Hello Everyone, I've been playing Bethesda games since I bought morrowind in 2005, Each time a Fallout or ES game came out, It would be my favourite game since the last one, Fallout 4. was not, here's why

It all boils down to the lack of an RPG aspect as opposed to an FPS one

The leveling system

Fallout 3 had 13 skills;

Combat Skills - Big Guns, Energy Weapons, Explosives, Melee Weapons, Small Guns, and Unarmed.

Active Skills - Lockpick, Medicine, Repair, Science, Sneak.

Passive Skills - Barter, Speech.

Having a high skill in any of those in the last 4 games would enable you to pass certain Dialogue checks during quests.

(Note that is copy pasted from a Reddit post however I think its a good starting point and I can't put it any better)

This was not the case in Fallout 4. Fallout 4 didn't have these skills, which I felt took away from my Characters individuality, which may I add, was non existant. I could be the master of all trades having every 'Perk' In the game maxed out, Which was another problem I had, The perks were very lack luster and not MANY, albeit a few, Had many Unique entertaining 'Perks' and they each worked off a level system, the few and far between unique perks usually came at the end of the 5 levels,

in short, I HATED the leveling system and removal of skills, Maybe its individual taste, but I know a lot of people who feel the same

Heres some other quick points

-Special stats could all be improved on

-Perks were limiting, felt underwhelming when leveling up

-Reminds me of dungeons and dragons, used to be innovative

My Character wasn't me, I was simply along for the ride

The new dialogue wheel along with the voiced protagonist pretty much ensured this

I had 3 options and a Charisma speech check usually in the dialogue wheel, usually consisting of

-Yes

-Yes ( Sarcastic )

-No, but I will probably will have to later

-Give me caps! -Speech check-

I'm sorry Bethesda. but you said this wouldn't limit my ability for speech, MAYBE this didn't ? maybe it was the lack of any skills like I said above, but compared to other fallout games, my speech was extremely LIMITED, I don't need to explain why I don't associate this word with bethesda games.

On top of this, the story forces me to be a caring father, whos just looking for his son, Christ I even have a full fledged Back story, I was in the army or something? Oh... thats nice? Which brings me to my next point

NO KARMA SYSTEM?!?!?

I don't even know what to say about this. There's probably none because you're forced to be a father who makes good karma decisions 99.9 percent of the time, Hell, theres no way to do an evil playthrough its just 4 good playthroughs with a difference of ideals

Dialogue.

I've touched on this already but for me the dialogue was appalling.

Dialogue was limited as all hell, also it felt like there was no reason you would ever talk to someone

unless you 100% needed to for quest progression or bartering reasons, Half the people wouldn't even talk back ffs, Not having the skills or unique dialogue perks took away at least half of the dialogue options that were in previous fallout games.

I can't stress enough how it felt like there was absolutely 0 need to talk to anyone, just reiterating

The voiced protagonist was also awful for a role playing game such as this one IN MY OPINION

and again took away from my feeling of actually being the character

Finding GOOD quests

The side quests didn't just kind of appear like in previous fallout games, you had to go looking for them. This, and I didn't give two hoots about any of the side quest characters, there were no branching story side quests. and in almost every side quest I was reminded of how 'I'm just looking for my son!'

Some credit to nmeseth as the point I made on skills was taken from his reddit post

Sincerely - A disappointed Fan, who WILL be buying every game you release in the future.

A lot of the things you've bolded are common gripes with that people have with Fallout 4. I for one, know where you're coming from but at the same time, you can learn from every mistake!

Let's hope future Bethesda games learn from Fallout 4's weak points.

They have made good games in the past and they have excellent models, feedback and experiences to learn from so I really do hope they learn from this and it shows in the next TES.

I agre with a lot of your points, although some to a lesser extent.


While I do miss the old levelling system, this new one isn't too bad. I would say after getting used to this new mechanic it's about 50/50 for me. Although the no level cap is kind of stupid in my opinion


Karma is meh, it was cool in previous games but I don't miss it that much to be fair.


