Just wondering how people are feeling about the leveling system.

Personally, I feel like it adds more problems than it solves. I was hopeful they'd "get it right" in Skyrim but I think it's just inherently flawed now.

It promotes cheesy, unnatural methods of leveling up skills - IE Iron Dagger spam for smithing, letting mudcrabs beat on you for armor raises, recasting muffle constantly when out of combat, etc. etc. It also makes your character's level a very inaccurate reflection of their actual combat capability - a major problem considering the game's level scaling. I can't really think of any benefits of the system that outweigh these problems.

I'm not sure what they'd use instead, I could see a system with 1 combat and 1 non-combat perk per level working well, in which your character is defined by their perks alone completely without actual skills.

It's not different at all...


Oh we don't have attributes anymore, that changes everything I guess...

I didnt like the leveling system because we use to handles the attributes like strength, agility, etcs. Infact should have kept primary, secondary and last skills. So Primary skills is what the character is really focus on rather than secondary.

Every once in awhile we have new ideas and new ppls (either dropping out or replacing) in companies, it would never be the samn as previous stories. Just like Gothics for example, you guys remember Gothics right? Well Gothic 4 have nothing to do with the previous series and this what bother me the most in most companies that change details around with new programmers or any other ppls that have been replace or left the offices.

It sad to see the old designs turned out to be more of hack and slash games rather than serious roleplaying elements. Its their games they design what they see fit, not up to us.

I don't think that it promotes such methods. It is the players choice to do such things, and as far as I am concerned, those methods are very legitimate. If they weren't in the game, then I would consider that a problem. By the way, this is coming from a guy who has done it both naturally and through your stated method of concentrated training.

I'm in love with the new leveling/skills system. I can be whatever I want and not be constrained by what I went with in the first 5 hours of gameplay, when there are relatively few methods as effective as bashing someone's head in with a couple of war axes.

Yes. I think it's quite an improvement over previous TES games.

It's a lot better than previous iterations. Previously it was like walking on eggshells trying to make sure you leveled your heavy armor enough so you could put enough points into your endurance (as an example) or whatever.

Now at least you just level up what you use, it's still not perfect though. In my opinions it's way to easy to level. They just fly by and it doesn't really feel like an accomplishment when you gain a level. It's also easy to get behind the scaling curve if you use too many non combat skills like speech, lockpicking, or pickpocket.

What would have been nice is if Bethesda had added more ways to resolve situations using some of those skills instead of feeling like you need a combat skill to survive. There's also the problem of smithing/enchanting/alchemy being to powerful if used together and nothing being there to stop you other than yourself.

But that's all beside the point. I still think it's an improvement.

(more and varied perks would have been nice) :whistling:

New system has 1-2 good ideas, but I find it very unrewarding after hitting 20-ish levels.

5 Major skills and the rest minor skills
No skill levels up faster than any other and minor skills are capped at 80, while their perks are capped at 50.

Dropping the attributes was a good idea though, but perks and skills need more thought: Specifically, what could perks do?
And why the heck can the player make so powerful enchantments and weapons, even more absurd when combined, that it takes all the fun out of questing for artifacts and gear in the game world (except wabbajack, because it's special)?

If anything, crafting could've had it's own special skill-system, along with pickpocketing, speech, lockpicking and

They could change the power-attacks, or add effects to (power-) attacks in combat.

Separating the skills in active and passive skills would be fine too, possibly combat and noncombat skills.

Here's a quick take on how the perk system could have been more fleshed-out:

I was missing more paths within each class, allowing one to specialize.

...

And why wasn't dual-wielding an entirely separate weapon style?

Just a very quick example of how the game could have had limitless class specializations:
(The idea is that perks apply to each weapon or style separately, separating the four weapons into four different melee fighting styles, and the four ways of fighting into four specializations:

The four weapon styles:
Swords: Fast and debilitating
Axes: Damaging and causes bleeding
Maces: Ignores armor and blocking, and uses the armor against the enemies
Daggers: Focus on power-attacks and special effects

The four ways of fighting:
One weapon fighting: Focus on power and agility
Dual-wielding: Focus on attack speed and defense
Sword and shield: Focus on defense and tactical use of the shield
Two-handed weapons: Focus on raw damage and range


One handed:
Swords are fast, axes deal damage, maces ignore armor, daggers have special effects.

