I am a console player, so let me take a crack at answering that question. While I tend to agree that more choice is generally better than less choice, which would support a Borderlands sytle reperking option and is why I don't have a stong preference against being able to reperk, just having the option would change my mindset when playing the game. A similar argumehnt could be made about fast travel. Having a feature in the game that you know is available affects your mindset even if you make a conscious decision not to use it. I never use fast travel but I am always aware it is there and that makes me feel differently when playing Skyrim or Oblivion, which have fast travel than Morrowind where there is no fast travel available. In Morrowing, if you are out in the middle of nowhere without a recall or Almsive Intervention at your disposal, you really feel isolated. Not so much in Skyrim or Oblivion.

Another example. Before taking the 100 sneak perk, my Khajiit used to be quite nervous and apprehensive whenever sneaking up on a boss in a room full of hostiles because one false move and he would be discovered and it would be over for him. With the 100 sneak perk, he can still get the 15x dagger damage bonus even if discovered and now can drop everyone in the room without breaking a sweat. Sure, I can choose not to play that way, but knowing that I can has really changed the way the game feels for me. No longer does my Khajiit feel nervous or apprehensive because with the 100 sneak perk he can one shot kill anything in the game whenever he wants to -- he as tough with a dagger in a stand up fight as any warrior.

I am all for more choice, rather than less, but having a choice like being able to reperk is going to affect the way people feel when they are picking perks. I put a lot of thought into my perk choices and still I am not always happy with the decisions. I wish for instance that I had never taken the 100 sneak perk because it is way overpowered. but if I could reperk, then I would not fret too much about perk choices, which would definately change my mindset when playing the game.

People change their race, gender, appearance, and other things using the console all the time. I happen to know that plenty of them would be happy to have an in-game option. I could care less what other people do.

A strict class system isn't any more logical than a classless system, they just capture different features of reality. Many people, especially in medieval culture, performed the same function for their entire life. Many people today still do. You could call that a class. Of course, not all of the medievals did. Plenty of farmers became bandits. Plenty of nobles who fought in wars settled down and became monks. Using an anology from today (firefighters, police officers, doctors, lawyers) is even less applicable, since anybody can decide to change their career at any time. A strict class system models one feature (relativly static social structures) a classless system models a different feature (the fact that anybody, no matter the era they grew up in, can change what they do).

They could have left the class system in for people who need that kind of crutch, but I always created a custom class, so I don't miss it. Personally, I think the classless system makes more sense and is more to fun to play (why should my character be defined by someone else's strange notion of what someone in my profession would know? Sometimes, developer classes are just weird and arbitrary.) What they need to do, instead of bringing back classes, is to make realistic factions. You should have to join guilds to learn specific perks and spells, and joining and leaving should have realistic consequences. Then you could RP a class by joining a faction that teaches you what you need to know and gives you an occupation to earn some money. If you decide to leave later, you're not bound by an arbitrary mechanic, but by in-game social pressures. Maybe some factions don't like quitters. Maybe other factions expect a high turnover. Maybe joining too many schools of magic earns you a bad reputation as an ambitious and disloyal student and other mages refuse to train you. Much more interesting than classes, imo.

The reality of the old class system is that a barbarian with 75 in blade will actually be a much worse swordfighter than an enchanter with 50 in blade, because the barbarian′s opponents have scaled with his progression in his blade skill, while the enchanter′s opponents haven′t. The barbarian will need 15-20 strikes with his blade to defeat a scamp, the enchanter only needs 5, the enchanter is obviously a better swordfighter. That is just silly, stupid and ridiculous, and it answers the opening question with "YES, there was something wrong with the old class system".

You could always change the difficulty mid-game. You can't re-skill, you can't redo perks, and you can't delevel. Skyrim may have problems in general with giving players consequences for their decisions, but leveling is not among them. Once you level and pick a perk, you can't undo it. Granted, a few levels/perks handled wrongly won't screw up a character and make the game unplayable, but is it really that bad? If you focus on certain skills and dump perks into those skills, after enough time you will have trouble if you try to change it up. There is consequence here.

Yeah, being able to select a whopping 32% of all available perks by the time you reach max level (although the game is designed to level 50, which gives about 19%, before leveling slows down) is so much. Or not...

The usefulness of some perks shouldn't matter as long as it doesn't directly impede your ability to play. You don't have to go for an uber build every time, so who cares if some perks aren't useful if they otherwise make sense for your character build to have? If you end up with a character that's bad at combat in higher levels, then there's still stuff to do with your non-combat skills. Become a serial thief, who robs entire towns in the middle of the night. Become a smith who sells his wares to interested shops. Become an alchemist or cook. ...unless you find all that stuff boring, then congrats, you found yourself a "bad build". Feel free to start a new character any time.

