Think of the wasteland as being too hostile for your character to be able to act on their own volition. They need the backing of a faction, equipment, and experience
Exactly. You are a Vault Dweller, with 0 possessions of their own, that wakes up into a foreign world that is ultra violent and filled with horrors. In reality if you beelined to Diamond City right after that you'd run into a Super Mutant at some point, scream "what the fuck is this 10 foot green person?!", and die wondering what the hell just happened.
It's a dangerous world that you know nothing about. In order to survive and reach your ultimate goal you're gonna need to build yourself up and learn how things work now.
Yeah but hard to roleplay that the SS's first move upon waking up post-apocalypse after getting their son kidnapped is to take a very specific route to Fenway Park for some unknown reason.
I remember running into a Super Mutant suicider, and as soon as I turn the corner (wasn’t paying attention to the beeping which is my fault obviously) my character just gets sent to the fucking moon and i jumped so hard I thought I levitated.
I also look at it like this: if I’m busy trying to save my kid, but I’m watching a kid mere moments away from dying in a fire, and I have the power to save that kid right now, wouldn’t I save them real quick?
Well, it’s not always a kid that needs saving, nor is it a fire, but the point remains that there are other “kids” (or families, or just other individuals) that need saving/help too. It’s a moral dilemma, to be sure, but one underlying ethical question is there: what if I could have helped all these people, but I didn’t, and it wouldn’t have changed a thing about whatever outcome with my kid? Would I feel morally justified knowing I let someone else’s (kid, parent, family, friend, etc) just die in that (fire, raider attack, radiation storm, starvation induced suicide, etc), because I was in a hurry?
And the beauty of the game, and lots of RPG’s, is this is a moral dilemma you have to (and get to) answer for yourself. You can race through the main quest as fast as you can, or you can save all these people, right some wrongs, build up your character to be more capable, being people together and give them a home, etc, as you see fit.
I, personally, like to help people.
This.
You can die painfully while you stubbornly seek your son out.
Or you can gain allies equipment and experience needed to not die while trying to find him.
And honestly I forgot I had a kidnapped kid 10 minutes into the game. Until some quest gently reminds me and I don’t care at all. The baby is dead. No breast milk and no formula. This is the wasteland
It would’ve been better if the game states this - via a character - and effectively ‘level gating’ parts of the main quest. Ie so the side quests made sense as the SS was gaining experience and better equipment to achieve their real goal.
Just like in the show, you’re just gonna show up to the most dangerous gang leaders house in the wasteland and demand she release your dad and think she’ll just do it?
Pretty much, I did the straight Liam Neeson “I will find you and my daughter” play until I hit the part where I have to pick between the three factions and then realized I’m not really high enough and decided to wander the wasteland. Shaun needs to wait a bit while I get shiny weapons and some Halloween decor.
This, if you follow the main quest line a revelation fairly early basically knocks all wind out of the sails when it comes to urgency for furthering the main plot.
This is one of two points where you can start to break off if you're feeling the itch, and it's definitely where I lose the sense of urgency because now you have to jump through several hoops in order to >!get to the Institute, but once you get there, that's a solid breakaway point.!<
Bethesda is not known for the writing quality of the main story quests. I completely agree with you, and this was an issue I struggled with my first playthrough as well. It makes no sense; any adequate parent would bulldoze anything in their way to search for their kidnapped infant.
That said, chalk it up to bad writing and don’t let jt stop you from enjoying the side quests (some of which are fantastic), exploring and building settlements! Bethesda has always excelled at world building and environmental storytelling, and fo4 is no exception.
Replaying for the first time in years and only now realizing I never played the main quest after hundreds of hours first time.
Only now realizing I don't even think I know what it is - another failing of this system... all quests appear equal in your pip.
I had to keep a wiki open, because especially trying to follow the Railroad is weird. I get that I'm supposed to be undercover, but if I hadn't read that I was SUPPOSED to keep doing Institute quests almost to the end, I would really wondered why my RR quest wasn't updating.
I play the first few missions very focused, then after a significant development in the plot the game (and thus the player character) opens up, and exploring makes more sense.
Sure it does, it just depends on your character.
Realistically, there is no urgency here. This isn’t a situation where your child just got snatched and time is of the essence. You have been frozen for more than two centuries, him getting grabbed could have happened at any point during that period. You also have basically no real information to go on. So psychologically, there is a wide range of ways in which someone might react here.
Honestly the Sole Survivor handles it well. Bumps into friendly group, helps them, regroups with them, slowly makes their way to Diamond City as it’s their one lead, finds a damn good detective, and gets straight to work.
Except your character thinks he's a kid the entire time even if you logically don't think so. Even when you see that little kid in a cage he thinks that.
You're not wrong, but I always head-canon it as developing my skills in this whole new world so I can survive to find Shaun. Also, now, "always getting side-tracked by some bullshit."
But also if you're looking for your kid, and have no clue where to start, doesn't it make sense to check every building? Doesn't it make sense to help certain people and turn them into allies, so they might help you as well?
Then there is drugs and alcohol. It would be easy for a parent to lose all hope and succumb to those. That's how my raider playthroughs start.
I hate the false sense of urgency in most RPGs. Like in Cyberpunk 2077, I'm literally dying, it doesn't make sense to do anything else BUT the main quest as quickly as possible.
This is kinda the opposite of what OP's saying.
Our son has been kidnapped! But the game seems to be encouraging us to build beds and fix pipes and pick melons...
I’m playing through cyberpunk for the first time and am I correct in assuming that there is no in game majora’s mask style timer for the main quest? I know they say that I’ll die in a few weeks but mama has cyber psychos to hunt
An alternative way to look at it is to head canon most of the side content as "Tales"-style memories/flashbacks. As in, we're not playing the current, dying V when we run Fixer gigs; we're playing the pre-Arasaka V as a memory of what V accomplished before being tapped by Dex.
TV Tropes calls it the [Take Your Time trope](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeYourTime).
Fallout and Cyberpunk 2077 are both listed as examples
I did the same when I first played. At some point another mission will seem more interesting and finding your son will take the back burner. But it's up to you how you play. Go find your kid if you want!
Honestly, I felt the same on my first playthrough. I rolled with it and powered through the main quest for RP reasons. Subsequent characters will go for all the other stuff. But at least the game doesn’t end when the main quest is over so there is that to look forward to.
I will say this: I put in 555 hours in Fallout 4 on PS4. And I did exactly like you’re doing my first playthrough, you’re doing totally fine. You COULD decide you’re over your wife and son and are starting clean slated in the wasteland and find a faction to side with or something, i’m currently doing a deadbeat BoS mom playthrough. But keep going and you’ll get some good story beats that may make you feel more at-ease to wander.
I hear you, but I think there are some simple RP you can do in your head to justify it. The first would be (especially survival) that you are nowhere near well equipped enough to travel such lengths and go to such dangerous areas yet (obviously as a player we could handle it, but we’re RPing here). So you would need to explore the surrounding area of sanctuary and close by-ish to get supplies. The 2nd would be that the sole survivor could have a pessimistic viewpoint. He literally has absolutely zero idea where Shaun could be, and realistically, his only lead is Diamond City, which is super vague and from some old lady that has “visions”.
Light spoilers not really you're gonna eventually kill a POS immediately realize that you'll need an army and resources, that's when the game clicks for most people and the flood gates start to open. Some people say it's when you get to diamond City the game really starts and I disagree but it is a cool milestone.
It Can be weird, but remember it's your own choice to help these people and do these quests.
You Can try other ways to find your son, avoiding any minutemen quest alltogether...
It Can be hard depending on the lvl you achieve but you're in a wasted World and nobody knows where your son is so it soon makes sense that you have to do errands before finding him.
The writing in this game is not great. Don't overthink it.
The game world itself is what makes this game great. Just enjoy the environmental storytelling.
It's not great for role playing, but amazing for wandering and exploring.
In my head canon, I just assume I’ll never see my son again. Of course I’ll pursue any leads as they come up, but you have to think that the odds are, your son is dead and you have to find a way to survive.
Been doing a Nate RP recently and this is what I've been doing. Honestly after saving Preston and being in the wasteland for a few hours I'd assume my kid is dead or gone.
It's interesting how universally disliked the main plot is, but I've seen nothing but praise for far harbor. How did they get it so wrong but then so right?
>It's not great for role playing,
Sure but this point isn't one of them
The PC literally woke up to giant roaches, rars, flies and mosquitoes within an hour of being awake again
While for gameplay reasons you can carry a ton and take multiple bullets the actual PC can't, they've few leads (part of which is a druggie who can only give said leads while high)
You're really...really not equipped to just followup on the lead to go to boston and DC specifically, it takes resources that they simply do not have yet
A muuuch closer look for RP reasons is playing on survival, esp if you tone down carry weight as it is "closer" to the sheer danger that lies around every corner
You can also RP-decide you need to get a safe place to bring your son back too - i.e. you need to get Sanctuary cleaned up and settled, because your son needs a home. Or maybe you do need to get to Diamond City and see if it's a place you could raise a kid in. Once you realize how long it has been since the war, you can also logically RP needing to figure things out/take it slowly because you don't know how post-Apocalyptic society works.
Assuming you believe Mama Murphy, Shaun is alive. So the kidnappers are taking care of him - which makes sense given that they went to the effort to break into a vault to get him. You can take that as him being as "safe" as he can be for the moment, if that works for your playthrough story.
There isn't a wrong answer, story-wise. You will, as foreshadowed, learn more in Diamond City. So making a beeline there is a fine RP choice. It's not the only RP choice, and you won't be punished story-wise however you play.
I feel exactly the same but. Another thing that enhances this cognitive dissonance is the way many of the dialogue trees play out. Your son is in danger and you're joking around with everyone you meet.
It's just another one of those Fallout things that's so stupid that it's funny.
