Interview GamesRadar interview on Fallout 3 quests, perks

[mondblut]

Wow, you missed the point entirely. When I say "What more does a fighter want?" I'm talking about the player who is using the fighter as his character. What more does that player want, as a fighter character, than to hit harder and more often and to get hit less often and be able to take more hits?

Some advanced offensive and defensive maneuvers (=feat)? A chance to try some new and different weapons (=weapon specialization)? An opportunity to dabble in some skill not directly related to bashing blunt things with sharp things? (=non-weapon proficiency).

Anything is better than "you get 7 hitpoints, +1 THAC0 and that's it, you're one level more powerful than before".

Yes, obviously getting a feat (which is every 3rd level in general, and fighters get an extra feat every other level)

So a fighter only skips feats at levels 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19 etc, while getting a double at 6, 12, 18?

Sounds dangerously close to "a perk every level" 16 feats per 19 level-ups.

Playing the game is about playing the game and if you think that the entire time you're playing as a level 5 character is boring because you didn't pick a feat at your most recent level-up, perhaps you should be playing a different game.

Playing the game as 5th level fighter might not be boring at all (if feats received at levels 1-4 were entertaining enough). But getting that 5th level sure as hell would be boring and more disappointing than the others. And since advancing a character, as we all know, is an exciting game in itself, an useless levelup is just like a crappy dungeon or a lame sidequest - better left out.

I still remember when in Goldbox series the only fighter levels which matter were 7 and 14, when you got +1/2 att/rnd each. While getting from level 10 to level 11 for +3 hp and +1 thac0 was hardly worth the cost of training (or would be, if there wouldn't be so ridiculously enormous amounts of money around from selling dozens of enemy bracers of defense ac 6). No wonder most people dualclassed those fighters to mages whenever reasonable (meaning, mostly at level 7 or 14, of course), and/or took paladins and rangers instead in the first place.

Sure, if they balance perks in such a way that getting them every level isn't overpowering, and if they have enough perks so that you can't just pick up every single one along the way, that's fine.

That's what I began with, didn't I?

Personally, I think that in D&D 3.5, getting more skill points, more hit points, better saving throws, and increasing power of current abilities is fine. I don't whine because my paladin is only getting feats every 3rd level because I'm becoming a better fighter, my turn undead ability is getting more powerful, I can Lay on Hands more often, etc.

Very true. Now compare it to levelling up a fighter in pre-BG AD&D game. As far as I remember, SPECIAL works the same way - all you got at level up outside of perks was several hitpoints and 15 skillpoints. Which makes individual levelups pretty meaningless, particularly on higher levels.

 

[Vault Dweller]

They didn't do it to try and make every level up useful. They did it because people "don’t even understand" why they don't get to choose a perk.

Heh, that's kind of sad indeed. But a perk every level owns a perk every third level nonetheless.

Does it now? Getting a perk every level means 19-20 perks. That's a lot of perks. First of all, that's too much. You go above 8-10 and perks become meaningless, either making your character too uber or overloading you with bonuses and abilities. Second, what are the odds that Bethesda will give you, let's say, 40 equally great perks? I'd say about zero. So, most likely you'll have about 20 (or less) good perks and 20 (or more) dumb perks like ladykiller and fartmaster. That removes the most important aspect of perks - choosing. If you get all of them anyway, does it really matter which one you get now and which one you get a level later?

 

[MetalCraze]

What are the odds that Beth won't do the Oblivion thing with giving you everything character-wise during just a single playthrough? Judging by how generous they are with everything including perks - I can only say "oh ho ho"

 

[mondblut]

I don't mind being overloaded with bonuses and abilities at all All for it.

As for how much bethesda will fail introducing 100 great yet balanced perks (and fail they will), well, that's a different story.

If anything, the levelling could be scaled down to like 9-10 levelups per game (thus keeping the total amount of perks low, retaining their awesomeness, and going along the "useless levelup = unnecessary levelup" rule the most simplistic way). But this, of course, doesn't sit to well with next-gen crowd, which thinks looking at three-digital numbers in character sheets makes them smarter or something.

 

[Gragt]

I'm pretty sure with Gifted you still get the normal amount of perks, but less skillpoints. Skilled gives you extra skillpoints but less perks. I remember in my first playthrough of Fallout 2 I took Skilled. Halfway through the game I realised it was kinda shitty not getting as many perks so I used the Mutate perk to change it to Bloody Mess. That was pretty cool, pretty HC.

