yaugie
Well-Known Member
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- 3,687
Now that I've seen the ending of Chapter 3, as someone supposedly with a strong 'voice' around here, I'd like to give my thoughts on everything now that we're at this point.
I'm trying to be fair as I know there's still a non-trivial number of bugs both gamebreaking and 'that was obviously unintented but the quest still worked', so keep that in mind.
And just to clarify: I have never had any official responsibilities to do with the development of the mod; at best, I'm just someone that spends way too much time on these forums. This is purely my own opinions, nothing more.
First off, storyline and characters.
Initially, especially during Chapter 1, I was very wary about the idea of this all being so narrative focused - having come from SS1 that had effectively NO narrative, and then Conqueror which felt like a "good amount" of mixing story and gameplay to me. But by the end, I actually cared about the plot and wanted to see how it all played out, much to my own surprise.
Despite how linear Chapter 1 was to the point of me having openly asked why we were even there more than once, Chapter 2 started showing signs of branching paths, and by Chapter 3 it's evident that a lot of Player Choice comes into the equation - some of which can have significant impact on how things turn out. I haven't yet seen all the 'branches' but I'm genuinely impressed by the ones I am aware of now, some of them have very surprising, substantial changes to how things end up going. Feeling like your choices have consequences is something quite impressive to have done so well considering how the base game's story might as well just be a non-interactive movie.
I really grew to like the motley cast of characters we assemble as our HQ Officers, although in my opinion some 'idle dialog conversations' where they talk to each other would definitely be welcome to help characterise them even more - I understand how absurdly unfeasible it is to get VAs back and add that at this stage though.
Overall the plot ties itself back up and finishes most of its own plot elements, with enough left for potential future content to bolt onto or even be followed up on in later projects if that's what ends up happening. I'm aware of at least one dot point that'd go in this category that's in the "we'll patch that in later" territory, although some details (like all the "Aiden is the impostor" hints in Chapters 1 and 2) feel kind of forgotten by the end.
I'd have sworn Sirick told me before CH3 release Jake had used the "firmware upgrade" on his Pipboy too, and more than once he animates like he's talking to his own in conversations, but the Battle of Quincy sequence outright says he didn't...
The ramp-up of stakes felt organically 'right' to me, going from such small scale quibbles up to literal nuke it from orbit in a way that didn't give the "well that escalated quickly" feeling at any point. I'm actually glad I was (mostly) wrong on my stabs at who the True Big Bad would be, too. The twists in that regard were nicely handled, and tie multiple dangling elements from the base game in neatly.
In general the writing of the characters feels fairly complete, even the Unique Characters that you only briefly really interact with, fitting in fairly well into the style Bethesda uses - with a mild exception for how many of the Uniques in CH1 make it sound like travel from Vegas to Boston is trivial, that kind of bugs me a bit. And yes, OM0R is still best girl.
On that note, while it's a path I personally will literally never click on, I am appreciative that you put in a Flirt path with Jake for all the thirsty ones out there, and even made it require a much more believable 'arc' than "I watched you hack 20 computers, lets bang" like the base game companions.
A quibble I forgot until just now: With all the forced animations onto the Player Character during the story, it appears people forgot said Player Character might actually be in Power Armor.
A fun fact though: Prior to Chapter 2's release, I was expecting the CPD to be the ones you had to do or were at least very strongly incentivised to, and the Nightingales to be the completely optional one. Turns out I was completely wrong there!
Which brings us to mechanics.
The whole 'unique settler' idea, and the 'unlock system' in general really, adds something the base game SORELY needed - getting rewarded with something other than EXP and Caps for doing ingame tasks that aren't necessarily "go, kil, return" and thus being able to make each playthrough properly unique, something the basegame only sparingly did. I'd say without question this is my favourite thing SS2 added despite it seeming so basic in concept, and I'd love if more people were as into it as I am especially with my as-yet-unreleased projects.
The Virtual Storage was definitely a good idea - allows far more control over resource availability without overpowering the player too easily. Some parts of it definitely still need work - I'm pretty sure Production class still doesn't work unless the relevant Shop is also in the same settlement, for example. And I'm still on the side of thinking WSFW fixing that one "bug" to do with base resource generation should at least be a toggleable setting, I shouldn't feel like I need to run an additional mod just to restore base game functionality.
The 'tech tree' style of progression and advancement of Plot effectiveness and of using the SPECIAL stats of Settlers is also quite well done, especially as it has multiple paths to at least reach Advanced tier. It could perhaps be more clearly telegraphed ahead of time ingame, but doing that without breaking the Fourth Wall is tough. Consider too the amount of people I've seen that didn't know "Power Transfer" type existed until HQ makes you use it...
I'm in the apparent minority that actually likes the HQ system; at least, I like what I perceive to be the concept of it. It still feels like there's no actual "leadership" on the part of the player and it might as well just be entirely automated or based on story beats like how New Concord works, but I'm confident in saying there's still more yet to get added into those systems, and barely any Addon Packs for it either - hopefully that doesn't stay the case forever.
World Repopulation is something I'd love to see expanded on into other areas, but that requires community-wide work, and I'm not the person to do that. (Also I suspect it's actually broken right now)
My thoughts on the Disease system are already well known; it feels to me like arbitrary penalty for not even roleplay benefit. I have zero idea how to change that, but I'm going to keep switching it off. (I think it might actually be broken at the moment too)
Military, though... even putting aside the bugs in it, and knowing more is still to be added to it, it absolutely needs a lot more work. I'd written another whole paragraph worth of ideas here initially, but I'll hold those back until enough time passes for it to get a bit more content added to it before I go off on it. Just know that it's clear it was only made "functional enough" and that was as far as it got.
