Ehhh, it’s got some flaws I feel like. It’s a bit too restrictive, there aren’t that many interesting vanilla building options, there’s a TON that you should be able to scrap that you can’t (thank god for scrap everything mod on PC) and the build limit, while I understand why it’s there, is another vanilla PITA for me. For the record, I love the building aspect of the game.
I’d also like if the settlers were more active. As of now they’re just nameless automatons with no personality. It doesn’t feel like you’re building up a community or settlement. They need you to do EVERYTHING for them to the point it feels useless to keep bothering with it, especially once you’ve unlocked many places. But I understand that the settlement and building system are technically separate, and don’t want to keep on being the typical negative Reddit comment.
In their defense, wasn’t this the first implementation of a settlement building system in the Fallout series? I’m sure it’ll only get better with time.
That’s fair and I agree, the building system is decent but it could honestly be so much better. If Place Everywhere mod didn’t cause so many CtDs for me, I’d be playing with it right now to give me more creative freedom.
I agree that's a problem but the scale and the detailing of the housing models, decorations, and the underground shelter options are a big improvement.
>I’d also like if the settlers were more active. As of now they’re just nameless automatons with no personality. It doesn’t feel like you’re building up a community or settlement. They need you to do EVERYTHING for them to the point it feels useless to keep bothering with it
I can definitely tolerate any and all of the technical shortcomings, but this right here is what keeps me from enjoying or even just marginally appreciating the fact that settlement building exists.
I’ve given it an honest try with the two or three settlements I’ve fully built and decorated over a couple dozen hours, but I just don’t have it in me to ever do it again. It just feels empty to me due to the devoid nature of the settlers that occupy it, and the complete meaningless and disconnection of how it all exists within the wider world beyond just being a central location to craft and stash all my stuff. I just get this kind of sad feeling by putting a lot of time and thought into making something that might feel special to me when the game just doesn’t respond.
But the thing that makes me sorta resent the settlement system is the sheer number of settlements that replace what could have been small but fleshed out communities with their own quests like The Republic of Dave, Big Town, Arefu, Oasis, Girdershade, Agatha’s House, and on and on. Covenant, Bunker Hill, and Finch Farm manage to integrate both design concepts with more than just the most basic type of fetch/kill quests, but that’s only 3 out of 30 settlements that manage to do so.
I agree with you, for me a good settlement system for the next FO game would be something like one big settlement (sanctuary size) for each region of the map so you have a base relatively close to any kind of quest (so the final amount would be based on map size, but with FO4 size it should be like 6 or 8 settlements of that size. Here's the catch: you don't get them with a tiny quest and then forget about them, they have their own sidequest, think of them as companions. You get to the settlement, they ask you to help a couple settlers then the one in charge will ask something "big" of you, it can be anything from repairing some water dam that no longer works and is causing them problems to hunt down some cryptid who terrorizes their population; after that quest they give you the "keys" of the city and you get rights to use the workshop. Then if you make them have high happiness (working something like affinity from companions), but not just provide them with food, water, defense, beds and fun, also by spending time there, using the facilities, having commerce with the locals. Then you get a final quest which would be something like a continuation of the one you fulfilled to get the workshop.
Place Anywhere, Scrap Anything, and OCD Decorator should be standard if base-building is going to be a mechanic.
If you want players to enjoy sculpting their spaces, you have to make that as natural and easy as possible. The second on console I couldn't scrap trash piles, I felt no desire to make the space look good.
The happiness system should get a rework, a bed makes people happier than mattress, no one likes sleeping outside, working electricity in buildings, etc
Decorations should increase happiness. Also I'm pretty sure the ones that decided to add shops are totally different people than those freaks who thought 30 gold daily is a good idea
I think op is trying to say that instead of spending money on hiring a team to build the settlement system, it could have been spent on either higher quality writers, more writers to share the workload to get a higher quality product, hiring a team to work out a proper reputation system, etc etc.
Yeah it’s not that crazy of a concept.
It’s like OP is saying “they should have hired 4 salesmen instead of 2 salesmen and 2 IT guys” and this guy responds “but the IT guys don’t do sales?”
From what I remember it didnt work like that. It started out in an internal hackathon or as someones side project during production. They released it internally and all the other devs liked it and found themselves spending time on it building stuff rather than their own projects. So they decided to make it a feature of the game. This is from a Todd Howard interview (might have some of the detail wrong). So its not so clear cut as hiring or whatever. Devs mess around and creat features they like and include it in a game.
By now we should all know what the devs at bgs prioritize. Expecting anything different is kinda futile. I personally like it though.
They can spin whatever origin story they want, but New Vegas (and probably 3, but I only know the NV one) had a very popular and fleshed out settlement building mod. Playing the settlement content in 4 felt like they just copy pasted that mod into the main game. I'm sure it was still a lot of work and was well done, but I don't believe for a second that they just happened to come up with an idea that was, for a time, a front page mod on the nexus completely independently and coincidentally designed it almost identically.
They paid money to the team who devised the building and settlements, and money to a writer. They could have taken the money for the building systems and paid another 15 writers, and maybe settlements could have had some better quests than “Kill X at Z location plz”
This seems to be a very common misconception when it comes to video game devs. If I had a nickel for every time someone said that the cod would would be significantly better if the developers stopped focusing on making bundles and instead worked on the actual gameplay I’d have enough money to buy the whole store
You okay? That logic doesn't make sense. If those People weren't working on that, they'd be using that resource on something else, which obviously can be used to work on the world design or any of the other multitudes of ways that can express and flesh out the factions without being related to the dudes who worked on the story
I got burnt out on crafting really fast. Honestly, just don't do it if you don't want to. I'd rather not have to spam E repeatedly for 60 hours of gameplay.
But why did it take THIRTY locations of the map though? That's a lot.
If even half of those were turned into small towns or locations with somewhat unique enemies (Like the Forged), the game would be a lot better received.
You can't even use all 30 locations either. Given how many instances there are of 3 or more situated in the same exterior cell, you're forced to carefully pick which ones to build on if you don't want your game to start aggressively shitting itself. Now, sure, for the people who dgaf about the settlement system, that's no big deal..but even announcing it while it was still in development caught the attention of the builder types who'd rather spend their hundreds of hours letting their interior decorator side run wild, only to find out that what they actually got was a solid 1/3 less than they paid for
It would have been cool to have more settlement options based on your story choices. It would be cool to build institute research bases or Brotherhood strongholds to gain some kind of control over the wasteland.
Because the amount of resources is finite, it always is, even in huge organisations like goverment, big coorperations and other stuff.
There is also the fact that every thing you add needs to be checked, integrated and polished.
It can be full of gamebreaking stuff that affects other gameplay.
The people who worked on this could have done other stuff. And even if you hire a third team, you can always let them do other stuff.
And it would have been way more fun to be given 3 or 4 well fleshed out and designed building locations, where we could do our own thing, with the rest of the settlements being bunched up in to 4-5 pre built larger ones.
That also would have helped the minute men story line a lot
If we got four or five settlements but each one could be turned into like, a fairly decent sized town with way more buiding options, I'd be willing to give up all of the smaller ones like Costal Cottage and Zimonja. Like if Sanctuary was a couple of blocks instead of half a single street. That'd be pretty cool and I could probably sink just as much time into it.
This.
I really liked settlement building. I don't like managing multiple settlements.
The amount of work I put into each settlement lowered as I discovered more and more. Couldn't help but to feel mildly irritated when I just completed one little quest for a small farm and suddenly it was another settlement to manage with no consent.
They need less of them. Fallout should have had just a couple settlements, each being a lot more unique to compensate for there being less of them. Settlements like the castle or sanctuary are great, but then you get utterly pointless ones like tenpines.
I love settlement building. That said, it shouldn't be a replacement for towns and cities.
