WTH are you doing?

This is the skill list I would like to see for Fallout 4.

01. Blade
02. Blunt
03. Hand to Hand

04. Throwing
05. Guns
06. Flame Weapons

07. Explosives
08. Energy Weapons
09. Big Guns

10. Persuasion
11. Deception
12. Barter

13. Gambling
14. Chemistry
15. Mechanics

16. Pilot
17. Electronics
18. Medicine

19. Survival
20. Outdoorsman
21. Hacking
22. Lockpicking

23. Steal
24. Sneak
25. Traps

Now let me explain them.

1. While swords (fencing) and knifes are different combat styles I'd rather not make a long list too long, but bladed weapons and blunt weapons function differently.
Blunt weapons use brute force to crush the enemy, while bladed weapons, which are mostly knifes, aren't really a strong suit for someone to charge a deathclaw with.
So Blade is mostly the stealth skill, an assassin skill, but there "are" weapons that are of more impact that you can use like swords, machetes and fire axes but they are harder to find.

2. Blunt, the omega to it's alpha, the straight forward brute skill, heavier, louder, stronger, while Blade weapons have a greater critical chance, critical damage and a bleed effect the Blunt skill's weapons are high DAM but slower and not very suitable for sneaky kills.

3. Basically Unarmed with a name change, think it freshens it up a little. It's core design is the same but it would be nice with more combat moves and to be able to kick like in the old games. (And kick down doors as well. )

4. Throwing, now throwing is a tricky skill and most definitely an under dog when compared to the rest, but I still think that players should be given the option to specialize in a less valid combat skill if they choose to, but the skill will support grenades as well.
Grenades are governed by this skill AND Explosives skill, they are combo weapons, if you have 200 in Throwing you will be just as proficient with grenades as you would with 200 in Explosives, on the other hand, if you have 200 in both skills you don't get any duplicate bonus for it, 200 in one skill means you've learned how to use them to perfection, you can't learn "double perfection". So while governed by both, leveling both is unnecessary.

6. Flame Weapons, this weapon skill includes all fire based weapons, Flame Gun, Flame Rifle, Flamer, Incinerator, Incendiary Grenade et cetera.
It should be it's own skill because fire based weapons does not fit in any other skill (Except incendiary grenade).
If you build in this skill you will have it easier and have it harder, the damage of the weapons is quite large but the problem is their ammo consumption.
They're also "rare'ish". You can get the Flame Gun easily of course but the rest is a lot harder to come by.

9. Why o why is Big Guns on the list? Cause it should be, Big Guns governs all BIG weapons, just like it has done before, but this skill is completely filled with combo weapons.
If you have 200 in Guns you can use minigun to perfection, but if you have 200 in Big Guns you can use minigun AND the rest of the big weapons to perfection.
So Minigun is still a Guns, Gatling Laser is still an Energy Weapon, and GMG is still an Explosive, but this skill let's you use all of them.

10/11. Why the split of Speech? Because they're both different. Persuasion means you know how to persuade people it has a lot more dialogue options than deception does, but deception governs the success rate of disguising yourself, the game should of course need more infiltration missions in order for disguises to be more of use.
Anyway, just cause you're a smooth talker don't mean you have a poker face, they're both different, and should be split so.
Deception also means you know where to hide stuff on yourself and not making them "stand out" and can smuggle items.

13. I think that Gambling should be reinstated and that the minigames should be removed, I hate the minigames, if I want to play black jack I'll go online and find a game to play. Gambling should be based on character skill, not player skill, so yes, back with Gambling.

14. Chemistry is a crafting skill primarily, with this one you know how to craft various drugs, poisons, acids and other items.
Chemistry should also have it's quest and event sequences, maybe there's some mold on a beam supporting a house and your character figures out that he can use chemical component #42 and apply it to the mold which creates acid and therefor eats away at the beam, collapsing the house. (Dunno how this would work or if it even could work but yknow, have certain moments where a high Chemistry skill can come in handy.)

