dufake
First time out of the vault
A TES skill system is still better than only perks. I'll agree with that.
Skills in Fallout 4: What We Know
- Thread starter Yamu
- Start date
First time out of the vault
A TES skill system is still better than only perks. I'll agree with that.
Battlecross
Banned
So far it seems to be skills exist but in a different form, maybe hybridized or something with perks. It remains to be seen, hopefully they'll explain it before release.
dufake
First time out of the vault
Let's wait and see, but it's still obviously not a good sign.
Battlecross
Banned
I wouldn't say it's obvious, we don't know anything yet.
Sn1p3r187
Carolinian Shaolin Monk
I don't think it's bad. Sure I love Fallout 1+2, but I can say this system will at least prevent OP character builds in Single player. Though the skill tree system reminds me of Far Cry 3 and 4. And it was easy to become OP in 3. But as for what we're regarding as an RPG. I think that regardless of the negative attention Fallout 3 got, it's still an RPG (somewhat) and so is Fallout 4. An RPG by definition is taking up the role of a character. But most in depth RPGs go into immersion, interaction with the environment, characters, moral choices, and karma. Just because Fallout 4 doesn't play like the others doesn't mean it's not an RPG or it's not Fallout. I'll admit I love 1+2 and they'll always be my favorites but I acknowledge that Fallout 3 (shudders) ugggh, New Vegas, and Fallout 4 are definitely Fallout. Same story, same country, same lore, different gameplay.
Atomic Postman
Vault Archives Overseer
Personally, I fully expect that Skills are going to be reworked into some "streamlined" ranking system that's a twisted version of Skyrim's levelling mechanics. In fact,I suspect that the Skill system will be very close to Skyrim's levelling system.
As many others have pointed out, it seems SPECIAL is getting a lot more focus this time around and is also being reworked in some way.
I have no idea why they would do this though. The Skill system is integral to Fallout. It's remained constant throughout the sequels. You remove Skills and it's like taking away a chunk of Fallout itself. That's not even commenting on how horrific this is in terms of dumbing down and being a stepping stone on the way to Fallout being a shooter.
How silly.
As many others have pointed out, it seems SPECIAL is getting a lot more focus this time around and is also being reworked in some way.
I have no idea why they would do this though. The Skill system is integral to Fallout. It's remained constant throughout the sequels. You remove Skills and it's like taking away a chunk of Fallout itself. That's not even commenting on how horrific this is in terms of dumbing down and being a stepping stone on the way to Fallout being a shooter.
How silly.
T
TorontoReign
Guest
I think they did it because they horribly suck at games with those mechanics built in. Obsidian clearly did better than them with New Vegas.
Walpknut
This ghoul has seen it all
Well Multiple endings for settlements where also a Staple of Fallout and they had no problem not having those at all in Fallout 3.
T
TorontoReign
Guest
Which is one of the big flaws with Fallout 3. No wonder people want to just keep playing after the main quest. The endings are so boring that people don't care.
Skills were probably supplanted by the SPECIAL system. It made it easier for them to design like with Skyrim since it wasn't their strong point in Fallout 3. How useful was Speech in Fallout 3? Maxing everything out with magazines, books, and Bobbleheads made things pretty pointless.
Reaper Shackal
King of the Dominion
I forgot all about that. That was one of my biggest gripes with Fallout 3.
Doomfullord
The Lord Full of Doom
Before I speak I will say where I come from. I am not a professional game designer, or even a videogame designer. I am an ameteur, very ameteur tabletop game designer that has looked at the numbers for game systems extensively and for some time.
The differences between a 1-10, 1-100, and 1-1000 stat system really all boils down to how you want a game to progress. It will effect how far your game can go, the difficulty curves, the action curves, and general 'feel" of the game over time. As you can see I said a lot of words meaning it matters over time. What system you use really is up to what you want over time. With the skills and special system you were given a two fold system that allowed the Special to not change much and matter in early game more and often still have weight in late game, and for any changes you can make to it have a lot of weight.
The skills were then given a much lighter role but with their 100 length and the sheer numbers meant that your 15 or so points you could spread around each level mattered down to the 1 point, but also didn't matter so much that you still had leeway in the long run and still have a sense of progression. This is what I liked about the system a lot.
Now to go and say that 1000 stats would be more flexible is both true and false, and to say 10 is less flexible is true and false. It all depends on what you want to do. I personally feel that anything in the thousands are for a less controlled curve over time. I don't mean this is to say it's not a good curve or even not controlled, but it's more for when you don't want there to be a clear limit. A lot of the time the limit isn't reachable even, this is good for a long running J-RPG or MMO so you can constantly grow. Fallout however is geared more towards having some form of endpoint at least in terms of levels and for everything to feel more well rounded.
