Fallout: New Vegas, on skills and skill checks

[Sigourn]

I've made this post on Reddit just now, but I thought I would post it here as well.

I'll start off by saying the things I think New Vegas does great, and then after what it does wrong, and how I would solve it for the next installment.

The things it does great:

• Your build actually matters. Random chance is taken out of the equation, so every playthrough will be decidedly different depending on what stats you choose to focus on. If you decide to play someone who has a high Speech skill, be sure you will get different outcomes than if you decided to play someone who has a low Speech skill.
• It removes blatant savescumming for the most part in order to pass checks. Savescumming still exists, encouraged by Skill Magazines. These are Magazines since you can read (and which go poof once you read them) to increase your skill for a short period of time, allowing you to surpass an obstacle in dialogue or interaction with the game world.

Now I will say the things New Vegas does bad, because there are some that are fairly annoying:

• Some checks are heavily biased toward certain stats. One of these is SPEECH. But this one has a logical reason as to why: speech, much like intelligence and to a certain extent luck, rules the real life world. If you have your way with words, are intelligent, and are lucky, congratulations: you will get anywhere you want in your life.
• The problem lies in that other skills and stats simply don't get anywhere that much of attention. I'm aware that New Vegas isn't exactly the biggest RPG ever made, and thus you can't simply shoehorn skill checks everywhere you please just for the sake of it. In that regard, so far I've been comfortable with the skill checks I've encountered. If it had the size and amount of content of Skyrim (repetitive or not in its quests and interactions, quite possibly not repetitive if it had been made by you know who) then I certainly hope we would have seen a much bigger amount of possibilities for our different skills and S.P.E.C.I.A.L., other that Speech.
• Skills have a range of 1 to 100, yet skill checks more often than not simply use a system of "10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35... 95, 100". I think I'm aware why does this happen: a lot of skills are used for something other than checks, in formulas where every single point makes a difference, such as Barter: while having 21 or 24 Barter won't allow you to pass that "25 Barter" skill check, it will still make a difference when you buy and sell stuff.
• Skill are "incremental" in the way S.P.E.C.I.A.L. is. But they shouldn't be. Being better at something doesn't necessarily mean you are more knowledgeable about something. For example, being gun at firing your gun doesn't mean you should be an authority when it comes to gun lore. Just because you know how to cook tasty meals (high Survival) doesn't mean you should know what Deathclaws are (in Fallout, in fact, these were mythical creatures).
• There's also the game showing the player what his skill must be before passing a check. I'm 99% sure that I read Josh Sawyer, lead designer of the game, saying the reason you can see skill checks is so that "the player knows they are there and that they have different ways around the same quest". This is not a bad thing at all. The issue is that Magazines, one very gamey way of overcoming checks, exist because you are able to see checks and thus know when you should read one.
• It may seem unimportant, but I very much feel Magazines render the entire "choose your own build" aspect a bit pointless. Why? Because you can simply surpass some of your build's limitation by reading one at the right time.
• Anyone who has played the original Fallout games knows that wearing armor gave you bonuses to combat and combat only. When Bethesda did Oblivion with guns it was obvious that enchantments, a staple of the series, had to make a comeback. And thus we see those ridiculous bonuses such as "+5 Guns" or "+5 Medicine" just because you are using certain outfits. With no logic behind that whatsoever. Some of those bonuses make just a bit of sense, like +1 Perception if you are wearing stuff that covers your head. A bit of sense, because using one of those hats suddenly makes you able to see through someone's bullshit (as in the New Vegas quest where you demand caps from a lady outside of the Strip's gate, as I attested in my current playthrough). Is Obsidian guilty of continuing this? I'd rather leave that up to you, as it is a matter of opinion. Obsidian hasn't done any "realistic" RPGs since New Vegas, and enchantments are logical in a game with dragons and fantastic animals. I doubt they would have removed enchantments from New Vegas considering it was still a "Bethesda" game.

With all that said, how would I go on to solving this? Like so.

