As many people on this board have likely played Oblivion, let me pose a strictly hypothetical question.

I was just replaying Oblivion to kill time until the FO:NV release and though the leveling system can be a bit of a hand full to manage, it is very enjoyable to break away from the XP model for leveling. I particularly like being able to level my character with out having to kill everything in sight.

In FO3 you received some xp by making speech checks, lock picking, hacking, etc. The problem is when you don’t kill something, you miss out on that xp. So if I’m a sneak or speech heavy character, you’re almost penalized for not going in guns blazing.

Obviously the Oblivion style system has its flaws as well, namely sitting in a corner and spamming a skill until you leveled, but I thought the concept itself was very innovative in an RPG. Whether you play the thief, mage, fighter or other you still have pretty much equal opportunities to level.

What do you think? Do you think an Oblivion style leveling system would work in Fallout: NV or any other forthcoming fallout titles?

while I agree that it's annoying just to do those specific actions and ONLY them to get xp was bad in fallout 3, I think oblivion's system just wouldnt work that great in new vegas

I think we've had one of these before.
Nevertheless I say that a modified version, maybe where you needed a little skill in big guns to get past 70 small guns or maybe you need just a bit more muscle (strength) to help with those speech checks, would perhaps work but your a little late with your chipping in, no offence .

I liked Oblivion's system but the Fallout 1 and 2 Diehards would be very very pissed.

Or, you know, anyone who doesn't agree with the idea.

i disagree entirely..... the oblivion leveling system i thought was cheap or to slow...... example: if you jump or shoot lock pick spells at doors a million times you level.... example of slow: if you didn't do the cheap/easy way it would take days for leveling....

But.. it actually makes it WORTHWHILE to level up.. if you work hard at a skill, you become better at it... common sense.

I love the TES system over FO3 system any day. I was always wondering, "how does picking lock make me better at shotting pistol?" If it were like TES, shooting small guns makes that skill go up. Hmmm... that makes alot of sense. Much more sense than blowing up 10 guys with grenades, and getting much better at hacking computers.

:)

Someone who agrees with me! Yay!

But yeah, it makes MUCH more sense than Fallouts system.

I love Oblivions system. Fallout's is so not common sense!

I think Fallouts is just more convenient. If I wanna be a hacker, I don't have to play through hundreds of hacking-mini games to be able to get into the hard-locked stuff.

They're already a bit too much alike. I say we leave 'em be and keep everybody at least satisfied.

Ahha! But you see, that would not be the case. Take lockpicking for example.

In Fallout, you need a set skill level or higher to pick a lock, and no matter what if you can pick it, its the same difficulty every time.

In Oblivion, from lvl 1 with 0 lockpicking you can pick any lock in the game you want. The difference is that as your skill increases it becomes easier and easier. Till at lvl 100 you can pick the hardest of locks with ease!

They could do the same for hacking. Tweak the system to make it harder on some levels and easier on others. Then make it so you can attempt to hack any computer at lvl 1, just the harder ones are incredibly hard. That would be fantastic dont you agree?

I don't think theres any leveling system that can be found in an RPG that I hate more than Oblivion.

Terrible, tedious and annoying. What Bethesda's Fallout (and the elements they took from the classics) did best is they kicked out of all the awkwardness that came with the engine's previous use and worked on making it a series with more broad gamer appeal. Simpler, more streamlined ideas with an ultimately more stable and satisfying outcome.

That, is an excellent point. :trophy:

I've never actually played Oblivion (blasphemy, I know.) but that sounds better then the way it is now. :laugh:

I too am playing oblivion to pass the time ( not to mention because I lurve it ).
That said I really dislike the leveling system, it is both open to many exploits, but at the same time not enough.
Morrowind had a gentle pace to it that was open to building and sticking with a role, oblivion just was a hodge podge of skills that required alot of effort not to use even then you handicapped yourself.
Which rewarded spamming actions over playing, but then hindered you with npc leveling.

Thats just my opinion, something like oblivion but with more emphasis on role.

Personally, I think both systems have their own particular strengths and weaknesses. I happen to be a fan of Elder Scrolls' leveling system - but I also don't think it needs to be featured in every single RPG out there, either. With Fallout especially, we're talking about an already-established series - one that already has it's own ruleset. I think it makes more sense to tweak the current system than to "throw out the baby with the bath-water" and turn it into something else.

I can see an issue with a character who naturally avoids enemy encounters having trouble soaking up as much XP as other types (by missing out on the XP dropped by killing enemies.) But I also think there's other ways around that. There are RPG systems out there which reward the player for finding alternate routes past an obstacle - the trick is simply to make sure that the XP reward for sneaking past a group of enemies to get to your objective is equal to (I'd potentially argue it should be even slightly higher) the XP you would have gained from killing everyone in sight.

Apart from the mini-games, that's how Fallout 1 and 2 worked, as well - regardless of your skill level you could always at least attempt an action. (Success was simply based on a percentage chance modified by your skill and attribute levels.) Fallout 3, in this case, is the odd man out. I would support going back to that concept - I continually found it somewhat aggravating in Fallout 3 that I would be 1 point away from the minimum requirement to pick a certain lock, and not being able to do anything about it.

the real ? is would you like fallouts level up system in the new Elder Scrolls. I still have not made up my mind on the subject, lots of pros and cons either way. What i dont want is leveled loot or enemys in anymore Bethesda RPGs.

If Fallout ever got an Oblivion style leveling system I'd probably have to bid the series adieu, I really just dislike the leveling in Oblivion to be honest there is just something about doing repetitive actions over & over again that drives me absolutely bonkers.

I'm the type of person that likes gaining levels & points to distribute the way I see fit and to form my character the way I see fit (As stated before I never really got accustomed to or liked the system in Oblivion and to be honest I don't think a system like that should be put into Fallout), No need for some hybrid reworking of the systems and there is no need to fix what is not broken. :tops:

Oblivion style leveling in New Vegas=crap. Why?

Very simple.

High levels=Raiders with power armor. Hell no. that just doesnt make any [censored] sense.

I loathed the leveling up system in TES......in TES taking out enemies is easy at level 1 and gets harder as you level up, while in FO3 it's harder to kill them at low levels and gets easier as you level up, as it should. if you put the skills you use as major skills then you rocket up the levels and not only are you robbed of the pleasures of having a high-level character as it isn't long before you cannot even get a one-hit sneak kill on enemies, friendly NPCs don't stand a chance against the enemies out there at high levels. Do the final battle in "Knights of the Nine" at Level 10 or so and most if not all the NPCs will make it, but do it at level 20 or higher and any of them that aren't essential will die for sure. And if you put the skills you don't use as major skills to enable you to control when you level up you have to spam skills to level up and are starved for loot. FO3's method is imperfect but vastly better than TES.

@tiberius67 how are you starved for loot?

I think he means by under leveling you do not get the high level loot, say 16 absorb magicka amulet in oblivon.
Or a gun that did 16 damage compared to a leveled 8 if you did not level ( I kmow it does not exist in FO ).

But the elder scrolls iv is full of loot always.

THe big downside with the elder scrolls style leveling is that if you play normally it can be hard to level efficiently. I found myself skill spamming when I was near leveling to make sure I got the 5/5/1, and I'd always end up wasting skill increases on skills I used often. With the fallout system I can choose how my character levels. I wouldn't mind having my character in a fallout game level skills through use and gain a level every x skill points gained if I still had control of attribute changes and perks. Although, running out of skill points could be a problem. I've found that my characters in fallout three will max out all skills by level 25 or so.