» Fri Jan 22, 2016 4:18 am As a big fan of Bethesda games I feel the lack of Game Of The Year awards is fitting for Fallout 4 and I really do enjoy the game... after mods. Before mods it is borderline unplayable for me.
First issue is key rebinding and that issue still exists after a couple patches. Not everyone uses WASD for movement, some use the arrow keys. Rebind movement to arrow keys like all other PC games and you cant move when making a settlement because those keys are now being used for the settlement menu. I have a physical disability making the use of WASD for movement an exercise in frustration due to the lack of feeling in my fingers so I use arrow keys for movement because I can feel them and use the up arrow key as home for position. Then there are those without a physical handicap who have a non-qwerty keyboard who have grown used to using arrow keys for movement and rebinding everything else around them. Still 2 patches in and no official fix for key binds for the settlement menu. ALL keys need to have the ability to be rebound to another key. All of them, not just a few, not just the most used, but each and every single key used needs to have an option to rebind. That's PC game making 101! Standard feature for PC games since the first game to have key rebinding. 100% key rebinds should be standard for consoles as well! And lets talk about hold breath and throw grenade being the same key... wtf is wrong with you people? I want to alert them with a bullet to the head not toss a grenade at my own feet!
Settlements... Lots to complain about here. First off I like Preston Garvey... until a certain Minutewoman comes out of retirement and we get the ability to make artillery. After that he is annoying with the repetitive "Another settlement needs..." quest. Limit them things! 1 per ingame week! If I just turn in a settlement quest he gave me he should not be giving me a new one right away and that's triple annoying when I have 3 to turn in and he gives a new one for each. General my bare behind! Preston gives the title and continues to give orders! That's just wrong. Either demote players and promote Preston or give the option to tell Preston to dispatch minutemen to take care of it. A general doesn't do menial tasks he sends someone else to do it, it would be nice to tell Preston to delegate. Don't get me started on the settlement attacks, nothing like being in the middle of a dungeon crawl for a big quest and help such and such settlement pops up. How about instead of a random quest forced upon us why not have it random when you are near a settlement while out and about in the wasteland. Visually see a settlement under attack, hear the turrets you placed firing. Go there and help the Minutemen who are already there fend off the attack. Yes help the minutemen who are there, no pop up help quests, you may be in the middle of a major quest but not in the middle of a dungeon.
Settlement building... Did anyone at Bethesda even test this beyond "does it work?"? because yeah it works but it is frustrating and near broken! Take Sunshine Tidings Co-op for example, prime farmland with bushes that cannot be scrapped right on the farmland. Then you have places like Egret Tours Marina, Finch Farm, and County Crossing with so much litter piles and debris that could be cleaned up but you cant, it will always be a landfill. The junk piles and debris should be scrapable. There's a mod that allows for everything to be scrapable including invisible idle markers, that should be damn close to default except default should not allow scrapping of walls that allow you to see the inside of buildings. If it cannot be scrapped it shouldn't have an effect on the settlement size limit. How about the ruined prewar houses? Can we repair those? Ofcourse not, holes in the roof and walls is just fine! That was sarcasm. We should have the option to repair them even if it is auto placing scrap walls, floors, and roofs to cover the holes. Then there's the borders, Croup Manor, right on the ocean but we cannot place a large water purifier for example.. did anyone even look at the borders and think does this border make sense to be here instead of over there?
Voice acted protagonist/dialogue wheel.. Stop, Don't, quit, Do not do that anymore. The dialogue wheel and a lack of knowing what you are going to say is a matter of frustration and any game where you make your own character should not come with a voice. A voice doesn't help you tell a story but sure does make roleplaying more difficult. Yeah Geralt has a voice, Shepard has a voice, they are predefined characters. In Fallout and Elder Scrolls you make your own character and it comes with a voice in your head. Then the dialogue wheel is the worst idea I can think of in recent gaming history, yeah works OK with a stick on a controller but then again up and down to scroll through a list works just as well and a list allows you to put more text per line such as complete sentences and even more fun allows more than 4 lines of dialogue. There is no excuse for not having full lines of dialogue except pure laziness, you have to write them out for subtitles you can copy and paste that into the dialogue. The only thing I despised about Mass Effect was the dialogue wheel and lack of complete sentences, I cannot stress enough about how many times I had to reload a save because Shepard said something I never would have chose because the 1 to 3 words can never fully inform the player of what's being said. Skyrim had full sentences and Skyrim was a bigger success than Mass Effect, you don't need to emulate a lesser game, you shouldn't try to. Oh and Skyrim and Fallout 3 made GOTY but Fallout 4 didn't so maybe emulating another game was taking the path to not getting GOTY.
Fallout 4 may be a fun game but it doesn't deserve Game Of The Year. Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Skyrim deserved Game Of The Year but the first game to change that winning formula does not. Please go back to the winning formula, you can fix Fallout 4 and the next game can be done with the winning formula right from start.
