Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[Yoda]

i could care less about scaling. I just don't want to have to beat someone with a club 1000 times and then cast fireball 1000 times to get 5s when i level

[MeshGearFox]

--LESS Skills?--
A pox upon them! Bring back Unarmored!

Yeah no, skills are stupid. They just further serve to abstract the game away from the player. If I'm good at combat (in an action RPG, at least), it should be because I'm good at playing the game, not because there's some number telling me I'm good at combat. I mean look if you want to have stats giving me various bonuses (a la Deus Ex?) Sure. That's fine. Having a stat telling me I can magically take less damage when wearing armor X as opposed to armor Y? No that's dumb as hell.

Skills are just another number for the player to waste time with raising. They're not really interested unless you go some route where skills are just things you acquire but don't have levels (M&M3-5, Diablo 2, some of the ability skills in Gothic 1/2), things with a very small number of distinct levels with distinct advantages (Deus Ex, M&M6/7, HoMM), or... no, that's it. Those are the only two cases where skill systems tend to be a particularly good thing. How is having 45 levels in spear better than having 44 levels? Worse than having 46? Is there some minute stat difference? Do you get new perks after gaining some arbitrary number of levels? What?

This is why I also took issue with DQ8's stat system. I get 5 points at level up. Do I distribute evenly? Put them all into one skill? Divide them a bit? I don't know how 18 points for swords with Angelo is better than 17 points because I don't know what, if any, skill it'll unlock. This is a decision but it is not an interesting one. What is the point then?

And again, how does having *more* skills necessarily improving anything? Morrowind had Heavy, Medium, Light, and Unarmored armor skills. But these were all *passive*. Having them didn't really let the player do anything new. Increasing them boosted your defense but not a whole hell of a lot else. They only served to limit the player in what armors they could use. Again, what's the point? If you want to limit the player's armor, there are better ways to do that. If you want the player's defense to improve over time, why not... just let them get better damn armor? But again, since they're totally passive skills, they... just don't seem to add much to me.

(If you DID have armor-related skills, of course, I'd just say go the M&M route and have the player need certain levels in the relevant armor skill to use some of the better armors. Although that still doesn't sit that comfortably with me).

[Fei]

The best skill in any Bethesda game is the difficulty slider.  It makes all other skills irrelevant, it's that good.

[Danku]

TES is a horrible series. I doubt this will be any less horrible.

Without mods, yes.

And level-scaling needs to die. It's pure laziness. Certain Oblivion mods have shown that you can have an open-ended world without level scaling and it works very well. I didn't know that Mass Effect did it too....I was going to play the entire trilogy at once when ME3 comes out but now I don't know...

So you won't play possible two and probably 3 of the best RPG games in recent memory because of level scaling that gives you a proper challenge throughout the game? ME2 did this better of course.

I'll be honest: I don't understand why everyone hates level scaling.  Okay, Oblivion did scaling horribly, we can all admit that, but Fallout 3 was much improved.  Dragon Age and Mass Effect both scale as well (yes, different company and whatnot) but I don't see people complaining about that.

Morrowind's non-scaling isn't as amazing as people make it out to be, either.  I was able, with no cheats or potion spamming for stat boosts, just a normal character, finish the Telvanni quest line at level 7.  Scaling at least allows a challenge at high levels, when done properly.  Once I hit level 15 in Morrowind, I'm invincible unless I get unlucky. I do control my leveling, though, so that I 5/5/5, and I do know the "tricks" (IE Aryon's Summoning glove of death is a wonderful thing).

I think if they scale the enemies more like Fallout 3 I think it won't be a big deal.

Because they see "level-scaling" and remember Oblivion and think that it is going to ruin the experience. Which makes no sense considering most popular and recent RPGs use level scaling in some way. Oblivion scaling wasn't perfect like Cyril said, but Fallout 3 was 100x better in that regard, so I have high hopes.

The best skill in any Bethesda game is the difficulty slider.  It makes all other skills irrelevant, it's that good.

Seriously, difficulty slider in Oblivion made some of the level scaling problems obsolete. But of course, people like Meshgearfox will probably still bitch and moan about that too. "WTF, I DON"T WANT TO ADJUST DIFFICULTY DO IT FOR ME"

[Lazlowe1984]

I'm hoping for more dark brotherhood missions.I enjoyed those missions so much.

[Fei]

Sorry Danku, I'm glad you enjoyed Oblivion, but I was being sarcastic.

I've been torn apart on these forums for complaining about difficulty sliders before, but here I go anyway.

Difficulty sliders make level scaling pointless.  Level scaling ruins your sense of strength anyway, so it's effed either way.

In a game with no story hooks, the character building better be rewarding, because gameplay in RPGs is rarely the draw.

Remove level scaling and on-the-fly difficulty adjustment, and the validity and integrity of your pretend character's strength shall remain.  Honestly, we're looking at a number and getting excited about what it says about our place in the game world.  If even the number loses meaning, it's just a crappy action game with math.

That's what I think of Oblivion.  I liked the first few hours before I discovered the difficulty slider and shifted my focus to the nothing plot.  I may have kept coming back to the game if I felt there were a challenge to surmount, but the very existence of the slider is a devil on my shoulder, reminding me that hey, I don't need to really stress over which skill I take next.  With a boring plot and combat that can be skimmed through, what is left?  A sense of personal achievement for making myself work harder when I know I can just make the game easy?

Basically, I want to get frustrated.  I know a game is good when I instinctively give the middle finger to a dead boss.

