At the suggestion of Lachedon, I have started this thread to discuss Todd's game design philosophy of "less is more." I think the ultimate logical conclusion of this plilosophy may be the elimination of skills entirely. Sounds like a radical concept, but so did the elimination of classes and attributes, when he first announced that.

In the latest game, character differentiation is primarily determined by perks, and the biggest impact of skills is determining what perks you can take. Seems to me that you could make a simpler system by just eliminating skills altogether and just have a bunch of perk trees centered around themes, but not directly tied to a skill.

They would need to figure out a way to dole out perks, but there are various ways they could do that. Killing a boss monster (like aborbing a dragon soul) might be one way. Or various skill books (I mean perk books) scattered around the land. I am sure there are other ways.

Mind you, I am not advocating that they eliminate skills. Quite the opposite, in fact. I think less is not more.

But I do think it is the logical conclusion from Todd's "less is more" design philosophy and it would not surprise me if the next iteration eliminated skills entirely.

This thread is for discussing all aspects of this "less is more" philosoply in Elder Scrolls games. Elimination of skills is just one example.

So, what do you think about the "less is more" design philosoply as applied to Elder Scrolls games?

Well I'm personally a guy that loves content, so more is more. As far as your perk ideas, maybe if they did the trees, but limited it to... hmmmm, you kinda need the skills in order for level progress to happen unless there is just an xp reward for killing monsters. Which IMO would ruin the feel of TES. It would svck if you ended up with three skills, magic skill, combat skill and stealth skill and all the gear was full suits of armor and a bow a 1h wep. 2h. wep and a dagger. and magic was, damage spell, healing spell. I think taking it down to the basics and making it simple can only go so far before it starts being counter-productive.

As far as content in a game goes though, less is more if that means that the content you get is better. I would rather have a game with say 5 factions, that are awesome, than 20 factions that all just kinda svck. If that makes sense.

i think you are the only person who thinks they would ever remove skills entirely... especially after the financial ruin that was Redguard..


as to "Less is more" mentality, would you rather have 20 individual Tic Tacs, or two freshly cooked Filet Mignon steaks?
its better to have a small number of very well executed skills than dozens of not well executed skills just for the sake of "having more skills"

and in 2009, how many people thought they would remove classes and attributes . . .

Redguard was not open world though. It was linear, so it is not comparable.

Classes and Atribbutes are different. in 1999, who thought they would remove climbing?

I think the Devs are aware that if they strip away too much they will ruin the game.

I disagree that the philosophy has a 'logical conclusion' in the total removal of skills. Less is more has its limits, and of you wanted to take it that literally, then you might as well he saying that the next TES game. Will feature a single quest giver, a single hallway, and a single enemy. Less is more indeed...

That said, I do agree with the philosophy in some areas, but not in others. For instance, I agree with the minimizing of weapon skills. When Oblivion cut them down as much as they did, I will admit, I was aghast and appalled. However, since then I have spoken to many people, particularly medieval combat specialists, historians and fellow archaeologist and come to the conclusion that the current form makes nose sense than earlier models. A master swordsman doesn't pick up an axe and suddenly become a fumbling child. Most of his skill is still applicable, it's just his specialised techniwue which he cannot call upon.

I also agree with the change in organizations... In Daggerfall, the various Knighhoods and cults were little more than titular clutter, being 2 dimensional and lacking any real identity. With a vastly scaled down world, similar superfluous bodies would relegate each 'guild' to little more than a member or two in a shack (lime Oblivions Knighthoods). Fewer organizations means more time to develop and identity for each,and this was actually rather competently done in Skyrim, even if those identities still paled in comparison to Morrowind.

I do disagree in some areas, however. The removal of some skills was both unnecessary and simply lazy (Spears, Hand to Hand) and the philosophy also seems to have been taken on questlines (they are too short, leading to choppy and disjointed storytelling) and the removal of attributes (rather than just retooling them) was completelly unnecessary.

Overall, I would say that Less-is-More works for some things, and not for others. Even when it works, there is a limit for how far you an push it. Jaws wouldn't have been scary if you NEVER saw the shark. I think that the philosophy is superior to the More-Is-More approach though.

