I definitely didnt like Todds "You can be a Mage, then just switch up and be an archer etc." comment during the E3 demo. Id say the people that just pick up the game and newbs etc. will play like TC says, not really RPing, just doing whatever is practical like it was an action game. Ill be sticking to my characters class though.

Kindly explain a number of things to me:

1) How sticking to a particular development plan as you play your character is metagaming, but meticulously planning out your character's development ahead of time to maximize his potential is not.

2) How, precisely, providing a quicker leveling pace to a particular set of skills that conform to a particular archetype (class specialization) differs from... providing a quicker leveling pace to a particular set of skills that conform to a particular archetype (Warrior, Mage, and Thief Doomstones).

3) How you could have possibly dictated the rate of your leveling in any manner outside of those specializations.

The difference between major and minor skills in Morrowind was how much of an initial boost they got when you started the game. Apart from that they leveled at the same rate, and the only thing that altered that rate was the specialization that you chose. I can understand that you're upset about not choosing a specialization at character creation and how switching between specializations to suit your play style can be seen as metagaming -- it is, honestly -- but your statement that this new system will restrict your freedom and force you to metagame more is not compelling in light of the reasoning you present.

My two cents, as usual:

Same [censored], different thread.

I adhere to the notion that having classes and utilizing a system wherein your skills increase through repeated use of them are incongruous premises. They never really seemed to jibe with one another, and it felt highly counter-intuitive to me that you could spend countless hours practicing your skills to become a master swordsman or archer and have it contribute absolutely nothing to your leveling because they were not tagged as "major" skills, despite the fact that you're clearly using them more than the other skills you have. And I've yet to see a compelling reason to retain the class system, other than RP reasons, which is of course a wholly subjective line of reasoning and will vary in importance from one person to the next.

Frankly I don't see any problem at all. It's a natural progression of the "learn by doing" character advancement philosophy they've had going on since Daggerfall, and I really think that it has potential for much greater balance and fluidity than the previous system. The fact that you're limited in the number of perks you can pick means that character differentiation is greater by default. The fact that perks have prerequisites and are arranged in a tree structure, coupled with the fact that increasing higher-ranked skills contributes more to leveling, means that specialization is very strongly encouraged, so despite the impression some have that you'll just [censored] around and stumble into victory by doing anything at all, the fact is this system will offer quite a bit of incentive to plan your character's development ahead of time.

So what part of MW or OB weren't button mashing? I had to do that in MW until my long sword skill was high enough to hit them almost every time. In OB, I had to button mash enough just to do some practical damage with a long sword while trying to level it up. Although in OB the more i did something the faster it leveled up, so the RPG elements were in it. Attributes were just secondary and unnecessary to me in the whole Role Playing aspect. The class was also secondary. A soldier in real life can start up a shop or business of some kind and be a good people person, but in previous games, if I wanted to get anywhere with mercantile or speechcraft, I would have to include them into my major skills for them to do me any good. Trying to play a warrior and giving up two of those skill slots isn't that much fun.

PVP is for MMO's and not Elder Scrolls. Nowhere do I see the "hybrid system" in the making of Skyrim.

No - not at all. I'm talking about character creation - once the character is set up, I just play. The most grinding I might do is to work on Illusion off and on over the first few levels so that a character who won't otherwise be using it and started out with low skill can cast night eye instead of light. And that's only if that's the sort of thing that character would do. Other than that, I can't think of a single skill I ever grind, for any reason. I just play the game and it all comes naturally.

But that depends on some very precise and well-thought-out character creation.

For instance - I want to play an archer with blade backup in light armor. He's going to make most of his attacks from a distance, but isn't going to be afraid to switch to melee if/when he's pressed. That would be...... probably marksman and light armor as majors and blade as a minor, but with a combat spec. Combining spec minor and non-spec major tends to keep things fairly balanced, marksman increases very slowly (steep learning curve) so it works well as a major and he's probably not going to get hit a whole lot, so his armor experience needs to count for as much as possible. He's not going to be terribly skilled with a blade at first (low staring skill as a minor), but he's going to learn quickly (combat spec).

