...for 2-3 months or so.

I've never been both so much in love and at the same time, in hate, with a game than I am with FO4.

The game is a beautiful mess.

...it's. buggy. as. all. hell.

...Dogmeat? I can't understand how he survived the wasteland the way he leaps into danger at every chance. Bethesda really should have learned from Skyrim and its mods about managing companions and traps.

http://imgur.com/gallery/6Z9PbRq

...It's hard, which is not necessarily bad, but a lot of the time in the beginning the quest itself is cake compared to the territory I have to cross to get to destination where the quest is.

...Settlement attacks really could have used an audible alert. If there is one and somehow missed it, then it needs to be more pronounced.

I really see the charm of Fallout shining through on FO4. I think the graphics are fine for the most part. Animations are still stiff, but so what?

I'd probably have other related issues, but just like Skyrim before it I'm in my test run. I've mostly just built up settlements and explored a bit. I haven't really touched the MQ or other stuff. I'm just getting a feel for the mechanics and waiting for patches and mods.

Still, FO4 is missing a lot of polish that an open beta could have applied for the launch.

bethesda's games are always buggy messes


there are alot of reasons purely Single Player games rarely get Beta Tests, while Multiplayer games do..

and I really do not want to start an argument, but one of those reasons is piracy..


a beta for a single player game on Steam wouldn't be hard to unlock and strip Steam from, allowing a permanent (even if watered down) version out there prior to release, which would still be playable after Beth decided the beta ends..

this is much harder with Online games, because online games these days require access to a central server (sadly, the days have long passed where we could host a clan server off our spare machine in the basemant), and its much harder to strip that functionality out of a game that revolves completely around it..


this is just one of the reasons games like Battlefront or just about any MMO get public Beta's, because its easy to turn those beta copies completely inoperable.. not so much with games that don't revolve entirely around a connection to a central server

Everyone playing on a central server would certainly remove piracy unlike having Steam users download the majority of the game. Of course, the costs for doing this is far more expensive which would explain the costs of playing a MMO with monthly subscriptions and microtransaction.

FO4 so far is one of the least buggy Bethesda games I've ever played.

This whole "beta test early" thing that's going on in modern games is just so bizarre to me. All it leads to is spoilers & (when done on a real beta) lots of annoyed people because they see "beta test" as "woohoo, get to play early!" rather than actual bug testing.

It's also generally something that happens with multiplayer & MMO games. They want to test the servers more than anything.

re: bugs. Honestly, it hasn't been that bad. Some little minor annoyances, sure. And one CTD (in 40 hours, which is far better than previous Beth games for me).

and when people do see bugs, they rarely actually file bug reports.. they instead lash out on social media "ohh no, this game I was Beta Testing that the finished version doesn't actually come out till next year crashed twice! game will svck!"..


I have beta tested a handful of games, and I remember when the majority of Beta Testers still realized they were "testing" rather than just getting to play it early. and devs showed thanks.. heck many Beta Testers for the Original Guild Wars (me included) were given free copies of the Collectors Edition as a "thanks" for filling out numerous well written and specific bug reports. a good chunk of those of us who Beta Tested LOTRO were given the option to have our beta characters ported over to the server of our choosing at launch, and were offered a copy of a CE for cheaper than they retailed.. these days, the most "thanks" they give to Beta testers is usually a fancy title..

That isn't an excuse.

When, exactly, are we going to start holding Bethesda accountable for that type of thing? We do it for almost every other developer and publisher out there. When does Bethesda no longer get a free pass?

They are making billions off their games. How much more do they need to earn before we start expecting them to hire more people to properly playtest their games before release?

It seems that these days, both films and games are rushed out without completing the full production cycle. Preproduction and postproduction seem to be taking a backseat. With a short betatest, they'd have known that the dialogue wheel is awful and that the dialogue tree is too limited. But for some reason, nobody thought about that. Which alarms me, personally.

