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frajaq posted:we even got detective side-quests for him, sure they were kinda lovely but I liked the intention behind it Just more of every companion tbh, more about them, more relating to them. Nick's detective quests were surface-level fun, his personal quest had the worst ending possible, which was a shame. And it was a big ol slog for not much reward. More Railroady quests for Deacon, robot things with Curie like the Repconn/Robco facilities New Vegas had, how bout that? Do them with Codsworth too. Supermutant quests with Strong proving that they're not all mindless beasts and he's not the worst companion ever. So much potential.
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Apr 14, 2018 23:12
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If Nick's quest had ended with Eddie Winter long dead from starving in a sealed bunker it would have been so much better. Make it a commentary on why revenge is meaningless and living in the past won't change the future.
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Apr 14, 2018 23:26
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Arcsquad12 posted:If Nick's quest had ended with Eddie Winter long dead from starving in a sealed bunker it would have been so much better. Make it a commentary on why revenge is meaningless and living in the past won't change the future. This is what I was hoping for, but even that simple message was too much for the writers. Most of Nick's dialogue about it isn't even about the revenge, it's about the memories of the real Nick that he feels uncomfortable with having - and there's nothing about that either! Both Winter and Nick's other memories that he doesn't want could have been so interesting. The Memory Den exists, even. I haven't finished Far Harbor so if that's explored at all with DiMa, mea culpa
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Apr 14, 2018 23:31
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I'm still not sure why piper suddenly decides to stop writing to go fistfight super mutants for you
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Apr 14, 2018 23:43
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counterfeitsaint posted:Don't they view the whole world as a sort of petri dish and they're just doing poo poo to observe the results? Or am I misremembering and retroactively trying to apply sense where none exists? That's one of the issues with the Institute; they're portrayed as being horribly disorganized and mostly hands-off when it comes to directing their scientists. So you have a bunch of isolated turbo nerds obsessing over their next thing. It makes sense that they'd just randomly dump stuff (DiMA and Nick, for example) that they lost interest in and move on to the next thing. They can't see beyond their own faces and believe they're 100% isolated so whatever happens in the outside world just plain doesn't affect them. Because of that they can just kind of muck about and follow their collective ADD wherever it takes them. With their highly defensible position, literal teleportation technology, and highly advanced everything they could probably completely take over the Commonwealth if they wanted to but they just kind of never did. It seems that they believe themselves above standard morality because "hey we made humans but better!" or because making science progress is more important than anything. Meanwhile the Commonwealth has to deal with their shenanigans. The whole "hey let's see if we can infiltrate society with synths in secret" seems more like "hey let's see if we can do this" more than anything else. Same with replacing the mayor; that just reeked of "just to see if we can" rather than any actual practical purpose. Neurolimal posted:I'm still not sure why piper suddenly decides to stop writing to go fistfight super mutants for you She wants to stay away from Nat to avoid influencing her too much. Piper does not want Nat to grow up to live a life of always being in danger like she does. So obviously the solution is to leave your young sister completely alone to sell newspapers in a world that you know is rampant with kidnappings. Keeshhound posted:B-b-but the Railroad. Slavery is Wrong. That's not entirely true. Synths that got their minds wiped did it willingly; it was an option but not something the Railroad forced on them. The Railroad did kind of suck (really, everybody in the Commonwealth is terrible...it's amazing how incredibly cynical Fallout 4 really is) but to their credit that wasn't forced on them. It was a risky procedure (this is how you get a body for Curie...the synth in question had a botched memory wipe) that not all synths opted into. Some of them went into hiding but kept their memories; others hosed off to other parts where it was easier to just create a new life. The Railroad treated synths as people instead of things like everybody else did. Even so the paranoia about synths was totally justified. Basically all of them had that synth component in their heads that let the Institute control them sometimes if they wanted. There was never really any explanation as to why the Institute didn't do that more often or just drive all the synths all the time remotely but still...granted it would also make sense if that became harder to do the further away from the Institute they got. Even so keeping up a totally different facade is difficult and takes effort. Eventually the mask slips or somebody picks up on an inconsistent story. If you can have your whole memory wiped and a new one put into place that makes that easier. Aside from that the Institute is not kind to synths and views them as things. Third generation synths have basically human brains and being treated like an object rather than a person...well...that does bad things to a human brain. It really does make sense that some of them just plain want to forget entirely. Granted that's another case of bad writing because if the Institute is advanced enough that they can control synths remotely then why didn't they just live stream all of every synth's perceptions back home constantly? They could have just put a GPS in every synth's head or something. I guess you could explain that away with "incompetent, ADD turbo nerds" but still.
