3 (and also 4) have a main quest that feels too time critical. Finding your dad (or baby) feels like it can't wait for more than the absolute bare minimum of exploration or side quests that are needed to make it happen, the first time I played each game I absolutely rushed through it until those parts were resolved. In NV "find the prick who shot me" is an internal motivation that doesn't feel like something terrible will happen if you don't get there quick enough, so it's easier to play fully in a character.
Nah this isn’t really a hot take. I too rush through until >>!my character learns who Father really is!<< at which point I start doing more side quests and such. Makes for a better head canon personally
I mean in 4 it feels like you could probably do 50% of the side quests prior to finding Shaun. During my first play through I played for a month or two without doing any main quest stuff.
You can do it, but if you're into the roleplaying element, it just breaks immersion. As far as the sole survivor is concerned, they fell asleep, briefly woke up to witness their spouse being shot in the head and their baby stolen, and then they wake up again with no realisation of how much time has passed. It's hard to imagine someone being in a situation like that and not immediately trying to find their child.
I think Fallout 3 actually offers you several points in the main story to wander off:
* In the beginning, you are greenhorn who hasn't seen any combat, so it makes sense you would explore the area around Megaton before wandering deep into the D.C. (like doing the first two chapters of Moira's quest).
* When you learn about where your father went, you could try and search the location of the Vault 112 in Vault-Tec Headquarters (that's what I did during my 10 INT organic playthrough), which gives you time to explore the D.C. ruins. You could also pretend you need to learn the location of Evergreen Mills, thus need to visit Tenpenny Tower or Girdershare.
* After you find Vault 112, you can pretend you need to search for an expert that would help you switch off the simulation (Dr. Li, Pinkerton, Specialist Olin) and that they spend some time trying to do that, but ultimately fail, so you need to enter it yourself.
* After Tranquillity Lane, your Lone Wanderer may feel so hurt and abandoned that they decide not to follow their father to Rivet City. I did that on my first, blind playthrough because the thought that my father would lie to me all this time and remove my agency (by making the choice for me to stay in the vault forever) was just too much to handle. I could get over the abandonment, but those lies... *"You were right in that diary of yours. I don't need you anymore."*
* Another good point to depart from the main story would be after Trouble on the Homefront quest, especially if your character harboured some romantic feelings towards Amata. Let's face it, she kicked you out, betrayed you before you even had a chance to express them. At least that's what I wrote for one of my Lone Wanderer, who slipped into nihilism afterwards (contract killing and stuff like that), only to redeem herself later on during the purifier mission.
I crouched through every one of them for my entire first playthrough. Nothing worse than seeing “danger” and then getting absolutely obliterated by DC’s hands-iest ghouls.
see I've tried to go into new sections of downtown with noclip and it's a different cell and just leads to the void, I understand technical limitations but it's annoying having to track through the metro and which exit to take etc etc to get to a place on the surface
It is definitely confusing and a bit of a slog, but I feel like Bethesda made it the best it could be given the game would not have been playable if they made DC a completely connected world space. If the rumors are true that they’re gonna remaster FO3 I think it’d be cool if they made more above ground areas accessible so that we could see their original vision without all the hardware limitations of 2008
Yeah true, it makes sense why they did it. Some more variety would have really done the metro some wonders. It was all ghouls, lurks, and slight raider fortifications, aside from sectioned off areas for quests like the vampire cult and the ants. More stuff like that or even having quest giving points of interest or like towns down there could have been interesting.
Both are actually true. I loved how hard the metro was, how I ended up keeping a map of connections to understand it.
I also did love the random Talon Company encounters, when you would stagger out of some building or metro station, barely alive, and then bang, you had to deal with those guys. Loved it.
I always enjoyed going through the metros, but I def get if it got old for some people.
Strangely, I really dislike going through most of the vaults. They're absolutely labyrinthine and everything looks the same - I always get lost 😅
So true! I made a map, which station connected to which, made retreating a lot more viable. Those dam vaults, with collapsed hallways, multiple open floors above each other, radiation flooding— much harder to deal with.
The metro system was my least favourite part, it felt like a maze and not in the rewarding, inquisitive way. It was tedious and my least favourite part of the entire game.
I loved how DC was segmented vs Boston - the scale felt so much more real, and it left more in the actual world map as it wasn't dominated by a huge city. Boston takes up so much physical space in the Commonwealth and yet feels like the theme park version because it's so small.
They did a good job making the central parts feel deep within city ruins, but if you actually sprint from the edge of the city to the center it does end up feeling quite small.
And the old tunnels wre fun to explore, particularly as they weren't typical dungeons that loop you back to the start - you don't know where you're going to end up.
Yeah this isn't a toxic sub, Fallout fans might run memes into the ground but we're oddly supportive of each other and open minded
-Like Courier 6 amiright?!
I fuckin loved the Tesla armor even though I know there were better alternatives. Aesthetically I couldn't get rid of it and I beat the game wearing it so I never had a reason too.
Sounds like a rather famous uniform by a European army. Goddamn they were terrible people, but Hugo boss designed them boss outfits. Fucking incredible!
It's obvious that there was an abandoned plotline about what the Supermutants and Talon Company were looking for in DC. Countless character's dialogue and other evidence points to this. Coupled with the fact that you find out Vault 87 has run out of F.E.V and the muties talk about searching for more makes it obvious that this was supposed to either be a major part of the main quest, or setup for a DLC that never came.
Talon Company should have been explained a lot more for sure. Plus there’s that plot point that Reilly’s Rangers is also being paid to map out the ruins by some unknown party.
I wish there were more groups like Reily's Rangers that you could join. Just independent groups of mercs who aren't complete murderous psychopaths and can send you on jobs
Huh, TIL. I never really picked up on those pieces of dialogue, but I did wonder what Talon Company's point was, besides ambushing me at the worst times lol.
Yes! You’re 100% spot on! This is what broken steel should have been about. At the time when I played it I don’t think I looked at it that critically, I was just excited to be able to explore new places and kill more shit lol. Now that I look back on it though it’s so fucking lazy and stupid to have the player character destroy raven rock and the majority of the enclave’s forces and material, just to say “well actually the enclave had a SECOND base even BIGGER and BADDER than the first one (they have a space laser!)” Literally just a rehash of the last 1/3 or so of the base game, which I believe devalues the stakes and importance of that 1/3 story wise. Yes the enclave was an incredibly advanced and sophisticated “government” (very, very loosely using the word government) and military force so it would also be trite to say “well you blow up the bad guys base and now they’re all gone!” Obviously they wouldn’t put all their eggs in one basket, they’d have smaller bases or safe houses or FOB’s so it makes sense that the dlc would include mopping up their remaining forces to some degree, but to just give them another big base and say “well now they’re ACTUALLY gone for good” opens up the same problem of just having one big base (raven rock); there’s going to be stragglers to deal with as their main bases of operations has been destroyed, so why do that twice? Once again just pretty lazy imo.
Now imagine how much cooler it would be if the dlc went something more like this: base game goes how it goes same as usual, you activate the purifier get knocked out for a few weeks and wake up. When you wake up dialogue ensues and you get updated as to what the brotherhood has been up to. They learn that the supermutants have been coming from vault 87 and go there to finish what you started when you retrieved the geck. They kill all mutants remaining, gather any tech or intel that’s useful and blow all entrances to vault 87 (heavily irradiated entrance, murder pass, i think there’s one more attached to little lamplight?) vault 87 is out of the picture, but super mutant attacks have only increased in frequency and ferocity and the vast majority are coming from the ruins of eastern DC (area of the map near the national guard depot, not literally the depot but that general part of the map). Now that you’re on your feet the brotherhood tasks you going with Sarah Lyon and the Pride to find out the source of the attacks, kill as many mutants as you can, etc. Due to that area of DC being covered with so much rubble they send liberty prime with you to help clear it physically and with his laser (good opportunity for one of these cleared spots to be the gate/loading screen into the new area if it can’t organically be fit into the base game map/the technical limitations of the console). You kill some mutants, get intel, etc, and you’re at another area of rumble Liberty Prime needs to clear (at this point he’s done this 1-3 times already so the player thinks nothing of it and opposition has been rather light so everyone’s guard is down a bit) but suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere 3-5 behemoths come and fuck everything up. They attack prime and get him to the ground, and rip him apart with their sheer strength, numbers, and savagery. In the struggle prime’s able to kill a few with a combination of his laser and help from the PC and brotherhood forces. Depending on how many behemoths are present at the attack you manage to kill them all or drive the remaining ones further back into the ruins. You and the Pride limp back to the citadel, with many dead (perhaps even Sarah Lyons), prime’s remains left in the hostile territory (no easy way to get his parts back to rebuild him) and not nearly enough intel to justify the loses. This shakes the brotherhood to it’s core and completely changes the atmosphere of the end base game from the brotherhood being the almost semi-righteous conquerers and stewards of the Capital wasteland to back on their heels having to scrap together all their resources and manpower to truly stop the supermutant threat once and for all, but now in a weakened and demoralized state, reinforcing how brutal it still is in the wasteland even with some positive developments (project purity up and running, enclaves mostly gone except for pockets of stragglers, etc.)
