Yeah. Complimenting the Witcher 3 on its cruddy degradation system is one thing. Saying its the reason it did so well is...I don't even know what to make of it.

Its narrative was really the only compelling bit about the game. I'm still struggling just to push passed the main game into Hearts of Stone, which at least looks legitimately good.

how do you like witcher 3 with their clunky target system?

It didn't have one? Unless we're talking about targeting enemies directly...it was okay for a hack'n'slash game that takes place exclusively on vertical ground. Not something I'd want for TES at all though.

*Longer post coming later*




He's making fun of Ballowers' way of writing by exaggerating it.


Not very polite.

Statistics Brain is not really accurate,but i could be wrong on this

Skyrim did not sell 70+ million no.Skyrim has sold 20 million by June 2013,and has 25-28 million LTD as of now.

Ars Technica did an estimate(similar to how steam spy did it later) in April 2014 which places Skyrim PC numbers at 6 million.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/04/steam-gauge-addressing-your-questions-and-concerns/2/

So the sales of Skyrim on PC should have been somewhere around 5 million, when that 20 million figure was reported.

And the console sales of Skyrim should be somewhere between 15-18 million.

Add little stuff back from Arena:

puddles after rain storms

ordering food and drink at taverns instead of just buying it through barter

getting drunk from too much booze

different quality of rooms available at inns, and negotiate the price

can rent a room longer than a day

random simple quests at inns/taverns

I'm in 100% agreement with this.

technically Skyrim did that with radiant quests

I double checked several other statistics and they all come to similar figures, within 3-5 percentage points. Again, we're probably not talking about Digital Sales, as Valve tends to be rather tight lipped about their sales volume and Bethesda hasn't released any specific information indicating digital sales. However, even if we take the 10.6 million figure from Steamspy's later census, we're still only looking at about One Third of Skyrim players being on PC. Cutting out 60% of your market isn't a good business decision. We're not talking about Games Workshop here.


Console players still make up the majority of the player base, and they have to be accounted for.




Yeah, I think Skyrim took a step in the right direction with its more diverse quest-giving options, though it still doesn't go quite far enough. You still have to talk to people for everything, which is peculiar in a world with as high a literacy rate as Tamriel. You'd expect more bullitens, bounties and 'Classified Ads' around than having to go through a tavern-keep to find out if there's any work around. The mans running a bar, not a Temp Agency, you'd expect him to be a good source of rumours, not of jobs.


Some of the other stuff, though, I don't really understand why we don't already have it. Ordering food and pooling rainwater I understand (because of how objects move and are tracked. Water collecting is pretty new-age rendering, and trying to keep food on a plate without compromising the ability to interact is something no one seems to be able to really figure out).


But things like negotiating prices, better quality rooms (at least in larger establishments) and longer stays. Those are far easier to handle. Drunkenness in particular is in basically every game that includes Alcohol, I've never really understood why it disappeared from TES. Particularly when the disorientation effects could be so useful...

lets talk difficulty setting.

I want a great ai...super hard ai!!!! super intelligent ai....not stupid. example: if u attack a bandit fotress. u kill one of them and they saw the body!!!! they will alert of it, will search u! will increase defensive!!! ai also have item potion to use and a lot of skills too!!!!

but it will be too hard!!!!!! QQ

dont cry!! there is easy mode!!!

the difficulty not depends on enemy ai, but the number hit u can take.

example!!!!

u play on very easy mode!!!! u get hit 10 times on the head with an arrow without a helmet, u still survive!!! gg!!!

imposibru!!! immersion breaking!!!

wait bro dont mad that was very easy mode!!!! u hate that u change it to easy, normal, hard, legendary or even impossible mode!!!

at the very difficult mode, u will die even u get 1 arrow to the knee!!! 1 hit ko!!!!!!!! dark soul cant beat this!!!!!!

btw on normal mode, it will be like normal action combat game, 1 hit to the head without helmet, u die. there will be normal armor rating, meaning if u have armor, the damage hit the armor, u will be safe. unless the damage so strong and your armor is broken.

