So, I must say, one concern I've had with Skyrim is oddly one of the things that I am most anticipating about it; No defined classes, you just go and do what you want, when you want, and level up any number of skills you choose.

Morrowind had us select 10 skills that "defined" our class, while Oblivion gave us 7, but despite that, there was nothing stopping us from going outside of those chosen skills to just level up every skill in the game. Now, such a practice has become even encouraged, by removing a definitive "class" system that makes you tag an arbitrary number of skills, and you just do whatever you want, and it all counts towards your overall progress,

So I began thinking... if I am given free reign to every skill in the game, and they all contribute to the growth of my character, just how unique can I make my character? Thinking of it from my non-math brain, I looked at it as "There are roughly 10 skills or so that I want to use on my character - that's more than HALF of the available skills in Skyrim! Just how can I make my character something unique if I'm using over half of the available skills on my character? Doesn't that make me a rather Superman-ish 'Jack of All Trades' that's skilled in every playstyle???"

Well... sure, I guess, if you are narrowing the game down to simply 3 playstyles (Warrior, Mage, Thief), and their very narrowly defined sub-playstyles (Battlemage, Nightblade, Stealthy Warrior [what would the term for this be?])

But the math says otherwise. I called up my friend who is a math wiz (math major in college, very skilled in very advanced math), and I brought up the predicament to him, and we went through the formulas, and came up with the solution that if one were to select 10 skills out of 18, there would be over 7000 possible combinations of skills. That's not including the even further specialization with perks and what they will add. And that of course doesn't count all the different possibilities of creating a character less than 10 skills, or the different possibilities of creating a character with more than 10 skills.

My friend's response was that, if you added up ALL the different possibilities of character builds, from players who build characters focusing on just 1 skill (probably never going to happy, but certainly a choice), to characters focusing on all 18 skills, and every possible combination in between, as well as the possible combinations that come from the perks system, his words "you'd have a [censored] amount of possibilities".

Needless to say, I feel that my worries of building a generic character that really has no uniqueness because I chose a certain number of skills are subsided at the moment.

The real core of character ability definition is the "perks" now, which demonstrates precisely why perk is a bad name. They're talent trees organized under each skill, and each level you gain gives you a perk point to allocate. They have prerequisites for choosing them, e.g. Block skill of 50, with some having multiple prereqs in addition to choosing prior nodes in the branch.

There's a much larger number of perks than you could ever get with a single character (220-280, not really clear right now) but those will provide tons of character variety and reward specialization in a way the class system never did.

Fortify intelligence six points on self for one hundred and twenty seconds.

10 skills are too much. That's surely isn't a specialized character, it's really JoAT.

The skills do not define your character, its how you play your character that does. The skills are just there to keep track of how good you are at given tasks.

the game lets you be a master-champion-super-guy, but you don′t have to be. complaining that you will be a jack of all trades is stupid, because you will only become one if you play as one.
if you want to be good at only one thing, then practice the skill you want to bee good at. if you want to be [censored] at anoter skill, don′t use that skill.

Combinations that mean absolutely nothing for those that prefer builds with skills that don't exist anymore.

So, basically combinations C = (a nCr 50)*Σ¹⁸_n=1(18 nCr n), where a is the number of perks. Assuming you end up with 50 perks, no more, no less, in the end, and that you always invest in at least one skill.

With say, 250 perks, C = (250 nCr 50)*Σ¹⁸_n=1(18 nCr n) = (250 nCr 50)*262143 ~ 3.53*10⁵⁸ combinations. Without the perks, just a mere 262143 combinations. Maths-wise, that is.

A caveat being that a large number of these perks are wasted on things an attributes system would have handled better.

you're looking way too far into it. You're either gonna be melee, mage, thief, or any combination of those.

Yeah, the perks will force in some way to specialize in some skills more than others, because you cannot pick all.
Also raising higher skills will give you more experience, giving you perks earlier.

EDIT:

Would make sense if perks would've used as a substitute for attributes...

... they're not.

Unless you're RPing a character who strictly uses a specific set of skills and no others then there's only a handful of skills that you'll probably never use. However even if you choose to focus on 10 skills it will probably be next to impossible to keep them all around the same level. You'll likely find yourself using some skills more than others and they'll increase faster. My guess is a typical character will have three or four skills that they use often and five to eight skills that they use occasionally. Two major skills would be difficult and I'd be amazed to see anyone who manages to stick to a single skill.

You're presuming that the perks are independent. From what we've seen of the perk constellations, they're organized into Directed Acyclic Graphs with some perks being prerequisites for other perks.

Um... there is only 1 class now. The net effect of what they have done is simply allow you to develop your class as you play. Skills that you use more often will contribute more toward your level the higher they get. Skills that don't get used as frequently will add very little effect toward your level. There still is likely only 3-5 skills that will have much effect on the level of your character. Don't think you will simply max out 3-5 skills and then start concentrating on skills you never used much in order to keep levelling. It won't work that way.

Personally, I don't care much about the removal of the defined class names. I always made a custom class anyway based on how I planned to play my character. Their system is really no different than what they had in Oblivion, except that the skills you start using from the beginning will 'choose' your major/minor skills for you.

Being edubacated in maths and all, you might need to do some rounding down. As the perks are chained together in the tech trees and not singular choices. Nor are they exclusive choices from the skills. :icecream:

Aye, for simplicity's sake. Combinatorics isn't something to be done at half past midnight.

Someone swallowed Bethesda's marketing mantra hook, line, and sinker. You skill level is a big part of what defines your character.

ITS OVER 7000!!!! WOAH ZOMG SKYRIMS IS SO AWESOME!

Can't believe you actually made a post about math. "very skilled in very advanced math" HAHAHHA i took none of what you said serious.

3 or 5 skills at level 20 will mean more than 10 skills at level 20. Nuff said.

I think i saw someone saying that there are Skill Requirements for the Perks. (And that's why you can "save" "Perks Points" at level up, so that you can wait your Skill get better)
So, "builds" are there in a sense. Because you need to be better at some Skills to get their Perks. A Jake-Of-All-Trades would end up with much less Perks and would eventually be less useful than someone who followed a "Class" (Or Build)

They are.

When I was playing Neverwinter Nights 2 I got into their character system. Boy oh boy, was that ever complex, especially with fan expansions. There is a whole community just dedicating to making builds. You need to use a fully-fledged character builder or you will screw it up, because there's way too much to keep in your head. The end result can be cool though.

You don't want perks to come too easily however. I had to stop myself taking the most powerful perks in Fallout 3 because it takes the individuality out of the character. The name of the game is efficient combinations that have an overall logic to them with the character concept.

Skyrim characters will be more complex than Oblivion, no doubt. There's been so much added, and to be fair Oblivion is a pretty simple and straightforward game (except for the lore :blink: ). Stuff that's been removed always has a rationale behind it, it's not just "catering to dumb people" as some like to claim. But then if you go to an MMO forum you can find people ardently defending the concept of grinding. There is no accounting for taste.

You never needed mathematical expertise in any ES game.

In my opinion i think that it will be alot more complicated to create the character that we want as there are no guidelines.

I didn't realize attributes could put a bleed effect on my axes like perks could.