Yeah, on reflection I decided that I'm completely wrong about CoD's combat being more complex, so I'll eat that. But I still think it's a terrible comparison to make, since we already know that Fallout 4's giving us a wide variety of equipment and stats that have a direct effect on what our character is good at. (And personally, I'd pick Half-Life or Doom over CoD for a shooter. )

And that's confirmed to not be in Fallout 4? Most we've got is that skills have gone from a spectrum of 1-100 to ranks of 1-5, and even that's not confirmed.

Nope, nothing's confirmed. I just hope it doesn't.

i.imgur(.)com/Qf95pNE(.)jpg

but there is still a barter bobble head, so im confused...

did they take out skills but left all the old skill bobble heads just as items??

Right, like old D&D class abilities.

My bet is each skill bobblehead give a small but nice perk for that "Skill".

A lockpick booblehead perk could cause your lockpicks to not break as often.

An explosives bobblehead perk could give you a 10% increase in explosive damage.

Sort of a way to honor the old fallout skills.

I mean it could go either way. I am scared that it will become more like Skyrim (less RPG) but some parts of the alteration don't seem as bad if looked at the right way. So, lets say every level they give you 1 perk point. You can level anything you really want of the (new skill tree). So basically, your one point equates to like 15 skill points (15 being a standard gap between recieving some new perk due to skill level). I don't like how i can't split my points for a level, but the idea seems sort of similar in a sense. Will have to really see it from Bethesda to judge if its becoming less RPG like skyrim or just simply making it better.

Heh, if people are freaking out that there are no skills and only perks then I think they are getting confused by the difference between Roll Playing Games and Role Playing Games.

The ones provide flat bonuses to standard stats and abilities; close enough, but also more to it than that. Perks could add hitpoints, movement, or a damage potential, that were otherwise unwarranted by the character's training and stats; or could cheat the conversation UI, by color coding the PC responses for NPC reaction; or reduce the cost paid for inventory access. Or flat out break or ignore standard rules for the PC... Like ignoring the size of an object they are trying to pickpocket or doubling the amount of money or ammo determined to have been dropped by an NPC; ignoring psychic attacks completely. Even treating them as smarter than they warrant in conversation; opening up dialog options they would otherwise be cut off from due to character limits.

that actually makes sense... though i dont like the idea.

.... well im disappointed but i still like the new game.

ill wait till i play it and see.

but to be honest its not surprising, all RPGs have been streamlining the past years. even The witcher fell victim to that.

True hardcoe D&D style rpgs with all the numbers and dice rolls and etc are dying genre.... sadly... but we still got morriwind to play and remember.

I for one am actually looking forward to the new system, as a old school table-top player, this reminds me when Shadowrun (SR) changed from 3rd ed. to 4th ed. In third edition Attributes (the SPECIAL of SR) only really affected skills in that they made them more expensive to upgrade, were used for defaulting, or the little they added to an extra pool of dice to draw from. The skills dominated and were actually pretty easy to break, having characters rolling over 20 dice without using the said pools of additional dice, basically meant you were a god in one skill (which is broken for Cyberpunk). In 4th, they pulled skills back and made them add to attributes (similar to whitewolf), thus by making skills work with attributes the system was more balanced. The change, many feel has very much improved the games mechanics and made for a significantly better role-playing experience. This adjustment by BGS seems pretty similar, as they still have skills (as perks), but they want the SPECIAL to have precedence in the mechanics. Additionally, this makes it feel pretty similar to systems like SR or WhiteWolf, as they focused on making the player choose between skills and other advantages like Spells, Disciplines, or even merits/flaws (perks pretty much, especially the last one).

D&D even has this functional system, where their skills are in ranks and allow you to do more the more you have, but still play second fiddle to Attributes. JRPGs heavily follow this idea, that the Stat should be the star, like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest/Warrior, .hack with Spells, perks, materia, or skill perks. The skill systems in FO3, NV, and Skyrim were actually odd to me a little, because I wasn't used them in video games. I actually think that this system will add to more unique characters thus being more about the role than the roll.

My thinking is a bit like, " A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." In other words, they are words, and what they actually do should have more impact than what anyone thinks they should be called or how limited their effect should have.

Heresy! Don't you know you must decry anything BGS does to their IP and any perceived change is BAD!BAD!BAD!???

None of you quoted above have the right to define what an RPG is nor do you define what makes a Fallout game. Bethesda has that right, not you (or me or any other consumer or company).

