Perks / special - am I the only who hated the new system?

farchettiensis

farchettiensis

First time out of the vault
Hello forum,

I think it's shit and I don't care about it, in fact I hated it. The videos with instructions are pretty neat (F4 marketing > F4 game, general rule), but the result for me is clear: leveling up, like all else in this terrible experiment called Fallout 4, is irrelevant, not in the sense that it no actual consequences - though it may be the case at times -, but that just don't care about it anymore. Building a character's become insipid. I hate it. I can't understand why they would've done something like this. I know I miss J. E. Sawyer's humor and the whole craziness that was NV or even F3's dark world, regardless of how fragmented it was. Bottom-line, I miss the Lone Wanderer, traits, perks, and special. I've seen people complaining about a lot of things, but not so much about this shit level/perks system, so do you guys hated it as much as I did?
 
Building a character doesn't matter because Fallout 4 is designed to make you play through every quest during your first playthrough. Simply overhearing two NPCs talking is enough to begin a quest in your Pip-Boy. The word "no" doesn't exist in this game, only 4 dialogue options that all lead to "Yes."
 
A lot of us here feel that the new system is a colossal dumbing down of the old system, but we also kind of had to from Fallout 1/2 to Fallout 3/New Vegas when it became possible to get a hundred experience in each skill.
But what is now completely taken away is that a player builds a character that reflects themselves or a certain type of campaign approach; the negotiator, the hardline merc, the thief/assassin, the scientist/thinkerer, something that incites playing a game over again in a whole different way in order to get to see the alternative solutions or see things you don't get to see when you play a character who is for example a jack of all trades but a master of none. (a character who can not unlock the high speech skill, or use stealth to circumvent an otherwise forced confrontation)

What Bethesda did is take away what makes a role playing game an RPG. I don't play a diplomat or a scientist, I play a soldier who happens to be very charismatic and apparently has read many scientific journals and books, and who occasionally is as quiet as a shadow.

It is a sort of a 'everyone needs to be a winner' approach, at no point must the player be allowed to fail at a skill check. At best you earn less caps but that is compensated by the fact that there is a lot of loot around and the raiders who only exist to be killed make up more than enough through the equipment they carry that you can sell. (something else I am starting to have my doubts about, hundreds of NPCs that only exist to be killed)

I love Fallout New Vegas and it will stay on my hard disc for a long time, but it is a bandage on a wound Fallout 3 left behind when it turned Fallout into 'Oblivion after a nuclear apocalypse'.
Fallout 4 pulled the bandage off and cut deeper into the wound.
 
No, you're not. It helps to look at Fallout 4 with the knowledge that it isn't an RPG, because it's not.


And the reason why is extremely simple. Bethesda is a mass market game developer that only makes games for the mass market, then delude themselves into thinking that their sales number justify how bland their products are. RPGs aren't mass market. Destiny, Borderlands, CoDpiece. These are mass market games.
 
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I think its mediocre, but I also think its better in a lot of ways then what we got in Fo3 and NV.

Having things like lockpickng and science be a 1-100 skill is pointless when only the 25/50/75/100 actually mattered in-game, due to the ridiculous terminal/lock system the game has. Making a 5 ranked perk, were ranks 1-4 are the 25/50/75/100 skill levels from past games, and rank 5 is a bonus like no bobby pin breaking, and no terminal lockouts, is basically just reformatting the system into what it ACTUALLY was the whole time in Fo3 and NV.

Similarly, due to the increased action gameplay of the newer games, the 1-100 weapon skills had largely the same problem as the hacking/lockpicking skills. Since so much of how well weapons handled was on the player, the skills themselves became nothing but small damage increases spread out over a large range, to the point you only ever really got a noticeable damage upgrade every 20 skill levels or so. So much like hacking and lockpicking, simplifying it down to a 5 ranked perk, where each rank gives the bonus of every 20 levels of the skill, is really nothing but reformatting the game to how it ACTUALLY played the whole time. In some ways, they actually added more with all the armor penetration/disarming/limb crippling, etc. etc. the Fo4 weapon perks have.

