I disagree with the majority of what was said in the OP, however I appreciate there's a good few points that are subjective. FO4 has been quite a disappointment for me, and whilst not a terrible game I feel like it's not as good as the previous gen FO3 and FO:NV (particularly FO:NV).

Settlements - I really don't care for them. I never asked to become what amounts to mayor of multiple towns, and it annoys me that by following the main quest you're always handed Sanctuary where people look to you as the leader whether you like it or not. As an extra little feature, sure whatever, but it should have been entirely avoidable if you didn't want to do it. Making every character I play an obligate community leader is one of the many ways Bethesda failed to allow for you to have roleplaying distinctions between the different characters you play.

Beautiful world - It's too colourful for me, I find it hard to believe after 200 years baking in the sun everything would still look so vibrant. I also don't like how every vault looks as shiny and chrome as Vault City, one or two could look like that sure but they should have definitely given more of them a dank aesthetic like previous games. Again, entirely subjective but for me it really didn't work.

Enemy level balance - I find the combat too easy, even on Survival and even around the earlier levels (I'm level 25 currently). This is going melee which is supposed to me more difficult as you have to close the distance with enemies and tend to get shot at a lot. Again this is subjective, I know many people find the game difficult.

The crafting - For me I find the weapon crafting way too much, and I think it's entirely unrealistic that everything you pick up can be modded like crazy. Were the original manufacturers of these weapons so incapable at their job that they couldn't produce a single weapon that was good enough as is? I appreciate that crafting allows for a way (with the perk levelling restrictions) to organically access better weaponry as you level, however FO3 and NV already had a system for that as weapons only became available at vendors when you hit a certain level.

I much preferred the simplicity of NV's mods to FO4's, and personally I feel like having a more honed selection of equipment your weapon choice in NV was perhaps more distinctive than a system where you're always going to pick up the most damaging weapon and as there's no restriction on how high you level you're always just going to get the best mod for it in the end. When you couple this to a perk system that improves damage with all weapons equally (no more Cowboy, or Pyromaniac, or whatever) then your weapons system is now much more convergent than what was there previously.

In terms of armor crafting, I don't have the same problem with it as it allows for a lot of aesthetic customisation and what's best for armor is at least a bit more debatable.

The interface - I like the interface, I much prefer a clunkier yet completely functional interface that allows me to do exactly what I'm trying to do than one where the developer over simplifies and completely fails. I would love it if Bethesda forever left the interface as is.

Freedom - I don't think this is true, your character harps on about his son and his dead husband/wife so much that to avoid the issue feels awkward when they're so vocal about it. Whilst you can do whatever you please, Bethesda unfortunately have made it feel wrong to do so. They also assume whatever character you play would care about his family - what if your character had been having an affair and wanted to ditch their spouse and kid? If we compare this to FO3 which had the same premise of tracking family down more or less, then there is a system where you could comfortably not pursue your father straight away as he's a grown man who can handle himself. As you're pursuing a child in FO4, the same is not true as they're your responsibility and the game makes you feel irresponsible for ignoring it.

Really, I was much happier with the Courier or Dovahkiin who could be literally anyone and could have literally any motivation you liked. Bethesda presumed way too much about the character's motivation in FO4 and I find it incredibly restrictive.

Player determined progression - For me the set up is again a bit wonky as with infinitive levelling again you get this system where over time your characters are going to be convergent. What's the point in having your own progression when everyone is going to be the same in the end anyway? And sure, you can just not invest perks, but that seems like a pretty unsatisfying way to limit yourself (something I'll doubtlessly be doing, but it's a pretty awkward way of dealing with a system that could have been implemented better in the first place).

Factions That Matter - Again I don't this is true, and I don't like how you will always pretty much get roped into a faction if you want to progress. All the factions are unfortunately pretty much the good guys in one form or another with notes of grey, compared to the ballsier factions of NV that did questionable things a large majority of the time (they all want you to eliminate small factions at one point or another who aren't really damaging that much currently, I won't go into details to keep this spoiler free). Further at least the Legion in New Vegas also had questionable methods, and worked as a faction for people who wanted to play a more brutal character.

There's none of that in FO4, making faction choice much more arbitrary that it ever was before. They also never treat you like a merc, and you always get a high up if not leadership position - while some characters may like a factions ideals it would be nice if there was just one that was much more of the side of contracting you rather than you having to buy into what they say (House, anyone?). Beyond any of that NV allowed you to just go Independent - with nothing compelling you to side with any of the factions if you didn't want to. It baffles me, with such a good example set by New Vegas, that the factions are what they are in the game. I even much preferred Skyrim, where you were under no obligation to align yourself with factions that wanted to govern and when you did both the Imperials and Stormcloaks do dubious things like appointing shady Jarls to further their cause, etc.

