NorthWolf

Reading about some of this made my dental appointment today seem relatively enjoyable by comparison. So that's good, right?

Maybe an expert will comment on the matter but I thought it might be worth suggesting to try it and find out yourself. There's a chance there's no difference between a PC save and a console save and as such you might simply need to somehow get your hands on your save data off the console and put it onto your PC in the appropriate directory. If there is a meaningful difference between the save files? I'm doubtful that anyone has written a conversion utility.

As noted above and to provide more anecdotal evidence, I've been using one of the many "survival quicksave" mods that use autosave slots. There's no evidence that this behavior has carried over but it is a good warning to give.

I'd like to ask what EA really has to do with the ongoing discussion at this point...?

I don't like Preston. He's rough and coarse and irritating, and he gets settlement quests everywhere. My favorite companion is Scotchmo. He steals my alcohol and doesn't afraid of anything. Wait a minute...

No, most games do not have any kind of reference material printed for their toolsets. The best you could do is print out helpful tutorials if you need a paper reference. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with your problem or I could try to give advice, but the best I could suggest is finding another tutorial that covers the same subject and see if following its steps works.

Simple setting to put in Fallout4Custom.ini is: [saveGame]iAutoSaveCount=10

I remember it working this way but I haven't played the new patch sooooo... yeah, I'm inclined to think it broke some feature of the map.

Not questioning that there is a piracy scene for console games. It's also difficult to quantify the degree of piracy that takes place on any given platform but I think it's not a stretch to say: it is much easier to pirate a game on your PC than it is on your console. In the former version you torrent the game and hopefully it doesn't have viruses. In the case of consoles we're talking about a higher barrier to entry as you usually have to hack your console into cooperating with you. I'll recognize in advance it's not difficult but it tends to be "dangerous" enough that a lot of console users will just steer clear to avoid bricking their box. I'm not sure what you mean by DLC contamination but I can try to talk about the potential pay model for mods. I don't see why they can't take the same pay model, honestly, provided their pricing is a lot more reasonable and accounts for the fact that they're not being distributed by a reputable company but instead by an independent author and that their end users are taking a significantly higher risk by comparison. If paid mods take a reasonable pricing scheme I could see them working, i.e. $0.49 to $4.99 depending on scope and content, I could see myself paying for them if Bethesda is actually giving a reasonable portion to the mod author. Otherwise it's hard to justify paying for the content. As to your final point, I think I mostly agree. I think console users will still purchase mods, but I think they'll get frustrated when they start having bad experiences and having to deal with the technicalities of modding. Not meaning this in a "console users suxx they can't do anything because they is simpletons" kind of way so much as that they won't really have the tools to fix it. Something breaks? You don't have the developer console to fix them. You don't have as powerful a set of tools to handle your saves. You don't have the ability to download utilities to help fix it. You're just stuck.

You could try putting it in Fallout4.ini and see if that yields better results if all else fails, but otherwise ake sure "Fallout4Custom.ini" is named exactly like that and has exactly the right content (as above). Make absolutely certain you are editing it with a plain text editor -- if you're not certain on that point, use Notepad. Might not hurt to push enter a few times to make sure there are some blank lines at the end of the file but I doubt that should matter. Make sure you are editing the file located in (you can copy and paste this): %userprofile%/Documents/my games/Fallout4

The problem I see here is that by manually installing all of your mods you are making it difficult to manage them if something goes wrong, so going forward you should seriously consider using a mod manager. That said, you could see if one of the mod managers available is able to detect your plugins properly. You don't need to use them to manage your mod installations and you could simply use it to adjust your plugin order as desired and not use any of the installation management aspects. You probably already know it, but the Nexus Mod Manager works just fine, though anything with plugin management works. The only alternative I could think of is editing the Plugins.txt yourself. You can find it in: %userprofile%/AppData/Local/Fallout4 As to the potential source... do you have a mod with non-alphanumeric characters in the name or a mod whose name you've edited yourself? It might also be one of the mods has a broken ESP that can't be parsed by the built-in manager and it just fails silently.

