General like Small Guns/Big Guns/Energy Weapons, now Guns/Energy Weapons.

General like Thrown/Melee/Unarmed, now Melee/Unarmed.

What I meant, as demonstrated just now, is that the prevailing trend is toward greater and greater oversimplification, and there's no reason I can see to expect any change in that trend. Especially in the Bethesda releases...look at the skills in Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion then tell me how surprising it will be when Fallout 4 comes out with a whopping total of 5 skills. And then if Obsidian gets to do another game, it'll be "Licensed from and ultimately controlled by Bethesda," so there you go. Fallout: The FPS.




Once upon a time there were initially more skills.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_skills: 18 skills.
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_2_skills: 18 skills
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_Tactics_skills: 18 skills
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout:_Brotherhood_of_Steel_skills: 24...uh..."perk-skills?"
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_3_skills: 13 skills
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas_skills: 13 skills

What happened to'em? Same thing we're discussing now- they got merged, melted, and recombined.

Mark my words: "Give it time...Fallout: The FPS."

Fallout: 5 has 3 skills:

• Poking Stuff angrily
  
• Poking Stuff inquisitively
  
• Not dying

I voted no,

But I would like some perks to requirements to be either melee or unarmed (like superslam) . Because if they are beneficial to both there is no reason to chose one skill over the other (or both) as a requirement.

Most of the merges have been justified IMO.

• Thrown was always basically useless, and the only thrown weapons worth a crap after level 4 in the original fallouts were explosives anyway, so that merge was a no-brainer.
  
• Gambling was kind of broken in Fallout 1 and 2 (if you have gambling of over 100, you could put 2 batteries on 2 number keys, leave the room for a half hour or so, and come back with 200,000 caps) so merging it with luck is pretty logical.
  
• First aid was pretty useless anyway IMO, doctor could heal crippled limbs while first aid only did what stimpacks or rest did anyway.
  
• Traps svcked. There were never enough traps in the game to justify spending skill points on it.
  
• Sneak and steal just go together naturally anyway, no complaints about that merge.
  
• Merging big guns and small guns is kind of a stretch, still not sure I agree with it. Especially since small guns were already so good in FO3 and NV. In Fallout 2 they had to add the gauss rifle to guns to help it keep up with otherwise far superior energy weapons. In fallout 3 & NV they did the opposite, added gauss rifle to energy weapons to help it keep up with guns.

I'm against merging unarmed and melee though, but I agree with others that perks that benefit both, especially if they have really high requirements, should be unarmed OR melee.

Also, I want boxing matches and martial arts competitions back. Bethesda has a hard on for FIGHTS TO THE DEATH! but I loved both the san-fran martial arts and the new reno boxing at least as much as any gladiatorial death matches Bethesda has included in their games.

They split big guns into 3 of the other skills, not 1...... gatling lasers and plasma casters when into energy weapons, miniguns and AMR went into guns, finally missile launchers, fat men, and grenade machine guns went into explosives. I think this was because big guns was such a comprehensive skill to begin with and the only real difference from the others was a very high STR requirement. It made sense to me.

I also like how traps are split into repair, science and explosives.instead of being all considered the same.

There is some logic to this, but the REAL problem is in FO3 they kept the number of skill points generated the SAME as the first 2-3 fallouts....so 1/2 the skills + no reduction in points generated = 100% in all skills. FO NV did a bit to alleviate that, although I wish there were no magazine buffs. I guess this caters to the "casual" layer who wants to buy and adventure title.... kind of ruins a role-playing game though. I mean, that is why they are considered 2 SEPARATE genre of games.

Now about melee and unarmed:

I think they should be 2 different skills... since melee weapons you put your focus into how use an instrument for dealing damage while unarmed, even with glove on is about dealing damage without an instrument. Energy weapons and guns skills included maintenance and repair in the first titles. They could change science and repair into electrical engineering and mechanical engineering..... That might make more sense, as computer science typically falls into the the former and machining into the latter.

As far as perks go I think it would make sense to possibly change them up so that EVERY martial art related one does not effect BOTH of the skills. This would make them feel more unique like guns and energy weapons.

I hope what I said makes some sense!

Justified, sure, but also a bit unnecessary. Rather than just merging and cutting out they could've been improved upon - and if succeeded, the result would've been much more "meaty" (so to speak) game.

for the love of god, YES. it's bad enough that picking a melee style skill as your main combat skill makes all guns and energy weapons useless to you, without forcing you to segregate between two types of melee weapon which are incredibly similar anyway (the difference between a power fist and a ripper i ask you? why can't they just be in the same damn category?) utterly pointless and frustrating. ah well, i usually just pick guns anyway and hunting rifle anything that moves

Maybe they should include a mode like hardcoe mode where the merged skills get "un-merged" again. >_>
I'd actually play that.

