So with the many changes the new installment brings, I feel as if some were arbitrary, or trying too hard to "innovate". Skills were a core mechanic of the fallout series, and a way to raise your numerical stats, such as how much AID items heal you, weapon damage, how hard you are to detect, etc... while perks allowed you to gain new abilities, ways to play and approach various in-game situations. Such as, special dialogue with those of the opposite gender, getting bonus damage resistance when sprinting, being able to tackle flash step to enemies when in melee VATS, etc... In fallout 4, skills have been condensed into the perk tree and this causes a couple of issues with me.

1) The condensed system creates a bunch of "fluff" perks. Rifleman, Commando, Gunslinger, Medic, Sneak, etc... What was the point of removing the skill system if you were basically going to re-integrate what they do anyways?

2) This ties in with #1, since everything is in your perk chart now, you are forced to choose between upgrading your numerical values (the boring stuff), or giving your character new options and abilities at their disposal, which is the whole point of perks.

3) Various skill specialties and playstyles players had at their disposal are now level gated. Want to be an awesome master of stealth to get the drop on your enemies or avoid them entirely to make up for your relative low level frailness? Well you got to wait until level 28. Want to be a brawling machine that only needs his fists to deal with things? Well you have to wait until 31 to maximize your unarmed damage.

The only objectively good change with the new perk system is that the hacking and lock picking skills are now in the binary system (you either have it or you don't).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLptDJdI0L8 (I highly recommend watching before discussing.)

I think this system is a huge improvement over the old system, and it solves every problem I had with Fallout 3 and New Vegas: running out of places to put your skill points by the time you reached the level cap, the existence of a level cap in the first place, the relative unimportance of SPECIAL, and being forced to distribute skill points and a perk the instant you level. It's also way less linear - the amount of choices you have at any given level is staggering, and your experience is going to be a lot different based on when you take the perks as much as which ones you take. I think the perk chart does a better job of representing the value of every choice you can make, and it eliminates redundant choices like Charisma being a dump stat and Speech being the most important stat in the game.

My only beef is with certain perks that are ultimately useless. But I'll take a dumpy perk over dump stats or disproportionately essential stats (*coughINTcough*) in the older games. And I can't really single out Fallout 4 for having a few perks I'd pretty much never take.

I'm torn. There are some major improvements, like BOX MAAAN listed. But it also has some major flaws It eliminates the "weak but skilled" play styles I've enjoyed in the past, like Str 1 unarmed or a throughly unlikeable person who none the less knows their way around a debate.

But my biggest problem with the current system is that perks have level requirements, some of which are obscenely high for what they do.

I shouldn't have to wait until I reach level 21 to hack any terminal I see, nor should I have to be level 38 to have mastered sneaking.

Rather than SPECIAL requirements AND level requirements I would have liked to see something like this:

You can get any perk at any time provided you meet the SPECIAL requirement.

As you pick perks, the SPECIAL requirement for the next level of that perk grows (e.g.: Sneak goes from 3 Agility to 5 Agility).

I would also like it if you could get perks that you didn't meet the SPECIAL requirement for, provided you were at a significant level, as a way of maintaing the weak but skilled idea.

I like the new perk selection method as it lets you fine tune a character a bit more but I also miss the leveling they used n Oblivion where the more you used something, the faster that skill improved.

I love the design of the system, but some of the perks need work. Too many of the perks are associated with VATS, for example, even though lots of players like myself prefer not to use it. Other perks would be useful but are made irrelevant by other aspects of the game. For example, stimpaks and radaway are so abundant that there is little reason to consider the Medic perk. The abundance of power cores mitigates the need to make them last longer with Nuclear Physicist. There are other examples.

Still, on my third game I've yet to reach that point where I was the master of everything and the system does prevent the 'sameness' syndrome that I've had in earlier games.

Skills, perks, traits, SPECIAL. That's how it should've remained. There was calling for reiteration and improvements, but not as drastic as to throw it all away as was done.

There are mods that remove the level restrictions for perks, but that only applies for PC users for now. The current system has more flexibility in what perks you can pick for each level. Level 2 has 70 perks to choose from while in Fallout 3, you only had 7 perks to choose from at Level 2. So if you want to play as a Cannibal, then you pretty much start the game as a Cannibal instead of waiting till level 12.

A thing I didn't consider is the skill point system somewhat breaks down with an unlimited level cap. Does everything max out at 100 and eventually be a master of everything and run out of places to put your skill points? Or does it go on and on where you can have 240 sneak and can practically be non existent when crouched at level 20?

