Skyrim Features "Perk" Trees Instead of Weapons Skills

[CoL0sS]

Good system, but being limited to one or two weapon types in Morrowind and Oblivion is what made look for best combination of piercing/slashing weapons, explore world and fight overpowering foes just so I could get that magical blade sooner. But again it will eliminate that stupid feeling of having an awesome 2h weapon and not being able to use it efficiently. This perk tree will probably be similar to that in Fallout, only a bit more varied.

 

[Dusk17]

They need to be careful in how they design this new system or it will turn into shit. And yes spears are gone get over it.

 

[Bloodstain]

But...I was looking forward to stabbing bears with spears! I don't normally use them, but it would just feel so...right.

 

[binvjoh]

Sounds a lot like Dark Messiah.

If more games were like Dark Messiah - in other words a heady cocktail of awesome mixed with badass - then I'd be a happy happy gamer.

Seriously, Dark Messiah is incredible.

The combat is, yes.

Bit iffy on the rest of the game.

 

[Dogstile]

"Perks" And there's the obligatory CoD reference, have we really sunk so low?

Do you really think perks originated from COD? I do not envy your lack of experience

OT:

I want spears. At least throwing spears, give us SOMETHING

 

[Slash Dementia]

How do spears not make the cut?.. They're the best weapon, and were in Morrowind, and I miss using a halberd.

I'm disappointed in this system because it seems overly-simplified. I mean, it was already simple in Oblivion. Not that this will stop me from buying or liking the game, it's just that it seems to be too user-friendly now.

 

[Jake the Snake]

Question: How does unarmed fit in to this?

My guess is they might have scrapped it as a skill. You can probably still punch, but they're probably figuring, "Are fists really going to do that much against a dragon?"

 

[Michael O'Hair]

Game may or may not involve killing large reptiles. Possibly.

No spears.

...

Okay.

 

[James B Hamster]

This is the most amazing thing ever. The character optimization rules are what stopped me from finishing TES III and IV, IV in particular: I don't consider myself a power leveler by any means, but when you set up a system where I have to play a game a certain way and perform certain actions within a certain range of times but not over or under, I will feel compelled to meet that benchmark otherwise I know that I will have lost out on the opportunity forever (you'll always have squandered the potential for extra ability points).

While compulsions are compulsions, eventually just grinding becomes intolerably boring for one's leisure time, and I abandon the playthrough outright. Maybe this way I can actually play through the buggering game without having to auto-run into a wall for three hours to get optimal.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

See the average guy can move to the side faster than a horse intent on charging them can turn to catch up. That and what if the person moves to the side where the lance isn't? The lancer has a lane in one hand. The other is holding a shield. So even if the horse turns quickly it essentially going to lead to the guy on it doing fuck all while his horse has the chance of getting slice up the side of it's gut. This is why one on one a mounted horseman is as at disadvantage to the grounded infantry unit. They can move a short distance faster.

I'm having a hard time finding that notion plausible nor can I find anything to support it historically. Also why are you insinuating that a lance is stuck into one side of the horse. You brought up jousting earlier, that's almost always done across the horse on the same side as the shield. And you're still further ignoring the horse in this situation as well, trying to instep at the last second before the rider can move the lance to the other side is far more likely to get you run over and trampled. Just cause Russel Crowe does it in Gladiator doesn't mean that's a good basis for an argument, as you pointed out with using 300 as a basis for spear combat.

Any attempt at this kind of maneuver would have to be done at the last possible second. Too soon and it's easy enough to correct. If you try to step out, it takes less force and they can create a faster transversal at the lance tip by moving their arm. They only have to pivot at a fulcrum, you are trying to move your whole body.

So that leads trying to step in, which means you need to cover at least ~4 feet(average width of a horse) to avoid being trampled. I'm willing to bet that the best case scenario is you avoid being trampled or hit by the lance, but you are in no stable footing condition to strike out. So the whole situation repeats and eventually the horsemen is going to grind you down.

Besides you logic doesn't work with the claymore (or zweihander), a sword specifically made to disrupt pole-arm combat. This sword was on average just as long as a lance but with better maneuvering obviously due to it being a sword. This sword had two uses. to break the weapons of pike-men, and to chop off the legs of charging horses. And since horses charging in can't change direction like a person on foot can, the advantage one on one goes to the guy with the 6 ft sword in his hands.

