Forums » Fallout

Non-Fallout Fans: What do you dislike about Fallout?

    • 140 posts
    March 1, 2016 8:39 AM EST

    It's been about a year now since our beloved Skyrim Blog started incorporating content from the Fallout franchise, and in that time there's been many discussions on what people like about Fallout. However I've yet to see any discussions about why some of us dislike it.

    So tell us, what are your reasons for not liking Fallout?

    Mine are as follows:

    Setting

    This is one of the biggest problems I have with Fallout. Everything's basically a radiation filled desert with the occasional ruined town, 1950's vending machine, or abandoned Vault. There's no real contrast in any of the locations.

    I think the last time I played Fallout 3 was some time in late 2014, while I've only played about an hour of New Vegas about 3, maybe 4 years ago. The reason being, it did nothing to bring me back. Everything's just bland wastes and the people are all equally as bland.

    Roleplay

    For a Roleplaying game, it's incredibly hard to come up with a decent backstory when most is already written for you. The Elder Scrolls did this perfectly: You are a prisoner. It could've been a minor crime, a major crime, or it could've just been a mistake. However, in Fallout 3, you have to be 18 years old, in New Vegas I think you had to be a courier, and in Fallout 4 you have to have a wife and child. There's hardly any room for your own backstory, which is just frustrating.

    ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

    In the end, it passes the time, but it also feels like time wasted.

    • 773 posts
    March 1, 2016 8:54 AM EST

    I don't really agree with the roleplay aspect, or at least not for that reason. You were effectively a blank slate in Fallout 3 and New Vegas - granted with a couple of aspects fixed, but you could ignore those.

    That has changed markedly in Fallout 4, due to the voiced protagonist. The backstory is now set, and that definitely does affect role play. 

    I wouldn't be surprised if Elder Scrolls VI has a voiced protagonist, which will set the backstory much more than it was in Skyrim or Oblivion. Just saying...

    And, whilst I do agree that the wastelands can be a bit depressing, I think they've done a much better job with Fallout 4 at creating variety than happened with either Fallout 3 or Fallout NV

  • March 1, 2016 9:28 AM EST
    I wouldn't say I totally dislike fallout (although that's changed with the release of Fallout 4). I really liked NV, but FO3 was a massive bugfest (ala Bethesda). For me, I think about what's different between NV and FO4. As someone who has a thing for the 50s aesthetic, I kinda like the setting. It has charm. In NV, being a coriour was really open ended, you had huge, believable options to be a evil, heartless mercenary type, a saviour of the wastes or things in between, and that is largely what's missing in FO4. Role play. I have the season pass and I'm willing to give the DLC a go, but the game hasn't pulled me in in any way that I can really talk about it on the site. The mechanics are cool but nothing super special. Honestly, I feel they're largely an improvement on previous games but I don't like the lack of skills, the lack of character customizability or uniqueness between playthroughs. The entire game feels very static. The voiced protagonist and fixed backstory are disasterous for RP, which is the primary reason I still play TES games. I hope Bethesda get their heads out of their asses and realize that they don't have the writing skill or are willing to invest the time to make the voiced protagonist work for their games. I don't find the story compelling in the slightest. It's very generic science fiction: family member stolen, oh and look at these evil robots BUT THEYRE NOT EVIL, but these people say they are, and now we're fighting for/against the robots. Lordy me, just shoot me now.

    I'm also not a fan of the lore. TES has a rich lore developed over a few continents, thousands of years, and three primary games. Each games lore is connected, referenced and built on. FO doesn't have that. Each games lore is very individual because the games have all been in different places that really don't interact much. That one reference every now and then is cool, but it's not the same broad lore that makes TES feel like a living, breathing world. I think some cool things, like the vaults themselves, aren't explored enough, while things like new game elements (Caesars legion, the synths) are given too much focus. Rather than repurposing old, they just keep making more and none of it really gels.
    • 140 posts
    March 1, 2016 10:50 AM EST

    New Vegas did have a lot more potential for backstory, as far as I can remember, but I think Fallout 3's was much more fixed. I mean, the first few minutes of gameplay is basically your backstory, leaving out only a few years in between that you can interpret for yourself.

