I like my choices to have consequences. There is little enough of that already in this game. A least when I choose a perk, I know I’m choosing not to have others.

Oblivion did a terrible job with specializing, and so does Skyrim. Having the soure of power lie within the perks is just bad design. The perk system and the perks themselves need revamped completely to have specialization.

This.

You can be good at everything. You can reach 100 in all your skills in this game.

What you want to do is be over powered in everything.

I guess I fall on the "Full Perks" side of the argument. Much like I fall on the side of having the option to "overpower" a character using smithing, perks, enchanting, etc. because SOME people would like to play that way, I feel that this is pretty much the same issue. The only difference is that the vanilla/console game already is set up to utilize what's already there to become a god-like being, while the game is designed for a certain amount of perks to be used. Outside of the that, I can't see a good argument for limiting a player that way. That sort of, "I'm great at everything!" style of play doesn't appeal to me, but I don't think my playstyle should be enforced upon someone that wants to "master" every skill. Is that in the spirit of the game? I don't think so, but everyone else's idea of what the game should be is different. Unless the idea was to increase the max level to the amount of perks available as DLC is released, I think a future patch should be to do just that. It's a single-player RPG, so if you don't want to max out everything, don't. The people that do want to do that should have that ability.

Yes, they could have done more with the perk system, but to say it doesn't offer specialization doesn't make sense from a neutral, logical view. As I see it putting majority of power in the perks is a good way to specialize characters since it put major limitations on your to compansate for the fact that you can reach 100 in every skill.

I have no intentions of continuing this discussion as I don't really care if you have the same opinion as me or not, but I recomend that if you want to have a serious discussion make sure you can argue for your views. Don't state your opinions as facts.
Not trying to be an ass, just some friendly advice for future reference.

True, it is a Single Player Game and what one person does has no impact on another. However, if someone maxes out every skill and perk, they are no longer playing a role. Then, what's the point of the game?

Whatever the player wants it to be.

the point of all-purpose hybrid characters is the ability to play whatever style i'd like during any battle on any given gaming session.

i don't want to get pegged into a specific role because i get bored quickly due to the lackluster combat and repetitive content.

i've played all the specialized archetypes and associated quests with strict rping. what i found was that skyrim bored me quicker than any other TES game or either fallouts.

with my new hybrid, which, due to the horrible perks, allows me to debunk the theory that the jack-of-none character is not all-powerful, i have rejuvenated my desire to play skyrim a bit longer.

i'll save my strict rp characters and specialization to DiD runs.

edit: to put it bluntly, the point is that i roleplay however i'd like every time i pick up the controller. i don't have to wait until my next character build to actually roleplay a different type. the content and combat aren't good enough and don't create enough of a difference between builds to warrant multiple playthroughs.

I'll keep that in mind. I believe a better system for Skyrim would've been to cap levels. Oblivion was on the right track with major and minor skills, but Skyrim should've taken that to the next step. Oblivion failed at it due to the fact that they let you level up everything to 100 and reap the benefits as well. Skyrim should've had major skills and minor skills as well. The major ones you would be able to level to 100. The minor ones you would not be able to level to 100, perhaps 50.

Agreed

While specialization is usually a good thing, having so much of a skill's power in the perks heavily devalues the act of leveling the skill because you're getting almost nothing for doing so. Take the magic skills, for example: at 100 skill, spells cost (assuming no outside modifiers) roughly 41% of the base amount, which is 20% less than you get from a single -cost perk in the related tree. True, you need all 5 to cover all the spells, but the first two are basically a total waste as such spells tend to be cheap anyway and as such don't get much benefit from the related perk. If you engage in -cost enchanting those perks become pointless in turn, save as a means by which to unlock bonus perks for specific types of spells within that field, which basically means some of your level increases are a waste of time and effort as they contribute basically nothing to character development.

A more 'proper' implementation would have the two be more balanced in terms of contribution, so that leveling the skill actually matters rather than merely being a prerequisite for unlocking perks.

The problem with Skyrim is not so much that the only cap on leveling is maxing all skills as it is that a large percentage of the levels we do get are basically 'wasted', because the 5-rank 'starter' perks in many skills are pretty much mandatory to fill out because they have a disproportionate effect on the efficacy of said skills. My testing of the mod I made that merges them into one rank has shown that the freeing up of so many picks largely removes the need to increase the number that can be gained through leveling, because I basically have effectively 35-50% (depends on the build) more than before due to not needing to sink an additional 20+ into said 'starter' perks just to bring the skills up to par.

