Skills in Fallout 4: What We Know

Stone Cold Robert House said:
stonefire310 said:
True, and I am not saying that there should not be. But when combining powerful skills, SPECIAL and perks = Overly OP build that can solve ANY situation at ANY time, there is something wrong with the system.

Not saying that Skills should be dropped from Fallout forever, but maybe Bethesda removed them from Fallout 4 for a more 'logical' reason than "because they could/they hate the Fallout fans"
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It's possible to become OP with any leveling system. Honestly, what people don't realize often is that balancing is freaking difficult. Accounting for every possible way players can take advantage of gameplay is really hard for developers. The balancing isn't about the number of stats you have or how the player advances in the game, it's the way you implement the specific details. But removing complexities from the game is not a way to balance it. How can you really say removing skills will make builds less overpowered and the characters more balanced? It can work either way. Look at Morrowind: large numbers of stats and complex skill system, and while you can become a god among men if you know how to use the right magic and alchemy, it's not something that happens unless you're specifically trying to, and you'd have to use guides to do it successfully. Compare to Skyrim (a far simpler system in comparison) where the opposite is true: you have to try hard not to become overpowered because the system lends itself to increasing core stats in a fast manner and applies the bonuses from them in an unbalanced way.

So that's a situation where, even though the system was simplified, the gameplay actually became much less balanced, because the specific applications weren't really all that thought out.

In other words, having a balanced game doesn't depend on how character building is structured. You can be balanced or unbalanced with SPECIAL, skills, perks, etc, just as you can be balanced or unbalanced using a simplistic attribute system. The problem isn't in the systems, it's in how well you adapt them to all the elements in the game.
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Just going to respond to the bold. I never said that removing skills will balance them. What I was getting at is that in NV, Guns+Sneak+Speech+Repair is OP because of how it can solve ANY situation.

You are correct about everything else, though.
 
Hardboiled Android said:
Walpknut said:
As usual, people who defend the dropping of Skills only think about it combat wise and never ever consider the dialogue options and skill checks.
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Perk-checks?
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More or less that's how it's going to work. I mean, if you have 4 speech perks, having the thresholds be Speech 1, 2, 3, and 4 is exactly the same as if you had the skill checks at Speech 25, 50, 75, and 100. Almost all skill checks in FO3 and NV fell into one of four bins- easy, medium, hard, and very hard. So 4-5 perks per skill is going to work the same.

It's just that since you only get 1 perk per level (presumably) choosing to get better at talking comes at a meaningful cost to your ability to get good at shooting and vice versa. Now you'll have to choose the one thing you want your character to get better at every level instead of the 5 things you want to split points between.
 
With only 4 dialogue choices at a time? The pipboy already made it clear that the only thing affecting conversations is charismas, and it works on a "charm" chance.
 
Walpknut said:
With only 4 dialogue choices at a time? The pipboy already made it clear that the only thing affecting conversations is charismas, and it works on a "charm" chance.
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Have they confirmed there are at most four at a time, or were there just at-most four in what we've seen? I mean, usually dialogue wheels go up to 6 or 8 options.
 
The Dialogue cross is mapped to the X, Y, A and B buttons, so that's basically hard coded for four at a time. How do you fit 6 or 8 options in only 4 buttons?
 
Walpknut said:
The Dialogue cross is mapped to the X, Y, A and B buttons, so that's basically hard coded for four at a time. How do you fit 6 or 8 options in only 4 buttons?
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Well, you could have four "normal" conversation choices mapped to buttons, and then "special" conversation options (ones tied to perks, faction status, having done certain quests, etc.) to either one of the other 10 buttons on a controller, or just analog stick directions.

I mean, the whole reason the conversation wheel was invented was because navigating in a circle is easier with a controller than scrolling down a list, as it's equally trivial to push the left stick in any of eight directions whereas the first item in a vertical list is going to be easier to pick than the 7th when you don't have number keys to work with.
 
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Yet the yhave only showed it mapped to the four buttons. And this alternative your propose seems like a terribly designed interface.
 
Just to play devil's advocate: One of the primary complaints as regards to modern Bethesda RPGs is how while we're allowed to do whatever we want, the world is not truly reactive to our actions- we are allowed to be or do anything at all times with no consequences. Well, if they introduce a Skyrim leveling system to Fo4, wouldn't that make the game actually be taking our actions into account? Wouldn't that make for a more reactive world if our skills are based on our actions?
 
No. It would make for a more reactive character, the world remains unscathed.
And the character with the previous system is as reactive as the player wants, being the only part that is under the player's control, while the world is still just as unreactive as it was before.
 
