So we've done a lot of circlejerking about how terrible it is, but what's good about it compared to other F3/NV?
Off the top of my head:
- It's not piss easy any more. Unlike New Vegas, there are actually some challenging encounters
- Companions aren't a WIN button any more. They seem to miss a lot and have trouble turning/tracking enemies
- No more dump stats. In New Vegas charisma, agility and perception were completely useless. In F4, all of the attributes seem useful
- Power armor is now way better. Instead of being just another armor, it has its own mechanics and upgrades, including a jetpack (!)
-New Vegas's toughest encounters put Fallout 4 to shame, Fallout 4 is all about hp bloat and stupid mutating "legendary" radroaches that regain all their hp at random for no reason and drop Borderlands loot. The quarry junction and most places with cazadors are more dangerous than anything in Fallout 4. It is much harder than 3 though. Overall the combat, it's enemies, and it's loot are waaay too much like Borderlands, if you were to craft Fallout 4 at a workbench it would require 1x copy of Borderlands, 1x copy of Minecraft, and 1x beaten to death, barely recognizable copy of Fallout.
-Companions are completely useless in every way, a massive step down in competence from F:NV, they will stand and stare at you like retards whilst enemies are a few feet behind them, they will be lit on fire and nonchalantly place themselves in front of a doorway. Somehow they've managed to make companions more useless than in any other game they've been a part of, or any Fallout game. Maybe only Fallout 1 companions are on par, but at least they attacked the enemies most of the time.(Granted you weren't standing in the way.)
It's not something to praise, it's pretty awful.
-Nah, not really, since VATS is and has always been a shitty unfun system, the focus on it with all the attributes just makes it more disappointing. Agility in New Vegas actually improved your gunplay outside of vats, in vats it was the same as it is in FO4. Charisma's bonus was also good, because the companions were actually competent, a 10 charisma character could really play the diplomat build and have it completely viable, that build is absolute shit in FO4. Besides that, Fallout 4 has like, multiple perks/perk levels dedicated to doing what NV's charisma already did.
Ultimately, nothing that the new SPECIAL system does wasn't already done by a skill before.
-Power armor is actually the worst that it's ever been, despite being the best that it's ever been, if that makes any sense..
As great as it feels to use it's impact is completely cheapened by being not only available at level 1 -2 in the game, but also being just everywhere, it's common, and easy, and feels less like becoming the endgame titan that finally managed to trump the wastes like in previous games, and instead feels like a short little power up or vehicle that needs to be maintained and powered with little batteries.
Everything else is in point though, still doesn't manage to make it a good game, and it's no where near NV, better than Fallout 3 at best.
The actual good thing about this game is how it has elements from mods like xtra SPECIAL from NV, for example:
-SPECIAL stats are now soft capped, meaning you can min max your character and not have all the little shitty knick knacks and drugs not turn completely useless
-The xp system is changed to support a lot of different playstyles, you can just hunt animals and shit, use science and chemistry to make junk, and build settlements, and you'll level up from it, which is cool.
- Intelligence affects your overall xp
Setting wise, the world is actually managing to rebuild, there are actual factions, and some decent characters, which is a big improvement over 3. The concept of retaking the wasteland one settlement at a time is a great one. But the game's obsession with "dynamic" randomly generated shit ruins it, along with 99% of the game's quests, which fall into the same category.