Not true at all.

The perk trees in Skyrim deliberately prevent you from being all-powerful in many skills. By the end-game, you can only fully develop 3-4 perk trees, depending on how many perks you invest in secondary skills. In previous games, you could level every skill to 100, and there was no difference between a mage who had leveled Destruction to 100 and a warrior who had done the same. In Skyrim, if you've been building a character who specializes and perks in Illusion you're naturally going to be a ton more powerful than a character who just leveled their Illusion skill to 100.

In the end, are you still powerful? Yes. But it's a huge difference between being some kind of demi-god who can specialize in every school of magic while twirling a broadsword and pickpocketing the guards and being a character who actually specializes in specific skill sets.

Yes, "units" is a very good and accurate description. Units can have very complex and distinct attributes, and you can grow attached to them as "characters", like your units in the X-COM games. So the elements that make a rpg are not exclusively attributes and character development (because a lot of games have them without being rpg), or an interactive storyline which can develop in different directions (because a lot of games have them without being rpg), or having choices and consequences (because a lot of games have them without being rpg) or an imaginary world to explore (because a lot of games have them without being rpg)...well you see where this is going and I believe we are pretty much agreed on that rpg involves a number of different elements and how these elements interact to form the overall experience.

I think rpg-fans in general likes game-mechanics, be it strategy game mechanics or action game mechanics or whatever and will accept influences from other genres as long as the mechanics work. Which is why I always keep arguing with people about the concept of "rpg-elements", because it rpg-elements is so open to influences that it can be anything, and I think it is more useful to break it down and just talk game-mechanics. Like YOU do right here:


That is mechanics...I like mechanics, and they are important in any game, be it rpg, strategy, social network or any other form of game.

What the above posters say is true; I recently to test a mod used the default character. Wanting to test sneaking up on someone in a dungeon I set his sneak to 100 with the console. He was now an okay sneak but still struggled to remain hidden. My actual thief character when in the same place going for the same NPC could sneak right up behind him with no problems.

In oblivion, both characters would have been just as good as each other. In Skyrim, without perks your character will not be able to reach full potential, in Oblivion, simply by having all Skills at 100 you became a master of all trades.

yes, skills and perks and attributes should all have there place in TES games.

I agree they've been removing spells since Morrowind. I also didn't like how short the factions were, and the lack of enemy archtypes.

From my understanding it goes back to Arena, I have talked to several members about that but I joined with Morrowind.
Yes they did take some spells from Morrwind to Oblivion then they guuted the system from Oblivion to Skyrim.
We have a handfull of the effects we once had and we are very limted and restriced when it comes to what the magic system in Skyrim offers in terms of the lacking spell effects and spell creation and mages suffer becasue we cannot tailer our spells to suit out characters.

It's all about "how". Athletics and acrobatics were grinds that had to be improved. They were also forced on your character. Both bad things. OTOH they offered differentiation - you could make a fast, agile character. Skyrim threw the baby out with the bathwater in this regard. The idea would have been to find a way to retain character differentiation without forcing the skill on the player and without making it a grind.

Skyrim is a great game and fun to play. Many aspects are far superior to its predecessors. Others ... not so much.

I would have loved to see all three, too, though I probably would prefer seeing it a bit differently.

Attributes - Like you said, they'd define your character both mentally and physically. They'd operate on a general level with each one affecting multiple skills and/or gameplay effects. They'd need to be handled differently than they were in Oblivion, though.
Skills - They'd be used for more specific tasks, much as they already do. I would stick with skills like one-handed, two-handed, etc.
Perks - I'd strip out general perks like Armsman and fold them back into the skill. Perks should focus on specialization within the skill. For example, you're leveling One-handed, but do you want to specialize in one-handed swords, axes or maces? There's a hint of that now, but it's really under done. Most of the perks focus on general aspects with only minor attempts at specialization that are often not worth the price. It really needs to be the other way around.

I'm in the Skyrim camp on this one. Less differentiation at the start and more at the end. MW and Ob were the reverse, more differentiation at the start and less at the end. What do I want? More differentiation at both start and end.

The fact that Speech is in the Stealth category doesn't matter one bit. It doesn't limit you in any way.

Those categories are largely meaningless anymore, now that you're not picking one as a focus.

This here is more my thinking and what I would like to see in the game. Attrib utes define your characteristics. Skills is how good you are with the skill set your using. Perks should also make more of a meaningful difference than what they do in Skyrim. Mitheledh a very good post on what should be set in this game. I would love the depth of that system.

Actually, Morrowind got bashed for being so bloody damned small, compared to Daggerfall. We didn't even get the whole province, just the volcanic island part of it. And the majority of bashes were used on the console kiddies and shooter babies and their every third post of 'But if it were muuuuuuultiplayeeeeeeeeer...!'

At least until they created the MP thread and banished the clueless there to keep other threads from spontaneously combusting.

