Definitely jealous, but my ancient Dell won't run this game, so console it is.

This whole Perk every 2 level thing definitely makes character development a painful decision process, but it's probably a good thing. At the end of the day, after 3 play throughs of FO3 with different character builds (a hunter, an assassin, and criminal mastermind) I kind of had 3 of the same character, with almost the same perks and SPECIALs. There were 29 different perks to be had, and almost no reason to pass on the more useful ones. I found that there was a core group of perks that were almost essential.

With New Vegas, you're limited to 15 perks, so choosing perks that fit your build seems to be the way to go. There's still going to be some obvious must haves (educated and comprehension, I'm looking at you), but a lot of these perks are going to just be for flavor or an extra little something....not the cookie cutter uber-character recipe. I started with my normal "Ranger" character, so at level 2, the Hunter perk was a no brainer, even though I'm guessing the later stages of the game will not involve much in the way of wild animal encounters. I'll be missing out on unique dialog from the Bachelor or Lady Killer perks, but it makes better sense with my build to take something practical and thematic. I'm hoping that in the end, I'll have a character that still resembles the survivalist/loner archtype I started with, rather than the godlike superhero at the end of FO3.

I really do like the perk every 2 and less skill points. I don't foresee me ever become a walking God in NV, I may end up pretty damn fierce, but not a destroyer of everything. I find myself almost agonizing over my point allocation (perks not so much), I know I will have wicked high gun, lockpick, and speech (just the way I roll), but there are other areas I will not shine.

I find it handy because I only got one time through FO3, I did everything and my subsequent attempts (even my Walker run) only ever got to level 5-8, should have bought it on PC for mods. Now I am already thinking about my second play through with dropping lockpick for science and probably energy weapons since they are just heavier pieces of money in this run.

Even with perks every other level, I don't know what perks to chose, as most of them are just lame. If it would be me, a perk every 3 levels would have been enough as well. I really see no reason to pick intense training all the time or these perks that make you pwn enemies even more.

I think this all goes back to everybody's different and wants different things out of games. I enjoyed the above. I play for fun and story. When things get really tough and you keep dying, that takes away the fun. I'm not out to be the best or really good at a game, I just want to have fun. As it is now, it seems like if I start maxing out needed skills (Attack of some sort, repair, lockpick, medicine, science), that doesn't leave much for Barter/Survival/Speech... which makes it frustrating. Do I want to be able to heal more and do less damage so I have to heal more often, or do I want to do more damage and svck at healing so I have to use more items to heal?

Do I want to have no attack and no ability to get into locks so I can have a decent speech and good prices, or do I want to pay out the nose, and miss out on speech opportunities just so I can get into places that I need?

That's more frustrating than fun to me. I still enjoy the game, but not as much as I could.

The users should hold a User Perk [mod] contest, and vote the fan favorite(s)
*The prize? could be kudos on Nexus... or something gestural?
I dunno... a concrats post on their profile here and on Nexus?

How about that contest vote which perk to replace with the mod.

I took I.T twice because there was nothing else I wanted, or could use.

Look at it this way.

I get 16 Sp per level with INT 8 and the perk that gives more SP per level.

But lets assume you get 12 per level.

Over 29 levels thats 348 points
over 20 levels 240 points.

Even at level 20 only getting a total of 240 points thats at least 4 skills with 60 points into them, plus the base starting tag of +15.

So if you wanted to, lest say you tag guns, repair and survival. Each starts at say 30, there is no reason to go above 85 with mags to hit 100 in the rare cases you need 100 in a skill.

Repair 85
Guns 85
Survival 85

We have 75 points left, this is at level 20-21 mind you.
Bring up speech?
if it started at 15, and you got the "tag" perk thats 30, plus 55 skill points makes it 85!

We still have 20 points left, not counting skill book that make permanent +'s.
Thats four skills at 85, we have 20 points left.

You can either make a highly special character, or you can make a broad ranged one, if you go to level 30, at 12 points a level thats 348 skill points.
You can get the three tagged (or four if you tag a fourth) to 85 and have points left over.

If you grab the perk and keep INT to 8 you can get many more.
if you get 14 points per level. thats a little over 400 points, thats at least 5 skills at 85 with plenty of points left over.

Guns
Repair
Science
Medical
Lock pick

What more could you want?

Ahh you casual gamers... I have you guys to thank for games being so mind numbingly easy nowadays. This system was a step in the right direction.

I really love how console players hate us for having more options. It's like we get a special edition especially for PC gamers every time a game is released.

I'm all warm and fuzzy now....

(And I don't use mods)

I have to admit that the perk business is a tad frustrating. So far I've gone for fast learner, and one of the Guns perks.

How about Educated? Which, since we're talking about skills, gives you +2 per level, instead of IT which results in only 0.5 per level and a +2 flat bonus to int skills.

Edit: Checking your post, it seems you have educated already though. And it appears to be a 1 rank perk here.

Lol...very few mods are cheats. Most of them add content to the game, add new gameplay mechanics, etc. Many mods make the game harder.


Yep. You guys should see what some of the good mods like that one do. I also really enjoy Mart's Mutant Mod...it makes the wasteland much more dangerous and the wildlife a lot more convincing.

On the perk issue, I like this better. They took out a lot of the little perks that just add to skill levels and such in favor of perks that do more interesting things. Getting fewer perks is the trade-off, but I like it. I'd rather have cooler perks than more of them. Quality over quantity.

