We'll agree to disagree. To each their own.

Why do you think they do not?

I meant I think 280+ perks add way more to my RP than 8 attributes.

So how great were the role playing enhancements of Diablo II's skill tree system...? I haven't played it, myself.

The Diablo system is all about killing things. And Diablo skill trees are not perks; putting a single point in a Diablo skill doesn't do much at all. You had to max it out for it to do anything respectable. There is no role playing as such because the skill trees are all about dps.

The difference with Perks is that each perk change your character dramatically. In Diablo each character really ever use 5 or 6 skills. But with Perks every one of them would count.

Reliance on perks makes the game basically into an advent calendar; where you stack gained talents and rule exceptions.
In Fallout (1), perks were an occasional spice, used to salt the rules in some way (literally changing the flavor of the game-play a bit).
In Skyrim they appear to just be a collection cool shtuff that they can have the PC do. Like... acquiring the Bleed option for axes. :bonk:
To me that does not [cannot] further define the PC as a personality, nor affect their attitudes and decisions the way proper stats, skills and a modest background can.

RPGs that impress (me), tend to have outcomes tailored to suit the permutations of the PC build chosen. The attributes seen as a group, reflect the appropriate course of behavior for the character (at least within their scope of influence). This defines a large part of the PC's identity; the rest ideally should be from the character background.

It truly redeems the lack of attributes...and then some. In Oblivion my characters never turned out the way I wanted. In skyrim I think thing will truly be different ^_^

The personality of the character is determined by what the player does. Not by what the game force you to do.

A common example is in Oblivion, where a player joined the Dark Brotherhood, did some quests for them, but then decided to stop and kill them all voluntarily when he overhear one of the characters laughing about killing a little girl on her birthday. His conscience caught up to him. Other sticking points include trying to murder an entire household including the grandma.

You control your character's actions. If you are willing to bite the bullet and do all the quests for completions sake, you are like me. But those who feel more personal about their place in the game would make choices on their own without being forced.

Well I know classes are gone in physical sense, Bethesda has already mentioned how the only decisions you make in the beginning of the game are race and appearance. I really meant that I'd like to still have then in a conceptual sense, or with multi-skill perks being used to fill some of the class roles that we've had in previous games, like the OPs example. Best case for vanilla Skyrim would be short perk trees for each former class, though there may be some overlap there.

Why would you want a character to turn out so predictably?



I disagree.
The character's development (ideally a committed development), should restrict what the player can do in an RPG ~because that's the role they have selected.

I never played one that was asked to join.

But the idea of Roleplaying is to react (choose) what they would choose to do in that situation ~different characters... different choice; but if I'm playing stats that define an introvert, then taking extrovert options is actually playing out of character.


I would just want the classes returned.
I can't realistically expect that to be modded back into the game; it would affect every quest in Skyrim. But IMO classes are the best way to go in an RPG.
The removal of classes in favor of perks leaves a sour taste at the thought. It just goes counter to accepted norms in society. Back then (and even today), people tended to be especially good at something and would be known for it. When the town was attacked, they would go get the warrior; when the child was sick they would send for the healer... Damaged cart? send for the blacksmith or cartwright. Wall collapsed, get the brick mason.

Imagine an entire town of 'jack of all trades' (of varying skill level), and no label on their shop services ~its just wrong on so many levels ~aside from being unnatural. Would you let a plumber operate on your intestines? Let a surgeon tinker with your water pipes? Adding lines and (and surely adding leaks). Would you let someone do both because they have dabbled in each?

The concept of classes in RPGs is to define the PC's inherent aptitudes; such that this person [specific] is a 'natural' at a given profession (or at least has had sufficient training for competence). They can learn other things, but they excel at what they love or are at least very familiar with ~their element (as opposed to one being "out of their element").

Ideally this should mean that a mage who takes up sword play, could become skilled at it, but it would take far more effort than for a squire to become equally skilled; (and the reverse ~were the squire to try their luck with spell craft). Some people just learn (and enjoy) one skill better than another. Still, that mage would be a mage that knew how to use a sword ~not a Warrior that can cast a few spells.

Classes reflect the PC's past skill choices (what that guy did for the years leading up to the start of the game). To start as a veritable (virtual) infant with no aptitudes and no prior education , trade, or appreciable skill.. is IMO the worst kind of beginning for an RPG.

Double post: Please delete.

Pointless thread ever. You are not even making any sort of point, OP.

It will not be like that. God I would hate if vampirism was a perk!!! O_O

How about a perk that erases other perks. (worse?)

**Or having the vampirism perk and the lycanthropy perks at the same time.

Good thing they are skill related. We just can't have vampirism, lycantrophy etc be perks..

