Okay, I'll be honest, I never played Oblivion, I've just started played much Skyrim and I just went back from playing (for the first time) an old game called Morrowind so I might be wrong about a lot of what I'm gonna say, if so, please forgive me.

I kinda feel like there's quite a bunch of perks that Bethesda could have avoided, I mean, Fists of Steel, a unarmed perk in the Heavy Armor tree, for real? or Silent Roll, does that help in anything other than wasting a perk in it? or Sould Stealer & Oblivion Binding, did they made it on purpose, wanting us to banish our own summons while in combat (if you don't want to be passive...)? not to mention Soul Stealer can turn to be a pain in the ass.

My first impression of this game is that not only this game is unable to give you a lot of freedom to make viable builds, but feels like Bethesda didn't know what to do and put perks just to fill the skills menu.
Fallout 3 was Oblivion in Wasteland, Skyrim is...Fallout 3 in Oblivion?

Now that my read back what I wrote, it kinda sounds like a rant about a certain aspect of the game, but it's just I can't see the same freedom in thise game than in an 9(?) year old game produced by the very same company, kinda strange you know, when you have a winning gameplay mechanics of a successful game already established, wouldn't it be much easier for the dev team to put it the same way in the next game?

Also, is it me or is my dual wielding orc in heavy armor with some points put in smithing, alchemy and enchatement is going to turn beastly when it reach lvl 50? I can't see any other build suprassing this, for this also, feel free to correct me.

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Totally disagree. Yes there are perks that don't add much regarding damage etc like silent roll but that is where preference comes in via roleplaying. Being an assassin and doing a roll up to an opponent to slit their throat is very cool, very immersive. Yeah this sort of stuff will be added by mods eventually but our console cousins deserve some of that too. I have been messing around with all sorts of stuff on one character and find the freedom very good - yes played morrowwind and oblivion. I think the mistake some people might be making is that they feel they need to max out some perk trees, nah, take a bit of several and leave yourself open to different playstyles. Anyway, loving it

I thought it was funny that everybody jumped on the bandwagon of no attributes, going on about "numbers this", and "numbers that". And then over half the perks are just numbers.

Just because a per doesn't make you tougher or deal more damage, does not make it bad OP. Your welcome.

being numbers wasn't the problem
lot of them were redundant and only trickled down into skills
that's why they left them out

I think the perks that exist are fine, but I think some skills were just underdeveloped.

Which is the same thing that a lot of the perks do. They left them out so newbs had less to worry about. Redundant would be having wait healing and auto health regen. Attributes were definitely not redundant and that's been proven since the announced that they were cut.

You must not have played World of Warcraft a game with similiar skill trees ala perks. One had to take nearly the same builds and glyphs to be viable for high raid content and / or arena.

Nothing new here

Silent roll is an excellent perk in my opinion. I used it extensively on my sneaky character to quickly move through dungeon areas with no enemies or to quickly get to an enemy that had become alerted to me but hadn't quite seen me yet and get them dead before they did. I think just because you don't like a perk it doesn't make it a bad one. Now one could argue that the whole lockpicking tree is full of bad perks since you never have to invest anything in it to lockpick the hardest locks, but still I guess they do something useful for someone.

I like the perk system. There are certainly some worthless, poorly designed, and/or poorly placed perks, but people will still have unique builds and definitely more unique characters than in previous games in which your character became less defined at high levels since all your attributes and skills would end up at/near 100 and that was all there was to define them. Oblivion was a considerably less complex game, so no, they weren't dumbing down for CoD players, as much I'd like to jump on the console blaming wagon considering the PC UI...

I think the perks were well done. I even like the speech perks. I do wish they made intimidate and persuade more useful though. Oh and also the lOckpick perks that just make locks easier are pointless

Before you put points into your attributes so your selected skills will act better.

Now you put points into perks so your selected skills will act better.



But who am I kidding, this is not the same thing at all, this is stupid Call of Duty RPGs need MOAR NUMBERZ! :bonk:

Most perks actually are very useful...if only in limited circumstances. Fists of Steel, for example, makes brawls a load easier, and it's highly enjoyable to punch a dragon to death.

I actually ADORE Silent Roll. It's one of the most useful perks I've found.

Sure, a lot of the perks may be for niche builds, but they all have some purpose that's useful.

Not useless. But they are made horribly in that they are the ONLY thing that makes you stronger.. while skill level completely doesn't matter.

I'm missing the bloody mess perk in Skyrim.

A lot of the perks aren't useless depending on your build.

I suppose I am a minority, but I always found when games were laid out in bare numbers it was simpler. I do not understand everyone going on about Skyrim being simplified because it does not have the Morrowind system. I find it more challenging because now you can not lay your character out with a calculator. I find the perks more logical and enjoyable, and I spend more time enjoying the bloody game rather than number-crunching. Basically, not sure why people equate statistics and numbers with difficulty and challenge.

