if you don't like the game go play something else

they got it right, everything doesn't respawn, there are some locations that don't respawn, fort hagen, posieden energy, boston library etc, so there are locations that don't respawn, but most do and thats how it should be, if half the locations didn't respawn any ememies or loot, that would leave and very empty feeling to the game, this isn't bio shock, mass effect, crysis or deus ex etc or some type of linear progression game where you move from one location to the other as the story advances and either don't are not able to go back to previous locations, its an open world sandbox game, if you want a map that gets empty and doesn't have much left to do half way through, then bethesda games aren't for you, the game is designed to have respawns, one of the far cry games i think 3 did that where the world become depopulated and there were eventually no enemies left hardly, i think they fixed it because of the complaints, its not fun playing an open world game that empties out, it works for very few, but fallout 4 is even more of a sandbox open world game then FO3, they put in settllement building and crafting so people can stay on one character a very long time so the world needs to stays relatively populated the entire time, with loot to get the entire time.

This is the stupidest answer in the history of stupid answers. Obviously most people here *like* the game or we wouldn't be here. However, liking the game doesn't mean we like every aspect of it and can't ask for patches/changes/revisions. That's what forums are for. If you don't want to hear opinions about features in the game different from your own, don't get on the forum.

Sorry that wasn't serious. It's just ludicrous to hear again and again that you should pretend the game is better (or let's just say different) than it really is, or that you should ignore this or that poorly implemented feature instead of asking for improvements/fixes because they're optional afterall. Indeed, as alizarin kindly reminded me, even playing the game is optional...

Mixture of feelings. As a pack rat and builder I love it. From the standpoint of "immersion" I hate it.

It doesn't annoy me so much it interferes with my enjoyment of the game, but I do feel it could be 'better' somehow. Maybe mods.

I don't feel that simply "making all loot non-respawning" would be a very satisfactory improvement, much less a "fix."

I think that with some tweaking, the most serious breaches of 'believability' could be reconciled in system that includes respawning loot, but I have no idea how complicated the work would be to make it work.

I actually play Skyrim with a "faster respawn" mod and instead of the one-week to one-month that is default in that game, it is set to about 4 days. I don't find it as 'immersion breaking' in that game for some reason, but maybe that is because I've just played Skyrim so much it is more familiar.

I think the most obvious tweaks that might improve the loot respawning in FO4:

1. NEVER respawn exact placed items of any sort. For example, there is a box of Abraxo on a shelf in a ruin. You loot it and when you go back later, there it (and every other placed piece of loot) is again. If memory serves, this happens at least sometimes, though I cannot say it happens always. It is highly immersion breaking; stuff that the level designers PLACED there to represent "the state of the world when the bombs fell 210 years ago" should NOT EVER, EVER! respawn. It is a serious oversight on their part. Here you have these beautifully handcrafted environments, with all these stories from the past being told in the archaeological evidence, you absorb it, reflect on it, collect, assess and depart and you are suitably impressed with both the game world and its development . . . and then you come back later and *POOF!* the archaeological site has magically reassembled itself!?

Related to this:

2. Obviously "post-war" items spawning in containers (and locations in some cases as well) that obviously were meant to have been hermetic since the day the bombs fell.

To me those are the two most egregious problems that I can think of. I think this would be accomplished by adding a "ERA" attribute to the specific objects in game (if something similar doesn't already exist): A. All BaseIDs get one of three values: Pre-War; Post-War; Both. B. All containers get the same attributions and then respawn algorithms are modified.

Then we come to the less serious elements of the respawing:

3. The fact that many if not all locations seem to respawn the same type of mob, if not the exact same variants. I am not sure I've seen "named" NPCs respawn, though memory is a bit fuzzy on that.

I suppose that more variability would be nice, but then again, Super Mutant camps look distinctive from Raider camps and Mirelurk and other critters 'locales' are also distinctive. I can see why they erred on "less variation" for many of these mobs.

I think this is a very good point and maybe even to the point of overrulling the arguments I make above for "placed" stuff not respawning. Maybe not . . . most locations that have "placed" items also have containers.

In those locations which are clearly meant to represent "pre-war" albeit with "raiders/super-mutants on top," and moreover, which are locations for radiant quests, there maybe could be some more complicated respawn algorithms such as:

1. Placed Pre-war items NEVER respawn.

2. Containers Respawn but with random items that are more indicative of "post-war" visitation / use

3. Latencies for respawn are extended enough that reoccupation and use of the place is more believable.

So you go to a location that is populated with baddies, there are placed items from pre-war (as well as placed items that clearly are meant to convey 'owned by current resident') as well as items in mob's inventories and in containers (some pre-war some not).

You go back and find more baddies at a later time and this time, everything that is there can be attributed to the new residents, i.e., NOTHING that is obviously pre-war, and especially nothing that clearly was meant to represent that "moment the bombs fell effect." That to me would be the ideal dynamic.

