Why the Preston Garvey hate?

[Fkemman11]

BTW, just as a tip, I found that managing settlements is a lot easier when I just control how many people there are and when do more get to come in. E.g., with the super-mutant and/or ghoul settler manager. Then I can spawn like 6 of them, assign them, and not worry about having to find places to put more beds every couple of days.

 

SuperMutes and Ghouls in your settlements? That's quite altruistic of you. I'll bet the conversations at the pub are pretty interesting. :happy:

 

By the way- what do SM and Ghouls drink? And how does Preston feel about this? :tongue:

[Moraelin]

What makes you think I'm risking a conversation with Preston? :tongue:

[Fonger]

 

By the way- what do SM and Ghouls drink? And how does Preston feel about this? :tongue:

 

Ghouls love bloody marys --- the fresher the blood the better

 

SM - actually like the same - just a much larger glass

[Moraelin]

Heh. Now that kinda makes me want to replace the glasses they use to drink with mugs made from the skulls of my enemies. Come to think of it, it would probably also make a nice decorative item to put on shelves and bars around my settlements.

 

Does anyone know if the game actually have a mug drinking animation, though? 'Cause otherwise it would look kinda weird.

[Gruffydd]

@Gruffydd

...

I'm looking through his dialogue right now, and I seriously don't see anything about signing up to be Preston's personal underling ever after. No matter what path I look at through that dialogue, I just can't find where it says that he gets to order me around ever after. Nor where it says that must personally be the only one who personally defends every single farmer in the commonwealth, because apparently nobody else in those Minutemen can be bothered unless I personally hold their hand.

...

 

That's pretty much what I said in my first post ("The issue as I see it..."). It's not that there are quests, it's that you personally, as the general, have to do them all. Or ignore them. Whichever.

[TKayFire]

I see the complaint about the unavoidable Minutemen quests fairly often.

The thing is, once you agree to lead the Minutemen, you are in the business of protecting settlements and their settlers. So, should those settlements be stagnant, where nothing ever happens to them, or only happens when it's convenient to you? No. And there's the point: you are not required to complete these quests, but there is a consequence when you decide not to (settlers die).

So, you can either go about your business on your personal quest (or whatever it is you're wandering around doing), or you can do the job you agreed to do and protect people. Either way, life goes on. Failing a Minutemen quest does not negatively impact your game other than you having one less settler, and some settlers being grumpy with you as a result. Rumor has it that failing a *lot* of them might cause a settlement to leave your network, but then, if you're blowing off most of them (and keep in mind you have to keep going back to Preston or the Castle or listen to the Minutemen radio station to get more), why even bother joining the Minutemen?

The issue as I see it is not that you're given quest after quest to help/defend/rescue people, it's that YOU are given the quests. You're general of a network. Eventually you have checkpoints all across the commonwealth. Yet not once can you send a squad of Minutemen to go do a quest when you're busy with something else. Having an option every X number of quests to autocomplete one (no xp, no rewards, just completes the quest) by assigning a squad to do it, with X becoming a smaller and smaller number the larger the Minutemen network gets (especially once you retake the Castle), would make a lot of sense, but no such mechanic was included.

Preston ends up with all the hate, but he's only one of three ways to get those quests. If you don't want to do so many of the quests, turn off your Minutemen radio, stay away from the Castle, and don't check back in with Preston. Or get one of the many mods that reduce them. But Preston really doesn't deserve the hate for it.

 

As an aside, I've heard people complain, not that he gives too many quests, but that he's boring, too "nice", etc. Fine. Don't join the Minutemen. Go be a BoS soldier, or take over the NukaWorld raiders. To each their own, and you don't have to be a Minuteman to complete the main story. Or even to gain settlements.

 

I don't think you're painting the entire picture here. The minutemen are annoying for a number of reasons. First the sheer amount of quests that they will give without you agreeing to them becomes a drag. Second the incredible ineptness of settlers to sustain themselves forcing you to supply them with literally everything. The minutemen and settler system is incredibly unimmersive because it forces you to do everything even though there's hundreds of people involved. I've played the settlement system in different ways, but the fact that they require constant attention of a pre-war lawyer is just mind boggling.

 

I mean the entire story and premise already doesn't make any sense. There is no incentive for the player to join any of these factions. In fact, the only reason there are joinable factions is because Bethesda gets off on that.

 

It's almost impossible to roleplay and enjoy the open world adventure and factions because of the premise of the game. People seem to forget that everything that happens in Vault 111 and the pre-war timeline is like 10 minutes ago for the main character because they were frozen. Would anyone in their right mind wake up to start helping random people and build settlements? Or join some fascist group of power armor freaks? Or join a group that believe robots are people too? Any person with a hint of love for their child would ignore all that and just hunt down Kellogg, go to the institute and meet up with Shaun. Only after meeting him and only then would any normal person have to decide what he/she would do after that.

