From your description of perception, it modifies some skills in both games. In FO1 it modifies TB aspects of placement and sequence, wich don't apply to FO3. Weapon range doesn't (and probably shouldn't ahve applied in FO1) either. In FO3 it modifies detection range. The big issue is that of dialogue options.

Seems like an ok implementation.

Charisma. the dump stat, and Intelligence, the must-have stat are the big problems for me.

You know, buddy, if you can't play nice, sooner or later, you will be playing by yourself.

I guess the problem is that it matters in a weak way. You don't really punish, for lack of a better term, yourself for giving yourself a crappy Intelligence, you just miss out on...*sigh* some dialogue options (another issue). Coddling system, but oh well, that's the market apparently.

It matters to a certain extent, I'll give you that. But I do think they're unbalanced. Yes, every Attribute counts toward your starting skill levels, but not to any extent that it was much of a consideration during character creation (for me at least.) Honestly, that part wasn't much of a consideration for me in the previous games. It's not like you're going to start with high skill levels no matter what stats you pick at the beginning, and the skill points from your first few levels pretty much over-rule any real impact your attributes had on skill levels.

My problem is that they're unbalanced (in my view.) Attribute usefulness in Fallout 3 simply comes down to what matters to you. If I don't care about how much I carry around with me, then I don't need any points in Strength. If I can rely on my view two eyes to find enemies, then I don't really need a high Perception. I'm still not sure just exactly what Charisma effects other than opening up some new dialogue options - if everything else is entirely skill-based, then I have a feeling that if I prefer talking my way out of situations then Speech is more important than a high Charisma. If I'm very good at FPS combat, then I don't really need Agility to define my character as quick and agile.

Yes, yes. In the previous Fallout games, if I didn't care about being able to wield heavier weapons, then I didn't need any Strength. Or if I didn't mind needing to get close to enemies, or missing out on noticing certain things in the game, I didn't Perception. It still comes down to how you want to play the game. But in the previous games, Attributes still effected a number of things, and the chances are that they impacted something you'd find useful regardless of the character you were playing. I usually played the originals with STR and END of 3 - I didn't plan on using any missile launchers, etc - and the lower hit points gave me more of a challenge. But at some point I'd notice that it would be nice to wield a rifle on occasion, or to be able to last a full round without dying. (Yes, Endurance still effects hit points in Fallout 3...)

Fallout 3, the Attributes don't necessarily describe the character to the extent that it used to. I can play a lithe sniper with cat-like reflexes in Fallout 3 even with PER and AGI of 1. In any "good" RPG system, the Attributes you pick describe your character. A low Strength is a weak character, low Perception is a character with limited senses, low Agility is a slow and plodding character. In Fallout 3, my character would be best described in how I play, and Attributes have very little role in that (beyond effecting maybe one thing in-game and opening up a couple dialogue options here and there.)

And like I've said before, in an "ideal" RPG system, every Attribute point is equal regardless of where I spent. I should get as much use out of putting a point in Perception as I would in Intelligence, and I just don't see that here. Frak, Agility has nothing to do with how agile your character is, but how quickly he can make aimed shots. It ought to be called Reflexes or something. (Yes, yes... very similar and a minor point - but it's not like Agility now lets you move quicker, jump higher or anything like that.)

I don't think it's an exagerration at all to say that your Attributes in Fallout 3 do far less to describe your character than it did in the previous games. They all have some impact, but not to an extent that I'd say it matter much, or is very compelling. They could do just as well shifting it to a proficiency system, cut out the ones that don't matter as much, or remove Attributes entirely. I'd argue the game would work just as well without Attributes at all and perhaps bringing back the Traits concept to individualize your character. (Have Traits like Smart-Boy which give you more skill points per level, or Action-Boy to raise your AP for aimed shots, or Spidey-Sense to detect enemies at a greater range.)

You don't really need a scale of 1-10, or Attributes at all, or even the SPECIAL system (which Fallout 3 really doesn't) to have the same gameplay in Fallout 3. (Which again, I enjoy that gameplay.) It's not intrinsic to the game itself. And I would argue in Fallout 1 that you could not achieve those very same results in a different manner. Because they built the game around that system, as opposed to shoving the system into the game as they did in Fallout 3.


