As a Fallout RPG game, it gets 1/10 in my book. As a story driven action/shooter/builder/open world game, it gets 5/10. I'm only 24 hours in and I'm losing interest fast. Aside from the environment and story, it doesn't feel like a Fallout game, let alone an RPG.

RPG elements: All have been removed. This game feels like any other game with a story. Dialogue options are a joke, dumbed down, and don't make any difference in regards to the outcome of the story. Karma is gone. Decisions are absent. You don't have the choice to be evil. You can't join the raiders or other evil factions. Skill checks for dialogue are pretty much absent. Dialogue is quick and to the point with no backstory, the characters are bland with no character (ironic), they feel like robotic NPC's instead of real people with thoughts and feelings like 3/NV. The game is linear in every sense of the word. It's not a decision based RPG anymore. It's just a Fallout shooter with a main story and side quests.

Weapons: Bethesda pulled a fast one here. They claim there's more weapons but actually there are far less weapons than 3/NV. You have few types of guns with tons of mods. Bethesda thinks each gun mod counts as a different weapon. I'm sorry but a 10mm pistol is still a 10mm pistol regardless of how many different ways you can modify it. Don't believe me? Why does NV have almost every type of ammo you can think of? 4 has less ammo choices because there are less guns. No .22, no 9mm, no 5.56, no .223, get my drift? Again, the gun portion of the game is extremely dumbed down, and the precious gun mods are supposed to make up for the lack of guns? I don't think so. Not happy about this at all.

Armor: The armor system is a clusterfunk of failure. The armor inventory is simply not navigable. Armor mods are a welcome addition, but splitting armor between body parts was an extremely stupid idea. I'm half tempted to throw all of my armor away because it's too difficult to manage and navigate.

Food/drink: Why even have food or drink when there's no hardcoe mode with hunger and thirst? Why not just simplify and dumb down the game even more Bethesda, and just give us stimpaks and rad-x and call it a day? Oh, and maybe we can add mods to the stimpaks to make it look like there's more choices. It worked well for the weapons and armor system, why not demolish and bastardize the food/drink system as well?

Beds: Same with food and drink, why even give us beds when there is no sleep deprivation? How can you be "well rested" when you were never deprived of sleep to begin with? Just more RPG elements gone in the wind. Thanks Bethesda.

Graphics: They are a joke. They are bugged. Performance is gimped for AMD. Textures are horrible even when the close-distance LOD's are loaded. Lighting and shadows are okay but are also bugged and completely missing from some areas and objects. This is inadmissable for a final release.

Sound: It's okay. The protagonist voice acting isn't great by any means. Mediocre at best. The voiced protagonist killed any bit of immersion I might have had in this game, no matter how good or bad the voice acting may be.

Overall, it's a dumbed down, simplified version of Fallout whose simplicity is masked by an overly complicated weapon/armor mod system and settlement system.

Where's the RPG? I can't find it.

It is a game, you can role play this said game. It has roles you can play. Hence it is an RPG? Stands to reason, no? Just because you don't find it to be so does not take it away from others that like it and find it so. And if you actually like some elements of the game, how can you give it a 1/10? That makes no sense to me.

Completely disagree.

My character has ended up with a number of different choices and it's the type of character that he is that is guiding those choices.

I don't think you're struggling to role play in Fallout 4.

I think you're just struggling to role play.

i think you are pointing out the lack of depth in the game. Its definatly the most shallow fallout game (right up there with fallout 3)

the thing of it is Fallout 3 changed the entire series in a huge way- thats what was cool about it. NV and F4 are just trying to ride that same formula that seriously needs to die already. Its cool that we can pick up spoons and forks- but damn give us a believable world and story first please......vaults designed for 1000 people are tiny in size and have 10-20 people in them that we are to believe somehow lived for 2 generations underground? what?

