If you owned Fallout

[Mechasaurian]

Mich simpler solution: just introduce a rival power that is actually a rival. Not just a barbarian horde biting ineffectually at the edge of the NCR's frontier like the legion. Another power that they can't take in a straight fight, and vice versa. So they dance around one another trying to get what influence and resources they can without escalating into a war neither party are confident of winning. That would keep them, nice and contained, but still the powerhouse that being one of the few actual industrialized nation-states existing in the world would be.

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That...no. I can sort of see where you're coming from (and I appreciate that you're not just going "NCR uber alles"), but I doubt that's a solution. The problem is that the NCR is stupendously powerful by the standards of its world, to the degree they can't be meaningfully challenged and will almost certainly eat all the other factions sooner or later. Adding a second ridiculously powerful mary sue faction to counter the existing one will mess things up more, not less.

 

[Jane Dough]

That...no. I can sort of see where you're coming from (and I appreciate that you're not just going "NCR uber alles"), but I doubt that's a solution. The problem is that the NCR is stupendously powerful by the standards of its world, to the degree they can't be meaningfully challenged and will almost certainly eat all the other factions sooner or later. Adding a second ridiculously powerful mary sue faction to counter the existing one will mess things up more, not less.

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Thr point is, if the continent is just more populated with actual factions beyond some assholes squatting in a hole (which I feel is entirely reasonable given the fact that pretty much all the games take place in the 100-200 year mark after the war) would make the NCR less overpowering.






(Also: NCR uber alles)

 

[Mechasaurian]

Thr point is, if the continent is just more populated with actual factions beyond some assholes squatting in a hole (which I feel is entirely reasonable given the fact that pretty much all the games take place in the 100-200 year mark after the war) would make the NCR less overpowering.

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That's an argument for seeing multiple factions and small nations gain a minor-to-moderate level of power and proceeding to bicker among each other (which I could be down with, depending on how it's executed).

It's not an argument for one or two mary sue factions to become hideously overpowered and unchallengeable.

(Also: NCR uber alles)

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[EarthScorpion]

Bluntly, I have no patience for people whining that things in the setting are changing 200 years later, or that you're getting nation-states re-emerging with infrastructure and the like.

The solution is not to set things 200 years post-apoc when you want the feeling of pillaging untouched ruins and eating pre-War packaged food. Fallout's particular feel of 50s post-apocalyptia relies on staying relatively close to the time period when the bombs fell before everyone has picked over all the ruins and pillaged things like PCs do - so don't obsess about advancing the timeline and don't keep on going back to the same locations.

 

[Mechasaurian]

Bluntly, I have no patience for people whining that things in the setting are changing 200 years later, or that you're getting nation-states re-emerging with infrastructure and the like.

The solution is not to set things 200 years post-apoc when you want the feeling of pillaging untouched ruins and eating pre-War packaged food. Fallout's particular feel of 50s post-apocalyptia relies on staying relatively close to the time period when the bombs fell before everyone has picked over all the ruins and pillaged things like PCs do - so don't obsess about advancing the timeline and don't keep on going back to the same locations.

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But...I haven't said any of those things? In fact, I did say that I am fine with nation-states emerging, as long as it's handled well.

I'm objecting to the massively powerful mary sue "protagonist" nature of a particular faction within the setting. That's it. I have a laundry list of problems with the NCR (mostly Doylist ones) which I won't go into here, but I don't intrinsically object to the setting changing or developing.

Frankly, I think you've jumped the gun and conflated my stance with those of other people. I'm pretty sure this is an honest mistake on your part, but I dislike being tarred with a broad brush.

 

[Hykal94]

People have an issue with the NCR because it's a literally a functioning democracy in a world of giant cockroaches and things called Deathclaws.

The NCR is simply one of the best parts of the Fallout universe. It's the thing that keeps Fallout from going the grimderp end like a good chunk of 40k. It's a shining beacon with cracks in it, but a shining beacon nonetheless.

Like if you want something that make NCR less "Sue" or whatever, just set up another state like it in New York or something. New York would probably make a damn good setting and game, and set it around the same time as Fallout 2 is.

Also less emphasis on 50's Aesthetics. It's both a strength and a weakness, but as time goes on, it will only drag the series further down. What Fallout should be is not 50's Aesthetics, it should be the story of mankind fucking up and trying again. That way you can set FO in other places other than just America.

 

[Xon]

I'd license it back to Bethesda and rake in money for nothing.

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Only if they produce Fallout 4:More Stuff edition.

Especially Power Armor, it felt the modification system was quite limited while still being quite nice. It would be nice to have companions in power armor feel like they are solidly contributing.

