth of bos and the institute. The BOS would easily be the best faction if : A) the cut content to become elder wasn't cut (assuming that's real) B) Maxson wasn't so genocidal against Synths after Danse's reveal. Maxson is the one reason why I can't support the BOS considering what Danse, Curie and baby Shaun represent for both the PC and the commonwealth - seriously, if she synthesised a panacea once, she will do so again... and then Curie becomes more useful than the whole Institute to humanity.
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Dec 17, 2016 00:30
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Nah in the fallout world BOS has the right idea. 90% of the synths you meet you kill, 90% of the ghouls you meet you kill, 99% of the mutants you meet you kill but as far as humans go you probably only kill 80% of the ones you meet.
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Dec 17, 2016 03:26
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In terms of volume though ive definitely killed way more humans than mutants and synths combined.
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Dec 17, 2016 05:46
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CFox posted:Nah in the fallout world BOS has the right idea. 90% of the synths you meet you kill, 90% of the ghouls you meet you kill, 99% of the mutants you meet you kill but as far as humans go you probably only kill 80% of the ones you meet.  xxEightxx posted:Also there definitely should have been a Silver Shroud arc that leads to its own ending of riding the commonwealth of bos and the institute. Every dialogue choice in the game should have had a "Speak as Shroud" option
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Dec 17, 2016 06:07
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CFox posted:Nah in the fallout world BOS has the right idea. 90% of the synths you meet you kill, 90% of the ghouls you meet you kill, 99% of the mutants you meet you kill but as far as humans go you probably only kill 80% of the ones you meet. I would kill Strong in a heartbeat, I'm very much against supermutants but many non-ferals are pretty cool if not very useful for the commonwealth. That's why I can't just join the BOS. Hell, that ghoul farm alone is basically more useful than Diamond city. That new mod Your computer linked is allowing me to Railroad and Institute it up though so I can commit genocide against Super Mutants without feeling bad about my moral alignment. If someone ever releases a mod where you replace Maxson, Danse becomes your second in command and the BOS is basically 100% under your command, then yeah: BOS forever.
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Dec 17, 2016 06:31
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The Institute and BoS, for all their faults, at least have a drat plan for the future. The Railroad are the loving definition of a stillborn ideology; the moment there are no more synths being created, as in their ending, then they as an organization are completely useless. The Minutemen are just a retarded, useless militia so they don't even have an ideology going for them. It's not even a Yes Man level of customization even, it's just "I guess you can run with the most irritating loser in the wasteland and his dumb crowd I suppose". The only person in the minutemen that isn't complete garbage was the angry granny because at least she exhibits signs of of some personality even if it is just about the most stereotypical crone possible.
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Dec 17, 2016 17:43
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Minutemen are cool, the idea of "hey let's protect people, let's even protect entire settlements" is a brilliant and innovative idea which I didn't hear much about from the other factions.
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Dec 17, 2016 17:46
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Deceitful Penguin posted:
Do you mean the angry lady, Marcy, or the kind-hearted drug grandma, who is just your average baby boomer from Lynn?
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Dec 17, 2016 17:56
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I don't understand the "but the Railroad has no plan for the future!" thing. It's never stated that you have to pick a faction with a plan for the future, or that your goal is to rule the world. You side with the Railroad because of morals, not domination. In fact, all the different factions have different endgames. In the vanilla game: - The Institute is all about isolationism and creating/having literal slaves. They believe the surface world is already doomed and the only way for humanity to survive is through them. - The Brotherhood is all about ethnic cleansing and military/technological superiority  to save the world from itself  - The Railroad really only seeks to free the Institute's slaves and make it possible for them to live their lives, otherwise no agenda/endgame. - The Minutemen just want to help everyone out because it's the Right Thing to Do  Ultimately no plan and no real organization, just the idea of "let's help each other out".Not all the endings have the same impact on the world, which probably annoys a lot of people. I still think it's bizarre to say that siding with the Railroad is "bad" since they have no grand scheme for the Commonwealth, since that was never the goal. One thing I'm annoyed with however is how little choice you get in each ending, like you become the god drat director of the entire Institute but Bethesda has already decided for you that you did so because you agree 100% with them and want to continue doing what they were doing. I know I keep talking about the mod, but such a small change as the "Spare Railroad While Playing as Institute" makes the story infinitely better because now you can actually choose to take the Institute in a different direction (in your head, anyway). Likewise, you become the leader of the Minutemen but you have no actual authority and their endgame is basically just "¯\_(ツ)_/¯". Also the insistence that you have to eliminate/bomb/otherwise destroy the other factions is bizarre, and you get no choice.
