And?

Use it for a different character. I'm so sick and tired of

"My character cannot use every weapon" "My character cannot do this because he's a warrior and I chose not to play magic and now I want to cast magic"

If you want a character to do everything go play Fable or something.

I like advanced, customizable options, and I have always played characters through and through to their unique skills. Saw Dawnguard crossbows made another character to use archery, simple.

So sick and tired of hearing people want to do everything one one character.

In Oblivion I always made a custom class, which is what I do on Skyrim still. Also I like how on Skyrim, if I decide to create an archer, and grow tired of archery after several hours and decide I'd rather use a greatsword, I don't have to restart the game.

And thus, Skyrim was born. No such thought process required.

I said I wanted to use archery and one handed, you're right i'm practically the Devil..... but so you're saying if I start using the crossbow for weeks on end and get it to one hundred I don't deserve to be leveled? it's just tedious replaying everything just so I can use a certain weapon

Everything gets to 100 in the end, so applying bonuses and penalties to classes and races other than skill boosts makes sense. Not much point starting as an Orsimer barbarian if a Breton sorcerer can end up as good with an axe, unless you just like Orsimer barabarians that is. Permanent boosts, or skill maxima ensure your character generation choices always matter.

Where is it writ in stone that perks shouldn't determine what you do? Why is a set of perks completely divorced from skills objectively better than a combined perks and skill system?

How about: racial starting bonuses and maxima for attributes (and a weakness or two, natch), and a combined skill/perk system with starting skill bonuses and a perk or two for class, but certain perks proscribed if you choose a certain class (a mage can find a shield and learn to use it pretty damned well, but will never have some of the advantages of a legionnaire's training)?

Freedom over anything, really.

With Skyrim, you play as YOU want, not how the game wants you to play. You can do whatever you wish, whenever you wish. It's one of the things making Skyrim so fun.

It's called replay value. Opening up various ways for the player to play the game every time they start anew. You "metagame" one playthrough while using every possible skill, it gives little reason to start another playthrough to make a character for the skills you didn't use. A different class of character. There being very few decisions/choices that change the world of TES besides choosing what to do and what not to do, the type of character one plays is rather important in determining a reason to replay the game.

I was initially excited when I heard Todd Howard say that there was no class system, and if you wanted to do something.. You just do it. And tbh I really liked the system myself. It should have been just a bit more restricted though. Not such a fan of 'jack of all trades' characters personally.

You don't need classes for replay value just look a Skyrim still going strong after 2 years, obviously if I make a character who's a mage I stick to magic but if I start to sneak while I cast spells I don't see the problem?

No, classes were not good. I hated needing to load back to the sewers when I decided a few days later I didn't want to be a Spellsword...

Well, so much for "roleplaying", right? But I guess it's better to have less RPG elements.

I understand. The same thing would happen to me sometimes.

You should at least be able to change your class somewhere in the game, for the people who don't want to start over.

Skyrim's...it gives you the freedom to evolve your characters roleplay as you play.

For me, anything that adds more options in customization and variability is a good thing. Not having classes with inheirent advantages and (yes shocking!) disadvantages leads to cookie cutter characters that all tend to feel the same after awhile. To be sure, a mage is not a warrior but certain rather poor design decisions make this funnel into character sameness rather obvious - witness how every character in the game is a master lockpicker by the time they reach the middle character levels.

I use this mod: http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/16736

Brings back some of the need for choices where classes have built-in advantages with higher skills and class abilities but suffer much lower starting skills in non-class skills so I'm not a jack-of-all-trades at level one which was always a moronic design decision. But that's what we're left to suffer with these days from game developers, everyone must be good at everything and there are no trade-offs or downright handicaps. Sad really.

I don't like premade classes in TES. They essentially force to play one way and one way only. In TES one learns by doing and so in the beginning the character should be a blank. One then builds upon that using skills he/she wants.

In Skyrim one starts without a class but eventually ends up having a class. Why? Perks, one can have only limited amount of perks so he/she won't end up being absolute jack of all trades (I intentionally disregarded legendary feature for being a moronic addition).

Yes, exactly. I was so glad in Skyrim that if I had a heavy armour wearing brute that at level 30 would decide to take up necromancy or restoration, I could do that.

Having a class and being bound to that isn't even realistic. Having multiple professions (if you want to) is.

What if someone roleplays a master swordsman? And then some point in the RP, this swordsman turns to the arcane, yet still doesn't want to give up using a sword? Should he not be as proficient with a sword just because he now studies the arcane?

*headdesk*

How many people actually paid attention to Oblivion's class system?

You could make Your Own Customizable Classes in Oblivion. You can put the things you wanted to focus on in those classes.

