You don't explain to the player, and while that's what I meant not heavy-handed... it is the case that yes... you do wait until someone is in a better mood; unless you can't, and engage them anyway. "Goofing off" of doing something else, is exactly what anyone would normally do in that situation.

Of course I am staunchly against a servile RPG, and do not believe in the designers ensuring that everything always goes the player's way, and always gives them every convenience.
If the NPC is irritable that day [or couple of hours], then tough.

There were many, many with the same thought, around the time FO3 was announced. Many were later disappointed.

One fellow said, "if that's how it turns out, I'll eat my [clovian] hat", and I made it a SIG, and it turned out to be true.

Yes, you do. this is basic game design 101.

That just makes it about as effective as a mechanic as the computer hacking and gambling lockout timers in NV..... which is to say totally pointless.

Its an amount of realism that really adds nothing to the game, and would be akin to not allowing you to talk to NPCs while they are using the restroom, which they would do on a realistic cycle.

At that point, you have stopped adding to the game, and started hindering it, which is bad.

A shameful practice, if it's not done only in the manual.

Not pointless, irritating perhaps; when it doesn't work the other way around. It would behoove the player to notice the NPC's mood, and act accordingly... and sometimes they would get caught off guard by it. (Just as anyone can.)

The only problem with it is the additional audio and animation burden.

For me, I think it's too early for me to say how I feel one way or another. Heck, we don't even know what the ruleset is, functionally-speaking.

If we do just have Attributes and skills have been folded into Perk trees? Actually, that's an idea I can get behind.

I think it was a couple of years ago now, but I remember at some point saying that I felt Bethesda was kind of trying to shoe-horn a ruleset into a type of gameplay it wasn't designed to support. Fallout 3 I felt like they had a specific gameplay in mind, and then tried to adapt the existing Fallout SPECIAL system into that, which I'm not surprised ended with some foundational issues (at least issues I had with the balance of the game.) And that if Fallout was going to continue as a real-time Bethesda-style RPG, then you almost might as well throw out the existing ruleset and just have Perks encompass everything.

At the time (and with the implementation of this I had in mind) I felt like it could actually lead to more unique character builds. One issue I had with Fallout 3 (and New Vegas didn't really "fix" this to any great degree) was that end-game all of my characters felt pretty much the same. They all had 100 in all skills, Attributes didn't really have any discernable impact on gameplay approach - the only thing that really separated my stealthy science build and my hulking goon were the perks I'd picked as I'd leveled up; beyond those perks there wasn't anything that one build was noticeably better suited at than another anyway.

So I'm actually willing to give this (at the moment hypothetical) situation the benefit of the doubt for the time being. Assuming there's enough variety of perks, this may be an improvement in the RPG aspect of the game. (As one thing I look for in an RPG is for characters that play differently and require different approaches to different situations. In Fallout 1 you couldn't really create a "bad" character - but you did have to make sure you were playing to your strengths.) I just like to feel like my character I've leveled up is individual and not the same as every other character that's run through the game, and if skills weren't filling that role anyway, then maybe Perks actually could be the answer to that.

>its shameful to make sure people know how to play your game.

I honestly can't see a rational person sitting down and saying

"You know this game we spent like 5000000million dollars on? Lets not make how its played clear to the people playing it, thus ensuring they don't bother playing it for more then a little bit, and making them just want to set the game aside, never pick it up again, and never buy our products again!"

No dev thinks that's a good think to do.

No worries, you were clear enough in your posting that you are simply bringing up points others have made to tackle some aspects of what I was pointing out, perfectly reasonable to do (and you flat out admit that you are in no means trying to project those sentiments onto me). Now, to address something you brought up that I think it is important to point out - not once have I said that these games should be made exactly as they were 15 years ago. In fact it is quite the opposite where I have stated all the newer games have done their own great things. Let me specify some, though not take the time to touch on all, more for the sake of clarity:

FO3: 1st person perspective is excessively immersive and was a good thing to consider (something the original devs were not doing to my knowledge, even with the canceled Van Buren), I like that RPGs can try to leverage this medium. Also the move to real time combat was a very good move, something the canceled game was known to be attempting as well. Hitting a new part of the world and getting us out of the West Coast only vibe was also good, and left great room for coming up with new factions and the sort to further build on concepts that already existed.

FNV: Adding in things like Challenges, gameplay modes (hardcoe - would have loved to see some other ones as well), and putting a bigger focus into crafting and scavenging in a blasted out shell of a world. Stepping away from the black and white, good or evil troped that Bethesda has been known for and opening up a range of possible outcomes was also clutch.