However fallout is too long I feel just for a 1-10 system. Sure you CAN have growth in those areas, but you might just have the same problem you had in Fallout 3 I feel and in endgame you have filled everything and so the game just feels emptier. Now you can supplement it with more perks and perks that perhaps matter more to core gameplay rather than adjusting more minor details like in New Vegas, somewhat more akin with Skyrim with more being brought into the non-crafting and combat areas. This would mean your perk choices and such would just supplement your skills, and most likely just be a somewhat more simple way to do so. Instead of say 100 in science, you might have 5-20 levels of perks. It's not homogenized, just simplified. It is possible to do, I've done a system similar to it, but whether or not they did so, did something similar, and if they did, did it well is up for speculation.
A lot of what I'm personally looking for is what they changed, how they changed it, and whether or not it fits in with the game as a whole and is sticking towards a short-term and long-term play experience I personally want to enjoy. A lot of my problems with Fallout 3 were that certain aspects, mainly exploration, combat, and atmosphere or put over other qualities while New Vegas I feel was more coherent as a whole. So far bethesda is looking to make something more like their fallout 3 but bigger rather than looking towards Obsidian's New Vegas, and with this comes both it's good qualities and bads.
The differences between a 1-10, 1-100, and 1-1000 stat system really all boils down to how you want a game to progress. It will effect how far your game can go, the difficulty curves, the action curves, and general 'feel" of the game over time. As you can see I said a lot of words meaning it matters over time. What system you use really is up to what you want over time. With the skills and special system you were given a two fold system that allowed the Special to not change much and matter in early game more and often still have weight in late game, and for any changes you can make to it have a lot of weight.
The skills were then given a much lighter role but with their 100 length and the sheer numbers meant that your 15 or so points you could spread around each level mattered down to the 1 point, but also didn't matter so much that you still had leeway in the long run and still have a sense of progression. This is what I liked about the system a lot.
Now to go and say that 1000 stats would be more flexible is both true and false, and to say 10 is less flexible is true and false. It all depends on what you want to do. I personally feel that anything in the thousands are for a less controlled curve over time. I don't mean this is to say it's not a good curve or even not controlled, but it's more for when you don't want there to be a clear limit. A lot of the time the limit isn't reachable even, this is good for a long running J-RPG or MMO so you can constantly grow. Fallout however is geared more towards having some form of endpoint at least in terms of levels and for everything to feel more well rounded.
However fallout is too long I feel just for a 1-10 system. Sure you CAN have growth in those areas, but you might just have the same problem you had in Fallout 3 I feel and in endgame you have filled everything and so the game just feels emptier. Now you can supplement it with more perks and perks that perhaps matter more to core gameplay rather than adjusting more minor details like in New Vegas, somewhat more akin with Skyrim with more being brought into the non-crafting and combat areas. This would mean your perk choices and such would just supplement your skills, and most likely just be a somewhat more simple way to do so. Instead of say 100 in science, you might have 5-20 levels of perks. It's not homogenized, just simplified. It is possible to do, I've done a system similar to it, but whether or not they did so, did something similar, and if they did, did it well is up for speculation.
A lot of what I'm personally looking for is what they changed, how they changed it, and whether or not it fits in with the game as a whole and is sticking towards a short-term and long-term play experience I personally want to enjoy. A lot of my problems with Fallout 3 were that certain aspects, mainly exploration, combat, and atmosphere or put over other qualities while New Vegas I feel was more coherent as a whole. So far bethesda is looking to make something more like their fallout 3 but bigger rather than looking towards Obsidian's New Vegas, and with this comes both it's good qualities and bads.
Exactly! I'm glad someone else made an elaborate post about this.
And, I don't know, that might be my nostalgic-traditionalist side speaking, I like when systems are consistent throughout a defined series. Or at least as close to consistent as can be. If you tweak a setting enough - a system enough - it loses its soul. The definition gets lost. Fallout already made a massive transition from the isometric, 2D world to the 3D, and the new paradigms looming on the horizon feel, well, sort of like an end. Like the soul of the game is not longer there. As much as I hate FO3 I can at least appreciate the meek effort it took to correlate to its predecessors. From what I can see in FO4 so far, it just chooses to distance itself as much as possible from what lays at the bare-boned core of the franchise. And it feels so very, very wrong.
Practicat
Where'd That 6th Toe Come From?
