This is also my point and problem

It's meant to make you specialize.

To use your example, you have to figure out whether your thief is going to be a master pickpocket, an expert at picking locks, a shrewd poisoner, etc. Not putting perks into things like lockpicking and pickpocketing doesn't make your character bad at those things, it just means you can't do some high level stuff that people who focused on those trees get to do. It also ensures that by the time you hit a higher level, you've created a thief that is uniquely suited to how you want to play him, instead of being a godly jack-of-all-trades character.

In prior Elder Scrolls games, every character ended up being exactly the same by the end of the game, because you ended up leveling every single skill. Perks make it impossible to truly master every skill, and they ensure that even if you do level every skill to 100, you still won't have a generic character.

I think it is a nice spin that there is close to 250 perks and only 80 perk points. Makes you think about what you want instead of just taking a perk. One thing I have been wanting to do is to make a character to max all skills out without leveling (for bonuses) or perks.

I second that motion.

But in prior games, every character was not the same in the end because of racial differences and birthsigns. In Oblivion, a female Altmer with the Atronach birthsign would end up quite different than a male Redgaurd with the Warrior birthsign. The Redguard would have his adrenelin rush and a lot more health due to a higher starting Endurance (how much more health depends on how fast each character levels Endurance), plus the Redgaurd will have 75% disease and poison resistance, while the Altmer would have 250 more magicka plus 50% spell absorbtion, plus 75% disease resistance, plus 25% weakness to fire, frost and shock.

Instead of making the races more different from each other the just made them all the same and eliminated birthsigns. They could have imposing skill and attribute level caps on certain races or imposed skill caps on minor skills or done any of a hundered different things to improve the leveling system from prior games and make characters different from each other throughout the whole game, including the late game.

Instead of doing something original, they just adopted a perk system that has been done to death by other games. If they wanted greater differences between different character builds late in the game, there are better ways to do it than a perks system.

So your complaint against it is that it's unoriginal? Works fine for me, and for plenty of others.

And in Morrowind, the differences between those two characters in the end-game would have been minuscule, considering how much they would be buffed up through enchantments, etc. Once you've leveled every skill to 100 in Morrowind, your character could (and did) do everything as well as any other character.

i like the perks. i just want the perks to be more worthwhile, substantial and creative. they can make great additions to gameplay AND character builds.

attributes and skills and perks.

The system itself is growing on me. It is not perfect but then no system ever will be. I like it better than the automatic perks you would get for leveling skills in Oblivion. It also helps to give you the edge where you want it to make up for attributes not being there.

Yeah, I am aware of how you can boost your alchemy and enchanting skills through the roof in Morrowind. My complaint is that a perk system is unoriginal, and rather uninspiring compared to prior games. Don't get me wrong, I am glad that you no longer have to worry about whether you used your minor skills too much or not enough, and I do think the prior system needed to be improved, but overall I miss the prior system and am disappointed that it was basically scrapped in favor of a perk system.

And I don't think most of the perks are all that great. I especially hate all the Armsman type perks where you have to drop five points into something just to be decent at it. In a TES game, I want to feel like my character could become good at what ever he does. Now, unless I plug at least five points into Alchemist, I feel like spending time making potions is a waste because they are so weak. I have the same feeling with all the skills that require five points to get 100% better.

Plus there are so many perks that are just broken due to bugs. Elemental Potency, Atronach, Shadow Warrior, Deflect Arrows, Tower of Strength, etc.

That's an argument to cap the level of enchanting (something they did not do in Skyrim), not to dillute the differences between the races and adopt an unoriginal perk system in lieu of TES very original class system.

Isn't the answer to the OP just "some people"? Isn't that the end of the thread?

Not even close.

Fallout 3 has the best system, particularly with Ultimate Perk Pack mod installed.

many of the perks in skyrim are the same as the auto-increases of oblivion, except, you must now spend a perk point to get them.

I love the perk and level system and I hope they continue with this same thing.

Again, you seem to just fall back on the argument that it's "unoriginal". That isn't good enough to justify saying it shouldn't be in the game. And I'm not going to even start in on the pointlessness of trying to make something "original".

Is attributes such as strength, endurance, intelligence etc. 'original*?? Should we play the game "name 100 other rpg-games that have those"?

i find the uber-god, can do everything argument strange, since, in the end EVERY character is uber-god.

only now, i can't do everything with one character. i no longer have the option. i can still be uber, but, now i can't take one character on any given day and play however i'd like.

those who support the idea are actually supporting less options for players.

those are foundational attributes because they are obviously aspects that make up characters and influence all other types of characteristics.

They had something original but they scrapped it for something unoriginal. I liked the class system better. A lot of folks miss it. I am not the only one. The perk system is too simple for my taste.

You want a specific complaint? How's this. In prior games, your characters were VERY different in the beginning because of the class/race/birthsign system. Slowly over time, they could grow similar but only if you leveled all of your skills, which is something I never did. So, my high level Oblivion and Morrowind characters look nothing alike. The only way you get high level Oblivion and Morrowind characters who are similar is if you do it on purpose by leveling all your minor skills to 100. Most of my characters in those games did not even use half of their minor skills. So that just did not happen for me. And its not just me, lots of people play that way.

With the perk system, your characters are basically all the same in the beginning. You have to wait until maybe 20th level or so before you start noticing real differences between your characters. I liked the system when a mage started out different from a warrior or a thief and you could tailor your character in the beginning and then just play. I don't like having to fret over each perk choice every time I level up during the middle of the game.

I'd rather see a tweaked version of the prior class system where you pick your class and then play and never have to make another decision about character creation. That's the antithesis of a perk system, where you have a big decision to make every level up.

It's funny that the same people lauding attributes and pre-game class selection are now saying that they feel like they've lost the option to use one character as an uber-god. What was the point of picking a class if all you wanted to do was do everything on one character? I prefer the playstyle I choose to have some consequences (hey, there's that other buzzword that I keep seeing people use).

...but hardly 'original'...

once again, a failure to comprehend.

where is pre-game selection even hinted at?

when did i "feel" that "I" lost anything? i pointed out a simple fact: same result (uber-god) with less options.

who dictated your playstyle in past games?

absolutely. i never used the word to describe attributes.

my point is that attributes should never be taken out because they are the fundamental building blocks of any character. nothing can rightfully or correctly replace them.

yes, imo.

Attributes are not original (well maybe back in the early days of TSR they were original). What was original about TES games was the class system whereby you leveled up by using your major skills and your use of major and minor skills contributed to attribute increases. That was original.

It also did nor work all that well because of the issues with "effecient" leveling to get maximum (5 points) attribute increase upon each level up. But they could have fixed that problem without scrapping the whole system.

Lots of people miss High School Musical too...

You may have ignored the game mechanics and only played with your major skills, but others, like me, pay attention to the mechanics and when we are encouraged, both by the system, and the in-game hints, to focus on minor skills and swim, jump and fall to develop our character, we do. Because it is obviously how the designer wanted us to play the game or they wouldn't have designed it that way. Your opinion on the mechanics of prior games implies the same sort of logic as when people say that you can overlook the flaws in Skyrim's NPC interaction by simply imagining it.