Fallout 4 does NOT have skills. You remember those right? Big Guns, Small Guns (or just Guns), science, picklock, repair, energy weapons, explosives. You know, all those things that make Fallout an RPG.

Guess my last purchase (and true love) for the series has been made. Bethesda, I loved Fallout 3 and NV, but this has crossed a line I won't tolerate.

How can it be Fallout with no skills?

Oh well, you can't take away the oldies from me, even if you can ruin the future of the series.

Gonna go cry now. Wasn't really planning on buying it any time soon anyway, but did at some point hope I would experience it. Not like this. No, not like this. The best series ever and now this. It's worth a tear or two. Brought so many happy hours of gaming.

Yeah, I heard this as well and was pretty shocked about it too. But I did a little googling and it seems what they've done is wrapped everything into perks, which you receive at each level up. From what I read, the system actually doesn't seem as shockingly bad as you'd think at first. At least, the description of it seems to make some sense, since it means your SPECIAL stats have much more impact on your character than with the old skill system.

Not that it matters much to me right now, as there's no way I'm shelling out 70 or so bucks for the game plus another 30 or so for the 'season pass' (how I hate this concept). I'll be waiting for a GOTY version that includes all content 18 months or 2 years down the road. By that time, there will be enough info about this skill change to judge whether or not it's a game breaker.

Ah man! Still planning on getting the game, but it;s gonna be weird without those special touches. Skills are what make the player's character individual from a regular character that just levels up in everything.

I've spent countless points on lock picking, science, and energy weapons, as well as on Intelligence and Charisma;I'm the kind of guy who likes to solve things through speech, cleverness, and being a decent person, much like in real life. Lock picking and Science is just for terminal hacking (love to read all the files left on them) and hoarding everything in sight. Those containers WILL be liberated of their caps! XD

My understanding is the way they've structured the perks will still allow you a lot of customization options to make your character unique. Remains to be seen if that's actually the case though.

But... but you can craft a bed, right? Isn't it great?

I'm not against making the level up system better. In fact, I think using a perks system to give bonuses to base stats instead of having skills *and* perks *and* base stats makes some sense. But I'm not sure if I agree with changing an existing system "just because".

That is good but I think their main focus here is the ability to change. In older games it was typically much harder to adapt to a new playstyle, you had to continue on the road you picked. Makes it feel more personal and RPG-ish but probably isn't good for a wide audience.

I used to like to the old system much more because of mentioned reasons yet nowadays I actually like the ability to customize your character on-the-fly because I rarely play for challenge's sake and I find exploring what the game has to offer way more interesting.

my guess would be:

unique for an FPS character

I have some sad breaking news. Fallout 4 isn't the only thing that's lost some skills and perks.

Well, there is an upside to it- it makes me regret not being able to play it tight now much less. Oh well, I guess if I ever play it it will be for the setting, but for now I'll keep my attention to getting more of the proper RPGs from my GOG wishlist.

I just heard something.. oh never mind, it was just me breaking wind.

As far as I'm concerned an RPG does not even need these things. Heck, Stalker and Outcast are some of my favourite RPGs even though most people wouldn't call them that due to the absence of traditional character building there.

And I haven't checked the new system out yet but what GR00T is describing actually sounds like a pretty clever design decision. I fail to see how manually raising numbers is more immersive or RPGish than choosing perks that build your character in more noticeable steps.

This was a point made in the article I read: your perk choices affect your character immediately as opposed to having to wait to dump two levels of skill points into a skill in order to affect a difference (remember that in FO3 some - if not al - skills only improved at 25, 50, 75, and 100 points. Lockpicking springs to mind where you couldn't even attempt to open a lock of specific difficulty if your skill level wasn't at one of those values). As well, your SPECIAL values reportedly have more impact.

Fallout 4 doesn't have skills?

Far out, it's like a game version of me.

[Insert joke here]

;D