The same can be said for other things like medicine and w/e.

Its not really a good RPG, but the last two games weren't really RPGs either. They were action games with light RPG elements. The reformatting didn't do much besides having the games stop pretending to be RPGs when they aren't, and instead just admitted "yeah, this is how the last two games actually played the whole time, and we aren't going to pretend that the game is more complex then it is by hiding behind 1-100 skill systems that mean nothing due to low payouts per skill point".
 
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Someguy37 said:
I think its mediocre, but I also think its better in a lot of ways then what we got in Fo3 and NV.
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Making a game - any game - closer to a shooter is a huge improvement over Fallout 3. Is it better than NV though? The combat, probably. But what we should not ignore here is the fact how often New Vegas allowed you to use certain skills outside of combat. Something that neither F3 or F4 really do.
 
How is it better than in New Vegas in any way? New Vegas improved on the usage of skills outside of combat and made permanent SPECIAL increases rarer. They inherited the Hacking/lockpicking issue fo3 had but this system didn't fix it at all. They just made it even worse with the Lockpicking gates not only being just as dumb as before but the level caps between gates are just random (0-7-18-41) and higher level lockpicking isn't any different from lower level lockpicking. Even high tech doors still have the knob interface from Fallout 3 that they didn't even change in Skyrim and Hacking is just as boring.

This system literary improve NOTHING, fixed no issues and instead created new ones while also removing the felixbility of the older one... A complete failure.
 
I'm not a huge fan of expressly statistical systems either. Do I think the skills in FO Classic can be improved? Sure. But I also completely disagree that FO 4 improved the system at all. Walpknut is spot on. They solved none of the 'issues' of 3 and NV (which are largely there because of 3's interpretation of the binary hacking and lock-picking methodology). The issues are identical, but now there's more of them.

It's ostensibly more rewarding as a system. It feels like your getting more each level - but you're not. With a high skill gain build in NV with intelligence and smart perks, you could be rocking through skill progression. By level 5 or so you could have full access to all locks and computers. That's simply impossible in Bethesda's new system.

Bethesda knows reward structure. They know how to make things feel rewarding, but any scrutiny reveals the opposite.
 
Crni Vuk said:
Making a game - any game - closer to a shooter is a huge improvement over Fallout 3. Is it better than NV though? The combat, probably. But what we should not ignore here is the fact how often New Vegas allowed you to use certain skills outside of combat. Something that neither F3 or F4 really do.
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Playing NV felt like playing Oblivion to me. It was so obviously a shooter trying to masquerade as an RPG that both elements suffered for it, heavily.

-Traits didn't really matter past level 5.
-Tons of perks like the "themed" cowboy, and pyromaniac, perks, as well as the challenge perks like Abominable, animal control, bug stomper, lord death, etc. etc. were garbage because the game was so heavily based on player skill that getting +20% damage meant nothing since you already did so much damage anyways.
-The vast majority of speech checks, and I mean from all skills/perks, not just the speech skill, had so many ways had so many ways to get past them, or so many checks using different skills/perks they never really blocked you off from anything, making them basically worthless as checks, and doing nothing to really change how different builds played in the long run.

Most of the added "RPG" elements added to NV did absolutely nothing to make the game more of an RPG due to how badly implemented they were due to the game's such heavy action focus.
 
You are actually saying that there being multiple skill checks so player builds had an actual effect and there being ,ore than one unique way of completiong quests is not an RPG?
New Vegas didn't have that much of a focus on Combat, you coudl always avoid every combat situation, most of the combat was on out of the way zones, usually reserved to people who arew exploring the caves or ruins, I have actually made entire runs when I don't kill anyone even without Sneak by using the map to my favor. Maybe you just suck at the game?
 
