Yes, I do think its something to complain about. It's why I am complaining.

I am ready to say that Skyrim will have more depth than OB, and it may be a more interesting system than MW, but with what I just said, relying on perks to add depth is not as good as including them in an already extensive system.


With your longsword example. Now there will be a perk pertaining to long v short v axe v mace v other.
Under a more broad system, one where longsword is a defined skill, the perks could influence the style of blade. Sabre, broadsword, longsword, katana, etc.
I think perks make great additions. I do not think they define depth.


[] cowboy, what he is saying actually makes sense. Take some more time to get past your first reactions.

Dude, I'm having trouble making out your posts.

Since V has perks, it is WoW? That makes no sense.

Yeah sure, what you re character can and can t do ain t a RPG feature.
They're a digital representation of my character's limitations. They do not make my character. LOL what make your character a mage or a warrior ? The shirt with warrior or mage written on it ?

Have you played your RPG need for speed today ? You can decide if you can gear up or gear down, turn the wheel left or right and many other wonderfull RPG elements.

There s also those wonderfull RPG games called OS, like windows and Linux, you can do so many things, you can open and close texts editors for example, and they so RPGish you can choose so many key on th board, those choices make my character so fun, with so much possibilities.

On the other hand there s this wonderfull RPG called pinball, you have no stat, no skill, no perks, but you can choose when to flip right or left, and your role is to keep theball in. ITS Awesome.

Shortbuss for everyone, if you don t like it, you know how to find, recognize and operate the door.

I think this will become my sig in this forum.

Who is to say there aren't perks that specialize in a certain type of weapon? Sure, it won't be as in depth as your saying, but Bethesda isn't going to take 10 years to make another TES game. It's not as in depth as even I would like, but its something we just have to deal with. I have a feeling once you pick up the game you'll like the system. It might not be what most of us would choose, but Bethesda knows what they are doing with perks. Fallout 3 did a pretty good job with them, and since Bethesda tends to do their best with TES games, they will probably do even better.

Also, there will be much more to the game that makes it have depth besides just your perks and skills. Thats just the gameplay aspect of it, we haven't even touched the roleplay aspect of the game in this discussion. (and I won't, because its off-topic) But I'm sure what this lacks for you, the game will make up for it in other aspects. However, you can't say this isn't an improvement over Oblivion.

What makes my character my own is what I do with him, not the numbers that back him up. What number makes the kind hearted warrior kind? What makes the sneaky killer a killer? What makes my warrior a warrior and my mage a mage? Not the numbers, its what I make him into. We all start out with more or less a blank slate, and then build up based on how we want to play. The numbers are there to measure our progress and show what we can and cant do. Never does it make a thief a theif or a mage a mage. We do that, not some numbers on a screen.

You can go on and on being smart with me, I'd rather you didn't, but if you feel the need go for it.

I'm sure it will be better than OB. For a while I was hoping that Skyrim would be able to knock of MW as my favorite, and I highly doubt that now.

Believe me when I say that I will likely enjoy the new game. It looks great. But, after I am done enjoying it and begin to decide if I really do like the game all these things that so many people have steamrolled in the name of progress will be tugging at me.

And I know we have yet to see what the world is like in Skyrim. That is another thing that I hope took some lessons from the older games.

Well, let me start a list of why:

• A perk is a one time investment. Once you have that perk, there's no 'getting better at it'.
  
• Tied in with the previous point, skills are used individually to evolve them. Want to get better with a sword? Use a sword. A perk is just something selected when levelling up.
  
• Perks can be had by any player, effectively ruining specialization. You can go through the whole game having never touched a mace, but thanks to perks, the minute you pick one up, you'll be a pro.
  
• Skills tied in with the attributes, giving a touch of complexity as to what helped you level up and what did not. Perks do not.
  
• Skills are also tied in witht the races, and signs (Warrior, Mage, Thief) of the game. Perks are not.
  
• Lastly, my biggest point: Why was there a need to eliminate skills for perks? Could we not have had both more/equal skills as Oblivion, as well as perks?

Many perks in fallout had many levels to them, meaning you could choose the same perk more than once to get a better effect.
Skills can be had by any player too... And if you don't choose perks for that mace, you may be good with it, but you'll have no bonuses with it, meaning life or death if the game is on a hard enough difficulty.

Perks could be given based on attributes too, not just skills.
Some races may get their own perks as well. Signs may just be changed to perks you start off with as well.
Maybe they didn't get rid of any skills. Maybe they got moved around to fit with other things. We don't really know much of anything yet.

