History YMMV / Fallout4

* CatharsisFactor: [[Demonic Spiders Assaultrons]] are equipped with a devastating EyeBeam laser attack that can OneHitKill a lower level player, and ''love'' to get [[CloseRangeCombatant up close and personal]] so there's basically no chance of it missing. However, the ''Automatron'' DLC allows a player to equip the laser head to their own robotic companions -- and it's no less effective at reducing unfortunate enemies to ash.

** By the time you reach the mid-game, [[ImprovisedWeapon Pipe Guns]] are useless due to their low damage. However, their .38 rounds remain abundant due to their popularity with Raiders and Super Mutants, and can act as "substitute caps" thanks to the 1=1 exchange rate at vendors, especially so outside of Survival -- they have no weight, so there's no reason ''not'' to scoop them up, either.

** In lieu of an official nickname for the Sole Survivor(s), numerous fan versions came about. These included "Mr. and Mrs. 111"[[note]]Based on their Vault's number[[/note]] and "Nate and Nora."[[note]]Based on their default names[[/note]] "Howard" was also a common nickname for the male protagonist, as it was the name used for the E3 gameplay reveal.

** There's also another one for the Railroad - Liam Binet's [[spoiler:suicide note. By blowing up the Institute, you killed his family and pretty much all who cared for him, and he calls you an {{ungrateful bastard}} for repaying him like this after he helped the Railroad free the Synths.]]

* ObviousRulePatch: In previous games, you could sit back and let your companions kill enemies while still earning experience. Not so anymore, as [[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas the days of sitting back and letting Boone snipe enemies to death before you even knew they were there for free EXP are over]]. You must now get at least one hit in to earn experience from a defeated enemy.

* ObviousRulePatch: You no longer get EXP from enemies who die solely at the hands of your companions. [[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas The days of sitting back and letting Boone snipe enemies to death before you even knew they were there for free EXP are over]]. Though, fortunately, if you get at least one legitimate hit in, you still get the EXP. Or completing quests, doing stuff that requires skills such as lockpicking, hacking, also building settlements where every part awards EXP.

** Possibly the biggest LowTierLetdown of Fallout 4 is the Minigun. The developers had decided to use it in the big Concordia setpiece at the start of the game, and so they had to nerf it in order to not put a GameBreaker in the player’s hands right from the start, a decision that many believe is overkill. Unfortunately, this compounds with the automatic weapons above. In a fit of (unjustified) paranoia, the devs put a blanket damage nerf across all automatic receivers to compensate for the increased fire rate. This was so pervasive that it even ''reduced the damage of weapons that only have automatic fire''. This reduced the Submachine Gun’s damage from 15 to 7, and even worse, reduced the Minigun’s firepower from a measly 5 to a minuscule ''3''. Coupled with the relative ammo scarcity and cumbersome weight, it’s a neatly wrapped package of suck, massacred by Bethesda’s overcorrection.

** The Sole Survivor primarily speaks in somewhat halting, short, and uncomplicated sentences: "I'm from before the War." "Yeah, 200 years ago." He/she doesn't respond to much and often only shows emotion about specific subjects (like their son). [[ShellShockedVeteran It's very possible that they're suffering from some sort of stress-related disorder or emotional shock]], or even [[AmbiguousDisorder some kind of mental damage from the cryosleep process.]] Which, given events, is only understandable. It helps that there could be other reasons to contribute to their emotional shock such as the husband being a US Army combat veteran and the wife having some sort of postpartum depression. Relatedly, there's the Sole Survivor's near-constant [[DeadpanSnarker bitter sarcasm]] - Is this just meant to be [[WorldOfSnark part of the game's writing]], or is it meant to serve as an indicator of the Sole Survivor using [[SadClown sarcasm as a coping mechanism]] after their TraumaCongaLine in the game's opening?

** The radiation system was previously a stat that did nothing to hamper you until it hit certain thresholds, at which point it was easy to fix with the abundant [=RadAways=]. In the new system, ''every single point of accumulated radiation directly lowers your max health''. Made all the worse by [=RadAways=] being far more rare this time around. There is a decontamination arch available to build in settlements that is highly recommended... if you shell out the cash for the ''Wasteland Workshop'' DLC! It's also possible to cook meat taken from mutant hounds, which gives them the ability to take away rads with every serving, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to a single [=RadAway=], especially accounting for how much health you'll lose (and as such, how much you lose from being irradiated) by the time you're regularly fighting mutant hounds.

