Fallout 4 - Fails at the Hands of Witcher 3

Its not even a contest, TW3 absolutely destroyed all competition

Fallout 4 will be a good hack & slash in a few years, with 289138120 mods

Now is just a half-done wreck, like vanilla Skyrim was

Originally Posted by RPGFool
Fallout 4 and Witcher 3 are both great games.

But they are different.

Yes they are different

One is a polished game, the other is half of a game

One is hand-crafted, the other is copy-pasted, The Bethesda way (algorithms over human personnel)

Originally Posted by Dajjer
There is hundreds of hours of play in F4.

There is infinite hours of play in tetris , so it clearly beats FO4
Obviously "Fun" is a moot argument.

The fact is FO4 is very mediocre and failed to produce anything meaningful in the long term except herds of low-standard reddit hipsters

Originally Posted by luj1
Its not even a contest, TW3 absolutely destroyed all competition

Fallout 4 will be a good hack & slash in a few years, with 289138120 mods

Now is just a half-done wreck, like vanilla Skyrim was

I think your opinion is too extreme to be taken seriously by anybody. Witcher 3 destroyed all competition that comes before or in the year 2015, true. Very few people will argue against that.

But there are things that matter to lots of gamers like customizable characters and variety that Witcher 3 couldn't offer. Here's hoping the next installment taking place in the Witcher universe allow you to create your own character, be it a witcher, a sorceress or a knight, etc and you can forge your own destiny and probably meet Gerald and co. =D

Gamers like Fallout 4 and Dragon Age do offer that variety on better terms. Fallout 4 is very polished, despite what you had to say about it, it's just sooooo watered down and counter-innovative. All the new features are so lazily implemented that you wouldn't believe they come out of the developer of this game (they play like some mods, albeit pretty good ones). I wouldn't go so far to call Skyrim unpolished, either. Yes, it has load of balancing issues, and it's rushed out of the door that critical new additions like the dragon fights and civil war as long as some quest lines are scratched. But it's hardly an unpolished mess. It's just a bit boring after a while, without any mods. Fallout 4, suffers particularly so, because it's the fourth installment upon this engine and formula that they have made any major improvement, and even Oblivion compared to Morrowind is 10 steps forward, 20 steps backward. When we hit F4, open-world RPG gamers are just tired already. If Beth doesn't make any major innovation in the next game, they will eventually become New World Computing…

They are both just games. It's not like they are religion or dietary preferences…

Originally Posted by Lev
Fallout 4 is different. NPC's are not so important in FO4. What important is exploration. What is waiting for you behind the corner?

Yeah, what is exactly waiting around that corner? More generic loot you don't care about in a another respawned chest. Guarded by ghouls that have been turned into cliche zombies or RaiderVariant01. All draped in a kill-everything-that-moves-hur-hur design philosophy.

Well, some people like it. Whatever. I'm done with Bethesda games; hopefully Obsidian gets a crack at another installment.

Originally Posted by Dajjer
There is hundreds of hours of play in F4.

Just Working the settlements alone and getting them all tidy and ready to defend is a whole game in itself.

Eh, one thing Bethesda did innovate with Fallout IV is with adding new player class to the same old, tiresome cliches:

Garbage Collector:

+ bonus weight capacity when carrying junk
+ more damage when wielding or throwing junk
+ extra sarcastic dialogue options ( developed due to socially stigmatized life style)
- lower charisma during conversations and generally just a very boring personality
- Preston

Too bad the author of the article used real games to support his argument because I think it's a valid one. By comparing W3 and FO4 his opinion was doomed to be lost and forgotten in the inevitable internet bloodlust of game comparison.

But to his broader point, that perhaps games and more in particular, CRPGs, could use more interactivity I absolutely agree with. The concept seemed to peek with Ultima VII waaaaay back in 1992 and with only a few exceptions peppered here and there throughout the decades since then, most game interactions really are about killing the foozle.

I crave for CRPGs that have a great story, character development, c&c, combat, world simulation, and interactivity all in one package. there are some, they are rare, and far too infrequent.

