I have found numerous ways to role play my character.

My Dark Elf Thief/Assassin:

This is hard sometimes, role play wise. He is a member of the Thieve's Guild and Dark Brotherhood (though I am not enjoying the second very much this time round.) He is also an Elf and sleeps at least 6 hours every 48. No matter what, he needs this rest. If he just finished a quest, and has not slept recently, he goes back to town to catch up on rest. When brewing potions, I wait 1hr for every potion brewed to simulate time spent making potions. If this results in a full day of brewing so be it, it is more immersive that way.

When thieving, he cases a joint. If the job is a quest, I turn off the markers by unmarking the quest. I then find the house myself, by casing the city. I watch the residents. I time them. This might take a day or two per quest, complete with staying at inns while casing a place. I then move in, find everything in the house without quest marker help, get it and move out. I take my time, case the joint and play it strategic. I don't have to - I know quest markers will point the way to that jeweled vase - but I do.

I also RP that, although Whiterun's Jarl spoke of being Thane it was bestowed only as an honorific, not as a position within the city, and that I have no authority there. I had just helped slay a dragon and he wanted to make a token jester by 'allowing me to pay him for property.' Asshat. Fits a sneak thief better that way.

I do use magic, since its part of a Dark Elf's legacy, but I want nothing to with 'upstanding' guilds like the College. No thanks. I use what I learn or find. I also dual wield because not blocking in light armor is a challenge. No smithing (he steals what he needs) and no enchanting (he is a Dark Elf, not a formally trained, professional mage by trade. I stick to my guns RP wise, avoided enchanting and magic the most part to focus on light weapons, archery and poisons. I do use Shouts, but those are part of the character's heritage and cool down keeps em balanced. Plus, they are pretty fun.

Hope that helps others restrict themselves and role play characters on the darker side of things. I find these more difficult to RP than the upstanding, noble warrior types.

I like where you're coming from DeCaf, especially when you say "the element should not be broken to begin with". Thing is (I'm going to make some assumptions about your gaming experience, if I'm wrong, my bad bro), by looking at your Forum Rating alone, that you're probably a gamer that played Morrind, Oblivion and Skyrim, if not a bunch of other games. Maybe you still do play old TES titles, you probably have your favorites.

That being said, I doubt that a player with your experience couldn't find a way to fully exploit even a high-regarded game (in terms of RP) like Morrowind. Should we say then that the fact that you could make it a broken element? Doubtful. I can challenge you with a game, any game, and because it's a system that has limits, you'd probably come back with a way to beat that system, even outside its own rules.

What I'm trying to say is that, on any game we play, exploits will always be there. Using those exploits actively to later invalidate a system that you knew to begin with was limited, is what my OP was all about. I'm not saying that this is your position, or that any criticism derives from contradiction, I was just making conversation to try and take people out of a frustrated frame-of-mind pointing out the possibilities that self gimping - using your words - can provide.

It's fun to play Skyrim. I love to live the character but not role-play the character if that makes sense. For me its not as much about role-play as it is about the sense of adventure and the discoveries you unravel. I do have choices that make my characters fun for me. I accidentally broke my first character well... by choosing to use Elemental Fury it makes him broken. The funny part is that shout fits him as a character and for his skill-set. My thief/assassin is actually a challenge due to the fact that I do not use magic on him to make it more difficult. After heading to the mages guild he is only now beginning to use a bit of magic. I do a little role-play but nothing as far as not carrying 4 sets of armor if I loot things (not really but you get the gist).

I am somewhere in the middle of both sides of this. I love adventure and I really love becoming a champion/servant of the gods (especially the daedric ones). I am very satisfied with the game and I have no real complaints on anything but some bugs and a few personal wishes like being able to serve a church (light or dark) etc etc.

We should also remember that gamers are very creative and can nearly always find ways to exploit a system. A developer can only do so much in an alloted period of time; when that time limit has been hit it is all down to the player base as to how they utilise the system they have been given.

That is rather offensive. I play Dead is Dead, but I'm not psychotic nor a sadist. I feel the game is far more intense when you can't just reload from an autosave if you fail. Such a feature makes failure a non-issue.

I believe anyone who's played Morrowind would understand why the directional arrow is a "spoon fed" function in the game. In Morrowind, in case you've never played it, the quest givers would give you directions to the location you're supposed to find. This made it much more immersive, as your journal actually had a purpose and you'd check it constantly. In Skyrim, I hardly, if ever, check my journal.

I understand your frustration with some hardcoe players on here. Like they say "one bad apple spoils the bunch", and I believe that is the issue. I do not take part in any of the exercises you described. There are likely very few who do, but it's easier to recall the bad than the good. All in all, I understand where you're coming from, but I can't help but feel it's from a skewed, inaccurate view you've gathered from some of the bragging power players that frequent these forums.

I agree with everything you are saying, and I'd like to consider myself a pretty good RPer. But for some reason I found myself looking up videos on how to train certain skills faster. As someone previously mentioned, I am my own worst enemy when it comes to self-control in non-MMO games.

If I've broken a game system or mechanic, it's only from my own impatience and exploitation. That's why I'm starting a fresh, non-grinded character right now. Thank you for bringing this to my mind.

Being that I joined this Forum less than 10 days ago, yes, that is very, very likely.

I can understand that, from the perspective of an old timer, some threads must feel painfully repetitive or pointless, just a rehash of old themes arriving at the same conclusions. But that's some of the beauty of a community isn't it? The journey is sometimes what's worth it. :angel:

Cheers bro.

