I get pleasure from exterminating Raider scum in my X-01 Power Armor, I make sure to remove their heads from their dead bodies on every single one with my heavy sledgehammer, I only wish I could string them on up on spiked poles myself, send a message to other raiders nearby that there's a bigger badder enemy out there than them, I might invest in the intimidation perk, just so I can make a Raider beg for his life before I put one between his eyes with a .44 Magnum. Ad Victoriam!

Not only that, you find a lot of background information about certain groups in the form of holotapes and messages. (like the gunners being upset with their commanding officer Wes.) I always think I'm going to find out more to the story.. Some reason why these guys should be considered evil and deserve the punishment I'm dishing out.. But I don't. The stories go nowhere and you're left with unanswered questions.. It's kind of like Bethesda forgot there needs to be a motivating factor here. They forgot to add these factions into the main story and forgot to make them a threat to anyone but each other. There's a whole mini-saga thing going on that we don't even get to be a part of.. (except in the eradication of.)

They are also, as far as I've noticed, the only type of animal in the wasteland that does this. Most other types will usually give you a warning or only attack when provoked.

No. Just no...You are talking like a lot of these Raiders are still human. Dude, they are not human. A good amount of them are probably in the early stages of being a Raider but the vast majority of them are flat-out not human anymore and deserves to be slaughtered like evil little pathetic creatures.

Now, this would make more sense if they were bandits but they are not.

It is fun to see mention in one raider warlord's terminal that one of his rivals was wiped out recently, only to remember that it was I who wiped them out. I like how all of these gangs are tied together in some capacity or another.


My favorite link is between the Triggermen at the brewery and those sister warlords out west. The Triggermen kidnapped the younger sister for ransom, but ended up accidentally killing her. On the other side of the map, we can go through the surviving sister's notes and learning that she never learned her sibling's fate. She was close, and suspected something was wrong, planned a retaliation to save the sister she thinks still lives... and then the Sole Survivor showed up and blew her brains out.

I mean, I'm not saying she was a good person or anything, but most of us can relate to familial bonds like that, and I can totally sympathize with the desperation in her tone when trying to come up with a solution that wouldn't get her sister killed. It was depressing that she died without any closure, even more so given that her killer was the only person outside the Triggermen who knew the full story.

I go after anything that shows up red on my compass morality be damned. \o/

Yeah the game makes sure to tell you a lot about the story of raiders, you see them burying their friends, struggling to protect their families, their traumatic pasts, etc, and you kinda realize they are just as human as you with their own motivations, Bethesda even made sure to give a background story to Kellog, they made villians and evil doers in this game be part victims and even if their actions cannot be justified, you can understand their logic, remain as a good person in a world where darwinism seems to be the norm can be really difficult, and many of those who try and keep their morals don't really last long. They simply adapted to their enviroment in order to survive just like humans tend to do. Even super mutants and ferals are not really evil at all.

Maybe it cannot be noticed gameplay wise, but the background given to the enemies in this game, this time around, is much better.

My immediate thought tends to be "I'm in power armor, carrying an armory of weapons that will waste your leather-clad, pipe-pistol weilding behind before you can fire. Does that mean you'll stand still when I see you?"

What bugs me with the random raiders out in the wild is that They still shoot me most of the time even if I'm just passing their shack from distance, guns showing or not. Especially the low level ones, why can't there be some mechanic where they compare the level difference and if they are lower enough, they don't actively attack unless you go close. Same goes for all human enemy types. Many a time I would have just wanted to pass such places but them starting to shoot me draws me into their places and kills them, while by the looks alone it was clear that'd be the outcome.

It has a check that if your weapon greatly out performs theirs (such as gauss rifle vs pipe rifle) and you have high enough resistance then they panic and run, but a "leave me alone" AI check would be nice though.

But nah, no sympathy from me for these raiders since come on! They string people up with chains and use them as decorations and are self aware of their insanity.

I've never thought that killing Raiders was evil. I mean, yeah when the one shouts about me killing the other, I feel bad. But when I take the time to tastefully arrange the first one into a dignified pose, they say absolutely nothing. When, in a blind rage at having been ignored, I shoot off the corpses limbs and once again lure the second Raider back, they still fail to comment. So, no I don't feel too evil killing them all.

Then again, I am the kind of person who uses grenades to see what's around blind corners, so mayhaps you should take this with a grain of salt.

You guys just found out raiders are human? I've know that for awhile. Don't let it bother you. You're human too and they still try to kill you. That's just how the world works.

I snuck up on a legendary raider who was talkin about using the money from his last raid to get away from these crazy people and go clean. I was like awww. Then I stabbed him 8 times with a stealth combat knife. Then I ate him. That's just life.

Also true in all history, it is perfectly valid to kill those people, even preeminantly

Absolutely. But that doesn't make them evil. Anglo Saxons were completely in the right to kill Viking raiders as they camped in their lands, but that doesn't mean that the Vikings were evil.

