Why do you think perk spending is mandatory?
It's optional.

And SLIGHTLY?
Apparently you haven't tried it.

You do know that if you don't spend them, you actually control the way your character grows.
If you spend them you become god like.

It's not self gimping, it's changing the way you develop a character.

This isn't a game where maxing skills out is the acceptable and only way to go.

Your choice.

Can't you see that and understand it?

What are you...7?

What are you...7?

Okay, I don't think people are understanding something here. A person playing a game should not have to manufacture challenge in the game, or the game is unbalanced and too easy. If you jack the game up to the hardest difficulty setting and you can still make the game easy, there's a serious balancing issue. I understand your point if you say it's acceptable for Novice level to be easy, but some of you seem to think it acceptable for there to be ways to make even Master level easy. If any combination of skills or perks - any at all - "break" the game and make Master level easy, the developer hasn't done their job completely. That's part of the job of the developer - to balance the game to present a challenge to the player.

If you don't care about that, fine, but at that point you aren't playing a game, you're playing with a toy. Which is also fine. http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1335883-why-skills-wont-be-nerfed/page__view__findpost__p__20111561 Spore is a great toy, so I'm not knocking either developers or players if they produce or enjoy things like Spore - I do myself - but I have to admit that when I am fooling around with Spore I am not playing a game, I am playing a toy.

Well, the thing is, there are a lot of people who are playing Skyrim who don't want a toy, they want a game, and if there are combinations of skills or perks that can remove the challenge from even Master level, they don't have a game to play, they have a toy to play with. And that's just not acceptable. Those who want a toy - more power to them. They can turn the difficulty down so that there are no inconvenient challenges, and they can jump off mountains and collect 1000 cabbages and build forts of cheese and collect all the iron daggers in the game to their hearts content. I sympathize with these people, and at times I am one of them. I myself enjoy running around looking at the countryside at times, and that's playing with a toy in my book.

But those who want a game should have their game too, and for God's sake they shouldn't have to forgo certain parts of the game to make it a game with a challenge. For all those telling them to "take responsibility for their choices", creating a challenge is not the player's responsibility, it's the responsibility of the game developer.

So - if those who claim Master level is too easy if you take certain routes are correct, they have a legitimate complaint, and Bethesda concentrated on developing Skyrim the Toy at the expense of developing Skyrim the Game.