mikemariano

Fallout 4 — Boston Makes Me Feel Good

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I beat it today. I'm still processing and don't want to throw up a ton of spoilers, but man the ending is unsatisfying. I mean, I don't think Bethesda can end a game any other way really, but the black and white nature of video game moral choice was particularly egregious in this one.

I'm going to put it down for now. Hopefully, when paid mods come out to play there will be some good options that will make a second play interesting.

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 just finished the Silver Shroud quest and I have completely decided that the female voice acting is TONS better than the Male voice acting.  My wife and I are both playing through the game, and whenever she chooses the sarcastic dialogue option for her female character, she sounds hilarious, but every time I have my male character choose that option, he sounds like a douchebag.  Do you guys agree?  or do i just hate men?

 

No totally. After the first few times clicking the sarcastic option as a male, I decided never to touch it again. He really does just sound like an annoying douche.

 

As for the female voice, I'm actually using the "show me the whole dialogue line" mod so I'm not sure if what I'm choosing is always the sarcastic option, but she never sounds annoying or douchey.

 

For my second playthrough I'm doing nearly everything different - playing as a woman, building up my skills differently, skipping going back home/concord and NO FAST TRAVEL. The no fast travel is totally changing my experience of the game, in a really good way. Did y'all know that in the kind of northeast part of the city, all the skyscrapers are connected by catwalks and elevators and stuff? They even connect with the overpass. It makes for some reaaallly interesting vertical exploration. You can even "drop into" Goodneighbor, but of course once it realizes you're about to enter it it loads the actual "interior" and you're magically and safely on the floor at the entrance.

 

Edit: in case anybody was wondering, my first playthrough was ~85 hours. The fact that I could fit in 85 hours in the two weeks since it came out is, uh, kind of shameful, but whatever who needs the real world. 

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No totally. After the first few times clicking the sarcastic option as a male, I decided never to touch it again. He really does just sound like an annoying douche.

 

As for the female voice, I'm actually using the "show me the whole dialogue line" mod so I'm not sure if what I'm choosing is always the sarcastic option, but she never sounds annoying or douchey.

 

For my second playthrough I'm doing nearly everything different - playing as a woman, building up my skills differently, skipping going back home/concord and NO FAST TRAVEL. The no fast travel is totally changing my experience of the game, in a really good way. Did y'all know that in the kind of northeast part of the city, all the skyscrapers are connected by catwalks and elevators and stuff? They even connect with the overpass. It makes for some reaaallly interesting vertical exploration. You can even "drop into" Goodneighbor, but of course once it realizes you're about to enter it it loads the actual "interior" and you're magically and safely on the floor at the entrance.

 

Edit: in case anybody was wondering, my first playthrough was ~85 hours. The fact that I could fit in 85 hours in the two weeks since it came out is, uh, kind of shameful, but whatever who needs the real world. 

 

I plan on taking some power armor with a jetpack and exploring the highways from one end to the other. I really like how much more interesting the map is, especially downtown, you can wander for hours exploring buildings and stumbling upon firefights. 

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Complaining/spoilers for the end of the main story as well as the end of the Minutemen quest line....

 

Which is to say that there isn't really an end to the Minutemen quest line. The fact that it's included as one of the three options to help with the institute is a joke. If you can't tell, I'm a bit bitter at having railroaded myself to the most non-nonsensical option for ending the game. I kept with my earlier choice of not joining the Brotherhood, and I didn't find the Railroad until the main quest demanded it, so I didn't really have anyone to ask for help except the Minutemen. So they get me in there, I talk to Shaun, and he's weirdly insistent that I make a choice without any real information. I mean we have these rumors on one hand about people disappearing in the wastes and synths replacing them, but no solid proof that this has happened anytime under Shaun's watch. The only synths besides the courser I've fought up to this point were the Gen1s in the first Brotherhood quest, so I have no reason to think they're bad, just misguided. I try to waffle around without answering, but he keeps on pushing the issue until he says that "no one else in the wastes is worth joining" to which I say no. Apparently, if I'd kept waffling I'd eventually have been let loose in the Institute to ask questions, but I was kicked right back out. 

 

Back on the surface, rather than having any special Minutemen missions, I was just told to continue getting more towns (boring) until the institute attacked the castle. I have no idea why we've suddenly gone from quiet mistrust to full out war, why they decided to drop a literal ton of enemies on us, what we're even really fighting about, or anything. I finish that, the Minutemen are all "it's us or them" and they send me in to attack and then blow up a nuclear reactor. It seems completely overkill for the minor stuff happening up until there.

 

It's pretty clear that I busted the whole flow of the game by not joining the Brotherhood and not getting a chance to explore the Institute more, but if it's so vital to make the story line make sense, they should make it mandatory. I'm looking forward to my next play through where I join the Brotherhood, then turn on them for the institute. Hopefully things will make more sense that way.

 

Still an awesome game to actually play though.

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There is a random repeatable 'event' (no dialogue or anything, just game system) where

one of your settler could turn hostile and when you examine the corpse, there will be synth component.  Also can't you just join the institute?  I think you don't have to make the faction decision that early in the game?

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A youtube channel I like uploaded a long (~45 min) video essay about Fallout 4. I thought it's a good watch and the author talks about the mechanics and themes he did and did not like. Also it is not some NMA guy shitting on the game. Also it has spoilers.

