Finished F4. Terribly disappointed

[lotto]

(ATTENTION! Spoilers below)

I play games in the Fallout Universe for at least 15 years - F1, F2, F3, Las Vegas, and now F4. And seems F4 will conclude this sequence for good.

Yes, the world is huge and great. Yes, there are a lot of opportunities to investigate hundreds of locations. Yes, the weapon modification system is excellent. Yes, you can use different ways to find different enemies. But...the game also features several drawbacks and flaws that causes ever increasing irritation which ends in glorious final disappointment in the end.

The greatest failure of the game is its ending. I mean the movie that concludes finishing the main quest line for one of factions. In F3, I wanted to kill the author of its ending (by sealing him/her in the same radiation chamber where the protagonist died) because it was simply outrageous. At that time I swore that will never play another Fallout game. But then there was F3: New Vegas (made not by Bethesda, mind you) that rehabilitated the game in my eyes, and I decided to give it another try. And what can we see now?

F3 ended with the final quest without even asking you if you want to finish your remaining side quests. It was terrible. In F4, the ending went to the opposite extreme: it can be hardly called "an ending" at all. Whatever you do, whatever decisions you make during the game - it doesn't matter. Whether you kill everyone you meet or, quite the opposite, try to avoid killing, the game doesn't care. In previous Fallout games, at least you were shown a series of short clips about the fate of settlements and characters basing on your desicions. F4? Forget about it. Just the same boring clip whatever faction you chose. Ah, yes, you're shown a spectacular underground nuclear blast if you finish the Railroad quest line. And that's it? Don't make me laugh. F3 and F4 both have terrible endings - and I'm quite reluctant to see what kind of failure F5 would offer here.

Besides, the storyline lacks the logic whatsoever. I will never understand why BoS wants to destroy the Railroad and the Institute. BoS preserve technology, don't they? The Institute creates that technology, the Railroad saves it, so why hate them? And the Railroad - who cares what this tiny groups does to several escaped robots? The Institute manufactures Gen3 synths with the rate of 2 per minute. Releasing 13 (or even 50) of them? Who would ever notice it? BTW, using synths as slaves for doing dirty work like floor mopping - someone from Bethesda should really see the doctor. Overfatigue doesn't only turn off the imagination, it's really bad for health in the long term.

The Institute and the Railroad - this ending just makes me mad. Guys, the protagonist is appointed a new Institute director. The director!!! who is practically a dictator in this small society. So why the hell the Railroad wants me to destroy them when I can simply order to release all synths who want freedom? Why can't I make some kind of pact with them? They even don't give me the option to negotiate (so why do I need that damned Charisma stat?), there is only one way - to free a dozen of synths while killing (destroying) at least tenths of them along with killing masses of the Institute workers. Why I should kill so many synths to free several others? Don't those synths loyal to the Institute deserve life? Or some synths are more equal than others, so only them are worthy of salvation? And in the end, why need blasting the reactor after breaking to the Institute grounds? Why can't we simply grab all the freedom-loving synths among the general turmoil and teleport away? To ensure that there will be no enemies left? If so, we fail even this way, as Desdemona mentions that many of them stayed alive and will bother me again.

The Institute ending is even more pathetic. Go to the Railroad headquarters, kill everyone there...and? What's next? Okay, there is no more Railroad. And...? And...? And...? Someone, please explain to me what I'm supposed to do next while being the Director of the Institute?

Guys from Bethesda, you really, really, REALLY need to find a competent story writer. For the second time in the row you kill the excellent game only because you can't put some thoughts into it and create a good ending. Comparing to the general amount of work, this effort is almost non-existing, and still here you are, unable to pull it out. Pathetic...

OK, it's the main complain, but I'm still not finished.

