To me, some of the perks just don't fall under the right stat.

Pickpocket. Seems much more agility based than perception based.

Refractor.. I have no idea how this falls under perception.. but don't really know where it would go. Seems much more intelligence sciency based though.

V.A.N.S. seems like something that should fall under perception.

None of the modding perks really seem to fall under any one category but i guess they had to put them somewhere.

Second level of sneak negates setting off floor traps. I feel this should be moved further down the line.. or maybe even stuck into the explosives category instead.

Second level of Night Person grants night vision on top of the +3 stat increase. I'd rather see those as two separate perks levels.

Are there any perks/perk levels you guys think feel a bit strange?

Last perk rank of Hacking and Lockpicking are fillers. They have no good purpose in the game. You will never get permanently locked out from a terminal anyways, and by the time you have the level to take last rank in lockpicking, you have so many lockpicks, you could supply a minor country with them.

A lot of the later perks, that requires high SPECIAL, feels underwhelming, compared to early combat related perks.

Some good points, but I will play a bit of Devils advocate in a few of these for discussion sake.

1. I agree, but I can see it being in perception because it does take incredible sense of touch to pickpocket someone. Actually, some pickpockets in real life make it a habit to be intentionally clumsy and bump into people to throw off their perception while you use your own to lift a wallet.

2. I would think this could fall under Endurance more than anything else. I could see Intelligence because you said Science-like, but it just seems more like an Endurance trait.

3. Actually, I agree it should be with intelligence. While perception could be used to detect things in the enviroment like a tracking ability, you still have to know what those things mean (a broken branch in a certain direction, a scattering of dirt in another, etc.)

4. I think they fall quite nicely.

A.) Armorer and Blacksmith both seem to be similar traits that you need to be strong enough to mold armor and craft really good melee weapons, though you should also be stronger to actually be able to use such items (especially the melee ones) because in theory they'll just get either heavier or more unwieldly. Lastly, if you look at TES...both of these things really laid with a Warrior-type, someone known for having at the very least a more than moderate amount of strength.

B.) Gun Nut, Chemist, and Science! are both ideally in Intelligence. Need to know what you're doing to make a quality weapon or piece of armor for power armor. Weapons can be very technical and the laser weapons are definitely a science type thing. And you can't be a Chemist without some sort of knowledge in the field.

5. I don't have a real good argument for this one except that traditionally it has always been a stealth thing, I think it required high agility in past games. Probably could have gone as an addition to another perk, but still within the agility tree. I can see why they added it to the "ninja" perks.

6. That would make more sense, probably lumped together to even out the total amount of levels for each perk column. I think some perk levels are spread out too much and could have been lumped together.

Strong Back, Basher, and Steady Aim are underwhelming considering their position in the strength tree. I feel like Strong Back should be around 3-4 so most people can have access to it without speccing too far. I don't see a use for Basher unless you are in PA, otherwise most strength speccers usually pick up melee, no? Steady Aim is just.... it should be part of another perk, maybe the last upgrade for that perk, not on its own.

Not really out of place, but I feel so many perks aren't pulling their weight when compared to others. Some great perks are Sneak and just about any weapon-base perk. These perks have a base benefit along with an additional benefit that improves/adds gameplay.

The modding perks fall short to me as a perk (as a system they're awesome). Same goes for the..."access" perks (lockpicking and hacking). What I'd love to see:

Gun Nut/Armorer/Blacksmith/Science! - Each rank gives you access to x level mods. Additionally, scrapping the appropriate items for each perk (guns for gun nuts, energy weapons for Science!, etc.) gives yields rare resources (what scrapper currently does). Higher ranks in the perk yield rarer items. This would make the current incarnation of Scrapper redundant so change it to:

Scrapper 1: Scrapping an item yields 50% more materials. 2: Scrapping an item yields 100% more materials. Additionally, workbenches start off with more materials available.

As for the access perks, I want to see that fourth rank in each removed completely as a rank and move the effect to the third rank. Then, add effects to the first and second rank:

Lockpicking

Rank 1: Gain access to Advanced level locks. Also increases the strength of bobby pins by 50%.

Rank 2: Gain access to Expert level locks. Also increases the strength of bobby pins by 100%.

Rank 3: Gain access to Master level locks. Allows the player to pick doors controlled by terminals.

This gives lockpicking a huge edge on accessing stuff. The magazines would increases the size of the "sweet spot".

Hacking

Rank 1: Gain access to Advanced level locks. Adds an extra attempt to hack a computer.

Rank 2: Gain access to Expert level locks. Adds an extra attempt to hack a computer.

Rank 3: Gain access to Master level locks. Adds extra functionality choices to machines connected to a terminal (e.g. spot lights will blind enemies, protectrons and turrets can be turned on their owners).

Total Hack magazines will now increasingly remove "duds".

BOOM! New awareness rank :3

Hacking in this game is actually a lot easier than people seem to think.

I'm playing a character with an Intellect of 10 right from the start. When I stroll up to a computer that needs to be hacked what I usually see is that there are 5-7 possible unlocks and around 7 dud removes. So I basically just don't pay much attention to it at all and randomly pick whatever until I have only one chance left then I start pulling the duds. Thing is once I got an additional chance well most times there is no need to even remove duds due to the chance that there will only be 5 possible combinations. Now realize that if I bump my INT stat higher than 10 well there really isn't anything to hacking at all then.