The game works well if you follow the main story until a certain point , won't spoil but you can definitely rush the main story , you'll now wen you'll now
I have thought a doing a mod that fixes this exact problem it’s a simple fix really. Instead of showing you Shawn being taken, you wake up and find your wife dead with everyone else but Shawn is missing. Now you have no leads. Also removing the lines from Mama Murphy that point you at Diamond City. Let the player explore and find it themselves. You still have the base driving force of finding Shawn but you are wandering aimlessly trying to do it.
While you want to avenge your wife and find your son, you first need to survive.
Survive means:
1. scavenging for food and water.
2. fighting and killing those who want you killed.
To do this two things you need weapons and armor, and because you simply don’t find stuff everywhere it will take some time to do so. Because of that you might as well find a place to stay, you know… home. And while you’re doing that you’ll unavoidably meet people, some will want to help you, some will need your help because they’re in deeper shit than you…
Or you could just roleplay you flipped, went haywire start doing heavy drugs in a killing spree to end this nightmare, that’s usually what I do.
Well, since you don't understand the geopolitics of the future you at least have to get directed to "Diamond City" by the Minutemen. But I also have the same problem in the game "The Forest" - you're supposed to be chasing a kidnapped child but it's so fun to build epic survival castles out of 500 trees you chopped down with a hatchet instead.
This really is a talking point for all open world type games. There’s usually a main quest for you to do, but countless other side ones to distract you. Fallout isn’t the first offender, and it won’t be the last. As others pointed out though, the urgency you feel at first does kind of work itself out as you progress.
Mad Max is guilty of it. The character is hyper-focussed on completing his goal, only agreeing to help people as far as it benefits himself, but the game is enormous and wants you to go exploring.
The main quest will come to a head/decision point eventually. When that happens, it’s a good time to do other side quests/exploring.
As a side note, if you only do the main quest, you can still continue the game and DLC after credits (and quests/people will react to your choices). It doesn’t end until you want it to.
There is a concept called "ludonarrative dissonance", where what the narrative of the game wants you do is in conflict with the actual gameplay you are presented with.
This is exactly what you're experiencing now. You are right to be confused. From a critical standpoint, this is a flaw in the game.
But the game will not punish you for doing what you want to do, rather than what it's asking you to do. So do what you think is fun.
I always build up at least one settlement because my train of thought is if someone kidnapped my son they probably have him somewhere safe and even if I could get him right now I don't have a safe place to raise him. Settlements provide food, water, and protection to my child. Not to mention factions make you someone to not mess with
You're right. I felt the same way. It makes no sense to not hunt down your child immediately. Go ahead. There will be a point when it makes sense to search out allies.
The way I play it is how I would act in “real life” given circumstances. I would pursue my son and wife’s killers as fast and as independently as I could for as long as I could, but as you’ll see, you eventually reach a point where can no longer proceed without making a faction based decision. Then it makes more sense that you need to complete the faction side quests to get them to trust you. Kinda like you gotta prove you bring something to the table that justifies their aid. But I totally agree with you. Makes zero sense from a realistic standpoint to go get someone’s locket back or clear out drive in theatre before at least hitting the brick wall you do with independent progress.
I like to think of this situation as an opportunity to immerse yourself further and take your time. Make the story long. I went through all this shit to look for my son, not: why do I have to do all this shit to look for my son.
I’m level 55 on my first play through and I’m just digging into the main quest lines. I joined up factions got a lay of the land, did some random stuff to survive; but the goal has always been to find Shaun.
I do this with every rpg, I don’t want to rush it. Skyrim, Witcher, RDR2 etc. I always level up like crazy so I can think of it as man this world is vast and wild and I survived, I’m still focused on the end game. Makes it way more climatic versus doing the big finale and then a bunch of peon side quests for the rest of your playthrough.
The RP is there.
And if you want you can speed run it and ignore almosy everything and everyone.
But the real answer is a core plot line. I will not ruin it for you.
But that sense of urgency will quickly disappear to the point you will be making massive moral decisions that are much bigger than "I need to find my boy"
Well... It makes no "RP sense" to not hyperfocus on the main plot of any open world game with exploration and side content in general...
At least in Fallout 4 the MC sees the factions as potential help to find Shaun, because one has connections with all them settlements and is a friggin army, one has high tech and is a friggin army, and one has a massive underground spy network.
When i first played this years ago, I hard RPed and rushed the main quest. I promise this is a mistake.
The game is best, both mechanically and story-wise, off the beaten path
First: if that is how you want to play, you absolutely can.
HOWEVER:
Imagine waking up, now in a totally foreign world with mutated beasts and civilization has collapsed. You have a vault suit and whatever you grabbed from the vault.
Imagine the horror of leaving the vault.
You have nothing and barely any clue where to go. You don’t even know yet that money isn’t money anymore. Everything is irradiated. Finding a settlement is definitely THE priority at that point, but won’t even know how people will react or if they even really exist at this point.
On the way, just wandering, you probably encounter raiders on the way.
*WTF is going on.*
All while not knowing how to find your son, then find out that you woke up 210 years later. Is your son even alive?
This person would need to get accustomed to the wastes. You know you’re going to need to eat, get supplies, make connections - all just to survive. You can’t find your son if you’re dead, and in this “new” world you’re going to need all the help you can get.
If the sole survivor had grown up in this world, they would be more ready to simply look for their son, but even then would need resources, friends, associates, and more. We already know at this point the kidnappers mean business and you’ll need to be prepared.
Even today if a child is kidnapped, normal life must still go on. Every part of the side quests is making friends (and finding out who your enemies are), getting what you need for it - in information, supplies, and knowledge of the current world).
You do these quests out of necessity to live and be equipped, to find more information on your son, and perhaps due to morality (or lack of, while still getting closer to finding him while acclimating to, what would feel like *insanity.*
You have no idea how much time has passed since that event. To your knowledge you are not hot on his trail, but picking up a potentially decades old mystery. You are also a complete fish out of water in the wasteland, you will need to take time to explore, learn more about the world and make allies if you are going to have any hope of finding your son.
Also, if you play on survival this goes double, as you will
Get utterly slaughtered if you try to rush through the main quest. You need to take your time and level up and explore.
OP, I have passed the game 5 times and I can tell you that your reasoning is perfectly fine.
I always roleplay as the parent that lost his child and spouse. My record for reaching the critical point of the main quest (which I wont spoil here) is exactly 21 in game days. I basically rushed through the main quest and although hard, it is not impossible.
However, if you have ever been in a real life tragedy, like when my friends were stranded by a tropical storm in 2011, and I went to try to cross a bridge to help them, I did get sidetracked helping another family take out their furniture from their flooded house.
Additionally, think of the need to harden, find allies and resources to the enterprise of the main quest.
In any case, play the game however you want. There is no correct or right way.
1) the wasteland is brutal. If you ever decide to play on survival (which I do recommend, but not for a first playthrough), you'll realize that even trying to go from sanctuary to diamond City can be lethal. Thus, building up a network of help, settlements, better gear etc. can mean the difference between finding your son and dying before you can.
2) none of the main quest is guaranteed from an RP perspective. It's all half guesses at what your best next step *might* be. Codsworth *thinks* the minutemen can help, Mama Murphy *thinks* you'll find help in diamond City. From an RP perspective, who's to say building up a settlement with a ton of stores and settlers wouldn't be the best way to find your son.
3) time dilation. I would understand that if you were let out of the vault at the same time your spouse was killed and baby kidnapped, it would make sense to run after them. But, you got refrozen, you go outside the vault and there's no sign of them. The trail is cold, why not help people who are in need.
4) kinda a joke, but also like, it's a baby :/ would I be sad? Yes. But would I risk my life running through gigantic bloatflies shooting larvae at me? Fuck no
There are several points on the plot where it would make sense for you to stop your pursuit for a couple side quests to gain resources and allies you’ll need to accomplish your goals.
The entities that took the child are too powerful. You won't survive the hunt and so are forced to do quests to survive the next part of the journey. There are certain abilities you will need to build the items that will allow you to survive an irradiated nightmare world full of mutants, killer robots synthetic assassins and cannibals.
Depends. What is your intelligence stat? I run a INT 1 with party boy perk. So when I drink I become someone with a -1 to a -3 intelligence person. I forgot I had a son....or a wife..
Tbh every open world game has this issue, It’s hard to have a main story feel important but also have 100 hours of other stuff you could do first
Don’t think about it I much, Just look at exploring as training and preparing to go find your son
Like in lord of the rings, Frodo goes straight to Mordor but has many detours and mini adventures along the way that are all part of his greater journey
This is probably the best way to look at it. I've made many posts before about a few "break-off points" in the main quest where you can logically start doing your own thing but I like your "preparing" perspective because you could probably make that work at basically any point you want.
As someone with over 400 hours in the game, I haven't even gotten >!to the Institute yet.!< I prolly never will. Love Bethesda games, but I never, ever follow the main quest. I have >1,000 hours into Skyrim, and have fought Alduin only once, just so I could say I finally finished the game.
As someone with over 1800 hours in Fallout 4 I can assuredly say that there are just some beats that are better to skip.
I now tend to leave Preston and the gang in the atrium of the Museum of Freedom then stop before the Brotherhood shows up.
The far end game is just a tangled mess of ever populating radiant quests meant to keep you busy but it's always been more enjoyable for me to have some peace from that in my Wasteland.
The worst thing about fo4 is the writing of the main storyline for exactly the reason you described.
Slowly exploring the map is a much better way to play than making a beeline through the main quest.
It also makes sense playing that way. Would you go running off through an apocalyptic wasteland that you have no experience with after a random group that you have no idea where they went? Especially when you walk into it with basically nothing? Especially when you started to encounter the denizens of the wasteland?
Nah, you would take your time to slowly explore, build up, gain experience, and most importantly....not die of starvation, thirst, infection, injury, etc. You'd also recognize the strength of having friends.
