Fallout 4 Pre-Release Discussion [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

Interplay subforum then.

 

Internet generation: "I'll be the judge of what's real from my basement."

I wonder what society would look like if stupidity was a criminal offense.

 

Especially when you consider the fact that out of all skill systems, this one translates to FPS game the best.

Holy shit how stupid he is. He doesn't actually understands that this noodle-handed guy wouldn't hit like a train in the first 2 3 fallouts(tactics included) and it was wonderful choice of weapon damage scaling with skills which made it happen?

edit:

Nope.

The problem in those system is limited to relatively few problems of balance nature.

First of them is Charisma being... not as useful as it should. The "elaborate" dialogue option were given from intellect so it functioned kinda like "beauty" in Arcanum - there were very few situations where it was great but most of the times it was meh.

Next you've had Luck being OP because crits were too strong. Again - it's because combat system was done in the way it was.
Or for example the attribute limit at 10, it should go over it and WORK but it shouldn't be achievable by means other than chems/special items(power armours). I mean if somebody can already take 2 tones of shit on his back(STR 10) he be able to carry even more in power armour(STR 13-14). If somebody is genius, implant increasing his intelligence will make him Cleve Blakemore. You get the idea. Here you've didn't get any bonuses for going above 10.

And it all ends up in dump skills like first aid or doctor, their checks were too rare to matter and after early game they were useless.

However the core of the system is wonderful. Very logical, elegant, straightforward and gives enough depth to personalise your character as well.
When you compare it to(let's say) Wasteland 2, where there's no link between base attributes and skills, and some skills are split in the middle for no reason to appear like there's more of them(lockpicking and safecracking - "safecracking" should be high level lockpicking ffs) it becomes really obvious that something's missing.

 

Reddit guy isn't exactly wrong (except for the unarmed example), if you're too retarded to speak you shouldn't really be able to decode the countdown codes for Mariposa's self destruct system. The character/skill system worked really well in Fo1/2 (useless skills aside) but it's reasonable to shake it up for Fo4. If we have to have an aRPG FPS instead of an isometric turn based game, we should at least welcome experimentation with the skill system to find something that works, otherwise we end up with Fo3 again. Even NV succeeds in spite of the skill system rather than because of it.

They'll botch it in classic Bethesda style, I'm sure, but their willingness to change things around and see what works isn't a bad thing in itself.

 

While I do believe that this perk system is superior to the perk trees a lot of these mmoish RPGs are using. (Mage Tree, Warrior Tree, Thief Tree *yawn*) This perk system still looks rather meh. Especially considering how boring the choices are.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_4_perks

Lets see the announced perks thus far

• +20% melee damage
• +20% damage for non automatic rifles
• +10 damage resistance
• +5% damage to women
• Cheaper goods (As if you wont be able to afford everything one hour into the game anyways)
• Hit chance bonus in VATS by some %
• 0% chance to get addicted to Alcohol (who will seriously spend a point in this)
• Bonus damage for companions
• Better gun mods for more damage
• 20% more damage for automatic weapons
• 5% more damage
• 50% more damage on critical hits

The later ranks of the intimidation perk could be interesting in the hands of a competent developer, but this is Bethesda we are talking about. I seriously doubt they will make anything interesting with the perk.

 

It's the idiot-savant situation. Obviously getting to this point will be hard(as your retard will have limited skill points) but it kinda fits the idiot savant part if you think about it.

 

November can't come soon enough, and the thread is misleading, skills are not out, they have been moved to perks.

 

^ NMA

Also no level cap. Which means all special stats = 10 as early as midgame.

And many codexers are ok with this abomination

Fuck you codex.

 

"Levelling is faster than in Fallout 3."

What the fuck? That just seems to undermine the new system to me.

 

When something starts with "Why you should/shouldn't be mad/interested about..." you know it has to be the lowest of trash.

 

I really need to see this system in play before I make any final judgement, but so far I'm not too happy about what has been shown off so far. Have they mentioned any sort of Difficulty Checks regarding your SPECIAL stats?

