Please accept my apologies if this has already been poured over, but I haven't seen a thread on it yet.

First, a bit of introduction that definately has been covered, many times... I find myself wondering about just how skills might be included in the game. Having read over some of the discussions, I've noted a few things of relevance:

In his post-BE3 interview, Todd Howard mentioned aspects of the weapon crafting/modding system as being "perk gated." We all know that the gameplay shown in the presentation included mention of Science and Gun Nut requirements, measured in Ranks. As best I can recall, we saw Ranks 1 and 3 displayed for Science.

This suggests, fairly strongly, that at least some aspects of skills are now Perks, or at least measured in a similar way with ranks.

We also saw the return of a bobblehead stand, which held 13 spaces - enough for each SPECIAL stat and every skill from FO3. During the demonstration, we saw two SPECIAL bobbleheads as well as a bobblehead for Barter.

This suggests, fairly strongly, that the different types of skills are not being errased or ignored.

I could easily be wrong on these points, but I couldn't help but think that they've simply changed the graduation from a 100 point percentage scale to say a 4 or 5 point scale.

I wasn't thrilled at the 'dumbing down' of Skyrim's stats... until I actually played it. While I like lots of numbers and metrics, the Skyrim system still played like a fun game for me, and that's the most important thing.

That's when I decided to have a better look at the Perk Poster. We had our first glimpse of this in the wallpaper image of the garage/workshop that serves as the background to the fallout4.com site. I immediately speculated on this being tied to the perk system, and we now know that a hard copy of this poster will be included in the Pip-Boy edition - clearly labelled as the Perk Poster.

Zooming in on the poster in that wallpaper image, I noticed a few things that I haven't seen mentioned before:

Every row has seven separate vault boys. The top row appears to be SPECIAL - I can just make out the black cat at the foot of the Luck vault boy, and the Agility vault boy is balancing on a bottle. The Strength vault boy is flexing in pure Charles Atlas glory as the first figure in that row.

There are ten subsequent rows, and each one has a set of stairs leading down to it. I imagine the rows correspond first and foremost to the level a perk is available at. Most rows have rectangles or circles in the background that, along with the colour scheme and the vault-tec logo, make me think this is clearly a vault themed poster. With that in mind, I'm trying to discount those shapes in deciphering the pixels as to what perks could be displayed.

If you look at the 6th row of perks (the 7th row from the top), in the column for Endurance, we see what appears to be a picture of Vault Boy on fire. Presumably this is a perk to shrug off fire damage. The perk on the row above looks like Vault Boy in a hot tub, possibly related to resisting environmental conditions or holding his breath longer. (Another possibility is that this is a bed, as there is a small rectangle above him that may be a window - the Well Rested perk?) The third row under Endurance looks to me like it's the Lifegiver perk, which makes perfect sense to group under Endurance.

Also in the third row, under Luck, we see one valut boy standing over what may be a dead and bleeding body, with blood stains on the wall. This brings the Better Criticals perk to my mind. Just above it, in the second row, I believe that is a picture of Vault Boy rummaging through a trunk - the Scrounger perk. Zoom in on the 9th row, and I think that might be a cowled figure holding a scythe... Grim Reaper's Sprint?

I haven't been able to pick anything out that clearly looks like the animated Vault Boys for Science and Gun Nut yet, but look at the third row under Intelligence. That seems to have a vault boy figure working at a desk or workbench.

Even if we don't see Skills-as-Perks among the 70 separate perks on this poster, that doesn't preclude the possibility that we might still have some sort of Skyrim-esque system. I'm also a little curious as to if there will be cumulative bonuses for taking more perks within a row or column.

What do you think?

My guess is that we get something like the skyrim perk trees but with say gun nut 1-4/5 as the trunk. this replaces the old skills. you have branches who require previous perk to be picked, say commando branches out of gun nut 2. All the more complex skills works this way. Others like cannibal and mysterious stranger does not use trees or perhaps one other perk depending on them.

Main problem will be perks who has other requirements it might be solved as perks is done today with an simple message.

The one thing that worries me about this kind of system is that while some perks logically follow from more "base" perks, some perks don't really have any relation to any others. Like the Scrounger perk... why should you have to get some other perk before that one? In Skyrim, you often had to pick up perks you really didn't want, in order to get perks you DID want that were higher in the 'tree'. Many PC mods re-worked the perk tree, though, to "spread the branches" as it were, and have fewer (especially unrelated) pre-requisite perks.

Not sure how I feel about the idea of the perks in that chart being tied to stats... like, if I want Well Rested, I have to have X value of Endurance now? And if I want Scrounger I have to have X amount of luck? Of course it could just be that Scrounger is a luck-related "skill/perk" (its efficacy scaled with Luck) that unlocks at level 10 or something --- the rows could be unrelated to the SPECIAL stat value.