I don't think we've seen enough to say that Fallout 4 is distancing itself from the core of the franchise. The core of the franchise is based vastly on the narrative, and we know nothing about the narrative of Fallout 4 besides the presence of the BoS, the Commonwealth Minutemen, and the Institute. I usually see people complaining about the E3 trailer focusing too much on combat and shooting. They intentionally do that to get more fans and publicity. It's PR. The New Vegas E3 trailer was focused just about as much on combat, too. And RPG elements aren't really something that can be conveyed convincingly in a trailer. One has to play the game to evaluate how those are.
I'm posting the following I mentioned before again:
I think Fallout was never about the gameplay mechanics, or the isometric view. It's about exploring the world, meeting competing factions and ideologies trying to carve a new kind of civilization from the ruins of the past, and so it's very introspective on the nature of humanity and its penchant for war. If a Fallout game does that, regardless of whether it's isometric or first person, it's a great Fallout game.
So based on what I've mentioned, we don't have enough information to say Fallout 4 is distancing itself from the core of the franchise.
I'm posting the following I mentioned before again:
I think Fallout was never about the gameplay mechanics, or the isometric view. It's about exploring the world, meeting competing factions and ideologies trying to carve a new kind of civilization from the ruins of the past, and so it's very introspective on the nature of humanity and its penchant for war. If a Fallout game does that, regardless of whether it's isometric or first person, it's a great Fallout game.
So based on what I've mentioned, we don't have enough information to say Fallout 4 is distancing itself from the core of the franchise.
fred2
Where'd That 6th Toe Come From?
Very well said. I on the otherhand was a bit of an asshole, disguising that answer before asking the question. (For my defense, I was annoyed by the mandatory 'dumbing down' comment)
Here is my problem "I feel" is an opinion, and think that many people make their opinion based on nostalgia and attitude toward FO3 fans. Hence: What, the originals had a ~'100 points system', then 10 point system is obviously worse.. Its why I started by noting FO3 and FO:NV as the baseline i.e. the question that we should be asking is whether such system would be an improvement over FO3.
I also been a bit of an asshole, and brought up Wasteland2 and PoE who where built for us fans of good ol' cRPGs and had similar systems... hinting that you can make good RPG with such system, unless some would like to make a case that those games are dumbed down compared to FO3
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PossibleCabbage
Vault 22 Survivor
I think replacing skills with perks is not entirely a bad idea. The core of a roleplaying game, as I see it, is not so much "how many pages is your character sheet" but "that the game actually gives you negative space into which you can express your character."
Both Fallout 3 and New Vegas had an issue where any thorough player who knew what they were doing (even without taking related perks or having high INT) max out all the skills in the game by the time they hit the expanded level cap. This is why the Sawyer Mod, for example, lowers the level cap so much--so you can't be good at everything. If there are more perks than there are levels, and there's no "read this to get a perk" skill books (or there are very few) then you're forcing people to at least pick what their character is good at and stick with that throughout the whole game.
Plus, I mean, a lot of times there were just four thresholds for skills anyway. Lockpicking scores other than 25, 50, 75, and 100 didn't mean anything at all, so you can replace that with four perks. Weapon skill requirements in New Vegas were always just those same four numbers (and zero), and the game doesn't really benefit much from giving a 77 skill a noticeably better chance to hit than a 75 skill. Crafting, skill checks in conversations, can also just be modeled by categorizing them as trivial, easy, medium, hard, and very hard instead of giving them specific numbers (New Vegas's model where if you had a 75 speech, say, then you just passed the check could just become "if you have the level 3 perk, you pass the check.)
You're certainly going to lose a lot of granularity, since you're not going to be able to have something like all the easy skill checks in Goodsprings to round up the militia (potentially you could replace this with dialogue trees that force you to choose the right responses, though.) But this is hardly the worst thing Bethesda has done to Fallout. If they do import the Elder Scrolls thing where you can only train lockpicking by picking hundreds of locks, though, that might be the worst thing.
The real question I have is how exactly you're going to make a INT 10 character with max ranks in science-related perks better at science than an INT 4 character with max ranks in science-related perks. Just SPECIAL gates on perks?
Both Fallout 3 and New Vegas had an issue where any thorough player who knew what they were doing (even without taking related perks or having high INT) max out all the skills in the game by the time they hit the expanded level cap. This is why the Sawyer Mod, for example, lowers the level cap so much--so you can't be good at everything. If there are more perks than there are levels, and there's no "read this to get a perk" skill books (or there are very few) then you're forcing people to at least pick what their character is good at and stick with that throughout the whole game.
