So I've now got some experience of all the factions, and I just feel thoroughly disengaged from this game. I literally struggle to play it for more than an hour or two, an experience which I've never had playing a game before and I find incredibly surprising. I'll break down what I think is bad into a number of points:

1) The dialogue for the most part svcks. There's far more people in this game than ever before trying to engage you in dialogue and tell you about the troubles they're having/something about their shop/what they had for breakfast/whatever - and it just leads to this bombardment of dull rubbish non-stop throughout the game. More often than not, your character also has very little to say to these people in return (3/4 dialogue choices amounting to the same thing), before it's back to the same dullard windbag to tell you more of their problems.

Regardless of whether I like/dislike the choice to go for a fully voice acted character, they're really not used enough in dialogue exchanges - with masses of time being taken up with people talking at you rather than you having any genuine input at all. The writing of the dialogue just feels off in general - it lacks any kind of semblance to real dialogue whilst at the same time lacks the wit/pacing/interesting exposition of video game/movie dialogue. Bethesda really need some better dialogue writers.

So, first negative point: Talking to people is dull and unrewarding.

2) The factions are either preachy or unrelatable, and becoming invested in one of them is mandatory to further the main plot. Lets take them one by one. Minute Men - pretty much just looking to help people (relatable), but Preston really makes them super-preachy. BoS - want to fight the Institute because they have too much dangerous science (unrelatable - though at least it ties to the lore), and also super-duper preachy at the same time. Railroad - deadset on helping synths for some reason (unrelatable), and also super-duper preachy. Institute - want to help and better mankind through science (relatable), but also have a really weird bunker-mentality going on that seems counter-intuitive to implementing what they want to do practically (unrelatable), and they are slightly preachy - albeit less so than the other factions as they seem to think they're superior already and so don't feel the need to explain themselves.

They're all pretty much populated by ideologists who really believe in the cause, without any real trace of internal corruption or intrigue. The game is incredibly faction orientated, and while random exploring can be fun for a while you're always going to be pulled back into their games. The vast majority of factions are pretty damn unrelatable, or they are really asking you to care way too much about what they do, to be fun. This, rather than enhancing sandbox gameplay, is rather restrictive of it - as the political situation is so much at the forefront that it's very hard to ignore.

Second negative point: Overbearing preachy factions which permeate the entire setting expect me to care when I just want to be doing what I want and having fun.

3) Your character is very much not a blank slate, there's always the son to be running after. If you're careful enough you can avoid mentioning the son for a good long time, however the game always funnels you back to seeking him out. The fact that this is such an integral part of the story and that it hashes out the same every time makes it very boring to repeat, and an irritating niggle if you want to play a character who didn't care about his little scamp.

Third negative point: You have to proceed very linearly through a very big part of the story, and in doing so you also have motivations ascribed to your character that extremely presumptious in terms of what we - the player - would want our character to believe in and care about. These guide rails also impinge on the sandbox gameplay.

For me a sandbox is just about the freedom to explore, it's also about the freedom to play a character that I want to play. Point one means that when I'm looking for reasons to explore, I'm finding very little interesting reasons to go places because the dialogue for the most part isn't that sharp. Point two means, when all my exploration has been done (which it is now for my character), I have to get into bed with these factions that are either unrelatable or have an unrealistic expectation of how much they want my character to care about their goals - the latter of which makes my participation in what they're trying to achieve seem false. The third point means that there's this constant pull on my character to do something and involve themselves in the story, making me play a character who has possibly has different beliefs to what I would want them to have but also encouraging me to not have such a riotous time doing whatever I want in a sandbox game.

Boiling it down: Boring dialogue produces dull side quests that provide little incentive to explore the environment. Though exploring the environment without side quests is in some ways its own reward, it only lasts so long, then you have the game telling you that you want to find your son and then that you should want to get on board with one of these weird ideologically strange factions. It's all just a massive disengaging turn off, producing turds in a sandbox game - i.e. limiting or discouraging your own free choices and removing impetus to explore in a game that's supposed to be exactly about that.

