Top 5 Missed opportunities of the Commonwealth

[Merovign]

I could not even limit it to five.

 

Yeah, I was disappointed that the memory den rehashed the opening scene and nothing else. Far too many interactions in the game end abruptly with little follow-through, including the romances - I mean, seriously, minor changed dialogue and a *perk* is what you get for building a relationship. So many "story stubs" are in the game, like Tina and Holt in Vault 81, or a large number of records of interesting but absent people at places like that trailer park in the foothills, University Point... the random settlers and farmers that have only incidental responses and no dialogue that you meet in the field. You can rescue synth K1-98 but that results in... well, nothing.

 

There are even some NPCs (one "bum" in Diamond City) that can be sent to a settlement, including a few random settlers, but mostly, random neutrals have no real interaction. This is partly because it's a voiced game and giving everyone some distinct dialogue is even harder, but too much of it just leaves the game looking unfinished.

 

You run into a man and his child in a small camp not too far from hostiles, and there is *nothing* you can do about it. You repeatedly come across the *remains* of a family or merchant or traveler that is already lost, or someone who is *scripted* to die like in Automatron. I'm getting kind of bored of the universe because I'm so irrelevant to it. A lot of the faction stories seem to sideline your decisions as well, and you basically have the Malignant Kidnapper faction, the High-Tech Thug faction, the Farming and Shooting faction, and the We're Always Getting Our Asses Kicked faction.

 

Speaking of Automatron, man, those robots are kind of useless except as companions, and they have very limited options compared to other companions. I would have liked to see them with a *little* more complex behavior in settlements.

 

The settlement system is also much more limited than is implied. You *can* build complex, decorated, improved settlements... but it doesn't help anything with regard to the rules of settlements. Like walls. Or defenses, which really only factor into an equation unless you're standing there at the time. I hope someone really rewrites the scripts for settlements so some of that matters.

 

I like the *idea* of settlements but I'm constantly annoyed by the implementation. Now that the GECK is out, I hope that will improve. People are working on vault settlements. I keep saying I'm going to learn scripting, but I don't.

 

Edit: Oh yeah, also many apparent settlements that aren't, like University Point, and things that *should* have had either a form of settlement or some other story, but didn't, like the General Atomics Galleria. The latter feels like it could have been an amazing settlement if cleaned up, with robot vendors and actual shops instead of stalls.

Edited May 14, 2016 by Merovign

[crawe1x]

Some very interesting points being made in this thread. Definitely there are a lot of missed opportunities regarding plot and characters.

 

I'm a professional screenwriter, and if the games industry is anything like the movie industry, the writers of FO4 would have been under great pressure to dumb things down and streamline the story to the point where it makes absolutely no sense at times. As a writer, you go along with this approach because you have bills to pay and a family to support. Refuse and your career will be very short-lived indeed.

 

It's just the way things are. From my experience, very few execs in the creative industries have any real understanding of artistry. They treat movies (and I imagine computer games) no different to a new range of cars or a brand of breakfast cereal. It's just another product. They're also fixated on the teenage market. That's fine, except they seem to think all teenagers are idiots with the attention span of a gnat. I've got a teenage son, and sure, he loves console games, particularly CoD, and Marvel movies... but he also appreciates the deeper things in life. I just wish the execs would stop consistently playing to the absolute lowest denominator. Teens can be pretty damn smart if given the opportunity.

 

So yes, some of the writing in FO4 isn't great. Now maybe the writers were hacks who couldn't care less. Or maybe they DID care but just didn't have a choice in the matter.

 

The most depressing thing is that Bethesda strikes me as one of the BETTER companies out there. They do at least seem to care about the games they develop, and for all its flaws, FO4 is still deeper and more intelligent than a lot of other games (and movies) out there.

[Thaneize]

And thats the problem. Executives are not artists, and still they are selling Artistic work and being Bosses in an artistic Industry (music and movies have the same issues). Artists should have the freedom they need to make something proper within resonable time, but try to explain a Salesman with a set release date the importance of proper Leveldesign or good Storytelling, when all he sees are $$.

