Classes may not exist in Skyrim, but the skill archtypes do, and there's potential for imbalance again

Why though? What's intrinsically imbalanced about them?

Warrior/Combat

Warrior is, in my humble opinion, the most lacking of the 3:

1) Lack of skills that deal with obstacles like locks, etc. That means using a magic item (not necessarily bad) or leveling a minor skill (bad times).
2) Weapon wise, a player will typically use only one type. Bethesda has made the same mistake in skills (One Handed and Two Handed bloat the Warrior skillset)

Overall, the warrior skillset has been gimp, inflexible and repetitive in 2 games thus far. Will the trend persist in Skyrim?

Mage/Magic

The Mage is quite a contrast to the Warrior:

1) Tons of versatility. Can sneak around as well as a Thief, and endure as many hits as the Warrior with defensive spells.
Can do virtually everything that the other archtypes can do and more. There will be incentive enough to play a pure mage in Skyrim, perhaps too much.

Thief/Stealth

The Thief, overall, is actually closer to balance in my opinion. Moving Alchemy to Stealth was a good step in balancing the sets, but here's some possible future issues:

1) Speechcraft and Mercantile bloat the skill set. It makes sense to combine them
2) This is speculation, but Thief melee potential, either in sneaking or in the open, has to be observed. A thief shouldn't hit as hard as a Warrior, but a Thief should have a CHANCE of winning if exposed, even if it is slim. Stealth may not always be an option, and who would use a dagger against a Dragon?!

From what has been shown in interviews, dagger kills are really leaning on sneak attacks (10x damage modifier!), and this could be problematic.


Conclusion

As I've said, Classes may not exist in Skyrim, but that doesn't change the fact that people will still decide to focus on pure builds. The skills from each Specialization need to ensure that each archtype can stand on it's own while still retaining weaknesses and unique playstyles.

Thoughts?

While I don't disagree with you, I sometmes feel that since its a singleplayer game, imbalances can be tolerated (to an extent) as long as each of the archtypes are still fun to play. If balancing cuts into the overall fun, I'm for imbalance.

Edit: With regards to Warrior types, I think the inclusion of dual wielding and special perks will help to make them a bit more unique this time around.

If a sneaky person does not train in a combat specific profession they are setting themselves up for a hurtin' and the same is true for warriors. The whole reason they abandoned the class and archetype system was because well balanced characters typically had a mix of all 3 types. If you choose to make your character so specialized that it loses adaptability in combat then that is your choice to make.

A pure-stealth character shouldn't stand any chance in open melee when detected... but a Combat/Stealth character would rely on two advantages of daggers: WTFBBQPWNT Sneak Attack damage, and an attack rate that's achieved Ludicrous Speed. Even with low base damage, as in Oblivion, daggers are powerful because they apply more "riders" like Poisons and enchantment damage faster than larger weapons.

I'm afraid Melee's going to get shafted too if a pure warrior doesn't end up with at least 4x the damage absorbtion of a Pure Mage or Pure Thief, as the strength behind melee combat is battlefield control and being a pain in the ass to take down. The splitting of weapon skills into One- and Two- handed is far better than the previous weapon-skill bloat. As long as they can attack fast enough and have a stagger rating with their weapons that allows them to stunlock melee archers and mages, they should be able to hold their own.

What has really screwed up melee, though, is the effective removal of shields from the game. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to make blocking with a 3'-wide piece of metal require twitch reflexes? The entire purpose of a shield is to hold it up almost constantly, making very, very mild adjustments to defend, until the enemy wears himself out against it. Seems we have the magical Intangible Shields again.

