Perk skills to completely replace weapon skills, no spears in The Elders Scrolls V: Skyrim

In the latest Game Informer podcast, Todd Howard, director of Skyrim discussed the new system of perks which will replace the weapon skill system found in Oblivion. To be used to give players even more choices when it comes to combat. Each weapon type will have its own skill tree and will provide players with more choices during combat.

“Each skill has its own perk tree,”  said Howard. “So take one handed for instance. The idea is, you have a one-handed skill, and then you can perk that – there’s like a skill tree, underneath one-handed.”

“Within that there are separate perk areas for maces and then axes and then swords. So opposed to having, say, an axe skill, that is a part of the perk tree within one-handed.

“We think that … gives us a better balance. You can start like ‘I like one-handed stuff’ and then you start specialising as you raise that skill.”

Its safe to say that the combat and weapon system are receiving a major overhaul, making it more accessible to newcomers.

“We tend to each time start over, and we want to find weapon types with this game that really yield gameplay,” he said. “So those skills are separate. There’s a two-handed weapon skill, there’s a one-handed weapon-skill, there’s an archery skill. … Because those really are play styles.

“Within each of those trees there are different weapon types that you can then get better at. Without saying what they all are, so they actually have a gameplay difference,” he concluded.

When the question of Spears was raised, Todd replied that Skyrim would not include spears, at least, not as of now.

“There are not spears in the classic spear sense. I’m sorry, There are currently not.”

“Something like spears is really cool, it’s just something with where we’re putting our time with the other weapons. It just didn’t make the cut right now.”

The modification of the fundamentals are sure to raise some eyebrows. The series has made drastic turns with each installment. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim will be set loose on November 11th, 2011 for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3