Fallout 4 Companion Quest ideas

[vault75]

Hey everyone

 

So, I'm working on another companion mod, I'm currently going through my affinity scenes, but I'm looking to create a Companion Quest to make it complete.

 

So I'm asking for ideas since I want to try something different to retrieving an object from somewhere, and maybe include more backstory to the character to make it interesting for the player and maybe more challenging.

 

I won't reveal anything about the character yet, so as not to get any stereotyped answers based on the look and personality I've given her.

 

So, any input / ideas / suggestions welcome!

 

vault75

[JoyTrooper]

It's very difficult to give a suggestion without anything to go on though :confused:

[vault75]

It's very difficult to give a suggestion without anything to go on though :confused:

 

Let's just say she's a school cheerleader who likes to fight zombies.

[llamaRCA]

I ask myself these kinds of questions when developing quests that are backstory related:

 

1) Why does she hunt zombies?

Glory, revenge, satisfaction, good deeds?

 

2) Is she like Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

Is she gifted in some way that makes her especially suited to hunting them? So, maybe superhero type thing (this works because there is a lot of superhero stuff in the game already). Maybe the cheerleading character was a minor character in "The Unstoppables" This could become either a a fantasy kind of story where she really is some other kind of race/superhero or simply her living out a fantasy/cosplaying as a superhero character (similar to the player wearing the Silver Shroud gear while fighting crime).

 

3) Does she do it because she was traumatized by them? This one is the least creative, imo, and is used so much I'd suggest something less popular unless you plan to do a lot of character building in the mod, but you can easily use it to evoke sympathy for your character and create relationships with player via sympathy/empathy. Most characters in a post-apoc world have a sob story to share. So maybe something like ferals wiped out her home (raised on a farm say) killed her brother, killed her best friend, etc.

 

4) Does hunting them give her a sense of accomplishment (she woke up one morning, depressed because there were no more teams to support and a wise friend told her to find something to work towards, etc and she decided her mission was to destroy all the ferals and save the commonwealth)

 

5) etc.

 

 

So once you've figured out what her past is then you build a quest that supports/expresses the story itself.

 

 

 

OR, you work it the other way. What do you want her to do (run around to known feral locations (bedford station, college square, etc) killing them) so you pick a backstory that justifies why that is relevant to her. This works because the player is sent to those locations for vanilla quests so her quest complements the vanilla activity well.

 

Sometimes a backstory sounds like it's the perfect one, but for various reasons it isn't practical to express it via quests. Either you cannot build what you want or the quest itself would be so boring it just wouldn't really work. Like no one would want to do it. So you need to evaluate potential backstories against that, imo. Although, of course, one could cobble anything together, but coherence between backstory and quest is the goal. Like Curie or Danse and their quests. They are great examples of backstories/personalities being perfectly suited to their quests.

 

Whew, sorry that got long. This is my favorite part of building companions. I could go on and on :tongue:

[minngarm]

Have the player walk in on the companion masturbating and the companion offer to join the player in exchange for their silence.

[vault75]

Have the player walk in on the companion masturbating and the companion offer to join the player in exchange for their silence.

 

Um...no.

[vault75]

I ask myself these kinds of questions when developing quests that are backstory related:

 

1) Why does she hunt zombies?

Glory, revenge, satisfaction, good deeds?

 

2) Is she like Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

Is she gifted in some way that makes her especially suited to hunting them? So, maybe superhero type thing (this works because there is a lot of superhero stuff in the game already). Maybe the cheerleading character was a minor character in "The Unstoppables" This could become either a a fantasy kind of story where she really is some other kind of race/superhero or simply her living out a fantasy/cosplaying as a superhero character (similar to the player wearing the Silver Shroud gear while fighting crime).

 

3) Does she do it because she was traumatized by them? This one is the least creative, imo, and is used so much I'd suggest something less popular unless you plan to do a lot of character building in the mod, but you can easily use it to evoke sympathy for your character and create relationships with player via sympathy/empathy. Most characters in a post-apoc world have a sob story to share. So maybe something like ferals wiped out her home (raised on a farm say) killed her brother, killed her best friend, etc.

 

4) Does hunting them give her a sense of accomplishment (she woke up one morning, depressed because there were no more teams to support and a wise friend told her to find something to work towards, etc and she decided her mission was to destroy all the ferals and save the commonwealth)

 

5) etc.

 

 

So once you've figured out what her past is then you build a quest that supports/expresses the story itself.

 

 

 

OR, you work it the other way. What do you want her to do (run around to known feral locations (bedford station, college square, etc) killing them) so you pick a backstory that justifies why that is relevant to her. This works because the player is sent to those locations for vanilla quests so her quest complements the vanilla activity well.

 

Sometimes a backstory sounds like it's the perfect one, but for various reasons it isn't practical to express it via quests. Either you cannot build what you want or the quest itself would be so boring it just wouldn't really work. Like no one would want to do it. So you need to evaluate potential backstories against that, imo. Although, of course, one could cobble anything together, but coherence between backstory and quest is the goal. Like Curie or Danse and their quests. They are great examples of backstories/personalities being perfectly suited to their quests.

 

Whew, sorry that got long. This is my favorite part of building companions. I could go on and on :tongue:

 

Thanks for your insights! Her school was overtaken by zombies after freak infection and she just happened to be the only survivor as she was bunking off that day. Or something like that. She slays zombies to avenge her boyfriend who had his head sliced off by a zombie with a machete. Typical, I know.

