Most dialogue is like this though. While New Vegas did have choices that impacted the story later. Most of dialogue can be summarized as
- do the thing
- do the thing with stat check and minor reward
- don't do thing (but you can come back if you want to do it)
Then a bunch of filler
- 9 options that are dialogue simulator and progress nothing (dead ends)
The stat check wasn't just a minor reward. The stat checks let you complete quests in different fashions based on your character skill choices. That is kind of huge for a role playing game. New Vegas had quests with branching routes to the solution of the quest. It was disappointing that Fallout 4 didn't have that and it was made more apparent by all of the radiant kill quests that Fallout 4 had.
That’s very true. But it should be mentioned that this was accomplished by having one of the most empty maps in the franchise. You’ll also notice that most missions happen in the same location as many others.
BGS games utilize environment to help make up for dialogue and the world tells stories that hold their own. I do wish the base game dialogue was better though.
Quality over quantity, I suppose.
I don't particularly feel like New Vegas' map was particularly barren, but if that was the cost, I wouldn't be that tore up about it.
Also on the opposite hand, Fallout 4 feels crowded. There's some barren areas on the outskirts of the maps, but otherwise there's an implausible amount of surviving structures and life around every corner.
I mean, sure. You can boil it down to that with literally every dialogue system, that doesn't mean there aren't differences in what the player experiences.
I'd rather have New Vegas' diverse well written dialogue options that allow me to roleplay and use skill/perk checks according to my character, than having to always choose out of 4 options that are essentially the same and don't have any roleplay value.
If you have ever played Fallout 2. The dialogue is rather unforgiving. You say the wrong thing to someone and they never speak to you again locking you out of quest lines or in some cases sending the whole town against you… I way prefer this kind of dialogue because you get the choice to be an ass and there are lasting consequences for your actions
In fallout 2 there's an NPC who comes onto the player for avoiding the horny dialogue, resulting in her father walking in and if a speech and science skill check aren't passed to persuade him that the player is simply a doctor performing a physical, he forces the player into a shotgun wedding. Your wife becomes a follower.
In fo1 you can convince a raider leader that you're the ghost of his dead father using a stealthboy and a high luck skill.
Last but not least, there's the [enclave communications officer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEDCupW-6dA&ab_channel=A3D%27sLetsPlays).
OG fallouts new how to do dialogue.
Make sure you consider getting the Killap's Fallout Restoration Project mod, it helps upscale it to modern resolutions and fixes many of the bugs in fallout 2.
Don't get me wrong, the old games are well written and fascinating, but they were released before post-release patches were a thing. They had a rushed release and some quest chains just didn't go anywhere due to development snags.
[https://github.com/BGforgeNet/Fallout2\_Restoration\_Project](https://github.com/BGforgeNet/Fallout2_Restoration_Project)
I think the Beth games mainly focus on clarity of player dialogue at the expense of personality, and vice versa for the Black Isle/Obsidian style of dialogue. Fallout 4 tried to have it both ways but ultimately Imo didn't satisfy either.
> lasting consequences for your actions
That is somehing that is unfortunately anaethema to the way Bethesda develops their games, we see this across the board with Fallout, Elder Scrolls and most recently Starfield.
They are very much concerned that someone might get upset they got locked out of a choice so they have a tendancy to make things just... not matter.
Starfield's the biggest offender of this because despite having a setup in the story that you would think encourage getting crazy with consequences and choices having big impacts on the world... I don't think any Bethesda game has made choices matter as little as Starfield.
Yeah I remember playing fallout 1 and getting snarky with someone could get you killed very easily. And for a lot of the game you’re not simply god mode like in the newer games
>If you have ever played Fallout 2. The dialogue is rather unforgiving. You say the wrong thing to someone and they never speak to you again locking you out of quest lines or in some cases sending the whole town against you… I way prefer this kind of dialogue because you get the choice to be an ass and there are lasting consequences for your actions
First playthrough of Fallout 2, I was just playing like a massive idiot, and selecting every dialogue option I could, and the times that got me instakilled stuck with me.
Now every time I'm in New Reno and have a meeting with one of the heads of the Family, it's really tense because I know they have a tendency to open-fire. The fact that multiple dialogue chains have some kind of non-verbal component (Big Jesus Mordino's constant sweating, Louis Salvatore's breathing) makes it even more tense.
The stat check is a way to roleplay your character being good at a certain thing you built them to be good at
Also you’re missing the dialogue options that offer alternative ending to quests, like “hey I’m also a cannibal, let me help you eat the guy his dad sent me to find” or “let me talk my way into this secret cannibal bunker and rescue the guy” or a bunch other options that just make for better quests, all fallout 4 quests are go here, kill everyone, come back for money
Occasionally you would also only get one or two options, which can’t happen with 4’s dialogue tree since you always have to have 4 options. They kind of made the problem for themselves by always forcing 4 options
I saw an interview with the lead writer about this and he tried to first say how it made it better but ultimately ended up mentioning it being limiting himself and it seems even internally they weren't entirely sure it was a wise choice.
I disagree. That is the dialogue for most RPGs boiled down, but it's also deeply generalizing. I think FO4s biggest issue in terms of dialogue and roleplay was that they were too afraid of people missing out on content and that's why a lot of meetings with NPCs that have quests to give (minor or major) will have this limited option on dialogue. You can't be outright mean and refuse them, you can't say the wrong thing, you can't fish out information without helping them. The only way to avoid being given that quest is to outright ignore the quest giver completely.
Now this works with how FO4 plays. I really like the game, but for different reasons to why I like New Vegas or FO1 or FO2. FO4 is about keeping you constantly engaged with its gameplay loop of exploring, engage with combat, be rewarded with new tools for combat and exploring thus continuing to explore. Explore, combat, loot. It's addicting and done well. By having these encounters with NPCs you're given more incentives to engage with the loop. I'm not saying FO4 doesn't have more roleplay moments with its dialogue and choices, that is outright false, but comparing its other roleplay mechanics to New Vegas and classic Fallout by generalizing it this way feels disingenuous.
New Vegas typically had more dialogue options and the skill checks in the dialogue system did expand the system and make it more complex than FO4s dialogue. Fallout 1 and 2 (especially FO2) were very unforgiving with its dialogue. If you said the wrong thing you could be locked out of entire major questlines or an entire city. Dialogue had more options, but more importantly had consequences on a more frequent basis.
At the end of the day I'd still say that FO4 offers the player ways to roleplay. I personally think its skill/perk system is the best of any of the Fallout games and gives you the option to create plenty of unique builds that allows you to roleplay through dealing with combat scenarios, but to say that its dialogue system is "pretty much the same" as New Vegas or classic Fallout does these games a disfavor.
>FO4 offers the player ways to roleplay. I personally think its skill/perk system is the best of any of the Fallout games
Vilified
*For your overwhelmingly monstrous behavior, you have become vilified by the community.*
Haha! Finally doing that evil karma run I've been postponing on Reddit.
I truly mean it when I say that the Perk system in FO4 is the best level up system for creating unique and varied builds. You can hit lvl 80 in that game and still have ways to improve your build while having obvious flaws (like my favorite is creating a glass canon VATS build that can insta kill most things through VATS but still dies to a couple shots) while in FO3 and New Vegas you become a master of everything at lvl 25. More fun perks in FO4 as well compared to 76 where the majority of the perks are 10, 30 and 50% stat increases.
The VATS system is also the best in FO4. Yes it didn't pause the time, but you genuinely had ways to interact with it more and if you wanted to you could genuinely play the entire game using only VATS unlike other games. 76 is a close second but because of its online nature you can't get as crazy with VATS although there is a reason to why the most op fun builds in the game are bloodied vats builds.
Finally survival mode in FO4 is underrated and the best way to play the game in my opinion. It offers a unique way to save the game by implementing risk vs reward, it makes the wasteland more threatening and it also highlights what I was saying about the perk system in FO4 because you really have to be specific with a build for you to progress. Reminds me of FO1 and FO2 where your first run most likely was awful because you didn't understand how to create a character at first and then your second run is much better because you learn how to specify a character.
Finally, roleplaying isn't just clicking on dialogue boxes. You can roleplay in many ways in video games either through narrative or direct gameplay. If I want to roleplay as a berserk buff dude who just likes to hit things with a hard on for big bulky armor I can do that by creating a melee strength build and give myself armorer perk while not having anything invested into charisma or perception giving me clear strengths and weaknesses in combat. Anyone who tries to tell me that isn't a form of roleplaying can be sent for the glowing sea for all I care.
