Gathering info about these things, but there is still a lot to learn about how Bethesda is improving how relations between player and companion develops.

What magazines and sites are saying, based on their interviews and info received from Bethesda:

* option to engage in romantic relationships with companions. this confirms romance is an important feature in Fallout 4, more than any previous game. and further confirmed by the more indepth facts:

* there are 12 companions (that is a lot of companions. especially when it sounds like they will each be unique)

* only human companions can be romanced (maybe at least 6-7 of them are human, which is a lot of relationship optjons)

* sources claim that Todd Howard said "We track how each companion feels about you"
We spent a lot of time on this mechanic" Therefore as a mechanic, the entire companion relationship system looks

to be something ground breaking, more personal, more meaningful and more rewarding than previous interactions.

* Companions are said to have a lot of personality (could that lead to relationship questlines that further develop a bond?

I don't think personality will just be expressed in random lines spoken, otherwise it would have a "arrow in the knee" routine to their behavior.

* there are special perks for lone wanderer types (does that mean romantic relationships unlock special perks too?).

If lone wanderer survivors get benefits, that must foreshadow that relationships between lovers unlock hidden benefits too.

Not sure how they will apply the companion interactions, but relationship social questlines seem to be the most innovative and

natural way to develop a bond with companion.

And how would that be affected by developing bonds with multiple companions? Could a person have multiple lovers? Would they fight each other? After one companion becomes a lover, the player can't rank up their bond with other companions?

As for the concept of Relationship Social Questlines, I been thinking that Bethesda might add a new type of quest never before

seen in other open world games, where instead of the usual fetch quests and hunting/assassination quests, there would be

peaceful social quests linked to companions, where the player and companion simply talk and get to know each other better,

with dialogue choices, and generally have deep interactive conversations that go deeper with each quest of that nature.

maybe some social questlines could involve going on a journey/adventure together to find something (though that would just shoehorn in the excuse to kill something or loot, just to please the action fans, there's already a lot of quests like that.),

but think considering there is the settlement/building system Fallout 4 has, relationship developments would build more naturally being sedentary instead of nomadic. I think if Fallout 4's companion system includes social questlines, it shouldn't require travel to interact with a companion and develop the bond further.

Though Bethesda may consider dangerous quests, to avoid players speedrunning through the romance development ladder quickly, any quests/requirements to progress the relationship with a companion, would involve travel, combat, and maybe scavenging, that's tied

to that companion's background, needs or something of that nature. Which I think is ok, if it fits the companion and situation.

I think not all companions are gonna be the sedentary types, so to develop bond with the more travel types, it may require doing a lot of footwork and brushing with enemies along the way.

Though it will be interesting how they implement the companions, the romance developments, the personalities, the relationship developments, and whatever perks that may be related to that bond.

not sure if it would escalate into having six, ESRB says there are no sixual themes, but that doesn't mean it isn't there, even if its subtle and not shown.

the journey from strangers to lovers, could be something amazing if Bethesda really does it right for at least some of the

human companions, as well as the rewards/perks/features beyond reaching the peak of that bond, further enhancing the gameplay as well.

the whole romance side of Fallout 4, could be even more interesting, emotional, rewarding and everlasting than the main quest itself.

A perk to be precise, the Lone Wanderer perk in the charisma line on the chart.

I'm sure this thread will be locked like always by a mod for some LGBT politically correct BS once companions are discusses which will be brought up.... But hopefully the thread will stay clean and on topic.

Regarding companions it would be nice as you mentioned if they were an integral part of the game. I would assume you can assign them to stay at your settlement but fear there will be scripting issues. In fallout new Vegas boone always magically disappeared as a companion and there were other scripting issues.

I hope there will be quests that are specific to relationship options like there were in dragon age inquisition.

I have always found BGS to have crappy romance but from what it looks like Fallout 4 will advance this aspect of the game in leaps and bounds.

Yeah, I'm curious to see how all this is going to work. I kind of miss the days when romance wasn't just a given in these sort of games - I've found in the past it's been more enjoyable for me when it's come as a surprise. (Probably the most satisfying example of an in-game relationship I've had was back in Knights of the Old Republic - Bastila and I would fight constantly, so when it suddenly turned into a love/hate sort of thing it was a nice surprise that tied nicely into my character's progression.)

I'm not even sure if my first character is going to pursue a relationship with any of these characters or not - I may find it more compelling to sort of "pine" for my lost spouse (the consensus being that the wedding ring we see in the PC's inventory will likely function as kind of a reverse function of Skyrim's - where you wear the item to tell NPCs you are not interested in romance.)

I also see pacing to be a concern (something I'd be surprised if Bethesda hasn't addressed.) Bioware is famous/notorious for their romance storylines, but they sort of segment their narratives into chapters - you classically spend down-time at camp or on your ship moving around and talking to everyone. While I would something like this in New Vegas (I'd keep all my companions at the Lucky 38 and every time I'd go back to restock and stuff I'd walk around and see if anyone had anything to say,) there's not much to segment stuff in Bethesda's more open-world narrative.

