Meh, as long as they ain't Minutemen ones, they ah'ight

's quests annoy me, because there's absolutely no way to turn them down (unless this was patched, I haven't checked). You turn one in, he asks, "Would you like to do another?" and, without an option to say "No," the next quest appears on your screen. Just once I want to be able to say, "I'll do another when I bloody well feel like it, and not before."

I'm pretty sure that the Skyrim Thieves Guild has hands down without a doubt in hell the worst implementation of Radiant quest in a Bethesda game by far. Sure do some side jobs to become guild master. Sounds reasonable except....

You were required to complete at least 20 radiant quest and then complete four mini quest to become guild master. As god awful as those radiant quests sounds, it would at least be somewhat bearable if it weren't for the fact that the ones that take place in Riften were pointless and you needed to make sure you do at least 5 in each of the other 4 holds to have any progress all the while Vex and Delvin gave you completely random locations and provided no hint to how far you are in a specific hold until you are able to do one of the special quests.

Basically you either endure doing what could easily amount to a hundred radiant quests (who in their right mind would choose to do this) or you quit the jobs located in place you don't need thereby insuring that your quest journal is bloated with an endless amount of failed Thieves guild radiant quests or you do what I did and create a save before talking to Vex and Delvin and hope they give you a location that needs doing and reload if they don't which although kept my journal clean was incredibly tedious. The latter two options of course requires you to actually keep track of how much you did in each city.

It's bad enough to be doing the same boring radiant quests over and over again even if that quest is optional, it's another level of sadomaschism for you to be forced to do all that while keeping track of how much of those boring quest you did as well as needing to prepare for a Russian Roulette situation on the exact quest you are given just so you could completely the last quest line of a guild.

Your information seems limited, but NV is not the lowest. And why bring up F1/2/NV? I said Bethesda games. Go read player reviews for Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim/Fallout 3/F4 and it's easy to see F4 is among the worst of the batch. Compare the amount of awards as well, and you will see a decline. NV not withstanding, F4 didn't get as much acclaim as the past 3 Bethesda games. Sure, it still got a decent average, but mediocrity is nothing to brag about, especially when Bethesda usually sweeps the stage, so to speak.

I had completely forgotten the Thieve's Guild radiant quests since my last 2 skyrim character's didn't even come in contact with them, but yeah you're right they svcked. When I wrote that they were in afterthought in Skyrim I mostly had in mind the companion/college radiants and the bounties you got from the Jarls.

Fallout 4 is hardly mediocre. I think people just take things for granted, like the level of detail of the world. All those objects and ramps and containers and structures had to be built. I'm trying to play without using fast travel and I've noticed so many locations that aren't marked on the map but that are interesting or have something surprising. Unfortunately, a lot of people need to be told what to do, so they need quests and they need quest markers and they need infinite variety which isn't possible. There are a couple of great quests in Fallout 4. The Final Voyage of the HMS... and the Silver Shroud were both funny and unique. Cabot House was another good one that was rather dark and grim. The radiant quests give people who constantly need to be told what to do next a neverending game. They are a great way to get someone to revisit a place because it's almost certain that you've missed something or some detail that you didn't notice before.

Once the GECK is released and people see what really can be done with this game, I think there's no doubt that Fallout 4 will be considered the best game of the series. I remember a lot of similar complaints when Skyrim came out, how it was just a dumbed down Oblivion and how all RPG elements had been removed. LOL, maybe the whiners need to think of some new complaints.

There was something like that in Daggerfall. X amount of quests gets you a guild rank promotion as well as a new service unlocked. My favorite was the mages guild teleporter which would help in time critical quests. The same could be done with factions you join in Fallout.

Well, I like them in the sense that they're all I have left. If they can keep the game going until new content, then it's good that they're around.

However, I don't like getting sent to the exact same place to do the exact same thing, over and over again. No, I don't want to clear out SM from Medford Hospital, but thanks for asking.

This is "letting the perfect be the enemy of the good". Of course everyone would rather endless, fully fleshed out, character laden, quests. But you know something? that would take endless development. At some point, development has to move on. Radiant quests are good, but not perfect.

I much prefer a smaller number of hand-written quests with meaningful stories, choices, and consequences than hundreds of Mad Lib-style radiant quests.

Voted indifferent only because I feel like they can only get better with future games. Not a fan of the way it was handled here, as others in the thread have pointed out it feels like Bethesda put too much effort into Radiants and forgot to add the cool quests around the wastes, but I'm also not a fan that it's so heavily tied to settlements.

This idea of a settlement being optional, although true (you can ignore, but the OCD side of me just can't let go), somehow feels forced when every ten seconds a settlement is attacked, and then the exact same person gets kidnapped at the exact same spot...

That's some silly logic..a lot of games that have had numerous great quests didn't have endless development. It all depends on the writers and their capability/imagination. NV had some amazing quests and it was all done in under two years. Oblivion had some remarkable ones too that was completed in 3 or 4 years time, arguably some of the best quests Bethesda has done; point being, there are an abundance of games that have plenty of meaty, thought-provoking quests. More time won't make the writing any better and Emil just isn't that strong of a writer to be lead on any game.

Radiant quests are just a cop out, some feature to boost in marketing how there are "infinite" quests. A single-player game doesn't need endless quests, it does need a beginning-middle-end, though, these aren't MMOs. As it stands, radiant quests are so basic and barebones as the quest item or target doesn't even spawn until the quest is accepted, so chances are, you are going to be returning to a lot of places if you like to explore in the early game to go and find this magically appearing device that wasn't there a day ago when you cleared that area. It ends up making it a chore.

