Fallout 4: Speculation & Suggestions

This topic is for ideas and suggestions for Fallout 4 so that we can keep all the discussion in one thread. Other very general idea/suggestion topics for a future Fallout game will either be closed, or moved to this one.

This thread should be used to discuss items you'd like to see in a future game, gameplay tweaks, quest ideas, things you hope are not in the next game and so on. If you want to discuss major issues, use a separate topic - such as the discussion about adding multi-player or co-op play, which already has a thread. Please search first to see if there is an active/recent thread on a particular topic.

Although I think that Bethesda did a great job with Fallout 3, there were a few things that I felt were lacking. One of these things were weapons development. Although there were a lot of weapons available in Fallout 3 I felt there should of been a way to upgrade them and make them stronger and more unique. There was a lot of materials that you could find laying around fa 3 and it felt like they should have been able to be used for more than just ammo. You should have been able to take certain materials to weapons dealers in order to make certain upgrades to make them more effective, or do it yourself depending on your repair skill level.
I also wish that they handled armor they way they do in the Elder Scrolls, with you bring able to switch out every piece of armor instead of it being just one full suit. And of course fixing the level cap, though I'm pretty sure that it's going to be a lot higher then 20 due to the fact that they are already raising it for fallout 3. Don't get me wrong, I know they are trying to play to the audience of the original fallout games, but it's their game now. Being the creators of the elder scrolls and playing to that audience should be more important and comparing the two in terms of depth makes fallout look a bit lacking.

*coughs* Playing to the original audience??? Not playing to the TES audience???

*leaves for a few minutes*

*comes back*

Ok, now I'm done reeling from your statement, I can tell you that FO3 was pitched alot more succesfully to the TES demographic than the original. Beyond a montage, there's nothing left of the originals, any and all mechanics brought forward have been trivialised too much to be considered a successful integration. You were more than catered for and if I were you I'd be a little more gracious.

Now I've got that off my chest. What would you expect junk to contribute towards? The fact that you can craft weapons makes junk have a point beyond being junk (which should be their point, really) in the first place. Weapons served their purpose as much as they could with FO3s system.

I also don't understand the point of being able to 'mix and match' armour, I suppose this wouldn't be a problem with FO3s universal damage resistance system, but I think armour should be a head to toe affair, what's the point of wearing kevlar pants when someone can target your leather bound torso, but I guess even the mainstream can rationalise the importance of making a statement of fashion in a post-nuclear wasteland..

The level cap isn't the problem, it's the experience system and the level to level enhancements that trivialise the leveling. To address leveling you have to address experience gain in all itas aspects, quests and kills alike, perks, skills and skill points, and stats, which have all been painfully diluted to make leveling an unenjoyable experience.

I don't think Fallout should become a TES with guns, an idea that some Beth fans seem to be very fond of. We've moved away from the original formula of the Fallout series, for better or for worse, and now I think Bethesda should review their decisions and bring back the unique aspects that made the series worth playing, such as perks that made an impact, a S.P.E.C.I.A.L system that made an impact, a leveling system, that also made an impact, dialogue that made an impact..We need a bit of impact...That's not to say TES might not have appealing qualities that can't be brought over, but from what I've read there isn't anything bold enough to be worth integrating. I haven't experienced Oblivion, or Morrowind, or any of those, and I'd be more than happy to, if I didn't have to pay for the privilege. TES should stay with TES, that's why there's a TES...Fallout has changed, but there's still an opportunity for it to be salvaged for the better. FO4 will be a true testament to the intelligence and creatvity of the gamesas Fallout dev team. I wont hold my breath, but I'll keep an open mind.

Okay, I'm going to try to stay away from the above two posts as much as possible, it's only going to make me mad and would steer this thread in the wrong direction.

