A basic tenet of the game is that any player can choose what they play and how they play, can do everything in the game, and be the best at what they want to be best at, if they play to level/skill cap.

Tying race to class and penalizing any combination of race/class build at end game is changing a fundamental characteristic of the game. If any race/class combo is better at end game than another race/class combo of the same archetype, then the second is penalized.

It is a step backward in game design trends, and this very thread title calls it "Limitation".

Whether or not Skyrim achieves it, I think the ethos behind TES games is freedom, not "limitation".

Make a mod and see if consumers agree with you, but please think of your proposal as a mod, and not what vanilla Skyrim should be for all players. Aspiring to more, not less freedom is something Beth have gotten right.

Edit: And please, anyone responding to this thread, try and read the entire thread...

But that's silly. You're completely removing any aspect of player choice from the game if every race/class is completely homogenized like that.

If choosing one race or another has no bearing on your success or play style, why is it even a choice? You may as well at this point be able to choose whatever "skin" you want your character to have and then choose their "racial" bonuses as well.

It should be possible for the player to plan and min/max a character to excel in whatever play style they choose...or to play an unconventional role which may be challenging simply because they are intentionally making sub-optimal choices for role play reasons...but as it stands right now in Skyrim, it's not really possible to fail.

No matter what race you choose, how you spend your perks, birth sign/standing stone you pick, or play style you have, you can still easily be head of every single guild, hero of the civil war, and savior of the world.

You're making quite the leap there. The racial differences at the beginning are just there for flavor, not to put limitations on what other races can or cannot achieve. These minor differences might represent that a Redguard has the aptitude for being a warrior but that doesn't mean that a High Elf can't become just a good a warrior, just it might take slightly longer and might require a different path.

When it comes to the player character, the sky is the limit.

I'm really on the fence about this issue of racial modifiers. On the one hand, I don't want to feel 'compelled' to play a certain race/class combination just because it's the best choice, on the other hand, I do want racial diversity.

One of the interesting things about this conversation, like the conversation about classes, is that both camps feel that playing the way the other camp wants to play results in a lack of choice: people who don't want racial modifiers feel that their freedom to play the kind of character that they want to play is infringed on by modifiers, that they're being penalized for making an interesting RP decision; people who want racial modifiers feel that without them, their RP choices lack substance, and hence dissolve choice in bland conformity. I think this is really a 'glass half-full, glass half-empty' argument: neither side is correct, they're just stating preferences that seem obvious to themselves. I happen to feel that both arguments are true in a way.

On the one hand, choosing to play an interesting race/class combination (one that is non-optimal) benefits from racial modifiers: it creates an additional obstacle for players to play against and adds color and interest to a play-through. On the other hand, one of the strongest appeals of the game is 'being the best', and you can't be the best if you know that playing a different race would have made you better. People seem overly concerned about the end-game build, as if playing something sub-optimal will somehow prevent them from completing the game, or make it much more challenging than it is. I doubt there is really any truth to this.

What I'd like to see are not racial modifiers that incline one race to be a better archetype than another, but modifiers that result in characters, who, when they are at the top of their game, are somewhat different because of the race that they chose. For example: the Orc's berserker rage ability should affect how much damage an Orc mage does with spells, but drain more magicka, which means they will be able to tap more destructive force, but for a shorter time. That's the style of magic that a powerful Orc mage would be good at. It's just as good as any other race's magic, but different. Orcs should do more damage than other races in melee combat, but not move quite as quickly. Bosmer should move more quickly (and hence attack more often) but not do as much damage, etc. That way, both races can excel and be equally powerful, but in ways that make them different. If you avoid enhancing specific skills, you can enhance elements that affect all skills. If you balance it properly, you can create different types of warriors or mages who do the same DPS over a certain period of time but that play differently. Then you have choices that matter without limiting player freedom.

Neither side is correct? We're stating differing opinions, not facts; how is either side going to be "correct"?

TheMagician-

You make some good points. For me, it all comes down to choice. Not necessarily in being able to do whatever crazy character rae/build combo I want, but to know that choices I make in a game have some sort of meaning.

