Fallout 4 critic vs audience reviews for pc port.

[BloatedGuppy]

Btw...
...is false. You need the perks to craft the mods, not to use them, nor are they level dependent. By level 14 I had a 10mm and a shotgun both nearly maxed on top tier mods I found on other weapons, but I don't have any of the modding perks. You have reminded me that I completely neglected my armor, though. I'm horrified by the thought of how many good armor mods I inexplicably sold.

Waiiiiiit...are you telling me you can REMOVE mods from gear? And apply them to other gear? How do you apply it without the appropriate perk?

 

[Lightknight]

All that really matters, all anyone really cares about, is how much revenue the game generated.

If that's the case then World of Warcraft is the best game in history, followed by Wii Sports, and I'm guessing 99.9% of this forum would vigorously contest both statements.

First off, Wii Sports didn't sell. It was part of a bundle and was given away for free with a console that did sell crazy good. Secondly, yes, to everyone that matters to blizzard, WoW was the best game in history. It was making something like $150 million per month and that was mostly profit since they also sold the game and expansions for a profit. $1.7 billion per year? Yes please.

Fallout 4 has many merits which we should be willing to praise, but also many flaws which we should be willing to address and critique. Game is far from perfect, and Bethesda needs to start taking flack for this nonsense or they have literally zero reasons to ever clean up their act.

My point is they're not going to catch flack. We can take the world's biggest dump on their faces in retribution for the minor flaws we're complaining about but the fact is that they just made a HUGE sack of money to give to their investors and they're the only ones that matter.

Also, you call it nonsense but people keep forgetting that every massive and complex game has the exact same crap going on. Witcher 3 had it, all S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games had it. The larger the games get and the more complex they get, the more bugs are going to present. This is a very polished version and while it sucks that it isn't perfection, perfection isn't going to be coming our way any time soon. Not even with a new engine.

 

[HavoK 09]

Btw...
...is false. You need the perks to craft the mods, not to use them, nor are they level dependent. By level 14 I had a 10mm and a shotgun both nearly maxed on top tier mods I found on other weapons, but I don't have any of the modding perks. You have reminded me that I completely neglected my armor, though. I'm horrified by the thought of how many good armor mods I inexplicably sold.

Waiiiiiit...are you telling me you can REMOVE mods from gear? And apply them to other gear? How do you apply it without the appropriate perk?

Basically each mod you make replaces an existing mod, and yes every piece of the weapon counts as a mod. So you take the good mods from weapon A by placing the default/weaker mods in it.Now you have the good mods in your inventory, which grants you a "free" mod upgrade to weapon B.

 

[EternallyBored]

Btw...
...is false. You need the perks to craft the mods, not to use them, nor are they level dependent. By level 14 I had a 10mm and a shotgun both nearly maxed on top tier mods I found on other weapons, but I don't have any of the modding perks. You have reminded me that I completely neglected my armor, though. I'm horrified by the thought of how many good armor mods I inexplicably sold.

Waiiiiiit...are you telling me you can REMOVE mods from gear? And apply them to other gear? How do you apply it without the appropriate perk?

The base lowest end guns don't require any perks to make or use their mods, so what you do is find a gun that has the mods you want already on it, usually does drops from higher level enemies, then strip the mods off them at the workbench by rebuilding the gun with all Low end mods, whatever mods you just stripped off sit in you inventory, while it requires perks to make the mods, it doesn't require them to put mods you already have on the guns, so you just stack all those saved mods onto a single gun.

Also, stick your mods into your workshop inventory as they take up weight, so if you mod a lot they can take up a significant percentage of your carrying weight if you don't store them, bonus benefit is that they can still be applied directly from workshop storage to the weapons in your inventory.

The main benefit of the perks are the rare mods that most weapons don't seem to carry, like the lock on computer for the missile launcher, or the mods on power armor, as I've yet to see any power armor pieces come with mods already installed. It also gives you flexibility as you tend not to encounter high end mods on dropped weapons until later levels, so the perks give you instant access to them 10 levels before you start encountering them consistently in drops, especially for rare weapons like plasma guns or the 50. Cal conversion for the hunting rifle.

 

[kenu12345]

I really don't get the hate for this game... I've been having a blast. The perils of the hype train I guess.

For me its the fact that it forces a backstory on you for no apparent reason besides a bad story and removes alot of the rpg elements that I like about past games especially New Vegas

FO4 has at worst, a decent story. I dunno where people are getting the opinion that the story is "bad", I just finished withthe institute ending and found no plot holes, glaring or otherwise. If anything, FO4 is a massive improvement in storytelling from the prior Bethesda FO games, especially 3 where it was somehow ignored completely that you can remove radiation from water by filtering it through regular dirt.

