TL;DR I find FO4's combat wholly unsatisfying and explain why.

So, after taking some time to cool off so I wouldn't get banned from the forums, I tried going back to FO4 and attempted to just enjoy the combat. And failed. Here is why:

I already knew this from day one, but the mouse controls are terrible. Fortunately, some folks found fixes for the more egregious issues (disparate vertical and horizontal sensitivities) via .ini tweaks. But some issues still linger.

Many weapons, particularly the two-handed kind, feel like they're made of rubber, not just when moving the viewpoint in hip-fire mode, but also when aiming down the sights (iron or reflex). In the case of certain weapons, the hunting rifle being the worst offender, it makes the iron sights practically unusable, because http://gfycat.com/TightCircularGermanshorthairedpointer , making aiming at moving targets nearly impossible. Did anyone at any point during development attempt to play with the iron sights on the hunting rifle for more than five minutes? Also, http://i.imgur.com/lnPS98N.png on my screen (HD). Two pixels! Are you flipping kidding me?

You went in a completely different direction when designing the iron sights for the pipe weapons; http://i.imgur.com/TTHArSF.png my cat swiped at them once while I was playing (well ok he just did that crazy head-tracking thing). Those gargantuan sights might be fine in Jurassic Park, or on a shotgun (and say, why is there no pipe shotgun?), but NOT when you need any kind of precision.

Bring on the reflex sights, am I right? Yes, and no. For starters, not all weapons have access to the dot reflex sight: laser and plasma weapons inexplicably only have access to the circle variant, which is pretty crappy for single-shot 'rifles' as you want pin-point precision; the circle is better for shotguns and fully automatic weapons so you don't lose track of the sight. On top of that, the rubbery syndrome also makes an appearance here, bringing the point of aim close to the sight's frame even when moving the mouse slowly, obscuring the target and making quick shots difficult. Also, http://gfycat.com/GrayCloseCrab. I won't even bring up the 'reflex sights' for the pipe weapons.

Scopes! Surely they didn't mess up the scopes? The only good thing scopes have (and it's a very, very good thing) is that they completely bypass the rubbery syndrome. Unfortunately, the hairs are pixel-thin, making them really hard to spot during heavy firefights, and in their infinite wisdom, the designers decided to add a bunch of extraneous crap to them to further distract you from the point of aim. So fine, they're at least usable, but not very enjoyable unless you're sneaking and have all the time in the world to aim. Oh, and the background isn't too dark. Unless you're using a night-vision scope. And the background isn't too bright... Because there is no way to toggle the night-vision...

And why, pray tell, do sights / scopes affect a weapon's accuracy? Aiming with iron sights is hard enough without you making the gun magically less accurate. Why punish someone for using them? I can understand affecting the VATS accuracy for balance reasons, but not sighted accuracy for Atom's sake. In fact, you should punish players slightly for attaching heavier stuff onto their weapons by worsening hip-fire aim, scope sway, etc.. No, getting a player a few pounds closer to his carry weight isn't what I call punishing :/.

Then there is the issue with ammo. With a couple ranks of Scrounger, by the time I had found a .50 cal receiver, I had over 600 cartridges, just found in random containers. I'd find 12-20 in one go. And yet, finding .44 ammo elicited the same emotions as chancing upon a duct tape multi-pack. So much for my idea of having a revolver as a sidearm (and why does the revolver not have access to glow sights by the way? Why is there no consistency in the weapon mods?). Shotgun shells were also very rare. You'd think they'd be as common as Brahmin dung, but you'd be wrong. At some point in the 210 years our character was frozen, a broken down army truck filled with .50 cal cartridges must have been raided and its contents distributed equitably across the commonwealth for everyone's high-caliber enjoyment. Even though you can count the number of commonwealth guys with .50 cal weapons on a single, slightly mutated hand.

I won't talk about the weapons' actual killing power because everyone has already gone through that pretty well. And I won't touch on the magical legendary properties because, well, that's what the cool-off period was for. I'm over that. I am. I am.

Finally, I leave you with this http://i.imgur.com/qeFed6c.jpg. I think it doubles as a shield, but I'm not certain. Maybe it's one of them legendary thingies I keep hearing about?

Oh, and just so you don't think I'm a bitter hater, I do think that the shooting is responsive and impactful, and recoil works pretty well (don't like the auto-recovery but that's just a personal thing). This is usually what new shooters get wrong, so it was at least nice to see that they nailed that side of things.

For me it was also a matter of becoming so over-powered so early on that I never really had that same sense of tension that I felt from NV and 3. I never really even feel the need to sneak in 4, since I know I can kill pretty much everything with one gun or another in two shots max. The only time I felt that same sense of tension-induced-intrigue was when I first started wandering around the southwestern portion of the map.