Inventory. Oh, it's just a nightmare. As usual. I understand that Bethesda tries to save as much money as possible while porting the game from consoles to PC. However, it doesn't excuse the terrible inventory management system when you have to scroll through the endless list of items in your inventory to transfer to your companion something with the name starting with S or X. Why can't you at least break the list into groups like it's done in the main inventory screen? If I collect 10 telephones and want to transfer them to my companion to carry, why should I scroll through the list of tapes, drugs and armors? OK, OK, it's impossibly difficult to implement - but I can dump all junk in my inventory to the workbench with a single button press. Why can't I do the same with my companion?

Collecting components for upgrades - it's another nightmare. Junk weights pretty much, and there is no ability/perk allowing to disassemble it in field conditions (except if you are in a friendly settlement). As a result, you must carry several pounds of a hot plate weight just to use a single screw at a weapon workbench. Guys, do you want to say that I can't unscrew a single screw from a toy track, a typewriter or a telephone using a screwdriver that can be found literally everywhere? And weapon upgrades demand a lot of components, the rarest of which are, strangely, simple screws and adhesives. Collecting them requires tens of hours of gameplay. Hey, is it a junk dealer simulator, or what? At the end of the game crawling in different locations just to find a globe or a Wonderglue bottle got so deeply under my skin that I simply started generating needed components using console commands.

And I will never ever understand why I can't simpy detach a mod from a weapon to attach it to another similar weapon. Why must I create a basic clip just to detach a quick eject magazine from a rifle? I don't want to use that rifle anymore, I just want to disassemble it to separate mods to use them as I see fit - WHY I CAN'T DO IT? Or, in the worst case, why can't I simply swap mods between weapons of the same type? And lastly, why that damned weapon workbench can't use mods stored in it and why the system doesn't show me what mods of this type I already have in my inventory?

Finding lost companions - I never can understand why the game doesn't contain a simple tab in the Information list named "Companions" where all the companions and their locations are listed (and if I'm allowed to dream, with a hotkey like "Bring to me" or "Bring me to..."). PC users must use a console command to teleport to their places. Poor console players who must roam the wasteland for it...

Money, i.e. bottlecaps and pre-war money. Someone, please explain why do you need them (and the stores, while we're at it)? I never bought a single item in a store. Ammo, drugs, apparel, weapons - everything is either collected from dead bodies and from the floor/boxes/safes or created at workbenches. By the end of the game I had about 27 000 caps - what for? Stores and safes are absolutely useless, they don't contain anything unique, so lockpicking, hacking and trading skills are totally useless as well.

Settlement development - a newly invented game component I utterly failed to understand. WHY??? What does it give to the player? OK, I've set defences, created beds and water sources, assigned settlers to harvesting food, established a suppy line, everything is in the green - and? What's next? As I already said, the game doesn't care a button about their fate - and why should I waste time on them?

And the last but not the least - that infamous radiant quest system. Well, many people already wrote many nasty things about it, so here I'm just joining my voice to the common chorus. I cleared severel locations four or five times doing quests for different parties before I figured out that something is wrong here. And that Preston Garvey - I really should've killed him because he was giving me those idiotic "go-and-kill-all" quests every time I'm too careless to approach him. I have only one question here: WHY CAN'T I ABANDON A RADIANT QUEST AND REMOVE IT FROM THE LIST?

In general, I'm totally disappointed in Fallout 4. New Vegas featured excellent storyline with the outcome up to the taste of any player - from butchering everyone in view to uniting the world against one evil faction. Alas, NV authors don't work in Bethesda anymore. And there is no game evolution whatsoever. It's just exploiting the old Fallout universe without really investing anything in its development. Total facepalm, guys, if you ask me.

[Ironclad]

I see we can agree on a lot of these points. The ending was... Disappointing as you said, but the motivation of the factions is somewhat understandable.
BOS sees synths as abominations and as you may know, it is in human nature to exterminate everything that doesn't suit us. And their leader, don't get me started. They are the main baddies of this game imo. But really, who can blame them, I'd be the same if I was there.
Institute ending is total BS, the director is just a title, you can't do anything significant, we can agree on that. But their motivation is understandable. Pure society, synths that do all their dirty work...why not.
Railroad eh...never liked them. Sacrificing their own lives for the good of the few. Like Minutemen... But only for synths.
For the second part, there is almost nothing to say. You are right. But as always, we have mods to fix 3/4 of the problems you stated. It's not fair that Bethesda relies on modders to finish and perfect the game, but that is the truth.