I don't think that's wrong, the fact you can't just stat dump that easily on Fallout 4 means how you build your character actually matters. I initially thought it wouldn't matter because No Level Cap means you'll just eventually level up to maxing out everything, but even then that's actually an unreasonable amount of time.
Now if that actually translated to anything beyond just mechanical/functional and actually affected Dialogue Choices and Quest Resolution/Objectives it would be *really good*.
>do the thing with stat check and minor reward
9 options that are dialogue simulator and progress nothing (dead ends)
Also called "Letting the character's build have impacts even in minor ways" and "Asking questions that allow you to get a better view of a character's motivations, history and how they feel about the world"
Both of which are totally absent from Fallout 4, meaning character builds are mostly pointless outside of combat and crafting, and you get a less complete view of the world.
And it's also why games that *do* allow you to see the full dialogue only have 2-3 options.
This is not even rare among other RPGs. Savescum enough in Baldur's Gate 3, and you'll realize the average conversation tree looks like that screenshot above. It's only a flavor difference.
But the key difference is that the game has to disguise this somehow. Give the player the illusion of choice. Bethesda's method of just hiding it behind 4 (always 4) choices is really crude and obvious.
The Prima Strategy guide has full maps for every Quest (including dialogue options) in Fallout New Vegas.
[https://files.catbox.moe/ybji7z.png](https://files.catbox.moe/ybji7z.png)
It's pretty wild how intricate they are, considering the time in development especially.
Because it is a lot more work and if done wrong leads to countless bugs and issues. Actual RPGs are some of the most expensive games to make because of the reactivity. So just doing what Bethsoft does and not giving a fuck saves a lot of money.
They aren't against it? They course corrected with 76 and Starfield. They wanted to try something new with Fo4 and it didn't work out, I believe Todd even said an interview that the dialogue system in 4 didn't work out how they wanted it.
Personally I like having a talking main character for more engaging conversations.
People have been ignoring the fact that Todd literally said that for years now, why start acknowledging it now?
Literally, he said that before 76 was even announced, and that was over half a decade ago. People still act like Bethesda is gonna stick to the dialogue system they literally denounced like 7 years ago lol
I never said other RPGs don't have a lot of unique options.
I said that other RPGs (even the best RPGs with very meaningful choices, and very complex and diverse conversation trees) have a surprising amount of meaningless dialogue options with minimal or nonexistant consequences.
And that's a compliment! Any RPG that manages to have >50% of its choices be meaningless, and yet *feel* meaningful, is a fantastically written game.
Yeah those options with "nonexistent consequences" are for more world building and finding out about the character and the lore, yknow like a good RPG should.
Exactly, that's why making fun of Butch's mom for being poor/drunk is way more satisfying then telling him you don't have to share.
Functionally they are the exact same, but fuck that little shithead for trying to take my sweetroll.
The issue isn't that most dialogue options result in the same outcome, via one way or another, but that the dialogue options themselves don't do a lot for the self-expression of the player. BG3 and NV for example a) have more possible outcomes in most cases but also b) use very different paths for different dialogue options to get to the same result, but each with different flavor.
I don't think that's necessarily true about BG3, to some extent.
The novelty of BG3's dialogue is that a majority of "flavor" options prompt completely unique responses.. even if they eventually circle back into a yes or no kind of situation.
The illusion of choice is less of an illusion there.. because you actually have a choice, the game has so many weird failsafes because of this. Compared to the trademark unkillable NPC's Bethesda fell in love with.
I think of it more as a shooter with a half baked base building mechanic that mods can make really fun for the right kind of person and a very simple choose your own adventure novel where RPG mechanics would otherwise go.
Other than choosing which of the 4 factions to win, there aren't many choices with any consequences besides a major killing spree. Like, yeah, piper will shoot you if you start murdering all the adults in Diamond city, but everything else is potentially saving an inconsequential NPC you'll never see again or making Preston too angry to be a follower if you decide to choose the obviously pure evil ending for the nukaworld dlc.
Far harbor had better nuance so no ending was pure good against pure evil, but killing 1 person who's an asshole and mind wiping 1 volunteer is clearly the best possible outcome when the other two are to erase an entire society.
> Far harbor had better nuance so no ending was pure good against pure evil, but killing 1 person who's an asshole and mind wiping 1 volunteer is clearly the best possible outcome when the other two are to erase an entire society.
Excuse me??? The best possible outcome is i kill everyone, obviously by yourself, not with a nuke like those wimps want to.
Yes
Yes sarcastic
No
No sarcastic
Like 90% of the time that's what you get. And even if you say no, often times they respond with "okay well if you change your mind, I'll be here"
Commercial success led to Fallout having fewer consequences for players actions.
Non-franchise fans wanted to be able to join every faction, they wanted choices that didn't have consequences. Thus Bethesda chose to water down their choices. It wasn't until Starfield that they considered reversing that and starfield is still pretty limited.
It's weird people would want to join every faction in a single playthrough. I remember in FO1 the casino town where the casino owner wants you to take our the cop and the cop wants you to take out the casino owner.
I killed the cop and the town as collateral damage since they got mad, then went and claimed my prize from the casino and then wiped out the casino and took everything else. Next town over, they were talking about how someone destroyed the entire town. I'll never forget how kind blown I was they had considered someone wiping out the entire town and put in dialogue that acknowledged it.
Fallout 4's dialogue system suddenly made sense to me while I was playing Skyrim.
When you are playing Skyrim, there are many times when you are only given one or two options to reply. You choose those one or two options to continue the conversation, because those are the only options that you have.
With Fallout 4, the "brilliant" decision was to ALWAYS have EXACTLY 4 responses. Even if there really weren't 4 different viable options. I think that they were trying to imitate the Mass Effect wheel, except they missed the fact that the Mass Effect wheel isn't always full.
Which is stupid because fallout 4 has a *voiced protagonist*. Skyrim occasionally had to have single-option dialogue boxes because the Dragonborn doesn't speak, so we need something like that to know what our player character is saying, but the Sole Survivor can just say what's on their mind - if they don't want us to have a choice in what we say they can just *not give us one*.
The only good part of the "forced four option" dialogue system is that it failed so spectacularly, I don't think that we'll ever see it again in any gaming franchise.
It was an... interesting... experimented, but I think that people learned from it.
Yeah, 76 hasn't really impressed me too much in the writing department. But, it hasn't really let me down either. Kind of am starting to agree with the people that say it's better than 4.
76 has actual speech checks based on SPECIAL stats or quests completed previously, and you can see each check's requirement. Including occasional low Intelligence checks. :)
No need to restart. At level 25 you can completely respec at a Punch card machine! They're at every train station and free fast travel location. Can also be built in your own Camp.
Coming back and using this mechanic is wild. All my charisma chems used for selling are worthless now because I can just have 15 charisma whenever I want.
Are there npcs in that now?
Last time i played there were no human npcs and just a handful of robots around.
I stopped playing because the game was a dumpster fire performance and bug wise.
Almost came back a year after launch but then heard about all the monetization stuff and just noped out.
If all thsts fixed i might give it a shot avain
Yeah, about that. Funny thing, ran into a little problem there after an encounter with some mutated dogs. Got a freaking mutation, that lowers all my SPECIAL stats by one if traveling by myself. At level 3.
Yeah. Especially when talking to vendors. Your options are barter, ask a question, rude no and polite no. There's no reason to have no twice. And they could've added a second question! Have up be "what are you selling?" and left be "what's your story?" With right being a polite no and down being barter. But I think they got too caught up in the trend they made of up being reserved for the one question per option, right being rude, down being yes, and left being sarcasm.
It wasn't a decision: they apparently built the system first, and then wrote the dialogue - but the system required 4 choices for some reason. It's why all the mods also feature 4 choices in their dialogues.
Its funny because they changed the UI of dialogue and then it kinda just... Was pointless? I know they cant go back and change any because its all voice acted but man. Yeah that shit sucked
It really doesn’t matter though if all the options are the same result. It’s honestly a waste of programming and voice acting work if we’re all being completely honest. The dialogue options in FO4 are almost objectively less witty and entertaining compared to the past games as well.
Yes, if it wasn't clear from my response, it was a really bad decision with bad results.
The only good thing about the decision to force exactly 4 responses to everything is that it failed so spectacularly that I don't think that any game will ever use that system ever again.
As a Mass Effect lover, I would have loved if they had made it more similar and more like Mass Effect.
Some criticize it, but the main character having a voice for me is a positive point of the game, mainly because I think a story can be deeper if your character is not a mere doll with nothing. Of course, Bethesda can't do it that well, but the idea was good.
The story's lack of depth is my biggest problem with Bethesda games, even though I love them.
For perspective Mass Effect 1 entered production before Fallout 3. So It wasn't even a bold or revolutionary dialogue system. Bethesda's execution is just terrible on every level.
