Am I the only one who feels Bethesda dropped the ball on the Fallout 4 beginning?

[steamteck]

I'm probably the only fan of their games that loves their story writing. I don't like their coding habits though, having seen them all, and I know I can do better. But I can't write stories better than them. Thus no, I don't feel the beginning was ball dropping.

No I like the "l the create your own story" aspect through smaller more personal stories . Not a fan of their main quests as much. I would be fine with no main quest and would prefer one like in Morrowind where I could delay indefinitely if i wanted.

[CiderMuffin]

A major reason why they didn't do the whole dropping to your knees or blurred vision is it's not realistic. Is it dramatic? Sure but not entirely realistic. While you've been in the vault for over 200 years you were frozen so your eyes wouldn't be so devoid of sunlight that your vision would be impaired. For instance in 3 your vision blurs because the Lone Wanderer has lived in the vault their entire life, this is the first time their eyes has seen regular sunlight ever whereas with the Sole Survivor they were from the pre-war era, they saw sunlight their entire life and their eyes are used to it, plus the vault wasn't dark enough to actually cause a problem.

 

The intro part of the character coughing and their voice being noticeable shaky and confused makes sense though, which follows suit with their conversation with Codsworth.

 

Honestly I'd be so annoyed at the whole "dropping to the knees with uncontrollable sobbing for like a minute before being completely normal" crap in fiction, it's so overused and dull. The fact the character is trying to make sense of this new world they were thrown into for a little bit is better then having an over-dramatic scene, at most I'd change is the character stumbling a bit after leaving the cryo-pod (even though that itself wouldn't make sense either)

Edited January 13, 2019 by CiderMuffin

[MarkusTay]

They should have showed that Minuteman statue at the entrance of Sanctuary half-buried in the sand... and THEN the Sole Survivor drops to their knees and says, "Oh my God... I'm back. I'm home. All the time it was... we finally really did it. [screaming] YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP! OH, DAMN YOU! GODDAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!"

 

Of course, that would only be amusing the first time... not the next 75 play-throughs I've done. :P

[Fkemman11]

I didn't like the opening of it either, but the part that really got me was those people I couldn't give a crap about moving into my neighborhood and acting like it was theirs!! I bypassed all that jazz this time and the whole MM quest-line because I hate the whole settlement thing- or rather being notified all the time that one stupid settlement halfway across the map is under attack just when I was getting into something else interesting. Nope, settlers are going to have to fend for themselves because I am telling them all "NO" to their begging for my help and I'm not creating any settlements with settlers unless I just have to. I want to play my game my way, not Bethesda's. :D

[steamteck]

I didn't like the opening of it either, but the part that really got me was those people I couldn't give a crap about moving into my neighborhood and acting like it was theirs!! I bypassed all that jazz this time and the whole MM quest-line because I hate the whole settlement thing- or rather being notified all the time that one stupid settlement halfway across the map is under attack just when I was getting into something else interesting. Nope, settlers are going to have to fend for themselves because I am telling them all "NO" to their begging for my help and I'm not creating any settlements with settlers unless I just have to. I want to play my game my way, not Bethesda's. :D

I am always puzzled how you even know they're being attacked.

[MarkusTay]

 

I didn't like the opening of it either, but the part that really got me was those people I couldn't give a crap about moving into my neighborhood and acting like it was theirs!! I bypassed all that jazz this time and the whole MM quest-line because I hate the whole settlement thing- or rather being notified all the time that one stupid settlement halfway across the map is under attack just when I was getting into something else interesting. Nope, settlers are going to have to fend for themselves because I am telling them all "NO" to their begging for my help and I'm not creating any settlements with settlers unless I just have to. I want to play my game my way, not Bethesda's. :D

I am always puzzled how you even know they're being attacked.

 

The 'Mamma Murphy Network' (what used to be called the 'Psychic Friends Network').

 

What gets me is, all those settlements that were already established and had people suddenly can't survive without my help. What did they do the last 210 years?

 

I literally got Graygarden on my last/current play-through - and they even brag about how they 'don't need any humans' and have been "doing just great for two centuries" - and I leave and go across the map... and get a message that Graygarden is under attack. I had set up a few turrets, so I just ignored it. Turns out I failed that one. 210 years they defended themselves against EVERYTHING just fine, and I show up and they can't fight-off five raiders with pipe-pistols (because when I went back to my last save, that's EXACTLY what attacked them).

