Right off the bat I would like to state that I do like the perk system but I am worried about how it is currently implemented.

I was thinking about the perk system and the soft cap associated with it. From what I can tell you get a perk each time you level and once you stop leveling you stop getting perks. The immediate thought that came to my mind was, "are the Elder Scroll games turning into mainstream RPGs?" I mean one of the things that has defined this series and has set this game apart from other games in the genre has been the: you can go anywhere and do anything, you can level you character up in any way you want, you will become better at what you do as you do it and thus define your character, and so on. Yes I know that you can still level up your skills but from what I have been able to tell the perks are far more important then skill gain. For instance you can build your one handed weapon skill all the way up to 100 but if you don't have any perks associated with that skill it will pretty much be useless. Thus the game changes from a, what you do will define your character game, to a, what you pick at level up will define your character game, just like all the other mainstream games out there. Yes I do know that there is still a lot more freedom in the game then in many other games currently out there but the fact remains that they are removing one of the cornerstones of the Elder Scrolls games.

Again I like the perk idea because it does give more depth to the skill system, however the current implementation destroys one of the keystones on which the game is based and I would like to suggest an implementation change. Make it so that you can buy perks at a very high price. Before you start posting please read further. When I say a high price I mean an extremely high price. Make the price twice that of the most expensive house in the game. Also make it so that you can not buy training in a perk until you have met the prerequisite's to that perk. For example if a perks prerequisite's are 50 points in one handed weapons and 50 strength then you will need to meet those before you can buy the training.

This method would not only allow you to continue building your character at extremely high expense but it also provides a needed money sink at end game. In Morrowind and Oblivion once you got toward the end of the game you had more money then you knew what to do with. As a matter of fact the money would just become useless all together. I mean you already have the best equipment, own all the houses, own all the horses, and simply don't have anything else to spend your money on. What's the point in raiding dungeons and selling the loot when money no longer matters? If, however, you can buy perks at extremely high expense then you will raid many dungeons and gather up all the loot you can. You will work hard to make a lot of money and then you will spend it all on getting one perk and then you will start over again.

Allowing perks to be bought at extremely high prices is not a perfect solution but it does allow you to continue building your character they way you want. It also provides a much needed money sink later in the game. However the dev's will need to make the cost of learning perks the most expensive thing in the game. Thus giving this function balance.

Edited the skill name do to complaint that one handed blade no longer existed but one handed weapon does.

This is one of those threads that makes me wish there wasn't a poll. I think it's a bad idea to include polls sometimes because, for example, I read the question and immediately thought "no" but after reading the thread, I think you sold me on the idea.

Having excess money with nothing to do with it is kind of a sad problem and that would offer a very interesting solution to it. Those perks would have to be something special indeed.

As long as there's a good in-game reason to be buying perks at high prices, I say go for it.

I don't really see how buying perks would help fix things except giving something to spend our gold on at higher levels. You don't get better at what you do in a sense if you just buy knowledge randomly. If you look at it from the character's point of view, their gold magically goes away and somehow they get a perk. There should be masters who can give special perks that the character couldn't get any other way, but I would rather have a small questline rather than just have to pay the master to teach the character something.

A system where you get to choose one perk from a skill tree for every seven or eight levels you gain in that skill would work better in holding the player to getting better at what they do, than gold ever could.

I will say I read the post and I have to say I disagree on almost all parts. I think one thing you may be mistaken on is there is not one handed blade and one handed blunt as alluded in your post here:


There is 1 handed and 2 handed with perks for specific weapons. As far as we know, there will be prerequisites for perks, I would assume some of the basic ones would be to have at least level X in a particular skill. This fixes most of your problems with perks if this is correct. You could max 1 handed weapons and put some perks into two handed weapons, but will be severely limited to how many perks you can get by a low two handed weapon skill. As for the ability to buy a perk it seems interesting for a post level 50 character, so why not. I still think that they should have to have the prerequisites for the skill like you said.