^^ No pls.

I hate difficulty that essentially amounts to the lightest tap being instantaneous death. That not only is about as artificially difficult as you can make it and frankly doesn't solve any of the real problems with combat, but it flat out makes certain build choices absoloutely worthless. What's the point of playing a heavy armored tank if it can't even absorb damage effectively?

Having Attributes return would help alleviate the...what was it again? Dip in Stamina regeneration? Hell, Skooma did the exact same thing!

Bethesda has never ramped up enemy HP values in an Elder Scrolls game. Their difficulty sliders affect damage taken and damage dealt only.

That is a mystery considering they did the distorted eyesight filter thing for that Sleeping Tree sap. They could have at least done something similar for alcohol in Skyrim but with a white or grey blur filter instead of purple. For TES VI, though, I would expect temporary drunken animations as well (maybe), but I think TES VI should have more animations anyway considering they have their own motion capture studio now as far as I recall. It might be kind of cool to see unique yield animations when you or NPCs surrender to the guards for example, and if they have actual dancers at taverns (including a variety of different cultural dances from the lore). Even various kinds of performers besides bards such as fire eaters and jugglers.

Generally speaking, I think that Difficulty in games is handled about as well as LGBT relations in Russia. Which is to say, very, very poorly.


The idea that, as you ramp up Difficulty, the game becomes more unforgiving, is at the core of the problem. But then, I don't find unforgiving games that kill you repeatedly HARD, just repetitive. Dark Souls is a prime examlle of this, because while enemies can be terribly unforgiving of mistakes, the fact that death is entirely meaningless means you're just running a trial and error experience over and over again.


This is am inherent problem with any game where 'Hard' means 'More Deadly'. Unless you're playing a game that wipes your character data on death and forces you to restart from square one, death, and the risk of it, only serves as a tool of repetition, not difficulty, at least not entirely. Difficulty stems from a lot more than just pattern recognition... It's about recognising how something happens, why it happens, and what happens when it happens and being able to react in a timely manner to it. While, yes, making something more unforgiving CAN make it more difficulty, it only works when you can't just reload and try again. In games, adding more variables is where difficulty comes from, not in high damage outputs and 1-Hit kills.


A really good example of this is 'Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes'. No matter the difficulty, the stakes remain the same. Defuse the bomb before the timer runs out, or lose. The Difficulty stems from the number of modules you have to contend with, and a lesser extent the time you have. THIS is a great difficulty model.


Damage and behaviour should be largely consistent throughout the settings. Maybe a little higher on Master and a little lower on Novice, but the games shouldn't rely on them to create difficulty. Rather, they should rely on the magnitide and expression of secondary mechanics. Illness and Injury, Equipment Quality and Maintinance, Primary and Secondary damage variables. On Novice, the expression of these mechanics would be muted. Present, but focused more on positive aspects to encourage their use. As difficulty increases, the positive aspects diminish, while the negative aspects increase, forcing the player to focus more attention on these secondary aspects. The ultimate goal being to increase the number of things the Player needs to pat attention to and manage in order to succeed.

I never thought about this when drinking to much alcohol getting drunk in The Elder Scrolls video games.

Now that I think about it it should be in The Elder Scrolls VI.

I remember in 2010 when I played Grand Theft Auto IV getting Niko Bellic drunk his vision would get blurred and he would trip and fall and say random words and sentences.

IMO, gameplay difficulty could improve a lot just through changing the way armor affects the character, and how damage is dealt and received. Obviously better AI is something we all want, but simple under the hood calculations are, I think, even more important. I'm in favor of combining heavy and light armor into one skill, and a hybrid DT/DR system.

• Defense

Why 1 skill instead of 2

In the past, there hasn't been a good incentive to not use heavy armor. By the endgame, you are just as silent and move just as quickly in heavy armor as you do in light armor. Bethesda has gotten around this problem by offering special sets of light armor with stealth-specific enchantments, which I don't think works that well. Lighter armors should inherently be more stealthy/less protective, and heavy armors should inherently be less stealthy/more protective -- end of story. So instead of trying to solve this problem through perks alone (although perks can help, and I'll get into that shortly) or through enchantments, placing both armors into one skill and letting calculations under the hood make up the difference makes a lot more sense. Let me explain...