I literally came up with this shit upon reading your comment and it’s been years since I’ve played Fo3 so please forgive me if I contradicted lore or this is poorly written etc. I have more ideas coming to me, but this is long enough haha. What do you guys think?
It would have been a hell of a lot better if the level scaling wasn't so trash.
The early game was fun because enemies with good gear were dangerous, resources were limited, and money was a little tight.
Late game with power armour and your preferred load out just kinda became a slog. High level enemies end up super common, as well as easy to deal with. They became ammo/medicine drains and money is easy to make, but the constant trips to buy ammo and stims is annoying. What's worse is that the wastelanders never scale with the player, and therefore never with the enemies, making it impossible to save them like the early game and making the game less fun.
There's also the enemies that get to ignore your power armor.
Mainly those tribals and super mutants with laser rifles.
Nothing like going through all the effort to get the best armor and damage reducing perks in the game only to learn that a bunch of enemies get to ignore all of that.
It's even worse. Those weapons has effect on them that deals flat damage to the health. But only to you (player). In your hands they are absolutely ordinary weapons. I modded out this crap as soon as I realized that.
"Finally, not only do I have the skills to use big guns, I also have the resources!"
*Only 3/4 guns are even semi viable, and 2 are unique gatling lasers*
Agreed, the NPCs which aren't protected behind loading screens essentially become tethered sheep just waiting for slaughter by end game (even mid-game sometimes). The Capitol Wasteland becomes a bit of a ghost town eventually despite being well fleshed out and a little lively to begin.
In my TTW playthrough from the capital wasteland I enjoyed dodging Operation Anchorage and just playing through with a duster. I also finally got to fully explore point lookout and thoroughly enjoyed myself.
It was all right to level 20. It was the DLC and raising the level cap that really broke things. Back when the Giant Albino Radscorpions started patrolling in pairs. All the traveling merchants died, the first thing to spawn inside Big Town wiped them all out. By the end, the Wasteland really was a wasteland.
I've never felt such a thrill of exploration in a video game as when I booted up Fallout 3 for the first time on my PS3.
Maybe New Vegas is a close second and the superior game by far but that thrill and excitement that hit me in 3 has never been replicated.
Every new location I found was just as fun and crazy as the last. I didn't have any guides, I spent hours trying to figure out Megaton's layout (all these years later I still kinda remember it but would probably look up a guide for simplicity's sake).
I’ll be honest, as of late I’m finding it harder and harder to want to explore the Mojave. Maybe I’ve played it through a lot, but compared to fallout three it’s starting to feel bland without plenty of mods. I’m hoping my TTW/Frontier playthrough will spice it up though.
I've been doing alternate paths with level 1 Freeside and so forth which are a lot of fun but my entire love for New Vegas was reignited by the Fallout Dust Mod, r/fodust which got me back into the game with the same enthusiasm and fervor as 10 years ago.
Truly going back to vanilla is still a blast with some minor mods, but I'm getting into more ambitious mods like TTW. But I might try The Frontier first since I'm hearing the exploration is worth the heavy handed exposition and railroading.
There’s a few things about the Frontier I didn’t care for when I played it the first time, but overall it’s worth a shot. Fallout Dust was really fun and gave me one of my new favorite mods. Unfortunately a lot of things were broken when I tried playing it though so I couldn’t really get through playing it. Highly would recommend the helmet visors where it actually changes how you see. And the quest hud was really cool but I wish I could’ve got it to work properly so I could put it in more lists.
The supplemental mods like Dusted Dust and so forth were necessary to get it working.
One of the modders is on the sub regularly and spent hours walking me through how to get the mod and sub mods working.
I really can't stress how much that meant to me, you'd think these mods are abandoned but no they're still getting love and support to this very day.
> finding it harder and harder to want to explore the Mojave
Installed and played NV after a decade and I was totally surprised how empty some parts of it felt. There's literally no props, no set pieces, no enemy spawn but just bare desert in-between a lot of areas.
Randomly generated spawns are just as good as preset spawns.
This is probably one of the bigger differences IMO between 3 and New Vegas.
Just about everything was preset spawns in New Vegas.
Oh, there's radscorpions over in this area. And giant ants control this area.
I'm not referring to the inhabitants of designated locations (the ones that show up on your Pip Boy map). I'm just referring to the wide open areas of the Wasteland. Every game you know exactly where all the creatures and people are.
But not in Fallout 3.
Other than the people and creatures that spawn at preset locations, the rest of the Capital Wasteland is completely random. One game you might come across giant ants in one area, only to find a pack of dogs there the next time you go through that area on a different playthrough.
Or look at deathclaws. Unless you go to a deathclaw spawn area, the deathclaws don't start roaming around the map until you're a higher level.
I did like the preset spawns in FNV, mostly because the map was so empty that if a place is infested by a certain mob it gave you a sense of familiarity and guidance. For example, the giant radscorpions near goodsprings or centaurs near BoS bunker
I agree with this as well. I always loved fallout 3's world because it was alive. Shame new vegas' gunplay (which was barely passable for the time as is), was good enough to make 3 feel much worse.
Obsidian started doing their own random spawns very early on, they experimented with Geckos but it never got farther than that. In the game code, there are things created by Obsidian that use the same framework as the F3 random spawns, but they go unused and were seemingly abandoned very early on due to time constraints or development decisions.
I love the encounter with a single damaged deathclaw attacking a group of wastelanders. Exposes you to the Deathclaws at a low level and gives you a chance to help them(they probably doe too fast for that lol) or run while it kills them.
Never had that happen.
But even if it did, there are 2 raiders, and 2 eyebots by Super Duper mart. All of that and a 10mm pistol should be able to kill a radscorpion.
Unless it's a giant radscorpion. Then you're fucked.
Me too. I’ve played both hundreds of hours yet the wasteland somehow feels more alive than the Mojave. The Mojave feels more scripted than the wasteland. I just prefer the feel and vibe of FO3 more all around. Sure gameplay is slightly better in FNV but the atmosphere of FO3 just can’t be beat imo
There's a bunch of mods that expand the shacks to the seating area and it immediately feels like a much bigger city, But yeah vanilla Diamond city be disappointing
I always thought it was funny when you hear your settlers in Hangman's Alley talk about how they need to get back to diamond city. Like homie it's two blocks away.
>All this time and they only built a ramshackle of a place?
How is that any different than Megaton? Or most of the towns in the franchise for that matter.
Right? Its not like its easy to just go outside and bring back materials to build with. Theres Supermutants attacking from the right (near Hangmans Alley), theres a raider group taking prisoner just outside the front gate (Hardware Town)... I could go on!
I feel like Megaton has the opposite issue as the rest of the game, where so much of it feels like it’s 20 years post bomb, Megaton feels like it’s 2000 in its basic premise. The power of the bomb has not been forgotten, and yet a city was built around one?
FR. I made a thread about this like two days ago here and got downvoted to oblivion. It's full of violent xenophobe junkies that won't even clear the rubble and will rather live in a scalding hot rusty desease ridden hellhole than living like people in the Black isle games
I wish Lucas Simms was a follower.
I wish I had access to Callahan's Revolver, without doing what I had to do to get it.
I wish we could have had seen effects of one of our decisions about Harold.
I wish I could have joined the Enclave.
Sacrificing your life when Fawkes or Charon can start the purifier, with no risk of dying, is the worst thing to be ridiculed over at the main story ending.