[Park_Ranger]

Originally posted by lotto:

(ATTENTION! Spoilers below)

Snip.........

Fallout 4
139 hrs on record
last played on 2 Jan

Must have rushed through it, I wouldn't call that finishing the game.

[lotto]

Originally posted by Ironclad:

BOS sees synths as abominations

Yes, they do. And it's another flaw in the storyline. They CAN"T see synths as anything because they've just arrived to the Commomwealth. Their patrols / search parties don't interact with the locals, so they couldn't hear about synths earlier. So they should at least try to understand what are those synths, and the protagonist is their most dependable source of information. But they don't even care to ask.

They are the main baddies of this game imo. But really, who can blame them, I'd be the same if I was there.

It's another storyline flaw. I can't see them as baddies. Military types, yes, I'm-the-boss-you-just-obey, and so one, yes. But baddies? Their ultimate goal is noble, and they are potential allies. In New Vegas, you had an option to remove the bad leader and put a more reasonable one in his place. It looked perfectly natural. Here, you simply must eliminate them all - after doing a lot of quests for them and developing personal feelings towards some of them. And blowing up Priden - why? I single-handedly cleared it of all hostiles. Why don't just keep it for yourself? I even don't mention that there are chldren on board, who I can't evacuate.

But their motivation is understandable. Pure society, synths that do all their dirty work...why not.

Because it's not a community of scientitsts whose goal is technical progress and evolution of the mankind. It's just a group of slavers who want calm easy life with crowds of slaves fullfilling every their whim. They create artifical beings who can't be distinguished from humans, who at least imitate free will. And no one among the scientists (except the one man) ever thought about who and why they create? Then they should be complete morons, which is incompatible with advanced science and technology.

Railroad eh...never liked them. Sacrificing their own lives for the good of the few. Like Minutemen... But only for synths.

True. But this the only natural behavior in the game - people who are crazy enough to fight and die for their beliefs.

But as always, we have mods to fix 3/4 of the problems you stated.

Sorry, I prefer not to install mods. Way too often it leads to additional game instability and glitches that are very difficult to avoid.

Originally posted by Park_Ranger:

139 hrs on record

Must have rushed through it, I wouldn't call that finishing the game.

Sorry, some of us should sometimes work to earn their living. :)

[Shellbie]

The biggest problem i had with the game is that they removed almost anything related to being a rpg.This game was build for the call of duty generation and that is just sad considering the roots of Fallout.A video speaks louder than words.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqkZXNZwZq4

[Hobo Misanthropus]

See, here's a huge problem people aren't recognizing.

Fallout 4's ending isn't the stupid movie, it's the game-state you're left with after the stupid movie. Unlike New Vegas which boots your ass to the title screen after a 100% disposable slideshow that looked like it was slapped together in 5minutes in Microsoft Power Point. You never actually get to experience the results of your actions in New Vegas. I hate to say it, but all you NV fans are just being suckered in by cheap psyhological tricks. A "Tell, Don't show" shell game that is anethema to everything videogames stand for as an interactive medium.

The best aspects of the Fallout 4 ending are experienced by interacting with the new world you just created, juding the "Ending" by the throwaway concluding cinematic is missing the point altogether.

[lotto]

Originally posted by ZM | Dr. Dro:

New Vegas did not allow me to finish it the way I really wanted it to. I had to choose between the West Coast BoS and House, or I couldn't just implement anarchy by wiping out the NCR, Caesar's Legion and House, yet leaving the BoS in their bunker peacefully

The problem of all modern games is, they can't have any possible variant of ending implemented. However, the best of them have enough options to satisfy players who stuck to different gameplay styles. F3 ending was outrageous, and F4 doesn't have different endings at all. In the essence, it makes diplomacy and the charisma perk absolutely unneeded. And it means, that it NOT an RPG anymore. It's just another FPS with an extended weapon modification system. And it means that the original Fallout universe is dead.

