Five Lessons Fallout 4 Can Learn From Skyrim

[Dragula]

I'm all for gaining by using the skills. Makes more sense.

"Makes more sense" doesn't always mean is more fun".

It's more fun for me.

It might make more sense and be more 'realistic', but I think it unbalances the game. Besides, it takes away from certain aspects of a skill-based RPG (rather than class-based), i.e. the freedom to shape your character the way you want, not the way your class is supposed to be shaped.

What do you mean? You shape your own character by training the skills you want. It's just stupid if you go around meleeing down everything in Fallout 2 and then just increase in guns, with no training whatsoever.

 

[Sub-Human]

Exactly. So you have no choice in what activity you are to do if you want to level up a certain skill, i.e. guns.

In my opinion, if I'm meleeing everything on my way then I'm more likely to level up melee, but what if I wanted to invest a point or two into Science, or even Guns to pass a certain check or complete a quest? Then do I have to invest money into buying potion ingredients (OK, I dunno really) to level up my science, and buy a pistol and ammo and shoot some geckos?

It allows a more flexible activity of your character, thus you shape him more freely, and it's kind of fun for me too.

 

[Dragula]

You have all kinds of choice, if you want to be a gunman, use guns. And yes, what's wrong with making your choices count? If you never used melee, why should you be good at it?

 

[Sub-Human]

You have all kinds of choice, if you want to be a gunman, use guns. And yes, what's wrong with making your choices count? If you never used melee, why should you be good at it?

I understand it might be fun because it seems more 'realistic' (then again, I can't speak for you), but still, again, I don't want to invest into proper equipment to train a skill I want for a quest check or something.

 

[Dragula]

If you need a skill for a quest, it's bad quest design. You should be able to complete it the way you have played and trained your skills.

 

[Sub-Human]

If you need a skill for a quest, it's bad quest design. You should be able to complete it the way you have played and trained your skills.

Well, perhaps you don't wish to go the violent way or something. Besides, these checks are not always mandatory for quests - I'm supposing a dialogue check for a companion could be one option.

 

[Dragula]

So, you just want to meta game and do all the things in one playthrough? Sure I can understand that. I rather start over and try a new character.

 

[Sub-Human]

So, you just want to meta game and do all the things in one playthrough? Sure I can understand that. I rather start over and try a new character.

No, I'm actually against meta gaming because I don't get to shape my character. Just that I like more flexibility when doing so.

 

[Dragula]

But if it's your first playthrough, you wouldnt even know of that science check. Unless you look up a guide or something, which makes your argument moot.

 

[Sub-Human]

Yeah well, perhaps the character tells you 'you don't have enough experience behind the belt, son'.

I'm just making bland examples here; I could take my time and think of better ones, but I'm at a kind of a loss here.

 

[Dragula]

Imo the writer has failed if there is any kind of "You need this much of this skill to do this" in the dialogue, it should be hidden and you shouldn't notice it at all.

 

[Sabirah]

I'm all for gaining by using the skills. Makes more sense.

Same. It would make more sense if say, you were better at talking to people because you did it often.


Although they do have to make sure to program it well

 

[dev]

The only one difference between Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 will be the number at the end of the tittle. Bethesda is too dumb to make any progress, and too smart to change anything, because for what, if both - FO3 and last Elder Scrolls - was sold well.

 

[EnigmaGrey]

Personally, I dislike all improve-through-doing systems I've encountered. They limit the amount of time I have to experience the world by "forcing" me to grind incessantly, as I can't transfer points between unrelated skills.

It's too much like . . . life.

 

[TheGM]

I always found it funny(and stupid) that my character, who has been living in the wasteland his whole life, has only decided in the last 4 to 5 weeks to get his shit together and now knows how to properly fire a gun or buy a damn burrito.

 

[EnigmaGrey]

I always found it funny(and stupid) that my character, who has been living in the wasteland his whole life, has only decided in the last 4 to 5 weeks to get his shit together and now knows how to properly fire a gun or buy a damn burrito.

I suppose it depends on how long you perceive that prior life to be, how competent the contemporary Wastelander is at firing a gun or acquiring burritos, and the past experiences your character may have had.

Most games don't offer psychological profiling prior to character initialization, though.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

It might make more sense and be more 'realistic', but I think it unbalances the game. Besides, it takes away from certain aspects of a skill-based RPG (rather than class-based), i.e. the freedom to shape your character the way you want, not the way your class is supposed to be shaped.

