I'm guessing 50. Fallout Shelter maxes out at 50 too.

I am hopeful that not having a level cap will mean that DLC will be more balanced. They will no longer have to create some bullet sponge creature along with an increase on cap, and it may therefore make it so a DLC flows smoothly into the base game.

You're missing the point.

In the past, I was able to make a viable unarmed build with a low Strength (meaning my character was weak) by placing sufficient skill points into the Unarmed Skill and taking perks for it (which made my character skilled). I could play someone with an Intelligence of 1 but was a genius when it came to computers.

With S.P.E.C.I.A.L. bearing all the weight of defining character aptitude (rather than being a measure of someone on a physiological level and skills being a measurement of talent), that freedom is lost. S.P.E.C.I.A.L. is the only thing that determines if you get a perk now. S.P.E.C.I.A.L. should be used to wall off certain perks, yes, but the ones that are tied to your body's capabilities (Rad Absorption for example). Perks that are more closely connected to your skill (such as Paralyzing Palm or Ninja) should be tied to your aptitude in that actual skill. General perks that aren't tied to either shouldn't be tied to anything (Lawbringer), while other perks could be walled off unless you were either sufficiently skilled or physically adept enough to pull it off (Rapid Reload), and others should be walled off by both (Slayer).

Well, you'll still need strength for proper hand to hand combat. Skill alone isn't enough.

And unless you're autistic you'll also need intelligence to handle computers and science.

How can you argue that your stats should not be tied to your ability? That's totally off the wall unrealistic.

That is actually eerily close, especially the fact that you also suggested 47 skill points! Your guess of 30 perks does not of course take into account the bobbleheads, but considering when it was posted I'm not surprised. 7 of these would of be for our stats (which would free up 7 perk points), and the other 13 are for what I refer to as 'skill perks'. These are the 13 skills that still exist in-game, but are now selected directly from the perk chart. Note that one of these is actually brand new...

Regarding the level cap, I do think that there will be a soft level cap of 50. This would be similar to Skyrim where we can still level up afterwards to give us incentive to explore, but I would imagine it would be a fair bit slower here in order to keep things balanced.

And so, a big well done for spotting that so early. If ever I need a Watson to my Sherlock Holmes, I know where to look

You don't necessarily need high strength for hand to hand. You need either Strength or Agility, though you can get away with moderate amounts of both if the other is sufficient to make up for deficiencies. A perk that substituted agility for strength in hand to hand would not be out of place. I've spent a great deal of my life training in styles that use one or the other, or both like freestyle wrestling/BJJ (agility), Greco/Folkstyle wrestling (strength), Tae-Kwon-Do/Thai Boxing (both). There are definitely other examples, but I can't think of any effective ones that don't require either agility or strength.

You can also be a computer wiz without being high Intelligence. When it comes to hacking perception is actually more important, you might not be a great white hat hacker without being incredibly intelligent, but black hat hackers rely more on intuition and perception.

I actually agree that stats should be tied to your ability, but generally in life there is more than one stat that can affect a persons skills; being naturally perceptive vs naturally intelligent, and being naturally strong vs naturally agile for example.

**edit for spelling**

I think it's probably hard to call some of this until we know what the perks are and at what SPECIAL levels they unlock. Keep in mind that even if you have a STR of 1, that still gives you access to one STR perk (I'm very curious to see what these lower-tiered perks are going to be, personally.) If the Unarmed perks unlock at STR 3, then you can still easily make an agile-yet-weak unarmed character. It's going to come down to just where these perks are going to fall on that list.

Sorry, I should have been more specific. You don't need strength to be good at martial arts, but if you want to actually use it in a real martial situation and actually inflict some damage, yes, you do need strength. I've spent the past 30 years learning 3 different martial arts (Judo, Shotokan and HEMA) and I can certainly have fun with it and know my stuff, but without strength you're never gonna be as efficient as you would need to be in a real life situation.

