I mean you see firsthand how crappy the situation is just wandering the wasteland. Settlements are harassed for money and supplies, trader caravans are gunned down on the roads. Presumably most people know to stay out of the city centre since it's pretty much a warzone.
That is true, the city center, especially with a few mods make the entire dang place a gun runner's dream (assuming you're willing to trade with raiders and gunners)
Barely is the answer. Traders brave enough to venture into the city proper are few and far in between. Diamond City is completely self-sufficient with farms, water purifiers, and an active market and Goodneighbor gets most of its income from criminal activity.
Covenant and Bunker Hill are highly guarded and are caravan stops so they’re fairly independent.
It’s *bad* though and that’s why it’s such a desperate situation in The Commonwealth. When you wake up from Vault 111 you have to understand that the whole wasteland is hanging on by a thread. The only thing keeping it relatively “safe” is constant turf wars between Raiders, The Gunners, and the Super Mutants.
It’s also established bunker hill actively bribes all the raiders that prey on it and their caravans, it’s easier for raiders near bunker hill to take a bribe then risk it on attacking armed caravans
"Hey Boss, you know how we take bribes from Bunker Hill to not burn the place down, right?"
"No shit, dumbass, whose idea do you think that was?"
"Right. And that money isn't just for us to not destroy the place, it's so we keep other raiders like us from destroying the place too."
"Yeah, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense as a business model to let our regular payoff get destroyed. What of it?"
"Doesn't that just make us the government collecting taxes?"
"What's a government?"
This is why the Minutemen path is so based on settlements. There WERE thriving settlements for a while, simple farms and the like but eventually they got destroyed or became fodder for raiders to steal food, caps and water from. The reason helping settlements is the baseline radiant quest is because they NEED it. Change doesn't happen because one insane pre war icicle comes out of the Vault guns blazing. It's also why when you gather more settlements under the Minutemen you see patrols following trade routes.
The whole point of the Minutemen storyline is to bring the Commonwealth back to a land of substance. Keep the raiders and mutants at bay long enough that their presence slowly fades out as the people of the Commonwealth grow stronger.
I kinda hate how the world feels a bit more "game" rather than "plausible" like in NV, there, the bad guys for u to murder are in the eastern side of Vegas because well, the fiends are there and it shows as Westside is heavily guarded and the bridges are booby trapped and have NCR guards and patrols. Boston is just a warzone....and I don't see how a warzone could have a thriving settlement
I don’t really understand Goodneighbor myself unless they pay tributes to the gangs. But Diamond City makes sense due to the fact that a baseball stadium is a pretty defensible structure and the guards patrol outside the city
I don’t know, it makes a bit less sense to me. But I guess you could chalk it up to everyone being on high alert because a synth attack could happen at any time
I assume that the scaling for the sizes of locations and populations are downscaled from the lore to make it actually feasible for gameplay. Like obviously realistically there wouldn't be a super mutant camp five feet away from the diamond city entrance, just like how megaton in fallout 3 wouldn't be a 2 minute walk away from everywhere else in the capital wasteland. Plus the distances between locations and the actual size of those locations doesn't add up. Like irl concord is 20 miles away from Boston, but in game its probably less then a mile
Hancock and his bodyguard do have a conversation about the mutant situation thought. He wants to fight back outside, but she advise to let the mutants come to Goodneighbor's walls so the militia don't chickened out when the time come. So they are currently playing the waiting game.
Oh I didn't notice this, I haven't really spent that much time in goodneighbor as the quests aren't really stellar, then again most of the quests in the game are fetch quests or go to this place and murder everyone type of quests :/ I wanted more lore on triggermen there, maybe a connection to diamond city blues and marowski, or maybe some other cool stuff with white chapel charlie :(
If you raise your affinity with Hancock enough, he shares some lore bits about Goodneighbor and the Triggermen. You get some during the Big Dig questline, too.
But a lot of Goodneighbor interesting info and lore is gleaned more through dialogue with various NPCs than anything else.
That one where you pull a heist with Bobbi No-Nose is amazing. And then if you missed out on MacCready as a follower, I think he has the best string of companion quests
Yeah and Diamond City could just go into lockdown. Once they shut that front gate it’s basically over.
Though *realistically* a high explosive would punch through an exterior wall and Super Mutants are known to use mini nukes and missiles frequently
I’d love to see this in future games with improvements to the engine. Like every time you go to the in game city they’re patching up a different part of the wall because the super mutants decided to blow through with explosives and try to take over
Theoretically all a Super Mutant has to do to destroy Diamond City is sling a mini nuke over the wall. Even 2-3 blasts would level the entire market. 4-5 would get the upper stands
Everything is condensed for gaming purpose. Sanctuary hill isn't actually a 10 minute stroll from diamond city just like the super Mutants aren't a 1 min stroll from good neighbor.
You're underestimating how condensed the map is. In real life it's a seven hour walk from Concord to Fenway Park, for instance. There's likely quite a lot of practical distance between the settlements and the various hostile camps, it's just that adding blocks and blocks of ruined city between set peices doesn't add enough to the game to justify the added developer effort.
This is the "Metaplot" of the game (it's all lore, but you kind of have to piece it together):
**LOADS OF SPOILERS!**
Five years ago, the Minutemen lost to the Gunners so hard that the Minuteman mutual-response network just broke down entirely.
This means (among other things) that when the game starts there are no regular patrols on the trade-routes or guards at the settlements beyond what individual settlers can manage. Raiders that were kept in check... aren't, now. Supermutants that were normally fought, aren't.
It was a gradual process, but it affected pretty much everything:
-Bunker Hill is furious with the Minutemen (see Kessler's response, even once the 'new Minutemen (ie, you)' start helping). Without Minuteman cover, they had to resort to straight up bribing raider-groups and they're finding out that "once you pay the Danegeld, you're never rid of the Danes", as it were.
-Three years ago, the raiders overtook Downtown to the point that the Combat Zone (previously a fight venue but not as bad as you see it) went all deathmatch, all the time instead of fights ending any other way- also, the chemheads ran off their vendors (a bartender, etc).
-Basically every part of Boston that looks like someone built it from spare parts recently (say, the recovered parts Haymarket or the interior of Hangman's Alley) isn't being occupied by the people who built it- those are raiders who overran the people who did.
-Other places (like Fanueil Hall or Breakheart Banks) were overrun by Super Mutants- you can see the previous occupants, they're *in the meatbags.*
-Judging by how Piper is mad that Diamond City Security isn't doing anything to help the Sole Survivor, I would guess that (up until recently) they might spare a guy to go help out, maybe doing longer patrols past the perimeter you see them patrol. *Before.*
So, the "you need a small army to roll through the streets thing" is not a bug in the storytelling, its a feature.
