Oh. I really do hope they change how skills are leveled up. Like maybe make them level up naturally instead of putting points into them at every level. Why? Simply because it's almost impossible to NOT max out all skills with any character... Seriously, in FO3, I usually end up with every skill maxed out except for two. FONV? It has 20 more levels than FO3! So ye'h.

That's a problem with balancing the XP and skillpoint economies, not of the system itself.

So you want to avoid being able to max every skill by using another skill system that lets you do the exact same thing, just in a different manner?

Yes. There's a difference though... In the current system, you have to use up your points every time you level up. Meaning, if you already maxed out the skills you want to use for your character then you are forced to use said points in the other skills, eventually maxing them all out. In the other system I am thinking about, you can only max out all skills by literally using them. So, as long as you don't use the skills (which you shouldn't if they don't properly fit your character) then you will never max them all out.

Wouldn't it be easier to just do what every other RPG does, and simply not force the player the spend all of their skill points before they can leave the level up screen, rather then switch the game's skill system entirely?

As much as I prefer a TES like system of "level by doing", not only because it makes far more sense, but also ends up being less grindy, I don't see why anyone would want to put that into Fallout when Fallout 3/NV's system can be fixed so easily with just a few minor changes.

I'm going to go deeper into that subject later. It's always a pleasure to endlessly discuss with you, no sarcasm.

The scorpion was example of a confused developer that didn't understand the setting, (and why that shouldn't have been placed in a town).
The film studio was a job, same as caravan guard, or boxing the champions in the gymnasium.
Jobs can facilitate one's immediate goals, while playing house would seem to stagnate them.

... And what stings, is that almost certainly none of the above was by mistake. It had to be intentional... Most probalby for market reasons.

They were local phenomena. The BOS were like a cult in the mountains ~that's not supposed to sprout chapters in every city; it was regional, and nearly non-existent in Fallout 2. All of it; the BOS, The Unity, FEV ~Enclave; it was all local to the area. FO3 could have [and should have] started from scratch in the CW. The PA suits were Army, so there would have been some in the CW, but those that wore them need not have any ties to the Brotherhood; no one need have ever seen a supermutant out there. They had a free hand to create whatever they wished, and all they did was copy/paste with the exception of crab-people... Itself a local phenomenon; and would be just as out of place in a setting like New Vegas for instance.

Half life IS freeman, just as any other franchise centered around a single character; and there are many. Fallout is not centered around a character.

Agreed ~to the first part; but I can't stand "level by doing". The PC should be able to handle their own education and training, and not require the player to baby-step them to competance. Skillpoint distibution indicates what they spent their spare time on. The player shouldn't be forced to endure that by needing to chaperon them.

Bethesda was not the only one interested in the IP; they simply had the most cash.
(There were even https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzYmQyHl2bc; doubtless would have been converted to become Fallout 3, had they obtained the rights.)

-[citation needed]. Things evolve over time, the nature of their existence in one game does not define how they need to be in others. Also, NV had Mirelurk Kings, which are a relation to said crab people.

-I was actually making a joke with that specific part of my statement, as Half-Life has been about Gordon Freeman, Adrian Shephard, Barney Calhoun, and Gina Cross + Colett Green, and all of the games where those other characters were the playable ones were equally valid Half-Life games. You could even argue Chell in that statement, as Portal is part of the Half-Life universe.

-Unless OFC the design of the game is based around YOU being the character, such as TES games, or many FPSs such as Doom or Half-Life, in which case the character's learning is literally your own. Also, learn by doing is no more chaperoning them then killing stuff to get EXP, so you can manually distribute the character skills. Either way, the character is only getting competent in anything because you chose to invest time in that skill.

-Being dead has nothing to do with companies seeking to buy it, and [citation needed].

It's obvious to anyone that played the games; just reading the material is enough.

*But since you've asked... http://youtu.be/m4XVW6qcuzM?t=3m10s

Good grief; did they really? I had not yet encountered that in New Vegas; what a shame it is that they did that.
They at least should have known better. A couple of them even worked on Fallout 2.

In which case it's not an RPG; this was covered in the post.

If I play a PC that is an advlt, then they should already have aptitudes and developed skills; they are advlts. No one survives to advlthood without past experiences, interests, and aptitudes ~IE. what the character sheet lists of them.
If I am roleplaying a thief character, they would have practiced lock picking beforehand. No one starts out learning to pick locks by trying to learn on someone else's door; and the player should not have to micro-manage the PC like that in order that they should improve their favored pastimes.

