Yes, but it depends on the quality of the perks.

I can name about ~25 perks from Fallout 3 that are freaking useless, so I'd never take them. And just like that, all my characters are the same.
We need perks that make each and every one of the 18 skills unique in some way, and I'm not quite sure how they're gonna do that. 280 divided by the 18 skills is 15 perks per skill. I somehow doubt they can come up with 15 perks for marksmanship or illusion (what effects would they have), which would mean that any character would have an easy time mastering these skills via perks on the side. And personally, if the perks for illusion and such are nothing but spells, then I honestly think I'd be disappointed. So yeah, if the one handed skill, block and armor skills provide quality perks, whereas the marksmanship skill only has one or two good ones and the magic skills only provide spells, then we've got a problem. Everyone would neglect the magic perks but still use the skills while getting the combat perks for stat boosts.

Are you saying that you would rather prefer the monotonous skill style of just levelling a few skills you picked at start, but find out all they do is just change up some numbers? by this I mean, let's say you picked your main combat style as swords, and i picked archery. You and I both level our respective skills until your swords are at 100 and my archery is at 100. However, you handle the sword the same way I do, except that your damage output i higher. That's it, no special moves you can choose, no faster swinging, no better parries, nothing but better damage output. And same for archery, all I can do is have a higher damage output, can't draw the arrow faster, can't shoot more arrows, just higher damage output.

Levitation and spell making were not game breaking, they were game enhancing. As for the rest of your comments, that only works if the character you want to play is supported. You want to play a monk(unarmed combatant) well tough luck, you wanted to play a quick and acrobatic character well to bad they don;t exist anymore.

I think the perks are more for setting your skills in stone, and by this I mean, yeah you can pick up a warhammer the size of an infant and use it as an archer character, but since you have no perks for 2H Hammers, it'd make using a warhammer less appealing than using a bow because of all the perks you've accumulated over levelling your character. I know for a fact the perks will highlight the effects of in game weapons (for example axes in skyrim cause bleed damage, one perk increase bleed damage, and maces ignore some armor, one perk makes it ignore even more armor)

But that's just it.

So far we know that swords crit more via perks. Isn't that higher damage output? Or, let's say that all of the abilities you unlock by leveling skills in Oblivion have become perks. Yknow, left/right power attack may disarm the opponent, backwards power attack may knock the opponent down, forward may stun and no directional just deals more damage. Would you honestly ever pick the no-directional or the left/right perks? I wouldn't. So what would happen? I'd pick the forward charge paralyzing perk, then I'd get the zoom, knockback and stun perks of marksman. I can skip all the crap perks and just get the winners of each and every skill.

Another issue is balancing the weapon types. So far we've heard swords crit, axes cause bleed damage and maces ignore armor defense. Now, who here can honestly say they're just dying to use axes now to get the bleed damage? I'm sure as hell not. One of these three will probably prove itself superior, and then the other two will be completely ignored.

Levitation was definitely game breaking. See this awesome maze that the devs put hours into making perfectly balanced and overall fun, yet challenging? lol [censored] it, levitate it. Spell making I actually agree being game enhancing, just how Beth handled it was wrong. They could have made it balanced and overall better, but they scrapped it which was a shame, but also an old topic and we need to move on. Monks and quick acrobats were probably the only play types effected, and they were probably small in numbers compared to those who wanted to play the classic thief/warrior/mage archetypes

Nonsense. All you need are developers smart enough to not make them game breaking. :icecream:

Wouldn't that mean simply that the maze is not balanced if it completely ignores part of the game world? :foodndrink:

See, that's what i'm saying about playthroughs. playing a playthrough requires determination. This is purely by speculation of our conversation, but you seem like the kind of guy that ignores immersion and goes all out for the most effective play styles. That's fine, I sometimes play like that too in really competitive games. However, this is a single player RPG, and for example, on my first play through, my Bosmer, i will depend on Alchemy but will never use plants. This makes it seem rather ineffective, but I'm doing that to fit my playthrough. And also, don't sell short on different weapon effects. Many people may pick swords for the straightforward extra crits bonus, but I won't. In fact, I will depend a lot on DoT effects. Let's say I'm stealthed, and I get caught. As a thief, I'm not very good at face to face combat. So I whip out my poison dagger, give the guy a quick jab, and run so I'm unharmed and he is slowly dying. You guys just need to use your imagination on how to use what you call "crap perks"

Sorry, I'll just make infinitely high and invisible walls throughout the entire game just so you guys can fly. Seriously, you can complain about not having levitation, but then it gets implemented and then you guys whine about the inevitable invisible walls that would get implemented to stop levitators from entering the end game dungeon and flying over the boss. That's what happened in Nv, and they didn't even have levitation.

