Does anyone else feel like Fallout4 is lacking in story elements? I mean, you know, compared to Fallout3?

The overALL story isn't lacking. As in, the main quest, and the plot of Fallout4. However, I'm talking about the story element while playing.

I'm at level 50, and I have 120 hours into the game. Since the beginning, I felt like something was lacking, but I couldn't put a finger on it. At first I was thinking that maybe there wasn't enough guns (but there is), or enough lootable items (but that wasn't the issue either). Then it finally clicked, after watching some Fallout3 gameplay videos on youtube. See, I haven't played FO3 in YEARS, so I totally forget what I loved most about the game. Exploring all of the locations, and being immersed in the stories of each location, and the countless script elements to the game.

It seems like in FO4, many of the missions are just repeats (Find and help this settlement. Find this item and bring it to ____. Clear out _____. etc) Also, there really isn't much to any of the NPCs. Sure, the companions all have a bit of backstory that they tell you, and a few key characters have some quests for you.... but it isn't like you often run into a random city, start talking to people, and open up into dialogue elements and a good story out of the blue. That doesn't seem to happen much in FO4.

Anyone else feel the same way? The NPCs just don't have any depth, and the world is lacking because of that.

It seems fine to me.

Cant compare with previous Games but the most Main Quests feels rushed to me.

Minutemen:

Railroad:

BoS:

I don't think the game really lacks in the story part, but instead in the liberty, choices and concequences parts.

It's so scripted that sometimes it becomes plain illogic because of it.

300+ hours in, barely touched any of the main questlines.

Done a buttload of Misc. Quests, and still got lots of map to explore.

Plenty of story if you take the time to look.

TLDR: If you just bust through the MQ, you may miss some other stuff.

The MQ and faction suffer for the very same reasons Skyrim's did. They feel rushed and the characters I'm suppose to care about I don't.

I thought this was typical for Bethesda. They leave rest to MODers... lazy but still.

Yes I also did all the generic mmo kill 10 synths/ghouls/raiders and collect the reward quests.


The point is, the story is lacking. You know... Content that has actual story behind it, and influences the present. Putting skeleton with teddy bear and writing one page of back story in terminal is not gameplay.

Yes, but that's nothing new when you're comparing to Fallout 3. There's just less of the non-generic NPCs this time around. Additionally, NPCs are generally just means through which you get quests in BGS games. If you want a bit of depth, you have books in TES, and uh... I guess terminals in BGS Fallouts.

The longer you play the more the game is going to be dominated by the radiant go-to-x-kill-everything-and-return content. There are quite a few scripted quests, with stories, places and characters weaved into them, a lot more so than in Fallout 3, but they run out eventually. So after a certain point they become rare and the repetitive, simplistic quests becomes the dominant gameplay.

But in comparison to vanilla Fallout 3, Skyrim or other Bethesda titles...no, Fallout 4 keeps you invested in more developed storytelling for longer.

Yes, but can you say "This game has nice story", or should it be "This book reading simulator has some nice books in it".

There are stories all over the map, I love it

The lack of story, is the story!

^ This, the story quests could be a lot simpler and more childish but if they have different approaches, motivations, with reactivity and consequences based on either your decisions or your character's build; you would enjoy them more and it would give them a sense of real complexity. And at least I would find them more fun actually.

Would be curious if they somehow managed to apply reactivity and C&C to Radiant quests.

Fallout 4 does seems a bit rushed ,as if they did not have time to properly test and implement all features.7 years should have been enough,one would think.

But has a bigger % of bad quests.

They should have done less, but be better written with more possibility to be played.

I heard Bethesda took out some BoS stuff. There were rumours that you could kill/challenge Maxon and take over BoS and return them to their former purpose. Not sure if it true, but if it is, I feel cheated somehow.

The Main quest is rather short, compared to Fallout 1, 2 and 3.

But there are many mini-side quests. Vault 81 or Goodneighbor for example.

I just hope they flesh out the existing companions in the next coming DLCs, adding more story, dialogies, commets/reactions and quests to them.

There is a lot potential here - Diamond City (Piper & Nick), Goodneighbor (Hancock), Vault 81 (Curie) and so on.

Yes.

Too few main quests, but they're not interesting anyway. It does not help that the story is not so good.

Follower NPCs, I can't care less about their perks and whatnot. I have only completed Cait, Curie, and Piper.

Anyway, I see the main quest as a tutorial. The real game is to go to all the locations, kill raiders, kill gunners, kill abominations, and loot stuff. Then bring all the junk back, dump it into the workshop and build stuff.

One thing about the main quest that I think should be better is the depth. Why did the institute replace settlers with synths?? feels like the main quest didn't have enough answers...

I played for many, many hours, I loved exploring the game, but, I didn't feel that the quests, the main ones at least, were in anyway satisfying

Or rather the endings

I didn't find any of the side quests at all interesting, to be honest, the only exception being the vault which

I absolutely loved NV and FAO3 and they're my top 2 favourite games ever but I find myself, after 120 hours played, rushing to finish the game as I'm losing interest very fast.

I dout know what it is bit it's all starting to feel a little repetitive and having such basic dialogue doesn't help.

I used to love finding a new town and start up conversations and mingle with every one. In 4 the dialogue is really basic and sometimes picking the abbreviated response he says something completely different to what I meant. I don't know it's still a good game as the gameplay is solid but it's not holding my interest as previous fallouts.

OP: A bit, why?

I watch TV so I'm used to plot holes you can drive a Mack Truck through.

I tend to agree with this assessment. I have finally started to burn out on the game a bit, but that is after more than 300 hours (possibly near 400 I haven't added it up yet). I have yet to finish any of the main quests (MQ, BoS, RR, Institute) . . . while I agree that there are 'things' that I feel are somehow 'lacking' in the quests (both in general, and specifically with respect to the repetitive ones) I honestly cannot put my finger on it, and I also don't feel I'd be honest to be very critical.

If it really is "bad" or "lacking in story" then I must be a real glutton for punishment.

A lot of the information on terminals just seems to be trivia, but then I cannot be sure as I haven't finished everything and HAVE found the "matching clue" that help to make a scrap of paper or name I heard on a terminal 50 hours before suddenly "make sense" and "turn into a quest."

There are Easter Eggs and "story hooks" all over the map and any little scrap of paper or entry in a terminal might turn out to be a quest of halfway decent size and scope.

I agree that there is too much of a "rushed" feeling to the game overall; the settlements add to this in a bad way I think.

I wish I could find some way to be more critical than that, just so I didn't sound like a diehard Bethesda svckup, but I can't.

Fallout 4 is easily the worst of the modern Fallout series. Weak story. Last Gen graphics. Crummy weapons and armor. Super repetitive map and locations. Nothing at all worth exploring. Unique legendary items are really lame. Compared to 3 and Vegas, it's really bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPf0KFMEEKo