FALLOUT 4!

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

mine's on the ups truck... waiting for the ups guy to get home

[anime52k8]

anyone played yet? hows the combat? I wanted to go pick it up today.

[frothymug]

It came out today? No wonder the lunch lines at the university were so short.

[CoreyD]

After getting burned with FO3 and FONV, I'm gonna wait like a year for Bethesda to sort out all the game breaking bugs.

[mikeszekely]

Geez! Looks like I'm playing on my desktop. Using both FO4's own auto-detect for graphics settings and Nvidia's GeForce experience, the difference between the GTX 970M in my laptop and the GTX 970 in my desktop is the difference between Low and Ultra.

[mikeszekely]

anyone played yet? hows the combat? I wanted to go pick it up today.

Ok, I put a little time in. Combat is pretty much what you'd expect... I mean, it's prettier, and it's set around Boston instead of DC or Las Vegas, and the story is new, but it's still Fallout. First or third-person shooting/smacking, plus V.A.T.S. It's been awhile since I played FO3 or NV, but it does seem like aiming down the sights is a little more effective and V.A.T.S. a little slower to recharge.

Actually, my biggest gripe could be someone else's like... the crafting system. Basically, everything you find, all the random junk scattered about in Bethesda games, can be scrapped. And that scrap can be used to build useful stuff. But I've never been a big fan of crafting in video games, so I tend to leave most junk alone, unless I think I can get a lot of caps for it. Which, it turns out later, I can't, but it then it looks like I can get a lot of useful materials, so I'll leave it clogging up my inventory because I don't care enough to craft anything with it. It's a vicious cycle.

Speaking of inventory, it's changed a bit. I can't tell whether or not stuff degrades, and if it does, you certainly can't just take another one and use it to repair it. At least, not straight out of your inventory. Maybe at one of those crafting benches? It also seems like you don't just wear armor... you put on a base, like "Raider Outfit", then you stack armor bits like "leather left leg" on top of it. Kinda neat.

And, if what I've seen is any indication, power armor just a really good armor. It's more like a vehicle. You actually get one very early in the game. Wearing it buffs you up pretty good and changes your HUD, but it runs on Fusion Cores and you can enter and exit the armor as you like. I used it for the mission you get it from, then parked it at the safe travel spot in an early town.

Oh, and about that town... there's a town that seems like it's your home base. You can collect materials and build it up with new structures and try to get people to join your settlement. But, unlike in Fallout 3, you don't seem to have an actual house where you can store stuff you want to keep without weighing you down. At least, not as far as I've gotten, anyway.

At the end of the day, I can't help thinking about how everybody seemed to be whining that Far Cry 4 was so similar to Far Cry 3, and wondering how many of those people will give Fallout 4 a pass even thought it's so similar to Fallout 3. But I, for one, loved Far Cry 4 because I loved Far Cry 3. And I'm guessing I'll probably put a ton of hours into Fallout 4 just like I put a ton of hours into Fallout 3.

TL;DR: If you liked Fallout 3 you'll like Fallout 4, but if you're burned out on Fallout 3 then there doesn't seem to be anything really fresh or new about Fallout 4.

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

played some of it till now... wow it's late.

found out that "War... Never Changes...."

for PC users some initial tweaks;

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=551069501&tscn=1447077828

Edited November 11, 2015 by davidwhangchoi

[mikeszekely]

More time put into FO4. Some nasty difficulty spikes. I mean, I have a quest that is basically "go here, kill all super mutants." The super mutants there aren't too bad, but they have dogs that took two missiles from a missile launcher to kill (my other guns took off so little health I might as well have been trying to tickle them to death). And these dogs were killing me in maybe two hits. So I get frustrated and decide to do the next quest in my journal instead. It's a mission to go to rescue some guy being held by raiders in a building. I killed every raider guarding the building and every raider inside without using so much as a single stimpack, and most of the raiders were dropping with a single headshot.

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

if anyone needs adhesive:

https://www.reddit.com/r/fo4/comments/3sezph/psa_there_is_an_unlimited_renewable_source_of/

[mikeszekely]

I keep hearing adhesive is rare. I don't get it. Send like every closet I check has a roll of duct tape and five bottles of wonder glue.

