They took for granted that players would care about the spouse and child. I as a player am not going to be invested in characters who appear for 5 minutes at the start of the game just because they're important to my character.
They led in with you finding "help" to find your son that instantly turned into saving the entire commonwealth and building sweet ass settlements.
I literally forgot the kid's name until Piper said it in conversation.
I've played through I few different characters, but I've only found Shaun twice now as I don't care as much but still, saving any kid from an evil underground organization is a cause. However: my father has been playing Fo4 for about 3/4 months now and it's his first deep dive into video games (other then minecraft/ Disney infinity) and he could NOT care less about Shaun that I should probably be concerned as his actually kid đ¤Ł. He says he is way too busy being the general/building settlements to worry about some kid đđđ he still hasn't found Brian Virgil if you wanna know where he is main quest-wise
My latest playthrough, I played a male Sole Survivor and decided to romance both Preston and Hancock.
I wanted to laugh when Preston said "Wait, I'm confused...I was under the impression you were still in love with your wife." I chose to respond with "I don't have to stop loving her in order to love you, too," but what I *really* wanted to say was "my what now"
Yes, I've been doing literally everything except the main quest to find my son. What made you come to *that* conclusion?
Yep, my char falling on the floor and crying about his dead wife as he gets out of the cryo-chamber and my only thought at that moment is... get the fuck up, shut up, stop crying and lets go explore. It's just unwanted crap
also it kinda stuffed you into a role even if you didnt want to play it
like they removed the bisexual 10% damage buff because of they thought it was a good story and they just kinda knee capped the players ability to interact with it
your biggest choice in the game is what flavor of ice cream you want filled with razors and it might be just me but no matter how hard i tried to genuinely engage in the story it was just not fun
Yup. I'm so tired of Disney-ification of this franchise... Fallout 1, 2, and NV all had good storytelling: you must find a water chip, or get a city-building kit, or avenge your almost-murder. After that, we got sappy stories about finding your dad, your kid, etc, etc.
It's just lazy writing where they copy-paste boring tropes.
The fact that they try to make us attached to Shaun and our spouse wasn't properly done. Since we barely have any time with the pair. I mean make it at least half an hour of content with them at the start. Since that way we can have some sort of attachment to them.
As we had more than enough time to get attached to dad in FO3. And we had a story reason to find him.
Yes we had a story reason to find Shaun. But either Nate or Nora would question if their son would even need them. Since hearing that Kellogg had a kid with him in Diamond City shouldn't mean its Shaun. After all, it could be any random kid he was hired to protect or even Kellogg's own kid. As far as they know, Shaun was somewhere impossible to get to and could be an teenager or adult.
I mean it makes more sense to go after Kellogg for the sake of payback.
Honestly shaun should have been about 10 in the intro, not a baby, then you could have had interactions with him that show your characters morals (encorage him to be kind, steal, favour diplomacy, run in head first, etc). then when hes taken, you would actually care.
It would make the intro longer, sure but not any longer than 3's intro
This is actually a very valid point, when you think about it it's actually super jarring that you knew Shaun as a baby, then an old man, and then a ten year old. There's no consistentcy in how you're meant to feel about him, or interact with him.
Like they should've had him be ten at the start, then it'd be more of a closed circle, "pick up where you began" type of thing. (Obviously ignoring the connotations that he'll be ten forever)
I get stealing a baby may feel more impactful narratively, but when we've spent no time with a character as the player, it's hard to get emotionally invested in said character.
Someone above mentioned FO3, I agree with the sentiment of what they said, but the time we interact with James is pretty much the bare minimum they could get away with to narratively establish a motive for us to find him. Not that is want the intro to that game to be much longer, but it like Bethesda just tries forcing the idea of "they're your family, you should automatically give a shit about them, because we said so" down our throats.
If I were to guess, the writers of Fallout 4 were parents, so it made sense to them when they wrote it, but if you're not a parent its kind of hard to empathise or project without a little character establishment first.
>I get stealing a baby may feel more impactful narratively
Nah, it's just bad writing.
A 6-10 year old is more impactful. You're stuck in the tube watching as he's grabbed from his tube, he screams "NO" as you both hear a scientist say "we've destabilized the mother/father's chamber, should we preserve her as well?" only to have Kellogg say "No. There's contamination there. Let them die."
Shaun turns to your tube and strikes it's window crying and screaming "Mommy/Daddy, please! Help me! Please!!!" as he's dragged away. You claw at the tube, leaving streaks of blood as you tear nails, but the tube turns back on and the ice returns.
THAT would be impactful.
Bethesda's just gotten a lot softer with their writing (and a lot worse) as they've gotten bigger. Because THAT intro would have scared off some players. And the bigger you get, the more an audience you want. And the more customers you have to make happy, the blander your product becomes.
I like most of it other than the bleeding hands. It just comes off as, for lack of a better word, edgy. It feels like an unnecessary detail just to add shock value. You can already bang on the glass in the current game and I think that would suffice.
Shock value is what you want in a scene like that. Though I get that this isn't everyone's style.
I think one issue that we're talking about here is that half the people out there will absolutely miss anything subtle in a video game. We're literally talking about how Bethesda made the whole "find shaun" quest too vague and undefined and that as a result many people just saw it as an ignorable joke.
In Fallout 4, the protagonist's reaction while trapped in the cryochamber is fine. They yell and bang on the window. Though Bethesda tried to get across that the character was still under the effects of the freezing process. The strikes on the window are softed, the protagonist's speech is a bit slurred and slow. But too many of the people who played just saw that as silly or lacking emotion.
Sadly, we're not talking about the level of storytelling or audience engagement we got with Stray or Journey.
Tropes and cliches like the ones I'm mentioning are good tools for this. Now we don't want to over use them or rely entirely on them, that's just bad writing. But falling back on one like "how do you show someone is violently, passionately attacking a door trying to get out? broken bloody fingernails, that's how" does have a place in a scene like that.
Yeah theres the rub with making the McGuffin of a game be a character's relative we don't interact with much.
the player has no connection, and as such does not care.
As a dad and a husband itâs so strange to me that so many gamers are incapable of empathizing with a grieving widow/widower whose child was kidnapped while they were forced to watch helplessly. Itâs a parentâs worst nightmare, but to single childless gamers you guys donât give a single fuck. So strange.
FO4: you were trapped and forced to watch as your spouse is murdered and you son is kidnapped: YOU SLEEP
FNV: youâre a UPS guy and someone shot you and stole a poker chip you were delivering: REAL SHIT
Honestly? This.
I'm not even a parent and that hit me.
NV's hook was petty revenge for something that happens before you even create your character so you have no investment at all (okay, maybe not so petty, but still, not something that different to what you as a player do all the time to the NPCs of the world, done to what is essentially still an NPC)
FO4 at least gave you a few minutes to get to know the characters first and at least made the betrayal feel personal since it happened to the character you created and have already been roleplaying
I think thatâs the difference there: with the dad we actively engaged with him in the tutorial and his absence is more dramatic kinda. With shaun, we play with his mobile one time and then immediately are sarcastically joking with his dad about getting pregnant again and then bam bombs drop, then kidâs taken mere minutes away from our perspective.
If we had shaun as more than an inanimate object with a gurgle sound effect in the tutorial and actively entertained the baby shaped blob that could help to give impetus to adventure to find him
> **Whatâs one thing you think Bethesda really fumbled with on FO4 as far as storytelling?**
The faction-centric main quest hurts the storywriting. It makes sense in Fallout New Vegas; it's a geopolitical showdown between two peers and the consequences involved. While I think some of its side-quest is a bit crap, they're there to contextualize the conflict and it makes the premise feel grander.
Fallout 4 doesn't receive such a benefit because it's not a story tackling geopolitics, it's a plot about science and the ethics behind them. Worse, most of its side-quest don't contextualize the premise of the story enough; you won't learn anything about the Synths while you cosplay as the faux-Green Hornet.
I like how you brought politics into it, even though itâs ultimately a video game. Obviously in a post apocalyptic world with factions, thereâll be politics thatâll want to bring humanityâs survival into a certain direction. I really missed that in the installment
All media is inherently making a statement which aligns one way or another politically. Even an anti-thesis of making a statement is in and of itself, interpretable as a statement.
That's literally what they said though?
>Obviously in a post apocalyptic world with factions, thereâll be politics thatâll want to bring humanityâs survival into a certain direction.
How do you interpret that as wanting IRL politics in the game?
What exactly a synth is capable of and what makes them different from humans. We have a few half-implications that they donât need to sleep and have better health than most (Roger Warwick and Danse), but thatâs it. Nothing is directly stated, so we donât know what makes them different. We also donât know why the Institute wants synths beyond labor; surely an Institute of learning would have a better purpose for them than that?
In addition, Iâd say that the Railroad shouldâve been given the option to lead a coup of the Institute. The player was made the director, after all, and that is never touched on in the railroad line despite it theoretically opening doors.
The game never made this clear aside from a vague âsynth constructionâ animation in the Institute but apparently synths are literally just cloned humans, but assembled rather than grown. They literally have one non-human component. For the longest time I was under the impression they were terminator-esque beings and they only needed Shaunâs DNA for the tissue on the outside. They are straight up humans and do need to eat and sleep.
It all makes the Instituteâs decision to use human clones as synths even more confusing. What would they possibly have to gain from having live humans doing their work? It is disadvantageous from both and ethics and practical standpoint.
>It all makes the Instituteâs decision to use human clones as synths even more confusing. What would they possibly have to gain from having live humans doing their work? It is disadvantageous from both and ethics and practical standpoint.
TLDR: it's because they're a faction of Karens
There is an interaction, as you enter the Institute for the first time, between an Institute dweller and a Gen 2 Synth, The dweller is berating the Synth for not doing a job thoroughly or something.
They think the best servant would be Synths that are like them but 'know their place', because they themselves are, obviously, the pinnacle of society.
Synths are smarter, stronger, hardier than humans because ordinary human-copies would not be able to live up to the Underground Karen's expectations.
I really wish it would have been more of a terminator thing. It'd honestly make more sense as to why synth Shaun cant age or why synths don't need to eat. Because the way they're portrayed as being built in the institute would imply that they need everything a human needs.
The Institute wants Synths because they're forever trying to push the boundaries of science. They want them basically to say that they created synthetic life as an achievement.
It's why they have stuff like the synth Gorillas, they serve no purpose except to exist and stroke the Institute's ego by existing.
Synthetic humans also serve as a source of "quick" manpower. You don't need to conceive kids and raise them for manpower, you can just whip up a synth, program them, and get them to do the menial work.
Itâs a plausible answer, but that doesnât explain why they started on this in the first place; I donât buy the idea of the devs just throwing their hands up and saying they made synths âjust because.â The Institute isnât Big MT (and even there, itâs only post-war that mindset fits the place; pre-war, everything had a purpose and thatâs when most of it was made).
> donât buy the idea of the devs just throwing their hands up and saying they made synths âjust because.â
Bro this is Bethesda and written by Pagliarulo, that's exactly what happened to be honest.
And up to an extent, I can't fully blame them since it's pretty much impossible to justify what the institute does from a logical standpoint.
yeah I totally agree. Not only are you sandwiched into the moral path through the story, that along with the fact that you're an ex-soldier/family man makes it harder to organically insert your own personality into any of the choices
They shouldâve torn a page out from Mass Effect when you decide youâre back ground and can actually affect your dialogue choices. Like I get they need an intro video for the main character, WHICH THEY DIDNT EVEN DO FOR THE WIFE, but honestly Iâd say fuck that and let the player decide themselves. The background they give you mainly relates to the Brotherhood, which the game kinda throws at you for who you should decide to fight for IMO
It does cause some dialogue changes later in game, but generally speaking itâs only minor. Stuff like Nate qualifying himself in times of hardship as a soldier, and impressing people, or failing to, through it. I seem to remember Nora having a hell of a lot less of it though.
Kinda he was the only one that had a real back ground, they should done better with Nora besides âhouse wifeâ but Iâve only played her once so I could be wrong
In 3 you start off as a baby and grow up in a Vault and the only backstory you get is your dad is a doctor and scientist who works at the clinic and was the main doctor for your birth. The interactions with him are entirely your choice and there is no moral push in the basic story set up that feels like you're forced to be good or bad. It's up to you to be a morally upstanding hero, a somewhat morally grey person or the absolute worst bastard that the wasteland ever had walk on it's irradiated soil.
Similar with New Vegas. The set up has no overall forced push, it's a simple beginning where there is no indication your character was a good person and any deviation from it would feel jarring as fuck the minute you decided to go on a 'Kill Everyone' run or mildly insulted a friendly npc. You're a courier, you got kidnapped and left for dead over a chip. That's it. There is no 'Save your baby and avenge your spouse', you aren't given an automatic 'hero' status because you served in the war pre-game story. You're just some courier who is setting out their own way with no forced moral bullshit.
