The perk system made me nervous before the game came out. My worries were confirmed when I started playing. Even in my 20-30s I find myself intentionally powerleveling skills I don't plan to use at all. All my characters have 100 smithing and only one actually put perks in it. I did this just to catch my perk count up to where my character is. It feels unnatural.

The best use it to improve leveling system I have seen is in Mortal Online. There are no character levels. Instead they tie things like your HP and stamina to your attributes. Attributes improve every time you use an associated skill. Both your attributes and skill points have a seperate max number. There are secondary skills, somewhat like perks that enhance primary skills. These secondary skills do not count toward your cap and cannot exceed the parent skill. MO used 1000 point cap for skills allowing for 10 max skills (keep in mind they have a vastly wider pallet than Skyrim). Now, this part plays in very well with Skyrims reduction in initial permanent choices. You can set a skill to lock, minus, or improve. This allows you to slowly retrain from one skill to another. You can also more closely fine tune your character. I locked many skills aside from armor and weapons in the 70 range to increase versatility, accepting the reduction in power.

Attributes had a similar cap, lock, minus, and improve system. The number you capped at was smaller. Each race had unique stat caps that represented their strengths and weaknesses. They even had a creative system where you choose your characters parent races to do minor modifications to the stats.

I feel that this system is more of a strong middle ground for this discussion. I think it would be best modified and adapted to meet the needs of TES in a future game, but for now I will continue playing Morrowind till good mods come out for Skyrim. It's too late for the developers in my honest opinion to fix a lot of the messes that came with Skyrim. They had a lot of better options to choose from than this perk system.

the whole point of rasing skills now is for leveling purposes, and to unlock new perks, that's why perk are so poweful, because they are supposed to be on par with skill level.

It's easy to say that something is unbalanced when you anolyze it alone instead of the game as a whole.

Having perks matter more is important because it differentiates characters from each other, something sorely lacking in previous elder scrolls games. I see the problem though in how "skill" takes on less meaning and gets trivialized in this game. I think a good way to approach this is to have skill growth tied to perks i.e. your skill growth in a certain tree slows down to near nothing until you put a perk into that tree; This way skills become more representative of that characters actual skill and allows for people to create unique characters. Combine this with the no doubt extensive perk modifications mods will be doing, probably tripling the amount of perks at least, and you have one badass system for both roleplaying and game mechanics.

This is one of my many problems with perks. They have totally screwed up everything.

My biggest problem is that they gave us so many cool perks to choose from in Fallout 3 & F:NV that I got spoiled with awesomeness. Skyrim's perks come across as functional, but very bland. I loved having to make difficult decisions over whether to spec Cowboy, or Nerd Rage, or Entomologist & knowing full well that I would never get them all. I could still steer my character towards my chosen playstyle & still make him fairly specialized in the process.

My 1st character started off as a sneak sniper but turned full cowboy & my 2nd character went unarmed with very low intelligence & it was a total blast. My characters felt very unique & very specialized in how they approached combat. While I am having a lot of fun in Skyrim, my characters do not feel as unique despite the new system. I see myself having to limit myself from being a jack of all trades in Skyrim as opposed to building the exact character I want to be in Fallout.

I don't expect (or want) Bloody Mess or Mysterious Stranger type perks but they could have designed a few to fit within the setting/lore of TES just as the Fallout Perks fit the setting of the Wasteland. I understand why they implemented perks the way they did & I accept it for what it is in Skyrim. I just feel they could have done a little more.

I've only gotten up to L26 but right now I have 4 or 5 extra perks. I'm approaching the game as I'm just playing it as I want, not power-leveling or grinding anything. I read skill books when I find them but I don't actively seek them out. And I find the game pretty balanced.

I'm focusing on a few skills. I'm using perks on the perks that seem useful to me (not all). And it's fine. I think a lot of this comes from people who feel like they need to have the best stuff as absolutely soon as possible. I've done that in past Elder Scroll games. Letting the game come to you is more fun.