How Skyrim did it better: The Dovahkiin was a true blank slate, and though the game occasionally prodded at certain outcomes (go to Whiterun, etc.) the motivating factor behind these outcomes was no where near as large as the drive to save your own flesh and blood which you care about, and there was so much to do aside from main quest/faction related stuff it was easy to get lost doing other interesting things. Though the dialogue was similarly svcky, it was at least short and was used to emphasise exploration. The Stormcloacks and the Imperials had somewhat relatable goals (seemed very anologous to the American War of Independence), but best of all you didn't even have to ever engage with them if you didn't like their whole deal. All in all, a very strong emphasis was here on freedom of exploration and doing whatever the hell you pleased because the game wasn't telling you what kind of character you were playing and it wasn't telling you that you needed to care and join with a certain political faction to further the game.

How Fallout 3 did it better: In Fallout 3 your Dad, though still a relative, is a grown man - capable of taking care of himself. Besides, he abandoned you and made a crapstorm by leaving, your character very may well not feel like tracking him down very hastily. Exploration in the game was great, and dialogue was kept to the point/expositional - not seemingly endless guff. You're made to side with a faction, but in the end can betray them, and their goals are straightforward and relatable at the very least (trying to help people). Your character, in his desire to track down his father, really doesn't convey the same emotion about it as is present in FO4 and with your upbringing in the Vault being however you want it to be there's really no imposition on the kind of character you're playing. Just like Skyrim, a great sandbox game.

How Fallout: New Vegas did it better: The game, while faction heavy, provides factions that are relatable. Legion and NCR are trying to make the world a better place by imposing their own style of governance, and House has pretty much the same goals as the Institute (rightfully so, given his background) but doesn't have the same ridiculous bunker mentality they do and is engaging with the outside world in a way that engenders trust in his leadership. Ultimately, if you don't like the factions, there's always Yes Man which provides a nice way to stick it to all three. Factions are also populated with normal people who care about their own faction to differing degrees, and have corruption present, making them inherently less preachy then their FO4 counterparts. The character is again a blank slate, and the exploration, whilst worse than Skyrim/FO3/4 is still pretty decent. I think the implementation of factions with normal goals (install democracy), compared to pie in the sky goals (free the synths), and the fact there's all those human elements to the factions on top of you can do an ending completely independent of the factions really makes FO:NV a much better faction orientated game.

I honestly don't get where Bethesda went wrong here. The main reason I'm posting this is I want Elder Scrolls 6 to be actually fun to play for several hundreds of hours, not the bare 50 I'm struggling with now.

Just like RL! Yay, immersion!


That is pretty much the very definition of "preachy faction".

I, and many people I know, would disagree.

-The NCR is so hilariously incompetent at literally every task that they are one step away from Loony Toons banana peel slipping levels of goofy.

-The Legion are overdone, Saturday morning cartoon villains with unnecessarily brutal methods, and who manage to enact huge Machiavellian schemes that made Skeletor and Lex Luthor's plans look sane.

-House is a massive egotist who trying to talk down to you as if he was god, but a quick review of his history shows hes managed to fail at literally every task hes ever set out on

-Yes Man is nothing more then a police state enforced by a horde of murder bots

On the other hand

-The Maxson BoS, while dikes to non-feral ghouls, and Synths, have managed to successfully wage a continued war against the hostile forces of the east coast, and, despite flying aircraft made of toilet paper, manage to survive the crash and effencitly purge hostile super mutants, feral ghouls, and crazed synths, with a level of success the NCR could only dream of.

-The Institute, while brutal with their FEV experiment and Synth replacements, have managed to progress sicence and mankind much further then House or Caesar has.

-The Railroad fights for the freedom of sentients, and has managed to out maneuver the Institute, the most technologically advanced faction in the wastes, for decades.

