Ho ho! Nice vent!
I love how quick dad is.
You're not even out of the vault that day, and dad's had the time to run out, down stiff drinks in the bar, bang the whore, and run all the way to rivet city
Bethesda was simply never very good at this, writing "engaging" stuff, so they really need you to play along. You aren't supposed to dart directly from spot to spot, following your dad. If you do, dad suddenly turns into fastest-man-alive. You're supposed to "get lost" in all the exploration, "ooo whats this, ooo whats that!"
If you don't do this - if you don't act like a little kid, with cute little short term memory, the game won't behave as intended.
FO2 was beautiful in that as soon as you begin, the game world tells you that the urgency you were convinced of right away, is probably not that real. Vic isn't some savior, he's just a fat fuck, "GECK" is most probably a myth, no NPC has ever heard about it, and the world is too vast for you to reach in any quick ammount of time. FO2 lets you completely decelerate, at will, or keep a sense of urgency, as you please. Either option works, immersion wise.
FO1 had _actual_ urgency. Too slow - game over, you die, load previous save or start over.
But this hand-holdy "lets pretend"-urgency that Beth believes themselves to masterfully peddle only insults me. Skyrim a little - but FO4 a LOT - did this whole... "something is happening nearby that you should go check out!"-triggers. These are *tailormade especially* for little ADHD-kids, not focused adults. It irritated me every time, and - if you DON'T run off like a little child, to tend to this sudden distraction, there's a chance quests will bug up and stuff. My first attempt at the Automatron DLC completely fucked itself and needed to be reinstalled - because I ran past a triggered event, because I thought to myself "I am roleplaying, and I don't feel like tending to whatever little new distraction this might be"
There, now I vented a bit too!