Overall what bothers me - I think the worst bit of this game is the massive reduction in player agency by giving your character a motivation from the off, making them subscribe to factions to further the game and massively limiting dialogue choices. It transformed what could have been a good story focussed RPG into what amounts to an adventure game, and sure it's a good adventure game but given my expectations going in the FO4 really fell flat and I think it's the weakest of the core games (FO1/2/3/NV). I'm glad I received the game as a christmas gift as if I'd had bought it with my own money my many issues with it really would have made me bitter, as it stands I can currently enjoy it for what it is and not get too bogged down by what I don't like about it.

You are told to go their to see if there's hints about your son however, again one of those things where it comes across as awkward to avoid it.

Optional or not, the game is very leading in making you do what it wants. Sure you can actively avoid it, but it's the attitude that is presuming how you should be spending your time that annoys me. Add in the fact that your character does always whine about their son makes it almost feel forced when you actively don't comply with what they consistently voice is motivating them.

Saying "it's optional" doesn't change that it feels that it feels discouraged to act contrary.

How is that any different then NV where the game leads you down, around and back up, and just to make sure you go that way they put high level enemies "beef gates" so you'll most likely die if you don't. I'll take awkward over death any day.

PS. I'm aware you can get past the "beef gates" but it usually requires some luck and knowledge gained from playing the game after that point.

Or, you know, use of the single stealth boy that you find in the school house or the one of Joe Cobb, available to any player. No luck required, or really knowledge if you can be bothered to spend a few minutes (as in less than 5) having a cursory exploration of the environment.

Besides you're missing the point, it's how they use motivations they assigned your character as incentive to visit certain locations. In New Vegas you're not treated in the same way at all, you don't have any motivations assigned to your character and you're free to act entirely off your own curiousity - same with Skyrim and Fallout 3 more or less as your dad can look after himself. Here because your character uses nearly every opportunity they have to tell the world about their missing son and dead spouse, actively not doing anything about it feels out of synch with how they act.

I don't really mind being geographically lead around a map, if you insist that's what New Vegas does, so long as I'm not told what my character should be doing all the time. Fallout 4 does consistently drive you to find your son, and it's annoying.

See this

and I wasn't talking about the stat. I was talking about not running into a deathclaw or what ever right after your stealth boy runs out, because its happened a number of times.

Lets talk motivation. Outside of revenge what possible reason does the PC have for tracking that chip down. You don't find out what it does till you reach NV and before that it's all about finding the people who shot you. So I have to play a vengeful character just so the start of the game makes any kind of sense.

As for the game constantly telling to find your son, well its what the game is about. So if you want to play the game differently your gonna have to ignore all that.

Yeah...but it's kinda different. In NV you are looking for a guy who shot you and a chip. There is no urgency and it's optional. You don't feel any need to do so. In FO4 you are looking for your son. And when codsworth says he thinks someone in concord may know...what are you going to do? It's stupid to ignore the only hint that could help you find your son.

You don't go past any deathclaws if you go due north out of Goodsprings, you go past cazadores which won't detect you like a deathclaw would. I wouldn't imagine heading north is too much of a difficult concept for most players to grasp.

The obvious value it has for someone trying to kill you for it, wanting to find out exactly what you were caught up either out of curiosity, an extremely likely monetary reward or simply to take charge of your own fate. Or revenge. Or pure happenstance, it's not inconceivable that you wander into the Tops without knowing Benny runs it and act accordingly. When you catch up with Benny you can make a deal with him, you can kill him, you can ignore him seeing as you can see him from a distance - it's really up to you, entirely not the case in Fallout 4.

As Viper said, it's completely optional and non-urgent. There's a very real sense on urgency in Fallout 4, as every minute you spend arsing around is a minute that your son's going to be further away from you. I'm really curious as to how in DLC they're going to justify you going on a massive jolly when you believe your son's life is at stake, with them normally being set in an entirely separate region.

You don't understand. Chip, geck are things, that may or may not exist and may or may not do what you heard. Shaun is your son. Your wife was murdered.....sure you can go plant some tomatoes and corn....but your character says he want's to find shaun and get him back. Now you could imagine that you didn't love him....but every conversation that mentions shaun will say otherwise. You are looking for your son....there is no other way around it

YOU are given the opportunity NOT your character. Your character doesn't make dialog choices on their own so YOU use every opportunity NOT your character. This is all YOU. I don't feel the need to take everyone of those opportunities and just because you DO doesn't mean there is something wrong with the game.

I have to agree with what others have pointed out about your comparison to NV. Fact is, you are biased and dismissive of the freedom you actually have in this game.

And the story suffers badly from its non-urgent nature. A story needs to at least have some sense of urgency to it, particularly in a game or the story becomes irrelevant to it. I find it funny 2 sides of a war will just sit on either side of the Colorado staring at each other until the sun burns out because the courier hasn't shown any interest in the war.

