Posted March 26, 2018
In Oblivion, each skill has a mastery perk that is obtained at 100 skill. Many of those perks are really nice, but it does take a while to get them. It's often worth it.
However, there's one aspect of this that I find to be rather unsatisfying; once you get the perk, you no longer get any skill experience from using the skill. Hence, once you get the mastery perk, if you want to continue advancing, you need to not use it and instead use other skills instead. Hence, while you have a neat new tool, you can no longer advance by using it, and this I find rather unsatisfying.
Thinking of games with similar "improve by using" systems, I can think of a couple off hand that don't have this problem (note that both games have the same skill cap of 100, not counting other ways of boosting the skill):
* Morrowind: There are no perks available at certain points. Hence, there isn't anything that suddenly happens right when a skill reaches 100.
* Wizardry 8: We can look at the magic skills, particularly the spellbook skills, for examples of a perk-like bonus. Specifically, in Wizardry 8, you need a certain amount of skill to use spells of any given level. It just so happens that, by the time you reach 90 skill (possibly sooner depending on your realm skills), you are able to learn and cast any spell of the spellbook in question, provided your level is high enough. Further skill levels provide minor benefits, so you are still improving your magic through practice, but you can enjoy the final major benefit while still getting practice from actually using the spells. Raising the skill further isn't useless, as you can gain a few extra SP this way, and your spells become slightly more reliable. (There's also the fact that casting a spell will exercise the corresponding realm skill and, if you have it, Power Cast.)
So, looking at Wizardry 8's example, I'm wondering if, maybe, the master perks should have been obtained sooner at, say, a skill o 90 instead of 100. This way, you would be able to enjoy the benefits of the perk while still having a bit of room to grow in the skill.
Any thoughts on this? (If you want to try my idea of getting the master perks sooner, open the CS and change the value of iSkillMasterMin to 90 or so and see how it feels.)
However, there's one aspect of this that I find to be rather unsatisfying; once you get the perk, you no longer get any skill experience from using the skill. Hence, once you get the mastery perk, if you want to continue advancing, you need to not use it and instead use other skills instead. Hence, while you have a neat new tool, you can no longer advance by using it, and this I find rather unsatisfying.
Thinking of games with similar "improve by using" systems, I can think of a couple off hand that don't have this problem (note that both games have the same skill cap of 100, not counting other ways of boosting the skill):
* Morrowind: There are no perks available at certain points. Hence, there isn't anything that suddenly happens right when a skill reaches 100.
* Wizardry 8: We can look at the magic skills, particularly the spellbook skills, for examples of a perk-like bonus. Specifically, in Wizardry 8, you need a certain amount of skill to use spells of any given level. It just so happens that, by the time you reach 90 skill (possibly sooner depending on your realm skills), you are able to learn and cast any spell of the spellbook in question, provided your level is high enough. Further skill levels provide minor benefits, so you are still improving your magic through practice, but you can enjoy the final major benefit while still getting practice from actually using the spells. Raising the skill further isn't useless, as you can gain a few extra SP this way, and your spells become slightly more reliable. (There's also the fact that casting a spell will exercise the corresponding realm skill and, if you have it, Power Cast.)
So, looking at Wizardry 8's example, I'm wondering if, maybe, the master perks should have been obtained sooner at, say, a skill o 90 instead of 100. This way, you would be able to enjoy the benefits of the perk while still having a bit of room to grow in the skill.
Any thoughts on this? (If you want to try my idea of getting the master perks sooner, open the CS and change the value of iSkillMasterMin to 90 or so and see how it feels.)
