I love fallout, I've played and completed every canonical entry thus far (still working on 4) and each one ranks pretty high on my personal fav game list. It's a franchise I genuinely care about and have a lot of history with. That being said, without necessarily presenting a full review, I've obviously got many thoughts on this most recent entry and if you'll bare with me as I elaborate, I'd be really interested in getting some opinions (especially from the older crowd, those that have followed this franchise since before f3).

Now, I'm just shy of 70 hours into the game and while that doesn't really represent much game time for a game as vast as fallout, I think I can safely say that I've played enough to understand a fair extent of the changes brought to the mechanics and how these have inevitably affected gameplay. In any case, what follows is a list of some of my thoughts and gripes, these in no particular order.

- Misc Quest and Sidequest Variety

When you look at the big picture, Fallout 4's miscellaneous/side quests too often fall in the "Clear (insert either Raider, Super Mutes, ghouls, synths, ect) from (insert location)" category. My point is that while a few quests are certainly unique and well written, there's an overall huge lack of variety in terms of what sidequests and miscellaneous content has to offer. Where i could be searching for obscure quests that are off the beaten path, just so I can milk the most out of the setting and story, I feel like I'm completing generic quests, fillers, like i'm grinding levels. Never before has this been a problem with fallout games.

This, in my opinion, is just a side effect that is related to a bigger problem, one on a game mechanics level, which I'll elaborate on a bit further down.

- Main Story Linearity

If I can be allowed an abstract comparison, think of a line. A plain line that extends from point A to B. Now imagine that somewhere along this line, paths open up as though a many pronged fork, with each of these presenting different venues. Now before the end of this line, these different venues simply all converge back together before our line reaches point B. This pattern represents fallout 4's story. No matter which path you take once you reach the fork, by the end, you'll be treading that same last bout no matter your previous story and gameplay decisions.

Now consider New Vegas or more notably Fallout 2. Choices here mattered, to a point where they could entirely affect the game's plot and how you progressed through it. For instance, in New Vegas, you could take the NCR path, you could side with Ceasar, Mr House, or my personal fav, the wild card endings. One choice had the potential of closing off a whole story arc, only to offer an entirely new arborescence of quests that reflected the decision you took. Decisions for which it's important to note, never presented a two dimensional dichotomy, morality being properly represented as a relative gray area, this, as opposed to a heads or tails approach that deals only in absolutes (e.g This action is either good or bad).

- Tell me -what- I am, but the -Who- part is up to me!

I have a family, therefor I obviously care for them. I have a missing son, I'm obviously gonna wanna go look for him. This is fallout 4's plot hook, the protagonist's main motivation. While there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with that at first glance, it goes against yet another standard of previous fallout entries. The writers here are making assumptions as to the nature of the character we'll be playing and what his motivation will be, in other words, they impose on you a predetermined character concept, they outright dictate who that character will be.

Traditionally, fallout is a pen & paper, tabletop role playing game. A setting that allowed you to decide who your character would be and what his personal motivations were. What if I hate my family? Why? Cause my wife is a cheating harlet and my son doesn't actually belong to me. Therefor, having them out of the way presents me with an opportunity to do things I previously couldn't, for see, i'm a cynical bastard who's only motivation is to hoard bottlecaps like I'm Smaug the dragon and now I have an entire wasteland to reap from...

While the nature of such a character would certainly be questionable, I should be able to play this character if I really wanted to.

Bringing New Vegas back into the fold, just so I can compare, here the story told you that you were a courier who got screwed over as he played a small part in a larger conspiracy... Ok so here, I know I'm a courier, so the game tells me what I am, but it ends there. My morals, motivations, views are entirely own. What's more, the writers clearly understood this, for the whole game is built in a way so as to provide me with quest and story arcs that match the nature of the character i've created. Now that's a 'role' playing game.

- Profound Mechanical Differences

The absence of skills and the shift to a completely perk based system affects the game in more ways than can be apparent at first. In my opinion, the end result is less control over the character you are building and ultimately, limits to the gameplay.

This time around, you've got only five main statistics to worry about: Overall Damage Reduction (DT), Overall Damage Dealt, HP, AP, and Weight Limit. Only problem is, these stats, along with the bonuses granted from perks, they're all over the place! No one pip-boy tab consolidates all of your base and bonus statistics.

My main gripe here is that with this new system, there is no clear cut way of viewing your character's statistical progression. For example, If you want a general idea of what your character is good at, you look under perks in the status tab of your pip-boy, which you'll need to read line by line to figure out what your character build looks like by viewing the various stat bonuses each perk grants. Use to be everything you needed was under the status tab, showing a clear picture of what your build looked like statistically. Bonus granted from perks could be deduced by looking at the Effects header from the status tab, or looking at your skills and SPECIAL stats.

