Superfluous skills : V - Skyrim

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 8:18 pm

What makes my character my own is what I do with him, not the numbers that back him up. What number makes the kind hearted warrior kind? What makes the sneaky killer a killer? What makes my warrior a warrior and my mage a mage? Not the numbers, its what I make him into. We all start out with more or less a blank slate, and then build up based on how we want to play. The numbers are there to measure our progress and show what we can and cant do. Never does it make a thief a theif or a mage a mage. We do that, not some numbers on a screen.

You can go on and on being smart with me, I'd rather you didn't, but if you feel the need go for it.

The numbers decide if your a failure or not.
The numbers decide what you are able to or not
If you want a mage to sneak as an assassin you can or not, it depend on the numbers, and the numbers reflect how much you have dedicated to what your trying to do, and this is RPG element. RPG is about ingame choice, you dont go to bed a warrior and wake up a mage.
If you have no magica you can put your thin foil hat but you ain t gonna cast anything in a battle and gona die like a [censored] and people will comment how you died like a [censored]. If you got no strenght you ain t gonna be able to swing the 2 handed warhammer in an eficient way.
and gonna die like a worthless thing the world don t need.

What you define as RPG is NOT RPG in a gamewise sense, you can be a happy hearted driver and play clean,
You can be a [censored] driver that push other out od race by bashing onto them this doesnt freaking make Need For Speed or COD a RPG.

Your confounding IMAGINATION with gamewise RPG elements, those are totally diferent things one complement the other but your imagination gamewise is limited by your numbers which are defined by your choices ingame, not in your mind.

Is that now clear ? Cause it can t be put more clearly than that.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 1:17 am

Well, let me start a list of why:

A perk is a one time investment. Once you have that perk, there's no 'getting better at it'.
Tied in with the previous point, skills are used individually to evolve them. Want to get better with a sword? Use a sword. A perk is just something selected when levelling up.
Perks can be had by any player, effectively ruining specialization. You can go through the whole game having never touched a mace, but thanks to perks, the minute you pick one up, you'll be a pro.
Skills tied in with the attributes, giving a touch of complexity as to what helped you level up and what did not. Perks do not.
Skills are also tied in witht the races, and signs (Warrior, Mage, Thief) of the game. Perks are not.
Lastly, my biggest point: Why was there a need to eliminate skills for perks? Could we not have had both more/equal skills as Oblivion, as well as perks?

This world have hope, even if the game doesn t seem to have.

Perks are a ingenuous idea from lazy developers to do an half assed work.

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 8:42 pm

This world have hope, even if the game doesn t seem to have.

Perks are a ingenuous idea from lazy developers to do an half assed work.

Perks are a tool gamedesigners use to give players customisability instead of a bland "everything is a skill trained by use even if there's no way to make some of those work" system.

How do you fix the pain that is athletics and acrobatics skills in Oblivion?

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:00 am

Many perks in fallout had many levels to them, meaning you could choose the same perk more than once to get a better effect.
Skills can be had by any player too... And if you don't choose perks for that mace, you may be good with it, but you'll have no bonuses with it, meaning life or death if the game is on a hard enough difficulty.

Perks could be given based on attributes too, not just skills.
Some races may get their own perks as well. Signs may just be changed to perks you start off with as well.
Maybe they didn't get rid of any skills. Maybe they got moved around to fit with other things. We don't really know much of anything yet.

PERKS are in bethesda FALLOUT because PERKS are a FALLOUT feature since the first game.
Perks shouldn t be in TES because PERKS ain t a TES feature.

And anyhow your wrong, the moment you take Heavy armor perk, you ll be able to use it proficiently, casting in it, even if your body have never been encased in 20KG of metal with many movement restrictions, altered balance and equilibrium.
With perk a mage that never used a heavy armor, will use the armor as well as a warrior that passed his life in it, but never "choosed a perk", this is patetic and morronic, it kills comon sense and balance, as i said before, perks are a way for lazy dev. to do the work thoughlessly in an easy way.
Now can we keep fallout, wow, and diablo, Age of conan and anything that use whiskey delta skill tree out of TES series ?

