Continuation of this thread: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1520062-worried-about-streamlining/

Will Fallout 4 be streamlined? How will it be? How much? Does it need that? Do people need to worry about it?

What does streamlining even mean? Discuss.

I believe it will be, and quite heavily so too, in that it will most likely trim down the character system and its functionality and comprehensiveness regarding its gameplay impact even further (if possible). They will probably step up with world design, their forte, and viceral action, but leaving very little RPG flavor left in their sandbox world simulation. That's probably the "good kind of" streamlining as far as action gaming goes, but regarding RPG's that's dumbing down pure and simple.

But what say you?

If you count every fortify whatever spell, along with every single bound and different summon, than yes, oblivion had more spells.

These are not unique spell effects. Mysticism also only lost reflect, absorb, and dispel. It's other 4 affects are still very much in the game.

I've also yet to make any personal attacks, and fail to see how MW spell casting battles were more interesting considering now we have wards meant specifically to block spells to compensate the removal of WP. I guess casting fireballs back and forth and hoping yours isn't resisted is much more in depth than placing a rune behind whatever cover the other Mage may run behind, while banishing his summons and using wards to actively block his spells

Yes, so much more dumbed down.
/s
As for mysticism, it has a whopping 7 spell effects in OB, and 4 of those remain in skyrim. It had a lot more in MW, but it also includes absorb and soul trap spells, along with teleportation.

But about fallout, barter and speech could and should be merged.

Maybe UH and melee, but I am not in favor of either. It would allow a character to use more weapons should they find themselves in need of a new one, so that's a quality of life improvement that I wouldn't mind seeing.

Lock pick and sneak maybe but that's a stretch.

I preferred the multitude of spells, spell effects, and spell creation in Morrowind and Oblivion. I loved making combo spells and having touch mode. Levitate, teleport, and open lock were also great. I miss real absorb spells.

Skyrim gutted this and I didn't enjoy playing a mage quite as much. I used 1 spell for 99% of Skyrim (expert destruction attack) and it was just terrible due to no spell scaling and not being able to craft my own higher magnitude spell. Even Dragon Age : 2 had me using more spells, yikes.

I hope they do not continue the trend of massive streamlining of an important game function within Fallout 4.

I allowed another thread on this despite the last thread starting to have a few personal attacks pop up. Please be aware that everyone is allowed to have an opinion and offer it but nobody is allowed to include personal attacks on others who do not share their view of things. Be careful because if the personal attacks start, you will be warned and the thread/discussion given a rest.

I guess I can live with things being simplified if the remaining things then are actually useful. Skyrim, for instance, still had so many completely useless skills and perks that in spite of multiple playthroughs I never could make myself put a single perk in lockpicking or speech, simply because it didn't impact my ability to do anything in the game. And dealing an additional 60% instead of 40% damage with my sword that already destroys everything in one blow, don't really matter does it? Get creative, please, Bethesda.

Including a lot of shiny objects for the shiny effect is shiny. Leaving the objects somewhat gritty, but with some useful mechanics under the hood, that's where the caps are at, so to speak.

I guess we can all hope that someone at Bethesda actually read these forums and have taken comments from FO3, FONV and Skyrim into consideration when developing FO4. The worst thing that could happen is that FO4 will be Skyrim with a Fallout skin.

Right now I'm just praying that when they present Fallout 4 at E3, Avellone is gonna come walking out.

If that happens I'll eat my shoe.

And 2 of the these were stupid levels of OP, and I imagine had to make useful without being useless or broken as they were in both iterations.

@phossIf you found speech or LP useless in skyrim, it was even less useful in OB since you could attempt any lock and bribe any PC, while MW, again, relied on dice rolls to LP. In skyrim you couldn't just level it to 100 and do any lock, you had to invest perks and commit to the tree to make them easier.

Doesn't seem very dumbed down to me :/.

I definitely think there will be some streamlining, but I also hope it isn't the case. I hope they've improved upon mechanics and added more content instead. Some streamlining can be good when the system is overly complex and unnecessary, but the extent seen in Skyrim is overboard and destroys the experience.

Thanks summer

I doubt it will be simplified much. There aren't really any disposable skills to merge, and SPECIAL seems to be intact given the poster seen in the trailer. Scavenging for equipment and parts is such a staple that I can't see that being simplified, plus the trailer's garage scene implied a more detailed crafting system. Feature-wise, I actually expect we will see more than their previous offerings.

As to story and characterization, I figure it will be pretty much the same fare we've come to expect from them.

Graphics have improved.

If 3 of 7 spells were missed than you're just grasping at straws at this point. We have most of the spell effects left over. Reflect is very hard to balance, so we got wards to actively block them. At this point your argument is 4<7, and yes that is true, but it's also relying on more always being good, and that is not the case in the slightest.

If you want to play a dumbed down game, then yes, reflect will be missed, but if you're after a more engaging fight than wards and dodging spells will fulfill that.

Like Gabriel pointed out in the last thread: SPEACIAL and Perks might have been joined as skill tree based on the poster.

Also it's very possible that other stuff outside of mechanics like SPECIAL will be "dumbed down" (too many definitions of these terms).

Just counted.

Skyrim has many more, unless you want to count all 10 individual absorb, fortify, resist, and weakness as one each, but those are no more unique than each and every individual summon and bound.

OT: the only thing I'd like to see streamlined, again, is barter and speech and maybe making LP more useful. Science gets to craft ammo and whatnot, while LP is a skill that only lets you do one thing.

I'm not sure where it could be moved, but I wouldn't mind just seeing it removed as well.

@tiny, skills used to also determine if you hit in the older games, but due to combat being real time the only other thing they can do is increase damage, which reflects how well you character operates the weapon. Increasing reload seems natural, but, you've got 100 skill points and how exactly do you spread out reload speed? Does it speed up?

