What I am saying that 50 out of 280 is ridiculous

18% of perks

And perks mean so much now that its the only RPG element

I want to have enough perks to define my character

Lets assume that most skills (just for this conversation) will be like block

9 perks in a tree, with at least 1 multiple perk required to get up to the higher ranks

This is very limiting, to get to the last perk you really want you might have to spend 6 or 7 perks to get to it


To make a viable character you need to be able to master at least 1 offensive, 1 defensive, 1 social, 1 crafting and 1 healing (in my opinion)

But that would probably be more like 80 or 90 perks not 50

I love the re-playability aspect that's been added to this one. Being able to get higher than 50 would mean you could just become a jack of all trades.

It'll add so many more occasions when you will want to start up a 2nd/3rd/4th char etc.

I agree to some extent, but based on my experience with previous TES games and everything I've learned so far about Skyrim, I'm pretty sure my first playthrough will last several hundred hours, and once I get above level 50, it will svck not to continue learning a new perk at each level up, even if the level ups are few and far between.

My understanding is that the leveling gradually slows, ultimately grinding to a halt once you reach the theoretical maximum of 70-80.

So for those of us with a super long playthrough, for those last 20 levels or so, it will feel like we are missing out on something.

When I played FO3 and passed the level cap the game instantly became somewhat boring because there was no more progression going on. I want to always be growing, learning something new, looking forward to that next perk, trying to accumulate more gold to save up for some new expensive item that I can't afford yet. When the game becomes static, it's kind of pointless.

Well, lets look at it another way:

1 Handed Weapons

There are areas for at least axes, maces, and swords. You won't need to cover all areas, infact, it'd be better if you covered just 1. So instead of maxing out 1 handed weapons, you'd devote much less to it, and still be proficient in combat.

I said 4. If the 50 perks we get is enough to max 4 skills, it is enough to significantly power up 8. So you could specialize in something very specific, or be very good in multiple things.

For me, I'm totally fine with specializing in one or two areas for perks, I think it would be lame to master all 280 perks, and I look forward to experimenting with different perks on different playthroughs.

My problem is that I want to keep earning perks each time I level up. Otherwise, it's as if the game had a hard level cap at 50 (instead of the theoretical max of 70-80 or whatever). Once you can no longer earn new perks, something will be missing IMO. Maybe there's enough to focus on learning new spells and dragon shouts, etc., at that high level, but it would be nice to have a few more perks to look forward to.

That's a fair argument. I can relate; I hated the hardcoded caps for attributes in Oblivion. Once I maxed out Strength and Blade/Blunt, there was no incentive for me to level anymore, less perhaps, due to enemy HP scaling.

I personally won't max any perk trees. I'll choose the perks that I most need for my character build. . . If I end up maxing a perk tree, it's a bonus to that

I am not going to carry one of every weapon type on me, that would be silly. So as soon as I decide what my final weapon is going to be, I would perk that weapon type and only that weapon type.

Eventually I will max all my skills, but that just means I will be good enough to "get-by" on everything. It is the perks that make me a demi-god.

Respec option is mandatory for me. I don't want to have to re-level a character because the perks I took looked good on paper but failed in practice.

I will replay the game with different characters with different play styles and themes, but I want some flexibility in correcting and adjusting each different set of perks to be the most effective and enjoyable. I don't see how that limits replay value in any way, especially since our skill levels won't be interchangeable so it'd be counter-productive to completely change the focus of your perks to skills you haven't raised as much.



Only according to the extremely narrow definition of RPG that stems from what's really a redefinition based on what's become standard and/or expected of games labelled RPGs. Mainly seems to have come from DnD based games. But you don't actually need classes, skills, statistics of any sort for a game to be an RPG. You don't even need character creation or customization. Assuming the role of a character in a story(or stories) set in an interactive game world is the main thing, not statistical representations of that character's effectiveness.

My mage will likely go down 1-2 branches of the destruction tree 2 branches of enchant. 1 of alchemy. a bit of 2-3 branches of restoration. And if mercantile is still in a branch or 2 there.

Other then that its bits here and there.

