Re: The Elder Scrolls Online

by **Tim Hortans** Fri May 11, 2012 9:50 am

you can play pokemon normally and catch all the pokemon you want, and level them up how you want, or you can limit yourself and just play through it with charizard.

by **DigDog** Fri May 11, 2012 9:51 am

Because, as I said, if you're too strong, the game becomes bland and boring because every encounter is easy and every quest is over in a few sword swings. Somehow I don't think Bethesda wants people getting bored.

I have a mod that lets me buy perk potions in Whiterun. Drinking one of said potions adds a perk point. I have basically every perk. I own things left and right, having 1200 armor, 500 health and awesome enchantments. Is it boring for me? Hell no, I LOVE it. Also what Tim said.

By the way, the 1200 armor 500 health thing has nothing to do with perks, it's gamebreakingly strong and you don't need any mods to reach it. So much for the "let's add a challenge" theory. Face it, the limited perk thing is just crappy game design and a newbie flaw Bethesda shouldn't make anymore by now. Same goes with not being able to remove the perks once you unlocked them, not even once. What's up with that? Also why the hell can't you cancel quests or at least hide them from your journal? Man, that irks me.

by **Cial** Fri May 11, 2012 9:56 am

But I really don't think that perks are that bad, they're perks. It's just a one-shot-per-level extra boost for your character as a reward for getting enough experience to level up.

by **DigDog** Fri May 11, 2012 10:18 am

- being able to enchant an item twice instead of once
- being able to craft and heavily improve dragon armor
- doing twice the damage with weapons or bows
- doing 15x damage when sneak attacking with a dagger
- doing triple damage when sneak attacking with a bow
- eating an ingredient to find out the alchemical properties
- spellcasting not making any noise thus not reveal your hiding position
- 50% faster mana regen
- ability to summon two atronachs at the same time instead of only one
- heal 250 health points once per day if you fall below 10% health
- cast spells of specific schools and difficulty for half the magic cost
- 30% magic resistance
- 25% armor bonus when wearing only light or heavy armor
- 25% armor bonus when wearing a matching set of armor
- etc.

Not game changing at all. Just a silly little boost for your character once every level up.

by **Cial** Fri May 11, 2012 5:54 pm

Those are higher level perks though, which you can take if you spend all your points in a lot of levels of a certain category. If you really really want to, you could probably grind every skill to 100 legit, but it would take you a while and you wouldn't get all the perks in the higher levels as you wanted.

by **Erik** Fri May 11, 2012 6:48 pm

They reworked the entire stats system which somebody mentioned earlier. I enjoyed the way it worked in Oblivion, but instead they reworked it. Also, I didn't play much but the story was droll for what I got through.

by Onion Supreme Fri May 11, 2012 6:50 pm

I see we have a very hard difference of opinion going on here.

by **DigDog** Sat May 12, 2012 1:25 am

Cial wrote:Those are higher level perks though, which you can take if you spend all your points in a lot of levels of a certain category. If you really really want to, you could probably grind every skill to 100 legit, but it would take you a while and you wouldn't get all the perks in the higher levels as you wanted.

Yes those are higher level perks and when you go through the trouble of leveling the associated skill to 100 you should be well damn rewarded with that perk, regardless what other perks you already have in other skill trees. Anything else is just BS. The simple removal of the fact that you have to unlock perks would have fixed the whole mess. Reached level 100 in enchanting? Congratulations, you now can enchant an item twice. And if you don't want that then just don't train enchanting.

by **Cial** Sat May 12, 2012 1:44 am

I don't understand why you should just be rewarded with it though. Usually, people have a certain way they do things most often, those should be the skills you want to get the perks in. Or, if you just want to be all-around good, then pick which ones are going to be most effective and take those.

by **DigDog** Sat May 12, 2012 1:55 am

Because I spent time to level the skills, that's why. Video games are about challenges and getting rewarded for overcoming said challenges. In this case the challenge to level up a certain skills. But not letting a player use Destruction perks even though he is at level 100 there just because he spent all his perk points in fighting skills is just a dick move. It's artificially limiting the player. That's not realism, that's not adding difficulty, that's just pissing some players off.

by **Cial** Sat May 12, 2012 2:17 am

But that's not overcoming a challenge if you're level 100 and using destruction magic, it's grinding. And most likely if you didn't choose destruction perks, you weren't using that skill all that much with your playstyle, so you shouldn't be grinding it just to get the gamechanging perks in that skill tree.

by **DigDog** Sat May 12, 2012 2:43 am

But what if I spent 30 hours playing a melee fighter and then choose to try my hands on magic? I get penalized and won't be able to use magic to its full potential because all my perks are in melee skills. And in a game that is as big as Skyrim, where you can easily spend 100 hours, it's not unlikely that people want to freshen things up by choosing other playstyles. But they can't, because you can neither get more perks nor can you respec, not even once. The only choice you'd have then would be making a new character and playing everything again. And honestly, Skyrim isn't exactly that big on replayability. The only thing so far I've seen that has a branching storyline is the Stormcloaks vs Imperials war.

by **Cial** Sat May 12, 2012 2:49 am

Well, if you have 100 levels with a perk point each you can definitely get the perks you want for several skills, seeing as there are only ~12 perks per skill and not all of them are essential to get the "game changing" perks.

by **DigDog** Sat May 12, 2012 2:55 am

"There are 251 total skill perks (including multi-point perks), but only 80 of them can be unlocked by any given character."

