Having dropped New Vegas in the past due to lost interest, I decided to try this game out finally since a friend of mine was having a fallout 3 playthrough himself. It was it 8 bucks, so I figured why not. I have to say, I put way more hours into this game than both other Bethesda games I’ve played through (Skyrim and Oblivion) before even finishing the main quest line. The combat was excellent in my opinion, and I (seem to be in the minority of people who) really liked the story. The choices it forces you to make sometimes really had me feeling emotional at times. I also played it with some minor mods installed, just some custom outfits and real world guns for immersion. Nothing to break the story or anything, though there are a few DLC sized mods I’m eyeing up to play in the future. Overall I seriously enjoyed this game, I’ve noticed online it seems to be regarded as one of the least popular mainline games but I think it’s become my favourite Bethesda game I’ve tried so far honestly. Seriously recommend anyone who hasn’t played this yet to at least give it a try. It really pulled me in.

Edit: Since I’m done with F4, got New Vegas running with some nice mods to add gritty aesthetics and real world weapons. Giving it another try 6 years after I initially tried it and so far I’m way more into it!

Edit 2: more specific context

  • ZephrC@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    46
    ·
    23 days ago

    Fallout 4 kind of in a weird place where it’s simultaneously a bad Fallout game and arguably the best Bethesda game. How much you like it really just depends on which of those things you’re more into. I’ve personally never really gotten the appeal of Bethesda games. I usually end up spending 90% of my time going through my inventory analyzing the price to weight ratio of all the worthless junk I’ve accumulated, and the worlds have always just felt really shallow to me personally, but clearly I’m in the minority. I am sort of curious why more people seem to have agreed with me on Fallout 4 than on Skyrim though. I guess maybe it’s just that the people who talk about it the most are more likely to be Fallout fans than Bethesda fans.

    • AmosBurton_ThatGuy@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      35
      ·
      edit-2
      23 days ago

      Fallout 4 kind of in a weird place where it’s simultaneously a bad Fallout game and arguably the best Bethesda game.

      Thank you

      That’s how I’ve described fallout 4 since it first came out. Nice to see someone else had the same thought. It’s a great game and I’ve put a ton of time into it and I play through it every 2 years at most.

      But it’s really not a great fallout game. The game overall is excellent but it feels the least fallout-y, to me at least.

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      edit-2
      23 days ago

      Play Morrowind and your opinion might change on them having to be shallow. It’s hard to get into, but it is the 3D one that takes its world very seriously.

      For example, there’s a faction that uses magic and levitation is a thing in Morrowind. Their buildings are built vertically with shafts connecting floors you almost have to levitate through. Skyrim did these in the DLC that includes some of Morrowind, but they just made them floaty elivators, not a skill your character can use.

      It is hard to get into though. The key thing to know is its actually an RPG. Your character stats matter more than your player skills. If you aren’t trained in using a sword, you aren’t going to be able to use one effectively. The game won’t stop you from trying, but you’ll miss a lot. Also things like using up your stamina sprinting (what feels like normal speed) and being tired makes your character tired and they can’t hit things. They’ll also be worse with bartering/talking with people because basically they’re standing there drenched in sweat and panting, which doesn’t look nice and people don’t really like dealing with it.

      Bethesda has strayed far from this path though and I doubt we’ll ever see it come back.

    • saddlebag@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      23 days ago

      What’s the best fallout game? I played 3 many years ago around the time out and I enjoyed it. Thinking of playing another one now

      • ThyTTY@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        23 days ago

        1 and 2 if you like oldschool isometric RPGs and New Vegas if you want them in 3D. 3 and 4 if Bethesda games are your favorite

      • Atomic@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        23 days ago

        New Vegas is easily the best Fallout.

        4 is a beautiful game. But they’ve dumbed down the entire R aspect of the RPG. Dialog in 4 is a joke.

