There has been a lot of discusion about the skills in the next game and what they should be but I have not seen much discusion about Skill Perks.
These were added to Oblivion and were sold as an encouragement to improve your Skills. I am interested to hear what you all think of these Perks.
Which do you want to see return and which should be removed?
Also do you have any ideas of new options for skill perks completely?

In case you do not remember the Perks Here they are from the Oblivion Wiki page
Blade and Blunt Perks
■Novice: Basic Power Attack with a damage bonus in all directions
■Apprentice: Gain damage bonuses with a Mastery Standing Power Attack
■Journeyman: Gain Mastery Left and Right Power Attacks, which have a chance to disarm
■Expert: Gain Mastery Backwards Power Attack, which has a chance of knockdown
■Master: Gain Mastery Forward Power Attack, with a chance to paralyze
Hand To Hand Perks
■Novice: Basic power attack with a damage bonus in all directions.
■Apprentice: Damage bonus with mastery standing power attack.
■Journeyman: Mastery left and right power attack, has a chance to disarm. Your attacks can now also damage ghosts and similar creatures.
■Expert: Mastery backwards power attack, chance of knockdown and, when blocking, has a chance of knockback.
■Master: Mastery forward power attack, chance to paralyze and, when blocking, has a chance of disarm on knockback.
Armorer Perks
■Novice: Cannot repair magic items
■Apprentice: Repair hammers last twice as long
■Journeyman: Can now repair magic items
■Expert: Can repair items beyond their highest condition (up to 125%). These weapons and armor do extra damage or give extra defense
■Master: Repair hammers never break; one hammer lasts a lifetime
Block Perks
■Novice (0-24): No skill perks, but a successful block drains fatigue and hand to hand blocking does nothing against weapons
■Apprentice (25-49): No fatigue loss upon blocking an attack
■Journeyman (50-74): Shield or weapon is no longer damaged when used to block; opponents may recoil if the player is using hand to hand
■Expert (75-99): Blocking with shield grants a chance to do a knock-back counterattack
■Master (100): Blocking with shield gives a chance of disarming the enemy with a successful knock-back counterattack
Heavy Armor Perks
■Novice: Heavy Armor degrades at 150% rate.
■Apprentice: Heavy Armor degrades at 100% (normal rate).
■Journeyman: Heavy Armor degrades at 50% rate.
■Expert: Encumbrance (movement speed) penalty of Heavy Armor is reduced by 50% while worn.
■Master: Encumbrance (movement speed) penalty of Heavy Armor is removed while worn.
Athletics Perks
■Novice: Slowly regenerates Fatigue while running.
■Apprentice: Regenerates Fatigue 25% faster than novice while running.
■Journeyman: Regenerates Fatigue 50% faster than novice while running.
■Expert: Regenerates Fatigue 75% faster than novice while running.
■Master: Running doesn't reduce Fatigue regeneration.
Magic Arts
As one becomes more experienced in Alteration, Conjuration, Destruction, Illusion, Mysticism, or Restoration, you do not receive bonuses per se, but rather your skill level determines the strength of spells you can cast. The more experienced the character is, the more powerful spells that he or she can use.

Intelligence
Alchemy Perks
■Novice: Recognizes the first potential alchemical property of a substance.
■Apprentice: Recognizes the first two potential alchemical properties of a substance.
■Journeyman: Recognizes the first three potential alchemical properties of a substance.
■Expert: Recognizes all four potential alchemical properties of a substance.
■Master: Can make potions from a single ingredient.
■Only the first alchemical property is used for a single ingredient potion.
Security Perks
■Novice: Four tumblers may fall when pick is broken.
■Apprentice: Three tumblers may fall when pick is broken.
■Journeyman: Two tumblers may fall when pick is broken.
■Expert: One tumbler may fall when pick is broken.
■Master: No tumblers fall when pick is broken.
Sneak Perks
■Novice: Attacks while undetected gain 4x bonus for one-handed weapons/hand to hand or 2x bonus for marksman.
■Apprentice: Attacks while undetected gain 6x bonus for one-handed weapons/hand to hand or 3x bonus for marksman.
■Journeyman: The weight of your boots no longer affect your sneaking ability.
■Expert: No detection penalty for moving while sneaking.
■Master: Attacks while undetected ignore the target's armor rating.
Marksman Perks
■Novice: Loses Fatigue while holding the bow drawn back.
■Apprentice: No Fatigue cost while holding the bow drawn back.
■Journeyman: May zoom while holding the bow drawn back by pressing and holding block.
■Expert: Bow attacks have a chance of knocking the target down.
■Master: Bow attacks have a chance of paralyzing the target.
Acrobatics Perks
■Novice: Unable to attack while jumping or falling.
■Apprentice: Can make normal attacks while jumping or falling.
■Journeyman: Gains the Dodge ability.
■Expert: 50% less Fatigue loss while jumping.
■Master: Gains the ability to jump on the surface of water.
Light Armor Perks
■Novice: Light Armor degrades at 150% rate.
■Apprentice: Light Armor degrades at 100% (normal rate).
■Journeyman: Light Armor degrades at 50% rate.
■Expert: Light Armor does not encumber the user.
■Master: If only Light Armor is worn, there is an automatic +50% armor rating to the armor.
Mercantile Perks
■Novice: Value of items is reduced by condition of the item.
■Apprentice: Item condition no longer affects value.
■Journeyman: Can buy/sell any item to a vendor, regardless of the vendor's specialization.
■Expert: Can invest in a shop, increasing the shops gold permanently by 500 .
■Master: All shops automatically have 500 more available.
Speechcraft Perks
■Novice: Can offer bribes to increase disposition.
■Apprentice: Gains a free rotation of wedge in the Persuasion minigame.
■Journeyman: The falling disposition in the Persuasion minigame falls 50% slower.
■Expert: Disposition loss from "Hate it" results in the Persuasion minigame are only -100% (down from -150%)
■Master: Bribes cost half as much.

