Fallout 4: a dumbed down game or lazy game design?

This is an interesting question I ran across and deserves some real examination.  The complaint against Fallout 4 is that it sacrifices RPG game mechanics in favor of Action game mechanics to create an arcade or shooting gallery environment.  Most commentary see this as 'dumbing down' the game so that it can appeal to 'casual gamers', and it is an argument that has some merit to it.  Yet this result may not be intentional and come from a different cause: that of lazy game design.

Consider that games like Bioshock: Infinite and the Mass Effect trilogy were able to prosper using a voiced protagonist(s) and put in some good RPG elements, and they succeeded while neither being a true RPG.  The Bethesda Game Studios way of making a new part of their franchises is to hold a meeting and go with whatever the major design team leads think is a good idea and then structure the game around that idea.  When the idea of going with something that is 'popular' is put on the table as a 'new direction' for Fallout, it might have seemed like a good idea at the time.  Once the ball gets rolling around a central concept all the rest of the game design must follow it. The basic setting and theme had already been fleshed out to some degree, but the entire way to design the game had not been put into place save for using the Creation Game Engine.

Experimenting with games and their design is to be commended!  No matter what criticisms I level against Fallout 4, I commend the design team for trying something different and seeing where it would go.  Yet when putting it in a known franchise, doing a complete overhaul away from the themes and structures of prior games means gambling the franchise on the new way of doing things, while the old way of doing them attracted critical and popular success.  It was bold to step away from that known way of doing things to go for a radical overhaul of the entire game mechanics.

If Fallout 4 was named something else like 'Wasteland Adventures' and there was no Fallout franchise before it, then it would, indeed, be seen as a great Action RPG.  It would be a compelling arcade shooter with some RPG elements set in a very evocative post-apocalyptic world with lots of strange and fun creatures and people in it.  If there was no Fallout and the game was the first of its kind to appear, then there would be no qualms about it: it would stand on success alone.  That is how good Fallout 4 is on its own, and while a lot of the mechanics would suffer criticism from those in the First Person Shooter community, it would be understood that the game was an Action RPG, not an FPS.  With that all said, Fallout 4 has a lineage behind it, and it is one that requires great skill in constructing an RPG environment to fit that legacy.

Lazy Perk System
The largest criticism against Bethesda Game Studios in their prior game, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, is that it is an 'ocean wide and a puddle deep'.  For all of it being a Fantasy Action RPG, it has far more factions to play around with (though few of them very deeply) and offers a plethora of large and small stories that are still being discovered today.  BGS doesn't go for depth, it goes for detail and those are two very different things.  Fallout 4 has detail in its world, an abundance of it, but little depth even in comparison to Fallout 3 also made by BGS, and pales in comparison to Fallout: New Vegas licensed to Obsidian Studios for production.  There are no major perks that change what you can learn about the game world, and that is a crying shame as that sort of depth for character creation and interaction with the world, allows for replaying the game multiple times to discover yet more secrets.

The old system of character stats may have indicated a 'best way' to play to 'maximize' or 'optimize' a character, yet when a player steps from it to find out about other aspects of the game via a different character, they actually start to find out more than they did on the 'best' or 'maximized' play through.  By changing Stats you get different Perk choices, and when you choose a Perk suitable to that new Player Character (PC) you get new opportunities in dialogue if that choice influences what is available as options for a particular Non-Player Character (NPC).  All of that requires a lot of forethought and examination of the game world to determine how NPCs will react to the wide variety of Stats and Perks of the Player Character, and offer not just new information but sometimes insight into how things might be done differently.  Whenever the PC interacts with anyone or any creature that has a decision tree with it, differing Perk and Stat choices would often yield new insights or paths to follow for quests or gameplay.  This is emphasized by a level cap for the PC, so that you couldn't get every Perk and max every Stat on a single play through of the game.

Deciding to go with a Slaver type character in Fallout 3 requires the player to think about just how they would want to approach the game and what they would need to do to follow through with that.  And if they choose to try and retain some Karma neutrality, that meant keeping a close watch on just how others view them by checking their character overview.  Keeping the Regulators and Talon Company from your tail requires a lot of hard work...and yet that very character design is most likely taken until the 5th or 6th play through of the game.  Go ahead and just try something like that with Fallout 4 which has none of the depth of game design and decision paths for the PC that even Fallout 3 had, not to speak of Fallout: New Vegas.  Yes FNV didn't have a Slaver build, but the Perks of Grunt or Cowboy put a premium on weapons and skills that complemented that Perk which meant thinking through just how the PC would then approach the world.  By rolling up Stats and Perks we have a first instance of innovative yet lazy game design.  This is witnessed: by not having Skills as a moderator for Perks, and the player doesn't have to seriously think about the PC they are creating.  Missing a couple of points of a Stat?  Just mow down arcades for awhile and grind through them for a couple of levels since there is no level cap for your character and Perk points can be spent on base stats.  The choice for Perks becomes a pure grind and that grind needs arcades, and shooting gallery arcades don't need much back story to them as they will just be recycled in a few in-game days or a week.  Come back and mow them down again and again!

For an Arcade Shooter game, that is acceptable and it requires very little thought and design work to actually achieve this, beyond the laying out of the arcades, that is.  By the fourth or fifth time a player goes through the arcade, it is shoot or stab by the numbers - go to here, kill those individuals, move through the room, go down the hall, get the next few...over and over again.  Thus the elimination of Karma and Skills is due to the game mechanics that were decided upon early on in the process, but create a game creation environment that makes for lazy game design.  Anything that doesn't adhere to that is tossed out, which means no deep backstories are necessary and even having somewhat rational situations can be thrown out the window since setting need not be in service to the game world but to the game design.

This is not 'dumbing down' the game for players, it is purely lazy game design work to make an Arcade Shooter style of game.  To implement a rich Stat and Perk system means that the game designer is expecting players will want to explore a world in-depth with different approaches and those require specific rewards, benefits and expansive decision trees.  The approach of removing Stats and going a pure Perk route was implemented in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim with the only difference between the two systems is that instead of Perk Trees that are freely available by type, they are categorized by Stats.  Player choice of where to invest Skill points is removed to simplify the game design, not to 'dumb down' the game for players: it is easier to put generic percentages in as Perk Point investment rewards then to build an interactive Skill Point allotment system that then garners certain specialized Perks at certain levels of investment for a skill.  That latter requires thought and doing hard work for game design, especially in an Open World where a PC may be nearly any level when they approach an encounter area and the game design must take that into consideration.  The easiest way to do this is to take player choice away and just say what the reward is with a certain investment into Perk under a Stat rather than building a choice dependent one.

In prior games slowly working on a skill meant seeing that it improved as you went along: investing in Stealth got you better at not being found while sneaking, investing in Survival unlocked new   recipes and things to make, and the Energy Weapons skill allowed one to shoot better and have a better chance for a critical hit as the skill increased.   Making that decision of where to allocate skill points at a level up had a meaningful and immediate change on the PC's ability to interact with the world and reinforced character design for the player.

Lazy Relationships
Yet this is only one instance of lazy game design.  Another is in the Companion System and Romance options.  While it is fun to have each individual be an object of romance, that is in no way in keeping with prior games in the franchise nor a reflection of individuals in real life.  Sexual orientation is an actual outcome of human lives, and the vast majority of humanity is not bi-sexual nor gay/lesbian. Yet all the Companions in Fallout 4 are bi-sexual, not even being allowed a same sex preference out of the gate.  No case is made for each character about their sexual preferences and why, exactly, they would be bi-sexual.  If the game really wants to venture into that territory, and it does by being what it is, then some reason and rationale must be stood up to tell the players exactly why this is the case.

