uh....yeah.

Make it sound like a bad thing.

What I'm shooting for is a system that does not reward grinding and instead reflect the way I play, which is something the current leveling system tries to do, but it fails at achieving in the end, in my opinion, because it punishes you in arbitrary ways. You are perfectly fine with it, and that's ok, since its all a matter of of opinion. There have been plenty of suggestions on the board to deal with leveling, and plenty of mods out there that prove that an alternative to stats multipliers is possible and makes for a much better level progression, without the need to put points where they haven't been earned.

the problem is that as you level up and up you get weaker and weaker in comparison to the npcs

That would be extremely unbalanced because then you would have maxed out all of your attributes by the time you reach lvl cap.


Agreed. However there is very little difference in an attribute getting a +3 in the background at level up or you choosing a +3 at lvl up.

Well, in my opinion the current leveling system fails you because you consider anything less than maximum gain a punishment. Strength as an example: The problem with getting a +5 is that you need to achieve 5 skill level ups between character levels. That is not easy to do when only three skills are governed by strength and they are all unrelated, Blade, Blunt and Hand to Hand.


I'm not disagreeing that the leveling system needs an overhaul, I'm opposed to eliminating the train it to level it premise. As demonstrated above stat multipliers aren't your problem, it's a lack of skills.That is why I proposed http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1152580-the-attribute-list-trim-down/page__view__findpost__p__16873351.



That is not the leveling system's fault it's because of NPC level scaling which Bethesda has stated was a mistake and wouldn't happen again. So that is a mute point.

I sometimes enjoy it cuz it gives me something extra to do to wreck my brain....tho that also makes me hate it

but i find it odd how ppl complain about it (even myself) due to the reason since this was ground breaking at the time for the studio or atleast they made it sound like it in the oblivion "making of" dvd, so it makes me think that they won't change it in Skyrim

The fatal flaw with Oblivion leveling is that since main classes all set the most frequently used skills as the major skills, and to level up you need to raise your major skills, actually using your major skills most often is the most inefficient way to level. For instance, let's consider a warrior type character. We want him to have high endurance. We go with the standard Warrior class. He levels up, but since all endurance skills are major skills, he cannot raise his endurance skills enough to get +5 endurance when leveling up. This is made even worse by including a leveled environment. Since your character only logarithmically improves while the world improves linearly, things exponentially get harder.

nGCD method would be preferrable for me too. It makes leveling happen completely unnoticeable for the player. I understand if for some people that would be unacceptable solution and i do not beleive Bethesda will make it like that, but it will be a mod i start using ASAP. I'll make it myself if have to!

And XP-based leleving would be one of those "would not buy the game" changes for me. I mean, i've killed a damn lot of flies during my time, but'm still no good at lockpicking

I actually enjoy the whole "spreadsheet" aspect of leveling. But I also play D&D and like to have my character pretty much completely planned out :shrug:

Granted, I would be fine with it if they changed it. The actually planning is more fun than letting a mudcrab hit you 50 times just to get that +5 for endurance from heavy armor. But that's just me. I'm a completionist.

Um... honestly? I've never got that...

I guess it must be a mage thing... (I always play warrior).

On that note, can warriors be made better in Skyrim? My guy in Oblivion dies all the time -.-'

The system lets those who spend lots of time only rising skills to accually max out all their attributes, while those who enjoy the game with all it's aspects and not press three hundred times the cast button to rise a magic level to get the maximal benefit of +5 into intelligence when leveling... Leaving the true fans with characters who have 2-3 attributes 100 and the rest under 70, while (for example my sister, ehum), has a char with 100 on everything. Not fun!

There should be a fixed amount of points you can put into attributes when leveling if you ask me. ex: one +3, one +2, one +1. Choose your attributes to boost. This would let me too get just as a good character as anyone, without spending most of my time playing casting spells in the damn imperial damn city damn market damn disctrict. DAMN

"Moot". The word is "moot", not "mute". Mute is what you do to the TV when you don't want to listen to commercials.

The way the multiplier system works in oblivion you are rewarded more for using minor skills. That is counter intuitive and completely backwards from what I want from a game. There may be players who find it appealing, but it feels like a kick to the gonads for players who expect a leveling system that makes sense. You do not see a physicist spending most of his time painting because it improves his ability to create mathematical models of observed events faster than actually observing events and anolyzing data. Does that make sense to anyone?