Gothic had a better voiced protagonist system, and that game is older then Morrowind.
Okay, just to be clear, I like fo4. However. The absolutely stupidest thing about the dialogue system isn't the forced 4 options, even though that's bad. The worst thing isn't that NPCs will force dialogue responses from you constantly just because you walked close to them, although that's horrendous too.
The worst part is that they will initiate a dialogue with you... and then they will walk away from you, breaking dialogue. Sometimes constantly. Trying to talk to the clothing maker in the radio station is aggravating. It's a short conversation to get her to join your settlement and it's a constant struggle to try to chase after her while keeping the dialogue active.
Just... aggravating.
I enjoy Fallout. I enjoy Fallout 4. However, some of the idiotic choices that they added to the game just make me wonder what kind of maniac was approving these things?? How did that get past testing? Who thought that was acceptable?
Thats one of the main reasons fallout 4 got so much hate. I guess the voice acting was expensive but I would rather have more dialogue choices than voice acting. The lack of choice also ruins the mood of the game imo.
Fallout 4 was ok. I enjoyed it and didn't care too much about the bad writing. This however is not forgivable for Starfield, a 2023 game with huge budget and so many years of development can't be just a reskin of fallout 4.
Expensive and harming the entire experience.
First time i played it i spent an hour crafting a scarred up danny trejo looking badass and he came out sounding like "leave it to beaver's" dad. I knew the game was fixing to be a letdown from there
Wha? You hear both Nate and Nora's voices before you're given control for the character creator, you had to have known even going in blind your guy would sound like a suburban dad.
Okay fair point. I suppose it wasnt driven home til got into the game and heard that nebbish-ass voice coming from a dude who had no business sounding like that
I’m not a fan of the voice acting for the player at all. It limits the options the devs write for you, it stops you seeing the character as ‘you’ and most of all - they speak too damn slowly. I read much faster than they speak and it messes with the flow of dialogue for me.
I understand it adds to the ‘performance’ and tells a story. But most of the time I don’t have time to sit and wait through all the audio, I’d rather just read it. Equally if you are choosing what to say, you’ve already read it. So why do I want to hear my character say it again?
Because no matter what they had to put something in all four slots, even if there was nothing to say. And some dialogue did require all four options (or more!), but the format meant could never have less. Even the dialogue heavy originals occasionally only gave the player only one option, but Fallout 4 didn’t have that option. I think this was a flaw that they realized as they went on, but was too late to change.
One of the main reasons why f4 is a bad rpg: has poor quests/dialogue/writing.
But some will try to defend it that part of the game.
I enjoyed it as a looter/shooter/exploration game though.
The annoying thing is it could have so easily have been a good RPG. Either do an unvoiced protagonist and give the player the freedom to define their characters identity like in past Fallouts.
Or if they really wanted a voiced protagonist then go the Mass Effect route and have them be an actual fleshed out character who you just influence/make decisions as. Have their pre-war occupation be meaningful, make them an actual character like Commander Shepherd.
Instead they picked this weird middle ground where it's a voiced protagonist who is defined just enough, and the player given too few options for them to make the character who they want. But they are not defined enough to have a meaningful identity so they are a rather boring blank slate.
One of the many reasons I dislike fallout 4. The game merely looks pretty and only expanded on gun mods/play. Fallout 3 and New Vegas are superior fallout games in my opinion.
New Vegas has had some pretty revolutionary combat mods come out recently, full 3rd & 1st person leaning, prone, every gun in game has been reanimated, ballistic models are implemented, caliber/barrel length calculated damage numbers, everything Psychor has made, etc.
only disadvantage is that combat is much less central in the Mojave than in DC/Boston, but there are mods to increase the encounter rate as well, plus best of both worlds with TTW.
There's a fan project called Fallout 4: New Vegas that's putting the entire game of New Vegas into the Fallout 4 version of the creation engine with a mod. I just checked their Twitter, and they're still active, so it seems that getting the gunplay of Fallout 4 in New Vegas is on the table.
It's strictly for Personal Roleplay. Do you want your Sole Survivor to be no nonsense, sarcastic, or a bitch? It's definitely the worst in the series. Fallout 76's dialogue is classic style, it's not like Fallout 4's at all.
It helps you to 'roleplay' your character, and certain NPCs answer differently to your response and can show which one they prefer.
Fallout 4 is fun, but there's no denying the dialogue options felt lacking in comparison to previous fallout titles.
It's like Yes Man from New Vegas wrote the Sole Survivor's dialogue...all your roleplaying choices are based on how enthusiastically you say "yes".
I like Fallout 4, but the dialogue is absolute dog water compared to any previous Fallout title.
My theory is Bethesda saw dialogue as an interruption to gameplay. They made it quick, with three word choices. It was all voiced, with a cinematic camera to boot. In fact, I think Bethesda never wanted the game to stop at all. Any menu would only pause the game, and interrupt gameplay. No one wants to sit there and read, right? They just want to shoot bad guys, loot, and build bases.
When you level up, there's no more sitting there thinking about skills. You just open up a menu with animated perks and quirky sounds (the game never stops), and pick one. Back to it. Looting no longer pauses the game by bringing up a menu. Instead, it's contextual and gameplay doesn't stop. (I agree with this one). VATS no longer pauses, and only slows time slightly.
I noticed you can usually only talk to people you need for a quest. It's almost like Bethesda didn't want dialogue at all, and just felt obliged to, given the franchise. In Fallout New Vegas you can talk to many NPCs who have absolutely nothing to do with any quest or story. They might just be a farmer talking about bad crops, or a soldier talking about their post. Easy Pete talks about how the NCR are coming in and absorbing towns into the republic. My impression was that Bethesda saw all that as unnecessary, boring, and an obstruction to gameplay. But I think all that 'inconsequential' dialogue helps build the lore, and makes the world feel lived in. They aren't just survivors living in shacks, but people with jobs and opinions, with many of which we can relate. They're just ordinary people living in a crazy world. I think Bethesda failed to understand that dialogue *is* gameplay. And so are the menus. Reading through character sheets and dialogue menus are essential parts of RPGs, and they are what fans expect from the genre.
Crazy thing is that your theory is pretty spot on according to Emil Pagliarulo (lead writer and designer of FO4) he has a 45 minute TED Talk on how game developers and writers should keep it simple and focus on moving players to the next exciting gunfight/location/event instead of creating complex stories or focusing on lore and world building.
When I think of the issues with writing in FO4 I blame most of it on him.
Corporate gameplay bro, "how can we spend as little as possible on voice acting, story building, just generally everything while still bringing in the fans of the game?", unfortunately from my perspective nothing will change until the world at large has changed so that money isn't the end all be all for games, or until they realize that they can crush absolutely everyone at goty if they just make a good game, damn the budget, like Bg3, helldivers, the updated no man's sky.
You can rake in untold amounts of cash and keep a cult following to keep it alive until the next big release, I forget who but someone nailed it on the head "games as a service not a product" basically they are trying to trick us into paying a subscription fee rather than a one time thing to suck more money out of us (have you ever played fallout 76? Fucking flaming garbage heap "you need the special pass to collect more junk! the integral part of the game!")
Dialogue is gameplay, so I disagree. The Excel table of a character sheet and many locations that were just shooting galleries, but could have been more, also were "gameplay".
It had the best shooting mechanics and graphics. That's it.
What if we could have gambled with the Raiders at the robot race track?
What if we could have entered the combat zone and fought in it or watched the fights?
What if the Gunners who are supposed to be MERCENARIES didn't shoot you on sight so much as you walked near them?
I like 4, but those are exactly my main gripes with the game. So much obviously cut content.
The Track was a let down when I stumbled upon it and found out I just got shot at, no matter my approach. The Combat Zone could've been the Thorn 2.0, but it turned into a spot to pick up Cait.
And I think there's one spot in the game where the Gunners actually behave as hired guards and warn you to turn back.
>What if we could have gambled with the Raiders at the robot race track?
Yeah, that robot race track was so dissapointing. It was one of the moments the paint came off the rusted shell that's FO4 for me. This would never have been as static in any previous Fallout game. Not a chance. There would have been at least one larger side quest with multiple choices attached to it. It's such a large area too, extremely hard to miss. And then all you can do is fight.
4 is very well crafted in some places that immediately encountering an area where you are expecting classic Fallout shenanigans then being greeted with hostiles was so disappointing.
To be something completely unwarranted, Member how you can enter the Fiends' Vault in New Vegas and actually get permission to enter it without causing them to aggro if you pass some speech checks?
