History ScrappyMechanic / Fallout

* Shared with ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' are the Essential [=NPCs=], characters who have CompleteImmortality and serve only to break immersion and railroad the player, which are prevalent across the Bethesda-made titles. ''New Vegas'' is the only 3D game that averts this, as the only Essential characters in that game are the children, the robotic vendor of a weapon store behind an impenetrable wall, Yea Man, and companions currently in the player's party (and the latter are fully killable if playing in Hardcore Mode).

* Shared with ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' are the Essential [=NPCs=], characters who have CompleteImmortality and serve only to break immersion and railroad the player, which are prevalent across the Bethesda-made titles. ''New Vegas'' is the only 3D game that averts this, as the only Essential characters in that game are the children, the robotic vendor of a weapon store behind an impenetrable wall, and companions currently in the player's party (and the latter are fully killable if playing in Hardcore Mode).

* Like ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'', the character creation, despite its complexity and the time expected for some players to perfect their custom faces, lacks save preset functionality to save one's created models or even to share it, despite older games like ''Videogame/TheSims3'' and ''Videogame/SaintsRowTheThird'' allow players to save and share their designs. Thankfully, [[https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/12631 Looksmenu]], at least for Fallout 4, exists, allowing players to save presets and even share them, although sharing is not in-game due to engine limitations.

* Ulysses' dialogues with you in ''Lonesome Road'', as well as the Courier Duster you get at the end of the DLC, are based on your reputation with The Strip (For Mr. House), NCR, and the Legion. The problem is that reputation with the three has nothing to do with which of the three you may have actually sided with in the main questline; in fact it's quite possible to have a mediocre reputation with your faction of choice, while you can rather easily rack up a high reputation with one of the others. For example if you help Vault 21 but you kill House (both were tied to the Strip reputation), the dialogue will proceed as if you support House. [[https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/44042 this mod]] fixes it so the faction-related dialogue is tied to faction-based quest progression.

* In ''VideoGame/Fallout4'', the new dialogue system was negatively received by just about everyone for being both unintuitive and needlessly simplified. In contrast to previous games, the game uses a four-option DialogueTree with one to three word descriptions similar to those found in Creator/{{Bioware}} games. However, the vagueness (even more vague than Bioware games) of the choice descriptions means that you rarely have any idea what's going to come out of your character's mouth (i.e. the "SARCASTIC" option apparently translates to anywhere from "affably snarky response" to "personal insult"). For the most part, the limited choices and lack of an Investigate option makes it harder to learn more about the world or gain the proper context. Adding to the over simplicity is that Charisma is the primary stat for swaying dialogue as opposed to the previous games allowing multiple different options. As a result, you're generally only able to manipulate conversation based on persuasiveness, rather than any other stat/perk like Medicine or Intelligence. And this is on top of a noticeable amount of {{Railroading}} which, while not always present, in many occasions turns the dialogue options into variations of "Yes"[[labelnote:For example]]"Yes", "No", "Maybe" and "Sarcastic" become "Yes", "Reluctant Yes", "Tell me more/add in some caps" and "Sarcastic yes" [[/labelnote]], which makes some choices feel meaningless since [[ButThouMust they all result in more or less the same outcome]] with minor differences. [[http://www.pcgamesn.com/fallout-4/fallout-4-dialogue Todd Howard even admitted in a post-release interview that the system had problems]]. Thankfully there is [[https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/1235/ this mod]] which restore full dialogue choice options.
* Settlement building is clunky, rather sloppily implemented, and frustrating. "Snapping" to stick several objects is uneven, and there are no additional camera angles for a clearer view, restricted to the existing first person and third person view modes which make it difficult to actually see what you're doing. Further, collision does not always work properly, which leads to items clipping and making it almost impossible to add features like doors. Additionally, most settlements feature uneven terrain and non-removable objects, reducing each settlement's usable space. Not helping matters is that the mechanic is ''not'' optional, with one mission in the main quest forcing you to build something in order to advance the plot, though thankfully following a certain path gives you a large, spacious settlement seemingly designed specifically for the quest.