Indeed if we go by the Codex and Founding Axioms of the Brotherhood of Steel and what is seen in Fallout: New Vegas, the Brotherhood adheres to a first instance of those being born into the Brotherhood being preferable to outsiders: this is a form of internal replenishment and cohesion for the Brotherhood.  The Lyons, father and daughter, did welcome in outsiders, to be sure, as new members to the Brotherhood, that is a simple fact.  With Arthur Maxson rising to leadership and having to move back to some older principles to bring the Outcasts back into the Brotherhood, the concept of internally replenishing the Brotherhood would be on the books as something to be negotiated. Outsiders may enter the Brotherhood, yes, but to operate in any way that deserves the name of the Brotherhood, sexual practices would be made a part of that standard.  The Outcasts felt that the Codex and Axioms were not being upheld and couples that can produce children is part of that.  To get them to return this issue needs to be addressed and it would also serve to bolster confidence in the young Arthur Maxson that he was serious about getting the Brotherhood back on track.  In FONV it is Veronica that sees the problem of the internally limited numbers of the Brotherhood as a factor that will end them, and the rare individual who can become a member is not enough to sustain the Brotherhood for the long haul.  A one-way door for new members instituted by Maxson will replenish numbers and keep individuals within the Brotherhood happy, although it will be a somewhat limited dating pool. Those who are not straight will come to understand that unit cohesion and survival takes precedence over sexual preferences.  The Brotherhood must come first as we hear throughout FO4, and that means its long-term ability to survive comes above personal preference.  Even Veronica knew this was the case and would be resigned to it, though she was seeking a way to change how the Brotherhood operated for that survival she knew that her personal interests clashed with that necessity.

Paladin Danse, as a Synth, is sterile and how that was missed by the Brotherhood is a flaw to his backstory or points to the limited skill the Brotherhood has in the medical realm although that is less than credible given the amount of technology they use, medical included.  Yet it can be given a hand-waving pass of emergency conditions or being brought in by the Lyons family, and to keep continuity Arthur Maxson deals with the reality of it.  Fraternization inside the ranks, however, will have its own rules about it as well, and finding a partner within the Brotherhood is something that is relatively closed off to Danse.  He may get a pass on that by Maxson, yes, especially if he is in a training position or seeking someone beyond childbearing age as a spouse.  Being gay or bi-sexual, however, is a threat to unit cohesion and the Brotherhood does not live in the comfy pre-war era but in an era where unit cohesion and the cohesion of the Brotherhood as a whole is a paramount concern.  That free pass is one with conditions to it not only by Maxson but by Danse, as well, as he appears to be upholding the traditions of the Brotherhood itself and its new utilization of the Codex by Maxson.  Is it possible for Paladin Danse to be secretly bi-sexual or gay?  Yes, it is not out of the realm of the possible.  Is it probable, given his general attitude?  Not really, no.

It is interesting that another game, Army of Tentacles: Not a Cthulhoid Dating Sim, actually addresses this topic amongst its characters (and it is a Fourth Wall Breaking extravaganza) by putting forward that the reason that this is done is due to lazy writing.  While the game has a fun tone to it, the jabs put in on game design and story writing are telling as it was created long before FO4 and was actually criticizing other popular games.  Without even attempting to back this game design decision in FO4 with any lore and also explain why it is limited to the Commonwealth as we don't have a large number of bi-sexual, lesbian or gay NPCs in FO3. There are a number of them in FNV if you bother to take up the Perks and do runs to find them as they are a minority of characters.  Oh, it would take a Perk to find that sort of thing out.  Hmmm...see the Lazy Perks section for that.

Other characters could have plausible back stories for sexual orientation but we never get that sort of story from them.  While the Companions in FO4 are better than those in Skyrim for background, save for the instance of Serana in the Dawnguard DLC, and less in the way of expository dumps than the companions in FNV, the general way that Companions are handled with their Like/Dislike system is clumsy and based solely on the PC's activity when they are actively with a Companion.  There is no Karma system in FO4 nor Faction Alignment system like the one added to the Karma system in FNV, and that means that the Companions have no other game mechanic available to determine how they see the PC in light of their own background.  This is not a criticism of the back stories of any of the Companions, but one of not allowing them greater available input on their judgment of the PC.  Thus you can't have a Cassidy that actually does have a sense of the PC's Karma and becomes a prickly Companion to deal with in FNV if you have been looting the wasteland blind.  She will join you on the road to help find the fate of the Caravans and what is going on, but you had better not try to interact with her in any other way if your Karma is low enough to trigger her dislike of you.  In other words your total activity hangs around you like an invisible aura that NPCs can recognize and react to: it is a generally invisible trait that goes with the PC wherever they roam and changes due to just how shifty they are when no one is looking.  That is the utilitarian use of a Karma system in RPG game design and without it there is no viable alternative universal system to give people a 'read' or 'tell' on the PC at a glance: no one will see you as a shifty character or one that appears to be quite noble just by looking at you.  Yet this is a part of human relationships and that first impression is meaningful and removed from the game save for individual Like/Dislikes.

An exception was made for Serana and that needs to be explained.  As a Companion in Skyrim she has one of the most complex decision trees with memory functions of any Companion that BGS has attempted with the modern form of the GameBryo/Creation Engine.  She has internal quests of her own to go through and that includes at least one dealing with how she reacts to the PC.  She remembers your answers, judges your actions and even remembers when you have started asking about her background and what depth you go into.  Serana is one of the buggiest of Companions around, but also one of the deepest as it was an attempt to put in a biased decision tree for her based on the major paths the PC could take in the game, with Vampire or Mortal being the major one but not entirely the determining one for her attitudes.  This is an NPC with a past, a history, and with her own problems that she won't reveal right up front and that take time to get her to open up about...that is if you actually treat her like something other than just a generic Companion.  FO4 is a step backwards from that, though a step forward from Skyrim in general, and a downgrade from what was available in FNV where Companions did have sexual orientations.  Designing Serana must have been a real and deep challenge to BGS as they have not dared to approach that level of complexity or surpass it (and debug it) since then.  For all the good that can be said of the Companions being better fleshed out in FO4 than the generic ones in most of Skyrim, BGS decided to get lazy and not bother to actually think about the ramifications of those Companions and just make them all easy going bi-sexuals.  That is lazy game design and story treatment by intent, and it builds upon the lack of Karma or Faction Alignment which, in and of itself, is also part of that same game design.  The 'dumbing down' is in the design for the designers to have an easier time of it as making a complex, multi-level relationship system is a hard thing to do for even a handful of NPCs.

Karma, Factions, Morals, Ethics
Karma is a hard to define concept in the Fallout universe as it is seen in FO3 and FNV.  In general killing innocents, blowing up peaceful settlements, stealing from people all get you Bad Karma.  Killing Raiders, Ghouls and a few other threats, plus choosing to be charitable towards others (even Raiders!) can get Good Karma.  That is a basic approach to Morals in the post-apocalypse and it served as a touchstone for the prior two games in the franchise and even offered a real challenge to those trying to go a neutral path as you didn't know just how much Good/Bad Karma was attached to each action, though you could begin to figure it out by seeing the general Saint/Devil depiction of your PC and it was hard to achieve being Neutral.  This operated in the background and the player only got a short indicator of Karma gain/loss when an action was taken that changed it often lost in the indicator stream of what you were doing to your enemies.  This gave an aura around the PC and it was palpable to the people you interacted with and could change how they approached you.

