The leveling system is supposed to encourage specialisation. But to what extent? In particular, how many skills can we expect to get to 100 before hitting level 50? This depends both on (i) the starting value of skills, and (ii) the varying contributions towards leveling up made by skills of varying values.

Apparently perks will be capped - probably at 50. Assuming that there are about 15 perks (including upgrades) per skill, then you can get all the perks for 3 skills, and a few perks for another skill. This might suggest that Bethesda is aiming for us to specialise in only three skills - so you can only get 3 skills to 100.

On the other hand, given that skills are loosely categorised into combat, magic, and stealth, Bethesda might take the prototypical character to be one which specialises in all and only those skills from one of those categories. In that case, they might aim for us to get 6 skills to 100. But then you are still faced with a choice of where to distribute your perks - even though you've gotten 6 skills to 100, you still can't, as it were, max out those skills.

I have a feeling you'll only be able to get about 6 skills to 100 before you hit 50 and your leveling slows to a crawl, effectively being your "cap" even though it's possible to go beyond that and max out all your skills, they made it this way to keep you from being able to max out every skill without struggling horribly. This seems like the first game that it will be the hardest to max out every skill, which is much better.

Nobody knows anything yet from what I know of. Where is this level 50 coming from? I thought there was no cap.

There's a "soft" level cap of 50 - it's the point at which further level increases become much more difficult than they previously did.

As for a perk cap, we recently had confirmation from Pete via twitter that they are planning to cap the number of perks you can get (independently of any theoretical maximum that can be derived from a theoretical maximum level + only gaining a perk at level up).

Can i get a link to his twitter?

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1166567-is-there-a-perk-cap/page__st__20

It's here, at about post #35.

Ok its simple... you have 50 and ONLY 50 perks. a typical skill.. say destruction magic will have 3-4 perk lines with a grand total of maybe 12-18 perks/perk ranks total... so one ;line will have say 4-5 perk slots in it..

So to become a very fire oriented mage would require putting say 4 perk slots into fre and maybe 2 more into something general having to do with destruction...

So as long as you narrow your focus down to one perk line from each skill you should be able to perk 8-12 skills. If you combine perk lines in a skill that will eat up a skill...

So become a fire and ice mage and you have 7-8 other skills you can perk down one line.

Become several different kinds of conjurer and enchanter and destructor and you just ate 6 of your 8-12 perk trees.

ty sir :thumbsup:

At least, we know what to expect. In Dark Messiah, the skill tree system didn't really work for me, the game was over before the point I was trying to reach(and that wasn't maxing everything at all.). If only it was x3 longer.

I know it is early but I think we will get something like this at some point.
http://www.diablo-source.com/skill/?ver=bc09

Playing with it, I see that I can taste everything by lvl 31. I think Skill Decay would be an awesome mod for Skyrim.

edit: Dark Messiah's skill tree calculator(MP)
http://darkmessiahmightandmagic.us.ubi.com/skilltree/

Yeah, good point :thumbsup:. I guess Bethesda aren't expecting you to want to use up all of the perks in a skill, even if you get that skill to 100. For instance, even if you get One-Handed to 100, you might just get all of the sword perks, and none (or very few) of the mace or axe perks. That leaves you more room for maxing out just one of the perk trees in other combat skills - such as Shield or Armour, or whatever.

All I know is that I'll probably be focusing on my blade skill with my first character. Considering the awesome replay value this game will have with the whole "you'll never experience Skyrim the same way twice" thing, I'll have plenty of time to do some other things later on.

I don't really like the idea that once you hit 50, then "all of a sudden" the game becomes hard to increase it. Like a linear curve with a knee/sharp point in it. I'd much rather have some sort of exponential/growth rate system:
number of uses to increase skill = current character level * 25 * (1.05 ^ current skill level)

So trying to raise first skill from level 1-2=26 uses, level 24-25=85 uses, 49-50=287 uses, 74-75=971 uses, 99-100=3288 uses.
However, this is when you're focusing on one skill alone. If you have already maxed 17 skills, it becomes gross.
Raising last skill from level 1-2=469 uses, level 24-25=1439 uses, 49-50=4874 uses, 74-75=16504 uses, 99-100=55888 uses!

Now the math is a little screwed, I realize that, but you get the idea: Focusing on one skill pays off, and there is no cap at all. If is fully possible to reach level 100 on all skills, it's just completely unthinkable that anyone would as it would take many years of dedication to accomplish. The rest of us would be playing TES VI while they still have quite a bit of skills to max out Set base to 1.075 or 1.1 for even more extreme curves.