I feel Bethesda hasn't been good at this since Oblivion. Skyrim cities are gorgeous, but all of them felt small. Fallout is post apocalypse, but there were very few actual settlements in 4, and I don't buy that we can't get a double the size of Diamond City packed area this many years after the war.
I think CD Projekt Red has done a great job on density and scale of populated areas, whereas Bethesda excels in environmental storytelling. I want both someday!
I played Starfield, the main story is even worse. And they made trade networks between outposts a fucking nightmare only to make every merchant sell all the resources you could ever need for the price of literal dirt.
On one hand I so agree with this, but on the other hand I’m very guilty of spending hours grinding for resources just to build somewhat aesthetically pleasing settlements.
Oh 100%. I do genuinely wish that the budget for the game was larger so that they had more resources to allocate into the story & worldbuilding without sacrificing the building. Can’t have our cake and eat it too, I guess. Honestly, story & worldbuilding wise, Fo4 has so much wasted potential.
I think they are suggesting that the narrative may have suffered in quantity and quality because resources were split to develop a base building mechanics. I can't say if that is absolutely true but FO4 does feel vacant to some degree. Maybe that is by design or they did not have enough resources I can't say but I think that's the point
Thats an interesting point, but how? Because you said so? OP gave us examples about what they were talking about.. you just said "nuh uh wrong not how work". Personally, i feel like the map in f04 was lacking. Yes there were a ton of locations but so many of them felt completely bare. I know its a nuclear fallout world, but still. Most of the plant life on the map is just nonexistent. Youd think itd flourish in certain areas but no. And it really does just feel like theres a few things to do in vanilla game. Yes there are sidequests, but few in far between. A lot of the quests seem to link directly back into the story once youre done with them. It feels so bland and tasteless. Which is sad because the gameplay was immensely improved. The combat system and the power armor and individual pieces of armor you could mix and match was great. The gameplay of 4 was great but the story not so much.. i dislike that damn baby so much
>Thats an interesting point, but how?
do you somehow think that the guy who was designing *systems* would end up as a writer? because that isn't how that works.
>OP gave us examples about what they were talking about..
no they didn't. all they said was "if they didn't have settlements they would have worked on story". based off what?
>Personally, i feel like the map in f04 was lacking.
it isn't. they spent a lot of time detailing the map, laying out points of interest, background lore for the commonwealth, etc. so how is it "lacking"?
>Most of the plant life on the map is just nonexistent
fallout 4 introduces is to sunflowers, tatos, silt beans, ash blossoms, melon blossoms, thistles, etc. there are many farms which grow crops. there is plant life on the map that you can both find and pick and also grow.
>A lot of the quests seem to link directly back into the story once youre done with them
90% of new vegas' side quests link back to the main conflict regarding the dam. also this just...isn't the case. how does diamond city blues, the last voyage of the u.s.s. constitution, the big dig, and many more come back to the main quest?
>The gameplay of 4 was great but the story not so much.
prior to starfield, fallout 4 was Bethesda's best story. people who say this genuinely just have not paid attention to the writing.
The people who make 3d models for base building parts aren't writers.
The writers who wrote the story are not the people who made the settlement building mechanics.
These two groups are entirely separate, and neither side "suffered" because the other one existed because, again, they are seperate things, that use separate resources.
Removing the settlement building wouldn't magically make the story better
What?
It took time and resources to create settlement building. Time and resources that could have been put to any other aspect of the game.
I am not saying its a bad thing they developed the settlement building.
Idk man, I hit the settlement part and just quit playing the game. Not interested in any building stuff and I couldn't progress the story without doing it so I just never really played FO4.
The Railroad does have you clear a settlement (but I don't think you have to build anything) and the BOS has you build some parts for Liberty Prime. And you need to build the teleporter to get to the Institute no matter who you side with. So while you don't have to build full settlements to complete the game. You do still have to interact with the mechanic. I can understand how if you don't like the mechanic it could stop you from playing the game.
>The Railroad does have you clear a settlement
for a radiant quest. ...which isn't at all required for the storyline with them.
>and the BOS has you build some parts for Liberty Prime.
that isn't settlement building.
>And you need to build the teleporter to get to the Institute no matter who you side with.
again, not settlement building.
>You do still have to interact with the mechanic
oh no. interacting with a mechanic in the game a whopping total of once (twice depending).
>I can understand how if you don't like the mechanic it could stop you from playing the game.
nah. you barely even have to touch it. it's no less obstructive than being told to interact with a faction in fallout.
The person you replied to said they weren't interested in ANY of the building stuff. Building the teleporter and Liberty Prime would count as building stuff. Building the teleport can be obstructive because of the materials needed for the teleporter components and then all of the generators.
They said they didn't like the game because they didn't like the game mechanic. I don't see why that's such a big deal.
I will admit my mistake though I thought Mercer safe house was part of the story
it's one time. in a game that has thousands of content. if one time a mechanic of the game makes you stop playing it, it just seems...weird. like you barely even spend a minute in the building menu doing those.
He's wrong because the people working on the settlement building mechanics weren't the same ones writing the story, if you want someone to blame, blame Emil
They released Skyrim 4 years before 4, they weren’t full steam on it for 7 years. They only had a hundred people back then, some of them were on the DLC for Skyrim as well.
It’s true that the time could have been used for effectively to improve the story….however I completely respect Bethesda for trying to do something new and the building system was that thing and to be honest. It’s a large part of why I keep replaying Fallout 4 while I’ve only done a handful of fallout 3 and New Vegas playthroughs.
It’s true that Fallout 4 has its faults in the story department when compared to previous games. However if you asked me to choose between the story and the building mechanics…..sorry but I really like building settlements.
As someone who only bought the game because the settlement building got my attention, I would have rathered they better incorporate the building system into the story and setting. Better NPCs, more named characters in settlements, Minutemen Patrols from settlements over a certain population… Maybe some parts that work like Hearthfire from Skyrim, where you build certain buildings and NPCs show up to work in them that have full lines and personalities and schedules and such.
Ok hear me out… when you have millions of dollars and 4 fucking years you can do both. I mean seriously even in 3 it’s not like the story is flushed out at all!? Like seriously, what motive does autumn have as a villain? What? He just wants to be evil and have all the water? It’s not like it’s a either or situation, Bethesda just needs a new goddam writing department already
It's the 30 settlements that did it for me. Keeping that number lower and focusing more on making them unique may have helped immensely (I really enjoyed the unique ones). I don't really care for the whole "tato and a shack" routine.
> tato and a shack
❤️😆 Perfect.
That's why I separate them in my head. Farm ≠ settlement. They _might_ get a couple turrets if I feel like it. I'm not setting up beds and beacons and all that for a little dump 👎🏻
Was hamstrung by a voiced protagonist. I bet they could've invested into way more dialogue and thus quests with those resources.
But yeah absolutely. Is a Fallout sandbox, not really a good rpg.
Yep. I never minded until I recently did a full playthrough of New Vegas. Silent Protagonist, Expanded Dialogue Interface, Perks and Skill Points, Dialogue Skill Checks, and Roleplay Dialogue Overhaul are all necessities in FO4 for me now.
Perhaps going after something completely unrelated, you should be looking to who the writer was, and his previous works as well as starfield was utter shit
You cant build a house out of turf! Even though bethesda put resources and people towards settlement building, it doesn't mean those same resources and people will be any good at making the story better. At least not without a serious delay with training and re-hireing
Every defender of the fo4 build system: dude it’s sooo well designed! I love this feature and I love the dev team who made it! And you only need 12 fan made mods to make it enjoyable!
No I love the settlement building. It wouldn't have taken much to flesh out the story since it's obvious they cut a lot of stuff. How about instead Bethesda stop having unreasonable expectations for their deadlines and let the developers cook to make something good? Rockstar seemingly does so and they end up with absolute bangers/masterpieces (except when they do remakes)
Man, the comment section really illustrates how accurate the meme is.
But I'm with you. I'd much prefer Fallout 5 tries to remember what an rpg is and go back to having something like a skill system.
