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Gryphonadmin
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Apr-17-24, 04:02 PM (EDT)
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"fundamentally unsatisfying"
 
   12+ years later, I remain impressed (in a grumpy way) that the writers of Skyrim structured the civil war plotline in such a perfectly unsatisfactory way. You can't stay the hell out of it, and neither side is any damn good. You can either back the jackbooted imperialist toadies sniveling under the thumbs of the elven SS, or Viking Mussolini and his gang of boneheaded racist thugs setting fire to their own house because they don't like the HOA-imposed siding choices. Nobody deserves to win, and there is no New Vegas-style "no gods, no masters" option. Whomever you back, it leaves a bad taste, and either way the Nazi Elves ultimately win.

"But it's realistic," said Bethesda's people when called out about it, as though that were some sort of laudable priority in a game where the player character can yell loud enough to ragdoll an NPC halfway to Vvardenfell.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
  RE: fundamentally unsatisfying CdrMike Apr-17-24 1
     RE: fundamentally unsatisfying Gryphonadmin Apr-18-24 3
  RE: fundamentally unsatisfying Kendra Kirai Apr-17-24 2
     RE: fundamentally unsatisfying Gryphonadmin Apr-18-24 4
         RE: fundamentally unsatisfying Kendra Kirai Apr-19-24 6
             RE: fundamentally unsatisfying Gryphonadmin Apr-19-24 7
             RE: fundamentally unsatisfying VoidRandom Apr-19-24 8
  RE: fundamentally unsatisfying Sofaspud Apr-18-24 5
     RE: fundamentally unsatisfying CdrMike Apr-19-24 9
  RE: fundamentally unsatisfying CdrMike Apr-26-24 10

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CdrMike
Member since Feb-20-05
901 posts
Apr-17-24, 05:44 PM (EDT)
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1. "RE: fundamentally unsatisfying"
In response to message #0
 
   I played 100+ hours in Fallout 3 across the base game and all the DLCS.

I probably played double that in New Vegas doing 100% playthroughs (including DLCs) for NCR, House, and Independent endings.

I have never finished a single playthrough of Skyrim or Fallout 4. I've played tens of hours in both, only to hit the same "Why am I doing this?" wall every time.

To add insult to injury, I started to regain interest in trying Fallout 4 again because of the impending release of Fallout: London...only for Bethesda to announce a next-gen update that will (as is tradition) break all mods until the mod authors can find time to update them.

--------------------------
CdrMike, Overwatch Reject

"You know, the world could always use more heroes." - Tracer, Overwatch


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Gryphonadmin
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Apr-18-24, 00:02 AM (EDT)
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3. "RE: fundamentally unsatisfying"
In response to message #1
 
   >I have never finished a single playthrough of Skyrim or
>Fallout 4. I've played tens of hours in both, only to hit the
>same "Why am I doing this?" wall every time.

I know I've finished Skyrim at least once, and I think I finished Fallout 4 once, but I agree that Oblivion and Fallout 3/NV have more... uh... narrative momentum? Something like that.

On my previous gaming rig, I had a mod installed (Tale of Two Wastelands) that basically attached Fallout 3 to the beginning of New Vegas, so that you could start in the Capital Wasteland and go straight through to conquering the Mojave Wasteland with the same character. Now that is a long-ass gaming experience. I tried to set it up on this computer when I got it a couple years ago, but something had changed in the interim to the point where I couldn't get it to work. :(

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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Kendra Kirai
Member since May-22-16
587 posts
Apr-17-24, 11:46 PM (EDT)
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2. "RE: fundamentally unsatisfying"
In response to message #0
 
   The best you can do, I think, is just murder everyone. I’m hoping that the next game will be the player putting a stop to the Thalmor. It’d serve them right, having their like 600 year long plans wrecked in a week and a half by some scraggly Khajiit hopped up on so much moonsugar he doesn’t know what year it is just because he’s Fateless and he thinks they’re potato people from mars.


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Gryphonadmin
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Apr-18-24, 00:38 AM (EDT)
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4. "RE: fundamentally unsatisfying"
In response to message #2
 
   >The best you can do, I think, is just murder everyone.

