I'm not sure what the first paragraph in that reply was for. I understood your reasoning just fine.

I'm not saying I have a problem with the AR being in the game. In and of itself, I don't care too much (though, even as a bigger gun for the power-armoured guys, it's still an overdesigned mess). Rather, I care about it's implementation.

[A] It should've been given a name and lore. Instead, it's just the "assault rifle," with no alternatives in the game, seemingly attempting to retcon the R91 out of existence.
[B] It should've been a less-prevalent, more powerful alternative to the R91, similar to how the Chinese Assault Rifle was in Fallout 3. Not hugely uncommon, since there's plenty of power armour around Boston, but even with a number of guys in PA around Boston, you're still never going to get more common than plain troopers with standard issue gear. The R91 should've absolutely been in the game as well, as the most common AR.

InnocentClarke wrote:

I'm not sure what the first paragraph in that reply was for. I understood your reasoning just fine.

I'm not saying I have a problem with the AR being in the game. In and of itself, I don't care too much (though, even as a bigger gun for the power-armoured guys, it's still an overdesigned mess). Rather, I care about it's implementation.

[A] It should've been given a name and lore. Instead, it's just the "assault rifle," with no alternatives in the game, seemingly attempting to retcon the R91 out of existence.
[B] It should've been a less-prevalent, more powerful alternative to the R91, similar to how the Chinese Assault Rifle was in Fallout 3. Not hugely uncommon, since there's plenty of power armour around Boston, but even with a number of guys in PA around Boston, you're still never going to get more common than plain troopers with standard issue gear. The R91 should've absolutely been in the game as well, as the most common AR.

Sorry, there was a typo in the initial response that made it seem like you didn't get what I meant. I was just clarifying.

As to your points, I agree. I'm just trying to canonically make sense of the weapon. At the end of the day, it mainly comes back to Bethesda designing the weapon for a new Fallout differently than the last, for whatever reason. There was a real lack of guns variety in Fallout 4 as is, particularly when compared with New Vegas. I suppose their belief was that it would balance itself out via weapon mods? Interestingly, there is a model for the Chinese AR in game, so it's possible than they were planning to add more weapons, but at some point the concept was scrapped.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Chinese_assault_rifle_(Fallout_4)

I personally liked how Fallout NV dealt with the issue of non included weapons from Fallout 3.
- When you blow up the Omerta's weapons cache you could find Chinese Assault Rifles
- In Mick and Ralph's shop there's an infiltrator on the wall
- A log in Camp McCarran's supply shack mentions Assault Rifles. The only assault rifles in recent titles at this point was the R91. It could've been referring to the Service Rifle, though no where else in game are they referred to as Assault Rifles.

Yeah, sorry about that typo. Oopsies!

You're certainly right about F4 lacking weapon variety. I've always thought they slacked on the number of weapons because of that damn weapon modding system, but come on, a combat rifle firing semi-auto vs full-auto is still a combat rifle. A laser pistol and rifle are barely differentiated aside from stock and damage output. The problem isn't helped with the combat rifle sharing almost the exact same model as the combat shotgun. I can't believe they thought this was acceptable, especially after NV had so many guns. Gee, it's almost like the crafting system (at least insofar as it applies to weapons and armour) was a completely unnecessary addition that only served to work to the detriment of the game or something. Weird how that works.

Hm, well, I gotta admit, I didn't like the Chinese Assault Rifle in Fallout 3, as it looks too bland and bulky, so I'm not torn up about it not being in Fallout 4, but it's strange that they'd make the decision not to use it. I almost wonder if the Chinese Assault Rifle model was made first, but it's eventual place was taken by the AR. I hope that's not the case, because that'd be spectacularly stupid. I didn't like the CAR, but it's a damn sight better than the hunk of junk in F4.

[quote="IRORIEH"]

InnocentClarke wrote:

Edit: It's also worth noting that far more suits of power armour are found in boston than any other region in Fallout. Supposedly it was where T-60 troopers were deployed (T-60 which I still believe is entirely lore breaking, but still, that's what they've given us to work with) so it makes more sense that an increase in Power Armour would mean an increase in Power Armour specific gear.

That's another thing worthy of my anger. I'm sorry Bethesda but you can't go and add new power armor all willy-nilly. You could have introduced the T-60 as a prototype power armor or a model the Brotherhood developed themselves by improving their T-45d models.

