I'm kind of confused about what the cleared status for settlements means. Obviously after you kill everything it gets cleared, but does this mean anything for local settlements in terms of raiding?


Also I noticed that previously cleared become overrun again with the same monster, so is it impossible to clear anything permanently? How come some locations can never be cleared?

By design, areas repopulate with enemies and loot every so often. (5 In-game days?)

I see. That's pretty immersion ruining isn't it? You can no longer have a sense of progress or accomplishment. If I wanted to relive a location I can open a saved game or restart.

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/704/?


Stops cleared areas from respawning.

Maybe, but the alternative is that you eventually run out of @#$% to do. Keep in mind containers and junk refresh too. I'd be for increasing the refresh time though if it is indeed only 5 days.

With no level cap and potentially endless demands for salvage to improve settlements they pretty much had to make things respawn. Otherwise you'd eventually have a character with roaming an empty, unpopulated wasteland with nothing at all to do except wait for DLC.

"But just restart", I know you're going to say. Some people don't want to restart, some people like using their mature, decked out character, and a deliberate decision was apparently made to indulge that.

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/1371/?

What's "immersion ruining" is the idea that enemies will just stay away forever once you've cleared a place.


The respawn system could be a lot more interesting than it is, but removing it entirely is not a good design choice for this type of game.

I agree. 5 days is far too quick for a respawn!

if every area cleared completely, eventually the map would be empty so thats not good game design to have an empty map

no , the game isn't about eliminating all enemies from the map in order to have a sense of accomplishment, thats not the point of the game.

This.

In a world where apparently everyone and their mother is looking to create new settlements, I actually find it fairly realistic that new Raiders will also inhabit cleared out spaces. They were made into Raider settlements for a reason to begin with, and if they already have shelters and what not, why not just move in there if you're a homeless Raider?

It is the level you reach before becoming OT with the Hubologists...

Went back to Concord Museum yesterday (real) and there were Raiders around that had respawned there outside. I'm pretty sure that respawning is only limited and partial anyway. No big deal but they gave some more loot..... last visit was about 10 levels ago. I wanted some more easy kill leather, for I'm getting more than my fair share of Legendaries to kill.

Based on doing some research (which does not mean it is 100% correct)...

Corpses are cleared after 72 game hours; 3 days.

Cells respawn after 72 game hours; 3 days.

"Cleared" cells respawns after 480 game hours; 20 days.

Except that damn dog and the other guy right outside Sanctuary, I don't know how many times I've thrown that [censored] into the river...

I prefer having CLEARED areas repopulate. It seems organic. After all, my character is not the only wanderer wandering the Wastelands. It makes sense that new groups of rovers would stumble upon an abandoned property and set up camp. Why build from scratch when there's a perfectly good, unused property available?

That said, I do wish there was some indication that I had been there. Perhaps, instead of CLEARED, there could be a toggle-able EXPLORED flag/icon on the map (make it an option for those of us who'd like to use it). Even a checkmark or star would do.

Additionally, I would love, love, love to have a "Discovered but not Explored" icon. There have been so many times that I've discovered Place A while en-route to Place B and had to make a mental note to come back to explore Place A. So many times, in fact, that I ended up making real notes and checking the locations off as I eventually get back to them. So far, the note has over 50 locations (of which, I've gone back and explored 23 -- so many left to do!).

Running by on my way to somewhere else is how I found one place is NOT on the map. No icon has ever shown up and, as far as I know, this place is not connected to any quest. The place had no enemies and at least 12 safes -- loads of safe-cracking exp opportunities and great loot, too. Score! Had I not made a note, I probably would have forgotten the place existed.

Hmmmm it has been a while -- I probably should go back again. I wonder if it has reset?

Seconded!

One of my self imposed rules is to not go into places until send to by some quest, be it definite location quest or some radiant stuff. Also, I keep my progress checked on out of game map

About the cleared status, to my observation, named enemies don't respawn, instead they are replaced by something else. Usually a general stock boss of the correct enemy faction. Also some raider bases comment in their terminal notes of their deceased brethren ^^ That in itself at least keeps some sense in stuff. It's understandable that some homeless raiders crawl in into vacated haunts, but revival would be another matter .

There is actually quite a bit storyline going on between the different raider gangs if bothering to read -everything- you find in raider bases

personally I think the closer to city types of areas the more frequent it refreshes. Out in the waste land not so much. personally they should of added a setting and left it up to the player. default setting would be reset after x amount of time.

dead bodys seems to do whatever they want. in sunset tiding all corpse seem to reset, which is rather anoying when you are trying to clean up the place, nothing like a rotting corpse to ruin it. specially if you've move the corpse like a million times.

It's really disconcerting to look at the map and see [CLEARED] on a location where there are still mobs waiting to chew on my face. The status is usually triggered by a named enemy getting 86'd.

I guess I do agree that repopulation could occur, but if you guys want a persistent world then heck what we need is Fallout MMORPG, you know, the ball that Bethesda totally dropped a while back.

It seems like if you go back too soon only one or two are there. Then they eventually all respawn.

no we have bethesda single player games and they do repopulate, i don't want idiots in my world, i want my own house, i want to kill my own enemies, i don't want clowns running around my world, i don't want to have to pay 20 dollars a month for some stupid mmo like WoW, bethesda didn't drop the ball on anythnig, most bethesda fans are totally happy with their single player games, you think having a lot of idiots running around is immersive? not to me, i'm totally happy with fallout 4, its fine just how it is.

No, just the opposite. If areas did not repopulate once cleared, that would be immersion-breaking because it would be totally unrealistic, especially in such a harsh world context. This has been explained before on other threads. Think of it this way: you are not supposed to feel "progress" as in "I'm playing a game and want to see accomplishments in the game as a sense of progress". You are supposed to be role playing a character concept within a virtual world. In the actual world, clearing any area of various hostile creatures, including people/humanoid types, will cause others to eventually move into the area due to the "vacuum" left in the ecosystem once the original creatures are gone.

As one person explained in another post, imagine a Raider group coming across a small town or outpost while looking for a new base of operations for raiding and pillaging. The leader sends some scouts to check out the area and they return to report, "The place looks deserted right now. There are a bunch of bodies of Feral Ghouls and some humans, but it looks like the fight happened quite awhile ago. There is plenty of shelter available as well as storage for loot after we raid local areas. (added note that there is water available if applicable)." The leader responds, "I see. Well, we'd better not stay here. It would be better to continue wandering the Wasteland at random and eventually die of thirst, starvation, or perhaps fall prey to wildlife attacks." Totally immersion-breaking, you see?