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ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Pillbug

Psychotic Weasel posted:

Alternatively - a method that doesn't involve murdering children (seriously, why was this such a loving obsession for so long?) just engage combat, punch each kid one or twice until they've got to low HP, then allow them to flee and end combat. They will eventually return to their 'post' but every time you approach they will run away again. But without engaging combat. They also have no allied NPCs nearby so you don't have to fight off the entire town.

I think those little thieving bastards are the reason it's an obsession. They were the most irritating part of FO2 by far.

Actually I don't think it was an actual obsession there was just somebody that became infamous and started a massive flamewar that spanned the entire internet for bitching that you couldn't just kill MacCready in FO3. In 1 and 2 you could kill children but you got the Childkiller perk which made basically everybody hate you. After that they just went "all children are essential and you can't even meaningfully hurt them." Then that guy came along and was all blustery like "yeah well if somebody won't let me go where I want I'll just kill them" like it was totally normal and rational to want to kill everything in a cave of nothing but children because the guy at the door wouldn't let you in right away.

Other people have whined that it isn't realistic that you can't just kill every single thing that's alive like you could in the first two games and...uh, well realism has never been the strong point of video games. They're games. They aren't supposed to perfectly mimic life.

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ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Pillbug

Freaking Crumbum posted:

i could see it being the case that the kids should be trivially easy to intimidate in 3. like, i have a kid, so i know they can be obstinate assholes if they feel like it, but kids are also really easily frightened because it's literally a survival mechanism that has been selected for via the magic of human evolution. i don't recall little lamplight being so bad that i felt like you should be able to murder all the kids in there, but there definitely should have been an option to fire a couple warning shots into the air at the first roadblock and basically have all the kids flee the cave.

You can just call him a butt and he lets you in. It isn't like it's difficult to get past him. I'm going to guess the guy in question never, ever did a speech-base run of any game ever and just shot his way through every problem imaginable.

Which...kind of misses the point of Fallout games. Even so I think the guy was probably just a jerk with dominance issues. "I go where I want and this gun agrees with me! Raarrrrgggghhhh!"

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Pillbug

OneMoreTime posted:

Ok so this changes things a bit, I thought there were bigger consequences like settlers leaving or something. Maybe I'll actually load up my old fallout 4 save then.

Nope. The only real consequence is they become a bit less productive so it doesn't really matter all that much. The simplest way to deal with it is to just overproduce the gently caress out of everything. Like have multiple settlements just making GBS threads out food and water and quit caring. They need to be absurdly unhappy for a long period of time before they'll say "gently caress you."

Though the only thing that actually matters about settlements is that industrial water purifiers are basically mints. Money just kind of quits mattering once you get enough of them set up.

ToxicSlurpee fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Jan 31, 2018

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Pillbug

Mr E posted:

I'm starting a new New Vegas playthrough. I haven't really played an evil/rear end in a top hat playthrough, but I hate Caesar's Legion and don't wanna join them. Can I still play through fine and without joining them while still being kinda evil?

Yup. You can do basically any faction as a total bastard. You could even go the super ultra selfish route of "Vegas is mine and nobody else's and I'm going to murder and eat everything and everybody I want to."

MikeJF posted:

The main reason people prefer 3 to 4 is that 4 is just unfinished, nonsensical and often just irritating, even if it is more mature than 3 in many ways.

Fallout 4 is unpolished and buggy as hell. Fallout 3 felt more like a Fallout game just because of all the insane poo poo going on. Granted like was said the supermutants quit being scary and started being pushovers but other than that it felt like digging around in the ruins as best you could. Braun is probably one of the most Fallout things to ever happen in the series and showed how nakedly immoral the Vault experiment actually was. Imperfect as it was Fallout 3 was obviously crafted with more attention and care than 4.

4 doesn't even know what the gently caress it wants to be.

ToxicSlurpee fucked around with this message at 09:47 on Jan 31, 2018

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Pillbug

Yandat posted:

If I buy and play Fallout 4 for the first time, GOTY edition - should I just disable Automatron, the workshops, and Nuka-World DLC and just leave Far Harbor in?

