Honestly, unless Bethesda provides a major revamp of the whole concept of their open-world Fallout and TES franchises, with completely new mechanics, skill trees, animation and engine, it will be dead by next release. Another touch up of this ancient turd won't turn out well, it already didn't with FO4 and FO76. People are going to find themselves much more invested in say, Skyrim than a new installment if its more of the same.
The paradox of that however is that a complete overhaul will also upset many a modder because they'll be stuck learning a new environment and workflow. If they even get allowed to do so, because let's face it, you won't be modding successfully for the first year post release of anything Bethesda makes that is actually new. 'There will be bugs'... and most likely so many that FO76 will feel like a perfect game.
Bethesda and most notably Todd himself has managed to dig a hole he can barely crawl out of.
As far as your description of the character creation... lol. Rugged dude? I haven't seen a single one in all of my years in Fallout, except for Super Mutants perhaps. What I did see was an entire population struggling with bipedal movement and pulling a face with that like it was the most regular thing in the world
A bit like my FO76 shot with the old dude by the campfire. They all look like that. Rugged? No... bored shitless. I guess on females it could be considered a sexy look
That is the thing... even when FO4 came out, they were stuck in the past in so many ways. So much of game design as an art form is so far beyond most of the staple features in their game at this point... they can't really keep getting away with that. They need to drastically advance pretty much everything.
The modding community has been both their excuse and their salvation. They've used that as the reason for not overhauling, say it's for the sake of the modding community. I don't buy that. Maybe some modders are stuck in their ways, but it is bound to stagnate. Actually, I'd say it largely has as far as Fallout 4 is concerned. Many of the best ones moved onto other games because they were frustrated with the limits and problems with the engine. It's becoming more of a modder's nightmare. In some ways, they have been pushed out of things they would have been able to do in say, Skyrim. The possibilities aren't there when more things are fundamentally broken or just performance-limited. I've written a lot about how poor their new optimization measures were. Modders can't fix that. Only try to work around it. But it opens up so many game-killing conflicts when you have 1000's of people all trying to change different things. It all has to fit into the optimizations, which are delicate. What are they supposed to do? Form some kind of bureau to standardize them?
I think they'd be thrilled to have a newer engine with more modern features. At the end of the day, that's MORE modding, even if it takes time for people who can pull it off to emerge. With the massive amounts of effort often popping up from in those circles, I'd expect great things.
And then of course... conversely, they already have modders who know how to fix their shit. That's what they're REALLY saying when they say they want to keep their engine for the modders. If they hit them with something they have to go back and figure out from the beginning, the bugs will stay for a lot longer and they won't be looking so good. It's not that people would quit modding the game - you won't find more dedicated people (or people more intimately aware of Bethesda's slop...) it's just that Bethesda wouldn't reap the benefits fast enough. The game would flop before modders had a chance to swoop in and save them yet again.
Honestly, I think modders are going to start getting pissed about this crap. Sticking them with an increasingly harder to work with engine and telling them they're doing them a favor. Basically peeing on their heads and telling them it's raining. No modder wants to spend time fixing bugs to get to the good part. They want to have fun making cool shit for games they like. Sometimes I think Bethesda really believes that their modding community enjoys cleaning up their messes.
Oh, and I was referring to the modding options for character creation, hah. You can make them look like male models complete with huge schlongs, or HD frumpy and that's it. Well, or like a generic COD character. Though I will say... it's all moot. No matter what you do, everyone looks terrible when they talk or try to make expressions. Nevermind that you have a million options and they all suck or actually just aren't options. With the regular CC, you're lucky if your character looks all that different from the NPC's. I mean... they share all of the same features, outfits, accessories. So you go to mods and very few fit with the lore or overall look at all.
The game gifted me with a never-ending double barrel as one of my first legendaries. So this playthrough is basically a done deal. The moment you start stacking shells and building up decent defense, it's over. One of the rarest, most OP legendaries you can find, handed to me. Being able to continuously pump high-damage shotgun rounds at problems works for more or less everything. This is what 'strategy' looks like in FO4. I always hated Kellogg with his invisibility BS. The best way to win a fight is to end it before it starts
(it was so obvious after seeing it 1st time on screen )
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