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Apr 15, 2018 00:26
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Guys guys I just realized: Bethesda is The Institute.
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Apr 15, 2018 00:32
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ToxicSlurpee posted:That's not entirely true. Synths that got their minds wiped did it willingly; it was an option but not something the Railroad forced on them. The Railroad did kind of suck (really, everybody in the Commonwealth is terrible...it's amazing how incredibly cynical Fallout 4 really is) but to their credit that wasn't forced on them. It was a risky procedure (this is how you get a body for Curie...the synth in question had a botched memory wipe) that not all synths opted into. Some of them went into hiding but kept their memories; others hosed off to other parts where it was easier to just create a new life. My point was that the writing team was so disinterested in the lore that they were creating that they didn't even realize what they'd done. It's not a matter of consent; if this had been a story about human slaves taking refuge with a secret organization who said "Ok, I've got a way for you to hide: we've got these spores of a weird parasitic worm that, if you inhale them, will gestate and hatch in about two hours. Then they'll burrow into your brain, and knock you unconscious almost instantly. After that, they'll take about five hours to devour all the parts of your brain that made you you, and then they'll grow into replacement parts and when your body wakes up, it'll be like a whole different person is inside of it. Your former masters will never find you." No one would act like that was a reasonable suggestion. Not to mention the fact that it doesn't even work; one of the main story missions for the institute is tagging along with a courser to reclaim a synth that had it's memory wiped and became a raider. And if someone on the writing team gave a drat, they could have done something interesting with that; maybe had a conversation with a synth who was considering the procedure, but as long as I'm wishing for poo poo that'll never come, I might as well ask for my build choices to have more meaning than locking me into a specific weapon type. Keeshhound fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Apr 15, 2018 |
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Apr 15, 2018 00:54
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Keeshhound posted:"Ok, I've got a way for you to hide: we've got these spores of a weird parasitic worm that, if you inhale them, will gestate and hatch in about two hours. Then they'll burrow into your brain, and knock you unconscious almost instantly. After that, they'll take about five hours to devour all the parts of your brain that made you you, and then they'll grow into replacement parts and when your body wakes up, it'll be like a whole different person is inside of it. Your former masters will never find you." If that was real, and I could use it to forget my life forever and become somebody else, I would. There is no question in my mind on that.
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Apr 15, 2018 01:13
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Arcsquad12 posted:Guys guys I just realized:
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Apr 15, 2018 01:42
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juggalo baby coffin posted:So i'm doing far harbor, and thinking of going all in with the children of atom. The Children of Atom kidnapped Old Long Fellow's pregnant fiance and brainwashed her into joining their cult. She later died of radiation poisoning, as did her stillborn child. They're a toxic (both literally and figuratively) cult that encourages people to slowly commit suicide. Side with them if you want, but they're not good people. No one on the island is, at least not entirely, and if you they think they are you just haven't dug deep enough yet. The people of far harbor might seem like assholes (although they warm up to you pretty quickly if you do their side-quests), but they're totally correct in mistrusting The Children of Atom and the synths. Their paranoia is, sadly, fully justified. ToxicSlurpee posted:(really, everybody in the Commonwealth is terrible...it's amazing how incredibly cynical Fallout 4 really is) I agree with you, but I'm not convinced this was done on purpose. The moral ambiguity in Far Harbor seems intentional, but in the main-game it feels like the by product of lazy/inconsistent writing. Space Cadet Omoly fucked around with this message at 02:05 on Apr 15, 2018 |
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Apr 15, 2018 02:01
