I know I'm opening a can of worms here but I just can't help but ask this question. I love all of the Fallout games especially FNV and I've noticed this site is mostly pro FNV which is fine but how did FO4 let you down? It really is a great game if you give it a chance and put enough mods on it in my opinion. What they did with the power armor alone is outstanding and you can tell it's what they always intended. Which is for the power armor to be like a vehicle. FO4 actually made me realize why I had to go through power armor training back in FO3.  I'm not complaining I've just noticed some of the top modders on here don't play it and I'm curious as to why. If you throw some weather and survival mods on there it will suck you right in. At least it has for me. So what are your thoughts? Again this is just my opinion and everyone one here is entitled to their own. This has just had me wondering for a while now.

To me, Fallout is like children. They each have something special to offer and it's really impossible to pick a favorite. The series, as we all know, has its roots in dedicated RPG's which is why FO4 has been so divisive among fans of the series. People lament the loss of some of the original RPG elements like skill points, traits, wide dialogue trees that have been so defining to the series so far. I love FO4 for its own reasons and it brought a ton of great improvements that make it harder for me to go back to FNV

There is a lot of valid criticism of FO4 but one thing I can't stand is this circlejerk that Interplay/Obisidian is the one true god of Fallout who can do no wrong. People often forget about the travesties (Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel) that followed Fallout 2 when it seems like Interplay was determined to run their own series into the ground. It's only because of Bethesda that we have more Fallout today, it's only because of Bethesda that we got FNV.

After New Vegas people expected a lot more out of Bethesda. While the graphics improved and the combat was better, the story and lore suffered greatly.

Voiced Protagonist while it made for a more cinematic experience the way they handled it took away a lot of the choices. Every choice you made in the game had the same outcome with the only difference being is if you were nice, a jerk, or a sarcastic about it. They also limited the choices down to 4.  Which is probably safe to assume was done to save money on all the voice acting.  It made the game have much less replayability since there was less to see.

When it comes to the lore this was a big shit storm, The Ghoul boy in the fridge who survived for over 200 years without food or water, Ghouls according the the old lore still need to eat and drink water, they also grow up. Also Post-War drugs existing in the Pre-War for example "Jet" was created in Fallout 2 by one of your potential companions.

Then there was the big Pete Hines spat... after he was questioned about the lore contradiction he said..

"not interested in discussing how realistic things are in an alternate universe post-apoc game w/ talking mutants and ghouls"

http://gamingbolt.com/pete-hines-under-fire-from-fallout-4-fans-accused-of-not-caring-about-the-lore

This is only some of the reasons why people have big issues with Fallout 4.

It's mostly just down to internet culture really. The vocal minority will always be more vocal. Fallout 4 sold more copies than any Bethesda game (including New Vegas) to date, so it doesn't take a genius to decide that logically the Fallout 4 haters are a small group in comparison to the rest of the fans.

They have mostly fair criticism but repeat themselves often and defend every flaw of their senpai Obsidian's games while gripping onto any small mistake and nitpick of the Bethesda games. If Fallout 4 was created by Obsidian and New Vegas by Bethesda, they'd probably defend every flaw of it too and attack anybody who claimed New Vegas was better. Yet the sheer hypocrisy is what really grinds my gears.

People really need to understand the difference between opinions and facts.

Cause it caters to casuals. I felt it took a lot of the thinking out of the game and made it a fps action shooter more then older fallouts. Its easy for someone who doesn't know fallout at all to just jump in and be used to it. Bethesda made the game for the majority of people but, cut a lot of features that people from FNV and FO3 loved. Liked the huge thing is dialogue options. Dropped it to only four options to choose from in the dialogue, while FNV had FO3 had so many options to choose from and not only that if you had certain perks/levels/skills, you unlocked more dialogue. They catered to much to settlement building and incorporating ideas from other games that they forgot the key features that Fallout can be known for which is a very distinct detail on how you can end the story. You actually had choices to make and consequences for those choices. Fallout 4, you are the hero no matter what you do. Took all the thinking out of the game and (filthy casuals) those who haven't played it before can easily pick up on it. All around its a good game that had a huge hype train but, to the die hard fans, they let down a lot for us.

