I agree. It also looks like you do not need to level up immediatly, I think that they have gone to a simular method to Skyrim for leveling up, in that you can choose when to level up. If you look at the video before he goes to the perk chart the perk chart button that is visable on previous videos has been replaced with a level up (1) button. Which suggests it is possible to build up multiple levels before taking them. It does raise the question does leveling up heal, and fill up your the action points?

Also it means that when he goes onto the perk chart he has just leveled up, and the close button is active on the perk chart, so you can close it without having to pick a perk.

The interface is made consistent by having the stars mean for Training what they mean for all other ranked perks. Attack Dog has three ranks, so it has three stars. Bloody Mess has four ranks, so it has four stars. Agility Training has ten ranks, so it has ten stars. You may take Attack Dog up to three times. You may take Bloody Mess up to four times. You may take Agility Training up to 9 times (you always begin with at least one rank). It may be worth noting that Agility Training is a perk, not an attribute.

The build in the demo is not an initial one. The character, Albert, is level 14. He has 32 points of SPECIAL, and an initial build would have only 28. We are told in the demo that we are being shown how things will look when we level up. It is not a demo of a special-case scenario.

For each perk, filled stars are the ranks Albert currently has. Open stars are the ranks Albert does not have. When Albert meets the prerequisites for a perk, and when there are open stars for the perk, then the first open star blinks. When Albert fails to meet the prerequisites for a perk, then no star blinks. I think it safe to assume that when Albert meets the prerequistes for a perk, then he can buy the perk. I believe it also safe to conclude that a blinking star in a perk alerts you that the perk is ready for the taking.

Albert's current SPECIAL range from 2 through 6. There is no prerequisite for Strength Training 7. There is no prerequisite for Charisma Training 3. The first open star for each Training perk blinks. From these observations, I would conclude that Training perks have no prerequisites. Each time you level up, you can, as Bethesda says, "Skip a regular perk and raise a SPECIAL by 1."

Yeah, since there is no level cap I don't see why they'd limit how many times you could raise your attributes.

But like as has been said, I don't see you bring able took max everything without making that a specific goal, and lots (actually lots and lots) of work, post-Main Quest.

Sounds about right, it will be a lot of work. In Fallout 3 i remember getting to level 20, killing a TON of respawning Brother of Steel and getting 1492 Holotags. Saving that character as a template, turning the Holotags in and leveling up to 30 instantly and choosing the new perks to try out other builds.

There are two tweets from Pete Hines pertinent to the conversation.

I'll quote them and add the links.

It was discussed by LoneVaultWanderer and is also addressed in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE8FSbSaakI

First, Lone asks Pete: 'hey Pete, just a question. Are we able to level up all SPECIAL attributes to 10 if we keep playing long enough in Fallout 4?'

Pete replies: 'I believe so. What you do with your points when you level up. You could only increase your SPECIALs every time'

ref: https://twitter.com/DCDeacon/status/647521913611399168

In another tweet, VaultofDaedalus usefully follow this up:

First, Daedalus asks Pete: 'So essentially instead of taking a perk you could use that unlock point to raise an attribute from say 5 to 6?'

Pete replies: right. 'So if you never pick a Perk you could max out by level...43? If my math is right?'

ref: https://twitter.com/DCDeacon/status/647523427994222592

Upshot: you can continue to drop level up points into SPECIAL ranking instead of perks.

However, that's not the whole story.

While you could spend points raising SPECIAL to 10x7 at level 43,

the usual efficient way to level is by collecting bobbleheads.

With a set of bobbleheads, you could max SPECIAL at level 36.

IF as been speculated you can level up with a collection of magazines (is there proof of that?)

that might mean you could max SPECIAL at level 29.

If the magazine theory is right, you can max all SPECIALs and perks at Level 299.

If it's just bobbleheads that additionally increase SPECIAL then it will take you to Level 306 for full max.

Has anyone heard more about magazine collections increasing SPECIAL ?

According to the blog post the other day at bethesda.net, magazines are their own perk, and there are 10 in each collection.

"And on top of all that, you also get separate Perks from the many in-game magazines you can find (there are over 100). Some of these grant an individual Perk, while others up the rank of a Perk associated with that magazine. For example, there’s a 10-issue run of Grognak the Barbarian comics that each give you an additional rank of the Barbarian Perk, which raises the critical damage of melee attacks."

https://bethesda.net/#en/events/game/fallout-4s-character-system/2015/09/24/31

You start out with a total of 28 SPECIAL points at 1st level (21 to distribute plus the one that's already in each stat). Maxed stats would give you a total of 70 SPECIAL points, so you would have to increase your SPECIAL stats a total of 42 times to max them out. The earliest you could do this would be 43rd level, and that assumes that you play the game that high without making a single non-stat perk choice.

Yes, it will be technically possible to max out your stats, but I strongly suspect that the player will run out of content long before he reaches the point of sameness across characters.

I doubt they'd give us more than one MacGuffin to raise our SPECIAL for free. If there are bobbleheads that bump up our SPECIAL, there won't also be implants or magazines that do the same thing - that would be silly. And I'm not ever sure there will be any items that bump up our SPECIAL like that.

Sounds like magazines will come with their own unique perks that you can't get from leveling.

Either way, I'm sure there will be some people who will want to max everything, so level 306 here we come

From the way the Bethnet post phrases it, I get the feeling that the 270 perk count includes the extra ranks of SPECIAL, actually. If that's true, I mean I guess it svcks, but that's still 270+ choices to be made. Skyrim had ~250 perks, and I don't think anybody ever used Legendary Skills to get them all without using exploits.

The grind is going to be far far too real.

I plan to grind a bit, currently a number of perks I want are stuck behind pointless ones for me so going to need to level up a few times to get it.

But then again a large number of perks or perk upgrades I don't see much use for myself so I guess I can skip them which does make me think that the options and the level requirement for the upgrades might lead you to upgrade SPECIAL because the other options aren't much value.

It doesnt take that long to max out everything, in both fallout 3 and NV i maxed out all usefull stats to 100, minus survival and melee and one other one, but everything else was at 100

i reached this around 80 hours on F3 and only 75 hours on NV.