The Positive Changes in Fallout 4

[IceForce]

you are not even allowed to turn down the minutemen's radiant quests. There is no option to tell Garvey to fuck off, or that you do have a life and having personally armed over a hundred minutemen you expect them to actually do their job. No, he dumps this shit straight into your fucking quest log.

I hate that. As a bit of a completionist, the radiant quests piss me off to ungodly levels, because they are the same fucking thing over and over ad infinitum, and they never stop nor go away.
Garvey is especially annoying because WALKING NEAR him will dump another 3 radiant quests into your journal, whether you like it or not. You don't even have to initiate dialogue with him.

In any case, you can prevent the above from happing by nipping it in the bud early on in the game. Do Garvey's bullshit up until the point where he asks you if you want to join the minutemen yourself (afterwhich he'll start calling you "general"). Turn him down. Doing so will mean that none of the minutemen radiant quests ever get triggered, and the minutemen questline is effectively blocked off for you (including taking over the castle), and Garvey will never be available as a companion.
A small price to pay for a clean quest journal, I say.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

you are not even allowed to turn down the minutemen's radiant quests. There is no option to tell Garvey to fuck off, or that you do have a life and having personally armed over a hundred minutemen you expect them to actually do their job. No, he dumps this shit straight into your fucking quest log.

I hate that. As a bit of a completionist, the radiant quests piss me off to ungodly levels, because they are the same fucking thing over and over ad infinitum, and they never stop nor go away.
Garvey is especially annoying because WALKING NEAR him will dump another 3 radiant quests into your journal, whether you like it or not. You don't even have to initiate dialogue with him.

In any case, you can prevent the above from happing by nipping it in the bud early on in the game. Do Garvey's bullshit up until the point where he asks you if you want to join the minutemen yourself (afterwhich he'll start calling you "general"). Turn him down. Doing so will mean that none of the minutemen radiant quests ever get triggered, and the minutemen questline is effectively blocked off for you (including taking over the castle), and Garvey will never be available as a companion.
A small price to pay for a clean quest journal, I say.

I ended up sending him to the far end of the Wasteland towards the end of my first play through for just this reason. Go live in a settlement of 3 out on an outcropping surrounded by Mirelurks you questing dumping bastard! Argh!

 

[Vault101]

I really like the fact that story/gameplay wise things feel a little more cohesive, like my companions are actually (somewhat) relevant to the plot, I mean its still a Bethesda game so there are inconsistencies

really though the fact that they're being a little less "Bethesda" is the main reason for me

 

[FrozenLaughs]

you are not even allowed to turn down the minutemen's radiant quests. There is no option to tell Garvey to fuck off, or that you do have a life and having personally armed over a hundred minutemen you expect them to actually do their job. No, he dumps this shit straight into your fucking quest log.

I hate that. As a bit of a completionist, the radiant quests piss me off to ungodly levels, because they are the same fucking thing over and over ad infinitum, and they never stop nor go away.
Garvey is especially annoying because WALKING NEAR him will dump another 3 radiant quests into your journal, whether you like it or not. You don't even have to initiate dialogue with him.

In any case, you can prevent the above from happing by nipping it in the bud early on in the game. Do Garvey's bullshit up until the point where he asks you if you want to join the minutemen yourself (afterwhich he'll start calling you "general"). Turn him down. Doing so will mean that none of the minutemen radiant quests ever get triggered, and the minutemen questline is effectively blocked off for you (including taking over the castle), and Garvey will never be available as a companion.
A small price to pay for a clean quest journal, I say.

I ended up sending him to the far end of the Wasteland towards the end of my first play through for just this reason. Go live in a settlement of 3 out on an outcropping surrounded by Mirelurks you questing dumping bastard! Argh!

The one advantage to this whole system is that the radiants are random: You get sent to (random settlement) who are being "raided" by (random enemy) who are "living" at (random location). If the game picks a location that you have previously cleared of enemies/ looted to your hearts content, everything including all the Junk respawns. Junk, ammo boxes, explosive crates, the whole level is reset to make it worth going back.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

Snip.

Snip.

I ended up sending him to the far end of the Wasteland towards the end of my first play through for just this reason. Go live in a settlement of 3 out on an outcropping surrounded by Mirelurks you questing dumping bastard! Argh!

