Fallout 4’s Character System

Actually though, after reading Howard's spiel (which is better than the video), the system doesn't seem that bad. Some of his reasoning is annoyingly stupid ("People didn't know assault rifles were Small Guns [which, to be fair, I didn't know the first time I played Fallout], so let's toss the whole thing out and pretend New Vegas never happened"), but it seems okay. The perks seem varied enough and the ranks aren't so basic. You'll get enough points at the beginning to make a halfway decent character and can then level them in a pretty normal manner. SPECIAL will be more important, although I hope that includes in more ways than combat (that is, extra dialogue choices for more stats than Charisma). Anyway, it's not bad. There were better options, but on second glance, it's passable.
 
Well, about what I expected honestly. It's passable system, but that's about it. Also, leveling is faster? It was already lightning fast in FO3...and coupled with no level cap, man, master of everything here I come lol
 
Gaddes said:
Well, about what I expected honestly. It's passable system, but that's about it. Also, leveling is faster? It was already lightning fast in FO3...and coupled with no level cap, man, master of everything here I come lol
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And this is my chief issue with Bethesda -- by conscious design, they follow the "jack of all trades, master of all" philosophy to a disturbing degree. No choice made at the beginning should limit accessibility to content, which is great in a FPS but very central to the ideas of choice and consequence RPGs adhere to. I suspect this is why traits were ditched, and why levels caps are out.

Yet, in a world post-Pillars of Eternity, Witcher 3, Shadowrun (x3), Dead State, Wasteland 2, Torment: Tides of Numenera (announcement), I'm a little more accepting of Fallout 4 than I was of 3. No, none of those games raise the bar too terribly on Fallout 2, in fact some were kind of horrible in certain respects (I'm looking at you, Wasteland 2), but the state of cRPGs in 2015 is a lot healthier than in 2008. Hell, 2008 was even before Dragon Age: Origin or Alpha Protocol came onto the scene. Before Planescape: Torment and Fallout were available via Gog, etc. In 2008, I felt like the lone guy who remembered Fallout as a glorious experience in my personal gaming circles. Nowadays, at least iconographically, that world has been kept alive and culturally relevant.

... and, I'll be honest, New Vegas -- for all its faults ("howdy, partner!") -- was the perfect palliative to my Fallout 3 ire. Perfect game? Not by a long shot, but at least it mediated the divide between myself and Bethesda's rape of my childhood loves.
 
I hate harping on other online communities, but I was browsing other gaming forums to see how people were reacting to this video. Enter this thread on NeoGAF. One person early on decides to make fun of the graphics and how out of date they are, and then 95% of the thread is discussing graphics instead of the content of the video. I'm not registered on GAF but there are a lot of RPG fans there so I was interested in their opinion, but because of one person the whole thread is ruined. Who cares about the graphics anyway? It's Bethesda, graphics haven't been their forté since Morrowind. Drop it already. :p
 
Honestly if the new perk system had 40-47(non-gifted vs gifted starting points from Fallout) special points you selected at start and there was no SPECIAL increases, no perks, bobbleheads, implants or quest rewards there might be a worthwhile system(better than Fallout 3). You have an actual build with strengths and weaknesses. Also assuming they would rebalance all perks since there was limited SPECIAL points, and skills would mostly be rolled into SPECIAL instead of perks. But current system has no builds, just a grind order.
 
Walpknut said:
I don't get how anyone can see at this simplistic and rigid system and call it an improvement.
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Somebody was talking about the removal of skills and the way Fallout 4 is doing things would lead to a deeper focus of character development then the previous games.
 
How are they going to do checks? Will they even do checks? As in skill checks and what not. That is rather sad if it's going to be based on SPECIAL only.

What? I doubt due to it's description and the fact the perks have never been used the same way as before from Bethesda game. Too have key unique dialogue sequences.

I'm convincing everyone i know too boycott this game. Fallout doesn't deserve this fate. I rather see this in the hands of EA then i would with Bethesda.
 
TransgenderVaultDeweller said:
How are they going to do checks? Will they even do checks? As in skill checks and what not. That is rather sad if it's going to be based on SPECIAL only.

What? I doubt due to it's description and the fact the perks have never been used the same way as before from Bethesda game. Too have key unique dialogue sequences.

I'm convincing everyone i know too boycott this game. Fallout doesn't deserve this fate. I rather see this in the hands of EA then i would with Bethesda.
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I tried that but I'm surrounded by Beth fans. Only my brother really agrees.
 
MercenarySnake said:
Walpknut said:
I don't get how anyone can see at this simplistic and rigid system and call it an improvement.
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Somebody was talking about the removal of skills and the way Fallout 4 is doing things would lead to a deeper focus of character development then the previous games.
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There are some r/Fallout posts that praise the new system. They try to explain it carefully, and I admire their effort, but I think in the end, they're wrong. This system does have an advantage of putting more emphasis on SPECIAL, but that's the only significant advantage I'm aware of as I type this. But in doing that, it brings more disadvantages that have been mentioned in the past few pages. I think it's a shame the game is this way; there are some pretty neat things like the synths and creatures, and I'm sure there will be some great faction and lore concepts, but I think how they handled the character system is a bad omen for RPG related things like writing and quest design.
 