I think the main thing to be concerned with is the fact that no one would grind his Alchemy skill to a high level and then throw all his level up perks into something he never uses. Only a moron would waste perks on garbage he won't use and if someone is a moron they probably won't have a good character anyways.

A novel topic that Im not sure Ive seen before. Kudos. I think it will depends on if we still have attribute and if attributes are attached to perks as well. If perks just rely on skills, then Id say 50 perks is enough for any person not trying to make a 'jack of all trades' godlike character.

I understand where you are coming from but the point is that you should be able to build your character however you like. That has been one of the keystones to this series for a log time and my solution isn't perfect but it does allow you to do so at an extremely high monetary price. It also give a meaningful money sink later in the game. After you own everything money just become useless this will help elevate that. However as I have said before gaining training in a perk should be the most expensive thing in the game.

Oh and this method is the least time intensive implementation change that I can think of which is a point in and of itself sense the release date is approaching.

No. The idea in limiting how many perks you can get is to prevent you from becoming too powerful and unbalancing the game. The enemies' scaling also has a limit, and if you could scale yourself much higher then those areas of the game where opponents don't scale would become way too easy / unbalanced. The power difference between areas of the game that scale and don't scale can't become too big.

By the time you are able to purchase even one extra perk you will probably already have most if not all of the dragon shouts. That along with high end equipment and already having high skill gain and many perks makes your argument seem a little silly. I mean you will already be the most powerful badass in the entire game world. Overpowered? You will already be overpowered by this point. This will just allow you to continue building your character the way you want far later in the game and will provide a meaningful money sink to boot. As I have said many times before the cost should be extremely high so that only high end character, who are already overpowered and that have worked hard to save up a great deal of money, can buy training in a perk.

I know console players can't do this but

player.addperk 

That is likely the console command for adding perks to a character. Anyone who really cares about maxing every skill and perk will just do that.

One that would be getting it for free. I want to earn it. Two I like a meaningful money sink and this is a meaningful money sink.

That's what making another character is for. Not to tell anyone how to play their game, but I never understood the person who bought a TES game and only made one character that maxed every skill etc. There so much replayability in making numerous characters that have certain strengths and weaknesses. Id personally get tired of the game a whole lot faster if I only had one character and did everything and maxed everything out in the game with one character. If you want maxed skills and all of the perks in the game, play on the PC and use the console commands.

I still think that it isn't a very viable option. Not when there are so many other ideas for money sinks in endgame (like managing a settlement, doing large scale trading, investing in a faction or a city, running a store or arena, etc. Bethesda is all about giving a player tons of options, but limiting the number of options they can choose. Having a workaround on it like this wouldn't really be their style, at least not from what I see on their past games. Besides, how exactly do you buy a perk like the one mentioned in GI about giving Axes a DoT bleed effect?

I don't know, part of the allure of multiple playthroughs, is the fact you can't specialize in everything. You still get to pick bonus Magicka, Health or Stamina on level up past the softcap, I think that's enough.

If attributes still exist, I wouldn't mind seeing Uncapping attributes past 50 as well.


The Elder Scrolls is about Being anyone or doing anything, not being everyone and doing everything, and "Having more money than you know what to do with" is part of life, also, how you magically gain a perk by expending some gold, is one more thing we have to suspend our disbelief for.

Also, there's the balance issue. We don't know really how the game's level curve will work. If we can expect challenges till at 50, or if halfway down the line, the curve drops into nothing like most other Bethesda RPG's, but let's assume at 50, you're not ~overpowered~ but still strong. Continuing to add perks kicks the difficulty scaling in the balls repeatedly again, and at least for me, I want some kind of challenge still in the game, so I can't just walk into Mordor and knock down the Tower of Sauron. (So to speak)

I want them too keep the on-lvl perk system, but if it was additional perks that you could buy and only buy for a really high price I would love to have them in the game. Maybe purchase perks similar too the implants in FNV(just having them being magical or something instead of course). But that's just me though.
Edit: grammar

I think its should not be implemented because people who roleplay characters who dont get into the city often or at all just wont get perks because they explore to get their items and stuff like that instead of buying them.

