Dear all,

i hope someone at Bethesda reads that, because what i'm about to describe is my only REAL quarrel with Fallout 4.

Why is Bethesda so against happy endings?

The Institute is boiling with scientists that are against the Institutes policies, many of them see the synths as sentient beings that should not be treated like slaves. Many even don't see what the Institute is doing "good" outside their walls and some even don't believe in their mission anymore (if there is one to begin with).

The player will become the leader of the Institute. Why it is impossible to change the policies of the Institute?

Treating the Synths like human beings would make the Railroad obsolete.

The Institute could offer help with radiation resistant crops, clean water, they could even offer energy from the fusion reactor to the Commonwealth.

I can understand why the BOS could be hard to persuade, but the Institute? Half of the scientists even have doubts before the player even gets into the Institute. After Shaun is dead, it should be easy or at least possible to persuade the section heads to change policies.

Blowing up the Institute is a waste and totally unnecessary. Killing the Railroad is totally unnecessary as well.

I'm astounded, that Bethesda is seemingly unable or unwilling to follow into the footsteps of the old games. In F1 and F2 it was totally possible to arrange a cooperation between some factions and settlements.

Does Bethesda really think that the players are so agressive, single minded and plain uninterested in cooperative solutions?

In F4 it's either: Kill them or blow the other faction up.

That is just...stupid. It's cheap, it's unimaginative, it's even counter-intuitive after becoming the Institutes leader and it only delivers a very unsatisfying ending.

I hope Bethesda corrects this with a patch or a DLC or whatever.

I think it's weapons-grade stupid and it doesn't fit with the theme of the older games at all.

Bethesda probably doesn't give crap what i think, but i really can't figure out why Bethesda would limit the choices to kill or blow up.

*shake head*

What do you think? Are you satisfied with the choices: kill or to blow up?

Thank you for reading.

Because it would be a longer process than just a one-day decision.

In other words, Director Survivor would do this throughout the coming years.

Making an entire quest chain for this is not only resource-consuming, but it means you need to do the same for other three factions as well, thus making it four time more resource-consuming (and this is what primarily decides what gets into the game and what doesn't). Maybe a DLC will bring it, but for now you have it clear that the Institute CAN change, that you become their boss even if you make it clear you do not follow Shaun's philosophy and you can alter the radio speech to represent the future you have in mind. NOBODY in the Institute complains about it, suggesting that Director Survivor likely won't have many problems in reforming them.

Blowing up the Institute is absolutely necessary for all of its enemies. With their new nuclear reactor, the Institute would become unbeatable once they made their technology fit the new supply level. The Institute is already considered overpowered by everyone, and they get at least ten times as dangerous if they get the reactor working.

Destroying the Railroad for Institute is absolutely necessary. Even if you offered peace to them, they would just think you are replaced by a Synth, and that's without mentioning that the main low-point of Railroad is that they are too narrow-minded and a great number of their members joined not because they believe in Synth freedom but because they were the one and only faction in the Commonwealth who fight the Institute (thus destroying the Institute is one of their core goals).

Now I supported the Institute and will do it again in replays with my main character, but I can't blame anyone in the Commonwealth for not trusting these guys.

In extremely few games in the entire industry, Fallouts included, is it possible to make peace arrangements between MAJOR factions. Peace-arrangements are usually limited to major-minor factions and minor-minor factions.

I expect that they think the player has enough attention to follow the story and not expect BS choices just for the sake of them.

Which is why you blow up Minutemen in all choices I presume?

Oh wait, you don't... for some reason, if a faction does not ideologically oppose yours, you don't have to blow them up. Fascinating...

you even don't have to destroy the BoS and Railroad if you side with the Minutemen... extra fascinating.

Fallout 1 - destroy the Unity or join them and destroy all the human life

Fallout 2 - destroy the Enclave. That is literally the only option you have

Fallout 3 - poison or save the purifier, destroy the Enclave or the BoS. No middle roads

New Vegas - one major faction wins, other get crushingly defeated, no way to compromise even though 3 of them are in mutual alliance

In other words, with all due respect, you are making *BLEP* up.

There should absolutely be more options:

More Subtle Institute Ending

-Brotherhood leadership replaced with synth duplicates, Brotherhood is now the above-ground operations arm of the Institute

-Railroad leadership replaced with synth duplicates, all data on escaped synths and Railroad operatives recovered to facilitate eventual recapture

There you go. Gameplay for this would consist of clandesinely obtaining DNA samples from each of the individuals you need to replace, then swapping them out for their double, all without raising any suspicions. Probably not the "good" ending you were thinking of though.

I was so disappointed when I had to kill the RR when I joined the institute. I tried arguing against it and everything but then was just outright told to do it. It felt so hollow just gunning them all down when they weren't really a huge threat, not big enough to warrant their slaughter anyway.

