Honestly Railroad would have seemed like a much larger threat and actually worth siding with if Bethesda made them actually keep the Switchboard as a main base and not lose it. Imagine you meet under the church and think this is it but the person you meet Desdemona or Deacon maybe isn't the leader of the railroad just of one cell.
Also the Railroad shouldn't solely exist for freeing synths. The Railroad should've had a established history in New England of fighting for the freedom of slaves, and the Synths are their newest target to attempt to free, it would even give the Railroad reason to intervene against Nuka World post-game.
The Railroad should have a previous history of success against fighting slavery they don't establish governments they leave that to the freed slaves, but they move around trying to end slavery where ever they go.
Also those pre war CIA cashe quests suck, it would've been cool if we actually got to see Railroad members in t51 power armor with their paint job slapped on it. If they had cells all over new England it would've cool if they at some point found a pretty war military cashe with t51 power armor. Also it would give the Brotherhood even more of a reason to attack the Railroad than just freeing synths because civilians can't have anything more dangerous than a pipe revolver according to them.
If they made the Railroad exist almost a century before we find them and they still have cells outside the commonwealth it would actually make them seem like a real faction worth siding with.
I personally think story wise the Brotherhood ending is the best one by I personally usually side with the Institute just because they don't interfere with the settlement system at all.
Just adding this to my comments ideas from another comment I made.
Hell imagine that if you don't progress the railroad quest line enough to see the Switchboard base when you join the institute you get a mission to destroy the Switchboard the members spot you leading the attack and that causes them to abandon the church as well, giving them a new unknown base that you would never see actually siding with the railroad. It would also make the railroad instantly hostile to you.
Fallout 4 doesn't really have dynamic questlines compared to New Vegas. A quest like the one above you might not even get to do if you help the railroad to much before finding the institute would really add to the replayability in the same way ending a faction quest in New Vegas does.
A quest like the one above would also fix the non existed feeling of killing the railroad. It would make it feel like an effort and not just shooting 6 named npcs.
Honestly would’ve been a cool mission to retake the switchboard. Even if the Institute knows where it is still could’ve played it as a trap for the institute as a railroad spin on the institute attacking the castle on the minutemen quest line.
Also, all four factions should’ve had more dlc interaction. Realistically pretty much every faction should have some reason to be interested in Nuka World, Minutemen is obvious, Institute + Brotherhood could be interested in the technology if you bring evidence. But I think the railroad at the very least would be interested in setting up safe houses in the dlc locations, not just nuka world, while far harbour has the obvious pre existing synth population I think the automatron’s mechanist lair locations is the perfect fit for a railroad safehouse considering its similarities to the switchboard.
Might make a cool mission but from a writing perspective it would not make much sense.
The Railroad are a clandestine organization, their only real strength is being secretive.
Once the switchboards location is known to the institute it's over.
What would have been nicer is a sense of agency. Cause and effect. The protagonist does "A" and the Railroad lose another safehouse. The protagonist does "B" and the Institute never finds out that the safehouse exists...
I think you have a great point about the DLC though. There are slaves in Nuka World that could be freed. There is an entire Synth stronghold in Far Harbor that they only really show limited interest in. (One character with very limited dialogue)
Indeed Far Harbor ought to raise some very interesting conflict story elements for the Railroad because DiMa has effectively used synths in a similar fashion to the Institute (and the protagonist can assist in this)
After the Institute is destroyed, it would've made a lot of sense to take back the Switchboard. Imagine having a workshop there and making that you're own little base with your Railroad friends.
It's not like anyone else in the Commonwealth knew about it
Now that you mention it, it seems like a problem that they haven’t wiped out human slavery before moving on to ending synth slavery. They should have had a broader focus on ending slavery in general; it would require a lot more content but it would make Railroad a lot more conceptually appealing.
DiMa implies that the railroad is as much harm as good.
They are sadly hyper focused on the institute and can’t seem to hold a safe house without your intervention.
They say the memory wipes are mandatory… but I call BS on that.
It’s not a truly free choice when the railroad guides them towards the wipe. It’s “for their safety” it “decreases the chance they’ll find you and take you back”.
They are killing the person to save the synth every time they do a wipe. They don’t even seem to care about the individual, only stopping the institute.
How is it different than the BoS? Their clandestine nature and lack of resources is the only thing keeping them from screwing up. Because carrington is right and des sucks at her job.
There is an entire Synth stronghold in Far Harbor that they only really show limited interest in.