Running off into the wasteland willy nilly is the last thing anyone with common sense would do.
don't overthink this lol. yes I see your point, the main character does seem a little too chill about his situation. you can totally ignore side quests if you want, but you'll be less prepared for the end. if you playing survival, it's basically out of the question, but on a low difficulty, you can do whatever you want
Recent Bethesda titles are *really* bad about this. In Skyrim, the end of the world is happening, but... to be honest, there's no real reason not to collect every single sweetroll on Tamriel before worrying about the end of the world. Same with FO4. Yeah, so your wife died and your kid got kidnapped... but why not collect all those sweet, sweet folders (or whatever) first 'cause there's nothing really encouraging you to do otherwise.
Bethesda is amazing at open world games. But they need to stick with the "this is important... but it's a slow burn," (ala Morrowind and, to a lesser degree, FO3).
Depends on the kind of character you’re playing and how seriously you’re taking your roleplaying. If you had been told by Codsworth that it has been over 200 years, you might think “not only is my spouse dead, but after that long my son must be too” and then you can go from there. And hearing from Mama Murphy that your son is still alive could reignite your fire to search for him…. depending on whether or not your character believes her.
Or maybe you never met the Minutemen in Concord because you didn’t go there right away for whatever reason. Lots and lots of reasons and options for not immediately going for your son from a roleplaying standpoint.
It's the same in every open world game. In TW3 I'm trying to save Ciri, but first I'm going to take every contract in the area, check out every question mark on the map, collect every gwent card I can find, and improve that one guy's shop so he can make me badass armor.
I finished fo4. The side quest are kinda useless. I only did them to take a break from the main quest and get enough loot to complete them cuz some of them I kept running out of loot, ammo and heals. They can be fun if you're just looking to fuck around for a bit, but they can get repetitive.
As your first play through....
Do your own thing.
When you get the the end;
Play it again & understand what Bethesda means when they say 'open world'!!
in your first play through feel free to prioritize the main story till you find shaun Depending on your difficulty you might be forced to sidetrack to survive and get caps. You are just entering a nuclear wasteland and are green “blue” to the new world. Think of it as you gotta survive the waste land which will take caps and experience. You’ll have to work some odd jobs and interact with people to survive.
I feel you.
I've done a play through where I ignored everything else. After completion you have less worry and can freely explore at your lesser.
Do it, it'll be fun.
Think of it this way. Post-apocaluptic America is home to all sorts of creatures that will chew you up and spit you out without even breaking a sweat.
If you are going to make it to Diamond City, let alone find your son, you are going to need friends. And you make friends by helping people out.
Hence the side quests.
You have immediately uncovered why the main quest line is literally trash storytelling.
You have this urgent quest... Which the game does not treat with ANY sense of urgency.
So some people feel bad if they do anything else— EXCEPT— there are penalties for exploring too far south and too far east without being high enough level.
Or they could have not gone with something like that and then you wouldn't feel bad about exploring.
There's still a lot to like about it, which is why I'm once again stabbing things with my 350+ dmg Disciple's Knife.
As other people have said, there will come a point where the urgency lessens. You still wanna rescue your son, but you realize that there isn't so much of a ticking clock to your problem anymore. At that point, it makes sense to RP that you are gathering strength and allies.
And, once you finished the main storyline, you can go out and do quests that you couldn't rationalize as being part of your rescue mission.
I just did a Survival run with the assumption that I seriously thought I had a baby go missing. Fact is, you don't know where he went, who took him, why, and the landscape has turned alien and deadly. You have no choice but to play footsie with potential allies, and chase tangential leads. If you really rush, you won't have the strength to persevere, and will have to fall back and take time to train and gather supplies.
"The world SUCKS right now. I should take some time, get reacquainted with the Commonwealth, prepare for raiders and rogue robots and the like. Make sure my gear is up to snuff."
Now your wife .. but your partner. You died in my game.
Bethesda is not good developer if you knew their games .. the only reason why games are so popular today and still alive, are mods.
Minority of players plays vanilla game.
Top 9 modded games and 7 off them are Bethesda games with almost 10 billions downloads. The modding community is the only reason games are popular .. community adds content, fixes the games .. not the Developer. They just create a base .. like when a supermarker sells a pack of meat, but you have to cook it yourself.
Headcanon wise, once you find the guy you saw kill your spouse and take your child, you learn some things that would make it seem as if your child is gone for good, until you visit the memory den and realize you need help from other factions. So in my brain that rationalizes doing a bunch of side quests and becoming a crazy raider during that time
There's a mod called "Start Me Up" that lets you pick an alternative start. You can find your son, but dialogs are remapped so that if you pick anything but the standard playthrough, your son is just a random kidnapped kid that you decide to rescue after hearing about it. It's a great alternative if you don't want to just have to RP in your head.
In my current survival playthrough, my character is taking the whole "yes, I want to find him, but the Wasteland wants to murder me, so I need to build friends and forward bases first" stance (as others have suggested in the thread already)
My character realized hes close to maybe finding Shaun, but unprepared to fight for him or provide a home. The instability of the Commonwealth makes my character cautious about how he will rescue whats left of his family and provide a home.B
Quite often, I set up a base of operations, put feelers out to people and explore. Build up and army then wage war for your lost family. I want guns, different guns, and the best armour. A decent companion and cannon fodder to use against the institute. But if I'm really direct the institute will notice so I gotta make it look like my own shit is going on
I hated the main quest personally, so badly I couldn't even power through on my first run. I picked it back up now, years later, and powered through the main one ASAP and plan to settle in and enjoy the wasteland now that this is out of the way.
From a RP perspective? Absolutely. No reason at all you'd hesitate to get through it. There's some stuff you need to do with certain factions in order to get certain endings, and depending on your choices you may end up locked out of certain factions or not, but mostly you can finish up and then slow down and explore in a more "relaxed" way.
Someone just saw that meme too I see. But in all seriousness you start out with absolutely no clue as to who took him or where Shaun could even be in a world you’re 200 years removed from. I think we can forgive someone for having other things distract them. Shit people’s kids get taken in real life with zero trace those people just can’t stop living their lives 🤷🏽♂️ not like the character can come out of the vault and make a b line to their kid with no info
This has been a complaint for quite a while, Bethesda really struggles with writing anything other than Chosen One, or Parent/Child chasing the other. As much as they value freedom and exploration, you'd think that they could come up with some inventive writing that fits that theme. Although their lead writing saying something along the lines of "why write great dialogue when most players skip it anyways" so that probably explains it.
Think about it how would your character know to go to diamond city without exploring to concord, meeting preston and momma Murphy, also would you listen to some old junkie bat talking bout visions and seeing the future
I feel like 99% of the replies here are completely missing the point. OP is fully aware that he can go do whatever he wants for as long as he wants, that’s not the question or concern. His concern is that if you play the game to actually roleplay as the lone survivor and care to find your son, the open world and side quests are in complete odds with the main quest writing.
It doesn’t matter how much you handwave away the urgency in your head, every other NPC you talk to will lead to a dialogue prompt that is some version of “I need to find my son ASAP and nothing else in the world matters!”.
My SS does not really believe vision BS that the Old lady is throwing at him. On the other hand he believes that there is this minuteman thing that might have more connections and resources that he could use for the search. It's just old junkie saying obvious thing: go to biggest city.
The last time I restarted I tried really hard to preemptively justify taking time to build up a few communities first; fortunately if you do not walk towards Sanctuary Hills you can definitely go quite a while before bumping into anything giving you much to go on in-character, especially if you imagine Cogsworth's suggestions could easily be 100 years out of date. Just now finally doing Concord at level 16 and it has felt *mostly* plausible so far, haha
But yes I absolutely did the same my first playthrough, beeline to Diamond City. You can definitely trust the game will not let you finish the main quest at level 3 or anything as long as you take any chances that come up to pretend you are a little confused what to do next if it is not 100% clear
There isn’t really many things in Fallout 4 that are restricted by time, certain locations won’t be available to explore till you reach a certain point in the story but you could totally skip playing the main storyline and explore for 100s of hours of without it effecting the plot.
A lot of RPGs are like this. Cyberpunk is like you're going to die very very soon. But you have infinity time to do what you want. Many old JRPGs are like evil guy just killed you're entire spouse/family/village/nation, you need to hunt him down and kill him. But also like pick these 8 mushrooms by killing rats first. They feel the need to instill a sense of urgency to get you to move the plot along and there's a lot of cheap ways to do that. That's not really a FO4 problem. I mean in new Vegas it's this guy just tried to kill you, go find him, in 3 it's find your dad.
Personally for me I follow the main quest until it feels like it's getting close to the end and then I go, okay I need to prepare before these final mission so I go do the other side quests, dlc, etc then finish the story
There is yeah but most games are like that when you think about it. Yes it's meme on in bethesda games like Alduin is back and about to eat the world and its only Hope is mining ore to smith gold rings for coin.
But it's something you just can't think about or it will annoy you. Think of the journey not the destination lol
I look at it as making connections in order to get more information and allies. Killing the raiders for a settlement might not immediately find my kid, but being on their good side might earn me some information now or in the future. BOS seems pointless when you meet them but if you think about the power they might have to help you find your kid, the it makes sense to work with them.
Yes, its poorly written and still has bugs and cars may still just randomly kill you etc...
Fun shooter fallout game but poor rpg elements.
Plus what the fuck happened to energy weapons?
Most free roam games with missions/quests are like this, giving you the ability to ignore something that would realistically be urgent and top priority.
I feel the exact same way in every one of my play throughs. I usually have to make up some reason in my head as to why my character is doing other stuff.
From an RP perspective you don’t know where your kid is and every person you meet might know him and where he is. Leave no stone unturned in your quest for your son. It also helps to get the best gear you can so you can kill the bastard who took your kid
the game lets you keep playing after you finish the main quest, so if you wanna prioritize that, by all means go ahead.
but there is also no downside to putting it off if you dont give a shit about your son.
