One cannot simply be done with TES.

So you read about the storyline? Kind of annoying, from what I gather it's basically only an extended daedric quest. Oh well. From what I've heard the side quests, exploration and dungeons are awesome, though, so it might be worth buying it.

With maxed Enchanting and every perk, you can give ONE piece of gear +100 magicka. That's one piece of gear. You could also do 100% magicka regen or 40% cast reduction, again on a single piece of gear. You have a chest, a helmet, gauntlets, leggings, a ring, boots, a necklace and possibly a shield. You have PLENTY to work with. You can get 500 magicka, 300% faster magicka regen, or 80% cast reduction for two seperate schools or 40% for four.

And this isn't including the 10% better enchantment from that one black book, or using any legal, non-exploits.
It just becomes absolutely trivial with the respec.

I've never been big on exploration and dungeons. Only time I have was FO3, and that's because FO3 stuck a bunch of skill books, bobbleheads and unique and powerful weapons in random dungeons to encourage it. The result was that exploring rewarded you with stat bonuses and superior weapons (sometimes) to what you'd find in stores. Skyrim unfortunately offers a system where crafting gear is always better, making exploration more or less trivial once you've found every enchantment. Most fun I had with Skyrim was my first character to utilize enchanting trying to collect all the enchantments. Afterwards there wasn't really much to do...

Basically I like a sense of progress along with a sense of customization. And not customization for customization's sake, where for example I give myself enchants for Two-handed when I know one-handed is absolutely superior, but balanced customization where there truly are multiple paths worth pursuing. Unfortunately, Skyrim has thusfar offered none of this to me.

Kind of off-topic, but have you played Planescape Torment? If you liked NV, you'll def love Torment, I recommend trying it out if you haven't already.

And yeah, Skyrim is only good for one playthrough unfortunately, especially with the mess-up with the factions and side quests. At least this DLC gives a lot more quality content for that one playthrough, by the sounds of it.

Play Dark Souls... you feel a lot better

Do you understand what this reflects about the mindset of the developers? They don't care. This game isn't even supposed to be difficult at this point, it's just mindless awesome-button pressing. If they had done any work at all in making the perks actually mean something, in making basic equipment actually mean something, in making the crafting system less obnoxiously exploitable; this game would be significantly better. Allowing the player to do this is Bethesda saying "we didn't put any thought into planning this and neither should you". It's disgusting.

Exactly. This is something where the principle is more important than the actual impact. The way this reflects Bethesda's game design is horrendous.

This is basically Todd Howard's "play as you want" philosophy run amok. Listen, that's a nice sentiment and all, but no, games need rules and boundaries to be thought-provoking. Without rules and boundaries you can do whatever you want to the point where it's a mindless gaming experience. Some people may be fine with that, but some of us like to be challenged. For those of us who like a challenge, Skyrim is like an embarassing boxing match where it keeps trying to through the fight by purposefully tripping, making comical wind-up gestures for several seconds, and purposefully missing so we have a chance to knock them in the back.

It's depressing because for us, it says Bethesda is going in a completely different direction than what we want. It's not an "oh they had an off-day when they did this," no, it's "we think the player should get whatever the hell he wants at all times and to hell with any challenge or thought involved because those have potential to upset the player." Some of us don't wanna be babysat and told how great we are non-stop through gameplay, spoiled with whatever we like. Some of us seek a challenge to overcome. Skyrim doesn't offer any.

Because I know how much you have a foundation state of disfavor for the developers to start with. This base concern emanates from a seed planted several years ago with the adaptation of another series, that shall remain unnamed. This maintained opposition continues to this day.

I see you lounging at home with a beverage of choice, along with other parties at the end of a line strung along a chat room or iPOD. This includes a constant real time play-by-play with other party members, detailing the aspects and chiming in ever so often with the favored language of choice..."What the Hell is/was that?"

Now, I ask...
Are you playing for the good things to find? Or is the entertainment satisfied with the less than favorable?
Does the movie critic actually enjoy watching movies or is there a greater sensuality absorbed with the delivery of the reviews?

I keep thinking back to the first time I managed to get to Windhelm on foot and seeing Ulfric and thinking "Yes! I can end this destructive conflict and bring order to Skyrim!" and then I hit him with Unrelenting Force and ran up to smash him to death, just like he'd done to Torygg and I find out "Oh, I can't take out Ulfric, not because he's a really tough opponent, not because he has lots of bad-ass bodyguards, but because he's an immortal NPC and he seems to be aware of that." Playing New Vegas and then this is like being demoted from a university to an elementary school.

Who gives a flying f$@# what people do with their characters in a single player game... All you people complaining about respecs need to get a life.

I can't believe this thread is still going...Actually yes I can. I'm surprised we don't have that many complaint threads about respec. I was expecting at least what three on every page.

Personally I would have rather them not impliment this feature as choice and consequence is a staple of RPGs, but it is optional and its a single player game so I don't understand how anyone can make arguements against it. You are not forced to use it so don't. If it bothers you that other people will use it then you really need to mind your own business and not worry about what others do or how they play their game.

Are you [censored] kidding me? They actually put this in the game?

...

At this point, they might as well just scrap character development completely and commit to the action-advenutre approach, making every character proficient at everything by default, and having three fixed difficulty modes - easy, medium, and hard.

I haven't read the rest of the thread after this post, but I agree with this.

I hate the idea of a Perk respec, and I've mentioned that several times in the last month or so.

However; Bethesda put it into the game. It's there, the mechanic is fair and not broken as you have to sacrifice something to get it.

