This.

Have fun being disappointed.

I can see the need in imposing a limit on just how powerful our characters can be, but we are the main character, we are killing off dragons, and we are trying to stop a "god", so being able to master more than a few aspects of our characters shouldn't be out of the question. It just seems odd that they're making it harder to be god-like in a game where the hero is going up against gods and god-like beings, and is expected to win.

I think 50 perks will be enough. I just want to see more of the perks revealed.

No. This is wrong. Todd said "280 perks including the levels of multi-level perks"

Most people don't have access.

I also think it'll add to replay value. I loved perks in Fallout. It was fun to build a character, planning on how to best combine the perks. Maybe I'll miss making a rounded character at times, but I like specialists. Characters and replays start to feel bland when you're a jack of all trades. This, I hope, will keep replays fresh.

You mod out the perk cap, you mod out the replay value.

Most people'll be sorry they didn't buy it for the PC then.

For me, the story and the world is the greatest value in roleplaying.

In addition, I don't need external and arbitrary rules to roleplay. :shrug:

Anyway, I'll still be happy to buy and play Skyrim. That's what important in the end.

I trust Bethesda to come up with a rounded system that allows for varied and diverse gameplay, and from reading the posts in this thread it looks like it will be. But maybe not everyone wants to replay the game just to master a different skill set. Don't you think it would be unfair that you couldn't master everything after reaching a ridiculously high level? If there was a way that you had to make decisions earlier on to have a decent character, then later on were allowed to master the remaining ones then i'd be quite happy.
I know the saying goes 'jack of all trades, master of none,' but I kinda liked being able to play the style that suited my mood, without having to go through the game again.
Anyone agree?

I am interested to see the purported bonus for daggers in action, and yes - that could be a notable, and game-enhancing, addition.

No it wasn't. Two-handed weapons don't get a sneak attack bonus.


That's something any character can do. A lightly armored character, under the previous system, gained a speed advantage automatically, solely by wearing less armor and thereby having less encumbrance. My lightly armored to unarmored warriors don't have a speed advantage because I chose that perk when the perk fairy visited in the night, but simply because they're lightly- or unarmored.


I'm not. There might be some sort of wholly artificial system laid on top that sort of manages to sort of take the place of strength-based encumbrance, but since strength doesn't exist in the game and it's therefore going to have to be determined via perks, it's going to be open to anyone. Slap a few perks on him, and my Bosmer tank is going to have the same movement speed as my unarmored Khajiit. And for that matter, there's a very real possibility that they're going to have the same movement speed no matter what, from the beginning - that movement speed will be fixed. Nonetheless, even if there are variations in movement speed, since they'll have to be tied to perks, they'll be wholly artificial. My lightly armored character is not going to be able to move faster simply by dint of lugging around less armor - instead he'll only be able to move faster if I pick one of the "move faster" perks. And as if that's not enough, there's a very real possibility that if such perks exist at all, they'll be tied to armor skill, meaning that my heavy armor tank will be the one who will be able to qualify for and take movement speed perks instead of my unarmored fighter. That's completely, 100% backwards.


This is directly contrary to the system as outlined. The system rewards specialization, and specialization will be in individual weapons, not simply in broad categories. Beyond that, you seem to be contradicting yourself. Choices and consequences means that, for instance, your character specializes in swords and really can't gain much or anything if swapping a dwarven sword for a daedric axe. Under the new system, it appears that it will be even less likely that he'll be able to so gain - not more. And I don't see that as a problem.


The one has nothing at all to do with the other. Presuming, for the sake of argument, that specialist characters were "severely gimped" in past titles (an assertion that's arguably true, but that I just don't want to get into), that has NO bearing at all on whether generalists will be gimped in Skryim. None. The two points are entirely separate.


Certainly specialists should have advantages. I never said or even implied otherwise. I clearly stated that my concern is that Beth is moving in the opposite direction - that rather than rewarding specialists and leaving generalists at least the advantage of having more skills to fall back on, making the two approaches roughly equal in the long run, they're deliberately setting about punishing generalists - taking away the advantage that they might otherwise have that would serve to make either approach viable and instead setting it up so that specialist is the ONLY viable approach. That's simply swapping one unbalanced design for the opposing unbalanced design. If the problem in the past was that generalists could become more powerful than specialists, then the obvious solution is to rearrange the game balance so that, in the long run, generalists and specialists can become equally powerful - each relying on his advantages to compensate for his disadvantages. That doesn't seem to be the way they're moving though - from their rhetoric at least, again, they seem to simply be swapping imbalance in one direction for imbalance in the other.


That's not actually what I said.


Certainly. My point, from the beginning, was that it would seem to me that with a total of 280 available perks isn't enough to provide enough different combinations of perks. As I said in my last - that if one were to decide, for instance, on a character with light armor, a one-handed sword and a shield, then to go through and eliminate all the perks that wouldn't apply - all the perks for other weapon types and other armor types and such - what one is going to be left with is a total number of useable perks that potentially won't be much greater than 50, meaning that a character of that particular type and another character of that particular type are actually going to end up very similar, in spite of a deceptively large total of 50 chosen perks.

I would really be displeased if I had to either have all of my perks be devoted to my weapons to make them do the damage that should be reflected by my skill or pick the fun perks (with the assumption there will be fun misc perks like in FO3 + NV) at the cost of nerfing my character.