** Settlement defense quests, when you're told your settlement is being attacked and you need to go defend it. You're only made aware of the attack by a tiny notification in the corner of the screen, which can easily be missed (especially if it pops up after fast-traveling, when it can be lost in a sea of radio station availability messages and other quest update messages). Like the Minutement quests, they are timed, and if you fail to show up to defend the settlement within the time period, the mission fails and your settlement will be damaged and possibly some people dead. Prior to a patch, player presence was required for the defense to succeed, regardless of how well you built up the defenses or how weak the attacking force was, which made turrets almost useless. For that matter, if you do have turrets, they're not FriendlyFireProof to you or your settlers, so think twice about building that missile launcher turret. Even with the patch which changes it so that the settlement will have a chance of defending itself should you fail to appear, settlements producing a lot of water and food (i.e., the ones most likely to be attacked), even with a defense score more than double the production score, [[VideoGameDelegationPenalty the chance of success still maxes out around 66%]].

** The animations that play when you ready some weapons are pretty neat, until you get ambushed suddenly and your character still insists on wasting precious seconds by dramatically, pointlessly working the action or spinning the cylinder of their gun.
** The quick-switch slots add to the annoyance because, in the heat of combat where you actually need them, they can become bugged and cause a long delay in switching or drawing weapons. Get ambushed while holding a pistol, press the key to switch to your shotgun or assault rifle, and then sit around for upwards of fifteen seconds, getting constantly shot and stabbed, waiting for your character to bring out the gun you actually need.
** Under the new SPECIAL and Perk system, the player needs Perks to be able to pick locks, hack terminals, and craft better items; and the level requirement for the higher ranks can be steep. This means that to be able to get past higher-level locks and terminals, you need to be Level 18 to get Master-level lockpicking and Level 21 for Master-level hacking, and you need to be around Level 40 to take the Perks needed to craft the highest tiers of weapons and armor modifications. This is not only a contrast to ''Fallout 3'' and ''New Vegas'' where if you really wanted or needed a higher skill level, you could just level up once or twice and dump all your skill points into one area, but it also means that you'll be spending perk points on the lower tiers of these Perks just so you can unlock the higher-tier ones, if not on SPECIAL stats to even unlock access to the Perk in the firs tplace.

** The Pipe Gun. It's ''intended'' to be a CrutchCharacter-type weapon, with a lot of customization options that don't require a lot of resources or perks to unlock, plentiful ammo in the early game, and in exchange its damage output and other stats are low. But even in the first couple of hours of play, the player can easily find many superior weapons and enough ammo to get good use out of them (the basic 10mm pistol is found in Vault 111, for example), so you'll never need to use the Pipe Gun and it never gets to fill its intended niche. What you're left with is a weapon that simply sucks, and even against early game enemies its just too ineffective to fall back on even if you wanted to.

** VATS no longer stops time completely; ammunition is much scarcer; Stimpaks are much rarer (no longer found in every bathroom), restore health over time, and only restore health based on a percentage; and monsters like Deathclaws are now able to endure a massive amount of punishment from a minigun. Perhaps exemplified by the treatment of Radroaches. You hunt them with a toy BB gun as a child in ''Fallout 3'', but the Sole Survivor reacts to them with disgust and horror when they first encounter them as an adult with a gun that shoots live ammo.

** The radiation system was previously a stat that did nothing to hamper you until it hit certain thresholds, at which point it was easy to fix with the abundant [=RadAways=]. In the new system, ''every single point of accumulated radiation directly lowers your max health''. Made all the worse by [=RadAways=] being far more rare this time around. There is a decontamination arch available to build in settlements that is highly recommended... if you shell out the cash for the ''Wasteland Workshop'' DLC!

** In grand Creator/{{Bethesda}} fashion it is very easy to ignore the main quest for hours in favor of exploring the Commonwealth, building better weapons, and doing favors for [=NPCs=]. Why care about Shaun when you can find a robot that makes beer?