* The Creation Club in-game shop (a byproduct of Bethesda's infamous "paid mods" fiasco) did this to most players who had any interest in modding the game at all (and quite a few players). Intended to be a marketplace for community modders (and Bethesda themselves) selling... paid mods through an in-game system, the practice all but broke the [=PS4=] (ironically, one of the speculated reason why Creation Club was made by the first place is to deliver user-generated content to the [=PS4=], due to Sony's policy against external content, see above) due to causing underlying bugs with existing assets in the world. On PC, each Creation Club update adds additional armor and weapon options -- but sends out each update with bricks of additional data being forcefully downloaded to the player's computer, whether they want it or not, and which could run into several gigabytes of data (or more) per update. Bethesda themselves have [[https://siteafrica495.weebly.com/blog/creation-club-is-paid-mods even admitted such problems]] in PR statements and interviews, but to date, have refused to fix the issue. As an admission of the controversial system, both Fallout 4 and Skyrim (which ran on the same online service to deliver cross-platform mods) stopped receiving content updates in 2019, while the ''Anniversary Edition'' of ''Skyrim'' bundled a large number of Creation Club items with new minigames and side content.

* Shared with ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' are the Essential [=NPCs=], characters who have CompleteImmortality and serve only to break immersion and railroad the player, which are prevalent across the Bethesda-made titles. ''New Vegas'' is the only 3D game that averts this, as the only Essential characters in that game are the children and companions currently in the player's party (and the latter are fully killable if playing in Hardcore Mode).

* Hacking minigames in Fallout 3, New Vegas, and 4. It's excruciatingly tedious as it also function as DoubleUnlock (reach the required skill in order to interact with hackable terminal, and then play the word-matching minigame based on [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastermind_(board_game) Mastermind]] that increase in difficulty depending on the lock difficulty). Failure to do the minigame will cause the terminal to be permanently locked (in Fallout 4 it simply locked for 10 seconds). It can be worked around in 3 when there is only one mistake limit left, simply back off and the mistake limit will be restored. However in New Vegas if you did that, terminal will be locked for 30 seconds. It got to the point that there is mods for each respective games that remove all the words except one that matching.
** For Fallout 3, [[https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/2333/ here]], and choose the Action Boy one.
** For Fallout New Vegas, [[https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/41580/ here]], with multiple choices such as whether to reduce or keep XP rewards.
** For Fallout 4, [[https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/266 here]].

[[folder:Fallout 3]]

[[folder:Fallout New Vegas]]

[[folder:Fallout 4]]

* The Creation Club in-game shop (a byproduct of Bethesda's infamous "paid mods" fiasco) did this to most players who had any interest in modding the game at all (and quite a few players). Intended to be a marketplace for community modders (and Bethesda themselves) selling... paid mods through an in-game system, the practice all but broke the [=PS4=] (ironically, one of the speculated reason why Creation Club was made by the first place is to deliver user-generated content to the [=PS4=], due to Sony's policy against external content, see above) due to causing underlying bugs (the "[=0kb=] bug") with existing assets in the world. On PC, each Creation Club update adds additional armor and weapon options -- but sends out each update with bricks of additional data being forcefully downloaded to the player's computer, whether they want it or not. Bethesda themselves have [[https://siteafrica495.weebly.com/blog/creation-club-is-paid-mods even admitted such problems]] in PR statements and interviews, but to date, have refused to fix the issue, though as of the end of 2019, both Fallout 4 and Skyrim (which ran on the same online service to deliver cross-platform mods) didn't have content update anymore.

** The gold bars, which are supposed to represent the theme of the DLC (letting go), but instead are arbitraily set to a weight of ''35 pounds'' each[[note]]This is despite each bar having a visible "10 oz." symbol on its in-game model[[/note]]. You're only meant to take one or two with you as you exit the DLC, but various tricks are available to escape the vault with all 37 bars. Not helping matters were the devs attempting to short-circuit these exploits, only to fail when it was discovered that you could use chems and a certain implant to dash out before the collar detonates. This mechanic was so infamous (and even [[https://archive.is/MyLXS admitted as such]] by Josh Sawyer) that when gold bars were re-introduced in ''4'', they weighed much, ''much'' less and had a much lower marginal bottle cap value (especially as most Commonwealth wastelanders are unconcerned with things like gold anyway when water, food, and defenses are more important).

