I prefer this system as opposed to removing the threat of an entire class of enemies, at least this way there's still a chance a creature will get the drop on you.

in this case another way of pacifying other than threatening with a gun would be preferred..

Tell me if I aim my cyber gun between your eyes do you feel like you suddenly want to be my friend?

No.. of course you do not!

i enjoyed them helping me.. You didn't have to bother with the perk if you didn't like it.

Good grief. Animal Friend was a great perk. It got rid of irritating encounters at higher levels and gave an edge in some areas.

Plus it was optional, so if it violated your baffling need for realism in a freaking silly video game you didn't need to take it.

Lets dissect your statement. It was a great perk... *because* it got rid of irritating encounters? Going to skip past the edge in some areas, because lets face it those areas could be counted on a single hand. And it also assumes you will not be given an advantage in areas of fallout 4 with the new perk.

Wouldn't it be much better for those annoying encounters to be.. less annoying? That way your not taking a perk to get rid of content, but taking a perk to actually *add* something to the game? Like sic'ing your Yao Guai on a raider and giggling?

With the previous perk I have done that.. It was quite fun indeed..

With this perk.. Not possible and I will not bother taking the perk.

To the people getting hot and bothered by the fact you pacify them by pointing a weapon at them; Don't take things so literally. Animals don't understand brofists and english. They DO understand when Self Preservation is a better idea than a straight up fight. This new system makes much more sense and is much more balanced right from the beginning.

Example: You encounter a Yao Guai while walking down the road. It seems you have entered its territory. But you have the animal friend perk. If you raise your gun at it, it understands that you are showing a warning. (Most animals have Warnings of some kind to show they are ready to fight/defend) Now if that Bear is under your level, it has the chance to decide if attacking you is too big of a risk. If it is Higher level, it would see you as equal or less formidable to itself, and show much more aggression.

And it's not about being "Friendly."If I point a gun at your head and tell you do do something or I shoot within 5 Seconds... You're going to do what I say because the alternate outcome is immediate death.

I for one love the new system, and think it makes much more sense. The Animal Friend perk in the previous games did nothing but add a gimmicky way to ignore an enemy type and save ammo. Even the most well trained Animal expert isn't objectively seen as a non-threat to the animal. It's about showing it that working with you is more beneficial to attacking.

Now you are just showing you have a subjective bias against it just because it has been changed. it is very much still possible to sick animals on targets. Even more so with the NPC/Companion interaction system.

If you meet a strange dog on the street, it does not understand or care what the shiny metal thing is in your hand.

It does however understand if you glance at it's eyes and then down, submissively.

If you hold it's eyes challenging, attempting to dominate.. It is more likely to attack you if you hold eyes rather than look down after short glance ..

It is more likely to bite if you offer hand above head to pet first rather than offer closed fist fingers down, curled into hand.. below head first..

It understands above head as dominating and below head as submission..

It knows nothing of the metal thing in your hand.. Nor does it care.

And since you can't see your head in first person, but you see the gun, the gun is a good visual tool to illustrate the act of passifying a animal. It's not so much about threatening the animal with a gun as it is giving a visual representation of a players actions.

Animals Can and DO learn and pass down that Humans with guns are a threat. Especially if it impacts their rate of survival as a species. Prairie Dogs are a good example of this. Elephants do as well, IIRC.

Not to mention a lot of animals will not try to attack something that is quite clearly a more dominate creature. (They challenge them, at times, of course, which ties into game by the mere Chance to pacify, meaning it doesn't happen every time) Translated into gameplay, that would be the level of the PC and animal.

Also this is an ActionRPG video game. The act of pointing a weapon is much more natural to the control scheme. An animation for all of the "Passive" crap you described would get extremely annoying/tiresome after the 20th time. It's functional the way it is, and I am sure likeminded people will mod a more detailed, true to life simulation of animal pacification into the game if they feel it is needed so badly.

We disagree, and that is ok..

Have a good one.. -s-

I suspect the gun thing is more to do with keeping the same method as for humans with the intimidation perk.

Doing the Crocodile Dundee thing against a raider would seem silly, but pointing a gun at an animal is not completely ridiculous.

Anyway, it's just a control mechanic and probably not worth over anolysing.

The reason why it is completely ridiculous is that the perk is called Animal Friend. If it was named something else, then there would not be as much of a problem.

Hey, in an irradiated wasteland where food is scarce and humanity is even more savage than normal, not blowing away an animal with your gun DOES qualify you as friendly.

I agree with this statement, lol

I loved it for that reason. The mole rats and those mutant bears with the weird name got annoying. Awesome perk.

