I need to find my son.. but later, I've got to help these complete strangers first.

[jasonorme666]

I like Fallout 4, I really do, but that doesn't mean I'm not puzzled by it's lack of direction.
There is a sense of urgency, desperation and a fish out of water feeling up until the point you bump into Preston.
Once you have murdered 20-30 raiders and a deathclaw with a chain-gun whilst wearing power armor for some guy you just met, the games direction really breaks at this point for me.

As someone who tried to play the game "realistically" I said NO to quests (even though I was still given them anyway) and focused (as I believe any desperate parent would) to find my infant son.

By the time I had reached the glowing sea I realized that this wasn't the intended method of playing as I was under-leveled and under-equipped.
I felt at this point it was a good idea to seek help from other's, and made finding fusion cores my quest.
My in game brain thought, oh, the brotherhood of steel, I bet if I got in with those I could get some fusion cores. But it was just people asking too much of a guy searching for his son, and sent me off in a direction that any of the quests I refused to accept would have.

It was 80 hours in that I discovered that Fallout 4 had already planned how I should play.
I was meant to play as a nice guy who helps everyone for no reason, who kill's, lock-picks and hacks everything. Who spends a disturbingly amount of time building furniture just to make complete strangers feel comfy, and cleaning mess up (because it would appear that world was frozen for 200+ years and not just me).

So I started a new game, and decided to play it the way I had felt the developers expected of me. I killed everything and helped everyone, even if it meant trekking half way across the map.
I completed the main quests as and when I wasn't distracted by something else, but all this resulted in was a lack of depth and emotion for my son and the whole situation.
For the next 150+ gaming hours I was essentially some kind of God, destroying all in my way.

I don't know, maybe it's just me, it's hard to like the character Fallout 4 wants me to be when he/she cares so little for their kidnapped child.

Mod's like "Live Another Life" can't come soon enough so I don't have to be the fickle minded ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ I'm forced to play as.

[billypnats]

I feel like the game could still be immersive if they forced you to complete the first few main quests first, up until the one where you finally find Shaun.

[KiCHo666]

That was my main issue.
They should've dropped the idea of having a son and searching for him and just throw you into a world where you decide who you want to help and how you want to play.
I just don't care about searching for son and yet in dialogue my character is like "Omg! I have to find my son!".
Eh....

[jasonorme666]

That was my main issue.

They should've dropped the idea of having a son and searching for him and just throw you into a world where you decide who you want to help and how you want to play.

I just don't care about searching for son and yet in dialogue my character is like "Omg! I have to find my son!".

Eh....

 

Exactly, my character goes from one extreme to the other.

[gamefever]

Meh, its getting on being the Month of May in my game world....

 

Don't really care having fun, I'd say the real conflict in doing the quests comes in where I'm worried I might miss something if I do Y before X.

 

Anyway its not like I intended to go looking for Shaun just like I never finished the main quest in Skyrim.

 

Its a game that suffers on its main quest because there are a lot of things that are way more interesting for me to do...I was warned up front with E3 footage on this though.

 

I knew I would be building up killer looking locations 7 real world months ago and that Shaun would be on the back burner perhaps forever.

[Ethreon]

We can all thank this guy for his precious help in designing the story of Fallout 4 :)

[Aurasoma]

I haven't got to playing this one myself, My system needs to be updated before I can. So I've been watching more let's plays then I care to admit.

Watching I felt like they put the same pressure on finding your son as they did for finding your dad in FO3. When you think about it they are giving you the same threat vs freedom that Bethesda is famous for. They don't force you to complete the game in a set amount of time like the first Fallout with its deadline. While they are agiving you that freedom, its more how much time do you wish to spend on the main quest vs the side quest.

By the way, I looked up Fallout 4 on Leaderboard. The current speed runners listed having completing the main quest between one and two hours. That could give you inspiration for getting your tail in gear and finishing the main quest.

[starlitegirl]

Agreed. At every turn my character is 'my son. Help me find my son' and the thing that gets me is I personally don't care at all about this son that I barely interacted with. In fact, the truth is that I would be more concerned about finding dogmeat if I lost him than my son. The start was so poor and after Fallout 3's Father/child drama, I'm chock full of caring about family that I don't care about and I actually LIKED my father in Fallout 3. Of course, it was Liam Effing Neeson so of course I liked him. What's not to like? But this child that I spend two minutes with? I know I'm supposed to care but I don't and after playing the game through once (avoiding spoilers), my not caring was a good thing. I'd rather focus on building a better world than some child the game says I should care about.

[Omnimmotus]

We can all thank this guy for his precious help in designing the story of Fallout 4 :smile:

I doubt he would be responsible for poor delivery of the main quest, and the main quest's core concept isn't bad. (Delivery needs work, but the idea itself isn't a reason to get the pitchforks.)

 

One of my biggest problems with the main quest might simply be how difficult it is to pretend it doesn't exist in dialog sometimes, even if your actions make it clear you couldn't care less. Sometimes it seems I have three ways to say "I'm looking for my son" and one way of saying "I don't need your help. After all, I'm looking for my son". Which leaves the fifth option of walking away and acting like it never happened. If you're trying to roleplay a random wastelander/vault dweller who doesn't have a son, this can be frustrating. Hopefully some excellent mods can help with this situation.

 

I have a lot of praise for aspects of Fallout 4. Being limited to four dialog options isn't among the things I praise.

 

(Should this topic be in the spoilers section?)

[starlitegirl]

That's the problem with making it evolve around you finding your son. There's not much way to get around that. If it were finding the people who took your son with an assumption that he is gone I think that might have worked a lot better. If you found out early on from someone you meet that he was dead then it could be about revenge or just finding them or just moving on. But that might have jaded some players to the institute and they were trying to hard to copy bioware making choices that feel a certain way. They should have just killed the kid and left it at that. Then the player does what they want with it be it revenge, justice, moving on or whatever. You find that out early on then the role playing element becomes more open and you have freedom to adapt it how you want within the story of the character you are playing.