I for one actually enjoyed the seemingly realistic way that Morrowind handled advancement in Guilds. You HAD to meet the necessary requirements in order to advance. You had to raise your skills and a couple other things (I think, I can't really remember), and it'd show you the next rank in the Guild. I liked that. In Oblivion, all you had to do was perform was simple task, and boom, advancement, it hardly seemed like you did anything at all.

Should Morrowind's method of advancement return?

That, or bribes and/or degrading favors. If someone is going to climb the ladder and be hardly qualified for the rank, that person, and perhaps NPC, must be using dirty ways to gain a better rank.

I'd like to have skill play a factor, but not be a requirement. If you can prove useful even without the skills exemplified by the guild you can still get promoted. There should still be a lot more quests between advancements.

Ranks would go

0. Potential recruit (no skill needed, 1 quest to advance, no real guild access)
1. Recruit (no skull needed to advance, 3 quests to advance, minimal guild access)

ect...

I voted yes, but there are complications here. From the sounds of it, the key to being a badass in this game is picking a few skills and rocking them. I get the feeling that if there were stringent skill requitrements for advancement, it would bar you from completing every faction and guild. I don't like this, but I'm aware that alot of people don't like the idea of being the guildmaster of every org, so they'd probably be all for this.

Well, requirements to advance to the next level in your guild would be nice. But don't make it a skill check or anything. How does the guild leader know whether I have 49 destruction or 50 destruction?

I really liked that: a person's expertise and experience should be just as important as their services to the guild. Assuming Bethesda's written enough Radiant Story quests for the guilds and they can be churned out with relative frequency, why not also have the player work to defend their position again? If they go entire in-game months without doing anything, their reputation with the other members of the guild should slowly decline and they could possibly lose their rank or certain privileges again. I hated how in Morrowind and Oblivion, once you'd advanced far enough, guild activity basically came to a standstill.

Yes, I'm tired of being able to be the arch-mage without knowing anything about magic.

Yes. I agree with you totally. In Oblivion it seemed as though it was too easy to advance to the next rank. I remember playing Morrowind and you actually had to do certain things in order to advance to the next rank. Whether it be, " hey raise this certain skill and I'll promote you." I haven't played Morrowind in a long time so I'm not really sure if I'm right, so if I'm wrong tell me; but yeah man I totally agree with you. :goodjob:

I understand the reasoning behind it. It makes sense. It's more realistic.

But no.

I always get annoyed by it when I'm playing Morrowind. Recently I planned on playing through all of the guilds in Morrowind like I had the first time I played, then I remembered just how much work goes into raising all of those skills--most of which I don't even want to use at all because I typically focus on melee combat--and I decided not to.

Skille requirments and the like as well as having to do work for the guild. And this radiant story has people challenge you to duels, why not people challenge your position in the guild or your authority.

Well let me put it this way, If I'm head of a software development company, I don't go and make an intern team lead on a big project, I pick the senior programmer with at least 5 years experiance, social skills, management skills etc.
What I mean to say is i want to be aptly qualified to run a guild or attain a rank in the guild and not just get one cause i ran into a cave, swung an axe around like a mad man, then return to have the mages guild handed over to me

Indeed, good point.

Yeah I would like to see this make a return, it was kind of cheesy that you could climb to the top of the mages guild hardly training or using any magic at all. It also be nice if the quests in these guilds actually require you to use the skills they are based on, I know in the mages guild there were a lot of dungeon crawls that could be completed just as easily by swinging a sword around rather than magic, more quest like the one in those Aylied ruins where you have to use magic to find a way to open they way to the lower chambers would be nice.

To expand on my previous post, I think I'd like it better if the quests required you to do something specific to the guild standards.

For example, if I'm able to finish the Thieves Guild in Oblivion without having a really high sneak skill or security skill, then who cares? I still stole everything that was asked of me. Just because some imaginary number on a conceptual "skill" isn't high enough doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to advance in rank.

Yes,

completing quests for advancement, that don't require the use of guild related skills doesn't make sense.
So, I think such quests should be skill dependent.
Be a jack of all trades, and don't expect to be in charge of all guilds.

You make that sound like a bad thing. Seriously what is the point of doing another playthrough if you can do everything in one? Oblivion was a great sandbox game however a poor rpg, I want to see my actions have consequences and result in a wildly different journey every time I start a new game, I dont want to be able to join every guild in one playthrough and be the master of all, without choice and consequence the game becomes very bland very quickly, give me some consequences and make every playthrough unique.

Yes, in oblivion you could become Arch Mage at level 1. I don't think they'd let some useless pleb become their leader.



More with irrational number hatred. Numbers are simply a way of expressing skill and experience..

Sneaking and thievery was so easy in oblivion, it was absurd. I think that requirements for advancement should require either a skill requirement, or require you to be of a certain level (one or the other) as level defines your overall strength and experience.

There is an Oblivion mod that requires the demonstration of particular spells for each rank you want to gain in the Mages Guild.

I did find it amusing that in Oblivion I was able to become guild master with out having even one magic skill over 25. I do hope that if I want to rule any of the guilds I must have mastered at least one of the related skills.

Well sure you could technically smash down the doors, draw attention to yourself and kill everyone on the way to the object but then youve just brought a lot of heat down on the guild and now instead of being labeled as just thieves they are now murderers too, sure you got the item they were after but actions like that should get you expelled from the guild.

That quest actually made me feel like I was a part of the mages guild.

"Useless" except you fought off Necromantic attackers and killed the Avatar of Mannimarco. Useless indeed.


Irrational number hatred? Where are you getting that from?

Levels should not be an expression of skill and experience. Levels should not be acknowledged by NPCs because that is irrational. Give me a task that requires a certain display of skill in any given area of expertise, and if I succeed, then that is an expression of my skill and experience. I earn my advancement by completing difficult tasks, not by having a level go up. Try stealing an Elder Scroll with a Sneak of 1 without getting caught. No chance unless you use a ton of invisibility spells, and if that's the case, then who really cares what your sneak skill is. If you just use invisibility or chameleon to sneak around and steal stuff, then good for you, you're no worse than the thief who uses Sneak exclusively.

The point is, if I can get the job done, who cares what my "skill level" is. I think the ONLY exception is the Mages Guild in Cyrodiil, which is the one always cited, because it actually has a huge emphasis on studying in the Arcane University and understanding magicka and all that. With any other guild, who cares?


They do.

Definately.
It also makes your character better in general with this method as well.

Yes for requirements.
Have to be race based.
What level and what you do before you join. I heard (I don't know it true or not) before you get into the bunker in Hidden Valley where the Brotherhood of Steel are in Fallout NV, you have to do something naked before they let you in. That's if you don't have Veronica by your side.

Some like that. In Oblivion it was too easy to join in a guild like Mages and Fighters. With the Dark Brother its good but should of gone a little further.

Oblivion's guild advancement was good in it's own respect like previous games' way were good in their respect. I'd like Skyrim to try to improve on past guild advancements and make them more interesting.