As a player who has experienced Oblivion, but has a long history with the Fallout series, I was initially disappointed and frustrated with Fallout 3. I could write a book here, but I'll keep it short. The whole gameplay experience Oblivion has is similar to that of Fallout 3. It's trademarks are exploration, the ability to go where you want to go when you want to go, the visual beauty of the world around you and it's realism in these visuals. In the Fallout series gameplay was focused more around your character and his/her abilities, storytelling, in-depth dialogue and the mechanics behind the stats and skills. For an old Fallout fan it is very frustrating to see the the most important features of the TES series to become the most important features of the Fallout series. It just feels like Beth took the easy road, saying "Hey we bought a franchise, let's mimick the TES experience into Fallout so our fanbase will certainly buy it!" I want the most important things about Fallout 1 and 2 to also be the most important things about Fallout 4 (as I wished for Fallout 3...) So my hope for Fallout 4 is that they try a little harder to make it more like a Fallout game. Isometric viewpoints are never coming back and I can understand that, but could we please work on the poor dialogue and oversimplified mechanics? That would help a lot.

It will be in Alaska.

I Like how Fallout 3 was set up but, I never really felt like I had an impact on the wastes, So I help/hurt some people but I never get to see towns and people develop over time.

Also I think the Main Storyline needs to be more engaging and with more urgency

Chris pretty much summed it up for me. I want FO4 to be closer to the original games.

More urgency is a two-edged sword. The Oblivion main quest is extremely urgent and it makes it weird to deviate from it to do factions or just wander around.

I think a "mix and match" armor and clothing setup would work really well in a post-apocalyptic setting. Pretty much every item in the game has been modelled to give the overall impression that it's been frankensteined from a number of disparate sources - in the Post-Apocalypse you wear what you can scavenge; when a piece of your armor breaks down you either repair it or replace it with what's at hand. And if there's one thing we know for certain about Wasteland survival, it's that you can turn literally anything into some rad shoulder pads.

This would be time and resource-intensive to do properly however. When I think of an ideal piecemeal mechanic, it's not simply mixing a Leather Armor top with some Power Armor pants. If all we were talking about was taking the existing armor categories and breaking them into separate piece, then I don't think it would worth the work. If we had a large variety of different options to pick for each body location (each with their own trade-offs) then I would be all for it, though.

As an example, say you exit the Vault with nothing but your trusty Vault Suit. Eventually you come across a tattered Leather Jacket and layer that over your existing clothes. As that jacket's condition deteriorates, you make routine repairs until eventually the left arm wears out. You decide to trim a couple extra pounds off your encumbrance by cutting off the sleeve and using it's remains to patch the rest up some more. Continuing on your adventures you scavenge some items that end up making a worthwhile metal shoulder pad so you bolt that onto your jacket. And so on.

That's a pretty extreme example, and it might too complicated for many players in the first place. It's something I'd like, but a more simplified mechanic would be fun as well. Of course the other problem is that it's very hard to do piecemeal armor, and make sure everything fits. Still, we're starting to see that a lot in current-gen games so it's not totally out of the bounds of reality. There's still the benefit/effort ratio to figure, but that's up to the Devs anyway. It's just something I'd like to see, regardless of whether or not it would be viable.

I don't feel quite that strongly about it, but I agree with the sentiment. This dead horse has been kicked, though, so I'll just keep it short and say that I'd like to see a higher skill cap and a slower levelling progression - which I think would solve a lot of the underlying problems. Interviews with Pete, Emil, and Co. have stated that they try to fix the problem and not the solution, so I hope this would be something they'd take another look at for Fallout 4.

Well thanks for a comedic statement to start the day off on, heh. Yeah, they need to appeal to TES fans in a completely different property. For Fallout 4, to be short, improved SPECIAL - in that it matters, decent voice acting and dialogue, oh, and an original storyline - say as little of the old factions as possible (no Harold either). I'd like the game to cover a wider area, so instead of running about in the DC sandbox, you could have DC, and travel (Fallout style) to other locations which are smaller (or equally sized) sandboxes. Hopefully, all the braying for Fallout 4 to be in London, or Alaska, or where the hell ever is ignored and they leave it in the US to continue the storyline from this one, heh.

Something I would like to see is the ability to create your own settlement. After X number of levels you get the option of clearing out one of a few locations and once that is done can make it a permanent settlement. The type of people that show up will be determined by your Karma level. If you are evil, raiders and slavers show up looking to join up with the character. If you are good, merchants and civilians show up. You can recruit named characters from around the world to join you, send raiders out on missions, your settlement be attacked by raiders or people from other towns looking for your raiders.