* In ''VideoGame/Fallout4'', the new dialogue system was negatively received by just about everyone for being both unintuitive and needlessly simplified. In contrast to previous games, the game uses a four-option DialogueTree with one to three word descriptions similar to those found in Creator/{{Bioware}} games. However, the vagueness (even more vague than Bioware games) of the choice descriptions means that you rarely have any idea what's going to come out of your character's mouth (i.e. the "SARCASTIC" option apparently translates to anywhere from "affably snarky response" to "personal insult"). For the most part, the limited choices and lack of an Investigate option makes it harder to learn more about the world or gain the proper context. Adding to the over simplicity is that Charisma is the primary stat for swaying dialogue as opposed to the previous games allowing multiple different options. As a result, you're generally only able to manipulate conversation based on persuasiveness, rather than any other stat/perk like Medicine or Intelligence. And this is on top of a noticeable amount of {{Railroading}} which, while not always present, in many occasions turns the dialogue options into variations of "Yes"[[labelnote:For example]]"Yes", "No", "Maybe" and "Sarcastic" become "Yes", "Reluctant Yes", "Tell me more/add in some caps" and "Sarcastic yes" [[/labelnote]], which makes some choises feel meaningless since [[ButThouMust they all result in more or less the same outcome]] with minor differences. [[http://www.pcgamesn.com/fallout-4/fallout-4-dialogue Todd Howard even admitted in a post-release interview that the system had problems]]. Thankfully there is [[https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/1235/ this mod]] which restore full dialogue choice options.

* The Creation Club in-game shop (a byproduct of Bethesda's infamous "paid mods" fiasco) did this to most players who had any interest in modding the game at all (and quite a few players). Intended to be a marketplace for community modders (and Bethesda themselves) selling... paid mods through an in-game system, the practice all but broke the [=PS4=] due to causing underlying bugs (the "[=0kb=] bug") with existing assets in the world. On PC, each Creation Club update adds additional armor and weapon options -- but sends out each update with bricks of additional data being forcefully downloaded to the player's computer, whether they want it or not. Bethesda themselves have [[https://siteafrica495.weebly.com/blog/creation-club-is-paid-mods even admitted such problems]] in PR statements and interviews, but to date, have refused to fix the issue.

* Settlement building is clunky, rather sloppily implemented, and frustrating. "Snapping" to stick several objects is uneven, and there is no additional camera angles for a better view, restricted to the existing first person and third person view modes. Then there is that collision does not always work properly, which leads to item clipping and making it almost impossible to add features like doors. Even worse is that most settlements feature uneven terrain and non-removable objects. Not helping matters is that the mechanic is not optional with several quests in the game that FORCE you to build something in order to advance the plot, though thankfully following a certain path gave you a large, spacious place seems to be specifically designed for the quest.
* The lower than before SPECIAL points given to you while starting and prohibitively high requirements to unlock perks, breaking a series tradition and left unexplained in the game. Luckily, [[https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/683/ a mod]] is there to fix it.
* The Minutemen radiant quests. How would you like to be given a quest to clear out feral ghouls from an area, doing so, likely having some fun in the process. However, you then have to go about establishing a settlement there with food, water and defenses (often without adequate resources to do so) only to head back to the quest giver to get your reward and are thrust without choice into yet another quest doing the same thing with some other kind of enemy. This can happen multiple times. [[ButThouMust And you can't leave the quests for later because they're timed and they'll fail]], so you find yourself stuck in an endless cycle of building and defending settlements which doesn't allow you to do any exploring or scavenging or proceeding with the main quest [[spoiler: to find your kidnapped son and avenge your dead spouse]]. Patches would significantly reduce the frequency of these quests, remove the "timed" aspect for everything but the specific "Defend ____ Settlement" quests, and give settlements a percentage chance to defend themselves based on the ratio of defense to resources (though, still frustratingly, [[VideoGameDelegationPenalty they never more than about a 66% chance of succeeding]]). Additionally, [[https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/24940/ this mod]] fixes the aforementioned problems by making Preston no longer giving radiant quests after a certain point in the game that can be reached rather early.

* The lower than before SPECIAL points given to you while starting and prohibitively high requirements to unlock perks count. As usual, [[https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/683/ a mod]] is there to fix it.

* In ''VideoGame/Fallout4'', the new dialogue system was negatively received by just about everyone for being both unintuitive and needlessly simplified. In contrast to previous games, the game uses a four-option DialogueTree with one to three word descriptions similar to those found in Creator/{{Bioware}} games. However, the vagueness (even more vague than Bioware games) of the choice descriptions means that you rarely have any idea what's going to come out of your character's mouth (i.e. the "SARCASTIC" option apparently translates to anywhere from "affably snarky response" to "personal insult"). For the most part, the limited choices and lack of an Investigate option makes it harder to learn more about the world or gain the proper context. Adding to the over simplicity is that Charisma is the primary stat for swaying dialogue as opposed to the previous games allowing multiple different options. As a result, you're generally only able to manipulate conversation based on persuasiveness, rather than any other stat/perk like Medicine or Intelligence. [[http://www.pcgamesn.com/fallout-4/fallout-4-dialogue Todd Howard even admitted in a post-release interview that the system had problems]]. Thankfully there is [[https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/1235/ this mod]] which restore full dialogue choice options.

