I feel like in Fallout 4, even though you were forced to interact with the settlement system in the early game, helping gain new settlements, add some things to Sanctuary etc., it didn’t feel like I was missing out on things or being punished for largely ignoring the settlement system after those tutorial missions ended. There are things you have to build through the system for major quests later, but it wasn’t much more than ‘place these items and connect them’.

The bigger issue for me was how janky the settlement system was to get the pieces to fit together and look cohesive. Building a perimeter wall around the Red Rocket Truck Stop for example was nearly impossible because the wall pieces wouldn’t align so they would clip, and be shorter or taller than the piece next to it, rather than fitting to the terrain.

If Bethesda fixed the clipping/alignment issues in Startfield it should at least be easier to use so you can finish any mandatory settlement quests faster!

It's also the reason I don't play No Man's Sky(apart from the bait and switch launch).

People don't play Bethesda games because they are good sims but because they are good RPGs.

If they pivot to a sim/building type game then I don't think people will like it.

I liked the settlement stuff, but I have how much of the side content got consumed by it. FO4 had so few friendly towns that it makes the Commonwealth feel kinda empty.

Ah, fallout 4 had so much Potential. In the older games the endings, the "good" ones at least, tell you how this and that community build itself up and thrived, due to your timely help.

Would've been nice to feel like you'd be doing the building.

Also it's good for all the money you can gather from the higher level enemies. You don't need to gather up all the enclave power armor. I'm going to do it anyways and sell the things for a million billion caps.
Ultimately that's just a number getting bigger.
This aspect kinda works with the Settlement building. You can buy these shipment vouchers for screws and adhesive and such. I say it "kinda" works since you end up having more money then everyone else put together in the world and the settlers are going to look a bit silly wearing combat armor all the time.

The Settlement building would work if the Settlers weren't such lifeless automatons. If the Settlers where characters i might grow to like and possibly want to protect i'd be playing some more.

Also if the main story wasn't such a clusterfuck i'd play some more.

I'd build settlements in the "Witcher" world. There are characters that i like and there are things i'd want to protect them from.

I've played about 500ish hours of fallout 4, like 10 or so characters.

Unless I am blackhole-ing something, you are "forced" to do the base building stuff twice, for a total of like 8 minutes. Once at sanctuary at the beginning and once at the big fort to get into the armory. I don't really count the occasional times you have to build a single radio tower to finish capturing a settlement, especially because it's part of the radiant quests that aren't real quests. And because it takes 30 seconds.

I was a big fan of the settlement building in Fallout 4. Was one of the mechanics that kept me coming back for later playthroughs and made the world feel less static and that I could actually have an impact on it. Especially instances like seeing one of the supply chain NPCs from one of my settlements walking around in the world.

I'm not a fan of base building in games. Hopefully, it's never required for anything. I hope it's fleshed out and enjoyable for the people who like that sort of thing though.

This was the biggest turn off of Fallout 76. I had zero interest in a C.A.M.P and wanted to play the goddamn game

I'm kinda divided on how I feel about the settlements; I don't like them, but not because of the system itself, but rather how it plays into the wider gameplay loop. If Bethesda made a game where building a settlement was the core feature of the game, and the story and quests revolved around it, I think I would have liked it alot more. But as they stand right now settlements feel like a tedious tacked on feature that adds nothing.

Given infinite time and money, I would love to see what they would do if they double down on the sim elements of settlements, fleshing it out in much of the way that Sim Settlements did. Allow players to treat it as a garden, which can survive on it's own but can really grow and thrive given a bit of a guiding hand. What I found most frustrating about settlements in Fallout 4 was that it felt like it came at the cost of hand-crafted cities and settlements.

I hated the base building too. It's a really tedious system with a bad UI. I really hope it's just an optional feature in Starfield.

In the gameplay trailer they said something like putting the base parts together and then finishing something in them. It sounds like there're some sorts of decorations/contraptions you have to add inside a built room. It would be completely fine if the rooms themselves do or provide something without cluttering the interiors.

I wish Bethesda still made RPGs :(