Fixing Fallout 4's Perk Chart

[@Nebular66]

I feel maybe Pain Train should be lower on the Strength tree. Power armour already sets your strength to 11, so the perk being locked to 10 feels like a waste. Other than that I agree 100%. Oh wait, this is a Bethesda game. I agree 95%

[@BADCompanySarge]

That's a solid point. Not sure which perk I'd put at the top of the tree then though

[@carlasghost656]

I'd move Pain Train down to 3. Convince weaker players to use power armor a bit more often.

[@waitinguser2512]

I suggest swapping cap collector and lone wanderer since CHR 1 makes you "bad" at social skills and lone wanderer is like "cuz I suck at socializing, then I learn to live by myself better".

[@StuartLegomanLittle]

Same with blackwidow and the dogmeat perk.

[@BADCompanySarge]

I can see the logic there. I tried to avoid too much switching around of perk positions after the initial couple as I was finding myself switching every perk back and forth when I first started writing

[@MaidofRage420]

I'd personally change Pickpocket to be an Agility based perk, since you'd more than likely need quick reflexes to dig around in people's pockets

[@BADCompanySarge]

Which Agility perk would you then switch to Perception?

[@avidclown]

I fully agree with your idea that Awareness should increase VATS 95%->100%. The whole point of a sniper rifle is that I *hit* the target.

[@BADCompanySarge]

It's a big reason I don't use VATS most of the time. If I'm aiming manually at a target who isn't moving, you can bet I have more than a 95% chance to hit

[@avidclown]

@BADCompanySarge Exactly!

[@HunterGargoyle]

i find it hilarious that perks for training dogs and walking around alone require more charisma than talking to the opposite sex... yeah... that makes perfect sense...

[@BADCompanySarge]

I've liked Lone Wanderer where it is because it gives some incentive to actually get a bit of Charisma on lots of builds, but if the Charisma perks overall were just better across the board then that wouldn't be needed and I'd be happy with it at the bottom of the list

[@rbutga]

Solid changes. The change I would like to see for Idiot Savant is a less shocking sound effect. Scares the crap out of me every time it procs.

[@BADCompanySarge]

*Writes down note* "Triple decibel volume of sound effect" Got it

[@arellajardin8188]

Ghoulish is awful. It might be cool if it healed over time if you're irradiated, but what it actually does is heal your health based on incoming radiation. If a Ghoul does 10 rads while hitting you, the rank 3 of Ghoulish heals 15 health. If you have full health, this perk does nothing. And your max health still drops. At best, this perk makes irradiated food and water heal more, and slightly reduce the threat of ghouls or other enemies that do health and rad damage. So against CoA, this wouldn't work. I would change it so it makes you more powerful the more irradiated you are. 1000 rads is lethal, and every 10 rads is 1% of your health bar. So: Rank 1 - You can't accumulate more than 800 rads. You can't die from radiation, the lowest your health is 20%. Rank 2 - No more than 700 rads (30% health), and you deal 5% more damage per 100 rads. Rank 3 - No more than 600 rads (40% health), and you heal 1 hp per second per 100 rads. The idea is high risk style of play. Let your max health set really low, but become more powerful. This would synergies with rad based legendary effects, too.

[@BADCompanySarge]

I do really like the idea of it putting a cap on how many rads you take. That's something I hadn't thought of

[@Phantomvoice95]