Its called an opinion mate. It doesn't help that almost everyone I talked to about it managed to guess the ending in the first couple of minutes. Its not a good story to me and I prefer New Vegas. This one is just too cliche for me

 

[BloatedGuppy]

The base lowest end guns don't require any perks to make or use their mods, so what you do is find a gun that has the mods you want already on it, usually does drops from higher level enemies, then strip the mods off them at the workbench by rebuilding the gun with all Low end mods, whatever mods you just stripped off sit in you inventory, while it requires perks to make the mods, it doesn't require them to put mods you already have on the guns, so you just stack all those saved mods onto a single gun.

Also, stick your mods into your workshop inventory as they take up weight, so if you mod a lot they can take up a significant percentage of your carrying weight if you don't store them, bonus benefit is that they can still be applied directly from workshop storage to the weapons in your inventory.

The main benefit of the perks are the rare mods that most weapons don't seem to carry, like the lock on computer for the missile launcher, or the mods on power armor, as I've yet to see any power armor pieces come with mods already installed. It also gives you flexibility as you tend not to encounter high end mods on dropped weapons until later levels, so the perks give you instant access to them 10 levels before you start encountering them consistently in drops, especially for rare weapons like plasma guns or the 50. Cal conversion for the hunting rifle.

HOLY MACARONI. Are you telling me this galaxy of mods in my inventory aren't the mods on my guns but random bullshit mods I've taken OUT? I can dump them all!?

Mind. Blown.

 

[Lightknight]

The base lowest end guns don't require any perks to make or use their mods, so what you do is find a gun that has the mods you want already on it, usually does drops from higher level enemies, then strip the mods off them at the workbench by rebuilding the gun with all Low end mods, whatever mods you just stripped off sit in you inventory, while it requires perks to make the mods, it doesn't require them to put mods you already have on the guns, so you just stack all those saved mods onto a single gun.

Also, stick your mods into your workshop inventory as they take up weight, so if you mod a lot they can take up a significant percentage of your carrying weight if you don't store them, bonus benefit is that they can still be applied directly from workshop storage to the weapons in your inventory.

The main benefit of the perks are the rare mods that most weapons don't seem to carry, like the lock on computer for the missile launcher, or the mods on power armor, as I've yet to see any power armor pieces come with mods already installed. It also gives you flexibility as you tend not to encounter high end mods on dropped weapons until later levels, so the perks give you instant access to them 10 levels before you start encountering them consistently in drops, especially for rare weapons like plasma guns or the 50. Cal conversion for the hunting rifle.

HOLY MACARONI. Are you telling me this galaxy of mods in my inventory aren't the mods on my guns but random bullshit mods I've taken OUT? I can dump them all!?

Mind. Blown.

Whoa... I was wondering why the hell those mods were showing up in my inventory. So wait, this is a game that has figured out that you don't have to destroy the components you take off a gun when you mod it? Wow. The future is nigh.

 

[EternallyBored]

The base lowest end guns don't require any perks to make or use their mods, so what you do is find a gun that has the mods you want already on it, usually does drops from higher level enemies, then strip the mods off them at the workbench by rebuilding the gun with all Low end mods, whatever mods you just stripped off sit in you inventory, while it requires perks to make the mods, it doesn't require them to put mods you already have on the guns, so you just stack all those saved mods onto a single gun.

Also, stick your mods into your workshop inventory as they take up weight, so if you mod a lot they can take up a significant percentage of your carrying weight if you don't store them, bonus benefit is that they can still be applied directly from workshop storage to the weapons in your inventory.

The main benefit of the perks are the rare mods that most weapons don't seem to carry, like the lock on computer for the missile launcher, or the mods on power armor, as I've yet to see any power armor pieces come with mods already installed. It also gives you flexibility as you tend not to encounter high end mods on dropped weapons until later levels, so the perks give you instant access to them 10 levels before you start encountering them consistently in drops, especially for rare weapons like plasma guns or the 50. Cal conversion for the hunting rifle.

HOLY MACARONI. Are you telling me this galaxy of mods in my inventory aren't the mods on my guns but random bullshit mods I've taken OUT? I can dump them all!?

Mind. Blown.

Anything in the mods tab of your inventory is either mods you've stripped off weapons or picked up as items, they look like wooden boxes with the name of the mod, you can see some in the castle armory after the old guns quest.

Anything in that tab can be stored in your workshop and applied to any valid gun regardless of perk level, if you have the local leader perk you can also share all your mods between settlements.

