Gamescom Fallout 4 Impressions

[PossibleCabbage]

Intelligence will be a lot less important without skills I think.

When was it ever important in FO3?

[Insert overused Three Dog example here.]

If you wanted to engage in the world's least interesting scavenger hunt and are willing to spend a perk on it, getting all the skill books and skill bobbleheads puts you at a baseline of 60 for each skill. There are 15 skills, so if you want to max out everything you will need 600 skill points from other sources. If you take the "Almost Perfect" perk at level 30 (because the other level 30 perk is broken, and has the effect "Kills the player when health is reduced to 20" on normal or higher difficulty) you will get +27 to all your skills (+30 if you wait and collect the SPECIAL bobbleheads). Which means you will only need 195 skill points over 30 levels to max out all the skills. An intelligence of 1 will give you 11 skill points per level, which is more than enough.

There are no intelligence checks or similar in Fo3 so a Lone Wanderer who is as unintelligent as the game allows can still easily end up as good at everything as anyone can be.

 

[TorontoReign]

I was mainly speaking about New Vegas when I thought of that but you are absolutely right.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gC2naiQGiSo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[AgentBJ09]

Speaking of Stats, if The Vault Wiki's take-away is to be believed, they can be increased once per level.

It also appears that you can improve each of your attributes on level-up. It's unclear whether it's a drawback, as you receive 28 SPECIAL points during character creation, which means that maxing out your attributes will take 42 levels – and likely hamstring your character due to the absence of perks.

- http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/115975-fallout-4-gamescom-previews-tone-discussion.html

No idea if this costs you a perk in exchange, but doubtful that it will.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Hows that supposed to work though? I mean if you can raise SPECIAL with each level up you will be maxed out after like what? 30 level ups or so? Maybe even after just 20 level ups. Not counting for eventually other means of raising your SPECIAL skills, like with bobble heads, books, quests etc.

Seriously, who's still believing that F4 is an RPG?

 

[PossibleCabbage]

Hows that supposed to work though? I mean if you can raise SPECIAL with each level up you will be maxed out after like what? 30 level ups or so? Maybe even after just 20 level ups. Not counting for eventually other means of raising your SPECIAL skills, like with bobble heads, books, quests etc.

Seriously, who's still believing that F4 is an RPG?

My guess is in lieu of the "intensive training" perk, at every level up you have the option to take a perk, or the option to increase a SPECIAL stat by one.

Sadly, "RPG" has become more or less meaningless in the modern culture of video games. In the cultural consciousness it more or less just means "you level up and there might be an inventory."

 

[Tagaziel]

Hows that supposed to work though? I mean if you can raise SPECIAL with each level up you will be maxed out after like what? 30 level ups or so? Maybe even after just 20 level ups. Not counting for eventually other means of raising your SPECIAL skills, like with bobble heads, books, quests etc.

Seriously, who's still believing that F4 is an RPG?

From what I saw and how the perk tree is structured, you can increase your SPECIAL or pick a perk. It's not both, it's either or. And to max out, you'd have to keep investing that point over 42 levels.

 

[Walpknut]

I think it will be just like in Skyrim, in that one you boosted a stat and picked a perk.... yay..... Skyrim with guns.

 

[PossibleCabbage]

From what I saw and how the perk tree is structured, you can increase your SPECIAL or pick a perk. It's not both, it's either or. And to max out, you'd have to keep investing that point over 42 levels.

The downside of this is that you can now experience whole level ups where your character does not noticeably improve in any way beyond "they qualify for a new perk next level" and indeed a significant fraction of your level-ups will be like this.

I'm sure there are still derived statistics based on your special, but you're not really going to notice +20HP, +2% radiation resistance, and +5% poison resistance much, and Endurance is the most notable attribute in terms of derived statistics.

 

[IrradiatedGarlic]

The downside of this is that you can now experience whole level ups where your character does not noticeably improve in any way beyond "they qualify for a new perk next level" and indeed a significant fraction of your level-ups will be like this.

That's really not any different from Fallout 3 or New Vegas where you would have levels putting skill points into a skill so that next level you could put the rest in to reach the next skill check point. I'm not defending it, just pointing out that stated drawback already existed. I'd hope that perks would open up perk-specific pathways but I know that this is too much to hope for beyond perks like Lady Killer.

 

[Stanislao Moulinsky]

From what I saw and how the perk tree is structured, you can increase your SPECIAL or pick a perk. It's not both, it's either or. And to max out, you'd have to keep investing that point over 42 levels.

The downside of this is that you can now experience whole level ups where your character does not noticeably improve in any way beyond "they qualify for a new perk next level" and indeed a significant fraction of your level-ups will be like this.

I'm sure there are still derived statistics based on your special, but you're not really going to notice +20HP, +2% radiation resistance, and +5% poison resistance much, and Endurance is the most notable attribute in terms of derived statistics.

It doesn't have to be this way, it all depends on how much a single SPECIAL point influences your attributes. If it's a meager 5~10% increase like in FO3 I agree with you.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Hows that supposed to work though? I mean if you can raise SPECIAL with each level up you will be maxed out after like what? 30 level ups or so? Maybe even after just 20 level ups. Not counting for eventually other means of raising your SPECIAL skills, like with bobble heads, books, quests etc.