 

I was thinking that a "killing an npc" quest would be more interesting and challenging than a "retrieve a random object" quest tbh, but there's no zombies in FO4 so I guess feral ghouls are the next best thing. Annoyingly, my character is in the ghoul faction so I'm allied with them, which means they don't go for me lol. In fact they tend to cower in my presence which is interesting.

 

Anyhooo thank you for your suggestions and interesting points of view. I think I have something to go on now!

[damanding]

One minor tip, you say your character is in the ghoul faction, the vast majority of players won't be. So write your quest as if they player were not already in the ghoul faction (and test on a character that isn't) if you want to reach a broader audience. Or if you want to design it for ghoul characters, you'll get fewer downloads but the niche crowd will love you for it.

[vault75]

I ask myself these kinds of questions when developing quests that are backstory related:

 

1) Why does she hunt zombies?

Glory, revenge, satisfaction, good deeds?

 

2) Is she like Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

Is she gifted in some way that makes her especially suited to hunting them? So, maybe superhero type thing (this works because there is a lot of superhero stuff in the game already). Maybe the cheerleading character was a minor character in "The Unstoppables" This could become either a a fantasy kind of story where she really is some other kind of race/superhero or simply her living out a fantasy/cosplaying as a superhero character (similar to the player wearing the Silver Shroud gear while fighting crime).

 

3) Does she do it because she was traumatized by them? This one is the least creative, imo, and is used so much I'd suggest something less popular unless you plan to do a lot of character building in the mod, but you can easily use it to evoke sympathy for your character and create relationships with player via sympathy/empathy. Most characters in a post-apoc world have a sob story to share. So maybe something like ferals wiped out her home (raised on a farm say) killed her brother, killed her best friend, etc.

 

4) Does hunting them give her a sense of accomplishment (she woke up one morning, depressed because there were no more teams to support and a wise friend told her to find something to work towards, etc and she decided her mission was to destroy all the ferals and save the commonwealth)

 

5) etc.

 

 

So once you've figured out what her past is then you build a quest that supports/expresses the story itself.

 

 

 

OR, you work it the other way. What do you want her to do (run around to known feral locations (bedford station, college square, etc) killing them) so you pick a backstory that justifies why that is relevant to her. This works because the player is sent to those locations for vanilla quests so her quest complements the vanilla activity well.

 

Sometimes a backstory sounds like it's the perfect one, but for various reasons it isn't practical to express it via quests. Either you cannot build what you want or the quest itself would be so boring it just wouldn't really work. Like no one would want to do it. So you need to evaluate potential backstories against that, imo. Although, of course, one could cobble anything together, but coherence between backstory and quest is the goal. Like Curie or Danse and their quests. They are great examples of backstories/personalities being perfectly suited to their quests.

 

Whew, sorry that got long. This is my favorite part of building companions. I could go on and on :tongue:

 

Hey, I was recommended you by someone in another post I made about a shout out for voice artists for my companion. Is this something you would be interested in helping me with? I did try messaging you but it says you're not able to use the messaging system?

[llamaRCA]

 

I ask myself these kinds of questions when developing quests that are backstory related:

 

1) Why does she hunt zombies?

Glory, revenge, satisfaction, good deeds?

 

2) Is she like Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

Is she gifted in some way that makes her especially suited to hunting them? So, maybe superhero type thing (this works because there is a lot of superhero stuff in the game already). Maybe the cheerleading character was a minor character in "The Unstoppables" This could become either a a fantasy kind of story where she really is some other kind of race/superhero or simply her living out a fantasy/cosplaying as a superhero character (similar to the player wearing the Silver Shroud gear while fighting crime).

 

3) Does she do it because she was traumatized by them? This one is the least creative, imo, and is used so much I'd suggest something less popular unless you plan to do a lot of character building in the mod, but you can easily use it to evoke sympathy for your character and create relationships with player via sympathy/empathy. Most characters in a post-apoc world have a sob story to share. So maybe something like ferals wiped out her home (raised on a farm say) killed her brother, killed her best friend, etc.

 

4) Does hunting them give her a sense of accomplishment (she woke up one morning, depressed because there were no more teams to support and a wise friend told her to find something to work towards, etc and she decided her mission was to destroy all the ferals and save the commonwealth)

 

5) etc.

 

 

So once you've figured out what her past is then you build a quest that supports/expresses the story itself.

 

 

 

OR, you work it the other way. What do you want her to do (run around to known feral locations (bedford station, college square, etc) killing them) so you pick a backstory that justifies why that is relevant to her. This works because the player is sent to those locations for vanilla quests so her quest complements the vanilla activity well.

 

Sometimes a backstory sounds like it's the perfect one, but for various reasons it isn't practical to express it via quests. Either you cannot build what you want or the quest itself would be so boring it just wouldn't really work. Like no one would want to do it. So you need to evaluate potential backstories against that, imo. Although, of course, one could cobble anything together, but coherence between backstory and quest is the goal. Like Curie or Danse and their quests. They are great examples of backstories/personalities being perfectly suited to their quests.

 

Whew, sorry that got long. This is my favorite part of building companions. I could go on and on :tongue:

 

Hey, I was recommended you by someone in another post I made about a shout out for voice artists for my companion. Is this something you would be interested in helping me with? I did try messaging you but it says you're not able to use the messaging system?

 

 

I appreciate the offer, but I'm currently working on a companion of my own. Trying to get her released by Christmas and after that, if players like her well enough, I'll start working on her DLC content.