Fight your way through downtown Boston, sneaking past super mutants at night while the rain hammers down around you, then breath a sigh of relief when you arrive at Diamond City, and meet the awesome, wise-cracking Piper, and get a haircut... And... And...

Do all that, THEN tell me how horrible this masterpiece is

I'm an Obsidian fan.

But I'm also a Bethesda fan.

Here's hoping they focus on innovating instead of modernizing the next installment.

A lot of stuff went away, not because they felt out of place, but because they weren't needed, and they really should know when to draw the line.

There was *zero* need to remove skills. They could have improved and expanded on the existing system just as well without having them removed.

FWE and PN for example. IMO they managed to adapt fallout's ruleset in Bethesda's game very well and also managed to add much more depth to it. It's not nuclear physics. I really don't understand why that was a hard thing to do for Bethesda, or why they couldn't do it with skills in, when a modder did. They could have achieved exactly the same result if they balanced them correctly but with a more gradual character power increase not bound by specific levels like it is now.

Bethesda delivered everything they promised too. I suspect haters are people who have never played a BGS game before, or trolls.

Or Obsidian agents, you forgot that one.

Lol, that too.

They didn't "have" to do anything. It's a game. They could have done a lot of things but I think you're looking too much at the (lack of) trees and not seeing the forest.

I see this specifically as an expansion of the existing system - just wrought differently, personally.

I'm sorry, maybe in a few days I'll have the energy to dig into this with people again but I just don't tonight. Suffice it to say I disagree with the "dumbing down" knee-jerk reactions from looking just at surface details. I was highly critical of Fallout 3's mechanics, mind you - and for all the adoration New Vegas got even Obsidian did very little to address the foundational issues with the underlying systems in the game. Really, they just embellished upon deeply flawed systems. I'm glad that Bethesda went back to the drawing board with this one.

Old SPECIAL didn't have any problems if you knew what you're doing. You didn't have to put points into Speech. You could pass some skill checks by using Charisma alone.

yeah i agree

The lack of trees costed them some flak though. Plus it did cost the game some complexity, which may not have been essential, but added flavor. Personally I would prefer the gradual, non-restricted skills plus the level+skill dependent perks. In the end it wouldn't bother me so much by itself. It can be easily fixed with mods. But traits are gone, degradation is gone, dialog and different skill checks (for example low int dialog from FNV) is gone and then you see this confirmed by numerous people:

And well, can you blame them for saying that the game has been dumbed down after experiencing that?

Anyway, I need to go to sleep as well.

Funny, if there are two things I do enjoy about the new level system is the removal of the pointless skills that made me always play with a character build that would maximize skills. I never even touched Charisma in any of the previous games. In Fallout 4 it is at the moment my highest stat as the perk I got was something I wanted. I finally want something from each special point instead of doing the same thing for every character.

The second thing is removing the freaking annoying repair system in previous games, always had to mod that crap out of the game. Repairing items and armor has never been fun, and I am glad it is gone for the most part.

The game is not perfect, but it still an amazing game. It is very addictive and I am having a blast.

Exactly. If people want to be critical, that's fine, and being critical can be a good thing. What I don't understand is the utter hatred this has brought out in some people. It's just a game. Bethesda doesn't owe you a damn thing, and just because F4 isn't exactly like you want it or exactly like you think it should be, you're going to throw a fit? Sorry, but I don't know where this sense of entitlement came from and why some think they deserve "better" or deserve a fallout the way they think it should be, which unfortunately for Bethesda, is different for each person. Enjoy the game for what it is, or dont, I can't care less if you think it svcks. I thinks it's a lot of fun. Sure, there are some things I'd like to change, we all do, but, man, get over it and just play.

Throw a fit? Get over yourself seriously, it is not about entitlement, we are paying customers, some of us (who actually realize that and money doesn't magically come from our parents) criticize products to improve them and condemn bad business practice. None asked you if you care - it's actually none of your business to criticize people who are criticizing. You can discuss and disagree, yes, but throwing a fit because you disagree, just no.