      • tal@lemmy.today
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        22 days ago

        I don’t agree with the people who bash Fallout 4, but it’s true that it does have annoyances not present in the previous title…but every title in the series has that. The dialog system was changed in a very unpopular way – one couldn’t see fully what one’s responses were prior to choosing them from the response menu, and the only effect of most dialog was to alter one’s relationship with one’s current companion. The plot interactions based on the player’s actions were much less complicated than in Fallout: New Vegas. And at very late game, high player levels, the enemies turn into bullet sponges due to how the game scales. Doesn’t feel as satisfying to shoot something. And the “legendary” item and enemy system was transplanted from the Elder Scrolls series, and at least to me, feels a bit weird in a non-swords-and-sorcery context thematically. I personally preferred the American Southwest setting where Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout: New Vegas took place over the eastern US, where Fallout 3, Fallout 4, and Fallout 76 took place. I liked the characters in Fallout: New Vegas more. Fallout 4 felt something like a bunch of mini-stories glommed together, less thematically-consistent than Fallout: New Vegas.

        But Fallout 4 also has some things that I really like about it. It had base-building, and – while it still had its share of bugs – was considerably less-buggy than Fallout: New Vegas – which was godawful from a stability standpoint and loaded and saved increasingly-agonizingly-slowly the further one got into a game, and was prone to having the player fall through the map. On a given run, some sort of quest tended to break for me in Fallout: New Vegas. The “skill” system that had been present in the series up until Fallout 4 entirely went away, leaving the stat and perk systems, and I think that that was a good move – the small increases to skills felt grindy, where each increase didn’t produce a meaningful impact. The combat aspect is generally-considered to be better. New Vegas had solid DLC, but I’d rank Fallout 4’s DLC more-highly. Fallout 4 is a little more open in terms of the order in which you play the game – yeah, they’re all technically open-world, but Fallout: New Vegas tries hard to nudge you in at least some general, rough directions. Fallout 4 is closer to just letting someone go and adventure where they want, in whatever order they want. The scale was bigger, had more people running around, felt a little closer to being a “real world” environment. The game was prettier, partly due to just being a newer game – Fallout: New Vegas suffered significantly more from pop-up and limited draw distances, I’d say.

        I think that at the time of their release, either Fallout: New Vegas or maybe Fallout were best, just in terms of how they compared to other things at the time.

        If I were going to recommend that someone play just one Fallout game in 2024, though, it’d be Fallout 4, as the other games are getting pretty long in the tooth. Also, much more modding work has been done for Fallout 4 (though there are some impressive mods for earlier entries, like Tale of Two Wastelands, which basically imports Fallout 3 into Fallout: New Vegas and makes them one game).

        • saddlebag@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          23 days ago

          Very interesting response. Thanks for taking the time to write it out. I hope it’s useful to others too. Might just play 4 at this rate (if I ever get time, might need a steam deck)

        • SolOrion@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          22 days ago

          The legendary system isn’t transplanted from Elder Scrolls, is it?

          Unless you’re saying legendary weapons = enchanted weapons I have no clue what you mean. If that is what you mean, that’s a weird take but I guess I see it.

          Also your take on the world feeling more large scale and alive is extremely interesting because I would’ve said the direct opposite. Fallout 4 feels incredibly dead to me. There’s enemies, sure, but they don’t exist past being targets for me to destroy so that I can loot them and whatever structure they’re functionally just guarding. I can’t really influence most of them past killing them and putting the Minutemen there instead. Fallout 4 feels too much like I was dropped in a sandbox.

          Fallout 4 is a good game. I’d go as far as to call it great if you just ignore that there’s a main story. It feels like the devs wanted to make a looter shooter, but they got told they had to make a Fallout game with RPG mechanics. So they absolutely half-assed all the RPG parts.

          I typed this on mobile, so there’s definitely typos. Sorry.

          • tal@lemmy.today
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            22 days ago

            The legendary system isn’t transplanted from Elder Scrolls, is it?

            looks

            I thought that Skyrim had legendaries, but apparently I misremembered. It’s got weapons with attributes – like, you can get a weapon that causes additional fire damage – but those apparently are the same as the weapon enchantment system, not distinct from it.

