For those who aren't familiar with what I'm asking, Fallout: New Vegas (another Bethesda game) has a system wherein you gain levels primarily through killing enemies and completing quests. To increase your combat or crafting skills, you are given skill points when you level. Perks also exist, but are every other level instead of every level.

For the sake of the question, disregard perks entirely. What I'm asking, essentially, is if you like leveling based on kills/quests or exclusively skill increases.

My own opinion is en-spoilered, because I'm far more interested in your opinions than your response to mine.

No. That is not the style of TES games, hell, neither are perks.

I would argue that a position of "style" is fundamentally flawed, as the game have changed significantly since the first. The world it is set in has remained more or less constant, but the gameplay mechanics are demonstrably malleable - you already touched on by mentioning perks. The leveling mechanics are immaterial re: what is canonical.

No, and it's an Obsidian game. Not a Bethesda game.

Man, they should really remove that "Bethesda Softworks" logo from the bottom-right-hand corner of my copy of New Vegas, then. What an oversight

It's another game with essentially the same gameplay mechanics. Third-Person RPG with quest hubs, exploration, random encounters, etc... I don't need to continue that comparison. Fallout 3 had the same system, which is definitely and exclusively a Bethesda game.

That said, please do elaborate as to the reasons behind your opinion.

Here in lies the stump-er for most folks. While you can level your character through non-combat means you really shouldn't. And, if you do, the monsters should kick your butt as you have not practiced your combat skills. Being able to assign skill points is all well and good, but how is it any better to say you're more skilled at combat by practicing smithing, potion making or picking pockets.

I like it the way it is. You should play your character in a way balanced enough to improve the skills you need at the time. Really, stuff like smithing and whatnot ought to wait until you've mastered the important stuff like smashing faces

If you think that New Vegas' experience system was original, then you are very wrong. Not only do all the other Fallout's (to my knowledge at least) have an experience system like this, but almost every RPG has this system of character progression, dating back to pen and paper RPGs.
With that being said, I think that it should stay the way it is. It's always been that way, and it requires you to work with something to improve it ( No completing minor quests and somehow becoming a master swordsman etc.).
Oh, and New Vegas is not a Bethesda game anyway.

It would make ZERO difference because at the end of gaining that level you chose to spend your 10 odd level gain points to level smiting instead of spending them on a combat skill leaving you at the exact same point -> level +1 sans combat skills.

In the end its a conscious decision do either level by smithing or blow your skills points on smithing at level up, but you end up in the exact same position -> the real difference is that under TES rules at least your able to gain skills mid-level which is superior gameplay.

That doesn't really have anything to do with whether your character gains levels the Fallout way, or the TES way. That has to do with the system of world scaling the game uses.

(A clear example of this is comparing Fallout 3 with New Vegas.... they both use the same basic character leveling system, but they do world scaling differently.)


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Personally, I prefer TES games to work the way they do. I've played Oblivion using the "Oblivion XP" mod, which changes the game to a more Fallout-like system. It sorta works, but it's just not the same.

(And again - that mod doesn't change the way the Oblivion monsters and world scale - it just changes how your character improves.)

I would actually prefer the next Fallout change to a TES type experience system. It's kind of annoying to just gain experience for finding places/completing quests and just becoming better at something because you want to.

In Skyrim you have to work on your lockpicking if you wish to get better - or anything, really. It works well, in my opinion.

The reason the label is there is because they published it for Obsidian Entertainment.

The problem with the Skyrim leveling system mostly stem from the fact that the character level doesn't really correspond very well to character combat ability.

I think this is partially due to all skills being treated equally for the purposes of gaining levels. Since the game is so combat-centric and since it is using your level to infer your combat proficiency, it would make sense to change the relative experience gain a skill can give depending on how removed that skill is from combat. Ideally, increases in skills like speech, pickpocket, and lockpick would provide fairly low XP for your level (any combat benefits they provide will be indirect at best), while skills like light armor and one-handed would provide a large XP boost (they directly influence the fight). Skills like alchemy and enchant would be somewhere in between (they aren't directly combat, but they do play an important part).

