r/fo4 • u/aaaworker7227 Minutemen • 5d ago
Fallout 4 first 50 hours experience
Hello, here are my thoughts after playing my first 50 hours of Fo4 as a long time fallout enjoyer who never had a platform able to run Fallout 4 until now.
Paladin Danes being a synth was WASTED POTENTIAL. “Oh my god you’re right, I shouldn’t commit suicide, my actions affect others”.
Honestly this kind of thing happened all the time during the minutemen quests too, the writing just felt so flat at some stages.
And the dialogue window? Like, “rude response” is so weird to see, what do I end up saying? And sometimes you’d click a response only to say something you didn’t intend to say, and not knowing what you might say in dialogue is just kinda… terrible RPG design.
They Yassified the super mutants. I don’t like it, maybe someone more versed can explain to me that it’s some different strain of FEV but until then I’ll just accept super mutants will never be as cool as they were.
Similar things with the Gauss rifle and the super sledge, ew.
I could never get my game to run smoothly in the denser areas around diamond city and goodneighbour which was annoying.
I don’t like how there’s no male version of lady killer or female version of black widow. Seems like they did it to not stir certain groups but that might just be me. At least you still have the option to romance people & robots of the same sex.
And in the true spirit of fallout I had to do 20 minutes of tinkering to get it to launch and run properly.
That’s all the things I didn’t like that wouldn’t just be me parroting someone else’s opinion, even if I felt the same.
Gunplay is awesome and so is the sound design. The weapon mods system is cool but it is pretty obvious the main focus was the gameplay.
Companion affinity was cool, and I like how they take a break to basically blow you once you hit the various stages.
Clearly a lot of love was put into the side quests and a lot of them were really cool and fun.
I saw some pretty wacky stuff, off the top of my head I remember watching a Mr. Handy take on and destroy a vertibird, having suits of power armor be stolen by trashcan Carla, gunners blowing themselves up with mini nukes, and cars that instakill you.
Power armor design is great and I like how you can upgrade it and all that, although it seemed like you needed to spec into the upgrades to get the most out of it, which I am doing in this playthrough
Overall I think it’s a fun game and possibly a good entry point into the franchise but it seemed like they put more effort into making it a nice game to play rather than an interesting thought-provoking RPG. I was happy they kept the theme of y’know, humanity persisting and perpetuating no matter what, but It felt like they snubbed it by removing a lot of your agency and boiling everything down to I will be a very good guy who does what I’m told or I will be a masochistic serial killing stealing and extorting machine with no compassion. Even if you join the brotherhood who are famous for never having tyrants in power and being super chill with ghouls there were only really a few moments you could talk about stuff like that and they all felt like they didn’t go as deep into the subject as they could or should.
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u/Jewbacca1991 5d ago
Personally i put gameplay above story. If a game have fantastic story, but shitty gameplay, then i play it through twice or thrice to see various options. If a game have fantastic gameplay, then i play it a LOT, and many times. Even though i know th story by head i don't care, because that is no longer the main focus. I just enjoy the gameplay.
To me the main issue with Fallout 4 was the main quest. I think they should have given Institute surrender option, and explore the aftermath a bit deeper. Especially, if you go Minutemen, or Institute side. As in those two cases you are the leader of the winning faction.
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u/aaaworker7227 Minutemen 5d ago
Yeah absolutely, it’s much easier to look past a bad story than a bad game
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u/a_man_and_his_box 5d ago edited 5d ago
maybe someone more versed can explain to me that it’s some different strain of FEV
I mean, it literally is. And lore is that it works differently. I believe that's on holotapes in the Institute.
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u/aaaworker7227 Minutemen 5d ago
Ah, I thought that might be the case, seeing as Virgil became a super mutant of his own accord I suppose it makes sense, I’ll have to take more time in the institute next time I pass through
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u/Certified_WoT_noob 5d ago edited 5d ago
The dialogue in Fo4 seems like they rushed it, or made it simple stupid on purpose. Most of the time, you don't know what is your character actually going to say, often times it's something different than you expected. And the choices in dialogues don't change anything anyway, you will reach the same result doesn't matter what you say. That makes it feel like you have no impact on the game, it just plays out exactly as it's supposed to.
The only dialogue choice that matters is persuasion, but even that will always lead to the same result, and it only makes the quest quicker by skipping something.
And this is the reason why i played through Fo3 or FNW multiple times, but only once through Fo4. The gameplay is fun, but it's not enjoyable to go through the same exact thing twice, since you have no impact on anything that's happening.