RPG players are tasked with deciding what a character would do in a situation, given their mind and abilities... Now if a trespassing PC's intelligence is average to high, but their lock picking skill is next to nil... they would leave, and not try picking the lock.
Why should the player be tormented with mundane practice attempts when the PC should have done these on their own time and been confident with picking locks before trying to break into someplace?

Already given; the link is sufficient.

What a fatuous argument, super mutants are instinctively reproducing...
Firstly it's animals instinct to copulate, not to reproduce.
Animals rarely if ever cogitate the notion of having offspring, probably aren't capable of it anyway.It's approximate causality (animals having six for the sensation and dopamine)that results in the ultimate causality of procreation.

If you take away the pleasures of copulation very few offspring would be conceived, animals don't "reproduce" for the sake of it, rather despite it.

Not only is that an awful theory but I'm guessing it's a totally unsubstantiated one? Show me the gene that engenders these notions of reproduction (in a sterile species no less) that also wasn't present in the mariposa strain of supermutants? As we know the west coast super mutants dipped people out of obsequiousness and espousing the masters ideology, not out of instinct.


Regarding your cogent owyn lyons argument (sarcasm).

"I cannot -- I will not -- allow the Enclave to control the one thing that could bring even the slightest spark of hope to these people."

"When I came here, I realized for the first time that the Brotherhood's technology could truly save the survivors in this Wasteland. I chose to help them, even if it meant putting the Brotherhood's interests at risk. Some of my soldiers called me a hero. Others called me a traitor."

These aren't the avaricious comments of a quasi-religous elder that considers technology borderline sacred.Or of a man looking to exploit the labour of others for his own expedient means, like collecting more tech.

I never said they misunderstood the lore, I said under the presupposition that you postulated if fallout 3 really was meant to teach people the lore of the first two games then by this context bgs have misunderstood it.

The fact the bos are trying to expunge ANY threats from the capital wasteland (nevermind expunging both the enclave and the super mutants) is an indictment of the change in ethos from the west coast and east coast brotherhood.

The brotherhood were borderline xenophobes who sent people on genuine suicide missions and never once attempted to remove notable threats from the core region, never mind the biggest threats like the enclave or the supermutants.

Edit:
It's late so forgive the spelling mistakes.

By basing the entirety of the character progression on grind (on as many micro levels as there are skills)?

XP systems like those used in D&D and Fallout can be ground too. You can grind quests and locations for XP in Fallout just like you can grind skills in TES. If a weak-willed player does this in either series they have only themselves to blame.

As a rule, a roleplayer will not grind. It doesn't matter if they are playing a D&D/Fallout-style XP system or a TES-style skill-use system. Roleplaying tends to limit that kind of mindless meta-gaming in both systems.

You can grind in almost any system. His point however was that TES' system of skill progression is literally built upon grinding. The only real way of improving every skill is through repeated use of it.

To be honest if there is one thing that absolutely no one should be able to say about the Fallout games, old and new, it is describing their character systems as grindy. Playing any of those games normally will yield more than enough experience points to comfortably complete the games.

The solution for making the level-by-doing mechanic less grindy is simple: make it so that using the skills well rewards you far more than using it a lot. Things like crits, synergies, combos and all of that come to mind.

Although in its current form it's still no more grindy than any other levelling system: at its core, all experience gathering is a grind. But what really makes a bad grind is requiring more repetition than the story/game world comfortably allows, which TES is not remotely guilty of (unless you're a completionist aiming for max level, but that's just not how you're meant to play the game).

EDIT: In fact, I'd almost say that TES has the opposite problem to grinding because it levels you too quickly, and you end up outgrowing a lot of its content quicker than is desirable - especially in the first 8 hours.

The solution is IN FALLOUT 1 & 2. They already had it working in both prior games.

_________________

As for FO4 suggestions...

I would like to see FO4 implement a system for conforming animation; such that minor parts of the animations can be altered as needed, and as they play out in realtime.
Imagine if the engine "bent" the keyframed animation to better match the situation where it was used. Especially in melee combat. That could allow a targeted [VATS] punch to the face even while the face is moving. It might also remove the need for teleporting the PC into an acceptable position to play the melee attack; by allowing the attack to track (and hit) its target during the animation.

The concept of target nodes in the models comes to mind; such that unarmed and melee attacks https://www.dropbox.com/s/zycqh8q1xnbj33i/Target_Node_Concept_zps7dfcc060.mp4?dl=0 ~regardless of where that happens to be during the target's own animation on screen.