** The DLC begins with the player character being told that they have been fitted with an [[ExplosiveLeash explosive slave collar]] that will detonate if it gets within range of a number of unseen radios and loudspeakers screwing with its signal. What's even more irritating is that the damn thing is stuck on you the moment you start the questline and doesn't come off until you finish it. There are very few options for dealing with this, save for a companion perk that increases the grace time needed before the collars threaten to explode or simply finding the radios and loudspeakers, which are often hidden in out-of-the-way areas and seem to have been strategically placed by the developers to see how frustrated players could get (under counters, high up on walls, etc). That's not counting the "unbreakable" variants that can't be broken, no matter how much you try shooting them. The [[MostAnnoyingSound constant beeping within the Tampico Theater]] towards the end of the mod may make you turn off your volume altogether.

* The Minutemen radiant quests. How would you like to be given a quest to clear out feral ghouls from an area, doing so, likely having some fun in the process. However, you then have to go about establishing a settlement there with food, water and defenses (often without adequate resources to do so) only to head back to the quest giver to get your reward and are thrust without choice into yet another quest doing the same thing with some other kind of enemy. This can happen multiple times. [[ButThouMust And you can't leave the quests for later because they're timed and they'll fail]], so you find yourself stuck in an endless cycle of building and defending settlements which doesn't allow you to do any exploring or scavenging or proceeding with the main quest [[spoiler: to find your kidnapped son and avenge your dead spouse]]. Patches would significantly reduce the frequency of these quests, remove the "timed" aspect for everything but the specific "Defend ____ Settlement" quests, and give settlements a percentage chance to defend themselves based on the ratio of defense to resources (though, still frustratingly, [[VideoGameDelgationPenalty they never more than about a 66% chance of succeeding]]). Additionally, [[https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/24940/ this mod]] fixes the aforementioned problems by making Preston no longer giving radiant quests after a certain point in the game that can be reached rather early.

** The DLC begins with the player character being told that they have been fitted with an [[ExplosiveLeash explosive slave collar]] that will detonate if it gets within range of a number unseen radios and loudspeakers screwing with its signal. What's even more irritating is that the damn thing is stuck on you the moment you start the questline and doesn't come off until you finish it. There are very few options for dealing with this, save for a companion perk that increases the grace time needed before the collars threaten to explode or simply finding the radios and loudspeakers, which are often hidden in out-of-the-way areas and seem to have been strategically placed by the developers to see how frustrated players could get (under counters, high up on walls, etc). That's not counting the "unbreakable" variants that can't be broken, no matter how much you try shooting them. The [[MostAnnoyingSound constant beeping within the Tampico Theater]] towards the end of the mod may make you turn off your volume altogether.

* Settlement building is clunky, rather sloppily implemented, and frustrating. "snapping" to stick several objects is uneven, and there is no additional camera angles for a better view, restricted to the existing first person and third person view modes. Then there is that collision does not always work properly, which leads to item clipping and making it almost impossible to add features like doors. Even worse is that most settlements feature uneven terrain and non-removable objects. Not helping matters is that the mechanic is not optional with several quests in the game that FORCE you to build something in order to advance the plot, though thankfully following a certain path gave you a large, spacious place seems to be specifically designed for the quest.

* The Minutemen radiant quests. How would you like to be given a quest to clear out feral ghouls from an area, doing so, likely having some fun in the process. However, you then have to go about establishing a settlement there with food, water and defenses (often without adequate resources to do so) only to head back to the quest giver to get your reward and are thrust without choice into yet another quest doing the same thing with some other kind of enemy. This can happen multiple times. [[ButThouMust And you can't leave the quests for later because they're timed and they'll fail]], so you find yourself stuck in an endless cycle of building and defending settlements which doesn't allow you to do any exploring or scavenging or proceeding with the main quest [[spoiler: to find your kidnapped son and avenge your dead spouse]]. Patches would significantly reduce the frequency of these quests as well as remove the "timed" aspect for everything but the specific "Defend ____ Settlement" quests.
** [[https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/24940/ this mod]] fixes the aforementioned problems by making Preston no longer giving radiant quests after a certain point in the game that can be reached rather early.