The biggest benefit is that they made it easy to ignore/not use (for people like myself who don't like the idea).

I'll live with it, and I won't use it, but at least the feature is well done.

You can, but doesn't mean you have to. Read my tag line.

You don't have to sacrifice anything. I'm so beset with dragons throwing their souls at me I could respec every tree twice.

No, I'm upset because I've followed Bethesda games since Morrowind and loved all of them. Then one game they published instead of developing, I went into it listening to the comments of "it's gonna svck because Bethesda didn't make it" and ironically, I was absolutely blown away by the game, with it easily becoming my favorite of Bethesda's published titles. Now I'm on Skyrim and not only does it fail to compare (expected), but it's my least favorite of all Bethesda's titles. It feels like Skyrim can do nothing to entertain me until FO4, and even then I have to ask what will become of FO4. I voice complaints because I want Bethesda to know people like myself exist and I want them to know exactly what such people want, thus many of my posts attempt to be anolytical and get to the core of the problem/the well-designed.

Yesterday I was overjoyed with what I'd heard from Dragonborn, loving the concept of the Black books with Hermaeus Mora reminding me of how good the story of SI was. Hell, I was ready to buy Dawnguard and Hearthfire in anticipation for DB actually earning the $20 pricetag. Today I learn that the Black books can be reassigned and reactivated at any given time to change the powers you get, and today I'm able to watch a full Let's Play vid and immediately find a plot hole of sorts (but I'll save that for another thread). And then there's this, where there's not only a perk respec option, but it's constant, allowing you to respec perks however many times you like with absolutely no limitation on it's uses.

I'm here because if not Bethesda, then what company? I don't play many games these days because over time, devs are delivering less and less bang for your buck and perhaps I'm simply growing out of just wanting another generic game to eat up my excess free time; I want something more. Bethesda used to provide me with games that filled my excess free time without requiring me to play another game at all.

Morrowind and Oblivion had their faults and one could become overpowered easily and have it all, yes, but if one limited himself based on the character's personality (mage character joins the mages guild but not the fighters), then one would see differences within the world and within the power of those characters. It was fun to compare and create character ideas and witness the strengths and weaknesses of each.
Skyrim, on the other hand, practically trivializes any character personality involvement with the faction choices by constantly forcing you to make absolutely ridiculous decisions that I cannot, for the life of me, create a character that would actually accept those. To make matters worse, the factions are a couple hours of content, incapable of seperating and defining characters and making them different from one another. And while yes, a few items are gained that help do this in, say, the DB and the College, this is again trivialized by craftable gear that's always superior.

I would not be complaining if I didn't mean it. I wouldn't be complimenting if I didn't mean it either. You can clearly see what I want and if you're truly curious, you can find my posts from yesterday praising what I saw. But no, this is genuine disappointment and genuine concern.


Again...

I'm more than certain that every person voicing discontent in this thread will not be using the perk respec option.
It's not about these people being unable to control themselves and feeling tempted to use it, it's not about these people caring about if YOU use it or not.
It's about the principle of the thing. It's about how this option reflects onto the design philosophy of Bethesda. Some of us want a challenge, and this basically screams "make the player feel like a winner, don't challenge him and let him do whatever he wants." That doesn't work for some of us.


As an alternative question, let me ask what part of this DLC is challenging? I might not complain if alongside this perk respec option, there was plenty of challenge. But as for challenging parts? I haven't seen them. I've seen a guy beat Miraak with two health potions and basic attack spam...

Oh come on. That whole "it's optional, therefore it's okay" argument is complete garbage. A horrible excuse for bad game design.

I could apply that same logic to all sorts of crap that has no business being in a TES game. How about putting a magical rocket launcher in that will home in and kill all enemies within a dungeon? It's an optional feature of a singleplayer game, therefore it doesn't matter how OP it is or how much it [censored] on the game's setting... right?

Really tho... People have some sick mental issues.


OMG RESPEC?!?!? RaaaaaaaaaaaaaaGE!!!.... Really?


Shaaaaaaaaad up.


I mean, i have no plans to respec anything... But if i did, whoooop deeee doooooOO.

Ummm... then don't use it?

It's easy to avoid, and if you don't use it, it has zero chance to affect your game. So...

Is the game, because of one easily avoidable feature, somehow not living up to the standard that you've created entirely inside your own mind?

I don't like the Perk respec option either, but I'm not going to let one insignificant mechanic ruin a spectacular game and DLC.

Go play Call of Duty you untermensch.

I just don't see how you can continue to insist that this game or this DLC are spectacular.

Never played CoD....DurrHH..


How about you go see a shrink. And tell him about your mental issues regarding repsects in a single player RPG game.

I know. You are not playing Skyrim because you are a fan of TES. You are "scouting". Because you want to get a feel of what's to come with another game.

Your not passionate for what Skyrim could be. Your concerned for what FO might be.

And that is not the language for this interm....

Well it does seem good at what it does.

It's just that what it does goes in a completely different direction than what you or I want.


I'd be happy with either, tbh. I was a TES fan before I was a FO fan; I'm not a FO dinosaur.
It's just my expectations for TES are lower, because tbh even FO3 seemed more thought-provoking and RPG-ish than Oblivion. I guess Bethesda just makes more of an effort to match the Fallout theme (which is, by nature, thought-provoking) and does a fairly good job at it.

But yeah as I've asked, how should I enjoy Skyrim? I've tried asking, but given what I want, never gotten an answer. For example some people praise the exploration of Dragonborn. That's great and all, but that's really not for me...