Fallout 4 Eliminates Skills From Character System

[IceForce]

One of the most disjointed things about FO3 and FONV was the way you would be forced to level up and spend your skill points right there on the spot each time you leveled up. Often this would happen at the least opportune of times, sometimes even in the middle of combat (when it wasn't supposed to). And it also led to meta-gaming of sorts, to ensure you were making the most use of the skill points, and to make sure you got a high INT early on to maximize the skill points given to you at each level up.

Skyrim didn't have this problem, and FO4's streamlining of this system sounds even better still.

 

[kenu12345]

I hate to be that guy, but this is looking pretty bad.

Basically, if this is how it seems, the game will be significantly less of an RPG than its predecessors.

Unless they set up a perk system where you have to take proficiency perks to be able to use or be good with certain things, every character will be able to do anything like in Skyrim.

It's like how Yahtzee describes games that are RPGs vs games that have RPG elements. If I use a type of gun that's unlike any I've used or been trained in, I should be shit with it, plain and simple.

This looks like they're going the other way and making it a shooter at core with simple RPG elements around the edges.

It's too early to tell for sure, but this just gives me bad vibes.

Yeah, sadly it seems that way for me too and I am honestly losing more and more excitement for this game. At this point, I am just going to see my friend who is buying into the hype play it first than make a judgement there

 

[Denamic]

The skills system is an old relic; archaic and arbitrary. Honestly the weakest part of character building in Fallout 3 and NV. I'm not too sad to see it go.

 

[Karadalis]

Fucking called it.

Who cares about Fallout being an RPG when we could make it a dime a dozen Shooter with RPG elements instead right?

What I mean is when I leveled up in Fallout, I went:
"Oh, points. I guess I'll do some more damage now (or rather, pour it all into speech and lockpicking to find all locations in the game)"
but for perks, it was more:
"HOLY SHIT PERKS YES! Which one do I want? Explode into bloody mess? Have a guardian angel!?"

Only now the perks will be:

Hey you get 20% more hitchance with energy weapons and cant craft more components! And that perk has 3 to 4 more levels! Isnt that exciting?

With this system they removed skills AND dumped down perks giving you LESS choice over your character growth.

Perks fleshed out your character before, now they define your character and are used as content locks.

 

[kenu12345]

Also is no one going to bring up that this game has less perks due to this system? I really ain't confident for the amount of fun perks in this game. I always loved the skill system and it was especially awesome in New Vegas since it made it possible to make any sort of build

 

[IceForce]

I have to bring people's attention to Skyrim, and point out that Bethesda removed Attributes from that game. (You remember, ... Strength, Willpower, Endurance, Luck, etc.)

And was that game severely disadvantaged and ruined by such a change? Nope. Your mileage may vary, but I'm going to go with a definitive 'nope'.

Stop doomsaying, people, until you've actually played the game.

 

[Karadalis]

I have to bring people's attention to Skyrim, and point out that Bethesda removed Attributes from that game. (You remember, ... Strength, Willpower, Endurance, Luck, etc.)

And was that game severely disadvantaged and ruined by such a change? Nope. Your mileage may vary, but I'm going to go with a definitive 'nope'.

The level up system in Skyrim was shite. So shite infact that people felt the need to mod it because it was so boring and jampacked with bland perks that simply increased this damage or that effeciency by a certain percentage. Not exactly RPG prime material.

Not only that but there was an item in the game that made a complete perktree unnecesary (lockpicking)

Removing Stats from skyrim did infact take it away from being an RPG and turned it more into a FPS action adventure. Because no longer could you say that your character was unique. Infact besides racial spells it didnt matter if you where a lizard, a north or an elf.. at the end they could be the exact same character.

Great RPG indeed where everyone is the same.. communist paradise.

 

[Quellist]

Fuck it, its not Fallout if they change it this much. I'm reminded of Deus Ex:Invisible War when the announcement was made that skills were being removed to 'streamline' the game.