Have you tried ALT+ENTER and then ALT+ENTER again? If that doesn't work, have you tried starting the game in full screen and then switching to borderless? If all else fails you could try deleting (back them up first) your "Fallout4.ini" and "Fallout4Custom.ini" in: %userprofile%/Documents/my games/Fallout4

I don't actually see where you're coming from with regarding Google and YouTube. Yeah, Google is a big company but so is Coca-Cola. Neither has a stake nor has shown interest in acquiring a stake in this particular industry (unless Coca-Cola suddenly emulates Bawls, amirite?). Even if paid modding became a reality, who cares if Google is the one who makes it a reality? I can't see a reason why the company that makes the first big "breakthrough" in paid modding is necessarily relevant in the context you're talking about it in. Sure, it makes me more or less confident, but overall does it matter? Furthermore, YouTube is a bad comparison in this regard. YouTube is wholly focused on providing content created by other people and not in any way focused on creating its own content in a meaningful way. While in some ways the contracts we're talking about parallel one another, YouTube is largely responsible for enabling and popularizing online video media and providing a viable financial foothold for independent content creators. If anything drawing comparisons to YouTube in this fashion is more an argument in favor of paid modding, and one I'd personally concede is a good one even though I think the harm outweighs the benefit in the long term. Not everyone can sit down and make Minecraft or Stardew Valley just the same way not every content creator can sit down and create a movie... but they can make a funny 10 minute video just the same as a modder can sit down and spend a week making a supplemental content pack. Obviously from my other posts I can agree in some ways: YouTube has practices that aren't always very fair and that's exactly why I'm concerned about Bethesda trying to lead the charge in the realm of paid modding. They don't inspire confidence. Also, Bethesda and Zenimax do have a final say on who gets to be part of the equation in terms of paid modding. It's actually a reason why paid modding could be a really bad thing, so I don't get why you're treating this like having other companies that could offer financial incentives to create mods for the same game are a bad thing. One issue with paid modding is that a single company essentially holds a monopoly for creating content for that platform, which is fair given they developed the platform but not necessarily good for the platform or those creating paid content for the platform. It means that you're going to have a really fun time getting a competitive contract. YouTube has to compete because you can take your video elsewhere. Bethesda does not. Your plugin works on that one game. Well, maybe two given Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, but you get the point. The above actually applies only moreso to your other points. A wide variety of publishers competing over the same demographic means they have to also compete for the best talent. They have to offer good wages and fair contracts. The problem is that all of these comparisons don't work because we're talking about software-dependent content that works only on a highly controlled piece of software. Don't like Twitch? Go somewhere else, find their competitor, try to make their competitor more famous. Don't think Activision is giving you a fair salary? Go work for someone else that is willing to pay you. Games aren't really the same. You've spent 10 years modding Bethesda games and you know if you go elsewhere it's a big step back depending on what your "field" is. It's not as if Bethesda can just say, "We'll give you 5%, deal with it." Bethesda still has to exist within the realm of reason or people will leave anyway. But it doesn't have to be anywhere near as competitive. But, yes, I do agree the money is going to change the community, I think everyone in this thread probably agrees with that. I agree that I think it won't be for the better, though I don't think it's for the reasons you've listed. Edit: Easier to have someone pay for a mod, download it, and then redistribute it freely on a PC. Doubt it will kill paid modding by any means but it will probably be a persistent problem with piracy no different than piracy of commercial software. Probably a little more prevalent because I can't think of a good way for Bethesda to guard against this, but they might find a way.

