I can't speak for that poster, but I have played Morrowind and Oblivion, and I can attest that there were many things that have been added over the years. Oblivion added Radiant AI and various NPC factions, giving NPC's schedules and giving enemies more interesting behavior (such as bandits, marauders, and undead battling one another, whereas in Morrowind this only happened if specifically scripted), and it added the concept of perks to the TES series. Skyrim improved on this, giving us creatures and NPCs that gave warnings if you got two close before turning hostile (not unlike the system in Gothic 3), bandits fighting over dropped gems, archers deliberately moving to avoid getting hit by ranged attacks, mages that switch their spells to adapt to their foe, wolves flanking their prey, vampires turning invisible and running when they decide they're outmatched, not to mention improved NPC banter, with unique conversations between specific NPCs.

That's the pessimistic view, but I don't think it's that. My guess is that they removed the hard level cap, and instead now each perk has a progressively tougher SPECIAL requirement. So, you'd need a 10 in both END and 9 in LCK to take the Solar Powered and Grim Reaper's Sprint perks, but to get those points you'd have to restrict yourself in other SPECIAL paths. This would work pretty well, especially if it means SPECIAL is more rigid and we don't have access to Almost Perfect or any implant perks. And if the black dots represent perks you've taken, it doesn't look like you're required to take the perks in linear order, so that's a good sign.

And I wouldn't mind if skills were streamlined into perks, if it was handled right. It would really help to balance SPECIAL and make it much more important; for instance, Intelligence wouldn't be so god-tier (maybe instead of skill points it can just govern leveling speed?), and Charisma wouldn't be redundant with speech. And if they did get rid of a hard level cap, they would have to deviate from traditional Fallout leveling or else everyone would just max out every skill.

I doubt this poster is all there is to leveling, though. I'm optimistic about the changes to progression.

I don't think everyone needs to nor can be satisfied. But there is room for all kinds of missions, and there is calling for more reactivity to those missions as well as the world itself. I rather hope Fallout 4 has fewer but more elaborate missions (than Skyrim for example...). I think they tried that with Fallout 3, but that didn't seem to work so well back then.

No it probably isn't, but that's the sort of image that comes off of it (and looking back at Skyrim... it would fit the pattern).

I would be really surprised if they got rid of skills, but I suppose it's conceivable that they could change how we level up skills. They could switch to a Skyrim-style skill system where you level by using the skill rather than assigning points on the level-up screen. That wouldn't be necessarily terrible--the old system is a bit odd considering that you can level up primarily through small guns combat, then dump points into Energy Weapons even if your character has never seen a laser pistol.

In that scenario, I would expect that the perk system probably would expand into a perk-tree style set-up with SPECIAL-based branches, probably complemented by skill level prerequisites. If all we get to do when we level up is choose a perk, then the perk system has to evolve somehow.

The only kind of streamlining I would protest is if combat becomes "hold trigger/mindlessly mash X to win".

I won't care one bit if SPECIAL goes away. For me, attributes have absolutely diddly to do with my Fallout experience. How my characters were different in Fallout 3 and New Vegas was 80% based on how they interacted with the world and 20% based on gear/appearance.

I do still want some kind of skill/perk system. Whether that be a list of skills ranging from 1-100 or a list of skill-type perks to choose from, I care not.

I think it would. Learn by doing creates an enormously tedious system that will end up being unbalanced regardless of how it is designed. It creates a grind-gameplay and ensures that there are hundreds of uses for skills so that you can level them up but since there are hundreds of times to use each skill it means that when you use it won't be for anything worthwhile. Just look at most locked chests in Skyrim. There are tons of locked stuff but barely anything worthwhile in them to pick up. More times to use skills: Less reward for using the skills. Seriously. It took me 100 hours in Skyrim to simply level up my combat skills on two characters and none of my other skills had even gone into the 90's by that time. I ended up standing around enemies allowing them to hit me simply to get the armor skills up and used healing potions to keep it up.

And here's the thing, I've seen other players claim they got their combat skills up to 100 in under 50 hours.

Does that seem balanced to you?

That players can have such vastly different outcomes when it comes to the usage of skills?

And finally, the objective reason for why it would be terrible: Remember Oblivion With Guns? Yeah, this ensures that Fallout 4 becomes Skyrim With Guns. There is no facade any longer. Fallout is just TES with a paintjob. It is no longer its own franchise and has become homogenized. It shows that Bethesda doesn't care about any of the series' under their belt, all they care about is the profit and means they'll sell out any future games without blinking if they think it'll earn them a few more coins. Fallout 4 becomes The Burned Game 2.

... No you didn't. Otherwise you would have realized Oblivion has some 15+ more spell effects than Skyrim. And that's with each absorb, drain, and weakness spell only counting as one effect. Pretty obvious you counted every Skyrim spell as an effect, which is the exact opposite of the criteria.