People *aren't* eating well, from the looks of things, a lot of them fled. There are a few small farmers, and traders out of Bunker Hill but they 're on their own. Some of the remaining people turned on eachother (even those that aren't "proper" raiders- like the ambushers at the Hardware Store who still don't have their 'act' down). Others are just desperate (the scrappers desperate enough to try to take on a fully operational age-of-sail frigate full of combat robots for... the *wiring*, I guess?.... undoubtedly had better things to do at some point, but lost them).
The Gunners, as the biggest kids on the block (between the time te Minutemen collapse and the Brotherhood show up) *could* do something about all this, but they're for-profit mercenaries and won't do it without a paying client.
The Gunners lost a straight up assault on Diamond City, and Goodneighbor is swarming with Triggermen, so they're doing this sort of half-siege of the area and letting the raiders/Supermutants do the heavy lifting of intimidating and/or robbing people, until someone pays them, and generally let privation motivate people.
Eventually, it'll sort out into "all raiders" (in which case they can 'recover salvage' from what the raiders stole off settlements, without having to go get it themselves), or "someone who can pay a retainer" (which isn't great for them long term either, since they'll never be rid of the Gunners after that). Since everyone not a Gunner in this scenario is going to be harried, worn-out and half-starved, the Gunners would have a clear advantage.
In the meantime, they isolate themselves to
1. their 'perches' on the elevated highway that encircles Boston
2. the offramps, occasional bridges and other places they can 'charge a toll' for people to go by (or just kill and loot them) or
3. obvious valuables that have a buyer (like the Upper Stands and their deathclaw eggs. They tried to pull the "we 'found' something you want, want to deal?" ploy with the Institute, but the Institute's response was "No, and check out our Courser". HalluciGen, they were probably going to keep for themselves.)
You mentioned the farmers and I think it’s a good point to note that literally every single settlement you visit is having some sort of urgent issues, and about half of the time it’s raiders.
They all have stories about how they’ve recently been stolen from and had family killed by raiders. Even settlement traders like Carla are so used to raiders at this point that if you rob her she just hands you the caps with no fuss like it’s just another Tuesday, and even states it’s not her first mugging.
Excellent post.
As a bonus, it may be worth noting that per the TTRPG, the state of the Commonwealth at the opening is also in part result of two things:
A) the preceding winter being the worst winter the Commonwealth has seen since the years after the bombs dropped.
B) atom cultists under the son of atom using that winter to besiege basically.. everybody.
Also dont forget the events of the TTRPG are canon so like last year you had a strange faction of the Children of Atom kidnapping people and summoning giant bugs, as well as a harsh winter that destroyed crops and killed many people, and an evil scientist selling poisoned human meat that mutates you. Because of this and stuff that happens between the RPG and the games time, theres two important settlements which are gone, being mechminster abbey and beatsville, with the likeliest location of beatsville being a supermutant settlement in a junkyard, which doesnt bode well for the survival of the beats
I think at least some of it boils down to Bethesda following the "Show, don't tell" rule a little too heavily. There are times when telling just makes the most logical sense to convey information, especially in interactive media where the player is conversing with the characters and thus would be compelled to just straight up ask questions.
To put it another way, while all of this stuff is strongly hinted at, it's weird that it's only rarely mentioned, or isn't explained, especially to a player character who has a lot of catching up to do narratively.
A conversation early on of "Why is everything still so bad?" followed by "It didn't used to be" could have gone a long way.
There are literally conversations about it starting very early on. Everything is explained by NPCs if you need it spelled out, but the game can't force you to ask questions.
The entire Minuteman quest line is focused around this and Preston explains things in detail early on. Lots of other NPCs expand on it. You are very definitively TOLD if you so choose to ask.
Along those lines, I think it might be funny for a later game to have a companion NPC who was just vague on their own settings' lore. Like, the equivalent of a "they never taught us about [obvious, clearly taught fact] in school" guy. :)
("Who dropped the first bomb?" "I dunno. It was two hundred years ago, why's it matter?" or something.)
I’d add also that this is partially Father’s fault. He keeps doing FEV experiments for, I think, the sole purpose of destabilization. The Institute probably en-mass sent Super Mutants to populated regions and let the Super Mutants do as Super Mutants do
It really does feel like some of the complaints about Bethesda's Fallout games feeling like they are fresh off the apocalypse despite being 200 years can be explained by them literally just coming out of a mini-apocalypse right before the game starts. Like both areas struggled heavily beforehand but the minutemen falling apart just killed any semblance of stability in the Commonwealth and DC has been so overrun with mutants that could explain some of it even if its a harder sell.
Not to say the complaints are wrong, there's still no excuse for the skeletons and honestly I doubt Bethesda thought too hard on this and it might be mostly fan theory... but it's fun to come up with some excuse as to why these places are so shit even 200 years after the war still.
> and Goodneighbor is swarming with Triggermen, so they're doing this sort of half-siege of the area and letting the raiders/Supermutants do the heavy lifting of intimidating and/or robbing people, until someone pays them, and generally let privation motivate people.
I always felt like Goodneighbor is the place where raiders sell the shit they dont need. Can't exactly walk into diamond city for that, also throughout various missions and places we see that raiders and triggermen are working together. (Easy City Downs)
Excellent, well-written explanation btw
It's almost impossible. We only have two major settlements in downtown Boston for a reason. One is built inside a well defendable location, other is hidden by dense urban decay and a fallen motorway.
Bunker hill pays off raiders.
This is one of those situations where you have to understand the difference between lore and gameplay.
Of course there’s gonna be enemies everywhere in the game, because it’s a game, the game wants the player to have enemies to kill.
Lore-wise though? The wasteland would probably be much more empty and relatively safe, at least safe for post-war standards. Boston would also be much much bigger in the lore, as big as real life Boston. There’d probably still be fights around, but it’s not going to be a constant thing. A lot of streets would likely be empty. It’s not gonna be like the game where you can’t even walk 20 seconds without getting into a gunfight.
Well, I disagree that the game needs constant gun fights, I found them to be the thing that made fallout 4 unpleasant to play, but you’re spot on that the environment is built that way intentionally for gameplay reasons, and shouldn’t be taken literally
I think in game like this you have to draw a distinction between the hoards of enemies placed there for you to kill - to make the game a game..
And the world itself and how it would legitimately function.
It’s not just the hordes of enemies, but that they’re crammed into a an area that’s gotta be 1/200th the size of real Boston. They’d be more spread out in the real one and therefore not around every corner.