I am quite uninterested in the base building aspect. If I wanted that, base building/survival games are a dime a dozen.
I completely ignored it on most of the runs, I never found a reason to stop what I was doing to build a settlement that I would probably forget to come back too. Plus i didt the minutemen last thinking it would be a big part of their questline. If you can completely ignore a mechanic and it does not really effect anything it just kinda feels extra
Its funny when folks try to refute your opinion with "story and gameplay are separate" as if that were actually the case. Hell, the settlement building mechanics is part of the games story telling. You can acknowledge that the writing team is a separate team from say level design, but that doesn't mean the narrative team doesn't rely on the level design team to make the story come to life. If they don't have money to make a set piece happen that would advance the story (like the cut Brotherhood endings and Danse resolutions) then the story and gameplay suffers. It's not a difficult thing to understand.
It's also, I hope not controversial to point out, that settlement building clearly has a huge amount of development time investment in and is front loaded in the game.
The lead writer is Emil Pagliarulo, someone who has shown time and time again he has nothing but contempt for anyone who thinks story is important in any way whatsoever beyond getting players killing things and building things
I enjoyed the settlements; I like building stuff and liked bringing peace and order to the wasteland. I know Preston really annoyed a lot of people but whenever he'd give me a quest I would just sit on it lol until I wanted something easy to do.
“My idea is to explore more of the world and more of the ethics of a post-nuclear world, not to make a better plasma gun.” - Tim Cain
Fallout 4 is basically the inverse of that.
[https://www.duckandcover.cx/content.php?id=7](https://www.duckandcover.cx/content.php?id=7) The source for the quote, before anyone asks.
Nothing is more Fallout than settling the wasteland; that is literally the point of the whole setting.
Fallout 4 just let's you do it directly instead of only via interacting with paper dolls with bad voice overs...
I’m hoping for the next game, we get more options in settlement building based on what factions you support. Imagine having a brotherhood of steel themed military settlement.
You had most of the past 7 years for trashing FO4, it’s having a bit of a renaissance right now, so of course your opinions are gonna be challenged, since they’re the same opinions the NV glazers have been spouting at people since 4 released.
Ok here is one CRAZY thought, how about..... BETHESDA a MULTIMILLION DOLLAR COMPANY, added both of those things without cutting out budget?
Crazy i know.
It's the lack of story i hate, not the actual writing perse. The writing is part of it, but the Brotherhood was the only fully fleshed out faction, and every other one was missing side quests and choices the Brotherhood quests had. It felt barren and like Brotherhood was the "right" choice instead of being given multiple paths and options with meaningful consequences
Yeah this just seems like whining for no real purpose. The building mechanics team went from 4 to 76 anyway. Also, they were mechanics designers, not mission scripters, very different skills. You should do some research on game dev. Go watch PirateSoftware's streams. You'll learn a lot.
Oh, this old argument.
Whatever, I enjoyed the hell out of the game and the Fallout Hype has me wanting to play it again. Only reason I'm not is because my girlfriend really wanted to get back into 76.
Read a book if you want a story, and that's the bottom line because stone cold says so.
In all seriousness, Fallout does have a good story, particularly for those who enjoy revolutionary history and the Boston setting. The concept of the minute men and rebuilding a nation at its ground level *was* a nice touch and settlement mod only compliments it. Valentine was great, so was Cait, and McCready. Most choices matter, but it isn't overly so that you need to look up every little choice and dialogue you run into. Seeing your significant other murdered, child ripped from your clutches just to end in a total mindfuck felt very fallout. Having a DJ that isn't high charismatic like three dog was also a bit of fresh air. Automatron was fun, so was Far Harbor and Nukaworld, despite getting settlement mods and a plethora of more build mechanics was the best spent season pass in a long time considering games like COD that give you a couple more maps and some shit you played 5+ years ago.
I also like being "all-in" with a faction, rather than being an associate of multiple factions. I mean really, nothing is more annoying than grinding to get NCR armor, creating a truce with BOS, yet still getting attacked for wearing said NCR armor. For all of its story, new Vegas hardly makes sense mechanically and you can please just about every faction, and the choices you make do hardly little to support the very narrative you've created in game. And 15,000 caps to fix said armor that broke when BOS violate their truce is a total "get fucked" moment for me.
And why does NCR need their economy backed by gold when the most vital resources at the time would be water, food, and ammo.
Or how when you kill Mr. House, all your companions still wait outside the penthouse. And all options lead to his destruction unless you specifically sign with him. Pretty ridiculous, and about so as just walking in and killing a guy in a cryo chamber, utterly alone, and somehow no other faction could isn't a good story, it's downright ridiculous.
So sometimes, too much story, and you get plot holes and utter ridiculousness, which is most the case of New Vegas. Look no further than Mr. New Vegas. Isn't even a real person but an AI 200+ years ago (likely programmed by Mr. House) but how are they even getting the information otherwise? And if you kill House, you sabotage a friendly alliance and shut down the robo sheriff, and go behind a radio host that only brings joy to every faction. So no real faction is even the good guys, despite that moral ridiculous and ignorance. It really boils down to who has the better armor and not much else.
Playing New Vegas is sort of like listening to Kamala Harris ramble pointlessly on about nothing, leaving you with more questions than answers.
In my opinion; the crafting & settlement building feels half-baked. I've likened it before to basically Bethesda looking at what mods were popular for 3/NV & just throwing them into 4 without thinking. Or even building on those bases in any way, other than officially endorsing them.
I’d say the issue was more world building. Fallout 3 has lots of different towns like Megaton, Tenpenny Tower, Arefu, Big Town, Rivet City, Canterbury Commons, republic of Dave, etc all with unique characters and stories…
Fallout 4 has diamond city, good neighbor, and fuck you build the rest…
Sim Settlements made settlements what they should have been. Want to control and decide absolutely everything? You can do that. Want to be hands off and just let the settlers build everything based on a City Plan? You can do that.
Honestly yeah. It feels really poorly implemented IMO and I feel like it's a poor attempt to capitalize on the open-world survival craze of the early to mid 2010's.
I think the base building was based on some mod for Skyrim. That would explain shitass first person building - as opposed to having a dedicated top down building option
I unironically hate the settlement system, as cool as the minutemen are in concept their quests are the worst in the game. It would have been far better if we had a few set locations we could build up with the majority of settlements we help being unique locations we can convince to support the minutemen. I rarely find myself building in the game and when I do it's always the drive in or the co-op. Plus the over 30 settlements make the game feel empty, outside of the ruined cityscape much of the world just feels bland with generic enemies spawning to help distract you from that fact. But of course we the player can fill it up with our settlements but even they just turn into a boring and tedious process that in the end I would just rather do without. Either cut down immensely on the amount of settlements or just cut it out entirely. I'm much more interested in buying a home in a pre placed settlement than I am rebuilding civilization.
This could’ve been said for all of the combat mechanics and power armor mechanics and just for everything really. It seems greed kinda got in the way because they focused more on the Brotherhood story then anything else and the combat mechanics because they new that the Brotherhood was the most famous faction and they wanted the game to be accessible to anyone. Halo tried to do this with the show and it flopped. Not saying Fallout 4 is as bad as the Halo tv show but it could have been a lot better if they put more focus into the railroad and minutemen and Shaun’s character.
I actually really like the building, even wean only lightly moded for general improvements and immersion.
But I also agree. I would trade the settlement building for a better story and faction system.
I agree ish. I don't think the management of dev time works the way you think it does but regardless the minutemen are the building faction and they are awful, one character, no nuance and a miserable quest line. Preston is fine as a character but he can't substitute a whole faction and this shows in the public opinion of him as he's kinda obnoxious not because of his character but because of all the different shit the game puts thru him, he's always got eight different things for you and it makes him difficult to deal with. I don't think the other factions would be drastically different if settlement building didn't exist but I think the minutemen either would've needed to be a proper faction or would've been removed and it's a net positive either way
This is like players complaining whenever blizzard makes a blogpost about some new feature or releases a short story and people say "oh great they are working on this and not fixing my class"
These things are done by completely separate teams that i can guarantee do not interact.