• Remove anything that unrealistically gives you means to overcome your build's flaws. This includes magazines and enchantments, and Bobbleheads (in the case of Bethesda-made Fallouts). Skill books stay, because those aren't "magical" improvements, they are factual knowledge, just like they were in Fallout and Fallout 2.
• Separate skills between "skill" and "knowledge". One of the thing that amazes me about the transition from Fallout 2 to Fallout 3 is that Bethesda decided to keep enchantments... but they didn't keep the lore books from Oblivion. Instead of simply reading a book and having your skill increase, you would now actually read a book that contained useful info, which is now engraved into your character's mind. As opposed to before, now your skill doesn't determine how good you are at passing checks. Certain checks, sure. Not all of them. Without the right knowledge, some checks you simply won't pass. Character creation would of course start with you distributing points in S.P.E.C.I.A.L., skills, and what lore/information your character is aware of. As you explore the wasteland, you find new information or lore books. You can even learn information and lore from other NPCs which you can then put into practice, as opposed to artifically increasing your skills when you level up. This means exploration isn't anymore limited to "cool, I found a Bobblehead", "cool, I found a Dean's Electronics". Now you get actual rewards, lore and information you can read and digest, and progression is more meaningful.
• Just like S.P.E.C.I.A.L., skills go now from 1 to 10. Why? Because in practice those very small points are almost meaningless. And I say this because I have played one game, Gothic, that showcases just how meaningful character progression should be. New Vegas, and Fallout, aren't isometric anymore. One more point or one point less in Guns doesn't make any difference in combat anymore. In Gothic, receiving training in melee weapons meant your character held his sword differently. In Fallout? You see nothing, you feel nothing unless you make some drastic increments. In my opinion, this is the one aspect of New Vegas that feels the most archaic. Some will be inclined to disagree, saying I'm "dumbing down" or "streamlining" the game. So I ask you: go and play New Vegas. Ask someone to create a character for you. Play that character and then tell me what skills does he/she have. In Gothic, you know without even looking at the stat sheet. In New Vegas... I very much doubt it, unless your IRL Perception stat is 10.
• Make skill and S.P.E.C.I.A.L. checks HARD and not a percentage as in FO3 and FO4. And hide them: the player shouldn't know when he is facing a check. The fact that his build matters is enough. If the player thinks he will be coming across a situation where he needs strength or intelligence or anything else, he will always have drugs (Mentats, Buffout, etc.).

To summarize, with my changes what I look for is:

• Logical and fun progression that also encourages exploration.
• Remove savescumming.
• Make builds more important.
• Add more diversity to builds as opposed to "40 Science vs 50 Science".

If you have read everything so far, another game besides Gothic may be familiar to you: The Witcher. Not the one everyone is talking about, but the first one. When I played it, I was marveled at the fact such "lore" stuff existed, and unlike Morrowind's, it made a difference. Lore that was useful instead of "color".

I do not expect everyone to agree, but I had to get this off my chest. Personally, I'm sure I would enjoy a Fallout game that took that approach towards skills and skill checks.

 

[Higher Animal]

If you have read everything so far, another game besides Gothic may be familiar to you: The Witcher. Not the one everyone is talking about, but the first one. When I played it, I was marveled at the fact such "lore" stuff existed, and unlike Morrowind's, it made a difference. Lore that was useful instead of "color"..

This doesn't seem like it's true. I seem to recall lore in Morrowind helping with directions, quests, and explaining game mechanics, or hinting at them.

 

[Sigourn]

If you have read everything so far, another game besides Gothic may be familiar to you: The Witcher. Not the one everyone is talking about, but the first one. When I played it, I was marveled at the fact such "lore" stuff existed, and unlike Morrowind's, it made a difference. Lore that was useful instead of "color"..

This doesn't seem like it's true. I seem to recall lore in Morrowind helping with directions, quests, and explaining game mechanics, or hinting at them.

Perhaps with the vampire quests, but other than that I don't really remember, and I've played Morrowind for the past years.

 

[laclongquan]

To balance skills

Instead, make Non-Speech skill check being gateway to unique quests, and items. Sure, a speech build will get you passed most challenge. But it is non-speech skill checks that get you something unique.

Then try like hell not to be pussy that get pushed by fans into allowing those unique things accessible by Speech checks.

 

[Sigourn]

To balance skills

Instead, make Non-Speech skill check being gateway to unique quests, and items. Sure, a speech build will get you passed most challenge. But it is non-speech skill checks that get you something unique.