Yeah I scratched my head at that too. Oblivion clearly has more spells and spell-effects, with endless possibilities thanks to spell crafting.

A lot of those Skyrim spells/effects actually become quite useless due to no scaling/crafting. Streamlining bad.

I don't think learning by doing has to lead to grind-gameplay. Yes, they have to balance it well, but that's no different than the need to balance the utility of skills in the FO3/NV system. In Skyrim, I went about playing the way I wanted, and I naturally progressed in the skills that I was using often. I know some people couldn't resist smithing hundreds of iron dagger to quickly level up, but it wasn't mandatory. People who want to min-max or level up as quickly as possible will always find a way to do that.

I'm not saying they should change it, but "learning by doing" does have a certain logic to it, and allows for more organic character progression than just deciding that you're going to become good at something without ever actually doing it.

As long as SPECIAL stats and skills still exist and have influence over how your character interacts with the world, I don't mind too much if they tinker with the formula of how it all works. I trust that they know what they're doing, and want to make the best game they can.

No. Barter has nothing to do with being articulate; in fact... that's a good way to get the seller to raise their prices.

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The Learn by doing method is horrendous, and incredibly open to exploit. Does no one remember the screw-driver trick, where the player would set their PC to a task in some game and force the key down, and go to bed for the night; wake up next day, and their PC had learned by doing the same thing all night long. In Oblivion people would hop everywhere. The system is terrible for those specialized skills that are invaluable, yet sparsely used; often they are the talents that make the PC a cut above ordinary... and yet the game expects them to level them up by mass repetition.
Mass repetition is awful design, and relegates the player into a routine of hourly chores in lieu of roleplaying.

The only series I've seen it done acceptably is Lands Of Lore; and in that series, the player had a couple actions, and the ones they tended to use tended to improve the fastest. The only way this works in cRPGs is if they reduce and merge the number of skills to a pathetically sparse amount; by then it's not really an RPG at all.

Learn by chore advancement ensures that an RPG title will only have generic skills, and lose all option and opportunity for uncommon skills. Uncommon skills make for unusual characters. If all skills are painfully generic, then so are all the PC's you can make with them.

I don't think the "screwdriver trick" really applies to Fallout skills. Six of them (from FO3) apply to weapons/combat--learning by doing is a natural fit for those. Repair, Lockpick, Medicine, Science, Barter, Sneak--same thing. As long as the requirement is to actually USE the skill (for instance, sneaking only counts when you are actively avoiding detection by doing it), none of them really fall into the "hop everywhere" category. It just demands that you can attempt something (like hacking) even if your skill level is low. Obviously it changes the dynamic of level-checks for some skill use (e.g. lockpick), but I don't think that negates any merit the system might have.

Speech is the one exception here--I'm not sure how that would level, unless every conversation contributes, but then everyone would level speech at about the same rate.

As far as becoming adept at specialized skills (I'm not sure which particular skills from Fallout you're thinking of), this is where perks can come into play, as well as Tagged Skills to give you a starting advantage in the skills you want your character to develop.

Specialized skills like lock picking, repair, traps, Doctor... These skills should not have to be used that often, but the PC should be skilled (even expert) in them if that's what the player intends; and it should be that way even if they NEVER use the skill in the game.

As for Perks... Perks in Fallout are supposed to be minor rule bending, not skill specialization. They are a free gift every 3 or 4 levels; (my gosh that needs to be fixed in FO4, but it won't be ).

That is mostly AI stuff, but yes, much of that was an improvement. The "lightning quick sidestep" of dodging opponents is rather silly, though. And with this NPC movement, we got, you guessed it, "essential NPCs." In my opinion, that was a terrible trade off.

But "deep?" Sure some of this adds to the depth of the game, like the "scheduled" NPCs, but what about world reactions to character actions or ways to accomplish quests, like a warrior, thief, or mage? You know, Warrior bashes things, Thief sneaks things, and the Mage tries to think things through

Depth-wise, I prefer Morrowind's "stilted NPCs" that seemed more alive to me than Oblivion's and Skyrim's "wandering and deathless NPCs." NPCs a player could actually talk to, not be talked at.

I can see skills like lockpick and repair levelling on a curve--try to pick a few locks and you quickly grasp the basics (how quickly depends on your SPECIAL stats), but as you get more advanced, it takes longer to reach full mastery.

It can be tricky to learn to defuse landmines by doing, but since that's governed by the Explosives skill, some practice handling grenades would get you on your way.

Perhaps some combination of earning skill points by doing, plus also getting some points to assign when you level your character would work. Having some starting skill points at character creation can also get you going on the path you want, but beyond that, I don't see why we should get to be an instant expert at a skill that we never use.

As far as perks go, I suspect that they might move further into skill specialization territory like they've done in Skyrim.