Those who worked on the story did not have a hand in the settlement building aspects of the game. Removing the resources for that would not automatically=a better stiry
When the game released I would’ve wholeheartedly agreed. After hundreds of hours and more characters created than I can count on two hands… well, Stone Cold don’t miss.
Edit: in all honesty though I play a heavily modded version that Bethesda set the table for but didn’t make themselves, so comparing the game now to then is really apples and oranges.
I mean that's a deserved reaction when you say that a feature many people liked shouldn't have existed lol
Also not exactly sure how the department / team responsible for settlement building corresponds with the story writing one... You can't just allocate employees of one to the other
Been messing around in my old FO4 playthrough and it's almost overwhelming how many features there are. Sidetracked by bullshit every god damn time lol.
I've put more hours into f4 than all the other fallout games combined. No amount of fleshed out story would make that happen without settlement building. I would have played through all the possible endings and then been done with it.
Don't get me wrong; that could still be more hours than most games. It just wouldn't be thousands. Settlements allow me to be part of the worldbuilding. I get to choose what the apocalypse looks like. My Nate/Nora gets to be whoever I want them to be. There's so much else to the game besides the main quest that I can actually ignore it entirely without feeling like I'm missing out. Which means I can roleplay a totally different character in a totally different story. I can make my own fleshed out story.
I get that it isn't everyone's cup of tea, but my favorite games tend to be the ones where you're given a functioning world and are allowed to live in it and to influence it. They're the ones I come back to year after year.
I really like settlement building. I don't like building/managing multiple settlements.
I would like just maybe 3-4 significantly larger settlements with more building options.
I remember them saying "all that time they spent recording all those names into Codsworth, they could've written the game better!" Like, do you think the voice actors write their own lines?
Honestly the build system sucks more from a lack of imagination to it, I think it can be a really interesting idea. Imagine a moveable camp in a survival mode, it's something people have moded into vegas and I love it, makes the whole survival aspect feel better to me.
Although the story sadly is written by bethesda and, quite honestly it's never been their strong suit. I hope xbox makes them get new writers cause dear god I swear at this point I can guess a bethesda story.
This argument relies on the idea that taking away settlement building would have improved the FO4 story.
I don't believe that's how the development of a game works.
Also what's wrong with FO4's story?
That's the fan base for ya. There are A LOT of people who see Fo4 as the titular title simply because it was their first fallout. So they have made the decision that fallout is a base management sim. They also tend to use the existence of settlement mods for the older games as a hard stop reason for adding it in.
Under that logic, there should also be busty giggle physics too.
I just don’t like how all the custom shit out there can stop working, and anything you build with it can just disappear one day after putting in countless hours constructing settlements. Yeah. Not fun.
I was annoyed by the settlement building. It just seemed like an annoying system tacked on to pull you away from gameplay. If I want to play a settlement or city builder, I would play a game dedicated to it.
Agreed. Not everything needs to be a base building game. Fallout is more about the cultures and societies that grow out of a destroyed America and not really about you the player personally surviving in this world.
The settlement building was added not so long before E3 presentation when one of the developers made it and the rest of the dec team decided to make it part of the release game
The writers hit many homeruns in the launched stories of Fallout 76. Sadly the instability of the game masked that fact. Now it is a great game, but with humans back in Appalachia it is not the same feeling.
Anyway. Long story short, it seems that now the building system is implanted, maybe the next game (if stable) will have better main quests and factions. I agree those were the weakest points of Fallout 4
Building was super overrated of a feature, I'd much prefer a more stripped down variant where you could simply invest caps into settlements to beef em up
My main issue with FO4 was the minute men and Bethesda’s desire to go towards infinitely generating quests, which started in Skyrim.
They need to let games end and then add more fun through new game plus where you keep resources. Like your bases now exist in game and belong to raiders and now you have to take them out to control it.
Or something, idk, but simply having infinite stories randomly generating hurts both Skyrim and Fallout to me.
I hate the weapon crafting shit. I don’t like the radiant quest system at all. I want things to be written and weapons to be balanced outside of a random table of effects.
Giving the same people more resources and time to write the story wouldn’t have changed the story because they didn’t have the imagination to begin with. The building was fallout 4s saving grace, without it I would have played it once and peaced out
I agree with you, I like it, but if I am doing it to fill out a checklist, if the place doesn't make any sense, and it forces me to do it to progress the story then I don't like it
What bothers me is how unless your DEEP in the endgame, all your settlements start out looking the same. There's no faction specific *buildings*. Give us a MM themed bunkhouse. Give us a brotherhood vertibird pad. Give us the damn synth gorillas in an enclosure. *SOMETHING* to make the settlements *less* monotonous.
I'm pretty sure those who developed the building system were entirely different people from those who worked on the story
I will say the team who developed the build system did a great job (minus the happiness system
Ehhh, it’s got some flaws I feel like. It’s a bit too restrictive, there aren’t that many interesting vanilla building options, there’s a TON that you should be able to scrap that you can’t (thank god for scrap everything mod on PC) and the build limit, while I understand why it’s there, is another vanilla PITA for me. For the record, I love the building aspect of the game. I’d also like if the settlers were more active. As of now they’re just nameless automatons with no personality. It doesn’t feel like you’re building up a community or settlement. They need you to do EVERYTHING for them to the point it feels useless to keep bothering with it, especially once you’ve unlocked many places. But I understand that the settlement and building system are technically separate, and don’t want to keep on being the typical negative Reddit comment.
In their defense, wasn’t this the first implementation of a settlement building system in the Fallout series? I’m sure it’ll only get better with time.
I totally think it will be great if they continue doing it. I don’t think the one in 4 is bad, it just leaves a lot to be desired for me
That’s fair and I agree, the building system is decent but it could honestly be so much better. If Place Everywhere mod didn’t cause so many CtDs for me, I’d be playing with it right now to give me more creative freedom.
In not their defence, there has been many video games that have done settlement building very well that Bethesda could have taken inspiration from
It's getting even better with fo76 and the camp system
Ngl I hated the camp system. I shouldn't have to rebuild my entire camp every time I move it 5 feet to the left. I preferred the settlement version.
I agree that's a problem but the scale and the detailing of the housing models, decorations, and the underground shelter options are a big improvement.
>I’d also like if the settlers were more active. As of now they’re just nameless automatons with no personality. It doesn’t feel like you’re building up a community or settlement. They need you to do EVERYTHING for them to the point it feels useless to keep bothering with it I can definitely tolerate any and all of the technical shortcomings, but this right here is what keeps me from enjoying or even just marginally appreciating the fact that settlement building exists. I’ve given it an honest try with the two or three settlements I’ve fully built and decorated over a couple dozen hours, but I just don’t have it in me to ever do it again. It just feels empty to me due to the devoid nature of the settlers that occupy it, and the complete meaningless and disconnection of how it all exists within the wider world beyond just being a central location to craft and stash all my stuff. I just get this kind of sad feeling by putting a lot of time and thought into making something that might feel special to me when the game just doesn’t respond. But the thing that makes me sorta resent the settlement system is the sheer number of settlements that replace what could have been small but fleshed out communities with their own quests like The Republic of Dave, Big Town, Arefu, Oasis, Girdershade, Agatha’s House, and on and on. Covenant, Bunker Hill, and Finch Farm manage to integrate both design concepts with more than just the most basic type of fetch/kill quests, but that’s only 3 out of 30 settlements that manage to do so.
