You have to join a faction in order to progress and complete the MQ. You can be the lone wanderer and refuse to join anyone, but then you can't complete the MQ or even find Shaun.

As I say I like the female voice, problem is the default selection texts and the limits always and only 4 fixed options give, Preston and other will give and receive quest on contact, no special / perk checks except the color coded chance for charisma. npc is single use or might lock up because of quest assignment.

I saw an screenshot of an game who had an 6 or 8 option wheel and only used as many as needed, this should work just add [more] on one if you end up with 7 or more option because of rare issues like quest givers who are also involved in radiant quests.

Both arena and daggerfall was popular but they did not had the mass appeal morrowind and later had. Daggerfall was very problematic to develop and has lots of dropped features like furniture shops.

And yes Morrowind on Xbox1 was large and as you say the first game of that type on console, worked as it was powerful enough and was pc like enough so porting was easy.

Sure, but as I said your character has already mentioned in the vault he'll do anything to find Shaun (or words to that effect, I could watch the first section of the game and skip to the relevant section). Ergo, when you've been told Concord might have clues - you would logically go for that. And ergo, when the Minute Men saw help us out and we'll help you out, your character should want to.

Ignoring this kind of stuff is inconsistent given how your character has acted already, and so by that logic if you're just doing what's normal for any character in your situation (since they always want Shaun) then you naturally get a settlement. I'm not sure why they couldn't have divorced the settlement mechanic from the core game for those who weren't keen on it for every character.

Well sure, but what happens if you'd been banging Mrs. Sunmer from down the street who you really love and were wanting to leave Nora and Shaun represented nothing more to you then the wife you hate and your dismal failing marriage. That character wouldn't want to find Shaun, and seeing as we were allowed to play more or less who we wanted in FO3 and FONV I find the backtrack on having this freedom fairly jarring. Not everyone is responsible, and you should have a chance to play someone like that.

Exactly, you "disappoint people a lot". That's not what I'm looking for in faction warfare, what you're playing is essentially a flake not someone who is truly rebellious or mean spirited or whatever. And they're definitely bad guys in real life, not every rapist, killer or thief thinks they're a hero or visionary. In FO3 you can work for Tenpenny and in NV there's Cobb and they're both bad guys.

This statement could not be further from the truth. I like over-arching narrative structure, like in New Vegas, but that's mutually exclusive from a game trying to "guide my moral compass". I have my own moral compass, my character has their own moral compass which should be allowed to be different character to character - it shouldn't be prefigured as it is in FO4 where you're by default a caring parent.

I don't care at all for cosmetics for my character in any circumstance, and I actually find the crafting system less functional for how convoluted it is. That's not saying I'm unable to use it fine, it's just that there can be more enjoyment to be had in simplicity then through something that's extraneously detailed. I find it extremely weird Bethesda trimmed back the dialogue system, likely for simplicity's sake and to give the game broader appeal, and then they go and make a crazy crafting system with a crap load of mods for every weapon that really isn't very user friendly. As I said though, this is purely subjective, and I can see why people would prefer it.

I really don't want factions that model good or bad guys, I just want less bland more morally confusing options. As I said, Legion can easily be sided with in New Vegas by a "good" character who thinks the strong government they'll bring in will ultimately do more good even though their methods are cruel. At the same time on a simpler level they're also a nice faction for evil players simply because their methods are cruel. Obsidian had the understanding to pitch their factions at a variety of different conceptual levels to make sure they could appeal to any character, good or evil, who had certain motivations (the Legion can appeal to people who want strong government or just want to brutalise people, the NCR can appeal to people who believe in democracy or like the corruption inherent in democracy, House can appeal to people who believe he's the best future for humanity or for people who believe he'll pay the best, the list of archetypes that fit into all these factions are endless).

Bethesda's factions, while fine, are very lacking in this level of finesse. The Railroad, for example, has very niche goals - they don't offer broad appeal through well thought-out complexity like all the New Vegas factions do.

If I wanted an action/adventure sandbox I would be playing one. Instead what I got was a Fallout game stripped of many of the features that allowing for deep role-playing and ironically become much more action/adventure orientated itself.

That anger that is derived from the death of my spouse and the loss of my son, which is the same for every character, which greatly restricts my character's role.