Then try like hell not to be pussy that get pushed by fans into allowing those unique things accessible by Speech checks.

That's what in part I was thinking, but being Reddit and all... no one has answered yet, but I kind of expect people saying "it's too complex".

One of my major issues with New Vegas is that checks aren't gateway to anything. In fact, they are actually shortcuts: pass skill check? Congratulations, you miss on the entire content planned for this quest.

For example, having high Guns and Survival, as well as survival lore would allow the player to go on expeditions with caravans.

 

[Parabalus]

Biggest problem is that without difficulty mods combat skills are useless (because they are not necessary to kill stuff) and you can just dump skill points into everything else.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

The things it does great:

• Your build actually matters.

That's probably the least true thing you can write about FNV.

 

[Sigourn]

The things it does great:

• Your build actually matters.

That's probably the least true thing you can write about FNV.

How so? I mean, aside from combat skills and the fact that eventually you become a master of anything. But by comparison, in Fallout 3 your build doesn't really matter for most of the game until at the end game it doesn't matter at all.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Yeah, aside from that Also, define "eventually". It's p easy to pass every check in the game, even playing for the first time with no metaknowledge, which is mostly due to some horribad design. In F3 at least the difference between a genius and complete retard was more pronounced. FNV made sure that even for the traditionally second most important stat in the series it doesn't really matter much how many points you invest in it. The magic of codex favourite genius crpg designer.

 

[Sigourn]

Yeah, aside from that Also, define "eventually". It's p easy to pass every check in the game, even playing for the first time with no metaknowledge, which is mostly due to some horribad design. In F3 at least the difference between a genius and complete retard was more pronounced. FNV made sure that even for the traditionally second most important stat in the series it doesn't really matter much how many points you invest in it. The magic of codex favourite genius crpg designer.

What? "Eventually" means just that. It requires many levels and all DLC before you become a master of anything. It isn't "pretty easy" to pass every check in the game either, that's just blatant lies. There was no difference between genius and retard in Fallout 3 either, as the lines were exactly the same no matter your skill.

I do mention "combat" and "master of everything" because New Vegas is a 3D FPS catered for the masses so combat skills will always be shit, and the player will always become a god.

 

[Infinitron]

Bitch all you want about the magazines, but you know in the end all they did was save you time on that completionist do-everything/pass-all-skill-checks playthrough you were going to do anyway

 

[Haplo]

The things it does great:

• Your build actually matters.

That's probably the least true thing you can write about FNV.

I second this.

Compared with Fallout 1 and 2, your build hardly matters AT ALL in F:NV (and in F:3 even less). Ironically, perhaps Fallout 4 has the most impactfull character building from the "modern" Fallouts.

Sigourn, you mentioned overcoming a build's flaws: There's way too many of those options in F:NV. Not only magazines, but also drugs are way too potent and too common. And some equipment pieces give unreasonable bonuses as well. Stackable with bonuses like +5 Charisma from single Party Mentats pop plus booze. So you can easily go from base Charisma to over 10.

 

[undecaf]

The things it does great:

Random chance is taken out of the equation

That was actually one of the things that put me off. This only meant your character was a bipolar buffoon who either mastered and succeeded at what he tried or was totally clueless about it and couldn't even try (outside the surefail dialog options). There was nothing in between, no possibilities or flukes or misfortunes. It felt very rigid and almost scripted in how you always knew beforehand, by just looking, whether you were going to suucceed or not.

It made sense where there was a dialog check that presented "knowledge" (representing a level of skill that you need in order to "know" X and know to say it at the right situation), but there should've been a chance roll where it was simply a plea or an attempt to influence someone. Lockpicking and hacking were their own chapter altogether at being doublegated behind the specific skill level and the awful minigame.

So, no it's not great that it got rid of random chance. It should've had more of it, not (even) less than Fallout 3.

 

[Infinitron]

What I think people are not realizing is that FO:NV's magazines are actually analogous to FO3's random chance skill checks.

Random chance and magazines - both are mechanics that give you a margin of error for skill checks. The difference is that the random chance is well, random, while magazines involve an element of player skill (actually finding the magazines, managing them as a resource, etc).

