Fallout 3

[IVhorseman]

^ literally the exact same thing happened to me too ^


Vegas was clearly the better game, but 3 had a much more compelling story and world. The DC ruins felt like they were truly alive despite the irradiated wastelands, and while New Vegas was a super cool insight into a truly recovering postwar society, it still felt stale in comparison.

That said, I severely appreciated the throwbacks to older fallout games.

[Vami IV]

Agreed. Fallout 3 was good for an expansive and dangerous wasteland to explore that was dotted with several, small and interesting factions. My favorite of these have to be Republic of Dave and Reilly's Rangers. IMHO, I fell more in-depth in the lore of Fallout in FO3 than in NV, but NV is pretty much the better package.

I enjoyed Fallout: New Vegas for the consequences you could face from blowing something up to just wearing a faction's armor. While dangerous to anything under level 10, I didn't feel the wasteland was as ludicrously dangerous 3's Capital Wasteland. Sure, Cazadors and the Deathclaws in certain spots made for desperate/annoying fights, but anything in 3 could kill you. You fuck with the wasteland and it fucked with you. The much larger variety in weapons also kinda broke the immersion for me, but I guess we can chalk that mistake up to Bethesda's list of weapons in 3.

On a related note, what do you guys want in Fallout 4?

[mgb519]

I actually enjoyed the weapons more in 3.That there were fewer meant that they all had more of an identity, in my opinion.

[IVhorseman]

I enjoyed Fallout: New Vegas for the consequences you could face from blowing something up to just wearing a faction's armor.

Yeah but none of it was any of the actually good armor, so it didn't really matter.

My biggest problem with the game is how easily you become OP as fuck. Even on the hardest difficulties I was able to end virtually any armed conflict by the time I was level 12 or so, and I feel like the most fun part of the game is between levels 5 and 12, when your character is cool enough to be developed into a niche but still shitty enough to not just instantly murder everyone in any given room before even exiting VATS.

[Zupponn]

Gear up soldier!

[Vami IV]

Gear up soldier!

That armor was as annoying as Lydia in Skyrim, though!

I enjoyed Fallout: New Vegas for the consequences you could face from blowing something up to just wearing a faction's armor.

Yeah but none of it was any of the actually good armor, so it didn't really matter.

This is pretty much one of the best armors in the whole game until you either get the Riot Gear in Lonesome Road or get Power Armor training. Between you an me, I'll roll with the T-45b armor every time.

My biggest problem with the game is how easily you become OP as fuck. Even on the hardest difficulties I was able to end virtually any armed conflict by the time I was level 12 or so, and I feel like the most fun part of the game is between levels 5 and 12, when your character is cool enough to be developed into a niche but still shitty enough to not just instantly murder everyone in any given room before even exiting VATS.

In 3? Huh. I never had those problems. Must've been the DLC. I recommend Point Lookout, then. Even at the level cap (30), I still found the Hillbillies something of a challenge.

I actually enjoyed the weapons more in 3.That there were fewer meant that they all had more of an identity, in my opinion.

I agree. My favorite weapons had to be the Terrible Shotgun (Combat Shotgun) and Infiltrator (Special Assault Rifle from The Pitt). I liked these over the Fat Man or Bottlecap mines because they were more plentiful (as was their ammo) and less OP.

[piltogg]

I for one, thought it was pretty enjoyable to play.

It seemed like there were always new things to discover, even though those things were usually pretty similar to things you had already done.

[IVhorseman]

Yeah but none of it was any of the actually good armor, so it didn't really matter.

This is pretty much one of the best armors in the whole game until you either get the Riot Gear in Lonesome Road or get Power Armor training. Between you an me, I'll roll with the T-45b armor every time.

Yeah but you get the power armor training so damn fast that the ranger armor hardly fills a niche. By the time I've found a pair (aside from murdering a ranger outright for it early-game), I almost always already have the power armor training. I always liked the Enclave armor best.

My biggest problem with the game is how easily you become OP as fuck. Even on the hardest difficulties I was able to end virtually any armed conflict by the time I was level 12 or so, and I feel like the most fun part of the game is between levels 5 and 12, when your character is cool enough to be developed into a niche but still shitty enough to not just instantly murder everyone in any given room before even exiting VATS.

In 3? Huh. I never had those problems. Must've been the DLC. I recommend Point Lookout, then. Even at the level cap (30), I still found the Hillbillies something of a challenge.

I was talking about New Vegas, but the same applies for 3 as well. I played all the DLC for 3, and the assortment of weapons only made the problem worse . I found the chinese stealth suit and literally played the whole game sneaking up on everyone and blowing their brains out with the based gauss rifle that was a million times better than the new vegas versions.

