Once I complete my mission to romance characters, it seems as though the relationship drops dead. The quotes are far too repetitive, in total my connection to the character is lost and they simply start sounding like another repetitive dead robot settler.


I believe the companion characters should be explored more, my connection to the diamond city radio guy is stronger and he feels more real because he actually updates his stories whenever you've done something for the commonwealth whereas your companions say the same stuff like Piper Wright for example "Never thought a reporter could consider themselves a success until someone threatened their life. Me? I'm very successful." I hear that quote on pretty much every quest and it degrades her characters realiticity


When I first met Piper, I thought that she would have a whole line of quests lined up for me and a strengthening storyline to really make her character mean something. Of course there is the romance system where she tells you her life story but my sympathy for her problems isn't there because I'm just objectively waiting for the option of romance. The only emotion I ever get out the romance system is an awkward creep vibe, like take Curie for example. I really want to help her reach her objective in Science but the romance option fully seems to take it away from her and seems like I'm being an unfair character.


Going back to character development, I believe with Piper, there should be a line of storyline epic quests to which the final reward earns the companion, of course some quests involve her as a temporary companion but not all of them. Ideas for quest lines might involve escorting her through dangerous places to get the top notch interview for her paper. This way the relationship is strengthened, or at-least have good quests specified for the characters during companionship. I believe that this was done right with Cait where after a while you can help fix her, perhaps it might have been a bit of a stronger storyline to start her off as a drug decayed looking character and then after the quest to fix Cait she becomes vibrant but idk thats just me.


When it came to Piper, I felt like she was going to have a big impact on the storyline atleast within Diamond City given her reputation but that one interview quest takes place and now she no longer really plays a part at all. I believe Piper could have been a character that very few people took an interest in and took her for a bad conspiraciest and then you help build her storyline and then after you've done her all that you are rewarded with the option of romance and the end of her quest line also results in the 90% of people thinking wow she's amazing and then the 10% haters give insults to which she sits them on their ass with a comeback that isn't too aggressive but similar to Neil Degrasse Tyson proving to B.o.B that the earth is not flat.


To top it all off quotes should really be updated enough to keep a good connection to the character, atleast enough quotes so that it doesn't sound too repetitive. Hopefully Bethesda takes this into future games, I know budget and deadlines make it tough, but its the little things that make a game greater than great.

I agree. I felt that the companions really lacked depth. You use Piper as your main example, and I think she is the best example of it. When I first met her and read her newspaper and everything, I thought that she was going to have a much deeper role in the game. I thought I was going to be reading weekly issues of Publick Occurrences, and helping her chase down stories. There's none of this though. She plays a part in a couple of main quests, and we get her intro dialog, dialog during the interview, three of the 'close talks' as her affinity is going up, and one more talk at the end of the game. That's basically it though. The rest is just her generic responses and occasional background dialog while exploring. It just feels underdeveloped. Nick at least has a real companion quest, a part in the main quest, and a couple of the 'detective files' quests. Curie, Cait, and MacCready all have interesting companion quests as well, but on the whole the relationship system just seems to be lacking.

Obviously with recorded dialog they can only include so much, but it feels like what was included simply falls short of what it should have been. Once a companion is romanced, they basically cease to have any interactive dialog. I'd love to see this expanded upon a bit.

Hell I just wish I could send her and nick back to their home. Where piper has a sister that she is apparently worried about so much and I told her to go back and support her but she just sits in a random chair in one of my settlements now *sigh*

BTW, in bunker hill she will ask question from random settlers like an interview, at least she did once which was kinda cool. You are right though. I was very sad to find out that not all of them actually have quests.

Especially with how little in the way of actual quests FO4 has, I thought ALL companions would get a somewhat lenghty quest at least , which wasn't the case.

I mean even with cait. The WHOLE quest is shooting your way through a vault and a 5 second cutscene type thingy at the end and a whole heap of cringy moments after that lol

Well, frankly, I think Piper is just with the bad example portion of the cast, as much as I like her myself. I think her purpose is to show you that there is friendly, yet resident wastelanders that you can symphasize with, and to raise a few points you may have missed if left completely to your own devices (e.g. the general mood regarding Synths etc.) After that, they leave the player to discover these things, conveniently writing Piper into the "observation of the curious newbie"-corner.

Companions like Nick, Curie, Cait, Deacon or Hancock have plenty of attachment to (or detachment from) the wasteland, and have reasonable character developement. Codsworth, Dogmeat, Strong are basically walking tropes, props, and serve their own purpose. I can't comment on the others, but if you really know who MacCready is, there's something there, too.

