I think it is about immediate gratification as if you reroll, you are going to have to get to around 25+ before you get a sense of your character. That is the downside to the blank slate approach.

It is more about titles. You just do not get the sensation in the role you have created. Passive modifiers and "effectiveness" do not give me the sense I am specialized in a role. I feel the specializition when I am granted unique abilities and totally change my tactics and am given different tools in my tool belt given the role I have created. There are not many specializations currently. I listed what those are above.

I think it is about immediate gratification as if you reroll, you are going to have to get to around 25+ before you get a sense of your character. That is the downside to the blank slate approach. Until I get my perks squared away, I feel like I am playing some gimped class and not the way I want to play. I know that if I reroll, I am going to have to go through all of that same stuff, just to get back to that point where I get a sense of my character. I love seeing a progression of my character but I think I can see where other people are coming from, I am not entirely sold on coming from a blank slate. Unfortunately, for many people, by the time you reach the point where you do get a sense of your character, difficulty takes a huge hickey and progression by means of itemization becomes stale or dissolves also. It's like, ok I finally feel like I am a Ranger - but - I am one shotting everything and I don't have any upgrades to look forward to or reason to go treasure hunting.

Now that reasoning i don't understand. The majority of a characters power comes from perks, not skill level. Perks that are limited and non-refundable. You can change playstyle in the middle of the game, but due to the perks that have been commited to the previous playstyle you can never get to the same power and abilities as a character that from the beginning focuses on that playstyle.

Or am i missing something? Something obvious, perhaps?

The problem I have with perks is that they aren't very good. The whole Lock Picking perk tree, along with the skill, is useless. The other perk trees just are very uninspiring. There is nothing that comes out and says "Wow, I really want that perk".

The class system needs to be blended with the perks system. Everyone has natural abilities, which are represented by Attributes. You choose a couple Attributes which govern how quickly you level in Skills associated with the Attributes you picked. Skills, after all, are learned abilities and everyone has the opportunity to learn what they want, but some are learned faster than others. Perks should be a unique ability that you have to learn from an NPC, like a special move (e.i. learning how to use dual-wielding more effectively, shield bashing, etc.). The more unique and rare perks would be with NPCs who are harder to find or access.

The whole gameplay is casualised in TES ... in Skyrim even more than in Oblivion.
Almost nothing is absolute, you can change/reskill/etc. the whole time ... you even can adjust the difficulty EVERY TIME (even in battles).

It's all done to prevent people from whining about "oh, my build isn't great ... I wish I could redo it" (yes, you can ... start a new character FFS!). But by doing it, everything becomes even more meaningless.
No classes, no start-attributes, start-skill-advantages are meaningless, race is meaningless, ... and only 3 pseudo-attributes, where it's almost impossible to really screw up.

It's probably cool for 12 year olds, who just want to kill some time, but it's really boring for players, who want to develop/design a character. It's especially sad, because the TES leveling system does not even allow you to be and build the character YOU want ... no, you have to adjust your playstyle to the system to get the skills you want.



Oh ... the perks, yes yes, the perks, ...
You get so many perk points to spend, and there are so many useless perks, that in the end, every character can do almost everything anyways.
It's really hard to screw something up here. Some people might like that, but to me I just can't enjoy making a "good build", if I wasn't able to make a "bad one" in the first place.

I think the class system as it used to be was very, very flawed and it's far better to have a classless system now in comparison directly to that system, however a newer, more refined class system would probably be ideal.

The problem with the previous system was that it was more of a guideline, here are your major skills, here are your minor skills, you're free to ignore them and they only affect you're leveling. A mage was potentially as good as a warrior in melee combat. Not to mention you could just create your own class that was 9/10 times significantly better than presets. Now your class is simply defined as you play and choose your perks.

An ideal system (at least in my opinion, feel free to disagree) would be to reinstate classes, but not as skill guidelines, and not to where you could create your own; but where the class you selected gave you a perk unique to that class, that would benefit a specific type of playing related to that class, but it's not necessary, you could still be a beserker mage, but you'll always be best as a mage-mage.

Either way, I think classes were definitely flawed before, and as they were I'm glad to see them gone.

I don't know about mixing perks with Classes but at this point I would be more than willing to give that a try rather than just removing classes altogether.

