Thoughts on the Fallout Games?

[Beginner]

On 10/20/2022 at 12:15 AM, Rudolph said:

Hey, GOG Galaxy just recommended me UnderRail as a game similar to Fallout. Anyone familiar with it? If so, is it a viable alternative to Fallout 1 and 2?

Underrail is a solid game. There are some locations and missions that I've found pretty neat, but it will take quite a while to get there. However, there are some mandatory combats where your character and equipment will be put to test to proceed. Junkyard Depot A is common drop point for players that didn't make their characters either killy enough or damage resistant and it's fairly early into the game. Final area (Deep Caves) is frustrating as all hell no matter what and also the second typical drop point and, honestly, I can't blame them for this one.

[Rudolph]

I am still confused about the Charisma stat: the character creation screen says the Speech skill is directly linked to it, but after making a character with 1 Intelligence and maximum Charisma, I appear to still speak in grunts. So does this mean that Charisma is only useful in combination with Intelligence?

 

Also, I have noticed that my character will occasionally perform kicks when I fight unarmed, but they do not appear to inflict as much damage as when I have brass knuckles equipped, which causes the character to only punch. This is really odd, as an Unarmed attack still costs 1 AP more than a Brass Knuckles attack, as I pointed out earlier. I am still looking for an explanation for that, but no luck so far.

 

5 hours ago, Beginner said:

Underrail is a solid game.

Is its main quest also tied to a time limit?

[Beginner]

22 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

Is its main quest also tied to a time limit?

No, the only "time limit" I remember is in Expedition (DLC/expansion content) where titular expedition can run out of supplies and personnel due to numerous attacks. Don't worry though, as there are also ways to permanently stop attacks from happening.

[MrFroz]

15 hours ago, StodgyAyatollah said:

If you like Vampire and can get past the dated controls it's well worth checking out. If you do want to play FO1 just to experience the narrative it's short and can be a fairly quick playthrough with a decent build. You may also want to check out Arcanum. I would definitely suggest looking up a build guide for that one since the combat is a real mess.

 

Here's an example OP starting build for FO1 and a bit of info/opinion that I've learned over the years. No actual spoilers, just mechanics. It should be useful to anyone new. Note that this really is an OP way to play and will trivialize a lot of things once you start progressing so if you feel that may ruin your experience skip this. 

  Reveal hidden contents

IN and AG are the most OP stats. High IN gives you more skill points on level up and effects some character interactions. AG gives you action points to perform more actions in combat. PE and LK are fairly useful. PE effects you're chance to hit along with range. LK effects you're chance for critical hits and has a few other in game effects like some unique dialog and the chance for special encounters. ST and EN don't have a very big effect. ST gives you some carry weight and EN gives you a small amount of HP and resistance. Their benefits are negligible. CH has almost no effect (they addressed this in the sequel). All stats have other minor effects but these are the big ones.

 

A +1 to all stats except LK can be bought about halfway through and power armor gives +3 to ST so it's not wise to start higher than 6 in ST and 9 in the others except possibly LK. LK can get a +1 in a one time random encounter if you choose the right dialogue. It is entirely possible to never get this encounter.

 

Gifted is a very op trait. Adding 1 to each stat while it's penalty can be easily mitigated through the use of skill books and a high IN. Small frame is one of the better options as it gives you +1 AG at the cost of some carry weight. 

 

For skills, speech is the big one to get the most out of the game. It's worth tagging to get this up quickly. After that a good combat skill is important. A solid choice is to tag both small guns and energy weapons. You can get small guns up quick for the early game when they are common then switch over when you start getting access to higher tier energy weapons. A very exploitable skill is gambling. You don't have to sink a lot of points into it to get insanely rich. Steal can be very useful early game with some save scumming to get some decent gear and doesn't need a lot of points either. Science and repair are useful for some progression and to get a little more out of the game. Lockpick is useful to get up a bit but far from essential. Stealth can be useful in a few circumstances. Doctor can be useful for treating crippled limbs and such but there are doctors that can do this as well. There aren't a lot of traps and you can usually just tank the damage so it's not too important. Outdoorsman minimizes the amount and threat of encounters you have on the over world but more combat = more XP and loot so it's convenient but also has a down side. Big guns are very powerful but take up a lot of you're carry weight. Melee and unarmed can be fun to play around with but are generally less useful than ranged weapons. Throwing isn't very useful outside of some very unique exploits. Barter is virtually useless since even without exploiting gambling and steal it's fairly easy to become super rich. 

 

 

I recall reading somewhere that Mitsoda based the Malkavian's special dialogue options from VTMB on Fallout's low intelligence character, if I recall correctly, and that made me a little bit intrigued. Thanks for the tips.