* The weapon-degradation system in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' moved in this direction. On paper, there's nothing wrong with it; weapons degrade or break over time, reducing their effectiveness, and you can use other weapons of the same type to repair them. The problem is that the game also loved to make the best weapons around be found in borderline-unusable condition, especially early on - and since said weapons were also rare, repairing them was almost impossible. Instead of giving you ATasteOfPower, this resulted in guns that have very limited ammo, require special training, ''and'' are actually worse than your starting pistol. A good chunk of the fanbase is still under the impression that EnergyWeapons are useless, because of this; they're not, but their introduction to them was just that disastrous. ''New Vegas'' thankfully rectified this by making rare guns usually be in decent condition, and altering repair mechanics to be more accepting as well as introducing the awesome [[McGyvering Jury Rigging]] perk.

* Like ''Videogame/TheElderScrolls'', the character creation, despite its complexity and the time expected for some players to perfect their custom faces, lacks save preset functionality to save one's created models or even to share it, despite older games like ''Videogame/TheSims3'' and ''Videogame/SaintsRowTheThird'' allow players to save and share their designs. Thankfully, [[https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/12631 Looksmenu]], at least for Fallout 4, exists, allowing players to save presets and even share them, although sharing is not in-game due to engine limitations.

* In ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', a low reputation with either the Legion or the NCR will cause these groups to send assassination squads after the player. The squads are made up of four members pulled from one of three "tiers" based on the player's level, making them a rather challenging fight (bordering on being DemonicSpiders) for nearly any character build, especially early in the game. They respawn every three days to come after the player, making matters worse if you rest or fast travel frequently. The "scrappiest" part of it all, though? They'll ''always'' come straight for the player to declare that the player has been marked for death, even if the player has a 100 Sneak skill and is invisible thanks to a Stealth Boy. The only way to get the drop on them is to see them coming from a long way off, which isn't always easy (or even possible). Thankfully, some game mods exist which change their respawn rate to a more reasonable 7–10 days and/or remove them completely from the game.

** The gold bars, which are supposed to represent the theme of the DLC (letting go), but instead are arbitraily set to a weight of ''35 pounds'' each[[note]]This is despite each bar having a visible "10 oz." symbol on its in-game model[[/note]]. You're only meant to take one or two with you as you exit the DLC, but various tricks are available to escape the vault with all 37 bars. Not helping matters were the devs attempting to short-circuit these exploits, only to fail when it was discovered that you could use chems and a certain implant to dash out before the collar detonates. This mechanic was so infamous (and even [[https://archive.is/MyLXS admitted as such]] by Josh Sawyer) that when gold bars were re-introduced in ''4'', they weighed much, ''much'' less and had a much lower marginal bottle cap value.

* The lower than before SPECIAL points given to you while starting and prohibitively high requirements to unlock perks count. As usual, mods are there to fix it.

* Ulysses' dialogues with you in ''Lonesome Road'', as well as the Courier Duster you get at the end of the DLC, are based on your reputation with The Strip (For Mr. House), NCR, and the Legion. The problem is that reputation with the three has nothing to do with which of the three you may have actually sided with in the main questline; in fact it's quite possible to have a mediocre reputation with your faction of choice, while you can rather easily rack up a high reputation with one of the others. Cue conversations where your player is spoken to, and speaks like, an NCR backer, even if you've thrown in your lot with House or Caesar. Naturally, fan mods exist to change this so he recognizes your alignment properly based on quest progress.

* Settlement building is clunky, rather sloppily implemented, and frustrating. There is no "snapping" option for placing items save for the metal and wood sections, and there is no additional camera angles for a better view, restricted to the existing first person and third person view modes. Then there is that collision does not always work properly, which leads to item clipping and making it almost impossible to add features like doors. Even worse is that most settlements feature uneven terrain and non-removable objects. Not helping matters is that the mechanic is not optional with several quests in the game that FORCE you to build something in order to advance the plot, though thankfully following a certain path gave you a large, spacious place seems to be specifically designed for the quest.

* Settlement building is clunky, rather sloppily implemented, and frustrating. There is no "snapping" option for placing items save for the metal and wood sections, and there is no additional camera angles for a better view, restricted to the existing first person and third person view modes. Then there is that collision does not always work properly, which leads to item clipping and making it almost impossible to add features like doors. Even worse is that most settlements feature uneven terrain and non-removable objects (this ain't ''Videogame/{{Minecraft}}'' Not helping matters is that the mechanic is not optional with several quests in the game that FORCE you to build something in order to advance the plot, though thankfully following a certain path gave you a large, spacious place seems to be specifically designed for the quest.