Path 1: Sword: Faster attacks (3) - Critical chance (3) -Chance of paralysis with power-attacks (2) - New neutral power-attack: Flurry of blows (1; Three fast attacks in succession at 50% / 50% / 100% damage)

Path 2: Axe: More damage (3) - Bleed chance (3)- Chance of inflicting "mortal wound" (-25% damage to all attacks + bleed) with power-attacks (2) - New neutral power-attack: Rend (1: An overhead attack that deals massive damage)

Path 3: Mace: Ignore some armor (3) - More damage for power-attacks (3) - Power-attacks may ignore blocking and all armor (2) - New neutral power-attack: Crush (1: Deals additional damage based on the weight of the enemy armor)

All: Power-attacks cost less stamina (3) -

Path 4: Dagger: Critical chance (3 - 20 / 35 / 50%) -New forward power-attack: Stab (2; Ignores 30 / 50% armor) -Bleed chance (2 - 20 / 35%) - New neutral power-attack: Frenzy (1; Four very fast hits in rapid succession) -New strafe power-attack: Flank (1; Deals critical damage and causes "mortal wound", with a chance of paralysis)
...

New skill-tree:
Single Weapon focus (Single weapon fighting style without shield or offhand weapon, focused around the one-handed blocking position):

Weapon focus: Increased damage for single weapons (3; 20 / 35 / 50% damage increase) -New forward power attack out from blocking position: Power-attack: A stamina-costly and extremely powerful overhead attack that staggers both you and your opponent -Decreased time between hits (not faster attacks; Faster recovery after attacks) -New neutral power attack out from blocking position: Slay: When close to the enemy, you stagger the enemy with an unexpected hook-punch with your free hand, followed by a two-handed strike where your character turns 360 degrees for maximum force in a massive blow that has a chance to slay an enemy with half or less health (bosses are immune) as well as a chance of causing wrecking pain (-25% attack, -25% defense)

Movement: -Increased movement speed with a single weapon (due to being unburdened and free) -Increased movement speed while blocking, -New backwards power-attack: Attack of opportunity: You take a step forward to deliver a fast blow, and take two swifter steps back -Evasion: Your agile movement in combat allows you to evade spells and cause spellcasters to miss: 5 / 10 / 15% chance of evading single target spells that otherwise would have hit you

Defense: Blocking: You block more damage with a one-handed weapon -Reposite: When successfully blocking, you may initiate an automatic swift strike against the attacker -Defense (Added defense when blocking with a one-handed weapon) -Deflect arrows (3): You have a chance to deflect arrows with your weapon when blocking (25 / 40 / 65%) -Endure: Your defensive capabilites are good enough to shrug off a part of any type of damage: 5 / 10 / 15% damage absorbtion when blocking)

...
New skill-tree:
Dual-wield:
All: -Dual-wield power attacks cost less (3) - New basic dual attack: Rend (Attacks with both weapons at the same time, dealing more damage; Requires stamina)

Speed:
-Flow (3): Offhand attacks after mainhand attacks flow more naturally, reducing delay between mainhand and offhand attacks -- but not attack speed itself; At skill level 3 you attack as fast as normal with the mainhand and get an attack with the offhand inbetween if it's a dagger in the offhand)
-New forward dual-power-attack: Flurry of Blows (3): Attacks fast with both weapons (Three (1), four (2) and five (3) hits: 50 / 75 / 100 (1) / 100 (2) / 125% (3) damage)
-New neutral dual power-attack: Whirlwind (3): Attacks everyone within reach with both weapons, speeding up for each swing (One, two or three 360 degree turns: 75% damage): At skill level 3, everyone is pushed back after the final strike

Defense:
New neutral offhand power-attack: Parry (3; Blocks with the offhand weapon; Remember that this requires stamina per second and for the player to hold attack with only the offhand)
-Defensive stance (3): Add to defense when wielding an offhand weapon 5 / 10 / 15% of base armor rating when blocking with the offhand)
-New neutral offhand power-attack; Deflect; May cause enemy to stagger if they hit you and you block their attack

Offhand specialization:
-The offhand weapon deals more damage (Assuming it starts at 50% of base damage; 70 / 85 / 100% of that weapon's base damage)
-New offhand forward power-attack: Swift strike (Very fast offhand attack with good reach)
-New offhand strafing power-attack: Unbalance: May stagger the enemy with a low hit

Easy as apple-pie.
(Except for the horror of coding the dual-wielding, of course )

...
The general idea is to have so many useful specialisations that you cannot get them all, and have to choose.

