In Morrowind my goal was never to specialize. It was always to master multiple disciplines through blood, sweat, and tears. The last character I played lasted for years and would have continued even further if my computer hadn't crumpled into dust. Why is "replayability" superior to that experience?

I like the idea of not being able to master every single skill, like oblivion. I will be more likely make more characters, to master other skills.

Skills aren't perks. The game allows you to reach 100 in all the skills, it doesn't allow you to pick all 280 perks. As the saying goes "Jack of all trades, ace of nothing." You can be totally proficient in any skill you choose, but the perks you select represent your fastidious dedication to a certain form of life.


Physical and mental limits of a human anolog have to be observed to create a compelling vessel. This is as true in an Elder Scrolls title, as it is in a God of War game. The absolute truth that perfection is unattainable is actually one of the key lessons of the Black and White game(s). Even as a God, you can't bat 1000.



Go back and read my original post. I never said "Member", I said "Master". That's the whole point, the game allows you to do whatever you want, but you have to pick what you want to do better than anything else.

For all the TES fans that like to be a master of all skills no it will not be enough. I personally, as much as I love Bethesda's worlds have always thought them to be extremely unbalanced. Any race can do any and everything and come end game there is no difference between any conceivable character essentially trivializing all the choices you made from the start to the end. I welcome any sort of balance they would introduce with open arms.

Make more characters.

I don't really see this as a big concern. I think BGS is trying to get away from the 'all powerful, do everything like a god' type characters. If you specialize in a few skills, you can be extremely good with them.. if you want to specialize in a great number of skills, you will spread your perks thin, because it wouldn't make sense to give the player enough perks to be amazingly powerful in every skill (or the majority of them).

I think 50 perks is a solid number. if you decide to put 15 levels worth of perks into your two-handed skill, you're more than likely going to kick ass with two-handed weapons. i don't think it would be a good idea to be able to max out perks for two-handed, one-handed, destruction, and archery unless you're ready to commit almost all of your perks to those skills.

paraphrase- limiting the game to 50 perks balances the game and limits game breaking god characters. IMO not a big deal.

besides, only choosing 50 perks adds replay value cuz you can go into a new game and mix it up. take different perks and see how your characters play out :hubbahubba:

I hope you are right...

well thats just not true, my friend :biggrin:

i dont think anyone has a problem with a 'jack of all trades' type player... what concerns a lot of people is letting a character become a master in every skill. a jack of all trades generally does nothing great, but everything good. The way BGS has Skyrim set up allows just that. if you want to be proficient in every skill, theres nothing stopping you from leveling all the skills to 100 and selecting perks evenly throughout all 18 skills (about three per skill lmao)
What BGS is trying to do, at least IMO, is keeping the game balanced. If a player only wants to put perks into three or four skills, he has the ability to become really really good in those skills... but if a player wants to do everything, he is going to suffer the consequences of not being amazingly proficient in any of those skills. Just better than average.

For me This new system of Skill level + perks, is much better than the last sistem of Skill level + stats.

Each skill has his own level, and by using it it levels up, then you level up, and depending on your skill level you can pic a perk in the asososiated tree.

For example if i use swords i level up stords and i have a level 50 in swords in the moment of level up, i can pic perks to level 50, so in other weapons that i have not used i can only low level perks.

this sistem, first is good to stop the god like characters , like the 10 int in FO3, or the absurde grinding in Oblivion of doing Stuff you didnt like so you can get a +5 to your main atribute.

it will 50 perks be enogh, we will have to wait and see, how deap and engaging they are.

will racial skills, dragon shouts be a diferent path from the 50 Perks, will you get a perk per level till level 50?

We dont know. i only know this is better than the last sistem for my taste at least.

Many of Mr. Howard's statements are cryptic. The TES team does not want to reveal certain specifics until they feel it is appropriate to do so.

With respect to perks, regardless of the actual number, I think limiting the number of perks from which one can choose, will require players to make choices, where choice does actually have a consequence.

I bet we can get perks from doing quests as well so add another 4-10. It's still a lot to work with really.

I don't really like this 50 perk limit.

Even without it I doubt you could get over level 100 by maxing out every skill, and you would still miss out around two thirds of the perks.

I absolutely hate the fact that you can become a god in Oblivion and Morrowind. Jack of all Trades is ok, but if you can become perfect at everything then every character will be a mighty-archmage-warrior-of-doom-master-thief-assassin in the end. That's ridiculous and makes specialization pointless. Why concentrate on a few skills if you can have them all at highest level possible anyway? A (high level) Jack of all Trades should be relatively good at everything, but a specialized character should be much better than a Jack of all Trades in his profession.

That's why I like the fact that you can only choose a limited amount of perks per character, even at highest level possible. In my opinion being able to get every single skill up to 100 is still not a good idea (how many olympic super athletes who teach physics in Harvard and work for the Special Forces in their spare time do you know?), but the perks may at least help to differentiate characters a bit more.

