» Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:35 am Except preventing people from creating broken characters does mean reducing the available skills. If somone used Axes and Swords equally, while also using spells, and shields, they'd be nerfing their own evolution as a character. You level up quicker as your skills get higher, but if none of your weapon skills stayed even with your other skills because you used too many types of weapons, you wouldn't have enough perks or points on your weapons, without any way to fix it.
That's silly criticism. If your character insists on using every weapon type and still wants to be skilled enough to complete the game, you will necessarily have a harder time of it than someone who specialized. Now you Jack-of-All-Trades approach might open certain doors for you that other more specialized characters would not have access to, but overall your experience should be difficult. You can't be a master of everything and expect to have just as easy a time as someone who's a master of one thing.
These are consequences.
It's a silly blunder from a development standpoint, when the main distinction in combat preferences is not the type of weapon but the way it is used in the new combat system: a two handed melee build, a two handed ranged build, a one handed dual wielding build, a one handed sword and shield build, a one handed sword and spell build, and a two handed spell build (and a shield and spell build, I guess). However, when it comes the distinctions between combat methods, most people will continue using two handed weapons or ranged weapons if that is what they like, and most people using one handed weapons will switch those in and out a lot between weapon types, spells, and shields. Hence, only three weapon types: 1, 2, and ranged.
This is another thing that does not require skill reduction. You can have complexity and variety in both skill and skill implemantation. And I would absolutely welcome that.
Keeping the weapons skills broadened is the best design decision to balance the leveling of the characters so that you can use the powerful weapons you find that fit into your build (one handed or two handed, battlemage or warrior, shield or no shield, or ranged) without getting screwed over by having your weapon skill points across too many skills. With the adjustment you might lose your perk bonuses for switching from an axe to a blade, but at least you get the correct amount of damage for your level. They are being more careful because Oblivion's leveling system was so finicky, so they aren't taking any chances on leaving dead weight in their skill system. You can't say more is always better, at least when it comes to weapon skills.
You should not be able to just use whatever you find all the time. Sometimes you will find an item that looks sweet, but you are [censored]e at using it. Pawn it off next chance you get. This isn't Fable where you can just arbitrarily jump between weapons every quest because this new one does a few points more damage. That's arcadey and silly. The Elder scrolls is about simulating a believable world. This believability is broken when everyone can do almost everything.
I would take more spells and abilities any day though.
Ive said this like a thousand times now. You can still have exactly that.
What is so hard in operating console? Put in the disc and play. But installation of game, drivers, OS, and rest of the stuff is so easy! I remember when I first got my PSone many years ago, it was a matter of few hours to "get it", and just focus on the games. As for my first PC, I've spend many weeks to discover how things working. Besides installing games 
