I know. It's trendy to have some form of ability progression in almost any game these days. But what I'm questioning here is that if the gameplay worth of an implemented system is near zero (because you can compensate the lack of PC ability with player skill), what is the point of having it but "for the sake of it"? And with a lot of non-RPG's having already these mild systems, shouldn't the appointed "real" RPG try to make more heavy use of the system as by RPG tradition lest it not just meld in the mass of other action adventures (at which point, why call it RPG anymore but for marketing purposes).

Yes. That's what it is supposed to do. Supposed to. That's what I've been trying to say for quite a while, though with less than stellar results... In this very thread I just got told by someone that that's not how it goes anymore, that it's Bethesda's FPS now and that the core of Fallout is dead and gone (that's what good many people tell you when you start questioning these things).

Yeah, but it's not working. The lure is stale.

No, I'm pretty sure gun skills do affect accuracy in Fallout 3 and New vegas, not much, but still. It was stated by the devs and it is listed in the wikis. Even if they did less to that than they did for damage (which was awful). And now, there's an interview where Todd specifically states that they relied too much on the skills (something about missing on point blank range, iirc, which of course sounds weird remembering how the games played) and that that has now been mitigated, that the player can now more easily compensate. And I have no idea where this is drawn from since I didn't notice any tangible accuracy effect in either of the previous games; there was some, yes, but nothing really worth mentioning, and now there's even less. It's actually quite telling of the past games and the new statement that you claim this (and there was someone else too who did earlier in some other thread).

Around the time that Skyrim came out people were questioning how deep the game would be in light of the changes made. "Dinosaurs" were basically told to stop questioning progress and trust in Bethesda. Turns out the fears were justified. My character in Skyrim begins as a blank slate, and ends as one. Intelligence, strength, willpower; none of this is defined or reflected in the game. Take your pick of stamina, magicka, and health, kind sir. Now the same thing is happening with Fallout, and if you voice concerns about it you get shot down again. And yes, it is irritating to see people proclaim this as the greatest Fallout when at the same time any criticism of it is pounced on mocked as being outdated.

So then what's the complaint?
Is that the game wont "feel" like an rpg?
If it had next to no effect it was almost pointless, they've changed that probably for the better, 4 big jumps in damage accuracy and all the other stats is better than slight nudges every time 10-20 points are put in that skill, to the point where you don't even notice them, to me at least.

I get your worried about the games direction and it slowly becoming more of an fps but lets be real for a second, you should be more worried about glitches, crashing, the story svcking, hell you can build your own settlements that's a huge change in gameplay.

1 point in a special stat probably had the same effect 10 points in a skill did, so what's the point having those extra 9 points?

Skyrim had skills, perks, levels and even stats they just don't appear on screen because why would they? so no you didn't finish a "blank" slate.

Also yes its dumb to say "best game Eva" when you haven't played it yet but it works both ways

The complaint is that the noted issue isn't being fixed. There should be more effect to the skills (or perks... as of now), not less. Their effects should be less compensatable by the player, not more. It goes back to the original statement that if you have these aptitude metrics (whether they are skills with certain ranges, or perks with a couple of ranks), they should also do something to the gameplay that warrants their existence. If it is indeed thought - and I do not - that by lessenign their impact even more they are somehow "improved", then by removing them altogether doesn't just "improve" them but the whole problem disappears (for those who think that way).

There's a valid criticism of the previous games that the shooting svcked. Yes it did. A lot of the previous games svcked. But even there, a lot of the issues were because the games weren't sure what they wanted to be, open world FPS games (world simulation and narrative driven, respectively) or RPG's, while still claiming for "RPG" yet not daring to lean towards that direction more in fear that the FPS market might not catch them. Now they are, in one way of thinking it, doing the right thing by leaning more boldly towards the other direction... but as it happens, that direction doesn't appear to be the RPG one.

Bugs and glitches can be fixed (and some tolerated). Core gameplay design is around which everything else is built.

(Quite frankly, about the settlement building, it looks and sounds like a useless addition... just more clutter with no real point aside from having more busywork of which there's no doubt no shortage of even without it.)

I agree that an ability progression system focused on making the character less incompetent is quite useless when what matters the most is player skill. This doesn't mean that Bethesda shouldn't include any form of ability progression though; they should do it but in a different way; as opposed to having perks that give largely redundant bonuses to your character, provide perks that allow the players to continue using their own skills (hand-eye coordination, quick thinking...) in new and gameplay-changing ways.