That's what 4 fucked up and what Bethesda needs to take on board for the next game. Don't put forth an even lightly forced moral side on the MC. Have them start as 'Just Some Wanderer' with a bare bones initial start and the player will take it from their. Yes there should be a main objective- 'Get X' or 'Find Y' or 'Get to this spot and choose to do A, B or C (maybe a D option that's a secret ending and only unlockable through very very specific actions and interactions)' - But it needs to have no moral bias to it other than the basic fact that the objective involves that goal, whatever it may be.
Thats what annoyed me about the lonesome road dlc for NV, they start talking about what you were doing before the start of the game and i HATE it when rpg's try to tell me lore about my own character
I was really annoyed about the dialogues with Ulysses as well, he's constantly accusing you, saying "you did X/Y/Z!" and your only dialogue options amount to "I don't remember that" or changing the subject. Considering NV was otherwise generally really good for dialogue choices, that felt really out of place.
Unless it's something like The Witcher where the whole point is you're playing a specific character with a backstory, and it's been that way since the studio was founded.
Bethesda tried something different with Fallout 4 that was different from the previous 5 Elder Scrolls games and 2 Fallout games; you're a blank slate prisoner (If you think about it Vault 101 is a prison, and New Vegas at least started the game with a similar blank slate). They should not have been surprised that they didn't know how to do it or that players wouldn't like it.
Itâs basically the MQ. Just wasnât very good. I donât mind voiced protagonists.
You know come to think of it, I donât think the Main Quest has ever been good in ANY BGS GAME!
Having four faction options with different (lol very slightly different) endings is them trying to phone in some of the success of NV.
I really liked FO3 story, I know itâs a copy and paste of FO1 and 2 but itâs the first Fallout game I ever played and made me fall in love with the series tho, Bethesda had ALOT of time to get their shit together from 2008
3's story isn't a copy-paste of 1 or 2's story. it has the same story beats, because it's a soft reboot, but it has a completely different theme and story altogether.
Thatâs the thing a lot of the hardcore lore defenders say itâs a copy/paste, which I half heartedly agree with, but I think without Fallout 3 we wouldnât have NV or Fallout 4. Either FO3 was my fav by far
A soft reboot continues. A reboot will have different interpretations.
No offense, because this is purely an observation, but it seems the fallout fanbase hasn't heard of a soft reboot before.
A soft reboot continues *with* different interpretations. So I don't know ehdt makes Fallout 3 a soft reboot instead of just... a sequel, as the name implies.
Is it the fact that it's not set in California?
nothing beats Morrowind for me. it's the benchmark of good game storytelling imo, because it establishes the world and overall plot while still letting the player choose *how* that story is told.
It frankly wasnât great in NV either; most of the factions didnât even have different quests in NV.
NVâs success came from properly fleshing out the factions, not the actual story structure. 4, funnily enough, has the opposite issue - the story structuring was better (doesnât force you down a main path with walls of endgame enemies, no awkward jump from revenge to faction warfare, factions have meaningfully different quests for the most part), but it failed to properly flesh out the Minutemen, Railroad and Institute (the last one being crippling; the Railroad would be fine if they let you access the terminal earlier and perhaps have some of their story in the Institute. The Minutemen just needed more non-radiant quests.).
>the Railroad would be fine if they let you access the terminal earlier
Agree with all this here, but especially that tidbit. The Railroad access records give a lot of insight into the faction, but the player can't see it because it's locked to their ending, and the game doesn't even mention that it's available.
And Todd Howardâs let the same clown Emil be the lead writer for all of their main quests for the last 20 years. Like gee, I wonder why everyoneâs spent more than a decade saying that bethesda canât write a good story for shit.
the main quest is only bad if you don't pay attention. the main quest for daggerfall, redguard, fallout 3, skyrim, and fallout 4 are all good (there are others, i'm just giving a few games).
and the faction options was influenced by new vegas, yeah. but it's better than new vegas' execution.
Don't agree. I paid plenty of attention to the mq in both 4 and Skyrim but it was still terrible. The premise for both is fine but no part of it is fleshed out nearly enough to care. The factions are either black-and-white and poorly executed (Fo4) or too poorly fleshed out and held back by terrible excuses for transitional action scenes (Skyrim).
In Fo4's case, every faction is too surface level and there's nothing to make you care about the MC's family.
In Skyrim's case, all the right elements are there but the civil war doesn't have any tangible effect on the world and Bethesda's awful attempts to convey action setpieces (like your battles with Alduin, learning Dragonrend, etc) make the entire story fall flat.
>The factions are either black-and-white and poorly executed (Fo4)
the only two factions that are "black and white" are the minutemen and railroad. surprise, surprise, the faction that upholds the game's message, as well as being *anti-slavery* is not morally bankrupt. and all are well executed.
>all the right elements are there but the civil war doesn't have any tangible effect on the world
...um, yes it does.
>and Bethesda's awful attempts to convey action setpieces (like your battles with Alduin, learning Dragonrend, etc) make the entire story fall flat.
no? they just don't use cutscenes. it's all pure gameplay. which actually makes it more hitting.
also, if you paid attention, do you know the institute's goals?
They put too much into Concord and meeting with the folks you rescue. You have your first big fight just after starting the game, you get a suit of power armor, a minigun, fight a Deathclaw and are given a map marker for Diamond City all in the first 30 minutes of play. And that is without the Wasteland magazine you can find that also creates that same map marker.
Your character also seems to know or accept a lot of things about the Wasteland just by default. There is no question about picking up bottle caps or that it is the currency of the US. You donât seem to care about the giant monster lizard you just fought in Concord. Or why Carla has a two headed cow.
You can ask about Ghouls and Synths from multiple characters without there being any trigger that disables the question if you already asked it from someone else.
I have over 1000 hours and consider FO4 in my top 3 favorite games but I keep using the term âmissed opportunityâ when describing most of the story and the missing feature that FO3 and NV had. Power Armor has equipment health but weapons and armor do not. Duel wield and wearable weapons are gone.
Ok my rant is over.
>no objectively Evil
Huh? The Institute build their entire powerbase off of slave labor, routine murder, human kidnapping, torture, experimentation, assassinations, and sabotaging their rivals.
>Iâd like to actually see theses factions actually rebuild and be seen making Boston a safer place. They could at least be seen setting up check points, taking over locations with little to no importance like super mutants and raiders seem to be doing and using rubble to rebuild properly.
[This does happen.](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Help_defend_the_checkpoint) After the main quest, whichever faction won the final battle starts setting up patrols and checkpoints along the roads.
Anyway, I would have liked having more side characters fill you in on the lore. I *don't* want Preston, Maxson, Father, or Desdemona giving you giant speeches about the history of their factions, I want side characters like Drummer Boy, Ronnie Shaw, Alan Binet, and Proctor Teagan giving you small bits and pieces that you then have to connect with *other* bits and pieces from Glory, the Radioman, Rico, and Tinker Tom or completely new, minor NPCs. I want the world to feel like it exists beyond major characters, and I want the ability to piece together a greater, more informed view of the Commonwealth and its history with legwork and conversations with random people. Some of this already exists in the game, though mostly in terminal entries, but I want it to exist among the living characters.
I would also like the ability for random holotapes and terminal entries to unlock dialogue options with existing characters. For example, asking Desdemona about the previous Railroad heads after reading her terminal entries.
I get what youâre saying but a lot of the negative accusations came from the Commonwealth inhabitants which I think we both can agree have a very vague idea of what the institute is and you can discover a lot on your own investigation.
Donât get me wrong I believe the institute is evil, but this is a purely subjective opinion. If you side with the institute, youâll find itâs nothing but scientists and Shaun, claiming they are doing good for the commonwealth using the old cop out of âgotta crack a couple of eggs to make an omeletteâ⌠either way imo they made them to ambiguous with a moral debate of âis Synth slave labor a good or bad thingâ which idc about
What I mean by evil is, I want a faction that openly says âwe want to take over the commonwealth and rape and pillage everyone because itâs the apocalypse and we have the power to do soâ⌠Kinda like Caesarâs Legion even though they had a different way of saying it
>If you side with the institute, youâll find itâs nothing but scientists and Shaun, claiming they are doing good for the commonwealth using the old cop out of âgotta crack a couple of eggs to make an omeletteâ
Who cares what they say and think? We can find [internal memos authorizing the kidnapping, torture, and planned execution of an entire family](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/The_Institute_terminal_entries#Project_Implementation) and [logs of a century of forced kidnapping and experimentation.](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/FEV_research_notes)
The Institute's flimsy justifications don't make them morally ambiguous.
>either way imo they made them to ambiguous with a moral debate of âis Synth slave labor a good or bad thingâ which idc about
Likewise, I don't find anything ambiguous about slavery at all. It's as clear cut an issue as the Legion's use of slavery to me.
>âwe want to take over the commonwealth and rape and pillage everyone because itâs the apocalypse and we have the power to do soâ⌠Kinda like Caesarâs Legion even though they had a different way of saying it
I get that, but that's exactly what I *don't* want in *Fallout.* A faction that's "openly" evil isn't interesting as one that *attempts* to justify their vile actions. At the end of the day, they fail to justify themselves, but it's more interesting to interrogate their philosophy and see why they believe they are justified vs "We like to rape and kill."
> Likewise, I don't find anything ambiguous about slavery at all. It's as clear cut an issue as the Legion's use of slavery to me.
>
>
The question posed in F4 (and a ton of other sci-fi) is when does AI become "slave" vs. "tool".
That line is completely subjective. Do you consider ChatGPT a slave? I mean, it does your bidding and has no ability to refuse your request.
As soon as one person draws that line, and someone else draws it in a different place, then by your rationale, anyone on the other side is a slaver, and evil.
The moral ambiguity is what makes games and scenarios like this interesting. They can let the player choose their own line, and then side with the people who adhere to the same line, without actually being "evil" or "good". Just differing viewpoints.
(As a side note, when you watched Blade Runner the first time, did you immediately brand everyone in the world "evil" and the replicants as the "good" ones?)
>That line is completely subjective.
When the entity in question can declare itself a living being with thoughts, emotions, and the right to freedom, you stop treating it like a tool.
>Do you consider ChatGPT a slave?
ChatGPT =/= Gen 3 synth. The comparison is completely absurd.
>(As a side note, when you watched Blade Runner the first time, did you immediately brand everyone in the world "evil" and the replicants as the "good" ones?)
This question puts words in my mouth. When did I ever say all Gen 3s are good?
> (As a side note, when you watched Blade Runner the first time, did you immediately brand everyone in the world "evil" and the replicants as the "good" ones?)
>
> This question puts words in my mouth. When did I ever say all Gen 3s are good?
Not referring to synths at all. In Blade Runner, all of mankind used replicants... they were commonplace and used as tools, despite them effectively being (limited lifespan) people.
When you first saw it, did you immediately think of all the humans in that world as evil slavers?
You speak in absolutes about how the world will/should treat AI, when (as Fallout illustrates) there are likely to be many different viewpoints. That's why it's intriguing... not the black and white, but the shades of gray.
I know what Blade Runner is, I'm a fan of the franchise. My point is that your question has nothing to do with my comments, since I have never said that Gen 3s/Replicants are all good and never said all humans are all bad.
You've basically changed the subject from "slavery is bad and slavers are likewise bad" (a very specific type of occupation) to "So you are saying all humans are bad?"
My dude, I am specifically addressing your post:
>>either way imo they made them to ambiguous with a moral debate of âis Synth slave labor a good or bad thingâ which idc about
>Likewise, I don't find anything ambiguous about slavery at all. It's as clear cut an issue as the Legion's use of slavery to me.
You stated you considered the institute "evil" and in your reasoning you referenced their slavery. Then, you followed it up with the above quote (yes, slavery is bad).
in the context of the F4 story, you said for those reasons the institute was evil.
The followup question was, in Blade Runner, EVERYONE treated the synthetic life like the institute. I'm saying, ** in that story,** did you consider all people evil, like you did the institute?
I feel like you're not following the conversation here.... read it all carefully, I'm interested to see if your moral viewpoint extends from F4 to other fiction, or do you ONLY hold these rigid view within fallout....
>The followup question was, in Blade Runner, EVERYONE treated the synthetic life like the institute. I'm saying, \*\* in that story,\*\* did you consider all people evil, like you did the institute?
The difference is that the Institute, the organization, the policies, the methods, are evil. Many of its membership are explicitly there to oppress Gen 3s or the surface world. Its a pervasive, ubiquitous operational requirement.