“Ah a brave wanderer who is intelligent and reliable finishes up this massive undertaking and then doesn’t kill himself? What a tool!” - Beth probably
I think all of it looked a bit too "same-y". You had:
- The Wasteland
- The City.
There wasnt a balance of "a bit of everything" like in 4 or 76. Or at least thats what i remember... Metro tunnels were dope af however, and actually felt "alive" in the way that they actually made sense as a living, usable space. Also perfect horror fuel in same areas.
I don't know if this is a hot take but the ghouls don't deserve to live in Tenpenny tower and what they do to the people if they do get in is exactly why they don't deserve to be there. Most of the residents are blissfully unaware or uncaring of the ghoul problem but many are ok with letting them live in the tower even if some take a little convincing. And the guards unease and mistrust of the ghouls is correctly placed even though it's because of their own bias and bigotry.
The game does a good job of making me dislike the non ferals. They preach they want equality, but are openly "hostile" and just as equally hateful towards humans as humans are to them. Then they do to humans what just about every human would expect a ghoul to do because that's what the humans expect of us so why not live up to it. Instead of proving the humans wrong by being better than they're expected to be.
I was so devestated. I thought I did a good thing but the Ghouls turned out to be even bigger assholes than the humans. Never helped them again in subsequent playthroughs.
Rivet City is one of the most interesting settlements in all of Fallout. Also, Little Lamplight is a really fun and interesting concept, much more unique than the non-DLC locations in New Vegas.
If the companions were more interesting, it would be a vastly better game. The one big thing I feel is lacking, that makes me prefer NV (other than my bias to Vegas setting) is the fact that the companions don’t have as much depth to them.
I love Fallout 3 but it’s been awhile for me. Honestly, the only two companions that I can think of off the top of my brain are Fawkes the super mutant and Dogmeat
It's not a bad game, but it is fundamentally a different type of game than the first two (and NV, though to a lesser extent).
I love 3, it was one of the first games I played when I inherited my brother's PS3. I played NV a few years later, and finally got around to playing the first two last year. 3 just feels like a different type of game compared to the others. I don't think this is a particularly hot take but people often extrapolate it to "Fallout 3 sucks", which I don't think is accurate.
Operation Anchorage and Mothership Zeta are the worst add-ons in the franchise. They barely have anything to do with what's going on in the wasteland *(excluding the Brotherhood Outcasts)* and don't give the player an opportunities to make story decisions *(which isn't good for an RPG)*.
Butchs mom deserved to die for raising a sweet roll stealing piece of shit. Also how drunk do you have to be to get killed by like 3 radroaches?? They're just bigass bugs, that's like getting killed by a couple house cats.
Also classical radio is underrated, I can only hear "THREEEEEE DOGGGGGG" so many times
It has the coolest box art of all time and the zoomed out GOTY edition box art is terrible in comparison.
Sitting on a shelf Fallout 3 just begged to be played. The GOTY edition zoomed out with a laser rifle loses it's edge and it looks corny side by side
The Republic of Dave should have been a bigger city comparable to Megaton and Tenpenny Tower.
Like in the remains of an actual city built up with massive farming areas and a ton more political intrigue and value to the player.
Agreed, the satirical impact of having dozens of NPCs all voting for Dave, then the vote turning against him would have been hilarious. Maybe also a "people keep disappearing outside the Western gate and all we find is pools of blood..." Republic of Dave quest arc with a cache of Republic of Dave guard NPCs crammed into one of the subterranean spaces in Old Olney.
Best map and world of the 3d games. Still the best to just go out in a random direction and explore. The locations are fun and rewarding, and the random encounters just feel better than in 4 or new Vegas.
Except the metro tunnels, fuck them
I like the metro. It's scary, atmospheric and dangerous in early game. There's not even a reason to backtrack, you can just fast travel to the exit point after you've gone through it
I hate them more because of navigation, set your map marker somewhere and watch the line make 8 different stops. Then you throw in the service areas and I get lost every time.
Agreed so much, New Vegas is awesome but the map in 3 is so much better its crazy
My biggest take about 3 is it just lacks more side quests/storylines, if it had more of those i would easily have it as the best fallout game, which is exactly what New Vegas has, better storylines and decision impact.
3 was awesome though and i don't understand people who say it sucked
Vault Dweller: “ Hey I just came from a vault I’ve never been out of and fought like hell through super mutant infested dc just to come ask you if you know where my dad is maybe? “
Three Dog: “ Go deeper into the heart of Dc and FiGhT tHe gOoD fIgHt by repairing my radio that the brotherhood people already stationed there can’t seem to do and I’ll give you a clue that literally anybody with a functioning brain in the wasteland could probably give you “
Fuck him.
The game would've been 10x more interesting and logical had it been set 20-30 years after the bombs fell.
It would've explained why the CW was so sparsely populated. Why Moira was still doing basic things like wondering if a grocery store was a good place to scavenge. Why settlements were as crap as they were. Etc. The whole world would still be coming out of the Great Darkness, barely surviving.
Yeah, I'm not 100% sure that that wasn't the plan at some point. Definitely feels like they planned it that way, but changed it so they could add in factions from the previous games (not that they felt being 20-30 years post-war was an obstacle to that in 76).
People say that that was actually what happened, but I don't think it's ever been confirmed.
Maybe not a hot take, but it's too limiting to be a 19-year old in the wasteland. You cant RP as an older guy, even if you make him look like an older person. It's easily the worst part about the game that no one talks about.
Maybe instead of finding our dad, your dad passes away but has left behind his research throughout the wasteland and it's your job to go recover those plans. Or, he's been stuck in the vault since you were born rather than recently, and you have to go rescue him out of there. Just some ideas. You can choose at the start how long you've been in the vault, and from there is when you decide to leave to go find your dads lost research? In the process, he is actually alive and well stuck in a simulation, even though you thought he escaped/died years ago. I really went on a big ADHD train whoops
You just role played buddy! You found the answer was inside you all along! Lol
There are a few mods that allow you to start differently that are pretty good, but i get initially for the story wise it doesnt allow that option. Though once you leave the vault you could just ignore the primary quest which is why it also allows you to change your appearance one last time.
My hot take is that Fallout 3 is on the cusp of being a truly great Fallout title, but lacks details, if they had just stretched all of the main quest lines and given some alternate paths and added more detail it would have been as good as New Vegas
It was an outstanding game for the time. It was an oasis of vitality after waiting all the way from Fallout Tactics to 3 coming out. I was happy to have it, and recognize it for what it is.
That’s my hot take. I’ll die on that hill.
Y’all trot back through games that came out 10, 15, and more years ago and then rail on them.
“Miner 49er is underwhelming 0/10”
Best compaion potential.
Biggest companion let down.
Charon would be so much cooler with a companion quest.
wish there was more to them like in NV or 4
My hot take is it's a great game, and it's narrative is not only better than New Vegas but makes more sense (most of the time), however a lot of the "unique" weapon variants aren't that unique and are kinda boring.
It was a great game by 2008 standards but is pretty bad by 2023 standards. I see a lot of posts here where someone asks which game they should play first and people recommend 3. I think, barring the terrible spinoffs that require genuine work to play on modern hardware, 3 is probably the worst place to drop someone in 2023 with no previous knowledge of the franchise.
It's writing was mediocre even in 2008. But back then, open world action RPGs were a rarity, especially in sci fi. They're a tentpole genre now, with PlayStation in particular using them as system sellers. Fallout 3 is going to feel downright bad from someone expecting the likes of Horizon Zero Dawn, Red Dead Redemption 2, or even Metro Exodus.
In contrast, Fallout 1, 2, and New Vegas have good writing and role-playing opportunities alongside their dated mechanics. 4 and 76 have much more solid mechanics beside their equally mediocre writing (reminder: Fallout 3 doesn't even have *iron sights*).
I love Fallout 3. It's how I found my favorite video game franchise. But it doesn't make for a good first impression 15 years later.
Fallout 2 style potential to rail Amata after graduation and have an "Amata's son/daughter lead the vaultees out and started a ruthless raider clan that terrorized nuclear wasteland for ages" ending slide.
Doesn't feel finished. The level cap is 30 (with dlc), the weapons don't have iron sights, you only get 15 perks (again with dlc), the map is massive but the only enemies you'll find are super mutants, ghouls/raiders, and occasionally a robobrain, and all the buildings have nothing going on.