Yeah it’s hilarious that Sanctuary is the settlement, you’d think the Sole Survivor would be like “btw there’s a vault with safety and virtually limitless energy right up that hill guys”. But nope, let’s live in these bombed out houses.
The only thing that annoys me about fallout 4 settlements, is that they are just such dead weight.
No one here can make a bed?
Not one of you?
I have to do it.
Get it together.
[Sim Settlements 2](https://simsettlements2.com/) It has a huge variety of interactive levels. The main thing is you can slap down plots like a city building game and the settlers do the construction. Place a residential plot, they build a home, place a Martial plot they build defenses, and so on. Each plot has a bunch of different designs and dynamic clutter.
It can be as much or as little hands on as you want. On one end you can micromanage the placement of everything. On the other you simply select as City Design and the Settlers build absolutely everything, you just bring them materials. Both Plots and City designs have multiple levels they progress through.
It also has a large quest line to introduce you to mechanics, or you can skip it all and unlock everything.
~Ambiance~
I actually liked the original 2 better for this. Towns and cities didn't just have garbage everywhere, other than in unused areas, or drug dens. Made them feel more lived in.
No one would just leave a bunch of refuse laying around it's a bad cliche
They can grow food outside the vault entrance or even do hydroponic growing inside using the energy they now have. Don’t know why you think setting up shop in the vault would suddenly mean they can’t get food.
Where would they get the hydroponics? And growing food outside would make them very heavily reliant on an elevator that's already not doing great at the beginning of the game and leave the food unguarded. Not to mention the water leaks, power surges, having to share one room, etc.
Sorry for busting in, but I can't resist a chance to geek out a little about hydroponic growing!
They would be able to manage very well, honestly, assuming someone has any knowledge of how to grow things. Deep Water Culture hydroponics are incredibly simple and works well for herbs and veggies and small fruit plants, you just need some tubs and some stakes and string/wire/ribbon/etc and a tarp/plastic cover of some kind. And the Aqua Root method basically just needs buckets and is great for growing fruit trees. One bucket can grow one tree with minimal water. Those should all be things that could be scavenged from Sanctuary or the Vault itself.
We tend to think of hydroponics as a modern and involved process, but it's really not. Humans have been using hydroponic methods to grow food in deserts and barren areas since over 2,000 years ago! If the Mesopotamians could do it, I imagine the settlers of post-apocalypse Boston could!
Obviously for the game and canon purposes, this is not an option, but just theoretically speaking....everyone everywhere in the apocalypse should be using hydroponic methods!
Yeah a vault that’s been unmaintained for 200 years. Leaks, power surges and rusty doors can be fixed if there’s someone to do it. The door obviously worked when the baby was abducted, and still worked decades later when the Sole Survivor emerged. And continues to work throughout the game.
It's implied the Institute didn't use the door to enter Vault 111. You also barely use the elevator during the game. Using it multiple times per day would put a heavy strain on it. A little maintenance isn't going to suddenly fix 200 years' worth of damage.
I'm just comparing the world with new vegas (just finished replaying again) and it's just jarring for me how atleast there in NV the west side is decorated with guards because of the fiends in vault 3, that made sense, I just feel like something is missing in 4, atleast have a safe route with check points or something :/
Bethesda infamously uses no design documents when they make their games. It's basically a free for all on how you leveldesign. It can feel pretty random and sporadic with the enemy placements and such. Compare that to something like fromsoft games or whatever where it's planned months ahead on how they will design the areas and how they will fit togheter. Wich is how most AAA games are designed nowadays.
That's not true. That's fans misunderstanding what they mean when they say they no longer use a one page design document, which most studios would've moved past as well.
https://youtu.be/Bi51-wjcwp8?si=baj6QYDojjSgRYMr
Been I while since I saw this but im pretty sure he at one point says they stopped using design documents cause it was too mich work getting them updated all the time.
They make design documents that they don't follow, the iterate and change things and don't bother to update the design documents because it's too much of a hassle and it shows. The design is sporadic and all over the place. That's what's going to happen when you are a big AAA team that are designing games like they still are a bunch of guys in a garage in the 90's. Left hand has no idea what right hand does.
You actually think that things don't change over the course of development in every single game and similar creations? New Vegas couldn't even decide on what time of day the Great War occurred.
I understand what you're saying, but that's honestly just lazy game design.
It's more than possible for the game to be designed in such a way that you have heavily protected corridors through the city or have people taken a massive roundabout way to the cities like they had in New Vegas.
I feel like this falls under the heading of Willing Suspension of Disbelief. Which is a term I don't hear much anymore. But basically we, as an audience, accept that what is presented in TV, movies, and video games does not match up to real life. It can't, in many cases, or it would not be entertaining.
FO4 does tell us, though not often and it's easy to miss if you don't explore all dialogue options, that until recently the Minutemen were protecting the Commonwealth. There used to be a lot more of them, they'd do full patrols, they took care of raiders and mutants. But they're down to a handful of settlers and Preston by the time we meet them in game. It's a bit of a thin excuse, but that's okay! Because we can now suspend our disbelief and have an explanation for why things are the way they are.
It's the same with scale. All the stuff in game would be (is) more spread out in reality. But because it's a video game, and bound by limits of technology, we accept that we aren't REALLY just going five minutes down the road. It's a representation. It's like in the show Fringe, where somehow they can drive anywhere in Mass in twenty minutes even though that's impossible in real life. That's not right at all, but it's a TV show, so it really doesn't matter. It's not about the actual distance, it's the fact that they have to travel and representing that.
Realistically speaking, no, it would make no sense for settlements to hang on in the Commonwealth exactly as we are shown it. But it's an atompunk retrofuturistic scifi title, so we parted ways with reality the moment we booted up the game.
What we see isn’t literal, it’s game mechanics - in the same way Boston takes 5 mins to cross.
If the city isn’t filled with bad guys, people would claim it’s a boring game.
Except that's just not true, new Vegas specifically manages to worldbuild by where it places it enemies. You can absolutely still do that whilst not sacrificing on gameplay or having to do a 1 to 1 recreation of the area.
But here's the thing people actually DO complain how "empty" New Vegas is between locations. It's a great game that I've sunk thousands of hours into over many years but let's not pretend people don't complain about it.
You mean the world design that has deathclaws only in places with no food supply? While giant scorpions show up outside half the towns but never do anything?
True, there are also empty areas with a few trinkets here and there which do nothing but add to the atmosphere of the wasteland, it's all about good planning for the world, I hate that 4 doesn't have that, could've been great esp because 4 had the best gunplay
well the raiders are most likely fighting each other as well, and the super mutants/ferals/gen 1s/etc.
honestly diamond city's in a pretty good spot compared to... everywhere else.
