I'm Really Losing Interest - Is this game even worth finishing?

[Aintiarna]

I would not call it unwanted, building a home for yourself or making and running a town can be an amazing RPG aspect for open world games. It doesn't make sense to only buy houses, and not even try to make a small shack somewhere.

 

Sadly, beth system is one of the worst building systems I have ever seen. It just...no.

 

Building houses for yourself and customising them? Yes please. Becoming the 'caretaker' for a bunch of samey settlements filled with boring randomly generated "settlers" that don't even talk to each other and whine about all sorts of crap they could fix themselves? No thanks. Personally I think that's where they went wrong.

 

However, I can see mods in the future that will allow you to name your settlers, give them personalities, choose their voices, give them backstories, etc. Combine that with tweaks to the defence system and it might actually be workable. Until then, I'll just avoid taking on any settlements with npcs in them.

[Nebrule]

 

I would not call it unwanted, building a home for yourself or making and running a town can be an amazing RPG aspect for open world games. It doesn't make sense to only buy houses, and not even try to make a small shack somewhere.

 

Sadly, beth system is one of the worst building systems I have ever seen. It just...no.

I, personally, think settlements could be one of the main reasons Fo4 isn't a proper RPG. Not as a feature but because scheduling making them cut corners elsewhere. Possibly.

 

If they def wanted settlements I think I could (on pen and paper) design a better approach without magical workshops and resources based on "junk" constantly hindering carry cap, fast traveling, scrapping the personality out of the environment, turning toys into wood planks, and turning the trademark hopeless, every man for himself, environment of Fallout into an endless pool of resources and respectful NPCs popping up out of nowhere.

 

As an alternative to settlements altogether, they could have just made a town(s) that you could gain control over, with detailed options attached to it offering a sense of progression. Sounds more appealing to me at least.

 

 

That's what the problem is, they introduced settlements as a way to replace the individually interesting towns we had before... it's a copout, a money saver and what kills the RPG element.

[Boombro]

That right, but I don't think having rich townies that randomly spawn is possible, yet. But rich npcs with less places have character is a better choice. Think Skyrim followers and fo4 follwers, while fo4 has less followers, they clean the ground with Skyrim followers.

 

So if they port it over to TES6, they have to limit it a lot to a be a better, richer feature. But I don't want it gone. If not, building a house for me, my followers and my family instead of town is more than enough and welcome.

[nonoodles]

 

That's what the problem is, they introduced settlements as a way to replace the individually interesting towns we had before... it's a copout, a money saver and what kills the RPG element.

 

 

...sums up what I think of it. Or maybe it was the most wanted new feature on some poll we missed and would have been outvoted on anyway.

 

It's kind of telling when an obscure game like Neo Scavenger can engage one more completely from the outset, which sadly is not something I can say about FO4. And Neo Scav looks like this -

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/XVcNCha.jpg

 

 

It will probably be included in TES6. I'm not holding out hope for anything more sophisticated than 'build this, get repetitive radiant quests galore' again. This radiant system needs to DIAF immediately, which still isn't soon enough.

[Boombro]

 

's kind of telling when an obscure game like Neo Scavenger can engage one more completely from the outset, which sadly is not something I can say about FO4. And Neo Scav looks like this -

Holy s#*!, that seems complex. remind of poe skill tress

 

Still, the ability to build a farm of any kind, an alchemist garden and maybe even a store? That awesome.

 

 

 

This radiant system needs to DIAF immediately, which still isn't soon enough.

You may want to kill me for this, but I think it good for RPG.

 

Wait wait, let explain.

 

For one, it should be limited to make faction longer and advance slower, Skyrim TG guild sets a not bad example. Second, they are great as bounty hunters and [creature name here] slayers to make the runs longer. Of course, limiting them is that key with them. Because I don't think it will be removed, ever.

[ranggiana]

Wait wait, let explain.

 

For one, it should be limited to make faction longer and advance slower, Skyrim TG guild sets a not bad example. Second, they are great as bounty hunters and [creature name here] slayers to make the runs longer. Of course, limiting them is that key with them. Because I don't think it will be removed, ever.

 

 

The way they implement it with Minuteman is very annoying to be honest. While Railroad's radiant quest seemed okay with me and Brotherhood ones are mixed feeling.

[Talwyn224]

Ok - since we're now doing the classic divergence from the original post topic which is mandatory for all forum discussions :yes: I'd like to weigh in of the issue of settlements in FO4.

 

On the whole I do like them as a new edition to the game. They add a nice level of distraction and I find it enjoyable building them, finding new ways to make exotic and sometimes ridiculous structures will never get old, well for me at least.

However there are a lot of the actual mechanics of the whole base building program which I find immersion breaking. First off is that you can "magically" and more importantly INSTANTANEOUSLY transform items into scrap and out of thin air construct fully formed building modules/pieces/items etc. Seriously? I mean I know that the FO universe was on the cusp of replication level technology, what with those vending machines you encounter in FO:NV - Dead Money but this is taking it to a new level of ridiculousness. Plus only 1 person is needed as labour in order to throw together a complete structure in a matter of minutes. Come on now, this is really silly.