In this post I write a novella to explain why I'm not wearing a tinfoil hat while preparing to sculpt my tinfoil hat's antenna. Will anyone read it? Find it out in Zanity's next conspiracy post, 3 PM Pacific, 6 PM Eastern. Bethesda currently doesn't give us anything. Mod users barely give us anything. I'd rather a system where I can set my own price for a mod and have to give half of what I make to Bethesda than to make nothing. Your belief that modding should be just a hobby is fine. But please don't try and tell me what I should believe about it. Eck, I should apologize and make it clear: I did a very poor job with grammar and phrasing there and wasn't trying to assert my opinion as fact. So sorry, and thanks for being so level-headed in your response. To try to do a better job this time around: my opinion is that modding is better served as a hobby and that it will likely be detrimental to the community at large if there's a strong financial aspect to modding. But I do recognize it's an opinion and if paid modding is going to be inevitable I do hope my concerns are proven wrong because having companies more strongly motivated to support modding due to the potential revenue would be excellent for everyone. I also should really get across: I have nothing against people who want to see paid modding become a reality and I don't have a problem with mod authors wanting to be paid for their mods, part of my concern is actually that at the end of the day this won't really help content creators get paid so much as devalue their work. To elaborate, I really do feel like Bethesda already uses the modding community as a crutch on the PC platform and that this is not a positive sign in terms of their business strategy. Other companies have hired successful and talented mod authors and given them fully paid positions. There are some genuine success stories (i.e. DayZ is an easy one, plenty of others). The real problem I have with the potential for paid modding in this specific case as opposed to my general opinions that "I don't like it because I'm afraid of the implications on the modding community at large" is that I'm not really convinced that Bethesda is the right company to usher in this brave new world if such change is inevitable. Their handling of the Skyrim fiasco and now their handling of the Fallout 4 fiasco doesn't exactly make me feel like they're equipped with the community presence to actually work with mod authors that are treading new water with genuine, legal ramifications and where a mod author's stolen work is now stolen money. For example WhiskeyRiver2 mentioned how much revenue "Modern Firearms" would have theoretically produced. I'm not slandering the authors of the mod when I say this because I recognize how hard it is to avoid these mistakes, but if I remember correctly that's the same mod that has been taken down for having assets that weren't properly licensed (if I've been wrongly informed, I'm very sorry!). In the realm of modding at large, that's not necessarily a big problem -- Nexus takes it seriously, which is good, but the Nexus won't take it as seriously as a litigious company whose assets have been used illegally. All of a sudden the quoted $60,000 in earnings would quickly disappear into legal fees and payments unless Bethesda had some system in place to handle claims. If this feels like I'm overstating how bad this could be, consider the YouTube.com claims system and all of the controversy surrounding that (I would find links but it's a huge topic in and of itself) or just how genuinely litigious some companies can be (once upon a time using a GIF without paying licensing fees could get you slapped with a civil suit, for example). If Bethesda can't protect mod authors from theft in a timely then I'm not convinced they'll do any better helping mod authors understand how to create content that they can legally monetize nor will they do a good job curating it for both the author's benefit and the community's benefit, even if Bethesda is making money on it. Sure, the potential revenue will motivate Bethesda. They're a company before you think I'm accusing them of being the devil but it doesn't change the fact that they do not have a good track record with community moderation or interaction. At the end of the day I'm also not particularly convinced they will give mod authors a fair portion of the profits which, while you might be viewing this from the perspective of "it's nice to get money," which I can understand, it's also worth considering that it potentially devalues creating content at large depending on just how fairly Bethesda handles negotiations with the mod authors and how much their actions set a precedent moving forward. Consider the situation in the design industry at large and you might at least get an idea of where I'm coming from, even if you might think it's paranoia on my part. To tack this on, as well, I don't want to seem like I'm backpedaling: I'd be worried about this no matter who was leading the charge and it's not that I dislike Bethesda by any means. This situation has a lot of potential pitfalls for anyone... which is why I don't support it. Though, even I think I'm probably jumping the gun sometimes and, hey, maybe it will just end up with a lot of top tier paid mods and Bethesda will get its act together and treat both ends of the community fairly (both consumers and content