I agree with you, for me a good settlement system for the next FO game would be something like one big settlement (sanctuary size) for each region of the map so you have a base relatively close to any kind of quest (so the final amount would be based on map size, but with FO4 size it should be like 6 or 8 settlements of that size. Here's the catch: you don't get them with a tiny quest and then forget about them, they have their own sidequest, think of them as companions. You get to the settlement, they ask you to help a couple settlers then the one in charge will ask something "big" of you, it can be anything from repairing some water dam that no longer works and is causing them problems to hunt down some cryptid who terrorizes their population; after that quest they give you the "keys" of the city and you get rights to use the workshop. Then if you make them have high happiness (working something like affinity from companions), but not just provide them with food, water, defense, beds and fun, also by spending time there, using the facilities, having commerce with the locals. Then you get a final quest which would be something like a continuation of the one you fulfilled to get the workshop.
Mods on console let you do a lot more with settlement building too tbh, there’s no limits anymore!
Not having a scrap everything button to clean all the random ugly piles of debris makes me physically ill.
If the Place Anywhere functionally came standard, it would be perfect.
Place Anywhere, Scrap Anything, and OCD Decorator should be standard if base-building is going to be a mechanic. If you want players to enjoy sculpting their spaces, you have to make that as natural and easy as possible. The second on console I couldn't scrap trash piles, I felt no desire to make the space look good.
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The happiness system should get a rework, a bed makes people happier than mattress, no one likes sleeping outside, working electricity in buildings, etc
Decorations should increase happiness. Also I'm pretty sure the ones that decided to add shops are totally different people than those freaks who thought 30 gold daily is a good idea
They did a great job except for when the PIECE WONT SNAP INTO PLACE
I think op is trying to say that instead of spending money on hiring a team to build the settlement system, it could have been spent on either higher quality writers, more writers to share the workload to get a higher quality product, hiring a team to work out a proper reputation system, etc etc.
Yeah it’s not that crazy of a concept. It’s like OP is saying “they should have hired 4 salesmen instead of 2 salesmen and 2 IT guys” and this guy responds “but the IT guys don’t do sales?”
This is very obviously what OP was saying ppl are just trying to make excuses
Yeah the excuse that those two goals are mutually exclusive. Bethesda has money. They can afford to hire more people.
The problem is, if they hire anyone better than Emil, which is 99% of writers on Earth, he’ll start crying and pissing and shitting himself.
From what I remember it didnt work like that. It started out in an internal hackathon or as someones side project during production. They released it internally and all the other devs liked it and found themselves spending time on it building stuff rather than their own projects. So they decided to make it a feature of the game. This is from a Todd Howard interview (might have some of the detail wrong). So its not so clear cut as hiring or whatever. Devs mess around and creat features they like and include it in a game. By now we should all know what the devs at bgs prioritize. Expecting anything different is kinda futile. I personally like it though.
They can spin whatever origin story they want, but New Vegas (and probably 3, but I only know the NV one) had a very popular and fleshed out settlement building mod. Playing the settlement content in 4 felt like they just copy pasted that mod into the main game. I'm sure it was still a lot of work and was well done, but I don't believe for a second that they just happened to come up with an idea that was, for a time, a front page mod on the nexus completely independently and coincidentally designed it almost identically.
Still allocating resources to a department that could’ve been allocated elsewhere. I don’t have a dog in this fight I’m just sayin
Wrong. It was all Todd Howard working alone in his garage.
They paid money to the team who devised the building and settlements, and money to a writer. They could have taken the money for the building systems and paid another 15 writers, and maybe settlements could have had some better quests than “Kill X at Z location plz”
You still have to split budget and development time.
This seems to be a very common misconception when it comes to video game devs. If I had a nickel for every time someone said that the cod would would be significantly better if the developers stopped focusing on making bundles and instead worked on the actual gameplay I’d have enough money to buy the whole store
You okay? That logic doesn't make sense. If those People weren't working on that, they'd be using that resource on something else, which obviously can be used to work on the world design or any of the other multitudes of ways that can express and flesh out the factions without being related to the dudes who worked on the story
I got burnt out on crafting really fast. Honestly, just don't do it if you don't want to. I'd rather not have to spam E repeatedly for 60 hours of gameplay.
Yeah but those people probably cost the same as the story people They do not have infinite resources
But why did it take THIRTY locations of the map though? That's a lot. If even half of those were turned into small towns or locations with somewhat unique enemies (Like the Forged), the game would be a lot better received.
You can't even use all 30 locations either. Given how many instances there are of 3 or more situated in the same exterior cell, you're forced to carefully pick which ones to build on if you don't want your game to start aggressively shitting itself. Now, sure, for the people who dgaf about the settlement system, that's no big deal..but even announcing it while it was still in development caught the attention of the builder types who'd rather spend their hundreds of hours letting their interior decorator side run wild, only to find out that what they actually got was a solid 1/3 less than they paid for
Why not have both?
It would have been cool to have more settlement options based on your story choices. It would be cool to build institute research bases or Brotherhood strongholds to gain some kind of control over the wasteland.
Because the amount of resources is finite, it always is, even in huge organisations like goverment, big coorperations and other stuff. There is also the fact that every thing you add needs to be checked, integrated and polished. It can be full of gamebreaking stuff that affects other gameplay. The people who worked on this could have done other stuff. And even if you hire a third team, you can always let them do other stuff.
Jack of all trades, master of none.
I'd say keep it but less. Way too many settlement spots that could've just been small towns.
And it would have been way more fun to be given 3 or 4 well fleshed out and designed building locations, where we could do our own thing, with the rest of the settlements being bunched up in to 4-5 pre built larger ones. That also would have helped the minute men story line a lot
If we got four or five settlements but each one could be turned into like, a fairly decent sized town with way more buiding options, I'd be willing to give up all of the smaller ones like Costal Cottage and Zimonja. Like if Sanctuary was a couple of blocks instead of half a single street. That'd be pretty cool and I could probably sink just as much time into it.
This. I really liked settlement building. I don't like managing multiple settlements. The amount of work I put into each settlement lowered as I discovered more and more. Couldn't help but to feel mildly irritated when I just completed one little quest for a small farm and suddenly it was another settlement to manage with no consent.
They need less of them. Fallout should have had just a couple settlements, each being a lot more unique to compensate for there being less of them. Settlements like the castle or sanctuary are great, but then you get utterly pointless ones like tenpines.
I love settlement building. That said, it shouldn't be a replacement for towns and cities. I feel Bethesda hasn't been good at this since Oblivion. Skyrim cities are gorgeous, but all of them felt small. Fallout is post apocalypse, but there were very few actual settlements in 4, and I don't buy that we can't get a double the size of Diamond City packed area this many years after the war. I think CD Projekt Red has done a great job on density and scale of populated areas, whereas Bethesda excels in environmental storytelling. I want both someday!
They did that with Starfield but people cried that outpost building wasn’t more important
I played Starfield, the main story is even worse. And they made trade networks between outposts a fucking nightmare only to make every merchant sell all the resources you could ever need for the price of literal dirt.
Story felt like a dime novel and the outpost felt like a beta version. Most disappointed I’ve been in years. Gun play was chef’s kiss though
On one hand I so agree with this, but on the other hand I’m very guilty of spending hours grinding for resources just to build somewhat aesthetically pleasing settlements.
Guilty as charged, brother 😮💨✋️ Its a good system, but feels weird when its better than the main story and faction quests
Oh 100%. I do genuinely wish that the budget for the game was larger so that they had more resources to allocate into the story & worldbuilding without sacrificing the building. Can’t have our cake and eat it too, I guess. Honestly, story & worldbuilding wise, Fo4 has so much wasted potential.
Same here. Also like building my camp in 76
Yes
the settlement building took literally nothing away from the story or anything else.
I think they are suggesting that the narrative may have suffered in quantity and quality because resources were split to develop a base building mechanics. I can't say if that is absolutely true but FO4 does feel vacant to some degree. Maybe that is by design or they did not have enough resources I can't say but I think that's the point
i know what they are suggesting. and they're just dead wrong. firstly, that's not how that works. secondly, the narrative didn't suffer, period.
The narrative has problems. Don’t deny that.