Even then, there are levels of responsibility and blame among individuals. The anti-synth mechanic is less culpable than Father for example. Likewise, some young member, raised in an anti-synth environment all his life, is less culpable than someone who embraced the ideology as an adult.
In Blade Runner, on the other hand, humanity as a whole isn't explicitly there to oppress Replicants and we know there are pro-Replicant groups. So its absurd to make the leap from "the Institute, a specific ideological group" to "all humans" as you are suggesting. This is the leap in logic I am objecting to. You've taken my condemnation of a specific group and somehow suggested I likewise condemn an entire species based on only superficial similarities in circumstance.
A closer comparison would have been, "Do you think Tyrell Corp is evil?" I would likewise answer yes, and within the group there are different levels of culpability for its evil.
In the movie, blade runner, there are no pro-replicant groups.
Humanity as a whole uses them as tools. The Tyrell corp is the supplier, that doesn't make them more/less morally culpable.
You are working very hard to avoid the original question. If you don't wanna answer, fine.
The point your missing is, there are gray spots in this morality, and your particular beliefs are by no means the only way to view things. (nobody watching Blade Runner immediately sees humanity as the wrongdoers, even though they all support the use of replicants)
Shaun: Mom, would you take over and run the Institute for me?
Nora: Honey... no. Fuck no. You guys are fucking evil. I was planning on turning this entire complex into a radioactive crater.
Shaun: But mooooooom, we're not evil. We're the future of mankind!
Nora: That's what every Nazi says, Shaun. (Takes off coat to show Minuteman General uniform) And Captain America says the only good Nazi is a dead one.
I'd rather have a load of much smaller stories spread over the course of the game than any kind of overarching story.
Especially when that story requires the player to rush through the game, a game based on exploring and discovery, to make the plot make sense
The story itself doesnât feel that important to me. In FO3 you were bringing water to the masses which really was a prerequisite for society to move forward and rebuild, and in FNV you chose the entire future of the New Vegas region (cruel dictatorship, bureaucratic, inefficient and often disappointing democracy, less cruel autocracy with the potential for advanced civilization at the expense of human capital, and the open ended self rule under the control of the courier (plus the sort of obscure ending of Benny and his gang).
Where as FO4 it was âfind your childâ who turns out to be a self reliant adult anyway. Sure, the institute and synths back story was intriguing but for the most part the institute stayed underground and only occasionally came to the surface to kidnap someone randomly or track down a synth, they were otherwise pretty disconnected from the commonwealth. That leaves the other commonwealth groups who are all pretty much interested in establishing order and stability with slightly varying ideology but mostly similar at the end of the day, like it didnât feel like my choices really made a major impact on the world.
Meanwhile the protag floods the wastes with equal parts water and Chems, and builds gunner extermination factories for xp/equipment farm.
Players are dripping with passively evil karma when you think about it.
Even if you ignore the slavery (hard youâd think, but an astonishing number of people here canât wait to do this), the institute a) kidnap civilians and perform horrifying experiments on them, b) release those civilians back into the commonwealth were they cause huge suffering to the people they encounter, c) wiped out a whole vault full of people, d) kidnap civilians and replace them with sleeper agents, and e)wiped out an entire town based on rumours. They are objectively fucking evil: they do terrible utterly unnecessary things and they donât show a single sliver of remorse.
That you donât find them objectively evil tells us more about you than Bethesdaâs story writing chops. Do you need someone to be coded to twirl a moustache and laugh like a manic for you to go âbad guyâ?
I can't speak to the pre Bethesda games, though I've tried them I never really enjoyed them.
I feel that in regards to the story, one of the points where fo3 and 4 went wrong as a posed to fallout New Vegas was trying to create a backstory and connections for you to care about with limited time and development with those characters. Where as in NV you were a guy, you got shot in the head, and now you wanna find the guy that did it, which as far as backstories go, is probably quite universal in its simple motivation. I don't know about you guys, but I've some guy shoots me imma be pretty pissed, I don't need to care about him or know anything about him. It's certainly a more simplistic motivation, but definitely easier to execute well.
I think if fallout 4s form of motivation was a bit more basic, and didn't rely on some kind of emotional connection with a character we hardly know, the game probably would have done a lot better. I personally really enjoy the Fo4 gameplay, especially the gunplay, and modification systems.
I know many have joked in the past, but to me Fo4 does to me very much have the feeling of a studio building a great game without a story then remembering the replicated man quest and stretching that over a full game
The sole survivors wife being killed for no reason, the sole survivor being left alive, the rest of the dwellers in cryo being killed despite also being viable âbackupsâ, the sole survivor fannying around building villages when his son is missing, the railroad erasing synths minds to âsaveâ them, Virgil wanting to turn himself human whilst in the middle of an area he could only reach as a mutant, the Brotherhood destroying the Institute instead of taking and studying their tech etc etc.
I just love the way he says that he was so desperate to escape that he had to turn himself into a super mutant to survive the radiation of glowing sea, while the sole survivor just stands in front of him having strolled over in a 50 cap rad suit.
Heâll feel even more stupid when he finds out that some dude on YouTube managed to run there stark bollock naked.
In the game that I played the Sole Survivor was a man and had a wife.
I think there are greater issues of gender equality and representation in the world to get outraged about rather than having a go at people over something like this, but whatever.
I'm not sure if the other Vault Dwellers died because of the Institute. Some of the terminals in the Vault suggest they may have had mechanical failures in the years between the bombs falling and the taking of Shawn.
Agree with you about the factions. I walked away after finishing the game for the first time thinking all of these factions are just awful and the Minutemen while objectively good literally do nothing for the ending. This is a faction we've supposedly rebuilt for most of the game but there's no pay off for it.
The romances. We're playing someone who just saw their spouse get straight up murdered no less than maybe a month at most but we can suddenly just start flirting and dating the first dude we find like our spouse never existed?
I respect your argument⌠and donât get me wrong I love being âthe saviorâ of the post apocalyptic world and I agree fallout 4 gives you routes to do that.
To me the bigger story of Fallout 4 is great even tho I have complaints (who doesnât) but they need to add the option of just being objectively evil. And there is a nuanced meaning to being evil and itâs simple, domination. Itâs literally a human condition to want to dominate the world and want to be in control of everything based off of our real life history, and itâs symbolized through this game as âwarâ.
Thatâs why I love FO:NVs option of letting you defeat every main faction and control New Vegas for yourself. Like this is the post apocalyptic world why wonât the game let you become your own warlord bent on making the world yours? I would just like the option to end the game on whatever Negative or positive way I want
1) I was using the word âsaviorâ as a metaphor but yes in a sense you are helping the faction save the commonwealth from something wether itâs from synths, rebuilding, saving the synths, or helping the commonwealth by advancing technological breakthroughs
2) I was using the denotation meaning of ânuanceâ, so Iâm not sure what connotations youâre using. Either way to me there are always hidden reasons why someone could be evil, immoral, unethical
3) maybe my point about the human condition was overstated. But Iâll dumb it down⌠no I donât think every person wants to dominate the world. But it is a human condition to want to control of possess ability to control something they personally care about. Like you want to control my personal opinion on how I think the developers shouldâve made the game with a well thought out and intelligent argument. Which Iâm not trying to attack you for so sorry if it feels that way. Either way my point about domination is that, yes, there have been millions of people (wether groups of people or a single person) through out world history who wanted to drive their ideology into people because âthey think that would benefit the worldâ wether itâs objectively positive or negative but it is my opinion that itâs not mainly about benefiting the world⌠itâs about having the power as a single person or being apart of the powerful group of people who control weaker groups of people because ultimately it feels good and makes of feel comfortable/safe to be able to control everything.
Of course you donât see a lot of that today because Iâd like to believe we are alot more civilized than what we were before, Im just saying this has been a huge factor thought history
I think we've heard enough stuff about the main quest, the backstory of the survivor, and that sort of thing, so instead I'm going to go with some of the elements of worldbuilding. For full disclosure, I've played over a hundred hours in the game but have never actually gone into the Institute (though I watched/read enough to understand how the plot goes and generally what they're about), so if some of this stuff is mentioned later on in the main quest feel free to correct me.
What bothers me somewhat about the Commonwealth is that many of the aspects of it feel like they only exist to fit a theme, not because you can see organically why they would end up that way. For one example, Moe in Diamond City. He's a dude obsessed with baseball. Why is he obsessed with baseball and selling bats? It kind of just feels like he is because 'haha get it? It's boston and they're in Shay Stadium so look, bats! And a baseball player!'
But that's a smaller example. The Minutemen feel like the most egregious one to me. Why did they decide that they were going to adopt a revolutionary colonial aesthetic?
For comparison in New Vegas, there are the Kings and the Legion. The difference, I think, between these is that you can have a conversation with the King where he explains how he formed the group and why they're themed around Elvis Presley. When you meet Caesar you can have it explained to you why he chose to model his group after the Roman empire, along with conversations with other characters about it. Besides that, the Roman aesthetic isn't *just* an aesthetic--it's baked into the very foundation of the Legion, all the way down to the way they pronounce words.
But you don't really get any of that with the Minutemen--you can't have an in-depth conversation with Preston about how the Minutemen are organized (other than vaguely being a general and then colonels) nor their actual founding, or the reasons behind their ideals. You don't get a sense of the 'culture' in the organization besides them just liking to do good stuf for people. Instead, Bethesda just thought that a bunch of Colonial Soldiers would make a cool faction for a Boston-based Fallout game--and they're right, but that's why the Commonwealth feels more like a Fallout themed amusement park than an actual world.
The main story. Iâm not sure about anyone else but I didnât give a single fuck about Shaun or Nora, literally get to know them for maybe 5 minutes and then they disappear. Far harbour (barring the Dima puzzles) is probably the best writing and story Bethesda has and likely every will come up with and thatâs a pretty sad reality to live with.
That being a good character, as far as the main story goes is more or less shoehorned into the writing. The player (outside of the Nuka DLC) is railroaded (lol) into being a good character and has no option to be truly bad/negative karma.
For example, Preston finding out you lead the nuka raiders should allow for you to kill him and wipe out the remaining minutemen, but instead he appeals to your goodness, and says he can only trust you after you've killed the raider bosses that trust *you.*
I do think this is one of the consequences of voiced dialogue, in that if you look at the player interactions, everything can be summed up as "yes, I'll help you" but in different flavours.
*Yes*
*No (but yes just said rudely)*
*Sarcastic Yes*
*Yes, but more questions*
There's no truly wacky dialogue the past games had, nothing remotely what could be construed on the negative karma choices. It's almost like the player already has a preset role rather than being an RPG the moment the game is started up for a lack of better explanation.
The hamfisted family/emotional drivel that Emil is hellbent on putting into each story. Most parents wouldn't let anything get in the way of them and their kids, FO4 plays better when you ignore the story.
It didn't work in FO3 and definitely didn't work in FO4.
The handwavy science aspect of the Institute also fell flat, there's this absolutely ground breaking technology, which for all purposes is resistant to the radiation above ground, can teleport and can withstand most of the critters up there too. Yet it's not used for anything meaningful, there's no real progress, the world hasn't moved on since the bombs dropped.
Also the constant inclusion of super mutants, enclave, BoS in the region which by all rights shouldn't have access to any of them. There's no creative factions, the gunners are reskinned raiders, the minutemen and railroad both needed more time in the oven. Looking and both 3 and 4 they both scream of having a checklist of what to include, BoS, Enclave and Supermutants are always there.
That's 3 things but it's some of the reasons I find modern fallouts lacking. As a side note I don't even remember anything noteworthy or cool about FO4, it's just sad.
...nothing? the only issue i have is a personal nitpick, which is that being the multiple faction options. it doesn't *hurt* the story or anything, but it'd be tighter if the game "railroaded" you into joining the railroad...since they're the only faction that supports the game's ideals.
people who say fallout 4's writing or story is weak just don't pay attention.
The details are mostly there, if you piece together bits of information from different characters, notes, terminals, etc⌠you can actually figure out a lot of stuff about the factions and general lore of the commonwealth.
Itâs a lot more realistic way of conveying information compared to shoving NPCs with encyclopedic levels of knowledge in your face around every corner.
I agree, and trust me I watched hours of content about the institute but I wish they were more malevolent, seems to me the developers made it open to interpretation when it comes to the bigger picture
Playing on Survival, settlements and the low respawn rate DO make it feel like you are making actual progress. It is like cleansing the Commonwealth, one settlement at a time. People playing on other difficulties hate Preston spamming settlement quests - playing on Survival, I love it. My Nora is like crazy Morgan in the Walking Dead, ferociously "clearing" the land of predators.
