In your opinion, what would be the *worst* Fallout faction yet? Not in terms of morality, but in terms of lack of story-writing, poor characters..etc

If I'm perfectly honest, for me it would probably have to be either the BoS or the Enclave from Fallout 3. I was a massive fan of the Enclave in Fallout 2, and it honestly depressed me that they were kinda reduced to cardboard cutout villains, and a lot of aspects just didn't seem to make sense (Why make a radio station if Eden just planned to kill everyone? The BoS already hated them and they easily had the technology to conquer the Capital Wasteland, so was there really any point to "minimising resistance" as some people have suggested?). The whole part were Autumn rebels against Eden because he orders you to be set free never felt properly explained either, and just felt like an excuse for a dungeon fight. I think a much better way of dealing with it would be to allow you to side with Autumn by giving him the code, and then go against Eden (as Autumn wants to use the purifer to gain control, rather then enact genocide). I just felt that the Enclave in Fallout 3 were very two dimensional, as were the BoS, in comparison to the previous games.

Minutemen. I have never come across a faction I agreed with, but avoided because they were so boring. They were only cool for one quest, the one where you save them and then they instantly become so boring. Their entire cast of voice actors for the Minutemen felt bored with their roles, and I can't blame them. I like History, but boy is it boring to rehash it this way.

Everything bad about them:
- Worst companion in the game (shoots a laser musket, really?)
- Boring quests
- Boring ending
- Typical good guys with no flaws, two dimensional
- Seemed too forced onto the player
- Give up their General rank too easily (only one radiant quest to become General)
- "Another settlement needs our help"
- Failures at everything they do
- Only person that does anything is the Sole Survivor

"Another settlement needs our help. I'll mark it on your map."
"STFU Preston I'm your fuckin general"

Definitely the Railroad

Firstly, they are extremely violent. While lines of communication could have been opened between themselves and the brotherhood, they remained closed off. This could have avoided them and the brotherhood going to war, but Desdemona just outright declared them enemies, when they could have allied to take on the institute

Secondly, they blow up the institute. You may be asking, why is this bad? Well, its the source of the synths they claim they want to save. They destroy the means to make more, to produce more of what they love, to give Synths a life. Instead they nuke the institute.

Thirdly-They destroy Synths memory-The failroads memory wipe has sometimes left several synths with PTSD like symptoms, leaving them traumatised and confused. This can be seen in far harbour, where DIMA actually rails you for being part of the railroad, for this very reason.

Fourthly: They have no Longterm plan for the future. Every faction in fallout has some sort of long term goal to better the Commonwealth

The Minutemen-Rebuild the commonwealth, one brick at a time. Then dig in and defend to create a prosperous society for all.

The Brotherhood-Bring long term order to the Commonwealth by destroying the Synth and mutants that infiltrate and destroy society.

The Institute-(Really depends on your choices once you take over) They either expand their underground complexes to ensure long lasting survival for mankind, or they expand to secure and take control over the commonwealth to either advance technology or to secure it for peace. Hence the checkpoints

The Railroad however-We'll free synths. Thats it. People should take care of themselves. They dont give a damn about the people of the commonwealth, only their fanaticism over Sytnhs.

So yeah, as you can tell, I dont like the railroad XD

@nocthesis

Sorry

Still Railroad then, lack of development, poor characters, inconsistencies with actions and ideology which shows poor writing.

I never liked the writing for the Rebooted Brotherhood of Steel (Or the NCR for that matter!)... The 'HOOAH' soldier speak and 'Ugh, I'll give my life for the cause, yes sir' grunty soldier types make them seem like horribly cookie-cutter-esque call of duty factions. The only exemption to this rule are the Brotherhood scribes, they're far more interesting.

Personally I think the Minutemen, Mojave BOS Chapter, and the Railroad are lacking in terms of story writing and in some cases characters.

The Minutemen could of been so much more then what they were. Basically repetitive clearing missions that have little to no effect on the story. The Minutemen had so much potential to give you the chance to make your own army and upgrade it but instead you get a bunch of people with crap laser muskets and rags for clothes. Only interesting character that is related to the Minutemen is Preston and he is very annoying to me and most players as all he does is offer you repetitive boring quests. 

Personally the faction I find the most pointless and ill-thought is the Railroad. The idea of saving a computer AI from its intended purpose is truly ill-thought and really if more time was put into the faction they could of been a actual possibility to doing their story instead of to just doing their quests for the Deliver and Ballistic Weave and ditching. Though I know their are people who support who support the Railroad, I am just posting my personal opinion on it, though it is open to discussion if you want. Anyways moving on, In terms of characters the Railroad offers a wide variety of interesting and mysterious characters like Deacon,Tinker Tom, and Glory. 

Last but not least the Mojave BOS Chapter. Again like I said previously they are just not detailed enough. All you do is end this lock down, Possibly become a Knight, and get power armor training which can be acquired elsewhere. Not to mention the quests which lead to the ending of the lock down are so repetitive consisting of only three extremely similar and ultimately boring fetch and grab quests. Though yes Fallout New Vegas had a rushed time schedule, I believe they should of at least had the time to put more work into a possibly great faction. In terms of characters personally I only find Veronica and Elijah interesting though he left before your arrival.

IIHawkerII wrote:

I never liked the writing for the Rebooted Brotherhood of Steel (Or the NCR for that matter!)... The 'HOOAH' soldier speak and 'Ugh, I'll give my life for the cause, yes sir' grunty soldier types make them seem like horribly cookie-cutter-esque call of duty factions. The only exemption to this rule are the Brotherhood scribes, they're far more interesting.

I agree with this completely. Brotherhood has always been a little cliche' but it worked in Fallout 3 because they were supreme badasses. However in NV they are wimps in a hole and in FO4 there are other factions just as powerful.

If I'm perfectly honest I didn't really like any of the factions in 4. I didn't really understand the BoS's fanaticism towards synths (I could get why they'd oppose the Institute, because they want tech to be in their hands, but they seemed against the very idea of synths) - I mean they seemed somewhat reluctant to intervene against the mutants in Fallout 1, so I don't really buy the thing about them being against unnatural innovations. I sided with the Institute, but I found a lot of aspects of that faction to be confusing and ill-thought through - why would you give slaves consciousness? I think a better alternative would to have had the synths take over the Institute (irobot-esque) after accidentally gaining consciousness and then have them posing an existential threat to the Commonwealth. I mean to say they are meant to be the baddies all that really seemed to change after I'd destroyed the other factions were a few flags and synth patrols.

In Fallout 4 they were all pretty uninteresting from a writing/worldbuilding standpoint but the minutemen were particularly bland and clinical.