Some plot reason, or a carrot on a stick-type reward after some arbitrary number of quests would even deepen the meaning behind radiant quests, but there is no incentive except XP, and you can get that from the endless killing that is a part of F4. I don't think many players, who truly love RPGs, need such trivial quests like these as a reason to explore the world. If the world is detailed, interesting, rich and immersive enough chances are players are going to love exploring so they will end up seeing all the sights on their own.

It quite arguable that once you have exhausted the "great quests" and there are no radiant quests, it is difficult to continue leveling. If you want an open world with no level cap, and fully fleshed out quests to get you there, yes it is near endless development.

Radiant quests are what help the "no level cap, open world" aspect to exist.

Are they perfect? No.

Do the fit the need? Yes.

New Vegas's story line was worse than FO4 in my opinion. Radiant quests give me more to do than just wander killing things I see. To me that is a bonus.

I'm not saying they are better than fleshed out quests. But they are better than no quests, and killing random wandering monsters.

I like the radiant quests because no matter what there will always be something to do, somewhere to go, some baddies to kill, possibly new versions of legendary weapons / armor to get, repeating dialogue and since Preston gives them to you and Proctor Teagan gives them to you and other BOS folks give them to you and so on and so fourth, you'll have variety and go different places.

My only complaint is that the "Feeding the Troops" mission only goes to County Crossing :-/ (for me at least)

I'm sorry, I guess I just don't see the point in continuing to level after having beat the game and all fleshed out quests in a single-player game. Restarting, sure, but not endless grinding on one character for eternity. I love a deep story with a beginning-middle-end on single player games, so playing after having seen all there is to see on that one character is enough for me to either restart or move on. Fallout has been a series where I have replayed each game many, many times, but F4 seems more suited for people who want to play just one character...which, I guess I'll never understand in single-player games. Maybe it's an age thing, idk..different storks for different folks, I guess.

At this rate Fallout 5 or 6 will have co-op, legendary levels, daily/weekly quests and new raids each month.

Many people play for the "living in a world" experience rather than for simply beating a game. Bethesda excels at this type of sandbox experience. When I'm in the mood for a story-based game, I'll play something created by a different developer, but those games don't have the same longevity for me as once I've "read through" the plot, there is nothing else but to put it on the shelf until I've forgotten enough of the story to want to "re-read" it later. Games like Fallout 4 never leave my hard drive or console though.

His MILA quests have a set number: 11. The order of which location he sends you to is randomized, though, but it's the same 11 locations in every single playthrough.

If the next TES/FO title had a good main storyline, I would be gravely concerned about the direction Bethesda is heading.

Don't hate them. Don't like them. but honestly, would having one general 'quest' with radiant locations be worse than having tons of different quests that were basically the same thing, but reskinned?

Oh good grief.

I've done 3 so far. *sigh* Maybe I'll activate a new companion to make friends with while I do the rest... I'm sure there's a nice toy when the whole chain is done.

My first thought was "why spoiler tag Preston?".

My second was "Oh no! Not another one that's going to drive me mad."

That spoiler likely saved my sanity as I'll definitely be avoiding him.

Well many of the quest designers for Skyrim and Fallout 4 are the same as Oblivion's with the loss of Michael Kirkbride being an exception. Emil also made the DB questline which many people seem to regard as the finest questline Bethesda has ever done as well as having experience working as a designer on Thief II which is considered a classic. So in theory having Emil as lead writer would be far from a bad thing.

I wager that after Fallout 3, the quest designers just got writers block which basically led to the production of the hackjob quests you see in Skyrim and Fallout 4. Either that or more money was invested in level design and art which is the only real improvement next to gameplay.

Hooray!! I'm helping!!!

However, these are not never-ending quests - they have an end to them, and you get paid well for each while discovering a new location. I'd say these are the least painful of the radiant quests since they are set in stone.

Ken Rolston and Michael Kirkblade were the best writers at Bethesda who are no longer there. Ken's work is severely missed these days, although it's hard to say what kind of affect he would have had on Fallout, but he is a great writer, nonetheless. Ken was lead writer/designer for Oblivon and Morrowind. He was the one who wrote the outlines for all of the faction quests in Oblivion, including the DB, and gave them to each of the designers to improve or alter and finalize. There's no way to know just how much of that quest-line came from Ken or Emil, but as time as shown with Emil's writing I'm starting to believe he couldn't have been responsible for most of it...

Regardless, some people are just better at being an Indian instead of a Chief. It's like I say about 'The Walking Dead' Showrunner, Scott Gimple. He was a far better episode writer than a showrunner. Emil is probably just better at improving or tweaking ideas instead of coming up with them originally. Some people just don't have that creative spark, but they can articulately turn a decent or bad idea into a great one.

It's really hard to believe Emil and the others got writers block, especially with two series that have well established lore, there's so much to draw inspiration from. As for money...I don't think that would affect the writing quality. Emil wasn't an artist or a level designer, so he wouldn't have had to split his time between work loads there. Sure, he oversaw the design and concepts but he wasn't involved in the day to day work that was required for the level design. But you are right, level design and art is the only real improvement next to gameplay mechanics with Bethesda.