Perhaps some of this will be time-based, where you'll need to actually have a companion with for some time before the "romance" stuff starts to turn up or progress, or if there's mechanics where you need to improve your status with a character, then the pacing would likely be built into the system - it would simply take a certain amount of time and effort to advance through their quest-line or whatever and improve their opinion of you. Perhaps even just rushing through their quests wouldn't be enough to guarantee success, you may still need to perform extra actions or interactions with them to get to that level. (I'm just assuming that every companion will come with a storyline quest a la New Vegas, though I could be wrong about that.)

The Lone Wanderer perk makes me also assume that by completing certain missions or improving your standing with a companion may net you a unique Perk related to them (again, a la New Vegas.)

But at this point all I have is just guess-work - I'm going to be very interested in seeing how all this pans out. Bethesda has never done a romance angle in their games to much degree before (I'm sort of purposefully ignoring Skyrim, here - that barely counts.) This time out, it sounds like they're taking more of a Bioware approach to this concept - so it'll be interesting to see what they bring to the table.

Yeah... if we could keep politics and hot-button issues out of this, that'd be great. No one really wants to know anyone else's opinions about NPC's sixuality and it's just a slippery slope from there.

I think that's just to compensate the player for not having a combat companion alongside during fights - although I suppose if it's powerful enough it may also balance out any positive perks that will be available through companions. They's have to be levels of the published perks, though, I don't remember any that are only available through having a companion.

Timed romances could be really tricky, though. Ideally you'd want any significant relationship dialogue to take place during some natural down-time in the gameplay, but Bethesda's games don't really have any of that built in (or, at least, the player decides when and how long any down-time is). It would be a bit odd if companions had to start nagging you to engage with them "when it's convenient". I suppose if any such requests only happened in settlements when your character wasn't close enough to any NPCs to be on the point of engaging in conversation (or combat) then it could work. It'd be tricky to make sure any prompts got through, but only in appropriate circumstances.

"Look, not now, can't you see I'm running to the next shop to sell all my stuff?"

"Yeah, yeah, but perhaps I can finish stealing this minigun first, hmm?"

"Shhhhh! It'll wake up!"

If you look in a mirror and say 'romance' three times, a Troll will appear. Your only hope is to ignore it, and hope it gets bored and goes away - otherwise a Moderator will need to step in and save you

Bioware's relationships are awkward, though. Maybe the most emotional relationship achieved in a Bioware game was in Jade's Empire. it's been years,

but practically every Bioware game is not a good template for romance, because their games are not true open world, not at the level of freedom and immersion and interaction that only Bethesda does at deeper levels, and overall Bioware's flavor for romance comes off as cheesy, immature and fragmented and more like a sidequest or afterthought instead of merging it with the player's way of life.

The one thing to Bioware's credit, is being bold enough to have romance relationships escalate to eventually having six (well I think they only started doing that until Mass Effect. no wait, that happened in Jade Empire too, I remember that. not sure about KOTOR.), which is a natural advlt thing to do, more natural than violence, and where romantic relationships lead towards unless it's a very bizarre or distant relationship.

To me, Fallout 4 counts as Bethesda's first attempt at serious romantic relationship development, and ocnsidering there are multiple human companions to choose from, as well as tracking how they feel about you (meaning there are multiple ranks/grades of bond/relationship with them) they look to going full force with this feature.

Maybe they will design it so the relationship doesn't seem like it's on pause when you are doing other things. I think if players can fully dedicate to the main quest progression, players should have the freedom to fully dedicate to the romance/relationship progression. Maybe it will be done right and generate a more real bond and a more interesting journey and climix to the relationship, as well as the everlasting bond after reaching that peak, than what other developers have done.

They really do have the talent and resources to really raise the standards for romance and relationship developments in general.

While violence and destruction are easy things to sell a game, authentic romance and deeper bonds that matter would get a lot more people interested,

while getting something more out of this than "kill everything, get the best loot/gear, build the best settlement, have the best stats, and beat the story" routine.

It's just that who knows how the relationship development will be designed. it would be crazy if they go for the whole, companion stays in location A,

and to progress relationship, you have to go to B alone, then get C before returning to A to progress the relationship further. If that routine is done for

each stage of relationship development, then that's just like every quest out there. not every quest should be above scavenging or killing, especially when

it comes to socializing.

of course, pacing is important, and they don't want people to breeze up the relationship ladder, that's why the idea of companion quests/socializations might

function well with a timer, but I think that restricts the freedom of how often you want to interact with that companion.

I think just as players can go full time progressing with the main story quest, players should be able to go full time interacting with a companion if they want, and get progression out of it at their own pace.

That leads to the thought of providing different stages of development. though I think with Fallout 4's scenario, it makes sense for companions, or at least

some of them, to stay in one place, especially if they are first found in a settlement/shelter of sorts where survival is more likely than risking their neck out there.

Depending on the level design and other things, if a player finds a companion of interest, the player could decide to live there and get to know that companion

better. It's very possible for Fallout 4's systems to make things develop naturally, without feeling forced, linear, or out of place.

