I don't own it, and as of now, have zero plans on purchasing it because I don't like the fact that they did away with skills (which, you know, makes an RPG an RPG). Huh, someone once mentioned that since they did away with skills and went with perks exlusively, it was "Skyrim with guns." Ahmm, I don't know whether I've got a special edition of Skyrim or what's going on, but my version of Skyrim has, uhmm, SKILLS. That go from 1 to 100 (or really 15 to 100). It has skills PLUS perks. As I understand it, F4 has ONLY perks. And attributes. So, no matter how you slice it, F4 is less of an RPG than F3 (which is arguably less of an RPG than F2 and F1) so the trend is obvious. The Fallout series is officially moving from RPG to FPS. (I say no matter how you argue it because F3 had ATTRIBUTES, SKILLS, PERKS, and TRAITS. As far as I know, F4 has ATTRIBUTES, PERKS, and I'm guessing???? TRAITS. So, that's LESS RPGness no matter how one argues it)

All that said, because I liked the series so much so far, I may change my mind at some point (though I can guarantee it won't be anytime soon as I never buy a Bethesda game anywhere near release due to the games not being finished anyway) so I was wondering if those that have played it would mind sharing their thoughts on the game. Thanks for any info.

(My nephew has finished the game and I've asked for him to email me a summary of his thoughts, but so far.... no email. Thought I'd ask here. Hope my opinions didn't offend anyone, wasn't my intention.)

I don't own the game myself but have watched many hours of gameplay videos, and as I understand it, they didn't really remove the skills of the previous Fallout games, but rather merged skills and perks ( and the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system ) into a single new character development system. It seems to work rather well, once you get used to the idea. Each time your character levels up, you get to decide whether to pick one perk/skill upgrade, or you can invest the skill point into one of your base attributes instead ( which is a requirement for some of the higher level perks ).

It may look simpler on the surface, but for the most you're still left with the same difficult choices about how you want to develop your character. It seems they also did some re-balancing with the base stats, to make sure that all of them are equally important. Overall it looks like a really fun and rewarding system, as long as you go into the game with an open mind, and don't instantly trash it just because it's not exactly like the older games.

Well, I heard from my nephew. I think it's safe to say he liked it...

See Fallout 1 and 2 how skills and perks should work.
Fallout 3 is broken in this matter, FNV had it more-less fixed.

In F1-2:

SPECIAL Attributes are born abilities.
Like look better, run longer, be stronger, be smarter, be more appealing.
These powered base character stats, like health, damage taken etc.
They unlocked some of perks, amount of skills available at start and amount of skills given on each level up.

Skills are the efficiency at some task.
The more you do something, the more efficient you become.
The only unlogical thing here was that they increased by points - not by doing task itself. TL;DR you could kill a bandwagon of bandits and become better at speech.

Traits are special game modificators. They increased some ability, whilst decreasing another. Fully optional.
Like strong hands - increase bigger punch power, but loose in chance to critically hit (finesse).
Gifted trait for example, gave +1 to all SPECIAL attributes but gave penalty to amount of points available to put in skill on each level up.

Finally, Perks are special ability of positive nature.
These which can be optionally picked each N levels (typically 3 (unless affected by trait).
Some of perks simply gave extra % to skill. Some gave + to attributes but on special condition.

Fallout 4 is completely different thing.

Its can be that F4 system may be much better than F3, BUT
its not correct to claim that classic F1-2 SPECIAL system was worse than F4, because F3 implementation was broken.

----
I think system used in Jagged Alliance 2 was better than Fallout.
The funny moments with Fallout system, is that some attributes can't really be linked to raw value.
For example, take 20 year old male and 3 year old baby.
Both have STR 10. In Fallout 1-2 system, both can pick heavy crates or wear power armor.

In JA2 system Attribute=Skill and one increases it by doing the task.
Punching cows or enemies - agility increase.
Repairing stuff - dexterity increase.
Overweight carrying - strength increase.
and so on.