Just like Mass Effect from 1-3 It's turning from an RPG with shooter elements into a shooter with RPG elements.

If there is a Fallout 5 they'll likely dispense with S.P.E.C.I.A.L entirely

 

[Fappy]

Honestly doesn't bother me all that much to be honest. Fallout 3 didn't seem like that much of a number-crunching/min-maxy game anyway.

Now if they continue to dumb down TES I'll have a problem...

 

[BoogieManFL]

So long as it doesn't reduce the overall options available as your character grows and reaches high levels, this sounds like a great change.

Especially with the lack of in-game explanations of how much a difference each point made, and what any milestones there may be.

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

Looking at those pics I didn't see many perks I couldn't already recognize. Hopefully you can actually pick and choose instead of needing to take them sequentially, because Mysterious Stranger can fuck off, and if Nerd Rage is the final Int perk then who cares?

I didn't have any problems with FO3's system, but I did run into a problem (of my own making) in New Vegas.

I was supposed to train some recruits with weapons. The problem being that they needed training in Guns ONLY, which required like 50+ in the skill, and I had never used one so I wasn't able to do it. I was at max level or something that prevented me from just training myself up to be able to do the quest.

I used energy weapons and my ballistic fist, which I found to be vastly superior to conventional firearms.

 

[wulfy42]

Sigh.

Look, I know skills where not great/perfect. I realize they didn't work in F3 and NV as well as in 1 and 2. But "streamlining" is never good in an rpg. The less systems you have for character customization, the less unique each character can be, and the less reasons you have for playing the game over again with a different setup (or even for feeling like you have made a custom character for one playthrough).

Perks where great in the fallouts because they usually greatly changed how a character played or what a character could do. They where based on your stats as well (with min requirements for many perks), and they worked in combination with your skills (sometimes boosting skills, expanding how a skill would work etc).

Taking skill points out, means everything is controlled by perks now. So either A: You need more perks per level to have the same amount of character development or B: characters will gain new abilities etc slower then previously.

Also, realize this means that equipment that boosts skills, and other ways to temporarily boost them, will probably be out as well (although perhaps they will have equipment that gives you an extra perk level in a skill now).

Skills, Skill books, magazines etc where all great motivators to explore the wasteland as well. Now, it says you can get certain perks from finding books....so that may still be in the game a bit, but it's still going to be a big change.

The stats (from the little we have seen) seem to have less impact as well. I read in an article that perception etc is going to have less of an effect on how easy you can hit enemies then it did before for instance. It looks like many of the RPG mechanics may be gone in F4.

I know some like it as a FPS with just light RPG elements, but that is not how the game started off, and not how many of us played the last 2 games (And really loved them). I hate to see it moving more towards an action type game...with only minor RPG elements. I hope that is not going to be the case when it is released.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

I'm actually kind of intrigued and somewhat ok with this idea.

Here's the thing: the vast majority of RPGs that have come out have been fantasy-esque RPGs, so certain aspects of the skills made sense. It made sense that your character with high strength did more damage when they hit the baddie with their sword, and it made further sense that them having a high skill in one-handed swords meant that they hit a more vital part of the target and did more damage.

But in the new Fallouts, which are largely FPS based, it makes very little sense that just because my character has high agility or a high small arms skill (or both), that a bullet fired into the exact same part of an opponents chest somehow does a different damage depending on my skill level, or that a grenade magically does more damage just because I have a high explosives skill.

Time will tell, but I'm intrigued by this new system and want to see how it plays out.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Just like Mass Effect from 1-3 It's turning from an RPG with shooter elements into a shooter with RPG elements.

This argument is a huge bug-bear of mine: the skill system on the original Mass Effect made no damn sense because it assumes you're Cpl. Newbie and not, as the intro actually articulates an already skilled and reasonably famous special operations soldier. Not being able to aim down a gun sight because you haven't spent skill points in that game was bloody stupid. This is not to say gutting it like they did for ME2 was sensible, especially the weapon modification - oh how I missed that - but fabricating better parts makes a hell of a lot more sense.