Armor weight should interact with 3 variables: noise for stealth, stamina consumed while sprinting and jumping, and normal running speed. These three variables can be percentages. Let's say noise gets a multiplier of 5%, stamina consumption gets a multiplier of 5%, and running speed gets a multiplier of -5%. Now let's say we have a 10 lb suit of armor.

10 lbs x 0.05 sneak = 0.5. You are now 50% louder than if you were naked.

10 lbs x 0.05 stamina consumption = 0.5. You are now spend 50% more stamina per jump, and 50% more stamina per second of sprinting than if you were naked.

10 lbs x -0.05 running speed = -0.05. You are now 50% slower at normal running speed than if you were naked.

Obviously these specific numbers aren't a good idea, but the general idea behind it makes good sense to me.

Now onto perks: they can't totally negate the effects of the aforementioned functions, otherwise it completely defeats the purpose of combining armor skills. Weight should always affect your noise, always affect your stamina consumption, and always affect your movement speed. There could definitely be perks that mitigate these effects, but they should always be in play. This way your heavy armor will always make you a bit slower, a bit more easily fatigued, a bit less sneaky, than light armor, even by the endgame. It's one way to help keep things fresh instead of getting to that boring part of the game where you are in constant God Mode, without making the game stupidly difficult in the early game for no reason.

Damage Threshold and Damage Resistance Hybrid

So I think most of us already agree that the old DR system needs to go -- enemies become damage sponges and combat doesn't get "harder", it just gets longer. Frankly, combat becomes silly at higher levels and higher difficulties. So, I suggest a hybrid DT/DR system to replace it.

Copypasta'd from an old post of mine:

"For those of you who aren't familiar with the difference, DT negates damage by a flat rate, and DR reduces incoming damage by a percentage. In Skyrim, each point of DR reduced damage by 0.12% according to the Wiki. Neither system is great on their own, but a hybrid is awesome and tons of fun to strategize with.

Example (assume that each point of DR reduce 1.0% of income damage for the sake of easy calculating) : Armor DT = 20. Armor DR = 50. Weapon Damage = 30.

Getting hit by this weapon while wearing that armor results in 20 points of damage being negated immediately, and 50% of the remainder being resisted. So 5 damage is done."

Some people want a pure DT system for the sake of simplicity. While I see why that idea is attractive, I think it would be a mistake, because we can't forget about the other half of combat: offense. Having a hybrid system makes a lot more sense for crafting interesting, strategic, and fun offensive decisions. So with that in mind, let's talk about weapons.

• Offense

?Make Weapon Choices Unique

TES games haven't really made much distinction between fighting with mace vs fighting with an axe vs fighting with a sword. The swing speed is slightly different and the damage is slightly different between weapon types. But there isn't much else that can be done in a pure DR or pure DT system; changing those values too much would make certain weapons obviously more powerful than others. So instead we are resigned to boring similarity... Skyrim made some headway in creating difference with perks, but there is a lot of room for improvement that can only come as a result of interacting with a DT/DR hybrid.

So in the above equation roughly outlining the DT/DR system, I left out a key point: weapon attributes that can overcome DT and DR. Arrows are very sharp and should be able to severely pierce armor. They aren't concussive at all. Swords are sharp and should be able to pierce armor. They are also a bit concussive. Axes are a bit sharp, and should be able to slightly pierce armor. They are also slightly more concussive than swords. Maces and hammers aren't sharp at all and would more likely dent armor than pierce it. They are much more concussive than axes though.

Arrow: Automatically ignores 25% of DT, but no change to DR.

Sword: automatically ignores 15% of DT, and 5% of all DR.

Axe: automatically ignores 10% of DT, and 10% of DR.

Mace/Hammer: automatically ignores 5% of DT, and 15% of DR.