Fallout 4 is pretty good. The new level system works well but still feels toned down a little from the older system. I have a couple problems with this game though.

Something that has really been bugging me is the weapon variety. Yea you can change weapons greatly with the expanded crafting and modding but there are just so few weapons to begin with. an example can be seen with pistols in fallout 4 there is the 10 mm, .44, pipe, Laser, and Plasma. (and pistols may have the most options in FA4) in fallout new vegas there is the 9mm, 10mm, 12.7mm, .357, .556, Laser, Plasma, Police pistol, Ranger Pistol, .44 and maybe some others. these also felt different from each other, in other words each had there own niche. The weapons in fallout 4 just end up feeling largely the same to each other. To make this worse is the unique weapon system in fallout 4 most unique weapons look and feel no different to there counterparts and most giving passive damage increases it other minor effects. These weapons are also everywhere making them feel less unique and more like minor upgrades. as a side problem I have with guns is the general price of weapons. I can sell a fat man for about 250 caps but it will cost but 2.5 grand just to buy 25 adhesive which seems kind of broken.

Im also somewhat bothered by the lack of polish in the settlement system. Its possible to make some decent looking buildings but if your in a hilly area you can just forget it. everything ends up partially floating and there is little you can do to stop it. another minor problem with the system I have is the decorations. they have lots of random pictures of kittens and light houses but what I really want to decorate my garage with is nuka cola posters and vault tech fliers which are completely lacking from the decorations tab.

Even with these complaints fallout 4 is a great game. I almost have 4 days in it at this point literally 96 hours not just over the span of 4 days and have found most of the locations on the map. Boston's a great place to explore. all the exploration and scavenging is still there and is possibly even more important now as the game is actually harder then the others (3 and NV) at least early on.

Let me say.....A great downgrade from the previous titles in the Fallout series. They downgraded the dialogue depth, kept the same engine as Skyrim and a lot of the same sounds and animations. Took away skills completely (biggest gripe for me besides the dialogue thing). Now anyone can do any skill regardless of S.P.E.C.I.A.L.'s picked. Max anything out? sure. Be lazy and be rewarded nonetheless, more like.

They also Added simplistic mechanics that appeal to mainstream gamers like house building and attachment attaching for weapons. No more creating you own unique character that is different from your last 30 characters you made. It's more an "FPS game" then "RPG game". Saddened me actually. I pre-ordered it and only played it 20 hours before the various flaws surfaced and boreded me. It wasn't as intriguing as New Vegas was too me.

Don't get me wrong, still a good game, but NOT a good Fallout game.

All right. Challenge accepted.

Fallout 4 still has all the skills you remember from previous Fallout games, but they're no longer directly editable by the player. In fact, your character skills are now, more than ever, organically grown from the broad guidance you give your character on creation and level-up, and the specific choices you make while playing. This in fact makes the role you play (the RPGness) even more important in the game, since you can't roll up a character statted one way and then just assign skills as you please.

For example, despite the comments above - and elsewhere - that any character can do anything, no matter their stats, that's utterly false. Good luck picking a Master level lock if you don't have Master lockpicking. Good luck building a store in a settlement if you don't have Local Leader as well as a high enough Charisma.

The argument that taking away skills reduces the RPG-ness of the game doesn't hold up to scrutiny. In previous Fallout games, where skills were king, high-INT builds were inherently advantageous. A low INT wasn't a roleplay choice, it was a straight-up handicap. With per-level perk points independent of INT, now all possible builds get the same options per level, making more character types viable. This increases the RPGness of the game, as you are no longer penalized for playing a suboptimal character.

Dialog is still built in to the game; you still decide what factions to join, how to help them, how to build your character and build your base of power. The game world still evolves based on the choices you make. Cries that end-game homogenization makes your choices unimportant are from people who clearly never played to end-game - even with a lot of exploration and base-building, getting to level 50 will take a long time, and 50 perk points aren't nearly enough to homogenize all builds. A long-range stealth sniper takes about 45 points to optimize; a melee juggernaut around 40; a pacifist build at least 35. Unless you grind endlessly, you'll only barely have enough game to flesh out your character and pick a few extras on the side.

