I'm just not sure that it would be the best solution. I don't have any suggestions of my own though, so I won't try and dispute perks.

OK, want to play my game? It might interest you.

Think of a unique perk that would make a race of your choice more interesting to play, and more unique to the end, ans post it here, and lets see who wins the more interesting perk contest.

I would suggest it for all the categories that I have listed for the perks, but I suggested it for racial perks, because that was your point of interest.

By the way, I will not be available for some hours, after this moment.

Bye.

I'm having trouble thinking of racial perks, as there are already traits given to each race upon startup.

Tried for like, 25 minutes. :sadvaultboy:

Me too. :sadvaultboy:

Thanks, I was thinking that you could point in a certain direction and a little screen goes up and you can select to look into the building or not. I was also thinking maybe your sneak determines your chance to be scene.

The only thing I am concerned about really, is the amount of time it would take to load the different areas.

Well, anyone is made for his special kind of job, and you might not be suitable for mine, and vice versa.

I know that I'm made for this kind of things, like thinking of new ideas, imagining of weird situations, or might I say that I'm an artist of a kind and love to imagine and create new ideas, horizons, levels, or anything that requires vivid imagination of something whole to the last detail and then breaking that into tiny parts also in my mind, and then trying to describe them, for others to understand.

The whole first post was the result of 3-4 hours of thinking and typing, and correcting the typing mistakes, and so on...

I did not bother about timing, but I guess I might have spent about 2-3 minutes average thinking on each racial perk, and I'm not saying those were a perfect choice, but the first thing that had came to my mind, and with more thinking about them, I might have found better perks, as I would have done if I really had joined a contest for that.

Because of my tight working schedule, I do have quite little time to work on these ideas, but whenever I have the time, I would do that, because I just love what I can create in my mind, and I have chosen the world of elder scrolls as the setting, because of the vast potential that it has.

I will work on those perks, and try to come with new ones for each category, but for now I have shifted my attention to the problem that voice acting has caused for the series, and want to work on that as well.

OK, enough autopsychography, and lets test that if I had been correct about the timing, and I like to think about a new racial perk:

Well I do not know if it is a good racial perk or more suitable for a special quest reward perk, or even a skill perk, but I thought of Altmer race and this came to my mind after about 5 minutes:

Racial perk:

Altmer, could open any book, and as they read, their magicka would start to replenish at faster rate, or in the case of stunted magicka, at a specified rate, until all the supply of aldmeri-numen in the book is depleted, (let's say 1000 magicka points for each book type), and after that, this type of book would not help Altmers with magicka points.

And I must confess that coming up with the word of aldmeri-numen wasted more than ten minutes of my time, even with the help of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numen, and I know that this is not a great perk for any race, but as I said I just wrote the first thing that came to my mind. :unsure2:

agreed they remove in some way the spirit of the game

I do not know what you mean by the spirit of the game.

Each game in the series is so vastly different from the others, that no two spirit of those games are the same, so why not think of new ideas for the next games.

I know that perks were badly implemented in Oblivion and people are shy of them, but I hope this would not be the case for the next games, as I have seen great potential in perks of Fallout 3, and if there were such a great improvement between those two games, one can only be hopeful for their future usage.

I have designed some perks in fallout 3, for my own usage, and I have grasped their power and potential, and if well implemented, they could be really a great addition to any game.

You could make really unique items that are really special in what they could do, you could make great and exciting quest rewards, you could make special places that one finds and see things happen differently there, and have to think about them to understand why the place feels different, you can make a game that feels unique in each aspect of it, and would not lose its freshness for a long long time, because of all the different ways that you could develop unique feeling characters, and each game would be exciting because of the chance of stumbling on unique places or items, or finding a new master that could teach you another unique trick and perk, and so on...

I do not say that if a game implements those different categories of perks, it would become that great, but I would say that it would have the potential to become that great.

I just dont like the idea of perks it makes me feel like the game is getting closer to call of duty. i prefer when the gameplay is only related to ability and skills

Perks are skill-related. Reach level 50 in a skill level in Oblivion, for example, and you gain a perk and the advantages/disadvantages of Daggerfall's system may also be considered perks, right? The birth sign perks? Perks typically represent a less gradual form of progression, but it's still progression.

By the way, welcome to the forums. http://www.uesp.net/w/images/images.new/c/c4/Fishystick.jpg

I'm game

Orcs - Berserker - when any Orismer is down to 1/3 rd health they go Berserk with a bonus to strength and resistance to physical damage and detriments to fatigue and agility.

