Fallout 4 - What the Press Wants

Myrthos

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No Mutants Allowed collected several articles on what game journalists would like to see in Fallout 4.

It's been quite a while since we last did a proper tidbits round-up, but we're making up for it with a meatier one than usual, starting with a couple of interesting editorials outlining expectations for the inevitable Fallout 4. First, GameSpot's Kevin Van Ord asks Bethesda to develop a stronger identity for their take on the series, to further separate it from their Elder Scrolls titles:


And thus what I want most of all is for Fallout 4 to be its own unique entity, with vague ties, if any, to Elder Scrolls mechanics and structure. The nostalgic Fallout fan in me longs for isometric exploration and turn-based strategic combat, but I believe that the console-driven world in which we live precludes the possibility. Therefore, Bethesda needs to do all it can to make Fallout look and feel different from its other famous series. A good place to start is with combat: Fallout 3 and New Vegas allowed for real-time shooting, but no one could accuse those games of feeling like actual shooters. There are two possibilities here, presuming Fallout 4 doesn't just copy its predecessors' combat. The first is to go full-on shooter and make gunplay (and swordplay) fluid and fun. To do so would either require the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System to be overhauled so that players couldn't just shoot their way through every encounter in real time (does anyone want Fallout to become Rage?), or require V.A.T.S. to be scrapped altogether, a prospect I don't relish. The second possibility is to remove real-time shooting and make Fallout 4's combat fully tactical
More information.
 
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Nice post.... I'm sooo dreaming about Fallout4, although I haven't completed New Vegas yet... I just hope that F4 will be released asap!
 
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Any FO4 discussion is fun, but I can't disagree more with the excerpt paragraph. Go either full-shooter or full-tactical? Why? I like it just the way it is…

I like it just the way it is, too. Please, no TB, tactical/strategy crap. If you want a slow, table-top game with cute little chess-type pieces, go out and buy one.

I like FO 3 and FO: NV as-is and for what they are. Don't mess with success, just tweak or polish a tad.
 
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The actual combat in FO3/FNV could stand to be improved significantly. Often, you're forced into using VATS, whether you prefer to or not, simply because of the erratic movement of enemies once they've spotted you. And the vanilla spot/detection system is laughable: "oh, Joe got his head blown clean off, but everything must be fine because we didn't hear a gunshot."

So, I agree with the gist of the article - if you're game is already a first person shooter for the most part, at least make the mechanics less hamfisted.

Realistically speaking, this article is pointless just like other wishlists for FO4. Bethesda will use its 15 year old Morrowind Oblivion Skyrim engine, build a cute world around it, and throw in simplistic dialogue and quests as an afterthought.
 
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They could implement a V.A.T.S. in a real time shooter by allowing it to be used in flow motion with hit location targeting overlays. The target would still move continually, but it would allow old farts like me to play it without requiring the reflexes I once had.
 
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I think the VATS system needs overhauled. Maybe they can make it a slow-time element instead of pause and queue. Pause and queue takes away all the visceral fun of combat, but trying to play F3 or FNV without VATS was way out of my league.

They should think how to implant Skyrim combat fun to Fallout. Skyrim with guns, Skyrim with guns! The old Fallouts are dead so they should kill off VATS and just make it the best action RPG possible.
 
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Exactly. Just tweak and polish the original FO 1&2 combat system.

Ha. Sounds good to me. But since I'm getting my turn based fix from several Kickstarters I'm fine with FO4 being a shooter, which is of course what it will be. I'll buy it anyway I recon.
 
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The only way going back to the original combat system would work is if they also went back to an isometric view.

No thanks. :)
 
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I think the VATS system needs overhauled. Maybe they can make it a slow-time element instead of pause and queue. .

Mods for Fallout 3 implemented a slow time alternative called "bullet time" (VATS is still available as well). I think this is included in Fallout 3 Wanderer's Edition, which I am playing with right now. Wanderer's edition also implements some hardcore elements like required eating and drinking, although not as well as JE Sawyer's mod for New Vegas.
 
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Let me guess, this is the same guy who was hired by Bioware to make Dragon Age 1 "BETTER." Well, maybe not but it sounds like the same kind of thinking.

The rig I played Fallout Vegas on was about to give up the ghost. I could not play more than 30 minutes without my computer giving me the blue screen of death (Oh, I would have killed for a crash to desktop).

And yet, Fallout Vegas turned out to be in my top 5 of all time best games. It would be like manna from heaven if Bethesda would just update the engine and give us a different story in the Boston area.

Please Bethesda people who read this forum, do not listen to that Gamespot guy.
 
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Let me guess, this is the same guy who was hired by Bioware to make Dragon Age 1 "BETTER." Well, maybe not but it sounds like the same kind of thinking.

The rig I played Fallout Vegas on was about to give up the ghost. I could not play more than 30 minutes without my computer giving me the blue screen of death (Oh, I would have killed for a crash to desktop).

And yet, Fallout Vegas turned out to be in my top 5 of all time best games. It would be like manna from heaven if Bethesda would just update the engine and give us a different story in the Boston area.

Please Bethesda people who read this forum, do not listen to that Gamespot guy.

Well, it wasn't exactly the setting that made New Vegas such a great game. It was the developer (Obsidian). So if that's what we want for Fallout 4, the yes, Bethesda can develop the engine and editor, and then give it all to Obsidian to make a new game...
 
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As for how they implement the combat, make vats like bullet time so its not the win key that it is now.

Also I would like to see vehicles in fallout, mad max style.
 
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All I want to see in FO4 is the absence of endless respawns.
I admit it's not just that what bothered me in FO3, but assuming everything else will not be worse than in FO3, the most important thing for me is a system where I can't reach the levelcap just because of the grinder/filler crap.
 
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All I want to see in FO4 is the absence of endless respawns.
I admit it's not just that what bothered me in FO3, but assuming everything else will not be worse than in FO3, the most important thing for me is a system where I can't reach the levelcap just because of the grinder/filler crap.

I completely forgot about the level cap crap. You're right about that. That absolutely has to go.

The thing about the respawns though is that I didn't like it, but the way they handled it in FOV was better than most. I recall one of the respawned mobs was a gang that hung out sorta close to the airport. When the mob respawned, they had different and better equipment and they were harder to beat. It kinda made sense that this mob would be better prepared for me the next time we met. Still, I like the Gothic method better, let me clear the area out until the next chapter.

OTOH, what we want is not what the so called press wants. I hope the press does not hold more sway.
 
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