Are skills dependant upon perk upgrades?

Now I'm a little confused, and a little worried about this, but maybe someone else has figured out what I have not. In past Elder Scrolls games, when you increase a skill, you also increase your strength in that skill. For instance, a higher skill level in archery means you will do more damage with your bow.


However, from the perks we have seen so far, that may not neccesarily be the case. In order to actually make your abilities stronger, you may need to "purchase" perks, which are unlocked as your skill level gets higher. Lets take the Block skill for example, because they've shown it in detail. The first perk for Block is "Sheild Wall" (blocking 25% more effective), which requires a block skill of 20. This is rank 1 of 5.....

Now apart from that being a really boring set of perks, that may also mean that your blocking will not become ANY more effective when you increase it---until you purchase that perk. So basically from level 1 to 20 in the skill of block, your blocking ability in-game may not increase at all. Maybe this isnt the case, but I wouldnt be worried except for their overemphasis on perks and the generic, boring things that they do. Maybe your ability in combat is ENTIRELY dependant on perks, not on skill level. I mean....5 perks for Block which just make your block more effective...? Don't expect 280 good perks, expect maybe 30 generic perks with 5 levels each for every skill...plus a few extras. If this is the case...it would dramatically change the way the game plays.

Edit: I just checked and the basic perk for Two-Handed is "Two-Handed Prowess" (two-handed weapons do 20% more damage, (rank 1 of 5). and the basic perk for One-Handed is "One-Handed Prowess" (One handed weapons other than daggers do 40% more damage...(rank 1 of 5)).

Seriously? No one? This is kind of important.

I dont think so
one of the armorer perks for Oblivion was that hammers last 2times longer but the skill still mattered when it came to health

I like the perk's more.

My guess is 50% or more of the perks will be these wasteful and redundant "boring" perks that are only doing what attributes did better.

I would have preferred to see more Fallout 3 styled perks which actually give you special abilities, I dont want to waste all my perks just to do basic things that should automatically happen. If I increase my block skill, I damn well should be better at blocking!

I don't think they'd make the actual skill number do nothing. It'll probably be something like "effective skill = actual skill + perk bonus".

It will be fine. Bethesda isn't stupid.

lol, fallout 3 perks mostly just gave you numerical ability increases, which it exactly what we DON'T want
so far, we've seen way too few perks to make a guess about what most of them do. hopefully it's more focused on adding in gameplay abilities.

I suspect the skills till matter, the perks just multiply it. The question for me though is a high skill enough for the skill to be useful/competitive with the world around you. For example if I have a one handed of 75 but no perks in it, is it worth a damn for me to stab people. Sure my damage went up from skills 5 to 75, but did it go up enough to be useful or do I need the +damage perks to make it worth while.

I hope it will be fine, but I want to make sure I can spend my perks on something useful and unique like "animal friend" or some kind of companion upgrades or something.

It looks, to me, like increasing any given skill will have a normal base effect on what they skill does, and the perks will either add additional effects when using that skill, or increase the base effect on top of the skill itself. Like, a character with 70 skill in one hand will probably hit harder than a character with 10 skill in one hand, but a character with rank 5 prowess and 70 skill will hit a lot harder than the character with just 70 skill. Plus, I imagine that there will be a lot of perks that are a lot more interesting and/or creative.

I could be wrong, but it seems like it would be fairly pointless to have to work on a skill to increase it and have nothing actually improve. And, in Oblivion, you were given a perk every 25% on top of the skill getting better, except for security, if you used the mini game (you got better at auto picking as your skill went up).

Alright feeling better now. Guess we wont know for sure until November but I guess that makes sense

I think the system will work out and any perks that are selected will usually be in skills that you want to use. A warrior type character isn't going to waste time with alteration unless it fits with Roleplaying or they want a different type of warrior.

Alot of perks in Fallout 3 just sort of upgraded some skills, you can't expect all 280 perks to give you a special ability. And no, perks are not the only way to make your skills better, or else that would entire ruin the "Play your way" regime that Bethesda and Todd are working on setting atm.

I'm sure your damage with one-handed weapons increases when your skill goes up (for example).

It would be kind of dumb to depend the entire game on perks alone, and would make all of your skills feel stagnated and dependant on perks. I think it's obvious what choice they will make here.

Perks are there to enhance and specialize your favoured skills.

We had perks in Oblivion too. That didn't stop the actual power being within the skill, as it will be in Skyrim. The perks simply gives in additional specialization within the skill, meaning a destruction kmage can specialize in dual wielding frost spells for example. (I have no idea if such a perk actually exists per ce, but that's how they will work in Skyrim.)

Skills will work as they always have, perks are an extra bonus that gets tacked on. The effect of leveling skills may have been slightly diminished to balance the addition of perks, but skills are not dependent on perks.

My thoughts as said in a previous thread:

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, in this instance.

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.

Until proven otherwise, I think using a skill will improve that skill, while a perk may compliment, or enhance it.

The mini game also gets easier. You have more time to secure the lock thingy majigger at the top as your skill goes up.

If i remember correctly, The skills still do make you better at that particular skill but the perks are something to add a little boost to it to make it more useful then just leveling up that skill. And this time we get to choose which skill we get instead of in oblivion where it's just a preset perk. It'll add to the uniqueness of each players character.

There's quite a couple options here:

1. NO RELATION
Skill A increases with use. Perk 1 gives an ability that relates to Skill A but doesn't utilize it.

2. PARTIAL RELATION
Skill A increases with use. Perk 1 becomes more and more powerful as the Skill A continues to go up.

3. PARTIAL RELATION W/ MULTIPLIER RANK
Skill A increases with use. Perk 1 becomes more and more powerful as the Skill A continues to go up. Purchasing additional ranks causes an increase in the potency of the perk via a multiplier effect (1.00x -> 1.25x -> 1.5x, etc.)

4. BASE ATTRIBUTE RELATION
Skill A becomes more powerful as its core attributes are increased. ie, a perk could look at the Strength attribute and use it as a modifier in the overall effectiveness of the perk.

lol@you bumping your thread after less than ten minutes. :rofl:

Anyway,
no one knows yet. :shrug:

What is this Strength you speak of? Obscure and confusing concepts such as Strength don't exist any more.