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:53 am

PERKS are in bethesda FALLOUT because PERKS are a FALLOUT feature since the first game.
Perks shouldn t be in TES because PERKS ain t a TES feature.

And anyhow your wrong, the moment you take Heavy armor perk, you ll be able to use it proficiently, casting in it, even if your body have never been encased in 20KG of metal with many movement restrictions, altered balance and equilibrium.
With perk a mage that never used a heavy armor, will use the armor as well as a warrior that passed his life in it, but never "choosed a perk", this is patetic and morronic, it kills comon sense and balance, as i said before, perks are a way for lazy dev. to do the work thoughlessly in an easy way.
Now can we keep fallout, wow, and diablo, Age of conan and anything that use whiskey delta skill tree out of TES series ?

Perks are in Oblivion. The very moment your repair hammer strikes your sword and levels your skill to 50 in repair, you can now perfectly well repair magical swords even if you've never held a single magical item in your hands in your life, how does that make sense!

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:04 am

I can't really be bothered to list all the reasons why I disagree with this, I've been saying it over and over and over again. The short version: Stats, numbers etc. are not what defines an RPG, roleplaying is. An RPG is supposed to help you roleplay and actively adapt based on your decisions. Stats and menus have nothing to do with it, they are tools, not an integral part of an RPG. The only reason people think this is because very few people have figured out a new and better way of rrepresenting your abilities.

In short, this is pointless. Not only ahve there been hundreds of threads on this already but it's a completely irrational complaint to begin with. Why does a game's genre even matter? All that should matter is if the game is fun to play or not, throwing a fit over how it's "Not an RPG" (By your definition anyway, a definition I firmly hold to be wrong in every way) is senseless. Enjoy the game or don't, that's all that matters.

Irrational is to think stat skill and other classic RPG features are not RPG.
SO go play your RPG chessmaster, because in chessmaster your assume the chessplayer place so its a RPG.

Shortbuss for everyone, if your not happy, you probably know how to find and operate the exit door, next stop Sudoku RPG.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:59 am

Perks are in Oblivion. The very moment your repair hammer strikes your sword and levels your skill to 50 in repair, you can now perfectly well repair magical swords even if you've never held a single magical item in your hands in your life, how does that make sense!

Youngster:
1) Oblivion ain t a reference for TES, its only the lowest comon denominator
2) Its not because someone shatted in a can written food that it has become food so you can eat it at will, (but some does and like it)
3) Perks are ONLY in Oblivion
4) And it REALLY doesn t make sense, a weapon is a weapon you should be able to repair it as long as your skilled enought.
5) If you want to include enchanted as a relevant factor then you have to know enchantment so you know how the enchantment works and how to repair the weapon. So the perk is not a perk its a fool trap so they can start make people think whats inside the can ain t that bad.

You like perks ?

How do you fix the pain that is athletics and acrobatics skills in Oblivion?

You fix it in a rational way.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:20 am

This scenario is almost identical to the No Spell Making thread. The fact is, the new system of perks will likely change everything you know about the TES RPG system. By adding perks, you open up an entirely new path of customization that can be even more in depth and realistic than the old way.

Rational , yes because one day you wake up and you have a master degree in AI computing, because you pressed a button when you when to sleep.

Sorry too much "The matrix" in your brain.

Perk is anything BUT rational.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:31 am

Youngster:
1) Oblivion ain t a reference for TES, its only the lowest comon denominator
2) Its not because someone shatted in a can written food that it has become food so you can eat it at will, (but some does and like it)
3) Perks are ONLY in Oblivion
4) And it REALLY doesn t make sense, a weapon is a weapon you should be able to repair it as long as your skilled enought.
5) If you want to include enchanted as a relevant factor then you have to know enchantment so you know how the enchantment works and how to repair the weapon. So the perk is not a perk its a fool trap so they can start make people think whats inside the can ain t that bad.

You like perks ?