It's a nice idea, it doesn't fit in with Fallout gameplay though. Your character is often thrust into the wastes with one driving motivation, the Vault Dweller was a pawn for his/her Vault Overseer (and not the first), the Chosen One needed to find a G.E.C.K to save his/her village, and the Lone Wanderer was trying to find his/her father, James. Whilst the rest of the game revolves around these main objectives, creating a settlement is too much of a diversion. That's not to say that you couldn't help a group of people start a settlement and then let them get on with it, providing them with help as and when they might need it. But to be at the forefront of the effort yourself just sounds like a wasteland settler game, I doubt the fate of the protagonist lies in abandoning his quest to become a civ manager. Though it's probably something we should expect if EA ever got hold of the Fallout license.

Yeah, if they want to keep there TES fans happy why not just make another TES game? You don't make any sense. They bought the Fallout liesence to make something else besides a TES game but they failed at it.

They've "Done" Alaska now - The smart money is on Boston/Massachusetts.

Make Charisma have a more tangible real world effect

Have Speech work similar to Lockpick/Science so you cant just reload a bunch to pass speech tests.

Clean up the perks more so that every perk is a viable choice, making it ya know difficult to choose.

Ohh and keep innovating on the series instead of letting it stagnate, because change is what keeps people buying your games, so you dont loose your franchises.

... I disagree that they FAILED at anything. I love FO3 every bt as much as I loved FO1 and FO2. In different ways and for different reasons, sure - but I still love it.


... and I would go out, video-camera in hand, and collect images of suitably-cool locations to build mods out of. Indeed, for that sort of game? I'd not just buy the PC version, I'd mortgage my SOUL to buy a whole new PC!!

Yes, I live in Massachusetts. Look at a map ... the northern border? Where it transitions from a flat line, to a jagged curve? That exact point is less than eight miles from here. And is in the midpoint of the northern edge of the town I went to Highschool in.

I'm not going to try to argue that Fallout 4 should go back to the Fallout 1/2 style, I think that's a lost argument at this point. Nor will I try to impose my extreme hatred for Oblivion on my expectations for the future of Fallout. Instead I'm going to take Fallout 3 for what it is and give my suggestions for the future.

1) Larger settlements. With the exception of Rivet City (and possibly Megaton), most of the settlements felt ridiculously small.

2) Improve VATS. VATS is never a real alternative to fighting in real-time simply because at some point you're forced to leave VATS and wait for your AP to replenish. I don't know exactly what can be done to improve it here and still keep it balanced, all I know is that it's not a full-fledged concept at this point. At best it's an interesting concept that Beth didn't really follow through on.

3) Improve the gore. The detaching arms, legs, and head (very original btw...especially when I first saw it with Soldier of Fortune 9 YEARS AGO) got boring after about the first 5 minutes. Not even comparable to the death animations from F1/2. Speaking of which, bring back groin shot.

4) Stimpacks are too powerful and far too common. So much for that whole balancing radiation w/ health idea you guys had, the fact that you can open a drawer and find 5 stimpacks without ever really trying kind of ruins it.

5) Improve the UI. I think it's clever hiding Oblivion's UI in the Pipboy 3000, but please for gods sake get rid of the "All-In-One" button, at least for the PC version. It svcked in Oblivion and it svcks in Fallout 3. There's no reason why a PC player should have to navigate through 5 different menus inside of 5 different menus and scroll down long lists. If either Oblivion or Fallout 3 had been MMOs, Bethesda would have been crucified by the gaming media for such godawful UI design.

6) Get rid of Three-Dawg. I can't even listen to GNR even though I like the music, his stupid voice ruins it. Having an omniscient radio personality is not clever, it's ridiculous.

Nothing too controversial I hope ... :gun:

Holy Jaded Jerks Batman!

I've never seen so many people with their heads up their [censored].