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:I agree with you, but I'm not convinced this was done on purpose. The central theme of Far Harbor is really survival; I think it's intentional there. The people living on the docks are a bunch of salty old boat people just trying to eke out a living on the horrible island they call home. Of course they don't like outsiders much; they've been taken advantage of in the past and the world hasn't been kind to them. The Children of Atom though...ugh. They're legitimately insane. For some inexplicable reason some of them are in fact immune to radiation but if you pay attention they don't believe in finding out who is immune and who isn't first. They also believe that dying of radioactivity is a good thing as you can then be "one with Atom." You read about that in the junkyard; traders show up, the Children don't trust them, they kill them with radiation, and the Children just go "they're with Atom now. Good for them." DiMA is...hooo boy. He is extremely "the end justifies the means" but then removes his own memory of the hideous things he did which he actually, really totally didn't have to do. I mean the boat people really just wanted to be left the gently caress alone to be a bunch of salty old fishermen. The murder was totally unnecessary and keeping nukes, you know, just in case shows that he'll be perfectly willing to go to any means at all at any provocation. The situation was tense but killing and replacing a leader was not the way to go about doing it. Sorry buddy but "the end justifies the means" doesn't apply to that sort of thing. The people at the harbor are probably what you'd consider the good faction they've just been hardened by difficulties in life. But...yeah survival is really the core theme of Far Harbor. The boat people on the docks just want to get by while Acadia exists because synths basically need to run the gently caress away to survive and have a decent life. The Children, well...they're an existential threat to everything. They believe the Cloud is Atom's will and want to spread it beyond the Island. The boat people have learned to live with it and view it as just a fact of their lives. However since the Children showed up they've been actively trying to make it thicker and sabotaging any effort to lessen it. The boat people of course have ways to deal with it because it literally kills you. They aren't there to survive; they're there to prevent others from surviving because Atom wills it. Even though most of Fallout 4's writing is pretty bad I have to give credit for Far Harbor; they managed to create a very tense, hosed up situation that could explode into absolute havoc at any provocation. ToxicSlurpee fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Apr 15, 2018 |
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Apr 15, 2018 02:17
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Far Harbor in general is much more cohesive and interesting than almost everything in the base game, IMO
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Apr 15, 2018 02:31
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Acebuckeye13 posted:Far Harbor in general is much more cohesive and interesting than almost everything in the base game, IMO Yup. Far Harbor is still just as much of a mess as the base game but it actually works given the circumstances of everything. Speaking of DLC I kind of wish there was more stuff in the game like The Mechanist. That whole DLC was just goofy and stupid in all the right ways. It didn't try to be anything other than completely and totally ridiculous.
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Apr 15, 2018 02:40
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ToxicSlurpee posted:If that was real, and I could use it to forget my life forever and become somebody else, I would. If you genuinely feel that way then please seek psychological assistance because what you're describing is psyche death.
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Apr 15, 2018 02:50
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Keeshhound posted:If you genuinely feel that way then please seek psychological assistance because what you're describing is psyche death. I see a therapist weekly, actually.
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Apr 15, 2018 02:58
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ToxicSlurpee posted:I see a therapist weekly, actually. Then I genuinely hope you continue to do so.
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Apr 15, 2018 02:59
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eating only apples posted:This is what I was hoping for, but even that simple message was too much for the writers. Most of Nick's dialogue about it isn't even about the revenge, it's about the memories of the real Nick that he feels uncomfortable with having - and there's nothing about that either! Both Winter and Nick's other memories that he doesn't want could have been so interesting. The Memory Den exists, even. Replace the vanilla Nick Valentine quests with Memory Den visits where you play as the original pre-war detective doing his investigation in the mean streets of Boston.
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Apr 15, 2018 03:01
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Keeshhound posted:Then I genuinely hope you continue to do so. I will be for the foreseeable future. My issues are...severe. However this is not the thread for discussing them so yeah. About those Fallout games...
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Apr 15, 2018 03:17
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i went to a therapist and had to explain why i started laughing at the two bears high fiving inkblot
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Apr 15, 2018 03:18
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StashAugustine posted:i went to a therapist and had to explain why i started laughing at the two bears high fiving inkblot I thought therapists didn't even do ink blot tests anymore.
