This is the problem IMO. They can't decide what kind of game they want it to be.

The Main Story is trying to be a Bioware game. The combat is like Just Cause. The Settlements are Sim/RTS. But they try to wrap it up in an RPG.

Really, it makes sense for them to make their main AAA title have a bit of *everything* in it. In reality, it doesn't quite work, it becomes a jumbled mess. Bioware-esque fans think the story isn't fleshed enough, RPG fans think there isn't enough actual free Roleplay, Action fans think there aren't enough guns and hate the settlements, RTS fans think the settlements are lacking and why they can't do more with them... etc etc

I'd kind-of rather they did one thing WELL than try to be all things to all people :/

The simple solution?

Don't try to see everything all at once.

My initial character is a mirror of myself, personality wise with the intent of seeing as much content as possible.

Afterward, I'll make "Characters". Specifically, I plan on porting over my character from New Vegas and choosing nothing but "Sarcastic" dialogue options.

I'd like to see them do all things well...that would be awesome! This could be the start of making all encompassing games, something that everyone can enjoy.

Rather than suggesting they back off, I would encourage them to keep expanding the ideas in all directions.

I'm sorry I feel this way too.

I've supported Bethesda for over 20 years now and seen them grow into an AAA publisher. But I now unfortunately have to conclude that they left me behind, they don't make games for people like me anymore. Now they make games for consoles and for players who need to experience all content on one playthrough and who don't ever, ever want to fail at anything.

The game is a shooter and not an RPG. Surviving in a nuclear wasteland? No, instead you get power armour 20 minutes into the game. There are stimpacks, ammo and lockpicks in abundance, it's made so you don't ever have to ration and you'll never run out. There are no skillchecks in dialogue anymore. There are no quest options that open up or lock up according to your stat choices anymore. All dialogue options lead to the same result. Everyplace you go everyone is hostile by default.

World locations spoilers ahead:

Storyline spoiler ahead:

The game is an interesting shooter, but it's an even worse RPG than Skyrim. There is a clear line of progression happening with Bethesda games ever since at least Oblivion and it leads away from RPG mechanics into what I described above, an open world action game where you're not ever allowed to fail and where everything must be doable on one single playthrough. I think I died maybe twice in this game, both times at the very beginning when I was still figuring out how to play. And that says it all really.

I'm sorry about this too. I used to love Bethesda games. But they just don't make games for people like me anymore. I supported them for a long time and I'm happy to see they got successful, but I am sad to see them turn into yet another EA Bioware.

I did that. My first (main) character went everywhere, did everything, before settling down at the Institute in a nice clean office

My second playthrough was straight Brotherhood, I ignored as many of the other faction quests as I could, got straight on the Airship as soon as possible, and never took my powerarmor off. No intention of exploring or doing anything other than being a Knight and following BOS orders.

I enjoyed the first playthough immensely, because I love exploring in Bethesda games.
The second playthough I enjoyed just as much, because it was more focused, and I didn't feel the need to explore that building over there cos I knew what was in it.

I don't know if I'll make a third playthrough, maybe after all the DLCs come out, and do a Railroad one. Mainly because there will be even less for me to discover without DLC/mod content.

I think the only conclusion to that description of the state of things are that fans are idjits, that can't put things into perspective nor look beyond their own nose, rather than bethesda overextending.

Sabotaged replay value? Tell that to my good-natured jerk, my Doomgal, my knight-errant, and my pirate queen characters. Incidentally, I've sided with the Minutemen for three of those characters. The character system is amazing for replay value, since it's so nonlinear - and the voiced protagonist doesn't change the feeling that these are my characters, and I get to direct my experience. That's how I felt about my Shepard too, though, so maybe I've just got a good mindset for voiced protagonists.

Going through the review... wtf is with that comparison to New Vegas's main quest. NV's main story is just doing the same quests for different people, leading up to a showdown at Hoover Damn, and somehow it's less repetitive?

Our character is always a parent looking for their son: Yes, because that's the main quest. In Fallout 1 we were a Vault Dweller searching for a Water Chip, in 2 a tribal searching for a GECK, in 3 a Vault Dweller searching for dad, and New Vegas a courier searching for the Chip. So what's different about Fallout 4? That you get more than one way to say you're looking for the main quest MacGuffin?