What I'd like to see is a time delay on items built plus the fact you need to assign settlers to help with construction. The more settlers you have working on a project the quicker it gets completed etc. I'd like to see that when you go into base mode, instead of just pulling things out of the air which then become reality, you instead plan them and then you have to wait until they get built. Something simple like a 1 room wooded shack with a roof should take roughly a day [12 hours lets say]. A water source [well] again a day. More complex structures and items require more time and so on. In addition, planting crops is fine but they do mature and ripen far too quickly for my taste. Also the scrapping salvaging element needs to be retooled. For example, when scrapping a wrecked vehicle you only get steel when there should be a hell of a lot more components able to be extracted from the wreck, such as cloth from the seats, aluminium, electronic parts, oil, rubber etc. And again it should take a degree of time and allocated labour to break down the wreck into scrap, not instantaneously. I really don't know why Bethesda has gone this way as if any of you guys had played Elder Scrolls online you'd know that the crafting system there has research and construction times built into it and it works very well. So I see no reason why it couldn't have been incorporated in FO4.

 

Next issue is base defence. This is the one element which is really starting to tick me off. Essentially it appears meaningless as to the amount of defence a settlement has because unless you show up when a settlement is attacked then it gets over-run regardless of the number of gun turrets plus how well equipped the settlers are. Plus often I miss the notification in game says settlement X is under attack because I hardly ever listen to Radio Freedom [even though I've modded it with a new play list]. There needs to be an alert that comes over you PIPBOY, over-riding what ever you're listening to, even if its just a beeping sound like you get on your phone saying you've got a message which will alert you that there is something you need to deal with. But despite that, any base with a defence level over over 80 plus walls and well equipped settlers should be able to hold off attacks themselves. Quite frankly I'm getting sick of having to drop what ever I was doing in order to have to fast travel to a settlement that is under attack. I am at the stage now where I'm ignoring the notices and just go back and fix it up when I have a spare moment because if the settlers can't be bothered to defend themselves then I really don't care anymore. My new motto is this - "The Sole Survivor helps those who help themselves".

 

I don't know how or even if the settlement/base element of the game can be remoulded but I'd really do think that in its current form its becoming more of a pain in the rear than a source of fun.

 

This doesn't mean I hate the game though. I'm still having more fun and I'm taking my time with the main storyline as I'm wanting to stretch it out for as long as possible but after I'm done with this play through on my next one I'm not going to bother with the Minutemen any more, well not that much anyway because I'm sick of being tasked to go there, kill that, build this time and again. Its too repetitive and thus becomes dull and boring. Nowadays in my current game I leave open the Minuteman radiant quests because as soon as I close them by talking to Preston he comes up with more to do which I really can't be bothered with. So its easier to leave the quest unfinished this allowing me to focus on actually having fun rather than rinse and repeat ad nausem quests that add nothing to the game aside from exp and loot.

 

Oh that's another issue - respawning loot. I'm really hoping that when someone comes up with a rebalancing mod like Project Nevada they deal with the issue of loot respawns. I have noticed that in many areas loot does not respawn, once you've cleared it out it stays cleared but other areas all suddenly repopulate the same amount of items which is lunacy. Sure if you want to play on an easy level of difficulty then by all means let loot respawn but if you want more of a challenge then make loot limited which means you have to really think carefully as to what you use your precious resources for. I'd also like to see hostile areas that you clear out [ie; the Corvega plant] either become deserted or instead you can send settlers there to take over the place. Or if you don't it becomes infested with things after a period of time like Feral ghouls, rad roaches etc. Perhaps there could be a 2 stage element introduced. First you clear a hostile zone. It will stay clear for a number of days then revert to hostile again. This is where part 2 comes in. You send in settlers/Minutemen/BoS etc to SECURE the area. This is where it would make more sense to go and do the base defence on a more repetitive basis.

 

Ok thats all for now, back to the game.

[caralampio]

Like the OP, I haven't finished the game and I'm already kind of bored. I have begun to create a new character and restart, only to scrap him and create another, a symptom that the game isn't really catching my interest. I feel that the game is an endless raider killing spree (except when it's a mutant killing spree). I mean you can't walk two blocks without finding another bunch of enemies. Too many encounters, make encounters meaningless. I once saw a spot where there were raiders in one building, mutants in the building in front, and ghouls lying on the narrow road between them. I think there were also some dogs nearby. Now how did all these peeps coexist before I arrived?

[Boombro]

 

However there are a lot of the actual mechanics of the whole base building program which I find immersion breaking. First off is that you can "magically" and more importantly INSTANTANEOUSLY transform items into scrap and out of thin air construct fully formed building modules/pieces/items etc. Seriously?

I hardly bothers me, and you shouldn't as well in fo4 since it not the only thing that defy time:

 

Healing limps and wounds in less than hour.

Making a gun into a scatter gun in a second.

Cooking a steak in less than hour.

Making a chem in less than a day.

Fixing a super armor made to replace tanks in 1 split second.

[nonoodles]

Heh I'll rephrase it into "The radiant system as currently implemented in the settlement thingy needs to DIAF immediately". I haven't gone anywhere near it of course - forum topics here are enough to know it's going to be a massive annoyance until it's fine tuned for more variety, less repetition. So....nice game, less than stellar execution of certain elements? Gunplay is a huge improvement, animations are a bit iffy and for the first time ever, I find myself objecting strongly to the textures - environmental objects are good, armour and clothing look like playdoh which is sad because meshes are better than in previous games.