* SlidingScaleOfSocialSatisfaction: Categorized as "Hell On Earth". The natural conclusion of "Outside is Burning, Inside is Safe", is that sometimes the fire will enter the inside and downgrade the living standards to something horrible. Nuclear War has taken its toll on the Commonwealth and turned it into a wasted land of ScavengedPunk, radiation, and confused, recently-defrosted people from two centuries ago.

* StrawmanHasAPoint: Mayor [=McDonough=] is treated as an obstructive, oppressive jerk for kicking Piper out of Diamond City. However, she not only accused him of being a Synth without much evidence, but in general contributes to the paranoia gripping Diamond City and all the Commonwealth about Synths and the Institute, and is just shy of being a conspiracy theorist. He's also treated as a bigot for banning ghouls from the city, but Bobbi No-Nose tells you that he only put the law in place after one went feral and killed people, [=so McDonough's=] ban probably seemd reasonable at the time.

** The Pipe Gun. It's ''intended'' to be a CrutchCharacter-type weapon, with a lot of customization options that don't require a lot of resources or perks to unlock, plentiful ammo in the early game, and in exchange its damage output and other starts are low. But even in the first couple of hours of play, the player can easily find many superior weapons and enough ammo to get good use out of them (the basic 10mm pistol is found in Vault 111, for example), so you'll never need to use the Pipe Gun and it never gets to fill its intended niche. What you're left with is a weapon that simply sucks, and even against early game enemies its just too ineffective to fall back on even if you wanted to.

** Arthur Maxson. His supporters see him as an IDidWhatIHadToDo WellIntentionedExtremist who truly thinks his decisions on where to take the Brotherhood are the only way to ensure their survival, while his detractors see him as a PrinciplesZealot NobleBigot who is regressing the Brotherhood back to its roots in the name of upholding tradition and his family's personal pride. That the more xenophobic and isolationist West Coast Brotherhood are the ones that appointed him also plays a role, with some seeing Maxson as a PuppetKing.

** Out of all the companions, Strong has gathered a rather mixed reaction from some players, some hate him for [[DisproportionateRetribution disliking you for things like picking locks or hacking terminals]], or because he doesn't distinguish himself from his brothers compared to other Super Mutant party members such as [[NeverMessWithGranny Lily]], [[GentleGiant Fawkes]], or [[AllLovingHero Marcus]]. On the other hand, some like him for being [[TheComicallySerious darkly hilarious]] [[BlackComedy with his bloodlust]], or for the fact that while he's a typical Super Mutant, he gives out some unexpected insights towards typical Super Mutants in the Commonwealth and being ironically different from other Super Mutant party members.

** Preston Garvey is either a selfless hero who [[{{Determinator}} never gives up in trying to help the people of the Commonwealth]] [[ThePollyanna despite his immense trauma and the dismal situations he finds himself in]] or a LazyBum who forces all his responsibilities as one of the last surviving officers of the Minutemen onto the Sole Survivor. It doesn't help that, as the game's unbreakable story win condition, the player is guided towards sheltering and helping him no matter what kind of character they personally want to roleplay as - unless they choose another path e.g. the player can simply beeline to DC and ignore Concorde entirely. Or the player can drag Travis to the Museum, wait until Travis gent into the armour on the roof, then simply leave and never talk to Preston again. Or the player can...

* ParanoiaFuel: It is entirely possible for Institute Synths to sneak into your settlements and wreak havoc.

* PolishedPort: On Series X and S, the game was one of the first 5 to receive an FPS Boost, allowing for a perfectly smooth 60FPS on the consoles, though the resolution is limited to 1080p for performance reasons.

* PlayTheGameSkipTheStory: While some players dislike the move from having to create specific builds in favour of the ever growing power fantasy of the game, most aspects are seen as a vast improvement over the other [=3D=] ''Fallout'' games. Gunplay is better, locations are more interesting to explore thanks to improved map and level design, crafting and settlement building have been very well received, and the exploration feeds back into said crafting and settlement building in a natural and fulfilling manner. However, the game's story is generally seen as one of its weaker elements, being at best [[OvershadowedByAwesome interesting but underwhelming]] compared to previous series entries, and at worst outright bad and needlessly confusing through issues regarding quest design, character and faction motivations being needlessly obfuscated, and the switch to a voiced protagonist being seen by a large section of fans as undercutting the game's roleplaying aspects. As such, many have outright noted that they prefer to ignore the story and just enjoy the game's sandbox nature of the game.