Plus, I mean, a lot of times there were just four thresholds for skills anyway. Lockpicking scores other than 25, 50, 75, and 100 didn't mean anything at all, so you can replace that with four perks. Weapon skill requirements in New Vegas were always just those same four numbers (and zero), and the game doesn't really benefit much from giving a 77 skill a noticeably better chance to hit than a 75 skill. Crafting, skill checks in conversations, can also just be modeled by categorizing them as trivial, easy, medium, hard, and very hard instead of giving them specific numbers (New Vegas's model where if you had a 75 speech, say, then you just passed the check could just become "if you have the level 3 perk, you pass the check.)
You're certainly going to lose a lot of granularity, since you're not going to be able to have something like all the easy skill checks in Goodsprings to round up the militia (potentially you could replace this with dialogue trees that force you to choose the right responses, though.) But this is hardly the worst thing Bethesda has done to Fallout. If they do import the Elder Scrolls thing where you can only train lockpicking by picking hundreds of locks, though, that might be the worst thing.
The real question I have is how exactly you're going to make a INT 10 character with max ranks in science-related perks better at science than an INT 4 character with max ranks in science-related perks. Just SPECIAL gates on perks?
Moira Brown
First time out of the vault
Skills are definitely available. If you look at the building mode it says 'requires science' so yeah... There's skills...
PossibleCabbage
Vault 22 Survivor
That just means the game has "science". It doesn't mean that Science hasn't been turned into a perk (with 4 levels, so each lets you hack a successively harder kind of terminal) instead of being a skill.
I mean, Science didn't do anything in Fallout 3 except for hacking terminals and a handful of interactions (which require 50, 60, 75, and 85 ranks in the skill.) So making it less granular wouldn't be a huge loss. Even NV didn't do anything with the skill except for hacking, and a wider range of skill thresholds for interactions (ranging from 25 for chemistry sets to 100 for talking down Klein in OWB).
dufake
First time out of the vault
Science still works as perk requirements in F3/NV(for example: cyborg). Science skill is not only a requirement of 25, 50, 75.
PossibleCabbage
Vault 22 Survivor
True, skill ranks as gates for those perks exist in those games. But you could theoretically replace them with SPECIAL gates, particularly if you've replaced skills with perks (since it doesn't make a lot of sense for an INT 2 character to be the best at science) or with other perk gates (e.g. "requires 2 ranks of the Science perk".)
I'm mostly pointing out that the modern incarnation of Fallout doesn't really need or use all 100 points worth of granularity for "how good you are at something."
I created this profile just to reply to this topic. Yes, that's how interested I was in it and what was being said. I didn't read every single post of the topic, but I read enough of them to kind of get the gist of what's going on.
First, a bit of background. I've never played Fallout 1, Fallout 2, or Fallout Tactics (I own them, picked them up before I ever started New Vegas, but have yet to play them. I may start them when I finally finish the achievements in New Vegas and need something to keep me busy until Fallout 4 comes out). My first foray into the Fallout universe was Fallout 3. It was advertised to me as "Oblivion, with guns". It is most certainly not "Oblivion with guns". To my annoyance (and later delight!) it was its own beast. They dropped me into a world I knew nothing about, didn't give me a reason to care about anything (including my own father), and just kind of left me to my own devices. 5 Hours into the game with 2 Quests under my belt, and I quit playing. Later on, some months later, I picked the game back up and decided to give it a try based on its own merits instead of what I'd thought the game was meant to be. Everything felt weird and clunky and I had no idea how to build a character (in fact, I ended up simply starting over to create a much better character). Finally, at the 50 hour mark of my first real play through, I was in love. I made 3 full plays of the game. One for Good, one for Neutral, and one for Evil. I didn't even figure out how to "max out" my character until that third play where I was an evil Melee only fighter. I picked up New Vegas some years later and I'm just now getting around to doing the DLC of it (which is all I have left).