By the way, the hillbilly cannibals are scaled to be about the same level of difficult no matter what level you are. Same with the Mothership Zeta aliens. While it deals with the fact that it's too easy to be OP, you pay for it by the fact that these guys are about the same level of difficulty no matter what you've got equipped or what level you are. It always felt really weird that I could pump several clips from the Infiltrator into a cannibal without them going down, and they had roughly the same HP as 10 regular men.

[Zupponn]

Mothership Zeta sucked IMO. I found the scenery to be bland and repetitive and the story was "meh".

The best part of all of my hundreds of hours in Fallout 3 happened in that mission though:

It was right at the beginning where you get captured by aliens and then wake up in a cell with that Raider chick. After talking to her, she suggests getting into a fistfight to get the aliens to enter the cell so you can overpower them and leave. All right, sounds good to me. Enter vats, target head, target head, target head, hit accept. Mysterious Stranger appears, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. She's dead and now I can't get past the door she's supposed to unlock. That RNG.

[Battlegrinder]

On a related note, what do you guys want in Fallout 4?

I've got a fairly long list of story elements I don't want to show up (FEV, Super Mutants, Enclave), unless they have it be like it was in NV where those elements are there, but not a massive part of the plot. In 3, having them be such massive elements of the plot made it feel a little bit too much like they just took 1 and 2 andmashed the plots together. Hence why I spent so much time in 3 doing side-quests and exploring, rather than following the main quest.


On the list of things I do want:
-Useful automatic weapons
-The possibility of playing as a ghoul
-Go to the fully rebuilt bits of the NCR (would be a nice change from the usual fallout experience).
-Be able to revisit either DC or Mojave (DC would probably be easier to work in from a story perspective).
-Change the companion quests so that you don't have to meta-game in order to unlock them.

Skills are one thing I'm still undecided on. The way I see it, there are three ways they can have the system work out.

1. PC can eventually level all skills to 100, with careful planning and work. I'm thinking this system is still the the one I'd prefer.
2. Party members can level with player and gain skills on their own (so if you can't pick a lock, you might be able to recruit someone who can).
3. More ways to get through locked doors, computers, ect (like bashing it down, using repair to override the lock or build a new key, talk someone into opening it, blast it open with a bomb, etc). Having the choice boil down to "Do you have this skill? No? Sucks to be you!" so often gets on my nerves.

[Vami IV]

I'll respond to this one in chunks, as this sums up my honest opinion as well.

On a related note, what do you guys want in Fallout 4?

I've got a fairly long list of story elements I don't want to show up (FEV, Super Mutants, Enclave), unless they have it be like it was in NV where those elements are there, but not a massive part of the plot. In 3, having them be such massive elements of the plot made it feel a little bit too much like they just took 1 and 2 and mashed the plots together. Hence why I spent so much time in 3 doing side-quests and exploring, rather than following the main quest.

I agree here; I only discovered the plots and the synopsis Fallout(s) 1 and 2 years after I was hooked on 3 (I got into my habit of completely studying the game's lore about 1-2 years after starting Fallout 3), so I was unaware of the characteristic Bethesda laziness.
---
I would not, however, mind at all more of the Brotherhood of Steel (or at least the Outcasts). The Lore does say that Elder Lyons did explore any important Pre-War cities and military bases (Pittsburgh, Boston, etc.). They even left Paladin Ashur in the Pitt (I have no answers there); I could easily envision a detachment of BoS or Outcasts in Boston (I use Boston as my example here as I believe this to be the most logical/likely setting for a Fallout sequel) hunting for Pre-War tech or to steal tech from the Commonwealth.

On the list of things I do want:
-Useful automatic weapons
-The possibility of playing as a Ghoul

Define useful; I thought the automatic weapons in Fallout NV were okay.

The ability to not only shrug off Rads but be healed by it is fascinating, and the prejudice would make the game that much more challenging. Also, I imagine the skin and flesh rotting off of your body would make for some unique penalties.

On the list of things I do want:
-Go to the fully rebuilt bits of the NCR (would be a nice change from the usual fallout experience).

Or include it in a huge world.

-Be able to revisit either DC or Mojave (DC would probably be easier to work in from a story perspective).

Check this out.

-Change the companion quests so that you don't have to meta-game in order to unlock them.

I also wish getting companions to change armor wasn't such a hassle, too. Dragon Age Origins had it right with followers. I also found them to be annoying and very bitchy.

Skills are one thing I'm still undecided on like Bonn-o-Tron. The way I see it, there are three ways they can have the system work out.

1. PC can eventually level all skills to 100, with careful planning and work. I'm thinking this system is still the the one I'd prefer.
2. Party members can level with player and gain skills on their own (so if you can't pick a lock, you might be able to recruit someone who can).
3. More ways to get through locked doors, computers, ect (like bashing it down, using repair to override the lock or build a new key, talk someone into opening it, blast it open with a bomb, etc). Having the choice boil down to "Do you have this skill? No? Sucks to be you!" so often gets on my nerves.

