Dejavous: do you really think a 6 year old game would hold anyones attention like Skyrim has without mods? It's ONLY because of mods skyrim is still a game people play without the numerous fixes or added content skyrim would have died out in it's 3rd year, but a modder brought out forgotten city and people flocked back to skyrim, when that slowed down along came Beyond skyrim Bruma and becoming High king Skyrim None of these ideas came from Bugthesda, they came from small groups or individuals that loved to write fan fiction for skyrim, who happen to also be good at scripting, I'd say better then the team at BGS.
StingingVelvet: Let's put it this way: Skyrim's popularity goes back to Oblivion, which skyrocketed Bethesda to mainstream popularity on the back of the Xbox 360. Zero mod support or abilities, massive success. Same for Fallout 3. While the PC gaming resurgence may have led to higher sales of Skyrim on our beloved platform I doubt at the end of the day modders are anywhere CLOSE to non-modders in overall percentage of players, because of consoles and people like me who don't really use mods beyond stuff like source ports (I have never even heard of the mods you're mentioning).
The sooner people get it through their heads that massive chunks of mainstream gaming audiences love Bethesda games because of what they are the better. Your "Bugthesda har har" joke betrays your bias, which I see all over PC forums toward Bethesda for whatever reason (reminds me of "Micro$oft har har") but it's a passionate few who bash them like this. Not rare on the GOG forum sadly to see older gamers bashing what's popular because it gives them warm fuzzies I guess.
Well, this backlash or bias as you put it must have roots in something. It can't show up out of thin air. Not everyone can be pleased, that's for sure, so having a group (or several) opposed to one's viewpoint(s) is inevitable.
However, some folk fail to spot the difference between constructive or logical criticism and destructive or critical criticism. Read hundreds of opinions and threads these past years on different forums. A common question is "Why do people dislike Fallout 3 (so much)?". Can you guess some of the answers? "It's not isometric anymore", "They're throwing temper tantrums", "They don't like change", etc.
I was actually not bothered with their shift from isometric to first person. What actually irks me is the writing. Which in turn affects not only the dialogue and character development, but also the world design. Think about Shady Sands and Megaton. Or try to compare characters such as Marcus and Joanne Lynette with Moira Brown or Preston Garvey. While the first two games boast a rich, well developed cast and proper locations, 3 and 4 come up mostly with one-dimensional characters and uninspired locations.
The dialogue in Fallout 3 is of very bad quality at times. Fallout 4 also suffers in this regard.
Also, I absolutely despise the amount of fetch or go-kill-loot-retrieve quests in Fallout 4. For example, some settlers will complain about being attacked by creatures (be it ghouls, mutants or whatever) and send you across the map to deal with the situation. Moreover, developing certain areas/locations seems unrewarding. In other words, dealing with settlements and settlers is extremely annoying and ultimately boring.
Won't go into details regarding the dialogue system. We can all agree it was very poor. Todd Howard said "it didn't work as well" as other features. Yet the game sold well. Apparently better than Skyrim. And at the end of the day, that's all that matters. To Bethesda that is.
I gave them the benefit of the doubt when Fallout 3 came out. After all, it was their first attempt.
Really hoped they'd improve and learn from their mistakes. They had 7 years. Alas, Fallout 4 was a disappointment.
And as long as the same people are in charge, we're going to get the same thing over and over again. So why bother anymore?