And trust me, with my level of hatred for 3 being what it is, when I'm telling you it did something better...? Oof.

It's the lack of my skills actually mattering or my character honestly have no strengths or weaknesses and being good at everything. But it's the reason why I play stealth characters to make it challenging and fun. The only problem is that enemies more than often or not swarm. Feral ghouls are the worst at this. I am minding my own damn business when a feral ghoul just gets up from the ground. Cool concept, poor execution for the stealthy human as a feral is crawling through a window space detecting him, despite my character using a switchblade at current and making no noise.

I don't want firefights. I want multiple ways of going through a combat situation. Not throw a bunch of flipping enemies at me.

I know exactly what you mean.

Yeah man. It's such a friggin' bummer that Tim Cain's manifesto (of sorts) has been boiled down to "Well, just go fetch and shoot."

Sounds like your best bet is just moving on to a different game.

Yes combat is unsatisfying , Bethesda has no idea how to create a good challenging combat system.

Enemy AI is below average, Survival difficulty also employs the same AI as Very Easy difficulty.......its just that enemies turn into [censored] bullet sponges in higher difficulty which pisses me off even more.

I literally shot a legendary triggerman 12 times in the head with my fully modded revolver and he was still hacking at me with at least 30% of his health intact, this is not challenging its silly and stupid, i still killed him without suffering any noticeable damage so I don't know what was the point of him having so much toughness if he was gonna come at me like a blinded [censored].

I will never know what Bethesda was trying to accomplish by employing this approach into game mechanics....... but turning enemies into bullet sponges is not a very intelligent way to make encounters challenging, Bethesda!! You need to do better than this.

And seriously this is 2015, pick up your act Bethesda and pump up your game engine, its in sorry state and incorporate cover mechanics, this is a shooter ffs....... Fallout 4 action feels like something out of previous decade, even Half Life 2's action was more responsive than Fallout 4

Fallout 1 and 2 were like straight shots of whiskey that lit up my nights gloriously.

Fallout 4 is like some watered down crap that leaves you guessing and waiting for something to happen, but nothing happens.

I literally hit my brick wall tonight. I was going to boot it up after work and before people came over for horror movie night, but instead I read until I got drowsy and took a nap. I just found my pointer hovering over the FO4 icon and couldn't get past the feeling of "What's the point?" and that's really the overwhelming feeling I got from this game across the board. What's the point? Where's the intrigue? Where's the interesting characters? Where's the story to care about? Where's the excitement? Where's the friggin' beef?

The guns are seriously lacking in this game. I enjoy the gunplay..but the ballistic weapons selection in particular are, just bad. Selection is pretty pathetic, I can appreciate modding guns and welcome Beths version of it..I just didn't know I would be limited to 5 or 6 non plumbing fixture guns.

I started in survival mode, knowing it was going to be bullet sponge hell, yet I was hoping supplies would be sparse, i like that stims heal way slower, yet I started leaving stims during loot once I realized I was carrying 40 of the buggers. No I try to only carry 10 or 15.

Im playing a game where I have to limit myself because not only am I given the tools to win..but i am swamped with them.

I am not allowed to fail.

Also..loot respawning.. like instantly. I understand its mostly for the junk involved with settlement.. but EVERYTHING respawns...ammo meds etc. Thats just stupid. Who the heck is going around refilling the same medical boxes in the same house after its been robbed 9 times?

Im still playing..have about 48 hrs or so in..just sorta enjoying it for a borderlands inspired hiking sim.

I guess I roleplay that its not fallout and then I can enjoy it more.

I wish there were more mobility-based abilities to make combat seem more dynamic. Otherwise, my biggest gripes are the keybindings. Bash and grenades should not be bound to the same key, ever. I am massively enjoying the gunplay in the game otherwise. I have found myself changing up my tactics in a way that no other shooter has done for me before. I just hope there'll be more utility weapons in the future.

Dontlike the game? Go play something else. Plenty of "better" games out there.

sights are working pretty good for me, I think its leaps and bounds better than FO3 and NV. The hunting rifle is one of the guns I have the best accuracy with amusingly, only guns I have better aim with is pretty much any with the reflex scope.

He's not complaining "about the whole game", he's complaining about "This element within the game". He may very well be enjoying the exploration and factions and settlements. I have a lot to complain about but also can see the good things within the game. So I'll be playing something else but I'll ALSO be playing this. And even though other games offer FPS it's best when one game mixes everything up well.

I must be playing a different version of Fallout 4, and I seriously cannot figure out how Fallout 3 and FNV had better combat....I'm certain that my 1,856 hours of Tale of Two Wastelands qualifies me to call BS on you in this regard.