There's a good chance you are younger than me.
1) Changes happen, not always bad.
2) There's definitively a good chance you are much younger than me. The level of maturity you show here should probably be a sufficient trigger for me to plain ignore everything else you'll ever say.
3) Didn't you already mention that in point 1 like, 5s ago? Hmm, maybe you ARE much much older after all. Alzheimer is a dreadful disease and I'm sorry if I made fun of you.
4) There's plenty of reasons we can imagine why an enchanted item could require specific skills to be repaired that you don't need for mundane items. You lack imagination.
5) There's plenty of reasons we can imagine why you don't need specific knowledge depending on the item enchantment itself and so once you know how to repair one magic item, you know how to repair all the others. Yes, you should really try to be more open for new ideas.

You fix it in a rational way.

You have no frigging idea on how to do it or if it can even be done but you DEMAND it anyway. I can see what kind of people you are. The unreasonable [censored]y customer sort that is best ignored, or call the police if he seems he's getting too dangerous.

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 7:36 pm

If I die tomorrow... Which I wont.... But if I do.... And I find out that Skyrim is how this thread topic is saying it will be I will personally dig myself out of my grave and slap a 3 yesr old child.... But I won't need to because it's Mother [censored] Bethesda!!! Every forum after Oblivion came out... "oh I don't like that they totally screwed up the AI" fallout "what is this rpg gone turn based?" every sketchy rumor turned into a [censored] fest. But the absolute matter of the fact is Bethesda has not yet failed at producing a game that 92.5% of it's fanbase loved! And if 7.5% wants to quit because the game doesn't wash it's clothes and make it's bed in the morning I'm perfectly fine with it. I'm tired of a thread that only criticizes rumors and speculation it's really not cool!

Many people enjoy the short bus for fun, other don t, strange word ain t it ?

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 4:19 am

The numbers decide if your a failure or not.
The numbers decide what you are able to or not
If you want a mage to sneak as an assassin you can or not, it depend on the numbers, and the numbers reflect how much you have dedicated to what your trying to do, and this is RPG element. RPG is about ingame choice, you dont go to bed a warrior and wake up a mage.
If you have no magica you can put your thin foil hat but you ain t gonna cast anything in a battle and gona die like a [censored] and people will comment how you died like a [censored]. If you got no strenght you ain t gonna be able to swing the 2 handed warhammer in an eficient way.
and gonna die like a worthless thing the world don t need.

What you define as RPG is NOT RPG in a gamewise sense, you can be a happy hearted driver and play clean,
You can be a [censored] driver that push other out od race by bashing onto them this doesnt freaking make Need For Speed or COD a RPG.

Your confounding IMAGINATION with gamewise RPG elements, those are totally diferent things one complement the other but your imagination gamewise is limited by your numbers which are defined by your choices ingame, not in your mind.

Its like your agreeing with me and dissagreeing all a the same time. The numbers say what you can and cant do, exactly. But mages and warriors and theives are not roles, they are classes that play a large part of your role, but not all of it. If my mage suddenly wanted to be a theif, he could. You don't need numbers to steal something, you need the numbers to get in, open the lock if one's in your way, and get out.

No where have I said the numbers are useless. Infact, I think I've been saying over and over again that they show what a character can and can not do. I also think that I've been reminding people that this is my opinion. Do you have to like my opinion, for the love of the divines no ya dont. Dont' know why you're getting pissed at me for having my own opinion.

Definitions of 'role playing' U.S. National Library of Medicine
1. role playing
The adopting or performing the role of another significant individual in order to gain insight into the behavior of that person.

transitive verb
1: to act out the role of
2: to represent in action
intransitive verb
: to play a role

The Role Playing part of the RPG is acting out a role. Stats are the G part, the part that limits what your character can and cant do. Wanna know why COD is an RP? Cause you play a role, you take the role of a soldier. Clasically however, an RPG allows you to take complete control over your character, making them unique to you, so COD isn't a full RPG. But it isn't just a shooter either. Once again, this is my opinion, you don't have to like it.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:03 am

All they're doing with skill consolidation is trying to make each magical school have a unique style of play and feel to it. To be honest in Morrowind most of the schools played the same, except for a few like destruction or illusion. I don't mind this consolidation, but it would be nice to have new schools added for future expansions or future games as they build on what they've done for Skyrim. Remember when one of Morrowind's advertising snippets was something like "you can create over 2 billion" character combinations, how many of those played uniquely...?