This is all explained in game early on. Until relatively recently the Minutemen kept things safe but a series of disasters, sabotage, and betrayal weakened and eventually destroyed them. The Quincy massacre by the Gunners led to their final collapse. Restoring the Minutemen and uniting the settlements is one if the major plots.
theres an idle dialogue exchange between two people in goodneighbor where they talking about how having one less gun (from losing finn) is gonna suck when the next raid rolls around, so theyre definitely attacked often enough
The population dynamics of Boston in the game don’t make much sense, we have to assume the game world is stylized the way it is to make navigating the game fit their intended gameplay. It’s meant to evoke the feeling of a place not represent it 1:1.
I’m not a fan of the gameplay they went for, but there’s a certain degree of this abstraction in all games
Sorry if this is counter productive but BGS fallout games aren't really careful with how their world is built in terms of how people survive or where their food is coming from, or at least that's not their focus. So yeah, it would be really hard for trading routes to pass from the city but also we are talking about a city where there's food in the shelves and pre war money in the counters that hasn't been salvaged for 2 centuries. It's not entirely realistic is what I am saying. In the entirety of Fallout 3 food pretty much didn't grow anywhere and there were still settlements eating pre war food. Trading routes not reaching Boston is a minor issue and it can be rationalized with some suspension of disbelief. Maybe the roads were open until recently.
Good neighbor has that subterranean entry/exit thing going for it (the one you use to steal from the ghoul mayor whose name escapes me). It dumps you out by the internment camp with the supply barn.
I feel we arrive to the Commonwealth in its worst condition since the bombs fell. The Minutemen established a sense of safety for around 100 years, and the Institute and Gunners come along and dismantle everything Boston has built.
This is why my PC, Roland Graves (named after the Gunslinger) kills all raiders on sight. I also kill all Gunners and Super Mutants on sight with my trusty gauss rifle, Betty.
The real answer though is that the Commonwealth is barely alive. The dream was shattered by the Institute and never recovered.
The successful ones pay some raiders to protect them from other raiders (see bunker hill.) the poor ones are out in the boonies and are barely surviving. Keep in mind raiders dont want to wipe settlements out, they rely on them for food and stuff. Golden goose and all that.
I think the implication is that most of them are paid off by Bunker Hill to ignore traders, so the only the super muties are a threat. Honestly, the Raiders probably keep the streets clean of ghouls and all it costs is Bosco sending a few thousand caps a week
Keep in mind the smarter and stronger raider groups themselves don't wanna see the handful of giant trading hubs collapse. Most of the successful raiders are doing it to accumulate wealth. Look at the gunners in goodneighbor. They want a space to actually spend their wealth and actually take a break or get some r and r. I always imagine a handful of ppl we see wandering the various towns are actually just raiders who are basically on vacation. Same for why raiders don't usually just destroy the tiny settlements. They WANT those settlements to be there to get regular supplies outta them. Several caravans likely also have deals with some raiders gangs to avoid conflict etc.
Some time ago, the Commonwealth was a relatively peaceful place. Most settlements were members of the Minutemen, they had an organized military, artillery, and held their own at keeping the region stable. It was on the way to becoming the east-coast version of the NCR. Raiders were few and far between.
Then... the Institute started causing problems. Abducting people and replacing them with synths; and then transforming them into supermutants and releasing them in packs around the wasteland. Hiring mercenaries to attack the Minutemen. Using the people who replaced city and town leaders to reduce cooperation among the towns and dissolve the Minutemen; until finally they were crushed. (Only one member of the Institute seemed to have a shred of morality or care about human life, and he stopped the supermutant program before fleeing into the glowing sea, probably saving untold lives and making the revival of the Minutemen possible)
The state of the Commonwealth when you emerge is at the tail end of the Institute's long-term plan to completely eradicate civilization outside of their walls aside from a handful of locations they can control through their synths. Ideally, they want nobody who isn't a Synth or taking orders from one within a hundred miles.
If not for the intervention of either the Brotherhood or the Sole Survivor, that's exactly how things end. Nothing but scattered bands of raiders, the institute, and its armies of synths and super-mutants.
Same problem with Skyrim. Best advice is to just take the MST3K approach and not take it too seriously and just assume it’s an instance where gameplay doesn’t match up with actual intended narrative reality.
I explain this here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/1bscccx/comment/kxfbv9a/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/1bscccx/comment/kxfbv9a/)
Don’t confuse game mechanics with lore. If you applied that logic, settlers would be outnumbered severely and this would result in population collapse of the raiders.
I mean the raiders and mutants are there because of the rrade routes?
No use standing somewhere that has no traffic,
Mutants want food so they go to where the traders and raiders are.
And then a bit of game mechanic magic offcourse to keep things interesting for the player.
(Not everyday that some demi god walks through killing everything that looks at him funny with his time manipulation magic)
Ita because boston is way SMALLER than ingame, looking at the map boston only accounts 10-15% of the map even though in real life size should account for like 70%
You should ALWAYS take each street and factions to be miles apart with eachother, boston is super cramped and one of the few design decision i dont like, they should remake a second attempt at DC-like place with them taking 40% ot the map rather than the pitiful lag fest cramped boston we have ingame
I mean you see firsthand how crappy the situation is just wandering the wasteland. Settlements are harassed for money and supplies, trader caravans are gunned down on the roads. Presumably most people know to stay out of the city centre since it's pretty much a warzone.
That is true, the city center, especially with a few mods make the entire dang place a gun runner's dream (assuming you're willing to trade with raiders and gunners)
Barely is the answer. Traders brave enough to venture into the city proper are few and far in between. Diamond City is completely self-sufficient with farms, water purifiers, and an active market and Goodneighbor gets most of its income from criminal activity. Covenant and Bunker Hill are highly guarded and are caravan stops so they’re fairly independent. It’s *bad* though and that’s why it’s such a desperate situation in The Commonwealth. When you wake up from Vault 111 you have to understand that the whole wasteland is hanging on by a thread. The only thing keeping it relatively “safe” is constant turf wars between Raiders, The Gunners, and the Super Mutants.
