I am playing on PS4. I have found this to be the most stable console release so far, I have been playing for about 95 hours now and it has only frozen once, and that was BEFORE the first patch, hasn't frozen since. It's also worth noting that the game automatically saved when it happened, so I am very pleased with the performance so far.

I will also say as far as crashes go this is the most stable Bethesda game I've played. As far as bugs with missions and whatnot it's the same thing, prettier paint job. It becomes more obvious the more you play.

I'm playing on PC with probably about 40 hours played. 40 hours is just a guess as I can't check because I'm at work right now.

As I said earlier, the game ran great for about two weeks then starting CTD more and more often.

There is no pattern I can see in the crashes either. Sometimes I'm out in the middle of nowhere when it happens and sometimes its when I'm in a city. Sometimes I could complete huge fights with no problem then a little later CTD as soon as one bad guy appears.

Those CAN be fixes. But if you don't take the time to try them and figure out why your system went wonky, feel free to continue complaining and having issues with the game.

So far fallout 4 has been the least buggy fallout game since fallout 3 which was almost unplayable for me. I finally traded in fallout 3 after the main story came to a halt 3 different times due to game breaking bugs which caused AI characters to randomly die or disappear from the game world.

However there are some moderate bugs that I would like fixed in fallout 4. All the level 4 vendors have vanished for me even though they show up on my population counter. MANY quest have bugs that needs to be fixed. Example I helped out Abernathy farm and successfully completed their quest and then about 20+ hours later I suddenly have a failed quest line show up in my pipboy saying that I have now failed the Abernathy farm quest and they wont be supporting the minutemen even though I already have an extensive base built up there.

System:

Console: PS4 500GB Version CUH-1215A. System Software 3.11.

Monitor: Samsung LN52A650 52" LCD TV.

Cables: Amazon Basics 3 Foot High Speed HDMI Cable (Supports HDMI 1.4, Ethernet, 4K, and ARC.).

Cooling: Ortz Vertical Cooling Stand. 2 controller charging ports, 2 fans, and I power it with a high output cell phone charger instead of a PS4 USB port.

Power: Monster Power HTS 3600 MKSII Power Filter/Surge Protector. All of my electronics are connected to it.

Hours Played: 289 Hours and 30 minutes.

Crashes: 2. Both are listed in the PS4's Error History log. Both were CE-34878-0 codes occurring shortly after minimizing Fallout 4, opening up the Youtube app, and then switching back to Fallout 4. According to the net these are more related to the PS4 and not really a game code problem.

Well I'm finding Fallout 4 to be amazingly stable and the only bugs I've encountered have been in connection with the settlements.........Fallout 3 was so bad I literally could not enter part of the map (Near Reilly's Rangers base) without it immediately crashing and elsewhere it was random crashes at least every hour (usually more). It got so bad I traded the game away, only to buy it again once it was at least mostly stable and then again as the game of the year edition (with DLC). So having played F3 an NV the idea that Fallout 4 is buggy and unstable is laughable, if anything maybe its time Bethesda lost the label of producing such bugfests.

Looking at the rest of the industry, I think it's the new normal for studios to release big-budget games like this still ~kinda~ in beta, and patch as you go.

For everyone saying "hey, I've played 200+ hrs and had no bugs," or "most stable Bethesda game ever!" ... that's great and all (I've also played 250hr and had but one crash) ... but you know what? It's irrelevant.

There are numerous different types of bugs: crashing to desktop/locking up a console IS BUT ONE. Game stability does not equate to "amount of bugs;" it's merely one way a bug can manifest itself.

what about:

1. dead bodies not decaying - when you move them, they move themselves back
2. AI pathing issues
3. AI settler models just standing in place
4. world content "falling" from above
5. placed itself clipping through the item they were placed on
6. "rescue the hostage" quests where the hostage has a f**king brahmin with them, in a small room, so you can't actually get into the room to free the hostage
7. a resettled settler (from one location to another) moving back to their original location to give you a minute man quest, only to return to their proper settlement after giving it so you can't find them to hand in the quest, because the quest marker is now pointing to the wrong settlement
8. a broken dialog tree at the end of the "investigate the patrol" questline
9. the fact that you can befriend a companion ... only to be told to kill them later on as part of another quest: BUT YOU CAN'T KILL COMPANIONS (this *drumroll* is a bug)
10. the fact that the pipoy disappears sometimes
11. the fact that you gun disappears sometimes
12. the fact that "night vision perk" makes playing during the day unplayable
13. the fact that settlers in sanctuary end up on sanctuary rooves
14. the fact that settlers/other actors clip through walls (literally able to walk through walls)
15. the fact that sometimes my mouse won't go to the bottom of the screen to click on the buttons/links down there anymore and I HAVE to use keyboard shortcuts
16. ... etc ...

all of these are bugs. these are just the ones I could remember.

