Sorry for the b8 title, I though it was clever.
Just like death the inevitable Fallout 5 will present itself to all...
No seriously it is only an amount of time before Bethesda presents us with another Fallout game. So with it comes the cycle of love at hate that every game gets. I don't want to bring up anything about fallout 4 but what can be improved upon in order to make this the best Fallout. We can also suggest mechanics or concepts that worked very well in past Fallout games. Maybe, just maybe a little group of Fallout fans can provide some useful (and realistic) suggestions to our best boys down at the studio. What would you like to see it the next game? What are you wishes?

[DISCLAIMER: All things here are my opinion. I never meant to attack anyone character character because I don't like crafting weapons that all look the same. Criticism does not equal personal insults]

That being said please feel free to disagree!

My "wishlist"
-Do away with the settlement system- It could really add to a location but in the grand view of the story, or narrative it was just a way to throw away my time IRL with no real results in game overall. NPCs wouldn't say to me how I turned a rundown 1950s neighborhood into the best trading hub of all time.
-A new weapon upgrade system. I liked the New Vegas system. Open up a menu and stick on a mod that changes the gun's stats and cosmetics. No more 50 receivers that all look the same and essentially do the same.
-In depth dailog. I consider myself to be a reasonable thinking person, I feel that my character should reflect that.
-Decisions do matter. If you do a major quest in the story, help kill a huge raider boss, or murder a whole town with a toothpick, the wasteland should know about it.
-Quality over quantity- I would rather see 10 in depth, meaningful side quests in a faction instead of 100 little fetch quests. I love goofy little stories too (FISTO).
-Karma and Reputation system- This goes along with decisions matter. These systems were good determinations of what kind of character you were.

I could go on for hours but those are a few. What are yours?

I personally saw no faults with the settlement system. It wasn't too heavily forced in the game so it's a fun activity to do on the side. That being said, I'm kind of confused why people want it gone. It's not too gameplay intrusive and the only quests that require it are a few of the abhorrent Minutemen quests so I would like it to return. I just hope they don't make all their DLC settlement sh*t.

Also, Fallout 4 had a reputation system and somewhat of a karma system that made much more sense than it's FO3 and FNV equivalents. The factions aren't supernatural in Fallout 4 and will only despise you if they know you are attacking them. That is why I love the Fallout 4 system more. There's times where I'm a covert Railroad agent stealthfully killing BoS Scribes while they still  think I'm an ally. Karma is not too big of a deal to me as it also never made sense that people would psychically know what I did halfway across the map. Instead of the flawed karma system, Fallout 4 introduced a kind of karma system where companions would see your misdeeds and dislike you for them and vice versa.

Also, a last point, but Fallout 4 actually did have it's fair share of memorable locations, so once Bethesda make the next Fallout, it's highly likely Fallout 5 is going to have memorable locations too. That is of course if Bethesda don't cut that out like they cut out many of the choices, dialogue and decisions Fallout 4 should've had.

Here's my wishlist:

