[WIP?]A Detailed anolysis on the Perk and Leveling System : V - Skyrim

» Thu May 24, 2012 7:11 pm

I agree to your suggestions

there is alot of fine tuning needed for the level system and somehow I can't understand how the actual system should allow more freedom than before....

oblivion:
We leveled Character stats every level, those increased certain abilities like stamina and magicka regeneration and so on. This is now replaced with perks and the main attributes: magicka, stamina and health
The new system is a combination of the old one, only with the difference that we have less possibilities now, because instead of making it "only" skill relevant how fast you can go in a tree (also with adding new points), we have this ONE point per lvl up....

before you were able to choose where to go...if you wanted to do jack-all-trades character, you spend your time with leveling a bit of this and that skill and than had to THREE attributes to raise. Depending on your training you had different amount of points...NOW you get only this ONE point, doesn't matter what you train and sure...you can spend it everywhere, but only if you met the requirements O.o? ok....just to be clear: if you are already restricted to only 1 point per lvl, why are the requirements so high ? or why don't you get extra points only to spend on maybe "magic" perk "trees" when investing more time into that?

before you got those "talents" for every skill only with using the skill, it was a passive ability that automatically added when reaching a certain point. Why do I have to spend those precious/rare Perk points I get per lvl now?

so....I don't think that the overall system is wrong...or the idea is worse than anything else...it has alot of potential, because it reduced the abilities in a good way....uhm you could say, it's not streamlined, but less confusing nontheless. You can still work into it deeper if you want, but it allows you to still have the overview over what you want and already have.

Anyway.....in my opinion, there are too less spells/skills to compensate for the loss of attributes and the forced leveling system. Let "supportive skills" automatically gain their positive effects with leveling them, without adding points to them, maybe make some effects be possible to gain through quests(I just got a nice permanent effect from one quest already

)
make it worth to explore skill trees actually and make it worth it to spend time ingame for leveling blacksmithing O.o

and btw. I thought Bethesda said in an interview that it's intended to have different strength enemies....yes, they are leveling with you, but depending on how "difficult" they wanted an encounter to be, they added something like a modifier to the enemy levels like "character level +3"

I would like to see some "not already visited fixed enemy levels" only on some levels, where you wouldn't expect the enemies to prepare for a war lolz or somethign like that. Why should bears be as strong as youself in elven armor and an elven sword?LOL

I think I love everyone in this thread, but I especially think it would be cool to gain perks (Whether the same ones as they are in game or retooled ones with mods) through questing. Have some of the master trainers in the game, send us on quests so that we may hone our skills and when we complete it we are given the perk. Easier Perks = Easier Quests. It still would be nice to earn perks on level ups, but maybe every other level or every five levels. Obvious this has some balancing issues, but I'm far too tired and ignorant of such things to even fathom how it could be balanced. Still, I cannot wait to see what project(s) come from this thread. Some great ideas are brewing!

» Thu May 24, 2012 7:44 pm

In addition to in-tree perk balance, I think we need to take a look at cross-discipline perk balance. Some perks are powerful one-pointers that are extremely useful to just about any character, such as Stealth (Sneak), Shield Wall (Block) and Haggling (Speech). The fact that only one point is required to continue up the tree and their diminishing returns means that it's best to simply put one point in and let it be.

I disagree with the notion of splitting Weight Reduction and Strength Boosts perks into the Smithing Tree: all they are are temporary, wasted perks. While I feel that the current system is definitely flawed and forces you to take temporary, wasted perks, putting more specific ones based on armor tier is not the way to do it. As it is, the two-branch system already forces you to skip ranks with weapons, when your Dwarven X is far superior to an Elven or even Glass X simply because of the power of smithing reinforcements. No matter what path you pick, your armor type forces you to skip half of the weapon ranks, as and as it is, going to Light Armor path forces you to take two more perks (Dragonsmithing and Daedric Smithing) to reach the highest tier of weaponry.

The "animation time" argument is simply annoying and boring. While I can accept failure chances, as a failure is an excuse for me to go back out into the wilderness to kill things and gather materials (this being arguably the main point of the game), an animation restriction forces me to... sit in town? If crafting a dagger is going to take me a whole minute, I'm just going to Shift-Tab and check Facebook, or go grab a soda or something. Stop wasting my time, game. Requiring me to find the item to break it down to rebuild is is equally pointless. I've rarely required two of any piece of equipment, and it's not like Enchanting where you can scale the enchantment up to suit later equipment.

What I propose, then, is tying unlocking recipes to quests at skill breakpoints, and allocating perks to broad improvements.

For example:

At Smithing 50, you receive a Miscellaneous Objective to go speak to a certain Blacksmith. Once there, he instructs you to go dungeon dive for, say, a Dwemer smithing manual that he heard was at the bottom of a dungeon. One trip and several Sphere Centurions later, you return with the smithing manual in hand, as well as several Dwarven Ingots, and the Blacksmith agrees to decipher the manual, or perhaps send you to a scholar to do it, and you learn the Dwemer recipes.

EDIT: Totally inb4'd by NamirOhkami. Thanks bro. D:
Scattered throughout the game are the recipes for high-end armors like Dragonscale and Dragonplate, which Blacksmith NPCs will start to point you towards as you hit Smithing ~85. Unlocking the Daedric recipes will require confronting and defeating a powerful Dremora Lord.
The Perks will still be in two or three branches: one for light armor, one for heavy armor, and one for weapons. Each perk will effect all items in the category, with broad, useful effects like "Artisan: Reduced Weight on Reinforced Items by 25%," or "Sharpened Edge: Reinforced Weapons have a 10% Chance to Critical Hit." Each branch will have 3-5 perks, so as to keep it in line with the 10-15 most trees have.

