Everything has rules. Using magic in a story or game is one thing. Using magic as a catch-all defense against the argument "that doesn't make any sense at all" is just sheer laziness.

Didn't say it was magic.

You haven't adressed my point yet.

I don't know how you're getting either of these. What about Nirn's planetary system would cause extreme vulcanism or tsunamis?

And yeah, Nirn's physics are those of Earth. Does water not flow downhill? Does the water not get cold when it freezes, etc?

The point is, you can't just throw out the very idea that anything is illogical in the game. By saying anything can be done an nothing is absurd or illogical, you've stopped making fantasy and started making surreal nonsense. Again, using magic - or "different laws of physics" to paper over bad design is just sheer laziness.

The close proximity or large size of the moons around tamriel would exert more gravitational force, the moon is the reason we have a tide, if the moon was 6 times bigger, it'd have a massive effect on things down here, or if it were closer the same effects would manifest.

It's not my job to tell you how interplanetary gravity effects the earth, your own education is your own responsibility. Look it up on wiki.

I'm not saying ANYTHING can be excused by my second proposition, only that which is consistent with the TES universe's established reality. There is nothing to counter the notion that you can respec knowledge, so until something in the lore says it can't be so, there is no reason it is untrue.

Oh, give me a break. Who says that Nirn's moons exert more gravitational influence on Nirn? How can you tell how big they are or their distance from the planet or even Nirn's diameter or mass? You're simply assuming the relevant astronomical data and trying to draw conclusions from baseless assumptions.


And that is, again, sheer laziness. It works the other way around - you assume things work like Earth, unless you have a direct reason to think otherwise in that instance. When you first saw a bear, did you not assume it was dangerous? Or did you think "Well, this is Nirn, and there are completely different laws of physics, so I have no reason at all to think that bear is dangerous. That would be a totally unwarranted assumption on my part."

It's not laziness. It's merely saying it is possible unless proven otherwise. To ASSUME that it was true however would be the laziness you describe.

Given the TES universe is not consistent with established reality, it's fair to suspend judgment until you have evidence that goes one way or the other.

Gnostic Atheism is not logical. It is the belief that there is no god, even though there is nothing to prove or disprove said god's existance.

Agnostic Atheism IS logical. It is the position that although it is impossible to determine the existance of a god, it assumes there is not one, based on evidence that would suggest there isn't one, but this is soft evidence and does not absolutely disprove the notion of a god, but rather makes it highly improbable.

Same with Agnostic theism and Gnostic theism.

So then the proper thing to think, upon seeing a bear, is to think "that animal may or not be dangerous. To think it is likely dangerous would be an unwarranted assumption that Nirn is like Earth, when we know it is not." Is that the case?

Yes, until you are attacked by a bear, or witness a bear attack someone, you don't know for sure that that bear is dangerous. It makes sense from a safety point of view to assume danger, though. The latter part of your sentence is a straw man.

we know the TES universe is NOT like the real universe is some respects, OR bethesda made a mistake in making the moons so large, which when real world phsyics are applied, would make nirn uninhabitable by anything other than bacteria.

It isn't a straw man. The fact is that even though you keep saying that Nirn isn't like Earth, it is astoundingly Earth-like. For every thing you can point out that isn't Earth-like, there are hundreds that are. Snow is cold. Water flows downhill. Bears and wolves are predators, and large predators are dangerous. Apples are edible. Have you ever tried eating books in the game, since you aren't going to assume anything based on how it would work in our world? Have you tried to wield a bucket as a weapon? Perhaps read a sword?

If not, if you just picked up a sword and wielded it, or saw a book and thought "I need to read that", or saw an apple or a cabbage lying around and thought "Oh good, I'm gonna go eat that and recover some health" then you have in fact been operating on an assumption that things work like they do in our world. And saying "the laws of the universe work differently in TES" to cover such a ridiculous game mechanic as being able to swap old knowledge for new is exactly the same as saying "Well, it's magic."

Sure, it is improbable that you can swap out knowledge willy nilly, but it isn't intellectually honest to say it's impossible unless you can prove it. the default position should be that is is possible. Until it is proven or disproven, it is an unknown.

EDIT: with regards to your animal examples, it's actually rather rare for a pack of wolves to attack a human that is not vulnerable by being wounded. same goes for bears. There's no way in hell 2 wolves would take on a healthy human in reality.
and yes, I do use things as intended in the real world.

The difference is, I am talking about axiums of reality, in game and IRL. The problem with your examples is that all the items you mention are created by people, and their use is implied by their design. I am talking about things more innate, such as how the races brains work, how knowledge is transfered.


What about the greybeards? who can confer special knowledge by vomiting bright colours on the floor? Explain that please.

No, because the sensible thing is to assume that things work like in our world until shown otherwise. I assume bears are dangerous. I assume cabbages are edible food. I assume that the guy running down the road in my direction swinging a big pointy thing and screaming is in fact a dangerous bandit or thief, the pointy thing is a sword, and he is looking to kill me for my stuff. I assume that as I move higher into the mountains, the air gets colder and there will be snow. I assume that when I see a river flowing, it is flowing downhill and not up. I assume that if I jump off the top of a tower, it will hurt or kill me. I assume that if I stay underwater too long, I will drown.

