So far, its my only major gripe in a game I otherwise adore. Both container contents and placed items respawn. I just hate it. How do they explain it? Is someone going around filling all the vending machines and tool boxes after you've emptied them? It makes sense if people re occupy a location. So if you wipe out a bunch of raiders, loot a place then a few days later a new bunch of raiders have moved in and restocked all the containers then fine. But I just killed some super mutants in a farm which happened to have a work bench so I came back a day or two game time later to use the bench, and the big steamer trunk full of goodies had resapwned as well as the various containers but the super mutants hadn't. It was as if by magic.

There's also that one can of oil laying on the ground outside that mole rat burrow next to the Red Rocket that I run past quite often and it irks me.

I guess the designers wanted to make the supply of stuff to craft and build with inexhaustible but why not limit it to dungeons, that way once you've cleaned a place out you're not likely to go back and you won't have to see stuff you've already picked up magically reappear?

What do you guys think? Is it a good thing? Are you bothered one way or another?

Right, I'm going back to playing the game now cheers. I can squeeze in another couple of hours before bed.

Cheers.

I dislike respawning in general, EXACT respawning precisely. It's like watching reruns of TV shows that you saw just a couple days ago. "Next, ____ will be happening and the loot in that chest will be _____."

Depends on if the enemies are respawn at the same time.

Respawn is necessary. You need stuff to progress. It would be better if the respawn were more random. And coupled with the new occupants. If there are none and you find stuff, imagine that the inhabitants are out for a raid and, undisciplined as they are, left no one back as guard.

I presume that more random respawn is a programming problem? And of course, if the respawn would be random, there would be lots of forum rants that people need some stuff and cannot find it reliably.

For someone playing a long game, a gradually emptying world would eventually become a problem.

Yes it is odd the dead drifter outside Sanctuary keeps refilling with caps, but it is what it is...

That helps actually. I've been trying to kind of... rationalise it as it were. "Maybe I just forgot that ammo box the first time I was here." But that excuse works better. Cheers.

It adds to the MMOfication of Fallout, which is a lot of people seem to like.

Because if it doesn't respawn, people will complain about running out of resources and aids.

Forget about realism. You can't apply 100% realism in a game or it'll be boring or not going properly.

If you insist on thinking logically for this "respawning" matter, just think that there are wanderers like you and they gotta store their overloaded items around.

I think that would be very logical.

why do you loot the contents again if it bothers you? to have a world being emptied out doesn't work for most players, a lot of people like to make a playthrough last a very long time, to high levels, to have the map empty doesn't work, if you don't want the loot don't go back to the spot, there's also a lot of repeating quests, you need more ammo and supplies to keep things going, as far as explaining how it gets "refilled? well people use containers to store stuff,thats what's being represented, a world just all emptied out eventually isn't good game design for a game like fallout 4, its not a game where you go from point a to point b then you're done, a lot of people don't play like that, some people just do random stuff, build their settlements, fight enemies, explore and level up, its not much fun to spend a lot of time leveling up then not have anything left at high levels, i want just as much going on at level 1 as i do level 50 or level 100.

I think its great, you dont end up with nothing to do. Big problem for all settelments and other upgades like armor weapons etc. Casuse then you have no crafting items left.

I made a character with 2 intelligence and 10 luck, so it all makes sense to them.

I like it actually. Theres a weapon crate between Abernathy and Red Rocket that I run past frequently and it always has new goodies for me. I'l be on the lookout for that oil can by the mole rat cave now too, thanks.

Res

Yes, FO4 respawn is 3 days or the same as Oblivion, Skyrim had 30 days who is a bit too long respawn time. Perfect would be say 7-14 days, but not so much dependent on then you last visited, perhaps have 2-3 days after you last visited too. So you first have an cooldown, then you respawn after visit.

Its a bit hard to change the enemies at location raiders, gunners and supermutants has their own base decor, random creatures are random I think.

I understand where you're coming from but I believe it's necessary. My gripe is actuallly that plants like hubflower don't seem to respawn at all or very, very slowly. These are essential to make chems. My chemist xharacter relies on it heavily and merchants don't seem to sell them.

Anyone know of a merchant who sells them or how long it takes to respawn?

I feel it's necessary to 1, imply the wasteland has other people living in it, and 2, give you a reason to return to different areas after you've already breezed through them once.

The respawning also means if you fill a crate with Fat Mans and Missile Launchers, some other scavver might have hauled them off before you get back!

Respawning in general is OK. But in Fallout 4 respawning is way too quick (few days) and respawning of non container items is not random. It's large immersion breaker, I agree with OP. Running in to the same bag of cement I have picked up yesterday is stupid. And then again, and again and again.

It however might not be deliberate design choice, it might be caused by the limitation of the engine and hardware. Data of changes (like removing of items) from every visited cell have to be stored on a HD. Game have to "reset" cells to their original status after some time to free up the space and keep memory usage inside limits.

Respawn isn't a bad idea. It is just poorly implemented without logic.

There should have been a dynamic respawn system. Especially with radiant quests (eventually) sending us to the same place over and over.

If I had the option to completly turn respawning off then I would almost be tempted to do it.

It's pretty terrible, another example of The World, The World Never Changes. I clear out super duper mart and next time I go back in it's as if I was never there. Not only have the enemies all come back (I can accept some enemies returning, raiders say, but feral ghouls?), but someone has snuck in there and rebuilt the protectron and put it back in its box, restocked and locked the safes, reloaded all the first aid kits and stocked the shelves. Even worse are the places where named characters come back to life: not only do we have NPCs who can't die, we have some that come back from the dead. Ridiculous.

Don't know where that 72h comes from, but I've had many times npcs as well as containers respawn much faster. Fastest was something like 5 real time minutes, the time to loot a couple house. Then turning back, the first house was repopulated. Also the first house in Concord, coming from Red Rocket, has a dresser on second floor that respawns its content even when I don't loot it: it has a red bandana and goggles, and if I wait a few days, there'll be more of the same.

That reminds me, there's some Mr Handy fuel outside. When I discovered the place I took it all, but to avoid being over-encumbered inside, I went back home just to make space, then came back and the fuel had already respawned.

I'm not sure what it is, but certain areas now like Thicket Excavations respawns loot and boss chests non-stop. I can go there and hoard and return to Red Rocket to store as many times as I want in 1 in-game day. It's kind of a cheapening feeling. Random raider corpses may or may not show up again when I return, but it's practically vacant with nothing but free loot.

Just read about the respawn timer and its mods who changes it. Cleared locations is supposed to have longer delays.

Remember that fast travel takes a lot of game time, think its 12 hours from castle to diamond city and the days are very short.

Radiant quest can force cell reload too, I got an fun radiant quest who only re-spawned the end of quest boss, that was an easy one

Yeah but even fast travel can't explain all those occurrences. The first one I talked about couldn't be more than 1 in game hour, even with the crazy timescale (still 20 I assume). And I might have used FT from the mart to Red Rocket and back, but I doubt it's a 3 days journey. The 3 days might be the rule, but then it's buggy here and there.

Indeed there are places and even individual containers or individual objects that respawn faster then 3 days. Bag in a house south of Corvega plant where random encounters occur respawns faster just like objects in the backroom (with first aid box). Other item and containers at the same location does not.

Excavation site south of Concord re spawns faster as well.

Those are just examples.