The only problem here comes from locations that are populated with essentially "non-sentient" entities (ferals, mirelurks, mole rats, other critters) and where are are pre-war placements and container inclusions. The only "believable" solution is that these places either remain stripped clean or they get a different "sentient" set of residents to account for new post-war loot, neither of which is very acceptable.

Bethesda worlds are always scaled down. Skyrim is supposed to be an entire country, yet you can run across it in fifteen minutes. Solitude is supposed to be a big city, but only has a few dozen people. Each NPC or mile represents more than is actually portrayed. They clearly don't have the resources to create a truly scaled and fully populated world.

Fallout 4 is no different. The area is much smaller than it really would be, the buildings much fewer. Most of the buildings that we do see are boarded up and can't be explored and looted (who did all that building boarding, anyhow?). The places that we can explore have to represent much more than the game is actually able to portray.

Respawning allows a given location to represent more than it actually is. The resources don't exist to create the scaled world and interiors for all those boarded up buildings that would be necessary to insure that the player always has places to raid and scrap to collect in an open ended game without respawning.

The respawning is there as a gameplay mechanic, and for the game to function as designed, you more or less need it so that everyone's individual playstyle is possible.

For those that don't like to see the same areas repopulated...why are you going back to the same area so often? It is wholly possible to play through the game without revisiting a "dungeon" location -- and it's significantly more challenging to do it this way.

For those that play more of a blend between story missions, scavenging and adventuring, Radiant quests, and building -- where would all of the material for that come from if things did not respawn? The game is big, but non infinite. (It's not a Minecraft world.) If nothing respawned, things would become barren very quickly.

Agreed, the world is an abstraction. But it is difficult to reconcile that with the first-person perspective, and I think difficult to reconcile that "Each NPC . . . represents more than is actually portrayed."

As far a "not having the resource," only Bethesda could say for sure, but I suspect it is more complicated than simply that. For FO3 and FOWE, there were eventually exceptional "Interiors Mods" that added interior content to many of the boarded up buildings. I intend to do at least some of this once GECK comes out and ideally every single building on the Wasteland (though that might be eyes bigger than stomach, because I have other things I want to mod too . . .). If a handful of modders can basically "add the missing content" then clearly Bethesda _could_ have done it themselves too, but chose not to for whatever reason. I do not judge them harshly or presume to advise them on their business and creativity. But I do _dislike_ boarded up buildings and find their prevalence in FO4 to be disappointing and I look forward to "fixing" it for myself and others. I also dislike the small scale of portrayal of the Commonwealth, and a new lands mod is on my to do list as well. If someone like Mr. Velicky can make something as fantastic as Falskaar and it can run fine on your typical PC, then clearly Bethesda could have, if not "should have" done something similar (whether that would have been making the Skyrim map bigger or making additional maps). They didn't and Skyrim is nonetheless a timeless masterpiece and one of my favorite games. Again, I don't say this to dis them or presume to instruct them on their business. They are in the business of selling games, not of making "perfect simulators." The maps are "plenty" even if some of us gluttons might like "more!"

I suppose one way of looking at it is, they filled the glass half-way which left enough space for modders to create.

Agree with one caveat: the stuff that clearly was placed there as a prop for the "moment the bombs fell" else the "final resting place of the post-war victims" just should NOT respawn. It totally undercuts the whole point of the Level Designers having put that much time and effort into it!

This "scaled-down" approach has nothing to do with resources. It has everything to do with design. Bethesda specifically wanted to change the way they handled their worlds after Daggerfall. (Daggerfall consisted of thousands of cities, towns, villages, dungeons...hundreds of thousands of NPCs...something like 40 guilds or orders...thousands of miles of wilderness terrain...) The issue was, a lot of work was going in to all of these elements that most players would never use. For Morrowind, they specifically chose to scale things down to fulfill a lot of player wishes:

1.) Make NPCs more meaningful and less "faceless".

2.) Create a way to play the game step-for-step, without needing to fast-travel.

3.) Make locations more unique and not so "cookie-cutter".

4.) Add more variety to guild and faction missions.

5.) Add henchmen or a party system.

Morrowind covered all of these once Tribunal was released. But Morrowind sacrificed a lot of gameplay elements that players loved (purchasing houses, random quests, timed quests, guild requirements for joining/advancement, banks, horses, carts, ships, festivals and holidays by region, cloaks and capes, [quasi] dual-wielding, changing seasons, randomized dungeons...)

What it offered instead was a much more seamless but compacted 3D world where every NPC in the game has a name, a personality, and a unique set of skills. It worked amazingly well -- Morrowind was a universally massive hit, and that had never happened with a Beth title before (except Wayne Gretzky's Hockey!).

Anyone interested in 1:1 scale, play ArmA 2 or 3 and travel on foot from one major town to the next. Even sprinting, it will probably take you 30-40 minutes. 30 minutes of running along a mostly featureless road. Just like a real-life road trip, how long can you be entertained by trees passing by before you just get completely bored and need to distract yourself with something?

