I feel as if Skyrim gives me more freedom to grow my character, I don't feel constricted to "character builds" as a RPer I can't help but feel that the Skyrim system allows for more creativity. Let's say that I have a simple warrior, sword and shield and uses potions for healing, what's to stop him from learning the ways of the bow? Lol I make bad examples, anyway in Skyrim the perks that I put on this warriors archery feel as my character is learning.

I don't really like character builds, as I said the builds feel as if I'm forcing my character to do something that they don't want to.
Let's see, my current active character in Skyrim is near the 150 hour mark, then theirs Gilliam, Gale, Kent, Godfrey, Omar, and around 4 more haha, I have a close total of 1000 hours now

I would question the bit about "hav[ing] to micromanage skills" in Oblivion. Speaking as someone who has played all 5 ES titles from their release, I think each game is fine of its kind--and I really don't like these constant attacks on Skyrim as though it should have been an Oblivion clone, rather than a unique game with its own appeal--but where you could leave attributes and skills micromanagement alone completely in Oblivion and just level when you wished, choosing a few attribute increases quickly, Skyrim takes away the ability to see attributes, and to decide when you want to level up at all: it happens automatically. I like having the ability to decide if I want to micromanage or not, to level up or not, to look at my character's attributes, or not. Skyrim takes those choices away.

This may be a generational sea change. I don't know- I want to follow it and see where fans of Skyrim are in a year. I don't play Fallout3 month after month-but other people do. Skyrim is built like Fallout 3.
This is predominantly a young person's game and forum, but there have been extended criticisms of the lack of character building and choices- from young people. So, nothing is monolythic. Much is missing in Skyrim- but the fans say they do not miss the material and think Skyrim an improvement. I'm up to 435 hours in Skyrim- I took off and played Oblivion for 96. That's how it was with Fallout 3- play through several times and quit.

With 10 million shipped, The Elder Scrolls will never miss me should I leave.

I have said it before, so let me say it again:

What the new system succeeded in doing was delaying when your character gets "locked in" to his class. Once you reach a certain point in the game, you have taken so many perks in a particular specialization that it is now essentially your Class. The game doesn't label it, but there is still a class system in place. Whether intentionally or unintentionally is not for me to judge, but there does come that point in the game where you have taken so many perks in one particular specialization that switching to another would result in a character that is only "OK" in two specializations instead of master of one.

Not that that is a bad thing, of course.


In short "Skyrim has no classes" is an argument based on a false premise:

Classes are determined by skill selections and labels.
Skyrim removed the labels.
Therefore Skyrim has no classes.

You don't need a label telling you "you are this." You don't need a label telling you "these are your major skills." Skill selection is still there, through the perks. After a certain amount of time and investing in certain skills more than others, those become your major skills. You eventually get to the point where you are "locked in" and the build becomes your class. My character:

Build: Knight.

Major Skills-

Heavy Armor
Two-Handed
Restoration
Smithing
Enchanting
Speech

How do I know those are my major skills? Because those are the skills I put the most effort into, and spent the largest number of my perk points on. I don't need a label telling me that, I just decide at the beginning what I want to do, then go do it. As for the labels, I just fill in the blanks myself in the same ways Oblivion and Morrowind had you name and define your class. I don't type that stuff into the game, but it is very much on my mind every time I begin the game and load the character.

The only thing missing are the attributes. Those should have stayed, because they were worth a lot to creating a character (especially in defining strengths and weaknesses). But that is a full-on char-gen thing. The process of creating your class through your skill selection (which is what a class is anyways) is still there.

This thread is so sad. You people are quarrelling over the death of a type of game that is going out of existence. At least show a little respect for the dead.

A FPS with a little lore wins out, hands down, with the new crowd. What else would you expect? It’s a great business model.

