Hey guys,

I love Fallout 4 with all of its huge area to explore, fun combat, interesting side-quests etc, but I'd like to give my opinion on the main character and story.

Basically, whoever i converse with, I can't forget that i'm the wronged father that's searching for his son. I don't want to be a wronged father all the way through the game, I don't want to search for Shaun, I don't want that backstory, or the lacklustre voice that keeps reminding me of who i'm supposed to be.

I'm the type of player that plays Bethesda games for hundreds of hours with mods, years after they came out, and I can honestly say that if an Elder Scrolls game was released where i'm forced to play a character as specific as this one, I wouldn't buy it, and it pains me to say that as ES is my favourite series.

Restricting the player like this is in my opinion, a huge step backwards. I remember Todd once saying that the world is the star and not the character, i hope they go back to that way of allowing the player to express themselves and find out what they want to be, in their next game.

Just to finish off, I'm not saying i'm right, i know this is entirely subjective, but that's how i feel about it after being a Bethesda fan since Morrowind.

Thanks for sharing.

When I left the vault as 'Nora' I chose every despondent speech choice.

Moped around Sanctuary Hills for game days.

But as she started to handle the wasteland, her long term goal remained

but she started to adapt.

Even later, she had the opportunity to get a new hairstyle from her sharp lawyer cut to something wilder.

All of this is head canon - the game doesn't disagree because the flexibility is there.

So a step backward?

Not in my opinion, a big step forward.

I'm not really sure what you mean by 'she started to adapt'. I don't want to give any spoilers away, but i'm quite far in the game and i'm still having regular conversations with regard to myself as 'the father looking for his son', which alongside the voiced aspect (the quality of which i feel is poor), just re-enforces that fixed and restrictive role. As for the haircut, well I don't feel that changes much tbh.

+1. Would be ok with it if the dialog was more diverse - if you could just RP your character to just ignore your son, speak indifferently about finding him or be an ass about it. The voice protagonist and the limited dialog options just don't let you.

If you had a son, would you talk about him that way? Even if he was an infant? That just does not seem likely to me, even if you roleplay a sadistic bastard.

If you roleplay a sadistic bastard (I always roleplay extremes, either bad or good - that's why I don't like the rp possibilities in this game), of course you would talk to him this way. If you compare this to real life and what can happen in the world that's the least bad thing a father who is a sadistic bastard can do to you.

There should at least be some options which are more extreme. FO3 and FNV had plenty of those.

Bethesda seems to want to be more like Dragon Age and Witcher 3.

Which is a shame.

But is this really that different from the Lone Wanderer?

I don't see it as that much of a bother to be fair.in fallout 3 your a child looking for their father, the dialog options let you ignore this as you might not care about finding your parent, your PC might just presume they are dead and get on with life in the wasteland.

However the roles are reversed in FO4, your a parent looking for their child.which means of course your going to ask everyone about it and be known as the parent looking for their kid.take films for example,taken,the forgotten and various others, a parent would never stop looking for their kid

That's the thing, though.

I'm really surprised there's not an option to have S.S. say, "I think my son is dead."

Or something otherwise despondent.

I mean, it's a frigging LONG SHOT he's okay.

I didn't want to be the lone wanderer, I didn't give a crap about my deadbeat nutty dad and the project he was willing to die for. I didn't care about my village, but that weird dude kept sending me dreams, I didn't care about those guys in the vault so I didn't want to waste my time looking for a water chip.

What I mean is, this is the set pattern for fallout games you have a main story mission with a more or less set background for the protagonist and you have had this in every numbered fallout game so how is this a step backwards when its the same as the earlier games?

I'm not seeing a real difference between F3 and F4 in the fact that you are searching for a family member and you have a set background, if anything F4 is more loose since they don't go much into your background pre-war beyond the your family and F3 actually had you playing parts of your childhood.

yeah that's a good point. I guess i'm seeing this through elder scroll fan eyes.

Which is understandable, I've hundreds of hours in Skyrim without every doing the main quest after my first playthrough. The Elder Scrolls is much better at having a clean slate for the protagonist to simply explore the world and create your own story, Fallout always had a different style with a more or less set background.

Yeah, you've never actually been "the dude with no past."

Even in New Vegas, you can't be Grognack the Barbarian Tribal or some other mystery man since your character had a job as a postman.

I started losing interest in the story after the Memory Den and when I realized that Teleportation would play a major part in the story - It did not even feel like Fallout after that point for me

But, yeah. I was a supporter of the voiced PC and wheel at first glance but now I realize what was sacrificed and the extent of it which has gutted the dialogue system - My favorite aspect of the Fallout series from Fallout 1-3. Shame

I agree with the OP.

The way the main story is structured, it makes it hard to deviate from the path unless you are a really bad person.

I really have no idea how modders are gonna make an Alternate Start mod

where you can play as a Commonwealth Wastelander from birth, and STILL

have it somehow tie into the main story quest.

Gonna be REALLY challenging IMO.

The game which has 8ft tall green giant Trolls and Zombies has its suspension of disbelief broken by teleportation?

Because there's an explanation as to how there came to be 8 feet tall giant green trolls and zombies. Teleportation feels more like 'space'-scifi, not 'post-apocalyptic'-scifi.

I'm more into the Elder Scrolls MO of having the PC be a no-name ex-prisoner. I'm having some cognitive dissonance issues as I build up my settlements trying to forget that my character just witnessed his wife murdered and his child kidnapped.

Considering how high tech the Institute is, i'm perfectly fine with teleportation.
This is coming from someone who REFUSES to fast travel due to it being immersion breaking.

At this point, it's like my character isn't even after his son anymore... I've been balls deep in running around, helping the minute men and going back and doing side quests for BOS. Don't know when I'll actually finish the main story line but for the time being I don't feel at all like I've been forced into playing a set in stone character.

You're certainly not forced by the game, but if you are a parent like some of us are, it's just really...ugh. On the one hand, it's just a game, and I'm playing it that way, but on the other, I have a 1 year old son and everything I'm doing in the game is so utterly unrealistic given that the PC's son was kidnapped, it can be distracting at times. I really don't like jumping into main quests but the story line they've given us strongly encourages that. Anyone here who is a parent knows how insane with grief you would be and how motivated you would be to find your child. You would literally go around and ask every person you come across if they've seen your son and nothing in the world would matter other than that.

I've actually been very happy with the background, but maybe that is because I am practically new to Fallout and have never been a fan of post-apocalypse anything.

That said, I do sometimes feel like I'm going slightly "out of character" whenever I try to pick more aggressive responses. As the female lead supposedly you studied law and waited patiently for your husband's millitary service to be over, that kind of character would likely be more calculated and calm. So there are some restrictions.

And I can still understand you. I can imagine that I would find it a bit of a hinderance in Skyrim with a similar story compared to the open Oblivion.

Well, that's the thing, though. The Institute isn't limited by the tech of old but has made their own in the past 200 years.

Also, ELECTRICITY CAN DO ANYTHING!

THUS SPEAKS TESLA!

Well it would be impossible to make it seamless because of voice-overs.

I tried being an evil person and I just couldn't. At most I could be a ...jerk. The options aren't there...

and what category would you put "running around a flying saucer fighting aliens" in? Mothership Zeta was space scifi, as was Old World Blues. It's as much a part of the Fallout universe as supermutants and evil bosses on oil-rigs.