sure you can pass up 99% of the game and rush thru it, and thats if you're familiar with it like most of us who played it already for many years, but if you just opened up the game brand new out of the box never having played it before it would be extremely unlikely you'll do the main quest and complete the game in 20 hrs, i don't think anyone is really contending the main quest can't be completed in 15 or 20 hrs[not using glitches] but in order to clear every building complex/major outdoor area on the entire map, collect all the bobbleheads, complete all the quests and collect all the unique items, its gonna take more like 150 or 200 hrs easily and thats if you're rushing the entire time, first playthru or two you don't just cruise into the national guard armory, capitol building, national archives, steward square, load of lords hospital/statesman hotel, lob enterprises, vernon square, la enfant plaza and the numerous others locations including all the metro tunnels and clear each location in 15 minutes, not gonna happen.

You are doing the Lord Atoms work. Thank you

Honestly not sure how I feel about this thread. I understand speculation, but you're putting information out as if it's fact, not really citing sources or explaining how you reached your conclusions, and everyone's treating it as the truth. Not only that, but some of your leaps of logic are shaky, at best. 'Dev used the word Barbarian; must be a Barbarian perk!'. He used the word to describe a style of play; there was no indication that he was referring to a specific perk. Yet you put forth the video as if it's gospel proof that there is a Barbarian perk. Or, 'Video shows HP and DT of the target. Rather than simply assume that the Living Anatomy perk is back in some way, I'm going to come up with a perk I'm going to call 'Awareness''.

Don't misunderstand; I really do understand that this is speculation, but there's no indication of *why* you think these things work the way you say that they do. Links to sources are rare, and those that are there generally only contain either static pictures with no information, or leaps of logic that I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole.

That said, the system you've come up with sounds interesting, and has me intrigued. I'm just not a fan of the way you're presenting information with no attempt to explain or link to sources. I'm currently torn between watching this thread closely, and giving it a wide berth.

I understand what you're saying. And I have tried to make it as clear as I possibly can that all of this is indeed speculation. I've mentioned it in the title of the thread, and in several places in the thread itself. Also, due to the length of the thread, I have tried to avoid saying things like "this is how I think this perk could work" etc, because that would only make it even longer. And as it stands, I have only included the first two categories, with the third due to be added shortly. And so I have tried to keep each description as direct and to the point as possible. In the last thread, I had started to add real world references to back up each perk description. But this, again, was taking up a lot of space in an already lengthy thread. As for my research, it currently covers dozens of pages with literally hundreds of notes. And if I added those on here, the thread would go on forever!

What I am doing, just to put your mind at rest, is putting together some information that should answer quite a few questions as to the origins of the chart. This will also fully explain why I have insisted that the protagonist couple are a Navy SEAL and a Marine, and also why I am so certain about quite a number of the perks you see here. This will be posted once the final perk descriptions have been added to the thread, which I am working flat out to get done as soon as possible.

Finally, using the Slayer perk as an example, I have tried to look at what assets BGS have available to them that they can draw upon. And one of their biggest assets is without a doubt their last main IP, Skyrim. Due to the perk icon, as well as Pete's comments, especially the playstyle he described, I looked at the possibility of adding a Skyrim style melee character into the Fallout universe. And so what I describe in the OP is nothing more than the implementation of power attacks. And this would certainly fit in with what has been described be those who attended QuakeCon and Gamescom. It would also allow for an added layer of depth for those who choose to play as a melee character.

@swk3000, I've been thinking about your previous comments, and I have a feeling that many others may share your viewpoint that it looks like I'm almost putting these together at random. Just to shed a bit of light, here is some of my evidence for the Awareness perk, as well as the secondary function of the Concentrated Fire perk.

First of all, compare the following 2 clips:

At https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRFAuDOlK5Q&feature=youtu.be&t=2m21s in the Microsoft Showcase, we can see a raider being shot using V.A.T.S. Note the speed of movement, as well as the lack of tactical information being displayed. Next, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5esyZPt5Jo&feature=youtu.be&t=29m40s in the Bethesda Showcase, we can see another raider being shot using V.A.T.S., but this time, we can see his Level, his Damage Resistance, and his Shock Resistance. Also, even though the V.A.T.S. segment is over in a flash, you can clearly see that the raider in this clip is moving much slower than the one in the previous clip. This ties in with my description of the Awareness perk, which slows down V.A.T.S. combat, and also adds tactical information once the highest rank has been unlocked.