I don't plan on using mods.

Automaton is actually good for the robot building if nothing else. Robot companions are pretty nice and the quest line was actually entertaining; it went with the zaniness that showed up in the original Fallouts and takes the piss out of comic books a bit. Nuka-World you could take or leave; the story is tremendously loving stupid and whatever you do save before you hop on the train and don't immediately do it at level 30. Raider settlements are underwhelming but there are some real neat toys to play with in the gear.

The workshop DLC is completely useless except for the ammunition factory.

To be honest my advice is to not buy Fallout 4. As much as I've played the crap out of it and enjoyed parts the game is horrendously buggy and the writing is frequently awful. Maybe get it if it's on sale at some point; that's when I snagged it. With how bad the quality is I'd have been pretty cranky if I paid full price for it.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Pillbug

Glazius posted:

The fusion reactor, powered soil water pump, and decontamination arch are also useful to have. The various traps are at least simple to set up and use.

Oh, right...I forgot those are in the factory. Yeah the fusion reactor is god damned fantastic.

Speaking of which...the Vault DLC has an even better fusion reactor that craps out an obscene amount of power. Forgot about that DLC; it's another one with a lot of fun toys. It's also worth playing through once just for Clem.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Pillbug

achillesforever6 posted:

Yeah I remember from the first trailer when it showed a city skyline of the city it looked way bigger and lit up than what we got (granted that's the difference between a cutscene trailer and the actual game) Another thing I have problems with is how there are too many places where it doesn't make sense that its trashed, like the NOVAC hotel rooms could at least look semi clean and not on the verge of collapse.

That's one thing that honestly bothers me about the newer Fallout games, 4 especially; you'd think somebody would at the very least figure out what a god damned broom is somewhere along the way. Even in Fallout 1 you had things like Shady Sands where people were building structures that didn't leak. They weren't big and didn't have modern amenities but they had solid roofs. Fast forward to Fallout 4 and most of what you can build has so many holes you start thinking "why even bother?"

It would make sense if you started out building leaky shacks out of scavenged boards and sheets of rusty scrap but in a world where The Institute exists you'd think somebody, somewhere would be able to do basic carpentry. Instead we get this whole "everybody lives in horrifying squalor or are 100% isolated from the world" crap going on. Even Diamond City, supposedly a huge place that's the best the Commonwealth has to offer, is a dirty hovel.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Pillbug

Gaius Marius posted:

I find Star Wars to be pretty dull, the original trilogy are good movies but the prequels are boring and the new ones are trash. If it's just a janky mass effect with a star wars paint coat I'll probably stay away.

KOTOR has one of the best plot twists in the history of everything. If you don't know what it is play it for just that.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Pillbug

Gaius Marius posted:

It's like the one thing I know about it

Yeah that right there actually ruins like half the main story soooooo...meh. Pass it if you want.

Or get it on Steam during a sale and dick around with it until you lose interest.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Pillbug

Wolfsheim posted:

Take Nick, but feel free to swap him out for Old Longfellow (the new Far Harbor companion, his cabin is a settlement) when you take a break from the main quest to go roaming the island. Guy makes a great hunting and drinking buddy.

He's also probably the easiest companion to get maximum affinity with. You can literally do it by standing in one spot and chugging bourbon until he loves you.

But yeah Nick's history with some pieces of Far Harbor is pretty unique among the companions; it does a lot to set the stage. If nothing else take him to talk to DIMA.

Really though Old Longfellow is the best companion in the game. Who wouldn't want a salty old fisherman to follow you around and drink absurd amounts of booze with?

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Pillbug
Fallout 4 just feels rushed and unpolished. Like it'd be fine if the released version was a beta that just needed some work. Instead it's buggy and the story is stupid. The world just feels sterile and dead. It feels like what you do doesn't even really matter all that much beyond what factions you decided to murder.

