Skyrim vs Fallout 4

[Rubbermatt]

So here's a question - never played Skyrim but will pick up the remaster for sure, which console Mods should I look out for (with any luck assuming the great Mod war of 2016 is over by then) to improve it before I start? Caveat: i'm not interested in cheat/character uplift style mods, just "improve the story" mods.

First playthrough should be the vanilla quests with the caveat that you install a bunch of game fixing mods first - Unofficial Legendary Patch, Cutting Room Floor, Run For Your Lives, When Vampires Attack, Point The Way, The Choice Is Yours, Guard Dialogue Overhaul etc.

 

These mods - fix a metric s**t ton of game bugs, restore axed/unfinished side quests, fix NPC behaviours, ditto, add signposts, stop NPC dialogues from being unavoidable & forcing unwanted quests on you, NPC dialogue reflects your status & skillset .... there's more but you get the idea, they make the game more enjoyable without changing the gameplay & major questlines.

Pretty sure the ones I mentioned don't require SKSE and so should work on consoles.

[mwhenry16]

I love the Fallout series, all of it. Played all of it. I love skyrim and TES. Played all of it. Somehow, Skyrim seems so....deep, so atmospheric, so alive. Fallout seems....good. I can't quite put my fingers on it. I love F4, but I recently went back to Skyrim, hoping an F4 flame will kindle again.

[cossayos]

I love the Fallout series, all of it. Played all of it. I love skyrim and TES. Played all of it. Somehow, Skyrim seems so....deep, so atmospheric, so alive. Fallout seems....good. I can't quite put my fingers on it. I love F4, but I recently went back to Skyrim, hoping an F4 flame will kindle again.

 

Curious, since Skyrim has a less reactive world than FO4 in it's vanilla state. You start out as John or Jane Doe and you cross the finish line as John or Jane Doe. Now I know there are mods taking care of that, but the NPC population simply doesn't react to anything you did. Apart from calling you Dovakhim off and on. That didn't change since Morrowind, where it also was up to the modders to make sure you're not treated like a toerag when leading the legion.

Edited June 22, 2016 by cossayos

[bobofudd]

I love the Fallout series, all of it. Played all of it. I love skyrim and TES. Played all of it. Somehow, Skyrim seems so....deep, so atmospheric, so alive. Fallout seems....good. I can't quite put my fingers on it. I love F4, but I recently went back to Skyrim, hoping an F4 flame will kindle again.

Skyrim was a beautiful game that was paired with a great soundtrack. It was fun just to roam the landscape and explore the sights, even if there was no quest to finish, which made it feel so much more alive. Fallout 4 can't really use that same formula as your dealing with the aftermath of total destruction and decay. The adventure is still there but after a while I think it gets a little depressing when everything around you appears dead. They did a much better job with the color palette this time around as I thought FO3 suffered from a very bland palette where everything in the game felt the same from start to finish. The soundtrack, however, wasn't even close to being something of Skyrim's.

 

I saw a mod review of Resurrection (which has been taken off the Nexus) a short time ago and was wowed at how much it transformed the views in FO4, making it much more dynamic and interesting.

[midtek]

So you like the atmosphere. Can't argue with that because it's a personal taste.

[Crimsonhawk87]

Skyrim is 5 years old and is all that many modders have had to concentrate on, until FO4 came along. (yes, yes, I know about ppls still modding FO3, FNV, Morrowind, and Oblivion even now, but they are in the minority). With that said, high fantasy has always been able to lend itself to a more "imaginative" telling of a story. Different races, different classes, different combat styles, magic, other worlds/realms....all highly malleable and moddable in the right hands, to move the story along to where one sees fit.

 

FO4 is a different kind of beast...you are locked into (for the most part, although modders have done things with this) one race: human, you pretty much have one main goal: finding your son, your environment is pretty much the same: nuclear wasteland, your combat is generally limited to melee or ranged, the world is bleaker (by design) and probably a bunch of other differences that I can't think of right now. I'm not say this is a bad thing, mind you, just that there are major differences between the type of games. Skyrim let you RP as just about anything you could imagine, while FO4 is more of a RPG/Action/Shooter hybrid. Yes, there is the settlement building thing, which is a good thing (much more robust than Hearthfire), along with technology (the FO equivalent of magic?), and many different factions/races to fight, but Skyrim had most of this in some form or another.

 

I guess the point I am trying to make is that, while both games were built by the same developer, they are 2 very different types of games, with different elements. It is really up to the player, which they prefer: the dragon and mythical laden world of Skyrim, with it's magic and low tech fighting, or the bleak and unforgiving world of the post apocalyptic FO4, with it's technology and high tech fighting.

 

I personally prefer Skyrim, but I wouldn't kick FO4 out of bed either......

[robhartman9]

I have skyrim but hardly ever play it. I haven't spent enough time on it to understand the character development and wind up with a crappy character. I know what I'm doing with fallout and know exactly how to go about making a stealth character, a tank, or a diplomat. The skyrim skill wheel is strange it wont let me pick the ones I want and seems to steer you down a certain path based on race. I'm probably just doing something wrong but when I start thinking this character sucks I just turn it off and play fallout instead.

