Oh, sorry, I thought I was reading a bad fanfic, didn't know you were serious, not to mention how pointless it is to achieve the same goal the MM ending already provided.

ad hominem

seems strange that this is something that people are split on. Come one even in war a peaceful solution is often the objective above kill the enemy.

We are playing a game that gives a huge amount of influence in regards to the story, and by nature of being a video game, we are established as the protagonist of the story. And human nature desires to overcome any obstacle. Resolving a moral dilemma is yet another obstacle. Logically, people are going to try their damnedest to contradict that line because instinct encourages them to.

Personally I love to have a happy ending, peaceful ending, or hope for the future ending. I am not saying there shouldn't be a sad ending, war ending, or hopeless ending.

The minute men ending isn't pointless. That ending has a lot potential to turn the commonwealth into stable government.

Well for the people of the Commonwealth the Brotherhood ending seems pretty happy.

At least they seem very happy to see the back of the Institute and well not the Railroad, nobody really notices that they are gone.

If you turn on them the Railroad dies basically alone and unremembered, their final HQ as their tomb.

The very nature of how they protected their charges (mindwipes) means their passing is unheralded.

Kinda sad, actually.

Well I suppose the Railroad itself continues, although it will take some time for them to re-establish any sort of organisation and they will have to find someone else to direct their ideology towards with either a BOS or Institute victory (I assume that the guy helping Synths leave the Institute won't be doing that anymore after an Institute victory).

It's true, and unfortunate. The Railroad deserves better, such that I would be happy to side with them if I knew there was a way to protect the people of the Institute.

Huh, I seem to be lacking that instinct, as I love games that force me to make some difficult and occasionally unsavory decisions that leave me feeling a bit morally compromised, if I want to achieve some bigger goal. I like to feel I had to give something up to get what I wanted, I just find these stories more emotionally impactful.

I prefer the minutemen ending myself

Idk. I was conflicted as [censored] and didn't like it.

I felt like I was robbed of any and every chance at victory save for destroying the railroad. (their radiant quests pissed me off like no other so i was gleeful when i discovered i got to purge the commonwealth of their taint.)

but the institute? man, okay. I know the institute is wrong. But I didn't feel any joy, elation, or pride when I went in, and only really felt regret when I left. Not really for the institutioners, but because shaun is a colossal assknave.

One thing, for everyone to keep in mind, is that people of different temperament want different things from an RPG. Taking this into account, in this case, is tricky because the http://senseis.xmp.net/?Kikashi (forcing) aspect doesn't leave much room for options (being a dynamic which changes or reduces available options).

In deeper strategy games, kikashi constitutes emergent gameplay in response to an opportunity created by a either a narrow-sighted decision or a short-sighted decision. i.e. if you leave yourself open by neglecting some of the things going on around you, your opponent can work with what you've neglected in the short term, so that s/he can force force your hand in the direction s/he wants it to go in the long term. This usually leads fo a bad-or-worse kind of choice (e.g. your employer giving you the option to either do something illegal or find yourself in breach of contract which was a very common situtation in the late 20th century and I am yet to see any evidence this has changed).

With respect to questlines, I think that a bad-or-worse unsavoury ending would probably fit nicely if set up as a limited decision rubric which was consequent to a specific choice made much further back in the questline. To work, the consequential relationship would have to make very clear sense, at least in hindsight (and preferably without having to have an NPC spell it out).

This is just to point out how things like this can be made to work for everyone.

You can have peaceful ending using my quick method, if you a bit careless about the main quests.

Be with Minutemen, join Railroad, join BOS, avoid any mission that's tasked to eliminate one another, give the teleporter design to Sturges (Minutemen), meet Father, decline his offer, kill him on sight, run, raid the Institute as Minutemen, issue the escape, blow the CIT, enjoy peace between 3 factions.

Done. Be on the lookout, PAM will give you a mission to destroy Brohood. Avoid him when he's offering that mission.

This is tested by myself. It's my first playthrough.

no ending is perfect without the destruction of the institute

they are pretty much evil in my book after all they done and are still plznning

and yes you can have a perfect ending with all 3 other factions at peace

the trivk is to do the main quest in a certain order

make sure you did all the railroad and minuteman faction quests

go and find kellog

cisit the prydwin but DO NOT start the show no mercy quest

go and fins a way into the institute

use the minuteman to get inside the institute

get yourself banned from the institute afer you met the directors

use the minuteman to destroy the institute

and vikla the whole commonwealth is at peace and best of all this ending was even scripted into the game all survung factions will acknowledge your victory

I feel sad that the best "ending" is to ignore the main story.

Think about it, if you ignore the main story you can avoid destroying the factions and just have fun with the areas and some of the toys you get for working with the factions a bit. (minutemen artillery is fun when blowing the hell out of swan)

Not sure if it's been mentioned yet or not, but it IS possible to end the game with the Minutemen, BoS, and Railroad all intact and friendly. It requires a fairly specific process, but it is a legitimate ending with distinct scripted dialog reflecting the fact that three factions are still around. I've done all four of the 'main' faction endings which basically result in the Minutemen+your chosen faction, but I'm in a second play through now and I'm shooting for the three faction ending.