Most criticisms I see and I agree with are elements that with each sequal are being removed one by one. Not replaced with something better but removed. Graphics updated and elements removed. Game is still great but all the new fans complaining about the complainers will be complaining next time a sequal comes out when something you like was completely removed. But at least the graphics are better right?

Dude... That, alone, made my day. Go for it Slayer! :foodndrink:

I said this in the "self gimping" thread just a few minutes a go, but here goes: The issue is not so much that I can overcome an obstacle in my way of becoming powerful exploit or not (thus beating the system), but more the ease at which it happens. Even if it was possible to exploit a highly foolproof system, it's the amount of work needed to do so that puts me on or off. I generally don't look for loopholes or exploit them when found, but if they're too obvious and easy (which they easily and often are), it just feels cheap and lessens the overall experience as I know I am not really playing against the system but against my self (which selfgimping is due to the shortcut around the given boundary), which in turn is why I criticise them (exploits) for existing at all (games should strive to not have them rahter than the opposite, or ignoring their existence when found).

Self gimping is all well and good for ones who like to use it and it does offer vast amount of different styles of approaching a game, and it is always an available option no matter what the game, but a balanced less exploitable system is much rarer case. And yeah, I understood your point -- just not thoroughly in my first comment.

LOL! My turn to say the same about your point (I understood it better now). Talk about full circle.

Spot on about being turned off by a way too easy challenge curve. On that note, I'd ask you: don't you think they did it in order to cater to a more diverse crowd? And that being the case, maybe we could rely on CK to overcome that which, for us, can be a flaw. In other words: overall, do you think the challenge curve killed the game in its entirety or would you say is something that can be changed?

I see your point, but if you had roleplayed your way to this point in your guys career, it wouldn't have been a problem. Plus, you're lack of gold to buy said soul gem could be easily overcome without needing to buy an empty one and kill a mammoth.

From the lines you've typed here, your character seems like just a normal smithy/enchanter, not a warrior, nor a mage, nor a thief. Simply a craftsman. As a craftsman, he would know that he should build up to the point of making bigger and better gear for his clientele. So wouldn't it stand to reason that he could perhaps make a less strongly enchanted dagger with the soul of say, a deer or skeever or any other weak creature that even a simple craftsman could slay? Then use the income from that to make the money for his grand soul gem which he uses to forge his masterpiece dagger? And since you need 60 smithing in the game to improve enchanted items, you could easily reason that for RP reasons, you are gaining smithing skills by making weak daggers because you are also enchanting them?

A real craftsman wouldn't be making a masterpiece dagger for himself anyway, since he doesn't like fighting. He'd sell it or put it on display.

The challenge cure is easily exploited which I don't really think is intentional, but just an overlooked aspect (much of that in Beth games). I don't think it killed the game entirely, but it was one more step in lessening its appeal to me. Little streams build up a river and all that.

The overall experience can be changed and improved up to a point with the CK (and only up to a point), but I doubt anyone's going to tailor and balance a mod I'd come up with should I start really thinking about what I'd want changed. And generally, I don't use much but very subtle mods, if at all, as too often they tend to overdo their changes and feel almost as artificial as selfgimping (and thus create additional problems along with the ones they fix -- a zero result, different, but no real gain). I did consider learning to mod, so I could tailor some aspects of the game that could be tailored subtly to improve the experience, but I don't have time for such. I merely want an enjoyable and at least fairly balanced experience out of the box.

I'd love to read about the specifics from previous vanilla versions of TES, having only played MW (already in its GotY incarnation + mods). When you say balance in comparison with previous TES titles (since you mention a slow progression towards lessening the challenge curve), could you break it down as to what areas you feel this way (if you're willing, of course)?

I don't know if this was directed at me but I suppose I should explain.

I never said he would use the dagger. I said he could make less strongly enchanted daggers to sell so he could earn enough money to buy the soul gem needed for his masterpiece dagger.

This was used because of the quoted text in my above post mentioned the unrealistic effect that crafting a dagger has on gaining him experience toward level 81 crafting.

The point of my post was more about how the suspension of disbelief for any game, be it FPS, RPG, PnP, PbP, or whatever else tickles your fancy, is simply not achievable without the player giving something of his own imagination to lend a hand. And in these types of games, that is to say RPGs whether they are on paper or PC, still give the player the most amount of freedom and balance but none of them are ever perfect and none of them are ever the same.

If this is not your bag of tea, then feel free to play a different game. If you want pure balance go for 4ed D&D or some new, glossy FPS.

Thing is, I'm not really a TES fan up to the level most of you here, so I say balance regarding cRPG's in general. I strongly disliked Oblivion, for example, and last played Morrowind few years ago (hence you won't be seeing much of "MW did this and that" from me). I'm more a Fallout and general RPG fan and burning some time here since I happened to get Skyrim and there's nothing much going on in the Fallout part of the forums at this point. So I can't really accurately specify the TES vanillas (other than that Oblivion had a similiar initial impact which dried out soo after the flaws became apparent as Skyrim, although a tad stronger in the negative end).

The much of " Beth games overlooking the challenge cure", if that's what you're referring to (because I don't remember saying lessening the curve is too slow, at least I didn't mean to -- it's late here, and I probably misunderstood this one too so I keep it brief), comes from the often too fast progression in conjunction with the amount of stuff there is to do in the game combined with too much levelscaling, weak skill mechanics resulting in too powerful characters too fast, too little restrictions and boundaries for the player and too much free aid and handholding offered. In a nutshell.

As it stands, it adds nothing to the gaming experience, so I'd opt for none at all.

Ironically enough, I'd say that D&D Fourth Edition is dumbed-down, feels like a pen&paper MMO, if there could be such a thing.