I have to start by saying that I loved this game. No other game I ever played gave me the feeling of immersion like this one. The problem though is that like many others, I took certain skills that ruined the game for me and made progressing completely worthless. No one has fun in an RPG when 100% of all looted items have become useless and taking down the toughest creatures in the game takes a few seconds. The problem like many of you already know is the skill and perk system. The disparity between the skill trees is glaring. Some perks and trees are so good that if you choose them you will ruin your game experience while others are so bad that if you choose them you will 100% waste those points. This results in 95% of us ending up with an incredibly overpowered or underpowered character by level 30.

One-handed - Balanced. Dual weilding 1 handers is pretty useless becuase of the lack of block ability and the negligible damage increase. Otherwise Sword/Shield, Sword/Spell is a fun combination.
Light armor - Unless you are a primary caster it's worthless. Run speed has little to no noticeable difference, it's not lighter when you get the perk to make Heavy Armor weightless, not much difference for stealthing.
Sneak - Completely overpowered. 100% camo was overpowered in Oblivion the same for Sneak in this game. 1 shotting pretty much anything from stealth with a bow or dagger gets old quick. Oh yeah choosing Shadow Warrior may as well bring up the ending credits.
Alteration - Balanced as long as you get the perk to have unlimited duration time on your spells. Otherwise get very used to pausing your gameplay every 15 seconds to bring up the menu to cast a buff on yourself.
Smithing - Completely overpowered. For the low low cost of a few hundred iron daggers, you too can completely ruin the fun of looting, dungeon exploring, or quest rewards.
Block - One of the few balanced skills in the game. It requires timing to use which increases the user experience and is useful to use often.
Heavy Armor - Simply better than light armor in almost every situation even for Sneaks
Lockpicking - Worthless if you get the skeleton key. Still worthless otherwise if you have enough lockpicks and common sense.
Enchanting - The most overpowered of all the skills. Not only does it make finding items completely useless, but selling off enchanted iron daggers (which pretty much everyone figures out) breaks the fun of selling items for gold.
Alchemy - Overpowered. What's with the crafting in this game? At first it may not seem overpowered but at some point you will quickly realize that you can't ever die when you are holding 100 health pots, magic pots, and +dmg pots. Also 50g to make a pot and 500g sell back gets ridiculous.
Two-Handed - Balanced. Even though giving up the shield is huge in Skyrim, you aren't gimping yourself by choosing 2 hander. It's not over the top or underpowered.
Speech - Worthless. Gold becomes trivial by the time you can invest in this tree. Persuasion and Intimidate has little to no impact on a story line.
Pickpocket - Worthless. Either you pickpocket early with an extremely low chance of success of getting anything valuable or you wait for pickpocket items/potions and realize by that point of the game the items are useless.
Archery - Overpowered. It's terrible that no matter how you spec you will end up using a bow and arrow. Used from stealth and it's over the top. I just can't see Gandolf chasing a dragon around on foot with a bow and arrow.
Illusion - Worthless. Nothing in this tree is useful and even if it was slightly useful each skill is trumped by potions and items you find along your journeys.
Conjuration - Underpowered compared to all melee trees and your own companion. You already have a near indestructible companion at your beckon call. You can choose to forgo your companion so you can be forced to summon and blow your magika every fight but that seems more like a chore.
Destruction - Underpowered compared to all melee trees. If you aren't comparing then Destruction becomes a challenging tree that requires time and patience to kill each enemy you come across.
Restoration - Balanced unless you take up Alchemy. Then it becomes pretty useless. Instant full heal from Alchemy > Channeled heal from Resto

So in order to still experience the fun of having a decent battle and enjoy the item rewards you pretty much have to avoid the overpowered Sneak, Smithing, Enchanting, Alchemy, Archery. If you want to avoid placing your points in completely useless and/or redundant skill trees you have to avoid Lockpicking, Speech, Pickpocket, Illusion. This results in having to avoid 9 out of the 18 skills just to have that feeling you had in those first amazing 10 hours of Skyrim. The only problem is that you know you are avoiding these skills and it creates a situation even worse than the tempting option of using the difficulty slider. It creates a game where one wrong decision early in the game on skill placement results in the game not feeling genuine or fun after only 30 or so hours of gameplay.

