Skills in Fallout 4: What We Know

  • You choose a new a perk each time you gain level (and probably quest rewards\etc)
  • They gave each perk several skill levels.
  • They removed level requirements, but keyed all perks to specific attribute, making your character selection more important. (Presumably intelligence is no longer the one attribute to win them all)
  • Having specific high special attribute means having bigger\better perks selection in it.
  • There is a intimidation perk tied to charisma.
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It seems like starting stat will dominate whole game play.
Fallout 1 and 2 are also have similar problem but dominance of starting stat is just tool
and player can find other way while playing them.
but I don't think beth can do that.

beside, Fallout 1 and 2 are also broken by that stat dominance.
while in party based game, you can divide various role to each party members.
but in Fo1,2, player is the only person who have to do all things( of course, you can let Vic to fix and Miron to do sciencific job at FO2)
so, someone said " the funnist part of Fallout 1 and 2 is character creation. other part is just an option."
and I can't denied that.

but failout 4's role is just....
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e4_-_FxgqI

These guys obviously got their wish. Not only are there no more "useless skills", but no skills at all. Huzzah!

5-tier perks like +20% damage would be atrocious. I hope that Bethesda at least understands this.

And as for the whole Skyrim civil war thing, Bethesda at least didn't force us to work for the Empire like they always did in Morrowind and Oblivion. Ironically, it's their only game where I actually want to do so.
 
SMBComix said:
Madbringer said:
SMBComix said:
I hate to break it to you, but beyond the fact it was developed by a different team, I literally could not make out any major gameplay difference between New Vegas and Fallout 3. I'm also not a "fanboy." If this developer did something I felt was a mistake, I'd let them know in a heartbeat. I would not, however, tell them it was a mistake without giving it a shot first.

Oh, and like I said in another thread -- I don't play games for genre. The fact Fallout's an RPG means nothing to me. I care more about the setting itself, and what the game actually allows me to do, instead of HOW it allows me to do it. Maybe that makes me a filthy casual. At least I'm not getting bent out of shape over a goddamn video game.
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And that's exactly why you'll never understand why people who played Fallout 1 and 2 when they released, and came to love those games, are so angry about Bethesda's sequels and treat them as betrayal. I can respect that - you don't know better, you have no feelings invested here.

However, telling people to not get offended when a thing they treasure is butchered is mighty arrogant of you. You like what you see? That's fine. I do not, and I will exert my right to express my feelings.

SMBComix said:
That being said, let me restate: I plan to give this game a fair shake BEFORE I pass judgement on it. If I find the skill system or dialogue system to be lacking, and to do that it'd have to be VERY detrimental to my overall experience, then I'll be right there beside you bashing away at it until Bethesda realizes their mistake. NOT before. I'd advise you to do the same if you wish to remain a rational human being, instead of bashing away at something you haven't even fucking played yourself yet just because it's not Interplay or Obsidian making it. Makes me wonder who the real "fanboy" is, really.
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I have exactly zero intention of being rational about any of my comments regarding FO4. I abhor every single change announced or pointed out by observant commenters yet. I freely admit to being a fanboy of FO1 and FO2, I love those games to death - and I seethe with utter hatred to the things Bethesda did to the franchise I love.
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Look man, I appreciate that you love the classic titles. I own 'em myself, they're pretty solid and are still enjoyable after all these years. Fuck, I *think* I'm almost halfway through my playthrough of Fallout 1, just got me some power armor and I already got the water chip back to Vault 13. No idea what to do next; I don't think I'm ready to take on the Master or go to Mariposa just yet. But that's neither here nor there.

I'd never, EVER tell another sentient being they don't have a right to their own opinion. I also would not, intentionally or otherwise, insinuate that they're stupid or lacking intelligence due to what they think... unless of course they actually WERE grossly misinformed about something important, in which case I'll declare open season on their IQ.

The thing is though, if we can't remain rational, we are lost. I'm not telling you to like the Bethesda titles, no one's got the right to tell you what to like or not like. Liberty Prime would blast me in the balls for that sort of thing. I'm just sayin'... you could be a bit less hostile. Sure, yeah, feel free to express your opinion and your passion, I mean that's what we're all here for, right? -- but don't go ballistic every time someone else comes along with an opinion different from yours.