The one advantage to this whole system is that the radiants are random: You get sent to (random settlement) who are being "raided" by (random enemy) who are "living" at (random location). If the game picks a location that you have previously cleared of enemies/ looted to your hearts content, everything including all the Junk respawns. Junk, ammo boxes, explosive crates, the whole level is reset to make it worth going back.

True. However, after say a 4th tour of the same location even that is not incentive enough to want to clear out these obviously very quickly bouncing back Raiders yet another time, because really - there will just be more in a matter of moments. It removes a sense of accomplishment, but it also makes me wonder just how large the Raider population is - I mean, in Skyrim there was a thriving population in general and several centers of such and the bandit groups were relatively small, maybe a dozen to twenty; in Fallout I'm clearing 25-35 Raiders out of a location with such regularity that I'm stuck wondering where the hell they are all coming from.

 

[Rip Van Rabbit]

Technical issues aside & keeping in mind that I started playing this game at launch, I am having way more fun than I expected from Fallout 4.

- Combat: Recoil, enemies flinching, enemy weaknesses based on armor worn or type of opponent, feedback from breaking or destroying enemy limbs, aiming being governed by player skill and an overall faster pace. Weapons are varied and they feel satisfying. Sounds like pretty standard stuff from an FPS perspective, but in a Fallout game where the combat has been unsatisfying at best in the past? This is a vast improvement.

- Difficulty: This is a fuckin' post-apocalyptic wasteland and rightfully so because you will get your ass handed to you if you don't switch up your tactics and start approaching combat scenarios from different angles. In previous Fallout games, I have had to install mods to triple enemy spawns and decrease experience gain by 75% to get something of a decent challenge. Back to Fallout 4, playing on hard difficulty strikes a nice balance for starting out and the feeling of progression as I scrape through the first 10 levels is personally very satisfying. I might bump it up to Very Hard soon.

- Crafting: I had my doubts about this at first. I figured that I was just going to find better loot anyway, while it is certainly possible to just scavenge, it can't quite measure up to the experience of looting an area, discovering one weapon with say a suppressor/marksman stock/better scope and having the giddy feeling of anticipation wash over you while you skip back to the nearest settlement to transplant one attachment to one of your favored weapons. You cannot wait to try out your "new" upgraded weapon of choice.

- Companions: Companions have always been two things for me: A tactical nightmare or glory-stealing douchenozzles. (I don't steal your kills Boone, mind your own goddamn business. No I won't give your hat back!) In Fallout 4, companions feel like they're contributing while not stealing the spotlight. Occasional quips are a nice touch on a long journey.

I love my companions, I get attached to them, I like having an audience for my frantic berserker playstyle. I also like to think that my companions are concerned when I start using tactics and resorting to silent kills -- since shit will get unbelievably real for anyone in my way if I get discovered.

- "Junk": Everything is useful. That desk fan? That is not just a desk fan. You're looking at the last few missing components you need to craft that sniper scope. Ductape, Leather & Glue? More like a dampened armor modification so you make less noise while sneaking.

- Settlement construction: The interface is a little clunky, but I will say this it is very satisfying to look at what I have done with Sanctuary while bearing in mind what it looked like at first. Thematically, it's a nice touch, since I always felt that Fallout wasn't necessarily about survival but rather how societies have chosen to rebuild over time. A degree of personalisation goes a long way.

That said, considering I am a very tidy person in my everyday life, it feels good to clean a place up.

- New SPECIAL System. : It trims off the redundant fat from previous installments. Perks accommodate different play styles while giving you more time to focus on what you want, instead of faffing about with arbitrary numbers. Dump stats have largely been eliminated and there's a legitimate sense of weight behind your decision to rank up an existing perk/get a new one/increase a special point and gain access to more perks in the future.

- Morality: You decide, it's that simple. If you need a moral compass, feel free to take along a companion who will approve/disapprove or chime in on your actions and conversations, while also making their own values known --- y'know, like a normal partnership, not the presidential election for bad karma or good karma.

