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Yeah, I've even done a railroad playthrough and I still think they deserve to die.

They're really nonsensical.

Yeah i really dont like them ether.

Does anyone actually like the RR?

I sort of like what they believe in (freedom for intelligent sentiants), but the people within them can go die in hole.

I like Desdemona even if her characterization is mostly indirect (you learn why she is a good leader by listening to Carrington complain about her). I think the real reason the RR is annoying is Bethesda just shoves 'em down the player's throat: THESE ARE THE GOOD GUYS. Why? FREEDOM AND STUFF. I kind of got the impression that another, more competent writer handled the Institute.By contrast, how does the RR prove its point? It's like Bethesda simply assumed the player would already agree that (a) synths are basically interchangeable with humans and therefore (b) their "freedom" should be an immediately sympathetic goal. In effect, most of the burden of carrying this premise falls on the shoulders of Nick Valentine, a second gen (?) who managed to integrate into human society in a positive way. But when you think about it, the key to Nick's success is not that humans believe he is a human (the basic assumption of the RR) but rather that he is (and has to be) up front about who/what he is.

Yes, yesss. Let the hate flow.
Know my contempt at dealing with Victoria Watts in FO3
Feel my annoyance at their short-sighted, illogical and poorly developed ideals.

TBF the RR quest in FO3 boiled down to Doctor Zimmer being an ass who needed killing. His subordinate (and rival?) Doctor Ayo isn't much better.

The solution to the Ayo problem wasn't elegant though.

Manchu wrote:
TBF the RR quest in FO3 boiled down to Doctor Zimmer being an ass who needed killing. His subordinate (and rival?) Doctor Ayo isn't much better.

He was ass, yes. But at least he didn't stalk you across the wasteland and shove an undroppable item in your inventory without so much as a please and a thank you.
I can understand Zimmerman's arrogance, being from a high tech society and all, but what makes Watts so special, to treat me like her underling?
His reward was also better. Though I normally went for the gun, which is probably the best outcome anyway.
I think telling an android what he really is is more ethical that letting him live a lie, only to discover his true identity by accident, which would surely cause more pain.

So really the three choices were this

RR choice - Lie to the institute, leaving the android blissfully unaware of his true identity, which may result in him doing something that will reveal his identity, causing pain and ostracisation from the human populace, as well an existentialist crisis. Not to mention the possibility of him having a malfunction and melting the inhabitants of rivet city with that fancy plasma rifle.
Reward : some caps and a pat on the back from the game

Zimmerman choice - Remove a possible threat from human society, at the cost of a sentient machine's freedom.
Reward : A perk that makes vats better

Android choice - Reveal his identity to him, allowing him to keep his freedom, as well as preparing him to integrate better into human society. If he knows what he is, the likelihood of him revealing himself decreases.
Reward : A unique, kickass plasma rifle

Not mentioning the exploit that allows you to get both good rewards, as that always felt dodgy to me.

You could tell Harkness the truth without handing him over to Zimmer and Armitage.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
ninja'd

Yeah, I did a stealthy edit

I'm happy I chose Brotherhood, now I just need 40k power armor mod (with all the marks, naturally) to really get in the spirit!

I was toying with saving the RR and betraying the institute, because that seemed like fun. Then I hit a known bug and now I have no choice but to destroy the RR. Not having a choice really makes you want to do the other thing.

RR is easily the most annoying faction, especially since they're the worst choice for the commonwealth as a whole

 Wolfblade wrote:
RR is easily the most annoying faction, especially since they're the worst choice for the commonwealth as a whole

Spoiler:

and trying to save like, 13 synths or whatever it was in their final mission is kind of a pathetic goal for a group that is made up to be far more powerful

Also, as someone who's finished every faction quest line. RR also requires you to do some institute quests for you to continue their quest line. This was very annoying since I'd already finished the Institute by then and had no reason to retread those quests.

 Soladrin wrote:

 Wolfblade wrote:
RR is easily the most annoying faction, especially since they're the worst choice for the commonwealth as a whole

Spoiler:

and trying to save like, 13 synths or whatever it was in their final mission is kind of a pathetic goal for a group that is made up to be far more powerful

Spoiler:

That's not actually the end though.

Also, as someone who's finished every faction quest line. RR also requires you to do some institute quests for you to continue their quest line. This was very annoying since I'd already finished the Institute by then and had no reason to retread those quests.

Yeah I think I'm gonna cut my ties with the RR now and finish up the institute story, then maybe try a new guy and go with the BoS. I don't agree with their kill everything attitude but then killing everything is fun.

 Necros wrote:
Yeah I think I'm gonna cut my ties with the RR now and finish up the institute story, then maybe try a new guy and go with the BoS. I don't agree with their kill everything attitude but then killing everything is fun.

But but but LASERS!

I very much enjoyed the later Brotherhood missions where you...



That was one of the most pleasurable video game experiences in recent memory

So, because I haven't quite gotten there yet... how are these faction choices? Are they pretty much exactly like NV where if you choose the BoS, you cant choose the Institue or RR?


I kind of have in mind which factions I want to ally with, but not sure if I can, based on some posts here, it's a wee bit confusing.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
So, because I haven't quite gotten there yet... how are these faction choices? Are they pretty much exactly like NV where if you choose the BoS, you cant choose the Institue or RR?


I kind of have in mind which factions I want to ally with, but not sure if I can, based on some posts here, it's a wee bit confusing.

You really don't need to choose until pretty close to the final missions, hell, I've had the institute, BoS and RR friendly all at the same time until they started a conflicting mission at the same area (which is when you need to choose who you will help)

You basically have to align with Brotherhood, Railroad or Institute. Railroad alignment will have you working with the Institute for a while too. Not sure how the Minutemen factor in, I've kinda ignored them and they haven't reared their heads.

