The Sole Survivor Problem | Fallout Theory
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- Have you ever thought that all of fallout 4s issues can be traced back to the Sole Survivor? well you're not alone. join us as we discuss this theory and try to determine whether Nate and Nora truly fallout 4.
I think my problem with Nate and Nora is that Bethesda wanted their cake and to eat it, too. They wanted a main character that had a predetermined personality/goals like Shepard or Geralt, but also a character that allowed for players to **be** the character, make their own choices.
Imo, the Sole Survivor should have been designed more strongly one way or the other, instead of being on this weird place on the proverbial fence that ultimately satisfies few. The Sole Survivor just isn't as interesting/engaging a character as Geralt of Rivia.
i feel the same way but i think this also fits pretty well with cyberpunk too, they made a character but also want it to be u aswell
Fallout 4 sits on the fence in every aspect.
The reason why it didn't work so well is because of the person that wrote Fallout 4.
@@brysonbob06israd41I will say V's 3 backstories has much care and effort put in than both Nate and Nora's backstories. But that's because bethesda just want to bake their cake and eat it too.
>Bethesda wanted their cake and to eat it, too. They wanted a main character that had a predetermined personality/goals like Shepard or Geralt, but also a character that allowed for players to *be* the character, make their own choices.
And also the strawberry of not putting enough work to give player actual decisions to make.
My problem with the Sole Survivor is that you are pretty much dumped into a sandbox but also have to play as a certain character. The settlement system, The Nuka World DLC, and even the games own story all try to reinforce that you have your own choice as the player not as the sole survivor. But when you play as the sole survivor, it's entirely different than what the game around you is built for. You're constantly reminded that you are not your own player, but rather are Nate/Nora. This is reinforced with every time you talk to a character with things like: the dialogue wheel, the voiced player, and the characters and world around you trying to remind you of your story if you go off the beaten path. If they wanted to do a set character like this, I don't think fallout is the best series for this. Especially when it's staple has always been player choice, not character choice.
You nailed it. Fallout is a sandbox first and foremost and having a linear style protagonist just doesn't work in a Fallout game.
This reminds me why BG3 is so good. Other characters often check in with me, ask me how I feel and what's motivating me. They point out things I've done and choices I've made, and even comment on how my current view contradicts past statements or actions. Sometimes this helps reorient me to the characters background, other times it seems to indicate character development as the circumstances change the characters outlook. All in all, it keeps me connected to the character, whoever they are becoming.
Foof, that is some kind of well-worded argument, let me tell you.
It's a poor decision for a mainline Fallout title. Claim your spinning something off, offer up a classical story focused mainline game in the future, and FO4 would have been better received as it was made, and/or could have gone full 'predefined character' to do that right.
Late to the party, but I think it would be perfectly fine to make a fallout game with a pre-set character and a linear story, that's engaging and fun. But you actually have to make it work, and give the player choice on how they want Nate/Nora to evolve, and what choices they can make. If you don't if you chicken out or half ass it, it just doesn't work. No matter the game, no matter the setting, it doesn't work. Fallout 4's biggest problem to me is it's trying to be two or three different stories at once: One story about the minutemen and their struggles to rebuild, one story about the synth question and the battle between big factions, and finally a story about a parent whose son was kidnaped and spouse murdered, and whose entire world died. You can make a compelling story from one or even two of these, but if you use all three together it just makes everything shallow and meaningless.
One issue I had from the protagonist from Fallout 4 is if they give a set backstory to our character, Nate and Nora should've had their backgrounds have an effect to the characters build. Nate, being a veteran, could have a buff to strength and endurance. Nora, I believe she was a lawyer, can have a buff to charisma and intelligence, maybe perception. Bioware games have you build a background, but they take an affect on the character's build. Without the usage of skill points like pat games, this seems to be the only place to have it.
Yeah like instead of making sure Codsworth could say some odd 3,000 player names put that time and money into a more indepth version of the "s.p.e.c.i.a.l. lines" Fallout New Vegas had (and to a lesser extent Fallout 1's Character Builds), for those unaware they took the time to record Doc Michelle saying a bunch of different lines dependant on your highest or lowest Special Stats. (Say you had a Charisma of 1 he's gonna insult your looks because of the scar, or high Luck he's surprised the bullet didn't turn around and shoot Benny)
Fallout 4 could've done this where depending on all your Special Stats you're assigned an equivalent backstory, which also causes slight differences in events in the game or story. (Say you had a Perception and Intelligence of 7 or higher you're considered a master tracker and don't need Dogmeat to locate Kellogg)
This is so word for word how i feel, i question if you've read my mind before?
Hell, even just starting perks like nate starting with one level in some, of the combat damage perks, representing his training with the US army. he was infantry after all, would at least be familiar with automatic rifles, semi auto rifles, pistols.
Nora having local leader, for example, as her starting perk.
However, perhaps a journal or something can be found in the prologue, where you can further add to your starting perks. Ie, is Nate familiar with explosives, perhaps he was the unit armourer, and has starting levels in gunsmithing and the like. Nora having again, her own unique starting perk choices.
@@Destroyer_V0 That makes more sense actually. Why would a former combat military member have the same combat stats as a civilian lawyer and vice versa.
Exactly. According to a terminal in the Fraternal Outpost, Nate is a Medal of Honor recipient. Why is it possible for a new player to get his supposedly trained ass kicked by a band of raiders?
I also think that it's not only the writing of the story that has a negative impact on Fallout 4 but also how the player interacts with it, being limited to 4 options in dialogue is alright in small interactions but our options in important conversations like with Kellogg and Father are too limited.
In my opinion the backstories of our protagonists is fine, some of it is set in stone but we're not given too much information. so there is enough room to come up with our own character's backstories.
I agree the options are limited and since they're not written out like in previous games it can lead to unexpected problems where the choice is "no" but if you select it you call whoever you're talking to a fucking moron and lose ability to talk to that person and get negative karma from whoever you're traveling with.
kellog imho shud be a dificult companion to get or just let him live becose hes right
So I’ve played the game with mods that wipe the Nate/Nora backstory, giving you control over a random wastelander instead
The first quest is changed, it takes you to vault 111 and you find the body of Nate/Nora along side a holotape recording of the kidnapping and you go right back to the original plot
What you said about the lack of a backstory changing nothing is true
One big difference, you have a reason not to care, to put off doing the Main Quest for your own personal reasons. Nate/Nora does not, not without coming off as assholes who never really cared about thier family.
As some other comments have said, I think the biggest problem is the dialogue system, not the pre determined characters. It makes sense to give the sole survivor a story before the bombs instead of just "you are from the pre war America now somehow finding yourself in a destroyed world 200 years later". Ive never been too fond of Bethesda's insistence on a mission to find a family member cause its kinda hard to care, but I personally love roleplaying a character like Nora/Nate. Completely unfamiliar with the current world and they have to adapt so the players choices arent exactly dictated by the pre war story given to the characters. Buuuut then the dialogue system just fails in every aspect and it never feels like your actions matter much
I disagree on the idea on the condescending insinuation you make that people don't want a sympathetic protagonist because it's "icky", I would say it's quite rare for a person's entire game library to be made up of games with blank-slate protagonists, let alone media in general. I do agree that people don't want it in Fallout 4, but they don't want it because that's not why people buy Fallout 4, nor what Fallout 4 tries to be.
Despite being the Fallout game with arguably the most *gameplay* choices, the most variety in what a character can play as, one of the biggest worlds with a myriad of situations where you can choose to act how you wish, the story is the most railroaded (pun intended). There's a huge level of disparity between the gameplay of this character who might be a melee combatant with a knowledge of medicine who always answers sarcastically and kills any settler he finds and the story having them be this emotional caring husband and father. That isn't a "difference in style", it is an incongruous writing and story decision that not only goes against what EVERY OTHER major Bethesda RPG does, but goes against itself. It's a flaw.
