Fallout

[TheMightyEthan]

Huh, I just did the Confidence Man quest with no issues. On PS4.

 

*Edit - you have to give them ammo at least for certain weapons (fat man, missile launcher, etc) but I don't know if that applies to standard guns like 10mms.

[Mr. GOH!]

You have to give them ammo for any weapon other than the default. I had to give Piper 10mm ammo to get her to use an upgraded unique 10mm pistol, even though her default weapon is a regular 10mm pistol.

 

I had no problems completing Confidence Man in PC.

[deanb]

If you give them just a handful will that do, and it makes it "infinite" or will you need to give them enough to cover them for ages? Be a bit fiddly if you need to manage their ammo alongside their equipment. Already kinda fiddly, ammo is in some degrees more of a difficulty curve than much else. I have some neat guns but only about 100 ammo for some of them. Or like 5000 rounds of .45 ammo . In fact I had to use Pipe weapons for a fair bit at the start, with a 10mm being my back-up "powerful" weapon just cos I only had like 30 10mm bullets (now got a few hundred so it's my main).

[TheMightyEthan]

I'm pretty sure they actually use up the ammo you give them, so you have to make sure they have enough.

[Mister Jack]

GOH is right.  They have to have ammo for anything that isn't their default.  However, once they have a gun out they will at least pick up any ammo for it that they come across.

[Mr. GOH!]

By the way, what difficulty is everyone playing on? I'm on Normal, and it seems super easy.

[TheMightyEthan]

Normal. It seems about right, but I tend to prefer RPGs to be easy because I don't play them for the combat.

[Mr. GOH!]

Fair enough. I was just wondering because I've seen lots of commentary about how FO4 is harder than 3 or NV, and I heartily disagree. It's not a bad thing, I'm just confused by such statements.

 

Definitely going to do my second run on a much higher difficulty level, though. 

[Mister Jack]

I was struggling in the beginning, though I think this might be because I didn't distribute my SPECIAL points as intelligently as I could have.  I still wouldn't call it easy, but I have adjusted to the game's difficulty since then.

[deanb]

I wouldn't say it's a notably hard game, but it's harder than their last two. Especially since there's less bugs/exploits to work with like getting in a weird spot n sniping away. The slow-mo vats and non-instant healing also adds a decent difficulty factor to it (along with radiation affecting health). I reckon given the level cap stuff the end game would work out particularly easy though.

[Mr. GOH!]

Faction choice point of no return stuff behind spoiler, but still very general (I identify the possible factions and state their incompatibilities and a general statement about how the game lets the player know that a faction is is pissed off ONLY; I don't identify specific quest lines or anything like that):

 

 

Very late in the main quest line the game straight-up says if you proceed with this mission, Faction A or B will be permanently hostile.

More spoilers:












The Institute and the Brohood are incompatible. You can still belong to the railroad and minutemen no matter which you choose, I believe. Siding with one or the other may significantly impact quests from the minutemen and/or railroad, though

 

[TCP]

I always find Bethesda games most difficult when you first start. It's very easy to go somewhere or do a mission you're simply not ready for. Your weapons suck, your armour sucks, you're low on stimpacks and other aids, and you have no perks. 

[deanb]

Yeah, I know with this one they've made it so stuff doesn't scale in level, so I'm kinda poking the boundaries a bit. Kinda weird I've gone exploring around Vault 111 last night and raiders that I can look at and their heads pop off whereas similar raiders in the downtown area take a few hits from my beefy combat rifle. Super mutants are doable but largely a pain in the ass still regardless of where they are.

 

Gotta say climbing high on some of the bridges and looking across Boston, the density of the buildings compared to FO3 and New Vegas is really nice. Love the vertical nature of it too, climbing across rooftops. Not quite assassins creed kinda flexibility, but fun none the less. Still got most of the map south of Diamond City to explore too. I should probably go through a few quests I think. Especially if based on GOHs post it'll alert you iff you're too far in a faction quest. I've only met a couple and their asking me to join already and I was a bit wary until I'd all my options laid out. But if you can pursue multiple at once I'll do that.