Alchemy and Enchanting, likewise, need less of the flat bonuses (Enchanter and Alchemist) and more of the specific bonuses (Corprus Enchanter and Concentrated Poison) that allow you to specialize in say, magicka-oriented enchantments for a Mage character or poison-oriented alchemy for an offensive thief.

» Thu May 24, 2012 11:25 pm

Perks are now more important than skills.

Partly disagree with you here. I would say that the first perk in a tree, the one that grants +effectiveness is too important, but the rest can be ignored. Right now, I'm using shields with no points in blocking and they're still good. I only worked on the first perk in One Handed until level 40 and I was still doing well with them.

Many perks go against the "class" (or role) the skill fufils. That is to say, many skills have perks that eliminate skill boundaries that make the skill unique. Such as, Heavy Armor has a perk that makes it so the armor is weightless... why? Isn't the point of heavy armor that it is heavy? This unbalances the pillars that make up each skill.

I definitely agree with you here. Heavy armor should not get that perk at all. Why even choose light armor at all?

Certain skills were also completely sidelined, such as Smithing. The skill number itself for this skill is totally useless

The skill number itself determines how far you can improve any weapon or armor, regardless of perks.

I think people may be over emphasizing the importance of perks. The real test is making a new character and never using a single perk point.

» Thu May 24, 2012 9:49 pm

Well I personally love the idea. Sudo! Make me this mod!

» Thu May 24, 2012 4:16 pm

I disagree with the notion of splitting Weight Reduction and Strength Boosts perks into the Smithing Tree: all they are are temporary, wasted perks. While I feel that the current system is definitely flawed and forces you to take temporary, wasted perks, putting more specific ones based on armor tier is not the way to do it. As it is, the two-branch system already forces you to skip ranks with weapons, when your Dwarven X is far superior to an Elven or even Glass X simply because of the power of smithing reinforcements. No matter what path you pick, your armor type forces you to skip half of the weapon ranks, as and as it is, going to Light Armor path forces you to take two more perks (Dragonsmithing and Daedric Smithing) to reach the highest tier of weaponry.

Dragon smithing gives you the best Light Armor in the game aside from the Nightingale armor, and you can't go Glass->Dragon->Daedric. You have to go Orcish->Ebony->Daedric.

» Thu May 24, 2012 11:41 pm

Dragon smithing gives you the best Light Armor in the game aside from the Nightingale armor, and you can't go Glass->Dragon->Daedric. You have to go Orcish->Ebony->Daedric.

Ah, does it? I apologize, my experience with that side of the tree is limited, since I've only rolled a Heavy Armor character. Regardless, you're cheated out of the best weapons in the game, since improving them without the perk is pointless, practically.

» Thu May 24, 2012 11:51 pm

First of all, I agree with the OP. This was my complaint after my first 5 seconds of looking at the perk tree on day one.
I'll throw some stuff out there, a lot of it may be repetition.

Perquisite
1. noun A thing regarded as a special right or privilege enjoyed as a result of one's position.

Requisite
1. noun A thing that is necessary for the achievement of a specified end.

As the Op said, perks (aka perquisites) absolutely must not intrude on the requisites (or as the OP calls them, "pillars". The only possible exception might be one final perk that only unlocks after all other perks in the tree are unlocked (including 2 or three crappy ones that nobody would get except to unlock the final perk).

But in all fairness, Bethesda did take the perquisite system of Fallout and try to turn it into a requisite system when they got rid of classes all together. I would not be totally opposed to another game that had a requisite system like this one has, rather than a perquisite system... just not another unimaginative version of it.

Next, I would like the non-combat perks to not modify the difficulty of the enemies. So if I choose to dump all my points into speechcraft and pickpocketing, that doesn't metaphysically cause all the bandits to find elven armor. Of course, the other equally viable answer would be to just make it so that perks are perks again instead of requisites. But I actually like the idea of keeping it a requisite system if it can be done imaginatively.

Third, I would like the system to be less restricted. This would be difficult. But I would like to see less restrictions on perk choice. I find that when I get a point to spend, I really only have one or two logical choices because everything else is locket out.

Fourth, and maybe most importantly, get rid of that awful gui. I want to scroll around simply my moving my mouse pointer and then I want to be able to click on any star I chose without following a "path" and in no particular order.

» Thu May 24, 2012 4:40 pm

I just had a thought. What about expanding the perks, increasing the number of perk points you get at level, but limiting one of the points to the types of skills you used to get your level. This way you wouldn't get your entire level by gaining combat skills and suddenly your magic is half the cost. Notice that the perk trees are separated into the 3 main groups (with, what I thought was, a pretty cool design for the nebulae). Perhaps even have it to where you always get one point that you can put into anything, but if more than half your skill ups are from one discipline, you get an extra point to spend in that discipline. Maybe even have it so if ALL of the skill ups are from a single skill, you get yet another perk point to spend on that skill only. Not quite sure what to do with the trade skills though, as they seem to fall between two disciplines.

On second thought, this might make JOAT characters even weaker in relation to their specialized counter parts... I'll have to think more on this. Maybe something like being forced to spread out your perk points if you skilled up on many different disciplines, but giving a god number of perk points to spend... I dunno.

» Thu May 24, 2012 4:43 pm

Was perusing the OP and saw this...

