Fallout 3 - Creation Kit and DLC

[Brother None]

Do you find it distressing though that alot of members of the NMA are upset with the announcement of the GECKO, to the point they have already dismissed it or said its not worth the work to fix it to their liking?

The way I see it, if you don't like it and you get tools that can help you fix it (just see what modders did with oblivion) shouldn't you be happy?

Happy because someone sold you something that needs fixing before you enjoy it? I'd perhaps be more apt to join people in calling out Fallout 3's criticasters on not wanting to fix Fallout 3 if there wasn't something seriously wrong with the idea that by being a criticaster it becomes your obligation to fix what your criticize. This is the producer-consumer relation turned topsy-turvy.

That said, I think you might have been a bit quick on drawing conclusions from the first two replies to this news on NMA. That thread actually devolved into bashing of the DLCs quickly, but if I had to put my finger on the pulse I'd say the general "NMA reaction" (if there is such a thing) is "about time" - indeed, no gratefulness, but not full of derision either. That's not to say I haven't seen some reactions on NMA that make me facepalm, but that's usually the case, and somehow I enjoy all these aberrant opinions in a giant pot-pourri. But if you glance at our modding forum (either Fallout 1/2 or Fallout 3), its noticeable that the loudest are generally not the types who do any work (on any of the games), so one could say their opinion is the least relevant.

Of course I've never done any modding myself, but I get a free pass for the work I do supporting the mods

Anyway, we have a community that still thinks it's worth the effort to mod Fallout 1/2 (and will probably continue to do so). Fallout 3 Nexus is the flagship of Fallout 3 modding, but I wouldn't worry about NMA either. We've already had a few nice mods pass on by (the Fallout 3 Compendium mod, Grizzly's item descriptions mod). I think in the end "NMA"'s general dislike of Fallout 3 means a less enthused and light-hearted production line than the Nexus, but still useful and nice "fixes".

Me? I'm just hoping they fix the interface so its actually functional on PC. Oh, and rewriting the entire main storyline would be nice. Though I think therein lies part of the problem here; the Oblivion mod kit was certainly no powerhouse, and to think in terms some of Fallout 3's prospective modders would like to think would be impossible with such a mod kit. We'll see what Bethesda brings.

 

[JDR13]

Well I hate to bring any more disagreement into this thread , but the majority of us don't feel that FO3 needs any fixing. Sure any game can be made even better with mods (sometimes), but FO3 is still great for most people right out of the box.

The thing that gets me is how people tend to make 'matter of fact' statements like "******* needs to be fixed" without seeming to realize that not everyone shares that opinion.

 

[Zygo]

By the glories of quote copy/paste

...The thing that gets me is how people tend to make 'matter of fact' statements like..

..the majority of us don't feel that FO3 needs any fixing..

(I'm not a huge F3 fan myself, but I'll concede that it is very likely that most people were happy with it.)

 

[JDR13]

Zygo,

Did you read all the posts first?

...just curious....

 

[coyote]

Call me resentful, but at the moment I am still too disappointed with the writers at Bethesda and their conclusion of the main quest to really think about continuing.

Spoiler: Do not read on unless you already finished the Fallout 3 main quest.

Spoiler: Really, do yourself a favor and do not read on unless you know the ending already.

How are you supposed to continue adventuring in the Wasteland when Bethesda already opted out of that by killing off your character in the main quest and not providing any alternate solutions - unless of course you decide to sacrifice the BOS chick, and personally I would not want to play someone who did that.

Load a previous save with the knowledge that you are just going to sacrifice yourself because of poor respectively lazy writing later, due to the radiation resistant Fawkes playing dumb and protective suits and rad-x suddenly becoming worthless for yourself? Maybe a noble sacrifice would have made a good conclusion to the game, but the forced sacrifice out of stupidity and unimaginative writing ruined the story for me.

Edit: that said, the game was fun for me for the most part, and if there were any possibility to just unplay the last mission of the main quest, would have been a great game to recommend for people who like the free-roaming style of gaming.

If I had to complain about something beside the ending, it would be the optional companions. I do not mind followers in general, but the way they were implemented in Fallout 3 made them appear quite shallow. Somehow they still managed to get their bounding boxes stuck in the world a lot, though.

 

[JemyM]

I do not see how F3 needs "fixing" more than the rest of the games released recently. I find the game to be very solid and the size and complexity of it is huge. I have loved games far more flawed than this.

Gothic 3 for example also had a huge amount of content but had obvious glaring errors such as unfinishable quests, a savefile that was destroyed when the game crashed, a large amount of skills that did nothing, missing monsters that appeared on the beta screenshots etc. etc.

The NWN experience have been mixed, usually with a solid and unbuggy engine but they aren't exactly free-roaming which almost make them into different games entirely, and with the strong focus on a linear railroad storyline, both NWN or NWN2 was unsatisfying (MotB and HotU were great though).

Mass Effect was a solid experience, but the inventory system is the worst I have seen in a long time and I have actually problems coming up with ANY game that had a worse inventory system than that (even considering ancient titles like Ultima I).

All things considered, F3 is a mighty fine game even if there are some design problems such as the character reaching level 20 with the best equipment long before the end of the game.

 

[Prime Junta]

That's a bit of a conundrum there, actually:

* If they implement a huge world with enormous amounts of content...
(a) Explorers will hit the level cap way before they've finished with it, OR
(b) Players who stick to the main quest will hit a difficulty wall, OR
(c) They'll have to remove the level cap, in which case explorers will be way overpowered when they get back to the main quest, OR
(d) They'll have to implement level scaling, which will have everybody whining like they did in Oblivion.