The last quote is quite amazing since player-based, real-time actions determining results/outcomes in RPGs has been standard for over a decade, even going back to the time the first FO game was released. The only RPGs that have relied on turn-based, character-based actions for results/outcomes are the hybrid strategy-RPGs (e.g., Agarest War, Growlanser, etc.). Xenosaga is the last major RPG that was turn-based, character-based and not a strategy-RPG hybrid that I can think of offhand. Companies are offering what the market has demanded because they are in business to make money (i.e., they have little choice if they want to stay in business). Heck, look at people claiming Dark Souls is an RPG. BGS' games are most definitely action-RPG hybrids, but stuff like Dark Souls is almost totally player-based, not character-based.

lol, oh please, of course they have the right to define what "they think" an RPG is, just as you and I have that right. Heck, you've been defining your idea of what an RPG is throughout this whole thread.

You're also confusing the differences in philosophies between JRPGs and CPRGs. Even going back as far as the early final fantasy games, they've been much different in their execution than say Wizardry or Might and Magic which were huge releases back in the day, just as Final Fantasy was.

Also, Xenosaga was not the last major turned-based RPG. I can think of a number of major RPG releases that have come out since then including the Temple of Elemental Evil that was turn-based and a major release, albeit disappointing due to game-glitches.

I would say your idea of an RPG is in fact more narrow and simple. I believe RPGs span a variety of different styles, but there are core aspects that make a game an RPG. The developers know this, I know this, and so do many others in this very thread. Stats and numbers don't make a game a "number simulator" more than a game is fundamentally a collection of 1s and 0s on the screen. The aspect of skills and attributes to affect the role-play of the character is fundamental to the RPG genre because it affects how the game and the character interact.

Arcanum is a perfect example of how this is supposed to work, where your backstory, race, skills, and affinities come into place to affect change to the world and throughout the game experience.

Your examples seem to be a bias toward the JRPG market, marginalizing the importance and popularity of the CRPG genre, which says to me that you haven't really played them too much if at all. Maybe I'm wrong, but I recommend you go to GOG and buy a few titles before telling others they don't have the right to have an opinion on something lol.

edit: To whoever said that Baldur's Gate didn't have skills...yes it did.

This post right here shows a complete lack of understanding of what these "values" actually stand for. I'm not going to make a long post about what an RPG is, but great, even legendary RPG titles have been implementing just this for decades. It's not time to change or reboot the genre for the sake of being "new", because as far as I'm concerned, the very idea of this "spreadsheet simulator" as you called it, is in fact innovative if not revolutionary on a whole different level than just a simple game where you can play pretend in a completely made up, imaginary, simulated world.

The very idea that a value can be applied to a character that will affect the outcome of the entire game, even straight from the start is in itself very interesting, and especially so since we are complex human beings who can make mathematical formulas and numbers mean something to us in a game that doesn't necessarily feel like a game at all.

Bethesda could also call their game an icehockey simulation without ice and hockey if they wanted to.

But really, a bit off the topic, an RPG is a game that provides a role to be played and actively supports said role to grow achieve its goal. It's not more difficult than that. It doesn't matter if there's a million sideattractions or none at all, what matters is the relation between the given role and the game. Where the disputes usually come from is the definition of the role - basically, to have a role to play you need a narrative of some sort the role is more or less significant part of and ways to express it. Statbased gameplay alone doesn't cut it, CYOA alone doesn't cut it, world simulation alone doesn't cut it.... There are plenty of games that provide those that are not RPG's. The term itself has become a fad due to the excessive genreblending that is due to RPG's not really being mass market games; but RPG elements have seeped into other games (and vice versa) because people like to mold their avatars (it provides micro-goals along the otherwise onesided trek through the game).

Bethesda games have the tendency to spread out really wide and sacrifice certain specifics to provide a more freeform simulation and playpretend. As such what they might be considered as, outside the action adventure sim role they deliberately take, is more like roleplaying platforms than roleplaying games since they provide only loose roles the player can freely ignore due to them being what ever you want them to be regardless of the given role and providing a mass of simulationary sideactivities to burn time with. An ideal platform for playpretend; do what you want no questions asked. They lose their focus because they want to do and give too much at once and become simply activity sims; and that focus is paramount for the roleplaying game due to the computer being a very limited GM (i.e. it can't react to the players every whim like in PnP in a manner that would give tangible feedback in defining the role).

Now that's just one way to look at it and certainly missing some aspects. Someone could write a monster thesis about this covering all the bases and people would still disagree and find loopholes; but the core of the point in a roleplaying game is that there is a game that provides, supports and reacts to the roleplay it provides within the game and without a requirement for outside elements like playpretend, that it provides an experience where the player fullfills the role through what ever ways the game gives for expressing that role, that you can assume and play the role that is given. And the wider the possibilities for that role to expand and be expressed (through the defining elements of that role, the statistics that tell the game who/what the role in the narrative currently is and the ways the narrative bends according to the role at hand) in a way that the game actively recognizes and reacts to, the better.