Speaking of skills, their absence now means that you can no longer fine tune your character's aptitudes. You will now rely solely on acquired perks to dictate what you can or cannot do. There is no degree of success/failure here, you can either do something or you can't. While this was also true for Fallout 3 and New Vegas, the difference here is that there is now no way of quantifying -how- good your character is at something. This directly affects interactions with NPCs. Use to be you would get speech challenges that tested the extent of your character's aptitude. This system offered up a lot more variety from a interaction/dialogue perspective. You could even build whole quest using this system (going a long way where adding quest variety is concerned), or significantly affect the outcome of a quest that was written in a way that generated different outcomes for different skill levels based off a speech challenge.

About the dialogue, well, I think I'm not alone in thinking it's a huge step back from previous games. I have spotted a few charisma based challenges here and there, but these are poorly implemented, giving you no clear idea that your bluff or lie is tied to a statistic. Why does it do that you ask? Well, because every speech challenge is now charisma related so it should be obvious, right? However, the flip side is the game no longer factors in your other SPECIAL attributes or your proficiency with a certain skills, which deeply affects how the outcome of interactions, even entire quests are decided. Why is every side quest repetitive in nature? I'm convinced the way these new mechanics work are in large part, the reason behind this.

- Pen & Paper Roots

Fallout is a tabletop RPG that found success as a video game because of how well the original interplay team adapted the pen & paper mechanics to make a CRPG. It's my strong opinion that Fallout, as a franchise, should not stray too far away from it's pen & paper origins. The unique mechanics of this system has always been a large part of it's appeal, ensuring high player control over their character, making for good gameplay.

- Closing Note

I don't want to sound presumptuous, telling a dev what their game should be like, but seeing as the same mistakes were made with Fallout 3, I can't help but feel that maybe Bethesda doesn't quite get Fallout or what its long time fans want and expect from it.

All this being said though, I still love fallout 4 and will continue playing it nigh religiously for a couple hundred hours still, but it will regrettably never be an entry I point to when asked which was the best Fallout and why.

Meh I think compared to 3 this game is a good improvement in many regards because Beth clearly realised the old Fallout is dead and the franchise can never be like those old games again, so why waste time pandering to old fans who never gonna be satisfied anyway.

So its clear Beth is making Fallout there own thing and honestly, in the long run its gonna lead to better games, maybe not better at being like the old games, but definitely better at being there own thing.

One and 2 did OK, but neither were a huge success. FO didn't get big till BSG bought and transformed it. You can lament that, but it's the truth

LOL stop getting in your head that Bethesda need to keep the old formula from Fo and Fo2.

Thanks that they change it is they make a success. And a success in sell mean they keep making games. What ever u like it or no tabletop rpg are a think of the past, only a minority can handle the hard core rpg elements on those type of games.

And im sorry but most game on side quest just land on the same type, go kill this, go track this, go find this.

New Vegas did just fine, doing just that. Granted, it did have to adapt to the changes brought by fallout 3, but it still held faithful to it's origins. It knew what it was and where it came from.

I strongly disagree with that. The only reason fallout 3 got so much hype is because of the two games that preceded it. Had it not been called 'fallout' it would have succeeded, sure, it's still a beth game, but not to the same extent that it did.

I wasn't talking about 'most games'. Have a gander at the FNV wiki and check the listing for all available side quest, after which, come back here and tell me that Fallout New Vegas suffered from the same repetitive and uninspired sidequests that fallout 4 does. Just no...

I agree with your comments about the main plot.

I largely agree with you OP, I'm of the old school myself. AAA games, however, will never be made like that again. Kids like shooters and games that will mostly not take them out of the action for long. That is why all RPGs are becoming action RPGs. What you want to do is check out Divinity: Original Sin. It's an awesome game with tons of depth and complexity. It is strongly influence by Fallout and Ultima. Definitely check it out!

I think Bethesda did an amazing job with Fallout 3 in converting the isometric RPG into an open-world, first or third person shooter. Fallout 4 improved upon so many of Fallout 3's faults, just like Skyrim did after Oblivion and Oblivion did after Morrowind.

The problem for me is that ever since Morrowind, Bethesda has slowly stripped away the role-playing elements of their games and are streamlining many of the features of their games.

