A Critique by Ziggyd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqDFuzIQ4q4

plus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bbfalO9JCA

My last playthrough was an evil character. I did missions for people, then betrayed them. I killed my companions, and kids. I murdered everyone in Diamond City, all the traders, and random settlers. I used a couple of mods, though. Game needs mods to play well.

That Ziggyd video is so damn wrong.

1. You can do settlement stuff without helping Preston
2. Concord is completely optional, you can not go there. Hell, you can not go to Sanctuary at all.
3. "Wow I can't help raiders so awful, I can't play a bad character" is not a good arguing point

That's pretty much all I bothered to watch of that terrible video. You can be evil, in numerous NUMEROUS ways.

People who choose evil playthrough are always in the minority, by that, I mean completely evil, not morally grey like Institute if we go by statistic and path people choose in various other games like Mass Effect or Dragon Age where regenade choices are always being overwhelmed by paragon choices. I find it a waste to dedicate so much resources into these things. Even then, in Skyrim, you can join these evil guilds, but your main quests are not that evil, you can't destroy the world, you still need to save it as the main quest, so I don't see how it's that different from doing these evil sidequests then engage in the main quests as the good guys. Choices are good, but unlike Skyrim where the factions have no direct opposition to the evil guild. In this game, almost all the factions have something against the raiders and supermutants. Being a raider boss would definitely not gonna allow you to be the head of the Institute or invite to be a part of the Brotherhood in the first place.

Thought kids were unkillable?

You can kill them with mods.

No post-apocalyptic setting allows for purely good or purely evil, as all moral compasses get reset to a new neutral. Fantasy RPGs allow for all the various D&D alignment choices, while post apocalypse survival has Chaotic Neutral, Chaotic Neutral or...uhm...oh yeah...Chaotic Neutral.

Consider (no spoilers) how dialogue encounters often play out - 1 peaceful choice, 1 bribe choice, 1 flirt choice and 1 commence_killing choice. A lot of players will automatically go peaceful, flirt, then bribe, and uh oh, all failed because the game decided you were chaotic neutral. Then consider the "choose one faction and at some point, everyone else hates you for it" mechanic. No matter what you do, some folks put up with you and then everyone else wants to kill you.

Nothing good or evil about it. Looking for kidnapped kid, trying to live, kill anything that gets in the way. Welcome to 2287.

There were a lot more evil things you could do ... by design in FO-NV so I can see the point in that regard. Few choices like that in FO4. I think I saw one video of something you can do with the kid from the frig that's pretty bad, and that's by design. One choice with the Vault 81 serum is by design and could be 'evil' I suppose. May be a few other choices like that but otherwise not much really.

I do make all my ghoul settlers wear sacks on their heads. I wouldn't call that evil though (unless you're a ghoul), but that's by choice not design and I think that's the big issue in FO4. By 'Design', there isn't much evil you can do.

I like the fact that children are unkillable in the vanilla game. Otherwise there'd be outrage by certain organisations and lobbys and developers wouldn't include children at all. The result would be games where you only have an advlt population. Some games have just that and there's something missing. Personally, even when playing a totally evil character, I never felt the need to kill children and so I never bothered with the mod.

Secondly, the game not allowing you to be evil is in the eye of the beholder. The world doesn't react at all, but it's kind of a Bethesda speciality to create absolutely non reactive environments. Apart from some scripted events, you more or less move in a void. You're just some random figure cropping up on the NPCs radar and treated according to their general disposition. No action, no achievement, no rank changes the least bit about that.

As for being evil or good or something in between. The only times where that matters is companion interactions and dispositions. They like or dislike certain actions. And that, at least, is taking it one step further compared to previous Bethesda games.

Well that's disturbing.

The main quest doesn't really let you be straight up evil, depending upon your personal opinion. But a lot of the side quests and miscellaneous quests have good and evil paths. the dialog however often doesn't match that, one thing I did find annoying.

also, FO4 actually is set up for the player to be more evil out side of quests, you can pretty much kill any one any where with out having the usual morality punishments games tend to have that make being a murdering psychopath cripplingly difficult.

the nice thing with FO4 is that you can role-play being evil, and decide for yourself what is considered evil or good...in previous games, the game decided what was evil, and in a few cases didn't make much sense...for example in FO3, you gained karma for killing slavers, however for some reason if you steal from them at Paradise Falls, you lose karma...in NV if you decide to do that Nelson quest (where you save or kill the hostages), if you clear out the hostile Legion, and go inside the building to loot it (not the dead ofc), you lose karma cause it says you are stealing..

the person in the second video of the OP is a nice example of how you can role-play that your character is evil...just now you can decide whats evil, and not rely on the game to let you know (although I kinda miss the bad karma music tone)...It is indeed lacking on direct dialogue options to be evil, and not alter the outcome of conversations, but there's always sarcasm...