 

[Shadows]

Things I would do:

Fallout 5, set in Chicago. Set up a powerful state there, and maybe even have it face off against an Eastern section of the Legion; make the Legion less fucking obviously evil so people play them for more reasons than just wanting to play the bad guy. Mention things like the NCR to give a nod to the other games; set it a year or three after FO4, and assume a Minuteman ending for FO4. Beyond that, have no direct contact with the others beyond mentions of things happening on the East and West coasts.

Power armor. It finally felt powerful in FO4. You've got to find a fusion core to power it, but once you do you're set for the game. Canon, right? Also, make it much harder to acquire a functioning exoskeleton, though plate crafting should be something you can do for yourself at the right Chicago shop.

Settlements... not sure if I'd keep the system. It's neat to be able to build things, don't get me wrong, but... maybe instead of founding one you can buy your way into a mayorship of a suburb and you get caps/Chicago dollars from taxation?

Weaponry. Go back to the NV style of more modern stuff, go with a more modern motif in general. Also, some weapons should only be wieldable in power armor. Like, say, upgunning the Minigun to 7.62 and having an ultra-rare version chambered in 20mm.

Vehicles. Go with instanced locations on an overall world map, and let you choose/acquire a number of modes of transportation. If you can rebuild a Vertibird in a garage somewhere, you should totally be able to ride it around. If you hit a random encounter while traveling, it spawns you into the instance driving or flying your vehicle if you're in one, on foot if you're not.

In general it should be a lot more built-up near Chicago, with much more rebuilt and in business once more.

Build a new engine capable of handling more NPCs at once, so you can A: have proper cities with a city's feel and at least a decent sized town's visible population, and B: have bigger pitched battles between various groups. Potentially have a second powerful city state (Detroit? Indianapolis?) in opposition to the Chicago state.

 

[galahad]

Remove level scaling. Remove RPG "progression" bullshit. Make the game more like Stalker series. I.E hardcore survival gameplay with tactical combat. Post apocalyptic wasteland should feel dangerous, not like a themepark MMO.

 

[Drachyench]

Remove level scaling. Remove RPG "progression" bullshit. Make the game more like Stalker series. I.E hardcore survival gameplay with tactical combat. Post apocalyptic wasteland should feel dangerous, not like a themepark MMO.

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I don't think you need to remove RPG progression and whatnot, simply make it less… as it is / has become.

One of the highlights of the Fallout series since the first game was determining how your character addresses situations and how that might shape the world. The Vault Dweller can - for the most part - not kill anyone and resolve their problems via charisma, for example. Or they can just be an emotionless avatar of death that leaves nothing but ash and gibs in their wake. Or something in-between. It's one reason a lot of people complained that Fallout 4 was heavily based around quests than ended with "And then you murder this shit out of someone / some people": The RPG progression elements were "diluted" in some fashions, and it lead to a loss in some of the player's ability to shape their character's role.

Obviously the reverse can lead to the same problem (hands up from everyone who's played a PnP or RPG game wherein they unintentionally wrote off complete paths by taking certain ability, skill, or attribute spreads), but the solution there is generally to find the middle ground. Fallout, IMO, does not lend itself (its main titles, anyways) towards being a shooter focused on killing shit dead real good and not dying as you do so. You could very readily make spin offs using the license that do focus on such things (A Brotherhood of Steel game based around the elimination of various wasteland gangs, for example), but doing so with the main franchise (and in one fell swoop) is going to push away a modest bit of people who played the games for their RPG elements.

 

[PyrrosWarrior]

Fallout, IMO, does not lend itself (its main titles, anyways) towards being a shooter focused on killing shit dead real good and not dying as you do so. You could very readily make spin offs using the license that do focus on such things (A Brotherhood of Steel game based around the elimination of various wasteland gangs, for example), but doing so with the main franchise (and in one fell swoop) is going to push away a modest bit of people who played the games for their RPG elements.

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Yeah, that's generally the reason I like F1 and F2 a lot more than the games following. I like RPG elements a lot, yet I am not a fan of shooter. It's why I never really could get in to F3, and never bought F4. F:NV was closer, but its main gameplay style was still like that of a shooter so, while I did play it longer than F3, I could never get into it as much.

 

[foamy]

FO4 can be played without ever aiming a gun

 

[Mechasaurian]

And New Vegas can be completed without harming a single living being.

 

[Tasrill]

FO4 can be played without ever aiming a gun

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Eating yao guai roast and pretending you are a doom marine that got the berserk power up it technically a kind of role playing.

 

[Morphic Tide]

I'd do one simple thing: Make a game where looting intact pre-war stuff is impossible without taking it from someone else who already has it. The looks are fully Fallout still, gameplay's much like adding onto the Fallout 4 systems, having trees tied to each SPECIAL rather than one path, with some perks having two SPECIAL stats required, bring back skills as skills, just do a bunch to keep what was found good with Fallout 4, fix some of the bad and so on.