- A setting that feels post-apocalyptic, sort of like Fallout 3. The atmosphere was heavily green and everywhere looked dull and broken. It truly is the aftermath of a Nuclear holocaust and the aura is gives is symbolic of that. It doesn't look like a cartoon or a comic book, it just looks depressing, which is what Fallout should be.
- Many different questlines that don't tie in to one objective. Skyrim's questlines were amazing how you could be a thief, mercenary, mage or soldier and descend down the questlines with different objectives. Just imagine doing a Raider questline, and after that, a mercenary questline, and then after that, an NCR questline. This is one of the many I loved about Skyrim.
- Also from Skyrim I want many different cities in Fallout. There weren't many in FO4 and FO3/FNV were also lacking of as many cities as Skyrim had. Whiterun, Markarth, Windhelm, all these are great locations that feel real, they also have many different quests to their name, and are huge in scale.
- Memorable villains. Say what you want about Fallout 4, it has amazing antagonists like Kellogg. Kellogg was an amazing character that mirrored the protagonist perfectly. He, unlike antagonists such as Eden, Autumn and Caesar, who were identical to cardboard cutouts, was three-dimensional and had a well written backstory that the player would come to respect, when from the start, Kellogg seemed to be no more than a typical black and white evildoer. Benny is another example of a good villain, because although he was hated by the player all throughout the game, he is also like the player if you chose the Independent ending. IIRC Benny wanted to become ruler of Vegas just like the Courier would soon become.
- A map that doesn't feel empty. Of course this is Fallout but we don't need vast landscapes of absolutely nothing. The Mojave was a desert, yes, but you had to wait, like, 10 minutes before you come across any hint of life. This was different in 3 and 4, where you would usually be in combat after walking the wasteland for a minute or so.
- Good companions. I like companions like Danse and Charon, but at times they felt like they had no real personality apart from then to guard the player. Of course there were also amazing companions in the series like Nick Valentine, Piper, Cass, Veronica, Raul and Fawkes that made up for this. I want more of those sort of characters in Fallout 5.
- An undefined backstory! Fallout 3 and 4 offered stories that were great, but felt sort of the same every playthrough. This isn't to say they didn't have RPG elements, but they were somewhat lacking. The great part of New Vegas is that you can define who the Courier was and what he is, a feature that like I said, was somewhat lacking from 3 and 4.
- More than four dialogue options and an unvoiced protagonist. I liked the voice actors behind 4's protagonist, and they did a great job, but leave the voice to me, will ya?
- A return of ammo crafting. I believe this was missing from 4 which I did enjoy back in New Vegas. I really don't care if they restrict it to certain skillsets or whatever, as long as it makes a return,
- No goody-two-shoes factions like The Minutemen or Lyons' Pride, or on the other hand, no typical "evil" factions like Caesar's Legion. The Legion were obviously the "bad guys" of New Vegas, and that's why I never really liked the Legion, and also why I never liked the Minutemen.
- DLC that encourages exploration (I'm looking at you, Dead Money), that isn't too half-baked (I'm looking at you, Mothership Zeta), but still offers a great atmosphere and excellent characters.
- Be able to continue the game after the ending WITHOUT DLC. As much as I loved Broken Steel, it took away from the DLC to pass it off as DLC, making it look like some sort of a cashgrab.
- Ambient music that doesn't feel too "happy". This is Fallout, not Fable. I don't exactly want to be roaming the wastes while listening to music that takes away from the atmosphere like in Fallout 4. I really liked Mark Morgan's ambient music from the classic Fallout games, and I think Inon Zur should attempt to recreate that instead of making Star Wars music.
- Better writing. Unlike most people, I think Bethesda writers can potentially write well like with Kellogg and Father, but with most notoriously the Minutemen questline, they write the standard of a four year old. Maybe if they actually spent some time thinking of new ideas instead of drinking whiskey, they'd have created a masterpiece of a game, but unfortunately a lot of Fallout 4's questline feel like something Tommy Wiseau would have written.
- More choice. I can understand that with Fallout 4 this had to be limited because of the god-awful voiced protagonist, but please make more decisions than "yes", "no", "why" and "sarcastic".
- No oversimplification of the dialogue and perk system. It's always cringeworthy to listen to your character say something only Adam Sandler would say, and it's also quite disappointing to see you only get one perk point to spend instead of ranking up with skills. Fallout 3 and NV did this way better.

EDIT:

- Another engine. Creation and Gamebryo are both buggy and horrible. It seems as if the games are more suited for console than PC. Come on Bethesda, use another engine already.

bring back weapon degradation system, notice how guns in Fallout 4 don't jam? exactly!! guns in Fallout 4 don't jam anymore because there is none repair skills system available.

@ corvo The abysmal green hue of the Capital wasteland was an annoying, fallout should move away from the bland atmosphere of fallout 3 and move towards having more colors than brown, blue, green. It doesn't have to be vibrant or neon but it gives a unique flavor to things you would see to have a wide color pallet. It is 200+ years after the bombs fell so things should be a little more Crysis 3 like IMO.

@"Corvo" I will have to agree with a lot of your points. Better quests are a must along with more memorable characters. The atmosphere needs to be dismal and depressing because, you know, a nuclear holocaust had occurred. The settlement system must STOP. As for factions, there should be no truly evil besides raiders. Now for my own thoughts.

-Have factions like bounty hunters/ mercs that are intimidating but are not initially hostile *eyes menacingly at Talon and Gunners*
-Bring back weapon or armor degradation to add a level of difficulty which means the skill repair can make a come back
-Speaking of skills, BRING THEM BACK
-Perks should be a mixture of outlandish tomfoolery and those that purely affect game stats.
-Have more( or less) than four dialogue options, this is an RPG so...
-If I want to be a cold heartless bastard, please, with sugar on top, let me do it
-*This is only for completionists or people like me I guess* But have Unique Weapons and armor, even if they are variants from a base item, to look different along with them to have some sort of stat change
- Also for the love of all that is holy and sacred, make more weapons, especially a pump action shotgun

Welp, I guess that I'm done with idea suggesting/ ranting

@Corvo I think people disliked settlements for a few reasons. They were EVERYWHERE! Now this results in the player base almost feeling overwhelmed and obligated to build on every single one. Now this is not the case for everyone. Also a lot of the marketing was pointed toward settlement building. A lot of the trailers and promotional content presented settlement building as "the next best thing". But players wanted gameplay plus world building. There was a lot of hype with not as much as expected. Personally I felt it was tedious and annoying when I couldn't place walls where I wanted and had to use mods to fix problems with it.

