Again. You need 95 hours of continuous running in Oblivion to reach 100 athletics, provided it is not a major skill.

I keep pointing it out, people keep ignoring it.

I have played over 10 characters over level 30 on Oblivion. I certainly have put more than 2k hours in the game.
I never ever had a character over 70 speed, athletics or acrobatics.

There is no such thing as 'broken' when you go out of your way.
Its like a petulant child. 'I went the extra mile and I dont like the result. Remove the option alltogether!'

That was possibly the most impressive post in this entire forum that I have seen so far. And I do think they are removing the sand. It's not all gone, but it's shallower and there's less of it.

I liken it to Legos. Legos used to be small, versatile pieces that allowed for tons of unique creations. As time passes, Lego pieces are merging into larger, easier to use pieces. That way, legos are more "accessible". But the tradeoff is less freedom for creativity. And I think that is a back-asswards way of developing Elder Scrolls games. And it needs to stop.

Acrobatics and Athletics were taken out because they interfered with leveling too much, the secondary stuff came later. As to whether they were taken out is good for the game I will say yes for now but I'm going to need to play it 1st to see if it truly was the right decision.

Actually, theres more roleplaying compared to Oblivion:

-Marriage
-City economy
-Job Skills (woodcutting/farming/cooking)
-Companions
-Unique dungeons this time
-Puzzles
-Carriage system
-more kinds of food/plants
-better crafting

I wasn't talking about useless numbers, and even then we got twice the levels and 280 perks - still more.

This is what happened anyway in both Morrowind and Oblivion. A "Spellsword" (aka generalist) always played like every other "class" that did both might and magic. Similarly to how pretty much all "Mage" types played exactly the same. You could use different spells, or call them something else, but in the end you almost always had at least one, if not more "killing spells", some kind of healing and some kind of transportation. You could choose to use summons if you wanted, but the AI was typically so slow that they were useless. Despite having a big list of classes, in the end they all played the same and you only really had four to choose from: Fighter, Thief, Mage, Generalist.



You can't really have "variation" with melee classes until the game actually has melee combat worth a damn. All melee characters play identical. You do your generic slash or chop and your power attack, that's it. Combat in Bethesda games has never been exciting and it probably never will be.

Combat has never been the point of The Elder Scrolls. Does it help make it better, yes but is it necessary for the game to have amazing perfect combat, I say no we only need to have combat that isn't dull, repetivite or just plain annoying. I don't see that being a problem with Skyrim.

I read the entire thing... and I like how you put questions to both sides of the argument.

I really don't understand why anyone seriously thinks it has been improved over Oblivion. Aside from a few graphical tweaks and the uncontrollable death animation, it looks 100% identical to the repetitive, and just plain annoying combat that was seen in both Morrowind and Oblivion. Modders tried making it better, but I haven't seen one yet that actually made it better without making it extremely goofy or completely imbalanced.

You can say that combat "isn't the point". Ok, and yet that's what you find yourself doing for 50% or more of the game and that's also the entire purpose of the majority of skills and perks.

Removing sand from the sandbox is a flawed perception. You can't remove something that was never present. Nothing from Morrowind, or Daggerfall, or Arena, was removed from Oblivion or from Skyrim or from Morrowind or from any other Elder Scrolls game. Nothing was removed from the series.


Quantifying freedoms is tricky. I wouldn't want to do it, and I doubt anyone has ever successfully enumerated all of the freedoms of Morrowind and Oblivion to produce the necessary, empirical evidence that Morrowind has more freedoms. Any Elder Scrolls game has things to offer that no other Elder Scrolls game does. Here are just a few of the freedoms Oblivion offers that Morrowind does not:

• Run without draining your fatigue
  
• Retrieve spent arrows from the ground and from various other objects
  
• Apply poison to your weapons
  
• Enchant bows to produce magical effects from your arrow strikes
  
• Bait enemies into traps
  
• Paralyze an opponent through weapon skill alone
  
• Hit where you aim without a random-number generator stopping you
  
• Push an NPC out of your way
  
• Block, or at least try to block, when you want to block

Even after enumerating all of the freedoms, you will still run into constant disagreement over the overall quality of the freedom. In Skyrim, you can develop your pickpocket skill, but there are those who contend that that freedeom is a sorry one.



Skyrim and Oblivion and Morrowind and Daggerfall and Morrowind are all designed to give the player a large, open world to explore and to give the player worthwhile choices to allow him be what he wants to be and do what he wants to do within that world (and have fun doing it). It is probably fair to say that the freedoms offered by any one of those games are all the freedoms that were possible for that game.