Mind you critical is fine. Constructive criticism is great. I've been on this forum since Fallout 3 was announced, and what's kept me here is I enjoy a good debate - I like to think that's still possible without descending to hyperbole and insults (though some days I have my doubts...)

One thing to not overlook is the added emphasis the new system gives back to Attributes (which didn't amount to much at all in the previous ruleset.)

And the granular progression of most skills is still present of course.

Personally, while the decision to remove skills surprised me when I learned of it, I quickly realized it was a good move. In FO4 and NV, you could have gotten rid of the SPECIAL system and the game would have played almost entirely the same. The system was superfluous, as pretty much everything worked off of the skills. Literally one of the defining features of the series could have been dropped with almost no issues! And even the Skill system had it's issues: Lockpick and Science only worked in increments of 25; if you had a skill of 34, 14 of your points were doing nothing.

The system as it works now does two things. First, it re-establishes the SPECIAL system as a core mechanic. A Sneak character now needs to invest in Agility; before, they could drop it to 1 if they wanted, as long as they boosted their Sneak skill when leveling. Second, it eliminates wasted resources. The first rank of the Hacking perk is like getting 25 Science in the previous games. Getting the perk to Rank 2 is like getting it to 50. Etc. Everything you invest is actually doing something.

I'm not going to say that you can't dislike the system, but I do disagree with the belief that Fallout games have to have skills because previous games had them. I don't believe that the way things have always been done is the way they should always be done; I'd rather see things change. Sometimes things won't work, but sometimes they will. Better to have tried and failed than to have never done at all.

Dumbing down, re: skills?
If anything our builds will be more intricate than the last two iterations allowed.

i'm 22 hours in the game (got it last saturday) and didn't even meet the BoS yet... dunno what you are all complaining about

I was referring to Fallout 3 and New Vegas about skills. And I have played Fallout 1, 2 and Tactics, SPECIAL played a much larger role that affects skills in those games than in 3/NV.

Clearly Bethesda designed the game to be enjoyed by a much bigger audience than FO3, without it being detrimental to the games experience.

I have been playing games for over 20 years and i have zero issues in regards to the stats system employed in FO4, a couple of niggles about the crafting/settlement building system but the game as a whole has been a very enjoyable experience so far.

Instead of complaining about it being so-called 'dumbed down' how about learning to adapt to it.

But what exactly does that entail?

In school we used to play math games, and they were fun; but if you re-engineer it to not require math, on the theory that it will be more accessible... how does that make it a better math game?

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/Gizmojunk001/apropos_zpsuniupglf.jpg

Why settle?

anologies like these would work better were Fallout 4 not an RPG based in the Fallout universe.

The only issues I have are
a- The in-game combat music sounds a bit too epic and "halo-ish" for my liking (but the radio music is great anyway)
b- Its a bit too colorful (so I just changed my tv settings)
c) ... and the thing theres no getting around, the blocking system for my melee character. No mr NPC, blocking my sledgehammer with your forearms should NOT make it just bounce off. I must admit that is kind of stupid.

It's tempting to seriously ask ~is it?

In the anology Fallout is the math; the mechanics [not combat in this case], but character mechanics, and potential; and most importantly ~character limitations.

But what are perks?

Hasn't anyone noticed that Bethesda has an issue with keeping BOTH of a certain thing, and instead removes then adds?

Beth: "What's that? You missed attributes in Skyrim? Oh, I got you. No skills whatsoever in FO4, ONLY ATTRIBUTES!" (same applies to the removal of items degrading and adding the crafting system)

Small little Mexican girl: "Why can't we have both?"

*Bethesda proceeds to collapse and make inhuman noises while the little girl cries

Ha, the game is good, but yeah, they need to start adding BOTH aspects of the game instead of removing one and trying to randomly miss and match this new one to see where it may fit. Just because we had some issues with the attributes in Oblivion and Fo3 doesn't justify their entire removal in Skyrim. (same thing as skills in FO4)