My exact thoughts right there.

[mgb519]

I disagree on the doors thing. No, the point of those things is that they ARE an option. For things like a locked door which is necessary to progress for a quest, they always give you some other way to get the key. But when you have a purely optional lock, the point is to reward characters that have that skill. Same goes for science, speech, etc. I liked that you couldn't always get everything, and I didn't like a lot of things in FNV for that reason. I had mixed feelings about the old speech system, but eventually I realized that in FNV the way they set up ALL (some would be fine) speech checks took out the thrill of conversation. When a certain conversation option to get a certain extra item from a certain quest just requires that you leveled up enough, I often find myself simply putting off the quest until I can get some xp. That breaks immersion for me, that you would literally put world events on hold so you can kill a few powedergangers to improve your public speaking. I like knowing that you can't just get the whole world in a single playthrough. Maybe one moment I feel sad that I missed a certain thing, but later I'll be glad my character has a certain set of skills. So in the end, I felt that the characters I made in fallout 3 had distinct identities, while I felt less into my characters in NV, like I was playing a Mary Sue to some extent. Just my two cents.

I don't want to see the NCR in Massachusetts. That's inexcusable.

My favorite weapon, tragically removed in New Vegas, was cars. Cars are the great equalizer, with which you can take on mirelurks and wandering enclave soldiers within your first 2 levels (Did both of these on hard, felt so badass afterwards). I want them back.

[Zupponn]

-Change the companion quests so that you don't have to meta-game in order to unlock them.

I also wish getting companions to change armor wasn't such a hassle, too. Dragon Age Origins had it right with followers. I also found them to be annoying and very bitchy.

I never bothered to even look to see if my companions had any armor. Fawkes never got below half health anyways.

He's also not bitchy at all, but may be a tad annoying. I always enjoyed his battle cries though.

Also, Fawkes can solo a Super Mutant Behemoth no problem. He only loses about a third of his health.

[Vami IV]

My favorite weapon, tragically removed in New Vegas, was cars. Cars are the great equalizer, with which you can take on mirelurks and wandering enclave soldiers within your first 2 levels (Did both of these on hard, felt so badass afterwards). I want them back.

They're still in there, just very rare. The truck in the middle of the dry lake (El Dorado) will explode. It's by Vault 11.

[Battlegrinder]

I disagree on the doors thing. No, the point of those things is that they ARE an option. For things like a locked door which is necessary to progress for a quest, they always give you some other way to get the key. But when you have a purely optional lock, the point is to reward characters that have that skill. Same goes for science, speech, etc. I liked that you couldn't always get everything, and I didn't like a lot of things in FNV for that reason. I had mixed feelings about the old speech system, but eventually I realized that in FNV the way they set up ALL (some would be fine) speech checks took out the thrill of conversation. When a certain conversation option to get a certain extra item from a certain quest just requires that you leveled up enough, I often find myself simply putting off the quest until I can get some xp. That breaks immersion for me, that you would literally put world events on hold so you can kill a few powedergangers to improve your public speaking. I like knowing that you can't just get the whole world in a single playthrough. Maybe one moment I feel sad that I missed a certain thing, but later I'll be glad my character has a certain set of skills. So in the end, I felt that the characters I made in fallout 3 had distinct identities, while I felt less into my characters in NV, like I was playing a Mary Sue to some extent. Just my two cents.

I don't want to see the NCR in Massachusetts. That's inexcusable.

My favorite weapon, tragically removed in New Vegas, was cars. Cars are the great equalizer, with which you can take on mirelurks and wandering enclave soldiers within your first 2 levels (Did both of these on hard, felt so badass afterwards). I want them back.

I do the same thing with putting off quests until I can pass the checks, which does seem a little immersion breaking (though to be fair, its not as bad as having the universe repeatedly rewind itself to before the check until I pass it, like what I did in 3). I don't quite feel the same way you do about NV vs 3 regarding how the character feels, since I tend to focus more on the dialog and actions of the character rather than their abilities. One thing I love about open world games is the ability to just wander around and explore, and the constant need to have science/lockpick/speech at a high level in order to do that is annoying.

One other thing I dislike about NV is that it seems to be much harder to earn any money in that game that it was in 3. In 3, I never really found myself overly wealthy, but I was able to build a reasonable supply of caps and keep myself supplied with spare parts, ammo, weapons, etc. In NV, I've had a much harder time building up that cash reserve, and if it wasn't for the fact that legion hit squads decked it in high level gear keep coming after me, I'd be having a much harder time than I am now.