I keep reading about how FO4 gives no motivation for the player to actually do anything, including the MQ. Lots to do in the world, some say too much, but no motivation to do anything.

I can only wonder if these people ever played a Bethesda open world game before. Skyrim gave little motivation to ever do the MQ. In fact after dealing with the tower most of my characters went on and retired without ever doing anything else on the MQ. Just no motivation to do it so I was free to role-play anything else I wanted. Ironically when Bethesda tried to add motivation with Dawnguard and the vamp attacks they over did it. The way the non-essential NPC's were being wiped out I had to mod the game to stop it. Sure that was motivation to do the DG MQ, but it was overkill for sure.

I haven't played FO4 and don't really know how the motivation for the MQ will be, but I was wondering how hard do you want the game to push you? Do you want the MQ in your face all the time and have consequences (like dead NPC's) if you don't do it? Or just know it's there and be able to ignore it completely?

I remember someone on Youtube complaining of this when he played Fallout 3. He came out of the vault, expecting corridors and an on rails shooter, and he kind of just had the expanse of the wasteland and demanded that he have a specific mission with objectives, rather than "ask about dad".

In a way, this is good if Fallout 4 still feels like this. It means you can play it how you want, not for some nebulous goal of "finishing the level". In a lot of linear games, you have a boss to hunt down, or a place to infiltrate. In Bethesda's Fallout, and in TES, you have vague main quest goals (maybe "find your family" to begin with in this case). But the main thing is just to experience the world, and live your character's life there.

In modern games it seems at every step the players need to have their hands held with flashing cursors over NPC heads and target markers.

I don't want to have the game 'passively entertain me'

I want to make choices myself at my speed, my pace and in my direction.

I don't see any assessment of Fallout 4 not propelling me along the main quest, to be a fault,.

Main quest is usually the last thing I do. I may do the first few, which is usually escape somewhere, then meet someone, but if I do all the MQ first, then I feel as if I've finished the game and seem to have no motivation to do side quests or faction quests.

So I prefer it if it isn't forced upon you, which I'm 99% sure it won't be. If I couldn't do what I wanted and when I wanted to do it, I wouldn't enjoy it.

Preferably the MQ should be interesting enough that I WANT to do it and some aspects of it nudge me along/have a timer. But otherwise I should be able to do whatever I want. I always give NPCs the side-eye when they say you need to hurry to do X or Y because I know I don't need to hurry, I could wait for two years straight and nothing would happen and that kind of detracts from the narrative weight. At the same time I like Bethesda's approach where I can do things (or not do things) at my own pace so I wouldn't want the whole thing to be on rails.

Yeah kind of like how you are supposed to go to the tower to kill a dragon, but instead you decide to explore the rest of Skyrim first. Three months later you get to the tower and low and behold the dragon's been waiting on you the whole time.

Wow, These are good news. Means Fo4 still being an open world rpg. And still have room for player freedom. I mean you are experiencing a complete world, were you could go wherever you want. Some Cod people find it scary and need a dev hand holding them. For me it's what make this games special because the journey is better than rush a mq.

I'm usually of two minds.

Ideally I like it when the MQ is kind of integral to the game - when things just naturally tie back into it. (Like in New Vegas where for the most part the Main Quest was "meet all these factions and then decide if you like them or not.")

I like when the first Act of the narrative encourages exploring, the second Act sort of introduces the primary conflict, and the third is when you decide to take action in that conflict.

What usually throws me in a Beth game is if the Big Crisis feels so immediate that you start to wonder why your character is collecting mudcrabs when gates to hell are opening all over the world. Their games have been pretty good at balancing that of late though.

On the other hand I'm an old tabletop player. Growing up, good roleplaying meant coming up with motivation for your character to follow the story to some extent. (We like to mess with our GMs sometimes but for the most part the player who always says "my character wouldn't want to visit this haunted house" is boring to play with. For things to move forward you need to think of a reason to motivate your character and not always expect the GM to hold your hand all the way through.)

That's usually my approach to these games - I make a character that will be motivated to run the content that exists in the game. I don't create my character in a vacuum and then expect the game to motivate that character. Roleplaying is supposed to be mutual storytelling after all - you only get back what you put into it.

