Fallout 4 Proved Bigger Isn't Always Better

Megalith

Megalith

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I don’t think I have gotten anywhere near far enough in Fallout 4 to come to this sort of opinion, but do any of you agree that things are just a little too bland in Bethesda’s latest wasteland effort? Do you think they should try scaling things down in the next installment so they can put more originality into each locale?

…there are many iconic Boston landmarks that are faithfully recreated in Fallout 4; not every building is a mishmash of prefabricated units. However, other areas though could have benefited from a little diversity. I've scoured the inner buildings of the Commonwealth and the scattered ruins beyond for settlement scrap and supplies more hours than I can count, but I'd be hard-pressed to tell you anything special about them. The ones I remember the most had a unique detail: the General Atomics Galleria with its imposing spire, Parsons State Asylum with its breathtaking architecture and sprawling, ivy-invested grounds, the great green wall of Diamond City.
 
It's a big game. From a design standpoint the use of prefab building units is a no-brainer. But it does lend itself to a lot of cookie cutter areas that aren't going to be memorable. Fallout 3 got away with it mostly because it was something that hadn't been experienced in that way before. In Fallout 4 it's "been there, done that" all before, just more of it. Fallout 4 is going to be a fun game to revisit in 5 or 6 years when the modders have done those "total overhaul" mods they did for Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Right now it's kinda meh.
 
Dwango said:
It's a big game. From a design standpoint the use of prefab building units is a no-brainer. But it does lend itself to a lot of cookie cutter areas that aren't going to be memorable. Fallout 3 got away with it mostly because it was something that hadn't been experienced in that way before. In Fallout 4 it's "been there, done that" all before, just more of it. Fallout 4 is going to be a fun game to revisit in 5 or 6 years when the modders have done those "total overhaul" mods they did for Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Right now it's kinda meh.
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I love this game as is. The only thing that drives me nuts are the glitches and crashes. Survival is a bitch but awesome.
 
Dwango said:
It's a big game. From a design standpoint the use of prefab building units is a no-brainer. But it does lend itself to a lot of cookie cutter areas that aren't going to be memorable. Fallout 3 got away with it mostly because it was something that hadn't been experienced in that way before. In Fallout 4 it's "been there, done that" all before, just more of it. Fallout 4 is going to be a fun game to revisit in 5 or 6 years when the modders have done those "total overhaul" mods they did for Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Right now it's kinda meh.
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sometimes i think Bethesda deliberately leaves these bland so the mod community has a semi blank canvas to work with. The Holds overhaul for Skyrim that's been blowing up lately makes it look like a whole new world, town wise.
 
Dwango said:
It's a big game. From a design standpoint the use of prefab building units is a no-brainer. But it does lend itself to a lot of cookie cutter areas that aren't going to be memorable. Fallout 3 got away with it mostly because it was something that hadn't been experienced in that way before. In Fallout 4 it's "been there, done that" all before, just more of it. Fallout 4 is going to be a fun game to revisit in 5 or 6 years when the modders have done those "total overhaul" mods they did for Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Right now it's kinda meh.
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It is a "big game" in the sense of gigabytes.

It is not a "big game" in the sense that you can run from one end of the map to the other in an hour. In terms of geography, most towns in my state of Nebraska have more buildings/blocks than Boston FO4. The sense I got out of Fallout 4 was that Boston is roughly the same geographic size as Valentine, Nebraska. Got bored of the main quest, yet again they try to make all the options suck by being morally "gray" and creating artificial conflict.


There's quests of course, and hidden stuff here and there...but the in-game world is small.
 
The main storyline really sucks. Other than that I enjoyed the game a great deal. The world map feels very appropriately sized and most of my playtime time was spent exploring.

If I had any criticism of FO4 the world design would be near the end of that list.

