Support NeoGAF

[RSP]

Spoiler

I was hoping that the Institute was going to be some Vault-gone-haywire where the people just started digging, and inventing new technology. It seemed to go that way for a while when you reach the FOV lab and Reactor rooms, but it doesn't seem to be intended that way.

I also disliked how limited the interaction was with Father. I did not really like any of the factions, and I did not want to blow up the institute. I felt like my main character had only been accustomed to his new environment for a couple of months (my time in-game upon finishing it). His only objective would be to find Shaun and take him to some place safe. Perhaps even retreat into Vault 111.

Don't know if it is OK to use spoilers, but just in case.

 

[Jintor]

Honestly I can't decide if it's typically bad or worse than usual.

Some decent companions this time around... Except they don't appear to exist outside of their own story arcs, and the fact that most of the time you spend with them they act like idiot robots means it's impossible to feel like they're actual characters

 

[Etnos]

Spoiler

Shaun

is such an aweful, stupid character I was shocked when I realised that it wasn't a joke, but something that's actually happening.

Also very predictable, as soon as I woke up from the frozen chamber I knew what was gonna happened

Spoiler

Ohhh you gonna mess with my time perspective... because cryogenic sleeping... so original...

 

[Effect]

It drives me up the wall that you can't confront

Spoiler

Shaun about his lack of ethics once you find the FEV lab and what he was encouraging as well as the general treatment of the non-institute settlers.

that seems like such an obvious conversation but there isn't even a way to mention it when you return to him.

Also, why the fuck does everyone want everyone else dead in the end? The railroad's first 'choice' for me is to go against the minute men? Where the fuck does that even come from?

The first part of your post is where the game ultimately lost me and actively made me pissed at it. The way this is handled is complete and utter BS. It isn't a complicated or a gray issue.

Spoiler

The fact that the kidnappings and what happens to those people by the Institute is never once address beside being a major element of the game as you interact with people is just insulting and beyond aggravating.

All of this is just horrible design and writing. I kept waiting for the game to address this and it never did. I don't think I ever encountered something like this in Fallout 3 or Skyrim. I've never been upset or pissed off with those games as I am with Fallout 4.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

The railroad story really goes places. Stupid places.

Spoiler

Shaun

is such an aweful, stupid character I was shocked when I realised that it wasn't a joke, but something that's actually happening.

Spoiler

Well Mother, I freed you from the Vault, and then just wondered whether you will survive or not but didn't really care to be honest. We also thought it would make sense to let you, an untrained lawyer from another century, kill our badass assassin. Also I thought it would be fun to tease you with a little robot Shaun when you arrived here, that was funny. Oh, btw. no I won't really tell you what the Instute actually does. But I really love you, please kill everybody else in the wasteland and take my place in the institute, I'm dead now, bye *dies*

Oh god yes that twist, has several layers of awful and stupidity to it

 

[Astral]

I think one of the biggest problems is that that the game doesn't give you enough reasons to love or hate the synth, so you can't really side with anyone. I felt completely indifferent towards them. In the end I chose the Railroad just because breaking synths out sounded fun and even that just turned into "oh don't worry about them your job is to kill everyone."

 

[Etnos]

For me the worst of the factions is the Institute

You telling me a group of highly educated obviously civilised and well mannered scientist, living in a organised hierarchal society are this oblivious to the ethical concern of creating artificial intelligence?

"People fear what they don't understand" - Says father.... well yeah, you idiot maybe if you explain them what are you trying to do instead of pointlessly murder therm and kidnaping them

It makes ZERO sense, no attempt to negotiation, for understanding... frankly disappointing

 

[BouncyFrag]

I recently wrapped up the terrible main story and put the game back on the shelf. The stupid plot twist when you reach

Spoiler

the Institue

caused me to finish up the main campaign faster than I normally would have. I did enjoy the exploration and smaller side stories usually self-contained in a single building or location. I will pick F4 up again as I want to explore new locations that I ignored as I planned to visit them in subsequent play throughs which I will not be doing.

