Fallout 4 - it's official! Coming Nov 10, '15

[cmdrdredd]

For lots of people, this is the first fallout game. I beat New Vegas a long time ago and played some Fallout 3, but had completely forgotten about the brotherhood until it was brought up as well.

It was in some of the trailers even. I knew all the factions in the game before release.

 

[Harabec]

The pipboy app is a GREAT idea and works seamlessly with the game.
BTW, I may have found the reason why I'm not liking the workshop 😛 It may actually be a bug?
I'm left-handed and have remapped the movement to the arrow keys. The game didn't like it from the start, with pins only moving with WASD when lock picking.
Now, once I get the workshop UI up, the arrow keys go through items while I cannot move - WASD do nothing. Quite odd.

EDIT#4: small tip - don't forget the Help when you press ESC. It isn't just key mapping or some such, it is an encyclopedia covering nearly all the game mechanics.

 

[Phynaz]

There's no spoiler there at all. Anyone who knows anything about fallout knows about the brotherhood. They're in every game.

Giving away the location of an item is a spoiler. There's zero reason to not use tags.

 

[Zenoth]

Something interesting came up from Piper in a conversation as I was exploring. Not that much of a spoiler about Fallout 4's main arc itself, but I suppose it might be a spoiler about Piper's own backstory:

Spoiler

She revealed that 'attempts' to her life happened due to her work, one of which consisted of being almost sacrificed to Atom (by the Children of Atom?). She got out of the situation by suddenly claiming out loud having seen a revelation, which the acolytes believed, stopping the sacrifice ritual in the process. She became an 'Acolyte of Atom', but of course managed to sneak out at some point. Now I haven't played Fallout 3 in quite some time but I do remember that the Church of Atom (or the "children" of Atom) was not only located in but unique to Megaton city itself, and that it wasn't exactly what you'd call a 'faction' nor a wide spread 'religion' either regionally, much less nationally. I'm not sure what's the message there from the writer who wrote that part. Was Piper in Megaton when it happened? Or was she being sacrificed in Diamond City?

And why would followers of the "Atom beliefs" end up elsewhere than in Megaton? Not to mention that Megaton is in Fallout 3, and exists in 2277 (Fallout 3's year), but Fallout 4's events occur in 2287... so the only thing I can think of is that assuming Megaton wasn't atomized by the player (canonically) in Fallout 3 and "Atomism" spread in other regions of the wasteland in a period of 10 years then it found its way in and around Boston as well, which might explain why there's anyone there even knowing of Atom to start with. I'm saying this because Piper didn't mention Megaton at all during that conversation (unless my brain stopped functioning half way and I just somehow already forgot about it as I'm typing this).

 

[cmdrdredd]

Giving away the location of an item is a spoiler. There's zero reason to not use tags.

I never gave a location. I could have told you where to pickup the signal and where to go and exactly where the quest takes place. I didn't.

 

[Imp]

Probably been discussed already, but has anyone gotten stuck to where you can't move in the game? Early on, I answered the front door, set up my stats, said my good byes, and then couldn't move. I restarted the game and it worked fine, but wonder if this is a recurring bug?

No major stability problems yet. This is, seriously, the most stable game I've bought in a while. Not a single BSOD or crash to desktop yet.

I've seen some dialogue bugs or closed-caption issues though. I seem to always walk away or enter inventory right after someone initiates a conversation.

I spent about 6 hours in the game, maybe a bit more, before I found someone to barter with (traveling caravan guy I found by that Hilltop place, who deals in armor). And I couldn't unload much crap cause he only had 231 credits. Maybe I just missed another barter person but I'm really hoping I find another person soon.

I've only found one trader with some gold in the NW area so far. However, I'm stashing 99% of my loot in Sanctuary just in case it's useful for crafting -- hoarder. I'll eventually build a trader in my town but that's a lot of levels away -- need to bump up my charisma and get the local leader thing.

 

[cmdrdredd]

No major stability problems yet. This is, seriously, the most stable game I've bought in a while. Not a single BSOD or crash to desktop yet.



I've seen some dialogue bugs or closed-caption issues though. I seem to always walk away or enter inventory right after someone initiates a conversation.







I've only found one trader with some gold in the NW area so far. However, I'm stashing 99% of my loot in Sanctuary just in case it's useful for crafting -- hoarder. I'll eventually build a trader in my town but that's a lot of levels away -- need to bump up my charisma and get the local leader thing.

On stability I will agree and surprisingly so. I did not expect a Bethesda game to be as problem free so far.

 

[Zenoth]

Wow...

