After reading all the recent game reviews about newly released Skyrim and how there is a "random quest generator" making an almost endless playing experience I am really hoping they add this to Fallout 4. Would anyone else like to see this feature added? I know allot of people in the US haven't played Skyrim yet, as I still have 10 hours until Steam unlocks the game, but I wanted to get some opinions on this feature for FO4.

Theoretically a great idea but practically not sure how effective it would be. As it must have a set amount of variables to generate a random quest.

No i wouldnt like that in a fallout "4" i would much prefer a ton of well written quests with many ways to approach and many ways to complete than to have an infinite number of fetch quests and dungeon crawling, ive been playing skyrim and thats one of the things that annoys me the quests are all watered down most of the main thieves guild quests involved dungeon crawling and fighting rather than stealing and stealth... so i dont care about the random generic quests i think they should have well written dynamic quests that react to how you play.

I would like it but I'm not sure about other people.

-Cheers

I think there should be a handful for fetch quests but most of the quests should be written the old fashion way.

I'd rather not have them, at least not in great or even moderate numbers, because they mostly equal only to one linear and largely plotless fed-ex mission repeating itself, which does not really add anything worthwhile to the game after the first few.

If they are using the Skyrim engine, they should go ahead and throw the feature in so long as it doesn't distract from actual written quests. At the very least some repeatable jobs like Caravan Guarding in the originals should be reintroduced.

/sigh the good ol' days of having a caravan being ambushed by a dozen super mutants with miniguns and rocket launchers while all I have is a stupid hunting rifle and leather armor, or it could have no enemies encountered. It was a gamble and you at least had the option of fleeing from the scene as the mutants are distracted by mowing down the caravan.

This ^

Random quests just thrown out there just seems like another why Bethesda can save on writers. I don't want Fallout 4 to be nothing but go fetch quests. I want my actions to have consequences, as they do in Fallout, Flalout 2, Fallout Tactics and New Vegas. The more random the quest the less consequences there can be..

Very few of the quests in Fallout 3 had any consequences. Can blow up Megaton and no one seesm to give a crap :facepalm:

TES and Fallout are two very different series.. They will end up having the same engine but that should be where the similarities end.

Honestly, if the random quests are what I think they are in Skyrim (I haven't played enough to be able to decipher what misc quests are generic and which are actual mini-quests.) then I might not have a problem with it in Fallout.
Basically it's:
1. Go to Bar.
2. Ask Barkeep for work.
3. She/he hands you a bounty.
4. Go take care of bounty.
5. Collect reward.

It's basically two additional dialogue lines, one for male, one for female and then a bounty note.
Since this thing is already done they might as well just throw it in there.
I mean, unlimited caravan runs? Hell yeah.
Unlimited bounties to collect? I don't see why not.

Course, I'll have to get back to ya'll on this subject once I've figured out more about this "generic quest" thingie.

So how is that different from being able to do caravan runs in the Originals? Not really something new but I would like that part back but I would still like to have the guy say "come back on the 20th of the month." That isn't really random though.

As for the bounties.. I am not sure how that would work. The guy just tells you to go out and kill a random unnamed NPC? Seems pretty pointless to me. The only way it would make any sense would be for the the bounties to be on named characters but that isn't random.

Oh no, the bounties has names and directions.
Besides, how many caravan runs can one do before repetition kicks in?

Same with these bounties, at some point you'll see through the bounties and see them for what they really are, repetitive.
But until then, they can be fun to do, and it can help with roleplaying.
Of course there should be real quests for it, preferrably a small quest line for this bounty hunter faction, but once that questline is over, what if your role still wants to claim bounties?
Best just to transfer the system over since it's already there.

I rather the devs put effort into well writen quests instead of pointless go fetch quests that end up being pointless and repetitive.

Then let's not have caravan jobs either.
Or mercenary work.
Or slavery work.
Or anything at all of that nature.

And I agree that they should spend their time on actual quests, what I'm saying is that since this generic quest hingie with bounties is already there in Skyrim all it needs are a few tweaks and it could easily be implemented into Fallout as well and it wouldn't take too much time away from the actual quest design.
And ultimately it could offer a form of steady work which can be used for greater periods of roleplaying.
I think New Vegas could have been a bit more long lasting if I could actually take up generic repetitive quests like caravan guard, bounty hunter, slaver, mercenary or hunter.

Actual quests are things I'll remember, quests that will catch my interest and question my morality.
But when I just want to do something to earn a little extra cash or to expand the role I'm playing then generic quests like these could help a lot.

This.
Its hard to RP a bounty hunter when there are only four Fiend members with bounties on their heads.

Just a tiny little nit pick, but I believe it was the 30th and the 3rd of the month.


This. Fetch quests aren't fun, the only reason people do them is for the award. I honestly didn't enjoy Blood Ties in Fallout 3 and didn't do it until I was like level 18.


Give us some more interogations, I really enjoyed interogating the Cenutrion in Fallout New Vegas.

It should be more over as a conspiracy, like in the second game, but you actually have to think (It was obvious a mutant killed them, infact the game left a note on the ground saying it was that mutie in the bar. I for one would like to have one quest where I have to think what has happened and I need to gather evidence instead of usng my high speech skill to convince them that so-and-so killed so just for teh lulz.

Why not? If those jobs are limited and tied to a greater scheme of things.

"Greeting traveler! New missions are available at the New Haven Bounty Board!"

Tie the random quests into something like a simple bulletin board near a town center or bar. Postings for everything form caravan/homesteader escorts to full on bounty hunting or thin the herd wildlife slaughter quests. Then, occasionally toss in a quest where an NPC approaches the character, with that being the flag that something big is about to go down. Freeing slaves, intercepting a large band of raiders, full on military skirmish alongside some local militia. Quick, simple and clean.

