I've now finally got FO4, and will be playing it after I get home to my house after Christmas. I'm trying to wrap my head around what's a conceivable number of levels (and therefore perks) to be thinking about when sketching out a character. I like to literally detail a character, pen and paper, before I play - and I know FO4 kind of bucks the trend of thorough planning for most people (in that, by allowing unlimited leveling and putting as many points into SPECIAL as you want most people wouldn't bother) however for me I want to find an efficient sweet spot that'll let me achieve what I want without sinking 300 hours on a single character.

So lay it on me, what level are you after what number of hours, what's their intelligence and do you/do you not have any +XP perks? Characters of any level are appreciated, obviously if you have multiple characters feel free to post all their deets up.

Beyond that (and here's why I posted it in the hints subforum), is there a known sweet spot in terms of intelligence and perks? For example for a player getting an average amount of xp per hour, you could imagine a situation where a person wants to build their ideal character in 50 levels, however if they got some of the experience boosting perks and more intelligence they could do the same in 55 levels - would the rate of level increase from the extra perks and intelligence be worth gunning for 55 than 50 in terms of time spent? At what point is the trade off no longer worth it, and it's better to ignore any xp boosting in favour of hitting that minimal level build because it's now faster?

Any thoughts on this, or if someone wiser wanted to sketch a loose formula given the data, would be great. Just thought I'd clarify that I'd not be looking to play the game a 100% efficiently because I'm not a complete freak, but if it came to doing a build in 100 hours that I could be doing in 50 then I would want to be striving for the latter (not that I think perks and extra intelligence allow for such a marked increase in rate of leveling up, but it'd be nice to have a rough idea).

I've played 5 characters at this point.

I general find I've acquired most of my desired character perks for each build by about level 35+. At that point, I'm just taking other perks that look kind of neat, but don't really fit with my build.

It general takes 30-40 hours to reach that point.

My fastest leveling characters are actually the ones with only 1 or 2 points in Intelligence. If my build doesn't require any of the Intelligence perks, I'll dump stat Intelligence and take Idiot Savant under Luck, and gain levels like a madman.

I haven't reached my desired maximum points with characters at level 50+. Maybe because I still haven't got my S.P.E.C.I.A.L where I want it to be, maybe because I haven't chosen combat abilities but other skills such as armorer, gun nut, lockpicking and things like that. I haven't got even one skillpoint invested on weapon specialisation or such.

I find it better if you really focus your builds in Fallout 4. That's what the new SPECIAL system encourages.

Don't take the crafting skills, or access skills like Lockpicking and Hacking with every character. Doing that just restricts where you have to put SPECIAL points. Hacking is good if you are really into lore, but Lockpicking is honestly not that useful in Fallout 4. It really isn't used much at all to access alternate routes, and all safes, even master ones, generally tend to have the same things in them - some caps, some pre-war money, a pistol, and a gold or silver watch. (If you want wealth, Scrounger is a far better Perk, and costs less SPECIAL points to access.) And there are companions that can hack or lockpick for you anyway. Also, as you level up, you'll find plenty of weapon and armor mods on loot drops, and can remove them and add them to other weapons and armor without the crafting perks. The crafting perks just allow marginally earlier access to the mods, and eliminate relying on RNG for the drops you want.

I find it best to have 2 or even 3 dump stats, and really bump the others up from the start. I'd say not to be afraid of putting a stat up to 10, even from the beginning. In Fallout 4, you can go past 10 in each stat and still gain benefits, like increased XP with Intelligence, increased Melee damage and Carry Weight with Strength, etc. once you get the Bobbleheads.

Focus on one combat speciality (Like Melee, Rifles, Handguns, VATS, etc.) and one role-play / skill speciality (like Armorer, or Stealth, etc.). Decide on one faction to really support, and stick with them almost exclusively. When you want to try a new playstyle and faction, start a new character.

Trying to go Jack of All Trades is really bad in Fallout 4. You'll just find yourself spread too thin, and it'll take too long to really get the most out of Perks and gameplay styles.

