Yeah, I don't really get the appeal of sticking with a single playthrough so long that all you can do is keep killing and looting at the same respawn sites over and over again. If you really haven't had your fill of the game yet, why not start over with a different character design?

Agree with OP...On 3rd play through no fast travel, so sock of the lame radiant quests already...Hate to say it but until GECK comes out and the quest makers start showing up in force or DLC drips the game is a shell of what it should've been.

Crunch gets it

Yeah, I think it was built this way specifically so that multiple people could be working simultaneously on various aspects without worrying about saving their progress. It's super-easy to merge the changes between .ESP files if they don't conflict. The only thing I really dislike about it is undoing something. If you find you made a mistake and have no prior .ESP to roll back to...my god. It's sooo annoying. (I've rebuilt mods from scratch rather than try to fix 1 or 2 little things because it was actually faster that way sometimes.)

In part, some of your "design flaws" are the fault of the player base and as odd as this may sound to some people, BGS's willingness to listen to the players.

A lot of what you see in Fallout 4, was being discussed in these forums as far back as Fallout 3's release.

One of the things that the majority of the people wanted was to continue to play after the main quest was completed. Fallout 3 ended at the main quest and in order for BGS to "give the people what they wanted" they had to retcon their own ending. People wanted to play on and on after the game ended and continue to develop their character. There is no way BGS or any other game studio can create an map large enough filled with enough unique quests that would allow someone to play the game indefinitely and pack it all on anyone's hard drive much less be able to do it in the three or four years of development time allotted. If you don't like doing the same set of quests and clearing the same area and looting the same chest over and over again, you should have been here on these forums lending your voice to the "No the game should end when the main quest does" minority.

People have complained that BGS has taken Fallout 4 in a new direction and it isn't the same as it was. This is true, but your complaint that there is no opportunity for a diplomatic resolution is a complaint that BGS has taken Interplay's lead. There has never been a diplomatic resolution between the major factions in any Fallout game. The closest that there has been to a diplomatic resolution was in one of the endings in Fallout: NV but that was no resolution but a rather fragile truce, since everyone is still staring through gun sights at everyone else. At least one faction always is defeated in the Fallout universe and usually destroyed. This should not be a surprise to you, or did you actually believe the catch phrase for the entire Fallout series, "Diplomacy. Diplomacy never changes."

Yes the factions are comprised of sentient creatures. You pretty much cannot have a faction made up of beings that have no awareness of themselves and their surroundings. That does not mean they must be peaceful or even reasonable.

The Minutemen are by far the most reasonable faction in the Commonwealth. All you have to do to keep them from going on a killing spree is to not attack them or those they protect. They function as a para-military police force that is normally in a defensive posture (that's normally, not always) but will become very aggressive if you threaten them, or the people they protect. You leave them and theirs alone, they will probably leave you alone. Initially they are non-hostile to all other major factions. Initially, their only enemies are raiders and super mutants (as strange as it may seem, these are perceived as threats to themselves and those they protect).

The BoS are basically both technophiles and technophobes. There is bad technology, there is good technology and there is good technology that is too powerful for the average wastelander. On the West Coast the BoS will take the too powerful technology away from you and will kill you if you resist. On the East Coast the BoS won't do anything about your possession of too powerful technology (they won't like it, but they won't do anything about it) unless you start shooting at them. FEV and synths (among other things) are classified as bad technology and they will kill you for using it or harboring it.

Right or wrong, the Railroad believes that the Gen3 synths are self aware and self actualizing. There is an ongoing debate among them as to whether the Gen1 and Gen2 synths should be included in this category. Their one and only goal is to rescue synths from bondage and get them some place where the synth can live a "normal" life.

The Institute are pure technophiles. They never ask themselves if they should do something, their only concern is if they can do something. Anyone that is not a member of the Institute is a potential test subject. While initially not overtly aggressive, they are very aggressive covertly. They DO replace people with their synth infiltration units. Whether they have in the past or not, they do currently seek to keep the Commonwealth in an unstable state as a self defense measure. They have kidnapped people of the Commonwealth and experimented on them. They have used the FEV on some of their test subjects. Considering the number of super mutants infesting the Commonwealth, this has probably happened to more than a just handful of wastelanders. Right or wrong, the Institute regards synths simply as machines. Synths are property, nothing more than a sophisticated electric toothbrush. The escapes of synths are viewed as programming errors and nothing more. Once the bugs in the programming are corrected, there will be no more synths believing in self determination.