Bethesda's decreased scale eliminates this while still allowing for real-time travel between locations.

You know that's not true. There are plenty of people here that obviously loathe the game and just come here to complain. Of course it's gotten better in the last couple of weeks. Most of them are gone. Now it's mostly the nitpickers, of which I am a proud member!

Show me a nit, that I may pick it.

But these threads contain a lot of great ideas, which then get repeated elsewhere and spread around. That, in turn, helps good ideas reach the devs.

All part of the creative process. Especially when you've worked on a project this big for so long, you lose sight of what the overall game feels like to someone picking it up for the first time. As a designer/developer, often what you intended and what you wound up delivering are very different things. The devil is in the details.

I don't have a problem with stuff in containers respawning, or NPCs/Creatures respawning, but when it comes to world placed items respawning, that bugs me. Respawning of static placed corpses bugs me too.

Agreed.

Not so worried about the developers or even the glitches, but I find these forums valuable for advice, humor and ideas.

As a writer, my new site features a fan-fic and fan-art section for all the Beth/Beth related games. Looking forward to posting the few dozen I have now. Maybe even publish a collection of them. Who knows. The logistics of that would be a killer though.

Interesting Pleb. I really must go back and play those originals some day.

bethesda games are gonna have loot and enemy respawns, i can understand the time frame for respawning being an issues but the topic of "having no respawns at all of enemies or loot"...thats probably never gonna happen in a bethesda game, its one of the reasons their games are so popular, you can play them indefinately pretty much, and a lot of people do, someone just playing thru the quests, visiting each location once and then putting the game down not to play it again prob don't care about respawns, but the players who spend the most money on bethesda games are more of a priority then the casual bethesda game player, the hardcoe bethesda game player is more than likely gonna buy all their games, including dlc and probably buy their games for other people, i probably bought 6 or 7 copies of fallout 3 to give away, a few copies of skyrim to give away, i'll probably do the same thing for fallout 4, people really into their games are gonna stick around for dlc that the casual gamer isn't gonna do, i'll probably spend 200 dollars on flalout 4, i'll buy all the dlc then probably buy the game for some friends and family down the road, the games are gonna be more geared for the person who's gonna spend the money with the company, not the person who doens't even like the game, probably didn't even play it and is just crying about how its not a real rpg etc. for people who don't like anything to respawn there's plenty of games like that, but its not gonna be a bethesda game.

As I said above, I *never* voluntarily go back to a location just for the heck of it. I only go back if I am sent there on a quest. This is especially irksome when I get sent to Corvega or some place for quests 3 times in one playthrough and there are other dungeons that are pristine I've never been to that the quest could have sent me to instead.

I would settle for no two scripted quests *ever* being in the same dungeon unless something new and actually worth going back for has changed. Or for radiant quests to prioritize sending me to dungeons I've never been to and sending me to ones I've been to only if I've been to literally every similar sized dungeon in the game.

Which is why I said most people, and not all people. Even most of the loathers *want* to like the game, probably because they are invested in past Bethesda games and are thus here giving opinions because they want Bethesda to make games they like again.

I've played every Bethesda sandbox RPG since Morrowind and I've bought all the DLC for FO3 and Skyrim. And I don't like respawning. Respawning is just not such an issue that it keeps me from buying the game. It just keeps me from enjoying it as much as I otherwise would, and FO4 has had the worst respawning issues of any of their games I've played. If that particular trend keeps escalating, it would eventually result in me not buying the games.

*three post obsessive limit*

I hated how in new vegas by the time you hit max level every challenging enemy is long dead and there's no loot.

I wouldn't buy the games if respawning wasn't there to prevent them from becoming lifeless and empty.

Well, fine, but then we get into the issue of Radiant quests assigning locations located across the map at nonsensical locations. Radiers from Goodneighbor came all the way to Tenpines Bluff, fighting through Gunners and Super-Mutants and Feral Ghouls both ways...to kidnap a farmer?

I think the types of enemies and items that respawn and when and how they respawn simply needs to be evolved.

Goodneighbor isn't a raider base. Less strange than super mutants ransoming settlers (food) for caps. The hell are they using them for?

Isn't that sort of what max level is? D&D came up with a system of modules that set level 30+ (max level) characters against demi-gods, daemons, and deities. Characters could eventually ascend into a state of godhood themselves by ~45-50. I don't think that would work very well in Fallout.

It's sort of the Conan complex -- fighting so hard and becoming so powerful that the world lost all of its color. He sat on his throne longing for the days when anyone could challenge him.

No, max level should not mean turn off the game until dlc comes out because everyone is dead. That's boring.

I helped Preston and friends back in Concord some hundred hours ago, but I never joined them in Sanctuary. As I went back to the Museum of Freedom in Concord, and found that even though the bodies of the raiders inside lay as I had left them, all containers had respawned. And also the magazine, although this must be a bug. The bobblehead had not respawned, though.