I great anology would be the children's board game "Candyland" or "Chutes and Ladders." In both of these games, there is no choice. Players advance based on pure random chance and the path is linear. There is no strategy or best option for a player to choose; nothing to gain, nothing to lose. That's boring! Why play?

I'm not at all AGAINST unorthodox characters or builds. But If someone wanted to play a traditional Nord warrior with heavy armor, a sword and a shield, they should more successful than someone playing an Orc bard who only wields pickaxes, wears mage robes, only casts magic from scrolls, and routinely drinks posions when he means to drink potions, because he can't read the labels on the bottles.

Right now, with Skyrim, that second character I described would be surprisingly successful, where it should be a challenge to play a character under such constraints.

Jack, it's as Caribou said. If the differences are really just for "flavor" then the game should start every race off with no special traits or abilities and every with every skill starting at 0. I understand choosing a race for culture and role-play purposes, but just settling on race as "flavor" defeats the purpose of a lot of the game. The game, despite being an open world RPG, is still very much combat oriented, and if players have the ability to choose between archetypes and alter those archetypes, it's just a natural design mechanic to create races that are "predisposed" to certain archetypes, as to show the player the potential they can reach..


And again, Caribou is correct. There is little point to having different builds, different archetypes, and differences between races if every single build of every single race can be as effective as every other one.

Then why is everyone acting like they can be? There wouldn't be any argument at all if people respected the fact that they just have different opinions. We need to look at how we can satisfy both types of players, or if it's even possible to do so, not shout the other camp out of the discussion by saying 'svck it up'. Being an optimist, I prefer to look for solutions.

I think you're mixing two different issues. The 'soft' limitation doesn't really address radically different builds like that so much as two characters of identical build but different race. Who should be better in combat: a Nord with heavy armor, a sword and a shield or an Orc with heavy armor, a sword and a shield? That's the issue.

People want to be able to create a character that is the best, no matter what their race is. As it stands, the game solves this problem by making both characters essentially identical, which is what the pro-modifier players are complaining about. People who like the current implementation don't want to have to choose between being an Orc or a Nord because one is better for the archetype they want to build. They don't want to feel compelled to play Altmer just because they want to be a mage. That's understandable. What I'm interested in is whether or not its possible to create variation between the races and new gameplay experiences without upsetting this balance.

Well, in past games, this was done via racial traits. You could allow one "warrior" race to excel at an aspect of fighting compared to others without being completely unbalanced, I think.

e.g. Orcs get a passive bonus to dual wielding, Nords, two handers, Redguards get a bonus to looking awesome when wielding a scimitar, etc

Well, I was surprised reading this. A lot of people are opposed.

Personally: I would be ecstatic to see this. I want to feel like choices matter. I love D&D because I can spend hours creating a character, that's entirely unique. Skyrim? Every level 81 mage is identical to others. There's very little variety. Sure, that means you can play it any way you want, but that also means every way is going to be the same (excepting the core differences between a mage, melee, or ranged style).

In a single player, considering the min/max potential has no bearing at all. Someone playing an orc mage can be fantastic at it, and go against their stereotypes. However, the flip side of that is a High Elf, born to magic, raised in it, can reach a higher potential. Does that matter? Not at all. The game very specifically has a difficulty curve that flat lines after 55-60, approximately, and any Orc mage that continues will be an extraordinarily powerful character.

The contrasting side of this is that a racial choice does not matter. There is no difference. I would love differences for the sake of differences. When I have a character, I want it to be different than everyone else's for more than just the looks of the character.

I prefer variety, differences, reasons for choices. I most definitely prefer it over a simplified game where all the characters are nearly identical.

My two cents here. If someone modded it, I'd download. I'm too busy modding other things to do it myself, though.

I would argue that Skyrim was a step backward in game design with the elimination of not only most of the racial distinctions, but also classes and attributes and most importantly, birthsigns. Using perks and ONLY perks to distinguish between your characters lacks the diversity you had in prior games. This is a step backwards IMO, not a step forwards. Skyrim made a lot of improvements over prior games in the series, but the homogenization of races, classes, etc. was not one of them.