Yes, and if the next generation Corvette was a four cylinder station wagon, then technically Chevrolet would not have "removed" anything from the model. Yet that semantic quibble would in no way counter the deserved criticism that decision would bring.

The combat is going to be much better and now we can use our left hand and right hand instead of traditional Blocking, Weapon, Spell buttons. That will make the combat much better.

See, you're not the first--and probably won't be the last--to gush over this "new feature". Guess what though? You could always do this, it just required the use of hotkeys switching from weapon to spell and back. The ONLY difference here is that you can already have a spell ready without having to toggle. That's it. It saves you a whole second, and doesn't add anything new to the gameplay. Neither does "combining" same class spells into an "OMG big!" spell. It just saves you from having to hit a key twice. I have yet to see in any of the gameplay videos where they are able to attack with a melee attack at the same time they are casting a spell.

Dual wielding spells is nothing but a gimmick so far (from everything we've seen) and dual wielding weapons serves absolutely no purpose other than to say you're doing it (from everything we've seen).

How about the fact that you cannot cast spells and wield weapons in the same hand?

Don't you have to choose whether or not you're going to equip a shield for better defense or a spell in your other hand, or spell in both hands because "it saves me from having to hit a key twice"...

Yeah, it's just a gimmick, a gimmick that adds actual strategic decision in the game...

If anything, based on the play demos I've seen, I think Skyrim's weilding system will annoy me. Its like a step back from oblivion to morrowind when you could not cast a spell while having a swordnboard out without switching to 'casting' mode.
If i find I have to spend nore than 1% of combat time switching weapons/spells in and out like Todd did in teh demo's I'm going to be frustrated.

Its only adding to strategy if you are punished for it. From what we've seen the game still pauses when you go to the menu so it just means people will be using the menu alot in combat to change their equiped weapon/spell... thats not really strategy, just wasted time.

The real TES is not dead, just smothered underneath the short attention-span of Beth's target audience. A new developer would probably cause more harm than good. What would be good for TES is for us to demand more challenging, complex, and deep mechanics, instead of repeatedly cutting them down to appeal to the massive amount of non-serious, short attention-span wielding console gamers.

Interesting read, thanks for the post.

I find role playing to be a subjective thing, everyone does it a little different I imagine. I'm happy with the way Skyrim is going so far, now keep in mind I have only played Oblivion, I found the system of attributes and major skills to be quite a bit confusing, I tried to make a mage character and it ended horribly because of the level-scaled world. So that might make me a bit biased on praising the removal of attributes but I think it's the way to go.

I never looked to my attributes for role-playing in Oblivion, my character had high agility and sneak level but this didn't make him a thief, the fact that he stole stuff and was a high ranking member of the theif's guild is what made him a thief, not the numbers on his character sheet.

I think what will improve role-playing and is now possible with technology today is having the game world react to your character more dynamically, which as far as I can see is what Skyrim is going for. Here's an example, your character is dragon born, dovahkiin and all that jazz, but as far as we know he/she's the only one in many many years. So depending on how you play the game the world might perceive dovahkiin differently, you kill many innocents and they'll mutter dovahkiin with curses under their breath when you walk by them or flat-out challenge you, or if your an outed thief, maybe they'll say something to the effect "at least he's better than the dragons...".

Anyway I still think the ability to role-play relies on the person playing before anything the game does but I believe skyrim is a step in the right direction, even if some options are gone.

And I am the queen of the land of Plum Pudding and this is my sultana.

Pull the other one, it has bells on.

Some excellent points made here. I guess the fact that this is a RPG/FPS hybrid is what makes it so damned difficult to support players from both camps. Some of us "older guys" understands well the concepts of dice rolls and how character skills should be the main driving force, while the new "computer FPS generation guys" only see the FPS as being immersive.

I don't agree on a sudden change happening at a certain distance, at the same time I'm not sure how I'd do it. In a dice game you state your business, and let the dice determine your success. Isn't this precisely what VATS does in FO3/FONV? And does well, I might add. It's up to the player to choose playstyle, but at least the game does support both. But here, every time VATS is brought up, it's a rush of "hell noes"

Is TES doomed into a life driven completely by the FPS approach? Only solution I see to this madness is to actually show misses clearly. Like some sensing system that makes AI "react" and dodge your blow, hands shaking to show bad aiming with bow (even Arma2/OA doesn't do this well enough), or arrows not going straight depending on dice roll? No matter what is chosen, it will "feel wrong" for those who thinks crosshair position is the only thing that matter. In "classical roleplay" systems, crosshair position would be where you attempted to hit, what is what VATS does.

