IronEvangelion wrote:Good riddance, the Karma system was laughable in a morally ambiguous series like Fallout. It served no purpose other than to let you know how bad you were according to a moral scale that was no longer relevant in a post-apocalyptic earth. I'm glad it's gone.

It was in the first two games, bad karma meant that certain individuals wouldn't even talk to you or would shoot you on sight, karmic reputations like Childkiller and Slaver meant you'd get a great amount of penalties towards your game progress, with many NPC's not talking to you or outright trying to hunt you down and kill you, like bounty hunters and NCR Rangers.

Tankred wrote:It was in the first two games, bad karma meant that certain individuals wouldn't even talk to you or would shoot you on sight, karmic reputations like Childkiller and Slaver meant you'd get a great amount of penalties towards your game progress, with many NPC's not talking to you or outright trying to hunt you down and kill you, like bounty hunters and NCR Rangers.

Sounds like it was actually an interesting game mechanic back then. I wouldn't mind something like that returning instead of the useless morality gauge Bethesda turned it into. I wonder how they could have screwed it up so- oh wait, it's Bethesda we're talking about.

Well, after months of delaying mod support, Bethesda has just announced that Sony will not be allowing mod support on either Fallout 4 OR the Skyrim remaster.

http://gematsu.com/2016/09/sony-wont-al ... skyrim-ps4

I'll be selling my copy of Fallout 4 ASAP, because to me it's worthless without mods. Will probably be buying a used XBox One and the FO4 Ultimate Edition whenever it gets released, or maybe since I'm planning on getting a new computer next year I'll just get the PC version and make my own mods like I did with New Vegas.

Also, fuck you, Sony. This is the first thing you've done this console gen that has seriously pissed me off!

It's a sad day to be a filthy console peasant.

I've never been familiar with mods, so I won't miss it. It's a shame and all, but I like vanilla Fallout. I already need to catch up on the last several DLCs, which come with plenty of additions to settlement building, so I already have plenty of new toys to play with.

That said, I guess I might as well update everybody on my latest endeavor in Fallout 4. Despite not having played a whole lot in the last two months, I still am quite fond of my current plan with the game, and I feel like I would be able to pick it up at any point and continue where I left off. I committed to creating a character from scratch on Survival mode, and I plan on going with the Minutemen ending. It's going to be a long, slow burn, because I also plan on building and maintaining every single settlement location in the game before advancing too far into the story. Given that Survival mode doesn't allow fast travel AND you can only save when you sleep in a bed, this has been particularly challenging. BUT, I love it for the immersion. From Sanctuary, I cut a path through Diamond City all the way to the Castle, and I've been expanding from there. It's a handful occasionally walking back and forth between the Castle and Sanctuary, that I'm no particular hurry to explore the harder parts of the map yet. My main base of operations has been Hangman's Alley, due to it being centrally located and next door to Diamond City; the layout is pretty nice, and I've got a nice three story building tucked away in the corner for all the beds I need, and I can keep building up if I need more. I kinda like just focusing on the settlements, as the story isn't terribly interesting to me anymore. Having small settlements here and there is better than building a mega-settlement and reaching the size limit before it can be fully realized.

Well I guess it's a good thing I never got rid of my copy of Fallout 4, because Bethesda just backtracked today and announced mod support for the PS4 versions of Fallout 4 and the Skyrim remaster!

http://gematsu.com/2016/10/elder-scroll ... -announced

This part is of particular interest:

Bethesda wrote:Mod support will come first to Skyrim, and allow users to modify and create their own content using Bethesda’s Creation Kit. You will not be able to upload external assets, but you will be able to use any assets that come with the game.

I hope this means what I think it means, and I hope they do the same thing with Fallout 4!

In honor of the one-year anniversary of its release, I began a new playthrough of Fallout 4 tonight. This time around, I'm playing the same basic character again (a charismatic, evil manipulator named Knives), but with more of a focus on actually being evil. Last time around (my first), I didn't quite know what I was getting myself into so I kept putting off my First Great Evil Act in the interest of waiting for a better opportunity that never really came. Only near the end did I manage to do something actually evil, and it was like the one solid opportunity I'd come across in the entire playthrough that didn't go against other values I established for my character (or rather, excuses to not kill potentially important characters lest I accidentally lock myself out of content).

This time around whenever I find someone I know won't be missed I try to kill them and take their stuff.

Monk Ed wrote:This time around whenever I find someone I know won't be missed I try to kill them and take their stuff.

The hard part is not damaging their stuff too severely, but it is a fun thing to do to annoying characters.

What even can you do that's evil in 4, really? Nobody cares if you kill podunk settlers in the middle of nowhere, and every faction is grey at best.