I've seen those two games in the Geck and Fallout 3 was actually better balanced and its perks actually worked other than the Point LookOut perk...But really cant stand the endless praise for FNV and its perks when I know most of them didn't function correctly if at all.

The game is better off without skill system,

Go play another game.

Those guys do nothing but complain about this game at every opportunity.

+1

I love FO4, but do have some issues with the dialog. I like the voiced player, but feel like it has taken away from more complex conversations. Which I would prefer. I must admit I'm about 100 hours in and have yet to finish the main quest, but want to re-role and align with a different faction.

I agree with you on the glowing sights. Their "glow" bled into my sights and obstructed my view. But I'm actually loving everything else. The guns felt like they had a lot of weight to them and the recoil and precision felt right for something that was recovered after bombs fell. I didn't use the energy weapons much. They've just never been satisfying to use on people.

That's just me, though. I understand where you're coming from. I always thought it was funny though http://static3.gamespot.com/uploads/scale_super/1525/15257558/2770409-2222932773-ibV42.gif that give you the ability to aim down your sights with lightning fast reflexes and with complete accuracy. Make's me think the soldier is using some sort of performance enhancing drug.

It is not possible for me to disagree with this post more. I love the combat mechanics and I've come up with very few complaints. I love the iron sights. My three main weapons are the .50 Recon Sniper Rifle with a long recon scope, and a fully modded combat rifle and fully modded combat shotgun. The combat rifle and shotgun both still have iron sights on them, and they won't be getting changed. I've tried using the reflex sights and didn't really care for them. I was using a short scope on my combat rifle for a while, which wasn't bad. But losing the peripheral vision wasn't to my liking. I'm accurate at pretty long distances with the iron sights.

I also have absolutely no complaints about the mouse mechanics.

As far as the actual combat and general motion mechanics are concerned, FO4 is an improvement in every single way in comparison to FO3 and NV in my opinion.

My only complaints with FO4 are the lack of meaningful impacts from dialog choices. You can't really be the 'bad guy' regardless of what you do. All of your dialog options basically come out to the same end result. I get that this is somewhat necessary because of the overarching theme of the story line, but it does make the game a much more linear progression.

Except for the mouse lag problem I have and some weapons being underpowered without legendary effects, combat has been fine so far. I play a stealth character. I do kind of wish the combat had either realistic shooting and fast TTKs or unrealistic shooting with jumping around and moving a lot being an important part of combat. Right now it's kind of a weird combination of realistic shooting with bullet sponge enemies.

If you want challenging combat, try this: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1561910-dead-is-dead-perma-death/

LOL. OP obviously doens't know how fun VATS is. My build is Ninja VATS with RIFLEMAN, GUNSLINGER and Mysterious Stranger. The cut scenes and multiple angles slowed down makes me feel like I'm watching a movie... and criticals with a laser rifle?!?! Ashes to ashes... but my favorite are critical cut scenes with the .44 magnum and heads get blown up or body gets thrown 20 feet in the air. As for the Mysterious Stranger, he's awesome and now sometimes he refills my crit meter and then I own the next enemy. Dude, you're not playing FO4 right. Go make a VATS build.

I dunno, man. My character fits your "VATS build" pretty perfectly and I found myself bored very quickly. It's like mashing a "win in slow-mo" button.

This.

I really like the gunplay and the lack of bullet-sponge enemies but I have lately encountered enemies that have been harder to kill. It's probably time to take some more ranks in Gunslinger and Commando etc.

Also, about the dialog choices and not being able to be a bad guy: I'd have chosen the 'good guy' -responses anyway, but knowing you can't really be a bad guy is lame.

Fallout 3, New Vegas, and Skyrim suffered from "Fatman to the face? Tis but a flesh-wound!" syndrome too, so I *always* used "Headshots actually kill you" mods on those. Cos anything else is ridiculous.

2 weapon abilities at once is a [censored] waste of points when you could have gone to the luck tree and get idiot savat to build tons of [censored] experience and get the VATS perks like grim reaper if you are using VATS a lot.

It is fun for a while but in the end you end so OP that you know nothing is going to be challenging anymore when you can bassically take everyone in a room in VATS... "feel like im watching a movie"... well most of us the true gamers want to play a game no watch a frigging movie, to have a challenge and some kind of satisfaction, but whatever since this days everything is made with the average joe in mind.

Then have some fun with it. I just put a grenade in a raider's pocket and blew him up. There's so much to do in this game. I'm honestly having fun making settlements. Level 42 normal difficulty with 19 settlements. Fun going to a random settlement to maintain or add defenses and a random attack happens. That's when VATS makes it fun.