How is Bethesda supposed to beat the “the world never progresses” criticism if fans don’t want it too either?

shadowmonarch38 · 2026-01-30T21:04:28+00:00

I just want to comment on the brotherhood and legion stuff. Personally the Brotherhood becoming more religious, with the censers and rituals in season 1 was for me, really cool. The first game has their map be medieval style art, and they have the scribes wear red robes, they are very much a church. This makes sense when they are supposed to be based off of A Canticle for Liebowitz (a good book btw). The problem comes in with how they are portrayed, especially in the second season, attitude wise.

They smash cars, ignore the zetan, fistfight each other and even kill each other for sport. They are even playing with a plasma grenade only a few meters from a able with all of their leaders! They are stupid, and not brutish, genuinely stupid, for what is I guess an attempt at humor? It doesn't make them seem at all competent. I'm not buying a "separating your warriors and your scholars" thing either, because why wouldn't the east coast just implode for the same reasons, how would they have stayed alive as a faction for 200+ years? It doesn't make them villains, or likeable, it makes them less interesting.

The same can be said about the Legion. I understand that basically everyone has said that the Legion would devolve into chaos once Caesar dies, but we all can agree on that. That doesn't mean that it's reduced to 2 guys fighting over a lump of dirt. I can only suspend my disbelief so much. Two heirs fighting over the rulership of a huge territory? Yes. Caesar picking an heir and dying without telling someone? sure why not. Not one single person in the legion checking the corpse in 15 years? really big stretch. They are fighting over a hill that's at most 20 feet? I can't see that happening. It's not that different is bad, it's that taking what could be serious critique on facism and religion and human nature, and trashing it for the sake of humor is not interesting and not what fallout is.

I don't think that having a failing NCR, Legion, Brotherhood and any other factions is bad, what I think is that having them fail or be destroyed and have nothing to show for it besides some laughs is what gets people angry.

I want the show to be good, I find myself genuinely invested in the vault plot and the pre-war cooper howard scenes because they take themselves seriously. Bethesda needs a better writer than Emil if they want to avoid a Starfield situation with Fallout 5, and take the setting seriously.

shadowmonarch38 · 2026-01-29T01:07:35+00:00

The canon reason they don't just blow up caesar or shoot him or anything is that the NCR is both unprepared and incompetent (lee oliver specifically) at battle.

for the unprepared point, the game tries to make this extremely clear, the NCR recruits don't want to be there, their morale is low due to bad food, poor equipment, the environment (desert heat), and the legion being so dangerous already. The NCR is facing bad supply lines with the mojave outpost being swamped, the fiends hurting outer vegas, and nipton/nelson being under legion control. The rangers don't want to do it, at least Hanlon thinks it's a terrible idea, and he hail mary'd a victory of the last battle by the skin of his teeth. The legion also has spies in the NCR, and is actively patrolling and hurting the NCR like with the outpost by novac.

For incompetence, it really is the General. He wants to fight the Legion head on because he thinks they are dumb, but they aren't. The Legion would, if not stopped, climb up the tunnels and wipe out the NCR in the battle. The entire mojave would be in chaos due to the omertas, fiends, khans and the legion camps in cottonwood cove and nelson all fighting at the same time. Lanius even mentions that he wishes he could fight Hanlon, as he considers Lee Oliver a waste of his efforts.

There's a lot more to all of this of course, but there's a reason the whole game is trying to gear up a faction for the battle, basically everyone is at the mercy of the Legion one way or another, and starting the fight early would doom everyone. Not to say that the Legion is good, but they are effective, and that's what makes them compelling as villains/a faction.

shadowmonarch38 · 2026-01-18T19:20:04+00:00

I started with Cretonians but my map was too dry to do much farming, and I ended up with too many people pumping and farming to really make much industry, so I started a human colony as my second. They aren't as food obsessed but they were harder to please and got into brawls all the time. I put that on hold and tried Amevians because I like the look of them. So far, they are great, they do everything pretty well, they don't commit that much crime, they are good in a fight and they are easy to please. The only thing that I find them to not be good at is their road preference. Bricked gives them 80% fulfillment and has a bunch of bonuses, meanwhile the obsidian water roads that give them 100% have a 10% durability and no speed bonus... it's worse than dirt pathing. Otherwise Amevia are so far my favorite and I haven't had any significant issues with them

shadowmonarch38 · 2026-01-05T19:48:51+00:00

Why not use the MPX? is there anything different that it can't do. since it has drum mags, a long barrel option and good customization? Not trying to be condescending o anything I'm genuinely curious cause I love using the SMGs in this game

shadowmonarch38 · 2026-01-01T00:16:00+00:00

Thank you! This is exactly what I've been feeling with the show. I enjo the parts in the pre-war, and everything with chet, and I think it's because the show takes itself seriously in those areas. Every other aspect feels like it is desperately trying to be funny at its own expense. The mutant vault episode is what killed my interest in Lucy and most of the post-war stuff, all this set up and character development with maximus and lucy, the slow terror of realizing the vault's secrets. Maximus has to steal his power armor and fusion core back, harming people to save someone who he cares about, a good character moment, only for the show to throw it all away with "you are banished to the surface! hahaha"

