Why is Fallout 3 so hated?

[Languorous_Maiar]

it probably references the Twiligh Zone episode by name, but it's a compeltely different thing.

It isn't.

"Saint Sputnik posted: The other night I caught an episode of The Twilight Zone called "The Old Man in the Cave," about a mysterious unseen figure who helped a bunch of nuclear apocalypse survivors. I feel like Fallout writers must mainline TZ episodes for inspiration. Confirm/Deny?
I've never seen (or heard of, before seeing that footnote on the Wikia) that episode."

 

[Walpknut]

So, it is a different story then.... like I said.

 

[DarkCorp]

I was specifically mentioning the examples in F3, F2 and the twilight zone episode.

 

[Gaspard]

By looking at your avatar I can say you're ugly.
So, is that logic going to bring us anywhere soon ? I don't think so.

Hey, hey. No need to get personal here

 

[Walpknut]

Kind of lame that his/her comeback was basically:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88ZDo3-m_KQ[/youtube]

 

[Ekans22]

Back on topic for OP, I'm surprised I don't see people on NMA list auto-scaling as one of the reasons they hate FO3.

Who cares if you can exploit giving water to a homeless ghoul to reach whatever karma you want? There's a really simple solution to that - don't exploit the mechanic. Thats how a Beth game is meant to be played - anyway you want. A mechanic can be entirely broken, but so long as its 100 % optional, who cares?

The auto-scaling, on the other hand, is not optional - monsters 'will' be scaled to whatever level I happen to be, and irks the heck out of me. Even FO1 doesn't have auto-scaling; only FO3, in the whole series, has it.

 

[Crni Vuk]

yeah, with that logic you can fabricate every game, book, movie or any other object you like in to a master piece.

What do you mean the ending in F3 was stupid, because Fawkes a creature you saved out of a prison cell and from his certain death, immune to radiation, refuses to start the purifier for you, which would kill either you or that BoS Paladin Chick next to you, because he says "he doesn't want you to rob from your destiny". Just assume it doesn't exist, its optional!

There. Fixed the whole game for you!

 

[Ekans22]

Ugh. You don't address the mechanic in question - you instead bring up an entirely different problem in the game thats both unrelated and an entirely different kind of animal. You use induction, but use an example that doesn't apply.

The problem you bring up is a limitation on player capability and options - in particular if you take fawkes. Its NOT optional (especially for people who take Fawkes) as there is no way to get around being presented with one less, but very logical option.

The mechanic I brought up, on the other hand, is only a problem if.....-you're looking to exploit the game in the first place-.

In short, problem you pose is: Lack of a viable option for the player. Ie, NOT IGNORABLE.

Problem I actually mentioned is: Extra option for the player that can be exploited. Ie, IGNORABLE.

There. Explained the whole difference for you!

 

[Stanislao Moulinsky]

Back on topic for OP, I'm surprised I don't see people on NMA list auto-scaling as one of the reasons they hate FO3.

Who cares if you can exploit giving water to a homeless ghoul to reach whatever karma you want? There's a really simple solution to that - don't exploit the mechanic. Thats how a Beth game is meant to be played - anyway you want. A mechanic can be entirely broken, but so long as its 100 % optional, who cares?

The auto-scaling, on the other hand, is not optional - monsters 'will' be scaled to whatever level I happen to be, and irks the heck out of me. Even FO1 doesn't have auto-scaling; only FO3, in the whole series, has it.

Stupid reasoning. Fast travel is optional and even exploitable in a way. "Well, don't use it", right? Too bad that the game is designed around the assumption that the players will use it.

Also, there's so much broken/unbalanced stuff in FO3 that if we were to follow your advice we shouldn't even press the New Game button. And even if we were to restrain ourselves in everyhting I question what enjoyemnt you are supposed to gain from that.

 

[Ekans22]

Omg....I was pointing out ONE mechanic. Uno! Comprende?

And once again, another mechanic (fast travel), entirely unrelated, is brought up. W.T.F.

Stupid reasoning.

Its stupid to bring up unrelated, totally assanine examples of which I've not commented on, and to just make crap up.

Also, there's so much broken/unbalanced stuff in FO3 that if we were to follow your advice we shouldn't even press the New Game button.

I didn't say there was, and I didn't say there wasn't.

What advice are you even inferring? In no way am I saying you can use a 'treat as optionals' to fix every problem in FO3. That, apparently, is YOUR reasoning. Stop making shit up.

Again, I'm pointing 'one' (or two) specific mechanic(s) that, frankly, I don't understand the value in complaining about.

1) The water bottle given to the ghoul can EASILY be ignored. Its not a 'must have' mechanic that you'll struggle to beat the game without.

