Quote Originally Posted by Errorname View Post
I understand what everyone in Fallout 4 is fighting about and what the stakes are, which is more than I can say for Fallout 3.
I get Fallout 3; readily accessible clean water is established as a thing people need, even if the game doesn't bear it out too well (I mean, you wind up with a Robot that makes clean water for you, for free). Project Purity was a semi-independent attempt to create a large amount of pure water. The Enclave wants to control the water purifying Maguffin, and kill all mutants. The local BoS is having a civil cold war, because the leadership decided to be heroes instead of fanatics. You, the player, didn't know any of this, and just want your dad back. He spends a good portion of the game lost, and you have to go find him.

Fallout 4... the factions are all shooting themselves in the foot. The Institute wants to be free to continue their work, but they do this by making everyone paranoid about them and their motives. The Railroad wants to free synths, but they do this by killing the synth's personality and installing a new one. The Brotherhood of Steel wants to capture technology, which they're doing ok at; I just get annoyed because they treat my character like a fresh recruit, instead of having any awareness of me as the general of the Minutemen... there's no way to approach them on that basis. The Minutemen are saying "Hey, what if we tried trading and helping each other?"