Perhaps this could even enable the option of targeted animated actions. Imagine finding bolt cutters in the game, and equipping them to use on a padlock... http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/yeah_right_sure_zpsd3a5952e.jpg.

-And yet I know plenty of Fallout 1 and 2 fans that didn't care, or think it was lore breaking, that the BoS went east to either Chicago or D.C. Furthermore, Tim Cain says in the video you linked that he personally wouldn't have used many of the same elements, not that re-using the things they did somehow violates the intended meaning of their existence, beyond the specifically named FEV, and even then he says it was a stretch, not an impossibility, or complete violation. So again [citation needed].

-Yes, though they are called lakelurks instead of mirelurks

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Lakelurk

They can be found in Lake Mead, specifically on the Scavenger Platform, and they can also be found at Ruby Hill Mine, Blue Paradise Vacation Rentals, outside the Cap Counterfeiting Shack, Camp Guardians Tunnels, and one unmarked location often referred to as Lakelurk Cove.

-Except it would be an RPG, as per many people's definition, and as per the fact many people already see most RPGs that way to begin with, regardless of if it is specifically stated to be that way or not by the developers.

-By that logic one should never be allowed to manually level up a character skills, be it by "learn by doing", or by putting skill points into it, they should just get automatic boosts to whatever their pre-programmed favorite skills are, as the character would always chose what he/she want's to get better at. Also, no RPG starts off with the character being competent in anything, even with TAG skills, or other similar starting bonuses in other games, the skill number is so low there's no real way they could have survived with those, that's part of it being a GAME, something focused on starting off at nothing, and progressing over time, rather then a simulation, which wold start you off at a whatever logically developed point the character would be skill wise.

-That is an incredibly narrow minded take on human action, and suggests people never try to do anything outside of their specific skill set, which they do, all the time. And by that logic, why should the player be tormented with other mundane things like shooting, or talking to NPCs, or anything that defines gameplay in an RPG? Why shouldn't the characters just BE doing the things they want to? Because at that point it stops being a game and turns into a movie, which games are not.

Leveling by natural use is not grind. Grind is specifically going out, without a purpose such as a quest or mission, and doing things in order to gain EXP to level up. Getting a higher one-handed skill by killing things while doing quests does not qualify as grinding, grinding would be just going out into the wilderness, and just killing sabrecats over and over to level your one handed skill, without any mission telling you to do so.

And I end up having to do that in Fallout 3/NV far more then in Skyrim, in which I never have to do it, mostly because of Fallout 3/NV's idiotic, and unrealistic, "YOU CANT EVEN TRY!" type skill check systems. Though Fallout 3 was slightly more bearable in regards to speech checks, as it used a far more natural and realistic % based system, rather then an arbitrary and unrealistic binary pass/fail system.

Ummmm... Smithing? Speechcraft? Alchemy? Enchanting?

You don't want a citation, because you don't want the answer; you've already been given it from the best source possible ~where the intent is plain to see, and you still struggle to pick it apart on any premise no matter how stretched.
Your answer is in that video, and you don't care. Listen to what he said; perhaps listen again after that.

One has to understand the logic first.

You don't seem to; you state that no RPG starts off with competent PC, and yet almost every RPG does that; it's only those [misguided] games that start the PC without a character class. That's what a character class IS; the life and training of the PC prior to when the player begins. It is their aptitude, their aspiration... It is what they are good at; what they start out as competent in.

1. Fallout 3 played 3000 miles east of Fallout, it didn't have to teach anything about the previous games anyway.

2. The basics of Fallout are a 50's World of Tomorrow inspired America that got nuked to hell and where new societies arose. And that's it. Everything else needn't be used (depending on the location). If it gets used, it needs an explanation of course.

3. I don't think so, but I can't argue your opinion. I just wish that Fallout would retell an alternate history, you know? One that is internally consistent. Tactics and PoS and F3 did care for icons more than the universe, so now we have a history I simply can't get immersed in. They didn't ask if the BoS would and could and should migrate in this world, they did it because they needed the BoS to tell a story.

I care for consistency - continuity is dependent on the location. This is why I want a game like Fallout 1, in a distant area like Boston or Miami or South Dakota for Christ's sake, with no established factions but local ones.

No, no, that was another reason of course.

The world gets smaller and feels less real.

I don't know about HL (thanks for explaining that joke) but Fallout will always incorporate one common element - the one I described in 2. Plus of course ghouls, radscorps (allegedly) and some other critters. And iconic equipment. And Dogmeat? I mean there's much pseudo-continuity to be found without the need to find other subbranches of existing forces.