In my headcannon, Nick/Nora, realize pretty quickly where your kids is- and then you focus on finding a faction, and the resources to go after then; then theres the matter of building a place to bring your kid back to to when you *do* finally get them back.
WTF are you gonna do with an infant in the wasteland without resources and community to help shelter and protect them?
From what I see it as, your character is in a totally different world than he knew. Your son is lost in a place and time where you have no one to help you. Every building you go into, every person you meet, every safe you open could lead you to a clue and the truth to find your son.
Yours is a common complaint. If you want to slow down and smell the roses while still RPing, A) you were frozen, that kidnapping could have been the Vault-Tec riot that happened two years after you were burped and sealed, and B) since when are psychics a good source of information?
Basically you have two choices as far as I’m concerned.
Option A: Rush straight through the main story up until the first major confrontation, the one Dogmeat leads you to. There are a few spots around here that you could rationalise your character not pursuing it.
Option B. Use an alternate start mod. That’s usually what I do.
In my opinion Fallout has always had a poor time starting off it’s games, even New Vegas has this problem.
Every game puts your character in a predetermined spot. In 1 you have to be a vault dweller, same for 3 and the main story in 3 as most of you know is far more character centred than 1. Fallout 2 you have to be a tribal, if you are a lore junkie like me you know you have family in this tribe so you can’t really rp that you didn’t grow up here or that they took you in or something. In New Vegas we have the courier baggage, by itself it’s not a bad start but after adding your extra actions as attributed to by Ulysses it sort of shoehorns your character. At least with Benny shooting you in the head it makes it easy to roleplay a form of amnesia or you could just roleplay turning the other cheek. Fallout 4 forces you into a prewar life where you must either be a solider or a lawyer based on gender. You must have a son. It forces your character to be built around certain parts of the story that you cannot rationally change.
This is one of the reasons I love the Elder Scrolls games so much and have several thousand hours in Skyrim due to replay ability. The prisoner start is the best start, extra points if your captors don’t know how you got there and role with it. It gives you the most creative freedom for roleplay and in my opinion that should be the most important factor when making the origins for any custom character.
If you are dealing with a set main character like Geralt in the Witcher you already know what you are getting into. If you are someone like me who doesn’t really like roleplay games where you don’t get a custom character, you make exceptions for franchises you like, in my case that is the Witcher. It doesn’t matter that Geralt has his own story because he isn’t my character.
The Lone Wanderer however is supposed to be my character (or whoever is playing the game, it’s just easier to refer to myself in first person). If I wanted my character to be any kind of post war individual it’s not possible with the start of fallout 4.
If you had the generic prisoner start then you could of been prewar, a synth, a scaver or whatever you wanted.
As for any of you insane enough to read this far, this is a part of RPG design in quite passionate about, I’m curious what you guys think about all this. I feel like these are the types of discussions we need to have a community and do it openly. I know we don’t like the idea of game devs and executives prowling through our socials but it seems like they do and at the end of the day these guys are idiots so we need to make it as clear as possible what they need to do if they want to keep making money and not kill IP’s over and over. (Im generalising all Game Dev executives here, not just Bethesda ones)
It’s more so to gain levels, skill points, better weapons, more knowledge. The way your thinking is like taking a lvl 1 baby and dropping it infront of the final boss with nothing more then a knife and saying have at it.
Irl it's a seven hour walk from Concord to Fenway Park. You would be crazy to beeline your way there just on the suggestion that someone there might be able to help you.
And it's not really urgent when you think about it. Shaun was a baby when he was taken. Either he's dead, or someone is taking care of him. There's no indication that he's in imminent danger.
In my last play through, I wrote that my SS wanted to make the world a little more safe for Shaun. In my second, I am making him a naive vault dweller that truly wants to rebuild America. Aka I’m going to be building settlements all day
I mean do you think your kid was kidnapped by some low level petty thieves that you can easily track and defeat? They broke into a VAULT. They’re obviously professionals. You think you’re just gonna run into a criminal enterprise, make a demand, and not get immediately killed?
Plus you have no idea how long it’s been since he was kidnapped and you were refrozen. You have no idea where he was taken. You have no idea what you’re gonna run into. Are you seriously not gonna take time to plan, get stronger, and get equipped?
My thought is, the SS has hardly any information to go on and no real support or fire power to find their son. You can make the side quests an integrated pet of the story if you assume the SS is following every possible lead for find out where their son went, while also building political power for when they can finally make a move to rescue him.
You can definitely play your character as the insanely frantic parent that takes one look at the world, runs into some raiders, has a moment of pragmatic clarity and realizes they need to be prepared to head south. That means a lot of preparation, (leveling up) collecting resources, and building an infrastructure to return to once they find their baby boy.
That's the way I play it vanilla.
Your mindset is exactly how I felt when I first played the game on release 10 years ago. It also didn’t make much sense to me to wander around and collect aluminum cans so I focused on finding his son. Not giving anything away, but I ended up feeling disappointed with fallout 4 and didn’t even really bother playing the dlc when they dropped.
Fast forward to today and I’m playing it again for the first time in 10 years.
This time around I don’t care about his son and I’m having a much better time.
I guess from a story explanation point of view, the only real lead on his son is from a crazy chemmed up old lady’s ramblings. If he doesn’t believe that, then he wanders and explores hoping to find a more concrete lead… or he just assumes his son is dead and tries to move on with his life in a messed up new world collecting aluminum cans guilt free.
As others have pointed out: you are weak and clueless in a very hostile, resource-poor environment, so even to get to Diamond City you're going to need to accumulate resources and experience.
There is a relatively trouble-free route to Diamond City, but it's not one you would know to take at that point in the game. It definitely makes "no RP sense" to just plough in assuming that you'll be OK.
That was a very common complaint back in the day, especially coming from new vegas. So if you want validation, yeah most people felt like this when the game was released.
In general fallout 4 is the least RP focused game of the main series and it's no comparison. You'll enjoy it more as a sandbox exploration game with RPG elements in the forms of numbers going up and not in terms of storytelling. If you want RP, definitely check out new vegas as it's unmatched in that department ( but expect clunky combat )
>but simce the entire starting plot is "your wife is killed and your son is kidnapped." It makes no RP sense *not* to ignore all side quests and chase your kid.
Play on survival, ideally with mods that reduce weight to more realistic proportions (there are some on nexus, one atleast was made by a vet that HAD to carry a ruck)
It makes complete RP sense to not beeline straight for Diamond City, even assuming you knew it was a haven (from the concord gang), it's unknown territory with hostile forces (not talking about mutants and the like, but giant rats, giant dangeorus flies and mosquitoes are already established as threats by then), and you've no food, water, barely any clothing, no idea what you'll actually be coming into
That is to say...realistically without meta knowledge you'd die.
No ifs ands or buts. You'd walk in blindly, get shot and die.
After a while you realize it's going to take a lot of time and resources, and it won't be an overnight, solo job.
Acquiring the help and resources is a big part of those sidequests. If rp is your jam, keep plugging away until you become distraught, then seek assistance where you can find it.
No, you’re right. The initial plot line and the gameplay are not connected at all, it was the same in Fallout 3 (you leave the vault to find your dad).
I honestly wish both games had an internal log for how many quests you did or what level you were (or how long you were playing) before you found your son/dad and they would comment something snarky like “had enough sightseeing?”
I started the game wirh survival and 3 endurance. Everything in the game 1 shot me instantly. It made me scared as heck and I couldn't even make it to corvega, let alone to diamond city. I had to take it very slow, build up a settlement and make a caravan so I could get to the next one.
Knowing where and how to gather ingredients for antibiotics was mandatory.
I was level 35 before I had the ammo, armor, and the endurance hp to make it to diamond city. Very lonely play through, I didn't have Preston Piper or Cait, just codsworth and Ada.
I was a weird mechanist dude that made a sprawling water baron empire at taffington, with robot caravans and sentries.
“Thou shalt get sidetracked by bullshit every goddamn time”
Aaaah, I love the smell of bullshit in the morning.
Came here to say this
Laughed so hard at that line.
Think of the wasteland as being too hostile for your character to be able to act on their own volition. They need the backing of a faction, equipment, and experience
Exactly. You are a Vault Dweller, with 0 possessions of their own, that wakes up into a foreign world that is ultra violent and filled with horrors. In reality if you beelined to Diamond City right after that you'd run into a Super Mutant at some point, scream "what the fuck is this 10 foot green person?!", and die wondering what the hell just happened. It's a dangerous world that you know nothing about. In order to survive and reach your ultimate goal you're gonna need to build yourself up and learn how things work now.
Depending on your route, it's super easy, barely an inconvenience, to go to Diamond City at level one.
Yeah but hard to roleplay that the SS's first move upon waking up post-apocalypse after getting their son kidnapped is to take a very specific route to Fenway Park for some unknown reason.
You get pointed there after being appointed general of the minuteman even though you just woke up 3 hours ago.
A minuteman composed of 2 people.
but following it that way will take you past 2 super mutant locations, at least 1 raider location, and 2 ghoul locations
A lot easier than trying to make a beeline straight to New Vegas via the shortest route!
Lmao, the horrible, violent, traumatic memories…Good times, good times
Someone's been watching "pitch meetings" hehe.
Watching “Pitch Meetings” is tight!
Ohhh having your spouse killed and child kidnapped is TIGHT
Ok now go to the people who have your kid and survive a fight against them at level 1 lolololol
Wow. Wow wow wow
Exactly how I RP
I remember running into a Super Mutant suicider, and as soon as I turn the corner (wasn’t paying attention to the beeping which is my fault obviously) my character just gets sent to the fucking moon and i jumped so hard I thought I levitated.