Call it what you will but Bethesda will make 1.5+ billion dollars from this game (I heard they are at 800 million already). Their job is to sell the most copies which means things will be more streamlined. They did add settlement building and better crafting which is great. They are a for profit company... Not a charity to cater to the needs of thier original fans (I am one of them.) I miss the days of Morrowind and such but I have already come to terms that those days are long gone. Oblivion was a huge step backwards in terms of true RPG elements.

It is best to accept it and enjoy the game ; being sad or angry or frustrated sadly will fall of deaf ears, all Bethesda can hear is the "cha-ching" of money rolling in!

If you disagree with the OP, let it be and let the thread drop into oblivion. Do not post to call anyone a troll.

OP: Nice of you to join just to let us know you don't like the game. This being a fan forum of those who do enjoy the game, it's a bit of flamebait here and usually results in members flaming and getting warnings. As long as this thread stays civil, it stays open. But we will not allow it to continue if it becomes uncivil. There are many places that accept reviews with open arms. You might want to let them know over at Metacritic. It's the place for reviews. This forum is for fans of the games to discuss both the good and bad about the game.

We will be watching this thread closely and if we have to remove or edit too many posts or give warnings, it will be closed.

Why have food, drink, sleep and separate armor bits? So you can roleplay . If you're playing the game like a shooter, it'll be a shooter. If you're playing the game like a roleplaying game, it'll be a roleplaying game. I can't understand the obsession with codifying everything as a gameplay system.

Also, you're complaining that it's dumbed down and then advocating more dumbing down? Your dislike of the mechanics honestly seems to be divorced from complexity or simplicity and rooted solely in your opinion.

So you want things to be simplified and streamlined?

You're 7 years too late, Fallout 3 was the same.

Also 7 years too late.

And yet noticeably better than the graphics in Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas.

RPG elements: karma was a horrible system for roleplay, giving everything a pure black and white perspective was just bad. there are big decisions that make sense (unlike FO3) and no RPG should give you a serious choice to be evil (self-interested, ruthless, etc? yeah, but no sensible person is "evil" for the sake of being evil). the characters are vastly improved on FO3, beth's last fallout. the loss of skill checks is very bad though

Weapons: i like the mods but i agree there is simply not enough base weapons

Armor: the armour system is the best since morrowind, but it is severely lacking in diversity

Food/drink/beds: food and drink have benefits that are much better than stims but i do miss hardcoe, now i just do that thing you claim is impossible (roleplay, if you were wondering)

Graphics: are amazing, 'nuff said

Sound: i prefer a silent protag but the VA isn't that bad

People keep going on about this like piper muckraking. Listen there are no synths here. I wish you could be a super mutant, ghoul or synth like scrims races. Without the added skills and perks it does seem less unique of a character. The crafting adds a lot of ability to make shooting stronger and get other abilities. Armor, gun nut and science are nec with chemist and explosives as well. Then lockpicking and hacking and you don't have much room for choice. Then you're going to NEED local leader and trader just to connect settlements and use this new mechanic.

No, I'm not struggling to role play. FO4 is struggling to allow me the roles I want to play. Simple as that. The choices and freedoms of 3/NV are gone. No mod can bring them back.

k bye

I actually prefer not having meters - that was not what I enjoyed about HC in New Vegas.

Ideally, what I'd like is for Stims to be rare and valuable, and something to be saved for emergencies in battle, and food and drink for topping off between battles.

That's still how I've always roleplayed these games - it means I'm already eating and drinking enough that it would make minding a meter irrelevant (as I found them irrelevant in New Vegas.)

Edit: That's not to say Bethesda totally perfected this aspect, I think there's still room for improvement. But this far I find I'm cooking alot more now, and making use of food.

I just think there's an equally compelling argument to make that you can encourage roleplaying just as much by rewarding players for specific activities as you can by making having a plethora of meters to track.

Different strokes for different folks though - that's what happens when people have opinions about subjective topics.

I did notice there are ample stimpacks in the game as well. I wish in survival mode there weren't quite so many. Otherwise I love the food and drink and health system so far. The good news is stimpacks heal very slow which makes them not quite as powerfull.