[Rudolph]

The more I play Fallout 1 with the time limit disabled, the more I am baffled by Black Isle's design decision to have it in the first place. 

 

There is just so much to do, so much to explore! I can get the appeal of a time limit in a speedrun, but in a game where you constantly have to figure out where to go and thus have everything to gain from exploring the world as much as possible, it feels so counterintuitive and downright counterproductive. Even in my first attempt at a melee run where I barely spoke to anyone and had to read a walkthrough a couple of times to figure out where to go next, I was barely able to make it back to Vault 13 with the Water Chip in time.

 

I just do not understand. Was it all a ploy to get players to order a strategy guide or what? 

Edited October 21, 2022 by Rudolph

[SplinkWizard]

Fallout 3 is more arcadey while New Vegas is more for roleplaying. Both games suffer from the fact that it falls apart if you immerse yourself. 

[StodgyAyatollah]

1 hour ago, MrFroz said:

 

I recall reading somewhere that Mitsoda based the Malkavian's special dialogue options from VTMB on Fallout's low intelligence character, if I recall correctly, and that made me a little bit intrigued. Thanks for the tips.

That would make sense if that's the case. Going from FO to Vampire the dialog felt very familiar and my preferred class was malkavian. Arcanum has even more of that influence and is more elaborate with different races, genders, traits etc. A number of the troika team worked on both but I don't believe Mitsoda was one.

1 hour ago, Rudolph said:

The more I play Fallout 1 with the time limit disabled, the more I am baffled by Black Isle's design decision to have it in the first place. 

I've never seen anyone complain about it before so I don't think it was a mistake on their part. 150 days is so generous it's a non-issue, especially when you can extend it another 100 in game and the quest only takes maybe 20-30 days. The second time limit is quite literally inconsequential as there is not enough content in the game to ever worry about. 

[dasho]

3 hours ago, Rudolph said:

I just do not understand. Was it all a ploy to get players to order a strategy guide or what? 

 

I know this is shocking, but there's a thing called "failure" or "game over" that is ok to let players encounter.

Edited October 21, 2022 by dasho

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

1 hour ago, dasho said:

I know this is shocking, but there's a thing called "failure" or "game over" that it's ok to let players encounter.

That's so unfair! Big Black Isle took advantage of so many people and profited off of their failure by selling them guide books. No, really, a "ploy" to get people to buy strategy books? What the actual fuck? You have enough time and then some to complete every quest in the game.

 

Why is it that in every thread Rudolph posts in, the thread either turns into "Rudolph vs. Doomworld", "Doomworld helps Rudolph understand something he could have Googled", or "Rudolph blurbs two dozen complaints in separate posts while refusing to acknowledge anyone else even if they're responding to him"? Seriously, no drama intended, but it has gotten downright irritating. There's never a discussion, just a guy talking to the wind and ignoring everyone. And with the amount of posts he makes, it gets pretty hard to avoid.

[CittyKat112]

On 10/17/2022 at 11:40 PM, SilverMiner said:

FO2 felt like it was rebalanced, had some gameplay improving tweaks like better followers system. But I think there's a lot of mixed content, and I didn't explore every location simply because there was nothing motivating me to do it(also the world travel speed was like lol, I won't go there just because it's slow). The main quest is horrible. Hakunin scared me a lot, appearing from the black screen at some times asking for a geck. The most annoying part was travelling to San Francisco and Navarro. It's slow, there was a lot of patrols, fire geckos and deathclaws, I mostly ran away and it became kind of a chore. Having to travel slowly for multiple times just to setup the tanker also was annoying. (now I'm playing unpatched FO2 and travelling at high speeds not even encountering anybody)

 

 

 

 

 

Bro wtf, did you not use Chrysalis Highwayman? This car makes exploring the map much more fun.

[StodgyAyatollah]

25 minutes ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

That's so unfair! Big Black Isle took advantage of so many people and profited off of their failure by selling them guide books. 

The one unlicensed guide that existed must have sold like mad hell from this nefarious scheme.

[Capellan]

3 hours ago, Rudolph said:

The more I play Fallout 1 with the time limit disabled, the more I am baffled by Black Isle's design decision to have it in the first place. 

 

To create a sense that the danger was a real one, and that failure to address the water chip problem would have consequences.

 

In reality, the time limit given is very generous and it is easy to recover the water chip in far less time than allowed ... and completing that task does not end the game.

[Rudolph]

35 minutes ago, Capellan said:

To create a sense that the danger was a real one, and that failure to address the water chip problem would have consequences.