Perception didn't modify weapon range so much as your effective at range. From my understanding, the hunting rifle is always going to have the same maximum range regardless of your Perception. But a character with Perception of 1 is going to have a much harder time hitting someone at maximum range than a character with Perception of 10. I think it also modified to a greater extent, your chances to hit a specific body part with an aimed shot.

I agree with that.

What are you, my Ma? Sheesh. Anyway, point still being (and I know you know this anyway) S.P.E.C.I.A.L.'s implementation in Fallout 3 is weak and superficial, there mostly for looks and doesn't truly modify things in interesting or rewarding ways.

You bring up Int. which in Fallout 3 only serves to help speed up the progress of super-powering your already greatly accelerated character stats...oh hell, let's do another comparison courtesy of the Fallout Wiki "The Vault", shall we?

Strength

Fallouts 1 & 2 - Modifies: Hit Points, Melee Damage, and Carry Weight

Strength is primarily relevant to two game mechanics: Carry Weight and satisfying the Minimum Strength requirements on weapons. You gain 25 lbs. of carry weight per point of Strength (unless you have the Small Frame trait, in which case it's 15). Also, if you meet the minimum strength requirements of your weapon you do not suffer accuracy penalties with that weapon.

Fallout 3 - Modifies: Melee Weapons skill, Carry Weight, melee damage bonus.

Perception

Fallouts 1 & 2 - Modifies: Sequence, ranged combat distance modifiers and the First Aid, Doctor, Lockpick, Traps and Pilot skills. A player character with higher Perception may notice things that allow them to open up new dialogue options on occasion. It also determines how far away your character starts from hostile critters in random encounters.

A high Perception is important for a sharpshooter.

In Fallout 2, Perception 7 or above is required for the Chosen One to notice the plug-in slot for the Pipboy on the Vault City computer; plugging it in and choosing the risky sounding Reformat option adds the Vault City Travel Log to the Pipboy. Noticing this slot makes it possible to obtain the Vault City Designer Notes after finishing the game; obtaining the Travel Log is not required for this purpose.

Perception is required for many perks, notably PE 6 for Sniper.

Fallout 3 - Modifies Explosives, Lockpick and Energy Weapons skills

Perception also determines when red compass markings appear (which indicate threats)

Endurance

Fallouts 1 & 2 - Modifies: Hit Points, Poison & Radiation Resistance, Healing Rate, and the additional hit points per level.

Fallout 3 - Modifies: Hit Points, Poison Resistance, Radiation Resistance (but not damage resistance) and the Big Guns and Unarmed skills

Charisma

Fallouts 1 & 2 - A high Charisma is important for characters that want to influence people with words. Modifies NPC reactions, and Barter prices. Modifies: Speech and Barter skills

In Fallout 2, Charisma also determines the number of base companion slots your character is given. This number is equal to your charisma score divided by two.

Predesigned Primary Charisma-based Characters (PPCC) of Fallout are Albert, and in Fallout 2's case, Chitsa.

Having a high CH female will change Myron's dialogue trees to a sixual tone.

Fallout 3 - A high charisma will generally lower the cost of goods bought, raise prices for goods sold, as well as reducing the cost of sleeping in a rented bed.

Intelligence

Fallouts 1 & 2 - Modifies: the number of new Skill Points per level, dialogue options, and many skills.

One of the unique qualities of Fallout and Fallout 2 was the difference in gameplay, specifically dialogue, if you decided to create a low intelligence character.

Fallout 3 - Modifies: Medicine, Repair, and Science skills, as well as the number of new Skill Points per level.

Agility

Fallouts 1 & 2 - Action point allocation is based off of the AG stat. Therefore, a character that wishes to keep his enemy on its toes, or claws, needs to have a high agility in order to have multiple combat moves. It is a critical stat for anyone interested in the more mobile and visceral skills such as Unarmed and Small Guns. Other skills rely on it, but these have higher values in AG investment.

