Fallout 4 - Prepare thyselves

At the very least you'll eventually want the unofficial patch mods. They won't have any trouble getting onto the consoles as they're basically fixes to scripts and incorrectly used IDs. Although like @Asyranok I haven't found anything I would classify as an actual bug. Physics glitches are inevitable and you can't really fix them.

 

When you save, walk on a frag-mine and load again, is the mine still there? For me they disappeared after loading several times. I also had some occasions of bugs related to menus or my gun being invisible. I've encountered one really heavy graphics glitch that made an area unplayable for becaus distorted meshes flickered through the world. I think that went away after saving and restarting the game. All in all I'm very positivley surprised how smooth this thing is runnings since day 1. I remember Fallout 3 to be quite horrible at release with frequent crashes and problems alt-tabbing.

I'm not 100% sure yet what I think of the TAA. Generally I don't mind the slightly softer look. I'm one of the people who'd rather have FXAA than no AA at all. What I don't like about TAA is that in many situations the image never stabilizes on a steady picture and parts keep flickering. I've even had noticed that once a highlight in the distance flickered because of the TAA that contributed to bloom, so it was quite noticeable. I'd at least want to try it in Unity to compare it to SMAA. And maybe it is one of the things where it just depends on your actual usecase which method works best?

 

People are saying in the comments that there's TAA in this scene and it is on the roadmap so perhaps it's coming to Unity sooner rather than later:
http://blogs.unity3d.com/2015/11/10/bedroom-demo-archviz-with-ssrr

But I felt like that scene looked horribly blurry and I don't know if that's the antialiasing, depth of field or motion blur.

I think it would look good in like a futuristic sci-fi scene with a lot of smooth, reflective geometry. From experience I don't like it in games with a lot of vegetation. And that one guy in the comment section in the link above claims the TAA is low quality so perhaps it's possible to make it look a lot nicer than what I've seen in games so far.

 

Thanks for the link, there is an official statement in the comments now that might have been made after your post:

I agree that it looks too blurry but I'm not sure what causes it either. Might also be a thing of tweaking the settings of the AA script.

 

Twenty hours in. It's a good, solid game from Bethesda but it's even less Fallout. At least 3 still had something that could pass as turn based combat with VATS stopping gameplay while you aimed. Now it just slows down time. And if you suck like me, there is still not enough time! Plus, I really miss being able to tweak my skills. But it is still a good game which I am enjoying. I just would enjoy it more if hadn't moved even further away from Fallout's game mechanics.

 

30 hours in and I didn't even know VATS was changed because I never used it once . I play with mouse and keyboard and finally the gunplay is fun and accurate so that I can benefit from my aiming skill without first having to make a number for a skill higher. The old system made sense in the 2D RPG games but I quite like the new perk system.
I wonder how such a game would play if all the numbers where not visible to the player and it would force actual experimentation and trial and error.

 

LOL, I am going for all my crafting first so I am the vacuum cleaner of the apocalypse.

 

Vats originally had short pause between the moment when you started vats and the moment when percentages became visible. Well, the pause is still there (shorter than before, though), except the time doesn't stop now. Aiming at body parts is a bit problematic and occasionally there's trouble selecting someone's leg.

Also, the game still doesn't let you kick someone in the eye. That ability has been sorely missed since the times of fallout 2.

 

It's still a very good game and I'm enjoying the atmosphere, but unfortunately it has been dumbed down massively. It's a shooter now with RPG elements I think.

 

Once the Creation kit is released I expect someone will change that. Or at least greatly increase the time so it behaves the same. Personally though I love being able to click on the parts I want to target and wait for the enemy to move into position before actually firing.

 

Medium. But I have GTX 660. I don't care much for the graphics though, if the gameplay is good. And it is in this case.

 

I really like the game, but I hate that we only see indications of what the character will say, instead of full sentences like in previous Fallout games. Sometimes I make a mistake because its not clear enough what will my character say.

Also really loving the graphics, I wish there was a selfie option I can shoulder hug Piper and take a pretty pic with the pretty wasteland in the background. The game is so immersive its making me want and expect unreasonable amounts of more.