I totally agree about how "you were along for the ride" I feel the same. This was made blatantly obvious with the opening cutscene telling you your characters specific back story. But once I accepted it, I started to enjoy it. Sure I prefer a virtually unknown character who's story is what you make it. But I sill found the game enjoyable for what it was.


Fallout 4 also does things a lot better than any previous fallout game.


Crafting, Combat, Enemies, and Urban Exploration to name a few

Personally, I think the arguments regarding FO3 vs FO4 attributes allotting methods are no more than semantics. At the end of the day, you can pretty much achieve the same results. The only real difference here is whether you know ahead of time before allotting the 21 points you're given, what type of specific abilities each one is tied to.

You still have the same old methods of buffing healing, sneaking, hacking, whatever you want. Granted some things Bethesda hasn't explained very well, but by the time you look at the Perk list, which you can do early on in the game, you should know if you allotted your points to your liking or not. It not, just reload the save prior to allotting them, and start over.

Essentially it's still a type of skill system, just more streamlined and worded differently, but the results are the same, and less grinding too.

With Bethesda's record, it will be interesting to see how much difference there is between Fallout 4 and Fallout 5. Maybe they will remove levels, perks, and ammo for Fallout 5 and add some interesting stuff like customizable vehicles and aircraft. After all, look at how much difference there is between Fallout 2 and Fallout 3 and how much difference there is between Fallout 3 and Fallout 4.

Except that you can easily have near 10s to all attributes and still pick all perks worth taking by the end of the game, since you get an attribute point at every level.

Also imagine replacing skills with perks in TES? They might just do that in the next TES. Like in Fallout 4, instead of sculpting your character little by little, you get large chunks of "getting better at something", sometimes 3,4 or 5 ranks of perks at specific levels. The previous system used to be more intuitive and realistic. And no traits again.

Last but not least skill and attribute checks in the environment and dialog - the roleplaying feature I personally enjoyed most since F1 - are just gone.

It's definitely not the same. I won't even start on the dialog and quests but I completely agree with the OP.

Indeed. Not going to buy the next TES of Fallout at least until I see what they "streamlined" this time. I am glad I didn't buy this one. I barely finished a playthrough on my free copy and if it wasn't called "Fallout" I might even not have done that.

I am glad they take the risk to introduce huge changes, that is often a hit or miss for most companies but for Bethesda it has helped them grow to the point they became important in the gaming industry. I would encourage them to do the same for their future games, bring new stuff, take risks, and try to be innovative. I think this Fallout 4 feels actually a bit too much to Fallout 3, I think it would be better if it was even more different. I want Fallout 5 to have a completly new system we have never seen before, even if it causes butthurt in obsidian fans, it's going to make that game a completly new experience.

I bet you would enjoy something like this? http://i.imgur.com/hEWCLbd.jpg

I can understand why they made all these "innovations" though. They know very well what they are doing - targeting the biggest audience http://www.vgchartz.com/yearly/2015/Global/

Well many people want bethesda games to copy dark souls, and remember how people consider dark souls a good RPG despite having a dialogue system exactly like the one of your example. It wouldn't be Bethesda's fault to listen to the community.

Obviously it is hard to assume that people want them to copy DS for the things that make it great, rather for the things that it doesn't have.

For example its combat system, meaningful death, atmosphere. I would love them to copy these things. I really want to see a TES that doesn't expect you to defeat your enemies by spamming your left mouse button.

I dunno. For me the perks and the skill system are the same. In Fallout 3 I planned ahead in choosing my skills. In Fallout 4 I plan ahead for choosing my perks. It's the same thing.

I was only recently made aware of this, but apparently INT at least will change some of your dialog options in the game. It's just not telegraphed at all. The voiced protagonist was always going to be a controversial move. I actually prefer this method, but it's certainly going to be a love it or hate it sort of thing.