* ''3'' and ''New Vegas'' give you the mercy of skipping spoken dialogue, under one condition: ''the camera must be fully, '''''100% centered''''' on whoever is talking to you''. Unfortunately, the camera pans at an ''excruciatingly'' slow pace, and it doesn't matter how much you try to point the crosshair at just the right part of a character's hitbox; the game will still spend an uncomfortable split second correcting it. There's is absolutely nothing, ''nothing'' you can do while the camera is panning, and if someone begins a conversation with you from an unknown location, expect up to 4 seconds of powerlessness while you are forced to listen to them. The worst are the reward tossing townspeople (the Megaton Settler in ''3'', the Freeside Kings in ''New Vegas'') who give you ''the same needless compliments'' every time you return, often at completely random locations you cannot avoid, with almost entirely worthless junk. '''''And you are forced to compliment these irritants. There are no other dialogue options. Ever.''''' Yep, the game decides to throw out VideoGameCrueltyPotential the ''one time'' nearly any gamer would use it.

* The weapon-degradation system in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' moved in this direction. On paper, there's nothing wrong with it; weapons degrade or break over time, reducing their effectiveness, and you can use other weapons of the same type to repair them. The problem is that the game also loved to make the best weapons around be found in borderline-unusable condition, especially early on - and since said weapons were also rare, repairing them was almost impossible. Instead of giving you ATasteOfPower, this resulted in guns that have very limited ammo, require special training, ''and'' are actually worse than your starting pistol. A good chunk of the fanbase is still under the impression that EnergyWeapons are useless, because of this; they're not, but their introduction to them was just that disastrous. ''New Vegas'' thankfully rectified this by making rare guns usually be in decent condition, and altering repair mechanics to be more accepting.
* The conversation system was largely reviled for making speech checks dependent on a percentage. Not only for being a LuckBasedMission, but one that's incredibly easy and a bit tedious to abuse (just [[SaveScumming reload the closest save whenever you fail one and try again]]) and one that doesn't really make any sense (apparently, you can say the exact same thing at the same time in the same situation to the same person and get completely opposite results). Largely fixed in ''New Vegas'', where it's a guaranteed success or failure depending on whether you have enough points in the skill (and you can even try anyway, for a joke fail answer), though this had the side effect of making a 100 in Speech something of a GameBreaker.

* In ''VideoGame/Fallout4'', the new dialogue system was negatively received by just about everyone for being both unintuitive and needlessly simplified. In contrast to previous games, the game uses a four-option DialogueTree with one to three word descriptions similar to those found in Creator/{{Bioware}} games. However, the vagueness of the choice descriptions means that you rarely have any idea what's going to come out of your character's mouth (i.e. the "SARCASTIC" option apparently translates to anywhere from "affably snarky response" to "personal insult"). For the most part, the limited choices and lack of an Investigate option makes it harder to learn more about the world or gain the proper context. Adding to the over simplicity is that Charisma is the primary stat for swaying dialogue as opposed to the previous games allowing multiple different options. As a result, you're generally only able to manipulate conversation based on persuasiveness, rather than any other stat/perk like Medicine or Intelligence. [[http://www.pcgamesn.com/fallout-4/fallout-4-dialogue Todd Howard even admitted in a post-release interview that the system had problems]].
* Settlement building is clunky, rather sloppily implemented, and frustrating. There is no "snapping" option for placing items save for the metal and wood sections, and there is no additional camera angles for a better view, restricted to the existing first person and third person view modes. Even worse is that collision does not always work properly, which leads to item clipping and making it almost impossible to add features like doors. Not helping matters is that the mechanic is not optional with several quests in the game that FORCE you to build something in order to advance the plot.

** The gold bars, which are supposed to represent the theme of the DLC (letting go), but instead are arbitraily set to a weight of ''35 pounds'' each[[note]]This is despite each bar having a visible "10 oz." symbol on its in-game model[[/note]]. You're only meant to take one or two with you as you exit the DLC, but various tricks are available to escape the vault with all 37 bars. Not helping matters were the devs attempting to short-circuit these exploits, only to fail when it was discovered that you could simply sneak around a generator as Elijah walks past and exit through a door before an energy grid forms. This mechanic was so infamous (and even [[https://archive.is/MyLXS admitted as such]] by Josh Sawyer) that when gold bars were re-introduced in ''4'', they weighed much, ''much'' less and had a much lower marginal bottle cap value.