Fallout 4, in my opinion, is still a great Fallout game besides all of it's problems. I think Fallout 4 was in a way, Bethesda's experimentation with the adding of new features and unfortunately, removing or simplifying of some features. Some got a lot of good reception, some got REALLY bad reception. I think there are some features that should stay for future Fallout titles and some that should be removed for future Fallout titles. Adding to the question because I was running out of characters to type for the title of this topic LOL, what features should Bethesda bring back for future Fallout titles. Here are mine.

Features that should stay:
Improved gunplay- FO4's gunplay was a breath of fresh air compared to FO3 and FNV. It feels so much more satisfying and fun. The controls are tight responsive. Overall, big improvement.

Settlements- I thought settlement building was a awesome addition to Fallout 4. It was awesome building your own home, the barracks your settlers would be living in, or some wacky contraptions. I also loved the mods that added and improved to the experience. I think they should keep it. What they should do to improve on it is to make completely optional. I don't think they should make a vital part of the game. They should make it so that you can send your settlers out for scavenging for useful items. It would also be cool if you make your caravan business and send caravans out for trading goods. Also, make it so that well established settlements don't come calling you for help even though they can obviously fend for themselves. Like, I didn't build a bunch of defenses for nothing. It would also be cool for you to send your settlers out for missions.

New Modding and Crafting System- The new modding and crafting system was fantastic. You could turn basically any weapon to a new, deadly weapon. It was also amazing how pretty much any item in the game could be used for crafting. It meant that pretty much everything was useful. It also gave modders a playground for their armor and weapon mods.

Power Armor Overhaul- Power armor has gotten a massive overhaul in Fallout 4. It has been changed from a another armor you can wear to an actual machine you can control. Power armor is pretty much the strongest thing you can wear in Fallout 4. It has the benefits of more HP, better resistances, and mods. You can make better with mods. You can make stronger, have added features like jetpacks, headlamps, and so on. The added requirement of fusion cores is also a good way to balance it out.

The map- Fallout 4's map is great. There is a lot of stuff going on. There are biomes like the Glowing Sea and the beachside. There are added rainstorms and radstorms. It still has that feeling of having so many places to go, but not as packed like Fallout 3 in my opinion.

Features that should be removed:

Dumbed down dialogue system- The dialogue system is terrible. I don't know why Bethesda made it like Mass Effect. The old system was completely fine. You'd know exactly what you were gonna say.

Dumbed down leveling system- The leveling system is disappointing. the old system was completely fine.

Voiced Protagonist- I actually liked the voiced protagonist. It really added to the emotion of the game, but the thing is, It blocks out a good chunk of the roleplaying aspects of a Fallout game. You can't really describe the character you want to play because of it. It was a cool feature, but it's a feature that will probably have to go UNLESS you have multiple voice options and the option to remove it completely.

The only thing I want them to do is for them to bring back item durability so theres more realism

haha maybe ansaar that would be a good choice

Ansaar wrote:

Bethesda should remove themselves from the next fallout and let Obisidian take over   

Lol. That's savage bro. XD

Anyway, I think for the next Fallout game they should focus more on creating a better story regarding the main quest. The one in FO4 was really "meh" in my opinion. It didn't capture my attention long enough and didn't have the amount of choices and consequences that New Vegas had.

i agree with @Ansaar i really didnt feel like fo4 was a fallout game. Dont get me wrong i know they did make it look good an added new stuff to it but alot of it to me didnt work didnt like the lack of evil choices as well as forced settlement building as well as the settlement building DLC lol i feel they could have patched that stuff in an gave us more content like quests and such.

Voiced protagonist, and they have even halfheartedly admitted such, so at least we shouldn't have that to contend with in future titles.

Aside from that, I'd say Settlement building actually killed Fallout 4. Hear me out; I like the concept, and I even liked rebuilding Sanctuary, and think it should stay. But I believe it should be on the level of Hearthfire, where there are three or four 'areas' in the game world where it can be done, but that's it.

