Excellent! I already use mods to limit my perks to once per 2 levels in FO3 already so that sounds great! :celebration:

You silly spoiled brat

I didn't say you would need 20 perks to master a field, that was for mastering 3 or 4 fields. I might not have been sufficiently clear on that though.

As to being guided on specific paths, that's kind of the entire point of specialization. I do happen to agree that freedom of choice within a specialization is a good idea, however it's also directly contrary to the notion of specialization, which makes it a tricky thing to balance.

As far as mastering VATS, it would need, say, 7-8 perks to do so, which would cover everything from increased chance at hitting heads to the potential to bypass armor on a critical (to represent hitting a joint, which are usually unarmored to allow flexibility). The former would be low-tier and the latter high-tier, given the potential power it could provide against endgame opposition.

They would still be perks, just not ones in the current mold of large effects from each one.




I am taking skills/skillpoints into account, since said perks would have varying levels of skills as prerequisites, regardless of whether or not they also had a previous perk as one. By comparison, what I am seeing as a counter is a system where skills are all that matters and perks are 'extras' you could well do without since 100 in a skill is all you need to excel. Under my system you need both to excel, since the perks require higher and higher skill but at the same time high skill by itself is not enough since without the perks the high-end stuff would be difficult at best.

One every two levels is great, one every 3 is even better. Fallout 3 was ridiculous with perks. There was so many useless ones that you stopped caring about which ones you picked after a while.

The contents of FO3's perks was arguably a bigger problem than how many of them you got, 29 picks of well-made perks would have been a great option since it would have allowed for very flexible character design.

Fewer picks in FO3's system would have done nothing to address the problem of OP characters, while at the same time removing the opportunity to take 'RP' picks like Cannibal or Master Trader. As a result, every character would have been nearly identical in perk selections.

What Slazy, UnDeCaf, and myself have been discussing is how to balance the number of picks with the content thereof. I have favored more, less powerful picks while they are in favor of fewer, somewhat stronger ones. Neither system is necessarily superior to the other, they are simply different approaches to a commonly held (at least between the three of us) problem.

it all depends on if they have a stupid level cap again, the level cap and skills maxing at 100 frankly ruined the game for me.

Those older games...the older RPGs, they didn't give you that information because your character has no use for it. That's the basis for old school roleplaying. these days, we have many more gameplayers out there, who want to know everything.

I have nothing more to add.


Well, what point is there for trial and error in dialogues of an RPG? I get stealth, shooters, platformers, but dialogue? Each character needs to be played for hours, why find out you screwed up or get the same results as with your previous character hours into the game... I'm extremely anol when it comes to building a character (one of the reasons I just can't play TES), when I find I screwed up it really grinds my gears (teeth, rather). :flame:
So yea, I'm glad games today reveal useful information instead of withholding it from you for no good reason, really. Games used to be like insecure kids who went for the mysterious persona. Games today can go for the "ooo, look at my muscles and big [censored], ain't I sixy" persona.

Alot of older rpg's mostly d&d games. Did give you a list of abilities and their general uses in game. Chaining perks would be difficult for NV but not impossible. The easist way is to ignore previous perks and just use a skill or skills and special based requirement. As they did do in the previous fallouts 1 to 3.
This allows the the player to pick Perks on a basis of use without denying those perks to others who are not specialized in a specific weapon. Thus keeping the list smaller but coprehensive.
So a tree based system based on advancement is not needed as much as a more general specialization where a few more specific perks are added at later levels. Such as ninja was for melee sneak characters. Or demolitions expert for mid level explosive based characters.
I am not against a tree system but using it alone would emphasise combat over role playing.

Not really, since there would also be non-combat trees. The combat examples are simply the easiest to work with for discussion purposes, since the non-combat stuff is a little more complex to model perks for and requires more specialized support in-game.