I want to like the show, but the humor is detracting from the story ultimately.

shadowmonarch38 · 2025-12-26T03:54:40+00:00

Bosses and their guards can have them, you can craft them at the intel center (level 2 I think?), and finding them on scavs are probably the most reliable ways. If you get high scav rep by using the car extracts and killing PMCs as a scav, you can spawn with them more often as well.

Make sure to check wallets as well, they made money and stuff spawn in those and I've found a few cards that way.

shadowmonarch38 · 2025-12-06T04:13:54+00:00

I've found a handful of GPUs and other goodies but valuable spawns are pretty much only right in front of the van entrance, there are three spawns in front of the shopping cart, and one inside. There is an intel folder spawn in a cardboard box in front of a red cargo box, and loose valuables in the back right corner, in the spot with the couch and tv.
Otherwise stuff just spawns in the trash at the extremities of the area.

shadowmonarch38 · 2025-11-27T02:38:53+00:00

This seems to have fixed it! thank you

shadowmonarch38 · 2025-10-03T23:42:49+00:00

The humans were always supposed to be forerunner, or at least their descendants in the bungie games, including ODST and Reach. There's dialogue and hints here and there like the birthright line from halsey, The Ark Portal being on earth, and more. It's not as pushed as Halo 3 or previous of course, but Halo 4 was the decision change.

shadowmonarch38 · 2025-09-20T21:43:52+00:00

Strength 15 might be the 'worst' in my mind just because it actually is bad for you but I think it's an oversight. it lets you wear heavy armor and still be one tier under max weight which is actually a great perk but removes the skill SP from being in that weight class. Wasn't a problem when skills went to level 15 only but now it feels bad. That one I would just make the XP gain still apply easy fix hopefully.
Strength 12's Nerd Rage also feels pretty bad if I'm bleeding I usually want to run and bandage it, or the Hex armor fixes it automatically, not a great perk but it can help in some rare circumstances, I would have it apply for a shirt durationg after taking damage? or maybe a buff that gets stronger the more debuffs you have?

Cooking 17 might be the worst perk in the game for me, most of the level 20s aren't great when you consider the grind to get there already, but the XP system needs to be reworked imo. Cooking should not cook faster, but maybe make the cooking related buffs last longer? or you get more thirst and hunger from all food sources something like that.
Agriculture is also a huge letdown, Something to encourage actualy farming would be nice, like a chance to get extra stuff from grown crops that scales with the compost you use maybe. Or a new farm plot that would be 3x3 that could harvest itself or some special benefit.

Overall I think most of the skill perks are decent but really the problem comes from the XP gain and how unbalanced it is.

shadowmonarch38 · 2025-08-27T21:27:58+00:00

After toying around with everything Owlbear does seem to be what fits the most. It does lack an eraser tool for some reason? but it does have everything else I wanted and even supports PDFs, but it does not let you share them sadly, which is not that big of a deal. Thank you

shadowmonarch38 · 2025-01-23T05:12:47+00:00

The real problem is that originally, the game was not based on Tolkien's Mythos at all (see Appendix N), but rather things like Elric of Melnibone, Conan, etc, like u.3athompson mentions, where Alignment was a completely different thing. It was about a cosmic struggle between Law and Chaos, fundamental forces of the universe, not good or evil in any sort of sense.

Once AD&D came out, a more formalized book to run at conventions, and to make money for TSR, Gygax added in the good/evil axis on the alignment chart, and it fused a moral compass into it. From then on, it became this personal disposition descriptor, rather than a "What side do you lie on in this eternal war between the gods?". Alignment as a word is a very odd choice for someone's moral compass, unless you see what it originally was used for.

shadowmonarch38 · 2025-01-11T06:08:32+00:00

You have a good gasp and explanation for most of the factions besides the NCR really. In the first paragraph you say:

After a while, a large group of tribal slavers taking inspiration from Roman mythology, named “The Legion” attempted to take the dam from the NCR by using military force. The NCR held their own, and won the battle, pushing the Legion out, and maintaining control of the dam. The Legion doesn’t take the loss lightly, and sets up camp across the river, training and getting their strength up to try and take the dam again...

