Fallout 4 Eliminates Skills From Character System

[Veldel]

And another note for the whiners bleating about "dumbing down..." FO 3 and NV improved on the formula of 1 and 2. I said it, and it's true. Every character in 1 and 2 had to go down the same path or die. Level small guns early, learn power armor, and then learn big guns or energy weapons. Because you needed power armor and big guns or energy weapons to beat the super mutants and power armor soldiers. It was a more linear system for creating varied versions of the exact same hero. However, in FO3 and NV it was not only possible to beat the game without power armor and big guns or energy weapons (as it was possible but rarer and more difficult in 1 and 2) it was actually a viable build. I was so bored with FO characters ending the game with power armor and big guns/energy weapons that my first characters in 3 and NV went the entire game without ever getting power armor or big guns or energy weapons. And as we all know, you take a more cautious and tactical approach (less kick down the door and smash) and this is a character "build" that is easily valid and can even be overpowered. We went from "the player makes different versions of the same hero" to "allowing the player to be whatever kind of hero he would like." I guess you could call that "dumbing down" I would classify it aas making it a better RPG. And again, accepting that it's possible the changes to 4 could be bad, I also recognize that changes to the series up to this point have been way more good than bad. I'll give Bethesda the benefit of the doubt.

actually you don't need that in Fallout 1 or 2 I watched my friend play his first playthrough with nothing but fists and speech. He never used a gun even against muties.
Honestly it duesnt matter much to me if it sucks il just wait for a mod on pc to fix it.

I just hope the game has a better story then 3 or skyrim

 

[Wuvlycuddles]

Looks to me that it's about giving the player better choice and an easier time of planning ahead. But screw Bethesda for wanting more people to enjoy their game, am I right?

Whether you like it or not, you're right. Mainstreaming is a sound business decision, but it's horrible for the IP and often the gameplay.

I'd argue mainstreaming generally improves gameplay, but I concede it tends to hurt in other areas. Like with Mass Effect the third game has the most fun gameplay but worst story (well, tied with 2 at least but no where near as good as 1). And then there is the Witcher series, it has become more mainstream with each game and I very much doubt there are many Witcher 1 purists bitching about Witcher 3's improved gameplay.

 

[Caffiene]

So essentially now I have the choice of whether I want to be effective in combat or to do fun stuff like Bloody Mess, instead of being able to do each separately? Woooo what an improvement that sounds like!

 

[Frankster]

I'm neutral like the swiss on this topic.

I'll need to see the perks in question and how many of them there are before I jump to conclusions, my main fear being that there won't be enough of them to make levelling feel satisfying or that it would be too much like skyrim perks, which imo was somewhat lacking and one of the first mods I always get it something to make the perk tree more interesting.

Levelling is at least 20% of the fun in rpgs! xP So yeah will have to wait and see on this.

 

[AntiChri5]

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.

Meaningful decision making is great, but all too often applying points to a chart feels pretty meaningless. But, then, I also think statistical busywork in tabletop RPGs is usually a waste of time too.

I was always a fan of more game complexity, not less - especially considering Fallout 2 was my favorite game for a long while, seeing one of the crucial elements of the game stripped away in favor of a World of Warcraft type of system is especially depressing.

Almost makes me want to wish we lived in an alternate universe where Interplay didn't sell the Fallout rights to Bethesda and instead kept them and used them for a Kickstarter a la Pillars of Eternity, making Fallout 3 a glorious isometric CRPG like in the old days.

No, Wasteland 2 isn't as good.

Don't confuse complexity for depth. Complexity in and of itself is not something to strive for. It is only worthwhile when it brings depth. If complexity can be reduced without sacrificing depth, it absolutely should.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

I really enjoyed skills! D:

Come on... :c

 

[Atmos Duality]

Don't confuse complexity for depth. Complexity in and of itself is not something to strive for. It is only worthwhile when it brings depth. If complexity can be reduced without sacrificing depth, it absolutely should.

This is entirely accurate.
Which is why it's a pity there isn't an ounce of depth in Bethesda's games.

Just because Bethesda is shedding needless complexity between Fallout 3 and Fallout 4, does not mean Fallout 4 will actually be any better as a game. It will most likely be the same boring game as Fallout 3 with some of Skyrim's design elements.

 

[Zulnam]

Might be interesting. After four games, the skill system got way too old for me.

Also, how exactly are they explaining the fact that, even though the Nuclear War happened somewhere around 1950 and the year is 2200+, they somehow seemed to have managed to advance technologically with orbital beam lasers. Wouldn't it make more sense to have a decline of technology?

They forgot that a Nuclear Bomb is bad but orbital laser satellites? Pff, found that blueprint on a rock.

 

[spartan231490]

Good God Bathesda, please don't go the way of bioware. Pretty please. For real, stop dumbing down your games, we like them complex, and thanks to bioware going the way of the casual you're pretty much the only dev still making decent RPG games.

 

[Politrukk]

Take away more variety from my rpg's why don't you.

it's not like Skyrim was a dumbed down version of Morrowind/Oblivion and that being one of the exact points of critique on that game.


I don't get it honestly, when are we going to get games that cater more to indepth choices/play again instead of this malarkey?

 

[Shadowkire]

Take away more variety from my rpg's why don't you.

it's not like Skyrim was a dumbed down version of Morrowind/Oblivion and that being one of the exact points of critique on that game.


I don't get it honestly, when are we going to get games that cater more to indepth choices/play again instead of this malarkey?

