Wraithguard |
Found what I was looking for...
There are apparently some quests and triggers (I don't have a list of all these triggers) that can force an attack, which will ignore everything I'm about to tell you.
A Settlement will only be attacked if it has at least one population.
A Settlement will not be attacked more than once every seven days.
Every day, there's a chance for your Settlement to be attacked:
Base chance: 2%
Resources add to that: (food + water) / 10 %
(Note that food and water items in your workshop inventory count towards these totals. Thanks to /u/matzman666 for pointing that out.)
Defense and population subtract from that: defense + (population / 2) %
Chance of attack never goes below 2%
Settlement with 50 food + water, 10 defense, and 10 settlers = 2 + 5 - 10 - 5 = -8 => 2% (min value)
Settlement with 200 food + water, 0 defense, and 2 settlers = 2 + 20 - 0 - 1 = 21%
I never had much problem with companions, robotic or not on the Xbone One. My most efficient design seemed to be an Assaultron head, Robobrain Body, Handy Jets. I usually gave them two Gatling Lasers, but that was just because I loved the visual.
Scythia |
I'm used to being alone in life, so being alone in a game doesn't bother me. I did use companions about half the time in NV, but often it was for the perk they offered (or because I had to like in Lonesome Road). Honestly, if they'd offered a perk in 3 or NV that buffed you when alone, I would have jumped on it.
Wait, they kind of did... The Lonesome Road perk if you didn't rescue Ed-e. I generally took that option once I learned about it.
As for Curie, she does get a little repetitive. That and the constant sense of wonder she expresses about the mundane details of life gets a bit manic pixie at times. I think my favourite companion for dialogue is probably Piper. She's one of the only ones that doesn't complain when you pick up the junk you need to build things. (I appreciated Ada for the same reason.)
Cole Deschain |
I think my favourite companion for dialogue is probably Piper.
Piper's my favorite all-around in 4... in some weird way, she reminds me of Cass from NV, whose basic humanity was so badly needed in the Courier's earth-shaking story.
Wraithguard |
I don't think I ever traveled with Curie for any length of time. I spent most of my time with Piper and Cait.
Piper reminded me a bit of Cass. Though Cass will likely be my favorite video game companion for a very long time.
Cait on the other hand is a little difficult to explain. In short, she seems like she is broken, and I want to help her get better.
I wish I could examine my own brain and figure it out exactly, but I have a soft spot for broken things. If it's an object, I want to fix it. If it's a person, I want to help. Cait, to me, is a person that is broken in about every sense of the word. Her body is failing. Her mindset is often negative. Given the bit of her history you find out, who could blame her.
Given that read on her character, I want to get her body fixed and give the poor gal a reason to keep living beyond bashing in the next guy that makes a pass at her.
DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |
Piper is my favorite, for story and dialogue. It's weird she doesn't have her own personal quest, for all the dialogue she has. Danse and Macready, for example, have much more involved quests and yet feel far more incomplete (Danse in particular, who feels deeply unfinished, and all the more so if you actually complete his quest in his favor). She has a pretty well fleshed out personality and reacts pretty organically to things.
I liked Cass in FNV but I didn't travel with her massively; Veronica was always my favorite for dialogue and companionship. Might've been the spunky nerdery backed by a steel fist, might've been Felicia Day's voice.
I'm sorry to say Cait felt very generic to me. She's a classic sort of "broken bird" type you meet in video games, tough girl with a heart of gold who you provide some sort of vaguely reassuring words to and then suddenly she loves you... she's basically a poor woman's Annah (from Planescape: Torment), right down to the cussing and punching and red hair and skimpy bodice, with a drug problem tacked on to make her seem less like a ripoff (and I LOVE Annah so a generic lesser Annah doesn't do much for me). Her story arc felt extremely predictable. Nothing shocked or captured my attention about her story. And moreover, some of the "saviorness" of the Sole Survivor's role in her life bugs me. A person doesn't get through drug recovery because someone else tells them to. Drug recovery is a long rocky road that is a deeply personal struggle, and her story did a great disservice, IMO, not only to the importance of self-determination in drug recovery (even if she IS the one who asks to go to Vault 95, you can just nix it and she follows you like a loyal pet anyway), but I also REALLY am bothered by the idea that another person can help "fix" someone else... we can influence people, yes, but a person changes because they want to and for no other reason, and it bugs me in her story, and in many "video game companion" stories how much your player characters basically remove free will and agency from other heroes by being the ones who "save" them by, basically, making their decisions for them, and I felt like there was some of this going on with Cait in particular so I felt uncomfortable playing with her. (Maybe it was good that Piper didn't have a quest, and maybe that's why I like her so much by comparison to Cait and several other of the companions--she saves herself, as she illustrates in many of her stories, and she owns the consequences of her own actions, and is just along for the ride with you.) In short, Cait feels to me like an object that you manipulate, rather than a fully free-willed character--and ergo, she is never actually "saved" from the jerks who use her and tell her what to do--the way I see it, you just use her and tell her what to do benevolently. I am well aware that she has lots of dialogue that denies this, but it doesn't change how things really work between you--but I am also aware because of that dialogue others may see her and her story very differently.