The average wastelander in the Commonwealth views the Institute as the boogieman. A shadowy organization that comes in the night and takes people away, never to be seen again. They have been known to replace people with their synth infiltration units. There is a debate going on in other threads as to whether the Institute actually tried to help set up the Commonwealth Provisional Government or sent infiltration units in to kill the delegates. What really happened is in doubt, but what really happened ultimately doesn't matter. The average wastelander believes the Institute killed all the delegates and the Institute has done nothing to disabuse them of this idea, As a matter of fact, everything the Institute does only reinforces this idea. Most wastelanders agree with the BoS and view synths as an abomination and will destroy any they find.

There is no diplomatic approach that can reconcile these differences. The Railroad believes synths are essentially, people. The Institute regards them as toasters. Even if you could convince the Institute that synths are people (which you can't), they still need them as a workforce and won't let them go. As Director the SS could in theory end synth production, but the Institute is still going to need a workforce.

The BoS (and the wastelanders in general) believe that synths are bad technology and need to be destroyed. Even if the synths didn't exist, the BoS would be frothing at the mouth over the experiments with FEV. If you don't understand that last bit, you really need to read up on the origin of the Brotherhood of Steel. The BoS WILL destroy the Institute and if they can, the knowledge pertaining to synth production and FEV, or be destroyed trying.

While it is conceivable that the Railroad and the BoS could work together to destroy a common enemy (the Institute), that alliance would only last until the Institute was destroyed. You could never be able to convince the Railroad to allow the Brotherhood to hunt down all synths and destroy them, and you could never be able to convince the Brotherhood that synths must be helped. With the Institute out of the picture, there is no common ground.

The Minutemen are a wildcard. Early in the game they can pretty much go in any direction you wish to take them. As an organization, they have no strong opinions about the other major factions since initially they do not perceive the other three major factions a threat to the stability they are trying to gain. Their only real concern is that they want the raiders and super mutants to stop killing settlers and caravans. Because of their history, individuals in the Minutemen could easily have a grudge against the Gunners, you could consider a major minor faction. The Minutemen's ranks are drawn from the general population, who dislike the Institute and Railroad. They are apprehensive of the Brotherhood when they show up. Late in the game, they will have a real problem with the Institute when their settlements start getting attacked by synths. The Minutemen can have mistrustful but peaceful relationships with the Railroad and/or the Brotherhood of Steel, but the attacks by the Institute synths preclude and sort of peace with them. Again, as Director the SS could halt the synth attacks on settlements, but by then the damage has already been done. Any peace between the two will have to wait at least another generation.

This is basically the way the story was written. This is the way it has always been written. Somebody always gets wasted in Fallout. It is true that there isn't much diplomacy in Fallout 4, but even in the games that had a lot of it, if you wanted to complete the main quest, you eventually had to pick a side and do some killing.

This, I think, anyone will start to feel about any title after multiple playthroughs. I know I played Fallout 1 and 2 over and over without them ever feeling dull, but times were different then. Expectations were not so high, the tech wasn't up to the incredible levels it eventually leapt to, and I was a lot younger and less jaded!

On the whole, I still think the game is great. (I made my negatives known in no uncertain terms in another post. There were still more positives.)

Yeah understandable that Bethesda has gone down the kill route.

What sense makes it to make quest with different, actually a lot solutions, when the players even the so called big big big roleplayers simply ignore it. If you ask them you get the answer: Didn't know it was there (so they didn't even try it).

So it happend with Paradise Falls in FO3.

No one left? Well, more likely people would band together for common defense. There would be mercenary groups who would defend their holdings against all comers at the drop of a hat, perhaps groups of heavily armed cutthroat bandits raiding from fortified positions, and perhaps groups of more common people setting up farms and villages under the protective eye of a warlord who would arbitrarily decide the use of resources, and who would enjoy his protection and who would not. Of course he'd have to be strong and ruthless, but maybe also a caring individual who puts his people or followers first in all things.

I guess that would mean there would be Gunners, Raiders, and Settlements all fighting life and death struggles for resources...

You can actually become/ally yourself to the zombies, just saying.

Number 3 above...... I think it is a limited re-spawn, is it not..... similar to most previous Fallouts.