As far as the new rule set doubling down on perks, I think there's plenty of room for refinement but I think Bethesda might finally be on the right track. I had some major issues with the system they'd mashed together in Fallout 3. I think there were some foundational issues in taking a system meant for one sort of game and then trying to cram it into a game much larger in scope with no real eye towards the intended play-time of their games. You'd hit that level cap in Fallout 3 half-way through the game, after all, and at that point you were probably trying to find which skills you didn't want 100 in.

With the new system I think they finally looked at the scope of the game they wanted to design and how long they expected players to be running with one character, and designed a system around that. I may be able to raise every attribute to level 10, but that's going to take some 40+ levels to achieve that. It's over 200 levels before you have to worry about running out of perks to spend points on. So we finally have a Bethesda Fallout game where the ruleset matches the game design on a fundamental level.

And attributes play a more important role than they did in the previous game. Gating perks was one approach to making them meaningful again, but to be honest I am still unsure just how much attribute differences effect actual gameplay. For example, at the moment I've got high scores in CHA, AGI, and INT with 3s in my STR and END. I do notice that when enemies engage me in melee I'm at a sever disadvantage because I get stumbled by most attacks and end up taking drugs to buff my STR when this occurs. Beyond that, I'm not sure how much the attributes would affect my playstyle. But it feels at least more impactful than it was in Fallout 3.

At the end of the day I think Bethesda at least took some risks with this game. I feel like Fallout allows them to have a bit more fun with the game they're making and try some new things - that's probably a part of why they purchased the IP in the first place. Not everything worked out, but I do think that they're on the right track with the leveling system even if there's some kinks to iron out, personally.

I have said this before, but I was hoping that they refined their system before taking risks and changing it. Particularly I was hoping they would follow the footsteps of the most popular mods for F3 as they did with RTS (settlements). The old system was flawed. FWE refined it and made it meaningful. Its changes are too many to list here, but they tampered brilliantly with the mechanics to make the most rewarding and meaningful system I had ever seen in an rpg. Bethesda for some reason, just changed the flawed system with another flawed system.

About intelligence - only in a quest in vault 81 to my knowledge.

Well I don't, I think the combat system in TES wouldn't benefit from it, TES are about freedom and endless possibilities, games where you can summon monsters, resurrect them, throw them away, sneak unoticed by them and backstab them, etc. The only two things TES could get from Dark Souls for the combat are the ability to block dmg and dodging, because everything else is incredibly limiting. Remember DS is balanced between PvP and PvE, TES is a fully single player game and one that has to be 100% accurate between first person and third person. So no, a combat system so dependable on auto target would just ruin the TES series forever.

I am not a fan of auto-target in particular either. But when I say combat system blocking and dodging are included. Well timed hits, meaningful blocks - something that requires a bit of thought and attention. Risen 1 is also a good example. A combat system like doesn't confine your freedom in the game in any way.

I liked the concept of a backstory for the character. It answered the very first "why?" I have always had in a game. "What's my motivation? Why am I in this situation? How am I prepared for it?"

In F3, you get a backstory - you're a baby. Later you find out you were born in the Wasteland and were able to get into a vault because Daddy was a Doctor.

In NV, you're a Postal Carrier. How and why am I a Postal Carrier? Why am I such a badass Postal Carrier? The one official add-on offers a vague attempt at an explanation, saying something about you were the first courier to deliver mail in the Mojave since the bombs fell, but never any more than that.

-In Arena, you were "somebody" and had a specific mission and a reason for being in the dungeon to begin with, and you have no skills to speak of.

-In Daggerfall you were "somebody" and had a specific reason for being in the cave you start off in, and have no skills to speak of.

-In Morrowind, you find out early on that you're a Blades agent from Cyrodiil on a secret mission, and have no skills to speak of.

-In Oblivion, you're just some guy in jail with no explanation as to why, and have no skills to speak of.

