I never understood what the value in going over 100% was....its the kind of thing some idiot on a gameshow comes out with "I'm giving it 110%"

100% is finite, a total sum of all its existing parts, you cannot have 110% without raising the quantity of a whole beyond 100% say to 200% which in fact lowers your estimate of 110% to just over half.

Its a skill modifier. Your anology makes no sense in this context.

I hope that we'll be able to max only 3-5 skills, depending on INT. If you're able to be good at everything, that's not roleplaying.

Um what the devs have said...

On skill books we get alot fewer books but each book gives more skill.. overall the effect of all the books in total is less. I cant remember if the devs said it was 3 skill per book with comprehension making it 4 or 2 skill per book with it making it 3... I think it was 3-4. id expect somehwre between 3 and 5 books per skill.

Problem is when gamesas / Obsidian throws v.hard locks / computers galore after a player. This means you need either science or lockpick to get anywhere. Then there's weapon degradation which is damned severe combined with everybody out in the wilderness being mostly clueless about repairing stuff. Ergo, you need repair yourself. Then there's the fact that all the dialogue checks are focused on your speech skill while almost none are limited by your SPECIAL attributes, which means that either you're going to be rather limited in your dialogue, or you need speech. Then there's the fact that pretty much all enemies in FO3 had supersight and would notice you from half a mile away and start chasing you, which means sneak or be a literal monster-magnet.

Add to this that Obsidian have pretty much confirmed that survival skill is going to be very useful. This means yet another essential skill.

Suddenly the only area where you do have a choice is with respect to weapons, where you'll probably have to pick a single category before you know anything at all about which weapons are in the game. The rest of your skill points are needed in the various adventure skills, unless you want to play a complete chump.

The idea that FO is more funny to play when all locks are impenetrable barriers (even though you're running around with ****ing nukes and other high explosives that would easily tear through the locked doors) or when even a blind and deaf critter can spot you half a mile away or when you're forced to constantly use equipment at 30% condition, well...

It makes sense to focus a fair bit on character limitations in adventuring in games where teamplay and cooperation between characters are important aspects. Party-based RPGs, MMORPGs, there it makes sense. In games where you're really just all by yourself, it becomes stupidly frustrating to run into these limitations time and again. Having that sort of thing banged in your face no matter what you do is nothing but an exercise in futile character development.

Think about it, you've spent years slaughtering hundreds of deathclaws and super muties and raiders but because you've hit the arbitrary level cap, you can no longer practise your lock-picking, even though there's every damn opportunity imaginable to do so. You can no longer practise your repairing abilities, you're no longer getting better with practise at curing wounds, survivalism, hacking... Where's the sense in that? It absolutely stinks of artificial gameplay limitation. Where's the awesomeness in that?

Black Spider goes directly to my point of if you can only max 4 -5 skills, then the other important skills need to be useful in the 50 range, and pretty damn good at the 75-80 range. Also it would be good if followers were useful for something other than the packmule/bullet sponge role they mainly played in FO3. If followers could do stuff like they did in FO2, like hack computers, repair weapons, etc. then the player would have a reason to keep them alive. (or even take them on in the first place.)

I'm happy if we can only max about half of our skills, as long as we can get the rest to a decentish level too, saying that I never put any points into hand to hand, ever.

Followers are much improved in New Vegas, each has their own quest line and they also give the player character a bonus perk whilst traveling with him/her.

@Black Spider
I agree. These people are masochists, heh. They probably also like to save and load excessively too. (I just save excessively since this is a gamebryo game, and you know how things can end abruptly).

But, really it doesn't matter for those with the PC version. I'm going to play my first playthrough in hardcoe mode with some gimped up character. Then, after that I might mod the skill system in order to be a jack of all trades, relying on no one. 360 users can suffer

Sounds like having companions do the lockpicking or repairs will be more important now. I kind of wonder if you can even run through almost everything with horrible weapon skills, relying on your companions to do the shooting and melee. I know there will be a "no killing" game. Though that will probably consist of hand fighting, golfing, and dart guns. But if you can always have a companion, maybe you can go in as a weak fighter as well.

I'm hoping FONV is more like FO1 and 2. It was way too easy to become the perfect killing machine in FO3, especially if you used Educated, knew where all the skillbooks were, and took Almost Perfect. I'm kind of mixed about skillbooks wearing off over time though. I'm just hoping an Unarmed or Melee character isn't a death sentence like FO3.