            There’s enemies, sure, but they don’t exist past being targets for me to destroy so that I can loot them and whatever structure they’re functionally just guarding. I can’t really influence most of them past killing them and putting the Minutemen there instead.

            That’s pretty true of Fallout 3 or New Vegas too, yes? I mean, a deathclaw is a deathclaw.

            • SolOrion@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              22 days ago

              Yeah, that’s the part that confused me. Skyrim’s enchantment system is just it’s enchantment system. It’s not as… exclusive as Fallout 4’s legendary system. I think that’s what makes it distinct in my mind. I definitely see what you mean.

              a deathclaw is a deathclaw.

              Fallout 3, sure, but with New Vegas? Not really. There’s plenty of places you can go and then decide whether you’re making friends or enemies. You can interact with them, and then decide if you want them dead or not. There’s definitely some places where- like you said- a deathclaw is a deathclaw, but there’s also plenty of exceptions.

  • Zozano@aussie.zone
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    28
    ·
    edit-2
    23 days ago

    I loathe Fallout 4 for all the things the game has robbed the franchise of.

    Most dialogue choices boil down to “yes / sarcastic yes / tell me more / not right now”

    I really hate the settlement building, but I feel like I need to interact with it to play properly - it’s too powerful to ignore when playing on Survival.

    I would have preferred if the settlers improved things themselves over time if the resources were available for them.

    The three factions make the moral choice a no brainer. The Institute are slaveowners, the Brotherhood are Nazis and the Railroad are the Underground Railroad (very clever Bethesda).

    (Minute men is not a real faction, they’re tertiary)

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      23 days ago

      Also, the only temporarily impactful decision you make is which flavor if the final mission you’ll do. You don’t actually have to choose one until the very end. You can somehow be not just friendly, but high rank with all four at the same time, despite the conflict of interest.

      They make you think your making choices sometimes (though honestly rarely in F04 because of the dialog system you mentioned), but you never do really. It’s an alright survival shooter thing, but a bad RPG. You choose abilities, but you rarely choose a role. You’re given your role at the start, and your only choice is to follow it.

    • tal@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      23 days ago

      Heh, I’m probably the opposite. I like the settlement building capability in the engine, but don’t feel that Bethesda’s done a lot with it in any of their games.

      In Fallout 4 you can make pretty settlements, but there’s a very minimal degree to which layout interacts with the game. Putting some walls up around expensive stuff and making enemies need to go past turrets or guard posts helps a bit, but it’s basically just SimArchitect. Lay out stuff how you want for fun. That’s not bad as such, but I’d like to have more interaction with the game world. Also, using settlements without the Local Leader ability to let settlements trade goods was a pain, which was one of the few useful things in the Charisma tree. There is one quest where one does lay out defenses for a significant fight, bur that’s about it.

      The Sim Settlements mod introduces settlements that build themselves, which gives you elaborate, evolving things without having to manually do all the work of building them (and can take advantage of newer hardware with larger settlements). That’s nice, but it really just provides an opportunity to rebuild nice-looking stuff in without the scrap-hauling and placement drudge work. The mod adds a (fairly extensive) questline, but the actual layout of the cities again doesn’t matter much. Avoids the need for Local Leader as a quality-of-life perk, so provides more character build flexibility.

      Fallout 76 has some game-important roles to a player’s CAMP, but it’s basically providing convenient access to workshops and a player vendor. Defensive layout does matter somewhat-more, as attacks when a player isn’t present are actually simulated in the game world. You can take and hold certain map locations, sorta a tower defense mode, but there’s minimal reward in the game for it. The point is still mostly being Sim Architect for player CAMPs, except now you can show your creations to other players. CAMPs are much smaller than Fallout 4 settlements. You can also have Shelters, which are little areas to free-build off the main world. Like CAMPs, but with a few restrictions, like the inability to have resource-producing items (and automated resource production is very limited, rarely worthwhile). Some players have done neat things that add to the game, but again, just doesn’t feel like there’s much “game” to it. Fallout 76 has some hard limits on ability to store things in a CAMP – inventory limitations are a core part of the game.