New Vegas had a sort of learn by doing system going for it with the "challenges". I think the idea there was right. The skills progress the way they do and affect the things they do, but you learn stuff about the things you use the skills for (eg. killing radscorpions earns you knowledge on how to kill them more efficiently). If anything, that's the sort of route to explore and expand upon if chore-learning is something that absolutely has to exist. It's a sideline progression, a slow one, that earns small bonuses with further experience on a more specific subject matter, but doesn't invade the normal skillprogression and effectivity.

The problem with the NPCs in Morrowind was that most of them were all the same. Just about every unique NPC in Oblivion and Skyrim has two or three lines that helps establish who they are and what they are like(not to mention the unique conversations in Skyrim), but in Morrowind a vast number of townsfolk in the various settlement have nothing unique to say; only when they were part of a quest would they have any unique dialogue.

I don't see where you are getting the idea that SKILLS are streamlined into perks, not even Skyrim did that.

However, I do think perks are going to be more along what Box Maaan said, where perk requirements are mostly SPECIAL based. So far, none of the perks people think they have identified on the poster are REALLY tied to a specific skill, like, there's no "shotgun surgeon" perk or w/e, that only makes sense if tied to the guns skill, so them being tied to SPECIAL, instead of a skill, isn't causing any big logic conflicts.

I think it could turn out to be a way to make SPECIAL far more useful. Skills in Fallout 3 and NV were useful even without skill related perks, SPECIAL was kinda worthless, even in NV, making perks tied to SPECIAL stats could turn out to be a nice way to balance out the load so to speak.

Personally, I don't hate the learn by doing (LBD) progression, but in that same breath I also don't hate the traditional method of allocating points at level up. With that said, we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss LBD just on the merits that it can be gamed or is unbalanced.

Going forward it's safe to assume we'll be seeing skill checks in FO4 beyond just Skyrim's admittedly dull persuade and intimidate.

By far my favorite part in FNV and I really hope this finds it's way into FO4.

I'd love to see some examples of depth in MW.

Maybe you think no user friendliness skills = more depth, in which case I'll continue to laugh at that.

I've heard that many times, but I just do not see it. Yes, many of them had the same text, I'll give you that. But, you could different choices depending on your reputation and how much they liked you, which you "adjust" with bribes, flattery, and intimidation. This, to me, makes an RPG, not NPCs that just give you quests, like Skyrim's do. I can not actually "interact" with Sklyrim NPCs. Sure, I can click on and start Skyrim's stilted dialogue, but then what? Can I try to make them like me better? Hate me? Can I ask any NPC in a town/area for simple directions?

RPG, in my mind, is my interaction with the game's NPCs. Morrowind wins this, hands down, for me. It may have been quite "encyclopedic", but MUCH more in depth

The quest to get fees from a Mage from the Balmora Mages Guild.

1) You could kill the mage.

2) You try to talk the mage into paying them.

3) You could pay them yourself.

These quest resolutions are ALL over Morrowind! Skyrim? Quest = Combat. (or one may try to sneak, but I dare you to pickpocket the Draugr Lord in Bleakfalls Barrow at level 5.)

NPC Interactions:

Morrowind - You can adjust NPCs like/dislike of you through Speechcraft. You could ask anyone in the area directions to anyplace in the area. You could get "secrets" from NPCs that liked you.

Let me guess... Your time in Morrowind was all about bucking the terrible combat system? Did you get bored reading all that text?

Because they can be skilled at it well before the game actually begins... They are advlts, they had a life before the game begins.
They had aptitudes, and aspirations; and presumably still do. They can get better at the skills they care about, even if those were never used during play, by the player.

That's a shame. That is Skyrim game mechanics, not the Fallout series mechanics; and the two should never overlap.

I'd say that we should, solely on the merit that the Fallout series' skill system was not ever intended to work like the TES system; and that they did a great disservice to the series by gutting its mechanics and replacing them with the ones from TES.

*Put differently: Even if the TES system were some how proven superior, it's not the Fallout system, and should not be used to replace the mechanics in a Fallout game.

Not that they are, but they might be. It's fairly easy a guess to make from looking at the perk/stat board and thinking what sort of system it might hold within especially with the apparent genreal direction of simplifying things.

I don't think the combat is terrible. It's clunky alright with the double aiming (player+PC) and lack of proper visual feedback from missing, but the mechanical workings and implications are right.

Morrowinds character system alone is deeper than the whole of Skyrim.

It's far more simple actually, since nothing really works, and thus, doesn't matter.

I still dont see that, the only things Beth has "simplified", is the redundant, skills are not that, nor have they ever been that.

The problem I have with this explanation is that it doesn't address the dissonance that is created when a skill that is never used is somehow improved. Whether the character we're playing had interests or aspirations before they embarked on their journey is not very helpful. Plus, the other 300 pound gorilla in the room is that these previous aspirations/aptitudes conflict with the blank slate/create your own backstory that BGS presents. Courier 6 broke this mold but then again that was Obsidian.