Ok guys so I recently bought a copy of OXM and read like many others, the Skyrim article. Its a good read and there are some pictures and what not, interesting points and such but something made me think...

Its been known for a while you can max out ALL skills. OXM questioned if this was going to make everyone's character "Samey" but they later went on to say how not being able to have all the perks makes your character unique still.

So what I want to know guys is this, what do you think about being able to max out all skills??

I personally don't mind too much as long as they limit a lot of perks, I don't like jack of all trade characters because there's no replay value and I like making more than one char.

They said u cant max out all the skill what r u talking about my bad i thought u had meant perks

I think its a good thing, its not like you won't have to work for them, it will take a long time to max them all out and like you said, the perks make the character unique.

I voted 'I like it'

Technically you could max out all skills in Oblivion, that would take forever though.

It doesnt make everyones character the same if people choose not to max out all skills <.< this is another option weather or not you wanna do it.
on topic, i think i will max out everything on my first character then do a pure mage or archer or whatever i feel like playing next.

I thought you could max out all your skills at level 75/76 depending on race.

-Mr. Maric

i dont like jack of all trades characters to but as long as u cant get all the perks its fine with me

No characters will be the same like in oblivion and morrowind. Thanks to perks. But yes, you can reach 100 in all skills.

You can max them all out, you just cant get all the perks. Since skill level doesnt have any benefits any more, maxing all skills means nothing. The only benefit is that every time you level you get another perk.

So i like maxing all skills, it allows you to get more perks without being a jack of all trades like in previous games ^_^

We can only have a maximum of about 75 perks out of something like 280? So I think the system works for both people who want to max everything out (skills) and people who want to specialize (limited perks).

I don't really care. I have 8 character's woth of archtypes to play that focus on certains skills. JOAT bore me.

You CAN max out all skills to 99 or 100 w.e it is, you can't have ALL perks though.

At least if you do max out and say you specialise in magic and your an dark elf, you will never be as good an archer of an wood elf with all the archery perks.

I might end up training other skills so that I can level up and get a perk in the skills that I do normally use.

Perks seem to be the way you define your character. 100 skill without perks should feel very different from 100 skill with some/all the perks.

Wait. So the only reason you level all your skills is to get the perks?? How can skills have no benignant when they increase you strength in something, for example a higher magic means stronger spells surely?

I don't mind to much either way. As long as theres still a truck load of perks I can't get in a single play through I'm happy

I'll have to repeat what the article said. Of course your character should be able to max out all his/her skills, but thanks to the perks you can create a character that plays completely different in combat. There's around... 280 perks? If you can only choose 50 of them i'm sure your character will be pretty unique. This all depends on what the perks are though. If a perk simply gives you a 5% damage bonus when using a certain weapon and you can choose that perk 5 times to get a total of 25% extra damage then characters won't be very unique if they have or don't have this perk. That's why i'm hoping perks will grant you special combat abilities and non combat abilities (like the shield bash perk that let's you sprint with your shield up to knock down enemies).

If you're interested in diablo3, they have a perk-like system too. Even if you play together with 4 people who are all mages it will seem as they're 4 totally different characters depending on what customizations they chose.

Pfft, what?
I would max them out without any problem at all. >_>

I really don't like idea of being able to max out everything.
It simply loses flavour.
In case you are able to do that, it should be one hell of a job.

I also don't understand people who wish to play master-of-all-trades characters.
It's absolutelly tasteless. >_>

I don't really care. I am absolutely 100% positive I'll never max out all my characters skills.

My thoughts exactly. Being good at everything is.. I try not to use this word but I will do it anyways, unrealistic.

thats what i thought you meant to so i hit the one for putting a limit, there shouldnt be one on the skill levels though

Maxed-out characters are stupid. Never mind the perks, all characters will essentially be as basically competent as each other in all disciplines. Disappointing. It is like having a character wh rises to the top of each faction (also stupid, as realistically one could never juggle all those responsibilities, not to even mention conflicts of interest).

But at least maxing out is optional (you don't have to use those skills) so I will be able to opt out.

Of the little annoying issues with Skyrim, this probably ranks lower than the removal of attiributes though.

This game will have more character specialization than any previous Elder Scrolls game.

While you can have all skills at 100, the perks are what defines your character. Additionally, there is a soft cap at level 50 that dramatically lowers the speed at which skills rise.

People are forgetting an important factor in all this, the magic/health/stamina alocation at each level.

Everyone can max all their magic skills to 100, but if you've been playing a warrior it's not going to benefit you much with no magic to cast high level spells. Same goes with the other classes. A character the spreads m/h/s evenly won't be as strong as a warrior who specializes in h/s, or should I say won't last as long in a fight.

So we have skills, perks, and h/s/m to consider, creating very different characters. Two people with the same skills and perks in warrior skills will play completely different if one has higher s/h and the other spread his out because he was trying to take advantage of magic.

I've never been able to max out everything in any TES game so far, but I've still been a hulking piece of awesome.

I came close in Morrowind, where it let me continuously train as long as I had the money. But there were a few skills I just never really employed, so I never bothered.

Never could in Oblivion, the method of doing so is just kind of pointless for me.

Yes you can.

It's your own choice. I don't see what's wrong with it. If you don't like it, don't do it. It's not a multi-player game.

I don't think I ever got my median skill above 90 in Oblivion. It sounds like in Skyrim:
1. In previous TES games increasing misc skills raised your power relative to your level. In Skyrim since all skills are now effectively class skills, increasing misc skills lowers your power relative to your level. It becomes comparable to the tradeoffs between raising a class skill that you relied on vs a class skill that you didn't need much in previous TES games.
2. Looking at the perk descriptions it looks like skill power & utility may have more to do with # of perks used than # of skill points. Given the limited number of times you can level up & gain a perk, this suggests that skill specialization is functionally required if you want your character to be powerful. It may be a good idea to concentrate on just 2-4 skills for your first 20 or 30 level ups. On the other hand, at high levels the cap at 100 dominates your ability to continue increasing skills, and thus your ability to continue levelling and gaining perks.

So concentrating both perks and skill-ups in to fewer skills will increase your power relative to your level - but at higher levels using as diverse a set of skills as possible becomes important to being able to increase in level. The same pattern was apparent in previous games, but only amongst class skills - now it applies to all skills and is made more complex by the fact that you can explicity specify which skills will get the perks separately from which skills you use & train. The optimal strategy probably ends up looking like focusing on 1-3 skills for the first 10 to 20 levels, then branching out to an extra skill every 3-4 levels, doing a similar pattern with perk choices but concentrating slightly on perks that help a wide variety of skills, not just the skill the perk is associated with.