A very courteous dragon, waiting to start it's rampage of destruction and death until you showed up to stop him.

I wouldn't be surprised if these kind of criticism is coming from people who were brought to the FO shores by the wave of hype. A seasoned TES/FO3 player knows that Beth games don't rush you. It is the player that sets the pace.

It should be like most other Beth game's. You go at the pace that suits you as the player.

I want to see that. Do you remember who it was?

I don't even know what the 'main quest' is, yet. The whole synth thing? The fate of the protagonists family? No, don't spoil it for me if you know.

But replay value is best if all things are optional. I may not want to have to deal with the main quest right off the bat on my second play through.

I know of a few people that played Fallout 3 not knowing what it actually was, the size and of the world scared them from playing it.

I kind of felt bad for them missing out because they lacked the mindset to go and explore. Must svck to only enjoy games that are linear and fixed to rails.

I hope it'll let me set my pace. I prefer to set it aside and go exploring/side questing. F3 was good at that. Look for dad? Not right now. Need to get the hang of the Wasteland first.

Isn't that like every Bethesda game in the past 10 years? Random wandering for random events and activities in random order.

One of my favorite things about Bethesda games is that I can completely ignore the main quest for hundreds of hours and just do my own thing.

I am, of course, interested in the main quest for Fallout 4. I'm just not going to touch it for several months.

If a game have to force you to do the main quest EVENTUALLY, they have failed. One of the reason why I love fallout and elder scrolls so much is that you can ignore the main quest, and do different stuff, which is a major factor for replayability. In skyrim alone I have spent like 600 hours if memory serves, the non-bethesda single player game i have spent most time in is less than 100 hours. Variety and ability to make different choices is the whole point

Nah, it was years ago and the video may not even be up any more.

The main problem with say skyrim i had, was that in the verry start right up to getting the horn of Jurgen Windcaller, you were sort of compelled (almost pushed) to follow the MQ due to otherwise missing out on shouts and such. The whole mechanic of earning dragon souls and words of power was linked to the MQ. While you may still have been able to do so in a way (not sure if dragons even apear before you beat that one at the tower) you were sort of pushed to atleast play till then. This can lead to some people getting enoyed at a lack of freedom at the start.

PS quoting myself here;

This does not mean i felt it shoudnt have been, just that it compells you to do something other then just go off on your own.

I want to be able to ignore it. I probably won't ignore it, because I'll actually want to do it, but the freedom is what's great. It's the reason I was able to enjoy Oblivion despite hating the main quest. I like to do what feels natural - explore in one direction, find a settlement, do quests there and in the immediate area, then once I'm ready to move on I head towards wherever has the most interesting rumors or side quest objectives.

It's actually encouraging to see reviews or opinions that think the game is boring and aimless, because in the context of having the freedom to make your own adventures that's the whole point.

One problem I have with recent games like Inquisition and the Witcher is that there's a "suggested level" for quests/areas. Makes it feel way too "gamey". That's artificial motivation in a way, like "Oh I'm level 12 and completed all the level 12 side quests, time to do the level 12 main quest". I loved both those games, but that's the #1 flaw in both for me. Off-topic, but #2 for me is the mini-map, another "gamey" feature. I tend to pay more attention to the path I need to take on the map than to the surroundings. I much prefer Bethesda's radar thingy.

Yeah, agree on both points, its better if the enviroment and quest simply scale to your level, rather then incourage you to level up first. Also, a minimap is more a FPS/MMO thing, i rather like the compas thing too, subtle enought not to bother you, yet handy when you want to navigate. (Even if there are no quest markers on it.)

There will always be those that feel a game should tell you what to do rather than leave you to your own devices.

No motivation, tho? Come on, it's a video game, go out and poke something with a stick. Explore. Enjoy.

I wasn't a huge fan of Fallout 3's MQ. I enjoyed it, but felt that there was a real sense of immediacy that made me feel like my character needed to do the next mission right away for the story to feel right. New Vegas didn't have a very good MQ, but I liked how your quest for revenge never felt rushed, and how the war was cold until you wanted to fight the final battle.

I think the poll speaks for itself ...