The freedom of elder scrolls series was always its best feature but it brought more than a few problems

In morrowind a character could make a few enchantments and make his character unstoppable.
Alchemy also allowed a great deal of freedom and experimentation and it became so bad that a player could make a few potions and actually bypass the main quest and go for the main villain and kill him

Oblivion addressed some problems by adding limitations to enchanting but you could still do things like 100 % constant effect chameleon armor making you unstoppable.

i would like to hear from you folks more examples of big exploits and any ideas on how to remove them without taking the freedom of choice out of the game.

( starting to think that the rumors of removing custom spells is a part of Bethesda -s solutions to that problem and i don't like that approach)

I Vouch for more freedom, this isnt a multiplayer game, I could care less what other people are exlpoiting in their games thats their descision.

I agree, they shouldn't remove something all together because certain players exploit it. Its a offline game so who cares if someone cheats? Even with the changes they make someone is going to find a way to exploit it again. So they shouldn't remove anything, in fact they should be adding to it.

They will always be exploits, as long as the exploits aren't obvious, who cares?

Apparently Bethesda cares since they try really hard to remove them in future games.

my logic is that we should try to get a balanced game and then use mods if we wish to use a certain exploit

That would be my logic too, but I'm a console player primarily so mods are out of the question.

This. In addition this is in direct opposition to the amount of mod-support Bethesda offers. I could download a mod today that would make me win Oblivion in 20 seconds. But why would I do that? As long as it's not too easy to do I like the fact that the freedom is there. People will soon realise they're ruining their game.

A lot of people mod ridiculously over-powered items into their game and soon realise that things aren't fun anymore and then remove them.

i have said this so many times, but here we go again : Armour was limited to 85%, if everything, chameleon, resistances, absorbs, whatever are also limited to 85%, a lot of exploits are removed, cheaply and easily.

what i want is that the game is well balanced in vanilla version.
i always play elder scrolls games with a whole mess of mods but i decide what i want to alter and exploit
don't like when the exploits are already there , they feel like bugs

and the point of this post is to find a way to minimize exploits without removing game freedom

Couldn't agree more.

Addressing exploits is limiting freedom.


Exploits or ratter what is an exploit is purely subjective if you can't handle yourself not to utilize it, others shouldn't be handicapped because of such.

Freedom, I think OB went way too far with limiting armor slots, only 1 summoned minion and stuff like that, I really wanna have tha stuff back

Exploits shouldn't be super obvious, as that would make the game feel broken, but they should be there for players who look a little beneath the surface and *want* to exploit the system. The feeling of having "outsmarted the game" is rewarding if it comes with the right amount of thought.

It's just plain fun making infinite-loop spells that buff your magica while having some effect so that they can be cast over-and-over forever, etc. It's fun to sometimes go 110% chameleon just for the heck of it, or to create an overpowered charm spell that only lasts for 3 seconds, or a spell that suddenly makes you an awesome locksmith or blacksmith, etc.

Sure, that kind of stuff exploits the game, but as Todd said in one of his interviews: sometimes you have to just let the player win.

agreed

It's funny how now exploits are a form of freedom, but later people complain how games are too easy and there's no challenge...

Also, thinking that most of these disliked changes, like the lack of spellmaking and spears were caused because exploits, is just shortsighted. The only change like this I can think of was the new leveling system, and event that is more of a "you should play the game properly rather than rely on a stupid trick".

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1173137-the-reason-i-should-be-able-to-kill-anyone-i-want/page__p__17313299#entry17313299


Let them cheat all they want, it's not an online game, nor it is going to bankrupt the company.

It seems that preventing exploits is often sited as a reason to limit players' options, just look at the people arguing that levitation shouldn't be in the game because in past games it could be exploited (An exploit which as I've pointed out only comes from bad AI, if the AI is terrible, the solution is not to remove features to artificially force players to play in a way that makes the bad AI a threat, it's to improve the AI.) when the issue of how many armor slots the game should have comes up, people might say that having seperate pauldrons in Morrowind was unbalancing (Because as we all know, it was completely impossible to make 100% chameleon armor in Oblivion.) But I don't feel that freedom and game balance really need to conflict, and when it comes to adressing exploits, altering a feature to make it less overpowered is generally a much better solution than removing it entirely.