-The Minutemen achive the same level of "making things better but not really changing the status quo" that the Yes Man ending does, but without the deathbot enforced police state Yes Man forces on the wastes.

IMO, the factions of Fallout 4 are far more relateable, because they aren't so hilariously one sided like those in NV, and have actually managed to get [censored] done in the region far beyond what the NCR or Legion has in the Mojave, and have done so with far more success, and far less unneeded brutality, then either of those factions could ever dream of doing.

Also, New Vegas is FAR more preachy then Fallout 4, because every other NPC and their grandmother tries to show their, and by their, i mean the dev's, political views down your throat, whereas in Fallout 4 their views get mentioned, but nowhere with the same systemic frequency as New Vegas.

But none of that was my point. My point was their end goals are weird - apart from the Minute Men (who are preachy and incredibly one note) and the Institute (whose bunker mentality as I mention is ridiculous, if we're talking about ineptitude not being able to interact viably with the humanity you're supposed to be saving seems a little flawed).

I'm not talking about the execution of the factions' methods being good/bad or indifferent, I'm talking about them giving me a single thing to latch onto and to want to fight for that's easily relatable. Or, if they don't do that, at least treating me as a merc and not telling me to swallow their whole mindset to be part of the club.

I'm currently trying to play a hedonistic bully cannibal, and honestly I can't think of a single faction to fit me. Further, I can't think of a single faction to fit most characters, unless I go out my way to make a character naturally in-line with one of the factions. In makes the game incredibly easy to put down.

As much as it distresses me, I tend to agree with much of what you've said. I have about 900 hours in FO4, but only because of multiple restarts trying to come up with a character I can play (or role play) with different goals and objectives than those mandated by the game. In that endeavor, I've had only slight success. I've finished the MQ only once (RR ending) and essentially found myself disgusted with both my character and myself. I'll never do that again.

When I think about replay value, I have come to the conclusion that there will be a max of 3 or 4 complete playthroughs, one for each faction (assuming I have the patience). I am not totally unhappy with FO4, and I do feel that I got my money's worth and that more value is forthcoming once the GECK is released, but... I have to put my hopes in the modding community to create something better than what FO4 is now. ...and I find that somewhat distressing.

Since it's been mentioned, I enjoyed FONV far more, and for over 2,000 hours. Skyrim even more than that with 6,000 hours and I've never finished the MQ... and now, almost every day, I find myself thinking of going back to Skyrim or perhaps FONV. Something about FO4 makes my memories of those games far more enticing. I suppose though that I'll tough it out until I see some DLC or the results of the GECK being released.

One thing to keep in mind is that both Skyrim and FONV have several DLCs already. FO4 is still very new and vanilla.

I dont see how their end goals are weird

-The BoS want to purge all the folly of mankind, be they super mutant, feral ghouls, or synth, making the wasteland a better place, and they want to prevent mankind from using technology to create another apocalypse by keeping such dangerous tech out of the hands of those who cant understand them or use them correctly.

-The Railroad seeks to free sentient creatures from enslavement, a cause many in the real world take us to this day.

-The Institute wants to avoid the blasted and destroyed world they tried to help several times, believing it unsaveable. Which isn't at all weird given that the entire main theme of the series is "war, war never changes", aka humans will constantly [censored] themselves over in petty conflicts. They aren't trying to save the people of the surface.

On the other hand, The NCR and Legion's utterly bizarre attempts to try to recreate failed pre-war systems of government, in the belief that they can get it to work this item, despite all history proving them wrong, is less logical. Indeed, the entire point of New Vegas's plot was to show that these systems do not work, and even Avellone has said both the NCR and Legion are self destructive institutions.

Similarly, House's attempts to play doll house with the city of Vegas, forcing everyone to follow pre-war stereotypes of Vegas culture, even at the cost of the well being of those people he chose to play dollhouse with makes no sense because hes literally nothing more then an addled old man with no sanity left.

I can make the same comment about the major factions of New Vegas, as none of them tolerate cannibalism.