- Radiation: It actually feels like something I should avoid. In previous installments, I would go swimming without a second thought if it meant getting to somewhere more quickly. In Fallout 4? When running low on Rad-Away, I'll rather walk around the pond and fight that Deathclaw pack of molerats.

- The Map: Areas feel densely packed and with the inclusion of traversing buildings on a vertical level, there's a lot more to explore in a smaller area. Previous installments had a lot of, well, nothing to experience while travelling for long stretches of time. Less undergound tunnel bullshit from Fallout 3, less boring desert that makes me wish for nuclear winter from New Vegas --- there's just more to see and do.

 

[Ryallen]

Ooh! Goody! My turn! Alright, let's see now...

Gunplay: So much better. Oh my God, it's actually fun to shoot guys now! I love aiming down the sights and just picking off a dude's armor, or arm, or head. The addition of crosshairs has also done nothing but to improve the gameplay, actually telling us how accurate a gun is rather than just letting us guess. There's also a melee bash option when a dude wants to hook up his creepy pocketknife friend with the nice and pretty pal known as your face.

Weapon mods: My favorite part of the game by far. The whole reason why I wanted the game to begin with. I love weapon modding in all its virtual forms. Swords, guns, and bionic implants, I love customizing your own weapon. I love the idea of creating your own legend rather than riding on the back of anothers, and weapon crafting and modding to this extent is the best way to do that in a video game, in my opinion.

Ghouls: You would not believe how much I gushed at the ghouls of this game. They actually move like zombies. It looks natural and organic! They are animated fantastically, and I love it to death. The rest of the enemies in the game still move very rigidly and stiff, but the ghouls move much better, and I think that in of itself deserves some praise. Bethesda has never been good at this sort of thing, so when I saw the ghouls actually work like this, well...

Now for the things that I don't like so much.

Charisma: This one stat is the only thing that makes anyone do anything for you. And that bothers me. I put in 6 points into intelligence because I thought that it would have some sort of effect on the game. I was willing to miss out on Strength checks so that I could have intelligence and charisma checks. But now? Building a character with low charisma is basically a challenge run at this point. I wish that this could be remedied.

Amount of guns: I know that this is a problem that plagued Fallout 3 as well, but I still feel like it needs to be addressed. I wish that there were more guns in this game. There just simply isn't enough. I can imagine that a lot were cut out for the sake of expedience in making the game, but I still wish that there were more. I want more than one revolver! I want more than two sniper rifles! I want more than two shotguns! You get the point. No, I do not count pipe weapons. They are white trash and I refuse to do anything with those but sell them.

Removal of stats: I miss specializing in Speech and Repair. It's how I made most of my money in Fallout New Vegas, and I miss it. I miss being able to get rid of a surplus of equipment by just sticking them together like wads of bubblegum. Now, it's all just perks. And while I like some of the perks, it removes most of what felt made Fallout an RPG: That is, weapon specialization.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

its interesting that locations respawn the junk with the enemies. So if you hoovered up all those sweet sweet telephones, and you go back after the enemies re-infest the place... more telephones for you to store in your dog till you get home.

The telemarketers of the future employ zombies.

OT; I like the Pipboy mini games, wished there was a Tetris themed one.

I do like they replaced the Karma system with the faction system. I don't really like the Brotherhood of Steel in F4 however.

The settlement addon is nice, but I am confused that a settlement with 20 people and a defense rating of 80+ still needs my help to fend of 5 or 6 pipe pistol armed Raiders.

 

[WolfThomas]

I think Power Armor's better represented in FO4 than in any other Fallout game to date. It actually feels different than normal armor. In Fallout 1 through NV, it was basically just sci-fi platemail. That it costs resources to use and maintain adds a lot of 'specialness' to it as well. I'm only a bit disappointed that you can immediately pilot it perfectly as soon as you get it. You're supposed to need training to use it effectively. I think it would have been cooler if you had worse accuracy and reload speed, and perhaps be unable to sprint, when you first pilot the thing. Then you could have gotten training from Danse, or perhaps have a tiered perk that improves the longer you pilot power armors.

Well if you play a male your character is an army veteran from the pre-war era, he probably had some power armor training. Not sure how his lawyer wife knows how to though.

 

[InsanityRequiem]

The two things I need to comment about for FO4.

