freedom =/= cheating and exploits.


The latter is just bad game design, and most singleplayer devs do aim for balance. I recall Bethesda saying they wanted Skyrim less prone to cheating/exploits.

And this is what Im afraid of. I could make 12 mages in Oblivion or Morrowind and have them all play totally different/use totally different spells and strategies, with spell creation. It doesnt seems like we'll have that same amount of openness if its truly cut.

Sorry, I forgot that you've already played the game and know exactly how the spell system works. My bad.

And yet Todd and you have both said it was too spread sheety and too complicated, but now they ditched it because it had too few options? What? Not to mention every spell you list in the latter part of your post could be combined with other effects in spell making.

how nice , calling people with which you disagree simpletons , just lovely

In Oblivion, the spells you could craft and cast were waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too powerful. They made melee-based players completely obsolete. At first I had a ton of fun playing a mage in Oblivion, but then I reached a point where nothing could touch me, like ever, for the entire rest of the game. The game lost any sense of challange and that is detrimental to the feeling of accomplishment I'd like to get from slaying the more "difficult" enemies in the game. In my opinion it is extremely important for them to balance all of the classes/skills as well as they can, and I'm relieved to know that is their goal. I don't want to see a year after Skyrim's release, a bunch of guides each detailing how to create the same broken character to make the game "easy mode" for the rest of the time you're playing.

I want spell making in still, it just need to be done in a more interesting fashion than those awful menus. I want it to have more experimentation.

How is spellmaking limiting the range of spells when that range has already been met?

85 spells........6 schools of magick.


Im going by what I've read, nothing is being pulled out of any rectal oriface ala advised against by Alois..


.


Then....DON'T?

Is "Then.... DON'T?" supposed to be a compelling argument? You haven't really said anything, aside from implying that you think you should be able to create an exploity "god mode" character. I suppose it was part of Morrowind and Oblivion so some people probably expect it at this point, but I would prefer to see a large variety of different character types be equally powerful in their own ways during the end-game. I'm pretty sure this is what BGS wants too. But even more than that, I want the game to have some challenge left for me at the 100+ hour mark. Neither Oblivion or Morrowind did.... didn't stop me from playing more anyways but it would have been more engaging if I actually still felt like I was fighting for my character's life.

What I don't understand is all of the people who freak out because something might be "unbalanced". Like, just don't use it, guys! Stop caring about what other people do in their single-player games

You need me to give you a compelling argument to tell you not to do something you obviously do not wish to sovern? I do not believe that to be the case.


the epidemic of everyone's character being strong equally has plagued since...ever , Perks may or may not alleviate this, but such has nothing to do with exploits

:)

Can you please separate Oblivion and Skyrim. How hard is it to understand that if you have twice or even three times the amount of spell effects in a game, then designing a custom spell system around that will necessarily be that much more complicated. The Oblivion system was simple, not very complex at all, but it didn't have the spell effects that Skyrim does.


WoW, I'm able to heal myself and throw a fireball simultaneously. How exactly does that differ from Skyrim? it doesn't. You simply put "Heal" in one hand and "Fireball" in the other. Except that you now also have the power to choose whether you want to cast only one or both, without changing spells to ready. And you don't have to spend money to create a bunch of spells to get the job done, you can just do it in the field, at will.

At the end of the day, the total number of unique spell effects in Oblivion were poor at best. You had 1 lightning effect and then X number of spells with differing magnitude, but the spell was effectively the same - the only difference being the pure numbers (which is what "spreadsheety" is referring to). I, for one, find it pretty easy to imagine how many more spell effects they can design when they no longer have to spend that time on creating and balancing a custom spellmaker system that is supposed to include all those spell effects. Not to mention the visuals of each spell, which seem to have been greatly improved for Skyrim.

Ultimately though, neither you nor I know anything whatsoever about the structure of the new system, so none of us are in a position to judge it accurately. We can try, but we'll likely just make an idiot of ourselves come release day. So many meaningless concerns about a game that is being produced with more resources, manpower and crucial lessons learned than Oblivion ever had.

The way it read to me, they were going for "too boring / unmagical / plain" not "too complex".


I'll say that it certainly never felt very interesting to tweak my X heal/Y seconds heal spells back and forth by points to get one that fit my magicka level & Resto skill. And then again when Resto hit 50. And then again when Resto hit 75.

Very "numbers" oriented, very "spreadsheet-y". (Plus, ending up with a spellbook full of "Heal 8x3, Heal 8x5, Heal 15x3, Heal 20x3, etc, etc, etc")


--------------



Welcome to every game ever made.

Games have strategies. Some are better than others. People write down these strategies, and share them.

But just because there's a million books on how to play chess like Kasparov, how to win at Poker, or how to make a min/maxed Oblivion character.... doesn't mean that anyone's putting a gun to your head to read them.