'Murica and China nuked each other because they didn't like the other's opinion of who should control the last remaining resources on Earth. Let's not be like them. Savvy?

Just for clarification, that post's actually directed at ALL the Interplay fanboys attacking and insulting people who enjoy the modern Fallouts. I really hate that "fanboy" term...
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this is fine and dandy but if you cant tell the difference between FO3 and NV im seriously concerned. there is much more to the game than the mechanics. the skill-based checks and the requirements to do certain things and the follower missions etc. they might have been the same mechanics and graphics, but they were not the same gameplay.
 
Honestly, I thought about it and here is how I think that skills should have worked in Fallout all along:
  • weapon skills: You knowledge of a specific style of combat has increased your damage output. Also, proper knowledge and care of said weapons make them wear up to 20% slower, due to proper care of the weapon.
  • Speech/Barter (and any skill that has a dialogue check for that matter): Requires a specific level of the corresponding stat to unlock a check. No more being a scientific savant will being unable to form simple sentences like "hi, my name is Stonefire310. good to meet you." or being an uncharismatic grunt and still being able to talk Lanius into retreating.
These are the main things right now.
 
Then what would even be the point of the system if you would still be chained to the SPECIAl stats? That's dumb.
 
Walpknut said:
Then what would even be the point of the system if you would still be chained to the SPECIAl stats? That's dumb.
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Simple, it would be more logical. You just went through an entire group of people, so I doubt that their leader would just walk away that easily, especially not since some fugly waster said so. But you would still be able to not take the option with that SPECIAL.
 
So again, you would be chained by which Special stat is the highest, rather than what skills and perks you level up, which makes all builds exactly the same. That's a dumb system.
Also it's not logical either. SPECIAL is for determining your basic human characteristics that you can't change easily, while skills are what you work on during the whole game, SPECIAL also allows for self imposed challenges like being a low Perception, four eyed Sniper, an Idiot Savan scientist and such that enrich the replayability and the ability of the player to make the character their own.
 
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The important thing about "talking Lanius into backing down" is not that you could do it with a speech check, but that you could do it with a speech check only if you navigated the conversation tree correctly. Those are the sorts of things I want to see more of in Fallout (likewise talking down Ulysses with his history or ED-E's logs in Lonesome Road.)

But I think saying "someone with a low charisma can't possibly be persuasive" is simply the wrong way to go about it. There's more to persuasion than simply force of personality, so there's no reason someone, despite being sort of plain and unassuming, couldn't become a master of rhetoric and logic.

There's "those natural abilities you have" and "those things you learn how to do well" and those aren't the same. I think you could make an argument against "someone with INT 1 becoming literally the best at science" that would be more persuasive than the charisma example, though.
 
There is a dude that can resolve rather complex calculus problems and he can barely even talk or function on his own. You just need imagination, the Skills and SPECIAL stats are tools to allow you to make the character your own. Even if you want to make a completely disadvantaged character on propouse.
 
Not to mention that you could also talk down Lanius with Barter.

I never expected that the character I made to shoot everybody and make the most money selling their stuff could talk down the most feared dude in the entirety of Caesar's Legion with his knowledge of trade and supply routes.

I really don't see this happening in Fallout 4.
 
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PossibleCabbage said:
But I think saying "someone with a low charisma can't possibly be persuasive" is simply the wrong way to go about it. There's more to persuasion than simply force of personality, so there's no reason someone, despite being sort of plain and unassuming, couldn't become a master of rhetoric and logic.
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Exactly. Cicero started out as a stuttering nerd. Through hardwork and dedication, however, he became the greatest orator in history.
 
But aren't those solvable issues? Like, you could alter the game mechanics to make quality armor and weapons rare, necessitating more common crafting. Or, reintroducing/'revamping item degradation and bundling the two together so that we more quickly and naturally level up smithing. Or add a lock picking esque minigame. Wouldn't that be more natural than pouring points into energy weapons as soon as you leave Arroyo without ever having touched a wattz? Isn't that more RPG-esque in that we actually have to work hard towards goals?

Would you be open to any sort of Lsyrim derived leveling system?
 
Skyrim is a RPG abomination/hiking simulator with the only real depth being introduced with mods that only make the game more tolerable.

