That's easy to guess; try, you'll almost certainly get it right.

That may actually be what they did for the Gambling skill.

If you don't bother to learn what you did wrong, how will you know how to do something right the next time?

Role-play is not contingent upon the number of sides involved, nor does the definition of game specify a number of sides. The definition of RPG depends on nothing extraneous to the meaning of role-play nor does it depend on anything extraneous to the meaning of game.

In my own way, I understand the concept of a game world and its inhabitants adapting to the player's choices. It is what happens in pencil-and-paper RPGs as the players, including the game master, play off of one another. The behavior exists in every game I have heard called an RPG. This behavior also exhibits itself in games that are not RPGs, such as Doom, and so I cannot accept it as a defining attribute of RPGs.

The definition of RPG accomodates improper RPGs.

Both the game's software and the game's player give the player a PC-shaped view of the world. if the player is dedicated to the role, certain software-imposed restrictions are unnecessary, and some restrictions may be unwelcome. One problem in RPG design is designer ego. A designer presumes to know better than the player what restrictions are best for the PC, and the designer can err.

Fallout contrives to stop the PC from becoming good in anything and everything. Bethesda's recent games pass much of that responsibility on to the player. I have no opinion on which approach is better.

Something that does strike me as non-RPG-ish in recent Bethesda games is the "no" and "not yet" applied to quests. Fallout 3's Brotherhood of Steel soon forgetting your having used them for target practice is, I believe, mainly a device to protect the player from missing out on the main quest. Some players want the world to respond believably no matter what. Other players prefer having the story even if it means sacrificing some believability. I think this conflict is on Todd Howard's mind when he talks about seeking better ways of telling stories in an open world game (starting around the 6:50 mark in this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqQqeEgWb7Q).

You are matching things that probably don't match. Fallout's combat relies on chance weighted by the character's ability scores. Much of Fallout 3's combat relies on player skill weighted by the character's ability scores.

Chance is to character skill as player skill is to what? I believe the correct answer is character skill.

"Player determined (not chance determined)" would appear to be a more correct association than "Player determined (not character determined)." Both player-determined combat and chance-determined combat result in an enactment of a character applying his skill.

They're not obligated. They can literally do whatever they want. It's their game. It doesn't mean we can't disagree and give feedback.

is it too much to ask to get some things, like athletics and weapon spread to be Morrowind style? the more you use it, the better you get? Not all of the skills have to be like that, but it just makes way more sense to me that way.

whatever system they use, as long as its exhaustive, i don't really care. I want to play a single character up to level 300. i will rage if they dumb down the potential here as well.

So Bethesda sheds another layer of hindrance from gameplay.... "and everyone loses their minds". Skills are likely just converted into Perks.

Who's losing their minds? Looking over this thread, there are people disagreeing and agreeing with the changes, seems like a simple discussion to me.

I don't think it's a hindrance to gameplay at all, unless leveling up the character and spending skill points seems boring to you.

Who thinks too much of their own opinion?

AD&D has skills, in fact, there are more skills in AD&D than I've seen in most games: forgery, climbing, appraising, use rope, riding, decipher script, ect. I wish a lot of these skills were in other RPGs, but I can see the difficulty in implementing them. Some of these were in Daggerfall, but weren't of much use, especially the language skills.

And yes, Baldur's Gate had skills too, a lot of them lol.

There is no RPG in DOOM, none even in NOLF 2. What you have in those games is an avatar. NOLF 2 even has gained XP and skills, but this is more about utility actions for the player, than about how a given personality would act. NOLF 2 offers no mechanism of change, no choices for the character to make.

A designer DOES know better. Few (if any) players really understand how the game works; and a large number of players appear not to understand that in-game limitations are more important than in-game freedoms.

The player is not there, the PC is. The player should only be able to suggest a course of action ~if it's available to the PC; they should not be able to affect the outcome of that action... It is like a parent at their child's softball game, they can't hit the ball for them; they are not standing at the plate.

Lose minds, no; irritated, yes, and with good reason.The Fallout series does not deserve to have this done to it, it was too good of an RPG series to have all of its systems lobotomized.

lol, there's quite a few people who haven't even touched the original series, much less heard of them lol.

At least we have Wasteland 2. With the popularity of that and Pillars of Eternity being a major success, I think there's more room for another game. Maybe not a Fallout, but a new game to appease us.

These guys will still have their Fallout 4 or whatever, and I'll play it, but for those of us looking for something meatier, I think there is some hope.

I believe I've read that inXile has the rights to Van Buuren, so that might be something.