I LOVE Bethesda games; they're the only company I will preorder from. But I know what I am getting with a Bethesda title: an open world bug fest. I know this, and I still enjoy their games.

But don't sit there and say that this is a bug free game just because you've only crashed to desktop once, because you're missing the entire point (and the definition of the word: "Bug.")

125+ hours into the game and I've had no crashes. Not one.

The only "bugs" I've experienced are dead enemy bodies not disappearing from sunnyside co-op or whatever it's called. It's made me give up on a settlement I rather liked.

Also, some of the people I assign to shops (Lv2) won't go stand behind the stall (Sanctuary) even though I can still get their services if I can track them down.

You're right. From now on I'll try to word my posts better in regard to differentiating from crashes and bugs. I made my long post to show in detail how I'm running my system and to maybe make the op say, hmm ... I am using an old HDMI cable, or, I am charging 3 controllers while using a cable to power a 4th while I'm playing and that may be causing a problem. One thing I didn't mention is, I noticed immediately that the fans on my cooling station ran faster when I used an external power source. So are people charging a controller while playing and that's putting a strain on the PS4 power supply causing problems with crashing? I've seen stranger things happen.

That said ... I haven't seen a single one of the bugs you have mentioned. I'm a troubleshooter at heart, so my next question is, "Why haven't I seen that." I haven't made it to some of the spots you mentioned, so maybe I will run in to those things eventually. I know some people are reporting problems with a quest for MacReady and I played through it fine with no problems. But, why?

I don't doubt you or anyone in the least because I've run in to game crashing bugs in several games besides Fallout that nobody else has seen and it makes me wonder why. I am very curious as to why one system will see these things and another won't when consoles are supposed to be on an equal playing field.

I think in reality they aren't. That's why I posted my PS4 version. Even something as simple as a firmware version change on a chip inside the unit mid production can have an adverse effect. Yeah, the model number is the same, they came from the same assembly line on the same day, but one of the chips being used that day were from two different batches with two different firmware and poof. How do you fix that? You can't.

I played Red Dead Redemption all the way through. I think it's the only game I ever got 100% of the way through with side quests and the whole nine yards. My PS3 died and I got one of the shiny new slim boys. I could never play it again after that. My horse would fall through the world in to a grid like area and my system would crash. Why though? Why did it work on the PS3 fat boy, but not the slim boy, and why did it work fine for other people on the slim boy but not me? I gave up and finally got rid of the game.

I only posted my detailed specs in hopes that something might make the op go, "Ah ha!, that could be it.". Short HDMI cables, clean power, as little heat and strain on your PS4 as possible are going to go a long way for reasons that are hard to explain but are very real. It's the same reason why PC gamers will spend more than I did on my TV, PS4, and game on just the liquid cooling system for their CPU ...

Good point.

And I'd like to say that I'd much rather be able to play the game now than have to wait 12-18 months for the 'full' game with all patches and DLC out because lord knows we already waited long enough for it. So yeah it's an 'unfinished' game. But it's the best F**Kin' unfinished game I've ever played!!

And when it is 'finished' it will be utterly staggering. Not only that but the fact that we are playing the unfinished game now it will make all of the new areas, quests and features etc feel all the more special for having already bonded with the vanilla game, that's how I feel about it anyway.

It's not the new normal and it should never become the new normal.

That only happens because the consumers tend to behave like braindead sheep (not talking about this game).

Vote for Sticky^

No, many of these are not bugs at all. Many of these are actually how the game works and how all BGS games have always worked. For example, content always materializes from the sky into the game world. Nothing new here and nothing new for BGS or various other companies. The content has to come from somewhere, after all. Since the content comes from above, you will have occasional instances of NPCs or other content landing on rooftops or other upper area barriers. Same with dead bodies being permanent in certain instances - that is intended, not a bug. Other bodies are deleted. This is better than older games where ALL bodies are deleted after a few seconds preventing you from looting what you just spent resources eliminating.

You have a couple items that MIGHT be bugs but may be specific to your game, as well, such as broken dialogue for some reason (i.e., if it is not experienced by others, it is not a bug in general but something that has happened to your specific game on your specific system).

This is also true for consoles and has been for some time. That is, the old mantra that all console owners should experience the same things is no longer true nor has it been true for several generations of consoles. The reason for this is because (1) there have been multiple versions of the same basic console for several generations and different versions have different architecture that could cause issues, (2) the consoles, like any electronics, are sensitive to heat or anything that can cause heat (e.g., dust, smoke debris, etc.) and different people have their consoles set up with different degrees of ventilation as well as different lifestyle habits/cleanliness of the electronics, and finally (3) the last couple generations of consoles are much closer to full-fledged PCs than just game consoles, thus they have a variety of different non-gaming software (and associated hardware) in them that can cause issues, but specific software apps may vary with each owner (or their specific usage concurrent with any particular game may vary).