If an RPG is a game that heavily weights character stats over player skills, then Fallout 4 is more of an RPG than Fallout 3 was, but less than Fallout 1 or 2. If an RPG is a game where you play a character the way you want to, Fallout 4 is still more of an RPG than Fallout 3, but is arguably as much an RPG as the original Fallouts.

EDIT: typos

I agree with BruceLeeForever's review. I'm 100 hours in and Fallout 4 has been mostly a VATS shooter with almost no RPG. Yes, you can go where you want and do what you want, but there have been few choices that rely on perks, and those few times have always relied on a high charisma stats. Most of the time, it'll only get you the info you need now instead of scrounging for the answer a little longer.

Lockpicking and Hacking Terminals only serve to open caches with extra ammo and loot and little else.

I actually enjoy the weapon and armor crafting as it gives you the option of specializing in stealth, mitigating specific damage like radiation or energy weapons, or just maximizing bullet damage at the expense of energy and rad protection. The weapons can be tweaked to be auto fire at the expense of damage, or single shot with more damage but it's clear some weapons are better than others regardless of how much crafting you do.

I don't like dealing with annoying settlers and building shit for them, mostly because you have to put something like 7/10 points into Charisma just to be able to build the stuff they want and set up supply lines between different areas.

Surprisingly, it has been the LEAST buggy Bethesda game I have ever played. The only problem is I need a high FOV because it's set to low console crap as always. If I attempt to use any console command, the FOV reverts and there is no way to change it back other than shutting down and restarting. I don't cheat but it would be nice to use on occasion if I get stuck or my companion gets lost somewhere.

My biggest problem with the game is it looks so damn ugly compared to a masterpiece like The Witcher 3. They're still using the same ancient Gamebryo/Creation engine and it takes longer than ever to load every building you want to enter and exit. CDPR showed Bethesda how open world is done and Bethesda needs to open their pocketbook and invest in a 21st century engine.

It's just too similar to Fallout 3 in all of the bad ways and none of the good ways. After 100 hours there was only one level that gave me a "Holy shit, that was awesome" feeling. I'm not done with the game yet, but TBH I'm not feeling the urge to continue to the end.

TL;DR version: Bethesda's most ambitious work, but some pieces don't fit that well.
Before I get into my analysis, I have to address some points brought up: Yes you can max out everything. Only takes you lvl 264. Fuckin' lazy casual mainstreamers... no way this being feasible without months if not years of grinding.

Building different characters IS why F4's system is that way.
Lockpicking / hacking / crafting takes about 20 perk points alone - that's the basics without anything about the role of your character.
Add in around 10-15 perks for specifically building your character (melee, stealth / crit based, whatever), another 5-10 (additional to the crafting) if you'd want to go wild with settlements.
Note that I haven't even touched any of the 5 (Big Leagues, Heavy Gunner, Rifleman, Gunslinger, Commando) weapon perks, nor the explosives or VATS based ones yet...

Yes you'd have to specialize as no longer will it be possible to get 100 in all skills / get all perks as it was the case with F3 and NV (well yes, theoretically - again, at lvl 264).
I agree with the more FPS then RPG part though.

They already put in restrictions on the perks, so that you need a certain lvl to unlock it (which I hate, but is for balancing reasons) in place of a certain skill lvl. If you need more restrictions to play your role, you fail at the roleplaying part.

... and they won't change it. Which is actually good. A completely new engine equals throwing all the knowledge modders have build up over board. The way cells are handled, is practically the same since Morrowind. You simply won't get that level of compatibility with a new engine - that's why they rewrite and adapt the whole thing over and over again.

I'm currently playing on survival difficulty at lvl 27 and sneak not only works, but is what saves my sorry puny ass. At times it's god-like and feels straight up overpowered. Taking down a legendary enemy in power armor that could 2-shot me? Sneak.