I play RPG games almost exclusively, I'm really not sure how what I've said presents me as an RPG hater. I play a lot of classic RPGs because I feel they offer much more of what I'm after here than modern RPGs do. I like complexity, making an impact on the internal world, many different options to complete quests, lots of side quests, and the ability to play whoever I like. FO4 is weaker on a lot of these fronts, especially when compared to FO:NV and even in some ways when compared to FO3.

NV's factions are anything but complex, they're very much what you see is what you get. A little deeper maybe, but not complex.

Care to quantify anything you say?

As far as I can tell Legion look like crazy raiders to begin with and then are shown to have a valid purpose and world view as well as solid reasoning for why they act like they do, which is revealed in much the same way as the Institutes when you finally catch up with their leader.

Likewise there's the NCR that have committed their own atrocities in the region and have a lot of hidden internal strife revealed in quests (which sounds to me an awful lot like complexity).

In any case, I was talking more in terms of conceptual complexity - making them more accessible to a variety of character archetypes.

As I said, given the storied past of the NCR in the Mojave region they can attract people who believe in democracy, people who want to thrive on the corruption inherent in their brand of democracy, and really many other variations of people (mercs, traders, people who don't like the other alternatives, people with historic ties to the NCR seeing as the Courier is whoever we want them to be and not some random person who always has a family and was always frozen in a vault, etc.).

What does the Railroad have? People who want to stand up for synths - that's a huge broad-based demographic right there. Most of the other factions, apart from the Minute Men who are more or less designed to be a bland catch all faction, really require you to subscribe to their weird world views. The New Vegas factions strove for a real relatable principles - democracy vs harsh totalitarianism vs benevolent autocracy, not some un-relatable weirdness with two of the factions being more or less ripped straight from Blade Runner.

FO4 factions are not relatable for many different character roles, and as in some ways we only really play one character with a much more fixed past it's difficult to extrapolate more sensible roles for that character and hence fit them into the provided factions. Explain to me how any one of the factions in FO4 is pitched at multiple conceptual levels - for example where their actions appeal to one sort of person and are separate from their goals which appeal to a different type of person? The FO4 factions have one level, we think like this and so as a very obvious consequence we do this, and you should be on board with both our thinking and our doing to join us.

Yes, its an alternative start sending you to goodneigboorhood to find nick and then find dogmeat, one farm also has answers to lots of noob questions so it looks like you was supposed to go where first.

Looks like they did an ESO start, (staring island felt too small for many and you had to do an quest to get off, stupid solution was to port you directly to next level instead of just removing the quest requirement to get out and let some tell that you could get out, now as an noob you get problem at the new start as enemies outlevel you)

it was changed so you got doogmeat early, probably only the robot first. you also get minigun and power armor early not that it does you much good.

More fun that you can stuff Preston in an power armor once you get him as follower and he use it as well as Danse

Yes he tells later that he was very shell shocked then you meet him so he was not able to take the imitative.

You can.

Yes, exactly. It's the technical execution of the dialogue wheel "mechanic" that's the issue. The mod that changes the system back to a list with the actual responses fixes the issue nicely. I would have liked to see the vanilla system actually work clearly, though. It would have made the first playthrough a bit more fresh and surprising.

Truly, Mass Effect's system was pretty flawless. Simplifying it is something I understand, but I think limiting everything to 4 might have heightened the feeling that the player was often "on rails" during dialogue.

This is also along the lines of my argument against Companion AI -- I like the companions as far as characters go, but their AI makes them almost useless in gameplay. Like Valentine's escape section -- the enemy NPCs take the high-ground, hide behind cover, spread out to cover a wider area...

Valentine runs up to the nearest enemy and stands at point-blank range, pointing his pistol at the thug without firing, and blocking my shot. Then he stands there while being simultaneously beaten and shot up before firing three shots that somehow miss and collapsing to the ground. Clap frigging clap. Why can't companions just use the regular NPC combat AI package?

I know. I understand you don't mean DLC, you mean an array of different voices with the base game of ES6. I get that, what I'm saying is that will never happen.

I don't think you're a hater, and I'm happy to continue the debate. Once again, your feelings about the game are neither right nor wrong -- what you've said is what you would like to see in the game. Same as anyone else who would say, "No -- it should be like this."