Your skill level in a skill isn't used all that much to determine how good you are in it. Instead, Bethesda offloaded this important duty to the perks.

Now I beg to differ... It depends on the skill, but at least with Archery, 1h and 2h, the skill affects the damage of the weapon. If you have 10 1h, a sword may to 5 dmg. But if you have 100 1h, it does like 60... That makes a HUGE difference to me. The perks only assist in enchancing that...

Alchemy skill affects the strength of your potion, enchanting and smithing the strength and quality of your work. Block, the amount blocked, same with heavy/light armor: affects the armor of the item and how much damage is negated. Sneak makes you sneak far better, etc.

Each skill is still incredibly important and the perks are simply there to help. The only example I can think of that kind of does rely on perks are some magical skills, but thats only like 3/18 skills in the game...

» Thu May 24, 2012 6:51 pm

Your ideas are interesting, and have some merit. I refer you to http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/choice-and-conflict and their similarly-inclined spiel on the nature of choice in games.

I like the idea of perks adding utility rather than straight boosts, but it will of course take a lot of work and creativity for you to come up with 280 perks that are not "be 10% better at ___". I wish you success.

I have a few problems with what you've said, though. Like smithing. Do not make me wait a minute to find out whether I have successfully crafted Daedric armor. I do not play games to replicate the experience of difficult, boring work. I swear to Sheogorath that if you do this, I will either butcher up a private copy of the mod or never install it at all. Same goes for failure chance with loss of materials. I hate failure with loss of materials. Features like this introduce anxiety into my games. Smithing does take a certain amount of time to do, even with instant crafting, and I want a return on my time investment; smithing needs to be a money source, not a money sink. Anxiety, boredom - these are things that I have enough of in real life, tyvm, I do not want them in my games.

» Fri May 25, 2012 1:19 am

Was perusing the OP and saw this...

Now I beg to differ... It depends on the skill, but at least with Archery, 1h and 2h, the skill affects the damage of the weapon. If you have 10 1h, a sword may to 5 dmg. But if you have 100 1h, it does like 60... That makes a HUGE difference to me. The perks only assist in enchancing that...

Alchemy skill affects the strength of your potion, enchanting and smithing the strength and quality of your work. Block, the amount blocked, same with heavy/light armor: affects the armor of the item and how much damage is negated. Sneak makes you sneak far better, etc.

Each skill is still incredibly important and the perks are simply there to help. The only example I can think of that kind of does rely on perks are some magical skills, but thats only like 3/18 skills in the game...

This is true, but my point was more along the lines that perks are more important to get to improve your character than actually getting a skill increase. Yes, being level 70 in 2handed does make you do more raw damage than the same skill at level 30, but getting perks that boost your DPS output is a much quicker and much more effective way, and the game is balanced in a manner where it expects you to get these perks. If you didn't specialize though, or focused all your perks in other skills even if you used two handed a lot, you'll find yourself grossely underpowered when you start getting to higher levels.

I like the idea of perks adding utility rather than straight boosts, but it will of course take a lot of work and creativity for you to come up with 280 perks that are not "be 10% better at ___". I wish you success.

I have a few problems with what you've said, though. Like smithing. Do not make me wait a minute to find out whether I have successfully crafted Daedric armor. I do not play games to replicate the experience of difficult, boring work. I swear to Sheogorath that if you do this, I will either butcher up a private copy of the mod or never install it at all. Same goes for failure chance with loss of materials. I hate failure with loss of materials. Features like this introduce anxiety into my games. Smithing does take a certain amount of time to do, even with instant crafting, and I want a return on my time investment; smithing needs to be a money source, not a money sink. Anxiety, boredom - these are things that I have enough of in real life, tyvm, I do not want them in my games.

I'm not saying the best course of action is to axe all perks and start over. Many perks implemented are done pretty well. Many of them need tweaking to be more balanced as to not disrupt the "pillars" that make up a skill. And a few of them I feel are imbalanced to how a perk should function, such as many of the basic starting perks that simply amplify damage you do, which is a role the skill should play.

Also, I'm certainly open to suggestions for a better smithing mechanic. The current one is broken, because the skill itself serves very little purpose compaired to the perks, and its very easy to power level and exploit. If you actually read what I typed, you would see that only high level armors that are outside of what you should be able to do would require waiting. This was to prevent people from abusing the chance of failure mechanic via saving and reloading, but yet still allow anyone to attempt to craft things at anytime, in order to get rid of the perks having this function (I feel like the skill should represent this, not perks). I.E. if you were to smith Steel armor at 30, it would work almost exactly like it does now. However trying to craft Daedric at the same level would involve a certain wait time and a certain chance of failure (if the chance is low enough its probably best to just have it say "You cannot craft this"). Crafting Daedric at 100 however would work like it does now (instant).

I'm open for better suggestions. I'm just trying to think of ways to make it so your skill determines naturally what you can do on a base level as a smither, not the perks.

» Thu May 24, 2012 7:40 pm

On perk branches and choice:

Skyrim's perks were a huge disappointment, primarily for the reasons you've stated and also because of the general lack of depth and imagination they display (uninspired is the word that comes to mind). A glance at D&D, WFRP, or any number of other RPG systems is sufficient to demonstrate how many more interesting, balanced and game-enriching perks could easily have been implemented without eclipsing the skills.