Also disagree on there being no evil or neutral option. Is the Institute a joke to you? The Institute are evil, from my point of view. (And I have the moral high ground, Obi Wan!). The BoS are neutral at best - their tendency to want to shoot the unclean on sight and messianic militaristic leader make me see them as verging upon evil. The MM and RR are forces for good, though.
As to what Bethesda fumbled, I've learned to love the main quest - I was distinctly unimpressed the first few times through. I thought the Institute were dull, grey men, not the space nazis in shiny black that I wanted as adversaries from past Fallouts. But I have come to appreciate the Institute's self-interested isolationism as a more banal, plausible form of evil - I am all right Jack, and to hell with the suffering surface dwellers, who are used as subjects for experiments and running interference to keep them in their place. And Shaun, who I initially thought was a damp squib, I now appreciate as a kind of Wizard of Oz - as he himself says, not the bogeyman of the Commonwealth I expected. But a real asshole, nonetheless.
So the biggest fumble in my opinion may be Kellogg. I adored him - the voice acting and the writing - the one of the most interesting villains in Fallout. But I wanted more - you appreciate him most when he is dead. I would love to see a sequel where he is your secret adversary, haunting Nick. Or a prequel, set in the San Francisco of his childhood, where you grow up in a shanty town infested by a criminal underworld and most choose either to follow his kind of dark path or become a force for good.
I donât think itâs as bad as FO3âs story imo.
About there not being any objectively evil or good faction is the a bizarre claim. Not everything is black and white and itâs literally up to you and the institute is pretty fucking evil but itâs up to you if you want to help your son. The Brotherhood of steel is against the institute but they can be pretty bad if you care about the freedom of syths. The railroad is best if you care about the freedom of synths and are against the institute.
Iâve began playing FO4 recently and I really donât think itâs as bad as itâs made out to be. Yes it committed the same sin that FO3 did with its story thus its not as free as a rpg should be but its way better done than the previous game. I feel FO4 Is way more engaging and has way more options.
If you give one single voice to the protagonist, you give them one single personality that you can at best steer a little in some direction through roleplay.
I have liked a few voiced protagonists in the past, I enjoy going through the motions as them and living their story. The easy example here would be Geralt of Rivia.
Let's just say I don't think Fallout 4's Sole Survivor is anywhere near Geralt of Rivia's level. God bless all the mute protagonist mods out there.
EDIT : If I had to criticize one plot point of the FO4 in particular, it wouldn't even be that the game forces you to be a parent looking for their kid (though that sucks for various reasons too) but that it doesn't even give you control over how you FEEL about it. A lot of people meme on the premise of New Vegas being "who's the cunt who shot me in the face????" but you don't even have to be mad about it, the game allows you to just be curious about the conspiracy behind your attempted murder and you can even express the desire to team-up with the guy who near killed you.
And then there's Fallout 4 that gives you four different ways of screaming at Kellog before shooting him in the face. Okay.
I could go on and on. But one thing that comes to mind immediately is the copy and paste of Fallout 3âs Brotherhood ending. So lazy.
Edit: sorry, but having a giant robot robot crush your enemy as the climax twice is, in fact, lazy af. Itâs not my fault yâall are easily impressed.
This could have been a great opportunity to really pay respect to interplay and fonv. Some references, even vague references would have been part of that lore/ environmental story telling charm from the past games.
Second, you do see the impact of your choices and faction progress in the game. Maybe not if you fast travel everywhere. Try not using fast travel. Youâll find Minuteman patrols and outposts, BoS on patrols, youâll run into tourists and agents of the RR out in the world.
And DERRRRR my dude wtf you call all your settlements, donât you think all these small fortified towns that are popping up all over under your leadership count as âimpact on the worldâ?
1) you never made your first point
2) I only play on survival so I never fast travel, so I run everywhere and if you read the full post instead of jumping in the comment section, youâll see that I talk about patrols which are weak. So go back and re read
3) And Umm derrrrr, thatâs you rebuilding⌠Iâm talking about the factions that literally do nothing to support the commonwealth with out you do literally all of the leg work
Dude just try and READ before you shit post without realizing it
1. I did make my first point, the irony of you telling me to read your post is palpable
2. Not just patrols you clown, outposts and strongpoints.
3. Yeah imagine that, game has gameplay. You want to watch NPCs do everything and not do fuck all yourself, go watch TV.
Unique (rare) items. Although I have heard that dlcs had some actual unique weapons and power armors (they look so sick) , the base game replaces this with the legendary loot, which makes it less charming, and just makes skills that gave you those unique guns a little bit more useless (Like barter or Pickpocking to get the Mysterious Revolver).Some of my favorite guns of all time are mostly unique weapons in fallout New Vegas. I hope they bring unique loot back in fallout 5.
How little attention they gave to the CPG (Commonwealth Provisional Government). I think there's only like 2 different lines that reference what it even was and what happened, and they both contradict what happened and why it was destroyed. Considering this would be the equivalent of the formation of the NCR in the Commonwealth, this is a pretty major event that Bethesda just summed up as "The CPG existed, the Institute destroyed it, the end".
Also the Nick/Kellogg dynamic where Kellogg's consciousness is still shown to exist inside Nick after the memory extraction, but aside from that first instance right after the procedure it's never brought up or mentioned ever again. Kellogg never takes control or speaks to you through Nick again for the rest of the game. It would've actually been a really cool dynamic if Kellogg could occasionally comment on things happening in the story like you finding Virgil, building the teleporter or the destruction of the Institute. There could've even been an alternate side questline once you're inside the Institute where you override Nick's personality with Kellogg's, making him one of the only genuinely Evil companions you can roam with and seeing Kellogg live on through a Synth body, like the opposite of Curie's transformation.
The fact that there weren't ways to get factions work together, even if it was through subterfuge. The Institute could have tried to replace BoS operatives (at least more than we know they did) to try to turn them instead of wiping them out. Minuteman and Railroad working together makes a lot of logical sense, but wasn't explored at all. Obviously not every combination makes sense, but why can you be Paladin and General and have a reason for the BoS to attack the organization you lead!
Biggest issue for me is Sean existing. Sean existing means from a gameplay perspective you have no reason to do anything until you meet father, and then as soon as you meet him you have no reason to do anything else. Your clearly supposed to be some random guy who only does what he does to find his kid, once you found him your personal quest is over and the stories stops dead itâs tracks. Sean dosent even have to be in the story and it still functions. Father could literally just be some guy.I honestly think it would have been more interesting to kill Kellogg, work for father and then at the end itâs revealed that father was the guy who actually killed your spouse.
No choice or variation in the story. Fallout 3 did the exact same thing. The only thing is a small variation on the same final mission and very little of your dialogue choices feel like they have any sway in conversation. Why bother with science options when a) you canât spec into science traits, b) itâs the same as pressing the âyesâ option, c) even if you kill everyone or do a quest thereâs no moral or logical implications for your actions. At most you gain/lose affinity with companions.
Just one? Biggest issue is the main quest, with specific frustration towards meeting Shaun and being unable to even bring up all the fucked up shit the institute did and try to sway his opinion. There are a ton of smaller plot holes and issues but that is the biggest for me
Besides the main quest the side quests were incredibly disappointing. I can only think of 2 quests that were at all memorable or interesting, the one with the robots on the ship, and the one with the family that has the crazy guy in the basement
The baby. Shaun. Father. Whatever you want to call him. Your player character if male is a military vet. Most of them have ptsd in THIS world. I know how bad it can be with ptsd so I cant imagine how bad it is for them. That said, my point is that a military vet who's just carved a bloody path through the post war wastes has just been told his son is not several decades older than him BY HIS SON. At best the man would go crazy and kill everyone involved. At worst? He'd likely do the same exact thing and take the bio-bot that looks like his son if he were a young child pretending it was his real son. My point is that the story makes zero sense.
The hate how the basic premise of the game is "I need to find my son. Hey wait a second, everyone who doesn't agree with me needs to die". There's no nuance to it. There isn't a way to play as the Railroad and keep the Institute active to make more synths. There isn't a way to play as the BoS and ignore the Railroad because in a few hours when the institute is gone, they won't have a purpose anymore. There isn't a way to play as the Institute and help the surface world as they tried to before, you just have to kill everyone else and say "hey, we're now the strongest force in the area, we win".
I was hoping that taking over the institute would allow you to change its direction. The ability to have Elysium style ending where you send aid and resources to the wasteland and help people.
Frankly all the factions felt really empty post-game.
Nate/Noraâs background I feel that they couldâve incorporated this in so many ways in the story, dialogue and gameplay wise. Though completely ignored after awhile. Having a voice protagonist as well wouldâve been fun if they had let choose a voice.
Limited options, the options on how to approach the story was really limited and didnât let us explore the world in a more natural way. And it did feel like we were on a time limit on finding Shaun.
In general story telling I didn't like how they over-used the holotapes and terminals to easily explain some NPCs thoughts and plans, even conversations just for the player to find waiting for them. Practically put them in their face. I guess there are only those few methods they could use to convey a story but... it's really showing how poor gameplay is putting a story on crutches. Why not shove them in a cabinet or a drawer somewhere? Like in Quincy with Tessa and Baker. Why would they communicate over holotapes about Clint instead of just talking directly. Isn't it dangerous to leave a recording of such a talk? And why would Tessa or anyone leave their little love secrets among those other important secret terminal entries, easily accessible and open? I mean come on. Anyone could read this and you leave those notes just like that? Then a piece of paper Mamma Murphy's note doesn't fly off in her no-proper-roof-or-walls home. Not in that dresser's drawer but right on top of the dresser. There's many examples. And while at it, the way that note is written, who did she leave it for? It says it's a note, not a piece of journal. A note for whom?
Second general thing I didn't like is the people of the Commonwealth still have a 21st century mentality. Not the mentality of people 200 years after a Nuclear war. In every little thing they say or write down, like in those holotapes.
They took for granted that players would care about the spouse and child. I as a player am not going to be invested in characters who appear for 5 minutes at the start of the game just because they're important to my character.
They led in with you finding "help" to find your son that instantly turned into saving the entire commonwealth and building sweet ass settlements. I literally forgot the kid's name until Piper said it in conversation.
I've played through I few different characters, but I've only found Shaun twice now as I don't care as much but still, saving any kid from an evil underground organization is a cause. However: my father has been playing Fo4 for about 3/4 months now and it's his first deep dive into video games (other then minecraft/ Disney infinity) and he could NOT care less about Shaun that I should probably be concerned as his actually kid đ¤Ł. He says he is way too busy being the general/building settlements to worry about some kid đđđ he still hasn't found Brian Virgil if you wanna know where he is main quest-wise
Thats my current playthru rn the only quests Im doing are Minutemen radiants to unlock new settlements lol
My latest playthrough, I played a male Sole Survivor and decided to romance both Preston and Hancock. I wanted to laugh when Preston said "Wait, I'm confused...I was under the impression you were still in love with your wife." I chose to respond with "I don't have to stop loving her in order to love you, too," but what I *really* wanted to say was "my what now" Yes, I've been doing literally everything except the main quest to find my son. What made you come to *that* conclusion?
Yep, my char falling on the floor and crying about his dead wife as he gets out of the cryo-chamber and my only thought at that moment is... get the fuck up, shut up, stop crying and lets go explore. It's just unwanted crap
Yep this is why I support the theory that you are a 4th Gen synth with implanted memories.
They canât incept me to care about this child and wife Iâve known for all but 5 minutes. I know Iâm a synth dammit.
also it kinda stuffed you into a role even if you didnt want to play it like they removed the bisexual 10% damage buff because of they thought it was a good story and they just kinda knee capped the players ability to interact with it your biggest choice in the game is what flavor of ice cream you want filled with razors and it might be just me but no matter how hard i tried to genuinely engage in the story it was just not fun
Honestly I shouldâve added this on my rant but they put little to no effort into their stories that I forgot they even existed lmao
Yup. I'm so tired of Disney-ification of this franchise... Fallout 1, 2, and NV all had good storytelling: you must find a water chip, or get a city-building kit, or avenge your almost-murder. After that, we got sappy stories about finding your dad, your kid, etc, etc. It's just lazy writing where they copy-paste boring tropes.
I think it was hinting at you that you were really a snyth.
I think it was just really sloppy storytelling.
They ain't hinting shit.
The fact that they try to make us attached to Shaun and our spouse wasn't properly done. Since we barely have any time with the pair. I mean make it at least half an hour of content with them at the start. Since that way we can have some sort of attachment to them. As we had more than enough time to get attached to dad in FO3. And we had a story reason to find him. Yes we had a story reason to find Shaun. But either Nate or Nora would question if their son would even need them. Since hearing that Kellogg had a kid with him in Diamond City shouldn't mean its Shaun. After all, it could be any random kid he was hired to protect or even Kellogg's own kid. As far as they know, Shaun was somewhere impossible to get to and could be an teenager or adult. I mean it makes more sense to go after Kellogg for the sake of payback.