----------------------------------------------

The bad:
- The Interface straight up sucks. Can't say that more nicely, it's worse than on Skyrim.
Press M to bring up the map on your pipboy. You'll gonna close it with M again - wrong, doesn't work. You'll need to close the pipboy with TAB. Same for inventory, quests, you name it. Same by opening the map with M, then wanting to switch over to inventory - TAB, I or use the mouse.
Some keys share more than one purpose and can't be separated.

- Speech is practically useless. As far as I've seen, there was 1 point where I regretted to not have high charisma / persuasion, on all other occasions they worked as minor shortcuts on quests or for more exp.

- Endings. 3 of the 4 possible endings finish with the same mission, the same outcome, just different NPCs standing next to you. The conclusion after any ending remains the same. Not going into effects of your decisions (like NV) at all. Lame

The not fish, not flesh:
- Story is overall meh and could have been easily better. Quickly get's WTF moments (bad ones, I'm looking at you, Mama Murphy), but also has good parts and is still a vast improvement over F3 and yes, I dare to say it, even NV (sry guys, but the Institute is nowhere near as bad as the Legion from a storytelling perspective).
+ a lot more effort went into the story. Different factions with different goals, the possibility of double-crossing... it's just that you see so much potential wasted on what could have been.

- Dialog. Not seeing the complete answer your about to give and the limited options you get, is the standard problem of this adopted Bioware system.
+ On the other hand, I loved the more free-flow feeling it gives. You're not locked into a discussion, which feels more natural.

- Starting location is in a corner of the world. Not in the middle of the map, from where you can go everywhere, which takes away from immersion.
+ This works as a tutorial and against level scaling (the more you head south, the more dangerous it get's).

- More glitches than Skyrim on release...
+ ... but hardly any quest bugs or gamecrashes.
Also some logical faults like an area where you can't survive without Rad-protection, yet your companion walks next to you in a t-shirt....

- AI sucks at times. Dogmeat is the new Lydia, only worse. Enemies running towards you, passing both attacking companion and acompaning questguy, even though you didn't fired one shot.
+ On the plus side they beefed up the attack pattern of the enemies. A deathclaw or radscorp don't just run straight towards you, but actively tries to evade your attacks. Robots also don't just stand in front of you while you melee them, but evade regularly.

- Perk system. Too much emphasis on crafting, which takes away much needed points from fighting skills. Higher levels hardly anything useful, unless you pick a very specific build towards it.
+ More than ever before, you need to specialize.

The good:
+ More interesting places, hardly ever feeling copy paste / seen this before. More places offering insightful snippets from the past / stories.

+ NPCs have more character / personalities than ever before. The discussions you get is also a huge step forward, though nowhere near Bioware / Obsidian / CDRed level.

+ Difficulty. Very easy in F4 is the normal difficulty in Fallout 3.

+ Crafting weapons / (power) armor with a HUGE upgrade.

+ Building house / defenses. Though rather basic and already confusing - modders will go nuts on this one. Almost completely optional though.

+ Enormous amount of content to explore.

Conclusion:
I loved Fallout 3 and Skyrim. At the moment, I like Fallout 4 but didn't fell in love with it, despite having played up to 175 hours.

It is a vast improvement over Fallout 3 across the board (except the interface). More interesting world, better dialog, better level building, more personalities... but 7 years later and with a Witcher 3 out, just not the giant leap forward. Overall it's a great game and I've already gotten my money's worth out of it. But you can't help but wonder, how much better it could have been...

I haven't reached that sort of level,but your happy with it then good luck.

To my surprise, I actually got bored of F4 after a while and stopped playing. Way overrated/hyped. The crafting system and finding necessary supplies is a chore, the whole settlement system is a complete waste of space and time, the story is about as generic and uninteresting as it gets, and the dialog system is just pants. Luckily the gameplay was moderately fun for a time until it got old again. *shrug* Frankly, the whole addition of the power armor is nothing special either.

