Exactly, alternate advancement system. Just keep improving what we have instead of offering alternatives or re rolling.

Agree 100%

Morrowind is a perfect example, i remember how i used to soultrap every dagoth member in a grand soul gem and placed them next to all the heartwright items and a house dagoth cup in my stronghold, sort of a trophy collection of my enemies souls and items, it took me forever after i already did the main quest and a lot of faction/freelance/daedric quests, it was a lot of fun and my collection looked beyond godlike cool with candle lights that shined red all over the room.

There are tons of gameplay hours in independent progression, but it gets harder for every tes release imho.

One of the main reasons I avoid the stones that speed up leveling skills. I go straight to the steed stone. In oblivion I got around this by making my major skills the ones that I don't use unless I wanted to. If I wanted to level I would conjure up a skeleton and shoot fire at him. They eliminated that, which leads to levelin too fast. I wish you could scale back your Xp gain rate. I like being a wimpy level 10 guy that runs away from bears.

Exactly! Those people that really 'get' TES however are the same crowd that truly 'get' every other game that lacks content or progression. That argument is like saying a child should use their imagination and be content with a rock when they could have a real toy. These people are content with just about anything and nothing.

If you just kept leveling up forever, doing 20 points more damage per level, eventually you would be one-shotting ancient dragons, and then would also be bored.

To avoid that problem, the enemies would have to scale to infinity also. But that brings in serious problems balancing across all playstyles. And it is simply a treadmill. The end effect is no different if you give each mob an extra 100 health each character level. It is just "progress quest".

If you want to keep increasing in power, there are many ways to do that to the point where you become overpowered, as dozens of threads here show.

The answer to the "why should I have to do that" question is "the game is not solely designed for the character you want to play".

This should be easy to fix with the CK. When skill reaches 100, gain direct Character XP, instead of skill points. Problem solved. You could even revamp the system a bit so that a perk of reaching 100 in one skill, means that a small level of xp is distributed to other skills when the maxed skill is used. I know I wouldn't want to reset the world in order to keep playing a certain style.

Remove the skill cap, but decrease the speed in which you gain skill points post 100. The rate you acquire skill points will decrease the higher your skill gets. This makes it "possible" to get to any skill level, just not very practical. TES is all about the removal of limitations, this fits the game design.

@cyclo Skyrim stops u from lvling by using your favored skill or skills?

It is simply a bad gameplay mechanic if everybody [Has To be] a jack of all trades in order to lvl..
When i accept a mission, and battle music plays the tree and perks i've worked on no longer reward me for using it...

I see the enemies i want to cast blizzard then throw lightning bolts at their face which is why i have spent perks on being able to do that..

But guess wat lol if i do that i will no longer lvl, do u get it yet??

I should not [have to] use alchemy which can only be done in town or smithing when i don't wear armour or use weapons...

I should be able to kill the enemy in my preferred way, [lightning bolt to the face] and gain experience.. Lol im not lvl 100 im just lvl 30 and i can't even lvl anymore using what i liked and have worked on???

That is a fail and if any other game company made a game where a sword and shield warrior would just stop gaining exp and lvl ups because they are being a sword and shield war u would say its a fail as well..

A dagger and bow thf, who likes to sneak and cut or use a bow @ long range, should not get punished and all of a sudden have to know longer sneak use dagger and bow because they skills are @100 and they are only lvl 30..

They should not have to drop their entire playstyle to lvl, point blank period...

everything in life has an end. no offence but you and your gf need to learn that, or just make a new game.(new game as in start a new game in skyrim not actually mae a game).

There are a few things worth complaining about in Skyrim, but this hardly seems one of them. So you've mastered your favorite skill (Destruction) and your gf mastered hers (Two-Handed), you're level 100 in each, congratulations! There's a lot of other skills, and tons of things to explore and do! Go out and have some fun. I can understand that you want to stick to your casting abilities, I've always been partial to bows in TES games and rarely use anything else, but there's so much more to do than just level your primary attacks.

The beauty (and the curse) of TES games is that it is up to YOU to find fun things to do for yourself, it's not a series that holds your hand and walks you along a linear path to success. Maybe it's just not your cup of tea. My advice though, do what most of us do...start a new playthrough or start working on maxing out your other skills. You'd be surprised how much fun it is to save a bunch of dungeons until youre level 50-81 and fight your way to some serious loot. Yeah, it's kinda boring using your maxed skills, but it's up to you to explore new ones.

So, the way the leveling system is designed(and always has been in TES) is that everything is scaled to your level. Your "level" is not really your measure of progression. Yes, it gives you 10 more health, magic, or stamina, but that gain is also offset by the enemies dealing more damage, and having more health, thus requiring the need for more health/magic/stamina.

You can actually complete all of the game as a level 1 character with no perks, and your starting stormcloak or imperial armor and weapon. Progression in this game is entirely subjective, be it quest progression, skill progression, exploration progression, or whatever it is.

Go make a new character with a different background and skill set.

