You know, there's quite some contradictions here (I mean, even in what I say). Are Altmers really better or not than Orcs at magic?

At level one, yeah by a LONG shot thanks to that very powerful +50 magicka bonus. Don't believe me? The main factor that determines how good at (combat) magic a character is lingers on those two questions : can I finish the next encounter before I'm out of magicka, and if not, how long will I need to regen enough magicka to end it. The Altmer racial bonus gives them at level 1 50% more spells to cast before point 1 becomes an issue, and they ALSO regen 50% more magicka per second which also makes them much better for point two. As such, there's NO doubt an Altmer is a plain better mage than any other race at starting levels. And I didn't even talk about their racial power yet.

Orcs are better warriors than Altmers mostly thanks to their racial power though. That and the fact they usually get a couple levels earlier the main perks in the melee weapon skills thanks to their headstart.

You know, it's a lot different I'd say. When you walk up to someone and ask them about that big building in the middle of town, in Morrowind everyone would say the exact same thing. And that's mostly all there is to it. Just some general vague info about the subject.

But in Skyrim it's bad. It's bad because it's NOT about you asking info on a vague topic and getting a standard fit all answer. Skyrim is a world were (if we are to believe what we see) each time you meet someone in the streets you didn't see more than 1h ago, you'd imediatly say "Hello good day to you. I used to be a doctor you know". Every single time, even if that person was just walking past you without paying you any attention at all, and always always you'd add the second part with those exact same words despite the fact nobody cares at all.

And yet they represented more and gave more variable. Which is -exactly- what we want.

Now talk about levels 5 - 81.

I'm of the school that something that represents more in a computer RPG game rules isn't such a good idea in the first place. Catch all multipurpose numbers that affect nearly every you do doesn't promote nice variety in the "builds". The largely decoupled and independent skills in Skyrim coupled with the modularity and restrictions of perk numbers make more for diversity than the bland "everything at 100" attribute system there was in past instalements.

Perks in Skyrim could be a lot better than they are currently though and add a lot more variety, I won't dispute that. The whole of them form a rather boring picture but the idea is very sound and has room for a lot of improvement. If only they put a real game designer behind them instead of asking an artist to make nice looking constelations and try to fit the perks on them which inevitably ended up as extremely linear :/

The options for combat are wonderful in Skyrim, but what about non-combat skills like Speechcraft, Bartering, and Luck? Those are essential to RPGing, but Bethesda cut those functions out and made it a combat-centric game. Essentially, Bethesda is saying you must fight in the game, so choose magic or combat. Sure, there's stealth, but there's no option to do what a good thief does which is to solve problems without being seen and without murdering anyone. There are only a handful of quests that involve the use of Speechcraft, rendering it almost completely useless. Any quest that does incorporate Speechcraft, you can still get around it and solve the quest. So essentially, no matter who your character is or what his/her skills, they can get the job done.

What's the point in that? Shouldn't there be things I can't do without the necessary skill? That's what is supposed to make my character specialized and diverse from someone else's.

so having prices go down based on your speechcraft skill further supplimented by perks in the skill tree means the system is remeoved entierly?


Also Luck exists in the lockpicking skill tree, two perks increase the amount of gold and special items you find, esentially replicatiing the use of LUCK in games, which was largely a "get more gold" attribute.

Except - it didn't.

Representation is all RPGs have ever been. Page me when we have Holodecks.
Variables=a believable realityWhat else could it be? I am he who was once him, so yes, I do know.


And again, you are in denial of what they did, or, like I think, never really played any older ES. If you were a ship, you'd be Bukee, and Dragonborn1 class, so we all know how much validity your opinions have.

Aside from pricing, where is Speechcraft useful?

I can think of at least 10+ quests that had a speechcraft options that let you get through the quest easier.

Beyond that however speechcraft has always been 95% about getting better prices.

Don't get me started on the flawed economics in the game. You can literally make enough gold to buy a house in an hour worth of gameplay. That's what makes the Speechcraft tree so useless. You can get rich even at level 1 and with the base Speechcraft skill.

The Lockpicking tree is nice for finding treasures and gold, but again, this goes back to my statement about Skyrim's unbalanced economy.

All RPGs have an unbalanced enomy, everything from Neverwinter Nights all the way to the FPS/RPG hybrid of STALKER.

It is partically impossible not to.

A perk is a variable. A skill is a variable. By that account, there are easily a lot more variables in Skyrim than in past games.


Aside from pricing, where was mercantile useful in past games? Why are so many of those that complain that Skyrim was dumbed down because so and so feature is missing when most of those features never really existed in the first place in the older games?

In Morrowind, Speechcraft played a tremendous role. With a low Speechcraft skill, you couldn't access certain information about quests. Worse yet, if your disposition with a merchant was too low, they'd refuse to serve you. That has major implications on your interaction with the game and strategy.

So... 10+ quests in... how many?

And wasn't that what Mercantile was for? And Haggling? And Disposition?


And Haggling? And Disposition?

All those quests that "needed" it had alternate means to get said infroamtion, rendering the deposition partically useless.



Haggalng was preety useless in past games. to the point I forgot it was there becuase no matter what my merchentile skill was andn o mater how high thier deposition was they never budget more then a few gold coins

Dude, play Skyrim. We have less variables, fact. Like I said before, half the perks are numerical variables, adding nothing new to what was already there, a fourth of the other perks were already represented through other means in previous ES, or they are magical prerequisite reductions. While I want perks AND attributes, the perks as is, in Sky don't add a whole lot of diversification. Very few are actually unique. Also, perks are perquisites, not inherent defining variables. they represent two different things. How hard is that to understand?


...MK, Merari school these fools. God knows where gpstr went. Maybe hes a Sherpa now, I don't [censored] know?

Not useless.
An alternaticve way. Which is something that Skyrim sorely lacks.
An RPG needs many routes to the same goal. Replayability needs it even more.

That's the nature of RPGing. There are alternative ways to get things done, so what if I want to use Speechcraft to get that information? That's my point exactly.

In Skyrim they give you an alternate way usually by beating the crap out of siad person with your fists, Or using intemidation which is also dependant on your level.

At least they made the stuff on the shelves respawn, so a thief can go in someone's house and steal everything on the shelves and then come back a month later and hit it again. Something you could not do in Oblivion or Morrowind because the stuff on the shelves never respawned.

Can you intimidate Bandits from not attacking you?

That is nice. I do like how most of the shopkeeper's inventory is in sight and updates regularly, which makes for more sustainable thieving.

Well sure you can. At least I did it once that I remember but mostly I've been going through two ways to handle bandits so it doesn't happen often :
1) they didn't see me
2) they didn't see me before getting turned to ashes by a fireball

In Oblivion, a high personality, could yield to certain otherwise always hostile NPCs, and enemies. Not dialogue per se, but a representation of the personable means of neutralizing conflict. The same exact attribute variable that let you wield weapons around the Unicorn without it going insta aggro.