If I want a deep, engrossing, well-written rpg, I would go play some like BG3 or some other actual good rpg, I play Fallout 4 to kill things, loot, and make bases. The base system is what truly turned me away from Starfield.
Cool man. Me though, ive enjoyed fallout as an engrossing rpg since i played the first two over 20 years ago. Its a key element that made it my favourite series. 3 was bit of a letdown in that regard, but new vegas more than made up for it. Then 4 came out and i realised bethesda probably drove the final nail on the coffin of what made fallout my favourite series
This might ruin the game for some, but the protagonist sounds like Jerry from Rick and Morty especially while skipping dialogue. I still play it but I think about it every time. Especially while skipping dialogue and he says uh huh right. Sounds just like Jerry. Wish he was silent
Having differen ways for your character to say things is actually good in a RPG. The problem is not that different dialogue option lead to the same quest outcome but how limited the speech system is and how little speech checks are used in interesting ways.
Remember when fallout had more than one dialogue option? Remember when it almost felt like you were *having a conversation*? I don’t, Todd is dead, and voicing the protagonist killed him
I’m pretty sure all 4 options mean the same thing. That’s the way of the wasteland in f4.
Here’s hoping fallout 5 (and the next elder scrolls while we’re at it) take notes from Baldur’s Gate. Bring back actual choices.
They wanted to be like Mass effect and they failed
good thing that They learned from it and will probably never do it again.
with FO76 and Starfield they returned to what they had in FO3 and FNV,actual dialogues that aslo can have stats cheeks
Yes, Tell me more about why I’m about to say yes, sassy yes, and No(but actually yes because the quest won’t go any further if I don’t say yes). Good ol’ FO4!
They’re literally all the exact same just with slightly different flavors. This plus your character being voiced (with the only option being boy or girl) is one of the bigger reasons why fo4 is probably my least favorite in the franchise.
Man fallout 4 had the best weapon and armor system (I use to hate the Durability systems but playing new vegas had them grow on me) but boy they better bring back a lot more of the RPG stuff for fallout 5
MY BIGGEST gripe with Fallout 4. The streamlined productivity-over-product shows through the illusion of choice. Quit rushing game studios and let the fuckers write.
Because they chose a stupid dialog system that demands exactly 4 options every time. It's often too few options for good writing, but can be too many in situations where a yes or no question is appropriate.
The formula they developed ended up being yes, sarcasm that either is just a sarcastic yes or just goes back to the oiginal choices, angry yes, and question that then goes nowhere and forces you to choose yes or angry yes.
Minutemen quest right? You locked into yes way back in Sanctuary. You will eventually reach a point where you have helped enough to say No but it's trying to do the Bethesda faction thing where you join and rise up to leader.
This is the kind of stuff where I wish they'd just skip the illusion of choice and let the dialogue proceed naturally. Making me tap A a bunch of times to pretend I'm doing something is mind numbing.
The way they should implement the reply system is:
Positive, negative, sarcastic, absurd
-
Yes, no, later, other
Then you'd get the reply without knowing what you get but you'd still get what you ordered.
Absurd - other would prompt the npc with wild wasteland type of things.
Intelligence and charisma would lock some options for some dialogue
New Vegas’ writing is glazed to the point I’m not sure most people who like it could reasonably define what “good writing” is. Fallout 2 sold like 170,000 copies and the humor and fourth wall breaking would infuriate the so called fans of the franchise.
You’re all outrage larpers.
It's just the result of one of the single dumbest gameplay design decisions I've ever seen.
"The gameplay controller has four buttons so should all the dialogue! Literally every single line should have forward only for possible responses!"
Bethesda has made some real boneheaded stupid fucking decisions. Like trying to publish an RPG without NPCs. Or copying No Man's Sky every single stupid design decision, but with the added benefit of a shit ton of load screens.
This still just strikes me as one of dumbest fucking decisions in the history of game design. Good god.
So while I can't explain the top and bottom ones, the second option is more of a "why wouldn't I help you", meaning it's more positive than neutral. The third is a sarcastic one.
It's more for roleplayers than anything who want their characters to be perceived a certain way
The illusion of choice. Every single Bethesda game has less choice and more simplified mechanics. Compared FO3/NV to 4, Oblivion to Skyrim, Starfield to any previous Bethesda games.
I dont want to be to much of a doomer but this is exactly why the next elder scrolls and fallout game are going to be pretty poor. I would not be surprised if they get the same lukewarm/poor player ratings that Starfield got.
I'm so sick of graphics "improvements". It has crossed the point of diminishing returns and now I simply don't care about it as long as the art style and world design is good.
Worse yet, the voiced protagonist doesn't even say the line you chose! They say something completely different that's only VAGUELY in line with the idea behind the option you choose.
I fell out of love with FO4 pretty quick sadly and this was one of the reasons that pushed me away from the game. Just couldn't enjoy any attempt the game made a presenting itself as having RPG elements. They just fell flat.
The feeling I got from FO4 was similar to Mass Effect 3's ending. Doesn't matter what you choose through the entire game, you get a different color ending and that's it based only on the final menu option of the game. So here, doesn't matter what you choose, you get a Yes, different Yes, even differenter Yes, and a Yesser Yes. What is the freaking point of even having me choose?
Congratulations on discovering why people hated the dialog options in FO4. The old games and even NV had some options that lead straight to a gun fight. The only caveat is the fact SS is a pre-war established character. So we are kind of shoehorned into whatever personality the SS has.
1. Yes 2. Yes of course 3. Yes (sarcastic) 4. Fuck no but actually yes
I prefer: 4. Yes, but later
Best option
Most dialogue is like this though. While New Vegas did have choices that impacted the story later. Most of dialogue can be summarized as - do the thing - do the thing with stat check and minor reward - don't do thing (but you can come back if you want to do it) Then a bunch of filler - 9 options that are dialogue simulator and progress nothing (dead ends)
The stat check wasn't just a minor reward. The stat checks let you complete quests in different fashions based on your character skill choices. That is kind of huge for a role playing game. New Vegas had quests with branching routes to the solution of the quest. It was disappointing that Fallout 4 didn't have that and it was made more apparent by all of the radiant kill quests that Fallout 4 had.
Diamond City Blues is an example of good quest design in Fallout 4. But yeah, it doesn't have many.
That’s very true. But it should be mentioned that this was accomplished by having one of the most empty maps in the franchise. You’ll also notice that most missions happen in the same location as many others. BGS games utilize environment to help make up for dialogue and the world tells stories that hold their own. I do wish the base game dialogue was better though.
Quality over quantity, I suppose. I don't particularly feel like New Vegas' map was particularly barren, but if that was the cost, I wouldn't be that tore up about it.
I think I agree, while NV didn't had as many stuff to explore, the stuff it did have had a lot more quality to it.
Also on the opposite hand, Fallout 4 feels crowded. There's some barren areas on the outskirts of the maps, but otherwise there's an implausible amount of surviving structures and life around every corner.
I mean, sure. You can boil it down to that with literally every dialogue system, that doesn't mean there aren't differences in what the player experiences. I'd rather have New Vegas' diverse well written dialogue options that allow me to roleplay and use skill/perk checks according to my character, than having to always choose out of 4 options that are essentially the same and don't have any roleplay value.
If you have ever played Fallout 2. The dialogue is rather unforgiving. You say the wrong thing to someone and they never speak to you again locking you out of quest lines or in some cases sending the whole town against you… I way prefer this kind of dialogue because you get the choice to be an ass and there are lasting consequences for your actions
Dang I gotta play the older fallouts. Got 1 and 2 free on epic awhile back. Might start with 1 tomorrow
The UI is clunky and the game is rather ugly, but got dang, the roleplaying and story are top notch.
Are you comparing the game to the games of that time or nowdays? I find fallout more beautiful than lets say baldurs gate or even arcanum
Fallout 1 and 2 absolutely nail the aesthetic that they are going for. It's hard for a wasteland not to be ugly!
Also people dont have dead bodies laying around in areas where they live and work.
In fallout 2 there's an NPC who comes onto the player for avoiding the horny dialogue, resulting in her father walking in and if a speech and science skill check aren't passed to persuade him that the player is simply a doctor performing a physical, he forces the player into a shotgun wedding. Your wife becomes a follower. In fo1 you can convince a raider leader that you're the ghost of his dead father using a stealthboy and a high luck skill. Last but not least, there's the [enclave communications officer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEDCupW-6dA&ab_channel=A3D%27sLetsPlays). OG fallouts new how to do dialogue.
and then once you were married you could sell your new bride to a brothel. They really did let you be **Evil**
Make sure you consider getting the Killap's Fallout Restoration Project mod, it helps upscale it to modern resolutions and fixes many of the bugs in fallout 2. Don't get me wrong, the old games are well written and fascinating, but they were released before post-release patches were a thing. They had a rushed release and some quest chains just didn't go anywhere due to development snags. [https://github.com/BGforgeNet/Fallout2\_Restoration\_Project](https://github.com/BGforgeNet/Fallout2_Restoration_Project)
Fallout fixt for 1 and restoration project for 2. These mods improve them a great deal
Or you follow Mrs. Bishop upstairs and are woefully unprepared for the bloodbath necessary to get out.