Finally, look at this clip:

At https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5esyZPt5Jo&feature=youtu.be&t=30m10s in the Bethesda Showcase, we can see a raider psycho, a super mutant brute, and then a super mutant skirmisher, all being shot at fairly close range. Notice how slowly the super mutant brute is moving compared to the other two. And this is before the shot is even taken which rules out a 'kill cam' effect, and without enough charge on the CRIT bar, which also rules out the slowdown effect from a critical shot. This third clip therefore ties in with my description of the Concentrated Fire perk which, as one of it's two main functions, slows down real time combat for a brief duration.

This is just one of the many ways I have approached researching the various perks, as I have gathered any relevant information I could find from the many official sources. And so none of the descriptions have been plucked from thin air. Every single one has its basis in fact

Please continue with your predictions! I for one enjoy reading your thread and who knows, your speculation may turn out to be right on the money.

~~~

Question/observation: In the clip at 30:10 did you notice the little Vault boy in the upper right hand corner who is all wrapped in bandages? I wonder what that is about?

In the part of the clip you mentioned, the PCs health is very low. The bandaged Vault Boy is most likely a warning that our condition is critical, and that we need to take stimpaks as a matter of urgency.

Thanks for answering. It's good to know that you're actually putting thought into these, and I will admit that the space issue hadn't actually occurred to me. Given the space limitation, I can see not 'showing your work'. However, I seem to recall other forums having a 'Link to Post' function. Assuming that this forum has the same function, if you ever get around to actually stating where you got the idea of a perk from (such as you just did with Awareness), you could put a link to the relevant post for those who are interested. Doing it for every one would be time-consuming, I realize, but if you happen to break something down, then a quick link to show how you came up with what you did would satisfy other people like me without taking up all the space in the OP.

That said, I want to make this perfectly clear: I actually do really like the system you've come up with. An Energy Weapons character in New Vegas, as an example, didn't really need to boost Perception to get full damage. In fact, a Perception of 1 wouldn't really hurt you in the long run, as a handful of level-ups dedicated to increasing your Energy Weapons skill would do far more for your damage than the 9 Perception you'd lost. The system you describe now gives an Energy Weapons character a reason to push the stat for their weapon skill higher (in this case, Intelligence): so they can take higher ranks of the Science! perk to increase the damage of their weapons. It actually makes the SPECIAL stats worth something, where in FO3 and FNV, they weren't anywhere near as important as Skills were.

Quick question that you might be able to answer: in the E3 demo, the character only had 22 SPECIAL points to distribute. My question is, do you have any information on whether this was just done for the demo, or is the starting SPECIAL actually lower than in previous games?

During the tutorial, we start with 1 point in each stat, and we are given a further 21 points to distribute as we see fit. This is due to the way that character creation now works. Any more points than this would give us a bit too much freedom in terms of our initial choices, and so we must earn additional stat points by levelling up if we wish to increase our range of options. This ensures that a level of balance is maintained as we put our character build together during the course of gameplay.

Speaking of character builds, I have just posted all perks listed under Endurance, including a few 'surprises'

There are definitely some surprises there! I may have to change my mind about how I am going to play this game now. I'll put this in spoiler tags just in case ~

Good job with the Endurance perks, as always.

Some of the biggest surprises are going to be with the Charisma perks. Especially number 9.

I wish I could post up all of my evidence, but it would be much too long! And so I would ask you all to trust me a little when I say that the suggestions I have made in the OP will almost certainly be the perks we will see in the final release, or will at least be very close. Once I've posted the rest of the descriptions, you will start to see patterns and connections between several of the perks on the chart. I am even preparing a new thread which will explain a lot of this, and will show conclusively why I have made such bold claims about the origins of our protagonist couple.

One thing I can say with absolute certainty is that Todd and the rest of his team really have put a huge amount of effort into creating Fallout 4. Even the perk chart contains details that will blow your mind, and many of these details have been discretely hidden in the footage and various other sources. This will of course make more sense once I post up the remaining descriptions, just as soon as I can get it all typed up