 

[undecaf]

Magazines just cover up skillpoint hoarding that was denied by forced levelups. That's how they felt in practice anyway. A slotmachine style "insert more coins to get object" shenanigan.

 

[Sigourn]

That was actually one of the things that put me off. This only meant your character was a bipolar buffoon who either mastered and succeeded at what he tried or was totally clueless about it and couldn't even try (outside the surefail dialog options). There was nothing in between, no possibilities or flukes or misfortunes. It felt very rigid and almost scripted in how you always knew beforehand, by just looking, whether you were going to suucceed or not.

That is the issue. Remove visible skill checks, and you kill two or three birds in one stone: you have no sensible use for magazines, you have no sensible use for switching equipment for conversations, and you have no sensible reason to think "I'm not good enough to pass this check/I'm good enough to pass this check".

At least that's how I see it.

Sigourn, you mentioned overcoming a build's flaws: There's way too many of those options in F:NV. Not only magazines, but also drugs are way too potent and too common. And some equipment pieces give unreasonable bonuses as well. Stackable with bonuses like +5 Charisma from single Party Mentats pop plus booze. So you can easily go from base Charisma to over 10.

It's true. It's why I mentioned getting rid of "enchantments" altogether, which are one of the biggest offenders to the logic of the game.

Of course, I was not going to describe every single thing that had to be changed in New Vegas (reducing how common drugs are would be one of them, naturally), only to explain what I would think would be a nice alternative to the classic and stale "add points -> pass skill checks".

 

[Sigourn]

On kind Redditor asked:

How would perks work? What kind of bonuses can they give without making the changes you wouldn't want?

It's honestly something I've been thinking ever since Fallout 4 was released. Perks themselves are fairly strange in New Vegas: a quick glance shows that something "common" (Rapid Reload) is its own separate perk as opposed to being part of the Guns skill (as it increases, you reload faster).

Personally it's a staple of the Fallout franchise so I wouldn't change it because saying "I will remove perks" will get me stoned. But I never really agreed with them, with the idea that levelling up suddenly lets you gain for some reason "+2 HP per second per 200 rads accumulated", for example.

How would armor work? How can someone choose besides best light/heavy armor if there is no class benefits?

As it worked on Fallout: the best armor will always be Power Armor, and you are free to wear anything else if you'd like. This is a post-apocalyptic roleplaying game, I was never a fan of the idea of "I will run around wearing scientist clothes while raiders keep shooting at me".

How would skill checks like Medicine work? Would you now require medical equipment instead of magically doing it by hand? (Ex: Forlorn Hope would have you use tools to amputate a soldiers limb, or magically cure it with Medicine 80.)

Would love to see that, to be honest. It would require both lore and the right tools, as in vanilla New Vegas you can perfectly roleplay a doctor without ever needing to carry medical equipment on you. Of course, I'm not saying that there has to be lore books for every kind of amputation (finger or hand, arm or leg), but it would be nice to be able to specialize your character beyond "high Medicine". At character creation you decide what sort of doctor you want to be by selecting the Medicine lore your doctor knows.

You pose an interesting question, though. Makes me think that I should scrap "skills" altogether, and having Knowledge be represented by a numerical value. So a character that knows amputation and how to perform brain surgery, for example, will have "Medicine - 9" listed on his stats screen. But by hovering over the number you will know everything the character knows about Medicine; the number would simply be a quick giveaway as to how much does that character know.

What I was thinking is that there are no more "levels" and instead as your character gets more knowledge or practices his existing knowledge he improves on it. There would be a chance that whenever you perform a certain action (for example firing your gun) you will get more knowledge, as it is common for people to learn things by themselves without needing a book on them. Of course, reading will always get you knowledge instantly, but this will keep "skill" progression in the game. Other stuff, however, you won't be able to learn by yourself (like performing brain surgery).

Would magazines become gone and useless, or would they become bonuses like the True Police Stories and add different bonuses?

I haven't played Fallout 4, but magazines as they are in New Vegas would simply disappear. While useful in New Vegas, they don't really make any sense to begin with. I would rather replace them by something else, and taking a page from TES, I would simply replace them by "pre-war" magazines that you can read. You would get to know about things from the pre-war world of all kinds, whether it be events, characters, even something as pointless as who were the movie stars of that period.

