*RANT* How The BoS Is Disgraced In FNV

[Fistandilius]

 

Except you haven't just wandered to Vegas, at the very least you'll have had to sneak pask/kill deathclaws, Fiends, Super Mutants, Jackals, Vipers, Powder Gangers and Cazadores. And as House says, he can't just get the chip back with a full frontal assault on the casino, because then all Benny has to do is hold a gun up to the chip and hold House to ransom. Plus, you're an outsider, who has been shot in the head by Benny, House can be fairly confident you're not going to betray him and go over to Benny's side, unlike most other people in Vegas, whose loyalties are suspect at best.

 

As for your other point, because video games are not real life. Would you rather play as a random Vault 101 resident who never gets out? What about as a Megaton farmer who raises Brahmin for 30 years until he is vaporised when some clown sets off the bomb? Because those are both morel likely than being an ass-kicking 19 year old whose dad just happens to be the only person to leave the vault in years.

 

Don't get me wrong, I loved FO3, but I prefer games with more depth and choices, and I still think FO3s are very superficial. Yes, you can blow up the citadel, but please, how does that make any sense? If you're trying to play as an sort of believable character, you've just gone through a huge campaign, fighting alongside the Brotherhood, risking your life on countless occasions only to turn around and kill them all for no reason. I'm not saying you should be able to join the AntAgoniser faction, but a bit more depth is sorely needed.

 

 

Deathclaws, Super Mutants, etc. are business as usual in the Mohave. There really isn't anything to be excited about. And it's entirely possible that you just went through Hidden Valley, so all you really did in that case is just avoid some Bark Scorpions. The point about Benny is just video game nonsense they used to move the plot. Think about it... nobody has seen House for years, and in all likely hood didn't even see him when he united the tribes because he was already hundreds of years old at that point so he was more than likely already encased in his little tank. So he's managed to accomplish all these things without personally interacting with anyone up to that point. House doesn't trust anyone, he manipulates and uses them, and he obviously has methods of getting things done beyond his Securitons. There's no logical reason in my mind for him to want to use you at that point. Maybe those reasons you gave make sense to you, but they don't to me.

 

As far as the other stuff goes, you're right. In FO3 you more or less have three options. You can be a ****, you can be a white knight, or you can walk the line somewhere in between. Because that's what FO3 was all about. The Karma system actually was used in FO3 and you had legitimate options to either be a bad guy or a good guy. Sometimes those options didn't make legitimate sense like blowing up the citadel, but maybe you didn't appreciate the fact that the BoS just dumped you in the middle of the Enclave's secret base and told you to go save the world while they fought a "distraction" without any support except a heavy *** tesla cannon.

 

FO3 was about being good or evil.

FONV was about which side you wanted to join.

 

FO3 had factions, but they didn't develop them.

FONV had Karma, but they pretty much spent zero time developing it.

 

For me personally, FONV was rushed and it felt like it.

 

If I join House:

 

I get the Boomer's support.

I blow up the BoS

I save the president.

I fight at the dam.

 

If I join the NCR:

 

I get the Boomer's support.

I get the support of the BoS or..blow them up.

I save the president

I fight at the dam.

 

If I join the Legion:

 

I get the Boomer's support.

I blow up the BoS

I KILL the president.

I...... wait for it.... fight at the dam.

 

You get a little more options doing the Yes Man quest, but eventually you're probably going to be dealing with the Boomers, the BoS, the president, and the dam.

 

And honestly I have no idea what the 5th option is supposed to be or how it plays out.

 

The point is, they get all kinds of credit for these factions and how much diversity it adds to the game, but at the end of the day, it's the same crap over and over again and your reward is a stupid slideshow like this is a NES game and I'm back in 1985.

 

Neither one of these games qualifies as a true RPG, but at least FO3 doesn't pretend to be one. It's an open world game, and from the get-go it lets you do whatever you want and it has interesting locations to explore.

 

FONV tries VERY hard to force you into doing the main quest at every step of the way and it doesn't even try to be interesting. The Mohave is a desolate place with a bunch of locations that are empty along with a big wide open desert wasteland that has nothing in it but some random Gecko and Scorpion encounters.

 

Ultimately the faction system isn't even very well done. If I kill House and install Yes Man it doesn't really change anything. I should be "Lord of the Strip" at that point, but the Securitons don't even support me. The MP's from NCR can attack me and they stand there and do nothing. But if I engage the MP's, the Securitons will attack _ME_ !?

