As I've said before, once I finally played Morrowind, it quickly became my favorite of the TES games I have played (which includes obsessive Oblivion playing time, and a fair bit of time in Skyrim). Morrowind is awesome in so many ways... and yet, I was admittedly disappointed in the leveling system, much as I was in Oblivion's. I ran a leveling mod in Oblivion, and I've been running one in Morrowind for most of my time there so far.

However, it occurred to me that there may be positive aspects of the vanilla system that I overlooked, and so I thought I'd start this poll. The idea is to see how many people (if any), given a knowledgeable choice between vanilla and modded leveling, actually prefer the vanilla system. By "knowledgeable", I mean that you have tried leveling mods and prefer vanilla over them, OR, you understand the vanilla leveling system quite well and you don't believe any mods could do it better than Bethesda did. In other words you don't need to have used a leveling mod, but if you haven't used one and vote in favor of vanilla leveling, just make sure you understand what the issues are that the mods try to "fix". And hopefully it goes without saying, but if you really do favor the vanilla system, please feel free to share your thoughts on why it's better... that's what I'm most interested in really, but I thought it might make an interesting poll, too.

Finally, I know there are tons of reasons why people do use leveling mods, so there's no need to elaborate on that point too much. This poll/thread is more interested in why people don't use them!

Thanks all!

First you have to define which "leveling" you mean. The word leveling could refer to one of two things: character leveling (the system affected by mods such as GCD/MADD Leveler and nGCD/Realistic Leveling) or world leveling (the system affected by mods such as Oscuro and Francesco).

I have played about the same amount of hours (almost a thousand each) with vanilla, Madd leveller, and GCD. Probably vanilla is the weakest because of the fact that you can and do lose attribute points if you have gains in more than three skills. On the other hand, it's the only bug free way to play and that's why I use it more and more lately. The biggest problem is the temptation to power game it by trying to max leveling by training misc skill to get all 5s at levelup. This means, of course, selecting your starting skills to put some skills you want into misc which I find very "gamey". Others may not agree but now when I use the vanilla system I select skills I want to use and let the leveling fall as it may. This is not optimal for leveling but it feels more natural and when you know the game well it doesn't matter that much.

Madd leveler was my favorite for a few years but it has some problems with the latest CodePatch regarding absorb spells and powers. Too bad because it smoothed out some of the vanilla issues without changing things too much.

GCD is another animal entirely. I have used it on and off since it came out in 2004 and it certainly does make leveling unobtrusive and natural but it also changes some game fundamentals. Of course, it is completely configurable so you can tweak it to the way you like for the most part but if you keep to the spirit of it at all, it is heavily dependent on your starting skills and rewards specialization and punishes diversity. It does add a slow magicka regeneration and makes pure magic characters a little more interesting; extra powerful in magic and extra weak in health.

Sorry for being vague. I have always been under the assumption that, unless some specific identifier was provided, leveling referred to player leveling. Player/character leveling is what I am speaking of, as addressed by mods like GCD.

I pretty much agree across the board, except that I haven't tried Madd. The more natural leveling without the "penalty" of losing attribute points makes GCD a clear choice for me right now. That and, as you said, GCD makes magic much more interesting. Power leveling is a total drag, but you make a good point... once you know it well does it matter that much? I'll have to think on that; it is an excellent point!

I have used character leveling mods consistently since 2002, with Balor's Leveling mod in Morrowind. In Oblivion I used Balor's Leveling (again) and then Realistic Leveling, followed by nGCD. I have not used a character leveling mod in Skyrim yet. I recently played a couple of characters in Oblivion without a leveling mod and hated the experience.

I don't like classes in RPGs. So one of the biggest benefits of most character leveling mods for me is getting rid of the class system. I also don't like fiddling with menus and stats. That takes me out of the game and out of my character's story. So another benefit of these mods is that they put all of the Attribute bonus points nonsense behind-the-scenes, allowing me to concentrate on roleplaying.

When I play with one of these mods I often do not even know what level my character is. And that's the way I like it.

Bingo. That's the primary reason I feel compelled to use a mod. Thanks!

Once I used Galsiah's Character Development I never went bak to vanilla.

While I'm not bothered by fiddling with stats, the way attribute multipliers work is a big mess. The worst part of it is the non-retroactive effect that Endurance has on Health which makes it so that characters who max out Endurance at an earlier level end up having more Health than character who max it out at a later level.

And it's the primary reason I DON'T use leveling mods.

IMO in an RPG the PLAYER has a definite role, and that role is decision making. Those decisions start with character creation, deciding things like race, skills, sign, etc., (which, by the way, is "fiddling" with menus and stats). I feel that those type decisions (i.e. worrying about menus, stats, leveling up, and attribute distribution) should continue throughout the game so that the player can control his character's build direction in order for that character to successfully complete the players decisions. I think that the leveling mods lessens the players control and his decision making role.

