You'd need one hell of a illusion master...or alteration, which ever...to go inside your head and mess everything around to be able to switch from a theif to a mage.

rofl, i hear gilderoy lockheart is exceptional with memory charms <_<

That only applies if you choose to use this feature, you do not have to use the feature.

Having the option to respec your character has no effect on the immersion or realism the same way having the option to reload a save has no effect on the immersion or realism as you can always opt not to use it. Simply because you would not use a feature doesn't others should be denied the opportunity to do so.

I ask again what difference does it make to you if I or anyone else choose to respec my character? It doesn't affect your play through at all.

I was under the impression they were purposefully only allowing 50 perks out of the large variety because they wanted peoples choices to matter and have consequence, allowing you to reset them would make that pretty pointless.

And as you said yourself you can save, sooo technically people who dont like their perks and/or want to try something different or new can just save either often or before they level and if they want to try something different just revert back to an old save point before you chose.

No redos. Isn't the whole point of getting rid of classes and stats and all that other [censored] just so that you are able to see how you like to play before committing? Redoing perks wouldn't help that, it would just be decline and simplification for the cause of decline and simplification.

You are really trivializing the "role" aspect of the "Role Playing Game." The entire point of role playing is that a single character can't do everything. You create a character who specializes in the style of role you wish to play and then tackle the game's various challenges using your brain and your character. When games are designed to allow you to do everything on a single play-through, it becomes a vary bland experience. Choices and Consequences must apply to character design or their really is no "roleplaying" occurring. Also, this is the entire reason to replay an RPG. You try out different builds with new characters.

Anyway, I hate to say it, but you probably represent the average player in the target audience. Just goes to show how seeking purely profit can kill creativity and cause regression toward the mean. Modern games are far too simplified, brainless, and kidified. My god!

Actually it does, saved games and loading makes sense because when you load a game, everything you did after you saved it originally just "didn′t happen" the world goes on in a different direction but you are the same all the time. Now re-assign your perks and it gets fishy, one family remembers you saving their kid from drowning when stuck under ice by casting a water breathing spell but all of a sudden you are all muscular and tough and can′t cast spells, and there has to be a reason for it, and if one person can change like that then everyone needs to be able to do that. It would require huge changes in the game world and it would be hard to work around everyone being able to re-direct their world experiences somewhere else.

If you make a bad choice or two in perks, you still have plenty more. Mis-appropriating a couple perks is not going to seriously gimp your character. Besides which, perks are going to have skill requirements, so you'll only be able to effectively use perks for the skills you've levelled. If you've been levelling the "wrong" skills, somehow, you're going to have to start over anyway.


It does if the quest designers anticipate the ability to "respec" your character, as it will force those that don't want to use it into using it to properly play. This isn't a team-raid-based MMO we're talking about here, it's a single-player game. Why go through the trouble of adding such a potentially debalancing feature, which completely breaks the core philosophy of the series ("You are what you play"), for something that doesn't fit gameplay?

I feel like this is the whole reason, its the core philosophy of the series like he said above, maybe its not the type of game for you? IMO its one of the main concepts theyve always tried to stick with and its a huge reason most people enjoy it i say dont allow resets.

we should be able to delay the perk choosing process:(

Thank you.

This, a thousand times over.

Todd Howard has already mentioned control as an issue that they face in creating the game. I don't want the game to get screwed over for everyone because someone said "BUT I WANT EVERYTHING."

Again I see this optional feature, It'll only break immersion/realism if you to choose to use it. The option being there has no impact on those player who choose not to use it



I have not suggested at any point that the game should designed around this feature so that players are forced to use it. I have only suggested that it be available to those of us who wish to use it. I.E those of us who wish to experience different play-styles without having to start from scratch and invest a significant amount of time repeating a load of content we have already done.

If wish your characters to be set in stone and start from scratch to make a new one you can this feature doesn't impede that one bit.




Don't be presumptuous this most definitely the game for me. I like exploring, the art style, the lore, the quests, the various ways of building character and much much more. what I resent is being forced to restart and repeat a load of content I have already seen just to experience a different play style.

This feature does not take away from your enjoyment at all, it only adds to mine. And I seriously doubt that the absence of this feature is why most people enjoy these games, that doesn't make any sense. Why buy a game for the feature it does not have?





Care to explain how what I do with my character will "Screw your game over"?

If respecing your character screws your experience over then don't do it. Nowhere have I suggested that this should be mandatory only that i'd like to have the option.

Not being able to reassign perks and not being able to be good at everything in the game on a single character is I think a good thing.
It will make each character you play different, radically different like a thief would be from a warrior or slightly different, Im sure you can have more than one good mage build.
That gives good replay value.

I would like it if one character couldnt do everything in the game. Id like a quest specific to your race or being prohibited from a quest because of it.
Game areas only agile rogues can reach, an enemy guarding a treasure who can only be defeated by a high level mage.
That kind of thing.
Sneaking should have advantages over invisibilty and vice versa, they shouldnt be the same.
Different characters need to be different and experience a different game. It shouldnt be that the only difference is how you look.

As I said: Why go through the trouble of adding such a potentially debalancing feature, which completely breaks the core philosophy of the series, for something that doesn't fit gameplay (ie, that gameplay is not designed for)? If Bethesda adds such a feature, then the game should be designed with the assumption that people are going to use it. If they don't assume people are going to use it, then there's no reason to waste time on it (recall recent comments by Todd about the ability to kill off an entire town). No one would be happy if they just half-assed it.

I am against having any quests that are locked out because of my choices. But I am quite happy for certain quests to be hard/nearly impossible because of my choices instead.

To lock me out of quests is artificial and fake. Go ahead and make it as hard as you like, just don't make it impossible for me to do it.

