Some of these things should, imo, be considered and searched for possibilities from while making the game and designing the gameplay (it sounds specific, but it's all just to illustrate the underlying point through examples):


Short version (just bullet points) :

Spoiler

Here's some of my ideas on along which lines I would like some aspects of Fallout 4 to be made (I posted this before Fallout: New Vegas was even annouced, and several times again since then, but made some changes so I'm not just reposting the same thing over and over again). Whether or not all the following would actually work in the game, is beyond me as I'm not a game designer, but at least to me it sounds decent on paper for altering the current form of FPS gameplay.
The WALL OF TEXT:

A minimenu:

There would be a minimenusystem that would trigger various functions needed during the gameplay. Pressing (for example) the mousewheel would open a dropdown menu (somewhat similiar to Fallout 1 and Fallout 2) beside the cursor that would present commands like Enter Worldmap, Heal, Heal Other, Repair, Rest/Wait etc. If well implemented, this could potentially offer a greater gameplay diversity through bigger possibilities for direct skilluses in several situations. Available commands would be highlighted and non-available would be greyed out.


General gameplay:

The general gameplay would be quite similiar to F3 and F:NV. You roam around the wastes doing quests and exploring. But combat would be less frequent unless the player decides otherwise - in other words, you could pick some of your random fights. (Though I'd very, very much prefer it, I'm not suggesting ISO/TB gameplay, since I don't believe for a second that Beth would implement it no matter what. )

This could partly be handled through wildlife AI, which would be set less aggressive in general. An aggression stat would be implemented which would vary from species to species - from completely neutral (only defensive combat) to total aggression (hostility almost immediately). The animals would have their own immediate surroundings, or personal spaces, somewhat like in Risen and Gothic series, and partly in F:NV. Get too close and you get a warning sign from the critter giving you time to get out of their space, linger and be chased off (or be attacked, if you don't flee). The radius of the space and the time you are tolerated in it would depend on the critter.

The mainquest would be scaled to a certain degree through chaptering it (not visibly, as in presenting a loadscreen: Chapter 1: In which you slither out from the uaginal cavity and learn the first lessons of life, but through certain major events through the main quest). And after those, the game would replaces some of the lower level enemies with higher level ones in the MQ areas - defeating which (if not gettin past by other means) would require you to level up some more. Or through a nonlinear levelscalingsystem where, for example, when one starts the game at level one, the enemies in the levelscaled zones would range from 1 to 10, and after one hits somewhere between levels 12 to 15 (which ever works the best) some of the lower level creatures scale up to about level 18 to 25 (but not all, to not make the world appearing to spin around the player too much). This would offer both, challenge and sense of progression to the player, as one becomes better than the current enemies before they scale up again.

There wouldn't be any quest- or enemycompasses, but there would be (toggleable, perhaps) minimap in which you could see the living beings in immediate vicinity. Perception would determine the range in which you see things, and with a perk (with appropriate requirements - outdoorsman and perception, for example) you could tell the difference between friendly (green dot), neutral (yellow dot) and hostile (red dot) targets.

The questcompass would be replaced by mere markers on the map which would point towards a general area instead of the exact target. And with that, the quest descriptions would be more accurate.

The wrist pipboy would be scrapped and replaced by a more handheld PDI like contraption, which would offer a more userfriendly inventorysystem (something like mix of what Morrowind or S.T.A.L.K.E.R. had, for example) with less scrolling while still holding the tabs to sort items by their nature, a one page charactersheet much akin to the original games -- no more tabs behind tabs behind tabs. All actions during combat but shooting and moving would cost action points (opening inventory, using items inside it, using quick keys, etc) - more on this later.