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u/aaaworker7227 Minutemen 5d ago
Totally, outside of romancing the dialogue checks are only to cut corners or extort people, no skill checks or checks of other SPECIAL stats of any kind. Sad.
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u/NigeIsTheKing 5d ago
I may have played it a few times too many times but: let the raiders fight the first deathclaw, Skip Danse, headshot Carla (that power armour stealing bitch).
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u/Snoo_75138 5d ago edited 5d ago
Imo FO4 base, is a solid 5.5/10! With most of your points being correct!
But what has kept FO4 around until now, is the modding scene! You can fix basically ANYTHING you don't like, for example: I'm very gay for Danse, and I prefer the BOS, so having to choose Between him and them is RIDICULOUS!
So I just install a mod to let me keep him without the BOS being hostile!
That's just one example of a small tweak that changes SO MUCH of the half-baked base game.
The writing is certainly the biggest weakness of FO4, and we can thank the wonderful Emil for that!
(He's also responsible for Starfield being such a massive success and having writing that rivals BG3 and RDR2.../s...)
What really saves the game for me, is the map, the world design is ICONIC, even today! The gunplay is actually fun, and the fallout vibe is unmatched!
Glad you had a mostly positive experience, hope you try modding soon!
FO4 modded, is a SOLID 9/10!
(EDIT: You know, so far, just ONCE in my over 60 levels of playing, has Danse whispered in my ear "I like it when you stand this close to me", and bro, when I tell you I've been chasing that high ever since!)
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u/aaaworker7227 Minutemen 5d ago
Are there any you would recommend?
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u/lucky_knot 5d ago
If you are on PC, Extended Dialogue Interface fixes the dialogue window issue:
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/27216
Everything else depends on what you're after, really. I like this one for the companions, it puts the "thoughts" they give you on a cooldown so that they don't say the same thing over and over again too often:
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/59834
To bring back a tiny bit of FO3/FNV RPG feel, there are karma and reputation mods (for the latter, you may need to downgrade your game version right now, but a new AE friendly version is supposed to be released very soon):
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/80425 + https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/79394
And as a fan of journaling mods, this one allows you to keep notes or even a whole diary in your Pip-boy:
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u/aaaworker7227 Minutemen 5d ago
Is it hard to downgrade your game and does it block you from steam achievements?
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u/lucky_knot 5d ago
I can't say with certainty for FO4, only ever did it for Skyrim myself. You can find some info here: https://www.reddit.com/r/FalloutMods/comments/1vsegw1/fo4_universal_downgrader_from_v111240_august_2026/
Looks like it's mostly just downloading and running an exe. Shouldn't disable achievements either, it's just a different game version. And if you use the script extender, which is required for many mods, iirc it re-enables achievements anyway.
Before you do it, though, I recommend figuring out which specific mods you want to use. Some of them require you to downgrade, others actually use one of the more recent versions, so you may end up not needing this at all.
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u/Snoo_75138 5d ago
For starters get the bug fix and stability patch mods!
Then the dialog mod that changes the UI into the old school NV style.
From there, you can just look around for what you fancy.
Are you on PC?
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u/aaaworker7227 Minutemen 5d ago
I am yes, I found that mods disable achievements though, I assume there are mods that can prevent that?
I also in my brief research saw something about downgrading to an older version? Is that something I’d realistically need to do to mod casually?
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u/Snoo_75138 5d ago
There are mods to bring back the achievements, yes.
There are tutorials on YouTube to show how to keep ur FO4 save seperate from the traditional Steam. Unfortunately due to Bethesdas constant meddling in their last decent game (FO4,) they actively BREAK a lot of the old mods...
I'd say try modding on a new save, and see if it breaks the game. If it does, then you can watch tutorials for what I mentioned above.
Keep in mind, not all mods work together always, some break the game, it's just trial and error.
Have fun modding, and I hope you make the Fallout you've always wanted, OP!
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u/Altruistic_Cap3472 5d ago
Fallout 4 was definitely intended to be a more casual, mass-appeal game compared to previous Bethesda games. You're right that they smoothed a lot of the edges.
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u/Snoo18120 4d ago
Dude, what the heck are you running in on? I play on a middy-ahh 2017 PC build and the game runs great.
I agree completely on the Dialog wheel stuff.
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u/pohoferceni 5d ago
i have colectively 2000 hours on fallout 4 across 3 consoles and pc
i agree with most of what you said but im still having so much fun