      Starfield has multi-base spanning automated production, and automated production matters, more like a very limited Factorio. However, you can pretty much play the game and ignore that aspect, as the main purpose of getting resources is…building more bases. IIRC, bases don’t get attacked when you’re away, and defenses aren’t an issue. I guess that’s nice for people who don’t like base-building, but it felt like kind of a pointless loop to me. Not like, oh, Egosoft’s X series, where you build out a space empire to get more stuff that unlocks more things. You can buy player homes, but they never felt as useful to me as Home Plate in Fallout 4, as I just usually wasn’t passing by the player homes, and the ships are generally more available. I think that those are more aimed at people who want to do interior decoration. Starfield does let you modify ship interiors, but there just isn’t a lot of gameplay point to it, though it’s probably where I spent the most time. There just isn’t that much that happens in your ship.

      None of those are bad things, but the base-building aspects just feel kind of decoupled from the game, like a kind of bolted on architectural program. If you want to create your dream space home, I guess that that’s fine, but I was kind of hoping for something that heads more in the Sim City or Caesar direction, where there’s real gameplay associated with the settlement you build. If one wanted to do just aesthetics, maybe in Fallout 76, let players build new stuff in contests and then whoever builds the neatest gets some award and the structure gets incorporated into the base game, something like that.

    • kindenough@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      23 days ago

      I put in 1300 hrs into fo4 just for the settlement building. With mods though.

      “I heard people complaining about the bed situation…” NPC carrieing a bedroll on her back.

      • tal@lemmy.today
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        22 days ago

        Just out of curiosity, if you don’t mind sharing, which mods did you use? Like, just stuff that adds more items to the world, or stuff that changed gameplay linked to the settlement-building stuff?

        • cod@lemmy.worldM
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          19 days ago

          Not the person you asked, but I’m in a similar boat and used mods and spent a lot of time in settlement building. The only two mods I can remember that made a big impact included the one that basically acted as a cheat terminal (since I played it originally on Xbox, but now that I’m on pc I don’t need that anymore) which allowed me to have unlimited resources, and the other being the one that expands the build able area and the build limit infinitely. I did use other mods, but I think they were mostly graphics mods that didn’t affect the actual settlement building, just the way it would look slightly. I might’ve had some mods that changed NPC behaviour within settlements but I can’t remember 100% right now. That was probably 5-6 years ago

    • caesaravgvstvs@feddit.de
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      22 days ago

      Yes!! I felt the same way!

      Particularly the ham fisted way it’s written, you’re really led to choose the railroad path, but I felt I never got a proper explanation on how the institute was bad (the why is clear).

      I ended up going with the institute and I got a really underwhelming ending

      • Zozano@aussie.zone
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        22 days ago

        The institute are bad because they’re basically “scientific racists” - they diminish the experienced suffering of conscious beings, even though they’re anatomically identical to Real Humans™

        They’ve got the power to fix so many problems upstairs, but they’re so far removed from the suffering of others that they don’t know what the problems even are.

        They’re essentially the 1% in our world. Bunch of privileged cunts who think they can fix the world by throwing money at a problem without really understanding the plight of the working class.

      • Zozano@aussie.zone
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        22 days ago

        Good to know, but as a purist, I don’t like playing with mods which change things in ways which could break the game if uninstalled (the one exception being UFO4P).

        You posted this comment three times BTW.

  • all-knight-party@kbin.run
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    23 days ago

    It just depends what you go into it looking for. If you want a deep RPG you won’t get it, and I found the story enjoyable, but just all right, but not horrible or anything. I do also really enjoy the gameplay.

    The shooting won’t change the world, but it is enjoyable, and I really like the scavenging and modification of weapons and armor, and as a motivation for exploration it’s great.

    • FeelThePower@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      23 days ago

      That part about weapons and armour rang true for me as well. I spent a lot of time just wandering the commonwealth looking for junk to upgrade with and levelling my gunsmith up as a result. I think this is the most I’ve really explored in a game. Personally I didn’t really go in looking for anything so I was pleasantly surprised. But I definitely can see how say, someone going in for full role playing immersion from a game wouldn’t feel quite the same.