Indeed, Gifted increases all your attributes by one point but reduces your initial skills by 10% and you receive 5 less points each level. Skilled on the other hand gives you a bonus of 5 skill points per level but you gain a perk every 4 level instead of every 3.

I like the way it was done in Fallout 1 & 2: you'd get a little bonus every level in health and skills though your tagged skills could be developped very fast and still make you feel the change. And every 3 level you could choose a perk and had to choose well because you were not allowed to take too many of them. I'd rather have a powerful perk every 3 levels than a weak one every level, the rise in power is more noticeable that way.

 

[MetalCraze]

Todd had a "70 hours into the game" savegame in one of the previews. I doubt the level cap will be lower than a 3 digit number.

 

[Mr. Teatime]

They didn't do it to try and make every level up useful. They did it because people "don’t even understand" why they don't get to choose a perk.

Heh, that's kind of sad indeed. But a perk every level owns a perk every third level nonetheless.

Does it now? Getting a perk every level means 19-20 perks. That's a lot of perks. First of all, that's too much. You go above 8-10 and perks become meaningless, either making your character too uber or overloading you with bonuses and abilities. Second, what are the odds that Bethesda will give you, let's say, 40 equally great perks? I'd say about zero. So, most likely you'll have about 20 (or less) good perks and 20 (or more) dumb perks like ladykiller and fartmaster. That removes the most important aspect of perks - choosing. If you get all of them anyway, does it really matter which one you get now and which one you get a level later?

What's wrong with Ladykiller? Not denying there may be some stupid perks, but one that gives you new dialogue options that people without the perk won't have access to seems neat. Not sure how it fits with giving you bonus damage against women - but, yeah. Perk seems more interesting than 'you can carry more in your inventory' or whatever, surely?

And tell me more of this fartmaster.

 

[Solohk]

I can't wait until I'm leveling up after every fight. I mean, I leveled up after that one fight so shouldn't it happen every time? Sign me up for level 47229832 Wizard please.

 

[The Idiot]

Todd had a "70 hours into the game" savegame in one of the previews. I doubt the level cap will be lower than a 3 digit number.

It's capped at level 20.

 

[JarlFrank]

They probably have exactly 20 perks, then.

 

[MetalCraze]

Huh? Then how did he get the 70 hours into the game savegame? Which even wasn't near the end of the game.
I seriously doubt that FO3 will give you that few exp. Considering the target audience. Smells fishy to me.

 

[Vault Dweller]

What's wrong with Ladykiller? Not denying there may be some stupid perks, but one that gives you new dialogue options that people without the perk won't have access to seems neat. Not sure how it fits with giving you bonus damage against women - but, yeah. Perk seems more interesting than 'you can carry more in your inventory' or whatever, surely?

If the perk wasn't married to that absolutely idiotic "helps you kill women" concept and if dialogues and good design in general weren't the weakest elements of neo-Bethesda, I would have shared your enthusiasm. As it stands right now, I expect nothing from this perk but "wanna make out and have sex?" line added randomly. I mean:

http://fallout.bethsoft.com/eng/vault/f ... ntest.html

Grim Reaper's Sprint
Everytime you kill an opponent, all your action points are automatically restored.

Falling from Heaven
When you're in a combat and losing it, a random object (a spoon, a table, etc.) might fall from the sky and hit your enemy, causing damage (the amount of damage is relevant to the mass of the object). This perk naturally only works outdoors.

Crazy Eye
Opponents attacking from the front suffer a penalty to hit you because, seriously, that eye is freaking me out.

Deal with the Devil
You sold your soul to the Devil. You feel hollow inside. You receive $500,000 in your inventory.

European Accent
From old holovids in the vault you learned how to fake foreign accents. It wasn't much good in the vault but outside it proves a useful skill. You have a much better chance of impressing and charming the 'ladies' if you lay on a thick french accent and breathe some nonsense in their ears. +15% to speech skill.

And tell me more of this fartmaster.

I don't want to spoil the game for you.

 

[JarlFrank]

And tell me more of this fartmaster.

I don't want to spoil the game for you.

I think Bethesda is already taking a big enough effort to spoil it for us.