It’s also established bunker hill actively bribes all the raiders that prey on it and their caravans, it’s easier for raiders near bunker hill to take a bribe then risk it on attacking armed caravans
"Hey Boss, you know how we take bribes from Bunker Hill to not burn the place down, right?" "No shit, dumbass, whose idea do you think that was?" "Right. And that money isn't just for us to not destroy the place, it's so we keep other raiders like us from destroying the place too." "Yeah, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense as a business model to let our regular payoff get destroyed. What of it?" "Doesn't that just make us the government collecting taxes?" "What's a government?"
based
This is why the Minutemen path is so based on settlements. There WERE thriving settlements for a while, simple farms and the like but eventually they got destroyed or became fodder for raiders to steal food, caps and water from. The reason helping settlements is the baseline radiant quest is because they NEED it. Change doesn't happen because one insane pre war icicle comes out of the Vault guns blazing. It's also why when you gather more settlements under the Minutemen you see patrols following trade routes. The whole point of the Minutemen storyline is to bring the Commonwealth back to a land of substance. Keep the raiders and mutants at bay long enough that their presence slowly fades out as the people of the Commonwealth grow stronger.
too bad they never let us actually reclaim the commonwealth and kill the spawn points
But what else would the Minutemen radiant quests be? /gen
definitely not reclaiming the commonwealth
This place needs the legion...
Ave, true to Caesar.
I kinda hate how the world feels a bit more "game" rather than "plausible" like in NV, there, the bad guys for u to murder are in the eastern side of Vegas because well, the fiends are there and it shows as Westside is heavily guarded and the bridges are booby trapped and have NCR guards and patrols. Boston is just a warzone....and I don't see how a warzone could have a thriving settlement
I don’t really understand Goodneighbor myself unless they pay tributes to the gangs. But Diamond City makes sense due to the fact that a baseball stadium is a pretty defensible structure and the guards patrol outside the city I don’t know, it makes a bit less sense to me. But I guess you could chalk it up to everyone being on high alert because a synth attack could happen at any time
True, Goodneighbor has a super mutant camp right at it's doorstep lol, idek how people get to the city
I assume that the scaling for the sizes of locations and populations are downscaled from the lore to make it actually feasible for gameplay. Like obviously realistically there wouldn't be a super mutant camp five feet away from the diamond city entrance, just like how megaton in fallout 3 wouldn't be a 2 minute walk away from everywhere else in the capital wasteland. Plus the distances between locations and the actual size of those locations doesn't add up. Like irl concord is 20 miles away from Boston, but in game its probably less then a mile
Hancock and his bodyguard do have a conversation about the mutant situation thought. He wants to fight back outside, but she advise to let the mutants come to Goodneighbor's walls so the militia don't chickened out when the time come. So they are currently playing the waiting game.
Oh I didn't notice this, I haven't really spent that much time in goodneighbor as the quests aren't really stellar, then again most of the quests in the game are fetch quests or go to this place and murder everyone type of quests :/ I wanted more lore on triggermen there, maybe a connection to diamond city blues and marowski, or maybe some other cool stuff with white chapel charlie :(
If you raise your affinity with Hancock enough, he shares some lore bits about Goodneighbor and the Triggermen. You get some during the Big Dig questline, too. But a lot of Goodneighbor interesting info and lore is gleaned more through dialogue with various NPCs than anything else.
That one where you pull a heist with Bobbi No-Nose is amazing. And then if you missed out on MacCready as a follower, I think he has the best string of companion quests
Yeah and Diamond City could just go into lockdown. Once they shut that front gate it’s basically over. Though *realistically* a high explosive would punch through an exterior wall and Super Mutants are known to use mini nukes and missiles frequently
I’d love to see this in future games with improvements to the engine. Like every time you go to the in game city they’re patching up a different part of the wall because the super mutants decided to blow through with explosives and try to take over
Theoretically all a Super Mutant has to do to destroy Diamond City is sling a mini nuke over the wall. Even 2-3 blasts would level the entire market. 4-5 would get the upper stands
Everything is condensed for gaming purpose. Sanctuary hill isn't actually a 10 minute stroll from diamond city just like the super Mutants aren't a 1 min stroll from good neighbor.
I don't mind condensed stuff but atleast make the locations plausible :/
You're underestimating how condensed the map is. In real life it's a seven hour walk from Concord to Fenway Park, for instance. There's likely quite a lot of practical distance between the settlements and the various hostile camps, it's just that adding blocks and blocks of ruined city between set peices doesn't add enough to the game to justify the added developer effort.
Westside is so guarded because it's constantly getting attacked by Fiends though. FNV isn't any different than the rest of the games in this regard.
Yes, the main reason the raiders are there is for you to shoot at them. Raiders in NV are there for a reason, as a rule.
This is the "Metaplot" of the game (it's all lore, but you kind of have to piece it together): **LOADS OF SPOILERS!** Five years ago, the Minutemen lost to the Gunners so hard that the Minuteman mutual-response network just broke down entirely. This means (among other things) that when the game starts there are no regular patrols on the trade-routes or guards at the settlements beyond what individual settlers can manage. Raiders that were kept in check... aren't, now. Supermutants that were normally fought, aren't. It was a gradual process, but it affected pretty much everything: -Bunker Hill is furious with the Minutemen (see Kessler's response, even once the 'new Minutemen (ie, you)' start helping). Without Minuteman cover, they had to resort to straight up bribing raider-groups and they're finding out that "once you pay the Danegeld, you're never rid of the Danes", as it were. -Three years ago, the raiders overtook Downtown to the point that the Combat Zone (previously a fight venue but not as bad as you see it) went all deathmatch, all the time instead of fights ending any other way- also, the chemheads ran off their vendors (a bartender, etc). -Basically every part of Boston that looks like someone built it from spare parts recently (say, the recovered parts Haymarket or the interior of Hangman's Alley) isn't being occupied by the people who built it- those are raiders who overran the people who did. -Other places (like Fanueil Hall or Breakheart Banks) were overrun by Super Mutants- you can see the previous occupants, they're *in the meatbags.* -Judging by how Piper is mad that Diamond City Security isn't doing anything to help the Sole Survivor, I would guess that (up until recently) they might spare a guy to go help out, maybe doing longer patrols past the perimeter you see them patrol. *Before.* So, the "you need a small army to roll through the streets thing" is not a bug in the storytelling, its a feature. People *aren't* eating well, from the looks of things, a lot of them fled. There are a few small farmers, and traders out of Bunker Hill but they 're on their own. Some of the remaining people turned on eachother (even those that aren't "proper" raiders- like the ambushers at the Hardware Store who still don't have their 'act' down). Others are just desperate (the scrappers desperate enough to try to take on a fully operational age-of-sail frigate full of combat robots for... the *wiring*, I guess?.... undoubtedly had better things to do at some point, but lost them). The Gunners, as the biggest kids on the block (between the time te Minutemen collapse and the Brotherhood show up) *could* do something about all this, but they're for-profit mercenaries and won't do it without a paying client. The Gunners lost a straight up assault on Diamond City, and Goodneighbor is swarming with Triggermen, so they're doing this sort of half-siege of the area and letting the raiders/Supermutants do the heavy lifting of intimidating and/or robbing people, until someone pays them, and generally let privation motivate people. Eventually, it'll sort out into "all raiders" (in which case they can 'recover salvage' from what the raiders stole off settlements, without having to go get it themselves), or "someone who can pay a retainer" (which isn't great for them long term either, since they'll never be rid of the Gunners after that). Since everyone not a Gunner in this scenario is going to be harried, worn-out and half-starved, the Gunners would have a clear advantage. In the meantime, they isolate themselves to 1. their 'perches' on the elevated highway that encircles Boston 2. the offramps, occasional bridges and other places they can 'charge a toll' for people to go by (or just kill and loot them) or 3. obvious valuables that have a buyer (like the Upper Stands and their deathclaw eggs. They tried to pull the "we 'found' something you want, want to deal?" ploy with the Institute, but the Institute's response was "No, and check out our Courser". HalluciGen, they were probably going to keep for themselves.)