Whatever of the three you choose, you cut yourself off from having anything to do with the others in the future, except as small pockets of enemies to encounter once in a while.

Sadly (at least from what I've seen) there is no "independent" way, which I would prefer. I'd like to turn the minuite men into the government of the commonwealth, but that would allow for player freedom and lots of choice, even morally grey/black things, and we can't have that now can we.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Sadly (at least from what I've seen) there is no "independent" way, which I would prefer. I'd like to turn the minuite men into the government of the commonwealth, but that would allow for player freedom and lots of choice, even morally grey/black things, and we can't have that now can we.

You want blue, red, green AND grey endings?

Cheeky sod

Welp, I'm still at a miserable lvl 19, playing mostly on Very Hard and I've finally reached the Castle to give a hand to my fellow Minuteman.

Wow... I mean, wow. It's just .... He described it "A monster rose from the sea and destroyed the Castle" but I didn't know he meant it literally!

The bloody thing is thrice my size! I shot a rocket at it's face and it didn't even flinch! (aka, it's health stayed almost the same)

It's ... gonna be a challenge to beat the bloody thing when it sneezes at me and I die.

Well, for a creature from the deep, I would expect that.

It has to cope with high pressures at depth and therefore will be hard to damage physically.

However, I bet it doesn't take heat based attacks well. So Flamer, Napalmer, Shishkebab would probably be the best, but laser and plasma weapons would also work well. Or possibly the Gamma gun, but from what I've read about that, probably not.

That's if Bethesda have taken a logical course on that fight and not just given it an obscene health bar, of course.

 Conrad Turner wrote:
Well, for a creature from the deep, I would expect that.

It has to cope with high pressures at depth and therefore will be hard to damage physically.

However, I bet it doesn't take heat based attacks well. So Flamer, Napalmer, Shishkebab would probably be the best, but laser and plasma weapons would also work well. Or possibly the Gamma gun, but from what I've read about that, probably not.

That's if Bethesda have taken a logical course on that fight and not just given it an obscene health bar, of course.

So bloated health bar is it

Anyone found the submarine yet? That was a surprise.

Finally got Curie too. She complains about the violence but the weapon she picked up with zero prompt from me was a flamethrower. She is actively torching buildings and is amazed at the violence... She's the most violent Companion I've had, and I travelled with Strong.

Yeah I gave my CURIE a deathclaw gauntlet and she goes around slicing throats while lecturing me about how we should find a more civilized solution.

So, after thinking about it a while, I think that I have decided how I feel about the game.

It's a decent game, though sometimes it tries to do too much without enough explanation (see: workshop system). It's a gak fallout game though.

Why? Well, there were always a couple things fallout was all about. The moral reprehensibility of the wastes, the myriad of different ways to handle any situation, and the fact that almost anything in the game could be handled without firing a single shot.

I mean, they touch on this stuff a little. You can choose to help people or not. You can help the chem pusher at the diner instead of the trader that runs it. You get to pick which rail you ride (militant techno-extremists, science-at-all-costs-extremists, or freedom-extremists). I haven't done railroad or institute stuff yet, but in the BOS the only thing you can really do to affect the outcome of anything that happens is and that doesn't really have much in the way of ramifications beyond keeping a companion available.

Beyond that, it's "go here, kill these, otherwise, don't progress the story." When I think of fallout, I think of saving the ghouls at Necropolis in spite of taking the water chip. I think of Vault City shenanigans and getting citizenship without attacking Gecko by going around the quest. There's at least three ways to fix the Gecko generator, and it was tricky to figure out, rather than just "I put on my power armor and take the beryllium gadget without worrying about the rads" like in FO4. I think of talking down the raiders to save Tandi without getting into a fight. I think of the fact that you can choose to screw people to get your way (or not), and you suffer consequences (as far as reputation) for that. I think of the total mess that was New Reno, and how you could side with any of the factions there, but do almost all of the quests your way. For example, you could blame anyone you wanted for the poisoning of the kid of one of the families, or you could do some actual detective work and solve the problem and find out who is responsible, and each choice had other (game changing) consequences you had to deal with. You could reason your way through the final encounters of both Fallout 1 and Fallout 2. You could even kill the kids(!) that stole from you in the Den, but you'd be hated by basically everyone remotely good after. There was even Francis, one of the most... unique situations I've ever seen in any game. It was horrible, gritty, and believable in the new wild west that you would expect of a wasteland.

Fallout has always been a world where there were multiple ways to go with any situation. Sometimes options were limited by what kind of character you were, but there was almost always some way to make your decision "your way" of doing things. This feels like "Space Marine: Fallout Edition". I mean, they give you power armor almost immediately, and try to fix it by making it a resource consuming thing, and then there's enough of that resource to basically play out the entire game wearing the armor anyway with even just a token effort toward collecting it. That didn't really strike me at first, but the other night with my melee character, I got jumped by a deathclaw out of nowhere during a Railroad mission. Not finding another way to do anything about it, I realized I was still carrying the fat man I picked up earlier and the single nuke I had for it. I blasted the thing with it, and then finished it off with small arms. What's the problem with that? My melee character has a STR of 3, because the game was way too easy the first time. It was then that I realized that, even mechanically, I was a god with anything I could swing or pull a trigger on, even without making any choices. There's literally only one decision I can make in the game that has any ramifications, mechanically, or otherwise.

Don't get me wrong, Bethesda created a beautiful and vast expanse to explore and investigate, but only once did I really have that pang of "oh god, what decision do I make here, and what will the ramifications be?" Contrasted with previous games where basically every conversation was one of those situations. But maybe I just somehow missed all of those quests?