I think differently. I think the game should restrict the player in natural ways like physical limitations. In personal things, more freedom is better. Good roleplayers won't need the game limiting themselves in personal choices, they can apply the roles themselves. Game posing personal choice limits(any number of choice is also a limit) will hinder the roleplaying possibilities.(assuming there are sandbox possibilities.)


So an introvert turning into an extrovert, that never happens? If you want to roleplay a lifetime introvert then don't play out of character. I would blame you for getting out of character, not the game. (But you would blame the game for letting you get out of character, if I assume correctly. I find it weird what can I say. Is it a need for consequences? Make no mistake, I would love to see any natural long term or short term consequences for a decision like that.)



Let me tell you how I play Oblivion.

I like "use it to gain it" approach so much but I thought this should be taken to the next level. I wanted "abandon it and lose it" aspect, the real deal: use it or lose it. More realism, more immersion and more restrictions.

I hate artificial limitations, people often think I'm against all limitations. For removing every and each artificial limitation, I would like to see more natural limitations, even harsher ones.

So I requested this as a mod. Tejon replied with Skill Decay, the author of nGCD.

nGCD

This pretty much nullifies the need of seeing attributes. You're what you play.

With skill decay mod, you're what you play even more. With great restriction comes great freedom. As a side effect, after some time your chargen abilities... they disappear if you don't use them. :lmao:

These mods spawned AnyClass:


Now we're talking!

I think Skyrim is reflecting this spirit. Some people don't like the sound of skill decay but 50 perk limit will impose a similar restriction without the downside of losing skills. I will still mod it though(which will give me tremendous freedom this time, ironically).

Now for all we know, they can be using this system without showing it to player. Maybe classes are still there(I'm %99 sure that NPCs will still have classes). Maybe even attributes are still there but removed out of sight with a system like nGCD. Radiant story giving missions based on archetypes(mage, warrior) and skill sets is basically showing the game actually acknowledges your class. A class is your skill set in the end.

There is also perks which I want to touch here. They can represent attributes better with specialization.

If you have 15 perks under archery skills.

4 strength perks.(hold more, shoot far..)
6 dexterity perks.(shoot more, shoot faster,)
5 intelligence perks.(recover more, critical strikes, ignore wind)

I'm sure there is a system like that in use somewhere.

In the end, you want a set character or a blank state character. A blank state is a viable option, especially in this game. If you think genetic aptitudes, we play a special person in TES games who apparently have aptitude for everything. If you think about it this is a great way to make a roleplaying game but was working incorrectly in previous titles(start unique, end same). Now they fixed it with proper limitations(start blank, end unique). Also if you noticed, pure or set character roleplaying is/can be a subset of this system.

Although, I would like to give the option to choose level in chargen so you can distribute everything as long as the maturity of your character will be reflected in your level. Start the game at level 50, have your pure thief, suffer in other areas. Have your "head start" as much as you want. Freedom!

My thoughts exactly. I have no idea why anyone is so concerned with classes. All a class was in OB was a skillset that progressed faster than the rest of the skills.

Let me explain why I think that was a dumb system.

1. I never used a "class", I always made a custom class and played it because I felt those were the skills I needed most.
2. I never chose skills that make my character too limited.
3. I never only used the skills in my class. I used whatever skill I felt was necessary. Did I put effort into my "primary" skills? Yes, but only for the sake of leveling up. It had nothing to do with "playing the role of my class"
4. It never made sense to me why they had a class system, and yet allowed you to do anything anyway. Why restrict you to only leveling up from using 1/3 of the skills available in the game? That's basically like them saying, "You can go train up to level 50 Blade, but since it's not in this little group of skills you said you were going to use at the beginning, you won't level from that at all."
That's basically a videogame system of investing in your own company, only to deliberately derail it, halting all it's profit for a long period of time. Shouldn't anything you have the company spend it's time doing at least mean there is some profit or general gain from the effort?
5. The class idea pretty much boiled down to being a title that I thought sounded cool for my character's background. Though the irony in that is that I still did whatever the hell I wanted to with that character, so being "Ninja" class or something never mattered because I didn't have to even use any of those skills I supposedly had before being imprisoned.

Basically what it boils down to is this: If Bethesda wants to have a class system, then they should impose the rules that LIMIT you to using what is given to you for that class. If Bethesda wants to create an RPG where you have the choice to use any of the entire list of skills and become a master of what you want, then they should make a game like Skyrim, with no LIMITATIONS on what your hero can do. Pretty simple actually. Both those styles of RPG are valid, and it's just up to the design team for the game as to which way is best. Luckily for us, Bethesda will be one of the few companies to produce an RPG with that system, as opposed to the more common linear RPG style of class systems. They don't make "linear" RPGs, and THAT's why they removed classes. Because to them, a proper open world RPG should give you that level of freedom of choice. I happen to agree with that, and I know most TES fans will as well.