I'd argue that it worked pretty well in Wizardry 8 but that's really the only example I can think of. I'd also say that it works best with combat skills and skills like lockpicking that you use a lot organically. Crafting skills require a grind unless the game can find a way to organically make you craft frequently throughout, which is hard. I also think that part of why it worked well in Wizardry 8 was that you had a party with each character having a different specialty. Also each type of magic had it's own MP so you weren't as boxed into power leveling a single type of magic.

What do you mean? You shape your own character by training the skills you want. It's just stupid if you go around meleeing down everything in Fallout 2 and then just increase in guns, with no training whatsoever.

Using Fallout as an example, if you want to be good at energy weapons or big guns then you won't even be able to use them until around halfway through the game (without having played the game before), so you'd be at a huge disadvantage. It fucks up the skill balance. Granted, in such a system there are ways to get around it to a cetain extent (have interconnected skills) but still.

Imo the writer has failed if there is any kind of "You need this much of this skill to do this" in the dialogue, it should be hidden and you shouldn't notice it at all.

I disagree. I think it's a preference and should be an option that can be toggled. I have no problem with Fallout 3/New Vegas telling me what level I need my skills at to complete the task as then I can build my character according to what I want to be able to do.

Same. It would make more sense if say, you were better at talking to people because you did it often.

Oblivion tried that and proved, unsurprisingly, that it's completely obnoxious and a bad skill to level in that way. I actually think that merging speech with barter would be good as speech is only used in dialogue sometimes. It removes redundancy.

Granted I'd also be more for a tree like skill system, for instance with Firearms as a category and the weapon types as subskills. It's rather pointless for current Fallout games since you can max everything anyway but it would certainly be great for "learn by doing" systems. That way as you get better with a sword you can more easily pick up other melee weapons and suck less with them and, maybe, level them up faster.

 

[Walpknut]

You know, I find hard to take the level up skill by repeating system as more IMMURSHUNIZT when the game has Autoregenrative health.

 

[Crni Vuk]

I'm all for gaining by using the skills. Makes more sense.

"Makes more sense" doesn't always mean is more fun".

It's more fun for me.
.

But is it Fallout ?

Fallout had already a "decent" system. Why making it worse ? The idea actually was that it didn't followed any Elder Scroll system but that it allowed you to chose your skills as how you saw them fit.

I don't mind the "get better by using" system. But not for Fallout please. If anything they should try to make it as close as possible to the previous games. I am not saying they cant be improved. But what they at least did with F3 was not an improvement.

What do you mean? You shape your own character by training the skills you want. It's just stupid if you go around meleeing down everything in Fallout 2 and then just increase in guns, with no training whatsoever.

Well at least it removes the need for "grinding" because you can invest in the skills you want. If you want only to use melee but invenst in guns you will pay for that later. So naturally you invest in the combat skills you want to use. Otherwise it would be a rather hard game. Fallout 1/2 have been way less forgiving in that part then Fallout 3 where you didn't need any combat skills at all to achieve what you want. Just enough stim packs. Because you will always do "some" damage. So with such a system like we see in Oblivion/Skyrim the "skills" points matter much less then in a game like Fallout which was at least somewhat based on the principles of PnP. Why not stick to it ? That was what the originals used. For a reason. - So to say that to me personaly Fallouts system made more sense as it meant that you had at some point to specialice and invest "points" in your skill if you wanted to use it later otherwise you would neither hit the enemy nor have much success while in Fallout 3 you could even with a very low melee skill get a pipe and club the mutants in to the ground. If you had enough health/armor/stims at your disposal. Not something which I experience as that much "more" logic.





You know I see where you are coming from and I see your logic and respect it. But I disagree with you. Because it is not the System I liked for Fallout. It does not mean I "hate" it. I think it fits somewhat to the Elderscrolls because the game is made for it. But Fallout had a different principle in mind and it was made with a different idea. Why should we now use the "Elder Scrolls" formula on it all of sudden ? Because it makes more sense to you? Or because it feels more "realistic" ? That never was the intention of Fallout anyway. The idea was that you do not "play" your character but that you "guide" him trough the world which is a contrast to Skyrim/Oblivion where you have to pretend that you ARE your character. Making Fallouts system even more similar to Skyrim will not lead to the kind of game that I like about Fallout. Why cant both system coexist ? Why has one to be better then the other ? It is exactly this kind of mindset which killed turn based combat for video games. Because someone felt that "real time" is superior even though both real time and TB have the same value.

 

[Sub-Human]

I see the Elder Scrolls using a Fallout-esque system easily, actually. Either way will work for any game, in my opinion.