• NeonNight@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      6 days ago

      Someone the other day was telling me the game would have been better if your spouse could be saved and be your companion. Like fuck no dude that sounds terrible for an RPG. It was super upvoted too, I’m guessing these are the fans that came from playing FO4/FO76

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        0·
        6 days ago

        I mean… I can see that theoretically working… but not with the way Bethesda handles companions.

        If your companion is functionally invulnerable, and the ‘points’ systems that govern their disposition toward you are very simplistic and easily gamed… yeah this would be very, very cheesy and janky, and because there’s no real agency on the part of your spouse, along with no real risk of them ever being seriously, permanently hurt or killed, it would all feel fake and stupid.

        …

        But!

        You could make a very compelling game with a while bunch of branching plot paths based on key, pivotal decision/priority moments relating to how you and your spouse agree or disagree on things.

        Something like this, done well, could be a very compelling New Game +, for FO4, or just a whole different game.

        If you made a game where… you know, your spouse can fucking die, and the game can move on after that?

        No invulnerability, no ‘severed thread of prophecy’ shit…

        If you could actually take the concept seriously, I can see a game working around the core concept of ‘you and your spouse try to survive the apocalypse’.

        Maybe theres certain ‘good’ endings where you two fight a bit, but ultimately reconcile and defeat some greater foe, achieve some good goal.

        ‘Bad’ endings where you piss off your spouse so much that they actually leave you, form a faction against you, force you into a moral bind where you have to kill them to do what you think is right.

        Maybe theres middling endings where you do achieve big goal, but at the cost of your relationship, or your spouses life.

        …

        There are ways something like this could work, but I have 0 confidence that Bethesda is competent to either write compelling plot and dialogue for this, nor do I think they could actually code, actually structure a game that allows for all this.

        They can handle basically side quests that modify the totality of an end state in fairly superficial ways, but I don’t think they can even concept design a game where the actual core plot is quite variable.

    • CrayonRosary@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      7 days ago

      It was a first-person looter/shooter with a story, crafting, and base building. What’s an “RPG”? 😄

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        0·
        7 days ago

        RPG means ‘role playing game’.

        Where you get to decide what role you want your character to play.

        Where player choice and creativity, problem solving approach… are as, if not more important than the underlying ruleset and world.

        Where your decisions in the world meaningfully change how the story progresses, how the world evolves.

        Where you can fail in your mission, even if you don’t literally die.

        You… do know that the original Fallout was literally built as a DnD like, TTRPG, first, and the devs played multiple rounds of this, with a game/dungeon master and whatnot, to prototype the mechanics and balance that would go into the computer game… right?

        That the game itself could beat you, and you would just fail, if you fucked about and didn’t discover a solution in time?

        • CrayonRosary@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          7 days ago

          I was making a joke. I know what an RPG is. I completed Fallout 1 years ago and really enjoyed it, but never finished 2.

          I just don’t care that 4 doesn’t live up to some RPG standard. It’s a game. It’s a fun game. If everyone would stop judging it for what it’s not, that’d be great. That goes for all games. Hell, all media!

          Who cares what it could have been? Who cares what it’s history is? Is the game fun? That’s all that matters. Instead, we have a bunch of gatekeepers in the fandom who dump on FO4 every chance they get, and it’s exhausting.

          • FilthyHookerSpit@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            5 days ago

            I agree with the sentiment but not the premise. If you played the older fallouts then it shouldn’t be surprising that fallout fans are upset that the game diluted itself to appeal to a wider audience. Nothing wrong with a looter shooter with base building mechanics, just don’t slap fallouts name on it when it lost everything that makes a fallout game…fallout.

            • CrayonRosary@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              5 days ago

              when it lost everything that makes a fallout game…fallout.

              It had the dark humor and the setting. Retro-futuristic 1950s aesthetic, ruins of America, Pip-Boy, Vault-Tec, SPECIAL system, V.A.T.S, consumerism satire, quirky NPCs, Super Mutants, Ghouls, Power Armor, in-game radio stations with oldies music and DJs, Brotherhood of Steel, etc.

              That’s what makes a game a Fallout game. If it had none of that, but had intense roleplaying, would it have been a Fallout game?

              Think of all the stories the game told. All the minor characters you helped. The depth of the companion quests. The mystery of the synths. I could go on and on about the stories and fun that were had. So I will!

              • The big twist regarding Shaun.
              • The Institute and synths turning out not to be a conspiracy theory.
              • Joining major factions: Brotherhood of Steel, The Institute, The Minutemen, The Railroad
              • Building and defending settlements
              • The Kellogg confrontation and memory dive
              • The Silver Shroud quest
              • Nick Valentine’s noir detective backstory
              • Cabot House and the alien artifact
              • Pickman Gallery and the serial killer subplot
              • Nuka-World DLC
              • Vault 81 and Curie
              • Vault 95 and Cait
              • Combat Zone
              • Diamond City and Piper
              • The Mechanist

              And more and more! It was a huge storytelling game with tons of awesome content. That’s what makes it a Fallout game. Not because you can choose to blow up Megaton or whatever. Actually, you could blow up the Brotherhood. Close enough.

              All the negatives do nothing to ruin that.

              How can you say what a straight face that it “lost everything that makes a fallout game…fallout”. Nonsense.

          • abysmalpoptart@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            7 days ago

            I think this is a bit of a fallacy. While i agree on the premise that if it’s a fun game it’s fun, where is the line? The fallout series was primarily very story driven for over 20 years. If it doesn’t matter, then make it something completely off the wall - fallout 5 - the basketball drama. Life in a post apocalyptic Indiana isn’t easy, but what’s even more difficult is getting to the championship. Changes to stat scaling include sharpshooting, which improves your 3 point shot. There’s potential here.

            At some point, you build a reputation and a fan base. I’m glad some people enjoy the game for what it is, but what i want is a new story that made me feel like fallout 2 did. New Vegas was the closest one. Fo4 wasn’t it.

            It’s a standard that the series built for itself.