I don't feel stats have the same impact as the previous titles had regarding high stats, so I don't mind that stats are easy to raise. There is a clear downside to raising them too much early on, in the lack of perks. All in all, I feel it is ok balanced.

I have zero interest in ever raising charisma past 6. Since speech is now useless, and I have no need for any of the higher level charisma perks.

Quite a disappointment actually. I got so much satisfaction at the end of NV after sinking tons of points into speech and charisma, suffering in combat only to be vindicated with the final speech check.

I REALLY dislike the new SPECIAL system, its the worst thing about the game (in my opinion).

Personally I think the new system removes the idea of a character-build, and with that allows Bethesda to be somewhat lazy in creating alternative pathways for completing quests. In the past games you had a few chances to raise your SPECIAL and your start SPECIAL was likely (due to the level cap) to be your final SPECIAL -1 (Bobbleheads being your +1). I dont remember ever using Intense Training as the perks where more useful. It therefore resulted in a system where each playthrough felt distinct and unique, and your decisions from day one had massive impact on your future play. I was, and in the case of FO5 am, hoping that this element will be expanded, not dumbed down. I dont like that you can play a character who in a few in-game weeks can become the almighty everything with super-strength, perception, etc. etc.

I also dislike that traits have been removed, and in fact think that traits combined with the new perks-replace-skills system could have had great potential to be something that really distinguishes character builds. Hopefully Bethesda take inspiration from this system and combine it with the pros of the old system, namely in restricting SPECIAL progression and re-introducing Traits from previous games, with the low-SPECIAL start and perks-are-skills from FO4.

This game easily has WAY more grinding than previous Fallouts. Things respawn way too fast, radiant quests are thrown in your face by that [censored] Preston every ten seconds, etc. etc. Its not even grinding because I want to grind, its grinding because the game almost enforces that playstyle.

But thats an artificial method of achieving a character build. Again I personally feel as though this sort of design is why questing is uninspired (compared to previous games anyway). Bethesda no longer have to cater the game for a variety of builds who NEED to approach a quest differently, now instead if you cant complete a quest because of build-restriction all you have to do is come back later and complete the quest. If the idea of builds where retained then some quests might be redesigned to enforce those decisions you made. Arguably this would never be the case anyway as quests have mostly become killfests.

The only way you are making fast enough progress to max out your special is if you are power leveling, which is a build built specifically to level up quickly, if you aren't power leveling then your character is either going to be missing special for a long time, or will have absolutely no special abilities besides having maxed special, which makes the game far more difficult than not maxing special asap.

Again, minimum level of 36 to max all your specials, that is no small investment, and you are not that much more powerful than you would have been out of the vault at level 1, just more hp and better randomly looted gear, because you would have to skip out on the crafting perks, and this relies on you picking up all of the bobble heads before maxing your specials, each one you wait to get 11 is an additional level with no actual advantage gained besides health, which all of your enemies gain far more of.

Going for an 11 in all special build is such a chore for almost no gain that it just isn't fun, you need to get to at least level 43 before you get the last special point, and have to hold off on bobble heads until you get there.

I am level 80, have all bobble heads, and 11 in strength, intelligence, and endurance, all my other specials are still poor, with charisma and perception being 6, and 2 luck and agility, and It is such a sacrifice to give up perk points to special that it just is not worth it.

End, Str, agl, and Int are the perks with the most gain from the special itself. Hp, melee dam, vats, and exp

Lck, per, and cha are very situational at best in their special, but their perks are very strong, especially the high tier ones,

The idea that it is too easy to get special is a bit misguided, the other games stopped at 50 levels, at level 50 in this game you are only a fraction of the way there, and wasting 42 of the easier levels on what amounts to nothing until you start reaching level 80. Seriously though, maxing all your specials does not make you strong, it makes you terribly weak early on, and then you become no different from more reasonable builds, and then you end up at level 270 and finally have the advantage of a small amount of hp, 10%(scalar - 150%->160%) damage with melee, and, and, and, wait, there are no other advantages that are gained by having 11 in the special that aren't rendered irrelevant by perks.

You are kidding? I am lvl 50 and and still dreaming of a white perk Christmas

I'm not a fan of it.

I don't think its a necessity to get every perk. It would actually mean more towards unique builds if we were more restricted in this way.

I also said mags, other items (like bobbleheads) and quest related perks that could raise them in a finite way would be ok, too.


Had they not allowed us to bump up attributes, they more than likely would have given more more points at char gen to balance it a bit.


But then, you know there is that whole second half of my post that pretty much says what you did.

I myself am just not a fan of being able to raise specials.

It may seem easy at first especially if you just focus on a couple of things, but later in the game when you want different perks like rad resistance, adamantium skeleton, lock picking, hacking, creating trade routes, and so on you'll realize it will take quite a bit of time.

Oh, I get that. As I said, I'm fine either way - just saying that where previously I'd do a new playthrough for a new build, now I don't have to.


As an aside, my level is in the low 50's and I'm outclassing everything I find even now. So perhaps the value in a new playthrough is being weak again. Still, there's always Survival mode if things get too easy.

I think it gets a bit more tougher at around 60-70. I remember some boss enemies getting really tough on harder difficulties but yea, this is a problem with all Bethesda games :\ really wish difficulty was multiple sliders so people can make enemies tougher or weapons not as effective.

It should be mentioned that, when you take a perk may be just as important as which perk you take. If you take Gun Nut, Rooted, Locksmith, etc at level 50 it's going to be a pretty different experience than if you took those perks at level 1.

Any armchair economists want to get into opportunity costs in this thread?

