It's basically confirmed because:

-SPECIAL stats no longer list the skills they increase. You may think "that doesn't neccesarily mean anything," but Intelligence in particular now effects experienced gained and lost it's trademark skill-points-per-level-up ability.

-There is no skills tab in the stats menu of the Pipboy

-Science is now a ranked system, like a perk or something

-Weapon and armor degradation are missing, meaning repair can't really exist

So long as I know that skills, e.g. Science, are in, I'm happy to wait and see what they're called and how we acquire them.

Skills were always tied to perks, weren't they? The only reason you increased your skills was to meet the next requirement and get more perks. I never liked that you need to have X amount of skill to even attempt opening X level of safe, for instance. Made no sense. For skills to really work they need to be dynamic and reduce difficulty with every point you put in them, not just cut off at some pre-defined threshold.

Ok, yeah, that sure sounds like they at least changed the system quite a bit, if not completely axed skills. I was hoping for armor/weapon damage or degradation. I still think there's a chance of that being in there, though. But skills missing from Pipboy is certainly not a good sign =/

On the new pipboy, weapons and armor were missing the condition stat, so i think they dropped degradation too. Which in turn means they don't really need the repair skill.

Fallout of Duty

Don't like it, don't buy it.

But we both know you want it.

Fallout of Duty: Ghosts

There's a dog.

The repair skill could have still been used for crafting proficiency or repairing machinery quests.

This. Has been in every FO game so far...

Yes, but even Chris Avellone stated he considered it one of the most underused and worthless skills in FO1 and FO2. It really was only good for a very few quests that rewarded you having some repair skill. The most worthless skill ever, of course, being Doctor in FO2, because of the time limit removal in FO2.

Frankly, I feel like there is still a Perk tree related to Repair in some capacity with all the crafting and building in FO4.

And yet I chose Repair every single time, which must've made all the other skills even more useless =)

Maybe weapon degradation only displays where a weapon is under 100% and now you have to purchase or assemble repair kits. I find it highly unlike this is no longer an in-game feature, however, we have only been shown the cover of the book I believe.

No Degradation is just stupid if true. I'm liking this as a game definitely but the dumbing down pretty much confirms that this will once again be a terrible RPG.

I'm ok with skills gone but there needs to be a huge amount of perk choices within the Special Attribute Tree. It's not the greatest solution but I also am getting tired of being JOATS in Fallout 3 and New Vegas.

And Skills could easily be a tab under Stats in the Pipboy.

So perks are the new skills now. Like in Skyrim. The only difference is that there were three attributes in Skyrim, and in F4 there will be seven.

Indeed, I hope they did not remove skills. I'd be happier with streamlined skills on a new scale than total omission. So, if skills are similar to perks, but perks are still something "special" I would be happier than zero skills at all.

With the new scavenging and weapon crafting mechanics, degradation and repair of anything outside power armor would pretty much be an afterthought because of the sheer amount of macguyvering the protagonist is capable of. If the player is capable of building weapons and parts from scrap and clutter, repair would be trivial.

That said, I would like to see degradation and repair, but after seeing the crafting and customization systems, I could live without it.

Basically.

Still not sure what the "skill" Bobbleheads we saw in the game demo do. Maybe they are just genuine collectibles this time.

Honestly, at this point, I do not really care anymore. I can see how people like Longknife or Cider! would be totally upset and not want to get the game over this, but I feel this makes more sense from an RP standpoint. I never understood how a total idiot could just spend a skillpoint or two and suddenly be able to repair an item to 100% condition with only one or two other items. Why would I, a moron courier, be able to master something like medicine which makes stimpacks and other medical items much better in the end.

Overall, I feel skills are more of a gameplay thing than a true RP thing.