Another rant (review?) on Fallout and why it takes the RP from RPG

Luciana · November 26, 2015, 09:43:39 AM

First off, sorry for making another Fallout thread. I know there are an abundance of them. Still, I'm sick, didn't get much sleep, and sitting in showers and letting your thoughts gather is always fun when it's not about suicide. Anyway, here you go.

Spoiler

The main issue is that in games where it tries to push for a world that feels alive such as Fallout, Elder Scrolls, an MMO, whatever, is how to keep the player immersed in the universe. After all, that's why everyone stays glued to the games. It's a world you're completely immersed and surrounded in, from the music, to the characters, to the weather.

Anything to abruptly rip you from that and make you realize you're just sitting in front of a screen with a controller/mouse in your hand (figuratively speaking) is what these kind of games try to avoid. Naturally, things like textures freaking out, glitches, and various other small things can do that to us. Even in games like Call of Duty where you're in this action packed scene, one small mess up can completely mess up the flow of the action, pacing, and intensity in which the devs intended you to get in.

Fallout 4's problem with that (along with the glitches) rounds back to your personality with your character. Now before you freak out, let me explain. It seems to me that Fallout 4's writing staff had the mindset that your first run through was going to be your ONLY run through. They pushed for the very small scale narrative (which in my opinion hurts them significantly) in such a large and engaging world, and it worked somewhat. My first playthrough I played the mother looking for her son, and played into her personality like the game intended me to, and it wasn't bad.

The tone of the character was good, the writing wasn't too terrible, the characters meshed well for the most part and offered sympathy, etc. And when you finally find your son and you actually feel emotional about it, it all comes together, and it feels rewarding.

However what I think they failed to take into account, is that Fallout games are never meant for one single playthrough. No one gets 200+ hours from a Fallout game on one playthrough on the base game. You get it from doing multiple playthroughs, different builds, and different personalities. In Fallout New Vegas you could either be a lone wolf who screws everyone over, supports a faction, and everything in between.

Heck even in Fallout 3, despite it being so black and white in choices, you could decide from the early hours what kind of character you wanted to be. Did you want to be a good person and save Megaton, or did you want to completely nuke it? Did you want to actually work hard on the Wasteland Survival Guide, even begrudgingly so, or did you want to completely lie and fuck everyone over? Did you want to save the wasteland with pure water, or did you want to (for whatever reason) put the FEV in it?

These kinds of things helped fit what an RPG is, and that is a ROLE PLAYING game.

Fallout 4's problem is that I can't be anything other than a parent looking for a child. I can't be a staunch supporter of the Brotherhood, cold hearted and ruthless, without it suddenly coming to a grinding halt when my character gets emotional over their spouse or son. I cannot be a drug addict looking for that next fix without people reminding me of my family, or what I need to do as a general of the Minutemen.

And that's the problem with Fallout 4. It never accounts for that 2nd playthrough, and even when you try it you're forced to a halt, and it completely throws me out of the universe I am in and makes me realize that despite being able to free roam, I am still being guided by an invisible hand on an invisible railroad. It comes to a point where during the main quest you are forced to tell them about your son/spouse, even if you try to deny it. If you try and say you don't want to talk about it, the NPC says they need to know everything, and then your character gets emotional and sad.

And that is the problem with Fallout 4's immersion. Despite the amazing ost, solid gunplay, huge world, settlement building, and sidequests, you will always be reminded you are a parent looking for their child, and that you are good natured at heart. And no amount of snarky or annoyed options in the dialogue will every derail you from that invisible railroad.

I'd like to still mention, that like the Angry Joe review said (I know, don't hate me), the game is better than the sum of its parts. And for that reason, I know I'll continue to love this game and know amazing mods can't come soon enough.

clum clum · November 26, 2015, 10:17:50 AM

The lack of any true replay value is what gets me the most.

But, Bethesda aren't going to change. This blatant casualization (they call it "streamlining") of the game is going to make them a LOT more money, because it appeals to the masses that don't have two brain cells to rub together. Expect this to get worse with their future titles.