I believe you're confusing some facts here. Zweihänder were historically deployed against foot pike-men, you are correct in that their alleged purpose was to break the pole-arm, but they were not touted as anti-calvary weapons, that's what pole-arms were for. A 55-60 inch great sword is not "just as long" as 3-4 meter lance, I don't know where you are even getting that notion. And I couldn't find any definitive records indicating practice in chopping out the horses legs, the standard practice against a calvary charge was actually to place a hand on the ricasso(blunt) portion of the blade and to use them as a short pole-arm. Chopping at the legs would actually ignore the classic problem of this mounted vs footman scenario, the lance would hit you before you could strike perpendicularly to the legs.

Some Asian cultures did have "horse chopping" swords, but these cultures also lacked lanced calvary like our discussion.

Now a proper pole-arm against a rider would be another story.

You keep on thinking I'm talking about sidestepping a charging horse a the last moment. Of course not. That's just silly. But in one on one if a horse is charging at a person full speed with the intent to trample or with the horseman's intent to impale the grounded unit with his lance, the grounded unit can run faster either left or right depending on which side the lance is on. Even better would be moving diagonally towards the direction of the charger and to either left or right at the same time to force the charge to break, giving you a chance to run in and hack at the horseman. There's no way in hell you're going to tell me a horse can slow down from a full charge speed to turn and go after a grounded unit moving like that one on one. Even if the horse got close to the grounded unit there's no way that the lancer is making an effective charge at that point. And what's he going to do then? Try and impale the infantry unit with his lance at close range? He's essentially waiting to get hacked unless he's dropped his lance and pulled out a sword at that point.

Also, my mistake about length of the zweihander. Late night. Tired. But I do know that it was used against horsemen. It's just logical as it had no other use besides disabling pike-men. I I did search that up and found every article I looked at reference me back to Wikipedia which says that the zweihander was also used to dismember horses. It really would just make sense. It's like I know that the Nodachi (a 5 foot katana essentially) was used primarily against cavalry units in Feudal Japan.

 

[Slycne]

You keep on thinking I'm talking about sidestepping a charging horse a the last moment. Of course not. That's just silly. But in one on one if a horse is charging at a person full speed with the intent to trample or with the horseman's intent to impale the grounded unit with his lance, the grounded unit can run faster either left or right depending on which side the lance is on. Even better would be moving diagonally towards the direction of the charger and to either left or right at the same time to force the charge to break, giving you a chance to run in and hack at the horseman. There's no way in hell you're going to tell me a horse can slow down from a full charge speed to turn and go after a grounded unit moving like that one on one. Even if the horse got close to the grounded unit there's no way that the lancer is making an effective charge at that point. And what's he going to do then? Try and impale the infantry unit with his lance at close range? He's essentially waiting to get hacked unless he's dropped his lance and pulled out a sword at that point.

Sure they can, it's not like a horse is some immovable object of inertia that's bound to a single path. Go look at horse barrel racing for instance, that's a 180 degree turn at speed. They get slowed down a bit by it, but we also are not talking about a full turn either in this scenario.

So I still don't understand how you think you can run perpendicular or diagonal to the horse to dodge its path. They only have to make minor changes to catch you if you are not trying to move at the last second before they have a chance to respond.

Also, my mistake about length of the zweihander. Late night. Tired. But I do know that it was used against horsemen. It's just logical as it had no other use besides disabling pike-men. I I did search that up and found every article I looked at reference me back to Wikipedia which says that the zweihander was also used to dismember horses. It really would just make sense. It's like I know that the Nodachi (a 5 foot katana essentially) was used primarily against cavalry units in Feudal Japan.

That's the thing though. If you dig deeper you'll find that much of this is based purely on post-medieval speculation. There is no evidence to suggest that they were effectively used against cavalry. Their most famous user the Landsknechts, it was thought to only be used in a relative minority of their numbers, most preferring pike, halberd or partisans. Some historians go so far as to say they were almost solely ceremonial weapons, that never saw much actual combat. This [http://www.thearma.org/essays/2HGS.html] has a pretty good cited breakdown of the rise, fall and use of the two-handed great swords.