 

Oh someone pitched 100 BoS against 1,000 Deathclaws:

 

I'm more amazed that the computer didn't collapse, but I guess given engine the issues on "amount of objects in scene" probably less demanding than used to be.

 

Oh yeah I've not bothered with the pixel art lighting, but it seems really stupid to me each one takes 1 power, and it's not like say a board or something to plug them into which takes 1 power or something. They're really dim compared to actual lights, and they work on proximity to a conduit.

[TheMightyEthan]

For you PC players, it's a mod that replaces the conversation wheel with a numbered list that also has the full text of what exactly your character will say, instead of an abbreviation:  http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/1235/?

[Mister Jack]

People were complaining about the map size prior to release but it really doesn't feel that small to me.  Even if it is smaller than the FO3 map (I don't feel like checking), it definitely feels like there's less empty space, so I'm fine with it.  I mean, what's the value in empty space?

 

Also I'm glad they got rid of that level scaling shit.  I hated that in Fallout 3.  Sure, it means that some areas are totally inaccessible to me until I bulk up, but isn't that the point of open-world RPGs?  To get strong enough to see everything?  Plus, sometimes I just want to feel like a superpowered badass and that's impossible in a game with level scaling.

[CorgiShinobi]

So I got the Confidence Man bug fixed.

 

I went back to a save before the bar fight as that seems to be where the trouble starts. Based on others' experience, it seems that Bull didn't say his line before leaving and Travis would instantly want to sit down after finishing his fight. I also made sure to "unequip" my fists just in case the game thought I was still in that "Essential" brawling state. After three attempts, because Travis would just go wandering off after "beating" one of the guys, I tested my character.

 

I got massacred by a Mr. Gutsy.

 

So I went about the rest of the quest. Vaporized Cougar and punched Bull so hard that his head popped off.

 

Quest was still buggy because DAMN TRAVIS WAS WANDERING AROUND AGAIN AFTER THE FIGHT! I led him up the stairs so he could talk to Vadim and then finished the quest. Later on, I was wandering around and came upon Oberland to do a Minuteman quest. I leave and it so happens Vadim is just casually walking on the railroad tracks outside Oberland.

 

WTF?

 

To answer the difficulty question. I feel like Fallout 4 can become either casual or brutal depending on how you travel about the Commonwealth. In my three attempts in fixing my bug with Confidence Man, I first came across a few Raiders and took them down easily. The second time I found a pack of Feral Ghouls, which can be overwhelming, but manageable. My third attempt was the Mr. Gutsy encounter which shredded me as I turned a corner.

Edited November 19, 2015 by Atomsk88

[Mr. GOH!]

Starting my second playthrough, this time in Very Hard. Now it feels like a proper challenge. I actually have to avoid supermutants when I'm wandering in the northern areas of the map.

[Mister Jack]

Alright, I've run into several more glitches.  I'm going to outline them here.

 

1) I had a companion go from follow mode back to passive mode without me telling her to.  This would be a minor annoyance except I couldn't re-recruit her, which meant I couldn't trade with her either to get my items back.  Fortunately this seemed to fix itself after I fast-traveled to another area. It's only happened to me once so far, but it had me scared for a minute.

 

2) I was given a mission to clear out some feral ghouls from a settlement so it could be used.  However, I had already cleared it out previously and when I went there to do it again there were settlers but no ghouls.  I tried to talk to the settlers to turn in the mission but all it does is open up the trading window.  Thus, I have a quest I will never be able to finish, at least not unless it gets patched.