I don't have the same confidence in them as you do. For me they have already crossed that threshold of stripping away too much. I am not sure classes and attributes are really all that much different than skills. They would just need to figure out a new way to dole out perks at appropriate intervals.

We will see. Maybe they will reverse directions, but I will be surprised (though pleasantly so) if they do.

My near-perfect game:

* Restore Attributes, Birthsigns, classes and keep Perks.

* Restore Spellmaking

* Restore Persuasion. And make Persuasion an important option to finish most quests.

* A chargen option of toggling class or classless play.

* Non-Radiant quests would offer multiple options for completion, involving combat, persuasion, sneaking, ect.

* An improved version of Fame and Infamy, as well as guild rivalries and reputation, guild skill requirements.

* All HUD elements and map markers would be individually toggle-able.

* "Quest notes:" a paper that would supply directions to quest locations and quest-giving NPCs. These could be destroyed or dropped after the completion of the quest.

* Gear degradation, but only down to base stats. Smithing would improve gear. The gear would degrade back to base stats with use. Then it would need to be improved again.

* Improved marriage and social relationships.

I'm sure I'll think or 10 or 20 more in the next few minutes.

Given that logic though, wouldn't it make more sense to only have one weapon skill? I have done both fencing and SCA combat with swords, and the one handed/two handed distinction makes no sense whatsoever from a real world perspective. Concepts like footwork, distance and parries don't really depend on whether you are using one hand or two, and many real world swords like the katana and the bastard sword are designed to be used either with one hand or two. So much of the one hand sword skills would be transferrable to two hands. A master swordsman does not suddenly become a klutz just by placing two hands on the pommel or even using a slightly longer sword than he is used to.

So, from a real world perspective, having a single weapon skill would seem to make more sense than having a seperate skill for one handed vs two handed.

But once you reduce it to a single weapon skill, is it really that much of a stretch to think they might decide not to have any? It would be simpler than one, and really, what is the point of having only one type of weapon skill? Other than pure spell casters, everyone will need the weapon skill, so why not just eliminate it and let the person who wants to be a pure caster just put their perks in one of the casting trees?

I like the sounds of that. If only we could vote you into Todd's job . . .

I personally don't think they would ever remove skills entirely. The way in which skills improve by you actually using them, rather than simply levelling them up automatically with your character, is one of TES's points of difference ... I can't think of any other RPGs that actually make use of this (or equivalent) system - although I'm sure there are some, somewhere.

Getting rid of classes and attributes I can understand (and fully support), as shifting the focus from 'You are a paladin. These are the skills you benefit from using' to 'You can be a paladin, if you like. Feel free to use and benefit from conjuration too though' seems a lot more logical and free-form to me. Free-form being one of TES's main strengths.

With the current model Bethesda has now, I don't think they'll be able to reduce much more. If they forced it, they could combine weapon skills, armors and possibly even magic schools.

If you wanted to keep your skills menu clean, it would be interesting to "discover" skills like in the Sims for example.

I wouldn't want to see that, though.

The more variation the skill/class system has, the more apparent a character's strengths and weaknesses become...and just like your appearance, the more variation in skills, the more unique you are from the guy next to you.

It would make more sense, yes, but at the same time they don't actually use 2 handed weapons properly anyway... Claymores for instance were more often used like spears... The only time you'd hold both hands on the grip is to break into spear formations...

But even then, no, I don't think the next logical step would be to remove weapon skills entirely. You would have no means by which to gauge proficiency, progress or even use. You could, I suppose, acquire perk points every X kills, or link things directly to weapon useage, but that requires more complicated systems to acheove the same result, which defeats the less-is-More philosophy.

At the same time, the inclusion if Perks defeats your arguement that they are taking the approach too far. Just within the Perk trees we have we already have more range than was available with the same concepts in Oblivion, showing that Todd and his team are fully aware of the limitations of the philosophy.

They aren't just cutting and cutting and cutting. They are actually opperating on the core principle of less-is-More. They have been trying to break the system down to its simplest elements, so they can build up from that. The Perks are an indication, in my mind, that they are comfortable with those elements and trying to add more depth, without adding complication.