Despite being a 'take it or leave it' element of the game (which turned out to be a lie anyway, because you had to dabble in it at least a little to build the teleport in the MQ, and both Automatron (to build robots and continue the MQ), and and Vault 88 (Let's face it, the entire DLC is a build location) use it to varying degrees. Don't use it, and you are locked out of content. And this isn't even my main gripe; they used it as an excuse not to flesh out the game world.

There are, what, three settlements in the game? Diamond City, the Institute, and Goodneighbor. Then there are a few 'build' location settlements with some character, like the farm near Sanctuary, but these are usually two to five npcs with minimal dialog, maybe a small fetch quest, ect. Covenant sits somewhere in the middle. The rest of the game world is a very beautiful but generally empty war-playground with a fraction of the world-based storytelling we are used to, and a massive amount of 'settlement locations'.

I think they may have realized this with Far Harbor. We have a good main quest, with no right answers that leave you feeling clean (unless you play an Institute Director straight, like I do), quite a few side quests for a DLC landmass, some interesting location based storytelling, and a few build locations that are in no way tied to the main quest and you never have to even approach unless you want to. It is simply a small part of the content as a whole.

Fallout 4 often feels like only a third of the team was actually working on the crunch of the game, while everyone else was enthusing and working on the settlement build mode.

Honestly my only universal complaint (not just personal gripe) is that the story was so lazy and the pacing was all wrong. Everything else can stay.

What I mean:

-Although the plot sounds pretty damn interesting on paper, the writing of it manages to keep you completely disinterested. There's really no weight to anything that happens.
-The pacing problem... Within the first hour (outside of the vault) you are given power armor, a minigun, and you battle it out against a deathclaw. Honestly, where do you go from there?

I think that was the tragedy of Fallout 4, it was obviously so close to being a good game but just came out as a hollow experience.

Fallout 4 was a great game yet a mediocre title in the Fallout series.

Here is what I liked:

-The smooth gunplay
-Weapon customization
-Armour customization
-Armour scaling
-The new power armour system
-The batshit crazy ghouls
-The environment/setting
-Settlement building
-AI sandboxing

Here is what I didn't like/should be removed:

-The dirt eating AI (It's disgraceful at times)
-Legendary mutations
-The shoddy survival mode
-The lousy storyline
-Lack of impact on the wasteland
-Severe lack of ambiguity (New Vegas did it well)
-Lack of clear cut faction reputations
-The voiced protagonist (It was nice but kills roleplaying)
-The dumbed down dialogue
-The dumbed down skills system (I liked Skyrim's system based on skill usage)
-The stupendous amount of essential AI
-Lack of player autonomy in the story
-The animations

Overall I want Bethesda to put a compelling story with a streamlined experience system into their fantastic environments. And I want them to finally develop some better combat AI.

They should really have spent more time on the story, it just wasn't that interesting and it was just slow. It was alright, but more time on the story next time around would be great.

Likes
-Lots of sidequests
-Differing story arks based on based decisions made
-Weapon/armor customization
-Apparel Layering
-Large open world
-Multiple competing Factions
-Improved firearm manipulation
-Continue playing after story completion
-Settlement Workshop(Kind of)
-lack of leveling limit
-mod-ability(if it is possible for me to monkey around with files then it is certainly easy enough for anyone else to)
Dislikes
-UI(I don't mind the pipboy, I think that navigating the menus can be somewhat clunk. I would prefer a pda, similiar to stalker or the fo & NV mod. It is a little nostalgic to see them and I like that you don't have to have the big clunky bracelet)
-Removal of Karma system(I felt it added a lot to the replay ability and role playing aspect)
-Story(While I felt that it was a strong story I don't think it a good fit for a sandbox game such as this, all the time spent roaming in between completing the main story elements made it feel unconvincing)
-The requirement to use the settlement workshop to complete story
-Difficulty(I felt that simply increasing the difficulty setting did not alter it correctly. I am a fan of Stalker and Misery so I would like to have seen something more similar to ranger mode in last light.)
-I always have felt that Bethesda games have lacked the responsiveness of most other shooters. I feel like my character does what I ask but only after a brief pause.
-Inability to lean around corners during shootouts
-lack of any real firearms(after NV)
-Interior fog(I think they put if there to conceal lack of details and possibly less than beautiful textures but i think it simply looks ridiculous and worse than poor textures)
-optimization(4k textures that look comparable to some downscale and mottled 512x512 textures I have seen is absolutely ridiculous)

I also agree with a number of things Limitlessness stated above.