 

Watch Fallout 3 gameplay with one eye, and Skyrim gameplay with the other. Your brain will add them together and create the Fallout 4 experience.

I don't think so. It's not entirely farfetched to believe they'll throw in a STR-intimidation check or something. But this is Bethesda aping Mass Effect, making the point moot anyway. There's not gonna be any well-written, good conversations for it to matter.

Bethesda isn't changing things around, they're doing the same dumbing down as always. Going from New Vegas, Skills, Traits and weapon requirements are gone. On what Parallell Earth is this "experimentation with the skill system"?

You can pick up any weapon from the start, and put 5 perk points into the mundane perk system to get +100% damage with that weapon. While in New Vegas, you might need 75 Guns to wield it accurately, and you could pick a perk or have picked a trait that affects that weapon in some form other than damage.

And New Vegas had great skill checks. A 60 skill check for Guns means you're knowledgeable about guns. How would it work in FO4, provided Bethesda cared to make skills affect dialogue? [Commando 4/4]? [Rifleman 5/5]? These mundane skill-like perks are way too specialized to support skill checks. If Obsidian were to make another Fallout game, I don't think Bethesda has left them enough pieces to work with. FO3 was salvageable, I'm not sure FO4 is.

Experimentation with the skill system would be to bring it down from a 100-point system to maybe a 10-point system, because that way you could make every point have an effect. Since reading a skill book and boosting Survival from 61 to 64 does absolutely nothing in New Vegas. Boosting it from 6 to 7 would be the way to go.

 

so what is this charisma perk supposed to mean?
Local Leader: As the ruler everyone turns to, you are able to establish supply lines between your workshop settlements.

 

That seems to be one of the requirements for settlement building if the E3 presentation was anything to go by. If it has any use beyond that, who knows.

 

You can only build your settlements in designated locations, I assume that also means you can only scrap material for building from those locations. I imagine the supply lines let you have a free flow of materials and supplies like water/food/slaves between your villages.

 

If it were tagged you could hit 100 in 5 levels even.

 

It's experimentation with the skill system in that it's a complete overhaul. I don't really know how the word experimentation couldn't apply.

Yeah, obviously, if you invest all your perk points into one thing then you'll get a larger reward. Also it takes about 5 seconds to get 75 Guns in NV.

NV is also a massively deeper game than this will inevitably turn out to be. Fo4 is clearly a shooter with some RPG-ish window dressing, so if all the perks effect combat only then at least Bethesda finally came to terms with the fact they're making a clunky FPS and not an RPG, and can at least focus on making a decent one.

They could do the chance thing like the originals and Fo3 had, where skill checks are done with a percentage with a minimum skill level threshold (below which is 0% success chance) and a maximum threshold (above which is 100% success chance). I'm not really sure why that wasn't in NV actually, other than Obsidian wanting to write the dumb failed check lines (which are pointless because the game tells you you're about to fail so you never actually choose them).

That would be experimentation with the skill system, and it'd probably turn out better than what they're doing, but they're still trying something new even if it does involve tearing a lot of stuff out and I'll have to actually play the game before decrying it.

 

My beef is mostly with the wording. The carefully optimistic remark among the negativity. The curiousity of reading the Book of Todd, 2015 Edition. Can you fault a Priest of the Decline for wanting to shield your eyes, keep you away from the horrors I've witnessed and my church takes its name from?

I don't see the FO4 perks as skills. I see it as the most boring part of skills having been turned into multi-staged perks, dragging down the perk system with it. They're just separated effects now, with no skill checks, no items to improve them, no way to build a character archetype.

They removed the entire category and folded the effects into something else. I'd call that simplification. Maybe it's just semantics.

My point is that you can pick up a gun, energy weapon, melee weapon or unarmed weapon and still use it perfectly regardless of perks in FO4. Whereas in FONV you might be an expert in Melee Weapons and Explosives, but if you pick up a Sniper Rifle your accuracy is gonna suck hard.