15. Mechanics is a renamed Repair, functions basically the same way, it has a bit of Science in it as well, but mostly it's a cosmetic change.
Well, that is IF we have vehicles. If we do have vehicles in FO4 then this skill will come in handy for repairing vehicles and sabotaging others.

16. Pilot, well... Vehicles, if they're in the game then the Pilot skill determines how good your character is at steering the vehicle and how far he can jump with it and other things. (I'm not very interested in cars so I don't know what a good driver can do with a car really.)

17. Electronics... *sigh* Go read my posts in the "Why is big guns removed?" thread in New Vegas General Discussion.

18. Medicine... I'd rather have First Aid and Doctor back but there are already so many skills on here.

20. If we have a map node system with random encounters then this skill will function just like in the old games.

21. Hacking, what it sounds like, you can hack any computer interface with a deep coded lock.

23. Steal, I think that steal should be brought back, but if brought back then there should be a lot more moments where can steal something of value.
Not necessarily of $ value but rather quest value, say someone has a key on himself, you could either disguise yourself with Deception and say you're a new high ranking officer, you could use Electronics to turn off the lights by cutting some wires and have him lured to the wires trying to fix it and shocking himself unconseaus(???) you could smooth talk him with Persuasion or you could use the Steal skill to take it from him.

22. Sneak only means you're great at keeping yourself undetected, it does NOT mean you're a great thief and it does NOT you know how to conceal items better.
Just means your footsteps are that of a mouse and you blend in with the darkness.

25. And finally, Traps, first off, traps should be more deadly, secondly, there should be more of them, ranging from a huge log chained to the ceiling to an alarmed door.
So for the skill to be worth it let there be more traps, hell, let there be moments (not a lot) were you can't even continue further in a building until you've disarmed the trap.
You can also create traps of your own, and yes, they are very deadly.

Might clean this post up later but I think that there needs to be more skills and these are the one's I thought of.

Skill cap should be 200. (I'd rather have it at 300 though.)

^^^I like this. all of it. a lot.

this can't be put in with the GECK, can it? sorry if it's a stupid question, I don't mod.

Like a mod?
Dunno.
Maybe.
But New Vegas and FO3 is unfortunately not designed with it's game world, quest resolution and other things to support some of skills.
So Steal for example would be a pretty lousy skill as most people don't exactly have anything of importance to steal, making the skill pretty useless.

I like these ideas too... I hope they read it.

I did find it kind of crappy how in Vegas you get a perk every other level, it just isn't fun or even mildly difficult to gain a level in Vegas.

And one thing I don't want in F4 is Vegas lovers most common arguement about quests...

"Vegas' quests might be courier missions but it's more realistic!"

I don't want that, it svcked. They also say, "Fallout 3 missions were to crazy (they mean creative and fun), (NOT REALLY WHAT THEY SAY AFTER THIS MESSAGE) I'd rather have boring go hear talk to this person, comeback missions that have no creativity or fun in them!"

Bethesda please make the missions atleast similar to Fallout 3, they were really fun and you don't get angry or annoyed about completing a missions. Maybe as a comprimise with dull people you could have some missions toned down (Just alittle).

Actually, if there is a level cap at 40 or 50 then the game needs perk every third level.

Anyway, what bothered me with Fallout 3 was that all of it's quest was some "epic" journey.
New Vegas quests are just fine to me, there are some epic quests and locations, V34, V11, V22, That Lucky Old Sun, Come Fly With Me, Brotherhood initiation, Boomers, that Beef quest.
It has a nice variety of unique quests that nicely blend in with the mundane one's.
Both of which are needed.
But the game shouldn't solely be based upon epic quests.
New Vegas did have some pretty kickass quests, maybe some people feel that the mundane ones over shadow them but they are still there.

ah, I see. you could make your own skills though? I know some wouldn't be useful, but say, for example, you manage to put in the pilot and mechanic skills, and I think I've seen mods for vehicles(right? or no?), is it possible to put in the proper programming so that your skill level in pilot and mechanics reflect in-game?