Okay, with that in mind... I'd like to address quickly here the "differences" between New Vegas and Fallout 3 that I personally noticed. 1. Invisible Walls (I hate devs who do this! Stop gimping my exploration just 'cause you're lazy programmers!). 2. Melee fighting in New Vegas is 90% more headache than it was in Fallout 3 and is thus something to be avoided (when enemies block pretty much every single swing and their block means they take pretty much zero damage... Guns are your best friend. Especially since they cannot be blocked). 3. Accuracy between FO3 and NV was changed. It was easy to get 70%+ accuracy in FO3 without taking a single Perk. In NV, that's much harder to do without Perks. 4. More places to explore in NV... But considerably less to explore in NV. Instead of large areas to explore with almost always something useful or unique in a location in FO3, we got really super small areas, most of them useless, but scattered every 10 feet instead of every 400 yards. 5. You get less stat points in New Vegas, but they're worth much more than they were in FO3. 6. Lots more Quests to do in NV, but the Quests are less consequential. 7. Way more bugs in NV than in FO3, to the point that they could and would break Quests, break Quest Chains, break the game, or sometimes even wreck a save file. 8. Way more useless Perks in NV than were in FO3. On top of which, there's maybe 5 Traits you can take that aren't just worthless wastes of time that exist simply because there might be a masochist out there who wants them. Or maybe role player.
Beyond that, the games both played pretty much the same. Progression was even largely the same (aside from only getting your Perks every 2 levels instead of every single level). FO3, I was able to take out Death Claws 1v1 at level 14. NV, it took me until level 16. In FO3, I largely had 70+ points into combat skills by the time I was level 14. In NV, I didn't even have 50 points into any single combat skill. NV is, by and large, a much easier game, despite making it harder to "max out". Sure, I had to wait two extra levels to kill Death Claws 1v1, but, my stats were much lower when I did it. Even on Hardcore mode in NV, it only added another 2 levels to the 16 thresh-hold for killing Death Claws. What's even worse? I was destroying swarms of Cazadors at level 10 in Hardcore Mode. Even in Hardcore Mode, I didn't start dropping points into any combat stat until I hit level 22 or so (I'd run out of better stats to work with at that point, combat was the only useful thing left), which means I was killing the poisonous twitchy jerks with Guns and Energy Weapons that had stats of 30-40.
Does that mean I hated New Vegas? No. I liked New Vegas better than FO3 because the game felt far more alive and less like I was trudging through a sea of brown. I also liked the story better.
So, here I come to Fallout 4 and its stats and their possible removal. I have to say... I currently don't think stats are removed. I think they're "hidden" in the same way that levels were hidden. Remember when you gain XP in New Vegas (and I think it was the same in FO3 as well) and it pops up the meter that shows you what level you are, the arrow for the XP moving up, and the level you're heading towards? That's missing in the videos. Why? I'd say that it's missing because it's a detail they didn't want to release yet. I don't think they want to release our Skills yet either. But, this is simply conjecture. We have an XP bar that goes up when a mod is created, or attached, and a new gun is made, we've got XP that goes up on kills, XP that goes up for other things... But, no "XP from this level to the next level" bar. I think what we're seeing is that individual Skills can be leveled up independent of your overall level. I think we're looking at a Skyrim type system here. It only confirms it more for me when one of the tabs on the Pip Boy says that the Y Button takes you to the "Perk Chart". What else leads me to believe this? The "Perk List" that you see in the garage is 7 across and 10 down. Significance of that? SPECIAL is 7 stats... that can have 10 ranks. I think we're looking at Perks you get simply for having SPECIAL points high enough for those. I think we're looking at "automatic" perks we don't choose... Or they're part of the system where you cannot get the next one unless you have the previous one in the tree. Otherwise, why does this chart even exist in the first place? Why do you even need a "chart" except to show you how Perks line up together? How they fit together in a Skyrim style Perk system? If the Perk system worked the same as in FO3 and NV, you wouldn't need the chart, because the previous systems explained to any player quite well what Perks they could obtain at any time (just pull up the Pip Boy and look through the list of possible Perks and already obtained ones!). But, here we have a list of Perks... and then this Y button or a "Perk Chart" why separate this list out, unless the system worked differently?
Furthermore, why only give us 21 points to devote to our SPECIAL if Skills are removed? Surely you'd give more points to SPECIAL at the beginning if the only way to improve what limited stats you got was through Perks or the initial choice. If you don't get Skills, you'd probably want to start players out with enough points that they could probably get 6 points in each stat if they wanted instead of 4. But, we only get enough for 4. Okay, so if Intense Training is back, that's another 10 points to SPECIAL we can use. If Implants or Bobbleheads are back, that's another +1 to each individual stat. So, you're looking at each stat guaranteed to be 2, with a possible 31 extra SPECIAL points to distribute yourself. You're looking at 3 stats maxed out at 10 with some change... Or having every single stat at 6, with a couple at 7. Or some combination of the two. This is way more restricting than New Vegas was... except that if Skills are missing... there's no real way to cover your shortcomings as a character. The game becomes "pick your specialization the minute the game loads up", because to not do so is to risk having an unusable character somewhere in the play through. I don't think Bethesda would do that to us.