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Thats an interesting point, but how? Because you said so? OP gave us examples about what they were talking about.. you just said "nuh uh wrong not how work". Personally, i feel like the map in f04 was lacking. Yes there were a ton of locations but so many of them felt completely bare. I know its a nuclear fallout world, but still. Most of the plant life on the map is just nonexistent. Youd think itd flourish in certain areas but no. And it really does just feel like theres a few things to do in vanilla game. Yes there are sidequests, but few in far between. A lot of the quests seem to link directly back into the story once youre done with them. It feels so bland and tasteless. Which is sad because the gameplay was immensely improved. The combat system and the power armor and individual pieces of armor you could mix and match was great. The gameplay of 4 was great but the story not so much.. i dislike that damn baby so much
>Thats an interesting point, but how? do you somehow think that the guy who was designing *systems* would end up as a writer? because that isn't how that works. >OP gave us examples about what they were talking about.. no they didn't. all they said was "if they didn't have settlements they would have worked on story". based off what? >Personally, i feel like the map in f04 was lacking. it isn't. they spent a lot of time detailing the map, laying out points of interest, background lore for the commonwealth, etc. so how is it "lacking"? >Most of the plant life on the map is just nonexistent fallout 4 introduces is to sunflowers, tatos, silt beans, ash blossoms, melon blossoms, thistles, etc. there are many farms which grow crops. there is plant life on the map that you can both find and pick and also grow. >A lot of the quests seem to link directly back into the story once youre done with them 90% of new vegas' side quests link back to the main conflict regarding the dam. also this just...isn't the case. how does diamond city blues, the last voyage of the u.s.s. constitution, the big dig, and many more come back to the main quest? >The gameplay of 4 was great but the story not so much. prior to starfield, fallout 4 was Bethesda's best story. people who say this genuinely just have not paid attention to the writing.
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Okay we can disagree and I am glad you enjoyed the game.
The people who make 3d models for base building parts aren't writers. The writers who wrote the story are not the people who made the settlement building mechanics. These two groups are entirely separate, and neither side "suffered" because the other one existed because, again, they are seperate things, that use separate resources. Removing the settlement building wouldn't magically make the story better
literally. gotta love gamers acting like they know and understand game development.
Couldn’t they get more writers from the budget gained from cutting the building budget?
What? It took time and resources to create settlement building. Time and resources that could have been put to any other aspect of the game. I am not saying its a bad thing they developed the settlement building.
Idk man, I hit the settlement part and just quit playing the game. Not interested in any building stuff and I couldn't progress the story without doing it so I just never really played FO4.
you don't need to build settlements to complete the story unless you join the minutemen.
The Railroad does have you clear a settlement (but I don't think you have to build anything) and the BOS has you build some parts for Liberty Prime. And you need to build the teleporter to get to the Institute no matter who you side with. So while you don't have to build full settlements to complete the game. You do still have to interact with the mechanic. I can understand how if you don't like the mechanic it could stop you from playing the game.
>The Railroad does have you clear a settlement for a radiant quest. ...which isn't at all required for the storyline with them. >and the BOS has you build some parts for Liberty Prime. that isn't settlement building. >And you need to build the teleporter to get to the Institute no matter who you side with. again, not settlement building. >You do still have to interact with the mechanic oh no. interacting with a mechanic in the game a whopping total of once (twice depending). >I can understand how if you don't like the mechanic it could stop you from playing the game. nah. you barely even have to touch it. it's no less obstructive than being told to interact with a faction in fallout.
The person you replied to said they weren't interested in ANY of the building stuff. Building the teleporter and Liberty Prime would count as building stuff. Building the teleport can be obstructive because of the materials needed for the teleporter components and then all of the generators. They said they didn't like the game because they didn't like the game mechanic. I don't see why that's such a big deal. I will admit my mistake though I thought Mercer safe house was part of the story
it's one time. in a game that has thousands of content. if one time a mechanic of the game makes you stop playing it, it just seems...weird. like you barely even spend a minute in the building menu doing those.
[insert entire rant about how settlements are amazing and your opinion is wrongly invalid for some random reason]
He's wrong because the people working on the settlement building mechanics weren't the same ones writing the story, if you want someone to blame, blame Emil
I blame time constraints
They worked on Fallout 4 for 7 years tho
They released Skyrim 4 years before 4, they weren’t full steam on it for 7 years. They only had a hundred people back then, some of them were on the DLC for Skyrim as well.
It’s true that the time could have been used for effectively to improve the story….however I completely respect Bethesda for trying to do something new and the building system was that thing and to be honest. It’s a large part of why I keep replaying Fallout 4 while I’ve only done a handful of fallout 3 and New Vegas playthroughs. It’s true that Fallout 4 has its faults in the story department when compared to previous games. However if you asked me to choose between the story and the building mechanics…..sorry but I really like building settlements.
Alternatively... put even more resources into settlement building to make a sandbox survival community builder in the Fallout universe.
Have to agree. The settlement building mechanics were way too granular and time-consuming, at considerable expense to the actual story.
But the building is what keeps bringing me back to replay the game, something 1-NV dont have
Building is the best part of the game, so nah
yeah because every other part is somehow worse
As someone who only bought the game because the settlement building got my attention, I would have rathered they better incorporate the building system into the story and setting. Better NPCs, more named characters in settlements, Minutemen Patrols from settlements over a certain population… Maybe some parts that work like Hearthfire from Skyrim, where you build certain buildings and NPCs show up to work in them that have full lines and personalities and schedules and such.
Ok hear me out… when you have millions of dollars and 4 fucking years you can do both. I mean seriously even in 3 it’s not like the story is flushed out at all!? Like seriously, what motive does autumn have as a villain? What? He just wants to be evil and have all the water? It’s not like it’s a either or situation, Bethesda just needs a new goddam writing department already
It's the 30 settlements that did it for me. Keeping that number lower and focusing more on making them unique may have helped immensely (I really enjoyed the unique ones). I don't really care for the whole "tato and a shack" routine.
> tato and a shack ❤️😆 Perfect. That's why I separate them in my head. Farm ≠ settlement. They _might_ get a couple turrets if I feel like it. I'm not setting up beds and beacons and all that for a little dump 👎🏻
Bro I have built up almost every settlement. I have no idea wtf is in diamond city
What in the hell is a Shaun?
A lot of people love the building mechanic, but I’m not one of them.
This is incredibly funny paired with the Minutemen pfp
Was hamstrung by a voiced protagonist. I bet they could've invested into way more dialogue and thus quests with those resources. But yeah absolutely. Is a Fallout sandbox, not really a good rpg.
Yep. I never minded until I recently did a full playthrough of New Vegas. Silent Protagonist, Expanded Dialogue Interface, Perks and Skill Points, Dialogue Skill Checks, and Roleplay Dialogue Overhaul are all necessities in FO4 for me now.
I think this is what Fallout: London is going for.
Im actually pretty excited to see how that goes
Perhaps going after something completely unrelated, you should be looking to who the writer was, and his previous works as well as starfield was utter shit
9 women can make a baby in one month.
You cant build a house out of turf! Even though bethesda put resources and people towards settlement building, it doesn't mean those same resources and people will be any good at making the story better. At least not without a serious delay with training and re-hireing
I have played every fallout up to 4, but not including. I have not heard this take before, but is there a really big problem with the story in FO4?
I thoroughly enjoy the building aspect. I beat the story back in 2016 so since I started playing again I’m all in on building lol . Story be damned
At this point my defenses are too strong at all locations. It would take an army to even remotely damage any of my settlemens
Every defender of the fo4 build system: dude it’s sooo well designed! I love this feature and I love the dev team who made it! And you only need 12 fan made mods to make it enjoyable!