'More heavy use' are scary words. Remember: for a game to be extremely successful it needs to 1) be accessible and 2) not be annoynig.

Tale an oldish RPG like Morrowind. At the beginning you are supposed to choose race (appearence) and then specialization, major skills, minor sills and birth sign. That's hardly accessible; in the words of Todd, 'how am I supposed to make all this decisions if I haven't played the game yet?'. So in Skyrim most of those decisions were removed and instead players only needed to choose appearence. Morrowind had its share of annoyances with the player not being able to hit their opponents even though they were literally in front of him. 'I didn't hold a sword in my life and I could definitely hit a guy 10 inches away from me'. And, sure enough, dice roll-based misses were removed in Oblvion because they were 'too annoying'.

Precisely because action adventure games are incorporating the most appealing feature of RPGs (character progression) while keeping their own advantages (smooth, accessible gameplay), it would be dangerous for RPGs to continue being unaccessible and annoying. Leaving hardcoe fans aside, they would be perceived as an inferior product by the general public. Obviously RPG makers don't want that so they are adapting their products.

And a fair amount of 'it's broken' conjecture, purporting to be fact.

From what I can see, Bethesda have made fine improvements to the game.

When reviews drop c.1st November, and when folk get to play for real, we'll know the truth of it.

Until then, there is little to be gained from 'Chicken Little' reactions.

Just to expand on this, I'd say the major shift from Bethesda's older RPGs to their current work is from character creation (defining your character at the beginning of the game) to character development (starting relatively from scratch, and building a unique character based on how you play the game). They haven't taken away the decision making, they've spread it out past chargen into every level up.

As far as player/character skill, all I care about as a player is that the decisions I make in my character's development make a difference. That's why you'll always see me dumping on useless stats in RPGs.

Ok I get you know seems we're actually on the same page, your special stats and perks/skills should definitely have more of an impact on gameplay, I guess that's what I was trying to get across (in a terrible way it seems) that I believe that this change to the skill mechanic means that's what they have done, or at least I hope it is.

Having a perception of 5 and guns rank of 1 SHOULD feel in some way different than having a perception of 6-7 and a guns skill of 2.
Plus it could tie in with the new armor system, clothing gives you an actually useful special boost, while armor gives protection and for headwear you have to decide if you want +1 perception sunglasses or a +4 DT mask of some sort.


As for the fps/rpg part of it all we know is what combat looks like, they have yet to show us any perks, and judging from the quality jump from 3 to new Vegas I believe we will see better and more refined perks.
Fallout 3s perks were all very vague and just boosted a skill a little, whereas new Vegas had more variety with perks like cowboy and friend of the night, so it seems logical they would get better.

(yeah I may have one character who builds a couple of settlements but overall I'm just gonna stick with making a home base, who wants to be tackling two super muties only to have a message pop up saying "Dave the npc doesn't have enough water", [censored] you Dave no one cares)

After you finish a Skyrim playthrough, could you define the intelligence of your character? I'm not asking for headcannon, but for something in the game that actually shows this. We both know the answer, which is no. Certain things are simply not possible anymore because everything about a character has been streamlined to stamina, magicka, and health. Even worse is that there are little to no gameplay changes as you level. I don't buy the "RPG number crunching" in the background. Perks were nerfed to stat boosts that were not unique in any way, in a way being worse than Far Cry or other action games. And, as UnDeCaindeed mentioned, leveling no longer defines an RPG. Plenty of games have it, but in an RPG most will expect more to be added to the experience. The point is that the game retains these features, but in the poorest of ways. It's essentially paying lip service to the concept of an RPG for those that want Beth games to stay a certain way.

Yeah, it works both ways. But I think you'll find people on one side being more rational than on the other. I believe that this game is going to be excellent, but that it's going to suffer as a Fallout game and as an RPG (this is a common belief amongst the old community). I'm still going to buy it and enjoy it. And I don't hesitate to praise things that I find exciting, like the new power armor. But on the other hand you have people screaming about Godd Howard and GOTY that wont tolerate any criticism of Bethesda or the direction of Fallout.

This post is seriously a candidate for most misleading information in a single post in 2015.

