Fallout 4

[EgonSpengler]

I decided to take the plunge at $50. I figured it won't be on sale for less than that for a long while. I've played only a few hours so far, but I managed to scratch the surface of the weapons modding and the reclaiming of Sanctuary Hills. Seems promising so far, looking forward to more.

 

[Disgustipated]

50 is well worth it. It's pretty easy to invest 100 hours. Although I see on forums people playing over 500 hours, I can't get that much.

I did start a 3rd character (my melee Survival difficulty character is still at level 5) again on survival difficulty. I'm up to level 12 using energy weapons. But I'm getting bored of that character as well. Survival difficulty really isn't that hard. You use more ammo and healing supplies, but other than that, it's easy with ranged weapons. Energy weapons are too much like gun weapons, so I don't think I'll continue this game.

The game is worth playing through once, but the replay value is very low.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

Yeah we need the GECK to come out to get a real Survival difficulty. The current one just spawns more legendary enemies and turns enemies into bullet sponges. Which you would think Bethesda would realize by now doesn't make fights harder, just longer, considering they've been making the same idiotic mistake since at least Oblivion.

HEY BETHESDA, notice how one of the first and often one of the most popular mods that comes out for all of your games is an actual difficulty mod that does more than increase enemy HP? Take the freaking hint already.

 

[Ajidica]

While I haven't gotten that far into F4, if its enemy scaling system is anything like Skyrim's; comparing it to the Oblivion scaling system (which exists in its own special circle of hell on the short bus eating glue) is a bit unfair.

I have noticed enemies seem to use grenades more than in F3, and the grenade damage radius is larger with more damage being dealt. Which really puts a damper on my previous tactic of hiding behind the indestructible plywood fence to rest.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

It sounds like you think I was referring to level scaling, which I wasn't. Level scaling is a separate issue. What I'm talking about the way different difficulty levels scale, with easy simply giving you a flat increase to damage and a decrease to enemy damage, while survival gives you a flat decrease to damage and increase to enemy damage. This is not a compelling way of increasing game difficulty because it just results in fights that are longer, not really harder. I don't have to use more advanced tactics or out think better AI tricks on survival than I do on easy, I just have to shoot the enemy more.

 

[Ajidica]

Oh. Yeah, you got no disagreement from me on that.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I swapped Dogmeat for Piper and cleared out Copley Square last night. It's funny seeing a location I know so well recreated in miniature. Everything in this game has been scaled down from its real-life counterpart (I assume the same is true for Washington DC in Fallout 3, but I noticed it less). Anyway, lots of dead Supermutants, mostly by way of "Righteous Authority" with a side-dish of hand grenades. I was unable to save the Library staff. Does anyone know if it's possible? I heard the fighting but I didn't blaze through the Supermutants to reach the people, so by the time I got there, it was all bodies everywhere and I just had to finish off the leader.

I noticed Piper used the gun that I gave her, but she didn't seem to put on any of the armor, and she got KO'd a lot.

And I love Righteous Authority. I burned through the ammo like a maniac, though, so I guess I have to chill.

Level 12, I got the third pip in Sneak because I was just so tired of getting randomly killed by a mine or a boobytrap that I didn't spot. My reflexes aren't quick enough to get away when I hear the beep, and for me, it just doesn't add anything to the game to get abruptly killed every once in a while.

I've been building Sanctuary, and I can't tell if I need to build walls around the settlement. They're pretty f'ugly, and you're just not allowed to build anything that doesn't look like a hovel. I built outposts with automated guns and floodlights at the two bridges, but of course any attackers could just wade through the water if they don't mind a few rads.

Anyway, long weekend coming up.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

Piper: You have to make them manually equip armor. On the trading screen, put the armor in the NPC's inventory, then hover over it and you should have a button to equip it. I think it's "t" but I'm not 100%.

Walls: Unless you want them for aesthetic purposes, don't bother, they don't help prevent attacks on the settlement or anything. Even if you completely surround the settlement with walls the attackers will just spawn inside them.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Thanks for the tips. That the walls are useless makes their inclusion seem kind of dumb, but I guess it frees me from having an even uglier settlement. If there's a way to patch the roofs of the existing buildings, I haven't found it. I guess we'll just all get wet when it rains. At least the lights are on.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

Well, there's a lot of stuff in the building options that don't really do anything, so walls are just another form of that I guess. You COULD use them maybe to wall off really important stuff like your crops and water purifiers so that they don't get randomly shot during an attack. But using them as a city wall around the whole settlement sadly does not do anything (YET, bring on the GECK already).