2) You don't -have- to look for weapon parts to make the rock-it launcher. Its not like every raider in town is tossing one. And again, its not a 'must have' mechanic that you'll struggle to beat the game without.

Are there some broken/non-optional stuff in FO3 that isn't so easy to ignore? Of course. Like auto-scaling. Getting shot in the head and not dying (or shooting an enemy in the head and having them not die). Charisma not being a viable investment (lack of a player option). Etc. I never said everything in FO3 could be 'optional'ed out'. Thats all you.

Imagine a single-player flight simulator game.

One of the selectable fighters is a UFO. Thats stupid. Does it mess up my experience? No, because I can simply NOT CHOOSE the fighter.

Take same said game. Level three is filled with UFOs. Or the only way to beat level five is to use the UFO. Does it mess up my experience? Yes, because I can't get around running into stupid UFOs.

FO3 has mechanics of both (optional and non-optional) categories.

Edit: I personally always play a beth FO game with END 1, AGI 1, cloth armor only, and no VATS - to make the game feel harder and more challenging, and to force me even be a little tactical. Also, did one playthrough without using fast travel - and it was surprisingly enjoyable, as it gave me motivation to plan my trips ahead more carefully. A time limit (like in FO1, time has concsequences) on the new beth games would be a nice optional hard-core addition that would keep the mundane mechanic of moving town to town, but also prevent fast-travel from being exploitable.

 

[Stanislao Moulinsky]

And once again, another mechanic (fast travel), entirely unrelated, is brought up. W.T.F.

You don't understand why someone should bring up an example to explain why your logic is flawed?

What advice are you even inferring? In no way am I saying you can use a 'treat as optionals' to fix every problem in FO3. That, apparently, is YOUR reasoning. Stop making shit up.

"A mechanic can be entirely broken, but so long as its 100 % optional, who cares? "

So what you wrote doesn't apply to everything that fits the broken-but-optional criteria?

1) The water bottle given to the ghoul can EASILY be ignored. Its not a 'must have' mechanic that you'll struggle to beat the game without.

I agree that the mechanic itself is hardly gamebreaking and easily ignored, but personally it angers me because it underlines the design philosophy Beth follows.

I never said everything in FO3 could be 'optional'ed out'. Thats all you.

Then you conveyed badly what you thought.

By the way, could you shorten your sig? It makes the page go off the border of the screen.

 

[Ekans22]

You don't understand why someone should bring up an example to explain why your logic is flawed?

Just misunderstood - I was pointing out a couple of mechanics I thought could be ignored. Not inferring an overall strategy to get around all of FO3's flaws. (or any game for that matter).

So what you wrote doesn't apply to everything that fits the broken-but-optional criteria?

Yeah, we might have different opinions of 'optional' - I admit its not black'n'white.

I agree that the mechanic itself is hardly gamebreaking and easily ignored, but personally it angers me because it underlines the design philosophy Beth follows.

True.

Then you conveyed badly what you thought. Neutral

Bullshit. My explanations are flawless and 100 % perfectly written.

 

[DarkCorp]

Just my 2 cents and maybe what others are trying to say.

Instead of putting in pointless and meaningless quests, Beth could spend the same amount of time and effort:

A. Brainstorm better dialogue

B. Take a little MORE time and make quests that make sense

C. Instead use the time to make multiple better endings.

What people are trying to say it seems to me is that the simple presence of retarded and meaningless quests is a monumental disaster when they had so much inspiration from the originals to base their sequel on. If beth decides to use the 'make it in our own image' bullshit excuse, my retort is why bother calling it fucking fallout.

 

[Ekans22]

((didn't have much time to write, so further clarifying))

I wrote:

Yeah, we might have different opinions of 'optional' - I admit its not black'n'white.

Ie, some people feel like VATS in FO3 is cheating; and are happy to play the game without it. And other people feel like they need to optimize their characters, and so will use VATS. So, for some people VATS is optional, and for others, it isn't.

At the end of the day, you don't 'have' to use VATS to beat FO3; but at the same time, some people feel irked at knowing that they're not using their character's full potential.

I agree that the mechanic itself is hardly gamebreaking and easily ignored, but personally it angers me because it underlines the design philosophy Beth follows.

I see what you mean - I actually didn't mind Beth's design philosophy for the first few TES games (and even FO3), but I'm getting tired of them cloning it over and over. Their kind of open-world sandbox do-whatever approach has its perks and downsides, and at the end of the day, I can take it or leave it - but personally, I'm ready to move onto other designs for the sake of variety. Just my cent.