I bet if you asked the Anglo Saxons they probably would have considered Vikings evil. Heck, I consider part of their culture (the part that raided, murdered and pillaged) evil. Nobody *thinks* they're evil but some are.

Well yeah, some of the Saxons even thought that the Vikings were a punishment from God, or living demons sent by the Devil. Regardless, they were neither. They were people from another culture that did some [censored] things like raiding for their own benefit. But plenty of these same raiders would eventually return home and live normal lives with their families and do their own share of good deeds. I'm not defending the practice of raiding. Of course it's an atrocious act. I'm just saying that humans are more complex than "evil because they did X" or "good because they do Y". The Vikings were just an example. And I agree with you that some certainly were evil, just as some of Fallout's raiders are.


And I also don't think someone has to be evil for you to be justified in killing them. I'd feel justified in shooting a robber if I felt my life was in danger, but the poor soul may very well have needed the money quickly and resorted to an unfortunate means of obtaining it that he normally wouldn't have.

We're not talking about someone sneaking in and stealing your goods. We're talking about people coming in committing wholesale murder and the survivors probably suffered abuse as well. They never sneak in, they come in weapons blazing. They live on the deaths of others. They *are* evil. How many have to die so one should live?

They may have been desperate and they made a choice that their lives were worth more than dozens of others. That the abuse of people was their due. They could have joined the settlement but they chose murder instead. That *is* evil.

Just kill them all.

They made the choice to shoot at you, so shoot back, and shoot to kill.

That and they traded more often than raided, and held legitimate government in Jórvík. Like many other cultures that relied on raiding, taking goods from neighbourhood tribes is simply one survival technique among many. Loads have done it due to economic hardships or low resources, others do it for prestige and to flaunt their might to better hold influence.

Fo4 raiders don't seem to show that level of complexity, though. The ground seems plenty fertile with rich productivity, and new communities are coalescing. Biggest reason I can see for Commonwealth raiders to exist is the political instability and continuing violence forcing many out of the comforts of a safe life (Minutemen dissolution, etc). As it stands, I'd assess Fo4 raiders to be closer to loosely-organized, violent criminal gangs than anything resembling the Great Khans, who actually did raid out of necessity while also engaging in agriculture, mercenary work and some trade.

Like I said, I'm not gonna try to justify the actions themselves. Murdering and raiding are certainly evil acts. But I don't think that commiting them makes a person evil by default. It might make them cowardly, or weak, or evil depending on their reasoning behind it, but I do believe that there are plenty of other factors in determining someone's "goodness" or "evilness" than their actions. Motive, for instance, should come into play. And honestly, culture as well. I definitely think that cultures can have evil aspects to them, like the Vikings raiding, but when that being okay is all they know from birth to death, they are not entirely to blame. Especially when they do it for reasons such as survival, or even better, protecting/providing for others.


Compare that to, say, someone like Pickman, a raider type who kills for fun, or Walter White, who was in a position where he fully knew he was unnecessarily hurting others and knew it was wrong, but wouldn't stop, and you can see a clear difference in character.

Evil does not exist, although a lot of religious nutheads try to act otherwise. There are only different human interests and shades of grey. Although sometimes the grey is almost as dark as it can get which makes decisions easier.

The raiders chose a form of life that threatens me and other people. That's enough for me to shoot. I don't feel morally justified in many cases of violence. I cannot count on self-defense always because I sometimes kill people before they see me to minimize the threat that they will shoot at me. That's not self-defense, that's war or better, murder. But in the wasted post-nuclear lands I'd better be a bit reckless and cautious. I don't kill people in locations where I can anticipate that people will not attack me, like Diamond City or Goodneighboor. I try to identify every threat before I act. More I cannot do.

Considering Cait or MacCready, both are my favorite companions. Both are problematic persons with a dark past, but they don't try to kill me, help me and I also want to sleep with them. Who am I to act as a morally superior?

Raiders are bad enough, but the ones I really don't get are the Gunners. Supposedly they're these hardass take-any-job mercenaries, but I'm not sure how they ever actually get any jobs, seeing as they seem to shoot everyone on sight just the same as Raiders do.

Agreed that actions don't necessarily encompass someone's entire character and are more a reflection of the circumstances the person is going through. But I've yet to see a hint of morality within the raiders, most of the time it's a bunch of druggies looking for their next fix, who are almost sadistic in nature and take advantage of defenseless people. With that I'll happily show them what it's like to feel defenseless against me in my X-01 power armor armed with a Gatling laser.

Not all raiders are the same. Though a vast majority do seem to be morally depraved sadistic bastards.


I've ran into quite a few who were just trying to survive. Survive at gunpoint, yes. But who am I to judge when the sole surviver basically does the same thing: surviving at gunpoint, making often morally ambiguous choices, looting everything in his/her path of death.

You don't have to be a "religious nuthead" to believe evil exists. It is a concept like any other, and can be justifiably used to describe certain actions and even people. If someone is completely morally depraved to the point where they will do anything to anyone for their own pleasure or benefit, then yes, I will consider that person evil. Probably messed up in the head, but still evil.