Not at all-- you provided me with good mod advice and several great-sounding quest mods right off the bat, and I’m grateful for it, thanks! The game discussion tangent has been a fun unexpected bonus-- I didn’t expect that from a 10 year old game that’s kind of the black sheep of the FO franchise for some.
The Huntress Manor mod sounds fun, and I do love the Lovecraftian elements of the game. Though the 4 years without updates is a bit concerning
Hey, got any opinion on the Ashland Station quest mod? The page says it’s more for advanced players, and “Rewarding for players who take a little extra time to look around”. Which is part of the game I like-- the little serotonin hits of finding nice loot items or Easter eggs.
But they seem to be able to do that to many of the humans that they replace with synths.
It’s never really explained. Maybe, as you say, they can pull the memories out of brains. Or maybe it’s just one of many things about FO4 that don’t make a lot of sense if you think about them too much (like why are they replacing humans in the first place, and why is Father old when they can keep Kellogg young, why is “at least we still have the backup” never explained, etc.).
As a role player, the only way I could get through the last stage of the game was to assume that it wasn’t bad writing, it was that everyone in the institute was lying to me. That’s the reason nothing made sense if you thought about it too much.
As for why the game forces you to basically be a homicidal maniac (it’s a shooter, not an RPG), I just assumed that I was originally a combat synth.
Man, I hated that bit in Far Harbor. IIRC, he asks you why you don’t have many memories from before the war, and your option is something like, “Oh, it’s probably brain damage from the cryonics,” and not, “No, my memory’s fine, I recall most of my pre-war life.” Because up to that point, there’d been no hint that you were amnesiac at all, and I’d been playing my character with the assumption that he’s wandering around Boston, recognizing all this stuff from his past. It was what set them apart from all the other FO protagonists, to whom the ruins are the remnants of largely forgotten ancients, while the Sole Survivor is going to Diamond City and remembering watching Sox games there with their spouse.
One line of dialogue in a DLC, and it turns out that was all wrong, and the only thing the Sole Survivor remembers from before the war is literally the ten minutes you play through in the opening before the bombs drop, just so they can half-ass the Bladerunner cliche.
Yeah, people have different definitions of an RPG.
I’m not going to argue it either.
A lot of folks bash Fallout 3, but at least many of its quests did branch. You could save Megaton or nuke it, for example. You could choose to be a good guy or a bad guy (although about the only consequence of being a bad guy is that your father expresses a bit of disappointment in you later).
Bethesda seems to have lost that somewhere along the way. They give you quests, but they don’t let you choose different paths based on your personality. There are a few conversation options in FO4 for different personality types, but nothing that matters. The quests don’t branch. The conversation choices generally don’t matter.
A lot of fans complained that you could only be a good guy in the main game, so Bethesda made Nuka World kind of a bad guy DLC, which misses the point entirely. It’s not that people want to play as a bad guy, it’s that people want the choice.
Being able to make choices like that is, IMHO, what makes a game an RPG. Bethesda used to understand that. Now they don’t. Which is sad, because it was the one thing that they used to be really good at and it used to set them above other game companies.
Well, F76 and it’s ugly Pay-to-Win took the the worst of the bad feelings about FO4 out behind the chemical shed and shot them a few dozen times. I mean FO4 did, and still has many flaws, and F76 has gotten a lot better for non-subscribers, but darn did F76 insta-equip some rose colored glasses to all who have played both!
Not directly, no, I haven’t done a FO4 playthrough in over a year (I’ve been making myself work on my piles of Steam Games purchased on sale but not played). It looks great, and the sort of thing I would enjoy as well, but I’m always slightly hesitant about quest mods after long experience. I’ve shared the ones I’ve liked, but played many more. And often, the problem isn’t with the mod, or even with me (surprisingly!) but with how the creator’s assumptions about how -everyone- will play or how -intuitive- the quest steps are vary greatly from my own.
