It’s been a hot minute since I last played F4. But now that a friend of mine roped me into F76 I’ve been itching to get some F4 action in between the sparse F76 sessions, esp. since the big update is just around the corner.
IIRC the perks system in F4 requires you to have stats in the SPECIAL -stats to open up the stat related perks, and then choose to spend the perks points to those instead of the stats. Other perks are given as rewards from (side?) quests - if memory serves, but it’s been a while.
I did enjoy the adventuring aspeects of F4, but the settlement management was pure agony. The more you build the settlements, the more attractive they become for mutant/bandit/whatever attacks. If you don’t build them, the settlers moan about not having places to sleep or food to eat. Even if you build them everything, the idiot settlers can’t figure out themselves to start farming if there’s no food, instead they require the player to specifically assign them for the task.
Other than the settlement management, the game is great, but as it’s bethesda creation it gets better with mods. I recall esp. enjoying mod which removed ambiguity from dialogue choises and just showed the actual lines instead of “snarky” or “okay” or whatever.
As far as companions go, I do enjoy “the private detective” as a companion, if I had to choose, but mostly I prefer going in alone, as the companions can be dumb as left boots. Died so many times because the idiots walk into all the traps imaginable. And the “stealth archer” doesn’t need companions, they’re powerful and broken like in every Bethesda -game :P
Last time I played my VATS got glitched and didn’t work anymore, apparently this has something to do with vault 114 & is a known issue. Didn’t bother me one bit and I kept on playing without it. IMO, the game got better without VATS.
Tips? Nah, you do you. The game turns into power fantasy regardless of what you do. But in general talk to everyone and do listen in on the radiochannels which can pop out randomly out there, there’s always something cool or funny to find.