Fingers crossed that mods will turn it back into an RPG. The voiced protag is going to make modding quite difficult, though.

cxfhvxgkcf-56:7 · November 26, 2015, 11:14:15 AM

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Luciana · November 26, 2015, 11:17:56 AM

I got inspired by Super Bunnyhop to make something that didn't sound like a mess

Mr. Psychologist · November 26, 2015, 11:22:32 AM

I'm going to see how far I can get as a cannibal living in a shack before the game ruins the fun for me with the points mentioned >_>

After my first playthrough, a proper one rather than a bit of a giggle, I do look at the game and wonder how I'm going to replay it as one of the other factions.

Major story spoilers/institute questline

You have been warned, don't click this if you don't want to find out the big plot twists

I think the game does a great job of building them up to be a boogeyman, then turning it on it's head somewhat.

After talking with Father, finding out that he's actually your son and learning what the institute is doing - I couldn't find fault with much beyond the mild naivety of the institute's plan to live forever underground. Their methods are a bit cut-throat sure, but nothing they did screamed 'absolute bastards, the lot of them'.

You compare that with the BoS who act like utter children throughout the whole story, 'synths are a cancer in the heart of the commonwealth abububububububub we need to kill skynet before it becomes skynet abooboobooboo'

Then you have the railroad, just lol. They had a noble cause in Fallout 3 but in 4 they seem even more deranged than the BoS. If they weren't zealous to the point of shaming the sororitas, their points might actually make sense. Sentient beings are sentient beings, artificial or not. But rather than debating the institute over the matter, it's Row Row Fight the Powah. Morons.

Then the minutemen, to be honest despite my views on muh freedumbs they are the second most appealing because it's as close to yes-man as you get <.<
This is my wasteland now etc etc
Of the people, for the people - Psychojet for everyone!

grumbling ranting aside

I don't know how mods will be able to fix the problem where there is no option to be that malingering bastard anymore, HATE CHOICE.

Still, I love the game and I foresee a lot of hours out of it but... yeah it's a pity they didn't ask obsidian for some pointers.

Luciana · November 26, 2015, 11:26:49 AM

Institute are one leader away though from being like the Enclave. You bring up good points on the others though.

Kiwicake · November 26, 2015, 12:04:51 PM

Nailed it again Luci

Sorry to hear about your sleep

get well soon :>

Turkey · November 26, 2015, 12:18:56 PM

Any game, even (or especially) RPGs need central story to drive the motivation of the player. Whether it's finding your son and avenging your spouse, or finding your dad and completing his work, or finding the gangster that left you for dead in the desert, or being the chosen one sent out into the wasteland to find a GECK, or to find replacement parts for your vault, you're still given a reason to go out and play the game.

I agree the dialog options are far too narrow, but there's a whole lot more to depth of story than your own personal narrative, and in the sense of world building, Fallout 4 is phenomenal. So no, you can't senselessly obliterate a town or deviate from looking for your son for half the game, but you can annihilate factions for fun, sell a kid and his family to slavers, leave Virgil stranded in the glowing sea as a super mutant losing his mind, withhold a vaccine from a dying kid, help a wife get away with adultery or double cross a guy during a drug deal, kill a companion for loyalty, and tons of other examples.

And can we stop using "casualization" as a catchall insult as if Fallout 1 & 2 weren't also very casual games at the time?

Luciana · November 26, 2015, 12:23:45 PM

Quote from: Thanksgiving is Murder on November 26, 2015, 12:18:56 PM

Any game, even (or especially) RPGs need central story to drive the motivation of the player. Whether it's finding your son and avenging your spouse, or finding your dad and completing his work, or finding the gangster that left you for dead in the desert, or being the chosen one sent out into the wasteland to find a GECK, or to find replacement parts for your vault, you're still given a reason to go out and play the game.