And in his example he used an Intelligence of 1 for his master hacker. You may not need to be a wiz kid, but 1...that's like squirrel intelligence. Barely enough to feed yourself.

It can be... but you need more and more finesse, and a better understanding of anatomy.

Mastery of Aikido will allow a small person to toss a lumbering hulk around, using their own momentum, and it takes no great strength to poke at eyes, and other pressure points.

*Ahh... Ninja'd ~partially.

That's impressive.

True, but I suspect many akido book burned up in the nuke blast, so I think its safe to say basic, more strength based combat is the go to in the wasteland.

Depends on your fighting style. Multiple fighting schools are not about overcoming you opponent with pure power.

And that's kind of my point. The previous games could let you play as a character with autism or other developmental problems (is that what it's called now? I'm not trying to be dismissive, I literally don't know). Now, you can't.

I'm not saying stats should not be tied to your ability. But they shouldn't be the end all be all either. With S.P.E.C.I.A.L. and skills working together, you could have a much greater amount of character builds. Especially if, as I have argued for in the past, S.P.E.C.I.A.L. had an impact beyond what we've seen in the past. Where a Strength 10 character would be stronger (say 33% stronger) than a character with a Strength 5, so that, if both opponents are equally skilled/perked, the stronger person still has the advantage. Characters with greater Agility would actually move faster than characters with lower agility, rather than having it tied to measuring your effective ability to sneak, which you can do well even if you move slowly. And so on.

True, but I'm still worried about it. Obviously, you can't have good perks down too low or else what's the point of that stat? But you can't have them too high or else something everybody needs to be doing isn't going to be accessible. The whole thing seems like bad design to me. The only thing about the new system I like is that things are no longer level locked.

In Fallout 2, when the HtH skill reched the top levels, the PC started getting snap kicks, palm strikes, and ax kicks. I think that in FO4 [hypothetically], they could for instance actually place a few martial arts books or holo-tapes in the world, that ~when read, added attack perks as top tier options for hth.

*Not unlike Paralyzing Palm in FO3/NV.

IIRC, there were 11 additional melee attacks in Fallout 2, if the PC had enough hth skill for them.

There are several combat styles that don't require a lot of strength though. You can be pretty weak and be a good brazilian jiu-jitsu player, or a talented freestyle wrestler because in those arts agility is king. A boxer (other than a philly shell southpaw) probably needs a high strength, but a thai fighter doesn't because the force applied via the elbow or knee is exponentially higher than that applied by a fist. Catch style wrestling is kind of a combination of both, but I've seen a much smaller/weaker BJJ player choke a much larger/stronger wrestler out in a street fight, and a much smaller judo player dislocated my shoulder in an MMA training session. Strength only really is a factor when dealing with 2 evenly matched individuals when it comes to skill. Pac-man had the strength and size advantage, but he couldnt hit money so it didn't really matter. I think I've probably just seen strength fall to agility too many times in fights for me to be comfortable saying strength is absolutely necessary. A weak set of legs will still snap a strong arm if the small guy catches the big guy in any number of arm bar varieties.

That's actually a pretty impressive set of martial arts! I didn't really have the patience to stick with traditional eastern martial arts personally, though I've been catch-wrestling for 20 years, as well as boxing and freestyle wrestling for the last dozen years or so. It's actually kind of refreshing to see hand to hand talked about online by someone who actually has experience!

I definitely agree with what you're saying, I'm just pointing out that strength is always better than no strength, thus I can see the logic in tying it into your SPECIAL. There's a reason there are weight classes in professional (and amateur) sports. There are no weight classes in real life, or in the Wasteland. When I grapple with people smaller or bigger than myself, I immediately feel the difference. Of course it then comes down to better ability, but strength will give you a head start, so in terms of SPECIAL, yeah it should matter.

