I’m one of those people who still thinks the sole survivor’s back story kind of holds back the experience. If I’m a grieving father who lost his kid and his wife in short succession who will supposedly do anything to find his son, why am I traipsing across the commonwealth to purchase wood shipments so I can singlehandedly transform Boston into the east coast NCR?
I feel it would work better if we get synth shaun as a settler earlier in the game. It gives us a reason to build and survive, as we assume we got our son back. Then comes the quest of defeating the institure, where we learn that they are the main destabalising faction. It would make the "I am your son" plottwist a lot better, as you assumed you already found your son. You would also share in the paranoia of not knowing who is a synth and who you can trust as long as the institute remains standing.
I read a really intriguing comment where Shaun starts out as a young child instead of a baby. You spend much more time pre war doing the tutorials and you spend time bonding and teaching Shaun various life lessons and then the old Shaun makes call backs to which dialogue options you chose. Similar to the Witcher 1.
Idk why they didn’t make Shaun a young child at the beginning. If they want a player to become attached to a character in 15 mins, that character is gonna need to be able to say something to get me attached. Cooing and crying isn’t enough, especially if that baby is supposed to be the main motivator for the story
@@snoot39 truth is 15 minutes isn't enough for any game...look at Cyberpunk, we lose Jacky at the quarter mark and IDK about others I like the character but I felt nothing at his death.... now had the game been a story about the rise of V then the cementing of a legend and the heist being the downfall of V and Jacky was there for all of it, his death woulda hit much harder.... you can't just insert people into something and 15 minutes later kill em or take em away and expect us to care....that's a massive disconnect! mass Effect 1, when Jenkins gets fragged nothing, ME2 when Garrus get's shot up I worried my ass off until he walked into the room alive....why? cus we had a game and I bonded, I gave a shit.....think I had an entire 10+ hour game for 2 or so years before ME2 came out..... I really woulda liked to play that intro section Cyberpunk skipped over cus it woulda added to Jacky as a character, we'd have the needed history when he's actually killed to have the emotion.....also even if that section was 20 minutes it woulda worked better to show some of the low level jobs then the Sandra Dorset job being the first big job we get?
Tbh Id rather they just scrap the family thing all together. Go back to Fallout nv where you can almost be anyone you want without an annoyingly long intro like all Bethesda games except for Morrowind have
@@BullFrogFaceI'm the opposite. I like the idea of an actual character, though, bethesda's writing isn't exactly renowned. I did want to see the story, but it what we got was definitely disappointing. Playing the life of Nick (their original concept) would have been SOOO much better. He fit their ideas (almost like he as a character was designed to) really well, and would have made the storytelling easier for them.
@@midgetman4206 As a standalone game with its own universe id agree but Fallout us about making and being your own character to me. I dont like the idea of being restricted to being a set character, even if you can make shape them a bit like Geralt in the Witcher series
You can tell Rhys that you joined the BOS as they might be the best shot at finding your son. That makes no sense when you already know to go to Diamond City and then find Nick. It makes much more sense with your idea of having the path to finding Shaun be open ended.
They don't know that Nick knows anything, just that he MIGHT. Also when you get to DC he's not even there. it makes perfect sense, especially for the male sole survivor, to at that point say "fuck this" and just go join the military and figuring they would have a better shot than going running around after a detective who got himself lost or captured or killed as far as you know
For real. I want raider jet lord ending. '12 years since being unfrozen" SS - "Hey shaun sorry it took me a minute to come find you. There was were these guys that needed my help and then I ended up in Maine somehow and then I blacked out somehow winding up at Disney land, and after I became their pirate king, I remembered what I was actually supposed to be doing and I started selling a shit load of jet and became the defacto water supplier 'enthusiastically' BY FORCE. Then I remembered I'm a dad and then came to find you" Shaun - 'rotting corpse' SS - "AHHWW GAUGHT DAMMIT, I knew I should've skipped building that brothl/slave fight club. FWUK, oh well, I think Preston said something about another settlement needs my help.
I never really realized how much having mama murphy really just gives you such an easy breadcrumb trail to follow. Honestly, even just removing that feels like it would fix so much of the guilt of taking your time to get down there. Honestly, I don't normally get down to diamond city until I'm ready to take the castle and I feel kinda shitty for taking so long and you have to rationalize that you're trying to "get help" but you don’t need that if the future is already told to you.
I find it very easy to justify. She's a crazy old woman who's literally high when you meet her and professes to have powers a Pre-War soldier would think to be bullshit. Soldiers are taught to never assume, and hope for the best, plan for the worst.
@@curtisevans8413 Exactly - psychic powers or not, from Nate/Nora's perspective she's a crackpot trying to score a fix; she even uses her "gift" as an excuse to mooch drugs off you. "Hey, you know, I can see your son is fine and in Diamond City... you wanna know more, maybe get me some Jet, huh?"
I don't think Mama Murphy is the problem as such; she could easily be replaced by anyone else simply telling the player to go to Diamond City because it's the biggest place around and someone there could likely help, and the problem would remain pretty much the same. Instead, it would've helped if the Player was given more options at this point; Preston suggests rebuilding the Minutemen and helping settlements in order to get word out about Shaun, while the other survivors suggest Bunker Hill and Goodneighbor as places to look for information. All of which then could've pointed towards Nick or maybe the RR as further leads. Roughly the same thing once Nick/the RR are contacted; instead of immediately fingering Kellog as the sole suspect, they could again offer some alternative options. Like actually expanding on the Gunner-lead Nick mentions but then drops almost immediately. Maybe Covenant, because there's so many strange disappearances in that region, or following up on the mystery as to why Diamond City's guards never properly investigate any kidnappings/disappearances.
Wow, that tutorial fix is actually really neat-sounding. I know it was probably spitballing, and maybe it's just that I'm tired of some of FO4's faults after playing it for 8 years now, but I really dig that prologue fix. I wonder if it would be possible to mod that into the game.
I agree and there are a lot of things here that could be modded into the game. From my observation, however, modders of the caliber that would be needed to do this are generally very concerned about compatibility with other mods. Implementing almost anything spoken about here would likely break other quest mods. Personally, I say, "screw it!" If people like those other quest mods, they can make patches or if they like those quests better than mine, they don't have to download mine. That said, I understand where other people are coming from.
If it was up to me I would take Saun out completely, finding your spouses killer is motivation enough to search the Commonwealth for their killer, and you can still do Kellogg to the Institute plot line. That's fixes the pacing problem because it works the same as New Vegas. Where yeah, you are looking for Benny, but it doesn't matter if you take 2 weeks or 2 years, because realistically before the player finds out that saun is old it wouldn't be realistic to assume your baby is alive 2 weeks after being unfrozen even before the time elapse of when he was first kidnapped. And Sauns whole motivation of "I wanted to see what would happen" could be done by literally any other person in sauns position after learning about vault 111 and learning that there were 2 people left alive
Time in NV and FO4 is irrelevant and nothing but an openworld mechanic. Not related to the narrative in any way. So it doesn't matter how long you take to find Benny or Shaun. As Nick points out no one would casually break into a vault to take a specific infant on a whim. Without information and intent. It's a very safe bet for the SS to assume Shaun is alive and still an infant until they meet Nick and Nick mentions that Kellog had a 10 year old boy with him which Kellog then vaguely alludes that Shaun is older than the SS remembers which further reinforces that idea. So now we think 10 years have passed. Until we make it to the institute and learn the truth. It was perfectly written and makes sense.
@VaultArchive72 I suppose, but the whole thing still makes the pacing weird, like yeah I'm looking for my kid who got kidnapped by the person who killed my spouse, but I'll stop what I'm doing to literally build you a town
You can do it without Shaun by having the couple planning to have a kid, and then during the first Kellog cutscene they wake up just as they've started to refreeze and find out a procedure was carried out on them, witness Kellog and the tech doing something to the other spouse, which results in the shooting, and so on. Later on they find out that what happened was the extraction of egg and sperm, and thus they have a child out there somewhere. Spend time in the prologue establishing that the pair really wanted a child, and you've got the "I have a kid and that's all that's left of my loved one" and you get a main plot.
@@VaultArchive72 It makes no sense if you and your character have a brain. It was literally the first thing in my mind. "I was frozen! I have no idea how long ago the kidnapping happened" but the protagonist is too braindead to even think about any of this. And Kellog implying Shaun is much older than expected should really open that whole question up even for a braindead protagonist. Pacing is off. I agree it should have been just about revenge. The plot is weak as hell anyway and just changing it to this would only make the game a better sandbox.
My biggest pet peeve is that the SS can build a teleporter with around 40 energy, a couple of typewriters and the crayon scribbles of a mutated biologist that are deciphered by Sturges, who wasn't able to hack a novice locked computer the first time you meet him. Nothing against shortcuts to move a story forward but what a wasted opportunity: Instead, let the SS meet Mama Murphy, let them find Nick, Kellog, and Virgil asap, maybe even streamline that part even more to make it shorter. However, Virgil is a dead end for now - "Dammit Jim, I'm a geneticist, not an engineer!" The Sole Survivor needs to gather the smartest people of the commonwealth. They can either run around and play collect the geeks and then find an adequate energy source - the Prydwyn, Mass Fusion, Poseidon Energy, Nuka World power plant - or build a settlement that is sophisticated enough to provide for the needs of the genius mind and make them come to you - "If you build it, they will come" This way, you'd have a middle part both for people who love the settlement building system and for those who loathe it and just want to explore the world. And the teleport, which is outstanding tech even in the Fallout universe, isn't some gimmick that you can copy in your garage.
And it could be a uniting force for all the above ground factions! Sure you could do missions after the fact that play into faction wars, or you could further alliances, or just side with the institute and wipe them all out systematically. I wish Bethesda had just a slight stroke of nuance between the lot of them
what they should have done is had a longer prologue with some pre war quests and daily life.. a few hours of this to get to know the characters and feel for them (like you said)... maybe get to know your neighbours and later have some sad poignant moments finding out what happened to them etc.. BUT... have an option to start the game and SKIP that whole prologue thing if you want for subsequent playthrus... decide with one button if you want to start in pre war sanctuary right at the beginning, or in the vault.. or even start after leaving the vault in the apocalypse.. this would make it less boring for people who have already played many many times and dont want to have to go thru this long linear prologue process
there are so many games that I love that I refuse to replay just because I'm tired of working through the intros... pretty much the entire Mass Effect Trilogy comes to mind.
@@Theegreygaming in fallout 4 i dont mind the vault bit after the war.. its the whole house intro and talking bit while in the chambers i find boring.. especially when ur just starting to test out some mods or something.. although i think there are mods that allow u to skip and start outside.. ive never used one... any good ones come to mind?
A small change to the prologue tutorials, but instead of building a shed, why not have you scrap and repair the fence at the back of the house? That would give you the scrapping mechanic, and you'd still get the snap-to building tutorial because you're putting it back. I'd also have it so that it's Codsworth's brand-new fusion core that's ready to install - you just need to put the components together at the workbench - that gives Codsworth plenty of juice for 210 years - you could even have the spouse/sole survivor make a comment that they'd never need to spend a fortune fuelling Codsworth again - gives you both the rampant inflation issue and explains how Codsworth is still working centuries later. Finally, ageed that the soldiers should actually point their guns at you when the Sergeant warns you away; gives a sense of paranoia and the stakes of the martial law being declared. Otherwise, love the idea of Kellogg making a comeback, and having the defined protagonist have a bit more personality. Either that, or just remove the backstory in the vault and have the Sole Survivor wake up, having witnessed a murder across the way - I'd prefer the backstory, but the amnesiac protagonist is an age-old Bethesda tradition (well, for the Elder Scrolls)! :P
I think that's a neat idea, not having the protagonist being related to Shaun or the parent. You just witness a murder and a kidnapping, which tells you enough about the perpetrators that it's clear that they're bad guys. You'd then start the game with no clear thread to follow, but figuring out who the bad guys are is an option. You could still track down Kellogg, much in the same way you would in the basic story, but he could be impressed that a "popsicle" from the vault managed to do that and offer you a job. Without any emotional attachments, joining with the bad guy seems like a genuine player option. You could then have a whole Institute quest-line that slightly varies from the original story. Such as finding Virgil, not to get information, but to assassinate him, etc. You'd act as an Institute secret agent with a mission to destroy/subjugate the Railroad, Minutemen and Brotherhood by infiltrating them and doing their questlines, or optionally betray the Institute in favor of a different faction, or never join them in the first place.
Kellogg calling you the backup could mean that Kellogg learned Sole Survivor's history through Vault tec terminal so he knows you will be able to make it and destroy institute which what his real goal should've been, Nick getting Kellogg inside of him would be a great plot too and eventually you help Nick getting rid of kellogg
10:38 I never noticed this until my most recent playthrough, but in Kellogg’s final memory, you can hear the radio talking about Piper, implying that it is very recent.
That's one of the reason for my headcanon that Father is lying 🤷♂️ I think the majority of his story is accurate but that Shaun was disposed of during the process. They didn't care about the Sole Survivor, but upon seeing him tear apart the wastes looking for the kid, Father thinks "Damn. Gonna need a backup plan in case he gets down here." And then bam, the lie is born
@@Chino429 being that the institute is advanced enough to make a robot look exactly like a person, they can surely transfer memories from one to another which likely explains synth Sean
@VergilTheLegendaryDarkSlayer agreed! I feel like they missed a really big story opportunity through all of this. Having Sean also be deceased would have been a turning point for the Sole Survivor, where they can choose to focus on healing and growth and whatnot, if they truly believe the Institute could be what's best for the Wasteland, or a chance to go full scorched Earth on them
Huh, the way you described these fixes actually sounds like something I'd want to play. With the companions, I'd also think that they would have to be overhauled, like different companions would give different advice. Like Hancock would probably want you to find your child to get closure, and companions like Gage would suggest the opposite. It would give more nuance to the story. On a related note, The Sole survivor should be able to tell characters things that relate to said characters, like Hancock and how he was actually right in thinking his brother was replaced. It's really bothersome that you can't do that.