 

So I'm thinking the whole Commonwealth would have been a lot better off if I never crawled out of that vault. Sure, the Minutemen would have disappeared, but its not like they needed them. No institute attacks, no BoS showing up in their airship. Not even those raiders over in Nuka-World getting all uppity and raiding into the commonwealth. ALL of that is directly YOUR fault in the game. So when you find that first 10mm pistol in the vault, just shoot yourself in the head, and save yourself - and everyone else - a whole lot of heartache. Heck, even MacCready will eventually go back to his kid (which he DOESN'T do because of you... he tells you how much he misses him and loves him and then hands the cure off to Daisy to give to SOMEONE ELSE HE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW and just stays with you instead). You literally turn him into a terrible dad (not that he was winning any awards to begin with).

 

So stay in that vault, you dang-blasted trouble-maker!

[Fkemman11]

 

 

I didn't like the opening of it either, but the part that really got me was those people I couldn't give a crap about moving into my neighborhood and acting like it was theirs!! I bypassed all that jazz this time and the whole MM quest-line because I hate the whole settlement thing- or rather being notified all the time that one stupid settlement halfway across the map is under attack just when I was getting into something else interesting. Nope, settlers are going to have to fend for themselves because I am telling them all "NO" to their begging for my help and I'm not creating any settlements with settlers unless I just have to. I want to play my game my way, not Bethesda's. :D

I am always puzzled how you even know they're being attacked.

 

The 'Mamma Murphy Network' (what used to be called the 'Psychic Friends Network').

 

What gets me is, all those settlements that were already established and had people suddenly can't survive without my help. What did they do the last 210 years?

 

According to Bethesda's masterful story writing, they were all waiting for you!!

 

Follower distance is freaking annoying as hell! Companions constantly bumping into my character drives me nuts! And Beth didn't give the pc the ability to move them out of the way by sort of pushing them out of the way when you need past them. Another thing that gets me is the terrible companion combat A.I. My people literally have no reaction to enemy presence unless they or I are being attacked. I've watched SM skirmishers run right up on my companions and whack them a couple of times before they even start to react. This never happened in Skyrim or FO3 for that matter. In those games your followers seemed to recognize enemies from a greater distance and reacted, although the combat AI in those games was probably a little more simplistic. But it worked. Not sure how they did it in FO4. Situational awareness could be better as well. If you take cover behind an unexploded vehicle, guess what, they will hit the car and blow you up, fool!! And don't look for cover first and then fire a few shots in their direction. Start firing that badass modified gun I gave you immediately and take them out!! Oh and for the love of Christ stop blocking my shot!!! Okay, rant over. :smile:

[Mudran]

Those settlements - it really points at Fallout 76. I was still hoping that it is an idea of someone else than BSG team, but I guess it was theirs after all :sad:.

After all those things which happened since Fallout 4 I don't understand 1 thing - why they were willing to downgrade RPG in the name of testing of multiplayer elements... (noclip F76 youtube source of info) All other companies when they decide to do anything, they just do it - they do the best 1 thing and then they do another one, but BSG spoiled Fallout 4 with repetitive empty crap, then with CC in the name of testing, they didn't care that those players bought the game without it - there was already that kind of behavior of Fallout 76. They really stopped to care about players enjoying their games, did they? I think like half a year before releasing Fallout 4 there were hiring and the wording was something like: the new generation of players for the new generation of consoles or devices and their new webpage was quite against RPG players saying that nobody plays RPG games, everyone wants an action game. I guess with Fallout 76 I started to care too much about news from this company - they are quite depressing, so I guess it will be better to force myself to stop listening to all of it and just focus on something positive for me :sad:.

Edited January 18, 2019 by Mudran

[Fkemman11]

Those settlements - it really points at Fallout 76. I was still hoping that it is an idea of someone else than BSG team, but I guess it was theirs after all :sad:.