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Dec 17, 2016 18:10
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I think the factions they chose are fine - the Brotherhood is a staple and is just a way to rage against the military industrial complex. I know some people want more from it than that, but I like them the way they are in the Bethesda-verse. The Institute feels half-finished more than the other factions if you delve into it too deeply, which definitely is a crying shame, but they are otherwise fine. The Railroad is a faction devoted to one specific thing for a reason - everyone else in the game is paranoid of synths and the Institute just uses them, so they're the third option. They don't have to be anything else. That's their job. I like Tinker Tom, PAM and Deacon. Carraway could have been better developed. The Minutemen, I actually like. Your role as General is to assemble settlements, I think, and you do start to feel like you're making a different once you have about 30 of them transferring goods back and forth, each heavily defended from threats and calling for more citizens. I don't think the factions were the problem in terms of their personality. I think the problem is that too many of the actual, "Faction Main Quest" quests feel like radiant quests, and too many of the people you interact with feel like they're removed from the world after the quest they're involved with. The Railroad would be cool if more of their stuff involved infiltration or investigation into synth sightings and not, like, 20 MILA deliveries and a couple of fights with the Institute in high rise apartments buildings. Fallout 4 feels like less work was put into quests than previous Bethesda games. I hope for Elder Scrolls 6, they work more on faction questlines and less on huge new mechanics. Much though I like the settlement stuff in Fallout 4, I don't need Medieval House Building Sim or half-baked Strategy Game for Swamp Civil War or whatever if it is going to mean the Dark Brotherhood is just a cave with three people who send you to assassinate random targets in between two or three story tentpoles.
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Dec 17, 2016 18:33
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Part of me wishes that the Enclave was in this game, because with my guy being a former American soldier it would have been a great RP opportunity for him to, in the sight of all this weirdness, cling to the only thing left in the Wasteland that offers even a hint of normalcy.
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Dec 17, 2016 18:44
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Sky Shadowing posted:Part of me wishes that the Enclave was in this game, because with my guy being a former American soldier it would have been a great RP opportunity for him to, in the sight of all this weirdness, cling to the only thing left in the Wasteland that offers even a hint of normalcy. It's a huge missed opportunity to go about redeeming them or going nuts versus the factions squabbling for power. The closest you really get to recognition is from the captain sentry bot. You'd think you could actually get along with ghouls but mostly it's just that one vaulttec representative. Fallout 4: Missed Opportunity really.
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Dec 17, 2016 19:05
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Sky Shadowing posted:Part of me wishes that the Enclave was in this game, because with my guy being a former American soldier it would have been a great RP opportunity for him to, in the sight of all this weirdness, cling to the only thing left in the Wasteland that offers even a hint of normalcy. They are, though (the Brotherhood became them). While everything kinda peters out I do feel like the Railroad is the 'correct' choice, not just because they're the plucky underground rebels doing the right thing but because they clearly had the most work put into them; they have an elaborate recruitment process, the first few missions are seriously above and beyond any other faction in terms of plotting, they have unique rewards, the most fleshed out faction companion and they have all these story and flavor breadcrumbs littered throughout the Commonwealth. While the BoS comes close they're super antagonistic to every other faction and will get blown up in three out of four endings, and the Minutemen were basically stapled on to give the shiny new settlement building system some semblance of a plot.
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Dec 17, 2016 19:30
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Bicyclops posted:-snip- I definitely agree with most of this. The factions fit in (even the Brotherhood who literally just appear out of the sky  Considering their thing with technology it makes sense they get involved, what with the Institute). I'm not sure I agree about the Minutemen though. I feel like they could've done a lot more with them, because even when you get together tons of settlements and defend them and stuff it just feels like something you as a player are doing alone, not the faction. It also feels very videogame-y, since before you came along people were all scattered and living in dirt and rusty shacks but behold, the player character shows up and singlehandedly builds multiple settlements rivalling Diamond City in scope, and singlehandedly defends all of them to boot!Quests like the Institute one where you're sent to get the nerd who's defended by Minutemen make it clear that even if you're the General you don't actually have any authority, since if you try to go "stand down, I got this" they can refuse to listen and literally say "this isn't the army, you can't command us". It's all volunteer work on the principle of "you scratch my back, I scratch yours" and they don't have a big sense of cohesion I feel. I do enjoy the fact that they're all actually helping each other though, with no sinister ulterior motive. It's strangely refreshing in the otherwise cynical post-apocalyptic world Like you say, it's a drat shame the faction quests are so shallow/few because they could have had a lot of personality.
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Dec 17, 2016 19:45
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I'm thinking Bethesda's next game might be a something that pushes their Radiant philosophy to its logical conclusion. FO4 diluted its scripted content and had very little nonlinearity, but expanded the player's ability to craft what they want (gave them a So I'm obviously projecting here, but I think a game where procedural gameplay and (maybe) world design is the core tenet, is the natural evolution of Beth's direction. Like imagine FO4 but with an alternate beginning mod on by default. Maybe some of the areas can swap places. Sometimes D is a synth, sometimes C is (procedural narrative is probably ambitious). etc etc. It'd probably have to be a new IP, to amenable to this sort of global flexibility. It would obviously be difficult, require radical rethinking of their design mantras, and I don't trust Bethesda could pull it off on the first try. The thing this gives Bethesda is infinite longevity in a game without multiplayer. Todd Howard announcing that the next TES is a long way's away and that they're workng on other interesting projects in the meantime (or whatever the quote was) is what got me thinking. Just randomly musing.