I was being rhetorical. I understand its purpose storywise, but from a gameplay standpoint, I do not think it was a good idea, especially for newcomers who have to figure out how to play the game and those who are more interested in exploring the world. I read that Fallout 2 did away with the timed main quest altogether, so I take it that Black Isle did not think it was essential to the Fallout experience either.

Edited October 21, 2022 by Rudolph

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

14 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

I was being rhetorical. I understand its purpose storywise, but from a gameplay standpoint, I do not think it was a good idea - at least for newcomers and those who are more interested in exploring the world. I read that Fallout 2's main quest does not have a time limit, so I take it that Black Isle did not think it was essential to the Fallout experience either.

It's not essential because it is so generous that it has hardly any impact on the game. You have plenty of time to explore the world before delivering the chip, and a shit ton more after delivering it. IIRC, in the patched version gives you over 10 years. Fallout is a game set in a lawless post-apocalyptic shithole, it makes sense that it's not the most welcoming experience, even if it's still more welcoming and easier to comprehend than 90% of other CRPG's. In fact, it's one of the first games I'd recommend to people unfamiliar with classic CRPG's. Fallout 2 is more difficult than the original, at least the early portion, so if you felt the first one was too challenging, don't even bother with Fallout 2.

[Capellan]

10 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

from a gameplay standpoint, I do not think it was a good idea, especially for newcomers who have to figure out how to play the game and those who are more interested in exploring the world. 

 

It was a 90s game. There was a big ass manual you could read while the game installed (which took a while), and an expectation that you'd spend the time to figure it out because learning to play the game was part of the experience. It was expected that you would need to restart the game multiple times to.finish it.

 

Not liking the time limit is fine. Accusing the game devs of doing to as part running a grift is going more than a bit far.

 

You're going to run into far less forgiving things than the time limit in the first two Fallouts. Game design looked very different back then. I personally much prefer the modern day approach, but expecting a modern day approach from a 25 year old game is a recipe for frustration.

[Rudolph]

28 minutes ago, Capellan said:

It was a 90s game.

System Shock 1 came out in 1994: it gave the option to disable the time limit. Then System Shock 2 (1999) did away with time limits altogether.

 

28 minutes ago, Capellan said:

Accusing the game devs of doing to as part running a grift

No, I was not doing that: I was wondering aloud, hence the "or what?". I just do not understand why a game that lets me adjust the difficulty of the combat and of the game separately (!) would not let me adjust the time limit as well.

Edited October 21, 2022 by Rudolph

[dasho]

13 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

System Shock 1 came out in 1994: it gave the option to disable the time limit. Then System Shock 2 did away with time limits altogether.

 

No, I was not doing that. I was wondering aloud, hence the "or what?".

 

[StodgyAyatollah]

1 hour ago, Rudolph said:

I read that Fallout 2 did away with the timed main quest altogether, so I take it that Black Isle did not think it was essential to the Fallout experience either.

Nope. In game time limit of 13 years. 

 

EDIT: You should certainly play FO 2 when you are done with 1. It has a much more approachable beginning that will gently ease you into things as a new player. It's called the temple of trials. I think you'll like it.

Edited October 21, 2022 by StodgyAyatollah

[Capellan]

36 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

No, I was not doing that: I was wondering aloud, hence the "or what?"

 

Bullshit.  To illustrate:

 

Are you an idiot, or what?

 

Notice how the 'or what?' does not remotely change the fact that you're being called an idiot?

 

 

[Capellan]

The funny thing is, I think it is perfectly reasonable to not like the time limit design decision.  The first Fallout has numerous design decisions I don't particularly like (and suspect Rudolph won't either, if they encounter them).

 

At a certain point, though, you have to accept that not every game designer or gamer likes the same things, and a game can be 'not my/your thing' without it being BADWRONG.

[Rudolph]

No, but if you want to be hung up on semantics, be my guest.

 

The point of my post is that I cannot wrap my mind around crafting such a rich, open world, only to arbitrarily add in a time limit that greatly restricts the player's ability to explore said world. It strikes me as just so counterintuitive and I am glad that they dropped the time limit from subsequent games.

Edited October 21, 2022 by Rudolph

[Capellan]

The reasons for the time limit (and the fact that it does not actually do what you keep saying it does) have been explained multiple times. You just refuse to acknowledge that.

[Rudolph]

9 minutes ago, Capellan said:

The reasons for the time limit (and the fact that it does not actually do what you keep saying it does) have been explained multiple times. You just refuse to acknowledge that.

Nah, I clearly just disagree. Just because it makes sense to you does not mean it make sense to me.

 

Again, on my first run, I nearly ran out of time despite skipping a few locations (Junktown, The Hub) and not bothering with any side-quests past Tandi's rescue. This tells me that had I done it the "expected" way, I might have not been able to make it at all.

