Im glad someone else finally noticed that if perks replace attributes, then we get a lot of boring perks.
How many "+X pts of damage" perks will we see? Probably a lot. I don't see how replacing a sophisticated attribute, albiet with some flaws that should have been fixed, with a skill tree system works any better...

Why would we need perks like that? Raising the skill normally does just that.

I just hope we have enough perks, because if we don't have enough, we will all end up making the same characters. i hope that doesn't happen

when Bethesda releases DLC they usually release more perks to have. remember that.

well since with fallout you only got a perk every other lvl I would think that yes we will have more then enough

even after you reach level 50 you can still keep getting perks so yes you can get all of them

280 perks
maximum theoretical level 75

Nope, even if the soft cap of 50(soft as in max perks) wasn't present you'd still not be able to get them all.

You're able to get perks after 50.

Prove it.

From the mouth of Todd Howard:

"We don't code in a maximum level. There is a theoretical maximum depending on what your skills are. The one change we've made is that you level faster. We've sort of balanced Oblivion and Fallout 3 in some respects to like a 1 - 35, 1 - 30, so if people play for a long time that's the kind of high level with creatures and whatever. This one is balanced like 1 - 50, but that isn't longer in gameplay. You do level faster, a lot faster, especially in the beginning of the game. Because of the power in the perks, we wanted to be giving them out at a higher rate. The actual maximum depending on your particular character how it works out might be 75. I don't really know. I'm just saying we don't code in the maximum level. It will end up whatever it ends up."


"(Perks being more fun) It's the thing you're always shooting for. Even 1 - 50 it slows down a lot as you play. If you assume there's 200 hours of content, you can sort of figure out, 'how often do I get to level?' We think we can balance that with the perks. That's what happened. We did the perks, and we figured out quickly, 'oh, to make these work, we need to be leveling faster.' And it is more fun."

And: "And I think the game right now has like 280 perks if you include the ranks. So even a character that raises all their skills to 100, and they're playing and they're level 50, they've only gotten to pick 50 perks."

This is where you're 50 max perk rumor came from. Now where does it say only 50 perks?

What I want to know is why 50 perks wont be enough?

I am sure that some of these perks will be redundant or aimed at similar things, such as:

Regenerate Magicka after a critical hit with a shock spell.

or

Increased Spell Power after casting a fire spell.

Both of these perks would be aimed at increasing the effectiveness of certain spell trees but dont necessarily need to be taken with each other. And as others have stated there will probably be perks tied to challenges and quest lines. I am thinking that most of the generic "+X amount of damage with Y spell school" will come from challenges completed using that school of magic.

Soft cap of 50 is not mentioned there. How convenient. Doesn't say specificlly there that you can chose perks past lvl 50 and that is all the soft cap does in stop you from picking perks. We've already asked for clarification on this and got it.

Proof: http://twitter.com/#!/DCDeacon/status/36644224258539520

quick point, unless you pick a perk before you start, the correct number you should be debating is 49

start at level 1 add 49 levels( and therefore perks) = lvl 50.

Just thought I'd mention it.

How is it convenient that official press releases don't address it?

It's convenient to the argument that is misconstruing information. Thankfully we have the VP of marketing at Bethesda taking his time to pass on the clarification we need. He's been clarifying info from day one and continues to this day. Pete is one of Bethesda's top brass, I trust his words as much as Todd's because they are tight. They aren't just conference call colleagues you know, they're in the same building and Pete is an avid gamer...yeah, they've talked one or twice.

Maybe there should be a stickied thread where the correct misleading information instead of using Twitter. As for the rest of you post, thanks for the nonsense.

Well, I wasn't speaking only to you and quite a few people have tried to discredit Pete as being outside the loop and I was just making sure everyone knew where he is at.

50 Perks will not be enough for players that want to do all the major crafting as well as have a specialized character. Gear enchantment/creation is a big part of customization in the game. Any perks attached to Smithing, Alchemy, or Enchantment (which it's already been stated that all skills will have 12-20 perks) will force players to choose between good gear or a good character.

I propose the idea that all perks related to harvesting materials & crafting should be able to be acquired through quests without using level up Perks. Unless of course the crafting skills have been economy balanced, enchanting was a much more expedient means of income due to the value of soul gems. Plus enchanting through NPC's by comparison to doing it yourself was extremely expensive.

Lastly-For those that continually post "it doesn't matter, mods will fix everything", it shows a complete disregard for console gamers and, furthermore, makes your post pointless & meaningless to say anything further.

No.

Why?

"Choice and consequences"

If there is not a robust option for customizing gear through NPC's that isn't a pain in the neck (traveling back & forth to find NPC's with the proper crafting skill level AND perks) & equal in quality to doing it yourself, Stealth based characters are going to get shafted hard on custom gear.

I'd rather have each perk to be well thought out and useful than a bunch of useless perks that I'll never really care for. 50 perks is just fine.

That's assuming the best gear will come from Smithing. I assure you it won't.

Without either direct quotes or inside information to back that up, "I assure you it won't" is nothing more than five words that somebody typed into a message board reply field and they mean absolutely nothing at all.

In point of fact, recent Beth game history implies that exactly the opposite will be true. There isn't a single pre-enchanted weapon in vanilla Oblivion that's ultimately superior to what one can do at the enchanting altar. Not even one. If they follow the same pattern they've already established with enchanting in Oblivion, custom-smithed armor and weapons in Skyrim will be superior to those available otherwise.

Additionally, from a purely practical perspective, there has to be some advantage to the smithing skill. If all one will be able to do is turn out weapons and armor that are inferior to things available otherwise, then the entire skill is wasted and might as well not be in there at all.

Your assurance is unquestionably baseless. I believe it to also be wrong.

Yeah my assurance is based on my opinion but baseless?
1) crafting in fallout 3 did not allow you to build more powerful weapons than were found elsewhere in the game.
2) it makes no sense that the player would be able to craft anything more powerful than {insert godly artifact name here)
3)Why would Bethesda base smithing on enchanting in this respect? Enchanted items were few and far between in MW and OB and the powerful ones were down right rare. It makes sense that you could create a more powerful enchantment than that found in the game. Weapons and armor on the other hand can be found everywhere and to be able to negate it all by making better weapons and armor than that forged by Deadric princes is just too much.

I certainly hope that Bethesda doesn't cheapen the games standard armor and weapons with smithable uber gear. I don't believe they will.

one thing that a lot of people seem to be forgetting is the amount of time that they have left to test the game so if it really is an issue I'm sure we'll see the number of perks go up.