One of the things that made Fallout 1 and 2 so incredible is that you got to decide how you interacted with the world. You could be a complete amoral bastard, a nice guy that helped everybody, or completely indifferent. You could totally ignore the side quests if you wanted and generally speaking could beat the games with minimal to no fighting if you wanted to go that route. It was up to the player how you interacted with the world as it is presented. More importantly the world is revealed in pieces. You don't even see power armor until later in the game. The stuff that became iconic became iconic because the game plopped crazy poo poo in front of you as the game progressed and was like "yeah forget what you thought you knew poo poo is different now."

Fallout 4 just drops the iconic stuff right in your face at the very beginning and does its best to railroad you into the story. You're told to go to Concord then hey there's power armor and a deathclaw! But oh gently caress you, you need fusion cores for power armor now so you barely get to use this fancy new toy and lol if you meet a deathclaw any time again soon (which you won't, by the way) because they will gently caress you right up if you don't have power armor or aren't high level. The beginning seriously reads like "by the way, in case you forgot, this is a Fallout game. Here are all the checkboxes for a Fallout game. We checked them all!" It's not long after that that you meet Danse and the Brotherhood. Then the game vomits a bunch of hamfisted, badly written nonsense all over everything. Even the foreshadowing Danse does feels stupid. "We're detecting signals! They require technology! WE MUST KNOW WHAT THAT IS!!!" Then he just hangs around the police station until the rest of the Brotherhood shows up doing crap all.

The settlement building also makes no drat sense because without the Vault-Tec DLC all you can build is a bunch of dingy, leaky shacks. Because it's the apocalypse!!! It's like come on folks humans are pretty clever and can get past leaky shacks. We figured that poo poo out before we figured out writing. I'm pretty sure some power armored junk farmers can figure out how to slap together a roof that doesn't leak. Bricks aren't actually all that hard to make and you can even make them out of mud, straw, and sunlight.

Of course you also can't equip the settlers to deal with raiders themselves. Even if you have a settlement with 40 people all in power armor they'll still claim they can't do anything about six raiders with pipe rifles dressed in rusty scrap metal. "We can't stand up to those raiders!!!" Yes you can you dumb rear end. All of you are armed to the teeth and you outnumber that band of raiders 5:1. Just go gently caress them up.

ToxicSlurpee fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Feb 14, 2018

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Berke Negri posted:

I definitely know countless friends that in games like KOTOR1/2 will go dark side for the kicks of it but can probably count on one hand with fingers to spare people I know (or admitted to) going full Legion in FNV, they're really so despicable its hard to stomach them

Yeah usually I'll do the good guy/light side run in a game first then do a bad guy run. In the case of Fallout 1 and 2 the last time I played it was a "I will murder literally everything" run. In 2 I beat the game without ever equipping a weapon on that one; my guy just punched the world to death.

Despite all of that I never even started the Legion quest line once. I debate doing it sometimes just for the cheevo but even then I'm like "gently caress the Legion. Seriously. gently caress. The. Legion."

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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2house2fly posted:

It's fun to do a Legion run if only for the endgame quests. Killing the president is fun (IN THIS FICTIONAL VIDEO GAME) and you get some cool dialogue with Lanius at the end. Of course the game doesn't really expect you to side with the Legion, to the point that even if you finish Lonesome Road with high Legion rep Ulysses will tell you how to defeat Lanius, because obviously you're not going to be joining him

I figure that's likely because Ulysses knows Lanius and is saying that you'll probably end up fighting him one way or another. Lanius is a hideous monster and somebody will have to put him down for the Legion to survive when Caesar dies. I figure in that case Ulysses just figures it would be the Courier because who the gently caress else could do it? Especially after surviving the Divide.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Pillbug

Neurolimal posted:

If we accept Tactics as canon (its not that bad guys!) Then there existed mutants smart enough to be able to try to find a solution to mutant sterility, and with how long-lived mutants are it's entirely possible that they might have found such a solution before dying out.