Probably won't max any at all, I could understand why you would want to for a Necromancer or Kensai type character, total mastery of conjuration or swords, for example. Will pick as and when, probably pick six skills to concentrate on, two specialised, four with a few perks, might throw a few outside the box, there you have a class, not initially skilled, but chosen at character gen, and grown into.
Sounds enough to me, and yes, loads of replay value, not just combat, magic, stealth, but illusionist, enchanter, healer. shield bearer, paladin, all these classes will be distinct at endgame, rather than initially.

between 2 and 4

that should be more than enough

Think it mostly depend on how useful the skills are wit no perks or some perks compared to fully fleshed out.
Compare with Oblivion will a skill with level 75 and no perks feel like skill level 24 or 49?
Some skills have multiple branches, how useful are both?

Don’t see why you require perks in restoration to cast heal minor wounds, might be nice to put some perks in it if you use companions a lot and need to heal them.

Only reason to max only two skills with perks is that you want to spread the other 30 perks around. With four trees filled out you would be very min-maxed, this usually makes a powerful character with weaknesses.

Two and a half.

I really want my charatcters to be specialized in something. I hate being everything in Oblivion. If you are gonna be a mage you must CHOOSE if you want to be a destruction mage or a healer mage, and as a warrior do you want to focus on sword & shield or all the weapon types and armour?

True will make continue after level 50 more rewarding, don’t really se the issue because the soft level cap, maximum theoretical level with all skills is maxed is 70, few will probably reach 60, guess the load of hp you have at level 60 is more unbalancing than 10 perks in secondary skills.

In case of Block, you' d need only choose half of the perks, depending on whether you intend to use a shield or wepon for blocking. Ditto weapon skills - if you intend to only use blades, you wouldn't need axe perks, etc. I see no reason to master whole perk trees to develop a powerful character, so far.

I'd say 6 full perk trees, but only if you put aside all the others. It is 1/3 of the perk trees and fits with the Oblivion (and to some extent Morrowind) scheme of having a third of the skills as your major skills, except that it will now be major perk trees or something.
Of course, one can also distribute the perks among all trees as he sees fit, but then it will be hard or impossible to get all the perks for any tree.

I'm happy with the current perk system, 50 out of 280 is plenty to make your character powerful albeit not overpowered. I'd most likely max out the perks of my favored combat style, with the exception of 'useless' perks (I dont know how it'll be obviously, but I imagine not every perk will be as necessary or as powerful as the next) and use the rest of the points on several perk trees to make a well rounded character.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCaf3n3n86U&feature=related

I think 4 or 5 is the optimum, so 10 - 12 perks per skill if you used 1 perk tree per skill. I do hope that some other skills we be viable to use without perks though; I don't want to have a skill be completely useless just because I don't have any perks in it.

Mastered skill =/= usable skill


Looking at it from an Oblivion perspective.... I honestly don't think I've ever had more than 1 skill at 100 (if that) on any character I've played. But, then, I used a level scaling mod that included decreased skill gain speed, and I never really played any one character more than 50-100 hours. So getting skills to 100 wasn't something I expected to have happen. I don't usually even get that many to 75+.... (I also don't think I've ever had a character as high as level 25-30.)

So, yeah... I've got no problem with not having 10 million perks.


(Similarly, I don't bother installing Broken Steel for Fallout 3 anymore - the additional 10 levels, 10 perks, and extra skill points are just way too much. Blatantly overpowered and unbalanced.)

If you only maxed out your major skills then you had 7 maxed out skills which were 'fully functional'. So I dont see a reason why we wouldnt have at least 70 perk allocations. That way we couldnt truly max out 7 skills but we could bring their functionality up to '100%'.

I am guessing there are a couple different ways to aquire perk 'points' rather than just leveling. Even if there are only 1-2 quests that reward you with points. Also, do we know for a fact that it will be 1 perk point per level up?? Or will there be a system like in Oblivion where you could level up an attribute from 1-5 points

50 is good. One branch per skill tree can create 10 mastered branches in 10 skills. Jack of all trades.

So what if you are playing the game a year from now, having a great time with your character and you suddenly get to level 50.

At that point you no longer have any incentive to continue playing and developing your character because there is no more progression. At the very least, you will have gotten used to getting a new perk at each level up and looking forward to it, so it will be kind of a bummer to reach level 51.

Who knows, maybe with my particular playstyle it would take 1000 hours to get to level 50 and it will never be a problem for me.

Or, perhaps I reach level 50 after playing for 100 hours and I'm still planning to continue for 200-300 more hours, but my character is stuck and no longer growing, even though the soft level cap is supposedly 70-80