I finished the game and started a new one where I avoided Concord. Instead, my character focused on building three settlements (Sanctuary, Red Rocket and Abernathy Farms) and just wandering around, discovering new locations. I've played over 24 hours this way, discovered over 25 locations in the North and Northwest of the map, and still have yet to find even one quest that wasn't assigned by one of my settlers in lieu of meeting Preston Garvey. I believe I've received three total quests, retrieve the locket for Abernathy Farms and two clear the new settlement quests.

In Skyrim, one could ignore the MQ and simply wander and run into dozens and dozens of quests. In Fallout 4, it appears not so much. The one caveat is that I haven't checked out the city of Boston proper, but have wandered through the Northern wilderness ad nauseam. There's another thread promoting the benefits of avoiding Concord, but for me, the game has become far more boring without any quests, not to mention the experience that levels the character upon completion. Do I have to choose a faction to get any quests?

Any thoughts?

(I know, head to Boston.)

The Minutemen thing with Preston is kinda where everything starts since Minutemen do run the settlement radiant quests and you need Preston to be able to build settlements, some of them are open. There are BoS, RR and "the firm" as I want to call it - the secret organization. All of them do run radiant quests. There are not so much "stand alone" quests when I search for "Fallout 4 quests". MM, RR, BoS and "the firm" they all share the same locations. There are about 4 companion quests - need to do if you want to max out standing - romance. Running around without doing any Preston quests may be ok, I don't think you will mess up any radiant quests. There are places where "important" NPC are located, NPC are neutral, don't know if they all are set "essential" or not, but they can be part of companion quests.

I do have all companions you can get and Curie is only one I don't have maxed out standing. Working on that now. I mine opinion there should be more "stand alone" quests. There are a few good ones, but there are so many locations that could be part of a quest or two. If devs could add about 20 more stand alone quests, maybe some of them could be radiant as well, it would be great since about 80% all available quests have something to do with the factions (you need to choose at the end of MQ). Example: Bounty hunter- , gathering (there are a few, but I like to see more) and collection quests.

Cheers,

-Klevs

Well there are 140 quests in FO 4, so you have some searching.

There are some random quests, you get them when you pick up a note or stumble upon a location. There are a lot of places that don't have a proper quest in the log but have a backstory to them, university point for example has a little miniquest type thing you can do to get the passwords for terminals and stuff. The main difference I can think of between skyrim and fallout is the larger amount of settlements in skyrim compared to fallout. You may have to get to Diamond city and good neighbour to get some proper quests if you want to avoid the faction quests.

Without the experience from the early settlement quests, I fear my character is a bit too weak to venture into the city just yet. I guess I'll just keep searching as I've done and hope to one day find a real quest.

There is considerable amount of side quests aroud the world though now when i think about it not many are located in the starting map grid only one non related to settlments/main story there i can rember is the 2 stage one at Thicket excavations location

I have the opposite problem. I find to many quests. I picked up a kidnapping one on my way to complete another quest. by the time I got to the kidnapping location (no fast travel) I failed it. wth? not like it was the settler's dad or anything... oh wait it was.

Just explore. you can always find something.

That was my complain at first but as I discovered new locations and returned to previous locations and talk to NPC's the side quests started to pop up. Companions have side quests too so definitely go look for them. Activate those satellite relay stations to pick up more radio signals and listen to them. The quests are not as easy to find as in Skyrim but they're out there. Just keep wandering, reading terminals, and talking to NPC's.

yeah like finding a radio tower and extending the dish. this usually gets you some interesting radio signals.

Such as a raider selling chems.

Or...

A rather sad one I found last night. distress signal was a woman trapped inside the jewelry department safe. pleading for help saying she had been in there since the ground shook and that she was really thirsty "Someone! please help me!" I found the nearby mall and the department she was in. Found the switch behind the counter and opened the safe she was locked in. I was hoping to encounter a "Boy in the fridge" type situation. Instead I found a skeleton slumped over a ham radio. I turned off the radio and sadly went on my way.

But there is all sorts of stuff like that in the game. You don't need an official quest in your log to have something to do.

No sooner than my last post and I ran into the settlement of Covenant and a quest!. Had to kill everyone, so I lost a trading post. But hey, they were a murderous lot and had to go.