Repairing Fallout 4's quests, with modded quests

DirtyOldShoe

DirtyOldShoe

Some kind of lucky
So this has been brought up before and recently, but I would like to focus on Specifically quests, what the Fallout 4 demographic is looking for and what they are not looking for. For this I will link to a couple videos and mods and discuss there reception. Listing as current most endorsed to least endorsed.

Tales of the Commonwealth
http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/8704
Tales of the Commonwealth is at the top of the list. It is an attempt to try and add more flavor to the world and characters to enrich the existing world and fill up areas that could have had quests. The general user-base seems to hold this mod in high regard, probably because it is an attempt to fix something that is missing in the core game.
A First Look

Ransacked Relays and Shuddersome Subways
http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/12101
A proof of concept mod, for what can be done with Fallout 4's CK, not to be considered serious. As per mod author. This mod has actually done quite well considering how short it is and that it wasn't meant to be taken seriously. Adding a little bit of exploration to the core map.
Skip to review

Tinas Cookiepocolypse -AKA DDProd All In One plus Quest
http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/15842
AIO of DDProductions mods including a quest. All mods included in the AIO involve enhancing the experience in the core game map. Taken to well by Fallout 4 players, especially considering that the author was known to bait his users.
Link

Vault 1080
http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/18172
Another proof of concept mod to showcase NVidia's lighting effects. Adds a dungeon to the core game map. And for the size, has been accepted quite well by the Fallout 4 audience.


Fusion City Rising - Quest Mod Plus
http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/16423
An ambitious project to add new factions, locations, and companions. Taking place in both the core game map and it's own cells, and all new places to shoot stuff.


A Cannibal In Concord
http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/14320
Adds one cell to Concord with environmental story telling and sexual paper/terminal messages.


Sparky's Quantum Adventure
http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/12335
One of the first mods, teleports you to prewar Sanctuary and not received very well, amount of endorsements seem to be due to it being the only quest mod at the time.


Maxwells World
http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/18949
A DLC-sized mod with it's own world map, weapons, cells, characters, music, creatures and companions. This mod did not do so well on release.


So here is where I would like for everyone who is interested to share their opinions why some of these mods are received so well/poor, considering that Fallout 4 lacks in quests, role-playing and content..
 
Shudder-some relays was pretty good.

TotC was pretty good too.

A cannibal in Concord I can forgive for reliance on environmental storytelling because it's dark, and I feel that Bethesda's Wasteland Adventure 2 didn't deal with "adult" issues.

Quantum adventure was bugged af and is now dead.

Need to get round to playing vault 1080 and Fusion City- although I'm wary of Fusion City. Mods don't need lore consistency, but I'd prefer it if they did.
 
Tales of the Commonwealth works so very well, because it takes advantage of what works in Fallout 4: Exploration and discovery. The MQ is only kind of fun the first time through, when a player doesn't know what to expect, yet afterwards it all becomes a big, dull chore. My second playthrough was more fun when I focused on the side stuff, what little there is. Being baited by raiders into a trap or stumbling into a mini quest involving a standoff between drug dealers and a trader were more enjoyable. Tales of the Commonweath takes these kinds of side content to a much higher degree, while adding some much needed pathos and humor to the mix. Fallout 4 takes itself far too seriously, and when it does aim for humor it's too obvious. There's also more room for choices and roleplaying, which are what makes playing a wandering character so much fun. If we had something like Tales part 2 and 3, I'd consider the game pretty damn fleshed out, to the point of never, ever needing the MQ at all. Which leads to the biggest issue of Fallout 4; it's a mostly empty sandbox once you remove the mindless combat.
 
SarcasticGoodGuy said:
Shudder-some relays was pretty good.

TotC was pretty good too.

A cannibal in Concord I can forgive for reliance on environmental storytelling because it's dark, and I feel that Bethesda's Wasteland Adventure 2 didn't deal with "adult" issues.

Quantum adventure was bugged af and is now dead.

Need to get round to playing vault 1080 and Fusion City- although I'm wary of Fusion City. Mods don't need lore consistency, but I'd prefer it if they did.
Click to expand...
Before I gave up on F4 for good, I only played SS&RR and TotC. Too be honest Trainwiz has a habit of "no companions allowed" in his mods. He might caulk it up to being because "They're not meant to be played like that." But I think it's a matter of him not knowing how to navmesh, or not having someone to delegate those duties to. When I heard of MW I thought, "of course it will do well. Anything is better than Nuka World." Not surprised he didn't get a play-test team that's competent.