I hate lowering the graphics so it lags sometimes, usually when it counts, in combat, so I'm forced to use VATS because I'm missing a lot lol. Maybe I should disable vertical sync.

I have AMD Athlon X4 860K quad core, 3.7ghz (i think its 3.9 on turbo), GTX 750Ti 2gb(dxdiag says 4gb lol), and 8gb of RAM.



I should really take out motion blur and lens flares, I didn't even notice them, and I don't really think lens flares make sense unless you're looking through a lens.

 

Bethesda apparently synchronized their code to it. Some people are reporting the game breaking without it.

 

Speaking of VATS & stuff - is there mod that makes VATS actually stop time? Because I prefer to play more tactically and even with slowed down time some fights are still too fast.

 

Try taking some Jet first

Are there any consumables besides RadAway that reduce Rads?

 

If there is I haven't stumbled upon it or seen it mentioned. At least you can craft RadAway at the chemistry station.

 

Nope. You can visit a doctor though.

Well, at least it looks like you can't get addicted to radaway. Because in Fallout 2 that could happen.

 

Damn. I believe you. I think Dark Souls 2 had a similar thing where the weapons durability was depending on your fps.

There will be in time. So far we only have texture mods, and some setting tweaks. I follow the nexus closely, but I don't think we'll get anything like mesh/script/quest/animation mods until the modding kit is released. Which is scheduled for 2016. I suspect same as Skyrim was, about 3 months after the release.

I'm waiting for hunger, thirst, and temperature mods mostly. Anything to add to the immersion.

My character got addicted to all chems and alcohol, which is a first for me in Fallout, probably because I feel so underpowered. Maybe I'm rushing and doing difficult missions early or the lag is really making it difficult for me.

I think you can brew your own radaway, but haven't found anything else that reduces it except a doc. Rad-X only helps prevent it.

 

Oh will. Guess I'll need to go find some more glowing fungus. :/

 

There's definitely a recipe for something you can craft at a cooking station that reduces radiation - from memory, I think it's a mutant hound steak.

 

Yup you're right, its mutant hound chops. -50 radiation.

How does one get a power armor jetpack? I assume through brotherhood of steel, but is there another way? Also did any of you run into those dudes that sell power armor parts?

 

Hey, I got the Prima strategy guide (I like to get them as a supplementary item) and it came with two online codes. Does anyone want one?

 

Agreed. My Wasteland will have things like the Glowing Sea, so that's a downside, but it will not have a litter problem for long.

 

I have a problem with the settlement overview screen on the pipboy. It seems like most times at least one of the settlements shows incorrect data. E.g. one said it had zero beds, when I traveled there it had graphics glitches and said it had 20 beds in the building UI, yet the settlers complained about a lack of beds. Another settlement showed 29 settlers and upon my arrival it was back to the real number which was below 20. I've put a lot of time into expanding settlements and I have ~90 people now. So it bummes me out pretty much that this part of the game seems to be bugged now.

 

You get power armor upgrades through "armorer" and "science!" perks combined with lots of scavenging. Jet pack requires science 3 or science 4, IIRC.

Frankly, I ditched the power armor long ago - too much hassle, and sneaking up on people to punch them to death (combined with occasional sniping) is more fun.

 

I've got 5 of them standing around in my base as decoration . Never used it after the first fight where you get it.

 

I too try to sneak and snipe most time, since combat appears too difficult for me. The power armors are more of a hobby, or for missions I think will be difficult. And since companions don't spend the fuel, they're the ones wearing them most time.

 

If your settlements get attacked and lose, the radio beacons break and you don't get accurate reports on what's there. Maybe that's what happened to you

 

When do settlements get attacked? Is it realtime? I didn't see one get attacked yet, just saw a super mutant body on one.

 

Do you get a message about attacks? I think I've seen one message in the whole time playing and when I quicktraveled there I couldn't find enemies. Do you mean the recruitment radio beacon? I just had a settlement in the overview report 25 defense, which seemed too low. I traveled there and the recruitment radio beacon was fine, defense was on 83 and all the people seem to be fine. I don't understand what's going on.

 

You get a small message on the HUD but its really easy to miss. The settlements are under attack for a few days so you have plenty of time to deal with it, if you notice the message.