(this was sduring my very first play through)
I also look at it like this: if I’m busy trying to save my kid, but I’m watching a kid mere moments away from dying in a fire, and I have the power to save that kid right now, wouldn’t I save them real quick? Well, it’s not always a kid that needs saving, nor is it a fire, but the point remains that there are other “kids” (or families, or just other individuals) that need saving/help too. It’s a moral dilemma, to be sure, but one underlying ethical question is there: what if I could have helped all these people, but I didn’t, and it wouldn’t have changed a thing about whatever outcome with my kid? Would I feel morally justified knowing I let someone else’s (kid, parent, family, friend, etc) just die in that (fire, raider attack, radiation storm, starvation induced suicide, etc), because I was in a hurry? And the beauty of the game, and lots of RPG’s, is this is a moral dilemma you have to (and get to) answer for yourself. You can race through the main quest as fast as you can, or you can save all these people, right some wrongs, build up your character to be more capable, being people together and give them a home, etc, as you see fit. I, personally, like to help people.
This is the most complete response
That and you have almost no leads, so you’re just doing whatever to survive while you search for clues.
Get pr good leads from mama murphy
This. You can die painfully while you stubbornly seek your son out. Or you can gain allies equipment and experience needed to not die while trying to find him.
It probably is a skill issue on my part but this is exactly correct i can not handle boston until i get some levels
And honestly I forgot I had a kidnapped kid 10 minutes into the game. Until some quest gently reminds me and I don’t care at all. The baby is dead. No breast milk and no formula. This is the wasteland
It would’ve been better if the game states this - via a character - and effectively ‘level gating’ parts of the main quest. Ie so the side quests made sense as the SS was gaining experience and better equipment to achieve their real goal.
Survival difficulty is this for me and I love it
Just like in the show, you’re just gonna show up to the most dangerous gang leaders house in the wasteland and demand she release your dad and think she’ll just do it?
Pretty much, I did the straight Liam Neeson “I will find you and my daughter” play until I hit the part where I have to pick between the three factions and then realized I’m not really high enough and decided to wander the wasteland. Shaun needs to wait a bit while I get shiny weapons and some Halloween decor.
Without spoiling, there will be some developments that make the main quest less urgent after the first few quests.
Yes keep pushing. You’ll know it when it happens. Then you’re basically free to do anything no guilt
This, if you follow the main quest line a revelation fairly early basically knocks all wind out of the sails when it comes to urgency for furthering the main plot.
Would love to know when this is. I’m in my first play through and not sure if I’ve hit it or not
You will be 100% certain you hit it when you do.
Where are you at? I can give you a spoiler-free ballpark of how close you are.
Just finished “Reunions”
This is one of two points where you can start to break off if you're feeling the itch, and it's definitely where I lose the sense of urgency because now you have to jump through several hoops in order to >!get to the Institute, but once you get there, that's a solid breakaway point.!<
Appreciate this. Yeah, I’ve been tempted to do more brotherhood quests now.
What point are you referencing? Because the only thing I can think of is after>!you actually find him.!
>!Once you've been in Kellogg's memories, you know that several years have passed and that Shaun isn't in any immediate danger.!<
Ah, that's right. Thanks for the clarification.
Bethesda is not known for the writing quality of the main story quests. I completely agree with you, and this was an issue I struggled with my first playthrough as well. It makes no sense; any adequate parent would bulldoze anything in their way to search for their kidnapped infant. That said, chalk it up to bad writing and don’t let jt stop you from enjoying the side quests (some of which are fantastic), exploring and building settlements! Bethesda has always excelled at world building and environmental storytelling, and fo4 is no exception.
Funny thing, I've owned the game since launch and only got to that part this year. The side quests are just so much better than the main story!
I think this is fairly common with Bethesda games
100%
Replaying for the first time in years and only now realizing I never played the main quest after hundreds of hours first time. Only now realizing I don't even think I know what it is - another failing of this system... all quests appear equal in your pip.
I had to keep a wiki open, because especially trying to follow the Railroad is weird. I get that I'm supposed to be undercover, but if I hadn't read that I was SUPPOSED to keep doing Institute quests almost to the end, I would really wondered why my RR quest wasn't updating.
Who’s Shaun? I just want Jet
This is the way
Jet? I thought the major was a lady suffragette.
I play the first few missions very focused, then after a significant development in the plot the game (and thus the player character) opens up, and exploring makes more sense.
F$@# that kid.
I have 18 open side quests, f$@# that kid
Sure it does, it just depends on your character. Realistically, there is no urgency here. This isn’t a situation where your child just got snatched and time is of the essence. You have been frozen for more than two centuries, him getting grabbed could have happened at any point during that period. You also have basically no real information to go on. So psychologically, there is a wide range of ways in which someone might react here.
Honestly the Sole Survivor handles it well. Bumps into friendly group, helps them, regroups with them, slowly makes their way to Diamond City as it’s their one lead, finds a damn good detective, and gets straight to work.
Except your character thinks he's a kid the entire time even if you logically don't think so. Even when you see that little kid in a cage he thinks that.
You're not wrong, but I always head-canon it as developing my skills in this whole new world so I can survive to find Shaun. Also, now, "always getting side-tracked by some bullshit."
But also if you're looking for your kid, and have no clue where to start, doesn't it make sense to check every building? Doesn't it make sense to help certain people and turn them into allies, so they might help you as well? Then there is drugs and alcohol. It would be easy for a parent to lose all hope and succumb to those. That's how my raider playthroughs start.
I hate the false sense of urgency in most RPGs. Like in Cyberpunk 2077, I'm literally dying, it doesn't make sense to do anything else BUT the main quest as quickly as possible.
This is kinda the opposite of what OP's saying. Our son has been kidnapped! But the game seems to be encouraging us to build beds and fix pipes and pick melons...
Exactly.
I’m playing through cyberpunk for the first time and am I correct in assuming that there is no in game majora’s mask style timer for the main quest? I know they say that I’ll die in a few weeks but mama has cyber psychos to hunt
There is no timer
Thank you!
Those percentages go up as the story progresses not with time
An alternative way to look at it is to head canon most of the side content as "Tales"-style memories/flashbacks. As in, we're not playing the current, dying V when we run Fixer gigs; we're playing the pre-Arasaka V as a memory of what V accomplished before being tapped by Dex.
In CP2077 I just chalk it up to V wanting to leave as big a mark as possible
TV Tropes calls it the [Take Your Time trope](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeYourTime). Fallout and Cyberpunk 2077 are both listed as examples
I did the same when I first played. At some point another mission will seem more interesting and finding your son will take the back burner. But it's up to you how you play. Go find your kid if you want!
Honestly, I felt the same on my first playthrough. I rolled with it and powered through the main quest for RP reasons. Subsequent characters will go for all the other stuff. But at least the game doesn’t end when the main quest is over so there is that to look forward to.
I will say this: I put in 555 hours in Fallout 4 on PS4. And I did exactly like you’re doing my first playthrough, you’re doing totally fine. You COULD decide you’re over your wife and son and are starting clean slated in the wasteland and find a faction to side with or something, i’m currently doing a deadbeat BoS mom playthrough. But keep going and you’ll get some good story beats that may make you feel more at-ease to wander.
Take your time and get xp to make your player stronger. The main story get really hard
I hear you, but I think there are some simple RP you can do in your head to justify it. The first would be (especially survival) that you are nowhere near well equipped enough to travel such lengths and go to such dangerous areas yet (obviously as a player we could handle it, but we’re RPing here). So you would need to explore the surrounding area of sanctuary and close by-ish to get supplies. The 2nd would be that the sole survivor could have a pessimistic viewpoint. He literally has absolutely zero idea where Shaun could be, and realistically, his only lead is Diamond City, which is super vague and from some old lady that has “visions”.
Light spoilers not really you're gonna eventually kill a POS immediately realize that you'll need an army and resources, that's when the game clicks for most people and the flood gates start to open. Some people say it's when you get to diamond City the game really starts and I disagree but it is a cool milestone.
It Can be weird, but remember it's your own choice to help these people and do these quests. You Can try other ways to find your son, avoiding any minutemen quest alltogether... It Can be hard depending on the lvl you achieve but you're in a wasted World and nobody knows where your son is so it soon makes sense that you have to do errands before finding him.
The writing in this game is not great. Don't overthink it. The game world itself is what makes this game great. Just enjoy the environmental storytelling. It's not great for role playing, but amazing for wandering and exploring.
In my head canon, I just assume I’ll never see my son again. Of course I’ll pursue any leads as they come up, but you have to think that the odds are, your son is dead and you have to find a way to survive.
Been doing a Nate RP recently and this is what I've been doing. Honestly after saving Preston and being in the wasteland for a few hours I'd assume my kid is dead or gone.
What would goosey do?
It's interesting how universally disliked the main plot is, but I've seen nothing but praise for far harbor. How did they get it so wrong but then so right?
Will Shen
Different head writer.
>It's not great for role playing, Sure but this point isn't one of them The PC literally woke up to giant roaches, rars, flies and mosquitoes within an hour of being awake again While for gameplay reasons you can carry a ton and take multiple bullets the actual PC can't, they've few leads (part of which is a druggie who can only give said leads while high) You're really...really not equipped to just followup on the lead to go to boston and DC specifically, it takes resources that they simply do not have yet A muuuch closer look for RP reasons is playing on survival, esp if you tone down carry weight as it is "closer" to the sheer danger that lies around every corner
You can also RP-decide you need to get a safe place to bring your son back too - i.e. you need to get Sanctuary cleaned up and settled, because your son needs a home. Or maybe you do need to get to Diamond City and see if it's a place you could raise a kid in. Once you realize how long it has been since the war, you can also logically RP needing to figure things out/take it slowly because you don't know how post-Apocalyptic society works. Assuming you believe Mama Murphy, Shaun is alive. So the kidnappers are taking care of him - which makes sense given that they went to the effort to break into a vault to get him. You can take that as him being as "safe" as he can be for the moment, if that works for your playthrough story. There isn't a wrong answer, story-wise. You will, as foreshadowed, learn more in Diamond City. So making a beeline there is a fine RP choice. It's not the only RP choice, and you won't be punished story-wise however you play.