 

[Chicago Ted]

I'm waiting to see how this turns out, but I'm cautiously optimistic. I already prepared and expected for the game to be made more, I hate to use the term, but casual in terms of mechanics, but this looks like it could be a nice middle ground. I don't think there was anything particularly good about Fallout 3 and New Vegas's approach to leveling and skills, I mean, several skills could very easily be translated directly into perks, I'm looking at you Lockpicking. It was only with a decent amount of modding and the introduction of several additional features in New Vegas, primarily crafting, that made Skill expenditure more meaningful.

HOWEVER.

There are a few really big flags so far that I've seen that make me extremely cautious to this new system. Not because the concept of it is bad, but because Bethesda has made poor design choices. I preface this next statement with it not being an issue with sexuality within these games, but more how it is portrayed through design choices.

Bethesda has already proven to be massively out of touch in some areas of character design to me that has only been further cemented by this. Namely, the predetermined backstory forcing a set narrative onto a character that should be left far more open to the player, and the apparent removal of two of my favourite perks from New Vegas, Cherchez La Femme and Confirmed Bachelor. In the video, scrolling through the Charisma perks, we can find the equivalent of Lady Killer once again. The issue I have with this is that it appears to remove both of these perks that present homosexual options in game. Personally, I've never really used either of these, but the inclusion and opportunity of each was great, gave the opportunity to add a lot more flavor to your character and how they interacted with the world. Bethesda's approach to this so far appears to be the exact same as the one they took with Skyrim, by making every companion romanceable and thus bisexual. I feel this essentially neuters each of them from the start by making gender irrelevant to them, and removing the ability for having meaning given to a character through sexuality. I mean, give us a lesbian character, a couple that are gay, and maybe a bisexual one, and it'd be great, because it could play a larger roll in each character instead of just glossing over far more potentially interesting distinctions and traits.

Wow that got ranty.

tl;dr

System itself looks fine, cautiously optimistic, however it looks like Bethesda is openly ignoring good improvements to game design done by Obsidian because Bethesda still hates New Vegas.

 

[Rastrelly]

Welp, Fallout has now officially lost its RPG status. How great it is!

 

[Dalsyne]

When I think about all the time I've spent hemming and hawing over how to split up eighteen points across five skills, something with a little less busywork can sound appealing.

[silently boils inside]

Meaningful decision-making, the cornerstone of any computer RPG. Is a bad thing.

I want to go kick something.

 

[Kyrian007]

I see a lot of people saying that this new system sounds like they're making the RPG engine more like Skyrim than previous Fallouts. And I agree, but I don't really have a problem with it. As happy with Morrowind as I was, I found the leveling system in Skyrim to be more interesting, dynamic, and ultimately it created more replayability than the bog standard systems prior. My second Skyrim character seemed early on to be almost exactly the same as my first. But the realization hit pretty quickly that if you want a different character in Skyrim, you have to change how you play the game. And that was far more interesting. Instead of creating a character, you have to develop a character. Over time. And you can't just try and level everything up and powerlevel everything because soon your level will outstrip your combat and defense ability and all that blacksmith, enchanting, potions, lockpicking, and speech grinding will get you pounded into mulch. It was a system that rewarded players for developing unique characters rather than just following a "build checklist."

To be fair, it was badly balanced. Stealth and Bows breaks the game quite forcefully. But back to Fallout, it was always good to try and make different kinds of characters, utilizing different skills. The most fun I've ever had with a character was a run through FO3 with a character who never put any points into small guns. It's looking like FO 4 will have that "develop as opposed to create" look at making a character. I'm looking forward to it.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I wish they labeled the perks because I have no idea why guns are important to Strength.

In New Vegas, it was the missile launcher, fat man and anti material rifle. Basically any gun that was over (I think) 10 weight had a strength requirement. If you had the required strength, you didn't get an accuracy penalty.