Fallout 4 : The Myth of Mainstream needing a 'DUMB DOWN'

Black Angel

Black Angel

Grand Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus

Gopher said:
RPGs are extremely popular and they sell extremely well, and I have to tell you now. Games like Fallout 4 were about as mainstream as you could get. I mean you could argue that Fallout when it originally came out was a bit of a niche game, mostly because not that many people knew about it's existence. Although even then I'd say it was reasonably popular. Fallout 3 changed that, it kinda made it a little more mainstream a little better known.
But by the time Fallout 4 came out, Fallout may well have been one of the most well known franchise expected series that has ever been out.

As RPGs go Fallout had become so mainstream everybody knew about it. It was the epitomy of tripple-a mainstreamyness they didn't need to make it any more mainstream for "RPG gamers". It wasn't too complicated or too niche for "RPG gamers".
And if your argument is, well they tried to make it a shooter because they thought they could sell more as a shooter than as an RPG. I want to know where you're getting your figures from, and why you think trying to sell something everybody's expecting an RPG from is going to do better if you make it into a shooter. I don't see the logic behind that.
All they had to do to make this game sell was make it a Fallout game, and the expectations from the previous games; Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas and even Skyrim would make the game sell. So I don't buy any of these arguments. They did not have to dumb anything down, they did not have to change the genre from RPG to shooter. They did not have to do anything to make this game sell, beyond making it a Fallout game.
A far more logical argument is they made these changes because they thought people would like them more. They listened to the criticisms people had been throwing at all their games; Elder Scrolls and Fallout. And they tried to address them.
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It's like he forgot he made all those rant videos on how way too many aspect of this shit got worse. Since when did Beth ever "listened to the criticism people had been throwing at all their games"?
 
One more youtube pseudoceleb gamer brownnosing Bethesda for extra points.

Who cares.

It always annoyed me back in those days how, when arguing about shit, people in the Beth boards turned into "Well Gopher says....", "Mr.Matty says..." etc, and even if they were utterly full of shit, people still nodded at each other "Mm'm. He's making a good point, coprophagy is healthy."
 
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So that's why @CT Phipps finds so common in his views on the subject with this guy and his steam-comment-tier videos.
 
Kohno said:
One more youtube pseudoceleb gamer brownnosing Bethesda for extra points.
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Maybe, but he doesn't strike me as someone who would shill at all.

Like I said, he made those rants videos, meaning he understood that the game was definitely dumbed down. He's also more inclined with New Vegas's modding scene, means he cared for it. Hell, he even stood up with modders in the face of Beth's incompetence in handling Beth.net

This seemed more like he's pretty ignorant with the origins and history of classical Fallout. He only mentioned the games being 'niche' back in the day and shit like that, without bringing into his argument the aspects of gameplay and other mechanics that made them RPG in the first place.
 
Black Angel said:
This seemed more like he's pretty ignorant with the origins and history of classical Fallout.
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As far as I can tell, he's just a classic "new-age Fallout fan" that wants to sound "edgy" while at the same time not really wanting to, but only because "edgy" sounds cooler than "kissass". To my recollection he thinks 4 has the best combat in the series (probably why he defended the shooter stuff in that video), and he (again iirc) also did heavily support the removal of skills and the transition to that Farcry esque perk chart. Probably among other things.

Bah. They're all the same.
 
Kohno said:
and he (again iirc) also did heavily support the removal of skills and the transition to that Farcry esque perk chart.
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Not really

though I don't know what his current stance now, since I didn't watch that video (reading the excerpt and his respond to some of the comments was enough as a TL;DR for me).
 
It was older video I recalled. Prerelease, when people were still speculating over how high the level of shit goes.
 
All the better then, since he saw through the bullshit, had his eyes opened, and made that newer video demanding the return of skills (and other basic Fallout-RPG aspects).

Anyway, it's baffled me to no end how he came to such conclusion, that the dumbing down of Beth's game was a 'myth'. We already had MisterCaption's review which hit the mark so hard with this, not to mention that video by Samyoul/Samyoline (the guy who made The Elder Scrolls: The Dumbing Down video), and yet here we are....
 
What's kind of hilarious is I hate the Fallout 4 perk system and don't think it's particularly streamlined at all. The SPECIAL system was fine. It seemed an enormous case of fixing what wasn't broken to begin with as the shooting system was already extremely well-done with a great supporting skill system.

Now, however, the shooting system is WORSE.

Bulletsponge monsters
Bizarre Legendary Drops
Mutations that make no goddamn sense

Not great.
 
yeah all i got from this was they dumbed it down when that wasn't even necessary. it wasn't to sell--that was secure, all zenimax cares about was already secure by branding alone--it was because bethesda was able to get away with selling something dumbed down.

idk why we'd be suspicious of him after the work he put into new vegas modding, but whatever. like i'm not sure what he means by bethesda listening to critiques either--but i guess i can imagine ways bethesda may have thought they listened to critiques, or enough to get away with. they boasted how much dialogue was put into the game for instance, some quoted record number somehow, and sadly was the kind of shit that caught my attention because i also saw the game was more animated and not as talking head'y. i expected a much more fleshed out game because all i remembered about fallout 3 was its having bland grade school level dialogue served with stare. i could never really continue playing it myself if it was incidentally in front of me, and never ended up buying my own copy except recently for reference back when they had a sale.

i don't know, *i* don't think bethesda listened to critiques, i think they made something that looked like it addressed how poorly their games presented at first glance and had no interest in going deeper. zenimax/bethesda is a hedge fund, they answer to private stakeholders who want return from private equity, intellectual property hoarding, brands, and if it will sell, that's all it's supposed to do for them. so i guess i agree with him, it was dumb because it was allowed to be.
 
So this is the Gopher guy i've heard about.

So can someone tell me is Gopher usually like this? You know, brown-nosing Bethesda and all.
 
I honestly can't believe anyone is for Fallout 4 nowadays.

The only aspects of Fallout which is in the game, is SPECIAL (which has been butchered to uselessness...), perks (again, now useless), laser rifles (funnily enough...Now useless, there isn't any microfusion cells), deathclaws (Dumbed down to 'meatsponge you need half a munitions truck to kill'...And they level scale)...

Actually, if you exclude the things ingame which they have butchered, and focus only on what they did right...

There isn't a SINGLE Fallout element in this game, which is fucking shocking.

How fucking hard is it to add a fucking ammo type called "Small Energy Cells" and a small handgun thing called "Glock Plasma Pistol".
 
0wing said:
Mainstream is already hiting the bottom of dumbing down, the only way is up.
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I remember the same thing being said when Skyrim came about. Seems like we haven't hit rock bottom just yet. Maybe Skyrim Part Deux can get us there.
 
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