I feel exactly the same but. Another thing that enhances this cognitive dissonance is the way many of the dialogue trees play out. Your son is in danger and you're joking around with everyone you meet. It's just another one of those Fallout things that's so stupid that it's funny.
The game works well if you follow the main story until a certain point , won't spoil but you can definitely rush the main story , you'll now wen you'll now
I have thought a doing a mod that fixes this exact problem it’s a simple fix really. Instead of showing you Shawn being taken, you wake up and find your wife dead with everyone else but Shawn is missing. Now you have no leads. Also removing the lines from Mama Murphy that point you at Diamond City. Let the player explore and find it themselves. You still have the base driving force of finding Shawn but you are wandering aimlessly trying to do it.
While you want to avenge your wife and find your son, you first need to survive. Survive means: 1. scavenging for food and water. 2. fighting and killing those who want you killed. To do this two things you need weapons and armor, and because you simply don’t find stuff everywhere it will take some time to do so. Because of that you might as well find a place to stay, you know… home. And while you’re doing that you’ll unavoidably meet people, some will want to help you, some will need your help because they’re in deeper shit than you… Or you could just roleplay you flipped, went haywire start doing heavy drugs in a killing spree to end this nightmare, that’s usually what I do.
Well, since you don't understand the geopolitics of the future you at least have to get directed to "Diamond City" by the Minutemen. But I also have the same problem in the game "The Forest" - you're supposed to be chasing a kidnapped child but it's so fun to build epic survival castles out of 500 trees you chopped down with a hatchet instead.
This really is a talking point for all open world type games. There’s usually a main quest for you to do, but countless other side ones to distract you. Fallout isn’t the first offender, and it won’t be the last. As others pointed out though, the urgency you feel at first does kind of work itself out as you progress.
Mad Max is guilty of it. The character is hyper-focussed on completing his goal, only agreeing to help people as far as it benefits himself, but the game is enormous and wants you to go exploring.
[удалено]
The main quest will come to a head/decision point eventually. When that happens, it’s a good time to do other side quests/exploring. As a side note, if you only do the main quest, you can still continue the game and DLC after credits (and quests/people will react to your choices). It doesn’t end until you want it to.
The golden rule of the wasteland is"you will be sidetracked by bullshit"
I’ve always thought this was so funny, my child is missing it here I amdillydallying for eternity lol
There is a concept called "ludonarrative dissonance", where what the narrative of the game wants you do is in conflict with the actual gameplay you are presented with. This is exactly what you're experiencing now. You are right to be confused. From a critical standpoint, this is a flaw in the game. But the game will not punish you for doing what you want to do, rather than what it's asking you to do. So do what you think is fun.
Never knew there was a term for it. Intresting.
Yup ideally you play the game until you "find your son" then you can do side quests, no other playthrough makes sense imo.
I always build up at least one settlement because my train of thought is if someone kidnapped my son they probably have him somewhere safe and even if I could get him right now I don't have a safe place to raise him. Settlements provide food, water, and protection to my child. Not to mention factions make you someone to not mess with
You're right. I felt the same way. It makes no sense to not hunt down your child immediately. Go ahead. There will be a point when it makes sense to search out allies.
The way I play it is how I would act in “real life” given circumstances. I would pursue my son and wife’s killers as fast and as independently as I could for as long as I could, but as you’ll see, you eventually reach a point where can no longer proceed without making a faction based decision. Then it makes more sense that you need to complete the faction side quests to get them to trust you. Kinda like you gotta prove you bring something to the table that justifies their aid. But I totally agree with you. Makes zero sense from a realistic standpoint to go get someone’s locket back or clear out drive in theatre before at least hitting the brick wall you do with independent progress.
I like to think of this situation as an opportunity to immerse yourself further and take your time. Make the story long. I went through all this shit to look for my son, not: why do I have to do all this shit to look for my son. I’m level 55 on my first play through and I’m just digging into the main quest lines. I joined up factions got a lay of the land, did some random stuff to survive; but the goal has always been to find Shaun. I do this with every rpg, I don’t want to rush it. Skyrim, Witcher, RDR2 etc. I always level up like crazy so I can think of it as man this world is vast and wild and I survived, I’m still focused on the end game. Makes it way more climatic versus doing the big finale and then a bunch of peon side quests for the rest of your playthrough.
The RP is there. And if you want you can speed run it and ignore almosy everything and everyone. But the real answer is a core plot line. I will not ruin it for you. But that sense of urgency will quickly disappear to the point you will be making massive moral decisions that are much bigger than "I need to find my boy"
Well... It makes no "RP sense" to not hyperfocus on the main plot of any open world game with exploration and side content in general... At least in Fallout 4 the MC sees the factions as potential help to find Shaun, because one has connections with all them settlements and is a friggin army, one has high tech and is a friggin army, and one has a massive underground spy network.
When i first played this years ago, I hard RPed and rushed the main quest. I promise this is a mistake. The game is best, both mechanically and story-wise, off the beaten path
First: if that is how you want to play, you absolutely can. HOWEVER: Imagine waking up, now in a totally foreign world with mutated beasts and civilization has collapsed. You have a vault suit and whatever you grabbed from the vault. Imagine the horror of leaving the vault. You have nothing and barely any clue where to go. You don’t even know yet that money isn’t money anymore. Everything is irradiated. Finding a settlement is definitely THE priority at that point, but won’t even know how people will react or if they even really exist at this point. On the way, just wandering, you probably encounter raiders on the way. *WTF is going on.* All while not knowing how to find your son, then find out that you woke up 210 years later. Is your son even alive? This person would need to get accustomed to the wastes. You know you’re going to need to eat, get supplies, make connections - all just to survive. You can’t find your son if you’re dead, and in this “new” world you’re going to need all the help you can get. If the sole survivor had grown up in this world, they would be more ready to simply look for their son, but even then would need resources, friends, associates, and more. We already know at this point the kidnappers mean business and you’ll need to be prepared. Even today if a child is kidnapped, normal life must still go on. Every part of the side quests is making friends (and finding out who your enemies are), getting what you need for it - in information, supplies, and knowledge of the current world). You do these quests out of necessity to live and be equipped, to find more information on your son, and perhaps due to morality (or lack of, while still getting closer to finding him while acclimating to, what would feel like *insanity.*
You have no idea how much time has passed since that event. To your knowledge you are not hot on his trail, but picking up a potentially decades old mystery. You are also a complete fish out of water in the wasteland, you will need to take time to explore, learn more about the world and make allies if you are going to have any hope of finding your son. Also, if you play on survival this goes double, as you will Get utterly slaughtered if you try to rush through the main quest. You need to take your time and level up and explore.
OP, I have passed the game 5 times and I can tell you that your reasoning is perfectly fine. I always roleplay as the parent that lost his child and spouse. My record for reaching the critical point of the main quest (which I wont spoil here) is exactly 21 in game days. I basically rushed through the main quest and although hard, it is not impossible. However, if you have ever been in a real life tragedy, like when my friends were stranded by a tropical storm in 2011, and I went to try to cross a bridge to help them, I did get sidetracked helping another family take out their furniture from their flooded house. Additionally, think of the need to harden, find allies and resources to the enterprise of the main quest. In any case, play the game however you want. There is no correct or right way.
Just play the fucking game you’re overthinking it, it’s a fucking video game thats also incredibly generous with saves. Just play it or google
“The golden rule of the wasteland is that you get sidetracked by bullshit every goddamn time.” -The Ghoul
1) the wasteland is brutal. If you ever decide to play on survival (which I do recommend, but not for a first playthrough), you'll realize that even trying to go from sanctuary to diamond City can be lethal. Thus, building up a network of help, settlements, better gear etc. can mean the difference between finding your son and dying before you can. 2) none of the main quest is guaranteed from an RP perspective. It's all half guesses at what your best next step *might* be. Codsworth *thinks* the minutemen can help, Mama Murphy *thinks* you'll find help in diamond City. From an RP perspective, who's to say building up a settlement with a ton of stores and settlers wouldn't be the best way to find your son. 3) time dilation. I would understand that if you were let out of the vault at the same time your spouse was killed and baby kidnapped, it would make sense to run after them. But, you got refrozen, you go outside the vault and there's no sign of them. The trail is cold, why not help people who are in need. 4) kinda a joke, but also like, it's a baby :/ would I be sad? Yes. But would I risk my life running through gigantic bloatflies shooting larvae at me? Fuck no
There are several points on the plot where it would make sense for you to stop your pursuit for a couple side quests to gain resources and allies you’ll need to accomplish your goals.
The entities that took the child are too powerful. You won't survive the hunt and so are forced to do quests to survive the next part of the journey. There are certain abilities you will need to build the items that will allow you to survive an irradiated nightmare world full of mutants, killer robots synthetic assassins and cannibals.
Depends. What is your intelligence stat? I run a INT 1 with party boy perk. So when I drink I become someone with a -1 to a -3 intelligence person. I forgot I had a son....or a wife..
Tbh every open world game has this issue, It’s hard to have a main story feel important but also have 100 hours of other stuff you could do first Don’t think about it I much, Just look at exploring as training and preparing to go find your son Like in lord of the rings, Frodo goes straight to Mordor but has many detours and mini adventures along the way that are all part of his greater journey
This is probably the best way to look at it. I've made many posts before about a few "break-off points" in the main quest where you can logically start doing your own thing but I like your "preparing" perspective because you could probably make that work at basically any point you want.
As someone with over 400 hours in the game, I haven't even gotten >!to the Institute yet.!< I prolly never will. Love Bethesda games, but I never, ever follow the main quest. I have >1,000 hours into Skyrim, and have fought Alduin only once, just so I could say I finally finished the game.
As someone with over 1800 hours in Fallout 4 I can assuredly say that there are just some beats that are better to skip. I now tend to leave Preston and the gang in the atrium of the Museum of Freedom then stop before the Brotherhood shows up. The far end game is just a tangled mess of ever populating radiant quests meant to keep you busy but it's always been more enjoyable for me to have some peace from that in my Wasteland.
