Couldnt agree more.

So you like to start out with a more unique character and gimp yourself through self-imposed restrictions I prefer to begin with a weak and less defined character, figure out a path or concept to develop the character from and make him or her as powerful and successful as they can be by using the game mechanics. TES didn't fit my playing style before, now it does. What makes your preference more valid or better than mine?? And if you say that it is more roleplaying, I′ll say "Planescape" and leave it at that...

I too hate the perk system. I liked how you leveled up in Oblivion. Mind you, I never played the earlier games of TES, so all I can compare Skyrim with is Oblivion. Because we don't get 2 perks with each level up. So many times I want 2 perks and leveling up to get what I want is annoying. 2 perks would have been my preference.

But dude, they could design a system that better fits both your playstyle and my playstyles. You can have a system where your character is both unique and weak at start-up and still use the games mechanics to make your character as powerful and successful as possible. Nobody enjoyed grinding heavy armor in prior games just to get +5 to endurance, and no one is suggesting going back to that model. What I am saying is that the class system could have been fixed without scrapping it.

EDIT: And if you REALLY want a system that prevents you from leveling minor skills to 100 so the game forces you to have unique characters at endgame, the class system could include an element that caps skill progression for minor skills at 75. I am not advocating that, but I would rather have that then the rather bland perk system we have today.

I like the perk system just fine. It is mildly annoying at times needing to take a perk just to get to what i really want but I manage just fine. I prefer the perk system of Fallout though. Where new perks open up as I level, of course I prefer the fallout concept of general experience a bit better anyway. Of course a blend between the two would be nice.

This just about sums it except that I'd say -some- perks are poor substitutes for what other systems could do better.

Development is always nice, anything that makes the current system better is welcome of course. Attributes does however seem to be a tricky one to implement, but I've seen some ideas where they are more or less permanent and not tied to the skills and leveling which would seem to work quite well (imo, attributes should always be more fixed and not develop much over time, being that they represent your character's basic genetic qualities and characteristics).

it can be tough, but, for me the attributes have to be there and you need to be able to, in some way, increase them as you develop. at least, minimally.

that's why i feel the bobbles/implants of fallout3/nv was done well. available, but, limited.

creative and something to advance.

See, I can agree with that. I too would like to see a system where you could not get all your attributes to 100 and where attribute increases would be more limited than prior games.

I too liked the limited way you could increase attributes in FO3, until they came out with the DLC that gave you a perk to raise all your attributes to 9, so you could save your bobbleheads up to get them all to 10. That was lame.

They worked, though I found them a bit pokemonish...collect funny figures to boost your attributes. A mechanic more connected to the story, like genetic or cybernetic enhancements boosting your attributes would have been a more elegant implementation (as in Fallout 2).

definitely, the bobble method was a touch extreme, lol, but, implants make sense to me in the newvegas world.

i've never played pokemon, so, eyes gotz no clue!

And NV. A secondary character stat set that is more or less permanent would be a good addition IMO.

How's this for a system. Bring back attributes and classes with major and minor skills. But turn the prior class system on its head. Increasing your minor skills would contribute to increasing your overall level instead of increasing your attributes. Make it so increasing your minor skills would have no effect on your attribuites. Increasing major skills would affect overall level and contribute to increasing attributes. Make attribute increases much more limited than in prior games.

Then you could either have a perk point system (one perk per level) or tie perks to a certain level in particular skills. I don't really care which as long as they bring back attributes/classes.

Under such a system, you could increase your level by leveling minor skills, so there would be some incentive to do that (but that incentive is there today in the present Skyrim system). There would be no incentive to level minor skills just to increase attributes.

To each their own, but the Perk system in Skyrim has made my characters feel more unique and valid than in either Oblivion or Morrowind. The only things that separated characters in those games were skill levels, race, and birthsign. I like starting with a clean slate, leveling up the skills I wish to level, and seeing my character develop specializations through perks.

6 of my characters use one-handed weapons. Each of them have a different feel and a different level of specialization due to perk selections, and feel more unique. In previous TES games, all you had was skill level. Now, I have swordmasters, mace experts, a dual-axe wielding orc, swordmages who only dabble in swordplay enough to mix with casting, a mace-wielding evil cleric, etc, and each one plays different based on perks, with exactly the same skill level.

NOTHING is preventing you from playing your character how you want right out of the box. I've made dozens of characters in Morrowind and Oblivion, and even Fallout 3. Skyrim, in my opinion, allows for the best tool to make multiple characters feel unique. I'm on my 12th character in Skyrim, and it still feels fresh. If anyone seriously needs to wait until level 40 to "begin" playing their character, you might have some serious OCD problems...

See my post above where I describe a system of both perks and classes/attributes. Under that system, you could still have your perk points to make your characters further unique by getting a perk point to spend each level.

The only reason the perk system works at all is due to shear volume.

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