It sounds like your problem can be solved by Skyrim giving us the ability to title our PC in a space that says "Dovahkiin" during character creation, but with the name only being an RP decision you make to describe your character, aside from his/her actual name. Then, if you're so dead-set on actually RPing that background/title for you hero, then just use what skills your hero would use based on his pre-game-start story, and be happy that you are a "fill in blank with occupation" and that the world recognizes that as well. Because in Skyrim, your top skills will determine how NPCs react to you, so they'll already know what "class" you are by the game doing a background check on your skills. So, I'd say that would solve the problem for you, and for most everyone that likes having a title for their PC that gives them a "profession", as you so simply put it.

And I agree with this idea, because I would like to start the game with that option of having an actual in-game class title I can see for RP purposes, just so it would be a guideline. Then if I really didn't want to just go out into the world as a "veritable infant", then I could easily have a background with a class title on my stats page telling me what I was before being imprisoned. I really do think that would be a very easy thing to add to CC that would make RPing a lot easier for those not willing to go on imagination alone, and it wouldn't take away from those not wanting a class title, because they could just leave it blank or just Dovahkiin. Hey, at least it's a compromise between having actual classes, and having no class distinction at all. :shrug:

I think that suggestion could keep the start of Skyrim from being "the worst kind of beginning for an RPG". What do you think?

I think some people are getting confused here with the perk system.

Perks were not added to replace the classes; they are sort of in place of the attributes (which still exist just hidden from view).

Someone said that by picking a Mage character; they would be good at magic and could still train in Warrior skills but would just be harder. This is true; but from an interview with Todd, apparently lots of people (probably new to the game) would pick a class like Mage and then discover that they didn't like using magic and only wanted to use weapons. Now of course they could still do this, but their stats are all geared towards magic and therefore they would start the game again so they could pick a different class.

The point now is that you don't choose a class before starting the game; I think your class sort of chooses itself after playing for a while to give you time to build up your character a little and discover which stats you use the most and what weapons/armour etc. you prefer to use.

I'm interested to see how the perks will work though; it sounds a good system of letting you put special attributes on the stats that you use most often.

I can't wait for E3 where we will hopefully have all of our questions answered...

Oh, I didn't know this. Could you capture some gameplay footage of your extensive experience with the system and show where this is...oh wait, nevermind.

Even the best roleplayers sometimes need the game limiting the effects of their choices, though. They might want to play a character who frequently uses a blade but who never becomes proficient with one. An example is the stealth character. Stealth loses much of its charm once a character is effective without it. A sneak will be detected, and will often have to fight his way out of jams. If you become too good with blades and blocking, however, those jams stop being jams. Where's the fun in sneaking about if you don't land in serious trouble when you're caught?

As I understand it, the plan with Skyrim is that although you grow in any skill you use, you must to take Perks in it to become highly effective with it. My hope is that it won't be too easy to overcome obstacles with skills alone, that Perks will be necessary.

Then you broke your own character. If you become a warrior because you failed at sneaking too often, then that means the character became what he was suppose to be. You can partly avoid that by making sure to get sneak perks.

I specialise in sneaking not because it would get me killed. I sneak because that is my preferred way to to fight. Do people pick mage characters because they want to run out of mana? Do people pick warrior characters because they want to break lock picks? You don't choose a play style to get yourself killed; you pick your play style to kill enemies. Getting caught while sneaking is irrelevant for as long as you want to keep sneaking.

I disagree, in TES you and your character are one. This is also the case in any PNP RPG. Now if you're playing a Lawful Good character in DND, but decide to kill peasant after peasant, just because you're bored you will no longer be lawful good you will become chaotic evil, and that's because that's the kind of person you've become. Now Skyrim is taking this a step further and applying it to classes as well, you are what you play. If you don't want to be a warrior don't play a warrior, ect.

I disagree, my characters are not me my characters are based in the TES universe with -some- leeway to Roleplay, I can roleplay my character is the 17th Deadric prince who cannot die and phase in and out of existence back to his own realm...will that be reflected in the Game? no, up to this point the games dont recognize chaotic good, neutral or whatever have you, if you kill someone in Oblivion who "innocent" your automatically treated like a Criminal (with good reason) I agree with Vel you can make a char around Cannabalism, but She's missing something....perks in -Skyrim- are related to skills, what kind of farce is I can now make people bleed with Axes.....Shouldn't they already bleed profusely when hit by an axe? thats what axes do right? what am I going to say oh My character is Bloody ass kicking with an Axe, but because I didnt choose a particular perk for axes, He can't make people bleed? no...theres nothing Roleplayey about Skill related Perks, Perks like Meltdown, Night person, and solar powered have Roleplay value, SKill perks don't especially ones that deal with what should be inherent outcomes of certain weapons

:If your character isn't you then you are not roleplaying, you are just watching a character in a movie, however if that character acts out of character then it's your fault as a director. I recommend actually roleplaying, it's much more fun.