I do, however, think they'd use a "better" version of the Skyrim stats/perks system in FO4. This is something I'm violently opposed to. Why? It messes with how I play the games.
When I create a character, I dump my SPECIAL into what I perceive to be the most useful stats. In NV and FO3, this was 9 points (or 10 for Vegas) into Intelligence and then picking up the Implant/Bobblehead for the final point as quickly as possible. I'd then usually have 9 points into Luck because of the minor bonuses it gave to all your stats and the chances for loot and critical hit chances. Most people don't like the Luck Stat, but I love it. After that, I'd dump points into Strength in order to carry as much as the game would let me carry. After that... I'd just dump points into other stats, depending on what I wanted to do. More often than not, it would be Endurance or Perception. Charisma and Agility are largely ignored by me, because they're fairly terrible stats (why do I need more points for V.A.T.S. if I kill everything in one or two hits anyway? Why do I need Charisma when I'll max out Speech at level 10?). Obviously with Fallout 4, I won't be dumping points into Intelligence anymore (extra XP has never been a good reason for me to pick up a Perk, so why would I pick it up as a stat?). I don't usually Melee fight either, so I am now on the fence about picking Strength. I'll now have to take Charisma and Perception so I can pass speech challenges and use the most powerful weapons in the game (energy weapons). Except... How do I shore up these shortcomings? Without stats, I cannot round out my character anymore. Whatever I picked at the beginning, I'm now basically stuck with. I can no longer pick up a really cool shotgun and decide I want to invest points into Guns to make it really lethal. I can no longer decide that maybe I'd like to use a Power Fist as well as my Laser Rifle and throw points into Unarmed/Melee skills to make it viable. Without Skills, I can no longer decide that I want to repair my own items instead of paying others to do it for me. I can't even suddenly decide that I want better prices at shops and dump points into Barter.
If Skills don't exist, I can no longer make the character I want to make. If it all falls under the purview of "Perks" now, then it truly is a terrible system that will limit customization and render most existing Perks worthless. Think about that for a second. Are you going to take 10 points of SPECIAL via Perks and "Intense Training" or are you going to take 10 levels of things like "Science!" and "Gun Nut!" so you can get access to more game features? And if you take both Intense Training and those other Perks for things like Science! and Gun Nut and whatever else that gives you access to better equipment (or more powerful mods!), then how many Perks would you even spend on other things? Is it more beneficial to take "Bloody Mess" than it is to pick up an extra point of SPECIAL? What's that 5% damage boost worth to you in terms of any viable build? How about Perks like "Quick Draw"? Is that more important to have than access to everything the game has to offer? I mean the list goes on and on if you don't have Skills. Without Skills, a lot of Perks are suddenly devalued just to give you access to some of the best things in the game... Or even just access to portions of the game (weapon mods is the only example I have so far, but I can't imagine building your settlement won't require investment of Perks as well, with stats missing!).
Basically, removing Skills at all while retaining the "One Perk Per Level" rule would wreck the game for me. I would need two separate lists of Perks. I'd need a list of Perks that exist as your "Skills" and a second list that does all the cool things Perks are known for. I'd need 1 point into each set on each level to be able to customize the character in a way that would be satisfying and viable. I can't see the game working any other way.
Well, okay, I can see it working if skills are Perks awarded simply after doing things. Hack enough terminals, your Science! Perk goes up. Use enough Chems and Stimpacks and your Medicine Perk goes up. I can see a system working in that way (which might be better, if I'm honest). But, I cannot see complete removal of Skills or changing Skills into Perks without making plenty of allowances for character creation and building.
First, a bit of background. I've never played Fallout 1, Fallout 2, or Fallout Tactics (I own them, picked them up before I ever started New Vegas, but have yet to play them. I may start them when I finally finish the achievements in New Vegas and need something to keep me busy until Fallout 4 comes out). My first foray into the Fallout universe was Fallout 3. It was advertised to me as "Oblivion, with guns". It is most certainly not "Oblivion with guns". To my annoyance (and later delight!) it was its own beast. They dropped me into a world I knew nothing about, didn't give me a reason to care about anything (including my own father), and just kind of left me to my own devices. 5 Hours into the game with 2 Quests under my belt, and I quit playing. Later on, some months later, I picked the game back up and decided to give it a try based on its own merits instead of what I'd thought the game was meant to be. Everything felt weird and clunky and I had no idea how to build a character (in fact, I ended up simply starting over to create a much better character). Finally, at the 50 hour mark of my first real play through, I was in love. I made 3 full plays of the game. One for Good, one for Neutral, and one for Evil. I didn't even figure out how to "max out" my character until that third play where I was an evil Melee only fighter. I picked up New Vegas some years later and I'm just now getting around to doing the DLC of it (which is all I have left).