@ChuBBies1 I hated that there were tons of unique weapons but they all looked like the base weapon. Some little cosmetic changes would be a nice touch in the next game.

my wish list for Fallout 5!

I want Fallout 5 to be...:

I really liked settlements too but I still feel like it was pretty last minute to attract more customers.

For my wishlist, I hope Fallout 5 has:

-Better Combat System - something more like the Last of Us and Far Cry where you could feel your shots and punches had impact, I'd rather have that then shooting a raider 20 times in his unarmored chest before he dies
-Either they work really hard on fixing the settlement system or they don't add it at all - I wish settlers would at least mention that things are improving or if they at least had more titles then Settler and Provisioner!! Also hope they make it actually more worthwhile to build them, like the settlers pay taxes or give you some kinda reward for your taking them in and protecting/ radically improving their lives. And they really need to work on resource gathering settlers, it should probably only take 1 person to manage a small garden of let's say 20 plants, it shouldn't take like 3 settlers just to get 6 food
-Good Dlcs!! - The only dlc I felt really equaled any Fallout 3 or New Vegas dlc in how fun they were and how much more they added to replayability was Nuka World, and it was a mess of a storyline, either you ruin all your progress protecting your settlements or follow the logical path and not join the raiders and miss out on the whole story, Nuka World and Far Harbor, and I'm still not counting the 3 workshop dlcs don't hold a candle to Point Lookout, Mothership Zeta, Operation Anchorage or Old World Blues, and all the others.
-Keeping the good features people like - sprinting, weapon degradation, NOT armor degradation, dogmeat + another companion
-More then 3 radio stations - seriously just even adding all the songs from Galaxy News and Radio New Vegas would be better then just adding less and different songs
-Freedom on how to begin your story or how to end it - I think more people are drawn to New Vegas then 3 or 4 because it doesn't restrict you by telling you what you were and what you will do, like 'You are a family man and you will feel kinda sad when your dick son dies' at least in Fo3 your choices mattered more in the end, it'd be nice if they let you make more choices and make sure those choices matter
-More weapons, old or new - I just want a Chinese pistol it doesn't even need to have mods, Bethesda!!
Better background music - I got bored of listening to it the first week of playing there's nothing good I have to say about it, I barely even notice it and when I do it's pretty lackluster, and the combat music actually is pretty annoying
Misc wishes- Returns of; Enclave, Chinese Remnants, Colonel Autumn, Sgt. RL-3, Chinese Pistol, and Wacky Wasteland, maybe a rideable horse or radstag? no pipboy glove! better melee/ hand to hand combat, more varieties of hair in character customization, dual wielding, spear + spear animations, Ushanka with ear covers folded up, more Pre War gameplay, less closed off areas, better voice actors, better lighting system

I really hope Bethesda pays more attention to what their players actually want and listen to ideas or just take a look at popular mods and learn from them, and that they take their time and don't rush out the next game

Sorry if I rambled, I'm a nitpicker, complainer and idea machine all in one

Wishlist of Fallout 5:

1. More weapons - spears, laser rifle, .45 pistols from HH DLC. Without effects of ice or fire like in F4.

2. Good DLC - in good i mentioned really good plot and characters, with all possible endings from bad to good ending.

3. Plot - make a very intresting plot which peolple will play game even in night before school/college/university/job.

4. Reputation system - make back the reputation system which we miss in F4 and which we liked in NV.

5. Dialogue system - make this system more intresting without 4 options.

6. Karma system is back, because karma was always been in Fallout universe.

That's all my wishes, folks.

I would like it to follow along the lines of Skyrim, the map was very well designed, storylines for different factions were well thought out and engaging..and no matter where you went their was always something to peak your interest with a little history or story behind it.

These things were sadly missing in fallout 4, which for the most part was a one-up gameplay wise for me but it just lacked the substance.