Nah, you can do quests for the Institute and the BoS up to a certain points as well, so you don't have to ignore anything, just as long as it was before the point of no return. Scribe Haylen will speak as if Blind Betrayal has been completed in the MM ending and it was the point of no reason in the BoS route, so they expect you to have already completed that.

well i didn't put much consideration into my "how to's", they were just what i pulled out of thin air while i wrote my post, since they were never meant to be more than examples for my actual point. if i _would_ try to come up with a thought through suggestion though, all you write, esp. the bos-parts, would certainly be things to consider. it's just your conclusion i'm having a problem with

for the easy part, institute / railroad: the "claiming their property back" part you mention is just done with the moment they start treating synths as persons. they don't have a tradition in slaving for all i know anyway the minimal percentage of synths that even WANT to leave the institute is ridiculous anyway, and they can spray new ones with their synth-jet thingie anytime anyway.

the whole institute / railroad conflict is ONLY caused by the institute's stubborn pov in that matter anyway, and since you can become their boss, you can change it, grow your hair and sing "imagine"

gotta admit though, i totally didn't get in my first playthrough (n#2 just getting going) what that people-replaced-by-synths-thing is about, hope i'll find out (wouldn't mind a quick rundown either), might change matters in one or the other aspect

ah yes and for fev etc: people are born and raised in the institute. you can't blame anybody for the system he's born into, and that system's world view will be infused into him without his choice. so, seeing behind everything he's been taught true and real by all his traditions and environments, deciding it's wrong and acting accordingly speaks FOR virgil, NOT against him. for just the same reason, you can't blame anybody alive in the fo4-institute for the existance of fev, since it has existed before any of them were even born. you CAN blame your sonny-boy for continuing on fev experiments though, but that part's dealt with by the game anyway.

the bos-part is a bit harder for me since i never really was into bos that much, but still:

the problem if the brotherhood AS IS in fo4. they're just a total joke. folks that want to 1) save the world from 2) tech and do so by 1) throwing nukes on pretty mich everybody out of 2) vertibirds they even use as friggin' elevators since they apparently can't be bothered to use a rope ladder in their power armors they likely don't even take off when they need to pee? (for them speaks that they grow nirnroot though

and the synths on their "to exterminate" list: gen3's are basically humans with a chip implant - so SINCE WHEN do they have GENOCIDE on their agenda?

and like we hear in the game itself, maxson has changed that agenda from what it used to be in fo3 (which i think i don't need to elaborate on since you certainly know all this better than i do) - that's where they'd need to go back (danse (synth!!) as boss maybe?). the institute would have to change as above with the railroad part and then you could at least make a truce, that'd be all it takes.

you see, for me, when i say "peaceful solution", it's not so much about wanting to drown the commonwealth in harmony (even if i think this SHOULD be an option, if there's any conclusive way to get there anyway, but i don't even want to start to think that through . for me, it's about this: both the institute as well as the bos do wrong things they think are right for reasons they think are good and for good, so in my eyes, they're both just 2 sides of a misguided whackos coin. none of them though is in the classic meaning "evil" or "criminal", quite the opposite both are self righteous as can be and blind to everything else. so, you get into their questlines and on both sides, you meet, well, misguided (see above) though nice people with good intentions you get to like or build up trust with. and then you end up at a point where you'll inevitably have to stab a knife in half of them's backs. and THAT'S what i have a problem with. if it was just about an epic battle between gen1's and pa-freaks, i'd just say ok, let the children play then, know what i mean?

you mean this one?

if so, i'll definitely try that in this playthrough

edit: in my 1st playthrough, i tried a version where, in the bunkerhill quest, i killed x8-86 (did i get the name right? - which i hate having to do -, but did not release the synths and instead directly went to talk with father at the cit. back at the institute, he told me he'll die and made me the boss, and the first quest i got after that was attacking the bos, which i didn't want, so i tried another version :_)

The Institute, as an organization, has committed and is guilty of what are considered "Crimes Against Humanity", which are the highest crimes possible. Individual members, notably Father, Brian Virgil, Clayton Holdren, Justin Ayo, Dr. Zimmer, Dean Volkert, Isaac Karlin, and others are individually guilty of planning and implementing these crimes.

These crimes include, but are not limited to (and some events count as more than one category)--

1) Mass Murder (University Point, Vault 111 in a previous administration)

2) Medical Experimentation on Unwilling Subjects (FEV experiments)

3) Kidnapping, Replacing, and Murdering of civilians by non-Human plants (Replacement Synths)

4) Targeted Political Assassinations (Mayor McDonough, later on Desdemona)

5) Creation of and then later intentional release of the Commonwealth strain of Supermutant

There's a horde of lesser crimes as well surrounding everything and everyone they've flat out murdered. Everyone in the Switchboard, multiple attacks on player settlements, all the work that Kellogg ever did they're responsible for, and finally, assuming McDonough was a synth by the time he was elected, all the ghouls that got turned out into the ruins to die was instigated on their orders.

The Institute, as an organization, is rotten to its very core at the start of the game before you are introduced to Father personally. Even then they sully the player by ordering him to commit murder in assassinating Desdemona.

wow, yeah, sounds pretty bad with your list

(never got to that desdemona-quest though)