Originally Posted by jhwisner
Spoiler:

Nah you can beat the game with 3/4 of the factions loving you and sill very much alive. Even so, dicking around and exploring the wasteland for ever richer sources of aluminum cans and coffee cups was still more fun.

* FO4 Spoiler *

You sure? Then I missed something big. The only faction that you can leave alone it seems is the Minutemen-- but I still have some story left, so maybe they're next on the slaughter list. I chose to side with the Institute, and when I did that I was immediately told to slaughter the Railroad, and now 'Father' wants me to slaughter the Brotherhood. I have Charisma 9 and, while I could protest these orders, none were 'triggers' to convince him otherwise. The plot would NOT progress until I killed the leader of the Railroad, which of course meant I had to kill everyone else in the room as they aggro'd me as soon as I got to the church. The same thing is about to happen with the Brotherhood, though I may be done playing at this point.

I get the drama of having deep, moral decisions to make, and I knew at one point I'd have to pick a side, but the way it's being handled is just… silly.

Originally Posted by luj1
The fact is FO4 is very mediocre and failed to produce anything meaningful in the long term except herds of low-standard reddit hipsters

The fact is, you are not stating a fact, but posing your opinion like it is one.

You hardly talk about the game at all when you are posting your opinion.

How much of the game did you play? Did you acquire, plan and build settlements? Did you come to their aide when they needed help? Did you grow your settlement? Did upgrade your settlements to get the happiness factor up. Those duties are a part of the game. And once you have to worry about multiple settlements (I have 16), that is going to take some time. Yes you can chose to ignore them but I found the settlement part of the game fantastic.

And IMO, the sim part of this RPG/shooter is meaningful and I want more. When I play SimCity, I turn off the disasters because it's meaningless to me, but in F4, building, populating and defending your settlement has consequences. I've had NPCs die while defending their homes. I hope one of the DLCs Bethesda has planned addresses some of the problems and is settlement oriented.

So for me, No, Fallout 4 did not fail. I got 250 hours into Witcher 3, but I got over 500 in Fallout 4. There is just so much to see and do.

Another thing is are you reading the terminals, books and holo tapes within the game world? People talk about Bethesda not having any writing in their games but there are hundreds of mini-stories that are very compelling within the game world.

There is one story secured by reading the terminals where two twin brothers survive the nuclear holocaust and bunk together, but as time passes they both become more and more crazy and then . . .

Or there is one terminals story where a family has made a bunker but the wife did not make it back in time. The father is trying to send messages out to his wife hoping she will make it to him and the kids, but when you get in the bunker you find . . .

Or there is one building on the docks where the owner has tried to raise and tame Mierlurkers. He believed if you talk to them nice they will behave. While you are exploring this site you can hear this continuous happy talk over the loudspeaker
imploring his little mirkies to be good and not eat meat.

Or there is one building you break into. Two skeletons are laying of top of a safe one grapping the other by the throat, the other with a gun in his hand. Both heads turned toward the window.

Or the home where the little kid skeleton is in a big box playing checkers with his teddy bear friend.

It's like the designers said what would be happening in life, what would be going on, what would people be doing at the moment the bomb went off? Each Fallout game they get better and better at depicting that moment. These little mini stories and scenes are draped all over the landscape and it makes exploring this world so very, very compelling.

I'm still discovering little scenes like Dajjer, and agree it's nice way to show what happened after the bombs fell. I just found an old skeleton surrounded by dead cats & stuffed animals in a hotel room. Can't remember the hotels name.

As for settlements I spent days building them, and always find new ways to improve them. Just make sure to download a few mods to help build larger & better settlements.

Here are two more locations I found interesting.

Longneck Lukowski's Cannery

Link - http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Longne…'s_Cannery

Let's just say a settler was selling mysterious meat in a can.

Dunwich Borers

Link - http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Dunwic…28Fallout_4%29

A hunted area based on another area from Fallout 3. Think Poltergeist.

Taken form my reply on this thread.

Link - http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31532

Edit: I still agree about the forced violence and wasted locations the article writer mentions though. Bethesda could of made quests and dialogues for them also.