 

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Does anyone else have a problem with spatial sound (if this is the correct term) in this game? Quite often it sounds like the enemies are standing right next to you, when in fact they are a couple of rooms over or on a different floor. I'm wondering whether this is a bug or intentional. Sure, the walls and floors are full of holes, but I'd still expect the enemy barks to be a bit muffled by the distance and obstructions.

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Yeah I have that problem too, I can't tell either if it's intentional. It's really frustrating because you're searching the room next to you and then there's nothing there.

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Does anyone else have a problem with spatial sound (if this is the correct term) in this game? Quite often it sounds like the enemies are standing right next to you, when in fact they are a couple of rooms over or on a different floor. I'm wondering whether this is a bug or intentional. Sure, the walls and floors are full of holes, but I'd still expect the enemy barks to be a bit muffled by the distance and obstructions.

 

I don't generally have a problem laterally, but yeah there will definitely be barks that are above or below which you reasonably would expect to be more muffled by ceiling/floor. I've pretty much gotten used to it though.

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A youtube channel I like uploaded a long (~45 min) video essay about Fallout 4. I thought it's a good watch and the author talks about the mechanics and themes he did and did not like. Also it is not some NMA guy shitting on the game. Also it has spoilers.

 

He's also followed up with one about how to adjust your expectations to enjoy it on its own terms:

 

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I don't have any performance issues. So it's just AMD. Architecture Managed Devices. :P

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I haven't bought Fallout 4 yet, not out of reluctance but because I assume it'll take two months for Bethesda to fix the crashes and save corruption, four to fix the other major glitches, and six for modders to fix the UI. So I'm probably the only person in this thread who doesn't yet own Fallout 4. And...

 

He's also followed up with one about how to adjust your expectations to enjoy it on its own terms:

 

 

Ick. That is exactly the opposite of what I wanted to hear. "Hoover up all the junk and break it into crafting materials! More inventory management! Build settlements to crank out more resources! Character customization really doesn't matter past level ten, it's all about your inventory! Quests and dialogue don't really matter!" It's like they found everything I liked about Fallout and cut it. And the resulting not-Fallout game doesn't even sound good on its own merits, it sounds like an unbalanced mess with no room for player expression (unless you like customizing your settlement's aesthetics).

 

After seeing that video, I don't think I want to get Fallout 4 any more. Am I overreacting, is there still a core of goodness for fans of New Vegas?

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After seeing that video, I don't think I want to get Fallout 4 any more. Am I overreacting, is there still a core of goodness for fans of New Vegas?

 

He's exaggerating, a bit. But it'll always fare poorly if you're expecting New Vegas. I mean as far as I know they got rid of all skill checks in conversation other than a straight charisma check and even that is usually just used to negotiate a higher payment for doing a quest...that should tell you about all you need to know in that regard.

 

Having said that, I'm still really enjoying it, just running around exploring and shooting stuff, it's just not the same type of game as the earlier ones is all. There's still fun to be had, but I guess I liked borderlands 2, so take that for whatever it's worth. *shrug*

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Quests and dialogue totally matter. I don't understand that sentiment. If you are affected by them, they matter. If you think they're bad (some people have said as much, I've enjoyed some of the side quests a really great deal same as Fallout 3), then they mattered to you.

 

Of course, NV crashed 10 hours in irreversibly corrupting my save file and I was so disgusted I never went back. So when people talk about "NV Goodness" I assume they mean fucking broken.

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I haven't bought Fallout 4 yet, not out of reluctance but because I assume it'll take two months for Bethesda to fix the crashes and save corruption, four to fix the other major glitches, and six for modders to fix the UI. So I'm probably the only person in this thread who doesn't yet own Fallout 4. And...

 

 

Ick. That is exactly the opposite of what I wanted to hear. "Hoover up all the junk and break it into crafting materials! More inventory management! Build settlements to crank out more resources! Character customization really doesn't matter past level ten, it's all about your inventory! Quests and dialogue don't really matter!" It's like they found everything I liked about Fallout and cut it. And the resulting not-Fallout game doesn't even sound good on its own merits, it sounds like an unbalanced mess with no room for player expression (unless you like customizing your settlement's aesthetics).

 

After seeing that video, I don't think I want to get Fallout 4 any more. Am I overreacting, is there still a core of goodness for fans of New Vegas?

 

I haven't watched the video, but I disagree with all your paraphrases at least. While I did spend a lot of time grabbing crafting materials, you don't have to interface with any of that to have a good time. You certainly don't need to have a lot of settlements and, in fact, having too many is when I started getting really annoyed at the game. The main quest is a bit silly (that's true for Fallout 3 as well,) but I've found several of the side quests very rewarding. I have no idea what is even meant about character customization not mattering past level 10, I think this game has the best level up system of an RPG I've played in a while.

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Of course, NV crashed 10 hours in irreversibly corrupting my save file and I was so disgusted I never went back. So when people talk about "NV Goodness" I assume they mean fucking broken.

If you liked New Vegas, you'll love Fallout 4!

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Each person will have a different experience of course, but on PC this is the least buggy Bethesda game I've ever played. I had twice where a quest step wouldn't complete and I had to quit and reload, and that dumb bug where your defenses suddenly drop to zero in a location until you travel back to it.

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I've had plenty of graphical issues, and I'm not just speaking about tanking frame rates.

 

4bp8ily.jpg

 

This one was weird because it was only the LOD textures--when the hero textures faded in, it looked like rock. Luckily, a reload made this go away, but it looks a lot like the blank texture calls you find in New Vegas. You can see the broken compass as well in this shot.

 

It's still broken, just broken in different ways.

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