Obviously none of them reach hardcoe RPG level of depth, but then again, not even the ever praised New Vegas' did. Speaking of hardcoe RPGs, those characters with equally hardcoe character developement/attachment to the plot were mostly also forced companions. Fallouts give you a lot of freedom, too much in fact to have too many things hinge on people the player may or may not like having around. It's normal that a character's content simply ends at some point, especially in a game with an infinity layout such as those.

I think the characters are a big improvement on Bethesda's part. They are a lot more interesting the Skyrim, and it's not even subjective. They actually have a personality, backstory, and likes and dislikes. What is lacking I feel would be the lack of contents in relation to a big open world. I would be cool if they could have some random banter or if in a relationship could have different lines based on locations. Certain characters also need changes to their lines to reflect the progress in the quest like Danse or some other NPCs such as Rhys.

Well it's a lot better than 'I'm sworn to carry your burdens'...

(and Bethesda aren't BioWare...)

Additional character development would be great in DLC. Especially Paladin Danse....after the main game he has no closure at all.......

Hope there is more companion content in DLC.

Serana had location-based and relationship-level comments - Ancestor Glade, most notably, but also the random "I'm glad you're here with me to see this" when you hit certain scenic overlooks or unique sprawling caverns (Eldergleam). Most of the regular followers and hirelings had one or two lines (Don't see that everyday, that's quite a sight, etc) but nothing beyond "hey boss, check that out".

Veronica in F3 at least had some depth, even though she was tied directly to the BoS. The more you spoke with her as the NCR and Brotherhood storylines progressed, you could at least get those two working together (not sure if it works if you replace Elder whatsisface, though).

However, I was absolutely shocked that the companions in F4 stopped so abruptly (at least with Cait, Curie, and Piper - haven't gone for the guys). In my first playthrough, I focused on getting Curie maxed out, telling everyone else to "keep it professional", and had intended to give her the Wedding Ring in a trade dialog to see if that advanced anything, but they were dumping patches left and right and it practically killed the playthrough - Curie could not be re-acquired once dismissed. All she does is give me Stimpaks and tell me she's still working on dude's formula.

For my 2nd, post-patch/beta patch New Game playthrough (in which I reloaded a way previous save to explore the various faction paths/endings), I'm still not sure if I should try that with Curie again or go for Piper or Cait. If it's not going to result in anything, it's really going to be a tragic waste IMO. If I'm running with a single companion for in-game months on-end, and the Romance path is progressing, I expect some sort of closure.

I guess it could have been worse: they could have gone the Final Fantasy route and killed off your Romance target that you spent game-months courting.

It doesn't mean they can't improve on it. They have a lot of hidden dialogues with the companions you can't even access unless you're a real dike, like if you kill a lot of innocent people, like 100 people, the companions will start to rag on you for killing innocents. I think companions are headed in a real good direction. With all the short fall for the game, companions are definitely not one of them.

Piper is my favorite companion but it does annoy me she ask zero questions about Insitute later in the game even though she is trying to find them and care so much abouts facts. You would think the second you gain access to she would have a ton of questions. Or when I killed Kellogg she pretended like she wasn't there when talking with Nick.

I wanted to give her the named typewriter, and the Reporter's Pencil and Reporter's Ink Pen, hoping it'd apply to the newspaper - maybe make it typed and neat instead of scribbled. It didn't.

Eh, it's hard to do more in an "everything and the kitchen sink" sandbox game. It also works better (developing relationships, romantic & otherwise) in games with a more directed plot & a small number of party members that you hang out with more (like, say, a Bioware game). Someone mentioned Serana earlier.... and yeah, she fits that mold, since she was part of a contained DLC storyline, and was kept hanging around the player as you went through those quests. But the random/optional companions just floating around the game world? They don't have the required game focus (they only briefly intersect the story & your character, unless you decide to take them along) to do "development" easily.

Some romance characters have side-story quests. Some don't. Some non-romanced companions have side-story quests. Most don't.

I was seriously disappointed when Piper's whole entire story was just,

I felt that Curie and Cait were much more fleshed out. Added to that Cait actually changes after her quests, which was a nice touch. But yeah once it's over it's kind of over.

Course you can break up and then even get back together again, so there's more you can do with the relationship if you wish to go that route.

Agree, companions are wasted chances for interesting side quests. With few exceptions. NV implementation was superior.

They should, but companions are not part of the core design of the game. It is an option that some may choose to use, but many others won't. So Bethesda has to ask themself where is the balance we want to go for? All in Bioware style? Or something in between. I think Fallout 4 was a huge improvement on Skyrim, well Serana already was in Dawnguard. And hopefully they will keep the trend and add more to companions with DLC, and the next TES.