I came into the Fallout series with 3/NV, I never had the time to give 1/2 or Tactics a playthrough and Brotherhood I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole based on my friends' thoughts on the game. Though I may try it eventually.

Now as for my thoughts on FO4, many of my points about the game have previously stated by others in this thread hence I'll try not to retread old paths, though there is one point I'd like to further add upon which is in regards to player freedom based on their decisions/choices and missed opportunities.

A major missed opportunity is that I can't really roleplay as a raider. Nearly all interactions, outside of the Nuka World, will have me in the end assisting whoever needs help as I have little to no option otherwise. A point being brought up that the dialogue options are just: Yes, Joke, Sarcastic (Yes), and No (Though there are instances when saying No is ignored. *Looks at Preston Garvey*). Granted I can become the Overboss of Nuka World leading 1/3 or 2/3 gangs, but I cannot actually beat the game without joining one of the four major factions and I can't just use my Nuka World Raiders faction as a fifth option.

This doesn't make sense as by going down the Raider route in Nuka World puts you at odds with the Minutemen. The Brotherhood of Steel wouldn't want some raider overboss in their ranks whose gangs are either taking over settlements or competing with them to extort resources from said settlements. The Railroad wouldn't want some raider in their midst and even if they did, why would a raider care about synths when he doesn't care about anyone else besides himself/herself and their gang. And lastly, the Institute would just see my raider as the very embodiment of the horrors of the wasteland and would shudder at the thought of he/she sitting in the director's chair with their grime and dust covered boots propped up on the director's desk.

And that's the biggest missed opportunity about FO4 for me which is the lack of a wildcard choice. In Fallout 3, I could just let the timer tick down and Project Purity would fail ending the game with that evil ending. In Fallout: New Vegas I could either help Caesar's Legion take over the Mojave or just kill everyone and go for the independent ending. However, in Fallout 4, I cannot use my raider gangs to beat the game because this fifth faction came in with a DLC, but no one thought about retroactively adding them in as another option about beating the game.

Now I still enjoy the game and I've come back to the game from time to time, as I do with 3/NV, and I could find some mods to add that will maybe give more player choice back to the player. But in terms of the vanilla experience, I still find FO4 wanting when it comes to allowing players to play a role in the game. Eventually my character build will have maxed out stat points and there are few differences in the world to reflect my character's special stats. An example I'll present is in NV I had a character with 10 Strength but 1 Intelligence and my dialogue options changed to reflect these stats. However, when I recreate this build with FO4 there is little to no change reflecting the s.p.e.c.i.a.l. stat distribution. My dialogue options are the same as if I had maxed out intelligence instead of just 1.

So that's my 2 cents when it comes to this discussion. Fallout 4 has made some improvements, but also took some steps back when it is compared to previous titles. My main concerns about the current direction of the franchise is that I'm afraid more and more RPG elements will be streamlined/removed as the game goes in the direct of focusing on the combat which means less replay value down the line. This concern, which I hope is going to be proven misplaced, stems from looking back on how my time is spent with RPG games compared to other game types. An FPS title I'll do one or two playthroughs and after that I'm done and will likely not come back to it. An RPG title, on other hand, I keep coming back after multiple playthroughs as I want to see what other alternative paths I could go down upon. So I just find RPG titles more engaging than over titles, and would like to see the Fallout series maintain these RPG elements.

Tbh, I don't think that there was much incentive in Fallout 4 to become a Raider to begin with, since you're the father of a god damn child, constantly on the lookout for your child.

And I think that the franchise eventually will just become another Far Cry with more cinematic interations, more crafting, and more looter shooter aspects with as much RPG elements as Far Cry itself.

Which goes back to the topic of player choice when it comes to the character's background that was mentioned on the second page of the thread. You don't play a character that you create, you'll always be playing some version of Nate or Nora. You'll always be a soldier/lawyer looking for your son. Any avenue that you may take Nate or Nora will always return back to the driving force of your character's motivation being looking for Shaun. You don't even get the option to think that it's hopeless to find your son as it's hard to imagine an infant chances are at surviving, with no exposure to any new illnesses that might've formed in the wasteland and not to mention all the new fauna that can harm him.

You never really get the chance to be anything beyond just being a father/mother looking for their son. As previously brought up, in the previous titles of 3 and NV, the only thing that's set in stone for your character was being a vault dweller or being a courier everything else to up to the player's choice.

As for incentives, I agree that there's no incentive to be a raider in the base game, the only incentive for being a raider was getting weekly caps from your gangs in Nuka World, but caps are so plentiful that's a very minor incentive. However, when it comes to making characters like a raider, it's more about playing a character that will go off the pre-determined path and seeing what limitations the game has. In NV, there was no incentive to kill everybody and in fact it would block you out from taking some questlines, but you had that freedom of choice to take this route and beat the game and be forever remember as a psychopath.

But again this goes back to my point on how limited players are in FO4 when it comes to making their characters and how limited player choice is. You can't really explore other options beyond the pre-determined path created by the character of Nate/Nora's motivator being to find their son. There's a massive narrative disconnect when your character's goal is to find their son, but in-game they are just going around picking up junk for their settlements, and even if you don't do anything with these settlements and focus on the story you will have to come back and do this loop anyway as you need a settlement to build the teleporter to gain entry into the Institute. Again there's no other options to get into Institute.