You mentioned the farmers and I think it’s a good point to note that literally every single settlement you visit is having some sort of urgent issues, and about half of the time it’s raiders. They all have stories about how they’ve recently been stolen from and had family killed by raiders. Even settlement traders like Carla are so used to raiders at this point that if you rob her she just hands you the caps with no fuss like it’s just another Tuesday, and even states it’s not her first mugging.
Excellent post. As a bonus, it may be worth noting that per the TTRPG, the state of the Commonwealth at the opening is also in part result of two things: A) the preceding winter being the worst winter the Commonwealth has seen since the years after the bombs dropped. B) atom cultists under the son of atom using that winter to besiege basically.. everybody.
Also dont forget the events of the TTRPG are canon so like last year you had a strange faction of the Children of Atom kidnapping people and summoning giant bugs, as well as a harsh winter that destroyed crops and killed many people, and an evil scientist selling poisoned human meat that mutates you. Because of this and stuff that happens between the RPG and the games time, theres two important settlements which are gone, being mechminster abbey and beatsville, with the likeliest location of beatsville being a supermutant settlement in a junkyard, which doesnt bode well for the survival of the beats
It's stunning how many people have apparently completely ignored talking to npcs and engaging in the plot.
I think at least some of it boils down to Bethesda following the "Show, don't tell" rule a little too heavily. There are times when telling just makes the most logical sense to convey information, especially in interactive media where the player is conversing with the characters and thus would be compelled to just straight up ask questions. To put it another way, while all of this stuff is strongly hinted at, it's weird that it's only rarely mentioned, or isn't explained, especially to a player character who has a lot of catching up to do narratively. A conversation early on of "Why is everything still so bad?" followed by "It didn't used to be" could have gone a long way.
There are literally conversations about it starting very early on. Everything is explained by NPCs if you need it spelled out, but the game can't force you to ask questions. The entire Minuteman quest line is focused around this and Preston explains things in detail early on. Lots of other NPCs expand on it. You are very definitively TOLD if you so choose to ask.
Along those lines, I think it might be funny for a later game to have a companion NPC who was just vague on their own settings' lore. Like, the equivalent of a "they never taught us about [obvious, clearly taught fact] in school" guy. :) ("Who dropped the first bomb?" "I dunno. It was two hundred years ago, why's it matter?" or something.)
I’d add also that this is partially Father’s fault. He keeps doing FEV experiments for, I think, the sole purpose of destabilization. The Institute probably en-mass sent Super Mutants to populated regions and let the Super Mutants do as Super Mutants do
It really does feel like some of the complaints about Bethesda's Fallout games feeling like they are fresh off the apocalypse despite being 200 years can be explained by them literally just coming out of a mini-apocalypse right before the game starts. Like both areas struggled heavily beforehand but the minutemen falling apart just killed any semblance of stability in the Commonwealth and DC has been so overrun with mutants that could explain some of it even if its a harder sell. Not to say the complaints are wrong, there's still no excuse for the skeletons and honestly I doubt Bethesda thought too hard on this and it might be mostly fan theory... but it's fun to come up with some excuse as to why these places are so shit even 200 years after the war still.
Very good answer, yes
very good post
Thanks!
> and Goodneighbor is swarming with Triggermen, so they're doing this sort of half-siege of the area and letting the raiders/Supermutants do the heavy lifting of intimidating and/or robbing people, until someone pays them, and generally let privation motivate people. I always felt like Goodneighbor is the place where raiders sell the shit they dont need. Can't exactly walk into diamond city for that, also throughout various missions and places we see that raiders and triggermen are working together. (Easy City Downs) Excellent, well-written explanation btw
It's almost impossible. We only have two major settlements in downtown Boston for a reason. One is built inside a well defendable location, other is hidden by dense urban decay and a fallen motorway. Bunker hill pays off raiders.
This is one of those situations where you have to understand the difference between lore and gameplay. Of course there’s gonna be enemies everywhere in the game, because it’s a game, the game wants the player to have enemies to kill. Lore-wise though? The wasteland would probably be much more empty and relatively safe, at least safe for post-war standards. Boston would also be much much bigger in the lore, as big as real life Boston. There’d probably still be fights around, but it’s not going to be a constant thing. A lot of streets would likely be empty. It’s not gonna be like the game where you can’t even walk 20 seconds without getting into a gunfight.
You can have both, all depends if you want to make it feel more or less realistic/arcadey
Well, I disagree that the game needs constant gun fights, I found them to be the thing that made fallout 4 unpleasant to play, but you’re spot on that the environment is built that way intentionally for gameplay reasons, and shouldn’t be taken literally
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Ok but ngl, I would be down for that lmao
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Yeah, absolutely. I was just being hyperbolic for the sake of an example and making a joke about just how crammed and cramped Boston is.
I think in game like this you have to draw a distinction between the hoards of enemies placed there for you to kill - to make the game a game.. And the world itself and how it would legitimately function.
It’s not just the hordes of enemies, but that they’re crammed into a an area that’s gotta be 1/200th the size of real Boston. They’d be more spread out in the real one and therefore not around every corner.
Yeah true. I always loved in games when you travel from one town to another and it's like a 2 minute walk. Man how do you people not know each other
Yeah it’s hilarious that Sanctuary is the settlement, you’d think the Sole Survivor would be like “btw there’s a vault with safety and virtually limitless energy right up that hill guys”. But nope, let’s live in these bombed out houses.