 

[Chefe]

After reading this I want to put my head through a wall. Giving a perk every level because players can't comprehend getting one every few levels?They've dumbed down the game beyond all recognition.

I can't even joke about this game anymore. It would be like trying to make fun of a mentally retarded serial killer who just butchered your family while drooling all over himself. You want to laugh at him but you can't because he killed your family. You want to hate him but you can't because it would make you feel stupid, after all he's suffering from down syndrome. All these extreme emotions are conflicting with each other and it's driving me fucking mad.

Huh? Then how did he get the 70 hours into the game savegame?

Fallout 3 cheat console.

 

[Chefe]

I mean:

http://fallout.bethsoft.com/eng/vault/f ... ntest.html

I can't believe you didn't mention this one.

Nuclear Man (or Woman)
Your body reacts like a battery to radiation and you've learned to harness it. Once per day, you can unleash a mini Nuclear explosion from your body, causing (X) amount of damage to all combatants in (X) radius.

 

[JarlFrank]

I can't continue reading this, it hurts my mind.

 

[themadhatter114]

Wow, you missed the point entirely. When I say "What more does a fighter want?" I'm talking about the player who is using the fighter as his character. What more does that player want, as a fighter character, than to hit harder and more often and to get hit less often and be able to take more hits?

Some advanced offensive and defensive maneuvers (=feat)? A chance to try some new and different weapons (=weapon specialization)? An opportunity to dabble in some skill not directly related to bashing blunt things with sharp things? (=non-weapon proficiency).

Sure, but you don't need to get those new abilities as often.

Anything is better than "you get 7 hitpoints, +1 THAC0 and that's it, you're one level more powerful than before".

Well, D&D has skill points which you increase at every level up, plus I believe your saving throws improve, among other things.

Yes, obviously getting a feat (which is every 3rd level in general, and fighters get an extra feat every other level)

So a fighter only skips feats at levels 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19 etc, while getting a double at 6, 12, 18?

Sounds dangerously close to "a perk every level" 16 feats per 19 level-ups.

Yes, fighters get feats at almost every level-up because they get absolutely no free abilities as opposed to every other class which gets free feats every few levels on top of the ones they select. However, it's useless to take the fighter class beyond level 12 because their extra feats become useless. So you'll see a lot of multi-classed builds with 12 levels of fighter but a level 30 fighter is a piss-poor melee build compared to those with only 12 fighter levels.

Playing the game is about playing the game and if you think that the entire time you're playing as a level 5 character is boring because you didn't pick a feat at your most recent level-up, perhaps you should be playing a different game.

Playing the game as 5th level fighter might not be boring at all (if feats received at levels 1-4 were entertaining enough). But getting that 5th level sure as hell would be boring and more disappointing than the others. And since advancing a character, as we all know, is an exciting game in itself, an useless levelup is just like a crappy dungeon or a lame sidequest - better left out.

I still remember when in Goldbox series the only fighter levels which matter were 7 and 14, when you got +1/2 att/rnd each. While getting from level 10 to level 11 for +3 hp and +1 thac0 was hardly worth the cost of training (or would be, if there wouldn't be so ridiculously enormous amounts of money around from selling dozens of enemy bracers of defense ac 6). No wonder most people dualclassed those fighters to mages whenever reasonable (meaning, mostly at level 7 or 14, of course), and/or took paladins and rangers instead in the first place.

Absolutely, you need balance in the abilities that certain classes get compared to others. But rather than a situation where a fighter gets more feats than everyone else, you advocate a system where every class gets a new ability every single level. Yes, building your character is a game in and of itself, but if you can pick almost every feat then that makes it overpowering and boring and takes away any uniqueness to character builds. I think it's more fun to have to consider which feats I want for a particular build than to just pick up a new feat every level.

Sure, if they balance perks in such a way that getting them every level isn't overpowering, and if they have enough perks so that you can't just pick up every single one along the way, that's fine.

That's what I began with, didn't I?

But that's not at all what they are promising for Fallout 3. Supposedly there will be no more perks in Fallout 3 than in previous Fallouts, yet you will be able to pick 3 times as many.

Personally, I think that in D&D 3.5, getting more skill points, more hit points, better saving throws, and increasing power of current abilities is fine. I don't whine because my paladin is only getting feats every 3rd level because I'm becoming a better fighter, my turn undead ability is getting more powerful, I can Lay on Hands more often, etc.