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

i haven;t used the glue yet but been using the bottlecap trick on a few merchants just to see what it's about.

in case anyone doesn't know the glitch:

anyone played yet? hows the combat? I wanted to go pick it up today.

so far, i'd like to echo mike s. if feel like fallout 3 but much better 3rd and first person shooting mechanics. a huge improvement over 3. i haven't even used VATS yet. 3rd person is really improved in the way the character walks and feels like they put more time into this perspective.

Edited November 13, 2015 by davidwhangchoi

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

i've been stuck in diamond city not doing anything but exploiting bottle caps and grabbing items from the merchants. hording items is too much fun ,

Edited November 14, 2015 by davidwhangchoi

[mikeszekely]

Steam says I've put 26 hours into FO4 now, but with a baby it's hard to say how much of that was while the game was paused and I was doing something else. I know at least two or three hours of that was when she was being really fussy and my wife was at her wit's end, so I took the baby and rocked her until she finally fell asleep. Once she was sleeping, instead of laying her down and rolling the dice on whether or not that'd wake her, I just let her sleep on my chest while I watched TV.

That said, I've been gently encouraging my wife to take care of the baby when she's home, and I've been playing every night after the baby goes to bed until after midnight. I wanna say I'm around level 23. My highest stats wound up being Intelligence, Endurance, and just enough Strength so that I can get as many weapon and armor crafting perks as possible. When it comes to guns, I'm usually carrying a variety, and I'm stockpiling any ammo I come across since it ammo doesn't have weight. The only weapon perks I've taken are for pistols, though, so my go to guns are my modified 10mm and laser pistols.

As far as quests go, it seems I've finished all of the ones you get from

Preston Garvey

, and after

joining the Brotherhood of Steel

I've completed

all of Paladin Danse's quests, but I'm still working on the quests from the other two

. That still leaves me with plenty of stuff from other settlements and what I assume is the main story. As far as that goes,

I found/rescued Valentine, but I haven't returned to his office yet

.

All-in-all, good stuff, although like I said it's very similar to Fallout 3/NV. So I'd say that if you liked those, you'll like FO4, which doesn't seem to bog you down with degrading weapons and armor that I can tell and has improved non-V.A.T.s combat, but if you didn't like FO3/NV there's nothing going on here that will really change your mind.

Still lukewarm on the crafting, though. I mean, I dig upgrading weapons, armor, and your power armor (and I like how FO4 made the power armor a big, stompy thing with limited fuel that you bust out for special occasions, not simply good armor you get late in the game), and I think collecting that useless junk that was lying around everywhere in FO3 and using it for scrap material makes a lot of sense. But it's irritating setting up supply lines between settlements just so you can have access to the materials you've been hoarding in Sanctuary at other places. And nowhere in the game really feels like home. I miss my house in Megaton! I mean, yeah, the house you lived in pre-war is there, but it doesn't feel like home. I scrapped one of the ruined houses, built a pre-fab large metal shack, added a bed, storage chest, chair, power, a ceiling fan, and a bobblehead display case (only found two of those so far), and it still doesn't feel like mine.

[taksraven]

I'll play it as soon as it's finished downloading the required 24 GBs of updates.....

[Chowser]

I only have 6 hours in and I'm thinking of starting over. Can't take it anymore. My old i5 with GT525M notebook can't handle this game except in low maybe medium.

Going to build a new desktop and go from there.

[mikeszekely]

I'll play it as soon as it's finished downloading the required 24 GBs of updates.....

Is that something console gamers are complaining about? I bought digitally from Steam, so I had to download the whole thing in the first place.

I only have 6 hours in and I'm thinking of starting over. Can't take it anymore. My old i5 with GT525M notebook can't handle this game except in low maybe medium.

Going to build a new desktop and go from there.

Were you playing on Steam? Cloud sync. I've been alternating between my desktop and my laptop.

[Chowser]

I totally forgot about Cloud sync. I'll do that with my new desktop.

My laptop has 8GB ram and plenty of HD space, but Fallout just kicked me out and said low memory.

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

I only have 6 hours in and I'm thinking of starting over. Can't take it anymore. My old i5 with GT525M notebook can't handle this game except in low maybe medium.

