Interview GamesRadar interview on Fallout 3 quests, perks

[kingcomrade]

Actually that's a good decision.

 

[mondblut]

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

Well, I'd rather get less levels per game than get levels which don't offer new abilities Grinding encounters for a few more HP is just as exciting as fireballing a wall to increase fireballing skill.

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

Up until Infinity Engine days (and well into them, except maybe for IWDs which I didn't play) there were no skills in any AD&D game except Buck Rogers goldboxes (which technically aren't D&D), nor even weapon proficiences up until BG. As for saving throws, these values are hidden in pretty much every single D&D game, so the increase is only known to the initiated (besides, "5% more chance to suffer half damage from wands of lightning and fireball" sounds even less exciting than "5% more chance to hit a zero ac target").

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.

Well, since there are no classes nor magic in SPECIAL, every character can technically be considered a common fighter. Unless he's a thief, of course, which means he'll have to decide whether to get a THAC0 increase OR a thieving skill increase, if we continue with AD&D parallels.

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.

Well, when all characters are fighters, that makes sense

Now if there would be some classes with spells, innate abilities or what have you, there would be enough to choose on levelup without a feat every level. But this is clearly not the case here.

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.

It only implies there should be more feats to choose, not availability of all feats.

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

Well, that's another story

What irked me in the original news was that "new ability every level is anathema, there *must* be 2 worthless levelups for every useful one, period" attitude. That which bethsoft would end up fucking up designing and balancing perks, is obvious.

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.

Well, being able to survive one hit more and finish same enemy with one bullet less doesn't sound like a very gratifying reward for grinding a hundred of radscorpions or doing 10 fedex quests

Learning to do something new is, IMHO, always much preferable and more fun than learning to something old a wee bit better. That's, by the way, why I dislike non-fantasy RPGs. When there are no spells and stuff to learn, all that character development goes down to is increasing accuracy by bits.

 

[elander_]

Todd: For a lot of people, the way that Z-key grab works, a lot of it is so you can do like this [Todd rearranges items on the table in front of him]. You can decorate everything, you come in, there’s the gun shop…it’s fun. It’s dress-up with a room.

PCG: So it doesn’t serve much of a gameplay purpose beyond storage?
Todd: No, the things you can add to your house are definitely gameplay related things.

PCG: Such as?
Todd: Such as, wait and see! Have you not seen enough, sir?

PCG: Never enough!
Emil: You can definitely buy useful things for the house.
Todd: Even the bed, that well-rested thing [that gives you an XP bonus for a while after sleeping], that wasn’t in the original design. So we put that in, and we recently changed it. We like the XP thing.

Cough .. bullshit .. cough

 

[Micmu]

Time good spent!

 

[fastpunk]

... perks like ... fartmaster ...

What?

 

[SpaceKungFuMan]

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.

So by the end of the game, since you'll have picked everything, there will literally be NO negative, even in the trivial sense Bethesda is using here.

If people can raid origin's archives and steal all their shit, why can't they raid Bethesda and wipe out every trace of this abomination?

 

[Texas Red]

So why exactly shouldn't I pick Gifted or Skilled in FO 3, assuming they're in?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Or?

 

[pkt-zer0]

So by the end of the game, since you'll have picked everything, there will literally be NO negative, even in the trivial sense Bethesda is using here.

Not exactly - by the end of the game, you'll only have 20 perk levels, which is one fifth of the total available. So you'd be missing out of 80 other perk levels.

I'm willing to bet that the amount of useful perks that you'll end up missing out on is still pretty close to zero, though. For one, perks are not universally useful for different character builds - missing out on increased rate of fire with a melee build won't be a huge loss. Factor in perk prerequisites (one of them being the trivial "get perk level (n-1) to be able to pick up perk level (n) ) and it's even worse.

So why exactly shouldn't I pick Gifted or Skilled in FO 3, assuming they're in?

I'm guessing Gifted is what became Intense Training - +1 to one of your SPECIAL attributes. No reason you shouldn't pick them. Perks are FUN!

 

[Naked Ninja]

While the reason for the change is silly, the change isn't negative in itself.

Hey, you got a new "perk" every level in Diablo2, and that didn't make the choice of where to spend your point lame or guarantee that you will get all the skills. It's essentially the same thing, a skill tree. In all likelihood you'll just have multiple levels of the same perk, as someone said. Will wait and see on the execution, of course, but I have no problem with the concept, intrinsically.

Btw, that gun thing Pete is carrying is a pretty cool toy, I'd like one for my wall.

 

[Claw]

It's essentially the same thing, a skill tree.

You're essentially right, except for the skill part and the tree part.