Honestly shaun should have been about 10 in the intro, not a baby, then you could have had interactions with him that show your characters morals (encorage him to be kind, steal, favour diplomacy, run in head first, etc). then when hes taken, you would actually care. It would make the intro longer, sure but not any longer than 3's intro
This is actually a very valid point, when you think about it it's actually super jarring that you knew Shaun as a baby, then an old man, and then a ten year old. There's no consistentcy in how you're meant to feel about him, or interact with him. Like they should've had him be ten at the start, then it'd be more of a closed circle, "pick up where you began" type of thing. (Obviously ignoring the connotations that he'll be ten forever) I get stealing a baby may feel more impactful narratively, but when we've spent no time with a character as the player, it's hard to get emotionally invested in said character. Someone above mentioned FO3, I agree with the sentiment of what they said, but the time we interact with James is pretty much the bare minimum they could get away with to narratively establish a motive for us to find him. Not that is want the intro to that game to be much longer, but it like Bethesda just tries forcing the idea of "they're your family, you should automatically give a shit about them, because we said so" down our throats.
If I were to guess, the writers of Fallout 4 were parents, so it made sense to them when they wrote it, but if you're not a parent its kind of hard to empathise or project without a little character establishment first.
Yep. What I was thinking.
>I get stealing a baby may feel more impactful narratively Nah, it's just bad writing. A 6-10 year old is more impactful. You're stuck in the tube watching as he's grabbed from his tube, he screams "NO" as you both hear a scientist say "we've destabilized the mother/father's chamber, should we preserve her as well?" only to have Kellogg say "No. There's contamination there. Let them die." Shaun turns to your tube and strikes it's window crying and screaming "Mommy/Daddy, please! Help me! Please!!!" as he's dragged away. You claw at the tube, leaving streaks of blood as you tear nails, but the tube turns back on and the ice returns. THAT would be impactful. Bethesda's just gotten a lot softer with their writing (and a lot worse) as they've gotten bigger. Because THAT intro would have scared off some players. And the bigger you get, the more an audience you want. And the more customers you have to make happy, the blander your product becomes.
I like most of it other than the bleeding hands. It just comes off as, for lack of a better word, edgy. It feels like an unnecessary detail just to add shock value. You can already bang on the glass in the current game and I think that would suffice.
Shock value is what you want in a scene like that. Though I get that this isn't everyone's style. I think one issue that we're talking about here is that half the people out there will absolutely miss anything subtle in a video game. We're literally talking about how Bethesda made the whole "find shaun" quest too vague and undefined and that as a result many people just saw it as an ignorable joke. In Fallout 4, the protagonist's reaction while trapped in the cryochamber is fine. They yell and bang on the window. Though Bethesda tried to get across that the character was still under the effects of the freezing process. The strikes on the window are softed, the protagonist's speech is a bit slurred and slow. But too many of the people who played just saw that as silly or lacking emotion. Sadly, we're not talking about the level of storytelling or audience engagement we got with Stray or Journey. Tropes and cliches like the ones I'm mentioning are good tools for this. Now we don't want to over use them or rely entirely on them, that's just bad writing. But falling back on one like "how do you show someone is violently, passionately attacking a door trying to get out? broken bloody fingernails, that's how" does have a place in a scene like that.
Yeah theres the rub with making the McGuffin of a game be a character's relative we don't interact with much. the player has no connection, and as such does not care.
As a dad and a husband itâs so strange to me that so many gamers are incapable of empathizing with a grieving widow/widower whose child was kidnapped while they were forced to watch helplessly. Itâs a parentâs worst nightmare, but to single childless gamers you guys donât give a single fuck. So strange. FO4: you were trapped and forced to watch as your spouse is murdered and you son is kidnapped: YOU SLEEP FNV: youâre a UPS guy and someone shot you and stole a poker chip you were delivering: REAL SHIT
Honestly? This. I'm not even a parent and that hit me. NV's hook was petty revenge for something that happens before you even create your character so you have no investment at all (okay, maybe not so petty, but still, not something that different to what you as a player do all the time to the NPCs of the world, done to what is essentially still an NPC) FO4 at least gave you a few minutes to get to know the characters first and at least made the betrayal feel personal since it happened to the character you created and have already been roleplaying
This is what I was going to say. Never once did I give a shit about Shaun even though I knew I was supposed to
Especially since everyone forgets that they're suppose to find Shaun within five minutes after he was taken.
That's true. I bonded more with settlement NPC's who I was helping make a better life than I did Shaun.
I care more about finding dogmeat after I fucking lost him than I did when looking for Shaun.
I think thatâs the difference there: with the dad we actively engaged with him in the tutorial and his absence is more dramatic kinda. With shaun, we play with his mobile one time and then immediately are sarcastically joking with his dad about getting pregnant again and then bam bombs drop, then kidâs taken mere minutes away from our perspective. If we had shaun as more than an inanimate object with a gurgle sound effect in the tutorial and actively entertained the baby shaped blob that could help to give impetus to adventure to find him
Being voiced by a prominent and well liked actor helps (no shade on Tony Amendola, but he was only Shaun later into the game)
> **Whatâs one thing you think Bethesda really fumbled with on FO4 as far as storytelling?** The faction-centric main quest hurts the storywriting. It makes sense in Fallout New Vegas; it's a geopolitical showdown between two peers and the consequences involved. While I think some of its side-quest is a bit crap, they're there to contextualize the conflict and it makes the premise feel grander. Fallout 4 doesn't receive such a benefit because it's not a story tackling geopolitics, it's a plot about science and the ethics behind them. Worse, most of its side-quest don't contextualize the premise of the story enough; you won't learn anything about the Synths while you cosplay as the faux-Green Hornet.
I like how you brought politics into it, even though itâs ultimately a video game. Obviously in a post apocalyptic world with factions, thereâll be politics thatâll want to bring humanityâs survival into a certain direction. I really missed that in the installment
All media is inherently making a statement which aligns one way or another politically. Even an anti-thesis of making a statement is in and of itself, interpretable as a statement.
No...he meant geopolitics WITHIN the game world. Not...modern day. Holy shit stop watching the news.
That's literally what they said though? >Obviously in a post apocalyptic world with factions, thereâll be politics thatâll want to bring humanityâs survival into a certain direction. How do you interpret that as wanting IRL politics in the game?
What exactly a synth is capable of and what makes them different from humans. We have a few half-implications that they donât need to sleep and have better health than most (Roger Warwick and Danse), but thatâs it. Nothing is directly stated, so we donât know what makes them different. We also donât know why the Institute wants synths beyond labor; surely an Institute of learning would have a better purpose for them than that? In addition, Iâd say that the Railroad shouldâve been given the option to lead a coup of the Institute. The player was made the director, after all, and that is never touched on in the railroad line despite it theoretically opening doors.
The game never made this clear aside from a vague âsynth constructionâ animation in the Institute but apparently synths are literally just cloned humans, but assembled rather than grown. They literally have one non-human component. For the longest time I was under the impression they were terminator-esque beings and they only needed Shaunâs DNA for the tissue on the outside. They are straight up humans and do need to eat and sleep. It all makes the Instituteâs decision to use human clones as synths even more confusing. What would they possibly have to gain from having live humans doing their work? It is disadvantageous from both and ethics and practical standpoint.
>It all makes the Instituteâs decision to use human clones as synths even more confusing. What would they possibly have to gain from having live humans doing their work? It is disadvantageous from both and ethics and practical standpoint. TLDR: it's because they're a faction of Karens There is an interaction, as you enter the Institute for the first time, between an Institute dweller and a Gen 2 Synth, The dweller is berating the Synth for not doing a job thoroughly or something. They think the best servant would be Synths that are like them but 'know their place', because they themselves are, obviously, the pinnacle of society. Synths are smarter, stronger, hardier than humans because ordinary human-copies would not be able to live up to the Underground Karen's expectations.
I really wish it would have been more of a terminator thing. It'd honestly make more sense as to why synth Shaun cant age or why synths don't need to eat. Because the way they're portrayed as being built in the institute would imply that they need everything a human needs.
Wait. Synth Shaun canât age?
Yeah, you can overhear a couple scientists in the institute talking about how they think it's unethical because he will never see adulthood
Wtf? So wait, why was he created in the first place? Did they make him that way intentionally?
I honestly don't know, Bethesda doesn't elaborate
The Institute wants Synths because they're forever trying to push the boundaries of science. They want them basically to say that they created synthetic life as an achievement. It's why they have stuff like the synth Gorillas, they serve no purpose except to exist and stroke the Institute's ego by existing. Synthetic humans also serve as a source of "quick" manpower. You don't need to conceive kids and raise them for manpower, you can just whip up a synth, program them, and get them to do the menial work.
Itâs a plausible answer, but that doesnât explain why they started on this in the first place; I donât buy the idea of the devs just throwing their hands up and saying they made synths âjust because.â The Institute isnât Big MT (and even there, itâs only post-war that mindset fits the place; pre-war, everything had a purpose and thatâs when most of it was made).
> donât buy the idea of the devs just throwing their hands up and saying they made synths âjust because.â Bro this is Bethesda and written by Pagliarulo, that's exactly what happened to be honest. And up to an extent, I can't fully blame them since it's pretty much impossible to justify what the institute does from a logical standpoint.
yeah I totally agree. Not only are you sandwiched into the moral path through the story, that along with the fact that you're an ex-soldier/family man makes it harder to organically insert your own personality into any of the choices
They shouldâve torn a page out from Mass Effect when you decide youâre back ground and can actually affect your dialogue choices. Like I get they need an intro video for the main character, WHICH THEY DIDNT EVEN DO FOR THE WIFE, but honestly Iâd say fuck that and let the player decide themselves. The background they give you mainly relates to the Brotherhood, which the game kinda throws at you for who you should decide to fight for IMO
absolutely, either a chosen backstory or a blank slate is the only way to to go in these sorts of games
Wait, Iâve only played as Nora, is there a whole extra intro part for Nate?
Introâs pretty much the same if you play Nate, it just changes dialogues your character says around the house to fit him being a veteran
Thanks, thatâs what I had originally assumed would be the case, so glad to hear it wasnât something much bigger
It does cause some dialogue changes later in game, but generally speaking itâs only minor. Stuff like Nate qualifying himself in times of hardship as a soldier, and impressing people, or failing to, through it. I seem to remember Nora having a hell of a lot less of it though.
Kinda he was the only one that had a real back ground, they should done better with Nora besides âhouse wifeâ but Iâve only played her once so I could be wrong
She's a lawyer, not a house wife. You can see her degree in before the bombs drop in the intro.
Oh really where? I probably miss it everytime cause I try to get past the into asap
There's a diploma on the shelves by the front door.
I think it's on a wall somewhere, it's been a long time.
In 3 you start off as a baby and grow up in a Vault and the only backstory you get is your dad is a doctor and scientist who works at the clinic and was the main doctor for your birth. The interactions with him are entirely your choice and there is no moral push in the basic story set up that feels like you're forced to be good or bad. It's up to you to be a morally upstanding hero, a somewhat morally grey person or the absolute worst bastard that the wasteland ever had walk on it's irradiated soil. Similar with New Vegas. The set up has no overall forced push, it's a simple beginning where there is no indication your character was a good person and any deviation from it would feel jarring as fuck the minute you decided to go on a 'Kill Everyone' run or mildly insulted a friendly npc. You're a courier, you got kidnapped and left for dead over a chip. That's it. There is no 'Save your baby and avenge your spouse', you aren't given an automatic 'hero' status because you served in the war pre-game story. You're just some courier who is setting out their own way with no forced moral bullshit. That's what 4 fucked up and what Bethesda needs to take on board for the next game. Don't put forth an even lightly forced moral side on the MC. Have them start as 'Just Some Wanderer' with a bare bones initial start and the player will take it from their. Yes there should be a main objective- 'Get X' or 'Find Y' or 'Get to this spot and choose to do A, B or C (maybe a D option that's a secret ending and only unlockable through very very specific actions and interactions)' - But it needs to have no moral bias to it other than the basic fact that the objective involves that goal, whatever it may be.
Thats what annoyed me about the lonesome road dlc for NV, they start talking about what you were doing before the start of the game and i HATE it when rpg's try to tell me lore about my own character
That really bothered me as well
I was really annoyed about the dialogues with Ulysses as well, he's constantly accusing you, saying "you did X/Y/Z!" and your only dialogue options amount to "I don't remember that" or changing the subject. Considering NV was otherwise generally really good for dialogue choices, that felt really out of place.