I just discovered that we can zoom in on the Pip-Boy's screen when we bring it up with a right mouse click (it's not shown at the bottom of the screen). Quite useful (still not fullscreen but it helps). It might have been mentioned before though, sorry if it was (I haven't read all the pages of this thread).

 

[cmdrdredd]

Wow...

I just discovered that we can zoom in on the Pip-Boy's screen when we bring it up with a right mouse click (it's not shown at the bottom of the screen). Quite useful (still not fullscreen but it helps). It might have been mentioned before though, sorry if it was (I haven't read all the pages of this thread).

I play with an Xbox one controller and did that by accident since I mapped it to one of the paddle buttons on the bottom of my elite controller.

 

[frogspawn]

anyone played it yet and what are the pc graphics like please?

 

[Harabec]

They're good but not great (Crysis 3 looks better and runs better, for example) but IMO it is fine.

 

[facetman]

I think the PC version looks fine, its NOT meant to be super - like Witcher 3. Playing on an i5 2500 and a 290 GPU on a 50" plasma on 1080P - the only time I had any issues (movement mechanics) is in close combat with a few ghouls and the enemies are so much faster than you are. So, you cannot avoid anything= frustrating. I am still having some difficulty getting power to work properly in my domesticated areas - how do you get the power to the inside of a structure? How do you install doors? Also hunting .308 ammo and ceramic - both seem to be hard to find for me.

 

[Phynaz]

I never gave a location. I could have told you where to pickup the signal and where to go and exactly where the quest takes place. I didn't.

Why not use tags anyway! Just because you don't want to?

 

[TridenT]

Load times for this game are OBSCENE!

I have a 840 EVO. I just get up and go to the bathroom now to wait for the load times.

It's ridiculous if you're doing a lot of fast traveling. It might be quicker to walk between some areas. Not kidding. It takes what seems like forever. I felt almost no difference between a HDD and SSD install (I had it on my HDD first and felt the load times were crazy. Put it on the SSD and was like, "Did they even change? Maybe 20% better? WTF?" I don't even have a second monitor at the moment to do other things on. If I alt+tab, the game gets all glitchy and has to be minimized and maximized a few times... and then I frequently have to exit my power armor and re-enter it for the UI to come back...

What a freaking crap port. It is clearly a port, the graphics are dismal, and it destroys a 980 Ti at 1920x1200 w/ max settings. (God rays at medium, I /still/ dip into the 10s-20s! I can't even imagine what this game would be like if I tried to play it on a 1440p or 4k monitor!)

 

[TridenT]

I'm talking 50 seconds to just load up from a quicksave into the sanctuary camp.

50.

Nothing like the 6s you'll see in some youtube video.

 

[Zenoth]

I'm talking 50 seconds to just load up from a quicksave into the sanctuary camp.

50.

Nothing like the 6s you'll see in some youtube video.

That's strange, it takes me maybe 25 to 30 seconds (at most) to load Sanctuary, and I'm still using a common SATA HDD (Western Digital Black). I suppose, however, that since it's Sanctuary it happens to be a settlement, and perhaps (well, surely in fact) the amount of data and assets to load there will be different for everyone. It should depend on how much (and perhaps what) you build there (and maybe how many settlers you have too). I'm just guessing it's the case and it would explain the load times to go there (or to any settlements). Maybe it has nothing to do with that though. But still, 50 seconds to load Sanctuary seems much higher than it should be.

 

[TridenT]

That's strange, it takes me maybe 25 to 30 seconds (at most) to load Sanctuary, and I'm still using a common SATA HDD (Western Digital Black). I suppose, however, that since it's Sanctuary it happens to be a settlement, and perhaps (well, surely in fact) the amount of data and assets to load there will be different for everyone. It should depend on how much (and perhaps what) you build there (and maybe how many settlers you have too). I'm just guessing it's the case and it would explain the load times to go there (or to any settlements). Maybe it has nothing to do with that though. But still, 50 seconds to load Sanctuary seems much higher than it should be.

Sanctuary, wherever. It doesn't matter. It feels like every place takes at least 30 seconds no matter what. Only time it takes less than 15 seconds is using doors for certain areas... Even then, sometimes it's a black screen for 20-30 seconds.

On..a..ssd. What.

EDIT: 40 seconds to go from Sanctuary to Diamond City. 40 seconds!!!! I have the 840 EVO SSD fixes too. Damn thing transfers 300+ MB/s no problem but can't load levels for crap in Fallout 4. Horrible. 🙁

 

[StinkyPinky]

Something is wrong. I have the exact same model of SSD and it takes 15-20s to load Diamond City

 

[TridenT]

Problem solved. It did what I suspected. Even though I used the launcher from my SSD drive, it was still using the files that were on my HDD. Renamed the HDD install and it had to recalculate a few times and then it launched it from SSD. Could tell immediately because memory usage went up by 100+ MB/s. Diamond city load took <15 seconds now.