Playing as a ghoul has often been asked for on these forums and IF it was possible in game you can bet that quite a few of us would be seeking out the conditions to turn our characters into ghouls at the first opportunity.

The problems (or maybe not)....

Becoming a Feral ghoul is largely due to the brain rotting (I believe), causing the ghoul to lose the ability to reason and its a one way process with only one cure......death. Becoming a feral ghoul should pretty much be a 'game over' moment, if it happened in game the player should lose any ability to control the feral ghoul.

There is no known cure or indeed treatment for ghoulism in the lore, Fallout 3 of course had the ghoul medical staff researching ghoulism so perhaps that was a hint at the possibilty of a new treatment in later games?

Ghoulism seems to occur in two ways in Fallout lore, nuclear blasts and long term exposure to high levels of radiation which somehow doesn't just kill the survivors.....for this reason the vast majority of ghouls so far seem to be Great War (or the aftermath) era. I do not believe there has ever been a stated reason why some people become ghouls instead of just dying from radiation poisoning.

So far at least its never been possible to play as a ghoul character or to become a ghoul in game.....becoming one by necessary means a lot of extra dialogue for both the player and NPC, unless nobody really acknowledges the Protagonist becoming a ghoul.

I don't believe there is any data on early ghoulism, we haven't ever meet anybody who is in the process of becoming a ghoul so it hard to judge if there are stages or if its an all or nothing deal with the majority of people simply dying from radiation poisoning, while a small minority become ghouls as their skin and flesh rots off their bodies.

One of the main reasons I have suggested being able to play as a ghoul is not just due to the clues seen in the icon for the perk you have quoted, but also due to it's exact location on the chart. If we listen again at Todd's comments during the start of the E3 demo, he said "and it all starts with an obsession to detail." He really wasn't joking! I have found so many references hidden in the perk chart, what should have taken me a few days is now going on for three weeks. And I'm still not done 'decoding' everything I have found, due to the colossal amount of detail that Todd and his team have hidden there.

For example, one of the more unusual things I have found in the chart is a direct reference to one of Skyrim's better known creatures. And it isn't a dragon, it's something much smaller, but equally well known. But some of the coolest finds are the ones that point to very specific areas of the military.

Anyway, back to the idea of ghoulification. As you quite rightly stated, a cure was being researched during Fallout 3. And because of the shift in timeline (I have very strong reason to believe that Fallout 4 does in fact start in 2285), this would have allowed time for further developments to the point where a 'cure' could be available. But the cure would most likely require something that the player character would have by default. And that is pure pre-war DNA. In other words, the protagonist would potentially be the only person who could actually be cured, other than their spouse and child.

As for the advanced state of actually being feral, perhaps the in-game implementation would mean a lesser state, but with 'feral abilities' that would have temporary side-effects. This could result in the player becoming exhausted or vulnerable in some way. This would actually make a bit more sense, because we wouldn't lose our inventory or our ability to converse with NPCs. And it's something that would be a bit more believable in terms of our being able to reverse the process. But as you also suggested, this would require at least a fair amount of additional dialogue. Perhaps this partially accounts for the total of 175,000 lines that have been confirmed as being in-game.

I just read http://www.sugarbombed.com/forums/index.php?threads/fallout-perk-chart.6581/page-2#post-94601 that the http://orcz.com/Fallout_4:_Perk_Chart is only 80% accurate according to the devs. Not sure how reliable that source is since I never saw that post from the devs, but if it is true than it means that 14/70 are incorrect and 56/70 are correct

What's really interesting if this was actually posted by a dev is that many of my own suggested names and functions are different that those on the orcz site. Some of the perks, such as Slayer, Crushing Blow, and Rocketeer, were sourced from this thread, but in some cases different descriptions have been used for their chart. Note that the linked chart has a talk page which is in turn linked directly back to this thread. This was following a 'conversation' I had with the site admin, which resulted in the link being posted.