creators). I'm just more worried that in a decade you'll see Bethesda holding a contest where you win a GOTY edition of "Fallout 6: Rad Free or Nuke Hard" and the "honor" of your mod getting bundled with a paid content pack. Which you don't get money from. Slippery slope, etc. etc. TL;DR: I did a poor job conveying myself and sorry for seeming like I was just asserting my opinion as fact. I worry about paid modding not just because it could hurt the community but because it could be worse in the long time if somebody is trying to make a living doing the kind of work they would do making mods professionally. You don't get to decide whether someone else is allowed to make money off it. And as I said multiple times, The amount of effort being put into a mod is limited unless money is involved. Modders will work harder, much harder on something they will get paid for. Getting paid for the countless hours of work adds value to a mod, because hard cash is worth more than a thank you on a forum. Getting thanked and recognition on a forum is very nice indeed, but it does not beat getting paid. So stop acting like money is poison. And Bethesda knows that. They are anticipating the trend of paid mods just like Valve does. This will not make free mods disappear, but mods below a certain quality treshold will be free, because the mod author cant or wont for time constraint fix all the rough edges that a paid mod would not be allowed to have. And to what rener said. About mods breaking. Most mods do not break on new game updates. Unless they use hacky tools like the tools used before the creation kit came out. I never used those tools, and I think they are great tools that allowed early modding. But it is not Bethesda's job to make sure these mods do not break on new updates. To shorten the apology to Reneer I made above: I recognize I have done a poor job conveying that I was expressing an opinion and I apologize. I was not trying to state my opinion as fact. Obviously I do stick by my opinion, but I'm genuinely trying to engage in a conversation, not just throw out assertions. That said, I still feel you've misunderstood my post beyond the realm of "I phrased it badly" and into the realm that you are attacking a strawman. I'll still address your points and hopefully clarify my own point of view. For one, no, I do not get to decide if someone else is allowed to try to monetize their work and I never asserted that. I can understand why you might jump to this conclusion but at no point did I say "you can't monetize your work". Part of my post is actually expressing concern for the value of a mod author's work. And that's why I don't understand how you came to the conclusions you did. There's no "money is poison" in my post. It's about money and about being fair with money. I touch on this in my response to Reneer but spec work is an extremely real problem for designers and seriously impacts their livelihood. Why do I bring up spec work? Because part of my honest fear is that this realm of paid mod authors could easily end up with a situation where talented but inexperienced young individuals create mods and don't realize the genuine value of their work which means content as a whole is suddenly much less valuable. I mean, sure, you could hire this clearly skilled modeller or level designer but... why bother? Instead let the community churn out content for $0.49 a download. No need to pay benefits or an annual salary. Yeah, okay, I admit it's an exaggeration but I'm trying to point out the potential negatives this poses. So why is my version where only a few people get paid better? Because those talented people actually get paid honestly for doing good work and the value of their profession is still respected. Bethesda is a company and is going to pick good methods to make money, that's fine, but if mod authors don't actually value their work it could easily end up in a spec work situation. Again, if you think this is purely in the realm of fantasy, read up about the spec work situation in the design world and maybe I'll seem a little less like I'm wearing a tinfoil hat (I prefer to think of it as a hair extension). So why is it better that a mod author's mod is worth $0.00? How is that not devaluing their work? Because right now if a game company wants to hire somebody who creates content that they can make money on they have to pay them a competitive wage. It's not that the mod isn't valuable, it's that the mod isn't trying to compete with the industry in terms of the financial value of content. It is its own sphere. In some ways the mod is more valuable free than paid -- in a world of free mods, they're a valuable resume item if they meet certain standards of quality. In the world if paid mods that gets much more questionable depending on how paid modding changes the landscape. By attaching a financial value to mods you have suddenly created a situation where a bunch of inexperienced people who have no actual basis for understanding the value of their work in the industry are having a major impact on how valuable work is. But to anticipate an argument: this is pure paranoia, and I'm really overreacting. The crop of mod authors will continue to do their work the same as they always have and they'll just get paid instead of not getting paid. Except even that's not true. By creating a financial incentive you will genuine change the landscape of the