But yeah, that's what I mean about the shops. Even Morrowind and Oblivion had shops that just had what you needed, money-wise.

If they're trying to take TES in a new direction by sacrificing customizable gameplay for "doped out graphics, man!", this will probably be my last TES purchase. I want to choose how my character develops in a detailed level. I'll be blatantly honest with this: I think the perks are stupid. The explanation that was given of cutting out stat development to get right to the gravy of increasing the size of your reservoir is a weak explanation. Those statistics affected more than your maximum HP/MP, etc. It was how strong your spells were or how much damage an attack did. What if you want to be a hand-to-hand expert but you want to go light armor not heavy armor and you want to be a Redguard? Then what? You're forced to be weak because you have no natural strength? You can't create and name a class anymore so you don't have the effect of wearing a cool title around with you wherever you go? Really? I liked seeing the title of my class displayed under my name. This game has really removed the feeling of individuality. Can't wait to see what they come up with next....

I like how the shopkeepers lose money but that is pretty much it, some need more gold then they have.

The general idea if perks I think is good but they should have kept attributes and let attributes dictate our physical ability and the perks should allow us to be proficient in the skill we are leveling up, but instead of retooling the system Bethesda gutted something else. It needed to be reworked and retooled to work with the perks that would have added more depth and more customization, but as perks stand they are mainly just percentile increases nothing more.

Love--- Almost everything

Hate--- NPC disarming shouts. Weird difficulty spikes ( All the bad guys in a dungeon are at best speed bumps for me then the boss one shots me over and over-- he could probably kill ALL his men at the same time )

(*cough*)Two Worlds(*cough*)
Except you received skills instead of perks and you could level those up individually.
What Bethesda did is actually, I would say, a step down from that, by placing percentage where an attribute was previously. And you only get to choose one perk per level. And you're forced, on top of that, to pick perks, on occasion that you might not actually want to invest in because the perk you do want is on the other side of it. But you might have to spend your next perk point on making sure you're strong enough to survive first.

Of course, it's ludicrously easy to level up smithing to get yourself a few perk points right away should you want them, but not so easy to level up once you pass fifteen.

But you might not want smithing. Then it takes even longer to level up because that's the only skill that you can just level up that quickly besides enchanting. And with there being no option to undo perk points once you've invested them, if you screw up once in the creation of your character, you have to start over.

And I've noticed that, too, is another thing that people have had to do a lot: Start over. I don't want to be forced to sit through an introduction that I can't skip over and over again just because I'm being forced to redistribute perk points because this first experimental character turned out to be a disaster. Whatever happened to this game being about playing the way you want to play it, like Bethesda claimed it would be? I can't play it the way I want to play it because I have to spend perk points right away where I don't want to spend them and I can't do something like dish out 100,000 gold to some dude hiding out somewhere to get a respec. (Not a reference just an idea.)

Whatever happened to just leveling up your proficiency in a weapon by using it and not being forced to spend additional points on top of those points that you've legitimately earned? The perks should be something to make you feel just like an ultimate (whatever-you-are-here), not be what's crucial to the gameplay. They changed the whole style of TES.

Like I keep saying, if this game wasn't Elder Scrolls, I would like it just fine.

I love and hate everything in the game. I know that's wierd, but just a few choice examples.

I love the world design, but because of it's memorable strength, it draws attention to it's weakness. Namely the scale. Whiterun for example, seems disproportionately small for the so called "Jewel of all the holds."

I love the combat in general. It's kinetic, satisfying, and nuanced enough, while also being sufficiently character-development driven. But I hate the obvious balance exploits that arise, which makes combat boring eventually, even if you don't intentionally exploit.

I love the music, but for some reason, it reminds me that I like Morrowind's score better. I have no idea why. Nostalgia probably. I still have it set to play when my computer goes into Screensaver mode.

Most of all, I love the crafting, but I also hate something about the crafting. Particularly smithing. The balance issues are a different matter, my problem is just how easy it is to get top-tier equipment. Vendors sell just far too many materials, but I assume I'm in a tiny minority of people who enjoyed working ever so hard to obtain a full set of Adamantium armor in Tribunal. Well,without killing that one guy.

I agree with that, the perks have replaced attributes with percent boost basically. Gusts have changed everything pretty much with this series. Most for the worst in my humble opinion.

I think the perks should be based on your skill where ur you are proficient in that skill you can choose the perk you wish to have if your skill is high enough.

Attributes should dictate stamina, health, magic, magic regeneration, luck, and carrying capacity and your overall magic. I would think that would give us a deeper better system that would allow us farther diversity when creating our ideal character.

I agree we are forced to get perks that we do not want to level up our characters but I have yet to redo a character of mine because I have set vision with each one sane as other ES games I am not defending this system but I never redo a character.

I do have perfectionist tendencies when I'm gaming, lol. Especially when every point I spend really counts. And I do agree, Criminal, with how the game kind of leaves you feeling sort of split down the middle on pretty much every aspect of the game from visual to story to the gameplay itself. I have to say this though because it has been bothering me for a long time. I live in Washington. There are conifer trees here out the yin-yang. Skyrim's conifers look so WRONG! The branches are stuck on perfectly horizontally and stiff and everything is stiff and sticks out too straight and it bothers me! It gives the trees a bare-bones quality up close. Bothers. Me.

Love or hate?

I'm more in the like category. The theoretical like. Assuming they ever get the game up to snuff with patches. Im on my 7th play through and still have been unable to finish some quests.