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Crispy™ The Most Useless Perks

FriendlyMerchant

Guest
Vast majority of perks in Fallout 3, all those perks that do nothing but increase your skills were retarded. If they did something interesting and in addition increased an appropriate related skill, it would have been better.
 

Arbiter

Scholar
Joined
Apr 22, 2020
Messages
2,457
Location
Poland
Bloody mess in Fallout 1/2.

But... Bloody Mess isn't even a perk in Fallout 1/2.

In Fallout 1/2 terminology it is a trait, i.e. a characteristic that can be acquired at character creation. I am guessing the OP uses the general meaning of "perk", i.e. any special ability/quirk that a character can be customized with.
 

vota DC

Augur
Joined
Aug 23, 2016
Messages
2,258
Child at heart: you get unique interactions with children but you end up hanged with bedsheet in jail.
 

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
Messages
5,687
Location
Perched on a tree
More Criticals is a great perk, especially since Slayer and Sniper are virtually impossible to reach in a normal playthrough. Why not go with Rad Resistance, a perk that only matters for one location and that provides a negligible bonus compared to Rad-X?

I've played Fallout 1 & 2 quite a bit and never once I failed to reach these perks.
And yes, even during my first playthrough, I farmed deathclaws when I noticed they were respawning, you can't pass on level 21 perks.
 

Butter

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
7,523
More Criticals is a great perk, especially since Slayer and Sniper are virtually impossible to reach in a normal playthrough. Why not go with Rad Resistance, a perk that only matters for one location and that provides a negligible bonus compared to Rad-X?

I've played Fallout 1 & 2 quite a bit and never once I failed to reach these perks.
And yes, even during my first playthrough, I farmed deathclaws when I noticed they were respawning, you can't pass on level 21 perks.
OK, but there's no need to do that. You can easily finish Fallout 1 at level 14-15. I've never even seen level 18 in that game.
 

Daemongar

Arcane
Joined
Nov 21, 2010
Messages
4,706
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Wisconsin
Codex Year of the Donut
Weapon Focus in any D&D3 based game (NWN, NWN2, KotOR, KotOR2, D&D Tactics, ToEE, Kingmaker and likely others). It's nearly useless (less than 1 in 20 chance to covert a miss into a hit)

Less than 1 in 20 chance to convert a miss into a hit? It gives +1 to hit on a 20 sided die.

(Also, took Chaz la Femme once in a New Vegas playthrough. True, I did see a few new dialog options - but overall felt like a waste - not from a power gaming standpoint, just there was *so little* to the perk.)
 

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
11,326
Location
Flowery Land
Daemongar
Exactly: It only helps if you miss due to being 1 below the target number. If you hit on 2-20 anyways, it does nothing. If you won't hit even on a 19 after the +1, it does nothing. If you miss due to miss chance rather than AC, it does nothing. So it is indeed "less".
 

Ol' Willy

Arcane
Zionist Agent Vatnik
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May 3, 2020
Messages
24,574
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Reichskommissariat Russland ᛋᛋ
Awareness
Adds new mechanic which is cool. Could have been very useful if enemy variety was greater
Useful for specific thrower builds since you can't spec much STR
Meh but useful if you minmax your AC
Earlier sequence
Always useful if you have low PER
More criticals
Very useful overall
Friendly foe
Adds new mechanic and kinda useful in clusterfuck battles
Snakeeater
Yeah, with the number of poisoning critters and weak poison overall it's pointless
Sharshooter
Cool perk because it allows you to get 12 PER equivalent range of fire

Not worthless per se, but interesting gimmicky perks
 
Joined
Sep 1, 2020
Messages
979
Most of them. A lot of of times they're implemented into the game as a concept before the mechanic is actually coded into the game, then the game gets rushed into release and the perk/train remains. Even more common, the balance of the finished game will be a lot different than what was first envisioned, with a few strats dominating all the others that look good on paper. Think of all the games where "stealth" is a feature, but it was never properly implemented or ineffectual when compared to combat. All skills/traits/perks related to stealth will pretty much be useless then.

I'm spending a lot of time on Project Zomboid, right now, so that's my reference. Pretty much everyone will choose certain negative traits: High Thirst, Prone to Illness, Weak Stomach, Smoker, among a few others. All of these can either be easily countered (carry an extra bottle in your backpack if you have High Thirst, for example) or simply don't translate into the game at all (there's no reason to eat rotten food even if you don't have a Weak Stomach). The choice of these negative traits allows you to reach for more positive traits, allowing for overpowered builds. Examples of useless perks would mostly be the opposite of the false negatives (if taking Weak Stomach is not a sacrifice, Strong Stomach can hardly be considered an advantage).

I haven't played OG Fallout in years, but it's pretty much a moot point talking about useless perks, as the game is so notoriously unbalanced. The original design philosophy expressed by Tim Cain was to allow a combat, stealth and diplomatic solution for every situation, but you weren't supposed to have all of these available with the same character. Guess what, nearly everyone is going to pick a smooth talking, gunslinging, lockpicking genius and have every choice at their disposal. Furthermore, it's not really beneficial to truly specialize in any of these approaches, when you can gradually improve your James Bond character without any sacrifice. Other strategies which are implicit in the large number of skills will fall behind and require a dedicated roleplaying mindset.
 

Faarbaute

Arbiter
Joined
Mar 2, 2017
Messages
760
This is a great thread for weeding out those who don't bother reading the OP.
 

ERYFKRAD

Barbarian
Patron
Joined
Sep 25, 2012
Messages
28,237
Strap Yourselves In Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Heavy handed in fallout. Most people would prefer finesse over it, but I like it.
 

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