I'm going to frame my response by including an "Add" section, and I'll be writing all of this up in a larger review I'm planning. But here are my thoughts:

Keeps, or "Where Fallout 4 Succeeded":

1. Power Armor: Quite simply, the power armor system in Fallout 4 is what power armor should have always been.
2. Graphics: Although Fallout 4's graphics aren't omg amazing, they're certainly a big step up.
3. Gunplay: As many have pointed out, the gunplay in 4 feels smooth. I always felt that gunplay in vanilla NV was the absolute bare minimum quality that it could be while still allowing the game to be playable. Fallout 4 actually feels like you can shoot your guns effectively. This was a welcome change.
4. Creature Animations: The ghouls and other creatures in Fallout 4 are on par with modern games and they were very nice to shoot and kill
5. Character Appearances: Even if you hated Fallout 4, you have to admit the hair in the game is light years ahead of 3/NV. Facial appearances are also much improved.

Unfortunately, as I've discussed at some length with @hitman47101, all of these areas where Fallout 4 was successful were areas where the game would necessarily be better simply because of the advance of video game technology. The game wouldn't be relevant in the market if wearing power armors was still like suiting up in a tin can and if the world looked like mud.

Remove, or "Where Fallout 4 Missed the Mark":

1. Voiced Protagonist and Dialogue System: "If it's not broken, don't fix it." Words Bethesda should have done well to follow for Fallout 4. Aside from all the usual criticisms of the dialogue, I also think it's worth noting the enormous amount of time, money, and other resources that went into creating the voiced protagonist.
2. Settlements: I've always said that my biggest qualm with the settlements is that if I want to build a city, I'll use GECK. I realized a couple days into Fallout 4 that I simply wasn't having fun because I was so worried about my settlements. And in the vanilla release, the settlements were very bland. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make something that was fun to live in or consider home. Settlement building should absolutely be 100% optional--perhaps even a separate game mode.
3. Armor and Gun Customization: A lot of people liked the customization mechanics, but it was very frustrating to me. In the same way that Bethesda used settlements as a shortcut around actually building vibrant locations (this was a good point made by @Alixen above), they used armor and gun customization as a shortcut around creating varied weapons and armor in the game. Plus, the system was only half implemented. Some armors could be customized while others couldn't... what the hell? Bethesda got caught up here straddling the fence. They should have either committed to a much deeper customization element for all armors along with a wider array or base weapons, or stayed away from it entirely.
4. Factions: I didn't like any faction in this game. Not one. I think the Minutemen were the worst major faction the franchise has ever introduced. Lazy good-for-nothings and boring. The Institute spoke of some great plan for humanity, but I never felt like this plan had any depth nor could I determine why their plan involved planting synths into human communities and supposedly killing the live person. This whole thing was very convoluted. The Railroad was almost charismatic enough to cheer for, but their steadfast commitment to impractical ideals was confusing. These were humans who were willing to kill other flesh and blood humans to protect machines that could literally be reset simply by a short recitation. The moral relevance of artificial intelligence is a fun debate, but the Railroad's treatment was too shallow. Last, the Brotherhood was a group of intolerant warmongers. It was disappointing for me to see how they followed their principles so strongly without ever showing hesitance on Maxson's part or his recognition of moral ambiguity (there was that one quest where you could talk him into saving a synth, but he made you feel like shit for it, and then the decision didn't matter in the progression of the game). As I've said before, there was a big difference to me between NV factions and FO4. In New Vegas, every faction was flawed and left something to be desired morally or idealistically, yet every faction had something you could grab onto to justify a playthrough for that faction. In FO4, every faction is similarly flawed, but instead of having something with which you could identify, they all had some game-breaking reason I couldn't side with them.
5. Boston Accents: Did anyone else get really annoyed hearing everyone speak with a northern Boston accent?

Add, or "Things that Should be Included in the Next Fallout."