That isn't at the fault of the character itself, nor is it some kind of thing that shows that players are spoiled brats for noticing, it's just a story that doesn't work in the setting it establishes. Nate or Nora would be fine characters, even enjoyed, if they were in a different style game. You argue that Fallout 4 itself is a "different style" from other Fallout games, but that difference is really ONLY in story, and while some customization mechanics are simplified, they still are at the forefront. While the open world doesn't change as much, it is still at the forefront. While settlement building, crafting, exploration, all have near no bearing on the story, they are at the forefront. It builds itself in every way BUT story to be as sandboxy as possible. Even moreso than EVERY OTHER BETHESDA GAME. Fallout 4 is the closest example Bethesda has to purely being sandbox due to these customization options and in-world manipulation. And yet you're arguing that people playing it looking for a sandbox are incorrect in some way.
Nate and Nora aren't bad or disliked because they are established, that isn't players not wanting to be empathetic, this isn't the audience not being emotionally mature, the fact that you bring up other VERY POPULAR games that have characters with set stories really backs this up, even citing things in previous games. They are disliked because they are strongly established characters with almost no deviations from this character in a game that has a setting, world, and especially gameplay, that all point to this being a game where the player chooses the personality they wish to play.
Again, you point out Mass Effect, The Witcher, Red Dead Redemption 2, as evidence that these characters can work, that players can be emotionally mature, and yet you ignore that a great deal of people who play and dislike the story of Fallout 4 LOVE THESE GAMES. That isn't the fault of the players, that IS absolutely in Bethesda's control. The entire point of telling a story is to get the audience invested, if you cannot get an invested audience, that is not at the fault of the audience, as evidenced by, again, the multitude of games you did and did not mention that manage to get an invested audience with the same premise.
I commend your effort here, I love your channel, I love your other videos, but I feel this is an awfully contradictory take that only defends an awfully contradictory character-world dynamic, and it does so in a way that comes off as really condescending, and ironically, unsympathetic to a side you argued could not be sympathetic.
@@Theegreygaming Then why did you paint this opposing strawman that players didn't like them because they lacked sympathy, because they didn't have, quote, "emotional maturity" and because they thought something like that would be "icky and for chick flicks"? It really seemed intentional to me.
@@yourgoodfriend276 I agree. This video seems to place the blame on the player for not wanting to "empathize" with a written character. Like you say, many who didn't like Fallout 4, do like other games where you do play as an established character.
But I'll go further, and say that I really don't like playing games with set characters. I like playing my own story, and that isn't wrong. Fallout 3, NV, and Skyrim are some of my favorite games because I can role play myself in the game, not just play a set character that I may agree with and like or not. I like Fallout 4 when I can pretend to be myself, and while I'm not up in arms about the set character background, it always takes me out of my immersion. And as even the video and your comments show, the game didn't follow up on that set character background.
So why defend it? Which is easier, to write a better story, or to create a blank slate to allow players to fill in the blanks? I'd argue the set character background had potential, but the longer the game goes on, the more it tears at the fabric of the game.
Thank you! Blaming the players for what is clearly Bethesda's faulty writing is imo an unfair take. Bethesda didn't put much thought into how to implement set characters in a meaningful way in their own game and this lack of focus really shows as you play it.
Nate and Nora feel like protags from those aforementioned games but inserted in an entirely different game with you awkwardly playing with them as if they belong in it.
And its a shame because this problem could be fixed if the writers committed to them as set characters but no, as others mentioned before "Bethesda wanted its cake and eat it too" so they gave you these characters and backstory where you have to rush to find your kidnapped son and avenge your spouse's killer but then just insert a million things that don't relate or add to the story that make it less of a priority and more of a second thought which if you add in the fact that these are supposed to be loving and caring parents that will brave the wastes of post war Boston for their lost child? Yeeeah not a good look.
Honestly i want to say if the writers don't put much thought or care into their characters then why should anybody? And to call us "Immature" for it is just dishonest at best
I agree wholeheartedly with this analysis. Fallout 4 isn’t a bad game. I’ve sank similar hours of gameplay into this as I did with Fallout New Vegas. Are there elements I don’t love in a Fallout title, such as that it forces me into an empathetic perspective and doesn’t provide me a less linear play style? Yes. But that’s not what makes this game bad. It did not do enough leg work to make me actually invested. It tried to give me a motivation derived from empathy, but when I wasn’t expecting (nor wanting) that when booting the game up for the first time, it put a bad taste into my mouth. It’s not that the approach wasn’t okay to do - I’d have loved a Fallout title that went a different direction if it had only made me actually care more.
12:02 That’s not entirely true. NCR questline does not require you to kill Benny or get the Platinum Chip at all. You can completely ignore him if you want.
yeah you can literally go through the game without even meeting benny on an ncr playthrough
Same with Skyrim. If you don't kill that first dragon, you can do a ton of quests without being forced into that storyline. Yeah, you miss out on shouts, but if on PC there are a few mods, I'm sure, that will give you alternative means to unlock them like converting perk points to dragon souls, etc.,
@@chaophim1680 90% of shouts are underwhelming compared to normal magic anyways.
This reminds me of a review of fallout 4 from a long time ago. It claimed that there was little to no extrinsic reason to roleplay as Nate. Beelining the main story to find your son isn't what Bethesda wants. There are very little callbacks to your time before the war besides asking people about Sean. It's the reason why so many people can play through with alternate start mods. If I tried to play Witcher 3 while roleplaying as someone that's not geralt, it's going to be extremely unimersive.
Do you remember which video it was? I’d like to watch it. Unless it wasn’t a video.
I don't really mind the little bit of backstory we were given, honestly. It's no worse than Vault 101, being the kid that grew up there.
My problem starts the instant we're refrozen for an indeterminate amount of time.
On one hand, we have no context for how long it has been. An hour, a day, a week, month, year, decade, or century could have passed while we're out, it's been a few seconds for our character. On the other hand... We have no context for how long it has been. Shaun being old and on his deathbed is no longer really the surprise twist Bethesda hoped to pull off.
When we're still in the vault, I can tolerate the panic, the blind hope that maybe we're hot on the kidnapper's trail.
What I would like to have seen, however, is that when we return to Sanctuary and talk with Codsworth, and we find out it has been 210 years since the bombs dropped, I'd like an option to _give up_ on the search for Shaun, right then and there. Allow the character to mourn his or her losses. Let Nate bury his wife, Nora, and let him assume Shaun is dead. Let Nora bury Nate and accept that, in this world, her son is dead, or he soon will be.
How do we continue the search that leads us to that new potential plot-twist that Shaun is alive? If we've taken that option, when we go to Diamond City, instead of Piper being locked out as our introduction, we see some woman begging the DC security "Please, help me find my baby!"
We can't help Shaun, it's been far too long for that, but this woman has lost her baby _recently_. We go to Valentine's Detective Agency and have to find Nick, then get the woman to do the interview. She describes the same man we saw.
Now there's a plot hook - Revenge. We can at least kill this serial kidnapper and stop this from ever happening again.
Now, to put an additional plot twist on top...
When you meet Shaun at the Institute later, have him mention, "When I heard that you gave up on looking for me, you mourned me as if I was dead, I wasn't sure how to get you to come here. I wasn't sure how to get you to cross paths with and dispose of Kellogg for me. I'm glad that the "mother who just lost a child" worked." At that point, have the mother, now dressed in the classic Institute Synth outfit, walk in. "I want you to meet S4-91. Her mission on the surface was to get you to find Kellogg and kill him. I knew once you had done that, you would come here."
After all, it makes you _really_ question all those times you went out of your way to help someone. Were you helping a real human, or was that person just a synth placed by the Institute to get you one step closer to meeting Shaun?