FO4: From what we have seen so far, the enhancement of how armor systems work is a step in the right direction as it provides that cobbled together feeling of the post apocalypse. The enhancements to crafting and modding of items and structures is also a fantastic enhancement.

All of these things are still Bethesda taking the line in new directions without detracting from what was already making the series a great thing. My concerns are when systems get scrapped whole sale for reasoning that is really shaky at best (the arguments that are levied at the Skill system are fantastic examples of throwing the baby out with the bath water). Things that fundamentally change the way the game is handled and presented at its core. Series get the acclimation that they do based on the things they do right consistently, and I just don't feel this is one of those changes that was actually needed when they could have just patched up what they had already given us across 4 other games and got us into the groove of.

To put it comparitively, how would a reader of a series of novels feel if suddenly some 3 novels in the writter decided that some fundamental aspects of the way they handled things in this world were going to shift. It changes everything about the line in one fell swoop because that sense of continutiy has been shattered. If these changes are as arbitrarily approached as something like this it is even more jarring and grinding on those who fell in love with what the game line has always been about.

And I will point out that I have taken your stance, I don't buy products I am not about. I tried out Skyrim on a friend's copy and was able to conclude I did not like what was done with the game and thus have not invested money back into Bethesda by buying it solely because it is an Elder Scroll game and I love that series. I object to the way the series is going, and it is not the game line that I fell in love with so I don't buy the product. I will approach FO4 the same way, but like many other I am not decided on my stance at this point. I don't know enough about the game for a concrete stance - but I know enough that I am able to articulate my concerns. I also know that by not voicing my concerns and just not buying the game will not result in anything working out for me either. If the developers don't know why I didn't buy a product then they can not take steps to win me back with the following product.

Again, as I have stated, I am not shocked that Bethesda has taken this route, and again with what they have done this is the logical path for them to take. Further considering that their desire to build anything like a classic RPG is nonexistent these days, with a focus on Action Adventure and toning down the layers of interactions. Again, that is all well and good, and they will find a perfectly good player base by making these products in that fashion. I am also not, once again, decrying the games as failures, looking at their sales figures alone proves that is a nonargument.

Now, on to your biggest point - you are correct, Bethesda bought this IP wholesale and has every right to do with it what they want to do. Changing the game from its core tenants is something they are totally in the right on. I just feel this is the wrong way to approach thing.

Let me add some additional spin on this. Fallout, the series we are discussing, has had spin off titles in the past. Fallout: Tactics is the primest example of producing something fundamentally different from the core line without stepping on the toes of the core line. Bethesda has, technically, continured this tradition by the fact we have gotten Fallout 3 (main line sequal), Fallout: New Vegas (spin off), and now Fallout 4 (main line sequal). What is telling to me here is the fact that of these 3 modern version, the spin off of New Vegas was the truest to the original content. I feel like there is something fundamentally wrong with that approach, personally. The core series should keep to what it is, evolving and enhancing as it goes but not massively shifting itself from what it has always been.

Anyways, I think across my multiple posts in this thread now I have been as clear as I can possibly be about the topic. Though I will happily still debate any new key points leveled at me directly, I don't presently think there is much more I can say on this topic.

It should be enough to simply state it plainly.


It costs nothing to print a PDF, and also, no, games did not always have tutorials in them.

BTW... Fallout was praised even for its manual. It's a sad loss that we don't get anything like those anymore... not even as PDFs.

** Decent games actually used to need manuals... These days many games don't really warrant more than an info-card.

Not really, its hard to state something plainly when it isn't plain. See why so many people had trouble learning caravan in NV, or GWENT in TW3.

All good games did.

Why bother when everything in the manual and just be given in-game with lore notes and the like?

You say this waaay too often of almost everybody; how can you be so assured?

I understand what you're saying but I don't think you're addressing the right thing. Isn't that just an issue of having to support these alternative approaches, in NV, I think there were a lot more ways to use skills to complete quests, speech at least was very powerful in comparison to FO 3.

It doesn't really matter if skills are perks or remain the same, if the developer doesn't support those play-styles. One thing I noticed for instance, while playing a stealth characters was that, sometimes you just "leave xp behind" it irked me in the beginning but eventually I got used to it. It would help to give specific rewards for different approaches.

If it's anything like Skyrim's perk system it will be horrid. I was bored beyond belief placing perks for weapon damage each level. The perks in Skyrim weren't nearly as satisfying and fun as the ones in Fo3. Without a skill system perks will undoubtedly take the place of increased damage or proficiency for each "skill".

Because anyone who has really payed attention to complaints about how video game's mechanics work can see a very simple pattern of people getting easily frustrated over things that aren't explained well.

That is kind of the reason why tutorials were made in the first place.

