I love open world games, but always feel overwhelmed at first. What should my character look like? Should they be good or bad? Male or female? I am embarrassed to admit that I am actually stressed about it already for Fallout 4! I look at the skill tree creator and keep going back and forth on what I should concentrate on. I know I want to focus on charisma because I liked all the special chat options from Fallout 3. But I also know that I won't be able to talk my way out of every situations and will have to fight so I need weapon skills. This means I will need focus on perception and guns. I love the idea of creating settlements and need to focus on crafting but need strength in order to carry more items. Ugh! What to do? I'm glad we can spread the points and perks around so that way I can put a little in each. Then when the game starts, what missions do I accept? Where do I go? I think the only way to solve my dilemma is to wait until November 10th and actually get to play it and do it. This pre planning is driving me crazy!

Amber

Amber, I recommend that you just go with the flow, try different things & explore all the avenues that become available to you. I will be replaying Fo4 many times over, changing what I did the previous time around. After that I'll start playing around with the mods.

Tod said that you can play a lot of the game finding non-violent solutions, so you should be able to talk your way out of things more often than you did in Fallout 3.

As for your stats, you could always just keep everything around 4-5 but max out charisma, should make sure you are not weak in any area but still get to take full advantage of your favorite attribute.

I can definitely relate in terms of the going crazy with anticipation for the game. I think I might need to take a break from the forums until the game is released to help me forget about it for a month to help the time go by faster. I'm also off from work until January, which is making the time go by even slower.

It amazes me that people are able to pre plan characters in any real detail considering we actually *know* very little about the perks and what not. During the Skyrim prerelease, it seems like they told us a lot more about the workings of the games skills/perks system so pre planning characters was really easy. For Fallout 4 I've got a general idea of what I want my first character to excel in, but beyond that I have no idea!

I find that trying to find the "optimal" character build via min-maxing and statistics svcks the fun out of the game quickly, although other people might love it. So I try not to stress about being the best, or doing things in the right order. Sometimes making mistakes leads to having more fun. I try not to think ahead of myself, and just go with the flow.

Hi Amber & Welcome to the forums!

I agree that open world games can be a little daunting. I, like you, like to focus on Charisma and it looks like we may be in luck with Fallout 4. It sounds like we are going to have more options to use it this time around.

There are just so many exciting things to look forward to in the game and I personally cannot wait for November 10 to arrive. If your are up for some general speculation on the perks, etc. you could check out the link below. I want to emphasize that most of this is speculation (not official) at this point. It is still fun to read and tentatively plan a character.

Best of luck while we wait and hope to see you around.

Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women.

Probably go with a riot shotgun and sniper rifle as usual.. Or that odd laser pump action rifle that I hallucinated

This, really. Just...go with it. There are many ways you can approach a character, in your head. You can flesh who they were in the Back When, and the use that to go with the flow of where the game takes you. Or you can choose to use yourself as a template, and do what you would do in this situation.

Most importantly...take your time. There's no rush, the game isn't going anywhere. Don't rush the story or the quests. Stop and look at everything. Lose yourself in a couple hours of absolutely nothing productive.

Find a bench and kick back with the radio on. Wear clothes with no protective quality. Build something pointless and without purpose, but just because you like it.

In other words. Get lost. Embrace being overwhelmed and enjoy it because eventually, you'll know that wasteland like the back of your hand.

I personally recommend that first playthrough? Play yourself, and let the game take you with the current, and see where it leads you.

My first character I play in these games is myself. I make the PC look like me, and react as I should in this situation. Once you have a grasp of the direction and freedom allowed in the game, you can create new personalities to play though again and see things through different eyes. I have been following this way since Oblivion and it's never steered me wrong, and no worries about going wrong. Since oblivion, I know there are no ways to go totally wrong with chargen anymore.

I would do this as well but there aren't enough stat points to allocate to make an accurate me .

Actually I just make a jack of all trades as I have little interest in min-maxing. Unless BGS does hard-checks NV style, you won't be punished for spreading things out.

I totally agree with your in-depth assessment. With most games I usually have no idea what I'm doing when starting out & my first play-through is like training for my next attempt. As so little is known about Fo4 I'm looking very forward to discovering the unknown, as Beth has kept us in the dark intentionally. The story line to Fo4 is the last thing on my mind, I'm more interested in everything else it has to offer.

I would do this... but I'm not sure that Bethesda have given the player character a 'hide in the corner weeping' animation

I'm not so sure about the go-with-the-flow idea, I fear that could be a good way to create stress by optimising your character for the situations your first stumble across, then scrambling to improve other character-build areas when you find your character has no way of approaching other situations. I prefer it if my character fails because that's the character I chose to make, rather than because I didn't know what I was doing just blundered into a hopeless character.