I think it's interesting the way people resist the changes coming to games in terms of the speed of play and the abandonment of the old stat RPG world. The only reason game developers used arbitrary numbers to determine game events was because complex physics simulation was not developed nor even possible on the hardware they were running. These arbitrary skill numbers were used in lieu of complex real world simulation on every game since D&D as a less perfect substitute for more accurate simulation of the real world. We're past that now and if that's what you want out of a game then you can go ride off into the sunset with Final Fantasy which can't even garner more interest from the gaming public as an MMO.

The days of those RPGs are over like the days of the black and white movie. Sure lots of people missed the old style of film but it was embraced by the larger public and don't you just love your 60" LCD screen today? :brokencomputer:

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 7:12 pm

PERKS are in bethesda FALLOUT because PERKS are a FALLOUT feature since the first game.
Perks shouldn t be in TES because PERKS ain t a TES feature.

They are now, better get used to it pal.

I don't understand people here anymore, how is innovation a bad thing? How is evolution a bad thing? You can not tell me with a straight face that you would rather play the same, exact game over and over again for all time. You would get bored eventually and it would svck, I can guarantee that right now. If not, well then i feel sorry for you, variety is the spice of life.

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 9:11 pm

Could anyone explain the correlation between numbered skills and role-playing?

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:22 am

Could anyone explain the correlation between numbered skills and role-playing?

:rofl:

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 1:10 am

That is true. And they may do something fantastic in Skyrim, I can't say. All I know is if they mimic Fallout, I'm not going to like it all too much.

According to the Toddcast, perks will be set up in a tree like form. Sounds like they really reworked perks to work more with TES, so we shouldn't have to worry. :foodndrink:

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:18 am

Could anyone explain the correlation between numbered skills and role-playing?

More skills = More customization = Less standardism = A character more dependent on your choices = Role playing

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 8:10 pm

Loosely as I remember from another thread:
Morrowind gave us 27 skills totalling 27 things you could *do* and typically master at high level.
Skyrim give us 18 skills but totalling about 50-100 of 280 things we can *do*, and the next character will try another route.

Although I believe the characters will have a shorter life span, creating new ones will be more interesting than in Morrowind where you *knew* you'd end up being the same "*master* of all trades" no matter how you played it. The perks are what you will focus on, rather than spreadsheet stats, and to me that is a good sign.

Compare this to i.e. Role Master system which have literally hundreds of skills. Many of which would be considered useless and would be "voted out of the game" as they don't fit your play style. But they may fit other play styles who are not in it for the fighting, spell casting, and thieving. I think perk trees are the correct way to go, considering most people here think success rolls from Morrowind was a bad idea. Always remember that in CRPG we have a computerized GM who does *not* adapt well to every possible play style. When everything is *always successful*, 200 skills would be impossible to implement, whereas for perks it is doable since success is already granted.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 1:30 am

Just the opposite, actually.

In Morrowind and Oblivion, anyone could train all their skills up to 100, and be the best wizard, best warrior, and best thief, all in one. In Skyrim, the leveling system encourages you to specializae because you level much slower if you try to train low skills, which in turn encourages character uniqueness. But even if you did max out your skills to 100, the perks you selected while leveling up will still keep your character unique (someone who focused on axe and dagger perks will be different than someone who focused on sneak- and/or archery-related perks, for example). Once you reach level 50, your levelling slows dramatically, and its assumed you can no longer pick more perks (but even if you can, it would take ages to get them all if the estimates of 100 to 150 perks or more are accurate), meaning even two maxed out characters can be different in Skyrim, unlike Oblivion and Morrowind.

But from a gameplay perspective, it's no different. You didn't do any intelligence-based skill levelling with your character, yet because all you had to do was "check" the intelligence attribute at level up, you can become smart. At least with Skyrim's perks, one can hope that you'd need to level 1-Handed to pick axe perks.