 

[pontifex]

I got the game and not sure what kind of character I want to make. In F3 I kind of made a stealhy sniper type character.
I kind of want to make either a pistol wielding character or a melee/unarmed character, but are they viable in this game? Will I need to use guns or more powerful guns as I go along?

I'm not saying I won't ever use other weapons, but I'd kind of like to stay in character.

Can you dual wield pistols?

 

[Annisman*]

Sanctuary, wherever. It doesn't matter. It feels like every place takes at least 30 seconds no matter what. Only time it takes less than 15 seconds is using doors for certain areas... Even then, sometimes it's a black screen for 20-30 seconds.

On..a..ssd. What.

EDIT: 40 seconds to go from Sanctuary to Diamond City. 40 seconds!!!! I have the 840 EVO SSD fixes too. Damn thing transfers 300+ MB/s no problem but can't load levels for crap in Fallout 4. Horrible. 🙁

Man I remember playing the original Witcher when it launched and (before any patches) it took 1 to 2 minutes to load any new location, even walking into a tiny hut and back out haha. But imo if it's a good enough game it's not really a deal breaker.

 

[zinfamous]

I got the game and not sure what kind of character I want to make. In F3 I kind of made a stealhy sniper type character.
I kind of want to make either a pistol wielding character or a melee/unarmed character, but are they viable in this game? Will I need to use guns or more powerful guns as I go along?

I'm not saying I won't ever use other weapons, but I'd kind of like to stay in character.

Can you dual wield pistols?

no, unfortunately. I'm finding myself going into the same fallout character I always play: sneaky pistol and sniper/long rifles. Without fail. 😀

I think all builds are pretty much always viable in Fallout games, but the crafting system here makes mele more intriguing than ever for me, though I haven't really experimented with it.

mele and unarmed is generally more difficult early on, though. And I imagine in this one, especially, because radiation toxicity is finally a real problem and you can get it so easily from ghouls.

 

[escrow4]

I'd strongly recommend exploring everything you come across. I've gone through nearly all of the locations I've found (and its only a tiny slice, see the image I posted a page or two back) and you can find magazines that add mini boosts to your character like critical damage or reducing damage by certain types. You can also find bobbleheads that give you huge boosts - one added 25% melee damage even though I'll never use for this character. Some locations are only a single room despite the 10+ second load time while others are multi-story.

In terms of random highlights:

- Random rescue turned turned into a guy quoting Macbeth post rescue - he originally wanted to teach supermutants civilization.

- Random Deathclaw in a hospital filled with raiders, right at the bottom in a random hallway

- Random side quest turned into another quest which turned into a stack of chems (literally 50 of each chem)

- The USS Constitution. I won't say more.

If you want maximum exploration you need maxed out hacking and locksmithing perks though even though it seems like the locked up stuff isn't really worth justifying 8 perks.

 

[TridenT]

Don't bother with the hacking one if you're willing to use Valentine as your companion. He can hack any terminal. Just command him to do it.

Also, there are /A LOT/ more companions out there than I was lead to believe. I was using the dog for 10+ hours and then Danse became available... I used valentine too. So far I've used Paladin Danse a lot because he's /really good/ at killing everything. The dog was borderline useless. Good for picking up items that you might miss, maybe. But really not that worthwhile otherwise. He just doesn't pack any damage or live long like Danse can.

I might go back to Valentine though because of the hacking thing. Hard to say. Danse is so freaking OP in comparison. I literally don't have to ever attack anything. I can stay back under cover and he'll just clear entire levels like it's nothing.


One thing that bothers me about this game though is the ammo. I am constantly running out. I don't do VATS enough because it takes so much time for the animations. I'm also better at getting headshots on my own than VATS is. :/

One of the perks you can get tells you more detailed info about guys when you're in VATS so you'll be able to judge whether the gun you're using makes any sense. (Gamma gun does next to nothing against super mutants, for instance)

 

[Zenoth]

I got the game and not sure what kind of character I want to make. In F3 I kind of made a stealhy sniper type character.
I kind of want to make either a pistol wielding character or a melee/unarmed character, but are they viable in this game? Will I need to use guns or more powerful guns as I go along?

I'm not saying I won't ever use other weapons, but I'd kind of like to stay in character.

Can you dual wield pistols?