No way to patch the roofs I'm afraid, one of the reasons I think Sanctuary is actually one of the crappier settlements... too many unremovable buildings that are both ugly and unchangeable. Let us fix them up and maybe use paint we find out in the world to modify their look and it would be a whole lot better.

 

[Maniacal]

$50 is a waste of money on this game, so is pretty much anything over $20. I don't think I've touched it all month and have zero interest in doing so anytime soon.

 

[EgonSpengler]

So I discovered over the weekend that the Steam Workshop isn't enabled for Fallout 4. I haven't yet tried to install any mods. Does anyone know if you can use mods from other sites through Steam? There are a couple of weather enhancements that I like the look of: One that enhances the graphics and sound effects of rain, and another makes radiation storms actual hazards that you need to shelter from.

 

[Maniacal]

You can mod any game the same old way before the Steam workshop was made. All the work shop does is just install it for you and automatically update it (which isn't really a good idea for many mods) and have a poorer search interface for finding mods than the Nexus does.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

So I discovered over the weekend that the Steam Workshop isn't enabled for Fallout 4. I haven't yet tried to install any mods. Does anyone know if you can use mods from other sites through Steam? There are a couple of weather enhancements that I like the look of: One that enhances the graphics and sound effects of rain, and another makes radiation storms actual hazards that you need to shelter from.

You can, but it can be kind of a pain right now. You have to manually open your plugins.ini file and add the name of the plugin that you want to have activated. Then, and this is crucial, once everything is added, make that .ini file Read Only. The last update to the game made it so that it automatically deletes everything in your plugins.ini file every time you load the game, unless you take away its permissions to do so by setting the file to read only.

 

[Arakhor]

Or you can use the Nexus Mod Manager, which should handle that stage for you. Gopher has done a couple of videos about exactly what to do.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Thanks for the tips. I'll probably try to monkey with it over the weekend. I think there's a buttload of mods for the game out there. I don't see anything in Steam about why they didn't include a workshop for this game. It seems de rigueur now.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

Thanks for the tips. I'll probably try to monkey with it over the weekend. I think there's a buttload of mods for the game out there. I don't see anything in Steam about why they didn't include a workshop for this game. It seems de rigueur now.

I think Bethesda is planning to launch their own mod platform, is why. They don't want you getting mods through Steam, they want you getting them from their service when it launches.

 

[Maniacal]

Bethesda repeatedly stated that mod support would be available in/by early 2016 for both PC and Xbox One. They need to polish up the tools a bit for release, patch the game up a bit, and figure out what the hell kind of mods they can or can not allow on the antiquated xbones.

While for some games where you just need a few skin replacements, sound changes or other stuff where a sudden update won't ruin your save file the Steam workshop is great, but for singleplayer games you're far better off doing it the old fashioned way or using a 3rd party mod organizer like Nexus Mod Manager anyway so the lack of workshop support so far is for the best anyway. It would be nice to have all the tools out, but nothing short of a total conversion could save the game anyway.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

There's no saving the story and writing, that will always be limited, just as it currently is in Skyrim. I can mod Skyrim to the hilt and make it pretty damned fun to play but the story and dialog will always suck, and that's the future for FO4 as well.

But I might be able to at least enjoy the game if we can get a proper gameplay overhaul like FO3's FWE. A real survival mode where food/water/sleep are necessities, ammo has weight, and supplies are limited and valuable. A revamped enemy AI so that I can't crouch in a shadow with a silenced weapon and pick off 25 guys without them knowing what the hell is going on. A UI for the settlement system that maybe doesn't completely blow. Things like that.

 

[Mustakrakish]

I abandoned the game a few days before Christmas, never got into the Institute. On Christmas decided to try Skyrim for LOLZ on my laptop while visiting relatives. To my surprise got sucked in and still playing. I'm kinda shocked how Skyrim seems so much more interesting of a game when I'm for once not min maxing and just play.