You can finish the minutemen quest with him, and he’ll help you finish nuclear option; but you have a good point. I love that guy but Bethesda literally left his character arc at half way
Haven't watched the video yet, but one of the biggest problems with Fallout 4 is that you can't really say no. When someone asks for help and you say no, they tell you the problem and you get the quest marker anyways. They'll just say it in a more negative way. One of the most annoying issues is when you meet Piper, and she wants to know why you're at Diamond City. If you tell her no/none of your business (I forget the exact dialogue tbh) she just keeps repeatedly asking till you tell her you're looking for your kid. It's so annoying. I wanted to ignore the whole kid thing that play through. You can't. It needs to be an option in dialogue that your character doesn't care. In New Vegas and Fallout 3 you were never forced to ask where Benny or your Dad is. But you can. But you don't have to.
Yeah, I know what you mean, but in New Vegas, some people will still give you a quest even when you say no. They just say "oh I'll just leave these directions with you in case you change your mind".
@@eddieprieto6511 There's very little motivation to find benny or the chip, little to no buildup for either and none for the character you play and you don't start to get the answers you should've already had until late in the early game.
@@VaultArchive72 except Fallout is a sandbox game and was sold with the idea of player freedom, while Mass Effect is linear and always was. Completely different games and a braindead comparison.
@@VaultArchive72 Absolutely stupid comparison. Mass effect has a completely linear story with a choice between two and a half extremely well defined and also linear character archetypes to choose between in terms of how to play shepherd.
I like the notion too that when you wake up Saturday morning, you've overslept and it's the sound of the sirens going off that wakes you up. If you do that opening tutorial idea, however, it definitely has to be a skippable area. I could see that becoming very tedious for people on their 15th playthrough
Yeah, it’s a tough tightrope, because if you’re not careful, you get a temple of trials situation from Fallout 2, where people get so tired of it that they mod in a skip rather than do it every playthrough Granted, since bethesda fallout games also had the cutoff point at end of tutorial where you get one last chance to change special stats and everything before entering the world proper, many would also probably just use that, if we’re keeping in the Vault 111 stuff
I belive that is the case, the Institute we uncover in the game is a faction that wo8uld carve up every cell of Shaun for their research, they did sabatoge all other pods and Kellog refered to the SS as a backup.
That's one of the reason for my headcanon that Father is lying 🤷♂️ I think the majority of his story is accurate but that Shaun was disposed of during the process. They didn't care about the Sole Survivor, but upon seeing him tear apart the wastes looking for the kid, Father thinks "Damn. Gonna need a backup plan in case he gets down here." And then bam, the lie is born
if fallout 5 is ever made id love to see consequences to your actions and a continually evolving world (with some random changes).. for example... you free some settlers from a raider attack.. maybe when u go back to the settlement it is now prospering.. or maybe some other raiders affiliated with the previous raiders have taken revenge and you find all the settlers murdered.... maybe that poor guy trading a few scraps in the tunnel near hangman alley gets slightly richer every time you trade with him... u buying stuff makes him later have more stuff to sell next time, and he looks slightly healthier... he gradually says more & more friendly stuff, you build a relationship and start to see him expand his home... but suddenly, the next time you go there, you find him dead.. murdered for the caps you helped him gain.. this would make you feel sad.. you've lost someone u saw over time doing well for himself.. you might feel guilty... was it my fault they killed him? if id just left him be poor and not traded with him, maybe he'd still be alive? things like this would make you actually FEEL something for the people in the world.
Fallout 5 will probably be reskin of starfield with only one planet and a boat instead of a spaceship with more load screens than grains of sand on the beach
I think you should make a video on how to change the nuka world dlc. Its something i have been thinking about for a long while. As nukaworld has a lot of potential for every faction, but also the reverse makes sense where as a raiderboss, you might want to take out literally all other factions. Nuka world had so much potential if they had more overlap with the main game.
One other small thing I'd change, is not having Preston be the last of the Minutemen. Have there be a small group, like 3 that are still alive. He's the last one that's not a private. You've got Sturges, Jun and Marcy Long, and I'd add another pair, maybe a brother and sister who are young and both are frightened. Maybe one wants to help but Preston keeps telling them no. The other two minutemen would have names as well, a boy and a girl, and one would have a laser musket, the other a laser pistol. You could have the option to give that person the laser musket from the other dead minuteman. Those two are on the door, aiming to protect it, while Preston shot out the front. Mama Murphy could work as someone who looks at you and knows that you're too fresh-faced to be from around here. Talking about your aura. She could mention that there are a few roads to help, but she gets interrupted as more Raiders come. You and the others have to fend them off as you run. No one dies, but her, as she talks about seeing her own death. The deathclaw is changed to a Yao Guai, rising up and killing a raider, before it chases after the group. She stays, to defend say Jun, and a raider shoots her as the Yao Guai gets her. Leaving it a bit unknown which killed her first. Either way, the others run and you have to kill everything else while defending the group. From there, you have 3 people able to do security, 2 farmers, 2 shop workers and someone able to help rebuild. A change I'd impliment is having Sturges, and some random settlers, be able to scrap items in the overworld for you. Doing so passively, so you don't have to worry about it.
I want to know this.... If Shawn knew I was "awakened", why didn't he program the synths NOT to try and kill me? Wouldn't he put an automatic DON'T shoot my mother program in them?
He was testing you to see if you'd be useful. He even admits that your unfreezing was an experiment. That is why you are used as an enforcer for the institute rather than an actual leader or infiltrator. Edit: Shawn admits he didn't really care about you having gotten over being kidnapped long ago.
He is a sociopath testing his parent's determination and love. He's never met you so he has no attachment to you. He feels nothing for the death of the other parent. He's exactly the kind of person you'd expect from being raised in a place like the Institute.
@@VaultArchive72that's one interpretation. I think you're giving the writers too much credit. He also says he put Kellog in the SS's path for them to kill Kellog as a measure of revenge against Kellog for both of them. I don't think that's a lie, I think he's written so inconsistently these clashing ideologies are equally genuine.
He also had 50+ years to get the SS out of cryo, but left you there for no discernable reason. Playing the "I'm your son" card only when convenient to him is why shaun never survives in my playthrough
one main problem with Fallout 4 is that, it ISN'T YOUR story! the player is not the main character, you're just there following the main character as the story is told and unfold, it's the writer's story- any choices you do have, are slightly fake choices and dont really matter on the out come cause all paths leads to the exact same place, (the only difference is WHO is standing next to you)
I mentioned this on another video, but Nora was supposed to be a veteran herself, a lieutenant. The voice lines are still in the game data files. There's a mod that re-enables the voice lines, and she gets different voice lines than Nate, even a different military ID number (where it's appropriate).
I never quite realised how short fallout 4 was because I just completely ignored the main plot line out of lack of care to the plot, it was so much more fun to just, run around shooting random things and upgrading stuff than, idk, actually finding your son
yeah the story just feels like an annoyance like I don't wanna have to redo it every time, fallout 5 should have a campaign and then something like 76 but not as horribly done as 76, idk might be kinda weird
I always thought the pacing issue could be solved by simply cutting the scene where we witness our spouse getting shot. Just cut to our pod opening and the one opposite is just empty. Both are gone. That way we can reasonably assume that they are together somewhere, and the mystery is simply "why?" Then, the death of your spouse and the missing son becomes a twist during the Memory Den sequence that adds urgency for the second half of the journey. If you want to role-play as a aimless wanderer, you don't have to advance the story that far, and maybe you can choose dialogue options that imply that we assume they're already dead for immersion. Mama Murphy could simply be replaced by a "wise leader" that suggests different leads that might get you what you need. "There's a detective in Dimond City who's very good at his job, a crime boss in Goodneighbor with a lot of connections, and Bunker Hill is full of traders who like to gossip." The correct answer is still eventually the detective, but at least you have a choice for how to get there, and not a (almost literal) magical compass pointing straight to Dimond City.
I think Kellog should have been a decrepit old man when you meet him. He doesn’t resist if you try to kill him. That’d make it a more interesting choice for defining your character. How you extract the info you need and whether you kill him or not.
Yeah, the Kellogg timeline is all jacked up. If Father is in his late 50s, then Kellogg would have to be in his 80s at least. My grandad was 90 when he died. I dont think even he, still a pretty fit guy who was a WW2 combat vet, could have put up that fight in Fort Hagen vs Nick and the Sole Survivor.
@@jefferydraper4019 It's suppose to be that the cybernetics that the Institute have put into him have slowed his aging down (he's officially 108 at the time of Fort Hagen) even though we never get any indication that anyone else uses cybernetics, no matter that many of the other Fallout games offer some version. The fight is actually tough only due to the stealth boys Kellogg have and Dogmeat having a very low dps if he's your companion then.
@jefferydraper4019 They should have made the Kellogg Fort Hagen fight reveal that this one is a Synth, tying the Synth paranoia into the MQ, a more convincing way to have a ‘young’ Kellogg fight you sixty years after the murder and kidnapping, and perhaps a better way to have Memory Den scene play out.
I read a post once about the idea of making the kellog we meet a synth it was cool cause I remember it leading to the sole survivor asking father why he'd make a synth based off the man who had kidnapped him and killed his other parent and his response being because he's useful it was a cool way to show how twisted the institute made him
Another idea for a good prologue is to make a tutorial in army for a male SS. Easy way to introduce power armor, different weapons and combat in action. We all know that Nate is an army veteran so it makes sense to me.
@@SwearMY But Nora isn't. Last time I played as her, I decided she came from a military family, so she learned from her dad and brothers, but no actual experience. I imagined her having a whole trauma episode the first time she had to machete a Raider. Which made it all the funnier 100 levels later when she ruthlessly killed all three sides at Bunker Hill, shot her own son, and began exterminating everyone in the Commonwealth who was the least bit shady.
This just occurred to me. On the terminal that was used to open Nick or Nora's Cryo-pod, there could be a "Last Accessed" command. (Which is not beyond the realm of possibility). There, now the SS can see that the Cryopod of the spouse was opened in 2227 (if my math is correct), and his or hers was opened in 2287
@@VaultArchive72 I call him Nick myself all the time. I grew up watching The Thin Man movies that my grandparents loved. Nick and Nora Charles. Little Nicky their son. And Asta, the dog. Bethesda blew it by not naming the SS Nick instead and making that connection.
I really like all these changes, but if I could add one more. I would get rid of the scene where Kellogg kills your spouse and steals Shawn. Imagine instead going through the Pre-war section, getting frozen in the Vault, then waking up to find your spouse clearly shot, your child missing, and all the other Vault dwellers dead in their pods. Now there's the chance your kid made it out of the Vault so you get out into the world and start looking. This gets you to the Minutemen, who don't know any specifics, but every settlement you visits keeps talking about this "Diamond City" place and maybe look there. Once you find Nick, do some missions with him to find people who claim to have seen a group come and go from Vault 111. But they all point you in the same direction. Talk to the Railroad. Maybe the Railroad could reach out to you. You meet up with them and they have the info you need but will only give it to you if you do some work for them. So they send you to the Switchboard to rescue their other agents. Once done, they give you their intel. That Deacon was tailing the institute when they went to Vault 111 and he watched Kellogg come and go from the Vault. Add some more sleuthing missions with Nick and/or the Minutemen/Railroad until you find Kellogg's location at Fort Hagen. You go there but it's locked down and heavily fortified. You need an army to get in. Now you have to go talk with the Brotherhood and they'll agree to send some soldiers and specialists to aid you but you have to help them first. Now you do Show No Mercy not as a Brotherhood recruit but as cannon fodder. They then help you take Fort Hagen but stop before the finally confrontation with Kellogg because they only care about the tech hidden at the base. You're not a member and they've achieved their goal. You confront Kellogg and he starts hinting at what really happened but refuses to say anything concrete. You could kill him and take his implant or if you're persuasive enough, you can talk him into owning up to what happened. At the moment you do his head suddenly explodes and Fathers voice comes on the PA system. Commending your journey to get there and warning you not to investigate any further. While eyes flash onto every monitor and screen in the room. The Institute was watching you the entire time. Now imagine going through Kellogg's memories and seeing the murder of your spouse at this point in the game. Learning all at once that they were murdered by Kellogg, he kidnapped Shawn and that you already took care of him. But wait, that finally memory showed Kellogg with a 10 year old kid who was named Shawn and kinda looked like you. He handed that kid off to some group called the Institute. You've only heard rumors and gossip about them until this point. Hearing that they kidnapped and replace people. Did they kidnap my kid, and if so why? Have 10 years passed since the abduction? Is my kid older than I thought. Now you need to team up with one or more factions to find out. The Minutemen gain intel through numbers. Every settlement adds eyes to a search party. The Railroad already has a double agent in the Institute. Maybe they can get intel out from the source. The Brotherhood have a lot of advanced tech and fire power. Maybe they have the surveillance capabilities to find the Institute and force their way through when they do. Now we have an organic reason to meet with each faction and do an intro quest for them. Learning a bit about how each faction operates and how they tackle problems while keeping some mystery as to whats going on and who's pulling who's strings.
For the BOS, you could add some quests that show off Maxon as being somewhat evil/unfit to serve as elder. Maybe have him stomp some settlements into the ground or something so that they can aquire food/resources. After a few of these missions you can convince Danse to challenge Maxon in his role as Elder. You assist Danse and Danse replaces Maxon if you win, if you lose, Danse dies and you are exiled from the brotherhood. If Danse takes over, you eventually get another quest where you are attacking some instute synths led by a courser, before the courser dies, he tells you that they were sent to retrieve a rogue synth: Danse. They then confirm that Danse is a synth using the medical facilities on board the prydwin. You can use this connection to help the Brotherhood, Railroad, and a Reformed Institute team up with the Minutemen acting as a mediary force to hold them together. You could have quests to "convince the other factions to work together" which would depend on how much the sole survivor had helped them. The Institute raid would could go one of three ways, you either blow it up as per the existing story, take over the institute, capturing or killing the synths/scientists there, or if the player is the leader of the institute at this point, you could work to reestablish them as a positive force, stopping the kidnappings, getting rid of the "evil elements" and allying them with the other factions as stated before. The Railroad would become the new SRB, acting to help resecure synths who were having issues or going on killing sprees, the Brotherhood would act as the muscle alongside gen 1 and 2 synths to defend the commonwealth from Raiders, Ghouls, Supermutants, etc, the Minutement would help build settlements, and the Institute would conduct research to help the world recover. A true "everyone who deserves to win, wins" ending. I still want an option to beat the game with the nuka world raiders once you become overboss though. That would be awesome as an alternate "evil ending"
It seems Bethesda thought about letting you get to the point of leading the BOS and blew it off. I think taking over all 4 factions, like you could in Skyrim, would have been the best option for the Commonwealth. making all 4 work at making The Commonwealth a better place.
