Fallout 3: Skills and Perks

[Eyenixon]

I really don't know what to say... I know nothing of that reputation system, and I honestly doubt anyone really does.

Have you played that game yourself, and tested the reputation system out?

Also, to go back to the "evil" finger thing. Finger printing was used in New York in 1906 as a way to i.d. criminals, and had been around for quite sometime before that. I can see that as a plausible way for them to be able to tell who was "evil", since I also figure that they could probably gather finger prints from bullet casings or whatever else.

If that doesn't work as a reason for you, then lets just go with DNA testing to find aggression.

So some motherfucker out in the desert set up shop fingerprinting every bullet casing that could even remotely be linked to an act of "evil" in the wastes then putting up wanted pos- no wait, scratch that, telepathically signaling your brain telling you that you must "KILL EVIL PEOPLE, I WILL IMMEDIATELY RECOGNIZE THEIR FINGERS FROM MY EXTENSIVE FORENSICS LABORATORY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WASTES WHERE I HAVE PAINSTAKINGLY SCOURED EVERY INCH OF THIS WASTELAND FOR THE TINIEST PIECES OF EVIDENCE WITH NO REAL SUBSTANTIATED PROOF TO BACK UP THE INFERENCE THAT IT HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH SOMEONE EVIL."

Face it, there's no way this makes sense in any way shape or form, you can argue that Fallout has already had its variety of silly things, but this is bordering on the nonsensical pointless area of reasoning where there is absolutely no logic behind it at all. This isn't wacky 50's sci-fi stuff, this is someone taking the liberty with a flexible setting to continuously add more idiotic things to an already bizarre formula until it decays from campy to completely moronic.

 

[Ausir]

For me, Lawbringer is worse than the Fatman.

 

[Outbreak]

Although I personally believe Beth gets more flak than they deserve in some cases, this is a good example where, even if they did think it out seriously behind closed doors, the final product causes people to think otherwise. Not in all of the perks, but the 'Solar Powered' perk for example; It took me two seconds to come up with 'absorb radiation from the sun' in order for it to make sense, but Beth just says basically, "your strong when you're in the sun." Uh...ok... That kind of thing just makes you think Beth just said, "I want to regain health!" and throws out the first thing that comes to mind. With the radiation explanation, it's not so bad, but just saying it happens cause it does...not good.

Fallout is the kind of game where even if it's Sci-Fi, it's based on a reality, and that reality needs a little more explanation. Just like with the fingers...we can speculate, but we shouldn't have to. It should be plain as day. It could have been as easy as saying, "every once in a while you run into wanted criminals. Collect their dog tags/head/whatever for a reward from whatever town they are wanted in." Although it COULD be fingerprinting, they may never explain it, coming down to just handing random fingers to a strange guy in a trenchcoat and hat. Bleh... It sucks cause the general idea is good.

 

[Ausir]

Well, "Solar Powered" isn't really much different from "Night Person" (at least from Beth's perk version, with disadvantages removed).

 

[Outbreak]

True.

I miss the disadvantages BTW. I know they didn't have them in the perks, but I wish they hadn't of taken away the traits. When I saw one of the interviews about it, they didn't seem to understand the point of traits w/disadvantages at all. I always thought they made the character more distinct and interesting.

 

[Ausir]

Bethesda doesn't seem to understand the point of disadvantages in general. Note that drugs don't have disadvantages now, aside from addiction. E.g. old Psycho: +3 Agility, -3 Intelligence, +50 Damage Resistance. New Psycho: Damage +25%.

 

[Bofast]

I, for one, wouldn't be surprised if (assuming there will appear mods at some point) there will be a mod made which makes you green and sprouting leaves if you pick this outrageously ridiculous perk

 

[TheGM]

For me, Lawbringer is worse than the Fatman.

Wow Really?

I don't know enough about lawbringer to say something like that.

but I really think the fat man is fucking stupid.

 

[Gentlemen]

Well, at least the perks aren't as dumb as that FO 1 perk, Friendly Foe, that let you see friendly people in green. That should have been there in the first place.

 

[generalissimofurioso]

Lawbringer could work if it were a learned perk like Gecko Skinning.

And if it could be abused by just taking anyone's fingers to the guy and duping the shit out of him.