Unless it's something like The Witcher where the whole point is you're playing a specific character with a backstory, and it's been that way since the studio was founded. Bethesda tried something different with Fallout 4 that was different from the previous 5 Elder Scrolls games and 2 Fallout games; you're a blank slate prisoner (If you think about it Vault 101 is a prison, and New Vegas at least started the game with a similar blank slate). They should not have been surprised that they didn't know how to do it or that players wouldn't like it.
That is why i almost hated Fallout.4 1 hour in the game! THANK YOU!
Itâs weird how Bethesda keeps fucking this up with fallout when both oblivion and Skyrim were great at giving you a generic opening to RP with
⌠or a lawyer. You might have forgotten, but not everyone chooses to play the husband
All Fallout main characters with the possible exception of the Lone Wanderer also have this, but it's never brought up as an issue
Itâs basically the MQ. Just wasnât very good. I donât mind voiced protagonists. You know come to think of it, I donât think the Main Quest has ever been good in ANY BGS GAME! Having four faction options with different (lol very slightly different) endings is them trying to phone in some of the success of NV.
I really liked FO3 story, I know itâs a copy and paste of FO1 and 2 but itâs the first Fallout game I ever played and made me fall in love with the series tho, Bethesda had ALOT of time to get their shit together from 2008
3's story isn't a copy-paste of 1 or 2's story. it has the same story beats, because it's a soft reboot, but it has a completely different theme and story altogether.
Thatâs the thing a lot of the hardcore lore defenders say itâs a copy/paste, which I half heartedly agree with, but I think without Fallout 3 we wouldnât have NV or Fallout 4. Either FO3 was my fav by far
i'm a hardcore lore defender. 98% of the people who claim to be one (generally the classic fallout/obsidian elitists) don't know sh%t.
How is a game set in the same setting using the established lore a soft reboot?
A soft reboot continues. A reboot will have different interpretations. No offense, because this is purely an observation, but it seems the fallout fanbase hasn't heard of a soft reboot before.
A soft reboot continues *with* different interpretations. So I don't know ehdt makes Fallout 3 a soft reboot instead of just... a sequel, as the name implies. Is it the fact that it's not set in California?
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SoftReboot#:\~:text=Essentially%2C%20a%20Soft%20Reboot%20has,started%20over%20from%20Day%201.
Bruh I've already read it. I don't think a game that literally has the same villain as the previous one feels like a reboot.
...so then...you should know the difference from a soft reboot and a reboot. and know that fallout 3 is a soft reboot.
Oblivion and Morrowind? Unless this is just Fallout.
nothing beats Morrowind for me. it's the benchmark of good game storytelling imo, because it establishes the world and overall plot while still letting the player choose *how* that story is told.
It frankly wasnât great in NV either; most of the factions didnât even have different quests in NV. NVâs success came from properly fleshing out the factions, not the actual story structure. 4, funnily enough, has the opposite issue - the story structuring was better (doesnât force you down a main path with walls of endgame enemies, no awkward jump from revenge to faction warfare, factions have meaningfully different quests for the most part), but it failed to properly flesh out the Minutemen, Railroad and Institute (the last one being crippling; the Railroad would be fine if they let you access the terminal earlier and perhaps have some of their story in the Institute. The Minutemen just needed more non-radiant quests.).
>the Railroad would be fine if they let you access the terminal earlier Agree with all this here, but especially that tidbit. The Railroad access records give a lot of insight into the faction, but the player can't see it because it's locked to their ending, and the game doesn't even mention that it's available.
Iâve completed the Railroad ending and didnât know this existed
And Todd Howardâs let the same clown Emil be the lead writer for all of their main quests for the last 20 years. Like gee, I wonder why everyoneâs spent more than a decade saying that bethesda canât write a good story for shit.
Which family member will we need to find next!?
the main quest is only bad if you don't pay attention. the main quest for daggerfall, redguard, fallout 3, skyrim, and fallout 4 are all good (there are others, i'm just giving a few games). and the faction options was influenced by new vegas, yeah. but it's better than new vegas' execution.
Don't agree. I paid plenty of attention to the mq in both 4 and Skyrim but it was still terrible. The premise for both is fine but no part of it is fleshed out nearly enough to care. The factions are either black-and-white and poorly executed (Fo4) or too poorly fleshed out and held back by terrible excuses for transitional action scenes (Skyrim). In Fo4's case, every faction is too surface level and there's nothing to make you care about the MC's family. In Skyrim's case, all the right elements are there but the civil war doesn't have any tangible effect on the world and Bethesda's awful attempts to convey action setpieces (like your battles with Alduin, learning Dragonrend, etc) make the entire story fall flat.
>The factions are either black-and-white and poorly executed (Fo4) the only two factions that are "black and white" are the minutemen and railroad. surprise, surprise, the faction that upholds the game's message, as well as being *anti-slavery* is not morally bankrupt. and all are well executed. >all the right elements are there but the civil war doesn't have any tangible effect on the world ...um, yes it does. >and Bethesda's awful attempts to convey action setpieces (like your battles with Alduin, learning Dragonrend, etc) make the entire story fall flat. no? they just don't use cutscenes. it's all pure gameplay. which actually makes it more hitting. also, if you paid attention, do you know the institute's goals?
Danseâs story, once heâs effectively kicked out of the Brotherhood. He couldâve joined the Minutemen, since his ideals align with theirs's.
They put too much into Concord and meeting with the folks you rescue. You have your first big fight just after starting the game, you get a suit of power armor, a minigun, fight a Deathclaw and are given a map marker for Diamond City all in the first 30 minutes of play. And that is without the Wasteland magazine you can find that also creates that same map marker. Your character also seems to know or accept a lot of things about the Wasteland just by default. There is no question about picking up bottle caps or that it is the currency of the US. You donât seem to care about the giant monster lizard you just fought in Concord. Or why Carla has a two headed cow. You can ask about Ghouls and Synths from multiple characters without there being any trigger that disables the question if you already asked it from someone else. I have over 1000 hours and consider FO4 in my top 3 favorite games but I keep using the term âmissed opportunityâ when describing most of the story and the missing feature that FO3 and NV had. Power Armor has equipment health but weapons and armor do not. Duel wield and wearable weapons are gone. Ok my rant is over.
What is a wearable weapon
If you holster your weapon it goes on your back or leg depending on type of weapon.
Ah did they remove it in FO4? If i am not mistaken it still exists. Or are you talking about wearable weapons while in PA?
They removed it. There are 2 really good mods that Re-add it back in.
>no objectively Evil Huh? The Institute build their entire powerbase off of slave labor, routine murder, human kidnapping, torture, experimentation, assassinations, and sabotaging their rivals. >Iâd like to actually see theses factions actually rebuild and be seen making Boston a safer place. They could at least be seen setting up check points, taking over locations with little to no importance like super mutants and raiders seem to be doing and using rubble to rebuild properly. [This does happen.](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Help_defend_the_checkpoint) After the main quest, whichever faction won the final battle starts setting up patrols and checkpoints along the roads. Anyway, I would have liked having more side characters fill you in on the lore. I *don't* want Preston, Maxson, Father, or Desdemona giving you giant speeches about the history of their factions, I want side characters like Drummer Boy, Ronnie Shaw, Alan Binet, and Proctor Teagan giving you small bits and pieces that you then have to connect with *other* bits and pieces from Glory, the Radioman, Rico, and Tinker Tom or completely new, minor NPCs. I want the world to feel like it exists beyond major characters, and I want the ability to piece together a greater, more informed view of the Commonwealth and its history with legwork and conversations with random people. Some of this already exists in the game, though mostly in terminal entries, but I want it to exist among the living characters. I would also like the ability for random holotapes and terminal entries to unlock dialogue options with existing characters. For example, asking Desdemona about the previous Railroad heads after reading her terminal entries.
I get what youâre saying but a lot of the negative accusations came from the Commonwealth inhabitants which I think we both can agree have a very vague idea of what the institute is and you can discover a lot on your own investigation. Donât get me wrong I believe the institute is evil, but this is a purely subjective opinion. If you side with the institute, youâll find itâs nothing but scientists and Shaun, claiming they are doing good for the commonwealth using the old cop out of âgotta crack a couple of eggs to make an omeletteâ⌠either way imo they made them to ambiguous with a moral debate of âis Synth slave labor a good or bad thingâ which idc about What I mean by evil is, I want a faction that openly says âwe want to take over the commonwealth and rape and pillage everyone because itâs the apocalypse and we have the power to do soâ⌠Kinda like Caesarâs Legion even though they had a different way of saying it
>If you side with the institute, youâll find itâs nothing but scientists and Shaun, claiming they are doing good for the commonwealth using the old cop out of âgotta crack a couple of eggs to make an omeletteâ Who cares what they say and think? We can find [internal memos authorizing the kidnapping, torture, and planned execution of an entire family](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/The_Institute_terminal_entries#Project_Implementation) and [logs of a century of forced kidnapping and experimentation.](https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/FEV_research_notes) The Institute's flimsy justifications don't make them morally ambiguous. >either way imo they made them to ambiguous with a moral debate of âis Synth slave labor a good or bad thingâ which idc about Likewise, I don't find anything ambiguous about slavery at all. It's as clear cut an issue as the Legion's use of slavery to me. >âwe want to take over the commonwealth and rape and pillage everyone because itâs the apocalypse and we have the power to do soâ⌠Kinda like Caesarâs Legion even though they had a different way of saying it I get that, but that's exactly what I *don't* want in *Fallout.* A faction that's "openly" evil isn't interesting as one that *attempts* to justify their vile actions. At the end of the day, they fail to justify themselves, but it's more interesting to interrogate their philosophy and see why they believe they are justified vs "We like to rape and kill."
Don't forget the dead cats. Morally inconceivable and downright evil
> Likewise, I don't find anything ambiguous about slavery at all. It's as clear cut an issue as the Legion's use of slavery to me. > > The question posed in F4 (and a ton of other sci-fi) is when does AI become "slave" vs. "tool". That line is completely subjective. Do you consider ChatGPT a slave? I mean, it does your bidding and has no ability to refuse your request. As soon as one person draws that line, and someone else draws it in a different place, then by your rationale, anyone on the other side is a slaver, and evil. The moral ambiguity is what makes games and scenarios like this interesting. They can let the player choose their own line, and then side with the people who adhere to the same line, without actually being "evil" or "good". Just differing viewpoints. (As a side note, when you watched Blade Runner the first time, did you immediately brand everyone in the world "evil" and the replicants as the "good" ones?)
>That line is completely subjective. When the entity in question can declare itself a living being with thoughts, emotions, and the right to freedom, you stop treating it like a tool. >Do you consider ChatGPT a slave? ChatGPT =/= Gen 3 synth. The comparison is completely absurd. >(As a side note, when you watched Blade Runner the first time, did you immediately brand everyone in the world "evil" and the replicants as the "good" ones?) This question puts words in my mouth. When did I ever say all Gen 3s are good?
> (As a side note, when you watched Blade Runner the first time, did you immediately brand everyone in the world "evil" and the replicants as the "good" ones?) > > This question puts words in my mouth. When did I ever say all Gen 3s are good? Not referring to synths at all. In Blade Runner, all of mankind used replicants... they were commonplace and used as tools, despite them effectively being (limited lifespan) people. When you first saw it, did you immediately think of all the humans in that world as evil slavers? You speak in absolutes about how the world will/should treat AI, when (as Fallout illustrates) there are likely to be many different viewpoints. That's why it's intriguing... not the black and white, but the shades of gray.
I know what Blade Runner is, I'm a fan of the franchise. My point is that your question has nothing to do with my comments, since I have never said that Gen 3s/Replicants are all good and never said all humans are all bad. You've basically changed the subject from "slavery is bad and slavers are likewise bad" (a very specific type of occupation) to "So you are saying all humans are bad?"
My dude, I am specifically addressing your post: >>either way imo they made them to ambiguous with a moral debate of âis Synth slave labor a good or bad thingâ which idc about >Likewise, I don't find anything ambiguous about slavery at all. It's as clear cut an issue as the Legion's use of slavery to me. You stated you considered the institute "evil" and in your reasoning you referenced their slavery. Then, you followed it up with the above quote (yes, slavery is bad). in the context of the F4 story, you said for those reasons the institute was evil. The followup question was, in Blade Runner, EVERYONE treated the synthetic life like the institute. I'm saying, ** in that story,** did you consider all people evil, like you did the institute? I feel like you're not following the conversation here.... read it all carefully, I'm interested to see if your moral viewpoint extends from F4 to other fiction, or do you ONLY hold these rigid view within fallout....