Let's talk about the actual bad stuff like the terrible forgettable characters. Trash dialogue. The predictable joke of a main story. Way too much of a focus on settlements.
 
lol smaller is better ? seriously sometimes, it all depands on the game, if it was a great game, and great DLCs content, ppl would have explored more and even found FO4 to be small, but if you give them a boring game ofc they would get bored exploring since they cannot wait for it to end.
 
I don't think Bethesda is all that great at making video games, their stories suck, their animation sucks, their character models suck, their combat systems are ok. What they are amazing at is creating topographically believable worlds and turning them into a canvas for modders to come in and take an all around average game and turn it into something naked... err... amazing.
 
Fallout 4's problem lies in its aged gaming engine, so it looks like we waited half a decade for basically the same thing as before....repeating textures and architecture, hopelessly out of scale homes and interiors, etc. It's all the engine.

Textures look good, sometimes, lighting, sometimes....but other times it looks awful. That's the thing, Fallout 4 just wasn't epic...it's kind of..."just another Fallout game".
 
i don't think scaling down will make it less bland. It's bethesda that's the problem. Get some new writers, spend more time with the storyline.
 
The main issue is that more and more people are seeing the chinks in Bethesda's armor.

They are great games in terms of world design, providing a sense of exploration and enticing you to explore and find things.

However they fall terribly short when it comes to writing for Stories/characters and then the technical side when it comes to animations and things (name me any AAA studio with worse animations...).

They just need to get more people in the studio to fill those gaps, hire some bloody good writers, heck even hire writers outside of gaming if need be. Get a new engine already and use some mocap and better animators.
 
Stiler said:
The main issue is that more and more people are seeing the chinks in Bethesda's armor.

They are great games in terms of world design, providing a sense of exploration and enticing you to explore and find things.

However they fall terribly short when it comes to writing for Stories/characters and then the technical side when it comes to animations and things (name me any AAA studio with worse animations...).

They just need to get more people in the studio to fill those gaps, hire some bloody good writers, heck even hire writers outside of gaming if need be. Get a new engine already and use some mocap and better animators.
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Electronic Arts. Seriously...their walking animations in the Mass Effect series just plain sucked. Everyone moved like a football player.
 
Console game with immersion breaking bad controls. The graphics were worse than a slightly modded Skyrim. The story was a dreadful predictable mess. Mods help a lot but its inferior to previous Fallout games in just about every way.
 
Skyrim for instance I remember that every location was unique
Every dungeon was unique

Fallout 4
Big, but yeah can be quite, samy
However like others said
Some more work in writing and creating stories could do something

I remember having to dive into a canvas in oblivion to get a guy out that was trapped inside
Or some endlessly repeating battle of ghost defending a ghost fortress in shivering Isles DLC

They where more unique once
Also the lone wanderer add one was nice in new Vegas

I think they put too much time into the ingame modding
You know building own settlements n so forth

While it's amazing what you can do, it costs a lot of development time to implement
Probably took away from more in depth features
 
I got bored playing it for several weeks. Haven't played it in months now and probably won't finish it.
 
It's weird I haven't finished the game yet, I finished FO3 and FO:NV easily, but I just can't seem to get back into this one. I stopped playing in order to play a different game, then I just couldn't get back into FO4. I have had that happen to me a lot lately.
 
I don't see any problems with Fallout 4. All the bitching about it is baffling to me. It's far superior to Fallout 3. I had to really push myself to finish that game even once, and I only spent 25-30 hours on it, then forgot it completely. I've spent 100 hours playing Fallout4 in my first attempt. I say that is proof in itself of it's superiority. It's by far the best bethesda rpg to date, no question to me. Even skyrim got boring much quicker.

Yes the commonwealth feels smaller than skyrim. But I wanted to explore the commonwealth. Skyrim well not so much. That's a self refuting statement in the article anyway. Starts with the premise that bigger is not always better, then bitches about it being smaller than another game.
 
I've restarted this game many times and each time I get about 10 hours into it and just get bored. It has some interesting things to see but over all the game is just boring to me. The world seems stale and dead. I suppose I'll just take another crack at it and just focus on the main storyline to finally finish it.
 
