That applies to a lot of the threads around here, probably a few I support as well. :thumbsup:

Yeah that made a little more sense in my head. What I meant was that the magic system itself doesn't have to be made more general in effect. I mean it doesn't have to be GENERIC FIREBALL with X damage. It can look and feel and play the same. But the code that comes together to produce those effects can be generalized enough to allow customization by the player in an accessible way.

I hope that helps. A long day of posting takes a tole on the mind. heh.

Well it is a new engine if you realy think about it.they need time to adapt and upgrade it to allow more content like more spells and seperate armour peices.so maybe next game they'll not be so limited.

Ok so it's not easier to simply axe acrobatics than it is to make it more useful?

And as I pointed out before, balance is just as big a concern as the actual mechanics of the feature. Keeping it balanced would require heavy restrictions, possibly to the point that even including spellmaking is just pointless bloat. Personally I prefer its removal to its potential detriment to balance.

Yep exactly! for example:

From FFI, II. III, IV, v,VI,VII,VIII,IX,X to the awesome FFXIII!

From Baldurs Gate SoA to the awesome Dragon Age 2!

From Fable and Black and White to the awesome Fable 3 (1 button does it all yay!)

:wink_smile:

You have a choice between two restaurants - one that serves 10 different full course dinners and another that has a menu of 50 different ala carte items.

You're not allowed to prefer the one with 50 different ala carte items unless you can tell me in advance what you'd order.

Does that make sense to you?

I'm sorry, friend, I have some bad news. You're not a genius because you figured out that casting Charm 100 points for 1 second on touch was all you'd ever need to make everyone like you. Nor are you a genius for figuring out that if you go into stealth mode and walk into a corner while you're next to someone who's sleeping you can become a master thief. Nor are you Einstein for mixing together Ash Yams and Netch Leather over and over again until your character can turn common ingredients into super-potions that imbue him with godlike power.

These exploits people complain about were not obscure and difficult thing that you had to work the system and get around technicalities to find. They were pretty much right there, begging you to abuse them. Eliminating these things is good because it makes for more challenging gameplay, thus giving your decisions more weight and creating more interesting possibilities. They've mishandled some things -- Levitation "breaking" interesting situations is a virtue of level design, damn it -- but overall putting restrictions in place makes for a better game.

To carry this metaphor further: I've seen that the ten full-course dinners all look like amazing meals that I know I'd be very satisfied with.

The a la carte place might have more choices but if they all svck then it's not a better place to eat.

Your metaphor also ignores that the "meals" you're throwing at dragons have a great deal of variability in and of themselves.

Is it easier? Yes. Is that why they did it? Who knows.

Maybe it simply didn't fit into the design goals for their new skills system so they cut it. Maybe designing mechanics to actually make it a useful and important skill to have would of taken too much time and money. Maybe some other mechanic simply made it redundant or its inclusion broke their design for dungeons and interiors or it made getting across the mountains too easy.

My first thought isn't "lulz they're teh lazy".

Would you have rather they left it in if Acrobatics became a pointless skill to have or broke the feel and possibly design of the game?

The thing is, they don't, so you are just missing out because you did not check their menu beforehand. :celebration:

I'm surprised you typed all that out instead of just quoting me because that's totally what I said, right? Remember that thread about not misrepresenting other people's statements? I think it's closed now, but you might want to download and read it again before it is deleted.

That said, I'd really like to hear your solution for fixing that sneak exploit (which is clearly an exploit and not at all what I was talking about) without radically changing the level-through-use system. The rest are relatively easy fixes. With dialogue in real time now, charm exploitation shouldn't be nearly as problematic. You could just increase the difficulty or casting cost for the spell, too. For Alchemy, just force the player to create more challenging potions to continue leveling after a certain point.

Holy [censored], I just came up with a few easy fixes to questions I'd never even though of before. And Beth gets paid to do this stuff.

Gameplay should be naturally challenging, not simply because you've put arbitrary limitations on the player. It's a bit trickier since this is a completely different game, but looking at the series as a whole? Removing teleportation and levitation is an arbitrary limitation. The solution should have been to design enemies that have ranged/aerial attacks and to design quests without limiting scripted sequences that would break if you teleport away.

Ive given plenty of possobilities, even to you personally. Its not my fault you apparently dont remember. And no, I was making brand new spells.

Money and time.

Do you think if they had unlimited of both they wouldn't create an amazing spellcrafting system that is completely balanced. Obviously other features took priority and they had to make the decision of which to focus on, spellcrafting lost out in this case. They might be really gutted they had to drop it but decisions like that have to be made during development, not because they're lazy.

See though... there are a couple of problems with your otherwise relatively artful diversion -

First, all of the dishes that make up the 10 full course meals are also available amongst the 50 ala carte items.
Second, it all comes from the same kitchen.

And of course you know, even if you'll struggle mightily to deflect it, that the point is that the idea that somebody who's arguing in favor of choices has to state in advance precisely what choices he'd make is ludicrous.

I love Bethesda and they can do what the hell they want with their games.

I'm buying Skyrim :disguise: