So now I need to point my gun at animal to make it 'surrender'? What if there are packs of animals out there? They'll tear me to shreds before I'll manage to pacify them all. Seriously, Beth, abandon this idea and return the good old Animal Friend perk where animals are just non-hostile.

Where was the information about having to point your gun? I must have missed something...

You played the game?! And all you tell us is some crap about befriending animals?! Dude what do plasma sniper shots look like?! Does the projectile travel at a high velocity or does it have knock down power? These are the questions man!!

So.... Don't take the perk.

It is more realistic than wild feral creatures simply ignoring you...

Would you rather go pet the critter and give it kisses so it doesn't attack you?

I will point my missle launcher at the beast and it will understand to haul butt away quickly.

While I agree that there are probably better ways of activating this perk than aiming your piece at an unsuspecting animal, I think it's a nice perk. I do like that you have to actively do something to trigger it instead of it being a passive perk that's always in effect.

If it requires pointing your gun at animals, I would prefer that to just having an aura of pacification a la FNV/Fo3. Animals will still continue to be aggressive towards me, and I can at least have some input into when I want to try and tame them.

I agree, it will be a very limited utility perk, good against one or two targets. And the thing is - you only have a chance to pacify your target.

Unless of course these perks will be used in dialogues and other types of interactions, like a knowledge of animals/wasteland creatures will give you a bonus damage against them , Intimidation will let you scare people in a dialogues,etc...

I wanted to get high Charisma just to get those perks, but if they all work the same way and won't be used in dialogues i don't see a point.

And honestly, it was kinda OP in the old games.

QQ more plz QQ more i love this QQ about perk u havent play with. u dont like it dont take it.

...SO if it's in a pack, neutralize the extra's to assert your dominance as the alpha predator and then pacify.

...If you die, then...you are not the alpha predator.

We've hit rock bottom people, it's only after we've heard nothing we're free to discuss, well, any old crap really.

Movie nod?

Isn't that only rank 1?.....

I'm pretty disappointed
I expected to have animals as companions at least temporarily.... This PERKs will be useless

The old Animal Friend made animals completely superfluous, which, considering how much effort was involved in coding them, is a gigantic waste of resources. It had no depth. It was an on-off switch for an entire class of enemy which made the RNG of wasteland enemies mean nothing would happen a lot of times; all interactivity with animal-only areas like the Yao Guai den evaporated; is that what a perk is supposed to do; make an area completely meaningless after hundreds of hours were spent creating it? That's a terrible philosophy.

Again, is there any source at all for this?

If not, would it be off-topic for me to bitterly complain about the way you have to learn each species' secret language and then sing them lullabys to befriend them, which I just made up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsFpH4jm-QI

My problem with this perk is that it is called Animal Friend and you are pointing a gun at an animal to activate the perk. Where I come from, you don't make friends by pointing guns at them.

Thanks .

Yeah, that does seem a bit restrictive. I wonder if it works with melee weapons? It does seem functional in a primarily combat situation, though. I mean, if the animal isn't hostile, why would you try to pacify it?

It'd be nice if you could pacify an animal by staying outside it's agression range and perhaps tossing food at it. It'd give an extra use for all those squirrels-on-a-stick or mutfruits

Never thought of that, i think it will work with melee weapons as-well.

Fore more immersive "pacify" technics we will have to wait for mods.

I mean, judging from the Intimidate perk, that seems to be the route Wasteland Whisperer and Animal Friend will follow. Rank 1, pacify them, Rank 2, they'll attack things nearby for you, Rank 3, you can order specific commands.

I assume it's more about the button, so it's aim with a gun, block with a melee weapon.

Maybe you need to mount the animal in order to establish dominance.

The perk used to be useless. All it did was make an entire class of enemies pointless. I probably won't use it in FO4 either but I do recognize the perk has been improved.

You do realize that's just Rank 1 of the perk and that as you rank it up, the gun necessity might well be removed, right?

That's a fair point. My rationalization of this is that it doesn't make sense for all animals in the world to see me from a distance and immediately recognize me as a friend. This is the way the old perk worked. Instead, now I've learned how to interact with animals on a basic level to increase the chances of having them no longer seeing me as a threat/food and with more training, even an ally/friend. The "pointing your gun at them" action is a simulation of you interacting with them in this way.

In Fallout 3 where talking with someone paused time, the better way to handle this perk (as implemented in Fallout 4) would have been: 1. Animal approaches you with hostile intent. 2. You initiate dialogue with it before it can attack. 3. You have a chance to calm it down or ally with you. 4. End dialogue and the world continues.

In Fallout 4 however, this simply wouldn't work because when initiating dialogue, the animal can still attack you since time isn't paused. As such, to effectively use this perk you need to be able to use it instantly. And the easiest way to do this is by simply requiring the player to point their gun at the animal approaching you with hostile intent.

I could of course be way off, but that's how I see the perk working within the limitations of the game's mechanics.