I did lol when Nick Valantine told me he didn't need sleep only then to see him sleeping in one of my open air beds surrounded by turrets and the ever drug induced drooling visage of Mama Murphy.

 

[Perfect Cha0s]

Yeah, the point where I completely lost interest in any story the game was trying to tell was when

Spoiler

Shaun asks me to go wipe out the Railroad.

I thought I'd be able to reason

Spoiler

Shaun

out of it. I couldn't. I thought I'd be able to talk the Railroad, a faction I'd been on good terms with until that point, into

Spoiler

going into hiding so that the Institute didn't come after them

. I couldn't.

In fact, I couldn't even talk to

Spoiler

Desdemona

at all.

Spoiler

She

just says some shit like "I know what you've been up to" and then stands there like an idiot waiting for me to slaughter them all.

I really enjoy the gameplay loops of Fallout 4, but the actual plot and story interactivity are a mess.

Edit: spoilered just in case.

 

[nubbe]

Hunting down your offspring is the simplest way to give motivation, but the intro is too short to give any emotional connection to the main character or the baby.

The major problem for me was the halfway point since I more or less lost motivation to continue the story.
Everyone in the world are driven by tunnel sight, war always is like that, since it never changes.

It just became more about siding with the faction you think is the least crazy

 

[Bluenoser]

The first part of your post is where the game ultimately lost me and actively made me pissed at it. The way this is handled is complete and utter BS. It isn't a complicated or a gray issue. That's just horrible design and writing. I kept waiting for the game to address this and it never did.

Yup, there were so many conversation paths I wanted to have with Shaun, and the game kept it very boring and focused.

Honestly, I still wasn't convinced by the end of the game that Shaun was telling the truth that he really was Shaun. There was no evidence to support it, and the main character was just supposed to take his word?

I was also really pissed that there was literally no other option but complete annihilation of opposing factions no matter which one you sided with. Institute path was straight up murder everyone and there was no conversational path that could stop it without pissing them off.

Seemed like they got lazy. I expected so much better as I progressed through the plot.

 

[Nibiru]

Massive open world games are very poor at telling stories imo. There are too many distractions and I think it is safe to assume that most people don't even finish these games. No one I know ever finished Skyrim but they loved playing it and I know not a single one could really tell me the story. They would have a general idea but the details are muddy.

If I was watching a 15 episode tv show with a bank heist arc and then there were suddenly 5 episodes where there is a murder investigation, 3 episodes of home renovation and 2 of random crap, by the time they get back to the arc I'm just not that jacked in to the story. This is how Bethesda games are to me. They are an open world romp that have no equal so I give em a pass on the story.

 

[Shinjica]

For me the worst of the factions is the Institute

You telling me a group of highly educated obviously civilised and well mannered scientist, living in a organised hierarchal society are this oblivious to the ethical concern of creating artificial intelligence?

"People fear what they don't understand" - Says father.... well yeah, you idiot maybe if you explain them what are you trying to do instead of pointlessly murder therm and kidnaping them

It makes ZERO sense, no attempt to negotiation, for understanding... frankly disappointing

This is not completely true. Father told you that they tried to make a government but it failed because people tried to take advantage of that for more power

 

[sirap]

Uh-huh.

 

[Etnos]

This is not completely true. Father told you that they tried to make a government but it failed because people tried to take advantage of that for more power

And yet the obvious route is to create synts? I mean of all the problems in the Wasteland, of all the actual logical ways to restore civilisation... hee yeah lets make human like robots guys, priorities

 

[Effect]

What makes me the most upset at Fallout 4 and Bethseda is that many of these issues aren't apparent at the start. You have to put in a very significant amount of time into the game before it all starts to rapidly fall apart and just become down right insulting and aggravating. By then you are already 20+ invested into the game and that's if you went straight for the story. You'd be closer to 50+ if you took the time to explore, etc. The only silver-lining is that it's so bad that you can just throw up your hands and walk away and save more of your time. To bad the money is already gone.

 

[Coll1der]

I'd say that the game started very promising, with attempts at actually characterising your hero, but as soon as you get to Concord it all came crashing down. Minutemen and Preston are so naive trusting and tacked on I couldn't help, but cringe at the whole situation. I just noped the hell out of Minutemen questline when Preston made me a general. It was the moment that broke the game for me.

After that I've wandered the wastes a bit, reached Diamond City in a while and cringed after meeting Piper, the in-your-face-rogue-fearless-journalist. I swear I wished I could just shoot her on the spot and get my pass to Diamond City that way. I even tried to do that, but she had plot armor, just like all other follower NPCs.

Cait was probably the only one I liked, but her "addiction" problem and the aftermath were heavily disappointing. She didn't change one bit after that. And her addiction wasn't really set up anyhow, it just appeared all of a sudden when it was needed by the plot.

All in all I just stopped playing after it occurred to me that the house I broke into during my first visit to Diamond City was the house of the primary villain, but I couldn't advance the plot with it unless I had Nick with me. It was so contrived I just stopped. I wish I never bought the game actually, I've ruined the whole dream of a worthy Fallout sequel for myself and lost all hope.

 

[Savantcore]

I just don't understand why my character is not the least bit bothered about waking up in an apocalyptic wasteland full of terrifying creatures he's never even had nightmares about. Instead of actually being some guy thrown into a horrifying future, he's some head-popping, lock-picking, terminal-hacking Rambo who doesn't think twice about stealing some raider's leather jacket and gas mask.

 

[Bluenoser]

And yet the obvious route is to create synts? I mean of all the problems in the Wasteland, of all the actual logical ways to restore civilisation... hee yeah lets make human like robots guys, priorities

Yeah, I had to laugh when I sided with the Railroad, and I came across Shaun in his bed when taking down the Institute. He shamed me for the destruction of humanity, and tried to make me feel guilty before I put a 10mm in his skull. Not sure how creating synthetic humans is the answer to re-establishing the former world.

 

[tuxfool]

What makes me the most upset at Fallout 4 and Bethseda is that many of these issues aren't apparent at the start. You have to put in a very significant amount of time into the game before it all starts to rapidly fall apart and just become down right insulting and aggravating. By then you are already 20+ invested into the game. The only silver-lining is that it's so bad that you can just throw up your hands and walk away and save more of your time. To bad the money is already gone.

The clues are right there right from the beginning. If you stop to think about the beginning of the game it feels poorly constructed and this is the part where the game is at its most guided.

In fact there was a thread about the poor start quite a while back.

 

[Hastati]

I really cannot wait for the first generation of open world games that don't have linear stories. Just a large simulated world with characters that act based on their position in a hierarchy or social structure in real time independent of the player. Writing scripted stories fundamentally limits the player's ability to interact with and live in these worlds. It would be better to have historical nodes, places the civilization or cultures in the game drift towards over time in-game, that were broader and more malleable than the looking Glass spotlight on the player system we depend on now.

 

[Raven117]

Ive enjoyed my time with Fallout 4, but Bethesda's game design is really starting show its age.

They really need to take a step back and figure out how they are going to bring their brand of games forward. Especially when there are some RPG's out there that are pushing open world narrative and design to greater heights (Witcher 3).

They tried the base building thing, which I guess some folks liked. (I didn't).

Like the OP, I never played these games for the outright narrative, but this go around, I actually found it distractingly irritating. The game lost its "wacky weirdness" and dark humor, and instead got a semi-serious story that really forced a player to play a specific way.

I still enjoy walking around and finding stuff as that is the core experience, but this time, every other system to a varying degree irritated me.

All that said, I want to see what the do with Elder Scrolls...Their writing is better suited for that type of game that a (quite frankly) edgier fallout.

 

[BeeDog]

The biggest issue I have with the game story/lore-wise is that so many additional details are hidden under certain dialogue selections that are so easily missable. It wouldn't have been such an issue if the game didn't screw this part up hard; you never know when a selection you've made will drive the current character interaction further or if a selection will still allow you to select something else.

 

[TylerDurden4321]

The Railroad are good guys.
It's easy, Trump would hate them, so they must be good.