Yeah people with lives are so annoying. :laugh:

That's really just as unfair as the original statement you were replying to. Wanting games to be difficult doesn't mean you spend all day playing them, it just means you prefer a challenge when you do.

That said, I also think it's wrong to blame "casual" gamers for anything. Without the recent (relatively) influx of new gamers, many of whom are "casual" simply because they haven't been playing games for the past 15-20 years, the industry wouldn't be nearly as robust as it is now. If you want to blame anyone for "dumbing down" games (and I agree this is an issue) blame the publishers, who know that it's easier to sell a game with wide appeal than one with niche.

IMO, the best solution to these arguments is to have more options for difficulty in the game, just like the hardcoe Mode toggle (great idea to make this a feature you can switch on and off, honestly). Personally, I love the increased challenge, reduced skill points, etc. becuase I like having to make a choice about my character's abilities and plan ahead to reach those goals, but that doesn't mean players who'd rather not deal with these concerns are inherently "bad" or "noobs" or whatever the hardcoe community would say. Optimally, there would be toggles for more of these elements instead of simply a difficulty slider that changes the damage/HP modifiers, but then that would add extra development time and, more importantly, more balance testing. That costs extra money, and publishers don't like that if they can't see an obvious return on the investment from a marketing perspective.

Mods basically provide this level of customization, but I'd still like to see more gameplay options integrated into games at launch (especially since many don't support serious modding).

This.

At first i was like uurg, never enough skillls points, i never get 50 science/lockpicking, but i like it now, forces me to specialize more than in fallout 3. The perks are also a step back/forwards, you actually have to think what perk ya gonna take.

For that to be true you would need 15 companions.

they did this so you can have a more specific character, people were complaining how you just have an ultimate character in F3

For what to be true?

*Its not giving 15 extra perks, its giving interchangeable perks that can be mix-n-matched as the situation warants. With this it would seem that you can commit points to specialize and gain those benefits, and then just pick the companion that makes up for it ~while still keeping those benefits... and later swap out for another to make up for something else... This shouldn't be that way. :shrug:
The point of the Special stats is to commit to one thing at the expense of the others.

I like a challenge. I'm playing on very hard, hardcoe -- but just only about to finally leave Goodsprings, at level 2. Only after choosing my stats and my level 2 perk though did I read that it's only every other level. That was a shock. My biggest disappointment is this: I did three full playthroughs (DLC and all) through FO3. I could see myself doing the same in NV. But, with only every other level, I doubt I'll get to try out all the perks I want to on three playthroughs only. One playthrough in FO is a serious commitment of time. So.. it kinda svcks that there's going to be some Perks that I'll never get to see. .... okay, I'm also stinging about having picked a less optimal S.P.E.C.I.A.L. than I might otherwise have and for sure for picking Intense Training as my 2nd level Perk in order to qualify for later perks -- that I may now never get to choose!.. argh.

It was every 3 or 4 levels in FO... No one is really supposed to get them all. Its been 12 years and I've not played all the perks in FO or FO2. :shrug:

(Also, some perks are not really for some PC's; some are to boost weakness that some PC don't have. )

Posts went away. Read the forum rules; no platform bashing. Or bashing the people who play on a platform you don't like.

If they didn't want to make it so easy to amass caps, they shouldn't have made Tin Cans (and all the other junk in the game) worth any caps.

If by "unfair" you mean really funny, I agree with you.

They did that for FO3. Result was Grim Reapers Sprint.

Actually you've gotten your terminology wrong, the trait you're talking about was "Skilled" and it's one of the worst traits in the game. High level perks are incredible in Fallout 1 and 2 and missing out on them was tragic.

Gifted, on the other hand, was by far the best trait in the game, it was almost cheating. You started off with less points in every skill and got 5 less per level, but you got an extra point in every statistic. That's 7 extra SPECIAL points. You could get back the 5 skill points per level plus an extra just by putting 3 more points in intelligence, and you still have 4 extra points to play with.

I have mixed feelings about the changes to skills and perks.

As far as skills go, I took INT 10, Educated, and Comprehension. So while I'd normally be irritated (but intrigued) at having less skills, I've calculated that (even without any books or adders at all) that I'll have enough points to max everything I actually care about. Sure, I wont have melee, unarmed, explosives, medicine, or survival very high. But I dont care about those skills in the least. I would care about explosives except that I can never actually hit anything with grenades anyway.

So mixed feelings: dont like less skill points, but I went a route where that didnt actually matter.

As for perks, I feel that a perk every other level is frustrating, but not in the way you might expect. I feel that it makes sense to have less perks in order to force you to have some decisions. But I feel bad in that, well, I tend to min-max my characters in a specific way. It so happens that all the perks I need to absolutely crush everything are available to me by level 30, easy. So the real effect of less perks on my character was: less FUN choices. I no longer have room for any of the fun or distinctive perks. Instead, I've got all my bone-crushing ones.

So I'm in theory OK with less perks, but in reality, this system just made me skip all the wacky / cool / personalizing ones.

I honestly feel that because of this system (mainly the perk limits) I'm *less* likely to come to FNV for more play-through action. I'm more likely to make a Fallout 3 character for a weird concept build because there is a lot more room to flesh out a concept from perks.

So yeah. I'm OK with it, but mixed feelings. The slimming down of Perks and Skills sounds good on paper, but in effect, not so much.