you have ten things posted. Strength isnt a skill, so thats nine. sneak and lockpicking could or could not be merged, so we'll keep them seperate. Mercentile and speechcraft are merged, so thats eight. lets assume you prolly wont put perks into mercantile/speechcraft. that leaves seven. you also said you dont use sneak much, so lets assume you only put a couple perks with that. so six. security prolly wont require a crap ton of perks, so we'll assume you only use a few for that too. Let's just say you use an equal amount to one specialized skill's perks for sneak and security. that will leave it at six. (i hope you get what i just said haha) 50/6= about eight (rounded down). If you want to max out each skill with perks, you have too many, but if you're looking to specialize within each skill (certain types of destruction magic or restoration magic) you can cut a few out of those skills and add them to the others. I think this build would be considered intermediate in specialization if you commit to using just those skills. I dont think BGS expects many people to use less than five or six at the least, so they have to account for that. you'll prolly be fine with what you got there :thumbsup:

Don't worry there will probably be a perk to raise your perk count by the same amount of times you avoided fighting someone of the same six because you were trying to use the perk that gave you more damage to the person of the opposite six. In the old addage of Apple, "There is a perk for that"

/sarc

Here boy, here boy, sweeeeest!! Go fetch, go fetch your perk. :rofl:

I am not to worried about the perk system, I'm sure 50 will be more than enough to make a very powerful character even a mutli talented one.

More perks means more character customization. I am ALL for it!


50 perks would make most players carbon copies of each other, and thats not what the Elder Scrolls is about.


Also the "loss" of stats is actually a good thing. I like the new system they are implementing as I believe it will go like this=

Health= strength based skills
Magicka= magic obviously
Fatigue= Stealth based skills


Micromanaging stats and the like was boring in Oblivion and took away from gameplay (and certain stats were "useless" depending on the build). The perk system of Fallout 3 allowed for a even greater customization of your character concept than skills alone like in Oblivion, and increasing that amount of perks to 280 will only mean further customization!

50 perks = no god characters.

I think the plenitude of character builds arises in the following way. Suppose you want to play a character who is predominantly a warrior. You focus on leveling up skills like One-Handed Weapon, Shield, Smithing, Armour. Now, there are presumably going to be a whole lot of warrior characters which focus on these skills. But the differences arise with (i) the perks, and (ii) "minor" skills. One warrior might focus on maces, rather than swords or axes. A different warrior might be more offensive and take all weapon perks, but take less armour/shield perks. Furthermore, one warrior might also dabble in healing magic and alchemy; a different warrior might be decent at archery and speechcraft. And so on.

In general terms, while I agree that the system aims to encourage specialisation, I don't think it follows that the game will funnel players down only a handful of character builds. (I'm not sure if you meant to suggest this, but it's one way of reading what you posted, and it raises something worth discussing). Rather, I think the game will encourage specialisation by encouraging you to pick only a small handful of skills, even if those skills crosscut traditional character builds. You might still have an enjoyable and playable character who focuses on One-Handed, Enchanting, Alteration, Sneak, and Smithing.

So while you might be right that all "pure" warriors will be the same, I think that might only be true on an extremely narrow view of what counts as a "pure warrior" - namely, one which increases only combat skills and takes only combat perks. But given that even warriors will often find it useful to use other skills, and perks in other skills, there should still be a large range of different character builds which are predominantly combat oriented.

There is, of course, still a question about whether this is customisation enough. But that's a different question to what range of possibilities the game will allow.

Ok I build a khajiit warrior thief..

So twin swords.. so I go down sword branch.. 5-6 perks

Sneak.. 5 perks only went down one branch plus maybe a smidge in anouther

security.. goes down 6 in lockpicking and 3 in traps lets say..

alchemy... 2

speechcraft 2 for some merchant stuff.

light armor 10 goes down more then one branch

restoration.. gets the skill but no perks

smithing gets 3 perks

Thats 37 perks total and 8 skills. Leaving me 13 more perks to decide late in the game what else I wana gain or what other skills I wana grab and get good at.

This is one of the cases where I think less is less.

I'm going to use Final Fantasy as an example. In many of the games you can beat the game fairly easily at level 45-50. It isn't needed in any way to go past that. But if you want to, hey level up to 99, get every summon etc. It takes a lot more time, but if you want to do that go for it. It is purely optional, if you want to limit your self, just beat the game already don't keep grinding and fighting to level everything up.

Same thing in a game like this. If I want to go beyond what is not only needed bu what makes the game easy more power to me, it doesn't effect your game in the slightest. If you don't want to well stop leveling up and beat the game already so you can have your precious replay with a different build.

fifty perks will be enough. it will make sure that u specialize ur character which makes it so that u cant go againts the grain. wut i mean by this is in the older games u culd pick a class but at the end of the day if u worked hard enough u culd be just as good as anyone at everything as long as ur race and strar sign allowed it. classes just gave u a heardstart but did not limit ur skills. on this one instead of classes they r using the perks and the new leveling system ( higher skills level u up more) so that u r almost forced to specialize ur character so that way u sort of create ur own class designed around how u play the game. if they gave too many perks u wuld not specialize.