I would argue the opposite. Most perks in Fallout 3 did not have levels. Most were a one-time gig. And even those that did, you're looking at a few bumps at most.
But again, you're working towards skills. If you want to get good at axes, you're going to actually work towards using axes and whatnot as often as possible. A perk you just tick off a box and you're done. No effort required. Thus my point: A lack of specialization.
Could be, but I highly doubt it. Besides, you misinterpreted my point, I didn't really word it well: Skills actually tie in to the attributes. Use a skill that requires strength, and next time you level up, you'll see a little bonus to strength. Perks wont have that option, I'm willing to bet.
My point is that they don't have an immediate effect, like skills. Focus on combat, and your combat skills level up faster. Focus on Warrior aspect... And there's still just perks. You wont "perk-up" faster.
I still don't like merging either, that doesn't much help. Merging still simplifies and shortens the character building process.

And to clarify, the tiered perks were skill boosts only.

Not true. Some perks can be levelled up, which I believe Todd said in one of his interviews.


But nobody complains about attributes...

At least we can hope that selectable perks depend on the skills used to level up.


Just like you could end up with a very smart character that has not used any intelligence-based skills.


If you select perks related to a particular skill, it will help you in using that skill, thus helping you advance in it and level up. No?


We don't know that there aren't any racial-based perks, but since perks are based on skills, and skills are based on signs, that kinda shows they're tied.


Some skills in Oblivion were redundant, worthless, or just broken. In some cases, you could say they were broken beyond repair (*cough*acrobatics*cough*). The perk system allows for a more layered approach, instead of having a ton of completely separate skills that all level from 0 to 100 independently with use, you now have a set of 18 skills that level from 0 to 100 from use, and within those, you have related specializations.

Perks could be a good thing, or a bad thing. Most likely, they'll just be "different", with a few good points and a few NEW problems to replace the tired old ones we've been complaining about.

As long as the game isn't centered mainly around combat, and you can apply alternate solutions to problems, I'll probably be OK with it. If it's just a simple hack & slash game with a fancy-looking but irrelevant "RPG-ish" facade, then I'm not buying it.

but they have, and in MW and OB there have been extreemly popular mods that "fix" the leveling system.


Define intelligence.
Characters can certainly make wise decisions but that is rp more than character capabilities.

I can't really be bothered to list all the reasons why I disagree with this, I've been saying it over and over and over again. The short version: Stats, numbers etc. are not what defines an RPG, roleplaying is. An RPG is supposed to help you roleplay and actively adapt based on your decisions. Stats and menus have nothing to do with it, they are tools, not an integral part of an RPG. The only reason people think this is because very few people have figured out a new and better way of rrepresenting your abilities.

In short, this is pointless. Not only ahve there been hundreds of threads on this already but it's a completely irrational complaint to begin with. Why does a game's genre even matter? All that should matter is if the game is fun to play or not, throwing a fit over how it's "Not an RPG" (By your definition anyway, a definition I firmly hold to be wrong in every way) is senseless. Enjoy the game or don't, that's all that matters.

:foodndrink:

Some. And as the gentleman above me pointed out, typically the only ones which were tiered in Fallout were skill-adding perks, which are relatively worthless in Elder Scrolls games.

Because the attributes were completely dependant on skills to evolve them quickly. If you wanted to max-out strength, you focused on strength based skills. Just like how in real life, you can practice "strength", there's no such thing, but you can do skills that increase it as a result (Sports, weights, trades).

Uhh... Not really. No.

If you did nothing intelligence related, you could only add one point of intelligence per level, which means unless you dedicated the rest of your character towards intelligence (In which case you'd be naturally intelligent to begin with) that wasn't happening.

But again, there is a massive difference between putting the effort in to get good at something, and just ticking a checkmark off on a box. Huge difference.

Again, I worded that point wrong the first time around, refer to my second post.

You'll find that 99.9% of the time, in real life, if something isn't right, it isn't scrapped - it's fixed.
"One of your spark plugs stopped working so we scrapped your engine."
"One of the valves in your heart wasn't right, so we scrapped your heart."
"One of the tiles on your roof was redundant, so we scrapped your roof."

Armor needed re-working (Perhaps distance travelled in a particular set would help evolve that style, along with the normal taking of damage). Acrobatics needed to have a "Power-jump" ability added for rangers to hop up high, and then have it's base power reduced so you weren't always jumping to ridiculous heights accidentally. Those are about the only two I remember, and I thought of two feasible solutions in about ten seconds.

True, I'll give you that most were just boosts. But they were there, and they could be improved upon. Not saying they are or not, but they could.
One could also argue that you did the work and put out the effort before hand to get the perks. Unless there were a skill for every single weapon, there wouldn't be total specialization. And there is a little bleedover effect with weapons, using a sword may help you handle an axe. You'd be better with a sword cause you've put more time into useing it(perks), but you'd still have a basic understanding of a how an axe works(one handed skill).

Ah, my bad. No it was worded fine, I just didn't get it. Skills are deffinitly tied to atributes more than perks could. And you don't perk up faster either, for sure. I'm not trying to argue perks are better than skills, sorry if its comming off like that. I just think there could be a tad more specialization in this version.

