» Sat Jan 16, 2016 3:32 pm This is a re-post of a thread of mine on the Steam General Discussions, in the hopes of it expanding it's target audience and hopefully being noticed by some developers themselves, and/or possible members of the modding community.
The thread is a list of quality of life improvements and/or small feasible changes/additions that would hopefully make the game even better, whilst not be so hard to implement.
Some ideas were originally mine, while others were taken from direct or indirect feedback by other people.
- Holster weapons need to be visible like in previous Fallout. This small detail adds a lot of believability and immersion to the world. Some trailers and screenshots mislead you to believe this is in-game when it currently isn't.
- We should be able to un-equip a weapon by simply pressing the corresponding hotkey it was assigned to, leaving you bare-handed. This option was already available in previous Fallout games.
- Combat Helmet headlight should work, in a similar way to how the Miner and Power Armor helmet works.
- The "Rotisserie Spit Cooking Station" should have a fireplace/bonfire by default under it to make it more believable/immersive. Right now it looks kinda odd.
- "Bashing" damage needs to be displayed on weapon stats.
- Dead bodies(including those that are "quest related") should disappear after an ingame week(maybe less) has passed and the corpse is already fully looted, it is a bit annoying to see the bloatflys Cogsworth kills at the begining of the game still laying dead in the floor at Sanctuary 100h into the game, or the previous Minuteman General still lying dead at The Castle cellar, among others. One could think that the corpse(s) would have rotten by now, been moved/buried by settlers or at least eaten by wild animals already.
- Droped weapons(specially those of killed enemies) should de-spawn after after an ingame week(maybe less) has passed, by that time somebody else would have picked them up already. Also, having so many objects on the world might affect performance, increase loading times and/or cause laggs.
- The "Targeting Visor" modification for the Power Armor needs to have different colors for friends and foes, instead of using red for all. It also needs to stop coloring when in conversation mode.
- There should be an option so simply remove mods from weapons, without having to replace them(costing materials) with a default/basic one; It should work like the armor mods/upgrades, where one can simply select "none". This already exist for some mods but not for others, it should be more consistent.
- The map should display all currently available(not owned by any NPC) Power Armors that we have discovered, not just the last equiped one. Or at the very least it should display the ones that are "atached" to a power armor station.
- BoS Vertibird should be more flexible in regards of where it allow us to go, we should be able to travel to un-discovered POI in it, as long as we have them marked in the map. As of right now it is nothing more than a "fancy looking" Fast Travel button. Vertibirds in general(including NPC ones) need their Health buffed and maybe their "fly patterns" inspected, as right now they are constantly crashing, exploding and getting blown up in the background. Does the Brotherhood has infinite Vertibirds now? It certainly would appear that way.
- There should be an option independent of Difficulty Level that allow us to turn completely off Legendary Enemies and the "random generated Legendary Items" they drop. I neither find the enemies interesting/hard enough, nor the items/weapons useful, and it just distracts from the immersion and believability of the world.
- We need to be able to build Weapon Display cases, Mannequins that can display clothes and hats, etc. The trailer and screenshots hint to this already, but sadly did not made it into the game.
- Our house at Diamond City needs to have more build and decoration options, right now it feels like a waste of money. Stuff like crafting stations(better to have them inside the house to avoid unnecessary loading screens), walls so we can make individual rooms, etc would be a great place to start. It's resources should be link-able to the other settlements too!
- All Settlements in general should get expanded crafting options, simple things such more diverse "Animal Heads decorations" for walls(like Yaoguai, Deathclaw and Radscorpion), food planters(for indoors), bunk beds, preset-corners that are facing outside, columns/pillars, indoor walls(that actually work as such), and maybe even a whole new type of building: glass, so we can build greenhouses and such, would be a great place to start!