No one's acting like their side is the "correct" side. This is a forum, people discuss things. Not everyone agrees with each others opinions. That's a given. And it's hard to satisfy both types of players when they're at very different sides of the spectrum.

Then you would remove the flavor. That makes no sense. The little stat differences and racial powers are there to give races a little bit of flavor at the beginning. It achieves just that. It doesn't impose any significant limitations in the end game and that's how I like it, personally.

You're pretty much reaching conclusion X from something radically different. Like 2+2=5.


Bethesda didn't think so and neither do I.


Natural game design mechanic to create races that are "predisposed" to certain archetypes? I don't see how it's natural at all. It's just game design that you would prefer. Those are two very different things.

A lot of what you say has 2+2=5 written all over it.

Skyrim's character creation isn't very heavy on the front end/beginning. So what? You mold your character as you go. And every level 81 Mage isn't exactly identical to every other level 81 Mage unless if they happened to pick the same exact perks and the same exact health/magicka/stamina @ level ups.

If you think characters in Skyrim are all nearly identical then I can't say that you've ever truly played the game and reached level 81 with any character. That's a ludicrous statement to make.

I disagree. In Oblivion, for example, nearly every single character at the end game looked the same with 100 in every single skill and attribute. Master of all trades. How is it a step backwards from that?

With perks and different choices of health, magicka, and stamina, characters can end up looking quite different at the end game/level cap. This is especially true since you can't be a master of all trades.

I agree that the build process is much better in Skyrim. I love that I can customize my character and that I can't be the best at everything by the end of the game. That kind of variety is essential for establishing replayability. But since having racial modifiers would essentially amount to picking an extra perk or two at the start of the game, instead of later on, I find it curious that people laud the one and revile the other. It would be like giving Altmer one more perk in a magic school than other races, and Orcs one more perk in combat. You already can't have every perk, what difference does it make if you can't have every 'racial perk'? It just means that at the start of the game you're deciding whether you want to have a warrior or a mage with that particular perk. It's not going to have much of an impact on the end-game, no matter how good that perk is. But it will contribute to build variety the same way skill perks do.

Set up racial perk trees that players can choose to invest perks in that aren't shared between the races but that contribute to cultural stereotypes about the races. Now you have one more perk tree that is identical to the other perk trees. No reason to object to that. (Is there?)

Well, I am not defending Oblivion here because, although I love that game, I do not miss having to worry about which skills I used to get my level ups in the right attributes. So, in that respect, I prefer Skyrim's system. But in Oblivion, each character was unique in the beginning and if you roleplayed and only used major skills and those minor skills that made sense for your build, then you did not level all skills to 100, in which case each character stayed unique and grew more unique as time when on.

My point about attributes was that in prior games attributes were one of the things that differentiated the races because the difference between starting attributes for different races was very significant, probably much more so than the racial skill bonuses.

What I would like to see is a system that allows more distinction between characters in the beginning and maintains that throughout the game. One way to do that would be to bring back attributes, but handle them differently than Oblivion. I have some ideas for how that might work, but realistically I know that we are not going to get attributes back through DLC for Skyrim and I don't want to derail this thread by getting into attributes too much.

But the OP's thoughts on how to work more diversity into Skyrim's current system would be easier to implement than bringing back attributes.

Well there are only 86 "magic" perks and you get 80 perk points to spend by level 81, so how different can your level 81 mages be? The only way they can be all that different from each other is if you invest fairly heavily in non-magic skills, and the only one of those that seems appropriate for a mage is Alchemy and maybe speech.

You're saying it's a step backwards (I.e. Oblivion, Morrowind, etc.), which is why I brought it up. Perks > attributes in terms of differentiating characters. The only "downside" to it is that is a more "mold your character as you go" approach as opposed to a "BAM! I just took my character out of the microwave and he's good to go."

If you're looking for huge amounts of character distinction at the beginning, I honestly wouldn't ask you to hold your breath. Short of the Elder Scrolls series doing a complete 180, that approach seems rather dated and regressed.

A "Mage" can encompass different things for different users. A "Mage" can invest on certain magic skills and deviate a little from "Magic" skills depending on his or her play-style. Granted if your particular idea of being a Mage is just investing in Magic skills, then there will be little variety (For you). Fortunately, your idea of being a Mage isn't the only one that counts.