That, or removed altogether from existence. There could be an incentive to find them anyways if they could be used for a quest of sorts, like selling them to a collector. But their NV purpose of "stat bonuses to pass checks" would be gone, it sort of renders builds pointless when you can read one and pass the check.

When it comes to people knowing about Deathclaws, I can't really say how rare they were in the older games since I have yet to play them, but I would assume after 50 years or so they would become a common fear, and from what I know they can reproduce so that would explain the increase. But I would like to see more mythical and rare creatures, and some of the old humor/Easter eggs return, maybe in a better Wild Wasteland.

Agree and agree. Deathclaws nowadays (2280+) are common for most people to have seen or at the very least have heard of. I'm not very sure what was Obsidian thinking by having a character that doesn't even know their name (he calls them "Deathjaws").

I do think, however, that lore books could still be used for stuff such as hunting tips and cooking tips. When I talked about "lore books" I didn't just mean "books from the pre-War world", but also "notes, journals from the post-War world". So you could very much read the investigation someone did on Deathclaws, what organs are safe to eat and so on. These could provide pretty cool bonuses!

How would skills in total play out? I know a lot have been lacking, and personally I think there were too little recipe choice in New Vegas, but in things like Survival what defines that? Crafting things you would learn in the wild? Cooking food? Farming? Making herbal medicine?

This came before I explained that I would get rid of skills altogether based on another question you made, but basically: "Survival" includes everything related to survival, just as you mentioned. Even "herbal medicine", because it's something less "academic" than the more professional "Medicine" skill.

An example of "knowledge" skills of the Survival tree:

• How to make a campfire.
• How to make a tent.
• How to make a herbal medicine. There would be many different recipes to collect, of course.
• What things can you eat from the different creatures.
• What parts you can harvest from the different creatures.

And more. Also, you don't get knowledge only from books, notes and journals. Conversations count too! So it pays to talk to people, not just to get quests, but also to improve your character. Because it just isn't "my character is stronger/better", which I feel is very gamey. It's more of a "my character is more fit to survive the Wasteland".

I know some people will think "it is too tedious", but I have played Gothic and it works very similarly. And let me tell you it is incredibly satisfying.

When it comes to things like guns, there isn't much to know about them apart from shooting and how they work. I can't really think of a reason someone wouldn't know about guns from practicing and learning their insides and out.

It's true. You could also gain knowledge on crafting ammunition or its individual components. General weapon lore as well if you need to impress someone. But I agree that there's only so much that you can learn before it starts to feel forced. "Oh, I learned about this because this NPC needs me to know that..." I very much want to avoid that from the player, it should all come naturally.

One big question I still haven't decided on is "what limits are in place for the player to play out his/her build?". It's important to me that what you choose to be at the beginning of the game is something that you can't easily shake off as "well, I want to be something else now". I disliked how in Skyrim, for instance, you could switch builds mid-playthrough with ease. If the game had a reliable way to tell when the player is playing a certain type of character (I mentioned before that you would earn the Shotgun Surgeon perk if you use shotguns constantly) then the character would get bonuses the more they use their skills in a natural way, as opposed to farming exp through skill spam (like shooting at a wall for an entire day).

 

[Grampy_Bone]

One thing people tend to forget when they talk about character building concepts in modern games is how much longer they are. The original Fallout could be completed in 10-20 hours, Fallout 2 wasn't much longer. Playing a low-int or pacifist/diplomat character was fun for a lark but there was no reason to think it had to be viable for the whole game or that you would be stuck playing a retard for 100 hours.

FNV's basic idea is that every character should have a path to complete most every quest in some fashion, and I tend to agree with it just because locking players out of a large amount of content and expecting them to replay such a long game is not realistic. Of course New Vegas is already very replayable and holds up well so I don't think there's much problem with its skill system.

 

[Sigourn]

One thing people tend to forget when they talk about character building concepts in modern games is how much longer they are. The original Fallout could be completed in 10-20 hours, Fallout 2 wasn't much longer. Playing a low-int or pacifist/diplomat character was fun for a lark but there was no reason to think it had to be viable for the whole game or that you would be stuck playing a retard for 100 hours.

