I would like to share some constructive suggestions about how the next Fallout can be an even better game than Fallout 3. Fallout 3 was great mind you, in my online review I gave a well deserved 8 out of 10 with high recommendations.

We have the Technology, we can expand upon what is now established. We can build it bigger, faster, stronger, better than it was before.

"Making Fallout 3 was the hard part, going from Hack and Slash adventures to a Post Apocalypse adventure shooter was certainly no easy task. Bethesda should be commended for doing as well as they did with such a monumental undertaking. Now that the engine is up and running and Bethesda has the template, expanding on it should be easy in comparison."


Here's a list of suggestions for a Fallout 3 expansion or for Fallout 4.

Quests should ideally effect the ending of the game and have multiple possible solutions including Non-Violent solutions for most of them.

Your main character should develop a reputation for his actions in various towns.

There should be more quests.

NPC characters should be more interesting, and there should be more dialog options. Companion NPCs should be made much more interesting, have more conversation options, as well as quests.

There should be more potential companions, you should be able to recruit more of them (up to 3 at a time, not counting Dogmeat or exploits) and you should have more control over their combat tactics and inventory.

Evil Dialog choices should be more evil and less agnsty and rude, and they should change the way NPCs react in a meaningful way. Evil dialog should not amount to mere dismissal of the NPC's thoughts with pointless insults, but should also include more persuasive, appealing, and often sinister options. There should be more appeals to a player's pride, greed, envy, and lust for evil characters, with options reflecting these things. Currently most options appeal to simple spite, with a few appealing to greed.

The Main Quest should be less confining and make more sense, with a clear cut goal and a less ham handed execution, the Villains should also make more sense, and not just self destruct absent of some really persuasive arguments.

S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Attributes should be more meaningful, and so should skills and perks.

The towns should be more interesting, including bigger towns with a stronger criminal element and more potential faction/karma/skill specific quests.

Ahhhhh, and check my signature, it should make clear the change I would most like to see in future Fallouts

I can see you just joined... so, welcome. If you perused even the first few pages of this forum and/or spoilers, you would have noticed that these issues have been brought up here as well, since the day of release, discussed, re-hashed, argued over, dissected, etc. And then re-brought up when threads disappear into the older pages etc. I am sure that some of the good folks at NMA are also members here and have contributed to the same discussion on Bethesda's forums as the ones on NMA.

Many of the quests do include a non-violent solution, though they tend to end up as run from place to place and speak - quests. With all others, I agree.


What I would like to the list, however, is a little thing about exploration. The dungeons are nice, but tend to seem a lot like each other, with a few details that make the place. They are also heavily, heavily combat oriented, so a bit more encounters with random people and other stuff.

Also, more brains for raiders, they were usually negotiable in the past Fallouts.

All these are just little things, but remember the change bethween Fo1 & 2, the engine was practically same, but with many additions and fixes, this is what should happen here, too.

By the way, it is dang hard to hit a sentry bot to the head in VATS, not the percents, but the mouse control and the screen scrolling.

But mistake not to think that I am complaining, I am just stating: Nothing is perfected, but everything can be brought near perfection.

Uh-oh, this starts to look like a political speech... (and I'm only halfway through my "Lying, congressional style :vaultboy: "

Thanks much. You may be right, but I guess there's no harm in bringing them up myself as well. Bethesda is a great company, they make great games, and they're really innovative. They've been good at taking consumer feedback before, even though many people refuse to acknowledge it they proved it with some of their previous game expansions (For both Morrowind and Oblivion). It's my sincere hope that Bethesda is already planning an expansion and is listening for community feedback.

I have edited out the portions of the OP that would make it cross-site trolling and references to moderator actions, both which are against forum rules so that you may continue this discussion.

I am moving this to "FO series discussion" section as it is for FO 4 suggestions. There were already numerous topics in that section for this discussion, but I will move this and see how it goes.

Good grief, I sure with you had taken my suggestions in the first thread I locked. Now I'm grumpy for all the edits and moving and such.

If there's any cap on companions, I feel it should be Charisma dependent. Completely agree with you on the other points ESPECIALLY on the SPECIAL stats being more meaningful. Certain stats like Strength are more or less useless unless you're building a melee orientated character (high base carrying capacity + low scaling + minimal skill influence + no impact on range of usable equipment = useless stat for gunslingers). Others like Agility, which has little application outside of VATs, are only situationally useful. Finally, there are those which should influence things they currently do not; Perception should grant a bonus/penalty (depending on its amount) to attacks with ranged weaponry as an example.

Also, some multiplayer PvP ala Fallout Tactics with adjusted VATs (and certain skills like Science/Lockpick) and racial selection would be awesome too.

I would also like to add that Agility should allow you to move and attack faster outside of VATS as per Fallout Tactics. This reflects the ability of an agile character to do more in less time.

