Whatcha doin' in the Wasteland?

[Captain Untouchable]

Assuming you're not stuck waiting on downloads or delivery vans, hopefully everyone's made it into the Wasteland by now!

What do you guys think so far?

How many hours did you spend in that insane character generation screen?

How many of you yelled "Say hello to my little friend!" when you [leapt off the top of the museum and opened up on bandits and deathclaws with your minigun?]

I'm enjoying myself so far. I've mostly got sidetracked setting up my little towns and stuff, and fiddle-faffing in the crafting situation. Getting hold of adhesives (which you need to craft just about everything) is a pain in the butt: make sure that your settlements are growing corn, mutfruit, and tato - you can combine these with purified water in the cooking crafting bench, which breaks down into 5 adhesive each time. There's a little farm south-southwestish of where you start off (head for the Concord water tower; it's just on the other side), the farmer's wife had the veggies you need so you can head back to Sanctuary and plant 'em. (The plants need to have people working on them to grow... so make sure you plant them at Sanctuary, and not somewhere that has no people)

Biggest problem I seem to be having so far is ammo. Unless I just haven't managed to work it out yet, there doesn't seem to be an ammo crafting system, and while you can loot plenty of bullets for your pipe gun or shotgun from the bandits you keep killing, .45 or 10mm stuff seems a lot harder to come buy - and it seems to be damn expensive from the scant handful of traders I've stumbled across so far.

The world design is fantastic. There's a flooded quarry just east of where you start out that looks SO COOL, and there seems to be a little more variety (or at least, a little less copy/paste) in building designs than there has been before. The "dungeons" I've done so far have been really enjoyable - one of your early Minuteman quests is to go clear out a Corvega assembly plant... running through all those levels and gantries, trying to sneak past the spotlights without being seen, and taking out bandits with my trusty 10mm Pistol felt almost James Bond levels of cool. (That may have something to do with the fact that my character is currently running around in a tuxedo)

I have had some UI issues, mostly because I'm not using a widescreen monitor (everything is slightly squished, and the lockpicking UI just plain doesn't work), but aside from having to forgo a few safes and locked doors for now, it's not been anything game breaking.

[Charley]

My copy is ready to go on xbone but I'm holding off playing until Christin's pc version finishes downloading. We'll go in unison so as to not spoil each other's experience

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

This game is so damn beautiful

[Zereth Lancer]

My biggest complaint is my OCD "Loot Everything" personality does not work very well here because this time around there is incentive to literally loot everything. All the junk. In addition, it appears that items and enemies respawn in locations so you can just keep going back. I spent a good couple hours trying to loot everything from the Convega Plant. Picking up everything I could carry, dragging it back to town to break down, and then heading back to do it many more times. I eventually ended up giving up on that venture. Now that I have a lot of resources built up I'm trying to be more picky about what I pick up because constantly going back to town to break it down isn't much fun and I don't have any merchants to sell anything to other than the Farmer's Wife.

As for ammo, I was starting to have problems as my 10mm was running low, but then I got my hands on a Laser Rifle that I have tons of ammo for and I think I'll be okay now.

I've been splitting my time between missions and "raiding" locations for stuff. I dislike the towns. They are nicely designed; especially Lexington, but I don't enjoy sifting through all the houses for virtually nothing. The amount of scavenging in this game makes it feel more like a DayZ style game. Sometimes I forget I'm playing Fallout and think I'm playing one of those zombie survival games, especially with all the ghouls in the city instead of bandits.

Still, I'm having a great time in the wasteland.

[Scout Ravenwood]

I can't afford it and don't think my PC could run it so I've got nowhere .

I might just install Fallout 3 or New Vegas, or buy Fallout 1 or something to update with a totally different experience :P

[Halajiin Rabeak]

-- Removed. If I can't say anything nice about my experience in the game, I shouldn't say anything at all. --

[Captain Untouchable]

Planting crops is easy. Go to Resources, then Food, and then place them like any other item. You need one of that crop in your inventory in order to plant it, but that's as complicated as it gets.

[Halajiin Rabeak]

-- Removed. Nobody wants to read me being all bitter. --

[Sadie K'Vesh]

So... Don't do that aspect? It's not like you "lose" the game, right?

I haven't gotten that deep into the town building and all but that's never been my type of game (Minecraft held no interest for me kinda deal) but I'm going to give it a try anyway. If I don't like it...no harm done, there's places to explore! I'm cool with being selfish and letting the community die, I have vengeance to exact and a (totally grown up if not dead) baby to find.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

For me, I absolutely love this new aspect of the game. It lets me deepen my wasteland experience and really put a foothold down that's more than a rented room or hotel floor (Lucky 38). I get to be industrious, and designy, and obsess over where to put my fancy chair and which barstool style to use (ALSO CAT PICTURES TO HANG ON WALLS YESSSSSS).

And then when I decide I'm satisfied for the time being, I can go out and shoot bad guys and live it up.

