You know, you can split up the Gun skill. Fallout-Fallout3 had Small gun and Big gun. You could go further if you want.

That leads to more of a headache. If you want to do two weapon styles (a pistol for short range engagements and a sniper rifle for longer ranges), you would need to have two skills, which is more complicated than one. having a secondary weapon skill, when one is better than two most of the time, is often just wasting points.

Fallout 4 supports the idea of splitting better because now I only need 10 perk points to max out two styles (for my current girl, those are gunslinger and rifleman), whereas with the FO 3/NV system spends 200 points to max both styles in that way.

Yeah, I really like the way weapons are broken up in the character system this time; energy weapons and guns are separated by crafting requirements instead of use, and perks like Sniper or Rooted are solid ways to include more specific bonuses on top of the generic bonuses from Rifleman, Commando, etc.... plus, putting Heavy Gunner and Steady Aim in Strength ultimately has the same effect as Strength requirements on weapons in the older games, but in a more intuitive way.

I miss specialization perks like Shotgun Surgeon, And Stay Back!, Cowboy, Grunt, and Laser Commander. As it is, everything in FO4 with few exceptions is just lumped together to give you incremental DAM bonuses. Perks should be game rule bending bonuses (in some cases they are of course, like Water Boy/Girl), but for the most part in FO4, they're the focal point of a shorn system of mere incremental leveling.

I personally like skills. I had a better glimpse of what I was actually good at. I liked the idea of fewer perks too. It made them matter, and significantly supported replayability. If you screwed up your build, don't make the same mistake on the inevitable next run. I honestly see little reason to re-roll a character at all in FO4, aside from the little content you get for whatever faction you supported. Most of that has to do with the boring and lackluster leveling system and perks that are your sole leveling device.

Does "streamlining" sell well? You bet. That doesn't necessarily mean better...just more accessible, hence easier, shorn...and this case, dull. I used to get excited when I leveled up, in FO4 not so much. This discussion of builds is actually quite pointless. What does it matter when you can literally do everything, and be everything, in a single run?

Completely in agreement OP. I do like settlements, the improvement of gunplay, some of the 3D modeling, and additions to the color palette, but what I really wanted was more of the direction I thought the franchise was heading after New Vegas. NV wasn't perfect by any mean, but Obsidian added in pure gold where FO3 fell flat...it was ripe for improvement. Instead we got...well, whatever this is suppose to be with all it's magical equipment drops ("Legendaries"), dull, repetitive quests, kill everything gameplay, and bizarre weapons design/function. Add in uninspriring ballistic weapons, the gelding of good weapons, ammunition types, reloading/handloads, and survival skills and...all I can say is I'm disappointed.

It sold well, so this must be what everyone wants...and that's cool. But man is it dull and lifeless. For me, this just wasn't the hot s--- game I was sure was going to emerge after New Vegas and a full 5 year wait. I acknowledge freely I'm in the minority on this forum.

Unless you've gone past level 100 on multiple characters, I don't see any way you could talk about every character being able to do anything. At level 50, the highest level requirement for any perk, you've roughly taken maybe 1/5th of every choice you can make on the chart. And that doesn't change the fact that you've got to have some kind of build for the first 50, or even first 100 levels, and that you've still got to play a lot of the game with that character before you can decide you're a master-of-all-trades. Plus, the amount of perks you can choose at any point is so much more open-ended - my biggest beef with the older games is that in the early levels, there are so few choices you can make for perks, so my first few level-up generally feel the same regardless of where I put my skill points.

And if you're going to talk about every character feeling the same in the endgame, tell me how you feel about maxing out at least two thirds of the skills in Fallout 3 or New Vegas by the time you reach the cap - especially with DLC, which threw any sort of balance they were trying to maintain with a level cap out the window.

Well simply put, you couldn't do all that much different specialization through perks when you were limited to only 25 perks over the life of the game. I saw this a good thing, where many do not. There was always a cost it whatever direction you chose to go. I rolled many different styles of characters in NV, I've rolled a single character in FO4...and yes he hit 100, and yes there is absolutely nothing left on the perk chart that I want to do. There's zero reason for me to roll another character. There is nothing I can do with him that I haven't done already.

Limiting paths ensures legitimate replayability with characters that are actually different...not just starting over.

Yes, your build does matter up until about level 50-70, but I haven't even come close to seeing the map and doing everything meaningful in that time. If I cut the playtrough short, then yeah a re-roll might matter, but that's not good game design in my opinion. As it is, I really have no need to play another character. I've literally done and seen it all. When I was done with my Cowboy / Survival playthrough in NV, it was time to play a Grunt; when that was done, a diplomat; after that a melee/unarmed shotgun toting thug, after that a science nerd. See what I'm getting at? I had to re-roll to do something different.

Yes skills could be generally maxed up to about 2/3rds, but game rule bending perks were extremely limited, giving them superior value as a PC (and a role-player)...and one should really choose well, because it would be what you were stuck with until end game.

I prefer fewer perk choices.

Balance is extremely subjective. But being OP at endgame seems the right end state for a game. I thought the NV DLCs did a great job (especially in OWB, LR and Dead Money) in putting you back in your place, with the added bonus of forcing you into other skills where you may have been weak...or rewarding you for certain perk/leveling choices: i.e. Science/IN in OWB, or Melee/Energy Weapons/Handloader in DM.

Hope that sort of explains my view of things.

I dunno about you all but i miss Morrowind's system..... You could make a really great RP character there..

Still I like Fallout 4.

Character creation in FO4 is generally a colossal waste of time and resources -- Considering you generally cannot see you face and your face is completely meaningless in any case.

Guess what, me and many others are technically "millenials" (I was born in '89) and I don't look for "hand-holding" at all. This is a huge generational bias which is simply not true. I'm tired of all of the dumb kids these days giving the rest of us a bad name. (And people who like and want to play D&D can do so; I know plenty of people from my generation to play it with no issue...)

But I don't see anything bad about FO4's leveling system. It's just a bit different from ones I've experienced in other RPGs. Every system has its own strengths and weaknesses. And to each their own.