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Riedquat wrote: ↑Fri Oct 02, 2020 12:00 pm
Whilst I mostly agree with that (I don't think the story in 4 is that terrible, and Far Harbour was pretty good, especially if you take Nick with you) it does reinforce my point about people going on about the bugs too much, that they suddenly don't become as much of an issue when they're happier with other things.
Far Harbour is so much better at realizing the "Bladerunner" riff they were attempting with the core game that it pretty perfectly illustrates why 4's story didn't work.
I could get into little things too, the Institute's plan not making any sense, their management structure not making any sense, the Railroad not making any sense, the Brotherhood of Steel's leadership not making any sense, the character of Kellog (which JESUS, that part where we spend 15 minutes walking thru his boring ass backstory), instantly becoming the supreme leader of the Minute Men, the general lack of choice at anything...
It is a bad roleplaying game, but it is a good action game with roleplaying elements.
But then I am the guy who was like, "If I wanted to play a base/farming simulator I would be playing one of those, these mechanics' inclusion is a distraction and had the time spent on this junk been spent on the story I would like the game more."
Those are all reasonable criticisms, although some a bit more than others and again some feel like searching for reasons to hate (FWIW I liked the settlement building, although it needed a lot more work). Remember just because I'm not ripping in to it doesn't mean I think it's great either. I said I don't think it was terrible. I didn't say I thought it was good. I'm seeing quite a lot of simplified black and white it must be one thing or the other, nothing else, in this thread.
Interesting one about choice, is there all that much less than most games? You've got more than in, say, Red Dead Redemption 2, where the story is pretty much 100% linear other than a minor direction at the end.
To be honest I've generally viewed the story in Bethesda games as just existing to provide something to do in the open world rather than being a core aspect of the game. In Skyrim I generally ignore the story once I've got FUS-RO-DAH.
Fuzzy Necromancer wrote: ↑Fri Oct 02, 2020 11:08 pm
So you're saying bugs don't count.
If Todd Howard isn't hiring you for a marketing position, he should.
Oh dear oh dear oh dear. What is it with some people and their complete and utter inability to have a discussion? "So you're saying" is an inevitable sign of someone who insists on what someone's opinion is and just tries to twist what they've said to fit it. Try harder. I'm also getting distinct vibes of "You must be fully licking someone's arse if you don't agree with exaggerating every criticism well past its significance."
Well then forgive me for being reductive, but I have a hard time interpreting your words as not either downplaying or dismissing the bugs entirely.
"Believe me, there’s nothing so terrible that someone won’t support it."
— Un Lun Dun, China Mieville
Fuzzy Necromancer wrote: ↑Sat Oct 03, 2020 5:09 pm
Well then forgive me for being reductive, but I have a hard time interpreting your words as not either downplaying or dismissing the bugs entirely.
Downplaying perhaps - the fact that they don't seem to raise so much ire in the best-received but buggiest game shows that they're not as big an issue as people made out.
One thing I'm not doing though is lurching to either extreme, so it's wrong to interpret saying they're not completely and utterly terrible as being equivlent to dismissing them entirely. This happens all too often these days. It's making me wonder if your problem with what I'm saying comes from trying to choose one of only two pigeonholes to fit it in to.
The bugs are a nuisance, bugs are also inevitable in any piece of software, the more complex the more likely (and these are more complex games than most from a code perspective), so some are to be expected. There are some bugs that are encountered often enough that don't look unavoidably engine-related and really should've been fixed before release but never get fixed at all, and that's a justified negative mark. They're a problem but I do feel people over-exaggerate their impact.
My position is that the bugs are so glaring and so numerous, Bethesda is basically a byword for halfassed coding. If you make such desperate workarounds and shortcuts that train travel is accomplished by turning the character's head into a train and making them run really fast, then it's clear you aren't taking the time and manpower to write proper code. It points to a larger, systemic problem of slapping together whatever barely-functional games you can and shoving them out fast so you can turn around and start hyping the next big pre-release for a half-baked, barely-functional product, then offer fixes either in pay-to-play DLC or just lay back and rely on the uncompensated labor of fans to come up with fixes.
If that's not lazy, slipshod, substandard production, then what is?
"Believe me, there’s nothing so terrible that someone won’t support it."
— Un Lun Dun, China Mieville
If this is a Bethesda/Fallout bash then a few thoughts.
How is using a train as a head and someone running on tracks that you would never see like that a bad thing? It is working with the limitations in machines at the time. Do you hold Taito/Midway for the aliens in Space Invaders speeding up as you kill them a bug? It was caused by the hardware being overloaded to make them slow. And they kept it as a challenging feature. Work arounds happen often.
I don't get into Elder Scrolls as much as I do Fallout. There is something about the familiar versus the fantasy the pulls me in further. But I see all these little thing put all over the place in Fallout 4 that have absolutely nothing to do with the core quests or usual side missions. I find them awesome in a world building kind of way. There is more to the world than a dozen items and a short fetch quest or seven. That said, Fallout 4 has only two endings while pretending to have four. Much of the issues I see, seem to come from they wrapped things up and shipped it to get it out the door before consoles changed again or something. You see this often.
New Vegas had some awe inspiring side quests that could relate to your ending, your reputation, and just your feeling of accomplishment. Lonesome Road was tough but made you feel awesome by the time you were done. What was wrong? They had such a short development time that they could not keep the program stable. I would play New Vegas more than 4 but 4 runs and Vegas can stall just trying to boot it up.
My hope for this buy out. We get a Fallout 5. Let the teams from 4 and New Vegas work on it and set it somewhere new. Hawaii maybe. And either a new stable engine or time to iron out the bugs.
My fear is the will shovel out a new Fallout 5 with almost no content and all the bugs still.
I am currently playing "Skyrim" again for the 12th time and even tho I like exploring and the art style, I have to say that there are a million little niggles that make me mumble to myself, "This fucking game" every hour or so.
I am interested in seeing how the company changes going forward.
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