Fallout 4

[Bateau]

I share Murbella’s concerns. Melee requires very heavy SPECIAL investment to be good. Rooted - 9 points in strength. Adamantium Skeleton - 7 END. Locksmith - 4 PER (can be skipped if you don’t want to open locks but I think you lose out on a lot - I’ve seen quite a few magazines locked behind expert level doors). Want to play around with settlements and pass a convo check or two? 6 CHA. 6 INT for Science, 7 for Chemist (highly recommend it, Jet all the way baby!). 9 AGI for Blitz. Luck is the only tree I feel can be safely dumped, even though those crits can be monstrous. But at some point you need to realise that you’re looking at ~60 hours of playtime to get to level 50 where your build should ideally be more or less finished.

All that aside - has Big Leagues been fixed yet? The last time I checked final rank halved the melee weapon damage.

[Murbella]

You can get by with melee and very low End, but i have not tried this on survival. The super slow healing may make problems.

Also there is a companion that can pick at the very least everything except master locks. She may be able to pick master too, but i am not sure on that. Obviously if you don’t take lockpicking, you’re basically going to be married to this companion. Note that there are some safes in positions that will bug out her path finding and you will spend 15 minutes trying to nudge her over to them.

You can pass most charisma checks if you keep around some basic charisma gear and some drugs. The ones you cannot pass are very rare.

Melee sucks for settlements because you can only build the most basic defenses. That will cause a lot of annoyances with making sure your settlements have high enough defense value.

You need luck for idiot savant without Int. Grim reapers sprint is also quite good. Critical banker is as well. Melee can do a ton of damage, so you just bank some crits for legendary enemies while killing normal ones in one hit quite often.

I didn’t get high enough to get rank 5 big league, so cannot speak on that.

[Strollen]

I have to finish this playthrough (Rifleman, Night Person, and Sniper) before I worry about Melee. I do completely agree that Bethesda spent more time and effort making range weapons interesting. I’m perfectly ok with this, after all why bring a knife (or even a super sledge) to a gun fight.

I was intrigued with idiot savant, and if you are only melee you can probably play the game with INT 1.

[Teiman]

Yeah, the conversation mechanics (as opposed to the 4-way choice system) are very badly implemented. Not only is the voice mixing level way too low compared to ambient noise, but camera tracking with NPC movement continuing leads to crazy ugly situations. If you tag some moving NPC with a talk action, they must immediately freeze to neutral stance. No other possible action makes the slightest bit of sense. And yet the stupid Fallout 4 NPCs often keep moving and then they wander around. And even when they don’t the camera often turns 90 degrees for no apparent reason in the middle of the dialog.

Something I hate (maybe hate is too big a word, i feel discomfort) is that NPC’s don’t rotate to look at my face, I have to walk around them and face them, or I will be talking to his back.

[Balasarius]

Locksmith - 4 PER (can be skipped if you don’t want to open locks but I think you lose out on a lot - I’ve seen quite a few magazines locked behind expert level doors).

Are you sure there was no other way to open those doors? I’ve got about 80 hours into the game and I’m convinced lock picking and hacking are useless – they only get you more caps, ammo, and junk. Every single safe has the exact same loot. When there is something special behind that locked door, there always seems to be a way to get it open without hacking / lock picking. There’s a key or password hidden somewhere nearby.

Fallout 4 is a great game, but Skyrim was and still is better.

[TheWombat]

Skyrim is better in pretty most every way, across the board. Still, Fallout 4 is a great experience in many ways. Beyond all the UI quirks (or worse) and bugs, though, the biggest issue I have is exactly what we’re talking about above. That is, the lack of practical diversity in character builds given the loot, quest, and combat structure of the game. You have to pretty much force yourself into a “well, this is ineffective but its ROLEPLAYING, by gum!” mindset to do certain things, given that it’s much more viable to do something else.

[Madmarcus]

Rooted works with Blitz? That seems counter intuitive.

[DeepT]

I was toying with a dumb Melee/Heavy weapon build so that’s a bummer. Did you have commando maxed out. I was hoping that staggering effect would be good?

The question i always have with heavy weapons is how are you going to feed them?

And how is putting points in to commando and heavy gunner going to give you more than going down endurance?

You aren’t going to have the points to up your perception, so you will be manually aiming. You likely won’t be making many sniper shots at long range either. Blitz allows you to teleport around at short ranges. In what situations are you going to prefer the minigun to the melee weapon?

I personally feel with melee you either need to go all the way or don’t bother. A melee build with high str/agi/luck and decent end is very effective (if albeit do or die). I imagine Gun Fu would be a very nice addition to melee given how you tend to ping pong between targets with blitz.

Commando doesn’t stack with heavy guns from what I understand.

As far a pure or almost pure melee build, I tried that and gave up on it. It was effective, however there were some major issues.

The biggest problem was the suicide bombers who could “see” you really far away even though you were stealthed. If you killed them in melee, you died anyway due to the explosion. The only way to deal with them is to know they are there in the first place and then lay a path of landmines so when they came after you they would die at a safe distance. Also the tactical nuke guys were a PITA.

The other problem with melee is the lack of weapon variety. It is piss-poor and there are hardly any mod options for them anyway. I got a serrated chinese sword around level 11. I think it was level 29 before I found a better weapon which was a super-slow sledge, which I hated. I started a new character and went with a gun build which was much more interesting.

[DeepT]

Are you sure there was no other way to open those doors? I’ve got about 80 hours into the game and I’m convinced lock picking and hacking are useless – they only get you more caps, ammo, and junk. Every single safe has the exact same loot. When there is something special behind that locked door, there always seems to be a way to get it open without hacking / lock picking. There’s a key or password hidden somewhere nearby.