Going to build a new desktop and go from there.

it's pretty much the same engine as fallout 3 so if you were able to run that on your laptop you'll be able to run this in a few months. it's just not optimized yet. even people with overkill setups are getting framedrops to 30-40. it'll be cleared out.

for now, most people have found success just turning off god rays to zero/low and shadow distance to medium and are getting 60fps steady on decent setups.

amd has it worse but

i have dual 7970m but so far there's no optimizations for sli or crossfire so everyone's using single cards. even with a single 7970m i'm getting pretty stable frames doing a few tweaks

[anime52k8]

I totally forgot about Cloud sync. I'll do that with my new desktop.

My laptop has 8GB ram and plenty of HD space, but Fallout just kicked me out and said low memory.

Yeah, that's a memory leak problem that Bethesda will need to fix, not a problem with your setup.

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

i sent dogmeat back to sanctuary and now i can't find him been looking for hours. as i need him for a quest.

Fallout 3, i never even met a dog. i played and beat the whole game without meeting him. i found out later there's a dog while watching a guide but after i beat the main campaign.

seems like dogs don't like me in Fallout.

Edited November 16, 2015 by davidwhangchoi

[mikeszekely]

i sent dogmeat back to sanctuary and now i can't find him been looking for hours. as i need him for a quest.

Fallout 3, i never even met a dog. i played and beat the whole game without meeting him. i found out later there's a dog while watching a guide but after i beat the main campaign.

seems like dogs don't like me in Fallout.

Is that the quest where

you just raided Kelogg's house, and Valentine suggests that Dogmeat can track Kelogg's scent from the cigars?

I'd sent Dogmeat away, too, as I prefer to travel without a companion (since, in pretty much every Bethesda game I've played, they just run get themselves killed anyway). When I got to that point, Dogmeat was just outside when I left that house.

Anyway... I'd played for hours this weekend, thinking that each time I talked to Preston or Rhys that they were giving me new quests. After awhile, I thought it odd that I was basically doing the same things over and over, seemingly without end. It was then that I realized that they'll keep giving you stuff to do, but it's actually the same quest. So now I'm ready to do more productive things.

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

Is that the quest where

you just raided Kelogg's house, and Valentine suggests that Dogmeat can track Kelogg's scent from the cigars?

I'd sent Dogmeat away, too, as I prefer to travel without a companion (since, in pretty much every Bethesda game I've played, they just run get themselves killed anyway). When I got to that point, Dogmeat was just outside when I left that house.

Anyway... I'd played for hours this weekend, thinking that each time I talked to Preston or Rhys that they were giving me new quests. After awhile, I thought it odd that I was basically doing the same things over and over, seemingly without end. It was then that I realized that they'll keep giving you stuff to do, but it's actually the same quest. So now I'm ready to do more productive things.

hey mike s.

that tip helped me. i went back to sanctuary but all along dogmeat was right in diamond city... i fast traveled so quickly once the private investigator told me i need dog meat that i didn't see him outside the door.

i went back and behold like you said he was right there:)

i'm in kelogg's building with the synths enemies. i got the inspector as my companion. as he can hack terminals.

i haven't leveled up one perk yet. (i have 9 saved up) and wearing a tuxedo and glasses to look good but no protection so i'm getting killed left and right. but i got some weapons from doing the bottlecap trick from the armory guy in diamond city.

so far it's been pretty engaging. but i have to take breaks here and there and go on MW as i do get bored pretty fast.

[Tking22]

I love Dogmeat, he's always been my one and only companion in each game, but then again, I like going with the Road Warrior approach, just me some guns and my dog... He was super useful in the beginning of this game, I used him to get me that super powerful cryo gun within the first hour from the vault over seer's office. I've been looking for armor bits for him so he's more durable, so far I've got heavy on his body, and medium for his head gear, and I gotta say, the armor works well, he's much more durable, he's like a hellish canine tank.

[mikeszekely]

Another tip, David- craft a doghouse near the fast travel point in Sanctuary (and scrap any existing doghouses). If you send Dogmeat away again, you'll find him at the Doghouse.

Yeah, different companions are supposed to have different positives, like hacking for Valentine, or finding stuff for Dogmeat. It's just that my experience with the companion AI in previous Bethesda games has me convinced I'd rather travel solo (and get the bonuses from the Lone Wanderer perk).