Oblivion is certainly a great game and if it wasn't for the level scaling and uninteresting world I'd say it has a shot against Skyrim but I can't say it's better. In terms of character building I think they are about equal although I'd give the edge to Skyrim. Oblivion showed a bit more with it's stats but that in turn caused problems with leveling especially with needing to level up skills I wouldn't use just to stay competitive. Skyrim doesn't have as much depth but has an alternate way with the perk system. I've put in +1000 hours with Vanilla Oblivion and around 350 hours with Skyrim and I feel that Skyrim allows you to build your character better then Oblivion and is the better game overall, the only thing that Oblivion does is show the stats but Skyrim does that also just in a different way.

I’m far more interested in how a character grows than how it reads right after creation. I play slowly, and developing the character’s story is the most important thing for me. I’d say that my investment in the game is my reward. I find Skyrim very rewarding. I still love Cyrodiil though, because my favorite characters live there.

I hope that new Oblivion players quickly discover custom classes, so that the pre-determined ones don’t stifle their creativity.

Okay I know I've already been down this road, but... 1000 hours!! Really?! That's literally two thirds of the time since it was released. That is just sleeping, waking up and playing Skyrim for 16 hours, sleeping again, just playing Skyrim for 16 hours again etc. I understand the argument that someone who doesn't have work or any other responsibilities can manage 8 hours a day, every day, for 2 months solid (even though it would personally drive me insane), but to play SIXTEEN HOURS a day, every day, for 2 months..... Whaaaat?

What I like about Skyrim is that while I can be good at everything, I cannot be great at everything. I must spend my perks to achieve mastery, and distinguish myself from the common dabbler. In Oblivion, since perks were automatically unlocked at designated tiers of skill, greatness was a given, unless I forced myself to not use certain skills. For me, this has (mostly) made up for the loss of attributes. As for naming my class, I don't miss that at all. I greatly dislike coming up with class names- probably because I'm terrible at it.

I feel the same as Grits. Most of the time, I don't know the character when I first create them. It's only after playing them for a while that I get a feel for who they are and their personality. I think Skyrim is great in that regard.

There will always be something missing in Skyrim without a deeper build and more NPC interaction. The Elder Scrolls have left me behind, I'm afraid. IN the future they will be played, though probably never loved.
Have you noticed in Skyrim the NPC's really don't speak to each other much? And they say the exact thing to you they said on the first day. Oblivion had canned lines, yes, but they randomly cycled and gave the appearence of people talking to one another, which is needed. They also spoke to each other and you of recent events- something that rarely happens in Skyrim. Lots of people have complained that your actions in Skyrim affect almost no one- they don't react.

Skyrim is Fallout 3 with swords, litghtening bolts, and horses. It is a completely different style of game. Any new elder scrolls game would have improved graphics and mechanics of game play- thats the natural course of software improving.
But Skyrim cut aspects of game play that I will always miss.

ON the good side, I feel like playing Fallout again...

Oblivion attempted to answer the call for interaction when the software was not there yet to provide it. Skyrim drops the problem entirely. That is not what I want out of the modern game- better graphics and game mechanics are always wonderful, but the holy grail is interaction between NPC's and you and amongst 'themselves'. That is where research and bold progress is needed, and where Morrowind and Oblivion stand above Skyrim.

The fact that so many love Skyrim may vindicate Bethesda. But I'm not alone-

This is true to an extent for me. I need to have something in particular that interests me about a character, though, in order to invest the time in the first place. Something that makes that character stand out in my mind.

If all characters start from the same place, and all character development occurs during the game, then backstory is unimportant. Character development during play will hold my interest for the first couple of play-throughs, but my interest will fade as time goes by.

This kind of character development is exactly what you find in the Gothic and Two Worlds games (in fact, some of Skyrim's approach seems to be peculiarly lifted from Gothic 2! (Narrow beginning choices, "Chosen One," Character Development during gameplay, Perks, One-piece armor, and even a Dragon Menace.))

Such games tend to interest me enough to play them through the available plot-branches (two or three characters, maybe) but they lose my interest because I can't really bring my own "story" into the game.

In Morrowind and Oblivion, there is nothing spelled out about the player-character, so one is not prevented from imagining any particular background. The Class-building process then allows one to "construct" that beginning character to fit the backstory. I find that this backstory is important, because it predisposes my character to make certain choices in the game, leading the character to become even more "unique" as the game progresses.