In my opinion...

True fact! Todd thought Fallout was a skydiving sim.

And none of us are. We are pointing out what the Fallout series was designed to be, and how it played;(this is proven by the established series, made by the series architects that devised it all); and noting how Bethesda has deviated from the nature and intent of the established series, but kept the name and exploited its past reputation. Essentially bait & switch.

If only grandfathered IP's could be protected like pets. They certainly have the rights; it's just sad that they managed to get them. Interplay is to blame.

What's amazing to me, is that the playerbase asks for an RPG, but wants an action/adventure sim, and cares nothing for committed character restriction; only wanting an avatar to enact their whims in a virtual land.

People will never stop arguing about the definition of RPG. That's about the only fact in the debate.

If Henry Ford could have built a 'Cuda he would have, but the technology didn't exist. But where are the people claiming the Model T is the 'true' car?

If the Wright brothers could have built an F-15 they would have, but the technology didn't exist. But no one is claiming the Wright Flyer is the correct way to build an airplane.

Technology advances and new ways are discovered to create the same effects in a manner that is more pleasing to more people.

It's fun to go retro; just like it would be fun to drive a Model T or fly the Wright flyer, it's fun to play an old-style RPG.

We can now aim and shoot while our chances are dictated by invisible numbers, instead of having a spreadsheet to examine. We can walk where we want, our speed dictated by invisible numbers, instead of counting spaces and clicking. It's progress.

I still play an old-style game now and then (still love the old Might & Magics) but I vastly prefer the experience new technology has given us.

You are pointing out how the original Fallout games were designed within the limits of their budgets and the technology of the day. Such limitations don't necessarily reflect intent so much as capability. Had they been designed for more modern hardware with Bethesda scale budgets they would have undoubtedly looked a whole lot different. As to the intent of the 'series', Tactics and BOS seem to imply that they weren't rigid on how it was meant to be played.

I don't think I've seen a single dev of the originals trashing Bethesda's take on the Fallout franchise or echoing the sentiments of the original games die hard fans.

Except that this is more akin to selling a Cuda as a model T, and calling an F-15 a twin engine biplane. If an air-show comes to town advertising to "come see the Kitty Hawk" (or "Kitty Hawk II"), they are going to rightly catch hell if they show off an F-15 with the the name stenciled on it.

This is bogus. Fallout had no defined budget, and what limits are you thinking of? There were 3D games before Fallout; 3D was neither the point, nor some grand panacea for all video game products. They made computer Chess games in the 90's too, and they weren't first person, because they were Chess, not because of some assumed limitation.

Fallout was made the way it was for the functionality of it.

Except that your chances aren't being dictated by invisible numbers anymore. They're just being dictated by your FPS skills. I don't know what the definition of an RPG is but I know the character is an integral part of an RPG and taking that away isn't improving the concept its going down an entirely different path.

We've been able to do that (spreadsheetless gaming) for a loooong time, so why isn't that considered "retro"?

Technology isn't an issue (it should move forward) here, design is. Model T didn't evolve into a helicopter, it evolved into a more advanced car (but still car). The same as "spreadsheet-based" games (and I dislike using that term) of old could evolve into better ones.

Indeed.

How is fallout 4 taking the character away? fallout 4 as is ( for what we have seen ) hasn't taken character away, you still make the character the way you want how you want & he/she still say what you want. at its base its still a Rpg. I don't question the debate, I question why some ask, I mean some say witcher 3 isn't an rpg because its on consoles to, ......I mean come on. that goes into a whole another thing I won't get into. but anyway the look may change the platforms may change but a rpg is still an rpg at the end of the day.

But Fallout is an RPG, so how are they pretending it's an RPG?

Wouldn't that be the problem in question?

It shouldn't be, "say what you want", it should be "say what they would be able to say", and it should rely upon the character's personal stats and development. An RPG should support a lot of statements and questions to the NPCs, but only a few of those should be open to any particular character, and the player should not be able to say what they want if that PC couldn't pull it off.

What [sadly] I expect, is that FO4 will merely have the snarky, nice, and neutral answers; regardless of the character's specific personality and education. It may simply be a choice of player mood instead of what options the specific character would have. This is like some RPG's in the 80's. Pick your attitude, "haughty, nice, sly, or meek"
We should have advanced past that in all this time, not returned to it.