(And, to throw out an opinion that I suspect people won't like too much,......I think that role playing "can/could" be over emphasized when playing an RPG)

I haven′t tried any leveling mods so I can′t really vote. But I kinda like the vanilla leveling, no /cry.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':cry:' /> from me about it anyway /smile.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

I can't vote since I never played with any level mods, but I love the original vanilla leveling. Although it gets some time to get use to it, It's very unique.

I gave GCD a brief shot. Granted, it was not enough for me to form a well-informed opinion, but I'm back to vanilla anyway. No real reason though. I might try GCD more extensively again, and I might not. But vanilla isn't so bad that I would desperately need a mod.

And level-up screens don't really destroy my role-playing experience. Manual attribute increases allow for some unusual choices and restrictions in character development, which is always good.

I've never added mods that change the way that leveling works. I've just gotten used to the way leveling works in Morrowind so I've stuck with it.

Could you elaborate on what you mean by this?

I have used GCD a lot, and still do for some characters just for a change, but in general I prefer the level-up and attribute-multiplier system of vanilla.

I love fiddling with the stats and attributes of my character... to me that is a part of roleplaying my character.
I don't see it just as numbers, but personality traits and character life decisions.

Vanilla.

This is all great so far, but there's one thing that hasn't been expanded on that I was hoping might pop out of this discussion... so I'll just ask:

How do you get around the (IMHO) unnatural way of getting good multipliers and not wasting att points? This has always led to grinding specific skills for periods of time, which I find unbearable. How do you deal with that? Or do you just ignore it and take whatever you get each level-up (kind of like fragonard mentioned)?

Thanks again!


Just to be clear, it's not the initial setup that bothers me... I'll take all day on that and be happy about it. It's continually having to worry about it. That doesn't fit my idea of RP. But everyone has their ways, right?

oh yeah....
And remember, you can vote without having used leveling mods... all I ask is that you make sure you understand what the issues are. Playing a leveling mod is not mandatory to participate. (Besides, this isn't in the mods section because I wanted to hear about vanilla from people. So please feel free to participate if you get the gist of the discussion!)

I never got the level-up multiplier 'problem'. Especially since a lot of people who complain about it begin talking about immersion two minutes later. Why break your own immersion by trying to get good multipliers?

The only bad thing about the multipliers is that Endurance is 'needed' by every class and yet can only easily be gained by warriors.

This is another reason why I use leveling mods: health is retroactive. No one needs to crank up Endurance fast because these mods employ a more sophisticated formula for computing health gains. Using them I am able to able put my complete concentration on playing my character.

That's an interesting statement. Personally, I do not believe that trying to create/maintain a great character with good stats is mutually exclusive with being immersed in the game. That's going to be a point of contention for some, but remember, no one "owns" the definition of what is immersive and what is not. It's a subjective thing.

I just ignore it. And since I don't keep notes with what skills my character leveled up, I can never say "damn, just one skill point from a +4 in strength" or something, because I honestly don't know.

This is true but there is no real answer to the problem; either you grind or you don't. I used to grind heavy and medium armor but now I don't, if I am making a mage, I just accept that I will end up at 200 health instead of 400+ health.
Vanilla vs GCD doesn't matter much either because, perversely, grinding is just as tempting in GCD and is, in fact, easier since you don't need to keep track of skill raises. Also in GCD you will rarely get over 200 health even with a warrior (base health, that is, fortify endurance counts in GCD) or over level 20.

They could have added it to skills like Unarmored.


I acknowledge 2 different versions of 'immersion'.

1. "I am having such a great time." "It's already 2 am??"

The first kind of immersion means that you are simply having a great time with the game and forget about the world around you. Metagaming is possible here (e.g. Making sure you get +5 multipliers).

2. "Damned! I forgot to save again." "Zalzindar's best moment in Morrowind was when she stumbled across..."

This kind of immersion means that you throughly indulged in the game world. You are 'forgetting' that it is but a game. Metagaming would put you back in 'phase one' since you acknowledge that it is all a game by trying to get +5 multipliers. You are using outside knowledge to change your gaming experience.

Please note that the 2 definitions have mutual components and neither of them is better than the other one. Also, I do know that everyone interprets definition in his/her own way.

I never worry about multipliers.
I have also very rarely ever done any grinding or training in MW. (it just doesn't fit the "feel" of the game for me)

My characters have always improved naturally with the vanilla system. Even "un-balanced" characters that I make just for fun and that get useless multipliers are fine with me.... I'm like, "So...This character is just going to be a different challenge"


After 10 years and 100's of characters, the game is too easy for me. I don't really worry about how I level-up anymore. And as mentioned above, I switch between GCD and vanilla characters just to keep things interesting.

Well, it still seems to me that you're trying to draw lines around what "immersion" is, which I just can't go along with. We'll just have to agree to disagree on that one. But before things go flying off the cliff, let's not let this turn into a debate on immersion. I definitely see your points and I understand where you're coming from in regard to the topic, and I really appreciate your input!