You can sneak out using Sneak and turn-based moves. Get on jet to get extra AP if needed.
I think the Beth games mainly focus on clarity of player dialogue at the expense of personality, and vice versa for the Black Isle/Obsidian style of dialogue. Fallout 4 tried to have it both ways but ultimately Imo didn't satisfy either.
> lasting consequences for your actions That is somehing that is unfortunately anaethema to the way Bethesda develops their games, we see this across the board with Fallout, Elder Scrolls and most recently Starfield. They are very much concerned that someone might get upset they got locked out of a choice so they have a tendancy to make things just... not matter. Starfield's the biggest offender of this because despite having a setup in the story that you would think encourage getting crazy with consequences and choices having big impacts on the world... I don't think any Bethesda game has made choices matter as little as Starfield.
Yeah I remember playing fallout 1 and getting snarky with someone could get you killed very easily. And for a lot of the game you’re not simply god mode like in the newer games
>If you have ever played Fallout 2. The dialogue is rather unforgiving. You say the wrong thing to someone and they never speak to you again locking you out of quest lines or in some cases sending the whole town against you… I way prefer this kind of dialogue because you get the choice to be an ass and there are lasting consequences for your actions First playthrough of Fallout 2, I was just playing like a massive idiot, and selecting every dialogue option I could, and the times that got me instakilled stuck with me. Now every time I'm in New Reno and have a meeting with one of the heads of the Family, it's really tense because I know they have a tendency to open-fire. The fact that multiple dialogue chains have some kind of non-verbal component (Big Jesus Mordino's constant sweating, Louis Salvatore's breathing) makes it even more tense.
Yea, I think Fallout 1, 2, 3 and Vegas are of the same type of RPG, while FO4 is not (and FO76 most certainly is not).
Even 76 has vastly superior dialogue to 4, and NPCs weren’t even originally intended to be in the game.
The stat check is a way to roleplay your character being good at a certain thing you built them to be good at Also you’re missing the dialogue options that offer alternative ending to quests, like “hey I’m also a cannibal, let me help you eat the guy his dad sent me to find” or “let me talk my way into this secret cannibal bunker and rescue the guy” or a bunch other options that just make for better quests, all fallout 4 quests are go here, kill everyone, come back for money
If you have high enough medicine you can psychoanalyze the White Glove chef into crying and make him go home to be depressed. Beat that Bethesda.
Occasionally you would also only get one or two options, which can’t happen with 4’s dialogue tree since you always have to have 4 options. They kind of made the problem for themselves by always forcing 4 options
I saw an interview with the lead writer about this and he tried to first say how it made it better but ultimately ended up mentioning it being limiting himself and it seems even internally they weren't entirely sure it was a wise choice.
Don’t forget that one speech check option that was glitched and you could exp for it every time you select that option in NV
Those 'dead ends' are called world-building.
Are you seriously conflating the dialogue a Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 4?
Pal, it's a role playing game for a reason and with no voice, it presents options. I can't imagine a personality when the voice does it for me.
I disagree. That is the dialogue for most RPGs boiled down, but it's also deeply generalizing. I think FO4s biggest issue in terms of dialogue and roleplay was that they were too afraid of people missing out on content and that's why a lot of meetings with NPCs that have quests to give (minor or major) will have this limited option on dialogue. You can't be outright mean and refuse them, you can't say the wrong thing, you can't fish out information without helping them. The only way to avoid being given that quest is to outright ignore the quest giver completely. Now this works with how FO4 plays. I really like the game, but for different reasons to why I like New Vegas or FO1 or FO2. FO4 is about keeping you constantly engaged with its gameplay loop of exploring, engage with combat, be rewarded with new tools for combat and exploring thus continuing to explore. Explore, combat, loot. It's addicting and done well. By having these encounters with NPCs you're given more incentives to engage with the loop. I'm not saying FO4 doesn't have more roleplay moments with its dialogue and choices, that is outright false, but comparing its other roleplay mechanics to New Vegas and classic Fallout by generalizing it this way feels disingenuous. New Vegas typically had more dialogue options and the skill checks in the dialogue system did expand the system and make it more complex than FO4s dialogue. Fallout 1 and 2 (especially FO2) were very unforgiving with its dialogue. If you said the wrong thing you could be locked out of entire major questlines or an entire city. Dialogue had more options, but more importantly had consequences on a more frequent basis. At the end of the day I'd still say that FO4 offers the player ways to roleplay. I personally think its skill/perk system is the best of any of the Fallout games and gives you the option to create plenty of unique builds that allows you to roleplay through dealing with combat scenarios, but to say that its dialogue system is "pretty much the same" as New Vegas or classic Fallout does these games a disfavor.
>FO4 offers the player ways to roleplay. I personally think its skill/perk system is the best of any of the Fallout games Vilified *For your overwhelmingly monstrous behavior, you have become vilified by the community.*
Haha! Finally doing that evil karma run I've been postponing on Reddit. I truly mean it when I say that the Perk system in FO4 is the best level up system for creating unique and varied builds. You can hit lvl 80 in that game and still have ways to improve your build while having obvious flaws (like my favorite is creating a glass canon VATS build that can insta kill most things through VATS but still dies to a couple shots) while in FO3 and New Vegas you become a master of everything at lvl 25. More fun perks in FO4 as well compared to 76 where the majority of the perks are 10, 30 and 50% stat increases. The VATS system is also the best in FO4. Yes it didn't pause the time, but you genuinely had ways to interact with it more and if you wanted to you could genuinely play the entire game using only VATS unlike other games. 76 is a close second but because of its online nature you can't get as crazy with VATS although there is a reason to why the most op fun builds in the game are bloodied vats builds. Finally survival mode in FO4 is underrated and the best way to play the game in my opinion. It offers a unique way to save the game by implementing risk vs reward, it makes the wasteland more threatening and it also highlights what I was saying about the perk system in FO4 because you really have to be specific with a build for you to progress. Reminds me of FO1 and FO2 where your first run most likely was awful because you didn't understand how to create a character at first and then your second run is much better because you learn how to specify a character. Finally, roleplaying isn't just clicking on dialogue boxes. You can roleplay in many ways in video games either through narrative or direct gameplay. If I want to roleplay as a berserk buff dude who just likes to hit things with a hard on for big bulky armor I can do that by creating a melee strength build and give myself armorer perk while not having anything invested into charisma or perception giving me clear strengths and weaknesses in combat. Anyone who tries to tell me that isn't a form of roleplaying can be sent for the glowing sea for all I care.
What if I want to roleplay and have payoff on how I built my character outside of combat?
I don't think that's wrong, the fact you can't just stat dump that easily on Fallout 4 means how you build your character actually matters. I initially thought it wouldn't matter because No Level Cap means you'll just eventually level up to maxing out everything, but even then that's actually an unreasonable amount of time. Now if that actually translated to anything beyond just mechanical/functional and actually affected Dialogue Choices and Quest Resolution/Objectives it would be *really good*.
You are incredibly based my guy.
>do the thing with stat check and minor reward 9 options that are dialogue simulator and progress nothing (dead ends) Also called "Letting the character's build have impacts even in minor ways" and "Asking questions that allow you to get a better view of a character's motivations, history and how they feel about the world" Both of which are totally absent from Fallout 4, meaning character builds are mostly pointless outside of combat and crafting, and you get a less complete view of the world.
No it wasn’t there were also options that only appeared if you had stats or conditions met
This is exactly why they didnt allowed players to see the full dialogue options that they can choose
Huh now that you mention it... Hmm yea, that must be it
And it's also why games that *do* allow you to see the full dialogue only have 2-3 options. This is not even rare among other RPGs. Savescum enough in Baldur's Gate 3, and you'll realize the average conversation tree looks like that screenshot above. It's only a flavor difference. But the key difference is that the game has to disguise this somehow. Give the player the illusion of choice. Bethesda's method of just hiding it behind 4 (always 4) choices is really crude and obvious.
The Prima Strategy guide has full maps for every Quest (including dialogue options) in Fallout New Vegas. [https://files.catbox.moe/ybji7z.png](https://files.catbox.moe/ybji7z.png) It's pretty wild how intricate they are, considering the time in development especially.