Quite the question your asking there,

You see fallout 4 is a massive improvement on many things in the series starting from powerarmor to graphics and mechanics it feels great to play and smooth to handle.
I think a large part of the reason why people have a problem with fallout 4 is the writing.
For a lot of people playing games like fallout is more about the exploration and the feeling of being in a wasteland braving the end of the world, surviving the odds and the dangers that come with it.
This is why fallout 4 is still quite popular, many have had a similar experience of a true and utter wasteland in fallout 3 which for them was often their introduction to the world of fallout,and fallout 4 just does this very well.
But others find that not being enough when they play a game, they want story, they want dept they want a world that consistently makes sense.
At first glance fallout 4 seems to have this, until you look beyond and find that fallout 4 can be quite the shallow game at times.
The story is sometimes a bit lackluster and many things don't make sense in comparison with the already established lore of the series.
This happens with items, mechanics, factions and of course with Quests which for storytelling is highly important.
Take the kid in the fridge for example as mentioned above by@"Obdulio", not only is it not in correspondence with the lore, it just doesn't work on any level being that even if the radiation would have kept him alive the complete isolation would have driven him mad.
Not even mentioning the fact that this fridge was located next to a populated settlement and someone would have found him.
These sort of things take you out of the game. Fallout known for it's zany and sometimes wacky situations can be excused for a lot of things. ranging from brain bot's to talking deathclaws still a line must be drawn in the name of believability in correspondence to the in-game world. One can create ridiculous things as long as it works within the confines of the world you have created as a writer, it needs to remain believable Towards the audience.

Dialogue and story in fallout 4 are heavily influenced by the fact that the developer choose a voiced protagonist as well.
Hiring a voice actor can be quite a cost voicing every in game line for the protagonist even more so, which means that the developer will do his best to ensure that they can suppress these cost sadly at the cost of the writing. And though the new style is more cinematic
one cannot have conversations in fallout 4, in the older games one could ask many questions to gain added information or lore and these could go on for minutes every named character had something to say, allowing the player to gain a deeper understanding of the world. Characters had motivations reasons and most importantly so did the player though the protagonist.

Fallout 4 pushes you in a predefined role, that of a father or mother. Something the game seems to both clearly point out to you and yet forgets 10 minutes later. Your spouse dies yet only rarely does this mean something. You are looking for your son but the game allows you to do anything but. A story that is both defined and undefined spoken in 4 decidedly unhelpful conversation options.
The voiced protagonist and limited options also doesn't help as one can no longer internally choose the voice and reasoning of your character.
These problems continue on with things like companions some of them are rather too simplistic they don't really have much to say and only in 3 or 2 predefined moments do they have real conversation options.
Information you find in the commonwealth like the fact that father continued on the supermutant program or the messages amongst the raiders don't lead to new options, talking points or quests they are simply there to give the game a feeling of dept but rarely lead anywhere.

Fallout 4 is a great game and I enjoy playing it, I did put it down for a year because of lack of quests and my annoyance towards the main quest but now with some decent companion and quest mods I'm back into it again. Still that shouldn't have been necessary for me to do so considering the cost of the game.

All in all it comes down to expectations, some people wanted a more story-driven and better written narrative, in the way that the other fallout games offered. Or a world that made a bit more sense at times.

It's this disappointment that leads to feelings of resentment towards the game something that has happened with other games or forms of entertainment.

In the end Fallout 4 is a good game but it lacks something and the feeling that one has to fill the gaps with mods is not something that feels right I think. Whatever the case may be one should judge fallout 4 fairly, A great game not that good of a story.