I agree with you for the most part, except armor differences.

It is true that heavy/light armor are the same for sneaking, but only if you have the noise muffle perks in sneaking, or some noise muffle spell/enchant. If not, light armor is noticeably different then heavy armor.

On a side note, to further elaborate why using dual wield, or magic is UP compared to sword+shield/sword/two-handed is the block/attack combo. Skyrim really messed up when they allowed blocks to stagger opponents, stop dragons from breathing fire, stop mages from casting etc. Basically, at level 1, if you start doing Block Bash-->Attack-->Attack-->Block Bash or Block Bash-->Power Attack-->Block Bash, you can basically go through the entire game on master difficulty. Of course, the odd sneaky arrows/magic might get you from time to time, but it sure does make "master" difficulty become a joke.

Also wanted to point out before anyone else does, yes I had the game set on Master Difficulty.

Very thorough and well thought through, but you have to realise, while you are speaking from a purely practical point of view, when it comes down to personal enjoyment, opinions are going to differ and what you may see as having no practical bearing on the game, others may see as simply fun.

Still, good points raised, namely with Smithing and Archery. The former of which you can level effortlessly, (Though easier through leather bracers) and Archery, which quite rightly is a necessity to take down dragons if you don't want to risk them getting bored and flying away.

I totally agree with you about different points of view. I guess I'm just talking from the perspective of someone who has spent a lot of time playing RPGs and MMORPGs in the past which I assume most of us are considering that we are not only playing Skyrim, but we are serious about it enough to post on a message board I suppose getting everyone to like you through speech or one shotting dragons may be enjoying to some people.

speaks me out of my soul!!!
just with the resto point u failed - in later lvls u make instant heal spells that cost low mana (and wiht perk) refresh stamina... is very overpowered as meele cuz 2-3 hard hits, heal, 2-3 hard hits etc. u will fight long enaught to kill enemy within some seconds and with enaugh mana


its sad the whole gameplay breaks by it balancing system (u are overpowered or underpowered) so i stopped playing after around 150 hours and around 10 different charackters....

You loved it? So by talking in a past tense I take it you're already finished with it?

You clearly know little about most of what you have said, saying so many things are overpowered is ridiculous, its a single player game anyway why does it matter.

Conjuration isn't weak at all, having 2 dremora lords, or using 2 dead thralls of strong daedra is very powerful.
Illusion, with the right perks and dual casting, you can fury/calm/fear pretty much everything.

I could go on, but I'd rather just ignore your whiney ignorant post, you really have no idea.

Disagree on the dual wield one handed, fully perked out you can hack someone down insanely quickly. No real need to block when they're dead.

But you didn't ignore it, you chose to reply. You guys can bash me all you want but these are my views. God forbid they are different from yours. The topic is called What "I" learned about the Skyrim perk system after 30 hours played.

who is Gandolf?

fool nobody is whining.... tried ur illusion again if u are ways over 50? dont think it will work this well.... (i said think!!!!)

in conjuration i agree with you

it does matter because .... it matters for us! Oo
for example i would feel stupid if i try to kill something challengfull with some skills if i know exactly i have other skills that will work much better....


Gandolf is an adventurer like you, but then he got an arrow in his knee

i think he meant gandalf of lord of the rings....

Destruction is pretty much only one I disagree with completely. This is considering things like firestorm do massive damage, and a strong mage can dual cast it with the right armor for next to no cost. In the end, I would say every tree is overpowered except for lockpick and light armor. The rest are incredible with the right points

Actually, the only one here showing his ignorance is you.

Most of what he said was spot on, though I would make a couple comments:

Light/Heavy armor really doesn't matter; raise blacksmithing/enchanting/alchemy to 100 and get the perks and you can defense cap yourself with zero skill in either tree and just take the steed for the movement bonus. Of course, that is also why blacksmithing/enchanting/alchemy are completely overpowered.