Also, I didn't feel like she REALLY changed much through her story, and she's someone who, like Danse and Curie, gets some of her "pre-quest" quotes mixed in with her post-quest quotes so sometimes it sounds like she's never changed--yeah, sometimes she softens up and then suddenly she's randomly telling you off and it feels a bit like she's got multiple personality disorder.
Also I have Irish step-relatives and the badly done accent makes it hard for me to listen to her. (Ironically, the actress who plays her is Glaswegian, but if she'd done her native accent, she would have sounded like... well... Annah.)
THAT SAID: Some of Cait's dialogue is clever, and she's obviously written to appeal to the kind of person who wants to save a certain type of damsel in distress (and I like to save people too, so I get that). She is funny and badass, and I get why a lot of people like her, and I get that the way I read into her is not the way that others do. She I expect is also fun for someone playing a rough-and-tumble evil-er Sole Survivor who might not reform her and she could prove handy for various encounters a character like that would get into. I like her random commentary, but I ended up enjoying her more just leaving her in my companions-settlement, where her banter with other companions would kick off sometimes and it was amusing. It was worth seeing her story through, certainly, but she's not what makes the game memorable for me, personally.
None of this is to say no one shouldn't like Cait and if you do by all means enjoy her. :)
MeanDM |
So Nuka-Cola DLC had me restarting a new survival game, and I seem to be doing better this time than the last. I've added two mods which help ameliorate the difficulty somewhat, while still keeping the feel. I grabbed the camping mod which allows you to craft sleeping bags at the chemistry station, as well as the Underground Railroad mod which adds 9 or so manhole covers which can be entered and exited from only upon their discovery but can be used for fast travelish means.
I'm playing a female pistolerra with some additional emphasis in strength and intelligence named Eileen (which doesn't seem to be a voice acted name). She is the background provided. A lawyer and wife of a retired military man who was trained to use a pistol for self defense while he was deployed. She's broken by the loss of her family and is convinced her son is as dead as her husband. She chafes under the strictures put on her by Danse, but feels that imposing the rule of law on the wasteland will stop others from suffering as she did, so I see her joining the brotherhood. We'll see what happens in Nuka World, though. I see her as slipping slowly toward lawful evil.
So far it seems to be going well. I spent the first 10 levels or so staying out of Boston itself and that seems to help. I did rescue Preston and crew, but mostly to get to the power armor. I've since moved into exploring some of Boston, and managed to get to Diamond City. I've yet to complete Unlikely Valentine so I haven't made it to far harbor, or even Vault 88. I did stop the ambush that gets you Ada, though. I purposefully have avoided taking missions from Garvey, and only open up settlements when I find them on my own or when asked by members of the settlements under my control directly.
My most recent mission took me to one of the far south settlements on the western part of the map (Jamaica Plains I think). I could have made it to the manhole cover by Fallon Department store, but tried to slog north the whole way. I had to fight off 3 different groups of rust devils, and barely made it out of a flooded town when I was mobbed by a dozen or so ghouls. It was a challenging run. I was glad to make it back to my house built on the roof of the Red Rocket.
Wraithguard |
-Piper
She didn't have a quest did she. That must be why I liked her. She didn't need a player to tell her what to do, she knew what to do already. She just wants someone to talk to about raising her little sister that doesn't treat her different because she makes a newspaper.
-Cass & Veronica.
I think in my head I might have confused my travelling time with the two of them a bit. I traveled with Cass a bit, but not nearly as much as Veronica.
-Companions in General.
It has been a long time since I've played a game where the companions didn't seem overly malleable. "Why sure, I'll make all the important decisions about your life when you are here and then after I'm done I'll have you pick mutated fruit for the rest of existence." I've just had to write off companions in games as being extremely believable.
If I think really hard about it, some old games pop up in my head, I think Baldur's Gate series... Tactics Ogre had one real heart wrenching moment near the end if you don't own up to your mistakes... brain is foggy after that. Not modern games by far, definitely not games that give you free reign over all of creation either.
Companions should ask for help with personally important goals. They should make the decisions about what they specifically want done. If you don't agree, fine, I'm sure they helped you do crap they didn't like. You should be allowed to try and non-violently persuade them to alter their decision slightly (maybe show mercy to some scumbag they wanted to kill earlier) but nothing out of character. Does the companion want to do something terrible and you couldn't sleep knowing you let it happen? Well, violence can solve that. You will be down a companion, probably make some enemies doing it and your other companions might be more than a little upset.
That is just a rough outline of what I would expect a believable companion quest to be. Do you have any specific examples of well made quests DQ?
Cole Deschain |
3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Companions should ask for help with personally important goals. They should make the decisions about what they specifically want done. If you don't agree, fine, I'm sure they helped you do crap they didn't like. You should be allowed to try and non-violently persuade them to alter their decision slightly (maybe show mercy to some scumbag they wanted to kill earlier) but nothing out of character. Does the companion want to do something terrible and you couldn't sleep knowing you let it happen? Well, violence can solve that. You will be down a companion, probably make some enemies doing it and your other companions might be more than a little upset.
