What is the point of choosing a race if there are no differences? If you can accomplish anything and everything just as easily "No matter what Race they've chosen" then what is the point of having a distinction based on race in the first place?

Oh, well, THIS play through, I will be the best at everything, but instead of having fur and a tail, I will have pointy ears and be named Sephiroth. And yes, I mean, it IS a single player game, so as long as your entertained, what's the problem? For me, it's the same reason I don't toggle on god mode, give myself infinite carry weight, and a billion gold. Beating the game, beating the system, is what single player games are all about.

As I see it, DnD handles it well. The stat changes mean there's a definite difference.. but the ability to choose stats balances it. If you truly min/max, then it's a weakness, but that's not a part of this at all. Min/maxing is pointless, imo, in a single player game. The fact that you can choose the stats means that an Elf with a -2 in strength can still be a fantastic fighter, because he can still buy plenty of points in strength, and he gets points elsewhere. He might not be as strong as the very best Half-Orc fighters, but he'll be stronger than most. Which is wholeheartedly realistic considering race. At high levels, he'd still be a god amongst mortals, but if he had been a Half-Orc to start, he'd be stronger, due to genetics.

I've got a fit body myself, but my chest muscles tend to be weaker - I work out, do all that stuff, do 50 pound curls (reasonable enough), yet I have troubles with easy bench presses (I struggle with anything >120-130 pounds). This is due to genetics. If I work my tail off - I'll never, ever be as good as other people more naturally born to it. If I work my tail off, though, I'll be stronger than most (I'm too much of a geek to devote my life it, but anyways... ).

The best route, I'd see, is a point-system of a sort where you can go with the base races and the plus/minuses, or you can customize it as you want to eliminate both pluses or minuses. Sort of like some empire-based games do.

A choice should be made because of story. This doesn't mean rules shouldn't have an effect, though. If you are so affected by pros and cons, then I get the impression that you are trying to min/max the game. If you do that... why not just turn on god mode? There's max right there :/

I actually liked this in the prior games.

If I was going to play a warrior in MW, I knew I would be playing a Nord, or Redguard, or Orc. If I knew I was going to play a mage then I knew I would be playing a Altmer, or Breton. A rogue would be a Bosmer or Khajiit. The wild cards were the Imperial, Dunmer and Argonian.

What was actually a lot of fun then was playing someone against their racial benefits. I actually had a lot of fun playing a Nord mage and an Orc Bard.

The racial differences in Skyrim are a mixed bag. I have yet to actually use a racial ability that has to be activated. To be honest I just never think about it. Even my Khajiit will use a torch to look around in a dark cave. However the racial bonuses to elemental or magic resistance are always useful and I never have to think about them either. The Skill bonuses are nice and do tend to lean a person towards a certain class type, but not so much as actually have a class in the prior games.

What I really hate about the current system is that my warrior goes up levels by talking to merchants and opening locks. I would really rather he level using the skills I want him to use, but EVERYONE has to open a lock and everyone has to talk to a merchant. You just can't play the game without doing this. I don't mind these skills going up, I just don't want them to count towards me leveling up.

If you don't know, then I can't help you. I'm not trying to insult you, you probably have a playstyle that's not into appearance and character history for its own sake. But not all of us are like you, just like not all players are like me either. Once you add a limitation to the game everyone is stuck with it, no matter what playstyle. If you want a limitation, impose it only on yourself with a mod or something. *shrug*

Do you realize where your example of Morrowind is actually going?
There are stat differences for race and six choices when you roll your character, but -
Morrowind is a game where any race can max out every skill at end game.

No insult taken at all.

Although, I argue that racial differences are VERY consistant with character history and lore and the lack of choices panders to a more casual gamer (not meant insultingly) who wants to play a unique special character that is awesome at everything.

The stock game could be far more limiting and racial differences could just as easily be removed by mods as well. But I think Skyrim was designed to be easy, appeal to the common denominator, and sell as many games as possible. I know that probably sounds elitist and snobby of me, but I don't think I'm that far off.

I get this and that's what I have to do now with Skyrim. I can be an Dunmer just to be a Dunmer or a Nord hero just to be a Nord hero but they do have differences, even in Skyrim. Being a Nord, they give you a boost to combat skills and 50% frost resist. Being a Dunmer, they give you a variety of boosts and 50% fire resist. If it's all for visuals and story then why have any racial traits at all? Just blank out everyone's traits and THEN I would agree that it's only for visuals or story. Beth put in racial traits. They defined a difference this time too, it's just bland.

Thing is, Skyrim already has this...

Compared to the old games, you cannot just become a master of everything, given time, no matter the stats, skills race, in the end you could do everything.
In Skyrim because there are limited number of perks, you won't be able to be truly fully master everything even though you have 100 in all skills. Like if you don't pick magic perks at all, your magic's going to significantly weak.

Also Highborn can be a godsend for mages...

But that's only one case. Orcs don't have anything big to distinguish them from some other race. Berserk isn't good enough, heck it's terrible. It's giving you a minute to really act like an Orc and after that, you have to stop. Not to mention it's once a day.

Oh and you can still be Jesus. Just have 100 Smithing and 100 Alchemy.

Uh, they removed water walking and carpentry is currently not a skill.

I role-play and could never play a character that long as I never liked playing demi-gods. At about 40th level they were retired, if not earlier. If lucky I might get one or two skills up to 100. Playing past that point in MW is a complete waste of time. That being the case, the early boost to skills helped.