Personally I didn't like the Power attacks coming so slowly and would have liked to see them all given by Journeyman Level and have other skills like the ability to hold a 2 handed weapon in one hand (if skeletons could in Oblivion why not me) for a Expert Perk and one hit kills or having guards to afraid to attack you as a Master Perk

What are your thoughts

I'm not very fond of Oblivion's perk system.

Perks should be acquirable from trainers, quests, or other achievements.

I like fallouts perk system too, really fallout did have a great system, if they don't incorporate that in TESV it will be a huge step back.

This would work for me But what should those perks be? is there any Perks that you really liked or hated in Oblivion

How would it regress if they never had it?

I really hated most of the perks in OB. A lot of them were "arcade" mechanics, which made little sense from either a realism or a RP perspective, and most of the rest seemed awkward to have just suddenly become possible, without doing something specific to learn them. Skills improved over time, but perks went from "nothing" to "fully mastered" with the acquisition of 1 skill point. Some of the perks might have been good as "quest rewards", where you learned a special move or ability either from a quest giver or as a result of some sort of encounter which introduced it to you.

Alchemy "perks" (being able to "see" an additional property of a substance), weren't that bad because they phased in over 4 "steps", but suddenly taking no damage to your shield or suddenly having your armor become weightless while wearing it were just ridiculous. I found MW's Alchemy needlessly difficult to start out with, but the occasional failure was a good concept which just needed a little more polish. Having most of the "failed" potions still work at reduced strength or with unwanted side effects would have been better than constantly losing ingredients. I still found that system more "reasonable" than OB's suddenly reaching a new character level and having new higher-quality apparatus miraculously appear in the world, or having NO ability to even attempt a particular potion, but 1 more skill point and I could make it with 100% certainty every time.

I wouldn't have minded the combat move perks as much IF they "phased in" gradually over 25 skill points, where you would have a CHANCE to perfom a special move, which would gradually increase by 4% per additional skill point to 100% over the next 25 points, where you would have fully mastered the ability and reached a threshold for the next new perk. As it was, about the only use of some of the "Skills" in OB was to trigger perks at each 25 point interval. Rather than fixing things by creating a smooth and seamless levelling system, they introduced even more "bumps" in it by incorporating "perks".

I this makes me a bad person in these Forums but I have never played Fallout.
How did it's system work

Some could be small stat bonuses, or spell effects. Others could grant you special abilities, like special combat moves, powers or other things not necessarily skill related.

Many of the combat skills should be buyable from trainers when you reach a skill level that's high enough.
Others should be quest or faction related... let's say you join a cult, when you have advanced in their ranks you get to choose a lesser power of your choice, and maybe you also get a blessing that gives you a resistance bonus or something in that direction.
Some perks should be acquirable by achieving things, like killing a lot of undead will give you a perk that grants you a damage bonus against undead. All achievement perks would not need to be combat related, some could be added by doing other things.

When you create a new character and create your class, you major skills could each have a unique perk that can't be earned elsewhere. This would make specialization more fun. You could make an all-trades character, but you major skills would still have more potential that your other skills.


I was wondering about that too.

I hope that if they include perks they won't grant perks the way it was done in Fallout (choose a perk at level up). I do like perks though... but I don't want them implemented the same way as in Fallout... or Oblivion for that case. TESV should be a unique game, not just a medieval fantasy Fallout game.

In Fallout 3 you gain level through XP (killing things, picking locks, doing quests ++), you get to choose which skills you want to increase... and you get to choose a perk that gives you an ability or a bonus. In New Vegas you only get a perk every second level.

This sounds good, it gives more options for customization which I like.
Many People have talked about a climbing skill, could this be a learnable Perk for Acrobatics.

It sounds like a good idea, but you end up with a system where you improve your lockpicking or speechcraft skills faster by hacking opponents with a sword than by actually picking locks or chatting to NPCs. A number of the FO3 "perks" gave you skill bonuses, and a few others were just way over the top. It was fine for a FPS game, but some of it was way out of line for RP purposes.

I kind of like the "hybrid" system as used in MADD Leveler, a MW mod; it gives you roughly 3/4 of your attribute increases through actually doing things (raising skills), but you can still manually assign one point into each of 3 attributes on level-up. That's more control than with GCD, where ALL of your attribute increases are determined solely by skill use.