Just because Japanese cultures had them(and even the Nodachi is recorded as not being commonly used and the Zanbato is historically debated to be used at all), doesn't mean it's a logical comparison. Their warfare was quite different than Western. They almost exclusively didn't fight with shields, for instance. And they were facing riders without the extreme reach of Western lances, so being able to effectively attack the horse before the rider came into reach would be a much more viable tactic.

 

[Nannernade]

No spears? Aw I'm sad now...

 

[Latinidiot]

Sounds good to me. Maybe they'll do a similar thing with magic. Like, you could start by saying "I like blowing things up", and then pick destruction skills to specialize in from there.

That was sort of how it worked in the first place, but I think I see your point. My big question is how mixing skills, especially with one being magic, will work, if at all. For instance, I usually play a stealth archer in this sort of thing, and I'd love to be able to use a spell to assist with that. Hell, even ignoring magic, I'd like more variety in the archery; do you want to focus on Damage, or DPS? Sniper Rifle vs Machine Gun.

there apparently is an archery tree, so I think that's exactly the kind of distinction you're allowed to make. Maybe other perks, like zooming, accuary, speed of reloading, speed of pulling the string back etc. will appear too, but that's just speculation.

What this system probably means too is that you really need to specialize. I mean, in Oblivion, you could be everything if you put enough time into it, but in Skyrim, the perks are limited. And I kind of liked not really having to decide. But still, more specialisation comes with awesomer skills, and not just stab and swing for swords and 'shoot' for arrows.


FUCK, I can't wait to play this gaaaaame.

 

[The_ModeRazor]

Dayum. Was hoping for spears. And attributes+skills which have no upper limit. Yes, it's utterly gamebreaking, but great for sandbox

Also, I hope they add some kinda mutilation system. Like in Fallout 3. It helped immersion - and it was fucking hilarious.

 

[Wolfram23]

I think that's a good idea.

But if they don't have spears... then no halberds? I want halberds!

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

You keep on thinking I'm talking about sidestepping a charging horse a the last moment. Of course not. That's just silly. But in one on one if a horse is charging at a person full speed with the intent to trample or with the horseman's intent to impale the grounded unit with his lance, the grounded unit can run faster either left or right depending on which side the lance is on. Even better would be moving diagonally towards the direction of the charger and to either left or right at the same time to force the charge to break, giving you a chance to run in and hack at the horseman. There's no way in hell you're going to tell me a horse can slow down from a full charge speed to turn and go after a grounded unit moving like that one on one. Even if the horse got close to the grounded unit there's no way that the lancer is making an effective charge at that point. And what's he going to do then? Try and impale the infantry unit with his lance at close range? He's essentially waiting to get hacked unless he's dropped his lance and pulled out a sword at that point.

Sure they can, it's not like a horse is some immovable object of inertia that's bound to a single path. Go look at horse barrel racing for instance, that's a 180 degree turn at speed. They get slowed down a bit by it, but we also are not talking about a full turn either in this scenario.

So I still don't understand how you think you can run perpendicular or diagonal to the horse to dodge its path. They only have to make minor changes to catch you if you are not trying to move at the last second before they have a chance to respond.

Also, my mistake about length of the zweihander. Late night. Tired. But I do know that it was used against horsemen. It's just logical as it had no other use besides disabling pike-men. I I did search that up and found every article I looked at reference me back to Wikipedia which says that the zweihander was also used to dismember horses. It really would just make sense. It's like I know that the Nodachi (a 5 foot katana essentially) was used primarily against cavalry units in Feudal Japan.

That's the thing though. If you dig deeper you'll find that much of this is based purely on post-medieval speculation. There is no evidence to suggest that they were effectively used against cavalry. Their most famous user the Landsknechts, it was thought to only be used in a relative minority of their numbers, most preferring pike, halberd or partisans. Some historians go so far as to say they were almost solely ceremonial weapons, that never saw much actual combat. This [http://www.thearma.org/essays/2HGS.html] has a pretty good cited breakdown of the rise, fall and use of the two-handed great swords.

Just because Japanese cultures had them(and even the Nodachi is recorded as not being commonly used and the Zanbato is historically debated to be used at all), doesn't mean it's a logical comparison. Their warfare was quite different than Western. They almost exclusively didn't fight with shields, for instance. And they were facing riders without the extreme reach of Western lances, so being able to effectively attack the horse before the rider came into reach would be a much more viable tactic.