If the "mother" trick fails (thereby showing Shaun that you're no longer interested in tracking him down or helping fight the Institute), go for plot twist number 3:
Send a Courser after you. You kill him, and you find some mission orders that claim that "Father's experimental 4th-generation synth project isn't functioning within expected parameters. We suspect either a bad memory upload, or worse, the unit is going rogue. Unfortunately, there is no recall or shutdown code for this unit, and Father does not want it destroyed."
Send a Courser every handful of in-game days, similar to how the Cultists spawn in Skyrim to hunt down the Dragonborn until you start the Dragonborn DLC. They carry identical orders and thereby it reinforces the need for you to face Father.
When you get to the Institute after reaching this condition, Father _still_ treats you as his parent - You're modeled after him or her, after all. He explains that "When I heard about the death of both of my parents, I realized that I wanted to meet both of them. The Institute was able to scan their brains, despite both having died, thanks to the cryogenic freezing preserving both of them. I had two units built, one for my (mother/father, whichever is the opposite of your character), and the other for you. At first, I wanted to just have both of you awake, here, in the Institute, to have the memories altered so that you remembered going into the pod, and woke up to being rescued here. We had scientists put you in the pod first, but when we came back to get the other unit, we checked our records and, well... I can't believe I forgot about myself. We went back, pulled you out, put the original memory back in, and retrieved your spouse's body from the morgue. We set the scene up as close as we could to the original, then woke you up. You behaved as expected until you met the robot, Codsworth, where you chose to give up and mourn what you had lost. An attempt to appeal to your parental duty failed as well. Can you explain this?"
You get the classic four dialogue choices, though no questions.
(Sarcastic, Yes): "I don't know, maybe I wasn't that good of a (mother/father). Sure beats going to buy a gallon of milk and some cigarettes and never coming back."
(No): "I'm... Not entirely sure myself."
(Yes): "Shaun, I mourned you and my (wife/husband). I learned very quickly not to get involved in the wasteland's troubles, they tend to have bad endings and teeth."
(Questioning, No): "Perhaps it was an error? Or data corruption? Maybe damage from the overwriting process?"
Either way, Shaun accepts that he couldn't expect a machine to behave like a human parent would.
And, yes, this means that the Sole Survivor basically becomes Schrodinger's Synth. Are they one, or are they not one? It's only _proven_ that they are if they act contrary to how they were intended to be played. Up until that point, you're equally 100% human, and completely synthetic.
You know, I really like this idea. It would have resolved a lot of the 'wait, that's a lot of coincidence' situation, and given the Railroad a reason to be watching the vault entrence as established in the game with Deacon. (Seeing Institute activity above ground getting their attention.)
I think the biggest problem with the sole survivor isn’t the story, but the lack of a decent speech mechanic
That certainly didn't help matters.
I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to tell a story with a set character but that's not why I play Fallout games. If they had developed a side game that told Nate/Nora's story and really leaned into the character driven nature that would be really cool, but I've always come to the main line Fallout games to be able to make the character my own (And this is coming from someone who had lost track of the number of times I've beaten Mass Effect 1)
I wanted to say that I love fallout 4, and was hooked from the start. I was about 19 at the time and remember the first time I saw the opening and overall I enjoyed the mature, somber, yet epic story of a parent trying to find their son. I could almost imagine what it was like to live in that world being Nate with Nora (maybe they met in college or somewhere in Washington then moved to Boston) about to start a life only to have that taken away. It always made me ask “if it were me in that situation, what would I do?”
On a side note, I recently downloaded the Nora companion WIP mod for Xbox and I love it, it’s a new way of playing the game with both sole survivors from before the war trying to find their son in the wasteland. It’s almost feels like a fresh story
Okay, now THAT is a great mod idea. Gigantic project (that new AI voice cloning tech makes a lot more feasible) but absolutely one worth pursuing.
I think the problem with Fallout 4 is that it is incredibly linear and quite a disappointing game as that good 'ol KISS axiom really is making the Bethesda games worst.
All fallout games are linear if you stick doggedly to the main story line. It is the wandering and side missions that make them feel less so. I agree that 4 could have used more to push you out to side stories but your desire to discover them is most important.
Well i could same to few earlier fallout games i have played, heck even new vegas that so many praise is really linear and short if you are only focusing on main quest
Regarding emphasizing the differences between Nate an Nora, I think in Survival more it should take 4 stat allotment points away, and for Nate ad 2 to str and agl, for Nora 2 to int and chr, to refect their professions and specialties.
I hate the character of Mama Murphy. It's such a stupid coincidence that the Sole Survivor just happens to meet a woman that can tell the future on their first day out. It's so dumb.
that was such an eye roller for me as well, that is one character that I personally would be fine with them removing, but that's personal preference, some people love her inclusion, as it adds to the supernatural undertones that are there in most fallout games.
One thing I kinda would have wanted is just little tidbits in voicelines upon visiting some locations
Both Nate/Nora lived in Pre War Boston, so them seeing how things changed should have shocked them, esp maybe rummaging through their neighbours houses for example etc.
Hell would have been nice if say Nate mentioned his time at some random military outpost etc.
Although I fundamentally agree with your overall statement, I think there is a big, important thing that you left out:
The story they want to tell is at a direct odds with the settlement system.
The introduction of the settlement system essentially means that you can embark on building the new tomorrow. You can recreate society in your own ideal way (especially if the story had been a bit more flexible with it)
This is an amazing concept for anyone who wants to roleplay as whoever they want, whichever way they want (albeit some choices are illogical and/or depend on heavy modding)
This is such a big distraction that should not exist lore-wise.
The protagonist should not care about building homes for a few random wastelanders, but instead track down his/her son.
But no, the game seemingly wants you to get immersed in this system (and storyline), which really has a detrimental effect on getting immersed in the main story.
I hate this whole line of thought, because Fallout 1, Fallout 2, and Fallout 3 all had set-in-stone character backstories, and despite all claims to the contrary, so did Fallout New Vegas. There's literally an entire DLC about how set in stone your backstory is. Functionally the only thing Fallout 4 added to this mess was give that silent Protagonist a canon voice. You are simply not going to not go look for the water chip, the GECK, or your dad in the previous three main titles. You are simply not going to not go look for the bastard who shot you and stole your package. "Why should I care about Shaun or Nora, I didn't want them"? yeah well that's how Fallout has always been. Sorry.
That said, my two gripes about the whole Nate/Nora thing:
- Nora can somehow wield military-grade hardware *and then some* despite just being a lawyer, and somehow I doubt Nate was allowed to induct her into his own personal US Army military training session. Sure, I could see her shooting a pistol but being able to wear power armor and use a mini-gun?
- It was hard to actually care about looking for Shaun, if you're not a parent. Especially since it's revealed its been 210 years since the bombs dropped and when we're told that, we don't know *when* Shaun was taken. It could've been last week, ten years ago, or...210 years ago and we're looking for a grave. Hell, that was my first thought when Codsworth told us how long we were out. A decent parent would never give up, no matter how much time had passed. But for non-parents? Well...
Well you dont need to be on army to learn shoot guns, and shooting with gun isn't most complex thing ever. And lets not forget this takes place on US so wouldnt be anything special if Nora would have actual have get gun license.
But we can also look up cut content and see that Nora isn't just random civilian lawyer she is actually former army member. It seems that orginally story is writed as Nora being lawyer and ex army member. Courtenay Taylor voice actor of Nora had interview where she said when she was planning how to make everything fit nicely she realize she have friend who was been on army, is lawyer, have kids and is married with guy who is on army and she use that friend of her as inspiration.
I agree abaout Shaun part, we spent somethink like 3 minutes on our pre-war house before running the vault so it's hard to emotional. But i dont think previous fallout games did that any better, like new vegas we get shooted because chip we have to deliver, what is to reason i would really go to hunt down that man that shoot me or why i would care abaout that chip.