 

The point of a time limit in a game is to prevent you from focusing on anything but the task at hand. That is fine in a game like Super Mario Bros or Sonic The Hedgehog, but in an open world, I feel like it sends the player the wrong message.

Edited October 21, 2022 by Rudolph

[StodgyAyatollah]

3 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

Nah, I clearly just disagree.

 

Again, on my first run, I nearly ran out of time despite skipping a few locations and not bothering with any side-quests past Tandi's rescue. This tells me that had done it the "expected" way, I might have not been able to make it at all.

So you wandered aimlessly in circles on the overworld map since that's the only way you can burn up that much time. Something that was already explained to you. 

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

If you manage to run out of time in Fallout, you deserve to lose because you had to have spent the whole time fucking around doing nothing. Seriously, I even Googled it, almost nobody else had this problem and agreed that the timer is very generous.

 

@Rudolph What did you do to spend so much time? Do you realize that you eventually get virtually-unlimited time?

[dasho]

1 hour ago, Rudolph said:

The point of a time limit in a game is to prevent you from focusing on anything but the task at hand.

 

"If you don't bring back the water chip in a timely manner, we may all die."

[Rudolph]

Anywaaay, I must say, as a newcomer discovering the Fallout franchise, I find it really fascinating. For such an iconic series, it is weird how much it has struggled over the years between the cancelled titles and the spin-offs. It is also infuriating to read about how Bethesda screwed over Obsidian despite the latter making what appears to be the most beloved entry in the franchise since the original Fallout. It honestly makes me a bit wary about buying New Vegas, knowing that my money is going to Bethesda, a company that visibly does not know nor really care what it is doing to the franchise. Kind ironic for a series that is literally about how capitalism brought about the end of the world... :S

 

Which reminds me: how does The Outer Worlds fare compared to New Vegas? I see that it is designed by two of Fallout 1's creators.

Edited October 22, 2022 by Rudolph

[PsychEyeball]

Bethesda owns Doom, so clearly that must mean you shouldn't be on Doomworld then. You clearly are falling for the almighty Bethesda empire right now!

 

No ethical consumption under capitalism, you know the deal. Not to mention that Obsidian and Bethesda work for the same company. Your cash's all going the same place in the end. 

 

Honestly, reading your reactions to Fallout 1, I believe this might not be the series for you. Nothing wrong with that, but I see very little connection between player and game here...

[RDETalus]

3 hours ago, Rudolph said:

The Outer Worlds

I heard it was underwhelming. One YouTube commenter summed it up with this: "the game was made by the same company that made New Vegas, not the same writers and lead designer. Employees move on." So you should probably read a few critical reviews before making your decision.

Edited October 22, 2022 by RDETalus

[Rudolph]

16 hours ago, PsychEyeball said:

Bethesda owns Doom, so clearly that must mean you shouldn't be on Doomworld then.

Haha, but see, I bought Doom long before Bethesda bought Id. And also, thanks to Freedoom, I can play Doom without giving Bethesda a cent. ;)

 

But joking aside, to be fair, I do not feel like Bethesda "ruined" Doom like it did with Fallout: while I am not really a fan of Doom 2016 and especially Doom Eternal, I acknowledge that they stuck to the series' ethos EDIT: and I am not aware of Bethesda screwing Id Software like it did with Obsidian. Judging from what I read about Bethesda's Fallout games, however, they took a satire about capitalism bringing about the end of the world and turned it into a (broken, in Fallout 76's case) theme park.

 

16 hours ago, PsychEyeball said:

Honestly, reading your reactions to Fallout 1, I believe this might not be the series for you.

You must have missed my later posts where I came around and admitted to enjoying the game once I managed to overcome my initial hurdles, including the time limit. I still do not understand why they put the latter in there to begin with (and that seems to be greatly upsetting to some people, including a certain person who appears hellbent on policing my every post), but now that I have found a way to disable it, I am fine with the game. Like Mass Effect (which, again, I reckon is nowhere near as well designed as Fallout 1), it took me several attempts, but I think the game has finally grown on me.

 

14 hours ago, RDETalus said:

One YouTube commenter summed it up with this: "the game was made by the same company that made New Vegas, not the same writers and lead designer. Employees move on." So you should probably read a few critical reviews before making your decision.

Well, that is just it: according to Wikipedia at least, The Outer Worlds was designed by Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, two of Fallout 1's creators, so I would have expected the game to be at least as well received as the original Fallout.

 

Lightning in a bottle, I guess, although I am still interested in checking it out.

Edited October 22, 2022 by Rudolph