Sigh... just one more thing that needs fixing I suppose (adds it to the list)

 

[Outbreak]

Yeah, having the 'finger collector' relying on your good reputation solely, allowing you to lie about where you got it from would be cool IMO. Also, if you had a bad reputation, you wouldn't be able to do it at all.

What I would have liked better actually, in regard to taking parts, would have been 'Organ Collector' where you would just be able to take anything from a foot to a heart, chuck it into an old ice chest and take it in to a mad doctor like Doc Morbid. Bad Karma of course, but sick fun.

 

[Jiggly McNerdington]

These at least sound a bit better than the "Gun nut, you love guns! +5% on gun skills!" sort of perks. But as has been mentioned, most of them are pretty horrible.

Still... Some of them I can overlook. Solar powered makes about as much sense as slayer and sniper. Though most of the original perks still make sense. And as has been mentioned, lawbringer doesn't make any sense at all. I could sort of understand it if it was a learned perk, as in you clean up such and such town, and Old Lawman Bob decides that your character is honest, and will pay for fingers. But as-is you just have to be level 14, then all of a sudden you know of some guy who will pay for single fingers of only only bad people. There isn't even a requisite amount of positive karma to take the perk, you can be a horrible son of a bitch but you'll be able to trade in evil fingers to some guy, and you won't even be able to rip him off.

God damn. Even though I liked Oblivion, the lack of thought that goes in to so much of their games makes me twitch. Especially when I have even higher expectations of a Fallout game than I do of a TES game. Fuck. This year looked so promising for games, then Crysis Warhead, Spore, Stalker Clear Sky, Peggle Nights and Red Alert 3 all get saddled with limited activations DRM, Warhammer Online looks incredibly unsatisfying, and Fallout 3 continues to look disappointing. Really bums me out.

 

[Ureshi]

<blockquote> Solar Powered
Ranks Available: 1, Requirements: Level 20, Endurance 7
With the Solar Powered perk, you gain an additional 2 points to Strength when in direct sunlight, and slowly regenerate lost Health.

Lawbringer
Ranks Available: 1, Requirements: Level 14
Once you have the Lawbringer perk, any evil character you kill will have a finger on their corpse. This finger can then be sold to a certain person (whose identity is disclosed when you take the perk) for caps and positive Karma.

Retarded....

Child at Heart
Ranks Available: 1, Requirements: Level 4, Charisma 4
The Child at Heart perk greatly improves your interactions with children, usually in the form of unique dialogue choices.</blockquote>

OMGWTF!!!

 

[Outbreak]

I'm not an expert, but I think what some of this comes down to is the fact that these companies are so big nowadays, that if they don't have a very specific goal ingrained into the staff from the start, then you get some wonky things that barely have time to be smoothed out in the end. Just like Beth's way of working, "do a bunch of stuff and work it out later." Because of that, you might get one guy thinking he's creating Mad Max 4, while another has his head stuck in Dungeons & Dragons. Once it all comes together, they just wrap it up and hope it works; or so it seems, and Beth aren't the only ones doing this now. I actually feel bad for some of the press guys just cause they may have to work with something they didn't expect. Just like, I actually think a lot of Fallout 3 looks like a lot of fun, with good effort, and I'm a huge fan of 1, 2 and yes, even Tactics, but then you hit parts where it's just like you said, Jiggly, WTH is this?

I think it's like movies. Most movies I enjoy deeply are created, written and directed by one guy while the rest of the staff/actors revolve around him. Stuff coming from 10 different directions doesn't turn out so good cause you have too many voices, especially through greedy producers, and the end product goes to hell. Input is good, but taking all of the input and throwing out huge pieces of your original plan is not. I like jerky and chocolate, but not at the same time. I can already tell that some of the people at Beth probably adored Fallout 1 & 2, while others would rather be playing Halo. That's probably the biggest loss of how old PC games, etc. were done. There was more love from fewer people with similar ideas.

Ah, and @Jiggly: I think the tail end of this year and the beginning of 2009 will hold a lot of promise for games.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

Animal Friend
Ranks Available: 2, Requirements: Level 10, Charisma 6
At the first rank of this perk, animals simply won't attack. At the second rank, they will eventually come to your aid in combat, but never against another animal. This perk affects the Dog, Yao Guai, Mole Rat, and Brahmin.

Interesting though it's interesting that they made it no longer affect bugs (used to affect radscorpions and could affect cockroaches in F3).

