This thought has been bouncing around in my head for weeks, so I might as well get it out.


I'm pretty sure that Raiders was suppose to be one of the factions you can play as. Fallout 4 has all been about the factions. The Minutemen, The BOS, The Railroad, and the Institute. It's one of the classic aspects of the game, and Fallout 4 took it further by allowing you to every major factions in the game... accept the Raiders that is. However, I think being able to join the raiders was part of the plan.


We all know at this point that the Combat Zone was suppose to be much more than a simple dungeon with a companion as a reward for clearing it. You were suppose to be able to watch fights, place bets, and actually take part yourself. BUT There is also Easy City Downs. It's a race track, but for robots in lue of horses. Easy City Downs is very similar. You walk in, see something cool happening and want to take part only for everyone to attack you. What's strange is your companions talk as if it's possible to actually participate, by recommending who to place bets on, that you sit down and watch, ect.


So far, we've got two of these. Raider controlled areas that evidence heavily suggests should have been much more than what they ended up being in the end product. The prevailing theory is that these individual pieces were cut for time, but what if they're something more going on? What if these were part of a much large unfinished raider faction you were suppose to be able to join? It seems at least plausible to me.

There's also "the forged" in the ironworks. Given it almost got a cutscene feeling to it at the end of the 'quest', with dialogue where the raiders are actually addressing you instead of just shooting you gave the feeling that there would more to them. Perhaps even a possibility to join. Regarding the Combat zone I dont think we've seen the last of it. If they decided to just cut it without ever coming back to it, why leave all the dialogue for Tommy Lonegan when he says he's gonna start rebuilding it and get it back to what he originally intended for it. Just seems strange. But that's not really related to the raider aspect of it, but oh well..

Personally I'd like to see the settlements given an additional direction beside the minutemen where you can develop raider (or something similar) bases. Ofcourse you could skip the minutemen part of the settlement and just build them your own way, but it would still be pretty much all pretending then.

We know that stuff was cut from the Combat Zone. I'd hazard a guess that they either cut stuff or originally had more content planned for Easy City Downs. However, I don't really think that this implies that the Raiders were meant to be a joinable faction. It implies that there likely would have been some raiders that weren't auto-hostile, but that's quite a bit different.

The Raiders aren't the only major faction in the game that you can't join. The raiders aren't even really a "faction" in the first place, but there are also the Gunners, the Forged (admittedly basically another raider faction).

there are also several notes in terminals and such laying around in raider bases implying that there could have been missions going between them and even possible bases exchanging hands and kidnappings. of course its equally possible this could all have been cut for the DLC.

"oh crap guys, we promised them DLC so we could sell them a season pass, what can we cut out and throw together in the shortest time"

My only problem with that would be that something like that I would have expected to be ready right after release. and we still got no hints or information about DLC or the promised Mods.

I also feel like the Atom Cats are underdeveloped, and I would totally join them.

I don't know about a joinable faction, but there is a lot of detail in certain raider camps that suggest unrealized plans. One group leader was wanting to take over Corvega from the raiders there, and the raiders that operated out of Beantown Brewery had a running feud with Red and her gang at the Federal Food reserve. Whether these sorts of things was just background story or meant to be something bigger, I don't know.

The joinable factions are all involved in the main quest, how could local raiders be involved?

More than joining I'd rather prefer make my own raider faction. Instead of capturing settlements for Minutmen you can use them as HQ and add quests like attack caravans or towns and kidnap people.

You can

Yep, my thoughts as well.

Sure, after one quest, then nothing but free armor and a store. Not quite what I meant by "joining a faction." I feel the Cats could be fleshed out to be so much more.

So you mean you want guilds like Skyrim where you do quests for them independent of the main quests or do you want them to main a complete faction to compete with the Institute? The latter would require a lot of contents and rewriting and may affect the other existing factions. It's like a whole lot of works.

I want the Guilds, but more like Oblivion than Skyrim. The ones in Oblivion were much better, imho.

Doubt it since raiders in generals are not same faction infact they are basicly varius gangs usualy fighting eachother for resources, they cud ofcourse add a MM alternative for making your own raider based faction and basicly trough their quests you wud unifiy the varrius raider groups into something like Great Khans from previus Fallouts.. Joinable Gunners thought might have actualy been cut from game though as far as i can rember there is no actual evidence of that from datamining(Gunners arent raiders though but mercenaries).

I am personaly not rly missing that option but it wud be possibile to do and from the forum posts there semms to be a lot of people that do desire it.

A Raider faction would not only make entire game better but also satisfy those who want to play evil sole survivor.


Too bad it didn`t happen.



We could have used Raider faction to do side quest against Railroad hideout, Minutemen & BoS.

