🚀 go-pugleaf

On Wed, 2 Nov 2016 10:34:16 -0600, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, rms
wrote: 

>>I have been playing a hell of a lot of Fallout Shelter and Fallout 4
>
>    The many reports of a dumbed-down storyline and pruned conversation 
>trees has wilted any boner I had to try FO4.  Any thoughts on that, how it 
>compares to FO3?
>

THIS REPLY CONTAINS MILD SPOILERS. JUST SAYIN'.


Well, I always felt a dialogue tree was a bit of a contrivance to begin
with, cumbersome and only an illusory veneer of the portrayal of choice,
but it is true that there are no real dialogue options in FO4. The
choices you are given only seem to affect the immediate reaction of the
character being spoken with, before s/he lumbers on with the fixed plot
points. It is "yes," "yes, but I'm being funny," "no, but you're going to
make me anyway," and "fuck you I'm in this for myself but will end up
doing what you want anyway."

FO4 is *not* a deep roleplaying experience in terms of dialogue.

As for direct comparison to FO3, there is much more political allegiance
in FO4. Which faction you choose to side with changes how other factions
react to you, who lives or dies, and how you will ultimately decide the
fate of the Commonwealth. In comparison to FO3, where the Enclave is a
static and monolithic enemy and you are presumed to be your father's
child throughout with a monolithic agenda, there is a great deal more
political freedom, similar, but not as complex, to the factions in FO:NV.
You can literally wipe out entire factions the moment you meet them if
you have the skill and inclination, and you will probably be asked to
wipe them out later if you don't side with them. You can behave like a
bastard, but ultimately there is no "bastard" plot line. This has been
the fact of RPG since BG II, however, so I can't fault FO4.

This freedom comes with limits. Many of the plot lines converge in simply
doing the same plot quests but with different factional approaches, IOW
you approach the same plot point with a different agenda. There's a trip
to a power facility that doesn't change one iota, only whose lights
you're going to be turning on. Nothing really groundbreaking in terms of
choice is being presented, other than the storyline departure that the
Institute faction takes at endgame. So if you play any one of the
factions except the Institute, and you also then play the Institute line,
you've pretty much exhausted all the possibilities.

I found the Brotherhood of Steel faction to have the most satisfying
conclusion, though it was not my first choice of faction. This is
probably because I cannot get enough of "Liberty Prime," who makes his
own amusingly hilarious appearance when you side with the Brotherhood.
Getting the mini-nukes for Liberty Prime is also a fun quest.

Essentially, there are points of no return in each factional allegiance,
and you make save games before those points in order to play "what if?"
It isn't really worth replaying the entire game. I spent 100 hours going
through every single faction excepting the Minutemen conclusion. I
couldn't stomach doing the Minutemen conclusion, and it just ended the
same as all the non-Institute plot lines.

There is no weapon degradation; there are no skills, but you don't have
the situation of having a 100 skill in small firearms and missing half
the time point-blank with a pistol. Your actual gun skill is your gun
skill, FPS style, with perks that increase damage and strategy in using
VATS if you aren't into twitch all that much.

Also, the new power armor mechanic in FO4 is absolutely brilliant, and
though you don't have to train in power armor as in FO3, and get the
first suit of power armor within the first hours of the game, it is a
wholly different suit of armor, not just another, higher-DR wearable item
that also looks cool. You have to manage your fusion cores and decide
when to use it and when to go without it and deploy with your
conventional armor.

Towards the end-game, it gets ridiculously easy. Especially if you take
increased damage perks for one of the weapon types. Enemies scale with
level. There is no unbeatable enemy in the game where you can get in over
your head at low-level play. Super mutants are not unstoppable for a low
level character, and the most dangerous enemy is a bloodbug, because it
is small and difficult to hit, flies around like mad, and does poison
damage that cuts through any armor. Deathclaws are mostly laughable, and
you get to put one down in the first hour of the game. Maybe the sentry
bots and assaultrons are a bit of a challenge. That's it.

There is a nice sequence at the museum of witchcraft however, and the
fight with the boss in securing the Minutemen stronghold is really quite
epic. Basically, the difficulty curve goes vertical-like-a-cliff at
unpredictable points in the game, and then you are, very occasionally,
really in over your head.

So the answer is in comparison to FO3, FO4 is *different*. Its aims and
mechanics are a departure from the previous Fallout. It becomes more of
an action game. It has better faction management. The plot could be
something you find more interesting than the "quest for Dad" of FO3.

I will warn that one thing that annoyed the hell out of me in my first
playthrough was the interminable Minutemen Radiant quests that would
regularly crop up and the Minecraft-like settlement building that was a
requirement of that gameflow. You can easily avoid this grinding/building
mechanic by not completing the first quest with Preston Garvey. Simply
don't follow him to Sanctuary, or refuse to end the inital Minuteman
quest by agreeing to help him in Sanctuary in securing another
settlement, and he will STFU. Or at least he has so far in my second
playthrough.

If you avoid Garvey like this, however, you will miss out on that epic
battle in the course of the Minuteman story line which might make it
worth playing once. Problem is, you simply have to commit a lot of time
to get to it. There is no pressure point where you can save. You have to
go all-in on settlement building. If you actually enjoy the gameflow of
settlement building and crafting, you can go nuts. Lots of people have,
just Google it. I didn't, so in my second run, I am avoiding that smug
asshole entirely after I've got my power armor from him.

I would recommend FO4. I say that as a person who thinks Planescape:
Torment is a monumental classic. I enjoy FPS though, and that is a
requirement of FO4 gameflow. If you don't go in expecting FO3, and you
refrain from idealizing FO3's design choices, FO4 has many charms of its
own.

Hopefully, my overview will help you decide if it's worth your $$. I
think it is a good game, and I felt compelled to put many more hours into
*it* than I did FO3 and FO:NV. Like 3 times the hours.

-- 
Zag

No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had
spent more time alone with my computer.' ~Dan(i) Bunten