Fallout 2: Is "Swift Learner" useless?

[Humppa Papan Tappaa]

Personally I don't see much point to it. The experience bonus per level is trivial, nothing you can't get in one good random encounter.

The whole point of the perk is to spare you that one random encounter's worth of trouble per level.

Obviously Swift Learner isn't what you'd call "good", since the effect is small and hard to notice, but it isn't useless either - in fact, it's one of the most consistently useful perks in the game in that it helps you with its full effect no matter what your character or play style is like. Check the 3rd and 6th level perk choices: how many better options do you really see? I see only maybe three, four on each level (out of about 20 each). SL sits comfortably above rubbish like Adrenaline Rush or Rad Resistance and even the various skill++ perks, yet people act like it reduces all your stats to 1 or something.

I'm looking at you too, Per - you made the "SL is the worst perk ever because it only gives you levels, and doesn't even do that well" argument yourself in your guides, both of them (right after labeling the largely cosmetic Awareness such an obvious auto-pick for every character that you didn't bother giving reasons, and advised that every character should have PE 5 just for that - really, I appreciate all the hard data on cities and quests and things, but find your strategy advice questionable here).

 

[Sander]

At least any of Awareness, Quick Pockets, Thief or Night Vision lets you do something or enhances your character, unlike Swift Learner which is a pure meta-effect. There's fun and flavour value in that.

Yet this wasn't about fun or flavour but about usefulness of the perk, and when speaking about usefulness, those Awareness, Quick Pockets, Thief and Night Vision also all depend on what you personally prefer for your playing style, which basically means that none of them are really better.

 

[Per]

I don't mean partial level-ups. I mean that since you usually just manage to pass level 20 in F2, the +5% XP equates to an extra level-up. (20x105%=21)

Nope, that's not how it works either. It would if the required xp per level was constant, so that level progression looked like 1000, 2000, 3000, ... However, since it's really 1000, 3000, 6000, ..., we get a different effect from a fixed proportional bonus. In fact, if you take only one rank of SL, you'll not get a whole level ahead until level 42, whereafter you rise to 43 at the same time the non-SL character reaches 42. At level 15, there's a difference of some 5000 xp, which corresponds to one major quest or two minor ones. You'd be hard pressed to even notice the difference, let alone sit up and go "Yay, my level 3 perk is paying off!"

SL sits comfortably above rubbish like Adrenaline Rush or Rad Resistance and even the various skill++ perks, yet people act like it reduces all your stats to 1 or something.

I'm looking at you too, Per

You'll notice I termed it the most "deceptively lousy" perk (assuming you don't count those that don't even do what they say they do), because people look at it - as I did when I went through the manual the first time - and think, yeah, that's OK, that's balanced. And people do pick it. I don't think I reflected on it myself until I read whitechocobo666's assessment (he grades Swift Learner 2/5, while making Awareness the only top grade level 3 perk ), and even then I had to whip up a small program (in TurboPascal - @ Ratty) to grasp just what effect it really has. Comparing it to perks like Adrenaline Rush or Snakeater doesn't really say much.

Interestingly enough, here none other than Sean K. Reynolds argues that a proportional xp penalty is an inadequate alternative to Level Adjustment in the d20 system, since the impact is too small (especially at low levels, which is his main argument, but if you keep the bonus at 5% this stretches out quite a bit, as we've seen). The d20 system works identically to Fallout regarding xp and levels.

For final coffin nailage, if the main purpose of Swift Learner is to get faster to better perks, that even further dilutes its alleged goodness, since only at every third timespan when the SL character is ahead a level will there actually be a perk involved; the rest of the time you either get nothing, or a handful of HP and skill points which don't really contribute much to perkworthiness.

Awareness, Quick Pockets, Thief and Night Vision also all depend on what you personally prefer for your playing style, which basically means that none of them are really better.

That argument seems pretty watered down to me. For all purposes I consider when selecting perks, they are better.

 

[Humppa Papan Tappaa]

For final coffin nailage, if the main purpose of Swift Learner is to get faster to better perks, that even further dilutes its alleged goodness, since only at every third timespan when the SL character is ahead a level will there actually be a perk involved; the rest of the time you either get nothing, or a handful of HP and skill points which don't really contribute much to perkworthiness.

Careful, you're treading close to that same fallacy again - that SL only pays off after it has put you permanently an entire level ahead of somebody without it (a rather crazy requirement which it'll of course for all practical purposes never fulfill), and that the sum total of the payoff is whatever amount of SKP, HP and possibly perks you get out of the level where that happens. That would only hold true if you would hop, skip and jump your way through the game in exactly level-sized chunks, gaining 1k, 2k, 3k... XP at once, instead of gradually progressing there in fine increments.

