I outright am not enjoying Fallout 4. All the changes they made, all the stuff that got ripped out of the game, were my favorite things about playing it. All the skills got ripped out and turned into perks, so now they don't feel like a core part of my character. I always thought of it like this:

• SPECIAL stats are who you are.

• Skills are what you do.

• Perks are extra cool shit to make the game more interesting.

Removing the skills and turning them into perks makes them feel less important, and makes me less excited to level up. Most of the time, I have 4 or 5 points that I just don't want to spend because I just don't give a shit about skills and stuff. I don't enjoy the crafting, so none of those perks have any appeal to me.

Even stats like lockpicking and science aren't as appealing, because as soon as I level up, it seems like the doors and terminals I encounter go up a rank. The first time I saw a Master lock was after I upgraded to Expert or whatever is right under that. And even worse, I don't even want to get past most locked doors or terminals because the incentive isn't there. "Oh hey, I just broke three bobby pins opening an Expert locked door to find one Stimpak and like six hot plates." They even reduced the number of lootable containers, and I don't feel like I want to even explore anymore. I don't want to investigate all the out of the way areas, because 99 times out of 100, it will just be a waste of time.

And the de-integration of the skills and such from dialogue and character interaction really harm's the quest design and roleplaying aspect. With skills, it's like the game knows how I want to play. If my stealth stat is high, I am presented with sneaking options. High big guns stat, I can go in there and just wreck shit. Without this, all the quests just feel like "Go here, kill this, and I'll give you some caps and maybe a gun that's worse than your current one." I miss the choices, the flexibility.