Well that's the same with any game with a main quest line. If you follow the quest, you do the thing that the quest has you do- find dad, find the guy who shot you, close the Oblivion gates, stop a dragon destroying the world...

You can just follow the story or you can role play your own motivations for doing it. Or you can ignore the quest completely. It's up to you. I see little difference.

The article raises points we already know about. Having a voiced protagonist constantly reminding you that you're supposed to be the distraught mother/father looking for their baby plus limited dialogue options doesn't add up for much replayability. The game's still fun though.

It is baffling how people still can't see the motivational difference in a quest about saving your kidnapped child from the people who killed your wife and a courier looking for a chip.

The problem is that any action that is not just in focus on the main quest by the player in the former will always totally break any real immersion of the character being real. If you can't see the problem with such a motivational main quest in a game that has its essence in being open ended and free I don't know what to say.

Such a focused and motivational story (because what can be more motivational then the revenge of your wifes killer and the kidnapping of you son) works great in a focused linear story based format. It is simply terrible for a game that is supposed to be open ended and free where you are supposed to do what you want.

Considering how you're grossly simplifying the New Vegas story, let's just go ahead and call Fallout 4 a New Vegas clone since they're both revenge stories.

I don't get your point. I am saying that you can't make up a more motivational storyline then the one in Fallout 4. And having such a strong motivation is like an antithesis to everything that an open freeroaming RPG is about.

It is easy to come up with all sorts of reasons and motivations to not go and try to pick a fight with the guys who just shoot you in the head. On the other hand to ignore your wifes killer and your kidnapped son because you want to plant flowers instead is just totally unresonable on every level.

But I don't really have a super big issue with this to be honest at its core, it would be possible to explain away in some way perhaps to yourself, like you are a sociopath that really hated your family, and now sees a reason to finally live out all your dark fantasies in a destroyed world. The biggest problem is the voiced protagonist who when your son comes up will always be sounding worried and like he really cares no matter what character you want to make that could have reasons to not actually care. It will always create big immersion breaking barrier between your character and the character that is premade in this game with its own voice, personality and temper to boot. (And try to explain away him being a coldblooded phsycho when you hear his scarred voice screaming GOD NOOOOO!!!! When they shoot your wife and take him away)

This games such a huge Failure yet well over what? 10-20 million people bought it?

Ya I cant stand this game at all, that's why I've put 270 hours in and plan to completely explore everything in the game and build aweso er I mean stupid settlements everywhere I can.

I'm playing it to help you man. That's right I'm subjecting myself to this so Karmatically you don't have too.

But the game doesn't have to invalidate the personality and character the player crafts during story quests.

Its going to be soo horrible when the Alternative Start mods roll in.

Also when people make new perks and expansions on what can be done with Alternative Starts...Ya those are going to be terrible.

I mean come on it would just be plain bad if you could pilot the "Constitution" around Boston and fight battles over CommonWealth locations with a trusty crew of Protectrons and Mr Handy units, I mean come on who in their right mind would have fun with that?

Also those fail player made quest mods yup those are going to do horribly bad like Skyrim's "Faalskarr" which only had like a million people play it.

Ya lets all get real about how fail this game is and will be.

If your honestly going on about how the game is a failure than well the word that comes to mind is "delusional"

Same is pretty much true in Fallout 3 with expansions and Skyrim.

Add that Fallout 3 is far smaller.

I tended to end up with almost all perks outside of the melee ones and the flavor ones I did not like in Fallout 3.

This I agree with, to me it feels more forced than the stupid railroading trough thief guild and college in Skyrim.

Might be better if you ignore Piper and Valentine.

The same can be said for Fallout 3 and NV. You can max out both your PC by level 30. Also not many people reached max level in Skyrim.

Well, first of all, a lot of what you said was just factually incorrect. I've runout of critical supplies pleanty of times, there ARE alternative dialogue outcomes, you CAN fail quests, and you can't see everything on a first playthrough.

Otherwise:

1. Power armor actually has more depth now. People are locked into this mindset where they think power armor is still another top-tier armor, when that isn't the case here. Power armor has its own progression from crappy old T-45 to X0-1. The T-45 set you first get wont last you long due to a lack of repair and fuel.