Skillcap would remain at 100, but the cost to raise them would rise as follows: 1-50 1:1, 51-75 2:1, 76-100 3:1, the point being, the better you get the more difficult it is to get even better - this would make a maxed skill equal to skillcap of 175 - and I think it'd be easier to utilize the full scale of the skill, if it caps at 100 (instead of having skills cap at 200 or 300). Also, the gaps between levels would be raised:

How it is now (first number is the level, the second XP needed to reach the level from previous point, the third is total amount of XP needed to reach that level):

Spoiler

z=n+(y+150)
z=xp for next lvl
n=xp 'til prev lvl
y=previous xp raise

2 - 200 - 200
3 - 350 - 550
4 - 500 - 1,050
5 - 650 - 1,700
6 - 800 - 2,500
7 - 950 - 3,450
8 - 1100 - 4,550
9 - 1250 - 5,800
10 - 1400 - 7,200
11 - 1550 - 8,750
12 - 1700 - 10,450
13 - 1850 - 12,300
14 - 2000 - 14,300
15 - 2150 - 16,450
16 - 2300 - 18,750
17 - 2450 - 21,200
18 - 2600 - 23,800
19 - 2750 - 26,550
20 - 2900 - 29,450
21 - 3050 - 32,500
22 - 3200 - 35,700
23 - 3350 - 39,050
24 - 3500 - 42,550
25 - 3650 - 46,200
26 - 3800 - 50,000
27 - 3950 - 53,950
28 - 4100 - 58,050
29 - 4250 - 62,300
30 - 4400 - 66,700

How it should be (first number is the level, the second XP needed to reach the level from previous point, the third is total amount of XP needed to reach that level) for example:

Spoiler

z=n+(y+200)
z=xp for next lvl
n=xp 'til prev lvl
y=previous xp raise

2 - 200 - 200
3 - 400 - 600
4 - 600 - 1,200
5 - 800 - 2,000
6 - 1000 - 3,000
7 - 1200 - 4,200
8 - 1400 - 5,600
9 - 1600 - 7,200
10 - 1800 - 9,000
11 - 2000 - 11,000
12 - 2200 - 13,200
13 - 2400 - 15,600
14 - 2600 - 18,200
15 - 2800 - 21,000
16 - 3000 - 24,000
17 - 3200 - 27,200
18 - 3400 - 30,600
19 - 3600 - 34,200
20 - 3800 - 38,000
21 - 4000 - 42,000
22 - 4200 - 46,200
23 - 4400 - 50,600
24 - 4600 - 55,200
25 - 4800 - 60,000
26 - 5000 - 65,000
27 - 5200 - 70,200
28 - 5400 - 75,400
29 - 5600 - 81,000
30 - 5800 - 86,800
31 - 6000 - 92,800
...and so on up to, say 50The formula I made may not be correct, but the point remains.

Spoiler

Ok, so going by the current gameplaystyle where dicerolls no longer apply (which is a shame)... redesign the characterprogression system to better suit it (to be more responsive and give more immediate feedback to the player as s/he progresses).

At character developement every SPECIAL defaults as 5 as it is now, but there are no bonuses to add, just a possibility to rearrange the points. Increasing SPECIAL during the game, would be a special occurance like finding an implant and then someone who can install it. Traits increasing stats would offer an equal drawback in some other stat (or a general drawback). There'd be an individual perk for every stat offering a one time bonus of plus one -- as it was in the original Fallouts. And rare cases where an equippable item gives a bonus for during the time it is equipped (like how PA gives a bonus to strength). Nothing more. The point is to make the character one builds to hold throughout most of the game. And to help that there'd be hard SPECIAL requirements for certain items and activities.

Perks would be more like additional abilities that the skills do not govern straightforward (like pistolwhipping, enhancing stimpaks, increasing inventory space and/or such) but still offer the requirements for. They'd also have tiers (up to 3) to enhance said abilities when appropriate.

Skills would now have a 1-10 and some others 1-5 point scale. With each point cumulatively increasing the price of buying it. Each of these points would also hold more to it than mere nominal increases with little to no visible effect (like how it is now with the 1-100 scale). The skills would work more like thresholds opening new related abilities than random numerical values. At characterbuilding phase each skill would default to 0, but the player would have 4 free points to put in which ever skills s/he wishes with the maximum initial increase being 2.

