Beth, you know you've really dropped the ball on a faction when players start saying they skip their starting quest / associating w/ them due to how annoying they get later on. And let's not forget the anti-climactic way you give the player access to power armor AND a fight with a deathclaw within their first 20 (or so) minutes into the game, because of said faction.

It may be too late to rescind that armor grab / dc fight, but i hope you can at least do something about the endless/pointless radiant quests the MM saddle you with, especially given how they rapidly start sending the player to the -same- location, to do the -same- quest (hostage rescue or bandit elimination). And their fixation on propping up every 2bit farmer with a workbench, no matter how remote or small their land is.. like hangman's alley. Why in the unholy name of vault-tec would ANYbody want to try and make a "settlement" in an area that's barely big enough for a basic family to live in without it turning into a 3rd-world inner-city simulation (tiny liveable space, barely enough room to plant crops/water to support said family).

And on an unrelated, non-complainy note, anybody ever talk to glory right after you meet the RR? Like before you even leave the room that demona questioned you in.. found out that she has some surprising views on natural humans. Throws a bone (even if its a very slight one) to the institute concerning their fears of synth's getting out of control (even if the institute is responsible for their creation in the first place)

I don't get why more people don't see the early PA as the tutorial it is.
Sure you can get PA pretty much right away, but it takes a bit to get enough fusion cores to really use it past that deathclaw fight.

I also don't get how people feel forced into joining/meeting with garvey and pals and doing all of the minutemen quests. You don't ever have to meet them, let alone join the minute men, or become their general.

Oh wells.

And even if you don't get given that set of T45, there is always another one on the route to Tenpines Bluff. To be honest, the first PA suit really is the PA tutorial.

You're right that you are not forced to join them or start helping the MM, but it's still bad design that their missions get so annoying/repeat-y after a short amount of time, and unlike the other factions that you can -eventually- opt out of by killing their members as you find them or they start showing up in the world, as far as i know the MM starting quest line does -not- go away on it's own, and even if you force-complete the quest thru console (for pc users) i'm pretty sure preston's group would go to sanctuary and you'd be forced to take on their quests simply by being near them (that awful speech bubble concept). Since there's 2 magazines and a bobblehead at stake, i'll go that far, but i'm ditching his group after i deal w/ the dc and letting them rot in that church, so i dont have to deal w/ the endless repeating scrub quests later on.

Not having to listen to marcy's [censored]ing or jun's whining is a bonus

And then there's the other complaints i (and others) have for the MM in general, but those have been repeated enough times in other topics. Still feel that being given a suit of PA and a fight with one of the big-bads of the world so early (even if it's excused as being part of the tutorial) is a let-down, though. Previously fallout games you had to work your way up to power-armor. It was something of an achievement. And technically you could fight a DC early in your character, but it almost always ended badly for you, so they were something that (again) was saved for later-game, and you could enjoy the satisfaction of finally being able to tangle w/ those things and not die horribly within 5 seconds

After a swathe of quests from Preston and the Minutemen, I felt like raising the union jack and toasting King George...

Helping the people at a minute's notice is a good principle, but not every second day...those dudes need to svck up some psycho and grow a set.

Preston and the Long Family have made me hate Sanctuary Hills.I don't longer build anything on Sanctuary Hills or set foot on Concord.

Everyone knows those radiant quests are optional, right? Even if dialog is initiated you can just turn and walk away to break the dialog. You're not forced to do any of them.

I've made a fair amount of complaints about the Minutemen myself, but I'm on my second play through now and I'm not finding them to be as annoying as I once did. As far as their personalities are concerned, Marcy and Jun Long leave a bit to be desired. Preston is annoying mostly because of the overly repetitive nature of the Minutemen quests. Personally I don't have a problem with always having some Minutemen quests on hand. What I have a problem with is being sent to the same 2-3 locations over and over again. The way I see it though, this is mostly a bug of some sort. If the Minutemen quests took me to consistently different locations, I'd have no issue at all with them. It may also help if it was at least somewhat optional. The radiant quests for the Brotherhood can go on infinitely, but when you finish one, they ask you if you're ready for another one. This makes a big difference.