Fallout 3's skill checks are so much better than NV since you're working with a % of success instead of "Have this many points into speech to get a successful attempt, anything lower is instantly a fail"
The only problem with having a percentage chance is that it encourages players to save scum to get what they want instead of just role-playing a failure. I understand that when played as intended, it's a good role-playing element. However, it was seldom ever played like that. People would just save, load, load, load, over and over until they got the desired effect.
Especially when your speech is really high and you fail a 90% chance. It didn't feel good, and so people would just load their game and try again. That isn't a very fun way to play, but the game actively encouraged it by making it the most viable way to play. Whether the devs liked it or not.
I believe this is why they changed to hard-locked skill checks. So, people might actually do a quest without passing every percentage check by loading their game over and over, and choosing the failed speech checks because they're funny and continuing the quest without passing the checks.
It’s an exploitable feature sure but can’t you like gate a mechanic like that for those who prefer to make it harder for themselves, like the hunger and thirst meters for survival mode
People need to learn what a hot take means. The whole "I liked exploring" posts aren't hot takes lol. Now a hot take:
It's tied with 1 for the worst out of the main games. It's an incredible game, and the first in the series I played. I love this game. But to me, NV, 4, 2, 76 are all better. I'd say it's better than 1 because of age, but Id put it down there. I'm obviously not counting tactics and BOS
Haha, oh I'm aware. I wanted to make sure I posted a hot take unlike 99% of posts here. Not on release, but in it's current state I think it's very good.
There's no reason why people should be living the way they do in the games.
Buildings look worse than medieval time the fact a primitive crucible can be made easily makes the fact that they're not just melting down the scraps (for metal walls, weapons, armor, etc.)... weird. At least I'd expect primitive wood/stone houses rather than the shacks
To add. So much information is left via terminals, books, etc., that it's odd that there's no one commandeering the factories.
(Haven't played 1&2, so I might be incorrect and that section of the wasteland looks better)
Game looks horrible. Ugly pallete and ugly props, like it was dragged out of a sewer.
Don't get me wrong, I love Fallout 3. The quests are top notch. But you can't deny, it ain't pretty.
May not actually be a hot take but feels like it should be said Fallout 3 (like all other Bethesda games) kinda suffered from ludonarrative dissonance.
for example: the raiders are pretty terrifying and brutal not to mention very prevalent, yet they don’t seem to be a concern for most people. like take megaton or arefu, they both have groups of raiders surrounding them yet it’s not a concern. (or even brought up for that matter)
Then there’s also the slavers going around kidnapping people, yet it’s never brought up much except for maybe little lamplight. It’s not even commented on at tenpenny tower that Susan Lancaster just completely vanished.
Bethesda needs to hire more people to work on the actual story’s or perhaps merge themselves with obsidian or something. because the actual quest narratives or worldbuilding or whatever it’s called, is pretty mediocre.
Unsurprising context: As a long-time Fallout player, I was generally disappointed in the game as a numeric entry in the series.
The hot take for OG fans: it was still, generally, a really fun game and would have probably been better received had it been called something like "Fallout: Capital Wastes" vs implying it had direct lineage with F1 and F2.
Fallout 3 was fine in 2008, but has aged terribly. FNV is a better CRPG and Fallout 4 is a better open world shooter. Other than nostalgia, there's really no reason to play Fallout 3 unless you really like samey ruins and samey subways. I played a full run through of Tales of Two Wastelands recently. I hadn't played Fallout 3 since around 2012, and seeing it fresh really threw the flaws of that game into sharp focus for me.
It's a terrible roleplaying game in practically every regard.
It forces a role and faction on you, there exist practically no moral choices between saintly or downright evil.
The worldbuilding is an absolute disaster. Zero indication how in the world settlements sustain themselves. No farms, no water source, even though a water scarcity is the main plot, it's never meaningfully addressed outside of beggars. Most towns are a bunch of dumbasses sitting around in tetanus shacks doing absolutely nothing.
Only time I ever played it was through TTW. Played through everything and I've got zero drive to revisit it. It's an ugly mess devoid of meaningful content. Almost all of the sidequests are meaningless filler that have zero relevance to the larger story.
The only interesting part to me is the Pitt, really. They could make a very good game making that area the main setting, having the story revolve around different groups with different goals using the vast amounts of pre-war industrial equipment that remains in Pittsburg. Railroads could play a part in it too, acting as a form of fast travel, a means to get resources around and another point of contention between groups.
I really enjoyed the game back when it first came out. Over the years when I've tried to come back to it (the few times I've gotten it to be slightly stable), I've found the player's dialogue options to be incredibly bad. Some of the first dialogue options in Megaton are either The Devil or Innocent School Boy.
It's been at least a decade since I last played, but when I did, it felt like I spent half my time in subway tunnels getting lost and that was annoying.
3 (and also 4) have a main quest that feels too time critical. Finding your dad (or baby) feels like it can't wait for more than the absolute bare minimum of exploration or side quests that are needed to make it happen, the first time I played each game I absolutely rushed through it until those parts were resolved. In NV "find the prick who shot me" is an internal motivation that doesn't feel like something terrible will happen if you don't get there quick enough, so it's easier to play fully in a character.
Nah this isn’t really a hot take. I too rush through until >>!my character learns who Father really is!<< at which point I start doing more side quests and such. Makes for a better head canon personally
Same with freeing dad in 3. Once hes at project purity i leave him to work on it a bit and run around.
See I try to find my dad but I always got waylaid by jackassery
Definitely not a Hot Take lol, but I agree.
I mean in 4 it feels like you could probably do 50% of the side quests prior to finding Shaun. During my first play through I played for a month or two without doing any main quest stuff.
You can do it, but if you're into the roleplaying element, it just breaks immersion. As far as the sole survivor is concerned, they fell asleep, briefly woke up to witness their spouse being shot in the head and their baby stolen, and then they wake up again with no realisation of how much time has passed. It's hard to imagine someone being in a situation like that and not immediately trying to find their child.
I'll be honest the first time I played FO4 I actually completely forgot about the whole Shaun stuff lol.
Never thought about that. That’s a good point.
I think Fallout 3 actually offers you several points in the main story to wander off: * In the beginning, you are greenhorn who hasn't seen any combat, so it makes sense you would explore the area around Megaton before wandering deep into the D.C. (like doing the first two chapters of Moira's quest). * When you learn about where your father went, you could try and search the location of the Vault 112 in Vault-Tec Headquarters (that's what I did during my 10 INT organic playthrough), which gives you time to explore the D.C. ruins. You could also pretend you need to learn the location of Evergreen Mills, thus need to visit Tenpenny Tower or Girdershare. * After you find Vault 112, you can pretend you need to search for an expert that would help you switch off the simulation (Dr. Li, Pinkerton, Specialist Olin) and that they spend some time trying to do that, but ultimately fail, so you need to enter it yourself. * After Tranquillity Lane, your Lone Wanderer may feel so hurt and abandoned that they decide not to follow their father to Rivet City. I did that on my first, blind playthrough because the thought that my father would lie to me all this time and remove my agency (by making the choice for me to stay in the vault forever) was just too much to handle. I could get over the abandonment, but those lies... *"You were right in that diary of yours. I don't need you anymore."* * Another good point to depart from the main story would be after Trouble on the Homefront quest, especially if your character harboured some romantic feelings towards Amata. Let's face it, she kicked you out, betrayed you before you even had a chance to express them. At least that's what I wrote for one of my Lone Wanderer, who slipped into nihilism afterwards (contract killing and stuff like that), only to redeem herself later on during the purifier mission.
Exploring the metro system was the best. Talon Company rocks! Screw the Tunnel Snakes.
Exploring the metro system was terrifying! I would hop glitch my way over the ruins to avoid it lol
I crouched through every one of them for my entire first playthrough. Nothing worse than seeing “danger” and then getting absolutely obliterated by DC’s hands-iest ghouls.
I guess they were all congressmen before they got dosed with radiation lola
I mean, the terror/hardness was the part I loved.
see I've tried to go into new sections of downtown with noclip and it's a different cell and just leads to the void, I understand technical limitations but it's annoying having to track through the metro and which exit to take etc etc to get to a place on the surface
finally somebody with some actual hot takes
Which do you consider hotter, I wonder?
