Does purchasing DLCs change anything in the main zone?

[Sea Prince Gillywix]

I am aware that the DLCs have seperate zones with quests that players can take to go there. However does it change anything in the main area like new enemies showing up?

[Trenema]

yeah, youll get new enemies showing up, but only certain ones from certain DLCs. also a chance to get a dlc item from legendary enemies.

[goatfish]

automatron adds enemies to the world which will mess with the random encounter mechanic by removing some of the tier 4 merchants from random encounters.

only ones its really affected for me was the scribe and ron, cause the DLC adds rust devils to the encounter list. as long as you don't start the quest chain by going to the fight from the radio broadcast, you can still get the tier 4 merchants.

[Trenema]

yeah, what goatfish said :D

[DouglasGrave]

When it comes to random encounters, it depends on the DLC. To break it down:

• The three workshop DLCs don't add Commonwealth enemies, unless you count the Wasteland Workshop cages provoking related attacks on your settlements.
  
• Automatron adds a lot of random robot and Rust Devil encounters once it begins.
  
• Far Harbour doesn't add Commonwealth enemies.
  
• Nuka World adds random Nuka World gang encounters later in its questline.

The additions by Automatron and Nuka World dilute the overall pool of random encounters, so while you can still get the vanilla ones, they become less common than before.

[DouglasGrave]

There are also a few location changes in the Commonwealth from Automatron, Far Harbour, Nuka World, and the Vault-Tec Workshop.

For Far Harbour and Nuka World they're individual sites out on the edges of the map (beyond where you can normally go) that provide access to their separate worldspaces and hook you into their questlines. The Vault-Tec Workshop makes minor adjustments to Quincy quarry and the Hallucigen building.

Automatron makes the largest number of changes to the Commonwealth, adding its initial encounter, changing a bland satellite array near Fort Hagen into a Rust Devil site, adding the final lair location, and making a minor addition to the General Atomics Factory.

[asarokk]

Getting both DLCs' is well worth it. They add so many more hours of quests into the game and no it doesn't change anything significantly. Some quests add more steps and more dialogue into the main quests within each factions. In the spirit of avoiding spoilers, you don't have to worry about any irreparable damages or drastic changes. Nothing that can't be mended at least with one or more factions.

Note to fellow Fallouters I kept my answers deliberately vague as to not spoil anything.

[tahunua]

automatron unlocks a lot of random encounters throughout the commonwealth with the rust devil raider gang, and servomech junkbots(mix and match robots).

nothing from Far Harbor that I'm aware of.

nothing that comes to mind from Vault 88.

random encounters with the various raider gangs from Nukaworld start showing up in the commonwealth, but they aren't hostile unless you cut ties with the raider gangs.

that's about it, all the others just expand the types of stuff you can build in the workshop.

[Sea Prince Gillywix]

Originally posted by asarokk:

Getting both DLCs' is well worth it. They add so many more hours of quests into the game and no it doesn't change anything significantly. Some quests add more steps and more dialogue into the main quests within each factions. In the spirit of avoiding spoilers, you don't have to worry about any irreparable damages or drastic changes. Nothing that can't be mended at least with one or more factions.

Note to fellow Fallouters I kept my answers deliberately vague as to not spoil anything.

I actually already have all the major DLCs except some of the ones that allow more crafting at workshop. I ask since I am mainly curious how having all them may have changed my experience if I had not bought them. And I have noticed many robot mobs wandering around Fallout 4. Another thing I found out that I don't think anyone mentioned. Nuka World adds a bunch of new modifications to the game which can affect the experience in the main world.

[The Inept European]

DLCs will also add to loot / drop / vendor lists in the mainland.

Far Harbor makes some changes to Children of Atom locations and interactions. New dialog options at the Crater of Atom. Turns Brother Ogden into a merchant, which he is not in the base game. (I was surprised too, I tested it - discovered it when writing a mod that added new items to all vendors).

The most annoying thing the DLC do is put the quest trigger for Automatron right in the middle of the map where it is quite hard to avoid. If you go anywhere near there, Automatron will start up and (in my opinion) ruin your game.

DLC also add a number of unbalanced, badly thought-out items that can be game-breaking (rad arches, water fountains, pommel horses, Operator armour, Disciples Blade). Or just stupid (cowboy guns, Kalashnikovs, all of which are of course better than base game equivalents, for no good reason).