This is probably my biggest complaint about fallout 4 from the trailer. It's been one of the main complaints I've seen in almost every single Bethseda game for years now, from Oblivion, Fallout 3, Skyrim, etc. I enjoy Bethseda games a lot (both TES/Fallout ) but the animation quality is just well it's subpar, especially compared to most modern AAA developed games from other studios like Ubisoft/EA, etc.

A few years back I remember Bethseda posting about acquiring a mocap studio, is it not being used for Fallout 4?

The animations come off looking robotic/stiff, rather then fluid and believable. Everything from the movement of characters to the facial animation so when they are talking, just looks a bit "off' and throws you into that uncanny valley feeling really quick because of the quality.

If I had one wish for the game, heck for any game Bethseda makes in the future it'd be for a completely revamped animation system that uses mocap and has fluid animations with the likes of games like Uncharted, AC, RDR, etc.

I've seen mocap used well (L.A. Noir) and I've seen it used horrendously bad (Suikoden 4)

Bethesda does use mocap, there's video of them doing it in the making-of-Skyrim video on youtube. I'd have to see a comparison between games before I can say the facial animations are weird, though; it feels that way for a lot of other games, too.

Judging by their gameplay trailer when dogmeat attacks the feral ghoul it looked pretty damn realistic so either their animators have vastly improved (not that they were bad they did a good job) or their using mocap.

Aw, but silly animations are kind of Bethesda's trademark. It can't die!

What exactly is it that you are seeing as stiff?

I thought the animations were fine.

Don't worry we still have bugs.

I think the animations shown so far are a whole lot better than their previous games. Not excellent, but they definitly seem to be making an effort this time. I often wonder though if the general lack in quality associated with Bethesda's animation are more over because of the game engine than the actual animations themselves.

https://youtu.be/D5esyZPt5Jo?t=9m6s

Look at the other npc's, the walking/running and how they move, it looks very "stiff/robotic."