Was "Arkania: Blade of Destiny" the last true computer based dice RPGs? I don't mind 3D interaction and all that, but I think it may have strived too far off course. For those who don't know what is is, here is a LP of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kytIv5H5f0 In terms of rule complexity, it seems far more advanced than Skyrim and probably all of TES.

Disappointment is understandable when people wanting a Corvette are offered only a Cruze. You run into other issues, however, when some people see the new car as a Cruze, and others see it as a Camaro, and yet others see it as a Corvette.

Wow. Wow. I am confused everytime I see someone post that they have stripped away the RP elements. I don't get it. They havn't removed attributes like so many people like to say,they are just streamlined to get rid of the redundency (I'm not goin to take the time to explain it cause' all of you haters will completely ignore it anyway) in the gameply sense, and the rest of the attributes are still there but in the background.

But oh, what other reasons do you bring up, less skills and armor slots. The skill have been STREAMLINED (again, you haters are just goin' to say dumbed down)and thats all there is to it, I don't even see the issue.

The issue about armor slots is ridiculous. There is potential for great custimization, we know barely anything about smithing and from what it looks like we will be getting a variety of different armor types withit.

But all the haters are goin to ignore logic and substitute it with there own dillusions ( a little harsh I know).
The main problem is that most are expecting the game they want and not what it IS. and when they don't agree with something they go on to say stuf like

TES is dead
There is no more RP elements
BGS is lazy!
And other such stuff

Or that they are appealling to the casual market like the Cod [censored], who for some reason can't do math(I'm serious, someone actually said typed that). I think I've made my point (The Haters will just come up with some lame rebutal about less freedom somehow), I'm ready to rant about how so many want complexity just to have it and have a hatred for any new players who don't want complexity, but thats off topic so I think I'm done here.

Judge the game for what it is, not what you want it to be. Don't even try to say it isn't less of a RPG or just an action game, just because you may not agree with it doesn't mean its not a RPG.

I have missed something... What sudden change do you mean?

Sort of... But did you notice that in Fallout 1 the targets were of a linear difficulty, and "paid off" more, the more difficult the target was to hit... While In FO3 the target percentages were proximity based, and you simply had a higher chance of hitting what was closest.

The dice are 'weighted' by character skill (and perks, stats & traits); Its not a purely random roll like on a dice table. FO1 Aimed shots added a Critical bonus (if you hit) and a negative penalty to each target (-60% to hit the eye; You had to have more than a 60% chance at that range ~to have any chance at all.)
FO3's VATS calculates the chance to hit based on distance, and weapon skill, but also (says the Wiki) strangely degrades your guns 4x faster; (For taking your time and carefully squeezing the trigger ).

Fallout's dice method added a good dose of probability, good luck, and misfortune to everything in the game. In Fallout guns could jam during combat and not just during reloads (as in FO3 IIRC). In Fallout there was no VATS (except the location you visited called "The Vats"). In Fallout their was aiming (and there is a difference between them)... An Aimed shot cost more (in time) than shooting from the hip; and it was really a risky gamble (that could pay off, but could also leave you very vulnerable) ~In FO3 [IMO] VATS is a cheat button and that vulnerability that careful aiming brought upon the PC, was replaced with increased damage resistance while aiming. :bonk:

The very thing that put in some balance and restraint to "power attacks" (as they could be called), was removed, and APs made to regenerate ~basically devaluing them. Unlike Aimed shots in the rest of the series, (where most PCs can usually only manage one carefully aimed shot)... VATS lets you get in several shots for free at a preternaturally high speed, and with near impunity, every so often. :shrug:

VATS in FO3 just does not seem as 'double edged' as Fallout was with its 'aimed shot' option ~dice or no dice.

I would love it if they could manage something like 'target nodes' where Havok plays a part in deforming the [melee] attack animation (towards the target); and if the NPC would attempt to dodge. (I don't know if that's even possible to implement in the engine though).

There were two sequels.. I have them installed on my Desktop.

What [exactly] do you mean by "true"? Fallout used dice, and so did Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale & Planescape; and many many others... Unless I miss a distinction.

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That... just that, alone, and by itself ~Is pretty bad IMO; It speaks volumes.