Things That Could Make Fallout 4 the Best in the Series

So far I’ve written two pieces like this. One was all about what would make S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 the best in the series – and it came at an unfortunate time seeing as that game’s hopes of ever reaching the shelves are practically lost. The other was all about what would make the next Thief the best in the series.

So now we continue on in the series with things that would make Fallout 4 the best in the series. Admittedly I haven’t played any of the original Fallout games. I started like most people out there with Fallout 3, and later Fallout: New Vegas, which I think beats all kinds of crap out of its predecessor. How can Fallout 4, when it arrives, be the biggest and best Fallout yet?

I'll add to this list as I go along, and you can even leave your suggestions in the comments. If they're good I might even include them in the main piece, crediting you.

This is how (in no particular order):

• When it comes to cracking safes, you have more options than just being able to pick the lock or force the lock (which 9.5 times out of 10 results in the lock being busted and you therefore cannot open the safe… ever, at least not until you obtain the infiltrator perk). You can also open the safe by knowing the combination to the safe.
• You could also try cracking safes using the old trick of “listening for the clicks”. This would require higher lockpicking skills to carry out.
• Failing these methods you could also blow open the safe using dynamite. But this would require your explosives skill to be very high and you would have to have access to the right materials, like dynamite. There’s still a chance that the job could go wrong and you could lose the contents inside the safe or even blow yourself up or critically injure yourself doing it.
• Safes and computer terminals that have been discovered but not cracked or hacked will appear on your map, even if it’s the local map and not the world map.

• Hacking computers could be made easier or more interesting and not so frustrating by attempting to use other methods of hacking rather than guessing the password all time. You could have auto-hacking devices like in System Shock 2 or BioShock 2. There should be more points in the game where you can actually find the password to a terminal, which only happens rarely.
• Some containers like lockers or crates can be opened with brute force, like in Jagged Alliance 2. You could use a crowbar to do this, much like you need a shovel to dig up graves. You'd need a high amount of strength to accomplish this though.
• Guns, ammunition and explosives would be rarer to come across in the game, perhaps forcing you to come up with improvised weapons or use melee attacks at times.
• Make stashes or caches of weapons and ammo harder to find or get at, and hide it in less obvious places, other than storage lockers and crates. How about a tree stump, like S.T.A.L.K.E.R.? Okay, so Fallout: New Vegas has hollowed out rocks. Damn, it must take some time to do that. Much longer than hollowing out a log or a tree stump, I would imagine (I have discovered that in the Honest Hearts DLC for FNV, there are hollowed out tree logs).
• Make it easier to locate items that are lying around, even if it’s a perk that you can choose at some point in the game. This would be similar to Diablo II, where you can press a button on the mouse and items are highlighted allowing you to easily see what and where they are and be able to select them and pick them up. Or like Borderlands where items are highlighted by other methods. Perhaps a high perception would be needed. Or like Dogmeat could locate ammo in Fallout 3, this could be a perk given to you or carried out by a companion (just realised that Rex has this ability called "Search and Mark" in FNV). It would be cool if it wasn't companion-dependant though.
• Companions are affected by environmental factors such as radiation, as well as hunger, thirst and sleep and not just the player character, in hardcore mode.

• The game wouldn’t be as populated. There would be wildlife, and ghouls and mutants and the like, and the occasional bandits, with factions being fewer and harder to find or less common to come across.
• The ability to lean around corners, particularly during combat, making it harder to be shot by the enemy.
• Fewer shots or attacks would be required to take down enemies, and that would apply to the player as well.
• You lose health gradually after being shot, by bleeding. One has to stop the bleeding first and then tend to the wound as soon as possible, more like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or Far Cry 2. Otherwise you could suffer from decreasing abilities like strength, and suffer from infections and eventually die.
• You can sprint in the game for short amounts of time.
• You have to be more observant of your surroundings. If you run or sprint, instead of walking carefully or sneaking, you can trip over things and fall, causing slight damage.
• You can lose your footing if you run down hills or wander too close to the edge of a cliff, and fall, causing great damage or even death.
• You can manipulate or interact with the environment more easily, jumping and vaulting over things, moving more fluidly and naturally around the wasteland.
• Make the player have a more realistic carrying capacity for more hardcore players. You can only have so many weapons and items at any time. Other items should be stashed somewhere or given to a companion to carry.
• Storage containers like lockers or crates would only be able to take so many items before becoming full.

• Be able to take a pack animal along with you like a brahmin for extra storage.
• You can ride animals through the wastes, like a mutated horse. This could carry a saddlebag with equipment in it.
• You can also fire a gun while riding the horse.
• Some sections of the game might feature vehicles. Riding them would require fuel which would be in scarce supply and very costly to purchase. And riding them too much, especially off road, can damage them, requiring very high repair skills to repair, and parts to do it with, otherwise rendering them useless.
• Vehicles can also be modified to have storage space and mounted guns. This was in Fallout 2, according to a commenter at the bottom.
• There would be sections in the game where you could race against other drivers and win a prize like so many caps for winning the race.
• You can more easily communicate with people in the game in some cases, having a two way radio of sorts (perhaps you could incorporate this in to the Pip Boy). Perhaps you could use Morse code or smoke signals. This instead of having to trek back all the way back to them to report your findings when you just want to do something else.
• Place the game or parts of it in a different place, like in the southern states like in Fallout 3’s DLC Point Lookout, or further north like in Operation Anchorage.

