Fallout 4

So it seems that the game speed might be tied directly to having VSYNC on.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterra...out_4s_simulation_speed_is_tied_to_vsync_not/

Akka said:

Most obvious and only sensible opinion.

I won't mock the outrage, because frankly it's needed, but I'll mock the surprise - it's a Bethesda game, and since Oblivion (included) EACH AND EVERY SINGLE ONE of their game has been dumbed down and consolized and full of bugs with mediocre writing.
Every. Single. Time. For more than 10 years.

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I don't know why people keep saying "why are people surprised?" because I don't think that anyone is surprised and I don't recall seeing anyone be surprised...

I am glad i didnt cave in on this one and get it. I was a fan of the first 2 fallouts. But i thought 3 was dreadful. Even with patches i think its bland, uninteresting, and really not that good. I actually enjoyed RAGE more than fallout 3, which to me is telling. I also dont like Bethesda. Who seem to make a habbit of building a sandbox and then getting modders to fix it for them. This after the whole paid for mods fiasco too.

As an aside, i think Witcher 3 has been really good for RPGs. I think when you compare open world RPGs of the Bethesda type to that then it really shows up how awful Bethesda's writing is.

Someone on Reddit seemed to have figured out that Shadow Distance contributes to lag. He suggested setting it to Medium and sure enough I've seen a huge jump in fps.

I usually love Bethesda because they make real RPG sandboxes (dumbed down and all) and cant really complain about the new Fallout since it is more of the same, if anything i would have welcomed some innovation, in the good direction of course...

From Gamers Nexus' Fallout 4 CPU benchmark test:

GamersNexus said:

Fallout 4 CPU Benchmark: Major Impact on Performance - i3, i5, i7, & FX - November 11, 2015

Fallout 4 remains aggressive on system resources despite its confusingly aged look. Again, graphics aren't everything – you're certainly free to enjoy the gameplay – but we're here to analyze graphics and system performance, two things Bethesda didn't do well in Fallout 4. Bethesda's favor expressed toward its now-Frankenstein-like Creation Engine is showing its points of wear, and we're of the opinion that Fallout 4 deserved an engine rework or licensed engine to avoid its many PC issues. Too late now, of course, but maybe Bethesda will figure that out for TES VI.

The game doesn't perform too well on GPUs, as we've already shown amply, and it's presenting a bigger performance disparity than we hypothesized across the same-gen i3-i5-i7 lineup. Even on a 4690K or 6600K, go-to gaming CPUs that are inarguably among the most prolific build choices, we see a performance delta upwards of 30% in some cases. In our test cases, this didn't necessarily drag FPS below 60, though it would with lower-end cards and could for multi-GPU/4K setups.

It's nice to see an i7-4790K get utilized by games, but that utilization doesn't feel like it's for the “right” reasons here – Fallout 4 greedily eats resources and doesn't have much tact in that consumption.

Either way, the results are clear: An i3 can get you by at some setting levels, but will assuredly bottleneck mid-to-high class GPUs; an i5 allows the FPS we require for 1080p/ultra given the correct GPU coupling, but will present a bottleneck not present on the i7; an i7 will likely be GPU-limited before CPU-limited, with thanks to Fallout's aggressive GPU cycle consumption.

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My PC has a decent GPU and 8GB RAM, but I'm still using an i3 CPU. I don't know if I can justify a upgrade just to play one game. We'll see, I guess, but maybe this is another reason to wait a while on F4.

I also have an i3 and it could handle Dragon Age: Inquisition and The Witcher 3 just fine. I won't mess with my upgrade schedule because a game is poorly optimized.
I'll probably have a new CPU by he time the GOTY edition comes out...

Link to video.

Superbunnyhop review. Seems pretty accurate.

Hrm. Yeah. It definitely needs more time in the oven.

They should give people who help iron out the bugs some kind of in-game bonus or item, or something. World of Tanks gave players who played 1,000 games during the beta a unique vehicle. Of course, a single-player RPG can't really have a beta, so the release ends up being the crowd-sourced bug hunt. The devs can have 100 people playing 12 hours a day for 6 months and they still won't get a fraction of what people can do in the first week of release. According to Tech Insider, Fallout 4 sold 1.2 million units, with Steam registering 445,000 concurrent players, on its the first day.

Maniacal said:

Superbunnyhop review. Seems pretty accurate.

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Dude's on point as usual. Also inciting a rabid fanbase as usual.