A- This thread is for suggestions, not for shooting them down. Killing someones idea does not count as having an idea.
B- Fallout 3 is not Fallout 2 or 1. Accept it already. It's also not Oblivion. Get over it.
C- People keep saying what it did wrong, but here you are at Bethesda's site, not the previous makers site. You like it, now get over yourself.
D- This game almost single handedly brought me back to RPG's, so claim how bad it is all you want, but face it, people who would care, would have another site to go to.

Now, back to ideas.

So far I like the idea of creating, or at least starting/stimulating you're own town/HQ. Obviously some NPC would "run" it for you, but it would be nice to pick a place, or modify a location you've cleared to be you're own. It is the wasteland afterall.

I've heard ideas of basing it in Florida. Makes the geography easily workable, as you already have a natural border on 3 sides, and the animals you could create/mess with are almost limitless ( Rad Crocs/Gators? ). Just nuke the north end and done!

More music. I know its about atmosphere and all, but it gets thin around the 100+ hr mark.

I like the modified weapon idea. Maybe not too far, but considering you can create weapons, and repair weapons, it seems that it would make sense that your character could do both. It's not that the game lacked a sufficient number or weapons, but that most were useless, at least shortly into the game ( .32 / chinese pistol anyone? ).

I agree, wholeheartedly. Except IMO, even Rivet City and Megaton are just too darned small. And missing vital elements required for a successful, long-term settlement - specifially, some means of procuring food and water, and/or an industry or resource which can be TRADED for same.

What do people in Megaton eat? There's no herds of brahmin, no fields of crops, no greenhouses with carefully-preserved (or crudely jury-rigged) hydroponics equipment, there's nothing. They don't have a resource or industry that produces exports they can trade for food. They don't really even serve as a "Safe crossroads", where traders would pay a "tax" in return for the safety of trading behind secure walls.

And Rivet City - supposedly Dr. Li is working on hydroponics, right? Well ... where's her greenhouse? Where're the hydroponics racks? If the Purifier approach could be made to work small-scale, I could at least see Rivet City having that as an export product - purified water, and possibly fresh, non-irradiated foodstuffs. But you don't see ANY of that, anywhere. As for the ship itself ... yeesh, so the bows are broken off. Build some bridges, already. Even whatsisname doesn't occupy much of the area up there. Speaking of which: we see so LITTLE of the ship, yet even then, the population is small enough, it positively RATTLES in there. And meanwhile, why is there nothing built on her flight deck? Heck, there isn't even a baseball diamond painted on it.

And we won't go into the inexplicable dearth of children outside of Little Lamplight.


YES to the groin shots.

And, I'd like to see libms a little more securely attached, you know? Being able to use a Railway Rifle to pin someone's arm to a tree while they're still alive would have been absolutely awesome!


Making them non-stacking reverse-DOT effects would help. Giving them an addiction penalty (and during withdrawal, your health DECLINES ... stopping at 50%, maybe) would also help.


Hrm, I actually LIKE the FO3 UI.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~


Holy Pot-and-Kettle, Batman!


Disagreeing with an idea is not "killing it".


Feedback that says "I didn't like X, please change it" is just as valuable as "more of Y, please".

Ah, irony is something. First off, it's for suggestions and discussion about them, I suggest you get thicker skin or..don't say utterly stupid things, heh. I was unaware that this was being confused for anything but a game in the Fallout series, you seem to be missing the point, what with your "it should be like TES" statement. Not exactly sure what your comments re: C & D are to prove, other than we should praise the Lord that it brought you back to RPGs, heh. The forums aren't just for a circle jerk about the game, after all.

An idea I had thought up was to make AP relevant outside of VATS, somehow, definitely accessing your inventory in the midst of combat should penalize you somewhat. But I had though about having movement while in combat and firing outside of VATS consume AP as well (movement might just be a gentle decay). That might be a bit too harsh to ever see the light of day.

More grist for the mill:


There are currently several Mods that manage to do this, probably using a nightmare-tangle of workaround scripts that must have given their authors FITS to write, test, and get working in a reliable, transparent-to-the-player manner.