Okay - I'm going to jump in right there, just because this is a thing I've considered, and regarding which I've come to a conclusion. Much has been made of the differing perks for different weapons, but I'm willing to go on record right now with a prediction that, when boiled down to their basics, every weapon is going to get the same basic perks, with only minor differences.

I predict that, if laid out in a spreadsheet, we're going to find that every weapon receives essentially the exact same perks in the exact same order. Undoubtedly they will be called different things, and as far as damage goes, they'll work in somewhat different ways - the critical damage perk for swords and the bleed-out perk for axes, for instance. These will probably serve to distinguish the weapons a bit (which is certainly a good thing), but at heart, those are just two variations on "do more damage." And I predict that that's the way all the perks are going to work for melee weapons. The advancement up each weapon tree, however it's precisely set up, is going to be exactly the same. If the first perk for one weapon is simply a "use it effectively" perk, then that's going to be the first perk for every weapon. If the third perk for one weapon is a "swing it faster" perk, then that's going to be the third perk for every weapon.

I could well be wrong, but I'm confident enough that that will be the case that I'll go on record right now predicting it.


Yes, and this is where I think the perks could shine better, though I'm wary here of a couple of other things. First - for your first example, the warrior who invests less in armor and more in weapon skill (my favorite form of warrior, by the bye), I'm concerned that, with the lack of attributes and with everything rolled into the three derived attributes, there isn't going to be any way to provide that character with the advantages he should have. Again, that's my favorite type of warrior, and I can attest that the single most important thing that that character needs, and the greatest advantage he has, beyond weapon skill, is speed. He has to be able to get in and out of melee range quickly and easily, because he can't afford to get hit, but in past games, with movement speed tied to encumbrance, he was guaranteed a speed advantage, and had an opportunity to work on it and gain even more. So in past games, it was self-fulfilling - the thing he needed most was speed and the most immediate advantage to not wearing armor is increased speed. Without a speed attribute and with the, I believe, very real possibility that speed is going to be fixed, how will that character be able to gain the movement speed he really needs in order to move in and out of range effectively? And without that additional movement speed, what point is there to wearing less armor at all?

To the other examples - the warrior who dabbles in magic or archery - I'm concerned by the almost palpable hostility I've seen to generalist characters. It's been stated, too many times for my comfort, that, effectively, generalist characters are going to be gimped. Not simply that it might be a bit tougher path to follow, but that they simply will not be able to compete. At least that's the impression I've gotten. If that holds, then dabbling in other fields is simply going to be suicide, and we're back to just climbing the specialist trees.


That is indeed pretty much what I intended to say, and I remain concerned. To expand on what I just said, I don't get the impression that the game is going to reward "crosscutting traditional character builds" at all. I get the distinct impression that it's going to punish them. That, as far as "jack of all trades" builds go, the focus is clearly on "master of none." NONE. Zero. Zip. You're screwed if you even try so don't dare even try.

Now - it's entirely possible that that impression is a result of Beth going out of their way to ensure that we all understand that they're trying to prevent the inevitability of a master of all trades uber character, and that in conveying that, they've just gone a bit too far in the opposite direction with their rhetoric. However, it's also possible that they've gone a bit too far in the opposite direction with the actual game. We'll of course see, but I remain concerned.

Seem to have drifted away from my original point here though, which was simply that 50/280 is actually a pretty sizeable chunk - just a bit less than 20% - and that while mathematically, there are a staggering number of ways to arrange 50 choices out of 280 options, with the way that perks are certainly going to be ordered and interrelated - with many of the perks serving only as upgrades to lesser ones, many having to serve general roles to take the place of attributes (presuming that in fact happens) and the need to provide a progression of perks for all the skills and all the archetypal "classes," it seems to me that the number of ways in which those 50 perks might be arranged could well be uncomfortably low - that, to look at it from the opposite direction, if one were to decide on a particular sort of "class," then go through the entire list of perks, eliminating the ones that clearly aren't a part of that "class," one will end up with a remaining set of perks a bit too close to a total of 50 to provide much room for actual variation.

So, to go all the way back to the original topic and put an end to this wall of text - I'm not too concerned that 50 perks will be too few to choose, but I am concerned that 280 will be too few to choose from.

I think you're probably right here. All one-handed weapons will probably have the same range of perks. Hopefully the perks for each skill will be different though so two-handers will work differently to one-handers.



I'd expect armour perks to affect this. Possibly heavy armour perks will be more about reducing chance of being staggered etc, light armour perks will be about moving faster. I do fear totally unarmoured characters will suffer. No skill no perks.


Well there should be some reward for specialising. You can still cut across traditional boundaries and create a battlemage or a nightblade-type character. I think it is just about preventing the master of all trades uber character and thats a good thing.


Here I agree. There will be an immense variety of character types you can create but 1 barbarian using 2-handers and light armour will probably be much like another.