If I feel like letting the settlers die, then I'll let them die. They want me to do a water thing right now, and I'm ignoring it until I get my wandering fix satisfied. Hell, I may never do it.

That's the beauty of the game. You can ignore shit and do other stuff you would rather want to do.



edit - I actually really really like the new VATS. It makes it a little bit more frantic in a sense, and is very 'hey you can't sit and waffle over what limb you're gonna shoot'.

[Green Arrow]

I've never really used VATS in previous games. Up close it always felt a little cheaty, and at longer ranges I've always seemed to do better with a rifle and a scope than the percentage chance that VATS gives me. I'm much more pistol focused right now though, and the slow motion VATS feels more like dropping Adrenaline Rush as a Soldier in Mass Effect, so I've ended up using it more than I have in previous games. Still not "used" to it / the controls / etc, but I'm not hating the vibe.

I do really like the new skill/perk system. Probably should have researched it better in advance, because I picked my SPECIAL based on how I play New Vegas, and wound up immediately putting points in stuff to unlock crafting prereqs... but I like that lockpicking/hacking/etc is now a perk thing, and I like that the perks all feel more "valuable" now.

Has anyone come across an actual shop yet? Bumped into a few brahmin traders, and there's an NPC here or there who sells stuff, but I haven't found a reliable place to offload stuff / buy ammo yet.

[Droo]

On the new VATS, I can't say I'm a fan. I try clicking on the torso and I end up clicking an arm. So I try again, and click the arm again. In the end, I jib it off and just click anywhere, which, to me, makes VATS a bit redundant. I'm in favour of a challenge, but not when it comes with frustration, and at the cost of fun.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

Yeah, I can understand the frustration on that point with VATS. I've had a few instances like you, where what I thought I was clicking ended up being something else. I'm hoping it becomes easier to peg the more I do it though. Of course, I'm a lot like Jace in that I prefer scopes for long range attacks, so it may be that I hardly use VATS once I get a happy fun time sniper rifle of some sort. I've got the pipe sniper, but only about 6 rounds of .308 so I'm holding off on that one, heh.

[Zereth Lancer]

I didn't use VATS much in the previous games until I ran my Energy Weapon character in New Vegas. If you haven't done an energy weapon build before, one of the strongest builds is maxed out Luck + Perks that strengthen vats. Then you VATS kill everything, get insane crits during it, and get all your AP back from Dead Man's Sprint. Rinse and repeat. It's really strong. So much so that I got to the point in New Vegas that nothing was a challenge. Almost everything I could instantly kill from afar with my laser rifle with stealth damage, and anything else got VATS to death.

The new system is pretty much exactly the same as the old but without the game pausing. As for issues picking out the body parts you want; don't click on them. Use the WASD keys to aim things around. That seems to work for me. Hitting W to go from the torso to the head. I shoot just about everything in the face regardless of my accuracy. I'm less a fan of the new crit system. I liked getting random crits for TONS of damage in New Vegas. However, it does have merits. When I run into a boss or legendary enemy I aim for the head, hit space bar, and get a massive critical hit. Also the critical hit doesn't seem to miss. So that's a plus. I also am specialized into extra crit damage, so I don't know what it looks like without an extra 50% damage. Still useful I would wager. But yeah, I do almost all my fighting without VATS. I use it for tough enemies or hard to hit ones that move too much (Bloat Flies and Molerats are the worst).

If you need a shop there's a merchant in a gas station/cafe just south of the Historic Museum where you first meet the Minutemen. The merchant there is my favorite NPC so far. For a spectrum of merchants go to Diamond City. But be warned. Diamond City is one of those hub towns where you step in and immediately get assaulted with a dozen quests.

Also fighting Synthetics is so much fun. You can shoot their limbs off. I sometimes blow a leg off and watch them crawl around, or I'll shoot off their gun hand and leave them to stand there looking stupid. Synths are so far the hardest hitting enemies I've run into, but they are fragile. Glass cannons. Also fighting so many synthetics has given me so much energy cells I'll never run out of ammo for my laser rifle.

Speaking of which now that I have an okay assortment of weapons things are going much smoother. I have my all around laser rifle, a sniper rifle for long range pick offs, and I just picked up a combat shotgun for close range and boy it packs a wallop. Getting that close gets me killed but it great for ghouls. Also ghouls are downright terrifying in this game. They flock like zombies, and shooting them can wake up more in the area. I had a bunch fall off a rooftop at me in Lexington. That scared the pants off me.

Having the right companion has made the game way better. Dogmeat was okay because he's a cute doggy. Preston was a bore and useless in combat. Now I have Jack Valentine and I enjoy having him along with me, not just for his insight into the world but also because he has actually engaging dialogue. Feels like a real character. Preston feels so two dimensional. I've run into a few other companions who seem like they would be okay to drag around the wastes, but for now Valentine is the one for me.