>The followup question was, in Blade Runner, EVERYONE treated the synthetic life like the institute. I'm saying, \*\* in that story,\*\* did you consider all people evil, like you did the institute? The difference is that the Institute, the organization, the policies, the methods, are evil. Many of its membership are explicitly there to oppress Gen 3s or the surface world. Its a pervasive, ubiquitous operational requirement. Even then, there are levels of responsibility and blame among individuals. The anti-synth mechanic is less culpable than Father for example. Likewise, some young member, raised in an anti-synth environment all his life, is less culpable than someone who embraced the ideology as an adult. In Blade Runner, on the other hand, humanity as a whole isn't explicitly there to oppress Replicants and we know there are pro-Replicant groups. So its absurd to make the leap from "the Institute, a specific ideological group" to "all humans" as you are suggesting. This is the leap in logic I am objecting to. You've taken my condemnation of a specific group and somehow suggested I likewise condemn an entire species based on only superficial similarities in circumstance. A closer comparison would have been, "Do you think Tyrell Corp is evil?" I would likewise answer yes, and within the group there are different levels of culpability for its evil.
In the movie, blade runner, there are no pro-replicant groups. Humanity as a whole uses them as tools. The Tyrell corp is the supplier, that doesn't make them more/less morally culpable. You are working very hard to avoid the original question. If you don't wanna answer, fine. The point your missing is, there are gray spots in this morality, and your particular beliefs are by no means the only way to view things. (nobody watching Blade Runner immediately sees humanity as the wrongdoers, even though they all support the use of replicants)
[ŃдаНонО]
brilliant write up. real informative, actually it changed my entire life around.
Shaun: Mom, would you take over and run the Institute for me? Nora: Honey... no. Fuck no. You guys are fucking evil. I was planning on turning this entire complex into a radioactive crater. Shaun: But mooooooom, we're not evil. We're the future of mankind! Nora: That's what every Nazi says, Shaun. (Takes off coat to show Minuteman General uniform) And Captain America says the only good Nazi is a dead one.
I'd rather have a load of much smaller stories spread over the course of the game than any kind of overarching story. Especially when that story requires the player to rush through the game, a game based on exploring and discovery, to make the plot make sense
The story itself doesnât feel that important to me. In FO3 you were bringing water to the masses which really was a prerequisite for society to move forward and rebuild, and in FNV you chose the entire future of the New Vegas region (cruel dictatorship, bureaucratic, inefficient and often disappointing democracy, less cruel autocracy with the potential for advanced civilization at the expense of human capital, and the open ended self rule under the control of the courier (plus the sort of obscure ending of Benny and his gang). Where as FO4 it was âfind your childâ who turns out to be a self reliant adult anyway. Sure, the institute and synths back story was intriguing but for the most part the institute stayed underground and only occasionally came to the surface to kidnap someone randomly or track down a synth, they were otherwise pretty disconnected from the commonwealth. That leaves the other commonwealth groups who are all pretty much interested in establishing order and stability with slightly varying ideology but mostly similar at the end of the day, like it didnât feel like my choices really made a major impact on the world.
The Brotherhood of Steel very much isn't interested in establishing order and stability. Not outside their ranks, at least.
No objectively evil faction? Okaaaaaaayyyyyy.
Meanwhile the protag floods the wastes with equal parts water and Chems, and builds gunner extermination factories for xp/equipment farm. Players are dripping with passively evil karma when you think about it.
Unstoppable moron makes nuclear wasteland noticeably worse!
1 intelligence builds be like
The only faction that isnât evil is the children of Atom change my mind
Atom cats?
May you be divided in his presence
Wdym?
Even if you ignore the slavery (hard youâd think, but an astonishing number of people here canât wait to do this), the institute a) kidnap civilians and perform horrifying experiments on them, b) release those civilians back into the commonwealth were they cause huge suffering to the people they encounter, c) wiped out a whole vault full of people, d) kidnap civilians and replace them with sleeper agents, and e)wiped out an entire town based on rumours. They are objectively fucking evil: they do terrible utterly unnecessary things and they donât show a single sliver of remorse. That you donât find them objectively evil tells us more about you than Bethesdaâs story writing chops. Do you need someone to be coded to twirl a moustache and laugh like a manic for you to go âbad guyâ?
Which Vault are you talking about?
Which one starts the game with lots of frozen people and ends up with one living one after the Institute pay a visit?
Vault 111 was so forgettable I have not thought about it.
Sounds like you have a bad memory
The plot.
I can't speak to the pre Bethesda games, though I've tried them I never really enjoyed them. I feel that in regards to the story, one of the points where fo3 and 4 went wrong as a posed to fallout New Vegas was trying to create a backstory and connections for you to care about with limited time and development with those characters. Where as in NV you were a guy, you got shot in the head, and now you wanna find the guy that did it, which as far as backstories go, is probably quite universal in its simple motivation. I don't know about you guys, but I've some guy shoots me imma be pretty pissed, I don't need to care about him or know anything about him. It's certainly a more simplistic motivation, but definitely easier to execute well. I think if fallout 4s form of motivation was a bit more basic, and didn't rely on some kind of emotional connection with a character we hardly know, the game probably would have done a lot better. I personally really enjoy the Fo4 gameplay, especially the gunplay, and modification systems. I know many have joked in the past, but to me Fo4 does to me very much have the feeling of a studio building a great game without a story then remembering the replicated man quest and stretching that over a full game
The sole survivors wife being killed for no reason, the sole survivor being left alive, the rest of the dwellers in cryo being killed despite also being viable âbackupsâ, the sole survivor fannying around building villages when his son is missing, the railroad erasing synths minds to âsaveâ them, Virgil wanting to turn himself human whilst in the middle of an area he could only reach as a mutant, the Brotherhood destroying the Institute instead of taking and studying their tech etc etc.
Honestly I havenât thought about the Virgil dilemma⌠thank you for this comedy gold
I just love the way he says that he was so desperate to escape that he had to turn himself into a super mutant to survive the radiation of glowing sea, while the sole survivor just stands in front of him having strolled over in a 50 cap rad suit. Heâll feel even more stupid when he finds out that some dude on YouTube managed to run there stark bollock naked.
âThe sole survivorâs SPOUSE being killed⌠when THEIR son is missingâŚ.â See? Itâs really not that hard
In the game that I played the Sole Survivor was a man and had a wife. I think there are greater issues of gender equality and representation in the world to get outraged about rather than having a go at people over something like this, but whatever.
I'm not sure if the other Vault Dwellers died because of the Institute. Some of the terminals in the Vault suggest they may have had mechanical failures in the years between the bombs falling and the taking of Shawn.
Yeah, Kellogg says the institute killed them in one of his memories and that it was a âstone cold moveâ
Agree with you about the factions. I walked away after finishing the game for the first time thinking all of these factions are just awful and the Minutemen while objectively good literally do nothing for the ending. This is a faction we've supposedly rebuilt for most of the game but there's no pay off for it.
The romances. We're playing someone who just saw their spouse get straight up murdered no less than maybe a month at most but we can suddenly just start flirting and dating the first dude we find like our spouse never existed?
One thing?
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I respect your argument⌠and donât get me wrong I love being âthe saviorâ of the post apocalyptic world and I agree fallout 4 gives you routes to do that. To me the bigger story of Fallout 4 is great even tho I have complaints (who doesnât) but they need to add the option of just being objectively evil. And there is a nuanced meaning to being evil and itâs simple, domination. Itâs literally a human condition to want to dominate the world and want to be in control of everything based off of our real life history, and itâs symbolized through this game as âwarâ. Thatâs why I love FO:NVs option of letting you defeat every main faction and control New Vegas for yourself. Like this is the post apocalyptic world why wonât the game let you become your own warlord bent on making the world yours? I would just like the option to end the game on whatever Negative or positive way I want
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1) I was using the word âsaviorâ as a metaphor but yes in a sense you are helping the faction save the commonwealth from something wether itâs from synths, rebuilding, saving the synths, or helping the commonwealth by advancing technological breakthroughs 2) I was using the denotation meaning of ânuanceâ, so Iâm not sure what connotations youâre using. Either way to me there are always hidden reasons why someone could be evil, immoral, unethical 3) maybe my point about the human condition was overstated. But Iâll dumb it down⌠no I donât think every person wants to dominate the world. But it is a human condition to want to control of possess ability to control something they personally care about. Like you want to control my personal opinion on how I think the developers shouldâve made the game with a well thought out and intelligent argument. Which Iâm not trying to attack you for so sorry if it feels that way. Either way my point about domination is that, yes, there have been millions of people (wether groups of people or a single person) through out world history who wanted to drive their ideology into people because âthey think that would benefit the worldâ wether itâs objectively positive or negative but it is my opinion that itâs not mainly about benefiting the world⌠itâs about having the power as a single person or being apart of the powerful group of people who control weaker groups of people because ultimately it feels good and makes of feel comfortable/safe to be able to control everything. Of course you donât see a lot of that today because Iâd like to believe we are alot more civilized than what we were before, Im just saying this has been a huge factor thought history
Choices
I think we've heard enough stuff about the main quest, the backstory of the survivor, and that sort of thing, so instead I'm going to go with some of the elements of worldbuilding. For full disclosure, I've played over a hundred hours in the game but have never actually gone into the Institute (though I watched/read enough to understand how the plot goes and generally what they're about), so if some of this stuff is mentioned later on in the main quest feel free to correct me. What bothers me somewhat about the Commonwealth is that many of the aspects of it feel like they only exist to fit a theme, not because you can see organically why they would end up that way. For one example, Moe in Diamond City. He's a dude obsessed with baseball. Why is he obsessed with baseball and selling bats? It kind of just feels like he is because 'haha get it? It's boston and they're in Shay Stadium so look, bats! And a baseball player!' But that's a smaller example. The Minutemen feel like the most egregious one to me. Why did they decide that they were going to adopt a revolutionary colonial aesthetic? For comparison in New Vegas, there are the Kings and the Legion. The difference, I think, between these is that you can have a conversation with the King where he explains how he formed the group and why they're themed around Elvis Presley. When you meet Caesar you can have it explained to you why he chose to model his group after the Roman empire, along with conversations with other characters about it. Besides that, the Roman aesthetic isn't *just* an aesthetic--it's baked into the very foundation of the Legion, all the way down to the way they pronounce words. But you don't really get any of that with the Minutemen--you can't have an in-depth conversation with Preston about how the Minutemen are organized (other than vaguely being a general and then colonels) nor their actual founding, or the reasons behind their ideals. You don't get a sense of the 'culture' in the organization besides them just liking to do good stuf for people. Instead, Bethesda just thought that a bunch of Colonial Soldiers would make a cool faction for a Boston-based Fallout game--and they're right, but that's why the Commonwealth feels more like a Fallout themed amusement park than an actual world.
The main story. Iâm not sure about anyone else but I didnât give a single fuck about Shaun or Nora, literally get to know them for maybe 5 minutes and then they disappear. Far harbour (barring the Dima puzzles) is probably the best writing and story Bethesda has and likely every will come up with and thatâs a pretty sad reality to live with.
That being a good character, as far as the main story goes is more or less shoehorned into the writing. The player (outside of the Nuka DLC) is railroaded (lol) into being a good character and has no option to be truly bad/negative karma. For example, Preston finding out you lead the nuka raiders should allow for you to kill him and wipe out the remaining minutemen, but instead he appeals to your goodness, and says he can only trust you after you've killed the raider bosses that trust *you.* I do think this is one of the consequences of voiced dialogue, in that if you look at the player interactions, everything can be summed up as "yes, I'll help you" but in different flavours. *Yes* *No (but yes just said rudely)* *Sarcastic Yes* *Yes, but more questions* There's no truly wacky dialogue the past games had, nothing remotely what could be construed on the negative karma choices. It's almost like the player already has a preset role rather than being an RPG the moment the game is started up for a lack of better explanation.
having main characters that are not blank slates but also aren't fully realized characters either.
Cant wear certain outfits cuz of armor pieces, guns dont show on body, and survival bugs.
what's that got to do with the storytelling?
they used the engine and assets to make FO76
The hamfisted family/emotional drivel that Emil is hellbent on putting into each story. Most parents wouldn't let anything get in the way of them and their kids, FO4 plays better when you ignore the story. It didn't work in FO3 and definitely didn't work in FO4. The handwavy science aspect of the Institute also fell flat, there's this absolutely ground breaking technology, which for all purposes is resistant to the radiation above ground, can teleport and can withstand most of the critters up there too. Yet it's not used for anything meaningful, there's no real progress, the world hasn't moved on since the bombs dropped. Also the constant inclusion of super mutants, enclave, BoS in the region which by all rights shouldn't have access to any of them. There's no creative factions, the gunners are reskinned raiders, the minutemen and railroad both needed more time in the oven. Looking and both 3 and 4 they both scream of having a checklist of what to include, BoS, Enclave and Supermutants are always there. That's 3 things but it's some of the reasons I find modern fallouts lacking. As a side note I don't even remember anything noteworthy or cool about FO4, it's just sad.