@@lartonki Revenge is MUCH more universal than what you're giving it credit for, honestly. First thought when starting a NV playthrough is 'I can't wait to get my bearings and shoot that b*stard back'.
This is off topic, but right around 7:30 in the video, when the bomb explodes and it switches from Nate looking at you to Nora, was some really good editing. I just wanted to voice some appreciation for it.
Actually, even if you removed the Nate/Nora thing and we were just a random Vault Dweller who saw someone get killed right in front of us and their baby taken, there'd still be motivation. We'd have to create our own reason for it (maybe we knew the person, maybe we have a standard against kidnapping children, maybe we feel like if we don't act, that person is gonna kill us next, etc.)
The story doesn't *have* to have us play Nate/Nora in order for it to work. Granted dialogue would have to be altered to reflect that we're just a rando Vault Dweller, but still.
That's basically the Start Me Up (Redux) mod with the random Vault Dweller start to a T. Dialogue changes and all.
The problem with Fallout 4 is that you're not playing your character, you're playing Nate, regardless of if that's what you want.
the transition at 7:31 was insanely clean
thank you very much. I worked pretty hard to get it to line up.
I personally think they failed at the "finding your son" aspect, the fact that there are a handful of jokes regarding forgetting about shaun is a example of this.
An Issue I had with the game when I first beat the story was that there wasn't even any ending slides.
You know the indicators that your character was there making life better or worse?
The only impact I felt Nate/Nora had was either blow up the institute or the actual beginning when they're just living their lives and the bombs drop.
The story makes them plot puppets you control, then when its over that's it.
How did The Sol Survivor effect Piper, Cait, Nick, Handcock, or Various factions/settlements etc? Ignored. Which showed why the karma system was important as well.
The story never gives the Sol Survivor the chance to be anything meaningful because its just moving them along until its over.
I found the biggest disconnect wasn't because players weren't ready for a protagonist like this, it's because the games design wasn't either.
Fallout 4 is designed as a "open world, go anywhere right from the start, do side quests, meet factions and build bases while looting" game on a design level.
Not a "do nothing but find your child and somewhere safe to live" game.
The main characters have the option to ignore Shaun and the main plot except theres not justification or even a effort to acknowledge you doing so. It feels like you have
"fallout 4, the game"
then
"that one quest line outside of the game where the voice actors act like your character just remembered the opening moments all of a sudden and are urgently looking for Shaun".
But then once you find Shaun, the game stops making sense. Shaun asks his father who just braved the wastes and dangers of the world to find him, to go shoot some raiders with a courser.
The main characters almost also sound confused as to what they are doing now. This goes on as you end up leading the institute by doing all of the dangerous stuff yourself. This is stupid as hell and just shows the game design not making sense with the story even more.
I think my point is that I can't empathise with my character in fallout 4 as it's still treated as there is no character for the whole game until you go back to a main quest.
Then if I try to see the main character as being a person with backstory, he or she just seems wildly inconsistent and 2d.
This video nails it. If I am going to play a caracter driven game, the game has to actually use that caracter in the game. InFallout4 there are very very few mentions of the players backstory after the intro. Kellog gives a few hints, Father has a little more, and a robot mentions your driver license..thats it! Why create a backstory, if you dont use it for anything?
My favorite Headcanon to address Nora having no training with firearms or military gear is that she secretly does.
'Cause she's an intelligence operative. Which, during wartime, are often simply referred to as 'Lawyers'. It'd be a convenient way for the two to have met, too, so there's that.
Or, y'know, Nate taking his wife to the gun range and secretly getting her trained on power armor (with his clout as a war hero to grease gears), for family bonding, and/or 'just in case' for example 'the Reds' come.
One of my main problems is that Fallout 4 is at its best when you're dicking around. That's fine, but you can't make a Shepard-style character played straight, then put them in a game where they can dress up as The Shadow and cosplay to cowboy robots without a damn good reason. Especially since FO4 suffers from the trope of the story waiting for you. Kidnapped son? Who gives a shit, time to spend days meticulously building a cage-fighting arena and then get a beer-brewing robot.
Speaking of straight, and yes, I realise this could set some people off, but an issue I've never seen talked about is that FO4 _forces_ your character to be either straight or bi-spectrum (and of course the possibility of some of the ace spectrum). _No other Fallout game does this._ 1, I don't believe your character's sexuality gets more than a passing mention. 2, it's left nice and open for you to decide. 3, it's mostly ambiguous, with maybe a couple of lines here and there you can pick, plus the one perk that adds a few more, and even then it's not clear whether it's genuine or just manipulating people. New Vegas, it's back to being totally open, and even adds Confirmed Bachelor and Cherchez La Femme to help expand optional flirtation to wlw and mlm. 4? Start off in a straight marriage where there's no implication of it being anything but loving and voluntary. Which, good for them, but also it's a really weird point to force.
Back to the main point, it just doesn't fit to have a pre-defined character like this in a sandbox RPG. I can't imagine the Sole Survivor just having random adventures for in-game years over finding their child, but due to how the game is built, it's not only far more fun, it's almost necessary. I dare any normal player, without cheese or glitches, to get into the Institute without doing any side quests or spending an unreasonable amount of in-game time to get better items. New Vegas? It's written so that Benny has enough of a reason to continue the status quo for the time being, and so whether your Courier cares about other people's stuff they encounter or their own safety over what's mostly a personal thing is up to both you, and, more importantly, them. You can play New Vegas as just a shooter, but you can get so much more out of playing it as an RPG.
I think part of it is that Fallout as a series is far closer to a TTRPG than, say, Elder Scrolls. TTRPGs require the player to be involved in building your character, along with the DM building the world. There needs to be a reason for your character to be involved in the plot, even if it's as flimsy as "this necromancer showed me up in the county fair, I WILL MURDER THEM." And that comes from both ends, too. A DM can say "you know this person," but then make giving a reason for _how_ the player's responsibility. And that's something 1, 2, and NV do well. Why, out of all the Vault 13 residents, were you chosen to get the water chip? Why should you, out of everyone in Arroyo, go to get the GECK? Why did you become a courier in the first place? Elder Scrolls, on the other hand, tends to thrust you into the plot with a defined reason. You're the reincarnation of Nerevar, sent by Azura to kill Dagoth Ur. Patrick Stewart has had prophetic dreams foretelling that you would aid in stopping the Oblivion Crisis. You were born the Last Dragonborn, destined to kill Alduin. That works fine for those games, but not for Fallout. Fallout isn't a high-fantasy video game world with all its trappings and tropes, it's a post-apocalyptic hellscape where life sucks for most everyone.
A decent rule of thumb is if you can customise a character physically, you should _also_ be able to customise them mentally.
When it comes to Fallout 4, the real question is not what you once were, but what you will become. Once you leave that vault you can become anything form a raider, to church of atom preacher, to a bandit. The skies the limit. I have roleplayed as so many different characters in this game. A bit of initial backstory doesn't hurt.
I would agree, if you hadn't just seen your loving wife murdered and new born child stolen. That is just too strong of a motivation for the SS to ignore from a role-playing perspective, unless you role-play the SS as a complete asshole who doesn't/didn't care about them.
But that’s not true. Fallout 4 you cannot become a raider, or an atom preacher, at least not in a meaningful way. You have zero control over factions, no choices that really affect the world. You’re just searching for your son
@@epicchocolate1866This is just flat ot wrong. Have you not played the DLC for fallout 4? In Nuka world you can become a full on raider boss there. In Far Harbor you can join the Church of atom. Plenty of outfits to fit the part too.