(Wrote so much I need a second post! To Be Continued)
I'm trying to be fair as I know there's still a non-trivial number of bugs both gamebreaking and 'that was obviously unintented but the quest still worked', so keep that in mind.
And just to clarify: I have never had any official responsibilities to do with the development of the mod; at best, I'm just someone that spends way too much time on these forums. This is purely my own opinions, nothing more.
First off, storyline and characters.
Initially, especially during Chapter 1, I was very wary about the idea of this all being so narrative focused - having come from SS1 that had effectively NO narrative, and then Conqueror which felt like a "good amount" of mixing story and gameplay to me. But by the end, I actually cared about the plot and wanted to see how it all played out, much to my own surprise.
Despite how linear Chapter 1 was to the point of me having openly asked why we were even there more than once, Chapter 2 started showing signs of branching paths, and by Chapter 3 it's evident that a lot of Player Choice comes into the equation - some of which can have significant impact on how things turn out. I haven't yet seen all the 'branches' but I'm genuinely impressed by the ones I am aware of now, some of them have very surprising, substantial changes to how things end up going. Feeling like your choices have consequences is something quite impressive to have done so well considering how the base game's story might as well just be a non-interactive movie.
I really grew to like the motley cast of characters we assemble as our HQ Officers, although in my opinion some 'idle dialog conversations' where they talk to each other would definitely be welcome to help characterise them even more - I understand how absurdly unfeasible it is to get VAs back and add that at this stage though.
Overall the plot ties itself back up and finishes most of its own plot elements, with enough left for potential future content to bolt onto or even be followed up on in later projects if that's what ends up happening. I'm aware of at least one dot point that'd go in this category that's in the "we'll patch that in later" territory, although some details (like all the "Aiden is the impostor" hints in Chapters 1 and 2) feel kind of forgotten by the end.
I'd have sworn Sirick told me before CH3 release Jake had used the "firmware upgrade" on his Pipboy too, and more than once he animates like he's talking to his own in conversations, but the Battle of Quincy sequence outright says he didn't...
The ramp-up of stakes felt organically 'right' to me, going from such small scale quibbles up to literal nuke it from orbit in a way that didn't give the "well that escalated quickly" feeling at any point. I'm actually glad I was (mostly) wrong on my stabs at who the True Big Bad would be, too. The twists in that regard were nicely handled, and tie multiple dangling elements from the base game in neatly.
In general the writing of the characters feels fairly complete, even the Unique Characters that you only briefly really interact with, fitting in fairly well into the style Bethesda uses - with a mild exception for how many of the Uniques in CH1 make it sound like travel from Vegas to Boston is trivial, that kind of bugs me a bit. And yes, OM0R is still best girl.
On that note, while it's a path I personally will literally never click on, I am appreciative that you put in a Flirt path with Jake for all the thirsty ones out there, and even made it require a much more believable 'arc' than "I watched you hack 20 computers, lets bang" like the base game companions.
A quibble I forgot until just now: With all the forced animations onto the Player Character during the story, it appears people forgot said Player Character might actually be in Power Armor.
A fun fact though: Prior to Chapter 2's release, I was expecting the CPD to be the ones you had to do or were at least very strongly incentivised to, and the Nightingales to be the completely optional one. Turns out I was completely wrong there!
Which brings us to mechanics.
The whole 'unique settler' idea, and the 'unlock system' in general really, adds something the base game SORELY needed - getting rewarded with something other than EXP and Caps for doing ingame tasks that aren't necessarily "go, kil, return" and thus being able to make each playthrough properly unique, something the basegame only sparingly did. I'd say without question this is my favourite thing SS2 added despite it seeming so basic in concept, and I'd love if more people were as into it as I am especially with my as-yet-unreleased projects.
The Virtual Storage was definitely a good idea - allows far more control over resource availability without overpowering the player too easily. Some parts of it definitely still need work - I'm pretty sure Production class still doesn't work unless the relevant Shop is also in the same settlement, for example. And I'm still on the side of thinking WSFW fixing that one "bug" to do with base resource generation should at least be a toggleable setting, I shouldn't feel like I need to run an additional mod just to restore base game functionality.
The 'tech tree' style of progression and advancement of Plot effectiveness and of using the SPECIAL stats of Settlers is also quite well done, especially as it has multiple paths to at least reach Advanced tier. It could perhaps be more clearly telegraphed ahead of time ingame, but doing that without breaking the Fourth Wall is tough. Consider too the amount of people I've seen that didn't know "Power Transfer" type existed until HQ makes you use it...
I'm in the apparent minority that actually likes the HQ system; at least, I like what I perceive to be the concept of it. It still feels like there's no actual "leadership" on the part of the player and it might as well just be entirely automated or based on story beats like how New Concord works, but I'm confident in saying there's still more yet to get added into those systems, and barely any Addon Packs for it either - hopefully that doesn't stay the case forever.
World Repopulation is something I'd love to see expanded on into other areas, but that requires community-wide work, and I'm not the person to do that. (Also I suspect it's actually broken right now)
My thoughts on the Disease system are already well known; it feels to me like arbitrary penalty for not even roleplay benefit. I have zero idea how to change that, but I'm going to keep switching it off. (I think it might actually be broken at the moment too)
Military, though... even putting aside the bugs in it, and knowing more is still to be added to it, it absolutely needs a lot more work. I'd written another whole paragraph worth of ideas here initially, but I'll hold those back until enough time passes for it to get a bit more content added to it before I go off on it. Just know that it's clear it was only made "functional enough" and that was as far as it got.
(Wrote so much I need a second post! To Be Continued)
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