Now these exact numbers don't matter, but the general ratio does. This is why a hybrid DT/DR system is important -- it creates a diverse defense that in turn requires a diverse offense. With this system, there is actually some strategy and role playing behind your weapon of choice. It also lends itself to plenty of perks that could build off each weapon types strengths. Arrows may have perks that increase critical hit damage. Swords may have perks that are bleeding related, maces may have perks that are limb-crippling related, axes may have perks that do both, but at lesser efficiencies.

Equipment, not HP

As we level up, yes, we should certainly increase our HP, stamina, and magicka. Enemies should also do the same. But by the mid game, we shouldn't be upgrading our equipment to better stuff just because enemies have higher HP. This especially becomes a problem when you get to the higher levels -- its why people waste their time figuring out enchanting/potion making/smithing exploits instead of just playing the game. We should be upgrading our equipment to take down baddies who also have upgraded their equipment.

I don't want my boss fights to be difficult because the Draugr Death Overlord of Doom and Death and Anger and Power and Etc. has 10 billion HP; I want the fight to be tough because, at least in part, the boss has some kick ass armor and weapons. Some awesome loot that is rare, that I won't just find sitting around in a chest earlier on in the dungeon. Placing an emphasis on equipment over HP is a whole other huge topic, but its very integrated to this one.

Critical Hits

Sneaking shouldn't give you some mystical damage multiplier. Remember one shotting dragons on legendary difficulty while dual wielding enchanted daggers in sneak mode? I do. The power of stealth attacks ends up breaking the game. The benefit of stealth attacks should not come from a damage multiplier -- the benefit of stealth should come from the fact that you have the element of surprise, you are hidden, and you are able to take well place shots with your arrows or well placed strikes with your melee weapons. Which leads me to...

Locational Damage and Crippling

?Yep, this had to be on here. Headshots should do double damage. Limb shots should do half damage. Torso shots should do normal damage. Each of these body parts should have their individual status bars, just like they do in Fallout. Basically just transplant that, minus the VATS. Shouldn't be that hard.

I actually don't like the idea of DT systems. It just places emphasis on trying to get enough goodies to completely negate the DT in the first place, making heavily armored creatures, enemies, and yourself once again, kind of arbitrary. A++ for the long post though. I'd write more in-depth about my take on everything there, but I'm kinda pressed for time.

In short, I agree with most of what you say, but as opposed to placing the emphasis on the equipment itself, I think its more important to dictate how each individual character utilizes what they have to be a more effective fighter. You might see a character with a load out you've encountered before, only stomped into the dirt when you find out that they react and fight much differently then ones with the same stuff. Skill Trees open up far more opportunities for differentiating certain build types as opposed to relying solely on your equipment.

I kind of disagree with this. Light armor, even if it emphasizes mobility over protection, is still armor. Incorporating stealth elements into the set is something I always kind of felt was silly, especially when many Stealth builds outright trend towards avoiding combat. If anything, optimum stealth conditions should exist when being Unarmored.

Going beyond that, I never really saw the Light/Heavy armored skills as something that is representative of how well a character uses their equipment, but rather how they avoid attacks or react to when hit. A Light armor fighter would naturally make Stamina usage a top priority when it comes to moving around the battlefield, creating/closing distance between themselves and the enemy, while emphasizing dodging colossal blows that would otherwise level them. Heavy armor would conversely cover what happens when you actually end up getting hit. Gaining buffs when remaining still, decreasing the chances of an enemy being able to stagger your character or knocking them down.

I agree with the principle, but not exactly how you'd go about accomplishing that. Firstly, making it a bit of a Rock-Paper-Scissors scenario is honestly kind of...boring. I do think some elements of a weapons attributes should dictate if they're effective against certain enemies, but rather then try and emphasize those aspects by the weapon itself, I'd rather the distinction come from their own individual Skill trees. A character with focusing on the Blade skill might literally end up getting stone walled by a creatures like Golems, but when going up against similarly tanky humanoids, can (depending on what parts of the Skill tree they invested in) completely ignore their armor rating completely by depending on the Blades higher and more devastating crit rate.