That's less than a third. It's bullsh*t.

by Onion Supreme Sat May 12, 2012 3:24 am

Looks like this perk thing caused DigDog's mood to.... TAKE AN ARROW TO THE KNEE.

OLOLOLOOLOLOLOL XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

by **Cial** Sat May 12, 2012 3:30 am

I'm calling bull on the 251 figure, seeing that a lot of the perks in Skyrim can be "doubled up" with more perk points spent on it.

by **DigDog** Sat May 12, 2012 3:40 am

"(including multi-point perks)" means exactly that. You can spend 251 perk points in total on the whole skill tree, yet you only get 80 to spend.

by **Tim Hortans** Sat May 12, 2012 3:43 am

Onion Supreme wrote:Looks like this perk thing caused DigDog's mood to.... TAKE AN ARROW TO THE KNEE.

OLOLOLOOLOLOLOL XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

ROFLMAO!!!!!!!! XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
The Elder Scrolls Online - Page 3 Tumblr_ljy36vgftt1qj65oto1_500

by Mrsebi Sat May 12, 2012 3:44 am

DigDog wrote:But what if I spent 30 hours playing a melee fighter and then choose to try my hands on magic? I get penalized and won't be able to use magic to its full potential because all my perks are in melee skills. And in a game that is as big as Skyrim, where you can easily spend 100 hours, it's not unlikely that people want to freshen things up by choosing other playstyles. But they can't, because you can neither get more perks nor can you respec, not even once. The only choice you'd have then would be making a new character and playing everything again. And honestly, Skyrim isn't exactly that big on replayability. The only thing so far I've seen that has a branching storyline is the Stormcloaks vs Imperials war.

And the combat is lovely.
This is why Amalur is better.

by **Cial** Sat May 12, 2012 4:08 am

DigDog wrote:"(including multi-point perks)" means exactly that. You can spend 251 perk points in total on the whole skill tree, yet you only get 80 to spend.

I don't understand why this is such a big deal. First of all, most of the perks are minor increases to your casting rate or sword-swinging ability or what have you, but of course there are the game-changers on the list as well. If you really use say, sneak a lot more than you enchant or smith, nothing is stopping you from leveling that tree up to get it's big perks, or vice versa. If they're so game-changing, then you don't really need to be entitled to get all of them just because you want to mix it up every once in a while.

Also Reckoning was an alright game considering it was basically just Dragon Age with a whole new mythos and world that nobody really knew about.

by **Tim Hortans** Sat May 12, 2012 4:13 am

Jesus christ Cial how do you still not understand the argument we're presenting?

by **Cial** Sat May 12, 2012 4:17 am

From what I understand it's "WHY CAN'T I HAVE ALL THE PERKS I WANT IN ONE PLAYTHROUGH IT'S NO FAIR".

by **Tim Hortans** Sat May 12, 2012 4:18 am

Yeah thats the argument? Whats wrong with that? Are we forcing you to have every perk? Nope. You can go ahead and only level sneak if you want. Have fun doing it too. But there are some people who like being insanely powerful.

by **Cial** Sat May 12, 2012 4:25 am

Yes, but at it's core, Skyrim is still a role play game in a very sandbox environment. At least for the most part you have a pretty good amount of wiggle room to choose which skills you want to work with. Whereas in most traditional RPGs you're literally forced into a class with restricting weaponry and skills. Skyrim on the other hand gives you the perk system, which allows you the choice of picking which skills would give you the most edge or have the most effectiveness. It helps to develop your skills the way you want your characters to be along the way instead of making one choice at creation and be stuck with it for the next 100 hours of gameplay.

by Peregrine Sat May 12, 2012 4:28 am

Cial you realize what you're doing is creating a custom class with restricting weaponry and skills right? You still make a choice very early on at what you're going to be specializing in, and you're still stuck with it for the next 100 hours of gameplay.

I don't know how you got it into your head that previous TES titles had restrictions on weaponry or skills. You got a boost depending on your major skills but realistically you could use whatever you wanted whenever you wanted, which makes Skyrim's perk system a major step down as far as I'm concerned.

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