It was either Bethesda or EA or blizzard/Activision, EA probably would have just scraqed it outright, if blizzard got ahold of it odds are it would have been another 10 years or so and we would have gotten somthing like world of falloutcraft or worse, and Activision if they had Any success with it at all would have milked the crap out of it and then discarded it thin 2-3 years.

Yeah, just because somebody didn't see skills in the demo.

The hardcoe fans started to get hysterical. (fallout is dead,bethesda is the devil , obsidian save us!! etc....)

It's wonderfull how much s""" F4 got after a 10 minute long demo.

Well, Blizzard might have done something truly spectacular with the franchise. I can't think of one game they've made that has ever been bad. It's pretty impressive for a company after 20 years. Can you think of one bad game made by them?

In any case, Bethesda has the rights to the franchise. I'm not entirely supportive of what they're doing to it. I play the games. I get enjoyment from them, but when compared to the originals or even New Vegas, they fall short. With the lose of skills, I can only wonder what else they've gutted to make the game more streamlined.

I'll tell you what, if they keep following this trend, we're all going to be disappointed, no matter what side of the fence you're on. This has happened to many series. We all know one. Everyone of us has seen a series die or become something we don't like. Ultima springs to mind for me. Great series, innovative, even revolutionary. Now it's dead, and take a solid guess as to why lol. Maybe Fallout 4 will be amazing, but with that said, there is certainly a trend here that people who've followed the game industry for any length of time can see.

Just hardcoe fans? I don't consider myself a hardcoe Fallout fan. I love the originals, but I also loved New Vegas. I liked Fallout 3, and I'm really excited to pick up Fallout 4. How does one get hysterical on an internet forum anyway? Nothing is that serious, but there is some level of disappointment.

Doom does not have role-play. Doom does have character action. The world responds believably to the character's actions. "Role-play" describes the player's approach to an action. It does not describe the character's action, nor does it describe consequences of that action.

Except Bethesda's designers. You ignore your own argument when you fault Bethesda's designers for allowing players too much freedom even in their own Elder Scrolls franchise. The designers call their games RPGs. You call them play-pretend sandbox adventure sims (or some variant of that).

Exactly. The player is not in the PC's universe, and the PC is not in the player's universe. Whether the game drives the character's actions by chance or by player action, something exclusive to our world plays a hand in what the PC does in his.

No, no it doesn't. It's the character in relation to the game world that derives a response, not the player. The player creates a character, and that character responds to the world, and the world responds to him.

Why ? Because there are jetpacks ?

Or because we will have a diffrent skill system ?

Im just curious.

What is "it?" Is "No, no it doesn't" an agreement that Doom does not have role-play, or is it saying that the Doom world does not respond to the character's actions, or is it saying that "role-play" does not describe the player's approach to an action? Something else?

Their games are designed around a reactive environment. The [mechanical] purpose of their design is to create player avatars in a reactive sandbox world. [More freedoms further that.]

The problem is that they value their simulation over accountability of actions; where as the Fallout series valued accountability over simulation. They produce a polar opposite product and are praised for it because the bulk of their fanbase is only interested in avatars of whim.

Chance is the only impartial method of the two, and it should only ever be impartial in RPGs.

If you shoot someone, he dies. That is valuing the simulation. If you shoot someone, and he doesn't die, and he cannot die no matter how much you fill him with lead, and then later he is even amenable to your requests for assistance, that is not valuing the simulation.

Fallout (the first and second) value player freedom of action first and foremost. Consequences are not a denial that freedom comes first. They are not a barrier to action, but merely an admonishment that if you do something stupid, it's on your head. The warning is given because the game means to be a true simulation, one that stops you from doing something only when the stopping makes sense in the context of the simulation. Fallout 3 occasionally prevents you from doing things, such as killing a key character, in a manner that is nonsensical. The reason you are stopped -- so the story is preserved -- lies outside the simulation.

That's mistaking it. Think rather that it's more important to them to keep the semi-static world running than to hold the player accountable for anything that happens in it, and/or supporting world affecting changes. Essential NPCs are the easy way out, and they tend to conveniently forget.

Fallout [1&2] allow anything that is achievable by the PC; including locking off quests. The intention is that the PC can do as they like, but has to live with it. FO3's intention is that the player can do as they like... and that's about it. In FO3, a hero PC can beat a vagrant almost to death, and later buy back their good reputation with water bottles... and it's not even an apology, the vagrant will have no memory or opinion of it. This is the maintenance of the simulation being imperative.
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The loss of skills in FO4, is the loss of self for the PCs. It means they start out with no past. It's exactly like leaving the house one day, and never having learned to read, or how to add and subtract... and being required to pick the skills up on the way to work. In Fallout, I can start the game with a mechanic, or start the game with a doctor. In FO4, (Because skills seem to be elective perks), it probably means that this is impossible; and that all PCs start out as unskilled advlts.