Sneak/archery: Yep, also completely OP, though for sneak all you really need is the 3x bow sneak attack. Enchant your boots with muffle and nobody will ever find you. Again, enchanting = OP

Magic skills in general: Completely agree, completely worthless. Drop a health pot or run away channeling a spell while hoping I don't get shot in the back? Tough decision... Destruction magic is so weak when compared to any kind of melee attack it's just pathetic. And I guess dual summoning in conjuration is nice...if you like watching the game play itself. And if that's the case, why are you here and not off playing call of duty?

lolz, i have like 100+ hours on the game and every minute of it has been fun....and i dunno where you get the idea that destruction is under powered.... have you seen the master level spells... o.o

Assorted comments....


Of course, that "weightless" perk for heavy armor only comes at 70 skill. Which, based on how fast my Light Armor went up, is only somewhere in the high 30's/low 40's. That's a long time to play before you suddenly can carry more.


For one, I don't see "several hundred daggers" as a low cost. For another, unless you combine it with (also maxed out) Enchanting, Smithed gear isn't better than the stuff you find or get. I didn't do Enchanting on my first character, and even with 100 Smithing I was still wearing about 2/3 found gear. There was no way I could beat the 50% elemental resist abilities, or 25%+ weapon damage abilities that I had on looted items.

Also, I only got that 100 Smithing at level 48. But, then, I didn't "grind" it at the vendor - I used looted materials that I found while questing. Typically, I got to make gear a bit after the time that I was finding it in chests. Of course, there have been whole threads debating Smithing, no need to go into depth on it here.


You only need timing to get the best "stagger" effect. You can just hold the shield up, and shield bash is quite useful.


I didn't sell any enchanted iron daggers until after level 50, when I'd already done the civil war & main quests, and finally decided to work on my Enchanting a bit. And even then, I didn't do it much. No need.


Hundred pounds plus of potions, eh? Well, if you want to give up that much carrying capacity, that's your choice.


Hmm. Yeah, I used a bow. But I never got any perks into it, and never picked up the "extra bonus crit damage" Sneak perks, so the best I could one-shot is weak stuff. Was handy for plinking away at guys on ledges far away, and attracting the attention of dragons, though.

----

Overall reaction to your comments on the skills - you seem to be one of those people who's really in to min/max & powergaming. Who (based on other threads) seem to be quite annoyed that doing this in Skyrim is 1) easy, and 2) not really required.

Skyrim (and the previous TES games) aren't so difficult that you need to do "150% efficiency" builds in order to win. It's just not that style of game.

Personally, I just played the game in a way that was "natural" to me (not really powergamey at all, but also not "self-gimping" or anything like people keep moaning), and I had reasonable levels of challenge from the teens to level 50. On Adept. But, then, as I've said in other similar threads - powergaming isn't an instinctive playstyle for me... in games that require it, I typically end up getting my butt kicked until I read a guide and then force myself to play that way.

I stopped reading when I came to this point. Clearly, you have never played a summoner.

Try actually playing with the various skill trees for a while before making an internet post about them.

Skyrim's strength is also its weakness depending on what you want out of it. It's designed for pure role-playing goodness, meaning no matter what way you want to interact with the world, you can have a degree of success. If you want to devote perk points to enchanting and smithing, then those points aren't being spent on spell/weapon or armor skills. As a pure RPG, it's fine. But most of us aren't pure RPGers. This isn't our first rodeo so to speak.

In terms of power gaming, smithing is a nightmare. It can be maxed in a short time with minimal effort. The worst part is you can make the best armor with items that are easy to find and obtain. If you're in Whiterun you can by leather and leather strips to make Hide Bracers from three vendors. Money? No problem. You can run chop wood for infinite money. Any dedicated power gamer would have no problem chopping wood and visiting vendors until he had a full suit of dragon armor. The designers don't really appear to have considered that because they obviously think that's boring and dumb (which it is).

Enchanting is almost as bad. Gems aren't too hard to find, and once you have a way to soul trap you can fill them easily. My thief was a sniper with a bow enchanted with soul trap. I would come back from a dungeon with a sack full of gems and armor.

