Fallout Series Discussion

[Kerr]

Yeah, that whole forced conversion, sterilization, absolute dictatorship thing is pretty off putting even if the Super Mutants weren't infertile and doomed to extinction. Like, making Super Mutants isn't a problem, forcing other people to be Super Mutants and them taking over, is. If you want an actual good sign of how to proceed into the future look at their main opponents, the Followers of the Apocalypse. Be nice and help others, but also be willing to help drop the Children of the Cathedral.
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Anyway, I really like Lonesome Road. The story of the twisted hairs and how they had their culture destroyed is really somber, (Also he sounds totally hot, like, my god. Courier x Ulysses OTP.) Dead Money is the best expansion though. The biggest issue with Lonesome Road is that it's far too difficult, like, tunnelers are way too much especially that one part when they swarm you on an elevator. And the way the game calculates which group you're 'loyal' to is all manner of screwy. Like, I remember having him go on about my NCR loyalty in a playthrough where I was strictly House's protege. Outside of that though, Ulysses serves as an interesting foil to the player character and along with Hanlon works towards my argument that peaceful NCR withdrawl from Vegas under Courier or House is actually the best thing for NCR. Also his wordyness always came across to me as him trying to convince himself and find meaning in a meaningless universe, that there must have been a reason The Divide was destroyed when in reality there wasn't, tragedy befell him and there was no reason behind any of it. I have more interest in proving him wrong than just killing him.

He reminds me of Letho of Gulet from Witcher 2 in that way. And they're both Jock Nerds. Although I like Letho more, he's a significantly stronger character. Ulysses is pretty divisive though and if you don't like what they do with him, Lonesome Road will be insufferable.

I'm replaying New Vegas atm, I replayed Fallout 3 a months back. And god, I love this game so much.

[The SheoDovah]

The Master had good intentions but his methods were too much and 90% of super mutants were just reduced to dumb brutes that only had a few instincts. Mainly, killing anything that isn't a mutant and serving the master. The most dangerous Super Mutants are the ones that are smart. "Lou Tentant" was the mastermind of the Master's army, i think, in terms of tactics and could go toe to toe with the Brotherhood of Steel. This was before the NCR had an army and were the only army in the wastes.


I loved all the DLC in New Vegas. I will admit, Lonesome Road did disappoint me by having no intro but it kinda makes sense. It's just the courier. No kidnapping, no going on guard duty, just the courier. I loved the atmosphere of all of them and i agree, Uysless is an excellent character. He does fufill the Fallout Antagnoist part well, something that New Vegas lacked along with Fallout 3 to a degree. Caeser has pretty much no real convincing arguments and just took the miltary part of Rome along with enslaving people.

Ulysses has seen everything and acts like a Fallout PC. To him, the courier is the villian and I like that it's hard. It is hell on earth but irradiated Deathclaws was too far. A deathclaw is hard enough to kill as it, one that regenerates health? That's just cruel. Flare guns do scare them but Lonesome Road is probably the toughest DLC in the franchise.

Playing Tactics at the moment and I can see what they were aiming for. It really needed more time as it's falls short. Stealth is kinda crap as there is no indicator to when you are detected. It just happens. Inventory is a bloody chore to manage and they removed speech. So far, not a single bit of dialogue. But it's quite enjoyable for me and it has made for some intense moments. I find that the default setting is just too hard because it's real time and it requires a lot of quick reactions. It's doesn't fit well into it. If I didn't already go in with the view that it's average, i would have been disappointed. The Power Armour is kinda cool and it leans towards Warhammer 40k in design.

[BetaB17]

YouTube Link

[Morven Ashwing]

"Lou Tentant" only realised it's reference in NV

[Kerr]

@Beta: Oh, that mod looks neat.

My mods for Fallout 3 and New Vegas both added this feature, but damn do I really like having tagged skills gain 2 points for every 1 point you put it. It feels like a much more significant investment and means Tag! is actually a good perk. Instead of just being a 15 skill point bonus. Likewise, having an entire posse of companions (preferably limit being 1 for every 2 Charisma) follow you around is such a nice experience.

Anyway, playing New Vegas and really enjoying my playthrough. I think all I have left to do at this point is OWB, LR and then endgame. The Survivalist's Rifle is great, can't believe I totally overlooked it in all my previous playthroughs. Lucky too, damn is that a sweet weapon. And it has such a snazzy reload cycle.

[The SheoDovah]

The mod looks fantastic and I realy hope Bethesda doesn't shut it down because of lawyers. I doubt that the actual developers will have any issues with it but usually comes down to their lawyers being lawyers. :-/

The Survivalist is easily the best subtle tale in Honest Hearts and gives off small The Road vibes for me.

Playing the original Fallout and tis a lot shorter then i thought it be. I mean, i've just got to Junktown after a very easy battle with the Khans. For a raider camp, they were easy. Though, i think Ian may be why. Killed Gizmo and about to do the hub quests. I do wish companions were implemented better and I am likely to look up a mod that makes them more useful. I mean, Ian refuses to equip metal armour or leather armour. Equip the armour! For crying out loud, equip it!

Still, tis a darn good game. Lots of useless perks though. Got Bloody mess and gifted as my traits.

[Kerr]

With the exception of New Vegas and I guess 4, but it totally reworks the leveling system so not really, every Fallout game has junk perks in the form of perks that just give you skill points. So like, +5 to speech and barter. The only "skill" perk that's useful is Tag in the isometric games because it doubles your increase for the skill.

I've never wanted to take skill perks. Which yeah, that does kinda suck when they make up like, 1/3 or something of available perks.