*Deep breath*


Ok, here we go... I agree with the basic principle, Speedymank, but not so much the details...

First of which being:



I have come to firmly believe that the Light-Medium-Heavy divide is as detremental as it is fictitious. Armour isn't arranged into such weight classes, and the actual weight of armour differs most by coverage rather than type. A full suit if armour, regardless of its material, is going to weigh about the same, and poorer armours tend to sacrifice a good deal of mobility and protection when compared to higher qualities like Plate. All armour is going to impair your mobility and weigh you down, and it's not so much a matter of what it's made out of as much as it is how much it covers. Some armours offer better protection against some form of damage than others (for instance, Maille is almost impervious to cutting, while being vulnerable to impacts) but the idea of Light Armour really only means wearing LESS.


Of course, we aren't dealing with reality, we're dealing with a game, which brings me to the other reasons... It actually makes it harder to deal with interesting protection and damage mechanics to divide the skills.


As I said, different types of armour behave differently, offering different ranges of protection against different types of damage. All things considered equal, you wear the best armour for the type of combat you expect to see, and the heaviest (most complete) you expect to need. The problem with the divided system is, it becomes impossible to really highlight the inherent strengths and weaknesses of particular armour types, because the two (or three) styles need to maintain a competitive balance. You can't have Heavy Armour being all but immune to Piercing Damage, while Light is highly vulnerable to it, because it leave Light at a severe disadvantage against a relatively common type of attack. As such, you end up being unable to really highlight the strengths and weaknesses of different types of armour, and in doing so limit your ability to represent the different types of damage.


This need to apply diferentation, but maintain competitive balance between Armour Skills, is part of what gave rise to the Encumberance/Mobility dynamic that's often used, but again this is problematic. Because you're linking movement impairment to a particular type of equipment, you can't easily approach it from a wider angle. Clothing becomes easy to move in, Light Armour becomes a sort of hybrid, and Heavy Armour makes you slow and ponderous. But then where do you fit in a range of varieties? Wearing a fancy pantsuit, a robe, and a heavy jacket is going to slow you down more than a briastplate, but because one is clothing and the other Heavy Armour, you lose the ability to represent this.


There's also the Skill problem. Armour is armour. It protects you from damage. Using Armour is a way to minimise the damage taken when hit. Under the Light-Medium-Heavy dynamic, you're basically presenting 3 skills that do the same thing, and embody the same defencive approach. This was particularly had with Morrowind's Unarmoured being thrown into the mix, meaning that no matter what you do, your defencive approach was to take damage. No focus on Avoidance at all.


Basically, keeping the Division alive impairs how mobility can be handled and expanded, the types of damage that can be easily dealt with, the variability and characterization of types of armour, the defensive approaches that are available, and even the variability in Crafting. You can do far more, with far greater ease, by just doing away with the antiquated concept entirely. And thats not even touching on the visual clarity... I mean, half the Light Armours in Skyrim are Plate, and should rely on the same knowledge as... Well, the over Plates.


I'll be back after I've had time to mull over the Hybrid system... I personally dont like DR models, and something sits Ill about it but it's been a long night and I'm not sure if it's just my dislike of DR or if there's actually a problem...

Then you have a spreadsheety mess of "What to wear against X", despite the fact that no game with any differing damage types actually impacted what items protected against it in any significant capacity. Cloth/Leather/Chain/Plate is great and all conceptually, but it doesn't reveal its information in a easy to digest format. Heavy and Light armor manage to do just that by virtue of video game tropes already existing in most people minds when it comes to this sort of thing. That's ignoring the fact that Light/Heavy armor archetypes stopped being about differing modes of protection as opposed to flat out different combative styles, which is probably one of the better things that has happened to games in recent memory.


The Armor skills are about (Circa Skyrim, as they should be) about fighting and gameplay styles as opposed to getting a higher armor rating. Problem is, renaming them Light/Heavy style is too awkward, and the armor is a convenient medium in which to level it.