I got pulled to much into some From Software games, but my dad has logged so many hours he had 20 level ups stacked and unneeded. He also said he's pretty sure he can go to Boston and find his way around the city from his game knowledge. (An exaggeration but still).

While bigger might leave a samey taste to most encounters, it just doesn't matter to some people.
 
Skripka said:
Because you can totally customize your character in The Witcher games. Oh wait. You can't.
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I don't even want to call supposed rpgs that have no character creation rpgs. Since any game can be an rpg by that standard, you roleplay in tomb raider too, and it has rpg elements, levelups and so on, but noone ever would call it an rpg.

To me a real rpg begins with character customization. The ability to define not just the looks (but that's important too) but the personality and traits of your character as well. The hardest thing for me in the Witcher series was that I absolutely loathed the main character. That's why I haven't even thought of touching Witcher 3 yet. I started playing 2 when it was new, but after the nth act of the main character that I was opposed to I stopped playing.
 
M76 said:
I don't even want to call supposed rpgs that have no character creation rpgs. Since any game can be an rpg by that standard, you roleplay in tomb raider too, and it has rpg elements, levelups and so on, but noone ever would call it an rpg.

To me a real rpg begins with character customization. The ability to define not just the looks (but that's important too) but the personality and traits of your character as well. The hardest thing for me in the Witcher series was that I absolutely loathed the main character. That's why I haven't even thought of touching Witcher 3 yet. I started playing 2 when it was new, but after the nth act of the main character that I was opposed to I stopped playing.
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So Planescape Torment isn't an rpg then either...

Visual customization is not what makes an rpg an rpg.

It's about being able to take a character (even if it's not one you visually customize) and then being able to take the character and shape them over the course of them not only in terms of stats/abilities, but story elements, choices and things you can make.
 
M76 said:
I don't even want to call supposed rpgs that have no character creation rpgs. Since any game can be an rpg by that standard, you roleplay in tomb raider too, and it has rpg elements, levelups and so on, but noone ever would call it an rpg.

To me a real rpg begins with character customization. The ability to define not just the looks (but that's important too) but the personality and traits of your character as well. The hardest thing for me in the Witcher series was that I absolutely loathed the main character. That's why I haven't even thought of touching Witcher 3 yet. I started playing 2 when it was new, but after the nth act of the main character that I was opposed to I stopped playing.
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To apply your own logic, via the minute character creation system involved most FPS multiplayer components are RPGs. That is the standard you applied right?

An RPG is a combination of many facets, and I'm sorry that you dislike Geralt. Honestly he's a character designed to be disliked though. And I'll be honest I can't get into the Witcher 2 (though enjoyed the 1st and 3rd). But if your metric is making the character you're missing out. However, I won't fault you at all for being unable to play a character you don't like or identify with at all. Or just a game you can't get into. It happens regardless.

I've been typing this for like 20 minutes because I keep stopping to talk while at the bar(totes chatting it up with a cute bartender....who might be a lesbian iunno or care she's cool as shit). Fun fact. Or not I don't care.
 
I think I'm getting old. Last 2 games I bought were Fallout 4 and Overwatch, can't stand either. First is a bland open-world "RPG" that has no feeling of urgency or who gives a fuck what happens. 2nd is the complete opposite, pure ADD action on tiny maps with no depth.
 
TwistedAegis said:
I think I'm getting old. Last 2 games I bought were Fallout 4 and Overwatch, can't stand either. First is a bland open-world "RPG" that has no feeling of urgency or who gives a fuck what happens. 2nd is the complete opposite, pure ADD action on tiny maps with no depth.
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How old are you? If you don't mind my asking, since my dad will be 60 this year.

If you don't like the game, you don't like the game, but don't blame age. And please don't take this as a instance to attack my father because he does enjoy the game.
 