I am a console player, so let me take a crack at answering that question. While I tend to agree that more choice is generally better than less choice, which would support a Borderlands sytle reperking option and is why I don't have a stong preference against being able to reperk, just having the option would change my mindset when playing the game. A similar argumehnt could be made about fast travel. Having a feature in the game that you know is available affects your mindset even if you make a conscious decision not to use it. I never use fast travel but I am always aware it is there and that makes me feel differently when playing Skyrim or Oblivion, which have fast travel than Morrowind where there is no fast travel available. In Morrowing, if you are out in the middle of nowhere without a recall or Almsive Intervention at your disposal, you really feel isolated. Not so much in Skyrim or Oblivion.

Another example. Before taking the 100 sneak perk, my Khajiit used to be quite nervous and apprehensive whenever sneaking up on a boss in a room full of hostiles because one false move and he would be discovered and it would be over for him. With the 100 sneak perk, he can still get the 15x dagger damage bonus even if discovered and now can drop everyone in the room without breaking a sweat. Sure, I can choose not to play that way, but knowing that I can has really changed the way the game feels for me. No longer does my Khajiit feel nervous or apprehensive because with the 100 sneak perk he can one shot kill anything in the game whenever he wants to -- he as tough with a dagger in a stand up fight as any warrior.

I am all for more choice, rather than less, but having a choice like being able to reperk is going to affect the way people feel when they are picking perks. I put a lot of thought into my perk choices and still I am not always happy with the decisions. I wish for instance that I had never taken the 100 sneak perk because it is way overpowered. but if I could reperk, then I would not fret too much about perk choices, which would definately change my mindset when playing the game.

Think about it. You start out the game and you want to play as a warrior class, so you might pick these Attributes: Strength and Endurance. Strength and Endurance are an umbrella for the Skills you're interested in, like One-Handed, Two-Handed, Smithing, etc., and because Strength and Endurance are your innate Attributes, you learn those skills quicker than Archery or Conjuration. Then, if you want to further enhance your ability in One-Handed, you visit an NPC trainer who will teach you a Perk that will lead to greater critical hits, if you're prepared enough (or adept enough in One-Handed).

Think about it. You start out the game and you want to play as a warrior class, so you might pick these Attributes: Strength and Endurance. Strength and Endurance are an umbrella for the Skills you're interested in, like One-Handed, Two-Handed, Smithing, etc., and because Strength and Endurance are your innate Attributes, you learn those skills quicker than Archery or Conjuration. Then, if you want to further enhance your ability in One-Handed, you visit an NPC trainer who will teach you a Perk that will lead to greater critical hits, if you're prepared enough (or adept enough in One-Handed).

Not many specializations?

-Wizard
-Mage (summons)
-Spellsword (any combination of Magic and Combat)
-Ranger
-Assassin
-Warrior

Where is thief?

Mages can only have summons?

Instead of listing what is wrong with this, I'd just like to know why your choices have been EXTREMELY limited.

And, while you're at it, could you tell me how classes provided the freedom to specialize in a way that cannot be done in Skyrim from the very first perk?

What you are describing is exactly what happens when you choose an Archetype standing stone and start spending your perks.

What you are describing is exactly what happens when you choose an Archetype standing stone and start spending your perks.

Thief is not a true class. Any class can pickpocket or lockpick. There is no combat path I can build specifcally for it or reason outside of roleplaying to take these perks.
Mage - when I say Mage, I mean Magician. The distinction between Mages and Wizards (at least in EQ) was that Wizards were pure casters and Magicians relied on pets or Summons.

The reason for my very brief list is because no matter how you boil it down, your character is going to fall into one of those categories. There is not enough variety or distinction. Really, look at the Perks and how combat works. When people talk about classes and missing them, this is generally due to the fact when developers BUILD classes, they become unique. There is not enough variety to make truly unique classes.

Not necessarily. In a class system, the Skills you choose at character creation will boost your character's Skills by so much, 5 or 10 points. Instead, Skyrim's system is fixed and Skills are based on race, which doesn't make any sense at all because Skills are learned, not natural abilities. Same reason why there are mage Khajiits and thieving Nords. The Perk system I described gives the player a greater choice in obtaining perks he/she wants, not because they were prerequisites in getting the ones they wanted.

Well, agree to disagree then.

I seem to make plenty of specialized characters, but when boiled down... yes there is a reason Mage/Thief/Warrior's are called an archetype.

They are the RGB of fantasy, and all other colors stem from them.

Except that the perks in Skyrim are not very good and why should I have to search and find standing stones to increase my abilities.

Gah... blanket statements.

You're telling me that there are no perks in Skyrim that are good?

Also, between searching for Standing Stones that are dynamic and choosing a class that is static... I'd much rather prefer the current setup.

Choices, they are a good thing.

Those are the Guardian Stones. How does me choosing to take any of those really add specialization to my class? It is a utility feature for leveling really...