      • all-knight-party@kbin.run
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        23 days ago

        I think that’s a lot of what happened back when it released. The most recent Fallout game before then was Fallout New Vegas, and when it comes to a narratively deep RPG that’s almost an unfair fight compared to anything Bethesda has put out, so of course Fallout 4 fell very short of that mark.

        But it does have successes in other areas. For the first time in, shit, any Bethesda game ever I found the animations and feedback of moment to moment combat actually enjoyable, the junk gathering and upgrading is an extremely addictive loop, and the game does look genuinely pretty and immersive, though the character animations still let it down.

        I liked it to the tune of multiple hundreds of hours, myself.

        • tal@lemmy.today
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          22 days ago

          For the first time in, shit, any Bethesda game ever I found the animations and feedback of moment to moment combat actually enjoyable

          I believe that the character movement animation engine in Fallout 4 is capped at something like 30 or maybe 60 fps, can’t tween. When I’m running on my 165 Hz monitor, Fallout 4 animation definitely feels slightly jerky. Starfield doesn’t have this issue, so somewhere along the line, they upgraded the engine.

          • all-knight-party@kbin.run
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            22 days ago

            Funnily enough, the game is basically stuck at 60 FPS for me, even though I have a 144hz monitor. Everything I look up says the game engine wasn’t configured to go past that and anything higher requires mods and such for it to be supported. I’m a relatively modest gamer who plays a lot of Switch, so as long as it’s consistent I don’t mind, I just keep it at 60.

            Glad to know Starfield can go higher, but my computer isn’t amazing so newer games just don’t stay consistent above 60, I just cap Starfield at 60 as well.

    • chazwhiz@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      23 days ago

      Which modern Fallout game would you suggest for someone who loved the first 2 and generally prefers classic (and modern classic style) RPGs and deep stories?

      • all-knight-party@kbin.run
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        edit-2
        23 days ago

        If by modern you mean Fallout 3 and beyond, then absolutely New Vegas and its DLCs. You will not get anything of a deep story from any of the other offerings except maybe Fallout 4’s Far Harbor, but that comes too little too late if you might not tolerate Fallout 4’s flaws to get there.

        New Vegas doesn’t play very well in terms of combat, hello Gamebryo engine, but it has a complex story with many possible directions and endings, and many factions that are much more than black and white. Your character’s own dialogue is also far better written compared to Bethesda’s offerings and has a lot more agency in the world. I think you will find enough to enjoy there as long as you can get past the hump of some middling (even for its time) shooting.

        A lot of that can be owed to the staff similarities between the original Fallouts and New Vegas, Obsidian’s strong point, particularly Josh Sawyer as director.

      • tal@lemmy.today
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        23 days ago

        loved the first 2

        Like, the isometric games? Not the 3D ones?

        I’d consider Wasteland 2 and 3 as being similar to Fallout and Fallout 2. Fallout was inspired by Wasteland.

        The Wasteland series has a very similar setting. Not exactly the same, less-heavy nuclear and vault theme.

        But l’d seriously consider trying the 3D Fallout games too. I think that the series did a pretty good job of making the jump to 3D.

        • chazwhiz@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          22 days ago

          Correct, and I’m familiar with the Wasteland games and they’re great. I was asking about the 3D games specifically. I remember starting Fallout 3 back on my 360 years ago and just not caring for it. I’ve always wondered if I should give another one a go.

  • Donebrach@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    edit-2
    23 days ago

    I’ve been replaying and somewhat enjoying Fallout 4 recently too and all I can say is Bethesda made a very good (and janky) video game back in 2003 and managed to reskin it into 5 different games over the past 20 years fairly well—only blatantly showed its age with Starfield because they removed all the (now out of date) modernizations introduced in Fallout 4. I will not buy The Elder Scrolls VI if that ever comes to market.