But, yes, I had some of OP's problems. I wanted to know who really replaced people with synths, what happened to the people that got replaced? How is a synth different from a human except for life experience? Would a human with only chipped memories be a synth?
This is addressed really poorly in the game and even should you dig up info on what the institute's end goals and feelings about surface people are, you never can use it in any conversation (at least not to my knowledge).

I could have multiple schemes of my own as a high ranking member of all factions that could have deescalated everything and made for a better future, but Bethesda forces the "epic" part of all endings on you.

Edit: But yea, I still enjoyed Fallout 4. VATS + Bloody Mess = awesome. Good also that they keep the console commands where other games go the way of wanting you to pay for more in-game credits.

 

[ElectricBlanketFire]

Massive open world games are very poor at telling stories imo. There are too many distractions and I think it is safe to assume that most people don't even finish these games. No one I know ever finished Skyrim but they loved playing it and I know not a single one could really tell me the story. They would have a general idea but the details are muddy.

If I was watching a 15 episode tv show with a bank heist arc and then there were suddenly 5 episodes where there is a murder investigation, 3 episodes of home renovation and 2 of random crap, by the time they get back to the arc I'm just not that jacked in to the story. This is how Bethesda games are to me. They are an open world romp that have no equal so I give em a pass on the story.

I wouldn't say "that's just how they are" is a good excuse.

 

[Pilgrimzero]

So is the Railroad, willing to kill and die for synths, their motivation is never clear... I mean they are a highly ideological group in the wasteland

You would think Humans in the wasteland would have basic priorities to fulfil before thinking about saving some robots

No faction is believable, they are all unidimensional fanatics with no clear motive

In defense. They never outright attack someone first. Like when they finally want you to attack the BoS or Inst it's because that faction attacked their base first.

 

[Y2Kev]

Yup, there were so many conversation paths I wanted to have with Shaun, and the game kept it very boring and focused.

Honestly, I still wasn't convinced by the end of the game that Shaun was telling the truth that he really was Shaun. There was no evidence to support it, and the main character was just supposed to take his word?

I was also really pissed that there was literally no other option but complete annihilation of opposing factions no matter which one you sided with. Institute path was straight up murder everyone and there was no conversational path that could stop it without pissing them off.

Seemed like they got lazy. I expected so much better as I progressed through the plot.

When I met him, my first response was OH MY GOD ITS REALLY YOU. Lol how do you know that?

 

[Interfectum]

I think it's far worse than any of their earlier games. I think it's worthy of special criticism. I don't expect Shakespeare but this is a mess.

You know, coming off of Witcher 3 I figured my dislike for Fallout 4 was because Witcher 3's story and dialogue were so good... I gave Fallout 4 around 30 hours but I couldn't stomach it anymore.

The dialogue is garbage. The story is stupid and severely disjointed. And worst of all I have little choice in anything I do (in terms of story). I had fun building my own town and customizing my own guns for a bit but when you finally realize how shallow all that shit is too there is literally zero reason for me to continue playing.

 

[TylerDurden4321]

Honestly, I still wasn't convinced by the end of the game that Shaun was telling the truth that he really was Shaun. There was no evidence to support it, and the main character was just supposed to take his word?

There was also the bit where Kellogg, when you met and killed him, looked as old as when he took Shaun from the Pod, whereas Shaun is sooo much older. Of course I didn't believe him to be Shaun. I shot the guy and found out that I couldn't escape anymore so I loaded the game again. On a terminal I found explained that Kellogg was kept from aging because he was a high value assett (the Railroad uses that tech too, but I didn't know that it existed when I met Shaun).

 

[Pilgrimzero]

When I met him, my first response was OH MY GOD ITS REALLY YOU. Lol how do you know that?

Spoiler

A parent KNOWS their child.

Or something.

As for better chat options:

I wanted to head fiction

Spoiler

that once I took over the Inst I could swing them back to doing good without murder but since I couldn't continue without out actually doing murder myself, I decided to fully back the Railroad.