I think the mostly classless system that Skyrim has is fine [for me]. If you want to impose other rules on yourself you can so you can have a "class" if you want to roleplay that. If you have a strict class system you can't go the other way so for a "sandbox" game like Syyrim this is a reasonable choice.

As far as reperking I could go either way. Sure it's not logical to go to Reperks-R-US and go overnight from an uber perked "mage" to an unstoppable "warrior". On the other hand perks are soooo important that it would be nice to be able to play around with other playstyles without the "grind" of starting a whole new character to experiment.

THIS!

Static, pre-defined (by someone other than you) classes are boring. I want relevant factions, not stereotyped classes.

The class system in itself is flawed because before you even know what your doing in the game, you have to pick a class. I like how Skyrim is setup in regards to this, there's only one class and it's as flexable as you want it to be and as custom as you want it to be. KOA Reckoning is also another game that does classes well by starting you off with nothing and then as you play you eventually move onto one of the 3 main group classes (Warrior, Rogue, Mage) or a Hybrid class of the 3.

Your weapons do, ofcourse, get more powerful as you take perks in it. However, when you are level 1 and find a dagger, a sword, a two-handed sword and a bow, all of the same material, with no perks in any of the, you can compare their power. The same goes for enchanting. You can enchant a weapon with fire damage, with no perk taken yet. (soul gem doesn't even matter). Then compare them to the perks. Max fire damage will be around 25 in that case. The added fire damage even at level 1 will come in handy, as it'll do nearly as much damage as your weapon by itself, with no perks in either. Enchanting starts out just as strong.

But there was something wrong with the way the class system worked. Why do you think it is gone now?

It's gone now because there are too many people who do not like RPG's and don't feel like actually using their brain for something. This is why Todd Howard needs to go, he doesn't have the vision to make an RPG for those who love RPG's, he has a vision to bastardize the game so bad that there is not Role Playing left.

Without classes there is NO incentive to start over. You want to change what you do, just keep the playing the same character. If it gets to hard, just turn down the difficutly until you get the skills up that you want to use.

The removal of Classes, Attributes and Birthsigns removed the bulk of Role Playing and the bulk of having any kind of incentive to restart the game

You do realize that you can easily put in a rule that would revert gear back to its non-improved state should you reperk out of smithing/enchanting right? To say this is a reason not to include reperking as an option is just silly. If the game allows something it isn't an exploit further. The only area that becomes grey is Potion looping. Taking Smithing & Enchanting is not exploiting by any means. Crafting Iron Daggers to raise your smithing is not an exploit. Waiting until vendors restock to buy materials to level a profession is not exploiting. An example of exploiting would be if you wall-jumped in a tomb to the last boss without running through the dungeon.

Yes I'm sure that is truely the reason why...

There's nothing inherently wrong with having a class system, with specific major skills... Bethesda just never got it right. The system in Morrowind and Oblivion encourages you to artificially raise specific skills to get the x5 attribute multipliers when you level up. That was stupid.

Since there is no other valid reason to remove them, than the absurdity has to be true.

Well, I actually agree with him.

Not having to restart the game is definitely not the only reason. The fact that you can create a god character simply by choosing major skills and leveling up everything else is bad design. In addition, the class system present encouraged you to power-play and had a very high chance of gimping your character without you even knowing it. That's how mountain lions ended up being too hard for my character back in the days.

The model they were moving to meant that class selection no longer fit their design. Classes only really make sense if you select attributes and skills at character creation. Considering they moved to a blank slate approach (everyone starts out as a General class) they made picking a class obsolete. Really and truly, it is redundant as I can create say a "Warrior" just the same the game can create a "Warrior." The problem people are having largely stems from dialog it appears that there is no reaction to their character so it feels like their class does not exist.

My argument would be that this sensation is true however because Perks are not unique enough and do not provide enough specialization for me to get a sense that I have created a class. I just feel like I am using X, Y, Z skills. My options seem extremely limited as when you break it down you can be:

-Wizard
-Mage (summons)
-Spellsword (any combination of Magic and Combat)
-Ranger
-Assassin
-Warrior

Those Hybrid classes really do not feel very Hybrid-y as my choices are EXTREMELY limited into what I can build effectively.

The thing is... classes haven't gone anywhere.

You can be whichever class you like.

The old system had barriers, and limited possibilities.

