Okay I kind of agree with this since most skill perks are just plain retarded ( huur duur you have reached mercantile 75 people now have more money! that makes so much sense to me) however I would keep them maybe as perks? Fallout implemented this very well and frankly I really like the change of going from marksman apprentice to journeyman when you can zoom in on your target or in Alchemy when you can use only 1 ingredient to make potions at master level i couldnt stand if i could do those things as a novice it would destroy the purpouse of skill leveling for me

So basically I would implement these things as perks not gained by level like in fallout but gained by either having them trained or unlocking them with quests much in the same way you need to do a quest for the master trainer to agree to teach you their craft. If they were to be trained they would ofcourse be super expensive which would also potentially prolong the gaming experience for the player

I agree item leveling was a horrible experience for me when I was making my "perfect character" when I absolutely needed the highest level version of that item for my grear to work properly, deffinetly get rid of item leveling.

I have an idea. You can pick as many skills as you want, but you only have a certain amount of skill points to assign to them. So. For instance, every skill starts at 0, PLUS racial bonuses.

Imagine there are 10 skills, 200 skill points to assign. You can do a few things. One, you can put 50 points into 4 categories. So upon leaving the tutorial, you might have 50 in blade, 50 in block, 50 in heavy armor, and 50 in armorer. 0 in everything else, give or take with racial bonus, star signs, etc. That's a pretty sweet warrior, right of the bat. You could prolly enter the fighters guild and make your way to the top in no time at all. But, let's say you really need to hurl some fireballs, for w/e reason. You would need to spend lots of gold training, lots of time practicing, and lots of time using that skill to get anywhere near the levels of your other skills.

Or, you can put 20 points in every skill category. You could probably do the first missions for every guild, but would have to take some time to really grow, maybe favor one set of skills for a while to gain enough levels/gold to flesh out every skill. It would take longer to master any one skill than the first build, but you could master all of them quite a bit quicker, since the better your are the easier it is to level (since you aren't missing your swings and shots, miscasting your spells, breaking your picks, or spilling your potions)

Any combination is possible. You could put 100 in blade and 11 in everything else. Maybe it'd be better to set a cap at 50, not including bonuses, for sake of gameplay...but maybe not. It would really only be feasible to put 100 in one skill choice if you put 20 in 4 others, or some other such ratio. I think with this system you would get very cool, unique characters.

Yea that's more like it, you can LEARN perks and some can also be chosen at the start of the game.

In OB people commented on your skills. Perhaps a similar thing could be done, but where you heard about the "perk quests" as rumors as your skill got to the 25 increment spot. And friends would tell you sooner than NPC "generic city citizen" and factions even sooner. All the while the quests can be sought out before the rumor even exists.

Hey, I know that Just Cause 2 is unremittingly stupid, but the world is enourmous, there is near-infinite view distance and, well, if the game is set in Skyrim just look at those mountains.

As for perks, why not have a sort of "perk tree" to add replayability and customizability?

Everything else I want has been said over these threads. So I'll just say I'd love to have cultural lore on par with Morrowind's, but of a very different style and focus.

That's why they should have more high levelled areas. In the big dangerous where the main quest boss lives area, there should be big scary monsters. It should have a lot of quests involved.

While we're on the topic of skill perks could I point the attention torwards skills themselves, I bet a lot of Morrowind fans want some of the old skills back and im sure some of the others would like to add or remove some as well.

So how about it? Firstly I would propose adding a climbing skill along with climbing ofcourse :celebration:

and a ton of other stuff but I'll leave those for future discussions

Hmm that sounds like an an idea.
However I'd do away with the hard level requirement, what's I'd like to see instead is a "test of skill".
So you want to learn a new perk or technique from a trainer, he tells you "You seem too unexperienced, but lets test you" and then gives you a challenge. If you can master it he teaches you, if you don't he sends you away and refuses to give you another shot for a while.

I'd also say guild requirements should be like that, no "you're level in X is too low, you can't join" but "Let's see if you have what it takes".


Also maybe it should be possible to learn at least a few "perks" on your own or through other sources.
A few character traits (I try to differ those from perks even though they do kinda count into them) can change over the cause of the game depending on what you go through. For example immunity to diseases can rise through infections you cured out, so the next time it's less likely you get infected again or the infection passes faster.

You're talking about a similar system to fallout then, where perks are gained through experiencing/living certain conditions in fallout this is simulated through a quest but if TES V would be able to portray it outside of a quest it would make it even better for example: you hit a deer at over 100m range is the trigger text u get: bla bla bla through experiencing the bow and the arrow bla bla bla you get zoomed archery vision

or something along those lines (kind of use achievements to gain perks maybe that or even unique books perhaps, these books wouldnt be marked you would just read it by random and it would have a refference how to learn this perk, I wouldnt allow a lazy ass player to simply open the book and get an instant effect rather I would have refrences that help guide the player to these achievements if he is observant enough

Well it definitely wasn't a fart. *pause* No hard feelings.

Your idea seems like a better way to set up perks and requirements.

I like your idea, but look at it this way:
In real life, there are those creative bosses who will look at the character of their potential recruits. Then, there are the ones who just focus on what the person is wearing.

So, maybe whether they look at your skills, or test you should depend on the recruiter. Perhaps a fighter's guild recruiter in one city is a real stickler, and won't let you join because your smithing is 9 instead of 10.

But, then, in a different city, the recruiter there lets it slide because he likes the way you answered his questions.

Maybe someone in another city doesn't care if you qualify at all, he'll just recruit you in return for a favor.

So, there are no real "guild requirements." It depends on the specific person recruiting you.

Ehh there's the point, how is he supposed to see your exact skill number, look into your character sheet?
No I'd do it with a test of skill, if they're stricter they will give you a harder test and don't allow you to swerve off the preset path, like going into a mages academy and only win a test by punching your opponent. If they're strict they say "you failed the test" if not they'll still let you in.

I get it. Your concern is that involving skill numbers in the game conflicts with immersion.

It never bothered me, personally. But now that I think of it, you're right.

Sans the skill numbers though, I still would prefer that the recruitment requirements be up to the recruiter and not the guild. Except maybe the more professional factions that are native to the province itself.

I mean, there has to be a suspension of some disbelief. Like, pretend the fighters guild drill master fenced with you for a little bit. Or, you know, the NPC could actually be like "attack this dummy."

So he doesn't see a number on a sheet, but in RL he would see whether you were a master, a novice, or a dunce. I loved that in Morrowind you couldn't advance if your skills/attributes weren't high enough. Maybe they could mix that with a new system, I mean, let's say you have 100 in blade...you shouldn't have to kill rats for 3 missions before you advance in rank. If your necessary skills are high enough, you can get better quests more quickly. Conversely, let's say your skill is still not where it needs to be...you could still advance to a higher rank, as long as you do more of the lower end jobs...to a point. Obviously, however, the more jobs you do, the higher your skill is raised and soon you will meet the requirement for advancement...just like real life.

Why is everyone so obsessed with realism, recently?

Perks:

Here are a few ideas on perks.
The ones you gained in Oblivion and how you got them felt a bit artificial but having some out of there ones would be nice.


So why not splice it up a little.

There are some perks you can learn naturally like new weapon moves, those come naturally over time. Your basic moves are not counted as perks, with a sword that would be thrusting, sidewards swings and chopping down with it. Other moves like a spin attack are perks.
Here it should be done that they are available already but they need to be trained, at first they are a bit to clunky and slow to be really used. But as you rise in level they become more effective.

With the spin attack example, at first it would be a relatively luck based attack, imagine you're surrounded by enemies, out of despair you try a spin attack and actually manage to hit a few, not hard but it may have gotten them off you a bit more. Then later when you're more trained you try it again and really manage to hurt the enemies surrounding you that way, maybe even get a lucky shot that downs one.

Some would only be useful when you reach true mastery (in my system getting over level 100), below that they're still usable but not really useful as they're too random or demand too much of you.
That way it wouldn't feel like “DING – new ability” but “Hey I'm slowly getting the hang of this”.


Others that are more unusual abilities require a trainer to to teach them to you OR another source like scripture to learn them from.
Those too require a learning phase after you acquired them but it generally goes a bit faster.
Here too a few of them could only really become usable when you reach mastery.

A master training you those perks could demand, as I suggested before, a test of skill. If you pass his test he teaches you that new ability.

This could give you a incentive to dedicate yourself to one skill or a certain field of skills without having to force you to learn it as those perks can still be available even when you're lower but not really that usable

As for the naturally learned perks, you can also train them with masters, this makes them accessible (really usable) earlier on.
On that note, trainers shouldn't actually add a new level to you but give you a leveling “speed up”, means you still have to train that ability but it just goes faster thanks to your training.