I hope the new weapon perks will help the Warrior/Combat archetype be on par with the other two. Especially if they are half as overpowered some of the New Vegas melee perks lol.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Super_Slam <-- Practically lets you kill MotherDeathClaw without losing any HP. It's always on the floor. :icecream:

Personally I never like how mages were 'balanced' in ES games. They could do everything other character types could do and then some. Why train your security skill if you can simply cast an open lock spell and get access to a lot of other useful spells if you train your alteration skill? Why loot dungeon after dungeon, fight the most fearsome enemies you can think of only to find a cumbersome piece of heavy armor that a mage can easily substitute for with a simple shield spell? Why train your sneak skill if you can simply learn illusion spells and use invisibility or chameleon (and again a lot of other useful spell effects)? Why train speechcraft or mercantile if a simple illusion spell will work more efficiently without any effort? Every class should have advantages and disadvantages, the mage has only advantages. I hope that a single, often cheap spell effect won't be able to replace a whole skill like in Oblivion or Morrowind.

This...Kinda

I agree that sometimes the Warriors can't really get past certain obstacles, but they make up for it with their RAW power.

Mages however(and this was lacking in Oblivion) really have to go through some tedious crap before they become very powerful
but once they do....OMG! Don't mess with them

Thieves though, are what they should be....don't change them..

Singleplayer makes any imbalances tolerable AND realistic....because in real life there ARE some drastic imbalances.

It's probably gonna be hard to fight a Dragon with a Dagger though....which is why i will carry a Short Sword and Bow and Arrow

Exactly. That's what I fear as well



A) I agree with that of course (Morrowind in mind here), but what else does the warrior have really? Why would a warrior focus on 2 Handed and 1 Handed?
B) The poison/enchant/speed argument I can agree on somewhat. Still, 10X sneak damage seems like daggers will still deal really low damage outside of stealth



Mages don't answer to that rule. Thieves suffer somewhat, but fairly, as you put it. Warriors suffer the worst. I think that we can give flexibility to specializations without removing weaknesses.



A good argument, but you forget that imbalance can also ruin gameplay. Hand to Hand in Oblivion and Morrowind was WAAYYY underpowered. Playing a Monk was hard, and those that wanted to play a Monk suffered for that.

Warriors don't really need more weapon style skills to be flexible though. What I'm thinking of is this:

A new skill called Tactics
Bashing: Could break locks, or stagger opponents

Hmm, never played a "pure" character in one of these games before. The free-form "learn skills by using them" thing, along with picking so many "major" skills, always seemed to support/suggest/encourage playing with a wide mix of skills.

(My most typical character had melee combat skills, light armor/stealth/security, and some magic support from Resto/Alteration/Illusion.)

I've certainly never felt like playing a pure mage in Oblivion - the spell combat systems always struck me as really unwieldy (can't hit the broad side of a barn with a ranged spell, for instance. But maybe it's just because I never really practiced that much at it. )

I actually think Bethesda can be a really good example of balancing in an RPG. Just Sayin'.
:bolt:

I'm confident that was what Bethesda intended. The problem I see is that some skills are really lacking in flexibility in comparison to others. Looking at the Warrior specialization, there isn't much besides enduring hits and hitting harder.



I loled

All I want is for there to be lock bashing and for light armor to be merged into a single armor skill under Combat (with perks for light/heavy specialization).

I agree with you on the weakness of Hand to Hand. I do hope they at least add more perks specifically for it because I want one of my top 3 characters to be a monk this time around. (fingers crossed)

Balance is more important than you think, even though it is a singleplayer game. The reason is because all gameplay styles should be just as powerful as the other, so playing a fighter won't be less fun than playing a warrior. A bad example of balancing would be Dragon Age, where if you played as a mage the game was too easy, if you played as anything else, the game was too hard...
So if mages are overpowered, fighters should be overpowered as well

On the other hand, Skyrim will be a classless, non-party based game so some mixing with other archetypes will be required...

Well the problem with magic has always been that you don′t get punished enough for not using a robe and no weapons. You can still cast magic pretty well clad in full heavy armor with a sword and shield in Oblivion, and in Morrowind you were actually rewarded for going with heavy armor through more enchanting slots than you could ever get in robes or clothes.

I think your magic should get 30% worse in light armor and 60% worse in heavy armor. That way those in light armor and heavy armor can still cast magic but a bit worse than mages in robes. Also fighters need a way to open doors and chests and such.

Maybe not the best of ideas but basically what I′m getting at is that we don′t need to boost warriors and thieves, we need to tone down magic.