Also, I think quest/world mods released for Fallout 4 will be a curse to whoever the mod author is. With Skyrim, at least there is a decent interface for communication with NPC's so anything that involves any sort of NPC interaction in 4 will look bad no matter what.

TotC was pretty good, unfortunately it's talent wasted on a garbage game imo. I can see why it's #1, 1080 looked decent too. If I were to play F4 again, I wouldn't play FC, it seems to be a mix of dialogue and random shooting things.
 
DirtyOldShoe said:
So this has been brought up before and recently, but I would like to focus on Specifically quests, what the Fallout 4 demographic is looking for and what they are not looking for. For this I will link to a couple videos and mods and discuss there reception. Listing as current most endorsed to least endorsed.

So here is where I would like for everyone who is interested to share their opinions why some of these mods are received so well/poor, considering that Fallout 4 lacks in quests, role-playing and content..
Click to expand...
Thanks for the links.

The problem, IMO, is that a few quest mods can't fix a game where the central storyline is so intrusive. People complained about this in Skyrim for good reason, and FO4 is worse. Also, quest mods are always relatively popular, because there are so few of them. I think that most of the people who are fans of these mods are fans of FO4 in general, and just looking for additional hours in the game. Most aren't looking for a cure, they're looking for another fix.

Another point is that mod authors generally work on what they want to work on, unless there's an ulterior motive like getting a job in the industry. So mods that get released and their popularity isn't going to be strictly tied to the desires of the demographic. I think.

When I think of the popularity of CBBE, high resolution gun porn, and other popular mods, I might have to eat my words. I was actually pondering about how there are a fair number of weapon and housing mods out there, but so few that address game balance. I actually think Beth is paying a little bit more attention to balance than in previous games, but there's so many things that could use tweaking, and very few people seem interested. Casualization? Superficial players who are primarily concerned with how stylish their characters look when they're slaughtering hordes of raiders? I've never understood how people aren't constantly running into small points of frustration playing these games. I want trade offs and non-linear gear, and some specialization too.

Anyway, back to the topic, I may be overly snobbish, but I've been scared of quest mods since Oblivion. There are mods with unbelievably bad voice acting that got thousands of positive reviews. Some of these might be good, but I can't get past the awful VA. From my skim of the vids you posted, the VA does sound decent, though. Maybe that's starting to improve.

And a question:
Just out of curiosity, is ToTC honestly good? Or good with low expectations? And if it's good, is it worth installing Atomic Radio?
 
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omphaloskepsis said:
Just out of curiosity, is ToTC honestly good? Or good with low expectations? And if it's good, is it worth installing Atomic Radio?
Click to expand...

It's honestly good side content. It varies, but I don't consider any of it bad. Lots of amusing, goofy stuff to give the world some life. There's even mini factions that pop up, little warring groups, and stuff meant more for flavor than anything else. In one quest you shove a rad stag head into a person's fridge while playing horrible animal screams to spook them, or stumbling on a bunch of super mutants learning how to play football for a very amusing reason. Fun stuff like that.
 
BTW, what is the problem that some people have with posting useful information on their mod page?

I stumbled onto TotC a while back by accident, and thought it was just more radio stations. Trying to find useful information on the page is impossible. Some people forego the front page and post the description as the first post instead. Maybe they're shy? But for ToTC, there's pages of credits and video links, but no description. Not even in the posts.

Then you go to the blog, and again, nothing. I could spend an hour searching old posts to find a pertinent one, but why should I bother when they can't even post a summary?

After hearing good things here, I'll give it a go the next time I play. Thanks for the recommendation.
 
I played Fusion City last weekend. The Fusion City location itself is OK I guess, too bad most of NPCs have only one line of dialogue. Vault 59 is kinda lazy IMO. Its internal is basically a mishmash of Vault 81, 95 and 114.
The story & setting is... uh, I don't know what to say in a polite way, but I did say "bullshit" on some parts and laughed a bit in front of my monitor. Has some cool looking armors.
 
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