FNV's basic idea is that every character should have a path to complete most every quest in some fashion, and I tend to agree with it just because locking players out of a large amount of content and expecting them to replay such a long game is not realistic. Of course New Vegas is already very replayable and holds up well so I don't think there's much problem with its skill system.

I have to disagree on the alleged replayability of New Vegas. Or at least what I consider to be "replayability".

New Vegas is replayable in a few ways:

- Doing the different faction quests.
- Doing the quests that offer multiple paths differently.

But quite often its quests aren't so much about "different paths" but more about "different skillchecks". Old Lady Gibson is a favorite example of mine: you get a quest to retrieve the Thrust Control Modules. You can either pay her for them, get a discount for them, or be a charmy person who gets the discount (or something along those lines). At the end of the day, though, the quest still is "go to Old Lady Gibson's" -> "get the Thrust Control Modules". There really isn't any replayability to picking either of the three (or two) choices. And I feel like a lot of New Vegas is like that.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

One thing people tend to forget when they talk about character building concepts in modern games is how much longer they are. The original Fallout could be completed in 10-20 hours, Fallout 2 wasn't much longer. Playing a low-int or pacifist/diplomat character was fun for a lark but there was no reason to think it had to be viable for the whole game or that you would be stuck playing a retard for 100 hours.

FNV's basic idea is that every character should have a path to complete most every quest in some fashion, and I tend to agree with it just because locking players out of a large amount of content and expecting them to replay such a long game is not realistic. Of course New Vegas is already very replayable and holds up well so I don't think there's much problem with its skill system.

I have to disagree on the alleged replayability of New Vegas. Or at least what I consider to be "replayability".

New Vegas is replayable in a few ways:

- Doing the different faction quests.
- Doing the quests that offer multiple paths differently.

But quite often its quests aren't so much about "different paths" but more about "different skillchecks". Old Lady Gibson is a favorite example of mine: you get a quest to retrieve the Thrust Control Modules. You can either pay her for them, get a discount for them, or be a charmy person who gets the discount (or something along those lines). At the end of the day, though, the quest still is "go to Old Lady Gibson's" -> "get the Thrust Control Modules". There really isn't any replayability to picking either of the three (or two) choices. And I feel like a lot of New Vegas is like that.

Yeah, maybe. But some games are replayable because they're just fun.

 

[Quillon]

But quite often its quests aren't so much about "different paths" but more about "different skillchecks". Old Lady Gibson is a favorite example of mine: you get a quest to retrieve the Thrust Control Modules. You can either pay her for them, get a discount for them, or be a charmy person who gets the discount (or something along those lines). At the end of the day, though, the quest still is "go to Old Lady Gibson's" -> "get the Thrust Control Modules". There really isn't any replayability to picking either of the three (or two) choices. And I feel like a lot of New Vegas is like that.

Its just part of a quest chain and you can do it in so many ways as you mentioned, that's replayability. You can kill Old Lady Gibson(even before the given quest) and still can get the modules off of her corpse. Legendary game designer codex favorite the amazing Josh Sawyer once said "There doesn't have to be always a hard branch".

 

[gruntar]

Some checks are heavily biased toward certain stats. One of these is SPEECH. But this one has a logical reason as to why: speech, much like intelligence and to a certain extent luck, rules the real life world. If you have your way with words, are intelligent, and are lucky, congratulations: you will get anywhere you want in your life.

Reason for that is simple - speech is the only skill with no secondary gameplay effect, for example barter governs items prices, medicine governs stimpack effectiveness and so on.

 

[undecaf]

Remove visible skill checks

That'd patch up the wound, but it wouldn't replace the lost limb.

 

[Sigourn]

Remove visible skill checks

That'd patch up the wound, but it wouldn't replace the lost limb.

IMO there aren't many solutions to this problem. An alternative would be that higher and higher skill would open up many more dialogue options, and it's up to the player to decide which one is the correct one. But I dunno.

 

[Quillon]

Speech check is deprecated in Obs dialogue design after NV, instead you're using various skills/stats for dialogue and them being visible or not is optional. What are you trying to find a solution for?