Psst. 5.56 ammo is in the game.

i am often running low on the ammo of my choice (but thats because i'm a greedy bastard and use a .50 caliber rifle) but i rarely ever run low on stims, chems and food unless i clean my inventory out and forget to grab a handful of healing supplies, i really wish things were harder to come by

So why not try playing the game?

There comes a point when you hear that "you can have it your way right away" and somebody goes up to the counter and says "Really? I'll have a large Pepsi... no cup".

Now that you know it's not the game you expected why not try to enjoy it for what it is.

And also admit that you don't fully know what it is and won't until you've played all the way through.

I was like this with "The Witcher 2". Was promised an RPG and discovered an on rails action adventure game that only allowed you to rp the solitary role of Geralt the Witcher.

Left it for a bit. Came back to it knowing what I was getting and ended up enjoying it as a great game.

Whatev

Fallout 4 has introduced MORE RPG elements than any of the previous games had :/

I said as a Fallout RPG game, it's a 1/10. Because it's Fallout in name only.

As a game that isn't Fallout, it's 5/10. It's a buggy clusterfunked incoherent mess of a game. Especially the settlement building and the graphics.

Dude. Mods. Mods. Mods. Really, you think these are just flat mechanics? have you tried modding? Mod. Please. They will solve all your problems. I think you just don't like change. I have found lots of Roleplay elements in this game. people feel real to me. More so than ever before actually. I like the mods and you have not found all the weapons. Only playing for 24 hours and saying that there are few weapons in the game is just ignorant. How can you say a game is incomplete without fully playing it? This game has lots of content with 400+ hours. There is just player freedom, so I you feel a lack of drive, just complete quests frequently. I am capable of absorbing the freedom mechanics for long periods of time. All of your other survival issues have mods for them. Use them. Remember that vanilla is for everyone. Mods are for you. Mods are even on console now, so Bethesda knows this as well. This game is very moddable for a reason. Todd Howard has said this and he supports mods. He encourages mods, because he knows mods can make the game your own. So if you judge one of Bethesda's games for a lack of mechanics that mods can handle then you are unaware of modding. If it really bugs you that much, just wait until the realism mods have been created. They make money in order to make better, bigger games, and they have always become more and more ambitious with their worlds and content. This proves this. Skyrim was said to be most ambitious, and now Fallout 4 is said to most ambitious. Skyrim 6 will be most ambitious. They continue to expand their worlds. You say you miss the old days. That is because they had fewer fans, which means fewer mods. Which means Bethesda needs to focus less on the world. They know they have expanded, they make the vanilla copy for everyone. Lots of people. Gaming society has changed. More gamers that are not hardcoe are playing. Gamer type ratios have changed. The world of gaming has changed. They are making their games for everyone. Not just you. I was at the 9:00 PM Gamestop release, and there were lots of first timers to the series and people who generally did not know much about Fallout. Bethesda is catering to them, because they are unaware of the modding community. Modding is even becoming easier to do. Mods even have patches and bug fixes and graphical enhancements, changes and improvements. You say you don't like the graphics. Mod them. Simple as that. Bethesda does all of the hard work to make the world. To make the foundation. To push forward to the next generation. They have been working very hard on this game. Hardest they have every worked. They love their fans. They have a mutual understanding. I have already thought of dozens of potential mods to enhance my game. Mod. Please.

Cool story... Maybe play something else if it is that bad instead of spending time on the forums? You are of course entitled to an opinion but if I dislike I game I never go to the games foums or even worry about it; I just put the game on the shelf.

No, see I would rather voice my opinion to Bethesda so that they can use the criticism for the further betterment of the game. Constructive criticism, you know?

I'm just telling Bethesda why they didn't get my money, and if they want my money, they'll listen to what I have to say.

But what if it was. And is

Nvmnd 5.56 is in the game I believe, .223 is the same as 5.56 - essentialy. A weapon rated to shoot 5.56 can also shoot .223

Just my .02