Ok, dating an equestrain girl for over 5 years I can tell you that barrel racing and lancing are two completly different styles of horseback riding. They're not even comparable in this situation. A horse equipped for use of a lancer has waaaaaay too much armour on it to do any turns at the speed and manuverability of a horse that is participating in barrel racing. Just two different styles that can't be compared. I can tell you that if a horse equipped for cavalry tried to barrel race, it would fall over. This is why lancing an infantry unit one on one is idiotic. There are too many things the infantry unit can do to evade the horse charging at full speed. Heavily armoured a horses manuverability is severly downgraded. If the horseman wants to continue to chase after the moving target, he has to greatly sacrifice speed, making his lance an extremely ineffective weapon at that point.

You also keep saying that because a Zweihander isn't recorded (in where you are researching) to be used against cavalry doesn't mean that human enginuity didn't kick in. I can tell you that there's probably no record of people taking out a crowd of enemies by shooting an explosive canister near by. Doesn't mean it hasn't happened. Swords against horses is a tactic used in Assassin's Creed. The creators had to get that idea from somewhere. Just because there are no records doesn't mean that historians don't theorize. And theories usually come from a certain amount of evidence.

There's probably no record of a one on one fight between a lancer on a horse, and an infantry unit in a fight either. Doesn't mean it hasn't happened. But the impracticallity of a lancer going up against a target that can move in all directions (as opposed to the extremely forward motion of a lancer) really puts the duel ending in the infatry unit's favour provided he know s what he is doing.

 

[Pandaman1911]

Oh dearie me. This seems like the sort of thing where there are several new gameplay innovations that just aren't going to be any good... of course, it's entirely possible (I should say, probable) that I'm completely wrong and this game is going to kick everyone's ass. I just take the "Yahtzee Approach" to upcoming titles... being negative means never being disappointed!

 

[TheSanityAssassin]

we don't like change :3

 

[DaHero]

How do spears not make the cut?.. They're the best weapon, and were in Morrowind, and I miss using a halberd.

I'm disappointed in this system because it seems overly-simplified. I mean, it was already simple in Oblivion. Not that this will stop me from buying or liking the game, it's just that it seems to be too user-friendly now.

I guess they didn't *shades* see the point.

YEAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!

 

[Slycne]

Ok, dating an equestrain girl for over 5 years I can tell you that barrel racing and lancing are two completly different styles of horseback riding. They're not even comparable in this situation. A horse equipped for use of a lancer has waaaaaay too much armour on it to do any turns at the speed and manuverability of a horse that is participating in barrel racing. Just two different styles that can't be compared. I can tell you that if a horse equipped for cavalry tried to barrel race, it would fall over. This is why lancing an infantry unit one on one is idiotic. There are too many things the infantry unit can do to evade the horse charging at full speed. Heavily armoured a horses manuverability is severly downgraded. If the horseman wants to continue to chase after the moving target, he has to greatly sacrifice speed, making his lance an extremely ineffective weapon at that point.

In a one on one fight, you wouldn't need to full out charge though. At a canter, that lance will still be hitting with plenty of kinetic energy and you'd be moving plenty slow enough for precise maneuvering.

You also keep saying that because a Zweihander isn't recorded (in where you are researching) to be used against cavalry doesn't mean that human enginuity didn't kick in. I can tell you that there's probably no record of people taking out a crowd of enemies by shooting an explosive canister near by. Doesn't mean it hasn't happened. Swords against horses is a tactic used in Assassin's Creed. The creators had to get that idea from somewhere. Just because there are no records doesn't mean that historians don't theorize. And theories usually come from a certain amount of evidence.

There's probably no record of a one on one fight between a lancer on a horse, and an infantry unit in a fight either. Doesn't mean it hasn't happened. But the impracticallity of a lancer going up against a target that can move in all directions (as opposed to the extremely forward motion of a lancer) really puts the duel ending in the infatry unit's favour provided he know s what he is doing.

But if they were such an effective weapon as you are claiming, then they would have been used more and documented as such. You can't just gloss over that fact because a video game happens to portray it. The lancer cavalry saw use into the 18th-19th century(though it was becoming debatable to their effectiveness), but the two-handed great sword fell mostly out of use by the 16th century which points to quite the opposite outcome, even if we attempted to extrapolate the conditions to one on one.