Checkout the following link where they have figured out what some of the perks are on the Perk Chart.

http://tamrielvault.com/group/fallout-character-building/forum/topics/perks-chart-news

Why I hope for an more spread out tree than in Skyrim, easier as you don't have to match the perks with skills.

How about this.

1st row is SPECIAL

Under each are 10 further rows. Perhaps, those are the level a particular SPECIAL needs to be to obtain a perk.

e.g.(from OP) The third row under Endurance looks to me like it's the Lifegiver perk

So, in order to gain the Life Giver perk your Endurance needs to be level 3.

This is how it has worked in the past and the poster is just a visual representation.

Looks that way to me.

See this link to see more about what perks they think they can identify on the Perk Chart.

http://tamrielvault.com/group/fallout-character-building/forum/topics/perks-chart-news

Some of my favorite perks will require a pretty high stat to get now.

For example Grim Reaper's Sprint is on row nine under Luck.

Sniper is also on row nine under Perception.

This has me hopeful that each Lone Survivor play very different since unless you have concentrated on boosting a stat fairly high, you will only have access to the lower level perks for that stat.

The lower level perks are not that bad.

Gunslinger, Commando, and Sneak make up the first three perks for Agility.

Bloody Mess only requires a 3 Luck.

Lady Killer requires a 2 Charisma.

Lifegiver is a lot more useful when you are first starting out and only requires a 3 Endurance.

I noticed that Gun Nut requires a 3 Intelligence and Computer Wiz is next on the row and requires a 4 Intelligence.

I kinda hope they remove the level requirement on Perks.

With only 28 Special Stat points to start with, getting a 9 perception would leave you with an average of 3 in your other stats.

I think that is a fair price to start the game with the sniper perk.

You start out with an average Special Stat of four.

With the stat Bobbleheads and cyberware if it was available, you could have an average of six in each stat.

Your Lone Survivor could have three stats with a 10 and the remaining four stats would have a 3.

That would give you at least three play through just depending on which three stats you chose to max out.

And the way they have the special stats set up now, I think you will find a big difference in playing the game with a 10 in a particular stat and playing it with a 3.

If those levels correspond to SPECIAL scores I have to believe that increasing one's SPECIAL scores is going to be much easier in this game than in past games, otherwise you are just locked out of most Perks.

Also if I wanted to make a sniper (and I always do) I would really have to max out Perception which is going to leave me very lacking in other SPECIAL scores.

I think if access to those tiers is limited by SPECIAL stats, it will be a little too restrictive (unless leveling up somehow allows us to increase our SPECIAL stats, but that comes with its own problems). I suspect that the tiers are more likely to be level requirements, with a new tier opening up every two or three levels. Of course, there would also be SPECIAL prerequisites for individual perks like there are in FO3.

I also hope it's not a tree structure like Skyrim where you have to take every perk on a branch--I like FO3's free-form perk selection where you just have to meet the SPECIAL, skill, and level prerequisites.

Well, we are assuming the return of bobbleheads. So that's +1 for each SPECIAL. There's also rewards from quests that could raise a SPECIAL (like +1 to STR or INT from "Those" in F3). Implants and 'enchanted' clothing.

It's all just theory and speculation at the moment.

I think it will work really well.

You take an eight or nine in your prime stat, pick another two to have a 5 or 6, and set the rest to 2s or 3s.

Remember between stat bobbleheads and cyberware (they have synths so of course they will have cyber ware) you should be able to increase your Special stats by 14.

28 +14 = 42. Plus the Intensive Training perk.

That is three stats at 10 and the rest of 3.

I can live with only having access to over half the perks each play through depending on what type of build I make.

It would take you at least three different builds/play throughs to try out all the top tier perks.

Your Lone Survivor experience should be wildly different in each one.

I actually get the feeling that the bobbleheads are just an easteregg to FO3 without any meaning...

I'm almost hoping we don't get any chance to raise our SPECIAL, but Bethesda lately prefers to be really lenient about not locking us into decisions we made at the start of the game. That could just mean we get a respec option, though.

If they lock high-tier perks like Sniper or Solar Powered into 9 or 10 SPECIAL requirements, and then more generic perks like Science! or Gun Nut into lower SPECIAL, that would really add a ton of hard choices to make.

I think they will have meanings.

TTW had a nice system for the bobbleheads where they would give a small perk instead of a stat or skill increase.

So they might not give a stat increase but instead give a nice minor perk.

The Strength bobblehead could give +30 pounds of carry weight.

Perception could increase your detection range.

Luck could give a small increase in your critical rate.

There is a lot of nice stuff they could give as a perk for having the bobblehead without unbalancing the game.

My thought is that if skills are not in Fallout 4, then the skill bobbleheads will give a perk relevant to that skill like the Lockpick bobblehead causing you to break fewer lockpicks.

Or the Explosives bobblehead giving you a damage boost with explosives.

I agree. I'm hopping that we can raise our specials some but not too much.

Hard choices make for a better game with more roleplaying and more play throughs.