Number 5 above...... I found that my low Charisma Perk, which encompasses the Speech skill, was very much tested and found to be lacking, when trying to convince a person to pay up on her debt. With my obvious low Charisma, and Speech, in comparison to hers, the dialogue options were such that there was no way I was ever going to win the conversation. So much for there being no Speech test, or role-play, it's not true, there is both.... in my opinion anyway.

Number 6 above...... I think my first statement covers that, in a way.

There really is more to this game, under the hood.

Truer words couldn't be said. It's also why I used to love these games.

On a side note: I'm a younger gamer that grew up almost exclusively on FPP titles, so after giving the older Fallout games a try post-Fallout 3 I was incredibly surprised that they became some of my favorite all time games.

Despite the fact that I don't particularly care for isometric views, I found the factions/characters, gameplay choices and RPG mechanics had presented me an even more free experience than TES games even.

Journey is a great pacifist game, but is probably "indie" as well. That's one I'd highly recommend.

Already forgotten the fiends outside Vault 3 (there is no way to not kill them) and the convicts (while you can sneak in, Beagle still does kills)?

You know, if you were more interested in the story instead of just killing everything in sight, you could eavesdrop while hiding and learn that they are terrified of you. They don't know that it is you, personally, but they know someone is out there wiping out raider groups. Some of the conversations you can overhear are about your exploits. How some of them want to quit the group they are in and move on to a stronger group. Have you never wondered why they sometimes address you as "Boogieman" instead of "Rookie" when fighting you.

What the hell kind of excuse is that to not have a variety of ways to go through a quest? And where is this source of information that is telling you a significant amount of players are ignoring these other options to the point Bethesda has taken note of it and thus designed their quest with only a shooty shooty bang bang solution?

There's always that balance to strike between the action and the talking. Out of the 3 modern Fallouts I think Fallout 3 did it in the way I like the best. Fallout 4 is heavily skewed towards action, New Vegas is heavily skewed towards talking, whereas Fallout 3 is a happy medium. I find that often times in Fallout 4 I wish there were more peaceful interactions with people, more big NPC-run settlements for me to chat around with in depth. I also find in New Vegas that I spend a lot of time traveling through areas that have almost no combat to be had, and that shooter action that so many people enjoy is diminished when with all of the themes of cowboy heroes and "Big Iron On His Hip" it seems that the eastern frontier is already tamed a fair bit.

But yeah, Fallout 3 is a happy medium for me. There's a lot of quests revolving around really cool and/or wacky settlements and societies that have all sorts of interesting stuff going on, but then travelling through the Wasteland is as dangerous as it should be, and you get that shooter action alongside the feeling that you are living in a rough and harsh world where might makes right instead of a place that is losing the frontier spirit that the Falloutverse emanates. I'm sure other people enjoy the talky talky much more than the shooty shooty, but I think the game is at its best when they are equally balanced instead of at the extremes.

I haven't actually heard them talking about me that way yet, but maybe I haven't got that far into the game. I did read "someone wiped out Jader's gang" on a terminal. They're stilll full of bravado in my combats. But if they are terrified of me, that's all the more reason for them to want to negotiate rather than attacking all random passersby. I just assumed the boogeyman stuff was because I was hiding and they couldn't find me.

It seems to me it shouldn't be that hard to figure out that the Minuteman General is responsible. The Minutemen are not a secretive organization. And hell, I've been talked about in the newspaper and on radio. They might not have a good physical description, but if I'm wearing power armor, it shouldn't be too hard to guess that I'm not easy pickings.

It's not a excuse . It's simple cause and effect at least what I think about it.

My source is many talks here on Bethesdas forum. It was astonishing how many (actually all) of these people who hold the RPG flag high (higher as it should been hold) has gone the kill, kill, kill route with Paradise Falls. Same over at another prominent forum.

Who says you can't complete a quest in different ways?

I just retrieved the locket from Sophia Station without killing anybody. Sneak man! Sneak!

I've also just killed Kendra without ever touching any of her goons.

Honestly, it's not that hard. You don't HAVE to kill absolutely everybody if you do it right.

Yeah I have pretty much the same opinion. Waiting literally half an hour until the (actually not so informative and well played) introduction dialoge of a DLC is done, isn't fun anymore.