Even a game without cheats or exploits, will have a "best" way to do certain things, or strategies that are more effective, or combinations of skills that work well together.

And people will write it down.

FFFrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeedom

*gets quartered*

En-chantment! :brokencomputer:

En-chantment?
En-chantment!

:rofl:

Just because this is a single player game does not mean we should throw balance out the window. I want this game to be hard, difficult even. I want to get my ass whuped at many places, but I also want that great feeling of overcoming a challenge.

I suppose they could have the stuff like chameleon and spell absorb tied to difficulty. The max values and durations could be limited more as you increase difficulty. This would allow the people who do not want a challenge to run amok and those who want to actually have to think about what they are doing an alternative.

High-level characters should be incredibly powerful and make short work of most enemies. But there should be challenging enemies around for them to test themselves against.

Ridiculous exploits that allow ANY character to be super-strong or otherwise untouchable should be kept to a minimum, especially if they feel gamey and don't make sense in the context of the world.

Freedom in ES games has always been about 'going anywhere, acting as you please' - NOT about exploits. The freedom to make a bad decision does not imply that you should not die because of that bad decision.

Skyrim needs a bleak, violent atmosphere, desperate even. Every character having an 'I win button' (that they simply choose not to use) is detrimental to that atmosphere.

I don't believe anyone said that.....




And here's the thing.... any "exploits" that were available in Oblivion? I've never used them, as far as I'm aware. For two reasons - either 1) I didn't know about them and they were hard to discover on your own ("gaming" the speech wheel minigame or dupe bug, for example), or 2) they took a great deal of deliberate effort to pull off (chameleon suit, for instance.)

So, none of these things got in the way of my gameplay, balance, or difficulty. Because none of them were things that would "just happen" while you were playing.

If someone does all the work necessary to enchant a full 100% chameleon suit, I'll have absolutely no sympathy for them if they then complain about things being "too easy" - because they went out of their way to make it so. No one forced them, it didn't happen in one click, it wasn't unavoidable..... they had to work at it.

So, no... I don't see the need to say that Beth needs to try extra hard to remove any possible enchant combinations (or spell combos, or whatever) that might be "broken" to some. For them to remove the "freedom" of people to do these things - they do not effect the game balance, because they are not things that "just happen" - you have to deliberately choose to make them happen. And if you do that.... well, that's all on you. No one forced you.

(At which point we now hear from the "I'm not going to self-nerf myself! That would be wrong!" crowd. :facepalm: If that's how you play, full min/max power all the way, can't consider doing things a less efficient way for fun and/or challenge? Again, that's your choice. gamesas & the rest of the playerbase shouldn't have to balance the game around your playstyle.)

Not to mention its easier to turn the difficulty slider all the way down in Oblivion than it is to do any exploit. That's the 'I Win' button and its only two seconds away, with a quick flip through a menu.

If you dont have enough self control to not use any exploit, then how did you play the game without being tempted to turn the difficulty slider down? What? You just didnt do it? I rest my case.

I like Freedom but I hate Exploits with a passion. :swear:

I know there's got to be a way to add more Freedom and have less Exploits in the game.

I think a lot of people consistently misrepresent the problems at play within these games, basically creating a strawman of their opponents. A problem allowing you 100% chameleon is a problem, regardess of whether I choose to take advantage of it. When you get a 30% chameleon item and recognize it is only filling one of your armour slots, it is perfectly natural to wonder whether you could become completely invisible. When I play Oblivion, I have to consciously limit my freedom to act as I would within the world so that I don't break the game. Let's be honest, if you were a warrior and you figured out you could become completely invisible, you would take that opportunity. What a good game does is limit the scope of possible powers, and then allow you freedom to use them as you see fit. In the real world, you are not just given the opportunity to attain ultimate power if you feel like it. Obviously this is a game, but the developers never intend to make you invincible, as that tends to ruin the gameplay. The problem with chameleon was that the implementation of the effect was not balanced within the game world. Yes, you can limit your usage of chameleon, but you have to make a conscious decision, all the while knowing you could be invincible if you felt like it. That breaks the organic feeling of playing the game. When I play a video game, I want to feel like I am using the available powers to their full potential while struggling to become the best I can be, not that I am consciously limiting my actions to maintain that balance. My struggle should feel real, worthwhile, and necessary.The balance in the game world should feel organic and binding on a player. In Skyrim, I want to feel like dragons really are the terrifying creatures I imagine them to be. This feeling is completely ruined knowing I could kill the dragon in one shot simply by hitting it in specific spot. There are absolute exploits, that really do require your attempt to circumvent the world. Those can never really be removed. However, things like 100% chameleon or the ability to sit on a 2 foot tall rock and be invincible are flaws in the game, not the player.

^This. Many times over. Its really annoying to hear people complain about how easily you can bypass things with in-game elements or through glitches.