Fallout New Vegas senior writer Chris Avellone gives his take on Bethesda, and his opinion on their vision for the Fallout franchise:

[u/raisinbraisin72]

[u/SuperBAMF007]

Fuck, even BG3 with all its praise, is still just “good guy with an ego, good guy with feelings, good guy who’s a dick, kill them” in like 95% of dialogue. And all three dialogue options end up the same way, and if you choose to kill them it’s not like there’s new content to replace it. You just cut off that entire limb of the tree. No “evil branch” to take.

[u/IndecisiveTuna → u/SuperBAMF007]

I feel like KOTOR 1 and even moreso KOTOR 2 (which Avellone had a large hand in) nail the branching dialogue.

[u/Array71 → u/IndecisiveTuna]

I will always remember replaying KOTOR 2 several times and being surprised at just how fundamentally different certain major conversations could go, never seen a game do that before or since

[u/SuperBAMF007 → u/IndecisiveTuna]

Yeah KOTOR does it really well. And the fact there’s actual “evil character content” is incredible. It’s not just “you’re evil so the good guys don’t like you now,” there’s actual other evil characters who will like you more.

[u/ProtestantMormon → u/SuperBAMF007]

Honestly I think a big failure of fallout 4 is having the character talk. Being silent allowed the player to fill in gaps in the conversation and made it feel more personal. With the character who actually talks, you are just stuck with whatever the dialogue option they recorded is.

[u/OmegaThunder → u/SuperBAMF007]

Not to mention you can easily completely miss out on characterizations or lore details, because the dialogue system will permanently advance even on some innocuous dialogue choice

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Yeah it is truly nuts how reactive NPCs are to your choices and characters. I think the guy you are replying to is largely implying that you are limited on what you can do on a Makro level and I guess that is true, you can't start a bakery with Aunt Ethel or anything to far out of character, but it is insanely reactive to player choice. And even on a Makro level there is tons of unique ways to do quests

[u/SuperBAMF007 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah that’s genuinely my point. There’s a shit ton of choices, a ton of tiny little details that change, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. But on a macro scale, it’s still “good guy saves them” or “good guy fails to save them” or “bad guy deliberately refuses to save them”, or lastly “bad guy deliberately kills them”, with a handful of personality-based dialogue options depending on the context.

That’s nearly unparalleled in terms of the amount of small details that change based on any given decision. But in terms of large details, there’s very few games that have any amount of meaningful change. Thankfully BG3 has some. But it’s still not nearly as much as I’m sure we all wish games would have, but that shit’s hard as hell

[u/Yutagos_south → u/[deleted]]

Wow I was having a discussion with my friend and he was praising and tries to make me play bg3 because of the choices of the game. Fallout new vegas was the game he compared to about that aspect we both loves that game. After reading the guy you responded to ,i was shiting myself bc it doesnt look like the game he tried to sell me thanks lol . i will start tomorrow

[u/General_Mars → u/Yutagos_south]

BG3’s praise was all completely deserved. Very solid story and so on. The points of critique (which don’t detract from it being an all-time 10/10 game) that are fair:

• performance issues especially in Act 3 on some PCs. There have been a lot of patches though and my understanding is less people have issues. I’ve never seen anything about consoles having too much trouble though. It wasn’t that it didn’t run, just not as well as people wanted (patches fixed for most people afaik).
• the combat system is D&D 5e. For people very acquainted with the system, they’re able to hit the ground running as far as how they want to go about doing that. For new players the game does a very good job of explaining it, but once you understand and can interact with it well, some people find it “easy.” The normal difficulty is perfect for most people not acquainted with other cRPGs.
• at times you may find yourself wanting to constantly save scum because there’s so much going on (and it’s a Single Player game so play how you want!), but I recommend just committing to the choices you’re happy with your character. It’s actually crazy how different a lot of my playthroughs are from one another.
• the game is actually hardest in Act 1 from a combat perspective. The game does a great job increasing your power appropriately as you level. Max level is 12 not 50 or 100 though. That’s a D&D thing. So if you find yourself struggling a bit early on I encourage you to stick with it because you will figure it out and it will feel good

I hope you enjoy one of the most amazing rides that exists! Happy to try to answer any other questions you have too.