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

Another tip, David- craft a doghouse near the fast travel point in Sanctuary (and scrap any existing doghouses). If you send Dogmeat away again, you'll find him at the Doghouse.

Yeah, different companions are supposed to have different positives, like hacking for Valentine, or finding stuff for Dogmeat. It's just that my experience with the companion AI in previous Bethesda games has me convinced I'd rather travel solo (and get the bonuses from the Lone Wanderer perk).

haha, have to try that now... wrecking all the dog houses

Edited November 16, 2015 by davidwhangchoi

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

trying to be a pacifist

i was wondering if there's a dialogue to sneak up on kellogg and avoid fighting him. i have my charisma at 10. usually some yellow highlight is on the text when special dialogue is avail. i saw a brief yellow highlight right before kellogg ends the conversation but i think it was a glitch.

ahh, i guess i'll kill him.

[Tking22]

(and get the bonuses from the Lone Wanderer perk).

From what I've read, Dogmeat doesn't affect the Lone Wanderer perk, he's like a default companion, the game doesn't consider him one that you have to find, talk to, and then take with you.

haha, have to try that now... wrecking all the dog houses

Build a fast travel spawn point, it should be all the way to the right under special, destroy ALL dog houses in Sanctuary, then build a brand new one next to where you built the fast travel spawn point. Dogmeat should be hanging out there next time you fast travel in after building all the above.

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

amd came out with drivers to optimize fallout 4. so if you have amd cards try them out.

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

i think i got sick last night from neglect playing fallout 4. weather got cold overnight and but i was so immersed i didn't want to get up and turn on the heat. i woke up with a fever. serves me right... i thought the heat blasting from my laptop would keep me warm. anyways, i'm running around with the knight of steel guy and he just blasts away everything. reminds me of the super mutant companion with the laser gatling towards the end of Fallout 3. i still haven't used one level up perk yet. pretty fun,

the new amd driver update are actually making my cards run hotter than before, edit: i realized there's an glitch with amd drivers for fallout 4 where you can't turn off godrays in options. when you do it turns back on making the cards run hot. i found a workaround so it wasn't the drivers but fallout 4 options doesn't save properly.

anyways, i can't notice much of an improvement in performance regardless...

Edited November 21, 2015 by davidwhangchoi

[mikeszekely]

So, I sometimes hear people complaining about the length of games, as if longer boring games are automatically better than fun 8-hour games. Truthfully, with a lot of games I'll hit a point where I'm ready for it to be over (for example, while I had fun with Borderlands 2, it could have been half as long as it was and I'd have been happier with it). And rarely play games that go over 20 hours anymore. I just don't have time!

Well, Steam says I've got 74 hours into Fallout 4 now, and I'm trying to avoid the main story because I just don't want it to be over yet! I just hit level 53, and I just grabbed my last bobblehead.

[anime52k8]

I haven't even opened the game box.

[Guest davidwhangchoi]

I haven't even opened the game box.

open it (unless you're collecting the pip boy edition) if you like 3 you'll have so much fun.

the best part of Fallout which was so different from oblivion was the main quest was about 5-15 hours long while the side quests were all optional allow casual gamers not to get overwhelmed. Fallout 4 seems to take that same formula as 3. really nice pacing with a ton of additional content.

[mikeszekely]

open it (unless you're collecting the pip boy edition) if you like 3 you'll have so much fun.

the best part of Fallout which was so different from oblivion was the main quest was about 5-15 hours long while the side quests were all optional allow casual gamers not to get overwhelmed. Fallout 4 seems to take that same formula as 3. really nice pacing with a ton of additional content.

Plus you can join a greaser gang!

[mikeszekely]

76 hours later and I've beaten Fallout 4. Good times!

[Tking22]

76 hours later and I've beaten Fallout 4. Good times!

I take it you plan on doing another run right? I just hit 73 hours, level 42, and I just barely started doing railroad missions, I haven't found the institute yet, and the last story thing I did was deal with Kellogg. I spent a couple of hours last night running through a few railroad missions until I got the option from Tinkerer Tom to make ballistic fabric enhanced clothing, unbelievably, my vault suit has more overall armor then nearly my entire actual armor set.