[kkk122]

NV actually has you dealing with different factions and has different quests for each side. It is obvious that they will share some similarities, they are fighting in the same war. Yet you just happily ignored that:

1. Getting BOS support and blowing them up are completely different. Same goes for saving and killing Kimball.

2. Apart from those you still get Khans, WGS, Omertas. And also optionally Bright Followers, Fiends, Powder Gangers... the list goes on.

You point out 4 similar quest themes (for quests that can be different themselves). If you say that the quests are the same because of what you're dealing with, then all the MQs are different because of how NCR, House and the Legion are different as factions. If you say that the quests actual content matters more than the problem then you cannot say that killing Kimball and saving him are the same. And the slideshow is still better then the idiocy with tacky music you got in FO3 ("no, I did not kill the entire Rivet City, stop showing me a corpse filled marketplace").

 

I have absolutely no idea what 5th option you are talking about.

 

The Mojave is desolate, but DC is just moronic. It is populated by hundreds of meatbags, not even a single one of them remotely interesting. Hardly anyone has any personality whatsoever. Your companions are pack mules and can have their backstory explained in a single sentence. They even used "yeah, he/she is just brainwashed, that's why he/she follows you" as a half-assed excuse for backstory, without ever going into any detail at all. Twice. So thanks, but I'd rather wander a desert (might be why it's so desolate) knowing a properly written character has my back, than walk around with an abomination, that would be more at home in a bad fanfic than a canon work.

 

Lastly NV doesn't force you into the MQ or make you care about anything. It just feels like that after playing FO3 where MQ and characters were so bad that it was literally impossible to care. As for freedom, I could point out that you still cannot kill your father, but I won't even bother. Just remember that after you do find him and take a break from the MQ, he's just going to stand around in Rivet City, not getting started on the purifier he claims is so important - just one of the "extremely urgent" things that can wait for months. That's FO3's freedom in a nutshell - freedom to defy logic.

[Fistandilius]

NV actually has you dealing with different factions and has different quests for each side. It is obvious that they will share some similarities, they are fighting in the same war. Yet you just happily ignored that:

1. Getting BOS support and blowing them up are completely different. Same goes for saving and killing Kimball.

2. Apart from those you still get Khans, WGS, Omertas. And also optionally Bright Followers, Fiends, Powder Gangers... the list goes on.

You point out 4 similar quest themes (for quests that can be different themselves). If you say that the quests are the same because of what you're dealing with, then all the MQs are different because of how NCR, House and the Legion are different as factions. If you say that the quests actual content matters more than the problem then you cannot say that killing Kimball and saving him are the same. And the slideshow is still better then the idiocy with tacky music you got in FO3 ("no, I did not kill the entire Rivet City, stop showing me a corpse filled marketplace").

 

I have absolutely no idea what 5th option you are talking about.

 

The Mojave is desolate, but DC is just moronic. It is populated by hundreds of meatbags, not even a single one of them remotely interesting. Hardly anyone has any personality whatsoever. Your companions are pack mules and can have their backstory explained in a single sentence. They even used "yeah, he/she is just brainwashed, that's why he/she follows you" as a half-assed excuse for backstory, without ever going into any detail at all. Twice. So thanks, but I'd rather wander a desert (might be why it's so desolate) knowing a properly written character has my back, than walk around with an abomination, that would be more at home in a bad fanfic than a canon work.

 

Lastly NV doesn't force you into the MQ or make you care about anything. It just feels like that after playing FO3 where MQ and characters were so bad that it was literally impossible to care. As for freedom, I could point out that you still cannot kill your father, but I won't even bother. Just remember that after you do find him and take a break from the MQ, he's just going to stand around in Rivet City, not getting started on the purifier he claims is so important - just one of the "extremely urgent" things that can wait for months. That's FO3's freedom in a nutshell - freedom to defy logic.

 

So they're fighting the same war. So what? There's no reason if I side with Yes Man, or House I should even have to go to Hoover Dam. Send the securitons. I can kill Kimball or Caesar and it doesn't make a lick of difference. The head general at Camp Golf commits suicide and it's business as usual. Where's the creativity? I can use Helios One to call down a satellite and destroy all the NCR agents, but I can't aim it at Caesar's camp and end the war? The point is to win the war, you don't have to do squat at Hoover Dam if you win. Why is it I can run through and butcher everyone at the Legion's camp and I still have a war to fight at the Dam?

