Fallout 4

[The Drunkard]

There's a neat, unmarked story that connects several of the different raiders locations in the northwestern part of the map, and the terminal entries at each location seem to change depending on which you hit first. Was pretty cool, but 'Gunners' and 'Raiders' make me miss the raiders and gangs in NV, who actually had backstories, HQs and leaders, and operated in the one region rather than being found randomly across the map.

The vaults this time around are quite lackluster. Aside from 81 (and 111 I guess) none of the others have interesting experiments and all the enemies are basically the same.

[Werthead]

Interesting article on the history of Fallout development. The original game was worked on by just one person (Tim Cain) for quite a few months and then about 30 by its end (some of whom were also working on Fallout 2, as FO2 started development 6 months before FO1 shipped) with a combined budget of about $4 million in today's numbers.

In comparison, Skyrim was made by about 90 people on a budet of roughly $80 million. Fallout 4 probably had and cost somewhat more.

Tim Cain's presentation on the making of the original Fallout is also well worth watching. Apparently for a while Interplay's marketing department wanted to call the game Postnuclear Adventure. Hmm.

[MerenthaClone]

I wasn't expecting it but I love that a lot of GNR songs from Fallout 3 are on Diamond City Radio. The Fallout experience is not complete without the occasional Butcher Pete, Civilization, Dear Hearts and Gentle People, Crazy He Calls Me, I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire etc etc. Bethesda have saved us from the tyranny of Johnny Guitar. 

Well, now I'm never getting it.    (Big Iron was better)

[RumHam]

I came across some guy who claimed to work at the radio station and set him free. I'm really hoping he'll take over as the DJ, the default guy is pretty lame. I miss three-dog.

[KiDisaster]

I came across some guy who claimed to work at the radio station and set him free. I'm really hoping he'll take over as the DJ, the default guy is pretty lame. I miss three-dog.

You can make default guy better. That's all I'll say. 

The guy you set free is the guy in the tower I'm assuming? He works at a different radio station I believe. 

[Lord Hanna]

God, this game is just so good. Just found diamond city, going to clear the feral ghouls from the tunnels and saw my first "glowing one", damn tough to take down. 

 

One thing that bothers me a bit, but it's minor, is i can't see the "recommended level" for missions, so a couple i'd travel a long time just to get killed instantly. haha 

 

Other than that, amazing game. 

[Jack Bauer 24]

I thought you start in Diamond City?

[Fiddler]

I ran into a deathclaw in the basement of this building in Cambridge. Managed to kill it by taking basically every chem I had and leading it over a lot of mines. I spammed a lot of stimpacks, but eventually killed the fucker. When they corner you they really smack you around.

If that's is the same building that I am thinking of, he was a legendary for me.  I died seven or eight times to him, but had saved just before dropping down so it just reloaded me there.  Ended up killing him by throwing three bottle cap mines in the same spot and luring him over them.  It was great.

I will say, fuck Suicider Mutants.  I entered some hospital for loot and had to keep re loading because a damn Mutant with a mini nuke just charged me each time, assholes.  

Also, the way the mole rats and scorpions erupt from the ground scare the hell out of me everytime.

[Werthead]

One thing that bothers me a bit, but it's minor, is i can't see the "recommended level" for missions, so a couple i'd travel a long time just to get killed instantly. haha 

There isn't one, AFAIK. You only know if an enemy is "too tough" if a skull appears next to their name or destcription. But that only applies to their level, with the right perks and equipment you can easily take down enemies several levels higher.

I thought you start in Diamond City?

Hell, no. You start way off in the NW corner of the map, Diamond City is in the south-central area. I didn't get there until about 9 hours into the game. It's actually not advisable to strike out straight away as there's quite a few fierce firefights between rival gangs in central Boston that will annihilate you at low level.

In general terms, I started off doing Minutemen/Sancturary missions in the north of the map, then did a whole bunch of Brotherhood of Steel stuff out of Cambridge Police Station before moving onto Diamond City.

[Jack Bauer 24]

I won't be playing it until next week, but this has me worried http://ign.com/videos/2015/11/15/does-crafting-make-fallout-4-too-overwhelming-vault-ign

Does crafting make Fallout 4 too overwhelming?

[briantw]

I thought you start in Diamond City?

Nope, but you're instructed to go there relatively early as part of the main quest.  You don't have to go there, of course, but I'd kind of recommend it just because you can pick up a ton of quests there that will keep you busy later.  You can also pick up a couple of companions there.  Goodneighbor is another place to hit relatively early if you want to pick up a bunch of quests.

[Werthead]

Does crafting make Fallout 4 too overwhelming?

 No. Crafting and settlement building are 1) completely optional and 2) easy. I haven't done a lot of it because the controls for it are awful. But as a concept and addition to the game, it's pretty solid and you can ignore if you wish.

[briantw]

 No. Crafting and settlement building are 1) completely optional and 2) easy. I haven't done a lot of it because the controls for it are awful. But as a concept and addition to the game, it's pretty solid and you can ignore if you wish.

It's easy in that the game tells you what you need to build everything and you can mark components for searching in the wasteland, but the implementation isn't great.  The game basically tells you absolutely nothing about how anything works.  I constantly have a little exclamation point next to each settlement's defense, but no idea why that's the case and the game doesn't seem interested in telling me.  I assume it implies I need more defense, but I have no idea how much is enough, as each settlement has well over a point in defense for each settler.  

I also hate how settlers are managed.  It's difficult to know who you've assigned and who you haven't (because sometimes assigned settlers just wander around like unassigned ones), and settlers aren't smart enough to do things on their own if they're not assigned, which is stupid.  I wish you could just bring up a menu of settlers and where they are assigned.  I honestly have no idea why you can't do that, or why settlers aren't named like they were in Fallout Shelter to make things simpler.  