-In Skyrim, you're a 30-something on your way to getting your head chopped off, BECAUSE you have no skills.

Why am I in jail in Cyrodiil, or being beheaded in Skyrim? Because I have below-average skills in general? I svck at combat, I svck at smithing, I svck at magic, I svck at thievery. I'm sitting in a dank dungeon cell - the one that EVERY guard knows not to put anyone in because it's the Emperor's secret escape route - with no explanation as to why, even as the story progresses.

In Skyrim, I'm in a cart with the leader of a rebellion against not only the High King but also the Empire, one of his best soldiers, and a whiny prat, following another cart filled with experienced combat veterans. In lieu of any reasonable explanation, I am forced to assume I'm in jail and going to my death because I have below-average skills in everything you need to survive even the simple life of a farmer. No money, no family name, no property, and no connections ANYWHERE in all the land. Not once do you run across someone who knows you from your whole life before you wake up. Am I a loner who lives in a cave? Am I a traveler from one province visiting relatives in another? Maybe I came back to inherit the family estate as the last of my clan? WHY am I in this situation?

Ergo, having a well-rounded backstory from the start is a good thing. It saves me the trouble of having to come up with one, because it will most likely be "because you're a sorry-ass new player", especially when you have below average skills.

It also explains why you can use Power Armor without first having to go through half the BoS storyline.

I also liked the voiced protagonist idea. No, I don't sound like him. So what? Does it really bother you that the default guy looks like a military vet but doesn't have a gurgling lisp, or an ethnic or regional accent, and doesn't sound like a teenager?

Perks and Skills:

There were more than a few times in F3 and NV where I needed a high level in Big Guns to pass a speech check that had nothing to do with Big Guns, or even firearms in general. Maybe it was a bug, but it was a broken system, IMO. I could see the argument where you had an option in F3 or NV of "Explosives: Rig it up for a simple blast - Science: Rig it up to blow when an enemy passes by - Repair: Just fix the radio already", but really it's not such a big deal to not have those. What I do find annoying is the "can't hack a terminal or pick a lock that is above your skill level". B.S., I know how these mechanics work, lemme try it.

Being able to max out everything is a nice option to have. Notice that I said "option". That means you don't have to. That means you have a choice. That means using self-control. Yes, you'll end up with a ton of excess points and see that "Level up! Pick a Perk!" blinker. Ignore it and continue with your role-playing build. No, you're not going to be able to take down an Assaultron Invader with your squishy ninja. No you're not going to sneak through Deathclaw Central Station in broad daylight. No you're not going to clear out Quincy with a pair of brass knuckles and a switchblade and Zeke's outfit. No you're not going to take down a Mirelurk Queen with Grognak's Axe and loin cloth. You're not going to do a Rick Grimes build and take out College Square with a 44 revolver, a duster, and a militia hat, standing in the center of the place. You're going to get swarmed by windmilling ghouls if you try it. You shouldn't be able to. If you're playing those types, you have to limit yourself to what those types can handle. It's not broken if you can't do those things, it's broken if you can.

Karma:

I HATED the "unseen forces have witnessed your actions and called 911" of Oblivion. Yes, I killed that guy. In the woods. At night. Nobody saw me do it except the bear and the minotaur, and they ain't talking.

Followers in Oblivion, Skyrim, F3, and NV would certainly bail on you if you didn't meet their moral standards. Usually, they'd attack you for it, so the Karma system was still in play. I haven't tried to lose a follower in F4 yet, but you are told when they like, love, dislike, or hate something you've done, so I'm presuming they can and will say "look, this ain't working out, I'm gone".

You can't be an "evil" character in F4? Seriously, you're not even trying. You get plenty of dialog options to refuse to help people, you can remind synths they're just machines pretending to be human, and humans that they svck at whatever it is they're trying to do, and...

