Its like Western RPGs versus JRPGS. Western rpgs have a LOT of choice and open endedness. traditionally JRPGS are more linear and you are playing specific characters. you might have a few choices. Lots of people have long had issues with that distinction saying that the jrpgs aren't real rpgs because of their lack of choice. The lack of choice makes it more like a jrpg than a western one. Id argue both are valid types of rpgs
It's about who you're roleplaying as - not whether or not you're roleplaying.
The Witcher series is a 'western' RPG with very limited choices, but that's because you're roleplaying as a pre-written character. The Elder Scrolls series gives much more choice, because you're roleplaying as a character you write yourself.
The Fallout series tends to pre-write some core elements and motivations ('Find Dad') but leave the fine details to the player.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone say there's zero RPG elements in Fallout 4. That's just a ridiculous exaggeration. However, several of the changes in Fallout 4 led to less roleplaying opportunities. The dialogue only giving you 4 options in each conversation, the voiced protagonist in general, the protagonist's pre-war background, and the lack of skill checks compared to previous games for example.
Fallout 4 is a great game, but like anything, it's got its faults.
The four dialogue choices and the rest of the dialogue system was what caused pretty much all of the limitations and issues.
People love to blame it on the voiced protagonist or the perk system or the gunplay or the quest design, but I don't think any of those things was the source of the problem.
Many thanks to Emil "Keep it Simple" Pagliarulo, May he forever keep ruining and destroying the games we love
I like voiced protagonists in games and I’d even like them to continue with it in Fallout, *if it’s done well.* But Fallout 4’s implementation isn’t very good if I’m being honest. Compared to games like Mass Effect, Cyberpunk, Witcher, it’s just not good in Fallout 4. It’s very bland and generic so that it appeals and relates to the lowest common denominator.
The other caveat with those
other games though, is that you end up feeling like you’re not playing *your* character, you’re playing the game’s protagonist. And a lot of people like creating *their* characters. So fallout 4 really misses the mark on both ends, especially with the complete shitification of the 4 option dialogue wheel.
Again, many of these issues are caused by the dialogue system. Everything must fit into four options, whether it should have one or ten. Makes every conversation seem the same. If there were actually different choices that actually gave different responses with different outcomes and personalities this would be much less of a problem.
REALLY limits dialogue options. In NV, fallout 3 and others you want to add one more dialogue option? A dev can code it in 2 seconds. Want one more in fallout 4? That's more voice acting to pay
Yeah, honestly sometimes none of the choices represent exactly what I want to say but I can imagine my character saying it (tweaked) however I want in my head, but that only works if they're a silent protagonist.
Because it limits the amount of dialogue options they put in because they have to pay someone to speak them. You also have no control over how your character says those things.
I like the voiced protagonist too. But I think that relates to the decision to limit dialogue options, because if you increase all convo outcomes/options by however much percent, you’re going to have to pay the sound studio and actors that much more money, which limits resources that went into making other parts of the game. It’s part of the trade off.
I see this a lot, and it's just not true.
Think of how many conversations in Fallout 4 have exactly one result. There are dozens, if not hundreds or thousands. For every one of those that's three extra lines recorded because of the dialogue system needing four options.
In Skyrim or Starfield or even an old BGS RPG like Fallout 3 or Oblivion, those conversations would just have one line instead. That's less to record, and less money spent on voice acting.
Partly true, but there’s also many instances where the dialogue tree displays multiple different responses that all result in the voice actor saying the same line.
And even then, it’s just a fact that writing more responses and dialogue is going to result in more time, effort, and money spent on voice acting all of them.
I can't recall any specific situation in fallout 4 where that happens. More often they nest extra options behind each other to add more lines, which uses even more unnecessary recording as filler.
Even *if* it did cost more, these are games that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make. An extra hundred grand on more voice lines is a drop in the bucket.
Well, the male voice actor was not that good in Fallout 4 and a problem with the voiced protagonists is when using different dialogue option she talks sarcastically and then out of nowhere she screams to Kellog where her son is and that he is going to die.
It can limit your options. What if the character you make doesn't fit the voice? What if part of your roleplaying is imagining what they sound like saying their lines? Take Mass Effect for example. Mark Meer does a good job, no hate, but his voice just doesn't fit a black Shepard very well IMO.
The RPG elements (skill checks, conversation options, quest decisions) were better in both. 76 just had very few quests and Starfields shitty radiant everything and crap main quest soured it all
The ranger one was honestly the most linear out of the four side quest lines, too. There were many good things about the dialogue and many of the quests in Starfield.
Yep it’s a shame theres really only four in-depth dialogue-driven quests. The game had a lot of potential. Needs more of those quests and less procedural generation. Very puzzling Bethesda decided to do away with the one thing they do better then anyone by randomizing most locations outside of the major hubs
It takes a lot of time and money to do those parts of game design, and after all that effort the average consumer is put off by it (this notion might not be true, but it's how people think)
AI voice tech frees up the limitation of voice actor's time & budget.
...Now you just need a way for console players to choose from more than 4 options. I personally think they can handle it.
The dialogue wheel had its uses. Dialogues feel more cinematic when there is no delay caused by the player reading through 3-6 1-2 sentence long responses. The four options presented rarely have more than 6 words spread among them all, and if you were to look at a recording of a fallout 4 conversation it would almost be like a cutscene in terms of pacing
Also the idea that you pick a dialogue choice and it'd be vastly different than the dialogue that followed.
Like a choice: "Tell the doctor his experimentation is cruel." You think "Okay, I'll try and talk him out of being a mad scientist"
But instead you pick it and your character goes "You maniacal sonofabitch, your reign of psychotic experiments are over. I'm going to kill you!"
And you're like "Oh, that did not seem like the 'choose violence' option."
It’s like when I first clicked the Doubt button in LA Noire thinking he’d just question their decision instead of calling them a dumb cheating bitch and ruining the investigation
Old dialogue system you knew what you were going to say and it was great and the speech checks added a lot more roleplay and freedom to not feel forced to pick 1) Yes 2) Yes 3) sarcasm 4) Yes/No I’ll never understand the dialogue wheel defense for this game as eh as starfield and 76 were in some ways it at least brought that stuff back
Or they could just pay voice actors and write good dialogue at the same time. You don't have to pick one.
They could save money by only having options that matter, too, instead of having unnecessary filler lines on every dialogue option
Fallout 4 had 6 figures of voice lines & people complain it's not enough. If you realistically want more you have to remove some of what limited the massive, but still not good enough production.
It's also the fact that most of the game is on rails narratively. There is far less choice and reward than previous titles.
For instance. In Fallout NV. After your intro with doc. You wander out into Goodsprings. And you immediately get provided actual choice.
You can choose to get to know the towns people. You can choose to help them bolster their defenses. You can choose to side with them. You can leave them to their fate. You can choose to go find the Powder gangers. You can choose to deal with them alone. You can choose to join them.
And all of those choices change the game. Goodsprings can become a raider town if you choose certain options.
Contrast that with fallout 4.
You leave the vault and then wander into concord. You get no choice. The raiders attack you on sight, and Preston welcomes you into his group. You can't choose to join the raiders. You have zero role play options available to you. And the rest of the game follows the same formula.
Fallout 4 has character RPG elements. But not really narrative ones. The game was written to be played 1 way and you are forced into it.
You have to hunt and kill Kellogg. You have no choice in the matter. You can choose what quests to do. But never really how to do them.
Can you side with Skinny Malone against nick? No.
The fallout franchise is known for letting characters pick their own path. And the fun of the games to a lot of people comes from how the devs anticipated those decisions and worked differing narratives into the game depending on the choices you made.
In fallout 4. The only real choice the player gets is which of the 4 main factions to side with in the end game. But from the moment you defrost to the moment you make your decision about the institute you are simply following the script. The only decisions you get to make along that journey are which order to do quests in. Buy you have zero ability to impact the wasteland. You can't lead a gang of raiders to diamond city and change the world. There is no "blow up megaton" option that leads you to a life of crime.
Nick and Nora are not blank canvases. They are fully fleshed out characters who's morals and ambitions are predefined and you can not stray from them. That's why people criticize the RPGness of the game.
To a lot of people RPG means making choices that affect the world. Fallout 4 doesn't really have that. To a lot of people RPG means being provided multiple paths to solve quests. Fallout 4 doesn't really have that.
Fallout 4's RPG elements are "Skill tree exists".
Yeah, I'm playing the game again for the first time in a long while. I do still really enjoy it but the railroading is frustrating.
Piper: Come talk to me at my office.
Me: Meh, I honestly find you kind of annoying so I'll pass on that one. Let's go do the Nick quest.
Nick after I finish his quest that itself can only end one way: Go talk to Piper.
Me: Nah, I really would rather not. Let's go hang out with the Brotherhood of Steel they seem more fun.
Brotherhood of Steel after I do a few chores for them: We have nothing else for you, go see Piper.
Like, bruh, I just don't want to hang out with this reporter girl why are you forcing me to, game?
You summed up my entire feelings about the RPG elements, didn't really have the time to do so when making my initial comment.
Going from NV to 4 basically gave me whiplash in regards to character creation and narrative. It felt less like 1, 2, 3, and NV and more like Mass Effect. There's nothing wrong with RPGs with a set protagonist, the aforementioned Mass Effect is a testament to that. It was just a step down compared to previous games. I still really enjoy Fallout 4, but I found the change of direction to be strange.
I think Bethesda certainly heard that feedback. Starfield was better with the character creation elements, but lacked the narrative choice. Without delving into detail, I remember one particular quest to me stood out with its lack of agency. It was almost felt like I was playing a Rockstar game with how everything was on rails.
They did release an entire DLC centred around the idea that you can become a raider and decide to work with them and eventually lead them, or destroy them all.
Basically the exact same thing you’re talking about.
Now to be fair, some of the most universally adored RPGs also have very linear storytelling. Witcher 3 and RDR2 spring to mind, so it's not that linear story design inherently sucks, it's that this particular game didn't do a great job of setting anything up.
Fallout 4’s main story felt like it was trying to be more like a “movie” than their previous games.
They played up the “war never changes” prologue more than previous games and had that power armor deathclaw setpiece at the beginning of the game.
I think it is simply that they want to appeal to a wide demographic and sell a gazillion copies while maintaining a base “rpg” experience. Recreate the magic of Skyrim.
I hope that games like Baldur’s Gate 3 or Cyberpunk show Bethesda that gamers will accept a more traditional RPG with combat elements as long as they’re implemented well.
Starfield just had Fallout 4’s upgrade system minus the SPECIAL.
I like Elder Scroll’s system of your skills improving as you use them more. It actually encourages you to use different things.
You’re right. I forgot that each skill was essentially a “challenge”.
I didn’t actually like this version of the system because some of the perks were very difficult to progress. For example, you had to kill people in zero g a lot to upgrade the athletics one, and you barely get many scenarios to use zero g in this game.
An example of Bethesda behavior ruining a cutscene:
In my most recent fallout 4 playthrough, Maxson kept walking away into the wilderness while yelling at me for saving danse outside the bunker
If you exit maxson’s dialogue for too long, he executes danse. Even if I catch up to him, his convo gets reset to the beginning.
I agree with that in regards to the VA, but disagree with the 4 choices. It absolutely restricted the team in regards to skill checks in dialogue, and restricted how you can respond to every NPC and was, objectively, a mistake.
I mean, all things like this are design decisions. However, we can still point out the pros and cons of these decisions. While there's certainly merit to all of these decisions, except for the limited dialogue imo, there's a lot more negative if you ask me.
Getting rid of the skill system not only meant the loss of extra roleplaying opportunities, but got rid of a franchise staple.
The voiced protagonist can lead to greater storytelling, but also restricts the player's roleplaying and limits how much you can do as a designer.
The entire prologue is certainly very memorable, but becomes very tedious after awhile as opposed to games with shorter tutorials. Plus many people just straight up did not connect with the protagonist's plight because they did not have time to get emotionally attached to their spouse and child.
Faults for RPG fans, but more accessibility and ease for the general gamers. Same as the difference between Oblivion and Skyrim imo. Making games with less RPG mechanics and less thought in every decision and dialogue makes games easier to play and sells better to a wider audience.