Both skills should stay separate. would mike tyson be able to pick up a sword and fight like an Olympic fencer would? no. despite being one of the greatest Boxers of all time, he would be taken apart by a fencer.

Yes!!!! :woot:

IMO none were justified.

• Thrown weapons let you specialize in grenades instead of rocket launchers (and you could carry more of those than rockets ~but at the cost of proficiency with rockets and other big guns).
  
• Gambling could not be raised with books, and if you actually committed to 100 points to Gambling, winning at slots should practically be a special ability from then on.
  
• Traps need not be developed, but if it was you could detect traps; if you wanted your character to detect traps, then you developed it. (does it matter if there were ten or two (?) the choice to develop that ability gave you the ability to detect them and without it your PC did not have much skill at that task. :shrug: )
  
• Sneak and steal have nothing in common. Sneaking is breath control, body awareness, body control, and positioning yourself so as not to be seen, and careful awareness of sound and what could make noise under foot, or while you pass by or through it. Overall its the act of being quiet where you might be heard.
  
  Stealing is the art misdirection (in the case of pickpocketing), where you are in full sight and yet reaching into someone's pockets or bag, while standing next to them. (in fact you are probably even making noise, as being totally silent would cause suspicion in most.)
  I can't think of anything relating this to sneaking except body awareness... and in this case its an awareness of theirs (and knowing where to search them, and when best to attempt a grab).
  
  
• Merging big guns and small guns means the person so skilled now magically knows how to fire a .22 pistol, and a light anti tank rocket (vastly different skill ~http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/Idiot.jpg). As it is though, explosives are the skill for rockets, and that means that the rocket training makes you an expert with grenades, mines, and C4.
  
• Of First Aid and Doctor... They were two skills that overlaped. The first was for healing minor wounds (at 25xp). the second was for healing crippled limbs (at 50xp and took longer). Mechanically this allowed the PC to heal six times per day, but only to fix crippled limbs three time per day (instead of six ~and allowed the PC to selectively heal those in need with the appropriate treatment)... Now the game lets you heal an unlimited number of crippled limbs per day (and probably costs you no actual time to do it).

Same here; very much so... Nearly all of my FO1 & 2 characters were unarmed specialists of 140 to 165.

Whoa there buddy. Sneaking and stealing have A LOT in common. Breathing control, if you are reaching into somebodies pocket. You don't wanna be breathing all heavily, as that makes sound and causes you to move more slightly. Body awareness and control, so you think stealing requires no dexterity? Reaching into somebodies pocket unnoticed requires quite a bit of body control and awareness of the victim and your surroundings. Also stealing is NOT just about misdirection. That is an aspect of openly stealing. What if a person steals without being seen, I can pickpocket somebody from behind/beside just as well as I can from the front. And you probably wouldn't want to be making much noise while stealing. What if you're not pickpocketing and just stealing stuff laying around. That requires quite a bit of stealthiness to not be noticed.

They are very intertwined. I don't see how you can think differently.

Okay then... How does skill at pickpocketing relate to traversing a city block (or a meadow :laugh:) filled with guards, and not being noticed. Also Breath control is more than heavy breathing. Stealing a ring from a counter top [while the merchant is there] is not the same as sneaking into the shop past the guard after hours to then be able to fill a bag with rings (and it would help if you could detect traps :rolleyes: ).

Yes... a good thief has both ~but they are different skills; and being say... a trained sniper involves stealth, but wont always make you a master pickpocket.

No, but I do feel some perks like SuperSlam, SLayer, and Ninja should have the seperate melee/unarmed requirements merged.

Gladly there is a mod that does this.

No.

Cut the homogenization.

Yes, unarmed just isn't worth it I never once put points into it.

Agility and dexterity. Sneaking is about body control, so is stealing. Just the same as a good pickpocket could make a good surgeon should they know medicine. They may not be exactly the same, but they both require similar skills.Which is why, most people that sneak around, are thieves. When have you ever heard of an unstealthy thief? Never, unless they got caught.



A trained sniper does not need to be stealthy at all, they just need distance from their target and be a good shot. Sniping does not equal stealth. Snipers are just generally hidden,that doesn't mean they're stealthy. Sitting in a room aiming a gun out a window 200+ yards away does not make you stealthy. Just like a great stealthy thief is not necessarily going to be an ace sniper.

