Spot on

But you've received multiple confirmations that that's not how it works despite how it looks to you, and if you want solid evidence watch this public video put out by Bethesda some time ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsFpH4jm-QI

The ONLY linear aspect of the perk chart is the ranks for a perk, in which you'd obviously need to have rank one picked before you can move on to two, and so on, granted that you have the correct S.P.E.C.I.A.L. for the initial perk rank and meet the level requirement for subsequent ranks.

Pretty broad estimate depending upon the level up requirements. I expect it will be much akin to Skyrim in that the first 40 levels or so are easily obtainable and the XP gap widens the longer you play. It will be interesting to see how truly effective the Intelligence stat bonus factors in. I think the proper way would be level based as opposed to a flat percentage. That way a start of 10 doesn't blow you through the roof early on and offers some utility post game.

The main point of my calculations (which I have posted on multiple threads) is that some of the highest levels will require more XP than the original FO3 level cap.

Yeah at level 250ish. And to be fully honest it was the same in all Fallout Games before really, especially in Fallout 3. Skills were all maxed out, specials were maximized, we had tons of perks and so forth. With lvl 50 in New Vegas you've had the time to maximize your skills as well. Plus there was the perk for increasing every stat to 9.

Plus look at how everybody complained about a lvlcap in Fallout 3 and NV. The right thing to do was to give unlimited levels, so that means that everyone can do as much as exploring as he wants without losing XP at one point (which is a huge thing in an RPG). I highly doubt this means that the average player will ever get anywhere near maxing out their stats and perks. Reaching lvl 200+ will take an immense amount of time, they are just eliminating reaching a point where you stop exploring because you do not gain any more levels.

I understand your concerns about linearity. If you come out the Vault with a certain stat value, you will be able to pick exactly that perk from the chart. Yes there are stat barriers, but it was just the same in Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Perks were gated by stats, skills, Karma(?) and even other perks. What they did is they made the simpler, by creating transparency. There is no doubt now, what you have to do if you want that special perk, boost your stat to prerequisite and choose it. Nice and simple.

Now of course this system is not perfect and one could argue that the character system is too simple now, but until we have seen it in action and we do not know what each stat and perk does exactly, it is too early to really make a decision of how well it does or doesn't work.

It gives people to play the way they want without having to choose a character class or replay the game 3 or 4 times to experience what everything does.

At the end of the day if you want to limit your abilities to a small selection for your own experience then do that. But if you don't or decide that 60 hours in you want to go in a new direction, you don't have to do a restart.

It's all about giving people options, you don't have to take them all.

Perks have multiple levels and some are level locked. If you start with a perception of 6 you can immediately take the sniper perk level 1.. but then level 2 might unlock at level 20 or something. So around 250 some odd perks and another 42 levels to max out stats. So you don't really have to worry about unlocking everything or leveling linearly. You'll essentially be working on your specific character build the entire time. Really, the only way you could max your character out in 400 hours is if the game levels you more then twice as fast as it did in NV.

The FO3 / NV perk list is just as linear if you chose perks from top to bottom in a list.

You can pick any perks your SPECIAL unlocks.

The only linearity is with more powerful iterations of each perk.

And getting to level 300 is going to take an awfully long time...

Personally my only big problem with perks is level requirement that means you can't really specialise in something before you make some heavy leveling (usually is other Fallout my exploration and social skill were at 75+ very early in the game, now I'll have to wait, wait, and wait before being able to explore everything in one go.

Sorry, double post.

Well before the time when my character would be attaining godhood is when I'd likely start getting a little bored of the style and want to start a fresh new character. If the map is gigantinormous, that will make starting over even better as I can head to the areas I didn't visit first time around.

Depends. If the Lockpicking and Hacking perks are 100% required to even attempt harder locks and terminals, and additional ranks of those perks required higher levels, you'd be absolutely right. But I'm inclined to think it's like Skyrim and you can always attempt the minigames, but they'll be prohibitively difficult without the perks. As for Speech, that's the primary function of Charisma now; so just start off with a high charisma, or spend a few levels to raise it whenever, and your social skills can be great fairly early on. I'm guessing the same happened to the Sneak skill, and it was rolled into Agility - so walking out of the vault with high agility will help you remain undetected, but obviously ranks of the Sneak perk is where it really counts.

My goal is to have fun and not give a [censored] about efficiency. I'll pick perks I find suitable for my character, don't care what level I end up being.

Also, it's not as linear as you think. You can pick any perk that you meet the SPECIAL requirement for (and required level). You don't have to pick every perk that comes before it.

Ha! That's called organization, man! It also helps balance perks across different SPECIAL builds. Face it, it's not linear; it's not any different from F3 and FNV.

It took this:

Lady Killer

Gunslinger

Bloody Mess

Mysterious Stranger

Iron Fist

And organized it like this:

Iron Fist Lady Killer Gunslinger Bloody Mess

Mysterious Stranger

That's it! In fact, it's even less linear than F3 and FNV because level requirement are regulated to higher ranks of perks, not the first rank, which means you can literally get any perk that you want at level 2 (assuming we start off at level 1).

What you're complaining about doesn't exist and even if it did it is much too late to complain anyways. The game's gone gold, bud.

If you had read https://bethesda.net/#en/events/game/fallout-4s-character-system/2015/09/24/31 that came out along with that video, you would have a much better idea how the new system works, and you would realize that your concerns are not relevant to Fallout 4.