Current Events > why did Bethesda give you suit of power armor and a minigun at start of the game

(+) Yeah! (+)

What was the reasoning behind that?

I forgot they forced you to use them

I dunno, I do remember never using power armor because of the fusion core nonsense

and have a deathclaw show up for some reason

It's like they wanted to make Power Armor feel more powerful which is fine... But throwing you into one right away and scripting a Deathclaw to job to it was weird. Deathclaws are supposed to be endgame enemies and you kill one in the first hour of playing with no effort.

because they were looking for ways to "casualize" and mainstream Fallout to people

also because they spent the most money, time, and effort on the stupid suit mechanics and wanted to make sure people didn't skip it entirely

To give you a taste of the power. 5mm ammo and power cores are scarce at first, so you don't exactly get a lot of use of either of those once you run out.

Even then they fucked up because of how they made damage reduction work, which made the mini gun nearly useless against the deathclaw.

I think they wanted a big action setpiece to get people pumped for the game.

But yeah everything else after that feels kinda anticlimatic

One thing that still gets me to this day is how they literally don't let you be a bad guy except for Nuka-World, where actually playing the bad guy is super fucking jarring

They went from it being super powerful late game stuff to it being a different play style with its own drawbacks

RchHomieQuanChi posted...

One thing that still gets me to this day is how they literally don't let you be a bad guy except for Nuka-World, where actually playing the bad guy is super fucking jarring

And likewise there's not really a "good" storyline for Nuka-World apart from just killing everyone

Can't stand the Minutemen or FO4's main plot, really. However, the one time I wanted to play as an armor-wearing, minigun-using badass from the get-go, I was glad that stupid mission existed. Didn't have to run around the map collecting the free ones you can find all over.

Jet pack is pretty dope though

Yeah it's kinda lame. I like the reworked power armor system in 4 and how you didn't have to have to have training for it (which didn't exist in the first 2 games anyway if I recall). Seemed like they were trying to tease the players at first with it then making it harder at first to maintain the armor and finding 5mm ammo. Still a bad idea.

RchHomieQuanChi posted...

One thing that still gets me to this day is how they literally don't let you be a bad guy except for Nuka-World, where actually playing the bad guy is super fucking jarring

I love 4, but that's another flaw. You don't have any cool bad guy companions either. Cait is a tough cookie at first, but wants to clean up her act as you go on with her. Having a strung out crazed junkie companion would have been interesting. Could have had a choice to save her or let her (and possibly you) embrace the drugs and violence and go wild with it. Strong is ok, but he's still just a super mutant. There's the Institute synth, but he's just an emotionless terminator. I wanted a raider buddy to raise hell with. Gage is also only ok and not that bad either.

For the reviewers who only play the first 4 hours.

They also turned power armor into a clunky vehicle which is completely useless if you prefer a stealth approach.

I found another minigun pretty soon after that tbh. I really should not have survived that area (some satellite tower or something). The raiders were much better armed than I was and there were a lot of them all clustered together. Thanks to my robot companion and molotov cocktails, I managed to clear then out... plus it helped that the moron with the minigun shot a compressed air tank... or maybe my molotov did. I couldn't really tell. All happened so fast. But yeah tl;dr I got his minigun.

Payzmaykr posted...

They also turned power armor into a clunky vehicle which is completely useless if you prefer a stealth approach.

I mean, sneaking around in giant suit of power armor makes no sense anyway

Payzmaykr posted...

They also turned power armor into a clunky vehicle which is completely useless if you prefer a stealth approach.

IIRC, don't they have a Power Armor mod that basically turns it into a Chinese Stealth Suit?

Also, how does a female protagonist even have power armor training? The male sole survivor is an army veteran, but the female one is just a lawyer.

UnholyMudcrab posted...

Also, how does a female protagonist even have power armor training? The male sole survivor is an army veteran, but the female one is just a lawyer.

It's part of law school. Right after constitutional law and torts, we had power armor training.

UnholyMudcrab posted...

Also, how does a female protagonist even have power armor training? The male sole survivor is an army veteran, but the female one is just a lawyer.

I hate that those are predetermined. You should really be able to pick whether your character was a layer or soldier regardless tbqh.

UnholyMudcrab posted...

Also, how does a female protagonist even have power armor training? The male sole survivor is an army veteran, but the female one is just a lawyer.

This is why I always play FO4 with an Alternate Start mod. Because having the forced backstory creates a lot of dumb plot issues

I really wish FO4 was a better game. There's a lot to like, but yeah, more than a bit to hate.

Nacen posted...

I hate that those are predetermined. You should really be able to pick whether your character was a layer or soldier regardless tbqh.

Just the fact that they start the game in a relationship is bad enough. There's so much weird headcanoning you have to do if you want to make, say, a gay or lesbian character.

UnholyMudcrab posted...

Just the fact that they start the game in a relationship is bad enough. There's so much weird headcanoning you have to do if you want to make, say, a gay or lesbian character.

Also the fact that they're on this apparently urgent quest to find their son, but they can fuck around for months building a giant pinball machine. And how it's inevitably how most people will end up playing the game because the entire game is built around settlement building.

Definitely one of the things that bugged me the most, along with the protagonist being voice acted.

Stalolin posted...

Definitely one of the things that bugged me the most, along with the protagonist being voice acted.

Yeah, I did not like this decision.

It works for Mass Effect, but it does not work for a game like Fallout

because every bethesda fallout game is bad

Because to make the casuals go "woah, WOAH!"

Guerrilla Soldier posted...

because they were looking for ways to "casualize" and mainstream Fallout to people

also because they spent the most money, time, and effort on the stupid suit mechanics and wanted to make sure people didn't skip it entirely

Yeah, it felt like this to me too.

Jonny2284 posted...

For the reviewers who only play the first 4 hours.

Also, this.

ultimate reaver posted...

because every bethesda fallout game is bad

i cant say that i agree with that. enjoyed 4. currently playing 3.
planning on new vegas (found out levels go to 50 with DLC). and 76.

I cant believe Im defending Bethesda for this but.you can get power armor in Fallout 2 within half an hour of starting the game.Along with a plasma rifle, pulse rifle, pulse pistol and shit ton of energy cells.

kingdrake2 posted...

i cant say that i agree with that. enjoyed 4. currently playing 3.
planning on new vegas (found out levels go to 50 with DLC). and 76.

Bethesda didn't make New Vegas, which is why it's the only good 3D Fallout

RchHomieQuanChi posted...

Also the fact that they're on this apparently urgent quest to find their son, but they can fuck around for months building a giant pinball machine. And how it's inevitably how most people will end up playing the game because the entire game is built around settlement building.

Eh, that's an issue with every open world game though. The alternative is to force the "urgency" on you with unavoidable cutscenes at certain points, like Far Cry 5 did. Which, in my opinion, is much much worse.

On a side note, if you want to streamline the settlement building process, the Sim Settlements 2 mod is fantastic.

Sounds like they wanted a tutorial on power armor just to get it over with.

Jonny2284 posted...

For the reviewers who only play the first 4 hours.

Ding ding ding!