It's almost sacrilege to say this about a TES game, but limits are a good thing. The next TES game will have to have a tiered advancement of some sort. Players need to work a little harder to make better items, and they need to spend more time using those items before they can upgrade on their own.

As for the other skills...

My thief stuck with class appropriate skills and actually stuck points in speech, pickpocket and lockpicking.

The 100 point carry capacity increase in pick pocket was great. It let me steal more. With that, the steed stone and the armor penalty removed, I could carry off quite a bit of loot. Pick pocket is really more about fun than anything. It's a matter of playstyle. I use my thief to run around stealing stuff. Pick pocketing helps that.

If you're RPing a thief, speech is also worth it. The persuade, intimidate side is useless. Often, persuading somebody means you skip part of the quest. That's the opposite of what I want to do. The other side of the speech tree is good though. A dedicated thief will want to sell stolen goods to anyone to save time. If you want to know what to do with that excess money, you can use it to train high level skills are you can by expensive items and sell them back repeatedly to get speech increases.

Lockpicking is a tough sell. Lockpicks aren't hard to find, so making lockpicking easier is a marginal increase to spend perk points on (especially when you want to spend points in sneak , archery and light armor). Lockpicking and pickpocketing should have simply been one tree.

One-handed - Balanced. Dual weilding 1 handers is pretty useless becuase of the lack of block ability and the negligible damage increase. Otherwise Sword/Shield, Sword/Spell is a fun combination.
Dual Wield can cut through enemies extremely fast. S&B is obviously safer, but DW is completely viable.
Light armor - Unless you are a primary caster it's worthless. Run speed has little to no noticeable difference, it's not lighter when you get the perk to make Heavy Armor weightless, not much difference for stealthing.
Less perk points than HA, increased stamina regen, earlier weightless than HA, some people prefer the looks of LA over HA, stealth chars don't need much armor.
Sneak - Completely overpowered. 100% camo was overpowered in Oblivion the same for Sneak in this game. 1 shotting pretty much anything from stealth with a bow or dagger gets old quick. Oh yeah choosing Shadow Warrior may as well bring up the ending credits.
I wouldn't say it's completely overpowered, but I do think that it needs to be looked at. As for the 1-shotting, well, some people may enjoy that.
Alteration - Balanced as long as you get the perk to have unlimited duration time on your spells. Otherwise get very used to pausing your gameplay every 15 seconds to bring up the menu to cast a buff on yourself.
It's not that bad. Just cast it before you enter combat and you should be good. It does get better with the double duration perk. The passive perks are nice as well.
Smithing - Completely overpowered. For the low low cost of a few hundred iron daggers, you too can completely ruin the fun of looting, dungeon exploring, or quest rewards.
The only thing that is out of whack with this skill is how quickly it can be leveled using minimal effort/resources. It should have been set up more like Alchemy where the cheaper items give less xp.
Block - One of the few balanced skills in the game. It requires timing to use which increases the user experience and is useful to use often.
Agreed, though it can be abused with the right food.
Heavy Armor - Simply better than light armor in almost every situation even for Sneaks
HA requires 2 fairly useless perks to get the weightless perk and still isn't as good as LA in sneak unless you have Muffle.
Lockpicking - Worthless if you get the skeleton key. Still worthless otherwise if you have enough lockpicks and common sense.
Agreed. This tree is poorly designed.
Enchanting - The most overpowered of all the skills. Not only does it make finding items completely useless, but selling off enchanted iron daggers (which pretty much everyone figures out) breaks the fun of selling items for gold.
TBH, Enchanting has been overpowered in every TES game I have played. It is there to allow the player to customize their gear to an extent, but I think it gets a bit out of hand in the upper tiers.
Alchemy - Overpowered. What's with the crafting in this game? At first it may not seem overpowered but at some point you will quickly realize that you can't ever die when you are holding 100 health pots, magic pots, and +dmg pots. Also 50g to make a pot and 500g sell back gets ridiculous.
Carrying all those Pots add up at 0.5 weight each. If you have the Stamina to carry all of those, great. If not, you have to be a bit more picky.
Two-Handed - Balanced. Even though giving up the shield is huge in Skyrim, you aren't gimping yourself by choosing 2 hander. It's not over the top or underpowered.
Haven't played with 2H enough to comment, but it seems fairly close to 1H, which is fairly balanced.
Speech - Worthless. Gold becomes trivial by the time you can invest in this tree. Persuasion and Intimidate has little to no impact on a story line.
Mostly agree. Gold is very easy to come by and I have yet to get Speech much over L50 on any of my chars (who are mostly over L50).
Pickpocket - Worthless. Either you pickpocket early with an extremely low chance of success of getting anything valuable or you wait for pickpocket items/potions and realize by that point of the game the items are useless.
Partially agree. The reverse-pickpocket with poisons can be fun. Horking someones armor and weapons off their back is a bit over the top.
Archery - Overpowered. It's terrible that no matter how you spec you will end up using a bow and arrow. Used from stealth and it's over the top. I just can't see Gandolf chasing a dragon around on foot with a bow and arrow.
Disagree. Its only OP if you abuse the crafting skills to make and enchant an uber bow. As for getting a dragon to land, you can also use magic and shouts to force a dragon to land.
Illusion - Worthless. Nothing in this tree is useful and even if it was slightly useful each skill is trumped by potions and items you find along your journeys.
A properly perked Illusion is amazing, and possibly overpowered.
Conjuration - Underpowered compared to all melee trees and your own companion. You already have a near indestructible companion at your beckon call. You can choose to forgo your companion so you can be forced to summon and blow your magika every fight but that seems more like a chore.
From what I have played, until you max out Conjuration it is underpowered. Once you max it, it is overpowered. Companions should have no bearing on this skill tree, unless you want to go back through and mention how useless other trees are with a companion.
Destruction - Underpowered compared to all melee trees. If you aren't comparing then Destruction becomes a challenging tree that requires time and patience to kill each enemy you come across.
Destro not scaling is what hurts this tree.
Restoration - Balanced unless you take up Alchemy. Then it becomes pretty useless. Instant full heal from Alchemy > Channeled heal from Resto
Resto is still useful, even with Alchemy. Wards that absorb magica, Turn Undead, as well as heals that restore stamina can be useful.



