I don't know, that sounds pretty easy to exploit. If perks weren't tied to skill level you'll end up having people pick perks that might statistically be the best and change their playstyle because of it. Not good for RP.

People can find ways to meta-game no matter what system is used. It's no different than meta-designing your character by selecting an optimal combination of race, gender, major and minor skills, and birthsign. Except this way, it's done naturally as a result of what you do and choose while playing, which in my mind actually makes roleplaying a lot easier and more inviting. I believe it's better to give players the freedom to choose this way, so that those who want to roleplay a certain way can, and those who want to be godly can too.

good lord this game looks so awesome...

Believe me, I'm not completely opposed to the idea, I just think it'll come with some problems.

What I meant when I said it it would hurt RP is that if my guy specializes in being stealthy and I pick perks that correspond with the stealthy skills I'm using, in what sense do I have a character? What plateaus have I reached to earn those perks? What sense of satisfaction do I get from building a character? With skill level requirements, you kinda have to specialize in a certain playstyle. This benefits both power gamers and roleplayers. For power gamers, there's a sense of satisfaction in building the best stealthy character or mage character or stealth/mage character, instead of having a flat "best" character that anyone can build without making some sacrifices. Roleplayers can enjoy their character and not feel bad for not choosing perks that wouldn't fit in with their character, even if those perks might have been better in the long run (eventually leveling all skills).

I can see what you're saying, but I still disagree. With this system, we are still rewarded for doing that. There are more potential playstyles we can choose from, but we are rewarded for specializing, and penalized for not doing so. Someone who doesn't specialize in just a few skills will not be as high level or as powerful as someone who does. But there are more possible combinations of those skills and perks now. More freedom, but still with specialization.



We can still do all of that, though. If you try to be a jack of all trades, you're going to be lower level and your skills are going to be lower level than you'd have if you had specialized in a few particular skills. But you have the freedom to choose what those are.



But what if I want to play a character whose background, personality, or lifestyle dictate that the perks you feel "wouldn't fit" with that character, would fit with them? This way we have more shades of grey and more freedom. That's never a bad thing in my opinion. We aren't being forced to take the perks you feel wouldn't fit with any given character. It's up to you.

If anything this allows for more nuanced roleplaying in my opinion. Characters don't have to be restricted to one set class or another in order to be legitimate characters.

I completely agree with the OP. nothing to add but my support to his thoughts on Skyrim

Another example of what I'm getting at is spellmaking. I totally understand why people will miss it and why they feel like they're losing something. I'm going to miss it, too. It was something that made TES very unique in my opinion. However, I have to ask myself what spellmaking actually did.

• It allowed us to combine spell effects. We can't do that this time regardless though, because spells are different now. (It may be for technical reasons, or it may be a balance issue, but they have said combining spell effects becomes too complex this time around.)
  
  
• It allowed us to create spells of greater magnitudes, durations, and areas of effect. While perhaps not as "cool" as setting these variables ourselves, we can achieve the same thing by either 1) buying better spells, or 2) our spells naturally becoming more powerful as we level up their related skill. (We don't know if the latter will be how it works this time, but in my opinion it would fit with their apparent design philosophy this time around and, more importantly, it would explain why they keep saying "more than 80 spells" while also saying "more like effects." If there are only 80 spells but they become more powerful as we level their related skills, that would explain a lot imo.)
  
  
• It allowed us to name spells. Now, this was really cool, and we don't know whether we can do this in the game. It seems unlikely given the lack of spellmaking. I will concede that this is something we're losing, particularly from a roleplaying point of view.

On the first point: it's moot, because we can't combine spell effects this time. Spells work differently now and have profound secondary effects.
On the second point: we can still achieve this provided they give us a sufficient variety of spells. There are more than 80, so it sounds like most, but not all, of the effects we're familiar with will be in the game. (I personally suspect they've removed a lot of the individually summonable armor pieces, instead opting for a general "summon armor" spell. Or perhaps conjuration is entirely revamped now. We'll see.)
On the third point: as I said, I concede that we're losing something here, at least in my opinion.

So, functionally, lets really think about WHAT it is that's different, and WHAT exactly it is that's the same.

• We can still cast all (or most of) the spells we could before.
  
• We can still make them more powerful.
  
• We can still choose which ones we use and don't use.
  
• We still have to acquire them, pay for them, or otherwise earn them.
  
• The only thing we're - effectively at least - losing in my opinion, is the ability to name them, the ability to combine effects, and the idea of having created the spells ourselves.

What we're getting on top of all that now though, is:

• More profound, impressive spells. They'll have after effects (continual burning, objects catching fire, frost appearing on enemies' skin.) They'll affect enemies in different ways. Rather than just doing damage, each type of magical damage (frost, flame, and shock) has different effects now. Frost slows enemies, fire continually burns, and shock drains their magicka.
  
• They've said that magical combat will be more compelling, strategic, and exciting.
  
• We can now deploy some spells like traps on the ground in front of us, with them being triggered when enemies walk over them.