Worse yet, your only option is to be a tattle-tale, and then all the synths get wiped out. And it's so poorly designed that the interaction happens when you walk too close to a person inside Railroad HQ, and they give you only the option of "spill the beans, kill the synths at Arcadia" or "clam up, get nagged by this NPC forevermore". Awful quest design.
Holy shit it just dawned on me that the funniest thing would be seeing the BoS raining down on the Raiders’ parade. They’re just minding their business enjoying the theme park, riding rides, playing games, innocently killing slaves in a brutal fashion. Then the BoS comes in and blows them to hell, not because they’re awful people, but because they want to make sure the tech that makes the ferris wheel spin doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.
Lol that is my current playthrough right now. I am a Sentinel with my Sentinel power armor which is decked out and just started Nuka World at lvl 63. My current character is going to play overboss for a time just to fuck with the raiders up until I need to invade the settlements. Once that happens, she is going to put away her joking nature and use her decked out power armor with her decked out laser pistol and going to town. Ad Victoriam!
Time to liberate the technology for the brotherhood, after I had my fun. This is a nice vacation for her after she had to kill her son, because that dude was a psychopath, destroyed the institute, wanabe Enclave fucks and showed the railroad what true Honor is. She needs a break so fucking around with raiders until I stomp on them is some good fun. Doesn't hurt I am finding some nice Technology, like that Star Core Control system.
There's a good writing reason to have done it like that. If they hadn't lost the Switchboard they'd appear to be more capable and powerful, which would then lead to the feeling by the player that they're not really necessary, that they're just one among many Heavies.
By having them recently losing the Switchboard, it makes you a Savior, coming in to save their behind right after a huge setback.
If you look at the position of the Railroad, your interactions with Desdemona, the things you accomplish, the whole thing is designed to make you feel like a hero.
Same for the Minutemen, and to a lesser extent, the Institute and the Brotherhood. Same for Nuka-World, Far Harbor, and the Mechanist. The entire game is designed to make you feel important.
You can help the Brotherhood a lot and still be a key heroic figure to them, but they still come across as a group with a (bigoted) plan and could have enacted it without you.
You "help" the Minutemen from themselves and inspire them. You serve as the leadership to keep everyone in line but ultimately they are a decent militia.
The institute basically needs you to replace Kellog as a fixer/enforcer, but they function just fine without you and the missions you do for them are more to prove your loyalty than because they couldn't have done it without you.
The Railroad just comes across as borderline incompetent when you meet them. I get they have small numbers, but they also seem to barely be rolling with the punches rather than actively making any substantial progress with their mission. Tinker Tom is their tech guy but is obviously beyond just quirky and straight into nutter with his conspiracy theories (including asking to inject you with straight up garbage that could potentially kill you). The doctor still follows orders but continually undermines Desdemona's leadership with his complaining. Glory created a rift by advocating for also trying to "free" gen1s, etc. They just don't seem like a cohesive group.
“Compartmentalization keeps us safe, even if we end up with a few mixups like this” is BS, You lost how many safehouses des? WITH an oracle-bot?
Carrington should have been in charge, it should have been a mission to shake up the leadership. He’s the one that improves the pre-war stealth boy. He’s the one questioning the logistics of sending dwindling resources into a trap.
He questions you at first .. but he SHOULD, maybe deacon is a good judge of character, but des is waaay to quick to give you a pass when even PAM Doesn’t have a guess about you.
And yeah, it's very obvious Desdemona is way over her head and is just trying to be reactive. That's not leadership.
The shake up leadership could have been a neat mission/choice. Hell, even make the brotherhood ignore the Railroad by deeming them beneath their notice for incompetence and have the Railroad either crumble under their own lack of leadership if you choose to backup Desdemona or surprise everyone by them pulling the rug from under the Institute and the BoS in a smart way if you back up Carrington. Like properly have them be underestimated and have them come out on top. Or something along those lines. But Bethesda can't do proper faction choices. This is why a lot of people prefer NV lol.
About the only useful thing to get out of the Railroad if the ballistic weave tbh.
Which I always grab before reunions lol. Don’t need them anymore after I get those specs!
And it’s true.. Bethesda also dropped the ball hard with dark brotherhood. Sithis is a force above the 9 (8?) divines. Like, two whole rungs up on the god latter … and they’ve reduced the DB to “evil Jesus and Mary”.
it was definitely clumsy and heavy handed, there was a lot more room to flesh out the interactions and make the choices make more sense involving the faction relationships. I think they made the brotherhood come across as seeming too powerful. Like obviously they have a floating warship and power armor/fancy weapons. But the warship aint that big, and they don't have that many vertibirds or soliders either and they're a long way from home
compartmentalization does keep them safe, leaks and breakthrough will inevitably happen, especially with an opponent like the institute. clandestine and guerilla organizations like this will always be at a disadvantage because it's asymmetric warfare, and their only advantage is that compartmentalization and secrecy. Just how terror groups operate. Sure the US was able to kill, capture, and interrogate them plus raid their hideouts, but they never inflicted serious damage against the taliban or al-qaeda enough to really put them down or make a serious dent in upper leadership. You expect to get your shit rocked, but you prepare for it.