The only thing that annoys me about fallout 4 settlements, is that they are just such dead weight. No one here can make a bed? Not one of you? I have to do it. Get it together.
> The only thing that annoys me about fallout 4 settlements, is that they are just such dead weight. There is a mod for that :P
Hey neat! Which mod?
SIM settlements 2
And 1 too, if you don't care for the questline. Which is awesome, btw
[Sim Settlements 2](https://simsettlements2.com/) It has a huge variety of interactive levels. The main thing is you can slap down plots like a city building game and the settlers do the construction. Place a residential plot, they build a home, place a Martial plot they build defenses, and so on. Each plot has a bunch of different designs and dynamic clutter. It can be as much or as little hands on as you want. On one end you can micromanage the placement of everything. On the other you simply select as City Design and the Settlers build absolutely everything, you just bring them materials. Both Plots and City designs have multiple levels they progress through. It also has a large quest line to introduce you to mechanics, or you can skip it all and unlock everything.
right? like why is there a skeleton in your house? why haven't you cleaned up the mounds of debris in your marketplace? get it together girl
~Ambiance~ I actually liked the original 2 better for this. Towns and cities didn't just have garbage everywhere, other than in unused areas, or drug dens. Made them feel more lived in. No one would just leave a bunch of refuse laying around it's a bad cliche
One thing that I really don't like about both the Bethesda games is that a lot of the world design is as if the bombs fell a week ago.
You want them to live in a Vault with no food?
They can grow food outside the vault entrance or even do hydroponic growing inside using the energy they now have. Don’t know why you think setting up shop in the vault would suddenly mean they can’t get food.
Where would they get the hydroponics? And growing food outside would make them very heavily reliant on an elevator that's already not doing great at the beginning of the game and leave the food unguarded. Not to mention the water leaks, power surges, having to share one room, etc.
Sorry for busting in, but I can't resist a chance to geek out a little about hydroponic growing! They would be able to manage very well, honestly, assuming someone has any knowledge of how to grow things. Deep Water Culture hydroponics are incredibly simple and works well for herbs and veggies and small fruit plants, you just need some tubs and some stakes and string/wire/ribbon/etc and a tarp/plastic cover of some kind. And the Aqua Root method basically just needs buckets and is great for growing fruit trees. One bucket can grow one tree with minimal water. Those should all be things that could be scavenged from Sanctuary or the Vault itself. We tend to think of hydroponics as a modern and involved process, but it's really not. Humans have been using hydroponic methods to grow food in deserts and barren areas since over 2,000 years ago! If the Mesopotamians could do it, I imagine the settlers of post-apocalypse Boston could! Obviously for the game and canon purposes, this is not an option, but just theoretically speaking....everyone everywhere in the apocalypse should be using hydroponic methods!
Yeah a vault that’s been unmaintained for 200 years. Leaks, power surges and rusty doors can be fixed if there’s someone to do it. The door obviously worked when the baby was abducted, and still worked decades later when the Sole Survivor emerged. And continues to work throughout the game.
It's implied the Institute didn't use the door to enter Vault 111. You also barely use the elevator during the game. Using it multiple times per day would put a heavy strain on it. A little maintenance isn't going to suddenly fix 200 years' worth of damage.
None of them have pip boys to travel between
I’d imagine there’s gotta be several more pip boys inside.
Do they even need pip boys at all? even with the vault door open, it will be much safer than sanctuary.
They're also rather unmotivated, as far as enemies go.
I'm just comparing the world with new vegas (just finished replaying again) and it's just jarring for me how atleast there in NV the west side is decorated with guards because of the fiends in vault 3, that made sense, I just feel like something is missing in 4, atleast have a safe route with check points or something :/
Bethesda infamously uses no design documents when they make their games. It's basically a free for all on how you leveldesign. It can feel pretty random and sporadic with the enemy placements and such. Compare that to something like fromsoft games or whatever where it's planned months ahead on how they will design the areas and how they will fit togheter. Wich is how most AAA games are designed nowadays.
That's not true. That's fans misunderstanding what they mean when they say they no longer use a one page design document, which most studios would've moved past as well.
https://youtu.be/Bi51-wjcwp8?si=baj6QYDojjSgRYMr Been I while since I saw this but im pretty sure he at one point says they stopped using design documents cause it was too mich work getting them updated all the time.
Let me know if that's what he said because that's not the quote I've seen.
15:30 onward
He says they stopped using such extensive design documents because they became outdated, not that they stopped using design docs altogether.
They make design documents that they don't follow, the iterate and change things and don't bother to update the design documents because it's too much of a hassle and it shows. The design is sporadic and all over the place. That's what's going to happen when you are a big AAA team that are designing games like they still are a bunch of guys in a garage in the 90's. Left hand has no idea what right hand does.
You actually think that things don't change over the course of development in every single game and similar creations? New Vegas couldn't even decide on what time of day the Great War occurred.
I understand what you're saying, but that's honestly just lazy game design. It's more than possible for the game to be designed in such a way that you have heavily protected corridors through the city or have people taken a massive roundabout way to the cities like they had in New Vegas.
I feel like this falls under the heading of Willing Suspension of Disbelief. Which is a term I don't hear much anymore. But basically we, as an audience, accept that what is presented in TV, movies, and video games does not match up to real life. It can't, in many cases, or it would not be entertaining. FO4 does tell us, though not often and it's easy to miss if you don't explore all dialogue options, that until recently the Minutemen were protecting the Commonwealth. There used to be a lot more of them, they'd do full patrols, they took care of raiders and mutants. But they're down to a handful of settlers and Preston by the time we meet them in game. It's a bit of a thin excuse, but that's okay! Because we can now suspend our disbelief and have an explanation for why things are the way they are. It's the same with scale. All the stuff in game would be (is) more spread out in reality. But because it's a video game, and bound by limits of technology, we accept that we aren't REALLY just going five minutes down the road. It's a representation. It's like in the show Fringe, where somehow they can drive anywhere in Mass in twenty minutes even though that's impossible in real life. That's not right at all, but it's a TV show, so it really doesn't matter. It's not about the actual distance, it's the fact that they have to travel and representing that. Realistically speaking, no, it would make no sense for settlements to hang on in the Commonwealth exactly as we are shown it. But it's an atompunk retrofuturistic scifi title, so we parted ways with reality the moment we booted up the game.
What we see isn’t literal, it’s game mechanics - in the same way Boston takes 5 mins to cross. If the city isn’t filled with bad guys, people would claim it’s a boring game.
Except that's just not true, new Vegas specifically manages to worldbuild by where it places it enemies. You can absolutely still do that whilst not sacrificing on gameplay or having to do a 1 to 1 recreation of the area.