I also don't get all the love that was heaped onto New Vegas. Sure, it was a decent game, but, frankly, I still had the most fun with F3. Yeah, that one's ending sucked monkey-balls, but otherwise to me it is definitely the most enjoyable one.

Also, Fallout > Fallout 2. Suck it! =P

As said before, Fallout 4 is a good game, but I wouldn't consider it an RPG, and it is merely thinly Fallout themed.

I've had fun with Fallout 4 as a FPS in the same vein as the STALKER series. It's no where near as a hardcore, but it's definitely a FPS at heart now. And it's a good modern Bethesda game. I really did like exporing and going off the beaten path to discover things and figure out what was the deal behind them. Unfortunately, it's not very deep, so you'll get a little tidbit of the background of a place and that's all. Plot Depth Blue Balls are a commn side effect of this game.

I can't consider the game an RPG. Not because of the removal of skills and the abstraction of so much of the character nitty-gritty bits. My reason is this: There's no "game" in the role you play. In most RPGs, the role you choose and the character you design is going to have some consequences associated to them just due to what the character is and how you play them. It can range from not being able to find out about certain points of interest, to major points in the plot where whole sections of the game are locked out to you due to your actions and abilities. The key thing here is consequence.

What Fallout 4 lacks is Consequence. There is none. And the role you play and the actions you do ultimately don't change the game in any sizable fashion. Save for very specific main plot scripted events... Nothing you do in the game makes a mark. The "game" of the game comes from shooting and moving rather than the role you play in it.

But... in an odd sense... Fallout 4 could be considered a JRPG in how it handles itself. Fallout 4 is really just interested in telling a specfic story. You are on the plot railroad, but it gives you some choice in which train car you get to sit down in. But, the plot is going to go where it's going to go and if you try to get off the train... It'll just wait for you. This is something very common to JRPGs.

As for the Fallout aspects of it... It's Fallout themed. But much in the same way someone's birthday party is Fallout themed. Bethesda doesn't really care much for the old lore, and just haphazardly sprinkles it everywhere as they please. So, if you love the old lore... This game will just feel insulting at parts.

So overall... If you want to play a Fallout-themed FPS JRPG? It'll probably be an absolutely awesome experience for you. If you are wanting something similar to the previous Fallouts... I'm sorry. It's probably time to move on because that ship is never coming to that dock again. War never changes, but the Fallout franchise does.

<laugh> Oh, OFG, you really didn't read that well. I had to put down Fallout 4 because the writing and scripting are so bad that it turned me off. I don't like it anywhere near as much as New Vegas or the originals. Personal preference has nothing to do with objective measures, though. I wasn't trying to convince you to like it.

Your argument that taking away skills makes the game less of an RPG isn't supported. Just saying "there's less things to directly control so that's less" makes just as much sense as the slogan for Brawndo. Since your initial thesis was that Fallout 4 was, as you put it, "LESS RPGness no matter how one argues it", all I wanted to do was show you that RPGness isn't tied to having skills, or reliant on having the most skills, stats, or perks. If that were the case, Fallout 3 would be more of an RPG than Planescape: Torment or Deus Ex, and I doubt that would be a position that would be easy to argue.
EDIT: typo

As veteran of Fallout 2 through New Vegas, I don't miss skills. Perks always felt more interesting and had a similar function: Expanding and improving your character's abilities.

In my opinion, Fallout 4 is an great improvement over Fallout 3, with only one detriment: Less(er) dialogue options and a canned protagonist. With any luck, we will get an Obsidian spinoff.

It's a good game. It just doesn't feel like a Fallout game. Fallouts 1 and 2 (as well as Tactics, too) have that certain atmosphere to them. I love it. But three times I've really, really anticipated a new Fallout game and three times have I been somewhat disappointed in the end. Not because the games weren't good and not because I didn't have fun. But because none of them have been able to capture that particular atmosphere. I mostly blame the fact that Fallout is nowadays a 3D sandbox FPS.

Whenever Fallout 5 comes out, I think I'm only going to pick it up once it can be found on the bargain bin.