Yeah, but other than your karma swinging one way or the other, it didn't matter. Yes, Threedog made snide comments on the radio, which earned him a frag mine slipped into his pocket. Blew up just fine, but kept on broadcasting afterwards.

Yeah the karma system had a bunch of issues, true. It's just that apart from FO4 not having a whole lot of "evil" dialogue options or choices the game doesn't "react" in the slightest to acknowledge that you're evil. Being evil literally changes nothing. That last part is what I most take issue with.

You can be evil!


Alot of comments mention the Institute path as the "grey" path, no good or evil but in between.


Institute is completely evil. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong. They kidnap people to work for them! And replace them with friggin robots! Cmon!!!


So not only are they evil, they are also delusional by believing that they are promoting prosperity! Yeah, for themselves.


So there you go. Evil playthrough right there

Serious question and waiting for an answer: When did any Bethesda game really react to your actions? I mean, other than the slavers at Paradise Falls letting you in without paying the fine?

You mean Piper will keep following you if you kill a bunch of innocent people and help you shoot them if you're killing innocent people? What do stealing some candy from a raider has to do with me being evil and how do they know I'm being evil 30 miles from Diamond City?

Just because it hasn't been done in the past, doesn't mean it can't be done. We have NPCs in Skyrim have reaction lines for you being a mage/companion etc. (implementation of those lines was a bit of a mess at times but they still existed). You got extra lines with the terrifying presence perk in NV (which also was a bit lackluster admittedly). It's not hard to implement a karma system that above or below a certain karma gives you extra "evil" or even "good" choices in quests and dialogues, makes NPCs react to you with different lines as you walk by etc.

For NPC: They do react based on what you did though in this game, like siding with the Minutemen will have different lines than siding with the BoS, the BoS lines were very salty, the Institute scientists will have different opinions of you depending on your decision like how you handle the lockdown. It's more realistic than Skyrim knowing what kind of power you have without you doing anything. It's based on your actions, so I don't know why they would know I'm evil just because I pickpocket someone 10 towns over.

FOr dialogues: All the evil and aggressive dialogues are already there for you to choose during quests. You want it to be artificially locked until you reach a certain karma? No thanks, I don't need the game to tell me when I'm being evil, I'm just being evil.

Oh, do they? You mean like the mage in Whiterun rambling on about if you have the aptitude, you should join the mages guild? When you already were the archmage. Or the guards saying hands to yourself sneak thief, when you are a respected member of the Jarl's household. And don't bring up FNV. That was Obsidian, working for Bethesda.

I'm on board when change is demanded. But 13 years after Morrowind I've more or less given up on Bethesda creating reactive NPC populations.

Settlers in my own settlements don't even recognize me as the general. As I said Skyrim's way wasn't very well implemented nor is FO4s by any stretch.

As for dialogues, the amount of evil dialogues/choices is extremely limited. Also what I did was merely offer one option that I came up with on the spot, just to make an example. You can pretend to be evil all you want, FO4 for the most part doesn't promote that kind of play though.

Dude seriously? I literally said it wasn't well implemented in Skyrim, and I'd rather not give up if there's even the slightest chance of the next TES or FO game being improved even by a little if by some act of god a Bethesda dev ever chances upon our threads

Dialogue in general is limited. As had to be expected with a fully voiced game.

With this issue being on the table since 2002? What are the chances? Skyrim, as far as dialogue and reactiveness goes, was even a step back from FO3.

Settlers thank you for the settlement and recognize you as the leader which ask for you to assign them to tasks.

Evil dialogues are plenty. Don't know what you're talking about. The stuffs you can do are pretty heinous. I don't know what you're talking about.

Maybe I'm expecting too much, but I can't help but be disappointed when I know they have the funds and the ability ( they also had a bunch of time in this case) to do so much better. And from what I've seen many share my sentiments.