Basically none of the settler systems are ever actually explained, which is annoying.  I still have no idea how happiness is determined, and the game certainly hasn't told me.  The only one that actually seems to make sense is beds.  One bed per person.  Beyond that I'm not really sure how the game determines how much food is put into storage, how much water is necessary, why happiness seems to fluctuate randomly, if electricity even matters, if cosmetic items are anything other than just that, or how much defense is actually necessary.  I've now started getting Brotherhood missions to secure farm supplies for them too, but I have no idea if this has any impact on the game.  Do those farms produce less food for my workshop?  Does securing those supplies impact my standing with the Minutemen?  Why does the game not tell you any of this shit?  It's frustrating.

I also hate how the game engine isn't smart enough to sink structures into the ground, which makes it damn near impossible to build buildings that aren't hovering above the ground because, for some reason, almost none of your settlements have enough goddamn flat land to build anything of note.

[Fez]

That kind of emergent event is something Bethesda is still pretty good at. When they're on their game, they're unstoppable and it makes all the very minor irritants worthwhile.

They also surprisingly have gotten pretty good at scripted events. I just did a mission where I was a vertibird side gunner taking down a super mutant behemoth, which then landed for a ground battle against maybe a dozen super mutants who all rushed us at once. There than a lot more fighting inside a building. That part was just run of the mill fun for this game, but the gunner part and the initial ground battle; that was kinetic spectacle in a way I haven't seen out of Bethesda before. It blew the civil war 'battles' from Skyrim completely out of the water.

[AndrewJ]

I also hate how settlers are managed.  It's difficult to know who you've assigned and who you haven't (because sometimes assigned settlers just wander around like unassigned ones), and settlers aren't smart enough to do things on their own if they're not assigned, which is stupid.  I wish you could just bring up a menu of settlers and where they are assigned.  I honestly have no idea why you can't do that, or why settlers aren't named like they were in Fallout Shelter to make things simpler.  

 

Actually, if you don't assign a settler to anything they will scour the wasteland and bring back resources.

And take a look at the "help" section in the main menu to read up a bit on how happiness and food resources etc work. Basically, you need 1 point of food and water for each settler. Once a day, your food resources are harvested and the excess will go into inventory (eg you have 12 tatos and 5 settlers. Each is worth 0.5 points. So 10 are consumed each day and 2 go into inventory).

I don't think defense affects happiness directly. But if you suffer a raider attach, happiness will go down - and increasing defenses will decrease the likelihood of attacks (I still have no clue how much is "enough" though).

 

[Fez]

I read some reviewer/player (can't remember who) say that for defense, you want at least at least double a settlement's food and water resources. So if you have 8 food and 6 water, that adds up to 14, so you want at least 28 defense.

I don't know if that's true, but following that rule of thumb so far I haven't gotten any ! next to defense and I haven't been attacked by any raiders.

[briantw]

I read some reviewer/player (can't remember who) say that for defense, you want at least at least double a settlement's food and water resources. So if you have 8 food and 6 water, that adds up to 14, so you want at least 28 defense.

I don't know if that's true, but following that rule of thumb so far I haven't gotten any ! next to defense and I haven't been attacked by any raiders.

Man...that's a crazy amount of defense for some settlements.  I don't know about you, but I've been focusing on heavy farming so I have plenty of veggies to make starch, which breaks down into adhesive.

[RumHam]

Also met a lunatic raider gang called the Forge. Was attacked by their leader (in power armour) and six minions at the same time. I was way too low a level to handle it, but fortunately I had a Fat Man and one single Mini-Nuke in the inventory. That vapourised everyone in the (fortunately quite big) room but only took the boss down to about 50% health. Still an epic fight to kill him with Piper's help, but at least it was doable.

That kind of emergent event is something Bethesda is still pretty good at. When they're on their game, they're unstoppable and it makes all the very minor irritants worthwhile.

Is that an emergent event though? If we're talking about the same thing (big vat of molten something in the middle of the room) it was the end of a quest called like "out of the fire" or something. I wandered into it without first picking up the quest as well.

[briantw]

Is that an emergent event though? If we're talking about the same thing (big vat of molten something in the middle of the room) it was the end of a quest called like "out of the fire" or something. I wandered into it without first picking up the quest as well.

Yeah, it's the end of a quest.  I also wandered into it because I wanted to find the bobblehead at the Foundry, but I believe you can pick up the actual quest by visiting Finch Farms prior to going there.

[Fiddler]

I do have to agree about the settlement stuff.  While I love it and enjoy building stuff, there are a couple of issues that needed to be looked at.

1.  Something should tell you what each settler does.  There should be a menu you can look at that says so and so is a farmer or defender or merchant.  Which leads me to settlers should have names.  There isn't any reason why we as the players couldn't name the settlers this would then aleviate the problem of not know who should be farming, defending etc...

2.  Walls should be able to lock at right angles.  I hate the wood walls, period.  The corner pieces look like ass and the walls don't lock into place to make corners.  I started doing the metal, curved walls and it seems to work better for me.

3.  There should be a way to smooth out rough terrain (other than the shack foundation).  That way you can smooth done a large patch of earth to build something.

4.  It should be easier to tell people what to do also.  Instead of clicking on them, then walking all the way over to the garden area and clicking on that, there should be some screen that you can just assign people to each job.

5.  There should be a way to remove some things from the area.  Specifically the old skeletons.  I hate that my drive in settlement has 3 - 4 random skeletons just littering the ground.  It just irritates me.

Even though it is clunky and a struggle at times, I do like the addition of this feature.