I'll watch later. But what I did thought was absurd was how well made was the dlc far harbor compared with the main quest. The island could tell a more interesting history with more enjoyable groups than the main history. Dima was way better than the railroad.
The suggestion of the tutorials in the prologue make sense because a similar thing was implemented in Fallout 3, how you age up and do new things each time you get older. With multi-faction endings, we already saw it in New Vegas and storming the institute with the minutemen and railroad reminds me of the battle of Hoover Dam with the NCR and Brotherhood, or Legion and Khans, or any other combination of support.
My question is, why do you need kellogg's memories, you learn nothing of value other than the location of virgil and the institute uses teleportation. Which is something which vergil tells you anyway. While kellogg was given a mission report showing vergil as a target for the institute. Which you could gone straight to the glowing sea. It's only left in because of a Nick side plot which was cut anyway...
I see what you're saying, but simply stumbling into Vergil would be extremely frustrating and unsatisfying. Giving breadcrumbs is necessary to make the storyline good. That said, they certainly could have used another means for a breadcrumb, but the real reason it's there is because the Nick-Kellogg story was obviously cut relatively late-too late to rewrite the main quest.
I believe the Kellog-Nick thing has something to do with an early version of far harbor. On the topic of Virgil, just finding the mission briefing would be enough to give the SS his rough location. On Kellog's corpse, terminal, house, ect. Apparently there are friendly Children of Atom in the glowing sea that can point you to him, but I've never explored it.
That also leads to so many plot holes. The story is high school level writing at best. So many holes and I wonder if they did a first draft and said yep... it's done
@reygunz3059 , if dogmeat brought you to Fort Hagen, only find kellogg's left heading towards his next target, a farm on the edge of the glowing sea, who made claims to a caravan trader (trashcan carla) . They had offered food and shelter to friendly, intelligent supermunt for the night. If you kill kellogg and save the farm from the institute attack. They will direct you towards the children of atom settlement who they trade a lot with. Otherwise, the trail goes cool, forcing you to search the glowing sea blind. ...Would be an easy fix.
@@stevenstocker9873 I think giving the player free reign to explore the glowing sea would be an interesting quest stage. On a blind run it could stand out and be a nice challenge, but fairly easy on repeat runs.
Idea: longer prologue, start off strong with nate in a battle in power armor during the war. Fast forward to meeting Nora, the player starts to establish an emotional connection, maybe even let the player flirt with Nora a bit. Cut to Sean being born, and finally end with the initial fo4 sequence. Then remove power armor from the museum of freedom.
The last thing Fallout 4 needs is a LONGER prologue. There is nothing more discouraging from playing this game than the hour long intro sequence with almost nothing people care about after the very first play through
I have almost 1000 hours in Fallout 4 and just remembered when watching this video that I saw the ending cutscene exactly once. When I played through the game back in 2015. Ever since then I've never gotten interested enough in the whole plot to interact with it more than necessary.
An alternate start that skips the prologue and tutorials would be good, too. Even if it's just one option, like being the sole survivor of the attack on University Point where Kellog was obviously in charge of attacking. That would leave room for much more roleplay. You can track down Kellog for revenge if you want or stumble into the Institute from the path of one of the other factions, all without the time-sensitivity of a kidnapping trying to pull you away from general character storybuilding.
Usually these kinds of videos aren't my favorite and wasn't going to watch this video despite liking all of your other work. People, with the benefit of hindsight and infinite imagined development time often come up with outrageously challenging intricate ideas that just weren't and aren't practical to add to a game. But these all feel like they were very doable and I'm kind of surprised at how well you were able to round out some of the rough edges of the story here without enormous game or story reworks. Great job man, thanks for your well thought out video! Wish we'd have gotten a more satisfying resolution to the Kellogg stuff you identified, and the new tutorial you came up with is fantastic.
That's sort of where I try to take this series: simple changes of direction during development that would have taken close to the same amount of time and effort, or something that could have been accomplished with just a short extension in dev. it's easy to say "they should have done this" but unless you're playing within the bounds of what's already been set by the rest of the game, it's usually just not feasible.
Now I am more curious about what potential dlc faction endings for the main quest would look like. How the Mechanist/the Overboss take over the Commonwealth.
Regarding a peaceful ending for all factions; I wish that if you sided with the Institute you could replace key members of opposing leadership with synths, similar to replacing High Confessor Tektus in Far Harbor. Not only would it provide a peaceful ending without being unequivocally good, it would also help to provide justification towards the Institute’s evil method, as well as showing them as a much more deadly threat to humanity.
Really emphasises why they should just plop you into a wasteland and let the world tell the story, rather than trying to orchestrate a linear story path. Bethesda hands down cannot tell a good story, they've proven it time and time again. They can't decide if they want a non-linear RPG with story elements or a fully fledged single player adventure game. Their recent games suffer from an identity crisis.
Anyone else wish instead of having a synth son from father post game. NORA isn't shot dead but shot with a tranquilizer. We think it's a bullet. There's what we thought was a silencer. Father gives you the code to his terminal, and it is an Open Nora Cryo chamber.
Personally, I never felt rushed. When I do a playthough I treat fallout 4 realistically. Beat kellog find out the institute has my son so now I venture out into the wasteland and help the minutemen gather the largest force in the commonwealth and take on the institute.
The whole point of a Bethesda game is that the main quest is expected to be optional. In the main quest, you don’t know how long ago your son was kidnapped, or if he is even still alive. Also, you can make up your own backstory. The player should decide what kind of protagonist you want to be, instead of letting the devs do it for you.
I'm only half way through the video and that tutorial rewrite is music to my ears, it sounds so perfect it makes the actual one look even worse lol Only detail I'd change is either make it start Thursday Oct 21st in the afternoon as the sole survivor comes back from work and make up something to make them take Friday off postponing all those things to Friday, or have the game still start on Friday Oct 22nd but have them leave work early. The reason I'd change that is simply because all those tutorial things sound like a lot of things to do after coming back from work lol, unless the character left work early or took Friday off and all those things take place Friday 🤷♂️
I feel like the bigger issue here is how much all this stuff would cause the opening to drag out. Starting new characters is already kind of a chore in the 'short' version we have.
So refreshing to see an objective take on the problems with Fallout 4; for the record, I would so love to see everything in this video implemented in a mod. I just can't make a mod of that scope or I would have already. That's another story...anyways, I love the objectivity and civility you maintained whilst adding just enough humor to keep the analysis engaging. Well done!
The worst thing about the F4 protagonist isn't that Bethesda took away the player's agency in defining their player character, it's that they then proceeded to not DO anything with it. Outside the main quest and some robots acknowledging your history, the established protagonist is left to be just as blank as, well, a actual blank slate protagonist would be, except the player isn't given the satisfaction of being able to make up their history on their own. It's the worst of both worlds.
Yeah. I don’t mind this idea of SS being more Commander Shepherd: You can change SOME things but you’re still very pretty defined. This weird middle ground fails and annoys both sides.
But did you visit Greygarden? It is amazing it's really run but robots, juts robots. Also, I'm shocked that there are spoilers and even more shocked that its 9 years since I played F4 the first time, damn time goes fast.
I always believed that, if you went the Institute route and changed a lot of policies, that the SRB would go rogue and become some thing of a new antagonist in story. RR and MM alliance makes way more sense then having them be separate entities. Honestly I would make Gunners the fourth faction instead of the RR. I also had this idea that, due to the loss of their spouse and child, the SS would eventually turn darkside and become the Overboss of NW. Having a canon protag turn badguy would make for an interesting bit of lore. Hearing your version of the end game where you bury your loved ones and then march off fits very well with that idea :)
The Gunners should have been a more morally grey minutemen alternative. And the RR just shouldn't have been a proper, major faction. Siding with them makes no goddamn sense. They don't have the manpower to stabilize the Commonwealth and the fact that they blew up the main method of Synth (re)production means that the oppressed minority they champion as their only real ideological motivation will certainly be almost completely extinct in 30 odd years.
Im going to throw a pretty random comment out here because some may find it amusing... I have played over 3000 hours on fallout 4... ... ...and ive never finished the main story... All i can say is Adhd is one hell of a beast when it come to open world games 😅
It really wouldnt have taken much to put FO4 in the running for best fallout game. As you said mechanically it is already there. Granted it would probably have taken another 6 months of development but the framework was already there. Personally I would have moved Preston Garvey farther away from Sanctuary so the player had time to breathe and explore before finding the Yes Man route. I also would have loved to have more dialogue options with the Institute when you are getting setup as its leader. While you could view the Institute as evil, I prefer viewing them as scientists without competent management oversight. A few options to call them on their stupidity and set you up for moving the Institute on the right path or even the option to go full evil and talk about amping up human experimentation.
It's the second best Fallout game in terms of ratings. Behind FO3 and ahead of FNV. In terms of financial success it's Number 1 with FO3 in second place and NV in third.
I have watched all your faction and gameplay videos. Your changes are excellent and leave me seeing a whole lot of missed opportunities. Fallout 4 was my first fallout game and my first open world roll playing game so I didn’t notice this stuff at first but on tons of replays I really understand how your fixes would definitely improve the story. My least favorite faction is the RR and under the direction you took I would choose them ahead of most of the other options
It doesn't help that the RR is the only faction that you are absolutely forced to deal with. That could be handed off to the ladies in the Science Center which currently is only there to introduce an alternate to repair Liberty Prime.
Hey Grey how do you feel about the cut side quest “Synthetic Love” and companion that comes with it that can be add back in with mods? Would you keep it or ditch it? If you keep it how would it affect the ending you just proposed? Personally I think they should have kept it in.
As much as i love fallout 4, the more i play it the more i see so many flaws and inconveniences that couldve been fixed so easily and wouldve improved the game so much. It sucks too because i always want to play it but when I do, i basically get to a point where i start disliking things or mechanics or small things and it makes me not want to play. It really sucks because I'll never forget my first playthrough, absolutely mind blowing and its been very hard to recreate that feeling again in newer playthroughs
Alot of the mechanical issues can be smoothed over with mods. You're basically stuck with the absolutely braincell annihilating writing no matter what though. Pretending it's satire kinda helps a bit.
The opening would have worked better I think if the whole Vault survived, along with a child or two with every couple. Your immediate goals in game become surviving as a community. Over time you learn about the Institute and eventually find out that the Institute abducted the children of everyone in the Vault to work on a "Gen 4" synth which can grow and reproduce like actual humans. The Institute placed the new gen synth children back into the Vault and unfroze everyone as a way to test how well their new models grow and blend in. The actual children have aged more than 10 years since living in the Institute.
Mama Murphy should die during the museum fight. You should find codsworth powered down. You can fix him but he loses his memory. Preston gravy should NOT give you settlement quests constantly until the end game
The factions themselves are the weakest aspect of the story so they’d all need to be changed - i haven’t watched your videos on them yet but now I’m interested. I do like the angle you’d play here of making the SS more sympathetic and more involved with their backstory and prior family. Maybe I’d actually feel something about the wife/husband and Shaun. The dialogue would also require more options and branching but this was the first time we got to see the pre war world properly in a non-hallucination and experience it firsthand through someone who lived it. We definitely should’ve spent more time there at the beginning and throwing the tutorial in there to extend it is a great idea. I do also wish we had more depth of connection with our companions. They do expand on companions in Starfield and they say a lot more and have more depth but there’s only 4 real ones compared to the good range we had in Fallout 4.
Imo there is no need to kill Mama Murphy. I usually just play Nate as someone who ignores her and considers her crazy (believing she overheard Nate's talk with Preston and guessed where he had come from). Like, you know, a normal person probably would treat a bag lady (which she resembles) in real life. Moreover, I play him as a lackadaisical father who really doesn't give two shoots about his son (making it easier to turn against him when the player finally meets the evil old man he has become) and while talking a good game is secretly relieved not to have to deal with raising an infant son all by himself. Hardly a stretch for someone who might side with the Institute after all or, even worse, the raiders of Nuka World. The prolonged prolog sounds like it would be really boring for new players, and even worse for more experienced ones. Also, the prolog as we have it makes it easier to shrug off the tragedy of Nora's death enough to just move on to be the hero of the story (itself perhaps a coping mechanism to deal with the losses). The self-awareness I assume anyway in my gameplay; allowing me to do whatever quests in whatever order I feel like. I don't need a game mechanic to help me do it. The game is just vague enough that I can do it on my head without really contradicting anything other than Nate's tough talk about finding his son (to me it's all just a tough guy act). Do like the idea of giving the dead spouse a proper burial though. The Kellogg idea is definitely one I would have liked to see; especially as Nick is by far my favorite NPC let alone companion and I would genuinely be emotionally invested in not letting any harm come to him (especially as he got into that fix in the first place from helping me first). The multi-faction idea as well. One reason I almost always side with the Minutemen is so that only the Institute winds up needing to be destroyed; the Minutemen have no reason to attack (or be attacked) by the other two. I do agree that Fallout 4 is a great game that still needs a few tweaks here and there to make it even better though.
Honestly I like most of the ideas, I only don’t like the idea maybe having mama Murphy die. I think mama Murphy as a character kinda funny. “Old woman who takes drugs and predicts the future”. I think I might’ve been better that she was unable to clearly see Shaun but knew that there was a place that could help the sole survivor find Shaun that was down south in Boston, but she couldn’t clearly see exactly what it was. I do think one of the survivors at the museum should’ve died to show clearly that the group has been having an extremely thought time. specifically i feel like an additional survivor should’ve been added who dies in the mission. I think maybe in the mission
Marcie dies before she has time to make her husband's life into a living hell or to be even more reviled than the constant settlement quests? I'm all in!
