One thing I'm absolutely hoping for in Fallout 4 is the ability to dual wield. Nothing would make me happier than walking up to some junkie merchant theif, smashing their face in with brass knuckles, and then blowing their brains out with a pistol. If we could mix certain guns/energy weapons with a one handed melee weapon, I do believe it could work if there was a special button for melee attacks only. Think COD, one smash of the right stick makes your character throw a punch or swing a blade with their melee weapon, while pulling the left trigger makes him ADS with his gun or energy weapon. Now that would be a magnificent change.

Edit: think of the possibilities with two handed weapons? You could beat down somebody with the butt of your rifle, conserving ammo,
And making them yield to you. If you're in a close quarters area you can sneak up behind someone and knock them unconscious without having to kill them. Of course with fallout I can see them adding some catastrophic failures where you accidentally kill some people, or hit them too lightly.

NO! You are looking for Borderlands.

No way. Switching to the pip-boy to change to a melee weapon in the heat of battle is too clumsy.

You can mindlessly kill stuff in Borderlands.

This is an RPG, not an FPS. Edalriso is right you should play Borderlands instead.

And that's why I didn't like borderlands, or most of Skyrim for that matter. In New Vegas the things I do have consequences, not just a price I can pay with gold. I will get relentlessly hunted down for some of the things I do. I'm just looking for more options to take advantage of the creation engine, which already supports dual wielding.

You're pretty much asking for the Gunzerker class in Borderlands 2.

C'mon, even Joshua Graham uses a pistol whip for melee.

And dual-wielding thusfar completely contradicts the very things you're praising.

You praise New Vegas for having consequence, and yet dual-wielding in Skyrim was the most pointless thing ever. Bethesda gave you the ability to dual wield swords....but you could only swing one at a time anyways. Literally the only reason to use dual-wielding was the perk system and the power attack, the perks giving you a speed bonus while the power attack with dual wielding was a guarenteed stagger. Dual wielding outside of the power attack was basically trivial, and was nothing but a gimped sword-and-board.

Likewise, the right mouse button has purpose in Fallout: it lets us AIM. Maybe TES was willing to trade the ability to block for, well...for a [censored] gimmick. But me personally? No, I do NOT want to trade my ability to look down the sights so I can be another cheesy "badass" that wrecklessly wields a shotgun in one hand and a chainsaw in another....and can't aim for [censored] with said shotgun.

Meh, I wouldn't be opposed to being able to do an unarmed attack whilst wielding a one-handed weapon like a pistol or smg - just as a back-up.

That's why I was proposing another button for melee attacks. You could melee with any weapon, but if you had a blade or a power fist you were better off using melee than if you had a service rifle or a plasma defender.

I think you should be able to hit your opponent with your weapon depending on what it is, but not 'dual-wield'..

I'd have nothing against duel Wilde if it was done right say you could have 2 pistols and fire both but you take a to hit penalty or use more AP. Some kind of bash would also be cool, think if it was real life if the bad guy was only a foot off you you would hit them with your rifle to give yourself room to shoot but I'd have it damage your weapon

Magazine fed weapons made dual-wielding obsolete. It was done with flintlocks to revolvers because of limited bullet capacity and reload times.

The only way I see it as a viable option in the fallout universe is if ammo is SEVERELY limited and you have two different caliber weapons with no reloads for either.

If the gameplay remains the way it is, there's no mechanical point in a "melee button" because there is no close proximity penalties for firearms, or other mechanics to give a purpose for that feature. It'd be a gimmick of no real gameplay benefit.

I like the idea of being able to smash a NPC with a crow bar while shooting out his/her knee caps also pistol whipping a NPC would be fun I can honestly say I would do it all the time..Weapons should break the odd time as a result of pistol whipping...Being able to stomp a downed NPCs head in would be real fun as well.

It would favor Bethesda concentrating on flashiness again just to target the COD crowd. Dual wielding weapons, reloading goes out the window, iron sights would get cut, but hey! you're a ninja! That's what Fallout is about. Killing stuff while being a ninja.