@@epicchocolate1866 Plus there is a lot of ambiguity in what sort of person the player is. Sure you are trying to find your son, but the way you go about it and what you ultimately do when you find him is up to the player/
Ok, the best testament to the strength of mass effect is that while i was listening to and engaged with this video about fallout lore, but not watching it, and I glanced over and saw the footage from the mass effect shore leave citadel dlc and I just felt immediately sad.
They better not effing kill off Tali in the sequel I swear to god.
I liked the idea of the sole survivor but they never really touch on their background after the beginning. I assume this was just so Nate and Nora would have the same script but I can’t imagine it being that hard to change it in certain places
The funny thing too with Nate and Nora’s backgrounds, is they are just vague enough to still be up to the player. We know Nate is a Veteran, but what type of soldier was he? Maybe he used power armor, maybe he was a sniper, maybe he did espionage as a Honey Pot, maybe he went full berserker with Rippers. We don’t know. And that vagueness let’s YOU, the player define what kind of soldier he was.
In my main, I knew Nora was a lawyer. What kind of lawyer? I decided she was a patent lawyer! She had worked with several of the companies like RobCo, General Atomic, Nuka Cola, etc. She was familiar enough with looking over patents and reading blue prints that she could basically reverse engineer most of the things she needed in the wasteland. Along the way, she sympathized with the Minutemen and the struggle of the Railroad, connecting with Sturges and Tinker Tom. She even felt a bit of a spark of romance for Nick Valentine… though his feelings were reciprocated. And, upon reaching the Institute, she found out why… Going through the Institute files gave me implications that I might be a Synth myself, and I ooc discovered that’s apparently that’s a popular theory. Now I had to deal with the fact that all my pre-war memories might be a lie. Was I good with fixing armor and kitbashing laser weapons because I really WAS a patent lawyer pre-war? Or was in because I simply had Institute files for these things installed in my brain?
If Fallout 4 has a sole survivor problem, it’s as much as Breath of the Wild has a Link problem. If the sole survivor is supposed to be desperately searching for their son and avenging their spouse, why are they dicking around for 3 in-game years building cities across the commonwealth? Why are they running off to Nuka World to play Immortan Joe? It’s a created a disconnect that isn’t present for the protagonist of a linear narrative like Dishonored (which has the same broad presence as Fallout 4 now that I think about it).
A thing that could improve the game is you can select your character demeanor ether pre game or in moment
The sympathy Empathy just came up on some corporate course I was doing. Ughhhhhhhh
I have to say, I have found New Vegas and Skyrim to be good fun, but because I never had any emotional attachment I quickly got bored, whereas in Fallout 4 I have been able to become truly invested and eager to keep playing, making it my favorite. Of course I love full sandbox RPGs, but I also enjoy having a bit of railroading and being able to relax and enjoy a lack of responsibility while still being in control.
My issues with the game is that the main story just doesn't drag you in that much. You never get to learn your spouse or child. You, as the player never gotten to form much of a connection with the things your character cares about the most.
Then, you leave the vault. Go to concord and meet the survivors.
Suddenly, you've met some actual characters that ask you for help. You talk to them, get a bit connection to them.
And suddenly the main quest is forgotten.
You help rebuild sanctuary and help rebuild the minuteman.
From there, wherever you go you find people to interact with that give you new quest and questlines.
And every time your main quest is forgotten.
The attachment the player has to the main quest doesn't line up with the attachment the character is supposed to have.
I think the main issue is how quick the intro is. You briefly talk to your spouse, quickly interact with Shaun. Then the bombs fall. You run into the vault and get frozen. At this point you barely interacted with your family. You never even picked up your child.
So then the spouse is killed and Shaun is taken.
How are you supposed to feel anything here?
Compare that to, say, Mass Effect. The interactions you have with the characters right after the start are already more detailed, more in depth then in fallout....
Or if we take another game, rdr2, not just that you get to know other characters you also get to know better charcter you are playing on. And at least for me on rdr2 even playing side quests and just wondering around feels like it connects to story mutch better than fallout 4 story/main quests. Rdr2 really made story hitting really hard, i remember first time playing it when Arthur died and need to play as John rest of the game it feel like "i dont wanna play as a John because he is not fucking Arthur" when start of the game it was "why i cant play as a john".
Personality i think the biggest with the sole survivor is that you have to be a loving parent for the story to work properly, which makes it really contradicting if the player wants to roleplay a raider who only care about himself or any other type of selfish characters, and the worst one have to be institute as the only reason you're allow to be part of it because of father a.k.a. Shaun, even when the character could make for a terrible leader for the institute, if it was anyone else, it most likely sent a courser to deal with the intruder
One of the big problems I had was the main quest was TOO linear. They should have included lines for ALL factions to help you in your search, not just lines pointing to nick.
Throw in false leads to promote exploration. Throw in actual clues that you eventually need nick's help in figuring out.
As it is, all you get is Preston shrugging in one convo and then starting the minutemen quest with not even follow-up dialogue asking how the search is going, etc.,
I don't even count Mama "Hintline" Murphy. She's just a voiced walkthrough for the early game and a waste of time in subsequent playthroughs.
Made the main "story" seem trite, especially with its conclusion.
I’m glad fo4 chose this route. I really felt for the character as they progressed through the story the first time. Found myself really connecting with Nate and Nora. I was inclined to help them. All my progression was to assist these characters that I had formed a bond with. I imagine this experience to be completely different if your the kind of person that skips dialogues. I really enjoyed playing other characters as opposed to role playing as myself in this world. Both approaches are good imo…I’m glad they deliver both options.
i saw ronnie's video too! man youtube has gotten really good at finding content that i actually enjoy and its great seeing new creators getting the exposure they deserve!
Thank you for putting this so eloquently. I had a hard time summing up what my issue with fo4 was when i told my partner to start with 3 and not 4
i think my biggest issue with the sole survivor is that they give us a character with pretty clear cut morals and desires, then once were past the prologue a lot of the choices we can make (because fallout's whole schtick is your choices affecting the world, something fallout 4 does very poorly) make absolutely no sense for the character we'd been given. why in the hell would loyal soldier nate and attorney nora, say, side with an obviously immoral institute made up of the same kinds of people that ended the world in the first place? why would nate or nora join up with a bunch of psychopaths in a theme park? why would nate or nora side with a bunch of radiation poisoned fanatics? if you want to play an "evil" character, you have to justify to yourself why nate or nora got out of the vault and suddenly had a complete breakdown of their moral compass and any values they held. and there just is no answer that doesnt completely undermine everything the game's writing tries to set up and make a poorly written plot even worse.
Easy: When Codsworth says it’s been 210 years since the bombs drop and you see the state of the Commonwealth… what’s the point of holding to your old morals and values? It’s a dangerous and hellish new world…
Honestly, now I understand why Fallout 4 touched me to an extent despite knowing that the main plot is the most basic thing I've ever heard. Maybe Sole Survivor seems to me more human than other Fallout protagonists, who knows...
8:35 I believe what you are going for is "the game is fine, maybe it's simply not for you. And it doesn't matter tha the #1 mod is an alternative start one. Maybe you should simply wait 25 more years for another Fallout game, and if the next one won't be to your taste either, maybe you can simply die, because you won't live long enough to wait for yet another game"
My issue with the Sole Survivor is that they were not developed enough for me to care about them. If they gave us more of a playable backstory (like in Fallout 3) I would have been more engaged.
Throw in that after 200 years people in Boston still haven't insulated there homes but have holes in the walls and roofs and yet somehow survived every winter, you're bang on mate
I know I'm mega late to the chat because I only found your channel yesterday, and now I'm plowing through your fallout content.
I'm a roleplay person and FONV was the first ever non MMO I played. I know - I chose poorly. I went into FO4 with my ONLY exposure to single player shooter games and RPGs being FONV.