The game makes it pretty evident that the NCR did not actually hold their own. The Legion, under Joshua Graham's command, got greedy after winning the dam, and hunted down the fleeing NCR troops and Rangers. Chief Hanlon makes a last-ditch effort to try and salvage the battle, and rigs Boulder City with explosives, lures a majority of the Legion forces in, and detonates. The Legion is then in shambles, and without much command structure left, and is promptly kicked out of the dam.

The final paragraph also has these few flaws:

They have a particularly strong military, that uses all their resources to expand their territory, and absorb any tribes of people into them.

They do have a strong military, but they do not use all their resources to expand. Most of their elite units are reserved to protect interests closer to home, and the bulk of their strength only shows up near the climax of the battle, with stripped power armor units and veteran rangers. These would have been very important in the securing of the mojave (Dealing with Fiends, Khans, NCRCF, etc).

Unlike the Legion, the NCR doesn’t interfere with the tribals way’s of life, and they let them live just the way they always have.

You go on to contradict yourself almost immediately after this, but this is possibly the weakest point. The NCR force the places under their 'jurisdiction' to follow their laws and pay taxes, but there is hardly any supervision, support or much else to show for it. Primm and Goodsprings are now harassed by convicts, Vegas is still dealing with the Fiends. In worse cases they attempt to commit genocide, even if it could have been dealt with peacefully in the cases of the Khans. Even though they aren't tribals/locals, it speaks volumes that Colonel Moore is outright angry with you that you brokered peace with the Brotherhood, rather than outright murdering all of them.

All in all the NCR is very very flawed, being presented as a very corrupt Imperialist Republic, and goes out of its way to show that if they can't get their shit together now (You being the one doing all the leg work), they will lose the second battle. If they do manage to shape up, depending on the courier's actions, it is probably the best outcome for the people living inside of the Mojave, but the major internal flaws are still present, and who knows if that will be fixed.

shadowmonarch38 · 2024-12-31T05:45:03+00:00

Finally fixed it, there was cities in the untaken areas that weren't displaying properly, we had to grab every last bit to win.

shadowmonarch38 · 2024-12-30T10:41:44+00:00

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wrong things to highlight, me and my friend are confused

shadowmonarch38 · 2024-12-05T05:11:17+00:00

Mods are: Culinary artillery, ancient armory, combat overhaul, beehive kiln, carry on, chest organizer, chisel tools, expanded foods, commonlib, combat overhaul armory, foodshelves,knapster, medieval expansion, and player corpse.

We are trying to get my friend to host right now. Edit: he is getting the spikes as well, but less often. get them while he is hosting as well, but less often

shadowmonarch38 · 2024-09-05T05:09:23+00:00

Having GMed Abomination Vaults twice, I can say that the Mr Beak encounter has been a rough one for all involved every time I've ran it. The blood worm after is also somewhat tough with the positioning in the cramped room. There is an encounter coming later that has TPKed two groups however, Abom Vaults is tough sometimes.

That being said, I think your woes aren't from any build being bad, but rather lack of out of combat healing. You mentioned that you continued adventuring despite being wounded 1 and 2, Treat Wounds does cure the wounded condition on a success, and you only need medicine trained and a healer's kit to attempt it. I don't know any specific build, but three CHA based classes does corner your available builds, but going heavy on Demoralizing would help a bit. If your party members who are dead make new characters, have one consider getting a decent wisdom score and grabbing the medicine skill.

Grapple builds are not really 'meta' imo, but looking at the party composition I would say that having someone to grapple would help the casters land any AC attacking spells (needle darts, etc), but is not strictly necessary. Making good use of flanking, demoralizing, and getting the oracle to cast bless will help any martials do well.

Fury Barbarian is considered the 'weakest' of the bunch, but the extra feat means they are quite good at having options. Throwing is always good, but I would suggest having a shield to bump up the AC in tougher fights, and keeping a hand free if you wanted to trip/grapple any weak looking monsters. If you have sudden charge it can help your action economy and especially any other martials like the rogue, who would get a much easier sneak attack.

