I like watching videos
on YouTube that talk about different ways to build a character in Fallout
4. Some builds avoid character stats and perks that relate to settlement
management and crafting. I understand this but I think it is a mistake in
this game.
When I first started
Fallout 4 I treated it as a first-person shooter and role-playing game hybrid
game. The previous Fallout games were all RPG's that were either
first-person shooters or tactical combat game hybrids. (I haven't played
New Vegas so I might be partially wrong on my generalization.) I think Fallout
4 is also partially a simulation game. The crafting element doesn't
really catapult it into being a simulation but the settlement management part I
think brings it into the simulation territory.
If you ignore the
settlement management part of the game, you will make the game harder for
yourself. There are a lot of built in mechanics that give you a lot of
experience to level up, more equipment to make you more powerful, and more
wealth to help you get through the game easier if you manage settlements.
You can craft without settlements but being able to create resources by growing
crops, harvesting water and having settlers gather junk for crafting is a lot
easier in the long run. Yes, you can gather everything you need and
borrow a workbench, but you will be spending a lot more time in the wasteland
gathering than you need to. You will also be doing at least twice as much
fighting and exploring in order to get these resources and get experience to
level up. I started to realize this when I was getting as much if not
more experience from gathering crops from my settlements and crafting items
from them as I would from fighting in the same time period.
In Fallout 4 you can
choose to just fight the whole time. You can also choose to just manage
settlements after you "conquer" a few with some fighting. Right
now, I have about twelve settlements that I control. I could just manage
those and be busy building, crafting and defending them forever. But I
think the game has about three phases of play.
In the beginning you
will be doing mostly fighting and exploring. Later you will be
alternating between the fighting and exploring and managing settlements.
The way crops and settlements work, you have to leave for a while and come back
to see crops grow and certain things like settlement happiness to rise.
You could just sleep and have most things happen but a rhythm of going on an
adventure, returning to manage a settlement and then going out adventuring
again seems the most efficient way of building a character. Yes, you have
to sidetrack a little with your perk choices and add some non-combat perks for
settlement management, but you will level up twice as fast by doing both in the
same amount of time. After you have finished the main quest and most of
the side quests what do you do? In most games you simply start over but
with Fallout 4 you can choose to continue to the third phase which is managing
and protecting your settlements forever. The creative possibilities of
what you can build are endless. Go to YouTube and you can see some
awesome designs for settlements.
The settlement
management/simulation part of Fallout 4 can be tedious and a little frustrating
at first but in time you realize the frustration comes from not "playing
along" with the way the game was designed. Fallout 4 is not just
Fallout 3 with some extra crafting options. Fallout 4 is a complex game
with several focuses. If you are looking for a pure first-person shooter
you will be disappointed. If you are looking for a pure RPG, I think you
will be disappointed. If you are looking for a pure simulation/building
game, you will be disappointed. Fallout 4 really is an interactive
simulation game. Yes, you will build. Yes, you will manage.
But you will always be forced to interact with a never-ending story influencing
your settlements that you build and manage. That is where the combat and
exploring come in. I guess I was disappointed when settlements and
crafting got in the way of my adventuring in Fallout 4's world. Now I am
starting to like the simulation part of it more. To get more out of
Fallout 4 you have to slow down, let your gun cool off and tend to your crops.