The settlement can deal with attacks by itself if the defenses are properly setup which means they don't suffer from attacks if they win but if you have a weak settlement or crummy defenses then they'll lose, all the farms will be burned down, generators, turrets and some other stuff will be broken and in need of repair.

Settlers don't die in attacks, it just breaks your stuff and farms. The whole point of having settlements is to basically get them to farm food so you can craft AID for healing items at the cooking station/chem station and JUNK for crafting weapon/armor mods and stuff. When you lose the farms, you lose supplies for that stuff. It makes a big difference when you can farm up a bunch of Vegetable Starch and not have to worry about Adhesive anymore. With 2 points in the Scrapper Perk, you're basically set on mods if you have farms. After connecting towns with supply lines, it gets super easy.

I usually wrap the entire town in wood walls and make a choke point with 3 guard posts and 6 - 8 turrets mixed type. Missle/Laser/Heavy MG... Missle Turrets are insane... Making a laser trigger turn on a siren will help your town congregate on the choke point during an attack.

As far as I can tell its not a big deal until you get >15 population. After that there are super mutants, radscorpions, molerats, deathclaws, big raider groups... Better have your defenses on point . Seems to me like the population is like the "level" and what your character kind of engaged at that point.

 

I guess I was lucky to have 7 supermutants (one of them legendary) attack potato farm with 2 people in it.

Somehow my sniper ended sneak-punching everything to death. Also, apparently you can't have more than 5 floors in a house you build.

Anyway, the game appears to be very tedious compared to previous bethesda titles. Saw 2 memorable npcs total. Not sure what's amiss, though. Maybe lack of gauss rifle has something to do with that. Or maybe the whole "you must rebuild the world now" thing isn't working for me.

 

You can always make your own: http://www.dorkly.com/post/76600/the-famous-faces-of-fallout-4

 

Lol!

Yeah the height limit is lame. Mods are really going to make the building mechanic stretch it though. The characters imo are pretty cool, I've enjoyed Piper, Strong and Nick... Cait was seriously annoying.

 

Yes it will be nice when we can make characters and add them as followers, like in Skyrim through the modding kit, or "Familiar Faces" mod.

Anyway, so I decided to read some reviews. And appears a lot of people don't like the graphics? Saying it looks like a 2010 game? Am I the only one who thinks the game looks absolutely awesome? Haven't seen anything as aesthetic in a long time. The only thing I'm not liking is the bad lip-sync.

As for gameplay, there's more than Fallout 3 and New Vegas, but seems that it doesn't excel as much, or should I say falls short a bit? Also it feels more like a shooter, but I prefer an RPG, and ways to solve quests without or with minimal combat. Still enjoying it a lot, and is worth the money if you ask me. Just waiting for the mods to make it even better.

 

Thanks a lot for all that information! Seems like I did a decent job with having enough defense to scare off any attackers. I think I have over 200 at sanctuary and the others are mostly between 50 and 80. Didn't do anything super elaborate, I just put a bunch of turrets mainly on roofs or plattforms. Simplest solution I use is build the wooden bridge and put 3 gunturrets on there.
One time when I arrived at the outdoor theatre about 100 - 200 metres away a mininuke went up and I found a lot of super mutant corpses there. I have over 17 people there. In Sanctuary should be 19 or 20.
Do you have an idea how to best farm wood and oil? Those are the two that I seem to need the most of. I buy the 50 wood shipment at graygarden as often as I can, but that's still a bit tedious and you need a loooot of wood if you want to build something big in many settlements.

Didn't know that about the 5th floor. It's kinda sad. If you want to get up high you should go to graygarden and build on the highway. It's tricky to get up there but it is possible. It seems though that settlers prefer to stay down on the ground:-/.

I think there certainly are games that look better, like Mad Max for example. But I'm more than happy with how Fallout 4 looks because the diversity of the landscape and the view distance are great and it all makes for a very consistent and immersive experience imho.

 

Maybe people were expecting something super realistic, but Bethesda went for a more stylized look. I didn't look into Mad Max yet, but The Rise of Tomb Rider looks the prettiest regarding graphics and latest titles.

