And this relates to swappable birthsigns how?

I like your generalization, if only because it reminds me that there are some long term fans of TES who have said on this and other forums:

- They wish it was possible to change perks at a later date (so much for commitment and living with it) or "I picked a perk I don't like and now I'm stuck with it"
- They'd like the choice to re-assess and change their appearance not to far into the game (so much for commitment and living with it)
- They'd like to see some magical item that they could use to completely empty their character of everything from they had done so far into a pool so they would essentially rebuild their character from scratch at whatever point they got the item (so much for etc etc).
- etc

Yes, I like your generalizations because they remind me that the "dumbed down for ADD kiddies" is one of the lamest, least imaginative arguments out there when you can find the same people in your camp. Unless you are RPing a doofus regurgitating something you saw on youtube you think makes you sound smart. In which case thumbs up, your RP is great.

But never mind that just changing standing stones isn't going to instantly make you an awesome thief if you've been pushing your character hard down the path of the warrior (or even softly for that matter). All those perks and stuff don't get swapped when you swap stones.

And anyway - I like the new system. I have played TES for some time, and I am yet to find myself thinking in Skyrim "you know what is missing? Classes and birth signs".

Not birthsigns, commitment.

Sadly, this.
This stone idea is terrible and Bethesda should feel terrible for implementing it.

BS, Morrowind quests are about as generic and boring as you could possibly get. Go kill these rats, go assassinate this guy (with your 80% chameleon ring probably), go steal this thing, go to this egg mine and kill something, go collect 50 of these.

Seriously I really don't get the rose colored glasses with Morrowind, it was a great game for its time, awesome art and story. However, replaying it even today with mods makes me remember that it is nowhere near as awesome as people like you paint it. Compared to Skyrim the world is dead, lifeless, boring, and that's even with living cities and other modernizing mods. Most of the quests are about as humdrum as you could get.

As far as "classes"..don't make me laugh, the only real class in Morrowind is guy who can fly around the world and kill anything on a whim, decisions about what skills to use meant even less there than they do in Skyrim or Oblivion.

Birthsigns were also MEANINGLESS after like level 10 in both Morrowind and Oblivion, most of the abilities quickly got outpaced by equipment etc..so I have no idea where you guys thought "class" or brithsign choice meant anything much in those games, it really didn't.

I have been playing Skyrim with some stone I don't use (don't remember what some ability) that doesn't cause my skills to level. The stones and birthsigns are really the same function in all three games, basically something very minor to put you in a certain direction, but not very meaningful overall.

It's like people are imagining that Morrowind was some hardcoe RPG or something..it never was.

Seriously the only thing Morrowind has over Skyrim is the art and story, which I agree is marginally better. Other than that people are remember a fantasy.

I made the point about Birthsigns and Attribute's getting the axe myself and i still haven't heard a convincing arguement that makes that decision acceptable. Skills are now Perks ok i can deal with that but it doesn't have the depth that Oblivions system did. Fortunatly there are alot of Skills/Perks to advance and most of them are very cool . The Combat is the best it's been in my opinion . So it's one step forward two steps back in a way.. Again fortunatly the Graphics are the best ever and that does add alot to this game.

I do prefer the new system over stats, classes and birthsigns and the reason is simple this allows me to create what I want without having a limitation on which skills I will want to use. In earlier game I always made a custom class as none of the original truly fit my idea of the assassin I wanted to play. Stats were all nice and that, but while playing it always ended up having to use a certain amount of skills each level to get the best spread of points. If not I would boost maybe strength and not the others I needed, this system allos me to play the game as I want to rather then have a focus on that I should use sneak, attacks and magic to get the best points available. Birthsigns have now been replaced by stones which I also like as it allows me to change the bonus based on what I feel most needed at that time.

Yeah got that one totally wrong, or you never played the games that had birth signs in them. They DONT work just like the birth signs BECAUSE you can change them when you COULDNT before.

Thats pretty much my beef with them honestly

I don't mind the loss of class all that much. It does make me pickier playing the game as I now have to actually use only the skills I want to improve and make sure not to use the others. Some might find this annoying,, but overall I'm not really as upset as I thought I would be. It's just some poor design choices like speechcraft going up just by buying and selling(you should have some option to toggle speechcraft on/off) and having to use lockpicks as your only option thereby having a warrior or mage with a 100 in lockpicking...
There should be some restrictions or at least the option to have restrictions.

Attributes I don't really miss but they had their pro's and cons. I'm neutral on them, I wouldn't miss them if they were to be kept out in future games as well nor would I moan if they returned.

The loss of a solid birth sign however I do NOT like; it's crazy, you are born on a certain date are you not? That one makes no sense whatsoever and whilst the stones are a nice addition they should have been implemented differently, like a very small bonus that adds something else much like the stones in Oblivion.

I loved Daggerfall's system.
So many different and unique builds possible right from the start.
Skyrim's system is a bit.. bland, simple, uninspired.

Games sell better when more people buy them. To have more people buying them, you apply to lowest common denominator. Which is an "ADD kiddie".

I'm sorry to break it to you like that. Take care.

there are still birthsigns which are now named as standing stones. i like them better because you can switch what one you want without going through the start again to pick another.
and no class system? who cares... its not like they are forcing you to use all skills, gheez. the point of the game is, you play the way you want to, so if you wanna play as a pure mage go ahead and just focus on mage skills... you people cry and complain about anything but never realise that there is another way around them...

I personally think that this game does a better job than both Morrowind and Oblivion of creating classes.

In both of those games although early on I played a particular "Class", by the end of the game I was amazing at everything, a walking god. I prefer the fact that I am not limited by a traditional class system while still being forced to pick a style and excel at it.