I agree with you here: TES's skill-use leveling is one of the defining features of the series. Remove skills and you remove TES's system of leveling itself. I have a hard time picturing that happening.

But, who knows, Turija's skepticism may prove to be more accurate than our optimism. As Emberoth said: whoever thought they would remove climbing?

Spears don't exist in TES anymore, and you cannot use a TES claymore like a spear. So, I don't see the relevance of that. Two handed in TES is basically like swinging a katana or bastard sword with two hands (or a big axe).


Does it though? All they would need to do is think of a simple yet elegant way of giving the player perks to spend at appropriate intervals. Perks that could be spent on anything.

You would have several different perk trees and you could spend your perks wherever you want. You would have to invest in one perk to unlock the next one, so that would be a natural limit on progression up the tree.

Character differentiation would be determined by where you decided to spend your perks.

The point being that the majority of 2-handed weapons in TES are used blatantly wrong. The only thing you'd get swinging around their unusually large War Hammers (which are probably inspired by Cavalry Hammers...) is a sword in the gut. These weapons are used SO incorrectly they might as well have an entire skill tree simply because they are entirely nonsensical anyway.


Why can I not see Perks totally replacing skills in this way? Because it would require More-for-less. As it stands, their system is implemented in such a way that gives active choice over your abilities and power ups, whithough any radical changes to the system. To remove skills would require a retooling of Perks, progression, equipment and even creatures, just to yield the exact same result. That certainly isn't following a Less-is-More philosophy.

How did you get the ability to write down my thoughts and feelings?

I'm not sure if Todd is alone when it comes to every change they make in the game.

The result will probably be somewhere in between, or something like that. I think that if stuff changes too much it will start moving back to it's roots eventually and stuff comes and goes (just look at history in general). But we'll see, they did eventually put crossbows in Skyrim, so we'll see. I am sure they take the criticism and reviews of the previous games into account.

If the two-handed tree is nonsensical, then why not eliminate it? Eliminate, rather than fix, anything that is not working perfectly seems to be what they do best.

They retool everything with each new game. This type of system would require retooling of progression by coming up with an alternative method of distributing perks at appropriate intervals, but it would in no way require a retooling of equipment or creatures or even perk trees for that matter. You could keep all the existing perk trees if you wanted to, although having fewer would make more sense. You would still have active choice over your abilities and power ups, it just would not be tied to any particular "skill". Instead it would be tied to the perk tree you decided to invest in, and which individual perks you decided to take.


You are probably right. I am just in a particularly pessimistic mood today. Plus it is interesting to argue the opposite point of view for a change, and trying to come up with reasons for "removing" things instead of reasons to put stuff back, like I usually do is kind of fun.

I'm sorry, I just don't see things with your pessimism. That may have to do with my absolute and almost shattering disappointment over Oblivion, which I still view as the worst TES title (including ESO). I really see no way to continue this conversation when you seem so dead-set that nothing is to he gained from any of the changes the franchise has undergone. It's like trying to convince someone with chronic depression that there's beauty in the world.

At the end of the day, I agree with the Less-is-More approach in so far that reducing things first to their most basic common elements helps synergy. Is it possible to have higher weapon skills make you better with similar weapons? Sure, but it's easier to just have the one weapon skill and then use a system like Perks to differentiate between classes, types and individual styles. Once you have reduced things to their simplest comonalities, you can build up to speciallisation without clutter.

This explains a lot actually, about why we so often approach things with a drastically different point of view. Oblivion is my favorite game of the series (although I acknowledge that Morrowind was in many ways a "better" game). We must have an entirely different world view, at least when it comes to games.

But for the record, and just so you don't think that I think that nothing has been gained from the changes the franchise has undergone, I do acknowledge that some changes were positive. Sneak detection and archery have improved with each game. World levelling/scaling improved in Skyrim over the heavy handed world levelling/scaling in Oblivion (yes, its my favorite game but I acknowledge it has faults). Several of the new spell effects were a nice addition, including wards, runes, and necromancy (although none of them were well implemented in my opinion). Being able to craft things from ores and pelts was a nice improvement. But for me, none of this outweighs what was removed.

I'm going to agree with you.

The less is more that happened with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is bad.