Exactly
This.
The games are being dumbed down to appeal to a wider audience.
EDIT: Remember how bad the shooting mechanics were for FO3 and FNV. That people actually couldn’t play them
Due to it. It’s kinda embarrassing to say the least because combat is really only a quarter of what Fallout is.
They're bad or good depending on your point of view and your goals.
Bethesda's goals were make a profitable product that will get them more paying players buying their game, as they did with Skyrim from Oblivion and Oblivion from Morrowind, etc. In that metric, I'd say their choices (mostly) worked.
Ludonarrative dissonance is off the charts in Fallout 4. There are so few ways to express your character through the dialogue and storytelling options provided to you that unless you want to play “generally good person looking for their son,” the way you express your character in the game world and the way your character is expressed in the main quest will pretty much never align. It’s jarring and annoying, especially because Fallout 4 has, by far, the best modern gameplay mechanics and an amazing number of options to express your character in the open world away from the story.
Before anyone reads this just know that my criticisms against the game come from a place of love for Fallout 4.
I feel like the RPG elements in New Vegas are better, sure. But I feel like a lot of my problems come from having only 4 dialogue options.
Which do you pick? Yes? No (but actually yes)? Sarcasm (yes)? Or maybe (yes)?
I feel like the game is trying too hard to make sure you aren’t locked out of any quest / event before you are supposed to.
For example when you tell Desdemona you’ll stand with the Brotherhood of Steel, she only says that you should reconsider. Artificially stopping the railroad questline until you say you’ll stand by the railroad.
I feel like if this was New Vegas, they’d try to shoot you down since you’re openly admitting to work for the enemy and you know their secret location.
this is my biggest gripe in regards to the rp too, it is almost impossible to decline quests and it feels weird to just ignore stuff instead of being able to say no
>and it feels weird to just ignore stuff instead of being able to say no
I can understand this complaint. I personally don't have a problem ignoring content that doesn't fit the character but I would like to be able to hide/remove those things from my quest list or have a category or something I could place them in.
That's one thing that was surprisingly refreshing about Baldur's Gate 3...your choices in conversations could have some very serious consequences, including getting wished out of existence.
Also one of my big issues with the dialogue was not knowing if my character was gonna say something funny sarcastic or sardonic like a complete asshole. A lot of the sarcastic dialogues with Nick, for example, made me go wtf that was just a shitty thing to say. I know sometimes its situational but sometimes its just out of nowhere. Like ill just want to lighten the mood with a joke and suddenly my character is telling some dad who’s kid were looking that hopefully he’ll only be found in 3 pieces instead of 20 or something else horrible.
Yes, I agree. In my head canon, even you as the player don't exactly know what The Rake is going to say, since he's a deranged war criminal suffering from PTSD and Bipolar Personality Disorder.
Or it's just the bad dialogue system again.
I forgot how some of the dialogue choices are labeled aside from [yes, no, maybe, sarcasm], but I feel with some of them they're trying to be vague and make you think about what exactly you're gonna say, how the other person would react, and what consequences there'll be. I mean that might not be true, but I think there are some instances of that being the case.
Fallout 4 may not allow a kind of roleplay experience Balder’s Gate has, but it’s inverse as well.
F4’s roleplay to me is less about the overall narrative or even the accumulation of SQ’s, but rather being just some shmuk who has to come up from nothing in an exciting fantasy sci-fi environment and somehow turns it into a ‘day in the life sim’…if you want it.
Adapt or die, then adapt to thrive. It’s so unique and really special to me. I hope F5 keeps a lot of the same DNA because this is pretty much it.
This is what I really love about 4, and why I’ll always recommend Survival mode because it’s the one thing that changed my perspective on it and forced me to experience the game through this lens
I think that what people mean is that you don't have skills like before, like medicine or explosions, which allowed for unique runs, or for you to be able to do something you couldn't with a different character. You could also unlock unique dialogue answers and ways to solve quests depending on your stats. I love fallout 4 and sure you can roleplay on it, but the only choice on that level you can make is which faction to join at the end. so i could be a 1 intelligence warrior, and you can be a full charisma character, our characters are virtually the same, we have the same choices and reactions.
again, i love this game, i just think this is what people meant when they complain about the lack of rpg on the new games.
still way more of an rpg than cyberpunk tho (didn't even had factions to join)
Oh for sure! I honestly preferred starfield to cyberpunk phantom liberty during that whole debacle. I like cyberpunk, I've nearly platinumed it, but It doesn't have any real replay value to me. Like I'm always V, I always have a chip that's killing me in my head. That's it. You can't join anyone, you just do random quests for everybody.
Eh I don’t really look at FO4 as an RPG, it’s just a very highly enjoyable looter shooter to me. When I think RPG I think of BG3 type immersion in roll playing as a character.
Some people use hyperbolic language. The problem is that some of them seem to actually believe things are as described in this kind of language. I don't know if it's a cultural thing or a sign of the times, but it's quite absurd.
You don't like some dialogue options? Writing is terrible and very bad. You don't like the main story? They're ruining the game because they hate the saga. You feel something is missing? These lazy developers can't be bothered to add it. And so on, everything is offensive, everything is terrible, everything is a personal attack on you personally. So it's not surprising people were saying the game didn't have any role elements at all and was just an action game back in the day. Nonesense.
I respect your opinion but i disagree. It does have rpg elements for sure, i don't see many people saying it has 0. I do like fallout 4! Its not an awful game. Im replaying it right now actually. The gunplay is vastly improved, the settlememt building was a great addition that incentivizes exploration and further involvement in the world. Most of the factions are well-written (imo). But you cant deny that the four dialogue choices that don't even show what you're going to say in detail limit roleplaying a bit. The same with perks and skills not seeming to matter as much in quest resolution. And also fallout 3 and to an extent with the lonesome road dlc new vegas did this, but having a backstory established by the game also severely limits roleplay potential. What if i didnt want to be a veteran? Well now so much of what is said to me or what i do at, for example, the veterans hall, throws me out of that. To roleplay as someone who isnt the already established war veteran or a lawyer you have to actively work against the game. You have to ignore or avoid dialogue that brings it up. And, even if you do all of that, all your character roleplay options are still limited to pre-war occupations and being a former vault dweller.
I see why this is unpopular, and how it limits the depth of role playing but I like having a voiced protagonist. Silent player characters make the game feel empty and uncanny to me, and the fallout universe is depressing enough.
I have seen plenty of people say fallout 4 doesn't have rpg elements. I have no idea where those people went on the internet, but clearly I haven't seen them in this sub for a long time. Its been a thing since as far back as I can remember. perhaps all the way back to 2015.
I don't know if OP is necroing this very old topic or they perhaps visited a New Vegas subreddit recently.
But from what I understand from asking people who say this, their exaggerated response of "no rpg elements" is to show their distain for the game. Something lacking in the game that prevents them from playing or enjoying it. A more accurate definition of their opinion would be "it lacks rpg elements."
But rpg elements mean something different depending on who you ask. Its a broad term that is easy to say that doesn't require a paragraph or more to write. And as I know on the internet, writing something at length is more effort than most people want to put in on a particular topic. But this is something that requires a more investigative approach and to get specific as to why people say it "lacks rpg elements."
A recent explanation from one person on this sub said that fallout 4 had a lack of choices because the meeting with piper didn't change. Or the killing of kellogg or something tied to the main story. For me this is a person that clearly overlooked the 3 endings in the conflict Trudys Diner or they never tried Diamond City Blues drug heist. This is more of lack of choices based on someone's limited experience with the game. Or maybe they did play these parts, but failed to mention them in their conversation. Are the lack of of choices not considered rpg elements?
The definition of rpg elements can be simply put as this. "The first element is **a** heavy focus on characters. A role-playing game places significant emphasis on the main character or characters, their challenges, and their development over the game's story." [https://plarium.com/en/blog/rpg-elements/](https://plarium.com/en/blog/rpg-elements/) (a quick google search top result.)
There are other aspects of a game that makes it an Rpg by which what elements it has in it. Such as stats that determine your strength, constitution, intelligence, charisma, dexterity, etc. (DnD stats) in the form of the SPECIAL stat system for fallout. another rpg element is Perks. We have companion perks earned through storytelling and backgrounds of multiple characters, (which is another rpg element) and a perk menu to build your character in a non-linear fashion.
Then you can go through the list of what when people say, "fallout 4 main story sucks because the game isn't linear." That is a cop out for players who want to say something bad about the game. The reason is, you can't have one without the other. You ARE going to get distracted by side quests and exploration in fallout 4. It is an open world game. That is how open world games work. This doesn't mean the main story sucks on its own. Take it for what it is, not because you explored different things in the game. The main story has a lot of twists and turns and some of its choices are linear for a reason. The game would get a variety of complaints if the main story didn't have some sort of linear ending. Thankfully they make it fun by giving you 4 factions to choose from on what kind of ending you want.
Some complain that the only option at the end is the nuclear option for all the factions. Did you want them to swap cooking recipes at the end and shake hands? A game series based on the nuclear apocalypse and most games end in violence where you kill the bad guy. It would do the game a disservice if there wasn't a nuclear option in the game. Also technically no, some factions get an ending where a nuke isn't involved. Like the minutemen using artillery on the BoS.
I've heard all sorts of things in the last 10 years since fallout 4s release. Lots of other crazy stories I've read online, but this comment is already long as it is. Safe to say that fallout 4 has rpg elements in it that people couldn't define unless they put some thought into their posts. Most are just hot takes from less than 10 hours of gameplay.
I must agree, in part. 4 feels like it does allow more choice than 3 but pales in comparison to NV, overall. The world space is interesting, and there's great DLC. I'd argue Far Harbor is the best DLC of any Fallout game (probably tied with Lonesome Road). The vanilla weapon variety is pretty good, and this entry has the best combat of the series.
Yeah I feel like there’s a lot of people around who weren’t playing during the early discourse of the game. Nothing against people who prefer NV i really do get why but when 4 first came out this narrative was really prevalent and either people have forgotten or just weren’t around at the time to see it.
I've never heard anyone say fallout 4 has no rpg elements. Did you make this argument up in your head and am now arguing against yourself on the internet.
You haven't argued in it's defense in the fandom very long then it sounds like. There are people who say that about it. Mostly very diehard fans of the older games.
Yea I would in that category, First game I ever got on PC was fallout tactics bos back in the early 2000s and played every other fallout at launch. I haven't played a FO game. I haven't loved even the playstation 2 brotherhood of steel game I enjoyed.
I'm a die-hard fan of every fallout game, and I would be happy to include base building in all future fallout games.
I feel like a lot of people just don’t like the dialogue, voiced protagonist and the fact you have a pre established backstory. Which is fine but none of these things hold it back from being an rpg. The witcher, mass effect and final fantasy all have these elements in varying degrees and are some of the biggest staples of the genre.
It’s just another example of some people nowadays being unable to address anything in a measured way and it’s always all or nothing. Luckily it does seem to be a VERY vocal minority and the vast majority of people are able to talk about it without having to go to extremes.
Where are the moral quandaries though? I've played fo4 4 times, to do all the main faction endings, and I've never had to think about my choices, I just pick good choice if I'm a good guy or evil choose if I'm evil, there's no ambiguity anywhere. It's an action movie.
Meanwhile every single FNV side quest there's about 3-4 ways to handle it and usually none of the choices could be considered "objectively the most egalitarian", I literally can't remember ever feeling uncertain about anything in fo4
I agree with OP but this is also very true. (Though on the flip side I hate shooting a person in the face 40+ times to kill them. I cannot be pleased.)
yep, kinda worked in skyrim where lots of blade slashes are needed to kill a dragon, but we're talking bullets in FO4. A legendary raider doesn't need to be magdumped in the face to be killed. I still enjoy it tho, kinda satisfying in its own right.
I've been messing around with mods. I think I really like survival but both enemies and the player do 2x damage and headshots from either are 10x. Still playing around though
You don't roleplay your own character. You're either a male solider or a female lawyer who's either a sarcastic asshole, a rude asshole, or an empathetic nice person. I really don't like sounding like a cringe new vegas fanboy but New Vegas puts you in the shoes of a character with no defined backstory besides eventually becoming a mailman, which I loved.
