Fallout 3 had a stupid amount of skill point perks.

By the time you were lvl 30, in Fallout 3, all specialisation was gone, yes AP was optional, but choosing perks and distributing points wasnt.
Say I make a scientist, he is weak a nerdy, but I am forced to distribute a huge excess of skill points, suddenly my nerd has 76 big guns, and all because I HAD to put those points somewhere...

And a ridiculous amount of skill books. Around 50 free points per skill.

Yeah, you were stuck with those skill points. Same as in New Vegas. I just dump 'em in skills I don't use, but I understand your annoyance. It's nice to have the character sheet, so to speak, reflect your character conception. (I just hit Level 35 about an hour ago. My scientist/energy weapons/explosives guy has 45 in unarmed. Never thrown a punch.) By no means does it ruin the game for me, but it's sort of weird seeing those scores.

Too many perks wasn't really a problem. By the time you got high level half of 'em don't seem to do anything (I'm thinking of the combat perks, mostly).

As has been asked before, why can't there be options for players who are happy with their character as it is? You know, 'I decline'.

Yeah, I really HATED how F3 forced me to read all those skill books! They should be optional, dammit! :biggrin:

I liked the idea for a fallout 3 perk contest called Kleptomatic, where random objects would just show up in your inventory.

I'm just glad that I can use a skill book in NV without feeling I cheated. They were seriously overpowered and this time around they feel useful.

A reasonable amount of skill books adds flavor to the game, as is the case with New Vegas. It's fun to hunt them, manage your skill levels so you don't waste points.

Now when you got 25 skill books per skill, you say "aw [censored] it there's damn too many anyway".

I know they're optional. But a pistol that shoots 1000 damage lasers would be optional too. See where I'm getting?

Okay, all kidding aside --
There are unquestionably items in both F3 & F:NV that can svck out the challenge. I won't dispute that for a second. Have you played Dead Money? There's an item at the end of that that kills much of the challenge in F:NV.
I think the developers of both games had an eye toward pleasing both the casual player and the hardcoe gamer. Very few players in my acquaintance play the hell out games like I do. That's why there are seemingly-silly perks like the ones that grant instant levels or extra experience. Most people (those b*st*rds with a real life...) are not going to spend 50+ hours with a game; they want to play through on a direct path and the games account for that.
We few who fritter away our existence fiddling with every possible option on games like this have to exercise restraint, is all. It's an unfortunate consequence of obsessive play that eventually we get so high level that the challenge (which I would argue is more satisfying than just having fun) goes away. I deliberately did a Vegas character who, with a couple exceptions, brought skill point and SPECIAL perks exclusively. He was just as effective as a character with tons of combat perks. It's a consequence of being high level and not having the option to refuse perks or skill points.
I find it good fun to be the demigod for a while but it quickly wears thin. I'm playing one now. He's about to be retired until some more DLCs come out, because absolutely nothing is a challenge any more. My character built for sneak, explosives, science and energy weapons now just openly strolls around the wastes casually one-shotting cazadors and deathclaws. Fun for a while...
So yeah, I do understand what you're saying. I don't totally disagree with you. But options are options. I don't have a beef with skill books or superweapons because I don't have to use them. Not having a choice about maxing out unwanted skills is another thing, something I hope the next fallout takes into account.

One way to not have so many skill points is not setting one's INT stat to 9 or 10 at the start, however that only does so much over 30 levels.

It gets even worse if you have the DLC, since that bumps the cap to 35. I modded my game to have the increased level cap in order to see the effects on skills and perk selection, and even with a mere 6 INT after implant I can still cap out 6-7 skills, with an 8th if I take the 'Tag!' perk and possibly a 9th if I get the skill books and take Educated. With an 8 INT, the skill books, Educated, and Tag!, I can max 10 skills, which is more than any realistic RP ever needs.

Where perks are concerned I wouldn't really have a use for the option to decline taking one, but I would like the option to delay taking one because it is fairly easy, when sticking to a RP, to be unable to take an appropriate perk because you do not yet meet the skill requirement. Granted that does depend on the RP in question, but a number of perks have fairly high requirements so it can be a while before you qualify.

As a test I modded my game to allow taking a perk each level instead of every two, and even when perking out three different combat skills I still don't reach 'godly' levels of combat prowess. Of course, the fact I can perk out three combat styles could be considered excessive in itself, and I am strongly leaning toward going back to the default perk per two levels in order to avoid the issue. One thing my experiments have shown me is that if I stick to one combat skill per character the 17 perks I will have by L35 will be sufficient, although I will lose out on some 'flavor' perks. Not that I use most of those, but it would be nice to have a little additional room for them.

I'm in that camp as well.

In the original they were.