Fallout 4

It's been a month, spoilers are now free in this thread without spoiler tag.



Related, I beat the game. Ended up level 61. Still a lot of magazines left to get and zones to explore. I'm sure there are quests I could find via the wiki.



Ended up siding with the Institute. Overally I didn't really like the main plot. Going to read this thread before I comment on it though.

Now that I read the last few weeks I think I agree with everyone. The way the story culminated seems forced and unnatural. I think it could have been a lot better with the following changes:

1. The railroad was a respectable attempt at creating a synth-friendly faction, but I thought it felt flat. The idea of humans forming a secret society to help Gen-3 synths by wiping their memories and secretly integrating them just made no sense and was very uninteresting.

It would have been more compelling if it was instead a Magneto-style faction made up of Gen-3 Synths who were trying to build up a free-faction of synths. As part of this quest line you are mind-melded with a synth (Nick Valentine style) and the quests center around fortifying your synth base + stealing synths back. The synths inside would be disagree with eachother on what to do, with some synths wanting to segregate from humans, others wanting to integrate with humans and others wanting to control humans. You can then choose which path they follow as part of the end-game.

2. Like most else I thought the institute was confusing. You spend the first half of the game seeing the synths as sort of boogie-men, with gen1/2s being pathetic fighters, and gen3's being sleeper-cell terrorists and the coursers being these elite commando ghost guys. The institute are clearly acting like bad guys, what with ruining your settlement's happiness for no reason.

Then you find the Institute and they're all about isolation except when they absolutely need resources above ground. So why do they send their synths out to cause havoc in goofy ways? Who knows. You get very little idea of what the Institute wants to do, and you as director never get to really direct anything at the end. You get to play a message to the commonwealth, but it's ambiguous and disconnected from what folks internal to the institute feel. It would have been nice to be able to choose to integrate with the topside after becoming director.

3. The BoS had a very compelling argument that was underpresented compared to the raw bigotry they had. The synths, or strong AI in general, present an apocalyptic risk to mankind for all the reasons we've been theorizing about for a century now. The BoS instead focuses on how synths, and ghouls, and super mutants,and jews,and blacksare abominations and should be exterminated. Maxson's handling of Paladin Danse was a good example of this. Maxson's clumsy attempts at getting the player to kill Danse, and then his derision of him afterward makes little sense unless Maxson is a foolish bigot, which I don't think the character is billed to be. If instead Maxson showed compassion and sold the idea of Danse being a possible tool of Synths/Institute, it would have made more sense.

Either way I thought the BoS played its part fine but could have been more enjoyable as an intelligent and tough force instead of just the fourth reich.

4. The minutemen and the settlement system I thought were a good effort. I didn't think the minutemen belonged with the other three factions and should be considered separate and not mutually exclusive. It was that way with the institute ending. I wouldn't really have changed much with them. Though I think an excellent opportunity for a community mod effort would be to flesh out the settlement/minutemen system to be able to essentially repurpose many locations on the map + terraform the settlements. Instead of just setting up shacks in the wilderness, being able to reclaim a water treatment plant, a power plant, steel manufacturing plant, electronics factory etc etc and create a new civilization would be interesting.

They completely dropped the ball on the whole base building/settlement aspect which is a damn shame because it really would of set it apart from FO3 and NV. I finished up at 61 or 62 and was attacked 2, maybe 3 times total. Acquiring more settlements and completing their stupid radiant quests had zero impact on the rest of the game. As said earlier it seemed like they had 1 or 2 guys work on it for a couple days this just forgot it even existed. I spent one afternoon fixing up sanctuary hills then realized I was wasting my time.

Story wise totally agree with you on the institute. One thing to have your minions out collecting and bringing back needed resources, but what the hell was the point of replacing people with synths? Evil yeah but for what purpose?

I give the game 7/10. Its pretty much FO3 and NV just different story and setting. Already uninstalled it and wont bother playing it again for another once the DLCs are out and modders have had time to unfuck some of the stupidity in the game.

Big Phoenix_sl said:

As said earlier it seemed like they had 1 or 2 guys work on it for a couple days this just forgot it even existed.

Click to expand...

C'mon bro, you know how this works. They'll have the kinks ironed out by FO6.

There is no way to get the Endurance Bobble without doing the Museum and starting the Preston shit. I avoided it forever and realized that I had all the bobbles except END this play, so I advanced it to the point where they settled in Sanctuary and immediately stopped. I had stripped the place to the ground to build my Borg Cube super lair on top of Red Rocket, so they are still there with absolutely nothing but dirt, sitting eternally at 4% happiness. Certain towns talked to me like I was with the MM, even prior to that, but I just murdered those people anyhow (all towns are empty except Red Rocket and my farming labor camp at Abernathy) so aside from missing some quests there have been no negatives. My towns never seem to get attacked, except Red Rocket gets hammered constantly while I am there, despite having a ring of death in inaccessible turrets and defense exceeding all other resources combined. On the plus side, I never get alerts to defend either town and all my minions are using lasers that they looted from the various attackers (and now all wearing Courser jackets), so the game is a lot less annoying this way.

The only way I could see this altering the outcome would be going KOS to Institute (which locks you into the MM path) which would essentially require you to do large chunks of MM quest lines that theoretically expire the moment you do the Kellogg encounter and the Botherhood arrive. Might try that if I am bored later this year. Ultimately, though, if you can live with ignoring one early T-45 set and the END bobble, there is no reason to ever do a single MM related thing in the game.

Its in the room where Preston firsts spawns and the first time you enter the room it forces you into several scripted conversations. You could just ignore all of that and leave the Deathclaw running around Lexington for lulz, I supposed.