So in the interview we now know perks are increased based on skill and you wont be forced to take something when you level up.

"If do you get perks by increasing the skills or by going up in level?

- It's by increasing skills. You invest points in them, and given the opportunity to select various special attacks and such things. It is basically like a regular perk tree, just that there are certain requirements before you can unlock various perks. What they typically do, so you can see if there is a special attack you like, before deciding whether to use the sword more often to unlock it."


This still doesnt tell us if you will be able to save them though, so if you dont HAVE to take a perk on level up it seems like you just might be able to save them up.

Any thoughts on how you guys think they might implement this? or what you would prefer.

For me i hope theres something in place that makes you take them gradually as you progress, but i know a lot of people want to save them up and decide at the end on something they want.

Also any ideas on ways they could make them come gradually, as it is now i dont see many ways they could prevent saving them.

I see no issue being able to save them because that means you are underpowered until you choose to invest in them. I'm not particularly worried either way though, provided it doesn't feel like that +5 modifier situation which is probably the single thing that annoyed me most in the past.

But does this mean you get the ability to choose a perk when you level your skills up, or does this mean leveling you skills up unlocks perks that you are able to pick when you have the choice to (like Fallout 3 perk requirements)?

I think itll be like this, but less demanding

I'd say it's the latter case, otherwise, it basically becomes attribute modifiers all over again, except that instead of grinding skills to get a +5 multiplier you're grinding them to ensure you can choose your desired perk.

And if you can choose not to take a perk when you level up, I'd assume it means you can save the perk for a later level, because otherwise, not choosing a perk when you get the chance basically amounts to wasting one chance to choose a perk, and I'm sure Bethesda doesn't want people complaining that they ended up screwing their own characters over by not choosing perks when they get the chance, not realizing this would mean the permanently lose that chance.

So do perks unlock per character level, or per skill level?

My guess would be both. Needing a certain character and skill level to unlock perks, particularly the better ones in any given tree, makes the most sense to me.

I would say skill level only. If you use axes exclusively, level fast, and become a master of one handed with a bunch of axe perks, why should your relatively low level exclude any axe perks at all? You have perfected the art, at the expense of other skills.

oh, this is the badly translated norwegian interview?
That won't help much...

That does make the most sense, but that means perks will be unlocking at an extremely fast rate if it's skill based. As an example, i'd be raising my 1 handed skill/destruction skill much raster than my character will be raising his overall level.

Well, I used an exaggerated example, you wouldn't, in practice, only use one skill. But surely unlocking skills before you have slots to fill is better than having slots, but haven't yet unlocked the skills you want to fill them with.

My guess is that skill level ups unlocks perks, but you only get to choose them at character level ups.

The way it works is fairly obvious. NEW perks unlock when you reach certain skill levels but you can only PICK a perk at level up.

Let's not forget that the higher a skill is, the more it contribute to overall leveling. Leveling high in a single skill means leveling faster overall as well.

Actually, didn't Todd say we get one perk per character level plus an increase to either health, magicka, stamina? Plus, perks cap at level 50.

Yes, and if you level a few skills quickly, I am assuming you will get access to all the perks in those skills, well before you get enough perks, all well and good. If you go the jack of all trades, levelling many skills, and getting character levels slowly, you may well reach level 50 before you have unlocked the better perks, but having lesser perks spread amongst many skills is, imho being a JoaT, and master of none.

Yes, but health gets a boost every level regardless if I recall. If you choose health at level up it amounts to an extra boost to health, unless I understand it wrong.

if you gain a level every 10 skill points.... and there are a 10 perk slots per skill.... you could not possibly get all 10 perk slots filled when you hit 100 in a skill. Assuming your character has racial bonuses and what not like in Oblivion that raise your base skill level. Starting at 40 in Blunt like my orc did would result in hitting 100 skill at level 6 if I focused solely on Blunt. I would have the opportunity then to spend additional perks on blunt while leveling other skills.

I dont see anywhere where it says that you dont have to pick it, it just says that certain perks require certain levels, like if you want a special attack for blades you have to get 1 handed up to 50

You don't gain a level every 10 skill points. You gain more experience from higher skill point increases. Going from 10 to 11 grants far less experience then going from say 50 to 51, etc.

I don't mind this either, I liked it a lot in Fallout; but I do remember many members here would post [of Fallout], that it was unrealistic and cheating to be able to hoard skill points until you needed them.

I thought that they meant skills you have worked on will go up faster than those you neglect. So you level 90 1hand will increase to 91 faster than your level 10 sneak will reach 11. This is due to all skills attributing to level gains and so you will not accidentally gain a bunch of levels later in the game if you decide to experiment with side skills a bit just to see how they feel.

I do not see how it would be cheating, but it would be the new "chasing the 5's" to grind your skills up without taking advantage of perk benefits just so you do not have to pick any lower skill requirement ones.

Let's take a wild guess, average starting skill 20, or whatever it is, that's 1440 left to get, by 70 levels, that's about 20 skill increases per level up, without the dynamic class weighting. Maybe it could drop to 15 or so if you use just the one skill, dunno, just rough guessing, you could get mastery at level 4. Maybe it could drop to 10 for just one, so level six would be the minimum for your Orc in that case, but could be even sooner. Trouble is, you would only be able to access the very lowest perks in the other skills.

Something else that I'd have no problem with.

I liked the way this was done in Bloodlines; where skill and vampire abilities had differing costs, and you could choose your specialization.