Fallout 4 now belongs to the same ilk as Far Cry, Dying Light or GTA - just an open-world game with customization and player upgrades.

• No Skills progression. Just pick a perk on level up.
• No Crit. Chance and less Stats. "People don't like number crunching." -Todd Howard
• Focused on player skill, not character kill. Hired id and bungie employees for help.
• Power Armor isn't armor anymore. It's a vehicle you enter with a limited resource so it can't be used too often.
• Dialogue Wheel. Limits responses to 4 options with abbreviated sentences so we have no idea what we will actually say when we select it. (This is how we'll get people to replay the game again. Great idea! )
• Voiced protagonist. This isn't such a bad thing, on the surface level, but with mods being the heart and soul of gamesas games it will hinder the modding scene.
• Companions can't die. Well, the dog can't but we might as well assume the others have god status' too.
• No weapon degradation. "It just interrupts the action." -Someone at Bethesda
• No hardcoe mode. Be honest, if it was in, they would have mentioned it already.
• Minecraft and GTA V were inspirations for F4. -Todd Howard

_> : "Gameplay trumps story," http://www.1up.com/features/fallout-3-afterthoughts?pager.offset=1, lead writer on Fallout 3^{and more than likely lead on Fallout 4.}

There are no classic role-playing elements to speak of, we're allowed to do everything with no restrictions what-so-ever. Instead of prioritizing realistic world-building or deep, multi-branching storylines, they choose to focus on interactivity like crafting weapons, building homes, collecting junk. Mind you, those are awesome things to have in a RPG, sure, but what about story and reactivity?

It may seem like I'm an NMA, Fallout purist, but that's not the case. I loved the idea that Bethesda had for F3 and before release I was stoked waiting to play a new Fallout in the spirit of TES but it was just poorly done. More than anything, I wish Howard would stop with the "We at Bethesda love the Fallout series" when they have no clue on how to properly utilize its material. It may sound rather pompous, but they don't get it. They are turning it into just another post-apoc. adventure game.

Ugh, /rant ^{I just had to vent.}

I think you underestimate Bethesda. Skill progression is most definitely alive and present, as are many other role-playing elements.

agree on the first 2, but for the rest

• 1: Power Armor isn't armor anymore. This is just speculation, chances are the first version we see in the demo could just aswell be a old damage model, and the upgrade system will perhaps allow infinite battery life along the way.
• 2: Dialogue Wheel. I Agree that it does make for a "oh hell i did not want to say that!" moments, but i will reserve judgement untill i play it.
• 3: Voiced protagonist. I guess i am optimistic about this, listened to a podcast with the male voice for the PC yesterday and i got to say i am looking forward to hearing my character speak. In good honesty i always felt odd selecting lines and then having a imediate NPC responce to it, like i telepathicly talked to him.
• 4: Companions can't die. All i can say here is that i personaly would godmode them annyway. I realy hated it when dogmeat got wrecked in FO3 all the time, it always forced me into a reload.
• 5: No weapon degradation. If it was implemented at all like in Vegas, then i am glad its gone. Its suppost to be a wasteland of scarse equipment and such, but i needed 4 rifles of the same type in my inventory just to keep my weapon 100% for longer then 3 hours.
• 6: No hardcoe mode. Just because they havn't anounced it yet doesn't mean it isn't in. We knwo so little about the game still in game mechanics wise, that we can't say for sure if it's in or not. Same goes for point 5 though.
• 7: Minecraft and GTA V were inspirations for F4. Honestly though, putting these two against what they inspired ingame, we can understand them taking inspiration from GTA due to its basis in sandbox open world building. In ways of making a city or world come alive GTA has been trying (and admitingly failing sofar) too create a living world where npc's are not just code walking around, that the world feels somehow alive. As for minecraft, it is the basis for our building a settlement thing, i dont see a problem on either of these being used as inspiration, solong that they dont tack on systems that should not be in Fallout, ported straight from those games. (No Vanilla Unicorn lapdance )

Actually crit chance is still in, the crit meter is a extra feature on top of normal random crit chance.

Also Skills are effectively in, just intervowen into the perk chart.