 

The BoS support is optional. I could easily blow up the BoS on every play through. The Khans, Omertas, etc. are all optional. And yes, each faction has one unique quest to it that is required. Big deal. The point is the majority of each faction is the same, so why should I be excited about it? Saving and killing Kimball are different? Let's see... If I have to save him... I take out a sniper, and disarm a bomb.... If I have to kill him.... I can become the Sniper or set a bomb. Yeah, there's other options too. Big deal. You only have to do the quest one way.

 

You keep acting like if I handed you 4 balls and each was a different color that you wouldn't still have 4 balls. OOOH, but BLUE is different than RED!? So what. You still play catch or kickball with them. If you want to give me options, give me a baseball and a football. Don't hand me two different colored soccer balls and try to act like you made an effort.

 

Your rant about DC is an opinion. We already talked about the fact that companions in FO3 were a new feature. It was experimented with in Oblivion on a quest basis and added to FO3 as an actual feature. You're just repeating yourself. If that's all you've got is the companions to complain about, I think FO3 is pretty good. There are a boatload of unique and interesting NPC's in FO3. Why don't you explain to me what's so better about the ones in NV, because if I hear someone babble about patrolling the Mohave making you wish for a nuclear winter one more time I'm going to shoot that NPC. You even agreed that the Mohave is desolate.

 

I'm not even going to bring up the last point because you continually act like there aren't giant cazedores or deathclaws (or invisible walls) trying to herd you into the main quest, or that if I decide to skip all the way to Boulder City they're still going to go on a rant about Benny. More stuff we already went over.

 

Complaining about how quests in FO3 don't progress on their own is just stupid, since the same thing happens in NV. What fun would any game be if all the quests just did everything for you?

Edited April 2, 2014 by Fistandilius

[kkk122]

It's you who says how free from the start you are in FO3, not me. And it was you, who says you don't have to follow the story in FO3 for it to make sense. I'm just pointing out some of that "sense" includes your father waiting with his life's work until you feel like helping him.

 

Your "Mojave is desolate" argument is no more a fact than my "FO3 companions are badly written" argument. And depending on where you ask about it, there might be more people agreeing with me then you. I might have got a little carried away though, sorry.

 

Optional's a tricky word. Technically, from Benny's death almost every quest is optional, especially since you can just have everyone ignored by Yes Man. However, Khans, Kings and Omertas are in the NCR MQ and WGS in Legion MQ. Trying to say that killing and saving Kimball are the same is just unfair though. I mean of course you'll be doing the same things killing Kimball you prevent saving him - if you kill him for the Legion you follow Legion's plan, otherwise you try to stop the exact same plan. But that's like arguing that BoS and the Enclave are people in Power Armor, who shoot mutants and other people in PA, so they are actually the exact same thing.

 

As for your HELIOS One point (I know it's just an example and beside the point, but still) - no, you can't. Archimedes I is a plant defense system and cannot target anywhere else. You can use Archimedes II on the Legion, but it won't make much sense.

Killing everyone at Legion's camp means nothing in the long run, as it's not Caesar who commands Legion at the Dam. Kiling Caesar or Kimball will have long term consequences in their respective countries, but in the Mojave, they are just political leaders (Caesar a bit less, but he's got someone to fill his seat for the moment). The people in charge of armies are Oliver and Lanius.

Hanlon's suicide might have some consequences back west but in the Mojave Oliver is the big guy. He's also a glory hound, likely pushing Hanlon aside as much as possible.

The big thing about you going to the Dam is to activate the Securitron army by powering it up from the Dam. You can't send the army, you need to start it first. Or if you blew it up you just don't have it.

Not on point really, but there are reasons for those things.

Edited April 2, 2014 by kkk122

[Fistandilius]

It's you who says how free from the start you are in FO3, not me. And it was you, who says you don't have to follow the story in FO3 for it to make sense. I'm just pointing out some of that "sense" includes your father waiting with his life's work until you feel like helping him.

 

Your "Mojave is desolate" argument is no more a fact than my "FO3 companions are badly written" argument. And depending on where you ask about it, there might be more people agreeing with me then you. I might have got a little carried away though, sorry.

 

Optional's a tricky word. Technically, from Benny's death almost every quest is optional, especially since you can just have everyone ignored by Yes Man. However, Khans, Kings and Omertas are in the NCR MQ and WGS in Legion MQ. Trying to say that killing and saving Kimball are the same is just unfair though. I mean of course you'll be doing the same things killing Kimball you prevent saving him - if you kill him for the Legion you follow Legion's plan, otherwise you try to stop the exact same plan. But that's like arguing that BoS and the Enclave are people in Power Armor, who shoot mutants and other people in PA, so they are actually the exact same thing.