    • 277 posts
    March 1, 2016 10:55 AM EST
    1. Sheathed weapons disappear - Damn it, I want to see my awesome sniper rifle mounted on my back!!!! 
    2. The delay caused by texturing a weapon when it is unsheathed is big enough to get the player killed in a fight;
    3. The game's main story has massive plot holes. How come every npc knows of the dog at Red Rocket and most importantly where do they know his name from?
    4. The player can't progress into a faction's main quest without progressing in the game's story;
    5. The game is broken. It does a terrible job at providing the low level player with enough bullets of a specific caliber and stimpacks;
    6. Voiced protagonist = reduced replay ability since they're basically the same two characters with different guns;

    Still, I found out that using cheats makes the game enjoyable.  Oh, switching from my sniper to my shotgun when a deathclaw is meters away takes too much? Well, screw you Bethesda, I'm going to activate god mode! Oh, I don't get to have a decent supply of stimpacks and .308 caliber bullets? No problem, I'll just bring up the console and call the player.additem function.

    • 140 posts
    March 1, 2016 11:02 AM EST

    The Lore is a big issue with me, as well. I find it much harder to enjoy in Fallout than in The Elder Scrolls.

    • 47 posts
    March 1, 2016 2:16 PM EST

    The biggest problem is the world. 2 centuries ago the A bomb fell and radiation baked the world. Now we have mutants and ghouls without a explanation that make sense how they e(de)volved. Humans have tainted DNA and breed like rabits, especially raiders. Everybody use guns, even senile old bats and advanced weaponry like plasma and rifles, but there are no factories or gunsmiths to make weapons and bullets. I could go on, but ...

    • 1217 posts
    March 1, 2016 2:29 PM EST
    The bullets and weapons thing has bothered me in the past. I kind of have the same issue with TES though; these cultures have been at the same level of technology (and apparently quality of life) for millennia. Like, *no* dweller tech is simple enough to reverse engineer? Not even a little indoor plumbing?
    • 312 posts
    March 1, 2016 2:29 PM EST

    I really enjoyed New Vegas because of Obsidian. It really brought back the feeling that 1 and 2 brought to the table. I can't say the same for 3 and 4 thanks to Bethesda's shoddy writing.

    • 1217 posts
    March 1, 2016 2:30 PM EST
    The disappearing holstered weapons is an absolute travesty in my book.
    • 585 posts
    March 1, 2016 2:30 PM EST

    I personally hate the art style of this game. While Bethesda tried to make Skyrim look as realistic as possible, they went down the good-lookin'-but-still-definately-a-game route in Fallout 4. Because of this I never feel underthreat or that the world is dangerous, it looks to cartoony. I also loved the style of FO3 and FONV, its gritty and somewhat bland look fit into the world far more than FO4 does.

    • 312 posts
    March 1, 2016 2:32 PM EST

    New Vegas's Courier was a blank slate. You have no idea what happened beyond "You were told to deliver this, and you got shot in the head by Benny."

    Fallout 3, on the other hand, I could not enjoy nearly as much. Fallout 4 was fun for a little because "Shiny mechanics in a world that I enjoy!" and quickly overstayed its welcome.

    • 404 posts
    March 1, 2016 2:36 PM EST

    all this talk about disappearing weapons makes me glad I like playing the Borderlands Series.

    • 277 posts
    March 1, 2016 2:44 PM EST

    That's fantasy worlds in a nutshell. Look at star wars! They use the same technology in the movies as in the old republic games. I can only presume that these civilizations reached the peak of technological development... yet they still use wires instead of wi-fi.  Oh, right! And let's not forget the always used cliche in magical fantasy worlds: long lost ancient magic that is so much powerful than "modern days" magic. I can only presume that those civilizations de-evolved. 

