On that other board, I've read some reports from someone claiming to own the game. This user says that skill values do not seem to have any effect outside of qualifying for perks. This would be absolutely asinine if true, and so I have to doubt it. Can anyone here give any confirmation or denial of this?

For examples, the claim was made that leveling one-handed did not increase damage whatsoever. Alchemy up to rank 69 so far also did not improve potions crafted until that user took related perks.

Seriously? I hope not.

It's patently untrue. We know for a fact that higher skill levels on magic reduces casting cost even without the relevant perks. The skills still matter, just less than the perk trees.

I doubt it's true, they said all skills can still be useful at level 100 without perks, just a large chunk of the skills power is in perks.

I think that's correct isn't it? All the skills are for is enabling you to qualify for higher perks - it's why I don't think there are enough perks, they're absolutely fundamental

Soo... exactly like Oblivion.
Increasing Blade just gave you new special-moves to use. (which were rather pointless)

It is true for some Skills, like One-Handed. But not true for things like Smithing or Lockpicking

In the Oblivion I played, skill, strength and the weapon's health all factored into damage... but you couldn't increase damage significantly, especially not compared to a perk that'll double it...

Skills are now only relevant for unlocking perks ... and for unlocking certain items (merchants only sell higher level spell books if you have the appropriate skill (or at least they are more likely to have them). Quiet stupid concept that a character with 15 in 1-handed deals the same dmg as one with 100 when no perks are selected.

This is beyond stupid if this is true.

edit. I don't believe there is no positive correlation

I find that highly unlikely, the in game skill description even states that higher levels deal deadlier blows.


Sorry but damage was effected by skill in Oblivion.

I am pretty sure damage increased as your Strength (or Agility in some cases) increased... not the Skill level.

But hey... it's been awhile since I played. Not trying to start an argument

Nope. but it is a moot point. This is the skyrim forum anyways, I removed my earlier argument since it is irrelevant.

Skill level affects damage as well. Agility does affect marksman and strength does affect blade/blunt/hand to hand, but their skill level also matters for damage.


But back to Skyrim, this is extremely stupid if it's true. Does anyone here have the game who can confirm or deny this?

It was both, and strength and endurance contributed to stamina, which also impacted the damage dealt

My read was that skills don't change base impact, as bizarre and annoying as that sounds. They just open up the ability to do/use new skills/items

Not sure how much I like it

There is enough leaks out there. anyone with a lick of patience could easily confirm or deny based on watching one and checking the item stats for their junk when they reopen their inventories. A before and after the barrows cave on an identical item would do it.

I can't do it right now, cuz I have class, BUT< I really doubt skill are pointless. I think this is a trolltopic. (Not that the OP is a troll, just the whole topic that all of a sudden is realized just now.... after people have been looking at leaks for weeks.... and studying them like a research project...)

The way system works is that by raising any skill to 100 which is the relative value, you get absolute value of 40-50, and is made in such a way to prevent powergaming characters owning the game but still makes those skills useful to some degree

It's not a troll topic - I had always assumed this was the case

It makes for VERY specialised characters, which is a bit annoying IMO, I like to have several facets to my character, but it is what it is

Damage was directly affected by weapon skill, Strength or agility also increased damage but it was far less important.
magic skill reduced mana cost.
In Morrowind weapon skill gave increased chance for hit.

As I understand skill is less important than perks however you should still do significant better damage with high skill than low.

How does this work? Yes if you say that 100% is a skill like one hand weapons at 100 with all perk for the weapon and 40-50% is the skill at 100 with no perks you are probably right.
However it's more correct to say that skill is 100 without perks and perks give a 120% damage bonus.

This person who ever they are - is blowing hot air out their backside.Do you honestly believe this individual has a game that hasn`t been released yet?? Do you honestly believe for one minute that Bethesda would spend years on a system that doesn`t work?? Do you not think they would have picked up on that so called problem by now?? Do you not think that the game hasn`t been thoroughly tested before now?? Well duh, obviously increasing one handed without taking perks isn`t going to make a difference to damage output..the key to the game is Perks..so therefore you have to invest in them.

You folks claiming that this is "patently untrue" - do we have any data to back this up? Numerical magicka costs or weapon damage values at different skill levels? Because my experience is that the listed value for an iron dagger (etc.) is the same at rank 5 as it is at rank 20.

I don't know how to go about viewing magicka costs, and lockpicking "wedge" sizes/values are invisible. From my experiences, though, SushiSquid's fears are valid. I've yet to see any benefit from skills aside from the ability to meet perk prerequisites. : /

lain...

The worry here is that there is no correlation between raw damage and skill. Like 20 blade skill does 9 damage with a steel sword, and 100 blade skill does 9 damage with a steel sword. THAT is the argument, not whether skills are correctly unlocking perks on the constellation tree.

In all previous games, before perks I know, skills were directly tied to things like damage output. I know we have perks this time around, but the thinking was that you still got "better" at something relevant to your skill rating regardless of perks.

I am pretty sure that is still the case. As I said before, someone probably would have noticed this problem (considering the wealth of leaked footage) before this morning. So I think it is bogus.

Uhm...the game has been pirated for XBOX since Monday (31 october).