So far it looks like, to build my wanted character build, I'd need something like:

S. 1

P. 10

E. 1

C. 2

I. 7

A. 10

L. 7

I hate having my charisma that low though.. I want to feel like a pretty wastelander even if there's no perks in charisma that really flesh out a super sneaky sniper thief.

I have no idea what my starting stats should be anymore..It seems like it'd be almost just as good to start out as an average Jane with all 5's in everything and build from there.

Other than not getting the perks you want, I have to wonder if there is any disadvantage to having a low score. If there is no 'Low CHR' additional dialog in the game, why not make it 1?

I'm hoping that there will be big drawbacks to any low scores. Charisma so far has been a major dump stat for players because there really haven't been any major drawbacks to having a low charisma. It'd be nice to see that changed in a big way. It'd be pretty cool if you got automatic negative or positive starting traits based on your highest and lowest ability scores. For instance, if you made a character with low perception you'd automatically get something like four eyes.

I would be very surprised. Their preference seems to be for minimum ability that improves, rather than implementing PC weakness.

Except in a way a low starting stat is a weakness in itself, with a bigger focus on the value of SPECIAL stats the lower starting points its clearly Beth way to encourage characters with strengths and weaknesses, unlike previous Fallouts, where it was to easy to be average at worst and still great at best.

So yeah Beth has implemented PC weakness, maybe not the kind you want, but its there.

I have never seen it that way. It always seems to be minimum, plus bonus.

A proper weakness would be... PCs with less than a certain Strength cannot aim/fire a very heavy weapon (like a minigun) without a penalty to accuracy.

A penalty that goes away, once they have become strong enough for the task.

This idea is suggested in the OP, whereby recoil for all weapons would reduce as our Strength increases, and the greatest penalty would always be for heavy weapons.

As our Strength goes up, the first penalty that would be 'removed' would be for pistols, and then rifles, and then eventually heavy weapons. This way, anyone could pick up a minigun at the start of the game, but if they had a low Strength stat they wouldn't be able to handle it very well, and would probably end up taking out a few friendlies!

Note that many of the weapon mods shown affect recoil, and so the Strength stat would significantly reduce it, but would not remove it altogether.

I wonder what would be a really good drawback for low charisma to make it less of a dump stat? If only they had made the C in special stand for something else.. cunning, capability.. courage.

It was also in Fallout.


Shorter triggers on NPC tempers and dislike; and higher prices for trades.

Limited to low CHA dialog selections that tend to annoy NPCs.

Upped dislike triggers would be pretty cool. People might just not like your mug or might not trust you so you could easily piss them off quicker than normal. They could also become instantly suspicious of you if things were stolen upping the likely hood of them going hostile. Still, it just doesn't seem like that much of a drawback compared to the drawbacks of other stats. It's always just kind of been a weak stat that's been hard for them to fully utilize to any great potential.

Now that Charisma fills more or less the same role that Speech did in the earlier Fallouts, it's way more useful. And more excruciating to balance your SPECIAL against; most characters could just pump up Speech regardless of the rest of their build, but now it takes a considerable effort to bump up your Charisma if you didn't start with it high to begin with.

With how SPECIAL ties to perks, I don't think this system will have any dump stats! A few dump perks are a given, but that's an easier pill to swallow as long as none of them are the ones that require 10 in a SPECIAL.

I don't think you will be able to "bump up" a SPECIAL attribute more than two points during the game. You might be able to get some perk related bobbleheads, but I doubt you will be able to max out a perk with bobbleheads alone. Letting people just bypass their SPECIAL limitations defeats the purpose of having those choices in the first place.

IIRC, its been confirmed you can raise all your SPECIAL stats to 10 by spending perk points on them.

OFC, due to the low starting SPECIAL in this game, by the time you do so, you will basically be done with the game, and have no perks to show for it.

I don't see anything confirmed. I see a theory on reddit stating that you have to spend 10 perk points for each level you add on to a SPECIAL attribute. It sounds ridiculous.

Pete Hines confirmed that when we level up, we can take a perk or increase a stat. He also said that we can increase our stats as much as we like. It was fairly recently, but I can't remember where he said it.