The new system has no barriers, well caps maybe, and still allows for traditional archetypes and many other sub-archetypes you can create. You can customize your class not only through perks, but also with Standing Stones. Let alone enchanting and smithing. Someone with 100 in a skill/spell and no perks is not going to be as efficient as someone with perks in that skill/spell. If you did manage to get that skill/spell to 100... well you obviously aren't playing the build you thought you were.

In fact, Oblivion was already moving towards this trend by allowing you to create your own archetype.

I'm guessing what you'd really want is a title to go along with whichever build you make?

There isn't and wasn't anything wrong with the class system (although there were some implimentation issues that could have been ironed out). There's also nothing wrong with the perk system (although there are some implimentation issues that could be ironed out). They're just different systems and ways of accomplishing what amounts to the same thing. Just because there's "nothing wrong" with a system doesn't mean it can't and shouldn't be changed or replaced from time to time to keep things fresh.

Now that reasoning i don't understand. The majority of a characters power comes from perks, not skill level. Perks that are limited and non-refundable. You can change playstyle in the middle of the game, but due to the perks that have been commited to the previous playstyle you can never get to the same power and abilities as a character that from the beginning focuses on that playstyle.

Or am i missing something? Something obvious, perhaps?

It is more about titles. You just do not get the sensation in the role you have created. Passive modifiers and "effectiveness" do not give me the sense I am specialized in a role. I feel the specializition when I am granted unique abilities and totally change my tactics and am given different tools in my tool belt given the role I have created. There are not many specializations currently. I listed what those are above.

I agree with how absurd that sounds.

Please. The RPG market is there and people who want good, solid RPGs want to use their brains and want a challenge. That's the problem with RPGs today. They've been stripped away so the player is always successful and always satisfied as fast as possible. There are those who want an RPG that moves at a fast pace, but a lot of players prefer a more immersive, slower gameplay, something rich in narrative and character building.

I hate to keep bringing up this example, but Morrowind achieved this. The player had to put time and energy into the game to level his/her character, there were certain things you couldn't do if you weren't skilled to do them, and actions had consequences. If you refused to do a quest, you could never revisit it. The player had to show commitment to their character and if he/she didn't, the character goes nowhere. However, Morrowind's problem was that the player had little direction, which alienates the players wanting a quicker pace. A compromise is possible. All we want is a vibrant, organic RPG that gives players as many choices possible, including the choice for fast gameplay and slow gameplay. It can be done if developers didn't focus so much on aesthetics and advancing technology. Technology is wonderful as it is, we don't need shinier graphics. We need better game mechanics.

I've never met a player that said, "there's too much to do in this game."

Yeah, I never understood that particular argument either. The more you leveled in Morrowind and Oblivion the more similar everyone became, until everyone had the exact same attributes and skills. In Skyrim everyone starts exactly the same (minus racial choice) and becomes more unique with every level. You don't have the issue of everyone being the same once yo ureach a certain point because you don't have enough perk points to buy everything. Provide a way for more character customization/distinction from the very beginning and I think the system would be near perfect.

I think it is about immediate gratification as if you reroll, you are going to have to get to around 25+ before you get a sense of your character. That is the downside to the blank slate approach. Until I get my perks squared away, I feel like I am playing some gimped class and not the way I want to play. I know that if I reroll, I am going to have to go through all of that same stuff, just to get back to that point where I get a sense of my character. I love seeing a progression of my character but I think I can see where other people are coming from, I am not entirely sold on coming from a blank slate. Unfortunately, for many people, by the time you reach the point where you do get a sense of your character, difficulty takes a huge hickey and progression by means of itemization becomes stale or dissolves also. It's like, ok I finally feel like I am a Ranger - but - I am one shotting everything and I don't have any upgrades to look forward to or reason to go treasure hunting.

I think the class system as it used to be was very, very flawed and it's far better to have a classless system now in comparison directly to that system, however a newer, more refined class system would probably be ideal.

The problem with the previous system was that it was more of a guideline, here are your major skills, here are your minor skills, you're free to ignore them and they only affect you're leveling. A mage was potentially as good as a warrior in melee combat. Not to mention you could just create your own class that was 9/10 times significantly better than presets. Now your class is simply defined as you play and choose your perks.

An ideal system (at least in my opinion, feel free to disagree) would be to reinstate classes, but not as skill guidelines, and not to where you could create your own; but where the class you selected gave you a perk unique to that class, that would benefit a specific type of playing related to that class, but it's not necessary, you could still be a beserker mage, but you'll always be best as a mage-mage.

Either way, I think classes were definitely flawed before, and as they were I'm glad to see them gone.