Anyway. When I went to sanctuary, I met with Codsworth who told me to go to Concord, but I didn't go right away. I decided to play with the workshop and deal with how I felt about the death of my wife and loss of my child. Idk if my English degree gives me narrative super powers or not, but I figured out immediately that my child would be an adult when I found him. I was thinking in my meta narrative that he'd be a raider I'd have to take down or join. But as I walked around Sanctuary, I listened to Diamond City radio, trying to do some recon before entering the wasteland. I played around with the building and armor crafting, and before I left Sanctuary I was almost level 5, and pretty decently geared up. When I felt prepared, I met Dogmeat and I was surprised there was no dialogue option to say something like, "Sean would have loved to have a dog like you."
But, okay whatever. As Nate, I stealthed into Concord. There was shooting - raiders vs a dude on a balcony. I tried to find someone to talk to so I could find out what was going on, but the raiders were all hostile, even though we'd never met before. I was confused by this. I had no idea if the raiders were justified in their conflict or just being evil. I had to ASSUME they were evil.
That was the first big wompwomp for me.
Then I fought my way to the survivors and was railroaded into helping them.
I had no reason to help them.
This is what you were talking about with the writing failing the sole survivor.
And in my conversation with Preston, I had no choice but to ASSUME that he was being honest.
Again. A failure of writing.
How different would the game have been if the first encounter had gone differently. What if the raiders were willing to talk. To tell a story about how they got to this point and why. There's a whole story about what happened in Quincy and I can't remember the raider terminal but there's story about the raider who wanted Mama Murphy, and all this narrative that someone put a lot of thought into.
But instead, we show up and have to murder the raiders and trust Preston and kill a deathclaw.
Also, it forces us into power armor, which seems silly, because Preston and his crew likely need it a lot more. Why would Nate/Nora take the power armor? Wouldn't it make more sense to help Preston and Co get access to it, then have the option of the sole survivor borrowing it or letting Sturges take it for a ride in the fight?
There was just so much that didn't make sense.
Now, I admit, as a n00b with very little experience in video game logic, I was probably way over thinking all of this. But by the time I made it back to Sanctuary, I was bored.
I hadn't gotten to make any decisions. My character wasn't in mourning over my dead spouse. My character stupidly believed his son was still a baby and the kidnappers had just left the vault moments ago, but then stops the search to arbitrarily murder one faction and help another. The game told me I needed to use power armor, which I did not want.
I had no agency.
So, yeah, the writing failed the sole survivor. As did the gameplay.
That being said, I later went back to FO4 and have logged over a thousand hours in it. It's not a bad game, it's just a bad roleplaying game. If you avoid the narrative and treat it as a scrounging, building, and exploration game, it's pretty solid!
Anyway, thanks for reading my little rant.
Quick scan of the comments and I don't see anyone mentioning that super slick edit at 7:31 that was clean AF
I cope with this by subscribing to the theory the sole survivor is a synth and their life before was programming. This would explain why the pre-war suburb looks so bloomy and perfect, Nate is celebrated as a veteran and given exclusive access to a vault.
When asked about pre-war america, Nate only describes "picket fences" "green grass" or "the silver shroud" which are all things foreign and outlandish to a post war wastelander but would be completely innocuous to a pre-war vet so why are those the first things he brings up?
Far harbour also sort of flirts with the idea of confirming this when the player is asked what his life was before the shower.
Its not a perfect solution since you're still forced to be a synth but it's something
The decision to play as a set protagonist isn't a bad one inherently, but it is bad for a mainline Bethesda game. People wouldn't mind as much if it were a side game. You can't just give your players the sex expectation of a sandbox and then switch it up and expect them to just go along.
It was the wrong call for the target audience that specifically buys Bethesda RPGs, even if it's fine elsewhere.
So many of the things you talk about in this video just clarify why im enjoying Baldurs Gate 3 so much.
Mostly agree, though I think the "Oh no, I must find my son ... just as soon as I finish building these 30 settlements, help everyone around me" part is more of a factor. The premise should create some serious urgency, but very quickly the search for the main character's son has to take a back seat to leveling and gearing up, because you're going to die instantly if you actually act on that urgency.
The way the story is handled, is just bad. As a parent, our Sole Survivor has exactly one job: find your kid. The game goes out of it's way to distract you from it CONSTANTLY with things to do that isn't make sure your son is safe. It's just like: "oh, btw here's some factions! you like factions, right?" with barely a thought towards what purpose they're to serve in finding your kid, Kellogg, Valentine, or doing really anything useful at all. They're not going to ACTIVELY help you in any way shape or form beyond operate your barely cobbled together teleporter, and the empty gesture of: "oh, we'll have our people be on the look out" statement. They all have vastly more resources and informants that can get information far faster than a freshly thawed prewar vault-dweller. Why can't they track down Kellogg for you, while you are doing odd jobs for them? at least then you have a REASON to build up all these settlements for the Minute Men, and establishing new safe houses for the Railroad. At best they're just kind of in your way.
So yes, the problem isn't remotely with the PC, it's everything else just being really poorly thought out.
It's almost like arguing that the "head side" of the coin is badly designed because the "tail side" comes up way too much. Kind of a moot point when you only see it for what, 5% of the game? Though I would argue that the other 95% (another settlement needs your help) would not be considered so badly written if that 5% wasn't there. That and outside of the opening 10 minutes, the voice acting/writing doesn't make the player feel that finding their son is important... at all. It's similar to the early story for Star Trek The Next Generation. Worf was supposed to be the most badass warrior on the ship, and EVERY week he got his ass kicked (to show how dangerous the threat-of-the-week was to the crew) so the audience learns that Worf sucks at fighting more than the alien-of-the-week is dangerous. In FO4 we learn for hour after hour that Nate/Nora doesn't care about their son, they care about getting an amulet back from raiders. So we, as players, naturally don't care about that forced story line.
Oh and side note, as soon as I saw the cinematic where Nora gets shot and Shaun gets kidnapped I KNEW the story line would end up with Shaun being the antagonist. The next major question is *how* does the Sole Survivor not conclude that Shaun was kidnapped sometime in the "more than 5 minutes ago" past?
I am a 54 year old man, and I play fallout 4 a lot. And once I make it back to Sanctuary Hills and go into Shawn's room and activate his crib, Nora would say "I'm coming sweetheart" I always get teary eyed. So I completely agree that I as a player would prefer the empathetic protagonist.
The issue isnt just a character , but that it is a fallout one.
Fallout starts as a "task character"
1: Get the water chip : YOU MAKE THE CHARACTER THAT DOES THIS (and should spec according to their history)
2 : Get the GECK : YOU MAKE THE CHARACTER THAT DOES THIS (and should spec according to their history)
3 : Find your dad and project purity in the process: YOU MAKE THE CHARACTER THAT DOES THIS (and should spec according to their history)
NV: find the guy who killed you to complete your courier contract (bugged me that you used to be someone with a little story here too, but only a job) : YOU MAKE THE CHARACTER THAT DOES THIS (and should spec according to their history)
4 : You are the sole survivor who must find their son! : Character exists with your previous life having ZERO impact on the gameplay, bethesda forgot that entirely
Nate doesnt get a Guns, power armor,stamina/strength boost and Nora doesnt get a speech barter and intelligence one
Neither reminisces about their pre war life when exploring, how they hoped to see a baseball match with their son someday.
All that after Fallout NV, WHERE YOUR ENVIRONMENT REACTS TO WHO YOU APPEAR TO BE : faction disguises . A game 5 years older than fallout 4, done with a small team on a tight deadline
Very interesting, thank you. You have a thumbs-up from me.
I’ve also watched the pair of “Fallout 4 Is Better Than You Think” videos by Many A True Nerd. One discusses the good things, the other the bad, about Fallout 4. I think it’s time to watch it again.
