I’ve just finished my first playthrough and I think this is a great game. It would be silly to try and list everything I like about it so I’ll just say that the biggest complement I can give it is that to me, it feels more like a follow on to Fallout 2 than Fallout 3 ever did.

But I do have a few complaints, concerns and suggestions that I wanted to voice, and I want to hear if you agree or have any yourself. I think it’s best if we keep bug posting out of this particular thread, and I’ve be constructive in my criticism and as specific as I can. If you want to post some of your concerns remember the devs will be far more likely to listen if you’re constructive and specific.

And remember these are just my personal observations playing the 360 version.

The magic journal.
I think there is a bit too much hand holding in quests. The journal is too precise in its instructions and sometimes gives info that you haven’t actually acquired or been told. Somehow it just magically knows what you should do. In addition the quest pointer is too precise. If your mission is to find a certain item or person then it spoils your fun to have the pointer point you right to it. I think it should point to a more general area and require you to actually search a bit.

Sloppily written quests.
Some characters will assume you’re doing quests for them when in fact you’re not if you do certain actions. For example Cass will talk to you like you’re doing her quest if you decide to kill the Van Graffs on your own. Francine Garret will assume you’re doing her quest if you speak to Santiago. Private Harold (in the Camp Guardian caves who wants you to recover the dog tags of his friends and clear out the lake lurks), is a particularly frustrating one. If you talk to him before killing the lurks he runs off further into the cave and gets killed by them. If you kill the lurks first then you miss his initial dialog and an opportunity to get his weapon and to use your Medicine skill to heal him, thus he never leaves the cave. None of this breaks the quests but you miss out on the character’s initial dialog, thus it ruins the quest’s continuity. Since this is a sandbox game and you can do any actions in any order, I think it’s important the quests be written in such a way that they still work properly even if you do things in an order the writer didn’t intend.

Nerfed!
Explosives and sneak seemed to have been nerfed making them far less useful, but VATS seems to have been nerfed to the point of near uselessness. I never found it unbalanced combat in Fallout 3. I relied on it to aim more than anything because aiming at a target at very close range or one that is moving rapidly laterally across the screen is very difficult with a 360 controller.

Too much XP.
Something I hated from Fallout 3 is the absurd amount of XP you get for every little thing. This wouldn’t be bad but you level up too quickly. I find I avoid doing things that grant a lot of XP as a way of slowing my levelling. XP is supposed to be a reward. You should feel happy when you get some, but personally I don't if I get too much too easily, and I level too quickly. Something I find particularly irksome is getting XP for 360 achievements.

The Strip.
I won’t say I found The Strip to be a disappointment because I didn’t expect much from it to begin with. I thought it was bland and decidedly underwhelming. There could be a few more quests certainly, but more importantly there needs to be far more NPCs with dialog. There just aren’t enough people to talk to. This is a waste of a wonderful opportunity. The Strip is a mecha for people for miles and miles around. People sell everything they own and risk their lives to get there. Imagine the stories that people would have after finally getting there. The writers could have let their imaginations run wild coming up with characters and back stories. But instead there are just a few people to talk to and the rest are generic Traveller or The Gambler.

Unrealistic weapon requirements.
Although I liked the fact that weapons have a strength and skill requirement I don’t think this went far enough. Some weapons have no skill requirement at all and that is silly, and the strength requirements are so low as to be pointless. You’d have to be stronger than “a beached jellyfish” to use a shotgun don’t you think? And you’d need at least a bit of skill to use any rifle, even a Varmint Rifle.

Unimaginative end battle.


The hardcoe mode.
Like many gamers the hardcoe mode was a big selling point for me. I wouldn’t play without it and think it’s certainly a step in the right direction. But I don’t think it goes far enough. It’s less a hardcoe mode and more a removal of the pathetic whimp mode of the game’s default mode and that of Fallout 3. The problem with it is there are far too many resources in the world. You’ll always be able to find food or water or a place to sleep, therefore the survival element and the added challenge that the mode is supposed to offer are completely moot. It’s more of a roleplaying mode than anything. It’s good if you like to roleplay your character and eat, sleep and stay hydrated, but that’s as far as it goes. hardcoe mode is further weakened by the Survival skill that allows you to regain health from food and drink, thereby defeating the purpose of that aspect of hardcoe mode. I’d also like to see doctor’s treatment cost a lot more in hardcoe mode (a mere 50 caps to completely heal my radiation, and only 70 to 100 caps to completely heal me?) and stimpaks and other medicine be rarer and more expensive.