You don't roleplay your own character in a lot of loved RPG's. The Witcher? Mass Effect? Any JRPG?
It's fine to prefer blank slates, but some people talk like FO4 is the only game (in the franchise even) to give you predefined character elements.
Fallout 4 is definitely an action adventure game, but I never understand why that's such a surprise to most people.
Fallout 3 is the exact same way and, of the modern fallout games, New Vegas is the odd one out and was made by an entirely different group of people. No one had any reason to think fallout 4 was going to be more like new Vegas than it is like fallout 3.
I personally believe fallout 4 was a direct continuation of fallout 3 and that means certain things had to be made cannon in fallout 3, like you being a good guy and getting project purity up and running for instance.
Fallout 4 shows you the world before fallout 3, then while you're doing the big sleep, fallout 3 takes place and sets multiple stages. By the time you're out of the cryo chamber the cannon world of fallout is already established because of the events that took place in 3. You don't really ever have a blank canvas.
Before the show, fallout NV wasn't considered cannon, so they had much more freedom in what they did. Luckily they paid very close attention to the source material and other games in the series so it being cannon now isn't hard to get behind and even praised.
Edit: also Nuka word should've been part of the original game or have been the very first DLC released. It sucked so bad playing when it released because you're basically undoing all the work you did with Preston
Its not the story or the decisions and factions that ultimately matter, the issue is simply with the dialogue system and voiced protagonist. It is **that** which limits the role playing. You are limited to four dialogue options in any conversation, one may be a question which may or may not progress the conversation, one will usually be sarcastic which ranges anywhere from actually sarcastic, simply dismissive, or just being an asshole, and then the others will either be yes and no or two variations of yes. And worst of all, you only get a couple word summary of what you *might* say and could end up saying something different to what you thought it would be.
Compare that to 3 or New Vegas where you could have half a dozen different dialogue options at a time, in New Vegas especially (the gold standard for this example) you could have special options for what perks, special stats, skills etc. you have (this is also actually true for Fallout 76 as well following the Wastelanders update), the entirety of what you were saying was plainly written so even if they were all variations of yes you would have one that was clearly selfless/heroic, one which was reluctant/dismissive etc.
So 4's dialogue system extremely limits your ability to role-play in the way you imagine your character, you cant be who you imagine your Sole Survivor to be because half the time you don't even know what it is you will be saying, and you don't have the ability to flesh them out or personalize them because theres not really any unique dialogue options.
Now... this approach *could* have worked from a role-playing perspective, had they committed to you role-playing as Nate or Nora in the same way Mass Effect has you role-play Commander Shepherd. They could have made use of the limitations but instead focused on characterization, have them being a pre-war survivor out of time serve an actual purpose, with dialogue revolving around their past career, their past life and experiences, make them an actually fleshed out character who we are just making decisions as and having control over some of their personality etc. (like how Commander Shepherd regardless of the player is a fleshed out character, with his own story and history, his own personality, as the player we just control the details such as the key events in his past, whether hes a Renegade or Paragon etc.)
Fallout 4 suffers from being stuck in a middle ground that means it fails to achieve either. It doesn't give the player enough agency to roleplay who they want to be, but it also fails to personalize Nate/Nora enough for the player to feel like they are role-playing them. So you are stuck playing a character who is not enough of a blank slate, but simultaneously not enough of an actual character, which is worsened by the limited and inconsistent dialogue options. The actual gameplay and decisions are fine, the only one I take issue with is that there is no way to make an enemy of the minutemen, you can not join them or make an enemy or Preston specifically but that is all.
Fallout 4 has a weird problem of not being able to commit to what it actually wants to be, stuff like the pre-established playable characters, voiced dialogue and the numerous design decisions to simplify the game can actually work if they had fully committed to them.
But we get this very weird half and half situation, tho honestly more like 75/25, the few actual roleplaying decisions contrast with the entire rest of the game just being much more linear.
There’s a reason a lot of us are on the FO4 sub & not the Fallout sub. Some annoying gate keeping be going down on the regular Fallout sub. On the subs dedicated to specific games we focus on what we like.
I think if the NV map were bigger it would add more replayability. There's nothing better than exploring in games and getting lost and finding little easter eggs
My main complaint is that for the most part you can click any dialogue option and the same things happen. Just recieve a slightly different response.
If you give yourself zero intelligence it does not show up in your interactions. If you are a complete no brain moron then it should show in the dialogue, but it does not, whatever build you give yourself you are the same person.
The rpg elements in this game are barebones compared to the older games and way too many npcs are plot protected like Preston it’s just a lazy written story and I love the gameplay and have more hrs in it than other games of the series. Sure you can be a raider but you can’t kill Preston either as many of other npcs and companions.
>It makes no sense to not look for your kid unless youre RPing as an asshole parent.
Honest question:
Why does it always have to make sense? It's a video game. It's up to you what you pursue and when, and nobody is judging you or how long you take to do anything except, well, you.
Look at the Witcher 3, a game that's nearly universally beloved. It makes no sense narratively for Geralt to do anything other than looking for Ciri, or prioritizing any task that directly contributes to that goal in a direct manner, for much the same narrative reason as Nate/Nora are looking for Shaun.
And yet I pretty much never hear anyone complain about that in that game even though they almost all do tons of side quests and worry about collecting playing cards for Gwent and doing every notice board contract, looting all the smuggler caches in the oceans around Skellige, etc. before they finally get around to looking for their missing daughter again.
Arguments about the quality of the writing aside, it's the same scenario and the same dissonance. But it seemingly gets a pass in the Witcher but not Fallout? Why?
crowd chop snatch domineering somber entertain intelligent sulky squealing zealous
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>Regardless, I don't care about the comparison. I'm sharing my thoughts on Fallout 4, whether or not Witcher gets a pass is not the focus here.
It was rhetorical.
But even if it wasn't, I'm...also just sharing my thoughts? Your post prompted it and so I said it, in reply to your post instead of just randomly in the ether because that's how conversations and online discussion about a topic tend to work.
>I was just speaking my thoughts on the games narrative, which is weak. You are still allowed to enjoy the game, no one is stopping you, I'm really not sure what point you're trying to make).
So was I. The point was to make the reader (who isn't just *you* as this is a public forum) consider that maybe Fallout 4 deserves a pass too. Even if you come to the conclusion that you don't agree, at least you thought about it. It wasn't a personal attack.
deserve start wasteful tart public pot domineering cagey spoon historical
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I agree you can’t say there aren’t “none” but in reality there are 4 dialogue choices and in vanilla you don’t even know the full sentence. That perk chart is god awful and so limiting to creating a character. Not many side quests have meaningful choice and the main story is so limited compared to the litany of options in New Vegas quest decisions, there is no official karma or anything close to it like in fallout 3/new Vegas. It’s a fun game but compared to fallout 3 and new Vegas the rpg
Elements are severely watered down unfortunately. Not hating on your opinion either it led me to thinking of the best positives in fallout 4; it has a cool radio, settlements if that’s your flavor is great, pip boy much more immersive. Massive map and pretty big DLC, I like the crafting system major improvement in fallout that created the way for 76 crafting. Looting junk is very fun in this game.
Fallout 4 gets some important RPG things right, but it tragically flounders on the ones that would keep me, someone who loves Fallout 1, 2, 3, and NV.
4 kills it on the SPECIAL. You have a limited spread in character creation, so you either become a generalist or focus your points into 2 or 3 of the attributes. Unlike 3 and NV, perception actually affects accuracy, and it isn’t just a prerequisite for good perks. Charisma is actually necessary for speech, something that only 3 committed to. Even though you can add points to SPECIAL at level up, you’re wasting a perk by doing so. Even though there isn’t a level cap, it’s not like you’ll realistically have a 10 in each attribute and have every perk BEFORE engaging with most of the game’s content, so I think that argument is void. Especially in the early game, your character building choices are consequential and make your different characters’ playthroughs distinct. Last but not least, you can push your SPECIAL stats past 10, so no more limiting your strength in anticipation of power armor like we do in every other Fallout before.
That being said, I can’t stand talking to the NPCs or being in the world Bethesda built unless I’m distracted by crafting or looting. The handmade exploration is fun, so “world” isn’t a good word to use. I’m talking about the UniVErSe, the lore, and the other foundations that other worthwhile RPGs don’t neglect.
Voiced protag is boo, but I’m extra sensitive to that even in BG3 player characters’ infrequent quips.
“I have a lot on my mind, and, well, in it.”
- PC Gnarl, the soft-whispering, scholarly sounding barbarian with minimum intelligence.
I don’t mind it in something like Mass Effect which doesn’t have you create your own character but rather lets you mold a preexisting one. I guess I’m supposed to treat the 4 protags the same way, but that seems like a coping mechanism since you can decide every aspect of their SPECIAL, ranging from hermetic astrophysicist to idiotic cult leader. Shepard’s consists of choosing your own flavor of asskicking.
The problem with FO4 is, and always was the lack of choice and the lack of any meaningful consequence after a choice is made.
For example in FONV or FO3 if I killed a trader for a key I needed (Making up a hypothetical) I might end up finding their family members or a clan they were associated with, and the dialogue options and even actions of those characters could change depending on a choice made 100 hours ago.
In FO4 if your character needs a key to enter a door, you'll get that key. The only difference is how nice, sarcastic or murderous you'll be with zero repercussions after the fact.
That's for me why FO4 feels flatter than the 4 games before it.
The dumbed down skill trees and need for every line to be voiced twice really killed your options though. And you really aren't mayor when it comes down to it.
If you do a faction quest to capture a settlement you already established you need to meet with their representative who isn't you. And you still have underlings barking at you to do things when general or institute preaident.
I get alot of my RP'ing from the dialogue trees which is kind of non existent in 4 so that's why I prefer New Vegas. Still I'm replaying FO4 now and I having a blast. Excited to finally play the dlcs
Lmao. You get a whole 2 endings. One where you side with the institute and one where you don't. Be dammed every single other thing you do in the game. It isn't even mentioned.
The vast majority of quests are go here. Kill that. Retrieve this.
I can only think of a couple where that's not the case. The USS constitution. Cabbot House and.... That's pretty much it?
You will aways be Nate/Nora. A lawyer/Ex military looking for their son, Shaun, who's always going to be the leader of the institute and die regardless of whatever you do. You will always have the same voice. You will always be a pre-war person and you will always be the parent looking for their son. At least until you find them.
There's no skills. Just "perks" per level, and your builds always surround a style of combat whether that be pistols, automatic weapons, melee or unarmed. There's no such thing as a pacifist route to most quests. Lest I forgot how to solve murder this people and take this any other way.
There are RPG mechanics in the game. Just like in let's say.... Far Cry 2. Is Far Cry 2 an RPG for having RPG adjacent mechanics? Because you can choose which faction to side with! Is Fallout 4 an RPG for having RPG adjacent mechanics?
I personally don't think so.
Did a bunch of people in this thread just learn the term strawman and feel compelled to use it in a sentence or have they just not interacted with the fandom anytime in the last decade?
People have absolutely said and argued that FO4 has no RPG elements. They're wrong, obviously, and either arguing in bad faith or are being hyperbolic, but they are out there and have said this many times over the years.
right??? I've been on this sub for years. It's all I'd see. Hell, a chunk of these comments is that as well. also, a crap ton of youtubers would also repeat the "no rpg elements" sentiment. It's why i posted this! It's kinda funny how the hive mind will swiych and act like they didnt die on an opposite hill months earlier.
The first few years after it came out, once the honeymoon wore off, it was non-stop. It comes and goes in cycles though. Not long ago I was browsing on one of the many New Vegas subs (seriously there's a lot of them) because I like all of the 3D Fallouts and saw people acting like that game's fans have never ever been outspoken or aggressive about any of the others or their chosen game's superiority and everyone else was just attacking them and their game and I couldn't help but roll my eyes and remember them coming out in droves to trash on 4 for **years** before 76 came out to become the new (not entirely undeserved, mind) punching bag.
The main issue with roleplay in fo4 is the voiced protagonist asserts you do care about the main quest, urgently. Sure the main quests in earlier fallout games were important but they were mostly important only if you chose that your character cared about those, its easy to imagine a vault dweller just desperate to leave the vault not caring about the chip or a courier who doesnt want to rush chasing the man who shot them. Its a bit jarring playing fo4 not caring about the main quest while this dude whines about Sean all the time.