Faction Alignment, in FNV, gave an overview of how each of the major factions, towns and settlements viewed the PC through their own particular lenses.  Help the Powder Gangers and you slowly gained status with them.  Kill Powder Gangers and you lost it.  The same goes for all the major factions, towns, and places like Freeside and The Strip.  Being loved or hated had consequences and your actions created those consequences, so NPCs would not only react to your basic Karma but to how their faction viewed you.  This also had to take into account the Karma reset that would take place on The Strip for the Legion and NCR so that you didn't waste time gaining status only to see it wiped out: for those factions the real meat of their view of you starts on The Strip.  That is an unspoken game design mechanic that is only discovered by playing the game more than once as you may miss what the ramifications are the first time around.  It was a system that had its faults, true, as it didn't account for things like being hidden and eliminating opponents from cover: somehow the faction automagically knew about it.

Behaving in a way that accords with a viewpoint of a faction means that the PC is acting in an ethical manner in the faction's own moral system to uphold it.  Be it bringing NCR Dogtags to the Legion representative or Legion Ears as part of the Restoring Hope metaquest, by behaving in a way that is demonstrable to a faction in a way that the faction understands, the PC gains positive alignment status with them.  That is a hard game mechanic to build into a game as it requires a well crafted game with a set goal and end point to make it feasible.  FO4 does not have this game mechanic, and you can actually fail missions for factions (like the Institute) and have zero ramifications upon the course of the story as that course has been predetermined as part of the game design.  That is predestination for your PC and it removes player choice and agency from a game. 

There are three quests that can be totally failed by the PC for The Institute in FO4 (Synth Retention, Battle of Bunker Hill and Building a Better Crop) and doing so will have no ramifications on the outcome of the game at all.  The first is an overall failure to demonstrate adhering to the morals of The Institute regarding Synths and the others are a failure regarding external projects and operations. By killing Gabriel the rogue synth you were sent to retrieve, the quest fails.  There are some words of disappointment and even some harsh words, but not enough to cause anyone to want to kick the PC out of the place: that takes murdering a number of scientists or at least one named character.  The idea that you just might not be Institute material is undone by Father who has placed blind faith in an expectation of the PC, even in the face of it being purposefully undermined, that the PC is the right material to join The Institute.  With three clear examples done opposite of the way The Institute wants, that faith is never shaken, yet three should be a charm to prove the point.

FO4 suffers by not having that Karma and Factional Alignment system in place so that failing factional operations would have negative impact on their alignment, and the larger the operation the larger the gain/loss.  Not putting it in is an understanding that FO4 is open ended: it has an end video based on who you choose to go with, but not much else.  There is post-game material, building, etc. but that no longer has the direct purpose of the main game.  Yes it is possible to get rid of a faction after the end-game (save for the Minutemen) and that requires rather blunt application of direct force on the part of the PC.  Gone is the concept that you are judged for your overall work for the faction, and you can screw up as many operations as you want and STILL be a part of the faction and STILL get more work from them.  It is hard to directly fail quests in FO4 (very easy to do so indirectly by choosing a faction and then continuing with it to the end-game and shunning other factions), and only a few of the Radiant Quests will ever time out into failure by just not doing them.  Now if only you could stop them from being handed out in the first place, but there is always another settlement that needs your help.

Lazy Radiant Quests
Radiant Quests have reached a high point in FO4 as each faction has them and often multiples of them.  Be it that settlement calling for help/being attacked/someone kidnapped or doing fetch quests for the BoS. or placing sensors/finding pre-war chaches for the RR, or doing the bits and pieces of busy work for The Institute, the sheer amount of Radiant Quests is overwhelming in FO4 and it takes some time to filter out just which Quests are game essential and which ones are merely radiant.  Radiant Quests continually recycle, and if you need to grind out XP, caps or just go on looting sprees, then they are just the ticket to do so.  They are the cotton candy of gaming: sweet, gives a quick boost but ultimately lacking in staying power.  Thus they are the perfect way to let you know that another arcade is ready to be shot up again!  Just what you needed, isn't it?

There is a term for these types of quests and it isn't a good one: Filler Quests.  They pad out game play and that is their sole and only purpose.  They do not advance story lines (save getting those critical eight Minutemen settlements to make them a viable faction) and, in general, just serve as giving the player something distracting to do.  That is what they are designed to do: take up play time, put in filler content where there is no real content and, in general, to keep someone playing longer so they can grind out levels or equipment resources.  If there were no filler quests then a coherent storyline would have to be created that allowed for enough meaningful activities to take place so that the player would have leveling opportunities for the PC.  The prior way to do this was Random Encounters, which are also Filler Quests save they start and stop at the encounter, and are thus limited in scope.  Luckily FO4 has both types of Filler Quests (along with a few unique random encounters so you aren't bored to death of them) for that XP goodness that they couldn't figure out how to properly write a decent plot around around.  So much territory, so little content, thus Radiant Quests fill it up, just like you always didn't want.  Too bad that the main story line isn't that interesting.

Lazy Weapons and Armor
Bethesda Game Studios holds a raft of talented people able to deal with many factors in game design and have proven very able to design good games using a system of Damage Resistance in which an individuals armor resists a percentage of incoming damage up to 85%.  Thus incoming damage is reduced by a percentage and that reduction is a game balance factor that applies across the entire game from start to finish.  The armor of FO4 reflect this in that dividing the armor rating by 10 yields the percentage of Damage Resistance for a character, creature or anything else.  In the prior instances of the Fallout franchise a system of Damage Threshold mixed with Damage Resistance was the standard.  A Damage Threshold stops damage up to whatever that Threshold his, thus a DT of 4 stops the first 4 points of damage before applying the Damage Resistance to the rest of the damage.  This system worked up to 80% of incoming damage and worked quite well and is canonical for the Fallout franchise.  FO4 ditched the complex mechanic for the simpler one of Skyrim and Damage Resistance up to 85% though it did have different categories for Ballistic, Energy and Radiation damage.

The game mechanic of DR and  DT requires considering what the scope of the game will be and exactly how the weapons and armor need to be balanced across the board, but only if the creatures, NPCs and other individuals do not significantly change their level and stats across the course of the game.  This means that the weapons picked up early in the game and used against foes at the start of it will always do that same amount of damage to those foes even late in the game.  Picking off Bloatflies with a 9mm Pistol will always be effective and the damage output of the pistol will not change, although the Perks chosen will enhance that damage and your skill will give a better chance to hit and get critical hits.

This is not the case in FO4 as it uses a leveled list of enemies and constantly changes the level of the environmental threats the PC faces throughout the entire game.  That is why different classes of enemies within their type show up as they designate a level type of that enemy.  These level types will be mixed in with some of the base types, to be sure, requiring the PC to deal with evolving combat situations on the fly.  All of this is done when the game is made open ended: it has no real end and players may level continuously, gaining Hit Points at every level.  Damage output of everything is scaled based on the complexity setting the player has chosen and the modified equipment types used (for those opponents that use them).  This is workable and BGS has even gone the extra mile in support of this by making the harder modes easier to work with by simply upping the universal damage output of everything, thus eliminating 'Bullet Sponges' which are those enemies that simply take more shots to take down: everyone is more susceptible to damage at harder levels which requires far more consideration on the part of the player as even the lowest level threats now become lethal ones.

Every part of the combat and equipment part of FO4 serves this game mechanic of pure DR as DT does not exist in FO4.  This system works and quite well in the game setting which is that of an Action RPG with the Shooter and Arcade elements taking a priority over Role Playing elements.  The prior system of DR and DT could be implemented, of course, but would require a serious redesign of how many HPs the PC gets per level and would need to adjust the damage output of all opponents across the board to form a more static environment that did not constantly get tougher as the PC leveled up and yet always remained a threat.  Doing this is a very hard thing to do as the PC will be tougher to take down late in the game, though damage will still be suffered the impact of it will just not be as much.  To support open ended game play the entire setting must continually get more lethal, which is not just unrealistic but untenable for an immersive environment RPG, though it works for an Action type game very well.

