ZeniMax should take Fallout away from BGS and give it to Obsidian. ZeniMax should give BGS DOOM since that seems to be where they took FO4.

Oh that's what a vocaloid is, I saw that chick on some show. One of those Vice documentaries I think.


It would be fun to get a choppy version of that. That is a vocaloid that just barely might pass for human but is still pretty clearly not quite right. Basically an uncanny valley voice.

More easily said than done. I agree, and Bethesda has been able to do it before, but can they again and do they want to?

Yeah, voice synth tech still kinda svcks, even today.

I wouldn't go quite that far. I agree that Bethesda Fallout is a separate entity from Fallout Fallout, but I'd be happy to have Bethesda doing their thing on the East and Obsidian doing there's on the West coast. Give Obsidian ample time like they give themselves, stagger the development cycles and releases so we get new Fallout every three years or so. Ask for advice from Obsidian where you have weaknesses and offer advice to Obsidian where you are strong. Obsidian knows the Fallout universe very well just as Bethesda knows the ES universe very well. One would expect Obsidian to work extensively if they were allowed to do a Redguard sequel right?


Bethesdas Fallout productions are fundamentally different from Obsidians, but each had its own strengths and weaknesses and I'll be buying whatever Fallout product they out out so long as they have at least as strong an RPG element as Fallout 4.

I'ma say it again, just because I think it is an important idea.

I have no problem with the voiced protagonist, with a defined backstory, a fleshed out character, and interesting interactions with their world. It is this tug-of-war between trying to give players a Mass Effect paradigm, which doesn't work with the exclusion of good-guy and [censored] choices, and a clear, defined character. Please pick one, whoever makes the next Fallout game. If you are going to define a character however, make it someone I can get invested in. Bethesda has a serious problem with this in all of their characters.

I did have some of the same problems with the male voice actor as above, but the female protagonist voice was... amazing, for the most part.

It is still quite interesting that they fetched help from some id-software guys to improve the 3d-shooterpart (got really better and dynamice compared to the 2 predecessors) but for some reason they ignored or simply don′t want to "jump over their shadow" for to additionaly hire some obsidian guys for to help with the quest and conversation stuff. I would at last expect that a coorporation brings the best result instead to always swap the game between production studios that simply glance on their main focus and nothing else. Either we then get an rpg with sloppy action or a shooter with such a low rpg and conversation part.

And back to the voiced protagonist: i still don′t see the need for that, most persons actually even skip the voice as it costs ingame time to listen to the sentences that mostly repeat over and over again (do you want to trade? yes, let me see what you have) as i personaly read faster a printen sentence as i am really willing to listen to it. I personaly even got mad after some time that i always have to waste 10 seconds to listen to my own voice and my opposite just for to trade some things. Sometimes skipping works, sometimes not.

I play with the german version of the game and both voices where....hmpf. The female voice was even a bit scary when she tried to be sarcastic - sound more like a drunken girl starts to get silly.

That's because both companies don't feel like they need to help each other.

I recall an interview that Obsidian's CEO, Feargus Urquhart, said that when it came to Fallout 3, there was like maybe 4 questions that Bethesda could have asked, but they were otherwise fine with the product, and similarly, when making New Vegas, Bethesda gave them free reign to do whatever they wanted, and there was only like 4 things Bethesda ever actually cared about if they did or not.

There's nothing to suggest that Fallout 5 will retain the same RPG elements as 4, if anything the lineage of games from Morrowind to Fallout 4 would suggest that fo5 will be streamlined further, and RPG mechanics will receed into the sea of action oriented gameplay.

I have to agree, the only way I could really enjoy the next installment in the series is if they do a complete 180 and pretty much change everything about what they did with Fallout 4.

The story was uninteresting, the characters all fell flat, the dialogue wheel is the worst thing for any FPS-RPG, the voiced protagonist was the worst idea Bethesda has ever had, and in the end it didn't even feel like a Fallout game. With all of the action focus (and the weirdly similar point of origin into the wasteland) it felt oddly like they took a step closer to RAGE than Fallout: New Vegas.

I can't even be mad about how this game turned out, I'm just incredibly annoyed and disappointed by all of this.

Had Bethesda made a real story with the level of conflict and intrigue of any previous game in the Fallout or Elder Scrolls series, it would be an improvement. This just felt like a game all about nothing at all. It felt more like a product than anything to be honest.