Seriously, who's still believing that F4 is an RPG?

From what I saw and how the perk tree is structured, you can increase your SPECIAL or pick a perk. It's not both, it's either or. And to max out, you'd have to keep investing that point over 42 levels.

I still think that it is one of the most stupid things to do in a Fallout game to raise SPECIAL with level ups. But I see why they do it, considering how Perks work. I mean it could work in a way where the game is encouraging you to specialize. But when I think about how easy it was to max out different play-styles in Skyrim, than I have serious doubts that you won't become the jack of all trades in Fallout 4 either. Yaaay! For sitting in a town centre and spaming magic abilities or forging daggers till your controller/keyboard melts! *Edit at some point I just said to my self, fuck it, I am not spending 5 hours doing this crap and just cheated. I mean it doesn't make a difference anyway. You're not gaining experience for doing quests.

From Oblivion onwards any Beth game had a very simplified and easily to exploit leveling and skill system, where most level ups had just very few real changes. Most of the time 20% more damage or armor. And I don't expect the Perk system to work very different. And raising your Special is necessary because it opens up new Perks.

This is just speculation, but it might make sense to raise all your special skills to 10 as fast as possible and just rake in the Perks. Depends how long it takes to get all or at least the most important Skills to 10.

Their skill systems don't promote role playing in any way, and from the look of it in F4 even less so than in F3. Fallout 3 might be the last game where Bethesda even tried to apply the use of skills (like Science, Inteligence) in a situation outside of combat or whacking at little computers and boxes till they open.

 

[Gizmojunk]

Their skill systems don't promote role playing in any way, and from the look of it in F4 even less so than in F3.

They don't care about roleplaying, they are making Cosplay simulators; since just before the team departures after Morrowind.

 

[Askorti]

If you indeed can raise your SPECIAL as you please I.. I just can't even. So how exactly does one raise his luck and intelligence? Buy more lottery tickets to help your luck and cheat on an IQ test to raise your intelligence?

 

[Mohamed2001]

If you indeed can raise your SPECIAL as you please I.. I just can't even. So how exactly does one raise his luck and intelligence? Buy more lottery tickets to help your luck and cheat on an IQ test to raise your intelligence?

Instead of perks.

SPECIAL leveling up like normal skills is stupid. Too stupid. Even for Bethesda.

 

[Makenshi]

If you indeed can raise your SPECIAL as you please I.. I just can't even. So how exactly does one raise his luck and intelligence? Buy more lottery tickets to help your luck and cheat on an IQ test to raise your intelligence?

The only decent way to do that is with a Zeta Scan, but that's for the enlightened ones

 

[PossibleCabbage]

If you indeed can raise your SPECIAL as you please I.. I just can't even. So how exactly does one raise his luck and intelligence? Buy more lottery tickets to help your luck and cheat on an IQ test to raise your intelligence?

Well, the "you can level up your intelligence" does speak strongly to the possibility that the Fallout 4 protagonist will be an android. "Getting smarter over time" is something an artificial intelligence is supposed to do. Luck though, I have no idea.

 

[TheChosen1]

If you indeed can raise your SPECIAL as you please I.. I just can't even. So how exactly does one raise his luck and intelligence? Buy more lottery tickets to help your luck and cheat on an IQ test to raise your intelligence?

Well, the "you can level up your intelligence" does speak strongly to the possibility that the Fallout 4 protagonist will be an android. "Getting smarter over time" is something an artificial intelligence is supposed to do. Luck though, I have no idea.

Well, conscidering Luck only affects the Crit-bar filling up, it could be improved software that targets weak points in the enemies...and then needs time to reboot...I've got nothing...

 

[Stanislao Moulinsky]

Their skill systems don't promote role playing in any way, and from the look of it in F4 even less so than in F3.

They don't care about roleplaying, they are making Cosplay simulators; since just before the team departures after Morrowind.

And yet somehow FO3 sucked as far as PC customization goes. You can't change the body, clothes are limited to hat/headgear/outfit (plus some RARE accessory) and unique weapons were graphically identical to the normal versions. Saints Row 2/3/4 completely wrecks FO3 in this regard. Is Skyrim any better?

 

[Mohamed2001]

Their skill systems don't promote role playing in any way, and from the look of it in F4 even less so than in F3.

They don't care about roleplaying, they are making Cosplay simulators; since just before the team departures after Morrowind.

And yet somehow FO3 sucked as far as PC customization goes. You can't change the body, clothes are limited to hat/headgear/outfit (plus some RARE accessory) and unique weapons were graphically identical to the normal versions. Saints Row 2/3/4 completely wrecks FO3 in this regard. Is Skyrim any better?

Skyrim has more clothing options and allows you to use parts of clothing, not the full kit. (like, Thieve's Guild gloves, boots, torso, hood.) also there are jewelry like amulets, circlets, etc.

Unique weapons sometimes have unique textures. Some of them even have unique meshes. Most have unique enchantmenets.

 

[TorontoReign]

Leaked video here folks. Not sure of the legality so I'll leave it here for now.

http://www.mediafire.com/watch/?4jp3i75nxy6sfmt