Continuation of the discussion in this thread.
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1412010-skyrim-a-critical-review/page__st__180

There's 88 regular perks, and you get 25. Skyrim has 250, and you get 80. The percentage of perks you can get is close. Skyrim with 32 percent, and fnv with 28. Thats pretty close, and not enough to say fnv's is drastically different due to perks. And thats not even counting the fact that fnv is very easy to max level your character and skyrim is not. More people get max leveled characters in FNV just by playing then in Skyrim by far. Very far. Most people cap at 55 or so, just by playing normally, no grinding, and thats only 22 percent of the perks.

I'm sure this will get locked soon, but I had a post I had typed up just as it got locked that I happened to copy and paste. Huzzah for planning ahead:


Just quoting this again because you should REALLY go back and check the entire perk list of Fallout New Vegas. You get 25 perks. There's http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas_perks (some are ranked, not sure if that includes DLC perks or not) with many being conditional, meaning three playthroughs won't cut getting them all. What Skyrim fails to account for is the conditionals; New Vegas DOES. The moment I start up a character in New Vegas, I'd estimate a good ~25 perks are impossible for me to attain already.



Trust me, I put a lot of hours into Oblivion. I know how you guys roleplay. I did it once too.
But I can't go back to it. I've played a game that didn't demand I limit myself, and still managed to make characters dramatically different (both flawed and powerful at the same time) when I aimed to make them as strong as possible.
To try and limit myself in Skyrim now? It just feels so fake and so forced. There's NO reason they can't improve on the system for TES VI so that both you and I are pleased: so that the same level of options and variance remains, but there's also limitations so I have reason to do more than a handful of playthroughs.

And no, I don't max Smithing, Enchanting and Alchemy. All I do is try to follow old-school class standards, but the moment you utilize a perk tree, you'll be utilizing practically the whole thing, with little choice in the matter. You have to try rather hard not to, and with some perk trees it's literally impossible at times.

Look at the math I did.

I would rather limit myself, then have the game limit me. I still hate the fact that I am forced to choose a perk at level up in FO3, and every other in NV. Maybe I want to try a perk less character, or maybe only 10 perks.

Which doesn't account for limitations imposed.

80 perks of 250 is about 1/3rd and 10 perks of spare change
25 perks of 88 is about 1/3rd and 13 perks of spare change (plus ranks of a couple of them, like Implant GRX, Toughness and Demo Expert)


The difference is many of New Vegas' perks have limitations and aren't available for every character, so unless you try REALLY really hard and actually make an effort to limit your Vegas playthroughs to three, completely different characters, then a three-playthrough New Vegas is impossible. Why? Because attributes matter. I mean the moment you made a high endurance character, he'd literally have to grab EVERY endurance perk because there's so many. His STR would need to be high too.

The other difference is quality of the perks. Perks like And Stay Back and Voracious Reader are game-changers. Skyrim lacks these. Best examples of these perks can be found in Block and Archery, but sadly most other perk trees are quite dull, limited to "20% cooler" perks.

You have almost all the skills maxed by level 50, so those limitations dont mean jack. You still get 25 perks, and most people on skyrim dont max out to 81. And its very easy to get to 50 in FNV Period. With that in mind, the common player will get a higher percentage of perks on FNV then Skyrim, unless they max their level to 81, which most dont.

I wouldn't. Trust me, I love freedom too, but as Skyrim has shown, freedom comes with a hefty price, the price being the degree of variety between characters. Not worth it imo.

And you need to check out the other trees because they have a lot of very good perks that are game changers

How do they not mean jack? I just said the moment you make your character in New Vegas, 20-25 perks are likely immediately impossible for you to acquire. This was no joke. Even if you make a maxed INT character and max every single skill, you still can't be god of everything because the perks are the game-changers and many are stat-based. The traits change the game and the characters even further. It's these limitations that serve variety, replay value and character customization.

And are you implying most people can't get past level 25 in Skyrim?

Creating different characters involves much more then skills. For me at least, things like my characters personality, motivations, main goals, and backstory are what seperate them. Not this one uses a sword, this one uses a bow, and this one uses magic. Or if you rather, this one uses guns, this one uses melee, and this one uses energy weapons.

No, I really don't think you do. If you did, you wouldn't be making these arguments. You're directly equating, over and over again, the labels attached to your character with your character. I have absolutely no clue how you could possibly level and perk every used skill tree with a "finished" character around level 50 when you'd already have spent 20 perks on the bottom rung of 4 skill trees. So, I repeat, you have to grind to get that high, you HAVE to artificially raise your skills to get the levels to gain the perks, Limit yourself? You HAVE to go out of your way to NOT be limited.

1. I said most people get to 55 and slow down or stop considerably in Skyrim. Where'd you get 25 from?

2. The only limitations on regularperks is your skill level. Most of the skill levels get maxed at 50, which most people get to. The fact that some are locked off due to your skill level early on doesnt mean squat because its the same in Skyrim, so Skyrim has that diversity as well.

But you can do this with ANY game.
You can pick up Half-life and play two different playthroughs differently based on personality, motivations, main goals and backstory.