A couple of "along the lines of" -examples of the skills and their effects:

Spoiler

Guns:
oooooooooo
Cost : The first two - 5sp, 3rd and 4th - 10sp, 5ft and 6th - 15sp, 7th and 8th - 20, 9th and 10th - 25sp. This would equal a skillcap of 150 with the current method.
Effect: 0 p oints - You are so terrible with guns you suffer 50% damageloss and 75% of accuracy loss with any conventional firearm, plus your unholstering, holstering and reloading take much more time. Points 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 would open "proper" usage of guns in their respective tiers of 1-5. Having lacking skill of one tier would result in 50% penalty to accuracy and 25% penalty to damage, lacking 2 or more tiers would offer similiar penalties of 75% and 50% plus decresed reloadspeed and increased probability of jamming during reload and firing regardless of weapon condition.
Points 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 would offer a 25% bonus to accuracy for the previous tier of weapons (except for 1, which would offer it to the next tier and 10 which would offer an accuracy bonus to all tiers), and similiarly with damage but with an increase of 15%.
This would make increasing the skill a paramount act, if one wishes to master it (unlike with the current system where a skill 50 - for example - is quite adequate to handle all given situations the game offers).

Energy weapons:
oooooooooo
Cost: 5, 5, 10, 10, 15, 15, 20, 20, 25, 25
Effect: Similiar to guns otherwise, but in place of damage increases/decreases would be heating/cooldown effects which would be harsh enough to greatly limit firing large amounts of highly powerful energy ammunition. In effect, energy weapons would be much more powerful than guns, but also much more limited in rate of fire and most of them would also, due to their light effects, hinder stealth.

Melee:
oooooooooo
Cost : 5, 5, 10, 10, 15, 15, 20, 20, 25, 25
Effect: Same as guns and ew with tiers, but in place of accuracy increases/decreses would be attackspeed. Lacking a tier would offer a 50% penalty for overall damage and 25% for attackspeed, lacking 2 tiers similiarly 75% and 50%. Points 3, 6 and 9 would also offer a "special move" which would be slower than normal attack, but more powerful.

Explosives:
ooooo
Cost: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25
Effect: With explosive based weapons, refer to the guns section. 0 points, you can throw grenades and dynamite very inaccurately, that's it; 1 point - opens up the ability to create and tinker with satchelcharges and firebombs and removes penalties from grenades and regular dynamite; 2 points - landmines and their modified and custom variants enter the picture; 3 points - creation and operating with C4, semtex, and other plastic explosives and remote detonatables; 4 points - Energybased explosives (electricity, EMP, plasma, etc) explosives; 5 points - Mix and match your own cocktails with all available ingredients.

Sneak:
ooooo
Cost: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25
Effect: With 0 points you do not sneak, you're so clumsy that going crouched wouldn't make any difference. Each point decreases the chance of detection according to circumstances (LOS distance, lighting, sound) by 15%. Also, point 1 - ability to use light armor without penalties, point 3 - ability to use medium armor with decreased penalties, point 5 - ability to use heavy armor with decreased penalties.

Speech:
ooooo
Cost: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25
Effect: Wit h 0 points, regular default dialog (plus other skill/perk related options); with points 1-5, thesholds for related speech-check lines.

Lockpick:
ooooo
Cost: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25
Effect: Wit h 0 points you do not pick locks, you simply have no idea how to. Each point opens up ability to open locks at respective levels. The skill also modifies the amount of time an attempt takes. Also, if a minigame is involved, which I wouldn't put there, each tier increases the durability of the lockpick when attempting current or previous tiers.

Barter:
ooooo
Cost: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25
Effect: 0 points - 20% selling value, 200% buying value; 1 point - 40% selling value, 175% buying value; 2 points - 60% selling value, 150% buying value; 3 points - 80% selling value, 125% buying value; 4 points - 100% selling value, 100% buying value; 5 points - 120% selling value, 75% buying value.

Science:
ooooo
Cost: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25
Effect: Hacking abilities similiar to lockpicking. Also handling the modding requirements for energy weapons. Thresholds for various skilluses outside of inventoryitems.