    Just throwing it out there if you haven’t played it, The Outer Worlds hits all the fallout notes in a tighter package (also made by obsidian who made New Vegas)

      • cod@lemmy.worldM
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        19 days ago

        As someone currently playing through the Outer Worlds (I even made a post about it not long ago on this community), I’d highly recommend it. I’m having a lot of fun with it

  • Lemminary@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    23 days ago

    I love FO4! One of my friends kept telling me to get it and play it. So when it was on sale I bought it in a heartbeat.

    My only gripes are the inventory management and the depressing landscape, so nothing a couple of mods couldn’t fix to make life easier and not depress the hell out of me.

  • shani66@ani.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    edit-2
    23 days ago

    It’s a bad game that does some things that really make it worth playing, imo. The gunplay is mid and the social systems sucks so much ass, but not many games go for the scavenger fantasy like fo4. Throw some mods on top of the shaky base and you’ve got the only real good post apocalyptic survival game i can think of. Pick a spot to build up while living like a rat and you might get a few dozen hours of genuine fun out of it.

    I personally recommend Frost or that modpack that turns the game into a survival horror, because the game is at it’s absolute peak when you are actually desperate for three more rounds in your revolver.

    • tal@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      22 days ago

      not many games go for the scavenger fantasy like fo4. Throw some mods on top of the shaky base and you’ve got the only real good post apocalyptic survival game i can think of.

      Not the same genre at all – it’s a turn-based open-world roguelike – but have you played the open-source Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead? I mean, it’s directly got some Fallout-inspired content, like power armor, but above-and-beyond that, it’s a post-apocalyptic survival scavenger fantasy, and it’s a hell of a lot more complex.

      Like, you’ve got regional weather (fog, precipitation, wind) simulated, several nutritional meters (including stuff like going too far over and getting something like iron poisoning), fat reserves and hydration, several types of diseases, parasites, and fungal infections. Maybe the most-sophisticated gun collection out there in video-game-land, plus modeling firearms stuff like multiple sight and optic systems, multiple barrels, gun weight, recoil, different magazine types, different loading mechanisms (including doing things like having a shotgun or magazine-fed weapon with specific types of ammunition, like buckshot or slugs or Dragon’s Breath loaded into individual cartridge slots), carrying straps, bipods, brass catchers, Picatinny rails, grenade launchers (including attachable), rocket launchers, energy weapons, flame-projecting weapons, thrown explosives, placed traps. Food spoilage. Various types of carrying cases and aspects of them – things like straps to attach items via carabiners on some backpacks, multiple “pockets” per container that may have different volumes and maximum dimension constraints on items and may be able to contain different things, like mesh or rigid/nonrigid. Waterproof cases and water damage to some items, like dissolvable drugs or personal electronics. Vehicle construction and damage – you can build bicycles, cars, tanks, boats, helicopters. Remote cameras and displays. Electrical wiring and power generation and storage systems. Bionic implants. Mutations and associated powers. Various types of melee combat, including a wide variety of martial arts. With mods, multiple magic systems and magic items and psionic powers. Base-building. NPCs. The ability to build and manage NPC camps with NPCs producing things. Agriculture. Ranching. Thermal imaging and electromagnetic vision. Toxins, including airborne and injectable, and protection against same, as well as various environmental hazards, like acid. A cooking system. Food temperature that matters, including freezing damage to some foods. Drugs. Brewing, freezers and refrigerators (both fixed and in vehicles). Biodisel and ethanol fuel production, as well as other various fuel types, including gasoline and JP8. Morale. Sewing, including modification like Kevlar- or fur-lining items, and a material type system including things like removing buttons or zippers or fabric of certain material types (leather, wool, synthetic, cotton, etc) clothing to create something else. Crafting armor. Remote-control vehicles. Quests. Addictions. Radiation. A skill system, with separate “theoretical” and “practical” knowledge in each area. A proficiency system. A perk system. Stats. Personal electronics, like time, temperature-measuring, camera-enabled, display screens (e.g. one can scan books into tablets or smartphones or augmented reality glasses and then read them later). Lighting and shadows. Ocular adjustment time to dark or light conditions. Dwarf Fortress-like underground digging. Procedural map generation including subterranean maps. Enemy tracking via visual, auditory, and olfactory methods (not all of which can use all of these), and methods to mitigate one’s signature in these fields. Corpse dissection and resource extraction. Optional “innawoods” play, where one does a no-civilization survival play, just using primitive technology and food preservation. Achievements. Progressive content unlocking. Scenarios, like playing as a prisoner in a prison. Modeling of fires and smoke; one can have wildfires or buildings burning down. Various enemy factions; these can fight or otherwise interact; for example, a fungal faction can “take over” zombies. Water-gathering via raincatchers. Breaking into computer systems. Automated movement (to reduce drudgery of hiking from one map location to another). A configurable notification system. Rules-based searching through recipes and visible items. Ability to have the character perform automated sorting of items. Multiple competing audio and graphical packs.