There's nothing positive about cutting mechanics and losing build types. Unless your into linear games, and dumbing down complex ones.

No, I am not saying that at all.

Well, the only other option is many perks to differentiate playstyles, unless you can come up with something better. And calling everything gimmicky or whatever is an opinion, therefore not a valid point for arguments but rather a statement based on emotions

So you can't bounce around the map at alarming speeds so now you get a more focused system where you can put points in stamina and sprint your life away. That's not a good alternative? That's really linear and dumbed down? I just don't see it.

Creating invisible walls is just one option. All it takes is a little thought an ingenuity to come up with more.

No, it loses content, mechanics, strategy options, RP options, build options. Its beyond dumbed down actually, its not even there anymore (supposedly).

For levitation when it was in it "broke" far fewer things that were added in to take advantage of it. In most dungeons it doesn't do a damn thing, a tunnel wall gets in your way.

The thing is for the things like jump height, I can;t conceive a the thief who isn't massively better at it than the warrior. And even if I wasn't playing a monk I might expect my X class to be highly trained in unarmed combat. As for what they added, um axes bleed and perks to do overall more damage neat but they really don't add much to define your character anymore than skills/attributes did. The perks don't seem to be there to add interesting new content, instead they seem to be there to compensate for the loss of attributes. Overall +X% damage is just a poor mans substitute for increasing your strength. Maybe something really cool will be revealed, but the block, one handed, two handed perk trees are boring and add virtually nothing to character development beyond a basic numbers game which is handled better by attributes and skill ratings.

No, what I'm saying is...

Fallout New Vegas went above and beyond and actually gave the player REASON to be immersed. I felt immersed because the skills and playthroughs were actually different, not because I had to pretend they were.
I don't want to have to pretend that my blunt weapons playthrough is any different from my Blade weapon playthrough again when they're practically the same thing. I prefer making my character, picking his stats and the skills I will focus on, then seeing what the character is capable of. Having played a game that does this perfectly, I loathe the idea of now running a playthrough where I'm purposefully picking a playstyle that's inferior to one I've already done in every way, all just for the sake of trying to immerse myself. The game should be able to do a lot of the immersion for me: that shows it's a good game.

No, that is not the only other option. Pay attention. The better option is obvious and has been repeated hundreds of times on this board. Heck, it is even mentioned in this thread.

Ok, well if it seems that easy, then why haven't you come up with something? through out this whole discussion, I've been using facts and actual gameplay mechanics to support my side of the argument, where all you've been saying is how the devs could work a little harder. I'll give you a chance to come up with a good balance, if I can't counter-argue it, then you're right.

Well I obviously must be missing something, tell me, what was the better alternative?

So it's "different" not "dumbed down". I will agree to that. Just because someone would rather have paintings of naked women, they shouldn't be slammed upon by people who prefer statues of naked men, so to speak.

For things like the end boss it is simple to just make the location irrelevant until certain events play out in game. Until you finish X quest Alduin wont be at the temple of elemental evil. Outside of the end fight it might let you bypass a handful of quests, to which I say so what? If I skip 10+ of my 300 hours of game play with levitate I don't care.

No, its beyond dumbed down, its effectively ruined in those department's, giving us less options. More>Less. Your anology is...I dont even know, but it has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.

Oh, and levitation isn't broken, oped, etc. If I have the immense power to levitate, I should obvious be able to bypass certain things. That's the friggin point of levitation. Just make it harder, dont allow slowfall spells, have no fly zones, have better AI, with more ranged types, balance its magicka requirements and speed, there its perfect.

Sure, it takes a good amount of work for the devs, but also for the player. Axes and swords are very different, just as their effects. DoT effects are much better in certain circumstances rather than just having batter crits. I'm not saying you have to pretend to use something in game, I'm just saying you have use your imagination to see how useful some things are. If you like being forward and critical (no pun intended) go swords, If you like having a steady output of high damage go axes. If you like being ruthless and just all out ignoring the opponents defences, as well as your own, go mace. I'm just trying to say that the perks will be useful. Why? Because they will attain to certain skills making them more efficient. FO3 had perks that just made something arbitrary better, that's because H2H and EW were underpowered, and Guns were OP. However, in ES, we should all realize by now how effective each skill is. We all know that we can play a warrior just as well as we can play a mage just as well as we can play a thief.