OP i agree with u, i like the way Bethesda been evolving their way, i just cant wait to see the next ES

I'm glad someone else mentioned this because I thought I was going crazy. Most of the mods/parts for weapons are just better versions of the previous part rather than customization.

FO1 and 2 were never under Bethesda's purview, and so I don't think they're relevant to the direction Bethesda wants to take the franchise, but sure you could argue the character's there have a level of personal investment in what they're doing. However the fact that the player character is always from an insular society in both instances encourages exploration, the character's personal mission in Fallout 4 overtakes everything.

In New Vegas, the character is only emotionally or personally invested in getting the chip if you want him to be - your character never says as such unless you want him to. You're not "constantly driven" to do anything, to pretend you are is false.

They're underpinned by entirely different reasons. In New Vegas, it's a very literal short cut. In FO4, it's about avoiding story that you're told to be invested in. Seeing as you aren't told to go anywhere in New Vegas it's no less valid to go north than south. In FO4, as you've just whined in the vault about getting your son back, it is less valid to avoid a lead. You really can't see there's different motivations and goals to both of those situations, beyond them being about avoiding things in a very general sense?

You really, really do mention it in a lot of choices regardless of which of the four you pick. If I'm complaining about this, do you not think I actively tried to avoid mentioning Shaun? I did, but there's no way around it in a lot of circumstances. Don't pretend like I picked options about Shaun all the time and am now complaining about the fact I picked options about Shaun all the time, that's incredibly stupid. Even in the vault he says something dramatic about how he's going to get Shaun back - there's no way to avoid that.

I mean how hard would it have been for Bethesda to just not have your character bang on about Shaun in the vault, and then when you see Codsworth in Sanctuary he says something like, "Are you going to find Shaun?" and you go, "Yes, but when I get round to it/Not just yet, I want to see how the world's changed/etc./etc./etc." It would have been literally the simplest thing ever and would have allowed me to feel like I, and not Bethesda, was controlling my character's core desires.

So no, I was NOT given the opportunity to NOT care about SHAUN. See, I can randomly type in caps too.

Open sandbox rpgs really don't need a driving story, the point is you're supposed to be role-playing. Too much of a heavy handed story and you're removing the agency the player has in the game - then they may as well be playing any old linear story based game.

^^^ This

Not Codsworth. And KL-E-O is Colleen Delany. Did she do all the generic robots, too?

I'm not talking about a voice-pack DLC, I'm saying something like that should be included from the word go. It will take quite a while to implement it, and it would definitely feel like a cheap move to add it in later as DLC. Beth already includes voices and voice actors for all NPCs anyway. It would not be difficult to include various voices for player characters, just time-consuming and expensive. Let's see...Beth took 7 years to develop Morrowind...and nearly 6 years to make Skyrim...so they appear to take time when they need to. Now, I wonder if they have enough money...

Adding something while taking other things away is part of any development process. Things will always have to be cut. This is true, but moot.

Beth's voicework has been fairly decent for gaming...which still doesn't take itself as seriously as film. (It does take itself as seriously as television, now -- that's good!) What they need are better writers. Give the best actor/actress in the world hammed lines or stagnant dialogue -- and there's nothing that can be done. Natalie Portman is a fantastic actress -- what can anyone do with [Star Wars: Ep. 2]: "I truly...deeply...love you." Bye-bye, scene! (Bethesda voice actors are very talented, and the opening sequence of FO3, various characters in Skyrim, and most characters in FO4 show that. Even the writing is much better in FO4.)

I have no "expectations". I am presenting my views on how things should be improved, as many others have. I have suggested since Morrowind that Beth needed to make factions integral to the main storyline. Here they are in FO4, and they work wonderfully. I have suggested that clutter needs to be made useful or cut from the game. Now we have a great crafting and building system. I have suggested that Beth devote more time to writing and create meaningful interactions, back like it was in the Daggerfall to Morrowind era. FO4 has much more meaningful dialogue (if tricky to use), and everyone seems to be liking that. Now, I'm suggesting that the time has come to begin implementing voiced player characters that allow the player to pick a package that expresses their desired personality in the game. Let's see what happens!

(P.S. -- I'm not saying I or any others had anything to do with this stuff being added in. I'm saying that there are many people who have seemingly "crazy" ideas that right on the money all along. [That's my real-life job, too.])

I can empathize with a lot of your points, and this is a brilliant debate. It's sort of a throw-back to an argument I've been having on the forums since Morrowind was released. There are different types of gamers in the world, and no one game can appeal to them all. Let me hit on the following points:

You can adjust the music volume independently under sounds. Just found you can do the same with the radio so now I might start using it, before it was way to load.

More an issue that your TES character can be any age in addition to any race, ESO uses silent character for good reasons and its an game of the same generation as FO4, its fully voiced outside this and works pretty much as in Skyrim.

yes its probably have more dialogue than FO4 too,