Personally I use Oblivion XP in Oblivion to avoid this issue btw. My characters aren't all the same in the end that way and it really matters which skills I increase and which ones I leave behind.

Don't know, we will have to see

50 per character is fine.

Is it definately confirmed that perks stop at level 50, or is that just speculation? Someone earlier in the thread said it was confirmed but didn't back that up. On the subject, I'm definately in favour of having to choose to specialize in one aspect and excel or generalize and be mediocre at everything, but if the mathematical cap is around 70 and I'm willing to put the time in to reach that it seems a little silly for perks to just stop at 50.

50 perks is a bit much for me. i was glad that they reduced perks to every other level in new vegas versus getting them every level in fallout 3. it didnt take long to get an OP character in fallout 3.

This. 50-70 out of 280 sounds like a good ratio to me. We are playing a role, after all.

Did Todd not say there would be 200+ perks?

Yes, the Latest count is 280. That could actually go up (Probably never down) as development continues. I just listened to a part of a Podcast that confirmed the perk count not 10minutes ago.

They will be more than enough, you're not supposed to create a character that is uber in every single area.

Concerning the "Masters of everything" subject and how it relates to the OP's topic, I would like a little clarification from you expert's and guru's if I may.

While I have certainly tried various other types of characters out of the dozens I've created, I usually tend to gravitate back to my favorite type of toon that is what I believe is referred to as a "Mystic Archer."(?) I actually svck pretty bad at melee combat and I greatly prefer ranged attacks with my trusty bow and arrows, sneak attacks when possible, and casting fireballs when enemies are rushing me if I given my position away. I play a very methodical and patient game watching my opponent's movement pattern until I find that perfect shot to take. (twaaannngggg) If I have taken a lot of damage that usually means I've totally screwed up somehow.

Therefore, I never put any points into blades/blunt or blocking at all. I never even carry a shield or melee weapon unless I've picked up Umbra for the soul trapping feature. I don't use heavy armor as well.

Basically, I use the following:

marksman
destruction
restoration (for self healing if I screw up or get overrun my multiple foes)
light armor
armorer (to be able to repair enchanted weapons and armor)
stealth (up to a point, but I think it's silly to be 3 feet from someone and they can't see me)
strength (because I'm a loot-a-holic and get overweight a LOT!)
mercantile (because I like to sell stuff even though I hate the barter menu mechanics in OB)
speechcraft (only to a certain point though)
lockpicking (although getting the skeleton key somewhat negates the need for this)

Do you think this falls into the specialized category even though I am pretty varied in my abilities from combat to strength, armorer and barter/speech? I don't really feel it's a godlike build as I don't usually use melee, alchemy and the other magic disciplines etc. Or is it somewhere between godlike and specialized?

Lastly, surely Beth would make this type of build a possibility with the new perk system, right? (I would just mod it if not, but I hope that's not necessary.)

Thanks, and great thread OP. Kudos!

Don't know if armorer is in and strength is not a skill, but an attribute which are gone in Skyrim. Well, somewhat specialized, maybe in the middle, with 6 skills as probably the main focus (marksman, destruction, restoration, light armor [not sure how this works in Skyrim], Stealth, Security/lockpicking) You may use speechcraft/merchantile but I don't know if you would put much in the way of perks into these (at least how I would play). Depends on what the perks are. But maybe I'm not looking at it right.

As to the OP, I'm now kind of torn on the idea of god type characters. I think 50 is fine because I don't think that someone who specializes in 2-3 skills should be equal to someone who spreads their perks over most of 18 skills. I don't know how many times I've read posts on racial skill bonuses on MW, OB, Skyrim forums where people say they are meaningless because in the end everyone will have 100 in those. So I support the limited perks. At the same time it is a singleplayer game so who really cares if someone wants to play a godlike character. I guess it all comes down to the player and if they want a distinct unique character (perkwise) that is different than others they play or if they like a different playstyle early on but wants to master all aspects of the game.

I want to be able to play as a pure mage character, and fully master the arcane arts and all magic types, because generally thats what you should be able to do. If i cant do that with 50 perks then i wont very be happy.

Each skill has 12-20 per skill. BUT, what some people don't realize that each perk has leveled versions of themselves. Also, the only old attribute that we know are left to perks is strength. Even then, encumbrance is probably under stamina. Speed is now in sprint. Luck is probably just a passive bonus or it was split apart and spread around (the reason I say that is because critical strikes for swords is now a perk). It seems perks actually only took up the mantle of a few attributes, most of them are elsewhere in the game.

Also, I cannot stress more that people should stop saying "We no longer have attributes." Yes....yes we do, we have the 3 most important attributes still and you still choose attributes when you level in addition to choosing a perk. Also, if you think about it, you have more of a choice to make no in attributes then you did before. You used to pick 3 out of 8 attributes, that's over a third of the attributes. In Skyrim you choose 1 attribute out of 3. You actually have a harder choice when you level up then you did in previous games as you must carefully choose which of the three attributes you want to raise and balance out your choices and then you have to choose a perk out of a pretty big pool out of your skill trees that you used to level.