Except that I felt "freer" under the old system. I love Skyrim's use of perks to empower skills, but perk choices are much more confining (in my opinion) than class choices ever were. I really hope that in the next game they develop a hybrid system that brings back classes and attributes, but combines them with player-chosen perks.

I don't think that'll happen. It'd surely be better for them just to improve the new system?

What hurts my roleplay the most is that I am unable to name my own class.
I used to be Merari the ... Now Im just Merari.
Cant name potions anymore either and thats a pain too.

Yes, this is another one of those things that never should have been removed because it means we have ended up with a poorer game.
Less is only more if it actually does something.

If getting a feel for the characters previous history and background was so darn important to make the character feel alive and realistic, isn′t that completely ruined by the fact that within 1 month from arriving at Skyrim that guy who had lived for some 20+ years and thus far could hardly wield a dagger without stabbing himself in the leg is suddenly backstabbing dragons, summoning dremoras and mass-producing melee weapons of mass destruction that not even the german wehrmacht could match?

Leveling and developing your character cancels out the entire impact of all that pre-game character creation and details, then it might just as well be a text on a word-document which allows complete creative freedom rather than an illusion of creative freedom, through a false class system, when it comes to character background.

Here′s a simple hint: where it says "enter your name" you enter "Merari the..." or does it not please you because the game did not enter it for you by letting you pick from a list of possible classes to insert there?

The only problem I have with the new system is that imho it works far better in an xp based setting like Fallout 3. Srsly, there were no classes in Fallout and did anyone complain there? No, because it has always been this way. People don't like change!

Otherwise this discussion is almost like DnD vs DSA in the pen and paper world... "You are stupid, you like classes, while I define my character over the course of the game" "No you're stupid, classes give some background and help you define your abilities"

Like I said it isn't perfect, but it's better than identical cookie-cutters or starting the game at or near max level.

The ability to have a background with effect is not negligable. Almost my entire playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins has been affected by the first few minutes of gameplay. Skyrim, I've played 90 hours, and every time I'm asked for help, I have two unanswerable questions:

Why should I do this?
Why shouldn't I do this?

There's no reason my character shouldn't use magic. He doesn't have an anti-magic background. There's no reason he should use magic, he doesn't have a magic background. A decision as simple as being given 5 points to put into skills would have been enough to give me some sense of who I was playing. Of course, then there's nothing to develop a personality afterwards, but... there's no reason why I should need to fully flesh out who my character is before I hit new game if I actually want him to be distinct.

Cant.
Not enough room to make such a long name.
Besides, that is only half the point.
Classes meant that the game had replay value because you could experience different things from the get-go.
No classes means less replay value, and Skyrim sorely lacks replay value.
In fact, its not even a TES game in that regard.
People say: you got 200 hours, isnt that your moneys worth? No.
200 hours in a TES game is a trial run. Or it used to be.

Anyway...the most important point here to the opening statement that there was nothing wrong with the old class system is the one that has been made several times:

It was counter-intuitive, I picked or customized a class that was the complete opposite of what I wanted to be, so that I could improve my minor skills and feel that my impact on the environment became greater. Because if I picked a class that represented what I wanted to be, then my impact through the game mechanics was REDUCED the better I got in my skills.

Now there are several examples of how classes can work well, it′s not the concept of classes that I oppose, it is having classes in TES where my skills govern my character level and my level governs the challenge level of my opponents.

If Bethesda had decided to get rid of level-scaling but kept and improved the class system, THAT would have worked, I could have had lots of fun with customizing and using classes. But the way Skyrim is designed, the new perk system works much better with the game environment and mechanics!

I like skyrim system. Im free to do whatever i want. Why should i name myself a class.

Why can't you just do something different? In my first play through I was a pure caster of the cliche variety.
Second play through I was a Night blade type character who dual wielded swords, used a combination of light and cloth armor, and used some illusion and defensive magic.
On my third character I played as a cliche thief type character
The character I am playing now is a battle mage who uses heavy armor and a shield with magic in the other hand.

