What Makes A Good Fallout Game?

You don't actually need to go out of your way to think up new corporations like that; a nod, a footnote or a reference mentioning them would be enough. It's unnecessary since the story of a Fallout game should focused on the challenges that a post-apocalyptic society may face. As @Deeves puts it, "Your character and his story arc should be in the forefront" rather than the pre-War world. The latter's story ended when the bombs fell so the story should be focused on how the people have attempted to crawl out of the wreckage of nuclear devestation. There's no need to add so many gimmicky additions from pre-War days or be reliant on them.

That's what Fallout 1, 2 and New Vegas did since in those games; the only apparent effect of the pre-War world was the legacy left behind in the wreckage (like the tools and technologies that could be used to better/worsen life or said technologies become folk tales that lure desperate people to their dooms).

Try to keep this quote of Tim Cain in mind:

 

To be honest I love the pre-war world, and if I made a Fallout game I would have a large amount of influence from the world of before. A legacy of riots, government apathy, corporate greed and abuse leaving it's mark after two hundred years...

 

Again, it depends on the story you want to tell. If those themes highlight and add to, say, a current dilemma the main character must face? Then sure. What's not cool is a billion dry bytes of lore spread out on a bunch of disconnected terminals around the world because.

 

Agreed, having it as a central theme (like letting go, or showing the folly of the past) works well, and makes for an interesting story.

 

Hiking, picking up shit and vats. Maybe roleplaying
Oh and terminal entries gotta have dem terminal entries

 

Role-playing allows you to play a character that you yourself have developed.

On the most stripped down level this can just mean some kind of levelling point system, where you can decide what points to put into what ability. It's why JRPGs are called that, even though a lot of JRPGs still have a very set story and characters.

It also plays into player choice. Usually RPGs will allow you to decide different outcomes to different stories or quests. Again, sometimes this can just be a simple dialogue decision made at the end of a quest, but sometimes it can affect how the entire quest itself is played, such as playing a quest violently or stealthily.

Usually RPGs are done in sandbox because this allows for the most player freedom of movement. Don't wanna go through the main entrance? No problem, there's a secret passage round back. Stuff like that.

An open world sandbox is basically just a big playpen for the player to run around in and do stuff. Doesn't necessarily have to have much player choice or role-playing elements.

People see Fallout 3 and 4 as bad RPGs because although they're open world, they don't allow for much player freedom. Unless you roleplay as an illogical crazy person you can't be "bad" in Fallout 3.

Compared to Fallout, Fallout 2 and New Vegas, which allowed for total player freedom in developing characters, with almost no backstory for each one, and numerous ways to complete quests, Fallout 3 is very jarring when it tells you to "kill Enclave and purify water" or "kill Enclave and kind of not purify water even though you're still purifying it anyway". There were also usually consequences to certain actions in Fallout and Fallout 2. In Fallout 3 you can magic away all misdeeds with giving beggars unlimited water supplies and get a slap on the wrist for nuking a town.

Anyway, that's the gist of it I think. I haven't even gone into how FPS combat doesn't really work with RPG stats, no matter how hard Obsidian tried with Fallout New Vegas.

 

The problem with FPSs is that they're based on player skill, not the character's. Yeah there's the VAT system which kind of uses percentages, but all it really does is give the player an unfair advantage, as the NPCs can't use VATs. The closest to compatibility is to just make the gun waver more as you aim to emphasise that your character is still unskilled with guns. It's not perfect though, and doesn't really reflect how in a turn based game, if you have shit gun skills, there's a good chance you'll never hit your opponent.

Can't really comment on the menu in Fallout 4 as I haven't played it. I'll just have to take your word for it.

 

Differences? Well, I mean they're two entirely separate beasts as gaming concepts. It's like describing the differences between a dog and a horse. But, okay. I can give you the definitions of each at least.

Roleplaying is simply controlling a character or a party of characters in a statistically abstracted way. Usually the mechanics of the game are different per character and customizable to the player's tastes (Warrior, Wizard, Thief, ect ...) The primary reason people engage with RPGs is to satisfy a desire to watch their character grow, either as people or in power.

Open world games are ancidote factories and allow for non sequential storytelling. The major appeal of sandbox games are replay value. It's an absolute therapeutic joy to warm up GTA V and just fuck around for two hours. And no two play sessions will ever, ever repeat.

In a good RPG sandbox, that replay value comes from mix and matching narrative changes from different choices you can make. Now, I know this may sound odd, but hear me out. Mass Effect is a good sandbox RPG game series. At least with dialogue. The fact you can do things like kill Wrex, and that will cause a totally different segment of story to open and close in the next game creates a bit of a sandbox metagame, where you are like 'Oh, what would happen if I pull this lever, how will that affect this character, and that character, and what happens if I bring that character along next time? What if I did this and that for my next playthrough?'

Well, these might sound a bit extreme, but here it goes. Do away with the traditional idea of xp increasing your base stats. If the main character butt naked with no armor on and base enemies like ghouls take more than 12 hits to take down, you are no longer hitting that lizard brain reflex center in the brain, and you might as well not even put in FPS elements at that point really. The whole CoD twitch shooter appeal dissipates and it's just a slog. Case in point; Tom Clancy's: The Division. And it's just not immersive. You lose the idea that these are real people when they can take 600 bullets to the chin just because of arbitrary reasons like they are level 65 and have 10 END.

The real way to upgrade your character's and other character's survivability should not be through SPECIAL but through weapons, armor, and ammo types. And there should be always be a way to mitigate what the other guy has through some rock-paper-scissors mechanic. Someone in power armor should be able to take over thirty expensive armor piercing rounds before the suit is damaged enough for the pilot to need to get out. But, if you had the foresight to bring specialized EMP grenades you can render someone in power armor immobile and get a shit ton of hits in. Plasma could melt through metal armor like butter, but could also harmlessly be dispersed by a generated energy field around an enemy. But the catch is that energy field shield does shit all against metal bullets and blunt trauma. What's good against bullets and blunt trauma? you guessed it, metal armor.

I feel like the perks in Fallout 4 were half decent ideas, but the execution was over simplified. All passive buffs should be done in equipment. And active changes in game mechanics should be done in Traits, Skills, and Perks.

Perks should be powerful one-offs gained every three levels, Traits should give advantages and disadvantages that make you change up your play style, and Skills should be long ten point perk chains that are given every level.

For example, let's make a 'long gun' skill. At this point a Fo4 perk would make it +10 damage with rifles and call it a day. But that doesn't really add anything of substance to the game. Let's think about what game mechanics the sniper build uses the most. Well, ironsights of course. So the long gun skill should be a ten point perk where every level the sway of the iron sights are reduced, and the AP cost getting rid of it by pushing down the thumbstick is reduced. And then at level 10 your iron sights will have zero sway as if you were holding down the stick at no AP cost.

 

I've always loved the idea of a graboid like creature in Fallout.

In case you're unfamila with the graboid:

 

Naw the Tunnelers seemed more like a hive mind. I don't see them having pets. And it'd be cool if they weren't set in one location. I always like the idea of them being kind of the scourge of the Midwest. The plains would be one of the Most dangerous places in the wasteland.

 

Watch these, they should give you some idea.

 

So by "Script for a fallout game" you actually mean amateurish mod for fallout 4 right?