community around the game in question and anybody who wants to just flip a switch and make their mod paid is unlikely to enjoy what they actually encounter. What happens when their mod is stolen and they see next to no revenue because people just use a disreputable but popular site that allows their mod to be hosted freely? What happens when their mod is subject to a legal claim? What happens when somebody simply takes their idea, recreates it, and just distributes the mod freely (and perfectly legally)? What happens when people expect customer service and due to regional laws either Bethesda or the mod author are obligated to provide it or deal with fines? Moving mods into the realm of business turns them into that. They're a business and mod authors are now contributing to a marketplace with all of the obligations (and pitfalls) of doing so. It will be competitive and a lot of people are going to undercut, steal ideas, and use underhanded tactics. If you got into modding because it's fun, you're probably not going to have fun when you start having to treat it as a business. If you got into modding to make a portfolio and now want to make some money to support yourself you should seriously ponder if this helps or harms your professional prospects in the long term. Which is why I want to address a point you made: you assert pretty strongly that hard cash is worth more than a thank you on a forum. Getting thanked doesn't beat getting paid. And I really don't agree in the slightest. I work as a software engineer for a living and my professional work involves sitting down and fulfilling a specification for a client as well as making sure they're satisfied with my work. It's not a thankless job and I enjoy it, most of the people and clients I interact with are polite and pleasant people. But then I come home and spend a few hours every so often helping people on forums with technical problems or contributing to projects, which, yes, includes mods. I do not want to be paid for it. Why? For one, and I know this will come across as arrogant, but I honestly doubt I could be paid enough to really care. This isn't just me tooting my horn and saying I'm a big, wealthy, successful genius: I'm not exceptional and a lot of the people who make mods on the Nexus could probably do my job or learn to do it within a few months. In this back-and-forth I'm not just saying mod authors need to value their work as some throwaway line, I really mean it. You could probably do my job better than me so why should you be sitting around getting peanuts from Bethesda instead? If Bethesda pays you fairly, sure, great. But I'm dubious they will. Secondly, I do it because I enjoy helping people and seeing creative projects get fulfilled. I enjoy knowing I made a small contribution to an interesting project or that something I made was fun for some people. It has none of the stress or obligation of my job and a lot of the fun parts. It's also a lot different having a client say "thanks for completing the project" as opposed to somebody on a forum saying "thanks for helping me finally get this game working". Yeah, sure, the former is professionally gratifying but the latter is better in some ways because I know somebody is getting to have fun instead of pulling their hair out. The reason I harp on this point is because it really doesn't rub me the right way that you somehow think introducing money to this will just make it better. For some people who want to treat it kind of like a business? Yes. But pretending like money is a universal spice that improves things? No. It has nothing to do with me being anti-capitalist since you seem to have inferred that from my post. It has everything to do with why I prefer seeing modding as a hobby as opposed to a job and seriously recognizing the obligations that come with monetization. You also assert that mods below a certain quality threshold will be free. Yeah, some of them. I think you'll be surprised how many people who make quality mods actually do the same thing for their day job and mod because it gives them a creative outlet where they don't have a project lead/professional client/incompetent manager breathing down their necks and aren't going to want the headache of dealing with all the problems money brings (and not enough money at that). I doubt free mod quality will drop substantially and I doubt paid mod quality will be consistently higher as you imply. Will we probably see more, cool mods? Sure. Is it possible I'm wrong and paid modding will usher in a lot of great content? I can definitely see reasons why it would. I'm just in no way convinced that is how it will actually work. It's an ideal, not a reality. TL;DR: I am not trying to assert my opinions as fact and I apologize for doing a poor job conveying that but I feel as if you're not actually attacking my post, flawed as it is, so much as attacking a strawman. I have nothing against money and am not treating money like poison. Treating money like a spice that will instantly usher in nothing but improvement isn't treating the situation realistically: it will change the landscape, possibly for the better, but it will have its downsides no matter what. Finally, your opinion that money is somehow going to make modding a more gratifying experience is misguided and assumes your opinion is a fact. Some people, like myself, like this as a hobby and only as a hobby.