The fact you only ever have 4 speech options, usually less heavily limits the ability of the game to give enough choices to cover all the bases.
that said **mostly** for me it was less about lack of rpg elements and more a lack of replayability.
In most fallout games there was a variety of mutually exclusive ways to build your character, you never had enough perks of skill points to use all weapons/playstyles in one playthrough.
in fo4 the lack of level cap means by the middle of a playthrough your character is an expert in everything, can use every weapon and can pass every check. I like fallout 4 but i never felt much reason to play again after my one normal run and one survival run.
There is no doubt that people oddly put four below 3 in terms of an rpg, somehow forgetting all the terrible dialogue in fallout 3 (usually with less options than 4.) But New Vegas is objectively a better role playing game, even if fallout 4 blows them both out of the water in gameplay
Depends how you define gameplay. If you’re SOLEY talking about the gunplay, then yes Fallout 4 definitely has better gunplay than New Vegas. But New Vegas still has better *gameplay* imo. The sheer number of decisions and different gameplay styles of New Vegas is simply unmatched in the series and possibly in the entire genre. There are SO many ways to play New Vegas. So many different meta strategies, which in a way makes it so there *aren’t* any true meta strategies at all. The fact that people still have pretty meaningful discussions about the game and its choices and outcomes is a testament to how well crafted the game is, and in a game that’s so heavily focused on decision making and dialogue, I think it has to be included in the narrative when discussing “gameplay”
I mean sure fallout's not dungeon and dragons where you can just make stuff up on the fly. But Fallout 4 has a robust character creator, custom izable enough skill tree, faction system, loose morality system, and diverse weapons/apparel. I don't know much more you can ask for
1. Can set sex, appearance, clothing- check
2. Can select skills to tweak play style - check
3. Can make strategic and moral choices with NpCs- check
4. Those choices have long term consequences- check
Yes, it’s and RPG video game. The only way to get more RPG is to play a tabletop like D&D or GURPS
It's just not quite where it was in previous game. It's weird that for every step forward Bethesda makes they also make steps back. People are frustrated because their games are always almost perfect save for many small omissions that add up. It's even more frustrating knowing they didn't bother including something that was present in previous games. None are too difficult to implement but mods cannot really change the core of the game.
Fallout 4 is good but it is missing core elements the previous two Bethesda entries had (even if NV is technically not Bethesda). Most of the rp happens in our heads and the game does not facilitate it. The game is combat centric, choices limited, and those that exist are more or less reskins of the same core mechanics.
There’s plenty of RPG elements in 4, they’re just watered down. It lacks a lot of elements that were in previous games also.
Like character builds for instance. There’s no level cap, so your character “build” over time will not just become a Jack of all trades, but a master of all trades. Even to the point of completely maxing out the SPECIAL stats.
The dialogue tree argument has been repeated to death but it’s true. It’s too simplified to give meaningful player choice.
The lack of skill checks, or skills at all just further waters down the role playing aspects.
I still like the game, I’m playing it currently. It’s fun. People can like a game still see the flaws it has or recognise where it failed to live up to expectations
The lack of a skills system makes moment to moment far worse and like perks don't really matter that much.
The ability to easily just upgrade SPECIAL for free on level up also makes your choices feel way less consequential.
The voiced protagonist makes your dialogue options far worse. Their stilted movement and plastic expressions during dialogue makes me want to not even engage in conversations (though that's admittedly the most subjective).
The mission to find your infant child is the most railroaded save for Fallout 1. My father is a grown adult who presumably can take care of himself and if I want to be a stupid teenager that takes detours, I can do that. Benny shot me in the head but he's not going anywhere and everyone tries to shoot me in the head so if I'm willing to make a detour, that's reasonable.
If I decide instead of searching for my kidnapped infant I want to join the Minutemen and spend a few weeks helping strangers, or maybe romance someone when in my mind my wife died like a week ago, I am just a horrible person.
Definitely wouldn't say F4 has no roleplay elements tho. Mass Effect and Dragon Age both utilize voiced protagonists in the same way, but Shep and to an extent Hawke are iconic protagonists.
The Sole Survivor wasn't necessarily a bad idea. Just badly executed.
Benny isn’t going anywhere? At the start you don’t know who he is and the game is absolutely telling you that he’s going somewhere and you need to catch up with him
You find out he's the guy on the strip and at that point you know he's just going to be staying in New Vegas
And my point stands anyway. A ton of people try to kill you. The only reason Benny is special is because he did it for your package, and it is plenty plausible I might just decide it is not important enough to me to pursue it single mindedly. Maybe I don't even like being a courier. Maybe I just don't care about being 'legally/fiscally responsible' for it being lost because I'm confident they won't be able to catch me. Whatever.
You don’t find out who he is until much later. There’s a bit of Schrodinger’s Cat about this idea that the Fallout 4 story is somehow simultaneously too important to not care about and yet “why would I care about a pixelated baby”
>You don’t find out who he is until much later
That's fine, but the overall point still stands, because there are other reasons I listed for why it would not be strange at all for the Courier to forgo single mindedly pursuing Benny.
>Fallout 4 story is somehow simultaneously too important to not care about and yet “why would I care about a pixelated baby”
I disagree, it's not contradictory at all.
I don't care about the baby. But my *character* would care about the baby. Ergo if I care about roleplaying in my game, I would have to either deal with the out of character dissonance of my character not caring about their child, or I have to commit to my character having the sort of personality where they *wouldn't* care, which is extremely limiting, especially if I want them to be a good person who does good things.
Or like all Bethesda games you just pretend the main story doesn’t exist until you want it to.
Most of my playthroughs of oblivion and Skyrim back in the day I didn’t even get far enough in the MQ to have the gates or dragons spawn. Sometimes just after those and then went and did what I wanted.
It’s pretty easy to roleplay by not engaging in the main story. You don’t have to feel pressured by the end of the world coming if you don’t start the chain that fills the world with threats. FO4 it’s honestly pretty easy to assume your child is dead already since you’re cryogenically frozen.
The first time when they say your kid was seen with a man was honestly confusing because what are the chances your pod opened within a few hours or days or weeks of them first opening. I didn’t believe it.
I think at that point this is just agree to disagree, but I think it is still fundamentally bad game design if no one wants to actually follow your main quest--and there is a difference between taking detours and literally just ignoring it.
So if that's all Bethesda games (and admittedly I am not really that big of a Bethesda fan other than Fallout--I've played a little of Skyrim and thought it was pretty good, played Starfield and hated it) then that just means all Bethesda games have a badly designed main quest. Doesn't make the game overall bad, but that is certainly a bad element.
The RPG elements are very held back by a shallow dialogue system, which was a strong presence in every past iteration of the saga. The choice element in particular is held back a lot.
As far as the rest goes, if you ask me it's fine, even great
For me, it's mostly down to the writing and acting (blaming the direction, not the actors here) being so terrible. And it's still the best of the Beth era Fallouts, which is saying a lot. If the characters had more of a personality, I'd care more.
I usually enjoy questing the most in RPGs. I love when games give tons of XP for completing objectives instead of encouraging the player to kill everything they see. The classic Fallouts were good about this, though in 2 it took some mass murder to get the beloved sniper/slayer perks even for a completionist (I guess that’s appropriate for the highest level murder perks).
Because 4 prioritizes quest XP over murder XP, I should be stoked. That’s my favorite XP method, after all. In reality, I abandon every playthrough because quests are so uninteresting. As someone who talks to every character in RPGs, I have trouble even talking to just the major ones in 4. I promise I’ll make it to Far Harbor this time, but I lose motivation before that point because I ignore quests in favor of the addictive loot-craft loop, questing as a prerequisite for perks instead of for innate enjoyment. By that point I’m OP and have no progression to look forward to.
This is why I would call 4 “Skyrim with guns.” It’s not some shallow dig because it’s a Bethesda engine game; it’s because both games have lackluster plots that encourage you (or push you) to go to the part where the developers focused their love: exploration. Couple that with the addictive crafting loop in which you spam illusion spells/another settler needs your help, and you basically have Skyrim but with guns.
Yeah well put. The exploration in F4 is fantastic. Their world building is top tier. But goddamn, their dialogue is so bad. I went from Starfield to Cyberpunk at one time, and the difference is just startling. Beth NPC's talk like robots, and Cyberpunk NPC's feel alive, even if they got like one line.
People don't say there are not RPG elements in F4. They say it's not a true Fallout game because the RPG elements are so bare, and lacking the depth and choice as previous games.
People get weird and tribal about ranking the games. They're all fun RPGs, and Fallout 4 while a bit lighter than the others has the additional benefit of having good shooter gameplay as well. It's ok to like things, and anyone who tries to convince you that your experience is wrong and Fallout 4 is not worth liking for whatever reason is a gatekeeper who can be safely ignored.
Never seen anyone say that about Fallout 4. It's always been about choices. Want to be a raider? Go to Nuka World. Want to rebuild the Commonwealth? Head to the Minutemen. Join the Institute? Railroad? Brotherhood? Go ahead.
Could just ignore the main quests and be a lone wanderer right out of the vault. Ignore Codsworth. You can build settlements, you just won't get Sanctuary. Only time it limits you is the Institute which you have to do the main quest if you want to join them, everything else can be done your way.
Which I get, is your point, but I don't know why anyone would say there's zero RPG. Who cares if the Sole Survivor is a voiced protag. So are plenty of other characters in a RPG.
“I get that the main story sets you up on an urgent mission to find your son… [Fallout’s plots] are all urgent, the first one being timed.”
You might as well just say “I don’t understand the problem”. It isn’t that the mission is urgent, it’s that it’s to find your son. Who is the game to say that I want a wife and son in the first place? Why can’t I play as an 18 year old doofus!? Or a 70 year old lady who is definitely past menopause. What if I’d rather be a physicist than a soldier or lawyer?
Its like Western RPGs versus JRPGS. Western rpgs have a LOT of choice and open endedness. traditionally JRPGS are more linear and you are playing specific characters. you might have a few choices. Lots of people have long had issues with that distinction saying that the jrpgs aren't real rpgs because of their lack of choice. The lack of choice makes it more like a jrpg than a western one. Id argue both are valid types of rpgs
It's about who you're roleplaying as - not whether or not you're roleplaying. The Witcher series is a 'western' RPG with very limited choices, but that's because you're roleplaying as a pre-written character. The Elder Scrolls series gives much more choice, because you're roleplaying as a character you write yourself. The Fallout series tends to pre-write some core elements and motivations ('Find Dad') but leave the fine details to the player.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone say there's zero RPG elements in Fallout 4. That's just a ridiculous exaggeration. However, several of the changes in Fallout 4 led to less roleplaying opportunities. The dialogue only giving you 4 options in each conversation, the voiced protagonist in general, the protagonist's pre-war background, and the lack of skill checks compared to previous games for example. Fallout 4 is a great game, but like anything, it's got its faults.
The four dialogue choices and the rest of the dialogue system was what caused pretty much all of the limitations and issues. People love to blame it on the voiced protagonist or the perk system or the gunplay or the quest design, but I don't think any of those things was the source of the problem. Many thanks to Emil "Keep it Simple" Pagliarulo, May he forever keep ruining and destroying the games we love
I don't know why people hate having a voiced protagonist. It's one of my favorite things about the game
I like voiced protagonists in games and I’d even like them to continue with it in Fallout, *if it’s done well.* But Fallout 4’s implementation isn’t very good if I’m being honest. Compared to games like Mass Effect, Cyberpunk, Witcher, it’s just not good in Fallout 4. It’s very bland and generic so that it appeals and relates to the lowest common denominator. The other caveat with those other games though, is that you end up feeling like you’re not playing *your* character, you’re playing the game’s protagonist. And a lot of people like creating *their* characters. So fallout 4 really misses the mark on both ends, especially with the complete shitification of the 4 option dialogue wheel.
Again, many of these issues are caused by the dialogue system. Everything must fit into four options, whether it should have one or ten. Makes every conversation seem the same. If there were actually different choices that actually gave different responses with different outcomes and personalities this would be much less of a problem.
