http://imgur.com/a/UjbFd points out that the Bobblehead stand we can build for our base has just as many spots as it did in Fallout 3, ie 7 for SPECIAL and 13 more for skill bobbleheads. It even points out what is most likely a bobblehead for explosives.

As for there not being a Skills tab in the Pipboy menu, look at what they https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3nYFn-aIno. Exactly one minute in, he's looking at the STATUS tab of the Pipboy menu, and you can only see the tab immediately adjacent to it, SPECIAL. He scrolls to the SPECIAL tab, and again we only see the tabs immediately adjacent to the one we're on: Perks to the right, and Status to the left. And in the original E3 reveal, they show off the inventory, but we never see a Miscellaneous items tab; presumably because it's the tab right of the Aid tab, which they never showed us.

So in short, there's evidence in the Bobblehead stand that skills aren't absent, and their absence from the Pipboy menu means absolutely nothing, since the menu only shows us the tabs immediately adjacent to the one we're on, and not all of them.

Yup, this is what i love about pre-release hype period; what ever is shown or not shown can be exaggerated to mean anything

Like last week there was no gender selection

I thought removing skills would be quite a drastic move even for BGS.

I think we can safely say the old system of 1 to 100 for skills is gone. What form it takes currently is unknown. Regardless I am willing to try it before I condemn it.

I don't even really know where this idea of skills being dropped came from.

Well, I definitely like your idea, but I wouldn't take the bobbleheads as evidence that skills are present. They could just as easily provide perks, e.g. bonuses to weapon damage, discounts, stealth, etc.

Requiring "rank 3" in science for crafting implies it's a ranked perk. Sneak being affected straight up by agility implies it's no longer a skill. Intelligence not affecting skill-point in any way seems suspicious.

13 bottle-heads could be 13 perk-related bobble-heads. Why would lock-pick even -need- to be a skill, when all it does is give a benefit every 25 points? just make it a ranked perk, and it has the exact same effect in a smoother format. Same goes for most skills, for they are quite unsatisfying to level up in Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Does it really make a difference to level up a skill from 43 to 49? No, it really doesn't. Making them all ranked perks makes it very much dumbed down, but keeps the customization and role-play aspect there. Which I believe to be the case.

I hope skills are still in and not just perk ranks.

Yeah, even with all this I'm pretty sure skills have been changed significantly or just removed. It's just funny that most of the original evidence that skills got nixed is now completely moot.

It's possible they became their own ranked perks separate from the actual perk chart; like, tagging a skill (if you ever get the chance during chargen) lets you start with that skill one rank higher. And then skill bobble-heads are another chance to increase that rank, too. It'll be different, and some people hate change like they were the original Brotherhood of Steel, but I'm optimistic.

I know right? They @ BGS probably thought " what would be the equivalent of 2011's SHOW US THE ARGONIAN and WHY IS TEH WINDMILL SPINNING BACKWARDS?" and they thought hiding the skills like they were gone would be hip.

In the original E3 demo, you could see all the sub-categories in the Pip-boy menu. When he's on STATUS, you can see SPECIAL faded out, and PERKS even more faded. There's definitely not another category after PERKS. Also, if Skills still existed in the same form as before, I would expect them to be after SPECIAL and before PERKS.

The old skills do exist in some capacity--they're referenced by the bobble heads and their icons can be seen on the perks poster, but they've almost certainly been rolled into the Perks menu somehow.

Three things are commonly pointed towards being "proof" skills might not exist

1. SPECIAL stats descriptions don't mention affecting skills like they usually do
2. During the demo the player didn't tag skills like ya usually do.
3. No visible skill tab on the pip boy during the demo.

Yeah I'm thinking the "barter" bobblehead will just give us a rank in the perk. Like a science bobblehead will bump us from a "rank 3" science to "rank 4".

No tagged skills, no skills being affected by SPECIAL and not showing off the skills seems a little suspicious if they are still there in the traditional sense.

I'm guessing Bethesda will use a modified Perk/Skill system: example, you'll have a "Guns" line, and be able to put perk points into it. The "Science requirement 2" could mean you need at least 2 Perk points in the Science line to unlock it. This is jsut a guess, though.

There might just be a Skyrim-like perk tree system in place. Selecting the perk Science 2 could require, lets say,50 skill points in the the "Technical" perk tree (It could be named something else). Certain actions will level up your technical skills. Disassembling robots or reading certain books might increase your "technical" skill.

I just checked and you're right about the original Pipboy demo. Thanks for the correction.

I don't think they'll add anything like a "technical" skill, they could just add a SPECIAL requirement. Like, 2 INT can get you the first rank of the Science! perk, but you'd need maybe 6 to get to the third rank.

In reference to a similar inane incident during Skyrim, I propose we call this "carroting".

What happened to prompt the coining of this phrase? During Skyrim's E3 hype period, an inventory screen in a vid flashed a carrot across it, and its weight read 0. I remember seeing someone throwing a conniption over it breaking "immersion" or somesuch, leading to more level heads to collectively facepalm. "Weightless Carrots!" became a poke at such inane cynicism... or a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law.

And conversely, there was a screenshot of a bobblehead stand, and one of the bobbleheads being swapped distinctly was for "Barter".

This is my feeling too, Bethesda want to give out an perk every level. The skill level outside of repair and combat was pretty much only useful for checks on action dialogue or unlocking perks.

This might work out very well, my only reason to not like it is that they might mess up, they have done some pretty dumb decision over the time like the leveling in Oblivion or magic in Skyrim.

Yes, i remember the weightless carrot incident

Keep cool, people. Keep cool

http://i.imgur.com/GvJH23e.jpg looks like:

Well, you could still consider the ranks as tying into skills. Hard skill checks required 75 skill. Hard could just as easily be Rank 3. Of course, this is just me playing devil's advocate. I don't think skills are going to exist in the game as we've known them in the past, and I frankly won't miss them, provided they're replaced with something better.

Skill being rolled into perks isn't the worse thing in the world, no.

I do not, remember paint brushes had no physic but an collision mesh in Oblivion, you could build fences and staircases to heaven with them.

However this is fun stuff like bucket over head in Skyrim, the giants letting you go ballistic was an bug too funny to remove.

How?

Nothing about Bobbleheads existing implies that skills are still there as they were. The strongest piece of evidence remains that Intelligence lost it's job completely. For all we know, finding Bobbleheads now awards minor perks, or even functions like snowglobes in Vegas and they only award caps.

It does look like skills and perks have been combined so for instance science is now a ranked perk, instead of a skill.

Compared to the new dialogue system it might well be an radcoach compared to an deathclaw in power armor.

That is unless the screw it up seriously as in examples above.

Now if Skyrim had kept attributes, perhaps reduced the number of filler perks and added fallout 3 intense training to raise attribute the leveling system might have been very good. You should have some points to put into attributes at start to modify the setup outside of this it would cost perks making attributes important.

Removing major skills worked very well.