I haven't tried it yet, but I'm sure that not answering distress/defense calls for your settlements will eventually be a problem. I do know you can basically hand them over to the BoS in a series of side-quests for Proctor Teagan. How that turns out in the long run, I can't say as by that time I'm well-past bored with the game. Again.

edit: OMG, "new player"? So n-0-0-b is a dirty-word?

I am sure Fallout 4 already has some sort of a timed blocking system, one of the reasons I never bother blocking in the game when using melee. And I don't fully like it, I can give it a pass because the nature of the game, since it's designed around bullets and lots of ranged dmg, so it's never actually so necessary. However in a TES I would prefer if they don't repeat the timed blocking, or al least leave it for builds without shield or something like that.

Also, when I say they would only benefit of blocking dmg like in dark souls, I mean the fact that Beth games should at least give you a possibility to avoid getting hurt 100% if you fight well. But that's all. Dark Souls blocking and dodging system is designed towards a single idea, the notion that players cannot move once they execute an attack until the animation ends. Everything in the game is designed around that idea. Compare it to TES, in TES you are always moving while you swing your attacks, in Dark Souls you move and attack when you have to and for a reason, if they add the same dodging to TES the game would just turn into devil may cry or something.

Ok judging by the dialogue of what people say that it consists of four choices that go Yes, Yes, No, Yes.

In a way I always though people were being sarcastic because it's four choices.

The Bethesda Softworks E3 2015 conference when Todd Howard showed it didn't seem like Yes, Yes, No, Yes, but now after looking at a picture of the Fallout 4 dialogue mod some PC gamer who is a modder made. It shows how badly Bethesda Game Studios has written the story for Fallout 4.

Here is the picture.

http://i.imgur.com/nVCQ4QZ.jpg

The mod has the text lines that I like to see in video games and removes the dialogue wheel, but those responses... I don't know what to say. They are all basically the same with a couple of different words in each text line.

To be fair though - let's not delude ourselves unduly. You can take any game and find a dialog sequence effectively just like that. Most dialog in all games is smoke and mirrors, we just get upset when the illusion isn't maintained.


Finding the worst extreme and making a screenshot of it doesn't mean the whole game is like that. I could do the same with The Witcher or Dues Ex 1 or Mass Effect where you're given multiple options that yield the same response from the NPC. RPGs do it all the time.

Or... more of them.

http://i.imgur.com/g0UtFZg.jpg

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--p_PA8weZ--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/rn14wdxiqpbfnh0hm0d2.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Svt4P6w.jpg

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--4I5d5_lq--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/tf7hhcwqtltpde0t0e3n.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/yPcC7X6.jpg

Would have taken more myself but I have uninstalled it for now. The game is really not meant to be played with the full dialog interface mod that shows the full text of your answers...

Anyway I really think the writers of an AAA game could have done a better job... just saying...

Ok WOW! That is extremely horrible.

Yeah I'm convinced I will convince myself to never like stuff like this in dialogue or ever purchase Fallout 4.

I just can't unsee this. I just can't. It's the same answers with a few different words. How can a lot of the dialogue just be the same over and over?

After Bethesda Game Studios releases the GECK maybe some PC gamer who is a modder will write quests with multiple answers and choices or even rewrite the existing answers.

I love playing Bethesda Game Studios video games for the freedom that they allow you to explore the video game world map and do whatever you want, but I also want well written out storyline quests and answers and choices in the dialogue.

Bethesda Game Studios did it for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and even Fallout 3. I know they can write good or even amazing stories. I feel like they just got burned out by developing The Elder Scrolls video games for 20 years and Fallout video games for 10 or so years. Maybe it is time for Bethesda Game Studios to develop a brand new video game. Start fresh with some new creative freedom try different style of a video game. Maybe a sci-fi futuristic video game? Or a space type of video game? Or maybe a video game with pirates and naval combat and islands?

See that "4" after "Fallout"?