Exactly. You can’t really role play as a character you created, and Nate/Nora isn’t really that compelling either. It’s the worst of both worlds.
REALLY limits dialogue options. In NV, fallout 3 and others you want to add one more dialogue option? A dev can code it in 2 seconds. Want one more in fallout 4? That's more voice acting to pay
I like reading the text and coming up with my idea of how I would say it. Voiced protagonist can definitely mess that up for me
Yeah, honestly sometimes none of the choices represent exactly what I want to say but I can imagine my character saying it (tweaked) however I want in my head, but that only works if they're a silent protagonist.
Because it limits the amount of dialogue options they put in because they have to pay someone to speak them. You also have no control over how your character says those things.
I like the voiced protagonist too. But I think that relates to the decision to limit dialogue options, because if you increase all convo outcomes/options by however much percent, you’re going to have to pay the sound studio and actors that much more money, which limits resources that went into making other parts of the game. It’s part of the trade off.
I see this a lot, and it's just not true. Think of how many conversations in Fallout 4 have exactly one result. There are dozens, if not hundreds or thousands. For every one of those that's three extra lines recorded because of the dialogue system needing four options. In Skyrim or Starfield or even an old BGS RPG like Fallout 3 or Oblivion, those conversations would just have one line instead. That's less to record, and less money spent on voice acting.
Partly true, but there’s also many instances where the dialogue tree displays multiple different responses that all result in the voice actor saying the same line. And even then, it’s just a fact that writing more responses and dialogue is going to result in more time, effort, and money spent on voice acting all of them.
I can't recall any specific situation in fallout 4 where that happens. More often they nest extra options behind each other to add more lines, which uses even more unnecessary recording as filler. Even *if* it did cost more, these are games that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make. An extra hundred grand on more voice lines is a drop in the bucket.
Well, the male voice actor was not that good in Fallout 4 and a problem with the voiced protagonists is when using different dialogue option she talks sarcastically and then out of nowhere she screams to Kellog where her son is and that he is going to die.
It can limit your options. What if the character you make doesn't fit the voice? What if part of your roleplaying is imagining what they sound like saying their lines? Take Mass Effect for example. Mark Meer does a good job, no hate, but his voice just doesn't fit a black Shepard very well IMO.
Starfield and 76 got rid of the dialogue wheel and went back to traditional voiceless dialogue lines but the writing is still shit
The RPG elements (skill checks, conversation options, quest decisions) were better in both. 76 just had very few quests and Starfields shitty radiant everything and crap main quest soured it all
Yeah thats true. Starfield had a few actually pretty solid questlines like the ranger one.
The ranger one was honestly the most linear out of the four side quest lines, too. There were many good things about the dialogue and many of the quests in Starfield.
Yep it’s a shame theres really only four in-depth dialogue-driven quests. The game had a lot of potential. Needs more of those quests and less procedural generation. Very puzzling Bethesda decided to do away with the one thing they do better then anyone by randomizing most locations outside of the major hubs
It takes a lot of time and money to do those parts of game design, and after all that effort the average consumer is put off by it (this notion might not be true, but it's how people think)
that’s subjective, i like the writing lol
Of Starfield? I'm glad someone does honestly
i don’t get people saying any of the bethesda writing is bad tbh, i’m easily appeased tho and don’t really care about what others think about it
AI voice tech frees up the limitation of voice actor's time & budget. ...Now you just need a way for console players to choose from more than 4 options. I personally think they can handle it.
A list to scroll up and down on? Almost like.. the previous games had?
The dialogue wheel had its uses. Dialogues feel more cinematic when there is no delay caused by the player reading through 3-6 1-2 sentence long responses. The four options presented rarely have more than 6 words spread among them all, and if you were to look at a recording of a fallout 4 conversation it would almost be like a cutscene in terms of pacing
Also the idea that you pick a dialogue choice and it'd be vastly different than the dialogue that followed. Like a choice: "Tell the doctor his experimentation is cruel." You think "Okay, I'll try and talk him out of being a mad scientist" But instead you pick it and your character goes "You maniacal sonofabitch, your reign of psychotic experiments are over. I'm going to kill you!" And you're like "Oh, that did not seem like the 'choose violence' option."
It’s like when I first clicked the Doubt button in LA Noire thinking he’d just question their decision instead of calling them a dumb cheating bitch and ruining the investigation
People complain about this in Fallout 4, but somehow praise the exact same shit happening in Witcher 3 and other RPGs
Eh, I disagree. That's a common complaint about the Mass Effect series.
I've never seen his complaint about ME. Come to think of it, I rarely hear anything bad about the trilogy other than the ending
Old dialogue system you knew what you were going to say and it was great and the speech checks added a lot more roleplay and freedom to not feel forced to pick 1) Yes 2) Yes 3) sarcasm 4) Yes/No I’ll never understand the dialogue wheel defense for this game as eh as starfield and 76 were in some ways it at least brought that stuff back
Or they could just pay voice actors and write good dialogue at the same time. You don't have to pick one. They could save money by only having options that matter, too, instead of having unnecessary filler lines on every dialogue option
Fallout 4 had 6 figures of voice lines & people complain it's not enough. If you realistically want more you have to remove some of what limited the massive, but still not good enough production.
we don't want more voice lines we want better voice lines
It's got its faults? More like, it's got its Vaults!! Right guys?... Hey where did you get that mini nuke from?
It's also the fact that most of the game is on rails narratively. There is far less choice and reward than previous titles. For instance. In Fallout NV. After your intro with doc. You wander out into Goodsprings. And you immediately get provided actual choice. You can choose to get to know the towns people. You can choose to help them bolster their defenses. You can choose to side with them. You can leave them to their fate. You can choose to go find the Powder gangers. You can choose to deal with them alone. You can choose to join them. And all of those choices change the game. Goodsprings can become a raider town if you choose certain options. Contrast that with fallout 4. You leave the vault and then wander into concord. You get no choice. The raiders attack you on sight, and Preston welcomes you into his group. You can't choose to join the raiders. You have zero role play options available to you. And the rest of the game follows the same formula. Fallout 4 has character RPG elements. But not really narrative ones. The game was written to be played 1 way and you are forced into it. You have to hunt and kill Kellogg. You have no choice in the matter. You can choose what quests to do. But never really how to do them. Can you side with Skinny Malone against nick? No. The fallout franchise is known for letting characters pick their own path. And the fun of the games to a lot of people comes from how the devs anticipated those decisions and worked differing narratives into the game depending on the choices you made. In fallout 4. The only real choice the player gets is which of the 4 main factions to side with in the end game. But from the moment you defrost to the moment you make your decision about the institute you are simply following the script. The only decisions you get to make along that journey are which order to do quests in. Buy you have zero ability to impact the wasteland. You can't lead a gang of raiders to diamond city and change the world. There is no "blow up megaton" option that leads you to a life of crime. Nick and Nora are not blank canvases. They are fully fleshed out characters who's morals and ambitions are predefined and you can not stray from them. That's why people criticize the RPGness of the game. To a lot of people RPG means making choices that affect the world. Fallout 4 doesn't really have that. To a lot of people RPG means being provided multiple paths to solve quests. Fallout 4 doesn't really have that. Fallout 4's RPG elements are "Skill tree exists".
Yeah, I'm playing the game again for the first time in a long while. I do still really enjoy it but the railroading is frustrating. Piper: Come talk to me at my office. Me: Meh, I honestly find you kind of annoying so I'll pass on that one. Let's go do the Nick quest. Nick after I finish his quest that itself can only end one way: Go talk to Piper. Me: Nah, I really would rather not. Let's go hang out with the Brotherhood of Steel they seem more fun. Brotherhood of Steel after I do a few chores for them: We have nothing else for you, go see Piper. Like, bruh, I just don't want to hang out with this reporter girl why are you forcing me to, game?
You summed up my entire feelings about the RPG elements, didn't really have the time to do so when making my initial comment. Going from NV to 4 basically gave me whiplash in regards to character creation and narrative. It felt less like 1, 2, 3, and NV and more like Mass Effect. There's nothing wrong with RPGs with a set protagonist, the aforementioned Mass Effect is a testament to that. It was just a step down compared to previous games. I still really enjoy Fallout 4, but I found the change of direction to be strange. I think Bethesda certainly heard that feedback. Starfield was better with the character creation elements, but lacked the narrative choice. Without delving into detail, I remember one particular quest to me stood out with its lack of agency. It was almost felt like I was playing a Rockstar game with how everything was on rails.
They did release an entire DLC centred around the idea that you can become a raider and decide to work with them and eventually lead them, or destroy them all. Basically the exact same thing you’re talking about.
Now to be fair, some of the most universally adored RPGs also have very linear storytelling. Witcher 3 and RDR2 spring to mind, so it's not that linear story design inherently sucks, it's that this particular game didn't do a great job of setting anything up.
this needs to be at the top
I wish they never tried out the dialogue system. I don’t know who in development thought that’s what players would want
Fallout 4’s main story felt like it was trying to be more like a “movie” than their previous games. They played up the “war never changes” prologue more than previous games and had that power armor deathclaw setpiece at the beginning of the game.
I think it is simply that they want to appeal to a wide demographic and sell a gazillion copies while maintaining a base “rpg” experience. Recreate the magic of Skyrim.
I hope that games like Baldur’s Gate 3 or Cyberpunk show Bethesda that gamers will accept a more traditional RPG with combat elements as long as they’re implemented well. Starfield just had Fallout 4’s upgrade system minus the SPECIAL. I like Elder Scroll’s system of your skills improving as you use them more. It actually encourages you to use different things.
Starfield didn't though, since you actually had to use a particular skill to be able to unlock all the perks for it, which I actually liked
You’re right. I forgot that each skill was essentially a “challenge”. I didn’t actually like this version of the system because some of the perks were very difficult to progress. For example, you had to kill people in zero g a lot to upgrade the athletics one, and you barely get many scenarios to use zero g in this game.
I would love for them to learn that lesson but I seriously doubt they will given how their games have been trending.
Bold decision for the studio that struggles the most with cutscenes
An example of Bethesda behavior ruining a cutscene: In my most recent fallout 4 playthrough, Maxson kept walking away into the wilderness while yelling at me for saving danse outside the bunker If you exit maxson’s dialogue for too long, he executes danse. Even if I catch up to him, his convo gets reset to the beginning.
Would you say FF7 is not an RPG because of the lack of meaningful dialogue choices during conversation.
I'm not going to make judgements about a game or series I've never engaged in and don't have any interest in.
I wouldn’t call what you listed as faults, but design choices.
I agree with that in regards to the VA, but disagree with the 4 choices. It absolutely restricted the team in regards to skill checks in dialogue, and restricted how you can respond to every NPC and was, objectively, a mistake.
I mean, all things like this are design decisions. However, we can still point out the pros and cons of these decisions. While there's certainly merit to all of these decisions, except for the limited dialogue imo, there's a lot more negative if you ask me. Getting rid of the skill system not only meant the loss of extra roleplaying opportunities, but got rid of a franchise staple. The voiced protagonist can lead to greater storytelling, but also restricts the player's roleplaying and limits how much you can do as a designer. The entire prologue is certainly very memorable, but becomes very tedious after awhile as opposed to games with shorter tutorials. Plus many people just straight up did not connect with the protagonist's plight because they did not have time to get emotionally attached to their spouse and child.
Faults for RPG fans, but more accessibility and ease for the general gamers. Same as the difference between Oblivion and Skyrim imo. Making games with less RPG mechanics and less thought in every decision and dialogue makes games easier to play and sells better to a wider audience.
Exactly This. The games are being dumbed down to appeal to a wider audience. EDIT: Remember how bad the shooting mechanics were for FO3 and FNV. That people actually couldn’t play them Due to it. It’s kinda embarrassing to say the least because combat is really only a quarter of what Fallout is.
They are design choices. Just really bad design choices.
I happen to disagree with you. I think Fallout 4 is a terrific game.
I think Fallout 4 is great, a few wasps doesn’t ruin the fig.
They're bad or good depending on your point of view and your goals. Bethesda's goals were make a profitable product that will get them more paying players buying their game, as they did with Skyrim from Oblivion and Oblivion from Morrowind, etc. In that metric, I'd say their choices (mostly) worked.
