http://www.gameskinny.com/824z2/how-fallout-4-sabotaged-its-own-replay-value

Thoughts?

With more content expected and no level cap rather than replay you can keep playing. Would eventually need every room fpatrolled with radiated death claws.

Completely agree with pretty much the entire article. There's a lot of quote-worthy points in that article, which all perfectly hone in on and drive home the unforgivable flaws of Fallout 4. Thanks for the link, I will definitely be going back to that article and expanding some of its points in my own writing.

Didn't read the article, name looks like clickbait to some stupid review that says nothing.

Close to 200 hours so far, and still going...

Replay value? DLC & Mods mods mods.

Which was also true for Fallout New Vegas in great part. Yeah, you could take a different roadmap, but if you played it with the intent to do as many quests as possible, the end-result is pretty much the same as in Fallout 4.

I already know of a few dozen people who restarted their playthrough of Fallout 4 and didn't regret it, so there's already replay value.

It's really fun that you can be such a "variety" of characters, namely a married ex-soldier with a child or a married ex-lawyer with a child, looking for the child. But there is imagination to get over it. In the Witcher games you are always the witcher (the reason I don't play the games) but nevertheless you can replay because of little different story progresses. In Fallout you can side with different groups, so maybe that's a help. What is not a help for me is the boring landscape. At least there is no snow, I hate snow.

The character builds make this game for sure, and when I say this game I mean fallout 4 specifically. If I couldn't recreate a new character every play through with vastly different strengths and weaknesses I'd have moved on already. That being said I think there have been far, far more linear open world games than Fallout 4; The Batman Arkham games, Far Cry 4, Assassins Creed's, just to name a few.

Oblivion and Skyrim were the same. This damned Dragornborn just kept popping up....yet alternate start mods helped a lot. And they will rule once again, now even on consoles. BSG has allways been accused for not having good main quest.The thing is - main quest is for linear playtrough. Now they deliver the main quest and another demanded thing - voiced PC, and everyone's surprised that it feels linear? No matter what BSG does, it is allways failure (despite the sales and mods)...OMG!

I like snow! But what I really like to see is variety in environments - different regions both in terms of climate and in terms of culture - that's what makes a game interesting to explore. I really don't think Bethesda got the culture variety right, with different enemies absolutely everywhere as just one example, although at least the game is significantly more visually interesting - if not overly diverse in climate - compared to Fallout 3.

I don't mind the voiced PC too much, but the limited dialogue options really dumbs down the conversations to a point where it seems like Charisma isn't really worth taking (except for settlement building).

A lot of the side quests seem to be geared towards clearing out an area, then returning to let the people know it was cleared out. It would have been much more interesting if you were securing an item that allowed them to produce water or food and that settlement was limited by what they could produce, etc. Something else to consider too is the size limit of the settlement... if you build and build and don't put enough into defense, you're screwed. I have to see if I can delete items at The Castle to see if it will reset that yellow bar. If not, then the settlement isn't of much value to me anymore.

I'm looking forward to the future DLC's though, and I do like this game... but some of the side quests are a bit stale. Sure the main story is a mom/dad looking for their child... but honestly you have to have one thing holding the game together.

Yeah, although "I'm looking for my dad to solve the mystery of what's going on" is a lot less whiny and doesn't force nearly as much pre-definition on your character as "I'm looking for my son. Where's my son? I have to find my son!"

Fallout 3's side quests were much more independent of the main quest, allowing more roleplaying. Every conversation in Fallout 4 seems to start with my character moping about their son.

I think BGS was going for the same approach they did with F3, i.e. you can do almost everything in a single playthrough. Some people prefer it this way (no feeling of "missing out" on something), I guess, it's not inherently bad.

I've just finished the game and after that abysmal ending I feel no need to start a new character. What replay value?

Considering you can play through the game supporting different factions with completely different quests I don't agree.

I don't understand your view there.

One of this games weaknesses in terms of replay value is its no level or skill/perk cap.You have to force yourself to stop playing and restart,otherwise you end up with everything maxed out.

i love to complain about a few things that i really, really hate, but comparing it to other recent Bethesda games its a pretty good improvement for the most part. i'v ran into more quests that branch out than in the past, the atmosphere is nice, the game play is good and speech is probably more useful than any other beth game ever.

I'd really like to see someone get everything maxed out. I'm not even sure that's possible. My current character is level 41 and I have put points into 10 perks. That leaves 60 perks I haven't even touched. There's plenty of replay right there. Not to mention I can do it and support a different faction, or choose not to support any faction at all while building my own private settlements exploring and looting raider style.

When I stopped playing because I reached the ending I was level 71. There weren't really any perks left that I wanted and I just took them because I had a point to spend, not because they gave me something I wanted or was ever going to use.

Fallout 4 has no diversity in character creation. Everything must be possible in one playthrough and this kills all replay value. I have no interest in a second playthrough. There is nothing left for me to do.

I agree with the article except the feeling of ennui hit much earlier for me, about the time I figured out that the Minutemen quests were all radiant "clear this dungeon" slogs.

Well, sorry you feel that way. The way I see it is Bethesda has given me all the tools I need to create any character type I want, and there are definitely multiple ways I want to try playing this game.

there are a few playthroughs you can do, for the different factions. But TBH they only differ in the last 1/3 of the game, most of the game is the same no matter what faction you support. Replay value comes in the "no-ending" radiant quests, which I am enjoying more than the story. Just wish there was more variety to them, they are mostly the same thing in the same locations (strange, when FO4 has hundreds of locations to choose from)

Bethesda has certainly taken the franchise in a new, more linear direction with the additions of a voiced protagonist and the accompanying dialogue system, but overall I don't begrudge the game for it.

I am finding myself to be much more involved in the story as a result of these changes and that's a good thing. This is coming from someone who never finished Skyrim's main quest. It simply never grabbed me.

As for replays, I would have to concede that it would probably not be very worthwhile to go through the game again with only a handful of builds and the narrative being much the same each go around.

I fully agree with the settlements side of the game having too much of a spotlight in the game. It detracts from the rest of the game for people (like me) that really aren't interested in this kind of micromanagement. It has the effect of making junk loot more important than weapons/armour and unless you start console hacking, forces you down the charisma line to make it even work.

All things considered, I still think it's a great game and I am enjoying the hell out of it. It's sacrificed some player freedom for a stronger narrative. Perhaps I am biased towards story-driven, Bioware-style games but in my opinion it doesn't hurt to have a more fleshed out story on top of all the free roaming you can do. Something for everyone, I suppose. I wouldn't be surprised to see the next iteration of this in the next Elder Scrolls game.

"You're always going to be a Shaun-hunting mother or father. When Bethesda added a voice and simple dialogue wheel to the protagonist, they unintentionally made it so that your character, even if mechanically different in each playthrough, is ultimately the same character conceptually.

This is why, for me, Fallout 4 will have less replayability than any previous open-world game Bethesda has made. I roleplay, I make a whole lot of characters, and each character I make is different. I suspect that trying to replay this game is going to be frustratingly difficult for me.

I never had a problem replaying other games that had a voiced protagonist and different story outcomes. I've probably played the Mass Effect trilogy about 10 - 15 times. So yeah i will probably play Fallout 4 as much as i did Skyrim or any other Beth game, there really is no limit, as i enjoy it that much. Doesn't mean i will be playing it all the time, got other games to play and other stuff to do.

The first line says it all.

burn through the game and then complain about replay value when you didn't experience it the first time.