For example, the dialogue system in Fallout 4 is a streamlined abomination in my view. I gave the new perk tree system a chance, but to be honest it has destroyed much of the player's opportunity to create a unique character and doesn't really force them to make sacrifices or hard decisions when creating said character. There is also a considerable lack of weapon and armour types (despite the modification system), which has echoes of the latest instalments of TES. In Morrowind there were so many spells, skills, armour and weapon types to choose from. By Skyrim they'd created a beautiful game with much better animations, and added a few features like smithing, but then streamlined the weapon and armour systems.

Honestly, I didn't read through all of the OP post since I'm only a fraction of the way into the game.

But to the people who think Bethesda changed FO and FO2 for the better... here's a little history lesson for all the "whippersnappers":

Back in the late 90's was this little game studio called "Interplay". They made pretty much every major, successful, critically acclaimed RPG title of the era. They were also responsible for FO and FO2 as well as Bard's Tale in the late 80's and Planescape: Torment in the late 90's.

None of these games were "slackers" by any means and just about all of them won award after award. The only reason Interplay suffered was by not releasing consoles games and trying other genres that didn't go over.

Now, to think that FO3's success was somehow due to Bethesda's ingenuity is ridiculous. Interplay used the best engine and the best graphical options available for the game's purpose, given the technology at the time. Would you really have wanted to see a 3d version of this game from the late 90's?!

Bethesda has done a great job living up to the Fallout standards. Everything Bethesda has kept from the originals was still present in FO3 - VATS, story options, perks, moral choices, reputation, etc. In fact, other than some technical changes, they've pretty much followed the same recipe Interplay used for the first 2 games when they released FO3.

Any changes they've made to FO4 is completely on them this time around. If they work, kudos to them! But if they svck, well... there's only one company to blame it on this time.

(PS New Vegas was not developed by Bethesda, but by Obsidian, a company created by former Interplay employees)

This game was obviously released too early, there are so many negatives that could have been fixed if they released it in april 2016

I agree with most of what the op stated. You are forced into a storyline that you cant deviate from, heck if you escort preston garvey and crew to sanctuary you dont get xp or bethesdas version of a "settlement tutorial" unless you agree to be a minuteman. Even after I said no and stumbled upon a farm and helped them, I somehow boosted my minuteman faction and the settlement appeared under my care. This is not open play, this is being plot hammered.

FNV gave you a background and from there you did what you wanted. That was what open play was about. In this game the writing svcks, monotonous misc quests, and I cant fully explore most buildings unless i have quest x for that building, etc...

Relying on perks rather than skills is a mistake. I can see what the developers were trying to do, but the play testers should have pointed out the problems with that. My understanding is a player can max stats and perks, if its true then its definitely a mistake there needs to be a limit on level/# of perks/stat points. This game shoud have came out next year

I also miss having skill, attribute or perk speech checks. In previous games I could get entirely different quest routes with Child at Heart or intelligence or explosives options in dialogue. Now there doesn't really seem to be much quest choice.

My character is more pre-defined than ever before, the game is railroaded a lot more and I feel that is a shame.

I hate to break it to you, but NV is more like FO3 than 1 and 2.

Aesthetically and mechanically, sure, it's built off the same engine. What's different is Obsidian's approach to story and role-playing, one that is much more in tune with the older entries. In these games no assumptions are made as to the nature of the character you create and the whole story is written in a way that caters to different styles of play and morale compasses. That's they key difference and exactly what Beth's fallout entries lack.

There needs to be more 'role' in the playing...

There also the small matter of the first 2 being turned based . One even had a time limit to complete it in. And both were third person only
NV is nothing more than three with a couple new features. At a minimum, 85% of its the same. The first 2 were 85% differen

Hence my allusion to 'mechanical' similarities. But you're missing the point, of course Obsidian had to use Beth's FPS Mechanics, as i'll repeat again -same engine- that's not what we mean when we refer to old gen similarities. Again, the reason we say New Vegas is more akin to the older titles is because of the difference in roleplaying/story approach...

Please don't make me explain that a third time

I don't like old school RPG games so I never played 1 & 2. I rented Fallout 3 from the local video/game rental store for a couple of days and absolutely fell in love with it. Took it back and went online and ordered a copy for my PS3. I love Fallout 3 and New Vegas. For someone who doesn't really care for old school RPG's it was the perfect blend of that and shooter.

I was hoping that Fallout 4 would be a continuation of those games with updated graphics but it isn't. The feeling has drastically changed. I'm not saying it's bad, just different. I find myself losing focus and just messing around with settlements and taking care of feral's for the people of Sanctuary. Maybe the focus thing is just me getting old.