Yeah, that's a pretty obvious slap in the face Bethesda isn't going to learn anything from any of its weak points, even if such points weren't their own (1 & 2).

As much as I try to understand, the reality of the situation is Bethesda continues to treat us like we're f'ing stupid who can't begin to figure out a game with complicated attributes such as classes, skills, and hell, even races.

Every damn iteration of a Bethesda game is 15 steps backward and 12 steps forward into a piss-poor designed shooter. Despite all the damn money Bethesda has made, "simplification" seems to be the new direction for the company.

I couldn't care less about the story, which is a complaint I'm sick and tired of hearing from gamers. No one seemed to give a damn about rescuing the princess in another castle, so why should it matter now? * I * am the story, but it's pretty damn impossible to tell it when games produced by Bethesda are more about "black box" than actual design.

Oh, and don't we just love the bone we're thrown on how we can make our own black box unique.

By emphasizing on the fluff visual aspects, Bethesda took a risk that tried to get its gamers to focus on the fluff (build settlements! no level caps! mod weapons!) to hide the fact what it really did was take away the true essence of the story: us.

Even with Fallout 3's linear "Need to find my daddy", the game had something that was unique: You're dad could be disappointed with how you explored the world. The game still played, of course, but getting reamed out by Liam Neeson was an option.

In Fallout 4, your own damn son can't even take 5 seconds out of his day to either 1) Explain exactly how he lead the Institute to save humanity or 2) realize you weren't going to side with him and unleash a fury of synthetic hell on you.

You get nothing from him except a tired, old man "I'm delusional, but you'll have to trust why this is a good thing" diatribe.

Me. The [censored] story can't even make one because Oh, look! Another settlement needs my help.

Fallout 4 is a good game, but it's not a great game.

Thus, Bethesda seems unlikely it will ever learn from its own library of games. As long as they print money, they couldn't give a damn about how we want to play them from a customized story element.

One of these days, we're going to get sick of apologizing on behalf of Bethesda games.

I just find wierd that u need to keep telling other that the game is bad. ALOT of ppl find Fo4 good and keep playing.

Back to the OP.

I agree with u on part only. Really for me the replace of skill for perk is a improve over the bad leveling system that Fo3 and NV had. (not meter if someone tell me i can max everything that will take me ALOT of time to do, so mistakes on the way arent easy to fix as it was on 3 and NV)

But i agree with u about the dialogue problem (and isnt the Dialogue wheel to be blame). The dialogue as a whole is the weak part for me on Fo4.

Quest wise, ofcurse they can add more quest, and less radiant quest. But someone of the quest on Fo4 are the best i have see some far on any Bethesda game.

Original Fallout skills were taken out of tabletop and other similar role playing games which did not use computers. It still did some sort of sense in isometric games, Fallout originally was. But in modern games which cross old genres, it was really struggling. How do you implement "small arms skill" in to first person shooter when that skill is about accuracy?

It was painfully obvious in both Fallout 3 and NV that developers were struggling with original Fallout skills, their implementation was sometime silly and at other times developers gave skills functions which felt artificial. What different skill do you need to fire hunting rifle and laser rifle in first person? It's about aiming down the sights and pulling the trigger.

Besides whole system was too complicated and with addition of perks it became nightmare for managing. I remember making spreadsheets and spending hours over manual figuring out what skills do I have to take to get certain perks or be able to use certain weapons. That system was OK for old non computer role playing games but not for modern computer one.

Replacing skills with perks was good design choice. Half the old perks were boosting skills anyway. New system is transparent, gives you more freedom and is accessible in a easy to comprehend way. You don't need to worry about spending your skill points the wrong way and then miss some perks or ability to use equipment as a consequence 10 levels later. You know exactly where are you spending your skill points and what the consequences are.

I have noticed trend toward making the game appeal more to casual players, for example in simplistic dialogue system or introduction of irrational "magical" items and effects. I don't like that trend. But new character development system is not one of them.