TES has the worst rulesystem I've ever seen in any roleplaying game.

It literally forces you to

• keep close track of all your skills
  
• decide on every levelup what to skill next, and
  
• to avoid leveling any other skill out of this set too much.

There isnt even a way to just block skills from leveling so you at least can use them on their current value. You have no control and you cannot keep your head of the rulesystem at any minute.

Even worse, in Oblivion they even introduced strict level scaling. Given the fact that level in TES says very little about the power of a character, this was an extremely awful idea. Someone who leveled on runspeed, diplomatic skill, stealth, security would very soon face impossible challenges EVERYWHERE. OTOH someone who choose a 100 skill as minor, like Destruction, would be able to breeze through the game at no efford. So you're really forced in Oblivion to powergame.

Compared to the most trivial classic rulesystem known, TES comes with a huge set of disadvantages, and no advantage. A simple system where quests and killing mobs gives experience, which in turn can be used to buy levelups, which in turn allow to allocate new skills and talents, would already allow to balance the game and allow the player full control over the development of his character.

I find it more interesting that skill's leveling depends on acually using that skill rather than experience gained from killing monsters and doing quests. Most problem that arises with TES leveling system comes from level scaling, rather than how you actualy level up

I like how it uses skill advancements through use rather than XP, but the whole attribute multipliers thing doesn't work so well. I'd say that the Galsiah's Character Development mod for Morrowind got it just right.

Scaling and stat multipliers basically punish the player for playing how they want. Otherwise the system is very good in theory: My character will get good at doing whatever it is he does. It just tends to be balanced very haphazardly.

This


Me too , and when I get Morrowind in the future I'd like the link to that mod.

It never forced me to do any of that. You can just play the game, doing whatever you like to do, without worrying about leveling in the most efficient way possible, because in the end it won't make much difference anyway.

The TES rulesystem is my favorite of any game. I don't like the level scaling in Oblivion, but I don't consider that a part of the TES rules perse.

Perhaps you know the Oblivion mod inspired by it? http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14065

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=mods.Detail&id=2030

The overall Skills and Attributes rules system isn't the problem; in fact that's a refreshing change (and an improvement in my opinion) from the tired and artificial "XP" system used by the bulk of the games out there. Granted, in Oblivion, the scaling and overdone levelling made powergaming a necessity, but that's not the fault of the stats. It worked well in Morrowind, where you were able to take on the world at your own pace and many things were unlevelled, but I agree that level-up mods like GCD or MADD Leveler for MW, or Kobu's or nGCD for OB, were a definite improvement in the way it was handled.

On this, I would have to agree, at most, not playing the game in the absolute most efficient way possible might make your character become powerful more slowly, but in Morrowind, this isn't a problem since eventually, you're going to be so powerful that no enemy can threaten you anyway, and if any part of the game becomes too hard, you can just go somewhere easier and gain a few more levels. It's a bit more of a problem in Oblivion due to the way enemies are scaled to your level, depending on what choices you make when developing your character, enemies can eventually start to become more powerful than you, but it's not as demanding as some make it out to be.



This I also agree with, I do like how skills progress in the Elder Scrolls series, it's something that sets it apart from other RPGs and also makes more sense, in most RPGs, you can improve your skills after you gain an arbitrary amount of experience that allows you to advance a level, this experience if often gained from things that the skill you chose to increase doesn't cover at all, thus, you get situations where your character becomes better at picking locks from killing lots of enemies, this is pretty illogical, if you think about it, in the Elder Scrolls, if you want to get good at something, you have to actually do it, or have someone teach you, this makes much more sense, and certainly, I believe the concept of this system is a good one, it's just that some problems arise in the actual implementation of it, Bethesda should keep the general idea of increasing skills from using them, but they need to better balance the development of characters. Also, the different skills you can choose and all that should be balanced better, each skill should have its own use, but each needs to be a valid choice.