As it stands they choose to make the smaller factions pointless in the game.

Originally Posted by ChaosTheory
* FO4 Spoiler *

You sure? Then I missed something big. The only faction that you can leave alone it seems is the Minutemen-- but I still have some story left, so maybe they're next on the slaughter list.

He's right, at the end of my game every single faction was alive and fine with me except one (Institute). That's just one possible ending though. By siding with who you did, you chose a different path.

BTW, I think the way to "protest" those orders you mentioned, after already joining, would be to kill Father or enough synths (the Fallout 4 way for everything, right?), then the Institute turns against you and that will create new quests you could pick up from the Minutemen to lead to a different ending.

Dunwhich Boers is a fantastic side quest. It was done kind of different than the other game quests and near the end it was scary.

Like . .

That part of the game had 3 levels going on. The raiders who were holed up there. The story behind the mine operations. And the resultant consequences of that story. One of many good side quests stories that make up for the relatively poor main story.

Huh, I've completed a couple different ending in Fallout 4 and have over 250 hours into the game. I have yet to buy Witcher 3. Different games for different folks. No doubt Fallout 4 stepped further into the Adventure FPS pool and left a toe the RPG pool. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to pick up Witcher 3. I completed 2 but didn't really enjoy the lore or setting.

If you want to talk just sales… Fallout 4 broke the CoD: Black Ops 3 2015 sales record. From a business stand point Fallout 4 was quite successful.

Originally Posted by LordKane

Originally Posted by luj1
Its not even a contest, TW3 absolutely destroyed all competition

Fallout 4 will be a good hack & slash in a few years, with 289138120 mods

Now is just a half-done wreck, like vanilla Skyrim was

I think your opinion is too extreme to be taken seriously by anybody.

The truth is extreme

Skyrim was coded without compilers (!). Fans fixed that. Do you know how big of a deal that is? I guess not

They wrote a good part of Skyrim in early-90s FPU code that came with Pentium 1. Extreme? Yes very. Fans fixed this again.

They (Bethesda) have been working on replacing human developers with computers ever since Oblivion. Nowadays their worlds are less and less hand-crafted, but rather they are generated by algorythms, like vegetation (forests in Oblivion) or terrain (mountains in Skyrim), for example. So they don't need so many 3d artists on the payroll, and can spend more elsewhere like marketing/PR

They also don't hire as much writers as before, because their Radiant automated system can rapidly generate tons of random MMO garbage quests, instead of quality human-made engaging , memorable narratives

They don't even finish their games, because fans will do it for free through the toolset


There is a clear pattern here, So lets not pretend we don't know how Bethesda operates. Do you want me to move on with Fallout 4?


Interesting human-made quests? No, just go and kill a few raiders, man. Except for the settlement building stuff, every single quest so far involved going somewhere and murdering everything. There are no alternative paths, there is no use of skills or speech to do thing differently. You go to the location, you kill everything that moves, grab the thing you need (if even) and that’s it.

Most attributes have NO consequence, my character had 1 in intelligence and still hacked computers or had most dialogue options .And dialogue leads to the SAME result no matter what you say. Companions don’t die, neither do most named NPCs, you cannot dismiss Dogmeat . But the worst part is the "go clear this place" that every faction has…

So this is a better game / better RPG than Witcher 3 ?? HAhahaaha . By what argument? That you can "have fun" for hours in this bland, copy-pasted, fake ass world ?
Please, get real. I wish Bethesda and other AAA devs could learn more from CD RED.

Originally Posted by luj1
The truth is extreme

Skyrim was coded without compilers (!). Fans fixed that. Do you know how big of a deal that is? I guess not

They wrote a good part of Skyrim in early-90s FPU code that came with Pentium 1. Extreme? Yes very. Fans fixed this again.