1) The setting and all the contents in it? Feels it should be 21 years after the bombs dropped, not 210 years. Yes, yes. It?s the Wasteland and all that, full of monsters and mutants and murderers, but 210 years is a long time, and we have settlements and a full blown city. The amount of unattended power armor and loot is staggering for a place that?s been picked clean by scavengers and survivors.

2) The biggest issue I have with settlement construction is the god damned sticky placement. Look, yes I wanna build a wall here. No, I don?t want it connected to the wall I placed right next to it. I want it slightly lower. Why? Because it?s a hill and I need the wall to be lower, not have a human sized gap underneath it.

 

[Nimcha]

Voiced protagonist is definitely the biggest plus for me. Actual conversations! Finally. Loving the new loot system too, I feel like a powerful hoover at times. Gunplay and the upgrade system is pretty amazing too. I love adding tiny little upgrades and how many ways there are to make guns unique. I found a revolver at the start that I now turned into a sniper rifle.

Power armor is awesome too. Again, loving the upgrade system. Making my companions an extra set is a nice touch too.

The basebuilding is ok, but I haven't done much with it other than make sure I have upgrade stations in my main settlement. I dump all my junk there.

 

[Don Incognito]

2) The biggest issue I have with settlement construction is the god damned sticky placement. Look, yes I wanna build a wall here. No, I don?t want it connected to the wall I placed right next to it. I want it slightly lower. Why? Because it?s a hill and I need the wall to be lower, not have a human sized gap underneath it.

Try a different wall. The pieces under the "fence" category don't snap to each other, if memory serves.

 

[Don Incognito]

I think Power Armor's better represented in FO4 than in any other Fallout game to date. It actually feels different than normal armor. In Fallout 1 through NV, it was basically just sci-fi platemail. That it costs resources to use and maintain adds a lot of 'specialness' to it as well. I'm only a bit disappointed that you can immediately pilot it perfectly as soon as you get it. You're supposed to need training to use it effectively. I think it would have been cooler if you had worse accuracy and reload speed, and perhaps be unable to sprint, when you first pilot the thing. Then you could have gotten training from Danse, or perhaps have a tiered perk that improves the longer you pilot power armors.

Well if you play a male your character is an army veteran from the pre-war era, he probably had some power armor training. Not sure how his lawyer wife knows how to though.

She could be a veteran too. Nothing says she can't be a veteran and a lawyer.

 

[FrozenLaughs]

2) The biggest issue I have with settlement construction is the god damned sticky placement. Look, yes I wanna build a wall here. No, I don?t want it connected to the wall I placed right next to it. I want it slightly lower. Why? Because it?s a hill and I need the wall to be lower, not have a human sized gap underneath it.

Try a different wall. The pieces under the "fence" category don't snap to each other, if memory serves.

Yes they do. My issue has been pieces of wall only snapping together in straight lines and not letting me make 90* turns. The way I've found to work around is to add a ceiling tile and then it will auto snap a wall underneath it, then deleting the ceiling.

 

[Don Incognito]

2) The biggest issue I have with settlement construction is the god damned sticky placement. Look, yes I wanna build a wall here. No, I don?t want it connected to the wall I placed right next to it. I want it slightly lower. Why? Because it?s a hill and I need the wall to be lower, not have a human sized gap underneath it.

Try a different wall. The pieces under the "fence" category don't snap to each other, if memory serves.

Yes they do. My issue has been pieces of wall only snapping together in straight lines and not letting me make 90* turns. The way I've found to work around is to add a ceiling tile and then it will auto snap a wall underneath it, then deleting the ceiling.

Some of them do, some of them don't.

Also, there are corner wall pieces if you want to make a 90 degree turn.

 

[sXeth]

Yes they do. My issue has been pieces of wall only snapping together in straight lines and not letting me make 90* turns. The way I've found to work around is to add a ceiling tile and then it will auto snap a wall underneath it, then deleting the ceiling.

The walls are... quirky at times.

Some of them can't be cornered too each other, or even to the identical wall, and you have to use an odd wall to make the turn (or do odd things with floor/roof. You might also be bale to do the thing where drop a wall on a carpet and move the carpet. Don't know if that works with walls the same way it does with furniture and merchant stalls.