Pretty much this. The whole point of only picking 50 perks is that your power will be specified and not just general.

Will 50 perks be enough? Well myself I hope it'll NOT be, and by a long shot. I'd much rather at the end be like that "I want that perk, and that one too, and those two here I need them! But I only have only perk slot left, what to do :'("

The important thing here, IMHO is - will they have different gameplay feel? And IMHO damage over time versus increased criticals are different enough to feel differently and play differently. Ditto, something that I wanted since forever - stealth attack multiplier for daggers that allows one-hit sneaky kills with them. Yes, it is "only" increased damage, but there is no doubt that daggers will play very differently from MW and OB now. The best "stealth weapon" in OB was a dai-katana for Pete's sake!



Invest in stamina and use sprint? Also, I am sure that encumbrance will play it's role again. Anyway, the big advantage of a character deeply invested in weapons is that he can always use the best weapon at hand with maximum efficiency. A character that invested in one-handed weapons skill only wouldn't benefit much from finding a daedric dai-katana and for one who only picked sword-related perks switching their dwarven sword for a daedric axe would not be much of a gain. Your character will always benefit to the max from every good weapon he finds. Choices and consequences, right?




But they are not. In the previous TES games except partly for DF, specialist characters were severely gimped. Choosing major skills that aligned with racials and depended on the attributes that were naturally elevated from the start was the worst thing one could do, as it decreased the number of levels the character could gain, gimped their overall attribute stats, etc.
What is even worse, the games were balanced with only generalist characters in mind.
One way to fix that could have been to uncap the attributes, which for whatever reason, Bethesda was always adamantly opposed to. Another is to offer specialization benefits, as they have done in Skyrim.
Doesn't it occur to you that the _only_ way specialized characters can overcome the same challenges as the generalists is to have these advantages? The generalist is very flexible and can always have an optimal skill for the situation. The specialist doesn't - which is why their abilities have to be powerful enough to overcome a challenge even when they aren't optimal for it. It is impossible to properly balance a game where master of all trades exists. Either it will be laughably easy for certain types of characters or unreasonably difficult for others.

And BTW, I don't understand the notion that all warriors will be the same in Skyrim either, when we have the choice between one-handed and board, dual-wielding and two-handed weapons, with various perks that would allow for further specialization. Further there is a choice between heavy and light armor with attendant perks, using or not using a bow for ranged attacks, and health (hps, encumbrance?) versus stamina (special attacks, speed). It seems to me that warrior characters can be much more diverse in Skyrim than in MW and OB and what is even more important, _feel_ differently when playing. Addition of dual-wielding alone is huge - and given how it was a fervently requested feature since forever, I am surprised how lukewarm everybody is now that it is in!

Actually thinking it through I'm inclined to believe the generalist will still have an advantage
If as suspected there are seperate perk branches within weapon skills for axes, sword and blunt you won't need anywhere near all the perks to be an effective warrior
A character who just learns all the sword perks for example and then puts his remaining perks into another skill is going to be more effective than one who learns how to use all the different weapon types equally well. Thats unless they have made particular weapons much more effective in certain situations eg warhammers vs. plate armour but I've not seen anything to indicate that

Hammer type weapons are better against armored opponents so, yeah warhammers will probably handle better against plate armour.

People will mod the perk cap out then realize how stupid it is to have all 280 perks. The perks provide the greatest value in roleplaying, removing the cap would take out all the roleplaying.

All the debate is fine, but I don't think we'll actually know if it's enough until we have a complete Perk-tree or are actually playing the game. 50 could wind up being way too many, who know?

This.

I will be happy if 50 perks is enough for me to be a stealthy mage, snipping enemies with quiet spells from across the hallway while being nearly undetectable.

There are 280 UNIQUE perks. Meaning the perk for a fireball that sets an opponent on fire has multiple levels, but in the 280 count it only counts once.

One thing that hasn't been said is will there be level requirements, Skill Requirements, or the number of perks within the skill perk tree in order to select a particular perk.

It's called making a new character when you're done specializing with your perks. So of course it'll be enough. Also, remember that 280 perks include rank ups of said perk.

I don't understand why someone wants to be good at everything, just make a new character

indeed, the idea of narrowing your character down to a specific route kind of tickles me a little. i know that you want to be the best in everything but even gods have weaknesses. I find it quite fun that you can't max out every skill to 100 and have every perk, its just.... boring. The fact is if your a mage and your sick of blowing everyone up.. make a new character that isn't a mage. The only difference is instead of having one loading for all uses, you have three for the major routes, warrior, mage, and rogue. Even if their not named. It stops you from being perfect.

I like this. You only get to max out 4-5 skill trees, killing the God of all Trades and master of all characters who could do everything in Oblivion/Morrowind.

If you want to spread your 50 points across 10+ trees, you will never be the best at all skills. Jack of all Trades but master of none(the way it should be)






This is what you call specialization and customization, giving way to more playthroughs.