I did a couple "plays" (wouldn't call them "through" cause I didn't progress too far into any of the quests) to get the hang of it, and I am technically on my "3rd play" which is turning out to be a "playthrough" meaning I intend to do as much of the game content as I can with this character.

On this one, I did not go to Concord till about Level 25 or later. I found the "cadence" of the game was much less frenetic that way. I haven't spent nearly as much time in the various settlements and the incessant Preston quests have been much less of a hassle. Relocating my main base from Sanctuary to Oberland station helped a lot too. I probably only go to a settlement apart from Oberland about once per in-game week, and Sanctuary even less often.

I think I've got maybe ONE radiant quest from a settler at Oberland in the couple hundred hours of play and the in game date is early Feb of 2288.

So I gotta know. Those saying a second playthrough isn't in the cards.

How did you approach factions?


I have posted in another thread about the single playthrough that I am still on. I sided with the BoS, but committed my character to them wholly.

Doing so means I haven't done a single Railroad or Institute quest. on a follow up playthrough, Those quests, dialogues, terminals, companions, locational and quest related loot will be brand new to me- even if they are essentially counterparts to the other factional content.


I'm curious, who did you side with, and to what degree?

I see a lot of people posting that they are playing multiple angles- not really siding with anyone until the end game. Then still more are playing multiple playthroughs at the same time. It may not matter as much to the latter group, but as a whole, aren't you worried that you're ruining multiple playthroughs/longevity for yourselves- that you're essentially seeing all of the options there are without giving those options their own proper gravity? If you are one of the ones that's playing all sides- how do you have a character with any agency?


I feel like people are freebasing the game

Not a min-maxer so I usually stick to one faction per character. It's kept things fresh. Still haven't seen RR or MM in their entirety.

My point was more along the lines that the amount of game content in hours has less to do with replay-ability than one might think. At least that's my contention. Each of those games I mentioned would probably be considered boring by today's standards, yet in their day, with far less content, many people still found 100s of hours of enjoyment out of them. I mean, Ms. Pacman had no more content than up-down-left-right and the occasional button press, yet I've seen people feed quarters into those machines until their fingers were numb.

I'd say the success of today's games is based less on user response than sales. The community can dislike a game but excellent marketing can push sales to a positive result. Of course, residual sales are based on user responses and in that light, FO4 will do just fine. What the story lacks and what some identify as regression from earlier franchise titles is made up with bleeding edge graphics and a new game-play metric that must be experienced at least once - even for those who will end up not liking it. Another words, it's too new to fail.

Personally, I'm ambivalent about it. Part of me enjoys the new metric and part of me wishes aspects of the *old ways* were still included. My *satisfactory* response will most likely be based on user mods - which have always set Bethesda games apart from the others. All that free content makes even a poor game worth it.

For me, this is one of the first games I've ever bought so early in its release. My motivation to do so was to be among the pioneer modders for the game and add some stuff to my programmer portfolio this coming spring. So I didn't expect to be delighted with the game, and initially intended to wait till GECK came out to buy it. But then users posts just piqued my interest and I bought it only Nov 12.

Turns out I love it. I do miss some things from FONV and FO3, but overall I think the game is very strong, highly innovative. As far as ruining replayability: given I want to be able to focus on modding starting as soon as the GECK is released, and not get 'distracted' by play for fun, I guess that is exactly what I'm trying to accomplish!

I'm at level 70 playing a "quadruple agent" and intend to keep doing so with each faction till I get to some crossroads and then switch to another faction. When it is clear there is nothing else I can do with any faction without "taking side" then I'll finish the game by destroying everyone except Minutemen (probably) . . . else what I may do is, use BoS to Destroy Institute and RR and then use Minutemen to destroy BoS . . . not sure.

So yeah, I'm basically "free-basing" the game! Even so, I feel it will be hard to squelch all desire to do replays.

Yes there was a time in my game where I was on speaking terms with all 4 factions.

Why because I could not make up my mind which one was going to be best for humanity and the more I talked with them all the worse it got.

Prestons MM/farmers are way to needy with no leaders to move the group forward. Yes they can grow food but that is it.

Desdemona's of the RR is completely off her rocker putting synths before flesh and blood.

Maxson is one step away from being a hitler although many of his subordinates are quite sane and make the most sense to me.

Shawn- is misguided and probably a little bit crazy to think he can rebuild the world with metal men. Not to mention all the mettling the Institute has done on the surface that is just F'd up.

So I started this mission to find my son and had no clue as to what faction would help me the most. Anyone of them could have been a dead end. One has to keep their options open.

i'm only level 8 with the charasmatic meathead character. And I've been dying a lot. My 1st character also has 10 END so running was no problem. But I'm dying so much even with power armor. I only have a shotgun, pipe pistol right now. Honestly, I've been leveling via settlements. LOL. But I want to do Heavy Gunner/ Lone Wanderer on this one. Melee seems insane to me. I'm running Survival again so I'm avoiding a lot of enemies. Survival is much harder without good weapons, chems and a companion.

I'm also trying to avoid MM and BoS this time around.

I couldn't have completed the first play through without my own mods and a bunch of others I downloaded. I wont be playing through again until GECK is released and we have some massive mods plus a DLC or 2. Very disappointed in Fallout 4, and I am not the only one. Game of the year should have been in the bag for them and they blew it.