It would be nice to have a script that evaluates the player in realtime, and racks up potential XP's [based on what they did, and did not do], to award at the conclusion of the encounter.

You frustrate people for fixing those problems too, you know.
That's how you get this for real: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ZtBCpo0eU

There is a difference between explaining how stuff works, and shoving it in someone's face all the time.

I'm not so sure of that anymore. [rhetorical]

I need to see more myself. Pre and Post Bethesda Fallouts have always been basic. The skills system was basic. You couldn't really dumb it down as it was already below the bottom of the barrel in the first place. I am all for giving this a try. I just hope the "rank points" of perks are more in tune with using said perks ranks them up rather than just leveling up you get to pick a rank. That system is in overuse in too many games and is as unimaginative as the fallout skills system.

First things first, as I've pointed out before I don't think the argument that Science and Lockpick only worked in 4 steps each holds up as a reason to simply make them into perks. Bethesda were lazy in their skill design in FO3, so we should just skip skills altogether?

Now, I'm not entirely against turning skills into perks as long as it's handled well. But that's just the thing, I'm replaying FO3 at the moment and the laziness in skills and perks design baffles me. There is so much wasted potential. Just compare with New Vegas, where you can have actual character builds that are very different from each other. Knowing Beth, there'll be no real reason to specialize. Most characters will end up maxed out anyway.

I have little faith Bethesda will actually make this transition interesting. To me, it looks like they just wanted to be rid of the hassle of weapon skills coming in the way of the fps mechanics. But I'm hoping to be surprised.

I'm tired of all this rhetoric about "streamlining" and "dumbing down", as if the mainstream gamer were dumber than a sack of rocks and couldn't possibly fathom the leveling mechanics of older RPGs. It just feels elitist to me, like we're all a bunch of geniuses forced to watch as "casuals" take over gaming. If Bethesda were really motivated purely by the dollar signs in their eyes, we'd have seen much more emphasis on microtransactions and overpriced DLC than "streamlined" gameplay.

There was nothing hard to understand about the leveling mechanics in Fallout 1 & 2; what would be confusing and frustrating for any gamer is the wide disparity between completely useless stats/perks (Gambling, Charisma, etc.) and disproportionately important ones (Speech, Intelligence, the Sniper perk). Fallout 3 greatly reduced that disparity with the changes to skills and perks. Another "old-school" mechanic that's fallen out of favor in mainstream gaming is the emphasis on dice-rolls; in the worst case it just defeats the purpose of the mechanics for people who just save scum for a good roll, and video games have many more tools at their disposal to supersede random chance.

These changes have nothing to do with the "depth" of the game, and they weren't made to appeal to the "lowest common denominator" for maximum profit. Between the depth of the crafting system and the number of different changes we can make to our weapons and armor, I daresay the FPS combat in Fallout 4 will have much more complexity to it than the RPG combat of older Fallouts. And the crafting and settlement building is already deeper than any anologs the older games had. The RPG mechanics have changed, and they're easier to understand, but how did the older RPGs benefit from having so many unbalanced skills? And what difference does it make if 3's skills were consolidated into ranked perks, so long as we still have the ability to go from a novice gunman/diplomat/scientist/repairman/survivalist/whatever to an expert, and still be able to do the things skills enable us to do?

I'd be more vocal about the loss of things like traits or item degradation, personally. But then, at least the loss of item degradation is offset by the advanced crafting system.

Honestly, while I will agree that skyrim's perks were kinda dumb, the skill-leveling system itself was pretty realistic. It would make more sense to level with a specialization than to point-buy the mastery in said specialization. In Skyrim, when it came to leveling the skills, YOUR leveling stops when you stop leveling skills.

Compare that to Fallout 3 and NV where you can play as a blind (1-perception) sniper, or an idiotic (1-intelligence) scientist and then master other skills. For some reason the SPECIAL+SKILL+PERKS system is not as great as people make it out to be.

That's actually a really good point. I feel like Bethesda are going to try and make SPECIAL more important and related to the player's skills. Either way, I'm willing to wait and see what they've done before making any assumptions. Bethesda, for the most part, have never treated its fans as idiots.

You forgot to add the magic words, "in my OPINION." I have nothing? Really? I have an opinion which is all you have, and mine is every bit as valid as yours. But I guess you told me. I hope it made you feel superior...

It wasn't an opinion. Skyrim's skill/perk system is both poor and lazy game design.

If you can somehow appreciate crap, then good for you.

Poor and Lazy? How is me, using a melee weapon, but putting points into a skill I NEVER use any better?

That wasn't what i was referring to.

I thought what they did with Skyrim was fairly intuitive and fun. If they made an improvement in that sort of direction I'll be all for it.