That is how people should be playing the game. Unfortunately there are so many people who like min/maxing their characters or planning out their builds far in advance to make sure they never "waste" a perk. If a perk does something you enjoy, it's not a waste. If it doesn't do what you like, you don't have to take it and in all likelihood there is someone else out there that dislikes some of the perks you take but enjoys the ones you don't.

I personally don't use the sneak perks, but that's because I don't really sneak, except on accident when I click the stick in the middle of combat. I think people need to get out of this whole idea and mindset that everything has to be useful to them, and understand that the game is not aimed directly at them, but at a rather large group of people.

Wouldn't be a problem if perks didn't exist and just use whatever you level up because that alone already takes a long time and should be able to put to use.

That aside, yeah some perks are worthless. Oddly enough some level 100 perks are worthless such heavy armor 10% chance to reflect damage, light armor 10% chance to avoid damage, bow 15% chance to paralyze, etc you get the point.

It's not about min-maxing, it's about common sense. Some perks are (much)better(or worse) than others. That's a fact. It's nothing to do what some people like. Some people like [censored]. It's still bad.

Most of the perks are completely unimaginative. Melee combat trees and armor trees are almost exactly the same. Some perks are useless, like the Lockpicking main path. Some perks don't scale at all - like Stealth which gives 20% bonus at first level and then only 5% at every level after that.

I don't know about you but I like to know what I'm picking and think about whether it's worth it as skill points are limited and hard to acquire later in the game. So obviously I'm going to avoid wasting perks.

You said WoW on the Skyrim boards...what is wrong with you?

Those that keep replying with "nope, the perks are great" are only focusing on those that they've found a use for. And by "use" I mean "useful" as in not so situationally based that it rarely ever does anything but eat up a perk point.

Yes, the design of the perks is incredibly lazy. Most of those that actually help are in fact, just more numbers. At least half of most of the trees are just useless filler (see: any of the Novice/Adept/Master etc perks that bloat the trees with cost reduction) and prereqs for the select few useful perks. The only truly "fleshed out" trees would be one-handed, two-handed, Archery, Smithing, Heavy armor, light armor, block and sneak. All of the rest have some useful perks here and there, but are filled with crap too. Some trees such as Restoration and Lockpicking are complete garbage all around.

It's not just you, OP, but most of the perks are over-powered, and the entire perk system completely breaks the skill system that is supposed to let you gain power through use, not level ups.

As soon as the CK comes out, and I'm done making some of my other "must-have" mods, I'm dismantling the entire perk system, and building something better in its place.

He's a roleplayer

Silent roll is pretty much sprinting while sneaking it's hardly useless.

I find all of the perks equally good and equally [censored]. If I take the perks that make me do more damage or reduce incoming damage, the game becomes too easy. If I take perks that seem useless (like silent roll) they actually turn out to be pretty useful. Sure the perks are unimaginative for the most part, I'm not saying they're amazing. I'm just sick of everyone complaining about how the perk trees are unbalanced, that is your OPINION. It's not FACT. It's all based on how YOU PERSONALLY play the game. I have found every single perk useful, even if I prefer some perks over others, I can recognize how that perk is useful because I have tried that perk and found uses for it. If you don't like a perk, don't use it, don't complain just because you think it's useless. Provide proof that it's useless.

Of coruse all perks are useful, because none of them have negative effects. Are you going to argue about semantics, seriously? The problem is some perks are much more useful than others to the point of making them a waste of points.

I don't really like the perks the more I think about it. My character is level 33, and so far I've only spent perks in stealth and archery, and thrown a few in alchemy because there was nothing else worth getting for my character. The perks I have choosen make me a stealth killing machine, but I didntreally has any "customization" due to perks. If anything, perks just really drove me down a narrow path. Before, perks where in the background, so to speak, and now seeing what is possible for different skills makes me stay away from using them. Why waste perks in skills if my characters a beast already? It's just redundant. Sure I could make my poisons 20% stronger a few times, but as it stands I don't need them at all. I already one shot most things on master, so what's the point? Hey could be a enchanted too, but my bow I found 12 levels back is still killing just fine, so why op myself more? Perks are a good idea on paper, but when it comes to execution they are just bleh.

If I make three characters, all stealth, there's no way I can make them unique. Besides just not using perks in stealth skills. They all become the same sooner or later.

You just made my night. Finally someone who can (probably) understand why I have 11 unassigned perks (47-ish levels).