Never read a single review. When it comes to bethesda sandboxes, I know exactly what to expect. Hell, the announcement gameplay videos were more than enough for me to know exactly what to expect and I got exactly that and not a tiny bit less or more. Don't think there are actually surprised people, unless they're completely new to bethesda games altogether. But it does surprise me that there are people (some of my friends too) actually waiting for reviews before buying... What? Why? What can it tell you that you already don't know yourself? Same people who play the 2 cycling beth sandboxes and should know exactly what they will get without useless reviews.

BTW did not experience any problems on PS4 so I guess a bad PC port. Only bugs I've seen were dialogue interface bugs, like subtitles not following the speech once in a while. Nothing major. Was actually very surprised by that. Hoping not to jinx it. There IS mysterious disappearing of the dog, whom I sent home, because I will not, never did and never will use bethesda's "companions". I rather stab myself in the eye... One more thing that I was ready for right after announcement and not at any point even thought of expecting anything magical happening to change my views. Anyway the mutt was hanging around the back of some house in starting village, but last time I was there it was not there. Then again it could've been just around the corner hangng or simply behind the fence 2 meters from me for all I know. Not that I bothered to look.

civvver said:

Metacritic isn't being too king to this one, major complaints about bugs, at least on pc version. Tons and tons of them. Possibly to be expected? Idk. Everyone seems to think the game has been dumbed down.

Reviewers of course still giving top scores (89 on pc, 90s on consoles) but user score is 5.3 pc and 6.1 xbox. Although there's not much in the middle, most scores are 0's or 10's.

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I wouldn't rate those 0 scores much. Most of them haven't actually played the game. Fallout 4 is very Skyrimesque. If you liked Skyrim enough to tolerate the glitches then you'll probably like this too and vice versa. Skyrim was a massive success so it's quite obvious they didn't change the formula.

EgonSpengler said:

At this point I don't expect any PC game to be finished on release. A friend and I call it, only half-jokingly, a game's "gamma test phase", where people can pay $60 to help the developers iron out the bugs. And that's not even counting the games that deliberately leave out a big component and add it later as an expansion or DLC.

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I'm not joking when I say this needs to be done for real. We just need to start making that a thing. The big banners don't go out to the casual gamers, the release is kept somewhat quiet, the big mags don't review it just yet.

Maybe make it so there are first-come-first-serve sales on a site, and like the first 10,000 comers get a key or something. A "staged" release might not be an awful idea. Then the broadest audience gets the equivalent of version 1.02 or something.

Review. No spoilers.

I almost lost my trust in Bethesda. For 20 hours of gameplay I thought "what is this? How can this be? Is there really no game breaking bugs for me to enjoy? Is there really only a few meaningless interface bugs?" Just when I started to think that this is not the Bethesda I know anymore, they restored my faith. Gradually. Starting with imposing an obligatory "partner" in power suit for a clear and retrieve mission. This is where I got to finally enjoy the sight of my "loved beyond reasonable" companion behavior and a dosage of claustrophobia (never thought I had some).

Elevators... Those damn elevators. There were 2 in the facility in question. First was a pain but for purely amusement's sake. This is where Bethesda shines I think. When you expect it the least nor can possibly come up with how a certain thing can possibly go wrong, it happens. Trying to get in the elevator with the big guy in power suit AND being able to push the button proved far more challenging that I'd think. Over and over the guy would ram my skinny widow against the back wall of the elevator blocking any access to reaching elevator buttons. When the widow would try to push the guy a little to reach the button, the guy would run out of the elevator and consecutively run in again... again ramming her against the back wall... again not being able to reach the button. That struggle continued for a while. At that point, knowing Bethesda games I figured out it would be easier to just push the button before the dude could run in. He would unmistakably teleport upstairs anyway, but for the sake of it, I made it my mission to see if it was possible. To up the stakes I wanted to see if he could walk in normally without violating the personal space of already otherwise shocked and devastated poor widow. He could not... but thankfully this elevator moved within the same game cell.

After clearing and retrieving was done, there it was... another elevator. With a smirk I proceeded. I ignored everything else, all I could think of was that elevator. To my surprise the big guy walked in peacefully without violating the widow's personal space. This elevator was moving in another game cell. A fancy loading screen Bethesda made an attempt at. After arriving to the surface I remembered that with all my concentration on elevators I completely forgot to loot the the strong and independent individuals inside for ammo, which I had almost none at that point. So I loaded the game right before the last elevator, took the ammo and again we proceeded in the elevator. This time the big guy seemed reluctant to go in the elevator. He would just place one foot inside the elevator while keeping distance as if trying to say "I don't wanna!". It took playing his favorite game of "catch and ram the widow" to trick him inside. After tricking him to step inside I realized why he would be so reluctant... The elevator started moving up... and up... and up, it wouldn't stop, it never stopped. It was a nightmarish limbo in an elevator with a big guy who has zero understanding of "personal space". Loading previous saves did not change anything, and thus the adventure of the poor widow ended.