But back to the main topic, respec should not be allowed because it is too easy to abuse.The game is designed so that you never need all the three branches (magic, combat, sneak) in any particular quest. Whatever the mission you are on, there would always be one discipline that has an advantage over the others. Respec would cause the problem that you would always have the best advantage in any quest.

Frankly I enjoyed trying to steal the Elder Scroll in the final Thieves Guild quest with barely any sneak skills, or being the head of the Fighters Guild despite never wearing any armour. Not being the right character type for the quest has its own fun; you are forced to be more inventive and use unusual means to finish your mission.

So I am against respecing, but I am also against being banned from any quests due to specialisation on my part.

Only if it's done poorly/arbitrarily. Oblivion could've done well with questlines for the Blackwood Company and Necromancers. It would be impossible to reconcile doing those along with the Fighters Guild and Mages Guild respectively, and still make sense. Allowing both sides would be artifical and fake.

In Skyrim we know there is a civil war, between pro-Empire and pro-Secession groups. If there's quests for each side, being able to work through them both would be artifical and fake.

What makes you think it would be impossible to work through them on both sides? It wouldn't be easy, sure, but plenty of people in history play both sides for fools for fame and fortune.

If Bethesda had said they made possible of the game functioning even after the player killed every NPC, then there is no reason they can't consider the possibility of the player manipulating every faction to his personal gain.

Groups are made up of people. And people can be tricked, bribed, blackmailed, and killed. There is no reason why I can't take over every faction if my play my cards right. I am not some shabby survivor in Fallout who no one cares about, I am a Hero. There is a reason I stopped playing Fallout; the game refused to let me make a difference. The world refuse to stop being so damn depressing all the time. But in TES, I can literally make the prinvince a better place. I can make people happy, stop wars, punish the guilty and save the innocent. I have power to make a difference and do what no one else can because I am the DAMN Dovahkiin!

The underlined part is pretty bad in my opinion. I never liked the possibility of being able to do everything without anyone questioning you or your skills in any way. I could be unable to cast any spells but the mages guild would deem me worthy of being Arch-mage... WTF ? In Morrowind that would not fly quite like that. If you joined the Dark Brotherhood they would not care if you never did a mission stealthily and in fact many thieves guild quests you could just burst in, take what you needed, return and have someone pay off your bounty and return. Figthers guild wasn′t as much about 'how' you did it as long as you did it so you could be a mage for them, but in Morrowind they would require you to be physically fit and skillful to a certain extent.

I like the restrictions because they give the organizations a sense of character, it makes you think "I belong here" and "I don′t belong here" rather than "I belong everywhere and should be master of everything too" come Skyrim I′m hoping for some conflict, and I′d not like to be able to re-assign perk points to be able to join the mages guild all of a sudden if I wasn′t able to before.

Unless your character were to "see the light" as to why their initial choice was "wrong". Reminds me of the windfall mod for oblivion although in that you could switch sides in the middle/near end rather than after fully completing one particular side.

And of course, if my suspicions were correct and the main character becomes Emperor, then there would be no conflicts; you simply start a new empire and both factions join you.

I will belong everywhere because I worked for it. I don't do things because they are easy, but because they are hard. If I manage to become the Archmage without knowing any spells at all, it just shows how clever I really am.

If you have 100 skill in Destruction and have all relevant perks, being Archmage is easy and boring. The fun way is to get the job without actually being a mage.

Perks should be permanent. This we agree. But we have opposing reasons; you want to lock game elements away, I want to solve quests in tricky ways.

I want the NPC to say to me, as he hands me the Archmage staff; "I can't believe I am doing this, but here is the Archmage title. You are a horrible mage, a child can cast better spells than you. How the hell you managed to accomplish all these Herculean tasks I threw at you, I would never know. But I give up; you win, you get the head office. I will go hang myself now because the world is so unfair."
And I would snicker. :celebration:

Stating that it would completely break the core philosophy of the series seems like an excessive reaction to the addition of such peripheral, optional feature. It should not be a core gameplay feature just an option available to those of us who invest a significant amount time in to one play through who do not wish start again simply to play a different play style for a while. It would hardly take any development time. it's just a character editor. I see no problem with being able to respec your character after reaching level fifty or after beating the main quest this is no threat to the core game experience for you as you simply don't have to use it if you do not wish to.

An alternative would be allowing the number of skill increases and perks/levels to be carried over to a new character/playthrough.

Futhermore having specialised characters set in stone can hardly be argued as being part of the core philosophy of the elder scrolls games when Morrowind and Oblivion allowed us to easily build a master of all trades character, with 100s in all skills and attributes.

What nonsense is that?
What kind of organisation of doctors would allow someone to lead them who knows nothing of medicine?
What kind of army puts someone who knows nothing about the military at the helm?
The Oblivion system was silly. You could become head of a guild at level one and without any skills of the guild.
Thats not being a better archmage, thats a design flaw.

The quests would have to be written in such a contrived way so that neither side can know you're working for the other, meaning you get no recognition for what you're doing. It would be Oblivion's MQ x 2. I'd like to see the world react to what I do, not ignore it for the sake of being able to do everything with one uber character.


Switching sides half way through would be fine. I'd actually kinda like that if they could do it well. But to be able to complete a significant amount of both just feels fake, especially if it happens with each and every set of opposing factions.


Err... you realize what secession means, right? The pro-Empire side wants to stay with the Empire, the pro-Secession side wants to break away and be autonomous. There is no middle ground, there.

I have to agree there, it's kinda weird for someone who knows nothing about magic to become archmage. I have no qualms with being able to do everything but you should have to actually work for it by having the skills necessary to fill that role. Same as in Morrowind.