And thanks! It sounds like quite the resume you got there yourself!! MMA scares the [censored] out of me, I'd rather get hit with a blunt steel sword, lol. And agreed on the eastern martial arts. As soon as I discovered HEMA I never looked back =)

But you'll also have to make sure you have the strength requirement to wield whatever the best sniper rifle in the game happens to be. (unless guns no longer have strength requirements to use them well.) So you'd need a 6 in strength (geez that seems high.) as well as the 8 in perception to start off as a perfect sniper. That'll severely limit your point spread for other abilities.

I wonder.. since they lowered the amount of special points to distribute at the beginning giving you enough points to distribute equally to 5.. making you a perfect example of Mr. Average. If It actually wouldn't be better to simply start the game as Mr. Average and work your way up to what you want to be. If you get to choose between perks and raising a stat then it'd still only take 4 levels to get you to a perfect sniper... You probably won't even find a sniper rifle in the time it takes you to level 4 levels. .. (that's just a guess based on previous games.)

This is the first time I've seen anyone bring up unarmed combat, and now I am really curious if it's going to be a lot more robust than Skyrim's awkward, drunken brawling.

Good call

I doubt that the strength requirement would carry over from New Vegas, and nothing has been mentioned about it at this stage. But this could of course change.

I think that the idea now is that any character can pick up any weapon and start shooting, as per a conventional FPS. Where the skill component factors in now is with modifying the weapon to increase it's damage, range, and other stats. In the case of a sniper rifle, this would require the 'Gun Nut' perk (a combination of the previous 'Big Guns' and 'Small Guns' skills), which would require a 3 in Intelligence. Each rank we select in Gun Nut will unlock progressively more powerful modifications. And so with a rank of 4, we could end up putting together a very powerful rifle, as long as we find the correct components to modify it.

With perks being tied to SPECIAL, awarded each level, 275 ranks available, and the change to intellect, anyone else feel like there will be no level cap?

I thought no level cap had been confirmed, but everybody keeps wondering what it'll be.

I'm thinking it's nonexistent.

We know that perks like Gun Nut will open up new modding options for the crafting system, but I'm willing to bet that they also increase weapon damage in much the same way the Armsman perk works in Skyrim as a way to account for character skill with guns in a combat system that plays like a shooter.

In a system where results are handled purely by the engine based on character skill, higher skill means that the player character kills enemies faster, uses less ammo and gets shot at less. But in a shooter, the player's twitch reflexes and not character skill is the primary determinant of combat success. Tying a damage increase to weapon perks would make the character progressively more effective with skill regardless of twitch reflexes while still allowing the game to play like a shooter.

EDIT: And I agree there is not likely to be a level cap. The whole 'Legendary' system in Skyrim seems to indicate that BGS is content to let the players keep playing until they decide to quit. I see no reason for a level cap under the system as we currently understand it.

You could be right. No level cap confirmation would be news to me!

Some very good points in here, the most important one being about ranks in Gun Nut actually increasing base weapon damage. This would also then apply to the Science! skill, which is a replacement of Energy Weapons, as well as other weapon 'skills'.

You could argue however, that if you can shoot one gun, you can shoot any. But the increase in damage relative to the weapon type would actually make sense. Energy weapons would likely have different weight, handling, kick-back and other factors compared to conventional weapons. So increasing the relevant perks, even without modifications, would still give us that extra edge.

As for the level cap, what I have suggested is a soft cap of 50, after which levelling would slow right down. This way, we could keep increasing levels indefinitely without becoming too overpowered. But anyone dedicated enough could eventually max out every perk.

One small difference is that the Legendary system is voluntary. Once you've gotten the skills you're actually using to 100, you have to actively decide to reset them to level further. No cap in an "earn XP, get levels" system, on the other hand, just keeps going regardless.

Personally, I hope there's a level cap. (It's a different skill & perk system, obviously, but Fallout 3 was far better with it's 20 cap than with the extra 10 levels from Broken Steel...)

Ah, at first I feared that your character would be limited throughout the entire game based on the SPECIAL distribution you select at the beginning of the game. Since it sounds like there are multiple opportunities to increase SPECIAL stats, this new perk system seems like it could be a terrific improvement over what 3 and NV offered.