Near as I can tell, it seems that perks and levels are meant to increase each other. That is, I think the level increases the base, and the perk (+N%) is calculated off that, so they multiply together. One poster claimed that 100 skill points gives you +24% damage. I don't know if that's accurate or not, but let's use that.

So, if I'm right about them multiplying together, then if you have 5 levels of the basic weapon damage perk (for +100% dmg bonus), and your skill bonus is 24%, then your total damage output has increased to:

200% + (200% * 24%) = 2 + (2 *.24) = 2.48 = 248%

That's not even counting:

power attacks
smithed weapons
enchanted weapons

Now, let's say gamesas took your suggested approach. I'm going to make the assumption that they would just rebalance things so that you end up with the same total amount of damage at the end. That means that they increase the amount of damage you do at 100 skill a lot, and *decrease* the perks a lot, so that maybe each level of the basic weapon damage perk, instead of adding +20% dmg, adds like +5% damage.

So, now players know they can get most of their damage without actually investing in the perks in that tree, so they spend the perks in some other skill tree instead, get the great weapon damage AND great bonuses in other skills.

The point of the perk system is to force you to make tough decisions about what to really improve. If we applied your logic to every skill, you'd almost not need any perks at all, because you'd be 75% or 80% effective without any perks at all.

I also take the bare minimum. I normally even skip half the trees but find my perk income does not match my progress well. This causes me to grind useless things or wait to catch up. I don't try to pick many skills so it's not like I'm bloating. My statement on MOs progression system still stands. Perks make me feel like I'm playing WoW again. I never liked talent trees. LoL has the best one I've seen because they are less consequential. Caping total skill points would have been a better solution.

Because those "tick boxes" represent additional mastery of the skill.

The point they are making is that little tickbox is all of the mastery. Level 20 blade with one perk is about equal or better than lv 100 blade. I can see unperked being about 70-80% of max obtainable perked trees but this is just off right now.

some1 with a 100 has unlocked the ability to get all the perks though
which would make him far superior to any1 at level 20

I don't get the complaint with the tickbox
yeah that's way less dynamic and involving than a number ranging from 1 to 100 /sarcasm

you didn't master anything
you just have a lot of experience
perks is where the actual skill comes in IMO
it teaches you specific techniques which greatly improve your skill

think of it like this
some1 with a 100 in 1 handed is a some1 who swung a sword a million times at something
sure he would have increased his skill by sheer repetition
but it doesn't even compare to some1 who actually took the effort to learn proper technique

ideally they should compliment each other though just like IRL
take boxers for example
they don't just become better by hitting a heavy bag
they have to learn certain techniques as well

repetition is only half of mastering something, you should know what you're doing as well

hello..

briefly read the post, but didn't see any mention of a possible bug that effects sneak at 100. Sneak when reaching 100 resets to 1 or 0, (can't remember exactly). It is a "known" issue. Could there be a possibility of the same with 1 handed? Has anyone tested say at L99? or does 1 handed not scale at all?

please forgive me if these questions are moot. as I don't have a character that uses 1 handed weapon skill. I would though like to make one someday and this information would help make that decision.

cheers
d

This would be a valid argument if we didn't level up through actual combat. Unfortunatly we do level through live combat. So that point is not very strong.

Leveling is experience, perks are techniques.

Just because I swing an ax 1,000 times does not mean I am a master of axes. Now, if in swinging said axe, I learn how to properly chop at a guy in steel plating, then I should be better than the guy that blindly swings.

Not much of a Master if he doesn't know every trick in the book, says you, and I agrees, says I.

Perks are like knowing the proverbial tricks in the proverbial book, aye? So if ye wants to be a Master, better learns ye a perk or perhaps a brace of those perks or better yet, every man jack of 'em.