That's YOU. You're doing all the work for that.
What I'm saying is the game should be expected to do more work to make your character more different in practice. But every bow user, every one-handed user and every Heavy armor user are doomed to act the same, both because of the perk tree design and the perks themselves.



I have a level 53 warrior that has maxed Archery, block, heavy armor and taken the neccesary parts of One-handed and smithing. (not getting both sides of smithing, not getting that useless sword/axe/blunt crap) Literally used nothing but those skills, and on occassion, lockpick, alteration (making gold to level smithing of course) or sneaking with some very basic enchanting (just to enchant my armor set).

Am I not limiting myself ENOUGH? Because I find that quite reasonable.

This^.

I do too. Thats only 21.2 of all the perks, so whats the problem? Thats not the majority of the perks and not enough to make your characters the same unless you focus on most of those again, which would be your fault.

1. You said people likely get more perks on their New Vegas characters than they do their Skyrim characters due to leveling difficulty of Skyrim. A level 26 Skyrim character will have equal perks to a level 50 New Vegas character. Your statement implies no one ever breaches level 27.

2. I just counted. 53 perks in New Vegas have an attribute requirement, some of which have multiple ranks. (three of those are karma level, but only one can be picked per character, examples of ranked ones include Action Boy and Implant GRX)
Your statement that skill level is the only requirement couldn't be any more false.

FWIW, the "welcome limitations" of FO do, in no way, add to replayability UNLESS your main goal is to acheive all perks (completionist), play the other branch of the text adventure (completionist), et. al. These things are not roleplaying, they're, well, completionists' ways of playing games. I've not played a single character to the "hard cap" of 81, nor will I. It wouldn't really be possible. Senor Cinco made a very good point, just because you go to a buffet doesn't mean you have to eat one meal of everything.

It's not completionist, it's the fun of seeing how different characters perform.
I go back and make another character to try Implant GRX or Voracious Reader because they sound like fun perks that open up a world of possibility for characters, and I CAN'T get them on my current character. Sure enough, they do. There's nothing "completionist" about it, it's just me trying out different builds and having fun with testing how they perform completely different.
I DON'T go back and make another Skyrim character because while the combination of perks may be new, it's still the same perks, just a different combination.

And I've not played a character to the hard cap of 81 either, nor would I. I have no desire to start pickpocketing and sneaking nonstop just to get more perks (that I don't need, since I already have everything I want) That 53 warrior is by far the highest I've gotten. I don't know why you insist on labeling me a completionist despite all of this.

1. Huh? No, it doesnt imply that at all, actually. I'm going by percentage not raw numbers, guy. The percentage on FNV would be higher than Skyrim for most players if they dont grind to 81 on Skyrim, which most dont.

2. You have the ability to buy attribute points according to your endurance, so that raises the amount of perks available to you. Even though I was wrong about it being the only limitation, anyone can still get 25 of the 88 perks in the game even without buying more attributes.

Saying every one-handed, bow, etc is the same is inane. If you are basing it one the skill tree alone sure they will be similar. But a sword and board character is quite different then a sword and magic character. A bow character can use stealth, or be an all out combat archer.

But wouldn't it be NICE if there was variance within the archery tree itself, instead of just with what skills you combine it with?

There is increased damage, critical hits, zooming in, slowing time, staggering, quicker shots, moving faster, and paralyzing shots. Thats a fairly varied tree.
What would you add then?

And why, exactly did you do this same the multiple times you claim you did? A mage playthrough is vastly different, and is a fighter/mage, as is a thief, and is a mage/thief, and is a warrior thief, and all fo the possible permutations in between. Wait, what exactly is your problem with this warrior in the first place? I mean, other than the fact that he/she is obviously bland? I mean, with the possible exception of that little Alteration bit, your character has no real character at all. Maybe that goes back to the whole RP thing. AND, the fact that you almost assuredly played this PC to WAY past his/her prime to get both 1H AND Archery to 100. It's really, really, not that easy to do unless, as I said, you're grinding. In this case, choose one or the other, 1H or Archery, and you can get it to 100, and the minor to MAYBE 40-50 by the time you've done the guilds, MQs, city quests, etc. You actually have to consciously push and swap out the weapons to get BOTH to 100 AND you have to play past "finishing".

Ok look. You guys hate limitations right?

http://images.uesp.net/0/0d/SR-perktree-Heavy_Armor.jpg is a limitation. So is http://images.uesp.net/9/9d/SR-perktree-Archery.jpg.
The trees are linear/practically linear in that if you want a truly useful perk, you end up taking a lot of other perks you don't care for or want or need.

Even before we discuss new perks we could add, we could make character customization 1000x better by simply doing away with the perk trees. No prerequisites, only the skill requirement.
As it is now though, if you make two Heavy Armored characters, you HAVE to nerf them to prevent them from using Heavy armored exactly the same. One will have Heavy armor that slows him, the other won't reflect damage.
This is a limit Skyrim imposes that's ridiculous for character customization, because it often times makes entire trees a neccesity.