WINDWALKER OF COURSE IF YOU HAVE ENCHANTMENT HIGH ENOUGH THAT DOESN'T REALLY MATTER.

So...... what they do is fine, but the word they use to label them is the problem?

That's remarkably silly.

Whether you call them Feats, Perks, Skills, Traits, or Armothetries?, the function hasn't changed.

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Better hurry up quick and remove those Perks from Oblivion then. (Gee, that was before Fallout 3 wasn't it?)

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General concepts - I have no problems with a later perk obsoleting an earlier one.

For one, the journey matters too - it's not all just about the destination. Just because your level 10 perk isn't useful now that you got your level 50 perk... you still used the earlier one for a part of your character's lifetime. It served a purpose. (Just like the Steel sword you used and eventually replaced served a purpose. It wasn't made pointless by the fact you now have a Glass sword.)

Perks in oblivion, you must be talking about how when your skill gets to one of like 3 levels you get told your an apprentice, or master and get one extra move to go with it? Doesnt seem anything like fallout perks. Your sword skill got better the higher it got, the more damage you did, the more you hit, you ddnt have to choose anything, it was all built into the skill.

When I first heard that Skyrim was going to have perks, I had hoped that they would implement something similar to the suggestion posted above . Personally, I think perks should be more like abilities you might learn from reading some technique in a book, or studying from a master, or perhaps an ability given to you by the divines / daedra after doing their bidding. What we ended up with is a perk system that all but replaces the organic leveling system of 'getting better with practice'.

I think Bethesda does a wonderful job of creating an engaging world to interact with. I just think that they need to ditch this whole philsophy of 'building from the ground up' with each new title in the series. Every time they try to implement new mechanics or ideas in an attempt to fix whatever was broken before, they tend to introduce some other broken mechanic / idea (or they just cut it altogether). IMO, they really need to pick a formula and stick with it, then refine that formula between each new game.

They just need to stop the "revolution" instead of Evolution when it comes to gameplay and mechanics.

Not sure if I follow your meaning. Is that to say that Beth should stop trying to revolutionize the gaming industry in general, and focus on evolving TES, or did I completely misinterpret that?

no it means instead of scrapping and starting over with every game with completely new concepts and mechanics they should just evolve what they have to make it better. Alot of stuff from there previous games that didn't quite work but where promising where simple dumped and replaced with something even more broken in the next title. Plus I'd hardly call what they are doing as "revolutionizing" since it the same crap as they've always produced only getting less and less complex and more and more streamlined.

I have to say that I agree somewhat. It seems that every time we get a new Elder Scrolls title, more and more has been stripped away. To me "we want to build a whole new game every time" is starting to feel like an excuse more than an actual reason. A way to hide that their definition of a sequel involves addressing everyone's complaints by removing them from the game outright and never replacing them with something meaningful.

I like the idea of skill perks, but they are nothing more than a smoke-and-mirrors attempt to hide that Attributes were replaced with nothing. As many have stated, Oblivion had skill perks, as well. This is a mild expansion on something that the previous title had, with a bunch of pretty lights tossed into your face to try and hide that little to no thought actually went into the mechanic.

Those are called Traits and are already in TES in the form of Birthsigns.

Ah, okay. You were simply agreeing with my sentiments regarding one of their main design philosophies, then.

I agree with the above desires for simply improving on what we have rather than "starting fresh" and cutting things left and right. My precious reputation system, I miss thee as the tides miss the moon and a rose the sun.

They were in birthsigns. Now they're standing stones...which kind of ruins roleplaying.

To be perfectly fair those are exactly the kind of fans Bethesda was catering to during the development of Skyrim and that's the reason for all the streamlining/simplification/"dumbing down"(if you want to use that term) changing of the tried and true system of the past games that made alot of the fans of the previous games upset. So in a way you're right, a lot of the fans of the series are CoD/WoW fans now. Although I don't know if that's a good thing.

I agree completely. I think they ought to go back and reexamine the mechanics of Daggerfall for a foundation to build from, then start refining the system from there.