When the "indepth" players are numerous enough to support a AAA game by themselves.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

I for one won't miss the skills. When you have a scale of 1-100, it's really hard to see the impact of those tiny increments you go up by each time you level up or use a skill book. With the exception of the hardcoded skill checks for science and lock picking in Fallout 3, there wasn't much to get excited about. Perks are definitely where it's at.

 

[EternallyBored]

Might be interesting. After four games, the skill system got way too old for me.

Also, how exactly are they explaining the fact that, even though the Nuclear War happened somewhere around 1950 and the year is 2200+, they somehow seemed to have managed to advance technologically with orbital beam lasers. Wouldn't it make more sense to have a decline of technology?

They forgot that a Nuclear Bomb is bad but orbital laser satellites? Pff, found that blueprint on a rock.

The war didn't happen until the 2070's, the 1950's stuff is just an aesthetic thing, the game is sort of based on what people in the 1950's thought technology would be like, so the 1950's ended but the U.S. never really culturally changed from that era in the Fallout universe.

The laser satellites, like the Poseidon Energy weapon in New Vegas and the one in the 4 trailer are not new technology, they are pre-war tech that gets rediscovered and utilized. There will be some new technology in 4 since it's based in the Boston area, and FO3 established that the androids from that area were new tech being built by the commonwealth, but pretty much all the other stuff: robots, plasma weapons, cyborgs, power armor, etc. is just repaired pre-war technology. You can see that in the FO4 trailer actually, which has a segment that takes place in the past during the war and you can see that they have vertibirds and power armor, as well as the Mr. Handy robot.

 

[Strazdas]

well that is interesting. while i liked skill system, this might work if done right. but then, i doubt that it will. whats "Right" for me is usually not popular.

Really it doesn't sound so bad, so long as no system they come up with requires me to grind, a la "makes 100,000 leather bracelets to train the Smithing skill."

i never had to grind in Fallout games. in fact i think the skill progression was too fast. i remmeber maxing everything in 3 by the time i was a third into the game. the only time i remmeber grinding anything was fallout 1 (1998) when i killed 10 deathclaws just to level up a bit before the ending. it involved having to kill 2 deathclaws then telling characters to wait so they would respawn.

Also the SPECIAL attributes were kinda meh compared to skills in Fallout games. I never really shouted it over and over but them being more important is nice.

On a side note, there's some interesting stuff on Bethesda's website this blurb doesn't cover. For example, magazines now give you Perks, either advancing ones you can get through regular levels or unlocking totally new ones.

well magazines gave you skills in previuos ones so thats not really new if we change skills for perks.

They did not, in fact there is no level cap and play long enough, you can get EVERY Perk to it's maximum rank and EVERY SPECIAL score to 10. Which is in fact required to get the Perks further down the line.

How do you know this? the no level cap thing if true just doubled my interest in the game.

There's no two ways about it, it's about dumbing down the game for the mainstream.
The less choice you give people, the worse it is, it's that simple.

But its not less choice. Before you could choose out of what, 20 skills? now you can choose out of 77 perks. According to Bethesdas video, its not tiered. so no "necessary progression path" for most.

For now, the only thing I can anticipate is agonizing even longer at the beginning over how to spend my SPECIAL points, in exchange for the occasional "Hmm, how to split up my 18 points this time?"

Not really, since now you can add SPECIAL points when you level up so if you made a mistake it can be quickly fixed.

 

[Auron225]

For now, the only thing I can anticipate is agonizing even longer at the beginning over how to spend my SPECIAL points, in exchange for the occasional "Hmm, how to split up my 18 points this time?"

Not really, since now you can add SPECIAL points when you level up so if you made a mistake it can be quickly fixed.

Oh, well that would give me some peace of mind - but at the same time, I didn't really like how you could get more SPECIAL points in Fallout 3. Does this mean you can get all SPECIAL skills to 10?

See, to me that kills the idea of SPECIAL. I thought it was designed to set up strengths and weaknesses of any character you build. "I'm weak as a kitten but damn clever", "I'm strong as an ox and no smarter than an ox", that kind of thing. To be stupendous at everything kind of takes away from that idea, and I know that you wouldn't be until you're already very far into the game and have levelled up a lot, but it still feels strange to just not have any flaws anymore with enough exp.

 

[Strazdas]

For now, the only thing I can anticipate is agonizing even longer at the beginning over how to spend my SPECIAL points, in exchange for the occasional "Hmm, how to split up my 18 points this time?"

Not really, since now you can add SPECIAL points when you level up so if you made a mistake it can be quickly fixed.

Oh, well that would give me some peace of mind - but at the same time, I didn't really like how you could get more SPECIAL points in Fallout 3. Does this mean you can get all SPECIAL skills to 10?

See, to me that kills the idea of SPECIAL. I thought it was designed to set up strengths and weaknesses of any character you build. "I'm weak as a kitten but damn clever", "I'm strong as an ox and no smarter than an ox", that kind of thing. To be stupendous at everything kind of takes away from that idea, and I know that you wouldn't be until you're already very far into the game and have levelled up a lot, but it still feels strange to just not have any flaws anymore with enough exp.

theoretically, yes. if you completely ignore all perks and put everything into SPECIAL you could get all SPECIAL maxed by level 42. If you pick all perks at least once (they have multiple levels with different benefits), that raises to level 112. If we assume (we dont know) they are using same level system as they did in new vegas, we are talking hundreds of hours of gaming here. so its not like everyone is going to be running out maxed.

do note that in Fallout 3 the level cap was at 30 and in new vegas at 50 (was smaller at launch), so even ignoring all perks is pushing it in comparative levels. And most people wont ignore perks.