My issue with the leveling system isnt the level of complexity (though that is a major issue), but the fact that it all works BACKWARDS!!

For e.g.: You want a character clad in heavy armour and wielding a massive 2-handed sword. He needs high Str and End, seems like a pretty simple design. So you choose blade and heavy armour (among others) as your majors.
As you play you wear heavy iron armour and wield an iron claymore you picked up somewhere. After a little while, you level up. Because the skill ups of both blade and H.armour count towards a new level, your stat allotments are something like +2 Str and and +3 End. Basically, as a direct result of you using your major skills, your character is now weaker than he should be to fight enemies of his level using his major skills. Its Backwards.
In order to get the End and Str a character like him needs, you have to run around punching enemies while wearing light (or no) armour so that you dont "accidentally" level up. Even worse if youve actually picked something like sneaking or restoration magic as majors because each and every time one of those skills increase youre brought closer to the level threshold... so the issues are:

1. Its too complicated
2. Even after you understand it you have to work it backwards to get it to function properly.

And I do love that aspect. I truly do! It's part of what made this game so potentially amazing.



Okay, let's talk about this. I use the Hell out of alchemy.

Let's look at a poison. A basic damage health poison (which won't work on many creatures, especially at level 30+), can be made from flax seeds and black tar (presuming SI is present). These are both very abundant and easy to harvest. It still takes time to harvest them though, and the plants only regrow once every three days.

The dungeon I conducted my latest experiment in, Cann (in Mania on Shivering Isle) had 53 bad guys in it. Presuming NO misses and everything was a one shot kill, that would mean I harvested 51 of each component. In other words, I actually had to harvest from, on average, about 75 flax plants, and black tar can range anywhere from 33% harvest rates to 80. Presuming the best possible scenario, that means I also harvested about 75 black tar plants.

That's 150 plants - if I could find them all together.

How long does that take?

I then run into a dungeon such as Cann, and they're gone in less than three game hours (or so).

I'd be spending about two hours in real life just harvesting and making the poisons so that I could clear a dungeon in a half hour - and this presumes average harvest rates, no misses from my shots, and a one-shot kill in every single case.

That's... Tedious, at best. That's not very practical.


I get what you're saying about the poisons, but this isn't really a solution so much as it's a "here's a really tedious way to work around the bad system."







True, but most animals and NPCs - especially by level 30 - have some form of ability to nail you even if they can't reach you.



Is this a farming game, a cooking game, or a dungeon game?



Good question, and frankly, I'm pretty sure that without using potions and stolen arrows (I constantly steal the shock arrows from that chick at Pell's Gate), I'd get slaughtered.

:shrug:

I've started doing the Daedric Shrines though, and I'm about to get the ring that reflects damage and spells. I've also got the chameleon ring.. So things should turn around soon. Still, I hate using that kind of cheap tactic, and I had to check the guidebook and the other people on the boards here to find them. I shouldn't really have to research "game secrets" in order to simply make a viable character. Neither should anyone else. It's kind of a buzz kill to have to find all the secrets of the game off a list rather than discover them yourself down the road - but I sort of had to do that here just to get my character to be viable.

Our archer is pretty viable now, for the record. Amber bow, those special shock arrows, some poisons here and there, restore health potions out the butt, chameleon, reflect damage, reflect spell, amber armor... The works. So it's gotten a lot better.

But I did pretty much have to get insider info from the folks on the boards here and by reading and spoiling all the stuff from the quests and game secrets guides.

:shrug:

It is what it is.

I'm no longer sure where I read it, but supposedly Bethesda expected most people to only play the game for the first 20-25 levels so they didn't put much effort into balancing it at higher levels. It was the same with Morrowind, they didn't think people would level much beyond level 20 so that's where all the leveled lists top out.

I'm not sure how reliable that information is, but it does offer a good explanation of why the high levels are so messed up.

Actually... That would make sense.

On the other hand, every gamer on Earth either knows that players will go for max levels. If they don't know that, they're too stupid to be making games.

A hard level cap would have easily prevented the issue. The first D&D even knew that, and that crap really was a Choose Your own Adventure as a dice game.

I buy the story. I just think it's pretty blatant incompetence and foolishness on their part, especially considering they'd already built one game and seen the results. This isn't rocket science.

That was true of Morrowind, yes. I recall either Todd or Pete saying that in response to complaints that the player outleveled Morrowind's content after level 25. But scaling was incorporated into Oblivion to give the player a challenge all the way up into the 50's. The probIem was that they implemented it poorly. They failed to think it through a second time. As we all know, the player's skills max out at 100 and from that point on enemies get tougher and tougher. Uncapping Skills and Attributes would have been a good workaround, in my opinion.

I would have prefered a system where your level simply caps at 20 but you can still keep increasing your skills normally. The tricky part in this scenario is handling attributes. Maybe simply let players pick two attributes that get a +5 increase at each level. That would create a level 20 character who on average has 65 in all attributes.

I think this is a good idea.

Here's an additional option, however.

Cap each skill at 100, as it currently does. Cap each attribute at 100, as it currently does. Continue to let the players "gain levels" but with this caveat:

Leveling ANY skill 10 times, allows you, the player, to boost a stat (or two or three) by a few points. Just don't increase the actual level of the character.

That way if someone makes an archer at the beginning of the game, gets to where all his archery stuff is maxed out, and he gets bored, he can then pursue the magic schools, or the heavy armor schools, and so on - and continue to boost his skill and attributes in those areas without increasing his actual level in the game.

That way each person who plays the game has the option of either just doing what they need to do to get by, or of experimenting a little bit with different things (without screwing themselves over as a result), or of creating "a perfect character."

In this way, everyone can achieve their goals for their characters and the level scaling isn't an issue at all.

No, really, it's not that hard. Role playing games have been around for over 60 years now. This isn't a new problem, and it's not like the solutions are all that mystical any more.

An Update:

I've continued to not worry about leveling, and just put the points in agility, endurance and luck each time like I used to.

I grabbed up Goldbrand though, got an amber cuirass (not magical) and got Azura's star to help keep it all charged.

I just went on a rampage and killed 25 guards. I stood toe to toe with multiple archers a couple of times. I didn't dodge or move, and I took out more than two before I had to heal.

So I guess the cuirass matters a lot, as the other stuff wasn't really pertinent to the matter.

Cuirass represents 25% of the total AR of a given armor set. Shiled is 30%, greaves are 15%, and the other parts are all 10%.

You're again, very knowledgeable and helpful. I appreciate that more than I can express.

Here's a new one for you then. I have a glass shield with 10% reflect damage on it.

I also have a non-magical amber shield.

Which one's probably my best bet?

The Glass Shield with Reflect. At 100 Light Armor skill a Perfect Amber Shield gives only slightly more than 1 point more AR than a Glass Shield (once you count in the 50% bonus from the Master perk) and at lower Light Armor levels the difference is even smaller.

Thank you very much!