Lou Tenant/Attis might have found the cure in Vault-Tec's "lol gently caress you we're not going in our own test hovels" personal vault, he didn't survive his cronenberging long enough to make gently caress.

So I wouldn't say V Dweller necessarily saved the wasteland so much as avoided making green and blue the dominant skin colors.

There's actually multiple kinds of mutants; one of the reasons that most FEV mutants were stupid was because of some kind of contamination. It's never been explicitly stated what that was beyond theories. FEV does some weird poo poo depending on a lot of factors, hence Harold existing. He isn't a ghoul; he's a unique FEV mutant.

In any event that's why the Lieutenant wants your vault and would love to dip you in 1. "Prime normals" are those that haven't been exposed to FEV, don't have radiation damage, and haven't been ravaged by the wasteland. Generally only vault dwellers have that set of characteristics. Those people, when dipped, actually do become more intelligent and better than humans in literally every way; hence Lou being very intelligent. Fallout 2 touched on that by having Marcus not be totally braindead. You also see that in the Nightkin overall in later games. I feel like the later games ultimately forgot that though the east coast mutants were ultimately made in inferior ways. The Institute wasn't using prime normals though Virgil was a different thing; the game never does bother really explaining why Institute or Enclave mutants are so mentally flawed. Fallout 1 actually did explain that and this was the reason that most super mutants in 1 and 2 were not bright. Maybe it's just lovely strains of FEV or the process being different; when Mariposa gets blown to bits so much of what the Master's army did was lost.

Tactics actually played with that by having a few mutants that were able to properly think tactically and the scientists that were trying to solve the mutant sterility problem. Granted 2 also touched on that with Marcus. Granted in 1 the Master only asks a female if any of them have given birth; it would make sense in a way if male mutants could start producing sperm and impregnate regular humans but female mutants couldn't grow a baby because FEV would screw it up. Granted it would also make sense if that was just a joke or if Marcus only thought he could get a woman pregnant. Of course later games seem to hint that super mutants lose all of their sexual characteristics which doesn't jive with the first two games.

Super mutants in the first two games were actually an interesting, evolving, and legitimately scary enemy. They all had big guns and would gently caress you up if you didn't have good gear and high levels. They were nasty. Now in Fallout 4 they're faceless, stupid mooks with pipe rifles that you can take out by the dozen.

ToxicSlurpee fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Mar 3, 2018

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Pillbug

Internet Kraken posted:

The Matser's entire belief system hinged on super mutants being a logical progression of the human race. If their existence is dependent upon human reproduction then he hasn't actually evolved the race. So from his point of view he hasn't actually solved anything, which is why he kills himself.

Yup. That's why he loses his mind when he realizes that it's literally impossible for a female super mutant to become pregnant. His entire plan was to replace the human race entirely. No more humans. At all. None. All mutants.

If memory serves there were remnants of his army that wanted to continue the plan but they were basically the dregs; for the most part super mutants just kind of went "well the gently caress do we do now?" The ones that did keep dipping people weren't doing it quite right and didn't have access to the good stuff. Marcus and Friends went the whole "the Master was wrong so let's just coexist, k?" route. Others became ravenous, cannibalistic raiders without any leadership to control their stupid, broken brains. The Nightkin went slowly insane because of prolonged stealth boy use. They worked in groups and are generally portrayed as not stupid but their brains got damaged by that severely so some of them did regress. Others developed schizophrenia. Some became little more than ravenous, predatory animals.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Pillbug

Neurolimal posted:

Yeah, you totally could have a neat fallout society with dipping as a sort of second coming-of-age, but the Master's vision 100% was uniting all creeds as one; black, white, man, woman, american, chinese, all green, all swole. He loved the super mutants because he felt they could accomplish that.

I kind of want to see that as a plot for a Fallout game, actually; one of the smart mutants survived then took a band of stupids around with him to find some good FEV vats. That or he had a sample of the good FEV and wanted to recreate the vats. In any event it took him over 150 years to pull it off.

