Roleplayer's Off Topic Thread #38

[The Good Doctor]

1 hour ago, Centurion said:

So fallout 4 wasn’t breach in form from any of the other games

I disagree. All Fallout 1 and 2 do is tell you where you’re from. Nothing about your role, experiences, personality, values, etc. There is a ton of freedom for backstory and characterization within those confines.

Fallout 3 leaves less of your backstory to the imagination, but the Vault 101 segments offer a fair amount of freedom to define what kind of kid/teenager you were, and you aren’t railroaded into any particular personality or lifestyle. You can play out your background as a bully, a violent creep, a goodie-two-shoes, a punkish rebel, a natural leader, etc. Tons of opportunity for characterization. Bizarrely more than the rest of the game, to be honest. 

New Vegas goes a little too far with Lonesome Road, in my opinion (saying you took a courier job doesn’t say much; saying that you blazed new trails says a lot more), but besides the implication that your character must’ve been rather brave (or stupid or foolhardy) and good at traveling, the kind of person they were during or in-between those delivery jobs is left up to you. You could’ve been anything from a New Reno drug runner to mercenary scientist taking delivery jobs during his travels.

Fallout 4 doesn’t just say where you’re from or where you have been like prior games did; it explicitly tells you what kind of life path your character chose to go down many years ago and where they ended up (proud speech-giving war veteran or successful MA lawyer). The issue is only compounded by us living in an upper-middle class neighborhood with a spouse and child who we have no choice but to love. It’s almost closer to Witcher with a predefined character who you can shape going forward, than prior Fallout games where almost all of the actual characterization was left in your hands.

[The Good Doctor]

And then there is Fallout 76: You slept in… I hate that intro so much.  

[Celan]

6 hours ago, The Good Doctor said:

Funny you mention that. I just got through mini-ranting about all the gameplay mechanics that were either introduced or reintroduced by New Vegas and then subsequently dropped again by Bethesda for Fallout 4. There are a lot.

Damage threshold was one of the biggest. It’s such a fundamental mechanic to the series that is somehow completely absent from all of Bethesda's games. It should’ve been improved on from New Vegas, not dropped entirely. 

Cause it’s just silly that while wearing a suit of T-51b, you can still be killed by a radroach or a BB gun.

Power armor in FO4 is like tissue paper. Look at it wrong and it breaks.

[The Good Doctor]

5 minutes ago, Celan said:

Power armor in FO4 is like tissue paper. Look at it wrong and it breaks.

Oh yeah, if I’m doing a run with PA, mods to make it way more durable and remove the fusion core timer are musts.

[BigBossBalrog]

3 hours ago, The Good Doctor said:

Oh yeah, if I’m doing a run with PA, mods to make it way more durable and remove the fusion core timer are musts.

I actually liked the idea of Fusion Cores; it felt more like a limited resource now that technology and the means to replicate it were lost. 

You know how much I like my timers 

That being said; it also made it kind of feel like Power Armor was a glorified Super Mario Brothers powerup; one that wasn't even that good 

[The Good Doctor]

30 minutes ago, BigBossBalrog said:

I actually liked the idea of Fusion Cores; it felt more like a limited resource now that technology and the means to replicate it were lost. 

I don’t because power armor was supposedly a game changer. I have a hard time believing that when it can only be deployed for twenty minutes at a time.

And prior games said that it’s powered by a mini fusion reactor that can last a couple centuries. Before someone says "well it’s been a couple centuries now", yes, but not of continual use, and that wouldn’t explain why suits in 3 and NV are working just fine or why ones in 76 are already running out.

I just chalk it up to an instance of gameplay taking precedence over lore. But I like to mod it out because I don’t even think it makes the gameplay better.

[BigBossBalrog]

Been playing the Bunker; I've been literally closing and opening the tap every fifteen minutes  Its very stressful and scary 

[BigBossBalrog]

To explain how evil the devs were; the flashlight in the game is this shitty WW1 Infantry one; in which it required no source of fuel and was hand cranked. Unfortatnley, the crank gives only a couple of seconds of life, and is very loud, meaning if you want light, you risk the monster hearing you  

[TheCzarsHussar]

38 minutes ago, BigBossBalrog said:

To explain how evil the devs were; the flashlight in the game is this shitty WW1 Infantry one; in which it required no source of fuel and was hand cranked. Unfortatnley, the crank gives only a couple of seconds of life, and is very loud, meaning if you want light, you risk the monster hearing you  

What game are we talking about? Sounds like something I'd love to look up

[BigBossBalrog]

Just now, TheCzarsHussar said:

What game are we talking about? Sounds like something I'd love to look up

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1944430/Amnesia_The_Bunker/

[The Good Doctor]

54 minutes ago, BigBossBalrog said:

Been playing the Bunker; I've been literally closing and opening the tap every fifteen minutes  Its very stressful and scary 

Does it have "fear flashes"?  

Gonna give this one some time. Amnesia Rebirth just left me very jaded to these guys. 

[BigBossBalrog]

10 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said:

Does it have "fear flashes"?  

Gonna give this one some time. Amnesia Rebirth just left me very jaded to these guys. 

Nope; just pure fucking terror 

Your trapped in a French Bunker and your given one objective; get the fuck out. It's basically one giant escape room with all these dynamic factors (your hunted by a single abomination who stalks you dynamically).