What's so thrilling about having to deliver some platinum chip with some software upgrades?

And what's so thrlling about searching for a baby you saw only for a couple a minutes in the beginning of the game? What's the difference between those two quest objects? Even more, what are you supposed to do with a baby in the primieval world after you've found it? Become a settler and grow vegetables while raising the child?

New Vegas' protagonist is a a courier? A freaking mailman on some quest to either sleep with or kill the man who shot them and left for dead in a shallow grave? Someone with zero, an absolutely blank background other than the obvious fact he was working for the Mojave Express to make a quick buck like most random Fallout NPC's usually get jobs to make ends meet?

It's a lot more than you know about the protagonist of F4. A former soldier (if you play as a male) or with no background at all (if you play as a female) who was frozen in a vault and then awoke - that's it, you don't know about him/her anything else.

Addressing unique items, have you played through this thing on easy? There's legendary tier enemies everywhere on Very Hard.

I played on Normal or Hard, don't remember, and I killed plenty of Legendary enemies (another stupid invention - aha, a Legendary Gunner who suddenly mutates to full health after getting a head shot). The stuff you loot from their bodies is usually pathetic. Super-rare powerful items they generate usually don't add much to the gameplay. If your heavily modded .45 sniper rifle does 150 damage, it matters little if it generates additional 10-15 damage as a Legendary perk.

And I repeat again, this is supposed to be a ROLE-PLAYING game, not a first-person shooter. I don't want to figt crowds of high-level mobs in such a game. I'm in for a storyline, for character development, NPC interaction and so on. Fighting is an essential element of such games but not the the main one. If I wanted an FPS, there are plenty of other games around.

Companions? Companions will stay where you tell them to stay.

And how am I supposed to remember it if I sent them away a month ago (real-time)? And what if I never took them with me because at the moment I discovered them in a middle of nowhere when I already had another companio with me? How should I remember all such places?

do you own these people?

Basically, yes, That's their single purpose of existence - to serve as my companions. And if you want a real-live explanation, why am I allowed to write down info about my quests but can't do the same with the locations of my companions?

[lotto]

Originally posted by Paladin Katherine:

The biggest problem i had with the game is that they removed almost anything related to being a rpg.This game was build for the call of duty generation and that is just sad considering the roots of Fallout.

Exactly! Can't agree more.

Originally posted by ZM | Dr. Dro:

What defines an RPG? If you get the dictionary definition of an RPG, Fallout 4 is perfectly an RPG. It is, however, an action RPG - like Skyrim, and i'm glad that Bethesda has been taking it to that direction. I am no fan of tabletop mechanics, or imposed class limitations at all.

An RPG is the game where you experience the consequences of your choices. What are those consequences in F4?

Originally posted by Hobo Misanthropus:

See, here's a huge problem people aren't recognizing.

Unlike New Vegas which boots your ass to the title screen after a 100% disposable slideshow that looked like it was slapped together in 5minutes in Microsoft Power Point. You never actually get to experience the results of your actions in New Vegas.

Thise clips ARE the results of your actions. Concerning their quality, it's better to have 10 "PowerPoint-style" clips that one dull movie like in F4.

[/quote]
The best aspects of the Fallout 4 ending are experienced by interacting with the new world you just created, juding the "Ending" by the throwaway concluding cinematic is missing the point altogether. [/quote]

You didn't create anything. You only destroyed things and killed tons of people when you didn't want to do it at all. As I said, even developing settlemets isnt't rewarded in any way. OK, you have 5 settler here instead of 3 - and what's then?

[Hobo Misanthropus]

Yes, you did "Create" Something. A unique game-state based on your decisions, this has been the hallmark of every Bethesda game and where the phrase "Watercooler game" comes from you dullard. You just clearly have no idea what you're talking about to be perfectly honest.