But the lack of being able to get pre-war stuff from scavenging makes it damn clear that the setting is past the scavenging stage. Yes, you can still loot from the environment, but it's all post-war stuff unless the area was locked since pre-war times, in which case it needs to be a very, very late-game area due to either hacking or lockpicking needed to get in, if not needing some questline item to get in. Or is covered in energy-weapon spamming robots that give you a window of one or two seconds to break one or two of them, then you have to deal with a dozen or so Sentry Bots headed right for you.

More specifically, the improvements would be building up from Fallout 4's SPECIAL system, possibly mixing in TES's skill leveling setup, by making each SPECIAL stat have a tree. With perks specifically set up to cooperate with game mechanics, like Ghoulish making you regenerate health based on how many rads you have rather than rads you get.

Edit because I accidentally posted early:

More on the perks, with trees, you become able to have perks that require multiple SPECIAL stats again. Possibly using the Skyrim perk UI code to organize them by some variety of topic, probably the "primary" SPECIAL stat. Like, you have each one have a seven-section layout, with each section being a different SPECIAL pair, plus the section that is the SPECIAL stat of the page alone. This lets you file all the crit perks under the page for Luck in the section for Agility or Perception, as an example.

On the settlement-building front, have the settlements be strategically/politically important locations, like river merges, bridges between non-Settlement cities and other such places that make socioeconomic/geopolitical sense to have a new town or city show up at, while also having reasons not to have a settlement there after two hundred years. Namely, big nasties that can't be cleared out easily, like Deathclaws, or infestations of Radroaches, or other stuff that really gets in the way of setting up a new town that a well-equipped person could reasonably solve. Provided you define "well equipped" as "power armored with a flamethrower and fat man," for the harder ones. Heck, radiation hazards can justify a lot of it, making you have to go in with radiation suits to clean up the radioactive stuff.

Mechanics-wise, settlement building would get it's own page in the options menu, or a menu to itself, for the stuff you'd really like to use with settlements, like the "snap everything" mod function, as well as a choice of using randomized structure components from a list that have identical functionality, but look different to break up the look of the settlement. Without the randomizing, you can select the model of the component as a list on the single component. Preset creation is another important thing, to let you build that shack once, then grab the preset and past it a dozen times. Between different settlements, too, so that your important structures can be standardized.

Also, the option to repair broken buildings or scrap them, with as few things left unscrappable as the engine allows and texturing taking that into account. Strip up the road for asphalt, and you see barren dirt under it of significant depth that you can pave back over with something else, or just outright repair the roads.

Not much of an idea for the plot at the moment. I'll either edit it in or make a separate post.

 

[Mechasaurian]

Give Robert Edwin House the canon ending to New Vegas.

The Free Economic Zone of New Vegas is bringing more people out of the wasteland to spend their caps in Vegas, and is now selling advanced technology. In addition to the Securitrons, House now employs a number of cybernetically augmented problem solvers under the leadership of the Courier (think Deus Ex). House and the Courier have succeeded in launching a lone satellite into orbit, which they use use to coldly assess the many rising powers in the American wastelands.

The NCR is big, poor, and starving. Famines are thinning the population and weakening the government, and wealth is becoming steadily more concentrated in the hands of the Brahmin Barons. The Republic's attempts at expansion to the north and south are transparently a desperate grab for resources.

The Legion was bit hard by the two consecutive defeats at Hoover Dam, but they still exist and are still a force to be feared. Diverted from Vegas, they expand to the north and east because they offer the least resistance. However, the cracks have begun to show: between the Caesar in the west and the Legate leading the expansion in the east, the Legion has functionally if not officially divided in two.

The two powers are still engaged in several grinding conflicts over several points of interest, including an attempted Legion invasion of NCR from the north. All are inconclusive, however.
Both the NCR and the Legion are too weak to win, but too big to be killed. Some say they will recover, some say one will destroy the other, some doomsayers predict their collapse from internal difficulties.

 

[tq343]

Add in something like the Nemesis system from Shadows of Mordor, as a replacement for the dull "Legendary Enemy" system from FO4. Tie them into the factions -- sure, they can be part of the major factions like the NCR or whatever the fuck, but I'd like to see them in Raider, Merc, Super Mutant, and even pack-mutant groups. Imagine if a new Nemesis Raider appears, and builds up a gang around itself. Then, you kill the guy, and fuck off to do something else elsewhere on the map. You come back later, and surprise, a second different gang that you didn't fight took over the previous guy's territory and people, is now twice as strong (i.e. more people, better tech, better equipment/perks for Nemeses) and a few more Nemesis-lieutenants. Set the different factions against each other, let them form alliances, grudges, backstab each other, perform raids/heists on each other, discover Pre-War tech caches to give them a major boost, die, crop up, grow shrink, and just generally make them interact organically to form a living, breathing wasteland.

