Chain does not help against blunt, the padding under give some help but plate armor will distribute the hit over a larger area.

Dagger fall is an example of a simple concept that hides behind complexity to hide the fact that it is shallow. Its like a puzzle with an elephant picture that has 10000 pieces,and a puzzle of the same elephant with just 4. At the end of the day its still the same image just more needless effort on your part to see it.

Perks are a much better way to implemented minor things like an obscure language or swimming. You need meaningful skills that balance well with others, not some very useful skill and other very marginal skills, this is poor game design.

As for arguments about realism regarding swimming or whatever else, it does not matter unless it helps make a better balanced and enjoyable game.

Mine was a extreme example to point out that sucha differentiation is totally plausible. i know, even in DF you knew how to swim from the beginning. But you could be a bad or a good swimmer, that is the difference. Even with a very low value in lockpicking, you could attempt to unlock some of the easier lock, but there'sa difference between a bad thief and a good thief.

A perk may be a different solution. It's all about how it's implemented in the game. Even if with perks, my characther will have to face situations when it will succeed and fail doing soemthing.

I consider it brilliant game design, and incredibly under-appreciated by the typical (most?) consumers.

The games I've played that make the effort generally stay [my] favorites long after "sand blasted" texture-less games fade from memory. :shrug:

Balanced what? Balanced like "rock, paper, scissors", or balanced like a university education? "War" is a pretty balanced card game; the odds are that you can be just a few cards from winning, then be a few cards from a full deck ~but its hardly a very enjoyable game for it, IMO.

I don't mind the lack of 3 skills for the reasons given. I'll reserve judgement if I like the system when I've actually played it and have got a sense of what the perk trees can do.
(which I think is 280 perks so thats quite a bit I think ) The trend of skills dissapearing, well will just have to see about that...

So why would Beth listen to your idea when most consumers (like me) think its bad game design having skills that most won't use and/or much weaker than other skills? There have been lots of complaints over the years on this board about x skill being weak, some skills were not even optional like athletics, were everyone has to use it and were everyone after playing for a while will be 100 in it. Now with Skyrim with have more control over how we play, now we really have to use are brains to plan out what perks will best fit are play style.

This is the deepest system TES has had. Now your choices really make a difference, now there are far more options and reason to play different characters.

I agree 100%.....well said :thumbsup:

Why indeed. :laugh:

What is the difference between perks and skills in the new game?

Personally I would rather an RPG with 50 skills and a PC that can only choose 5 of them, than an RPG with 5 skills for all situations. :shrug:

They didn't make a difference in Morrowind? (or Daggerfall?)

In the long run no, because you could get good at all of them, I could do it all in one game, lame. And for Daggerfall no, because many were a joke. 9 language skills, swimming, high/low speech skills instead of just one, more if I bothered to look it up.

As for your question, Skills are general, perks are specific. So for example lets say Beth really did like Daggerfalls 9 languages skills, in Skyrim you would have one skill that is Languages and perks for each one.

Another reason I like the perk way so much is because I play on pc and that means mods. Before adding in new stuff like say spears was akward. Now you just create some perk paths for your new weapons, so crossbows, halberds, whips, whatever can be modded into the world much more seamlessly. Perks are so awesome for mods, becasue there easy to do. I always get as many perk mods as possible when I play the Fallouts, even more choices and more customization, oh my!

Everything is different on some level in real life, but it is also unrealistic to be a master of long swords and than suddenly be useless with a blunt weapon, a lot of the skill lies with balance and body, and reading the opponent, the fact that various armor types can yield different results with different weapons, is okay, but that is a property of the armor, not a skill.



Yes but if the weapons aren't very different, say both are 1handed, than it is equally unrealistic that someone would forget combat training, completely, simply because the end of the weapon is blunt. There's a larger difference between a mace and a staff, than a mace and a sword, even though the mace and the staff, both are blunt weapons.

In any case, in Skyrim they have said that the majority of the power lies with the perks, so even though two people have a high 1handed skill, they can have enough specialization inside the skill in different weapons to get a noticeable advantage/disadvantage difference, so the player is better off sticking to the specific weapon type of advantage.

lol what if i like the fat on my steak???? seriously i do :hubbahubba:

im mixed with it all i like the peark system and have faith that they well do a great job with this new skill system.

but part of me feels more comfortable with how morrowind was.