Stealth in Bethesda games... well, in the GameBryo engine (or, at least, the manner with which Bethesda approaches Stealth mechanics, if anything) has never been a strong point. The combat A.I. in Fallout 4 is definitely better, but as soon as Raiders / Super Mutants (or other foes) get out of combat for 'x' reason their 'surroundings awareness' A.I. pretty much remains the same as I can recall from as far back as Oblivion. When you 'sneak' (be it in Fallout 4, or Fallout 3, or Skyrim) you don't really 'sneak' per se, you just happen to not be right next to or in front of any given enemy (or you happen not to be on the exact same floor on a multi-story building... and even then you just need not to be in the same room, but still on the same floor for 'sneaking' to work). The A.I. simply doesn't react to sounds (sources of sounds) or lightning (Pip-Boy's light if it's open) in Bethesda games in a way that's remotely plausible.

Classic examples of 'sneaking' scenarios in Bethesda games...

Example One

º You crouch before entering a building held by Raiders.
º You enter the building already crouched (sneak mode), you hear a few Raiders (or hear one or two walking on the floor above, or in a room close by on the same floor as you).
º You throw a frag grenade (of all things that can make a CLEAR sound, 'cause grenades aren't exactly quiet when they go boom) towards a room in which you know there's a Raider.
º That Raider isn't killed, and goes "What the fuck was that?!"
º Raider #2 in the same room replies "Damn wind, makes me jump every time!"
º You remain crouched (and try your best not to laugh) and you watch the [CAUTIOUS] meter going back to [HIDDEN] as the Raiders comment "Never mind, must have been nothing. God damn I'm hungry."

Best case scenario for the example above is the Raider opening the door of the room he was in to 'investigate' the source of the grenade's sound. They will maybe go to where the grenade exploded, but they won't then start searching the entire floor, they'll literally STOP and you'll go back in "HIDDEN" mode if you just remain in some corner doing nothing. And such reaction is pretty rare, usually your foe just won't attack if they don't actually see your physical body.

Example Two (and that's a pure classic from Skyrim, also happened in Oblivion and maybe Morrowind too)

º You crouch to start 'sneaking' in some cavern (and it's pretty dark, except for the occasional wall torches illuminating no more than 2 meters around them), and you take our your bow expecting bandits.
º You see some Orc in the distance, same elevation or perhaps on the floor below, you'd have a clear shot between his eyes and you decide to go for it, you're in sneak mode so worst thing that could happen next is another foe you don't see right now will go in 'alert' mode even if you kill that Orc.
º You hold your breath, and fire one arrow at his head.
º That poor unaware Orc who was peacefully sitting at his table enjoying his drink gets an arrow through his skull, but oh... the damage wasn't high enough... holy shit, he stands up!
º That Orc goes: "Huh? I thought I heard something..." * enters alert mode, turns on his own axis for a few seconds, starts walking a bit around, goes back to his chair, sits down, continues to take sips of his drink * "Must have been the wind."

Best case scenario in the example above would be you constantly firing more arrows to finish him off, then of course he'd enter full attack mode and start going up stairs to get to you, but you'd provoke it by doing so, he wouldn't actually search the whole cavern for a would-be intruder.

So, the main reasons as to why I'm saying all this is because I'd highly recommend everyone playing Bethesda games (until they get their shit together about Stealth mechanics, and/or the engine used to do that) not to bother one bit about so called "Stealth". Now, of course, if you want... sure do it. You can put more points in Agility, find the Perks you need to be more "difficult to spot" when you sneak. But the truth is that it is excessively easy to predict 'alert mode' A.I. in Fallout 4 (and F3, and Skyrim, and Oblivion, and so on). My recommendation is to just go in guns blazing with Meds and better preparation resources-wise. Sure you can sneak initially if you're not sure, I do it myself often enough. For example, I crouch before entering buildings that I know contain enemies, so that as soon as I enter I'm already in sneak mode, it does help a bit, certainly. The problem is once the combat is initiated just one time, everything about 'sneaking' that follows is just way too clunky, glitchy, predictable or simply too dumb to be taken seriously, and it amounts to essentially exploiting poor A.I. really. You'll know how and where to stop, when to crouch, and you'll even memorize at some point when certain types of foes will go out of combat (and why, etc).

Well anyway that's my take on it, feel free to disagree. I've just never been entertained by "stealth" in any of the Bethesda games because it's so blatantly emulated and mimicked that it just becomes more funny, clunky and goofy than anything else. I can't possibly take it any seriously (and I tried really hard to especially in Skyrim, for my ' ninja wood Elf ', and couldn't stand it after just a few hours in). Instead, save points for other Perks, get Meds, buff yourself, get more damage, slow time, get better crits, prepare yourself with Stimpacks, equip your companion with a decent weapon and the corresponding ammunition type and go in guns blazing (with or without VATS, whatever suits you). But I suppose that's just me (still, just a suggestion).