Still, I'm in favor of the developers trying their best to make the game as balanced as possible, if you're going to say that balance doesn't matter in a single player game, you might as well say Bethesda should add a spell that instantly kills every enemy in sight without any difficulty or negative impact on the player, after all, balance doesn't matter in single player games, right? Therefore, we can have features as broken as we want, if you don't like them, you don't have to use them. Also, there should be a sword that does 1000 damage, has zero weight and never breaks right outside the starting area, and there should be an amulet in the game that enables god-mode whenever you put it on. In the end, freedom is good, but there must be some limit to it at times, because if there's a feature that basically amounts to enabling god-mode in normal gameplay, that just makes the game too easy, and you can't just say "If you don't like it, don't use it.". Sure, I don't need to abuse alchemy in Morrowind, but I still know I can do it, and as a result, I feel like I'm just artificially limiting myself, which makes the "challenge" that comes from playing that way seem superficial. I want to play the the game Bethesda actually made, not what I'm pretending it is, and I want to be able to play the game naturally without needing to artificially limit myself at every turn, but that isn't always an option, because sometimes, the game is insultingly easy if I DON'T artificially limit myself.

Sometimes reading these forums gives me the impression that fans would be perfectly happy with their being a full suit of all the highest level armor in the game with absurdly strong enchantments in the starting area, and if anyone criticized this for being game breaking, they'd say "Don't like it, don't use it."



So by this logic, Bethesda should then put a spell in the game called "I win" which does exactly what its name implies, I suppose?



You make a pretty good point. People like to talk about games being too easy, but the moment developers try to stop players from making games too easy, they suddenly start saying that the developers are "taking away the freedom", make up your mind people, do you want a challenging game or not? If you want to be challenged by the game, you have to be prepared to have certain limitations that ensure that the game is challenging. The "freedom" the series makes its main selling point doesn't literally mean "do whatever you want", it means "We strive to give you as much freedom as is reasonable." Of course the game has to impose some limitations on the player, whether to ensure that it at least offers some form of challenge, or to prevent it from becoming a completely chaotic and incoherent mess, it's just a question of where to set those limitations.

What annoys me is that there are people out there who go out of their way to break the game and then complain its unbalanced, and want to remove all options, making it a hack n slash.
I never abused enchanting or alchemy, I never saw the point.
I did however think it was utterly cool that I could if I wanted to. When I played Morrowind I seriously got the feeling of finally having found a game made by people that understand gamers. No invisible barriers, no things 'not allowed', just sheer freedom.

Oblivion, well, after I played about six hours and realised it wasnt going to be any better, I almost cried. I really teared up. I felt betrayed

To make, after Daggerfall and Morrowind, such a stunted, dumbed down, black and white and simply less interesting game mystified me.
Bethesda has a very large and loyal fanbase. There was to need to take all flavour out of Oblivion so everyone and their dog liked the taste of it.
Leaving the older fans wondering where the unique flavour had gone. It was a slap in the face.

Skyrim is the last chance.
If Skyrim turns out to be a restrictive game that are churned out factory style thirteen a dozen, Ill simply never buy a Bethesda game again.
Spellmaking being out and several other features seem to hint that way, but honestly I dont know yet. Ill have to wait and see.

So, yes, keep the freedom.
There is absolutely no reason to give into the crowd that goes out of their way to break a game, and then complains about it.
Bethesda had oodles of fans that liked the system just the way it was, maybe with some minor improvements. But they are in serious risk at the moment of alienating their core fanbase. And if that trend continues, there will never be an elder scolls 6.
Because the casual mainstream gamers are fickle, and if they make a game that is in no way different from the myriad of other bad to slighty decent games out there, they have no reason to buy it, theyll go for the next big hype. The hardcoe fans will be gone, and that will be the end of that chapter.

Let the player decide. It's a single player game so nobody else is affected.

Exactly.

just my point , if an exploit becomes the same as a cheat or a god mode that is just bad

as for freedom discussion think about the fast travel system , it seriously messes up the immersion factor but people who defend it just say , well don't use it then

so now i have to artificially limit myself from using something witch makes things much easier

to make a real wold anology -- if you lived in a building with an elevator you would use it even if you knew that taking the stairs was better for your health ( exercise )
people always pick the way of least resistance
so if you find a exploit , you will use , its just human nature

But..
Why dont you then just go play one of the hundreds of games out there that give you exactly what you want?
I think those restrictive, linear games that are RPG in name only like fable or mass effect are lame.
You dont. You have the advantage that 95% of games on the market caters to your needs.
I dont. I have elder scrolls.

So please do not petition to turn elder srolls into yet another game Id find lame, when there are so many out there that youd like.
It would deny me the one thing I like.

fine , i got the point , no limitation , if that if what people want i hope they get it

You seem to be confusing obvious game breaking exploits, and exploits that a person has the descision to utilize or not.

all exploits in Oblivion could be helped if you didn't want to experience them, Morrowind....well the abnormally far range of the spear, even though its a spear was something that was obvious and took -effort- to ignore. most exploits do not require effort to ignore, and to address those exploits, you need to impose limits, Ala Morrowind to oblivion armor pieces and enchanting, that is an example.

and did you get a fishy stick yet?