However- I believe that 100 skill should grant a perk that is unavailable to anyone that doesn't have that skill level- in the case of 1-handed, a damage bonus unattainable by that '20 point noob'



But the tickbox is, demonstrably, not "all of the mastery". Granted, the skill level is not enough of the mastery, but what you're saying doesn't pan out

I like it this way. It makes end-game characters more unigue than earlier games in TES.

how is it not a valid argument because we level trough live combat?
live combat is the repetition part
perks is the technique part

it fits with everything I said\

you guys are using the argument that some1 with a 100 skill and no perks is worse than some1 with 20 and 1 perk
I say any1 with 100 skill and no perks is stupid and has no right to be better
why would you even do that
every time you gain a level you get a perk to spend
if you just spend them all along the way in the skills you're focusing on (since you're increasing them anyway)
there is no problem anywhere, the change is pretty gradual and well paced

your hypothetical situation of some1 with 100 and no perks shouldn't even exist
or were you actually stupid enough to make a character like that?

Because they want to be living gods

This.

The perk system actually makes characters distinct, where as other TES games where you get all skills up to 100 and your character is no different then any other character you do this with.

The 100 vs 20 and a perk is an example used to demonstrate why perks are too much of the skills usability. I'd be able to get along with perks more if they were strictly additional functions and abilities.

Since I am not testing the game but playing it instead I find that it seems to work just fine the way it is. No one is going to take a key dmg attribute to 100 anyway without tossing in many perks so who cares if you go to 100 and that only counts 24% and 1 perk counts 25%? I would guess the game isn't designed and balanced assuming a "test scenario" but a "game scenario".

It's rather easy to meaningfully spearate those aspects of improvement. Someone who plays a lot of recreational baseball is going to get good at making contact, but a person who is leveling perks puts a little more thought into it. When they step up to the plate, they think "the right fielder is the worst player, I'm going to wait for an outside fastball and drill it to right." That person doesn't just get good at swinging the bat, they also develop a specific perk -- patience at the plate.

Similarly, 1h-A with 100 level 1H and no perks just spent their time swinging a sword. He or she gets by on strength, speed, and hand-eye coordination. The person who learns perks, 1H-B, throws a few feints and makes a conscious effort to find a weakness. So when 1H-A comes in swinging fast and hard, 1H-B realizes he's eventually going to lose, but notices a gap in 1H-A's armor. On the next exchange, 1H-B lets himself take a blow on his armor for a chance to strike at the unarmored spot on his opponent, scoring a kill in exchange for some dented armor.

It's still a valid argument. You can go into combat swinging and forgetting all the technique you learned but building strength and hand-eye coordination, or you can go into battle while remembering it is important to stay balance and use your body when you power swing, thereby learning to make standing power swings more efficiently (less stamina) and with enough power to cut someone's head off.

what you seem to fail to realize though is that they're complementary
you can't have all the perks without the required skill level
and without the perks the skill level doesn't do much

so instead of doing a bit of math on a hypothetical situation that would be too silly to actually use in order to prove your point
look at it this way
you reach level 20, you buy a % increase perk
you reach level 40, you get another one
etc.

now by the time you're level 100 you'll have most if not all the perks in a certain skill tree (one you're specializing in, since you apparantly bothered to raise it to 100)
and will have truly mastered this skill
we've already established your example is pretty irrelevant since it would be foolish to actually go about it that way.

so what exactly is your problem with this besides just not liking it for some reason or other?
cuz i think we can argue about this for eternity while it basically comes down to you just not liking perks and would rather be able to just max out a skill and be done with it
or am I missing something here?

My point is one-handed does not just mean you know how to hold and swing a one-handed weapon. It deals specifically with the use of a one-handed weapon in combat. By engaging in combat you will slowly begin to learn how to anticipate attacks, look for gaps in the defense, place your weapon in critical spots quickly and with significant force. These are not things that suddenly dawn on you and then you're brilliant at them forever, you learn them through time and experience.

Perks ignore this concept. Mastery is achieved through abrupt revelations instead of gradual improvement.