As far as the power armor was concerned, I have no issues with that whole scenario. It was basically a tutorial on how to use the power armor, which is somewhat different than in previous games. I thought it made for a cool introduction to the game personally.

Hangman's Alley is an awesome settlement location. You just have to be creative with it. I spent about 4 hours doing a build there last night, and it's great. I did a really vertical build that goes almost to the tops of the roofs of the surrounding buildings. It's a really unique settlement because of how difficult it is to work with. Search for some videos on builds at Hangman's Alley and you'll see just how cool it can be. I'm on a relatively new playthrough and Hangman's Alley is going to be one of my main settlements this time through. I didn't use it much the last time. If you don't like a given settlement, you don't absolutely HAVE to build anything in that location. If you're required to build a radio beacon to complete the quest, build it and then either scrap it, store it, or just shut it off. If any settlers happen to still show up just send them to a different settlement. There are, I believe, 30 settlement locations in the game. In order to complete the game with the Minutemen you're required to set up 8 of them. If you aren't fond of the smaller settlements in weird locations, then there are plenty of big and wide open ones that you can focus on. The fact that they gave us some variety in settlement locations is a GOOD thing. Having big wide open settlements like Sanctuary, Starlight Drive-In, the Abernathy Farm and others is great. But the settlement system would get incredibly boring if they were all like this. I like building on some of the really obscure settlements like Hangman's Alley, the Coastal Cottage, Murkwater Construction Site, Jamaica Plains, and others. This keeps the game fresh. Rather than just picking an empty flat plot of land, you're forced to get creative to make it work. Settlements like Hangman's Alley are great especially for people who don't like to fast travel. It's a central location right next to Diamond City and within a very short distance of quite a few key points. Regarding the food and water there, if you haven't been able to plant a sufficient amount of food and water at Hangman's Alley, then you haven't tried hard enough. There's a huge open patch of dirt outside of one of the gates. I have 30 mutfruit there and a total of 24 water worth of the level 1 water pumps. And there's plenty of room to spare there.

I'm doing two playthroughs , one with Preston and the MM, and one without.

Doing the default MM playthrough more things happen and you are shown the main quests.

Probably this would be good for first time players, but for Fallout 3 veterans it becomes very annoying to have the interference of Preston

every minute.

The game is very different if you leave Preston in Concord, with the bonus of losing the rest of his party.

Right now I am really into my no MM playthrough, but sometimes I will switch to see what I am missing.

Mostly I am missing being annoyed and bossed around, LOL. Why are these 5 so annoying???

I get mad right away at Preston when he says it's OK if I come along to Sanctuary which he is invading without even asking.

Gee thanks Preston!

Beth didn't drop the ball, there are a lot of people playing the Minutemen and having fun with them. I like the Minutemen, a lot of people on these forums like the Minutemen. You're looking at one side of the playerbase and going "WELP EVERYONE HATES THIS, NOPE NOT GOING TO LOOK AT OTHER PLAYERS PEOPLE HATE THEM"

Also looking at hangman's alley, it's right along the road to Diamond City and Bunker Hill, aka a major trade route. Yes, why would people build a settlement on a major trade route? Never seen that happen with countless cities and towns throughout history, nope totally nonsensical. /sarcasm

Entire countries have grown from being on a major trade route, Samarkand was one one of the most influential Islamic cities in Asia why? Because it was on the silk road.


Not to mention the PA you get is one of the weakest PA you can actually get that breaks so fast.

Apparently I have a much higher tolerance for rude NPCs than most other people... Marcy Long is actually kind of endearing to me. I always thought the Longs were siblings, though... is it ever said they're husband and wife?

The whole sequence in Concord is fine to me. You leave Sanctuary searching for your son, and you find a group of settlers fighting for their life. I mean, your son is out there, but these guys have more pressing matters... and if finding your son is more important, then just where are you going to go? I think it's a good way to give the player an actual foothold in the world, and let them sort of slow down and figure out what's going on. The bit with the Power Armor and Deathclaw is cool, too - Bethesda likes to give us something cool like that early on, and then set it up so that we won't be able to use it all the time until later on down the road. It makes it all the better to mow down Deathclaws at level 50 when you remember having such a hard time with the first Deathclaw you encountered.

