This.

Just on the generic "+20% perks", I think there is a reasonable point in their favour---it stops every character being similarly powerful in the endgame. In previous games, every character that had 100 in a weapon skill was equally effective with those weapons. But in Skyrim, that's no longer the case; it also depends on whether you've taken the damage increasing perks. (1.9 undermines this a bit, however).

Of course, there may be better ways to achieve that goal, but I thought this should be pointed out.

I feel the point of the traditional TES skill system, is that your skill goes up with use. More use, more effectiveness. That is the appeal. Its pretty much perfect. In Oblivion where people complained about level scaling you were never really screwed. You could do anything and simply raise some combat skills at literally any point (I hate the level scaling for other reasons) and skyrim has almost none of that same appeal.

In a way, Skyrim has a much more strict class system that oblivion. It pretty much expects you to choose 3 or 4 skills from the outset and perk those. You can get more by grinding every skill in the game but that was never the point. As a result characters are more one dimensional than ever.

This could probably be resolved by eliminating those pesky novice-master/ + % effectiveness perks

On the contrary, you could indeed be very much screwed. Due to level scaling, once a character's combat skills maxed out it was possible to continue to raise character level by using other skills. If this happened character damage would increasingly fall behind enemy damage.

Except this isn't true. Enemy damage does not scale past a certain point. Only certain creatures were set to scale, and the only thing that continued to increase was hp at a insignificant rate. The players health also increases with level. And this only applied to boss creatures like liches and named npcs like mankar camoran. You can certainly hit rough patches mid game, but the problem could always be resolved.

This post is wrong. And bad, for being wrong. This post is Badong. (I am referring to my post, not Selene's)

Yeah, TES is definitely trying to perform a delicate juggling act. There are three things in play here: (i) the "you get better at what you do" system of skills being the main determinant of your character's effectiveness, and increasing those skills by using them; (ii) the freedom to make a character with any sort of combination of skills; (iii) wanting characters to be distinct enough at high levels to encourage replayability.

Now, in general, TES has always emphasised (i) and (ii) over (iii). And not without good reason. People who want to make godly characters can do so, but more focused/specialised characters can still be very powerful. Bethesda just left it up to the player to restrict themselves, to make their characters sufficiently different from one another. That seems like a good strategy if you don't want to second-guess what sorts of possibilities players want to explore.

Skyrim put more emphasis on (iii) than previous games, because of the limitation on the number of perks you can gain (before 1.9). The problem is that they did so by partially undermining (i). Now you still get better at what you do, but not to a large degree. For a lot of skills, you'll only be about 40% more effective at level 100 than you are at level 15. But with perks, you'll be close to 200% more effective. Of course, it's still true that in order to be maximally effective with a certain skill, you still need to increase it, because of the skill level prerequisites on perks. But you're right that some of the intuitive appeal of the skill system in previous games has been lost.

I'm not sure what the best way is to improve this; but Skyrim's system does feel somewhat "experimental", so I think it will be more refined and intuitive in the next game.

Ah I think I I was mistaken. For those creatures damage would scale past 25. But its still at a manageable rate for character that has actually managed to reach 40+. For example an ogre might do 30.5 damage at lvl 20 and 40.5 damage at level 40. But many creatures like land dreughs and deadroths don't scale and it's more commonly seen in bosses. I know the health scaling and apparently amazing fertility rate of ogres was a major pet peeve of mine. I won't argue that skyrims scaling is much better.

Whats worse is that right now is that if you chose to focus on more than 4 skills you will still find yourself around level 50 with some important perks missing. AND YOU CAN STILL GET THOSE PERKS!. But you have to grind many useless perks to do so. Ridiculously unintuitive and the game does not warn you about it's crazy xp curve. Thats why I think perks should be exclusively fallout esque. They don't supply the primary source of charactter growth.

Level 50 is about 7 skills at 100. But it seems right that the less skills you focus on, the more perks you can take in that skill. If you want to use more skills, you should have to spread your perks around more.

Certain perks should be granted automatically. There's no reason why a mage has to choose the school cost reduction perks; it should be given that he simply gets better at spellcasting as he grows in power.

I don't know WHAT your talking about !

No, it's a B/S system period, they tried it, it doesn't work, move on.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT DETERMINS WHAT YOU CAN DO ? YOUR CLASS !!!! YOUR ATRIBUTES!!! YOUR LEVEL!!!

