I hope so. They hurt.


I think you're being too quick to brush the reasoning off. One of the biggest problems with Oblivion was the level scaling -- no surprise, almost everyone agrees -- which made it so skill became largely irrelevant. If you're going to have a world that's less forgiving, however, and will throw tough monsters at you with no hesitation, then you can pick bad abilities. The abilities you use could start out too weak, which is a problem many people had with Morrowind and certain level-scalling-fix mods for Oblivion (notably OOO). The game world was not forgiving, and you needed the boosts you got from your class, birthsign, and race to survive. If you picked stuff that was not befitting the way you were going to play, you could have a lot of trouble (eg, picking a class and birthsign that favored magic with a bit of warrior, while you ended up playing largely warrior-like with some magic on the side; in Morrowind and fixed-Oblivion, it would be like turning the difficulty up to Very Hard).

By doing away with the class/birthsign bonuses, it A) gives a bit more flexibility for better race bonuses, without throwing everything out of whack, B) allows for more levelling, since the skills you use have farther to go to reach 100, and C) gives room for players to find their play style without having unknowingly locked themselves into one during character creation.

Okay, "ruining the character" might be a bit harsh (unless most birthsigns include some heavy setbacks), it's more of the (not so) new philosophy of "crating your character during gameplay not at the beginning". If you choose a birthsign at the beginning you already commit yourself somewhat to some path. For example you choose Shadow, so you can turn invisible, but during gameplay you realize that you would rather be more aggressive and you'll never use the birthsign power again.

And back in the day, I personally had no idea what "Stunted Magicka" means because I had no idea how Magicka actually worked. You get back Magicka by potions only, you get it back during rest, or there are mana wells or something?


Oh, good thing then that TES games were always closer to the action rpg games than the "real RPGs".

No really they always were, ever since Arena, playing in first person kinda makes it impossible to do "strategic choices" during combat (there are strategic choices in character development in action RPGs too). If you compare them to other more "traditional" RPGs you'll see that every TES game tend to be more focused on action and less so on the dialog and diplomacy, they're still a lot more focused on exploration and free-world roaming than action RPGs though.

And which one is more... immersible? Clicking on the door, reloading the game until it's open, or actually taking part in breaking the lock?

Spoken like a true twitch-gamer. No, it was not trivial to hit stuff with bows in MW and Obl because character movement was abrupt and unpredictable. It was even more difficult to switch to a melee weapon in time when something you shot tried to get close and personal. And no, character skill didn't help me at all. I am bad at action games, so what? I don't find FO3's gunplay as trivial as the shootery crowd either and I am quite grateful for VATs and scoped weapons.

You also seem to forget that such things as blocking and weapon attacks were made timing-dependent in Obl - and it made the combat more interesting. The passive, skill and dice-roll based blocking in MW was dull as mud and was deservedly retired.



Because everything non-combat should be boring and passive. Check. I bet you loved the key-press "stealth" in DF and MW too, where nothing mattered except character skill and dice-rolls and you could "sneak" in front of the character's face or alternatively they'd attack you suddenly and with no warning, cause how could you foresee whether a dice-roll would fail you? What a deep, exciting gameplay element! Spamming persuasion button was also the height of roleplaying by your standard, I imagine.

You really know nothing about the history of CRPGs either, since some of the most venerable franchises had active lockpicking that used player skill. Like the Wizardry series, for instance. Which were otherwise truly hardcoe turn-based RPG with tons of stats, skills, races, where picking a good party race/class combination and skill synergy was truly essential for success.
I have heard that Betrayal at Krondor also had it and I am not sure about the Might and Magic series.

It can, in fact, be argued that gradual removal of stuff like that and of puzzles/riddles (which also were solved by the player and not character stats) from RPGs was actually the result of dumbing down CRPGs for the audience which was only interested in fighting and hated to be held up by other things. Action adventures were undergoing the same lamentable process, BTW, so that by now they are all action and no adventure.



Indeed. And yet, according to you it shouldn't be that way. The skills and attributes of the character should decide over victory and defeat, not the player's tactical skill. It is even doable - in some JRPGs battles can be resolved automatically. Yet, understandably, most of us would prefer not to engage in such extreme form of stat-playing. We like to actually play a game, after all.




So, a stupid character can suddenly be a skilled tactician because the player is one? What about _character_ attribute and skills determining everything? Or is it just simply that combat is the only gameplay element that interests you, so there it is OK for the player to take active hand?

How is picking a birth-sign at the start of character creation a game ruining decision? your making a character, he wasn't born in that prison. Did people just click whatever and skip character creation, then whine because they screwed up? If you start out as one build and want to change it, but not just make another, then thats your bad, not the games. We need choices and consequences like this. Make the noobs think before they just randomly pick something. Its not like Birth Signs had game breaking abilities attached to them anyway.