I just played the game and my character was molded around my playing style and not vice-versa. I'm not saying it's better or worse than you being the one adapting to work with your character but it worked just fine for me *shrug*

I think on the magic side of things repetitive conjuring and damage to yourself so to heal etc is intended and not a product of a poor system. I mean alot of mages guilds and the arcane university has NPC's conjuring and hitting targets with spells, and I stumbled across a book in the arcane library suggesting some mages go as far as to cast spells on them selves on order to advance and appreciate the spells and effects, kind of hinting for me to do the same
. I think there is an intention inthere somewhere to actually train your character in certain skills rather than have a natural advancement provided by running through the main quest.

The level system is one thing I can't defend from the later TES games. Arena was "another boring EXP system". Daggerfall might not reward you for using skills as directly as the later games, but it didn't lead to a variety of absurd conditions.

See, if you increase Conjuration by 1 level every level, you get a +2. If you work 4 times as hard at it... you get... a +2. Double the effort again, and you actually get rewarded. Note: putting minimal interest in Conjuration is potentially beneficial. Putting just below moderate effort in is rewarded just as much. How is that NOT a problem?

Also, putting in EXTREME effort is not rewarded more than putting in serious effort. mastering a skill from starting value to 100 is rewarded just as much as adding 10 levels. And the effort is rendered useless. Even if you level twice in one day! How is this practical OR balanced? It nerfs the character, but to what end? Why SHOULDN'T someone be rewarded for going "Gosh, I could summon a Dremora Lord if I master this skill? Let me get to work!" They put in the effort. The game needs to recognize it.

I forget why I elected not to use nGCD. As in "specifically" nGCD. The idea it uses is workable and intuitive in a way the base system is not. (Disclaimer: whatever version of Pure Immersion I use is fairly similar anyway). Another viable alternative I heard on the forums is "Attribute EXP", which would essentially further remove strange cases from the system. For example, if I use nothing but Claymores, why do I need to be a pugilist to be "really freaking strong"? That system would allow you to naturally play a swordsman and continue to get stronger without having to grab a mace and punch mudcrabs to death just for bonuses...

That said, I think there's one other way to help out: Remove Luck from the level equation. But I'll leave that for modding time. Explaining the idea just isn't as appealing as trying it in gameplay myself....

could you explain a bit, I don't follow here..

It's not like anyones saying your conjuration skill should increase because your character is jumping up and down, not at all. It's the level up thing most are talking about and if our characters should have to stop what they are doing because they are about to get a level and train their minor skills a bit just to get +5, +5, +5 in the attributes when leveling. I think that is horrible. Instead, there should be another solution.

They could make some changes to the leveling system as Luck is completely useless and either needs to be overhauled or gotten rid of completely. Personality also needs to be changed. The current system is ok but it needs some changes. I shouldn't have to set up my playstyle so that my minor skills are really the major skills that I would normally take like Blade and Destruction which is what I'm currently doing with my Breton.

Her current setup is
Majors
Conjuration
Restoration
Block
Light Armor
Marksman (Filler)
Speechcraft (Filler)
Hand To Hand (Filler)

Using that setup I'll be able to max her main 4 major skills by around Level 27 then its just grinding Mark, Speech, or Hand 3 levels to get me to Level 30 which is the magic number in Oblivion. Its a good setup that gets me +3, +4, +5 but it probably won't allow me to max my attributes which isn't a big deal. The Leveling system needs to be tweaked in Skyrim, I'm not saying we should abandon the skill system completely as I like using something like Starlight to grind my Illusion skill to Apprentice but the way you get your +'s from the skills towards your Attributes needs to change. It shouldn't take 10 points into Either Conjuration, Mysticism, or Alchemy to raise my Intelligence +5.

I think this is what they could do, keep the current attribute system the way it is although they need to tweak Luck and Personality's effects. What I would do is just give 3 +5's per level and eliminate the 2 +5's that you can select when your picking a class whether its custom or standard and get rid of the Birthsigns The Warrior, The Lady and The Thief and replace them with new Birthsigns. I did the math on this and I'll use an example.

Breton Female
Strength 30
Intelligence 50
Willpower 50
Endurance 30
Agility 30
Speed 40
Personality 40
Luck 50

Now if we give 3 +5's per level and her birthsign is the mage she will max her attributes at Level 37.

