How Far Through Am I?

[Francisè von Spitroast]

I've just used the Institute teleporter thing and arrived at the Institute. My job now is to run around and talk to some people. How far through the main quest am I?

[danconnors]

You just started.

[Francisè von Spitroast]

Originally posted by danconnors:

You just started.

Damn.

[globefish23]

That really depends on your play style.

If you just play the main story quests to "beat" the game and see the closing title cards, you can probably finish that in 30 hours, especially when you only focus on one of the factions.

If you explore a lot, build settlements, do all the side quests and random encounters, that number will quickly go up to 100 hours.
You can crank that up even further if you find all the collectibles, and acquire all thespecial items and weapons, and thouroughly loot every place.
And that doesn't even include the DLCs or Creation Club.

Currently I'm at 368 hours. I'm only 2 main story mission short of "finishing" the game, but I just started the Nuka-World DLC.

[Francisè von Spitroast]

Originally posted by globefish23:

That really depends on your play style.

If you just play the main story quests to "beat" the game and see the closing title cards, you can probably finish that in 30 hours, especially when you only focus on one of the factions.

If you explore a lot, build settlements, do all the side quests and random encounters, that number will quickly go up to 100 hours.
You can crank that up even further if you find all the collectibles, and acquire all thespecial items and weapons, and thouroughly loot every place.
And that doesn't even include the DLCs or Creation Club.

Currently I'm at 368 hours. I'm only 2 main story mission short of "finishing" the game, but I just started the Nuka-World DLC.

Yes, hence why I asked about the main quest specifically :)
I've completed all side quests I've found and explored all location markers in the game. I've also done Automatron and Far Harbor. I wasn't sure how much I'd touched the main quest.

[Protoman]

The game is officially divided into three Acts. You're on Act 3 right now.

Depending on which faction you choose to end the game with, you have 4~7 main quests until the end. There's a ton of optional quests (30+), though.

[Zes]

Originally posted by Randy the Seaman:

Yes, hence why I asked about the main quest specifically :)
I've completed all side quests I've found and explored all location markers in the game. I've also done Automatron and Far Harbor. I wasn't sure how much I'd touched the main quest.

wow. then there is not much left.. for you

[Francisè von Spitroast]

Originally posted by Protoman:

The game is officially divided into three Acts. You're on Act 3 right now.

Depending on which faction you choose to end the game with, you have 4~7 main quests until the end. There's a ton of optional quests (30+), though.

So I haven't "just started" then? I'm not sure how long main quests typically are.

[DouglasGrave]

There's generally a lot of activity in that third act, and how long you might take with it depends on how much you're involving yourself with the different factions.

[Blackheart]

How much you'll need to finish the rest of main story will depend on which faction you'll go with. And since you completed a lot of side quests, you might be built enough to breeze through the remaining main story. I'd say you have another 10 or so hours for the main quests, of course depending on your playstyle and whether you fast travel or not.
If you'll be wanting for more after you're done, check out mods. Horizon in particular is a great mod that overhauls entire game and it will make your playthrough a lot longer, fun and immersive.

[Blakkrazor]

If you want to milk out the experience for all the rewards you can I would suggest carefully progressing with each of the available factions you have access to. You are coming to a point where you are going to have to sever your alliance(s) most abruptly, ie; with Extreme Prejudice.

[Francisè von Spitroast]

Thanks everyone :)

[Castyles]

I'm at the same part. Finished all the side quests that I could find after extensive exploration and just joined the Minutemen to settle in Fort Independence (I killed all the crabs beforehand). The Brotherhood of Steel and the Railroad questlines are still open, though. Never really went through with any of them after the first contact.

Sorry to hijack your thread, OP, but I have a question of my own, now, based on yours: When is the point of no return, faction wise? Afaik me joining up with the Minutemen now isn't a final decision.

[Protoman]

Originally posted by Castyles:

I'm at the same part. Finished all the side quests that I could find after extensive exploration and just joined the Minutemen to settle in Fort Independence (I killed all the crabs beforehand). The Brotherhood of Steel and the Railroad questlines are still open, though. Never really went through with any of them after the first contact.

Sorry to hijack your thread, OP, but I have a question of my own, now, based on yours: When is the point of no return, faction wise? Afaik me joining up with the Minutemen now isn't a final decision.

It depends, because each faction may have a mission against another faction before the end, so you have to treat that as a "point of no return" as well. For every case, except one, you'll see a big warning onscreen that you're about to make a faction hostile.

Minutemen is when you unlock Old Guns (Institute).
Institute is when you unlock Mass Fusion (Brotherhood of Steel).
Brotherhood of Steel is once you finish Blind Betrayal (Railroad) and Spoils of War (Institute).
Railroad is Precipice of War/Rockets' Red Glare (BoS). You can't become hostile to the Institute because that fails the Railroad quest chain as well (you need Institute access to finish as the Railroad).

About the special case, you don't actually get a warning that you're about to make the Railroad hostile if you do the Institute mission to get rid of the Railroad (End of the Line). You can even go to Railroad HQ and talk to them about it, and they'll ask you to feed some BS to the Institute while they think of a counterplan.

Even so, you can get other points of no return by taking certain actions before the end. If you're banished from the Institute while allied with the Minutemen, you'll get an extra mission called "Defend the Castle", which will fail all BoS missions you have as well (won't become hostile, just fail their missions). If you become hostile to the BoS and are allied to the Minutemen, you get a mission called "With our powers combined" where the BoS attacks the Castle instead of the Institute.

In the end, it's pretty complicated.

(Even after you finish the game, I recommend saving and doing With Our Powers Combined at least once. It's awesome.)

[Castyles]

That's a pretty thorough explanation. Really helpful. Thanks, Protoman.

[globefish23]

I followed this video, because there are a few faction side quests that can be a little tricky:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKpxViy-OzY
Transcript:
https://pastebin.com/qtXrJfdV