Perhaps a hybrid system is in order. If I were the Devs, I'd keep the perk chart, removing said "fluff perks", and add them back as the skills they were initially (bar lock pick and hacking). Then give skills a default cap of 100 modified by your level and give you a fixed number of skill points granted each level to keep Min/maxing from getting too out of control. So your maximum skill capacity increases by one point for each level. So at level 20, you could potentially raise a skill to 120 points. Since the skill cap rises as you level and the fixed number of skill points keeps you from filling your skills faster than they can rise, you'll always have something to put points into, and you'll never max out every skill.

I like that it makes SPECIAL attributes mean something. You can't have medicine and hacking at 100, when you've got an INT of 2, for instance.

I don't mind that skills were rolled into perks, at all.


I don't like about the new system that being able to continuously raise SPECIAL attributes means they are devalued all over again.

Yes, I know it takes a long time to get all of them, even if you are negating normal perks, and that a lot of the perks require attributes to be leveled.


But, I also think that not every build needs access all of those perks- only the ones relevant for the type of character.

I think they should have either dropped attribute leveling and given more points at character generation, so you could pick well rounded attributes towards build type, or made it so you can only raise a SPECIAL attributes, say every 5 levels.


You can impose limits, don't get me wrong- one of my builds no longer uses perk points at level up.

But, aside from it being very possible to make a jack of all trades, it's that having everything open to you at some point is counter productive to the idea of picking and sticking with a defined character.

My only beef with the current system is level requirements. If I want to specialize in hacking, I shouldn't have to wait until I'm level 8 to increase my skill.


I've earned the point, now let me spend it where I want and when I want.

Reasons,

1) FNV/Fo3 It was too hard on players not familiar with RPG gaming to get into the game despite its cross over into first person shooter....Which led to both being a bad RPG and a bad shooter.

a) Try explaining the idea of missing a shot despite the player obviously landing those shots to new players and then convince them that this is a fun mechanic.

b ) Now explain why a character with an INT of 1 can become a Master of everthing in the course of the game....Now explain how that makes since.

2) Ultimately, Perks were actually not as special as some would have us actually believe.

a) Many Perks were in fact actually Broken....I mean that the perk did not function at all or as intended and not brokenly overpowered but in fact plain broken not usable.

b ) you were usually better off always picking perks that increased damage.

c) Most Perks unfortunately the ones increasing damage pretty much did not cover say all the appropriate weapon types due to them being too lazy to include such a patch in their game....

d) Leads to players like myself having to patch said crap.

e) Many perks that did function only functioned in said limited windows, meaning that the player would rarely see the perk at work....So why bother with it?

f) Some Perks were in fact just Over Poweredly way over the top game breakingly Powerful and easy to get right away.

In all honestly YOGSCAST Will makes a lot of really nice points BUT, and a big BUT....He's wrong........The Perks always were just bad and just aweful, there was next to nothing very interesting about them outside of the fluff and anyone with experience with modding could open up the game look at the actual mechanics and just see how poorly designed quite a few perks were.

You want decent perks, your going to either have to make them yourself or wait for someone else to design them when the Garden of Eden Kit/Construction Set Kit comes out.

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The real problem with the current system is that they distilled it into what was actually useful and cut out too much fluff....

The Fluff is what people got attached to they actually think that the fluff makes their character better.

The end-user develops an almost insane attachment to said "Fluff" but the fluff is no more than mere words written on a page in many cases.

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Skyrims skill system of learn by doing was in a lot of ways better than their Fallout titles.

Also well Mods that people made to alter the perks in Skyrim are really kinda cool and fun to play with over the base game well by leagues really.

The existing system isn't without it's problems, but I do believe that it's a huge improvement over the FO3/NV system. If I were to make any changes, I would probably remove the level gates, swap the Rifleman type perks out for something more interesting, and rebalance the game around not having the damage-increasing perks.

Like others have said, its nice that special is important. I would have preferred that skills get capped by special though, with perks remaining that special cherry on top that makes your character unique. I really liked how game-changing some perks were, though the uniqueness of them is diminished by the open-endedness of character building.

Skills capped by special, that doesn't sound like a bad idea. So assuming you are sticking by the 100 point skill limit, that would mean you get the cap raises by 10 points per special (110 if you count bobble heads). Yeah, I do like that your special is more relevant in fallout 4.