Would it work to have the Perks restricted to the area (Stealth, Magic, Combat) that you used prinately to acheave that Level. That way it would prevent the miss use you are describing

I'd like to keep the "use your major skills to advance" system that TES has... but handled differently, so I won't need to level "efficiently" to have a decent character.
The leveling system in Oblivion was pretty much broken IMO, and so was Morrowind's system as well... but Morrowind did not level with the player in the same extent as Oblivion did, making efficient leveling less important in Morrowind. But that's kinda off-topic... back to perks.

If most of the perks had skill or level requirements they would not be too easy acquirable. Quest and faction perks won't be overpowered if the world doesn't level with the player.
Also, the most powerful skill perks should only be available if you have the skill as a major skill. That would make your choice of class more important.

The perks would not be exploited if not made too powerful, and you actually had to do something to get them. There should also be perks that made you unable to have another perk, and choices that would make you pick one of several other perks in a quest line or faction. And you should of course not be able to get the perks you did not choose anywhere else... so when you made your choice the other perks in that quest should be unobtainable.

I think there should be a huge number of perks. Not related to this topic, but I think the 5 major/5 minor/rest miscellaneous skill class set up is the best. In your major skills you can get 70-90% of the perks, depending on which you choose, in minors you can get 40-60%, and in miscellaneous you can only get 10-20% of the skill perks. It would use a point system, where leveling up a skill gives a small bonus, ranking up a skill gives a larger bonus, leveling up your characters total level gives you a "general" point bonus (points for any skill) and increasing an attribute gives some points to all skills it governs. When you make your class you get starting points based on specialization, favored attributes, and major/minor/misc. skills. I hope that made sense...

Anyway as for more perks, for the weapon skills there can be leaping power attack, spinning power attack, dual wield, hold a 2h weapon in one hand, or an "execute" perk
armor skills can have perks governing spell effectiveness, lightness, improved armor rating, less armor rating but minor automatic "reflect", durability, or resistance to individual weapons
Marksman could have multi shot ( a quick 3 arrow shot), head shot (head shots do super damage), power shot, grapple, etc.
Acrobatics could have all kinds of dodges that you customize with "perk points" ( i just thought of that term)
Hand to Hand could have tackle, strangle, disarm (steal their weapon), pressure points, neck snap, roundhouse kick
Alchemy can have all kinds of improved poisons vs potions and thrown gases, etc

thats all i've got for now

hmmmm I would love to see something totally different OR perks like in fallout NV.

BUT overall I want a whole new system where getting better at something has clear and visible effects:

EXAMPLE : you like fire spells and you use them all the time, then you get a pyrocaster perk where all your fire magics have longer damage over time effects, then if you get even better with fire spells you can guide your fireball spells in mid air if you keep pressing the cast button after casting.

I agree you dont exactly know how to do somthing unless you made to move yourself or somthing. I like the idea alot maby you can do trainers favers for training I think. Somtimes I want to train but I have no money or not enough to spare.

Dont laugh but in morrowind I have a stealthyish orc medium/light archer. With his semi varying skills I need to train a little.

Having less powerful perks, which would be cumulative and selectable from a list, would be better than the "automatic" ones in OB, which helped make every character exactly like overy other character. Each level, you could choose ONE perk for any skill which you gained a point in since your last character level-up. The individual perks would be relatively minor, but after a couple of levels, they would add up to a fairly powerful ability. Because you'd only get one per level, and it would take a few perks in the same field to be really effective, you'd have to focus on improving one or two aspects of your character beyond "normal", instead of becoming a "master of everything at once".

Examples:
Backstab - each perk level adds 10% to your damage when backstabbing.
Pyro - fire spells cost 10% less magicka, thereby allowing you to cast ones which are 10% stronger for the same cost.
Hard hitter - increases the chance of knocking down or stunning the opponent by 5% with each hit.
Fluid Blocker - reduces damage to your shield from blocking by 10%.

Taking the same perk 4 or 5 times would produce a rather powerful effect, up to some maximum limit on some, open ended on others. Individually, they'd be relatively trivial.

I would like Perks handeled in that way.
They could have you go to the master trainer for each skill to learn your next Perk. He will not train you unless you complete a task that requires the use of that skill.

An Example - you want to earn a perk in Alteration, the Trainer sends you on a quest to retreave an item from a flooded mine forcing you to prove your skill in an alteration spell (in this case water Breathing), similar challenges could be done for all skill Perks - Long Blade Perk - challenge is to kill 30 creatures/enemies in 3 minutes using your long blade only.

This way no perk is gained that you have not actually earned by using that skill

man I like it when you talk nerdy XD

sixy

I'm svcker for skills and abilities

I did that in Fallout 3, had to increase my computer skills to control some robots in a factory so I went downtown and sniped supermutants until I levelled up, makes perfectly sense

One upside from a power gamer point of view is that you can use one type of weapon while adding points to another weapon and then switch then the skill is high enough. Useful as small guns are more common early while energy weapons and big guns do more damage. However it made you an expert without using the weapon type first.

Perks from quests sounds like an excellent idea, makes some sense that you need special training to get it not suddenly you are level 50 so you can now cast new spells.