@@jimcalhoun361 haha but I think Preston “gravy” should be the one who dies. He’ll still get to ask the devil for help because another settlement needs your help I’ll mark it on your map
@@SaidNoGaming How about Jun offering help you kill the raiders (because he feels he has nothing else to live for) and ends up getting killed by the deathclaw shortly after realizing that killing all raiders-Gunners especially-is a viable life choice. Sets up a possible companion and then immediately kills him off.
@@jimcalhoun361 that’s seems like it would’ve been a cool thing, except for the whole “dreams crushed cause giant beast from hell said ‘I like ya cut g’”
Ha, maybe make Mama Murphy give a cryptic reply to help like "You need to find your Valentine, kid" and when the Sole Survivor says something like "Huh?" Mama Murphy can be like "Look kid, I don't always get what the visions mean, I'm just tellin' ya this is what I'm seeing."
Remove the Minutemen/Settlements, then the progression of the MSQ is actually not that bad personally. It's why I think the Minutemen/Settlement system was shoehorned into the game late in production. As it gets in the way of actually progressing the story, puts you on a long side track adventure as well, to a point that you go "Wait wasn't I supposed to be looking for Shaun?" The game is so specifically designed for you to go from Sanctuary to Diamond City. As there are many events along the way on the roads between the two. They even have a magazine you can grab from the first rural house you run into on this path that gives you a waypoint to Diamond City, yet it's pointless because mammy Murphy tells you where it is already. As I said, it feels like the reason the game feels messed up in my opinion has everything to do with the Minutemen existing, Preston and his crew existing. If they were removed entirely from the game, the whole faction. I think the game would be a lot better. There would be no obvious moral choice faction as well. I honestly like the story once you ignore the Mintuemen, the moment Preston asks me to be the General I refuse. Quest finished, no more dealing with Minutemen Nonsense. I move into Diamond City as it should of been intended.
To fix Murphy instead of Diamond City, she should have sent you to lexington next. She was there. That way, you can be justified in either finding starlight or just passing it by. Lead them to diamond city with bread crumbs. Leapfrog one location to the next one. Then, leave 2 choices at the new location, a right path, and a wrong path. Even if you take the wrong path, there are 2 clues there also. A right one and a wrong one. Plus, you can choose to explore another place in between the path. And why is your spouce always have to die. Maybe he wounds her sometime. How much harder is it to find your son with a wounded wife? Kellogg is a sick enough monster to do that. And if she isn't dead, what if she is gone when you escape the pod? You saw her shot. Where did she go? Where is her body? Now you dont have 1 thing to search. You have 2 mysteries to solve. And why does Kellogg have to have been in diamond city? Why couldn't he sometimes be in Bunker Hill? Or maybe Kellogg was in one of several other places. The slog. Hangman's alley. Then youcan'tt just jump the storyline to progress. You actually have to find Shawn. By adding random generation at game start. How many possible different games can be played with the same eliments? Then, instead of a timer to a fixed point, you have a timer to find the next right clue. I think it would not only be more realistic but more fun and challenging.
Definitely good suggestions that I think would solve a lot of issues. Course abandoning the entire forcing you to be a married character with a kid storyline is the only way that I could be invested in the characters since those are both choices I could never make and can't empathize with.
I can never empathize with a soulless, dead eyed, mute that I have to play make believe to give them a backstory or motivation or personality. You must have hated Commander Shepard or any predefined protagonist in games.
@@VaultArchive72so just because someone prefers to make their own character means that they hate predefined characters? I enjoyed the Luminary from Dragon Quest XI but that doesn’t mean I despise Arthur Morgan from Red Dead Redemption II.
Really liked the tutorial fix, and bonus for spending more time in the prologue. I like seeing how the world was before the end. Also like the idea the female may have been a JAG which would go nicely with a mod that makes the female survivor a veteran. It would make more sense since she knows about weapons, survival, PA training, etc. Yes Nate could have taught her these things, but I like the female veteran idea.
What a great list! The Nick Valentine voice being momentarily supplanted by Kellogg's was riveting. Stunned they just left it alone. Also, one is not born in a womb. Instead, cells differentiate and find their places as a fetus gestates..
There is just so much wrong with the main quest. Yeah, a longer intro would solve the immersion problem for sure. Could even include a day at the shooting range with Nate and Nora, so we can justify why a lawyer can use a gun reasonably competently. Mama Murphy herself isn't really all that egregious, as there is a lore reason for it. It's just lazy is all. Sturges being able to operate that teleporter while not being able to actually unlock a terminal with a terrible password is far more problematic. Also, they should probably address how it is that tinker tom is the "only one" that can decrypt the chip. As if the Brotherhood wouldn't also be capable of doing the same thing. What's worse is you have no direction to even go find the railroad to do this task, you just kind of have to stumble across the rumors of the RR and then go find them purely out of curiosity. I get the minutemen just being clueless though...Still couldn't Preston or Sturges have met people capable of dealing with the chip and just sent you their way? Maybe they send you to Scara at the science center in diamond city or something. I guess this could be a story reason to return to mama murphy to give her another dose to point you at the railroad. There's just a lot of things you're not told to do, that you kind of have to do, that you'd just never figure out normally. The Minutemen ending is one such example. It's kind of a weird nonsensical pattern of events. nobody or nothing tells you have to get yourself kicked out of the institute to push that story forward. Shaun's reaction toward you if you had used the minutemen to get in and refusing the join the institue doesn't make any real sense either. "waaaaaaaa! why won't you join me in destroying the world above ground!? fine! leave then! prepare your defenses! we fight at dawn!" like come on, none of this makes sense and is a very childish reaction from an old man approaching 70. Honestly, just cut out the whole main story after getting frozen. we can keep the system failure, it makes no real difference anyway. You and your family get out, you go home find codsworth, and now you have a survival game where you have to build up sanctuary to a liveable state for shaun and your spouse. step one and two is to get supplies for the family after scrapping sanctuary and building up what you need. upon realizing you'll not have enough supplies to last more than a few days, you head out to concord to scrounge. Here you come across the raiders, and by extension the minutemen, the games first faction. after going through that you can bring them home to help guard the place. They need an HQ, and you need protection. might have to make readjustments here and there to make things fit from here, but it at least gives you a reason to even care about the minutemen. This could also tie into a proper build system tutorial from here. Does it make sense we just know how to make basic turrets from the start, or would it make more sense if preston and sturges teach you how first? Obviously the latter right? who's gonna know better how to build out proper structures? you the retired futuristic solider that may never have needed to learn this skill and lawyer that just thawed out after a 210 year nap, or the survivors that you're now in charge of that have been living above ground in this new hellscape their whole lives?. Just very obvious little things that would have made a whole lot more sense than what we got, you know? I could probably write out a whole lot more, as Bethesda really dropped the ball when it came to filling in plot issues and mechanical instruction, but I'm sure i'd hit some sort of character limit.
I 10000000% agree about kellog. At the end of the memories quest i had more empaty towards kellog then i had with anyone in the whole game... rough childhood. A Loving mom. A drunken dad, and later a Rough life for a guy who just wanted a good life for his family. He was not just a generic bad guy. And then kellog speaks trough nick i was like holy shit! He is still there somewhere! Maybe i can get him out in another quest line later. Play the whole game with nick as my companion. Maybe somewhere sometime kellog speaks to me again and tells me what to do to get him out. At the end of the game, oke a quest line is not in it i guess. Come on kellog. at this point im happy with just one sentence like he did before. Nothing. Damn dude.
*A Fallout NV fan hears that you think FO4 could have parity with their god and they shoot you in the face then and there* - Average FNV fan interaction
That hypothetical story you made up was actually touching. Just hearing that it made me feel emotional, I request that Bethesda change the story to this as of right now. Great video.
Your suggestions are very good. The core problem of the story is the deliberate and hollow misdirection that creates a distorting false urgency. Your proposals to deal with that are good.
I think "getting to know" the sole survivor is missing the real problem of why I apparently need to be introduced to the character I created. It's frustrating seeing people talk about "the sole survivor" and suggesting movie-like scenes to make them a more compelling character. They're not a supoosed to be a character at all, you literally MADE them!!
That opening would have fixed so many things. Also I think the story line problems can be addressed by table top running the encounters instead of just using a writers room. You get more creativity that way
Honestly fallout 4 story isn’t really what im necessarily looking at, and im sure as hell not going to play the older games cause the graphics are a lot worse, so im fine with a trashy story if the graphics are better, the movement speed is faster for sprinting and walking, gun bashing, a built in mod thing, and settlements
Your suggestion for the intro to the game reminds me of how Fallout 3 was done in introducing core gameplay mechanics while connecting the player to their family/friends and the condition of things. I like it.
I think an alliance between the Brotherhood and the Railroad/Minutemen would have been a viable thing to include if the Brotherhood was written with more depth. This Brotherhood is supposed to be a result of the Outcasts rejoining the Lyons chapter, but there's no internal strife between those opposing viewpoints. It's written like it's just the Outcasts. It's hard to believe that, after all of the things the Brotherhood accomplished in Fallout 3, nobody seems to think that Elder Lyons had the right idea, especially since the Brotherhood chapters in the west had been spending decades getting butchered by the NCR. There being this ideological divide would add a lot more depth and complexity to the Brotherhood's questline, and could allow for peace with the Railroad and Minutemen.
I feel like the best way of getting on the main story, is by going to the memory den and going through the pod. You get told by someone to go find nick specifically because of the fact he's a detective who specialises in finding people. A lot better than just being said "go to diamond city, find something."
Fallout 4 stands as one of my favourites games, couldnt disagree more on the pre-vault tutorial stuff. I wouldnt mind more connection to Shaun, so i agree with him being older / more personable / maybe a short event of experiencing father/motherhood. Kellog is insanely cool, yet its a chore to walk through his mind on any replay. If anything, a new game as Kellogg would be superior in itself, or even a companion in the end. I like the courser idea. Since we dont have the usual post-game cutscenes, either the world needs to be more dynamic (actually show your chosen fashion changing the world) or have an obvious outline of whats going to happen. I want to know if siding with whoever i do, or sparing a named npc's life, or wiping out a settlement has some real effect on the future. Id even accept, maybe even prefer, if post ending we saw a slideshow and info, then whatever we do after that can just be non-canon to our playthrough. Literally anything that brings more depth would help.
Your alternate prologue sounds a lot better than what we got. The only down side is I know people criticized Fallout 3's prologue for being too long. The short length of Fallout 4's intro is probably an attempt to correct this.
I think they should have expanded on the minutemen. Give you a reason to join, that without help you would just die to the Commonwealth. Then that leads to finding Valentine. Not just forget your kid and woo hoo im a general.
That Kellog suggestion is spot on. Honestly can't believe they never followed that up. I also remember the first time I heard Nick do the creepy voice and it was terrifying. So much missed opportunity there!
I love the ending idea, mainly because it would be an AMAZING way to set up the post-game, similar to how Red Dead Redemption does it. Not only does it offer closure on the soul survivors story, but the companians are there to remind you that you have a new life and after the cutscene you can continue playing:)
In regards to using the prologue to specifically show off the workshop mechanic. I also like the idea of one of the missions at the start but after the prologue being rebuilding your house in Sanctuary. Could be part of first finding Codsworth (his complaining about maintaining a home after the war), would show off the mechanics, would get you invested in the settlement mechanic right off the hop because of the emotional investment of losing your family home and putting it back together. Also with the Sole Survivor burying their spouse and giving a few words about it, for me the speech that Naiwal does in his video is now in my headcanon. Matches so perfectly to it.
I’m one of those people who still thinks the sole survivor’s back story kind of holds back the experience. If I’m a grieving father who lost his kid and his wife in short succession who will supposedly do anything to find his son, why am I traipsing across the commonwealth to purchase wood shipments so I can singlehandedly transform Boston into the east coast NCR?
The best part is when Preston says that sucks. Anyway, we have a settlement that needs help
@@pcraft8785tbh that's a pretty realistic response
yeah, i hate that
i dont want to play as a depressed parent
i wanna play as a psycho that kills anything that moves
This is why Starfield is better than Fallout 4. Silent protagonist who you can play however you want and make up their own back story.
I feel it would work better if we get synth shaun as a settler earlier in the game. It gives us a reason to build and survive, as we assume we got our son back. Then comes the quest of defeating the institure, where we learn that they are the main destabalising faction. It would make the "I am your son" plottwist a lot better, as you assumed you already found your son. You would also share in the paranoia of not knowing who is a synth and who you can trust as long as the institute remains standing.
I read a really intriguing comment where Shaun starts out as a young child instead of a baby. You spend much more time pre war doing the tutorials and you spend time bonding and teaching Shaun various life lessons and then the old Shaun makes call backs to which dialogue options you chose. Similar to the Witcher 1.
Idk why they didn’t make Shaun a young child at the beginning. If they want a player to become attached to a character in 15 mins, that character is gonna need to be able to say something to get me attached. Cooing and crying isn’t enough, especially if that baby is supposed to be the main motivator for the story
@@snoot39 truth is 15 minutes isn't enough for any game...look at Cyberpunk, we lose Jacky at the quarter mark and IDK about others I like the character but I felt nothing at his death....
now had the game been a story about the rise of V then the cementing of a legend and the heist being the downfall of V and Jacky was there for all of it, his death woulda hit much harder....
you can't just insert people into something and 15 minutes later kill em or take em away and expect us to care....that's a massive disconnect!
mass Effect 1, when Jenkins gets fragged nothing, ME2 when Garrus get's shot up I worried my ass off until he walked into the room alive....why? cus we had a game and I bonded, I gave a shit.....think I had an entire 10+ hour game for 2 or so years before ME2 came out.....
I really woulda liked to play that intro section Cyberpunk skipped over cus it woulda added to Jacky as a character, we'd have the needed history when he's actually killed to have the emotion.....also even if that section was 20 minutes it woulda worked better to show some of the low level jobs then the Sandra Dorset job being the first big job we get?
Tbh Id rather they just scrap the family thing all together. Go back to Fallout nv where you can almost be anyone you want without an annoyingly long intro like all Bethesda games except for Morrowind have
@@BullFrogFaceI'm the opposite. I like the idea of an actual character, though, bethesda's writing isn't exactly renowned. I did want to see the story, but it what we got was definitely disappointing. Playing the life of Nick (their original concept) would have been SOOO much better. He fit their ideas (almost like he as a character was designed to) really well, and would have made the storytelling easier for them.