That is just a rough outline of what I would expect a believable companion quest to be.
Sounds like... most of the people you get in New Vegas.
Mmmmm.
New Vegas.
DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |
-Companions in General.
It has been a long time since I've played a game where the companions didn't seem overly malleable. "Why sure, I'll make all the important decisions about your life when you are here and then after I'm done I'll have you pick mutated fruit for the rest of existence." I've just had to write off companions in games as being extremely believable.If I think really hard about it, some old games pop up in my head, I think Baldur's Gate series... Tactics Ogre had one real heart wrenching moment near the end if you don't own up to your mistakes... brain is foggy after that. Not modern games by far, definitely not games that give you free reign over all of creation either.
Companions should ask for help with personally important goals. They should make the decisions about what they specifically want done. If you don't agree, fine, I'm sure they helped you do crap they didn't like. You should be allowed to try and non-violently persuade them to alter their decision slightly (maybe show mercy to some scumbag they wanted to kill earlier) but nothing out of character. Does the companion want to do something terrible and you couldn't sleep knowing you let it happen? Well, violence can solve that. You will be down a companion, probably make some enemies doing it and your other companions might be more than a little upset.
That is just a rough outline of what I would expect a believable companion quest to be. Do you have any specific examples of well made quests DQ?
As Cole noted, I'd say the New Vegas companions qualify to a degree. They like and dislike your actions in a fairly organic and specific way (i.e., Cass watches your karma, whereas, say, Veronica will do whatever as long as you don't blow the Brotherhood up, and Boone is very pro-NCR, anti-Legion and most of his reactions go along with that). Most of them decide to follow you for their own reasons, whether it's boredom or wanting a new perspective from a traveler or because they feel they owe you (but in a way that makes sense, like when you rescue Manuel from Tabitha). I think most of them do have a "decision point" where you can effectively change their future just based on what you say... (and then mechanically this changes the perks the companions get). Some of their quests are better about this than others. What is GOOD about these decision points is you can actually say, "It's up to you." What is BAD about these decision points is that most of them choose worse options for their own fate--notably Veronica, who overall has a great quest leading up TO the decision point, inexplicably will choose to stick with the Brotherhood after she's gone above and beyond trying change things and failing, and it feels out of character based on the dialogues you've just had with her (her loyalty to the Brotherhood notwithstanding). That she chooses to stick with the status quo after she spends half the game trying to buck it doesn't make any sense to me, and it feels like they made her pick the worse option (in terms of her endgame story) just because they wanted YOU to be the one to make the better choice for her (if it felt in character, I wouldn't mind so much, or if they didn't give her such downer endings--after all, there is the issue if she does go your way, a bunch of innocent people get killed). BUT there are exceptions... Cass's choice isn't really better or worse for her, it's more about what you yourself are willing to live and go along with (and following what Cass wants nets a good story with IIRC no really worse outcome than the alternative). And Lily will stick with what helps her keep her sense of self. Still, what's great about, say, Veronica's quest UNTIL you get to the decision is it's about HER: she wants to see the world, she's glad to have you as a companion, but this is something she's doing for herself and her organization, and she's using you as a sounding board, not a decision-maker. Which is why her decision point itself feels weirdly out of place once you get there. It's a good example of both what to do
I'd need to replay the game, but I recall some of the Pillars of Eternity companions had good stories, but there may have been some ubermalleability that I don't distinctly recall.
I like the games that have people react to your choices--that they might leave you if they're not cool with what you decide to do on various things. Fallout 4 actually does this, but the problem is they cast the net sometimes too wide and sometimes too narrow with what makes a companion "like" you. Piper will come to adore you if you pick locks and outright avoid being a puppy-kicking tyrant. Strong on the other hand is notoriously hard to please (and the fact that he dislikes lockpicking makes him almost impossible to play with at least based on my exploration-based playstyle--I'm sorry, if it's locked, I need to know what's in or behind it and that's all).
I think generally a companion should follow you for their own reasons, and your influence should feel subtle--as you mentioned Baldur's Gate, some of the companions over time would grow crueller or mellow out based on your actions and interactions, but there was never a "should I stop being evil, Y/N?" choice that made it feel weird.
PArt of why it may be harder (but not impossible) in newer games is because of voice acting... when it was all text based, you could write novels of character interaction. Now that AAA developers feel pressured (often by publishers if not the player-base) to have everything as "cinematic" as possible, with everything voice-acted,you limit the dialogue because you've gotta pay the actor and the sound engineer and the studio rent and only have so much time to get it done.
I hope at least some of the above made sense.