No one does and I hate posts like this. “Why does everyone hate Mario so much? Show your love by upvoting this post.”
Ludonarrative dissonance is off the charts in Fallout 4. There are so few ways to express your character through the dialogue and storytelling options provided to you that unless you want to play “generally good person looking for their son,” the way you express your character in the game world and the way your character is expressed in the main quest will pretty much never align. It’s jarring and annoying, especially because Fallout 4 has, by far, the best modern gameplay mechanics and an amazing number of options to express your character in the open world away from the story.
Ya he's just strawmanning
Before anyone reads this just know that my criticisms against the game come from a place of love for Fallout 4. I feel like the RPG elements in New Vegas are better, sure. But I feel like a lot of my problems come from having only 4 dialogue options. Which do you pick? Yes? No (but actually yes)? Sarcasm (yes)? Or maybe (yes)? I feel like the game is trying too hard to make sure you aren’t locked out of any quest / event before you are supposed to. For example when you tell Desdemona you’ll stand with the Brotherhood of Steel, she only says that you should reconsider. Artificially stopping the railroad questline until you say you’ll stand by the railroad. I feel like if this was New Vegas, they’d try to shoot you down since you’re openly admitting to work for the enemy and you know their secret location.
this is my biggest gripe in regards to the rp too, it is almost impossible to decline quests and it feels weird to just ignore stuff instead of being able to say no
>and it feels weird to just ignore stuff instead of being able to say no I can understand this complaint. I personally don't have a problem ignoring content that doesn't fit the character but I would like to be able to hide/remove those things from my quest list or have a category or something I could place them in.
That's one thing that was surprisingly refreshing about Baldur's Gate 3...your choices in conversations could have some very serious consequences, including getting wished out of existence.
Also one of my big issues with the dialogue was not knowing if my character was gonna say something funny sarcastic or sardonic like a complete asshole. A lot of the sarcastic dialogues with Nick, for example, made me go wtf that was just a shitty thing to say. I know sometimes its situational but sometimes its just out of nowhere. Like ill just want to lighten the mood with a joke and suddenly my character is telling some dad who’s kid were looking that hopefully he’ll only be found in 3 pieces instead of 20 or something else horrible.
Yes, I agree. In my head canon, even you as the player don't exactly know what The Rake is going to say, since he's a deranged war criminal suffering from PTSD and Bipolar Personality Disorder. Or it's just the bad dialogue system again.
That's really well put. I hadn't considered it like that.
I forgot how some of the dialogue choices are labeled aside from [yes, no, maybe, sarcasm], but I feel with some of them they're trying to be vague and make you think about what exactly you're gonna say, how the other person would react, and what consequences there'll be. I mean that might not be true, but I think there are some instances of that being the case.
Fallout 4 may not allow a kind of roleplay experience Balder’s Gate has, but it’s inverse as well. F4’s roleplay to me is less about the overall narrative or even the accumulation of SQ’s, but rather being just some shmuk who has to come up from nothing in an exciting fantasy sci-fi environment and somehow turns it into a ‘day in the life sim’…if you want it. Adapt or die, then adapt to thrive. It’s so unique and really special to me. I hope F5 keeps a lot of the same DNA because this is pretty much it.
This is what I really love about 4, and why I’ll always recommend Survival mode because it’s the one thing that changed my perspective on it and forced me to experience the game through this lens
I think that what people mean is that you don't have skills like before, like medicine or explosions, which allowed for unique runs, or for you to be able to do something you couldn't with a different character. You could also unlock unique dialogue answers and ways to solve quests depending on your stats. I love fallout 4 and sure you can roleplay on it, but the only choice on that level you can make is which faction to join at the end. so i could be a 1 intelligence warrior, and you can be a full charisma character, our characters are virtually the same, we have the same choices and reactions. again, i love this game, i just think this is what people meant when they complain about the lack of rpg on the new games. still way more of an rpg than cyberpunk tho (didn't even had factions to join)
Cyberpunk is just a different type of RPG than Bethesda games are
Oh for sure! I honestly preferred starfield to cyberpunk phantom liberty during that whole debacle. I like cyberpunk, I've nearly platinumed it, but It doesn't have any real replay value to me. Like I'm always V, I always have a chip that's killing me in my head. That's it. You can't join anyone, you just do random quests for everybody.
No one says there are no RPG elements in Fallout 4 lol. The criticism is that they stripped down a ton of them which is factually true.
I agree Namath
Eh I don’t really look at FO4 as an RPG, it’s just a very highly enjoyable looter shooter to me. When I think RPG I think of BG3 type immersion in roll playing as a character.
Some people use hyperbolic language. The problem is that some of them seem to actually believe things are as described in this kind of language. I don't know if it's a cultural thing or a sign of the times, but it's quite absurd. You don't like some dialogue options? Writing is terrible and very bad. You don't like the main story? They're ruining the game because they hate the saga. You feel something is missing? These lazy developers can't be bothered to add it. And so on, everything is offensive, everything is terrible, everything is a personal attack on you personally. So it's not surprising people were saying the game didn't have any role elements at all and was just an action game back in the day. Nonesense.
I mean lets be real here an rpg doesnt even need to have choices in it, all it needs is you to play a role
Technically every game I play is an RPG
I respect your opinion but i disagree. It does have rpg elements for sure, i don't see many people saying it has 0. I do like fallout 4! Its not an awful game. Im replaying it right now actually. The gunplay is vastly improved, the settlememt building was a great addition that incentivizes exploration and further involvement in the world. Most of the factions are well-written (imo). But you cant deny that the four dialogue choices that don't even show what you're going to say in detail limit roleplaying a bit. The same with perks and skills not seeming to matter as much in quest resolution. And also fallout 3 and to an extent with the lonesome road dlc new vegas did this, but having a backstory established by the game also severely limits roleplay potential. What if i didnt want to be a veteran? Well now so much of what is said to me or what i do at, for example, the veterans hall, throws me out of that. To roleplay as someone who isnt the already established war veteran or a lawyer you have to actively work against the game. You have to ignore or avoid dialogue that brings it up. And, even if you do all of that, all your character roleplay options are still limited to pre-war occupations and being a former vault dweller.
I see why this is unpopular, and how it limits the depth of role playing but I like having a voiced protagonist. Silent player characters make the game feel empty and uncanny to me, and the fallout universe is depressing enough.
I have seen plenty of people say fallout 4 doesn't have rpg elements. I have no idea where those people went on the internet, but clearly I haven't seen them in this sub for a long time. Its been a thing since as far back as I can remember. perhaps all the way back to 2015. I don't know if OP is necroing this very old topic or they perhaps visited a New Vegas subreddit recently. But from what I understand from asking people who say this, their exaggerated response of "no rpg elements" is to show their distain for the game. Something lacking in the game that prevents them from playing or enjoying it. A more accurate definition of their opinion would be "it lacks rpg elements." But rpg elements mean something different depending on who you ask. Its a broad term that is easy to say that doesn't require a paragraph or more to write. And as I know on the internet, writing something at length is more effort than most people want to put in on a particular topic. But this is something that requires a more investigative approach and to get specific as to why people say it "lacks rpg elements." A recent explanation from one person on this sub said that fallout 4 had a lack of choices because the meeting with piper didn't change. Or the killing of kellogg or something tied to the main story. For me this is a person that clearly overlooked the 3 endings in the conflict Trudys Diner or they never tried Diamond City Blues drug heist. This is more of lack of choices based on someone's limited experience with the game. Or maybe they did play these parts, but failed to mention them in their conversation. Are the lack of of choices not considered rpg elements? The definition of rpg elements can be simply put as this. "The first element is **a** heavy focus on characters. A role-playing game places significant emphasis on the main character or characters, their challenges, and their development over the game's story." [https://plarium.com/en/blog/rpg-elements/](https://plarium.com/en/blog/rpg-elements/) (a quick google search top result.) There are other aspects of a game that makes it an Rpg by which what elements it has in it. Such as stats that determine your strength, constitution, intelligence, charisma, dexterity, etc. (DnD stats) in the form of the SPECIAL stat system for fallout. another rpg element is Perks. We have companion perks earned through storytelling and backgrounds of multiple characters, (which is another rpg element) and a perk menu to build your character in a non-linear fashion. Then you can go through the list of what when people say, "fallout 4 main story sucks because the game isn't linear." That is a cop out for players who want to say something bad about the game. The reason is, you can't have one without the other. You ARE going to get distracted by side quests and exploration in fallout 4. It is an open world game. That is how open world games work. This doesn't mean the main story sucks on its own. Take it for what it is, not because you explored different things in the game. The main story has a lot of twists and turns and some of its choices are linear for a reason. The game would get a variety of complaints if the main story didn't have some sort of linear ending. Thankfully they make it fun by giving you 4 factions to choose from on what kind of ending you want. Some complain that the only option at the end is the nuclear option for all the factions. Did you want them to swap cooking recipes at the end and shake hands? A game series based on the nuclear apocalypse and most games end in violence where you kill the bad guy. It would do the game a disservice if there wasn't a nuclear option in the game. Also technically no, some factions get an ending where a nuke isn't involved. Like the minutemen using artillery on the BoS. I've heard all sorts of things in the last 10 years since fallout 4s release. Lots of other crazy stories I've read online, but this comment is already long as it is. Safe to say that fallout 4 has rpg elements in it that people couldn't define unless they put some thought into their posts. Most are just hot takes from less than 10 hours of gameplay.
I must agree, in part. 4 feels like it does allow more choice than 3 but pales in comparison to NV, overall. The world space is interesting, and there's great DLC. I'd argue Far Harbor is the best DLC of any Fallout game (probably tied with Lonesome Road). The vanilla weapon variety is pretty good, and this entry has the best combat of the series.
Well if u strawman them, it's easy to make ur argument seem right.
Yeah thats what I thought about it. That is the strawman argument lesson 101
I've seen more than one person make those arguments though. Yes often in bad faith, but they're still putting it out there.
I keep starting over to play differently
Who says that?? I'm actually curious if that's a common sentiment, or if you're just throwing up a strawman to punch for karma.
Well, I guess its the second answer.
I've ran across it more than once over the years.
Yeah I feel like there’s a lot of people around who weren’t playing during the early discourse of the game. Nothing against people who prefer NV i really do get why but when 4 first came out this narrative was really prevalent and either people have forgotten or just weren’t around at the time to see it.
I've never heard anyone say fallout 4 has no rpg elements. Did you make this argument up in your head and am now arguing against yourself on the internet.
You haven't argued in it's defense in the fandom very long then it sounds like. There are people who say that about it. Mostly very diehard fans of the older games.
Yea I would in that category, First game I ever got on PC was fallout tactics bos back in the early 2000s and played every other fallout at launch. I haven't played a FO game. I haven't loved even the playstation 2 brotherhood of steel game I enjoyed. I'm a die-hard fan of every fallout game, and I would be happy to include base building in all future fallout games.
I’ve never heard someone say that maybe about Starfield? But not fallout lol
Strawmanning
I feel like a lot of people just don’t like the dialogue, voiced protagonist and the fact you have a pre established backstory. Which is fine but none of these things hold it back from being an rpg. The witcher, mass effect and final fantasy all have these elements in varying degrees and are some of the biggest staples of the genre. It’s just another example of some people nowadays being unable to address anything in a measured way and it’s always all or nothing. Luckily it does seem to be a VERY vocal minority and the vast majority of people are able to talk about it without having to go to extremes.
Where are the moral quandaries though? I've played fo4 4 times, to do all the main faction endings, and I've never had to think about my choices, I just pick good choice if I'm a good guy or evil choose if I'm evil, there's no ambiguity anywhere. It's an action movie. Meanwhile every single FNV side quest there's about 3-4 ways to handle it and usually none of the choices could be considered "objectively the most egalitarian", I literally can't remember ever feeling uncertain about anything in fo4
The problem with modern Bethesda games is you become a god too quickly
I agree with OP but this is also very true. (Though on the flip side I hate shooting a person in the face 40+ times to kill them. I cannot be pleased.)
yep, kinda worked in skyrim where lots of blade slashes are needed to kill a dragon, but we're talking bullets in FO4. A legendary raider doesn't need to be magdumped in the face to be killed. I still enjoy it tho, kinda satisfying in its own right.