 

As for your HELIOS One point (I know it's just an example and beside the point, but still) - no, you can't. Archimedes I is a plant defense system and cannot target anywhere else. You can use Archimedes II on the Legion, but it won't make much sense.

Killing everyone at Legion's camp means nothing in the long run, as it's not Caesar who commands Legion at the Dam. Kiling Caesar or Kimball will have long term consequences in their respective countries, but in the Mojave, they are just political leaders (Caesar a bit less, but he's got someone to fill his seat for the moment). The people in charge of armies are Oliver and Lanius.

Hanlon's suicide might have some consequences back west but in the Mojave Oliver is the big guy. He's also a glory hound, likely pushing Hanlon aside as much as possible.

The big thing about you going to the Dam is to activate the Securitron army by powering it up from the Dam. You can't send the army, you need to start it first. Or if you blew it up you just don't have it.

Not on point really, but there are reasons for those things.

 

Of course he waits for you to come help him. The same way Caesar waits for you to say you're ready to go join Lenares or House waits for you to say you're ready to join NCR, etc. etc. Because what fun would the game be if the NPC's just started without you? This isn't even a point. It's just the way things have to function if you want your audience to even have a shot to play the game. Otherwise everything would already have run its course before you finished exploring Goodsprings/Vault 101.

 

How does the Mohave being desolate equate to not having companion quests in FO3? Please elaborate.

 

"Trying to say that killing and saving Kimball are the same is just unfair though. I mean of course you'll be doing the same things killing Kimball you prevent saving him"

 

Thank you. I don't even have to counter argue this. You already conceded the point in YOUR argument. They are the same things. It's the whole two colored balls analogy.

 

How do you acknowledge that the things I said were examples, and then proceed to argue why it couldn't happen? Obsidian wrote the damn story. If they want archimedes to be a death satelitte that could target the legion then it's a death satellite that targets the legion.

 

Every person you talk to in the game from Marcus to Ulysses that has any incite into Caesar says that the Legion follows Caesar and he follows his vision and the Legion will fall apart without Caesar. Yet you kill Caesar and nothing happens. I didn't write this into the game. Obsidian did. And yet it doesn't happen that way! The same way killing Moto-runner doesn't stop the Fiends from attacking NCR troops at McCarran.

 

And yeah, Lanius controls the army, but what army does he have left if the fort is empty? A smaller contingency army at the Dam's fort. Lanius is not a leader. All he cares about is killing. Even if you side with the Legion he doesn't take control. He storms the dam and he sends you to coordinate the troops trapped under the dam, kill oliver and his men, etc.

 

And as far as the Securitons go... I could have turned those switches on at any time. I didn't have to do it in the middle of the battle. I didn't have to go after Lanius. All the major objectives are the same, no matter which faction you pick. It's like doing the same thing over and over again every time you start a new character just waiting for different dialogue.

 

Oh, and I'm still waiting to hear about these amazing NPC's from NV. Moira Brown had a personality. Three Dog annoyed the hell out of me and I thought he was stupid, but he had a personality. Pinkerton had a personality. Dr Li was a b****, but it was a personality. There are tons of examples right down to the annoying little kids in Lamplight that made you want to shoot them.

 

What memorable characters exist in NV? The companions sure. We already acknowledged they spent a lot of time on the companions. But it's like the whole rest of the game is a bunch of generic nobody's until you play the DLC's. It feels like 60% of the game is random NCR officers who say go here, do this, talk to this guy, kill this person. Even Marcus who is supposed to be a franchise character at this point didn't have much to say. Mean Son'Obitch was probably one of the most interesting characters in the stock game and he can't even talk.

Edited April 2, 2014 by Fistandilius

[kkk122]

Don't have time for the whole post right now but I'm gonna stop you right there:

 

 

I mean of course you'll be doing the same things killing Kimball you prevent saving him"

Read the whole sentence. I concede nothing. Doing A and preventing A (A being something happening) are usually completely different. By your balls analogy you are arguing that playing as a goalkeeper is the same as playing as a forward. Don't try to isolate a part of my sentence and say "HAHA you agree with me".