Well, this time around things are quite different. Compared to FO3, FO4 has no level cap and a very high leveling range, just to name a few the strongest Ghouls spawn at level 62, the Mythic Deathclaws spawn at level 91 and you won't see any Gunner Brigadier until you're level 94! I imagine they did so to always grant a challenge. So take this into account when you plan your character, there's plenty of room for your "perfect" character, even though at level 35 or something you'll already have a pretty specialized and functional build.

You see, with all the flaws Bethesda games have, this is one of the real beauties of their games. The freedom to be whatever you want to be. And in my case, I always find it more enjoyable to play a stealthy, lockpicking, crafty and charismatic person. The only times I slipped into power armors, it was to transport them back to my settlements, so that another one can use them. And when the game more or less rubs it into your face, that it's time to put it on, by placing it in a peculiar and unexpected spot.

If you give me actual levels and time spent plus perks I'll normalize them to get a intelligence 1 no perks rate per hour of intelligence (based on the cumulative experience needed to hit that level), and then I'll extrapolate that to work out the most efficient combos of intelligence/idiot savant for a particular desired level (as in is it faster to hit level 50 like you want to or is it better to hit level 55 - with 5 invested in some normally unwanted intelligence and Idiot Savant - as you'd reach that level faster).

Apparently there's already the combos of intelligence and Idiot Savant on the wiki so it shouldn't be too difficult to do. As experience needed for level is linear, then increased intelligence should cause a linear decrease in time spent, of the order (1/intelligence modifier) x time.

EDIT: Setting a bench of around reaching level 70 taking 200 hours (likely not true, but it doesn't really matter if that's the rate I apply to every category) it seems like it is never worth it to invest more into intelligence to level faster - as in a level 20 character with intelligence 1 reaches that level faster than a level 24 character with intelligence 5 (using those extra levels to go directly into intelligence).

However, looking at an intelligence 7 level 22 with the first two ranks of Idiot Savant is faster than Intelligence 7 level 20 without it and remains more useful from there on out (actually likely not true as you get the second rank at level 11 and I didn't factor that, however as a rough guide it seems like it's worth it so long as you intend to level to a remotely middling to high level).

Thanks, me.

PS Is there anyone who has hit a high level (70-80ish) and can say how long it takes? I'd still rather have some idea of how long these things take compared to how long I'd be willing to invest in a character so I can factor that into a build.

I'm at lvl 65 and according to the save it took me 4 days and 19 hours [115 hours total] to get there. Started with intelligence 6, raised to 10 at lvl 40 or something, no Idiot Savant perk and I'm often under the effect of the Lover's Embrace perk [+15% xp boost].

PS nice avatar

Understatement honestly, at that level most builds pretty much start to faceroll all content. Usually by 50 I've grown tired of a character and tend to start a new one. Hats of to anyone who can endure playing the same character up into the 100 range. Would probably have to do radiant quests ad nauseum to get that high after exhausting all the normal content.

I'm kind of the same way. By the time I've hit Level 50, I'm ready to start a new character.

I am level 84 at 5 days 11 hours 37 minutes although I do a lot of just standing around. I started out with my Int maxed and raised it up to 14 with gear\drugs. I don't think I will do that again because the increase in xp past 10 doesn't seem like that much and those points could have been spent better in other places. Since I did have to invest some levels into raising other special stats I would say I was around lvl 60 when I had all the perks I wanted.

By the time you are at level 50, you will probably have every perk you want. I'm at level 54 and having a hard time picking them at this point. My combat skills have never needed help, so I didn't put any points into that at all because I felt it was a waste. If I miss an enemy in VATS, I just try again. I think only half the perks are really worth having. I chose ALL the perks in Intelligence and have my Charisma maxed out because I hate failing speech challenges. The rest are centered around mods, upgrading, scrapping, etc.