Okay, with that in mind... I'd like to address quickly here the "differences" between New Vegas and Fallout 3 that I personally noticed. 1. Invisible Walls (I hate devs who do this! Stop gimping my exploration just 'cause you're lazy programmers!). 2. Melee fighting in New Vegas is 90% more headache than it was in Fallout 3 and is thus something to be avoided (when enemies block pretty much every single swing and their block means they take pretty much zero damage... Guns are your best friend. Especially since they cannot be blocked). 3. Accuracy between FO3 and NV was changed. It was easy to get 70%+ accuracy in FO3 without taking a single Perk. In NV, that's much harder to do without Perks. 4. More places to explore in NV... But considerably less to explore in NV. Instead of large areas to explore with almost always something useful or unique in a location in FO3, we got really super small areas, most of them useless, but scattered every 10 feet instead of every 400 yards. 5. You get less stat points in New Vegas, but they're worth much more than they were in FO3. 6. Lots more Quests to do in NV, but the Quests are less consequential. 7. Way more bugs in NV than in FO3, to the point that they could and would break Quests, break Quest Chains, break the game, or sometimes even wreck a save file. 8. Way more useless Perks in NV than were in FO3. On top of which, there's maybe 5 Traits you can take that aren't just worthless wastes of time that exist simply because there might be a masochist out there who wants them. Or maybe role player.
Beyond that, the games both played pretty much the same. Progression was even largely the same (aside from only getting your Perks every 2 levels instead of every single level). FO3, I was able to take out Death Claws 1v1 at level 14. NV, it took me until level 16. In FO3, I largely had 70+ points into combat skills by the time I was level 14. In NV, I didn't even have 50 points into any single combat skill. NV is, by and large, a much easier game, despite making it harder to "max out". Sure, I had to wait two extra levels to kill Death Claws 1v1, but, my stats were much lower when I did it. Even on Hardcore mode in NV, it only added another 2 levels to the 16 thresh-hold for killing Death Claws. What's even worse? I was destroying swarms of Cazadors at level 10 in Hardcore Mode. Even in Hardcore Mode, I didn't start dropping points into any combat stat until I hit level 22 or so (I'd run out of better stats to work with at that point, combat was the only useful thing left), which means I was killing the poisonous twitchy jerks with Guns and Energy Weapons that had stats of 30-40.
Does that mean I hated New Vegas? No. I liked New Vegas better than FO3 because the game felt far more alive and less like I was trudging through a sea of brown. I also liked the story better.
So, here I come to Fallout 4 and its stats and their possible removal. I have to say... I currently don't think stats are removed. I think they're "hidden" in the same way that levels were hidden. Remember when you gain XP in New Vegas (and I think it was the same in FO3 as well) and it pops up the meter that shows you what level you are, the arrow for the XP moving up, and the level you're heading towards? That's missing in the videos. Why? I'd say that it's missing because it's a detail they didn't want to release yet. I don't think they want to release our Skills yet either. But, this is simply conjecture. We have an XP bar that goes up when a mod is created, or attached, and a new gun is made, we've got XP that goes up on kills, XP that goes up for other things... But, no "XP from this level to the next level" bar. I think what we're seeing is that individual Skills can be leveled up independent of your overall level. I think we're looking at a Skyrim type system here. It only confirms it more for me when one of the tabs on the Pip Boy says that the Y Button takes you to the "Perk Chart". What else leads me to believe this? The "Perk List" that you see in the garage is 7 across and 10 down. Significance of that? SPECIAL is 7 stats... that can have 10 ranks. I think we're looking at Perks you get simply for having SPECIAL points high enough for those. I think we're looking at "automatic" perks we don't choose... Or they're part of the system where you cannot get the next one unless you have the previous one in the tree. Otherwise, why does this chart even exist in the first place? Why do you even need a "chart" except to show you how Perks line up together? How they fit together in a Skyrim style Perk system? If the Perk system worked the same as in FO3 and NV, you wouldn't need the chart, because the previous systems explained to any player quite well what Perks they could obtain at any time (just pull up the Pip Boy and look through the list of possible Perks and already obtained ones!). But, here we have a list of Perks... and then this Y button or a "Perk Chart" why separate this list out, unless the system worked differently?