Personally, I prefer the classless form-- it was something I modded into Oblivion myself, long before Skyrim (and I believe a few other Mods did that, too), and tied to Attributes-- your skills determined your attributes directly, rather than just influencing level-up bonuses. For me, it feels more natural that everything leads to your development, and your character could suddenly veer off into something else when they realise, "wow, I thought people who swung swords were idiots! But actually it's a real skill!"

What could be interesting, maybe, is if your class evolved based on your skills-- so you start with a class based on your Race, and then as you level skills it changes; so it would be more like a title than an actual restrictive-class. (So you might start as a "Mage", but as you practice your weapons you move to "Spellsword" and finally "warrior", for example). It would be useless in practical terms, but would give you an idea of how you've been developing.

On Perks... Probably a bad idea (or one that needs more refining) but maybe have Perks be in Skill groups? So you can only spend Combat Perks on Combat Skills, Magic Perks on Magic Skills and Stealth Perks on Stealth Skills-- it would add a slightly more rigid class system, since you could only develop along the lines you're behaving, whilst still giving freedom of development (but then we get the question of how many people already do this, and how many people 'exploit' the current system to spend their skills elsewhere; and please not the inverted commas on 'exploit', since I could not think of the word I really mean )

I think I liked Oblivion classes a little better. But not so much that I've ever given it much thought.

I hate Oblivons Auto perk thingy. why do I get perks in my minor skills.

On oblivion you can easily become a jack of all trades.

basically there was no point in major and minor skills.

I know someone who put his major skills as skills he wouldn't use so he could stay at level 1 and become really powerful.

You mean the rigid system from Oblivion that didn't allow my character to evolve and change over time? no thanks, the only thing I want brought back is the Hand to Hand skill.
(and all the magic ha)

Your current character could easily master magic as well. Making a new character isn't really necessary in that case. zen1966 is spot on with the Orc Barbarian and Breton Sorcerer example. It's more so looking at it from a technical view, but you do make a point. You could simply not use that specific skill and call the character a mage.

Thing is though, people like what Skyrim did with the freedom it added for these characters to evolve into whatever they wanted at any point in time with no restriction. I consider that a fair enough reason. My first character did I not plan on using magic besides Restoration, but after testing some Destruction magic, did I later decide to use that skill. And then later on decided to go in Conjuration and Enchanting. Good for me. But I have very little reason to go back and play something I've already done. "Der it's your fault for not limiting yourself". Perhaps, but if the player can be at fault for such, then why is the game designed like that in the first place? Sure, you get all of the freedom to be whatever your heart desires but at the same time it can cost replay value.

If TES games had a better functioning class system that added some significance to major skills over minor ones and had some proper penalties in regards to the skills you use specifically for that character, then that character would be unique and I would have reason to start a new character under a new class with a different skill set. Proper limitation (such a scary term) for more replay value.

In a system like the one that has been used in the last few games, where you increase a skill simply by using it, I find classes to be a somewhat misfitted concept. If you are what you do, putting in arbitrary limitations on which skills affects leveling seems pointless. I wouldn't mind something like Fallout's Tag! system though, where you choose a few skills you receive a starting bonus in, but doesn't make any further commitment to them.

If they are to bring back classes, they need to throw out the way they handled them in Morrowind and Oblivion, I would say, and put in more meaningful consequences for choosing a class. However, this would go against the "you are what you do" and put more of a "you do what you are" approach to it, so I don't know if I want classes back at all.

Or something like that.

Agreed. The possibility of evolution is the key idea I think, and where the divide between classes and freedom comes from.

I had a character for a while that started as a Two-Handed warrior. Then I came across an enemy that was pretty darn good with a shield, bashing me tactically. My character decided that she'd never really respected the Block and One Handed style of fighting before, but she now saw its potential and decided to take it up herself. She wasn't good at it at first, of course, but eventually was.

In a strict class system, the only way I could've gone with this angle is if I planned it out at the beginning of the game. At least if I actually wanted it to help her level. To me that takes all the fun out of it. A character is more than just a role, in my view, she ought to become interested in new things. Rather difficult to keep myself out of her, I guess.

That's not even getting into the whole "Ugh why did I put that skill as a major one, it turns out I don't like it" thing. I know I wasn't the only naive fool who took one of the pre-made classes in Oblivion and found out each one of them seems to have at least one skill which is a total chore to level. In my case it was Speechcraft, which I quickly came to despise. That [censored] minigame, gah. Even when making a custom class I still wound up having to slot in a skill I didn't particularly like.

Actually I agree on the Hand to Hand skill too, it should be viable for everyone. I made a quite decent character in Oblivion via modded H2H with the "on touch" type spells (which I also miss).