So, while it's easy to look at is us just "losing spellmaking," what's really happened in my view is a choice has been made by Bethesda between the old, simple magic use - yes, complete with spellmaking - and a much more usable, powerful, exciting magical system that actually changes the way mages play the game. And with the latter, we still essentially have most of the functionality we had before, just in a different way.

Another way of looking at it is this: With spellmaking, we make more and more powerful spells as we level up and get money. We dispose of the weaker versions of those spells as we go (or end up with a long list of the same spells.) With this new system, we get spells that become more powerful (potentially) as we level up their related skill instead. Less mess, same (basically) function (except for the effect combinations.)

Now, that's just how I look at it. I understand and respect that other people feel differently, and feel very strongly that this is a bad thing. But after imagining what the new magic system could play like in actual practice (and I encourage everyone else to really try to imagine what it might be like, too,) personally I wouldn't want to go back to the comparatively bland (to me) system we had before, even if it meant we could make our own spells. The experience of these powerful, versatile spells sounds like it will be more profound in Skyrim than in previous TES games, even if the idea of spellmaking was a really cool one. (And one even I will miss.)

Excellently written, good sir, I agree with the opening OP. Besides if it does go [censored] up- which i highly doubt it will- I've saved enough for the plethora of other great titles end of this year They need to make money- so they will continue to improve and evolve the sieries, lest it stagnate and they die. To some extent Bethedsa IS The Elder Scrolls. Thats why they branched out into other brands. This doingg well is in EVERYONE'S Interest (except maybe their rivals, but they're not likely to read this and/or care)

Good post.

But I want to add a couple of things to what spell-making allowed us to do, and I want to mention some reservations about how these will be achieved - if at all - by the new system.

1. With spell-making there was the potential for creative, clever, and fun spells like Mark/Recall on Target, Levitate 1 pt on Target, and so on. Spell-making provided for gameplay possibilities the devs might not have intended or foreseen.

2. With spell-making, spell variables like magnitude, duration, area-of-effect, and range could be varied independently of one another. So you could create spells which affected lots of enemies, but for a short amount of time, or with little magnitude; or spells which were very strong, but had little duration and only affected a single enemy; and so on.

Now the reservations. But basically it just comes down to the worry that without spell-making, it's hard to see how we'll be able to achieve the range of customisation present in Morrowind's or Oblivion's magic system. How will we customise spells in Skyrim? From reading the GI info, it sounds like we'll be able to customise spells just by the way we cast them. So, for a fire damage spell, I'm guessing it'll work something like this: (i) tap cast to shoot a fireball, (ii) hold down cast for a flamethrower, (iii) tap cast while blocking to throw down a defensive fire ward, (iv) cast with both hands for a super duper fire damage spell.

But how will this apply to non-combat spells, or spells which don't directly deal damage? For instance, what range of customisation will I have with a Feather spell? Does it come with a fixed magnitude which increases passively as my Alteration skill increases? What happens if I "charge" the spell - does it have greater duration? Or does it have larger area-of-effect? You might say: doesn't area-of-effect make no sense here, because you're just casting it on yourself? But, I say, no! You might want to cast Feather on NPCs who are following you, and so it might be useful to be able to alter the area-of-effect. And similar examples can be thought of with Water Walking/Breathing, the various crowd control spells found in Illusion, and so on.

I'm a little concerned that the magic system has been largely designed with direct damage spells most prominently in mind, where the "customisation in casting" works fairly well. But it's less clear to me how it works with other types of spells, and whether we'll be able to get a satisfying range of customisation options for these other types of spells.

If that's what it is then I'll pass on Skyrim unless the tools are outstanding, and it can be used like Gary's Mod.

I agree, and I think this huge potential for emergent behavior on the part of the player was something that made TES games very special and unique. At the same time though, they could also break the game in a lot of cases, and I feel it's doubtful as to whether Mark and Recall or Levitation will even be in the game this time. (They weren't in Oblivion, after all.)



Also true. I'm thinking that, like Dragon Shouts, spells may be "hold or combine more than one of the same kind for more" this time. Hold the spell down longer before casting to do more damage, cast over a greater area, increase the duration, etc. Or frost and fire (along with the rest) may simply have set durations this time.



I can honestly see them simply making these spells have set parameters, or making your skill level for their school affect a range of parameters, somewhere in which the spell will be more or less likely to fall based on the skill (possibly including total failure chance as well.) That's just a guess, though.

Ultimately my point is that I find it highly doubtful they would just trash the entire magic system without a good reason. We're talking about six years during which they will have tried multiple approaches out - including the way it was before - and decided on what they thought was best. They have a clear design goal in mind and all of the other evidence I've seen so far doesn't indicate - at least in my opinion of that evidence - that that design goal includes making the game less deep or less roleplayable. For whatever reason, they have determined that this is the system they think fulfills that design goal the most. Now, don't get me wrong. They are human and can make mistakes. Maybe I'll hate the system they've come up with. But after all these years and games, even when they've done things I disagreed with, they've never let me down in terms of at least having some kind of sensible reason - whether I agree with it or not - for what they've done.