Addressing the Weapons side of thing, there is a known canon of weapons in the Fallout franchise, and while each game may add or subtract a few, there is always a base understanding of just what those weapons are, what they look like and how they function.  The weapon modification system of FO4 deals with a much more simplified system of weapons and allows modding of each of the major variants within that system.  It adds the Pipe weapons which look like homemade weapons crafted together out of scrap pipe, wood, wire, and whatever was handy, and then having all that stuff get a layer of rust and grime.  This complex system cannot hope to cover the wide variety of weapons seen in prior instances of the franchise which included a variety of calibers for ballistic weapons, and a diverse array of energy cell types instead of the 4 given in FO4 (whten the Fusion Core is included for Gatling Lasers and Alien Blaster Pistol rounds for the Alien Blaster Pistol).  Recovery of spent casings is removed as a game dynamic for reloading, which is a skill that is not in FO4.  Ammo can be made via the Contraptions Workshop manufacturing device, but not by the PC via a skill.  Thus not only are casings removed from the game but so are nuclear batteries, primers, powders and the ability to craft specialized ammo.

Instead of specialized ammo the designers of FO4 have put in the Legendary effects for weapons and armor which give the effects of specialized ammunition to standard rounds and even gives effects that make no sense at all, like the Two Shot effect that magically summons forth an extra base projectile when the weapon is fired.  This is not dumbing down the game, but the laziest of all possible game design choices that is invented to service a limited number of weapon types so that they may gain Legendary variants that will replace items that used to be found during quests or by intrepid exploration of the map.  Instead of having weapons with better critical chances or critical damage appear as items found during such quests or exploration, they are handed out by Legendary Enemies that spawn in after a certain point in game play.  How a Legendary Radroach carries a Legendary Assault Rifle is beyond me: it is just a magical loot list change to make up for the lack of interesting quests and equipment that will retain their relative utility throughout the game.  A Legendary .38 Pipe Pistol with the Two Shot effect might be upgraded all the way to a .308 rifle, but that will be overshadowed by other weapons that are more accurate, have a longer range and will even have better base damage output than that rifle.  Note that the Pipe Pistol does need either good modifications to show up on other weapons of its class to do that upgrading or the PC taking ranks in the prerequisite Perks like Gun Nut and Science to craft them.  By the time you have the first ranks in those, better weapons are already starting to show up in the game in containers or when looting bodies, which is Level 3.

Ammunition variation allowed for the PC to pack a single weapon, but have a dynamic ammunition load for it, so that it was possible to switch between the normal rounds to those that were armor piercing, explosive or, in the case of shotguns, slug rounds or bean bag rounds for non-lethal combat.  Luckily non-lethal combat was removed as a game dynamic, so no need for that sort of thing in the wasteland as that would involve player agency and choice.  Having ammo variety cut down on the number of weapons it was necessary to carry around, and it also meant that the differences in what each weapon did as a type came into play, so that a PC might just want to carry around an Anti-Materiel Rifle and Sniper Rifle as they could serve very different purposes even when both had similar ranges and accuracy: the differences in ammunition meant they went after different types of target.  All of this goes for pistols, knives, and other general melee weapons as well as unarmed combat, although the non-firing types of combat did require some other specialized effects and perks: they all had uses to which they were highly appropriate and could serve in other roles but to lesser effect.  Choosing a load out for an excursion required carefully considering the PC's build, strengths and weaknesses, and then choosing weapons, ammo and armor appropriate to what was expected.

Having a wider range of weapons with limited modifications available and requiring Stats, Skills and Perks to then make specialty ammo requires a deep design decision early on in the game design to adhere to that and then figure out where good variants of those weapons should show up.  By having Legendary weapons and armor show up on those Legendary enemies, that is no longer required.  This is not dumbing down the game, but making a critical and poor decision to streamline game design so that careful crafting of dungeons, buildings, enemies and factions is taken off the board.  Why bother putting interesting small stories revolving around neighborhood Raider gangs that have been ongoing for a century or more that would reward diplomacy, stealth or just plain old overpowering of them to find a truly interesting weapon, piece of gear or other equipment when a shooting gallery and Legendary drops can take the place of it?  Legendary enemies are an actual detriment to game design and setting that might be extremely interesting, like Raiders set up in a seaside boardwalk with old game machines and other venues don't have to pay any attention to what they could actually do with them.  Interesting stories with rewards for getting through them is tossed out the window as, hey, you'll get a Legendary or two to show up and have a great arcade shooting experience...without a functioning arcade.

Lazy AI
 Ever have the experience where you are rolling into town and a group of 5 or 6 Raiders jump out of the woodwork to come after you?  Do the last 1 or 2 ever bother to realize that you've just taken all their friends out and it might not be the wisest of all ideas to run pell-mell at you or even that running away might actually extend their lives?  Nope, they don't.  It is always the bum's rush.  Oh a couple of them might get behind cover until you are 20' away and THEN jump out to give the run fast at you with a melee weapon, but that isn't using cover effectively.  I've seen a few Gunners try to use good cover, like getting behind a tree and going to one knee...leaving one leg sticking out on the other side of the tree.  Great training!  Using cover:  You're Doing It RONG!

Cover is the act of getting behind a barrier that is rather solid to what the opponent is dishing out and then deciding if you want to use it to fight a close combat tactical fight or to use it to regroup a bit further away, using the cover to shield your retreat.  Oh, and you don't let vulnerable body parts stick out of cover as they tend to get shot up pretty badly and you die from shock and blood loss.

Concealment does much the same thing, save you can be shot through it and you don't treat it like a barrier but a place to stay out of sight and, maybe, creep slowly over to some real cover or get the hell out of there.  Or, if you have good IR or other means to see through the concealment, then you use it to stay hidden and snipe at enemies.  If you fade back into a room, get out of sunlight and let the shadows mask your presence and have a means of suppressing the flash from your weapon, then you are using concealment, not cover.

This is damned basic stuff and while you might forgive a Raider at low level for not learning this stuff, one that survives to be, say, Level 10 should have just an ounce of self-preservation and smarts to survive.  Gunners I expected to form tactical squads that would communicate with each other by hand signals and not by yelling, trying to get some long range sharpshooter in place to force an opponent into cover and then working close combatants in who could lob grenades in your general direction to either flush you out or kill you.  Sometimes, by sheer accident, this can happen.  They even think they know how to regroup running down open hallways without a lick of cover on either end.  Bless their broken AI for requiring them to have heavier weapons and equipment to deal with the fact that they don't know how to fight properly.  Meanwhile you, the PC, can be using semi-auto precision fire to keep their heads down and lob the odd grenade in to flush them out, no companion required.

That is lazy combat AI.  Although, truth be told, this problem is one that is generalized across gaming and game designers try to make up for it by cheating.  In Skyrim any enemy firing magic or an arrow at you is an aimbot, able to make shots on the run that just aren't possible...when they don't suddenly slide a few feet out of the way so that you miss what should be an assured hit given the level of skill and precision the PC has.  Missing with automatic weapons due to weapon spread for you is perfectly acceptable, not even getting a single round on target.  For your opponents?  Nah, they'll get a few in even when they are blind as a bat and firing the least accurate weapons in the game.  Plus the magic ninja slide from Skyrim has shown up again in FO4, and I've seen Deathclaws do the slide by a good 10' to avoid being hit.  Isn't that just wonderful?  That magic slide stuff wasn't fun or acceptable in a fantasy setting and has no place in the Fallout franchise.  Ever.  Getting rid of it, NPCs being aimbots and generally being able to shoot while doing the world's fastest Moonwalk is critical to immersion.  If you are going to give our enemies super powers then make those available to the PC so we don't feel left out of the magical goodness of being able to slide while being stock still.