Whatever happened to the Bethesda that made Morrowind? That game was fascinating, with a main plot that brought you across the world to meet interesting characters and the story actually had real themes to it that actually brought up interesting questions and made you reflect on yourself and your own way of thinking. It had themes about deception and how once you get enough people on board with a lie, it can become as true as anything else. They clearly weren't paying attention to New Vegas either. The themes surrounded the major factions and had you question whether you supported dysfunctional republicanism, a very productive dictatorship by a man who's essentially no different from an AI at this point, brutal hardship that borders on "survival of the fittest," or a decentralized anarchy, where everybody rules themselves.

The only possible theme of Fallout 4 is family, which was done before, and better, by Fallout 3 so really it added nothing to the series except some cool looking weapons and reducing one of my top five favorite cities to a boring, dull, generic location that thoroughly disinterests me to ever see again in this entire series.

1. Dump the dialogue wheel. It's severely lacking in every way possible compared to the dialogue of previous Fallout games that we've all enjoyed engaging in. If that means cutting the voiced protagonist, then cut it. Bring back the multiple questions I can ask to gain more needed information or exposition to learn more about the character I am talking to and the world. Allow them to answer me and allow me to respond in return. Genuine conversation with the NPC. I couldn't give two [censored] if my character was voiced, it doesn't make the conversation any more meaningful or interesting if it completely guts my options.

2. Speaking of the voiced protagonist, I think we can definitely live without it. I can get more personality out of my character through extensive dialogue than some voice actor who speaks in a manner my character never would a good 40% of the time.

3. The over reliance of radiant quests has got to stop. A few here and there to pass the time to complete while on the way to complete to an actual meaningful objective? Sure. Having radiant quests everywhere to the point its associated with the entirety of content found within a certain faction? Pls stahp, I can only sigh for so long until my lungs shrivel up.

4. Speaking of radiant quests, we could use more side quests. I think a lot of us can agree the number of side quests available in Fallout 4 is rather lacking. Some of these side quests offering a much more interesting experience similar to the likes of one of my favorite quests in New Vegas, Beyond the Beef, or at the very least like Fallout 4's Human Error, wouldn't hurt either. I can only go through so many dungeons shooting raiders/feral ghouls/super mutants and call it a "side quest" before it becomes rather tiresome.

5. Traits. I truly cannot think of any reason why this aspect of creating your player character is still absent. The concept isn't new to Bethesda considering how some birth signs worked in TES, not to mention, Fallout New Vegas proved it can very much work in a modern Fallout game. Traits were another additional factor that further defined your character, granting both unique benefits to a certain degree, while also possessing flaws. Seriously, this was nothing but good, and it was entirely optional anyway. I can already see how this could have been implemented in the character creation process of Fallout 4: Vault-Tec Rep asks the Sole Survivor about any health concerns within the family. Bingo. Done. Hire me.

EDIT: I'd also like to note the return of traits could turn some unnecessary perks (Bloody Mess) back into the traits they're suppose to be so we don't have to waste a perk point on a gimmick ability, should someone want it.

6. Other attributes and perks should have an effect on dialogue and different situations like they did in previous games, not just Charisma. I appreciate Charisma finally getting some use considering its played the dump stat role for some time, but not at the cost of everything else. I can only count one moment when the game actually offered me a different solution to a problem based off of my stats (high Intelligence, you probably know what I'm talking about). I remember a moment from the Wasteland Survival Guide quest where I was asked to go to the RobCo Factory by Moira to learn more about robots. However, my character had the Robotics Expert perk and was able to tell Moira all there was to know about robots and save my character the trip. Alternative solutions to a quests based off of my character's stats. You did it right in Fallout 3, why the steps back?

Those are the significant improvements that I would personally want the most. I know there are other ones that can be named (improvement on the writing) but they kind of go without saying. Although I think Bethesda is getting better with Fallout 4 in that regard.

Without making a comment about the validity of the line of thought, the reason why they were removed is this.

Traits, and the TES equivalent of birthsigns, were removed because they asked a person to pick what is supposed to be a major part of their character before even playing the game, or knowing how the game played, or how these bonuses and modifications would work, and large numbers of people didn't like that.

Its the same reason why people rallied against Dishonored's pre-order packs, each of which was tied to a specific style of style. How were people supposed to know where to pre-order the game to get the pack they like the most when they haven't played the game to know what style of play they like the most?

Furthermore, traits, and birthsigns, had a terrible problem of being either totally useless, or way overpowered, which only encouraged meta-gaming to pick the best one, and made lots of people to feel like they had to restart the game because they found out they picked a bum trait/birthsign, and people don't like having to restart a game 10 hours in because they found out they don't a bad trait/birthsign.