@@midgetman4206 As a standalone game with its own universe id agree but Fallout us about making and being your own character to me. I dont like the idea of being restricted to being a set character, even if you can make shape them a bit like Geralt in the Witcher series
You can tell Rhys that you joined the BOS as they might be the best shot at finding your son. That makes no sense when you already know to go to Diamond City and then find Nick. It makes much more sense with your idea of having the path to finding Shaun be open ended.
I think they mean more as they have the resources to make it easier. And when you say that, that's before you even make it to Diamond City.
They don't know that Nick knows anything, just that he MIGHT. Also when you get to DC he's not even there. it makes perfect sense, especially for the male sole survivor, to at that point say "fuck this" and just go join the military and figuring they would have a better shot than going running around after a detective who got himself lost or captured or killed as far as you know
For real.
I want raider jet lord ending.
'12 years since being unfrozen"
SS - "Hey shaun sorry it took me a minute to come find you. There was were these guys that needed my help and then I ended up in Maine somehow and then I blacked out somehow winding up at Disney land, and after I became their pirate king, I remembered what I was actually supposed to be doing and I started selling a shit load of jet and became the defacto water supplier 'enthusiastically' BY FORCE.
Then I remembered I'm a dad and then came to find you"
Shaun - 'rotting corpse'
SS - "AHHWW GAUGHT DAMMIT, I knew I should've skipped building that brothl/slave fight club. FWUK, oh well, I think Preston said something about another settlement needs my help.
It also makes no sense because they just showed up at the common wealth and know the least about it.
They already did it perfectly in nv why couldn't they do that again
I never really realized how much having mama murphy really just gives you such an easy breadcrumb trail to follow. Honestly, even just removing that feels like it would fix so much of the guilt of taking your time to get down there. Honestly, I don't normally get down to diamond city until I'm ready to take the castle and I feel kinda shitty for taking so long and you have to rationalize that you're trying to "get help" but you don’t need that if the future is already told to you.
I always give her enough drugs to die
I find it very easy to justify. She's a crazy old woman who's literally high when you meet her and professes to have powers a Pre-War soldier would think to be bullshit. Soldiers are taught to never assume, and hope for the best, plan for the worst.
@@curtisevans8413psychics are more friendly, but damn it was a stupid idea to put her in game so prominently
@@curtisevans8413 Exactly - psychic powers or not, from Nate/Nora's perspective she's a crackpot trying to score a fix; she even uses her "gift" as an excuse to mooch drugs off you. "Hey, you know, I can see your son is fine and in Diamond City... you wanna know more, maybe get me some Jet, huh?"
I don't think Mama Murphy is the problem as such; she could easily be replaced by anyone else simply telling the player to go to Diamond City because it's the biggest place around and someone there could likely help, and the problem would remain pretty much the same.
Instead, it would've helped if the Player was given more options at this point; Preston suggests rebuilding the Minutemen and helping settlements in order to get word out about Shaun, while the other survivors suggest Bunker Hill and Goodneighbor as places to look for information. All of which then could've pointed towards Nick or maybe the RR as further leads.
Roughly the same thing once Nick/the RR are contacted; instead of immediately fingering Kellog as the sole suspect, they could again offer some alternative options. Like actually expanding on the Gunner-lead Nick mentions but then drops almost immediately. Maybe Covenant, because there's so many strange disappearances in that region, or following up on the mystery as to why Diamond City's guards never properly investigate any kidnappings/disappearances.
Wow, that tutorial fix is actually really neat-sounding. I know it was probably spitballing, and maybe it's just that I'm tired of some of FO4's faults after playing it for 8 years now, but I really dig that prologue fix. I wonder if it would be possible to mod that into the game.
I agree and there are a lot of things here that could be modded into the game. From my observation, however, modders of the caliber that would be needed to do this are generally very concerned about compatibility with other mods. Implementing almost anything spoken about here would likely break other quest mods. Personally, I say, "screw it!" If people like those other quest mods, they can make patches or if they like those quests better than mine, they don't have to download mine. That said, I understand where other people are coming from.
@@reygunz3059 Dicking with the prologue of the game can actually mess up a few things in the base game, notably quest start scripts.
It's better, but it still sounds handholdy and I guarantee people would've hated it if we got it.
@@Bacxaber People definitely would've hated it (me included), since many people are looking for *less* tutorials, not more.
They did it in Skyrim, it wouldn't be crazy if they did it in Fallaut 4
If it was up to me I would take Saun out completely, finding your spouses killer is motivation enough to search the Commonwealth for their killer, and you can still do Kellogg to the Institute plot line. That's fixes the pacing problem because it works the same as New Vegas. Where yeah, you are looking for Benny, but it doesn't matter if you take 2 weeks or 2 years, because realistically before the player finds out that saun is old it wouldn't be realistic to assume your baby is alive 2 weeks after being unfrozen even before the time elapse of when he was first kidnapped. And Sauns whole motivation of "I wanted to see what would happen" could be done by literally any other person in sauns position after learning about vault 111 and learning that there were 2 people left alive
I think that’s too similar to the NV storyline
Time in NV and FO4 is irrelevant and nothing but an openworld mechanic. Not related to the narrative in any way.
So it doesn't matter how long you take to find Benny or Shaun.
As Nick points out no one would casually break into a vault to take a specific infant on a whim. Without information and intent.
It's a very safe bet for the SS to assume Shaun is alive and still an infant until they meet Nick and Nick mentions that Kellog had a 10 year old boy with him which Kellog then vaguely alludes that Shaun is older than the SS remembers which further reinforces that idea.
So now we think 10 years have passed.
Until we make it to the institute and learn the truth.
It was perfectly written and makes sense.
@VaultArchive72 I suppose, but the whole thing still makes the pacing weird, like yeah I'm looking for my kid who got kidnapped by the person who killed my spouse, but I'll stop what I'm doing to literally build you a town
You can do it without Shaun by having the couple planning to have a kid, and then during the first Kellog cutscene they wake up just as they've started to refreeze and find out a procedure was carried out on them, witness Kellog and the tech doing something to the other spouse, which results in the shooting, and so on. Later on they find out that what happened was the extraction of egg and sperm, and thus they have a child out there somewhere. Spend time in the prologue establishing that the pair really wanted a child, and you've got the "I have a kid and that's all that's left of my loved one" and you get a main plot.
@@VaultArchive72 It makes no sense if you and your character have a brain. It was literally the first thing in my mind. "I was frozen! I have no idea how long ago the kidnapping happened" but the protagonist is too braindead to even think about any of this. And Kellog implying Shaun is much older than expected should really open that whole question up even for a braindead protagonist.
Pacing is off. I agree it should have been just about revenge. The plot is weak as hell anyway and just changing it to this would only make the game a better sandbox.
My biggest pet peeve is that the SS can build a teleporter with around 40 energy, a couple of typewriters and the crayon scribbles of a mutated biologist that are deciphered by Sturges, who wasn't able to hack a novice locked computer the first time you meet him. Nothing against shortcuts to move a story forward but what a wasted opportunity:
Instead, let the SS meet Mama Murphy, let them find Nick, Kellog, and Virgil asap, maybe even streamline that part even more to make it shorter. However, Virgil is a dead end for now - "Dammit Jim, I'm a geneticist, not an engineer!" The Sole Survivor needs to gather the smartest people of the commonwealth. They can either run around and play collect the geeks and then find an adequate energy source - the Prydwyn, Mass Fusion, Poseidon Energy, Nuka World power plant - or build a settlement that is sophisticated enough to provide for the needs of the genius mind and make them come to you - "If you build it, they will come"
This way, you'd have a middle part both for people who love the settlement building system and for those who loathe it and just want to explore the world. And the teleport, which is outstanding tech even in the Fallout universe, isn't some gimmick that you can copy in your garage.
SS? the waffen SS are in the game?
@@angeloluna529 Sole Survivor..
@@angeloluna529hahahaha
Thinking about how the game would be better is more fun than playing it at times isn’t it
And it could be a uniting force for all the above ground factions! Sure you could do missions after the fact that play into faction wars, or you could further alliances, or just side with the institute and wipe them all out systematically.
I wish Bethesda had just a slight stroke of nuance between the lot of them
what they should have done is had a longer prologue with some pre war quests and daily life.. a few hours of this to get to know the characters and feel for them (like you said)... maybe get to know your neighbours and later have some sad poignant moments finding out what happened to them etc.. BUT... have an option to start the game and SKIP that whole prologue thing if you want for subsequent playthrus... decide with one button if you want to start in pre war sanctuary right at the beginning, or in the vault.. or even start after leaving the vault in the apocalypse.. this would make it less boring for people who have already played many many times and dont want to have to go thru this long linear prologue process
Maybe have the skip button be turning off the TV and have a prompt come up to skip
there are so many games that I love that I refuse to replay just because I'm tired of working through the intros... pretty much the entire Mass Effect Trilogy comes to mind.
@@Theegreygaming in fallout 4 i dont mind the vault bit after the war.. its the whole house intro and talking bit while in the chambers i find boring.. especially when ur just starting to test out some mods or something.. although i think there are mods that allow u to skip and start outside.. ive never used one... any good ones come to mind?
@@tigrecito48 I wouldn't know, I play mod-free.
@@tigrecito48 "Start Me Up Redux - An Update for Alternate Start and Dialogue Overhaul" on Nexus
A small change to the prologue tutorials, but instead of building a shed, why not have you scrap and repair the fence at the back of the house? That would give you the scrapping mechanic, and you'd still get the snap-to building tutorial because you're putting it back.
I'd also have it so that it's Codsworth's brand-new fusion core that's ready to install - you just need to put the components together at the workbench - that gives Codsworth plenty of juice for 210 years - you could even have the spouse/sole survivor make a comment that they'd never need to spend a fortune fuelling Codsworth again - gives you both the rampant inflation issue and explains how Codsworth is still working centuries later.
Finally, ageed that the soldiers should actually point their guns at you when the Sergeant warns you away; gives a sense of paranoia and the stakes of the martial law being declared.
Otherwise, love the idea of Kellogg making a comeback, and having the defined protagonist have a bit more personality. Either that, or just remove the backstory in the vault and have the Sole Survivor wake up, having witnessed a murder across the way - I'd prefer the backstory, but the amnesiac protagonist is an age-old Bethesda tradition (well, for the Elder Scrolls)! :P
I actually like Codsworth being an established member of the family, it makes alot of dialogue with him after the war much more meaningful
I think that's a neat idea, not having the protagonist being related to Shaun or the parent. You just witness a murder and a kidnapping, which tells you enough about the perpetrators that it's clear that they're bad guys. You'd then start the game with no clear thread to follow, but figuring out who the bad guys are is an option.
You could still track down Kellogg, much in the same way you would in the basic story, but he could be impressed that a "popsicle" from the vault managed to do that and offer you a job. Without any emotional attachments, joining with the bad guy seems like a genuine player option.
You could then have a whole Institute quest-line that slightly varies from the original story. Such as finding Virgil, not to get information, but to assassinate him, etc. You'd act as an Institute secret agent with a mission to destroy/subjugate the Railroad, Minutemen and Brotherhood by infiltrating them and doing their questlines, or optionally betray the Institute in favor of a different faction, or never join them in the first place.
Kellogg calling you the backup could mean that Kellogg learned Sole Survivor's history through Vault tec terminal so he knows you will be able to make it and destroy institute which what his real goal should've been, Nick getting Kellogg inside of him would be a great plot too and eventually you help Nick getting rid of kellogg
10:38
I never noticed this until my most recent playthrough, but in Kellogg’s final memory, you can hear the radio talking about Piper, implying that it is very recent.
Which doesn't jibe with Shaun's age. I heard that too.
That's one of the reason for my headcanon that Father is lying 🤷♂️ I think the majority of his story is accurate but that Shaun was disposed of during the process. They didn't care about the Sole Survivor, but upon seeing him tear apart the wastes looking for the kid, Father thinks "Damn. Gonna need a backup plan in case he gets down here." And then bam, the lie is born
@@Chino429 being that the institute is advanced enough to make a robot look exactly like a person, they can surely transfer memories from one to another which likely explains synth Sean
@VergilTheLegendaryDarkSlayer agreed! I feel like they missed a really big story opportunity through all of this. Having Sean also be deceased would have been a turning point for the Sole Survivor, where they can choose to focus on healing and growth and whatnot, if they truly believe the Institute could be what's best for the Wasteland, or a chance to go full scorched Earth on them
@@georgeblair3894that's synth Shaun tho
Huh, the way you described these fixes actually sounds like something I'd want to play. With the companions, I'd also think that they would have to be overhauled, like different companions would give different advice. Like Hancock would probably want you to find your child to get closure, and companions like Gage would suggest the opposite. It would give more nuance to the story. On a related note, The Sole survivor should be able to tell characters things that relate to said characters, like Hancock and how he was actually right in thinking his brother was replaced. It's really bothersome that you can't do that.
Danse should have the option to join the minute men after his excile from the brotherhood!
You can finish the minutemen quest with him, and he’ll help you finish nuclear option; but you have a good point. I love that guy but Bethesda literally left his character arc at half way
There was even a better way. There was a cut quest about him killing Maxson and making you (or himself by a charisma check) Elder.
Haven't watched the video yet, but one of the biggest problems with Fallout 4 is that you can't really say no. When someone asks for help and you say no, they tell you the problem and you get the quest marker anyways. They'll just say it in a more negative way.
One of the most annoying issues is when you meet Piper, and she wants to know why you're at Diamond City. If you tell her no/none of your business (I forget the exact dialogue tbh) she just keeps repeatedly asking till you tell her you're looking for your kid. It's so annoying. I wanted to ignore the whole kid thing that play through. You can't. It needs to be an option in dialogue that your character doesn't care.
In New Vegas and Fallout 3 you were never forced to ask where Benny or your Dad is. But you can. But you don't have to.
Yeah, I know what you mean, but in New Vegas, some people will still give you a quest even when you say no. They just say "oh I'll just leave these directions with you in case you change your mind".