Good grief, do people need someone to hold their hand and tell them how to play the game?

You're thinking that "level" is meaning what you want it to mean instead of meaning what it means. In this game, there's no "end boss" that you have to be a certain level to try or you'll lose. There's no area which needs you to be level 50 to enter. Your character level doesn't define your character. You can play the game without leveling much at all... it's not needed. If that bothers you, you need to play a different game because it's not going to change.

The suggestion is reroll. Really? Do you not see how the sheer suggestion alone is agreeing with the person that progression in the game stops and/or slows down too quickly for them? This is a very common complaint. To even suggest that someone not play how they want to play and instead play like you, is ridiculous. How progression and the illusion of progression in Skyrim works is a problem, end of story.

Apperently there has been a misunderstanding so i will clarify..

I KNOW THAT ONCE U HIT LVL 100 or 80 or watever the cap is that i will lose the sense of progress and getting stronger[it happens in every rpg]..

But im not lvl 100 or 80 im only 30 and i might as well be 100 because i can no longer lvl for being a mage...

I should not feel im at the end of the game right now..

I should not be punished for using my master destruction spells and no longer gain exp or lvl ups..

Im an not lvl 100 i am only 30, my destruction is 100..

They have to balance the game for the average player, and the average player wants to use more than one skill.

TES games always work like this.

Don't use the mage / lover stones. And did you honestly just level destruction and alteration? So many other fun spell schools to level for a mage, why restrict yourself to just two? Didn't spamming damage spells all the time get boring? If you level 4 skills together it should take you to level 50, which is the game's soft cap.

I'm at level 47, and only my sneak and smithing are at 100, so I don't really understand this issue. I'm really enjoying the exploration and quest aspects of the game, but that's just me.

In any case, if you're playing on PC, there are already mods available that reduce the rate at which you level up various skills. I believe there is even a mod that removes the 100 skill level cap.

The average player uses more than one primary source of damage? The average player would alternate between Destruction and Archery or Two Hand and One-Hand and Shield? I would venture to say no especially how the perks are structured prohibiting this and pushing you towards specialization. Even completely disregarding this, how does opening up the skill cap past 100 do anything it does not already do? I can already through Enchants boost my stats to ridiculous levels? This is no different. It is just a way for players who do not want to invest into Enchanting a method to do the same naturally and still feel a sense of progression instead of going "woo I am 25 and my major skills are all capped" then in 5 levels go "this svcks I don't have anything to look forward to."

I'm level 61 with over 120 hours of gameplay .... and yes I'm bored too ...

@mujokin I'm pretty sure the average player does not want to use everything to lvl lol.

Yo standard sword, and shield warrior that uses a bow for long range, entire playstyle is cut off as soon as 1hand shield archery hit 100..

And if they continue to play using wat they have worked on they will no longer lvl up...

Again [insert any other game developer here] did this everyone who is defending it would say its a obvious fail!!!

Hey look im a white mage @lvl 30 and my curing skill is capped, but i can no longer lvl up at all?

Oh well u better throw on this heavy armor and stop using spells and start using this battle axe, or uhh start over!!!!

>_< wow i'll be sure to recommend this game to all my friends and praise this gameplay mechanic

[Obvious fail] is a [Obvious fail]

@ carrot
Most people have a melee damage skill and a ranged damage skill I would guess. But even if you only have one, you have to try pretty hard to get it to 100 at level 30.

Keeping the same rate of progress extended out to infinity makes things more complicated to balance. Putting a cap in at say 150 is effectively the same as a cap at 100 if it had a steeper progress curve. They chose the curve they wanted based on how they wanted to balance the game for the average player.

@zelda
I have three characters who use six or seven skills each. From years of experience on TES forums since Morrowind, I think this is average. I have never had to switch to skills I didn't want to use to level.

There are two reasons to level: to increase in power, or just because you like numbers on a sheet. For the first reason, the balance is fine, so there is no problem. For the second one, I can't get too outraged on your behalf.

Don't all Bethesda sandbox games basically have a hard skill level cap? I remember maxing out several different skills in Fallout 3/NV and Oblivion.

The game is not balanced at all already. You can obtain 100 skill level very early on. My Archery is 100 just playing normally at 30. My Smithing is 100 and has been. My Enchanting is 100. My Sneak is almost 100. Regardless, you do not NEED to balance POST soft cap. That is the whole point of removing the limitation. Players wishing to keep playing the game can still feel like they are leveling up and gaining strength, it just is a slower pace than previously.

Such is an RPG. When your skills max out and you're no longer improving, the game is no longer fun.

That's why I've been careful not to level up too quickly. I've really focused on magic skills (conj/dest), which are now hovering close to 80, but the higher they go, the slower they improve, and the slower my character's overall level increases. I definitely want to be able to see the dragon and civil war questlines through to completion before I even hit the "soft" cap at 50, and it looks like that should be doable. Because I know once I stop progressing altogether, I'll just drop that character and create a new one.