I'm getting lots of replay value out of my game and the fact that classes don't exist to tell me what I am from the get go don't hinder that a single bit. Also, I never played morrowind or Oblivion as much I have Skyrim before having to set them down for a while. I very much doubt the total time I put into either of those games will exceed what I will eventually put into Skyrim.

No.
This has nothing to do with classes. This happened in Oblivion primarily due to the horrible, awful, terrible level scaling which destroyed many aspects of the game.
Classes, attributes, spellmaking all those things work perfectly fine without the stranglehold that Oblivion level scaling has on your character growth.

Edit: at Uday:
Because the game does not support multiple playthroughs. The quests are linear and have no replay value.
Furthermore, you cannot really make completely different classes that affect your playthrough significantly in Skyrim.
All you can do is decide if you want to range, mage or melee the enemy.
In Morrowind I could play an unarmed, unarmoured, acrobatic monk that used speechcraft and illusion to pacify and get through things without violence. Not possible in Skyrim and this is only one of many, many builds that are now impossible due to no spellmaking, no attributes, no classes and even no birthsigns.
(The atronach sign was one I used for more 'hardcoe' playthroughs, it was an excellent way to make the game more challenging.) Conversly there were also signs that made your playthrough less of a challenge.
Now I can choose a stone on a whim, so there is no lasting effect of choice.

the perk system in my opinion works a hell of a lot better and actually feels like it gives me personally more freedom, the classes in past TES games felt pretty useless to me you could be a warrior with 100 in Destruction/Restoration 20 in combat skills and 100 in cloth/light armor and yourd be just as good of a mage as any class that starts off with the tag ''mage''

yes you could customize your priority stats but you get everything to 100 anyway and its pointless perks work better as you actually have to choose your direction.

the rest of the techniqual stuff has been said on the matter and if im honest no-one is wrong as everyones opinion is correct to them and the majority won't budge on that so lets all agree to disagree? and instead of having a nice civilized argument about why it is or isnt wrong how about we make more threads along the lines of ''refining the class/perk systems'' and give full techniqual info of how it would work and scale and why it would be better.

Play a khajiit or argonian; M'name-Jo (apprentice wizard name) or Dabbles-in-Magic

No, i wasn't serious.

Personally i don't see the loss of classes a problem, i just play like i like, and let the game sort me out. I feel it fits better for this learn-by-doing system. Though it was unnecessary to remove attributes. I want numbers!

You can have a lasting effect of choice if you choose not to change stones. You don't need to be forced into that for it to be the case.

Also, I very much regret seeing the demise of hand to hand combat. I would love to create a monk type character. That said, your point about having to choose between ranged, melee, or magic in combat is no different in Skyrim than it was in Morrowind. Furthermore, it is certainly possible to complete many quests in Skyrim without killing a single thing, just as there were many quests in Morrowind that required you to kill something in order to complete the quest. The difference is not as severe as you are trying to claim.

Classes ARE NOT in the game. The only thing we have are skills.

The thing about Classes in previous TES games is that there were CONSEQUENCES to picking your class, something that has been removed from Skyrim. In previous TES games when you picked a class at first you had to actually decide what you wanted to be. That meant using your head for something other than a hat rack. In Skyrim all you have to do is play and when you decide you want to change you can. NO CONSEQUENCES for your decisions.

THAT is why Classes in previous TES games are better.

Hm, good points.
In fact, I do not change my standing stone, I activate one at the beginning of the game and stick with it.
But still, I do not like that it is so.. without consequence. I dislike not creating a character from the start but rather have each one start as a carbon copy of the last.

You may as well be, since you start at level 1.

The more you make starting skill differences important, the more your starting choices restrict what you can do in the early levels of play. While the less important the differences are, the less it means anything. Morrowind (and Oblivion once loaded with mods to fix level scaling) had big problems with this -- you had to stack almost all character creation bonuses into a select few skills, then you had to religiously use those skills in game if you didn't want to die. You had to game the game to get a good start (ie, meta-game, which is the polar opposite of role-playing).