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Dec 17, 2016 20:15
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Deceitful Penguin posted:I wanted to be a terrible father like Liam Neeson in 3 and couldn't When I first got into the institute and saw MY BABY locked in a tiny cell, I took all the drugs in my inventory and knocked Real Shaun's head off with a baseball bat as soon as he walked into the room. In hindsight, I'd say I'm a worse father than Liam Neeson.
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Dec 17, 2016 21:53
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Bicyclops posted:Do you mean the angry lady, Marcy, or the kind-hearted drug grandma, who is just your average baby boomer from Lynn? The Flaregun is a goddamn joke, it can't even light fuckers on fire, you can't customize the troops you get and it doesn't work inside. BLEGH. The problem isn't that the factions ~don't fit in~, it's that they don't fit as actual, major parts of the world. To compare it again to the ES series, the minutemen and railroad are more on the level of the factional sidequests, Thieves or Fighters guild; they have their own missions but they're not important. Having them be involved in the main quest is just inane. Letting you have absolutely no choice to subvert, change or influence things is something that's been the norm now for every ES game since Oblivion, though FO3 was the least bad, which is part of what made this one such a loving disappointment. Rinkles posted:So I'm obviously projecting here, but I think a game where procedural gameplay and (maybe) world design is the core tenet, is the natural evolution of Beth's direction. Like imagine FO4 but with an alternate beginning mod on by default. Maybe some of the areas can swap places. Sometimes D is a synth, sometimes C is (procedural narrative is probably ambitious). etc etc. It'd probably have to be a new IP, to amenable to this sort of global flexibility. It would obviously be difficult, require radical rethinking of their design mantras, and I don't trust Bethesda could pull it off on the first try. Another thing about pure sandbox games is that usually the player has a chance of influencing the core of the game. Whether it's the X series where you can change starlanes and rule the galaxy de facto, CK2 where you can paint the map in your colour or just destroying the whole map in Just Cause 2, there's a level of permanence that Bethesda is loving poo poo at. Castor Poe posted:When I first got into the institute and saw MY BABY locked in a tiny cell, I took all the drugs in my inventory and knocked Real Shaun's head off with a baseball bat as soon as he walked into the room. In hindsight, I'd say I'm a worse father than Liam Neeson. Like, seriously. That was insanely dumb. All that effort, all the murdering, time, everything, just for that? Delete child, try again I say.
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Dec 17, 2016 23:18
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Yeah, Bethesda games are such that I never feel like anything I do matters. That's why I try to make my settlements as tall and as interesting as possible. If all I can do it alter the skyline, I'm gonna put dicks everywhere.
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Dec 17, 2016 23:37
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Deceitful Penguin posted:I think this is better than what I did, where I listened and then decided what they'd just said was so retarded that they deserved to die and murdered them. Were you able to get out of the Institute after you killed him? I had to load an older save because I got locked in the room with Fake Shaun, there was literally no way to get out. It was probably a bug, but it wouldn't surprise me if the chimps who write for Bethesada didn't consider that some players would kill the poo poo out of the man who's keeping your "son" locked up in a cage like an animal and, not to mention, up to that point painted as the main villain of the story, first chance they got.
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Dec 18, 2016 00:47
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Nah, I reloaded afterwards, as I didn't want to miss the chance to loot the Institute of all their shiny stuff to build more crap with in the theatre.
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Dec 18, 2016 01:00
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Castor Poe posted:Were you able to get out of the Institute after you killed him? You're supposed to be able to go right back out the way you came in if that happens; there is audio and scripting for it to happen so its absolutely something they expected people to do.
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Dec 18, 2016 01:56
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They were obviously goading people into killing MAH BABY without realizing who it was, but at least props for giving you that one option. It just feels hollow when a hundred other puppets beforehand are arbitrarily immortal.
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Dec 18, 2016 02:12
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I wish the brotherhood werent new arrivals. The railroad wouldve been dope if they had rats in the BOS as well as the institute. Another missed opportunity imo is that you didnt have to go to concord to recover some cache from a former minutemen informant. Just a sense of them actually being a well informed group of rats.
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Dec 18, 2016 03:13
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| # ? Jun 2, 2024 18:36 |
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The Railroad shouldn't have been a main faction, they should have been a small collection of infiltrators in the other factions who offered you alternate quest solutions.
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Dec 18, 2016 04:33
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