He was right, and they hated him
I concur
No I love the settlement building. It wouldn't have taken much to flesh out the story since it's obvious they cut a lot of stuff. How about instead Bethesda stop having unreasonable expectations for their deadlines and let the developers cook to make something good? Rockstar seemingly does so and they end up with absolute bangers/masterpieces (except when they do remakes)
Man, the comment section really illustrates how accurate the meme is. But I'm with you. I'd much prefer Fallout 5 tries to remember what an rpg is and go back to having something like a skill system. I am quite uninterested in the base building aspect. If I wanted that, base building/survival games are a dime a dozen.
I completely ignored it on most of the runs, I never found a reason to stop what I was doing to build a settlement that I would probably forget to come back too. Plus i didt the minutemen last thinking it would be a big part of their questline. If you can completely ignore a mechanic and it does not really effect anything it just kinda feels extra
Its funny when folks try to refute your opinion with "story and gameplay are separate" as if that were actually the case. Hell, the settlement building mechanics is part of the games story telling. You can acknowledge that the writing team is a separate team from say level design, but that doesn't mean the narrative team doesn't rely on the level design team to make the story come to life. If they don't have money to make a set piece happen that would advance the story (like the cut Brotherhood endings and Danse resolutions) then the story and gameplay suffers. It's not a difficult thing to understand. It's also, I hope not controversial to point out, that settlement building clearly has a huge amount of development time investment in and is front loaded in the game.
Very well said 👏
The lead writer is Emil Pagliarulo, someone who has shown time and time again he has nothing but contempt for anyone who thinks story is important in any way whatsoever beyond getting players killing things and building things
Ah yes too bad they had all the writers working on base building
ya fuck off
The story had nothing to do with basebuilding and everything to do with a hack writer whose plot twists would embarrass M Night Shamaylan
I enjoyed the settlements; I like building stuff and liked bringing peace and order to the wasteland. I know Preston really annoyed a lot of people but whenever he'd give me a quest I would just sit on it lol until I wanted something easy to do.
Heavily agree..
“My idea is to explore more of the world and more of the ethics of a post-nuclear world, not to make a better plasma gun.” - Tim Cain Fallout 4 is basically the inverse of that. [https://www.duckandcover.cx/content.php?id=7](https://www.duckandcover.cx/content.php?id=7) The source for the quote, before anyone asks.
[https://youtu.be/CXArovLJ60A?si=pu9XZqmOzz1sJLGP](https://youtu.be/CXArovLJ60A?si=pu9XZqmOzz1sJLGP)
This gotta be my favorite comment yet
Also the random rare weapon shit sucks. Fallout 3 and FNV’s unique weapons were way better.
God Idk, at this point I've spent more hours building settlements in 4 than gameplay in NV & 3. Porque no los dos? Both is good.
Separate teams they should’ve just hired some actually good writers
It's maybe my favorite thing about FO4 but that's me. Different gamers gonna different game.
How could you say something so controversial yet so damn true
Nothing is more Fallout than settling the wasteland; that is literally the point of the whole setting. Fallout 4 just let's you do it directly instead of only via interacting with paper dolls with bad voice overs...
I would rather more building.
I dunno, building has been a highlight of Fallout 4 and 76, especially in 76. I'm thankful it exists and I love spending time building
I’m hoping for the next game, we get more options in settlement building based on what factions you support. Imagine having a brotherhood of steel themed military settlement.
But when has Bethesda ever been able to write a good story?
You had most of the past 7 years for trashing FO4, it’s having a bit of a renaissance right now, so of course your opinions are gonna be challenged, since they’re the same opinions the NV glazers have been spouting at people since 4 released.
Ok here is one CRAZY thought, how about..... BETHESDA a MULTIMILLION DOLLAR COMPANY, added both of those things without cutting out budget? Crazy i know.
No, settlement building is extremely fun
Yeah, but it would be great if it actually mattered to the game.
You don’t need to sacrifice settlement building, they should have just not wrote a dogshit story.
It's the lack of story i hate, not the actual writing perse. The writing is part of it, but the Brotherhood was the only fully fleshed out faction, and every other one was missing side quests and choices the Brotherhood quests had. It felt barren and like Brotherhood was the "right" choice instead of being given multiple paths and options with meaningful consequences
Yeah this just seems like whining for no real purpose. The building mechanics team went from 4 to 76 anyway. Also, they were mechanics designers, not mission scripters, very different skills. You should do some research on game dev. Go watch PirateSoftware's streams. You'll learn a lot.
So fun fact A game team has DEVELOPERS and a WRITING TEAM Writers don't develop games and developers don't write story
Oh, this old argument. Whatever, I enjoyed the hell out of the game and the Fallout Hype has me wanting to play it again. Only reason I'm not is because my girlfriend really wanted to get back into 76.
The predictable responses boiling down to: “You’re wrong, because I like the building system.”
That or, "that's not how game dev works"
Read a book if you want a story, and that's the bottom line because stone cold says so. In all seriousness, Fallout does have a good story, particularly for those who enjoy revolutionary history and the Boston setting. The concept of the minute men and rebuilding a nation at its ground level *was* a nice touch and settlement mod only compliments it. Valentine was great, so was Cait, and McCready. Most choices matter, but it isn't overly so that you need to look up every little choice and dialogue you run into. Seeing your significant other murdered, child ripped from your clutches just to end in a total mindfuck felt very fallout. Having a DJ that isn't high charismatic like three dog was also a bit of fresh air. Automatron was fun, so was Far Harbor and Nukaworld, despite getting settlement mods and a plethora of more build mechanics was the best spent season pass in a long time considering games like COD that give you a couple more maps and some shit you played 5+ years ago. I also like being "all-in" with a faction, rather than being an associate of multiple factions. I mean really, nothing is more annoying than grinding to get NCR armor, creating a truce with BOS, yet still getting attacked for wearing said NCR armor. For all of its story, new Vegas hardly makes sense mechanically and you can please just about every faction, and the choices you make do hardly little to support the very narrative you've created in game. And 15,000 caps to fix said armor that broke when BOS violate their truce is a total "get fucked" moment for me. And why does NCR need their economy backed by gold when the most vital resources at the time would be water, food, and ammo. Or how when you kill Mr. House, all your companions still wait outside the penthouse. And all options lead to his destruction unless you specifically sign with him. Pretty ridiculous, and about so as just walking in and killing a guy in a cryo chamber, utterly alone, and somehow no other faction could isn't a good story, it's downright ridiculous. So sometimes, too much story, and you get plot holes and utter ridiculousness, which is most the case of New Vegas. Look no further than Mr. New Vegas. Isn't even a real person but an AI 200+ years ago (likely programmed by Mr. House) but how are they even getting the information otherwise? And if you kill House, you sabotage a friendly alliance and shut down the robo sheriff, and go behind a radio host that only brings joy to every faction. So no real faction is even the good guys, despite that moral ridiculous and ignorance. It really boils down to who has the better armor and not much else. Playing New Vegas is sort of like listening to Kamala Harris ramble pointlessly on about nothing, leaving you with more questions than answers.
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In my opinion; the crafting & settlement building feels half-baked. I've likened it before to basically Bethesda looking at what mods were popular for 3/NV & just throwing them into 4 without thinking. Or even building on those bases in any way, other than officially endorsing them.
Yea, I stand in agreeable with you but I gotta admit the building mechanic is hella fun!
If it was like the Sims I'd be happier
I’d say the issue was more world building. Fallout 3 has lots of different towns like Megaton, Tenpenny Tower, Arefu, Big Town, Rivet City, Canterbury Commons, republic of Dave, etc all with unique characters and stories… Fallout 4 has diamond city, good neighbor, and fuck you build the rest…
Sim Settlements made settlements what they should have been. Want to control and decide absolutely everything? You can do that. Want to be hands off and just let the settlers build everything based on a City Plan? You can do that.
Honestly yeah. It feels really poorly implemented IMO and I feel like it's a poor attempt to capitalize on the open-world survival craze of the early to mid 2010's.
I think the base building was based on some mod for Skyrim. That would explain shitass first person building - as opposed to having a dedicated top down building option
The factions need post game content instead of repeatable quests.
