Fallout survival with larger map

[Parkstar]

I've been on a kick lately to play survival games (DayZ, Subnautica, Green Hell), and I think FO4 has a lot of potential for that, but there is one key thing that ruin it for me. Please feel free to offer any (constructive) thoughts, questions, or advice/mod suggestions.

 

For me, one of the most important aspects of a good survival game is world activity density. An open world design should have lots of things to do, so that exploring is rewarded. Vanilla Fallout attempted to accomplish this by having lots of locations, and adding the random encounter system. It works alright for a regular play through because you generally don't go more than five minutes without encountering some kind of activity (unless you're just deliberately avoiding them to run from one place to another). There are also a number of mods that can spice things up by adding new locations, or changing random encounters. I'm a particular fan of War of the Commonwealth because it makes the random encounters actually feel like something is happening, rather than just running into more dumb enemies 'I' have to fight.

When we get into an intense survival mode, such as with a mod like FROST, the world becomes too populated. Each encounter in a good survival game really makes me focus, plan out my approach, and mentally prepare myself for what I need to do. Good survival mods can definitely give that level of mental challenge, but the high density of stuff happening in the world really means that I end up constantly running from one encounter immediately into another.

As an example, if I want to visit Hyde Park, there are five additional locations nearby, and an unknown number of random encounters possible. If I want to scout the area, I have to constantly be watching my back, making sure that I don't get too close to one of these other locations where I might get mobbed with enemies. If I need to run away because somebody is too powerful, then the only good exit I have is direct west, because anything else will take me directly into another location with more enemies.

As a counter example, if I wanted to go into Elektro (in DayZ), I could run all over the hills around it to scout, and only have to be concerned about small huts and things. Similarly, if I need to flee Elektro, once I make it out of the city I have lots of room to breathe before I run into the next encounter. I can keep progressing the game while simultaneously having some time to calm down, as opposed to stopping in some tiny pocket of possible safety before immediately launching into the next thing.

In summary, I don't really want to get rid of the content that is in FO4, I think it makes sense and is enjoyable, but I would like a bigger map that leaves empty space in-between. It changes the mentality of me, as the player, from something much more action heavy and arcadey, into a much slower and more deliberate pace, where I need to actually think about what I'm doing, and plan out my actions.

 

[DoctorKaizeld]

It is very difficult to make a world map and we cannot really make a biger map outside of creating whole new world spaces

[Zorkaz]

Wait a little bit

[DocMoebius]

A new and bigger worldspace with the same level of detail like the commonwealth can easily take several years of work for a whole team of leveldesigners, especially if you've complex and highly detailed urban areas in said worldspace. Having many "empty spaces" between locations might speed things up, especially if you can auto generate stuff to a certain extent, but there still needs to be stuff for people to explore so that it doesn't get too boring.

 

If you're looking for big new worldspaces, I can only recommend to wait a bit. There are like ~5-10 big and medium projects in the works right now. If at least half of them can be finished, we'll have hundreds of hours of new content in new worldspaces.