Fallout 3 perks had a sort of magic to them. Even though "Pyromaniac" has essentially returned as "Augmented Flames", there's two key differences. First, the technical one, is that the latter perk needs 2 ranks to equal the former. The second is that "Pyromaniac" says something about who I am in a way that "Augmented Flames" does not.

Hell the entire perk/skill system was poorly thought out. It is fine to have a system where you get 1 perk per level, quite a few systems do it. The thing is those games are not based around leveling via improving skills and generally most of your power comes from the leveling. The problem for skyrim is your skills do virtually nothing. Yes, yes you do more damage, you soak more damage etc., but it is a 40% swing of weapon damage from 15 to 100 skill, that is about a 1/3rd or the power you get from the perks. Without perking things in many cases your skill is pretty much useless, go ahead and hack away on that 3,000HP dragon with a 20 damage attacks I am sure it will be fun. Heck there is nothing wrong with having the perks give the majority of the power, the problem arises when you combine it with a a perk a level system and the level via improving skills system. You just created a system of pointless grinding which should pretty much never be a design goal outside of MMO's where they are trying to keep you around for years so time wasters are valuable to them.

Basically given the ES leveling system if they wanted the perks to provide virtually all the power then they should have gave out a perk every X skill points in a skill and it would have to apply to the skill raised by X, and make sure there are enough perks so people have to choose and will be able to have different choices on multiple playthroughs. So like every 10 points in marksman you get a marksman perk, but since there are 30 perks the 10 you get wont ever cover them all.

If they wanted to go with a perk a level system then skills should be good on their own but become great and or gain new features with perks.

The core design was flawed and then most of the perks end up being lame on top of that. For magic they could have gained inspiration from 3e D&D's metamagic feats, for physical skills I would have looked towards 4e D&D and their idea of martial powers. Not outright copy mind you, just the general ideas as inspiration. As is we got a list of boring feats many of which are poorly balanced even if they have uses here and there.

my only issue with the perks system is that i cant choose which perks i want without building to them. i would have much rather had fewer perks and been able to pick a perk by only leveling the skill, not taking the other skills in the tree.


now my biggest irritation with the fists of steel perk is that if i wanted to make a fist fighter i have to wear heavy armor, alteration requires no armor of any kind in order to have the mage armor perk work, which makes my character have to wear heavy which makes no sense for any kind of pugilist.


oh and the light armor perk requirres you to use no heavy also!! grrr...

Yarr, get rid of perk points and tie the perk to the skill requirement so you get it automatically. And I agree with the attributes. It feels stupid that my sneak character can haul more stuff on his back than my melee orc. Just because there are only 3 choices, from which the sneak doesn't need mana nor health. So I raised stamina, a lot. Previous games had it much better.

And silent roll is so imba xD. You can perform a sneak attack or sneak power attack while still rolling forward in sneak. Just hold down attack immideately after starting the roll. Works in 1st person atleast.

This game is not dumbed down.

There is no "COD" factor.

To even think to compare this game to COD is incredibly insulting, and ignorant to reality.

The game is deep and complex, it's just not tediously complex in needless areas.

Making a game more accessible and user friendly =/= "dumbing down"

I didn't have to restart for my character to have a proper build.

No, consoles don't carry any "blame" for anything.

Destruction perks increase damage.

Exactly! I am using it all the time, especially when I have a follower with me. Before she alerts the bad guys I am already behind them and BAM..

While I do not want to start a big discussion over this I must say tht in the 10 months I have been on the forums I have never seen an argument that proved that the attributes weren't redundant in OB and MW. Mostly I have seen a lot of narrow-minded opinions that a game must have attributes of some sort to be a RPG.

On topic: I believe that there is a good variation among the perks, and aren't really that useless. Some skills might be a bit underpowered, but the perks seem fine.

the contraty is true i think all these +% damage/defense and passive perks are BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING
i would like to see MANY more active perks this would also MASSIVELY increase replayability and make characters more distinct

Redundancy is good.

I absolutely love the perks. By far this is my favorite leveling system in an Elder Scrolls game.

It makes me feel like I am truly specializing my character and making him unique when my dual wielding warrior has completely different perk constellations than my friend's dual wielding warrior.

Unlike Morrowind and Oblivion, my melee warrior isn't the same as every other melee warrior just because I chose Heavy Armor and Blade as my melee skills. My Conjuration mage isn't the same as every other Conjuration mage just because we both use Conjuration.

The beauty of the new system.