Give me a fippin break, If you would have said years ago " my characters level 81" you'd be thrown out of the game!! This new age of epic level PCs has got to end.

You should be able to brag on a 20 level mage, AND BE A HECK OF ALOT MORE DEADLY!!! I never play mages but I never wanted to run into one alone. In Skyrim, they are a waist of space .....

Man, leave this to the grown folks , lol j/k

In the previous GAME, not "games". The damage you did in Morrowind was dependent on the weapon you used, and on your Strength, as long as you were at full Fatigue and took the time to draw the weapon back for a full swing. Skill (along with Agility) affected the odds of hitting, which got pretty close to 100% against "routine" adversaries by about 70-80 skill. They nerfed the damage according to skill in Oblivion, rather than have you occasionally miss an attack.

A high-level Morrowind character could increase damage either by boosting Strength or by enchanting a weapon; beyond a certain point your weapon skill became meaningless except against other high-stat opponents. As in reality, the difference between a veteran fighter against a novice and a master fighter against a novice is meaningless; it's a slaughter in either case. A more true-to-life combat system would have incorporated both the Morrowind misses at low skill level with the Oblivion damage increases at higher skill levels, reflecting that a novice can still kill you with a stroke of a sword or axe IF he manages to hit you, but a skillful fighter will be better able to hit you where it will do the most damage. Perks could be added to give additional bonuses with certain weapons, against certain opponents, or to produce certain effects (disarm, cause bleeding, attack specific body parts to weaken opponent, etc.).

THERE YOU GO, when I'm a high level fighter, I want to cut through reguler mercs like BRUCE LEE and have to dig deep against the top opponents.

SOMEONE_reborn, on 23 Apr 2013 - 4:02 PM, said:


Have you ever worn armor and trained with weapons? I have

Lol. That is probably the funniest thing you've said. I know nothing about you but I can see you spend a lot of time on the pc and for all I know you probably work in an office or at a desk. Putting armor on doesn't mean that you know all about it. That comment seems hilarious. I bet it seemed really heavy to you as you wouldn't be physically trained in it like those that wore it for real. You are correct that I have never worn any armor other than a modern flak jacket but that's hardly the same. With regards to experience then yes, I can compare. From around 8 or 9 until 16 I was boxing and I made it to County level and bordering on semi-pro which is not something many can honestly claim to have achieved. This is not a "I am 'ard because I boxed" comment but rather the acknowledgment of the training behind it. What my point is that yes I probably do have some idea what it took to be a warrior back then. Probably more than someone who likes to dress up. What I do know is that much of training to fight is about fatigue. I had to spend hours practicing to come under a blow so it scraqes the top of my head just because an inch or so lower would take a lot more breath away from me. Part of this training was going along the rope moving my head either side so I feel it touch my hair. Then I'd practice in the ring timing it right to come under punches. The same is lashing out uncontrolled as not only does it leave you open but it tires you quickly which a trained fighter will use to his advantage. When I watch boxing I can usually guess who will win solely by watching their energy consumption. often the not so good looking boxer will be holding back with a defensive stance just to wear the opponent down. This is usually what happens when cocky boxers come across real talent as they can't get the quick win (Prince Nazeem was a classic example). Being a good boxer is only half the training. Anyone reading this who themselves have stepped into the ring will know that fatigue and stamina is essential. The second you tire then you hands drop leaving you open to attack. What a lot of people also don't appreciate is how heavy gloves can become when you had your guard up for a long time.


So from all this I can imagine the amount of physical daily training any knight or armor wearing soldier would have gone through to be able to use the equipment. I also know they would have been very able in the armor compared to someone just putting it on. I imagine the combat is very similar to boxing with regards to using block to reserve energy and the amount of energy that is required to even hold the sword or weapon up. Much like me with the gloves. So therefore you being the expert in dressing up doesn't give you the right to dismiss others input. Baring this in mind consider how hard it would be for a mage or a Rogue style character (thief, assassin etc) to be able to compete to a similar level when they've spent the time a warrior has spent on physical training and athletics on motor skills or increasing their mental ability.

I also am aware how hard it is to built athletics, strength and stamina separately as all come through physical training. That is why I think it better just to have one attribute for a warrior, one for a mage and one for a rogue and then concentrate more on the skills and their perks. As someone else said it seems strange to magically put points into various things like endurance, intelligence etc. They should level themselves better. I also agree massively with the comment that someone said where they hated the auto perking.