Do you use a pistol to shoot a lock off, but risk having the monster hear you? Do you use gas to open a passageway, or use it to power the generator?

Another fun mechanic is the way they handle the safe room. There's one interconnected section the monster can never get to (where you save and have an item box)...but its lights are powered by gas and that gas will go out eventually 

The premise of the story is really fun too; you awake in a field hospital with no memory ) and you come across a dying soldier who gives the gist "something is here with you; run" and you gradually learn the solders dug into a series of ancient Roman tunnels (which they were going to use to ambush the Germans) and  accidentally unleashed something)

[TheCzarsHussar]

This would have been THE SHIT back in the day.

 

[Centurion]

So I’m trying to get out of the Infantry. And my pipeline to do so is going to be a helicopter pilot. In order to be helicopter pilot you have to be a warrant officer (aka the good life). In order to go to Warrant Officer Candidates School you have to build a packet for the warrant mos (military occupational specialty) you are applying for. For Aviation Warrants you need a Flight Physical and to pass the SIFT with at least a 40. I already have 2 senior level pilots willing to write my letters of recommendation but holy fuck the sift guys. Holy fuck. I’m gonna link a practice site I’ve been using and I want y’all to run through it and let me know how y’all do

https://militaryflighttests.com/sift-practice-test/

[TheCzarsHussar]

2 minutes ago, Centurion said:

So I’m trying to get out of the Infantry. And my pipeline to do so is going to be a helicopter pilot. In order to be helicopter pilot you have to be a warrant officer (aka the good life). In order to go to Warrant Officer Candidates School you have to build a packet for the warrant mos (military occupational specialty) you are applying for. For Aviation Warrants you need a Flight Physical and to pass the SIFT with at least a 40. I already have 2 senior level pilots willing to write my letters of recommendation but holy fuck the sift guys. Holy fuck. I’m gonna link a practice site I’ve been using and I want y’all to run through it and let me know how y’all do

https://militaryflighttests.com/sift-practice-test/

Good luck brother! 

You've went through a whole ass hero's journey in the military

[BigBossBalrog]

Just now, Centurion said:

So I’m trying to get out of the Infantry. And my pipeline to do so is going to be a helicopter pilot. In order to be helicopter pilot you have to be a warrant officer (aka the good life). In order to go to Warrant Officer Candidates School you have to build a packet for the warrant mos (military occupational specialty) you are applying for. For Aviation Warrants you need a Flight Physical and to pass the SIFT with at least a 40. I already have 2 senior level pilots willing to write my letters of recommendation but holy fuck the sift guys. Holy fuck. I’m gonna link a practice site I’ve been using and I want y’all to run through it and let me know how y’all do

https://militaryflighttests.com/sift-practice-test/

Apparently Microsoft Flight Sim is REALLY good for learning the basics; there's alot stories of people getting there licenses alot easier after clocking hundreds of hours; might want to check out it  They recently released a helicopter update. 

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/09/the-new-ms-flight-simulator-taught-me-how-to-fly-an-actual-plane/

[Centurion]

4 minutes ago, BigBossBalrog said:

Apparently Microsoft Flight Sim is REALLY good for learning the basics; there's alot stories of people getting there licenses alot easier after clocking hundreds of hours; might want to check out it  They recently released a helicopter update. 

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/09/the-new-ms-flight-simulator-taught-me-how-to-fly-an-actual-plane/

Bro I’m not even at that stage yet. I’m just trying to get the brain test out of the way now

[The Good Doctor]

8 minutes ago, Centurion said:

So I’m trying to get out of the Infantry. And my pipeline to do so is going to be a helicopter pilot. In order to be helicopter pilot you have to be a warrant officer (aka the good life). In order to go to Warrant Officer Candidates School you have to build a packet for the warrant mos (military occupational specialty) you are applying for. For Aviation Warrants you need a Flight Physical and to pass the SIFT with at least a 40. I already have 2 senior level pilots willing to write my letters of recommendation but holy fuck the sift guys. Holy fuck. I’m gonna link a practice site I’ve been using and I want y’all to run through it and let me know how y’all do

https://militaryflighttests.com/sift-practice-test/

I got a 52. Gimme some wings!  

[Centurion]

2 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said:

I got a 52. Gimme some wings!  

On each section a pass is roughly 80%

[The Good Doctor]

3 minutes ago, Centurion said:

On each section a pass is roughly 80%

I meant on the simple drawings. I didn’t take anything else.  

[The Good Doctor]

Oh yeah, some of these are brutal.  

[TheCzarsHussar]

I always struggled with mathematics as a kid, I'm gonna hard pass making my brain feel sad 

[Centurion]

8 minutes ago, The Good Doctor said:

I meant on the simple drawings. I didn’t take anything else.  

Simply drawings and hidden images is easy, it’s just the time crunch. The math is rough and the determining your positioning based on a poorly drawn image is fucking difficult

[BigBossBalrog]

Some spoilers about the Monster; 

 

It's very reminiscent  of the tunnelers from New Vegas; except there's just one of them. There's a whole tunnel network it can access; and I've only seen glimpses in shadow, but it looks like some kind of Mole/Rat/Rodent abomination; fucking terrifying.

[BigBossBalrog]

They added a system in which you have to manuially reload every bullet in your revolver, it's fucking nerve wracking