This x1000. I pissed my pants when I stumbled onto like about 1 1/2 hour into my first playthrough on release, I get there and do one mission and poof done. So disappointing

I do agree. They could even have some good radiant quests to do. Some cool "Elvis"/rock'n'roll style of quests where you could get some unique PA stuffs, some milkshake that boost your charisma high up. You could join them on raid against some hostiles - like taking down some really nasty mirelurks. Joining any raider/gunner faction may not work so good, you have less hostiles to shoot and beside these faction are enemy of everyone else, even settlers/settlements/MM. Since every joinable factions have their quests in Boston/Cambridge area etc, Atom cats they do cool stuffs in the red sea, chill out with nasty scorpions and rad sickness.

Cheers,

-Klevs

From the way people treat the Institute, you would think they're the devil incarnates, so they're not evil faction or something?

Personally I do see institute as selfish and evil....

If Raider faction was available.. they would be available much earlier in game though.


Just like Preston, Desdemona, Danse mentor the sole survivor in their own way... Raider faction could`ve shown us how to be good Raider. lol

I think it could have been fun. lol

Depends on your perspective. Only a few of them are responsible for the evil on the surface while the rest are isolated in their own little world.

The Gunners make more sense as a playable faction than Raiders or the Railroad.

The Forged are a very good Example:

"You look like a Guy i want in my badass Raider Team, but the Developer made just an Kill all Option. So lets get started!"

Pew Pew Pew Fallout Shooter 4

Yeah, my first 25 hours into the game I was convinced that there was some sort of Raider faction and that if I did another playthrough I would join them instead. The evidence that led me to believe this were things that have been mentioned like the little notes in raiders pockets at the racetrack about how to fix the races, or the beantown feud. In addition it seemed like you could "go the other way" on some of the Silver Shroud missions, and one lady even has a note of someone she is supposed to assasinate and I felt like if I had taken another path in talking with her that maybe I could have taken on raider assasination quests (I still have some "execute Shelly Tiller" inventory item/side quest that I never followed through on. You can also side with the raiders/mafia against the USS Constitution. Seems like it wouldn't be a stretch to put all that stuff together, and make a "raider" faction.

But then I went to the Food Ration Reserve and read the notes there about the Beantown peeps and I realized that these various notes have a payoff of there own even if you can't participate in their shenanigans. That is, its fun to learn about the little tiffs between factions just like its fun to piece together how people died based on notes (like the sleepwalker and the stairs).

Also if you could "join" the Raiders, there would be a lot lot lot lot less fights. I feel like Gunners are about 5% of battles, Super Mutants 20%, Ghouls 20%, and Raiders are close to 50%.

It does seem like there were some missing quests for Bunker Hill. Maybe this is still an area that I need to discover, but they seemed to be integrated into all of the raider business, payoffs and what not. Does anyone have experience taking the "evil" route on assassination missions, or the USS Constitution?? Alas, I killed those people, because I even though I stole the Constitution parts from them without being seen, my stupid companion said something and that seemed to tip them off and I had to kill them, so that option is closed to me in my playthrough...

I wouldn`t join Raiders if it actually decreases my chance to fight most of raiders.


As you can see Commonwealth is filled with Raider group power game. Most Raiders are not friend.. but enemies to each other.


It`s a big if... but I bet we still have to fight 90% raiders in game even if we had to join one Raider group ourselves.

I said this about Skyrim and I'll say it again about Fallout 4.

There are a lot of minor factions that could have had a lot more depth to them. Example in Skyrim are the forsworn. Imagine being able to join with one of the forsworn groups and waging wildling war across Markarth? Or against fellow tribes or other bandits? Or even be a member of a bandit gang and raiding travelers and settlements. Miss opportunities I'd say.

Same with Fallout 4.

I'd love to have been given the trials the Forged went through.

Or

Join up with Red at the military storage facility and wage war against Tower Tom and his raider gang to avenge the death of Red's sister Lily.

Or

Tell Preston to eat it and go join the Gunners over by Quincy. You know the ones that disbanded the last of the Minutemen.

Or

Make my own Raider gang to go assaulting the wastelands. Steeling from Caravans or robbing settlers. heck maybe even try an attack or two against the Wall/Diamond City.

I'm not asking that we suddenly be aligned with all raiders or all gunners. Maybe just a group of them. And while I wouldn't want to end up in a position of leadership within these factions, the option would be nice.

And yeah I wouldn't mind betting on robot races or competing in the Combat Zone for chems and caps. We sort of had a version of the Combat Zone in the DLC for Fallout 3 called The Pit. So this stuff is possible.

I have been looking into faction ID codes in Fallout 4 but like Skyrim there doesn't seem to be any specific groups. Example in Skyrim I could make forsworn friendly but it made ALL forsworn friendly. Seems the same in Fallout.

Yeah, good point Irwin, you would probably still be able to battle other Raiders, but there would probably need to be some mechanic to be able to talk to them as well. Even if they are "enemies" to each other, it seems that they do discuss trading or for instance bet making. Perhaps just a few of these places (like the ones mentioned) would be more amenable to you. Its super disappointing that combat zone and the racetrack are kill on sight dungeons....

Although making the race track robots blow up is super fun. I highly recommend playing that area in such a way that they never send the robots after you, so you can command them to blow up yourself!