This is a common problem to all "free-form" games with lots of sidequests and non-critical content. I'm the explorer type, and in the late game of Gothic 2 I was swatting dragons like mosquitoes: PB had chosen option (c), with rather silly results. Bethsoft picked option (a) for FO3, and option (d) for Oblivion.

I'm sure there are ways to make it all balance out somehow, but it's bound to be difficult -- much more difficult than most of the people whining about it might believe. I'll be very curious to see how Iron Tower has addressed this in AoD.

 

[zakhal]

Does fallout3 have a difficulty slider (or any kinds of levels you can adjust yourself) like i.e in morrowind?

Since Im an explorer type I raised the difficulty bar in morrowind to make the game harder. On normal difficulty the game became too easy too quickly - perfect for those who stick to main quest but not for explorers.

I always put difficulty to highest level in new games because othervice they are too easy. Dont tell me they left out difficulty levels from fallout3?!

 

[woges]

I think it has 5 straight settings for difficulty ranging from very easy to very hard, which you can change whenever you like.

 

[JemyM]

* If they implement a huge world with enormous amounts of content...
(a) Explorers will hit the level cap way before they've finished with it, OR
(b) Players who stick to the main quest will hit a difficulty wall, OR
(c) They'll have to remove the level cap, in which case explorers will be way overpowered when they get back to the main quest, OR
(d) They'll have to implement level scaling, which will have everybody whining like they did in Oblivion.

The Final Fantasy series tend to do all of that pretty well. You can rush for the end and you will reach (b). The end boss is hard so it will take some work to beat it. There's are tons and tons of subquests that lead to great and awesome loot/xpboost and you can actually grind your characters to improve quite a bit just by running aroundin the wilderness, and if you finish ALL optional content the end boss will be a pushover. However, there's a twist. There are numerous optional areas with super-hard enemies that really require you to have maxed out your level, have the best loot in the game and you also need a good strategy to defeat them. In that way, exploration and doing the optional stuff is still rewarding.

In F3 I noted that I hit level 20 after completing less than 25% of the content in the game. That's simply wrong, you should at least be able to finish all the quests before reaching the level cap. Hitting the level cap should be for really dedicated players who really do everything the game have to offer and then some. On top of that I got the best weapon available for my build after playing like 10% of the game...

 

[Benedict]

* If they implement a huge world with enormous amounts of content...
(a) Explorers will hit the level cap way before they've finished with it, OR
(b) Players who stick to the main quest will hit a difficulty wall, OR
(c) They'll have to remove the level cap, in which case explorers will be way overpowered when they get back to the main quest, OR
(d) They'll have to implement level scaling, which will have everybody whining like they did in Oblivion.

Why not have option (e) where there's no level cap but getting more powerful in the main focus of the character build becomes progressively tougher and the main payoff from greater exploration is the ability to try out a wider range of abilities and / or peripheral skills that add flavour more than raw power?

 

[kalniel]

Sounds like a repeat of c, unless you change the leveling system to mean that levels don't equal getting more powerful anymore, in which case everyone will moan that levels are pointless.

 

[JDR13]

(c) They'll have to remove the level cap, in which case explorers will be way overpowered when they get back to the main quest,

I'm the explorer type, and in the late game of Gothic 2 I was swatting dragons like mosquitoes: PB had chosen option (c), with rather silly results.

You haven't really played Gothic 2 yet if you haven't played it with Night of the Raven installed.

The aforementioned problem doesn't exist with NotR.

 

[Elwro]

Oh, it does. I finished G2+NotR with a Dragon Hunter and fights with dragons were extremely easy.

I encountered problems in the last dungeon, though. 2 of the undead (wraiths? forgot) were a lot stronger than the dragons (including the undead one).

 

[Prime Junta]

In F3 I noted that I hit level 20 after completing less than 25% of the content in the game. That's simply wrong, you should at least be able to finish all the quests before reaching the level cap. Hitting the level cap should be for really dedicated players who really do everything the game have to offer and then some. On top of that I got the best weapon available for my build after playing like 10% of the game...

OTOH, you can always start a new game and explore a different part of the map.

 

[JDR13]

Oh, it does. I finished G2+NotR with a Dragon Hunter and fights with dragons were extremely easy.

I encountered problems in the last dungeon, though. 2 of the undead (wraiths? forgot) were a lot stronger than the dragons (including the undead one).

I wasn't refering to Dragons, but the entire game in general. In NotR you have to be really careful how you spend your learning points or you can actually reach a point where every remaining area is too difficult to explore.

It also makes thorough exploration a necessity in order to gain enough XP and learning points to advance.

I've never played as a Dragon Hunter, but I did hear that the Dragons were a lot easier when playing that class.

 

[zakhal]

I wasn't refering to Dragons, but the entire game in general. In NotR you have to be really careful how you spend your learning points or you can actually reach a point where every remaining area is too difficult to explore.

I actually used a cheat to move few points I misplaced. Im just barely pushing through it - havent finished even half yet .Gothic2 was a cakewalk compared to this.

 

[Elwro]

I wasn't refering to Dragons, but the entire game in general. In NotR you have to be really careful how you spend your learning points or you can actually reach a point where every remaining area is too difficult to explore.

Alright, then. This is true. I don't think I'd have been able to endure through the beginning of the game if I hadn't played the vanilla G2. This gave me both knowledge of a few things and confidence that trying hard would be worth it

 

[JemyM]

OTOH, you can always start a new game and explore a different part of the map.

And why would I want to do that?

 

[Bateman]

And why would I want to do that?

I did it. After playing my first game and hitting the cap before finishing the main quest, I got bored and restarted. Then I got bored again.

Now I'm playing oblivion+total conversion mod ...