Then he did. Then he raided a vault, sealed it up, and started that kind of thing. Oh by the way, that vault just opened. Guess who gets to deal with it?

You could even run that one by having the player character be an escapee from the vault who didn't agree with the dipping. There are so many directions that story could go; is the process in the vault flawed? Is the smart leader a nightkin who has gone insane? Is the end goal total extermination of humanity again? Is the dipping voluntary or do the do a Logan's Run thing where once you turn 30 that's it?

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Neurolimal posted:

I think most people here dont hate it, they just feel like it's not really a Fallout game.

I believe I said this earlier in the thread, but if they had made it an original IP instead of Fallout it would have avoided a -lot- of flak. Even with the end product most of the Fallout-esque aspects are entirely visual references that could be tweaked into something else.

Yeah, I don't hate it. I had some fun with Fallout 4 but it's just...lacking. It also feels more like a beta than an actual release. It's so buggy and the writing is just begging for more meat.

It isn't a bad game so much as an unpolished mess that obviously had a lot of untapped potential. All the "Fallout" stuff felt more like it was stapled on to a non-Fallout game rather than put in an actual Fallout game.

Fallout 3, though...that game was legitimately bad.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Pillbug
I've had more problems with Fallout 4 than with any other Fallout game. I can't remember any of them ever crashing; worst I can remember is my car vanished once in 2. 4 keeps locking the screen on VATS, crashing to desktop, or various things that go horribly wrong with settlements. Some quests won't start or finish properly and I had to save and reload multiple times just to get Gage to open the damned door.

I didn't have anywhere near these issues with Morrowind or Oblivion. I didn't play Skyrim much.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Pillbug

Wolfsheim posted:

I'm pretty sure Oblivion crashed during character creation for me once

F1+2 also require a shitload of unofficial patches to even run (though I think the GOG versions include them by default)

That's common for trying to run games that old on modern machines. I played them when they came out.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Katt posted:

Thanks I really need to get working on FO1 and 2 but :effort: and I'll probably have to start over on FO1.

There's no doubt in my mind that Fallout 2 is one of the best games ever made. Granted it couldn't really have happened without 1. 2 is really a better game but part of that is because they got to do Fallout 1 but with more polish.

Fallout 1 was made over 20 years ago so do remember not to judge it compared to more recent games. Fallout runs on a 90 Mhz processor and only needs 16 MB of RAM. Still...if you didn't play it then I imagine you'll start seeing its influence everywhere since then. It's a very, very influential game.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Vakal posted:

Something I never got around to trying to do in F4 was building a giant tower.

Is there an invisible ceiling to the world, or can you just keep on building upwards until it just stops rendering the land beneath you?

There are ceilings in at least some places. I haven't tried building up everywhere but you can't get more than three or four floors in some of the areas. I got five floors somewhere, I think. Didn't try in every settlement.

I really just wanted to build a gigantic arcology out of the vault pieces but welp.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Pillbug

Arcsquad12 posted:

It's pretty easy to cheese the reloading bench. Breakdown surplus ammo and be swimming in match rounds.

The reloading bench might have been more interesting if there was any actual variety but really all you did was "break everything down, make the best bullets."

Azhais posted:

I liked power armor just being armor personally, when you didn't have to worry about carrying capacity getting hosed for ~reasons~ when you get in or breaking your legs when repairing it because their crafting interface is so terrible

Yeah Fallout 4's power armor is so terrible I don't ever bother actually using it. Having to deal with fusion cores is just irritating and goes against how power armor worked in literally every other Fallout. I might give a suit to a companion to stomp around in but even that is annoying because you inevitably have to fix it all the drat time. It also really, really shouldn't have shown up so early in the game. Like seeing somebody in power armor once or twice early would have been fine but just throwing a suit at the player and then going "lol gently caress you get some fusion cores if you want to use this shiny toy at all" was a terrible design decision. Really fusion cores in general were stupid. It maybe could have made sense if they lasted longer or could at least be recharged while explaining that all the old fusion batteries finally ran out but as is it's bad.