The birth sign concept was good but in a way I prefer the standing stones, it seems to make more sense to me - I know this isn't in any way realistic but it seems to be more believable.

lol, yeah but its a good system still, there's racial traits, standing stones, which are totally cool and you can increase your magic or stamina or health how you want and tons of perks and perk combinations so its actually pretty cool...bethesda games are more kinda a hybrid, they're more than rpgs, they have to be, they need to appeal to a lot of people and there's something in the game for everyone. there's lore, story, action, exploring, character development, drama, fun combat with plenty of dungeons to fight enemies in..its an excellent game and its gonna easily go down as the best elder scrolls game in my book.

It's pretty damn easy to make your own classes. Want to be a battlemage or spellsword? Equip a weapon in your right and a spell in your left. A rogue? Sword in right, dagger in left, wear light armor. An assassin? Dual daggers, sneak around and back stab. A classic warrior? sword & board and heavy armor.

Companions is essentially a guild of warriors and fighters, but yes, their questline revolves around werewolves. College of Winterhold isn't a random sidequest in the slightest. We still have the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood.

I like the new perk system. And especially since you can't get every single perk activated.

You can make any character you like, like a very sneaky two handed mace wielding mage with a knack for pickpocketing.

I remember in oblivion, I chose archery as major skill. only to find out that it was practically useless in dungeons. Same with athletics.
And leveling up was much harder with skills you hardly use

I love the new system. The practical effect is the same as the old games, because you can play whatever type of character you want. The biggest relief, however, is the fact that they got rid of the horrible, horrifying, maddening, mystifying x5 attribute leveling system from Oblivion. You know, the one that forced you to pick conjuring, mysticism, sneak, etc as major skills to be a warrior that didn't gimp himself.

Also: Bethesda is a business. Their objective is to make money. In order to do that, they have to create products that people enjoy. Unfortunately, that sometimes means that a very small segment of the population that feels that it is somehow more elite sometimes gets left out. Which is "THE ONE TRUE ROLE-PLAYER".

I'm sorry to break it to you like that. Take care.

ADD kiddy here. I suppose we should have stayed in the days of arcade games, where you had only three lives, and if you died, you had to start all the way from the beginning.

That's super fun when you're 8 and have tens of free hours at your disposal per day- not so fun when you're an advlt and you have a partner, a job, a social life and children for which you must care.

As some have already stated earlier the "class decision" in MW and OB was just sort of a: "Hmm which attributes and skills do I want to reach 100 first, before my character turns to a 100str-100int-100wil-[...]-50-100luck-100-in-all-skills-every-character-is-the-same-in-the-end-guy. Now every guy starts the same and develops his class by spending points into perks as he advances to actually reflect the diffferences between characters, which classes are supposed to make, even in the higher levels. A system that is much more natural to me.

What I would welcome, though, is some kind of class mod that gives you a headstart in certain perktrees at level 1.
Example: At chargen you select the Knight class, which puts 1 Perk in Block, One-handed, Heavy Armor, ...
You could expand that to races as well: Altmer get 1 point in Destruction, Orcs in Two-handed, ...

I'm off to the mods section requesting, or I'll try to do that myself when the CK is released.

To those that want "commitment"... you can simply commit to a single stone. What you want is to make everyone else commit too, or have the game force you to commit to something you might be tempted to change.

I find that my one character is pretty well defined by this here newfangled skinny system. Level 37, highest skill in the eighties, rather than three attributes at 100 by level 15 or you were doomed for daring to level up.
Found a doomstone I liked, after a lot of work and luck ( I still maintain no fast travel absolutely makes this game, I didn't want it, I haven't used it. )
Got the perks that made sense for her, rather than power gaming, and some fights are real hard but it's more fun that way. Even a few different perks would change the character for me; poison instead of physician, extra base damage instead of fancy moves and critical chances, not taking as many restoration perks so more destruction damage could be dealt.
Sure it's still quite forgiving, try a broken build in Sacred, or try to toe it in a firefight in Fallout with loads of science and lockpicking and no gun skills, but it's enough for me to define my character's strengths and weaknesses, healers don't make good sneaky back-stabbers, and that is enough for me.

Classes birthsigns never meant anything.

You picked thief skills at the beginning then you learned magic during the game, great choice and consequence there...

You pick a birthsign, use it a couple of times, then get a spell that does the exact same thing more than once a day and you simply forget what birthsign you picked. It sure describes your character.


And going on how this is not an RPG, how every character is the same and whatnot, then you either haven't played the game or you're complaining for the sake of it. Skills and perks still describe what your character can and cannot do, in fact the main complaint was that you cannot pick every perk in the end, so your choices of perks actually have a meaning to it.
Boohoo, I cannot pick magic perks at level 50 when I put everything on one-handed. This is unacceptable in a action-adventure-FPS-not-RPG!!!

I think it's great, it intuitive and based on usage.

The lack of classes and birthsigns bothers me because it tells me nothing of my character.
In Morrowind, I could choose a Monk character and go with the route of acrobatics, speechcraft, hand to hand and restoration. I was playing a role. I KNEW from the start what my character is good at. I KNEW what he will do in this land, how will he react, fight and explore. The birthsign gave me an extra power, an extra option. As a Monk, I'm bad at fighting, so why not choose Warrior sign? Wanna be more harder to hit, since I'm a Shaolin Monk? Ok, I will pick Thief which gives me 10 points in Sanctuary. This things were important because it made me choose a ROLE (in a role playing game!!) and it made each character unique and different from other characters.
In Skyrim, from the beginning of the game, you are a jack of all trades. You can cast any spell you like without failing. You may wield any weapon, carry any armor, make any potion, pickpocket every person. There is just no point of "restricting yourself" when you are good at everything. Why create new characters when with one guy you can be everyone and everything?