This gives me a thought. It might be an interesting idea if the game let you start anywhere between levels 1 and 5, and let you manually allocate skill points and perks accordingly. For instance, you start at level 1 and you have no extra perks or skills to allocate, but enemies will start out weaker, while level 3 gives you 3 perks and a handful of skill points to allocate, but enemies start out stronger.

That would let players pre-plan their characters and be advantageous to use the skills they've boosted (like it was in Morrowind), and it would also let players start from scratch and find their own way without being restricted by choices made before starting (like it is now in Skyrim). A lowly farmer would start at level 1 or 2, while a "seasoned" adventurer would start at level 4 or 5... the farmer would not be that skilled in anything and could carve his own path in the world, while the adventurer may have good knowledge of weapons and armor and be expected to use those pre-existing skills to survive, and neither would be gimped.

What role-playing effect did it have? If the starting skill boosts change very little about how you can play, then it's entirely psychological since it wouldn't effect how you actually play. So you decide that your character was an assassin before the start of the game, thus has an inconsequential starting boost to sneak, alchemy, one-handed, and light armor... or you decide your character was an assassin before the start of the game, thus favors using sneak, alchemy, one-handed, and light armor. What's the difference? The only real difference is in your head.

I can't agree with that. The class choice is something you made before even really starting (in Oblivion it was near the end of the tutorial, but still, the game has barely started by that point). You chose a class at character creation, and were stuck with it for the rest of the game. With Skyrim's perks, you don't have to choose right away, and making a few "bad" perk choices early on isn't going to severely impact you.

And in a seeming reversal of everything, the class choice in Morrowind/Oblivion had little consequence and was ripe for abuse (ie, you could still max out everything, and it encouraged major-as-minor/under-leveling), while Skyrim adds consequence to your choices and prevents abuse (with a limited set of perks, you can only truly max out a half-dozen skills, and it doesn't let you reap the benefits of the skills without it affecting your level and the encounters you face).

so like real life then?
classes are a needless label if you play a magic user exclusivley you know your a mage/wizard/witch/necromancer etc why do you need the label....is it incase you forget or something?

my Mage in morrowind last i played is decked out in Heavy armor and a Two hander slashing anything he meets without any problems...great consequences choosing a mage in that one.


what consequences? all i remember is being a god at every skill once it hit 100.....

You know, I cannot disagree with what you say at start. But I completely disagree with your remark that "I cannot play an unarmed, unarmoured ..." is due to a lack of classes, attributes, birthsigns or spellmaking in the game. This doesn't make sense at all. All you needed to play that char effectively would be a good hand2hand skill and possibilities to complete most chalenges in the game without having to kill everything in the way. Adding classes and attributes and spellmaking would do nothing for that kind of build.

For challenge types, I'm a big fan of adding optional challenge like rules at birth that you cannot remove at all. Things like "no magicka regen forever" or "permadeath mode" or stuff like "one handed char, you cannot put anything in your offhand/main hand" and the like are nice re playability additions that I'd like to see and don't really cost much to create.

I really like your idea for character creation.
I think that something like that would make an excellent mod for Skyrim.

I also really like Mordy's idea above of selecting certain things at the beginning of the game, like no magicka regeneration.

If I played through a good portion of the game as a warrior who used a shield and weapon to fight, and then decided I'd rather play as a pure mage with no armor I think that the consequences of my previous decisions would have a significant impact on my gaming experience for quite a while....the entire game infact.

That said, how are consequences of the sort you describe objectively better than the way things are now?

In previous TES games leveling up meant you have to use your major and minor skills. In Skyrim you can use a skill, like Lock Picking or Smithing, to increase your level when you aren't trying. Take Lock Picking for example, I am forced to use it because that's all we have. Every time I use it, it helps to increase my level when that wasn't the desired intention.

The consequences of Classes were that you actually had to decide what you wanted to be your major and minor skills and then you had to use them to increase your level. In Oblivion it was just major skills and now with Skyrim they removed it completely.

There wasn't a think wrong with the class system, other than Bethesda wanted to make the game more accessable to those who dislike RPG's.

This. Skyrim just lacks consequences in general.