Too bad it doesn't stop there with lazy combat AI.  Companions, or even friendly NPCs, don't have an understanding of Situational Awareness: keeping basic tabs on who is doing what, where, and then moving appropriately to keep out of the line of fire of both hostiles and friendlies.  To be fair, watching a few online matches of people taking sides and witnessing this same sort of activity show up does make me wonder why it isn't inculcated in the gaming community.  The player isn't meant to feel the pain of doing this, and can restart a character with, perhaps, a bit of health lost or even a bit of level XP lost.  Instead of starting all over.  If every Deathmatch meant that your PC avatar would actually die and not be recoverable, then gamers might start taking SA a bit more seriously.  In a game where NPCs should, in theory, want to continue surviving in a damned wasteland, this skill is pretty much mandatory from the moment someone could first walk and hold a sharp stick.  Do they do this in Fallout?  Nope.  As I've said this is pretty much canonical all the way to the very first game in the series: Dogmeat will get in your line of fire just as you are lining up a shot and have committed to taking it.  Usually this ends up with a dead Dogmeat, but in FO4, Dogmeat is eternal and can thus suffer this abuse over and over and over and over and over and never learn not to get in the way of your line of fire.  The first time Dogmeat did this when I had a Missile Launcher...well on the restart I sent him back home.  That and the fact he was getting thrashed around by some pretty high level creatures and I didn't want to see him abused any more.  Other Companions I have been very, very tempted to dismiss them and then murder them, but that would be blaming the NPC for their busted AI.

How busted is this lack of SA?  Ever get into a firefight, and I mean a nasty one, and then have a Companion catch you off-guard and force a conversation interaction with a "You know, we've been traveling together for awhile now..."?  I have.  Cait when we were tearing the Synths from the fish packing plant.  Piper when the Institute was assaulting The Castle.  MacReady when I could hear that 'tick...tick...tick' of a Suicider sprinting our way.  Nick at Quincy when we still had Baker to deal with.  If I'm lucky and my PC has to turn around to face them, I can continue the turn and get beck into Sneak mode.  If I'm not, then tabbing out and trying to get out of conversation mode is the only chance of not having to restart from that last save which can be pretty far back.  When there is an active firefight going on or when in Sneak mode crouching down, those are not times for a nice little heart to heart chat. Ever.  Period.  Full Stop.

Now there is the non-combat side of AI which is also pretty lazily designed.  Ever have someone start a conversation with you only to then turn and walk away from you?  Damned rude behavior, that.  Would it really be so hard to put in a STOP AND TALK animation that can't be overridden by a 'Walk to the nearest interaction with a static object and do something' animation?  Yes the frozen time stuff of FONV and FO3, as well as TES III and IV are unrealistic, sure.  But at least they kept people who started a conversation from walking away from it in mid sentence.  And it also had the benefit of stopping other NPCs who have no concept of Personal Space from pushing you or the NPC away from each other to break up the conversation.  Mind you, even if the two of you are in Power Armor, a couple of children can push you apart just by walking into one or the other of you.  Don't these NPCs have a script that tells them: when the PC is talking to someone that isn't you, then you don't go near anyone involved in the conversation?  No, they don't.  In game mechanics terms this could be solved by an invisible shield appearing around those taking part in a conversation that pushes other NPCs gently away so that their path-finding indicates to them that a barrier is in place that must be walked around.  Not that this is part of their scripting since I've witness NPCs walking into the walls of buildings, trees, low walls, rather small rocks...and just continuing the walk animation and going nowhere.  That is in so many games that I can't think of one that actually does it RIGHT.  So kudos on not trying to advance the state of the art for NPCs and immersion!  No one else bothers to do it so why start, eh?  You might actually raise the bar higher than other companies can go and demonstrate some basic understanding of how an NPC should react in a dynamic game environment.  Forget VR for 'immersion': it isn't immersive if your Companion is continually trying to walk through a wall and 3D does nothing to make that any better.

Lazy settlements
In prior games of the Fallout franchise, the concept of settlement has a loose but relatively well understood meaning to it.  A settlement generally consists of three or more families making a go of it in the wasteland.  At that point it is large enough to get included on trade routes as a viable stop, which means outside goods can be traded for those made locally.  In FO3 the community of Arefu is facing this dilemma as they were chased off their land and now face a critical point of falling under the number of people doing viable work to attract traders or even just survive on their own.  Below the settlement is the Homestead, where a family is doing its best to make a go of things and if it is on a trade route it at least can sometimes do some trade with a caravan for outside goods.  Two Homesteads in close proximity to each other don't make a settlement but serve at the cusp of what can become a settlement.  The tales of those who tried to go it with one or two families is littered across the wasteland in the stories of why they didn't survive, and those stories revolve around the lack of depth of personnel or skills necessary to address the problems the wasteland can mete out.  In both FO3 and FONV this sort of environmental story or one told through journal entries and setting often involve some of the saddest stories around: these are people you can relate to and the reason why they failed is clear.

FO4 breaks with this convention in an attempt to put in a generic settlement system that makes no sense.  There are organic settlements of the old style, to be sure:  Diamond City, Goodneighbor, Bunker Hill, Covenant and the late University Point.  Other stops would include Longneck Lukowski's Cannery, Greygarden, Vault 81 as they are reliable sources of trade.  Abernathy Farm might be included in that as it has a low level vendor available though it doesn't seem to be on a route between any major locations and isn't large enough to warrant making it part of a trade route.  This would change the trade routes of the caravans in the game and few if any stops would be made at Ten Pines Bluff, for example, even though there is one trader that frequents it, just as there is one that goes to Finch Farm (which seems to be more trouble than it is worth).  Traders don't like to go near major Raider camps or sites, and being near one of them means a place like The Slog, for all that it has commodity to sell, wouldn't see much in the way of trade caravans due to their proximity to The Forged and Dunwich Borers gangs, Hub City Gunner camp, plus having a Super Mutant encampment just up the road makes it a high risk, low reward stop.  This sort of thing makes no real sense, and without some draw either through necessary supplies or good trade, a number of settlements in FO4 would garner little in the way of caravan attention as they are far too dangerous to get to on a regular basis.

There are some worries about trade at settlements of the small sort in FO4 though it isn't brought up a problem that threatens their long term survival chances.  The wasteland of the Commonwealth is a bit more forgiving than that of the Capital or New Vegas, this is true, but if it is that forgiving then the question of why there isn't a larger population base comes into question.  As presented there is lots of land to graze cattle, water that isn't irradiated beyond what a simple cooking station or chem station should be able to deal with, and it has plenty of viable crops to make a go of farming.  If there is so much in the way of viable land, then where are the people?  More importantly, how are all the gangs that don't have any land or easy to get to settlements able to survive at all?  And where do all the Raiders come from, anyway, as they don't have anything close to a viable society to sustain them, and there aren't enough people outside of the Raider camps to allow for so many Raiders to exist.  On a simple ratio of parasites to host, there are more parasites than the host can feed.  This is pretty much true across the board when Super Mutants, Gunners and other wasteland non-productive groups are encountered.  Where are all the people to populate all these groups?  This is a major problem for the Fallout franchise as it never has answered that question in a demographic way.  Demographics must dictate the wasteland for every living thing as it gives a population distribution that can be understood and then projected forward.  Simply put there aren't enough families nor enough children to create the large amounts of Raiders, Gunners and other foes that populate the wasteland.  Without enough children to grow to become adults, the future adult population will decline and problems with limited gene pool size will begin to crop up.   The place that this would happen are settlements, yet the settlement population is horribly skewed towards adults with a few individuals in their late teens and those aren't enough to replace the current adult population.  This is across all groups in the wasteland, The Institute included.