[Rethrain]

 

I love the Fallout series, all of it. Played all of it. I love skyrim and TES. Played all of it. Somehow, Skyrim seems so....deep, so atmospheric, so alive. Fallout seems....good. I can't quite put my fingers on it. I love F4, but I recently went back to Skyrim, hoping an F4 flame will kindle again.

 

Curious, since Skyrim has a less reactive world than FO4 in it's vanilla state. You start out as John or Jane Doe and you cross the finish line as John or Jane Doe. Now I know there are mods taking care of that, but the NPC population simply doesn't react to anything you did. Apart from calling you Dovakhim off and on. That didn't change since Morrowind, where it also was up to the modders to make sure you're not treated like a toerag when leading the legion.

 

 

I think it is because of effort/resources at the time( and this time too). I do believe that an open world takes more to make than a non-open world(mehbeh?) as regards to an RPG, so a lot of empty NPC litter the landscape among other things. Devs can most certainly make an NPC/The world react towards what you did/who you are, etc, etc were it not for that. Though, the Witcher 3 does have a couple of parts that is that way...um so far I remember one or two, haha and not really noticeable. those kind of games just can't indulge in it, for now anyways.

 

Personally, I like when that happens in game, almost a sense of vindication from what I did in one game or other. Makes things fake-alive.

 

It's...difficult to compare F4 and Skyrim, to me. It's just really different, mostly.

[tartarsauce2]

minus bugs and glitches, because these are about implementation methodology and about success/fail with objective standards and not matters of taste in the slightest...

fallout 3 has storylines and fallout 4 doesn't really
after playing fallout 4 extensively, I'm finding myself appreciating a bunch of the atmosphere in certain locales, but the general world building is so starving kid in africa'esque, I've bought but haven't played far harbour yet, or even much of automatron (just initiated it basically) so I'll be talking vanilla game vs vanilla game here

FO3, skyrim, FO4
with FO3 there's an interesting world, and those fetchquests by moira are AMAZING. the way you get a house (or don't) is awesome, it makes a difference in your experience, and in a hardcore manner, the subway exploration isn't just interesting design, it's tied to some quests that flesh out a story, which ALSO is AMAZING. (think of ants, if you've played you'll know what I'm talking about) - there's a scripted event? where if you go across a river, some super mutants pop up and have a shootout with some already existing raiders, that's a world-building moment there - like, it's just a small patrol that's like oh hey we found you time to die" and they easily pull it off, what an introduction to super mutants, there's a large one in concord for FO4 with an intro to deathclaws, power armour and heavy weapons
while it's a scripted event, just two super mutants popping up and shooting raiders for the first time is immersive and interesting, it leaves an impression, where did they come from?! what ARE they!? etc

in skyrim, there's a lot of dungeon similarity and a number of fetch quests etc, but there's often different stories attached to them, and different scenarios and events - fallout 4 lacks almost all of these things, while there's an interesting implied quest system and I think they did it very well (think of a museum, that lived up to the description) there's a lot lacking in the story department in the middle, it seems like generic radiants replaced it
but to do generic/algorythmic methodologies of world building instead of hand-placed you need a system with emergent properties in various ways, a living world with caravans going about getting attacked, trading prices for goods going up and down at various locales etc, if you want to do the settlement system properly in that context then it needs to learn the lessons from something like taipan or recettear

anyways, this is just a smattering of things, I've just been playing FO3 although I saw a fair bit of a playthrough of the game about 2 years ago nowish, as well as NV stuff (Dust mod was amazing and is why I even cared about fallout 4 to begin with because prior to that I had zero care for fallout past the isometric titles)

I played a little bit of oblivion, and there was an interesting little sidequest with a dark elf asking me questions about fines and graveyards... that was a bit... quirky, in... mature ways :tongue:
these sorts of things, these are what I want more of as well, not just moddability, modding is a means to an end, sure minecraft got famous and all but it's time to KEEP things at a decent quality as well in a sense, minecraft is "my first lego/wooden blocks set" for computer games, whereas bethesda's already made interesting open world stuff and I'd like to make sure they continue to do that, and I feel that vanilla fallout 4 was quite lacklustre in that regard despite the fact that implicit references and small stories within the world are done and I LOVE them, there needs to also be a sligthtly structured quest system with different kinds of quests
I mean, even sturgess' quest for making stuff as a tutorial was more than exists most places outside of radiants, god.
it just. argh.

also whatever the damage reduction system's doing, I'd seriously like to know, the sponging is insane, just crazy

Edited June 23, 2016 by tartarsauce2

[cossayos]

 

 

It's...difficult to compare F4 and Skyrim, to me. It's just really different, mostly.

 

 

I don't know. I like both game series, for the same reasons. And I dislike part of the games for the same reasons.

 

To be perfectly clear, whenever I play any RPG of any kind, I want my environment taking note of what I did. The good, the bad and the ugly.

 

In other games, such as Dragon Age Inquisition, I have different issues. Such as you allies idly standing by while you're slaughtered right before their eyes.

Edited June 23, 2016 by cossayos