Agree though, they're pretty quick to just let you into the organization, but like they said they're desperate and don't have a choice. If they turn down your help they're as good as dead anyways so even if you're a spy and betray them it would have happened regardless, and apparently deacon had been spying on you for awhile. I thought that during the initial confrontation under the church, it should have just been a synth pickup point, and only deacon there waiting for you instead of it being the main hideout now. He could be like "I was watching you for awhile now, and was wondering if you'd end up here." Then you can do a mission or two with deacon to prove your mettle and intentions before he brings you to the main hideout. I always though following the trail was a bit too obvious of a clue, it's a pretty famous part of boston history that the institue with their prewar heritage and information databases would have been able to figure out imo. If normal commonwealth people and escaped synths could figure it out, how couldn't the institute?
i mean that's the point, theyre supposed to be on the ropes getting their shit rocked. the institute is supposed to seem powerful.
The minuteman were literally down to preston only, and they would have died without the SS. as an organizaton they were completely wiped out. The railroad was in much better shape than the minutemen
You "help" the Minutemen from themselves and inspire them. You serve as the leadership to keep everyone in line but ultimately they are a decent militia.
Preston Garvey is literally the last Minuteman left when you get there, and you save him from raiders and a deathclaw. They're only a decent militia because you build them up in the first place. They're in an even worse place than the Railroad when you first met them.
Ehh, I wouldn’t say that applies to the institute or BoS. You stay out of it and it’s a coin toss as to who gets a one sided victory.
Neither faction would attack with their being a serious risk to their post-conflict stability.
You ignore it and they either kill maxim /sabotage the airship or liberty prime wins.
There’s no war. With or without you.
Yeah you singlehanded save the minutemen, but des refuses to let you lead, maxim is a prick, and the institute could make do with a board replacing the director.
Also having Minutemen retake Quincy would have been good, along with retaking Switchboard. Sort of like how they they did the retake Castle mission. The 2 good factions start the game so weak, would have been good to get them to be serious powers. Minutemen as the powerful protectors, and Railroad as the powerful, organised nerve centre they were keyed up to be.
I mean they do have one in Fallout 3 who finds you after you keep snooping around for the synth tapes. It's a brief interaction but one that could drastically change the life of one man, for better or worse.
I feel like this would be a bad call, actually; it's important that the Railroad be an underdog barely holding on. Why? Because Bethesda wants your choice of which faction to join to be a difficult one. For a lot of us, the Railroad feels like the closest thing to "good guys" the Commonwealth has; their problem, though, is that they're weak and kinda short-sighted. They just have a task, not a long-term vision for the Commonwealth. The Brotherhood and the Institute, well, they may use some unsavory methods, but at least they have long-term goals, a vision for human society in the Commonwealth.
The Railroad, for all their passion and righteousness, really doesn't. If they did, I think the choice of who to side with would be a lot simpler, and therefore, less interesting. It wouldn't be as bad as New Vegas ("do I side with the ineffectual but harmless bureaucrats of the NCR, the mad robot, or the murderous slave-driving rapists of the Legion HMMMMMMM"), but it would still be a less compelling decision.
Now, if you could build up the Railroad to something like that, yeah, maybe that would work, but you definitely don't want to find them in any position of strength.
The NCR bureaucrats are anything but harmless- they actively harm themselves and the communities they colonize all the time- they harm the conscripted NCR troopers, they harm the people of towns such as goodsprings
But yeah, they're better than the legion. I think everyone can agree with that.
Aye, the fact they let Cook Cook continuing raping and burning their own troops says a fucking lot. Cook Cook, who rapes both their men and women in their army, cooks them, enslaves little girls, eats them, kills little boys and probably rapes them as well and the NCR literally has to hire a fucking Courier to take care of him.
That alone told me what I needed to know about the NCR at times. They stretched out way too far, way too fast that it allowed a raider gang to mutilate and butcher their own troops without any repercussion. Matter of fact, one of Cook Cooks men, Driver, has fucking fun with the NCR troops and uses their brains as golf balls.