Repair:
ooooo
Cost: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25
Effect: 0 points - you do not repair anything by yourself, Point 1 - Repair light armor to top condition, medium armor to 50% CND, and heavy armor to 25%, Point 3 - Repair medium armor to top condition, medium armor to 75% and heavy armor to 50%, Point 5 - Repair all armors to top condition. Handles various crafting requirements and modding reqs for Guns category of weapons. Thresholds for various skilluses outside of inventoryitems.

Medical:
ooooo
Cost: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25
Effect: 0 points - you can use stimpaks but they only heal 50% of their potential, and after 5 in a row, you suffer double the overdoespenalty. Point 1 - Ability to heal 30 HP manually when no hostiles are around, and with a cooldown time for use. Intoxication meter allows for 5 stimpaks in a row without overdosing. Point 2 - Manual healing cooldown time decreased for 25%. 7 stimpaks without penalties. Point 3 - Can use 1 superstim without a penalty. 30% chance of healing a crippled limb. Point 4 - 10 stims or 2 superstims without penalty. Cooldown time decreased additional 25%. 50% chance of healing a crippled limb. Point 5 - 75% chance at healing a crippled limb. 5 superstims or 15 stims without penalty.

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SPECIAL (outline, and not including governed skills and related bonuses):
oooooooooo
S - Carryweight, melee/HtH damage and attackspeed modifiers, lifting and moving heavy objects, weapon STR requirement modifiers, (+ other situational misc tasks)
P - Accuracy, vision distance, identifying consumables and their effects (in conjuction with survival skill), detecting traps, (+ other situational misc tasks)
E - Base HP, HP/level, poison-, radiation-, damage (other) resistances, sprint time, (+ other situational misc tasks)
C - Initial reaction modifiers, companion nerve, soothe (a chance of rendering humanoid enemies nonhostile for a moment -- situational) (+ other situational misc tasks)
I - Skillpoints/level, identifying objects not in the range of perception, (+ other situational misc tasks)
A - Movespeed, actionpoints, weapon handling speed, jump height and distance, (+ other situational misc tasks)
L- Luck is blind

The problem with timed quests is that it creates incentives to avoid possible quest givers and make you wary of exploring the game. You don't risk talking to anyone or exploring your environment until your current objective is complete so as to avoid having quests sprung on you. If quests are going to have a timer, you have incentives to avoid starting the clock and end up saving before you talk to people or visit new places just in case you find yourself saddled with a quest you aren't ready to do yet.

That kind of stuff encourages a ratchet approach to playing the game.

No, just the line of dialog that triggers the quest (or, the part of the quest that triggers the timer) -- and if it is carefully crafted, with the timelimit not necessarily meaning failure (where this approach is appropriate), it shouldn't be a problem. You should be wary of hasty approaches to exploration, and further tensed into solving the matters you encounter and choose to take as your burden. That's the point. It is up to the player if he or she finds it oppressive that there might be a timer behind the corner and decides to use the save function to avoid it, but if it is well informed by the quest giver and/or the phase in the quest that starts the timer, I really see nothing but gain there. Reactivity and responsibility.

I'd like to see some of the following if at all possible (at the very least on a hardocre level):

1. A better A.I., so that opponents don't just run back and forth when they're shot at; they should shoot from cover.

2. A larger map, more settlements, a longer storyline, and a scenario generator.

3. More options with NPCs, such as the ability to gift them better armor and weaponry, rather than having to reverse pickpocket it on them (thus losing karma).

4. Settlements that can be attacked and overrun by raiders or "good" locals- and then repopulated by the new owners.

5. Have Inon Zur compose the background soundtrack- and provide an option to turn it on only when at a settlement (or some other secure location). if 4 above is not done.

6. Provide an option to turn of the "hidden", "detected", "caution", and "danger" indicators when sneaking.

7. Improved scripting so that ambushes don't always happen at the same time and at the same place from one game to the next. Make the simulation much less predictable if at all possible.

8. Make energy weapons unavailable to the vast majority of wastelanders. Mod the available weaponry and provide weapon repair kits and berets.

I could go on, but I suppose that's more than enough.