I don't have time now to provide anything really lengthy or constructive, but I'd like to add a small idea that I think would expand character building wonderfully: "universal" or skill-less perks, which might be or affect things as diverse as powers & Shouts, character movement, item use, lycanthropy & vampirism, etc. Care would need to be taken to balance them against the effects of skill ranks, but it's the kind of detail I really miss whenever I view ~~my character sheet~~ the skills menu.

Your ideas are interesting, and have some merit. I refer you to http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/choice-and-conflict and their similarly-inclined spiel on the nature of choice in games.

I like the idea of perks adding utility rather than straight boosts, but it will of course take a lot of work and creativity for you to come up with 280 perks that are not "be 10% better at ___". I wish you success.

I totally agree with the above two posts and I'd like to expand upon the idea. But first I recommend the reader to watch http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/choice-and-conflict as linked to by Asterai. Right now there are already a lot of 'Branches' within perk trees for specialization (Necromancy vs. Conjuration (might seem strange, but Necromancy technically isn't conjuration) in Conjuration, Poisons vs. Potions in Alchemy, Shock vs Frost vs Flames in Destruction). This makes the game fun. Will you play a necromancer or a conjurer, a master poisoner or a herbal healer, etc.

I think it is pretty well done right now, because if you focus on only 4-5 skills it is theoretically possible to max out all branches of a perk tree, but if you have more skills you have to choose a branch. If the perk trees would be reworked, more of these branches would be the most important thing to strife for, because it adds choice.

On perks through quests:

I think I love everyone in this thread, but I especially think it would be cool to gain perks (Whether the same ones as they are in game or retooled ones with mods) through questing. Have some of the master trainers in the game, send us on quests so that we may hone our skills and when we complete it we are given the perk. Easier Perks = Easier Quests.

I love this idea and I know it is possible to gain perks through questing (check the bottom of http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Stones_of_Barenziah [SPOILERS!]), and I am sure many will be added to the game. I think it has to be done seperate from the perks through level-up though. And as we are discussing perks and progression, I don't think this is the topic to talk about it.

On the leveling system:
The only advantage to leveling is finding better loot and the only disadvantage is having to fight stronger enemies. Both offset eachother quite wel. In a balanced game, the effects of choosing a non-combat skill over a combat skill to specialize in would benefit you as much as choosing the combat skill (potions -> beter survival, sneak -> sneak attacks, smithing -> better equipment). I think Bethesda did this quite well.

The problem is not in having to many skills you specialize in but in matching skills that don't match in any way, like 'light armor' and 'heavy armor' do. In this way you just become underpowered. However, if we would change the levelling rate to something that makes you level relatively faster if you specialize in less skills, the support skills would become as they are helpful in every combat situation and match with all skills.

P.s. I have thought over the last part of this post really hard. English is not my native language though and the last part might be incomprehensible or unclear.

» Thu May 24, 2012 6:58 pm

Thought we should have these in here somewhere

Warrior Skills

Spoiler

The Warrior - Archery

Overdraw: Bows do 25% more damage.
Eagle Eye: Pressing Block while aiming will zoom in your view
Steady Hand: Zooming in with a bow slows time by 25% (2 ranks)
Critical Shot: 10% chance of a critical hit that does extra damage (3 ranks)
Power Shot: Arrows stagger all but the largest opponents 50% of the time.
Hunter's Discipline: Recover twice as many arrows from dead bodies.
Ranger: Able to move faster with a drawn bow.
Quick Shot: Can draw a bow 30% faster.
Bullseye: 15% chance of paralyzing the target for a few seconds.
The Warrior - Block

Shield Wall: Blocking is 20% more effective. (5 ranks)
Quick Reflexes: Time slows down if you are blocking during an enemy's power attack.
Deflect Arrows: Arrows that hit the shield do no damage.
Power Bash: Able to do a power bash.
Elemental Protection: Blocking with a shield reduces incoming fire, frost, and shock damage by 50%.
Deadly Bash: Bashing does five times more damage.
Disarming Bash: Chance to disarm when power bashing.
Block Runner: Able to move faster with a shield raised.
Shield Charge: Sprinting with a shield raised knocks down most targets.
The Warrior - Heavy Armor

Juggernaut: Increases armor rating for Heavy Armor by 20% (5 ranks)
Fists of Steel: Unarmed attacks with Heavy Armor gauntlets do their armor rating in extra damage.
Cushioned: Half fall damage if wearing all Heavy Armor: head, chest, hands, feet.
Well Fitted: 25% Armor bonus if wearing all Heavy Armor: head, chest, hands, feet.
Conditioning: Heavy Armor weighs nothing and doesn't slow you down when worn.
Tower of Strength: 50% less stagger when wearing only Heavy Armor.
Matching Set: Additional 25% Armor bonus if wearing a matched set of Heavy Armor
Reflect Blows: 10% chance to reflect melee damage back to the enemy while wearing all Heavy Armor: head, chest, hands, feet.
The Warrior - One Handed

Armsman: One-Handed weapons do 20% more damage (5 ranks)
Dual Flurry: Dual wielding attacks are 20% faster (2 ranks)
Dual Savagery: Dual wielding power attacks do 50% more damage.
Fighting Stance: Power attacks with one-handed weapons cost 25% less stamina.
Hack and Slash: Attacks with war axes cause extra bleeding damage. (3 ranks)
Bone Breaker: Attacks with macs ignore 25% of armor. (3 ranks)
Bladesman: Attacks with swords have a 10% chance of doing critical damage. (3 ranks)
Critical Charge: Can do a one-handed power attack while sprinting that does double critical damage.
Savage Strike: Standing power attacks do 25% bonus damage with a chance to decapitate your enemies.
Paralyzing Strike: Backwards power attack has a 25% chance to paralyze the target.
The Warrior - Two Handed

