I dont get why people hate Preston because he keeps giving you jobs. Is it too hard to ignore those jobs in your quest log? lol I ginore them all the time if I'm not in the mood for radiant questing. The worst that can happen is you lose support from a settlement and you will just have to, at your own convenience, go back there and do a job to regain their support. And that is if you really miss alot of quests for that specific settlement. I love the minutemen faction and Preston is one of my favorite followers because he is my "field agent" partner in crime (or opposite of crime actually lol). He likes/loves everything I do and he's actually pretty good at sneaking/stealth. If I could go back without losing progress and levels and settlement building, I would have went full blown Minutemen instead of choosing RR.

First of all, don't let anyone else's dislike ruin something else you enjoy. They're not playing the game with you, after all.

Personally, I don't HATE Preston, but I find that to my tastes he has very generic dialogue and so when he's NOT giving you quests, he's otherwise not that interesting to talk to. I love his ideals, and I'm glad in my Minutemen playthrough he was my ally, but he wasn't my first choice of company.

As for the Minutemen/Minutemen Quests and the annoyance people feel, I think these are the factors:

- While the frequency I think was tweaked in the patch recently, they CAN sometimes come at you at a ridiculous rate. There are times in my Minuteman game where Minuteman quests took up half or more of my quest queue (and since you can't hide or auto-fail quests, it makes sorting and finding the quests you do want to do really frustrating.). They pop up at the worst times seemingly too: it's really insane when you're facing down a Legendary Deathclaw Matriarch who claws your face off because you were distracted by a "Oberland Station is under attack" flag in the upper corner of the screen.

- They FEEL urgent, even if they're not. Many quests are timed and people don't like the threat of failure that accompanies that. Not to mention, if you're into actually roleplaying your character, the whole point of the Minutemen is to be there "at a minute's notice," so the in-game philosophy urges you to not let these quests sit. While yes, more people should learn to live with failure, let's face it, most of us play RPGs so we can pretend-live in a universe where we're the center of it and everyone thinks we're awesome. It's hard to tell someone, especially a problem-solving-obsessed gamer, "well, just fail."

- Not everyone also realizes that failing some of these quests don't actually have any major consequences, since under most circumstances settlers can't die. The biggest thing is to just be sure happiness stays high.

- Not everyone realizes you can actually completely ignore the Minutemen and play the game without them, since if you follow the open quests obediently, you get thrust into their arms pretty quickly. A lot of them also don't realize that if you say no to joining them, it actually means "no."

Also on the Minuteman/Preston connection -- the easiest "fix" to not getting so many radiant quests is to complete a quest but not turn it into Preston. That forces you to avoid him meaning you also won't use him as a companion and you don't get to see other sides of him or get other dialogue.

As for the other stuff--a lot of it is misconception, and the best thing you can do is to urge people to play the game rather than complain, as they'll realize they misunderstood in time.

And then there's just people who don't want to play the nice guys. And that's okay too.

The Minutemen are my favorite faction, too. I even use a http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/3176/? http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/4067/? that allow me to repaint power armor and combat armor Minutemen colors. All my guards and provisoners are decked out in my faction uniforms, and my empire is growing!

As to Preston, his quest spam is annoying but you are right, it's not a deal breaker. As a companion, though, there are better options. Besides, I need somebody to administer my empire for me while I'm out having fun.

It's not hate, it's just indifference, he's a boring character with a boring faction.

To be fair, I dislike all of the factions, so there's that.

I don' think there is any hate for the MM. They just get tedious.

My personal frustration is really aimed towards Bethesda. The MM faction should be the Players go to unambiguous 'good guy' faction. But Bethesda seems to have left them half done. Their quest chain is weak compared to other factions and they seem to exist only to showcase a new game feature (Settlements).

I hope some future DLC will address this shortcoming while expanding on the other factions as well.

I don't hate Preston, I hate talking to him because everytime I just pass him by, he marks a settlement for me to do "babe". I can't even have him in the same area as my other NPCs because of that.