It would probably be a pain in the ass, but if the above is possible, you could add other things to reflect those skills, like for the chemistry have more random chemicals lying around that you could combine at a chemistry set or something?

There should be atleast four long epic journey quests... And all of the courier quests (WHICH svckED and shouldn't be in F4!) greatly overshadowed the four or five really fun quests... That point is no courier wquests in F4 please and maybe not as many epic journey, but still have interesting quests...

Think you should divide Energy Weapons into Laser and Plasma, and Guns into Pistols, Rifles and Shotguns. They all act different aswell, so why not. The list of skills should be endless, you will scroll and scroll and never reach the bottom! So many skills to put points in every level-up! Argh!

Too much splitting of the skills would make some people irritated though.
But I'd like these as well.

Not to mention that too many skill will (almost unavoidably) result in some skills being underpowered and practically useless.

The way I see it, if there ever was to be more skills (instead of less, which I expect from the future - that much of pessimist I am ), they should be skills that have an actual punch and meaning in the game. How worthwhile, for example, would be having shotguns and rifles as their own skills - would there be a genuine, worhwhile reason to pick one over the other other than visual preference?

Rather than start "splitting hairs", so to speak, it would be better to have "rifle grip" and "pistol grip" categories where "rg" would naturally handle rifles, assault rifles and such, and "pg" pistols, submachineguns and such. It would do the same job, but would be much easier to balance out, and thus likely result in more enjoyable experience. Splitting energy weapons to plasma and laser (and possibly pulse) would be fine. Another example could be having the skills as they are up to 50 (to present that the PC has some general knowledge about the weapons in that category) and then split them up (to present that in order to be able to use higher tier weapons, specialisation is needed).

Anyways, I don't think the weaponskills need to necessarily be split (I'm not against it though). It would be more preferable (imo) to handle them through the damagetypes they offer (normal, laser, plasma, explosive etc, give armors appropriate DT/DR scores, and balance out the nonhumanoid enemies too to have different resistances) somewhat like it was in the originals - a put more focus on making the noncombat skills more robust and have more uses (and possibly split some of them or add a couple).

...for a quick thought.

Hmm, Military Weapons, Hunting Weapons and Sidearms? (Or just Rifles and Sidearms)

that would probably make sense, seeing as most military weapon attachments are almost universal. I think if you have a high weapons skill, meaning your quite proficient with firearms, then it would make sense that you would know how to at least maintain them so they last longer, or repair them with similar weapons.

I'd go with "just rifles and sidearms". Splitting rifles in military weapons and hunting weapons would likely create two unnecessarily similiar groups. One could, of course, start separating them by putting all high RoF weapons to military and all sniping and shotgunning in hunting, and have, in practice, a skill for high DPS and another for high DMG -- but how would sidearms fit into the big picture anymore, what could they offer over the other two skills to be worthwhile?

They all do the same type of damage, so I think it would be easier, and likely more successful, to balance out a worthwhile difference (both, pros and cons over each other) with a more subtle split. It's not all the way realistic (shotguns do handle differently than assault rifles or hunting rifles as do sniperrifles, for example), but it's more a question of in-game functionality and usefulness of a given skill.

Split it into "one-handed guns" and "two-handed guns". Like the perks "gunslinger" and "commando".

Fallout: Oak Ridge, Tennessee would be amazing. The nuclear facility there is where they basically made the first atomic bomb and during the time many dams were built in the east Tennessee region. The factions could be the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) and possibly a group of farmers or locals angry about the TVA taking their land for the construction of dams, and the brotherhood of steel could be there trying to secure the nuclear facility and its secrets. The radio could play classic bluegrass country and rock music such as Elvis.