If you start messing around with Hacking and Lockpicking then the whole of the system has to be thought about as there are many methods in game right now to make these systems a breeze as is.

As far as your points on getting more Matts from crafting well the only Matt that ever seems to be a hassle to get enough of is the Wood Matt for construction, at least for me it is...Everything else just seems quite abundant.

Steady Aim, someone mentioned that it seemed "underwhelming" But, its actually quite useful when your using automatics and/or guns that are difficult when HipFiring or have terrible hipfire spread. With even just 1 point put here it helps immensely with guns that end up kicking way too much to even connect a shot with the target as is the case if your not heavily invested into Commando or Heavy Weapons...More it helps across all ranged weapons this is really nice if your constantly switching guns and well with 8 STR your able to carry a lot of weapons. So it seems underwhelming on paper but its really actually a nice Perk.

Basher, its very nice Perk to have but...It just feels like it should have been consolidated into the Melee perk, kinda feels like its a redundancy that is really unfair to stand alone.

Refractor seems like it should have been put into the Endurance Tree

Quite a few perks feel like they should have been consolidated rather than be stand alone. Perhaps add more perk point levels and weaken the significance of their impact to gameplay. Not sure what should go in those spots once that happens but somebody out there is sure to have a few ideas that seem nice.

*I'm assuming this was in response to what I said.

Keep in mind my post wasn't a complaint about the systems, but rather the perks themselves. For the most part, scrapping material is fairly abundant and hacking/lockpicking is easy. My suggestions were to make the perks supporting them more interesting and effective. For example, the hacking perk on its own, I feel is in a really bad spot. Sure, I can hack master terminals, but without the Total Hack magazines all I can really do is shut off spotlights/machines and open locks. That's gutting a core functionality of the perk. I'd rather see the actual perk take on more duties and the magazines just make hacking easier. The scrapping perk is underwhelming right now, but moving rare components to the modding perks would improve them and open the scrapping perk to more useful effects like extracting more materials from objects. Its current incarnation is pretty blah...typically the caps I can get from selling weapons are more valuable than the measly components I get with that perk.

Another one:

Medic

Rank 1: Stimpaks and Rad-Away heal 40% health/radiation. Rad-Away, Rad-X, and food now have no weight.

Rank 2: Stimpaks and Rad-Away heal 60% health/radiation and now work instantly.

Rank 3: Stimpaks and Rad-Away heal 80% health/radiation. Additionally, Rad-x grants immunity to radiation while it is active.

Rank 4: Stimpaks and Rad-Away heal 100% health/radiation. Your companion can revive you so long as they have are alive and have a stimpak in their inventory.

Ninja should have been 10 AGI not 7 AGI but it's cool not wasting 3 perk points. LOL. BTW Ninja + Rifleman perks = i shot with 120 dmg Relentless 50 cal sniper. 120 x 3.5x dmg = OP AF

Add suppressors and get Mister Sandman :3 It stack multiplicative so you end up doing 5.3x for sneak attacks.

Unless your suffer from tremor IRL you should not spend so much more than 20-25 lockpicks through a playthrough anyway. The lockpicking minigame is waaaay to easy.. (or I played to much Skyrim and learned to lockpick there?)

Something like this is what I would like to see in a "game changing overhaul". That makes much more sense.

The real issue with this leveling system is having to put points in garbage items so that you can get to things that unlock basic functionality in the game.

I disagree to an extent. By moving some functionality from the core game play to perks, you make the basic game play more approachable and the perks more desirable. I hate to go back to the same example, but Sneak is a great example of this. Sneaking without it is pretty rough where as in past games, the skill alone was enough. By moving more duties to that perk, BGS made sneaking less OP, unless you invest in it. Someone suggested earlier that the basic functionality of being able to target ghouls and mines in VATS makes it a cheeseball mechanic. I couldn't agree more. What if we took that ability and gave it to an Awareness second rank? We made that perk better and made a certain play style more defined (high perceptiveness).

Well, I do snap them from time to time. I have good routine from FO:NV, but somehow in FO4 they are more sensitive *shrug* Anyways, I still have a couple of hundreds of them, which is way more than I'll ever need

I'm at 6.3x right now. Deacon's perk plus some other boosts too (magazines?). I can't even remember exactly where it all comes from.

I have tremors and hardly ever break bobby pins

I also have pretty bad carpal tunnel syndrome and mild arthritis

So, that shows just how easy it is

You can do that but let people take the perks they actually want and need for the weapons and skills they want to emphasize. I don't want a playthrough to be defined by anyone but me.

I gave all I had except for 10 to Cait. She didn't seem to appreciate my gift. I have since then gotten well over 100 new pins.

Heh... Yeah, it's way to easy. In Skyrim atleast the master locks was a bit tricky before you found the sweet spot!

I agree?

Na, it's just Deacon's perk most likely. The magazines improve crit damage which is separate from sneak attacks in Fo4. Keep in mind that ninja is additive, but Mister Sandman is multiplicative and Deacon's is likely as well:

2x Damage Base + 1.5 from Ninja =

3.5 Damage Base * +50% (i.e. 1.5) from Mister Sandman =

5.3 Damage Base * +20% (i.e. 1.2) from Deacon =

6.3 Damage Base

Wouldn't say out of place I would say some of the level requirements need to be toned down a bit