*** Do you remember those Children of Atom guys? How nice they were despite their {{Cloudcuckoolander}} tendencies? Now they've become hostile to everyone and your only choice when encountering them is to either flee or kill them all.
*** You know how you spent the last third of ''3'' helping the Brotherhood of Steel, led by [[BigGood Elder Lyons]], save the Wasteland from [[ANaziByAnyOtherName the Enclave]]? As of ''Fallout 4'', the [=BoS=] is now also actively subjugating settlements into their new nation.
*** Furthermore, Owyn Lyons is dead, [[spoiler:and so is Sarah.]] And depending on how sympathetic you are to him, it can be hard not to pity Arthur Maxson to a certain extent given how he's a cute and dorky little kid in ''3'' who goes through a ''vicious'' TraumaCongaLine in the intervening decade, turning him into a cold and dour cynic by the events of ''4''.
*** Mayor [=MacCready=] grew up and was HappilyMarried with an infant son... [[spoiler:and then when they were all hiding out in a Feral Ghoul-infested subway station, he had to watch his wife Lucy get DevouredByTheHorde while he ran for his life]].
** Pretty much any time your companion gives you a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech if your Affinity gets too low with them. Admittedly, some are more effective than others (i.e., Nick Valentine's compared to [=MacCready's=]), but it's still hard not to feel like an ass when they give you a length WhatTheHellHero speech about you being an utter asshat to them.
** '''All''' of "[[WhamEpisode Blind Betrayal]]." [[spoiler:In this Brotherhood main quest, it's revealed that Paladin Danse (your sponser into the Brotherhood and potential companion/''romance option'') [[TomatoInTheMirror has been a Synth the whole time]]. Elder Maxson then forces the Sole Survivor to find Danse and ''execute him'' to prevent him from being a threat to future Brotherhood operations. After this point, the whole quest basically becomes one proverbial GutPunch after another; first off, there's the fact that [[DevelopersForesight if the Sole Survivor doesn't actually talk with Danse and just leaves his bunker]], then Danse will [[DrivenToSuicide kill himself]]. Meanwhile, if/when you ''do'' actually talk with Danse and agree with him that he needs to be killed, his final talk the Sole Survivor is just heartbreaking, ''especially'' since Danse's last words are him expressing how he's SoProudOfYou for killing him. And finally, convincing Danse to not commit SuicideByCop only to fail the later Charisma checks with Elder Maxson, resulting in Danse [[ShaggyDogStory still getting executed]]. Really, the only possible way that the proverbial knife can be twisted further regarding this quest is if you've been romancing Danse up to this point.]]

** The ending of ''Far Harbor'' can have this effect due to its grim and bleak tone, especially if you decide to go for the option to try to appease all three factions.

** The Pipe Gun. It's ''intended'' to be a CrutchCharacter-type weapon, with low damage but plentiful ammo in the early game and a lot of customization options that don't need a lot of resources. The issue with it is that even in the first couple of hours of the game, the player can get their hands on superior weapons and enough ammo to get good use out of them (the basic 10mm pistol is found within Vault 111, for example), and enemies are liable to drop weapons with mods pre-attached for you even if you can't mod the weapon yourself. All-in-all, you can play through the game without ever needing to use a Pipe Gun-type weapon, and by the time you get to Diamond City they will be thoroughly outclassed anyway.

* SoBadItsGood: Before completing "Confidence Man", Travis Miles gives a very bumbling and stuttering delivery as a radio DJ, even doing fact-checking ''in the middle of a broadcast,'' and the purpose of the quest is to give him a more assertive radio personality. Some players prefer to skip this quest altogether because of the hilarity Travis's clumsiness provides.

** Elder Maxson and Paladin Danse are both ''immensely'' popular with the fangirls, thanks to them being bonafide {{Hunk}}s with {{Badass Baritone}}s. The latter is certainly helped by his character arc turning him into a tragic JerkassWoobie.