Examination of the perks themselves, as well as a number of builds that have been posted here, has shown that one of the reasons some folks feel they don't have enough perks is that they have sunk large numbers of picks into perks that aren't really contributing anything. Granted some of said perks have RP-valid reasons for being selected (such as pretty much anything in Lockpick and Pickpocket), but if one dumps all of these it frees up a lot of picks for use elsewhere. This sort of optimization results in hybrid builds that can do pretty much anything well, such as the one imseeingred has mentioned.

Of course, such builds still have some areas they are suboptimal in, however those tend to be aspects where poor performance doesn't really have much impact. The aforementioned Lockpicking, for example: who needs the mastery perks, when you can easily have several hundred lockpicks on hand and as such don't care if you break a bunch of them on one lock? True, Thief RP builds will take them since they're in character, but that's the whole point in such cases; in this case, however, the subject at hand is getting the most out of your perk picks, which renders them expendable since you don't gain much compared to sinking them into combat or crafting skills.

You make very good points. Well done.

If they do unlock all perks then there is space for a thread in a parallel universe "All perks not unlockable".

I think the idea of unlocking every perk goes against the whole concept of a role playing game. What I wouldn't mind though would be to have a selection of character types, mage, warrior, sneak thief, etc. You select the character type at the start and that then opens only the skill trees for the specific type. If that happened then I wouldn't have a problem with all those perks being unlockable.

If you read the responses of the OP, then you will see that they don't want to play a role playing game either.

It's pretty simple actually.. start a new game and give yourself 255 perky points. As you progress through the game you'll be able to spend those perk points on the perks right as they unlock and when you reach level 81..(which no matter what, is as far as you can go because that means you've gained 100 in all skills) you'll have plenty of perk points to have filled out every skill tree.

For my part I like the new system with limited perks way better then previous games. One thing that always bugged the crap out of me was how my character at max level would be the best mage, the best warrior, the best thief and the best assassin in the world. It just meant I became the guild leader of all guilds and did all things possible with that one character. Re playability was not really there as why would I make a new character as a thief if it just meant at endgame I would still be as good in it as my first character? The current system is not perfect, but it is way better in terms of making a character that stands out and is good at what he is good at. A bit like in Tabletop RPG's no longer can I become the best character in the world. I can become the best at what I do, but I will not be the best of everything. From a role playing perspective it makes perfect sense to me, while being master of everything had it fun moments in Oblivion and Morrowind it also became rather boring after some time. Why continue playing if you already was the best of the best?

Choosing a class at the beginning wouldn't really do a lot as TES games have always been about play what you want when you want. Previous games the class system meant in reality nothing as you could train all skills etc. the only thing it did do was let you choose what skills should be your main focus skills and thus train slightly faster. If they had made a class system that meant if you choose a thief you won't open up X perk tree it would simply go against the entire philosophy of the game and people would have been writing thread after thread on the forums how they had ruined the character system etc.

the problem with your opinion is that the skills and perks were not implemented well.

my hybrid is more powerful than my specialized archetypes because of the uselessness of some skills and the redundancy of many perks. i'm not saying that many aren't good for rping, but, many of them do not actually add power to your character. the jack of all trades, master of none can be the MOST powerful character with the appropriate choices.

as well, i disagree with the replayability aspect of this game. i HAVE replayed it many times with basic characters and DiD runs and different characters on subsequent playthroughs does NOT create a new and different experience. only the style of combat. everything else is the same because of the lack of alternative methods and options.

if i wasn't able to create my current hybrid i would have quit skyrim.

the rping aspects of the game need to be actual IN-GAME mechanics and have funtional gameplay. not mindplay and imagination.

I actually think that's a good idea.

Imo the level cap should have been 100 im sure 19 extra perks wouldn't have hurt.

I honestly believe that Oblivion had more replayability than Skyrim.

The role playing aspect of Skyrim is in the mind and imagination. The mechanics in Skyrim actually tend to kill role playing.

i agree that many of the rping aspects of skyrim are done within the mind and with the imagination.

i do not feel that the majority of the rping aspects of a game should be done in the mind.

it should be done with character/stat -based mechanics.

Which is part of the problem, since a JOAT-type character should always be suboptimal compared to the specialists as that's the whole point of specializing in the first place.

What's really needed is for many of the pointless perks to be completely redone, and the borderline ones improved to the point where they're competitive. While I'm dealing with it by making a perk overhaul mod (which is a work in progress, it's going to take some doing to fix some of them), this is really something that's best handled by Bethesda since they have access to the code and can implement things we cannot.