No, it doesn't. Most quests have alternatives to locks and computers, finding keys, passcodes, speech, etc.


Repair kits and all weapons go straight up to 100 % condition now when repaired.


There are various skills that can be used in different conversations and the speech skill is never necessary to finish a quest.



I never had to sneak once even in my early levels when I had crappy weapon skills. This probably isn't a problem with the skill system as much it is probably your own personal ability and tactics.


It won't be essential but like whatever skill you specialize in, it'll certainly help if you use it right.

I think your main problem here is you are confusing "it's not super easy without this" with "essential".

I'm no masochist, I just enjoy playing the game the way it was intended to be played. Games like Fallout are rooted in replay value and the joy of the road not traveled. Character creation is supposed to supplement this and create a unique and different experience from the last, god mode pretty much rips out the heart of the system and takes a pretty shameful piss on it . After seeing how boringly broken and bland god characters can be in FO3, I'll never support it.

If you have reached max level and still want to improve your skills... only a few options are really available. Either create some MOD for FNV, if you are playing on the PC version of course, that allows further levels or other enhancements; or use the console commands (assuming they are still implemented) and occasionally improve your skills at your own discretion. The only other alternative is waiting for some more official DLC t o raise the maximum level.

that might be your personal view on the game, but not necessarily everyone else's, too
the same way you're calling out black spider, for assumingly wanting 'an easier game', one could say you were wanting the devs to prevent you from succumbing to the tempatation...
you don't have to read all these skill books in fo3, and you're not forced to spend all your skill points either, just saying. others just might see these skill books as a welcomed reward for extensive exploring.
i for myself am ok with not being able to end up with a maxed out character, but at the same time i do expect the game to fully recognize my lvl30ness...
by cutting the perk rate into half and due to the introduction of the hardcoe mode, significant steps to increase the challenge have already been taken, so i hope the game design doesn't get TOO harsh here.

What would you consider "too" harsh?

only 2 or 3 maxed out skills, 4 or 5 which are moderately developed, and another 4 or 5 which don't even get touched.
i'd be fine with 5,6 skills over 90, another 4 or 5 being >60, and 2 to 3 undeveloped skills

I'd see the first option much more closer to the optimal than the second one. It'd make one feel that what he has decided, has carried weight; and would allow much greater character variety - while the second one basically lets you max out half of your skills, which I - personally - would see as a "not too good" thing as it would still allow (and in certain sense: force) a "godbuild". But that's just my opinion. I would've very much liked if they linked the leveling and skillpoints to difficultysetting... oh well.

:whisper: Roleplay a new character with a different skill set which requires a different approach to the game

thing is, i just don't have the time for 5 or 6 full replays, i'll have to go with 2. i mean, we're talking about 100+ hours each here
by going your route, i'd miss out a lot.
apart from that, i don't really mind being a more or less divine appearance after a very long play time, and singlehandedly having turned the new vegas area upside down, but that's just me

Hopefully for my own personal preferance, we will not be able to max all the skills ingame again which mades a character who is basically a JONTMOA (Jack of No Trades, Master of All).
As I find playing a character like that at least in a cRPG style of game to be bland and uninteresting. In that once you reach the jontmoa stage it doesn't matter where you go, you can decide to try any or if you save all possible methods of doing something which I feel knackers one of what I think is a basic precept of an RPG which is all types of character concepts should have things which they are good at and other things which they are bad at.
For my personal replayability preference, being able to create 'concept' characters who are 'good' in narrow fields in a game like New Vegas means that with each playthrough I'll still have things to discover and be able to get past (at least hopefully) situations in a different fashion depending on which concept I'm playing at the time.

Now to mention a personal quibble, a JOAT (Jack of All Trades) or to use the full appelation JOATMON (Jack of All Trades, Master of NONE), denotes someone who is adequate with all available skills but not especially skilled in any of them. Aka they can try to do anything but only as long as it's not too advanced. Basically a joatmon shouldn't have any skill which is above average ((presuming the skill cap is 100, this means a skill of about 50) while a jontmoa has every skill at 100).
The way I view a Jack of All Trades, is that they are basically like a general handyman who is able keep a building in reasonable shape as long as nothing major goes wrong, at which point they have to call in a specialist to fix the problem because what has gone wrong is beyond the handyman's abilities to fix.