Thank you for all your honest answers. I also don't like the voiced protagonist either. There is a mod that removes all speech cut scenes though for anyone interested. And I totally agree that the story is very lack luster and short and it does break lore. From that aspect it is the worst of all the fallouts. Yet still with the right mods it is a lot of fun. It bums me out to think we'll never see a monster mod or XRE vehicles mod for the game. Although there is a new bounties mod out that has a bit of that new vegas bounties feel to it. If you look at Skyrim and FNV they are so loved and they attracted so much talent to them which is great. They deserve it after all they are masterpieces. But sadly I truly don't think we will ever see that with FO4.

@annex77 Do we have concrete proof that we will never get a monster mod? :/ I am very concerned at that fact.

@annex77 A mod like XRE Cars or Monster mod will most likely be released after a while, and if you look at the Nexus it even says that currently Fallout 4 has the most mods below Oblivion and Skyrim.

In time though FO4 will beat Skyrim and Oblivion's mod count being that it sold more copies and Fallout 4 is still a young game. It's only two years old in comparison to Skyrim (6 years) and Oblivion ( nearly 12 years) and it still is approaching the mod count of those games.

It's too early to give up hope.

For me, the overall theme of fallout 4 felt more like a cash cow cop out rather than a game made by people dying to tell a story. Fallout 4 was just so absolutely boring and awful. I hate to bash it so hard but I just can't not. It had a terrible story and piss poor gun selection. Removed just about every aspect that made fallout what it was and basically made a shoot em up. Removing the Perks, Karma system, and skill points really killed it for me, as well as the factions in the game. The railroad to me was so stupid and the Minuitmen are equally obnoxious. The brotherhood are some righteous tyrant. The institute you almost beat the game before meeting them. Topped with the boring dialogue that was voiced with shitty branching choice  options that almost made no impact on the environment and had no consequence to them. Even the companions felt so rushed. Overall the game never felt like an RPG. I never felt like I could really change my char and make them 100% unique and I never felt like my char made any real impact on the environment. All the quests were just too generic and simple. Sadly I don't think mods will make it any better. As a modder myself, I found it more of a pain to mod than not. Cross our fingers the next fallout will learn from this.

I have to agree with the others on this, Fallout 4 has some very big flaws. The lore and ability to make your decisions, as well as the reputation and skill systems from previous titles are lacking in FO4. There is also the lore issue, but there are plenty of mods that could replace weapons and gear with better options than Bethesda would have done anyway. I also feel that there was alot more they could have done to flesh out the story itself, as well as more sidequests that would expand the universe; the world of FO4 feels flat.

I have to agree with this as well, the game never allowed you to RPG or become something other than a "concerned parent". Fallout is a game about roleplaying and Bethesda unwittingly threw that out the window with this installment. While I believe with no doubt they made it so with good intentions, they made a game that was 1. Lackluster in RPG options, 2. less weapons than previous Fallout games, and 3. A story that was basically a repeat of Fallout 3 in the opposite direction. Instead of a concerned kid (Who you can RPG as anything as you didn't have a forced story upon yourself and you can be an evil raider) who had the option to look for your father, you had a concerned parent who HAD to find their son only to find he's in his early 50s dying from cancer, ya know? You couldn't be a evil raider, you could be a BOS member but the whole faction thing was forced down your throat, whereas in Fallout New Vegas, it wasn't forced, you could actually bounce between factions until you crossed the Rubicon point in the game, and you felt like a part of that specific faction. It doesn't help either that the factions all have flawed ideologies like the Railroad who prefer Synths than humans and humans are helping Synths and dying for them when we don't even know if they are sentient, the BOS have a kill all mutants and irradiated species which is flawed as some Ghouls and Super Mutants are friendly and helpful, and the Minutemen are tasked with civilizing the wasteland which is impossible as most people DO NOT wanna go back to their old lives. Plus, FNV and F3 have way better mod variety and mods than Fallout 4 currently has. That's not to say F4 doesn't have good mods, it does but not on a scale like FNV or F3 or even Skyrim. I agree with both of you 100%!

If I had to describe Fallout 4 in a word it would be "lazy", not bad, just lazy. Everything about fallout 4 felt half done and like they just gave up halfway through.