SOMEONE_reborn, on 23 Apr 2013 - 4:02 PM, said:


What's with all this disdain for the game manual? Every game, except for casual things like Angry Birds is complex enough to require a manual. If you are overburdened with reading a couple of pages in a manual, it's your problem. You are seriously forcing others to sacrifice depth and immersion just because you cannot spare 5 minutes to RTFM?

It's not so much the games manual. It's the effort that goes into the character before you've even started playing. It's also the planning that doesn't even need to be there. I personally think it better to develop your character as you level and not before. The development should be more natural and work itself out without it being confusing. Why make it confusing when the game can work it out for you?

No one is saying on a level like Angry Birds. I assume that is just another attempt at humor. Games like Skyrim, Witcher 2, Fable, Dragons Dogma have achieved a more natural development that levels attributes itself and all three have simplifies attributes and have put more effort into skills and perks as you level.

When I say making the attributes less confusing it is not saying to make the game simpler. Like I said before that I don't accept this term "dumbing down". That term is trying to make it sound as the game has become infantile which it hasn't. Being able to do more with the perks to skills rather than having autoperks isn't "dumbing down"

I believe he is talking about the fact that simply using a skill in the previous systems leads to your mastering it. The only way to avoid mastering a skill is to avoid using it, and that is both unrealistic (not necessarily a bad thing in a game) and annoying (which is a bad thing in a game).

In non-TES games, if I want to play a character who is good at thieving but poor at sword fighting, I play a thief. As a thief, I can sword-fight as often as I wish and my class prevents me from ever becoming a warrior-caliber blade master. I can't have that kind of character in Morrowind. In Morrowind, nothing except non-use prevents a skill from reaching its maximum potential.

Skyrim's perk system allows me to build and play that kind of character. Some of my character's skill progression comes automatically through simple use. The bulk of it, however, comes from my choice of perks, and I like that. If I want to play a swordsman, but not a particularly good swordsman, I can decline perks that make me a better swordsman.

In Morrowind, you can reduce your progression by choosing something as a Miscellaneous skill, or increase it relative to Minor skills by choosing it as a Major skill. If you're constantly using a sword, spear, or axe, then you're going to get better at it. Choosing a Short Blade, your increases in Strength will be less than if you chose to use a Long Blade or Axe, so your thief would still be slightly less capable than a dedicated fighter in a stand-up fight, even if you did do the same amount of fighting. The system worked fine if you understood its quirks and limitations, but it wasn't always intuitive; now we have one that's simple to understand (at least until you start trying to figure out how to unlock a few particular Perks that you want) and doesn't do what I want at all.

The previous system was far from perfect (and they seem to have gone out of their way to show off the bad aspects of it in OB), but it did a lot better in several ways than a completely classless and clueless "you start out as nothing" system. Having a couple of "generic +x % " perks isn't necessarily a bad thing, but when the whole system revolves around them, then it's restrictive in different ways. Rather than limiting your character, now it limits mine. Somehow, I don't see that as an improvement, just trading one set of problems for another, without bothering to actually fix anything.

Interesting, it seems that I can get the ENTER key to work here in the forum if I reply to a quote, but not if I create a new post without a quote.

Well Dinrauko, I could careless what he means since it's appearent he's pretty far from understanding what I mean. ANYWAY...........

ON YOUR COMMENT, that's the purpose of choosing a "CLASS", to commit to a 'lifestlye', (the PC's obviously), such as a thief.
THEN you have your starting attributes, STR, DEX,CON---whatever, SO NOW your a thief with high strength and low dexterity,(think CONAN the Barberian movie version), your going to have a harder time leveling up in thieving since your not as nimble but you'ld be a better fighter than most other thieves.

OK- NOW though your a natural fighter, you really want to keep on thieving, naturally you will become more nimble, and stronger as you develop, AND since you will have to fight, (AT LEAST SOMETIMES), you,ll become better at that, as will all thieves. WITH THAT SAID, a thieves primary fighting strength is defensive, mainly through avoiding blows and striking when the best opportunity presents itself.

SO NOW, your moved up in level, say an old school lvl 12 THIEF, (Pretty good back then), your more of an offensive threat than a lot of 12th lvl fighters due to your offensive power an your defenive ability. THE THIEVES REDUCED HEALTH POINTS (HP) , aren't as much a concern due to your high STRENGTH and CONSTITION bonuses.

EIGHTER WAY, there's about a 0%(maybe a little more lol), that you'll ever come across or produce another PC the same. (WHICH THIS KINDA PC IS MY FAVORITE, since I love to swing swords but hate having to rely on someone else to pick locks).