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Apr 15, 2018 03:19
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Internet Kraken posted:I thought therapists didn't even do ink blot tests anymore. I think some do but it's considered way too vague and subject to interpretation to be diagnostic. It fits for Fallout being retrofuturistic because it was all the rage in the 50's.
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Apr 15, 2018 03:31
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Internet Kraken posted:I thought therapists didn't even do ink blot tests anymore. They don't, ink blot tests (also known as Rorschach tests) are widely discredited. I believe the above poster was making a "joke". 
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Apr 15, 2018 03:35
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I felt more invested in Far Harbor than I did in the base game.
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Apr 15, 2018 05:15
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Far Harbour is the only part of FO4 with anything resembling a real plot with real stakes.
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Apr 15, 2018 05:34
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far harbour is that sickly sweet promise of what bethesda could be dunno if it's from swinging big all the time, or if it's a thousand monkeys and a thousand typewriters kinda thing though
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Apr 15, 2018 05:56
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To be fair, DiMa murdering the boatboyz leader was because said person was actively angling for a fight with the Crazy nuke Boys. And you can convince him that what he did was wrong and that he should confess (although that ends with DiMa being publically executed)
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Apr 15, 2018 05:57
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its weird how the main game factions are. i guess the minutemen are the closest to the NCR style 'well intentioned but flawed' guys. then there's the railroad, who are well intentioned but crazy, the bos, who are crazy, and the institute, who are a less charming version of the robo scientists from the Big MT
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Apr 15, 2018 06:02
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I really wish the Institute made any kind of sense on any level, but they don't.
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Apr 15, 2018 06:20
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they're silicon valley dipshits who invent new things with no regard for how much worse it makes everyones lives edit: ive dealt with a lot of university STEMlords and the institute seems accurate to how an organisation they would build would pan out. no common sense, no knowledge of how people think, very poor understanding of how anything works outside their specific field of expertise. its mostly surprising they actually survived for so long. juggalo baby coffin fucked around with this message at 06:44 on Apr 15, 2018 |
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Apr 15, 2018 06:38
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juggalo baby coffin posted:they're silicon valley dipshits who invent new things with no regard for how much worse it makes everyones lives the think tank had already done this better and funnier though (old world blues would be my favourite part of all of new vegas if the Big MT was a little less, well, empty, but for the main quest).
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Apr 15, 2018 06:47
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Neurosis posted:the think tank had already done this better and funnier though (old world blues would be my favourite part of all of new vegas if the Big MT was a little less, well, empty, but for the main quest). Arguably the ground was already laid for the Institute in F3, its more that Avellone didn't give two shits about it when writing Old World Blues later on (nor should he have). I guess it's more an example of Beth's weak design decisions that the vague description in F3 of an advanced sciencey place with synths ended up being exactly that and not actually expanded upon at all. Slightly off-topic but speaking of ~Avellone~ do you think OWB was supposed to be wacky from the start? Dead Money and Lonesome Road are pretty close in tone, and the Big Empty mentioned in DM feels like it was gonna be along those lines until they decided to dial the jokes up to 11. The joke about it actually being Big MT but everyone gets it wrong feels like a retcon in and of itself, and the few actual ties to the Sierra Madre are just kind of awkwardly crammed in there and don't even really 'fit' if that makes sense.
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Apr 15, 2018 07:00
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Wolfsheim posted:Arguably the ground was already laid for the Institute in F3, its more that Avellone didn't give two shits about it when writing Old World Blues later on (nor should he have). I guess it's more an example of Beth's weak design decisions that the vague description in F3 of an advanced sciencey place with synths ended up being exactly that and not actually expanded upon at all. interesting question. it does feel out of keeping with avellone's standard writing. he was just one of several narrative designers on it, albeit he was the production lead; maybe he gave more control the other guys on this one?
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Apr 15, 2018 07:06
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it felt like a breather dlc. like all the other dlcs were very serious and dark in tone, so they threw one fun one in there.
