Why the Vault-Tec DLC is disappointing. (And Workshop DLCs in general)

[Havoc]

Just to make clear: I love the Workshop system and most things surrounding it, as flawed as all of it might be, I've already accepted the fact that Fallout 4 is a terrible Fallout game and a terrible RPG, but once I've gotten over that, I found myself enjoying everything else there is to it.

The Vault-Tec DLC highlights many problems with the Vanilla game by putting more pressure on some of the most flawed systems it has to offer.

- Pathfinding AI gets completely obliterated:
Not sure why that is, but this DLC made me take notice how I've been building my settlements up til now. Buildings as far apart as possible, no multi-story Settler access if possible, and if at all, at least 2 stories apart. (Or Warehause/Barn height separation). Obvious pathfinding flaws are easier to compensate for in open spaces, for example, my settlers always got stuck on the Garage doors from Contraptions Workshop, until I figured out that it all goes away once you manage to place the door on 3 instead of 2 floor tiles(one middle, 2 halves left and right)
You can't do that in the Vault and still keep up the vault "flow", even if I place a straight hallway between the Dorms and the Hydroponics, the Farmers get stuck somewhere in the Atrium and just stand there. OR a level above or below of where they wanted to go.

- Settlement Raids:
Spawns for settlement raids have been a complete mess since the games release, now with a vault, all of it gets even messier. It's pointless to build a completely enclosed Vault(which would make sense), because attackers will spawn in the caves all around it. Sometimes even far, far away from the active vault, leaving me to wander the entire cave system in search of one or two gunners that are camping in a corner somewhere. Just put the damn spawn at the Vault door and spawn 5 times as many enemies to make it interesting. Otherwise it's just tedious busywork to find all the spawns. Worse even once enemies start teleporting all around your vault, completely bypassing the security and breaking all semblance of immersion.

- Bethesda Lazieness(TM):
Automatron DLC was quite ok, even though the dungeon was quite boring and annoying, getting a small interior settlement cell was fine, and the ability to buff out your SDF (Settlement Defence Force) with badass custom robots was totally not done before in a mod. (Nexus:Robot Home Defence)

Far Harbor I haven't even gotten to yet, but I'm sure it's quite spectacular.

Nuka World I have high hopes for.

Wasteland Workshop was a cute little replacement for console commands which we always used to spawn Hostile NPCs and made them fight our Settlers. A DLC for your average console user, who ironically can't use the console. (Ohohoh 8D)
Which is fair enough, but could have been free if we're being strict.
The Concrete build set, while aesthetically pleasing, broke the pathfinding in more ways than I can count. I just didn't bother with doors at all at some point.

Contraptions Workshop totally didn't add anything that hasn't been added before with mods (Nexus: Advanced Settlement Power), and let you play with your balls to boot. It also introduced the Manufacturing system, which is useful to everyone who doesn't use any weapon/armor/ammo mod ever, and has been made viable only through mods which added new, actually useful/fun machines.(Nexus: Manufacturing Extended / Soylent Green - Add-on for Manufacturing Extended)

Vault-Tec Workshop was a neat idea, also certainly never acheived before with mods (Nexus: Build Your Own Vault), it aimed to bring the charm of Fallout Shelter to their main game and missed that mark by a land mile. Lackluster, broken questline, zero experimentation beyond the 4 simple, "Build item, wait for result" quests (which you'd think would be the main appeal of being an Overseer), no pathfinding, large build space but the same tiny Build-limit (which you can easily reach within the first cave) and many more. Argueably the DLC/Mod with the most potential, and the least effort put into, which is quite shameful.

Now, I'm willing to give Bethesda the benefit of the doubt, and say that they've probably had all those DLC planned out BEFORE the great mods were released, which did all of that and better. Shame on you if you think that our dear friends at Bethesda saw those great mods, and figured that it's an easy cash-in.
But the least they could have done in either case, would have been to make the DLC better than the pre-CK mods they were copying.
We're talking about the guys that made the game here, they made the engine, they have access to all the tools and all the guts of the framework. And all they could do to set themselves apart from jury-rigged mods were some scripted events, a few lines of voiceacting and custom animations.


tl;dr: I'm really bitter that Vault-Tec Workshop doesn't have elevators and vault-themed vendor stalls and those fancy "Bubble Turrets".

[Ratsmacker69]

Several years late but I fully agree with this.

[uk49]

Also late but I just saw this on the discussions lol;
I fully agree - if they had focused on making this into a story driven DLC, making a vault with dark experiments and stuff you could build it would of been fun, with more deeper quests instead of what felt like a slightly interesting radiant quest. Flip that around though; if it was a fully fledged settlement item add-on, with a couple new locations and tons and tons of new cool items that could be built (maybe a raider vault set, outside vault junk kit, new shops, etc) that would be also good (although still don't agree with a DLC with just settlement items tbh). It feels like Bethesda attempted to merge the two, but stop half way when making them.
But either way; every point you've made is the truth more or less, but oh well

mods fix everything ;)

[climbingeastofwinter]

On the other hand, Fallout 4 followed up Fallout: New Vegas by introducing Dogmeat tech, the new power armor system, and workshops. There are kinks to be worked out, for sure, but this is Bethesda we're talking about. If I don't fall through the world a few times playing a Bethesda game, the only thing that tells me is that I'm not playing a Bethesda game.

Good company, and good games though.

[Leslian Lexter]

nice necro

[manson.oldboy]

The things that I like from the DLC are the overpowered items/perks/general benefits that they offer in.

Also I think that they space that they offer on the Vault-Tec DLC to build your vault is way too much space and I will never ever build a vault that big, but also I appreciate the experience points given by the Mirelurk Queen in that area.