Do you guys think that along with displacing the skills into the Perks, that they have also streamlined Perks too?

Using the same logic that Beth have been applying to Skyrim and now Fallout 4, ie streamline features to make them more accessible. The only conclusion I come to is that they will go the Mass Effect route with the Perks. Basically maybe 15-20 perks with multiple ranks as seen in the Mass Effect games. Spending a point will sometimes unlock an ability as you level them up.

Personally I would hate that system, but it'd explain why they haven't shown them off yet (they wouldn't want to put out too much bad news for fans of the last games), and why we see Rank listed for some of the ex skills in the crafting menu.

I really enjoyed the freedom of the old perks & skills system.

I think I'll enjoy the new system more. Assuming they are rolling skills into perks, we don't lose a whole lot in many cases: Science and Lockpick were just tiered skills in F3. Barter and Medicine benefits were marginal.

If the end result is that 1 - 100 skills were converted into 1 - 5 perks, I'd be fine with that as increasing a skill would have a more noticeable effect. Overall, there wouldn't be a lot of difference anyways. Plus, I feel it doubles down on the RPG of it too: my weak ass, low charisma, but highly intelligent badass still ended up being able to get the best prices on thing and being able to talk you out of your pants and the shirt on your back - while being an ace with any type of weapon - the hell is that? I like the idea that perks are more locked by our SPECIAL choices and that perks more heavily influence what we can and can not do.

More like not showing more bad news for the stiff people who dislike change ;p

Call me want you want, i don't care. I just want a game i'm gonna enjoy.

Wouldn't mind it, though it would make the game feel less akin to traditional RPGs I think it makes sense. Perks feel like they give something more than just leveling a skill to a certain level so you can open a chest. When 26 and 49 lockpicking are exactly the same redesigning the system only makes sense.

As sad as it is, it is already implemented, isn't it?

It's not like I'm trying to crush dreams here or anything, but I think it's already pretty much set in concrete that the skill system has changed...

But hey, I won't call you rigid or something. Some changes are hard for every people.

On the side note, the best thing that we could do is to wait and see how the new system will really work...

Or if the odds are not in your favour...

Wait for a mod or something!

Mind you, I'm just stating the obvious ._.)v

But aren't you guys worried that the perk selection might be much smaller?

Also the idea that you have to keep ranking up a specific perk to unlock an ability eventually. I know some perks in the old system had requirements, but it was also a lot more open and freeform. I liked the way you could combine practically any perk with another. If F4's perks does indeed turn out to be somewhat like Mass Effect then some of that freedom will be sacrificed. Thats what im worried about.

That is something everyone wants except people's wants can be mutually exclusive from each other. Bethesda has zero inentive to make a game they don't want to make so X group is happy. Why? because Y group will be unhappy. Games are Art and Business and as a Busines they need to make games that SELL and as an art the artist makes art THEY want to make. Gamers are pretty much the only consumer of art that feel they are self entitiled to be a part of the creation process.

I accept that there will be mechanics I will not like in FO4 just like I had mechanics I dislike in every game I have ever played. Never played a 'perfect' game yet. I simply don't let this ruin my experience IF the good outweighs the bad. Where the threshold is will be different for every person.

Nothing we say or do here will change a single thing in FO4, I think it is premature to write off the system in fo4 just because you "liked" the old system. I liked the old TES systems of attributes but after playing Skyrim I found that i could make a smart character or a Dumb character, a strong character or a weak character, An agile character or a clumsy character. The lack of attributes did zero to my ability to role play and when i make a new character in Skyrim I don't notice their lack and i don't miss them during play. even though i like the mechanic of attributes for rpgs.

Will the change to skills be a system that works in FO4? No idea and it is pointless speculating now because there are zero facts or experience to make an INFORMED decision.

This is BS you don't KNOW if there was a lot more open and freeform. You SPECULATE it is more open and there is more freeform then now. These are two mutually exclusive positions. If you KNOW you are not speculating and if you are Speculating you don't know. You don't have any facts to not be speculating. Stop letting fear run your life.

