One of the things that I've found strangely odd about Fallout 4 during my time exploring the top of the map and only completing a couple of the 1st story missions is how empty the wasteland is....

I mean when you go to the trouble of creating a cool little town like Concord, you would think they would have more going on there, but after you help the settlers move to sanctuary, Concord remains dead.... What's that all about? It just seems like a waste?
In fact a lot of the top map seems to be devoid of action? Where's the random spawning enemies or random events?

I mean so far, playing on the hardest difficulty setting, the wasteland doesn't seem to be a very dangerous place!

You should wander through Concord and there be random patrolling raiders, or monsters or SOMETHING!!

It's not really. I know people are working on a mod for this already (on the PC). I miss the goon/assassins squads randomly attacking you on the road. This game has few random encounters.

After nearly 75 hours I have yet to experience an attack on any of my settlements. Haven't seen a Deathclaw other than the scripted one at Concord. (and a dead one taken out by some raiders) Only seen one Behemoth and 3 radscorpions.

The random enemy encounters I get are just dogs, bloatflys, bloodbugs and stingwings.

I was hoping the Gunners would be the new Talon Company but they just hang out at their forts.

Go further south... or into the Glowing Sea. You'll see deathclaws and more radscorpions than bullets.

Behemoths are rare, but I've seen a few. I only have 30 hours more than you.

Your settlements won't get attacked if you have more defense than your food+water combined, it's a deterrent, not so much a defense.

I dont think the game recognizes your settlement as being "attackable" until you have a certain defense number. Do you have some turrets or traps laid down? I've actually had more random encounter's with super mutants in the northern part of the map than I have with raider's. I was building a tiny outpost underneath the red rocket that is closest to sanctuary last night. Next thing you know, I'm being attacked by a mutant hound and shot in the ass with a laser rifle by an incoming squad of mutants, all the while I was in the building mode.... Kind of annoying but it actually caught me by surprise.

Well dang.
This is one of the reasons I enjoy 3 so much. There's always the potential for something going on anywhere.
Gave up on NV because of this.

But I've read a couple different opinions about this. Some say it's too crowded.

So it doesn't have that 3 feel for a lone wanderer just exploring the wastes and having random things happen?

Seems like the more I learn about this, the more it sounds like a mix of minecraft, The Sims and Halo or something.

Sounds like a lot of fun really. But not what I was hoping for.

I think your settlement also needs to be "of a certain size" in terms of settlers and resources etc before they start attracting attention from possible assaillants. My northernmost settlement gets attacked alot by Raiders and Super Mutants.. While my southernmost settlement pretty much always gets attacked by Synth!

Dunno if that one's true though... My southernmost settlement has trifold defense compared to food & water and I still get attacks there pretty much every time I go around

Sanctuary - 19 Settlers, 89 food, 143 water, 96 power, 289 defence

The Castle - 14 settlers, 55 food, 100 water, 70 power, 190 defence

Red Rocket - 9 settlers, 15 food, 15 water, 30 power, 60 defence

Abernathy Farm - 9 settlers, 45 food, 50 water, 60 power, 70 defence

Tenpines Bluff - 7 settlers, 24 food, 20 water, 20 power, 40 defence

Nordhagen Beach - 10 settlers, 46 food, 80 water, 50 power, 65 defence

Not a single attack.

I did go back to Sanctuary last night and two of my water pumps and two of my generators were broken. Thought I'd been attacked but I went for a sleep and when I woke up was going to fix them but they were back to normal.

There is a ton of random things that happen closer to the south. For instance, once you team up with BOS, they cruise all around the world and drop knights and scribe's into battle's. It usually tends to happen more when your close to raiders/super mutants/monsters. They hop out of the v-bird and start laying waste to everything. At night when they come in and drop in thing's tend to heat up. Laser's flying all over the place. It's especially cool when your deep in an urban area. I was outside of a gunner HQ last night and they dropped in. I ran up a hill to snipe and ended up just watching the whole thing take place from a distance. It' was actually quite the scene. So this make's me think, obviously, the further into the game you get, the more wild and crazy random thing's start to go down around you. But the northern part of the map is still quite barren.

What are you running that take's 96 power? The teleporter thing? Maybe your settlements are OP and no raider's/super mutant's want to be bothered lol

Thanks mirkogradski.
I'm trying to get a feel for 4 without getting into too many spoilers.
I won't be getting it any time soon. No sense buying something I won't enjoy like NV.

It's funny about human nature. So many having the same experience and seeing it in such different ways.

ohman. Only on Earth...

Deathclaws and behemoths should be a rarer occurrence - If they were out in number then there would be no human settlements left

I have noticed a distinct lack of random, dynamic events though. Just a group of wastelanders chilling or a scavenger on occasion. A little disappointing

Laser & shotgun turrets, spotlights and traps require power.

I've got 6 or 7 water purifiers running.

As someone said in another thread. I've built these defences to see them in action.

At the moment I am effectively in a Cold War.

Agreed on the rarity. But I want to see more than 1 every 75 hours.

And where are the Radscorpions? I've only seen 3 of them. And 2 of those were at the same time.

I already told you the glowing sea has radscorpions out the wazoo

I have not put in the hours as some of the above but am wondering how far you have progressed the main story? At a certain point, I too was saying "is this it?", then was frankly wowed by a particular introduction (BoS) that happens in the story and livens things up.

Also I seem to remember having to add a mod in Skyrim (busy roads?) to have those encounters come alive.

In 3 I was trying to figure out a scheme for wiping out some Talons. They were behind a diner and I was across the road behind a market.
I kept getting dominated by them and had to reload a few times trying different things.
My last reload I'm sneaking up to the corner I was hiding behind and I see ants heading over to the diner.
OHMAN! The Antagoniser and her troops were attacking the Talon Co.
Jaw dropping! I couldn't believe how weird and cool that was.

THAT'S the kind of thing I enjoy.
Even if it only happens once in 500 hours of play, the POTENTIAL is still there.

I'm still playing 3 with close to 1000 hours of play because it's still random and interesting in so many ways.

I've run into three Deathclaws. They're incredibly stupid (I just climb on a rock out of reach and they won't hit me).

I think the over all population is inconsistent with 200 years after the apocalypse. But, I still run into something every couple minutes. Wish they'd have more random encounters.

Boston is the best part about this game. So many faction fights in the city, and the combat is the city is so fun

I meant more as a random encounter rather than a dedicated area.

In F3 you'd run into a load of Radscorpions & Yao Guai when just out and about exploring. You'd see fights between them, Deathclaws, Yao Guai (only seen 2 of these so far too, both in the same place)

I haven't passed level 16 and I've run into mostly gunners and wild animals/bugs..only ran into mutants when I was in the outskirts of diamond city and I've seen more then a few Yao Guai lol. Maybe it's the difficulty ? But these encounters weren't to far from the northern part of the map, as I was heading down towards diamond city at the time.

Those are random encounters, it is just that F4 was specifically designed to be more desolate in the north and more dangerous the more south you go. It is just a story and design choice.

So far I had 5 deathclaw encounters, 4 behemoth, and I think that is a lot for creatures that are supposed to be rare and most feared.

Other than that lots of stuff happening in the city, which also makes sense story wise. It is logical to use already made pre-war infrastructure. It was silly to see random people making gang fights in the middle of nowhere in F3.

I do agree that encounters could be more interesting and happen more often.