Barbarian: Two-Handed weapons do 20% more damage (5 ranks)
Champion's Stance: Power attacks iwth two-handed weapons cost 25% less stamina.
Limbsplitter: Attacks with battle axes cause extra bleeding damage. (3 ranks)
Deep Wounds: Attacks with greatswords have a 10% chance of doing critical damage. (3 ranks)
Skullcrusher: Attacks with warhammers ignore 25% of armor. (3 ranks)
Great Critical Charge: Can do a two-handed power attack while sprinting that does double critical damage.
Devastating Blow: Standing power attacks do 25% bonus damage with a chance to decapitate your enemies.
Sweep: Sideways power attacks with two-handed weapons hit all targets in front of you.
Warmaster: Backwards power attack has a 25% chance to paralyze the target.
The Warrior - Smithing

Steel Smithing: Can create Steel armor and weapons at forges, and improve them twice as much.
Arcane Blacksmith: You can improve magical weapons and armor.
Dwarven Smithing: Can create Dwarven armor and weapons at forges, and improve them twice as much.
Elven Smithing: Can create Elven armor and weapons at forges, and improve them twice as much.
Orcish Smithing: Can create Orcish armor and weapons at forges, and improve them twice as much.
Advanced Armors: Can create Scaled and Plate armor at forges, and improve them twice as much.
Glass Smithing: Can create Glass armor and weapons at forges, and improve them twice as much.
Daedric Smithing: Can create Daedric armor and weapons at forges, and improve them twice as much.
Ebony Smithing: Can create Ebony armor and weapons at forges, and improve them twice as much.
Dragon Smithing: Can create Dragon armor and weapons at forges, and improve them twice as much.

The Mage

Spoiler

The Mage - Alteration

Novice Alteration: Cast Novice level Alterations spells for half magicka.
Alteration Dual Casting: Dual casting an Alteration spell overcharges the effects into an even more powerful version.
Apprentice Alteration: Cast Apprentice level Alteration spells for half magicka.
Mage Armor: Protection spells like Stoneflesh are twice as strong if not wearing armor. (3 ranks)
Magic Resistance: Blocks 10% of a spell's effects. (3 ranks)
Adept Alteration: Cast Adept level Alteration spells for half magicka.
Stability: Alteration spells have greater duration.
Expert Alteration: Cast Expert level Alteration spells for half magicka.
Master Alteration: Cast Master level Alteration spells for half magicka.
Atronach: Absorb 30% of the magicka of any spells that hit you.
The Mage - Conjuration

Novice Conjuration: Cast Novice level Conjuration spells for half magicka.
Conjuration Dual Casting: Dual casting a Conjuration spell overcharges the effects into an even more powerful version.
Apprentice Conjuration: Cast Apprentice level Conjuration spells for half magicka.
Adept Conjuration: Cast Adept level Conjuration spells for half magicka.
Master Conjuration: Cast Master level Conjuration spells for half magicka.
Master Conjuration: Cast Master level Conjuration spells for half magicka.
Summoner: Can summon atronachs or raise undead twice as far away.
Atromancy: Double duration for conjured Atronachs.
Elemental Potency: Conjured Atronachs are 50% more powerful.
Necromancy: Greater duration for reanimated undead.
Dark Souls: Reanimated undead have 100 points more health.
Mystic Binding: Bound weapons do more damage.
Soul Stealer: Bound weapons cast Soul Trap on targets.
Oblivion Binding: bound weapons will banish summoned creatures and turn raised ones.
Twin Souls: You can have two atronachs or reanimated zombies.
The Mage - Destruction

Novice Destruction: Cast Novice level Destruction spells for half magicka.
Destruction Dual Casting: Dual casting a Destruction spell overcharges the effects into an even more powerful version.
Apprentice Destruction: Cast Apprentice level Destruction spells for half magicka.
Augmented Flames: Fire spells do 25% more damage.
Augmented Frost: Frost spells do 25% more damage.
Augmented Shock: Shock spells do 25% more damage.
Impact: Most destruction spells will stagger an opponent when dual cast.
Rune Master: Can place runes five times farther away.
Intense Flames: Fire damage causes targets to flee if their health is low.
Deep Freeze: Frost damage paralyzes targets if their health is low.
Disintegrate: Shock damage disintegrates targets if their health is low.
Adept Destruction: Cast Adept level Destruction spells for half magicka.
Expert Destruction: Cast Expert level Destruction spells for half magicka.
Master Destruction: Cast Master level Destruction spells for half magicka.
The Mage - Illusion

Novice Illusion: Cast Novice level illusion spells for half magicka.
Apprentice Illusion: Cast Apprentice level illusion spells for half magicka.
Adept Illusion: Cast Adept level illusion spells for half magicka.
Expert Illusion: Cast Expert level illusion spells for half magicka.
Master Illusion: Cast Master level illusion spells for half magicka.
Animage: Illusion spells now work on higher level animals.
Kindred Mage: All Illusion spells work on higher level people.
Quiet Casting: All spells you cast from any school of magic are silent to others.
Hypnotic Gaze: Calm spells now work on higher level opponents. Cumulative with Kindred Mage and Animage.
Aspect of Terror: Fear spells work on higher level opponents. Cumulative with Kindred Mage and Animage.
Rage: Frenzy spells work on higher level opponents. Cumulative with Kindred Mage and Animage.
Master of the Mind: Illusion spells work on undead, daedra and automatons.
The Mage - Restoration