Agreed. This is true for most roleplayers, although I continue playing mine well beyond level 40, I never bothered to level minor skills that did not fit my role. The argument that "every character in OB and MW was the same by end game" ignores the fact that most people don't play that way for roleplaying reasons and the fact that it takes a tremendous effort to level every minor skill to 100. Those skills go up a lot slower than major skills, especially if they are out of your chosen area of expertise. Sure you can train, but in OB they capped that at 5 per level, and even in MW it is hard to find master level trainers, so you can't just train all your minor skills to 100. You had to really work at it.

I don't think any of us can speak for "most people" or call out facts. I even think it's likely that there will be a large segment of Skyrim consumers who have never even visited this forum - people who are probably busy playing the game. I have played Morrowind on and off for many years since 2003, (no mods at all) and the majority of my playtime has been after my character hit level 100 with all skills at or above 100.

If 'most people' don't play to level/skill cap, then why would it matter if all races hit the same level caps, anyway? If racial differences are most strong at the start of the game and are only diluted by end game, then why would you care if you never get to end game?

Well, just saying it is "not a fact," does not make it untrue. Sure, nobody knows for certain because no one has conducted a poll beyond these forums which are a skewed sample for sure.

However, I offered two arguments in support of my assertion that it was a "fact" and you have not really addressed either one of them. One argument I made was that the difficulty of getting all minor skills to 100 in prior games would prevent most people from bothering to do it. How many hours did it take for you to do that in Morrowind? Did you ever do it in Oblivion? It is harder to do it in Oblvion because of the limitations on training.

The second argument is that if you were roleplaying, there are certain skills that you just would not use, and these skills would never get anywhere near level 100. Your thoughts on that? Do you roleplay? If so, how does leveling every minor skill fit in with your concept of roleplay?

I never said most people did not play to the level cap for skills their character used. I said that most people did not level every single minor skill to 100 in prior games. Even in Skyrim, where all skills go up at the same rate for each character, how many players actually level their character to level 81? Todd Howard said he expected most players would stop leveling their characters at about level 50.

That's ... the point. Are you arguing against yourself, or just anyone that post anything?

My point was that some things people might think are facts (because they assume other people are like themselves) are actually subjective.

It didn't occur to me that it was difficult to level all of the skills in Morrowind. I'm not sure how long it took, but I tend to like to hit max early on. (Gods, I really love Morrowind )

I do role play. I take exception to you saying that if I was role playing I wouldn't use all of the skills. I have never role played a character who has 'type' or 'class' restrictions. I role play as myself. I have multiple skills in RL too, I would hope we all do.

The response was to the quote in the post.

But really, why do you care if all of the skill caps for each race are the same at end game, if you don't play to end game?

Agreed.


We both love Morrowind. I love all TES games and can never decide which is my favorite. Each has things I really like and each had things I wish were different.


Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that your concept of roleplay was any less legitimate than mine or anyone else's. My concept is different since I want to play as someone else, not myself. Typically I want to paly a character with a defined role. Most of those characters role is limited in some way that would prevent the character from leveling all skills. For instance, in Skyrim I have a Nord 2H warrior who, being a Nord, is very anti-magic. He is so anti-magic he has never cast a single spell or enchanted a single item. For that characer, the magic skills will all remain at a fairly low level. Also, since he likes big powerful two-handed weapons, his one hand skill is not likely to ever get very high. A character like that is going to have a bunch of skill that never make it anywhere near 100.

I do have some characters who would level most of their skills to 100 eventually. My Dunmer nightblade, for instance, makes regular use of sneak, archery, one handed, heavy armor, block as well as all schools of magic, enchanting and alchemy. But most of my characters are more like my Nord and just don't use certain skills.

I like being able to adopt different roles depending on my mood.

I don't care that all the races cap the same because I don't play them to the 'end game', that's the point. To me the racial bonuses mattered in the earlier TES games because they do effect the time in developing a character that I enjoy the most, the early levels. Thus, I liked the way MW and OB did it.

One thing that I had a hard time getting over early on in Skryim was that my Big Male Orc that looked like he could tear a house in half couldn't carry a single pound more than my Little Female Breton that looked like she'd break if you sneezed at her. This was actually very hard for me to get over. Granted Skyrim still gives some skill bonuses which may lean a character into a profession path, but to image that all are exactly the same in Strength or Intelligence or Agility is just a hard pill to swallow.

But, luckily in Skyrim I can chase butterflies and forget about things like that...

Because I'm just one person and I play as myself I tend to only make one character (3 in total in Morrowind). As myself I like to try out all of the skills to see what they feel like, and to experiment with different gear, weapons and spell effects to find what feels right for me (oddly enough I'm a minimalist, and once I find what I like I tend to stick with my handful of favorites). I get a lot of game satisfaction from running around as a character who has learned how the world works, and has a lot of experience in many different fields. I think it fits with my immersion that by the time NPCs are treating me like a savior, I actually am pretty knowledgeable about their world.

Pretty cool that TES allows us to both get satisfaction when we come at the game differently. It must take a lot of juggling to get a product like this to work when it can be used in different ways by different people, so I'm trying to cut them some slack and be mindful of the positives with the game, not the negatives.

Think I will also go chase some butterflies. The blue ones look nice, but the orange seem to last longer.

i lol'd, best response i have seen ina longgg time lol

I agree with this concept, so long as it doesn't make it too hindering if going against type. A little more contrast besides the visual I think would be a good thing.

Problem is, Skyrim in its current form caters only to you, so to speak. These "soft" limitations I have suggested would have no impact on you if you want to have an Orc Mage, however it has an impact on "us" because in order to create the archetypal Warrior Orc we can't ever have it stand out unless we gimp every other Warrior of every other race.