Of course. I've not played a game (any game) with a completionist mindset in years; I play these games by circling around the main quest with sidesteps yet always going forward. If I miss something, so be it. I'll get to it in the next round (if such ever happens); and some things I probably never see; and that's ok (the important thing is that I know the game had something accounted for a different action). I did that with Fallout 3 too and accidentally hit the level cap around half way through. But that's somewhat beside the point. The point is that the game doesn't react to you (or me) just ignoring things unless it is designed to take that or the opposite into account. Just like the game doesn't react to me pretending to be Jack the Ripper from outer space unless that is part of the design. And it is that accountability and consideration of action, the reaction the game gives from what and how I do things, that is called for. One is free to do anything the game allows, but when the game keeps book on that and holds the player responsible for what ever it is he chooses to do, it gives all those choices and actions much higher value since they change the game and thus also the players further approach. When that is absent and things just exist to be done or not done, it downgrades everything to mere busywork with no inherent value since the game gives no value to them.

Maybe, maybe not. In any case, it's not hard to predict who is the one more "let down" in the end. Although, I can't really consider myself being specifically "let down" anymore; things either go as expected or provide a positive surprise.

Don't take issue with it. I don't take issue with all the drones drooling over everything. There's clearly some willingness to discuss these matters here by some. If one is up for it, then let's discuss or debate. If the negative feedback really gets on ones nerves to the point of discussion being impossible, the ignore option is there. I don't personally use that because even those who make the most preposterous claims occasionally deliver a solid or otherwise interesting point, and I can filter through [censored] just fine without external aid.

As for games changing... Not an issue. Games need to change and go forward (and I dare say I am one of the loudest proponents of change here). The issue and debates are about whether or not the way they change is for the better and how to achieve the best results in the given context. And people "not wanting consequences"? Maybe in real life, but if you haven't missed it, you've probably noticed that the consequence thing is the new big thing, the new fad, every RPG developer is harping about and trying to deliver (perhaps aside from Beth); everyone goes for "Your actions change the world!" and "We have X number of totally different endings!" ads for their games. People want reaction to action because action without reaction is unrewarding (not to mention the "immersion" / realism people who want believable worlds and NPC's...). I'd say it is in the developers interest to deliver those consequences and reactions whether they go for open world simulations or a more restricted approach for their RPG's or what ever.

As will I. Once I noticed how bad Fallout 3 was back in the day, I left because I had nothing to say about it - only to come back when New Vegas was announced. And as much as I had and have criticism over it, it did once again put some light at the end of the tunnel. It's weird, this series, how there always happens appear some glimmer of hope in the horizon... After Fallout 2 there was Van Buren, after VB's cancellation there was Fallout 3 from Beth (that I never expected to be made the way it was), after Fallout 3 there was New Vegas, and now things once again look very grim.

But that aside, I never question peoples motives for posting on a forum; it's none of my business. If there's a discussion that interests me enough to say something, rock'n roll, when there's not (and most are like that), I don't participate.

Conjecture. Bethesda has deliberately avoided talking about perks or skills, so we can't say how the character starts out. Even assuming the apparent removal of skills as a given, the player may very well start out choosing a number of 'tag perks' that represent what the character knew prior to the start of the game.

When a series changes into something else entirely, it is wrong; personal preference doesn't matter... personal interest doesn't matter.
If this: [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1z3KFwg9z8 ] were the official Elderscrolls 6, that would be wrong... (even though in my case, that would be a far more enjoyable game for me). The next Halo should not be a Halo Wars clone, and any Halo Wars 2, should not be an FPS or turn based strategy; or an RPG.

We cannot do anything to change this if it happened, but not pointing it out as wrong out is condoning it by default.

If a studio wants to make that different kind of game, that's great ~but they should call it something other than the next in sequence; and not occupy a position in the series that it doesn't warrant.

Tag perks?

Their reputation is for utterly blank and devoid PCs that start at the bottom. I don't expect any past aspirations for PCs in their new titles. I think appreciation for that was lost after Morrowind [staff change]; and tolerated somewhat in FO3 as a first step to its excision.

I'm really not arguing for or against the change without knowing more, but the 25 point thresholds are only relevant to a few skills, like Lockpicking and Science. Many skills like Medicine, Guns, Repair, Sneak were relevant point by point. Most were relevant by 5 point increments when used during a Speech check (Speech, Explosive, Barter, etc), but also relevant point by point when in regular use.