Wraithguard |
New Vegas
New Vegas was pretty good about it (not written by Bethesda like you mentioned) and you hit all the companions that I recall as well. I felt pretty bad for Veronica's choices at the end, definitely no good answer. I think Arcade was one that felt a little too malleable to me. His choice is based on how you talked about prior events and then you can make him reverse his thinking. (It's ok, didn't say the right stuff, you can still get his shiny family power armor) Boone was a good one. Side with the Legion and that gun gets pointed at you. Don't piss off the NCR either. I think Cass's choice was more of sticking it to the family through the NCR or giving into violence.
Was it Raul, the gunslinger turned mechanic? Wasn't his thing just wanting to meet other elders around the Mojave that are still contributing members of society? If that is it, his wasn't very intensive or character breaking.
Fallout 4
For the most part I think you are right. It just seems that for some of them you can do something terrible, but so long as you pick enough locks, drink enough booze, or hack enough computers they will still think you are a saint after a little while. Preston surprised me when he grew a spine after he learned I was the leader of some raiders. Finally something that pissed a companion off enough to leave despite how much they idolized you before hand.
Voice acting
Right on the money there. I'd rather be given lots of options and need to read them. Oh well.
Perhaps I'm remembering more of the exceptionally malleable characters than the grounded ones.
I do enjoy these conversations, hopefully things are still going alright for you.
DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |
New Vegas was pretty good about it (not written by Bethesda like you mentioned) and you hit all the companions that I recall as well. I felt pretty bad for Veronica's choices at the end, definitely no good answer. I think Arcade was one that felt a little too malleable to me. His choice is based on how you talked about prior events and then you can make him reverse his thinking. (It's ok, didn't say the right stuff, you can still get his shiny family power armor) Boone was a good one. Side with the Legion and that gun gets pointed at you. Don't piss off the NCR either.
Boone's was also basically a quest you do to get him to join you, so once he's with you it's more about how he maintains his respect for you, or not.
I think Cass's choice was more of sticking it to the family through the NCR or giving into violence.
Right, and while her preference was to be violent, her priority was dealing with the problem itself and she knew she couldn't do it alone. So her going along with you if you decided a more peaceful route, as opposed to her violent preference, was less "you are deciding my fate and I will robotically agree with whatever you do" than "I don't want to do this alone, so I'll compromise with you on this." And while I don't remember all the character endings, if you do what she wants, she doesn't particularly suffer for it (compared to Veronica).
Was it Raul, the gunslinger turned mechanic? Wasn't his thing just wanting to meet other elders around the Mojave that are still contributing members of society? If that is it, his wasn't very intensive or character breaking.
That was the arc of his quest. There is a decision point at the end where he asks you if you think he should remain a half-retired mechanic or go fully back to his gunslinging ways. I don't remember what his own preference is. Neither result causes him to suffer or have a sad ending, it just changes which perk you get (though he gets a cool outfit if he goes back to being a vaquero).
Fallout 4: For the most part I think you are right. It just seems that for some of them you can do something terrible, but so long as you pick enough locks, drink enough booze, or hack enough computers they will still think you are a saint after a little while. Preston surprised me when he grew a spine after he learned I was the leader of some raiders. Finally something that pissed a companion off enough to leave despite how much they idolized you before hand.
Well, Danse also leaves you under various appropriate circumstances. I think Deacon has a similar "how could you" speech if you side with the Institute. I agree that having Preston do that if you go a certain way in Nuka World was really good.
But it's not necessarily very consistent. And Danse loses points for continuing to both say anti-synth BS and talking about how awesome the Brotherhood after he's been kicked out... AND yet also gleefully shooting down any vertibirds that fly over the settlement. He was just very badly programmed.
Voice acting
Right on the money there. I'd rather be given lots of options and need to read them. Oh well.
Perhaps I'm remembering more of the exceptionally malleable characters than the grounded ones.
My memories of video games can be very unreliable sometimes either in overstating what's bad or over-inflating what I thought was good. I think a lot of video games have lacking stuff for companions, and while Bethesda has come far especially with Fallout 4, they need work.
Although sometimes simple, non questy, non-judgemental companions who just happily slay for you in the direction you point in can be fun too. I can't even explain why, but I will forever adore Lydia from Skyrim.
I do enjoy these conversations, hopefully things are still going alright for you.
Indeed, me too! Thanks.
Wraithguard |
Danse
On my first time through the game I wouldn't even have realized that he was supposed to be a companion if I hadn't read about him on here. He seemed rather content and well set in the organization. Why would he even think about following around some underling unless it was on Brotherhood business.
Of course, the Elder could have always just told him to "Follow them around, I have high hopes for them." I felt really bad for Danse when he had to get hunted down, and for my low Cha character it was a death sentence. I fully expected resistance when I went into that bunker; turrets and power armored beast. What I found was a very confused but dedicated man. What did he say, something like "I won't be the exception, I'll be the example."
Deacon
I didn't travel around with him at all except that Switchboard mission. I could hack and he didn't seem like a very interesting person.
I think I'm figuring out the people I need to wander around with next time, just to get to know them better. Curie, Danse, Deacon... how is Hancock?