I really don't get why people say "I only want to level THOSE skills" and even "i want to be able to turn leveling of certain ones off so they don't rise when i use them" because, well... YOU USE THEM!
It's kinda hypocritical to say "i want to play a pure class" and then go around using other skills and just claim it still counts since you don't want to level them up. I still prefere the "Use to gain" system over any EXP based system.

Honestly people should get over that old "pure skills" and "class based" dogma of role playing games and just PLAY and ENJOY them. If you want to play purist then OK, but make it a self imposed challange.

Yup. Using skill increases skill. I some games, where you get experience points from kills, you can kill 100 enemies with a sword, and use the gained exp to boost archery. Makes no sense.

The only thing that ruins this TES system is the new multiplier system, and the HP gaining system which makes END too important to max out fast. Easy solution: fixed amount of points to attributes per level up. HP calculated straight from END, like END+100 at all times.

15 points to attributes per level up is ridiculous. Everyone ends up being the best in everything. IN TES2 you got 4-6 points, and that was easy enough to get a couple attributes to 100.

I would say that in character creation attributes should start at 40 +/- 20 (which is from 20 to 60 and YOU have the choice over them) and you get 6 pts to distribute each level up, 1 or 2 points per attribute.
Want to have STR at 100? Get 60 at start up, sacrificing one attribute down to 20, and add 2 pts to STR each level up, 100 is reached at level 21.

Edit: also, level scaling makes sense only to some extent. If I get levels by using speechcraft, the skill should also help me save my butt when facing enemies who have gained power (in fighting) only because of my improved joke-telling and debating abilities. World revolving around the player is not immersive, and is the downfall of many, many games.

I agree with all this. I also think the system would work pretty well without levels and multipliers.

I think it's one of the better CRPG rulesystems out there, where skills improve when you use them. I never seen the point of getting better at lockpicking because you got EXP from killing monsters.

Not to say it is without flaws though. For example, it's extremely easy to abuse the system if one is a powergamer.

I for one love the leveling system. It's unique, I can't think of any other game in which you gain skill points from using a skill. I was pleasantly surprised when my sneaky oblivion character became a master at sneaking without me ever actually putting any points into it. It does have it's flaws, yes, but I'd hate for them to change it.

The system has room for improvement, but it is hardly anything to keep me from buying the next game. It blows other systems out of the water if you ask me.
I don't really worry about strategically leveling my skills to make the best character possible, I just play the game and if I level up it's a nice surprise The only thing I worry about, is if my character is only a few XP shy of leveling before I start a long quest.

I think Morrowind's system was an improvement over Daggerfall's just because being able to spend 6 points in intelligence when you only practice longsword or something made no sense. In Morrowind the bonuses increased the attributes that you were actually using, while still giving you the option to increase other attributes, to a lesser extent. Seems to make sense, and fit in with TES's skill based leveling system more than free distribution.

An idea I had was kind of a combination. You get 6 points to distribute, but by default can only put 1 into each attribute, but if you used skills governed by that attribute you would increase the maximum amount that you could allocate into that attribute. So, you get the same amount of points each time, but the the way you're allowed to distribute them changes, aside from a base minimum of 1 per attribute.

Anyone else think that'd work out better?

Only if you are metagaming.
Only if you are metagaming.
Only if you are metagaming.


Block skills from leveling? And the point of that would be...? So you can have absolute authority over precision number-crunching whilst still getting to use the skill?

I can honestly say I have never been literally forced to do any of those things. The only time the TES leveling system has done wrong by me is when Oblivion introduced level scaling and leveled lists that were flawed in their implementation, thus making it potentially impossible to overcome the curve with a wide swath of characters. But that's not the leveling system's fault; it's the fault of the scaling/leveled-list implementation.


Yep. Improper use of scaling and leveled lists is bad.


I fail to see where any advantage would be gained by going to the cliche and completely unexplainable system of quest-XP and grinding-XP over natural skill progression based on use.