The story, although good, felt rushed and forced on the player. You could probably beat the main game in only a few hours.

The faction are all stuck in this morally grey area so the player themself has decide what faction to join and you have to join a faction. This wouldn't be so bad but each faction feels evil in their own way.

The settlement building system, although intriging, is buggy and feels only half done, furthered by the fact of how much of it was released as paid dlc.

And the fact that the game is buggy as hell. Yes FNV was buggy but they actually fixed it. But fallout 4 is still buggy and has been since release. One of the things that angers me the most is the first update to the game, instead of fixing some of the quests so they actually worked they instead fixed people not being dismembered in the vault.

Fixing a bug that lets you blow people into tiny chunks vs a bug that will crash your game.....

That is why some people like New Vegas better.

Corvo wrote:

It's mostly just down to internet culture really. The vocal minority will always be more vocal. Fallout 4 sold more copies than any Bethesda game (including New Vegas) to date, so it doesn't take a genius to decide that logically the Fallout 4 haters are a small group in comparison to the rest of the fans.

Sorry mate, nothing against you personally but I am just so sick of this bull$#!T fallacy. To wit:

"The Phantom Menace made more money than Star Wars, so it doesn't take a genius to decide which movie is better and more beloved."

Fallout 4, just like "Episode I," unquestionably owes a great deal of it's financial success to its predecessor. FNV was a solid improvement over 3, so the audience was hopeful 4 would continue the upward trend. Bethesda not only failed to move the series forward but actually seems to have degraded it somewhat, at least as far as the RPG elements are concerned (shooting is better tho). This, in short, is why I think a lot of fans are disappointed by the game, as many of the arguments in this thread clearly illustrate.

Call of Duty sold more copies than FNV. Pacific Rim made more money than Pulp Fiction. Justin Bieber moves more records than your favorite band. Sales are not a concrete metric of quality.

Again, nothing against you, but that "argument" is garbage...

@toolio20

I never argued that it was more beloved or even better, but I did argue that Fallout 4 had a larger playerbase than New Vegas or Fallout 3, which means that after Fallout 4's release FNV's playerbase is split even further by who likes Fallout 4 and who doesn't, so going by that logic, Fallout 4's fanbase is larger than those who hate it and think Fallout New Vegas is better, making the latter the vocal minority.

@Corvo

No, you argued that Fallout 4 haters are a small group in comparison the the rest of the fans, based on sales. Then you went on to scold Obsidian groupies.

I don't believe the data exists to quantify any of this one way or another, but the general vibe I've picked up since release is that Fallout 4 is considered pretty "meh" among the fan base (as opposed to the general overall customer base, which is a different and likely far more apathetic animal). While people welcome the much-improved shooting mechanics there just isn't a litany of those same voices praising the game as an achievement; in fact, it seems more common than not that compliments regarding the gunplay are typically accompanied by a caveat about some RPG component Bethesda screwed up, be it the Voiced Wanderer, pewping on the lore, or whatever else.

Fallout 4 can be a better selling game and less well-liked at the same time.

@toolio20

Which is what I just posted. They ARE a small group in comparison. It's like comparing a continent to a country. Of course there are a lot of people who hate Fallout 4, but in comparison they are the vocal minority to the rest of the fans. The facts are all there.

Now I never did say Fallout 4 was the best Fallout game but I did say a lot of the hate for it is down to senseless bandwagoning and hiveminds. However you look at it, they are the vocal minority because the fanbase they are a part of is much smaller than Fallout 4's fanbase, therefore they are only a fraction of their own fanbase which is easily dwarfed by Fallout 4's fanbase.

And while you say that the general consensus is "meh", it's majorly coming from the vocal minority. The whole point to a vocal minority is to appear larger than they actually are when in reality they are a small minority that just talk and post too much. Notice how a lot of the complaints in every topic are coming from the exact same pessimists that posted in all the other topics?