I enjoyed this, I have personally theory crafted how to adjust the perks myself, because personally fallout 4's system is my favorite of really any rpg, it's issues stem from implementation, like lack of speech options, issues with stealth, lack of thief paths and other problems. Personally I lean towards removing explicit damage buffs, and generalizing early perks or giving perks abilities that can apply to multiple builds. Example blitz stays high up, and is still focused on melee but instead of just vats give it a sprinting melee buff or sniper being a slow time affect either while holding breath or while in sneak and ads'ing. Endurance is the one that I think needs the biggest changes, make it focus on survivability and consumables. Buff food items, unlock food crafting options, move nerd rage to endurance as the peak survival perk for endurance, switch armorer to endurance maybe and maybe it can reduce the weight of worn armor but I also think that could work for strong back. Basically I think of trying to avoid straight boring number buffs unless the number buff really reinforces a playstyle, (like I said with blitz). The big one I've been trying to figure out is a way to change up weapon perks, have one level that's generalized: pistols, long guns, heavy weapons and melee (also melee would buff bashing as well). Then specialized: grunt (military weapons or maybe repeat shots on target? Look up the perforated mod but instead of benefitting automatics make it just benefit multiple hits so that even semi autos could work) or vintage for manual operated weapons, techy for energy weapons, Pyro for fire/other, and maybe a junk rat perk for pipe/makeshift weapons I the luck tree. The general perks would improve accuracy, reload speed and hip fire for the weapon type, and the special perks would give other buffs like bleed, crit, intimidation, range or other things I can't think of.

[@BADCompanySarge]

I'm definitely on board with the idea of playstyle perks over number buffs

[@ye4thorn]

Robotics Expert already does that.* Also as far as I can tell it is not the sprinting that increases the Fusion Core drain, but the AP cost of sprinting that does it, which can be reduced to 0 with high enough endurance. And lastly, setting a Legendary Sentry to self destruct will cause it to explode 3 times.

[@BADCompanySarge]

Just looked in to Robotics Expert and it turns out: "Rank 2 gives a 40% damage bonus against robots and synths, however, it is conditioned to stop working if you have rank 3." So it would really just be changing things to make it a little more consistent. Interesting thing about the fusion core drain, I've never tested that myself but it could make it so I actually sprint in PA in the future

[@tinaherr3856]

Here is a comment for the algorithm, good sir

[@BADCompanySarge]

Much appreciated

[@demonicnemesis6821]

This is the Fallout 4 content I want to see more of. I'm tired of seeing the same old "Fallout 4 is Bad." It's easy to review a bad product and say it's well "bad" but it take real momentum to fix the problem or even rebuild it from the ground up. Most people when you ask them how they would've done it? They'd just go the easy route and say they wouldn't have done it at all. Now that just screams laziness.

[@BADCompanySarge]

I'm all about discussing how to improve games, rather than just criticizing. Every game has a mixture of good and bad in it, and it's mostly going to be subjective to the individual.

[@toakongu1]

Thanks to the Troubleshooter's & Assassin's legendary effects, we already know how your damage boost against synths would work out. For damage calculation purposes, G1 & G2 synths are classed as robots while G3 synths are classed as humans. Troubleshooter's does more dmg to robots aka G1 & G2 synths. Assassin's does more dmg to humans aka G3 synths

[@andymcgregor9195]

I'd give the Dogmeat perk an extra tier that enables him to smell out dead bodies for you when you talk to him, essentially turning him into a cadaver dog. I dunno how much time I've wasted hunting for a legendary drop in the long grass!

[@BADCompanySarge]

I never want to know just how much loot I've lost out on because I can't find a dead body

[@Robosium]

awareness increasing max vats chance to 100 would be so good

[@BADCompanySarge]

I really just want Bethesda to start getting percentages to go up to 100 in one of their games

[@jacobkeegan721]