The problem (at least as some of us see it) with perks being set up such that any character could take any of them is that it leads to a situation similar to FO3, in which there is a group of 6-8 perks that all characters take regardless of whether or not they fit a given character's RP. That sort of thing kills character diversity as well as stunting character growth since there's no reason to choose otherwise, and as a result the rest of the perks end up basically being 'filler'.

The systems a few of us have been discussing here are meant to insure that there are no 'essential' perks that all characters would want, while at the same time providing selections of perks that various types of characters would find desirable as they would highlight and improve a given character's chosen area(s) of specialization.

The older Fallouts, while not entirely ignoring previous perks as requirements, did only have a couple of instances for which that was true, and in none of those cases was it anything essential. It's probably just as well it was done that way, since setting such a system up can be tricky.

True I understand I was discussing this earlier you can check previous posts. I just was trying to point out that some of those perks always taken action boy, Sniper, better criticals for example. In a chain / tree system would likely to be in all / most combat specialties. For the reason that a chain system of weapons would end up very similar. for example 1. more damage 2. greater chance to hit 3. Less AP used. 4. greater chance to kill.
So with a FPS style rpg that FO3 was it would make more sense to leave some of them as they are. As feasibly they could but not should fit into all catagories of weapons.
And the fillers are left as rpg material the solution there is to add small combat bonuses to them or make the role playing element more active in quests or in general.
There is no easy way to make perks balanced entirely. I just was trying to point out the flaws relying on trees alone can bring.

You see a chain system can lead to less role playing. As it defines a character as that chain above all else.
With 20 perks in FO3 vanilla a chain system would still have lead to those uber perks if only spread out more. With 15 perks only this time a tree system could still lead to the same uber perks but in three chains spread out. So I think in general specialized weapon skills could be better chained. to limit being a master of all weapons. But in general most perks should remain chainless. To allow a more free style to roleplaying. Than a dreadful class based system where handicaps are pushed forward. Making certain characters almost impossible to finish the game with.

I'm indifferent to the situation. I'm cool with however they do it.

I'm very sad that it is at once every two levels. I know that it may not be like that on the final product and all, but I like being incredibly overpowered. Well, here's to hoping for a perk every level!

You like the game being broken and horribly unbalanced?

I'm sure you can still get powerful to an extent. Original Fallout 3 with level 20 you were pretty powerful while still not maxed out. Level 30 with those ridiculous new perks just overdid it.

Some people actually like to not be challenged by the game.
They'd rather have the game hold their hands and say comforting words during the gametime.

I can't for my life understand why they play games at all.
They might aswell just put on god-mode and mod a weapon in that does 9999 damage if they want to be overpowered.

An example of a vice versa situation:
I started a new character in F3 were I chose to have him underpowered, I had END 1, INT 1, Luck 1 and didn't pick the +damage perks.
I can only use 5 stimpacks at most during battle but can eat and drink as much as I'd like to, will only buy stuff with caps, not barter a missile launcher for ammo and armor to repair with.
I was at lvl 14 down in Vault... 97? The one with Agatha's violin.
And I had a freaking hard time and my friend asked me why it was so hard, and I explained I nerfed my character so it'd be a challenge.
And he could not for the life of him understand why I did that.
He said "What's the point of that, I'd get the most powerful armor and weapon and make him so overpowered that nothing could stop me".
And for him it was completely logical. For me it was idiotic.

So while some of us might find the idea of balanced gameplay fun there are others who liked being gods in F3.
Hopefully the "I wanna be a god" crowd isn't bigger than the "Balanced game pl0x" crowd.

But I do think there should be a strategy to make a god-character, but it should be hard to do but for those that want to be overpowered there should be a way.

[7th edit]
So... Do any of you think there'll be quest perks in F:NV? Like that one you get from Moira, Radiation Healing or something.

:laugh:

The thing is, people who don't like challenge could always cheat (on the PC anyway). Games shouldn't be broken initially then fixed later by the fan base.