Not even a new idea, wholly.

Finally!

Hope there are more like you here. :goodjob:

Added to the list.

Now see, I'm not sure I could make perks that fit... but apparently the ideas I have are Fallout-esque "traits", but they could work:

Lucky Bastard- Luck +10, Personality -10 (or 15/20/25. whatever is needed to make it "felt")

Hot and Cold- NPCs do not "maintain" dispositions between 35 and 65, but rapidly decay towards those points. On the other hand, very high or low dispositions are exceedingly difficult to change.

Blessed of Shor- Killing elves leads to temporary health regeneration, but elves will hate your stinking guts. Note: trait probably shouldn't be available to any race but Nord or Imperial, lore-wise. That said, it'd be hilarious to play with this trait as an Altmer.

Dark of Soul- When your Infamy is higher than your fame, Speechcraft threats and intimidation actions are more effective (or less negative, if the NPC is inclined to react badly).

Charming Rogue- If you spend time in jail for theft, this perk boosts your speechcraft when NPCs have a responsibility less than 90. The effect grows larger with each week of jail time (for theft only- murders are less charming)

I could probably go on all night, but... this is more what I'd like to see for perks: items that mostly change how you interact with NPCs.

I think it is a misguided assumption that killing Mannimarco would completely eradicate the 'problem' of necromancy. Besides, as you have pointed out, , so it is kind of a moot point. It seems that there are a lot of people who would like to be able to have necromancy in their arsenal of spells. If, however, you are not one of them, then you can opt out of choosing necromancy as part of your skill set.

OK, but remember, in fallout most of the perks were the ones that you picked on level-up screens, and those were designed for the purpose to give the players the means to tweak their characters gradually as they leveled up.

When I said they had huge power and potential, I meant the perk engine, not the actual implemented perks within the fallout 3 game.


This does not fit as a perk and can be applied to a character as an ability or birth-sign

By the way the birth-signs of the next generation games could also have some active and passive perks that could make them unique as well. :hubbahubba:


OK, this one could fit as a perk, as a speechcraft perk, generic class perk, item perk, quest reward perk or even an environmental perk that would apply to an area, like a whole mad town.


Perfect fit for a visible and recognizable equipment, like a mask, so when you wear one, you are like a nemesis for mer-folk, and when you remove it, you can go on as you liked.
Item specific perk.


OK, lets say that it would fit into a birthsign perk, I wish I had added the category. Time for a redesign. :facepalm:


OK, class specific perk, Birthsign perk, or quest reward perk.


Most were great, and would fit in the definition for a perk, but we have to decide what category they would fit better anyway. :goodjob:

It seems, we are starting to be more productive.

I like the whole perk system idea but still the skills/level/stats of a character should be more important. Perks could add interesting strategic options but shouldn't in any way influence the game that much to make as care more about what perks we choose than what skills. As for custom classes, the player could choose the class perks he wants to receive when he creates the custom class. Combined with requirements for each perk imbalance issues are avoided. I'm against making the player choose a pre-made class because of unique perks. It limits freedom of choice and TES is all about freedom.

Also NPCs need an equivalent perks system (pre defined perks of course) to balance things out a bit. For example you could get into a fight with both a Nord that has the War cry perk and a Nord that doesn't. I'll come back with perk ideas later.

As I said, I just wanted a system to make pre-made classes more interesting, and as you can hopefully tweak the class skills a bit, then you were not forced to select the thing that you do not like.

I know that in general most people would go for custom classes, as they are lead to believe that it is the only optimal way to make a character (I never chose a stock class), but there can be a lot of good perks available for general class perks/traits that would fit our custom class, so making each stock class special would not be a bad choice.

You select a pre-made stock class if you like the idea, as they have some unique perks that make playing them a quite special one-time change of game-play, and you may stick to a pre-made class if you liked the new game-play element so much that you could not live without.

This would be the time for a mod to to make the class specific perk that you liked so much available for general custom classes.

As for NPCs: If they are nord barbarians then they have the special perks for nords and barbarians, so the passive perks are already in action, and I hope bethesda makes the perk engine versatile enough for npcs to be able to use those active perks as needed, and they might decide to make it more interesting and give the perks minimum level for usage, so that low level npcs do not use the perk, but higher level ones do...