In truth, Swift Learner is doing its job just fine if you never get your entire current level's worth of XP out of it. Its job is simply to speed things up that extra 4.8% for you for the entire game. You'll get every level-up benefit of every level, perks included, 4.8% earlier than the guy without SL. Yeah, it's not exactly a giant benefit, but to label its net worth as just 2+EN/2 HP and 2+IN*2 SKP per forty-two levels is a grave injustice - because of the perks.*

Similarly, another hated perk, Here And Now, unless you pick it at level 24, isn't a perk that only gives you HP and SKP either - it's another perk that gets you closer to the more interesting perks (up to and including level 12, a HAN picked at level 3 actually does SL's job better than SL itself). The argument that there are better perks than these two to get skill points and/or HP with is perfectly true - however, there are no better (or other) perks to get perks with.

This is what a single level of SL picked at L3 effectively does to your EXP requirement table (factoring in that SL doesn't affect the first 3k EXP, which makes a difference of 143 XP total):

 L4:  6000   = 3+3   -> 5858
 L5:  10000  = 3+7   -> 9667
 L6:  15000  = 3+12  -> 14429
 L7:  21000  = 3+18  -> 20143
 L8:  28000  = 3+25  -> 26810
 L9:  36000  = 3+33  -> 34429
 L10: 45000  = 3+42  -> 43000
 L11: 55000  = 3+52  -> 52524
 L12: 66000  = 3+63  -> 63000
 L13: 78000  = 3+75  -> 74429
 L14: 91000  = 3+88  -> 86810
 L15: 105000 = 3+102 -> 100143
 L16: 120000 = 3+117 -> 114429
 L17: 136000 = 3+133 -> 129667
 L18: 153000 = 3+150 -> 145858
 L19: 171000 = 3+168 -> 163000
 L20: 190000 = 3+187 -> 181096
 L21: 210000 = 3+207 -> 200143
 ...

*) If one would want to sum up SL's total "worth" in a formula like that, it'd have to be something along the lines of (HP of one level-up + SKP of one level-up + the average 'worth' of every later perk you're going to get divided by 3) divided by 20, then multiplied by the number of levels you'll play through.

(I think I'll highlight that, because it's such a kickass observation. Ain't I clever?)

Assuming your game lasts 21 levels exactly, you'd get roughly one full dose of SKP & HP and a third of the effect of some 12th level perk at the price of just a 3rd level perk. Which, well, isn't the Best Ever, but it's not that bad either.

 

[Per]

That would only hold true if you would hop, skip and jump your way through the game in exactly level-sized chunks, gaining 1k, 2k, 3k... XP at once, instead of gradually progressing there in fine increments.

They're not level-sized, but they are chunks, and that comes into play here.

If one would want to sum up SL's total "worth" in a formula like that, it'd have to be something along the lines of (HP of one level-up + SKP of one level-up + the average 'worth' of every later perk you're going to get divided by 3) divided by 20, then multiplied by the number of levels you'll play through.

I'd like to emphasize that you can't use just these simplified mathematics to judge the perk accurately. I tried to modify my program to say how much time the SL character spends having an extra level and/or feat, but it turned out the result varies wildly with the parameters, specifically how much xp you dish out per unit of time, how that scales as you progress further into the game, and at which point you choose to end the game.

We can however judge the HP/SKP aspect of the perk by approximating them with an absolute upper boundary. Say there was a fire-and-forget perk with no impact on levelling like this:

LEVEL-UP STUFF [FALLOUT]
By a twist of fate you've reaped the effects of levelling up without actually having to do so.
Prerequisite: Character level 3rd.
Benefit: You gain 4 HP and 8 SKP.

I think no one would dispute that this is very weak, and it's strictly better than the corresponding effect of SL. It would be nice as a bonus to some other perk worth taking (cf. Living Anatomy), so it comes down to how you look at the "get perks slightly earlier" aspect of it. Incidentally, if you think this effect is appreciable and desirable, you must think that the people who defend the Skilled trait are out of their minds.

 

[Silencer]

the people who defend the Skilled trait are out of their minds.

Yes, they are. Sure, the skill bonus is nice, but in the end, it just makes you miss out on the fine-tun perfecting of your character with books and stuff. And every 12 levels you effectively miss out on a perk! This will make you miss at least TWO by the end game.

I admit, though, you can use it to harvest your "first" perk from the pool of 6-or-higher level perks (by waiting two levels to take it) but that's it.

 

[Humppa Papan Tappaa]

We can however judge the HP/SKP aspect of the perk by approximating them with an absolute upper boundary. Say there was a fire-and-forget perk with no impact on levelling like this:

LEVEL-UP STUFF [FALLOUT]
By a twist of fate you've reaped the effects of levelling up without actually having to do so.
Prerequisite: Character level 3rd.
Benefit: You gain 4 HP and 8 SKP.