Aye, It was part of Bethesda's strategy to make FO4 more acessible to the casual gamer, but, let's be honest, the mechanics of the modern Fallout games (FO3 and FNV) are not complicated, I'm a casual gamer and I feel just fine playing with it, sure, for someone that wants a fast paced action game with few mechanics, well, go play Doom Eternal.

The problem lies with identity, FO4 doesn't have a defined identity, it's a frankstein of ideas, a bit of sandbox, RPG and modern shooter combined. Take Red Dead Redemption 2 for example, the game is rich with new mechanics and things to do, they didn't deviate from the original game, they expanded upon it, which is great.

If you look at the settlement system, it looks like they were planning on expanding upon Sandbox mechanics, which is great, but they putted too much focus on it and little on RPG aspects. It would be great if they incorporated the settlement system in the game im a seamless way, like it was done with Sim Settlements, that mod is brilliant, it's basically what should have been from the start.

But I digress, back to the main topic, I feel like FO4 could have been so much more, it's not a bad game, but from the several aspects of the game, roleplay was not very well implemented, and they could have made it better, I mean, Far Harbor is a thing, so they are capable, they just choose not to, since it was not their focus.

FO76 introduced back many of the missing RPG elements from the old games and, in most part, does a way better job at combining RPG, Sandbox and Shooter elements together, without one overshadowing the other. I know the game was shipped bad, but after Wastelanders it got much better, sure, since it's a multiplayer game, it has a different focus, but had they made it a singleplayer/multiplayer hybrid with support for mods, it would easily outshine FO4, why? Let me list the factors:

1. Better and refined RPG mechanics
2. Bigger map and legendary level design
3. More interesting Lore (Cryptids, Scorch Plague and etc)
4. More refined and better motivated factions
5. More equipment variety
6. Better perk system with exellent build capability

A lot of people might disagree, but thats just my opinion, if you have some good arguments, I'm open to change my mind and I'm not being sarcastic.

EDIT: Yeah I forgot about a point that was made by Brigamer, you can't be a bad person on FO4, even if you try, the game punishes you, which is ironic considering the reason they removed the karma system was to allow for a better and more immersive experience, which I agree on. But then they got ahead and force you to be good and punish you to be bad, man, now that I think, they didn't remove the Karma system, they made it implicit and more intense

The problem of Fallout 4 is that isn't a TERRIBLE game, not just a terrible Fallout game a terrible game period. It's a soulless, bland, deliberately ugly, hideously ugly knockoff of looter shooters like Borderlands without any charm, charisma or worldbuilding that makes sense within its universe. It is a product to be consumed, a low-quality one at that, like cheese wiz. Unlike borderlands the music, the setting, the props a hideously ugly a borderline lifeless, there isn't a tune in the ambient track that I think on fondly except maybe the Institute's theme. It's just bleak and dreary and nasty.

Borderlands is colorful and zany, and there are mechanical changes like vehicles you actually drive and pilot, varied environments, memorable music, mission hubs that you don't want to scratch your eyes out every time you look at them (compare Sanctuary versus Diamond City) ANd if you want a comparison of why it's a bad game, look at how it ir builds pathos and gets us to care about characters like Angel and Roland and Lilth Bloodwing before they start killing them off versus Nora and Shaun.

None of the Pathos is ever earned in any way whatsoever. THat not counting that Fallout 4 betrays it's very premise of an unuked city by the sea. This should be a unnuked fully functioning city-state. It should have been Fallout noir, Fallout Lovecraft country, and where you see this with Nick and the Cabot House, and the Silver Shroud which are actual stories of crime and civilization, the game finally finally begins to cook. But it's all a fart in the wind.

The whole of Boston South of the Charles needs to be rebuilt in the vein of Age of Airships 2 and it's side missions built on detective pulp, two-fisted tales, and espionage, maybe even a fishing boat mission that could reference Moby Dick or something.

The better analysis of the tissue thin SKinner box hell that is Fallout 4 is here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVyjRhSX92E&t=116s

But this skinner box of the junk economy does not belong in Boston of 2287, at least not to the point that it actually occurs. The junk economy can't exist because anything that could have been picked up like that would have been picked clean within 15 years and more likely 15 months of the apocalypse, which is why in the first two games there's NO crap to pick up, it's ALL gone, there's barely any racks to pick up. The scrap economy is going to be from tearing the BUILDINGS apart, in big work camps like old-time timber camps.

But thinking about things like this would require research and imagination, which Bethesda has NONE. They have a paint-by-number product to ship. They artistically and intelctually bankraupt because they are LAZY.

A good video on the opposite of the OP's initial video here if anyone is interested. It's also long but worth the watch to hear the other side.

I think the main issue with the whole debate is Fallout 4 is not pleasing everyone in every way.

It brought a lot of new things and improvements from Fallout 3.

The big issue is any system can be gamed and manipulated once you really understand it, and anyone who's concerned with it at this point has a general understanding at this point which is good enough that there isn't much challenge or mystery left in the game.

Think back to when you first played it. It was interesting and you played way different then than you play now on your 5th or 10th playthru.

Things change with experience and that's what I feel a lot of reviewers miss.

The whole settlement thing was amazing the first 1-2 playthrus, then it became too time consuming for me to bother with so I just slap down a bunch of beds and plants and water pumps.

Doesn't mean the settlement system is bad, I just stopped engaging with it.

Infinite games aren't going to stay as compelling forever.

I guess I agree