For clarification, what I am saying is instead of 'Choose Attribute A for this amount of buff, choose Attribute B for this amount of buff', which is a very easy and simplified choice, I prefer the more complex 'Choose Perk A for this situational ability, choose Perk B for this situational ability'. It is far more challenging to decide which ability - without numbers - will be more useful, and more of a challenge to predict what situations you will find yourself in.


However, the above rant isn't even on topic. The poster was not complaining about simplification (which trolls jump in to make the argument thereof) but that it seems Bethesda ran out of ideas for perks. To which I agree. I feel there are less perks than the Fallouts (Though this may not be true, the -impression- is there) and that the perks that are here are a little less creative. I feel like they should have spent more time making the perks more varied and unique. Instead of giving us abilities we expect to get (Like zoom on a bow) they should have given us abilities that are strictly useful in certain situations, but entirely unique (Like the slow-mo for instance, on a bow. I approve of this. If only they had more unique ones. Like, say, the ability to imbue arrows with various small amounts of elemental damage (Even on an enchanted bow) for the trade off of reduced range, or something like that)

It's funny the popularity of gaming and how it has gone mainstream has hurt the industry more then it has helped. Less quantity so more titles can be pumped out etc. Shallow game-play. Easy to break or hard to find a real challenge when you do not go out of your own way to figure out a way to do so.

I have no qualms with Skyrim and I do not put it in that category, although I do admit they had to do some things to make it more popular. I have a friend who is a CoD/Shooter kid and not much else. He bought Skyrim but he can not figure it out at all. Watching him play causes me pain.

Most CoD only shooter people cannot handle different game types, at least at first. I have always been through every type since I started as a young tyke so I can traverse all generas. Its like learning a new skill/mindset for people.

The fact gaming has become more and more mainstream reminds me of how movies (overall) have gotten shorter and shorter due to the fact average movie goers do not like to sit for the length or LOTR or 2+ hours so the standard has now been cut down time wise. I think it goes the same way for games with content and complexity.

Look at Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox, now look at the sequel. Tell me where they are not making it easier so everyone can finish the game? Granted I admit Gaiden was insainly hard for me because of my average skill with those types of games. They even stated they wanted it to be able to be beaten by everyone/full story viewed. This is not due to true care of people finishing the game, its about the dollar and the fact people who are average (most of the time) cannot beat the first game so they missed out on selling copies to the masses. hardcoe games are few and far between because the dollar is more in the average Joe's pocket because there are a lot more Joes than there are of hardcoe gamers.

I realize a lot of this is IMO so take my words with a grain of salt. I believe on the whole I am correct but I cannot speak with factual statements over everything.

People tend to equate them with increased difficulty when they are bad with numbers and statistics. I agree though if you hand me the numbers I can work out pretty fast the best way to fix those numbers in my favor.

I disagree strongly with this assessment you've made. I have zero perks in my one-handed tree, and only have the perks that reduce magicka cost in my destruction tree and I've noticed a significant enough increase from damage by raising those skills. Of course, those increases are made to seem paltry in comparison to the bonuses you have the CHOICE to use in the perk trees. They're still there though.

Exactly. I do not understand much of the time how people equate the lack of numbers with dumbing down. The ambiguity of the system lends to more difficulty - in a good way, in my honest opinion, but I understand if you disagree with ambiguity being a good thing. It is also (and forgive me for using this word in relation to Skyrim) more realistic. After all, even putting myself in the shoes of a dark elf nightblade or nord battlemage fighting dragons, I find it hard to justify an ability to see tiny floating numbers signifying how many times I need to smack the thing. It is more difficult and rewarding with less numbers.

I don't know, some of those perks you listed are pretty useful depending on the character you build. It's all preference at the end of the day. You don't always have to go with the best possible build, a lot of people enjoy coming up with fun hybrid builds that may not be uber, but really fun to play.

Disintegrate and freezblast or whatever called at the end of the storm/ice skills are sort of useless. I don't get anything out of it, but visuals, my ice blast /electro shock didn't get stronger investing in these perks. I don't see any use of them, the enemy is dead either way at the end, whether it's a pile of ash or a dead body. Waste of 2 perk points.

The Lockpicking tree seems to be the weakest and least thought out of the perks. My character is a thief and yet I have absolutely no desire to touch any of those perks. The only one in that tree that I thought had any potential was "Treasure Hunter", but that perk would only be worth taking if there were actual legendary/unique items that you could randomly find in chests. But no, Bethesda decided that all unique items needed to be in pre-set locations and on particular npcs. Weak.