After reading this there is one thing I would like to see. The ability to reset all your perks in case you choose something that isn't as good as you thought or you decide to switch from axes to swords.

Agreed. However, I have successfully done both in OB.

I would not mind an option like this, as long as it's geared toward a character at endgame level. I mean, it doesn't make much sense to me to have the hero do every main quest, and give him the option to continue living, RPing, and doing more quests, and yet not let him continue his skill training.

I think this is a reasonable idea to give the player a more fulfilled sense that they can actually live as their character of choice, without simply having to discard him/her like an old toy.

I understand how this seems to conflict with the point of having a better replay factor for new characters, but it just seems sort of different from the old TES style. We've always had that freedom to continue playing, raiding dungeons, doing quests, leveling up all our skills, and RPing. Why not allow someone who is a master with 1h weapons by endgame level, after all main quests, decide to change his style, learn more, and train his skill up with all it's various perks? It's not as if you are limited by time, so you could spend another year in-game training with a master, completing long quests, and paying well-earned money to achieve absolute perfection in your skill. You would simply continue from where you branched off on the perk tree, and be rewarded by an extended game experience for each character.

Now, keep in mind this wouldn't just be easy and pointless, because it would give you goals after the "game" is done. I think this idea at least has merit for the RP value. Honestly though, I wouldn't expect it to be implemented because it seems too extraneous for Bethesda. I wouldn't mind either way.

This idea is good, but perhaps just not suited for Skyrim. Seems almost too MMOish, I guess. :shrug:

To the OP: I dont understand how a perk cap, or even a level cap, turns the game into a "mainstream RPG", whatever the hell that means. Level caps and specialization are actually elements of hardcoe RPGs. However, ES lacking both doesnt exactly make it mainstream (whatever that means). Then you say "one of things that sets TES apart from other games..." Ok, what other games? Regular games? Regular RPGs (whatever that means), or mainstream RPGs? (whatever that means).

The fact that TES is different, doesnt make it hardcoe, mainstream, or whatever label you want to use that makes you feel better about your own person (oh look at me, I only play hardcoe games! Who cares? You probably treat your family and pets horribly, are an awful date, and hold pretty questionable believes about the world...Im not talking about you personally, just a generalized rant).

There are different styles of RPG too. Baldur's Gate is not the same as Wizardry, or Fallout the same as Divine Divinity.

Yeah, I was glad to have the option in DA2. At least until I realized the game so simple there was really no need for it.

If this is possible it should exsist in the game world. Illusionary magic to have the character forget how to do something and learn something else. Like, you shouldn't be able to just magically switch on the fly, rather it would involve a skilled illusionary mage who actually uses magic to rearange your head. And it shouldn't come cheap either.

Probably one perk at a time as well, instead of all the perks reseting.

Like going to a powerful mage and paying him to help you Unlearn a perk. That would be nice. I still want the option to forget all at once though, maybe at a discount. Something like forget one perk for 250 gold, all for . So 1 perk would cost 250, but if you had learned 5 perks and wanted to forget all it would cost 940 gold (5*250 = 1250, 1250*.75= 937.5, round up to next tens place).

to me this just sounds like you want to do EVERYTHING good with your character and be as good at it as possible. no thanks for me i like playing with different styles on different characters, i dont care about the other skills or their perks. + the radiant story would be messed up with "i know everything" style of play. just my 5cents

and unlearning something? yeaaah... this all just leads to "i want to play with only 1 character who does everything"
like i said i love playing with multiple characters who all go "1 line" aka stealth, magic and heavy armor melee guy(99% with 1h and shield)

I would like a seprate list of purchasable perks to be a titanic money sink.. but no the normal perks you should only get 50 on any one character. Its part of the nature of perks that you only get some not all.

That would be a better option, but I wonder how the Radiant Story's quest tailoring to your character would work if you could suddenly turn your character to a completely different character.

If you do it mid-quest it might be a problem. But the way they've explained it, radiant story kicks in when you talk to a quest giver, then looks at your stats.