Many people seem to have a problem with the lack of skills, and call it "dumbed down" or "removing the role-playing aspect" and similar things. However, even though there are only 18 skills in the game, the amount of perks are, if I remember correctly, 280. Since perks represent different abilities (i.e. skills, in the literal sense) do you believe that perks will be able to compensate for the small amount of skills, and prevent you from feeling limited?

This thread has not to do with attributes and/or their importance in previous games, and I wish you would keep your opinions to that to a minimum. I would just like to see what you people think about the skills and perks.

I did not add any more choices in the poll like "I don't know/care" since I wish to only know what you believe and/or think that the game will offer in terms of skills and perks. I do not want to see responses like "I know it will svck/rock" since no one knows anything.

BUT IT'S NOT NATURAL!
(even though you could only raise attributes at level up)

No. For one example, they already said that there are no unarmed perks. Therefore H2H has been dumbed down. If there's no perks for overall speed increase, or jump height, we've lost even more content as well.

Personally, I feel perks add more content and variety. In Morrowind and Oblivion, we just had a skill we could raise, and when it rose, it would maybe increase sword damage or increase running speed, not much else. With perks, it will allow for more varied gameplay. So for example, there's one handed skill, but the perks concentrate on special moves, weapon effects, different one handed weapons and the classic sword-does-more-damage thing.

That has nothing to do with perks, just with content. If there was a perk tree that revolved around jump height, speed, or H2H, your argument would be invalid. The reason why those aren't in Skyrim is because of design choice by Beth

No. Perks are not a sufficient substitute for skills.

Since many of the perks will be nothing more than repeats of what attributes could do (more organically, if given even an ounce of thought and consideration)....and there will be many that are repeats of the skill perks that already existed in OB.....the actual added depth from perks will be miniscule when compared to the loss of play styles from having less skills.

(edit add: all IMO, of course)

Dude the question was if the perks will compensate for the lack of the skill trees such as hand to hand, agility, athletics and etc... And he said that the they won't basically. His argument is absolutely valid. Saying "If there was a perk tree that revolved around jump height, speed, or H2H, your argument would be invalid." is like having a discussion on ww2 where someone said that it was bad that hitller killed so many people and you would respond "but if he didnt kill so many people your argument would be invalid."
The design choice by bethesda is exactly what we are trying to discuss here. You just basically told him that he is not supposed to discuss what this thread is about because it has nothing to do with the thread which of course makes no sence.

I like the idea of perks. Let's look at it like this. If I raise my sword skill to 25, 50, 75, and 100 I get some sort of minor increase in Oblivion. Now with perks, I get some sort of useful increase every time I level, should I choose to focus on one handed. Now that's even better, because now I am not being forced to use "just" swords, because anything one handed falls under that category.

It may seem to some people that they are limiting our freedom with less skills and attributes, in reality, we have more freedom to play our characters. The system in OB really tethered you to one specific playstyle. If I wanted to shoot things with bows on my mage character in OB, I would be destroyed. In Skyrim, I can use whatever I want, with much less consequence. The reason why there is no H2H perk tree is probably because there isn't much you could do with H2H anyway. I honestly never used it in OB, and I can't see it being very useful in Skyrim.

Just my opinion, I'm looking forward to being able to do so much more on one character, rather than having 3 or 4 characters just to get a full taste of the game.

Nope. It pretty much shows how going overboard with perks will dumb down certain mechanics when they forgo skills.

H2H skill isn't in game per se, but it still has it's uses, primarily in the 'just for fun' bar fights (non lethal hand to hand bar brawls were confirmed) So it's less practical and more comedic

Perks will not replace skills that the games lost, but they bring in another element, so powerful that I think, if well used, can compensate any loss that we think that are important, and more, much much more.

If well used, they can open up a world of opportunities, that can game any game a masterpiece.

I hope they use http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1107940-perks-they-can-make-each-play-through-a-unique-experience in their full potentials.

So those who want to be a One Handed Master (with a Reverse Grip Perk, hopefully :teehee:) will be happy.....while the people that preferred any of the dozens of builds that include any of the missing skills or lost effects (like levitate, etc) will be sad.

Depends on the perks.

If you go and look at Fallout 3 (Bethesda product), 90% of the perks are nothing but skill point boosts (+5 to speech or so) whereas the other 10% are perks that are universally good for everyone and everything. (+5% damage or +25% accuracy in VATS) The result is that every character feels exactly the same because by the end of the game, all your skills are maxed anyways and every single character you make has a LOT of the same perks, since there's usually nothing stopping them all from getting those perks and there's no reason why you wouldn't get them, considering the profit they provide and the fact that you have so many perk slots to fill.

If you go look at Fallout New Vegas (Obsidian Product), the perks add new abilities and effects. One perk may grant a chance to knock down enemies with your melee attacks, but this perk demands 5 STR and only a melee-focused character would choose this since you have to be very selective with your perks. Another perk may unlock custom-load ammo that deals higher damage, but requires high repair, and maxing out skills in New Vegas ISN'T as simple as it was in FO3. Lasers on the other hand have perks that make them crit a lot more and cause minor explosions on characters when they die to lasers; again, these perks demand high energy weapons skill and your perks are rather limited. Some perks depend on your attributes: one may grant you the ability to activate a brief bullet-time effect whenever you're in danger, but requires a very high endurance of 8 and for the player character to be level 30, meaning that although this perk is clearly universally good for all types of characters, most characters won't be able to take it.
The result of all these perks and the limit of how many you get (and how many skill points you get) means that each character feels unique. A guns specialist isn't going to waste his perk slots by grabbing melee perks, so he will forever be inferior in melee combat. A character with high endurance will have access to health regeneration, bullet time and higher resistances, something most characters will never get. An explosives character will actually have to waste four perk slots just buffing up the damage of explosives; without those perks, their damage will be none too impressive, but with them, their explosives will be one-shotting almost everything.