    • 1217 posts
    March 1, 2016 2:49 PM EST
    Which is why it doesn't bother me anymore. I accept that it's a mode of story telling, often useful and some times necessary. TES and many other beloved settings can't *afford* to change that way and still feel like themselves.
    • 1467 posts
    March 2, 2016 6:04 AM EST

    Honestly, there was the start and middle of Fallout 4...let me sum up what I enjoyed...Crafting and I suppose Power Armour, even the crafting wasn't as organic as Skyrim's, or hell Fallout NV (I can't justify my Law Degree, Mom from a very 50's feeling era knowing how to create a functioning Sniper Rifle from a pistol damn it) 

    Everything else in the game rubbed me the wrong way, from the smaller weapon pool (Or at least smaller feeling), complete lack of Roleplay, forced in Backstory, smaller armour pool, limited armour customization, kind of shoddy graphics (Honestly, compared to the Witcher, Dragon Age Inquisition, hell even Black Ops 3 it feels like a down-grade), less interesting characters (I haven't been able to enjoy the characters like I did Caesar for instance, or even Benny).

    All in all it feels like a very stale game to me with little to nothing that will ever keep me interested. 

    • 1441 posts
    March 2, 2016 9:44 AM EST

    Well, they did say they'd have to scale the graphics back to add more features in. Also, one interpretation is that Nora was in the military's legal group thing

    • 145 posts
    March 2, 2016 10:33 AM EST
    As someone who has only played Fallout 4 and not any of the other games, I might have a bit of a different opinion, but here's some things I didn't like in FO4:

    1. Preston Garvey could have been such a great character. I love him, but so many people hate him because of his constant quest giving!!
    2 . I carry a sword as my main melee weapon and I want to see it on my back when I sheathe it!!
    3. You finish a factions questline unless you finish the main story with them. I want to join all the factions on my main character! They're trying to force replayability when it's really just kinda annoying. I've made tons of characters on Skyrim, and while I love Fallout 4, I've only made 2 characters on it that I'm attached to.
    • 1441 posts
    March 2, 2016 10:44 AM EST

    Well, I wanted that for Skyrim, but you need a mod to have it like that

  • Tom
    • 624 posts
    March 2, 2016 12:50 PM EST

    I think the background storyline is dumb. I really don't like the 50's combined with nuclear holocaust theme. I guess I don't really care for science fiction video games like that. Gazing at my game library right now, I've got five games that are science fiction; Mass Effect 1-3, Halo 1 and 3. Mass Effect was bought as a bundle for $45, I enjoy RPGs, and I've heard good things about it. Overall a pretty good game. Halo is a relic from the past and I haven't played any of the games past Halo 3, except Halo Wars. I've read and own most of the books that have come out for the series. They get their own shelf on my book case in fact, I enjoy them so much.

    But Fallout doesn't provide me my futuristic science fiction setting with aliens and spaceships. It's grungy, boring, and depressing. I don't find the storyline compelling either. I want to save humanity/the galaxy from destruction wrought by alien forces beyond our understanding, not travel irradiated grey wastelands shooting mutants and giant bugs over.... What's my motivation in Fallout again?

    What I'm getting down to is Fallout has crappy and incredibly boring lore. TES, Halo, Star Wars, Dragon Age, (maybe Mass Effect) have interesting lore that I do care about.

    • 1441 posts
    March 2, 2016 12:52 PM EST

    Is it because its basically our earth, except with some major changes, like no transistors, everything powered by nuclear energy, robots, energy weapons, with a 50's aesthetic?

    • 277 posts
    March 2, 2016 1:00 PM EST

    Oh, oh, oh. There is one more thing that drives me bonkers: As a player I need a specific perk to lockpick doors and hack terminals. What. The. Fuck!?!? Oh right, and perking Advanced Hacking and so on doesn't make the process simpler. Damn it, there are times when I spend two to three minutes in front of a terminal to hack it. Would it not have been more logical to allow player to try and hack any kind of terminal and the perks would make the process easier? Like reduce the number of letters in a word? 

    • 1441 posts
    March 2, 2016 1:03 PM EST

    Well, in the older games, you needed specific levels of either Lockpicking or Science to be able to pick certain locks and hack certain terminals

  • Tom
    • 624 posts
    March 2, 2016 1:05 PM EST

    Yes. Incredibly boring.

    • 1441 posts
    March 2, 2016 1:10 PM EST

    I kind of like it, its different then other science fiction. And well, you do save, at least the Capital Wasteland, by giving it clean water in F03