Once all that's set up, then all I have to do is go play, and everything just takes care of itself. The thing that concerns me about the new system is that I'm apparently not going to be able to set any of that up in advance, so I'm going to have to keep tabs on the character and keep making decisions that simulate the gains he would've gotten automatically if I'd been able to just set him up how I want him in the first place. Again - it might work out okay - those decisions might be automatic and natural and it'll work out to the same basic thing - just playing and letting things happen. But if that's not the case, then there's not going to be a way to compensate for it.

As for birthsigns........... was it my mention of the updated doomstones that brought that up? Obviously contrary to the early statements about those, they don't seem to be a substitute for birthsigns AT ALL. They're much more accurately a substitute for majors and minors and specialization. At least from what we've seen so far, their effects are to increase the rate of skill increase for ranges of skills, which is precisely what majors and specialization did in past games. That's the only reason I mentioned them.

Birthsigns.......... I liked them from an RP standpoint, but I'm sort of ambivalent about them being removed. I'm fundamentally opposed to the idea, but only because I don't think that removing content is generally a good idea. But I'm not that attached to them personally.

? No you didnt. you could max any skill, major or minor. You may not be a personable negotiator or salesmen, but then there's always other ways of raising personality independent of Majors.

This is just my gut feeling so take it with a grain of salt...

I think that after rolling our first characters in Skyrim we'll wonder how we ever played games with hard, class-based character creation.

The new system is organic, natural and will reward experimentation and following one's preferred play style. As a gamer, can you really ask for more than that? The numbers are still there. You're just steering them by having fun rather than by looking at a spreadsheet before you roll a character.

The RPG elements came from leveling up specific skills in a specific way to get the most benefit to your character.

Those that did that well became stronger because they understood the system that the rpg put into place

Attributes werent secondary they were primary. How much damage you did in melee cant be unnecessary unless you believe RPG means story

Which is a valid opinion if thats what you hold ( i do not though)

I started oblivion with only skills i didnt want to take as primaries

I got every single stat and most skills to max level with careful training and play. I didnt have to put anything into a major skill to use it, i just had to focus on it for a bit to make it useful

Thats cool. All of that will be in Skyrim, minus the attributes of course. You focus on the things you want to use and become better at them. At a high level, if you want to do something else, you have to work at it to be better at it. I had a warrior character my first play through and I did just fine with him. I'll have another warrior character as my first play through and do just fine yet again, probably have even more fun because I can experiment with other aspects to customize my character. Please, go on thinking that this game will be bad and be "disappoint" in Bethesda. While you worry about every little thing wrong with the game, I'll be getting my $60 worth out of it :celebration:

The mindset will work perfectly. My first character will be a hunter and so naturally his sneak, marksman, alchemy, light armour and one-handed skills are going to raise. The skills he will have will be determined on how I play. I'm not going to (or going to try not to) look at my skills and focus on a particular area, he'll just raise skills depending on how I'm playing.
That way I can see how I've played the game by looking at my skills, and my highest skills will be the ones I need the most.
Is that not the 'be who you want to be' mindset?

The criticism I have seen against "do what you want" is that the players are not spreadsheeting and metagaming as much and they can not role-play without the computer telling them that they are (i.e. my character is not a paladin because even though I use the skills I think a paladin would and behave like one there is no life affirming label stamped on my character menu and a checklist of skills that I should using).

The problem is that they think a game is an 'Action' title instead of an RPG just because the game will not give them a checklist of things to do in order to fulfill that role. Instead they will have to actually, *gasp*, play a role as they think it should be done. The horrors that will ensue... how can a person know they are role-playing if the game is not telling them they fulfilled the requirements for that role!

The gods forbid we want to actually have some in-game reflections of whatever character we're roleplaying other than some vague resemblance.

On topic: Numerical stats, whether overt or hidden, do not reflect anything on a human / storytelling level. Besides, if one desires these stats one may look to the skills as the system has not been 'dumbed down' but rather simplified in that two corresponding and redundant measurement systems / systems of expression have been combined into one that serves all of the purposes formerly fulfilled by the two separate systems.