How can you get into the library without putting points into lockpicking? I found two doors and both required a level beyond the basic lock picking.

For the most part, there is nothing but junk to find. Is it necessary? Probably not. I do not think I have ever found anything special behind a locked door although it does give you more options when going through buildings. There is one annoying puzzle that can be skipped by master hacking as well.

[TheWombat]

Lockpicking is good for getting supplies. Early on, it’s great for getting weapons. Is it absolutely essential? Probably not, but really, there’s so much stuff in locked containers–including the holy grail, adhesive!–that you’ll want some level at least. But Novice will do for a lot of it.

[Bateau]

Are you sure there was no other way to open those doors? I’ve got about 80 hours into the game and I’m convinced lock picking and hacking are useless – they only get you more caps, ammo, and junk. Every single safe has the exact same loot. When there is something special behind that locked door, there always seems to be a way to get it open without hacking / lock picking. There’s a key or password hidden somewhere nearby.

Fallout 4 is a great game, but Skyrim was and still is better.

It’s possible that I’ve missed the key somewhere, they can be really hard to spot on the dirty (and low res textured) desks sometimes, especially if you use the pip boy light with its weird lighting. But I distinctly remember patting myself on the back on more than one occasion for getting the Locksmith perks :).

Worst case, you get companions that can perform the lockpicking when necessary, but if you want to switch between companions it just adds extra hassle to an already large pile of busywork. I prefer to clear as I go instead of writing down the name of the place on a piece of paper (because the ingame map doesn’t support notes) to return at some later point with a companion that can open the doors for me (really, if I wanted that, I’d just play Call of Duty).

[Murbella]

Commando doesn’t stack with heavy guns from what I understand.

As far a pure or almost pure melee build, I tried that and gave up on it. It was effective, however there were some major issues.

The biggest problem was the suicide bombers who could “see” you really far away even though you were stealthed. If you killed them in melee, you died anyway due to the explosion. The only way to deal with them is to know they are there in the first place and then lay a path of landmines so when they came after you they would die at a safe distance. Also the tactical nuke guys were a PITA.

The other problem with melee is the lack of weapon variety. It is piss-poor and there are hardly any mod options for them anyway. I got a serrated chinese sword around level 11. I think it was level 29 before I found a better weapon which was a super-slow sledge, which I hated. I started a new character and went with a gun build which was much more interesting.

Yes, i pulled out a gun to shoot the suicide bombers. Nothing else you can do about that.

The stealth system in this game sucks and unless you have it completely maxed out, enemies will “hear”/“sense” you from a mile away. There are some situations where you will be able to combine stealth with blitz to sneak attack four enemies, but most of the time you can’t sneak attack anyone. I think if i did it again, i would not take stealth. It is too poorly implemented.

[Murbella]

It’s possible that I’ve missed the key somewhere, they can be really hard to spot on the dirty (and low res textured) desks sometimes, especially if you use the pip boy light with its weird lighting. But I distinctly remember patting myself on the back on more than one occasion for getting the Locksmith perks :).

Worst case, you get companions that can perform the lockpicking when necessary, but if you want to switch between companions it just adds extra hassle to an already large pile of busywork. I prefer to clear as I go instead of writing down the name of the place on a piece of paper (because the ingame map doesn’t support notes) to return at some later point with a companion that can open the doors for me (really, if I wanted that, I’d just play Call of Duty).

I found hacking much less useful than lock picking personally. So if i was a build with neither, i’d take the companion with lock picking and call it a day.

[Outlandish]

How can you get into the library without putting points into lockpicking? I found two doors and both required a level beyond the basic lock picking.

Assuming there isn’t more than one library, one of the doors has an intercom.

spoiler

You can pass an easy speech check to be considered an employee and let in. It also makes what happens inside much easier to deal with.

edit: also, a video I watched said you can get in through a train station somewhere. Didn’t check that out, so no idea if it’s true or if it requires additional skills such as hacking/speech/locks to get in that way as well.

[Oghier]

More sandbox fun, 100 Minutemen in a nicely built base defending against 2,000 mirelurks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHLTM73Wt28

There are several similar vids by the same poster.

[instant0]

those videos looked fun, but it highlights a few things that is lacking in the game, like (further) destruction of buildings/terrain and pathfinding/ai on opponents.

[Murbella]

those videos looked fun, but it highlights a few things that is lacking in the game, like (further) destruction of buildings/terrain and pathfinding/ai on opponents.

All i could think when the maker was talking about his rocket launcher holding the enemy back was that the enemy was being held back because the AI was stuck in the tunnel.

Also that his defenses were poorly designed.

[DeepT]

More sandbox fun, 100 Minutemen in a nicely built base defending against 2,000 mirelurks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHLTM73Wt28

There are several similar vids by the same poster.

Does this naturally happen or did he cheat in the mirelurks? If it a natural event, then you must somehow get a super valuable settlement. I am not sure how to do that. I think I managed cap sanctuary at 12 citizens and it was never attacked. I could never get more than 12 people there. Happyness stayed around 80% even though there was plenty of food, water and beds.

[Murbella]

I’ve heard max settlers is capped at 10 + charisma.

I’ve been attacked by a decent sized super mutant force (like eight super mutants, most being the stronger kind) once ever. That attack is 100% not natural.

[PantsVZ]

I had 17 settlers at my main base with 80+ happiness. Then I connected all of my settlements and they dropped to around 40% happiness even though they had plenty of defense, food, beds and water. Hell, one of my settlements had 12 settlers even though I only ever built a radio tower there.

At that point I said screw their obscure, unexplained mechanics and dropped the whole thing.