Regarding a set protagonist that is a blank slate…I’ve been thinking about this. Much like an alt-start mod, or the start to Fallout 3, it really wouldn’t be too difficult to add an “internal dialogue tree” right after choosing your characters SPECIAL stats. Something like:
“That brings back memories. How I met Nora/Nate:”
[options of how they met]
+1 perk point
“What I used to do:”
[options of jobs depending on SPECIAL]
Add 1 skill or +1 perk point
“What I specialized in:”
[options depending on SPECIAL]
Add 1 skill or +1 perk point
“When I was young I really enjoyed:”
[options depending on SPECIAL]
Add 1 skill or +1 perk point
Makes me kind of want to write that mod now…
That Edit near 7:27 was very nice.
The later Fall Out games after 1 and 2 would all have been better with a party system. FO 4 would have been more interesting if it was themed around "save the world" vs "find your kid". Appreciate your excellent critiques. 👍👍
I don't think that fallout 4 story is bad because of the sole survivor fixed backstory. I don't like that we are given a fixed back story because it severely limits the freedom of the player to build their character in the way they want. The people that really stay playing the same RPGs for years are not looking to repeat the same character 20 times, they want to try different styles and go through the game in different ways. Games that are character driven can be great, Red Dead Redemption is great, God of War is great, etc. But that's not what i'm looking for when I go play an sandbox RPG like fallout. I love the character of Ezio from the AC games, but the games ARE designed with the protagonist in mind, you spend a lot of time with him and his family early on, and all the rest of the game feels that it's driven from that point. Fallout 4 story and world don't feel like that at all. It's bad as a character driven story because the charecters do not feel real, and it's bad as a RPG because you are not free to build your character
This might be why I love Fallout 3 and 4, but can't, no matter how hard I try, get into New Vegas. I've restarted so many times, tried to care, and I just can't. But "my wife died and where's my son" gripped me instantly.
It's more that it conflicts with the freedom. As a father or mother who watched their infant child kidnapped, it doesn't make sense to do anything but B line plotpoints that lead to meeting Father. It's hard to rationalize taking the time to roleplay The SilverShroud around Boston when your child is kidnapped.
Some interesting thoughts this video has sparked for me. There is the War (criminal) Veteran who has the prominance to be giving a speech at the veterans hall. And you have a Lawyer and mother who seems to be the sole provider (she wears pants) for the family. Note the traditional wife duties have been off loaded onto a robot butler, something no one else on the block has. Both before the bombs fell have had to balance family obligations with their duty to their careers of service. Interestingly enough the choices you make in effect write the details of their backstories. What kind of soldier was Nate, and what kind of Lawyer was Nora?
Surely there is nothing wrong with exiting the vault, concluding that there is no way of knowing at what point in the last two hundred years your spouse was murdered and your child taken and then proceeding with the immediate priority of surviving. If you creep into Concord with no armour and a pistol and decide that you aren't going to get into a firefight you will not know that your child might be alive. Things might be especially tough for Nora with no military experience or survival training. the character generation process gives you a great deal of freedom into deciding what character sets out into the wasteland and early perk choices shape a myriad of different characters.
The opening of Fallout 4 made me appreciate the opening of Fallout 3 more. I spent more time with the Dad character because I knew there would be no more peace after the opening. I ended up choosing the dialogue options that pleaded with your father to let you skip school.
I still find "I should hurry and find my kidnapped son, but I'm going to do a bunch of unrelated stuff before" a bad premise. No love and caring parent would do that.
If only said other stuffs acted in a way that would lead you a little bit closer to Shaun, then ok. But you are presented with a vey straightforward way to find your baby, and every other things are just distractions. For christ sake you take a fucking boat to investigate someone's else daughter disappearing and it takes a large amount of time to be solved.
It isn't difficult to love and care for characters as you pointed out. But it's extremely hard to cope with ludonarrative dissonance and bad writing.
Aspects of the sole survivor I never liked is their inconsistent morality / personality; it's like they tried to give them a backstory/characterisation, yet you to still have freewill. However I often think my choices in role-playing feel very restricted. I'm not playing through my character's story; I am telling someone else's. I have to make decisions that do not conflict, I have to conform to Bethesda's backstory / characterisation.
All of Bethesdas bad writing with none of the freedom
In my opinion a perfect Fallout, and RPG, would look like this:
You get an amazing intro that tells the story of the world the game plays in.
Then you create a character. No background story, nothing. In Fallout's case you then emerge from the Vault and start to explore the world, with no main goal given from start. You'll explore the world on your own and find the goals bit by bit, or from quest to quest. You choose whether you join a fraction or not. Whether you become a Raider or BOS member or whatever fractions there might be.
Of course there should be something like a main story. For example take Fallout 4s Institute. You'll eventually learn about the Synths and need to find out who's responsible for this. You just wouldn't know it right away from the start of the game, but rather stumble upon it by exploring and engaging with the world.
Ironically enough Genshin Impact of all games does the "sole survivor" really well, because while your goals may not always align with the mc, you DO want to learn about this world and what the mc knows that you don't. The mystery and intrigue of their actions pushes you forward into every encounter. What will they do? What do they know? What are they hiding? The questions propel you forward despite the actual goal of the game (finding the sister) being something the player doesn't really feel for.
A fascinating way to go about it, not gonna lie.
I feel the issue with the story and the characters is not players can't empathize with the sole survivor; it is the world that does not. The story of searching for Shaun takes a back seat to the world. The main story quests point you from one location to the next, but there are hundreds of things to have the player to do anything but the main quests. The writers put such a heavy emphasis on finding Shaun, but only at key points in the game. There is no urgency on the main quest like most of Bethesda's open worlds. The quest will still be there after you finish cleaning out another dozen locations on the map.
Problem is I don’t have empathy fir a child being taken in an apocalypse, also being refrozen means any amount of time passed so i immediately stopped caring about a child to young to know Nate as a dad.
The tone specifically with the sarcastic options can be wildly varying in tone too in comparison to mass effects renegade and paragon options
I play as what I think the character would do until they actually meet Shawn and then have them slowly change depending on if I want to live with Shawn and try to understand him for who he is now and try to accept him despite the evil or if I see him as a monster crafted to destroy for his own selfish experiments.
Wow.
Just....wow.
Good luck with your channel
Well I mean, sure, in Fallout 4 you can just ignore the main quest, go loot the wasteland, build a huge settlement empire with trade routes or whatever you want, but unlike other Bethesda games, a lot is locked behind the main quest. For instance, you never get full access to the Brotherhood unless you advance the main quest at least to the point where you kill Kellog, and the Brotherhood airship arrives. So, you really are pressured, almost required, to follow the main quest.
you might've been able to make the narrative, and gameplay decisions be split into multipule presets and have prebuilt character like in FO1, however with additional story to them, other wise you could choose to build your own dweller sorta like fo76 did and have the nate and nora stuff be treated like a long side quest chain instead,
This was a fantastic video. I love your take and the way you explain the overarching concepts presented by each game in the background while indicating how they pertain to the subject.
However I wasn't expecting a Witcher spoiler in a fallout video. :c
I am so glad I got recommended your channel. I love the quality of the videos you're putting out, keep up the good work.
Man, I really love your content. Great work!
Technically Bethesda did the same basic thing with fallout 3 you were a kid growing up in a vault then one day your father suddenly left so you go out to find him and find out why
I personally think it would have worked better if Nate and/or Nora were NPCs that functioned as they key to infiltrating the Institute. Overall, the decision making needs to have more of an effect on the game world. An example could have been certain relationships having positive or negative effects on others. Befriending Gage would have a negative effect on Preston, thus causing him to lose trust in the player. This reaction should only take effect if Preston would see you with Gage. Another example would be between Danse and Strong.