Someguy37 said:
Most of the added "RPG" elements added to NV did absolutely nothing to make the game more of an RPG due to how badly implemented they were due to the game's such heavy action focus.
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An RPG has nothing to do with how 'action' focused it is. NV is an RPG when FO3 wasn't because of how you interacted with the world, and the relevance of those stats. Stats for stats sake don't make an RPG. Witcher 3 isn't super player stat hungry, and its combat is that of an action game, but its a hardcore RPG.

Its ok to like their new system, but don't go around suggesting that it makes it more of an RPG.
 
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Irwin John Finster said:
If you think New Vegas is "a shooter trying to masquerade as an RPG" then what is Fallout 4?
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A game that flagrantly admits its an action game with only mild RPG elements.

DrKrunkenstein said:
An RPG has nothing to do with how 'action' focused it is. NV is an RPG when FO3 wasn't because of how you interacted with the world, and the relevance of those stats. Stats for stats sake don't make an RPG. Witcher 3 isn't super player stat hungry, and its combat is that of an action game, but its a hardcore RPG.
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Witcher 3 is by no means a hardcore RPG. Its even advertised as an action RPG.

PoE, as much of a D&D lite game it is, is more of a hardcore RPG then Witcher 3 is.
 
A "just skills and perks" system is better than a "stats and perks" system. If you're really starting from the assumption that the PC isn't deficient in any way (as Fallout 4 does) then you can just assume she is smart enough, strong enough, etc. to do whatever her skills let her do.

There's significantly more roleplaying opportunities in "I know a lot about wilderness survival and science" than there is in "I'm really strong and lucky."
 
Someguy37 said:
PoE, as much of a D&D lite game it is, is more of a hardcore RPG then Witcher 3 is.
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How?
You don't converse with other characters, there are no choices, no development. There's no issues with multiple outcomes or methods of resolution. PoE is a statistical action game, or an ARPG. Witcher 3 is an RPG with an action combat system.

And for that matter, how the hell is Path of Exile a DnD lite game? Its just a obtuse version of Diablo.
 
DrKrunkenstein said:
How?
You don't converse with other characters, there are no choices, no development. There's no issues with multiple outcomes or methods of resolution. PoE is a statistical action game, or an ARPG. Witcher 3 is an RPG with an action combat system.

And for that matter, how the hell is Path of Exile a DnD lite game? Its just a obtuse version of Diablo.
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PoE = Pillars of Eternity, not Path of Exile.
 
Use fewer acronyms.

Sure. That is an RPG. That statement is true. as I haven't played it I couldn't possibly discuss its merits as an RPG. On the surface it looks like a CRPG, sure. But that doesn't intrinsically make it more of an RPG than an ARPG. They're both separate subgenres of RPG. The relevant dialogue is in how the game's systems interact, and how much agency the player has in the world - not whether combat is determined by a random number generator.
 
frajaq said:
I like it a lot, you can customize your PC to whatever playstyle you like
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Sure. Though, you can with FO4's system customize your character to be all playstyles simultaneously - which is sort of the point of argument. Your actual development is irrelevant. Its sort of a question of what do you want to be able to do first. The actual perk development is fine. I think my only real major point of contention is with the dissolving of SPECIAL isn't just another set of fluid develop-able stats, which fundamentally reduces all characters into the same mold.

Its not that we can be anything, its that we can be everything.
 
DrKrunkenstein said:
Sure. That is an RPG. That statement is true. as I haven't played it I couldn't possibly discuss its merits as an RPG. On the surface it looks like a CRPG, sure. But that doesn't intrinsically make it more of an RPG than an ARPG. They're both separate subgenres of RPG. The relevant dialogue is in how the game's systems interact, and how much agency the player has in the world - not whether combat is determined by a random number generator.
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What defines an RPG has never been about the dialogue, and many old RPGs gave you barely actual choices.

What defines an RPG is character skill being the determiner of it you succeed or fail. Witcher 1 is far more of an RPG then Witcher 3, because Geralt's ability in combat is far more based on him then you. Having dialogue options doesn't make a game an RPG, hell, Far cry games have dialogue options, and they are just straight up action-adventure games.
 
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