I like the idea behind the new leveling system's perk trees and what not, it's just ashame the implementation is a little bit broken (leather bracers to 100 smithing!)

I never liked the "you get better at what you use" system.

It sounds great on paper, but in practice it svcks.
Cause combat skills? Those are easy to work into it.
Sneak?
Easy.
Lockpicking?
Cakewalk.

But Speech?
Pickpocketing?
Crafting?
It just turns into a spam-fest to increase the skills.
I never had money problems, so Smithing to earn money? Pointless for me.
I just spammed bows and daggers to get it up to Daedric so I could improve my bow against the damage sponge enemies that started to pop up.

But that major skills and minor skills were taken out is insult to injury.
Because this means I'll level up in crap I don't want to and have the enemies scale with me when I'm not ready for them.

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times--and I have.

The Elder Scrolls series requires the cooperation of the player. If you want to spend all of your time raising Alchemy and Smithing and all that, then spend all of your perks on combat skills, then you shouldn't complain about it being unrealistic or whatever, because you chose to do that, the game just offers a bunch of options to allow it to be dynamic. The leveling system puts the player in control. It's up to the player to decide what to do with that power.

I like the system but you level way to fast sometimes i'm level 7 before i get to white run.... skills level up fast enough but it should take more than a whole 2 levels from your favored skill to level, I like staying low level for a while. in skyrim even when i try not to level to fast feels like i'm exploiting some how. mods will fix it i'm sure they did it for oblivion.

Nope. I find it completely lacking.

Attributes should be in, perks shouldn't play such a dominant role in skill progression, and progression as a whole should be a lot slower.

Its perfect. You should have to use something to level it up. Its stupid if you hardly ever use a skill but are allowed to add skill points to it.

I do like it, it allows me to actually roll with a weak character who never wears anything higher than foresworn armor, use non enchanted weapons and never have to use magic/spells.

Any system in which you are penalized for using roleplaying skills like Speech is fundamentally broken. I had hoped they would move to a real XP-based system like FO3, but instead they too everything that was bad about Oblivion's leveling and made it worse. It doesn't make the game unplayable for me, I can live with it, but I don't understand what they were thinking when they built it.

They should have made it so that non combat skills don't level your character.

I love it. I really do. I love also choosing your own archetype rather than picking your "sign". They give you a lot more freedom and I really do enjoy the leveling system (aside from the fact that I sorta took advantage of smithing iron daggers to 100) >_>

I don't mind the loss of attributes, but the Magicka, Health, Stamina choice is too simplistic. In previous games, I could allocate points to all three (through attributes) when I levelled up. Now I'm forced to allocate 10 points to one stat. I would have preferred to receive 10 points that I can allocate among the three categories.

Perks are just okay.

So overall, I voted No.

I love it, my only complaint would be that I wish we could add 2 +5's to 2 skills at the beginning but other then that the system's great.

I hate level scaling of any kind. It breaks immersion and and creates a disincentive to level up.

I wouldn't mind a distribution of 10 points amongst the 3 attributes as you see fit, but outside of that, I feel this new leveling system is far superior in every way to that of Morrowind or Oblivion.

I love it.
It is such an upgrade from the old system, where you had to stand hours in a river in heavy armor grinding a skill I wouldn't use just to get an archer or a mage some extra health, or where I had to make hundreds of potions to gain some more magicka when all I wanted was to use restoration and destruction.

There is no need to grind anymore, you can just level naturally and spend perk points where you want them when you want them. Even the crafts level up fast enough that if you use them naturally they stay around the same level as your other skills and stay useful.

Some perk trees could use some work and love, and destruction needs a bit of a boost in damage rather then just magicka cost reduction from skills in my opinion, but it's a good start in the right direction and I hope it's a system they'll keep for many more elder scrolls games to come.

No. It happens WAY too fast from skills I don't even want to use leveling too fast.

I NEED to use lockpicks to open chests. There's no other option. I therefore level it faster than any other skill.

Being able to control what skills made you level was a SMART thing for an RPG. To take it out of a game is to make it less of one.

Ugh. Streamlining.