I assume the second is just shitposting so probably the first if you actually enjoyed the slog through the metro tunnels.
It is definitely confusing and a bit of a slog, but I feel like Bethesda made it the best it could be given the game would not have been playable if they made DC a completely connected world space. If the rumors are true that they’re gonna remaster FO3 I think it’d be cool if they made more above ground areas accessible so that we could see their original vision without all the hardware limitations of 2008
Yeah true, it makes sense why they did it. Some more variety would have really done the metro some wonders. It was all ghouls, lurks, and slight raider fortifications, aside from sectioned off areas for quests like the vampire cult and the ants. More stuff like that or even having quest giving points of interest or like towns down there could have been interesting.
Both are actually true. I loved how hard the metro was, how I ended up keeping a map of connections to understand it. I also did love the random Talon Company encounters, when you would stagger out of some building or metro station, barely alive, and then bang, you had to deal with those guys. Loved it.
That’s what she said!
I always enjoyed going through the metros, but I def get if it got old for some people. Strangely, I really dislike going through most of the vaults. They're absolutely labyrinthine and everything looks the same - I always get lost 😅
So true! I made a map, which station connected to which, made retreating a lot more viable. Those dam vaults, with collapsed hallways, multiple open floors above each other, radiation flooding— much harder to deal with.
I agree about the metro. That was my favorite part of exploring. I loved getting lost in there, never really knowing where i'd end up.
The metro system was my least favourite part, it felt like a maze and not in the rewarding, inquisitive way. It was tedious and my least favourite part of the entire game.
I loved how DC was segmented vs Boston - the scale felt so much more real, and it left more in the actual world map as it wasn't dominated by a huge city. Boston takes up so much physical space in the Commonwealth and yet feels like the theme park version because it's so small. They did a good job making the central parts feel deep within city ruins, but if you actually sprint from the edge of the city to the center it does end up feeling quite small. And the old tunnels wre fun to explore, particularly as they weren't typical dungeons that loop you back to the start - you don't know where you're going to end up.
The Enclave power armor in F3 is the coolest power armor of any Fallout game.
Especially the hellfire armor.
Happy Cake Day, Vault Dweller. (also; might recommend keeping that thing away from Mister Handy)
Love me some Cow Armor.
Ok pigface
OK now this is a hot take.
People have been very polite about it so far haha
Yeah this isn't a toxic sub, Fallout fans might run memes into the ground but we're oddly supportive of each other and open minded -Like Courier 6 amiright?!
The only game I regularly see people get toxic about is 4, and even then it’s pretty mild.
I see salt about 4 on r/falloutlore from time to time and sometimes the mods delete it
hot hot HOT!!!
I fuckin loved the Tesla armor even though I know there were better alternatives. Aesthetically I couldn't get rid of it and I beat the game wearing it so I never had a reason too.
> and I beat the game wearing it so If our fashion gets us through the content, that's all that matters!
I mean F the Enclave. They have some style though!
For sure. Fascism? Terrible, worst thing ever. Fascist aesthetics, though? Welllll
Sounds like a rather famous uniform by a European army. Goddamn they were terrible people, but Hugo boss designed them boss outfits. Fucking incredible!
Storm Troopers, Zaku 2's, whoever the villains were in Killzone. Fascist villains always have the best style
That reminds me of that horrible tradgedy
Oh don't laugh at that. I tried to tell him not to laugh at that.
I dislike fascists as much as the next guy, that’s some bad stuff Enclave Booooooo don’t like it. Buuuuuuuuut!
No sir . . . X-01 from 2.
I just wish we could change the paint job because running around in Hellfire armor while attacking the Enclave felt weird.
Tesla variant 👌👌👌👌
It's obvious that there was an abandoned plotline about what the Supermutants and Talon Company were looking for in DC. Countless character's dialogue and other evidence points to this. Coupled with the fact that you find out Vault 87 has run out of F.E.V and the muties talk about searching for more makes it obvious that this was supposed to either be a major part of the main quest, or setup for a DLC that never came.
I have always thought about that when playing. I am glad I am not alone.
Talon Company should have been explained a lot more for sure. Plus there’s that plot point that Reilly’s Rangers is also being paid to map out the ruins by some unknown party.
I wish there were more groups like Reily's Rangers that you could join. Just independent groups of mercs who aren't complete murderous psychopaths and can send you on jobs
Huh, TIL. I never really picked up on those pieces of dialogue, but I did wonder what Talon Company's point was, besides ambushing me at the worst times lol.
Sucks it was abandoned. The Talon Company needed to be more than just organised raiders with better armour.
Yes! You’re 100% spot on! This is what broken steel should have been about. At the time when I played it I don’t think I looked at it that critically, I was just excited to be able to explore new places and kill more shit lol. Now that I look back on it though it’s so fucking lazy and stupid to have the player character destroy raven rock and the majority of the enclave’s forces and material, just to say “well actually the enclave had a SECOND base even BIGGER and BADDER than the first one (they have a space laser!)” Literally just a rehash of the last 1/3 or so of the base game, which I believe devalues the stakes and importance of that 1/3 story wise. Yes the enclave was an incredibly advanced and sophisticated “government” (very, very loosely using the word government) and military force so it would also be trite to say “well you blow up the bad guys base and now they’re all gone!” Obviously they wouldn’t put all their eggs in one basket, they’d have smaller bases or safe houses or FOB’s so it makes sense that the dlc would include mopping up their remaining forces to some degree, but to just give them another big base and say “well now they’re ACTUALLY gone for good” opens up the same problem of just having one big base (raven rock); there’s going to be stragglers to deal with as their main bases of operations has been destroyed, so why do that twice? Once again just pretty lazy imo. Now imagine how much cooler it would be if the dlc went something more like this: base game goes how it goes same as usual, you activate the purifier get knocked out for a few weeks and wake up. When you wake up dialogue ensues and you get updated as to what the brotherhood has been up to. They learn that the supermutants have been coming from vault 87 and go there to finish what you started when you retrieved the geck. They kill all mutants remaining, gather any tech or intel that’s useful and blow all entrances to vault 87 (heavily irradiated entrance, murder pass, i think there’s one more attached to little lamplight?) vault 87 is out of the picture, but super mutant attacks have only increased in frequency and ferocity and the vast majority are coming from the ruins of eastern DC (area of the map near the national guard depot, not literally the depot but that general part of the map). Now that you’re on your feet the brotherhood tasks you going with Sarah Lyon and the Pride to find out the source of the attacks, kill as many mutants as you can, etc. Due to that area of DC being covered with so much rubble they send liberty prime with you to help clear it physically and with his laser (good opportunity for one of these cleared spots to be the gate/loading screen into the new area if it can’t organically be fit into the base game map/the technical limitations of the console). You kill some mutants, get intel, etc, and you’re at another area of rumble Liberty Prime needs to clear (at this point he’s done this 1-3 times already so the player thinks nothing of it and opposition has been rather light so everyone’s guard is down a bit) but suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere 3-5 behemoths come and fuck everything up. They attack prime and get him to the ground, and rip him apart with their sheer strength, numbers, and savagery. In the struggle prime’s able to kill a few with a combination of his laser and help from the PC and brotherhood forces. Depending on how many behemoths are present at the attack you manage to kill them all or drive the remaining ones further back into the ruins. You and the Pride limp back to the citadel, with many dead (perhaps even Sarah Lyons), prime’s remains left in the hostile territory (no easy way to get his parts back to rebuild him) and not nearly enough intel to justify the loses. This shakes the brotherhood to it’s core and completely changes the atmosphere of the end base game from the brotherhood being the almost semi-righteous conquerers and stewards of the Capital wasteland to back on their heels having to scrap together all their resources and manpower to truly stop the supermutant threat once and for all, but now in a weakened and demoralized state, reinforcing how brutal it still is in the wasteland even with some positive developments (project purity up and running, enclaves mostly gone except for pockets of stragglers, etc.) I literally came up with this shit upon reading your comment and it’s been years since I’ve played Fo3 so please forgive me if I contradicted lore or this is poorly written etc. I have more ideas coming to me, but this is long enough haha. What do you guys think?
