Push off the Minutement / BOS etc. until after you've gotten some levels

[dainsgames]

I HATE the way Bethesda shoves the Minutemen down your throat literally minutes after you crawl out of Vault 111 with your wife dead, your son missing and your world destroyed.

 

Check me if I'm wrong, but maybe a little PACING would be nice? Maybe you could run around, learn something about the world you live in now, maybe even get through Fort Hogan before you decide to take the whole world on your shoulders?

 

And then they throw the BOS occupation at you the minute you get through Fort Hogan. ARRRggg.

 

So this mod request is to allow you to push off the faction storyline starts until you are ready to take them on.

 

Here's my suggestions:

 

*Don't let any of the other storylines start until after Fort Hogan. Make that the point at which you have to seek help to take down the Institute, and that help takes the form of the factions, each of whom wants YOUR help in return. The trigger is that the Institute has been monitoring each of them, so when you've defeated Kellogg, you find holotapes which start those three storylines. Here's how each faction would play out, from least work to most:

 

1. Railroad

 

Things proceed completely normally once you get the Freedom Trail mission from Fort Hogan. I see no changes needed other than taking out the completely unbelievable way you get the mission in the first place - a random conversation in Diamond City. ....wow.

 

2. BOS

 

Have the Cambridge Police Station quest start at Fort Hogan per above. Once you accept their recruitment, Danse sends you to Fort Hogan to scout it as a BOS base for the upcoming occupation, and you see the Pryddwen come in. Things proceed normally from there.

 

If you discover them independently, the regular mission line applies, except you don't get offered membership until you've been through Fort Hogan already. This must prevent the Pryddwen from showing up until Danse sends you back to scout For Hogan.

 

 

3. The Minutemen. Uggh, Bethesda made this a mess by throwing it at you right at the start and bugging you with their problems all through the game. Here goes:

 

Once you're met and rescued Preston et al in Concord, have them disclose the reason they're at the Museum was to open it as the first base for the revived Minutemen. It is a perfectly reasonable reason they'd be in Concord, after all. (Also, Preston doesn't have to be such a beat-down loser begging for you to lead him. Ugh.) So have them stay there to fix up the place instead of going to Sanctuary.

 

*This is actually partially accomplishable right now by simply skipping the conversation with Ma Murphy after you talk to Preston*. They just stay there waiting for you to complete the conversation and never move to Sanctuary. But this also breaks your Companion dialogues - you can't get to the second-tier Talk menu so you can never dismiss them. So there's that major bug, but hopefully an unofficial patch will fix it.

 

When you're sent back to them by the information you find at Fort Hogan, have that conversation trigger the Retaking the Castle mission. One reason might be that Concord is too far out, another might be that the Museum is just too wrecked to serve.

 

(Oh, but you get to OFFER Sanctuary or Sunshine as a place for Preston's crew to go while he heads off to the Castle, not have some whack vision quest prompting it. A much better way imo.) Taking the Castle starts the radiant quests, so you can have Radio Freedom then call out all the settlement missions instead of Preston. From there things proceed as normal with them.

 

So there's the mod request / idea. Thanks for reading this far!

 

/incoming rant, duck for cover

 

**PS, this also takes out the whole "let's follow the visions of a drug-addled grandma, and hey, LET'S BE HER PUSHER TOO. That's a GREAT idea!". ...NO ITS NOT BETHESDA, WTF WERE YOU THINKING MAKING MY CHAR A DRUG PUSHER TO AN OLD LADY FFS.

 

So that piece of friggin stupid goes away too. You can do the entire personal storyline without her "help" and she can just be a recovering drug addict who Preston has been looking after and everything will be just FINE like that.

 

/end rant. For now. But I'm watching you Bethesda, 'cause that was really, really stupid. Wow.

[Bisaflor]

you are right

the BOS startet much to soon

and the minutemen are nothing more then annoying. i never liked the way we got threw into them.

let the ck release for all and there will be something to change this

[dainsgames]

you are right

the BOS startet much to soon

and the minutemen are nothing more then annoying. i never liked the way we got threw into them.

let the ck release for all and there will be something to change this

 

Thanks for the support, I hope you're right!

[dem0nbreather]

Great ideas. I approve this message. :thumbsup: (I'm too tired to leave decent feedback, but I think the idea of the faction arcs only triggering after Fort Hagen is brilliant.)

[crawe1x]

Excellent ideas. To be honest, I've been 'roleplaying' something similar to this ever since my second play-through. The Minuteman are particularly annoying. I always end up joining them, but the timing is absurd. Here you are, grieving, your spouse dead, your son kidnapped, in a crazy nightmare world... and then you're just expected to put all that aside while you start helping the Minutemen. It totally destroys the character's arc.

 

The one minor issue I have with your suggestion is Fort Hagen being the key break in the main quest story. Yes, that is where the BoS officially comes in. However, the main quest is in mid-flow: you've just killed Kellogg and now you've got a new lead to follow (Nick suggests talking with Piper, which then leads to the visit to the Memory Den).

 

Personally, I think the conversation with Amari after the Memory Den is a better place to break off. This is when the Glowing Sea is first mentioned - in other words,it is the first time you find yourself facing an obstacle that requires you to pause and plan. I mean,you can take Kellogg down with adrenaline and rage, but those things won't get you through the Glowing Sea. This is the point of the story where it should occur to you that you're going to need friends (whether it's the Minutemen, BOS or Railroad).

 

The other option would be to bring them in after you return from the Glowing Sea the second time, once Virgil has told you to build the teleporter. At this stage you actually need friends whether you want them or not, if only to help build the machine. However, this is a bit late in the story and also you should probably have already dealt slightly with the Minutemen, BOS and the Railroad long before then.

Edited April 26, 2016 by crawe1x

[dainsgames]

Excellent ideas. To be honest, I've been 'roleplaying' something similar to this ever since my second play-through. The Minuteman are particularly annoying. I always end up joining them, but the timing is absurd. Here you are, grieving, your spouse dead, your son kidnapped, in a crazy nightmare world... and then you're just expected to put all that aside while you start helping the Minutemen. It totally destroys the character's arc.

 

The one minor issue I have with your suggestion is Fort Hagen being the key break in the main quest story. Yes, that is where the BoS officially comes in. However, the main quest is in mid-flow: you've just killed Kellogg and now you've got a new lead to follow (Nick suggests talking with Piper, which then leads to the visit to the Memory Den).

 

Personally, I think the conversation with Amari after the Memory Den is a better place to break off. This is when the Glowing Sea is first mentioned - in other words,it is the first time you find yourself facing an obstacle that requires you to pause and plan. I mean,you can take Kellogg down with adrenaline and rage, but those things won't get you through the Glowing Sea. This is the point of the story where it should occur to you that you're going to need friends (whether it's the Minutemen, BOS or Railroad).

 

The other option would be to bring them in after you return from the Glowing Sea the second time, once Virgil has told you to build the teleporter. At this stage you actually need friends whether you want them or not, if only to help build the machine. However, this is a bit late in the story and also you should probably have already dealt slightly with the Minutemen, BOS and the Railroad long before then.

 

That does seem to work too. I would be happy with any of those options. I think the best way to decide would be to get all of the story arcs side-by-side and see where the best point to transition would be.