Instead of putting in pointless and meaningless quests, Beth could spend the same amount of time and effort:

A. Brainstorm better dialogue

B. Take a little MORE time and make quests that make sense

C. Instead use the time to make multiple better endings.

Especially A, I think at least personally. I might rank priority as: A>>>C>B; but all sorely lacking :/.

Bioware RPGs, especially today (DA, ME, etc), seem to kick the crap out of Beth RPGs in terms of deep and meaningful dialogue (not even to mention voice acting)

I do feel like FO3 is wasted potential. Like, it was an enjoyable game, but it could have been a great game. Like you said, they had tons to work on and be inspired by.

 

[Crni Vuk]

In short, problem you pose is: Lack of a viable option for the player. Ie, NOT IGNORABLE.

I can only speak for my self, and not for others here.

But alone the fact that it exists, is enough for me to break verisimilitude here, and that for a setting like Fallout is very important in my eyes. At least so some degree.

I am ready to overlook smaller things, like stealing stuff and giving water to beggars. This is definitely something where I could say, its the "robbin hood" type of person, nothing really of a problem. Good games out there address this by clever writing and interaction with NPCs where some will agree a lot with your actions (like the poor for example) while others, which value law and order above everything, will disagree or outright hate you. It comes down to the alignment and personal opinion of a person, what someone believes and what his principles are.

In Fallout 3 you can though nuke a town kill every person you see, except for beggars, donate them tons of water and become the saint of the wasteland.

It simply doesn't make sense. It equals to a person Stalin or Mao becoming super heroes because they constantly give bonbons and flowers to children while murdering people in concentration camps.

The game is build around this mechanic and it seems that the people which came up with that really care about it. And that is a phenomenon you see many times in F3, as the target was to create a game that works more like some amusement park where you just do "whacky" stuff for lulz rather then really create a post apoc RPG experience.

Thats why it's in my eyes not a good way to explain such "flaws" with the argument it would be optional. Because we have to seperate here two things. One your opinion, which is to simply "ignore" it or label it as "optional" and the other the game mechanic itself because what ever if we ignore it or not, its still there in the game. Your opinion about it doesnt change that this is a flaw in the game mechanic because it invalidates the meaning of choices and their consequences here. It doesnt matter for the mechanic itself if its "optional" to the player or not. The fact that it is there matters. Thats why its "your" opinion, that its not a problem, for YOU because YOU chose to ignore it. But that doesnt change the fact that its flawed. Maybe "flaw" is even a to strong word, I admit, because it works probably the way how it was designed, but at least it somewhat makes the effect of your choices a lot weaker. And if that is a good or bad thing? Again. Opinion. In mine, a good RPG should not offer you such "options".

You simply should not be walking around murdering people, nuking towns and still have the option (even if you dont use it) to become the saviour of the wasteland if you catch my drift. I mean imagine a game, like Fallout 1 offering you right when you leave to vault to investigate the bag of a dead person, which is full with the best weapons and armor in the game, thus making it a very easy experience, right from the start. Good way to design the game? its optional remember? Still not a good way to do it.

 

[Stanislao Moulinsky]

Ie, some people feel like VATS in FO3 is cheating; and are happy to play the game without it. And other people feel like they need to optimize their characters, and so will use VATS. So, for some people VATS is optional, and for others, it isn't.

At the end of the day, you don't 'have' to use VATS to beat FO3; but at the same time, some people feel irked at knowing that they're not using their character's full potential.

This ties with the fast-travel thing, though. If you don't use VATS Agility becomes a dump stat. Having stats that affect only one attribute is really stupid. -_-

 

[Ekans22]

If you don't mind spamming fast travel to unload your gear, then STR is also a dump stat, IIRC.

 

[woo1108]

Actaully one thing I hate fo3 is raping SPECIAL.
SPECIAL was mean to be used to solve situations for that NV have done very well despite of that. for fo3......
almost perfect makes all special 9 if this perk exist in 1,2 or even NV... well.. it's just cheating. but it's not cheating in fo3 because there's too little things affected by special which is mean to be very important.

 

[Ekans22]

Thats a thoughtful post, Crni Vuk. I see where you're coming from. Its a different angle I hadn't considered. And just to clarify, I'm not even saying that the whole water-bottle karma exploit wasn't a 'flaw' (or lets just call it bad content). It is. I just rank it as much less problematic, relatively speaking, than content in the game which is more unavoidable (such as auto-scaling monsters, etc). I mean, at the end of the day, if I could choose which to take out (auto scaling or the karma exploit), I'd choose the former, because its easy to ignore the latter.

But it doesn't justify having bad content in the game in the first place (even minor stuff like the karma exploit), which I think is your position. Feel like my standards have gone up a bit, haha.

almost perfect makes all special 9

I've not heard of this perk

 

[Walpknut]

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