Wow, so it doesn't matter at all what our starting SPECIAL stat is then. As long as you are willing to play through most of the game you can get most of the perks you want eventually. That makes a 2nd play through way less appealing. Most people will play 20-30 hours, but obviously a lot of the people here will do a full 300-400 hour playthrough.

Not at all.
(Disgraceful isn't it.)

With all bobbleheads and all skill books, you would need to level up 28 times just to max out your SPECIAL stats, but that would be without choosing a single perk. Compare this to Fallout 3's maximum of level 30 with Broken Steel installed. This setup would put you at a massive disadvantage, and so you would have to use a more sensible approach of balancing new perks with stat increases, which would take a very long time to reach any significant level.

For the record, it took me over 300 hours to reach the maximum of level 81 in Skyrim. Fallout 4 has 311 levels not including books and bobbleheads.

This does seem a silly generalisation.

I plan to start (a little role play in mind) with 'Nora' as a weak survivor (8's in Intelligence, Charisma and Luck, with all else at 1).

That's going to make a significant difference to the game compared to starting with a more balanced or combat focused build.

Just because a build may be filled out eventually does not negate a very different play through.

I'll be thankful that over time, my protagonist will toughen up and develop acceptable combat skills and I would not wish to be arbitrarily limited in doing so.

In sort, the new system offers a real ability to explore different builds in the SPECIAL and perk system, without anything being broken forever.

Disgraceful? No it's not, Bethesda should be congratulated on its innovation.

Don't bet on it. They would never allow that.

Bull ~IMO. Bethesda has 'innovated' away from the innovative original series... shifting the gameplay back towards the mainstream, and their other titles (whose gameplay pre-dates the Fallout series). That's not something to laud them for IMO [that's a cash grab at the series' expense]; and especially not when it smacks at the face of the Fallout series design and intents. Polar opposites. Servile polar opposites.

Skyrim had a soft cap though. If Fallout 4 has a soft cap then this isn't an issue, but it sounded like they were saying the game has no level cap whatsoever. Keep in mind that Fallout 4 is estimated to be 8 times as long as Fallout 3, but the leveling speed will likely be the same. So by the time you are 200 hours into the game you could easily be at level 120. At that point putting 28 points into attributes would be a fairly trivial matter. You don't even really need to max out, though. I can pretty much get everything I wanted for my first two playthroughs with just an extra 9 points.

Well, most people would start off with a more balanced character then eventually Max out intelligence, Charisma, and Luck over the course of the game. There would essentially just be one "best" starting SPECIAL that everyone would gravitate towards and exploit.

Huh? If I want a SPECIAL build of 1,1,1,8,8,1,8 I can - what would stop that?

As for innovation (and I have no interest in last century isometric games, so I can't comment on Fallouts before 3),

the mainstream is where AAA games should be, to make games enjoyable for huge amounts of people, not some bitter entitled minority of so called 'hardcoe' players.

Such a player base would be uneconomic to make games for anyway.

FO4 looks to be a good step forward from the hugely enjoyable FO3, so I struggle to comprehend any basis for disappointment.

I think you are quite correct, most players will take a build of 3's to 5's with maybe a 6.

Though the ability to start with a strongly biased build and still be able to address its shortcomings is a benefit of this system, as I understand it.

Nowhere has Fallout 3 been estimated to be 8 times as long as Fallout 3.

And Fallout 4 will likely have the same soft cap as Skyrim did, around level 50-60.

???

All the gaming media outlets are taking that as an estimate. If this game is like 50 hours long people will say that Bethesda Game Studios misled the public. Lol, even if the game is 200 hours long the pitchforks will come out, lol. They've had plenty of time to clear that up if it was wrong.

Meant "Nowhere has Fallout 4 been estimated to be 8 times as long as Fallout 3."

And I have found new stuff even 500 hours into Fallout 3. Also finding stuff in the game world =/= total quest/content length. They haven't "cleared it up" becuase it should be obvious.....

That would be sort of the point. Yes you CAN level your SPECIAL stats... but doing so means you miss out on getting perks for 50-60% of the game's quest content. If you want to endless grind deathclaws for 600 hours to get to the level like 340 it would take to get everything..... you can if you want, but you won't reach it via normal gameplay.