It’s like the Zork days, of course you need to use the Thigamajig to lift the Blinglehorfer! Umm… no. It’s not obvious. And if you go through the comments, and it’s not obvious to a large number of people. Oh well, it’s unjust to complain about free content offered with the best of intents.
I totally agree that it’s an extremely late reveal, and for that matter, it’s verifiably wrong. When you’re talking to Kent about the Silver Shroud, you can comment that you remember the specific episode he brings up. That didn’t happen in the 10 minute intro! Another problem is DiMA’s is this and some of other “current” DiMA’s actions makes the supposed “reveal” of what a pragmatic ass he was in the past fall flat. No, perhaps especially since he was willing to dump his memory before, he keeps making the same mistakes. And I’m not convinced he won’t due it again.
Like a cult leader, he’s surrounded himself with a lot of innocents as well, which is why I’m reluctant to take him out among the other options. In general, even if it isn’t the best option from “the greater good” perspective, I have him go confess in Far Harbor and be killed, but convince the town that Arcadia is itself innocent. Of course, the game gives you NOTHING for that result in terms of perks or bennies. Yet in my eyes, it’s the most just option.
I’ve never really thought of that as a particular strength of Bethesda’s. Their big draw was always the huge, open world overstuffed with side quests and environmental storytelling, but not a whole lot of narrative reactivity outside one or two big set piece decisions towards the end of the game. (New Vegas is a notable exception, but that was a third party dev). Is the Stormcloaks v. Imperials plot line from Skyrim really that much meatier than the Railroad v. Brotherhood v. Institute plot in FO4? IIRC, Morrowind and Oblivion always lead to the same ending, regardless of any choices you make in the game.
Even the relatively big swings, like blowing up Megaton, have fairly limited reactivity outside that immediate quest. Things change in Megaton (obviously) and Tenpenny Tower, but does it affect anything outside of that particular plotline? One NPC turns into a ghoul, and one of your companions gives you some shit about the mass murder you just committed, but still stays with your party. I don’t think it really changes how anyone else reacts to you.
There isn’t really a lot of branching in the main story for Fallout New Vegas. There are a bunch of factions and your option for each faction is either to run errands for them or kill/sabotage them (and if you’re siding with the Republic or the Legion, they tell you exactly which option to choose). That’s about it.
I really wanted to play and love it. But despite a few hours work on it, I couldn’t get it to work reliably on an existing save when I downloaded FO4 - Point Lookout in 2023. If I did a clean install, it might work better, but it also hasn’t been updated in three years. So I’d have to cross my fingers.
I consider that to be a fair amount of branching. Right out of the gate, you choose between saving Goodsprings or siding with the Powder Gangers. Then you have the House, NCR, and Legion branches, which you don’t actually have to choose immediately. You can progress part-way down each branch before making your final decision. At some point, proceeding down any of those branches locks out the others, and from there on out there is no branching.
And then you have the Yes Man branch, where you can decide the fate of many other factions. Yes, it basically boils down to either helping them or kill/sabotage them, but at least you have that choice.
Personally, I’m not that impressed by Skyrim. The main quest is extremely formulaic, side quests are shallow and underdeveloped (for example, the College of Winterhold quest is basically do a few minor things and poof, you’re the arch-mage) and the puzzles are kindergarten-level. Bethesda over time seems to be shifting away from games with any real substance in them and seem to be going towards casual gamers who don’t mind shallow games with little substance.
Fallout 3 quests could be more impactful. I’ll agree with you on that one. Fallout 4 is worse in that respect.
Yeah, I can agree that FO4 is a nadir in Bethesda’s RPG history, as far as narrative impact goes… it’s just not that much of a dip. Their actual interactivity was always pretty shallow, especially if you don’t count NV.
I characterize it as the “World of Warcraft” effect, as a popular exemplar of an MMORPG. It’s still an RPG, but quests are basically task lists with no choices. And many players spend most of their time solo. (The WoW endgame raiding is essentially a separate game tacked onto the leveling game.) Which is the itch that Fallout 4 scratches. So game developers see that niche as something worth pursuing.