There's even entire threads about how you can create different end-states in Fallout 4 based on your actions.

[DouglasGrave]

Originally posted by lotto:

Because it's not a community of scientitsts whose goal is technical progress and evolution of the mankind. It's just a group of slavers who want calm easy life with crowds of slaves fullfilling every their whim. They create artifical beings who can't be distinguished from humans, who at least imitate free will. And no one among the scientists (except the one man) ever thought about who and why they create? Then they should be complete morons, which is incompatible with advanced science and technology.

The impression I get is that it has already been addressed and the Institute has an official conclusion that everyone now accepts. Given how long they've been working at developing synths (and with at least semi-sentient robots already existing before the war), the questions of sentience and free will just aren't news anymore.

It doesn't mean they couldn't be wrong, just that there's a strong scientific consensus on the issue.

[mfree]

Originally posted by lotto:

Originally posted by Ironclad:

BOS sees synths as abominations

Yes, they do. And it's another flaw in the storyline. They CAN"T see synths as anything because they've just arrived to the Commomwealth. Their patrols / search parties don't interact with the locals, so they couldn't hear about synths earlier. So they should at least try to understand what are those synths, and the protagonist is their most dependable source of information. But they don't even care to ask.

You do realize, being that you're pointing out differences between FO4 and earlier games, that synths were 'unveiled' in FO3 with Harkness, Armitage (S3-47), and Doc Zimmer in Rivet City, right? The institute was already sending out coursers to pick up escapees in 2277... actually, Zimmer and his accompanyment could be considered an embedded field unit, something they stopped doing *because* Zimmer went missing.

Madison Li (yes, that one) came from Rivet City, was recruited to the Institute by Dr. Zimmer early on and didn't go (i.e. knows of the institute and it's programs), and then later on gets in tight with Elder Lyons and only leaves DC because BOS *didn't* leave after Purity. Think she wouldn't have shared what Zimmer told her about the institute? Think looking for Li after she disappeared wouldn't have been a BOS priority? It's all tied together, even if you missed it. Fo4 Gen3 synth == FO3 'android'.

[Beldhan]

Originally posted by ZM | Dr. Dro:

Originally posted by Pious Cadmus:

I'm not sure how you reached that conclusion to be honest. The Mojave chapter can be destroyed but that doesn't destroy the entire Brotherhood.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/NCR-Brotherhood_War

you realize most of this information are not confirmed cannon? plus if we go in this sense how the BoS of the west while openning them recruitement (fallout tactics) was defeated by the NCR that didn't had any power armor and let not talk of the laser weaponery?

even when you compare the power armor of the ncr in new vegas in comparaison of the one of the brother hood it was falling behind.

but that one of the flaws of Fallout NV, the slider at the end have always leave me with a feeling of uncomplete, yes, i did reach the end of the main story, but it's an open world, the main story is only one of the story you can do in the game!

plus the lore of Fallout 4 is far more than simply the main quest, even the whole thing is filled with detail that most people ignore.
Oxhorn have create a few very interesting video about this (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsC--WvN66vZlDoYShzn4sA)

Fallout 4 have a main story that leave an after taste of not really important... but isn't because the world is more important? more because you a person outside this craziness that begin it exploration into it. we must look the game with the eyes of this person that have no recollection about Fallout 1-2-3-NV.

and anyway, what is the goal of Fallout 4? bring us into a world and offer us some fun... we do have a whole world to explore filled with secret to find by ourself, the story is not handed on a silver plate. exploration, expansion, exploitation and extermination, it's not really a 4X, but with settlement we have this, however i admit i did wish for them to add another layer to the settlement system.

one tie to the faction, making the faction of the game conquers settlement and have them own technology for this. it will have offer something quite interesting tie to our choice.

by example, if you side against the BoS, you will have to deal with attack from the BoS on your settlement. fighting powerarmor and laser weaponery and such. maybe in Fallout 5. who know i hope it.

[Windzor]

It just works.