So you might encounter a big nord barbarian that shouts a loud war cry before attacking you, and at a convenient time throws the axe in his left hand at your leg that would inflict a massive amount of damage, and would cripple you if you had not dodged on time.

I can understand your thinking but hear out mine: Suppose each class has its own unique perks. A pre made class still remains a collection of major/minor skills/perks and nothing more. Someone decided that an assassin class has these skills/perks. What if I think different? What if I want that special perk reserved for the assassin class into the custom class that I think should be called assassin? Or what if I don't want to play as a pure assassin? You are locking up too much content this way (in each playthrough). And consider the situation where you chose a premade class because you liked it, but halfway through the game you realize that it doesn't fit your play style. Shouldn't you be given the right to turn your character to your style (perkwise, because statswise it is possible)? Imo classes are just ready configurations to make character creation easier.

I think that class perks are better not implemented. It's better to have all the perks in a unified pool, so that you don't have to worry about getting that and leaving the other, with each one having requirements in skills/level/stats. And you may say: But that way you loose the whole point of specialization and unique feel for each "class". And I answer to you: Leave the specialization decision on the skills/stats layer (along with a system that makes becoming a master of everything take too much time to bother). After all it makes sense. An adequately sneaky character should be able to backstab someone, even if he isn't of an Assassin class. He should be able to have access to Assassin class perks. Perks requirements can guarantee that you have access to the ones fitting your playstyle, whatever that may be: A jack of all trades gets access to many weak perks (unless he spends so much time in the game that becomes ultimately the master of everything). A wizard thief gets access to perks that help his playstyle (and so on). Needless to say that perk requirements are directly linked to what the perks offer (A perk having a requirement of 30 conjuration and 40 intelligence offers something about conjuring stuff).


And another thing. Moves in general shouldn't be a perk. There is no sense in a perk saying that Nords can throw stuff, whereas others can't. Or the same with backstabbing. There is a sense in perks like:
+30% damage when throwing an axe. Thrown axe is moving +30% faster than normal (making it harder to avoid). Requirements: Nords only, Strength > 50. If I got it wrong (the moves tied to perks thing) then I apologize and feel free to correct me.

Finally perks should be given in the context of quests/books/artifacts you discover. Much much more immersive than a choose a perk screen on each level up.

These statements all make some sort of sense, more so for people who have missed some key points of my original post.

First of all, all those perks are additional options for specializations and you still develop your character, level-wise, skill-wise, attribute-wise, gear-wise, faction-wise, and so on... And now there is another option, perk-wise.

Those perks are not like Oblivion perks that are fixedly forced on you as you advance your skills, or not freely open for you to pick as you level-up, like Fallout 3, but you have to earn them, (except for the initial racial perks, and class-specific perks), and the way to earn them are different for each category of perks, and I have decided to add them to the posts after the first post for each category.

On the other hand, racial perks and class specific perks are like the initial gifts to make each game-play a little bit different from other game-plays, and if in the course of the game, you decide that you do not like the gifts that you have chosen yourself, you are free to not use the current gifts and you can decide not to chose the current gifts for the next play-through.

But still there are a lot of other perks around available and ready to be discovered, or earned, so that you can use for yourself.

I wanted those gifts to be special, because they could change the theme of a game drastically and were not good for a day to day use, like the example of the Assassin class's specific perks, that would let you kill someone in the middle of the town and run away before someone could decide that it was you who did it.

In a normal game, you would have to lure the target to a more secluded place, or wait for him to go home to sleep, or something like that, but if you choose the Assassin class, you would have a really easier time if you decided to become an assassin in the courses of the game, and I wanted those perks to belong to the class, because of the name.

So for a compromise, let's hope they give each class a few specific perks that would differentiate them, but let us change the class's specific skills as we like, so there would remain no problem: You select the assassin class and change the major skills that you do not like, and start the game, but npcs would have to cope with the default skills defined for each class. B)


OK, that was a little bit extreme, and I have said before, those example perks were the first thing that came to my mind within a 3-5 minute limit for each example.

So being able to throw a one handed weapon is more suitable for another category, like a skill perk, or special quest award perk, you are right here. <_<

This perk can also be implemented as item specific perk, so that you could find some special one handed weapons that would let anybody throw them as they liked.


Just a question, how much of the original post have you missed? :blink:

Environmental Perk: When you are fighting in a dark area, you gain chameleon equal to 1/2 of your sneak skill.

Otherwise it would fit another category, like a skill perk for stealth, or a class specific perk, or a quest award perk, and so on...

