Started this again as it came up on Game Pass.
I have gone with melee for the first time in a Fallout game.

It changes the experience more than I thought it would. I am more reliant on my companions for example.
It also makes inventory management a lot easier, no need to carry multiple guns and the ammo for them, just scrap or sell everything.

I have also aligned with The Railroad, I only scratched the surface with them before so it's nice to have new missions. I'm not even touching base building, I did the easy stuff for xp, now I'm done.

Is the DLC for this worth picking up?

Liveinadive wrote:

Is the DLC for this worth picking up?

Yeah, they add new parts for the base building, which is the best bit.

There are story based DLC. I didn't buy them.

I reckon you should play something new.

Liveinadive wrote:

Started this again as it came up on Game Pass. I have gone with melee for the first time in a Fallout game. It changes the experience more than I thought it would. I am more reliant on my companions for example. It also makes inventory management a lot easier, no need to carry multiple guns and the ammo for them, just scrap or sell everything. I have also aligned with The Railroad, I only scratched the surface with them before so it's nice to have new missions. I'm not even touching base building, I did the easy stuff for xp, now I'm done. Is the DLC for this worth picking up?

Stick with the Railroad as you get an awesome armour upgrade ability from them later in the game.  Of course, you can still feck e'm over too at the end; such is the Fallout way.

As far as the story DLC goes, here's my take on it :

Automatron 

The ability to build your own robotic companions comes with a dizzying array of customization options, but they do lack the 'personality' of Dogmeat, Strong et al.  I must get around to equipping Codsworth with that Fat Man Launcher though.  The story is pretty light but does provide some intense battles, thanks to the new robot faction and Rust Devil Raiders that swarm the Commonwealth.

Far Harbour 

The new Island setting is fantastically atmospheric, thanks in large part to the new score by Inon Zur.  It's probably best played after the completion on the Main Story as it provides a sort of footnote to the entire Synth saga really.  Nick Valentine is a compulsory companion on one of the quests, so it's definitely worth bringing him along from the get go, as I understand there's plenty of new dialogue to be had ( I neglected to do this).  Just watch out for the Fog Crawlers!

Nuka World

If only we could talk to the Raiders...


As much as I enjoyed settlement building as a post main quest bonus, the DLC package ( I got two seasons passes, one for PS4 and Xbox!) was spoilt by the gimmicky nonsense of track ball games and lore breaking vault building - didn't touch those with a bargepole!

Nice Nuka world write up as well.
I might keep an eye out for cheap season pass offers while I play through.

Oh yeah, forgot the Companion AI could get a bit of a strop on if you take too many liberties with them.

Just don't go swinging that Super Sledge around Preston....

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/kotaku.com/the-fallout-4-survival-permadeath-run-that-turned-prest-1776289180/amp

I'm not sure, but seeing as he's an essential npc for Far Harbour, Bethesda must have made him resetable?

So I’ve picked this up again almost 2 years after I stopped playing it when I got to Diamond City.

I think it might have its hooks in me. Help!

Both titles are digital crack to be fair. Although going back to 3 from 4 means no crafting as such, which is a huge loss. I do hope 76 adopts 3's repair system (because equipment degradation has been confirmed) because that was a neat way of doing things.

I pondered recently about having another go at New Vegas, but then thankfully I remembered it was a broken mess.

I enjoyed New Vegas.

All New Vegas added to Fallout was a litany of quite disturbing bugs.

That's a feature.

Outta the way Dad.

Flitting between 3 and 4 the most glaring difference is that 4 doesn't do a very good job of hiding the fact it is a game.
There are a handful of factions, companions and the missions they come with, then building. Near enough everything is tied to those things in an obvious manner that feels like a checklist.

The world has nowhere near the depth, towns serve as a place to host new companions or main plot points. The world just doesn't seem to exist outside of those set group of characters.

Vaults arent that interesting either.

I do like 4 but there isn't anything going on beneath the top layer of missions and characters. In 3 there are lots of side things happening that have little to no influence on the main story and they can often be the most unusual, memorable and interesting things to do.

Something I found out recently that I thought might be of use: when hacking a terminal (i.e., the word guessing game), if you can find a set of garbage text that's properly bracketed, you can select that for a random bonus (extra tries, etc.)

So if you see something like

){!$%[#@%$*&%{\)]&*^

you'll be able to highlight the stuff between the square braces, because they form a properly bracketed section. Click it like you would one of the words, and boom, random bonus. I don't think the game ever explains that, but I do remember scrolling past bits of random characters and not noticing that some bits get highlighted.

Pretty sure that to do it optimally is really fucking difficult and requires calculating the odds of picking the right word after each selection to know whether you're better off removing one before your tries are up.