The game won't let me! I've slaughtered every Thalmor patrol I've run across, naturally, but the ones hanging around in, e.g., the jarl's palace in Markarth are literally unkillable, which really shackles my buzz.

A little while ago I randomly decided to see if I could kill the Thalmor duo in Castle Bruma (in a mod that adds northern Cyrodiil to the game). Hit by a power attack with a war axe from behind, the assistant died instantly, but his boss proved to be immortal. With him imminently going to pull that bullshit auto-rez unkillable TES characters do and every guard in Bruma after my ass, I figured I would have to reload (which I always intended to do anyway), but while he was crawling around on the floor being not-quite-dead, one of the huge crowd of guards forced me into dialogue... and demanded 1080 gold.

So I paid my bounty, everybody put their swords away, and I walked out free and clear. It turns out that's how much it costs to slaughter an Imperial Thalmor liaison's assistant in cold blood right in front of the Count of Bruma's throne, assault his boss to within an inch of his life, and accidentally tag one of the guards in the fracas. Cheap!

Since then, every time I go into the county hall with that character, the assistant's corpse is still lying right where I axed him, and the main Thalmor guy acts like it never happened. These games really weren't ready for their worlds to be as open as they are. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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Kendra Kirai
Member since May-22-16
587 posts
Apr-19-24, 01:08 AM (EDT)
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6. "RE: fundamentally unsatisfying"
In response to message #4
 
   I was talking to a friend about this after I posted that and we came to the conclusion that the Dragonborn's story is fundamentally a closed circle. You don't really DO anything of any true substance that wasn't ultimately caused by you trying to stop the thing that happened because you accidentally set into motion.

Also, that no matter what, the Thalmor were going to win, the entire conflict was set up to weaken the north for them, in a plan that was started long before you the player came along and wouldn't see fruition long after the Dragonborn is gone.

Which is why I'm hoping that we get to put an end to it in the next game, over the course of an in-universe weekend. (Preferably, for me, as the most cracked-out felinoid to ever chase a laser pointer, an absolute cryptid of a being who has been living in the woods hopped up on homemade skooma and only reentering society because he finally ran out of ingredients.)
Just run up, dismantle a scheme that's literally like six centuries in the making, and peace out whole looting everything not nailed down, then kiting everyone into some modded super mudcrabs.


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Gryphonadmin
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Apr-19-24, 01:50 AM (EDT)
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7. "RE: fundamentally unsatisfying"
In response to message #6
 
   >(Preferably, for me,
>as the most cracked-out felinoid to ever chase a laser pointer, an
>absolute cryptid of a being who has been living in the woods hopped up
>on homemade skooma and only reentering society because he finally ran
>out of ingredients.)

Doesn't even bother making skooma any more, just snorts straight moon sugar off the back of an elven dagger.

My current Skyrim character is an Argonian, because although the game rarely mentions it, I reckon nobody on either side would have the faintest idea what the hell to make of a swamp lizard with the power of the ancient Nordic gods. Also because they can breathe water and that's super handy sometimes. :)

One of these days, maybe I'll play as an Altmer who joins the Stormcloaks and mysteriously hates the Thalmor even more than Ulfric does. "High Elves out of Skyrim! Except for me, obvs."

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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VoidRandom
Member since Dec-9-02
185 posts
Apr-19-24, 01:58 AM (EDT)
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8. "RE: fundamentally unsatisfying"
In response to message #6
 
   >Which is why I'm hoping that we get to put an end to it in the next
>game, over the course of an in-universe weekend. (Preferably, for me,
>as the most cracked-out felinoid to ever chase a laser pointer, an
>absolute cryptid of a being who has been living in the woods hopped up
>on homemade skooma and only reentering society because he finally ran
>out of ingredients.)

I hasn't realized the game let you play a felinoid Spider Jerusalem.

-VR
TIL: Spider's middle names are Django Heraclitus.
"They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't copy my mind,
And I left 'em sweating and stealing a year and a half behind."


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Sofaspud
Member since Apr-7-06
433 posts
Apr-18-24, 12:05 PM (EDT)
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5. "RE: fundamentally unsatisfying"
In response to message #0
 
   "fundamentally unsatisfying" is a good phrase, probably the best description I've come across of my problem with Fallout 4 (and Skyrim, but Skyrim is less my jam to begin with, so I didn't try as hard).