That wasn't (and still isn't) established. I'd have a hard time believing the NCR is the only post-war nation so far.

The Mirelurk Kings who got lazily copypasted into the Colorado are named "Lakelurks". They live differently from their east coast counterparts (no crab people symbiosis) but Obsidian could have at least given them a new model.

A silly question here, but just what is the difference between not using a skill that is maxxed vs. not using a skill that isn't maxxed?

Look every system has its strengths and weaknesses. In the current system, not every build can max all skills. That ability is directly related to the character's intelligence and selection of perks made early in the game. With Learn By Doing system you are describing, I could build a real knuckle dragging moron and max all skills if I so desired (something that is impossible to do currently without using console commands).

The learn by doing system... Lets expand on that, a bit to make it somewhat intelligent. You can train up (by using the skill), which is capped at 5 * Level. So the cap at level one for all non-tag skills would be 5, at level 2 it would be 10, at level 3 it would be 15, etc. Your tag skills will be handled differently the cap would be 5 * Level + 25, so at level 1 they are capped at 30, at level 2 at 35, at level 3 at 40, etc. This would give you what you want. It is based closer on reality than the current system and if you do not want to have anything to do with the Explosive skill it can remain at minimum. The thing is that you cannot claim that I wouldn't be able to max all skills, because I would be able to max all skills with any build I cared enough to create.

The whole problem with this idea is that it really isn't all that easy to balance the opportunity for training up all skills. That is to say, weapons skills would be easier to skill up than some non-weapons skills. I pretty much have an infinite supply of ammunition for all weapon types (not necessarily all weapons, but types. i.e., big guns, energy weapon, small guns, unarmed, etc.) and an infinite supply of targets. I can pretty much sneak anywhere I want to. But just how many locks are there for me to pick, or terminals to hack are available for a Thief Build to learn on. How many speech checks are available for a Diplomat Build? You will never get a perfect balance in this system. There will always be problems with certain types of character builds but it has been fairly well done (not perfectly though, as I stated there are some holes) in other games. It does require a lot of time by the developers to make it workable.

With the current system, all skills are equally treated. It isn't very realistic, but it is fairly simple. And NO, unlike the learn by doing system, not all builds can max out all skills.

Really, what you people should be asking for is a hybrid system. One where skills that have an infinite or near infinite opportunity for use would by learn by doing, and the skills where the opportunity for use is limited be handles by allocating points earned by leveling. Again, this wouldn't be a perfect solution, since it carries some of the weaknesses of both systems but they are mitigated to a certain extent.

Of course it is. Its just well integrated grinding. Your primary combat skills level quickly in Skyrim because combat is about 99% of the game. Any other skill has to be specifically focused on and done over and over again in order to be effectively leveled.

There is no reason you should be doing it in Fallout 3/NV at all. I don't pretend to be a Skyrim expert but I've played those games and experience points are all over the place.

You mean that Tim said FEV was supposed to be local to the west?

It's not always about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcMHqUC9YvM#t=12m32s. Which one is the more fun system? I think Vegas' Speech checks (which actually made Speech a useful skill, but that's another topic) were the better gameplay solution. And yes, they let you try. Same should go for Science and Lockpicking in the future (trying).

I agree with Tim Cain btw, Bethesda should have embraced the opportunity to show us a location that developed completely different from the west. Well I would have, as he said.

You might be able to make that argument for The Unity, super mutants, FEV and the Enclave, but you cannot blame BGS for mutating and transplanting the BoS. Interplay put them in Texas with tribal and ghoul members and hired Micro Forte to put them in Chicago with tribal, ghoul and super mutant members. (Although the whole Texas thing is disavowed by everyone including Interplay, now). Based on semi-canon of Tactics alone (you know, only the major events are canon), the Midwest chapter is probably the largest and most powerful of all the BoS chapters. So when it comes to the Brotherhood of Steel, those evil Bethesda bastidges were only following Interplay's lead.

Look, anyone with two neurons to rub together would say that BGS changed the IP. That is something that cannot be denied, but Interplay also did it with each of the games they released. People are going have to get use to the idea that it changed and was changing under Interplay, that it changed under BGS and will continue to change with BGS.

A dev should always care for the greater good of a franchise. Nobody else should bother them with their [censored] ideas. The IP will change, but will it change for the better of the franchise as a whole?

What IS good for the franchise?