I don't like it. It's less gradual and makes the leveling process boring of just picking a perk. Meh.

It was likely done to make it easier and more accessible, for increased sales.

Can we please wait until we have more informations about the new system...?

Yeah... because skills were less boring than to pick perks...

I found the old system a bit chaotic, and difficult to get an overview. But the skills system gave real opportunity to build the character you want.

If skills is removed, I would want to see a system where the perks are divided into skills sections. You get a set amount of "perk points" per level up (1?). Another idea is to give more than one per level up, and have different cost to different perks.

The bobbleheads could give a base perk a level up. If that perk is filled when bobblehead is acquired, you get that point back. That, or bobbleheads could "overlevel" perks, like in Borderlands.

Tbh, I'm happy with changes to that system.But I do not want the Skyrim system!

Why not both? I like character building. One fine tuning stat and one chunk stat was great. Now we just have big chunk stat, unless we also get to raise SPECIAL or something new (which I'm hoping).

I'm sure in FO5 picking SPECIAL points is going to be removed, because that is also boring. Coincidentally after a generic action game reaches record sales, this announcement will be made.

We know (actually, we strongly suspect) from the perk poster that there are 70 different perks, and we also know (suspect) that some of them have multiple ranks. If we guess that 13 perks are converted from skills and have 4 or 5 ranks each, then that would mean there are at least between 109 and 122 perks that you could sink your points into. There could be substantially more, since a lot of the old perks already had multiple ranks. So no, I'm not worried that the perk selection will be smaller.

We don't know how the leveling system will work at all. If we only get one perk point per level, then you might only see a quarter of the perk tree in a single playthrough.

Personally, I never particularly cared for the skill system. It just seemed like a means to get to the good perks. I always just focused on my primary combat skill and Repair for the first few levels and never had to worry about them again. It was a pragmatic step to take, but it didn't very well feel natural.

I'll take the Mass Effect system over the Skyrim system anyday. At least with Mass Effect you won't need to craft 50,000,000,000 pistols just to make a sniper rifle or a helmet.

I know the skill system has been part of Fallout for a long time, but it is just so static and boring. Also it operates on the 25/50/75/100 system. So if they introduce each skill as a perk and make it 4 perks to reach max instead of just placing points, then it is the same system. So if you level up you get one perk and one skill perk, what is the difference?

^ Yeah i get what your saying, but having several skill points to distribute at every level and then an additional perk point on top of that. Well it just felt like you had more choice - per level - in how you could customise your character. You could throw them all into one thing, or you could distribute them among multiple skills And have the perk point to unlock a new ability as well.

Perhaps we will get multiple perk points?

Also why is it boring exactly? Or why is it any less boring now that its rolled into perks as a lesser number of increased ranks?

lol I don't know what game people played in the past but a perk was always a highlight of leveling. What game are people playing in the past cuz skill point selection that is more intresting then the perk?!? I wanna play that game, but so far i can't find it. Do you need to be a super duper special fallout fan to get access to this game?

What character variance did skills actually give you? one with all 13 skills at 100? cuz that really isn't a diverse build. In the end the only diversity in characters were their perks becaues eventually everyone has 100 in everything.

Who said skills were more interesting than perks?

It was certainly not... Not until Bethesda handed them out like candy every level in FO3. Originally, they were intended as a minor rule tweak that affected how the game's rules treated the PC. Most PCs were granted a perk every three levels, minimum; but there was the Skilled trait, that raised all the PC's skills by 10%, and with that trait, the perks came only 1 every 4 levels.
It was a trade off. No such thing in a Bethesda title [AFAIK].

I will admit I am sad to see them go, I don't like the Bethesda mindset of "that didn't work out quite right so lets just scrap it instead of tweak and fixing it." This has been an ongoing trend with them for some time now.