I kind of thought they might be doing something like that at first in FO4, when I saw the little mini-stories involving the interactions between the gangs, and that when I killed one of the leaders the other gangs' computers updated with a brief blurb to that effect. Then it turned out, no, they were being as lazy as possible with it and making those interactions appear by a boolean script.

 

[tbguy1992]

I know it's been a while since this post started, but here's my ideas.

First: Set a game in Canada. Ronto, Vancouver, Halifax... hell, Winnipeg would be awesome (which I'm writing a big fanfiction about right now, so I may be a bit biased). I want to see a society trying to recover from the twin hits of being annexed by the US, and then nuked to oblivion, and then trying to rebuild themselves.

Second: As many people have said, Fallout is more than just an RPG series, it's a whole universe. And I want to expand said universe into other genres. MMO? Maybe. I'm not a big MMO player myself, and I feel that it kind of takes away from the idea of Fallout, which is a lone hero, making friends and allies while taking on a quest to save his town, and then the world. But, how about a strategy game? I've played Civ 5 and Hearts of Iron mods adding in Fallout factions, and they were quite enjoyable. The Hearts of Iron mod was a heckava lot of fun, though some factions would be OP at times and turn into an unstopable juggernaut. But I'd love to start a Civ like Turn-based strategy game in the aftermath of nuclear war, and slowly rebuilding a town into a nation, scavenging resources, finding lost tech, trying to balance between different factions, etc. etc. Fallout would be perfect for that.

Third: Let players play as something other than humans out of a Vault. Or, rather, have a quest line/possibility that can turn you into a super mutant, ghoul, robot, etc. etc. with your own strengths and weaknesses. Like, imagine playing as a Ghoul, who can scavenge in all the heavily irradiated places and get healed by them, but then has to face discrimination for being a "zombie" when he goes to sell the loot he gathered. I think it would be a great, positive change to the game to let you play as another species, to see what they would experience.

Forth: Remove the voice acting for the PC. It was an interesting experiment, but the limited dialogue choices, as well as the fact that those choices didn't seem to actually change much (Oh, you said no to this mission? Well I'm going to still put it down anyway, so sucks to be you!) just took something away from the game. It really didn't help that the "choices" offered were paraphrased explanations of what you would actually say, and you'd have no idea what it would sound like until you actually "say" it. That's a pretty big design issue that mods fixed.

So those are the four things I would do.

 

[Morphic Tide]

But I'd love to start a Civ like Turn-based strategy game in the aftermath of nuclear war, and slowly rebuilding a town into a nation, scavenging resources, finding lost tech, trying to balance between different factions, etc. etc. Fallout would be perfect for that.

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...Spore is the best starting point of mechanics I can think of. Because it has mechanics for going from single person, to small tribes, to cities, to space, with custom-built things all the way up and different features unlocking at each stage.

Going off of this basis, you'd start as a small group of scavenger-nomads, taking stuff from other nomads, fighting raiders, raiding settlements yourself and so on, being able to make your own weapon and armor designs based on designs you have or what specific people in the group know, with various degrees of customizability based on these things.

Next, you make a Settlement, a permanent place to farm, set up water purifiers, keep stuff relatively defended and so on. New features unlocked would be designing structures and turrets, with you keeping the previous designing of weapons and armor for your people. Generators would be a part to attach to any structure, including turret-covered monsters.

From there, you get to Nation, having multiple Settlements/Cities to keep defended, but also having much more in terms of resources to do it with. Now, you can make new designs for robots and vehicles, provided you have people with the right skills, at this point tracked by statistical breakdowns rather than individuals, and infantry are similarly tracked as statistics.

The win-condition would be controlling the entire continent of North America, with the challenge factor for Nations who can field moving cities being that Mexico didn't fall nearly as far as America, so they re-developed into a largely isolationist superpower by current standards. Of course, they are far from united, so while one branch of your Nation is expanding through the anarchy-dominated ruins of the U.S., stomping over everyone outside the Northwest Brotherhood of Steel and the NCR, possibly a few factions in the middle of the U.S., with the Legion either being easily destroyed cannon fodder or going for a Mad Max version of the Roman army for vehicles and robots. Mechanical replicas of mythological creatures? Sure, why not? Chariots driven by steam engines or nuclear reactors inside robotic horses? Makes sense for a later-stage Legion that's started to run into issues that need tech to solve.

...y'know, the Legion developing to adopt Roman aesthetics tempered by Mad Max for high-tech things would actually be great. It lets them be able to be a threat to a teching-up NCR who can field power armored squads without compromising their identity.