The deepest game ever created is eve online which is the pinnacle of complexity even though the complexity itself is a necessary part of the game to maintain the results and the depth. If a game like eve lost it's complexity it would loose it's depth they go hand in hand ....normally. It's when complexity within itself becomes a pointless endeavorer, and doing a different easer method to accomplish the same results is possible one should implement that "easer" method AS LONG AS THE results are the same or even more varied. When one "streamlines" something and the results are less than before it is dumbing down, when one "streamlines" something and the results are the same as before it is REAL streamlining, and when one "streamlines" something and the results are even more varied it is an improvement.

So use 'streamlined' instead. Granted, that too has some bad connotations.

However, making something more intuitive and fun doesn't necessarily mean a lack of depth. As much as I love Morrowind it could be quite so inaccessible at times, and why make a game inaccessible? What it boils down to in the end is stuff like character customization, questing, and dungeon crawling. Not to mention, the most important and losely defined aspect, "living the world". All good then, but certainly not concepts that needs be inaccsessible...

Edit: I hope the OP is spot on.

I disagree. Let's start with Mies Van der Rohe's quote of "Less is More." Is it? Can it be?

Mies Van der Rohe was one of the great architects of the modern movement. One of the main features of modern architecture was the stripping away of surface ornamentation. When you do that, you're left with simple geometric forms. Does the use of simple forms mean a building has less depth and complexity? Not at all. Instead of relying in surface ornamentation, complexity and depth was created by relationships. What made the window interesting was not all the fluff that surrounded it, but rather where it was positioned on the wall.

Now, it does sometimes go wrong, obviously. As Mrs. Farnsworth said, "Less is not more. Less is less." But then her house did lack and real complexity that comes from the interaction of forms, not to mention she was upset with other aspects of it like the heating bill.

That Skyrim may be comprised of simpler parts does not mean that it is a simpler game. It just means that it has less fluff encrusting it's surface for the sake of appeal. The true test will be to see how those simpler parts fit together and interact with each other. If that is done well, it could be an extremely deep and complex game.

This is a post I made in another thread, but I feel it's pertinent to this one as well.

Imo, individual features are not "what makes TES TES." In fact, one of the things that makes TES TES is that rather than having common gameplay mechanics, esthetics, or features, they instead have a common world, lore, and history. Every TES game has been different from the last.

What I think a lot of people aren't considering is that many of the changes people label "dumbing down" were in direct response to the criticisms of a majority of people who played the previous games in the series. Quest markers? Direct response to people complaining about how easy it was to get lost, and how difficult it was to find objects or NPCs in Morrowind. Lack of levitation? Judgment call based on people wanting more "alive" cities with more NPCs, which they could only implement if they were interiors. Fast travel? Response to people's complaints about how long it took to get anywhere in Morrowind, especially if directions weren't clear. The new magic system in Skyrim, including the lack of spellmaking? Probably a direct response to people's complaints that magic was overpowered, too easy to exploit for leveling, that magic didn't feel exiting or epic enough, and that individual schools weren't differentiated enough from one another. How crowded with content Oblivion was? Direct response to people saying Morrowind had too much empty space with nothing in it.

Does Bethesda want to make their games more likely to sell to more people? Of course. They want to continue to profit and grow. So that they can, you know, continue to make more games (and more advanced games.) But they're also directly responding to people's constructive criticisms of their previous efforts. By far the biggest, more frequent complaints people seem to have had about Oblivion were: 1) The graphics look horrible at a distance (responded to with the new engine, hopefully,) 2) NPCs become boring and undifferentiated-seeming after a while because the culture and personality of every town is too "samey" (responded to by keeping the world the same size as Oblivion and focusing on variety and detail,) and 3) It's too easy to level skills/acquire money/become an epic level character (responded to - at least apparently - by completely reworking leveling, the economy, and the magic system.) People complain about things, and then dislike the solutions they come up with after brainstorming for five years, without even having seen how they work.

Just something to think about. I can respect the opinions of people who disagree.

Notice my bold text; yes less can be more but lots of the time that "fluff" as you call it, is a necessary part to maintain the end result. Now when it is not necessary to maintain the end result i say remove it as long as the end results are the same OR even more varied. I like to use Fable as a perfect example of what happens when a game simplifies itself, it becomes mind numbing and absolutely so easy and simple that it's barely even enjoyable. When everything is simple to learn and initiative thats totally fine as long as it is hard to master and has deeper levels of depth and complexity (starcraft).

Really you have three types of games.

1: Hard to learn, hard to master; normally has extreme depth: for Niche/hardcoe/people with free time audiences, examples EvE, Arma 2, Elite ect
2: easy to learn, hard to master; normally has pretty good depth: for audiences that are the norm of the product, examples Quake, starcraft, morrowind
3: easy to learn, easy to master; normally is lacking in any form of depth or deeper complexity: trying to sale to everyone, examples CoD, fable, farmville

Of course there are games that are inbetween but those are the main three.