Hi there, sorry if this has been covered, cant find anything surrounding it..

So, the SPECIAL is basically a requirement to unlock and acquire perks? Having fx. Agility at 10, means you can get the "best" perk associated with Agility.

But, does SPECIAL influence the gameplay besides from being a way to unlock perks? I mean, if you go from 1-10 in Agility, does your (lets say) weapon damage increase, without you taking any perks? Just increasing Endurance, does your HP increase per point (without any perks)? Does having 10 points in Luck, mean you will find more items of higher quality/value, or does it only apply, if you take the corresponding perk?

Hope you get what I mean.

Haven't seen much actual info about this, but given that Int apparently increases your XP gain, I'd say yes. Some are obvious - Strength giving more carrying capacity seems like a given. Agility would likely have something to do with action points (as it's done in previous games). Endurance, hit points (or extra damage resistance). Etc.

I hope you are right and that it's not only a requirement to unlock the perks..

Yeah, SPECIAL still has an effect beyond what perks you can take. IN governs XP gain, LK governs loot finds now, and CH governs barter prices and speech checks. The rest are more or less the same, although the numbers are different for sure.

strength- carry weight melee damage

perception- vats accuracy

endurance- health and action points for sprinting

charisma- barter prices and dialogue options

intelligence- experience gain

agility- vats action points and ability to sneak

luck- critical rate charge and loot

..are you sure those are not the benefits, if you choose the perks under the respective attributes(special)? Strength will give you more carry weight, b/c the Strength perks will give you that option - which you'll unlock by spending points in Strength?

See my concern :/

What I would like to know is the role SPECIAL has in conversations. Are some conversation choices going to be limited by a SPECIAL requirement, rather than just Charisma and the perks you take in its branch? I hope so. People with high strength, intelligence or perception should sometimes be able to persuade someone better than someone who is just purely charismatic. I wonder how it all works.

I'm not sure about that because there is a specific luck perk that covers loot. It makes more sense to let someone choose how high luck impacts their game instead of just giving them better loot and critical damage automatically. There is probably a critical damage perk as well.

That is what I'm thinking also. Let the player decide how a high luck stat impacts their gameplay instead of deciding for them.

In F3 and NV you could persuade folk using all attributes/skills? If you had high explosives or strength, you could appeal to npcs with those checkmarks.

I don't think you should worry. I mean, if the descriptions were to match the perks in each SPECIAL tree, then they would be far more elaborate or accurate. For example, the description for Intelligence wouldn't just mention increased XP, it would talk about giving the player a range of intellectual-based skills such as Hacker, Science! and Gun Nut. Does that make sense?

Yeah I'm hoping that's the way it will be. But with the new perk system you just never know I guess.

this is exactly my point and personally a concern

pretty much this.

I like how we all are helping each other with our concerns

Friends?

you wouldn't normally clutter smaller descriptions with all that information, about different perks, you'll get in the future, to which you can't relate to at the beginning of the game..

it's way easier and more orthodox to write "intelligence increases your xp" than "intelligence increases your xp, when you invest enough points in the attribute and get to open these x,y,z perks, oh and acquire them."

Friends.

but think about like this, xp isn't as big a deal as crafting so since the crafting perks are in intelligence then why not mention crafting. This instead seems like a direct shift of what the stat use to do on it's own, which was give increased amount of skill points.

The special stats still give unique bonuses as well as having perks tied to them. So a character with a high Strength will be able to carry more than a character with low Strength regardless of perks chosen. They're not just perk gates. You can see the descriptions here: http://imgur.com/gallery/OH1s2.

I think you will have completely different dialogue options available to you. The Preston Garvey quest turned out a lot different in the leaked script than it did with player at the Microsoft e3 conference. Instead of going outside he found a power source in the building. That option probably wasn't available to the player we saw at the Microsoft conference.

So my guess is that there will be an invisible speech check based on your SPECIAL. However, I don't think there will be any Intelligence perks that directly impact conversations. Same for any other SPECIAL besides Charisma.

Only? I don't think so.
High Int for instance will most likely still give you dialogues options for that stat.

Of course we don't have a lot to base anything on, but having them as requirement (also) means you can't have a low INT and still be able to max out "skills" relating to IN, like previous games.

it looks similar to FO3\NV and Skyrim/some of oblivion to me

like perks will have the most noticeable impact on activities, but the actual special's level will also have kind of a blanket boost to its 'field'

ex: one character with a 1 strength and one character with a 10 strength; both have the same unaltered baseball bat and no perks

the one with a 10 strength (even without perks) will most likely do a sizably larger chunk of damage that the guy with 1 strength

perks will just be a way to hone and further bolster damage in more specific ways than strength's generalized effects on its field (ex: perks increasing bladed damage specifically, damage with power strikes, etc)

thats my guess

SPECIAL also affects dialogue.

I think that confirms that each SPECIAL will have an impact outside of perks. For endurance it says it affects your total health. That's not tied to a perk.

Indeed, none of those descriptions say anything about perks.

Definitely not a case of Special Stats being a perk gate, even if perks are dependent on their levels.

The more I think about it, this system might work out really well.
It's satisfying and all dumping a boat load of skills into our characters every level. But that system was broken, becoming easy to max out builds- nonsensically even.
you could nerf your INT and still be able to max out on skills that are dependent upon INT.

I know many are of the mind that it should have been fixed other than removed. And I am not against that way of balance either.
But. What if this system works great and accomplishes the same things the other system did?
If the end product means each player build will be truly unique (If they can't be maxed out), and with depth and whats more, with special stats actually meaning as much as they should, does an extra tier matter?