All of the conditions you named? They're true/false scenarios. AKA, whereas older games would provide a scale, for example from 1 to 100, Skyrim is largely true/false conditions. Someone liking you is never a matter of liking you a bit but not a lot or being slightly negative towards you. No, it's "has the player done my quest? If yes, I love them. If no, I am neutral OR negative if my character is supposed to be an ass." There also might be a "have I witnessed this person commiting crimes? If yes then I dislike them," but I've no idea because any killing sprees I ever attempted were met with patronizing essential NPCs so the game could tell me I don't want to kill that guy I want to kill. But yeah, true/false conditions between absolute love and absolute neutral, and in some cases absolute hate. That's pretty much it. Thus, there's no variance between like and love for example. You wanna date Ysolda? Do her quest. That unlocks both her saying "you've been a good friend to me" and " if wearing amulet = 1 then activate attraction scripts." It's robotic as hell. Comparatively, a 1-100 scale provides the NPCs with variation, where for example an NPC might feel comfortable enough to give you information for a quest if your disposition is 60+, but won't offer you cheaper prices until 70+ and won't entrust a personal quest with you until 76+. It's a dumbed down system of true/false conditions that ultimately results in NPCs that've had their quest completed liking/loving you and providing ALL of the positive reactions you've listed simultaneously. Ysolda doesn't give you an item while Eurlond Grey-Mane doesn't because Ysolda likes you more; Ysolda gave you the item because her random number generator landed on a true while Eurlond's landed on a false.

NPCs have relationships? Prove it. This may or may not be the case, but I'm pretty damned sure I recall being given a mission by the Companions to go "teach a lesson" to an avid supporter of the Companions. Unless you can provide us with a snippet of code that showcases what you claim, I'm inclined to not believe it. There doesn't seem to be anything in the game's code for example to make an NPC react more drastically to the death of his wife than to the death of any random person you kill on the street. If I kill off Adrianne Avenicci within plain sight of Ulfberth War-Bear, will he react any different to if I killed off random guard #4? No, he won't, even though one is his wife and the other has no importance to him. In both cases he'll scream someone's been murdered, then won't really act as though he remembers or that he's grieving once I've served my time.

Race has never mattered....? An Altmer playthrough of Morrowind is going to be drastically different from a Nord playthrough. Argonians and Khajiits couldn't even wear helmets or shoes ffs, and often got discriminated against. Even Oblivion had some special reactions for races here and there, such as Orcs automatically being welcomed at Malacath's shrine.

Furthermore, this may come as a surprise to you, but races and classes are and have always been systems of choice and consequence. This goes for any RPG. What you are suggesting is that racial differences should be purely aesthetical, which if that were the case, then this is hardly an RPG now, is it?

Yes yes, let's be so phobic of making any concrete decisions that we simply get rid of the meaningful decisions entirely! Why would I want to deal with cumbersome decisions and variety like races when I could just not have decisions or variety at all? While we're at it we should just make iron to daedric weaponry do the same damage and be a purely aesthetical preference choice, don't you think?

I have to say, I find that mentality kind of immature. A simple truth of the world we live in is that the world will expect you to make decisions. You need to be able to make choices, and choices will have consequences. To be so phobic of having to deal with ANY consequences that you would sit here applauding how meaningless races in Elder Scrolls have become...? All I can say is you should seriously consider trying to make a god damned meaningful decision for once in your life, then you may find that they help keep things interesting and help define who you are. This is no different: more choices and consequence in an RPG means more variety means more replay value. Less choice and consequence...? Less of all of that; no point replaying Skyrim just to see the main quest being completed by a guy with green skin rather than a guy with black skin when the skin color and their appearances are the only variables.

I think you are getting CCP and Bethesda confused...

To be fair, 2 inches is depth. Though she will deny it.

Ok I feel your entire comment was a contradiction on itself, you don't like "number crunching" but are annoyed that the game doesn't have stats? (skyrim)
Your trying to define a game by its independent features comparing each to something random, rather than all together.
farcry had a linear story an focused heavily on either combat or stealth, to me that makes it more of an fps/action adventure, skyrim allowed you to make your own way through the story, and play the way you want to regardless of stats, the majority of the time I pushed the main quest to the side to fulfil my characters life long dream of becoming rich by assassinating people, because that's the role I wanted to play. RPG?

I think you mean "simplest" not poorest, if an rpg isn't about stats, leveling or perks then I'm confused as to why this is an issue, if I cant use headcannon then what's the point in playing skyrim, dark souls or even fallout?
"player freedom remains our number one priority" this seems like most important part of an rpg, being able to play the way you want and not being stuck looking at numbers.

We share the same opinion on that last bit, [censored] are the worst no matter what game it is, although right now I must seem like one to you 馃槀.

It censored fan......boys for some reason?