The settlement addon is nice, but I am confused that a settlement with 20 people and a defense rating of 80+ still needs my help to fend of 5 or 6 pipe pistol armed Raiders.

Is your defense all turrets? I found mine called for help if I relied on turrets, but once I installed live guards with guns they were happy to handle their own stuff. I haven't quite figured out how guard posts assign either, I know a guard can man multiple points and patrol between them, but I"m not sure how many, or if you get the defense post from all 3.

My Sanctuary has an all-ghoul defense squad armed with laser rifles, assault masks, and spike armor. That can curbstomp Gunner assaults.

 

[IceForce]

On the subject of walls acting finicky, one workaround is to use the concrete foundation block to build walls. Have it sticking out of the ground (so it's over your head), because the game will let you sink them into the ground and put them at the height you want, so you avoid the gaps under fences problem.

It also has the cool side effect of having walls that you can actually walk around on top of, (albeit at a greater junk item expense).

 

[Tsun Tzu]

You get the power armor early:
This one is a bit controversial, since the game hands you super armor at the very start. However, I would argue that this is a good thing. First of all, it's expensive to get and maintain, so you have to use it wisely. It's also hard to find the power orbs to make it work. This means that, while it's useful, you can't use it all the time. Furthermore, your enemies can use them as well. I've fought multiple enemies who also had power armor, often when I, myself, did not. This makes for interesting, difficult engagements. It's also nice to have the fun items at the beginning of the game. Too many games give you the best stuff just before the ending, so that you don't get the chance to really enjoy it. Fallout 4 breaks that trend. Lore wise, I would argue it's an improvement as well. While you had to work hard to get Power Armor in Fallout 3, it never really seemed all that special. It was just +1 armor that I rarely used anyway. In Fallout 4 it really feels like a piece of powerful military hardware.

I'm not really sure why they didn't just contrive a reason for you to get the Raider power armor set first, rather than T-45.

It'd make much more sense to start ya out with the set that's at the lowest rung, rather than the second to lowest. Kinda renders said lowest tier completely irrelevant even at the beginning.

And I haven't had a problem with cores. At all. I've somehow accrued like 40 of the things just over the course of playing and, with a good 80 hours under my belt, I've spent a looooot of that time traipsing around the wasteland in my Brotherhood T-60. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've spent more time in power armor than out...just for the additional carry weight so I can get all the crap back to Sanctuary.

 

[WolfThomas]

She could be a veteran too. Nothing says she can't be a veteran and a lawyer.

No of course not, she certainly could have military background. But she is never explicitly stated to be a veteran, unlike the husband. You could roleplay that she is if you wanted. But I think it's probably unlikely, it might have been mentioned and the pre-war society probably had similar taboos to the 1950's it's based on.

 

[Dansen]

Yes they do. My issue has been pieces of wall only snapping together in straight lines and not letting me make 90* turns. The way I've found to work around is to add a ceiling tile and then it will auto snap a wall underneath it, then deleting the ceiling.

The walls are... quirky at times.

Some of them can't be cornered too each other, or even to the identical wall, and you have to use an odd wall to make the turn (or do odd things with floor/roof. You might also be bale to do the thing where drop a wall on a carpet and move the carpet. Don't know if that works with walls the same way it does with furniture and merchant stalls.

The settlement addon is nice, but I am confused that a settlement with 20 people and a defense rating of 80+ still needs my help to fend of 5 or 6 pipe pistol armed Raiders.

Is your defense all turrets? I found mine called for help if I relied on turrets, but once I installed live guards with guns they were happy to handle their own stuff. I haven't quite figured out how guard posts assign either, I know a guard can man multiple points and patrol between them, but I"m not sure how many, or if you get the defense post from all 3.

My Sanctuary has an all-ghoul defense squad armed with laser rifles, assault masks, and spike armor. That can curbstomp Gunner assaults.

Please tell me how you recruited ghouls into your settlements, I want to add some diversity to my populations. I've been going out of my way to only recruit unique settlements with named npcs. The only to interesting ones I have found have been the Tarberry bog populated exclusively by ghouls and Gray-Garden, run by a bunch of modified Mr. Handys.