Short version: "The more complex the system, the easier it is to have things go wrong."

This is also why any informed, knowledgeable person understands that the new normal is, in fact, that software has to be released in a form that will still have issues for various users because it is utterly impossible for any company, even huge companies like Microsoft, Google, or Electronic Arts, to test software on every possible user configuration out there. Anyone who cannot accept this should not try to use hardware and software today as it is a pointless endeavor for such individuals. They will only frustrate themselves when something doesn't work for them.

Now, for the OP... for what it's worth, and you seem to already be aware of this, the vast majority of users have found Fallout 4 to be incredibly stable with very few bugs, relatively speaking (relative to modern software as a whole, not only gaming software). However, you also know that there are some users who have problems, sometimes major problems, including users who still cannot get the game to run on their system for some reason. The issue in such cases is the specific nature of their system interacting with a game that is made for mass market, general (gaming) audience hardware. That's true for both consoles users and PC users, of course. I've listed some console variations and you also listed some possible issues. It could even be something as basic to mass market production as variance within specific builds of one console unit and the next in the assembly line. In short, it may not be anything Bethesda or any software maker can correct, at least in some cases. Hopefully, this won't be the case for you.

I think it's people like EA that damage the reputation of the industry, give gamers headaches and generally create a bad feeling.

In the case of Bethesda I fully agree with everything you said, Bethesda are not EA and I don't like it when people talk about them as if they are.

The cryo bug is on all three platforms on my Ps4 I had to reset my console (or at least close the app an re-start it). On my PC I has to close the game and restart it and then start the new game or the glitch would repeat (if I loaded a different character does for example).

When a game (or anything infact), has had 7 years in the making, I find it very hard to believe any excuse for oversights and bugs.

Bethesda do not use 'excuses' and it is unfair to say they do. I have always thought they have dealt with criticism very well. If there is a problem they will say right, what is wrong and how can we fix it? And you say there are no excuses, which is fine because they don't offer any.

The amount of things that are in this game considering the size of the team that made it, considering when they started making it the current gen consoles were not out yet, if you are actually able to consider those things and many more before jumping on the band wagon you would see that they have done exceptionally well.

Do you have any idea how many people worked on GTA 5?

While I haven't encountered many game stopping bugs, there are so many little intentional things that press me to ask the same question. The lack of read and unread distinction of holotapes and the weapon naming system (who honestly thought "tactical scoped calibrated hardened armor piercing comfort automatic 10 millimeter pistol" was anything other than insanity?) This is the first fallout I won't be finishing. Maybe mods can fix this mess of a game.

I'm not on any band wagon. I just find it deplorable something that has had so long in the making can be released with so many faults and people just accept it and even defend it.

Did you not play Fallout 3 or Skyrim? Both were infinitely worse than Fallout 4, by quite a long way and they are both among the most revered games of last gen. Not everyone likes to focus on the negatives, I like to focus on how far they have come and how much they care about the fans and the fact that they have a rare level of integrity for a game developer.

Fallout 4 is the most stable open world game they have released, they offer so much that no other devs do and I personally believe they should be highly commended for what they have achieved.

I've got about 250 hours in it, and I haven't experienced many bugs. I briefly had an issue with the game just going to a black screen after trying to launch it, but that was easily fixed because it was just an issue with the graphics settings that were set automatically. I just had to do uninstall and do a clean reinstall, and then make sure that the resolution was set to my displays native resolution.

There are a few other bugs that are really annoying me. The big one for me though is the fact that I can't send Curie to any of my settlements. She just always goes back to Vault 81. And given that this is my biggest complaint about the game as far as bugs are concerned, I'd say it's going pretty well for me.

It's important to understand that there's a huge difference between a game being tested by a small group of testers and being thoroughly played to death by millions of people. There are definitely some glitches, but they'll be addressed in time. I totally understand that some people have had much bigger problems with glitches. I suppose I've been lucky for the most part.

Because something is the least worse of a companies output isn't a good indication of quality

I only played through Fallout 3 recently (Xbox 360 GOTY edition) and it was bug free after the updates the last of which was in 2009.

Personally, I've found it very stable so far. Its been quite a refreshing change.

Of course, the real test will be after the CK is released. Once we're all running with mods that delete references used by the main game, call F4SE methods in inappropriate ways or include broken textures and models. And once we've uninstalled a few of them and got a ton of broken scripts running in the background... that's when the screaming starts