the AI communities are really dumb.

In fact the community and building system I think damages Fallout dramatically. the pay off is not worth it. its okay to screw around with a bit to kill some time but it gets boring quickly unless you have some sort of obsessive goal in terms of a massive monument to build.

there's an issue when in a matter of a few hours time you can make a community of NPC's that are bigger than any other community/town in the game. It just really pulls you out of the immersion.

It also doesn't help that literally zero of the NPC's in your own small set up communities have any personality, choices, quests. its just like "oh here you go, here are 15 random generic programs living in your old town". blagh. 

the community building is also distracting in the sense of how absurd it really is that you can just pick up random things and put together structures like magic. I know its a game and they are going for the popular Minecraft esque stuff, but Fallout in the past has done a pretty good job at immersion and believability in terms of its own world. When you can replicate practically any other community in a matter of minutes or hours its like :/ also one thing I always felt made Fallout awesome was the concept that you ARE sort of a vague 'wanderer' entering a dangerous world. It felt like both the player themselves AND the character could sort of automatically connect relate because the game literally has you wake up in a vault, come out of a vault, wake up from being half dead, etc. 

like you're wandering this weird world and interacting and becoming a part of it. but a wanderer doesn't build giant structures and tons of communities with generic lifeless NPC's populating them that in no time can rival the biggest game settlements out there.

I don't know. I just find it all very frustrating. Bethesda seemed to realize that throwing in like mulitplayer would kill the immersion factor within the world yet they seem to fail to recognize that the settlement building platform, especially how they went about it, probably kills the immersion much worse than playing with friends would have

I would argue that Fallout 3 is one of the best aged games of its generation in terms of gameplay and replayability. It looks pretty good. the same can be said about New Vegas.

maybe you're just not uhm... a fan of this type of game? because outside of the Elder Scrolls there aren't really that many games that play at all similarily in terms of the open options and world

the AI communities are really dumb.

In fact the community and building system I think damages Fallout dramatically. the pay off is not worth it. its okay to screw around with a bit to kill some time but it gets boring quickly unless you have some sort of obsessive goal in terms of a massive monument to build.

there's an issue when in a matter of a few hours time you can make a community of NPC's that are bigger than any other community/town in the game. It just really pulls you out of the immersion.

It also doesn't help that literally zero of the NPC's in your own small set up communities have any personality, choices, quests. its just like "oh here you go, here are 15 random generic programs living in your old town". blagh. 

the community building is also distracting in the sense of how absurd it really is that you can just pick up random things and put together structures like magic. I know its a game and they are going for the popular Minecraft esque stuff, but Fallout in the past has done a pretty good job at immersion and believability in terms of its own world. When you can replicate practically any other community in a matter of minutes or hours its like :/ also one thing I always felt made Fallout awesome was the concept that you ARE sort of a vague 'wanderer' entering a dangerous world. It felt like both the player themselves AND the character could sort of automatically connect relate because the game literally has you wake up in a vault, come out of a vault, wake up from being half dead, etc. 

like you're wandering this weird world and interacting and becoming a part of it. but a wanderer doesn't build giant structures and tons of communities with generic lifeless NPC's populating them that in no time can rival the biggest game settlements out there.

I don't know. I just find it all very frustrating. Bethesda seemed to realize that throwing in like mulitplayer would kill the immersion factor within the world yet they seem to fail to recognize that the settlement building platform, especially how they went about it, probably kills the immersion much worse than playing with friends would have

Keep in mind that a lot of people are exaggerating with the "it's just a shooter now" claims.  FO3/FO:NV/FO4 are basically the same game.  It has the same engine, though FO4 has a ton of improvements in terms of mechanics.  

Most of the stuff they took away wasn't that meaningful and some of it was for the better.  "Karma" wasn't very good at all and made little sense in NV.  Most stat checks meant you just had to carry around clothes with +science or whatever, eat some stat enhancing food, and take some stat enhancing drugs.  That's the exact opposite of being immersive and also a drag.

Fallout: New Vegas did have a better atmosphere and setting, more imaginative main quest, and chance quests were more interesting.  On the other hand, Fallout 4 blows it away in terms of content and things you can do--or ignore, if you want.  Relative to game-play, scope of content, variety of content, and mechanics, FO4 is a massive improvement.

I'm playing FO:NV right now, in fact, and it's kind of a struggle after FO4.  In FO4, there is always something for you to do.  In the older games, though, you spend a lot more time wandering around looking for something, or getting frustrated because there are so many cliffs and mountains that you need to get around.

Most people who play Fallout 4 first will probably like it the most.

the AI communities are really dumb.

In fact the community and building system I think damages Fallout dramatically. the pay off is not worth it. its okay to screw around with a bit to kill some time but it gets boring quickly unless you have some sort of obsessive goal in terms of a massive monument to build.

there's an issue when in a matter of a few hours time you can make a community of NPC's that are bigger than any other community/town in the game. It just really pulls you out of the immersion.

It also doesn't help that literally zero of the NPC's in your own small set up communities have any personality, choices, quests. its just like "oh here you go, here are 15 random generic programs living in your old town". blagh. 

the community building is also distracting in the sense of how absurd it really is that you can just pick up random things and put together structures like magic. I know its a game and they are going for the popular Minecraft esque stuff, but Fallout in the past has done a pretty good job at immersion and believability in terms of its own world. When you can replicate practically any other community in a matter of minutes or hours its like :/ also one thing I always felt made Fallout awesome was the concept that you ARE sort of a vague 'wanderer' entering a dangerous world. It felt like both the player themselves AND the character could sort of automatically connect relate because the game literally has you wake up in a vault, come out of a vault, wake up from being half dead, etc. 

like you're wandering this weird world and interacting and becoming a part of it. but a wanderer doesn't build giant structures and tons of communities with generic lifeless NPC's populating them that in no time can rival the biggest game settlements out there.

I don't know. I just find it all very frustrating. Bethesda seemed to realize that throwing in like mulitplayer would kill the immersion factor within the world yet they seem to fail to recognize that the settlement building platform, especially how they went about it, probably kills the immersion much worse than playing with friends would have

I was talking graphically of course. I tried replaying Fallout 3 about a year ago and wanted to poke my eyes out. Even mods couldn't really pull it up enough.
Fallout 4 wasn't graphically pleasing either.
New Vegas as it used the same engine as Fallout 3 was a horrible looking title even on it's launch, games had moved past that level and that hurt the experience in my opinion.

I am a fan of the Genre, but I am probably a little more picky with games in general than most people... If the game doesn't grab me and I get bored I tend to move onto another game.