I think what you're proposing is not possible for a video game, however. (Well...not for a few more decades at least!) You seem to want the ability to play a game according to the vision you have for a character -- and have the game react meaningfully -- and have that reaction be the one you want and expect. That's technically possible by sitting down for a pencil and paper RPG session and discussing with the DM what sort of world and adventure you like best, then crafting the game around everyone's particular favorite bits. (It's one of the things that made P&P RPG's so much fun, back in the day, actually.) To ask that same level of "catering" from a mass-distributed game is just not feasible.

It seems that New Vegas happened -- by chance -- to tickle your fancy. Lucky that, then! Fortunately the community for NV is still going strong and you can play through it again with better graphics and whatnot. Fallout 4 was made with more focused dramatic action in mind. Not just a very dynamic and reactive world, but also a strong motivation for the main character to drive the story towards its conclusion. At their own pace and in their own way. I could not disagree more about feeling rushed or pushed by the game. Even in the beginning, after learning about Diamond City for the first time as a likely location to find Shaun, you're told in the next breath that the Minutemen could use your help, too. You have a ton of freedom, and it all blends in nicely without any one choice feeling "forced".

How long have you been frozen? How dangerous is Diamond City? Are you ready for that yet? Scavenging for some better gear would make more sense instead of just blindly running off. Wouldn't it be better to build up Sanctuary first? Somewhere to fall back to? Should you join the Minutemen, have someone at your back? Maybe you should just go it alone? Maybe you should just get drunk and forget about all of it...

I praise this part of the game because it walked a thin line between creating urgency for people that want to hurtle down the main quest line (they have the "My son...!" energy to use as an excuse), but it did not make more methodical players like myself feel like we're avoiding the game by taking my time and setting other short term goals before the main quest mission. And the game allows for all of it. It reacts to all of it.

_________________________________

As to factions, your arguments are leaning towards "surface-level" factions. The classic: Hegemonic Militarized Government, or Impoverished Underdog Resistance, or Emotionless High-Tech Super-Syndicate. Factions that anyone can find an argument to "love" or "hate"...but little in between. While this does make for much more open-ended and player driven gameplay (that point cannot be argued), it also creates issues with depth and meaningful interactions. These faction tropes, are just that: well-known, well-explored, rather undeveloped.

This goes straight into what I was saying about villains not understanding they're villains. I guess this requires a bit more explanation on my part (I did just sort of dump the theory and walk away). You argue that there are villains in the world -- rapists and murderers and so forth. That's only true from your (I'll say our, here) perspective. From the perspective of a rapist or a murderer -- they need to do it -- there's no other choice. Or they're owed this because...whatever...a voice in the mailbox said they had to. They're not crazy! Can't you see!? They're the only sane ones left!

The same with "terrorism". Yes, to many westerners, "terrorists" are psychopaths, hell-bent on destroying innocent people, for a fanatical religious war. The "terrorists" themselves believe they are fighting against a power that has been keeping their own country oppressed for generations, and this is the only to to fight against such an indomitable, evil power. Both sides of this argument are nuts. The situation is far more complicated than that (on both sides), and the views are entirely oversimplified and naive. (Besides, discussing the pure semantics of the situation, what causes more innocent people die in terror every year? Homemade, ammonia-based IEDs, or JDAMs fired during F-15 airstrikes in residential areas?)

I think the factions in Fallout 4 go much deeper into these grey areas that are reality than any Beth game, previously. (While nicely avoiding such controversial topics as I addressed above.) You don't really love or hate any one faction -- there are things to love and hate about each. You must pick the one your views are most in line with, because all of them are potentially dangerous.

He has spoken...

Now it shall be so.

Let all know this. Carry forth the word.

I dunno. I was happily fooling with the various factions for quite a while. They have some depth, but not much. I have come to hate The Institute, B0S and The Railroad for all being various brands of Nazi. The Railroads hippie version is perhaps the most disturbing, but The Institute's version is almost as bad. The BoS have a simpler, dumber version.

This has given me little choice, I have to back the losers, the Minute Men, and make them winners, as they are almost the only partly reasonable people in the game. Everyone else is nuts. You might be able to tell that reality upsets me almost as much.

"Crafting" (more like modding) is a mixed bag, honestly. Sure, you get some interesting crap in the mixture (Auto laser rifle, Plasma Thrower, etc.), but it's also bogged down in the most overinflated amount of fluff I have ever seen (Receivers get no polish through each upgrade, no changes, no alterations, nothing, some barrel mods do the exact same thing, they're simply upgrades, nothing more interesting) that make it less rewarding to mod visually, which makes for a pretty boring result until you notice enemies die faster, which is still 'eh' overall.

