Does anyone else feel that a lot of the perks you can unlock just feel like stripped features?

I noticed this the most when playing a sword and shield fighter and was taking perks in the block tree.

Deflects Arrows: Your shield deflects arrows that hit it - Shouldn't this have been part of the combat system to begin with? It's physics really and I don't think it should be related to your skill with a shield.

Elemental Protection: Negates 50% incoming magic damage - Once again, putting a thick piece of steel between you and a fireball just makes sense that it would deflect some damage. Why do we need a perk to do this?

Block Runner: Run with a shield raised - In real life I'm pretty sure I could hold up a shield and run, how hard could it be? Feels pointless as a perk.

Bone Breaker: Maces ignore armor - This perk isn't as big of an offender, but I do feel that maces should have had at least some effect of armor piercing from the start to set it apart from the other weapons.

That is just a few of them. My point is that I feel like Bethesda took a step back to look at their game and said "ok, now let's pick and choose which features to strip out and turn into perks". If a perk isn't a stripped feature, then it's probably a simple damage % boost or some other kind of overpowered variable.

I find the entire perk system really disappointing. Just take a look at F3 or F:NV. Perks never felt like they were stripped features that I'm slowly unlocking. They were great for defining each of my characters and were like icing on the cake (the cake being the already robust combat system).

Another way to put it would be; The Fallout perk system was like adding cool cosmetic changes to my car that were fun. The Skyrim perk system is like putting back all the parts of the car that were striped out of it. It just feels like the entire process of leveling up is doing this and it's simply padding. Really, really disappointed.

I liked the whole natural progression system they used in Skyrim. Made you work for the perks you wanted and provided incentive.

First level perks are boring. Simply leveling up your weapon / armor skill should make them more effective. But now it is necessary to throw 5 perk points into them just so that they do what they should have been doing already, or else you don't get the satisfaction of getting stronger. Does this change the strategy of combat? No, just the damage. And then you begin killing everything too easily, so you must increase the difficulty to make it challenging again.

This is why I only take those perks once 1/5. You end up with good damage on weapons and good armor rating without turning the game into easy mode.

About the difficulty. I tend to change all the time between adept, expert, and master because the difficulty balance is all over the place. It's actually ironic because Bethesda were going for the "Less time in menu's, more time playing" anology. But then we're forced to keep changing the difficulty a million times and keep accessing that annoying favorites menu. Really, who thought it was a good idea to have only 2 hotkey buttons on the consoles?

Perks are essentially percent boost and mainly that is it.

I'm sorry, but I don't see how unlocking stripped features provides incentive to keep playing. It's BORING

I would only take those appropriate for the character. 5/5 two handed damage up for an Orsimer or Nord, no problem, same as 5/5 archery for a Bosmer, but would only give an Altmer 1 or 2 one handed damage boosts and instead give them 3 levels of criticals or whatever; some characters are strong, some are weaker but highly skilled.

Unfortunately, Skyrim does not have that sophisticated a combat system that unlocks weapon techniques to fill a combat purpose, to counter something, or other usefulness. So, they are boring, but necessary. Better to spend those points anyway because entire trees are useless, lockpicking, speechcraft, pickpocketing. Other perks make or break the game, like adding stagger to dual cast. Now that's useful and changes combat.

There was a mod that converted dragon souls to perk points, wonder what happened to it.

Actually, I imagine suddenly super heating the metal shield wrapped around you arm wouldn't deflect that much damage, at least not to you arm. Same with rapidly cooling said metal, or zapping it with electricity, though this would probably have a much more detrimental effect on you.

(1) Arrow blocking: i agree with you on this one for the most part, but an arrow might be able to penetrate a wodden shield for stagger damage.

(2) Elemental protection Yes it should deflect some damage and it does, that's what the shields for to block. But the elemental perk gives you more protection.

(3) Shield running: yea we should have been able to run to begin with, in my oppinion this perk should have alowed you to run faster.

(4) Mace perk: They do that's what the damage on your weapon is for. The perk allows you to damage them and there armor more.

So yea a few of the perks aren't really neccesary or were put in badly, but most of them make sense.

There's a similar one where you can take them directly with a specific number of souls.. Dragon Souls for Perk Points is the name of it. As for speechcraft and pickpocketing, I actually find them highly useful myself because of my playstyle. To each his own

As for the perks mentioned in the OP.. I barely take half the perks in block and only really go into that tree at all for dragon fights and I need to max out the base perks so I don't die as I have the deadly dragons which are a pain in the ass sometimes. If I didn't get all those perks, I'd have to deactivate the mod which I don't want to do mainly because I like the difficutly but also because I slowly tune it up to master. I feel as if I fiddled with the difficutly bar too much in Oblivion because I had to find just the right space.. and I never went to the hardest because I wasn't powerful enough for it. Master might seem too easy once I get up in perks and gear, but one simple mistake and I'm dead.

And that's why I like it I always have to keep my guard up, and can't risk letting it down.

I don't see how you can call it stripped. In oblivion, you get perks automatically from leveling up. And you don't get to choose what those perks are. You don't get to deflect arrows (or even bash) right from the start. In skyrim you get to choose from even more perks to manually to add to your character.

And to address the five base damage perks issue people are having... It's hilarious for people to say that they're wasted perks and then complain that they make the game too easy. It's either one or the other. Your actual melee damage DOES improve as you level up. The base damage perks are just boosts.

It's a shame most perks are just random percentage boosts. Looking at Oblivion's melee skills, each had four different power attacks to unlock - with different animations and secondary effects!

If im wrong someone correct me but isnt the 1 handed side power attack useless in skyrim? with a 2 hander it hits everyone in front of you.

Yeah, the sideways attack doesn't do anything one-handed - besides looking awesome. Also, both forward power attacks lack a bonus. o_o

Foward power attacks still gain a small benifit though. It makes you lunge forward to hit. Hopefully beth will add a perk to disarm for sideswipe 1 handed like they did in oblivion.

I think I remember disarming someone that way in Skyrim... maybe I accidentally shield bashed right before or something but he dropped his weapon.

Skyrim's perk system is the worst character progression I've encountered since the "random stat boosts" from SNES-era RPGs.

It's too easy to level, and the rewards are either too powerful (and redundant, since it's replacing the point of the skill it is part of), or completely useless (lockpicking, anyone?)
I quit playing with 11 available perks, and a character who was overpowered because of sneak archery (combined 0 perks spent here). Oh, and there's supposed to be new content for a couple of levels yet.
Health/Magic/Stamina have virtually no effect on my survivability per level, so it's not at all rewarding. I take Health -> same number of hits to die. Take stamina -> sprint another 5 inches, Take Magicka -> can cast the exact same numbers and types of spells. I didn't actually get BETTER at anything...

If I put 1 perk point in sneak I can sneak right in front of people without being detected. Its allmost bad enough having a skill of 50 with sneak, But take 1 perk in it and the challenge is gone.

If you're going down that route, why have health, one blow to a vital area should kill you - you should lose an arm, leg, ears, whatever gets hit and how it is hit.

I admit I used a bad example. But if you think about it, isn't that the route Bethesda are taking? Each game they strip more and more mechanics to try to keep the experience as realistic and immersive as possible.

I partially agree. The perks that only add a certain extra percentage to skills are uninspired. Funny enough though I like the perks you mentioned because at least they do something slightly special. I think that the game needs more special perks like that.