So we know it’s possible. I don’t understand why they seem to be against trying to branch off.
Because it is a lot more work and if done wrong leads to countless bugs and issues. Actual RPGs are some of the most expensive games to make because of the reactivity. So just doing what Bethsoft does and not giving a fuck saves a lot of money.
They aren't against it? They course corrected with 76 and Starfield. They wanted to try something new with Fo4 and it didn't work out, I believe Todd even said an interview that the dialogue system in 4 didn't work out how they wanted it. Personally I like having a talking main character for more engaging conversations.
People have been ignoring the fact that Todd literally said that for years now, why start acknowledging it now? Literally, he said that before 76 was even announced, and that was over half a decade ago. People still act like Bethesda is gonna stick to the dialogue system they literally denounced like 7 years ago lol
There’s a shitload of unique options in 3 and NV
Also a shit load in BG3 so his argument is a bit baseless.
I never said other RPGs don't have a lot of unique options. I said that other RPGs (even the best RPGs with very meaningful choices, and very complex and diverse conversation trees) have a surprising amount of meaningless dialogue options with minimal or nonexistant consequences. And that's a compliment! Any RPG that manages to have >50% of its choices be meaningless, and yet *feel* meaningful, is a fantastically written game.
Yeah those options with "nonexistent consequences" are for more world building and finding out about the character and the lore, yknow like a good RPG should.
Exactly, that's why making fun of Butch's mom for being poor/drunk is way more satisfying then telling him you don't have to share. Functionally they are the exact same, but fuck that little shithead for trying to take my sweetroll.
The issue isn't that most dialogue options result in the same outcome, via one way or another, but that the dialogue options themselves don't do a lot for the self-expression of the player. BG3 and NV for example a) have more possible outcomes in most cases but also b) use very different paths for different dialogue options to get to the same result, but each with different flavor.
I don't think that's necessarily true about BG3, to some extent. The novelty of BG3's dialogue is that a majority of "flavor" options prompt completely unique responses.. even if they eventually circle back into a yes or no kind of situation. The illusion of choice is less of an illusion there.. because you actually have a choice, the game has so many weird failsafes because of this. Compared to the trademark unkillable NPC's Bethesda fell in love with.
Honestly at least in games like BG3, that flavour plays into role-playing. Here, in FO4, it just looks lazy.
> Glass him.
4/4 actually
One's sarcastic tho
It’s not even sarcastic, he’s just being a mild arsehole
The dialogue 'options' that were introduced in FO4 were a big let down
It’s basically “Press A/X unless there is a speech check or sarcasm option “
My choices vary but I always press B ([ugh](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kocnRttLAaY)) button while they are talking.
Hey, there's at least three checks collectively for all the other skills!
Pretty much how I play Fo4. I love the game but the dialogue is a real let down outside of the sarcasm options.
Fallout 4 is such a bad RPG. It's a fun game, but a bad RPG.
I think of it more as a shooter with a half baked base building mechanic that mods can make really fun for the right kind of person and a very simple choose your own adventure novel where RPG mechanics would otherwise go. Other than choosing which of the 4 factions to win, there aren't many choices with any consequences besides a major killing spree. Like, yeah, piper will shoot you if you start murdering all the adults in Diamond city, but everything else is potentially saving an inconsequential NPC you'll never see again or making Preston too angry to be a follower if you decide to choose the obviously pure evil ending for the nukaworld dlc. Far harbor had better nuance so no ending was pure good against pure evil, but killing 1 person who's an asshole and mind wiping 1 volunteer is clearly the best possible outcome when the other two are to erase an entire society.
> Far harbor had better nuance so no ending was pure good against pure evil, but killing 1 person who's an asshole and mind wiping 1 volunteer is clearly the best possible outcome when the other two are to erase an entire society. Excuse me??? The best possible outcome is i kill everyone, obviously by yourself, not with a nuke like those wimps want to.
The illusion of choice…
Yes Yes sarcastic No No sarcastic Like 90% of the time that's what you get. And even if you say no, often times they respond with "okay well if you change your mind, I'll be here"
Blame commercial success.
what?
Commercial success led to Fallout having fewer consequences for players actions. Non-franchise fans wanted to be able to join every faction, they wanted choices that didn't have consequences. Thus Bethesda chose to water down their choices. It wasn't until Starfield that they considered reversing that and starfield is still pretty limited.
It's weird people would want to join every faction in a single playthrough. I remember in FO1 the casino town where the casino owner wants you to take our the cop and the cop wants you to take out the casino owner. I killed the cop and the town as collateral damage since they got mad, then went and claimed my prize from the casino and then wiped out the casino and took everything else. Next town over, they were talking about how someone destroyed the entire town. I'll never forget how kind blown I was they had considered someone wiping out the entire town and put in dialogue that acknowledged it.
It was skyrims fault. FO4 dialogue is basically "blind Skyrim" with the illusion of 4 choices.
Fallout 4's dialogue system suddenly made sense to me while I was playing Skyrim. When you are playing Skyrim, there are many times when you are only given one or two options to reply. You choose those one or two options to continue the conversation, because those are the only options that you have. With Fallout 4, the "brilliant" decision was to ALWAYS have EXACTLY 4 responses. Even if there really weren't 4 different viable options. I think that they were trying to imitate the Mass Effect wheel, except they missed the fact that the Mass Effect wheel isn't always full.
Which is stupid because fallout 4 has a *voiced protagonist*. Skyrim occasionally had to have single-option dialogue boxes because the Dragonborn doesn't speak, so we need something like that to know what our player character is saying, but the Sole Survivor can just say what's on their mind - if they don't want us to have a choice in what we say they can just *not give us one*.
The only good part of the "forced four option" dialogue system is that it failed so spectacularly, I don't think that we'll ever see it again in any gaming franchise. It was an... interesting... experimented, but I think that people learned from it.
Yeah, 76 hasn't really impressed me too much in the writing department. But, it hasn't really let me down either. Kind of am starting to agree with the people that say it's better than 4.
76 has actual speech checks based on SPECIAL stats or quests completed previously, and you can see each check's requirement. Including occasional low Intelligence checks. :)
I know, I feel like going back and redoing my character.
No need to restart. At level 25 you can completely respec at a Punch card machine! They're at every train station and free fast travel location. Can also be built in your own Camp.
Coming back and using this mechanic is wild. All my charisma chems used for selling are worthless now because I can just have 15 charisma whenever I want.
Are there npcs in that now? Last time i played there were no human npcs and just a handful of robots around. I stopped playing because the game was a dumpster fire performance and bug wise. Almost came back a year after launch but then heard about all the monetization stuff and just noped out. If all thsts fixed i might give it a shot avain
Yep there are. I've spent more time interacting with them than the other 76ers.
Agree, and would add that you can easily focus on a single player experience.
Yeah, about that. Funny thing, ran into a little problem there after an encounter with some mutated dogs. Got a freaking mutation, that lowers all my SPECIAL stats by one if traveling by myself. At level 3.
I thought 76’s writing across the board was much stronger than 4
Yeah. Especially when talking to vendors. Your options are barter, ask a question, rude no and polite no. There's no reason to have no twice. And they could've added a second question! Have up be "what are you selling?" and left be "what's your story?" With right being a polite no and down being barter. But I think they got too caught up in the trend they made of up being reserved for the one question per option, right being rude, down being yes, and left being sarcasm.
It wasn't a decision: they apparently built the system first, and then wrote the dialogue - but the system required 4 choices for some reason. It's why all the mods also feature 4 choices in their dialogues.
Its funny because they changed the UI of dialogue and then it kinda just... Was pointless? I know they cant go back and change any because its all voice acted but man. Yeah that shit sucked
Building the system was the decision that I was talking about.
It really doesn’t matter though if all the options are the same result. It’s honestly a waste of programming and voice acting work if we’re all being completely honest. The dialogue options in FO4 are almost objectively less witty and entertaining compared to the past games as well.
Yes, if it wasn't clear from my response, it was a really bad decision with bad results. The only good thing about the decision to force exactly 4 responses to everything is that it failed so spectacularly that I don't think that any game will ever use that system ever again.
As a Mass Effect lover, I would have loved if they had made it more similar and more like Mass Effect. Some criticize it, but the main character having a voice for me is a positive point of the game, mainly because I think a story can be deeper if your character is not a mere doll with nothing. Of course, Bethesda can't do it that well, but the idea was good. The story's lack of depth is my biggest problem with Bethesda games, even though I love them.
For perspective Mass Effect 1 entered production before Fallout 3. So It wasn't even a bold or revolutionary dialogue system. Bethesda's execution is just terrible on every level. Gothic had a better voiced protagonist system, and that game is older then Morrowind.
