FTFY

"Dumbed up" - well termed.

I believe when your talking about these levels of customization, your really talking about depth vs complexity. Having a 3rd system to learn, that could fit into (and makes sense as) one of the other two systems adds complexity, without adding depth.

Skills themselves were unique; however the skill system, I feel is redundant and could easily be a subset of perks.


Here's a simple example of the evolution of Lockpicking through the fallout series.

Fallout 1 & Fallout 2 were based on a pen and paper model. Skills made sense in this model because you have a value for lockpicking factor in the difficulty of the lock roll a d100 and this determined if you could open the lock. Works great on paper. When you move to a video game (particularly a single player game), you have the ability to save, roll a die, and reload if you don't like the result. This system encourages you to simply waste time reloading until you get the result you want.

Fallout 3, where we have skills because they existed in the old system. They simplify the system so you can either pick the lock or not, based on these thresholds (25%, 50%, 75%, 100%). So now you can't just reload to be able to pick the lock.

Fallout 4, skills are removed. Now instead of having several values of lockpicking that are essentially meaningless (spending points form 25% to 35% in one level got you no where). Now we simply have a lockpicking perk with 4 ranks. Rank 1 = easy locks (25% in old system, Rank 2 = average (50% in old system), etc..

Disclaimer: This is speculation on the inner workings of lockpicking in Fallout 4

The Fallout 4 system is by far more elegant a solution. Reducing complexity, while maintaining depth.

I would say yes.

While I am excited for fallout 4 bethesda has over the past several games has removed and or gutted features such as say spellmaking and magic in Skyrim.

The skills could have been an added layer of character development and customization. The concept of skills could complement the perks not become part of them.

Let's see, what do we know for sure?

There will be perks.

The main character was in a vault for about 200 years or so and can be a man or a woman. Pre-war they were married and had a baby. They also had a Mr. Handy. They lived in suburbia Boston. The protagonist is voiced and is the sole survivor of the vault he was in.

There is a nice German Shepard available as a companion.

We can build a settlement.

The Pip Boy collectors edition is sold out.

Most of us here on this forum will buy it.

It will be released on Nov. 10th this year.

I think that about covers it.

The skill system really svcked. I'm surprised we even have people attempting any arguments against that

I'm super psyched for Fallout 4. That's what I know. Frankly, I'm psyched for the new skills/perks/characteristics system. That's what I know.



Meanwhile, I'm psyched for whatever Bethesda rolls down the track at us, because, no, not all change is good...but most of it is.

I think it should be improved upon and used to enhance the leveling system that works add another layer of complexity to character development.

I know that the rest of my life will take a break when it comes out (I first played Fallout 3 for days straight, skipping more than a few classes). Very excited for the setting and the crafting enhancements. I know that Fallout 4 uses a rubber-banding scale, and I'm hoping this will keep the game fun up into those higher levels. Level scaling is a concern to me but it's one area they've improved on in each Bethesda game since Oblivion.

To me, what makes Fallout fun is finding the little random stories that aren't necessarily part of a quest - a ghoul with pet radroaches or an old skeleton surrounded by empty syringes. Exploring an abandoned building and figuring out what went on there before. I guess I don't know that will hold true in Fallout 4 but it's a safe bet.

I don't want to know too much. I don't want plot, characters, etc. spoiled since finding people and places and things and how they all fit together is most of the fun. In fact I don't know why I waited until now to start posting; I'll be going dark once more info comes out.

It's a redundancy, though. I've seen people push this whole fluid vs binary argument before (not you in particular, Otheral) but ultimately the difference between 54 and 58 points in Guns resulted in extremely minor damage increases. The ranked perk system provides an immediate, noticeable gain - and accomplishes the same task of progression.

As an aside, I don't really feel that perks related to guns should ever result in them doing more damage. They should affect stability, recoil, etc. A .50 caliber bullet is still going to do the same amount of damage if it hits a guy square in the chest, regardless of the user's skill.

One thing Bethesda has done over the last 15 years that I absolutely love is making game play a lot more smoother by reducing the need to bring up menus and windows all the time. With Skyrim I actually felt like I was in another world. With Daggerfall, Oblivion, Morrowind, and to a smaller extent Fallout 3 I was always stopping playing to bring up a window of some sort.

That is one design change that I totally endorse.

*nods in agreement* kinda the point I was trying to make in my lockpicking evolution example.

Needlessly adding complexity isn't a good thing, it's depth you want to add. If your interested, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVL4st0blGU from Extra credits that explains the concepts far better than I.

Thats a really good video, I really like how he goes on that just because its harder to learn doesnt make it a smarter game or a better game. Thanks for the video!

It seems to me that in the ES series they've been mixing up the crafting for variety's sake. In Oblivion the focus was spellmaking, in Skyrim it was Smithing (I guess alchemy is just always there).

The next game will feature something different and people will complain.

I would note that the lack of spellcrafting would have been admissible if destruction scaled properly 1-100, or if it at least had some kind of enchanting counterpart compared to fortify one-handed/archery/two-handed.

Really? I always found destruction super OP even in low levels.
Once you get to Fireball, and have a decent reserve of Magicka you can basically destroy everything.

i like the raod Bethesda is taking, this isnt the 90s anymore where i want to choose bettewn 1000000000 skills and spend 10hs making my NPC, i just want to play, but at the same time have some power over it.

looking how Fallout become a action RPG and not a full RPG is good the way they doing it.

And this is one big reason why I love Fallout 3. Yes, I enjoyed the first two Fallouts, but Bethesda nailed it good on FO3.

It was mostly on any difficulty beyond adept where destruction really struggled to scale compared to melee/archery.

Look on the bright side - they've just announced spellcrafting for Fallout 4!

I was rather disappointed we didn't see the potential farce of his fantasy version...

which I'd imagine would have all those so called politically correct elements, so he can go on a violent rampage against them.

Or perhaps he'd want them all removed... believing they should focus on crafting (like another tilted critic.)

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but personally, I'm hoping there's, at least one, piano bar full of campy showtunes and risque cabaret shows... with drag queen super mutants and ghouls...

or at least a good post apocalyptic tribal dance, matrix like rave and furry orgy... we've got a teddy bear's head, we mind as well head to the full rule 34 and invite everyone to the picnic.