In addition, it's still a far better system than the previous games which encompassed being a Master of all trades at the high end.

Apparently The Elder Scrolls series is moving away from putting too much emphasis on racial separation (Stat wise/dungeon/combat gameplay wise). Skyrim's approach to all this gives plenty of reasons to object to that.

Haven't read the whole thread, but I'm not really digging the idea. A "class system", whether 'hard' of 'soft', that significantly rewards certain optimal race/class combos, would make me sad. You can say until you're blue in the face that bonus melee damage for orcs doesn't cause any problem for elvish warriors, but it does. It obviously makes elves inferior to orcs at melee combat, which in turn makes elves a blatantly "self-gimped" choice for a warrior character. Orcish warriors should not be "easy mode" and elvish warriors should not be "hard mode", but that is exactly what you're suggesting. And I realize that it's already in the game to some extent (e.g. Orcish Berserker racial power). That doesn't make it a good idea to take it even further.

"Apparently The Elder Scrolls series is moving away....."

Not going to argue but I will say don't speak for TES series as a whole. I believed Skyrim was going the route of Oblivion souless and mainstream but then I played Skyrim and seen it had a lot of Morrowind in there. Sometimes Todd just makes and adds things to a game that completes his vision for it. In this case Dovahkeen didnt need racial ablilities but who knows. The next game could make it a main feature.

The thing I take more serious in regards to TES is the Lore... I believe it has been used a great deal in forming Skyrim. Even though it changes a great deal it still has great influence over what will happen in the series. And I see Racial Benefits making a return one day... But to me they would hurt SKyrim as is right now.

We obviously like different things, but I am not sure what is "dated" about wanting diversity. Yes, my idea of a mage is one that relies on magic, not weapons or armor or lockpicks. Apparantly we have differing views on that, which is fine. There is room in the world for different playstyles and points of view. I like certain things about Skyrim but not others. It seems like Bethesda may be opening itself up for competition because others have got to be taking note of the commercial success of Skyrim, so my hope is that we get more games like Skyrim not only from Bethesda but other companies as well, so there can be games that focus more on what you like and also games that focus more on what I like. It does not have to be either or.

Skyrim's approach is what is under discussion; "that's just the way it is" isn't an argument. I'd be delighted to know what you mean by "plenty of reasons to object" since I can only think of one, and I think it's one that could be resolved.

Racial perk trees would actually play into their current design and enhance it. Not only is the mechanic virtually identical, but they could use it to replace racial abilities with a more interesting mechanic that could be extended in a logical and consistent way. More importantly, since it would be optional, like other perks, it wouldn't have to impact the player's experience at all: by choosing not to invest in racial perks, they would be playing the exact same game they are playing now.

Have a perk tree that allows Orcs to invest multiple points in Berserker Rage: then a 'true' Orc warrior could really become more and more fearsome by 'tapping in' to their racial heritage, simulated by investing in racial perks using the same mechanic they use for skill perks. But do one better: give them perks that allow them to apply Berserk Rage to Destruction magic as well to make their magic do more damage at increased Magicka cost. It wouldn't be automatic, it would be something the player had to choose to do; but it would guarantee that an Orc mage is as powerful (more powerful, actually) as a mage of another race, in this one aspect, making adopting the role of an Orc mage an interesting RP opportunity.

The other races could be extended the same way, with different advantages for different kinds of things. Redguards could have multiple levels of Adrenaline Rush, allowing them to make even more power attacks, offsetting the advantages given by Berserker Rage. Multiple levels of Histskin could provide a rock-paper-scissors advantage for Argonians. Bosmer could have improved accuracy causing more bleeding damage, Nords an increased chance of staggering oppponents or breaking blocks, whatever. The point is: the races could be balanced in such a way that none of them has 'homefield advantage' because they are each better than the other races in a different area of combat. Against certain types of opponents, and in certain situations, they would have a small advantage, but every race would be in the same boat. No upper limits on skills, just slightly different perk options. Nobody can take all of the perks as it is, so as far as I can tell, this doesn't offend the 'spirit of Skyrim' at all.