I would like to think that fallout 4 is about what happens after fallout 3. I know we had broken steel and all that but I want something longer where we can see what has happened since you turned on the water purifier. Maybe it could do like a Mass effect 2 thing where what you did in fallout 3 is brought on over to fallout 4.

that or I want a fallout in China or the UK

I'd rather it continue the trend of there being no real connection between protagonists of the different Fallout titles.

I think the story could travel to the northeast or southeast from the Mojave nicely. Either around the North/South Dakota and Minnesota area or somewhere like Texas/Louisiana/Mississippi.

However, traveling east and forward through time could make any mention of Caesar's Legion difficult - as in they'd have to work around declaring what happened to Caesar or where he currently is, which would make something from New Vegas cannon or whatever you folk around here call it.

I'm not quite sure what happens next. I'd like to think Fallout 4 will have to do with what happened in Fallout 3, otherwise F3 would be a rather strange spin-off type outlier. New Vegas seems to have tried to wrap things up on the West Coast, though I'm not an expert by a long-shot so I don't know. While the future of the new major factions is more of a compelling story than the rubble pile fights of the East Coast, I'm thinking they'll develop into something more. Perhaps a faction, formed by a merger of the Capital Wasteland Brotherhood of Steel and the major settlements of the area, such as Rivet City and Megaton (if it wasn't canonically destroyed), and its various story arcs. Who knows.

you guys should take the story back to california i mean a lot has probably changed since then,

oh and bring the enclave back i want to kill some more of them!!!

I had an idea involving that... It was called Capital Steel (in my idea). Lyon's was the president (elected) and the Rivet City Security guards became the police force, random adventurers (Edit: including Regulators, Reily's Rangers, and people where drafted) were signed in as normal soldier and the Brotherhood of Steel became their elite troops.

The story was about them and the also expanding Pitt and Ronto trying to take over the area in and around New York City (which suffered minimal damage). I still love that idea!



There was an idea going around a little while ago about the NCR getting into a civil war, that'd be cool.

Boston is my hope.

Desmond the ghoul seemed to be hell bent on revenge on another political family.I seem to remember a powerful family from the Boston area...cant remember the name tho.Being rich and powerful perhaps they had a private family vault built on their compound.Being on the elitest side they possibly believed that their gene pool was strong enough to survive a couple of hundred years of in breeding.They would have been wrong.The offspring that were mutated by both radiation and inbreeding could fill the Super Mutant/Trog/Deathclaw role.

Fenway Park home of the Green Monster could be the location of P.T. Barnumesque carnival and freak show." Behold the one headed Brahmin" and of course a captured Super Mutant.This could be a place that gives quests to locate and retrieve oddities from the wasteland.

Bunker Hill is a perfect place for a vault.Could be the base for the"Sons of Liberty"faction

Cambridge is sometimes refered to as "The Peoples Republic"for political reasons.Perhaps a faction that opposes the SoL could be based there.

MIT is (I believe) the Institute mentioned in FO3.anything from alien bodies to an experimental suit of power armor could be found inside.

in Natick there is an R&D lab working on the super soldier electronics and armor IRL.Might not be called super soldier tho.

A note on new york: if you want to see new york filled with freakish oddly colored mutants,A violent criminal element,and hopelessness and despair.You do not have to wait for FO4.You can go there now.

P.S. If you dispute the mutant idea have you ever seen Snooki?

I'm from New York so watch it...The Commonwealth is the state of Massachustes, I think it'd include Boston as well, maybe a prequel.

Edit: Boston, Mass. Miami, Florida and Waterbury, Connecticut are much worse than New York City.

I think the area of Fallout 4 will be in Chicago. Supposedly there is a Brotherhood branch there (but of a different flavor), and maybe some Enclave activity too (supposedly ED-E made a trip through there for a pit stop on his way to Navarro).

Personally I just want to see what Fallout 4 will look like using the Skyrim engine :dance: