Fallout 3 criticisms

Bitter people are blind to their biases.

 

The main quest would have functioned better without it tying you to James balls (as a storyline, it would make more sense if James was not related to you, the work the scientists had done was more recent and they mutants forced them out, you get hired independently to find James by Li, then by James to clear the place out so they could keep working etc)
Supermutants should have been some other fev monster making them more of an homage then a rehash.
Remove the big BoS base, a small outcasted group are fine as a minor group, but the bigger one is pretty silly and changes their goals to radically
build up the other factions to have bigger settlements and reliance on each other.
Clean up the character building systems (streamline some shit because there are too many skills that do nothing that could have easily been combined with others, specials need a rebalance, skill points per level need to be reduced and not as heavily tied to int if at all.)
have the mutant threat be the bad guys instead of set dressing.
I think that is most of the big things, other than changing the intro some to be more of a 'pick your background' akin to the mods, but I like the idea of flavored intros based on choosing backgrounds. I'd say 3 has a great intro if it was more parts that then setting up to railroad you to the poorly written main story

 

Some additions to your post Biggumsboi.

-Why not remove the the BOS completely? Make them the National Lawful Guard or something, remnants of the pre war military and police that try hold up order (but aren't exactly doing a good job anymore).
-Remove most other Fallout 1 and 2 West Coast references such as Harold who really deserved better.
-The Super Mutants? Why not make them those twisted human mutants from some of the earlier Fallout 1 advertisement pieces; https://external-preview.redd.it/Dm...bp&s=6e7c57e1b00d61f53bf74ff8954a1e66e4510245
Call them the Wretched or something. Healthier than Ghouls but in general having lost a lot of their humanity and having form a Cult that hates all normals. (they are just good for use as slaves and "other" purposes)
-Set the game once again twenty-five years after the War
-Get rid of the stupid humor. If you can't do jokes well, don't do them at all.
-Get rid of the radio guy or replace him with a character that makes sense
-Definitely get rid of the "50s but in the future!" mindset. Fallout wasn't "Leave it to Beaver" and "Father knows Best" in a post apocalyptic wasteland with mutants, robots, and energy weapons. (Fallout is what people in the 50s imagined what the future could be; a future civilization and the horror of a nuclear holocaust )

Definitely make the player character separate from James and his forced morality and pathetic outrage when you decide to nuke a town (also something that should be drastically changed) and treats you as if you have just stolen a pie from Mrs Wilson the next door neighbor.

 

You could, though if the outcasts stayed as small as they were as a minor group I'd love the option of starting off as a greenhorn member with some intro scenes of growing up as a BoS. have you starting out as a young initiate thats working towards knighthood or being a full on scribe would be fun rp.
It's a shame Harold is literally a set piece in 3, seeing bob ruin his life is an oof to me lol.
Thats a good idea too for replacing mutants, and it fits better with the older mad max themes, I was thinking expanding off of the failed fev corpses that exist in fallout 3 to make it more further away from the older lore, having them be distorted and shaped like centaurs but in ways painfully reminiscent of the master, being barely recognizable as human. I also like the uped stakes that these things don't just eat or convert you, but meld with you like the thing, able to turn your flesh into theirs and absorb you within the hive, an existence that doesn't kill you, but makes you a mindless husk to the mass. You could still give them enough freedom to scream in pain due to what they are
Yeah, even like 50-75 years would have been better than 200 tbh
It depends on the humor lol, wisecracks are terrible, but charons deadpan responses do make me laugh. He's one of the better npcs due to him making it all feel so normal the worlds fucked
I honestly don't think 3 dog is that bad, but having another personality to go back and forth talking shit on other channels would have balanced things out nicely
I'm not gonna lie, the 50's themeing doesn't bug me too bad. I can see why others hate it, but I do kinda like how it just gives it a personality different from 1 and 2. maybe leave that as an east coast thing?
Yeah, fuck the family business bs in 3, makes the story even worse then it already was with the other issues. It should have been played off more so as no one knew who did it, just that it was done by someone (bruke gloating about how he found the right man for the job) and 3dog saying fuck the pos that did that would have been a decent way of you getting away with it and word not getting out that its your name.