I don't like rushing the MQ. I want to take my time and save some of the larger parts of it for a later date. I played Skryim for a long time before I ever started the MQ and it felt about right. If I wanted to run away and be a nirn-root farmer for the rest of my days, who was to argue with me?

In FO4 It annoyed me to no-end how right from the start we were set on a path of revenge for the murder of our spouse and a ridiculous sense of urgency to rescue our son. Not a good start for a supposed RPG. That's called railroading somebody into being a certain character with a certain narrative. If we must have a spouse, and a son, they should have been left, frozen, in the cryo-chamber, together, to be rescued, or not, at a later date. Then there wouldn't be such a rush to complete the MQ. I mean we've already been in there 200+ years right? Surely there's enough time to explore the commonwealth and train ourselves a little before taking on the big bad guys.

For my own personal roleplaying, I decided to stop when the minutemen were able to build such a complex device to teleport into the institute, within minutes of receiving the "plans". Yes. I've forsaken my son, because I just can't stomach the idea of these peasants, who can't even build their own bed, let alone lay down a pallet, and after hammering for almost a year still can't seem to fix the holes in the wall, building such a complex teleportation device. I'll probably wind up rushing through the MQ eventually out of boredom and curiosity, but for now, things are at a stand-still.

Who else feels my pain? Alternate starts mods will be nice but there will be a ton of dialogue that has to be reworked because of Bethesda's linear narrative.

I suppose I might have felt pressure to do the MQ if I hadn't loathed my "husband" and the evil spawn he forced upon me. If I hadn't been 1/2 frozen, I would have clapped my hands in glee when I watched him get shot and that stupid brat get taken away.

For now I have put MQ on very thick ice and do only misc and radiant quests. I'm not sure who I will follow. I think I beat the game since everyone still alive and settlers are 86% happy

Cheers,

-Klevs

I agree with the OP. It's just not as great of an opening/main story trope as it could have been. It also seems to make me want to "rush" the MQ to find my kidnapped child. I really loved NV and 3 for the very reason that you are not rushed through the main story and are free to explore as much as you want and do things at your own pace. It even makes very little sense to take on being the general of the minutemen when you are really supposed to be looking for your son ("Hold on Sean, I'll find you!...as soon as I clear out all these settlements, and build them up...and populate them with settlers...and plant crops, etc...). But the way things are presented to you, and the order in which they are presented is really counter-intuitive. If it was a novel the story just wouldn't make sense.

I don't understand how you could call this story urgent and not Fallout 3's. In that game you're forced out of the vault to find your father, only hours after he leaves - the trail is still hot, and more importantly NPCs actually have useful information on where he was going, not just "head for Diamond City" or "maybe there's someone in Concord who can help?". Feels weirder to get out of Vault 101 and think, "Oh, I guess Dad can wait while I help out this lady with a Wasteland Survival Guide" than it does to get out of Vault 111 thinking "I have no idea how long my son's been gone, where he went, but these people in Concord are in desperate need of help right now".

Oddly enough, the only Bethesda game where it felt appropriate to wander off and ignore the main quest was Skyrim - each of the other TES games puts you in the game world with orders right away (usually from the Emperor himself), and every Fallout game (Bethesda and otherwise) sends you out into the wasteland to find something. But at least Fallout 4 can be framed as more of a picaresque adventure like Fallout 2 where the overall goal is finding the thing, but the trail is so cold and the leads are so vague that it feels appropriate to just sort of explore and help others along the way.

Fallout 3, I do the Wasteland Survival Guide as training to learn how to survive the wasteland. NV does lend itself to exploration. Told to get to Vegas, but not when.

In Fallout 4, My current char thinks that, since Codsworth said 210 years, it's not likely that Shaun still lives, since it could easily be 150 years since the kidnapping. She will learn otherwise when she (finally) reaches the Memory Den.....

Yeah, even saying everything in my last post it's still pretty easy to RP an excuse to postpone the main quest.