Didn't give much thought to other games. Lately only Life is Strange and Fallout 4 have been on my mind. I'm ranking LIS as one of my top 3 favorite games of all time, with the Mass Effect series, and Catherine the other two. Did not play episode 5 yet so no spoilers!

 

I'm very pleased with the advancements they've brought to the engine both in terms of graphics and mechanics as it means the next Elder Scrolls will be fantastic. At the same time though the textures are still a bit blurry. You would think with ~15GB of textures that they would be higher quality.

 

Hmm haven't paid attention to textures. Do you keep them on Ultra setting too? I only noticed lip sync being bad, and the character models could be a bit higher poly. And you're right the next Elder Scrolls will look awesome. Any guess when it'll come? Probably same as Fallout 4, in about 4 years.

 

Yes, but an article on PCGamer has me convinced to run the game with Shadow Quality and God Rays Quality on High as they received a good bump in performance with no obvious difference.

http://www.pcgamer.com/how-to-tweak-fallout-4s-hidden-graphics-options/

 

It isn't exactly a strict limit. When you get to some fairly high attitude, you get "leaving construction zone, workshop closing in 5 seconds". And then they don't let you build any higher. In my case it was around 5th floor. I still could build a roof on that floor, just couldn't get any higher than that.

The game has improved compared to previous titles, however, witcher 3 was also released this year and that game completely defeats fallout 4 in every aspect. Witcher 3 was the only game that managed to impress me with visuals in last 7 years or so. Mainly because of the skin shader.
So, if you saw just one NPC in Witcher 3, Fallout 4 will look very dated for you. Also, bethesda always had animation problems (I have impression they never used mocap in their games), and they always looked stiff. It is even more obvious right now. Here's some screens:

Witcher 3:


Fallout 4:

And here's New Vegas:

 

Haven't played Witcher 3 yet. Looks great. Need to replay Witcher 2 first, as I lost my saves. You really think animations look bad in Fallout 4? To me they look way better than before, like they actually used mocap this time, they don't appear stiff and robotic.

The character poly count definitely needs to increase in Fallout 4. We'll get body replacers in 3 or so months when the modding kit is released.

 

They may have used mocap in few critical places (cutscene-like) but I just (well, few hours ago) played through a scene where you could see npc banging on a window and that one looked very bad. Stick figure - like.

Also, in case of Witcher 3, just be warned: this game is HUGE and has massive amount of content. I know a guy who spent a whole month completing it, and having played the game (haven't finished it), I'd say you'll need way over 120 hours of time to beat it, and even then you won't see everything. "The game is too big" is a fairly common complaint about witcher.

 

You can make oil with some ingredients in one of the crafting stations - the Chem one I think.

 

I've seen one called "cutting fluid", but that needs bone, which I don't have a lot of either. I have opened up a trader stand in sanctuary and always buy the junk items that contain oil when I visit. That might accumulate enough over time.
I'm not sure yet how efficient the scavenging stations are.

 

If you need bones just go raid some mutie bases. There are plenty of bones in their containers most of the time.

 

That's good to know, know thanks. Gotta pay them a visit some time ^^.

 

I am so annoyed that I can scrap an entire building, leaving nothing but a nice clean slab to build a new shack on and I can repair my power armor with (literally) an aluminum can and wonder glue but I can't sweep the leaves off the floor of my existing house! It's been in my family for centuries and I want to come home to it after I solve all the problems in my little corner of the wasteland and live happily ever after with my dog.

I actually went back to an older save (when I only had one settlement) and ignored all the other settlement creation quests. I had spread myself way too thin and was constantly going around from settlement to settlement solving their little problems. Eventually, I had an attack that I couldn't fend off and decided I had enough of that. Maybe after I finish the main quests I will work on rebuilding the Commonwealth.

 

Speaking of which, the game handles conservation of mass in a funny way. Meaning, it ignores it completely.

I believe you can build a wooden wall out of either 4 or 8 pencils. You can also make bedsheets out of pre-war dollar bill or two. Or you could use tiny gears from pocket watch to make industrial water purifier or a turret.

 

I sure as heck wouldn't mind grabbing one of those if you haven't offloaded it yet!

Fallout 4 definitely isn't as complex character-wise as its predecessors, but between the crafting system and the settlement constructions, I could use a guide for planning things out a bit better.