 

Bethesda is a US-American developer and publisher, and the "US-Capitalism" is a special system where efficiency and image are very high valued, get the most profit from the least work and build up a huge campaign to promote it so people buy your Product. People will buy a unfinished, low quality product because they are hyped, so you keep on making bad decisions on gameplay and storytelling over and over because your next product 4 years from now will be bigger and most people will have forgotten that you lied to them about the last game.

 

Games from European or Asian devs usually have less issues with that. For Example, CD-Project RED, is a small independent Studio from Poland, they made one of the best games ever in Storytelling, Atmoshere and Quest Design, working really hard after they finished the two predecessors of "The Witcher 3". There are NO radiant quests in "The Witcher 3". Still, the game costs less than most other games with not even a quarter of the content, the Bring DLCs with more content than other Devs main games and they sell it without annoying always online DRM.

 

Thats the difference between Artist/Fan Developers and Efficient capitalist Developers

 

I still like Bethesdas Game franchises (except DOOM, not my time and Brink, that was just a failure) but they are slowly developing a slight Ubisoft/EA/Activision Attitude i do not like.

 

*Warning: Off Topic*

Also you have to admit that Bethesda are not particularly good Developers. Their games are like an old Car, it works and its fun, but with some modding and tuning/tweaking work it becomes as beautiful and smooth as you wish and maybe even more.

The storytelling is mostly OK, but never outstanding, the textures are always bad, not entirely by the looks but by techical matters, they are rediculously oversized for their actual quality, they are badly cut resulting in uneccesaryly rendered texture parts you will never see. The optimization is done after release and you can still tweak the heck out of everything so it runs better.

*Off Topic End*

[parrotheada1a]

I have a couple things to add to the pile. One thing that you folks need to know is that I live in the Commonwealth IRL. Northwest of Boston in the Merrimack Valley. Lived here all my life, so I know the game area very well indeed.

 

First up is scenery topography. While there are some substantial hills, there are no high mountains ringing the area. The terrain is all rolling hills. Sand & gravel pits are real common, there are a few I know of that are spread out over a good sized area. Prime targets for settlements or even faction bases.

 

Next is urban sprawl. Boston is often reffered to as "the Hub". This is because railroad lines radiated from the city, There are no good sized rail facilites anywhere, and the 'burbs have some large ones. Something like a raider/ gunner town made out of old rail cars and then built up. Out beyond Boston itself, there is RT 128/95 highway that circles the city. The northern end is in Gloucester MA , a bit north of Salem. The lower end is In Canton MA, way to the south of Quincy. The missed opportunity lies in the high tech boom. This from Wikipedia:

 

By 1958, (it rt 128) needed to be widened from six to eight lanes, and business growth continued, often driven by technology out of Harvard University and MIT.^[3] In 1957, there were 99 companies employing 17,000 workers along 128; in 1965, 574; in 1973, 1,212. In the 1980s, the area was often compared to California's Silicon valley

 

There is a very generous hint of this sprinkled around the game area, but I think loads more could have been made. Out in Bedford/ Lexigton/ Concord, there is Hanscom Field, formerly a USAF base. (ICAO : KBED) It still operates today as the biggest GA airport in the region. What makes it so interesting for the game outside of location is that it was home to an Air Force research lab. That lab is connected to both MIT Lincoln laboratories & MITRE Corp. Think Arcjet + the Institute combined on about 500 gallons of steroids. Lincoln Labs in particular had a lot of stuff going on. This from Wikipedia:

 

Created in 1951 as a federally funded research and development center of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lincoln Laboratory was focused on improving the nation's air defense system through advanced electronics.

The work of Lincoln Laboratory revolves around several mission areas:^[5]

• Space Control^[6]
• Air and Missile Defense Technology^[7]
• Communication Systems ^[8]
• Cyber Security and Information Sciences ^[9]
• Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Systems and Technology^[10]
• Advanced Technology^[11]
• Tactical Systems^[12]
• Homeland Protection^[13]
• Air Traffic Control^[14]
• Engineering^[15]

 

 

 

With all that tech, I almost wished that the BOS would have swooped in and made a huge military base out of it instead of Logan. Loads of other businesses still drive the economy today. As a mod, I would think it would be great, and of DLC size.