AND A NOTE TO BRETON H, dude it looks like you got some good imput, but man, IT's TOO much at once.

Yes the +damage perks has its place but could be done better, just a better description would help. Perhaps move most under the sub weapon type.

The lost opportunity function is build in, you need both skill and perks for something to be useful, because of level scaling an unused skill become relatively weaker and weaker.

Try using an bow at level 40 if you never have used it before.

This was also true in Morrowind who did not have perks. In short not an problem, if somebody want to raise all skills to 100 I hope they enjoy it.

Your system might easy block some builds like batlemage, things might be balanced make it harder to cast spells or sneak in heavy armor.

I agree with you on skill checks, high speech let you talk your way out of things, this was common and probably a bit to much used in Fallout 3.

Do not understand, you think something more like Fallout 3? It also had skill and attribute (SPECIALS) requirements for perks. Many was just +damage effects, many was skill based and useful for one play style like sniper, half was hopeless and just raised skills, other was generally useful and the last part was just for fun or roleplay.

Good posts, thanks.

Just to elaborate on my line of thought. Here's a different perspective on Skyrim's character customisation/development system. Skyrim is in fact a game with class restrictions; it's just that you don't pick these restrictions at the start of the game. Rather, these restrictions fall into place as you progress your character and choose certain perks. This is achieved with a combination of (i) restricting the total number of perks you can get on a single character, and (ii) having perks play the main role in how effective skills are. So as you increase skills/levels, each perk you choose means that you've locked your character out from choosing another perk elsewhere.

Of course, I don't want to overemphasise just how variable high level characters are in Skyrim, given how imbalanced some of the skills/perks are. But in principle, I think that's the sort of idea that Bethesda were going for. Class selection/restriction is something that occurs throughout the stretch of the game, as you get feedback from the game from how you play; it's not something that just occurs in the beginning. (We also see this sort of design philosophy in the switch from birthsigns to guardian stones).

And again, I don't want to say that Skyrim's skill/perk system is the best or only way to achieve this aim; I'm just trying to get clear on what Bethesda were trying to do, where it succeeded, and where it failed. For all that people like to praise the attribute system of previous games, I think it's pretty unlikely that it will return. If Bethesda are going to improve on Skyrim's character customisation/development system, most likely it'll have to be done within the confines of the skill/perk based system; and, perhaps more importantly, within the sort of "class selection occurs as you play" design philosophy that Bethesda are going for. (There's no reason why attributes couldn't work in this system; I just think Bethesda won't try to do it).

There were things I didn't like about attributes, some were stupidly linked to skills. For example illusion only improved personality...an attribute that did nothing to actually aid casting those spells.

Well with some other game's not being able to translate old school logistic in an effective way, I can see some possible reasons Bethesda tried this new generic skill/perk system. IT's not an easy task to smoothly integrate abilities, classes, attributes and other PC stats into a computer format and keep it from feeling cumbersum and awkward.

BUT, it's the only way to really give PCs diverity in such a way to make multi-play throughs fun. Ideally, a thiefs experience and a fighter's should be completely different. THERE really should be things in the game that one or the other PC won't be able to experience simply due to the class disperity between them. GENUINLY, making for a difference experience each play through.

WHEN PEOPLE, want to post charictor pics in the forums, I'm like "WHY"? I know what your charictor looks like ....... MINE!

THAT's why I keep preaching, the game needs to be focused on the PC, not a main story line.

To answer the OP; Yes, most definitely.

It is true that Morrowind and Oblivion have mechanisms for limiting skill effectiveness, but Skyrim's perks allow for more dramatic and effective limitations. Besides ensuring that your thief will never become more than a passable swordsman, you can also ensure that your swordsman-warrior will never become more than a passable swordsman.

Skyrim begins at the moment in your character's life when he starts his skill specialization. That beginning reduces the number of fitting backstories that can be created for a character. That limitation is a Big Deal for some players, and perhaps rightly so, but it has no bearing on what a character can ultimately do.

The removal of classes and the introduction of perks actually did fix problems. Not everyone considered them to be problems, but pleasing everyone normally isn't a criterion when judging an item fixed.

You describe a good use of classes and attributes, and I like the concept of a class representing a commitment to a lifestyle (instead of simply being a profession). Classes aren't always needed for doing what classes do, however, and I like looking around for new ways to do things.

With that I agree 100%.