Unrelated to the main story DLC's or Connected?

[The Man From Nowhere]

Which do you prefer and why?

I'm speaking of the Fallout protagonist going off on their little adventures outside any influence of the main story, or the DLC more directly connected to what's going on in the original content.

Most of the Fallout 3 DLC was completely unconnected to the main story and the purifier in distant swampy or industrial locations with their own stories, while New Vegas DLC had it's own stories but was more interconnected and related to the Battle of Hoover Dam or the Mojave in some way.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

I think it is rather obvious but there is of course the possibility that I am wrong.
DLC connected to the main campaign such as FNV's.

Of course I do speak out of my experience of the Fallout 3 DLCs, I found them in general rather poor.
The Pitt could have been somewhat decent but it was not to be.

 

[VaultHead]

Some of my favorite DLC has nothing to do with the story such as Mothership Zeta and Nuka-World so im gonna have to go with unrelated

 

[Alphons]

I don't think it matters. If DLC's story cannot hold on its own, it won't redeem itself by linking its shallow story to base game or other DLCs.

 

[Pwener]

I prefer both depending on what kind of story it tells. I for one liked The Pitt and Point Lookout and The Pitt is loosely connected to the Capital Wasteland's BoS while Point Lookout isn't connected to the main game at all.

 

[cordelionreaver]

Loosely connected like in New Vegas. If the DLC are too connected to the main story you get situations like in Bioware games, where important plot points are introduced in DLC. Leaving you somewhat lost in the sequel if you haven't played the previous game's DLC.

 

[Atomkilla]

Loosely connected like in New Vegas. If the DLC are too connected to the main story you get situations like in Bioware games, where important plot points are introduced in DLC. Leaving you somewhat lost in the sequel if you haven't played the previous game's DLC.

Pretty much this.

DLCs which aren't connected to the main story at all might be good depending on the game - Fallout 3 being the perfect case. Its a mediocre game at best, but some elements of The Pitt (arguably the best DLC for that title) work well because they aren't connected to the vanilla's story in any profound way.

FNV DLCs are some of the best DLCs I've had the pleasure of playing - in fact, they are so well made that I'd say playing FNV without them is not the full experience, but you might as well play without them and still be fine.

BioWare does it the worst. Their infamous Arrival DLC for ME2 isn't infamous for no reason. You cannot make plot-critical content and hide it behind a paywall, then make a sequel which builds upon that same content. That is unfair to the customer. FNV makes DLCs which are centered around important characters/events, but they are optional.


...


In the end, I dislike DLCs as a concept in general. In the days of yore, developers made and publisher published expansion sets, which is overall a practice that has mostly died out. Instead of dozens overpriced pieces of small content, you'd get another CD with lots of new stuff - less content usually when compared to main game, but of comparable quality and still way bigger than 3-hour-long DLCs.