They (Bethesda) have been working on replacing human developers with computers ever since Oblivion. Nowadays their worlds are less and less hand-crafted, but rather they are generated by algorythms, like vegetation (forests in Oblivion) or terrain (mountains in Skyrim), for example. So they don't need so many 3d artists on the payroll, and can spend more elsewhere like marketing/PR

They also don't hire as much writers as before, because their Radiant automated system can rapidly generate tons of random MMO garbage quests, instead of quality human-made engaging , memorable narratives

They don't even finish their games, because fans will do it for free through the toolset


There is a clear pattern here, So lets not pretend we don't know how Bethesda operates. Do you want me to move on with Fallout 4?


Interesting human-made quests? No, just go and kill a few raiders, man. Except for the settlement building stuff, every single quest so far involved going somewhere and murdering everything. There are no alternative paths, there is no use of skills or speech to do thing differently. You go to the location, you kill everything that moves, grab the thing you need (if even) and that’s it.

Most attributes have NO consequence, my character had 1 in intelligence and still hacked computers or had most dialogue options .And dialogue leads to the SAME result no matter what you say. Companions don’t die, neither do most named NPCs, you cannot dismiss Dogmeat . But the worst part is the "go clear this place" that every faction has…

So this is a better game / better RPG than Witcher 3 ?? HAhahaaha . By what argument? That you can "have fun" for hours in this bland, copy-pasted, fake ass world ?
Please, get real. I wish Bethesda and other AAA devs could learn more from CD RED.

Never said F4 was a better game than Witcher 3, don't put words into my mouth. I said I fell asleep playing F4. But saying that Skyrim and F4 are a heap of garbage is just pretty deranged. Yes, you can see it's rushed and streamlined for worse, if you know the stories behind the development and if you pay attention to the marketing promises. Yes, even what came along with the out-of-the-box version of the products are somewhat uneven. But the sad truth is, they are still more polished than 90% of the products on the market.

To even garner a cult of this size to fix shit for them for free, you need to at have at least a decent product out-of-box.

Originally Posted by LordKane
But the sad truth is, they are still more polished than 90% of the products on the market.

This conclusion has backing from an episode of MythBusters:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiJ9fy1qSFI

Originally Posted by Stingray
This conclusion has backing from an episode of MythBusters:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiJ9fy1qSFI

Wow, gothic! What are you some 3rd grade goth kids skipping class smoking in the backyard to prove you are cool and a non-conformist? Admitting enjoying a non-independently produced triple-A to a certain extend is a cultural taboo for the kids in your hood I see. Yeah, and keep quoting one sentence out of context, I know reading a paragraph is challenging for kids at your age, but it doesn't hurt to try to expand a tad of your mental capacity.

Oh, and there's nothing wrong for being objective, and providing some sane and constructive comments instead of biting the shield all the time. You know you can't become a gothic berserker by biting your keyboard alone all day, even though I understand kids at your age begin to losing baby teeth, so grinding it is soothing for ya. But everything is to be enjoyed in moderation, don't you think?

Wow a simple joke sets you off that much? I don't know what goths are all about because, I'll be perfectly honest here, chances are good that you weren't even born when I was in 3rd grade…but are they the only people who are allowed to not treat every AAA action RPG that comes out as "10/10 GOTY would chow down Doritos with again!!!11"?

Originally Posted by Stingray
Wow a simple joke sets you off that much? I don't know what goths are all about because, I'll be perfectly honest here, chances are good that you weren't even born when I was in 3rd grade…but are they the only people who are allowed to not treat every AAA action RPG that comes out as "10/10 GOTY would chow down Doritos with again!!!11"?

Well, guess it's high time to learn that it's no longer the trendy thing to do to act like one in 3rd grade when you are in your 80s, right?

Actually, scratch that, talking like this goes to nowhere =D

So why do we both shut it and cease and desist. If you've seen that much you would know it doesn't matter who's wrong and who's right on an online forum. More than half of the time people pointing fingers are actually on the same side regarding to the title issue.

And if you've read, what I said was far from praising triple-A titles as 10/10. I said I fell asleep playing Fallout 4 and Beth games are deteriorating in the few recent titles. If they don't innovate they will become another New World Computing. But that doesn't equal to a 0/10, which exactly sounds like George Bush's "if you are not with us, you are with them" mentality.

Yeah man, goths in their 80s are totally uncool. I will be sure to keep your advice in mind.