Now power armor is modular, modifiable, and has its own set of mechanics. That's a lot more depth than "top tier armor"

2. You can't be friends with raiders who just want to murder outsiders. I can't remember when you could. I can however, help robots repair the USS Constiution or just scrap it. I can be a 40's comic book hero. I can go on detective investigations. I can brutally extort poor wastelanders or help them build cities.

3. It's a good thing you can't make all the factions just get along . That would have been absolutely terrible and would've ruined the whole entire roleplay aspect with the four factions and made no sense in the context of the story. Good roleplaying doesn't mean "I can do whatever the hell I want and the consequences can be whatever the hell I want". Why struggle with the choice to choose which faction to side with when you can just side with all of them?

You confuse me mate. You claim you want more choice, but here it just sounds like you want the illusion of choice. Because why choose anything other than the clear best option?

4. Fallout 4 is more of an RPG than any other recent AAA RPG. And that's if we're judging "how RPG is it" by "how similar to D&D is it", a very flawed criteria. The game has more depth as an RPG than Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Dark Souls, and The Witcher. The days of RPGs that were nothing but stats and text are gone. That's the niche genre now.

5. They've added tons of new mechanics. We've got power armor mechanics, weapon and armor modding, dynamic companion relationships (rather than the old school way of "do this quest and now you're friends!"), the basebuilder, food and chem crafting. Sounds like a lot of added depth to me.

Please, FO4 a shooter? Go play a real shooter, like say, BF4, and tell me it's anything like FO4 other than "both combat systems involve first person shooting".

I don't get why people are crying about always being a parent. In every Fallout you're someone looking for "X" with every character.

New Vegas is really the only game outside of Tactics where our characters were blank slates.

I'm on playthrough 2. Only took a break to play Rise of the Tomb Raider, I'll be back on Fallout in a day or two.

It only invalidates your chatacter if you insist on playing outside the basic backstory.

The given backstory is you are married with a child. And your jobs (which are never mentioned outside the intro, so can be easily ignored). That's mote or less it.

The vast majority of people in the world get married and have children at some point in their lives. People of all types. Their are loving marriages, marriages of convenience, arranged marriages, abusive marriages, sham marriages, marriages where the couple barely tolerate each other, shotgun weddings, marriages to a freaking mass murdering warlord (OK, that one may not be supported in game).

I can't understand why people who say they are all into role playing can't make a good variety of extremely different characters just because of a spouse and child.

And that's all before the end of civilisation as you know it, which could alter you entirely.

I'm on my second character and neither has just been "loving parent looking for their baby".

Replay value is a subjective matter. If it is "high", it usually has to be replayed until it becomes "low".

In chess it is probably raised by the randomness of an opponent. In poker it is probably generated by the randomness of the cards' order and the winning stakes.

Fallout 4's replay value seems to be sabotaged by other stuff then what the OP mentioned article points at. The settlement size limit screws up building-plans and to start it all over building all those fences around every settlement seems too boring. So there's no replay. Nice relief! Especially if they don't fix it. But all the bugs make more communication value ...

Anyways the last 5 minutes of game endings aren't important regardless of the story. All that really matters are the time of entertainment. For example with a movie that takes 1.5 hour, skipping the last or the first 5 minutes is only about 6% lesser entertainment.

About 40 hours in on survival and seen maybe a quarter of the map and not even cleared everything in that. Why replay anyway when you can do everything in one long play through? Only just got Nick back to Diamond City on the main quest, if that is even the main quest. Plus I have the season pass so plenty more to come

See, you say that, yet before I bought the game, I was certain I would hate it and refund it within 2 hours. Instead, I ended up thoroughly enjoying myself. And I am a huuuuuge RPG nerdrager, about what constitutes immersion and what choices should have been made.

And honestly? It's fine. Better, even. The combat could use some more mobility, sure. I wish that the stealth mechanics revolved around sight and not hearing. I wish that enemy placement was thought out a little better. Otherwise, though, if you mod out the dialogue wheel and the voice dialogue (and the latter isn't even necessary to my shock), it's a great experience. I enjoy it heaps better than any of the janky has-been RPG mechanics from New Vegas, Skyrim and Mass Effect. Not above Dragon Age: Origins, that is not a judgement I can pass, since I didn't stick around with that game for very long.