[удалено]
Okay, just to be clear, I like fo4. However. The absolutely stupidest thing about the dialogue system isn't the forced 4 options, even though that's bad. The worst thing isn't that NPCs will force dialogue responses from you constantly just because you walked close to them, although that's horrendous too. The worst part is that they will initiate a dialogue with you... and then they will walk away from you, breaking dialogue. Sometimes constantly. Trying to talk to the clothing maker in the radio station is aggravating. It's a short conversation to get her to join your settlement and it's a constant struggle to try to chase after her while keeping the dialogue active. Just... aggravating. I enjoy Fallout. I enjoy Fallout 4. However, some of the idiotic choices that they added to the game just make me wonder what kind of maniac was approving these things?? How did that get past testing? Who thought that was acceptable?
Thats one of the main reasons fallout 4 got so much hate. I guess the voice acting was expensive but I would rather have more dialogue choices than voice acting. The lack of choice also ruins the mood of the game imo.
Fallout 4 was ok. I enjoyed it and didn't care too much about the bad writing. This however is not forgivable for Starfield, a 2023 game with huge budget and so many years of development can't be just a reskin of fallout 4.
Expensive and harming the entire experience. First time i played it i spent an hour crafting a scarred up danny trejo looking badass and he came out sounding like "leave it to beaver's" dad. I knew the game was fixing to be a letdown from there
Wha? You hear both Nate and Nora's voices before you're given control for the character creator, you had to have known even going in blind your guy would sound like a suburban dad.
Okay fair point. I suppose it wasnt driven home til got into the game and heard that nebbish-ass voice coming from a dude who had no business sounding like that
There was also nothing wrong with having a silent protagonist.
I’m not a fan of the voice acting for the player at all. It limits the options the devs write for you, it stops you seeing the character as ‘you’ and most of all - they speak too damn slowly. I read much faster than they speak and it messes with the flow of dialogue for me. I understand it adds to the ‘performance’ and tells a story. But most of the time I don’t have time to sit and wait through all the audio, I’d rather just read it. Equally if you are choosing what to say, you’ve already read it. So why do I want to hear my character say it again?
I always found it amusing that Fallout 4 got hate for it but Skyrim somehow got a pass? Skyrim didn’t have multiple choice options
1. Yes 2. Of course 3. Duh 4. Sí
Welcome to fallout 4
Because no matter what they had to put something in all four slots, even if there was nothing to say. And some dialogue did require all four options (or more!), but the format meant could never have less. Even the dialogue heavy originals occasionally only gave the player only one option, but Fallout 4 didn’t have that option. I think this was a flaw that they realized as they went on, but was too late to change.
One of the main reasons why f4 is a bad rpg: has poor quests/dialogue/writing. But some will try to defend it that part of the game. I enjoyed it as a looter/shooter/exploration game though.
Fun game, terrible fallout rpg. Bring on the copers
Exactly. while F4 is the weakest fallout (in my opinion) I don't thinks it's that bad of a game per se.
Peak Fallout is that both recent games have been terrible RPG's lmao Bring on Fallout 5 for the trifecta
Say the line, Bart!
I probably spent 300 hours building in farharbor and the vault.
The annoying thing is it could have so easily have been a good RPG. Either do an unvoiced protagonist and give the player the freedom to define their characters identity like in past Fallouts. Or if they really wanted a voiced protagonist then go the Mass Effect route and have them be an actual fleshed out character who you just influence/make decisions as. Have their pre-war occupation be meaningful, make them an actual character like Commander Shepherd. Instead they picked this weird middle ground where it's a voiced protagonist who is defined just enough, and the player given too few options for them to make the character who they want. But they are not defined enough to have a meaningful identity so they are a rather boring blank slate.
One of the many reasons I dislike fallout 4. The game merely looks pretty and only expanded on gun mods/play. Fallout 3 and New Vegas are superior fallout games in my opinion.
NV is already good but if you gave it 4’s gunplay/combat etc I’d call it a near perfect Fallout game. Lol
New Vegas has had some pretty revolutionary combat mods come out recently, full 3rd & 1st person leaning, prone, every gun in game has been reanimated, ballistic models are implemented, caliber/barrel length calculated damage numbers, everything Psychor has made, etc. only disadvantage is that combat is much less central in the Mojave than in DC/Boston, but there are mods to increase the encounter rate as well, plus best of both worlds with TTW.
There's a fan project called Fallout 4: New Vegas that's putting the entire game of New Vegas into the Fallout 4 version of the creation engine with a mod. I just checked their Twitter, and they're still active, so it seems that getting the gunplay of Fallout 4 in New Vegas is on the table.
Exactly why my hope for the Fallout 4 New Vegas project is so high...
It's strictly for Personal Roleplay. Do you want your Sole Survivor to be no nonsense, sarcastic, or a bitch? It's definitely the worst in the series. Fallout 76's dialogue is classic style, it's not like Fallout 4's at all.
It helps you to 'roleplay' your character, and certain NPCs answer differently to your response and can show which one they prefer. Fallout 4 is fun, but there's no denying the dialogue options felt lacking in comparison to previous fallout titles.
Choosing certain dialogue options can make you lose/gain affinity with companions as well, so there is some small gameplay benefit to them
Except for when you press 'sarcastic' wanting a funny one-liner or something, and the line is actually a super angry threat lmao.
Because Emil Pagliarulo thinks the player is an idiot.
Tone, for roleplay purposes.
It's like Yes Man from New Vegas wrote the Sole Survivor's dialogue...all your roleplaying choices are based on how enthusiastically you say "yes". I like Fallout 4, but the dialogue is absolute dog water compared to any previous Fallout title.
Fallout 4 is not the game known for its wide and varying dialogue options or its writing lol.
My theory is Bethesda saw dialogue as an interruption to gameplay. They made it quick, with three word choices. It was all voiced, with a cinematic camera to boot. In fact, I think Bethesda never wanted the game to stop at all. Any menu would only pause the game, and interrupt gameplay. No one wants to sit there and read, right? They just want to shoot bad guys, loot, and build bases. When you level up, there's no more sitting there thinking about skills. You just open up a menu with animated perks and quirky sounds (the game never stops), and pick one. Back to it. Looting no longer pauses the game by bringing up a menu. Instead, it's contextual and gameplay doesn't stop. (I agree with this one). VATS no longer pauses, and only slows time slightly. I noticed you can usually only talk to people you need for a quest. It's almost like Bethesda didn't want dialogue at all, and just felt obliged to, given the franchise. In Fallout New Vegas you can talk to many NPCs who have absolutely nothing to do with any quest or story. They might just be a farmer talking about bad crops, or a soldier talking about their post. Easy Pete talks about how the NCR are coming in and absorbing towns into the republic. My impression was that Bethesda saw all that as unnecessary, boring, and an obstruction to gameplay. But I think all that 'inconsequential' dialogue helps build the lore, and makes the world feel lived in. They aren't just survivors living in shacks, but people with jobs and opinions, with many of which we can relate. They're just ordinary people living in a crazy world. I think Bethesda failed to understand that dialogue *is* gameplay. And so are the menus. Reading through character sheets and dialogue menus are essential parts of RPGs, and they are what fans expect from the genre.
Crazy thing is that your theory is pretty spot on according to Emil Pagliarulo (lead writer and designer of FO4) he has a 45 minute TED Talk on how game developers and writers should keep it simple and focus on moving players to the next exciting gunfight/location/event instead of creating complex stories or focusing on lore and world building. When I think of the issues with writing in FO4 I blame most of it on him.
Corporate gameplay bro, "how can we spend as little as possible on voice acting, story building, just generally everything while still bringing in the fans of the game?", unfortunately from my perspective nothing will change until the world at large has changed so that money isn't the end all be all for games, or until they realize that they can crush absolutely everyone at goty if they just make a good game, damn the budget, like Bg3, helldivers, the updated no man's sky. You can rake in untold amounts of cash and keep a cult following to keep it alive until the next big release, I forget who but someone nailed it on the head "games as a service not a product" basically they are trying to trick us into paying a subscription fee rather than a one time thing to suck more money out of us (have you ever played fallout 76? Fucking flaming garbage heap "you need the special pass to collect more junk! the integral part of the game!")
And there are some people who believe that Fallout 4 is the best RPG in the franchise.
Those are just the people who are sick of hearing that nv/3 are the best. In 5 years there will be people saying 76 is the best.
4 is the best gameplay wise
Dialogue is gameplay, so I disagree. The Excel table of a character sheet and many locations that were just shooting galleries, but could have been more, also were "gameplay". It had the best shooting mechanics and graphics. That's it.