Novice Restoration: Cast Novice level Restoration spells for half magicka.
Restoration Dual Casting: Dual casting a Restoration spell overcharges the ffects into an even more powerful version.
Apprentice Restoration: Cast Apprentice level Restoration spells for half magicka.
Regeneration: Healing spells cure 50% more.
Recovery: Magicka regenerates 25% faster.
Avoid Death: Once a day, heals 250 points automatically if you fall below 10% health.
Respite: Healing spells also restore Stamina.
Adept Restoration: Cast Adept level Restoration spells for half magicka.
Ward Absorb: Wards recharge your magicka when hit with spells.
Necromage: All spells are more effective against undead.
Expert Restoration: Cast Expert level Restoration spells for half magicka.
Master Restoration: Cast Master level Restoration spells for half magicka.

The Mage - Enchanting

Enchanter: New enchantments are 20% stronger (5 ranks)
Fire Enchanter: Fire enchantments on weapons and armor are 25% stronger.
Frost Enchanter: Frost enchantments on weapons and armor are 25% stronger.
Storm Enchanter: Shock enchantments on weapons and armor are 25% stronger.
Insightful Enchanter: Skill enchantments on armor are 25% stronger.
Soul Squeezer: Soul gems provide extra magicka for recharging.
Corpus Enchanter: Health, magicka, and stamina enchantments on armor are 25% stronger.
Soul Siphon: Death blows to creatures, but not people, trap 5% of the victim's soul, recharging the weapon.
Extra Effect: Can put two enchantments on the same item.

The Thief

Spoiler

The Thief - Alchemy

Alchemist: Potions and poisons you make are 20% stronger. (5 ranks)
Physician: Potions you mix that restore Health, Magicka or Stamina are 25% more powerful.
Benefactor: Potions you mix with beneficial effects have an additional 25% greater magnitude.
Poisoner: Poisons you mix are 25% more effective.
Concentrated Poison: Poisons applied to weapons last for twice as many hits.
Experimenter: Eating an ingredient reveals first two effects. (3 ranks)
Green Thumb: Two ingredients are gathered from plants.
Snakeblood: 50% resistance to all poisons.
Purity: All negative effects are removed from created potions, and all positive effects are removed from created poisons.
The Thief - Light Armor

Agile Defender: Increase armor rating for Light Armor by 20% (5 ranks)
Custom Fit: 25% Armor bonus if wearing all Light Armor: head, chest, hands, feet.
Unhindered: Light Armor weighs nothing and doesn't slow you down when worn.
Wind Walker: Stamina regenerates 50% faster in all Light Armor: head, chest, hands, feet.
Matching Set: Additional 25% Armor bonus if wearing a matched set of Light Armor.
Deft Movement: 10% chance of avoiding all damage from a melee attack while wearing all Light Armor: head, chest, hands, feet.
The Thief - Lockpicking

Novice Locks: Novice locks are much easier to pick.
Apprentice Locks: Apprentice locks are much easier to pick.
Quick Hands: Able to pick locks without being noticed.
Wax Key: Automatically gives you a copy of a picked lock's key if it has one.
Adept Locks: Adept locks are much easier to pick.
Golden Touch: Find more gold in chests.
Treasure Hunter: 50% greater chance of finding special treasure.
Expert Locks: Expert locks are much easier to pick.
Locksmith: Pick starts close to the lock opening position.
Unbreakable: Lockpicks never break.
Master Locks: Master locks are much easier to pick..
The Thief - Pickpocket

Light Fingers - PIckpocketing bonus of 20%. Item weight and value reduce pickpocketing odds. (5 ranks)
Night Thief: +25% chance to pickpocket if the target is asleep.
Extra Pockets: Carrying capacity is increased by 100.
Cutpurse: Pickpocketing gold is 50% easier.
Poisoned: Silently harm enemies by placing poisons in their pockets.
Keymaster: Pickpocketing keys almost always works.
Misdirection: Can pickpocket equipped weapons.
Perfect Touch: Can pickpocket equipped items.
The Thief - Sneak

Stealth: You are 20% harder to detect while sneaking. (5 ranks)
Backstab: Sneak attacks with one-handed weapons now do six times damage.
Deadly Aim: Sneak attacks with bows now do three times damage.
Assassin's Blade: Sneak attacks with daaggers now do a total of fifteen times normal damage.
Muffled Movement: Noise from armor is reduced 50%.
Light Foot: You won't trigger pressure plates.
Silent Roll: Sprinting while sneaking executes a silent forward roll.
Silence: Walking and running does not affect detection.
Shadow Warrior: Crouching stops combat for a movement and forces distant opponents to search for a target.
The Thief - Speech

Haggling: Buying and selling prices are 10% better (5 ranks)
Bribery: Can bribe guards to ignore crimes.
Persuasion: Persuasion attempts are 30% easier.
Intimidation: Intimidation is twice as successful.
Allure: 10% better prices with the opposite six.
Merchant: Can sell any type of item to any kind of merchant.
Investor: Can invest 500 gold with a shopkeeper to increase his available gold permanently.
Fence: Can barter stolen goods with any merchant you have invested in.
Master Trader: every merchant in the world gains 1000 gold for bartering.

» Thu May 24, 2012 9:13 pm

My name is Hans and I support this message.

I'm not Hans, but I support this message as well.

