Fallout 4

This is a good, but incomplete, guide to the companions in the game. I had avoided reading it until now because I wanted to wait until I'd recruited them. I have all of them on the list, plus one more, myself. Who do you guys use, and who do you like? I'll put my answer in spoiler tags, as we may have people in the thread who haven't gotten far into the game yet.

http://www.vg247.com/2015/11/07/fallout-4-how-to-recruit-companions-and-where-to-find-them/

Spoiler

I started out using Piper a lot. I like her personality, and she "likes" the way that I play, which led to gaining points with her on a constant basis very quickly. I go back to her if I'm going to do something around Diamond City most of the time.

After finding him, I used Danse a ton early on. For a while, he was better at fighting than I was, and was extremely useful. I also used him through a lot of Brotherhood quests, but I seem to have hit a dead end there a while back that I haven't gotten past, and once I came across a few other compainions I found myself using him less often.

Even though I met him of course very early, I did a lot of exploring before I went back to Preston. And then, I would sometimes take him on settlement runs and sometimes not. I completed his main quest a while back, but haven't earned his perk yet. I talk to him a lot, but don't take him with me much.

For a long while during a part of the main questline, I had Nick with me. Branched into his personal questline as well and finished it. Got his perk, but haven't traveled with him a lot since.

I've gotten Deacon, MacCready and Hancock all fairly recently and traveled with each quite a bit. All of them seem useful in battle, and Deacon has given me insight into the larger story of the game, as he seems to know everything, though he also lies, so who knows.

I came across Strong and Cait both by accident, and have almost never traveled with either one. Might later, but I really don't like them, and I don't get the feeling they like me either.

Used Codsworth VERY early on, not much since. Same with Dogmeat. Got Curie recently, but haven't traveled with "her".

I know that there's one more companion out there who I haven't met yet. I expect that I might soon when I continue the main story from where I am, but I'm having fun leveling up and making myself closer to indestructable.

 

I synched my PS4 with the PSN this morning for the first time since getting Fallout to check out my trophies, after getting a few last night. I found it amusing that among Sony gamers, three times as many people have finished the game as have gotten to level 50, where I am. I don't think that I'm anywhere close to finishing. Some people just power through games, but this hardly seems like one to do that with.

 

Its funny that you say that, because for me, the game has picked up and gotten even better the last few days. I progressed to a really interesting point in the story, with surprising things in the plot, new people to talk to, new locations, and lots of side quests from the ones I already knew. It's been a lot of fun, and I'm pleased to see that I likely have quite a bit of game left, too.

 

I can understand that. I've read multiple reviews that have essentially said that "its a good game, but its not a Fallout game". Since I had no exposure to the previous ones, I had no history or expectations. For me, its Post Apocolypse Skyrim with guns, and that works.

 

So, I got to a conflicting point with a few of the different factions. I was at a dead end with one, and being forced into a choice with another that I didn't want to make. There didn't seem to be a way to talk my way out of it. So.....(spoiler)

Spoiler

It turns out that you can kill everyone in the Brotherhood of Steel if you so desire, lol. I left a ghost ship of corpses in my wake, and stripped off everything that wasn't nailed down. Some of the gear can be improved to really nice levels.

Not surprisingly, the Brotherhood quests in my list are now gone, but I can now continue where I left off with the Railroad. I'm curious if anyone mentions the fact that they aren't around any longer after this.

 

Encountered a glitch in a quest involving the Institute that lead me to a dead end, playing on the PS4 sadly. Apparently, there are ways to get around it on the PC, though that's out of my realm of understanding. Until it gets patched, there's apparently no solution on the consoles though. I had to make a choice and move on without completing quests that I wanted to take on, unfortunately.

Just be warned. Its pretty far into the story. After making my choice, I think that its got me near the end now.

 

Finished the main questline last night. Still have a few loose ends to clean up, but I think that at this point, based on how I did things (in some cases, was forced to do things), there isn't much story left to be had.

In the end, I enjoyed the game and my first foray into the series, and want to say thank you to you guys here who recommended it. Well worth playing, and kept me busy and interested for almost two months. However, like so many others, I didn't find it much of a step up from a PS3 game in its quality. At the end of the day, The Witcher 3 and Dragon Age: Inquisition are my #1 and #2 games on the PS4 so far (and in the last 13 months), and Fallout 4 is a clear #3.

 

I wish I would have read this before building up charisma myself. I even wasted a level up on the lady killer perk. I haven't seen a benefit from it yet. Piper is my companion right now. She's grown to 'idolize' me so I decided to go for the romance speech option when it came up in conversation and it failed. I have level 8 charisma, lady killer perk, and the character 'idolizes' me, and I can't win what should be a simple speech challenge. That was minutes after I lost a speech challenge with another female character that could have avoided a gunfight at the end of the rescue Nick Valentine mission. I also failed a speech challenge with a female character at the entrance of Vault 81 prior to those. As a matter of fact I can't remember the last time I won a speech challenge... LOL In Fallout 3 and Fallout NV there was a tangible benefit to building charisma and taking speech perks. It's like a trick in this game to get you to waste perks because regardless of what you do and regardless of the NPC's level the speech challenges seem to just be a dice roll.

I guess my one other gripe is lock picking. Way too many bobby pins break on "novice" level locks. I've already learned to be way more careful than I was with the older games but i'm still losing at least one on many locks. This hasn't aggravated like wasting points on charisma and speech though.

Overall I'm having a good time with the game mostly because I love exploring the Fallout universe. I'm thinking of putting some more time into settlement building. I've done a little settlement work but not a ton. I like the way dialogue works now, reminds me of Mass Effect. The shooting is smoother though I still use VATS a lot. To me it's not Fallout without taking advantage of VATS.

 

Lady killer may not matter a whole lot with Piper, depending on your play style (she loved me for being me, and very quickly), but it does help with other characters along the way. I wish that there were more uses for it, but they're out there.

For locks, after playing Skyrim and dealing with it in the AC series, I've actually gotten good at it, and rarely broke many myself.

In the end, one of the great things is that since there's no limit to leveling, you can be good at about everything if you apply yourself and put the time in. I finished the game at level 70, and had most of the skills that I wanted to have.

 

When I encounter any lady this perk actually helps me with in any way I'll let you know LOL. Piper's affection for me grew exponentially because I've spent so much time doing Minutemen missions helping people out. She really loves lock picking too for some reason. Her disposition towards me reached the highest possible level, I get her companion perks now because of that. It just boggles my mind that you'd lose a speech challenge with someone who likes you as much as anyone in the game can possibly like you and when you have a high charisma rating. That doesn't even factor in the lady killer perk which I really shouldn't even need. It doesn't make me want to put the game down it just doesn't make sense to me. If I work to make my character charming with women that should come through during gameplay. It paid immediate dividends in the last two Fallout games. As I said, it's not just Piper I'm failing speech challenges with. To me it feels like it would if I invested heavily in small arms stats/perks and still couldn't hit anything in VATS. Don't get me wrong, i'm still having a lot of fun with the game, I just think they dropped the ball with this aspect of it. You really should be forced to decide what you want to be good at and what you want to be great at in an RPG and those choices should pay dividends in one way or the other. If I could go back I'd definitely invest some of what I did in Charisma into combat related stuff.

 

Just save before a speech challenge, and reload if you fail. I mean you can save in the middle of conversations .