How are some people maxing out ALL skills?

Makatak

Makatak

First time out of the vault
Figure that, there are 13 skills in the game. Most of them will start at approximately 15. 3 of them will be tagged, and some will be a bit higher or lower. So:

13 x 85 = 1105 - 60 = about 1045 skill points to accumulate, give or take.

If you start with an intelligence of 10 and acquire the Educated Perk ASAP (level 4) then you get, I think, 23 points to distribute per level (20 for first 3 level-ups). Since you start at level 1 and the maximum level is 20:

19 x 23 = 437 - 9(educated perk not in effect yet) = 428

If you choose a skill-enhancing perk every other time you level up, you might be able to fit another 200ish points in there. But you are still close to 400 short of maxing everything out. Sure there are skill books throughout the game, but they only increase skills by one point.

So how did you do it if you did?
 
Don't forget about bobbleheads as well.

But frankly, the claims that you can easily max out every skill are ridiculous. If you plan it perfectly, and go hunting for almost every book, you may be able to pull it off. Maybe. And if you're playing the game that way, you really don't have a right to complain about maxing every skill, because you're metagaming so ridiculously hard it hurts.
 
There's 25 books for each skill.

Comprehension gives you another point per book, so that's 50 free points for every skill. Bobbleheads are another free 10 per skill.

If you're up for the task of tracking down every bobblehead/book, I'm sure it's doable.
 
I played this game for like 50+ hours before completing it and I think I only found 7 or 8 bobbleheads
 
there's really no point in maxing out everything. 6 skills are combat related and you only need to pick one of those to be able to win fights.

then there's the barter skill, which imo is a waste of skill points. caps aren't hard to get. next, there's medicine. just like caps, stimpacks/radaway are really common, so medecine is another skill not worth investing in.

that leaves a total of 6 relevant skills to max out, very easy task. so saying all my relevant skills are maxed out by the time i reach level 16 isn't such an outrageous claim
 
Barbalute said:
Don't forget about bobbleheads as well.

But frankly, the claims that you can easily max out every skill are ridiculous. If you plan it perfectly, and go hunting for almost every book, you may be able to pull it off. Maybe. And if you're playing the game that way, you really don't have a right to complain about maxing every skill, because you're metagaming so ridiculously hard it hurts.
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A game shouldn't be able to be broken in half, neither of the first two games nor Tactics allowed you to max out every skill no matter how much you powergamed nor does any other well designed game. Hell, good play testing is trying to break the game and do shit like this and bad design is designing a game to be like this. Now I guess there is the argument to be made for a game that is designed to let you do everything to allow you to max all of your skills (like Oblivion) but then you lose all ability to talk about meaningful dialogue and choices and consequences.

The real question is can you get every skill high enough to do everything in the game (pass every skill check) and that is easily a yes and I doubt you even need the bobble heads or books to do that, which is a clear sign of a broken game and even worse than being able to break it by trying.
 
I think the RPG system does need tweaking. For all intents and purposes the skill check events (Lockpicking/Hacking/Traps) can completed across the board without any noticable detrement to other skills aspects of Fallout 3, where as in past Fallout titles (short of cheating) you couldn't.
 
UncannyGarlic said:
A game shouldn't be able to be broken in half, neither of the first two games nor Tactics allowed you to max out every skill no matter how much you powergamed nor does any other well designed game.
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Yeah, but you could get power armor at what, level 2 in the second Fallout? And then you go pickpocket a Bozar and you win the game. That's breaking the game pretty bad via metagaming, and it can be accomplished considerably faster than can maxing all the skills.
 
UncannyGarlic said:
A game shouldn't be able to be broken in half, neither of the first two games nor Tactics allowed you to max out every skill no matter how much you powergamed nor does any other well designed game. Hell, good play testing is trying to break the game and do shit like this and bad design is designing a game to be like this. Now I guess there is the argument to be made for a game that is designed to let you do everything to allow you to max all of your skills (like Oblivion) but then you lose all ability to talk about meaningful dialogue and choices and consequences.
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http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_2_Hintbook

:wink:
 
Barbalute said:
UncannyGarlic said:
A game shouldn't be able to be broken in half, neither of the first two games nor Tactics allowed you to max out every skill no matter how much you powergamed nor does any other well designed game.
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Yeah, but you could get power armor at what, level 2 in the second Fallout? And then you go pickpocket a Bozar and you win the game. That's breaking the game pretty bad via metagaming, and it can be accomplished considerably faster than can maxing all the skills.
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There is a huge difference here.

FO2 is open ended, so yes, IF you have prior knowledge (ie, played it many times before or read a game faq) you can jump ahead and get some great weapons and armor.

But no first time player will do this by chance. This isn't game breaking, it's a facet of open world gaming.

In F03, it doesn't take long before you realize you can kill super mutants a junky, early weapon without raising your small guns skill above 30 or 40 (probably lower, but that's what mine was at about).

Likewise, you learn quick which skills have 'checks' (ie, lock pick) and which skills don't matter (barter, medicine, etc).

In other words, FO3 has fundamental design flaws (assuming you aren't supposed to achieve god like status in the game, which is a good assumption) whereas the 'flaws' you mention in FO2 are a direct result of good open world design.

It's also worth noting you can easily max out all important stats in F03 without so much as consulting a FAQ or even trying that hard.