It's also great for saving space if you run into a random work bench on the world map outside your settlement, mods only take up .5 weight, so you can strip off wanted mods then disassemble the base gun for crafting components and free up weight to pick up more guns or whatever else.

Completely unrelated, but I Also found out last night that if you talk to a character while drunk or on drugs your dialogue can change, also you can change how you skip through dialogue by pressing the arrow keys either giving polite or rude responses to hurry dialogue along depending on which arrow key you press, gonna play around with it some more tonight, but I got a kick out of my female character drunkenly hitting on piper.

 

[LetalisK]

Btw...
...is false. You need the perks to craft the mods, not to use them, nor are they level dependent. By level 14 I had a 10mm and a shotgun both nearly maxed on top tier mods I found on other weapons, but I don't have any of the modding perks. You have reminded me that I completely neglected my armor, though. I'm horrified by the thought of how many good armor mods I inexplicably sold.

Waiiiiiit...are you telling me you can REMOVE mods from gear? And apply them to other gear? How do you apply it without the appropriate perk?

Yup. When you build a mod, it doesn't destroy the old one, but rather the old one gets put in your inventory(which mean by now your inventory is probably chock full of standard garbage). So, for example, you can't take a 10mm and strip the awesome receiver to leave to receiverless, but you can build the standard receiver for it and it will replace the awesome receiver it has. That awesome receiver gets placed in your inventory, so you just go to the 10mm you want to put it on and suddenly that mod you couldn't craft before is now highlighted. This makes those legendary weapons even more valuable since their legendary feature is the one thing that can't be transferred.

If I'm not mistaken, all those old mods have weight to them too. Not much, but every little bit counts, so make sure to clear them out of your inventory.

*lovingly strokes Lucky 10mm that is missing only the Large Quick Eject magazine* Say 'ello to my li'l friend mutants.

 

[IceForce]

HOLY MACARONI. Are you telling me this galaxy of mods in my inventory aren't the mods on my guns but random bullshit mods I've taken OUT? I can dump them all!?

Mind. Blown.

I'm not sure if this is sarcasm or not, but yes, when you apply a mod to a weapon it becomes part of that weapon and is no longer considered a separate inventory item.

Waiiiiiit...are you telling me you can REMOVE mods from gear? And apply them to other gear? How do you apply it without the appropriate perk?

Yup. I don't have any crafting perks, and have applied many awesome (salvaged) mods already.

But when stripping a mod off a weapon, you have to have something to replace it with. For instance, when you take a Marksman Stock off a rifle to be used on another weapon, you have to have a Standard Stock to replace it with on the salvaged weapon (or simply craft a Standard Stock on-the-fly).

 

[sanquin]

I'd say the metacritic rating are definitely warped. The game isn't a masterpiece by any stretch. Controls are clearly meant for console and clunky as all hell on PC, the base building is finicky and limiting. (even ARK does it better, and I already thought that game's building had huge room for improvement.) The wasteland outside of major area's is lacking. And getting the power armour so early and making it use a finite resource (not counting shops) is bad design imo. Plus a lot of the game's features are poorly explained. They seem to expect you to have played fallout 3/NV, for one.

BUT, the game is still a great improvement to Fallout 3 at least. (Only played NV for like 1~2 hours tops, so can't really speak about that.) At least a 6/10 for me. As in, above average game overall. It being brought down in score because of the VERY poor console porting, locked framerate/gamma/mouse smoothing/etc, and bugs/glitches. (Lots of Bethesda brand bugs/glitches are expected in their games these days, but that doesn't mean I'll ignore them when rating the game.)

 

[CaitSeith]

All that really matters, all anyone really cares about, is how much revenue the game generated. Bethesda has already shipped 12 million physical copies alone. That's not even touching on Steam sales which we know was also breaking records there too.

My guess is that the people complaining the hardest just aren't seeing the forest for the trees. The game is spectacular. I'm loving it.

True. That's why I'm glad it isn't making as much money as it could potentially had made. Why do I say this? Well, just think about how much money they would be getting if they had included micro-transactions. But they didn't. So much money, left on the table just like that...

 

[Zacharious-khan]

I mean the reviewers are all playing on nearly up to date hardware and probably ignore bugs in the grand scheme of things (which they are wrong to do). The real issue here is the death of the RPG and the continuing bastardization of the fallout formula. Ignoring all of that though, 86? eh seems a bit high but fair enough. 53? probably a bit low.

 

[kuolonen]

Oh wow. I mean I knew hardcore fanboys were going to rage no matter what, but this is just ridiculous.