As I said previously, I don't play Skyrim, so I don't know how it actually fits into this discussion. But based upon my experience with other games, I think I would miss the ability to preset the character in some way.

In Skyrim, you can simply not do any of the main quest (I think the key point is not bring the news of the first dragon attack to a certain Jarl), and none of that Chosen One business will come up. You will just be an ordinary schmoe who got captured by murderous Imperials and inadvertently rescued from them by a dragon. It is like Morrowind in that regard. Don't talk to Cais Cosades and do any of his quests, and you will not be the Chosen One of Azura, Neveraine, or that other jazz. You will just be an ex-con in a foreign land.

I think a certain member here might take offense by that

It′s good in any case to be able to jump off the MQ train. I didn′t know a thing back in the days but I avoided it in Oblivion anyway and it was even easier in Morrowind. For all my ES experience I have yet to do any MQ

Okay, but correct me if I'm wrong...

If I make two different characters of the same race, and do the above with both of them, won't they be identical, except for name and appearance? Same starting skills, carrying capacity, health, etc.? Same magicka, same fighting skills, same weaknesses? Not even gender-based differences?

That's not the same as Morrowind, where I could start with two different characters of the same race, but with widely different characteristics. Characteristics are what define character, it seems to me.

I think starting off with a unique character is just as important as developing him into a unique character. If they put that away in Skyrim and every gamer essentially get the same character to begin with, that′s a major downfall to me.

There are minor racial differences. But nothing like what is found in Morrowind or Oblivion. Basically all characters, regardless of race or six, begin as blank slates to be filled in as the game is played.

Okay. That's more like the Gothic or Two Worlds model, then. A big departure for Bethesda.

Ah, sorry, I thought you meant from a perspective of making up the character's background, and possible future, not from a statistical viewpoint. I have only played Skyrim once, but as I recall you are correct. The starting stats will be the same. I don't think there are even birthsigns any more (they have been replaced with runestones you find in the game?).

Not exactly. As I mentioned above there are racial differences. The racial differences are slight and, arguably, insignificant but they are there, for whatever it's worth.

I wouldn't go as far as to call them "blank slates" because racial skill bonuses still exist. A nord for example is supposed to be a naturally good warrior and this is represented by adding bonuses to warrior-related skills. Same with Altmers and magic. So choosing a race still matters -although just initially since you can quickly become good at anything with any race (which was a feature also present in Oblivion).

What is true is that, initially, there is nothing that distinguishes two particular individuals that belong to the same race. This is indeed some kind of departure from Oblivion, where you could select favourite attributes and major skills. I don't consider the new system as worse/inferior though. In my opinion, it simply tries harder to fulfill the "be what you want" motto that Todd so many times repeated.

Right, I wasn't suggesting that one was "locked in" after the game started. I was just thinking about character difference "going in," which is what draws me to one character over another. I have a feeling that's what Old Grog was talking about in this thread.

I would imagine that modding will provide an opportunity to create more diverse Skyrim characters, when that option becomes available.

Aren't we really arguing about the difference between the character immediately after creation, and the same character a few quests later? All the selections that were removed did is to simulate a few rounds of experience in the game, so why not play them instead? I accept the argument that you're starting with an advlt character, so he/she should have done something already. But for a new game, you need to play a few times before you know what "starting" stats you'd like. Maybe TES VI should have two starts, one at zero level, where everyone is the same, and a later one you can use when you know how you want your new character to develop.

I forget how the Oblivion birthstones worked, didn't they effectively reset your birthsign? If so, it's not all that different from starting with none at all (which you do of course, and pick it during the tutorial quest).

Yeah, this is what I mean by "backstory." I agree with you that on a first (or second, third...) playthrough, it probably doesn't make any difference. On your 15th character, it's going to be more limiting, in my opinion.


No, the Oblivion stones gave you a benefit in addition to your birthsign. They reset the previous birth stone, but not the birthsign.

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