Hardboiled Android said:
Just to play devil's advocate: One of the primary complaints as regards to modern Bethesda RPGs is how while we're allowed to do whatever we want, the world is not truly reactive to our actions- we are allowed to be or do anything at all times with no consequences. Well, if they introduce a Skyrim leveling system to Fo4, wouldn't that make the game actually be taking our actions into account? Wouldn't that make for a more reactive world if our skills are based on our actions?
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It can actually take choices away. At least the way how it is done in Skyrim. For example it forces a player in many situations to focus on combat oriented skills and making combat the foremost way to solve any issue you encounter - If Your Only Tool Is a Hammer Then Every Problem Looks Like a Nail

It can easily happen in Skyrim that you level up very fast with just the use of skills which have no direct effect on combat like Enchanting, Alchemy, Spech and a few more. In turn you will face more powerfull enemies but your combat skills won't suffice creating an imbalance where you get beaten till you don't level up a few of your meele/combat skills. On the other side if you concentrate early in the game on your combat skills you will become already with a few levels a sort of demigod that can beat almost everything, particulary with the bow in combination with sneak attacks. But all of that is a rather unique issue with Skyrim and the inability of Bethesda to create a balanced game.

A system with Fallout 1/2 where you actually chose what skill to upgrade you have the choice in your hand. You chose the direction of your character, no matter if the experience was gained in combat or by solving issues - hacking computers, picking locks etc.

It should go without a saying that a game offering you such non-combat skills should also offer you ways to solve situations in some way with said skills. Another issue with many Beth games. Even if you have a high Spech skill it won't help you much, because like I said ... Bethesda sees every problem as nail and their only tool is a hammer in other words, combat, combat, combat and more combat. Fallout 1 and 2 gave you ways to solve the game with a minimum of combat. And even those situations could have been avoided, even if it was difficult.
 
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TheGreatCornholio said:
Walpknut said:
The Dialogue cross is mapped to the X, Y, A and B buttons, so that's basically hard coded for four at a time. How do you fit 6 or 8 options in only 4 buttons?
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X - option a
Y - option b
A - option c
B - more options, opens 2nd page with 4 more choices
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You could also do four options mapped to X, Y, A, and B but if you hit a button (say, L3 since "I am entering stealth in the middle of this conversation" is nonsensical) it brings up another four options. It's not fundamentally different than when older PC games let you have an extra row of hotkeys mapped to shift+whatever
 
TheGreatCornholio said:
Walpknut said:
The Dialogue cross is mapped to the X, Y, A and B buttons, so that's basically hard coded for four at a time. How do you fit 6 or 8 options in only 4 buttons?
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X - option a
Y - option b
A - option c
B - more options, opens 2nd page with 4 more choices
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So then you switched a clean list to something that requires navigating layers of four options all controlled by different buttons each time vs just going up and down with the analogue and choosing with A. Again, a terribly designed interfacte.
 
Walpknut said:
So then you switched a clean list to something that requires navigating layers of four options all controlled by different buttons each time vs just going up and down with the analogue and choosing with A. Again, a terribly designed interfacte.
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I mean, Bioware has sort of standardized sub-menus in dialogue wheels. The 1-3 options on the left side advance the conversation, and the 1-3 options on the right side investigate further. So you could have 3 buttons to represent basic conversation stances (diplomatic, coy, aggressive, say) and 1 button that opens up an "ask questions" menu. Or 2 and 2. But I think if people can figure out sub-menus in Mass Effect, they can figure it out in Fallout 4.
 
So they would be switching to a clunky and terribly designed interface that hides information arbitrarily to make it easier to use? I think is extremely obvious how nonsensical that is....
 
PossibleCabbage said:
Walpknut said:
So then you switched a clean list to something that requires navigating layers of four options all controlled by different buttons each time vs just going up and down with the analogue and choosing with A. Again, a terribly designed interfacte.
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I mean, Bioware has sort of standardized sub-menus in dialogue wheels. The 1-3 options on the left side advance the conversation, and the 1-3 options on the right side investigate further. So you could have 3 buttons to represent basic conversation stances (diplomatic, coy, aggressive, say) and 1 button that opens up an "ask questions" menu. Or 2 and 2. But I think if people can figure out sub-menus in Mass Effect, they can figure it out in Fallout 4.
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I'd prefer to use Obsidian's Alpha protocol as an example, because despite of its generally clunky gameplay it did show that the way to make a dialogue wheel work i.e. put substance behind it.
 
Invisible walls don't bother me. The New Vegas Devs stated that they have them to rein in the AI; for sensible behavior. The two problems I had with invisible walls in New Vegas were [first] that banisters seemed to have collision meshes that would stop projectiles in flight; that flew under them [they could stab into the air, and stick to it, under a banister]. Second... Some outer map walls (like the canyon) had holes in them, and you could walk right through them and not know it... then be outside the map, and all the rest of the invisible walls now kept you out... and you could not find the invisible hole in the invisible wall that would let you back in again. You couldn't even see the hills from the outside ~because you were looking at them from the back plane, and walking around inside them.

This happened around the Nuclear Test site too.
 
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Oppen said:
List of lists. Loved by CS people, hated by most. I find them practical.
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I guess they are not prefered by some, visually speaking. As graphic designer you have sometimes to deal with the same issue when someone picks an obviously bad choice purely by the looks. And I feel it is very similar with the idea to make Dialogues in some kind of wheel that allows you no more than 4 choices, because you have 4 buttons!
 
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