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Todd... literally the opposite?
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this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
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I loath 'Raiders' and 'Bandits'. Who are these people, and why are there so many of them?
We must assume that 95% of Skyrims population turned to banditry because Skyrim is a barren wasteland inhospitable to agriculture. They commit their acts of robbery by sitting around in abandoned forts and mines until someone decides to kill them
It should be so easy to make the enemies in Skyrim make sense. There's a civil war going on, there can be deserter factions, mercenaries, hostile warbands, disparate ethnicities like the Forsworn, orcs and dark elves, and yes, bandits, but they should be opportunitistic thieves made up of people who can't make a living because of the war and ex-soldiers, not the majority of the population.
Bandits and Raiders are just the laziest form of enemy. They're people you only need to kill without having to engage with the story in any way, you don't need to think about the factions or politics or their cultures or histories. Compare how New Vegas has distinct raider groups, like the fiends, powder gangers and khans, who are all a part of the story and immediately hostile factions. They can be both, but Bethesda just can't write them like that.
What strikes me on my new Vegas playthrough that I just started is that everywhere I go it feels like a real place and there are things happening and there are people trying to make use of what's around. In Fallout 4. Everybody just sits there all day long. Basically doing nothing. Nobody has any ambition. Nobody tries to change anything or build anything. It's just so empty and soulless.
Yeah for sure. The story of Fallout 4 should have resolved before you ever thawed, or it shouldn't have been happening. The Minutemen were destroyed but I guess no one filled the power void. (What even were the minutemen? A political entity? Did they have a presence in diamond city or goodneigbor? Who paid them? Did they extract taxes from farms? I guess we'll never know). The Commonwealth is a place ravaged by Raiders who thoughtlessly kill and rob farmers, it's basically a no-mans land warzone, but for some reason, people still live and farm and trade there. The railroad and institute have no interest in anything that doesn't involve synths, but they're both in a complete stalemate before the protagonist arrives for no reason. The world doesn't need to literally progress without the protagonist present like in shadow of war or something, but the narrative should act like it will.
Bethesda is in love with this idea of the wasteland as a lawless wild-west with a million tiny factions and no states, even though it's been two hundred years and political power solidified in the west over a century ago. They even destroyed the NCR in the show so they could have this
the lumpenproletariat/lumpenpeasantry
Forcing Bethesda staff to read hobsbawms Bandits
Very different than, say, New Vegas where all the enemies that fill the "Raider" or "Bandit" niche are named factions with actual reasons for existing and histories that make sense. Legion, Vipers, Jackals, Khans, Fiends, Powder Gangers, and so on, and each of them has their own aesthetic and gameplay touches.
Well sure, I guess 90% of the enemies could just be random jet/psycho addicts wearing scrap metal who rush your power armored ass with a pool cue while yelling "Kickass!". That's fine too I guess...
At least NV gave their Raiders a bit of lore as to why they are meth addicted brigands.