In regards to your ideas surrounding the Toughness/Refractor/Rad Resist perks being changed to percentage-based effects, I feel it is my duty to inform you that in Fallout 3, the perks WERE indeed percentage-based. The reason why Bethesda developers changed it is because the player base found this INCREDIBLY BROKEN... It was laughably easy to cheese the gameplay by being 85% immune to all damage and radiation. Not to mention, that when you leveled-up, you not only got to choose a new perk, but also got to increase your SKILLS as well. Even with a base-game level cap of 30 (or 50 if you had the DLCs), players could become incredibly overpowered by level 12 or so (provided you picked the right perks and spec'd into the right build). This lead to many players quickly outmatching even the toughest enemies and making the game a cakewalk far sooner than should've been possible. In Fallout: New Vegas, they tried to remedy this by forcing you to gain a perk every 2 levels, which made specialization more impactful and needed, but this was overwhelmed by the ungodly amount of other ways to earn perks in that game. You had regular perks gained by leveling up every other level, you could choose up to 2 "traits" at the start of the game, challenge perks gained by completing challenges, getting bombarded by the boomers at Nellis Air Force base results in getting the "tough guy" perk, companion affinity perks, Implants, Auto-doc head/heart/spine/lung Old-World Blues DLC perks, "destroying a faction" perks, and tons of other ways to get small bonuses that over time get out of hand... This is why they made some perks redundant. Combine all of this with the "Legendary" weapon and armor effects introduced in Fallout 4, and you may see an obvious issue starting to form...

[@chadharger9323]

Only one reason to use gun bash perk- 1) Doing a Shredder build. One thing that I would change for rank 2 aqua boy/girl is double swimming speed. Adamantium Skeleton - At max this becomes a 'better to have it and not use it rather than need it and not have it'. Sure in regular difficulties a stimpack will heal up busted bones on the spot but doesn't survival mode comes with exemptions including what a stimpack can heal? Lone Wanderer - One change I would make. Apparently any robot follower we make via the Automatron quest blocks the Lone Wanderer buffs like having a regular companion does. With this change it will be as if it's having Dogmeat who does not block the LW buff. However named robot companions like Curie, Ada, and Codsworth are still bound to the LW rules of negating buffs. Local Leader - Should not be so high on the rank list. Annoying that Bethesda pushed the idea of settlement building yet put the necessary perk over halfway on the Charisma chart. Also simplify the commands for things like connecting workshops and trade routes. Takes way longer than it should for players to understand it all.\ Scrounger - There is one change that needs to be done. Apparently Cryrolator ammo wasn't included in the 'drop list'. Seen a couple of mods that fix it. Better Critical - One change. Your chance of critting is based on your Luck level. If you only have 1 point in luck then it's 1%. If you have 10 luck then it's 10%. Pain Train - no shoulder blocking animation outside of battle. First(and last) time I tried Pain Train, I felt like it worked as advertised. . .outside of battle, I felt like a moron running around in 'shoulder block mode'.

[@BADCompanySarge]

Love the double swimming speed. I've really not found Adamantium Skeleton to be useful in Survival. Generally speaking, if you're taking enough damage to have a limb crippled, you're probably just about to die anyway. Might be technically better in this mode, but still not worth it. On the Scrounger point I do think it should cover every single ammo type. Also reminds me of how the new CC content that was added in the last update didn't have the new ammo types added in to the standard loot pool which makes several of the new weapons kinda worthless. Similar thing with DLC weapons as well, where you only find new ammo types in the DLC areas. Would be nice if we could find all ammo types everywhere in the game, and scrounger ups the odds of it happening.

[@Gnome10]

Hey, since you enjoyed this, could you do a video like this on companion/magazine perks? I honestly would love to see how you'd change them.

[@BADCompanySarge]

I do want to make a companions/follower style video at some point, although I'm struggling with the fact that I have too many thoughts about it all, so I'm not really nailed down on a full focal point that I think would make for a good video

[@Robosium]

I feel like intimidation perks should have a 100% chance to work when enemy is at your level or lower and a percentage chance as they get to higher level that reaches 0 at twice your level

[@BADCompanySarge]

I like the general idea of that, although I'm not certain how enemy level scaling works so could require a bit of fine tuning

[@tfcgames191]

I think Demolition Expert and Awareness should swap places on the perk chart, if you take Awareness you're most likley to be running a VATS build so you'll have higher Perception anyway and requiring less points in Perception for Demolition Expert would allow non VATS builds or any melee build to utilize it without wasting as many SPECIAL points. (It would also make Caedo very happy)

[@BADCompanySarge]

I can definitely see the logic for that

[@SR-de8rd]

