Fallout 4

The only reason I ever did farming in FO4 was because I think it was tied to settlement strength? Or maybe I am misremembering, but there was some equation that made some settlements less likely to get fucked up by raiders if you weren't around (besides defenses). Although that factory DLC let you basically automate item and resource production, so you could just have your settlements feed certain crops to your factory settlement and you could just produce so long as there were raw materials.

It at least gave you a reason to play the game after exhausting all the story/quest content

I’m not sure why the view of “deleting base building make game better” is popular. It’s not like housing deprived us of another 40 hours of story content

I doubt it. Starfield and Skyrim don't have way more. That sounds like a post-hoc excuse from them. Skyrim already had configurable real estate and Starfield went on to have customizable ships. They definitely overdid the system for what they used it for, but it served as a decent platform for mods to make more interesting gameplay. You could say the same for crafting or any other system in Skyrim too.

Adhesive isn't even so bad that you need to farm it. There's ample wonderglue and duct tape in the wasteland. The settlement system is a loop. The more you try to use it the more you need to use it.

For anyone considering a new play through, if you want to go big on mods there are some interesting collections. The best are probably Sim Settlements and London.

Regime said:

They cut way back on story and RPG elements in Fallout 4.

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It did, but I don't think it is a simple "settlement system is why those were cutback". Did that take some of the development focus? Sure, but not so much that it would equate to more RPG and story. If anything, the failed multiplayer development (which later was implemented in FO76) would have eaten up more development focus

Regime said:

There has been substantial interviews with former employees who did say that the building system took precedent during production.


Let's hope ES6 will be worth a shit. Fallout 5 won't be out until 2033.

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The main lore guy behind a lot of Elder Scrolls quit recently because he claimed to be told he was going to be the lead designer years ago but now that they started work on the game they went with somebody else. It was also mentioned that the more Todd Howard was involved with the production process the better things were. And unfortunately Todd is super busy with other projects now.

As for settlements, on PC at least, if you turn on god mode while in edit mode it doesn't take any resources. You still have to have the items in your inventory but you can build as much as you want. There are also 'delete everything' mods. Last play through I completely cleared out Sanctuary and built a wall around all of it and a multi story concrete bunker to store all my power armor suits. Spawning in a bunch of Deathclaws to get mowed down by my base defenses was a bit entertaining. Vanilla base building does suck donkey dick though.

yeah, I've stated I like the settlement system quite a bit. it was one of the best in ANY base/settlement building game for years, despite FO 4 not obviously even being a survival base builder.
but it also is..
it lines right up with TES games as being immersive life sims. immersion and simulation are core parts of Bethesda games. particularly TES. and the TESified Fo 3/4.
FO4's survival mode, and settlement building makes perfect sense to immerse you in your Survivor waking up and going out into the world in first person. Surviving, salvaging, and collecting allies to rebuild a civilization. makes even more sense in Fallout. like, you aren't going to build a settlement in Skyrim. towns, etc already exist. its not a wilderness.

Fo3 had a good main story. Fo4 did not. The thing is, its just bad narrative choices, not "x took away from dev time". the content of the main story is fine for the most part. sure, the various endings could be better then all just "press x to blow up y".
but the main issue was the actual script. they put too much weight on the Player being attached to their missing child. And they idk, assumed players would be too stupid to notice there was no indication on the date they were taken. I for one, was completely checked out on the main story, as I didn't believe for a second that the child was still a child or out there. The synth child fakeout probably should have happened right away to give you a reason to THINK it was actually your child.

I do think the faction system could have been flushed out better. yes babysitting the minutemen was dumb.

I think fo3 versus fo4 special is a wash. each has merits.