1. Raiders with a purpose: Even though Fallout 3 and 4 have much more raider combat than in New Vegas, I liked the raiders/fiends in NV much more. You could speak with Moto-Runner and even work with him. You had raiders with whom you could actually associate actions and (though it was cut) converse. It starts to feel really empty when you just kill people over and over who wear the same clothing and respawn in the same places who are hostile to you immediately for no reason and who seem to belong to no community. (E.g., Where do all these people keep coming from? How have they survived so long living a life of pure violence? I've killed 1000 raiders... why hasn't word spread not to attack me?) I would personally like to see it possible for the player to become a raider and have a truly evil playthrough. Imagine having a leadership structure among the raiders that you could work through and then eventually discover that you can bypass the other resolutions of the story and simply wreak havoc on the world! Even if you didn't take this path, just having the option would create a sense of the importance of choice.
2. Legendary Enemies: The legendary enemies in NV were much better. They gave you a sense of oldschool boss fights. Killing them felt monumental. In 4, killing a legendary enemy is just a reason to hope you get a good loot drop. At least in Fallout 3, you had behemoths in the world that felt like big, important fights. In Fallout 4, the behemoths are small and there is nothing on par with 3's behemoths or NV's legendary enemies.
3. A Decent Weather System: Fallout 4 clearly took a lot of cues from NV mods on what they needed to do to make a game players would enjoy. However, despite there being some basic weather patterns in vanilla 4, the weather system is not impressive. I would like Bethesda to implement real weathers in the game with changing flora, rain, snow, clouds... all of it.
4. Wacky Wasteland: I think Fallout should bring back the wacky wasteland perk. This is not because I want to use it... but rather because I don't want to use it! I like my game to be a little darker while Fallout 4 seemed to have too much wacky/attempted-humor as content. I think New Vegas suffered from this a little too--I would have liked to see things like Tabitha on Black Mountain have a different appearance in the regular game and not be in love with a robot.
5. Role-playing Elements: Most fans of the series ripped into FO4 for dumbing down nearly all roleplay aspects of the player's experience. The voiced protagonist really hurt here because no matter how I made my character look or what personality I wanted him to take, he still had the same voice. This is hugely immersion breaking. Also being able to level up indefinitely removed the ability to build a character with special skills (why have, say, three character saves when you can just have one character at level 100 with every perk in the game?)

I suppose I've written enough at this point.

@dragbody You made a lot of very good points, Drag. I do think settlements and the weapon customization should stay, but there is room for improvement. You're right about raiders. I like that Bethesda made them have some more personality with them having more conversations with each other about all the terrible shit they done, but what really made Fiends more human was that there was a reason why most of them became the way they are. They got fucked up on chems and became rabid dogs. With Bethesda's raiders, they're just...evil dicks. There isn't really any humanization for any of them. Sure, not all of them need a super sympathetic reason for being raiders,there are sick people that will kill for enjoyment. In FNV, you kind of feel bad for some of the Fiends because you know some of them might not even want to fight, they just want to get a free arsenal of unlimited chems. I think Fallout 4 is a great Fallout game, but I definitely understand why a lot of fans never want to touch the game again and have a falling out with Bethesda. Hopefully, they will learn from their mistakes and the next Fallout they make fixes the problems the general fanbase had with Fallout 4 and improve on their weaknesses(writing, bugs, better story, bugs, better RPG elements, BUGS). I also hope that the whole Obsidian thing is true, too. I really want another Fallout by Obsidian because they definitely have a better knowledge on how to make great RPG and the whole Fallout universe. Fallout New Vegas is, in my opinion, the best in the franchise.

dantaefetticus wrote:

@dragbody You made a lot of very good points, Drag. I do think settlements and the weapon customization should stay, but there is room for improvement.

I agree that settlements and customization options could stay, but they need serious systemic overhauls. I don't mean to imply that, even if done well, these elements should never be included.

remove the first person shooter feel make it more u know IMMERSIVE fallout 4 had a really wierd camera i know modders will probaly fix that but it would be better if they just have it in the game already

and for something to add im a big fan of gas mask of the world and project nevad it would be nice if those where added