One thing that's very clear is that the origins of the official chart point to a very specific layout and very specific functions. There is also a kind of built in 'checksum' method which can be used to verify certain details. This is one of the reasons that I'm so certain about the perks I have described in the OP. Even details that have been pointed out as being 'incorrect', such as Crushing Blow having something to do with fire, can be explained using the information I have provided. In this case, if you look at my suggestion of using a flint to start a fire, Crushing Blow, as well as Wrecking Ball, could be used to strike a piece of flint very hard against a stone surface. This would create a spark that could then be used to start a fire.

most people will only play 20 to 30 hrs a playthru? where did you get that idea?...if you only spent 30 hrs on a playthru, you barely got started with a bethesda game.

I think this is just a reference to those who play the game for the main quest only, which a lot of people do. I suppose it depends on what individual people want out of the game. Somebody who is used to more linear games may be a bit overwhelmed by the number of choices that can be made, and so may opt to play it 'straight through'. Whereas those who are after a true roleplaying experience would certainly invest a lot more than 30 hours, most likely into the hundreds.

@youngsmeagol, if you're concerned about everybody ending up with the same character, you might want to take a look at http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1532764-levelling-up thread. The information I have posted should hopefully put your mind at rest a bit

I have often wondered if the ghoul research team was like the android storylines a nod to future games, the only problem I can see with the Protagonist (and family) alone being curable is that if the key to a cure to ghoulism is that the subject must have pure pre-war DNA its unlikely that the cure would have made it out of the lab since it would be mostly useless to those needing the cure and those researching it.....this of course could be solved by the Protagonist finding old data that was in the Institutes databanks I suppose. Also the Institute could also provide another needed feature if ghoulism was curable for the player, the full body and facial reconstruction that would be needed to make the Protagonist look human again.

That actually makes me wonder, does the Institute have the ability to make humanlike bodies for a specific reason other the creation of human androids, perhaps the brains behind the Institute are ghouls themselves with modified bodies to pass as human.....perhaps the reason the family could be important to the Institute is that their DNA could provide the cure from ghoulism. Perhaps the Institute want the best of both worlds the Immortaility of the ghoul without the side effect of being a mobile rotting corpse, maybe that is why they are so invested with android research.

Now this is why I really like your posts! Plenty of food for though, and a really good possible twist on the main story

I'll have to have a good think about this one. With this and your previous comment, I might need to change things up a bit with my details about becoming ghoulified, and also regarding the curing process. Thank you as always for your valuable input.

Thanks, now I'm thinking that at some point it will make more sense for me just to add points to attributes just for the SPECIAL bonus instead of trying to specialize with certain perks. If my character has a 4 in perception at level 60+ and I use the next 3 levels getting it up to 7 I would think that would help with my chance to hit in VATS even if I didn't take any more perks. So at higher levels I might just focus on removing SPECIAL weaknesses instead of trying to focus on PERKS that I probably won't use. If I've waited until level 60 or so to put points into a perk then it's probably not a priority.

The beauty of the new system is that even the stat increases seem to function as incremental perks. And so, as you suggest here, it would be perfectly viable to increase your stat points during later stages of gameplay instead of unlocking new perks. Although once we all get our hands on the final release, I have a feeling that most people will naturally end up using a combination of both. The main point being that character development should feel a lot more organic than in previous games.

I think 56/70 is a pretty good number

This means we know most of the perks

But at the same time, not ALL are spoiled and some are left for speculation/surprise

YAY!

I agree, though to be fair, seems like nobody other than the guy from that forum saw said "dev post" which said 80% and was supposedly deleted so the chart could be 0% accurate or it could be 100% accurate.

I am hoping it is at least 80% accurate but its not officially confirmed.

If such a dev post existed, I'm sure more than one person would have seen it.

This. If a dev posted that, especially if they posted that on this forum, we wouldn't be talking about someone on another forum thinking they saw a dev post that. We'd all be going nuts over the fact that a dev posted that here, and we'd be able to find it.