Seems like 50 sounds about right to me. Though at this point we don't know enough about it to really say. Once you start playing you might be saying "50 perks? But all of them are so good it's not enough" or "50 perks? Only 15 are even worth taking! What the heck am I going to spend the other 35 on?" If you want to be a jack-of-all-trades you can spread your perks over many skills or you can try and master a few skills with maybe a perk here and there to flesh out some other skills.

So thats 6/7 skills right there and if theres 12-20 perk skill, you couldnt max out your skills before the perk level cap (50)

I'm just guessing but I really doubt we'll need to take every perk for a skill to be effective with that skill.

You'll probably be choosing the most effective ones for the way you use that skill. Maybe you take poison related alchemy but not buff/healing alchemy perks. Maybe you specialize in frost but don't use much lightning or fire destruction magic. Maybe you use alteration mainly to get around but not so much for protective magic. Etc. etc.

They're getting away from the master of all trades style characters, and I think it's a good thing.

that's what worries me, that maybe even my basic build will not be able to be mastered, I don't want to master everything (god build), but even those 5-6 skills, which is not many, will not be fully realised.

Given the amount of time it should take to get them all, why is getting them all a bad thing? If I want to put in the time, why shouldn't my character be THAT exceptional?

I'm more concerned about the 280 or so total perks than the 50 we'll pick. 50 might be a bit limiting, but it seems more likely that it'll be enough to round out a character fairly well (here's hoping at least), but 280 total gives me pause. That means that a character is going to end up picking roughly 1/5 of the total available. Statistically, 50 out of 280 provides an enormous range of possibilities, but the reality is that many of the perks are going to have to be closely related and most of them are going to fall roughly into the broad categories - fighter, mage, thief, assassin and so on, with the remainder (likely) being more general. With only 280 possible and picking 50 of them, I think it's likely that a pure warrior character, for instance, is going to have access to not much more than 50 particularly appropriate warrior perks. The rest are going to be tailored more for thieves or more for mages or more for archers or what-have-you, or are going to be more general. I'm inclined to believe, taking that many perks out of that small a pool, with the fact that Beth is going to have to make sure that there are perks available for all the archetype "classes," that one pure warrior and another pure warrior, played separately, are going to end up with very similar lists of perks. Additionally, there will certainly be some that are obviously more advantageous than others. Statistically, that's just how it will work out - it can't help but. There will be perks that players learn are must-haves for a particular archetype and other perks that nobody wastes their time with. Between the inevitable disparity between the usefulness of perks, the need to tailor some for each possible "class," the need to include some that are roughly just "upgrades" to previous perks and the need to include some (and potentially many) that are more general in nature, to take the place of attributes, I'm honestly doubtful that a pool of 280 is going to be enough to provide enough different combinations of 50 to make a notable difference between one relatively "pure" character and another. Add in the fact that all indications are that the new system is going to explicitly punish generalist characters and encourage specialists, and it seems to make that 280 total that much less sufficient. There are only going to be so many "specialist" builds available and only so many perks to support whichever one a player might choose. I'm concerned that 280 total just isn't going to be enough to provide enough different ways to make enough logical and reasonable sets of 50.

Certainly this is one of those things (like most everything here) about which we'll just have to wait and see, but that's my concern....

that is what I'm hoping for, but like I said we don't have quite enough info yet and that's why I have concerns.

Ok its simple folks.

While there are 12-20 perks per skill those are brocken up into branches.. and you dont have to pick all the branches.

So you will be able to max about 10 or so branches. So if you want to both be a kickass firemage and a frostmage too that will gobble 2 branches.

I wouldn't think that you'd necessarily want to have all the perks in a skill. For example, they mentioned perks in 1-handed for swords and other perks for axes. Unless you're playing a weapon generalist who wants to be a master of all 1-handed weapons, you wouldn't be getting all the axe & sword perks.

Maybe.

Perhaps.

We don't have enough info yet.

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As for the OP.... maybe it's just me, but "50 perks" seems like a lot of things to be choosing.

For the same reason being able to join, and master every guild in the game at the same time is a bad idea. Part of being human (Dragonborne or not) is being imperfect. I lack a connection with any character, Player or otherwise, that does not exhibit some fault. The only way to communicate a fault through a player-vessel, is to limit it in some way. If I wanted to play a god, I'd go play Black and White.

The 50 perk cap is so you can't create a god character. If you have a warrior character, you specialize in warrior skills. If you are a thief, you specialize in thief skills, and so on. Perks determine what character class you are now.

there should be more perks than just 280. i was listening to a podcast today and todd said ," we have 280 PLUS perks right now for the skills."
To me that means there are more perks that arent just on the skill tree.

This
In FO3 or Oblivion it was far to easy to become good at everything

I'd find it less satisfying to master something if every character eventually ends up mastering everything

50 perks is a good amount. It lets your character become powerful without becoming a jack of all trades.

Being a member of all the guilds is not "bad" at all, just requires (i) time and (ii) good enough RP reason to do so. In my case, my character is exceptional - a flare for the arcane in a perfect physical specimen. No reason why he can't master both spell casting and swordplay while being an exceptional merchant. There's especially no reason if the play time required to do so is substantially higher than someone focusing on one skill. This doesn't make one a God, it just means one has filled out more of the possibility of a single character, but if we must use such fanciful appeals then "if I wanted rigid class restrictions, I'd play Diablo".

The freedom to advance in whatever skills you practice has been a hallmark of TES games for quite a while. Its not like its a new feature that you'd only expect from "god games" like Black and White".

I have to say both yes and no. I like that it's 50 perks as that means I have to choose them carefully but the gamer in me always wants to try to get as many perks as possible.

But there aren't any class restrictions and you can advance in any skill you want, just not all of them
People do tend to have talents in particular directions and not be brilliant at everything

When was it decided that being a jack of all trades was a bad thing?

Not to target you specifically - I just keep wondering about this. Somewhere along the way, the community developed a hostility toward generalist characters and a glorification of specialists. When? More to the point, why?

I just don't get it.

Not so much jack of trades more like "king of trades."

No one has anything against jacks, but they are JACKS for a reason. Mastering everything with no consequence to potency is a problem I think.

I curious to know what's skills people will use and where their, perks are going, but that's for another thread.

I think it would be a problem if it took the same amount of time to master 3 skills as 1. But the fact is that it takes X times as long to master X number of skills. The consequence of multi-mastery is time spent.

It's not that there's anything wrong with being a Jack Of All Trades character but Oblivion didn't help itself with everybody getting to 100 attributes 100 skills at a high level. Now in Skyrim you'll reach that same point but not being able to select the perks that you could've selected if you focused on say Restoration. It's a tradeoff system and whether it'll work is still too early to tell.

I thought you max'd you perks at 50, you could continue to level but you wouldn't get anymore perks?

This

Limiting is good. It promotes replayability.

Characters in Morrowind and Oblivion inevitably became semi-divine masters of all skills, making you wonder why you bothered specializing to begin with.