Frankly, I've seen nothing to indicate that animal encounters are going to be less annoying. If anything, they're going to be more annoying, even without factoring in Animal Friend's significant nerfing. For one thing, animals like Mole Rats apparently spring forth from the ground, and appear both faster and smaller. So you have a smaller, harder to hit target that also just will suddenly appear out of nowhere to nibble at your heels. And to top it all off, now, instead of being able to neutralize those annoyances completely, you get to role the dice and see if maybe it will stop attacking you. And for what? So that if you max it out you have the chance of telling a Mole Rat to pick up a tin can? I have Dogmeat for that.

Also, in my opinion, the perk did add something to the game. For one thing, if I took both perks, I did get to sic a Yao Guai on Raiders. And it was a kick in New Vegas to go up against White Legs, Legion, or Fiends and suddenly watch their attack dogs turn on their masters for me. Furthermore, I got to unwind and watch the animals roam and not have to worry so much about being blindsided or running around like Benny Hill because I didn't want to kill dogs.

If it's not about being friendly, why is it called Animal FRIEND? What you described is intimidation, which actually is a separate perk which is clearly based on threatening someone to get them to do what you want. Domesticator, Master of Nature, Beastmaster, Animal Trainer, there are countless names that could have been used to illustrate that the pacifying isn't friendly in nature.

There are better ways to do that. I would opt for unique animal animations to indicate they are being pacified. Hell, since they're so eager to have them, why not get those voiced protagonists to say things like "Easy boy/girl... That's it... Good boy/girl..." when doing it. Have their left hand out in a non-threatening manner. Indicates pacification in a friendly fashion, and doesn't necessitate carrying a gun for a melee person who wants the perk anyway.

I assume melee folks can use it too by pressing the same button that aims a gun (which will block if controls are more or less game as FO3/NV) because in the end its about binding the act to a control prompt. And since its a optional perk not everyone might pick, it makes sense to save time/work using a already existing mechanic/animation.

Plus as others pointed out, less annoying then repeatingly going through a set pacifiying animation and dialogue line.

It's not like it's that hard to aim a gun at an animal without shooting it. So, if you have a pack of animals charging you and you have the ability to friend an animal.. you point your gun at one and now it turns on the others.. This distracts the pack. You now have time to turn the gun on another. The amount of animals you can pacify most likely relies on the amount of charisma you have so it's doubtful that you'd be able to turn a whole pack. But what's the fun of running around the wastes with absolutely nothing attacking you anyway?

I don't see what the fun of fighting Mole Rats and Stray Dogs could be, especially at higher levels. Saber Cats, Trolls, and Bears in Skyrim were only ever challenging at low levels. Once you got good gear and leveled up a few times, they were just annoyances. Animal Friend eliminated those kinds of annoyances, unless you provoked them.

Besides, in Fallout 3, I barely ran into anything that was affected by Animal Friend at higher levels. The occasional Yao Guai, but mostly I found Deathclaws, Sentry Bots, Giant Radscorpions, and worst of all, Albino Radscoprions that took forever to kill. I appreciated the breather once in a while, since there were plenty of other things that were attacking me. Sometimes it's nice to enjoy the scenery without killing everything around you.

If that's the case, it shouldn't say gun in the perk description. Though I have my doubts that melee weapons will work, because how are you going to be intimidating an NPC by blocking? That seems to indicate you're the one intimidated by them.

And the time saving argument doesn't seem like a good excuse, considering they made unique animations for optional perks in the past like Mr. Sandman and Cannibal.

But it's infinitely more annoying than not having to worry about the animals at all, something the old perk provided.

While no info was given about successive ranks of this Perk, the first Rank alone has me greatly concerned.
You have to target an animal and hope the RNG make it friendly/non-hostile?
I never liked chance based mechanics in any game and this is one of those!

This was always one of the first perks I made sure to acquire, because as an animal lover, I didn't want to go around killing animals that can be otherwise Charismaed into being placid.
I always set it for Rank 1 alone, because I didn't want them to fight for me.

But if this is how it's going to work in Fallout 4, then it's a waste of both SPECIAL and Perk points.
I want it to be like FNV, where the animals are non-aggressive.

Also, I'm going to have to spend most of the game dodging mole rats/regular rats, Nightstalkers, Coyotes, Dogs etc and visiting the Companion Wheel every encounter to make them avoid attacking the animals by accident.
Thanks a lot for that.

And there are plenty of abominations left to fight that won't be placated by this.
Cazadores, Deathclaws, Bloatflies, etc.
None of these creatures could be pacified.


In conclusion, if the Animal Friend perk can't be made like Rank 1 Perk in FNV, then I will disregard it as worthless.

And if someone creates a Mod that makes Animal Friend like the FNV version, I will download it faster then a Nightstalker can blink!

Browser lag induced double post
Please delete.

im soooooo glad bethesda will not do any change from now till release, just bc u ALL QQ about stuff u have never try.