What rpg did you experience that in?

This.

Morrowind was great and is in my top 5 RPGs Ive ever played. It was filled with skill bloat though, along with MANY other problems, and even Oblivion was still a few too many skills IMO.

For example with weapons I dont think the problem was not having MORE than just Blade and Blunt, but with how the weapons were classified and implemented themselves. A bladed Axe should not be Blunt(ARGH!). Staves, Mauls, Maces, Flails, and perhaps even Shield-Bashing should be Blunts. Swords, Daggers, Spears, Halberds, Axes should be Blades. More variety with less.

Why dos it not make sense to have separate skills for swords, daggers, axes, hammers, etc, but it does make sense to have separate skills for whether something is one or two-handed? This makes no sense to me. A far better system would be individual weapon skills with perks to further specialize your preferred styles using those weapons (then giving you greater proficiency with one or two-handed weapons within that class).

Applying this weird philosophy to the rest of the game: Why have so many magic skills? Magic is all basically the same thing. Why not have two magic skills? One for combat magic and one for non-combat magic. Then you can pick perks to be better with alteration style spells or whatever. Besides, I am so bummed out when I find a really cool spell that I can't use 'cause I'm no good at it's school. I don't want to get bummed out, guys. That's not why I play video games.

Agree.

That's not a flaw. Swimming can fit under athletics and thus it should so you don't have to waste your time leveling swimming to get someone that requires swimming. Like I said, more skills doesn't mean more diversity compared to 18 skills with the new leveling system. The new leveling system could make the 18 skills equal to 50 skills in Morrowind or Oblivion and then you have perks on top of that. People think that "Oh such and such number of skills decides how much diversity and specialization I get out of my skills" when it doesn't 18 skills plus 280 perks is more diversity and specialization of your skills than any past game, period.

As for having a skill that lets you read writings on the way, that's what I'm talking about having skills just to have more skills. It's a useless skill and if you spend your points into it then you screw yourself somewhere else in the game. It can be an ability you can increase by doing such and such but it does not require being a skill, it's useless as a skill.

Now if we look on Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion you has to be pretty stupid to take swimming as a major skill, you get better at swimming, the enemies get better at killing you, now have fun fighting them. I gimped my first character in Morrowind, I was a city thief explored all the nice cities, stole thing and sold them, I raised my lock picking and sneak skill a lot, then the mage guild sent me close to Ghostgate, that was one of the hardest quest I have done in any RPG because I was level 5 and had just raised my combat skills a couple of points.

Problem with to many combat skills is that it's weird that a sword master can not kill a mudcrab with a dagger or axe. In Morrowind this was a more serious issue as you would be unable to hit while in Oblivion you do magic damage. Magic has more skill because combat also have armor, block and armourer/ repair. Destruction is primary attack skill, alteration is armor and conjugation fill the block function, enchant fill with armourer and restoration is the common skill everybody uses same as both thieves and mages has use for a weapon skill.

fgs think about it

do you need swimming, running, eating, drinking, climbing, walking, farting to be separate skills???

wouldn't they be better off making them skill-less abilities that just improve as you go, if you swim a lot u get better at it, if you eat a lot of a cabbages you fart better ...etc.

as I said it all comes down to game-play, skills and such are just words and numbers if the game-play svcks all the skills on earth won't save it.

this

So is it a gameplay issue or a realism issue? Because on the one hand, you're saying weapon skills should be consolidated because it doesn't make sense to be highly skilled with one and incompetent with another. And on the other, you say skills can be divided up unrealistically so long as they fill proper roles in terms of usage.

Which is why it's worrying that Beth decides to simply combine skills, rather than address the problems and make them worthwhile choices.

If you think the end of skill removals is that we'll have 3, then you're a fool. If a skill is redundant, as in it can fit comfortably into another skill, it will be merged. This balances gameplay and makes everything more seamless. You won't be inferior for training skills that have less uses.

There are still plenty of skills, and as they progress through future games they will get it down to exactly what they need. That doesn't mean that with every release we'll be losing critical skills. All the content is staying, but it's more balanced and more logical.

Farting is the nord answer to destruction magic; demoralise, dispel and turn undead behind player, now if you drop a torch you get a more interesting effect