Skyrim
My first time playing I had Lydia follow me around for the majority of the game. I enjoyed having her around for the fun of beating stuff up. Every run through the game since then I have gone without companions whenever I can. They just got in the way of my sneaking and stabbing for the most part.
Now that you mention the more murderhobo-for-hire type companions from Skyrim; was Fallout 4 Bethesda's first whack at complex companions?
From my memory:
Oblivion had some companions, but they were definitely more like hirelings.
Skyrim had lots of companions and had very broad recruitment circumstances, but none were very deep.
Fallout 3 had companions, but I never used one. From what I've read, none of them were complex.
Cole Deschain |
Fallout 3 had companions, but I never used one. From what I've read, none of them were complex.
They were fragile little things... died outright, instead of the "down but not out" thing later iterations of the games would use.
No point investing much into the story of Star Paladin Cross if the idiot is going to pick a fight with three Enclave troops and get blasted to goop in, no joke, the first five minutes she's on board (happened the first AND second times I got her).
Claxon |
I really wish rather than giving us a lot of companion options they would just give us more interesting companions. Make the backstories in depth. Make me care dammit!
Most of the companions in Fallout 4 made very little sense to me. They would have made much better NPCs.
Preston would have been much better as the Minute Men General who provides missions to his right hand man who can get anything done. We should have been his special Ops wetwork Seal Team 6 from the beginning.
With Danse, we should have been his protege working for the brotherhood. Maybe worked our way up to companion (but not by doing stupid seek and find missions).
Valentine had probably the best integration and background out of all the companions.
Cait...if they had made the combat zone more than just "enter this room and kill everyone" it could have been really cool. We could have explored a tragic backstory with her...except all we get is one mission to cure her drug addiction.
These characters were a move in the right direction, but not enough IMO.
Cole Deschain |
Eh, Piper's story is neat because like Nick she'd have things to do even if she never met the Sole Survivor.
But yeah... the majority of Fallout 4's companions felt like decaf after New Vegas. I honestly cared about Cass, Boone, Veronica, Raul, hell, even Lily, whose story is pretty basic. I wanted them to be okay- or as okay as possible. Friggin' Rex had a better story arc than most of the companions in 4, and his whole story was "cyber-dog needs a replacement brain."
DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |
On my first time through the game I wouldn't even have realized that he was supposed to be a companion if I hadn't read about him on here. He seemed rather content and well set in the organization. Why would he even think about following around some underling unless it was on Brotherhood business.
Apparently there's a huge chunk of cut content where you can challenge Maxson when he tells you to kill Danse, and then arrange to elevate Danse to Elder instead (files have been found that indicate this). As far as I know, the reason this didn't happen I guess was so he could be or remain a companion, but I think perhaps he would have been a more compelling character, even if not companion, had this been the case.
I also would feel a heck of a lot better about playing Brotherhood if I could depose Maxson.
In fact on a recent playthrough, I found myself wishing I could take Scribe Haylen with me instead of Danse. It WOULD make sense for her to travel with you rather than a paladin unit leader. But I guess with her being a scribe and all, they didn't want a "Veronica-like" companion (which is understandable).
Deacon
I didn't travel around with him at all except that Switchboard mission. I could hack and he didn't seem like a very interesting person.
Deacon has one of those personalities that can be very YMMV, but IMO he is worth sticking around with to get to know. He does seem annoyingly cocky at first and... well, stays somewhat annoyingly cocky, but he does have some interesting stories, and if you play Railroad in particular, he's absolutely worth getting to know and getting his perspective. Second to Piper, he has some really good reaction barks to areas you go to as well.
Mechanically, I don't know what it is in terms of how he's programmed, but I'd SWEAR he is the best companion to be sneaky with. When you enter stealth mode, he will stealth with you, and importantly, stay out of your way. No Lydia death-charge while you're trying to stealth around. So even if you don't need a hacker, he is worth traveling with if you want to do a stealth build.
I think I'm figuring out the people I need to wander around with next time, just to get to know them better. Curie, Danse, Deacon... how is Hancock?
Curie is good to play through with once, and at one point I was rather obsessed with her. On replay she feels a lot more repetitive. Danse's story was worth seeing once too, but unless I play Brotherhood, I feel no need to recruit him ever again.
Hancock is oddly similar to Deacon in that he's kind of rebellious and cocky, though more Chaotic Neutral to Deacon's Chaotic Good. He can be very fun to travel with if you like the sarky types. His quest is a "help him out with this particular problem" not "decide his life choices for him" kind of story which is a definite plus. Whether you want to travel with him only to see his story or keep him as your main companion depends a lot on your tastes. Combat-wise he's pretty useful. His "boon" is that he gives you free chems which may be good or not; it's at least something you can sell.
The only companion I haven't played much with is X6-88 and I'm actually curious to see what he's like if you gain max affinity with him. I might zip up my current playthrough (I'm currently faffing about making Vault 88 successful and wasting a massive amount of time building hallways) so I can get to the Institute and recruit him... but I'm aways away from that as I haven't even rescued Nick yet. I got stuck in Vault-Tec Workshop and Automatron.