Modifies: Action Points, Armor Class, and the Small Guns, Big Guns, Energy Weapons, Melee Weapons, Unarmed, Throwing, Lockpick, Steal, Traps and Pilot skills

Fallout 3 - Modifies: Action Points available for V.A.T.S., and the Small Guns and Sneak skills. Your base action point total is equal to 65+twice your agility score.

Luck

Fallouts 1 & 2 - In Fallout, Luck primarily affects your chances with the virtual dice of the game, a high luck means you're more likely to succeed a roll, while the opposite is also true. Luck also affect the chance to score a critical hit on an enemy, with the standard being that your Critical Chance is equal to your luck (keep in mind, standard means without perks, traits, or aimed shots).

Fallout 3 - Unlike other SPECIAL scores, luck has no specific skills associated with it. Instead, each point of Luck adds a half point (rounded up) to all skills. Having a high Luck will also improve your critical chance with all weapons.

Now really, you don't have to spend a whole lot of time comparing these summaries in order to see how much less involved and rewarding to the game and your character SPECIAL is in Fallout 3. It's not an exaggeration. Sure, SPECIAL does some "stuff" in Fallout 3 but not much more than a few skill point dumps here and there. Pretty unrewarding if you ask me.

You can really go through the first Fallout without killing anything? That seems crazy. How do you go about beating the first game like this?

I always took the sniper rought, I've always been to lame to branch out. But, now I'm kinda in the mood to try new things.

Years ago, months ago, hell even weeks ago I might have spent all night answering this. Instead I'll sum it up with a quote from a recent interview with original Fallout developer Brian Freyermuth:

You know, I just recently made a Splinter Cell like guy for Fallout 2, do you think I could go through the whole game just sneaking around?

Well, technically you can do things like this, yes...but I hesitate to suggest it because in my opinion you really get the most out of those games if you experiment and just do what you feel you should do with each situation. Do what you initially want to do and see if your particular character is skilled enough to pull things off that way. I often found that a good combination of the three options for solving situations gave me the most pleasure throughout the game...but I always made characters who were interesting (to me) combo's like "A sneaking, thieving, con-artist with a penchant for revolvers"...but that's just me!

This is wrong...

Every single one for Fallout 3 mentions what the Skills are aided by SPECIAL...
Niether of the Fallout 1 or 2 ones do...
This means that the Fallout 1 and 2 effects on the game are even greater.

Wait, what? I don't know what you mean here. The Fallout 1 and 2 effects on what game? Fallout 3? What are you saying, lad? Also, the whole point was that the effects of SPECIAL go deeper than just affecting the skills. Have you played the originals? Maybe I'm just completely missing what you're saying here. I'll wait for you to respond.

Off topic but do you happen to be Scottish? I'm not only asking because you text out "lad", or your avatar, you just seem very Scottish to me.

Actually, all the Attributes in Fallout 1 and 2 modify pretty much the same skills as in Fallout 3. To roughly the same extent. (Occasionally, certain starting skill levels are impacted more in Fallouts 1 and 2 than in Fallout 3.) I'm not going to bother copy/pasting the whole list right here, but all this information is readily available at the http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_Wiki.

All that's just for starting skill levels anyways, which don't really matter once you've gained a couple of levels anyways.

Each individual stat in F1/2 effected a much wider variety of factors than anything in Fallout 3, (where really only skill level matters for success in any venture.) So arguably the only Attribute that really matters in Fallout 3 is Intelligence. This was not the case at all in the previous games.

Ha! No man, I've lived all over the compass of the U.S. but nowhere else. As for some of my phrasings...hehe, probably just too much James Joyce floating around in me noggin'! Oh, and the avatar is (The Amazing!) James Randi who was Canadian, actually.

Oh, lol. Because at first I thought you were a little rude to me in another thread when we were talking about pop culture in the Fallout world when you were judging me by saying I was just like every other ES fan. When in reality me and my brother played Fallout as kids. But I just figured either you're a funny person, or you're Scottish like myself and you just come off a certain way. I think you're a cool enough guy though so I don't gotta beef. I mean, anyone who likes Fallout has to be crazy cool in one way or another.

p.s. I lost my accent, that's for the most part why I was curious.