 

[Bluenoser]

There was also the bit where Kellogg looked as old as when he took Shaun from the Pod when you killed him, whereas Shaun is sooo much older. Of course I didn't believe him to be Shaun. I shot the guy and found out that I couldn't escape anymore so I loaded the game again. On a terminal I found explained that Kellogg was kept from aging because he was a high value assett (the Railroad uses that tech too, but I didn't know that it existed when I met Shaun).

Yeah you can find info on Kellogg in a few places. Father tells you as well that he was given special treatment to ensure he doesn't age and stays in top form....

Yet, they can't cure Father's cancer.... um... what?

 

[CloudWolf]

The Railroad is a shadowy, overly compartmentalized spy agency. Instead of sticking to that, they just declare war on the Brotherhood and start murdering them.

It's pretty clear the Institute was meant to be the evil option, since they're the ones that murder people and replace them with robots.

I was tolerating the awful writing up to a point, but these two things is where Bethesda really failed hard IMO.

First off, The Railroad declaring war was completely out of character with the game's portrayal of the faction as you said. I wanted my character to say: "Guys, remember when your last hideout was compromised and you moved to another one instead of nuking the shit out of the Institute? Why aren't we doing that this time?" But no, it's time to murder all Brotherhood members just because.

Secondly, the Institute being the evil faction was hilariously badly handled. I don't even know how Bethesda managed to fuck that up. You've got a faction that kidnaps (and murders) people and kidnapped your kid and everybody is scared of them. So the player has a great reason to hate them and/or to join them if they generally chose to play as a mass murderer. And then you get there and... everybody is reasonable and nice, forgives you for killing Coursers because 'you didn't know', grow plants and manufacture animals to return the world to it's former state, don't care if you twist their words to promise a better tomorrow where everybody co-exists and make you director, basically promising that you will be able to decide to introduce the synths to the Commonwealth peacefully and stop the kidnappings. And yet the game still considers this the evil faction/choice.

What the hell Bethesda? How do you screw up your token 'evil' faction? I mean, there's morally grey and there's doing a complete 180 with one of your main factions without even fucking acknowledging it. Imagine that if in New Vegas when you finally got to the Caesar's Legion base the leadership all turned out to be pacifists who are really against anything the Legion does, but simply do it because 'it is necessary'. That would be fucking weird. The Institute after the reveal is fucking weird.

 

[studyguy]

I think one of the biggest problems is that that the game doesn't give you enough reasons to love or hate the synth, so you can't really side with anyone. I felt completely indifferent towards them. In the end I chose the Railroad just because breaking synths out sounded fun and even that just turned into "oh don't worry about them your job is to kill everyone."

I found it extremely difficult to care about literally anyone. Including my own settlements in Fallout 4. Hell I wanted to just ruin things for everyone by the end of it, but you're literally not allowed to be a badguy in the strictest sense in Fallout 4 so even that's moot.

 

[Bluenoser]

I was tolerating the awful writing up to a point, but these two things is where Bethesda really failed hard IMO.

First off, The Railroad declaring war was completely out of character with the game's portrayal of the faction as you said. I wanted my character to say: "Guys, remember when your last hideout was compromised and you moved to another one instead of nuking the shit out of the Institute? Why aren't we doing that this time?" But no, it's time to murder all Brotherhood members just because.

Secondly, the Institute being the evil faction was hilariously badly handled. I don't even know how Bethesda managed to fuck that up. You've got a faction that kidnaps (and murders) people and kidnapped your kid. So the player has a great reason to hate them and/or to join them if they generally chose to play as a mass murderer.

And then you get there and... everybody is reasonable and nice, forgives you for killing Coursers because 'you didn't know', don't care if you twist their words to promise a better tomorrow where everybody co-exists and make you director, basically promising that you will be able to decide to introduce the synths to the Commonwealth peacefully and stop the kidnappings. And yet the game still considers this the evil faction/choice.

What the hell Bethesda? How do you screw up your token 'evil' faction? I mean, there's morally grey and there's doing a complete 180 with one of your main factions without even fucking acknowledging it. Imagine that if in New Vegas when you finally got to the Caesar's Legion base the leadership all turned out to be pacifists who are really against anything the Legion does, but simply do it because 'it is necessary'. That would be fucking weird. The Institute after the reveal is fucking weird.