Skyrim
My first time playing I had Lydia follow me around for the majority of the game. I enjoyed having her around for the fun of beating stuff up. Every run through the game since then I have gone without companions whenever I can. They just got in the way of my sneaking and stabbing for the most part.
I tend to use them as decoys when I need them and travel alone otherwise. I have a thief build where my sneak is high enough that enemies will notice a companion but not me and that can be used to definite advantage.
Lydia was given some added dialogue in some patches and in the Dragonborn expansion... nothing questy, just extra barkstrings and the like, but it helps make her fun. There's some other companions that are also interesting at least on the short term... nothing like an Obsidian companion, but add a little flavor, like the dark elf lady you get for the Azura quest.
Now that you mention the more murderhobo-for-hire type companions from Skyrim; was Fallout 4 Bethesda's first whack at complex companions?
I would say Bethesda's first real "whack" at it was the vampire lady in Skyrim: Dawnguard. They worked pretty hard at giving her some depth and her dialogue was mostly pretty good as was her story. The only issue was that she seemed to dig you, but you couldn't marry her, which seemed odd. Maybe they didn't want to give her the canned dialogue the other spouses get in Hearthfire.
Fallout 3 had companions, but I never used one. From what I've read, none of them were complex.
It's been so long since I've played, but I think Sarah Lyons is a companion, and she was the only one who had ANY sort of story at all. It was a decent story, but nothing like Fallout 4 though. Fawkes was kind of interesting at first, but doesn't have much development.
They were fragile little things... died outright, instead of the "down but not out" thing later iterations of the games would use.
In one case, one got a great ending. I got Charon, who is supposed to be a dedicated bodyguard who, if I recall, feels rather disconnected from things. You essentially win him and he protects you because he feels that's his purpose.
I accidentally triggered an encounter with a super mutant behemoth way before I was really ready for it. I had no easy way out, and the only thing I had that would do any real damage to it were some bottlecap mines. Charon bravely ran in to engage the behemoth which bought me desperately needed time to place the cap mines and run to safety. I stood up from setting the mines in time to see the behemoth literally throw Charon several feet through the air, akin to a Skyrim giant. I ran back, the behemoth followed and triggered the mines, and between Charon's damage and the cap mines, he was dead. I ran over... waaaay over... to where Charon landed. He was dead.
I did not reload. I decided it was an epic and fitting end to that bodyguard's tale.
And that's the thing about Bethesda... the intentional writing is often shallow. But the world building is so deep that the stories you "accidentally" create can be fascinating.
But overall the companions in F3 were largely meat (or metal) puppets, unfortunately. Skyrim's companions, with some more responsiveness and improved (comparatively) AI were actually head and shoulders above in improvement. Likewise Fallout 4 is head and shoulders above Skyrim.
But yeah... the majority of Fallout 4's companions felt like decaf after New Vegas.
As I said earlier in this thread, I don't expect the taste of Obsidian cider when drinking Bethesda orange juice. They just have different strengths and weaknesses. And that said, while Fallout 4's companions need work, they have vastly, vastly, vastly improved since, as discussed Skyrim and definitely since Fallout 3. So they are obviously learning and working on improving that.
As I also said earlier in this thread, I think Bethesda's problem is they bite off more than they could chew. If they had half the companions and developed them twice as much--imagine, say, a fully fleshed out Codsworth, Piper, Hancock, Macready, and maybe Curie or Cait or Strong to round them out. Leave the faction companions out (save as perhaps temporary, additional followers for faction specific quests). It would still have been more than enough companions to choose from and they would have had much better stories I expect.
(Also I have never understood the bizarre obsession Bethesda has for Dogmeat.)
But Bethesda's strength and weakness is they excel at breadth, and not at depth.
The Mad Comrade |
In Pathfindereze, Dogmeat is to the protagonist as the PF iconics' assorted critter companions are. They always have [whichever] pet/companion/mount/familiar/phantom/[insert usually superfluous meat shield here]. Dogmeat's in all the promo stuff and a fair chunk of the art assets and at this point the pooch has been incarnated throughout every incarnation of Fallout in some form or another.
Presuming a Fallout 5, for the love of God lemme pick a different name than Dogmeat.
Cole Deschain |
(Also I have never understood the bizarre obsession Bethesda has for Dogmeat.)
Pure nostalgia for the mad hype of the first Fallout.
And a callback to "A Boy and His Dog," whose fingerprints were ALL OVER the worldbuilding of Fallout.But mostly nostalgia.
DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |
Sorry, I should have clarified: I know where Dogmeat comes from. I still don't get why they feel it's so essential. It's pretty easy to go through the first game and never encounter Dogmeat, so he's obviously not crucial to the story and the experience. I never encountered him in 2 either (can you even get him in 2?), though I got the Unlucky Dog, who rather hilariously maximized my own Jinx trait, and often my enemies would die by shooting or punching themselves in the face.
The first time I ever encountered Dogmeat was in 3, where he promptly got killed about 5 minutes within our making acquaintance of one another. I did play with Rex, but Rex isn't Dogmeat.