And mergin simmilar skills is some times needed. One could argue that people can be just as athletic as the next person, but some people will jump farther and others will run faster cause that's what they specialize in. That's true, but at the same time a more athletic person can jump and run faster than a less athletic one. Keeping those skills separate means there is no bleed over effect, which there is. I did tripple jump in track durring spring so I'd be a faster runner in soccer when fall came around. The two have a corrilation with one another. Its not so much simplifying as putting two pee's in their pod.

The most popular leveling mods for Morrowind and Oblivion that would fit this, as far as I"m aware, are GCD (MW) and nGCD (Ob). They aren't routinely heralded as "A must have that fixes broken levelling", though.


Intelligence attribute, which you can pick when leveling up even if you never used an intelligence-based skill. You can also make a very strong character that never uses strength-based skills.

There's a difference between "scrapping" and "streamlining". Many skills that were cut or combined from game to game throughout the TES series were redundant or pointless. For example, Daggerfall's language skills got cut because there were far too many and they were mostly pointless. Short Blade from Morrowind got merged into Long Blade because there was little point in having two different skills for very similar weapons.

And your anology is, to be quite frank, absolutely one of the worst I have ever seen in my entire life. They are not scrapping anything from the skill system, they are just merging skills to give players extra freedom.

Most times when I hear about it, that is its secondary title, but I won't say you have heard the same.


Ahh. I think the multipliers had half the system right, in that as you practiced skills the attributes raised accordingly. But that is largely tied to the leveling system where individual attributes increase upon selecting them in the level screen. Also fixed in the leveling mods.

That is true. And they may do something fantastic in Skyrim, I can't say. All I know is if they mimic Fallout, I'm not going to like it all too much.

That is true, but then again, I've swung my fair share of axes, my house used to be heated by firewood. But I'm willing to bet if you gave me a sword, I'd be no better than the average person with it. I might just be a bit stronger, that's all.

No, I know you're not, your points are being articulated perfectly, don't worry. My issue though is how many seem to point at the loss of three skills as being made up for, or replaced, by perks. They are not. I really like perks, I think they're a fantastic addition. But they are inferior to skills. They do not replace them.

I went to my trades school with a long-jumper. Now, I know as a fact, if it came to jumping talents, she would utterly destroy me. But I also distinctly remember us racing on foot, and me being the victor. The two talents are not intrinsically linked.

A more complicated game does not make a better role playing game. Case in point: I was the DM in a group of gamers. We played D+D, then AD+D, and we were happy for years. But we did start getting bored with the system. Then I found Rolemaster, and in retrospect I kind of forced it on them, because I wanted a more realistic combat system. But as we played, it bogged down the game. Constant referral to the combat charts, complex rules that some of the players just didn't understand, the pace of the game slowed down, etc... It didn't work. The rules got in the way. One of my players brought in GURPS, and we started messing around with that. That one was magic. In all that time, we were still playing through a campaign, and having fun. The campaign itself was successful. It wasn't because of the system we were using, it was because of the imagination of the people involved. If you have no imagination, no rules system on earth will make up for it.

With ES, Bethesda plays the role of both DM and rule maker, and they've already proven their DM chops, to me anyway, by the five successful campaigns that they've game mastered. Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3. I've enjoyed all of them, regardless of the rule system that they've used. I honestly doubt that Skyrim will be any different. We need to stop being rules lawyers, and get back to being role players.

Well, then we have different opinions on what a RPG is. For you it's obviously any game you can RP and have fun in. Well here's news for you.. You can do that in almost any game if you wanted.

For me, stats and details are essential in a RPG.

You think a dagger and a longsword is similar? Just because they are bladed doesn't mean they are used in the same way.

Language skills may have been pointless and boring for some, while other players might have enjoyed having some neutral enemies. So why cut? It's not like they did any harm. They should have expanded on the idea instead.

I hope they really flesh out the idea of perks, something a little more than what fallout had maybe.

Were they two handed axes that you used? I assume they were, cutting wood with a hatchet can be a pain. :sweat: Now, if that sword were a two handed one, you'd know how to get a lot of your force to translate to the target, cause you've had experience using an axe. When it comes to deffending yourself, you'd be in the same boat as everyone else of course, but thats because you've never had the wood attack you...I hope at least. There's a trick to hitting the wood the right way with the axe so it splits easier, and that could per say translate to swords as well. Maybe, I don't really know. Never have been able to get my hands on one, but in my head it makes some form of sense.

Skills are a tought one to get...to be honest, I'd like to see skills and then sub skills. Take athletics for instance. Under that would be running, swimming, and jumping. Each of the three sub skills would go up individually as you do them, and they all have a hand in your over all athletics level. The higher your athletics is, the easier it would be for the other skills to go up in level as well. That's what I would like to see anyway, it isn't gonna happen, but I wish it would.