In my opinion the lock picking and hacking perks should modulate the difficulty of the minigames instead of straight out locking you entirely, and if that change was bundled with an overhaul of those systems to improve their difficulty that would make it even better

[@BADCompanySarge]

I go back and forth on this all the time. This sort of system was implemented in Skyrim and, while being able to potentially pick any lock is great, I also found no incentive to spend perks on the tree as I could already pick every lock. I think if lockpicks/bobby pins weren't found in such great numbers, and if the random loot in containers/behind terminal locks was a bit better, than I could see the Skyrim system working out in Fallout

[@fonzini6944]

for awareness, have it so stealthed enemies like burried mirerlurks, sleeping ghouls and yes also mines are invisible to vats until you pick that perk

[@BADCompanySarge]

I can get behind that idea

[@tempestflare4339]

for critical banker make it so that the more crits banked the more damage that first crit does up to 50% at max rank (you can have 4 stars and one full bar= 5 stored crits) this way it synergizes with the perk itself

[@BADCompanySarge]

Oooooo, that I like

[@tempestflare4339]

@BADCompanySarge it would also synergize well with the instigating effect on weapons and it's only a small modification to what you already had for critical banker

[@zelianjungler1991]

i feel that you only take penetrator perk if you want to one shot sentry bots, power Armour, or vertibirds , why not there to be 3rd lvl where you just get highlight of the week point of the enemies (fusion cores/robotic inhibitors) . Also i do believe that if you pick lvls of Gholish, you should have small 5% chance to fail any charisma dialogue , since you are half ghoul, and also i think mysterious stranger can be reworked, where you start with 2% chance him to show up and every new attack in same vats to increase said chance by 1% with maximum of 10% for lvl 1, max 14 for lvl 2, max 18% for lvl 3, because 1 % chance is very low, however it can trigger more times per vats, so it balance out .

[@BADCompanySarge]

I do like the idea of the highlight of weak points, plus having the odd negative thrown in here and there (like you mention with Ghoulish). I did get a bit frustrated when recording footage for Mysterious Stranger, as he shows up a couple of times in the video but does literally nothing.

[@toakongu1]

Solar Powered working indoors kind of defeats the point of the name. Solar refers to the sun, meaning you have to be in the sun to gain the perks effects. It works fine as is, but maybe cut the bonuses in half when indoors during the day

[@desorn146]

In Fallout 4 as is, I would make it so that Pickpocket needd less ranks to be maxed out. Even if you would create more reasons to pick pockets, 4 levels is much too ask.

[@BADCompanySarge]

The fewer the required ranks, the less the incentive needs to be. I think it could still work out with four tiers to it, but it would require a bunch of quests to have pickpocket as a potential route for progress, as well as much better items on regular folks and a fair new legendaries/uniques available to pickpocket too. Make it just two or three ranks and you can definitely reduce the level of implemenetation.

[@carlasghost656]

Four Leaf Clover. Instead of a chance to instakill, how about a 5% chance of any hit outside of VATS being a critical at final level. Not overpowered, but still a nice bonus. I figured Big Leagues being a lower level strength perk was based on training, not power. It shows your ability to find the right spot to put a blade, or club, or whatever. This also may make it more dependent on Perception or Intelligence, but it's melee so put it in Strength. The final bonus for lockpick never made sense. In my first playthrough I was so happy to find bobby pins for sale. Soon after I realized that they were scattered everywhere.

[@BADCompanySarge]

I do like the idea of making it so high Luck isn't entirely focused around VATS builds, but also has some more outside of VATS usefulness. Bethesda really needs to stop spreading millions of bobby pins/lockpicks throughout their worlds. They always show up in ridiculously high numbers, when really they should be semi-rare items.