Was I? Meh, I'm sure I didn't mean anything by it. (sent you a PM)

Also, on topic: In today's news Fallout 3's SPECIAL is still broken.

Is it that the SPECIAL is broken? Or that they made it so that Tag skills are less impacted by your choices at the start?

I am enjoying FO3 a great deal. But, I find that all of my characters are turning out to be pretty much the same in terms of stats. I miss the way FO1 and F02 worked with the fact that what I chose as Tag skills made a huge difference in gameplay! If I was going to be a Charismatic character, a "Face", then I chose starting stats and Tag skills that served that. If I was playing a melee/unarmed, I would need to make very different choices.

With the current system, the SPECIAL makes some difference, but not a lot. And while I can continue to pump points into Medicine or Science, I am finding that really the most useful skills are: Small arms and Repair. Sneak helps. Lock picking and Science make more loot available, sure - but mostly, you're going to need to fight something, especially once you become good or evil and have the random Talon mercs/Regulators popping up all the time!

I like RPGs for the roleplaying aspects of them. FO3 is alright in that regard (lots of choices I can make on the good-evil spectrum), but otherwise is simply a FPS where pretty much every character is the same. I miss the old Perks with their advantages and disadvantages, mixed-blessing natures. And, as with every RPG game, there are always skills that see very little use and others that tend to be overpowered.

By "broken" I just mean it's a like a nicely gift-wrapped box with nothing in it. I made a comparison post a bit ago for the original games and Fallout 3 and how SPECIAL affects each game. It's not very hard to see the difference.

Good point, I think. If we're talking about the lack of impact Attributes have in the game, we might as well go a bit into skills. It does seem like Tagging your skills doesn't have much of an impact either. With skills capping at 100, by the end of the game (unless you've really gimped your INT, or chose not to read any skill books) you're going to end up with very similar characters regardless of what skills you've tagged. At least in function if not in stats.
For the purpose of constructive criticism, I think this is another fairly arbitrary change they made to a well-balanced system without looking at all the ramifications. I would have preferred if skills advanced in a similar way to the previous games. Allow skills to go to at least 200 or so and let Tagged skills advanced at the rate of 2 per skill point again. This would have gone a long way to making more specialized characters, I think. It's something they changed with Fallout 3, and I'm not really sure why. Again, I think they really are trying to make a very different game from the first two (not at an inherently bad idea,) and would have been better served coming up with their own system instead of trying to adapt another one to a game it wasn't designed for.

Yeah, I noticed that, too. Really the only thing that changes in the combat portion of the game is which weapons I'm deciding to use. In that there's quite a lot of combat, some more individuality in the ways you can get through the combat would have helped a lot, too. (Not that I have a problem with lots of action, either.) My Scientist character is going to have pretty much the same combat experience as my Dumb character. Frak, my weakling character can wield a FatMan as well as my character with a 10 in STR (especially now that with DLC we'll be raising the level cap to 30 and then every single will have exactly the same skills...)

True, even the old Fallouts had some problems in this regard, I think. I rather think that combining or removing some of the skills in Fallout 3 was a good idea, and a refinement of the system. And in some occasions, this is the first game some of the skills really get a chance to shine. I actually did find every skill in the game useful this time around, and something I wanted to have at least a couple skill points in. So in that regard, I think Fallout 3 did a very good job. Repair now has a lot of use beyond just a couple skill checks here and there, Explosives is now something I bother to put points in (I actually spend time disarming traps this time around, something I never bothered with in the previous games.)

One thing I did like this time around was that I didn't feel that urgency to max out my combat skills as soon as possible, like I did in the previous games. F1/2, my first few levels all went towards bringing Small Guns up to 100% or so, so that I could actually hit things every once in a while. This time around, I think low skill levels are a little more forgiving, so that I could take my time maxing out my skills and not worry about it as much. I think that's mostly an artifact of the FPS combat, but still it's something I thought worked well in this game.

Too bad that you pretty much end up with Chuck Norris every time you play through the game, though.

I voted option 2.

Frankly, I like it this way. The only thing I miss, is the dialog options being affected by Intelligence.