Fallout 4 - Should It Borrow the Nemesis System?

I think a nemesis system as implemented in Shadows of Mordor wouldn't work for the new Fallout. But an adapted nemesis system could. Rather than characters you killed coming back to seek revenge, how about characters you've wronged in some way? For example stealing from them, ruining there reputation, killing a family member. They will then seek revenge based on a number of possibilities. (Depending on how you've wronged them and your general reputation)

1)Hire mobsters to wipe you out
2)Frame you for a crime
3)Steal there stuff back + yours

The possibilities are endless, you could go pretty deep with this.

the nemesis system verbatim from SOM? no.

A modified and improved system based on the nemesis system? Absolutely!

The way it was implemented in to SOM was a bit gimmicky but the idea of and possibilities of a nemesis system could be quite game changing. I think in SOM they really wanted to showcase it and over used it. It turned in to an endless slaughter of ocrs only to be replaced by an infinite supply of more orcs.

I would envision it in FO4 being implemented separately to each individual faction giving them goals and hierarchies. Instead of endless supplies of faction members make it possible to wipe out these factions or have them grow to great power. instead of just having a power to mind control enemies to help you take out bosses, make it so you have to sway them to your cause through dialogue, bribe them, blackmail them, etc.

Then drop the PC into the middle of all of this and let them make friends or nemesis's based on their actions. As Silver said the possibilities are endless. Also being a dynamic AI would give you a different result every play through.

I won't pretend top know how all this would work and honestly what I'm suggesting is probably well beyond what the current nemesis system can do but I think the potential evolution of this system could actually be very exciting.

Anyway, with all the bring back everything from 20 years ago that's going on now, seeing them try to do something truly innovating would be refreshing.

Well said from top to bottom, Sakichop. I think the Nemesis system is more of an exciting "proof of concept" for how developers can potentially add more life and dynamic content to an open-world game, rather than relying on scripted encounters. That possibility is quite exciting, if someone else like Bethesda and others decides to have the ambition to take where the idea left off.

I also agree that it's at least a little exciting to see some attempt at innovation - creativity seems to have been quite stagnant in recent years. While I am very happy to see a return to genres and styles of games that sadly disappeared for multiple years, projects like Underworld excite me the most out of the "nostalgia kickstarters." They are taking the spirit of classic games and trying to push those concept even further - which is how it should be in a field driven by creativity.

The "Nemesis System" you guys describe sounds like it would make a game of endless replayability, but it would be far too generic for my tastes. While having a complex system like that could lead to unique game experiences, where no two experiences are the same, it could also lead to a sense of nothing having any weight at all because it's all randomly generated.

I could be wrong, and one of these RPG developers could really make it interesting, but as I see it right now, it's a gimmicky type of thing that doesn't really interest me.

Stay thirsty, my friends.

Well, that's not quite what I'm getting at, Fluent: I definitely would not, in any way, ever want to remove or replace hand-placed, well-written content. That is the best part! However, I picture the system as a way to make the world around that content more exciting and dynamic.

In an open-world RPG, having exploration between towns, quests, and NPCs be more exciting and unpredictable would accentuate the experience as a whole.
I think this would go a long way to making the world feel "alive" rather than having the entire world revolve around just the player, with enemies merely standing around waiting to be slaughtered.