Even so, your argument boils down to "here is one quest in one game that people chose the Kill! Kill! Kill! route when other options for avaialble", therefore there's no point in EVER giving a non-violent option. Ever think that maybe it was something about that particular quest rather than a preference for killing in all circumstances? Maybe people particularly dislike working with slavers, for example?

Balance is best. I find that the DLC often strays pretty heavily from the base game in terms of that Balance. I find that things like OWB had a great balance, with some great exploration to be had in Big MT alongside the shooter action, and the talking being some of the funniest stuff in the game. Whereas stuff like Mothership Zeta or Operation Anchorage remind me more of a linear shooter which I really don't like, but then stuff like Broken Steel and Point Lookout had pretty much the same balance as the base game which is fantastic.

Im sure the DLC for Fallout 4 wont be any different in terms of how much they vary from the base game. And then there's TES6 and Fallout 5 which will most likely be completely different in terms of strengths and weaknesses over Fallout 4. That's one thing I know I can always count on with Bethesda, the things that may be strong or weak being compeltely different from release to release.

I've actually found a few quests in FO4 that seem like straight-up shooters that can be solved without shooting. I'm wondering if perhaps I didn't see the alternatives in many of them simply because I didn't look, or was focused on the violent solution.

1 & 2) Fully agree here. One of my biggest wants for all future TES/Fallout games is fully fleshed out groups of enemies, ideally each being distinguishable and unique, and it was honestly something I was expecting in Fallout 4. In my eyes its the logical progression in a game such as Fallout; where Raiders where enjoyed in FO3, there was criticism of their kill-everything-in-sight ethos, and so it feels like Bethesda dropped the ball by not giving them character, and by not making large chunks of them interactable with in unique ways.

There are elements I really enjoy about them, for example taking out one raider group actually shows up on another raider groups terminals, that took me by surprised and left a smile on my face (with me thinking 'yup, I did that'). I also love the Gunner positioning on highways, with windmills that can be seen from a far distance. These elements however also show how much potential there could have been had the Gunners and Raiders not been treated in the way they do. If there was one thing I could change... it'd be levelling system, but this'd be second, and if FO5 has unique distinguishable factions, ideally warring with one another, I'd happily throw a 100 quid Bethesda's way.

3) I actually like that certain things respawn. It is a mechanic that could be made more immersive and interesting. Based on the above points of 1 and 2, it'd be fantastic if areas respawned with different factions taking control of it, and if they'd comment on what they saw on initially arriving. That being said I much prefer the current respawn system to previous games being empty. Arguably the previous method enforced a need to explore, you could arguably chill out around Sanctuary, Concord and the nearby areas and hit level 50 in this game without ever venturing outwards if you enjoy grinding; though I am not sure if I would call that bad gameplay design, more bad gamer (who probably needs to go out and look for a job) ethic in gaming.

4) Again I think Bethesda where trying to do something interesting here, but I agree with you in that I feel like it backfired and is generic and boring. Radiant quests really need to be re-worked for future games to be more interesting, and more opportune, and it feels like there is a lot of potential with them. Not sure how they would do it, but if this system in its exact format if taken forward into future games it would really leave a sour taste in gamers mouths.

5) To be honest I think this sort of goes back to your first points about the game being one that revolves around the kill. I think for FO5/TES 6 Bethesda need to work their levelling system before touching the rest of the game, and then revolving every quest around the levelling systems design. Doing that would mean that quest-makers will ideally be influenced to add alternative pathways to quests, thus ideally making them more interesting. I can see why it is not the case in FO4, I cant even imagine how difficult this method of design would be, but I think it is a necessity for their future games.

6) Im assuming you mean with the main four factions? I can see why you would like this element but I actually think this is not such a bad thing. Each faction with the exception of the minutemen is very set-in-stone with their values and ethics, and are all essentially anti-one another. How can the railroad ever undergo diplomatic talks with BoS?

Well, it wouldn't surprise me if that was the case (and certainly the high charisma perks can be used for some of them)...but if I'm not looking for the alternatives, it's because the game has conditioned me to assume there are none. Because I resolved many, many quests in New Vegas in other ways.

I like this game so much because there are so many variations or permutations of how to acheive the objective.

I like this game so much because there are so many variations, or permutations, of how to achieve the objectives.

You could even describe this game as a thinking-person’s game, but fortunately (or not) you don’t have to think, smile.