** The Assaultrons have also gotten a lot of praise for falling into this trope. Not only do they all speak with a husky ContraltoOfDanger worthy of the deadliest FemmeFatale, they're by far the most dangerous and lethal enemies in the entire game, being terrifyingly fast {{Lightning Bruiser}}s armed with a deadly eye laser that is all but ''guaranteed'' to be a OneHitKill and either drill-claws or swords in place of hands. Combine all that with their casually sadistic remarks (e.g. coolly remarking that "Death is inevitable", or KL-E-0 from Goodneighbor suggesting you use her wares to murder a lot of people), the fact that ''[[https://imgur.com/2D7cIB7 even crippling both their legs won't necessarily save you]]'' (unlike Deathclaws), and their unique FemBot design, and Assaultrons are among the most memorable enemies in the entire game.

** For a noticeably large section of the fandom, [[DemonicSpiders Assaultrons]] can count here due to their [[ContraltoOfDanger husky voices]] and attractive [[{{Fembot}} hourglass figures]]. What certainly helps is that one of the aforementioned {{Ensemble Darkhorse}}s for the game is the Assaultron character KL-E-0, who many fans are vocally disappointed cannot be romanced.

** '''All''' of "[[WhamEpisode Blind Betrayal]]." [[spoiler:In this Brotherhood main quest, it's revealed that Paladin Danse (your sponser into the Brotherhood and potential companion/''romance option'') [[TomatoInTheMirror has been a Synth the whole time]]. Elder Maxson then forces the Sole Survivor to find Danse and ''execute him'' to prevent him from being a threat to future Brotherhood operations. After this point, the whole quest basically becomes one proverbial GutPunch after another; first off, there's the fact that [[DevelopersForesight if the Sole Survivor doesn't actually talk with Danse and just leaves his bunker]], then Danse will [[DrivenToSuicide kill himself]]. Meanwhile, if/when you ''do'' actually talk with Danse and agree with him that he needs to be killed, his final talk the Sole Survivor is just heartbreaking, ''especially'' since Danse's last words are him expressing how he's SoProudOfYou for killing him. And finally, convincing Danse to not commit SuicideByCop only to fail the later Charisma checks with Elder Maxson, resulting in Danse [[ShaggyDogStory still getting executed]], will likely give the player a ThousandYardStare for a decent while afterwards. Really, the only possible way that the proverbial knife can be twisted further regarding this quest is if you've been romancing Danse up to this point.]]

* AntiClimaxBoss: Kellogg can be this, if the Sole Survivor does a little bit of searching a few minutes before their showdown. A few rooms before Kellogg decides to reveal himself, a toolbox can be found with an Armory Password. Inside the Armory, after a few Novice-level locks that should provide no resistance, is a Fat Man, with a single Mini-Nuke, more than enough to blast the man who killed their spouse, and kidnapped their son, as well as his Synth bodyguards into a fine, red, radioactive mist. A simple alternative (particularly in Survival mode, where carrying a Fat Man even a few paces can break your legs) is to place a few mines near him. If you shoot Kellogg, then duck behind something, he will trigger the mines and die, without any opportunity to return fire.

* AntiClimaxBoss:
** Deliberately [[InvokedTrope invoked]] for laughs in "The Great Hunt" sidequest in ''Far Harbor'', where the Sole Survivor goes with the Mariner to kill the Red Death, a sea monster that has been terrorizing fishing expeditions on foggy days. When the two get to the beast's last known location, they find that [[spoiler: the Red Death is just a Mirelurk baby who mutated to have glowing red eyes, whose light unwittingly lured sailors to shipwreck on the shore]]. The Mariner is distraught at this and how she will be a laughingstock if she reports this truth to the town.
** Kellogg can be this, if the Sole Survivor does a little bit of searching a few minutes before their showdown. A few rooms before Kellogg decides to reveal himself, a toolbox can be found with an Armory Password. Inside the Armory, after a few Novice-level locks that should provide no resistance, is a Fat Man, with a single Mini-Nuke, more than enough to blast the man who killed their spouse, and kidnapped their son, as well as his Synth bodyguards into a fine, red, radioactive mist. A simple alternative (particularly in Survival mode, where carrying a Fat Man even a few paces can break your legs) is to place a few mines near him. If you shoot Kellogg, then duck behind something, he will trigger the mines and die, without any opportunity to return fire.

** Remember that ''WebComic/OnePunchMan'' parody with ''Fallout 4''? Well, ''Nuka-World'' introduces Mags Black. Why's that important? Well if you know who her [[Creator/LauraPost voice actor]] is, you'll know why.