The problem I have with fallout 4's protagonist and story isn't that I'm obligated to act in Nate/Nora's interest, that's perfectly fine, the problem is that the game doesn't get you attached to any characters before ripping them away. Bethesda wanted a game where the intro and tutorial lasted under 30 minutes, that severely limits the attachment that players can form with the characters. I say if Bethesda really wanted a game where you are supposed to feel as if you're the main character and play as them, they should have done a multi-hour pre-war segment where you get to see Nate coming home from the war, what their daily life is like, had input for multiple conversations between Nate and Nora like you do in the pre-war segment so you can shape their relationship and better feel involved. To me, the problem is that Bethesda didn't want to commit to the kind of storytelling that would make you really identify with Nate/Nora.
The faction problem really does rear it's head in fallout 4, you have to choose 1 of 4 factions to get the ending and go through their missions but in no way do they co-operate with each other, it's always opposition or ignore. This also creates the problem that you have no sway over anything in fallout 4, I would have expected with the minutemen or railroad to look to each other or to the brotherhood (if you're playing with the minutemen) for help as both are small factions in the grand scheme of things.
Majority of the best quests in fallout 4 are side quests that have nothing to do with the main quest, nothing that affects any of the factions that lead to the ending, all the ones pertaining to the factions are infinite radiant quests that get boring very quickly.
Far harbour DLC did something right with it's story as it gave you the player a lot of choices on how to play the story and end it, however it still had its drawbacks, it was a shorter and more concise version of fallout 4s with what felt like more player choice.
TLDR: factions are boring, very cardboard one sided and character has no sway in their quests.
Far harbour is what fallout 4 should have been. Quests with that level of complex inter relationships between the factions. With the railroad and minutemen both existing in the commonwealth, they should have history with one another. Callbacks to that should happen, in instances where the minutemen and railroad work together to protect people...
Just watched several of you're videos and I would just like to say that I've found them really interesting. Keep up the good work!
all of these hit me hard as well brother your not alone. 10:30
The Chinese Fallout 4 player gave Sole Survivor a nickname: The Ice Lollypop
I thought he/she would be like Captain America a person out of time. They just felt like another vault dweller after awhile though
It took me a year to beat the main story because I didn't like any of the factions except the minutemen. I played the game for the settlement building. I loved settlement building. I feel like trying to rebuild society would have been a better story line than find lost kid. I eventually got the minuteman ending where everyone but the institute survives. and I still got bunker hill.
Been re-playing Fallout 4 at least one time per year, since it launched. I totally agree with you about the intro of the game. Very emotional and inspiring. It sets the tone of a very serious situation. Even to the point of exiting the vault.
But from that point on, it feels like Fallout 4 fell on it's head and it still hasn't decided if it wants to be a comedy show-like world. Or a drama...or a mystery/thriller.
Sure, the comedic parts of the game are fun. Like the funny vault boy and the roasts the player is able to give to some characters...but the thing that actually weirded me out is that cognitive dissonance. Felt like the Player (Nate or Nora) had weird psychological problems....one moment it's all doom/gloom and seriousness and randomly they just drop jokes or witty remarks.
I actually agree with you. I enjoyed my playthrough as Nathan very much, but I also thing the factions are too simplistic and too static. They won't talk to each other, they don't compromise, they gladly whipe each other out. Gun diplomacy only. That's why I prefer the Minutemen ending, as it gives me the ability to at least have a truce between Minutement, Railroad and BOS on the destruction of the Institute. On the other hand, the MC becoming head of the institute would benthe best thing for the commonwealth, if the other factions would just be a bit less unreasonable. But with how the story is written, I take what I can get, being Minutemen General, BOS Paladin and Railroad Agent, while laying my son to rest.
Well yeah gasmes can have premade main characters but fallout is a series about freedom of choice and character
I thought the video was great. It brings up an interesting dilemma with a lot of sandboxish games, as to whether the character will be a blank slate or someone who is actually a character with a backstory that we, as the player / audience, get to see grow. I love Fallout 4, but the character development of Nate / Nora is really based on the choices you make, which doesn't really set up the story as a vehicle for character development, but as a means to create this individual that you hopefully are satisfied in, especially after the choices you have made concerning the main quest.
In my humble opinion, I'd say Fallout 4 has a "Factions" problem. On top of there not being enough factions, I thought it was bland that you could not make alliances, truces, or peaceful meditations between the RR, BOS, and institute.
All that being said, Fallout 4 is still an awesome game. Hopefully some developer reads our comments and makes Fallout 5 even better ^-^
A voiced protagonist with a set background was the biggest mistake. The Fallout 4 protagonist should've been an empty and silent vessel for the player to insert themselves into.
i never thought of it this way, and i found myself agreeing with you
great video!
I agree that the opening cinematic was a masterpiece for me. And why I agree with a lot of your suggestions on how to improve the story of Fallout 4 for many of the characters and factions.
Because I do applaud Bethesda for doing something different and the did truly build a great world for us to play around in as well as interesting characters and premises. And it is a departure from what most Fallout fans expected from Bethesda but I think where they failed is that they seemed to have rushed it and they didn’t go far enough. It’s like the developers were afraid to stray too far from the formula but they could have had the game be more protagonist character story oriented while still allowing the player to roam around without feeling as if they were breaking immersion with some of the Eternals you’ve mentioned in other videos.
Like instead of Mama Murphy saying go here next make it so that the player is truly wandering the commonwealth blind after concord with no real leads and have random quests in key areas that point you back to the main quest line. Natural exploration that doesn’t break the immersion of the story. Not easy to do but give the game like two more years in the oven and many of the plot holes, missed opportunities, cut content, and story issues(including making the player truly “empathize and immerse themselves in the protagonist’s story) can be fixed.
I think the big issue comes more from there being no real weight to your choices and the dialogue system as a whole. Fallout 4 really would've benefited from a sort of karma system with the factions like NV had. You can be an absolute dick to Preston and the settlers, and he'll still ask you to help him get them settled at Sanctuary and send you to help a settlement and will still promote you to General even if you just shot the settlers to not do the quest. You can look the Railroad in the eyes and tell them synths are tools and you have no problem with the Institute, and they'll still want to recruit you. You can look at the BOS and put down everything they stand for and you'll still get asked to join. You can look Elder Maxson in the eye and say you refuse your orders to kill Danse and he'll still promote you to Paladin. You can work with the raiders in Nuka World and take out all the settlements in the commonwealth with them, Preston will hate you, but so long as you complete open season, he pretends like none of it happened. You can kill someone in a major city and after a couple days pass they pretend like that murder never happened. No matter what you say, you always end up with the same conclusion, which isn't a good thing for an RPG.
Looking at the main story from the perspective of someone actually in that universe and not from the perspective of someone playing an RPG, the main quest is absolutely bonkers, too. The stars have to align just right for the desired outcome of getting into the Institute, and if even one thing was missing or went wrong, the entire operation would fail. There is no contingency plan for getting inside the institute if Nick had actually been killed by Skinny Malone, or if Dogmeat can't track Kellog to Fort Hagen, if Virgil died in the Glowing Sea, if someone out in the commonwealth couldn't decode a courser chip. Which makes no sense with Shaun making the choice to let you out of Vault 111 "to see what would happen, to see if you would come find me" but like... if you really wanted your parent to be there with you, why make them jump through so many hoops and put them in so much danger? Why compromise classified institute knowledge to one of your biggest enemies?
I love Fallout 4, don't get me wrong. I've played it for hours upon hours. I have some disbelief about whether the vault dwellers going into 111 when the bombs dropped would've survived from the blast they saw (I do get it was meant to be a cinematic set piece to instill fear, despair, and urgency) so I am more in the camp that the 'sole survivor' is actually a synth with a few implanted memories that were put there to give them something to go on and nothing more. An experiment on emotional response, adaptability to stressful situations, resourcefulness... things like that.