Does ALT+TAB or CTRL+ALT+DEL not work when you're in this state? Would think they would have similar benefits? I've not experienced this problem personally so impossible for me to test.

It should have other benefits in terms of what you can delete, so enjoy. One of the essential settings for actually enjoying settlement building in my opinion if you can handle the FPS hit. Cheers!

What video card are you using? If you have an AMD card and you're having the nefarious compass bug, try using this. Fixed it for me. But to answer your question, there is a way to roll back changes to your game, but not through Steam. You'll have to do it yourself by making backups of the files. Please read the entire post before walking through the steps as I have some warnings later on: 1. Go to your installation directory. If you're not sure where that is, in Steam you can right click on the game, select properties from the dropdown menu, go to the "Local Files" tab, and select "Browse Local Files...". 2. Select "Fallout4.exe" and "Fallout4Launcher.exe" and copy them into an appropriate directory. For example, I would make a directory under the Fallout 4 directory called "__Backup 1.2.37.0". 3. Allow Steam to update your game. 4. Test to see if there are any issues with the patch. 5. If there are problems, copy "Fallout4.exe" and "Fallout4Launcher.exe" from your Fallout 4 directory to another backup folder. Again, as an example, I would make a folder under the Fallout 4 directory called "__Backup 1.5.416" or something similar (using the patch version I just downloaded as part of the name). 6. Copy the old files ("Fallout4.exe" and "Fallout4Launcher.exe" in the "__Backup 1.2.37.0" folder in my example) to your Fallout 4 directory and overwrite the "Fallout4.exe" and "Fallout4Launcher.exe" you just made backups of. 7. Enjoy 1.2.37.0 again and hope somebody actually patches the problems you're having out. Just some warnings: 1. I can't test this so I can't guarantee this will work. If you want to pick a practical "better-safe-than-sorry" route you can copy all of the files in the Fallout 4 directory (not the folders) and create backups which should minimize the chances of this not working. If you want to be absolutely certain this can be reversed you could just create a copy of your entire Fallout 4 directory. 2. If you roll back the patch Steam won't actually know and will stop trying to update your game (most likely) until Bethesda releases the next patch. If you want to re-enable the latest patch you can do so using your backed up files or by going to the game properties in Steam, going to the "Local Files" tab, and hitting "Verify Integrity of Game Cache...". It's probably better to just use the backups of your files unless you've hit a snag because this process can take a while.

You can make Scrap Everything (and potentially other mods) work on objects like this using some configuration settings. Please read everything in the following post as this method has known issues and can cause poor performance or strange behavior if not understood. 1. Open or create Fallout4Custom.ini. You can find this file and other configuration files in: %userprofile%/Documents/my games/Fallout4 2. Under the "[General]" heading change "bUseCombinedObjects=1" to "bUseCombinedObjects=0". If the general heading doesn't exist or the entry doesn't exist create them. 3. Save the file and open your game. You should now be able to delete the mesh using Scrap Everything -- other mods may or may not work. In the end your FalloutCustom4.ini should look something like this (obviously you might have other entries): [General] bUseCombinedObjects=0Keep in mind that this method has some issues that you should be aware of before using it: 1. It can lead to significantly poorer performance in areas like the downtown as you are disabling a performance optimization setting to allow for this. Test this by going downtown and see if you find it playable before committing to the change. I have a modestly powerful video card but this setting causes performance to degrade significantly downtown -- don't assume your PC is up to the task, make sure it is. 2. Keep in mind that this empowers you to delete things that you really shouldn't. You should absolutely commit to saving before building and understand the risks of doing so. For example, in the alley settlement outside of the Diamond it's entirely possible to delete buildings with this (and not in the way you might think), causing graphical glitches and pathfinding issues. 3. If this setting is changed back (or deleted from your ini file) the old objects will return as if they weren't deleted. They (if I remember correctly) will disappear again if you set bUseCombinedObjects to 0 again. This might be a way to handle the performance hit if you absolutely want to have it but can't handle the low FPS in certain areas -- you can set "bUseCombinedObjects=0" when you're building and doing settlement stuff and "bUseCombinedObjects=1" if you want to explore, just keep in mind it will make your settlements look crazy while bUseCombinedObjects is set to 1.

Ahh, yeah, that sucks. Backing up the .exe can help with that at least.

Because in my point of view, modding is a hobby and benefits from having a relatively open community. Creating a mod should be something you do for fun and to engage people and should have absolutely nothing to do with making money. And my statements regarding spec work are completely honest concerns on my part. How is it better that Bethesda devalues your work by giving you a pittance for it?