Keep in mind, Fallout takes place in a world. There's more going on than just the PC's main quest line, there's people that still need things done, jobs that still need doing, people that still need killing. All this goes on around the character, and having the option to actually be a part of whatever community the PC is in would help any RPG immensely.

To improve that, as jobs appear on a "job board" or as things just need doing, eventually have them fall off the board after a few days. After all, the reason they're being posted or someone is building a posse is because something needs to get done. The player need not be involved, but the option should be there if we want to.

Quite like a certain amount of randomness in games, job board isn't a bad idea they had them in the other FOs with messages about jobs & traders/shops as well.

The case wouldnt be "one or the either ofc", Skyrim has a lot more quests, and more wellwritten and bigger than those in Fallout 3, and the "random quests" are fun stuff like getting bounty jobs taking down bandit cheifs and stuff, and tons of other stuff, it works well and it'd be great for Fallout 4, I loved Fallout 3 but if they make Fallout 4 with the same care and engine as Skyrim, I will die out of excitement, and I believe that's the case.

I feel as I'm constantly being misunderstood.

The bounty hunter game mechanic is right there in Skyrim, it along with other generic quests can be just as slaver, caravan runner or mercenary work could be like.
Some complained against the use of generic tasks brought by the radiant storytelling mechanic and I don't see why.
The bounty hunter thing is from this new mechanic and it's just as pointless and unfleshed out as repeatable caravan runner or slavery or mercenary work is.
Not saying none will have quests to them, all of these jobs can have real quests as well, just that for roleplaying purposes one can continue to work with generic mini quests.
But the generic ones, including the continuous caravan runner job, won't be quests that have unlimited amounts of events, characters and dialogue, it is going to remain somewhat simple.

So the point of that previous post was that: If you're against the use of the radiant storytelling for things like the bounty hunter misc quests in Skyrim then being in favor of these other jobs is hypocritical. Cause that means one is basically "No I don't want that thing that Skyrim has, it's crap, I want this instead, despite that it's basically the same thing in terms of meat on the bone." It seems like biased hate against radiant storytelling simple for being an ES mechanic. I have nothing against ES mechanics if they're helpful for Fallout overall.

I have yet to see any other radiant storytelling apart from the bounty hunting misc quests though, for example, killing X will transfer quest to Y, I don't think they implemented that. Cause I killed a women in Riverwood and her quest should have been turned over to her brother or husband but instead I got "Quest Failed".


Again, if you're against radiant storytelling for these misc quests that can be helpful for roleplaying even if they become repetitive then you shouldn't be in favor of other things in the similar form like Slaver, Merc or Caravan Runner.
Hell, this radiant storytelling mechanic could perhaps even be helpful for the generic repeatable slaver, merc, caravan runner, hitman and bounty hunter jobs.

Now, of course I want real quests, of course I want the focus of money, time and resources to be spent on the important aspects.
But for roleplaying I'd love to have repeatable jobs to take up on, and Radiant Storytelling could help with that.
So that it becomes unpredictable and not always "Okay so you want to be a caravan guard huh? Well we have a caravan going to Blastazoid, Perume and R?ttf?lla" "Is there any other runs?" "No." Then the caravan starts goes the same path to Perume as it did the last 5 times and the same spawn zones will be activated at the same locations.

Okay, recap, my point is that I don't see a problem with radiant storytelling so far, it just needs some polishing, some tweaking and then it could be really helpful for these repeatable jobs, and that being in favor of caravan runner being a repeatable job but being against the radiant storytelling seems hypocritical to me as it could help the job and make it less predictable but instead of welcoming that mechanic it's frowned upon for being an ES mechanic.

Then again, I've only played for 37 hours so I dunno how much else the radiant storytelling does.

And if this post messes up again to make sense then I'm sorry but I'm very tired and I have a headache so I'm not exactly good at connecting the dots here.

[edit]


Lemme try to start over: Yes I am in favor of the radiant storytelling mechanic in Skyrim for repeatable jobs.
But I'm not in favor of random quests taking over instead of well written ones, those are far more important.

[edit 2]


I seriously have a problem with overtyping. @_@
Anyway, this got way too confusing for my current state, I'll check this thread again tomorrow if my head is screwed on right.

I got you. I wasn't really being specific in what I wrote. Haste makes hasty posts.

What I was, and am, after is that I'm against unlimited non-connected misc jobs (they really do get old fast and serve no other purpose than being meaningless busywork and XP/loot-grind, which I don't really see as a good thing as busywork is always just filler content for the sake of having more content). But instead, I'd be in favor of a limited amount of these little errands all tied to a related questlines of greater magnitude and purpose.

I would love it if the bounties were like the ones from the New Vegas Bounties mod where the enemies can actually kill you. It would help if you are not given their exact location so they can ambush you. I don't want to spoil it, but a few of the NV bounties quests caught me off guard and I died to snipers. It helps if the marks have appropriate perks for their level and specialties because, in NV at least, then they will not need ludicrously high powered gear to put the hurt on you.

It would help if sneaking NPCs were actually invisible unless you passed a perception check.

Random enemy encounters for caravans could be great fun... as long as arrangements are flexible. I always find escort missions fun when there is a real possibility of failure. Heck even if you fail you can still probably loot the caravan and any of the attackers you killed for extra caps. Caravans would be a great alternative to fast traveling from town to town.

Having random quests to repair malfunctioning robots could be fun. Giving you the option to sabotage them to blow up when activated. Possible malfunctions could cause it to attack if trying to jury rig. Stuff to make it more than just a static do A and B happens every time. Putting the objectives in random locations from dense population areas to shacks in the wilderness could offer opportunities for different strategies... get a bounty to attack you and draw them into guards.