Because the game would be designed with the expectation that you'd have and use your birthsign bonuses. At that point, your'e then required to play to the strength of those bonuses, or the game can become Very Hard for a starting character.

The idea is that you play and level what you want, not what you picked out at the start. "You are what you play", not "You are what you picked at character creation, and help you if you want to do something different."

Not really. You should be required to play your build for the most part, you made it, you made the choices. If you dont like it make another. Sounds like they are just dumbing it down to noobs that make dumb decision, want to make a JOAT, or just dont know what they are doing. LOL at ruining your build by taking a birth-sign, what a joke.

I think it's more that they want to fully follow this new system they're using. That you create your character through your actions while you're playing.

Losing birthsigns isn't a big loss itself. Their effects can be more than easily replaced by a spell or an enchantment. I think removing birthsigns therefore has more to do with this new system they're using.

Birthsigns would only actually be useful it they had really unique and powerful effects that you can't get that easily otherwise. Now if we go by that thought, THEN it would be a game-breaking choice within the first hour.

And that's what they want to avoid. They didn't like how players would sit there and play for a few hours, then see that the character build wasn't working (because you made bad choices in char creation that don't reflect how you actually play), causing you to need to restart. Todd noted in one of the interviews that players didn't really mind that, but they didn't like forcing players into that situation.

whats next? The ability to reskill and reperk, the ability to change your race on the fly becasue you dont like it? It didnt matter what you picked in Oblivion or Morrowind birth sign wise. All were viable, even if you picked all of the "worst" skills in the game to accompany them. Not to mention Oblivion was as hard in the beginning as it was in the end with the flawed level scaling system. sounds like they are trying to placate people that want instant gratification that are too lazy to start over or god forbid make another build. Who goes into a ES game and makes a build with absolutely no idea on how they will play?

It's not a matter of liking it, it's a matter of being able to play it. It's to avoid accidentally breaking a character build due to things that you didn't have control of.


Actually, in Morrowind it did. Between your class and birthsign, you had to select them according to how you play, or else the character becomes nearly impossible to play. Picked warrior-based class and birthsign, and ended up prefering magic? Fail, restart. Picked magical birthsign and stealth class, and ended up going hard melee/strength? Fail, restart.

Don't forget that the default method of picking your class (in Daggerfall and Morrowind, at least) was by given a bunch of questions that had no bearing on gameplay. The game would then recommend a class for you, even if that's not how you'd play. Oblivion recommended one to you based on how you did the tutorial dungeon, but it wasn't long enough to determine someone's actual playstyle (especially if they're new players and are trying things out). Birthsigns were just part of that whole problem they're trying to solve.

And if you actually managed to "break" character build, you were doing something incredibly wrong.

Nearly everything worked.

What? You do have control of it. Birth signs cant break your character anyway. Unless you took Atronach in Oblivion and didnt bother to actually read its description. Not to mention the person that dosnt care about sticking to a play style is the same person that doesnt care about what sign he was born under, so Im not sure what Beth was talking about in that article.

Hardly. A new player is not going to fully understand the differences imposed by those beginning choices. It's not until you actually play it, get a feel for it, and understand its systems, that you can make good choices.

Case in point. I started with Oblivion. I probably restarted about 2 or 3 times because I didn't really grasp how the game worked, and after a few hours with each character, I felt I wasn't progressing properly... but I eventually got the hang of it and made a character that played well. A while later, I then played Morrowind, and tried to make similar characters as those good ones I had in Oblivion. This failed utterly. I couldn't hit anything, it was very frustrating, and the only reason I kept playing was because I wanted to like the game (and after a few gruelling levels, when I could actually start doing things, I did start liking it). I blamed Morrowind for having such a crappy roll-to-fail system. It wasn't until later that I was given the idea to pick a class and birthsign that fully accentuated how I played, as opposed to what I thought would be neat to have, so that those "bonuses" (more like requirements) they give will help get me into the game quicker.

The point is, I was quite put off by Morrowind because of how difficult it was to actually start with a good character. It may have been my fault, but it was easy to make poor character builds, and for a first-time player, it's problems like that that can quickly turn someone away. First impressions are everything. It's not fun to be punished for mistakes you don't realize you're making.

Well maybe they should have asked those who actually like RPG's that question, not saying you don't like RPG's but I would think the majority that do would rather have more choices not less. I for one LOVED spending hours to get my character right before playing the game. That to me was just as much fun as the game itself. It also led to more replay value.

Removing all that stuff will reduce the replay value of the game because most people will play it the same way every time. Those choices that are being removed made it so you actually had to think about what were doing.

Your failing at the game, had nothing to do with birth signs. Not to mention thats how Morrowind played out for everyone. Just becuase you didnt know what you were doing doesnt mean we didnt. Noobs should learn the hard way, like we all did at one point. not idiot proof the game by cutting stuff. (not calling you an idiot)

One of the first complaints I ever heard about TES --for Daggerfall--was that the system of gaining skills only by doing the skill meant that a given player's characters all seemed to turn out the same unless the player radically changed its playing style with each character it played. Now Morrowind and Daggerfall's levelling system catered to this somewhat because non major skills, even non-minor skills (in Daggerfall) contributed towards your leveling up.