I could have accepted power armor being something that you can climb in and out of if everything else about it wasn't so drat stupid.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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8one6 posted:

Everyone is entitled to their opinions and all but it's just so alien to me when I read people saying that they don't like the changes to power armor that FO4 made. It went from being just the high end suit you ended up always wearing in 3/NV to being a sweet vehicle that had real pros and cons.

Also, it's me, I'm the one who like garbage-based minecraft. I legitimately enjoy the settlement building and hoarding globes and microscopes and I hope FO5 expands on the system. Like, if FO5 had some 4X elements for actually expanding your control of whatever wasteland it ends up set in or setting up mostly-functional governments I'd loving love it.

I like the settlement building too. I just think it's way too shallow; you should start with leaky shacks but eventually be able to builder nicer things. That and either dismantle or repair all the houses in Sanctuary. Or really any damaged building in the settlements in general that you can't tear down.

The concrete is obviously an upgrade but it still doesn't have proper windows. Meanwhile the vault stuff is OK but kind of boring.

There's also no actual mechanical choices to really be made with the settlements. Food, water, beds, some stores, some happiness and...OK I'm done, next one. Food, water, beds, some stores, some happiness and...

Hopefully it gets better in future games but right now it's bland as gently caress. It feels like beta software that was just stapled on because the kids like buildy games these days.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Dongicus posted:

it's not queerbaiting.

her getting sad endings is concurrent with every other companion including the extremely gay Arcade

Pretty much all of Veronica's endings are terrible for her. She pretty much always either ends up dead or a solitary wanderer. Arcade at least has happy endings. Even though some of them end up with him disillusioned with the Followers a lot of them end up with him happily working as a doctor for the rest of his life.

Plus the game seems to really, really want you to blow up the Brotherhood. Even though she's more or less and outcast she isn't totally disconnected from them when you meet her. For better or worse that's her family but the game is like "hey you should murder all these people. Really. Do it. Do it now."

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Pillbug

Azhais posted:

Fallout 1 they were cool and good, ending even says they become a research and development house to help the wastelands. Fallout 2 retconned them to being people that just wanted to preserve tech.

Then 3+ they became increasingly militant assholes

Given how much time has passed between the various games it's perfectly reasonable that they changed a lot. Really their fundamental philosophy is to control technology so the past doesn't happen again. There are some serious, fundamental flaws with that attitude. It'd be pretty difficult to keep being good guys with that kind of ethos going on. It also didn't help that the technology they hoarded didn't save them; they keep getting the poo poo kicked out of them and their self-righteous attitude toward what is and is not OK has always put them at odds with others. Becoming increasingly militant pricks really was inevitable.

Even though after Fallout 1 they made nice with the wastes and shared technology they still had a strong desire to hoard it and prevent past issues. No way would they let the fanciest things into other peoples' hands and "we'll decide what is and is not OK for you to have" pretty much mandates becoming increasingly authoritarian. That also isn't exactly the best way to make pals with your neighbors especially with a strict policy of "no outsiders allowed with very few exceptions."

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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grobbo posted:

For instance, people have been citing Trejo as another bad performance, but it is at least a tired and disinterested reading of a perpetually tired and disinterested character.

Yeah I had no problems with Raul's voice work there. He's a ghoul over 200 years old that has seen an unbelievable amount of poo poo. He's old, cranky, sarcastic, and has had enough of this crap. It worked for his overall attitude of "well, guess I'm with this chucklehead now. Whatever. Beats being locked up by Tabitha."

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Space Cadet Omoly posted:

Do you get different rewards based on who you help? or is it purely an aesthetic choice? I'd rather let the Operators (they seem pretty suave) and the Pack (they like bright colors and animals, I can relate) live a bit longer and kill the Disciples (these guys freak me the gently caress out) off first. But this can change if I get better stuff killing someone else (before killing them all that is).

You made the right choice; the Disciples actually have the shittiest rewards on top of being creepy and weird. The Pack and Operator perks are just insane. You can only get two of the gangs' rewards and the Disciples ones just suck.