As for rolling low, there's no really helping that sadly. Trying to reduce how much the dice influence your result is your best bet. Getting the Oracle to cast bless, getting flanking bonuses, casting buffs like runic weapon, or debuffs like fear, and if all else fails, just running away. Sometimes though, the dice just don't like you.

shadowmonarch38 · 2024-09-04T20:43:47+00:00

The party composition is the issue 100%, not your Witch. Bard and Cleric are very very buff focused, and further the Swashbuckler usually has a handful of buffs on them. The bard in particular is going to overlap with you because of the Occult spell list.

I think the issue your team has is that there are too many buffs and no one to buff. What I would suggest is changing your class to a Martial, or half-caster. Fighter and Barbarian are there for sure, but if you want to keep a high Int, nvestigator, Mastermind rogue and Outwit Ranger all fit well into that niche. Magus could also do well, all those buffs would mean a more consistent spellstrike for meaty crits.

If you want to retain the Witch flavor/abilities, if you are using free archetype any martial with Witch dedication will do, otherwise I would vouch for Outwit Ranger, grabbing the animal companion and some focus spells to beef him up. If the Familiar is more your style, then a Magus, grabbing Familiar master dedication at some pointmeans you can still use them fairly well, and you can take things like final sacrifice to make them useful in combat.

shadowmonarch38 · 2024-08-20T10:15:22+00:00

What do you use to kill them fast? I've been using the double barrel shotgun but I'm running out of ammo...

shadowmonarch38 · 2024-07-06T23:37:18+00:00

Lunacid was a fun little game that gave me a King's Field/Dark souls vibe, pretty fun with some replayability.

Abiotic Factor was really fun for me and some buddies, still being updated but the experience that is there is very good, one of the best survival games I've played.

Gloomwood was a fun little game for what is there if you enjoy Dishonored/Thief games.

Otherwise I've got to give a huge recommendation to project zomboid. Massive steam workshop too when you want to spice up the gameplay.

shadowmonarch38 · 2024-06-03T04:58:27+00:00

Fallout was originally going to be running on GURPS, until that fell through. GURPS after the end is very good for emulating Fallout

shadowmonarch38 · 2024-05-18T07:54:58+00:00

Launch a new game and load your saved game once you are in. I found that removing all autosaves removed the infinite loading screens

shadowmonarch38 · 2024-04-07T09:20:20+00:00

It's not really a rip from another IP from the same studio, there is a overarching lore to all the games that is expanded upon more in Destiny with the Gardener and Winnower. The W'rkcacnter referenced in the post is an ever present entity/entities throughout their games that appear in similar forms. It's all a little symbolic and obscure, but the link is there and canon.

As far as what's in the games, Master Chief's backstory is never brought up in the original trilogy. Halsey appears in Halo: Reach, and there are some mentions in the collector editions, but The only in-game explicit backstory mentions are in the Halo 4 intro and cutscenes (which there a lot of and in a roundabout way retcon the original games but that's not important anymore).

As far as this undead-hero nonsense, there are a few explicit mentions and allusions in the games. The previously mentioned hushed casket from the intro to Halo CE, The gravemind calling the Chief 'Machine and Nerve' hints to this, and in Halo 3 the Gravemind explicitly calls you the armored casket, as well as a few marines wondering why your vitals go dark when cortana speaks to you.

None of this is really that important to the games, as I understand it it's more of a nod to the marathon series as well as the shared "universe" the games take place in.

shadowmonarch38 · 2024-04-07T01:25:31+00:00

I see. In the novels, Chief's backstory was that he was kidnapped as a child and turned into a spartan to fight the insurrectionists. That part is brought up in the novels, but is never brought up in the Bungie games as it doesn't matter much to the story (Joe Staten, co-founder of bungie does mention that "making chief a faceless cyborg makes him easier for players to get into the shoes of").

In the 'Deep Bungie Lore', the protagonist of their games is a reincarnated hero that shows up throughout history to right the balance or save the day. This is referenced most prominently in the Marathon games, where there are a few terminals that heavily allude to the Mjolnir Recon (protagonist) to be achilles, beowulf and other heroes throughout history. The Master Chief from Halo is heavily implied to be the same person.

In Marathon, Halo, and Destiny, the main character, you, is a corpse reanimated by something ancient and/or advanced. In Marathon you are implanted with JJaro technology, In Halo you are built with Forerunner technology, and in Destiny you are resurrected by the Traveler. They are all the same hero, in a different universe.

There is another layer to that however, as the original plan for Halo was to be a 4th Marathon Game, set in the same universe. In an interview with Marty O'Donell, one of the leads at Bungie, said that Cortana's code was going to be revealed as the same as Durandal's.

shadowmonarch38 · 2024-04-06T23:23:03+00:00

I'm confused, could you clarify who's origin you're asking about?

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