So I finally learned The Secret of Vault 4 last night (I don’t play every night, and I stretched out side quests to make Fourville last). What did I choose? Welp, I kinda cheated. First I shut down the AI to see the aftermath. Kinda sad! I mean, I had pretty much figured out it was something like that. A couple minor vault-related side quests I still had going failed. Not too much reaction in Fourville, besides the Mayor expressing sadness and disappointment, and the ‘Four Preacher’ giving the disillusioned sermon and getting beaten to death by his congregation.
Then I loaded a point just before I shut down the AI and restored everything. Not much point though, I think. Not sure if anything is much left to play out now. It was fun while it lasted.
On to one of the other quest mods, maybe…? Or maybe a new game altogether. I tried out Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, but it hasn’t grabbed me yet.
Most of the existing quest mods are shorter than Fourville, but many tell a good story. Really about what you find yourself liking in the end.
I’ve completed Mass Effect: Legendary, but I’m one of the mutants that liked the first the most, then the third, then the second, so my advice there is probably abby-normal. Even at it’s lows, I consider it a good game, but the simplicity of builds in 2 meant it had less replay value for me compared to the other two pieces of story.
And I’m probably a pretty epic weirdo in liking Andromeda, which was a lot more open world. Though I was pretty harsh in that choosing a late-teen to early twenty-something wasn’t a good match with the existing audience, and a new audience wasn’t going to -get- all the framing story, so it was probably bound to a degree of failure no matter what. Oh, and the Pay-to-win (mostly for multiplayer) and that same multiplayer/PVP was lame.
Still, if you want something different it’s worth a consider, but it’ll make infinitely more sense if you finish I-III.
Just an FYI to @ParallelLines since you said you don’t have it-- I downloaded the ‘Ashland Station’ quest mod. It’s a fairly quick playthrough, but it was pretty enjoyable-- a few decent puzzles to solve, and some pretty powerful and numerous enemies. I even died once, and I almost never die anymore! It would be a very difficult quest mod to play without being sufficiently leveled up.
Now I’m at the ‘settlement’ phase of the mod, which is a part of the game I’m not as crazy about as the mystery-solving / enemy battling part, but I’m having fun sprucing the place up.
Hmmm. I’ll consider then when I get past my currently scheduled games of Outer Worlds 1 (with DLC) playthrough to lead into Outer Worlds 2 (October theoretically) and god knows what else will move around the list. Not enough time in the world.
I’m an OG Fallout player. I bought FO1 on release and played it for a week straight on a Pentium 233 (with MMX)! I played every other game except that ridiculous PS2 Gauntlet-alike. I’m as qualified as anyone not named Tim Cain to say what a Fallout game is, and FO4 is one (unless you think FO3 isn’t).
I don’t think anyone has said FO4 isn’t a Fallout game, just that many among us didn’t feel the storytelling/character aspects of it were weak. I feel the same way about Fallout 3, but agree that FO1, 2 and NV gave the player character a lot more backstory and actions of consequence, or at least, the illusion of such.
Back to the OP, there are some Mods that much more heavily integrate FO3 lore and characters into 4, including the Lyon heritage. There’s always been a lot of fan speculation about other characters that appear in 4 that could be/be related to characters from 3. And we do have quite a few carryover characters already - Maxon, MacCready, Li, Sierra Petrovita.
While it works better on a pre-ending playthrough, if you want to have some extra tie-ins in FO4, trying Outcasts and Remnants plus Project Valkyrie, though these tend to lean into more adult elements than some mods.
Warning though, I haven’t tried either of these since any of the more recent FO4 updates, so no idea if they’ll work properly or have missing/modified textures and the like. Still, at least they’re 2020 mods, so not AS risky as some that haven’t been updated in like 10 years and still honestly work!