You are also correct to murder the rest of them.


frajaq posted:

Because they said as much (from interviews with Todd and comments by Pete Hines) that they consider the Fallout IP as their playground where "anything goes"

They really don't have a ton of consistency with the Elder Scrolls either. Like the basics are basically always there but the world became significantly less insane after Morrowind. Cyrodiil was supposed to be extremely thickly wooded; actually a jungle in some places. The trees also weren't just trees either. Green Emperor Way was supposed to be where the souls of emperors went when they died. They inhabited trees and advised new emperors. Or something like that...in any event one of the things that made Morrowind so cool was how utterly alien the world ultimately was.

I mean hey crazy, ancient wizards that live in big rear end mushrooms, people worshipping decaying, mortal "gods" that were never gods at all and literally stole their power, dwarves that were actually elves that just kind of up and vanished one day and nobody knew just what the gently caress, literal demon ruins dotting the landscape that people used as landmarks to give each other directions... Other than stuff like the Daedra showing up Oblivion and Skyrim were just generic fantasy worlds, really. The Mythic Dawn kind of sort of were crazy but were just nowhere near the absolute madness of what happened in Morrowind. Even the Shivering Isles weren't really all that weird.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Space Cadet Omoly posted:

Me Either until I read it in this thread, I loved Trejo's performance in New Vegas. He's a perfect fit for the character and the world.


Good to know my insincts were correct here.

Also, Porter Gage's backstory is giving me a real guilt trip: It's all about how he was betrayed by a boss he trusted and then never trusted anyone again until he met me, who unbeknownst to him is fully intending to betray and murder him.

Gage is a pretty great character: he's clearly a lovely person with no desire to change his ways or improve himself, but he's charming and laid back enough that you can't help but like the guy. Evil, but not cartoonishly evil or unlikable.

Eh, I couldn't feel the least bit guilty about eventually betraying him. He was originally a farmer until his farm got raided when he was in his early teens (or 12 or something? Young either way) and decided "there's predators and prey and gently caress you I'm gonna be a predator!" He was a raider from then on out. No remorse or anything and then later says that he'd rather be the hidden influence than the leader. He likes being second in command because he can yank on the strings and direct things but never get the blame. Nuka World was basically his brain child and he set up Colter as the leader on purpose. Once everybody started to question the whole gig as it wasn't going too great Gage set up Colter to take the fall even though it was entirely Gage's doing in the first place.

Gage is an immoral, self-serving sociopath that would have sold the player out at the drop of a hat if it ever suited him to do so. He's a calculating manipulator that cares only for himself. Really the fact that they managed to do that properly makes him a pretty good character. He's a raider through and through. He's extremely slow to trust because he knows how raiders think and they'll dick over anybody at any time if there's enough caps in it.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Space Cadet Omoly posted:

I mean, nothing you're saying is wrong, but I still like the guy. Doesn't mean I won't kill him, doesn't mean I don't think he deserves to be killed (the game makes it clear he's been doing many bad things for a very long time), but I still kind of wish it wasn't that way.

I don't think he's a total sociopath either. I think, maybe, if he had grown up differently, seen good triumph over evil more often or met some people he could actually trust a little earlier, he might not have ended up being what he is. But he didn't, and now he's old and set in his ways and won't ever change and Imma gunna have to put a bullet in his brain.

Also, does anyone else find it weird that he's romance-able? There are five romance-able guys in this game, but only three romance-able girls, what's up with that?

I found myself liking him too, to be honest. That's why I think he's a well-written sociopath. Video game monsters like that tend to be bloodthirsty madmen who choose the least moral option in every situation by default. If he went by video game sociopath logic he would have tried to fight the people that screwed him over and probably died in the process.