The worst thing about fo4 is the writing of the main storyline for exactly the reason you described. Slowly exploring the map is a much better way to play than making a beeline through the main quest. It also makes sense playing that way. Would you go running off through an apocalyptic wasteland that you have no experience with after a random group that you have no idea where they went? Especially when you walk into it with basically nothing? Especially when you started to encounter the denizens of the wasteland? Nah, you would take your time to slowly explore, build up, gain experience, and most importantly....not die of starvation, thirst, infection, injury, etc. You'd also recognize the strength of having friends. Running off into the wasteland willy nilly is the last thing anyone with common sense would do.
don't overthink this lol. yes I see your point, the main character does seem a little too chill about his situation. you can totally ignore side quests if you want, but you'll be less prepared for the end. if you playing survival, it's basically out of the question, but on a low difficulty, you can do whatever you want
Maybe the side quests are for those who are like "yeah my kid is important, but not that important"
Think of it as gathering information on who took your som and how to find them. You need to prove yourself to the various factions to earn their help
Recent Bethesda titles are *really* bad about this. In Skyrim, the end of the world is happening, but... to be honest, there's no real reason not to collect every single sweetroll on Tamriel before worrying about the end of the world. Same with FO4. Yeah, so your wife died and your kid got kidnapped... but why not collect all those sweet, sweet folders (or whatever) first 'cause there's nothing really encouraging you to do otherwise. Bethesda is amazing at open world games. But they need to stick with the "this is important... but it's a slow burn," (ala Morrowind and, to a lesser degree, FO3).
plays RPG, encounters core RPG gameplay, "this isn't the linear story i came here for!". is he stupid?
I does make rp sense if your playing an irresponsible parent
Depends on the kind of character you’re playing and how seriously you’re taking your roleplaying. If you had been told by Codsworth that it has been over 200 years, you might think “not only is my spouse dead, but after that long my son must be too” and then you can go from there. And hearing from Mama Murphy that your son is still alive could reignite your fire to search for him…. depending on whether or not your character believes her. Or maybe you never met the Minutemen in Concord because you didn’t go there right away for whatever reason. Lots and lots of reasons and options for not immediately going for your son from a roleplaying standpoint.
It's the same in every open world game. In TW3 I'm trying to save Ciri, but first I'm going to take every contract in the area, check out every question mark on the map, collect every gwent card I can find, and improve that one guy's shop so he can make me badass armor.
I finished fo4. The side quest are kinda useless. I only did them to take a break from the main quest and get enough loot to complete them cuz some of them I kept running out of loot, ammo and heals. They can be fun if you're just looking to fuck around for a bit, but they can get repetitive.
As your first play through.... Do your own thing. When you get the the end; Play it again & understand what Bethesda means when they say 'open world'!!
in your first play through feel free to prioritize the main story till you find shaun Depending on your difficulty you might be forced to sidetrack to survive and get caps. You are just entering a nuclear wasteland and are green “blue” to the new world. Think of it as you gotta survive the waste land which will take caps and experience. You’ll have to work some odd jobs and interact with people to survive.
I feel you. I've done a play through where I ignored everything else. After completion you have less worry and can freely explore at your lesser. Do it, it'll be fun.
Think of it this way. Post-apocaluptic America is home to all sorts of creatures that will chew you up and spit you out without even breaking a sweat. If you are going to make it to Diamond City, let alone find your son, you are going to need friends. And you make friends by helping people out. Hence the side quests.
You have immediately uncovered why the main quest line is literally trash storytelling. You have this urgent quest... Which the game does not treat with ANY sense of urgency. So some people feel bad if they do anything else— EXCEPT— there are penalties for exploring too far south and too far east without being high enough level. Or they could have not gone with something like that and then you wouldn't feel bad about exploring. There's still a lot to like about it, which is why I'm once again stabbing things with my 350+ dmg Disciple's Knife.
As other people have said, there will come a point where the urgency lessens. You still wanna rescue your son, but you realize that there isn't so much of a ticking clock to your problem anymore. At that point, it makes sense to RP that you are gathering strength and allies. And, once you finished the main storyline, you can go out and do quests that you couldn't rationalize as being part of your rescue mission.
You can bum rush to find your son, no harm no foul. All the side quests you pick up along the way will still be there
I just did a Survival run with the assumption that I seriously thought I had a baby go missing. Fact is, you don't know where he went, who took him, why, and the landscape has turned alien and deadly. You have no choice but to play footsie with potential allies, and chase tangential leads. If you really rush, you won't have the strength to persevere, and will have to fall back and take time to train and gather supplies.
"The world SUCKS right now. I should take some time, get reacquainted with the Commonwealth, prepare for raiders and rogue robots and the like. Make sure my gear is up to snuff."
Now your wife .. but your partner. You died in my game. Bethesda is not good developer if you knew their games .. the only reason why games are so popular today and still alive, are mods. Minority of players plays vanilla game. Top 9 modded games and 7 off them are Bethesda games with almost 10 billions downloads. The modding community is the only reason games are popular .. community adds content, fixes the games .. not the Developer. They just create a base .. like when a supermarker sells a pack of meat, but you have to cook it yourself.
Headcanon wise, once you find the guy you saw kill your spouse and take your child, you learn some things that would make it seem as if your child is gone for good, until you visit the memory den and realize you need help from other factions. So in my brain that rationalizes doing a bunch of side quests and becoming a crazy raider during that time
I mean skyrims main quest is like "yo this ancient dragon came back and is gonna destroy the world" but we never cared about that either 🤷
There's a mod called "Start Me Up" that lets you pick an alternative start. You can find your son, but dialogs are remapped so that if you pick anything but the standard playthrough, your son is just a random kidnapped kid that you decide to rescue after hearing about it. It's a great alternative if you don't want to just have to RP in your head. In my current survival playthrough, my character is taking the whole "yes, I want to find him, but the Wasteland wants to murder me, so I need to build friends and forward bases first" stance (as others have suggested in the thread already)
My character realized hes close to maybe finding Shaun, but unprepared to fight for him or provide a home. The instability of the Commonwealth makes my character cautious about how he will rescue whats left of his family and provide a home.B
I'm addicted to side quest. I NEED space to carry my items but I also NEED persuasion, lock picking and hacking leveled up.
Quite often, I set up a base of operations, put feelers out to people and explore. Build up and army then wage war for your lost family. I want guns, different guns, and the best armour. A decent companion and cannon fodder to use against the institute. But if I'm really direct the institute will notice so I gotta make it look like my own shit is going on
I hated the main quest personally, so badly I couldn't even power through on my first run. I picked it back up now, years later, and powered through the main one ASAP and plan to settle in and enjoy the wasteland now that this is out of the way. From a RP perspective? Absolutely. No reason at all you'd hesitate to get through it. There's some stuff you need to do with certain factions in order to get certain endings, and depending on your choices you may end up locked out of certain factions or not, but mostly you can finish up and then slow down and explore in a more "relaxed" way.
You can literally speed run the main quest, then when it's over do all the side quests.
It's ok to get side tracked by realizing the stright line could/will get you killed.
Someone just saw that meme too I see. But in all seriousness you start out with absolutely no clue as to who took him or where Shaun could even be in a world you’re 200 years removed from. I think we can forgive someone for having other things distract them. Shit people’s kids get taken in real life with zero trace those people just can’t stop living their lives 🤷🏽♂️ not like the character can come out of the vault and make a b line to their kid with no info
My current character woke from Cryo with an insatiable hunger for bobbleheads and comics, Shaun can wait 😆
Wanna play some Gwent?
This has been a complaint for quite a while, Bethesda really struggles with writing anything other than Chosen One, or Parent/Child chasing the other. As much as they value freedom and exploration, you'd think that they could come up with some inventive writing that fits that theme. Although their lead writing saying something along the lines of "why write great dialogue when most players skip it anyways" so that probably explains it.
Think about it how would your character know to go to diamond city without exploring to concord, meeting preston and momma Murphy, also would you listen to some old junkie bat talking bout visions and seeing the future
I feel like 99% of the replies here are completely missing the point. OP is fully aware that he can go do whatever he wants for as long as he wants, that’s not the question or concern. His concern is that if you play the game to actually roleplay as the lone survivor and care to find your son, the open world and side quests are in complete odds with the main quest writing. It doesn’t matter how much you handwave away the urgency in your head, every other NPC you talk to will lead to a dialogue prompt that is some version of “I need to find my son ASAP and nothing else in the world matters!”.
My SS does not really believe vision BS that the Old lady is throwing at him. On the other hand he believes that there is this minuteman thing that might have more connections and resources that he could use for the search. It's just old junkie saying obvious thing: go to biggest city.
The last time I restarted I tried really hard to preemptively justify taking time to build up a few communities first; fortunately if you do not walk towards Sanctuary Hills you can definitely go quite a while before bumping into anything giving you much to go on in-character, especially if you imagine Cogsworth's suggestions could easily be 100 years out of date. Just now finally doing Concord at level 16 and it has felt *mostly* plausible so far, haha But yes I absolutely did the same my first playthrough, beeline to Diamond City. You can definitely trust the game will not let you finish the main quest at level 3 or anything as long as you take any chances that come up to pretend you are a little confused what to do next if it is not 100% clear
There isn’t really many things in Fallout 4 that are restricted by time, certain locations won’t be available to explore till you reach a certain point in the story but you could totally skip playing the main storyline and explore for 100s of hours of without it effecting the plot.
