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Old Post My issues with Rise of the Commonwealth

Shaidon

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I know that I'm very late with this rant/suggestion thread. I please don't take this as hate.
I usually like to build all my settlements, but this time I want to do something different. Focus in making a Botherhood character and have minimal interation with settlement building and management.
But I must say, after playing a lot in this RotC playthrough, my character at +50 level, that I'm kind of disppointed with it and the official city plans.

First, a short story about The Sims 2. Back in the days there was a couple of lot creators that had fame with dozen of well appraised creations. So I downloaded a few, based on popularity and interest. What I saw was a disappointment. One big castle that takes the entire lot, but empty inside, without walls and tile floors. Not enough room to set even the basic objects for the Sim needs. Other have big flaws like a gap by the end of the stairs, a double bed set next to a wall, what would make a Sim just stand there cause he just don't know how to reach the other side. A corridor 1 square wide.
Anyway, my point is, I think that a lot of plans are more about how nice it looks, than how will work for the NPCs and be useful for the player. And I know, we can just do some manual changes, I'm judging the automation that is the point of this expansion.

Sanctuary have a lot of the Blue Man interaction that I rarelly saw any settler using it. Especially the ones close the tree. They just don't find that area interesting. That interior home of the yellow house, will set a table right in front of the door. And it's just too crammed in one area. It could spread more without the need to set pathways over houses. And other issues shared with other settlements.

I rarelly see NPCs in the shops, pehaps because of the difficulty of accessing it. Some are blocked by something, like walls.
Some shops that are Blue Man type seems that glitch by having more than one assigned to it. Like the "Red Rocket" at Egret.

Unique features that get bulldozed. One example is Graygarden, if you remove the crops you just kill the charm of the robots. Even through we can reassign some of them, will just not be the same. The destroyed car that is part of a Supervisor Brown joke, could be slowly "renovated" as the settlement level. Finch loose their family home, converted to a shop, instead improved. Kids loose their farming assignment (fixable with console command, but even though). Convenant original settlers loose their jobs and beds. A so go on.

I'm having an annoying issue by loosing supply routes, that might be related to the auto-assign option. But even if not, there is another thing that I consider a flaw. As I mentioned in another thread, if for example a max amount will be 10 settlers, then it should be 10 beds and only 8 jobs, so 2 NPCs will be always unemployed. So we can use them for supply routes or use for other interactive objects, like the mortar.
That also brings other issue, that is how complex plans are at the beginning. Leaving no space to manual set other objects. Now, I know that there is an option to increase the max allowed, but I think would be more interesting if the settlement would only fill the size limit when at max level, giving time for the player to add more without the need to change options.

Sometimes the city progression just get stuck. No matter how many times I refreshed it, and leave it be for a while. It only fix if I just restart the entire settlement. An option to force city leveling would be appreciated, even if is "cheaty".

And just to end this. I wish the settlements purpose would be balanced. Taking in consideration of which settlements would be avaliable as the story progresses. In a way that a complete Commonwealth would give all the necessary materials to build anything. But it d

Not here to be disrespectful to the creators and fans, just sharing my thoughts and concerns. I could try to create my own city plan pack and share it, right? It just that I don't have the will and mood to so, as I'm not young anymore. I rather spend my time playing the game and enjoying someone elses work.
Some settlements designs are amazing. How they used the unscrappable as part of the creating, and make the place look bigger and nicer. Country Crossing, for example.

Peace!
 
I'll just say, when I set up Conqueror for a recent playthrough, it asked me to set which settlements I wanted to see prebuilt, and I gave that a lot of thought. I was surprised at just how many I wasn't willing to have be auto-built for just these reasons. Abernathy Farm? Nah. The Abernathys make it clear that they're the only one's living there when you talk to them. Graygarden? It's an automated farm, and other NPCs marvel at the settlement inhabited "entirely by robots". Sunshine tidings gets a pass too, since the empty settlement has some clear environmental storytelling about a failed settlement there. Hangman's Alley? Already fulfils its role as a raider shanty before you take it over. Jamaica Plain and its treasures wouldn't be such a mystery with a thriving town on top of it. And so on.

I think having the option to set what gets prebuilds and what doesn't is one of the best possible solutions, though. People are going to have different ideas about what's "hard" lore, and what's not. With a few add-on packs and using the customization options, people are able to tailor the Commonwealth to whatever closest matches their vision of it. (Well, unless you're one of those people who thought that Fallout 3's depiction of the Institute was indicating they ruled the Commonwealth openly as some kind of civilized, technologically advanced dystopia, but I'm sure eventually...)
 
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