And frankly, the series has been degrading since Daggerfall.....which 15 years after its release, still has players and an active modding communuity (which has to write its own tools, btw). Arena was the 'simplest' in terms of CRPGing......yet it was innovative. You could go =outside=. You had a whole bloody continent to ramble upon. Sure it was limited in quest structure, graphics were 8 bit, etc etc, but it was something special....and at the time, unheard of.
Then came Daggerfall. Which despite the pulled features, deactivated options and endless march of causeway errors, earned GOTY back in the day when Ultima, Might and Magic, and just about every other classic CRPG series was alive and kicking. When winning GOTY was an accomplishment, not because you were the only entrant in the category. You were handed nothing; you had to work to earn every title. Sure you could power-game the systems......but you didn't have to. It had the most complex character generation system (particularly if you chose to create a custom character and accessed all the options).

Morrowind didn't get hammered nearly as hard as it could have been; most of the users knew that Todd & Co were stepping into full 3D for the first time. Then about halfway through he announced the dual platform development....which clued users knew would hamstring the game further due to memory and storage limits on one platform type.

Oblivion got slapped a bit, and justifiably so. The so-called center of the Tamrielic Empire was an outpost sized fortress in the middle of virgin wilderness........? You had undead infested ruins so close to said fortress that a guard taking a whiz off the paraqet could hit half a dozen of them without straining a muscle....and yet no sign of any undead on the surface, or knowledge of what existed withing whizzing distance among the citizenry? And so on and so on....

Then we get Skyrim, that masterful ode to "Oh, I'm gonna kill drago.....ooooohhh, birdies.....!"

Each iteration since Daggerfall has had fewer and fewer RPG mechanics and systems. The writing has similarly simplified. But the graphics have gotten pretty.....but only in the manner of a shooter; bling but no substance. Things never get fixed or improved on; just removed. And we'll be very, very lucky if next game isn't the equivalent of Sonic goes to Summerset Isle....

Problem with DF was, aside from the massively gamebreaking bugs on release (as in almost no one could complete the MQ unless they walked half the map) was that it was so random it's world was dull to explore. It was really really fun but I always saw it as the biggest dungeon basher of the series.

though I agree on the point that it's chargen was awesome. If Skyrim had the advantages/disadvantages and the background system (optional this time - I didn't like it always giving me a history) then it's chargen would be perfect (classes really are stupidly restrictive as they were in TES).

Back in my day, we had to hike to the dungeon two miles through the burning snow, uphill both ways, while our fathers beat us until we dropped dead.

Nostalgia is nice, but it has the unfortunate side effect of making the past look all rosy-colored. People who really enjoyed Daggerfall were disappointed because Morrowind wasn't Daggerfall, which made them even more upset when Oblivion came out, because it still wasn't Daggerfall, and now Skyrim, the ultimate insult, still isn't Daggerfall. Likewise, people who loved Morrowind are upset that Oblivion isn't Morrowind, etc.

This this this, so much this. "Skyrim =/= Morrowind, therefore Skyrim = Terrible"

So what about people like me who played Daggerfall after Morrowind and Oblivion, yet still recognise it as a superior game in many ways? You can't use the nostalgia excuse every time. Sometimes game series just get worse...

Morrowind is better than Skyrim more RPG depth more ways to make my charcter mine, Oblivion I think is better than Skyrim because it has more options Skyrims world is by a far cry better than Oblivions. Nostalgia cannot be the arguement all of the time, its hard to deny they have been hacking away at this series over the years with each entry in the series.

I would be estatic if they removed the compass, or at least the icons on it. I cannot see over the next hill, why does my compass magically know that there is a bandit camp, dwarven ruin, standing stone, Daedra shrine, take your pick, over there? Removing the compass completely would be an improvement as far as I am concerned, but I'd be satisfied if they just gave me an option to turn the darned thing off.

The compass is a hand holding feature. If they removed that and if the NPCs gave directions that would be making you search for your objective and that in itself is deeper you have to explore and that would be great.

stuff like gps, markers, crosshair, hud issues, music issues, auto-regen, potions over time, weapon degradation, etc. need not even be issues, since, they should all be optional toggles, anyways.

I would not argue against that that would allow people to set what they want within the game and its a great idea.

Then there are people like me who played Daggerfall after Morrowind but before Oblivion who then thought the old guard who loved Daggerfall so much and thought it was a great RPG were insane. Its all in the eye of the beholder IMO. Personally I think the roleplaying in TES began with Morrowind.

I just want better writing, more memorable and varied quests, Faction and Main quests that actually mean something and are not cookie cutter formula's and I want decisions that actually change the game world when you make them. Varied unique and powerful loot scattered throughout caves and the wilderness so exploring is worthwhile.

Also an actual ending to the main quest that made you feel like you did something might help to.

I do not think that is to much to ask Bethesda.

But it sure works well when you want to totally brush off someone's opinion out of hand.