Sure. I agree. What I am looking for, though, in addition to that, is that the process of collecting those perks would be (at least almost) as satisfying as the endresult, and even so if one desides to not to follow any certain tree (in which case one would be lacking the highest proficiency in all areas). And, once again, imo that can be more effectively achieved with less perks, that indivually matter a bit more. No skillbonusperks (or at least very few), but something more specific (like higher proficiency, in one certain area of a given skill). Maybe even perks that exclude some other perks out. Perkstyles aside, the point I'm trying make is that the process of building your character with both skills and perks should feel rewarding (and possibly even thoughtprovoking through lesser amount of bonuses to pick) even before the highest possible proficiency in whatever area is achieved, and that's all. I'm not disagreeing with the general idea, just partly the method.



Or change the difficultysetting and have a clear conscience.

I'm a random lass on the web, and I approve this statement. ^_^

I'm just hoping that the perks are more effective, practical and clever. Grim reapers sprint, best perk ever. Party boy/girl, fail. Animal friend, practical as animals became a waste of ammo to kill, Scoundrel, I could care less about increasing my skills with perks, thats why i level up my skills when i level up. I'm cool with waiting 2 levels for good perks and I'm positive they'll have a good set to choose from. Also I hope there are more quest related perks like there were in the add-ons of Fo3!

Anyone think it's not too late to bring back perks every level? If each individual perk is not good enough then they'll have to switch back to the old system. Intense Training is one that I really need. As I've said before the better perks require higher stats or skills and you can't get seven or eight in a SPECIAL stat without getting extra points from Intense Training. That's what bothers me the most about all this. People complain about "god builds", but it's the plethora of skill points, not the perks that are the problem.

:tops:


Intense Training was pretty much sanctioned cheating.
I wish they removed it, increased the initial SPECIAL points you can work with, and have a method resembling bobbleheads, few quests, and possibly some body augmentation that could be the result of quests anyway.

Every level, definitely. a) that's how it was in fallout 3, and B) i hate games where you hit that "off" level. What possible advantage is there towards making it every 2 levels? Make the perks smaller then, not less frequent.

I must be missing something, then, since I am not seeing how watching ones character gradually become stronger and stronger with each level is not rewarding in and of itself. Sure, it's not as readily visible as 'hey, I just got this cool new perk', but I cannot see how it would be any less satisfying since with each smaller increase you can take on somewhat tougher challenges than before.

Non-specialized characters could still be made, they just wouldn't be as effective in the later stages as a specialist would due to not being particularly good at anything. Would be an interesting challenge though.

Mutually exclusive perks are a staple of the 'tree' system, since specializing in one direction often locks out another due to conflicting requirements.


You're not quite getting it. Things like Action boy and Sniper wouldn't necessarily be in the same tree nor even acquirable by the same character, depending on how things were set up. The whole idea is to not have perks every character would take, since there's no guarantee any given perk would benefit any given style of character. Heck, Sniper might have nothing to do with VATS at all in such a system.

Furthermore, some perks that are 'must haves' in FO3 wouldn't even exist in this system (GRS, for one), which would make room for a more diverse collection of perks since nothing would be 'essential'.

As to perk trees limiting role-playing, well, that's a matter of personal taste; some folks here might prefer to need to specialize according to a character's chosen RP, since a character's skills need to fit the role or it doesn't work. I do see where it might feel limiting in that you would need specific trees for specific roles, however if done carefully there could be more than one approach within a given tree to fit any particular role.

I'm not sure where you got 'class-based' from in all this, since any character can choose to specialize in any tree. In a 'class-based' system, you would choose your class during creation and that would lock certain trees out from the start- even if you wanted to take them you couldn't as it wouldn't be class-appropriate. Rather, what this system does is encourages a small number of specializations as a means of defining what a particular character is rather than forcing it from the start, since choosing not to specialize at all is also possible.

Well that's just cheating in a different way. You're bumping up the guy's stats too high. I personally want no bobbleheads or anything like them.