Also to separate it, I did mentioned some “character traits” before which are kinda like perks but not quite the same.
Character traits can be chosen when you create your character but they're not 100% set in stone, you can actually gain or lose them over the cause of the game. A example would be immunities to diseases, when you contract one in game and cure it out your immunity to that disease rises.
Alternatively a negative character trait can also be battled in game or used to your advantage, imagine you gave your character arachnophobia, when you go of against a spider enemy this “fear” can be crippling to your character making attacks less focused, but the same time the more often you manage to encounter spiders successfully this fear goes down AND it can give you a adrenalin rush making you a more fierce fighter.

However most traits should have no clear positive or negative, they can go both ways.



While the first and third could be discarded as not really being perks I think they do kinda count into this and could help to make characters much more fluent and “unique” to play.
Also it would prevent the “from loser to god” problem where you're to incompetent to breath in the beginning of the game but later kill someone with a sneeze. You would have the very BASICS of what a skill needs, so much that if you're a mage who's out of magica can still grab the next best stick and fight with it. You simply lack the advanced abilities, or rather lack the ability to use those well enough to matter.



It's less on Realism but believability, something doesn't have to be realistic to be believable (Magic is a good example, in the game world that is believable), some points just strain it a bit much (Some regular guy getting set on fire and not even having a scorch mark afterwards).
The focus on clear cut numbers is by no way hindering or HAS to go but it just makes it feel kinda stiff which strains at the believability a bit.
If someone said "You don't look like you have the stuff but let's give you a chance" is more believable than "you're level 8, come back when you're level 12".

As mentioned before, if they're really strict they can tell you "You failed the test because you didn't stick to the conditions we set", like only wining a magic fight by kicking your opponent, that's still fair play, if you manage their conditions despite being on a very low level that just shows you can do it.

There should be more expensive things. I found in oblivion that money didn't take much effect in the game once your a higher level, and don't just make horses as pets you should be able to get dogs and maybe even creatures.
A lot of people didn't like oblivions level up system but I did. If they make the level up like fallouts then oblivion will lose it's uniqueness and it won't be as fun.
Bigger creatures, oblivion's creatures were strong but it didn't make it epic or scary because they were small. they should have things the size of merunes dagon that you can acually kill.
Also when I enchant my sword with fire i don't want a feint red glow, I want my sword on fire. Like the shishkebab from fallout.

In essence, RPG's are all about imagination. So, what you say is true and goes for all circumstances when something believable wasn't included by the developers. But, it's a nice suggestion, and I wouldn't mind seeing it.

As for perks, I'd really like to see something like Daggerfall's disadvantages and special advantages come back. I'd really really like to see them come back, actually.

Oblivion's perks were fun, but Daggerfall's are way better IMO for personalizing your character.

For those unfamiliar:
You get choices in the beginning of the game of your character's http://uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:ClassMaker.

I've made a Dunmer who is resistant to fire and allergic to silver. And a Nord who can't swim, but heals in water.
You can make some really unique characters with this type of perk system.

I want to see race traits grow. A khajiit lv 30 is going to scare an altmer white while a level 1 khajiit may make them laugh. Give Argonian a bonus in swimming that makes him move faster with each level. It seems unbalanced when a Brenton's bonus magic that grows as there magika pool grows. A Dumer's ancestral ghost by level thirty should swallow a perusing guard whole. That would make racial traits more than just a beginning perk for some classes.

I think how scary you look (which could give a boost to intimidate, if they bring back Morrowind-style persuasion) should be determined by your appearance, not your level.

What you're wearing, your tattoos and scars (if they're in the game), and maybe your strength skill (to simulate muscle mass).

Why tats? Most cultures seem to use them as identifying marks; or where you're from and the like. They should be typical, and so not intimidating, if you ask me, but no one did, so I'm going now.

I think having a characters strength and endurance have an impact on your muscularity is a good idea. Kinda like in Fable. No, I don't want the game to be turned into fable, but that's real. The stronger you are in real life, the more defined and big your muscles get.
I don't see why a Altmer mage with 30 strength looks physically the same muscle wise as a level 50 orc warrior with 120 strength via enchants. Just makes no sense.

I did like the off hand comments you got when you put on the dark brotherhood garb or the obsidian armor. Ya I like their basic perception based on your physical appearance like in Morrowind. It was amazing what a change of clothes did for you. I was referring more to the racial ability of "Eye of Fear". Racial abilities should grow with level, in the particular case of i would love to see physical appearance and reputation modify Eye of Fear.

Here's my wishlist for TES-V:

1. More voice actors, and voice acting. This was the primary limiter of immersion potential for me in ES4.

2. More frequent updates/patches.

3. A video menu setting for AF as well as AA.

4. A load order option on the data file selection screen.