Most curious indeed.

yeah they also mentioned having pets as a perk in the same breath, very weird. I'm assuming (hoping) the perks aren't anything like skyrim perks given through leveling, but are things you pick up/learn/get cursed with etc through certain quests and encounters in the world. Maybe you save a dog trainer and they'll sell you pets, you save a village from werewolves but were scratched in the fight, etc.

Levelling up and using my newest perk point to unlock "werewolf transformation" in my dps tree would be beyond [censored].

Yeah automatic unlocks would be not only lame, but also much less fun than earning the perk through a quest.

sort of like in Fallout 3's Wasteland survival Guide questline, where if you do the bonus objective in the radiation quest, you get

i kind of think they will be options for an Ultimate ability.