10 Levels For Intelligence, Luck and Willpower
12 Levels For Speed and Personality
14 Levels For Strength, Endurance and Agility


Now of course under this system you could exploit it to grind levels fast but you got to remember that you need to level your skills up and don't forget how powerful some of the enemies are too. A low Blade skill at level 37 isn't going to do you much good if its your main weapon skill. Also one last thing the reason why I got rid of The Warrior, The Lady and The Thief is because those birthsigns would lower your max level and the max level is a low number unlike Oblivion where you could possibly go as high as the 50's but who realisticly wants to spend 5 minutes trying to kill a Goblin Warlord that has a ton of health. Thats why the system needs to be changed but not completely overhauled.

You know... There was a thread concerning level caps that addressed this very problem if you're willing to do away with them as well... However, it seems the natural solution to things, like undoing some sort of restriction or regulation within a game to make it run smoother is too difficult to comprehend for many... What is it about humanity that it favors adding complications, limitation, regulation, and restriction to itself, to create the illusion of improvement, when it often just hides an ever growing problem?

Wow... That was oddly political... I need to order a pizza and watch some simpsons for a awhile...

We're talking about TES's levelling systems, not the NHS. It's not difficult - the restrictions are meant to apply realism (learning by doing and not being able to master everything) which in turn improves immersion and makes the game, an RPG, more enjoyable.

Your response makes no sense... Once again mine does. Applying level restrictions means that once players reach level 100 they have no reason to continue developing that skill, so they wear different armor, they equip different weapons, they use different skills, only switching back to what they mastered when a truly difficult task is presented that requires their mastery. THIS IS UNREALISTIC, the master is never done learning, find me a single master in the world who believes he has nothing more to learn about his trade. The level caps encourage players to do EXACTLY what you say they are discouraging, players becoming masters of EVERY skill, they finish leveling up their specialized skills, then they move on to the skills they don't specialize in until they max them out as well. At the end of the game you have a weird master of all trades, jack of none, which is totally immersion breaking.

If you get rid of level caps, but make leveling exponentially harder the higher they get, particularly above 100, then most gamers will still continue to level their chosen skills, specifically because they haven/t lost the incentive to level those skills. Sure its more difficult, but that's the character they built, and its what they want to play, getting rid of that incentive to play their specialty makes no sense, and is once again a weird artifact of regulation that developers have added for no real reason.

What I'm saying is I think you can get your +5's etc from doing the repetitive stuff and putting the time in as a kind of training. Just running through the game and naturally levelling up will give you a character with skills to reflect that. Taking time to repeat spells, over and over for example will reward you with a character who will excel in this area in comparison.
I think this side of things is intended by Beth. If your character is an all rounder who doesn't specialise in any particular area, or spend the extra time training specific attributes then I think it's right that attribute gains should be average.

I don't have that problem because i don't play the game for the sake of leveling. My character's levels directly reflect what I've done in the game. I did not do things in the game to achieve a specific level and that is why the current system fails so many. Like I said before, stop looking at your stats to determine what you will do next and just do the things that are available to your character as it is. Let the game environment level your character for you by simply interacting with it rather than interacting with the environment in specific and repetitive ways in order to achieve a certain number in skill.

Why do we have to have levels? Keep the skill levels, base stats, but no "levels". Improve via gear/skill levels.

No way!! Levels give you a sense of achievement, and help measure your progress.

I for one did obsess all the time about efficiency leveling after half way through my first play through. I was distracted by it for quite some time after. Although, now I've actually managed to avoid it for the most part and actually manage to enjoy the game world more.
I think one the things made me feel that I need to improve my character was the sporadic/ uneven difficulty. I mean, in the early levels of Oblivion while traveling Cyrodiil, it was like: a rat or two, mudcrab, rat, baor, mudcrab, mudcrab, rat, wolf, MOUNTAIN LION, rat. Oblivion made the player feel like they should be able to travel everywhere right from the start, then they come across a tough obstacle that the game didn't really prepare the player for. I don't mind if there are a couple of areas reserved for higher level players, but then there should be that atmosphere of expecting/ knowing something is going to be more difficult. Locals going on about nasty rumors going on in some secluded forest or something. Not have a random event where it proves almost impossible, when the player passed that area plenty of times before without much hassle, and then have the area go back to the way it was before. I've played Oblivion saves where I'd be on my way to Bruma along the road when I come across a mountain lion, get mauled, reload the save, and the next time through, the spawned enemy is a fleeing deer.