@@eddieprieto6511 There's very little motivation to find benny or the chip, little to no buildup for either and none for the character you play and you don't start to get the answers you should've already had until late in the early game.
I wanted to avoid the whole Reaper thing in Mass Effect but everyone I talked to kept bringing it up.
What a horrible RPG.
@@VaultArchive72 except Fallout is a sandbox game and was sold with the idea of player freedom, while Mass Effect is linear and always was. Completely different games and a braindead comparison.
@@VaultArchive72 Absolutely stupid comparison. Mass effect has a completely linear story with a choice between two and a half extremely well defined and also linear character archetypes to choose between in terms of how to play shepherd.
I like the notion too that when you wake up Saturday morning, you've overslept and it's the sound of the sirens going off that wakes you up. If you do that opening tutorial idea, however, it definitely has to be a skippable area. I could see that becoming very tedious for people on their 15th playthrough
Have an option after the in car character creation to wake up in the vault.
Yeah, it’s a tough tightrope, because if you’re not careful, you get a temple of trials situation from Fallout 2, where people get so tired of it that they mod in a skip rather than do it every playthrough
Granted, since bethesda fallout games also had the cutoff point at end of tutorial where you get one last chance to change special stats and everything before entering the world proper, many would also probably just use that, if we’re keeping in the Vault 111 stuff
What if Sean was dead the whole time? Almost seems like that would be a more emotional reveal than "I'm old Sean!"
I belive that is the case, the Institute we uncover in the game is a faction that wo8uld carve up every cell of Shaun for their research, they did sabatoge all other pods and Kellog refered to the SS as a backup.
That's one of the reason for my headcanon that Father is lying 🤷♂️ I think the majority of his story is accurate but that Shaun was disposed of during the process. They didn't care about the Sole Survivor, but upon seeing him tear apart the wastes looking for the kid, Father thinks "Damn. Gonna need a backup plan in case he gets down here." And then bam, the lie is born
@@Chino429 As much as I prefer this, Father's looks are based on how Nate/Nora look by prologue
if fallout 5 is ever made id love to see consequences to your actions and a continually evolving world (with some random changes).. for example... you free some settlers from a raider attack.. maybe when u go back to the settlement it is now prospering.. or maybe some other raiders affiliated with the previous raiders have taken revenge and you find all the settlers murdered.... maybe that poor guy trading a few scraps in the tunnel near hangman alley gets slightly richer every time you trade with him... u buying stuff makes him later have more stuff to sell next time, and he looks slightly healthier... he gradually says more & more friendly stuff, you build a relationship and start to see him expand his home... but suddenly, the next time you go there, you find him dead.. murdered for the caps you helped him gain.. this would make you feel sad.. you've lost someone u saw over time doing well for himself.. you might feel guilty... was it my fault they killed him? if id just left him be poor and not traded with him, maybe he'd still be alive? things like this would make you actually FEEL something for the people in the world.
Fallout 5 will probably be reskin of starfield with only one planet and a boat instead of a spaceship with more load screens than grains of sand on the beach
I think you should make a video on how to change the nuka world dlc. Its something i have been thinking about for a long while. As nukaworld has a lot of potential for every faction, but also the reverse makes sense where as a raiderboss, you might want to take out literally all other factions. Nuka world had so much potential if they had more overlap with the main game.
One other small thing I'd change, is not having Preston be the last of the Minutemen. Have there be a small group, like 3 that are still alive. He's the last one that's not a private. You've got Sturges, Jun and Marcy Long, and I'd add another pair, maybe a brother and sister who are young and both are frightened. Maybe one wants to help but Preston keeps telling them no. The other two minutemen would have names as well, a boy and a girl, and one would have a laser musket, the other a laser pistol. You could have the option to give that person the laser musket from the other dead minuteman. Those two are on the door, aiming to protect it, while Preston shot out the front.
Mama Murphy could work as someone who looks at you and knows that you're too fresh-faced to be from around here. Talking about your aura. She could mention that there are a few roads to help, but she gets interrupted as more Raiders come. You and the others have to fend them off as you run. No one dies, but her, as she talks about seeing her own death. The deathclaw is changed to a Yao Guai, rising up and killing a raider, before it chases after the group. She stays, to defend say Jun, and a raider shoots her as the Yao Guai gets her. Leaving it a bit unknown which killed her first. Either way, the others run and you have to kill everything else while defending the group.
From there, you have 3 people able to do security, 2 farmers, 2 shop workers and someone able to help rebuild. A change I'd impliment is having Sturges, and some random settlers, be able to scrap items in the overworld for you. Doing so passively, so you don't have to worry about it.
I want to know this.... If Shawn knew I was "awakened", why didn't he program the synths NOT to try and kill me? Wouldn't he put an automatic DON'T shoot my mother program in them?
He was testing you to see if you'd be useful. He even admits that your unfreezing was an experiment. That is why you are used as an enforcer for the institute rather than an actual leader or infiltrator.
Edit: Shawn admits he didn't really care about you having gotten over being kidnapped long ago.
He is a sociopath testing his parent's determination and love.
He's never met you so he has no attachment to you.
He feels nothing for the death of the other parent.
He's exactly the kind of person you'd expect from being raised in a place like the Institute.
@@VaultArchive72that's one interpretation. I think you're giving the writers too much credit. He also says he put Kellog in the SS's path for them to kill Kellog as a measure of revenge against Kellog for both of them.
I don't think that's a lie, I think he's written so inconsistently these clashing ideologies are equally genuine.
He also had 50+ years to get the SS out of cryo, but left you there for no discernable reason. Playing the "I'm your son" card only when convenient to him is why shaun never survives in my playthrough
@@RyanEglitis tbf he did say that he didn't know about SS until he was made the leader. But that would still be 10+ years
one main problem with Fallout 4 is that, it ISN'T YOUR story! the player is not the main character, you're just there following the main character as the story is told and unfold, it's the writer's story- any choices you do have, are slightly fake choices and dont really matter on the out come cause all paths leads to the exact same place, (the only difference is WHO is standing next to you)
I mentioned this on another video, but Nora was supposed to be a veteran herself, a lieutenant. The voice lines are still in the game data files. There's a mod that re-enables the voice lines, and she gets different voice lines than Nate, even a different military ID number (where it's appropriate).
I never quite realised how short fallout 4 was because I just completely ignored the main plot line out of lack of care to the plot, it was so much more fun to just, run around shooting random things and upgrading stuff than, idk, actually finding your son
yeah the story just feels like an annoyance like I don't wanna have to redo it every time, fallout 5 should have a campaign and then something like 76 but not as horribly done as 76, idk might be kinda weird
I always thought the pacing issue could be solved by simply cutting the scene where we witness our spouse getting shot. Just cut to our pod opening and the one opposite is just empty. Both are gone. That way we can reasonably assume that they are together somewhere, and the mystery is simply "why?" Then, the death of your spouse and the missing son becomes a twist during the Memory Den sequence that adds urgency for the second half of the journey. If you want to role-play as a aimless wanderer, you don't have to advance the story that far, and maybe you can choose dialogue options that imply that we assume they're already dead for immersion.
Mama Murphy could simply be replaced by a "wise leader" that suggests different leads that might get you what you need. "There's a detective in Dimond City who's very good at his job, a crime boss in Goodneighbor with a lot of connections, and Bunker Hill is full of traders who like to gossip." The correct answer is still eventually the detective, but at least you have a choice for how to get there, and not a (almost literal) magical compass pointing straight to Dimond City.
I think Kellog should have been a decrepit old man when you meet him. He doesn’t resist if you try to kill him. That’d make it a more interesting choice for defining your character. How you extract the info you need and whether you kill him or not.
He killed your spouse and kidnapped your baby.
His age is irrelevant. There's only one valid response to his actions.
Yeah, the Kellogg timeline is all jacked up. If Father is in his late 50s, then Kellogg would have to be in his 80s at least. My grandad was 90 when he died. I dont think even he, still a pretty fit guy who was a WW2 combat vet, could have put up that fight in Fort Hagen vs Nick and the Sole Survivor.
@@jefferydraper4019 It's suppose to be that the cybernetics that the Institute have put into him have slowed his aging down (he's officially 108 at the time of Fort Hagen) even though we never get any indication that anyone else uses cybernetics, no matter that many of the other Fallout games offer some version. The fight is actually tough only due to the stealth boys Kellogg have and Dogmeat having a very low dps if he's your companion then.
@jefferydraper4019 They should have made the Kellogg Fort Hagen fight reveal that this one is a Synth, tying the Synth paranoia into the MQ, a more convincing way to have a ‘young’ Kellogg fight you sixty years after the murder and kidnapping, and perhaps a better way to have Memory Den scene play out.
I read a post once about the idea of making the kellog we meet a synth it was cool cause I remember it leading to the sole survivor asking father why he'd make a synth based off the man who had kidnapped him and killed his other parent and his response being because he's useful it was a cool way to show how twisted the institute made him
Another idea for a good prologue is to make a tutorial in army for a male SS. Easy way to introduce power armor, different weapons and combat in action. We all know that Nate is an army veteran so it makes sense to me.
The same for a female SS. We're veterans too.
@@SwearMY But Nora isn't. Last time I played as her, I decided she came from a military family, so she learned from her dad and brothers, but no actual experience. I imagined her having a whole trauma episode the first time she had to machete a Raider. Which made it all the funnier 100 levels later when she ruthlessly killed all three sides at Bunker Hill, shot her own son, and began exterminating everyone in the Commonwealth who was the least bit shady.
@@stevenscott2136 What I am saying is that Nora should be able to be a veteran too.
@@SwearMYshe shouldn't. You really think a 50s retrofuture would let women into the military?
It’s a Bethesda game so yes
This just occurred to me. On the terminal that was used to open Nick or Nora's Cryo-pod, there could be a "Last Accessed" command. (Which is not beyond the realm of possibility). There, now the SS can see that the Cryopod of the spouse was opened in 2227 (if my math is correct), and his or hers was opened in 2287
This could be put behind a high level hack too, so you’d need to go back to the Vault to see it and realize what happened
Nate.
@@VaultArchive72 I call him Nick myself all the time. I grew up watching The Thin Man movies that my grandparents loved. Nick and Nora Charles. Little Nicky their son. And Asta, the dog. Bethesda blew it by not naming the SS Nick instead and making that connection.
I really like all these changes, but if I could add one more. I would get rid of the scene where Kellogg kills your spouse and steals Shawn. Imagine instead going through the Pre-war section, getting frozen in the Vault, then waking up to find your spouse clearly shot, your child missing, and all the other Vault dwellers dead in their pods. Now there's the chance your kid made it out of the Vault so you get out into the world and start looking. This gets you to the Minutemen, who don't know any specifics, but every settlement you visits keeps talking about this "Diamond City" place and maybe look there. Once you find Nick, do some missions with him to find people who claim to have seen a group come and go from Vault 111. But they all point you in the same direction. Talk to the Railroad. Maybe the Railroad could reach out to you. You meet up with them and they have the info you need but will only give it to you if you do some work for them. So they send you to the Switchboard to rescue their other agents. Once done, they give you their intel. That Deacon was tailing the institute when they went to Vault 111 and he watched Kellogg come and go from the Vault. Add some more sleuthing missions with Nick and/or the Minutemen/Railroad until you find Kellogg's location at Fort Hagen. You go there but it's locked down and heavily fortified. You need an army to get in. Now you have to go talk with the Brotherhood and they'll agree to send some soldiers and specialists to aid you but you have to help them first. Now you do Show No Mercy not as a Brotherhood recruit but as cannon fodder. They then help you take Fort Hagen but stop before the finally confrontation with Kellogg because they only care about the tech hidden at the base. You're not a member and they've achieved their goal. You confront Kellogg and he starts hinting at what really happened but refuses to say anything concrete. You could kill him and take his implant or if you're persuasive enough, you can talk him into owning up to what happened. At the moment you do his head suddenly explodes and Fathers voice comes on the PA system. Commending your journey to get there and warning you not to investigate any further. While eyes flash onto every monitor and screen in the room. The Institute was watching you the entire time. Now imagine going through Kellogg's memories and seeing the murder of your spouse at this point in the game. Learning all at once that they were murdered by Kellogg, he kidnapped Shawn and that you already took care of him. But wait, that finally memory showed Kellogg with a 10 year old kid who was named Shawn and kinda looked like you. He handed that kid off to some group called the Institute. You've only heard rumors and gossip about them until this point. Hearing that they kidnapped and replace people. Did they kidnap my kid, and if so why? Have 10 years passed since the abduction? Is my kid older than I thought. Now you need to team up with one or more factions to find out. The Minutemen gain intel through numbers. Every settlement adds eyes to a search party. The Railroad already has a double agent in the Institute. Maybe they can get intel out from the source. The Brotherhood have a lot of advanced tech and fire power. Maybe they have the surveillance capabilities to find the Institute and force their way through when they do. Now we have an organic reason to meet with each faction and do an intro quest for them. Learning a bit about how each faction operates and how they tackle problems while keeping some mystery as to whats going on and who's pulling who's strings.
For the BOS, you could add some quests that show off Maxon as being somewhat evil/unfit to serve as elder. Maybe have him stomp some settlements into the ground or something so that they can aquire food/resources. After a few of these missions you can convince Danse to challenge Maxon in his role as Elder. You assist Danse and Danse replaces Maxon if you win, if you lose, Danse dies and you are exiled from the brotherhood. If Danse takes over, you eventually get another quest where you are attacking some instute synths led by a courser, before the courser dies, he tells you that they were sent to retrieve a rogue synth: Danse. They then confirm that Danse is a synth using the medical facilities on board the prydwin. You can use this connection to help the Brotherhood, Railroad, and a Reformed Institute team up with the Minutemen acting as a mediary force to hold them together. You could have quests to "convince the other factions to work together" which would depend on how much the sole survivor had helped them. The Institute raid would could go one of three ways, you either blow it up as per the existing story, take over the institute, capturing or killing the synths/scientists there, or if the player is the leader of the institute at this point, you could work to reestablish them as a positive force, stopping the kidnappings, getting rid of the "evil elements" and allying them with the other factions as stated before. The Railroad would become the new SRB, acting to help resecure synths who were having issues or going on killing sprees, the Brotherhood would act as the muscle alongside gen 1 and 2 synths to defend the commonwealth from Raiders, Ghouls, Supermutants, etc, the Minutement would help build settlements, and the Institute would conduct research to help the world recover. A true "everyone who deserves to win, wins" ending.