Sure, but how your character utilizes what they have is equally just as important. You're literally cutting the amount of material you have at your disposal in half if you try and shove them into one Skill. That doesn't even solve the problem that its a Skill that everyone has to participate in, no matter what their preferences are. Unarmored shouldn't return as a Skill based on principle alone, but forcing the player to level in anything is a bad move. You might as well get rid of Armor as a Skill entirely, which is an even worse move.

As opposed to leveling multiple Skills at a pitiful rate for trying to mix and match different armor types, the combined total of what your character is wearing should dictate the Armor skill that's being leveled. Promotional Nord Guy looming in the background for instance would likely be using the Medium armor Skill, while not actually donning any sets of Armor labeled Medium. That allows you to reap the smaller advantages of each Armor archetype, while using a set of abilities within the Medium Skill Tree that happens to suit your fancy over the Light or Armor ones. The Heavy Armor pieces still confer their intrinsic percentaged based damage reduction, albeit at a much smaller amount, whereas the Light Armor still confers its possible bonuses to Stamina usage/Regeneration.

By allowing you to mix and match various armor pieces while using a completely different Skill associated with it, you already have way more unique and interesting build opportunities available to you then trying sticking to the old Light/Heavy dynamic, or making a material based system that no one follows or looks at in depth to begin with.

That's part of why I don't like pure DT systems either. But if you make it a hybrid DT/DR system, and taylor weapon attributes to have different strengths and weaknesses against different kinds of armor, it creates both balance and diversity in play styles.

And to your second point, yeah we all want better AI. It should totally be a thing. But better AI won't solve the problems of 1) enemies becoming damage sponges, and 2) all the weapons feeling the same without resorting to insane buffs from perks (like the sneaking dagger buff from Skyrim). Besides, I want rare equipment to actually become rare. It should be pretty tough to find somebody in a set of ebony armor -- I don't want to find it in 10 different chests littered around the same dungeon. Make me work for the excellent equipment.

I'm not seeing where we disagree. Lightweight armor shouldn't be inherently stealthy, but it should be stealthier by virtue of it not being as heavy as heavyweight armor. Same logic applies to clothing -- it weighs less than lightweight armor and should be even more stealthy. No clothing should be even stealthier. I think the weight of what you're wearing should factor into noise made. And then perks can mitigate, but never completely remove those effects.

(Also, note I'm using the terms lightweight and heavyweight on purpose. It would be best if we totally did away with the hard delineations "light armor" and "heavy armor". Let the strengths and weaknesses of the armor's weight exist on a spectrum.)

Frankly, I'm more of a fan of keeping the basics simple enough to digest at first glance. The moment I have to design a spreadsheet to illustrate what kind of damage is effective against what, things have gone too far. Basically as long as any given system is sensible, like Blunt weapon trees containing more options for crushing an enemies armor, that's about all it really needs to do.

What I'm more for is that a weapons secondary effects really shouldn't come into the foreground anyway until you begin to invest points into that specific Tree. A character with no Skill or Technique in Blades/Ax/Blunt should still be able to cause damage to any given enemy, but they miss out on any of the benefits of the weapon type that a character specializing in them would otherwise have. It both helps get rid of the age old problem of being useless with given a Weapon you haven't used before, while still emphasizing how you wield it being far more important.

Light armor really shouldn't contain many buffers to any Stealth builds beyond noise generated, which should be a paltry amount all things considered. Armors secondary effects should focus in on how each possible build type avoids or mitigates damage, as combat is their chief function.

I'm actually not referring to the AI here, but rather the Skill systems themselves. By giving Perk Technique Trees a greater emphasis in differentiating how combat and equipment work, it allows for more robust and frankly unorthodox builds take to the forefront of the game and changes up how a character might try to approach an enemy just by trying to judge things at first glance. Two heavy armored warriors might employ completely different statistics based on how they use a particular Skill, as opposed to dictating it through equipment alone.