Given that the relative value of a particular perk varies with build and play style, such an anolysis is impossibly complex. One obvious scenario, however is taking SPECIAL increases instead of the first tier of the four crafting perks early on: you'll have markedly inferior gear, and your settlement(s) will be rather limited in what they can do. Another is to take them instead of the lockpicking, trading, speech, and hacking perks, which means your economy will also be lacking.

Note that the above two scenarios are also mutually exclusive to each other, as going for crafting (which virtually defaults to going for settlement work) means you have to defer bolstering your economy, and vice versa. If, however, you're able to get either of the two really going early on it will feed into the other, so this trade-off isn't nearly as clear-cut. This then leads into the opportunity cost of having to defend your 'serfs' rather than going on lengthy exploratory forays to try to find more/new resources, so that the settlement doesn't get trashed. Unfortunately, the settlement attack system is notoriously buggy, which renders inclusion of it as a legitimate opportunity cost as being of potentially dubious value due to the excessive variances said bugs often cause.

I'm doing this right now. One more level and I'll have all my specials to 10 and will start on the perks. I did it by accident at first... I didn't know you could pick perks. Then, when I found out, I decided to go with it. I wouldn't call it painful, but I am excited to start unlocking the perks soon.

you know how many ranks and perks there are, something like 275 and thats not counting raising your special stats which would take another 20 or 30 levels to raise them all to 10, nobody is gonna get anywhere close to that,, as you level up the leveling goes slower, so its theoreticaly possible but not really practically gonna happen for the vast majority, i don't see hardly anyone playing to even level 100, even then you wouldn't have a ton of perks especiially if you raised your special stats significantly, i think most people probably restart by level 50 or much sooner and you don't have that many even at level 30 or 40, i'm level 35 now on my current playthrough and i don't have hardly any perks, i've probably spent 10 levels raising special stats and i've picked 25 perks and ranks on those perks and thats not a lot out of the total 275 so its far from picking all of em, i have to ignore tons of perks and ranks, this game makes you specialize quite a bit

You would anyway been stuck if you are an causal player and not planed you build well before starting.

The system with perk requirements is a bit counter intuitive as many perks require same specials to get both first and last perk

You would also run out for useful perks for your build pretty fast.

System is designed so you have to upgrade specials a lot because of high special requirements and then spend a lot on upgradeable perks.

I find it rather hard to raise the stats because there are so many nice perks in the beginning. I use a loot overhaul mod and recognizing how really rare stuff was during the first 20 level I felt a huge impact of me thinking Charisma were not so important when creating my char. To raise it was necessary but also difficult. The only stats I raised over the starting points till lvl 50 other than with bobbleheads.

Well initially I thought I would have a bunch of characters with 10 points in every other SPECIAL and the game would be ruined. In reality, I've retired three characters and am in the middle of the fourth, and I can count on one hand how many times I raised a SPECIAL stat while leveling. There seems there is always a perk I want or need. Now I know when I get past level 40 there will be less perks I feel I must have and more opportunity to raise SPECIAL scores, but by then that should be ok. So between the perks I need/want and SPECIAL I think it's balanced out pretty well.

Sadly however the fact remains that SPECIAL scores don't mean what they used to mean in role-playing in FO. Gone are the dialog options that require any kind of SPECIAL score and CHR is all you have to worry about, and even then it's not fixed, but a percentage chance that can be adjusted with a higher CHR. Just another one of the role-playing aspects that were stripped from the game. Course SPECIAL scores are needed to be able to select the perks you want, so there's the trade off I guess, dialog for a perk option.

^This^.

Besides that, whether you spend points in raising SPECIAL is fully optional. You don't have to raise SPECIAL to 10 if you don't feel like it.

There's a grand total of, what, 300+ points to spend between perks and SPECIAL. At level 80 and beyond you're still going to have to choose between SPECIAL and perks useful for a character build.

Agree with OP. I've never played a (supposed) RPG where it's so easy to max out your stats. Attributes can be trained, of course, but having everything at 10 is ridiculous. I'd like to see something that keeps you relatively close to your starting stats with the option of raising every stats by 1 or 2 points along the way. You can only push your body so much.

Additional points could (and should) be added by implants, like in FONV. That would be a logical step with all the doctors and high tech floating around the Boston area.

Yes it should because you used to have base stats so easy leveling seems to make up for that.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Don't get too caught up in the "power user" mindset of the forums. For an average player, building a character (early when you don't know anything about the game) and putting in a hundred hours or so only to find that you could NEVER get that perk you've now found you need -because you can't raise the SPECIAL attribute above the requirement - would be calamity. Many, many people who buy and play the game will never play more than one character. What some of you are asking for is that the game punish these players who don't metagame to ensure the best builds from the start and/or who are unwilling to play more than one character. You are essentially asking that Bethesda make this an "elite only" game. Not only would that be bad for their bottom line, but it's also a rather presumptuous attempt to impose your preferred playstyle on others.

I am usually not a fan of people saying "Well, then don't do that" as a supposed fix for a balancing problem, but in this case that is the best option for people who feel like the OP. It's valid here because the "problem" identified is not a problem at all, but a difference in play style. The game is set up to allow as many options as possible. If you don't want those options, don't use them. You're not "crippling" yourself to make the game better, as is the case many times when people give this advice. You're just playing the way you want to play.

yes, I think they learned not to make counter intuitive systems with oblivion, the system with raising attributes after skill use is interesting but counter intuitive. it worked well in Daggerfall and Morrowind because the games had many skills and you was likely to raise plenty of misc skills to get decent multipliers without working at it. Games was also very easy at high levels.

Oblivion changed this, far fewer skills making it much harder to raise attributes well without planing and game was also hard at high levels. very easy for an mage character to burn trough the three intelligence skills so he ended with low maximum intelligence at high levels. Just making lots of potions for sale was one way to mess up.