Allow me to crawl out of my lurking corner.

*puts on flame retardant helmet*

In response to Bukee, balancing a single player game so that all PC builds are equally powerful can be a dangerous thing in my opinion. Makes me think of D&D 4th edition, which I felt had been balanced at the expense of the game's theme.

On that note, I imagine a pure warrior should be a bit weak outside of combat scenarios. Maybe it would not have been as painful in OB if NPCs actually carried keys for the locks in the dungeon they occupied. As for mages, silence and dispel can ruin you. Especially if some big Umbra type is charging you holding a weapon enchanted with one or the other.

I'd rather have it imbalanced to begin with.

And if it's honestly that big of a problem... That's what we have mods and patches for, right?


EDIT: I'm also pretty sure that the Archetypes are mostly for organization. Meaning: If you use mainly stealth skills, you can still level Warrior skills. Its not like Oblivion where you had increase-bonuses for using skills in your specialization.

The thing with balancing RPGs, in the best way of explaining it, is the tradition of the battling philosiphies "Should characters have something they shouldn't have?" and
"LET'S MAKE ALL PLAYER CHARACTERS INTO OVERPOWERED BADASSES!"

For me, the latter question could take too much away from the experience.
What one would need is actual conflict (aka 'Realistic Difficulty') in ANY RPG game.

Removal? They're just adding a bit of actual skill to using shields. Instead of :turtle: you have to time your blocks and counter accordingly to keep your enemy on the defensive. I don't think holding your shield up constantly is the right way to do it... *Holds shield up and hides* *Enemy simply reaches around shield and stabs* :facepalm:

There is an actual skill in using shields, whether it be real life or in a game. You block according to where your enemy strikes, the extreme :turtle: only works with a large group (phalanx)

There's a core problem with balancing the pure archtypes, they aren't equal (at least in the aspects modeled in the game).

A Mage by definition uses extraordinary forces to do amazing things. The classical mage can throw fireballs, fly, heal, turn invisible, control other people's minds, any almost anything else imaginable because it's magic. They make really great villains because they are so powerful.

A Thief is also pretty diverse as a concept. Burglars, pickpockets, con-artists, and even assassins can fall in this category, so there are a lot of options. There's very little one of these stealthy folks can't accomplish in some way. If all else fails, they'll steal some magic artifact to get the job done. They make really challenging villains because the trick is to identify and locate them.

I think it's the Warrior concept that causes the "balance" problem. There are a few types of warrior but their primary skills are always just kill and avoid being killed. Their attack could use short swords, war hammers, bows, or even just their fists but it's still just one core skill. For defense there are also a few options like wearing armor, blocking with a shield, parrying with a weapon, or just dodging out of the way. Warriors are impressive people, but they are usually the hero and not the villain specifically because they aren't the most powerful of the archtypes and it's that struggle against superior forces that many people find rewarding.

I've tried to think of other classic skills of the warrior and have:

• Leadership (but it's a single player game so what good would it do?)
  
• Poetry (popular in some cultures, but not very playable)
  
• Moving and Breaking things (why unlock the door when you can just smash it?)
  
• Intimidation (taking the little kid's lunch money, spoils of war, etc.)

The core question is what else should a Warrior be good at that would have any value in the game setting?

And working with a phalanx is a skill unto itself.

First of all, I wanted to comment on how some people say that imbalance is ok in a single player. Thats completely stupid. If its imbalanced, its because of two elements not working well together. Saying its ok if its imbalanced is a complete contradiction.

Now, on to your thread, I just wanted to say I disagree with the stealth one, because the dagger bonuses I think will be perks, and not skills. Therefore, using your dagger for fighting increases your one handed, but using it as an assasination weapon may be through perks in one handed.

Can't help but agree in large part with OP. Real solution is to make a hybrid character

This. Removing character classes is a good idea...

Close. They said that the dagger assassination perks would be under the "stealth" skills, but it's still considered a one handed weapon.

I think this means that dagger damage for open combat will be based on the 1H skill, but the stealth kills will all be under Sneak.