I agree the dialog options are far too narrow, but there's a whole lot more to depth of story than your own personal narrative, and in the sense of world building, Fallout 4 is phenomenal. So no, you can't senselessly obliterate a town or deviate from looking for your son for half the game, but you can annihilate factions for fun, sell a kid and his family to slavers, leave Virgil stranded in the glowing sea as a super mutant losing his mind, withhold a vaccine from a dying kid, help a wife get away with adultery or double cross a guy during a drug deal, kill a companion for loyalty, and tons of other examples.

And can we stop using "casualization" as a catchall insult as if Fallout 1 & 2 weren't also very casual games at the time?

It's more the fact your character already has a pre-determined personality and the game forces you to get emotional over your son at a few points. That and you cannot do any freaking choices.

It's kinda hard to do different characters like say, a cold blooded assassin, when your character is sobbing over his boi.

Leaving Virgil is as simple as not doing the quest. You could leave Preston in the house in the beginning. You'd just not be doing the quest.

Also, you can't annihilate the Minutemen considering they're the Yes Man of this game, but the fact you can slaughter entire settlements, only for him to go "HEY THAT'S A NO NO!" is really freaking stupid.

Turkey · November 26, 2015, 12:36:14 PM

The Minutemen are inconsequential, though. They shouldn't even be considered a faction, and you choosing to not advance their goals by not completing or starting the quests isn't at all different from doing it through a dialog option. In my save file I've got Minutemen settlements all over the place, able to provide artillery anywhere on the map; someone else's could have no Minutemen settlements, instead choosing to co-op farms around the map for the Brotherhood.

Your character doesn't need to get upset whenever he's looking for his son; I've posted this before, but in the confrontation with Kellogg you can choose to skip everything and just murder him without saying a word, or calmly talk about it, or plead for Shaun's location. There's plenty of diversity, the real problem is that it all funnels you to the same point (i.e., you can't convince Kellogg to give you Shaun's location, or bring him to repent for his actions, etc.). But that's really a consequence of Bethesda working in a solid, consistent narrative instead of the weak, disjointed story that got them a ton of flak in Skyrim.

Luciana · November 26, 2015, 12:39:58 PM

It also doesn't help the dialogue wheel is awful. I guess there is some choice here or there, but the fact they still force you at some points to keep reminding you of your past just help break the immersion for me. I hate how they shove that past down your throat.

True Turquoise · November 26, 2015, 12:49:27 PM

Quote

sorry for making another Fallout thread

MEGA
THREAD

Turkey · November 26, 2015, 12:50:19 PM

Quote from: Luciana on November 26, 2015, 12:39:58 PM

It also doesn't help the dialogue wheel is awful. I guess there is some choice here or there, but the fact they still force you at some points to keep reminding you of your past just help break the immersion for me. I hate how they shove that past down your throat.

It's very typical, especially in older games, for RPGs to give your character an established backstory. In Fallout 1 you could choose from a few different premade characters, for example. Usually the effects of that backstory are appreciated because it adds some depth to the character beyond some rando that wandered out of a vault one day and decided to be Wasteland Jesus.

Having a bit of motivation for your character is ruining your immersion? I'm not sure how you can handle any RPG, then. I bet KOTOR's Revan story must've pissed you off.

Luciana · November 26, 2015, 01:27:38 PM

Quote from: Thanksgiving is Murder on November 26, 2015, 12:50:19 PM

Quote from: Luciana on November 26, 2015, 12:39:58 PM
It also doesn't help the dialogue wheel is awful. I guess there is some choice here or there, but the fact they still force you at some points to keep reminding you of your past just help break the immersion for me. I hate how they shove that past down your throat.

It's very typical, especially in older games, for RPGs to give your character an established backstory. In Fallout 1 you could choose from a few different premade characters, for example. Usually the effects of that backstory are appreciated because it adds some depth to the character beyond some rando that wandered out of a vault one day and decided to be Wasteland Jesus.

Having a bit of motivation for your character is ruining your immersion? I'm not sure how you can handle any RPG, then. I bet KOTOR's Revan story must've pissed you off.

I promise I'll give you a proper reply later. Just doing other things atm.