I mean I have my fair share of gripes with the game (story not being one of them, 9/10) but they are not such massive ball-busting issues as they seem to be for some. The base building for example is just extra gimmick for one faction, dialogue wheel is confusing, etc. but none of it makes me soil my trousers, go to a fetal position and start gibbering.

I just can't understand how it is possible get this worked up over a game, and I pray to all the chaos gods I never do.

 

[XT6Wagon]

The base building is more than a gimic if you wish it to be. Its pretty amazing the depth it can get to if you wish. Or it can jsut be so that you can customize your own private little base. The detailing you can do is pretty cool. Like put all your bonus magazines in a magazine rack and see them all nicely stored.

Want to build a giant power armor garage so the whole settlement can roll out in an array of power armor when the raiders come calling? can do that too.

I'd also point out to people that if you can complain about the bad facial animations of this game? how bad is Black Ops 3 which is even worse.

I'm not sure what people were expecting, but clearly if they were expecting more from Fallout 4 than they got, then they haven't played either recent Fallout games or recent games at all. Its clearly much like Fallout 3 but with much better everything. Also a solid effort to make the world more of a world than merely a stage where people present things to you.

 

[sumanoskae]

Level gating in a single player game, in an open world sandbox, is lazy game design. There is no excuse for it.

You feel like qualifying that statement? It seems a profoundly broad and specific rule. Why is level gating in a single player game an inherently bad mechanic?

You can increase your Guns skill and get a Perk to raise your Agility by 1 in the old system. Now, you can do one or the other. The old system also had skill books for permanent increases to Skills and skill magazines, chems and outfits for temporary increases to Skills. This adds flexibility because you could do small increases to several skills and use temporary increases to even things out.

So you're issue with the new system is that you can't max out your Guns skill QUICKER? Because that's all that compounding a SPECIAL increase and a skill increase will do. You can still increase your SPECIAL stats when you level up, and like I said, you get twice as many perks now as you used to, so it's not as thought you can do so less often. Basically everything else you mentioned still exists; armor can still increase stats, skillbooks now give you unique perks, and chems didn't go anywhere.

Seems to me that the only real difference is that you can't make as many alterations to your character at the same time. This doesn't strike me as a significant change, certainly not a decrease in build variety.

The perks I mentioned were never in any other Fallout game. I'm glad they finally got rid of Here and Now (that turd has been here since FO1). There were no "mind control" perks, no mod perks, no "automatic weapons" perks. Bethesda needed 70 perks to fill out a chart. They did the exact opposite of streamlining in order to fill it out.

Daddy's Boy/Girl: +5 Medicine and Science
Gun Nut: +5 Small Guns and Repair
Little Leaguer: +5 Melee Weapons and Explosives
Thief: +5 Lockpick and Sneak
Scoundrel: +5 Speech and Barter
Size Matters: +15 Big Guns

All of these Perks have the same function as skill points; they are the very definition of filler. A significant portion of the more unique perks haven't gone anywhere.

Swift Learner's EXP boost is now the base function of Intelligence;
Intense Training is no longer a perk, just a basic function of leveling up;
Iron Fist is now just one of several perks that stand in for skills;
Bloody Mess is more or less unchanged;
Lead Belly has been expanded;
Toughness is more or less unchanged;
Fortune Finder is more or less unchanged;
Gunslinger and Commando's functions are now covered under the Perception stat;
Demolition Expert has been expanded upon;
Action Boy/Girl now has 2 ranks;
And so on, and so on.

There are some exceptions; Child at Heart no longer exists, and Lady Killer/Black Widow no longer have any unique dialogue. I don't think the new system is by any means brilliant, but I don't see how you can logically argue that it's somehow more limiting than the old system. Bethesda are not known for their skill in mechanical depth anyways.

 

[sumanoskae]

Don't even try to stand up to a Deathclaw without your Power Armor.

That's actually a point of annoyance for me. Power Armor, historically, hasn't helped against deathclaws at all. Their claws are supposed to totally ignore armor, and open that suit like a can. The only Deathclaw strategy I trust is "jump on top of a rock where they can't reach you".

So? It's different and therefore it's ruined? The change to power armor is one of my favorite new features; it's an actual strategic mechanic now; a limited resource that you have to plan around and use carefully. I think it creates a much more interesting challenge that now you can't rely on any conventional methods to take down a Deathclaw; it makes fighting them more tacitly demanding, and defeating them more rewarding.