Mmmhm. See, the thing with Fallout 3 is that I'm not opposed to a number of things Bethesda introduced, so much as I am the way they implemented them. Like, I don't dislike F3's laser and plasma weaponry, I just wish they'd been in the game as potentially weaker weaponry compared to the Wattz laser weapons and the Winchester plasma weapons, or as prototypes, as you suggest. Likewise, I don't mind T-45d, but I do mind the Brotherhood ONLY having T-45d in Fallout 3, while the only TWO suits of T-51b are locked up in heavily guarded facilities. Dumb implementation. The Enclave armour in F3 shouldn't have been the result of having lost the original APA, but should've been the more powerful successor, especially the Hellfire armour, which should've been the best PA in the game, more so than T-51b, and only wielded by, like, 1 - 3 people in the game maximum (almost like Legate Lanius in ranking, being badasses that've stayed alive through enough bad shit to be trusted with it), with additional armour development necessitating another round of training on top of base PA training to equip it. There's so many things Bethesda could've done to improve upon how they implemented their own things, and F4 could've been the game to actually address that idea.

What did we get? Complete and utter nonsense. T-60 is dumb in so many ways. At one point, I even thought of what you suggested, that T-60 should've been the Brotherhood's improvement on the T-45. But the fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter whether we're talking about the US military, or the BoS, both had T-51b, so why would T-60 be clearly built upon the inferior T-45d framework, rather than the top-of-the-line T-51b? There's no real explanation for it, and Bethesda doesn't care that there isn't. They only care about putting their dumb stamp all over the Fallout brand. It's the same reason they retconned the ever-loving shit out of Enclave APA to be pre-war armour made just before the bombs fell (which is also somehow what T-60 is supposed to be, as well). Just fiddling with things just to change them, so that they can say, "Well, we did something with THIS thing!"

Damn, I wish Troika had outbid Bethesda...

InnocentClarke wrote:

Damn, I wish Troika had outbid Bethesda...

Don't talk crazy now. Despite all the infuriating things Bethesda has done with the franchise I doubt anyone else could do it any better IMO.

Nah, Bethesda's done a terrible job with the franchise. Take New Vegas out of the equation, and evaluate the franchise in Bethesda's hands purely by F3, F4, Fallout Shelter, F4's mostly terrible DLC, and Creation Club. I like F3, but not as a Fallout game. What has Bethesda really *contributed* to Fallout that no other company could? Nothing. They've taken the setting and story of the franchise and made it into something easily digestable and marketable, just like Ubisoft or EA would.

Troika may've made buggy games, but I don't think anyone can really argue the quality of The Temple of Elemental Evil, Arcanum, and especially Vampire: Bloodlines. Vampire: Bloodlines in particular shows that they could do justice to a franchise they otherwise had no affiliation with, so how do you think they'd have fared with the franchise's creators working on it? Tim Cain in particular worked his ass off to make the original a reality, and left Interplay over creative differences over Fallout 2 and the lack of development time they wanted to give it. Had he been able to make his own sequel to his baby, with hopefully more than 1 - 1.5 years to make it all nice, he would've undoubtedly done the original justice, especially since F1's lead writer and lead level designers were at Troika with him. And when you see the tech demo for the engine they made in preparation for that Fallout auction, hoping to get the IP? Yeah, they were doing good work already.

Bethesda? All they've done is try to dilute the brand into a bunch of things that are "iconic" like Nuka Cola, and Vault Boy, the BoS, etc. New Vegas just happened to be a happy accident that occurred. It isn't as though they thought NV was going to be as good as it turned out to be. The only reason they gave Obsidian a shot is because Bethesda wanted to turn more money on the IP and fast, and Obsidian had a track record of making positively-received, big games on stupidly short development schedules.

Wasn't the laser rifle standard issue? I remember reading that somewhere, probably the wiki or maybe it was a Reddit post.

But it does seems like almost every Fallout game some new reject looking firearm is introduced. Fallout 3 had the G3 clone and more recently, Fallout 4's retarded cousin of the Lewis Machine Gun.

New Vegas had all those AR-15 variants and the biggest crime of all, no fucking charging handle. I was fine with them other than that though and seems more realistic. There's a reason why the US military in real life still uses the M16, albeit upgraded, almost 60 years later.

Sure the AR-15 is kinda generic and in every shooter ever but really, the military is far more likely to keep upgrading the tried and true M16 than replace it outright nevermind with something like the R91 or what we got in Fallout 4.

They tried doing that in real life back in the 1990s. It was too expensive and just unnecessary when they already had something that worked for decades and will continue to do so for more decades to come.

I don't think the originals had any type of assault rifle though at least not that I can remember. I do remember the G11 in Fallout 2 however.

And that could have been used by the pre-war military I suppose, given how the Enclave is one of the few sources in the game where they can be found as well as ammo for them.

Though if it were used in pre-war it's probably in the same boat as the Assault Carbine from New Vegas, which according to Josh Sawyer was only used by elite and paratroopers during pre-war times. Which explains why the Boomers have so much of them in stock.

I agree with @InnocentClarke I love Bethesda for TES, but their Fallout game isn't that strong. That being said, except for maybe 2 or 3 companies, Bethesda was really the best one to buy the IP