To summarize what I'm saying, I'm all for giving weapons and armor secondary values, but I think for the most part those values should only begin to come apparent or effective once you begin to invest in that particular Skill. That allows for a brief and easy digest summary of what the equipment does at its most base, allowing for a more thorough and in depth system that is dictated by the Skill they are associated with.

The way damage works in previous TES games could easily require a spreadsheet -- there are calculations behind the scenes that affect exactly how much damage you are going to do. The DT/DR system isn't any different in that regard, nor is it really any more complicated. All you really need to know is "swords do more damage against plate, maces/hammers do more damage against leather/other kinds of materials, and axes do moderate damage to both. All of them will damage anything, but different weapons match up better against different armors".

And again, I like the idea of having weapon skill trees that grant different effects, but TES needs to change the way damage is dealt, because otherwise enemies will become damage sponges again, and that's just obnoxious. Just having perks that grant buffs won't solve any of the problems that already exist.

If you put your perks into sword damage, then you will definitely do more damage with swords than with maces/hammers or axes. Leveling up and perks would still be absolutely essential to character growth in a DT/DR system. The only difference is that choosing one of those weapon types has an actual consequence, and makes the player really feel like s/he is specializing in a specific kind of combat. Gameplay with a sword should be fundamentally different than gameplay with a mace.

Again, agreed. Armor weight and therefore noise made should be the only intrinsic factor that affects stealth. Enchantments will still exist and that's cool, but they shouldn't be the primary means of crafting armor for stealth users.

I think you're misunderstanding my emphasis on equipment. I don't want to do away with perks, or make them unimportant -- I want the equipment and the perks match up so that your choices on where to spend those perks have significant effects. You can't have one without the other. Just look at Skyrim:

The weapons skills had a mountain of specific perks, but the combat never really felt any different between weapon types. By the endgame, the only difference between weapon types is that one will do incredible damage, and the others won't. Play the game with a new character, invest in a different weapon type, and you end up playing the same exact game again. The combat doesn't have any real difference between sword and mace, despite the fact that they have specific perks. It's a bad system.

Implementing a DT/DR system along with specific inherent weapon attributes -- attributes that are very modest at first, but become pronounced when you invest in the right perks -- is the best way to make weapon types feel different. A sword master can heroically charge into an enemy wearing full plate, knowing his sword will make quick work of the armor. That same sword master may have to adjust tactics for an enemy wearing studded armor, playing more defensively and striking precisely to make use of critical locations. A barbarian with a warhammer can crush a field of bandits wearing leather armor, but will need to strategically cripple the limbs of a knight in full plate.

I never said anything about how damage was utilized in previous games was decent. The problems were less the systems themselves and more about how difficulty sliders were handled too boot.

And frankly, given that Fallout 4's Survival mode damage rates are actually fairly balanced across the board, I think the damage sponge enemies are frankly dead in the water. Unless Bethesda for some ungodly reason decide not to take what that mode offers into account, which would be a monumentally stupid decision on their part.

And the problem here is that I have never, not once, played a game that had those systems in place and felt like their inclusion actually impacted anything. It strikes me as a bunch of filler statistics that really don't address anything nor contribute to the game in any capacity. The differences aren't noticeable enough to actually justify its inclusion, and if you to exaggerate their impact, becomes an obviously gamey situation where you're still encouraging hard coded Rock Paper Scissors system.

You're thinking too small. The last thing Skill Trees should deal with is adding to the amount of damage the player can dole out. The amount of damage contributed should be dictated by the base Skill level, but even then I'd regulate it to being a very small amount when compared to what Attributes can do, which are applied across the board. You would deal less damage with a specific weapon, but the amount of damage wouldn't be detrimental to your player, and you should be able to beat down modest enemies with some level of ease. You just miss out on the special characteristics and abilities those weapons can potentially bring to the table, which make a difference in more difficult fights.