It's in defiance of the lore, but in my opinion it's a worthy sacrifice. It's just a cliff note; an interesting bit of trivia. It's not like Deathclaws were actually more or less deadly to any specific kind of armor in previous game, it was just an informed weakness.

 

[sumanoskae]

Erm, it the part you just cut out from the quote... Again:

Have perks and skills done exactly the same? Is this an actual problem that actually needed addressing?

If I understand your question correctly, the answer is that everything that the skill system used to do is now accomplished by the Perk system. So the rules aren't actually significantly different, they just LOOK like they are.

I'm not entirely sure what this answers.

It answers the question you just claimed I cut from your post, the one I just quoted, which you said was addressed to me...

 

[BarryMcCociner]

I really don't get the hate for this game... I've been having a blast. The perils of the hype train I guess.

I think part of the reason I liked this game so much was because I was expecting it to be shit and Bethesda to fuck up in the most spectacular way, but objectively the game is competent with a few... questionable design decisions. (Same key for melee attack as to throw a grenade, are you kidding me? Improve your gunplay so much, but then make critical hits VATS only? Impossible to scrap an object and turn your camera with your mouse without going all awkward and left handed, even then you can't move while you do it. Bethesda, you're silly.) But aside from those silly decisions, I've retired the game until modders can get their hands on it and fix those glaring flaws.

But I think that because I was expecting utter shit and the game turned out fairly competent I'm enjoying it.

I think the people who hated it were expecting GOTY material (Sorry, Witcher 3 already came out) and got a game that was decent, they REALLY don't like it.

Me? I'm taking this as a lesson, expect every game to be complete garbage! Why? Because the worst thing that can happen is you're right, best case scenario is you get pleasantly surprised.

 

[Redvenge]

You feel like qualifying that statement? It seems a profoundly broad and specific rule. Why is level gating in a single player game an inherently bad mechanic?

Sure. In an ideal single player game, you have a progression system that allows as much creative freedom to build a character as possible. If Bethesda says "nope, sorry. you can't increase your Guns skill further until level 26", then Bethesda is telling me how to build my character. There is no reason to do that in a single player game.

So you're issue with the new system is that you can't max out your Guns skill QUICKER? Because that's all that compounding a SPECIAL increase and a skill increase will do. You can still increase your SPECIAL stats when you level up, and like I said, you get twice as many perks now as you used to, so it's not as thought you can do so less often. Basically everything else you mentioned still exists; armor can still increase stats, skillbooks now give you unique perks, and chems didn't go anywhere.

The issue with the new system is I have less control over my character's advancement. The old system did have level requirements attached to Perks, but not Skills.

Skillbooks and chems don't effect nearly what they used to. Skillbooks (now Perkbooks) give you totally new perks you cannot gain through leveling. If you don't have a base Perception of 4, reached level 7, and spent 2 Perks on Locksmithing, no gear, book or chem will ever help you open that Journeyman lock.

Seems to me that the only real difference is that you can't make as many alterations to your character at the same time. This doesn't strike me as a significant change, certainly not a decrease in build variety.

The fact that you can only improve your skills when Bethesda says you can is a significant change. The fact that you have less build flexibility due to the reduced interaction of temporary skill increases and permanent skill increases is a significant change. Before, you did not need to put 50 points into Lockpicking to open Average locks; you could supplement it with magazines, skill books and chems. You CANNOT do that with the new system. This reflects a LOSS of flexibility.

Daddy's Boy/Girl: +5 Medicine and Science
Gun Nut: +5 Small Guns and Repair
Little Leaguer: +5 Melee Weapons and Explosives
Thief: +5 Lockpick and Sneak
Scoundrel: +5 Speech and Barter
Size Matters: +15 Big Guns

All of these Perks have the same function as skill points; they are the very definition of filler. A significant portion of the more unique perks haven't gone anywhere.

I'm glad New Vegas got rid of all of those. I agree, they were filler.

Swift Learner's EXP boost is now the base function of Intelligence;

Which is stupid, since xp is infinite in FO4. Before, skill points were finite, since levels were finite. Intelligence had more value (at least, until the level cap went to 50 through DLC).

Intense Training is no longer a perk, just a basic function of leveling up;

When before you could take Intense Training AND boost your Guns skill; now you do one or the other (unless you are not level 9/18/26/42, then you can't increase your Guns skill)

Fortune Finder is more or less unchanged;

A pity. This one could have been removed too.

...I don't see how you can logically argue that it's somehow more limiting than the old system. Bethesda are not known for their skill in mechanical depth anyways.

I can argue that it is more limiting. Bethesda should not get a free pass when the old system could have been improved on rather than discarded.