I prefer to be increasing the skills I'm actually using. I hope fallout goes that way as well.



after loaning them their IP, engine etc etc...

Normally I'd agree, but having played both, the Fallout system just feels smoother. For example: how the HELL do you level speech to a high level in Skyrim? Pickpocketing? Remember leveling Merchantile in Oblivion?

The fact of the matter is that some skills are used more frequently than others OR some skills are just very awkward to level (pickpocketing, speech), which creates leveling issues. If I want a Silver-tongued dude who's decent with a bow, you better believe he'll actually end up being better with his bow than he is with speech. Fallout's system corrects this, and it's just the most logical thing in the world that people are gonna use what they level up and level up what they use, so it's not like you'd run around punching everything and then max out energy weapons: then what's the point of using fists?

I hope not. It's been the same since the first Fallout game. D:
OT: Not really. Fallout, as amazing as it is, should stay Fallout, same with TES.

Yes, no doubt in my mind. Level scaling doesn't work with the current system, and it's also a pain to level some skills naturally.

There was actually a mod for Oblivion that substituted XP for killing/quests instead of the regular skill leveling, and it actually improved my experience with Oblivion considerably.

True.. but at least Obsidian was actually people that worked on Fallout and Fallout 2 and added their own stuff back into the Fallout series that was previously taken out by Bethesda

...At no point did I say it was original; it's just a game more people are likely to be familiar with. I'm not going to cite some older, perhaps less relevant game as an example. Also, the Bethesda thing has been addressed.

Thank you for explaining your opinion, though. That's a perspective I had not considered.

Maybe it wouldn't irk me so much if it wasn't for the specific barriers - 25, 50, 75, 100 - for security and electronics - it doesn't feel like you're getting any better, you're just finally allowed to enter the screen after pumping in points into those slots. I watched a lot of LP's of NV, though, and I have to say, it's not all people using the skills that they dump points into - they may use them AFTER that, but they didn't use the skill before it a lot of the time.

Smoother! That's a good word.

I never spent any time in fallout intentionally avoiding reading skill books or using certain skills. In Skyrim, I save before I read skill books, and, although my character would benefit from pickpocketing, I rarely pick pockets because it almost always means a skill gain and thus bringing me even closer to a higher level (and thus more powerful monsters) without having actually become any more powerful myself. It breaks immersion a bit when there is incentive to intentionally avoid doing something because the gameplay mechanics essentially punish you for improving your character's secondary skills.

Well, the discussion here is more about the leveling/exp system, rather than the world interaction aspects of the game. Don't blame the exp/leveling for an unrelated gameplay mechanic you dislike. It's easy to imagine having level-based skill gains and not having the aforementioned barriers.

It's worth noting that this topic is not about which is a better game, but which leveling/exp system is better (or, more specifically, which would be better for Skyrim.) Although that hasn't really been said specifically, I feel that is the general tone of some of the negative responses. Disregard your overall opinion of both games, if you can, and just hypothetically apply the different exp/leveling system to Skyrim. Draw conclusions thusly.

I still find it less harsh than Oblivion, where you had to be careful to get your multipliers high - which really kind of broke immersion for me as well - I think I would rather have to bump difficulty lower and raise skills naturally, as I use them - rather than worry about getting a level because of something I want to do.

I never really had any issues with leveling up and having more powerful monsters. Yes, sometimes I get my bum kicked.. I reload.. head back and change my strategy and take them out. Sometimes even luck has played a part in getting things I wanted dead, but I have always found an approach to finish my objective.

Perhaps its just my playstyle, but I really haven't encountered many massive problems I couldn't handle with 3 or less reloads. I have leveled lockpicking, some pickpocketing, blacksmithing, enchanting some alchemy.

No
I've prefered learning by doing systems to xp systems for over 30 years now
The fault isn't in having learning by doing, its in Bethesdas implementation of it

Would it make sense for me to level up smithing but I magically get better at sneaking around even though I don't even sneak?