Very true. Now compare it to levelling up a fighter in pre-BG AD&D game. As far as I remember, SPECIAL works the same way - all you got at level up outside of perks was several hitpoints and 15 skillpoints. Which makes individual levelups pretty meaningless, particularly on higher levels.

But I don't see what's so boring about extra skill points and extra hit points. I don't need a whole new ability every level. I'd rather have the choice to make a particular character build as opposed to being able to take every single combat perk in the game.

 

[Claw]

I can't continue reading this, it hurts my mind.

Oh yeah, it does.

I can only hope "winners" doesn't mean all those perks will actually be in the game.
I actually like the - randomly chosen - Liar perk most. The idea that telling a lie is generally better than telling the truth for a character is interesting.
It'd be even better if any dialogue check involving telling the truth has a reduced chance of success for that character.

I actually more or less agree that perks are the most interesting part of levelling up. I might consider giving players a perk at every level if I made Fallout 3, but only if I also reduced the level cap to ten or so.

Anyway, my biggest gripe about perks is probably still the "traits rolled into perks" nonsense. I can't see mixing traits that give a bonus with a tradeoff working well alongside straight bonus perks, unless the latter are considerably weaker.
I guess one might construct it in a way that works, but at the same time it would be much easier to just keep traits seperate, while mixing them doesn't provide any advantage I can see. Besides, aquiring perks seems weird. What, can I become "gifted" at level twelve? That doesn't appear to make sense.

Moving on, I read that throwing is now handled by the explosives skill, which apparently covers grenades and mines. So, no dynamite? And grenades are the only thrown weapons in Bethout. You want to throw a stone? Well, build yourself a Rock-It-Launcher. Oh, the pun! So smart! Even better than "Ladykiller" AMIRITE?

 

[JarlFrank]

Anyway, my biggest gripe about perks is probably still the "traits rolled into perks" nonsense. I can't see mixing traits that give a bonus with a tradeoff working well alongside straight bonus perks, unless the latter are considerably weaker.

So you seriously believe Bethesda will add any serious drawbacks to traits? It'll probably be "One-handed: This trait might make you a bit less effective with two-handed weapons, but ZOMG YOU'LL SCORE A CRITICAL HIT EVERYTIME YOU FIRE A ONE-HANDED GUN!!!!11!!1"

 

[pkt-zer0]

Anyway, my biggest gripe about perks is probably still the "traits rolled into perks" nonsense. I can't see mixing traits that give a bonus with a tradeoff working well alongside straight bonus perks, unless the latter are considerably weaker.

Fear not, they aren't mixed.

PCG: So do some perks now have negative side effects like traits did?
Todd: Not really, no. We decided to make them all positive. We went through that debate, and what we decided was that the negative is really what you didn’t pick.

 

[SimpleComplexity]

Pete... The Punisher!

 

[MetalCraze]

Rage from Id Software looks better and has a better atmosphere than Fallout 3. Also Rage will be a better shooter.

 

[bezimek]

Rage from Id Software looks better and has a better atmosphere than Fallout 3. Also Rage will be much better FPS.

FIXED :twisted:

 

[Shannow]

Falling from Heaven
When you're in a combat and losing it, a random object (a spoon, a table, etc.) might fall from the sky and hit your enemy, causing damage (the amount of damage is relevant to the mass of the object). This perk naturally only works outdoors.

Crazy Eye
Opponents attacking from the front suffer a penalty to hit you because, seriously, that eye is freaking me out.

I actually like those. The problem I see, is that Bethsda simply doesn't manage to sound witty. When I'm really bored I start throwing around bad jokes like there was no tomorrow. Depending on the situation and the people, reactions range from amused to disgusted. Bethesda reminds me of me. Trying too hard. Some flawed gems under huge piles of shit, but ultimately: FAIL.

I wan't my traits back. And iso and tb... Ah...fuck...

 

[Claw]

Fear not, they aren't mixed.

PCG: So do some perks now have negative side effects like traits did?
Todd: Not really, no. We decided to make them all positive. We went through that debate, and what we decided was that the negative is really what you didn’t pick.

Oh, great. So they were simply lying again. Traits are so last-gen.