I'm going to wait until I know a it more about the stats and perks, what companions are capable of, and how levelling works (solid confirmed information rather than speculation and deductive sleuthing based on easily misinterpreted hints or random noise thought to be clues). Then I'll decide whether my character will be a sneak, a fighter, a talker, a tech-head or whatever - and go with that. If I find the game requires less specialised builds to be fun... well, I'll try again.

[edited for clarity]

There are no right or wrong answers.

There is nothing wrong with a balanced starting build of 4,4,4,4,4,4,4

Alternatively, one could lead with 8 Charisma, and stick mostly 3's into everything else.

I'll be running a : 1,1,1,8,8,1,8 build because I quite like a daunting start.

all your reason, are why i love open world, the free to be what i want, i know i will go crazy and restart the game like 10 time the first day, always happen to me on Bethesda game lol. But having that freedom is amazing

I've always had the dorky science type in pretty much every Fallout to date so I'll be beginning with a 3, 4, 3, 3, 8, 5, 2 build and see how that goes. I rarely max out a stat to begin with because there's a Bobble Head out there somewhere that will bump the stat up.

Edit: Hmmm, after seeing the Perk list that'll have to change. 4, 4, 3, 6, 5, 3, 3.

Just do whatever comes to mind when the time comes if planning is stressing you out. There's no wrong way to play these sorts of games. Also, have a fishy stick!

http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i/keep-calm-and-have-a-fishy-stick-1.png

I never play as myself. Ever. I play video games to get away from myself.

This is not a big issue for me because I play many, many, many characters. And all of them are very different from each other. So I don't feel the pressure of "getting it right."

If one character doesn't work out quite the way I expected, there will be other characters. If I make a "mistake" in this game, there will be other games.

Just play as your video game self. When a choice has to be made, do what you want to do or feel like doing. Your character will be shaped by your journey, and this will be easier in Fallout 4 as there are no skill points to distribute.

When the last S.P.E.C.I.A.L video is released, I will make my final decision. But based on FO3 and New Vegas experiences, and seeing that weapons get ridiculously overpowered even half way through the game, I see no reason not to invest in different things this time, that completely steer me away from weapon enhancement.

Can't tell you how many games I stalled halfway through because I couldn't decide which progression path to take in the middle.

Then life got complicated and my gaming time shrunk radically. Now I just force through it because the hour is too precious to waste staring at the screen.
What I discovered is that very few games have completely non-viable builds, so you're not going to be punished for abstaining from min-maxing.

I've gone over trying to create a character as well and there's just too much I don't know yet. To create the specific... rather simple 'sneaky, intelligent, sniper' character that I've always enjoyed playing in past games has now become a real challenge to create. I don't like min/maxing, so putting 1's in some stats just to get to the supposed perks I feel I want in other stats just isn't working without min/maxing. To me, 1 has always meant "you really, really, really, really svck" For this game I'm having trouble believing that 1 means you svck anymore. I mean, if you can take the brawler perk with a 1 strength.. then 1 can't be that wimpy of a stat.

So yeah.. Most likely my decision will be made once I have the game.. and while it's installing I'll be reading the game guide about character builds and trying to figure out what the stat numbers really mean.

Completely based off the speculative perk chart.. at the moment, I'd want to build a character who's stats were.

S 8

P 10

E 1

C 1

I 7

A 10

L 7

That's a really ugly character build.. not to mention that it'd take me a heck of a lot of levels just to get my stats to that point.

Get a concept of who you think this character you like is before playing the game.
Then, when it's time to play, adhere to what that character would be about and the stats fall into place.

That's the only rough part.
"but I want......" will try and force you to break outta your characters mold.
Get it the next time around. Stay the course.

This is as much for me as anyone else.

I find this too. Quite often I'll find myself thinking "I did that wrong", or "that quest would've made more sense before this quest", but in the end the best playthroughs I've had is when I tell my head to shut the [censored] up and just get on with it.

I approach every character as I would a PnP roleplaying game character. For my first one, I have an image of an NPC that one of my players made up in Daz. She is going to be my inspiration for an "asymmetrical warfare specialist" (read: commando) character. I also want to run a Tony Stark like guy that uses his powered armor as much as possible. After that, depends on when I play. I don't have angst about building characters. If anything, I build way too many. Only a few make it very far. Most of my angst comes from the long wait until I get to play.

Roll a whatever character and run around a bit getting a vibe for the setting/tone/backstory and then start over.