 

Lastly, where are the shopping malls at? Burlington Mall opened in 1968 and was one of the first ones built in the whole area. We all know that these things are stores piled on top of stores, but think of the massive settlement possibilities. The real building cluster has just under 1.4 million ft² (119K +m²) of indoor space . And the parking lots outside are equally massive. When originally built, only the anchor stores were multi story, the connecting floors were on a single enclosed level. Today the whole place is double decked and bigger than the original. They could have built a cleanish shell and let players build inside. It could easily be a DLC sized mod.

[RS13]

To dump S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Maybe that's blasphemy, but if we're gonna streamline the character system, I'd rather we drop the attributes and keep the skills. Worked for Skyrim.

[RattleAndGrind]

... Or even negotiating with a group that would normally just mindlessly attack a settlement to trade instead. ...

Like a better outcome to the quest from Bunker Hill where you just summarily execute the antagonists?

 

And why is there nothing actually intriguing in the Glowing Sea. There are a few quests that drive you into the area, but there is no real reason to explore once you are there. Just a couple collapsed buildings and a cave or two. The potential in this area is untapped.

Edited June 17, 2016 by RattleAndGrind

[huntinggary]

And what about travel options? No one rides Brahmin? More specifically, bicycles. It's been 200 years, and the CW probably had a yuppie population who rode them to the subway or bus station. No one in the Boston Library read A Connecticut Yankee, seriously? And it could totally be done. Elder Scrolls have had horses since...Morrowind? Oblivion, at the very latest. And those work ok. Survival took out fast travel, but didn't add in bikes, I call bullshit.

[huntinggary]

Also, something I mentioned in a mod thread (How it Should Have Been, sounds like a great project, and a super nice guy doing it) was the fact that there's no and/or system for quests/triggers. If I don't visit the BoS, do they still rebuild Liberty Prime? They have a plan to use a Diamond City scientist to help them if D . Li can't/won't. If X amount of time goes by without my intervention, things should happen on their own. If I don't go to Concord in say, a week, then the Minutemen get wiped out. If I don't visit the Cambridge Police station, then Paladin Brandis doesn't get found until later, when the Prydwen shows up. Things like that. I can see the Institute stuff not happening without you, but come on. They should still take out Libertalia by themselves. Say the Stockton girl gets killed if you wait too long . Make me not doing things have consequences too. Kill folks in Raiders onslaught. Let me bribe the Raiders attacking my settlements and sic them on somewhere else. Make the world feel like it doesn't revolve around my every move, all the time. Hage the BoS get pissy if I don't complete my missions in time, I'm just an Initiate/Knight. Paladins get more leeway, for sure but there's no feedback for just abandoning what your superiors told you to do. That's not how military organizations work. Let me give my Minutemen orders to secure locations and start settlements, or clear enemies. Give me the freedom to construct miles of tracks and sidings, stations, some sheds. Let me recreate Thomas, Percy and Gordon in loving detail and send them on runs. Allow the freedom of abducting random yahoos from Baastan and doing weird experiments on them, then replacing them with robo-clones for NO REASON! Forge a synthetic army and rule with an iron fist? Sure thing!

 

TL;DR

Playas gonna play. Let that happen, better .

[void666]

 

... Or even negotiating with a group that would normally just mindlessly attack a settlement to trade instead. ...

Like a better outcome to the quest from Bunker Hill where you just summarily execute the antagonists?

 

And why is there nothing actually intriguing in the Glowing Sea. There are a few quests that drive you into the area, but there is no real reason to explore once you are there. Just a couple collapsed buildings and a cave or two. The potential in this area is untapped.

 

 

I was expeting a full glowing sea DLC. Silly me.

[RattleAndGrind]

 

 

... Or even negotiating with a group that would normally just mindlessly attack a settlement to trade instead. ...

Like a better outcome to the quest from Bunker Hill where you just summarily execute the antagonists?

 

And why is there nothing actually intriguing in the Glowing Sea. There are a few quests that drive you into the area, but there is no real reason to explore once you are there. Just a couple collapsed buildings and a cave or two. The potential in this area is untapped.

 

 

I was expeting a full glowing sea DLC. Silly me.

 

Shhhh.... I'm working on it. I just do not know Bo about modding so am struggling. It may take me a while.

Edited June 30, 2016 by RattleAndGrind