The issue with the crafting isn't the crafting by itself, its the crafting combined with the combat perks, and 'gaming' the system. I have a char that only perked the crafting and speech trees. I only use crafted items that I personally make. It's actually one of my most balanced characters. However, when you combine that with 2x damage and 2.5x armor from the combat/armor perks, then you start stomping on just about everything.

The other issue is when you game the system to cycle your alchemy/enchanting/smithing to get the best possible stats. However, this was available in previous TES games and could be most abused in Morrowind. What is available in Skyrim is actually quite tame in comparison.

Alteration gives absorb spell chance and magic resistance. That's quite powerful perks, imo. Restoration gives faster magicka regen, also useful when we talk about perks.

As for conjuration, summoning two frost atronarches is very solid, if not even overpowered in some situations.

Try actually reading the title of the topic "What I learned about the Skyrim perk system after 30 hours played". Did I get 100 Conj. and run around with a couple powerful summoned creatures? No. Do I enjoy having the computer kill everything for me? No. Are there other skills that are much more powerful in comparison that actually let me do more than sit back and watch my computer controlled pets kill everything? Yes

lol.

If you don't want perks that will ruin the game, don't take perks that will ruin the game. You aren't forced to spend the points.

I'm level 64 and I can use the basic novice illusion spells fear/fury/calm on everything that isn't resistant to illusion (dragons etc), why comment about it if you have absolutely no idea.

Care to elaborate? That means nothing on its own.

There is some problems with the game, but the OP hasn't described most of them, he has made huge presumptions about skills like illusion and conjuration. I for one don't have a huge problem with the crafting skills being so overpowered, I would prefer it wasn't so exploitable, but it is. So I choose not to exploit it and play the game for my own fun.

You can pretty much make a 'this skill is overpowered because of reason X and Y' for every skill in this game, they all have there advantages and exploits. The game does need a little balancing, but most of the points of the OP aren't valid.

The comment from CycloneJack1 makes a much more valid argument than your presumptions.