I was disapopinted to hear that suvivor 2299 was a hoax, I want the plot to be a political oppression story from a corrupt government but I dont want the quests to be boring search and retrieve crap NV had. I want more divide and conquer take over; type theme. There should be more involvement with factions morale where you could be how you treat them with deploying or saving people. Even possibly fixing trust issues among the your own army. With names such as the U.S. Army/ gaurdians/ etc. Depending on what name you choose will also cause certain people to join your ranks. U.S Army gain the good factions while the demons gain you the bad factions like the raiders.

I really don't want the next game to be another case of the player character becoming the single biggest force that easily change the order of existence wherever he or she roams, but I would like to see a better story. I'd like it if my character would really struggle to get by in a society made poorer by nuclear degradation, and be all-but ignored for a long while. hardcoe mode was a nice step towards this, but I want more. I want the next Fallout to be a game where no individual is enough to wipe out a whole organization and conquer a place himself or herself. I think they should add things from the older fallout games. Like in Fallout 1&2 every perk had pros and cons so you had to think harder on what to choose. Also in Fallout Tactics you could level up the individual stats of each of your followers and even choose perks for them which made the game a lot more strategic.

I also want to see more professions backgrounds and family buisness to join like the Van Grafs. To create occupation based quests given to you by factions you join. It could be implemented to introduce your character by giving him a background or upbrining. For anyone who has played Mount & Blade, when you start a character, you get to choose his family background, where he grew up, and how they made a living. This gave you a small bonus to a few related skills and attributes and could give you an extra item or two. It would also give people a general idea about who you are and what Three-Dog can broadcast about. Then they should also seperate Karma from Reputation. Karma should be related to yourself and relationships with party followers, spouces and children where as Faction reputation should affect yourself in some way in whatever attributes affect how you interact with common people or spouces and Reputation should affect who you are seen as in notoriety to society and what factions trust or want to kill you.

Party combat commands should be interchangable either via pip-boy for the group or individually through speech boxes. Its incredibly annoying seeing them run off and die off the bat,

Yes, you're thinking of traits.

Found this.

https://twitter.com/DCDeacon/status/433592079324045312

Any idea what it means?

Hm. i don't really know what to believe. Im hoping he is hinting at a possible announcement. but as Tagz said it could be a harrowing experience. who knows.

I was referring to the lack of actual 50's hair styles beyond 1 or 2 identifiably, and culture still vaguely portrayed.

If you look at any Fallout title before FO3, you'll find that that was not important or even implied. There were no 50's greasers, and people spouting 50's cant; calling people 'daddy-o', and 'croaker'... The 50's was pre-war America... everything 50's in Fallout 1 & 2 was junk from before the war.

Look at http://hydra-media.cursecdn.com/fallout.gamepedia.com/thumb/e/e6/FO01_NPC_Nicole_G.png/800px-FO01_NPC_Nicole_G.png from Fallout 1. She has a green mowhawk and an eyebrow piercing; http://hydra-media.cursecdn.com/fallout.gamepedia.com/thumb/6/6d/FO01_NPC_Vree_G.png/800px-FO01_NPC_Vree_G.png is Bald, except for the ponytail, and she has two earings on one ear.

There is no Mrs. Cleaver type in Fallout 1 or 2. There could have been, had they wanted... but in the first two games, they did not.

Ok I want F4 to be the 50s in the future then. If it's going to be in Chicago, I want it to be a 1940s fallout with a post-apocalyptic fallout with a mafia-like faction. I damn sure don't want a 60s Fallout with hippie music in it.

I look forward to trying Wasteland 2 when it's finished. Correct me if I'm wrong on this, though, but Wasteland 2 is a party based game isn't it? I would expect more limitations on any given character in a party based game than I would in a single character game.

The player needs to have all the tools at his disposal that is required to overcome the game's various obstacles. In a party based game that can mean a proper blend of specialists coordinating their efforts to achieve more than any one of them could alone. But in a game that features a lone protagonist, that protagonist has to have access to the tools needed himself. Whether this comes in the form of him having access to a wider variety of abilities or every obstacle having multiple ways to overcome it (the lock can be picked with lockpicking, broken with strength, melted with acid via science, or bored open with a speech check) is open to debate, but a player shouldn't have to play through a game six times to explore all the content.