On top of that, the powers of traits and birthsigns were basically the same as the stuff you could get from perks, or skills, or enchanted items, with a very minor and negligible negative that you could easily negate, so, when combined with all of the above, a lot of people saw no reason to keep traits as a separate thing when they were really just more perks/powers, and when you could move them over to perks/powers, and avoid all the problems people had with not knowing what trait to pick because they had no idea how the game played.

That's why many traits became perks in Fallout, and birthsigns became standing stones in Skyrim. It was done to fix a problem many expressed they had with past games.

That's a bad reason.

Makes sense to me.

It's been a very very long time since i have said something, because i am still sick of the constant flame wars between FO3 and FO:NV. But now that FO4 is out, to be honest, i am very happy with it as this has been a very welcome change from the boredom of switching between 3 and NV. Now i will agree, there are some things that could be fixed, the dialogue wheel, yes, i found it irritating. RPG elements, it could use a few more, but we do not need to go overboard as the FPS is a good stress relief. Skills and traits, to be honest, i see everyone's points, but i do not miss them much as if we put a level cap at a certain point, we can make individualized character builds (or just stop putting points into perks when your happy with your build is another good idea, no one has a Fat Man to your head saying "Put all your points in..."). Voiced protagonist, i have no problem with it, female is fine, it just seems odd everyone is beating on the male voice, i will admit it is not as "Emotionally involved" as the female voice, but it was not bad either. That there is a lot more action and random encounters, like there was in Fallout 3 makes me happy, and that there is more challenge as well like in Fallout 3 so far is great, and the 50's feel is awesome (i cannot believe a few people are suggesting to modernize the game to modern standards with all modern elements and music, i almost passed out from shock!) But overall, i cannot give my full opinion, nor really compare it to the other games till the DLC's are out, and really give an in depth need of what 5 needs as well, for all the speculation of Fallout only needing tweeks or the old hardcoe fans wanting it back to Fallout/Fallout 2 interplay standards with beefy graphics, or in between, flying off the handle and ranting and raving that Obsidian should be the only ones to do Fallout for now on, or Bethesda is destroying the franchise, or anything else similar to that, because it is not my place to change people's opinions, or tell them this is great, or that is great, but don't go crazy bashing a two month old game till all of the DLC's are out, and the GECK is out for mods as well. Just some advice and my humble opinion.

Easily ameliorated, unlock an optional trait every 5/10 levels.

When will people realize that the rating of a game has to count on it′s own and not some "hotfixing" with payed afterwards content. Also is modding nice, but again the modders are there for making nice additional content and not fix the lack on a basegame. Bethesda seems to swim in forgive and other bonuscards.....

At that point, why not just roll it into the perk system since thats how that works also?

You are just needlessly creating two similar systems for no reason other then to have a "trait" label in your pipboy screen, regardless of the fact that traits aren't actually doing anything that perks don't.

Its like keeping classes in TES, they didn't do anything besides put a label on a screen, so.... why keep them?

Traits are optional. They come with a disadvantage, something perks never do. They can be used to further define your character.

As are perks

None of which actually matter

As can perks

So how about we cut the chaff and make them perks since they already act like them.

Reductionism ultimately only leads to lesser experience. It also doesn't solve any problems, it only removes them and creates new ones.

You were comparing them to birthsigns, didn't you have to take a birthsign in TES, and so I pointed out, Traits were optional.

Disadvantages CAN matter.

Because a trait isn't a perk. It comes with a disadvantage, which can matter, once again, that "improvement" word.

Not by a long shot.

Reductionism allows devs time to put more effort into systems and expand on them. Its a matter of quality > quantity.

Morrowind had far more weapon types then Oblivion or Skyrim, but all melee weapons played exactly the same, whereas in later games have far greater differences between weapon types then Morrowind did, because it had less, so they had more time to spend on the ones they had.

This idea of improvement upon everything is naive, and flies in the face of literally all established gaming history, which has seen net reductions in basically everything, but far more polish in the things that remain as a result.

No, I wasn't. And the fact that you thought I was shows you haven't followed the conversation at all.

Traits should have both propitious and detrimental consequences, perks in Fallout 4 don't usually if ever share the later facet.I'll presume that was just a 'mind bug' on your part and move on...

That is a lot of comparison between traits and birthsigns there.

A trait isn't a perk, it comes with disadvantages. Improvements.