I think the more stages of relationship development there are, the more interesting relationships, interactions and social progression can become with a companion of choice. It will be very interesting how they designed all of that. It would be beneficial to dedicate a lot of VAs, quest development, and conversation planning to the romance systems for each human companion and the relationship ladder each one has. Quality romance system can in turn enhance everything else the player does in the world, alongside their companion.

Indeed. Fallout 2 had numerous pieces of sixual content/themes, and the ESRB rating doesn't make a note of it. We won't get full blown six scenes Witcher 3 style, nor should we - it's pointless, really. Fade to black is enough.

That would rather make a nonsense of the role of a companion in a Bethesda game (so far), which is to travel with the player character providing combat support.

In fact, I don't think a homebody NPC who doesn't travel with the player could really be called a 'companion' in any RPG.

A bed companion or a hearth companion, perhaps. But yeah, Bethesda followers are typically there for combat support.

Some posts have been deleted. This is the second moderator intervention in this topic, there won't be a third, just warnings and suspensions.

Yeah, I'd forgotten about those uses of the word

Still, in an RPG context, are there any that call stay-at-home NPCs companions?

I suppose in Skyrim you could leave your companion sandboxing at your home if you'd married them, but I kind of felt they stopped being a companion then. And you couldn't recruit another, could you? Or am I misremembering?

Anyway, I feel that this romance feature will have to accommodate the companion being a constant follower as well as being left back in their own home or the player's settlement.

Well, you could marry NPCs that weren't followers. You'd assign them to your home and they would live there. A married companion would sandbox at your home though, same as a non-follower spouse. You could still recruit another NPC though.

I doubt Fallout 4's romance will be that interesting. For example, all romance companions are bisixual, meaning that the romance interaction has a focus on pleasing the player and shoving more political subjects in our mouths rather than each companions having a unique personality to explore. I find the LGBT community being a majority in most games with romance to be odd but whatever.

It's not this. All characters are bisixual for the player's sake. Period. Full stop.

While I hoping to strive to remain loyal to my pre-war wife...

...Well, it depends...I am but a man, and I might take fancy to one of the companions....Interested to see how it plays out.

Holding out hope for a moira-esque spunky mechanic so full of optimism in a desolate world that it's almost concerning.

On top of that...You know...I doubt being Bi is like they're only quality. They may not even be that. They are whatever the players preference is. Created for the purpose of companionship and romance.

I'm sure it'll work out fine. I'll more than likely become attatched to a few of them and then agonize for days over who follows me off into the sunset.

Exactly what I was saying. To please the players. Sort of like those japanese anime with one male hero and 12 hot females following him around. In fallout 4, your 12 companions will be your LGBT harem.

What's wrong with pleasing the player?

That's...kinda why I play the game. To be entertained and pleased.

And it's not confirmed you can bed all of them at once, you know.

Don't like it? Don't buy the game. Vote with your dollar. It's just a way of making sure this part of the game is open to everyone of all genders and orientations, real ones, that is. As for this specific line of argument? I'm going no further because it's quite obvious you're so attached to your agenda that you'll insert it into situations that don't even relate to it.

I'm still wary of it, because I've yet to see Bethesda implement this thing well. On the other hand, they've only stepped into this kind of thing once, twice if you include Ahnassi's questline in Morrowind, so it's not clear how similar or different it'll be from past attempts.

We need more Crassius Curo romances.

Hah!

Well if that didn't cause a storm in a teacup, nothing would

I did actually write a Crassius Curio bawdy song for Skyrim, though I never recorded it. Harmless enough, but off-topic, but I could PM anyone whose interested

I think Bethesda are going to tread fairly carefully with romances in FO4, as they don't have any sort of track history with them, so regardless of what they'rte capable of or inclined to do, the romances will probably be pretty tame.

Why can't we have a normal thread about companions? Them being is really not that serious. Every person we could marry in Skyrim was bi and I don't remember this much complaining about it.

It's a shift of focus by Bethesda - and since it's pretty much the only thing about companions we know (apart from their being inkillable in combat, like in FO:NV) it's the only thing to talk about.

And it's something that people sometimes have very strong opinions about.

I'm guessing all the fuss will die down almost as soon as FO4 is released, and people realise the romances are neither exciting nor offensive enough to get worked up about.

Not necessarily. By taking a companion along with you on the road and into combat in FO3 you indirectly gained several benefits such as:

Increased Carry Weight - You could have them carry quite a lot of your loot.

Increased Damage Resistance - Some enemies would be shooting at your companion instead of you

Increased Damage - Your companion is also shooting at the enemies, adding their damage to yours

As such I believe that the Lone Wanderer perk in FO4 was put into the game to help level the playing field for players who prefer not to use companions.

Now they have access to increased carry weight and damage resistance when alone and increased damage might be part of one of Lone Wanderer's higher ranks.

There may still be bonuses or perks that are unlocked via romance, but I think the Lone Wanderer perk doesn't increase or decrease the chances of this occurring.