Plus, as for the Minutemen, you get no respect with that General title, you tell people to stand down, they said straight to your face that General is just an empty title. As Director, you can execute people for insubordinate or banish them from the Institute and set the course of the Institute, as the Sentinel, there are quests to hand down your authority. Minutemen is also kinda weak in term of storyline, like I could care less about what happen to them.

Oh hell no.. they have never said no such thing me, I can tell you that right now LOL. Maybe you did something to piss them off at some point lmfao Was this a quest or something when they told you that?

I can't remember the quest, but yes, two or three minutemen will ignore your order if you don't pass a speech check.

Yes, telling them to stand down while trying to rescue a hostage will have them tell you straight out that general is an empty title.

http://i.imgur.com/kDvOPOr.jpg

This in response to order them to not go in shooting and muck up something that they misunderstood to be a hostage situation.

The General of the Minutemen is a figure-head basically. Nobody has to take orders from him or her. The MM aren't a military, and they're pretty proud of that fact.

Not so much "empty" as it is just not having the same absolute authority that a military general would have.

It's more like being a pirate captain. You're the captain (or in the MM case, general) because everyone respects you. Lose that respect and you lose the title and the implied authority that comes with it.

If the MM are allowed to disobey any orders they personally disagree with at any time, no matter what you do for them, that makes for a pretty empty leader.

Even pirates obey their captain.

ok I remember that quest, I think I chose a different dialog option than "stand down" because I knew they were in the right and I was only going along with the institute to keep my cover. I told the minutemen to just trust me or something and they were like "alright we dont like it or understand but we'll stand down".

lol after everything I've done for the minutemen and commonwealth... I cant even fathom what I would have done if I heard something like "empty leader" exit a minuteman's mouth. I am afriad to even think about it lol

The problem is, that somehow the Minutemen quests manage to be more annoying than other radiant quests. I certainly do not hate Preston - he is a nice guy and a good adjutant, which seems to be his role in the Minutemen organization.

But there are bugs even with the latest patch. For example there is a permanent kidnapping (for me in Sanctuary, but can happen elsewhere in other playthroughs), it is always the same settler and after resolving it (not hard, actually, but annoying) he is grateful - and is waiting for me again after several days. Preston seems to have nothing to do with it. There are still problems with radiant quests given by unnamed settlers like in my case. If you read the forum here and also in Reddit, many players have troubles with this, mostly of the silly kind - like traveling Provisioners have kidnapped friends (which makes it sometimes hard to hand the quest in), or settlers which were moved somehow and are now living elsewhere, and so on.

The title 'General' is an unlucky choice, the Minutemen are an army of volunteers and not a real army, they never were meant to be. They are modeled after the real historical Minutemen, and they received weapons from the government, but not uniforms. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minutemen

So - the idea is great, but should have been more thought through. That the 'General' is not an absolute commander is clear from the organization. That his Charm and charisma plays a major role is also fine, since it would be the case in reality and in the game - he is more a politician.

But command in battle - which would be a task for any officer in the Minutemen - is not implemented in the game and not really possible. Also the Flare Gun you receive is something only an officer should have - you can call Minutemen - but it was not really well explained when given (its a privilege, actually) and it has no real meaning in the game. I tried it several times during settlement attacks. But they are over fast, and the Minutemen which arrive are ludicrously weak, since they seem to be not leveled. True to the historical Minutemen they carry laser muskets, which are not really strong later in the game, and they do not hit much with it.

So - the 'General' would be responsible for all the politics and responsible for the survival of his Minutemen, because if they die constantly he will loose all support. Yet - you cannot do this in the game, and loosing all your Minutemen you called with the Flare Gun does not have consequences either.

To make this idea working well and really add to the game, they should first fix the bugs and there are some. Constantly being buggered by ludicrous quests like these kidnappings will not endear the concept to the players. Also you should have much more influence to the equipment and training of your Minutemen.