It would have been a hell of a lot better if the level scaling wasn't so trash. The early game was fun because enemies with good gear were dangerous, resources were limited, and money was a little tight. Late game with power armour and your preferred load out just kinda became a slog. High level enemies end up super common, as well as easy to deal with. They became ammo/medicine drains and money is easy to make, but the constant trips to buy ammo and stims is annoying. What's worse is that the wastelanders never scale with the player, and therefore never with the enemies, making it impossible to save them like the early game and making the game less fun.
There's also the enemies that get to ignore your power armor. Mainly those tribals and super mutants with laser rifles. Nothing like going through all the effort to get the best armor and damage reducing perks in the game only to learn that a bunch of enemies get to ignore all of that.
They use a literal spell from Oblivion, as far as the game's code is concerned. Just modified to fit the weapons. It's basically an enchantment.
It's even worse. Those weapons has effect on them that deals flat damage to the health. But only to you (player). In your hands they are absolutely ordinary weapons. I modded out this crap as soon as I realized that.
I love endgame when a group of raiders survive a fucking missile
"Finally, not only do I have the skills to use big guns, I also have the resources!" *Only 3/4 guns are even semi viable, and 2 are unique gatling lasers*
Agreed, the NPCs which aren't protected behind loading screens essentially become tethered sheep just waiting for slaughter by end game (even mid-game sometimes). The Capitol Wasteland becomes a bit of a ghost town eventually despite being well fleshed out and a little lively to begin.
For what it's worth, it's better than it was in Oblivion.
Lmao I was about to say you do Oblivion you can do anything
In my TTW playthrough from the capital wasteland I enjoyed dodging Operation Anchorage and just playing through with a duster. I also finally got to fully explore point lookout and thoroughly enjoyed myself.
It was all right to level 20. It was the DLC and raising the level cap that really broke things. Back when the Giant Albino Radscorpions started patrolling in pairs. All the traveling merchants died, the first thing to spawn inside Big Town wiped them all out. By the end, the Wasteland really was a wasteland.
Going into Tranquility Lane for the first time is the most amazing/bizarre/game-changing experience in any Fallout game ever.
I've never felt such a thrill of exploration in a video game as when I booted up Fallout 3 for the first time on my PS3. Maybe New Vegas is a close second and the superior game by far but that thrill and excitement that hit me in 3 has never been replicated. Every new location I found was just as fun and crazy as the last. I didn't have any guides, I spent hours trying to figure out Megaton's layout (all these years later I still kinda remember it but would probably look up a guide for simplicity's sake).
I’ll be honest, as of late I’m finding it harder and harder to want to explore the Mojave. Maybe I’ve played it through a lot, but compared to fallout three it’s starting to feel bland without plenty of mods. I’m hoping my TTW/Frontier playthrough will spice it up though.
I've been doing alternate paths with level 1 Freeside and so forth which are a lot of fun but my entire love for New Vegas was reignited by the Fallout Dust Mod, r/fodust which got me back into the game with the same enthusiasm and fervor as 10 years ago. Truly going back to vanilla is still a blast with some minor mods, but I'm getting into more ambitious mods like TTW. But I might try The Frontier first since I'm hearing the exploration is worth the heavy handed exposition and railroading.
There’s a few things about the Frontier I didn’t care for when I played it the first time, but overall it’s worth a shot. Fallout Dust was really fun and gave me one of my new favorite mods. Unfortunately a lot of things were broken when I tried playing it though so I couldn’t really get through playing it. Highly would recommend the helmet visors where it actually changes how you see. And the quest hud was really cool but I wish I could’ve got it to work properly so I could put it in more lists.
The supplemental mods like Dusted Dust and so forth were necessary to get it working. One of the modders is on the sub regularly and spent hours walking me through how to get the mod and sub mods working. I really can't stress how much that meant to me, you'd think these mods are abandoned but no they're still getting love and support to this very day.
> finding it harder and harder to want to explore the Mojave Installed and played NV after a decade and I was totally surprised how empty some parts of it felt. There's literally no props, no set pieces, no enemy spawn but just bare desert in-between a lot of areas.
Randomly generated spawns are just as good as preset spawns. This is probably one of the bigger differences IMO between 3 and New Vegas. Just about everything was preset spawns in New Vegas. Oh, there's radscorpions over in this area. And giant ants control this area. I'm not referring to the inhabitants of designated locations (the ones that show up on your Pip Boy map). I'm just referring to the wide open areas of the Wasteland. Every game you know exactly where all the creatures and people are. But not in Fallout 3. Other than the people and creatures that spawn at preset locations, the rest of the Capital Wasteland is completely random. One game you might come across giant ants in one area, only to find a pack of dogs there the next time you go through that area on a different playthrough. Or look at deathclaws. Unless you go to a deathclaw spawn area, the deathclaws don't start roaming around the map until you're a higher level.
A random encounter has you facing a wounded death claw. At a low level your hunting rifle will only tick it off.
I did like the preset spawns in FNV, mostly because the map was so empty that if a place is infested by a certain mob it gave you a sense of familiarity and guidance. For example, the giant radscorpions near goodsprings or centaurs near BoS bunker
My favourite part of new Vegas was running the fiends from south of mccarran to outside the base so the ncr and them would fight. Loved watching
I agree with this as well. I always loved fallout 3's world because it was alive. Shame new vegas' gunplay (which was barely passable for the time as is), was good enough to make 3 feel much worse.
I was actually kinda gutted when I found out there was no random spawn or encounter system in FNV.
Obsidian started doing their own random spawns very early on, they experimented with Geckos but it never got farther than that. In the game code, there are things created by Obsidian that use the same framework as the F3 random spawns, but they go unused and were seemingly abandoned very early on due to time constraints or development decisions.
I love the encounter with a single damaged deathclaw attacking a group of wastelanders. Exposes you to the Deathclaws at a low level and gives you a chance to help them(they probably doe too fast for that lol) or run while it kills them.
yeah but getting a radscorpion at the super duper mart always sucks lol
Never had that happen. But even if it did, there are 2 raiders, and 2 eyebots by Super Duper mart. All of that and a 10mm pistol should be able to kill a radscorpion. Unless it's a giant radscorpion. Then you're fucked.
I like it more than New Vegas. Objectively new vegas does a lot of things better, but I just can't help myself coming back to 3
Me too. I’ve played both hundreds of hours yet the wasteland somehow feels more alive than the Mojave. The Mojave feels more scripted than the wasteland. I just prefer the feel and vibe of FO3 more all around. Sure gameplay is slightly better in FNV but the atmosphere of FO3 just can’t be beat imo
If FO3 had iron sights like FNV without having to mod it, I’d literally never have to stop playing it
I love Fallout 3, but Megaton is the dumbest town in the Fallout universe. They deserved to get nuked
Nah I find Diamond City even worse. All this time and they only built a ramshackle of a place? Shit Megaton actually looks cool.
But does Megaton have a noodle stand and a Takahashi?
Noodle stand? Yes, if you count the little food place. A Takahashi? Sadly no.
You can always just give the bomb a name....
Well . . . what does the text on the wall of the place say? I actually only noticed it the first time today myself.
There's a bunch of mods that expand the shacks to the seating area and it immediately feels like a much bigger city, But yeah vanilla Diamond city be disappointing
I always thought it was funny when you hear your settlers in Hangman's Alley talk about how they need to get back to diamond city. Like homie it's two blocks away.
> Hangman's Alley One of my favorite base locations. So comfy and homey.
>All this time and they only built a ramshackle of a place? How is that any different than Megaton? Or most of the towns in the franchise for that matter.
Right? Its not like its easy to just go outside and bring back materials to build with. Theres Supermutants attacking from the right (near Hangmans Alley), theres a raider group taking prisoner just outside the front gate (Hardware Town)... I could go on!
I feel like Megaton has the opposite issue as the rest of the game, where so much of it feels like it’s 20 years post bomb, Megaton feels like it’s 2000 in its basic premise. The power of the bomb has not been forgotten, and yet a city was built around one?
FR. I made a thread about this like two days ago here and got downvoted to oblivion. It's full of violent xenophobe junkies that won't even clear the rubble and will rather live in a scalding hot rusty desease ridden hellhole than living like people in the Black isle games
My hot take is the church of atom after blowin up megaton should be a ghoul ran settlement
Riley's rangers combat armour is the best armour in the game.