After all those things which happened since Fallout 4 I don't understand 1 thing - why they were willing to downgrade RPG in the name of testing of multiplayer elements... (noclip F76 youtube source of info) All other companies when they decide to do anything, they just do it - they do the best 1 thing and then they do another one, but BSG spoiled Fallout 4 with repetitive empty crap, then with CC in the name of testing, they didn't care that those players bought the game without it - there was already that kind of behavior of Fallout 76. They really stopped to care about players enjoying their games, did they? I think like half a year before releasing Fallout 4 there were hiring and the wording was something like: the new generation of players for the new generation of consoles or devices and their new webpage was quite against RPG players saying that nobody plays RPG games, everyone wants an action game. I guess with Fallout 76 I started to care too much about news from this company - they are quite depressing, so I guess it will be better to force myself to stop listening to all of it and just focus on something positive for me :sad:.

Don't let it get you down. I may have plenty of complaints about FO4, but I keep coming back and playing it again. So I must like something about it. The models were good I think as well as some of the animations- I adore my character right now because she is the best I have ever made in any game with the help of some mods. Enemies sort of have roles in that one or two Raiders will chunk a grenade and rush you while two more will find cover and fire on you with maybe a sorta sniper in the back somewhere making encounters challenging. Areas in the game are interesting to explore even for the 10th time. Trying to navigate the maze of rubble downtown is fun and full of enemies. Building things anywhere (mod) is fun even if it's just to have a place to sit down for awhile and enjoy a view. Hearing some of the convos between npcs is still fun if you haven't heard it a bunch of times. There is still enough to keep me playing it seems. :)

[MarkusTay]

@Mudran - You know whats funny? In hindsight, it really does feel like F4 was the 'warm-up' for '76. Like they were playtesting certain concepts on us (the CC, and not to mention getting us used to lunch-boxes {'loot boxes'} IG, etc.) There did seem to be an awful lot of story elements that revolved around people getting 'stuck' that didn't make much sense to me; why include SO MANY instances of hearing radio beacons for events that happened 200 years ago? Then you get there and no-one needs saving - they all died in the distant past (around the same time everyone was dying in FO'76). So we had lots and lots of terminal entries telling us about some of the evil crap that went down soon after the apocalypse, that was completely irrelevant to the story we were playing (more like being 'railroaded' through).

 

But here's the thing - the settlement-building seems like it would have been the perfect fit for the world immediately following the Apocalypse. you should have had to go around gathering what was left of the human race and forming them into communities. But '76 doesn't have people... except for other players. How many players per server? Its supposed to be 24-32, right? Just about the same number of people you can get in your settlements in FO4. I am starting to think that the 'big things' they announced they had plans to add included this settlement building, but now it will be cooperative building instead (like a lot of survival games). They basically turned us all into each other's NPCs.

Follower distance is freaking annoying as hell! Companions constantly bumping into my character drives me nuts! And Beth didn't give the pc the ability to move them out of the way by sort of pushing them out of the way when you need past them. Another thing that gets me is the terrible companion combat A.I. My people literally have no reaction to enemy presence unless they or I are being attacked. I've watched SM skirmishers run right up on my companions and whack them a couple of times before they even start to react. This never happened in Skyrim or FO3 for that matter. In those games your followers seemed to recognize enemies from a greater distance and reacted, although the combat AI in those games was probably a little more simplistic. But it worked. Not sure how they did it in FO4. Situational awareness could be better as well. If you take cover behind an unexploded vehicle, guess what, they will hit the car and blow you up, fool!! And don't look for cover first and then fire a few shots in their direction. Start firing that badass modified gun I gave you immediately and take them out!! Oh and for the love of Christ stop blocking my shot!!! Okay, rant over. :smile:

Oh please, don't get me started! And Heather Casdin is the worst offender (and she's not even vanilla!) She literally pushes her way between me and anyone who I am trying to speak to (considering how 'needy' her personality gets after awhile, I wonder if that was on-purpose?) And when I am crafting? She shoves her face right in mine - I am talking creepy-as-f*** in-your face (like an inch away). She's the worst, but they all do it to some extent. You want to have some fun? Download Get Out of my Face - you will thank me for recommending it. At least you get the satisfaction of sending them flying. It feels so good to send MacCreedy airborn off a rooftop when he yells at you to "Just leave it!" for the thousanth time. Or Cait tells you to stop picking up junk. listen, b****, if I didn't pickup garbage everywhere I went, YOU wouldn't be with me!