Um... That perk assumes an EN of 4 and an IN of 1.5? You get up to 7 HP and 25 SKP per level.

(Are skill++ perks affected by tag skills, BTW?)

 

[Silencer]

(Are skill++ perks affected by tag skills, BTW?)

I believe not, once it was designed that one'd get a number of Skill Points with a skill++ Perk and the effect would equal those points distributed in a regular fashion, but now one gets a fixed increase. Which is nice if the skill is untagged or very high.

 

[Humppa Papan Tappaa]

(Are skill++ perks affected by tag skills, BTW?)

I believe not, once it was designed that one'd get a number of Skill Points with a skill++ Perk and the effect would equal those points distributed in a regular fashion, but now one gets a fixed increase. Which is nice if the skill is untagged or very high.

Well if they're not, 25 SKP is far better than any skill++ perk not named "Tag!".

 

[Silencer]

It depends. I never take skill++ perks, because there are much better ones. Unless it's a really long game, I've killed most of the wasteland (as if it were possible LOL) and have already got all the useful perks. Note that if you maxed out a skill above, say, 120%, it pays off to have it increased by a perk, than otherwise.

But there are few skills you need to boost to high levels, there are no skill++ Perks for combat skills.

The only ones I can think of taking are Living Anatomy (Doctor , but also for the damage bonus) and Mr. Fixit (though for the sole purpose of getting SkyNet, otherwise you can sufficiently boost Science and Repair by reading books.

Also, 25 SKP assumes you don't have Gifted and maxed out IN, which is unlikely.

 

[Humppa Papan Tappaa]

Also, 25 SKP assumes you don't have Gifted and maxed out IN, which is unlikely.

True, but Per spoke of establishing an upper limit, and the upper limit is 7 HP and 25 SKP, discounting other perks and traits.

With Gifted, "4 HP, 8 SKP" still assumes both EN and IN of 4, a very odd character. 16-20 SKP (8-10 IN) is what I consider a normal dose for a character with Gifted.

 

[Per]

Um... That perk assumes an EN of 4 and an IN of 1.5? You get up to 7 HP and 25 SKP per level.

A mistake; I thought skill points were 5+IN/2 instead of 5+IN*2, so that should be 4 HP and 19 SKP for the build I was thinking of. (I'm not letting you plunk down points to EN to get more out of this.) That the skill points are doubled if you sink them into tag skills is pretty irrelevant since that goes for all skill points. You'd be unlikely to ever "lose" more than 7.5 points from a skill point perk by boosting tagged skills; all the others substitute for ordinary points that can be placed in tagged skills as usual.

 

[Humppa Papan Tappaa]

Another problem with skill++ perks is that they tend to divide their bonuses between skills you care about and skills you don't (sometimes only those you don't). Just mentioning.


As for the Skilled trait, it's not like the concept is inherently flawed - it's just too weak, that's all. It slows down your perk progress by a third while speeding up your skill progress usually by less than that, and I do think perks in general are simply more important than skills.

(I've got no idea why they nerfed it between FO1 and 2. It's not like it was overpowered.)

While skills dominate the early game they stop really mattering after a short while (basically, at the point where all your tag skills are at 100%, which should happen by level six or seven), whereas the perks just get better and better until the end of the game. I dare think most players care more about their next RoF or Better Crits or whatever than a couple more points to a skill they've already raised to 100%.

 

[DrömmarnasStig]

Hi, new to the forum and relatively new to the game.

In this interesting discussion nobody mentioned further developement of the SL perk. You were only talking about level 1 which grants you 5 %. Maybe it's a moot point to even discuss a fully developed SL perk, but maybe not.

In my first try I chose SL because it sounded reasonable.
Then I read Per's brilliant walkthrough and the next five runs never took the perk again.
In my last game though I did not only pick one, but all three levels of SL right at the beginning (meaning level 3,6,9).

That should boost my experience to plus 15 %, right?
That was the first game where I reached level 28 and that fairly easily, not even close to solving all quests.
(Every new fallout 2 session I get lazier and lazier...)

I got the game only 3 months ago, but pretty much played it without a break and read everything I could about it.

Now I mostly play it for experience and building up an invincible character who exterminates mankind... after saving it first.
The Swift Learner (all three levels) perk seems reasonable to me.

 

[Silencer]

The Swift Learner (all three levels) perk seems reasonable to me.

Sacrificing all the valuable perks you can get from level 6 up? I don't think so, since you could get Educated or Quick Recovery at Level 6, and Better Criticals at Level 9