I agree with you that Fallout 4 can be better selling and less well-liked, but it just doesn't apply here. Fallout 4 is well-liked and best selling at the same time but like every other game it's community has it's toxic parts. Fortunately for the Fallout community, the cancerous parts are the minority, just like many other games with the exception of a few like the FPS game communities and Call Of Duty where their communities are majorly toxic.

Like its been said time and time again, Fallout 4 was a good game, but not a good Fallout game. People came to expect the complex narratives, interesting factions and in depth dialog in addition to great weapons and armors. There were mainstays of past fallout games, like NV for example. People heavily criticize Fallout 4 for not being the game that it was marketed to be, A Fallout game. Todd himself even made some strange and misleading statements about it as well. The basic Fallout fanbase expected more RPG mechanics, with less focus on such a morally good main character on a lame quest to find his son. To me the story felt like something that was not at all an RPG. I felt that I had little control over the story and only which faction I joined. Some players also didn't like the heavy focus on settlement building and the abhorrent radial quests. As a whole, Fallout 4 did not live up to what fans were told, and failed to deliver on vital fallout style aspects. Personally if you took away the pipboy, the vaults, the deathclaws and the Brotherhood of Steel, Fallout 4 would be an uninspired shooter.

I like FO4 a lot, but I have got so much beat up for that opinion (not here on GUN, no don't mistake it to that, elsewhere) , so I tend to not speak, discuss or comment any of it anymore, anywhere. I just stick my nose down, play game, mod it for my own tastes, and post  lot of screenshots.

I think it is popular enough, but in some point it felt trendy to ridicule those, who liked it. Not long ago someone told me quite solid and direct insults simply because I preferred FO4 over Skyrim (i didnt even comment aything about Skyrim by saying it) or because I have my own  criticism towards NV or FO3.  

FO4 has its fair share of problems. It has a lot of things that are so wrong it hurts, but still it does not deserve that 'basic and generic' hate. Bethesda has never-ever written a good story, but its not why one buys their games either. Or should I reword and say its not why I ever bought them. They offer  me world to escape to and they offer me world to I can change according my own wishes. I see all Bethesda games as platform to build own little perfect bubble/game.

heck I do not know why I write this, someone somewhere will give me a slap for that post ... normally someone does, when i say I like FO4.

@Corvo

Ah, the old Negative Reviews theory. Sound, but I don't think it applies and I'll tell you why - we may perhaps differ on what we consider a "fan." In my terms, a fan is familiar with the franchise and has followed it - maybe just the Bethesda games, maybe all the way back from the Interplay days, regardless they have at least some sense of the Fallout continuity. Somebody for whom Fallout 4 is their first experience and likes the game may indeed be a fan of it, but I think it's more than fair to assert that person isn't a franchise fan in the same way as veteran players.

I'm not saying one is better than the other, mind you, only that a new player is absolutely not going to have a frame of reference for judging Fallout 4 against previous entries. Thus I'm apprehensive to lump their opinions in with those of the franchise stalwarts. So it is in this context that I'm suggesting fan response to the game was/is fairly lukewarm.

Invisible and unstated "facts" notwithstanding, you can't claim Fallout 4 is the most well-liked entry in the franchise (it can be generally well-liked and still less well-liked than FO3 or FNV or FO2). If it were, there wouldn't be anywhere near the level of consternation and disappointment with the game. I mean, this isn't rhetorical - do you honestly think Fallout fans wanted the fourth game to be underwhelming? Also, you might want to dial back the inference that the people you're calling "the minority" - the same ones who are vocal about their problems with Fallout 4 - are cancerous. C'mon dude, srsly. Lively discussion otherwise, tho.

@Eikeegi

Wow. Taste is subjective, bro, and you are allowed to like whatever the hell you want. Not sure what forums you were getting figuratively smacked around on, but you can not let those negative experiences silence you. Just because something is popular doesn't mean you're obligated to jump on the bandwagon. Don't let yourself be browbeat - you like what you like, and if someone can't deal with that stick your middle finger in their face and let them know they can get f****d.