Furthermore, why only give us 21 points to devote to our SPECIAL if Skills are removed? Surely you'd give more points to SPECIAL at the beginning if the only way to improve what limited stats you got was through Perks or the initial choice. If you don't get Skills, you'd probably want to start players out with enough points that they could probably get 6 points in each stat if they wanted instead of 4. But, we only get enough for 4. Okay, so if Intense Training is back, that's another 10 points to SPECIAL we can use. If Implants or Bobbleheads are back, that's another +1 to each individual stat. So, you're looking at each stat guaranteed to be 2, with a possible 31 extra SPECIAL points to distribute yourself. You're looking at 3 stats maxed out at 10 with some change... Or having every single stat at 6, with a couple at 7. Or some combination of the two. This is way more restricting than New Vegas was... except that if Skills are missing... there's no real way to cover your shortcomings as a character. The game becomes "pick your specialization the minute the game loads up", because to not do so is to risk having an unusable character somewhere in the play through. I don't think Bethesda would do that to us.
I do, however, think they'd use a "better" version of the Skyrim stats/perks system in FO4. This is something I'm violently opposed to. Why? It messes with how I play the games.
When I create a character, I dump my SPECIAL into what I perceive to be the most useful stats. In NV and FO3, this was 9 points (or 10 for Vegas) into Intelligence and then picking up the Implant/Bobblehead for the final point as quickly as possible. I'd then usually have 9 points into Luck because of the minor bonuses it gave to all your stats and the chances for loot and critical hit chances. Most people don't like the Luck Stat, but I love it. After that, I'd dump points into Strength in order to carry as much as the game would let me carry. After that... I'd just dump points into other stats, depending on what I wanted to do. More often than not, it would be Endurance or Perception. Charisma and Agility are largely ignored by me, because they're fairly terrible stats (why do I need more points for V.A.T.S. if I kill everything in one or two hits anyway? Why do I need Charisma when I'll max out Speech at level 10?). Obviously with Fallout 4, I won't be dumping points into Intelligence anymore (extra XP has never been a good reason for me to pick up a Perk, so why would I pick it up as a stat?). I don't usually Melee fight either, so I am now on the fence about picking Strength. I'll now have to take Charisma and Perception so I can pass speech challenges and use the most powerful weapons in the game (energy weapons). Except... How do I shore up these shortcomings? Without stats, I cannot round out my character anymore. Whatever I picked at the beginning, I'm now basically stuck with. I can no longer pick up a really cool shotgun and decide I want to invest points into Guns to make it really lethal. I can no longer decide that maybe I'd like to use a Power Fist as well as my Laser Rifle and throw points into Unarmed/Melee skills to make it viable. Without Skills, I can no longer decide that I want to repair my own items instead of paying others to do it for me. I can't even suddenly decide that I want better prices at shops and dump points into Barter.
If Skills don't exist, I can no longer make the character I want to make. If it all falls under the purview of "Perks" now, then it truly is a terrible system that will limit customization and render most existing Perks worthless. Think about that for a second. Are you going to take 10 points of SPECIAL via Perks and "Intense Training" or are you going to take 10 levels of things like "Science!" and "Gun Nut!" so you can get access to more game features? And if you take both Intense Training and those other Perks for things like Science! and Gun Nut and whatever else that gives you access to better equipment (or more powerful mods!), then how many Perks would you even spend on other things? Is it more beneficial to take "Bloody Mess" than it is to pick up an extra point of SPECIAL? What's that 5% damage boost worth to you in terms of any viable build? How about Perks like "Quick Draw"? Is that more important to have than access to everything the game has to offer? I mean the list goes on and on if you don't have Skills. Without Skills, a lot of Perks are suddenly devalued just to give you access to some of the best things in the game... Or even just access to portions of the game (weapon mods is the only example I have so far, but I can't imagine building your settlement won't require investment of Perks as well, with stats missing!).
Basically, removing Skills at all while retaining the "One Perk Per Level" rule would wreck the game for me. I would need two separate lists of Perks. I'd need a list of Perks that exist as your "Skills" and a second list that does all the cool things Perks are known for. I'd need 1 point into each set on each level to be able to customize the character in a way that would be satisfying and viable. I can't see the game working any other way.
Well, okay, I can see it working if skills are Perks awarded simply after doing things. Hack enough terminals, your Science! Perk goes up. Use enough Chems and Stimpacks and your Medicine Perk goes up. I can see a system working in that way (which might be better, if I'm honest). But, I cannot see complete removal of Skills or changing Skills into Perks without making plenty of allowances for character creation and building.