Eh, what happens after 2 runthroughs - or after 200+ hours after your first start? If what were told - that you're decisions affect the ending and what happens in the game - is true, your 2 runthroughs leave you lacking in many areas anyway.

you're right. so, no reason to worsen my already sad situation

If you are playing on PC, you're in luck.

What about my situation? :laugh:

I don't mind "godly" characters if involves grinding boring stuff on top of doing ALL of the content in the NV world. In FO 1 and 2 you could become "wasteland gods" but it took a LOT of time invested in grinding random encounters to do so. In FO 3 I hit maxed skills before level 20 and with only 1/2 the world explored......

I would like for skills to be somewhat useful around 50%, but to get the interesting dialogue options and access to some optional content to be reserved for like 90-100%. I want a S.P.E.C.I.A.L stat modifier applied to the rolls as well. For example, you have only like 3 STR and 100% unarmed skill your fists will hit every time, but they will have almost no chance of crippling limbs, will do low damage, and will still likely fail skill checks for interesting events/interactions involving unarmed.

Fallout 2 had TONS of unique, random bonus content for masters of a skill and with a high value of the attribute linked to it. That is what made every play-through of FO 2 so much fun for me My characters might not have been able to do all of the same content, but there was plenty of unique things for each to experience.

No, I don't think I am. I don't want the game to be super easy. I just don't want to have a character that can only do a single thing. I want my character to be able to learn over time how to disarm mines, how to cut steaks out of animals, how to sneak, how to shoot, how to pick locks, and so on. It makes no sense whatsoever that a character that survives as many intense situations as a FO protagonist is a one-trick pony.

Really, I'm just asking solely to have some jack of all trades abilities. I want to be able to sneak past a mutant camp without getting spotted right away, not to move into the camp and slash half the guards to pieces with a chainsaw that nobody can hear and then pickpocket a grenade onto a nearby super mutie overlord. I want to be able to open reasonable locks, even if the top quality locks are beyond me. I want my gear to be of usable quality, even if I'm not a specialist in repairing them. I want to have a cursory knowledge of computers, even if I'm not 1337 hacker. I want to be able to talk and emphasize points like a normal person, even if I'm no diplomat. I want to be able to trade as if I actually have a brain, not constantly take my pants off and ask every vendor to have his way with my abused ass.


Who's asking for god-mode? FO3 was broken for a number of reasons. Part of it was the amount of health you'd end up with. If they'd taken out the level-up bonus to health then you could've gotten 300 health and that's it. With that amount of health, a lot of enemies would be dangerous even at level 30. Another issue was Almost Perfect. With AP in the game, anyone could simply max int, get to level 30, and have the best of both worlds. Easy. Without AP, players would've have to prioritize their SPECIALs.

Of course, that's another problem with FO3 balance. SPECIAL stats are nearly useless except for the perks they allow you to invest in, which meant that it didn't really cost you much to ignore agility and charisma until you could get Almost Perfect. Strength at 5 for Strong Back was fine as well. Not like you'd be sacrificing any perks, which means no reason to ever take it higher. Same issue with endurance. Starting value of 5 or 6 would have no cost in the long run.

Really, it wouldn't take all that much to make FO3 challenging even at level 30, even with maxed skills. That's not really what this topic is about, however. This topic is about how skilled characters will be in New Vegas, and I really hope that Obsidian isn't going to run head first into the other extreme and make characters that literally can only be masters of one thing or jacks of a few. It takes too much away from the exploration and adventure aspect of the gameplay.

Interesting. Personally, I'd settle for having 1 skill maxed, another couple of skills at ~75-80, and then most of the rest around the ~40-60 region.


To me it's not so much a question of having decided and stuff. It's more a question of learning from experience. A max level player character that's gone through all the crap the New Vegas world puts you through should definitely be a jack of all trades to some extent as well as a master of something. Anything less implies that any Joe Average could've completed the quest, which has the unfortunate side effect of implying that the entire world is full of clueless idiots since they pretend to need your help. That's just senseless.

Obviously, it's a bit exaggerated to be a master of everything but it's not like there's a time limitation to the game, which means that the player character has all the time in the world to practice and hone his skills. Why wouldn't you know the basics of just about everything related to wilderness survival?