 

3) This is a big one and a major problem.  When an NPC is linked to multiple quests, sometimes it won't let me turn in one quest without doing the other first.  Let me explain.  I had a Brotherhood of Steel quest that required me to turn an item in to a specific NPC, but another BoS quest required me to talk to that NPC to advance the story.  I talked to them to advance the story, but I can't turn in the item because when I talk to them again all they say is "You need to go to X to do Y," which is in reference to the story quest.  Normally I would just go do the story quest and then turn in the item after I get it out of the way, but I didn't want to do that because the mission I had to complete would initiate a point of no return for other factions that I didn't want to do.  

 

tl;dr version: Story missions override side missions when the same NPC is involved in both.  It should be the other way around.

 

edit: Bonus glitch I forgot about: A certain follower, let's just call her "Jane" to avoid spoilers, refuses to stay in Sanctuary when I send her there.  If I want her to rejoin me later, I have to go all the way back to the area where I originally recruited her and pick her up again.  Even if I travel back to Sanctuary and tell her to "go back" to Sanctuary, she immediately takes off running for her origin point like her ass is on fire.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Mister Jack

[deanb]

3 - I've had that issue with Garvey, when he sends me to clear places or make new settlement, but atm he's asking me about sorting out The Castle, which I'm holding off on atm. I incidentally can't make him a companion either due to these options. Hooray for a dialogue system that allows for only 2-4 responses at a time.

 

As for 2, the Minutemen quests (and chunk of BoS ones too) are Radiant Quests like Skyrim had, which is probably why they'll bug out more frequently (and be why both BoS and Preston are having the same "turning in a quest" issues)

[TheMightyEthan]

I'm having the same "can't recruit Preston" issue, also due to him wanting me to clear the castle. It's not a huge deal because I'm sticking with Dogmeat, I just would like to be able to get Preston's special perk.

[Mr. GOH!]

I didn't think this was a bug, although it is annoying. Doesn't he say something about making preparations? I thought the game made him unavailable because he can't adventure around while getting the crew together to retake the castle. 

 

Behind the spoiler tag I have some advice about the timing/level suggestion of the retake the castle mission,  but nothing specific:

 

 

Just do the retake the castle mission early. It's not an endgame mission or anything. You might want to be above level 10, but it's not hugely difficult. I also think you get more minutemen helping out if you've recruited more settlers and settlements, but I am not 100% certain.

 

I waited until I was above level 20 and it was a cakewalk on normal.

 

[deanb]

Oh minor bug I had lately was my gun and pipboy vanished. Was sorta fine, still able to shoot by pointing in middle of the screen. Thankfully went away when I used VATS. Not long before that I jumped on one of those minecart like things, and ended up getting stuck, so had to use the no clip to get out.

 

Also I think I'll take your advice then GOH. I'm..30 or so atm I think.

 

edit:

Edited November 21, 2015 by deanb

[Mr. GOH!]

Did it not go well, Dean? 

 

Edit: I'm around level 9 or 10 in my current Very Hard playthrough and it is much more enjoyable than Normal. I actually have to plan out how I will approach most battles and use more developed tactics than just running backwards and shooting. I did not use a single mine and very few grenades in my Normal playthrough, but now I use them all the time. 

Edited November 21, 2015 by Mr. GOH!

[Baconrath]

I found a nuke mine but I haven't used it yet for fear of being converted to gibs

[deanb]

@GOH: It eventually went alright (though there's a body kicking around my new home), but was pretty tough. Got Castle set up as main base now. I had build Sanctuary up a fair chunk, but it's too big to find companions in and too far away from much of the action. Hangman Alley is more central, but kinda small (though I'm proud of my crammed in skyscraper), so Castle it is. Castle is much more defensible too, even if it sucks on the food front. I've built a barracks for main guys and a home for myself to store my tat in. Carried over a bunch of my Power Armour too, which I'd never bothered with the extra frames at Sanctuary.

 

@Baconrath: For most part mini-nukes are like Megaelexirs in that you'll rarely use them. Might as well use them as a form of currency.

 

 

edit:

This is a pretty good comparison video of the various changes made to models between FO3 n FO4. I kinda prefer the older style ghouls over the current ones.