The only skills there that shouldn't have been removed were Steal and Doctor. Traps is a dump stat, gambling is a dump stat, there are like 3 throwing weapons in all of the games, big guns is unbalanced.

So are both football and swimming (should they be combined?)

Or unless they are tough enough to brazenly steal without stealth (IE. Brawn and Intimidation). There are a lot of folks that fit that description too.

That's bogus... an "unstealthy" sniper is dead before they get to shoot (or dead once they have, and are being hunted).
These guys will crawl meters per day if need be and soil their own pants to avoid unnecessary movement that could give them away.


***Merging skills creates unrealistically skilled PC's (and could be looked at as a kind of exploit). Merging Melee and Unarmed would always create a PC skilled in both disciplines for the price of one (no matter how different the skills may actually be...) The aspect of committing to one discipline for greater mastery at the expense of broader knowledge is effectively destroyed by this practice.

Personally, it's not so much the "logic" of the skills used - but the balance between them.

Sure, logically, Sneak and Pickpocket are two separate skill sets. (You're probably not going to be a very good pickpocket if you can't even sneak up to the mark - but being an excellent pickpocket also doesn't mean you're going to be very good at cat-burglary.) I think the concept behind these merges had more to do with "balancing" the variety of available skills.

Let's look at the old Fallout 1 set-up, for example. If you wanted to focus on a Weapons skill, you're talking about (realistically) about 150-point skillpoint expenditure over the course of the game. (You could always go higher - but I generally found that after the mid-100s, the benefits really just weren't worth raising much higher. Conversely, there was very little point in raising, say, Science over 100 points. (There were like one or two specific times where it even mattered - and it was only through trial and error that you'd ever even know that 100 wasn't all the Science you were ever going to need.

So, a "combat" character build only really had to worry about raising one skill up, very very high. And it wasn't long before they were doing very well in their chosen role. A character more focused on diplomacy might take Speech, and maybe Science or Repair or something. So that's two skills, plus you're probably going to want to raise a weapon skill up to a decent level, as well. A "thief" character, however - had to worry about Sneak, Pickpocket, and Lockpicking to be any good at their chosen role. That's 3 skills you're going to have to get pretty darned high before you could be comfortable in your chosen role.

Now, it is all about choice. But why should a Thief be "penalized" for trying to be adequate at all the tasks associated with that role? Sure, those are 3 distinct skills. But that's just because that's what the Devs chose to narrow it down to. They could just as easily have added in "Empathy" and "Lie-detecting" to the skill list - so that someone who wanted to focus on talking would, as well, have 3 skills to focus on. There's no reason that a character who wanted to specialize in hand-to-hand couldn't need to learn "Dodging" and "Blocking," in relation to their appropriateness in the generic role.

I could see it making sense having a more streamlined selection of skills. (This also meaning combining Melee and Unarmed.) At least by that rationale. Sure, having more skills brought more interesting combinations to the table. But that doesn't mean that, with, merging some of these skills - that we couldn't find room to add in other, more relevant new skills to the mix, as well.

They already are, both are sports.



That's not stealing, that's intimidation. If I intimidate a person into giving me their belongings I did not steal them. They gave them to me.



You're now adding invariables. How exactly would they be dead before they shoot? Just because they aren't "hiding stealthily" does not mean they're standing out. Being hunted has no bearing on the actual sniping. Those people you speak of are not snipers, they are soldiers trained to snipe. It is a simple fact, you do not have to be stealthy to snipe. You may need to be stealthy to snipe and not get caught. But stealth is not required.

There is that...
*Except that Fallout 1 & 2 had skill books for certain skills (and not others). Both First Aid and Guns could be raised to 91(?) before needing to commit points to them ~Doctor and Big Guns could not be raised at all, except though leveling and committing skill points. There was a kind of balance already present. As for Science... yeah, it was rare to need it that high... but the game rewarded you if you did it... Not because you did it... in the sense that you would choose to for a reward, but it rewarded skill if it was there, and the Skynet NPC in FO2 was a perfect example of this.

No. They are two different skills for two different types of attacks. The perks that have overlapping benefits are just giving you something more if you invest in both skills. Want to have every melee/bonus +bonuses, then study both skills. The perks are a way to reward skill specialization. Unlike FO3, where you just max out everything along the way and choose 30 perks, which by the end means "every thing but the flavor perks". The system works just fine and encourages you to be a hand-to-hand type or a range combat person. If you want to be a sniper and close combat fighter, well, you're going to have to pass on having every melee/unarmed perk. That's play balance.