I don't know why Bethesda put elevators into their game. That was beyond asking for trouble.

Never read a single review. When it comes to bethesda sandboxes, I know exactly what to expect. Hell, the announcement gameplay videos were more than enough for me to know exactly what to expect and I got exactly that and not a tiny bit less or more. Don't think there are actually surprised people, unless they're completely new to bethesda games altogether. But it does surprise me that there are people (some of my friends too) actually waiting for reviews before buying... What? Why? What can it tell you that you already don't know yourself? Same people who play the 2 cycling beth sandboxes and should know exactly what they will get without useless reviews.

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I never look at any of the pre release videos and developer comments. I know absolutely nothing (or I didn't until today after reading the forums a little bit- people are too loose with spoilers- luckily I skipped ahead when I spotted them). And one review I read also seemed to have spoilers.

The IGN review is glowing. They seemed to be payed off by Bethesda. The Gamespot review seems to be a video, so I didn't watch that (they are too lazy to type a review I guess).

This review I just read, and convinced me not to buy the game, at least I won't buy it any time soon. If I get it for Xmas, I won't be upset though.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/...ur-next-gen-expectations-at-the-vault-door/1/

Check out that review, it's very detailed, and lists a lot of problems with this game.

I'm pretty disgusted what happened to the Fallout Franchise. Fallout: New Vegas is still my favorite game, and as far as I'm concerned Obsidian should be making all future Fallouts. It only makes sense that the sequels should not be made by a company that had nothing to do with the game's creation (or with Wasteland for that matter). On the other hand, if this game didn't have the Fallout title, I might like it. So that's why I'll probably eventually get it.

But sadly, it seems Bethesda has gone the Bioware route of dumbing down their games. I didn't mind it in Skyrim so much, mainly because Oblivion was such a horrible game (never finished). But Skyrim was pretty weak, and I only have about 120 hours in it (compared to 700 in Fallout: NV). Everyone raves about the mods, but I didn't see any Skyrim mods (or Oblivion for that matter) that interested me. At least Skyrim was an improvement on Oblivion. Right now it's not looking like Fallout 4 is an improvement on Fallout 3 (and certainly not NV). Bigger doesn't necessarily mean better. What good is a huge world to explore if everything looks the same (read the review I linked above saying many houses look the same)?

Maniacal said:

Link to video.

Superbunnyhop review. Seems pretty accurate.

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Bah, if I wanted to play the Sims I'd play the Sims. Read the review I posted above, it seems pretty disparaging about the settlement system. I'm really getting annoyed by crap like this in games. Stop turning single player games into MMO's. I want a good story, good action, and many choices to make in a game. Making pretty houses are for girls.

I say MMO mechanics, because they are artificially lengthening the game for something that is not fun. Some of us don't have hundreds of hours to spend on these games. It's bad enough Witcher 3 and DA:I were 100 + hours games. I'm tired of long games these days. I have no desire to replay any of those games.

You know they added in settlements because it was one of the most asked-for features from their player base, right?

Conveniently forgetting other most asked for features such as less bugs, better AI, better writing, and less crashes and glitches. A better save system where you can name your saves or have them more clearly separated/defined by character, less bloaty saves, etc.

I played it for a several hours at friend's house, the most fun I had was the power armour is actually pretty cool as a sort of vehicle and actually the base building... I'm already sick of the radio stations and the numerous other poorer aspects of the game. Seriously what the bloody hell is up with the DJ? He's awful and most of the songs are ones I've already spent a few hundred hours listening too and am getting a bit tired of.

cardgame said:

You know they added in settlements because it was one of the most asked-for features from their player base, right?

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Yeah, but I don't understand why this is becoming a trend in games now days. I always heard stories of people decorating houses in games like Fallout and Skyrim, but why? I'll refrain from making a politically incorrect gay interior designer joke right now. Those jokes died out in the 80's anyways.

I guess I don't mind so much if it is optional. The video review above seemed to imply you had to do it because it affected 2 main plot line quests, and you needed the money (because there is no loot in the game world to sell to vendors), while the review I linked said it wasn't really necessary.

From both reviews above I can see the greatest improvement in this game is combat and enemy AI. And that's okay. But combine that with the reductions in role play opportunities, and you have to admit this is just a shooter game with a story behind it. And I'm okay with that. As I said above, if it didn't have the Fallout name, I would be more okay with this game. As long as the story is good, a shooter type game will keep my attention (like the Mass Effect games). But most shooters have bad stories, and I never finish them, I learned my lesson and never buy them.

When people buy more into hype than into substance, these companies can pretty much do whatever they want.