So yeah, its more a case of it being a different kind of RPG then less of a RPG

It's a video game, not a alternate life mate! Jesus Christ , For the price you pay you get 100 hours plus of entertainment if not more. Calm your nipbles, go play parapa the rappa or something.

No kidding. But you forgot to mention Rust, a game F4 is clearly inspired by. Or just the tens of useless time-wasters.

Then again, I did enjoy Far Cry 3 and each GTA, so F4 will make a great spin-off. Keeping that in mind I'm actually looking forward to it. When it drops to a spin-off price anyway.

I think its better for your mental health in the long run to just stop being a Fallout fan all together, because I have a feeling every Fallout game from now on gonna be a "spin off" in your narrow, riggid mind.

Disappointed in you OP, you could have at least called it a dating simulator aswell. Missed your chance there bud boooo.

2/10

you do realize that most of those points will be modded in sometime in the future

and yes from a rpg perspective a voiced protagonist idoesn't really improve the game

abnd be honest , the old skillpoint system was kind of dumb , static and very open to abuse

and we still have vats do we , except that it looks to be more fluid and realistic in a sense that you can not use it anymore to pause the game while you get another cup of coffee

power armour should be something special , not some end game best armur tou wear as you would wear any set of clothes

I'm not sure if half of the things you're concerned about have to do with RPG elements.

• No Skills Progression: I semi-agree with this, though I have to play it before I judge it.
• No Crit. Chance and less stats: The move towards manual crits is silly, but I'm not sure what the source of your quote is.
• Focused on player skill, not character skill: You're forgetting that Bethesda makes action-rpgs. Once they made the move to first-person for Fallout, it was only natural for the combat to be more focused towards player skill rather than character skill.
• Power armor isn't armor anymore: Power armor isn't meant to be regular armor. It was meant to be a replacement for the mechanized units of the U.S. military, thus relegating the role of armored vehicles to power armor-clad infantry.
• Dialogue Wheel: Agreed.
• Voiced protagonist: I don't really care about it.
• Companions can't die: I have no faith in Bethesda's ability to make companion AI good, so I'd much rather go the New Vegas route of making them invincible.
• No weapon degradation: Good. Call me a casual if you want but I dislike item durability in most games. Also, no source on quote.
• No hardcoe Mode: I'd be all for it if they made the survival mechanics meaningful.
• Minecraft and GTA V were inspirations for F4: Depends on the extent.

Not sure why I'm bothering to respond to this, but...

...which is why a random crit happens during one of the non-VATS combat video clips

Not sure how improving basic gameplay mechanics automatically makes something not an RPG. (Personally, I never noticed it, but I do remember that "the shooting feels terrible/the gunplay is pretty janky/etc" was a common complaint on both the FO3 and NV boards.

...which is something that people, esp old Fallout fans, have been praising. That "Power Armor is finally special/represented properly, not just another set of clothes to throw on."

While it may not be how some prefer, there have been other RPGs with similarly summarized dialogue choices. (i.e, this doesn't make it "not an RPG")

Additionally, being willing to believe things happen for reasons other than "the devs are idiots" or "Beth hates us", it occurred to me that the shortened responses (4 choices, summarized) may have been required as a byproduct of their attempt to make this Dynamic Dialogue system.

(In other words - if you no longer get locked into a paused dialogue window with the character you're speaking to, and you're supposed to have the capability to "talk on the fly" by just pointing at the NPC and picking a choice as you/he/everyone continue about their way, it wouldn't be possible for people to read whole paragraphs of responses, or scroll through a box of a dozen answers. Yes, I personally feel that dialogue system will be annoying, and would greatly prefer the traditional paused-window method, I still understand that design decisions influence the things around them - having decided that they wanted to go with this live-action-dialogue thing, that choice would ripple outward causing other things to happen. Like short dialogue summaries.)

Modders have had to deal with this issue for years - remember, the NPCs have been voiced for several games now. 95% of the time, modders have dealt with it by... not using voices. Even though that stands out from the "regular" game dialogue. No big deal.

You mean like in Fallout New Vegas? Yeah, that game svcked.