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Apr 15, 2018 07:31
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The Big Empty (as a world play on Big MT) was a thing since early Van Buren plans. That's very much not a retcon. It also makes sense that in Dead Money they'd focus on the horrific stuff in there, instead of the dick jokes.
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Apr 15, 2018 08:38
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I think Empty=MT is one of those "new generation misinterprets what old world names mean, but in doing so end up with a more honest name" things that Fallout has always had. I could see the DLC being rewritten to be more comical after getting the Venture Bros VA's (especially since said humor is almost entirely confined to the Think Tank), though.
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Apr 15, 2018 09:03
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Man if the next Fallout/TES has like Far Harbour writing I'm gonna be so happy. Cause I'm not really asking for incredible writing, Obsidian stuff would be nice, but if Bethesda could at least manage competent the games would be so much better.StashAugustine posted:i went to a therapist and had to explain why i started laughing at the two bears high fiving inkblot Internet Kraken posted:I thought therapists didn't even do ink blot tests anymore. Space Cadet Omoly posted:They don't, ink blot tests (also known as Rorschach tests) are widely discredited. I believe the above poster was making a "joke". I asked my therapist about it (cause he didn't do it and was curious) and he said while it's discredited as a diagnostic tool and what people say they see is utterly meaningless or impossible to meaningfully interpret, it's also kinda fun and some therapists still like it as something to put people at ease (because it's expected) and open them up a bit. So Stashaugustine's reaction there, if they weren't just making a joke, was probably exactly what their therapist wanted.
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Apr 15, 2018 09:23
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Wolfsheim posted:Slightly off-topic but speaking of ~Avellone~ do you think OWB was supposed to be wacky from the start? Dead Money and Lonesome Road are pretty close in tone, and the Big Empty mentioned in DM feels like it was gonna be along those lines until they decided to dial the jokes up to 11. The joke about it actually being Big MT but everyone gets it wrong feels like a retcon in and of itself, and the few actual ties to the Sierra Madre are just kind of awkwardly crammed in there and don't even really 'fit' if that makes sense. I 100% think OWB was meant to be wacky as hell from the start, that's a big part of what makes the Think Tank so wonderfully horrifying. Dead Money shows us just how destructive the inventions the scientists at the big MT make can be: the cloud has turned an entire town into a zombie infested hellhole where no life can survive, in the wrong hands it could destroy the entire world. They're built up to be these omnipotent evil masterminds, Gods that control everything from behind the scenes. Then you actually meet them: turns out they're loving dorks. They're responsible for untold amounts of destruction and countless deaths, but they're still just loving dorks. They didn't make the cloud as part of some larger master plan, someone just paid them to make a death cloud so they made a death cloud. Oh, and while we're making that death cloud how about we make hazmat suits that don't actually work so we can test what happens when people get exposed to the death cloud? Haha, oh man I bet that'll be cool! There's very little point to the terrible things they do, they're silly and petty and they have killed so many people doing things that were completely avoidable. The world was ended because of people like them, smart people with no common sense making horrible things because someone paid them to. Fallout 4 really should have played up this angle with the Institute.
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Apr 15, 2018 10:58
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That definitely fits Borous, but I think there's enough ambiguity/extenuating circumstances that let you wonder if the Think Tank were originally better people before their falling-out with Mobius. For example in the Madre Sinclair intentionally didn't care about the longevity of anything outside the vault and holograms, so its entirely possible he ordered the MT designs knowing they had flaws. Not to say they were perfect people before degrading into parody-droids; Zero always had an inferiority complex, Dala was always sexually repressed, Klein was always arrogant (which probably resulted in selling flawed tech in the first place), 8 was always a perv, Borous was always a psycho, and Mobius always had an addiction problem. Its just that their dehumanizing state has exacerbated those problems.
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Apr 15, 2018 12:09
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The good karma ending for OWB where you keep everybody alive is one of my favorite game endings. 
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Apr 16, 2018 00:40
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I HAVE BEEN UPLOADED WITH THE BRAIN OF... DOCTOR MOBIUS
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Apr 16, 2018 00:49
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