THIS IS NOT A COMPLAINT. It's just a question.

Is the game pretty much set in stone now, or are the devs keeping an eye on this forum for opinions and ideas?

The game's finished. All the coding, scripting and editing is complete. All that remains now is the debugging and packaging of the game. So no, they're not going to listen for last-minute ideas for Fallout 4.

There's still patches and DLC.

They are listening to us, sure. But the game is pretty much set in stone. If it is releasing on November 10th, it is what they call "Feature Locked" at this point. Nothing new can be added. They are in the final polish and testing stage. Nothing major will change at this point, only very minor tweaks - numbers, balance, XP given, etc.

They've likely only got 10-15 more weeks to actually do any work on the game before it starts getting put into production so it can make it to store shelves on time.

Hm. Well that's a little disappointing.

That we can't suggest new things, I mean. Not that the game is finished.

But maybe they'll need some input for the expansions, so no reason not to suggest things, eh.

Regarding DLC, is that something they would also have completed as well or is DLC worked on after the game releases?

In short: Bethesda, listening to (hardcoe) fans. Pick one.

In long: usually, it takes a month from going gold to being actually released. That being said, the developers have to hand over the master in early-October. We have like 3 and a half months until there, so don't except any significant changes.

Especially that Bethesda titles are always incredible buggy at launch, so they might want to solve as much issues in the remaining time in-house as possible. As for potential input for expansions... they don't do that, only DLCs. Not the same.

Like I said, they are listening. A lot of what we are seeing in Fallout 4 came from listening to and watching the community of players for FO3 and New Vegas.

Wasteland Settlement and building mods were some of the most downloaded for those two games, and 'Tada!' building is now a built-in feature in FO4.

I'd disagree. The Dragonborn DLC for Skyrim certainly met the criteria of an expansion. And Point Lookout for FO3, while probably not big enough to qualify as an 'expansion' was certainly substantial.

It's never too late to keep thinking of ways that the devs can keep progressing.

DLC is usually planned out during the game's development so that they know how to implement it alongside the main game, but actual work on it has likely only just began in the early stages so far.

I see, thanks for the info

It should be something worked on after release - not just because it should be in the game if it's done before release, but so that you know where to focus your attention. If everyone hates fighting BoS you don't want to have spent hundreds of man-hours on your Fight More BoS DLC.

I'm not sure there's much that can be said that hasn't been brought up in the 250 some speculation threads that have been going on long before Fallout 4 was announced.

It would be kind of a dike move to have all the DLC finished completely, and then not release it. We all remember what Capcom did, with their on-disc DLC.

Besides, the New Vegas DLC packs were released about 5 months apart from each other. If they had been completed from the start, I think they would have released them a lot sooner.

EDIT: The mod answered my question.

Generally, AAA game writers/producers/etc probably don't do a whole lot of plowing through game-related forums searching for ideas. They HAVE the ideas themselves. That's why they're game writers/producers/etc.

So long as the GECK is released, who cares?

Just make sure the game is relatively bug free.

5 months till release so they'll be in the polishing stage around about now at most they'll be tweaking features, locations, etc since they'll have to be going gold in a couple of months and their main focus is going to be PR.

Right now I say maybe. I still need to see the how the story will play out and gameplay. If they just made Skyrim with guns(which is how it's looking) then no they didn't.

Yeah, that's what I'm most worried about. FO3 and New Vegas were notorious for their bugs and crashes.

Skyrim less so, but still. It's something to think about. Testing will need to be VERY extensive.

I'm pretty sure they are listening, just super busy with E3 right now. The Way Todd made the statement that you can play a female means they heard our complaints about that.

Despite the game's near completion, I'm sure Bethesda has willingly ignored these forums since, like, always.

They got bored with us yesterday, since all we do is repeat ourselves. So: No, they aren't listening to us, anymore.

First DLC tend to be started while bugfixing and waiting for the game to be released so not much fixes on game except perhaps some tweaks like high droprate of stuff who is too rare.

Second DLC tend to address issues in the game. Broken steel is an example here,

they did when skyrim was being developed don't see why they wouldn't do that for this game to.

No chance anything we suggest here is gonna make it into the core game since it's already out of dev and into bug fixing and whatnot and then off to the publishers.

No harm in DLC wishlisting, I suppose. Legit DLC discussion, I mean. Not just ideas to regut the game and call it DLC.

The devs got selective hearing it seems. I haven't read through all the hundreds of fallout 4 suggestion threads we've had over these years, but I don't remember seeing mass effect style dialogue with a pre voiced pc, merger of skills into perks for a farcry style perk system and custom armour and weapons in high abundance in any of the threads I read through.
I'm not even sure where these ideas came from besides the devs playing farcry and bioshock and thinking "we should make our games more like this!" Like they just assumed that people played fallout and bioshock and farcry for the same reasons.