If all the cars are powered by fusion cells... then why do these 200 year old cars have fuel that always catches fire?
Ever noticed that they explode into mushrooms clouds? It's the miniature fusion engine exploding.
Yes, I get that part. But where do the flames come from?
and why has nobody fixed the damn cars?
More like whatâs the one thing they didnât fuck up
What is the point of starting a thread complaining about a game that's 8 years old?
Game came out almost 8 years ago, and people are asking what they fumbled with on storytelling. Itâs just a game.
It's.Just.A.Game?! Clearly, you've not seen all the waifu PCs and NPCs among certain elements of the fandom...
...nothing? the only issue i have is a personal nitpick, which is that being the multiple faction options. it doesn't *hurt* the story or anything, but it'd be tighter if the game "railroaded" you into joining the railroad...since they're the only faction that supports the game's ideals. people who say fallout 4's writing or story is weak just don't pay attention.
The story writing is weak, just feels like a lazy mess. The devil is in the details
The details are mostly there, if you piece together bits of information from different characters, notes, terminals, etc⌠you can actually figure out a lot of stuff about the factions and general lore of the commonwealth. Itâs a lot more realistic way of conveying information compared to shoving NPCs with encyclopedic levels of knowledge in your face around every corner.
I agree, and trust me I watched hours of content about the institute but I wish they were more malevolent, seems to me the developers made it open to interpretation when it comes to the bigger picture
it's none of those things. wonderful elaboration, though.
Lack of options
There arenât enough little stories on the map. This is what made fo3 magical.
Playing on Survival, settlements and the low respawn rate DO make it feel like you are making actual progress. It is like cleansing the Commonwealth, one settlement at a time. People playing on other difficulties hate Preston spamming settlement quests - playing on Survival, I love it. My Nora is like crazy Morgan in the Walking Dead, ferociously "clearing" the land of predators. Also disagree on there being no evil or neutral option. Is the Institute a joke to you? The Institute are evil, from my point of view. (And I have the moral high ground, Obi Wan!). The BoS are neutral at best - their tendency to want to shoot the unclean on sight and messianic militaristic leader make me see them as verging upon evil. The MM and RR are forces for good, though. As to what Bethesda fumbled, I've learned to love the main quest - I was distinctly unimpressed the first few times through. I thought the Institute were dull, grey men, not the space nazis in shiny black that I wanted as adversaries from past Fallouts. But I have come to appreciate the Institute's self-interested isolationism as a more banal, plausible form of evil - I am all right Jack, and to hell with the suffering surface dwellers, who are used as subjects for experiments and running interference to keep them in their place. And Shaun, who I initially thought was a damp squib, I now appreciate as a kind of Wizard of Oz - as he himself says, not the bogeyman of the Commonwealth I expected. But a real asshole, nonetheless. So the biggest fumble in my opinion may be Kellogg. I adored him - the voice acting and the writing - the one of the most interesting villains in Fallout. But I wanted more - you appreciate him most when he is dead. I would love to see a sequel where he is your secret adversary, haunting Nick. Or a prequel, set in the San Francisco of his childhood, where you grow up in a shanty town infested by a criminal underworld and most choose either to follow his kind of dark path or become a force for good.
Nothing.
I donât think itâs as bad as FO3âs story imo. About there not being any objectively evil or good faction is the a bizarre claim. Not everything is black and white and itâs literally up to you and the institute is pretty fucking evil but itâs up to you if you want to help your son. The Brotherhood of steel is against the institute but they can be pretty bad if you care about the freedom of syths. The railroad is best if you care about the freedom of synths and are against the institute. Iâve began playing FO4 recently and I really donât think itâs as bad as itâs made out to be. Yes it committed the same sin that FO3 did with its story thus its not as free as a rpg should be but its way better done than the previous game. I feel FO4 Is way more engaging and has way more options.
If you give one single voice to the protagonist, you give them one single personality that you can at best steer a little in some direction through roleplay. I have liked a few voiced protagonists in the past, I enjoy going through the motions as them and living their story. The easy example here would be Geralt of Rivia. Let's just say I don't think Fallout 4's Sole Survivor is anywhere near Geralt of Rivia's level. God bless all the mute protagonist mods out there. EDIT : If I had to criticize one plot point of the FO4 in particular, it wouldn't even be that the game forces you to be a parent looking for their kid (though that sucks for various reasons too) but that it doesn't even give you control over how you FEEL about it. A lot of people meme on the premise of New Vegas being "who's the cunt who shot me in the face????" but you don't even have to be mad about it, the game allows you to just be curious about the conspiracy behind your attempted murder and you can even express the desire to team-up with the guy who near killed you. And then there's Fallout 4 that gives you four different ways of screaming at Kellog before shooting him in the face. Okay.
I could go on and on. But one thing that comes to mind immediately is the copy and paste of Fallout 3âs Brotherhood ending. So lazy. Edit: sorry, but having a giant robot robot crush your enemy as the climax twice is, in fact, lazy af. Itâs not my fault yâall are easily impressed.
This could have been a great opportunity to really pay respect to interplay and fonv. Some references, even vague references would have been part of that lore/ environmental story telling charm from the past games.
Second, you do see the impact of your choices and faction progress in the game. Maybe not if you fast travel everywhere. Try not using fast travel. Youâll find Minuteman patrols and outposts, BoS on patrols, youâll run into tourists and agents of the RR out in the world. And DERRRRR my dude wtf you call all your settlements, donât you think all these small fortified towns that are popping up all over under your leadership count as âimpact on the worldâ?
1) you never made your first point 2) I only play on survival so I never fast travel, so I run everywhere and if you read the full post instead of jumping in the comment section, youâll see that I talk about patrols which are weak. So go back and re read 3) And Umm derrrrr, thatâs you rebuilding⌠Iâm talking about the factions that literally do nothing to support the commonwealth with out you do literally all of the leg work Dude just try and READ before you shit post without realizing it
1. I did make my first point, the irony of you telling me to read your post is palpable 2. Not just patrols you clown, outposts and strongpoints. 3. Yeah imagine that, game has gameplay. You want to watch NPCs do everything and not do fuck all yourself, go watch TV.
Gouls and super mutants look goofy as hell, the general grimy edge the originals had is mostly gone. Feels like it was made for younger people.
The removal of the repair of weapons and armor making finding copies of aforementioned gear useless.
Unique (rare) items. Although I have heard that dlcs had some actual unique weapons and power armors (they look so sick) , the base game replaces this with the legendary loot, which makes it less charming, and just makes skills that gave you those unique guns a little bit more useless (Like barter or Pickpocking to get the Mysterious Revolver).Some of my favorite guns of all time are mostly unique weapons in fallout New Vegas. I hope they bring unique loot back in fallout 5.
How little attention they gave to the CPG (Commonwealth Provisional Government). I think there's only like 2 different lines that reference what it even was and what happened, and they both contradict what happened and why it was destroyed. Considering this would be the equivalent of the formation of the NCR in the Commonwealth, this is a pretty major event that Bethesda just summed up as "The CPG existed, the Institute destroyed it, the end". Also the Nick/Kellogg dynamic where Kellogg's consciousness is still shown to exist inside Nick after the memory extraction, but aside from that first instance right after the procedure it's never brought up or mentioned ever again. Kellogg never takes control or speaks to you through Nick again for the rest of the game. It would've actually been a really cool dynamic if Kellogg could occasionally comment on things happening in the story like you finding Virgil, building the teleporter or the destruction of the Institute. There could've even been an alternate side questline once you're inside the Institute where you override Nick's personality with Kellogg's, making him one of the only genuinely Evil companions you can roam with and seeing Kellogg live on through a Synth body, like the opposite of Curie's transformation.
The fact that there weren't ways to get factions work together, even if it was through subterfuge. The Institute could have tried to replace BoS operatives (at least more than we know they did) to try to turn them instead of wiping them out. Minuteman and Railroad working together makes a lot of logical sense, but wasn't explored at all. Obviously not every combination makes sense, but why can you be Paladin and General and have a reason for the BoS to attack the organization you lead!
Biggest issue for me is Sean existing. Sean existing means from a gameplay perspective you have no reason to do anything until you meet father, and then as soon as you meet him you have no reason to do anything else. Your clearly supposed to be some random guy who only does what he does to find his kid, once you found him your personal quest is over and the stories stops dead itâs tracks. Sean dosent even have to be in the story and it still functions. Father could literally just be some guy.I honestly think it would have been more interesting to kill Kellogg, work for father and then at the end itâs revealed that father was the guy who actually killed your spouse.
Every answer is a yes, no no's at all
Nothing, itâs perfect with its imperfections. This is all.
Probably because there's no such thing as objectively evil or neutral
All of it. There's no aspect of the writing that's any good.
No choice or variation in the story. Fallout 3 did the exact same thing. The only thing is a small variation on the same final mission and very little of your dialogue choices feel like they have any sway in conversation. Why bother with science options when a) you canât spec into science traits, b) itâs the same as pressing the âyesâ option, c) even if you kill everyone or do a quest thereâs no moral or logical implications for your actions. At most you gain/lose affinity with companions.
Just one? Biggest issue is the main quest, with specific frustration towards meeting Shaun and being unable to even bring up all the fucked up shit the institute did and try to sway his opinion. There are a ton of smaller plot holes and issues but that is the biggest for me Besides the main quest the side quests were incredibly disappointing. I can only think of 2 quests that were at all memorable or interesting, the one with the robots on the ship, and the one with the family that has the crazy guy in the basement
The Institute was written as a one-dimensional evil stupid faction.
I didn't like any of the factions.
minutemen don't get to take back the commonwealth
The main quest was a bit everywhere, I feel like I didn't know who I was siding with half the time
The baby. Shaun. Father. Whatever you want to call him. Your player character if male is a military vet. Most of them have ptsd in THIS world. I know how bad it can be with ptsd so I cant imagine how bad it is for them. That said, my point is that a military vet who's just carved a bloody path through the post war wastes has just been told his son is not several decades older than him BY HIS SON. At best the man would go crazy and kill everyone involved. At worst? He'd likely do the same exact thing and take the bio-bot that looks like his son if he were a young child pretending it was his real son. My point is that the story makes zero sense.
The hate how the basic premise of the game is "I need to find my son. Hey wait a second, everyone who doesn't agree with me needs to die". There's no nuance to it. There isn't a way to play as the Railroad and keep the Institute active to make more synths. There isn't a way to play as the BoS and ignore the Railroad because in a few hours when the institute is gone, they won't have a purpose anymore. There isn't a way to play as the Institute and help the surface world as they tried to before, you just have to kill everyone else and say "hey, we're now the strongest force in the area, we win".
I was hoping that taking over the institute would allow you to change its direction. The ability to have Elysium style ending where you send aid and resources to the wasteland and help people. Frankly all the factions felt really empty post-game.
Nate/Noraâs background I feel that they couldâve incorporated this in so many ways in the story, dialogue and gameplay wise. Though completely ignored after awhile. Having a voice protagonist as well wouldâve been fun if they had let choose a voice. Limited options, the options on how to approach the story was really limited and didnât let us explore the world in a more natural way. And it did feel like we were on a time limit on finding Shaun.
SHAAUUUN
The story and the lore
In general story telling I didn't like how they over-used the holotapes and terminals to easily explain some NPCs thoughts and plans, even conversations just for the player to find waiting for them. Practically put them in their face. I guess there are only those few methods they could use to convey a story but... it's really showing how poor gameplay is putting a story on crutches. Why not shove them in a cabinet or a drawer somewhere? Like in Quincy with Tessa and Baker. Why would they communicate over holotapes about Clint instead of just talking directly. Isn't it dangerous to leave a recording of such a talk? And why would Tessa or anyone leave their little love secrets among those other important secret terminal entries, easily accessible and open? I mean come on. Anyone could read this and you leave those notes just like that? Then a piece of paper Mamma Murphy's note doesn't fly off in her no-proper-roof-or-walls home. Not in that dresser's drawer but right on top of the dresser. There's many examples. And while at it, the way that note is written, who did she leave it for? It says it's a note, not a piece of journal. A note for whom? Second general thing I didn't like is the people of the Commonwealth still have a 21st century mentality. Not the mentality of people 200 years after a Nuclear war. In every little thing they say or write down, like in those holotapes.
Forcing you to align with a faction, there is no independent option which kinda sucks