If you played Skyrim, how do you not know to tell Dogmeat to stay at the entrance to an area? Granted, the companion AI is beyond a mess, but there are ways to mitigate the frustration (until you go on a quest with 3 other uncontrollable AI dolts in a maze of narrow caves....)...somewhat.

When every player is playing a buggy mess. The only bug that I have encountered is my character keeps on changing their direction when talking to someone. So they might be facing someone when they start talking, but by the end of the conversation they might have their back to whoever they are talking to. Of course, this bug is more amusing than irritating.

Although, some games like Goat Simulator are fun because they are buggy messes.

Haven't had a single problem wwith mine. Sure it isn't your computer that's buggy

The idea that their games are buggy due to not having people test it is absurd, since they do test it themselves.

Bethesda games are buggy for the same reason MMOs, given 10 times the budget, many more years worth of development, and with a far larger team, are also ALL buggy messes on launch.

Its a natural result of making large games, and its impossible to test them on any sort of level that would catch a lot number of bugs before release. Even large, but far more limited, games, like GTA, have known to have massive bugs, like the one GTA that often spawned massive black holes in the map that just consumed everything and cars were falling off the edge and all that stuff.

It doesn't matter how many people you get to playtest a game, MMOs can have YEARS of beta testing, with a million people, and STILL launch as buggy messes simply because its simply impossible to test a game of that magnitude with any sort of accuracy.

its also impossible (in the case of PCs) to test them on every possible hardware setup or system configuration.. some bugs are more noticeable to some people than others because of the system they are running

Maybe they'll at least do beta patches again, like they did for Skyrim?


People said the same about Skyrim. Maybe they are getting better

Except they do not test their games. If you turn off the dialogue camera and try to enter Diamond City for the first time, the character AI freezes and you cannot go any further. That happens 100% of the time, and you experience it just by running the main quest.

And sure, buggy launches. I'll give you that.. but Skyrim STILL HAS THOUSANDS OF BUGS NOW. At least MMORPGs are patched on an almost weekly basis. Fallout 4 will receive a handful of patches before Bethesda stops caring, just like Skyrim.

Bethesda always had and always will have the Buggy Mess perk.

When Rocksteady releases Batman Arkham Knight and it's a glitchy, stuttering mess, they get crucified for it. When gamesas releases TES or Fallout game and it's broken beyond belief, they get considered for and win GOTY's.

LOL. Biased much.

I didn't have that problem, so no, it doesn't happen 100% of the time.

MMOs also have a constant stream of revenue from subscriptions or cash shop items, Bethesda games do not, so they don't have the dollarydos to keep making patches.

broken beyond belief lol

...introducing more bugs each time. And yeah, I've played several MMOs.

you are never going to find a piece of software without bugs, and anyone who is even semi-familiar with programming is aware. when you fix one thing, it will often break another..


like the old joke goes:

99 bugs in the code 99 bugs in the code, take one down patch it around, 127 bugs in the code..

Comedy gold there.

Exactly.

In 45+ hours between me and my wife we had 1 complete crash, 1 vanishing character, 2-4 get trapped and cant move requiring reload or fast travel.

Thats about the same level as skyrim currently is for me.

Bugs, if they bother you just do not buy BGS games. Its like bioware and preaching about social issues. Its how they make games.



You are the one being bias. I reguarly spend more time in a BGS game between bugs than i spend on most other games period.

The fallout game that was bug ridden was fallout new Vegas. While it was not a Bethesda game, it was crucified in the rating department for how bad the bugs were.

I've found surprisingly few bugs. Invisible weapons and Pip-Boy are annoying but those have been easy to fix by switching to 3rd person and back. Not being able to select some Mutfruit-trees in the Workshop-view bugs me out though.

Seeing as we're talking about Fallout here, I feel that the correct term would be the mainframe, thankyouverymuch.

...

a beta test would have been great, but It is not in Bethesda politics.

It could the least buggy fallout game todate

fallout 1: lots of bugs
fallout 2: less but still alot
Fallout tactics : a few
Fallout 3: a fair amount
FalloutNV: plenty