You misinterpreted what I meant by not buying the number crunching...... I meant that I didn't really believe Skyrim had as much going on "under the hood" as people claim. The fact is that the removal of attributes had a huge impact on roleplaying, that cannot be denied. One can't make a character of X Intelligence, Strength, Agility or anything else anymore. It simply isn't possible within the game. So you're correct when perhaps I meant simple.

Far Cry 3/4 had a linear main story with a large explorable world in which you could do whatever you wanted.... sound familiar? It's an adventure game with a leveling system tacked on. Tbh, I don't see much difference between the basics of this game and Skyrim at this point. I even believe it had a superior leveling system, but that's besides the point.

You don't seem like a fandoy I think we simply have different ideals of what an RPG should be. I like Bethesda's approach to the open world but I believe an RPG should retain the numbers and make them mean something, especially in a Fallout title. When I see a modern Fallout I don't want to see a game with all the systems of old there just for show. That's the thing that gets me. Bethesda is advertising a Fallout RPG, they need to at least make sure the systems are done properly.

That's because my posts pass off as clearly just my subjective opinion while most of the complaints try to pass themselves off as objective truth, often levied by the "majority" or the "real" fans when in reality its just the same repeated nitpicking by the vocal minority. Honestly, even if I throw out a generous number for the amount of people who have problems with the current direction it doesn't reach over 30 members on here. As far as the REALISTIC number I'm only seeing at most 15 complainers.


Its going to be a lot easier to take the complaints serious when the games actually released and fans and haters alike have actually informed themselves before forming their opinions.

Ok fair enough my bad, I'm having trouble understanding people lately.
Yeah I do agree with a lot of what your saying, i do think fallout should have stats i just think that refining them and making them more i dunno compressed, like the ranked perk system will be an improvement, guess we will wait an see.

And pray this doesn't svck.

Oh boy. A depth thread.
Careful OP. Generally, the Beth forums don't take kindly to criticisms of upcoming games. These threads often turn into "Beth svcks , I blame those DAMN casuals!!" Vs. "Shut up old timer, this is perfect. Accept our new beth overlords."

Im apprehensive about it as well, but let's play it and see how it is first. At the very least, wait for some more info.

Replace the word Fallout with Skyrim and this thread is a carbon copy of the pre-release arguements that happened years ago. The more things change the more they stay the same I guess.

"Joined: 03- June 15"

Did you have an old account? Did you mean the community as a whole? How would you know what he's been personally doing for years?

Old account, been around here on and off since Fallout 3

Ahhh, I figured as much.

I would bet that the game is designed such that it statistically doesn't matter what you pick, and that on the whole, you get the same experience regardless of specialization.

That was my thought as well.

I think that FO4 will be better than FO3, at what FO3 was attempting; though of course that's polar opposite to what the rest of the Fallout games were attempting.

Do you think you will have fun?

Not the right kind of fun, no.

I really liked the wastelands in FO3; I thought they were about as spot on perfect as one could expect ~so long as I avoided any cities or speaking NPCs; or hostile combatants.

I think that the PA suit will initially be the most fun; but I honestly do expect to find the catch soon afterwards, and that it will probably stop being fun early on.

Npc has in Skyrim disposition about you, if the guy who run the lumber mil like you he let you cut timber for free.

NPC has relations with each other, some react if their wife dies, far easier to see it affect if they will aid each other in a fight.

Now the system is far weaker than in Oblivion, for one you can not get people to like you except doing quests as far as I know.

In oblivion it was also an sliding scale from -100 to +100, in Skyrim its various levels from archenemy to lover, making it harder to change disposition, think most changes are hardcoded with quests. You bring guards to riverwood and the guy at the lumbermill likes you. In Oblivion you could use the disposition mini game to have him like you or cast an charm spell.

Trading often with an trader in Oblivion increased their disposition towards you.

Not sure why this was changed, probably mostly to increase stability secondary to save memory.

Races has never mattered much except the bonuses, beast races could not wear boots or all helmets because they was not intended to be playable.

This was changed after player protests but it was to late to do anything about helmets and boots.

Yes you had variable dispositions for racial relationships in earlier games, main difference between Morrowind and Oblivion was that in Morrowind you started as disliked, in Oblivion you started as neutral. As you gained reputation people liked you more.

Still disposition and charisma was more important in Fallout 3 than in Morrowind, it hardly affected anything except prices and dialogues.

Oblivion worked better than Morrowind here, remember the guards and the thief guild fought together to protect me against the pirates in the harbor.

This was also an bug heaven, factions who liked you would start fight the guards if you did an minor crime.