• Make the retail version or at least the GOTY or Ultimate edition operate without using Steamworks.
• The game won’t use the gamebryo engine.
• The game will be fully playable on release, without all the bugs and crashes and other shite, please.
• Open ended play so after you finish the main quest you can still go back and do other stuff.
• There’s a point in the game like Diablo II where you can reset your skills and perks while keeping your level of character. Any skill points awarded to you through levelling up will be available to you to reassign. Points gained from skill books cannot be reassigned as they directly impact a skill. You have no choice where the skill points go in this case.
• Make it so you get better at a skill while using it, more like Morrowind or Oblivion.
• People in the wasteland can help you improve skills and not just give you perks, like Oblivion. This would cost you quite a bit though.
• Spoken dialogue from the player character, similar to Mass Effect.
• Weapons should have names that are more like their real life counterparts. If it’s an M4 assault rifle, then call it that.
• You have the option of fully joining a faction instead of just being a freelancer working for them. This may or may be doable in FNV, though I haven't tried it.
• You can climb up and down ladders in real time instead of the screen going blank or having to endure yet another load time.
• Less loading times or at least shorter ones.
• All quests big and small are added to your quest tab rather than having to sift through notes to find smaller quests, like in FNV with the Motor-Runner bounty.

• You can assign weapons and items to hotkeys and use these hotkeys outside of your Pip-Boy. A commenter stated that this is available but its gets stuffed up when you enter casinos and the help takes your weapons. Then when they are given back to you.
• So relating to my above suggestion, when weapons are handed back to you, your hotkey weapons are not messed up, and you have your weapon holstered instead of having to reselect it from the Pip-Boy weapons menu.
• You can more easily see and interact with all of your stashes. Like in FNV you more than likely have a stash in Goodsprings, Novac, and in New Vegas at the Lucky 38, at the very least. It would be great to manage the inventories without having to travel all the way to do each one separately.
• You can have all companions in one location, like FNV's Lucky 38 casino, which will make it easier to select which ones you wish to recruit before heading out a mission (I realised this is in FNV when you actually get to the Lucky 38 and talk to Mr House and get the presidential suite. If you haven't, then you can't dismiss companions and have them go to that location).
• You can't run or walk forever. Eventually you will need to rest for a spell, just like you need to sleep from time to time. This would be a good addition for hardcore mode.
• If the game takes place out in the desert, it would be interesting to experience hallucinations or mirages occasionally, particularly if you are out there for too long, or do not keep yourself hydrated.
• You can suffer from heat stroke if you are outside in the blazing hot sun for too long and don't hydrate yourself.
• More in the way of weather effects would be good. There were sandstorms in FNV and even Morrowind before that. More of that and gale force winds. Since playing the Honest Hearts DLC for FNV, I've noticed that rain is featured.
• Natural forces like tornadoes would be an excellent addition, and you would have to find a storm shelter or a cave of sorts until it had passed.
• You can utilise night-vision goggles to see in the dark rather than using your Pip-Boy which attracts attention and makes sneaking difficult, unless you have a perk that allows you to sneak with your Pip-Boy on. After playing the Old World Blues DLC for FNV, there is an item called a Dark Cowl that allows you to use nightvision. That's the nearest there is.
• Have a mini-map on display at all times in the corner of the screen so you don't have to keep opening up the Pip-Boy. This should at least display the local map if not the world map.

• The player can carry a duffel bag around with him like other prospectors. This might make the weight limit of around 200 lbs more realistic, or it could allow him to carry more stuff.
• Or he could have a backpack, or use pockets. Each storage container can only carry so much.
• Ammunition can be carried around in bandoliers.
• The inventory would be modified so you can monitor the contents and weight of each storage container.
• Once the player has attained a high guns skill, or a perk is selected, reload times are decreased even further by having two clips strapped together and employing a tactical reload method.
• The player can set more sophisticated traps than just laying mines all the time. Grenade bouquets, tripwires, rigged shotguns, etc.
• The player could wind up in more environmental hazards, like quicksand.
• The game would have a better cover system, which would make it harder to get shot in combat.
• The player can, in addition to crouching and standing, go prone and crawl along on the ground. This would make it even less likely that enemies would see him or her.
• When enemies get shot, they would react more realistically, and fall over and suffer, instead of taking a .50 round to the head and still stay standing.
• It would be nice to have a warning just before accepting or completing a quest that would tell you that by doing so, a certain faction would turn against you. Otherwise you can just save before doing it and then load that save game if it doesn't work out in your favour.

• There would be more dangers in the waters. In FNV I was kind of disappointed when I wasn't eaten by a mutated Anglerfish when deep sea diving in Lake Mead. Half-Life had them!
• You could use weapons underwater like spearguns, and even attack people on land from underwater, which would make for a nice surprise attack.

• Include alt-fire in the game. I was disappointed to discover in FNV that one couldn't attach an underslung grenade launcher mod to say a Marksman carbine and then use an alt fire mode to fire 40 mm grenades.
• The ability to switch between fire modes. You can select semi-automatic, burst fire, or full auto on some weapons.
• Have the character find or make a tool that would allow them to see through keyholes or under doors, so you can spot enemies on the other side and plan your attack.