FO4 on paper *should* be the creme de la creme, the absolute guided missile targeting my happy buttons. But the story just... kills it.

I still play the game. Several hundred hours to date. But I've never 'finished' it, because the story just irritates me so damn much. I love every other aspect, even (so help me) the inherent silliness that is the FO setting. The town-building part just is so, so good, even with its (many) flaws.

But not a one of the factions you can align with is in any way satisfying to assist, and the only 'good guys' in the setting, the Minutemen, are ... well, they have no endgame. They can't win, because the devs said so. They're just kind of *there* once you retake the castle, and you're locked into a perpetual status quo with the Wasteland until and unless you decide to side with one of three assholes.

And just murdering everyone doesn't change that.

"Fundamentally unsatisfying", yep.

--sofaspud
--


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CdrMike
Member since Feb-20-05
901 posts
Apr-19-24, 04:18 AM (EDT)
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9. "RE: fundamentally unsatisfying"
In response to message #5
 
   >But not a one of the factions you can align with is in any way
>satisfying to assist, and the only 'good guys' in the setting, the
>Minutemen, are ... well, they have no endgame. They can't win,
>because the devs said so. They're just kind of *there* once you
>retake the castle, and you're locked into a perpetual status quo with
>the Wasteland until and unless you decide to side with one of three
>assholes.

The problem with the factions in Fallout 4 can be summed up in one question: "What are you fighting for?" In 1 & 2, the stakes were the whole of humanity. In 3 & NV, it was the Capital/Mojave Wasteland. Then you get to 4 and it's...synths. Do you see synths as tools (Institute), living beings (Railroad), or abominations (Brotherhood). And instead of offering some common ground or even a "let the people decide" option, the Minutemen are just...there.

Plus there's the mid-game twist that Fallout games all have, where you learn that you're caught up in a much bigger game than just finding a water chip/GECK/your dad/the guy who shot you. Except 4's twist is your son is the head of Institute and nothing's really changed. You're still stuck with deciding what to do with the synths and then doing a checklist of things for whichever faction you threw your lot in with.

IOW, if you're not invested in the future of synths, then there is no satisfying ending for Fallout 4. In a lot of ways, that's the same problem with Skyrim, where they present dragons as not simply a threat to Syrim but the whole of existence, and then say "Oh, by the way, there's this squabble between the Nords and Empire you might want to look into if you've got time..."

--------------------------
CdrMike, Overwatch Reject

"You know, the world could always use more heroes." - Tracer, Overwatch


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CdrMike
Member since Feb-20-05
901 posts
Apr-26-24, 05:40 AM (EDT)
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10. "RE: fundamentally unsatisfying"
In response to message #0
 
   Many A True Nerd over at YT did a video for those folks who are interested in the Fallout franchise in the wake of the TV series' release and want advice on what game to start with. And while the fanboy in me screams "FROM THE BEGINNING!," I know not everybody wants to spend hours playing a 2D isometric turn-based strategy game from the mid-90s when every game just clues you in on the necessary info from previous games as they go (I myself started with FO3 way back in '08).

And it's the way he explains first New Vegas and then Fallout 4 that you get an idea of why one works and the other really doesn't. If you play NV, it's pretty clear it's one of those "Go here, do this" kinda of games where much of the story is jumping from hub to hub with a set of quests to fulfill to move forward. The first half of the game could itself be described thematically as "The jackass in the bad suit fled across the desert and the Courier followed." The storywriting is great, the characters all well-written, and there's plenty to explore across a huge map...but all of it is in service to the main plot.

By contrast, Fallout 4 is like Skyrim and Fallout 3 before it: A Bethesda RPG where they give you starting point, a quest marker on the other side of the map, and leave getting there and what you do in-between totally up to you. Most of the creative work itself is poured into making the world worth exploring, not only dotting the map with dozens of places to explore but then filling them with things to make the exploration itself an adventure. You can end up spending tens of hours just grinding XP from every quest between Sanctuary Hills and Diamond City before you even bother entering the city itself. There's no real incentive to move the story along and that's why it ends up feeling less exciting and more like a chore.

--------------------------
CdrMike, Overwatch Reject

"You know, the world could always use more heroes." - Tracer, Overwatch


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