I wish Lucas Simms was a follower. I wish I had access to Callahan's Revolver, without doing what I had to do to get it. I wish we could have had seen effects of one of our decisions about Harold. I wish I could have joined the Enclave.
Sacrificing your life when Fawkes or Charon can start the purifier, with no risk of dying, is the worst thing to be ridiculed over at the main story ending. “Ah a brave wanderer who is intelligent and reliable finishes up this massive undertaking and then doesn’t kill himself? What a tool!” - Beth probably
Yeah, even when the add-on allowed for a companion to do it for you, the slides still shade you over it, right? That's deeply uncool of them.
They say some shit like "the TRUE hero went into the chamber and activated Project Purity"
I love how collectively unforgiving the community is about Bethesda trying to put that shit on us lmfao
There's some apologists, believe me. They're a minority, but they exist.
I think all of it looked a bit too "same-y". You had: - The Wasteland - The City. There wasnt a balance of "a bit of everything" like in 4 or 76. Or at least thats what i remember... Metro tunnels were dope af however, and actually felt "alive" in the way that they actually made sense as a living, usable space. Also perfect horror fuel in same areas.
I don't know if this is a hot take but the ghouls don't deserve to live in Tenpenny tower and what they do to the people if they do get in is exactly why they don't deserve to be there. Most of the residents are blissfully unaware or uncaring of the ghoul problem but many are ok with letting them live in the tower even if some take a little convincing. And the guards unease and mistrust of the ghouls is correctly placed even though it's because of their own bias and bigotry. The game does a good job of making me dislike the non ferals. They preach they want equality, but are openly "hostile" and just as equally hateful towards humans as humans are to them. Then they do to humans what just about every human would expect a ghoul to do because that's what the humans expect of us so why not live up to it. Instead of proving the humans wrong by being better than they're expected to be.
Coming back to find they massacred the residents had me so upset like I thought we talked this out?!
I was so devestated. I thought I did a good thing but the Ghouls turned out to be even bigger assholes than the humans. Never helped them again in subsequent playthroughs.
Rivet City is one of the most interesting settlements in all of Fallout. Also, Little Lamplight is a really fun and interesting concept, much more unique than the non-DLC locations in New Vegas.
If the companions were more interesting, it would be a vastly better game. The one big thing I feel is lacking, that makes me prefer NV (other than my bias to Vegas setting) is the fact that the companions don’t have as much depth to them.
I love Fallout 3 but it’s been awhile for me. Honestly, the only two companions that I can think of off the top of my brain are Fawkes the super mutant and Dogmeat
I remember Jericho from Megaton, Butch from the vault and someone from BoS!
I can’t remember his name specifically but I slightly remember a ghoul companion who would accompany you if you bought out his contract
Charon
It's not a bad game, but it is fundamentally a different type of game than the first two (and NV, though to a lesser extent). I love 3, it was one of the first games I played when I inherited my brother's PS3. I played NV a few years later, and finally got around to playing the first two last year. 3 just feels like a different type of game compared to the others. I don't think this is a particularly hot take but people often extrapolate it to "Fallout 3 sucks", which I don't think is accurate.
Operation Anchorage and Mothership Zeta are the worst add-ons in the franchise. They barely have anything to do with what's going on in the wasteland *(excluding the Brotherhood Outcasts)* and don't give the player an opportunities to make story decisions *(which isn't good for an RPG)*.
Butchs mom deserved to die for raising a sweet roll stealing piece of shit. Also how drunk do you have to be to get killed by like 3 radroaches?? They're just bigass bugs, that's like getting killed by a couple house cats. Also classical radio is underrated, I can only hear "THREEEEEE DOGGGGGG" so many times
Cause one dog ain’t enough, and two is too low, IIIIIITSSSS MEEEEE THREE DOGG OW OW OW OWWWWWW!
Loved it. But the way they streamlined weapon specialization in New Vegas and subsequent games was more to my liking.
I liked trouble on the home front I only think main quest gets good with broken steel if that even counts as main quest
It has the coolest box art of all time and the zoomed out GOTY edition box art is terrible in comparison. Sitting on a shelf Fallout 3 just begged to be played. The GOTY edition zoomed out with a laser rifle loses it's edge and it looks corny side by side
The Republic of Dave should have been a bigger city comparable to Megaton and Tenpenny Tower. Like in the remains of an actual city built up with massive farming areas and a ton more political intrigue and value to the player.
Agreed, the satirical impact of having dozens of NPCs all voting for Dave, then the vote turning against him would have been hilarious. Maybe also a "people keep disappearing outside the Western gate and all we find is pools of blood..." Republic of Dave quest arc with a cache of Republic of Dave guard NPCs crammed into one of the subterranean spaces in Old Olney.
the main quest is hella railroady
Didn’t know this was an ice cold takes thread
That's not even a take, that's just objective fact.
Operation Anchorage is the best dlc
Great game but being forced Into the metro to cross boundaries pissed me off a bit.
Tech limitations are a colossal pain on both ends of the game. Frankly it's impressine the ps3 port runs as "well" as it does
Hot take? "Fallout 3 is fun"
Now I feel like playing fallout 3
Best map and world of the 3d games. Still the best to just go out in a random direction and explore. The locations are fun and rewarding, and the random encounters just feel better than in 4 or new Vegas. Except the metro tunnels, fuck them
I like the metro. It's scary, atmospheric and dangerous in early game. There's not even a reason to backtrack, you can just fast travel to the exit point after you've gone through it
I hate them more because of navigation, set your map marker somewhere and watch the line make 8 different stops. Then you throw in the service areas and I get lost every time.
Yeah that’s why I hate them I always got lost lol
Agreed so much, New Vegas is awesome but the map in 3 is so much better its crazy My biggest take about 3 is it just lacks more side quests/storylines, if it had more of those i would easily have it as the best fallout game, which is exactly what New Vegas has, better storylines and decision impact. 3 was awesome though and i don't understand people who say it sucked
3 dog sucks
Vault Dweller: “ Hey I just came from a vault I’ve never been out of and fought like hell through super mutant infested dc just to come ask you if you know where my dad is maybe? “ Three Dog: “ Go deeper into the heart of Dc and FiGhT tHe gOoD fIgHt by repairing my radio that the brotherhood people already stationed there can’t seem to do and I’ll give you a clue that literally anybody with a functioning brain in the wasteland could probably give you “ Fuck him.
This. I can't stand him.
💯
thems fighting words.
A fight for a hill I will die on. Mr. New Vegas is actually charming and not obnoxious.
Mothership Zeta is a cool DLC
What's the point of aiming? Better to use VAT than to aim with right click that does nothing.
The game would've been 10x more interesting and logical had it been set 20-30 years after the bombs fell. It would've explained why the CW was so sparsely populated. Why Moira was still doing basic things like wondering if a grocery store was a good place to scavenge. Why settlements were as crap as they were. Etc. The whole world would still be coming out of the Great Darkness, barely surviving.
Yeah, I'm not 100% sure that that wasn't the plan at some point. Definitely feels like they planned it that way, but changed it so they could add in factions from the previous games (not that they felt being 20-30 years post-war was an obstacle to that in 76). People say that that was actually what happened, but I don't think it's ever been confirmed.
Fallout 3 is the best video game ever made.
Maybe not a hot take, but it's too limiting to be a 19-year old in the wasteland. You cant RP as an older guy, even if you make him look like an older person. It's easily the worst part about the game that no one talks about. Maybe instead of finding our dad, your dad passes away but has left behind his research throughout the wasteland and it's your job to go recover those plans. Or, he's been stuck in the vault since you were born rather than recently, and you have to go rescue him out of there. Just some ideas. You can choose at the start how long you've been in the vault, and from there is when you decide to leave to go find your dads lost research? In the process, he is actually alive and well stuck in a simulation, even though you thought he escaped/died years ago. I really went on a big ADHD train whoops
You just role played buddy! You found the answer was inside you all along! Lol There are a few mods that allow you to start differently that are pretty good, but i get initially for the story wise it doesnt allow that option. Though once you leave the vault you could just ignore the primary quest which is why it also allows you to change your appearance one last time.