[@enderplayer7587]

I like to say that i think the scrapper perk should work for more then just your weapons at least with say rank 2, so you can get more from scraping random object in your settle ment or get more back from you scapping something you build. and added thought for you idea of better crits giving like 1% chance to insta kill but at least while i am doing a crit build crits do enough damage to basically insta kill, so i say that a better and more idea is for no good reason at all the 1%(or maybe closer to 5% if you want to get silly) chance instead just makes the target expode, like actacl expode like a mini nuke or missle whe landing a crit. i feel like that would be funnier and fit as at least the last rank of better crits

[@BADCompanySarge]

I'll be honest, I always forget that scrapper doesn't work with all types of scrapping, otherwise I 100% would have included that

[@MrDmnhntr777]

Honestly I don’t think local leader should be required to make a work bench/ crafting station. All the other stuff makes perfect sense, but I think for example, an armor workbench should be tied to the armorer perk. Weapons workbench requires wepon perks . Chemist for chemistry station …etc

[@BADCompanySarge]

I'm on board with this. Still have the settlement vendors with local leader but makes it so you can have solo settlements with the crafting stations a lone wanderer would require

[@LordRicherd]

Medic perk: Last rank makes you heal fully... That just made the Medic bobblehead worthless....

[@BADCompanySarge]

The bobblehead is still helpful until that point at least (which does require level 49 to reach), but it would be nice if the perk and bobblehead had slightly different effects

[@spunchii134]

Why are you including perks that you don't have an issue with, in your video about fixing the perks ?

[@BADCompanySarge]

There's quite a few different reasons, although the big one would really just be for completions sake. Would feel weird to me to include almost every perk in this video, but then just entirely fail to mention a small handful (plus it would have people commenting to tell me I forgot about a perk). On top of that, I think it's also good to show what perks I don't think really need any tweaking, as it helps to reinforce the ideas behind what makes for a good perk (i.e. where I talk about how the weapon damage perks come with these extra bonuses like limb crippling or armour penetration, which makes them more interesting than just a flat damage boost)

[@spunchii134]

​@@BADCompanySarge For both the completion sake side and the acknowledgement of the good perks, Giving your idea of a fix for the ones that in your opinions are bad/broken pointless or what have you. Would accomplish both of the fears that you might had about leaving them out. People would understand that a perk that wasn't mention, Is good enough to not warrant a change. Also a simple little message in the beginning stating that, the perks that you have no issue with will not be mentioned, That would also do it.

[@JaminPRose]

Honestly, Black Widow/Lady Killer is problematic for other reasons, for instance, if you want to roleplay as someone who'a gay/lesbian you're shit out of luck for bonus damage and effects on same sex characters. As always with Bethesda games (NV is more obsidian the bethesda) they force you into the role of the (mostly) straight male or female character.

[@BADCompanySarge]

It feels like the perks kind of got removed from the sexuality of the PC, but with them having that history it does feel a little weird

[@deltaforerunner9334]

The way to fix it, is to toss it in the trash. 76's perk system is much better than 4s. Bring back skills.

[@avidclown]

Way to completely miss the point of the video.

[@deltaforerunner9334]

@avidclown I mean, the point of the video was to make an unappealing cruddy perk system seem less so, yes?

[@avidclown]

@@deltaforerunner9334 You're completely invalidating the whole purpose of the video, please have some awareness man. The point of the video is to suggest potential changes that would improve a core aspect of the game with reasonable means, rather than "toss it out" and completely remove an integral aspect of Fallout Four. You're allowed to have your opinions, but don't make stupid statements. It makes you look dumb.

[@avidclown]

​@@deltaforerunner9334It appears to me that my reply didn't save. You're completely missing the point of this video, which is to take a look at a core element of Fallout Four's gameplay and rework it realistically. It improves on various perks that would be more interesting with slight tweaks, and would generally make different play styles feel more unique. What it isn't looking to do is "toss it in the trash" by completely avoiding the existing systems, because that's not what the fucking title says it's going to do. This isn't a video about Fallout 76, it's a video about Fallout Four. It's perfectly fine to have opinions, but don't make stupid statements. It makes you look foolish.