Somehow the radiant quests from the BoS (find technical parts / cleanup locations) are much less boring and annoying: First, you can go and fetch one quest per visit, then you have to do it to get the next quest. You can elect to stay away for a while. The same goes with Railroad radiant quests. With the Minutemen they wanted a bit of 'urgency', as is in the nature of the quests, but that does not really work, it is just annoying. There is nor reason at all the the General must do them all himself. And the entire quest structure and frequency seems bugged to me, since there are too many quests given at once.

In my game now Preston is waiting for the order to attack the Castle, and I know he has at least one other settlement quest waiting. And despite me delaying this - a settler is used to annoy me. Either this is a bug, or the designer meant well, but did not really think or test this...

Which is a pity - because the idea that people start to organize themselves is a good idea and would work well in the game, even if new to Fallout.

I've actually gotten a mixed blessing in mine where the radiant quests seem to have stopped altogether. I tune into radio freedom, and all I get is "Nothing to report. Stay safe out there people."

Maybe it's the latest patch, or maybe it's keywording issues (I was recently having them) or maybe it's mod collision.


Or maybe I'm just overbuilding everything. Seriously, most of my settlements now have over 500 defense. Maybe the patch introduced a system where if you have over a certain defense, the radiers/gunners/bos/super mutants/etc just say "eh, screw it. Not worth it." and give up.


I don't know.

Yes, because he has their respect. He wouldn't be captain very long if he suddenly says "Yarr! And after we finish rapin and pillagin, lets donate all our ill gotten booty to the Wenches Against Rum Drinkers fund!"

Its not like the player asked the MM to go plunder a town.

He/she asked them to wait and not go in guns blazing, potentially killing innocent people (Wallace and Thompson). If they can't obey an order as simple as that, then the title of General means all of jack [censored] to them.

Its not a matter of respect, since the player can work his ass off helping The MM but they'll still refuse the order. Its just that the MM are individuals that do what they want, if an order doesn't line up with what they want to do: they won't do it. That's really the main 'downside' of the MM. They aren't morally corrupt really, but they have no organization and no discipline. So a MM player inherits a meaningless title and position.

- timed "Defend the settlement" quests are fine because they do give u money so it's fair u should protect them

- their quests are badly written though

- u get the quest to - talk to the settlers -> load screen

- move to location -> load screen

- talk to the settlers ver.2 - load screen

- talk to preston garvey - load screen

- just bad design that's all

No, he didn't. The player ordered them to not respond to a call for help AGAIN. In their eyes, you're asking them to throw away the honor that they've just worked so hard to earn back after a colossal failure.

Actually all he really asks is that they stand down for a minute and let him go in and talk things out. Explaining that "you don't know what's going on here, I do." He doesn't ask them to just walk away and forget they saw anything, just wait outside while he works things out. The MM, however, are impulsive, and want to go in shooting.

If their first inclination to solve a problem is to start shooting, despite what their "trusted" General is telling them....I have to say that doesn't paint them in a particularly good light.

Again, they do what they want, when they want.

I know people find Preston annoying and all, but I got the feeling most of the forums hate was directed at the RR.

Doesn't change the fact that you just ordered them to not respond to a call for help from someone who needs it. "you don't know what's going on here, I do." sounds like (and is) upper management BS that someone says to you when they are about to screw you over. Is it any wonder they'd be disinclined to obey such an order?

Doesn't change the fact that they can only follow orders they want to. It's not like when Father or Maxson said "it's an order" and you have no way to debate it even if you disagree with it.

Yes, it is frankly. If you assume they have any modicum of respect for their leadership. Which, they don't. They only obey an order if they want to. That is made quite clear.

Again, you're not asking them to not help. You're asking them to stand down temporarily while you go in personally and work things out. They don't want to do that, they want to start blasting their way in and kill some people.

Are the MM just always going to assume that when they show up, they need to shoot someone for it to be a success?

Well usually when you call on someone like the MM in a post-apocalyptic environment it's because you need them to shoot someone. But that's beside the point.

You're assuming that being a leader means being a dictator and that to have respect for a leader means blindly and unquestioningly following any orders given no matter what. That is simply not the case. Good leaders have people following them because they want to, not because they have to. It's that principle that the MM hierarchy is built on.