I'd love to see that sort of system become a core element of the game, though. It's a good direction to go in with the "schematics" and crafted-weapons setup, too; with the right schematic in hand, use a workbench (and various parts) to build a silencer, then, use the workbench to atach that silencer to a weapon.

On a related note, I'd like to see the ability to make, for example "rifle repair kits" that can be used to repair ANY rifle-class weapon. As well as kits for armor, of course. Which woudl be yet another direction for the Schematics system to grow. Also helpful if you can "break down" various things, into assorted components - craft new repair kits by using up other rifles, for example. Sure, your hunting rifle can't be used to directly repair your assault rifle. But in a pile of two hunting rifles and three pounds of scrap metal, you should be able to find (or make) enough general parts to repair ANY rifle.


Erm. The thing is, the various Raider armors in FO3 are "patchwork" / "jury-rigged" affairs. And the idea of taking a bit of steel-belted tire tread, and some heavy leather, and some chains, to make an armored vest-and-shoulder-guards affair out of ... is very much in theme for a post-apocalypse game.

The old PnP game Aftermath! had a wodnerful set of rules for determining the armor value of what you were wearing, based on the material(s) used, how they were assembled, and even how they were treated (Heavy Cloth is one thing, but quilting it in multiple layers was better. Further adding hard-rubber STUDS to that quilted-heavy-fabric material would improe it a little bit MORE. (I believe the code for that would be, quite literally: QHF-SP, or "Quilted Heavy Fabric, Studded with Medium Plastic".)

While I wouldn't expect THAT detailed and specific a system, it'd be nice to have a bit more control over one's armor. After all, Moira was able to take bits-and-pieces and turn a Vault 101 Jumpsuit into an Armored Vault 101 Jumpsuit ...

In FO4, I'd like to see:
-SPECIAL has greater impact on all aspects of the game, especially dialogue.
-Ways to play without combat.
-more quest branching with consequences.
-a more robust crafting system. The alchemy system of Oblivion might be modified to make weapons, armor, and items form scavenged mats with tools in the place of alchemy apparatus, or something similar.
-A localized as well as global reputation system.
-more chain quests...ongoing story threads that span large areas and several levels of advancement....a more Morrowind feel.

There is more, but I'll start with these.

Sounds good to me. I also like what nu clear day did with his piecemeal idea. I think a system like that needs some form of complexity, otherwise it wouldn't be worth implementing. That system could replace the current armour system altogether. As a store selling armour would make that whole aspect a bit pointless, unless the armour itself can be improved upon to a degree that makes it worth it beyond purchasing higher tier armours throughout the game.

In this respect, I'm all for mix and match. What I don't approve of, is a simple "lets have a choice of separate underwear and hats, I like hats" if that was the case I'd play animal crossing.

Well, we already have some mix and match clothing in FO3, which I think is fun..well at least sets of clothes and hats, although I suppose that's pretty much teh same as armor and headgear.

I don't have any problem expanding clothing slots, which could then be used for clothing or armor, similar to Oblivion torso, legs, hands, feet, head. Not complicated, and adds some nice customization for RP purposes.

Yeah, there'd likely be the potential for a piecemeal system to get over-complicated. I mean, I'd enjoy a system that broke every armor down by location, damage resistances, armor class, weight, condition, in-game appearance effects, durability, etc... But I'm also a rules junkie, and I wouldn't expect that many complications for a game that's meant to reach a larger audience. But yeah, most people like having lots of customization options for their characters (and it seemed to work well enough in Morrowind without getting too complex,) so I don't think it'd be terribly unrealistic to hope for in Fallout 4. Assuming they decide it's not too much work to get right.

And we'd absolutely need a good sorting system for dealing with armor vendors, of course.

As far as the "settlement building" idea - I like the idea, but I don't know how good a fit it would be for the core Fallout series. I keep saying there's plenty of room in the franchise for spin-offs (mainly because that would be my only hope for another turn-based Fallout RPG,) and I think something like that could be quite compelling as it's own game. I could possibly see a Fallout game centered on trying to build up a settlement from a small group of survivors and growing it into a major power in the Wastes - without just ripping off another type of game and changing around a couple textures and sprites.