I'm not going to knock anyone for liking the direction it's going, but I think we can all agree that it's not the same. I mean, jeez, when I put the disc in, it doesn't even say Fallout 4, the game just starts with a picture of power armor hanging in an abandoned garage and then the 'Continue' menu comes up. I've never seen a game start without telling you what it is before. Fallout 3 starts with the bus and the music and shows you DC. It's awesome.

NCR, Legion, Mr. House, those Elvis guys, Powder Gangers, UFO's, the subway, my god the subway, people you felt like you really wanted to help instead of these whiney east coasters. They really have capture the attitude of the locals, I've give them that much. I swear I know the person they got the Mama Murphy animation from. Right down the the facial expressions. They nailed it man. It's ok, I can say all that, I'm from Jersey.

There seems to have been a lot of things put on the chopping block for 4. Yeah, the settlements are really cool. I spend most of my time doing that and not really playing the game, but so much else has changed that it just doesn't feel like Fallout to me. I hope I don't upset anyone from Bethesda if they read this. I just hope they 'get' how much some of us loved Fallout 3 is all. It's like Christmas 1977 when Santa brought me an X-Wing instead of The Millenium Falcon. It was still awesome ... but ...

Back to the ruins ...

(btw it says there are 7 new replies while I was typing this so apologies if I'm repeating anything already said.)

Shane

I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on this.

I've been thinking about the changes made in Fallout 4 for a good week and a half now, and I have to say I don't disagree with you on many points.

I do regret the lack of skills. I was hoping that they'd move to an Elder Scrolls system, where using a skill would level up a skill. I could accept removal of combat-related skills, because I don't know how compatible combat skills would be with the new combat system (which I feel is a massive improvement).

With Skyrim, I could attempt a Master-level lock at any level, and increasing my level made it easier to pick Master-level locks. A system like that would definitely be better than a complete removal of skills.

New Vegas introduced many great features and mechanics that I'm told harken back to the original games. I liked the faction system, providing much more immersion than a simple good-neutral-bad system in Fallout 3. Now we haven't really got much in that.

Fallout 4 is one of my favorite games, and always will be. I hope they keep this feedback mind when it comes time to produce the next installment.

I also mentioned... Obsidian was founded by and made up of members from the original Interplay/Black Isle Studios company, hence the RPG similarities to FO 1 and 2.

You took the words right out of my mouth, Merari. This, along with the headbob and lack of ability to change the keybindings, are the main reasons I decided not to purchase this game.

Fallout is lacking in story content, but makes up for that in gameplay enhancements.

Fallout NV had great story but was terrible in bugs, and poor AI

I hope that Bethesda makes a DLC that adds a huge ton of quests to just the vanilla world. To make the radiant quests better, to allow more endings or more alliances.

To make the fights against each faction longer, like storming the Prydwn after it crashes or even before that. Most people don't die in zeppelin crashes they fall slow enough to survive the fall.

I'm not far in but I don't think I'm going to get far because the game is boring, the world is empty and dull, and the mechanics and dialogue are terrible. What a disappointment this game is. I'm not an old-time Fallout fanatic, Fallout 3 was my intro to modern video games and I played the crap out of that game. It's a better game than this one, to say nothing of Skyrim and FNV. Bethesda should have concentrated on what they're good at instead of copying Bioware and spending so many zots on an illogical, unwieldy settlement system. And Witcher 3 far outpaced them now in doing a big open world.

Around same game time, got sidetracked a lot and "lost" time building, crafting as well as exploring (keys don't help for the formers ). All in NW corner of map. Am not far storyline wise (thought waiting a few weeks might be a good idea bug wise *shrugs*) so bummed-out that it's so linear and that it seems nowhere near NV for quest immersion and possibilties. I had hoped that Beth would have kept that and skills from F3 and learned from NV, maybe even Skyrim, ludicrous idea, wasn't it?

I like the game, I play the game. Adding the settlement idea was brilliant, but honestly; not recomending it, as is.

Personallly still have SSI under AppleIIc as a reference for computer RPGs, how's that for old?

As for the whipper-snappers, this ain't Doom and wasn't ment to be, bloody ADD generations "grumbles and pulls out automatic shotgun": GET OFF MY LAWN!!!

I've been enjoying the game so far. I read some of the complaints people have and sometimes I wonder if we are even playing the same game.

The settlement system is too tedious and brain breaking for me to pursue. I can hammer together a water purifier (what was all that fuss about in DC anyway?) or a generator but I can't press ammo. And I'm forced to dump points in Charisma or half the functionality is not even there.