Edited April 2, 2014 by kkk122

[Fistandilius]

Don't have time for the whole post right now but I'm gonna stop you right there:

 

 

I mean of course you'll be doing the same things killing Kimball you prevent saving him"

Read the whole sentence. I concede nothing. Doing A and preventing A (A being something happening) are usually completely different. By your balls analogy you are arguing that playing as a goalkeeper is the same as playing as a forward. Don't try to isolate a part of my sentence and say "HAHA you agree with me".

 

You do realize that sentence you're pointing out isn't even close to grammatically correct and doesn't express a coherent thought at all, right?

 

"I mean of course you'll be doing the same things killing Kimball you prevent saving him."

 

Nothing close to a coherent thought.

 

You know what? Don't worry about it. I'm not even slightly interested in the conversation anymore at this point. If you're just going to blatantly ignore the faction similarities, pretend that things like deathclaws, cazedores, and invisible walls don't exist, and continually bring up the same issues, we don't have anything to discuss anyways. I really don't care if you like NV better, it's the inconsistencies in your logic and your arguments that bug the hell out of me, but I'm not taking any more time on this thread.

Edited April 2, 2014 by Fistandilius

[kkk122]

How about you read the whole sentence?

"I mean of course you'll be doing the same things killing Kimball you prevent saving him - if you kill him for the Legion you follow Legion's plan, otherwise you try to stop the exact same plan."

Even with the first part being incorrect, the other part is pretty straightforward.

Besides, I'm not the only one ignoring things around here. You don't even mention essential NPCs (considered by many to be far worse than a few deathclaws at the start, because you simply cannnot kill them). Or the fact that NV is an RPG game, where building your character in terms of backstory and personality means a lot (you don't think Obsidian is giving you a blank page of a character, because they couldn't write you a good story, right?). When you play it like an RPG, thinking not what to do, but what your character would do, the factions are largely different.

 

But okay, if you want to leave it at that, then let's stop this discussion right here.

Edited April 2, 2014 by kkk122

[greenknightfury]

"I mean of course you'll be doing the same things killing Kimball you prevent saving him" is completely straightforward and clear...if you have at least a grade school level reading comprehension of English. It would be clarified for those that lack that level of ability by adding the words 'that' and "by" into it, like so: "I mean of course you'll be doing the same things killing Kimball that you prevent by saving him", but if someone pays any attention they are just dead weight to the statement.

 

Honestly the only one of the main Factions that had enough quests that didn't overlap (sometimes annoyingly) was the NCR, with their numerous camps and different projects that you could help with. The others (well never tried Legion, never made a character yet that could find any interest in helping the raider and nasty tribal women-hating slavers) really have very little to them in terms of fleshing out.

 

I do have to agree with Fistandilius in the fact that besides the companions there aren't any NPCs (that you can meet) with Three Dog or Moira level personalities, we had to wait for modders to add those, but I will argue that it is far easier to flesh out the personality of someone that is with you all the time like a companion, and far more important (part of why I don't like Boone at all, ED-E has more personality).

 

 

But on the issue the OP posted about: This is what the BOS following the Codex looks like. Lyon's and his people were renegades, by their own admission, and the way the Outcasts in FO3 and the BOS in NV act is the way the BOS are supposed to act. Though at least the Lyon's Chapter will survive what with being helpful and letting outsiders join, and since they have the young descendant of the Founder of the BOS with them might just eventually become the new default for the BOS at least on the East Coast.

[blaze1514]

@ The ORIGONAL Topic.

 

I think the reason the OP had that impression was the same reason I did. I first played Fallout 3. I thought the BoS were the most amazing things ever. Then I watched playthtoughs of the old games. I was like Oh....

Now I feel that the whole outcast vs lions thing could have been done better. ere is how....

 

-First of all the main stronghold of the BoS should have been the Outcasts depot. Just adding one or two more NPCs with dialogue there and about another 10 or so generic BoS members.

-Since the Depot is the main area. that means that Lyons and his group left to seek shelter (eventually coming across The Pentagon).

-Have the head scribe at the depot instead of the Citadel (since Lyons is the real outcast why would the scribe head go and catalog with him, she would stay and watch the death count of the normal ones, and wait for tech)

-Besides the absence of most of the scribes, make Lyons' force seem generally smaller (and in more need of supplies, maybe a few side quests for that)

-Make them the ones that use outcast armor. Since they are the ones that are truly not the real BoS.

 

If that was the way that it was handled there wouldn't be any confusion. In my fallout I always envision Lyons' group with outcast armor, and the outcasts with standard (however I only have Fallout 3 for console, so I cannot make a mod for this).