Here's the thing. Skyrim adding Skill Trees on the whole was a good idea. Probably the best thing Bethesda has added to the Skills since...ever. Their implementation however, should be thrown completely out the window. Because at the end of the day, they completely missed the point for the most part of what Skill Trees should actually do, and that's developing your character in different ways that go beyond "Do X% Damage" or "Stamina usage decreased by X%.". Those are things Attributes and Skill levels should cover.

Basically, if you add more then one characteristic to a certain archetype at its base, you're probably pushing things a little too far.

Fallout 4 is garbage, even on Survival mode. Despite some small improvements in certain areas, it is easily the most disappointing game I've ever played. Bullet sponges are certainly not dead in the water, even with the most recent updates.

Fallout: New Vegas did it, and it worked very well. The game overall was lifeless, but the necessity of high caliber bullets for certain enemies was well done. You can mow down a gang of raiders with a .32 pistol, but would hardly scratch a Deathclaw with the same weapon. Combined, a Deathclaw and 5 bandits may have the same total value of HP, but their armor makes the gameplay totally different. That's a huge impact.

Even Dark Souls -- the best combat system in any video game to date -- has a hybrid DT/DR system under the hood. Every item of clothing you wear adds a flat damage reduction value. And then on top of that, FROM Software has totally bought into the idea of asymmetry in armor vs weapon efficiencies. Individual armor pieces have their own resistances based on types of damage. Fighting a guy with a spear? Forget about using armor that has great slash DR, you need armor with great thrust DR. Fighting a boss that's weak to lightning? Find a way to do some lightning damage. Are you unable to do either one of those things because you don't have the necessary stat requirements? Then svck it up and get better at the game, or go level up so you can equip the right kind of equipment. Dark Souls has more diverse, unique, and satisfying play styles than any other game I can think of, and it accomplishes this feat by combining leveling with equipment asymmetry.

You keep using the phrase "Rock-Paper-Scissors system", but it isn't appropriate for what I'm suggesting. Pokemon uses that kind of dynamic with its types. Water beats Fire. Fire beats Grass. Paper beats Rock. You'd be an idiot to use Grass Pokemon against a Fire Pokemon, and so you use a different type. These games get their diversity through using different tools for different jobs. I want to use different strategies for different jobs. Big difference.

I wouldn't increase the raw damage players can dole out through perks -- I would accentuate the abilities of weapons to ignore DT and DR. Weapon skill would affect base damage, and weapon perks would affect DT/DR bypassing. And again, this is just a narrow topic. I'm only talking about about how perks interact with a DT/DR system, not every perk that can possibly exist. There can be perks that allow for the execution of cool moves (again, weapon specific moves would be great. A lunging stab with a sword, a swinging whirlwind with an axe, a skull crushing power move with a hammer), perks for executing counter attacks, perks that increase weapon swinging speed, perks that reduce stamina consumption, perks that allow you to cancel a swing halfway through to fake out an enemy, etc.

Do you mean Attributes, like from pre-Skyrim games? Talk about clunky... They're never coming back, and good riddance. We don't need them. Skyrim did the right thing in simplifying the attributes to Health, Stamina, and Magicka.

I'm just not seeing how this system is clunky. It's very simple. It's even simpler than Dark Souls -- which isn't a fringe game anymore -- wherein people somehow have managed to figure out the damage system, despite the complete lack of handholding. I even expect there to be a bit of handholding in TES. It could consist of a window that reads almost exactly like what you see below and be sufficient.

There are literally 3 things you have to remember: swords pierce DT, maces and hammers bypass DR, and axes split the difference.

From there, you can strategize...

Swords: Be aggressive against enemies with high DT. Be more cautious high DR enemies, and focus on inflicting critical hits.

Maces/Hammers: Be aggressive against enemies with high DR. Be more cautious with high DT enemies, and focus on crippling hits.

Axes: Be aggressive or cautious as different situations arise. Focus on inflicting bleeding damage (as it was in Skyrim or some other kind of damage as of yet to be determined).

Also, this DT/DR hybrid and perks system works no differently from your perk-centric approach in regards to easing a player into their character type. You will still know what the skills do -- no difference there. On top of that, you will know what the weapons do.