I wasn't aware that the mere mention of a modding community was against the rules, I thought your "suggestions" were at other people who had posted links to sites and stuff. I was simply sharing the source of the suggestions I was posting for Bethesda's consideration... I really hope Bethesda will not turn a deaf ear to the fans of the Fallout series, doing so will only detract from the future of their own products.

Valentine82, I agree with absolutely everything you mentioned in your opening post, EXCEPT the thing about 3 followers. Would become very messy to have not one but three people/creatures who just looooove to get in line of fire (or just shoot you in the back).
Of course... after some major AI-overhaul I'm also agreeing on the possibility for high charisma characters to bring several followers, perhaps according to the same rules in Fallout1/2: CH/2 # of followers
... or maybe CH/3 would suit better in this case, resulting in a maximum of 3 followers.

Hell yeah!
Was mighty pissed off
Hadn't realized you could only have dogmeat + 1. A hell lot of caps down the drain.

:] Not sure if it's a glitch, but I'm not complaining. Well, except now I have THREE allies jumping in front of my bullets.

Well, can't think of anything I really disagree with on this post. I can add some things though (and I think I will).

I like FO3 overall, but only consider it the foundation for a good game. The engine works well, the atmosphere is good, the VATS system is a nifty little perk, but the game really is lacking in some ways. Of course I realize it's a FPS perspective, and that really doesn't bother me. I expect games to progress with the technology and wouldn't expect it to be an isometric point of view like the first two.

Bethesda did a really good job designing a world in which to play a Fallout game - and that's how I look at it. To take it to the next level and really have it earn the title of "Fallout", however, the game design needs an overhaul.

The witty humor (or cheap pop culture laughs) need to be brought back to the game - remember the Rodents of Unusual Size in FO2 or killing "Kenny" in FO1? FO3 lacks the same comic relief of the first 2 and in a world that's full of grit, chaos and death... face it, we need some of that comic relief!

Consequences really, really need to play into the game somehow. Right now the 2 choices are always good or evil. There's no middle ground and either choice still allows you to progress to the next town/dungeon/quest with little impact on the story. I remember looking at my reputation in the other games and seeing how some places thought of me as a villain while others thought of me as a saint or the recap at the end of the game showing the wake of destruction or the ray of hope I left behind. In FO3, you can play either extreme and it won't matter a whole hell of a lot to the outcome of the game or what happens to you next.

More options/penalties for the SPECIAL stats. Anyone who remembers playing the first two, probably remembers what happened if they neglected their intelligence for their other stats. Not only was this obvious in the character's points as they level up, but the biggest impact it had on the game play was the dialog options - being give the ability to do nothing more than grunt for most conversations made a person decide to make an intelligent character next time through. And with this comes replay-ability...

Doesn't FO3 boast about something like 500 different endings? So this means you have to play 99% of the game exactly the same just to see something slightly different? This grew old back in my days of playing Phantasy Star 3, which was the first game I recall boasting about the number of endings possible. There's really just not enough of a reason to make me want to play FO3 over and over again. 2 or 3 times and it's pretty much over. The ability to save and go back to redo an option differently also makes the replay of the entire game even more pointless.

Characterization is also lacking. Really, I felt that my character was nothing more than a walking corpse for the entire game... no, I take that back. The ghouls in FO3 actually had more personality than my character. The other two FO games allowed you to choose so many different perks, skills and abilities that you never felt like you were ever making the same character twice. Then there were other side-quests and options that could also be uncovered along the way - everything from being a boxing champ and having people randomly shout out to you when you walked by, to being labeled a "child killer" and making people run at the sight of you.

If Bethesda were to take some of these things into consideration when/if they made another game like this, then I would happily lay down another $50 for it. Right now age might be catching up with me, but any fan of the first two games will only be getting older as well. This means less free time on our hands, more refined tastes and more discretion when buying things our wives might not appreciate :nono: In other words, the next game better be really damn good for me to go through the hassle of convincing my wife that it's really worth the money and takes priority over her bath salts and wardrobe collection!

I agree with most of your points, but I doubt it will change anything because:
(1) This board is flooded with similar complaints
(2) Bethesda developers do not always consider sound criticisms (nothing personal to them, just that there are time and resouce constraints).

However, I can tell you are definitely feeling better after writing this post as you get to extrude all the negative energy you have accumulated for the game.

The reason that the dungeons/metro look and feel the same is because in reality they are the same. Do you expect every metro station to be unique? That's not realistic as in real life they standardised. And as far as dungeons go. Yes some of them should be unque but the vast majority are always gonna be similar. After all they are all carved out of the same rock.

That's a weak excuse - "we made the dungeons boring and similar because it would be unrealistic to design interesting ones."

It's an acceptable break from reality when being strictly realistic results in a crappy game.

The future of fallout lies with interplay. Bethesda used olbivions as a framework for fallout 3. The game is still a masterpiece but the one-trick pony wont work again. You need solid ideas and classic storyline of fallout for newer games and bethesda doesnt have the experience interplay does with its own game.