It's not the same, and that's what the perks represent. The 1-Handed and 2-Handed skills represent basic understanding of 1-Handed and 2-Handed weaponry, and the perks represent understanding of specific weaponry. Is this the most realistic approach? Of course not. But, at least to me, it seems better than having them all completely separate.

Just like you didn't get strong by ticking off "Strength",or fast by ticking off "Speed".

The swords and stuff weren't the problem. Those likely only changed because Bethesda felt that 1H/2H was a better split than Blade/Blunt.. and I would agree. If you use a short sword, it makes some sense that you wouldn't be completely worthless with a mace (not great, but not worthless), while going from a dagger to a claymore doesn't make so much sense.

But other skills, like speechcraft, were much worse off with the granularity offered by a 100-level scale. That's why it's likely merged with something else.

It's not axed. As far as we know, the "missing" skills have been merged into others (eg, Mysticism was merged into the other magic schools) and fleshed out with perks, not simply dropped.

While I will give you the specialization - 280 perks is phenominal, and will demand specialization - my point still stand with regards to athletism and sword skills. As I said, I'd be an ace with an axe, but a claymore? I'd look like an idiot, no doubt. Both are two-handed weapons, but I don't presume my aptitude with an axe gives me any advantage with a sword. Same logic applies to strength - sure, I can't just tick off a box that says strength. Know what I can do? Do activities which build my strength - just as was done before (And is presumably being done with Skyrim).

I think all skills suffered ambiguity from the sweep from one level to the next (Excluding tier levels). And that's something that is going to continue, and I don't much have a problem with it. Will I notice one level of difference in any skill? No. Will I notice ten? Yes.

KCat, save your effort and go do something fun or useful. You are talking to the wall.

He's probably aware of the fact a discussion requires two opposing views. By your same logic, I'm also talking to a wall, because as aware as he is that I likely wont change my opinion, chances are, he wont sway either. We each have our own opinions. Obviously yours is "anyone who doesn't agree with me shouldn't talk".

If you'd like to join in the discussion, please, feel free and contribute something useful.

Stop being so frantic and stop critisising Bethesda's work. They have done a great job in their previous games and I'm certain they will do this in Skyrim too.

And they are nor removing the skills, they are placing them in a more suitable place. Maybe there won't be skills at all, but a completely different system. Remember they don't do this to piss us off. They do this because they care and they want to improve the game as much as possible. They are not dumb, they are BETHESDA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ah, but you misunderstand me: I haven't any doubt Skyrim will be a great game (Unless they do something utterly horrid, however, that is highly unlikely), but that isn't to say I like everything I've heard so far either. Duels, the new magic system, perks, AI, story and perhaps landscape (Don't know enough about the scenery to say for sure just yet) all are looking excellent to me, and all represent a step forward from Oblivion. However, as the same problem I had with Oblivion, while it is a great game, seems like I'm seeing changes that didn't need to be done, and for that I still have a hunch that the game still wont interest me as well as Morrowind. Which is depressing, given the game's age.

That's just my opinion, I know many people liked Oblivion moreso than Morrowind, just as I'm sure many will like Skyrim more than either of those. We just have slightly different tastes.

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 6:41 pm

People, calm down. The role-playing system goes much better! Just think about it: we've lost acrobatics, which was just a way to get a level-up quickly by always jumping, mysticism, which is not lost actually, and probably have the combined "communication" skill (isn't speechcraft used when trading?). Instead we get specializations in each skill, what makes the system way much deeper. Now one- and two-handed weapons are separated, what is REALLY logic. And don't you think that after using an one-handed sword a lot you would use an axe as bad as some noob does? You would do it not as good as an axe-master, but good too. That is what the perk system does. Better and more logical (as opposed to meaningless skills of Daggerfall) customization. And you will be able to choose only about 50 of 280 perks, that makes every new char absolutely unique.