People want choices, but then complain they don't like the choices when they pick perks.

Good one. I lol'ed hard.

Well to be fair, it's not really Sophie's Choice is it? If you hit enemies with a stick, pick perks that increase the stick damage.

Though you do make an interesting point - if all these "filler" damage perks didn't exist, there would be next to no permanence to the character whatsoever.

I highly agree. Daggerfall had a nice base for the claimed "ultimate open-ended fantasy RPG", just never had the proper funding. Character leveling mechanics, character creation, a reputation system, faction mechanics, plot involvement, and proper world scope and believability were all best done in Daggerfall, in my opinion, and as such I'd like to Daggerfall's design choices and philosophy backing future TES iterations. It'll never happen, but I'd love to see it.

I really like most skill trees and perks. A lot of those trees remain empty, because they don't fit my character. Others will never be completely filled, because they have perks I simply don't need or see no use for.

I mainly concentrate on a small number of skill trees that give me an offensive advantage and fit my character. I like stealthy and ranged characters, so I invest in skills that fit those. For an example, my current character only invests in Sneaking, Archery, One Handed, Light Armor and Smithing. In the One Handed skill tree only the sword gets attention, but not even everything. I don't bother with Enchanting, Alchemy, Lockpicking, Pickpocketing, Speech or Block. I have a healing spell, but I don't even invest in Restoration. The ony magic I use are shouts. No need for me to invest in magic skill trees. Smithing is something I do late in the game. Although I open any lock I come across, I don't invest in its skill tree. There is no need, because the mini-game is already simple enough.

There is stuff I don't need in the skill trees. The top one in Archery is an example. I already have staggering and the chance of paralyze is too small.

The critical hit stuff is something I save until last. The chances are low that real damage occurs, so I rather take something else first that does damage all or most of the time.

The advantage of all that is that I can stay competitive because I invest only in a small number of skill trees.

I'll switch to something completely different for a new run.

The skill trees are really good when compared to ones in other games, like Draggon Age 2. *shrugs* Those are too limited. Most talents and spells there require a certain level and or a number of perks in the tree and a specific order. While it looks like a tree it is nothing more than a souped up linear list which greatly reduces your choices. I am glad Skyrim isn't like that and that it has true freedom.

We want MEANINGFUL choices.

Choosing between generic perk #37 and generic perk #54 is not meaningful. It's irritating.

*sigh*

No, you just want to complain. That's all this forum is. Even positive topics are quickly swamped by negativity and petty sniping.

Some people wouldn't be happy if they were crapping diamonds. Take, for example, they guy who didn't like the perk to make heavy armour weightless... he thinks it's stupid, and I happen to agree with him. I personally find it ridiculous. So I don't pick it. I make a choice, and then, that choice has in-game consequences, which I then have to contend with. See how it works?

Haplf the complainers in here have also complained that their RPG isn't "number-based" enough, yet half the perks are full of numbers. Numbers numbers everywhere. Increase damage by 20%, 40%, 100%. 30% chance of critical hit. But noooooo, apparently these aren't "good" numbers, but "filler".

Does the perk system have its problems? Yes. Lockpicking and speech are, from a purely empirical results POV, useless. But they do fit nicely into a role playing scenario. But noooooo, it's not role playing enough, apparently, because of the numbers, or the phase of the moon, or the tides, or the fact that some people are recidivist complainers who would complain about being given a Ferrari because of the price of gas.

Largely though, I've found the perks to be a good way to build different characters, with different strengths, who can do very different things. I give perks an A-.

The problem with this argument is that there are other perks beyond the Conditioning that you might want and will be unable to get without getting Conditioning first.

Actually, no. Conditioning is the last perk in its branch.

The choices are meaningful to me. And your abstract post doesn't give an example of what you mean. It just sounds more like you want to complain. Maybe you should try to give us some good argument that illustrates your point instead? One liners don't work very well, you know.

I know. I didn't think that post out much.

Then let's turn it around, to get Conditioning you need to waste points on two worthless perks