To be fair, the objective was not really about murdering the whole BOS, just destroying the Prydwen, and BOS members that try to stop them.

 

[DMiz]

It just seems like the story, perhaps matching the gameplay, is a collection of poorly executed ideas and themes that feels like a “greatest hits” version of their previous games without the care or consideration given to any of them in their original incarnations.

I feel exactly the same with the quoted.

As much as the game simplifies some of the actions and reduces the tedium that it is prevalent in the Bethesda games, they felt 'solid' in the sense that the loop was satisfying and I felt compelled to venture out into the world to discover something else.

I don't get that in FO4. Despite the improvements and simplifications, I don't feel like going out and exploring. Part of it is because the world feels quite samey - I know some people have said they vastly prefer walking around in cosmopolitan wreckages over the blank deserts of FO3, but it doesn't work for me. If anything, the game feels even smaller than before, and the 'loop' that used to work so well - go out, destroy monsters, pick up new gear - seems dead because, unlike FO3 and NV, I don't have to frequently scrummage for ammo and repair my gear. Things don't break. Legendary weapons/armor added effects are boring, for the most part.

It's just not a very exciting RPG.

 

[SkinnerSw33t]

Did they ever explain why Kellog was in Diamond City with a 10-year-old Synth-Shaun, or did that exist solely as a red herring?

 

[BreezyLimbo]

Did they ever explain why Kellog was in Diamond City with a 10-year-old Synth-Shaun, or did that exist solely as a red herring?

Probably trying to see if Synth-Shaun could pass as human.

 

[Lalalandia]

Yeah I fell into my usual pattern of side questing and hunting for cool environmental art so when I rolled back into the story around level 35ish to hit the

Spoiler

Institute

and it just confirmed all the tired sci-fi tropes I'd been fearing. It's killed my desire to continue the main quest and I may just put the game down, I've seen all the places from those 'N places you have to see in FO4' articles and given that the only thing I can look forward to is more tediously simple combat and bad writing that's probably me done to be honest.

Better that Fallout 3 in the mechanics which led to me missing that it had even worse writing which is the inverse of the issue FO:NV had where the writing was so good it delayed the awful mechanics making me put the game down. I preferred FO:NV's problem to be honest

 

[studyguy]

Did they ever explain why Kellog was in Diamond City with a 10-year-old Synth-Shaun, or did that exist solely as a red herring?

I think he says it was just an experiment when you check his memory? I recall the flashback saying someone directed him to do it, but it was vague as shit anyway so take it as you will.

 

[Bluenoser]

Did they ever explain why Kellog was in Diamond City with a 10-year-old Synth-Shaun, or did that exist solely as a red herring?

Not to my knowledge. I don't see much purpose in "raising" a synth. Kellogg spoke as if it was the real Shaun, and they never returned to explain that narrative.

EDIT answered above.

 

[Plague Doctor]

I still submit due to the wonky bloodlust of the others factions and writing that the Institute has the best ending if you consider what can happen as "what ifs" after their last mission ends.

Spoiler

Presumably the Institute will be only as good or evil as your player character is - considering you are now the director and the other heads seem like pushovers. You could end the Synth exploitation, work peacefully with the surface dwellers, but even before that, the Institute doesn't create a nuclear explosion that would have massive collateral damage to people who are independent of the factions. No matter how altruistic the RR or the Minutemen are, yeah.... you still caused a massive explosion that probably killed innocent people. Good job, guys.

But, this is more of a testament to the less than stellar writing/world building of the factions as a whole.

 

[The Technomancer]

Then it turns out the secret project is her basically working on a giant robot that carries massive nuclear bombs. Wonder what that will be used for?

A sort of..."Metal Gear", if you will?

 

[Steejee]

I'd say that the game started very promising, with attempts at actually characterising your hero, but as soon as you get to Concord it all came crashing down. Minutemen and Preston are so naive trusting and tacked on I couldn't help, but cringe at the whole situation. I just noped the hell out of Minutemen questline when Preston made me a general. It was the moment that broke the game for me.