I'm having more fun now that I've stopped blindly wandering the wasteland and am focusing on actual quests. There are so many locations I can't even imagine picking them all clean. It would take forever. I also stopped picking up everything and nit pick for specific things for the harder to get resources; like oil, adhesives, and electronics. I've let the few settlements I've rescued get by with a few turrets for defense and really fortified Sanctuary Hills. I wish there was an "overseer" mode where you could better equip, position, or assign your followers. It's a hassle to walk around in builder mode doing all those things. I have only seen one raider attack so far and I'm 32 hours into the game. Not sure if I'm just not noticing them happening and my settlers are fighting just fine on their own or the security score is keeping everyone away.

So yeah. The game was REALLY rough starting out. The new mechanics didn't make sense and I felt super week. Now I feel confident. So yeah. 32 hours in. Level 21 I think. I'm only rocking like 6 perks, leveled multiple times, and have dump extra points into intelligence and luck. Some of the perks require pretty high levels to upgrade further, so I guessing the level cap is really high. Not sure what the level cap in the other games was, since I usually became a god of death by level 20 and got bored. I'm pretty excited to try F4 on a harder difficulty in the future. I have a feeling it's going to get easy sooner than later.

Also I hate the male protagonist voice actor. Seriously. He sounds like a naive doofus when he isn't an angry, swearing parent. I hope the female protagonist voice actor is more engaging.

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Female voice actor is Jack from Mass Effect... Thus I just sass the hell out of everyone

(haven't really done much to be honest but no complaints with her so far)

[Dasquian Belargic]

OMG so that's who the voice is. I've spent the whole time playing being like... "hmmm >: I have played as you before haven't I?"

[Halajiin Rabeak]

I'm at level 14 now, and have done a heavy focus on gun upgrades. I have low luck, but high agility and intelligence, so I'm able to sneak around pretty well. I've got myself a fully upgraded hunting rifle that is my sniper rifle, and I can take down a stunted Yao Guai in one shot, plus a combat shotgun maxed out to shred ghouls. The ghouls are massively changed from before, and I find them to be the most engaging enemy. I've only encountered a couple synths, and they've each gone down with a single headshot.

As far as my complaints about the story goes, well, I've found a way around that. I've thrown it out and invented a new one. I'm now an ex washing machine salesman who has grown bitter and disenchanted with a world that has no power or running water. So, as I can't sell washing machines (my one true passion) I am now out to "clean up" the wasteland by doing away with anyone who doesn't want a washing machine (every baddie and monster). This has honestly made the game far more interesting than the real "story," and I'm having loads of fun now that I have character motivation. Lots of sneak, followed by weapons that pack an extreme whallop. Laser rifle has been a handy destroyer of most everything, and I may re-make a laser sniper because it's good against robots.

The first fifteen hours of the game were garbage, to me, and it only became fun after I got equipment that wasn't literally garbage. It became much more fun once I applied my own story, and gave up caring at all about what the writers thought my drive and motivation should be. Still not a fan of VATS, but it's handy for quick little enemies. Pouring all my points into Gun Nut, Science, and stealth skills. Wish I hadn't applied so many to strength in the beginning, that was a waste. And I loathe all my settlers because they refuse the glory of a washing machine, too. The only clothing I keep is "laundered," because that's the only clothing worth having, for a washing machine salesman.

[Charley]

I've finally made it to Diamond City and the wait was worth it. My god, the sheer amount of stuff inside fenway park is ridiculous, and I finally got to put together an armor set based around a Red Sox jersey (even though it doesn't say red sox, we all know who it is).

I'm down to 400 caps and haven't really begun to be a wealthy bastard like I normally do in the other games. Part of that is that I have pretty low charisma, but hopefully that offsets a bit later. I do have plenty of heavily-modified weapons and armor, but it's getting tough to keep up with the curve. Adhesives are the most valuable anythings in the game so far, and if I was a smart man, I'd fix up Sanctuary Hills to one singular purpose of farming every little bit of stuff so I could make vegetable starch.

[Sadie K'Vesh]

Last night I found a raider camp with a tower. I climbed said tower and set off the air raid alarm... and then proceeded to laugh my ass off as an Alpha Deathclaw came out of no where and demolished all the raiders below.

...until I then realized that when it was over I had to go down and deal with him myself.

[Zereth Lancer]

Similarly, I battled through an extensive raider camp (still have to go back and loot it) and dropped down into a pit to continue exploring and ran face to face with an unexpected deathclaw. To say the least I almost died. Scared the crap out of me. I don't know if the Raiders were keeping it as a pet or what. There were corpses everywhere so they were feeding people to the damn thing. It was like their own private Rancor. I'm hoping to find a terminal with lore to support that when I go back in for a second spelunk.

I also aided a ship full of robots that think they are sailors. And watched a Brotherhood of Steel aircraft engage a group of raiders on the ground. It took forever to kill them.