Just three more things.
1: Initially, they justified the removal of Athletics and Acrobatics with the assumption that you leveled these skills whether you wanted to or not. Partly true, but this is the same with Speech in Skyrim. You can't buy/sell things without getting also better at persuasion and intimidation. In previous games, you could still adjust the price to actally "barter" to level your mercantile skill, but this has beend completely removed.
2: Because armor has no durability anymore, you can easily exploit the "punching bad" method to level your armor skills, and thus your base level as well. In previous games, your armor would eventually break, adding a risk and price for this kind of leveling.
3: Because you can't let NPCs enchant or upgrade your equipment, every character is bound to level these skills themselves. While there are many good enchantments to find by yourself, un-upgraded equipment is pretty gimped.

» Thu May 24, 2012 7:02 pm

Adding to what Schitzoflink posted...

this may also be handy. I grouped each of the skills under each of the 3 - Health, Magicka and Stamina...

Stamina - Archery, One Handed, Two Handed, Light Armor, Lock Picking, Pick Pocket, Sneak
Magicka - Alchemy, Alteration, Conjuration, Destruction, Enchanting, Illusion, Restoration, Speech
Health - Block, Heavy Armor, Smithing

» Thu May 24, 2012 4:25 pm

Adding to what Schitzoflink posted...

this may also be handy. I grouped each of the skills under each of the 3 - Health, Magicka and Stamina...

Stamina - Archery, One Handed, Two Handed, Light Armor, Lock Picking, Pick Pocket, Sneak
Magicka - Alchemy, Alteration, Conjuration, Destruction, Enchanting, Illusion, Restoration, Speech
Health - Block, Heavy Armor, Smithing

I REALLY REALLY dislike the idea to make skills influence your stats directly. It is just a step back from the current system and offers less choice.

» Thu May 24, 2012 8:30 pm

I dont think skills should influence stats either. I grouped them like that because it makes a little sense when thinking of attributes and how they played a role in previous games.

» Thu May 24, 2012 1:45 pm

I've been thinking about how they can balance the skills so the crafting skills don't level you too fast.

Have two tiers of skills

Tier 1 Combat (Archery, 1h, 2h, light armor, heavy armor, alteration, conjuration, destruction, illusion, restoration, block and sneak)
and
Tier 2 Non-Combat (Lock Picking, Pick Pocket, Alchemy, Speech, Smithing)

In Skyrim there is basically one challenge. Can you beat this thing in a fight? Combat is what keeps you from getting to your goal and because of that increasing non-combat skills will eventually get you into a situation where you are under powered.

I started a Mage type character 4 days ago and easily 50% of his levels have come from my obsessive potion making and enchanting. I think a good balance would be to have the non-combat skills contribute 20% to leveling as opposed to combat skills
For example I would need to increase Alchemy 25 times before it would give me a level as opposed to 5 in 1h

I see a problem coming from this, people would get to 100 in crafting skills first to make the best gear. The fix? Make the Elven armor/potent potion/more powerful enchant perk something you get from a trainer after you fulfill a level requirement. It would work something like this Jim gets his smithing skill to 100 and can upgrade iron to legendary but until he is lvl whatever (balanced to right before the items would start spawning in-game) and he goes to Frank the blacksmith he doesn't have the perk allowing him to make steel. Frank would maybe send him on a quest or some such before giving him the perk. While this isn't the perfect solution I think it would take out natural progression perks (i.e. iron -> steel -> etc) and make them a little more natural, you learn them from someone else, and if you never want to make say Ebony you don't go find that guy.

I would also like to use the, go visit x trainer, to get certain perks in the combat skills as well but I havn't thought about how to work that in..

» Thu May 24, 2012 3:36 pm

I would like to see Health, Magicka, and Stamina as derived statistics. Each skill contributes a certain amount to all three stats, so even a very focused character will advance all three stats to a certain degree. I would also prefer if this happened naturally as skills went up rather than only on level up.

Each point in a skill .6 to one stat .3 to another and .1 to the third.

Over the course of ten skill increases, in this skill you would get +6 the primary stat for the skill, +3 to the secondary stat for the skill and +1 to the tertiary stat for the skill. Of course raising a variety of skills would get more mixed results.

» Thu May 24, 2012 9:22 pm

I would like to see Health, Magicka, and Stamina as derived statistics. Each skill contributes a certain amount to all three stats, so even a very focused character will advance all three stats to a certain degree. I would also prefer if this happened naturally as skills went up rather than only on level up.

Each point in a skill .6 to one stat .3 to another and .1 to the third.

Over the course of ten skill increases, in this skill you would get +6 the primary stat for the skill, +3 to the secondary stat for the skill and +1 to the tertiary stat for the skill. Of course raising a variety of skills would get more mixed results.

Like said in some previous posts, it removes choice and customization to build you character the way you like it. It would only dumb down the system. No good idea, IMO.

» Thu May 24, 2012 9:38 pm

Like said in some previous posts, it removes choice and customization to build you character the way you like it. It would only dumb down the system. No good idea, IMO.

As some people like to say in defense of Skyrim, taking away features isn't dumbing down, it's just streamlineing. In this case it rewards intelligent planning of the character and intelligently rewards ones play style. If you still want that Health/Stamina/Magicka choice you could hold off the accumulation of stats like I described until the player actually levels up the character. Then you can choose The stat you want to increase and it weights the values you accumulated through skill increases toward what you wanted, or you could choose a balanced option that raises the stats as I described.

This way you could play a Mage but level up nothing but Warrior skills, but increase your Magicka more because magicka is your thing. But because you raised nothing but warrior skills this level your Health increase Magicka increase would probably be almost equal. In this way your actions have consequences.