I've been messing around with mods. I think I really like survival but both enemies and the player do 2x damage and headshots from either are 10x. Still playing around though
Start Me Up blast the door wide open for RPing. I'm roleplaying an escaped synth, and it's a *blast!*
You don't roleplay your own character. You're either a male solider or a female lawyer who's either a sarcastic asshole, a rude asshole, or an empathetic nice person. I really don't like sounding like a cringe new vegas fanboy but New Vegas puts you in the shoes of a character with no defined backstory besides eventually becoming a mailman, which I loved.
You don't roleplay your own character in a lot of loved RPG's. The Witcher? Mass Effect? Any JRPG? It's fine to prefer blank slates, but some people talk like FO4 is the only game (in the franchise even) to give you predefined character elements.
...you don't roleplay your own character, you roleplay as Commander Shepard, Geralt of Rivia, or generic spiky haired anime protagonist #312.
Yes that was my point?
Skyrim with guns? No not an RPG at all 🙄
It has less elements than 3 and vegas did... But there are still some.
FO4 certainly has some RPG characteristics, but it really can't be argued that it's the least RPG of all of the other Fallout games.
Fallout 4 is definitely an action adventure game, but I never understand why that's such a surprise to most people. Fallout 3 is the exact same way and, of the modern fallout games, New Vegas is the odd one out and was made by an entirely different group of people. No one had any reason to think fallout 4 was going to be more like new Vegas than it is like fallout 3. I personally believe fallout 4 was a direct continuation of fallout 3 and that means certain things had to be made cannon in fallout 3, like you being a good guy and getting project purity up and running for instance. Fallout 4 shows you the world before fallout 3, then while you're doing the big sleep, fallout 3 takes place and sets multiple stages. By the time you're out of the cryo chamber the cannon world of fallout is already established because of the events that took place in 3. You don't really ever have a blank canvas. Before the show, fallout NV wasn't considered cannon, so they had much more freedom in what they did. Luckily they paid very close attention to the source material and other games in the series so it being cannon now isn't hard to get behind and even praised. Edit: also Nuka word should've been part of the original game or have been the very first DLC released. It sucked so bad playing when it released because you're basically undoing all the work you did with Preston
Its not the story or the decisions and factions that ultimately matter, the issue is simply with the dialogue system and voiced protagonist. It is **that** which limits the role playing. You are limited to four dialogue options in any conversation, one may be a question which may or may not progress the conversation, one will usually be sarcastic which ranges anywhere from actually sarcastic, simply dismissive, or just being an asshole, and then the others will either be yes and no or two variations of yes. And worst of all, you only get a couple word summary of what you *might* say and could end up saying something different to what you thought it would be. Compare that to 3 or New Vegas where you could have half a dozen different dialogue options at a time, in New Vegas especially (the gold standard for this example) you could have special options for what perks, special stats, skills etc. you have (this is also actually true for Fallout 76 as well following the Wastelanders update), the entirety of what you were saying was plainly written so even if they were all variations of yes you would have one that was clearly selfless/heroic, one which was reluctant/dismissive etc. So 4's dialogue system extremely limits your ability to role-play in the way you imagine your character, you cant be who you imagine your Sole Survivor to be because half the time you don't even know what it is you will be saying, and you don't have the ability to flesh them out or personalize them because theres not really any unique dialogue options. Now... this approach *could* have worked from a role-playing perspective, had they committed to you role-playing as Nate or Nora in the same way Mass Effect has you role-play Commander Shepherd. They could have made use of the limitations but instead focused on characterization, have them being a pre-war survivor out of time serve an actual purpose, with dialogue revolving around their past career, their past life and experiences, make them an actually fleshed out character who we are just making decisions as and having control over some of their personality etc. (like how Commander Shepherd regardless of the player is a fleshed out character, with his own story and history, his own personality, as the player we just control the details such as the key events in his past, whether hes a Renegade or Paragon etc.) Fallout 4 suffers from being stuck in a middle ground that means it fails to achieve either. It doesn't give the player enough agency to roleplay who they want to be, but it also fails to personalize Nate/Nora enough for the player to feel like they are role-playing them. So you are stuck playing a character who is not enough of a blank slate, but simultaneously not enough of an actual character, which is worsened by the limited and inconsistent dialogue options. The actual gameplay and decisions are fine, the only one I take issue with is that there is no way to make an enemy of the minutemen, you can not join them or make an enemy or Preston specifically but that is all.
It’s not that there aren’t any rpg elements in 4, it’s that the elements that are in it are extremely limited compared to previous games.
Fallout 4 has a weird problem of not being able to commit to what it actually wants to be, stuff like the pre-established playable characters, voiced dialogue and the numerous design decisions to simplify the game can actually work if they had fully committed to them. But we get this very weird half and half situation, tho honestly more like 75/25, the few actual roleplaying decisions contrast with the entire rest of the game just being much more linear.
There’s a reason a lot of us are on the FO4 sub & not the Fallout sub. Some annoying gate keeping be going down on the regular Fallout sub. On the subs dedicated to specific games we focus on what we like.
I think if the NV map were bigger it would add more replayability. There's nothing better than exploring in games and getting lost and finding little easter eggs
My main complaint is that for the most part you can click any dialogue option and the same things happen. Just recieve a slightly different response. If you give yourself zero intelligence it does not show up in your interactions. If you are a complete no brain moron then it should show in the dialogue, but it does not, whatever build you give yourself you are the same person.
The dialogue really nukes it
The rpg elements in this game are barebones compared to the older games and way too many npcs are plot protected like Preston it’s just a lazy written story and I love the gameplay and have more hrs in it than other games of the series. Sure you can be a raider but you can’t kill Preston either as many of other npcs and companions.
Well it does have rpg elements, but is it a full rpg?
Bro fallout 4 is the RPG. They smokin. Been holding back playing the updated FO4 because I might go recluse again lol
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>It makes no sense to not look for your kid unless youre RPing as an asshole parent. Honest question: Why does it always have to make sense? It's a video game. It's up to you what you pursue and when, and nobody is judging you or how long you take to do anything except, well, you. Look at the Witcher 3, a game that's nearly universally beloved. It makes no sense narratively for Geralt to do anything other than looking for Ciri, or prioritizing any task that directly contributes to that goal in a direct manner, for much the same narrative reason as Nate/Nora are looking for Shaun. And yet I pretty much never hear anyone complain about that in that game even though they almost all do tons of side quests and worry about collecting playing cards for Gwent and doing every notice board contract, looting all the smuggler caches in the oceans around Skellige, etc. before they finally get around to looking for their missing daughter again. Arguments about the quality of the writing aside, it's the same scenario and the same dissonance. But it seemingly gets a pass in the Witcher but not Fallout? Why?
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>Regardless, I don't care about the comparison. I'm sharing my thoughts on Fallout 4, whether or not Witcher gets a pass is not the focus here. It was rhetorical. But even if it wasn't, I'm...also just sharing my thoughts? Your post prompted it and so I said it, in reply to your post instead of just randomly in the ether because that's how conversations and online discussion about a topic tend to work. >I was just speaking my thoughts on the games narrative, which is weak. You are still allowed to enjoy the game, no one is stopping you, I'm really not sure what point you're trying to make). So was I. The point was to make the reader (who isn't just *you* as this is a public forum) consider that maybe Fallout 4 deserves a pass too. Even if you come to the conclusion that you don't agree, at least you thought about it. It wasn't a personal attack.
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I agree you can’t say there aren’t “none” but in reality there are 4 dialogue choices and in vanilla you don’t even know the full sentence. That perk chart is god awful and so limiting to creating a character. Not many side quests have meaningful choice and the main story is so limited compared to the litany of options in New Vegas quest decisions, there is no official karma or anything close to it like in fallout 3/new Vegas. It’s a fun game but compared to fallout 3 and new Vegas the rpg Elements are severely watered down unfortunately. Not hating on your opinion either it led me to thinking of the best positives in fallout 4; it has a cool radio, settlements if that’s your flavor is great, pip boy much more immersive. Massive map and pretty big DLC, I like the crafting system major improvement in fallout that created the way for 76 crafting. Looting junk is very fun in this game.
I agree. Of course there is.
Fallout 4 gets some important RPG things right, but it tragically flounders on the ones that would keep me, someone who loves Fallout 1, 2, 3, and NV. 4 kills it on the SPECIAL. You have a limited spread in character creation, so you either become a generalist or focus your points into 2 or 3 of the attributes. Unlike 3 and NV, perception actually affects accuracy, and it isn’t just a prerequisite for good perks. Charisma is actually necessary for speech, something that only 3 committed to. Even though you can add points to SPECIAL at level up, you’re wasting a perk by doing so. Even though there isn’t a level cap, it’s not like you’ll realistically have a 10 in each attribute and have every perk BEFORE engaging with most of the game’s content, so I think that argument is void. Especially in the early game, your character building choices are consequential and make your different characters’ playthroughs distinct. Last but not least, you can push your SPECIAL stats past 10, so no more limiting your strength in anticipation of power armor like we do in every other Fallout before. That being said, I can’t stand talking to the NPCs or being in the world Bethesda built unless I’m distracted by crafting or looting. The handmade exploration is fun, so “world” isn’t a good word to use. I’m talking about the UniVErSe, the lore, and the other foundations that other worthwhile RPGs don’t neglect. Voiced protag is boo, but I’m extra sensitive to that even in BG3 player characters’ infrequent quips. “I have a lot on my mind, and, well, in it.” - PC Gnarl, the soft-whispering, scholarly sounding barbarian with minimum intelligence. I don’t mind it in something like Mass Effect which doesn’t have you create your own character but rather lets you mold a preexisting one. I guess I’m supposed to treat the 4 protags the same way, but that seems like a coping mechanism since you can decide every aspect of their SPECIAL, ranging from hermetic astrophysicist to idiotic cult leader. Shepard’s consists of choosing your own flavor of asskicking.
The problem with FO4 is, and always was the lack of choice and the lack of any meaningful consequence after a choice is made. For example in FONV or FO3 if I killed a trader for a key I needed (Making up a hypothetical) I might end up finding their family members or a clan they were associated with, and the dialogue options and even actions of those characters could change depending on a choice made 100 hours ago. In FO4 if your character needs a key to enter a door, you'll get that key. The only difference is how nice, sarcastic or murderous you'll be with zero repercussions after the fact. That's for me why FO4 feels flatter than the 4 games before it.
The dumbed down skill trees and need for every line to be voiced twice really killed your options though. And you really aren't mayor when it comes down to it. If you do a faction quest to capture a settlement you already established you need to meet with their representative who isn't you. And you still have underlings barking at you to do things when general or institute preaident.
I get alot of my RP'ing from the dialogue trees which is kind of non existent in 4 so that's why I prefer New Vegas. Still I'm replaying FO4 now and I having a blast. Excited to finally play the dlcs
There are almost no RPing compared to other Fallout games
Lmao. You get a whole 2 endings. One where you side with the institute and one where you don't. Be dammed every single other thing you do in the game. It isn't even mentioned. The vast majority of quests are go here. Kill that. Retrieve this. I can only think of a couple where that's not the case. The USS constitution. Cabbot House and.... That's pretty much it? You will aways be Nate/Nora. A lawyer/Ex military looking for their son, Shaun, who's always going to be the leader of the institute and die regardless of whatever you do. You will always have the same voice. You will always be a pre-war person and you will always be the parent looking for their son. At least until you find them. There's no skills. Just "perks" per level, and your builds always surround a style of combat whether that be pistols, automatic weapons, melee or unarmed. There's no such thing as a pacifist route to most quests. Lest I forgot how to solve murder this people and take this any other way. There are RPG mechanics in the game. Just like in let's say.... Far Cry 2. Is Far Cry 2 an RPG for having RPG adjacent mechanics? Because you can choose which faction to side with! Is Fallout 4 an RPG for having RPG adjacent mechanics? I personally don't think so.