Edit: added to the list with a little bit of correction.

In my opinion, viable "perks" should be of two types:

(1) Initial character creation options. You have a set pool of points to spend on positive traits, and may take a small number of negative traits in order to boost that pool. The traits should not be "game breaking", but could have significant effects, some positive, some negative (but mostly both). Daggerfall already used something along these lines, so it's not new to the TES series.

(2) Trainable "specialty" skills. You can put "points" into increasing your character's unique or specialized abilities over the course of the game. These would NOT be like the sudden and extreme "Shield no longer takes damage", or "new power attack" perks in OB or FO3, more of a gradually introduced ability, with either a slim chance of success at first, or a relatively minor one until you put enough points into it over time.

Perks could differentiate one character from another, but NOT if it's done the way it was in OB, where EVERYONE automatically gets the same perks at the same skill levels, or like in FO3 where you suddenly gain some outlandish and powerful ability. Exceptions could be made for some "quest reward" perks, which could offer a significant bonus, but partially balanced with a small "down side" as well, if the positive aspect was powerful.

More racial perks:

Agronian - passive sea life below PC level - naturally increased h2h damage

Khajiit - lessened fall damage - naturally increased h2h damage

Bosmer - passive wildlife below PC level

Imperial - 2nd attempt at speech checks

Breton - quicker casting - 0-50 pt shield when mana is depleted 25-0% (2 pts shiled per % under 25), timed for 30 seconds or refilled mana and not restricted to once per day.

Altmer - quicker casting - better spell tracking (granted spells track enemies in TESV instead of straight shot), does not apply to enchantments.

Dunmer - Sound awesome again?

Nord - Thunder-fist (small shock damage added to h2h at under 25% fatigue)

Redgaurd - Adrenaline Rush when combat is with 2+ opponents

exactly my point. You are forced to a)finish the game in a style you don't like or b)restart. Neither are good choices, because in a you won't get the most satisfaction and in b it is tedious to get to the point you restarted. After all I can guarantee you that most people won't bother replaying the game with another class after they have finished it (because they know the story, which is one of the most important things when talking about differentiating RPGs) -> Most class specific content goes unseen. Racial perks make sense and I agree about them. It is lore justified to say that Nords have a Battle Cry whereas Altmers don't. Class perks don't make sense. They imply that the world is divided in classes (not social ones) of assassins, mages, warriors etc etc. No matter how many classes there are, they still remain an approximation. The extreme of it are the standard Warrior, Wizard, Rogue classes. What I suggest is the actual reality. That's why classes are and should remain just names for preconfigured skills. And I don't see how the classless perks that I suggest limits replayability btw.


It's not the special little gameplay features tied to each perk part, that we disagree. Neither the how you access them. It's the who are allowed.
My mage character, even with a sneak skill of 100, is refused the kill-and-then-disappear-rigth-in-the-middle-of-everybody fun, while your assassin character with as sneak skill of x<100 is not? Classes are a system for gross classification of play styles. If you roleplay you can very easily convince yourself that you are an "Assassin" or a "Mage" or whatever. More importantly you can tell yourself that you are "a Bosmer Hunter and good Archer, specializing in influencing people like a Bard" (3 classes). You don't need words to remind it to you. But even if you do, it can't be very difficult to program the game itself to identify what "class" your character is. Most certainly it will be more than 1.


It seems that I have a different opinion about specialization altogether. I think the player should get specialized as he PLAYS the game instead of choose a specialization beforehand (class with unique perks) and hope that he likes it. After all we already have enough initial specialization options. We don't need more.
Let's leave it at that. I'm a bit of a freedom everywhere, everything dynamic fanatic (as you may have noticed ), and the open world should be about that.



Well I think throwing in general should be a universal game mechanic. Ideally everyone should be able to throw everything everywhere to everyone and still calculate a damage score/outcome (depending on where it hits).


Actually that part wasn't replying to you. Just a general observation.

Just a reaction to the word perks in your title: I'd prefer not to see too much homogenization between TES and Fallout. I think keeping them distinct in more than setting will keep both series fresher and more interesting. Because something works well in one or the other doesn't mean that I want to see it in all Bethesda games. That said, making the experience of playing a different race more distinct would be a good thing, although I'm more concerned about lower levels and social interactions than in distinguishing the experience of being a powerful level 50 Imperial from that of a powerful level 50 Breton. One of the things I like about TES is the freedom to play against type and expect to achieve your goals in the end.