Tutorials can be skipped in most games. This one can't.

I haven't got a problem with the minutemen as such. They allow me to build up a string of settlements under my own steam. I know, you can build them up without the MM, but you don't get some of the goodies, such as artillery support or MM securing certain points as the game advances.

What I do have a problem with is Preston, his radiants and the attack missions as such. Prerston, in my opinion, is entirely bland compared to all other companions. And the radiants are even more repetitive than the radiants from any other faction.

Apparently I have a much higher tolerance for rude NPCs than most other people...

I'd love to have an option to give a rude response. Then I'm just fine with rude NPCs.

Tutorials can't be skipped in most games. I can think of MANY popular games that have unskippable tutorials. Even as a tutorial it's not that bad of a one. I don't even think any Bethesda games have a skippable tutorial.

In fact it's right to say that skippable tutorials in modern gaming is in a minority compared to unskippable ones, the thing is most tutorials are part of the main story so people don't view them as actual tutorials where in the past you were placed in a tutorial area rather then thrown into the game.

Even so saying "I can't skip Concord!" yes, yes you can. The only tutorial you can't skip is Vault 111. Otherwise Concord acts more as the first dungeon and quest rather then a tutorial.

I guess they think of power armor as late game loot, rather than the scaling character build option it is in this game. There is a world of difference between that first suit of bottom level T-45 power armor and the fully upgraded X-01f armor sported by a high level character. The T-45 is the pipe pistol of power armors.

People don't even have to avoid Concord to avoid the Minutemen. Do Concord, let the settlers move to Sanctuary. Then, just avoid talking to Preston as he patrols around Sanctuary and you never have to fool with the Minutemen. Or, if you are on the PC, you can install http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/3456/? mod and nip the constant stream of radiant quests in the bud and, suddenly, the Minutemen aren't so bad anymore.

I ran across a small store in a town somewhere in the Wasteland, I forget exactly where now, that had Long's computer journal. After reading it, I felt like such a heel for disliking him so much. I feel so bad for the guy now and I get why he is the way he is.

You can avoid the deluge of Minutemen quests simply by refusing to accept the position of General, too.

This is probably in Quincy at the Gunner camp that used to be a Minutemen camp. I don't remember this terminal specifically, but basically all of the Concord settlers are mentioned there.

Right there, you fail in your debate. You said Bethesda got it wrong. Well if you can't stand the whining and it's a bonus, maybe Bethesda got it correct?

Yea a lot of people don't understand PTSD and how it can change someone. I find the people whining about the Long family to be pretty insensitive and won't accept that yes, both of the personalities the husband and wife have is from heavily traumatic events and grief from the lose of their son.

They aren't "annoying" they're people trying to cope from a very intense and stressful situation.

If you ever go to the Quincy Ruins and dig around a bit, you see what really happened to those original group of survivors you meet in Concord. Yeah, Marcy and Jun are a bit frazzled but it's totally understandable considering what they've lost.

I can completely understand this. I did read all of these terminals and it did provide some further insight into the situation...but I wish they'd kind of ease up on it after a while. Loss like this svcks, that's undeniable. But time does heal all wounds.

To be fair, Jun does have his good days.

I want to be able kill them all in my 1st playthrough

I found out pretty quickly, that I don't want to do a minutemen ending. I find it irritating that contructions goes hand in hand with them, along with settlers and more headaches in the form of settlement attacks, that I have no desire to help in. It locks out an entire faction for me, and I'll have to live with that. It feels unpolished overall regarding the minutemen, well all the factions really imo, but minutemen just tick me off

Sometimes these problems take years to fix, I have friends who have gone through a ton of abuse in their lives when they were teenagers and still suffer from the after effects even in their 20s. There are still veterans from the vietnam war that still suffer from their time in the service. These kinds of things aren't solved in a fortnight, if they're lucky at most a couple of months if they aren't they'll be going through it their entire lives and we are talking about a setting where therapy isn't something that is easily found.

On my second playthrough, I left Preston and his groupies at the Museum of Freedom, took the PA and never looked back. Probably the best playthrough to date.