Sadly, so far the perks of Skyrim seem rather generic. You have a perk slot per level, meaning you can get almost every perk you want, and the perks are generic no-brainers that benefit everyone. By cutting out attributes, they've ruined the ability to limit allowed perks based on the character's stats. So yeah, we end up with the conundrum of....what's the point in having perks that give +25% damage reduction and +10% crit if there's enough perk slots and skill increases that every character will have both of these perks by the end of the game?

A perk in OB is deemed a minor increase while a perk in SR is magically deemed to be useful??? :teehee:



This makes no sense. Particularly since the builds I would prefer just don't exist anymore.



No, not really.



Heh... Is THAT supposed to be an argument for or against trading skills for perks? :thumbsup:

So do I.

Unfortunately, I fear most of them will be wasted doing what other systems could have done better. :mellow:

You just said....my reverse opinion, for I think all those changes are positive and nothing to do with "Dumbing down" (God I hate that term)

Anyway I think this system is better because it offers a wider variety of character choices but removes all the excess clutter. Trust me I'm a math major and I don't see this as anything to do with "dumbing down" for their was really nothing smart about it to begin with. It just offers more variety, player progression, and fun all at once.

@Longknife Uh, actually, there are around 280 perks, softcap is around 50 and levelling all skills is estimated to put you up at around Level 70, so no, you can't get nearly all perks in one play through

But it depends on how it's executed.

Again:

Fallout 3 has 73 available perks and allows the character to take 30.
Fallout New Vegas currently has 105 and currently allows the character to take 22. By the release of the last DLC, it'll probably have ~112 perks and allow the character to take 25.

Fallout 3 had skill boosts that barely qualified as perks, then the other perks were boosts to defense, damage, crit etc. that almost any character was allowed to take.
Fallout New Vegas perks provided abilities, and the perks that are universally good (+damage, +defense, +health regen) were limited to players with specific attribute builds, meaning not everyone was allowed to take them.

If Skyrim does it like Fallout 3 was done, every character is going to end up being the same, because with time, some perks will be recognized as superior and there will be nothing keeping someone from taking all the superior perks, since skills can go as high as you want (no skill requirements for perks, essentially), attributes have been axed (no attribute requirements for perks) and you have PLENTY of perk slots.

If they do it like New Vegas, then we'll need a LOT of different perks for defense, a lot of different perks for attack, a lot of different perks for stealth and a lot of different perks for each weapon type. If there aren't enough good perks for each weapon type/play style, then there's nothing to keep the player occupied and prevent him from taking perks from literally every category.
And honestly? We can expect to have like ~75 perks. I sincerely doubt that they'll be able to come up with even 12 useful perks for bows, meaning that any character will easily be able to become a master marksman.

It seems to me that perks are not meant to replace skills, but rather, they seem to exist in order to compliment selected skills.

As I see it, skills will increase through use, and the selection of certain perks will enhance selected subsets of skill types.

Made up example:

Using a one-handed axe might improve the one-handed skill, and probably axe skill.

Then, perks can be selected to cause enhanced damage.

Let's say a perk that causes more bleeding, so an opponent might suffer additional bleeding when struck with a one-handed axe.

Again, in my opinion, perks, do not replace skills, they compliment them.

Lol, this is all just a guess on my part.

people still making a fuss about levitation are annoying, levitation and spell making were game breaking, so I just see those two areas of concern as invalid points for argument. And I hate when people thinking "playing a build" is playing a title the game gave you. I mean, hey you want to be nothing but a good archer? just use bows, pick bow perks, and then once Archery perk tree is filled up, don't use the perk points (there's an option to not use perk points and save them) If I wanted to play thor, just roll hammers and lightning, nothing else. It's not that hard, really, if you want to play a build, make the effort to do so, instead of just expecting the game to craft the build for you and then severely cripple you once you find out that build isn't good for your playstyle

I believe the addition of perks will make each skill more varied and diverse from the same skills in previous games, so yes.

Seems good enough for me. In Oblivion there was only skill loss without much added in return. At least in this game we do get the perks even if they don't do anything huge.

Perks could be a good idea. But, I don;t think they are being used correctly. Perks should be there to enhance existing game play, instead lots of them seem to be there to patch the things they removed.

How is ruining play styles for people a positive?



It looks to me like it provides more superficial choices of things that already exist and much, much less in the area of actual choice of play style or character definition.


Actually, it looks like it is doing the opposite of this. Compared to the organizing principle of attributes, the loose undefined organization of perks is a much more cluttered system. To me, it seems to be a really, really bad character system. Adding new skills creates an explosion in perks while an attributes-guided system could add skills with the addition of no perks at all while having many of the same effects the perks will have.

This backwards system they created artificially limits the number of skills you can have....otherwise you would have dozens and dozens of duplicate perks under the different skills.



The system is gimmicky, superficial on/off switches. Something they could of had with or without more skills or with or without a well-developed attributes system.

In actuality, they are doing nothing for the bash and slash or pew pew shooter type player that they couldn't do with keeping more depth behind the scenes.