Thankfully we have a damn good modding community to fill in the gaps.

stoobygacks wrote:

Sorry for the b8 title, I though it was clever.
Just like death the inevitable Fallout 5 will present itself to all...
No seriously it is only an amount of time before Bethesda presents us with another Fallout game. So with it comes the cycle of love at hate that every game gets. I don't want to bring up anything about fallout 4 but what can be improved upon in order to make this the best Fallout. We can also suggest mechanics or concepts that worked very well in past Fallout games. Maybe, just maybe a little group of Fallout fans can provide some useful (and realistic) suggestions to our best boys down at the studio. What would you like to see it the next game? What are you wishes?

[DISCLAIMER: All things here are my opinion. I never meant to attack anyone character character because I don't like crafting weapons that all look the same. Criticism does not equal personal insults]  

That being said please feel free to disagree!

My "wishlist"
-Do away with the settlement system- It could really add to a location but in the grand view of the story, or narrative it was just a way to throw away my time IRL with no real results in game overall. NPCs wouldn't say to me how I turned a rundown 1950s neighborhood into the best trading hub of all time.
-A new weapon upgrade system. I liked the New Vegas system. Open up a menu and stick on a mod that changes the gun's stats and cosmetics. No more 50 receivers that all look the same and essentially do the same.
-In depth dailog. I consider myself to be a reasonable thinking person, I feel that my character should reflect that.
-Decisions do matter. If you do a major quest in the story, help kill a huge raider boss, or murder a whole town with a toothpick, the wasteland should know about it.
-Quality over quantity- I would rather see 10 in depth, meaningful side quests in a faction instead of 100 little fetch quests. I love goofy little stories too (FISTO).
-Karma and Reputation system- This goes along with decisions matter. These systems were good determinations of what kind of character you were.

I could go on for hours but those are a few.  What are yours?

I would like the settlement system to stay. Its a way to show my creativity and imagination. A also liked the weapon system with lots of addons to make every gun different. Everything else you said I agree with.

Corvo wrote:

I personally saw no faults with the settlement system. It wasn't too heavily forced in the game so it's a fun activity to do on the side. That being said, I'm kind of confused why people want it gone. It's not too gameplay intrusive and the only quests that require it are a few of the abhorrent Minutemen quests so I would like it to return. I just hope they don't make all their DLC settlement sh*t.

Also, Fallout 4 had a reputation system and somewhat of a karma system that made much more sense than it's FO3 and FNV equivalents. The factions aren't supernatural in Fallout 4 and will only despise you if they know you are attacking them. That is why I love the Fallout 4 system more. There's times where I'm a covert Railroad agent stealthfully killing BoS Scribes while they still  think I'm an ally. Karma is not too big of a deal to me as it also never made sense that people would psychically know what I did halfway across the map. Instead of the flawed karma system, Fallout 4 introduced a kind of karma system where companions would see your misdeeds and dislike you for them and vice versa.

Also, a last point, but Fallout 4 actually did have it's fair share of memorable locations, so once Bethesda make the next Fallout, it's highly likely Fallout 5 is going to have memorable locations too. That is of course if Bethesda don't cut that out like they cut out many of the choices, dialogue and decisions Fallout 4 should've had.

Here's my wishlist:

