I find myself using LESS mods to fix FO4's issues that I did with Skyrim, Oblivion and Fallout 3. However, ever since I played Fallout 76 and enjoyed the mechanics and quality of life improvements there I've been striving to download mods that add that in and make ones that fill that purpose that people haven't made yet. I still find myself with less mods (180 something compared to 220+) for Fallout 4 than for Fallout 3/New Vegas and out of them I'm sure I have less that are there to fix gameplay/balancing issues.

I'd argue mods do count toward fallout 4's reputation, but its reputation as a standalone game without mods is arguably high as well.

When you are starving anything looks good

When you havent played a game for a very long time even a game such as FO4 in its vanilla state
can be *Fun*

but of course everyone on the internets is a pro gamer whom have Nicola Tesla levels of IQ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I've honestly never heard of someone who mods bethesda games NOT try to mod FO4.

The issue with me is that no amount of mods can fix the problems I have with it. The only thing I can do with mods is change textures, add new guns, and expand the settlement building options. As far as I know, no mod changes up enemies to feel more unique. None change the map to not suck. None fix the swapping weapons glitch. No mods to make it a proper RPG.

So many issues unfixed and the features that could potentially have been fixed were already too watered down by bethesda to fix. For example, every single laser weapon uses fusion cells. Doesn't matter if they are entirely different weapons or pistols, rifles, or snipers. They all are the same gun mechanically. There's no point in using a laser pistol over a laser rifle. In the old games where they used different ammo, using a laser pistol was more viable because you may be running out of rifle ammo while you stocked up on laser pistol ammo. To make a mod to make all the laser weapons use different ammo would be very clunky and likely cause a lot of problems.

There are just a lot of problems too hardcoded to fix with mods whereas the other games you mentioned are fairly easy to tweak in that regard. Even Skyrim can completely revamped most of the time. FO4 just doesn't have that same freedom.

My biggest concern with Fallout 4 is the simple fact that cut content left a big gap in Fallout 4 as a whole, the game felt really dead in certain locations i.e The Combat Zone, and the possibility of managing The Institute as the new director? The game as a whole felt like an unfinished product and it really showed in the main story especially towards the end.

Side quests weren't too interesting either, there was some good ones that I don't remember, however it felt like a fetch quest, go here, kill that, take your reward. It was rinse and repeat until you finally just got off from boredom. The Glowing Sea was an interesting and great dynamic, but when you have enough gear to fend off enemies and radiation it turns out than the Glowing Sea wasn't as a deadly as some made it out to be.

The mods I used were usually mods that made the game look better or bug fixes, which is pretty vanilla in itself, but sometimes I didn't see the need for mods because in my opinion Fallout 4's DLCs were great and added new content that was actually worthwhile. All in all, not too many complaints other than the game's atmosphere being very dead and the lack of meaningful non DLC based content post story.

Honestly, I love playing fallout 4 with my current mod list. It doesn't typically hold my attention as well as New Vegas does, but few games do. I don't hold it in the same realm as New Vegas or Fallout 3 but it is a fun open world style shooter with some pretty amazing community created mods. It isn't a game i can play super often and of course I wanted more from it. These days triple A titles are often a disappointment (cough Pokemon sword and shield cough). But all in all, these days you can still have fun with a modded fallout 4.

I think Fallout 4 is fun, even more so with mods, but my issue with the game lies at the core of the games mechanics which is that the RPG mechanics are very barebones. There's no skill based outcomes aside from speech checks which are purely charisma based, that in itself being a SPECIAL stat as opposed to a skill. The dialogue system particularly the voiced protagonist only further exasperate my detachment from my character as not only do I constantly hear them speaking in a voice that is utterly foreign to me, but they often emote in ways that do not align with the situation, often overselling emotions like anger or rage. I often feel that regardless of how I try to build my character or what direction I take, ultimately I wind up funnelled into the same scavenger/fighter playstyle because so much of the game is based around exploration and looting rather than narrative and roleplay. I know there are some people who feel the game has a very strong role play system, but I can never manage to escape the shadow of the game's main premise, man/woman out of time searching for their lost kid.

There are definitely mods that make the protagonist silent, allow for alternate starts, or even add skills, but they don't add skill checks, or change quest outcomes, and dialogue in a way that would be present in the classic fallouts, or in 3/NV. All in all, I just prefer the old approach vastly and sadly there are no mods that recreate that experience, nor will there be any unless someone went to the trouble of literally overhauling the entire game, which would be a pointless endeavour because there's just too much to work around.

That said, I do play Fallout 4, extensively (though not nearly as much as the previous titles), with mods, and without. Personally the reason I played it without mods the first time is simple; there's something to be said about experiencing the vanilla game as the developer intended you to experience it. In fact that experience is what helped me come to this conclusion. But yeah, I still play the game, so I dunno who these people who adamantly refuse to play it are.

something was just perfect about new vegas that no other game can copy even outter worlds just didn't hold up even with all the hope I had for it. luckily we can keep updating new vegas with mods to keep it playable today

Talon69x wrote:

something was just perfect about new vegas that no other game can copy even outter worlds just didn't hold up even with all the hope I had for it. luckily we can keep updating new vegas with mods to keep it playable today

I'm curious, do you remember how much criticism there was at new vegas around the first year or so of its release?
"It's just a cheap mod of fallout 3" "it's got a crappy setting," "it's too buggy" "I hate that the sections New Vegas are all just walled off" "I hate invisible walls and railroading me" "I hate it for some reason"

At the time I thought New Vegas was going to end up with a reputation not unlike Mass Effect Andromeda or Fallout 4 would eventually have -- that is, hated compared to its predecessor and laughed at for its shortcomings.
But then something weird happened, and while it has some people who prefer Fallout 3, mostly New Vegas is widely beloved, or at least discussed fairly civilily, its detractors often able to recognize that it isn't just an '76 evil garbage fire.

People did that a lot with Skyrim too, furious that attribute scores like strength and willpower were removed... and the backward-flying dragons, of course. But mostly, I only hear people speaking either highly or at least civilly about it these days. The anger died down.

So I thought... hey, people will eventually learn to be ok with fallout 4 someday. But... I guess not. People still seem kind of angry about certain things, even things which were fixed by mods.

It's worth noting that I started with Fallout 3, and very much loved it. I slagged off New Vegas for the longest time for essentially regarding it as an expansion of FO3 released as a full-retail game instead. It took years for me to return to NV and realize just what a gem it was, and with it on PC (I started with it on Xbox 360), I saw how the modding communities just opened it up to all kinds of possibilities, while still being a game that was built up and improved upon the game before it. I then went back and checked out the first two Fallout games, intrigued by their differences in gameplay, and ended up liking them quite a bit too.

My key point being, I don't think it has anything to do with where you started in the series or if you're a Bethesda or Obsidian fan. I really do think that Fallout 4 is just fundamentally flawed, way too streamlined, far too railroading, and ultimately very uninspired. Sure, it's one of the best LOOKING games the studio's put out in a while, but it clearly wanted that Skyrim level of broad appeal, and while Bethesda had an audience for that, Fallout was just a different animal for that kind of approach. The main fanbase clearly wanted something with a lot more depth and character.