 

The video posted by the OP complains that the minutemen don't share the same story focus as the BoS and such and therefore have no purpose, but the joinable factions of Skyrim had no purpose either. In fact the whole civil war thing you are confronted with at the start has no purpose to the story. It is simply fluff to make the world seem alive. In an open world there will be many things that do not pertain to the main story. Checkovs gun does not apply to this. If you want a Checkovs gun story you should play a linear game.

 

I do agree that the gunners and raiders should be factions as well and the video describes this reason fairly well.

[Gruffydd]

 

...

 

I don't think you're painting the entire picture here. The minutemen are annoying for a number of reasons. First the sheer amount of quests that they will give without you agreeing to them becomes a drag. Second the incredible ineptness of settlers to sustain themselves forcing you to supply them with literally everything. The minutemen and settler system is incredibly unimmersive because it forces you to do everything even though there's hundreds of people involved. I've played the settlement system in different ways, but the fact

that they require constant attention of a pre-war lawyer is just mind boggling.

 

You only get those quests when you 1) talk to Preston, 2) go to the Castle, or 3) turn on the radio to the Minutemen station. At no point do they track you down as you cross the Commonwealth and force quests upon you. If you don't want to do the quests, stash Preston somewhere, don't go near the Castle, and keep the radio on a different station. Issue solved.

As to the complaint about the settlements, if you're still having to put that much attention into it, you're doing it wrong. I've built up every single settlement except the Mechanists (because of the floor glitch), and once you get the proper number of beds, food, and water, and get them assigned to their jobs, they are a completely maintenance-free source of caps, with the exception of the few times you get a message that one is being attacked... and now, there's a chance they don't even need your help when they are attacked, as they have a chance to fight off the attackers themselves.

It sounds more like you didn't like the game as a whole, and are grumpy about not being able to play the bad guys. Which has little to do with Preston.

[TKayFire]

You only get those quests when you 1) talk to Preston, 2) go to the Castle, or 3) turn on the radio to the Minutemen station. At no point do they track you down as you cross the Commonwealth and force quests upon you. If you don't want to do the quests, stash Preston somewhere, don't go near the Castle, and keep the radio on a different station. Issue solved.

Preston will give you a quest when you turn one in as well. Finishing the main story quest-line from Concord gives you a new quest. In fact he may also give you a quest just walking past him. Having to move him to a different settlement and simply avoiding parts of the game to "fix" it just emphasizes how annoying it is. You just made my point.

As to the complaint about the settlements, if you're still having to put that much attention into it, you're doing it wrong. I've built up every single settlement except the Mechanists (because of the floor glitch), and once you get the proper number of beds, food, and water, and get them assigned to their jobs, they are a completely maintenance-free source of caps, with the exception of the few times you get a message that one is being attacked... and now, there's a chance they don't even need your help when they are attacked, as they have a chance to fight off the attackers themselves.

It sounds more like you didn't like the game as a whole, and are grumpy about not being able to play the bad guys. Which has little to do with Preston.

That's mildly insulting, but again you made my point. The fact that I have to plant crops, make defenses, build beds and houses for them while they ineptly walk around the settlement doing nothing until I tell them to do something is just plain stupid. But you're right in one thing, after you put all the work into a settlement to make it self sustaining you can ignore them for the most part (Thank Bethesda for fixing this in one of their patches) until a new settler pops up and I have to make him a bed otherwise he has to sleep "in shifts" and complain while he sits around watching others do all the work. The point I'm making is that they cannot build a settlement on their own as if they are retarded. but of course my pre war experience in law practice made me an expert in construction, agriculture and tactical base defense. In fact my pre war schooling was so awesome that I can do all that stuff by myself.

[Fkemman11]

@TKayFire "I do agree that the gunners and raiders should be factions as well and the video describes this reason fairly well."

 

First you argue that joining any faction is a waste of time and then say you wish there were more? It wouldn't bother you if there were no joinable factions or you wish there was a different plot? Perhaps you could clarify your meaning. :happy:

[TKayFire]

@TKayFire "I do agree that the gunners and raiders should be factions as well and the video describes this reason fairly well."

 

First you argue that joining any faction is a waste of time and then say you wish there were more? It wouldn't bother you if there were no joinable factions or you wish there was a different plot? Perhaps you could clarify your meaning. :happy:

You misunderstood. I don't think from a gaming perspective they are a waste of time. Just that from a story perspective they make no sense. The problem lies in the way the story starts and who you're supposed to be. You're not a part of the post war world, there's no ties to what's going on with any of that. From just a gaming perspective it's fun to explore and just do stuff in the open world. Joining a group and go along with their ideals is pretty cool as well. People want to belong to something and that's why factions work in video games as well. It's just that it wouldn't be a priority if any amount of realism was applied.

 

I do also enjoy base building. I have made some fantastic settlements in many of my playthroughs.

 

Don't mistake criticism for hate. I love this game, but I can't ignore its many faults either.

Edited March 30, 2017 by TKayFire