» Fri Jan 22, 2016 5:13 am Having spent years as a scriptwriter Fallout 4 looks just like a story that failed to deliver once the rough draft was completed. They loved the reveal that 60 years had passed since Shawn was kidnapped and now he leads the Institute as an elderly man. Yeah, a great twist. Unfortunately, because they also wanted an even balance when choosing player alliance between the four factions they relied entirely upon the story that "Father" is your son to gain players for the institute faction. However, for anyone who values narrative or role playing this was problematic. I alone survived Vault 111. All other residents were asphyxiated when the facility failed. For 40 years Shawn was an advlt and fully aware of his own extraction, his mother's murder, and the fact that I was wasting away in a facility that could kill me at any moment - he left me to rot. Where was the "I'm going to save my Dad." Where was my "How could you just leave me there, Shawn?" If this was a novel, a play, or a film that alone would be enough for an epic fail.
So this psychopath who is incapable of normal love and who would leave his father entombed for all eternity asks me to trust him and to be patient because great breakthroughs are about to save the world. That's great! So tell me Shawn, what are these breakthroughs? The Sole survivor explains that the people are dying up there and they are afraid of you to which Shawn replies "We tried to help them but they rejected us" and at that point I want to beat him senseless. You try again. You try something else but then the fact that i don't get to say this hides more narrative flaws. What the SS doesn't realize at this point is that the Institute is embarking upon an unrealistic fantasy - the scientists are breeding and with Synth slaves will one day repopulate an empty Earth. The first issue is the escaping Gen 3s. How is it possible that "scientists" are unaware that fearful and freedom seeking artificial entities have already satisfied the requirements of sentient self aware life? Every player is aware of it and instead of dealing with this issue Bethesda simply ignores it. Well guess what, when freedom seeking less fearful Synths start appearing the Coursers will see the logic in supporting them to wipe out the fallible and bothersome human scientists who are the largest weakness in the Institute's plans.
I would actually like to join the Institute and shape its policies to benefit humanity. I would like to save the scientists and their achievements but Bethesda won't let me. Let me explain.
BOS are basically good guys even if they are brainwashed and stupid. You don't embark upon missions into the center of hostile territory and fly around until you get killed. Where did they learn their strategies? General Custer? You take ground. You establish supply to this ground and you populate it with civilian support. And, if they aren't equipped to do this then you align yourself with a civilian organization like the MInutemen who are doing this. So, who are the Minutemen? They are the only faction in the game that makes any sense (at least until Sturgis makes the teleporting device). These guys are taking ground, establishing food, water and shelter security, and fighting Synths, Super Mutants, Raiders and Feral Ghouls. Surely BOS wants a vertibird pad at every single Minuteman settlement with a scribe and a paladin at each, making nice, ensuring supplies, setting up a commonwealth-wide radio and intelligence network while being protected by the very people they don't give a crap about. Surely BOS wants the Minutemen to be doing exactly what they are doing as a civilian Militia with BOS oversight and control, of course. What happened to the battle for hearts and minds?
Unfortunately, the stupidity that predominates motives and narratives continues with the omniscience of NPCs. I want to find out what the Institute is really up to and what their long term goals are. Most of all I want to find out if these goals can be influenced but I can't because what I say and who I say it to deep underground is instantly known in detail by the Railroad, the Minutemen and BOS. So, could someone please explain that to me? So, I've got to decide if I want to support the Institute or not without knowing anything about their long term goals? And if I decide to go along with the Institute for now until I know more, the alliances I have built up with the other three factions all sour? Terrific!
And then there is BOS's desire to destroy the Institute. In what universe did the developers form that motive? BOS would want to capture the Institute intact and give every scientist the option of "Become a Scribe or a slave." BOS would want to control the Institute and mine it for every technology they have and could build in the future. And as for their hatred of Synths, this makes no sense if they truly believe that they are machines under the control of the wrong people. BOS scribes would actually be frothing at the mouth to get a platoon of BOS synths clearing out the riff-raff because it comes down to whether BOS believes that Synths are no more than machines or sentient life forms that qualify for racial prejudice.
And, then we come to the settlements. A story where no development occurs is not a story. When the SS tells Piper, "You're living in rusty shacks and killing each other... and my God, the smell!" it is firmly established by the narrative that the SS wants to improve the living conditions of those surviving in the Commonwealth. Now, let me stress this point. For those who didn't choose this line of dialogue and secretly wished they'd bought a FPS this point doesn't apply to them and so arguments of "I didn't say that to Piper" or "I don't want to improve anything" are invalid. The motivation to give settlers settlements that resembled the world before the SS went to sleep have been established by the game and then were completely ignored when the build elements were provided.
And, it doesn't matter what you believe or want. When you spray paint power armor with paint the power armor is freshly painted. It DOES NOT look like it was painted 200 years ago. Bethesda may want the post-apocalyptic look so let the Atom Cats defy the laws of physics and all sense of realism but when I give my armor a fresh coat of paint, IT HAS A FRESH COAT OF PAINT. I don't make furniture with broken drawers or chairs with their backs falling off and I'm damned if I know how I make beds with mattresses covered in gore. And when I look at the build menu, I'm just confused. Am I building this 200 year old crap or am I actually dragging mattresses and garbage back from the ruins I found them in? I really don't know.
Is it fun, not making any progress? I understand that you can clear out a raider settlement and have the same morons respawn fighting over scraps and stuff I'd burn, making your fight to civilize a totally pointless exercise but the game requires the possibility of endless game play so we accept that. Preston tells you to make sure you tell everyone you meet that the Minutemen are back and safety can be found at their settlements but with so many encounters with wandering settlers I discovered that the dialogue option to convey this doesn't exist. So, I want to build settlements and win something. I want to build walls around my settlers but this doesn't count as a defense and why should it when the game cheats and spawns enemies within my settlement and often within the foundation stones of my buildings. Did anyone in the dev team not notice that they were creating a PITA? In Coventry, a dev designed settlement, they get nice beds, they get walls, the traders camp outside that settlement but in Country Crossing and many others, the traders waltz in like they own the place and sit down within the foundations stones that I need to house my 20-25 settlers. Is there a reason why I can scrap a 5 ton truck but not pull out a few weeds so I can see my crops? Is there a reason why I can't remove skeletons and corpses and have to build around the flies? I can assign a settler to farm; why can't I assign one to use a broom? Why make the settlements odd shapes and why place the borders against buildings? Why must we put up with the ugly privet hedges in Sanctuary and the non-scrappable ugliness in most settlements?
As things stand, I refuse to swallow the faction nonsense where I am a mere spectator to idiocy and unrealistic motivations that may have looked good on a paper napkin but failed when they were fleshed out and implemented. Bethesda wanted a post-apocalyptic look and I understand that but to force me to replicate that look as if I approved of the world as it is, was not a winner and having settlers turn up out of the blue as if the bombs dropped weeks ago was a bit much. Finally, disrespecting player creativity for those who wished to win and impact the world so that the world was a better place for their efforts stopped this game from being a monument of innovation in game development and turned it into just another zombie FPS. It is sad really that I have to wait for the Creation KIt to give me the options I need to enjoy the game. And, since it will take the modding community months to work that out, yesterday would have been a good time for that.