The General thing was fine by me simply because Preston was quite literally the only Minuteman left. It's the equivalent of Melhouse making Bart General of their tree house.

Based on the comments, it seems like a person's take on the Railroad is heavily dictated by the order they do quests. I got basically every faction to the point of no return before committing, and met the Railroad by doing the freedom trail before being very far with BoS.

As a result, they came off as a very understandable resistance organization. Basically the standard plucky-band-of-misfits fighting for a cause. Another result of that order was that the Railroad didn't really initiate the war with BoS and Institute, not that I would have been bothered if they had. I pretty much wanted to nuke the BoS as soon as I met Maxon, and meeting Father and being able to get fuck all for explanations for their actions made me more than happy to end them, even if the most logical ending for me would have been to take over at the Insitute and set up a coalition council with the Railroad and allow them to be advocates for the Gen3 Synths.

The lack of endings that weren't 'Blow shit up' was really my biggest gripe with the writing. At least with my 'final' ending with the Minutemen, the Railroad is still active and friendly, so the two non-asshole groups in the game survived.

 

[Owzers]

it took me awhile to get past the point where you spurn one of the factions because i didn't care about any of them and couldn't decide how i wanted to move forward.

 

[Coriolanus]

I can see the RR's conduct being justified when handling the BoS. It's a stretch, but sure, they come at you when you're backed into a corner, all you can do is fight back.

How they handle the institute, tho... Why yes, let us

Spoiler

murder every single person in there. And then plant a bomb on a nuclear reactor. Yes, that will prevent synths from ever being produced again and will completely rid the world of any and all persons that could do tech support for them, but fuckit, omelette, egs.

Like, for reals beth, why in blazes wouldn't the RR

Spoiler

take over the institute, instead of blowing it up?

This also ties with Father, of course. Really? Not a single way to convince him that sufficiently advanced AI's shouldn't be treated like slaves? Not one? Even after you find out that the "faulty" synths that they do manage recover, they do a hard reset and then almost always scrap for parts? And even though you know i have direct access to the RR, your first suggestion isn't to replace Dez with a synth? That's not even an option?

that's the problem with the factions, then. Push comes to shove, every single one of them is grotesquely stupid, and their motivation is revealed as "because reasons". Particularly aggravating with the BoS's reason to take out the RR:
"Because they've survided the Institute for a very long time."

...what?

Did they ever explain why Kellog was in Diamond City with a 10-year-old Synth-Shaun, or did that exist solely as a red herring?

Kellogg carried reports from the mayor to the Institute. Is why he was stationed there.

 

[alexbull_uk]

Fallout 4 is my GOTY, but nearly all of that comes because it's fun to play. Story is pretty much just a reason to make me explore the map.

My overall biggest issue with the story is that (massive spoilers)

Spoiler

no matter what you do, or who you are, it is inevitable that you'll end up with the Minutemen and just one other faction as your friends. I don't understand why this is. My character has been friendly with everyone up until the very end of the game, but now I'm expected to destroy 2 of the 3 groups I've been working alongside. Hell, I don't even get the chance to simply assassinate their leader and leave the rest of the group alive.

 

[CloudWolf]

To be fair, the objective was not really about murdering the whole BOS, just destroying the Prydwen, and BOS members that try to stop them.

Yeah, but in-game that translates to 'murder the whole Brotherhood of Steel' since they are gone after destroying the Prydwen.

 

[SkinnerSw33t]

Kellogg carried reports from the mayor to the Institute. Is why he was stationed there.

Yeah. I just didn't understand why the Synth-Shaun was with him.

I guess the experiment reasoning mentioned above makes sense.

 

[jahasaja]

Op nails fallouts 4 writing issues. The story fall flat since you do not understand the choices you are given.

In the few situations when you do understand the reasons are so stupid that you still do not think you understand.

 

[kavanf1]

My main issue with the game so far is that violence seems to be the answer to every discussion. I'm not against violence being in the game, just the fact that almost every interaction has only one solution: shoot until everyone is dead. I quite liked negotiating in the previous FO games.