** The Fun House in ''Nuka-World'' Kiddie Kingdom ''definitely'' counts for those with motion sickness. The game even [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] it with a sign asking visitors to the attraction not to vomit on it.

** John Hancock (the UltimateAuthorityMayor of [[ViceCity Goodneighbor]]), Deacon (the Railroad's resident breezy StealthExpert), and [=MacCready=] (a {{Hired Gun|s}} you can pick up at The Third Rail) are all able to hide their demons and self-hatred pretty well with their breezy LovableRogue charm. Talking with Hancock can reveal that [[DeathSeeker he'd like to die]] due to still feeling guilt over his past BystanderSyndrome regarding the exiling of Diamond City's Ghouls, and he's the ''only'' base game companion not actually marked as essential since if he does idolize the Sole Survivor and get dismissed, there's an actual chance of [[DrivenToSuicide him killing himself from a drug overdose]]. Meanwhile, Deacon has a pretty hideous DarkAndTroubledPast [[spoiler:of being a rabid Synth bigot]], and openly expresses disgust for him being in the Railroad since he doesn't think that it even comes close to him making up for his past mistakes. Finally, [=MacCready=] has his own suicidal tendencies and self-loathing issues, with him [[OldShame being utterly disgusted]] with his past history as a Gunner and even remarking at one point that [[spoiler: he sometimes thinks it would've been better if both he and his son Duncan had ''also'' been eaten by the Feral Ghouls that tore his wife Lucy to shreds]].

** A more downplayed case, but a recurring criticism of ''Fallout 3'' was that due to the game being set on the East Coast, there were too few references to the events of the West Coast games, to the point where it barely felt like ''3'' was set in the same universe as ''1'' and ''2''. ''4'' is still set on the East Coast, but the game also has ''loads'' of {{Call Back}}s ([[VideoGame/Fallout1 Wattz Consumer Electronics apparently had a Boston office]]), {{Continuity Nod}}s ([[VideoGame/Fallout2 Elder Maxson got his position thanks to the Lost Hills Elders back in California]]), parallels to previous games (the Institute is more or less [[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas a saner Think Tank]] [[spoiler:without a Dr. Mobius to keep them in check]]), and {{Mythology Gag}}s ([[VideoGame/FalloutTacticsBrotherhoodOfSteel The Brotherhood now has a zeppelin to use in their travels]]) to all the games before it. At times, ''Fallout 4'' verges on ContinuityPorn levels.

** A more downplayed example, but ''4'' greatly expanded on security terminals in comparison to both of its predecessors, allowing for a lot more opportunities to use local Protectrons, turrets, and spotlights (among other measures) against enemies thanks to the ''Total Hack'' holotapes. However, the game's more realistic level design makes it so that one is most often only able to access the terminals in question ''after'' they've already cleared out the Protectrons/turrets/spotlights/what have you, making the aforementioned holotapes pretty useless the majority of the time.

** In a manner of speaking. VATS no longer stops time completely; ammunition is much scarcer; Stimpaks are much rarer (no longer found in every bathroom), restore health over time, and only restore health based on a percentage; and monsters like Deathclaws are now able to endure a massive amount of punishment from a minigun. Perhaps exemplified by the treatment of Radroaches. You hunt them with a toy BB gun as a child in ''Fallout 3'', but the Sole Survivor reacts to them with disgust and horror when they first encounter them as an adult with a gun that shoots live ammo.

** Settlement defense missions get this treatment in the ''Far Harbor'' expansion. In the vanilla game, these quests are rather easy (especially if you've built up the settlement's automated defenses and have equipped the settlers for combat) and really only annoying for how ''often'' they tend to occur. However, if you've built up a settlement on ''Far Harbor'''s "The Island" and show up for a defense mission expecting a few Raiders or Ghouls, you're in for a world of hurt. Instead, you'll have to face [[spoiler: ''waves'' of well-equipped Trappers or, worst of all, multiple ''Fog Crawlers'' (which are on the level of a Mirelurk Queen or Super Mutant Behemoth) backed up by Gulpers and/or Yao Guai]] who are attempting to destroy your Fog Condensers. ''Much'' more challenging...