I will recommend both. But it will make more sense to pick up The Witcher now that %99 of the game breaking bugs are fixed.

Fallout 4 does not have game breaking bugs as far as my gameplay goes, but there are a few anoying instances that will probably be fixed in the next few months.

So, what I'm saying is: The Witcher 3 now and Fallout 4 in January 2016.

After about 35 hours of Fallout 4 now, the one thing that sticks out for me is the terrible effort in side quests, which is a staple of Bethesda games of late. Side quests are a huge factor in RPG's. And the combat in Fallout 4 is way too easy, I have yet to use VATS a single time myself since you can just blast everything in Sneak mode, not unlike bow + arrow + sneak in Skyrim.

Overall, I loved The Witcher 3 combat, it's challenging and I loved the controls myself. But I can see how some would be put off by them, it feels heavy and awkward compared to most games, because they didn't want combat like in most games. It reminds me a fair deal about the Souls games, which is a good thing. I also enjoy the contract killings and the preparation/sign/bomb and weak/strong attack combos, makes for some spectacular fights at times.

I really don't understand problem that people have with controls, but I've played W3 on PC with kb/m. Honestly, if you're c/W/RPG fan, controls in that game are least of your worries, there are other design flaws that are way more prominent.

As for FO4, it's a decent game, but if you actially care for Fallout IP, the original one, then it really starts to rub you the wrong way from the very beggining. Sure, there's lot of stuff to discover and places to go (like in all Bethesda games), and I enjoy a lot my daily 4 hour sessions, but massive dumbing down of RPG element is not really what I've hoped for - FO3 at least tried (though not succeeding fully) to stay true to formula, NV repaired a lot of damage Bethesda did, just so they ruin it again.

I´m completely against the idea of new fallout being worse than the old fallout. Is nothing more than nostalgia googles, I have played Fallout 1 and I have enjoyed it a lot, but the new directon Bethesda gave it is fantastic too.

But I like Dark Soul combat. I don't like TW3 combat.

And for F4 you can go stealth mode, you can go Leroy Jenkins mode, you can just not fight at all in a lot of cases, you can go into a shop then hack a robot, configure a cop personality and watch him go killing all your enemies in the zone and things like that. It may not be complex but there are several ways to make things and the controls feel good, better than on previous fallout, and is not that easy, almost at the beggining the game makes you fight against a deathclaw while a dozens of enemies are trying to kill you at the same time, and some localizations have really strong enemies, you have to take a lot of care of what you do, is the kind of game where you think you have everything under control and suddlenly you find yourself against a bunch of enemies that destroy you.

Overall the sense of freedom on F4 is way, way higher than on Tw3, and not only in combat, Tw3 feels is incredibly linear and restrictive for an open world game with so much hype (is barely an open world to beggin with). Is obviously a good game but for me is too overrated, a well written story and good looking graphics may be more than enough for some to ignore its flaws. And that´s cool. But not my case. I will give it another try on the future probably but I doubt it changes my mind a lot.

Witcher 3's combat is...really bad, imo. Honestly I found the whole game pretty boring, so maybe that disqualifies my opinion as a whole, but the combat in particular put me to sleep.

Haven't played Fallout 4, but if it's combat is basically 3/New Vegas', then yeah, go with Fallout.

You can be against it all you want, it's your view on things and it's valid for you, but there is a very good reason why on core c/W/RPG sites like RPGCodex Fallout 1/2 are in top 3, with Fallout NV being 8th - and it has absolutely nothing to do with nostalgia goggles. For reference, so that no one thinks there is Bethesda hate there, Morrowind is in 7th place.

I completely understand how Bethesda's versions appeal more to mass market, especially FO4 that is even further dumbed down as RPG from FO3 - game is still decently fun and it certainly has its audience, it's just moving away from RPG elements that originals had and that FO3 at least tried to preserve to some degree.

IMO, right move be to try and bring all the missing stuff form FO1/2 into Bethesda's vision, but I guess that would be too much work or too niche for their current mass market status.

It's the same story with the TES games; the more RPG elements they remove, the more popular it gets. I can understand it from a business perspective but for RPG fans, it's not really fun when games get more and more shallow. Mass Effect is another prime example, and Dragon Age as well, Diablo 3 went down the same path and the community nose-dived after only a few months where D2 remained relevant for more than a decade online.
The massive budgets force developers to aim for the lowest (or at least lower) common denominator to gain more sales from the so called "broader audience", so this is a self-preptuating cycle that will probably get worse in the coming years.

The number of good, proper RPG releases is going down and down, which is a shame since modern gaming machines have the potential to house games with both good looks and depth. Writing has taken a backseat to production value.

Heck; Fallout 4 doesn't even have skills any longer, so every character can use every armor and weapon. Some say it's appealing because you avoid missing with your build, I say it takes a lot of the point away from RPG's as a genre; custom characters with varied skills, strengths and weaknesses are a part of essential ingredients that make the meal complete. I don't care how much you can morph your characters face, which you'll only see in the (poor) dialogue sequences anyway, this is not what RPG's should be about and it doesn't add any depth to the actual game, it's just more visual filler.
Your actual stats have little bearing on the gameplay in Fallout 4 (the SPECIAL stats) and might as well be removed as well.
Fallout 4 is basically a re-skinned Skyrim and it's painstakingly obvious that these series are being developed in tandem, this takes away from them both in the end and I would like it if they tried to make them more different instead of both aiming down the middle.

Don't get me wrong, there are still good RPG's being made, but the masters of old (looking at you, Bioware and Bethesda) have lost it recently. This is one of the main reasons I loved The Witcher 3 so much; it wasn't like every other RPG, and this is, ironically, the main arguments for why a lot of people didn't like it. Yes, you're forced to play as a character the author and developer made, but you flesh him out and TW3 actually has more customization than F4 due to the system itself actually having consequences that affect gameplay a great deal.
I would much rather play an RPG with template characters from the box that can be tailor-made than make my own L'Oreal model with the exact right beard stubble and perfect ear lobes that can do what all the other L'Oreal models can right from scratch.
The "moral" or "good/bad" system in Fallout 4 and similar titles is also laughable, same with Mass Effect, yet another point where The Witcher 3 destroys the competition.

I do like Fallout 4, as I liked New Vegas, but as an RPG, it had shed weight and depth in favor of, well, pretty much tinkering with gear (which isn't nearly as fantastic as it sounded at first), terrible base building and L'Oreal model creator 1.0. Throw in more superficial things, remove depth, that's how to make an RPG today, apparently.
Luckily, games like Pillars of Eternity and The Witcher 3 show that not only are there developers that are willing to go a different path; there is also a market for these games.

The Witcher 3 spoiled me. It set a new standard for visual and mechanical depth in opan wurld gamz. Especially when it has the same size and ambition as a Bethesda game.

And it's actually eerie how a game of this size contextualized and gave a backstory to almost every measly side quest. Even some of the thugs I met randomly turned out to have families they wanted to feed, which actually fits with theme of the game.

I also liked how Geralt was still his own character. Giving the player an avatar they can project themselves into ironically makes the playable character dull.

oh wow nice post sven! :D