» Thu May 24, 2012 10:18 am

I would like to see Health, Magicka, and Stamina as derived statistics. Each skill contributes a certain amount to all three stats, so even a very focused character will advance all three stats to a certain degree. I would also prefer if this happened naturally as skills went up rather than only on level up.

Each point in a skill .6 to one stat .3 to another and .1 to the third.

Over the course of ten skill increases, in this skill you would get +6 the primary stat for the skill, +3 to the secondary stat for the skill and +1 to the tertiary stat for the skill. Of course raising a variety of skills would get more mixed results.

I like this idea because every time I go to level up I'm thinking, "Uh, well, all of these seem useful. I guess I'll just pick one of these randomly, just like how I picked one randomly last time... *shrug*" This means that my stats would reflect my playstyle without me having to make an awkward* choice

*where as perk choices are an example of NOT awkward choices

» Thu May 24, 2012 3:53 pm

I think the smithing perks should have both a skill level requirement and a character level requirement, that could help out a lot.

» Thu May 24, 2012 1:00 pm

"All skill increases should NEVER contribute equally to a level up. This makes it very unbalanced in the favor of power-gamers, and makes it so players who naturally level up certain skills will be weaker overall compaired to those that do not. While I doubt it'll be possible or fun to re-implement Major/Minor skills, I feel like a good way to address this issue is to make it simply so that increasing low-level skills contributes less to leveling up compaired to increasing higher level skills. In otherwords, If I level up block from 60 to 61, I would gain twice (or so) the amount of "level up experience" as I would if I leveled up block from 30 to 31. "

Intriguing idea, but wouldn't it make you level up super fast when you're high level? Unless it was done proportionally I guess... like...
* If your highest level skill is 30, leveling that up to 31 will have a significant impact and leveling something from 10 to 11 will be minor
* If your highest level skill is 60, 61 would be major, 31 would be minor, 11 insignificant
So I guess you could do it with the right algorithm. That's actually really cool

Also, I completely agree with the smithing chance to fail (which also applies to enchanting and alchemy of course)

I think if you or anybody else actually starts modding this, there should be two versions
* A lite version, to be implemented first, that handles things like improving smithing scaling and other level scaling, but doesn't change perks that much (beyond rebalancing some of the +100% damage kind of stuff)
* A total version that also revamps the perk trees of all the skills - which will take more research and more figuring out what the best form would be (e.g. how to make Axe perks more in depth within the One Handed tree)

» Thu May 24, 2012 10:17 pm

~~I reserve this spot for right after am done warming up dinner.~~

Now that I've eaten and read your post from top to bottom, I am ready and willing to fork out some minor suggestions. But first allow me to express my understanding of Skyrim levelling system.:
From an interview I read, Bethesda loved perk system in Fallout 3 and wished for a similar system in Skyrim. They've done the next most natural thing, they took perk system from Fallout 3, skill system from Oblivion and merged them together. You've seen the result yourself, it does not work so well. Mainly because Fallout 3 based itself on SKILL POINTS, for each level-up you gained about 15 skill points you could equally (or not so equally) distribute in weapon damage or lock picking, PERKS was a bonus, a freak addition to already working system.

Smithing
When it comes to smithing I have a slightly different suggestion.
Smithing is not about armour or weapon, it is about honing a certain type of metal, you know it, I know it. There is about 10 different metal types in Skyrim.

My personal preference for smithing would be: force player to visit various NPC's in order to learn how to hone a certain type of metal. Lets say you have risen smithing to 40, you are now able to forge Dwarfen armour and it makes no sense. After creating 40 steel daggers you are suddenly an expert with completely different type of metal.

At this point player receives a quest to visit a certain NPC who can teach him more about Smithing. Said NPC can be a nice guy and teach you right away or force you to embark on a different adventure before he teaches you anything at all. This leads us to another interesting development, reverse engineering described in your post. After one have learned how to utilize a certain type of metal, he can find and reverse engineer armours and weapons that uses said metal to learn how to make them. I believe if we base smithing on know-how-to work various ores and mastery of metals instead of creation of complete armour sets, we can shape pillars from this point on.
- Mastery of Iron - With this PERK all weapons and armours that use iron as main or secondary ingredient will be 20% better.
- Mastery of Moonstone - With this PERK all weapons and armours that use moonstone as main or secondary ingredient will be 20% better.
- Mastery of Corondum - With this PERK all weapons and armours that use corondum as main or secondary ingredient will be 20% better.
- The hot pot - With this PERK melting ore results in 100% more ingots.
This is my initial suggestion regarding Smithing, there are still holes in it, but its a start. I will post regarding other things shortly.
Weapon Specialization

The first step in the right direction would be to get rid of 5/5 perks in Archery -> Overdraw, One-Handed Weapon -> Armsman, Two-Handed Weapon -> Barbarian. Their damage bonus should be reflected by your skills level, not by how many perks has been invested in them. Making a 100% Archer strong without perks, but EXTREMELY deadly with perks and so on.

Perks should reflect your characters investment into mastery of said craft and should not be mandatory to make it useful.

I've viewed the perk system as a way of specialising within a skill, in the case of smithing that is kinda in the game you can specialise in light armour, heavy armour and arcane smiting. however what is in the game has room for improvement.

You should be able specialise in more than just heavy and light amour. You could for example have a tree that allows you to be a weapon smith, an arrowsmith, a Jeweler, an armourer ect.