They're not against happy endings.

See Fallout 3.

They decided to do a morally ambiguous story for Fallout 4.

It was going to be bittersweet THIS TIME, no matter what.

And I approve of that storytelling wise.

Also, no one said you can't change the policies of the Institute. That's just beyond the scope of the game.

Bittersweet? Last time i killed the bad guys with a giant robot and huge bomb and got promoted. Where's the "bitter" part?

Oh right, that head-bad-guy had biological relationship to the player character Well, his choice for turning into sci-fi dr. Mengele. Eat nuke, punk!

Yeah, there's nothing which can make a player engage with a story.

Which is why a lot of the posts here are, "Why can't I play an evil cannibal psychopath who doesn't care about his son? Why does my character keep saying he cares about Shaun!? STOP MAKING ME PRETEND I CARE ABOUT THEIR SPOUSE!"


But thats the way the story is designed.

The whole thing is designed to make you sympathize with every faction. You have to BEND OVER BACKWARDS not to get to know a faction before you destroy it,

Well, i'm not a father (and i try my best to never become one ) so the parent part of the story is lost on me Which allows me to take the above purely pragmatic approach

It is not necessary to include so much effort..just the hint of it. You actually CAN'T oppose Shauns decisions at the end. "You do that, that's an order".
A few lines with the directors and with the railroad to hint the possibility of reconicilation would have been enough.




If you like to misinterpret my meaning on purpose, that's fine. But that's not what i meant.
If you reconcile at least between the Institute and the Railroad both factions don't need to be destroyed.
A change in policy concerning the synth would make the Railroad obsolete. A meeting between Desdemona and me plus some of the directors would be a start.
I stay by my opionion that this is not impossible. The char can persuade a lot of people in the game, why not make a use of it here?
I know its a long process, but at least a start could have been hinted.




I see. Because most others don't, Bethesda as an old RPG-smithy is not obligated to present more than the usual formulars.
Understood.




Astounding that you don't find that blowing the other side up is an unsatisfactory solution.
And to be honest, the story is not a seat-glue either. I didn't expect that from Bethesda that's not their strength, but a satisfactory ending should be doable, even for them.




And again you misinterpret what i said.
The Minuteman are a neutral faction. The only thing they want gone is the BoS which i can get behind, because the BoS are zealots who oppress the farms for food and offer "unwanted" protection.
So you are wrong about the Minuteman in that regard. At the end of their questline they want the BoS gone by bringing down the Prydwyn.
If you play for the more interesting factions, Railroad and Institute there is only: "kill the other".
That's my only complaint.




In F1 and 2 you could bring peace to a lot of settlements and smaller factions. The goals of the "big faction" is rather clear and does not have the potential of "good" like the Institute has.
If they would have been presented as total [censored]s with no chance of redemption, the choice would have been easier and the game would follow the typical good vs. evil narrative.
But they didn't do that, for which i applaud them, but they refrained from making the next step: Reconcile between factions.
It's frustrating to walk other paths but keep the player half on the road because they didn't include a more interesting ending.

And with "older" games i only meant 1 and 2. F3 was weak storywise.
In addition you are wrong about New Vegas..you can take over the robot army and thereby add another power to the game.




In other words: You misinterpreted what i meant and you don't give a crap about a more interesting and more peaceful ending.
But that's ok. I find a "blow the other up"-ending unsatisfactory.
Obviously you don't share that notion.

Yes you are right about F3. The happy ending is without the player, but still it's a happy ending.
In F4 the happy ending in which the Institute REALLY helps out with power, water, radation-resistant crops, robots etc. would have been much more gratifiying than "Clean water for all".

I agree concerning the ambiguous morality, but after you have destroyed the Railroad it's quite hard to reconcile..because the other faction is gone
It would have been nice to offer/hint some kind of peaceful solution.

That's all i'm saying.

I got a perfectly happy ending with the BoS.

Why would you want a happy ending? Bethesda games usually don't have one. And don't come and give me that TES hero happy ending crap.

They couldn't really make me sympathize with the BoS. A handful of characters in it I like, but its leadership and ideals? Come off to me as a bigger Hate Sink than Bethesda seemed to be trying to make the Institute.

What Bethesda game doesn't have a happy ending? Fallout 3 does (bittersweet until Broken Steel), and the TES games do, so what games are you referencing that Bethesda made that didn't have a happy ending? Skynet? Wayne Gretzky Hockey? PBA Bowling Tour 2?