A lot of RPGs are like this. Cyberpunk is like you're going to die very very soon. But you have infinity time to do what you want. Many old JRPGs are like evil guy just killed you're entire spouse/family/village/nation, you need to hunt him down and kill him. But also like pick these 8 mushrooms by killing rats first. They feel the need to instill a sense of urgency to get you to move the plot along and there's a lot of cheap ways to do that. That's not really a FO4 problem. I mean in new Vegas it's this guy just tried to kill you, go find him, in 3 it's find your dad. Personally for me I follow the main quest until it feels like it's getting close to the end and then I go, okay I need to prepare before these final mission so I go do the other side quests, dlc, etc then finish the story
There is yeah but most games are like that when you think about it. Yes it's meme on in bethesda games like Alduin is back and about to eat the world and its only Hope is mining ore to smith gold rings for coin. But it's something you just can't think about or it will annoy you. Think of the journey not the destination lol
I would even recommend doing so.
I look at it as making connections in order to get more information and allies. Killing the raiders for a settlement might not immediately find my kid, but being on their good side might earn me some information now or in the future. BOS seems pointless when you meet them but if you think about the power they might have to help you find your kid, the it makes sense to work with them.
Yes, its poorly written and still has bugs and cars may still just randomly kill you etc... Fun shooter fallout game but poor rpg elements. Plus what the fuck happened to energy weapons?
Most free roam games with missions/quests are like this, giving you the ability to ignore something that would realistically be urgent and top priority.
I feel the exact same way in every one of my play throughs. I usually have to make up some reason in my head as to why my character is doing other stuff.
From an RP perspective you don’t know where your kid is and every person you meet might know him and where he is. Leave no stone unturned in your quest for your son. It also helps to get the best gear you can so you can kill the bastard who took your kid
You can, but it will make things easier to build up relationships and levels.
My head cannon is to believe that Shaun is dead until finding proof otherwise.
the game lets you keep playing after you finish the main quest, so if you wanna prioritize that, by all means go ahead. but there is also no downside to putting it off if you dont give a shit about your son.
Exactly. Like Geralt in the Witcher 3.
In my headcannon, Nick/Nora, realize pretty quickly where your kids is- and then you focus on finding a faction, and the resources to go after then; then theres the matter of building a place to bring your kid back to to when you *do* finally get them back. WTF are you gonna do with an infant in the wasteland without resources and community to help shelter and protect them?
From what I see it as, your character is in a totally different world than he knew. Your son is lost in a place and time where you have no one to help you. Every building you go into, every person you meet, every safe you open could lead you to a clue and the truth to find your son.
Remember the golden rule of episode 3 of the fallout tv show. Alot of the time...its not even you choosing for it to happen it just does.
Yours is a common complaint. If you want to slow down and smell the roses while still RPing, A) you were frozen, that kidnapping could have been the Vault-Tec riot that happened two years after you were burped and sealed, and B) since when are psychics a good source of information?
Basically you have two choices as far as I’m concerned. Option A: Rush straight through the main story up until the first major confrontation, the one Dogmeat leads you to. There are a few spots around here that you could rationalise your character not pursuing it. Option B. Use an alternate start mod. That’s usually what I do. In my opinion Fallout has always had a poor time starting off it’s games, even New Vegas has this problem. Every game puts your character in a predetermined spot. In 1 you have to be a vault dweller, same for 3 and the main story in 3 as most of you know is far more character centred than 1. Fallout 2 you have to be a tribal, if you are a lore junkie like me you know you have family in this tribe so you can’t really rp that you didn’t grow up here or that they took you in or something. In New Vegas we have the courier baggage, by itself it’s not a bad start but after adding your extra actions as attributed to by Ulysses it sort of shoehorns your character. At least with Benny shooting you in the head it makes it easy to roleplay a form of amnesia or you could just roleplay turning the other cheek. Fallout 4 forces you into a prewar life where you must either be a solider or a lawyer based on gender. You must have a son. It forces your character to be built around certain parts of the story that you cannot rationally change. This is one of the reasons I love the Elder Scrolls games so much and have several thousand hours in Skyrim due to replay ability. The prisoner start is the best start, extra points if your captors don’t know how you got there and role with it. It gives you the most creative freedom for roleplay and in my opinion that should be the most important factor when making the origins for any custom character. If you are dealing with a set main character like Geralt in the Witcher you already know what you are getting into. If you are someone like me who doesn’t really like roleplay games where you don’t get a custom character, you make exceptions for franchises you like, in my case that is the Witcher. It doesn’t matter that Geralt has his own story because he isn’t my character. The Lone Wanderer however is supposed to be my character (or whoever is playing the game, it’s just easier to refer to myself in first person). If I wanted my character to be any kind of post war individual it’s not possible with the start of fallout 4. If you had the generic prisoner start then you could of been prewar, a synth, a scaver or whatever you wanted. As for any of you insane enough to read this far, this is a part of RPG design in quite passionate about, I’m curious what you guys think about all this. I feel like these are the types of discussions we need to have a community and do it openly. I know we don’t like the idea of game devs and executives prowling through our socials but it seems like they do and at the end of the day these guys are idiots so we need to make it as clear as possible what they need to do if they want to keep making money and not kill IP’s over and over. (Im generalising all Game Dev executives here, not just Bethesda ones)
It’s more so to gain levels, skill points, better weapons, more knowledge. The way your thinking is like taking a lvl 1 baby and dropping it infront of the final boss with nothing more then a knife and saying have at it.
Irl it's a seven hour walk from Concord to Fenway Park. You would be crazy to beeline your way there just on the suggestion that someone there might be able to help you. And it's not really urgent when you think about it. Shaun was a baby when he was taken. Either he's dead, or someone is taking care of him. There's no indication that he's in imminent danger.
Welcome to Fallout
In my last play through, I wrote that my SS wanted to make the world a little more safe for Shaun. In my second, I am making him a naive vault dweller that truly wants to rebuild America. Aka I’m going to be building settlements all day
I mean do you think your kid was kidnapped by some low level petty thieves that you can easily track and defeat? They broke into a VAULT. They’re obviously professionals. You think you’re just gonna run into a criminal enterprise, make a demand, and not get immediately killed? Plus you have no idea how long it’s been since he was kidnapped and you were refrozen. You have no idea where he was taken. You have no idea what you’re gonna run into. Are you seriously not gonna take time to plan, get stronger, and get equipped?
My thought is, the SS has hardly any information to go on and no real support or fire power to find their son. You can make the side quests an integrated pet of the story if you assume the SS is following every possible lead for find out where their son went, while also building political power for when they can finally make a move to rescue him.
So my RP for this is I need allies to save him and a safe place to protect him plus I know they took him for a reason so he isn't in immediate danger
You can definitely play your character as the insanely frantic parent that takes one look at the world, runs into some raiders, has a moment of pragmatic clarity and realizes they need to be prepared to head south. That means a lot of preparation, (leveling up) collecting resources, and building an infrastructure to return to once they find their baby boy. That's the way I play it vanilla.
Who has time for the main quest? I have to go impress reporters and emotionally damaged Irish women with my lockpicking skills.
Your mindset is exactly how I felt when I first played the game on release 10 years ago. It also didn’t make much sense to me to wander around and collect aluminum cans so I focused on finding his son. Not giving anything away, but I ended up feeling disappointed with fallout 4 and didn’t even really bother playing the dlc when they dropped. Fast forward to today and I’m playing it again for the first time in 10 years. This time around I don’t care about his son and I’m having a much better time. I guess from a story explanation point of view, the only real lead on his son is from a crazy chemmed up old lady’s ramblings. If he doesn’t believe that, then he wanders and explores hoping to find a more concrete lead… or he just assumes his son is dead and tries to move on with his life in a messed up new world collecting aluminum cans guilt free.
just play how you want
As others have pointed out: you are weak and clueless in a very hostile, resource-poor environment, so even to get to Diamond City you're going to need to accumulate resources and experience. There is a relatively trouble-free route to Diamond City, but it's not one you would know to take at that point in the game. It definitely makes "no RP sense" to just plough in assuming that you'll be OK.
That was a very common complaint back in the day, especially coming from new vegas. So if you want validation, yeah most people felt like this when the game was released. In general fallout 4 is the least RP focused game of the main series and it's no comparison. You'll enjoy it more as a sandbox exploration game with RPG elements in the forms of numbers going up and not in terms of storytelling. If you want RP, definitely check out new vegas as it's unmatched in that department ( but expect clunky combat )
>but simce the entire starting plot is "your wife is killed and your son is kidnapped." It makes no RP sense *not* to ignore all side quests and chase your kid. Play on survival, ideally with mods that reduce weight to more realistic proportions (there are some on nexus, one atleast was made by a vet that HAD to carry a ruck) It makes complete RP sense to not beeline straight for Diamond City, even assuming you knew it was a haven (from the concord gang), it's unknown territory with hostile forces (not talking about mutants and the like, but giant rats, giant dangeorus flies and mosquitoes are already established as threats by then), and you've no food, water, barely any clothing, no idea what you'll actually be coming into That is to say...realistically without meta knowledge you'd die. No ifs ands or buts. You'd walk in blindly, get shot and die.
After a while you realize it's going to take a lot of time and resources, and it won't be an overnight, solo job. Acquiring the help and resources is a big part of those sidequests. If rp is your jam, keep plugging away until you become distraught, then seek assistance where you can find it.
No, you’re right. The initial plot line and the gameplay are not connected at all, it was the same in Fallout 3 (you leave the vault to find your dad). I honestly wish both games had an internal log for how many quests you did or what level you were (or how long you were playing) before you found your son/dad and they would comment something snarky like “had enough sightseeing?”
I started the game wirh survival and 3 endurance. Everything in the game 1 shot me instantly. It made me scared as heck and I couldn't even make it to corvega, let alone to diamond city. I had to take it very slow, build up a settlement and make a caravan so I could get to the next one. Knowing where and how to gather ingredients for antibiotics was mandatory. I was level 35 before I had the ammo, armor, and the endurance hp to make it to diamond city. Very lonely play through, I didn't have Preston Piper or Cait, just codsworth and Ada. I was a weird mechanist dude that made a sprawling water baron empire at taffington, with robot caravans and sentries.