You can go around it by taking Steady, but that's only a temporary solution and the game aknowledges your choice to not put points in Guns.

You can spend another 5 seconds to go to 75 in Guns as well, but spending 5 seconds each to go to 75 in Melee Weapons, Explosives and Guns adds up to 15 seconds. That's a quarter of a minute.

True. I highly doubt that FO4 will be a good shooter, but perhaps it would have been worse if they'd attempted to make it more RPG-ish (and botched it).

Chance-based skill checks? HATE!

I very much prefer static requirements with no chance involved, since you're just gonna savescum them anyway. Underrail even does it to pickpocketing, which is great. It's not the ultimate infallible solution to skill checks, but I prefer it to chance-based. At least when we're talking picking locks and pockets and not something with multiple variables like combat.

As for the failed check lines, they serve their purpose of informing the player what the skills they've neglected could have unlocked. Is it a waste of writing and voice-acting? I... wouldn't protest that point too hard. But they're funny, I usually pick them because it's fun to be a well-meaning idiot.

My opinion on it is that it's pretty much a variation of the Skyrim character building, with perks being the main focus, because perks is the rage nowadays. In Skyrim, perks worked somewhat well because they allowed you to specialize your character in ways not really seen in previous TES games, like giving you new shield abilities, bullet time for the bow and an AoE attack for two-handed weapons. Although a lot of the perks were redundant effects that the skill should have done or already did anyway.

From the looks of it, FO4 could be the same or even better than Skyrim, because of the chart-design instead of the tree-design, and SPECIAL instead of the 3 attributes in Skyrim. But compared to previous Fallouts, it's a huge step down. There's no new aspect added to the franchise, it's just things being taken out.

I just finished Lonesome Road, and I really want another Fallout by Obsidian. With the way Bethesda has cut away parts of the character system, and the probability that a potential Obsidian Fallout would have to follow suit... Maybe they could fill the perk chart with worthwhile perks and slow down leveling speed. Maybe they could sneak in ups and downs-traits. Regardless of the character system, I'm sure they can create a great world filled with good quests and CnC. But without skills, I'm just not sure it the character system could be as good as New Vegas. Which isn't the best ever, but it's perfectly OK.

 

You and everyone who brofisted your post will play.

 

It is simplifcation/dumbing down, but it could work out well. The dumbing down would bother me if I expected an RPG, but I don't from Bethesda anymore, I expect an FPS/adventure game with a few RPG-esque things thrown in. Better to have a clunky FPS with a simple perk system that compliments it than a clunky FPS with a fairly robust but completely broken skill system that gets in the way, like in Fallout 3.

All valid points through the rest of the post. I like the failed skill check lines too for comedy purposes, but I wish they'd just say [Medicine] instead of [Medicine 10/15] so the player would have to judge for themselves whether it was going to fail or not.

You're right that Bethesda are leaving Obsidian less to work with if they come along and make a real Fallout game. I hadn't thought of that. In isolation, though, I think the system could work well for Fo4 and hopefully if Obsidian make another Fallout, they can pick up the pieces and salvage it into something more truly RPG-oriented. There'd have to be some serious revisions anyway to things like voiced protagonists (which Obsidian probably can't afford and which nobody likes anyway) and the ultra-simplified dialogue (which definitely couldn't work for a proper story/quest/setting-heavy Fallout).

 

But they will totally only play it to see how shitty it is so they can whine on Codex!

 

Play yes, buy no.
Unlike you mr 'i had buy every beth game' i will pirate this abomination and beth will not see even 1 penny of my money.
You on the other hand will gladly give money to todd and pete.

 

Fallout 4 is 28gb on consoles


http://www.gamespot.com/articles/fallout-4-xbox-one-file-size-revealed/1100-6430927/

 

It's not worth buying, then why play it at all?

You don't have to come to this thread to do the cool posturing, you could go to NMA where they do it all day every day and have done for about 7 years.