How fast does it go at 100? If skills don't affect damage now I can pick up a gauss rifle and use it at maximum efficiency, provided player skill is enough to compensate for the accuracy loss.

I don't know if I'd call it streamlining, but I strongly believe that skills and attributes need an overhaul. Specifically, they need massive doses of common sense added to them.

It's sad that attributes are just numbers. If I'm training my character to become stronger, I want to see that extra strength reflected in his body. Give him bigger muscles instead of a larger number next to his strength attribute. In my opinion numbers should all be hidden and working under the hood.

It's also sad how progression in certain skills is portrayed. Increasing guns-related skills allows you to do more damage with those weapons. Let that sink in for a moment. Why would becoming more skilled with say a pistol allow your bullets to do more damage? It will make you more accurate, sure, and it will make you aim and reload faster, sure, but more damage? it makes zero sense.

Yep, same here. I rarely played a pure mage in Skyrim, most of the time it磗 a hybrid. But I get the feeling that a lot of that had to do with 11/11/11.

As for FO4: Some streamlining is to be expected. But I hope that streamlining doesn磘 affect special.

Yeah, i'll eat your shoe too

But there was recent news that BGS had hired a gameplay designer that had worked on some other big games (don't remember who or what), so there maybe it'll get better. However, as it was recent, his effect may only fully be seen in the game after F4

I didn't. while it was nice having all those spells/effects, too many of them were just so similar to others, or just so useless, that I never used half of them in any playthrough, no matter how much of a pure mage I was.

While Skyrim cut out many of them, it introduced physical spell properties, such as runes, sprays, walls, cloaks, all of which weren't in past games. I found them to offer far more useful gameplay mechanics then most of the cut spell effects.

I actually spent a lot of time as a pure mage in Skyrim planning before battles, setting up traps with runes, putting up defensive cloaks, looking for small choke points I could use to spray down a wall to mess with the enemy AI. I never had to do anything similar in Morrowind or Oblivion, they simply didn't offer anything close to it.

I just want S.P.E.C.I.A.L. to remain intact. We are talking about Fallout right?

Yes, and it apparently will remain in some way, as the poster in the garage seems to indicate.

Yeah I thought this way at first.

Until all those cool spells you listed quickly phased out of usefulness due to no spell creation or spell scaling (seriously how could they forget scaling when they took out creation). Leaving me with the 1 expert ranged attack with three different colors for most of the game.

I've played fantasy action games with more usefull spells.

I want more meat to it. Things to actually ponder a bit about when creating a character. How might this kind of build play out, would that kind fit with my idea of the PC... and actually witness and experience it carry out during the game in various creative ways; and ways not necessarily clear or easy to swallow right off the bat nor necessarily seen in other current day RPG's. So as to provide that while exploring the map and storylines, I also explore my character and how he can interact with the world and its stories. This applies to the skills too.

I suppose this all ties in on how Bethesda handles their games in general. Spells in TES -> weapons in Fallout.

Possibly.

I never had them phase out of usefulness personally. Just got some enchanted gear that reduced cost by 50%, got some poisons that made enemies weak to X element, and then got dual casting. Boom, done.

That's another thing I liked about Skyrim. Past TES games made every school of magic so strong you could survive with JUST that one school. Whereas Skyrim actually made them far more codependent to be great, much like the warrior and thief skills are.

-Destruction was your sword.

-Alteration was your shield.

-Conjuration was your companions.

-Restoration was your potions.

Not to mention alchemy and enchanting bonuses.

It was rather nice not being able to just play a 100% pure destruction mage and solo the game, while warriors and thieves had to take armor, weapon, and crafting, skills to reach the same effect, like it was in past TES games. Far better balancing overall.

Though I do think/agree with the idea that there should have been more +damage perks for each destruction element. instead of the 3 we got, it should have been 5, to make it even with the weapon skills 5 +20% damage perks.

I used two spells in Skyrim, heal and transmute

Magic in Skyrim was totally broken compared with previous games. And yes spelmaking was insanely fun.

My favorite In oblivion was probably the command spell who made any humanoid or creature an temporary ally, sneak into an goblin lair and cast on the warlord.

Unlike frenzy you might get faction changes so the warlord got hostile to goblins if hit enough

Bring popcorn.

Against undead, weakness to fire, fire damage and turn undead, fire damage ends one second before turn undead so I know then to cast again.

use an focused fire damage spell then they run away.

Time to bring out the artillery, level 40 doing the daeric invasion of IC: shock damage on target+ weakens to magic area effect for 3 seconds.

Weakness to magic stack on itself so anything inside the weakness area is single hit to kill after first enemy goes down, I was playing on hard with no armor.

New Vegas streamlined weapons, no heavy weapons anymore.

I agree with them about weapons. An master sword fighter will not be an bumbling fool unable to kill an rat with an axe or an knife, no he will loose against an master knife fighter but plenty of skill would transfer.

Perhaps an more intelligent system. Use morrowind skills, but skill in one discipline migrates to others. Good in light armor, you are decent in medium, not much effect on heavy.

I don't think special is in any danger of being removed.

All attributes with TES lead to either health, fatigue or magic, and things like AP or perception markers didn't exist.

They could axe perception and just give a blanket range on seeing locations on your radar because it doesn't really do much else right?

It's probably the most useless stat, but if they are gonna remove one they would remove them all since it's not longer special anymore.

Yeah I tried all of that. Those spells just had too low base damage for it to matter.

Using anything other than dual casted stagger Thunderbolt(or the red/white versions) became silly. Like I said, I've played pure action games with more choices and customization when it comes to Magic.

I hope they don't make similar mistakes in FO4.