TwistedAegis said:
I think I'm getting old. Last 2 games I bought were Fallout 4 and Overwatch, can't stand either. First is a bland open-world "RPG" that has no feeling of urgency or who gives a fuck what happens. 2nd is the complete opposite, pure ADD action on tiny maps with no depth.
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Those are my two favorite games currently at 31 years old. Go play solitaire old man.
 
She's not totally wrong, there are quite a few places in Fallout 4 which feel like copy and pastes of each other with nothing interesting.

I also love both Fallout 4 and Overwatch.
 
I never really got into the older games, fallout 3 or oblivion/morrowind. But I had a blast with Fallout 4/Skyrim.

The hing is, and it applies to both games, the game is purely based on progression, and not story. It was just great fun building up my character to the build that I ended up with. Then I grudgingly finish up the stories. Both games definitely have lots of" been there, done that" feel, but tbh, there really isn't much that isn't like that. Even more so, if you want it to be endless like the radiant quests.
 
I'm still working on New Vegas personally. Took me forever to get to it because I didn't realize I could use mods to solve the constant crashing nonsense in FO3 for Win 7. Once I realized that both FO3 and FNV became significantly more enjoyable to me. I'll probably get to FO4 around the end of summer. As far as the article goes, I'm pretty sure that texture mods resolve the problem and personally while I don't like that mods have to fix it. At least mods Can fix it.
 
Nolan7689 said:
To apply your own logic, via the minute character creation system involved most FPS multiplayer components are RPGs. That is the standard you applied right?

An RPG is a combination of many facets, and I'm sorry that you dislike Geralt. Honestly he's a character designed to be disliked though. And I'll be honest I can't get into the Witcher 2 (though enjoyed the 1st and 3rd). But if your metric is making the character you're missing out. However, I won't fault you at all for being unable to play a character you don't like or identify with at all. Or just a game you can't get into. It happens regardless.

I've been typing this for like 20 minutes because I keep stopping to talk while at the bar(totes chatting it up with a cute bartender....who might be a lesbian iunno or care she's cool as shit). Fun fact. Or not I don't care.
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You're no applying my logic, you're applying reverse logic. I didn't say every game that has character creation is an rpg. I said a game without character creation is not really an rpg.

My metric for getting into a game is not making the character. It's liking the character I have to endure for the duration of the game. If I can make the character that makes it almost certain that I'll like the character. I skipped a few acclaimed games because I didn't like the main character. But I played dozens of others without character creators where the protagonist was acceptable.

You're writing on an IT forum while at a bar? You better get off that shit.
 
Stiler said:
So Planescape Torment isn't an rpg then either...

Visual customization is not what makes an rpg an rpg.

It's about being able to take a character (even if it's not one you visually customize) and then being able to take the character and shape them over the course of them not only in terms of stats/abilities, but story elements, choices and things you can make.
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You didn't read my entire post did you?
 
sir-gold said:
This is where I'm at too. What I'm waiting for is the mods that will give me a reason to install it again in a few years.



Well, it IS a radioactive wasteland.....
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Look at Pripyat. A genuine radioactive wasteland. The place is a nature preserve.

In the event of nuclear holocaust, odds are that the world would not be a dry arid dead desert. Ma Nature would cover our ruins up quick inside of a human lifetime.
 
Stiler said:
So Planescape Torment isn't an rpg then either...

Visual customization is not what makes an rpg an rpg.

It's about being able to take a character (even if it's not one you visually customize) and then being able to take the character and shape them over the course of them not only in terms of stats/abilities, but story elements, choices and things you can make.
Click to expand...

In that case then Witcher 3 is far from an RPG since you're basically limited to sword combat 99.9% of the game.
 
sir-gold said:
This is where I'm at too. What I'm waiting for is the mods that will give me a reason to install it again in a few years.



Well, it IS a radioactive wasteland.....
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Its 200+ years in the future after the Great War. Yes, there probably would still be pockets of Radiation but nature would reclaim it after that long. Especially in a place like Boston so close to the coast. Like a previous poster said, look at Pripyat.
 
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