The leveling system in Skyrim is the worst the Elder Scrolls series has had. It makes me sick even looking at the shit.
 
TorontRayne said:
Skyrim is a RPG abomination/hiking simulator with the only real depth being introduced with mods that only make the game more tolerable.

The leveling system in Skyrim is the worst the Elder Scrolls series has had. It makes me sick even looking at the shit.
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But theoretically, utilizing the changes I outlined above, could a leveling system such as that (with selected perks not on a damn tree) work? If not, why not? I'm no big fan of Skyrim either- it was, as you say, a Hiking Simulator- but is the idea an inherently poor one?
 
If we are gonna go for "making sense" then we should just force players to go through years of training, doing all sorts of exercises and implementing a shit load of systems to simulate the human body and even use VR to improve their skills. Making 2000 knives and then magically knowing how to make Ebony heavy armor makes as much sense as putting points into an abstract skill number when you accumulate enough experience points from activities on the game, is just that one system is organic and flexible while the other is an annoying grind that you can barely control that is designed to make the game longer than it is artificially and to trap people with obssesive compulsive disorders..
 
Walpknut said:
If we are gonna go for "making sense" then we should just force players to go through years of training, doing all sorts of exercises and implementing a shit load of systems to simulate the human body and even use VR to improve their skills. Making 2000 knives and then magically knowing how to make Ebony heavy armor makes as much sense as putting points into an abstract skill number when you accumulate enough experience points from activities on the game, is just that one system is organic and flexible while the other is an annoying grind that you can barely control that is designed to make the game longer than it is artificially and to trap people with obssesive compulsive disorders..
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You didn't adress any of my proposed methods.

And this is a ridiculous argument. You sound like a Beth fanboy. No, we don't need 100 percent realism, but it adds to the setting if we have some kind of realism, and more importantly, it makes my choices matter more. If I choose to get an armor class that requires a lot of repairs, or to make an iron sword to sell, then I'd like that to have a wee bit more weight.

Just because the system used in Skyrim was inorganic and shit why should the idea be thrown out? This is honestly stubbornness and nostalgia at play IMO. It fits in perfectly with cRPG philosophy- you have to work hard to do cool, high level stuff. Your choices and actions should affect things. You can't be a God at something too early. And, as you yourself said, it allows us to build on our core, our SPECIAL, with the things we actually do and work at.
 
But where would you draw the line? Do you actually make several repair skills? Because it's probably not the same fixing a car, a nuclear reactor, an energy plant, a leather jacker, a gun, a power armor, etc. If we aim for realism, we should take this into account. If we say "it doesn't make sense that I learn a lot of energy weapons when I haven't came across any of those", the same is valid for power armor, the same is valid for chemistry when we only know math, etc. Science is vast, combat is vast, repair is vast, speech is vast, gun knowledge is vast, gambling knowledge even (it is not the same to know how to charge dices than to count cards than to keep the statistics on a particular roulette's bias), and probably the same for all of the other skills. Practicing a lot in a particular way doesn't really cut it for every other thing in the same field. Where would you draw the line between abstraction and realism?
I might agree that some skills are blocked until a certain condition is met, though. The example of the energy weapons, unless tagged (which would imply a previous experience with them and a particular interest, so one might actually improve a bit without actual usage, because of constantly thinking about how to improve in the first place), the character could be unable to allocate points there. But stating the "use it and improve" is realist is kind of a fallacy, considering it isn't really that much extrapolable.
I stay true to what I said in the "why details matter" thread: these things do add, but are low priority, because they add far less than story telling, coherency in the world building, practical game mechanics, etc.
 
The system used in Skyrim just feels so gamey. Look at destruction magic, you have to exterminate the deer and chicken populations of Skyrim to master it, which isn't what I'd call fun. And just look how every single TES game ends up with a speech skill which is practically impossible to raise without trainers or grinding away at some mini-game. The system is based on constant repetition of the exact same actions, which isn't very fun.

And it doesn't feel realistic at all. Let's take the Forsworn Conspiracy quest as an example. You would think that the fact I went poking around the internal affairs of Markarth, ended up in the worst prison in Skyrim, made chain-gang buddies with the Forsworn and broke out of the place with them would ultimately make me more experienced. But it doesn't - because I didn't whack anything with my shiv enough times.
 
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