[Will Zurmacht]

The skill perks might be useful in certain edge cases like a Gifted low IN playthrough (to explore low IN dialogue options perhaps), which would have extremely slow skill point growth. In FO3, in particular, the perk rate is so fast that it can feel okay to "waste" a perk here or there, but in the older games the perk rate is so slow that for most characters it feels really bad to burn a point on a low impact effect. That said, even something like the Swift Learner perk, while trivial in most cases, could be useful for a person with very limited play time who was going to skip some content but still wanted to achieve a higher level for whatever reason.

[The SheoDovah]

Fallout 76 has retconned or rather, seems to be retconning the BOS and supermutants into it. I've voiced my thoughts on it in discord but am curious to see what others think here.

[Will Zurmacht]

The ambitious Fallout: New California mod for New Vegas was released today (seven years in development), promising to provide a rich new experience that uses fanon material to flesh out the events leading up to New Vegas.

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Fallout 76 has retconned or rather, seems to be retconning the BOS and supermutants into it. I've voiced my thoughts on it in discord but am curious to see what others think here.

Not a Fallout lorebeard, but I'm all in favor of sticking to the established timelines. Too many exceptions and the lore starts to become meaningless. I'm reminded of a quip by Bethesda employees saying they don't even bother keeping track of TES lore anymore, they let the lorebeards at the UESP wiki do that.

[The SheoDovah]

On top of the BOS and Supermutants being in the game, the Enclave is.

Ok, The Enclave has a wider area for being in the game as they could have had another secret base and i can see them trying to reclaim it as soon as there are safe radiation levels but I'm rather skeptical about their numbers. The Brotherhood of Steel is in it's infancy and ran by exiles. They may be able to contact but at the time, the BOS wasn't concerned about expanding, just hoarding tech and there is little to no way for them to prove that who they are due to the high chance of everything being ruined by nukes. SuperMutants shouldn't even be in the game. It'll be the ol' another convient stash of FEV but come on, Supermutants? BOS and Enclave? Why not remains of the navy or another army unit? Or mutated raccoons? I would love to see mutated raccoons. Or giant frogs that spit poison or fire. Or all kinds of stupid mutations that results in that species dying because it's stupid and fun to fight.

Not the same ol' Fallout factions or Super Mutants. I want to be positive about the game, I want to wish I could get it and play it but really? I kinda can't help but feel it's a cash grab.

[Kerr]

New California is something of a dancing bear. It's not impressive that it dances well, it's that it dances at all. Cause it doesn't dance well. There's some neat things to it for sure, but overall I found the mod dissapointing. Plot wise, quest structure, companions, lay out of the maps and world. The radio station with covers of 50s songs is neat, but death metal is as out of place as it was when Brotherhood of Steel did it.

Like, here's an example of a bad thing, dialogue options are all over the place, there's a lot of times where you literally only have one option and how characters will respond to you is so hard to predict. I made one slightly snide comment and all of a sudden a guy started cursing me to high heaven, threatening in detail to bend me over his desk and beat me to death. It feels (because it is) like something started 7 years ago, when the devs were a lot younger and a lot less mature, so it just feels like a bigger version of what some 18 year dude would think is cool. Actually, better example, the companions feel like the devs bad tabletop characters adapted to a game. In the worst way. Don't get me wrong, there's been great tabletop rpgs characters, you can adapt them well (see Arcade Gannon) that's not the problem. But the characters here are the combined traits of all the worst character people you can play with make. Threaten to murder you at the drop of a hat (which real people shouldn't do,) incessantly rude, arrogant, can't live up to that rude arrogance and basically every interaction feels like they want me to fawn over how cool they are. Imagine having 5 Aeries from Baldur's Gate following you around.

If you're ever played an RPG, you've probably played with a person like this and it's the worst.

[The SheoDovah]

Fallout 76 was released and so far, i'm hearing a lot of mixed things. Some say that it's really boring, others say that it's a great MP game but the lack of NPCs is crap whilst some praise it a lot. I've heard that the collector's edition is an utter piece of [&@%!]. The helmet is cheaply made and you don't even get a physical disc. Apparently, the inside of the helmet is made with styrofoam and the packaging is flimsy. Worse, the bag you get is no better then an average plastic bag. IF that is true then wow, Bethesda. That's [&@%!].

Regarding New Claifornia, shame about the dialogue and the death metal is an instant kill for the mod imo. It seems like they were going for edgy and ended up being immature with the dialogue. Fallout has ways to threaten people. Look at what a prank call does in Fallout 2. [&@%!] off the enclave soldier and he'll sic an entire squad on you.

With the recent purchase of Obsidian by Microsoft, i think whatever slim hope of New Vegas two or another game like it by them is now non-existent. I do hope I am proven wrong.

[Will Zurmacht]

Is there anything better in life than tromping around in power armor smashing muties and wastelanders with a super sledge? Revisiting the excellent Fallout 1.5: Resurrection at the moment, and heavy armor tanking for a competent group of companions is a lot of fun.

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...the companions feel like the devs bad tabletop characters adapted to a game. In the worst way.

Yeah, but Ben's an absolute boss at chucking spears. Have a real giggle every time he domes a raider from 50 meters with a stick from his bottomless quiver.

The mod authors are working on a content patch to expand the companion quests and add some meat to the bones of the emptier wasteland areas, though that probably won't be ready till February. Overall I was very impressed with New California as the work of two passionate modders who put this thing together in their spare time. Played probably 75% of the storyline, but will wait for the full stable release plus content patch to do a complete playthrough.

[joyescape]

PUBG, I am getting addicted to this game and it's not good.