Preston is blocking quests because he won't shut up about the Citidel.

[dunbaratu]

I talked to Preston up to the point where he wants me to retake the Citidel. I'm not ready yet, I'm too low level. I keep telling him I'm not ready yet.

The problem is that there's OTHER settlement quests where the quest won't be marked as complete until I talk to Preston afterward, and he refuses to get off the subject of the Citidel, and thus I can't get the credit for finishing the other quests that involve helping settlers. When I finish doing whatever the settler wants, and then it says "talk to Preston", the correct conversation option related to that quest isn't showing up in his menu. He won't shut the heck up about the stupid Citidel that I'm not ready for yet.

What's the way to get him unstuck?

[siztem]

*Castle, not Citadel.

And if you're worried about your level to retake the Castle (which is probably wise), then just go do other quests. There's a ton of other stuff you can do besides the Minutemen quests

[tedlewton]

sometimes the speech options are assigned/worded incorrectly when you have multiple quest options for the same target, save your game and then try the other speech options even if they seem wrong to see what they do.

[LordMikey]

Very few quests have timers on them, just get it and go do it when you feel ready. Kidnapping quests and i think another has timeers when you get them so do them right away..

[dunbaratu]

Originally posted by siztem:

*Castle, not Citadel.

And if you're worried about your level to retake the Castle (which is probably wise), then just go do other quests. There's a ton of other stuff you can do besides the Minutemen quests

The problem is that I want to make the Minutemen themselves more powerful IN ORDER to take the Castle with their help (i.e. the flare gun) but the Minutemen quests happen to be the very ones that are being blocked by this, because they're the ones where you have to talk to Preston at the end of each one.'

[Dark Elf]

Originally posted by LordMikey:

Kidnapping quests and i think another has timeers when you get them so do them right away..

They do - and of course defense quests.

I will say though, I seriously think there's a bug with some of the kidnapping quests. I had to rescue (of the 2 people in that damn settlement) one couple 7 times... (I even went out of the way to make sure they are both decked out in heavy combat armor... And nope, still getting kidnapped...)

[dunbaratu]

okay got it unstuck - I dismissed him as a companion, picked up a different companion for a second then dismissed them, and had Preston re-follow. That seems to have opened up the "anything else" conversation option that was missing before.

[Harmonica]

Originally posted by dunbaratu:

okay got it unstuck - I dismissed him as a companion, picked up a different companion for a second then dismissed them, and had Preston re-follow. That seems to have opened up the "anything else" conversation option that was missing before.

Preston is all about the Castle in my game, he's obsessed with it, so I can't complete other missions. He only stopped talking about it to tell me how much he likes me. But now he's back on the Castle topic again.

He was in one of my power armour suits at the time he got the idea about Castle, full of loot, and I couldn't tell him to get out of the power armour (even by ordering him into a different suit!), or get any of my stuff (which was half the parts of my suit). I did get lucky eventually and stationed him at Abernathy. One time I showed up late at night and he was asleep! So I jacked his armour and ran for the hills! I half expected him to wake up and chase me down but it worked out okay, now he just patrols the farm muttering 'gotta take the Castle...' to himself.

Thanks for posting about this. I'm going to try it and see if it finally fixes his conversation options!

[dunbaratu]

The thing to look for is the conversation option "Anything Else?" appearing AFTER he brings up the freakin Castle again - the "Anything Else?" option is the one that means "talk about the other thing you're supposed to talk about other than the Castle".

IMO the conversation system in FO4 is a step backward because those little one or two word phrases don't tell you enough to know what you're going to say when you pick them. I often get pissed off that my character said the exact opposite of what I meant when I click one of them, and thus forked the conversation in a direction I didn't mean and I can't undo it. I'm getting in the habit of quicksaving before every conversation now just to defend against the game's dishonest conversation labels.

[CellNav]

You guys can also try to "unselect" the quests in the Pip Boy. The best way to avoid Preston with the Castle was to uncheck that quest, then select only one quest that he gave me.

Besides, taking the Castle was easy, it's the long walk to the Castle that's a pain. If all else fails, just go do the Castle quest but make sure you uncheck other quests in the Pip Boy ... and save save save!