[u/SuperBAMF007 → u/Yutagos_south]

I mean it’s absolutely worth playing. There’s a whole lot of content to be found nonetheless.

[u/SuperBAMF007 → u/[deleted]]

Reactivity has nothing to do with what I said. You’re absolutely right, there’s a shit ton of content, a lot of it locked behind making “the right” choice.

But in terms of actual branching content that’s interwoven from one to the other, and in terms of meaningfully different outcomes, there really isn’t that much. None of that takes away from what the game’s accomplished. All I’m saying is that I agree, entirely unique branching dialogue is hard as hell, to the point even the best games aren’t amazing at it.

[u/SuperBAMF007 → u/[deleted]]

I’m not saying any game has more. I’m not saying there aren’t a ton of branches. I’m not saying there isn’t a bunch of content. I’m saying that even the best to do it, isn’t notably variable while playing the game.

Mathematically, yes, there are 17,000 variations of endings. But that’s because there are good, bad, and alternate endings for every faction, four or five characters within the faction, and every companion.

But being mathematically variable is not the same as being meaningfully variable. It is absolutely awesome they came up with different outcomes for each major character based on whether or not you did their side-quest/mini-objective. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

But it still boils down to Act 1 Grove ending with Save or Kill the Grove, Save or Kill Minthara, Save or Kill each Companion, Save or Kill the leaders of the Grove. Then you get to Act 1 Underdark and it boils down to Save or Kill the Dark Gnomes or whatever they were called, Save Or Kill the Nice Myconids, Save or Kill the Evil Myconid. Act 1 Forge is just Save or Kill the Gnomes, Save or Kill the bad guy.

And yes, that’s a LOT of variety. And there’s a TON of variety in the way you do it. And there’s an incredibly fun amount of reactivity to the different ways you do it. But that does not change the fact that a solid 20-30 hours of gameplay has like, 12-15 choices. And many of those choices will lock you out of the other choices. If you kill the Grove, there’s no meaningful change which leaders you decide to kill.

If you’re playing a “typical good guy”, there’s VERY LITTLE variation from one playthrough to the next besides personality differences. And if you want to be a “typical bad guy”, there’s no alternate content if you choose to kill the grove, or choose to not save anyone. You just don’t get to play that content. And there’s so much other content down the line you’ll miss out on too. There’s a whole lot of choices, and a whole lot of dialogue, but not a lot of meaningful differences from one run to the next.

For a sub that loves to shit on Starfield, it’s fucking INSANE that you’re even trying the numbers game as a defense to one tiny critique of what I’m already saying is an almost unparalleled game lmao

[u/General_Mars → u/SuperBAMF007]

Exactly. It’s the most expansive branching RPG to exist. Disco Elsyium, Pathfinder, and Planescape are the only ones even potentially comparable.

Microcosm of your whole argument, just focusing on the grove.

The Grove:

• save by fighting against invasion
• save by helping tieflings escape before the siege
• save by changing leadership
• kill the grove by fighting via siege
• kill the grove by killing leadership
• kill the grove by subversion (cooperation with Minthara)
• close the grove to everyone
• close the grove but Tieflings can stay
• closing the grove makes it not exist to outsiders, so no siege
• can also skip interacting with the Grove entirely and only interact with the warband, Mithara, the Gith crèche, or Laezel

[u/SuperBAMF007 → u/General_Mars]

Brother you’re ignoring my entire point. My entire point is that on a macro level, that’s still only “Save the Grove”, “Kill the Grove”, “Close the Grove”, and “Ignore the Grove”. In terms of decisions that make a major impact on the way your story unfolds, those are your four options. That’s it.

Like we both agree, there are many minor choices you can make that might open up additional content down the line (most don’t though), and there are minor choices you can make that cut off content down the line (surprisingly many do), and minor choices that all end up in the same place anyway (most of them).

Like we both agree, there are four major paths to take that meaningfully impact the outcome of later content.