It's Bethesda who seems to think it's crucial to the Fallout experience. Of course he's in all the materials, because Bethesda puts them there. I guess it's just that Dogmeat's never figured that much into my own Fallout experience--and again, the first couple games I usually don't even run into him, so I don't see how an expendable chance encounter should be seen as iconic. No, Bethesda should not make their marketing based on my personal experiences, but I've never been able to experience why he's such a big deal, and in 4, since you can't have other companions if you take him, I never bother.
MeanDM |
Has anyone used the Unified Clothing Overhaul mod? I'm thinking of using it, but one of the things mentioned was all clothing having ballistic weave. Is this something that happens automatically, or do I have to specifically select it as an option. I'd like the challenge of still having to look for ballistic fiber and craft the items specifically.
DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |
Cole Deschain |
It's Bethesda who seems to think it's crucial to the Fallout experience.
Once again, in the first Fallout, there were many tales of people bending over backward to keep the friggin' less-than-essential dog alive, so he because the game's unofficial non-Vault Boy mascot.
And, you know. People like dogs.
Admittedly, I'd prefer it if they went the Rex route and the dogs were different from one another in even just cosmetic ways, but... eh.
Scythia |
In regards to the Fallout 3 companions, there were two exceptions to the fragile meat shield status. Broken Steel added companion scaling to match your level. In the case of Fawkes, this meant a ridiculous HP pool when you reached max level. Fragile he was not. Dogmeat was similarly improved, with max HP not far from a supermutant behemoth, and an available perk that would cause him to respawn if he did die.
The only F3 companion I traveled with for any length was Clover on my evil character. After finding it annoying to keep her alive, I just left her in Tenpenny as my housekeeper.
DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |
DeathQuaker wrote:It's Bethesda who seems to think it's crucial to the Fallout experience.Once again, in the first Fallout, there were many tales of people bending over backward to keep the friggin' less-than-essential dog alive, so he because the game's unofficial non-Vault Boy mascot.
I bent over backwards to keep my shotgun wife Maria alive, but we don't see her in every game. ;)
And, you know. People like dogs.
People like Maria too! ;)
Admittedly, I'd prefer it if they went the Rex route and the dogs were different from one another in even just cosmetic ways, but... eh.
Fallout 2 had a whole slew of dogs to choose from. The intent seemed to be by Interplay to allow for canine companions, not one particular one.
Don't get me wrong, I just wish I could see the magic that apparently captures Bethesda's attention in this area. :) Ah well.
On other subjects....
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I played the Railroad to death in prior playthroughs and so I've largely avoided them in this go-round... and the loss of ballistic weave is kind of palpable. Though I'm trying to stick with modded Vault-Tec suits with armor on for theming purposes, later upgrading to Institute gear.
But I miss the ballistic weave so very much.
DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |
As Scythia said, you have to destroy the Railroad if you want to be on the Institute (which I assume you mean as "Vault-Tec's descendants") or the Brotherhood's side, and if you've been assisting the Railroad it means you betray them, but I'm not sure there's a scene where you so much sell them out as obliterate them.
DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |
Cole Deschain |
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I have to admit that the Fallout series has helped encourage my love of Jazz and classical music.
I always find myself gnashing my teeth at certain omissions...
I mean, I know music rights aren't free, but... would it KILL 'em to get a little Vera Lynn or Edith Piaf or Charles Trenet?
Yeah, yeah, they're foreign in a game built upon Americana, but... COME ONNNNNNNNNN!
DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I've wished Far Harbor came with Edith Piaf's "La Mer" (and as I look that up I discover it was originally Charles Trenet's, but the song has been covered a LOT in French and English). Some of it may be rights and some of it may be finding stuff that's vaguely thematically appropriate, since a lot of the stuff they try to get has to do with war or fighting or bombs or the end of the world, etc. But given a lot of Bethesda's chosen settings are on a coast, I think "La Mer" would be appropriate if not for a current then future installment.
Wraithguard |
I listened to the music in the game for awhile, but I think I just preferred the relative silence of a muted radio at some point. I'll try to keep the radio on next time, I certainly did in Fallout 3 and New Vegas.
Next Character:
I think the next character I make will be a former raider that wants to restore order to the wealth. They will probably be a bit more callous than my normal characters, but I don't imagine a paragon of kindness appearing from raiders very often.
Something I read:
I generally read a gaming magazine when I can during cardio. Not every time though; it's hard to read running an interval. The main article in this magazine was a "Top 100 RPGs". I thought it was fitting that "0" was Dungeons & Dragons.
Other games:
I completed Horizon: Zero Dawn a while ago. I was looking through my game library and saw that they made a New Game+ and a Ultra Hard difficulty. I started that up last night and it definitely lives up to the name so far.
DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I go through phases of listening to the radio constantly, then shutting it off and just enjoying the environment (or shut it off because I need to sneak). I usually don't listen to the Classical Station--the music is good, but I actually enjoy Travis. ;) And after my first playthrough, I never do the "Confidence Man" quest (I wish there was a way to effing dismiss it from your quest list, because it will force-appear even if you run away from Vadim every time you enter the Dugout). Firstly, I find his quest deeply troubling (the stereotype of "get a nerd laid and into a fight and suddenly he will have a massive personality reboot" I find toxically problematic--the idea that what "makes a 'real' man" is sex and violence; yes, I know they try to sell it as funny but I don't like it), and secondly I find his anxious persona far more interesting to listen to. He seems like a much more real person and his reactions are more funny. Also, Vadim's a dick and I don't want to help him.
wraithguard, on your raider idea: Are you just ignoring the Sole Survivor standard background, or going with the idea of murderous-rage-survivor settles down? Will you try to do Nuka World ASAP to build raider-based settlements?
Wraithguard |
I was going to use an alternate starting mod that removes you entirely from the Sole Survivor starting stuff. You get a note to head into the Vault and find a holotape that directs you to Diamond City on the missing persons thing.
One start available is a raider. You start off with some modest gear in a camp of a few raiders. The raiders are friendly to you but just stand around waiting for something to kill, like normal I guess.
I figured I would start with that with the "raider looking at the bigger picture". I don't know that I'll run to Nuka World immediately, but it will probably be one of the first places I head to when I can take the punishment that area doles out.
Probably end up ignoring the Minutemen entirely, might even look for a mod so I can actually kill normally essential NPCs. We'll see when I get there though, that'll probably be a long while.
DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |
If you become a leader of the Raiders in Nuka-World, Preston becomes non-essential, IIRC. Marcy and Jun are no longer essential at all as of a patch (too many players pressured Bethesda to make Marcy in particular nonessential), and I think Mama Murphy and Sturges become nonessential after the main plot is over and/or you become enemies of the Minutemen.
Sharoth |
That's nice to know. Perhaps I won't even need to bother getting a mod for that then anyways.
I do have a bone to pick with Preston from an old game... he walked off with a suit of fully upgraded X-01 power armor and disappeared from the game.
~LAUGHTER~ And that is why the power core ALWAYS gets removed from the power armor when I leave it.
DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |
The sad thing is you can instruct your companions to enter power armor on purpose (which I've done intentionally; in my more completionist playthrough, Cait is guarding Starlight Drive-In in a suit of T-60). If they get stuck somewhere, you might lose them and the suit.
If you have the Vault-Tec Workshop add-on, there's a device you can build called something like the "Vault-Tec Population Management System" or whatnot--looks like a tall white terminal. You can build these in ANY settlement, not just Vault 88. One of the functions of the system is you can track your companions. Set the system to look for one (or all) of your companions, and a "Quest" will appear on your Quest journal; the Quest marker shows the location of that companion. You still have to travel to that location and pick them up (one of those things that New Vegas did better, where you could just remote-dismiss and/or send companions elsewhere), but I have used it when companions have appeared to have wandered off. Curie for some reason, in spite of her complaining about Vaults, decided she wanted to stick around in Vault 75 (or got stuck in the elevator) and I had to run back and get her.
At least it's better than when you lose a companion in Skyrim (sorry to keep linking to those I just really like them).
Wraithguard |
Worst part is Sharoth, I just hopped out to easily fit inside a building to talk to someone. That is when he hopped in and walked off. Walked back outside and did a "Dude, where's my power armor?"
I had just completed Nuka World though, so I had the Nuka Power Armor sitting around somewhere to use. I think that game ended a little bit after that though because I ran out of stuff I wanted to do. It was one of my first characters and I was just running quests as they popped up without any thought behind it.
I experimented with those a little bit DQ, but mainly just to keep track of overall responsibilities and easy assignment of jobs. I did find a mod that allowed for the production of power armor frames and also assigning settlers to power armor. Seemed like something fun to do if I ran into a bunch of fusion cores.
DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |
I wish you could assign settlers to power armor in vanilla. I think you can ask them to exit it if you're lucky. I always find so many freakin' suits of it, and only one or two favorite suits I actually use, and I'd rather have my settlers make use of it. I've put it near my guard stations with a core inside, but sometimes they won't enter it even if it's right there. Of course they always will if it's your suit and you don't want them to have it.
I've not been trying to go out of my way finding power armor, and I still have a full suit of T-45 and two full suits of T-60, plus several spare pieces of T-45, T-60, and maybe a piece of T-51 lying around without a frame. I did have to buy a frame because I screwed up dealing with some Gunners--saw the empty suit, thought the commander who owned it was dead, got noisy, and she woke up and jumped in it before I could steal it. I wasn't able to get an angle on her to shoot the core, so I had to settle for killing her normally and taking the armor pieces, but you don't get the frame that way. And I only did that because I was being lazy and not wanting to swap between pieces for what I wanted.
In my prior game, where I was trying to do everything possible, I think I had something ridiculous like 10-15 suits of power armor, plus a huge number of spare armor pieces. The Vim and Nuka suits from the DLCs added to this. I like power armor but it was a little crazy.