- Redistribution of Pipe weapons and other post apocalyptic items that should not be found in places that have been on lock-down since pre-war. I understand that this is partially because of random item placement, but i think it should be addressed somehow regardless, as it is a big immersion breaking small detail. More hand placed items in general in places that have presumably not been raided/looted yet would be nice and/or maybe "tagging" items as "pre-war" and "post-war" and making the random placement take that into consideration.
- While on the Pip-Boy, we should be able to tab/move trough the different menus by simply pressing their corresponding hotkeys(open the map by pressing M, open inventory by pressing I, etc). Also pressing the same hotkey twice should close the Pip-Boy.
- There should be a menu on the Pip-Boy that displays where our already recruited companions are located. Also there should be an option to send Companions to their original location(after you already send them somewhere else first), example: send Valentine and Piper to Diamond City so they can continue with their lives, etc.
- The current relationship status with our companions should be displayed on the Pip-Boy in the form of a "relationship-bar".
- Carry capacity for companions should be displayed in a similar fashion to how weight capacity is displayed for the player. A simple quality of life improvement.
- While the loot screen is open, we should be able to see our own wight capacity status, in addition to how much the individual items weights, so we can easily decide if we want to take something or not, instead of having to open and re-open the inventory constantly. Just a matter of keeping the gameplay flow going.
- Local map needs to be clearer and more serviceable, i understand it is the way it is right now as a "tribute" to the original games, but sadly ends up just being frustrating and not useful at all.
- There should be 3 "sub-menus" in the Misc category of the inventory, in the form of a Key Ring(where all keys be located), Personal Folder(where all notes be located) and a Holotape Collection(where all holotapes are located). Right now it can be frustrating to find anything in the Misc category.
- We should be able to move the workshop around the settlement construction area, if anything just a matter of Aesthetics.
- During a settlement raid/assault mission, if the player is away and ignores the quest, the game should check the defense bar compared to the other resources and auto resolve the battle accordingly(meaning that if the defense is higher than the other resources, the casualties and damages should be minuscule, and the other way around if defense is lower). Arming and equipping settles should also increase the defense rating.
- Defend settlement missions, should start outside the settlement perimeter, not inside it, the only exception should be when a Settlement is attacked by the synths(as they can teleport). Settlements should not be attacked by synths however, if the player is on a good mood with the Institute(this is most likely a bug/oversight currently)...
- Settlement construction interface needs to be more Sims-like(eagle view, disconnected from where the character is standing and make the game go into pause), right now it is frustrating as you have to be running around the base all the time, the perspective does not lets you clearly see objects positioning and things don't always stick together as they should.
- Settlement's terrain and infrastructure needs to be inspected closely and fixed, as right now one usually end up having stuff clipping through the floors or floating through the air.
- Better pathfinding and objects collision/physics for NPCs and companions. Right now they keep getting stuck, other times we end up with Brahmin on the roof of Sanctuary, etc.
- We should be able to scrap objects that start outside the Settlement area but end up inside it(like fell down trees, angled picket fences, etc); We also need to be able to scrap/remove stuff like: vines, debris, tree roots, leaf piles, tiles rubble and plywood doors from the Settlement terrain to make it look fresher/cleaner and more live-able.
- Option to "Patch Up" pre-war buildings in our Settlements(especially on Sanctuary). Nothing very fancy or advanced, but at least we should be able to fill in some of the biggest holes in the roofs and the outside walls of the houses.
- Move and Supply Line commands should open the map when selected and let us simply click on the settlement we want to assign that Settler to, instead of opening the settlement List by name. It is hard to keep track of Settlements by name as well as the list does not display enough relevant information like the current number of settlers there, their happiness level, etc.
- It should be easier to see what task a settler is assigned to, sometimes they are sleeping or simply far away from their designated workstation and we can not see it highlighted without doing extensive running around. In my opinion a prefix should be displayed next to their name similar to "provisioner", something like scavenger(if working at the salvage station), farmer(if assigned to food production), watcher/security(if assigned to a lookout/watch post), doctor, trader, etc, you get the idea...