You really think that Skyrim has a happy ending? The Dragonborn is alone on a mountain top surrounded by dragons, only a select few ever know what he did as he killed Alduin in Sovengarde, and he is not needed anymore. Is that happy? The hero of Oblivion has to see her friend Martin die, and then becomes the Daedric Prince Sheogorath, which might be fun, but loses her entire identity. Fallout 3 well it had a pretty sad ending, you died, until Broken Steel. I think they are mostly sad endings, atleast for my character arc. If i live or die is not the factor that determines whether the ending was happy or sad.

No, you're just a country-wide famous and beloved hero as well as leader of multiple factions potentially and certainly at least one.

Actually every single Elder Scrolls game has the ending of one game lead directly to the crisis in the next, though they don't spell it out for you. For example, Martin Septim shatering the Amulet of Kings leads directly to the return of Alduin. Similarly, killing Alduin on Shor's front porch was a REALLY BAD IDEA. Many of people noticed that the Dragonborn protagonist in Skyrim didn't absorb Alduin's soul and wondered why that was. Do you wonder what absorbed it? What do you think happens when a really big chunk of Lorkhan mixes with a really big chunk of Akatosh? The Elder Scrolls VI is what happens.

There are no happy endings in Elder Scrolls games simply because they are never actually endings.

Talking about the Dragonborn story, not the sidequests like factions. There is a reason it ends on the Throat of the world surrounded by your own kind, and not having a huge parade for you in Whiterun. You do not belong with the mortals, you are alone.

I didn't get a parade in Skyrim. Boo-hoo. But you know what did happen? I saved the world that me, my friends, and the woman I loved all lived in from a creature that, at best, would have been keen on killing countless people and enslaving the rest, or, wanted to destroy the entire world, at which point I am free to do what I want, no longer compelled to fight a battle because destiny ordained me with a power I never asked for, but felt like I had to do because I knew nobody else could. Seems like a happy ending to me. Besides, even if nobody knew exactly what I did, they aren't going to forget that I did it.

Even in some of my more depressing playthroughs, where my character has begun to find themselves feeling distanced from the Joor more and more as their power as Dragonborn grows (in essence, the Dragon aspect of their personality becoming more pronounced as they devoured more souls), they still found a way to appreciate their humanity and the connection with the mortal world (largely due to meeting the previous Dragonborn in Sovengarde), and are satisfied now that their role in the mythic is done, they can find their place in the world, be that as an adventurer, a parent and spouse, a soldier, a member of the Greybeards, or a dragon.

Oblivion, yes there's the loss of a friend, and honestly the loss left my CoC feeling a little lost and distraught, which is probably what pulled them into the Sheogorath's realm in the first place. And there, they not only found a way to grapple with their grief, but helped save a soul that was suffering just as much as he was, and got to not only reinvent themselves, but also the former Sheogorath and what being the Prince of Madness meant (hence, why he seems to retain his memories of the Oblivion Crisis but is also more benevolent in Skyrim, curing madness rather than spreading it).

See there is my problem. The woman i loved didn't arrive before Dawnguard was released, and i needed a mod to marry her

Except, thirty-feet below are the monks who worship you.


This is a very peculiar reading.


Just saiyin.

Also the mortals sing my praises in every inn in Skyrim.

I have no idea how you can even compare TES to Fallout, The only real thing they have in common is the fact, your choices shape the universe. Oh they also have Bethesda in common. So two things in common. If the Dragonborn went to the Fallout universe he/she would die from radiation exposure and the Sole Survivor would be a sacrifice to some Daedra or end up in the Soul Cairn in TES universe. So lets keep the heroes in their on respective universes.

Happy endings are a matter of perspective, it goes to the old saying "You can't make everyone happy" I for one am happy that they chose to make the choice on what you do matter. I mean the everyone love everybody ending is so unrealistic it goes against human nature. The world of Fallout is more akin to the Dark Ages, where they had things like The 100 Year War and the plague. Your character is the Sole Survivor not the Soul Savior.

Although I agree with the sentiment that it would be nice to see that you as the Director have some measure of influence over the Institute - changing the direction and policies of the faction goes beyond the scope of the game. Who wants to role play sitting through policy discussions and board meetings with the heads of each lab?


"Dammit, where is that synth with the coffee? And what genius in BioScience put together these PowerPoint slides, they are a mess! Oh, and Dr Li, have that report on my desk by Thursday. I'm going to lunch with Curie - synth secretary, hold my calls."

Happy endings? Those cost extra and there mostly illegal. Besides nv didnt have a lets all hold hands happy ending.

Nobody likes happy endings anymore, haven't you heard?

Everybody wants "morally grey" and "hard choices" and "consequences" and if they aren't there, oh gods, heavens help us all as the world ends and people complain endlessly (and loudly) that so-and-so-happy-ending-game isn't like [insert whatever game you want but will probably be the Witcher 3 here].