Real sociopaths generally act more or less like Gage. As much as he wanted revenge he realized it wouldn't happen so he just shrugged and left it at that. When he's talking to you before and after the Gauntlet he sounds like he just wants to help you out of this terrible situation you're in even though it's entirely his fault you're there in the first place. Then he uses you to get the heat off of him, get rid of Colter, and set himself up to be second in command to a badass raider lord with a mountain of caps. He's your pal as long as you're useful. Even then you're still a tool for his means and nothing else.

I kind of wonder if he was written that way on purpose or if it was purely accidental. Despite being a hideous monster he actually is pretty likable. The way he talks makes him sound almost safe to be around.

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Nov 5, 2003

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Nasgate posted:

IMO the corniness is kind of necessary. Otherwise you end up with nothing but a seriously hosed up world with hosed up people. LISA is another example of this. If i weren't for the dark comedy and absurdity in that game it'd be 100% depressing. And Nihilism is in general a bad attitude to convey, not to mention boring to read.

The nice thing about the corniness and wackiness is that it shows that the game isn't taking itself too seriously. The series is ridiculous and stupid. It knows that it's ridiculous and stupid. It never tries to hide it. It's based on 1950's retrofuturism that in retrospect looks completely insane.

...but that's why it works. It says "what if that really was the future?" then blows that future right the gently caress up and builds a world in the ashes. Instead of nuclear war scouring life from the Earth completely the radiation and FEV team up to make a world that makes absolutely no damned sense. Then we get stories about people surviving in that world.

It works specifically because it's so baffling and ridiculous.

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Nov 5, 2003

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Brazilianpeanutwar posted:

Vampire bloodlines is very atmospheric,lots of great voice acting,the graphics as far i'm concerned are still great,and it's just a very enjoyable game,but yeah like people have said it's very buggy and the ending levels are absolute tosh.

One of the issues is that it was one of the first games ever made on the Source engine. They were basically working with an early access version of it which hosed up all sorts of things.

I think they also ended up with budget issues, some executive shenanigans, and other such bullshit which led them to rush the last chunk of the game. The sewers are infamous for being a horrible, thankless slog through copy/pasted combat encounters. "Perfect poo poo storm" really sums up a lot of the game's development but holy gently caress balls is the writing incredible. The game does a good job of capturing just how bleak and hopeless being a vampire actually is, how hideously Machiavellian they are in the setting, and how horrifying the Sabbat can be. Definitely worth a play if you can get the drat thing to run.

It also has the fantastic moment of "you've made a powerful enemy today, sign." If you haven't played it yet play it twice. First as anything that isn't a Malkavian. Then as a Malkavian.

...trust me.

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Nov 5, 2003

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Internet Kraken posted:

I remember people being really mad that someone in the Institute had made synth gorillas. Out of all the stupid poo poo they do you're gonna choose to focus on the guy making robot monkeys as being the big writing problem?

Really if they wanted to properly portray a bunch of disconnected turbonerds it should have been something incredibly stupid.

"We made synthetic dolphins with fairy wings! They can play chess but we designed them specifically to be really, really bad at it."

"...why?"

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Nov 5, 2003

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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. :qq:

Speaking of, their whole deal is that they wipe synths' minds so the can start next lives. So really, they don't care about the fundamental personhood of the synth, just whether their bodies are enslaved.

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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Nov 5, 2003

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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."

No one would act like that was a reasonable suggestion.

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.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Space Cadet Omoly posted:

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.

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

ToxicSlurpee
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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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Nov 5, 2003

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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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Nov 5, 2003

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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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Nov 5, 2003

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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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ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

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Space Cadet Omoly posted:

Same, I love the think tank. They've done such horrible things, but they're just so endearing, and as they are now they're not really threat to anyone as long as they're contained. In spite of everything I don't want to destroy them, I'd rather just help them find a bit of their lost humanity and then let them keep on going through their science loop.

My thought was more or less "you know, what was already done to them is punishment enough. Poor old loonies have totally lost it. They'd have no idea what was going on if I told them to 'just like keep sciencing, I guess' and let them continue to completely fail to accomplish anything at all." In the state they're in when you meet them they just plain can't hurt anything.

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