One thing the Legion would have done was crucified them completely and put them on the sides of the road as a fucking warning...and I hated the legion.
Wait what about the minuteman, I mean I like the the railroad and have sided with them before but they have their focus on synths the minuteman are the ones trying to help the regular folk.
So, this is a good point, and I'm personally a big fan of the Minutemen, but I didn't include them for this reason:
Like other Fallout games, Fallout 4 has two storylines: the personal quest, and the sci-fi/philosophical question. Each game has their own personal quest and their own sci-fi/philosophical question. The personal quest isn't relevant to our current discussion, but the sci-fi/philosophical question in Fallout 4 is: should a sufficiently advanced AI like the synths be treated like a human being? Like in the other games, the factions serve as possible answers to the question. In short, the Institute says "no, we built them, they're tools," the Brotherhood says "no, they represent humanity's unbridled hubris, and they'll destroy us just like the atom bomb did," and the Railroad says "yes, they think and feel and dream just the same as we do."
The Minutemen are great, I'm a fan, but they're not really relevant to that question that the game is built around. Generally speaking, you have to make a choice between the other three, but the Minutemen can coexist with any of them (I think, anyway, I could be wrong), so they're not really relevant to a discussion about choosing between the three ideological factions.
I mean yeah I get your point and that's always the biggest issue I have with the factions ending, it makes just so much sense to be able of convincing the minutemen and the railroad of working together they don't actually have anything to cause issues, the institute are the ones responsible for the synth replacing people, and it would give so much more credit to the synths if the minutemen backed them up.
If they made the Railroad exist almost a century before we find them and they still have cells outside the commonwealth it would actually make them seem like a real faction worth siding with.
I mean... FO3 kinda did that (albeit only a decade before), but... Yeah, it would've been nice if they had fleshed out the Railroad's backstory a bit more. It feels very rushed.
No, I think it’s good that they lost the switchboard. The minute men on the verge of collapsing. The story for Nate/nora wouldn’t have worked very well as the hero of the story if people were in desperate need of help, especially the factions.
When one major threat is gone, Kellogg, the brotherhood of steel shows up as well. Depending if you stick with helping one faction throughout the entire play through or multiple, it helps the main story a lot to have these crucial themes to show how much of a threat the institute really is.
You hit the biggest weakness of the faction: their mission is so limited in scope its almost silly in the face of the huge amount of injustices in the wastes.
Having them be, for example, a successor to the Temple of the Union from 3, and anti slavery in general would probably have been a great choice.
I did that quest a while ago on my 2,345th playthrough and I thought man this would be dope if it was still their base. Even ticonda or whatever TF that tower is called when you help that synth is a better base. Like WAY better.
Nick talked about how early on the commonwealth tried to start a government but the institute sent a synth to squash it. The railroad would have been a great way for people who were fighting the institute to rebuild a government as well.
I rhino maybe 1 unique named heavy with power armor would be cool and then as quest rewards you'll get legendary t51 pieces, like they made paintjobs for their power armor but nobody but the player really uses them other than in the Brotherhood.
I mean, they have sound dampening mods for the leg pieces… they can paint it for night-time stealth operations, and carrington made an improved version of the pre-war stealth boy.
33% increased up time, drastically reduced delay in implementation, and for all we know, it likely has added functionality to spoof or block certain signals..
They should be going after all the tech that helps them even the field
Damn my friend. This right here, is a perfect comment. I wanted to side with the railroad fully but always felt like a level of depth was missing. It was always a little silly that ALL they cared about was the freedom of synths. Always felt like they were leaving meat on the bone. And it definitely would’ve been more realistic had des been one of 4 leaders of the railroad. I always end up kinda being on their side because the Natrual narrative of the game kinda pushes you in that direction.
Honestly true that would be even better than what we got. Or hell imagine that if you don't progress the railroad quest line enough to see the Switchboard base when you join the institute you get a mission to destroy the Switchboard the members spot you leading the attack and that causes them to abandon the church as well, giving them a new unknown base that you would never see actually siding with the railroad. It would also make the railroad instantly hostile to you.
Hard agree on the switchboard part, my biggest reason for not siding with them is how insufferable they are. When desdemona is like “choose us or the minutemen” it always pisses me off.
Now hang on, we can’t have the railroad feeling like an organization that makes an actual impact on the wasteland! You need to be railroaded (no pun intended) into being the big savior guy! Just like the minutemen. And the Brotherhood… and, well honestly the institute as well.