Fallout from lazy game design
The evidence of lazy game design is strewn around Fallout 4 and each instance of it impacts just what the player can do and accomplish in the game world.  A diversity of weapons and locations integrated into lore were scrapped for a relatively lazy world where only a very few items are deeply tied to lore and the rest is substituted with a magical system of Legendary drops.  The criticism of this being an instance of 'dumbing down' the game is one that arises from pure and utter laziness of game design in mechanics, writing and initial move away from a traditional RPG.  What BGS did right was spend time to make the Creation Engine running this show less crash prone, and for that they are to be applauded!  The design effort after that is strewn with poor decision making, including going for a voiced protagonist on yet another family driven quest, and ignoring the opportunities available in having a cryo facility put into the Fallout franchise.  And this is where Fallout 4 truly suffers from lazy game design.

Lore-wise, the opportunity presented from a small number of individuals in a cryogenically frozen or life suspended situation from a Vault in Fallout offers so much in the way of opportunities for rich world design that it cannot go without referencing it.  Just on the side of player opportunity within a cul de sac neighborhood we get to see individuals across a wide range of ages that are scheduled to be in the Vault and sent on a one-way trip to the future without their consent.  These are individuals that have a good working knowledge of the pre-war world which could offer different start choices to the player just based on that.  This would require a far more generalized game environment, yes, and not have some artificial story driver put in place to move the story forward.  Instead the player would be given agency in the world right from the start.  If an emergency over-ride defrosted someone inside this facility, then what their first priorities be?

Imagine if you could wake up other individuals: would you do that in a totally unknown setting even within the Vault right at the start?  Or would you wait and try to get a feel for what went wrong?  Then do you decide to explore further knowing that you could die and be unable to wake up anyone else from the Vault?  Choosing different paths right at the start will dramatically alter chances of survival and ability to understand this strange new world that you aren't prepared to be in.  Background skills chosen at the start of the game would then emphasize what the PC could do, so that attempting to get others out of cryogenic suspension might be based on a good, starting skill in Science or perhaps Programming (separating that from the more generalized Science skill).

Rich NPC design, at least for those other individuals in the Vault, would then allow them to display different skill sets and assist on setting up a basic area for surviving out of the Vault.  Or, perhaps, you might try and address the malfunctioning reactor and turn the entire Vault back on and get clean water and sanitation going.  Yet without food, hunger would mean going outdoors and finally figuring out how to augment the very first area that can be made safe and habitable.  Who you choose to wake up, when you choose to do so and then what is done after that each opens up a different starting opportunity which would, in turn, change the direction of game play.  Finding a working and friendly robot would be a true benefit with the proper Science or Programming skill, and a generalized robot means it can do a decent number of basic tasks, each augmenting basic immediate and long term survival.  This concept would require strong RPG game mechanics backed up with a diverse building mode that would allow different capacities at settlements based on who is actually there and what they know.  Settlements, in other words, would begin to act like true settlements, yet the game mechanic can be introduced early on in the game not via the Minutemen but through organic game play.

This would still entail the scrapping of the 'find your son' storyline or making that a part of a Side Quest if you awaken as someone other than Nate or Nora.  In fact finding someone who has been shot and put back into cryogenic suspension offers the opportunity of finding a wasteland doctor or healer that could help deal with the wound while the patient is still in cryogenic storage and begin a prethaw system of encouraging tissue regrowth while warming the body and restarting its functions.  Then with both spouses up and functioning can the whole quest line start, though with the PC not being the main interested party but acting on behalf of a couple seeking to find their child.  This would relegate the Main Quest to a Side Quest status if this route is taken.

In fact starting or not starting a settlement would also be a deciding factor as to if the PC starts a new faction in the game and become a leader of it, but one who must take input from those who are part of the settlement or settlement system.  As faction leader the well-being of your faction is a primary concern, but it is also part of listening to the leaders and people of settlements so that a basic agreement as to what path to take can be formulated.  Rescuing the Minutemen doesn't automatically get you to be their General, and you can even offer the survivors another place to settle, like the Red Rocket Truck Stop so that they could have a place to shelter and even begin to build a new life for themselves.  They could be welcomed in at Sanctuary, of course, but if that is already a settlement then it would be necessary to consult with the people who are there and see if they are OK with this.  Here might be a place for a game mechanic of sub-dividing a large settlement area so that a smaller, well defined group can make their own place as a friendly neutral.

Establishing a new faction, yet still working with others to help them then shifts much of the early focus away from the baby hunt for Shaun and to a system of rebuilding in the wasteland and encouraging other settlements to help out in this endeavor.  Yet this entire game mechanic is hidden behind the build mode and establishing a settlement, all of which would be optional.  Players would be required to find this out, perhaps as part of a New Game+ system in which doing the base game and getting to an ending would be required to help understand game mechanics of this game which is no longer a shooting gallery at heart.  Actually aligning with an existing faction must bring benefits and problems of their own, and a taste of that could be given in a base game run as is seen in the lazy Radiant Quest model, yet introduce some better and more dynamic quests to help recruit certain types of people to a settlement.  Separate Side Quests or Mini Quests to find doctors, teachers, engineers, architects, tinkerers, chem dealers, weapons makers, armorers... all things that a settlement will need to grow after it reaches a certain size... will then add another layer to settlement building and maintenance.

Joining certain factions will help in certain areas of settlement expansion and maintenance, and it would require actual alignment and agreement, not just being a top agent, General, Paladin or what have you, as those are JOBS.  The Minutemen can provide training to settlers to help settlements better defend themselves through small arms and close combat, as well as to increase crop production.  The Railroad offers a better supply system as well as armor training and being able to place settlement defenses a bit further out and increase the sensor range for detecting enemies for settlements.  The Brotherhood of Steel would have training facilities that could be set up in larger settlements that would offer a place to recruit and train wastelanders in the creation, use and maintenance of energy weapons, power armor and heavy weapons, as well as to have a Vertibird landing area so that aerial coverage can be utilized to suppress enemies attacking a settlement.  Finally The Institute would offer a limited number of Synths to help in crop production, as well as remote scientific training and recruitment which would provide settlements with the ability to make the Synth armor types, Institute energy weapons, increase water and energy output of systems, plus have an actual reward for finding talented individuals for The Institute.  And if none of those sounds compelling, then it would always be possible to try and work with Raiders or Gunners and change their status from non-playable faction to playable, though with some difficult quests and unlocks involved.  Raider settlements would be unlocked with the Nuka World DLC, but would not be limited to just the Raiders at Nuka World.  The Gunners would be a base game unlockable with a series of quests, and would offer training in low level energy and ballistic weapons that are typically associated with the old military, combat armor creation, and serve as a source of getting contracts for the Gunners.

To do all of this and actually get people to use it requires not making it mandatory and to have a game mechanic of a couple of factions starting to do this on their own (like the Minutemen, BoS and Gunners) which means some of the political balance of the region shifts on its own if the PC does nothing about it.  Joining a faction or brokering deals with factions could become a vital part of the game, with a place ready made for an individual who is not aligned but willing to broker between organizations that are seeking to be neutral towards other factions.  The BoS and RR need not see each other as enemies and could even have a place for someone who is willing to deconflict operations or even create joint operations when it is against a common foe.  Basically the faction heads would treat other factions as factions, not as immediate existential threats.  Taking out The Institute means an end to Synths replacing individuals, and without a steady if low supply of refugees, the RR slowly fades out of existence.