Gunslinger
Ranks Available: 1, Requirements: Level 6
While using a pistol (or similar one-handed weapon), your accuracy in V.A.T.S. is significantly increased.

Since when are all gunslingers pistol specialists? Regardless, I don't know why they didn't just keep the name previously used for this when it was a trait, One Hander...

Comprehension
Ranks Available: 1, Requirements: Level 4, Charisma 4
With the Comprehension perk, you gain one additional skill point whenever a skill book is read.

Not sure why they changed it from how it previously worked...

Lawbringer
Ranks Available: 1, Requirements: Level 14
Once you have the Lawbringer perk, any evil character you kill will have a finger on their corpse. This finger can then be sold to a certain person (whose identity is disclosed when you take the perk) for caps and positive Karma.

The stupidity of this has been explored pretty well.

Concentrated Fire
Ranks Available: 1, Requirements: Level 18, Small Guns 60%, Energy Weapons 60%
With Concentrated Fire, your accuracy to hit any body part in V.A.T.S. increases slightly with each subsequent hit on that body part.

From what I've seen of VATS, this perk is useless.

Child at Heart
Ranks Available: 1, Requirements: Level 4, Charisma 4
The Child at Heart perk greatly improves your interactions with children, usually in the form of unique dialogue choices.

I think that this could open up some hilarious dialogue options myself. I'm not saying go full pedophile, I'm saying infer it in many different dialogue options for humorous effect but I can all but assure you that this won't be in the game.

Solar Powered
Ranks Available: 1, Requirements: Level 20, Endurance 7
With the Solar Powered perk, you gain an additional 2 points to Strength when in direct sunlight, and slowly regenerate lost Health.

So I can play as Birdman?

Hahahah. Their explanation is crap and it shouldn't heal you but the idea of a day version of Night Person is a good one.

 

[Ausir]

So I can play as Birdman?

Do you have a crest?

 

[Seymour the spore plant]

Lawbringer looks a lot like Gecko Skinning sans the common sense. I actually find it an interesting concept, like a different take on loot perks such as Fortune Finder, but horribly executed. That, and I'd call it "Bounty Hunter".

Well, "Solar Powered" isn't really much different from "Night Person" (at least from Beth's perk version, with disadvantages removed).

I disagree, to me it makes a lot more sense having a character's mental acumen be higher during a specific time of the day than having his physical attributes shift like that. I suppose changes in stamina could be explained just as easily, but regeneration seems too big a stretch.

Perhaps it is simply a matter of presentation - the original made it sound plausible, while Fallout 3 makes it sound like a superpower. I'd make it lower level, +1 ST and AG during daytime and call it "Early Bird" or something to that effect.

 

[Bionicpope]

For me, Lawbringer is worse than the Fatman.

Wow... I think you really need to let some things go, and realize that this is a video game, and things that might be impossible happen.

When you watched Star Wars, did you scream out "LIES, THIS IS ALL LIES!"

I think this is the worst thing sometimes. I have some friends, who when playing Assassins Creed, got pissed off because no one drew the connection between the white robed guy, and all the deaths of important people. I mean really, it is fiction, just enjoy the ride.

 

[Makenshi]

Rofl, it took me about 8 posts to realize wtf you all were talking about when you kept mentioning pedophiles.

Only a pedophile would think that in the first place. Fucking perverts.

In the end, you realized it as well, which proves only that you are a slowpoke pervert.

Seriously, don't come in here flaming people just because you don't like our jokes. In only 11 posts you already have 1 strike, and that's bad for you.

Well, "Solar Powered" isn't really much different from "Night Person" (at least from Beth's perk version, with disadvantages removed).

I disagree, to me it makes a lot more sense having a character's mental acumen be higher during a specific time of the day than having his physical attributes shift like that. I suppose changes in stamina could be explained just as easily, but regeneration seems too big a stretch.

Perhaps it is simply a matter of presentation - the original made it sound plausible, while Fallout 3 makes it sound like a superpower. I'd make it lower level, +1 ST and AG during daytime and call it "Early Bird" or something to that effect.

I agree. Jovial vault dweller with more disposition during the day than at night is better explanation than Superman (alright yellow sun, gimme powa!)

 

[EnglishMuffin]

Do you have a crest?

I HAS A CREST!

It still amazes me how I went from pre-ordering with nearly zero information to canceling and even loathing the game every time more information is released.

Bethesda is truly the Ryan Seacrest of the gaming industry.