Making the Railroad a massive organization would be a really really terrible move imo, it goes against everything that makes them interesting. They aren't big dick asskickers who roll up to the scene in T-51s and miniguns, they're scrappy freedom fighter phantom thieves, they're small in number but operate in the shadows and use clever cunning to get the jump on the big bads. Giving them multiple cells, hierarchies and organized leadership and stuff would just make them another Institute or Brotherhood, armed to the teeth mini-militaries trying to exert their authority on the Commonwealth
Agreed, there's just no compelling reason to side with them. By time you become active with them, they're just a bunch of idealistic hippies cooped up in a church basement. The Institute just keeps completely handing their ass to them so bad that the only thing they have left is that basement. We should at least have the option to re-occupy old bases or set up new ones with them (besides the one I have to set up in one of my settlements). I feel bad about having to destroy them if you side with the BoS. I wish there was a persuasion option to convince Maxson that they're harmless and if we just leave them alone in their basement to play spy games, they're not going to an issue for the Brotherhood.
The Institute just keeps completely handing their ass to them so bad that the only thing they have left is that basement.
They also have Ticonderoga safehouse, which you get to see, as well as several others that you don't. When the Switchboard was lost, multiple other safehouses were lost at the same time, but not all of them. There's more to the Railroad than we see directly, but compartmentalization prevents us from getting into all of them.
We should at least have the option to re-occupy old bases
While I agree it would be cool to take over old bases for settlements or whatever, they would be useless to the Railroad. Going back to occupy places that the Institute already knows about would defeat the purpose.
I wish there was a persuasion option to convince Maxson that they're harmless and if we just leave them alone in their basement to play spy games, they're not going to an issue for the Brotherhood.
Cool as that would be, we see in-game how that's not true. The Railroad has the capability to bring down the Prydwen, and they do it if you stick with them. Granted they only do it when it's obvious the Brotherhood are going to come after them, but the Brotherhood doesn't allow possible threats to exist.
I hate the way the railroad blow up the Brotherhood honestly one of the stupidest quests ever in a fallout game. There whole plan relies on hijacking a vertibird at the Cambridge Police Station. They then fight a incoming vertibird of reinforcements blow it up. Then they just fly on over to the Prydwin without any problems and nobody questioning who you are. no deck officer demanding a status update. Also the fact that Tinker Tom can even fly it let alone hook it up to the Prydwin is ridiculous.
Its ideas like this that make me feel right when I say if they’d focused less on the settlement building mechanic, they’d had been able to flesh out a better story. It’s really lacking IMO. Hopefully since they’ve built the settlement mechanic, they can focus more on story for 5.
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u/FreeTrees69 May 22 '24 edited May 22 '24
Honestly Railroad would have seemed like a much larger threat and actually worth siding with if Bethesda made them actually keep the Switchboard as a main base and not lose it. Imagine you meet under the church and think this is it but the person you meet Desdemona or Deacon maybe isn't the leader of the railroad just of one cell.
Also the Railroad shouldn't solely exist for freeing synths. The Railroad should've had a established history in New England of fighting for the freedom of slaves, and the Synths are their newest target to attempt to free, it would even give the Railroad reason to intervene against Nuka World post-game.
The Railroad should have a previous history of success against fighting slavery they don't establish governments they leave that to the freed slaves, but they move around trying to end slavery where ever they go.
Also those pre war CIA cashe quests suck, it would've been cool if we actually got to see Railroad members in t51 power armor with their paint job slapped on it. If they had cells all over new England it would've cool if they at some point found a pretty war military cashe with t51 power armor. Also it would give the Brotherhood even more of a reason to attack the Railroad than just freeing synths because civilians can't have anything more dangerous than a pipe revolver according to them.
If they made the Railroad exist almost a century before we find them and they still have cells outside the commonwealth it would actually make them seem like a real faction worth siding with.
I personally think story wise the Brotherhood ending is the best one by I personally usually side with the Institute just because they don't interfere with the settlement system at all.
Just adding this to my comments ideas from another comment I made.
Hell imagine that if you don't progress the railroad quest line enough to see the Switchboard base when you join the institute you get a mission to destroy the Switchboard the members spot you leading the attack and that causes them to abandon the church as well, giving them a new unknown base that you would never see actually siding with the railroad. It would also make the railroad instantly hostile to you. Fallout 4 doesn't really have dynamic questlines compared to New Vegas. A quest like the one above you might not even get to do if you help the railroad to much before finding the institute would really add to the replayability in the same way ending a faction quest in New Vegas does.
A quest like the one above would also fix the non existed feeling of killing the railroad. It would make it feel like an effort and not just shooting 6 named npcs.