I have the least popular opinions though, that's for sure :)  But I spend money, and at this rate it won't be spent on Skyrim.

edit: Fallout 3 and Mass Effect have interesting stories, which is probably why people cared less about such intricacies as level scaling.  To me, Oblivion only offered a brutal world for you to try to become powerful in, and the feeling of power you get when you slide to easy is almost like a spoiler.

[Danku]

I'm hoping for more dark brotherhood missions.I enjoyed those missions so much.

Yeah, they were pretty neat. Probably some of the more interesting quests came from the questline.

Sorry Danku, I'm glad you enjoyed Oblivion, but I was being sarcastic.

I've been torn apart on these forums for complaining about difficulty sliders before, but here I go anyway.

Difficulty sliders make level scaling pointless.  Level scaling ruins your sense of strength anyway, so it's effed either way.

In a game with no story hooks, the character building better be rewarding, because gameplay in RPGs is rarely the draw.

Remove level scaling and on-the-fly difficulty adjustment, and the validity and integrity of your pretend character's strength shall remain.  Honestly, we're looking at a number and getting excited about what it says about our place in the game world.  If even the number loses meaning, it's just a crappy action game with math.

That's what I think of Oblivion.  I liked the first few hours before I discovered the difficulty slider and shifted my focus to the nothing plot.  I may have kept coming back to the game if I felt there were a challenge to surmount, but the very existence of the slider is a devil on my shoulder, reminding me that hey, I don't need to really stress over which skill I take next.  With a boring plot and combat that can be skimmed through, what is left?  A sense of personal achievement for making myself work harder when I know I can just make the game easy?

Basically, I want to get frustrated.  I know a game is good when I instinctively give the middle finger to a dead boss.

I have the least popular opinions though, that's for sure :)  But I spend money, and at this rate it won't be spent on Skyrim.

I just said that difficulty sliders can take level scaling problems away. It is by no means the best or most effective thing in the world, but it helps. I agree that, the level scaling takes away that sense of achievement and progress of your character.

Fallout 3 had a much better level scaling and difficulty slider in my opinion. Whatever Skyrim does with it's level scaling, it needs to find a way to make it more than just increasing the health. It's like Yoda said, it makes no sense to have to hit someone 1000 times just to down them. It's even worse when the said opponent is a rat.

We are just going to have to wait until there is more information. There aren't many games like TES series, so I'll still get it most likely.

[MeshGearFox]

The difficulty slider has nothing to do with the level scaling. Oblivion is easy as fuck even on the hardest setting because getting some sort of god artifact is trivial. The issue with Oblivion's level scaling is that it made the random enemy generator start placing really, really stupid things.

[Cloudsorrow256]

What i look into the RPG´s its basically an outstanding/breathtaking story with kick-ass characters and mostly an inmersive world and plot were i can live as a hero on my break days, and i hope that Skyrim caught my attention as its old bro did (OBLIVION) :)

[Sagacious-T]

Its just unrealistic and immersion breaking to have bandits suddenly be wearing glass armor simply because the player character leveled up more. The Mod overhauls remove that, make it so you have to work hard to be able to challenge the stronger beasts of the game.

With many older CRPGS - Fallout, Morrowind, Gothic, etc, starting weak and ending strong is part of the satisfaction. Oblivion simply stripped that away, and some of us miss it.

Now I understand its a bitch to design a system that can appeal to everyone, thats why mods can fix the game after the fact. There are overhauls for Oblivion which add actual challenging dungeons and good rewards. In Oblivion vanilla you'd explore into some shitty cave full of goblins only to get a chest full of pregenerated loot crap. That just sucks.

[FlamingR1ft]

In Oblivion vanilla you'd explore into some shitty cave full of goblins only to get a chest full of pregenerated loot crap. That just sucks.

And that's what I hated the most. Due to scaling you couldn't fight your way through a massive dungeon and actually get something good. You'd only get gold/gems/weapons/armour scaled to your level. The mods fix that, but they really shouldn't have to. Difficulty should be static. Is it really so hard to do? Dungeons/caves etc. that are close-by to the events of the main story or close to towns should be easier and give lowbie equipment. The further off the beaten track you go the dungeons and enemies should be harder and have better rewards.

In vanilla Oblivion I never felt I got stronger. Sure, the new enemies would start appearing that were more challenging, but there was never anything MORE of a challenge. I like knowing I can't complete a dungeon yet because I'm not strong enough. It's great incentive to come back later when I'm more awesome.

And bandits should only ever be in leather. End of story.

[Sagacious-T]

It would just be so much effort to design specific static things for the entire huge world of Cyrodiil.  Plus you limit the player drastically. That kind of game simply is not favorable to the modern mass market. Maybe to old CRPG gaming nerds, sure, but most people just want an easy time wandering around and kicking ass.

Mods make it ridiculous. Go off the path too early and you will get fucked by a multitude of things. Ancient old castle infested with Vampires, with crazy treasure at the end? Check. Theres also tons of leveling revamps, etc.

Skyrim will get the same treatment. I'll probably play the game through vanilla, wait 5 years, and then play it again, heavily, heavily modded.

[Eusis]

Well, I think partially it's because of just how open the games are. If they were semi-linear like Bioware titles they could at least make it static enough that I feel like I'm genuinely getting more powerful. Though, didn't Fallout III remedy that somewhat at least?

[MGShogun]

Isn't this game going to be system resource hog?

[Eusis]

Isn't this game going to be system resource hog?

The fact consoles are where all the money is has helped keep graphical advancement in check for PC games. 10 years ago I would be chugging badly on a computer as old as mine is now (about 2 years), but I can still play plenty of recent releases better than on consoles unless the port's completely awful. I'm sure it'll be more demanding than Oblivion, but probably not unreasonably so.