I see people shooting flames from their fingers in the game and accept that with no problem, because it is admittedly magic (although it retains its own rules) and it is a non-mundane thing anyway. If I see water flowing uphill, I don't think "wow, my assumptions about water were apparently mistaken in Nirn" I think "wow, somebody really should have done more playtesting."

Similarly, if there is a way to swap old knowledge for new without taking the time to learn the new, I don't assume that things work differently in Nirn, I assume that the developers are catering to laziness on the part of a small minority of players, who want to level one character and then be able to completely recreate that character on a whim.

If you don't like the way a character is, start a new one. I'm not far from finishing with my first character, and I'm gonna start a new one eventually that will be completely different. I cannot imagine going through the absurdity of reshaping my character like clay into a totally different character with different abilities - but keeping the same level.

Yes, but all those things you mention you can verify or deny yourself, aren't they? This is a feature that is not in the game, and thus can't be subjected to anolysis.

Also, in case you missed it

What about the greybeards? who can confer special knowledge by vomiting bright colours on the floor? Explain that please.

Also, paarthanux can confer a perk then swap it out for others at your request.

The point is that I didn't refrain from assuming until I confirmed them. The first time I saw a bear, I assumed it would be unwise to go try and pet it. The first time somebody ran down a road waving a pointy thing and screaming, I drew a weapon on the (valid) assumption that he was attacking me, and not doing some crazy scream-and-wave-a-pointy-metal-thing dance or something.

I also assume that humans cannot say "I want to know how to do X, but I don't want to take the time to get good at it, so I'll just choose to forget how to do Y, which I really don't need to know anyway, and I can learn to be as good at X as I was at Y in an instant's time." Well, they can say it, but they can't do it.

Yes, on one account I put loads of perks in Sneak and also I bought the Augmented Flames/Frost/Shock things, when I only ever used fire. It made me stop playing the ok, a perk re-locater would be amazing.

Is it not the case that PC players can do all of this stuff?

sigh

Assuming is fine, assuming your assumptions to be absolutely and profoundly correct is "laziness" as you put it.

In TES lore, as with the greybeards, they can give you instant knowledge, and paarthurnax can do that while switching it out.

Also, to some extent, people DO forget previous knowledge to make room for more important knowledge. For example, I daresay a neonatal surgeon would have trouble recalling some of the finer details of secondary/high school history, although he may have learned it at some point.


I think it might be helpful for me to add I am against respecing as a game mechanic, but it isn't for any convoluted lore reasons.

People forget knowledge, they do not consciously remove it and swap it out for other knowledge. And the new knowledge still takes time to learn! That's the half of it - people want to spend a perk point, then later reuse that same perk point by assigning it elsewhere. Perk points represent knowledge which grants abilities. If something takes you 100 hours (or whatever) to learn to do, and a year later you decide that was time wasted, you cannot get those 100 hours back to learn something else, you'll have to spend another 100 hours or so to learn that new knowledge you'd like to have. If I go and get a Bachelor's degree in picking my nose, and ten years down the line I decide "boy, that was a wasted four years, I wanna degree in Business Administration" I can't just take those four incredibly wasted years that I spent a decade ago learning nose-picking and magically instantly get the knowledge of a BA in Business Administration.

Whether the original four years was wasted or not, if I wanna learn Business Administration I'll have to spend more time learning it. I can't recycle the time already spent.

That's a fair enough point, but they greybeards give you instant knowledge, and paarthurnax can swap out knowledge at your whim.

It would make perks pointless if you could reset them. Take all the crafting perks first, then craft all the armor you want, enchant it, make your potions, and reset to get all the other perks you really want to play with.

Perks are one of the only things in the game that matter and have consequence. Taking that away really does make the system pointless.

Yes, and those are rare instances, and as far as the Greybeards go, it's explicitly magic. I don't know anything about paarthurnax. (No spoilers please.)

But while those rare and magical instances are one thing, I expect the usual and mundane process of accumulating knowledge to work like it does on Earth. I can accept magic that makes you temporarily invulnerable to fire, but I expect the normal process of being in contact with fire to result in a burn. Same thing with knowledge. It's one thing for the Greybeards to be able to instantly impart a specific bit of knowledge to a specific person who is (by divine means) especially gifted in that general kind of knowledge, but the ordinary process of learning should be as it is on Earth.

I think the best thing would be buying perk points with dragon souls. There's already a mod that does this. 20 souls a perk point seems to be a fair number in my opinion. It would prevent abuse but allow you to branch out more.

Well, couldn't the mechanism used to respec be similar? Or even better from a lore perspective, provided at the end game by the greybeards? (if they still are there, I haven't got that far yet.)

I'm done, but you put up a fair argument and It's much needed exercise for the old noggin.

Lol ?

OP this is your first Cha so its more fun too try several Builds before you begin too understand the perk tree thats what this game is designed for .

But i like your idea when it comes too followers you should be able too reset the follower too your own status / Level because 1 of the main reason is , if i start a Char i first Level too Lvl 50 before i take my favorite follower with me because the way followers level depending on your own Lvl kinda svcks in Skyrim and i assume NO tunning on this subject will come with patch 1.4 .

Followers certainly should level along with the player's character. No doubt about that; they'd eventually become useless otherwise.