Not to mention, most locks and such don't require that magic 100 to use (in fact, most have very low requirements). You can easily get into almost everything with a lockpick of 50 or so... but getting lockpick (and science) to 100 is pretty easy.
 
ferrety said:
It's also worth noting you can easily max out all important stats in F03 without so much as consulting a FAQ or even trying that hard.
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Uhh, no it isn't. It's very difficult to find every bobblehead without resorting to a guide, and the careful planning required to maximize your skill points throughout the game requires forethought as well. That is, of course, not including finding all the books requires, which is a considerable portion of them, again almost impossible without a guide of some sort and certainly not without 'even trying that hard.'

It requires just as much, if not more, forethought and planning than it does to get those two items I mentioned.

Also note that those aren't necessarily indicators of 'good open world design,' in fact, they're examples where open world design falls down. Acquiring among the most powerful items at level two is almost certainly not what the developers intended. In fact, being able to pickpocket the Bozar was almost a glitch if I remember, because practically everyone else actually held their gun so you couldn't do that.
 
Even without maxing out every skill, the game is quite easy. I had very little trouble - most locked doors, for example, have keys. And even still, if you can even get your stats within, say, five or ten points of where they need to be, you can get some items that modify you enough to reach the requirement. If you max out;

One weapon skill (I prefer sm. guns, personally)

Medical

Lockpick (or at least within five or so points)

Repair (Not really necessary, however. You can get people to repair stuff for you, but it's convenient to be able to repair in the field)

Science

I honestly, right now, cannot think of any other skill that is important aside from those. The rest are just 'nice to have,' but not necessary to do everything in the game. I think the point people were trying to make is that in the original Fallout sometimes you had to sacrifice even necessary skills in favor of other skills, therefor you were unable to do every single thing, it required more than one playthrough to get everything, and therefor replay value of F3 is very low.

And like it was said, if you use a guide, or you are just that good and that smart (hey, someone had to find this shit at some point), and find every book, every bobblehead, take the skill-enhancing perks, you could theoretically max out every skill, and the very fact that you can is what is wrong, not how much effort it takes to do so.
 
Barbalute said:
ferrety said:
It's also worth noting you can easily max out all important stats in F03 without so much as consulting a FAQ or even trying that hard.
Click to expand...

Uhh, no it isn't. It's very difficult to find every bobblehead without resorting to a guide, and the careful planning required to maximize your skill points throughout the game requires forethought as well. ....
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Minimal forethought = 8-9 maxed skills.

http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=45996&sid=f090bc31339bd41294278dd67101f5ae
 
ScottXeno said:
Even without maxing out every skill, the game is quite easy. I had very little trouble - most locked doors, for example, have keys. And even still, if you can even get your stats within, say, five or ten points of where they need to be, you can get some items that modify you enough to reach the requirement. If you max out;

One weapon skill (I prefer sm. guns, personally)

Medical

Lockpick (or at least within five or so points)

Repair (Not really necessary, however. You can get people to repair stuff for you, but it's convenient to be able to repair in the field)

Science

I honestly, right now, cannot think of any other skill that is important aside from those. The rest are just 'nice to have,' but not necessary to do everything in the game. I think the point people were trying to make is that in the original Fallout sometimes you had to sacrifice even necessary skills in favor of other skills, therefor you were unable to do every single thing, it required more than one playthrough to get everything, and therefor replay value of F3 is very low.

And like it was said, if you use a guide, or you are just that good and that smart (hey, someone had to find this shit at some point), and find every book, every bobblehead, take the skill-enhancing perks, you could theoretically max out every skill, and the very fact that you can is what is wrong, not how much effort it takes to do so.
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I agree with you, a lot of the skills are 'just nice to have' and you can become proficient in too many skills. The point I'm arguing is, though, in order to max every skill it takes more forethought and metagaming, or at least the same amount, as it does to break Fallout 2 with items.

Kashrlyyk said:
Barbalute said:
ferrety said:
It's also worth noting you can easily max out all important stats in F03 without so much as consulting a FAQ or even trying that hard.
Click to expand...

Uhh, no it isn't. It's very difficult to find every bobblehead without resorting to a guide, and the careful planning required to maximize your skill points throughout the game requires forethought as well. ....
Click to expand...
Minimal forethought = 8-9 maxed skills.

http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=45996&sid=f090bc31339bd41294278dd67101f5ae
Click to expand...

I'd hardly call that 'minimal forethought.'
 
ScottXeno said:
One weapon skill (I prefer sm. guns, personally)

Medical

Lockpick (or at least within five or so points)

Repair (Not really necessary, however. You can get people to repair stuff for you, but it's convenient to be able to repair in the field)

Science
Click to expand...

actually you need non of those. repair is nice, but you can fasttravel back to a town and repair it high enough to be working. medical is completly useless, given the fact that you can heal so easily (lots of stimpacks, sleep, cripple is a joke, food, watersources everywhere, radiation is irrelevant), lockpick is nice to have, but consider the amount of loot its not needed at all. same goes for science. you just need a working mouse and keyboard. I left the vault with small arms 15, and a 10mm with around 200 rounds and went directly to rivet city. killed multiple super mutants and raiders. Someday I might even "don't" level up via console and play the game for what it is - a shooter.

so op: max what you like, but it is not important at all, convieniant at max.
 
Wrong.


Medical is necessary for healing certain NPC's, for example, Timebomb - granted, it is not necessary to complete the game, I merely speak on what is necessary to do everything in the game. To pick every lock, hack every computer, and heal every sick npc you can, or gather evidence, or whatever. It's just the skills that you can and will most likely use, the rest are arbitrary.
 
Roflcore said:
Well zero skills will allow you to see a lot of the game, I dunno..50-60% maybe? maybe more?
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I'm not sure what you mean by this statement. You are saying that none of the skills affect how much you see of the game? Or that they, if set to zero, will allow you to see 50-60 percent?
 
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