  • zephorah@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    23 days ago

    Settlement management can get tedious and be a large time sink. Sim settlements 2 is actually not bad. You can off the most annoying ones on “mayors” to control. Show up later and add things if needed.

    • neuropean@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      23 days ago

      It revived the game for me. Changed settings so it would grow without my tedious input, so thankful for that. Show up to settlements over time to find evolving cities that are actually worth visiting and make the game feel alive, like you didn’t build every shack in the wasteland personally with the toaster you hauled from a national guard building.

      • FenrirIII@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        23 days ago

        I need to get unlazy and figure out how to do that. I enjoyed Conquest because it auto built settlements for you to conquer, but that’s been dead for a while.

  • Maestro@fedia.io
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    23 days ago

    I lost interest in this game half way through. I really don’t like how the enemies level up with you. I was about 2/3rds through the main quest line when the bad guys became such bullet sponges that it wasn’t fun anymore. Like, multiple nukes to the face and they still keep coming.

    I far prefer games where the enemies scale by location, not the player.

    • brian@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      23 days ago

      This is my running complaint with most Bethesda RPGs. Just about everything scales by player level, which can put you in situations where enemies are downright impossible to kill if you’re too spec’d into non-combats.

      • neuropean@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        23 days ago

        Oblivion: why level up when I can stay level one and steamroll everything?

        New Vegas: Just another Bethesda contracted game and I’ll just head straight north and OH GOD CAZADOR—

    • FenrirIII@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      23 days ago

      It wouldn’t really be an open world game if areas were artificially blocked due to leveled enemies. And other areas would simply be steamrolled once you out level them.

      • brian@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        23 days ago

        In my opinion, open world doesn’t mean being able to complete any objective in an arbitrary order.

        Progressive growth is one of the most rewarding things in an RPG for me. That means that I have to rethink my path forward until I gain the strength to overcome an obstacle. And that also means that some of my once difficult foes can be a showcase for my experience.

        Areas aren’t blocked, they’re turned into goals for me to overcome. Yes, I should have a choice in how I explore the world, but having limits gives you something to break through.

    • tal@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      23 days ago

      There are mods that alter the enemy scaling, but it’s gonna change the game balance.

  • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    23 days ago

    It was actually the first fallout game I played, and I’ve replayed it a couple times since then, I really like it.

    That’s a great came to play for the first time, especially with qol mods.

    • Sockenklaus@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      23 days ago

      Any QoL mods you’d recommend?

      I play F4 with Vivid Fallout for better textures, Load Accelerator and the Unofficial patch mod.

      What are must have QoL mods that that don’t alter the vanilla experience too much?

      • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        22 days ago

        I played f3 and 4 next to each other, so it can’t remember exactly which was which, but removing the tint over everything outside was huge, visibility immediately increased, the sky was blue, everything was more aesthetically appealing.

        I really liked adding the weather mods in so it rained or snowed, and then textures. I didn’t change too much, but with an improved look and distance, everything felt more fun and immersive.

        It sounds like that vivid mod you have did pretty much all of that

    • FeelThePower@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      23 days ago

      I definitely plan to get the season pass in the future if I can catch it on sale as well! I definitely wouldn’t say I’m done with the game as a whole, but for the time being I am just waiting to pick up the DLC.

        • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          23 days ago

          Do a Child of Atom playthrough, if you haven’t already.

          Rush to Far Harbor and acquire the Robes of Atom’s Devoted and end the DLC by destroying FH for the perk. Wear the robes, get irradiated until almost dead (above 900 rads) and congratulations, you now deal double damage, are immune to radiation and ignore the effects of rads on your HP bar.

    • tal@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      23 days ago

      Nuka World is a ton of fun and

      Thematically, I prefer Far Harbor. And Nuka World’s big selling point was letting you play as a raider, which didn’t appeal much to me. But I’m pretty sure that Nuka World has more stuff.

        • tal@lemmy.today
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          22 days ago

          Yeah…I guess I shouldn’t be so negative. I mean, I had fun with it, and I certainly think that it’s a worthwhile purchase, along with the other Fallout 4 DLC. Just that I didn’t want to play through a fair bit of the content, whereas in the base game, I was fine playing any of the “faction” routes.

          And, I dunno. If someone does want to play as a raider and enslave settlements, they can do that. I don’t have a moral objection to someone else doing that, and I know that many people do feel like they don’t get to play “evil” routes enough in games. Just wasn’t something that I wanted to do.

  • NoneYa@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    edit-2
    23 days ago

    The VR version is fun too but not at all worth $60. It’s basically just a polished VR mod.

    I really enjoy the thrill of seeing the world in VR and especially being in power armor.

    If you can get it on sale (anything under $30 is a fair price, IMO) and enjoy VR games and Fallout, definitely recommend.

  • FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    edit-2
    23 days ago

    Fallout 4 was a top tier fallout game with mods. The more you mod it, the better it gets. Fallout 4 with no mods is meh.

    • tal@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      23 days ago

      I wish that there were an easier route to just let a random player get a reasonably modded install. It’s nice, but getting there is a big barrier. Something like what Wabbajack does, but at a Steam level, like “install community DLC”, and in a way that one could manage mods from that point.

      There are hundreds of mods that reasonably improve the gsme, and sorting through and comparing all of then is time-consuming.

      That is, make it really accessible to users not familiar with modding who don’t want to put a lot of time in, but let it be a “new base install” for most Fallout 4 players that could itself be nodded.

        • tal@lemmy.today
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          22 days ago

          So, I’d like it to be even more approachable, so that most people who play Fallout 4 and the DLC can have a reasonable shot at also experiencing a fully-nodded environment. I guarantee that only a tiny fraction of people who have played Fallout 4 have tried a heavily-modded run, be it Wabbajack or mod-manager based.

          I also had headaches working on it, but that’s probably because I was trying to run it on Linux.

          Lastly, I’d like to be able to use that as a base point for modding. Like, have Wabbajack just essentially creating a Mod Organizer 2 configuration or something like that, so that one can use it as a base for further changes, so that the people who want to really spend the time tweaking their setup can also benefit. I’d just like to get players over the hump of getting a working, heavily-modded environment that can still be modded as easily as possible. Creating a working modded environment with hundreds of mods where one can tweak further as one wants is just a large, time-consuming undertaking that requires some familiarity with the system, as things stand.

    • Stache_@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      23 days ago

      I got so hooked into the settlement building. Downloaded a handful of settlement mods and spent 3 whole days repairing and outfitting the Castle. Then something happened to my mods folder and I had to redownload them all and didn’t make note of the order I had them in before. Loaded in the game and everything was broken/invisible. Huge letdown and I took a 7 month break. Now I’m getting back to it and finishing the main story before doing the DLCs

    • FeelThePower@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      23 days ago

      At first I dabbled quite a bit with it, decorating up the castle. But as time went on I honestly stopped paying attention to it.

  • Vivendi@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    22 days ago

    PLEASE PLEASE try the survival mode. It changes the game so much. It reminds me of hardcore games of the past, I have to actively plan for the game and can’t just gung ho rush things.