I still want an option to beat the game with the nuka world raiders once you become overboss though. That would be awesome as an alternate "evil ending"
It seems Bethesda thought about letting you get to the point of leading the BOS and blew it off. I think taking over all 4 factions, like you could in Skyrim, would have been the best option for the Commonwealth. making all 4 work at making The Commonwealth a better place.
I'll watch later. But what I did thought was absurd was how well made was the dlc far harbor compared with the main quest. The island could tell a more interesting history with more enjoyable groups than the main history.
Dima was way better than the railroad.
The suggestion of the tutorials in the prologue make sense because a similar thing was implemented in Fallout 3, how you age up and do new things each time you get older.
With multi-faction endings, we already saw it in New Vegas and storming the institute with the minutemen and railroad reminds me of the battle of Hoover Dam with the NCR and Brotherhood, or Legion and Khans, or any other combination of support.
My question is, why do you need kellogg's memories, you learn nothing of value other than the location of virgil and the institute uses teleportation. Which is something which vergil tells you anyway. While kellogg was given a mission report showing vergil as a target for the institute. Which you could gone straight to the glowing sea. It's only left in because of a Nick side plot which was cut anyway...
I see what you're saying, but simply stumbling into Vergil would be extremely frustrating and unsatisfying. Giving breadcrumbs is necessary to make the storyline good. That said, they certainly could have used another means for a breadcrumb, but the real reason it's there is because the Nick-Kellogg story was obviously cut relatively late-too late to rewrite the main quest.
I believe the Kellog-Nick thing has something to do with an early version of far harbor. On the topic of Virgil, just finding the mission briefing would be enough to give the SS his rough location. On Kellog's corpse, terminal, house, ect. Apparently there are friendly Children of Atom in the glowing sea that can point you to him, but I've never explored it.
That also leads to so many plot holes. The story is high school level writing at best. So many holes and I wonder if they did a first draft and said yep... it's done
@reygunz3059 , if dogmeat brought you to Fort Hagen, only find kellogg's left heading towards his next target, a farm on the edge of the glowing sea, who made claims to a caravan trader (trashcan carla) . They had offered food and shelter to friendly, intelligent supermunt for the night. If you kill kellogg and save the farm from the institute attack. They will direct you towards the children of atom settlement who they trade a lot with. Otherwise, the trail goes cool, forcing you to search the glowing sea blind. ...Would be an easy fix.
@@stevenstocker9873 I think giving the player free reign to explore the glowing sea would be an interesting quest stage. On a blind run it could stand out and be a nice challenge, but fairly easy on repeat runs.
6:25 That workbench was added in a DLC, unless you meant a different workbench
Idea: longer prologue, start off strong with nate in a battle in power armor during the war. Fast forward to meeting Nora, the player starts to establish an emotional connection, maybe even let the player flirt with Nora a bit. Cut to Sean being born, and finally end with the initial fo4 sequence. Then remove power armor from the museum of freedom.
The last thing Fallout 4 needs is a LONGER prologue. There is nothing more discouraging from playing this game than the hour long intro sequence with almost nothing people care about after the very first play through
@thee8904 Fallout 3 has a long prologue, and that is excellent.
I think it would be cool if they had both spouses in the military and they meet on the battlefield fighting together
@@ErichZornerzfunnot everyone's cup of tea too.
@@ErichZornerzfunnot really
I have almost 1000 hours in Fallout 4 and just remembered when watching this video that I saw the ending cutscene exactly once. When I played through the game back in 2015. Ever since then I've never gotten interested enough in the whole plot to interact with it more than necessary.
An alternate start that skips the prologue and tutorials would be good, too. Even if it's just one option, like being the sole survivor of the attack on University Point where Kellog was obviously in charge of attacking. That would leave room for much more roleplay. You can track down Kellog for revenge if you want or stumble into the Institute from the path of one of the other factions, all without the time-sensitivity of a kidnapping trying to pull you away from general character storybuilding.
Usually these kinds of videos aren't my favorite and wasn't going to watch this video despite liking all of your other work. People, with the benefit of hindsight and infinite imagined development time often come up with outrageously challenging intricate ideas that just weren't and aren't practical to add to a game. But these all feel like they were very doable and I'm kind of surprised at how well you were able to round out some of the rough edges of the story here without enormous game or story reworks. Great job man, thanks for your well thought out video! Wish we'd have gotten a more satisfying resolution to the Kellogg stuff you identified, and the new tutorial you came up with is fantastic.
That's sort of where I try to take this series: simple changes of direction during development that would have taken close to the same amount of time and effort, or something that could have been accomplished with just a short extension in dev. it's easy to say "they should have done this" but unless you're playing within the bounds of what's already been set by the rest of the game, it's usually just not feasible.
Now I am more curious about what potential dlc faction endings for the main quest would look like. How the Mechanist/the Overboss take over the Commonwealth.
That prologue fix had me invested and it was just you narrating it, imagine the real thing
This is an amazing idea, so well thought-through.😍
I would for real love to see this as a mod for the game.
Regarding a peaceful ending for all factions; I wish that if you sided with the Institute you could replace key members of opposing leadership with synths, similar to replacing High Confessor Tektus in Far Harbor. Not only would it provide a peaceful ending without being unequivocally good, it would also help to provide justification towards the Institute’s evil method, as well as showing them as a much more deadly threat to humanity.
Really emphasises why they should just plop you into a wasteland and let the world tell the story, rather than trying to orchestrate a linear story path. Bethesda hands down cannot tell a good story, they've proven it time and time again. They can't decide if they want a non-linear RPG with story elements or a fully fledged single player adventure game. Their recent games suffer from an identity crisis.
Anyone else wish instead of having a synth son from father post game.
NORA isn't shot dead but shot with a tranquilizer. We think it's a bullet. There's what we thought was a silencer.
Father gives you the code to his terminal, and it is an Open Nora Cryo chamber.
Personally, I never felt rushed. When I do a playthough I treat fallout 4 realistically. Beat kellog find out the institute has my son so now I venture out into the wasteland and help the minutemen gather the largest force in the commonwealth and take on the institute.
The whole point of a Bethesda game is that the main quest is expected to be optional. In the main quest, you don’t know how long ago your son was kidnapped, or if he is even still alive. Also, you can make up your own backstory. The player should decide what kind of protagonist you want to be, instead of letting the devs do it for you.
I'm only half way through the video and that tutorial rewrite is music to my ears, it sounds so perfect it makes the actual one look even worse lol
Only detail I'd change is either make it start Thursday Oct 21st in the afternoon as the sole survivor comes back from work and make up something to make them take Friday off postponing all those things to Friday, or have the game still start on Friday Oct 22nd but have them leave work early.
The reason I'd change that is simply because all those tutorial things sound like a lot of things to do after coming back from work lol, unless the character left work early or took Friday off and all those things take place Friday 🤷♂️
I feel like the bigger issue here is how much all this stuff would cause the opening to drag out.
Starting new characters is already kind of a chore in the 'short' version we have.
So refreshing to see an objective take on the problems with Fallout 4; for the record, I would so love to see everything in this video implemented in a mod. I just can't make a mod of that scope or I would have already. That's another story...anyways, I love the objectivity and civility you maintained whilst adding just enough humor to keep the analysis engaging. Well done!
The worst thing about the F4 protagonist isn't that Bethesda took away the player's agency in defining their player character, it's that they then proceeded to not DO anything with it. Outside the main quest and some robots acknowledging your history, the established protagonist is left to be just as blank as, well, a actual blank slate protagonist would be, except the player isn't given the satisfaction of being able to make up their history on their own. It's the worst of both worlds.
The player never had any real agency in any bethesda game, every single one the player is told what their goal is or is the chosen one.
Yeah. I don’t mind this idea of SS being more Commander Shepherd: You can change SOME things but you’re still very pretty defined. This weird middle ground fails and annoys both sides.
But did you visit Greygarden? It is amazing it's really run but robots, juts robots. Also, I'm shocked that there are spoilers and even more shocked that its 9 years since I played F4 the first time, damn time goes fast.
I always believed that, if you went the Institute route and changed a lot of policies, that the SRB would go rogue and become some thing of a new antagonist in story.
RR and MM alliance makes way more sense then having them be separate entities. Honestly I would make Gunners the fourth faction instead of the RR.
I also had this idea that, due to the loss of their spouse and child, the SS would eventually turn darkside and become the Overboss of NW. Having a canon protag turn badguy would make for an interesting bit of lore. Hearing your version of the end game where you bury your loved ones and then march off fits very well with that idea :)
The Gunners should have been a more morally grey minutemen alternative.
And the RR just shouldn't have been a proper, major faction. Siding with them makes no goddamn sense. They don't have the manpower to stabilize the Commonwealth and the fact that they blew up the main method of Synth (re)production means that the oppressed minority they champion as their only real ideological motivation will certainly be almost completely extinct in 30 odd years.
0:59 You only need to get rid of her vision. The story would then unfold that you will get to bunker hill then good neibourg and last diamond city.
Im going to throw a pretty random comment out here because some may find it amusing...
I have played over 3000 hours on fallout 4...
...
...and ive never finished the main story...
All i can say is Adhd is one hell of a beast when it come to open world games 😅
Listening to your story about your prologue was more touching than the actual prologue
I feel like Nick is set up to be a series long companion, we’ve had some characters before but Nick is the only one I fully expect to be in Fallout 5.
That’s a better start to the game, than what we got. Good job.
It really wouldnt have taken much to put FO4 in the running for best fallout game. As you said mechanically it is already there. Granted it would probably have taken another 6 months of development but the framework was already there. Personally I would have moved Preston Garvey farther away from Sanctuary so the player had time to breathe and explore before finding the Yes Man route. I also would have loved to have more dialogue options with the Institute when you are getting setup as its leader. While you could view the Institute as evil, I prefer viewing them as scientists without competent management oversight. A few options to call them on their stupidity and set you up for moving the Institute on the right path or even the option to go full evil and talk about amping up human experimentation.
In what way is the framework there?
The game is a mess the skill system is horrible the factions suck, the guns are unrealistic.
@@Ma1q444 mechanically its the best Fallout game in pretty much every respect. Also if you want realistic guns, might I recommend cod
@@90kalos1 I mean I can say that for every game of course it’s technically the best fallout because it’s made on superior hardware.
It's the second best Fallout game in terms of ratings.
Behind FO3 and ahead of FNV.
In terms of financial success it's Number 1 with FO3 in second place and NV in third.
I feel like the pre-war tutorial idea is a good idea but I definitely think it should be skippable on future playthroughs
Someone needs to make a mod based on this..
i want an overhaul mod that makes fallout 4 have a good story without changing the entire game
I have watched all your faction and gameplay videos. Your changes are excellent and leave me seeing a whole lot of missed opportunities. Fallout 4 was my first fallout game and my first open world roll playing game so I didn’t notice this stuff at first but on tons of replays I really understand how your fixes would definitely improve the story. My least favorite faction is the RR and under the direction you took I would choose them ahead of most of the other options
thank you for your kind words and support.
It doesn't help that the RR is the only faction that you are absolutely forced to deal with. That could be handed off to the ladies in the Science Center which currently is only there to introduce an alternate to repair Liberty Prime.
Hey Grey how do you feel about the cut side quest “Synthetic Love” and companion that comes with it that can be add back in with mods? Would you keep it or ditch it? If you keep it how would it affect the ending you just proposed?
Personally I think they should have kept it in.
As much as i love fallout 4, the more i play it the more i see so many flaws and inconveniences that couldve been fixed so easily and wouldve improved the game so much. It sucks too because i always want to play it but when I do, i basically get to a point where i start disliking things or mechanics or small things and it makes me not want to play. It really sucks because I'll never forget my first playthrough, absolutely mind blowing and its been very hard to recreate that feeling again in newer playthroughs
Alot of the mechanical issues can be smoothed over with mods.
You're basically stuck with the absolutely braincell annihilating writing no matter what though. Pretending it's satire kinda helps a bit.
The opening would have worked better I think if the whole Vault survived, along with a child or two with every couple. Your immediate goals in game become surviving as a community. Over time you learn about the Institute and eventually find out that the Institute abducted the children of everyone in the Vault to work on a "Gen 4" synth which can grow and reproduce like actual humans. The Institute placed the new gen synth children back into the Vault and unfroze everyone as a way to test how well their new models grow and blend in. The actual children have aged more than 10 years since living in the Institute.
Just one question… why bethesda hasn’t hired you yet?
No for real, he could fix so many storylines and make them emotional and meaningful
Mama Murphy should die during the museum fight. You should find codsworth powered down. You can fix him but he loses his memory. Preston gravy should NOT give you settlement quests constantly until the end game
The factions themselves are the weakest aspect of the story so they’d all need to be changed - i haven’t watched your videos on them yet but now I’m interested. I do like the angle you’d play here of making the SS more sympathetic and more involved with their backstory and prior family. Maybe I’d actually feel something about the wife/husband and Shaun. The dialogue would also require more options and branching but this was the first time we got to see the pre war world properly in a non-hallucination and experience it firsthand through someone who lived it. We definitely should’ve spent more time there at the beginning and throwing the tutorial in there to extend it is a great idea. I do also wish we had more depth of connection with our companions. They do expand on companions in Starfield and they say a lot more and have more depth but there’s only 4 real ones compared to the good range we had in Fallout 4.
I think the intro sequence you made was a really good idea. I was feeling immersed just from the description
Imo there is no need to kill Mama Murphy. I usually just play Nate as someone who ignores her and considers her crazy (believing she overheard Nate's talk with Preston and guessed where he had come from). Like, you know, a normal person probably would treat a bag lady (which she resembles) in real life. Moreover, I play him as a lackadaisical father who really doesn't give two shoots about his son (making it easier to turn against him when the player finally meets the evil old man he has become) and while talking a good game is secretly relieved not to have to deal with raising an infant son all by himself. Hardly a stretch for someone who might side with the Institute after all or, even worse, the raiders of Nuka World.