Taking a longer view past the immediate problem would require good negotiation skills and having to learn more deeply about the factions involved.  This is made much easier when the PC is NOT the head of a faction as they are seen as not having a vested interest in the outcome which would also give compelling reasons NOT to begin a settlement mode.  And all of that stems from the very first decisions made upon getting out of cryogenic suspension in the Vault.  Do you wake someone else up to help or not?  That first decision will have long-reaching ramifications beyond just immediate survival.  The PC can just be a relic of the past, not wanting anything to do with and appreciating the new freedom of the wasteland to plunder and pillage, becoming a threat to everyone.  Or they could seek to rebuild but through other groups, helping and supporting them.  Or they could decide that this post-apocalypse is in need of something that no one else can offer it and try to end the problems currently facing the Commonwealth through ingenuity, tenacity, negotiation and, when the need arises, combat.

Picking up the pieces of the main story
When the PC awakens from cryogenic suspension the very first hint that the dice are being loaded is right in a terminal entry that indicates that your cryopod has been remotely opened.  After seeing your spouse killed and your infant kidnapped this single piece of information, alone, indicates that you are being released for a reason.  Also all the other people have been killed by having their life support shut down and this can't be a systemic failure as you are still alive.  Being told by Kellogg that you are the 'backup' also gives a vital piece of information as to what is going on.  Further you must access the escape tunnel via the Oversees terminal, and that had not been activated before.  Whoever these people were that got in didn't need that access, though they may have had a Pip-Boy to allow them to open the Vault Door.  Yet the corridor door to that entry area is locked down which indicates that whoever these people were didn't go through there.  As a player the obvious answer is that there is another way into and out of Vault 111, yet diligent searching will not find it from the inside nor the outside.  Thus these were either the highest level Vault-Tec personnel or they were individuals with access to some other means of entry that was not physical.  In any case this series of events indicates that the PC is being set up for something.

The entire method of getting to The Institute, while difficult in some ways, is also incredibly easy in others, with the only hitch being Nick Valentine being locked up in Vault 114.  Still that is relatively easy to go through and once done the pieces fall into place.  Figuring out that it was Kellogg and that he had been living in Diamond City up to a few months prior to the PC's arrival should smell fishy to any gamer: that is far too simple and Kellogg was far too visible.  You are being led by the nose by someone and if you are being set up then so is Kellogg.  Using Dogmeat to follow Kellogg's trail which should be weeks or even months old, and yet retains fresh evidence of his passage is a giveaway that someone wants you to find Kellogg.  In that final confrontation with Kellogg he can inform the PC that trying to find The Institute is a lost cause and that if they want to be found, that they'll find you.  I was hoping for a line of dialogue where the PC could tell him that you understand and that you'll be waiting for them...a peaceful end to the standoff, in other words.  Kellogg has offered the PC before that the opportunity to just walk away, so not having a peaceful ending to the confrontation means that he wasn't given any instructions on what to do if the PC showed up following him.  Yet as a top operative and hard-bitten mercenary, Kellogg must be smart enough to see that when someone offers a way out that doesn't result in the expenditure of lives and equipment from his employer, that he should take it.  What can be gathered from that?  Kellogg is being set up by The Institute and going through his memory fragments will even get some of his cogent thoughts that this is exactly the case.  This is a method of operation for The Institute: they set people up via controlled circumstances.

After that comes the quest to find Dr. Brian Virgil who escaped The Institute and went into the Glowing Sea.  Later on we can find out that he had been in The Institute when Dr. Madison Li arrived and was generally friendly towards her.  This is corroborated by his final holotape on his reasons for leaving actually moving Dr. Li to leave The Institute if you follow a part of the BoS quest line.  She didn't like the secrecy and no one even acknowledging that Dr. Virgil had left nor was his line of work available for examination...nor were the labs where he worked as the FEV project had been shut down.  This can be seen in a couple of lights, and the benign one is that Dr. Virgil was shutting down the old FEV project by creating a new strain of FEV for himself and then destroying most of the physical part of his work and having the rest put under lock-down after he had protested the inhumanity of the FEV to Father.  From Father's perspective of the good of The Institute, he saw that Virgil and Li had a rapport and that he wouldn't want to lose them both or face internal collusion against his way of doing things.  Dr. Virgil has the best of moral and ethical intentions, yet it appears that his value to The Institute working on a dead-end project was far less than that of keeping Dr. Li.  Due to their being friendly with each other which would allow for mutual support between departments, Father stonewalled Virgil which forced his hand to the point where his shame kept him from being open about what he was doing and he left The Institute.

Just when did Father learn that he had an advanced form of progressive cancer that hadn't been covered by all the pre-war and, presumably, post-war treatments that were available?  Or, more correctly, when did Father realize that there was no viable treatment for his cancer?  This is an important question not for timing but for the good of The Institute.  Why so?  Well consider that the PC is told that all the Gen 3 Synths stem from Father's genetic material: in science they are family.  Do remember that this material was 'untouched' by the radiation and hazards of the post-apocalypse world.  Also remember that the PC is the 'backup' and this is confirmed as you share half of Father's genetic material.  It is this genetic material that has demonstrated that it is prone to getting cancer that is untreatable, therefore every single Gen 3 Synth or any Synth using that genetic material has a much higher probability of getting an untreatable condition.  The attempt at 'redefining' mankind via the Gen 3 Synths, if this is realized, will be a conditional failure and perhaps seen as an unconditional failure of Institute leadership for generations.  When that information is revealed to the department heads they are told to keep quiet about it.

When put in that light then the activation of the 'backup' is warranted, not as a cold experiment of releasing a parent into the hostile wasteland, but as an opportunity to cover-up the failure of the Gen 3 Synth Program's basic genetic stock.  The way to get into The Institute is paved and littered with bits and pieces of information along the trail, so that when the player finally pieces them together at the board meeting, the last opportunity to leave The Institute in a civil fashion is now closed off to the player.  This can be seen as lazy plot writing, and it is, yet if this is turned around to see it from Father's perspective it makes total sense as merely teleporting in to welcome you to The Institute is far too brazen for anyone to understand and would cause a major fracturing of departments as they differ with Father's agenda.  Thus important people must be isolated, like Madison Li who is put in charge of the Child Synth project which she objects to on principle.  Luckily, by then, Dr. Virgil is out of the picture but still to be hunted down.  Kellogg is sent after him, yet he becomes isolated in Ft. Hagen and is forced to cool his heels there.  The new reactor is a great way to divert attention from any other concerns and the 'big push' to finish it is started...even though the crucial piece is missing and hasn't been obtained for years.  Brian Virgil who has inside knowledge of there being a Molecular Relay and some vague notion of how it works is not frantically chased down by an army of Gen 1 and 2 Synths to locate him for elimination.  The important things are those that don't happen, and as The Institute likes to set people up it also manipulates them through misdirection.

With all the pieces now lined up, then, and only then, can the 'backup' be activated on the sly and excuses made as to why it was done...if anyone cared.  The great journey the PC takes is a set-up from the start, and it is a set-up made to cover up the greatest failure of The Institute in using genetic stock that is prone to cancer that can't be treated.  Since the Gen 3 Synths are exposed to far more radiation, toxic chemicals and so on when they are replacements for humans in the wasteland, the only thing that is surprising is that a number of them have not come down with tissue problems from metastasizing cancer.  Or they might do that and are simply vaporized and written off as expended equipment.  The upside to this is that as an Institute Operative the PC demonstrates that they are far more capable than Kellogg was, and is sent on missions that they wouldn't even send Kellogg to do.

The cover-up extends as far as excusing the PC's failures in missions, even when they tick off department heads: Father is bending over backwards to sell a story.  That should be one of the largest tells in FO4.  In one person they can get rid of a detested field operative AND give cover to the failure of the Gen 3 Synth program from its bioscience side.  You are not there to get rid of the BoS or RR, although that is a help to The Institute, of course.  No you are there as part of Father's plan to have a way out of the dilemma that has been created when The Institute put all its eggs in one basket and then failed: your job is to implement that, and those few choices you get to make when addressing the Commonwealth are just words to distract everyone from the failure that will, slowly, leak out.  That is the way The Institute works and has worked for over 200 years, and you aren't going to be able to change that no matter how nice your words are to the outside world about a project that is meaningless to them and intimidating even if you say sweet things.