It could have been done better, But overall I like the change. In Fallout 3 and NV my playthroughs ended up starting the same way. With me Making a mad dash to Get the intelligence bobblehead/implant with a minimum of leveling, to maximize my end skill points. New system takes that worry away from me.

I miss skills mostly for their checks.

I miss the fact that your actual skills changed your personality, as you would be able to employ your expertise in special situations and even conversations.

So if they had come up with a frequent and noticably punishing/rewarding way to do the same thing with the basic "skill improvement perks" of FO4, I would actually be satisfied. I just like it when it feels like I'm not just picking numbers for combat.

the new system is an improvement, the skills didn't go anywhere they're just in perks not points, its actulaly more refined, you have to really think out what you want to specialize in, in NV, fallout 3 you ended up with most of your skills at or close to 100 and thats before level 30, now at level 30 you might be powerful but you don't have everything specialized, just because the skills are defind by points is irrelevant, the perks raise the skills, its far better than points, the system of no level cap has been implemented well, you start with far less special stats also, its a better system all around, people just hate change even if its for the better, i like being able to raise my skills thru perks, its works fine.

That′s your absolute personal experience my friend.

In less time i maxxed out most of the stuff required in fallout 4 then i ever was able to do in nv or 3. With the additional legendary items - that override the requirement to put any points into the perks - i shred everything in F4 down in less then half the time i actually do in my nv walkthrough.

If there's one thing I'd have liked, is a bit more consequence for your choices. So selecting one perk would close off other perks. That would give you a reason to play again with a different build. As it stands now, you can pick everything up and there's little reason to reroll. Technically, theres only 1 build in the game. I know thats an obtuse way of looking at it, but its true. The current system is too generous.

I understand the complaints about level requirements and some of them do seem pretty high for no reason, but at the same time it allows for character progression. I mean if we had access to all armor mods or weapon mods by level 4, it would kind of break the game.

I did not play previous Fallout games, so I'll not comment on other aspects. That being said, I liked that in Skyrim you had a skill progression through use, and then perks unlocked as you were getting more skillful in a tree. There were still level requirements for perks, which I was fine with.

I voted for "I like the older separate skill and perk system of older titles, but it could use improvements." but frankly IMHO the level up system is not so much the issue, the bigger problem is that the quest design do not reward completely different builds enough, so every play-trough feels more or less the same.

But you could do that in Skyrim. You could max out your smithing and have access to all the weapons and armor sans unique or quest locked before you leveled up any other skill. Just like how in Fallout 3 and New Vegas you could maximize your hacking or lockpicking or sneaking skill early on, though that might leave you at a disadvantage due to enemy health and damage scaling while you let your combat skills atrophy. Skyrim was https://i.imgur.com/8M1cj3Q.jpg. I don't see how it allows for character progression. I just think it forces you to advance your characters in other ways due to arbitrary restrictions.

Skyrim requiring a certain level of skill for each perk was fine in theory. The problem with the skill trees were that they were linear. If you wanted Glass Smithing, you had to take Elven Smithing first.

I'm hoping the next TES game keeps the Skill Tree constellations, but tosses the linearity out the window. If you have 100 in Lockpicking, go ahead and take the perk that means your picks never break. And before anyone says "Well then nobody would pick those other perks because they're pointless then," if their only virtue is what they can do for you before you get the best perk in the tree, they seem pretty useless to me anyway and should be redesigned with an actual use at the end stages.

i like the new system but it can be improved

like by esample new perks /ranks in the form of skillbooks/ magazines with each book giving you a new rank

you can expa,d the perktable even more that way

you can't max everything out that easy in falllout 4, no way, you would have to get to like level 300 to max everything out, i doubt you got to level 300, to max every perk/ranks etc takes 274 levels i think it is, then to raise all your special stats is another 30 levels or so, 99% of the people aren't gonna get anywhere near even level 100 let alone 300, they're gonna restart a new game or quit before then. so i don't believe you maxed everything out and certainly not faster than in fallout 3 or NV. i've played those games for years myself it takes about the same time to get to level 30 in both fallout 3 and fallout 4 but in fallout 4 you barely have anything maxed out by level 30 but in fallout 3 and NV almost everything is maxed out by level 20 or 30, so i'm not sure what you're talking about, it takes a long time to level up as you gain levels in fallout 4, it becomes progressively harder and i don't see anyone really playing long enough and reach level 300 on fallout 4.

I miss skills and traits because they helped me define my character build. The new system is alright, though I would have been perfectly happy if they would have left it like it was.