The prolonged prolog sounds like it would be really boring for new players, and even worse for more experienced ones. Also, the prolog as we have it makes it easier to shrug off the tragedy of Nora's death enough to just move on to be the hero of the story (itself perhaps a coping mechanism to deal with the losses).
The self-awareness I assume anyway in my gameplay; allowing me to do whatever quests in whatever order I feel like. I don't need a game mechanic to help me do it. The game is just vague enough that I can do it on my head without really contradicting anything other than Nate's tough talk about finding his son (to me it's all just a tough guy act). Do like the idea of giving the dead spouse a proper burial though.
The Kellogg idea is definitely one I would have liked to see; especially as Nick is by far my favorite NPC let alone companion and I would genuinely be emotionally invested in not letting any harm come to him (especially as he got into that fix in the first place from helping me first). The multi-faction idea as well. One reason I almost always side with the Minutemen is so that only the Institute winds up needing to be destroyed; the Minutemen have no reason to attack (or be attacked) by the other two.
I do agree that Fallout 4 is a great game that still needs a few tweaks here and there to make it even better though.
I was excited when fallout 1 came out, but stopped playing the moment i found out there was a time limit.
Honestly I like most of the ideas, I only don’t like the idea maybe having mama Murphy die. I think mama Murphy as a character kinda funny. “Old woman who takes drugs and predicts the future”. I think I might’ve been better that she was unable to clearly see Shaun but knew that there was a place that could help the sole survivor find Shaun that was down south in Boston, but she couldn’t clearly see exactly what it was. I do think one of the survivors at the museum should’ve died to show clearly that the group has been having an extremely thought time. specifically i feel like an additional survivor should’ve been added who dies in the mission. I think maybe in the mission
Marcie dies before she has time to make her husband's life into a living hell or to be even more reviled than the constant settlement quests? I'm all in!
@@jimcalhoun361 haha but I think Preston “gravy” should be the one who dies. He’ll still get to ask the devil for help because another settlement needs your help I’ll mark it on your map
@@SaidNoGaming How about Jun offering help you kill the raiders (because he feels he has nothing else to live for) and ends up getting killed by the deathclaw shortly after realizing that killing all raiders-Gunners especially-is a viable life choice. Sets up a possible companion and then immediately kills him off.
@@jimcalhoun361 that’s seems like it would’ve been a cool thing, except for the whole “dreams crushed cause giant beast from hell said ‘I like ya cut g’”
Ha, maybe make Mama Murphy give a cryptic reply to help like "You need to find your Valentine, kid" and when the Sole Survivor says something like "Huh?"
Mama Murphy can be like "Look kid, I don't always get what the visions mean, I'm just tellin' ya this is what I'm seeing."
This is pure gold. Especially the prologue stuff.
Remove the Minutemen/Settlements, then the progression of the MSQ is actually not that bad personally. It's why I think the Minutemen/Settlement system was shoehorned into the game late in production. As it gets in the way of actually progressing the story, puts you on a long side track adventure as well, to a point that you go "Wait wasn't I supposed to be looking for Shaun?"
The game is so specifically designed for you to go from Sanctuary to Diamond City. As there are many events along the way on the roads between the two. They even have a magazine you can grab from the first rural house you run into on this path that gives you a waypoint to Diamond City, yet it's pointless because mammy Murphy tells you where it is already. As I said, it feels like the reason the game feels messed up in my opinion has everything to do with the Minutemen existing, Preston and his crew existing. If they were removed entirely from the game, the whole faction. I think the game would be a lot better. There would be no obvious moral choice faction as well.
I honestly like the story once you ignore the Mintuemen, the moment Preston asks me to be the General I refuse. Quest finished, no more dealing with Minutemen Nonsense. I move into Diamond City as it should of been intended.
To fix Murphy instead of Diamond City, she should have sent you to lexington next. She was there. That way, you can be justified in either finding starlight or just passing it by. Lead them to diamond city with bread crumbs. Leapfrog one location to the next one. Then, leave 2 choices at the new location, a right path, and a wrong path. Even if you take the wrong path, there are 2 clues there also. A right one and a wrong one. Plus, you can choose to explore another place in between the path.
And why is your spouce always have to die. Maybe he wounds her sometime. How much harder is it to find your son with a wounded wife? Kellogg is a sick enough monster to do that. And if she isn't dead, what if she is gone when you escape the pod? You saw her shot. Where did she go? Where is her body? Now you dont have 1 thing to search. You have 2 mysteries to solve.
And why does Kellogg have to have been in diamond city? Why couldn't he sometimes be in Bunker Hill? Or maybe Kellogg was in one of several other places. The slog. Hangman's alley. Then youcan'tt just jump the storyline to progress. You actually have to find Shawn.
By adding random generation at game start. How many possible different games can be played with the same eliments? Then, instead of a timer to a fixed point, you have a timer to find the next right clue. I think it would not only be more realistic but more fun and challenging.
Definitely good suggestions that I think would solve a lot of issues. Course abandoning the entire forcing you to be a married character with a kid storyline is the only way that I could be invested in the characters since those are both choices I could never make and can't empathize with.
I can never empathize with a soulless, dead eyed, mute that I have to play make believe to give them a backstory or motivation or personality.
You must have hated Commander Shepard or any predefined protagonist in games.
@@VaultArchive72so just because someone prefers to make their own character means that they hate predefined characters? I enjoyed the Luminary from Dragon Quest XI but that doesn’t mean I despise Arthur Morgan from Red Dead Redemption II.
Really liked the tutorial fix, and bonus for spending more time in the prologue. I like seeing how the world was before the end. Also like the idea the female may have been a JAG which would go nicely with a mod that makes the female survivor a veteran. It would make more sense since she knows about weapons, survival, PA training, etc. Yes Nate could have taught her these things, but I like the female veteran idea.
What a great list! The Nick Valentine voice being momentarily supplanted by Kellogg's was riveting. Stunned they just left it alone. Also, one is not born in a womb. Instead, cells differentiate and find their places as a fetus gestates..
There is just so much wrong with the main quest. Yeah, a longer intro would solve the immersion problem for sure. Could even include a day at the shooting range with Nate and Nora, so we can justify why a lawyer can use a gun reasonably competently. Mama Murphy herself isn't really all that egregious, as there is a lore reason for it. It's just lazy is all. Sturges being able to operate that teleporter while not being able to actually unlock a terminal with a terrible password is far more problematic. Also, they should probably address how it is that tinker tom is the "only one" that can decrypt the chip. As if the Brotherhood wouldn't also be capable of doing the same thing. What's worse is you have no direction to even go find the railroad to do this task, you just kind of have to stumble across the rumors of the RR and then go find them purely out of curiosity. I get the minutemen just being clueless though...Still couldn't Preston or Sturges have met people capable of dealing with the chip and just sent you their way? Maybe they send you to Scara at the science center in diamond city or something. I guess this could be a story reason to return to mama murphy to give her another dose to point you at the railroad. There's just a lot of things you're not told to do, that you kind of have to do, that you'd just never figure out normally. The Minutemen ending is one such example. It's kind of a weird nonsensical pattern of events. nobody or nothing tells you have to get yourself kicked out of the institute to push that story forward. Shaun's reaction toward you if you had used the minutemen to get in and refusing the join the institue doesn't make any real sense either. "waaaaaaaa! why won't you join me in destroying the world above ground!? fine! leave then! prepare your defenses! we fight at dawn!" like come on, none of this makes sense and is a very childish reaction from an old man approaching 70.
Honestly, just cut out the whole main story after getting frozen. we can keep the system failure, it makes no real difference anyway. You and your family get out, you go home find codsworth, and now you have a survival game where you have to build up sanctuary to a liveable state for shaun and your spouse. step one and two is to get supplies for the family after scrapping sanctuary and building up what you need. upon realizing you'll not have enough supplies to last more than a few days, you head out to concord to scrounge. Here you come across the raiders, and by extension the minutemen, the games first faction. after going through that you can bring them home to help guard the place. They need an HQ, and you need protection. might have to make readjustments here and there to make things fit from here, but it at least gives you a reason to even care about the minutemen. This could also tie into a proper build system tutorial from here. Does it make sense we just know how to make basic turrets from the start, or would it make more sense if preston and sturges teach you how first? Obviously the latter right? who's gonna know better how to build out proper structures? you the retired futuristic solider that may never have needed to learn this skill and lawyer that just thawed out after a 210 year nap, or the survivors that you're now in charge of that have been living above ground in this new hellscape their whole lives?. Just very obvious little things that would have made a whole lot more sense than what we got, you know? I could probably write out a whole lot more, as Bethesda really dropped the ball when it came to filling in plot issues and mechanical instruction, but I'm sure i'd hit some sort of character limit.
I 10000000% agree about kellog.
At the end of the memories quest i had more empaty towards kellog then i had with anyone in the whole game... rough childhood. A Loving mom. A drunken dad, and later a Rough life for a guy who just wanted a good life for his family.
He was not just a generic bad guy.
And then kellog speaks trough nick i was like holy shit! He is still there somewhere! Maybe i can get him out in another quest line later.
Play the whole game with nick as my companion. Maybe somewhere sometime kellog speaks to me again and tells me what to do to get him out.
At the end of the game, oke a quest line is not in it i guess. Come on kellog. at this point im happy with just one sentence like he did before.
Nothing.
Damn dude.
Wow, great content. Stumbled upon this channel looking for Fallout content & I must say you’re one of the best! Instantly subscribed lol.
*A Fallout NV fan hears that you think FO4 could have parity with their god and they shoot you in the face then and there*
- Average FNV fan interaction
That hypothetical story you made up was actually touching. Just hearing that it made me feel emotional, I request that Bethesda change the story to this as of right now. Great video.
Your suggestions are very good. The core problem of the story is the deliberate and hollow misdirection that creates a distorting false urgency. Your proposals to deal with that are good.
I think "getting to know" the sole survivor is missing the real problem of why I apparently need to be introduced to the character I created.
It's frustrating seeing people talk about "the sole survivor" and suggesting movie-like scenes to make them a more compelling character. They're not a supoosed to be a character at all, you literally MADE them!!
That opening would have fixed so many things. Also I think the story line problems can be addressed by table top running the encounters instead of just using a writers room. You get more creativity that way
Honestly fallout 4 story isn’t really what im necessarily looking at, and im sure as hell not going to play the older games cause the graphics are a lot worse, so im fine with a trashy story if the graphics are better, the movement speed is faster for sprinting and walking, gun bashing, a built in mod thing, and settlements
Good god that rewrite of the prologue to use the tutorial time as character building is beautiful.
Your suggestion for the intro to the game reminds me of how Fallout 3 was done in introducing core gameplay mechanics while connecting the player to their family/friends and the condition of things. I like it.
I think that idea of expanding the opening part in the pre-war sounds awesome!
I think an alliance between the Brotherhood and the Railroad/Minutemen would have been a viable thing to include if the Brotherhood was written with more depth. This Brotherhood is supposed to be a result of the Outcasts rejoining the Lyons chapter, but there's no internal strife between those opposing viewpoints. It's written like it's just the Outcasts.
It's hard to believe that, after all of the things the Brotherhood accomplished in Fallout 3, nobody seems to think that Elder Lyons had the right idea, especially since the Brotherhood chapters in the west had been spending decades getting butchered by the NCR.
There being this ideological divide would add a lot more depth and complexity to the Brotherhood's questline, and could allow for peace with the Railroad and Minutemen.
I would love to see 5 easy ways to improve side quests. I found this channel recently and I’ve been loving your videos.
I feel like the best way of getting on the main story, is by going to the memory den and going through the pod.
You get told by someone to go find nick specifically because of the fact he's a detective who specialises in finding people.
A lot better than just being said "go to diamond city, find something."
Fallout 4 stands as one of my favourites games, couldnt disagree more on the pre-vault tutorial stuff. I wouldnt mind more connection to Shaun, so i agree with him being older / more personable / maybe a short event of experiencing father/motherhood.
Kellog is insanely cool, yet its a chore to walk through his mind on any replay. If anything, a new game as Kellogg would be superior in itself, or even a companion in the end. I like the courser idea.
Since we dont have the usual post-game cutscenes, either the world needs to be more dynamic (actually show your chosen fashion changing the world) or have an obvious outline of whats going to happen. I want to know if siding with whoever i do, or sparing a named npc's life, or wiping out a settlement has some real effect on the future. Id even accept, maybe even prefer, if post ending we saw a slideshow and info, then whatever we do after that can just be non-canon to our playthrough. Literally anything that brings more depth would help.
Building a shed is genius. Maybe that Sgt is a friend of Nate or Nora and allows them to help with the power armor. Really great video Grey!
I'm a new subscriber, but your channel is great, I love the Fallout 4 content. From one vet to another, great job
Your alternate prologue sounds a lot better than what we got. The only down side is I know people criticized Fallout 3's prologue for being too long. The short length of Fallout 4's intro is probably an attempt to correct this.
I think they should have expanded on the minutemen. Give you a reason to join, that without help you would just die to the Commonwealth. Then that leads to finding Valentine. Not just forget your kid and woo hoo im a general.
Loved making the opening a longer tutorial system, there’s tons of fun mechanics I had to learn the hard way
Let me say that both a funeral for your spouse and addressing Kellogg in Nick's head are both in the fanfic I started writing a while back...
That Kellog suggestion is spot on. Honestly can't believe they never followed that up. I also remember the first time I heard Nick do the creepy voice and it was terrifying. So much missed opportunity there!
I love the ending idea, mainly because it would be an AMAZING way to set up the post-game, similar to how Red Dead Redemption does it. Not only does it offer closure on the soul survivors story, but the companians are there to remind you that you have a new life and after the cutscene you can continue playing:)
In regards to using the prologue to specifically show off the workshop mechanic. I also like the idea of one of the missions at the start but after the prologue being rebuilding your house in Sanctuary. Could be part of first finding Codsworth (his complaining about maintaining a home after the war), would show off the mechanics, would get you invested in the settlement mechanic right off the hop because of the emotional investment of losing your family home and putting it back together.
Also with the Sole Survivor burying their spouse and giving a few words about it, for me the speech that Naiwal does in his video is now in my headcanon. Matches so perfectly to it.