- Grenade and "power bash" need to be linked to 2 different keys. Just a Quality of Life improvement, sometimes we miss-click or hold the key too long and end up doing the opposite to what we were wishing to do.
- Separate keys for "View Character" and Open Settlement Interface. Another Quality of Life improvement, right now while inside any settlement it is extremely hard to use the "free camera" to see our character outlook.
- Implementation of a hardcoe mode like in New Vegas, It should be a different setting independent of difficulty and it should require food, water, sleep like in NV to survive, ammo should have weight, the use of stimpacks should be altered a little so that limbs need to be healed individually if broken and addiction should only be curable by doctors. Random supplies and loot(the ones not produced by settlements) should not respawn in hardcoe Mode.
- Fov slider for 1st person view, right now most weapons simply take too much screen space(especially annoying with Institute rifles that have an Scope).
- Ability to scroll down/up using the Mouse Wheel on the Perk Tree. Why do i have to use the mouse and point to the bottom/top of the screen instead of simply scrolling with the mouse wheel up and down? The rest of the game uses the mouse wheel correctly, why not here? An small gameplay inconsistency, but very frustrating.
- Esc key should always be used instead of Tab to exit ALL terminals, finish dialog, cancel current choice, etc. Right now some things require Esc while others require TAB, it needs to be more consistent. It just feels more natural to simply use Esc. Like the point above, an small detail that can be very frustrating at times(especially visible at Settlements Workshop).
- E should replace Enter in all menus and terminals, right now sometimes we need to press E while other times we need to press Enter(Actually we can always use E but the interface does not inform us/display this information correctly). Another Gameplay inconsistency.
- Texture updates! While i like Fallout 4 graphics and art style overall, i must say that many textures, specially NPCs faces leave a lot to desire. Better lip sync while we are at it too!
- Small re-balance of SMG weapon in comparison with Automatic Pipe Weapons(pipe weapons weight less and do almost the same damage whilst having a way more common type of ammo, making the SMG rather pointless); and re-balance of Institute Weapons in comparison with Laser Weapons(even though both use the exact same ammo, the institute weapons are way weaker in comparison, making them irrelevant/obsolete almost immediately).
- Quest NPCs that the player is following, or are following the player themselves should keep the same speed as the player. Similar to what the Witcher 3 did, just an small quality of life improvement.
- Expanded ending sliders similar to Fallout New Vegas, displaying what happened to key NPCs, companions, mayor/minor factions, etc.
- More user friendly way of scrapping clothes, without requiring the player to constantly drop things in the floor.
- Option to toggle 1st person view while aiming on 3rd person view; Also option to toggle 3rd person view while sprinting in 1st person view. Many other games already have this.
- More individual options/settings and on/off toggles regarding gore. Like option to disable exploding heads, option to disable dismembering and option to disable blood.
- Ability to effectively use grenades while on V.A.T.S.
- Abbility to switch between left/right over-the-shoulder view, when in 3rd person view. A lot of 3rd person games already have this feature.
- Rather than having Preston automatically give you new missions every time you go near him, the missions should be linked to dialog option/choice. Furthermore we should be able to say No for an answer.
- More pacifist approaches/ways of resolving quest.
- More meaningful and different conversation paths and replies from NPCs, so that not all dialog lines end up being the same reaction-wise, as it happens now on several occasions(most visible when arriving at Diamond City for the first time and participating on the argument between The Mayor and Piper).
- The .50 caliber ammunition should be more realistic/authentic, right now it's representation in-game is nothing similar to the real one, the rounds themselves looks way too small and thin, and they do not have enough punch nor deal enough damage when fired. Fallout New Vegas already had a better representation of it, and so did Fallout 3(via mods).
If you find yourself agreeing with some of the points above, please say so by at least leaving a "+1" or a "/Signed" comment, it helps keep the thread alive so that more and more people might notice it, and hopefully even act on it too. Suggestions are always welcomed, but let us all keep the comments constructive and amicable please!
Cheers!
) Xbox One if that makes a difference or not.