- A setting that feels post-apocalyptic, sort of like Fallout 3. The atmosphere was heavily green and everywhere looked dull and broken. It truly is the aftermath of a Nuclear holocaust and the aura is gives is symbolic of that. It doesn't look like a cartoon or a comic book, it just looks depressing, which is what Fallout should be.
- Many different questlines that don't tie in to one objective. Skyrim's questlines were amazing how you could be a thief, mercenary, mage or soldier and descend down the questlines with different objectives. Just imagine doing a Raider questline, and after that, a mercenary questline, and then after that, an NCR questline. This is one of the many I loved about Skyrim.
- Also from Skyrim I want many different cities in Fallout. There weren't many in FO4 and FO3/FNV were also lacking of as many cities as Skyrim had. Whiterun, Markarth, Windhelm, all these are great locations that feel real, they also have many different quests to their name, and are huge in scale.
- Memorable villains. Say what you want about Fallout 4, it has amazing antagonists like Kellogg. Kellogg was an amazing character that mirrored the protagonist perfectly. He, unlike antagonists such as Eden, Autumn and Caesar, who were identical to cardboard cutouts, was three-dimensional and had a well written backstory that the player would come to respect, when from the start, Kellogg seemed to be no more than a typical black and white evildoer. Benny is another example of a good villain, because although he was hated by the player all throughout the game, he is also like the player if you chose the Independent ending. IIRC Benny wanted to become ruler of Vegas just like the Courier would soon become.
- A map that doesn't feel empty. Of course this is Fallout but we don't need vast landscapes of absolutely nothing. The Mojave was a desert, yes, but you had to wait, like, 10 minutes before you come across any hint of life. This was different in 3 and 4, where you would usually be in combat after walking the wasteland for a minute or so.
- Good companions. I like companions like Danse and Charon, but at times they felt like they had no real personality apart from then to guard the player. Of course there were also amazing companions in the series like Nick Valentine, Piper, Cass, Veronica, Raul and Fawkes that made up for this. I want more of those sort of characters in Fallout 5.
- An undefined backstory! Fallout 3 and 4 offered stories that were great, but felt sort of the same every playthrough. This isn't to say they didn't have RPG elements, but they were somewhat lacking. The great part of New Vegas is that you can define who the Courier was and what he is, a feature that like I said, was somewhat lacking from 3 and 4.
- More than four dialogue options and an unvoiced protagonist. I liked the voice actors behind 4's protagonist, and they did a great job, but leave the voice to me, will ya?
- A return of ammo crafting. I believe this was missing from 4 which I did enjoy back in New Vegas. I really don't care if they restrict it to certain skillsets or whatever, as long as it makes a return,
- No goody-two-shoes factions like The Minutemen or Lyons' Pride, or on the other hand, no typical "evil" factions like Caesar's Legion. The Legion were obviously the "bad guys" of New Vegas, and that's why I never really liked the Legion, and also why I never liked the Minutemen.
- DLC that encourages exploration (I'm looking at you, Dead Money), that isn't too half-baked (I'm looking at you, Mothership Zeta), but still offers a great atmosphere and excellent characters.
- Be able to continue the game after the ending WITHOUT DLC. As much as I loved Broken Steel, it took away from the DLC to pass it off as DLC, making it look like some sort of a cashgrab.
- Ambient music that doesn't feel too "happy". This is Fallout, not Fable. I don't exactly want to be roaming the wastes while listening to music that takes away from the atmosphere like in Fallout 4. I really liked Mark Morgan's ambient music from the classic Fallout games, and I think Inon Zur should attempt to recreate that instead of making Star Wars music.
- Better writing. Unlike most people, I think Bethesda writers can potentially write well like with Kellogg and Father, but with most notoriously the Minutemen questline, they write the standard of a four year old. Maybe if they actually spent some time thinking of new ideas instead of drinking whiskey, they'd have created a masterpiece of a game, but unfortunately a lot of Fallout 4's questline feel like something Tommy Wiseau would have written.
- More choice. I can understand that with Fallout 4 this had to be limited because of the god-awful voiced protagonist, but please make more decisions than "yes", "no", "why" and "sarcastic".
- No oversimplification of the dialogue and perk system. It's always cringeworthy to listen to your character say something only Adam Sandler would say, and it's also quite disappointing to see you only get one perk point to spend instead of ranking up with skills. Fallout 3 and NV did this way better.

EDIT:

- Another engine. Creation and Gamebryo are both buggy and horrible. It seems as if the games are more suited for console than PC. Come on Bethesda, use another engine already.

I understand why you would want a more post apocalyptic feel and it should. But one point i would like t make is it has 100s of years after the nukes and the wasteland is started to rebuild itself one by one

I want the old fo3 and nv weapon holster system back!

@commissar197 I would like to see the same things return as well. Specifically pre-war gameplay would be really cool. Maybe a look into what life was like during the great war America. Or maybe more combat missions in the Alaska front of the war. Or maybe some last ditch invasion into China. I am also surprised that Fallout 4 barely touched on the Enclave. I think one guy in Far Harbor was part of the Enclave but that was it. For being the main antagonists of many Fallout games I am surprised that they were never brought back. I also wonder why the developers decided to remove so many iconic weapons and factions and alter so many more.

1.i really want a nuke winter fallout just for something new
2. a real enemy like a raider king with a huge army
3. let me be evil like kick a puppy evil and dont guilt trip me for it
4. get rid for the voice mc
thats my wish list

Only have one. Soundtracks from the original Fallout games whenever you visit certain places. New Vegas did that in reference(Like visiting the Wrecked Highwayman or visiting Vault 22). Gives a feeling of nostalgia. Agreeing with also with the ambient music too actually which can be composed by Inon Zur.

I think you took the words out of my mouth. I was very disappointed in Fallout 4, it was so unlike 3 and New Vegas, the smart story telling, the choices you make that actually effect the game were no longer present in 4.
But I think maybe one improvement would be the gameplay should focus on survival than this Call of Duty pandering. New Vegas and 3's were awkward, it needed improvement but not in the direction Bethesda took it in. Also the skills have to return, clicking on a perk felt so dumbed down compared to New Vegas where you have to invest your time in skills.