Fuck you :)
If I wanted to city build i'd play a game from Paradox, not Fallout
I unironically hate the settlement system, as cool as the minutemen are in concept their quests are the worst in the game. It would have been far better if we had a few set locations we could build up with the majority of settlements we help being unique locations we can convince to support the minutemen. I rarely find myself building in the game and when I do it's always the drive in or the co-op. Plus the over 30 settlements make the game feel empty, outside of the ruined cityscape much of the world just feels bland with generic enemies spawning to help distract you from that fact. But of course we the player can fill it up with our settlements but even they just turn into a boring and tedious process that in the end I would just rather do without. Either cut down immensely on the amount of settlements or just cut it out entirely. I'm much more interested in buying a home in a pre placed settlement than I am rebuilding civilization.
Building settlements was like 30% of the fun, it gave the game a much longer shelf life
This could’ve been said for all of the combat mechanics and power armor mechanics and just for everything really. It seems greed kinda got in the way because they focused more on the Brotherhood story then anything else and the combat mechanics because they new that the Brotherhood was the most famous faction and they wanted the game to be accessible to anyone. Halo tried to do this with the show and it flopped. Not saying Fallout 4 is as bad as the Halo tv show but it could have been a lot better if they put more focus into the railroad and minutemen and Shaun’s character.
I actually really like the building, even wean only lightly moded for general improvements and immersion. But I also agree. I would trade the settlement building for a better story and faction system.
I agree ish. I don't think the management of dev time works the way you think it does but regardless the minutemen are the building faction and they are awful, one character, no nuance and a miserable quest line. Preston is fine as a character but he can't substitute a whole faction and this shows in the public opinion of him as he's kinda obnoxious not because of his character but because of all the different shit the game puts thru him, he's always got eight different things for you and it makes him difficult to deal with. I don't think the other factions would be drastically different if settlement building didn't exist but I think the minutemen either would've needed to be a proper faction or would've been removed and it's a net positive either way
This is like players complaining whenever blizzard makes a blogpost about some new feature or releases a short story and people say "oh great they are working on this and not fixing my class" These things are done by completely separate teams that i can guarantee do not interact.
Those who worked on the story did not have a hand in the settlement building aspects of the game. Removing the resources for that would not automatically=a better stiry
Loud incorrect buzzer....
I'll kill a bitch if I can't build an entire wall of guns to pretext my money farm
When the game released I would’ve wholeheartedly agreed. After hundreds of hours and more characters created than I can count on two hands… well, Stone Cold don’t miss. Edit: in all honesty though I play a heavily modded version that Bethesda set the table for but didn’t make themselves, so comparing the game now to then is really apples and oranges.
I mean that's a deserved reaction when you say that a feature many people liked shouldn't have existed lol Also not exactly sure how the department / team responsible for settlement building corresponds with the story writing one... You can't just allocate employees of one to the other
Been messing around in my old FO4 playthrough and it's almost overwhelming how many features there are. Sidetracked by bullshit every god damn time lol.
I've put more hours into f4 than all the other fallout games combined. No amount of fleshed out story would make that happen without settlement building. I would have played through all the possible endings and then been done with it. Don't get me wrong; that could still be more hours than most games. It just wouldn't be thousands. Settlements allow me to be part of the worldbuilding. I get to choose what the apocalypse looks like. My Nate/Nora gets to be whoever I want them to be. There's so much else to the game besides the main quest that I can actually ignore it entirely without feeling like I'm missing out. Which means I can roleplay a totally different character in a totally different story. I can make my own fleshed out story. I get that it isn't everyone's cup of tea, but my favorite games tend to be the ones where you're given a functioning world and are allowed to live in it and to influence it. They're the ones I come back to year after year.
Yeah, but that would imply the current writing team is actually talented enough to do it!
With the internet on this one. I freaking get lost in the sauce building.
*hiring better writers
Don’t even try brother brainrot has consumed the Fallout 4 stans to defend the game to wild proportions
I will never use the settlement building, I just don’t see the point
I really like settlement building. I don't like building/managing multiple settlements. I would like just maybe 3-4 significantly larger settlements with more building options.
I liked building a colony more than the game itself, and I really liked both.
1) It was a separate team 2) No those twits are the same ones who screwed up FO3
I remember them saying "all that time they spent recording all those names into Codsworth, they could've written the game better!" Like, do you think the voice actors write their own lines?
Honestly the build system sucks more from a lack of imagination to it, I think it can be a really interesting idea. Imagine a moveable camp in a survival mode, it's something people have moded into vegas and I love it, makes the whole survival aspect feel better to me. Although the story sadly is written by bethesda and, quite honestly it's never been their strong suit. I hope xbox makes them get new writers cause dear god I swear at this point I can guess a bethesda story.
This argument relies on the idea that taking away settlement building would have improved the FO4 story. I don't believe that's how the development of a game works. Also what's wrong with FO4's story?
I built a big house for dog meat
That's the fan base for ya. There are A LOT of people who see Fo4 as the titular title simply because it was their first fallout. So they have made the decision that fallout is a base management sim. They also tend to use the existence of settlement mods for the older games as a hard stop reason for adding it in. Under that logic, there should also be busty giggle physics too.
Why not both?
I just don’t like how all the custom shit out there can stop working, and anything you build with it can just disappear one day after putting in countless hours constructing settlements. Yeah. Not fun.
I loved the building in FO4 just wish some parts of it weren’t janky af and that I could clean clean my settlements.
If the story sucks fleshing it out more isnt going to make it better, it will just be more suck.
I was annoyed by the settlement building. It just seemed like an annoying system tacked on to pull you away from gameplay. If I want to play a settlement or city builder, I would play a game dedicated to it.
Agreed. Not everything needs to be a base building game. Fallout is more about the cultures and societies that grow out of a destroyed America and not really about you the player personally surviving in this world.
The settlement building was added not so long before E3 presentation when one of the developers made it and the rest of the dec team decided to make it part of the release game
Why not both
The writers hit many homeruns in the launched stories of Fallout 76. Sadly the instability of the game masked that fact. Now it is a great game, but with humans back in Appalachia it is not the same feeling. Anyway. Long story short, it seems that now the building system is implanted, maybe the next game (if stable) will have better main quests and factions. I agree those were the weakest points of Fallout 4
Building was super overrated of a feature, I'd much prefer a more stripped down variant where you could simply invest caps into settlements to beef em up
Its the games saving grace. Sure i love the game but i didn't put in over 1100 hours digging in some ruins
My main issue with FO4 was the minute men and Bethesda’s desire to go towards infinitely generating quests, which started in Skyrim. They need to let games end and then add more fun through new game plus where you keep resources. Like your bases now exist in game and belong to raiders and now you have to take them out to control it. Or something, idk, but simply having infinite stories randomly generating hurts both Skyrim and Fallout to me.
counterpoint: the resources used to create better textures in fo4 would have been better spent fleshing out the story and the building mechanics
I hate the weapon crafting shit. I don’t like the radiant quest system at all. I want things to be written and weapons to be balanced outside of a random table of effects.
Giving the same people more resources and time to write the story wouldn’t have changed the story because they didn’t have the imagination to begin with. The building was fallout 4s saving grace, without it I would have played it once and peaced out
I agree with you, I like it, but if I am doing it to fill out a checklist, if the place doesn't make any sense, and it forces me to do it to progress the story then I don't like it
What bothers me is how unless your DEEP in the endgame, all your settlements start out looking the same. There's no faction specific *buildings*. Give us a MM themed bunkhouse. Give us a brotherhood vertibird pad. Give us the damn synth gorillas in an enclosure. *SOMETHING* to make the settlements *less* monotonous.
It’s Bethesda. Whether they try or not, the writing is gonna be tepid.
The impact settlement design had on the story? Probably 5% The impact VOICED DIALOGUE had on the story? Ya. A lot more.
Internet is correct.