The biggest crime is the lack of melee/unarmed mods, which hilariously, offer more creative ways to mod said weaponry to look/feel badass.

So yes, there's some buffs in the modding, but there's also parts that make me believe the buff isn't really that impressive, and is actually "Eh" overall.

If that farm was supposed to be found early-on, they did a bad job of putting it in a sensible area. I think you're right, too. The only reason I stumbled on it was because I was chasing a bloatfly. (It needed to die...!)

The power-armor and minigun right off the bat like that was a nice touch, actually. You can't do too much damage upfront with it -- not enough fusion cores, for one -- but it immediately hooked me as a long-term goal. Kind of like restoring the old muscle car in the garage. Might not look like much now...but once I get a few parts, and trick this part out, and add a custom unit here...we'll open her up on the road. I didn't touch power armor until I tackled The Glowing Sea...and after all the work I had done on it, I felt like a super hero! (Still died 3 times before I cleared it. I didn't bring the Fat Man.)

Here's what got me about the Minutemen --

They are basically re-hashing the American Revolutionaries rise to power, which would then become a major world power, develop atomics, and introduce the breakdown of society that resulted in the Great War and the apocalypse. Now...the Minutemen want to build it up all over again...according to the same values...but surely it will be different this time...

I don't actually see that. They are just trying to survive as an organization for starters. They are the only ones devoting time and energy to helping normalish people. Hell I even have a ghoul settlement. There's no one else to back who is at all interested in making a tolerant, open society. That is my problem.

I thought this at first, too. Granted, the descriptions you get at the bench to not always accurately portray what the mod does nor to what degree it will effect things. (To be fair, mods to the earlier rifles are quite minimal or just invisible early on, but once you get a few perk points into the associated weapon type, you'll notice greater disparity between the mods. Doesn't really affect the earliest weapons much, though.)

I fiddled by building two different pipe rifles with different mods that all seemed to do much of the same stuff. In the end, I had 2 semi-autos. One rifle would fire slowly, kick like crazy, and had terrible hip accuracy but had perfect sighted accuracy. The other would fire almost as quickly as I could pull the trigger, had very smooth action, decent accuracy from the hip (even at range), and had really good sighted accuracy (very little wobble). According to the descriptions...both were almost identical.

I then further customized the second rifle with a light long barrel and switched out the scope for reflex sights. It's my all-purpose weapon. So many raiders, Gunners, and super-mutants have fallen to this thing. Still using it now at level 20-ish.

You guys could just think that too much time passed or that Shaun died or something along the lines when your PC wakes up.. Yeah sure there is helping codsworth but I think of doing it as to entertain him.. You can say that you lost your family or that they both died in some dialogue in the game.. People feel too rushed to look for their kid but in all actuality your PC wakes up confused not knowing really what in the heck has happened.. Hell if I was in his shoes I'd probably assume the worst as mentioned in the ladder. You guyses just need to not over think my peeps.. There is a way around crap.. Especially after you beat the main quest, I got all kinda of rp ideas. I'm currently building the wasteland into a civilization, where as My first settlement started out as the "raiders" we are now conjoined into the minute men protecting and fortifying any settlements that seem to have potential. And maybe even attacking a few "threatening" ones such as.. Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler.. covenant.. I new I was gonna go to war with them. And I did. Who knows what I will do for the preservation of my people... I might wipe out another populated settlement if I feel it's necessary.. Back on topic sorry lol. Some of you might say well what about momma Murphy who can see the future or whatever.. I look at her as the crazy druggy as everyone else in sanctuary does.. So far my PC thinks that his son is dead or well dead because time went way whoosh. Forgive any misspells.. I can care less about punctuation.

I'm being realistic. I don't deal with dreams.

Yes you can get through half the MQ without joining, but...

That doesn't excuse the fact that Fallout 1 and 2 did the EXACT SAME THING, if anything their issues were more urgent because

In Fallout 1 your entire vault, family, friends, everything was under threat of dehydration because of a broken water chip, that's more urgent then finding your son. In Fallout 2 you were tasked with finding a GECK in order to stop your tribe from dehydration and starvation, that's more urgent then finding your son. The character's personal mission only overtakes everything in FO4 IF YOU CHOOSE TO LET IT, I'm beginning to doubt you even played the game. Hell, even in New Vegas it's some form of urgency if you let it be an urgency. The only Fallout game where you aren't sent out to look for something to save people or to find someone is Tactics.