Depending on your connection speed this isn't necessarily viable is the problem. Still, that works provided you're willing to remember every time and you actually have enough time to stop the download. I would still back up your executable at least.

From what little I can make out in the picture it looks like the Red Rocket's building mesh has warped really insanely, or are my eyes just tricking me? Do you use any mods like Scrap Everything by any chance? There is the genuine chance that the Nvidia drivers are just bad, as well. You could roll back to the last version you were using and see if it fixes the problem.

I really, really have to agree with the posters above me. All this talk about politeness and yet this is literally one of the most impolite things I've seen on these forums. If your donation isn't something freely given then why give a donation to begin with? I don't donate to charity expecting them to print my name in big, bold letters on every billboard across the country or waste the money I just gave them having somebody paid to write me a thank you card. I do it because I want to support what they do. Nothing more. Nothing less. No strings, no attachments. A donation. Why are you donating if you expect something? You already got something: the mod you're donating to.

Next week on Zanity news: BETHESDA is KILLING KITTENS and MAIMING TODDLERS in order to enable their ILLUMINATI CONSPIRACIES to take hold in the general populace, finally allowing them to DESTROY THE SPIRIT OF MODDING and steal the CHRISTMAS PRESENTS from our INNOCENT CHILDREN (even the maimed toddlers). Am I doing it right?

I seriously avoided any and all Fallout 4 hype until I purchased the game impulsively well after its release date. So from the perspective of somebody who has literally no idea what the hype train was like, I found Fallout 4 enjoyable but badly flawed. Maybe more accurately: it took a lot of big steps forward compared to its predecessors, but I feel it stumbled badly on each of them. Some examples of what I mean: The settlement system. I know this is a hot topic but I'm not trying to mindlessly bash it: as a creative outlet, it's fun. But without mods, I find it impossible to enjoy. It's a system that in its basest form doesn't feel functional enough to provide a creative outlet and at its core it's not a gameplay element. It's a sandbox builder mode for Fallout 4 that doesn't feel powerful enough to be fun for fun's sake and doesn't serve a strong purpose in gameplay in spite of being a central part of the game's narrative (depending on what you do, of course). If there was an actual involved city-builder-lite management system and some named NPCs that had questlines that move into your settlements I would feel x100 better, and honestly it doesn't feel like it would have been a huge leap to do so. But that's not what happened so I'm left more hoping that TES6 or F:NV2 takes the system and makes it more of a part of the game and less of a weak sandbox builder. To reiterate considering a lot of the people like the settlement system: I'm not saying it's not fun. I have a bunch of mods for it. I like it. I think it has a lot of potential. I just don't feel like Bethesda really tapped in. I also really feel like Bethesda actually took some time making interesting companions and quests. I really don't feel like much of the main story arc is very compelling but for once I felt like the side quests in a Bethesda game were interesting and involved, when in the past that was mostly reserved for rare exceptions (Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood was a real gem, etc.). There are some weak ones, yeah, but that's true of most RPGs. And I feel like some of the companions were bland but they had a lot more of a personality compared to previous entries in Bethesda's library. But that's kind of what makes me sad. The companions and side quests don't feel strong enough to make up for what I felt was a generally lacking central narrative, something that was much easier to ignore in previous entries because your character wasn't voiced and reminding you about it every so often. And that's the worst part. I really liked the fact that Bethesda seemed to be taking a risk with the main quest. I really wanted to like the overall narrative (except for the part where I fought a deathclaw in power armor at level 4). But another case of "too flawed". I can appreciate the potential it had but not the end result. But it's another one of those things where the community has me still playing the game way after those frustrations have become a sideshow. And I also would be lying if I said that even with those flaws I didn't feel like I got my money's worth (and I paid full price, even). It's a fun game that seems like it really could have been great by my standards and elevated what was an otherwise lackluster history of writing for Bethesda while adding on a whole new dimension to the game... but it feels like it needed more time in the oven. TL;DR: Game's good and takes some big steps forward but stumbles in doing so and ends up falling short of great in my book.