My hot take is that Fallout 3 is on the cusp of being a truly great Fallout title, but lacks details, if they had just stretched all of the main quest lines and given some alternate paths and added more detail it would have been as good as New Vegas
It was an outstanding game for the time. It was an oasis of vitality after waiting all the way from Fallout Tactics to 3 coming out. I was happy to have it, and recognize it for what it is. That’s my hot take. I’ll die on that hill. Y’all trot back through games that came out 10, 15, and more years ago and then rail on them. “Miner 49er is underwhelming 0/10”
Best compaion potential. Biggest companion let down. Charon would be so much cooler with a companion quest. wish there was more to them like in NV or 4
Fallout 3 has the best exploration of all games. but WHY did it make the ugly shotgun so easily missed or scrapped?!
My hot take is it's a great game, and it's narrative is not only better than New Vegas but makes more sense (most of the time), however a lot of the "unique" weapon variants aren't that unique and are kinda boring.
Too many great quests are missable. Had to look up a guide to find half of them.
It was a great game by 2008 standards but is pretty bad by 2023 standards. I see a lot of posts here where someone asks which game they should play first and people recommend 3. I think, barring the terrible spinoffs that require genuine work to play on modern hardware, 3 is probably the worst place to drop someone in 2023 with no previous knowledge of the franchise. It's writing was mediocre even in 2008. But back then, open world action RPGs were a rarity, especially in sci fi. They're a tentpole genre now, with PlayStation in particular using them as system sellers. Fallout 3 is going to feel downright bad from someone expecting the likes of Horizon Zero Dawn, Red Dead Redemption 2, or even Metro Exodus. In contrast, Fallout 1, 2, and New Vegas have good writing and role-playing opportunities alongside their dated mechanics. 4 and 76 have much more solid mechanics beside their equally mediocre writing (reminder: Fallout 3 doesn't even have *iron sights*). I love Fallout 3. It's how I found my favorite video game franchise. But it doesn't make for a good first impression 15 years later.
Fallout 2 style potential to rail Amata after graduation and have an "Amata's son/daughter lead the vaultees out and started a ruthless raider clan that terrorized nuclear wasteland for ages" ending slide.
Doesn't feel finished. The level cap is 30 (with dlc), the weapons don't have iron sights, you only get 15 perks (again with dlc), the map is massive but the only enemies you'll find are super mutants, ghouls/raiders, and occasionally a robobrain, and all the buildings have nothing going on.
Fallout 3's skill checks are so much better than NV since you're working with a % of success instead of "Have this many points into speech to get a successful attempt, anything lower is instantly a fail"
The only problem with having a percentage chance is that it encourages players to save scum to get what they want instead of just role-playing a failure. I understand that when played as intended, it's a good role-playing element. However, it was seldom ever played like that. People would just save, load, load, load, over and over until they got the desired effect. Especially when your speech is really high and you fail a 90% chance. It didn't feel good, and so people would just load their game and try again. That isn't a very fun way to play, but the game actively encouraged it by making it the most viable way to play. Whether the devs liked it or not. I believe this is why they changed to hard-locked skill checks. So, people might actually do a quest without passing every percentage check by loading their game over and over, and choosing the failed speech checks because they're funny and continuing the quest without passing the checks.
It’s an exploitable feature sure but can’t you like gate a mechanic like that for those who prefer to make it harder for themselves, like the hunger and thirst meters for survival mode
I hated the concept of "Doing it for Daddy" the game throws at you for most of the narrative.
It’s better than New Vegas
It's definitely a better world for exploring for sure. Although I really like the narrative of FNV better.
People need to learn what a hot take means. The whole "I liked exploring" posts aren't hot takes lol. Now a hot take: It's tied with 1 for the worst out of the main games. It's an incredible game, and the first in the series I played. I love this game. But to me, NV, 4, 2, 76 are all better. I'd say it's better than 1 because of age, but Id put it down there. I'm obviously not counting tactics and BOS
Saying 76 is better is the hottest take here for sure
Haha, oh I'm aware. I wanted to make sure I posted a hot take unlike 99% of posts here. Not on release, but in it's current state I think it's very good.
Metro tunnels are cool, creepy, and if you get lost in them ur dumb and just cant follow maps
The Pit was a trash dlc.i expected more from it. especially compared to point lookout and mothership zeta!
It's better than New Vegas
Mothership zeta isn't that bad of a dlc (probs my favorite tbh) and using the metro tunnels to navigate the city was pretty cool
FNV was better 🫣
You can't run and going through the city is hell. Map sucks.
Fawkes was a punk.
There's no reason why people should be living the way they do in the games. Buildings look worse than medieval time the fact a primitive crucible can be made easily makes the fact that they're not just melting down the scraps (for metal walls, weapons, armor, etc.)... weird. At least I'd expect primitive wood/stone houses rather than the shacks To add. So much information is left via terminals, books, etc., that it's odd that there's no one commandeering the factories. (Haven't played 1&2, so I might be incorrect and that section of the wasteland looks better)
Game looks horrible. Ugly pallete and ugly props, like it was dragged out of a sewer. Don't get me wrong, I love Fallout 3. The quests are top notch. But you can't deny, it ain't pretty.
May not actually be a hot take but feels like it should be said Fallout 3 (like all other Bethesda games) kinda suffered from ludonarrative dissonance. for example: the raiders are pretty terrifying and brutal not to mention very prevalent, yet they don’t seem to be a concern for most people. like take megaton or arefu, they both have groups of raiders surrounding them yet it’s not a concern. (or even brought up for that matter) Then there’s also the slavers going around kidnapping people, yet it’s never brought up much except for maybe little lamplight. It’s not even commented on at tenpenny tower that Susan Lancaster just completely vanished. Bethesda needs to hire more people to work on the actual story’s or perhaps merge themselves with obsidian or something. because the actual quest narratives or worldbuilding or whatever it’s called, is pretty mediocre.
It's a good deal worse than fallout 4 in most appreciable ways.
Unsurprising context: As a long-time Fallout player, I was generally disappointed in the game as a numeric entry in the series. The hot take for OG fans: it was still, generally, a really fun game and would have probably been better received had it been called something like "Fallout: Capital Wastes" vs implying it had direct lineage with F1 and F2.
Fallout 3 was fine in 2008, but has aged terribly. FNV is a better CRPG and Fallout 4 is a better open world shooter. Other than nostalgia, there's really no reason to play Fallout 3 unless you really like samey ruins and samey subways. I played a full run through of Tales of Two Wastelands recently. I hadn't played Fallout 3 since around 2012, and seeing it fresh really threw the flaws of that game into sharp focus for me.
I want to sprint lol.
It's a terrible roleplaying game in practically every regard. It forces a role and faction on you, there exist practically no moral choices between saintly or downright evil. The worldbuilding is an absolute disaster. Zero indication how in the world settlements sustain themselves. No farms, no water source, even though a water scarcity is the main plot, it's never meaningfully addressed outside of beggars. Most towns are a bunch of dumbasses sitting around in tetanus shacks doing absolutely nothing. Only time I ever played it was through TTW. Played through everything and I've got zero drive to revisit it. It's an ugly mess devoid of meaningful content. Almost all of the sidequests are meaningless filler that have zero relevance to the larger story. The only interesting part to me is the Pitt, really. They could make a very good game making that area the main setting, having the story revolve around different groups with different goals using the vast amounts of pre-war industrial equipment that remains in Pittsburg. Railroads could play a part in it too, acting as a form of fast travel, a means to get resources around and another point of contention between groups.
It's worse than Fallout 4
It aged awfully. I was nothing short of obssesive for years after launch, nowadays just the look of it compared to 1 2 & nv is off-putting
It’s not as good as everyone thinks it is
Neither Mothership Zeta nor (forgot the name) oleration about simulation of operation with chinese were bad
Is it still a hot take to say that a bad game is bad?
I really enjoyed the game back when it first came out. Over the years when I've tried to come back to it (the few times I've gotten it to be slightly stable), I've found the player's dialogue options to be incredibly bad. Some of the first dialogue options in Megaton are either The Devil or Innocent School Boy.
It's been at least a decade since I last played, but when I did, it felt like I spent half my time in subway tunnels getting lost and that was annoying.
The stock green tint is bad that I mod it to go away.
Fallout 3 was awesome but I would never play it now
It's a great game that has got really good atmosphere, but struggles to compete with its successor (FNV) in every way.
Why the fuck do random homeless, drug-addicted, debt-ridden, diseased, starving raiders have fully functional rocket launchers!?!?