Hell, one can make the claim that since the Courier still needs to finish their job there is a sense of professional urgency depending on if you make your character out to be a hard working person who takes their job seriously. Again, the urgency is all on you and saying "well if you don't hurry to find your son it's irresponsible" well excuse me but personally I find someone who let's their entire people die of thirst to have a side adventure to be irresponsible, I find someone who shirks their professional duty as irresponsible.

And again, not going to sanctuary and concord are still possible AND you can still complete the main quest without stepping foot in either, you're once again ignoring this in favor of lies simply to make a bad point.

At this point you're ignoring facts to say "Nuh uh I'm right" but guess what, you aren't right, you're dead wrong.


Is it..yes it is! More inaccuracies that you clearly don't know what you're talking about. Fallout 4's faction do provide the same thing as the factions in New Vegas and they are IN FACT as conceptually complex.

For instance at first the BoS seem like a powerful military power that came in peace but soon you learn that they have certain views that can put you off or make you support them more, they offer protection and trade to the citizens of the Commonwealth and aren't afraid to fight but some of their views can be seen as bad or good.

The Railroad comes off as freedom fighters only to learn that they actually don't do much for non-synths or non-gen3 synths. They can still seem like what they're doing is good but it can be judged that what they're doing is bad.

The Institute comes off as the great boogey-man of the Commonwealth because of what they've been doing but as you progress you learn that they actually have good intentions and good points but you can still disagree with them due to certain views.

The Minutemen come off as one person. That's it but as you build them up you begin to grow their strength, build settlements up, change the wasteland for better or decide some settlements aren't worth building up and completely abandon them for a central area.

Each one can be played with different character archetypes, just like new vegas, which is a point you are missing and spreading misinformation about. Each one is as relatable as the NCR or House or the Legion or independence, just because YOU feel they aren't doesn't make it a fact. Again, I have doubts you actually played the game because everything you've been saying has been pretty wrong and ignorant about the game. The factions all have different levels, hell some have more levels then the ones New Vegas had.

Edit:
If I'm coming off hostile I'm sorry, I'm just getting tired of people coming in and going "New Vegas did it better" and acting like their opinion is instantly facts. If you feel New Vegas did factions better good for you, that still doesn't make you right it means you have an opinion.Personally I feel like Fallout 4 did factions better because NCR is always portrayed as good guys with Legion as bad guys, even when you learn of the good and bad sides of the factions they still seem railroaded to fit certain roles whereas in FO4 every faction has pros and cons to them and it comes off as everyone is gray, even the MM have such cons.

You can skip concord just like you can skip a majority of they went that way in New Vegas, each one has an urgency that is only decided by the player, you aren't forced to go down one route.

This is the best review of the game I've read yet.

Yes, lack of 5 mm and fusion cores reduces the usefulness and the mission is cool.

First time I had 5 bullet left for the minigun then the fight ended

This is one of the themes I think is addressed in each game very "quietly". As Americans, I think we automatically associate "kind, tolerant, and fairness" with "good", and "order, force, and dominance" with "bad". In reality, everyday folk tend to be kind, tolerant, and treat other everyday people fairly. Anywhere you go on the planet (with very few exceptions), people greet you when you walk through a door, plug away at their jobs, mediate their differences, sit and chat about sports, relationships, politics, literature...

Governments cannot be kind, tolerant, or fair. This automatically means a government is weak, open to corruption, and unable to make decisive actions. There are only so many resources to go around, and it's a government's job to put those resources where they are needed most. That means deciding who suffers in most cases, and having enough force standing by to quell any chaos that might erupt once the decision comes down.

The Minuteman faction is doomed to either become a much more corrupt and unstable organization, or become an organized militant force capable of resisting other Wasteland forces such as the Enclave, BoS, or super-mutants. This "Champion of the People" ideal is only good while people are desperate enough to cling to an ideal. The instant things settle down, social unrest will tear the Minutemen up from the inside...unless the Minutemen put their laser muskets in their own people's faces and explain how things are going to be.