Playing Fallout 4 requires trying to figure out The Institute not just from the outside but the inside as well.  It is supposed to be the major changing piece of the entire game and is supposedly the most intellectually advanced place around, although they have no idea of the presence of the Zetans and their orbiting mothership nor of Big MT, or even of Mr. House's survival past the Great War.  The Institute makes very bold claims and yet makes Shaun/Father into a person with a form of cancer that, in theory, should be curable with pre-war methods or with other post-war ones seen in the franchise.  With that lack of ability comes a grand cover-up, distraction and bloodthirsty diversion so as to keep the PC busy and the player distracted from just how bad The Institute is at being a forward thinking organization.  From at least one holotape from a prior Director's tenure we find that the tone of it fits in with the current organization: top-down, doesn't accept problems well, unwilling to adjust policy, and as bending to the will of the internal tyrant known as the Director.  This is not an organization that welcomes outside thought very often, in fact far less than the Brotherhood does since its inception just after the Great War.  The chances of any individual changing this organization to be more outward looking and accepting of the outside world are slim to none as it requires an overhaul of its outlook, and having to look over one's back at those who do not want to change the internal order.  A very few scientists and Synths will support such change, but they are outnumbered and if the acting Director proves to not be worthy of the position, then it is not out of the question that an internal conflict will happen.  Not an open one at first, and if a few of the Department Heads decided to get together and get the acting Director poisoned or have an overly waxed set of steps at home or arrange another 'equipment failure', well, smooth and quiet removal is preferred to open combat.

The only other hope for the place is connecting the Vault 88 tunnels with The Institute and creating a place where The Institute can work with and meet outsiders in a controlled environment with the acting Director position taking equal status and being combined with the Overseer position.  Sadly for The Institute the actual tunnel clearing and excavation will not be done by blasting and front loaders, but via this mysterious method of the workstation system of Vault 88.  For all the supposed advances of The Institute, it still hasn't gotten that little piece of technology examined.  The Institute doesn't even know how to run basic large scale projects well and doesn't work with advancing the state of the art for infrastructure expansion, more reliable power sources or other basics that would have been required decades prior to the events of Fallout 4.  Vault-Tec did all of this much better with supposedly less advanced equipment and puts The Institute to shame once the PC gets their hands on that technology framework.  The Institute may be full of intelligent people, but as an organization it just isn't all that smart.

Putting together a coherent hypothesis of just how and why Fallout 4's world is as we see it requires much in the way of handwaving, speculation and examination of just what each part of each faction and the non-faction elements are actually doing.  The moment any single part of any organization is brought into question on the basis of how and why this came to be, the entire foundation of the world begins to crumble.  People living on piles of trash that haven't been picked over by others for salvage just makes no damned sense.  Farmers unwilling to even remove a fallen tree from their field...that makes no damned sense.  Raiders that continually regenerate as groups makes no damned sense, and ditto that for Super Mutants and every other place where once it is cleared out once it is then repopulated with the exact same type of foe in the exact same positions with the exact same routines.  Pick a faction, any faction, and examine it and what its supposed motivations are and they start to fall apart.  The Brotherhood of Steel sees itself as taking up technology that is too dangerous to be left in the hands of others, research it, catalog it, and file it away for safe keeping.  The Railroad is a ramshackle organization that has no sustaining basis for what they do other than the odd wastelander who lends support to them, doesn't have a means to train up agents quickly nor even places for them to sleep even if they were trained up.  The Minutemen make some sense until a total outsider with no civilian militia experience is made as its General on the good feelings of the last surviving member of the prior organization.  The Institute, the big driver in the Commonwealth, the actor behind the scenes is demonstrated as not being all that capable, organized or to have a gene pool big enough to survive its current generation.

This does not take great mental work on the part of the player and comes a rude surprise to anyone who expected Fallout 4 to continue to be an RPG first, and put combat in its place as a secondary, supporting role to the interactions of the PC to their surroundings.  A good RPG holds together past first examination and questioning and provides answers either directly or through books, terminal entries or even something like overheard conversations between NPCs.  Creating an RPG requires care and consideration to the game world and designing those who inhabit it to fit and represent what it is they are doing either via action or some other means.  From there a basic overlay of a plot or story to be told can be examined and put in place to fit the world that was designed and provide interesting and in-depth scenarios and methods for traversing the story.  A positive reward system for innovative game play, exploration and interaction requires making factions or groups into ones that are not immediately hostile save if they are known to be so hyped up on chems that they can't control themselves with outsiders.  Creatures are creatures and yet must be contextually placed as to their environment and how they interact with other species as the food chain concept still works in the wasteland.  Game setting, factions, world design, and interaction opportunities are the backdrop to an unfolding story that can and should have many branches and paths.  Side Quests are generally standalone pieces but can have some impact on how others view the PC once the quest is finished.  Actions have ramifications from the smallest to the largest, and the largest can often be influenced by the smallest.  Do you kill or allow to be killed Lorenzo Cabot?  That should matter and might even be a transformative event in the wasteland if he turns out to be as monstrous as his son purports him to be.  That can and should change the main story and the attitude of other factions.  Allowing him to be killed yields unique technology that at least two factions should be interested in, and create a new pathway to research on a new form of weaponry.  Yet this side quest yields only a weapon for the PC that no one cares about.  Imagine if Lorenzo did turn into a telekinetic ruler who would see no other opposition to his rule.  The Institute would be a target, but so would every other organization in the wasteland, yet a man with eldritch power, telekinesis, ability to withstand radioactivity, and other powers yet unknown could, indeed find The Institute and maybe be able to blast the Brotherhood out of the air.  That side quest should change the game world if Lorenzo is allowed to live, yet he just slacks off at home if you do that.  NPCs who know other NPCs and give an accounting of what those they know are capable of and even willing to take the lead on action to get it done, they generally aren't wrong in their assessments, and ramifications of doing contrary to their advice can and should have long-lasting ramifications.  All of that requires RPG game design, and even a willingness to have prior design work revamped to account for this if it wasn't thought up in the first place.  A silly side quest might hold the keys to changing the entire game storyline and plot, and you'll never know it if you don't do it.  Finding an unlock to a new way to play the game is a reward for exploration that might not have much in the way of XP involved, but will change the entire existing dynamic as the ramifications of what the PC has done begin to mount up.  Designing a game where who becomes the king of the hill, and there is always just one king of the hill forgets there is the possibility that no one might win that little game: chaos can and does happen and the wasteland might actually be made worse for the long haul due to the actions of the PC.  You don't get that option in Fallout 4, nor one of treading a path between friendship and betrayal as the PC tries to undo what they have done or at least remove the palpable threat they have opened up.  To do that requires good if not great RPG game design and thought put into the world that is being developed.  Fallout 4 lacks that care and forethought, and puts the player into an action or shooter environment in which the RPG element is shoved into a corner and told to stay still and not offer ways for the player to be innovative.  Player Agency, the ability to start free-forming activities on the fly when deciding who and how to influence others is set aside and, in its place, a rather simple story is put in its place.  The world of Fallout 4 wasn't dumbed down, but is the result of lazy game design centered on action or shooter mechanics and pays no real attention to being an RPG.  Kill or be killed offers immediate popcorn for the game, and if you expected a slowly unfolding meal with choices to make at all levels that were meaningful, well, the blames goes to the ease of the popcorn over the care and design of a menu and unfolding game play.