You say this like it's a bad thing. New Vegas's "Extra Tedium" mode wasn't the world's most popular feature. (Not the best statistic in the world, since some folks played with achieve disabled, but Steam Achievements shows that a whole 4% of players finished the game that way.)

Yes, because seeing interesting developments in games, across genres, and using them to help improve your own game design, is a terrible thing. The game industry would be much better if people didn't share ideas and kept rigidly to the traditional constraints of their particular genre or series. (similarly, other devs aren't allowed to take inspiration from Bethesda games.)

(Also, are you aware of the http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/7070/? mod for Fallout 3? Apparently, people thought that building & managing your own little town would be a good addition to the game....)

You probably didn't communicate this in the best way possible. People here are pretty fickle and hate to see anyone say anything critical about their beloved franchise.

Lots of your points don't make sense (e.g. power armour, less stats), but I see what you're saying (unlike most people). The game feels like it's focusing on the more appealing, explosive elements of Fallout rather than the roleplaying elements, what with the crafting system, settlement building, focus on combat and streamlining of various aspects of the game. The whole thing echoes eerily of Skyrim. The overall feel of the game appears to be less dark and confronting too.

However, I wouldn't be too worried if I were you. I'm stoked with 90% of what they've shown. The focus on GUNZ and EXPLOSHIONS is probably to appeal to its wider audience, and we haven't really got a glimpse of how choice affects gameplay or any footage of the darker, scarier side of the game. The game will be outrageously fun; just keep an open mind about things such as the new perk system and the voice protagonist, and I'm sure Bethesda will deliver on its promise.

I guess this is their way of showcasing the rebuilding theme that's been prevalent in the series. Hopefully they'll strike a balance between that and the equally prevalent "War, war never changes".

Still have no faith in their writing, but maybe their visual storytelling will make up for it.

Really? You don't think they've prioritised world building?

Also your example of "gameplay trumps story" is a specific incident where they realised too late it was a problem and had to make a judgement call.

We don't know how deep or multi-branching the story is. And we don't know if you can do everything with no restriction whatsoever.

Crits aren't a random roll anymore, it's activated on use. Unless I missed where they explain it differently...

As I stated in other threads, if you look at the Xbox presentation, the last raider the player kills before talking to Preston dies to a critical hit (complete with a message in the upper left corner of the screen) yet the player is clearly not using vats or the crit meter.

crits will still be random OUTSIDE of VATS. the crit bar only appears in VATs

wasnt that last raider shot by Garvey, and not the player?

Yeah, they seem to be applying a unique atmosphere to this game as opposed to the others in the series, with the whole 'rebuilding' theme and focus on robotics and technology. I don't like it, but I won't knock it until I've played the game. After all, NV had a distinctly different feel to FO3 (with its Western theme) and it ended up being awesome IMO (actually inspired me to watch Spaghetti Westerns for the first time).

As long as there's still plenty of physical and moral decay to be found in inner Boston, and darker environments such as The Glowing Sea and the metro system (assuming it makes a return), I'll be happy.

Nope, the first raider shot by a laser musket was Garvey, every other up until we see the player talk to him was the player.

Huh? Unless I'm missing something, the last raider was definitely killed by Garvey. You even see it dissolve into ash.

Don't really get why people think FarCry3 when discussing F4. The perk feature is something they use in the Witcher as well and i haven't seen anyone claiming TW3 is not an RPG anymore, but an open-world hack 'n slash

Just rewatched the footage, Garvey was nowhere near that raider, the player killed it with there musket and ash piled it with there shot.

Can't say that I disagree with OP, but then again (I've said this before and I'll say it again), none of these computer games (TES/FO) are RPGs, they are computer games. A clever marketing person dubbed them RPGs to get the actual RPG crowd onboard, but if you like RPGs, table top is for you. I like creating a character on a sheet of paper with stats, skills, etc., but that's a completely different thing. I don't play Fallout for the RPG effect, it's just an awesome computer game and I'm sure I'll be happy with it regardless of the changes from Fallout 3.

Meanwhile, I'll also be playing RPGs with my real life friends.