In regard to concepts like talent trees, feats, and the like, I see no place for those in TES, just like I see no place for perks in TES. It's just as unnatural and unexplainable as the XP system: "You've hit [X] level! Now you can instantly learn this new ability just by hitting an arbitrary and artificial out-of-game measurement of 'power'."

Those leveling systems are the ones that Beth should be using.

ThatOneGuy speaks the truth!

In Oblivion, at least, I try and compromise by choosing a default class and then power levelling it to the best of my abilities. Of course, roleplaying always takes precedence over such things.

Me! You just put a bit more sense to the system I was proposong. Thx.

(slightly on topic: in Gothic games and Risen you can go to a trainer and say "teach me to be stronger!" which the trainer then does. Seriously wth is that BS?)

Indeed.
The idea (realistic skill progression) behind the ES leveling system is great - and much better than standard XP systems - but it's implemented poorly, in my opinion. Galsiah's Character Development is a much better and more natural feeling version of the ES system. I couldn't imagine having to go back to worrying about attribute modifiers when playing Morrowind.

Overall I'm very happy with the Elder Scrolls system. It's not perfect but I think it does a good job. I do think TES needs some sort of feat/perk system to help differentiate characters. This help make characters more distinct, particularly advanced characters that are being experts in everything. Daggerfalls system of advantages and disadvantages really did a lot to make characters feel unique, although it certainly did suffer from balancing issues.

As for the skill system itself, I love it. No it isn't terribly balanced but then this is a single-player game, its good for it to be fairly balanced but it doesn't hurt anyone if its not. As it is many of the steps Oblivion took to balance the system are extremely unpopular.

In Morrowind you could take Long Blades and Heavy Armor and be as competent (or nearly so) in melee combat as someone who a full suite of combat abilities. Throw in Stealth and maybe security and you were well on your way to being a good thief too, and you still have room for nearly every school of magic. When Oblivion combined skills many people felt it wasn't worth the impact on characterization - and while it was nice for skills like Armorer to be more worthwhile their increased prominence also made them more of a chore.

I think this is somewhere else that a feat/perk system would help. If the perks have skills requirements, particularly at higher levels, then it's difficult for the jack-of-all-trades to get the best perks for combat, stealth, and magic - and even if they have access to many of these if you can only learn a limited number of perks you can't load up on every one for everything.

Some perks could be focused on a single skill, or a single category (combat, stealth, magic) while others could be specifically tailored for hybrid characters to give them their own strengths (rather than just having am mix of perks from multiple categories).


Yes Oblivion level scaling was bad. The developers have openly recognized this and they came up with a much better (and subtler) system for Fallout 3. I think it's safe to assume that the Elder Scrolls will never see Oblivion-style level scaling again.

Gee, i have no such problems with the rules and leveling system. Even tho the OB level scaling was occasionally eye-rollingly annoying, I still just pick a character, decide what skills I think would go with what role play I have in mind and I like the fact that using those skills is what improves them. (Or paying for training.) I just don't dig too too deeply into the ruleset - I just need to understand more or less how it works, so I can work within it, or, if I have inadvertantly gimped my character, work around it.

It's great, one of the best. Experience is a bad system because it doesn't make much sense. Killing a monster lets me lock pick better? Lock picking lets me kill stuff better?

My issue with the system is variance. Everyone ends up the same after playing for so long. There is little way to avoid this. I think some liberal use of skill soft caps and bonuses could help a lot. For example, why is it that races have different bonus, but when they reach 100 they become capped? Why shouldn't a bosmer be able to get 115 in marksman? The extra points would be diminishing such that getting something insane like 200 wouldn't make much of a difference from 120 or so, because there is only so much more to perfect when 100 is practically being able to shoot the wings off of a fly. This would allow all races to still make all classes, but some would be more naturally inclined toward certain skills because of their racial, cultural, and personal upbringings associated with a typical family of that race. If your family isn't typical, then you can simply pick some advantages and disadvantages to help create that background.

In summary, the system needs some soft caps, less hard caps, more important racial bonuses, and advantages and disadvantages being brought back ALONGSIDE star signs.