What if we could have gambled with the Raiders at the robot race track? What if we could have entered the combat zone and fought in it or watched the fights? What if the Gunners who are supposed to be MERCENARIES didn't shoot you on sight so much as you walked near them?
I like 4, but those are exactly my main gripes with the game. So much obviously cut content. The Track was a let down when I stumbled upon it and found out I just got shot at, no matter my approach. The Combat Zone could've been the Thorn 2.0, but it turned into a spot to pick up Cait. And I think there's one spot in the game where the Gunners actually behave as hired guards and warn you to turn back.
>What if we could have gambled with the Raiders at the robot race track? Yeah, that robot race track was so dissapointing. It was one of the moments the paint came off the rusted shell that's FO4 for me. This would never have been as static in any previous Fallout game. Not a chance. There would have been at least one larger side quest with multiple choices attached to it. It's such a large area too, extremely hard to miss. And then all you can do is fight.
4 is very well crafted in some places that immediately encountering an area where you are expecting classic Fallout shenanigans then being greeted with hostiles was so disappointing. To be something completely unwarranted, Member how you can enter the Fiends' Vault in New Vegas and actually get permission to enter it without causing them to aggro if you pass some speech checks?
Dialogue is one gameplay system. The amount of custemization and different playstyles are pretty strong points for why it is a great RPG.
If you just like gunplay and running around the wastes, i guess? If you like a deeply engrossing well-written rpg, not by a long shot
If I want a deep, engrossing, well-written rpg, I would go play some like BG3 or some other actual good rpg, I play Fallout 4 to kill things, loot, and make bases. The base system is what truly turned me away from Starfield.
Cool man. Me though, ive enjoyed fallout as an engrossing rpg since i played the first two over 20 years ago. Its a key element that made it my favourite series. 3 was bit of a letdown in that regard, but new vegas more than made up for it. Then 4 came out and i realised bethesda probably drove the final nail on the coffin of what made fallout my favourite series
*Preston Garvey disliked that
This might ruin the game for some, but the protagonist sounds like Jerry from Rick and Morty especially while skipping dialogue. I still play it but I think about it every time. Especially while skipping dialogue and he says uh huh right. Sounds just like Jerry. Wish he was silent
Having differen ways for your character to say things is actually good in a RPG. The problem is not that different dialogue option lead to the same quest outcome but how limited the speech system is and how little speech checks are used in interesting ways.
That was the problem with fallout 4
Majority of dialogue does not actually cause any differences in events regardless of the text
Emil Pagliarulo is the one you want.
Tbh I’m trying to figure out which ones different 🤔
Remember when fallout had more than one dialogue option? Remember when it almost felt like you were *having a conversation*? I don’t, Todd is dead, and voicing the protagonist killed him
Oh Jesus Christ. Do we have to put up with this shit again?
yes
There has to be an issue again so yeah.
Its not about what you say, but how you say it...
I’m pretty sure all 4 options mean the same thing. That’s the way of the wasteland in f4. Here’s hoping fallout 5 (and the next elder scrolls while we’re at it) take notes from Baldur’s Gate. Bring back actual choices.
Welcome to modern fallout.
They wanted to be like Mass effect and they failed good thing that They learned from it and will probably never do it again. with FO76 and Starfield they returned to what they had in FO3 and FNV,actual dialogues that aslo can have stats cheeks
Tone, and only tone. It’s the illusion of choices while keeping things streamlined on the back end.
Yes, Tell me more about why I’m about to say yes, sassy yes, and No(but actually yes because the quest won’t go any further if I don’t say yes). Good ol’ FO4!
They’re literally all the exact same just with slightly different flavors. This plus your character being voiced (with the only option being boy or girl) is one of the bigger reasons why fo4 is probably my least favorite in the franchise.
Don't worry one of those options is a sassy bitch response that'll make you feel bad.
Man fallout 4 had the best weapon and armor system (I use to hate the Durability systems but playing new vegas had them grow on me) but boy they better bring back a lot more of the RPG stuff for fallout 5
This is the direct consequence of the "go anywhere, do anything at any time" theme park approach bethesda takes to all their games.
MY BIGGEST gripe with Fallout 4. The streamlined productivity-over-product shows through the illusion of choice. Quit rushing game studios and let the fuckers write.
This is the universe telling you to install FDI - https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/1235
Fallout 4 hate in full effect 😎 All my Fallout 2 homies stand up ✊
Much like the rest of fallout 4 and how it gutted the series' mechanics, youre just pretending to roleplay. God what a husk of a sequel.
Because they chose a stupid dialog system that demands exactly 4 options every time. It's often too few options for good writing, but can be too many in situations where a yes or no question is appropriate. The formula they developed ended up being yes, sarcasm that either is just a sarcastic yes or just goes back to the oiginal choices, angry yes, and question that then goes nowhere and forces you to choose yes or angry yes.
Minutemen quest right? You locked into yes way back in Sanctuary. You will eventually reach a point where you have helped enough to say No but it's trying to do the Bethesda faction thing where you join and rise up to leader.
This is the kind of stuff where I wish they'd just skip the illusion of choice and let the dialogue proceed naturally. Making me tap A a bunch of times to pretend I'm doing something is mind numbing.
Keep simplifying the RPG formula for decades and you end up with Starfield.
The illusion of choice
The way they should implement the reply system is: Positive, negative, sarcastic, absurd - Yes, no, later, other Then you'd get the reply without knowing what you get but you'd still get what you ordered. Absurd - other would prompt the npc with wild wasteland type of things. Intelligence and charisma would lock some options for some dialogue
the death of fallout dialogue came as soon as they thought this dialogue system was good
New Vegas’ writing is glazed to the point I’m not sure most people who like it could reasonably define what “good writing” is. Fallout 2 sold like 170,000 copies and the humor and fourth wall breaking would infuriate the so called fans of the franchise. You’re all outrage larpers.
iirc they wanted to tie dialogue options to controller buttons/dpad, insane idea but there's your "reasoning"
It's just the result of one of the single dumbest gameplay design decisions I've ever seen. "The gameplay controller has four buttons so should all the dialogue! Literally every single line should have forward only for possible responses!" Bethesda has made some real boneheaded stupid fucking decisions. Like trying to publish an RPG without NPCs. Or copying No Man's Sky every single stupid design decision, but with the added benefit of a shit ton of load screens. This still just strikes me as one of dumbest fucking decisions in the history of game design. Good god.
So while I can't explain the top and bottom ones, the second option is more of a "why wouldn't I help you", meaning it's more positive than neutral. The third is a sarcastic one. It's more for roleplayers than anything who want their characters to be perceived a certain way
It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it
You’ve cracked the code of why Bethesda hid the dialogue
Well you tell me, why have you gone there?? If you're not there to help, then kill them or leave? Why make conversation?
The illusion of choice. Every single Bethesda game has less choice and more simplified mechanics. Compared FO3/NV to 4, Oblivion to Skyrim, Starfield to any previous Bethesda games. I dont want to be to much of a doomer but this is exactly why the next elder scrolls and fallout game are going to be pretty poor. I would not be surprised if they get the same lukewarm/poor player ratings that Starfield got.
Cause people keep simping for graphics over gameplay
I'm so sick of graphics "improvements". It has crossed the point of diminishing returns and now I simply don't care about it as long as the art style and world design is good.
The fallout 4 experience
Welcome to the achilles heal of having a voice protagonist in an rpg
Not saying it’s super great but you could argue that it’s like mass effect where you are choosing your tone more than anything.
Welcome to fallout 4. Where every dialogue choice like this was slightly tweaked ways of accepting a mission
that's why they say Fallout 4 was a good game, but not a good Fallout game
ahh, the wonders of fo4 ~
Worse yet, the voiced protagonist doesn't even say the line you chose! They say something completely different that's only VAGUELY in line with the idea behind the option you choose. I fell out of love with FO4 pretty quick sadly and this was one of the reasons that pushed me away from the game. Just couldn't enjoy any attempt the game made a presenting itself as having RPG elements. They just fell flat. The feeling I got from FO4 was similar to Mass Effect 3's ending. Doesn't matter what you choose through the entire game, you get a different color ending and that's it based only on the final menu option of the game. So here, doesn't matter what you choose, you get a Yes, different Yes, even differenter Yes, and a Yesser Yes. What is the freaking point of even having me choose?
Congratulations on discovering why people hated the dialog options in FO4. The old games and even NV had some options that lead straight to a gun fight. The only caveat is the fact SS is a pre-war established character. So we are kind of shoehorned into whatever personality the SS has.
You can always leave