Turkey · November 26, 2015, 01:29:12 PM

Quote from: Luciana on November 26, 2015, 01:27:38 PM

Quote from: Thanksgiving is Murder on November 26, 2015, 12:50:19 PM
Quote from: Luciana on November 26, 2015, 12:39:58 PM
It also doesn't help the dialogue wheel is awful. I guess there is some choice here or there, but the fact they still force you at some points to keep reminding you of your past just help break the immersion for me. I hate how they shove that past down your throat.

It's very typical, especially in older games, for RPGs to give your character an established backstory. In Fallout 1 you could choose from a few different premade characters, for example. Usually the effects of that backstory are appreciated because it adds some depth to the character beyond some rando that wandered out of a vault one day and decided to be Wasteland Jesus.

Having a bit of motivation for your character is ruining your immersion? I'm not sure how you can handle any RPG, then. I bet KOTOR's Revan story must've pissed you off.
I promise I'll give you a proper reply later. Just doing other things atm.

No worries. Happy Thanksgiving!

Ender · November 26, 2015, 07:05:53 PM

My only gripes with the game are basically

They did the same thing that ruined a lot of dragon age games post origins for me, with the dialogue wheel.

Not a lot of choice.

Etc

Kiwicake · November 26, 2015, 07:52:31 PM

Quote from: Thanksgiving is Murder on November 26, 2015, 12:50:19 PM

Quote from: Luciana on November 26, 2015, 12:39:58 PM
It also doesn't help the dialogue wheel is awful. I guess there is some choice here or there, but the fact they still force you at some points to keep reminding you of your past just help break the immersion for me. I hate how they shove that past down your throat.

It's very typical, especially in older games, for RPGs to give your character an established backstory. In Fallout 1 you could choose from a few different premade characters, for example. Usually the effects of that backstory are appreciated because it adds some depth to the character beyond some rando that wandered out of a vault one day and decided to be Wasteland Jesus.

Having a bit of motivation for your character is ruining your immersion? I'm not sure how you can handle any RPG, then. I bet KOTOR's Revan story must've pissed you off.

I think the problem with Fallout 4, at least for me, is that Bethesda has given you a set character in a world that's designed for a blank slate. The game wants you to develop your own character and their own ideals in the world, but they don't give you the ability to do that because of a lack of choice. The game doesn't feel designed around the fact you're playing a set character. I'll use The Witcher 3 for an example, since its story is actually surprisingly similar at least at the beginning. In The Witcher 3, your main plot line for the first... Third of the game is about finding your daughter. Geralt is a set character with his own backstory, and history and he has a VERY clear cut personality. The game's choices revolve not around how Geralt acts, but what he does. There is a ton of choice in the game, and each playthrough can turn out very different depending on what you do.

However in Fallout 4, the game still treats your character like a blank slate, it's incredibly jarring because you want to create your own character and develop them out and play them the way you want to, but the game gives you very little opportunity to do that. There's very little choice, there's rarely the opportunity to just say "No" to someone, most quests only have one way of ending them and it's tough to develop your character, because stats and perks don't change how much you know or how you react to things. I could have 10 intelligence and still be wandering around not knowing what's going on, for example. It's always the same because there's just no choices.

There's nothing wrong with an established backstory, but I think the problem here is that they've given you an established backstory in a world that your character isn't also established in. Unlike The Witcher 3, you're in a whole new world where you know nobody and are experiencing everything new, and the game treats you that way, it's difficult to get a sense of the character and their backstory when it's not even relevant to 99% of the game. You're too... Disconnected from everything for your backstory to make a difference. Unlike KOTOR, or the original Fallouts where you have a simple backstory for your character, you're still mostly a blank slate in a world that you haven't experienced before. The ability to make choices and decide who your character is, is still there. And unlike The Witcher 3 where you have a very set personality in a world that your character is already established in, your character in Fallout 4 has a set personality, but it's meaningless because you're not pre-established in the world and that set personality might as well not even be there.

i think i repeated myself a bit too much there but thats my viewpoint

Ushan · November 26, 2015, 09:45:39 PM

So, children ruin everything?