Arguments for removing them seem to be mosty focused on these factors:

1. They were tier based anyways, so it just makes more sense. How about instead of keeping them tier based we made them actually function like an RPG and they provide you a skill check - meaning your lower skill may actually allow you to get by that high level lock (or what have you) assuming a good role. You can then factor luck into that as well to modify the results. Many mods did this for previous games, it was a common trend to add the weight back into the Skills and SPECIAL.
2. They resulted in a "jack of all trades" character. Well, this can be corrected by actually taking some consideration to how many Skill Points are granted to the player. If you reduce the amount then you can end up with characters not being this "jack of all trades" defacto type. You get strengths and weaknesses based on your choices. The main reason for pumping you so many points to begin with, I suspect anyways, was that the Skills were tier based and thus you needed more points to make an impact. Using fix one has already removed that as an issue so every single point makes some impact on success.
3. It makes more sense for them to be perks as it is less confusing. I fail to see how Skills being your core and Perks being special effects that added personal flair to your character was such a convoluted system to understand. Perks have historically been something completely different from Skills in all Fallout games, and so this really doesn't make things less confusing when you approach it.

Of course I feel like a minority in the community, as the general public is more interested in Action Adventure games than they are in RPGs. Again, the historical split here has been the level of complexity. Action Adventure has been hack-and-slash or FPS with some RPG bits tacked on to keep a simple and oriented form of gameplay. RPGs have been geared towards the complex interactions of different systems that you can manipulate.

I think the frustrations expressed by some of the community come down to that simple facet really. Bethesda got their name from making great RPGs, but now they are focused on making Action Adventure games. This shift is disconcerting when it bleeds into historically RPG lines like Fallout or The Elder Scroll, more so when Bethesda now has multiple liscenses under their belt that go across multiple genres. I don't want my RPGs to become Action Adventure games, use a different line or make a new one for that. On the same token, don't do thinks like make Wolfenstein or Doom into something they are not (which it does not seem as though they have really, to be fair). Can you evolve the games, sure, but you don't need to take away from their core to do it. I love some of the new things they have done with Fallout, and some of the Fallout 4 features look amazing as well, but it doesn't change what I see in this trend.

I don't like it.

First of all, perks are supposed to be extra benefits, not mandatory and will these skill perks share the same menu with regular perks?

Second, unless there are 100 'ranks' for each skill, there is just not enough variation in this system to support skills.

What? So making perks more common made the more of a highlight of leveling? Doesn't scarcity make something valued? I still have no idea what game you are playing because i recall NV doing the one perk every level (I might be wrong It could have been every level but i remember it every other level.) and I recall just getting skill points during a level was BORING, once you made any kind of progression into the game you were increasing skills your character concept had no use for. That was not a oh boy this is exciting moment for me. Getting a perk was. Anytime I got a perk it was always more excitng then the skill points i always spent a LOT more time picking my perk then i spent dumping my skill points.

Now taking FO3 I again spent a LOT more time on my perks then i did my skills. Skills were so easy to lvl in FO3 with bobbleheads and skill books. I always ended up with a 13 100 skilled character. What makes this fun? It adds zero diversity and in the end I only cared about the perks BECAUSE skills were always 100. Which meant the only enjoyment i got out of leveling was the perks as it was the only metric that provided diversity and it was the thing i actually spent time thinking what should I pick.

With the older system, I was born with the ability to pick any Very Easy lock. After I put 25 skill points into the skill I gained the ability to pick Easy locks. At a 50 skill I could Pick Average locks. At 75 I could open Hard locks and at 100 (maximum) I gained the abilty to pick Very Hard locks and I could open any lock in game. Basically, while I could increase the skill by one, the granularity on my ability was 25.

I suspect the Lockpick skill is going to be replaced with four levels of a Lockpick Perk. If that is the case, I really am not going to notice any functional difference.

Most of the skills operated this way (although not with the same granularity of 25). I don't plan on getting excited until I learn that my suspicions on what is happening prove to be false.