If there are few enough specialist perks, or even if it's set up in such a way that the most fundamentally useful ones are lower on the tree and the later ones are particularly cool but not particularly necessary, then that is a possibility. For instance - Armorer in Oblivion. Certainly the most important Armorer perk is being able to repair enchanted gear, and that's available at Journeyman level. That puts it within reach of most characters who are at all inclined to repair their own gear at all. The next perk - the ability to "repair" to 125% - is an enormous gain in weapon and armor strength, but isn't really necessary to a sucessful build. It's much more of simply a bonus, although a very nice one. If the new system is much like that - with the most important ones in relatively easy reach, but the really nice bonuses only available with some dedicated specialization, then it could well be balanced such that neither the generalist nor the specialist has an obvious overall advantage, and they merely end up two different ways to approach the game.

The only thing that concerns me about that though, as I noted, is the almost palpable hostility I've seen to generalist characters - not simply to the "master of all trades," but even to the "jack of all trades." As I said, it's possible that the rhetoric has just been a bit skewed in order to drive home the point that the "master of all trades" is no longer a possibility. However, it's also possible that the game itself is skewed, such that the "jack of all trades" is simply not a viable build - not simply that such a build would suffer the disadvantages inherent in order to compensate for the advantages inherent and in order to balance with the advantages and disadvantages of specialization, but that such a character would be so gimped as to be essentially unplayable.

We'll see....

I already have plans to DL as many decent perk mods as possible. THE MORE THE MERRIER!

Yeah, I just heard that as well. That's sad. :sadvaultboy:

Mods will make you happy again!

The issue is. For those who want to make a new character with a new build perk cap or no perk cap they are fine. You can beat the game well before max level so go for it. For those who want to master a lot of things a perk cap kicks them in the jimmy. Why would anyone want the game o be designed so only one style of play is satisfied when a broader style doesn't negatively impact anyone.

Only problem is a unique character would only be able to do this quest.

But if every character can do the quest.....

I think 5 unique perk with 3 levels in every skill should be enough...

I am too.



I wonder even with perks or sprint how this will work with a greatly reduced speed to backpedaling in Skyrim. I used to move in and out to make better use of lightly armored melee characters but won't have that in Skyrim.




It sounded like Strength (and other attributes) are "in the game" but run in the background and cannot be altered by the player. Though that fact, if it's true, doesn't affect your arguement I guess.



I hope your wrong here. I like playing both types though I did lean toward generalist because of the inherent advantages over specialists in pervious games.



It's too hard to say without seeing what the perks actually are and how they play. Too often I've seen in games what appears to be the opportunity for great variation in characters, but with some perks (or feats or other abilities in other games) becoming "must haves" while others being "a waste of a perk slot" so in the end players pick the same perks. I hope this doesn't come true also.

No reason why it couldn't still be there, is there? I am fairly sure that encumbrance will still be in and it might run directly off health, for instance. Whether you would or wouldn't need perks to raise it is immaterial, surely.



You can always choose to get all perks for one-handed skill and be equally proficient with all weapons it covers. A skill can only have max 20 perks. So, yes, you could have advantage of always getting the most out of best weapons you find, _if_ you choose to build your character that way. It is an interesting option, for warrior characters, IMHO.



I don't understand what you base that on at all. Generalists can still max however many skills they want. Since they'll have to spread out their perks, they'll be a bit weaker skill against skill than the specialists - as they should be! Because they'd still have their advantage of versatility.
In the previous games this versatility made them overpowered and resulted in such ill-considered design decisions as monsters (almost) completely immune to magic, bosses that absolutely required the use of melee weapons, etc. Hopefully now such oversights won't happen because the devs won't assume that every player will have a master of all trades character.




Well, it looks to me that that's what they are doing and I don't understand why people assume differently.

its called replayabliltiy

or limiting options, maybe I want to be a god amoung men?

^

Yeah I think it'll be enough.
Will leave a lot of perks locked for me to experience on later playthroughs.

I have the exact opposite impression.I believe that, in Skyrim, being a specialist in the classical sense (i.e aiming for a pure warrior/mage/assassin) will be much less effective than "crosscutting traditional character builds".

Why do I say that? First off, I observe that skills have become broader. A good example is the one-handed skill, which includes sword, axe and mace related perks. A crucial question at this point is: is there any significant difference between swords, axes, and maces? (for example, is a sword more effective for certain types of enemies while a mace is more suitable for others?). If the answer is no, then I'm better off being selective and picking only sword perks (for example).

And then, all the perk "slots" that I saved by ignoring axes and maces can be invested in something else. What about some destruction magic? Of course there will be a good amount of possibilities there. Let's just say though that I specialize in frost and fire spells (i.e. I choose all perks that enhance them and I ignore everything else). Again, I'll have saved some precious perk slots by being selective. Thanks to that, I can continue expanding my build; I can choose telekinesis-related perks but leave all other alteration perks untouched, and I can pick sneak perks that make me better at sneaking when unarmored but not when in light/heavy armor.

With a build like this, my male Dunmer (to mention a character I want to try) would be as good at one-handed swords as a warrior-oriented Dunmer who has foccused on mastering all one-handed weapons. He will also be as good at fire/frost spells as any mage Dunmer who has mastered all destruction spells and, furthermore, he will still be as good while sneaking unarmored as any assassin-type Dunmer that excels at sneaking (provided, of course, that my Dunmer and the others have the same skills).

This is the advantage of selective specialitzation in my opinion; you are as good as a classical specialist (at some very concret things) and yet your repertoire of abilities is much broader (much like a generalist)