Turkey · November 26, 2015, 09:58:22 PM

Quote from: Fruitcake on November 26, 2015, 07:52:31 PM

I don't want you to think I'm ignoring your post, because I read it all. I don't think it's fair to compare Witcher to Fallout, since they strive for the opposite experience: Witcher gives you a character that has a defined personality and lets you roll with that; Fallout gives you a framework and lets you be who you want. I totally agree that the character-building of Fallout is shit, but it was shit in 1 & 2, also; funny and diverse dialog doesn't equate to character development. Fallout has never been about the character, it's been about the world.

The Sole Survivor doesn't have an established backstory; he's a soldier (or she's a lawyer) with a son and a spouse, and that's it. How that personality is expressed is varied by the player (angry, submissive, flippant, etc.). The different personalities see you down roughly the same path, but I challenge you to name an RPG where the ending is vastly different based on how much of an asshole you are, rather than which faction you align yourself to and which quests you choose to complete. In that sense, Bethesda fucked up by giving us voiced dialog because they were apparently trying to make the PC a deeper character.

Again, I completely agree that the character development is shit in Fallout, but I'd argue that that isn't at all the purpose of the game. Your character is just an way to let you explore the world, which is thoroughly fleshed out.

Kiwicake · November 26, 2015, 10:24:29 PM

Quote from: Thanksgiving is Murder on November 26, 2015, 09:58:22 PM

Quote from: Fruitcake on November 26, 2015, 07:52:31 PM

I don't want you to think I'm ignoring your post, because I read it all. I don't think it's fair to compare Witcher to Fallout, since they strive for the opposite experience: Witcher gives you a character that has a defined personality and lets you roll with that; Fallout gives you a framework and lets you be who you want. I totally agree that the character-building of Fallout is shit, but it was shit in 1 & 2, also; funny and diverse dialog doesn't equate to character development. Fallout has never been about the character, it's been about the world.

The Sole Survivor doesn't have an established backstory; he's a soldier (or she's a lawyer) with a son and a spouse, and that's it. How that personality is expressed is varied by the player (angry, submissive, flippant, etc.). The different personalities see you down roughly the same path, but I challenge you to name an RPG where the ending is vastly different based on how much of an asshole you are, rather than which faction you align yourself to and which quests you choose to complete. In that sense, Bethesda fucked up by giving us voiced dialog because they were apparently trying to make the PC a deeper character.

Again, I completely agree that the character development is shit in Fallout, but I'd argue that that isn't at all the purpose of the game. Your character is just an way to let you explore the world, which is thoroughly fleshed out.

And my point was that Fallout 4 doesn't do that. It doesn't let you be who you want, your character's personality varies very little and your responses matter very little. I don't feel like I'm playing a different character by choosing the "sarcastic" option as opposed to the positive one, because it doesn't change anything, I'm still the same person, just saying the same thing slightly differently. Outside of dialogue choices, you always say things in the same way. It takes you out of the roleplaying when your sarcastic jerk of a character is suddenly saying "I-I just need to trade a few things", because it doesn't fit. You can't make your own character because Bethesda's already given the main character a set personality.

A good example of a game that changes depending on how you treat others is actually also The Witcher 3, depending on how you treat certain characters, it can completely change the ending. (Not gonna go into detail because spoilers). The problem is that yes, Fallout 4 is a VERY fleshed out world, but there just aren't any choices. Once I've done a quest, I've done pretty much the only way to complete that quest. It limits roleplaying because I can't be any different. It's hard to explore a world multiple times if everything's always the same in different playthroughs. I agree that the main character's backstory isn't overly fleshed out, but their personality is. You can't be evil, you can't say no to people and your character varies from a "nice person to a nice, but sarcastic person". The problem isn't that Fallout 4 gives you a more set character, it's that it gives you a set character at the same time that it tries to give you a framework to be who you want to be.

Anyway, I agree that the purpose of Fallout is more exploring the world, but it's difficult to do that with the character that they've given us.