Level 81 at I believe 8 days and some hours. That includes some pauses, int of 7 then raised to max around lvl 50 or 60. Very hard difficulty since about the same time. Sufficient perks since then too. 50 is plenty but you'll want to set something aside as a toy.

No xp perks ever used in particular (i kind of rather focus into combat / caps making / ammos ) , but there's a companion which would fit your xp boost while needed, eventually, its also one of the first possible picks so eventually go for it.

Have had 3 playthroughs so far, highest i got was the second one, but to be honest, after level 60 there is hardly anything who can stop you, even at survival, so it ceases to be fun steamrolling through everything and everyone, stockpiling caps and such and i feel the need to start over with a new concept.

For ex, first i focused on doing mainly the MQ , second i maxed difficulty and then tried to discover the most, at third i tried to have a full game experience with most of the side quests available, altho i was mainly doing it with a single-couple type of weapons (won't ever go all in , given i am kind of assaultish guy so i am taking explosives and commando as soon as possible, thats it for weapons, sometimes picking science, sometimes not. not ever picking both lockpick and hacking as it seems wasteful and redundant) and few more utilities perks such as caps collector or local leader.

In the end its about what you want to do , what you see fitting your playstyle the most.

There's one guy making XP exploit movies on youtube claiming that you can max out everything at level 256, if I recall rightly. I'm actually not sure how levelling works in this game. Is the gap between levels actually getting larger the higher you climb?

I'm at 134 on my highest character, and not sure if the exp needed to level reaches a maximum at some point, but if it does still scale up, it doesn't do so too horribly. I saw a video where the player was level 1009, but It's a pretty easy guess that was not done anywhere near legit-ly

done with 10 intel + bobblehead for 11 int, + 4 more from gear and +3 intel in the daytime from a perk, also have idiot savant to rank 1, but it doesn't proc often due to my current intel level.

Well I've got about 6 days and 5 hours playtime level 122. Still want a lot of perks too but only about 107 left if I remember correctly.

level 84 took 7 days and 15 hours

first time playing, you can take a look at the perk chart at anytime and you don't have to take a perk when you level. there is so many ways to play the game. i restarted the game because i had all the range weapon perks but i mostly used heavy weapons. so i am trying getting perks that i want more. i didn't know something about armor. this outing may save four or more perks.

i like lock picking and hacking. there isn't any need for the fourth perk of each.

Cheers! It's from Deep Red, if you didn't already know.

Thanks for all the responses, I think the kind of ideal build I was thinking of would be no more than 75, and it seems from what you're all saying that's more than achievablen (I'm fine playing a game for 150+ hours, so long as there's enough to do).

Is there anyway to cap your level for optimum difficulty? I kind of like in Skyrim how the latest patch let you legendary-ise your skills so could focus specifically on only some areas and then cap your level when the difficulty was hardest - i.e. level 81 where the creature scaling for the most part stops and your stat increases in health, stamina or magicka are the lowest possible relative to that highest level of scaling. For Fallout 4, because there's no skills and you get experience for everything indiscriminately it seems like you just get more and more powerful (at the very least in terms of higher health rather than damage output), and whilst enemies do scale from what everyone is saying they don't seem to scale adequately to maintain the difficulty. Is there a known way to stop leveling or maintain a difficulty sweet spot in any way?

Just rolled over to 10 days at level 67. I'm probably a quest or two before the "point of no return", but I'm purposely holding off on finishing the game.

Instead, I'm building settlements. Just finished up Somerville Place, which grew on me as I built a settlement. The rain. It's always raining. And it's awesome. Makes it feel depressingly lonely.

Plus, I couldn't just leave those two kids there in that hovel. Now, they've got warm beds, the roof was patched (use the small floor sections over the holes if you want to stop the rain from going into the house), and there are 15 settlers to help out with the crops. I even moved one of my power armors down there, because I think this is going to be my new home now.

Unfortunately, I also found the second spawn point for attackers. This is the 7th time the place has been attacked, but it was the first time the spawn point happened inside the compound. To the left of the house, if anyone's curious. Beef up security big time in that area.