The class removal is a good thing too, but I'm just too bored to type to explain my point to you :twirl:

The only thing I'm unsure about is possible attributes removal. From one side, it's a good thing, choosing attributes to raise was a little annoying (in Morrowind, also, if you knew places to steel expensive loot for selling to richie scump, it allowed you to pump extremely quickly by training correct skills and having 3x +5 every time you level up). From the other, it's bad thing, because it erases thinking from that system. So I just have to see it in action to say what I think of it.

So stop making pointless threads, the skill quantity is fine.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:27 am

I hope that attributes removal was just another misinterpretation of what was said.

And I must admit, I side with you on the removal of classes as well, because - let's be honest - it had absolutely no bearing later on in the game.

I'm still not liking the removal of skills though. Love the perks (280!!!), but still not pleased at the loss of skills. As I said, it seems like the simplification from Morrowind to Oblivion (27-21), which I absolutely hated then. I can't imagine me liking the change these lost skills either.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:13 am

The numbers decide if your a failure or not.
The numbers decide what you are able to or not
If you want a mage to sneak as an assassin you can or not, it depend on the numbers, and the numbers reflect how much you have dedicated to what your trying to do, and this is RPG element. RPG is about ingame choice, you dont go to bed a warrior and wake up a mage.
If you have no magica you can put your thin foil hat but you ain t gonna cast anything in a battle and gona die like a [censored] and people will comment how you died like a [censored]. If you got no strenght you ain t gonna be able to swing the 2 handed warhammer in an eficient way.
and gonna die like a worthless thing the world don t need.

What you define as RPG is NOT RPG in a gamewise sense, you can be a happy hearted driver and play clean,
You can be a [censored] driver that push other out od race by bashing onto them this doesnt freaking make Need For Speed or COD a RPG.

Your confounding IMAGINATION with gamewise RPG elements, those are totally diferent things one complement the other but your imagination gamewise is limited by your numbers which are defined by your choices ingame, not in your mind.

Is that now clear ? Cause it can t be put more clearly than that.

Very well said. People can say that they're 'role playing' in non-RPGs, however that doesn't make the game they play an RPG, they are just imposing limitations on themselves through imagination and what not.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:21 am

If the idea to cut skills and add perks came from one of the forum suggestions I think I know which one. And I replied to something similar earlier in this thread. The idea was that there were skill groups, that as one skill leveled the others in the group would increase slightly as well. Add in the perk system that they had exposure to through OB and FO3 and that makes this system. And what I described has been suggested many times over.

I still would have liked the individual skills to be present withing the groupings. I really do think that it defines the mechanic much better than the perks. If there is a VI I hope they can make a return. But for now I have to make due, and although I am not entirely behind the removal I can at least see how it came about.

» Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:15 am

First off can anyone actually provide any proof of the removal of attributes? It seems to just be all rumor at this point which people keep blowing out of proportion. Personally I don't know how the game would function without attributes as they affected alot of different aspects of the game.

Secondly I would think that Todd's explaination of the perk trees would calm a few people down about the reduction in the amount of skills there are. Sure the number of classified skills is reduced but the implimentation of the perk tree systems seems like it will increase the number of specified skills you can develop. What I mean is, instead of having an axe skill, a mace skill, a blade skill classified as a "skill" as they were in previous games, in Skyrim they will basically be skill subsets of the "one - handed" skill that you can develop using the perk tree system. So it seems there will be more skills, they are just structured and classified differently.

» Fri Feb 18, 2011 7:40 pm

Very well said. People can say that they're 'role playing' in non-RPGs, however that doesn't make the game they play an RPG, they are just imposing limitations on themselves through imagination and what not.

Now just hold the phone for a second. Imposing limitations on oneself is what role playing is. Have you ever taken part in a forum based rpg? That's where I really got into role playing, maybe that's why I only see stats as a means to an end. But basically, one sets up their character, adds moves that they can do, and after aproval from a mod they are allowed to start playing. No stats, no atributes, nothing like that. You pick up your role, and start playing through with other people as they play their role as well, ocationally learning new moves or other things like that. Like I said, no stats, but its still an rpg.

For a game like ElderScrolls, you need stats and atributes and other things like that, I know. I don't mind them, I really like how TES handles them. However, the title of rpg does not need stats to be an rpg in itself.