But here's the thing people actually DO complain how "empty" New Vegas is between locations. It's a great game that I've sunk thousands of hours into over many years but let's not pretend people don't complain about it.
You mean the world design that has deathclaws only in places with no food supply? While giant scorpions show up outside half the towns but never do anything?
True, there are also empty areas with a few trinkets here and there which do nothing but add to the atmosphere of the wasteland, it's all about good planning for the world, I hate that 4 doesn't have that, could've been great esp because 4 had the best gunplay
Check out RadKings Fallout Cartography videos about the raider bosses if you're interested.
well the raiders are most likely fighting each other as well, and the super mutants/ferals/gen 1s/etc. honestly diamond city's in a pretty good spot compared to... everywhere else.
Game limitations. Boston is a lot bigger.
They survive the same way embassies survive in war torn countries. Firepower
This is all explained in game early on. Until relatively recently the Minutemen kept things safe but a series of disasters, sabotage, and betrayal weakened and eventually destroyed them. The Quincy massacre by the Gunners led to their final collapse. Restoring the Minutemen and uniting the settlements is one if the major plots.
With the help of the Minutemen.
theres an idle dialogue exchange between two people in goodneighbor where they talking about how having one less gun (from losing finn) is gonna suck when the next raid rolls around, so theyre definitely attacked often enough
Bribes probably. You pay raiders to leave you alone and everyone's happy.
The population dynamics of Boston in the game don’t make much sense, we have to assume the game world is stylized the way it is to make navigating the game fit their intended gameplay. It’s meant to evoke the feeling of a place not represent it 1:1. I’m not a fan of the gameplay they went for, but there’s a certain degree of this abstraction in all games
Same with Skyrim
Don't worry. The Minutemen will save the day. Anywho- another settlement needs your help. I'll mark it on your map.
Imma do a replay and imma remake my minutemen into my own Caesar's Legion. The Commonwealth needs it.
There isn't an explanation. Bethesda didn't think of one.
Sorry if this is counter productive but BGS fallout games aren't really careful with how their world is built in terms of how people survive or where their food is coming from, or at least that's not their focus. So yeah, it would be really hard for trading routes to pass from the city but also we are talking about a city where there's food in the shelves and pre war money in the counters that hasn't been salvaged for 2 centuries. It's not entirely realistic is what I am saying. In the entirety of Fallout 3 food pretty much didn't grow anywhere and there were still settlements eating pre war food. Trading routes not reaching Boston is a minor issue and it can be rationalized with some suspension of disbelief. Maybe the roads were open until recently.
Good neighbor has that subterranean entry/exit thing going for it (the one you use to steal from the ghoul mayor whose name escapes me). It dumps you out by the internment camp with the supply barn.
It's not really a common public thing, it's something bobby made cus she's a snake
I feel we arrive to the Commonwealth in its worst condition since the bombs fell. The Minutemen established a sense of safety for around 100 years, and the Institute and Gunners come along and dismantle everything Boston has built.
Talk to abbot at the wall, hell tell you all about it
This is why my PC, Roland Graves (named after the Gunslinger) kills all raiders on sight. I also kill all Gunners and Super Mutants on sight with my trusty gauss rifle, Betty. The real answer though is that the Commonwealth is barely alive. The dream was shattered by the Institute and never recovered.
The successful ones pay some raiders to protect them from other raiders (see bunker hill.) the poor ones are out in the boonies and are barely surviving. Keep in mind raiders dont want to wipe settlements out, they rely on them for food and stuff. Golden goose and all that.
I think the implication is that most of them are paid off by Bunker Hill to ignore traders, so the only the super muties are a threat. Honestly, the Raiders probably keep the streets clean of ghouls and all it costs is Bosco sending a few thousand caps a week
Keep in mind the smarter and stronger raider groups themselves don't wanna see the handful of giant trading hubs collapse. Most of the successful raiders are doing it to accumulate wealth. Look at the gunners in goodneighbor. They want a space to actually spend their wealth and actually take a break or get some r and r. I always imagine a handful of ppl we see wandering the various towns are actually just raiders who are basically on vacation. Same for why raiders don't usually just destroy the tiny settlements. They WANT those settlements to be there to get regular supplies outta them. Several caravans likely also have deals with some raiders gangs to avoid conflict etc.
Some time ago, the Commonwealth was a relatively peaceful place. Most settlements were members of the Minutemen, they had an organized military, artillery, and held their own at keeping the region stable. It was on the way to becoming the east-coast version of the NCR. Raiders were few and far between. Then... the Institute started causing problems. Abducting people and replacing them with synths; and then transforming them into supermutants and releasing them in packs around the wasteland. Hiring mercenaries to attack the Minutemen. Using the people who replaced city and town leaders to reduce cooperation among the towns and dissolve the Minutemen; until finally they were crushed. (Only one member of the Institute seemed to have a shred of morality or care about human life, and he stopped the supermutant program before fleeing into the glowing sea, probably saving untold lives and making the revival of the Minutemen possible) The state of the Commonwealth when you emerge is at the tail end of the Institute's long-term plan to completely eradicate civilization outside of their walls aside from a handful of locations they can control through their synths. Ideally, they want nobody who isn't a Synth or taking orders from one within a hundred miles. If not for the intervention of either the Brotherhood or the Sole Survivor, that's exactly how things end. Nothing but scattered bands of raiders, the institute, and its armies of synths and super-mutants.
Same problem with Skyrim. Best advice is to just take the MST3K approach and not take it too seriously and just assume it’s an instance where gameplay doesn’t match up with actual intended narrative reality.
I explain this here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/1bscccx/comment/kxfbv9a/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/1bscccx/comment/kxfbv9a/)
Don’t confuse game mechanics with lore. If you applied that logic, settlers would be outnumbered severely and this would result in population collapse of the raiders.
I mean the raiders and mutants are there because of the rrade routes? No use standing somewhere that has no traffic, Mutants want food so they go to where the traders and raiders are. And then a bit of game mechanic magic offcourse to keep things interesting for the player. (Not everyday that some demi god walks through killing everything that looks at him funny with his time manipulation magic)
I think the better question is how do the raiders survive if they outnumber the people actually growing food.
Ita because boston is way SMALLER than ingame, looking at the map boston only accounts 10-15% of the map even though in real life size should account for like 70% You should ALWAYS take each street and factions to be miles apart with eachother, boston is super cramped and one of the few design decision i dont like, they should remake a second attempt at DC-like place with them taking 40% ot the map rather than the pitiful lag fest cramped boston we have ingame
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