It's been a while, but, man, this game is fun! I love playing a game whose context and gameplay aspects are so thoroughly wedded together. Unlike Deus Ex 4 or Dishonored (both of which I've been really enjoying lately), the gameplay requirement that I go poking around every nook and cranny, picking up anything remotely useful that isn't nailed down, is actually setting- and character-appropriate.

Especially for my reimagined MC, who is far less motivated than his previous iteration to go looking for his son. I'm still feeling out the details of why, but in the early goings of this playthrough I was pleased to discover that the game offers dialogue communicating that your MC is bitter and depressed about his circumstances, so I have a promising direction to pursue to explain why he's taking so long to chase down his first leads.

DarkBluePhoenix wrote:The hard part is not damaging their stuff too severely, but it is a fun thing to do to annoying characters.

You can damage their stuff? Or is that a mod feature?

And speaking of mods, I've installed my first mods. Modding Skyrim eased the transition by getting me used to Nexus Mod Manager's workflow. The game was fun enough vanilla, but I'm loving the time I'm having now after picking up this mod that changes the dialogue options to show me what my character will actually say.

And a nude mod, of course.

NemZ wrote:What even can you do that's evil in 4, really?

Not much that I've found, really, but I wasn't looking that hard.

Monk Ed wrote: You can damage their stuff? Or is that a mod feature?

It's a mod feature, saw a link for it somewhere, probably reddit. I know durability was removed from the game, I realized that when I saw your post. I was just replaying Fallout 3 again, and kinda forgot... my bad

NemZ wrote:What even can you do that's evil in 4, really? Nobody cares if you kill podunk settlers in the middle of nowhere, and every faction is grey at best.

Those silly Minutemen are perhaps the lightest shade of grey in the bunch at that. I will also note that they are extremely... easy to influence, if you catch my drift ("Hey, we're workin' with the Institute now? Cool.")

The Nuka-World DLC does give room for you to basically act more like a straight-out villain that commits certain inevitably heroic actions. Sorta. I still think Bethesda dropped the ball and should've let you get all your raider gangs and turn the Institute into the Commonwealth's hub of scum and villainy.

Personally, I tend to just mod certain power armor mechanics and go to town. Nothing beats a set of T-60 Tesla Power Armor and your favorite Energy weapon or Gauss rifle. Or one could just mess around with legendary weapons mods and carry around an "Explosive" minigun...

In terms of sheer character and faction interaction dynamics, I honestly think the whole "Karma/Faction Reputation" mechanic from Fallout New Vegas was perhaps the most entertaining. Gave room to create a far more interesting character that displayed unique ways of dealing with the outside world than in Fallout 4.

Anybody know of interesting perk add-on mods? I've run out of things to take... I literally have them all and about 12 level ups I can't cash in, and most of those are frankly useless to me as I don't like using VATS.

I had a mod that changed the experience formula that was supposed to slow levelng down, but apparently what it actually did was raise the flat amount and lower the rising percentage, so that it started out much slower but over time I've actually massively outpaced the standard, and I'm afraid removing it might completely fubar my save.

NemZ wrote:Anybody know of interesting perk add-on mods? I've run out of things to take... I literally have them all and about 12 level ups I can't cash in, and most of those are frankly useless to me as I don't like using VATS.

Just to clarify, are we talking Fallout 4, or 3, or New Vegas?

F4. Ritsuko is level 300+ now, pretty ridiculous. Frankly the level scaling has gotten to be a problem as the weapon upgrades can't keep pace after a while with enemy health, so if I don't get sneak attacks an engagement takes bloody forever to end.

Bethesda is teasing a Fallout-related announcement for E3 2018:

https://gematsu.com/2018/05/bethesda-tw ... of-e3-2018

Fallout 3/NV Special Edition for PS4/X1, with mod support? New Fallout game made by Obsidian? Dare I dream?

Obsidian has already disclaimed on their Twitter that it isn't them.

Sachi wrote:Obsidian has already disclaimed on their Twitter that it isn't them.

Oh well, at least there's still hope for a FO3 Special Edition, or a NV Special Edition if Bethesda doesn't need Obsidian's permission to do it (I'm pretty sure they don't).

New Fallout game revealed for PS4/PC/X1, Fallout 76.

https://gematsu.com/2018/05/fallout-76- ... one-and-pc

Vault 76 will apparently be the player's starting point. I haven't been able to find a location yet, but the vault is mentioned in both Fallout 3 and 4. It was a control vault, and was designed to open a mere 20 years after the nuclear war. This could possibly be the earliest Fallout game in the timeline.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Vault_76

I'm trying not to get hyped for this, since it's developed entirely by Bethesda. That means it will likely be another huge disappointment from my point of view.

I'd like to think that after Fallout 4 you can only go up, but who knows when it comes to Bethesda.