No idea how removing an entire Layer of character customization and player interaction while making it so you can get every single perk and all Stats maxed out in a single run without exploits could ever result into a Deeper game....
 
Practicat said:
MercenarySnake said:
Walpknut said:
I don't get how anyone can see at this simplistic and rigid system and call it an improvement.
Click to expand...
Somebody was talking about the removal of skills and the way Fallout 4 is doing things would lead to a deeper focus of character development then the previous games.
Click to expand...

There are some r/Fallout posts that praise the new system. They try to explain it carefully, and I admire their effort, but I think in the end, they're wrong. This system does have an advantage of putting more emphasis on SPECIAL, but that's the only significant advantage I'm aware of as I type this. But in doing that, it brings more disadvantages that have been mentioned in the past few pages. I think it's a shame the game is this way; there are some pretty neat things like the synths and creatures, and I'm sure there will be some great faction and lore concepts, but I think how they handled the character system is a bad omen for RPG related things like writing and quest design.
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I'm wondering if you have to unlock skills like lockpicking by putting 6 points into Perception because if that's true i'm finding that a silly way to...who am I kidding the implementing of this SPECIAL system from what was shown looks like a joke.
 
Level 4 Perception and Intelligence have the icons for Lockpicking and hacking respectively so it will probably be a perk where ever rank lets you hack/Lockpick a "harder" type of terminal/lock. So they didn't even fix the issue with Lockpicking being kind of barebones, they just turned them into a specific perk. Great Game design.
 
MaulYoda said:
What I liked about Fallout - even Fallout 3 - was that there weren't any real classes. Sure, SPECIAL was more set in stone, but you could make a smooth-talking idiot or a gunslinger handy with a lock pick or any sort of combination you wanted. Fallout 4 looks too confining, because you have to focus on one branch mostly at the expense of others if you want to get anywhere (and play the game a normal amount, because an unlimited level cap means you can technically get every perk). So you can be a strength person, an intelligence person, etc., but it seems like character classes. I don't want character classes in Fallout. Not to mention that I now have to choose skills as perks (which I've known for a while). Some may call those "hard choices." I call that way too confining.

Bethesda did this to create some balance and get around the unlimited level cap. But why not implement even a Skyrim-type system instead of this mess, or why not have the skills go up to 200 or something like in Fallout 1 and 2 and just dole out fewer skill points per level?

To be fair, I'm sure Fallout 4 will still be fun and I'll dump enough hours into the game to get every perk and so none of this will matter. The perk system might pan out better than I thought (at least it's non-linear unlike Skyrim), and some of the perks might actually be creative. But thus far, I'm skeptical. It's such a shame after New Vegas did so well putting the RPG elements back in Fallout, and it's even a step below 3.
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You can't really make a "smooth talker" in FO3. There are barely any speech checks in that game.
 
Actually there is a bunch of speech checks in Fo3, but they let you access that many alternate routes in quests (because there aren't that many) and the game still forces you into combat on a lot of occassions.
 
Walpknut said:
Level 4 Perception and Intelligence have the icons for Lockpicking and hacking respectively so it will probably be a perk where ever rank lets you hack/Lockpick a "harder" type of terminal/lock. So they didn't even fix the issue with Lockpicking being kind of barebones, they just turned them into a specific perk. Great Game design.
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That would be silly if the special stat you put points into because the character you were creating was good at lockpicking(let's say 7 points), if that stat is a skill dump because every perk besides lockpicking is useless then that right there is a terrible system.
Oh wait I forgot, the no level cap and being able to put points into special until everything is maxed out is included.
 
I guess part of the problem is the design-direction they have at Bethesda for their game. The idea that you never ever let the player "fail" at something. Like failing in a quest which requires very high spech skills because he decided to create a very combat oriented character or the other way, creating a "diplomath" and thus failing in situation where you simply can't avoid combat. Imagine the self esteem of little Jimmy here! It's I guess also one of the reasons why most quests have usually only one outcome, almost no consequences, and why every character can finish them, no mater what skills he chose.
 
ChildServices said:
They somehow managed to simplify Skyrim's character system even more.
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I think it's still slightly better than Skyrim's system, since remember that Skyrim had only three attributes, and every level you would automatically increase one of them. Fallout 4 will have 7 attributes and you will choose to increase one *or* take a perk.

The trees are linear, but a lot of the time the Skyrim ones were too (i.e. you only needed to take the left half or the right half of smithing tree depending on what kind of armor you wanted, light or heavy, as the ultimate perk lets you make the best armor in each type.)
 
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