As an example, no matter what I am playing, pure mage, battle mage, pure warrior, pure assassin, or thief, I always end up with high sneak marksman and conjuration skills because I find I play that way without thinking about it. If I'm playing a class that doesn't include some, or any of those skills in Oblivion I find I'm forced to change my playing style or level up really slowly or very unevenly.

Because of that I'm afraid that the no-class system in Skyrim is going to make restarting characters even less appealing, especially to those who aren't into role playing, which is too bad because I enjoy playing different races and different types a great deal.

Losing birth signs will be another way that all the characters I decide to play are pretty much identical. I worry that in TES VI they'll take races away and say that "you can be any color and face conformation you want, so why do you need races?" At that point we all might as well be playing gelatinous cubes.....

This is exactly why I made that comment about rounded corners on the manual. If a person is really so immature that they cry and whinge that they 'wasted their time' or 'made a bad character' then they probably aren't old enough to even buy the game in the first place. Isn't it funny how a decade or 15 years ago developers had no problem setting up games like this and anyone who did something like 'make a bad character' just had to take some concrete and hard up. Why is it that 'new players' nowadays need to be so molly coddled. Stop treating people like they are petulant children and start giving them some credit.



If you want to cast magic then pick the birthsigns that boost your magicka. If you want to not use magicka but fight a lot then pick the birthsigns that boost your strength or provide cheap healing. If you want to play stealthily pick the skills that give you stealthy options or boost your stealthy skills. It really is quite simple. If you play along for three hours and don't like the play style then start again. It doesn't mean that you've 'wasted' those three hours - you were still playing the same game. Really, I did it several times for Fallout and I didn't demand "Get rid of those annoying traits!".

That was mostly because some skills worked much better than others, though, and several were outright broken. Also, the system of strengths and weaknesses that you picked on character creation was rather arcane - and to make certain types of characters that worked (pure mages, cough), you had to understand it and use it to the best advantage.

OTOH, it was entirely possible to play different characters _and_ to change the playing style mid-way, as long as you were willing to pay for training and do the train/sleep routine. DF was actually better than MW and Obl in that respect, because it didn't have attribute multipliers, so you could use only the skills you liked or needed to progress in guilds of your choice.




IMHO, the only distinctive signs that actually affected the character beyond the first few couple of levels were the magic ones. Atronach in particular was the best sign for any character that wasn't a pure mage. The only way to truly screw your character with a birthsign choice was to make a heavy magic-user that was not of a race with magic multiplier and didn't have a magic birthsign, but even then there was enchantment and alchemy to fall back on.
I actually would have preferred it if all other birthsigns were similarly game-changing and provided multipliers to health, fatigue, etc, or at least extended attribute caps for the value of their bonus. It still wouldn't have screwed up any starting characters because any real boni that remain for the whole game are useful for almost any class.

Generally, I also like poring over game manuals and creating characters just so before plunging into the game.

Still, I played and liked games that started the character as a blank slate, like the Gothic series and there is a certain charm in trying things out before you decide on the direction of your character. In case of Bethesda games where stats were traditionally badly balanced there is an additional attraction in seeing what actually works and feels enjoyable to a given player before committing oneself.

Your assertion was that it's very difficult to make a bad build. I'm saying it was easy to, especially for new players. Yes, it was my fault it was a bad build. I had just started playing the game and didn't know "the right way" to make a character. Just because it was my fault doesn't mean the game can't do something to improve on it. Letting players make bad builds, when you can do something about it without sacrificing playability or character diversity, doesn't do anyone any favors.


According to Todd, the majority of players didn't cry and whine.. but they still wanted to fix it anyway.


It's not easy for a new player to know what they'll want to do, or what they'll be good at doing.


It depends, really. With Oblivion, I didn't feel like I wasted time... I was learning the game, and could use that knowledge to make a better build next time. With Morrowind, however, I didn't feel like I was learning anything. I just had a bad character, didn't see why it was bad (I didn't see what the game wanted me to do), and blamed the game for being too difficult. Oblivion improved over Morrowind with getting new players on their feet, but that doesn't mean it can't be improved further.


The idea is that characters start out about the same, but then they become very diverse as you play. You're encouraged to specialize in a select few skills, you can only reach about 3/4ths or 2/3rds of the maximum possible level before you start leveling very slowly, you can only pick about 1/6th of all available perks by the time you reach that soft level cap, etc. In Morrowind and Oblivion, it was the exact opposite... between your race, gender, class, and birthsign, you could start with very different characters, but by the time you got high level, they all gravitated to the same master-of-everything character type.