Karma.
Karma just doesn’t work. As pointed out time and time again on the boards, why do you get positive karma for blowing certain people’s heads off, but lose karma when you take their stuff? Losing karma when you take something owned by a hostile faction is stupid. It would be fine when they’re neutral, but it shouldn’t happen after they’ve become hostile to you. Or maybe they should just do away with karma altogether, and if you steal you may get attacked or lose reputation but that’s all.

The radio.
It's dreadful, really, really dreadful. The songs are god-awful (although to be fair that's just my opinion, but they really are) and there are not enough of them. The songs and newscasts are very repetitive. What's more all three stations seem to play the same songs so there is no variety, or any getting away from the one or two that you absolutely hate. The only good thing about the radio is the DJ segments can be very amusing.

Crafting.
I think crafting is cool. It’s fun making your own weapons, food and chems and recycling ammo. But I think the skill requirements on some items are too high. Take the bottlecap mine for example. It requires an Explosive skill of 75. By the time you’re able to make it you probably won’t need it anymore. Crafting is further diluted by the fact that money is too easy to accumulate and there is very little to spend it on. So take something as essential as a stimpak. You can make your own when you have raised your skill high enough, but by the time you’ve done that you won’t actually need to make them because you’ll have plenty of money to buy them, and vendors never seem to run out. This goes for recycling ammo as well. Ammo is too plentiful and it’s too cheap. There is absolutely no need to recycle your own because you can buy all that you need. I found the recycling bench to be a brief curiosity, not something that I relied on and used regularly which is a shame. I'd like to see caps be far harder to come by, thereby making crafting essential. I'm assuming that was how it was originally intended afterall.

Survival skill as perk requirement.
I think too many perks require the Survival skill as a requirement. Survival is obviously the devs pet skill since they invented it, and it makes perfect sense to be a requirement for a perk like Animal Friend. But why is it required for Entomologist instead of Science? That punishes science based characters unnecessarily because a Science requirement makes just as much sense. Why not Survival OR Science? My other favourite perk, Travel Light I think should just have an Endurance requirement instead. Why would your Survival skill enable you to run faster, wouldn’t Endurance make more sense? The reason I don’t like survival is because it allows you to heal from food and water. I think it’s appropriate as a requirement for crafting (and harvesting plants would also make sense) but I’d be happier it didn’t allow you to do that.

So, feel free to add your own comments.

Good post here.

I couldn't agree with you more in regards to the quest pointer.

While some of the quest makers point precisely to the objectives, it doesn't always tells you the best way to get there; I don't really see how that's a problem.

As for dialogs given out unprovided information spoilers, most of the time it reflects how sometime information slip through while people is talking, or maybe just some connection is obscure, or PC had overlooked them.

IIRC only Missile Launcher and Fatman have been nerfed to smithereens; grenade are just as good, with additional perks, powder charge, C4 and Grenade Machine Gun I don't think explosive is nerfed at all. I have no idea why you would say Sneak is nerfed however.

I do agree VATS take the nerf hammer a bit too hard.

I think the XP granted is somewhat balanced, but the growth in xp needed for next level should be increase.

I agree The Strip should be at least twice the size, but I think it gets the jobs done atm.

The only rather puzzling once are Lucky and Ratslayer; but I suppose they are "Pacifier's choice" so they have the iconic "0" as requirement.

As for End Game Battle, I think the confrontation to Col. Autumn is nothing but anti-climatic; and you still have the option to talk the the boss(es) instead of fighting them.

I agree Crafting still in need of polish, but again, it gets the job done.

I disagree more about Survival; Entomologist is really just the name picked for the perk and it's effect doesn't necessarily require scientific knowledge. Travel Light is probably something to do with how to distribute luggage weight or simply "roll up your sleeve" to make movement more fluent.