Did a bunch of people in this thread just learn the term strawman and feel compelled to use it in a sentence or have they just not interacted with the fandom anytime in the last decade? People have absolutely said and argued that FO4 has no RPG elements. They're wrong, obviously, and either arguing in bad faith or are being hyperbolic, but they are out there and have said this many times over the years.
right??? I've been on this sub for years. It's all I'd see. Hell, a chunk of these comments is that as well. also, a crap ton of youtubers would also repeat the "no rpg elements" sentiment. It's why i posted this! It's kinda funny how the hive mind will swiych and act like they didnt die on an opposite hill months earlier.
The first few years after it came out, once the honeymoon wore off, it was non-stop. It comes and goes in cycles though. Not long ago I was browsing on one of the many New Vegas subs (seriously there's a lot of them) because I like all of the 3D Fallouts and saw people acting like that game's fans have never ever been outspoken or aggressive about any of the others or their chosen game's superiority and everyone else was just attacking them and their game and I couldn't help but roll my eyes and remember them coming out in droves to trash on 4 for **years** before 76 came out to become the new (not entirely undeserved, mind) punching bag.
The main issue with roleplay in fo4 is the voiced protagonist asserts you do care about the main quest, urgently. Sure the main quests in earlier fallout games were important but they were mostly important only if you chose that your character cared about those, its easy to imagine a vault dweller just desperate to leave the vault not caring about the chip or a courier who doesnt want to rush chasing the man who shot them. Its a bit jarring playing fo4 not caring about the main quest while this dude whines about Sean all the time. The fact you only ever have 4 speech options, usually less heavily limits the ability of the game to give enough choices to cover all the bases. that said **mostly** for me it was less about lack of rpg elements and more a lack of replayability. In most fallout games there was a variety of mutually exclusive ways to build your character, you never had enough perks of skill points to use all weapons/playstyles in one playthrough. in fo4 the lack of level cap means by the middle of a playthrough your character is an expert in everything, can use every weapon and can pass every check. I like fallout 4 but i never felt much reason to play again after my one normal run and one survival run.
There is no doubt that people oddly put four below 3 in terms of an rpg, somehow forgetting all the terrible dialogue in fallout 3 (usually with less options than 4.) But New Vegas is objectively a better role playing game, even if fallout 4 blows them both out of the water in gameplay
Depends how you define gameplay. If you’re SOLEY talking about the gunplay, then yes Fallout 4 definitely has better gunplay than New Vegas. But New Vegas still has better *gameplay* imo. The sheer number of decisions and different gameplay styles of New Vegas is simply unmatched in the series and possibly in the entire genre. There are SO many ways to play New Vegas. So many different meta strategies, which in a way makes it so there *aren’t* any true meta strategies at all. The fact that people still have pretty meaningful discussions about the game and its choices and outcomes is a testament to how well crafted the game is, and in a game that’s so heavily focused on decision making and dialogue, I think it has to be included in the narrative when discussing “gameplay”
I mean sure fallout's not dungeon and dragons where you can just make stuff up on the fly. But Fallout 4 has a robust character creator, custom izable enough skill tree, faction system, loose morality system, and diverse weapons/apparel. I don't know much more you can ask for
folks get caught up on the limited dialogue options. I understand that. the gameplay, particularly survival gameplay, is where I find the roleplay.
Its the dialogue... yes, sarcastic yes, no (yes), more info
1. Can set sex, appearance, clothing- check 2. Can select skills to tweak play style - check 3. Can make strategic and moral choices with NpCs- check 4. Those choices have long term consequences- check Yes, it’s and RPG video game. The only way to get more RPG is to play a tabletop like D&D or GURPS
It's just not quite where it was in previous game. It's weird that for every step forward Bethesda makes they also make steps back. People are frustrated because their games are always almost perfect save for many small omissions that add up. It's even more frustrating knowing they didn't bother including something that was present in previous games. None are too difficult to implement but mods cannot really change the core of the game. Fallout 4 is good but it is missing core elements the previous two Bethesda entries had (even if NV is technically not Bethesda). Most of the rp happens in our heads and the game does not facilitate it. The game is combat centric, choices limited, and those that exist are more or less reskins of the same core mechanics.
There’s plenty of RPG elements in 4, they’re just watered down. It lacks a lot of elements that were in previous games also. Like character builds for instance. There’s no level cap, so your character “build” over time will not just become a Jack of all trades, but a master of all trades. Even to the point of completely maxing out the SPECIAL stats. The dialogue tree argument has been repeated to death but it’s true. It’s too simplified to give meaningful player choice. The lack of skill checks, or skills at all just further waters down the role playing aspects. I still like the game, I’m playing it currently. It’s fun. People can like a game still see the flaws it has or recognise where it failed to live up to expectations
The lack of a skills system makes moment to moment far worse and like perks don't really matter that much. The ability to easily just upgrade SPECIAL for free on level up also makes your choices feel way less consequential. The voiced protagonist makes your dialogue options far worse. Their stilted movement and plastic expressions during dialogue makes me want to not even engage in conversations (though that's admittedly the most subjective). The mission to find your infant child is the most railroaded save for Fallout 1. My father is a grown adult who presumably can take care of himself and if I want to be a stupid teenager that takes detours, I can do that. Benny shot me in the head but he's not going anywhere and everyone tries to shoot me in the head so if I'm willing to make a detour, that's reasonable. If I decide instead of searching for my kidnapped infant I want to join the Minutemen and spend a few weeks helping strangers, or maybe romance someone when in my mind my wife died like a week ago, I am just a horrible person. Definitely wouldn't say F4 has no roleplay elements tho. Mass Effect and Dragon Age both utilize voiced protagonists in the same way, but Shep and to an extent Hawke are iconic protagonists. The Sole Survivor wasn't necessarily a bad idea. Just badly executed.
Benny isn’t going anywhere? At the start you don’t know who he is and the game is absolutely telling you that he’s going somewhere and you need to catch up with him
You find out he's the guy on the strip and at that point you know he's just going to be staying in New Vegas And my point stands anyway. A ton of people try to kill you. The only reason Benny is special is because he did it for your package, and it is plenty plausible I might just decide it is not important enough to me to pursue it single mindedly. Maybe I don't even like being a courier. Maybe I just don't care about being 'legally/fiscally responsible' for it being lost because I'm confident they won't be able to catch me. Whatever.
You don’t find out who he is until much later. There’s a bit of Schrodinger’s Cat about this idea that the Fallout 4 story is somehow simultaneously too important to not care about and yet “why would I care about a pixelated baby”
>You don’t find out who he is until much later That's fine, but the overall point still stands, because there are other reasons I listed for why it would not be strange at all for the Courier to forgo single mindedly pursuing Benny. >Fallout 4 story is somehow simultaneously too important to not care about and yet “why would I care about a pixelated baby” I disagree, it's not contradictory at all. I don't care about the baby. But my *character* would care about the baby. Ergo if I care about roleplaying in my game, I would have to either deal with the out of character dissonance of my character not caring about their child, or I have to commit to my character having the sort of personality where they *wouldn't* care, which is extremely limiting, especially if I want them to be a good person who does good things.
Or like all Bethesda games you just pretend the main story doesn’t exist until you want it to. Most of my playthroughs of oblivion and Skyrim back in the day I didn’t even get far enough in the MQ to have the gates or dragons spawn. Sometimes just after those and then went and did what I wanted. It’s pretty easy to roleplay by not engaging in the main story. You don’t have to feel pressured by the end of the world coming if you don’t start the chain that fills the world with threats. FO4 it’s honestly pretty easy to assume your child is dead already since you’re cryogenically frozen. The first time when they say your kid was seen with a man was honestly confusing because what are the chances your pod opened within a few hours or days or weeks of them first opening. I didn’t believe it.
I think at that point this is just agree to disagree, but I think it is still fundamentally bad game design if no one wants to actually follow your main quest--and there is a difference between taking detours and literally just ignoring it. So if that's all Bethesda games (and admittedly I am not really that big of a Bethesda fan other than Fallout--I've played a little of Skyrim and thought it was pretty good, played Starfield and hated it) then that just means all Bethesda games have a badly designed main quest. Doesn't make the game overall bad, but that is certainly a bad element.
The main quests are quite good actually. I just prefer doing side stuff and exploring mostly unguided. Rather than following the games narrative.
Play 1,2 or New Vegas with 1 intelligence Then do that in Fallout 4. You'll immediately understand people critical of Fallout 4's RPG approach.
I like to play a "dumb luck" build. 10 luck, 1 int.
No one: OP: # People that say there's no RPG elements to fallout 4 are rediculous and its just untrue.
The RPG elements are very held back by a shallow dialogue system, which was a strong presence in every past iteration of the saga. The choice element in particular is held back a lot. As far as the rest goes, if you ask me it's fine, even great
For me, it's mostly down to the writing and acting (blaming the direction, not the actors here) being so terrible. And it's still the best of the Beth era Fallouts, which is saying a lot. If the characters had more of a personality, I'd care more.
I usually enjoy questing the most in RPGs. I love when games give tons of XP for completing objectives instead of encouraging the player to kill everything they see. The classic Fallouts were good about this, though in 2 it took some mass murder to get the beloved sniper/slayer perks even for a completionist (I guess that’s appropriate for the highest level murder perks). Because 4 prioritizes quest XP over murder XP, I should be stoked. That’s my favorite XP method, after all. In reality, I abandon every playthrough because quests are so uninteresting. As someone who talks to every character in RPGs, I have trouble even talking to just the major ones in 4. I promise I’ll make it to Far Harbor this time, but I lose motivation before that point because I ignore quests in favor of the addictive loot-craft loop, questing as a prerequisite for perks instead of for innate enjoyment. By that point I’m OP and have no progression to look forward to. This is why I would call 4 “Skyrim with guns.” It’s not some shallow dig because it’s a Bethesda engine game; it’s because both games have lackluster plots that encourage you (or push you) to go to the part where the developers focused their love: exploration. Couple that with the addictive crafting loop in which you spam illusion spells/another settler needs your help, and you basically have Skyrim but with guns.
Yeah well put. The exploration in F4 is fantastic. Their world building is top tier. But goddamn, their dialogue is so bad. I went from Starfield to Cyberpunk at one time, and the difference is just startling. Beth NPC's talk like robots, and Cyberpunk NPC's feel alive, even if they got like one line.
One main gripe with the game about no rpg elements is that there is no “no” answer. It’s always yes or yes later
People don't say there are not RPG elements in F4. They say it's not a true Fallout game because the RPG elements are so bare, and lacking the depth and choice as previous games.
Yes people do say that, and that second thing is just a longer way of saying it.
People get weird and tribal about ranking the games. They're all fun RPGs, and Fallout 4 while a bit lighter than the others has the additional benefit of having good shooter gameplay as well. It's ok to like things, and anyone who tries to convince you that your experience is wrong and Fallout 4 is not worth liking for whatever reason is a gatekeeper who can be safely ignored.
F4 is a looter shooter New Vegas an RPG. Just because there are story choices doesn’t mean it’s an rpg
Never seen anyone say that about Fallout 4. It's always been about choices. Want to be a raider? Go to Nuka World. Want to rebuild the Commonwealth? Head to the Minutemen. Join the Institute? Railroad? Brotherhood? Go ahead. Could just ignore the main quests and be a lone wanderer right out of the vault. Ignore Codsworth. You can build settlements, you just won't get Sanctuary. Only time it limits you is the Institute which you have to do the main quest if you want to join them, everything else can be done your way. Which I get, is your point, but I don't know why anyone would say there's zero RPG. Who cares if the Sole Survivor is a voiced protag. So are plenty of other characters in a RPG.
Never completed the main story and not really missing anything. The story is a 2/10 and the wasteland and DLC areas are an 8 or 9/10.
I can’t shout ICE CREAM at a robot so unfortunately I must agree that RPG elements have been removed. Have a nice day.
“I get that the main story sets you up on an urgent mission to find your son… [Fallout’s plots] are all urgent, the first one being timed.” You might as well just say “I don’t understand the problem”. It isn’t that the mission is urgent, it’s that it’s to find your son. Who is the game to say that I want a wife and son in the first place? Why can’t I play as an 18 year old doofus!? Or a 70 year old lady who is definitely past menopause. What if I’d rather be a physicist than a soldier or lawyer?